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natTonal secular sooety
INGERSOLL
• ANSWERS
QUESTIONS
Is the Character of Jesus Christ, as
described in the Four Gospels,
Real or Mythical ?
London :
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY GEO. STANDRING,
“ Paine Press,” 8 & 9, Finsbury Street, E.C.
1884.
PRICE ONE HALFPENNY.
�I
�e> 2-e ? r7
M361
Ingersoll Answers Questions.
Is the Character of Jesus of Nazareth, as described
in the Four Gospels, Mythical or Neal ?
In all probability there was a man by the name of Jesus
Christ, who was, in his day and generation, a reformer—
a man who was infinitely shocked at the religion of
Jehovah—who became almost insane with pity as he con- ,
templated the sufferings of the weak, the poor, and the /
ignorant at the hands of an intolerant, cruel, hypocritical,/
and blood-thirsty church. It is no' wonder that such fy •/
man predicted the downfall of the temple. In all proba/
bility he hated, at last, every pillar and stone in it, aiyl
despised even the “ Holy of Holies.” This man, of course;,
like other men, grew. He did not die with the opinions
he held in his youth. He changed his views from time to
time-—fanned the spark of reason into a flame, and as he
grew older his horizon* extended and widened, and he
became gradually a wiser, greater, and better man. /
I find two oi' three Christs described in the four gospels.
In some portions you would imagine that he was aii ex
ceedingly pious Jew. When he says that people must not
swear by Jerusalem because it is God’s holy city, certainly
no Pharisee could hase gone beyond that expression. So,
too, when it is recorded that he drove the money changers
�4
from the temple. This, had it happened, would have been
the act simply of one who had respect foi' this temple and
for the religion taught in it.
It would seem that, at first, Christ believed substantially
in the religion of his time; that afterwards, seeing its
faults, he wished to reform it; and, finally, comprehending
it in all its enormity, he devoted his fife to its destruction.
This view shows that he “ increased in stature and grew in
knowledge.”
This view is also supported by the fact that, at first,
according to the account, Christ distinctly stated that his
Gospel was not for the Gentiles. At that time he had
altogether more patriotism than philosophy. In my own
opinion, he was driven to like the Gentiles by the perse
cution he had endured at home. He found, as every Free
thinker now finds, that there are many saints that are not
inside churches, and many devils that are not outside.
The character of Christ, in many particulars, as described
in the gospels, depends upon who wrote the gospels. Each
one endeavored to make a Christ to suit himself. So that
Christ, after all, is a growth; and since the gospels were
finished, millions of men have been adding to and changing
tie character of Christ.
There is another thing that should not be forgotten, and
that is, that the gospels were not written until after the
epistles. And I take it for granted that Paul never saw
any of the gospels, for the reason that he quotes none of
them. There is also this remarkable fact: Paul quotes
none of the miracles of the New Testament. He says not one
word, about the multitude being fed miraculously, not one
word about the resurrection of Lazarus, nor of the widow’s
son. He had never heard of the lame, the halt, and the
blind that had been cured; or if he had, he did not think
�5
these incidents of sufficient importance to be embalmed
in an epistle.
So we find that none of the early fathers ever quoted
from the four gospels. Nothing can be more certain than
that the four gospels were not written until after the Epistles,
and nothing can be more certain than that the early Chris
tians knew nothing of what we call the Gospels of Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John. All these things have been
growths. At first it was believed that Christ was a direct
descendant from David. At that time the disciples of
Christ, of course, were Jews. The Messiah was expected
through the blood of David. For that reason the genea
logy of Joseph, a descendant of David, was given. It was
not until long after that the idea came into the minds of
Christians that Christ was the son of the Holy Ghost. If
they, at the time the genealogy was given, believed that
Christ was in fact the son of the Holy Ghost, why did they
give the genealogy of Joseph to show that Christ was re
lated to David ? In other words, why should the son of
God attempt to get glory out of the fact that he had in his
veins the blood of a barbarian king ? There is only one
answer to this : The Jews expected the Messiah through
David, and in order to prove that Christ was the Messiah,
they gave the genealogy of Joseph. Afterwards, the idea
became popularised that Christ was the son of God, and
then were interpolated the words “ as was supposed” in
the genealogy of Christ. It was a long time before the
disciples became great enough to include the world in their
scheme, and before they thought it proper to tell the “ glad
tidings of great joy ” beyond the limits of Judsea.
My own opinion is, that the man called Christ lived; but
whether he lived in Palestine, or not, is of no importance.
His life is worth its example, its moral force, its benevo
�6
lence, its self-denial and heroism. It is of no earthly im
portance whether he changed water into wine or not. All
his miracles are merely dust and darkness, compared with
what he actually said and actually did. We should be
kind to each other, whether Lazarus was raised or not.
We should be just and forgiving, whether Christ lived or
not. All the miracles in the world are of no use to virtue,
morality, or justice. Miracles belong to superstition, to
ignorance, to fear and folly.
Neither does it make any difference who wrote the
gospels. They are worth the truth that is in them, and no
more.
The words of Paul are often quoted, that “ all Scripture
is given by inspiration of God.” Of course, that could not
have applied to anything written after that time. It could
only have applied to the scriptures then written, and then
known. It is perfectly clear that the four gospels were
not at that time written, and, therefore, this statement of
Paul’s does not apply to the four gospels. Neither does it
apply to anything written after that statement was written.
Neither does it apply to that statement. If it applied to
anything, it was the Old Testament and not the New.
Christ has been belittled by his worshippers. When
stripped of the miraculous; when allowed to be, not divine,
but divinely human, he will have gained a thousand-fold,
in the estimation of mankind. I think of, him as I do of
Buddha, as I do of Confucius, of Epictetus, of Bruno. I
place him with the great, the generous, the self-denying of
the earth, and for the Man Christ I feel only admiration
and respect. I think he was in many things mistaken.
His reliance upon the goodness of God was perfect. He
seemed to believe that his father in heaven would protect
him. He thought that if God clothed the lilies of the
�7
field in beauty, if lie provided for the sparrows, he would
surely protect a perfectly just and loving man. In this
he was mistaken; and in the darkness of death, over
whelmed, he cried out: “ Why hast thou forsaken me ? ”
I do not believe that Christ ever claimed to be divine,
ever claimed to be inspired, ever claimed to work a
miracle. In short, I believe that he was an honest man.
These claims were all put in his mouth by others—by
mistaken friends, by ignorant worshippers, by zealous and
credulous followers, and sometimes by dishonest and
designing friends. This has happened to all the great
men in the world. All historical characters are, in part,
deformed or reformed by fiction. There was a man by the
name of George Washington, but no such George Wash
ington ever existed as we find portrayed in history.
The historical Caesar never lived. The historical
Mohammed is simply a myth. It is the task of modern
criticism to rescue these characters, and in the mass of
superstitious rubbish to find the actual man. Christians
borrowed the old clothes of the Olympian gods and gave
them to Christ. To me, Christ the Man is far better than
Christ the God.
To me, it has always been a matter of wonder that
Christ said nothing as to the obligation man is under to
his country, nothing as to the rights of the people as
against the will and wish of kings, nothing against the
frightful system of human slavery—almost universal in
his time. What he did not say is altogether more wonder
ful than what he did say. It is marvellous that he said
nothing about the subject of intemperance, nothing about
education, nothing about philosophy, nothing about nature,
nothing about art. He said nothing in favor of the home,
except to offer a reward to those who would desert their
�wives and families. Of course, I do not believe that he
said the words attributed to him, in which a reward is
offered to any man who will desert his kindred. But if we
take the account given in the four gospels as the true one,
then Christ did offer a reward to a father who would
desert his children. It has always been contended that he
was a perfect example of mankind, and yet he never
married. As the result of wdiat he did not teach in con
nexion with what he did teach, his followers saw no harm
in slavery, no harm in polygamy. They belittled this
world and exaggerated the importance of the next. They
consoled the slave by telling him that in a little while he
would exchange his chains for wings. They comforted
the captive by saying that in a few days he would leave
his dungeon for the bowers of paradise. His followers
believed that he had said that “whosoever believeth not
shall be damned.” This passage was the cross upon which
intellectual liberty was sacrificed.
If Christ had given us the laws of health—if he had told
us how to cure disease by natural means—if he had set the
captive free—if he had crowned the people, with their
rightful power—if he had placed the home above the
church—if he had broken all the mental chains—if he had
flooded all the caves and dens of Fear with light, and
filled the future with a common joy, he would in truth
have been the savior of this world.
�
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Ingersoll answers questions : Is the character of Jesus Christ, as described in the four gospels, real or mythical?
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
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Place of publication: London
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Geo. Standring, "Paine Press"
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1884
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N361
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Jesus Christ
Bible
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Bible. N.T. Gospels
Jesus Christ-Historicity
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P> 2^4~
national secular society
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS
WRITTEN ?
BY
CHARLES BRADLAUG1L
[fourth edition.]
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28, STONECUTTER STREET E.C.
1881.
�i
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
----- .
AN ANSWER TO THE RELIGIOUS TRACT
SOCIETY.
The Religious Tract Society, some time since, issued, pre
faced with their high commendation, a translation of a
pamphlet by Dr. Constantine Tischendorf, entitled “ When
were our Gospels Written ? ” In the introductory preface
we are not unfairly told that “ on the credibility of the four
Gospels the whole of Christianity rests, as a building on its
foundations.” It is proposed in this brief essay to deal
with the character of Dr. Tischendorf’s advocacy, then to
examine the genuineness of the four Gospels, as affirmed by
the Religious Tract Society’s pamphlet, and at the same
time to ascertain, so far as is possible in the space, how far
the Gospel narrative is credible.
The Religious Tract Society state that Dr. Tischendorf’s
brochure is a repetition of “ arguments for the genuineness
and authenticity of the four Gospels,” which the erudite
Doctor had previously published for the learned classes,
“ with explanations ” now given in addition, to render the
arguments “ intelligible ” to meaner capacities ; and as the
“Infidel ” and “ Deist ” are especially referred to as likely
to be overthrown by this pamphlet, we may presume that the
society considers that in the 119 pages—which the trans
lated essay occupies—they have presented the best paper
that can be issued on their behalf for popular reading on
this question. The praise accorded by the society, and
sundry laudations appropriated with much modesty in his
own preface by Dr. Constantine Tischendorf to himself,
compel one at the outset to regard the Christian manifesto
as a most formidable production. The Society’s translator
impressively tells us that the pamphlet has been three times
�6
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
printed in Germany and twice in France ; that it has been
issued in Dutch and Russian, and is done into Italian by an
Archbishop with the actual approbation of the Pope. The
author’s preface adds an account of his great journeyings
and heavy travelling expenses incurred out of an original
capital of a “ few unpaid bills,” ending in the discovery of
a basketful of old parchments destined for the flames by the
Christian monks in charge, but which from the hands of
Dr. Tischendorf are used by the Religious Tract Society to
neutralise all doubts, and to “ blow to pieces ” the Ration
alistic criticism of Germany and the coarser Infidelity of
England. Doubtless Dr. Tischendorf and the Society con
sider it some evidence in favor of the genuineness and
authenticity of the four Gospels that the learned Doctor was
enabled to spend 5,000 dollars out of less than nothing, and1
that the Pope regards his pamphlet with favor, or they would
not trouble to print such statements. We frankly accord
them the full advantage of any argument which may fairly
be based on such facts. An autograph letter of endorse
ment by the Pope is certainly a mattei* which a Protestant
Tract Society—who regard “ the scarlet whore at Babylon”
with horror—may well be proud of.
Dr. Tischendorf states that he has since 1839 devoted
himself to the textual study of the New Testament, and it
ought to be interesting to the orthodox to know that, as a
result of twenty-seven years’ labor, he now declares that
“ it has been placed beyond doubt that the original text
. . . . had in many places undergone such serious modi
fications of meaning as to leave us in painful uncertainty
as to what the apostles had actually written,” and that “ the
right course to take” “is to set aside the received text
altogether and to construct a fresh text.”
This is pleasant news for the true believer, promulgated by
authority of the managers of the great Christian depot in
Paternoster Row, from whence many scores of thousands of
copies of this incorrect received text have nevertheless been
issued without comment to the public, even since the society
have published in English Dr. Tischendorf’s declaration of
its unreliable character
With the modesty and honorable reticence peculiar to
great men, Dr. Tischendorf records his successes in reading
hitherto unreadable parchments, and we learn that he has.
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
7
received approval from “ several learned bodies, and even
from crowned heads,” for his wonderful performances. As
a consistent Christian, who knows that the “ powers that be
are ordained of God,” our “ critic without rival,” for so he
prints himself, regards the praise of crowned heads as higher
in degree than that of learned bodies.
The Doctor discovered in 1844 the MS. on which he now
relies to confute audacious Infidelity, in the Convent of St.
Catherine at Sinai; he brought away a portion, and handed
that portion, on his return, to the Saxon Government—they
paying all expenses. The Doctor, however, did not then
divulge where he had found the MS. It was for the advan
tage of humankind that the place should be known at once,
for, at least, two reasons. First, because by aid of the re
mainder of this MS.—“ the most precious Bible treasure in
existence ”—the faulty text of the New Testament was to be
reconstructed; and the sooner the work was done the better
for believers in Christianity. And, secondly, the whole
story of the discovery might then have been more easily
confirmed in every particular.
For fifteen years, at least, Dr. Tischendorf hid from the
world the precise locality in which his treasure had been
discovered. Nay, he was even fearful when he knew that
Other Christians were trying to find the true text, and he
experienced “peculiar satisfaction” when he ascertained
that his silence had misled some pious searchers after reliable
copies of God’s message to all humankind; although all this
time he was well aware that our received copies of God’s
revelation had undergone “serious modifications” since the
message had been delivered from the Holy Ghost by means
of the Evangelists.
In 1853, “ nine years after the original discovery,” Dr.
Tischendorf again visited the Sinai convent, but although
he had “enjoined on the monks to take religious care” of
the remains of which they, on the former occasion, would
not yield up possession, he, on this second occasion, and
apparently after careful search, discovered “ eleven short
lines,” which convinced him that the greater part of the
MS. had been destroyed. He still, however, kept the place
secret, although he had no longer any known reason for so
doing; and, having obtained an advance of funds from the
Russian Government, he, in 1859, tried a third time for his
�8
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN ?
pearl of St. Catherine,” which, in 1853, he felt convinced
had been destroyed, and as to which he had nevertheless, in
the meantime, been troubled by fears that the good cause
might be aided by some other than Dr. Tischendorf discover
ing and publishing the “priceless treasure,” which, according
to his previous statements, he must have felt convinced did
not longer exist. On this third journey the Doctor dis
covered “ the very fragments which, fifteen years before, he
had taken out of the basket,” “ and also other parts of the
Old Testament, the J\ew Testament complete, and, in addi
tion, Barnabas and part of Hermas.”
With wonderful preciseness, and with great audacity, Dr.
Tischendorf refers the transcription of the discovered Bible
to the first half of the fourth century. Have Dr. Tischen
dorf s patrons here ever read of MSS. discovered in the
same Convent of St. Catherine, at Sinai, of which an
account was published by Dr. Constantine Simonides, and
concerning which the Westminster Review said, “ We share
the suspicions, to use the gentlest word which occurs to us,
entertained, we believe, by all competent critics and anti
quarians.”
In 18b3 Dr. Tischendorf published, at the cost of the
Russian Emperor, a splendid but very costly edition of his
Sinaitic MS. in columns, with a Latin introduction. The
book is an expensive one, and copies of it are not very
plentiful in England. Perhaps the Religious Tract Society
have not contributed to its circulation so liberally as did the
pious Emperor of all the Russias. Surely a text on which
our own is to be re-constructed ought to be in the hands at
least of every English clergyman and Young Men’s Christian
Association.
“ Christianity,” writes Dr. Tischendorf, “ does not, strictly
speaking, rest on the moral teaching of Jesus “it rests on
his person only.” “ If we are in error in believing in the
person of Christ as taught in the Gospels, then the Church
herself is in error, and must be given up as a deception.”
“ All the world knows that our Gospels are nothing else
than biographies of Christ.” “We have no other source of
information with respect to the life of Jesus.” So that,
according to the Religious Tract Society and its advocate, if
the’’ credibility of the Gospel biography be successfully
impugned, then the foundations of Christianity are destroyed.
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
9
It becomes, therefore, of the highest importance to show
that the biography of Jesus, as given in the four Gospels, is
absolutely incredible and self-contradictory.
It is alleged in the Society’s preface that all the objections
•of infidelity have been hitherto unavailing. This is, however,
not true. It is rather the fact that the advocates of Chris
tianity when defeated on one point have shuffled to another,
■either quietly passing the topic without further debate, or
loudly declaring that the point abandoned was really so
utterly unimportant that it was extremely foolish in the
assailant to regard it as worthy attack, and that, in any
case, all the arguments had been repeatedly refuted by pre
vious writers.
To the following objections to the Gospel narrative the
writer refuses to accept as answer, that they have been pre
viously discussed and disposed of.
The Gospels which are yet mentioned by the names popu- I
larly associated with each do not tell us the hour, or the
■day, or the month, or—save Luke—the year, in which Jesus
was born. The only point on which the critical divines, who
'have preceded Dr. Tischendorf, generally agree is, that Jesus
was not born on Christmas day. The Oxford Chronology,
collated with a full score of recognised authorities, gives us
a period of more than seven years within which to place the
■date. So confused is the story as to the time of the birth, ?
that while Matthew would make Jesus born in the lifetime
■of Herod, Luke would fix the period of Jesus’s birth as after ■
Herod’s death.
Christmas itself is a day surrounded with curious cere
monies of pagan origin, and in no way serving to fix the
25th December as the natal day. Yet the exact period at
which Almighty God, as a baby boy, entered the world to
redeem long-suffering humanity from the consequences of
Adam’s ancient sin, should be of some importance.
Nor is there any great certainty as to the place of birth of >
Christ. The Jews, apparently in the very presence of Jesus,
reproached him that he ought to have been born at
Bethlehem. Nathaniel regarded him as of Nazareth. Jesus
never appears to have said to either, “I was born at
Bethlehem.” In Matthew ii., 6, we find a quotation
from the prophet: “And thou Bethlehem, in the land of
Judah, art not the least amongst the princes of Juda, for
�10
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
out of thee shall come a Governor that shall rule my peopleIsrael.” Matthew lays the scene of the birth in Bethlehem,
and Luke adopts the same place, especially bringing the child
to Bethlehem for that purpose, and Matthew tells us it is
done to fulfil a prophecy. Micah v., 2, the only place in
which similar words occur, is not a prophecy referring to
Jesus at all. The words are: “ But thou Beth-lehem
Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of
Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that isto be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of
old, from everlasting.” This is not quoted correctly in
Matthew, and can hardly be said by any straining of
language to apply to Jesus. The credibility of a story on
which Christianity rests is bolstered up by prophecy in
default of contemporary corroboration. The difficulties are
not lessened in tracing the parentage. In Matthew i., 17,
it is stated that “ the generations from Abraham to David
are fourteen generations, and from David until the carrying
away into Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the
carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen genera
tions.” Why has Matthew made such a mistake in his
computation of the genealogies—in the last division we have
only thirteen names instead of fourteen, even including the
name of Jesus? Is this one of the cases of “painful
uncertainty ” which has induced the Religious Tract Society
and Dr. Tischendorf to wish to set aside the textus receptus
altogether ?
From David to Zorobabel there are in the Old Testament
twenty generations ; in Matthew, seventeen generations ;
and in Luke, twenty-three generations. In Matthew from
David to Christ there are twenty-eight generations, and in
Luke from David to Christ forty-three generations. Yet,
according to the Religious Tract Society, it is on the credi
bility of these genealogies as part of the Gospel history
that the foundation of Christianity rests. The genealogy
in the first Gospel arriving at David traces to Jesus through
Solomon; the third Gospel from David traces through
Nathan. In Matthew the names from David are Solomon,
Roboam, Abia, Asa, Josaphat, Joram, Ozias; and in the Old
Testament we trace the same names from David to Ahaziah,
whom I presume to be the same as Ozias. But in 2nd
Chronicles xxii., 11, we find one Joash, who is not men-
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11
tioned in Matthew at all. If the genealogy in Matthew is
correct, why is the name not mentioned ? Amaziah is
mentioned in chap, xxiv., v. 27, and in chap, xxvi., v. 1,
Uzziah, neither of whom are mentioned in Matthew, where
Ozias is named as begetting Jotham, when in fact three
generations of men have come in between. In Matthew
and Luke, Zorobabel is represented as the son of Salathiel,
while in 1 Chronicles iff., 17—19, Zerubbabel is stated to be
the son of Pedaiah, the brother of Salathiel. Matthew
says Abiud was the son of Zorobabel (chap, i., v. 13).
Luke iii., 27, says Zorobabel’s son was Rhesa. The Old
Testament contradicts both, and gives Meshullam, and
Hananiah, and Shelomith, their sister (1 Chronicles iii., 19),
as the names of Zorobabel’s children. Is this another piece
of evidence in favor of Dr. Tischendorf’s admirable
doctrine, that it is necessary to reconstruct the text ?
. three names agreeing after that of David, viz., Salathiel,
Zorobabel, and Joseph—all the rest are utterly different. , |
! 1 The attempts at explanation which have been hitherto
offered, in order to reconcile these genealogies, are scarcely
creditable to the intellects of the Christian apologists. They
allege that “ Joseph, who by nature was the son of Jacob,
in the account of the law was the son of Heli. For Heli
and Jacob were brothers by the same mother, and Heli, who
was the elder, dying without issue, Jacob, as the law
directed, married his widow; in consequence of such mar
riage, his son Joseph was reputed in the law the son of Heli.’^
This is pure invention to get over a difficulty—an invention
not making the matter one whit more clear. For if you
suppose that these two persons were brothers, then unless
you invent a death of the mother’s last husband and the
widow’s remarriage Jacob and Heli would be the sons of the
same father, and the list of the ancestors should be identical
in each genealogy. But to get over the difficulty the pious j
do this. They say, although brothers, they were only half
brothers ; although sons of the same mother, they were not
sons of the same father, but had different fathers. If so,
how is it that Salathiel and Zorobabel occur as father and
son in both genealogies ? Another fashion of accounting
for the contradiction is to give one as the genealogy of
Joseph and the other as the genealogy of Mary. “ Which?
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I “ Luke,” it is said. Why Luke ? what are Luke’s words ?
Luke speaks of Jesus being, “as was supposed, the son of
Joseph, which was the son of Heli.” When Luke says
Joseph, the son of Heli, did he mean Mary, the daughter of
Heli ? Does the Gospel say one thing and mean another ?
because if that argument is worth anything, then in every
case where a man has a theory which disagrees with the
text, he may say the text means something else. If this
argument be permitted we must abandon in Scriptural
criticism the meaning which we should ordinarily intend to
convey by any given word. If you believe Luke meant
daughter, why does the same word mean son in every other
' case all through the remainder of the genealogy ? And if
the genealogy of Matthew be that of Joseph, and the
genealogy of Luke be that of Mary, they ought not to have
any point of agreement at all until brought to David. They,
nevertheless, do agree and contradict each other in several
places, destroying the probability of their being intended as
distinct genealogies. There is some evidence that Luke
does not give the genealogy of Mary in the Gospel itself.
We are told that Joseph went to Bethlehem to be numbered
because he was of the house of David : if it had been Mary
it would have surely said so. As according to the Christian
» theory, Joseph was not the father of Jesus, it is not unfair
to ask how it can be credible that Jesus’s genealogy could
I be traced to David in any fashion through Joseph?
So far from Mary being clearly of the tribe of Judah (to
which the genealogy relates) her cousinship to Elizabeth
would make her rather appear to belong to the tribe of
Levi.
To discuss the credibility of the miraculous conception and
birth would be to insult the human understanding. The
mythologies of Greece, Italy, and India, give many prece
dents of sons of Gods miraculously born. Italy, Greece, and
India, must, however, yield the palm to Judea. The inIcarnate Chrishna must give way to the incarnate Christ.
A miraculous birth would be scouted to- day as monstrous ;
-antedate it 2,000 years and we worship it as miracle.
1
Matt, i., 22, 23, says: “ Now all this was done, that it might
be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet,
saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring
forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which
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13
being interpreted is, God with us.” This is supposed to be
a quotation from Isaiah vii., 14—16 : “ Therefore the Lord
himself shall give you a sign ; Behold a virgin shall con
ceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse
the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall
know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that
thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.”
But in this, as indeed in most other cases of inaccurate
quotation, the very words are omitted which would show its
utter inapplicability to Jesus. Even in those which are
given, the agreement is not complete. Jesus was not called
Emmanuel. And even if his mother Mary were a virgin,
this does not help the identity, as the word
OLME in i
Isaiah, rendered “virgin” in our version, does not convey
the notion of virginity, for which the proper word is nbUTZl
BeThULE; OLME is used of a youthful spouse recently
married. The allusion to the land being forsaken of both
her kings, omitted in Matthew, shows how little the passage
is prophetic of Jesus.
The story of the annunciation made to Joseph in one
Gospel, to Mary in the other, is hardly credible on any ex
planation. If you assume the annunciations as made by a
God of all-wise purpose, the purpose should, at least, have
been to prevent doubt of Mary’s chastity; but the annun
ciation is made to Joseph only after Mary is suspected by
Joseph. Two annunciations are made, one of them in a
dream to Joseph, when he is suspicious as to the state of
his betrothed wife ; the other made by the angel Gabriel
(whoever that angel may be) to Mary herself, who apparently
conceals the fact, and is content to be married, although
with child not by her intended husband. The statement—
that Mary being found with child by the Holy Ghost, her
husband, not willing to make her a public example, was
minded to put her away privily—is quite incredible. If
Joseph found her with child &?/ the Holy Ghost, how could
he even think of making a public example of her shame
when there was nothing of which she could be ashamed—
nothing, if he believed in the Holy Ghost, of which he need
have been ashamed himself, nothing which need have in
duced him to wish to put her away privily. It is clear—
according to Matthew—that Mary was found with child,
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and that the Holy Ghost parentage was not even imagined
by Joseph until after he had dreamed about the matter.
Although the birth of Jesus was specially announced by
an angel, and although Mary sang a joyful song consequent
on the annunciation, corroborated by her cousin’s greeting,
yet when Simeon speaks of the child, in terms less extra
ordinary, Joseph and Mary are surprised at it and do not
understand it. Why were they surprised ? Is it credible
that so little regard was paid to the miraculous annuncia
tion? Or is this another case of the “painful uncertainty”
alluded to by Dr. Tischendorf ?
Again, when Joseph and Mary found the child Jesus in
the temple, and he says, “ Wist ye not that I must be about
my father’s business ? ” they do not know what he means, so
that either what the angel had said had been of little effect,
or the annunciations did not occur at all. Can any reliance
be placed on a narrative so contradictory ? An angel was
specially sent to acquaint a mother that her son about to be
born is the Son of God, and yet that mother is astonished
when her son says, “ Wist ye not I must be about my
father’s business ? ”
The birth of Jesus was, according to Matthew, made
publicly known by means of certain wise men. These men
saw his star in the East, but it did not tell them much, for
they were obliged to come and ask information from Herod
the King. Is astrology credible ? Herod inquired of the
chief priests and scribes; and it is evident Jeremiah was
right, if he said, “ The prophets prophecy falsely and the
priests bear rule by their means,” for these chief priests
misquoted to suit their purposes, and invented a false pro
phecy by omitting a few words from, and adding a few
words to, a text until it suited their purpose. The star, after
they knew where to go, and no longer required its aid, went
before them, until it came and stood over where the young
child was. The credibility of this will be better understood
if the reader notice some star, and then see how many houses
it will be over. Luke does not seem to have been aware
of the star story, and he relates about an angel who tells
some shepherds the good tidings, but this last-named adven
ture does not appear to have happened in the reign of Herod
at all. Is it credible that Jesus was born twice ? After the
wise men had left Jesus, an angel warned Joseph to flee
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15
with him and Mary into Egypt, and Joseph did fly, and re
mained there with the young child and his mother until the
•death of Herod ; and this, it is alleged, was done to fulfil a
prophecy. On referring to Hosea xi., 1, we find the words
have no reference whatever to Jesus, and that, therefore,
-either the tale of the flight is invented as a fulfilment of the
prophecy, or the prophecy manufactured to support the tale
of the flight. The Jesus of Luke never went into Egypt at
all in his childhood. Directly after the birth of the child
his parents instead of flying away because of persecution
into Egypt, went peacefully up to Jerusalem to fulfil all
things according to the law, returned thence to Nazareth,
and apparently dwelt there, going up to Jerusalem every
year until Jesus was twelve years of age.
In Matthew ii., 15, we are told that Jesus remained in
Egypt, “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the
Lord by the prophet saying, Out of Egypt have I called my
sou.” In Hosea ii., 1, we read, “When Israel was a child,
then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” In no
•other prophet is there any similar text.
This not only is
not a prophecy of Jesus, but is, on the contrary, a reference
to the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. Is the prophecy manu
factured to give an air of credibility to the Gospel history,
or how will the Religious Tract Society explain it? The
Gospel writings betray either a want of good faith,
or great incapacity on the part of their authors in the
mode adopted of distorting quotations from the Old Testa
ment ?
When Jesus began to be about thirty years of age
he was baptised by John in the river Jordan. John,
who, according to Matthew, knew him, forbade him
directly he saw him; but, acccording to the writer of
the fourth Gospel, he knew him not, and had, there
fore, no occasion to forbid him. God is an “ invisible ”
“spirit,” whom no man hath seen (John i., 18), or can see
(Exodus xxxiii., 20); but the man John saw the spirit of
God descending like a dove. God is everywhere, but at
that time was in heaven, from whence he said, “This is my
beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” Although John
heard this from God’s own mouth, he some time after sent
two of his disciples to Jesus to inquire if he were really the
Christ (Matthew xi., 2, 3). Yet it is upon the credibility
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of this story, says Dr. Tischendorf, that Christianity rests
like a building on its foundations.
It is utterly impossible John could have known and not
have known Jesus at the same time. And if, as the New
Testament states, God is infinite and invisible, it is in
credible that as Jesus stood in the river to be baptised, the
Holy Ghost was seen as it descended on his head as a dove,
and that God from heaven said, “This is my beloved son, in
whom I am well pleased.” Was the indivisible and invisible
spirit of God separated in three distinct and two separately
visible persons ? How do the Religious Tract Society recon
cile this with the Athanasian Creed ?
The baptism narrative is rendered doubtful by the lan
guage used as to John, who baptised Jesus. It is said,
“ This is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias,
saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare
ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Isaiah xl.,
1—5? is? “ Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your
God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto
her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity
is pardoned ; for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double
for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilder
ness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the
desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be
exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low :
and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough
places plain : and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.”
These verses have not the most remote relation to John ?
And this manufacture of prophecies for the purpose of
bolstering up a tale, serves to prove that the writer of the
Gospel tries by these to impart an air of credibility to an
otherwise incredible story.
Immediately after the baptism, Jesus is led up of the
Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. There
he fasts forty days and forty nights.
John says, in chapter i., 35, “Again, the next day after,
John stood and two of his disciples ; and looking upon
Jesus as he walked, he said, behold the Lamb of God. And
the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.”
Then, at the 43rd verse, he says, “ The day following Jesus
would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith
unto him, follow me.” And in chapter ii., 1, he says, “And
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17
the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and
the mother of Jesus was there ; and both Jesus was called
and his disciples unto the marriage.” According to Matthew,
there can be no doubt that immediately after the baptism
Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil.
And we are to believe that Jesus was tempted of the Devil
and fasting in the wilderness, and at the same time feasting
at a marriage in Cana of Galilee ? Is it possible to believe
that Jesus actually did fast forty days and forty nights ? If
Jesus did not fast in his capacity as man, in what capacity
did he fast ? And if Jesus fasted, being God, the fast
would be a mockery; and the account that he became a
hungered must be wrong. It is barely possible that in some
very abnormal condition or cataleptic state, or state of
trance, a man might exist, with very slight nourishment or
without food, but that a man could walk about, speak, and
act, and, doing this, live forty days and nights without food
is simply an impossibility.
Is the story that the Devil tempted Jesus credible ? If
Jesus be God, can the Devil tempt God ? A clergyman of
the Church of England writing on this says: “ That the
Devil should appear personally to the Son of God is cer
tainly not more wonderful than that he should, in a more
remote age, have appeared among the sons of God, in the
presence of God himself, to torment the righteous Job. But
that Satan should carry Jesus bodily and literally through
the air, first to the top of a high mountain, and then to the
topmost pinnacle of the temple, is wholly inadmissable,
it is an insult to our understanding, and an affront to
our great creator and redeemer.” Supposing, despite the
monstrosity of such a supposition, an actual Devil—and this
involves the dilemma that the Devil must either be Godcreated, or God’s co-eternal rival; the first supposition
being inconsistent with God’s goodness, and the second
being inconsistent with his power; but supposing such a
Devil, is it credible that the Devil should tempt the
Almighty maker of the universe with “ all these will I
give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me ? ”
In the very names of the twelve Apostles there is an un
certainty as to one, whose name was either Lebbmus, Thad
daeus, or Judas. It is in Matthew x., 3, alone that the name
of Lebbaeus is mentioned, thus—“Lebbaeus, whose surname
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WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
was Thaddaeus.” We are told, on this point, by certain
Biblicists, that some early MSS. have not the words “ whose
surname was Thaddaeus,” and that these words have pro
bably been inserted to reconcile the Gospel according to
Matthew with that attributed to Mark. In the English
version of the Rheims Testament used in this country by
our Roman Catholic brethren, the reconciliation between
Matthew and Mark is completed by omitting the words
“ Lebbaeus whose surname was,” leaving only the name
“ Thaddaeus ” in Matthew’s text. The revised version of
the New Testament now agrees with the Rheims version,,
and the omission will probably meet with the entire concur
rence of Dr. Tischendorf and the Religious Tract Society,,
now they boast autograph letters of approval from the in
fallible head of the Catholic Church. If Matthew x., 3,.
and Mark iii., 18, be passed as reconciled, although the first
calls the twelfth disciple Lebbeeus, and the second gives him
the name Thaddaeus; there is yet the difficulty that in Luke
vi., 16, corroborated by John xiv., 22, there is a disciple
spoken of as “ Judas, not Iscariot,” “Judas, the brother of
James.” Commentators have endeavored to clear away this
last difficulty by declaring that Thaddams is a Syriac word,
having much the same meaning as Judas. This has been
answered by the objection that if Matthew’s Gospel uses
Thaddaeus in lieu of Judas, then he ought to speak of Thad
daeus Iscariot, which he does not; and it is further objected’
also that while there are some grounds for suggesting a
Hebrew original for the Gospel attributed to Matthew, there
is not the slightest pretence for alleging that Matthew wrote
in Syriac. The Gospels also leave us in some doubt as to.
whether Matthew is Levi, or whether Matthew and Levi are
two different persons.
The account of the calling of Peter is replete with con
tradictions. According to Matthew, when Jesus first saw
Peter, the latter was in a vessel fishing with his brother
Andrew, casting a net into the sea of Galilee. Jesus walk
ing by the sea said to them—“Follow me, and I will make
you fishers of men.” The two brothers did so, and they
became Christ’s disciples. When Jesus called Peter no one
was with him but his brother Andrew. A little further on,
the two sons of Zebedee were in a ship with their father
mending nets, and these latter were separately called. From
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John, we learn that Andrew was originally a disciple of
John the Baptist, and that when Andrew first saw Jesus,
Peter was not present, but Andrew went and found Peter
who, if fishing, must have been angling on land, telling him
!:we have found the Messiah,” and that Andrew then
brought Peter to Jesus, who said, “Thou art Simon, the
son of Jonas ; thou shalt be called Cephas.” There is no
mention in John of the sons of Zebedee being a little further
on, or of any fishing in the sea of Galilee. This call is
clearly on land. Luke’s Gospel states that when the call
took place, Jesus and Peter were both at sea. Jesus had
been preaching to the people, who pressing upon him, he got
into Simon’s ship, from which he preached. After this he
directed Simon to put out into the deep and let down the
nets. Simon answered, “ Master, we have toiled all night
and taken nothing ; nevertheless at thy word I will let down
the net.” No sooner was this done, than the net was filled
to breaking, and Simon’s partners, the two sons of Zebedee,
came to help, when at the call of Jesus, they brought their
ships to land, and followed him.
Is it credible that there were three several calls, or that
the Gospels being inspired, you could have three contradic
tory versions of the same event ? Has the story been here
“ painfully modified,” or how do Dr. Tischendorf and the
Religious Tract Society clear up the matter? Is it credible
that, as stated in Luke, Jesus had visited Simon’s house, and
cured Simon’s wife’s mother, before the call of Simon, but
did not go to Simon’s house for that purpose, until after the
call of Simon, as related in Matthew ? It is useless to reply
that the date of Jesus’s visit is utterly unimportant, when
we are told that it is upon the credibility of the complete
narrative that Christianity must rest. Each stone is im
portant to the building, and it is not competent for the
Christian advocate to regard as useless any word which the
Holy Ghost has considered important enough to reveal.
Are the miracle stories credible ? Every ancient nation
has had its miracle workers, but modern science has relegated
all miracle history to realms of fable, myth, illusion, delusion,
or fraud. Can Christian miracles be made the exceptions ?
Is it likely that the nations amongst whom the dead were
restored to life would have persistently ignored the author
of such miracles? Were the miracles purposeless, or if in
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WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
tended to convince the Jews, was God unable to render his
intentions effective ? That five thousand persons should be
, fed with five loaves and two fishes, and that an apparent
f excess should remain beyond the original stock, is difficult
to believe; but that shortly after this—Jesus having to
again perform a similar miracle for four thousand persons—
his own disciples should ignore his recent feat, and wonder
from whence the food was to be derived, is certainly start
lingly incredible. If this exhibition of incredulity were
pardonable on the part of the twelve apostles, living wit
nesses of greater wonders, how much more pardonable the
unbelief of the sceptic of to-day, which the Religious Tract
Society seek to overcome by a faint echo of asserted events
all contrary to probability, and with nineteen centuries
intervening.
I The casting out the devils presents phenomena requiring
j considerable credulity, especially the story of the devils and
t the swine. To-day insanity is never referable to demoniacal
possession, but eighteen hundred years ago the subject of
lunacy had not been so patiently investigated as it has been
since. That one man could now be tenanted by several
devils is a proposition for which the maintainer would in the
present generation incur almost universal contempt; yet the
repudiation of its present possibility can hardly be consistent
with implicit credence in its ancient history. That the devils
and God should hold converse together, although not with
out parallel in the book of Job, is inconsistent with the
theory of an infinitely good Deity ; that the devils should
address Jesus as son of the most high God, and beg to be
allowed to enter a herd of swine, is at least ludicrous ; yet all
this helps to make up the narrative on which Dr. Tischendorf
relies. That Jesus being God should pray to his Father
4 that “ the cup might pass ” from him is so incredible that
even the faithful ask us to regard it as mystery. That an
angel from heaven could strengthen Jesus, the almighty
God, is equally mysterious. That where Jesus had so pro
minently preached to thousands, the priests should need any
-one like Judas to betray the founder of Christianity with a
kiss, is absurd; his escapade in flogging the dealers, his
wonderful cures, and his raising Lazarus and Jairus’s
daughter should have secured him, if not the nation’s love,
faith, and admiration, at least a national reputation and
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21
notoriety. It is not credible if Judas betrayed Jesus by a
kiss that the latter should have been arrested upon his own
statement that he was Jesus. That Peter should have had I
a so little faith as to deny his divine leader three times in a <
few hours is only reconcilable with the notion that he had i
remained unconvinced by his personal intercourse with the
; incarnate Deity. The mere blunders in the story of the I
j denial sink into insignificance in face of this major difficulty.
Whether the cock did or did not crow before the third denial,
whether Peter was or was not in the same apartment with
Jesus at the time of the last denial, are comparatively
trifling questions, and the contradictions on which they are
based may be the consequence of the errors which Dr.
Tischendorf says have crept into the sacred writings.
Jesus said, “ as Jonah was three days and three nights in
the belly of the whale, so shall the son of man be three days
and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Jesus was
crucified on Friday, was buried on Friday evening, and yet
the first who went to the grave on the night of Saturday
as it began to dawn towards Sunday, found the body of
Jesus already gone. Did Jesus mean he should be three
days and three nights in the grave ? Is there any proof
that his body remained in the grave for three hours ?
Who went first to'* the grave? was it Mary Magdalene
alone, as in John, or two Maries as in Matthew, or the two
Maries and Salome as in Mark, or the two Maries, Joanna,
and several unnamed women as in Luke ? To whom did
did Jesus first appear? Was it, as in Mark, to Mary
Magdalene, or to two disciples going to Emmaus, as in
Luke, or to the two Maries near the sepulchre, as in
Matthew? Is the eating boiled fish and honeycomb by
a dead God credible ? Did Jesus ascend to heaven the
I very day of his resurrection, or did an interval of nearly
six weeks intervene ?
Is this history credible, contained as it is in four con- '
t tradictory biographies, outside which biographies we have, ■
as UrTTischendorf admits, “no other source of informa- •
tion with respect to the life of Jesus ” ? This history of
III an earth-born Deity, descended through a crime-tainted .
ancestry, and whose genealogical tree is traced through one I
I who was not his father ; this history of an infinite God nursed
G as a baby, growing through childhood to manhood like any
J
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WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
frail specimen of humanity; this history, garnished with
bedevilledjnen, enchanted tig tree, myriads of ghosts, and
scores of miracles, and by such garnishment made more
akin to an oriental romance than to a sober history ; thjs
picture of the infinite invisible spirit incarnate visible as,
man; immutability subject to human passions and infirmi
ties ; the 'creator come to die, yet wishing to escape the
death which shall bring peace to Tris God-tormented crea
tures; God praying to himself and rejecting his own prayer;
God betrayed by a divinely-appointed traitor ; God the
immortal dying, and in the agony of the death-throes—
stronger than the strong man’s will—crying with almost
the last effort of his dying breath, that he being God, is
God forsaken !
* If all this be credible, what story is there any man need
hesitate to believe ?
Dr. Tischendorf asks how it has beeu possible to impugn
the credibility of the four Gospels, and replies that this has
been done by denying that the Gospels were written by the
men whose names they bear. In the preceding pages it has A
, been shown that the credibility of the Gospel narrative is
impugned because it is uncorroborated by contemporary
history, because it is self-contradictory, and because many
of its incidents are prima facie most improbable, and some
of them utterly impossible. Even English Infidels are quite
prepared to admit that the four Gospels may be quite anony
mous ; and yet, that their anonymous character need be of •
no weight as an argument against their truth. All that is |
urged on this head is that the advocates of the Gospel history ■
have sought to endorse and give value to the otherwise un- |
reliable narratives by a pretence that some of the Evange
lists, at least, were eyewitnesses of the events they refer to. ‘
Dr. Tischendorf says: “The credibility of a writer clearlyic*
I' depends on the interval of tifrle which lies between him and |
I the events which he describes. The farther the narrator is ■ i
removed from the facts which heTays before us the more ( y,
his claims to credibility are reduced in value.” Presuming
t truthfulness in intention for any writer, and his ability to
comprehend the facts he is narrating, and his freedom from a
prejudice which may distort the picture he intends to paint
correctly with his pen: we might admit the correctness of
the passage we have quoted; but can these always be pre
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN ?
(
23
sumed in the case of the authors of the Gospels ? On the
contrary, a presumption in an exactly opposite direction may
he fairly raised from the fact that immediately after the
Apostolic age the Christian world was flooded with forged
testimonies in favor of the biography of Jesus, or in favor
of his disciples.
A writer in the Edinburgh Review observes : “ To say
nothing of such acknowledged forgeries as the Apostolic
constitutions and liturgies, and the several spurious Gospels,
the question of the genuineness of the alleged remains of
the Apostolic fathers, though often overlooked, is very
material. Any genuine remains of the ‘ Apostle ’ Barnabas,
of Hermas, the contemporary (Romans xvi., 14), and
Clement, the highly commended and gifted fellow laborer
of St. Paul (Phil, iv., 3), could scarcely be regarded as less
•sacred than those of Mark and Luke, of whom personally
we know less. It is purely a question of criticism. At the
present day, the critics best competent to determine it. have,
agreed in opinion, that the extant writings ascribed to Bar
nabas and Hermas are wholly spurious-—the frauds of a
later age. How much suspicion attaches to the 1st Epistle
of Clement (for the fragment of the second is also generally
rejected) is manifest from the fact, that in modern times
it has never been allowed the place expressly assigned to it
among the canonical books prefixed to the celebrated Alex
andrian MS., in which the only known copy of it is included.
It must not be forgotten that Ignatius expressly lays claim
to inspiration, that Ireneeus quotes Hermas as Scripture,
and Origen speaks of him as inspired, while Polycarp, in
modestly disclaiming to be put on a level with the Apostles,
clearly implies there would have been no essential distinction
in the way of his being ranked in the same order. But the
question is, how are these pretensions substantiated ? ” So
far the Edinburgh Review, certainly not an Infidel publica
tion.
Eusebius, in his “Ecclesiastical History,” admits the4
*’ existence of many spurious gospels and epistles, and some .
writings put forward by him as genuine, such as the corres
pondence between Jesus and Agbaras, have since been rejected as fictitious. It is not an unfair presumption from it
this that many of the most early Christians considered the
then existing testimonies insufficient to prove the history of
�24
WHEN WERE O'UR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
Jesus, and good reason is certainly afforded for carefully
examining the whole of the evidences they have bequeathed us.
On p. 48, Dr. Tischendorf quotes Irenaeus, whose writings
belong to the extreme end of the second century, as though
that Bishop must be taken as vouching the four Gospels as
we now have them. Yet, if the testimony of Irenaeus be
reliable (“ Against Heresies,” Book III., cap. i.) the Gospel
attributed to Matthew was believed to have been composed
in Hebrew, and Irenaeus says that as the Jews desired a
Messiah of the royal line of David, Matthew having the
same desire to a yet greater degree, strove to give them full
satisfaction. This may account for some of the genealogical
curiosities to which we have drawn attention, but hardly
renders Matthew’s Gospel more reliable ; and how can the /
| suggestion that Matthew wrote in Hebrew prove that Mat- I
ithew penned the first Gospel, which has only existed ini
Greek ? Irenaeus, too, flatly contradicts the Gospels by \
declaring that the ministry of Jesus extended over ten years I
and that Jesus lived to be fifty years of age (“Against £
Heresies,” Book II., cap. 22).
If the statement of Irenaeus (“Against Heresies,” Book’
11“ III., cap. 11) that the fourth Gospel was written to refute the 1
errors of Cerinthus and Nicolaus, have any value, then the
’ actual date of issue of the fourth Gospel will be consider- £.
* ably after the others. Dr. Tischendorf’s statement that
i Polycarp has borne testimony to the Gospel of John is noth,
I even supported by the quotation on which he relies. All w
that is said in the passage quoted (Eusebius, “ Ecc. Hist.(” "
Book V., cap. 20) is that Irenaeus when he was a child
heard Polvea.rn reneat from memorv the dise.onrses of John I?
- in the time of Polycarp it would have been at least as easy jj
to have read them from the MS. as to repeat them from n
memory. Dr. Tischendorf might also have added that
I the letter to Florinus, whence he takes the passage on '
which he relies, exists only in the writings of Eusebius, to ,
whom we are indebted for many pieces of Christian evidence
since abandoned as forgeries. Dr. Tischendorf says : “Any
testimony of Polycarp in favor of the Gospel refers us back
to the Evangelist himself, for Polycarp, in speaking to
Irenaeus of this Gospel as the work of his master, St. John,
must have learned from the lips of the apostle himself,.
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
25
evidence
whether he was its author or not.” Now, what evidence^
is there that Polycarp ever saida single word as to the
authorship of the fourth Gospel, of of any Gospel, or that
, he even said that John had penned a single word? In the (\\
[ I Epistle to the Philippians (the only writing attributed to
; Polycarp for which any genuine character is even pre
tended), the Gospel of John is never mentioned, nor is
there even a single passage in the Epistle which can be
identified with any passage in the Gospel of John.
Surely Dr. Tischendorf forgot, in the eager desire to
make his witnesses bear good testimony, that the highest
duty of an advocate is to make the truth clear, not to put
forward a pleasantly colored falsehood to deceive the igno
rant. It is not even true that Irenasus ever pretends1
, that Polycarp in any way vouched our fourth Gospsl as
having been written by John, and yet Dr. Tischendorf had
the cool audacity to say “there is nothing more damaging
to the doubters of the authenticity of St. John’s Gospel *
than this testimony of St. Polycarp.” Do the Religious
Tract Society regard English Infidels as so utterly ignorant
that they thus intentionally seek to suggest a falsehood, or
are the Council of the Religious Tract Society themselves
unable to test the accuracy of the statements put forward
on their behalf by the able decipherer of illegible parch
ments ?
It is too much to suspect the renowned Dr. Con
stantine Tischendorf of ignorance, yet even the coarse
English sceptic regrets that the only other alternative will
be to denounce him as a theological charlatan.
Dr. Mosheim, writing on behalf of Christianity, says that |
the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians is by some treated'
. as genuine and by others as spurious, and that it is no easy
matter to decide.
Many critics, of no mean order, class it I
amongst the apostolic Christian forgeries, but whether the
/ Epistle be genuine or spurious, it contains no quotation
I I from, it makes no reference to, the Gospel of John.
M ‘ To what is said of Irenasus, Tertullian, and Clement of
l\ Alexandria, it is enough to note that all these are after
a.d. 150. Irenasus may be put 177 to 200, Tertullian about
193, and Clement of Alexandria as commencing the third' _
century.
One of Dr. Tischendorf’s most audacious flourishes is that
(p. 49) with reference to the Canon of Muratori, which we
�26
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WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
are told “enumerates the books of the New Testament
which, from the first, were considered canonical and sacred,”
and which “ was written a little after the age of Pins I,
about a.d. 170.”
First the anonymous fragment contains books which were
never accepted as canonical; next, it is quite impossible to
say when or by whom it was written or what was its original
language. Muratori, who discovered the fragment in 1740^ 1|
conjectured that it was written about the end of the second i
dr beginning of the third century, but itjg, noteworthy that
neither Eusebius nor any other of the ecclesiastical advocates
ofjhe third, fourth, or fifth centuries, ever refers to it. It
may be the compilation of any monk at any date prior to
1740, and is utterly valueless as evidence.
Dr. Tischendorf’s style is well exemplified by the positive
manner in which he fixes the date a.d. 139 to the first
apology of Justin, although a critic so “ learned ” as the un
rivalled Dr. Tischendorf could not fail to be aware that
more than one writer has supported the view that the date
of the first apology was not earlier than a.d. 145, and others
have contended for a.d. 150. The Benedictine editors of
Justin’s works support the latter date. Dr. Kenn argues
for a.d. 155—160. On page 63, the Religious Tract Society’s
champion appeals to the testimony of Justin Martyr, but in »
order not to shock the devout while convincing the profane,
he omits to mention that more than half the writings once
attributed to Justin Martyr are now abandoned, as either of
doubtful character or actual forgeries, and that Justin’s
value as a witness is considerably weakened by the fact that
he quotes the acts of Pilate and the Sybilline Oracles as
though they were reliable evidence, when in fact they are
both admitted specimens of “ a Christian forgery.” But |
what does Justin testify as to the Gospels ? Does he say
that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were their writers ?
On the contrary, not only do the names of Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John never occur as Evangelists in the writings
of Justin, but he actually mentions facts and sayings as to
Jesus, which are not found in either of the four Gospels.
The very words rendered Gospels only occur where they are
strongly suspected to be interpolated, Justin usually speaking
of some writings which he calls “ memorials ” or “memoirs
of the Apostles.”
»
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�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
27
Dr. Tischendorf urges that in the writings of Justin the
G-ospels are placed side by side with the prophets, and that
“this undoubtedly places the Gospels in the list of canon
ical books.” If this means that there is any statement in
-Justin capable of being so construed, then Dr. Tischendorf
was untruthful. Justin does quote specifically the Sybilline
oracles, but never Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. He
‘-quotes statements as to Jesus, which may be found in the
-apocryphal Gospels, and which are not found in ours, so that
if the evidence of Justin Martyr be taken, it certainly does not
tend to prove, even in the smallest degree, that four Gospels
were specially regarded with reverence in his day. The
Rev. W. Sanday thinks that Justin did not assign an ex
clusive authority to our Gospels, and that he made use also
of other documents no longer extant. (“ Gospels in 2nd
Century,” p. 117.)
On p. 94 it is stated that “as early as the time of Justin i»
’ the expression ‘ the Evangel ’ was applied to the four 7
Gospels.” This statement by Dr. Tischendorf and its »
"publication by the Religious Tract Society call for the
I strongest condemnation. Nowhere in the writings of Justin
are the words “the Evangel” applied to the four Gospels.
Gardner only professes to discover two instances in which
the wTord anglicised by Tischendorf as “Evangel,” occurs;
■€.vayyeX.L<i> and evayyeXca, the second being expressly pointed
out by Schleiermacher as an interpolation, and as an in
stance in which a marginal note has been incorporated with
the text; nor would one occurrence of such a word prove
that any book or books were so known by Justin, as the
word is merely a compound of ev good and ayyekta message;
nor is there the slightest foundation for the statement that
in the time of Justin the word Evangel was ever applied to
■designate the four Gospels now attributed to Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John.
Dr. Tischendorf (p. 46) admits that the “ faith of the I
! Church . . . would be seriously compromised ” if we ;
>do not find references to the Gospels in writings between /
a.d. 100 and a.l>. 150; and—while he does not directly '
.assert—he insinuates that in such writings the Gospels were
“ treated with the greatest respect,” or “ even already
treated as canonical and sacred writings
and he distinctly
affirms that the Gospels “ did see the light ” during the
�28
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN ?
“ Apostolic age,” “ and before the middle of the second’
century our Gospels were held in the highest respect by the
Church,” although for the affirmation, he neither has nor
advances the shadow of evidence.
The phrases, “ Apostolic age ” and ‘‘Apostolic fathers”
denote the first century of the Christian era, and those
fathers who are supposed to have flourished during that
period, and who are supposed to have seen or heard, or had
the opportunity of seeing or hearing, either Jesus or some
one or more of the twelve Apostles., Barnabas, Clement,
Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, are those whose names
figure most familiarly in Christian evidences as Apostolic
fathers. But the evidence from these Apostolic fathers is
of a most unreliable character. Mosheim (“ Ecclesiastical
t History,” cent. 1, cap. 2, sec. 3, 17) says that “ the Apostolic
history is loaded with doubts, fables, and difficulties,” and
that not long after Christ’s ascension several histories were
current of his life and doctrines, full of “ pious frauds and
fabulous wonders.” Amongst these were “The Acts of
Paul,” “ The Revelation of Peter,” “ The Gospel of Peter,”
I “The Gospel of Andrew,” “The Gospel of John,” “The
.Gospel of James,” “The Gospel of the Egyptians,” etc.
The attempts often made to prove from the writings of
Barnabas, Ignatius, etc., the prior existence of the four
Gospels, though specifically unnamed, by similarity of
phraseology in quotations, is a failure, even admitting for
the moment the genuineness of the Apostolic Scriptures, if
the proof is intended to carry the matter higher than that
such and such statements were current in some form or other,
at the date the fathers wrote. As good an argument might
’ be made that some of the Gospel passages were adopted from
* the fathers. The fathers occasionally quote, as from the
4 mouth of Jesus, words which are not found in any of our
four Gospels, and make reference to events not included in
the Gospel narratives, clearly evidencing that even if the
four documents ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
were in existence, they were not the only sources of infor
mation from which some of the Apostolic fathers derived
their knowledge of Christianity, and evidencing also that the
four Gospels had attained no such specific superiority as to
entitle them to special mention by name.
Of the epistle attributed to Barnabas, which is sup-
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
29
<posed by its supporters to have been written in the latter
part of the first century, which, Paley says, is probably
genuine, which is classed by Eusebius as spurious (“Eccle
siastical History,” book iii., cap. 25), and which Dr.
Donaldson does not hesitate for one moment in refusing to
ascribe to Barnabas the Apostle (“ Ante-Nicene Fathers,”
vol. i., p. 100), it is only necessary to say that so far from
speaking of the Gospels with the greatest respect, it does not
mention by name any one of the four Gospels. There are
some passages in Barnabas which are nearly identical in
phraseology with some Gospel passages, and which it has
been argued are quotations from one or other of the four
Gospels, but which may equally be quotations from other
Gospels, or from writings not in the character of Gospels.
There are also passages which are nearly identical with
several of the New Testament epistles, but even the great
framer of Christian evidences, Gardner, declares his convic
tion that none of these last-mentioned passages are quota
tions, or even allusions, to the Pauline or other epistolary
writings. Barnabas makes many quotations which clearly
demonstrate that the four Gospels, if then in existence and
if he had access to them, could not have been his only source
of information as to the teachings of Jesus (E. G., cap. 7).
“ The Lord enjoined that whosoever did not keep the fast
should be put to death.” “ He required the goats to be of
goodly aspect and similar, that when they see him coming
they may be amazed by the likeness to the goat.” Says he,
“ those who wish to behold me and lay hold of my kingdom,
must through tribulation and suffering obtain me” (cap. 12).
And the Lord saith, “When a tree shall be bent down and
again rise, and when blood shall flow out of the wound.”
Will the Religious Tract Society point out from which of
the Gospels these are quoted ?
Barnabas (cap. 10) says that Moses forbade the Jews to
eat weasel flesh, “ because that animal conceives with the
mouth,” and forbad them to eat the hyena because that
animal annually changes its sex. This father seems to have
made a sort of melange of some of the Pentateuchal
ordinances. He says (cap. 8) that the Heifer (mentioned
in Numbers) was a type of Jesus, that the three (?) young
men appointed to sprinkle, denote Abraham, Isaac, and
- -Jacob, that wool was put upon a stick because the
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WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
kingdom of Jesus was founded upon the cross, and
(cap. 9) that the 318 men circumcised by Abraham
stood for Jesus crucified. Barnabas also declared that
the world was to come to an end in 6,000 years (“Free
thinkers’ Text Book,” part ii., p. 268). In the Sinaitic
Bible, the Epistle of St. Barnabas has now, happily for
misguided Christians, been discovered in the original Greek.
To quote the inimitable style of Dr. Tischendorf, “ while
so much has been lost in the course of centuries by the
tooth of time and the carelessness of ignorant monks, an in
visible eye had watched over this treasure, and when it was
on the point of perishing in the fire, the Lord had decreed itsdeliverance;” “while critics have generally been divided
between assigning it to the first or second decade of the
second century, the Sinaitic Bible, which has for the first
time cleared up this question, has led us to throw its com
position as far back as the last decade of the first century.”
A fine specimen of Christian evidence writing, cool assertion
without a particle of proof and without the slightest reason
given. How does the Siniatic MS., even if it be genuine,
clear up the question of the date of St. Barnabas’s Epistle?
Dr. Tischendorf does not condescend to tell us what has led
the Christian advocate to throw back the date of its com
position ? We are left entirely in the dark: in fact, what
Dr. Tischendorf calls a “throw back,” is if you look at
Lardner just the reverse. What does the epistle of Barnabas
prove, even if it be genuine ? Barnabas quotes, by name,
Moses and Daniel, but never Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.
Barnabas specifically refers to Deuteronomy and the pro
phets, but never to either of the four Gospels.
There is an epistle attributed to Clement of Rome, whichhas been preserved in a single MS. only where it is coupled
with another epistle rejected as spurious. Dr. Donaldson(“ Ante-Nicene Fathers,” vol. i-, p. 3) declares that who the
Clement was to whom these writings are ascribed cannot
with absolute certainty be determined. Both epistles stand
on equal authority; one is rejected by Christians, the other is
received. In this epistle while there is a distinct reference
to an Epistle by Paul to the Corinthians, there is no mention
by name of the four Gospels, nor do any of the words attri
buted by Clement to Jesus agree for any complete quotation
with anyone of the Gospels as we have them. The Rev.
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
31
W. Sanday is frank enough to concede “ that Clement is
not quoting directly from our Gospels.”
Is it probable that Clement would have mentioned a
writing by Paul, and yet have entirely ignored the four
Gospels, if he had known that they had then existed ?
And could they have easily existed in the Christian world in
his day without his knowledge ? If anyone takes cap. xxv.
of this epistle and sees the phoenix given as a historic fact,
and as evidence for the reality of the resurrection, he will be
better able to appreciate the value of this so-called epistle
of Clement.
The letters of Ignatius referred to by Dr. Tischendorf
are regarded by Mosheim as laboring under many difficul
ties, and embarrassed with much obscurity. Even Lardner,
doing his best for such evidences, says, that if we find
matters in the Epistles inconsistent with the notion that
Ignatius was the writer, it is better to regard such passages
as interpolations, than to reject the Epistles entirely,
especially in the “ scarcity ” of such testimonies.
There are fifteen epistles of which eight are undisputedly
forgeries. Of the remaining seven there are two versions, a
long and a short version, one of which must be corrupt,
both of which may be. These seven epistles, however, are
in no case to be accepted with certainty as those of Ignatius.
Dr. Cureton contends that only three still shorter epistles are
genuine (“Ante-Nicene Fathers,” vol. i., pp. 137 to 143).
The Rev. W. Sanday treats the three short ones as probably
genuine, waiving the question as to the others (“ Gospels in
Second Century,” p. 77, and see preface to sixth edition
“ Supernatural Religion”), Ignatius, however, even if he be
the writer of the epistles attributed to him, never mentions
either of the four Gospels. In the nineteenth chapter of the
Epistles to the Ephesians, there is a statement made as to
the birth and death of Jesus, not to be found in either
Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
If the testimony of the Ignatian Epistles is reliable, then
it vouches that in that early age there were actually Chris
tians who denied the death of Jesus. A statement as to
Mary in cap. nineteen of the Epistle to the Ephesians is
not to be found in any portion of the Gospels. In his
Epistle to the Trallians, Ignatius, attacking those who denied
the real existence of Jesus, would have surely been glad to
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WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
quote the evidence of eye witnesses like Matthew and John,
if such evidence had existed in his day. In cap. eight
of the Epistles to the Philadelphians, Ignatius says, “I have
jlr heard of some who say : Unless I find it in the archives I
*' will not believe the Gospel. And when I said it is written,
they answered that remains to be proved.” This is the
most distinct reference to any Christian writings, and how
little does this support Dr. Tischendorf’s position. From
which of our four Gospels could Ignatius have taken the
words, “lam not an incorporeal demon,” which he puts into
the mouth of Jesus in cap. iii., the epistle to the Smyrnasans ?
Dr. Tischendorf does admit that the evidence of the Ignatian Epistles is not of decisive value; might he not go
farther and say, that as proof of the four Gospels it is of no
value at all ?
On page 70, Dr. Tischendorf quotes Hippolytus without
any qualification. Surely the English Religious Tract Society
might have remembered that Dodwell says, that the name
of Hippolytus had been so abused by impostors, that it was
not easy to distinguish any of his writings. That Mill de
clares that, with one exception, the pieces extant under his
name are all spurious. That, except fragments in the writ
ings of opponents, the works of Hippolytus are entirely
lost. Yet the Religious Tract Society permit testimony so
tainted to be put forward under their authority, to prove the
truth of Christian history. The very work which Dr. Tis
chendorf pretends to quote is not even mentioned by Euse
bius, in the list he gives of the writings of Hippolytus.
On page 94, Dr. Tischendorf states that Basilides, before ».
\ a.d. 138, and Valentinus, about a.d. 140, make use of
three out of four Gospels, the first using John and Luke,
the second, Matthew, Luke, and John. What words of
either Basilides or Valentinus exist anywhere to justify this ,
reckless assertion ? Was Dr. Tischendorf again presuming
’ on the utter ignorance of those who are likely to read his
pamphlet ? The Religious Tract Society are responsible
for Dr. Tischendorf’s allegations, which it is impossible to
support with evidence.
The issue raised is not whether the followers of Basilides
or the followers of Valentinus may have used these gospels,
but whether there is a particle of evidence to justify Dr.
'Tischendorf’s declaration, that Basilides and Valentinus
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
33
themselves used the above-named gospels. That the four
Gospels were well known during the second half of the first
century is what Dr. Tischendorf undertook to prove, and
statements attributed to Basilides and Valentinus, but which ■*
ought to be attributed to their followers, will go but little
way as such proof (see “ Supernatural Religion,” vol. ii., pp
41 to 63).
It is pleasant to find a grain of wheat in the bushel of
Tischendorf chaff. On page 98, and following pages, the
erudite author applies himself to get rid of the testimony of
Papias, which was falsified and put forward by Paley as of
great importance. Paley says the authority of Papias is com- 1
plete; Tischendorf declares that Papias is in error. Paley
says Papias was a hearer of John, Tischendorf says he was /
not. We leave the champions of the two great Christian
evidence-mongers to settle the matter as best they can. If,
however, we are to accept Dr. Tischendorf’s declaration
that the testimony of Papias is worthless, we get rid of the
chief link between Justin Martyr and the apostolic age. It
pleases Dr. Tischendorf to damage Papias, because that
father is silent as to the gospel of John ; but the Religious
Tract Society must not forget that in thus clearing away
<1 the second-hand evidence of Papias, they have cut away
their only pretence for saying that any of the Gospels are
mentioned byname within 150 years of the date claimed for
the birth of Jesus. In referring to the lost work of Theo
philus of Antioch, which Dr. Tischendorf tells us was a
kind of harmony of the Gospels, in which the four narra
tives are moulded and fused into one, the learned Doctor
forgets to tell us that Jerome, whom he quotes as giving I
some account of Theophilus, actually doubted whether the ;
so-called commentary was really from the pen of that
writer. Lardner says : “ Whether those commentaries which »
> St. Jerome quotes were really composed by Theophilus may |
be doubted, since they were unknown to Eusebius, and were ■
observed by Jerome to differ in style and expression from
his other works. However, if they were not his, they were
the work of some anonymous ancient.” But if they were
the work of an anonymous ancient after Eusebius, what be
comes of Dr. Tischendorf’s “ as early as a.d. 170?”
1
Eusebius, who refers to Theophilus, and who speaks of his
using the Apocalypse, would have certainly gladly quoted
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WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN ?
the Bishop of Antioch’s “ Commentary on the Four Gos
pels,” if it had existed in his day. Nor is it true that the
references we have in Jerome to the work attributed to
Theophilus, justify the description given by Dr. Tischendorf,
or even the phrase of Jerome, “gm quatuor Evangelistarum
in unum opus dicta comping ens. ” Theophilus seems, so far
as it is possible to judge, to have occupied himself not with a
connected history of Jesus, or a continuous discourse as to
his doctrines, but rather with mystical and allegorical eluci
dations of occasional passages, which ended, like many pious
commentaries on the Old or New Testament, in leaving the
point dealt with a little less clear with the Theophillian com
mentary than without it. Dr. Tischendorf says that Theo
doret and Eusebius speak of Tatian in the same way—that
is, as though he had, like his Syrian contemporary, composed
a harmony of the four Gospels. This is also inaccurate.
Eusebius talks of Tatianus “having found a certain body
and collection of Gospels, I know not how,” which collection
Eusebius does not appear even to have ever seen; and so far
from the phrase in Theodoret justifying Dr. Tischendorf’s
explanation, it would appear from Theodoret that Tatian’s
Diatessaron was, in fact, a sort of spurious gospel, “The
Gospel of the Four” differing materially from our four
Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Neither
Irenseus, Clement of Alexandria, or Jerome, who refer to
other works of Tatian, make any mention of this. Dr.
Tischendorf might have added that Diapente, or “the
Gospel of the Five,” has also been a title applied to this
work of Tatian.
, In the third chapter of his essay, Dr. Tischendorf refers
/' to apocryphal writings “which bear on their front the names
of Apostles” “used by obscure writers to palm off” their
forgeries. Dr. Tischendorf says that these spurious books
were composed “partly to embellish” scripture narratives,
and “ partly to support false doctrine ; ” and he states that
in early times, the Church was not so well able to distin
guish true gospels from false ones, and that consequently
some of the apocryphal writings “ were given a place they
did not deserve.” This statement of the inability of the
Church to judge correctly, tells as much against the whole,
\ as against any one or more of the early Christian writings,
and as it may be as fatal to the now received gospels as to
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35
those now rejected, it deserves the most careful conside
ration. According to Dr. Tischendorf, Justin Martyr falls
into the category of those of the Church who were “not so
critical in distinguishing the true from the false; ” for Justin,
says Tischendorf, treats the Gospel of St. James and the
Acts of Pilate, each as a fit source whence to derive mate
rials for the life of Jesus, and therefore must have regarded
the Gospel of St. James and the Acts of Pilate, as genuine
and authentic writings; while Dr. Tischendorf, wiser, and a
greater critic than Justin, condemns the Gospel of St. James
as spurious, and calls the Acts of Pilate “a pious fraud ; ”
but if Dr. Tischendorf be correct in his statement that
* “Justin made use of this Gospel” and quotes the “Acts of
Pontius Pilate,” then, according to his own words, Justin
did not know how to distinguish the true from the false,
and the whole force of his evidence previously used by Dr.
Tischendorf in aid of the four Gospels would have been
seriously diminished, even if it had been true, which it
is not, that Justin Martyr had borne any testimony on the
subj’ect.
Such, then, are the weapons, say the Religious Tract
Society, by their champion, “which we employ against un
believing criticism.” And what are these weapons ? We
have shown in the preceding pages, the suppressio veri and
the suggestio falsi are amongst the weapons used. The
Religious Tract Society directors are parties to fabrication
of evidence, and they permit a learned charlatan to forward
the cause of Christ with craft and chicane. But even this
is not enough ; they need, according to their pamphlet, “ a
new weapon; ” they want “to find out the very words the
Apostles used.”
True believers have been in a state of
delusion ; they were credulous enough to fancy that theft
authorised version of the Scriptures tolerably faithfully 1
represented God’s revelation to humankind. But no, says ‘
Dr. Tischendorf, it has been so seriously modified in the
copying and re-copying that it ought to be set aside alto-i
gether, and a fresh text constructed. Glorious news thisk
for the Bible Society. Listen to it, Exeter Hall 1 Glad tidings
to be issued by the Paternoster Row saints 1 After spending
hundreds of thousands of pounds in giving away Bibles to
soldiers, in placing them in hotels and lodging-houses, and
shipping them off to negroes and savages, it appears that
�36
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
| the wrong text has been sent through the world, the true
version being all the time in a waste-paper heap at Mount
Sinai, watched over by an “invisible eye.” But, adds Dr.
| Tischendorf, “if you ask me whether any popular version
contains the original text, my answer is Yes and No. I
say Yes as far as concerns your soul’s salvation.” If these
are enough for the soul’s salvation, why try to improve the
matter? If we really need the “full and clear light” of
the Sinaitic Bible to show us “ what is the Word written
by God,” then most certainly our present Bible is not
believed by the Religious Tract Society to be the Word
written by God. The Christian advocates are in this
I dilemma : either the received text is insufficient, or the pro* posed improvement is unnecessary. Dr. Tischendorf says
( that “ The Gospels, like the only begotten of the Father,
will endure as long as human nature itself,” yet he says
“ there is a great diversity among the texts,” and that
the Gospel in use amongst the Ebionites and that used
’^amongst the Nazarenes have been “ disfigured here and
there with certain arbitrary changes.” He admits, more1 over, that “ in early times, when the Church was not so
critical in distinguishing the true from the false,” spurious
Gospels obtained a credit which they did not deserve. And
- while arguing for the enduring character of the Gospel, he
requests you to set aside the received text altogether, and to
try to construct a new revelation by the aid of Dr. Tischendorf’s patent Sinaitic invention.
We congratulate the Religious Tract Society upon their
manifesto, and on the victory it secures them over German
Rationalism and English Infidelity. The Society’s trans
lator, in his introductory remarks, declares that “ circum
stantial evidence when complete, and when every link in
the chain has been thoroughly tested, is as strong as direct
testimony; ” and, adds the Society’s penman, “ This is the
kind of evidence which Dr. Tischendorf brings for the
genuineness of our Gospels.” It would be difficult to
imagine a more inaccurate description of Dr. Tischendorf’s
work. Do we find the circumstantial evidence carefully
tested in the Doctor’s boasting and curious narrative of his
journeys commenced on a pecuniary deficiency and culmi
nating in much cash ? Do we find it in Dr. Tischendorf’s
concealment for fifteen years of the place, watched over by
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
37
an invisible eye, in which was hidden the greatest biblical
treasure in the world ? Is the circumstantial evidence
shown in the sneers at Renan ? or is each link in the chain
tested by the strange jumbling together of names and con
jectures in the first chapter ? What tests are used in the
cases of Valentinus and Basilides in the second chapter?
How is the circumstantial testimony aided by the references
in the third chapter to the Apocryphal Gospels? Is there
a pretence even of critical testing in the chapter devoted to
the apostolic fathers ? All that Dr. Tischendorf has done
is in effect to declare that our authorised version of the New
Testament is so unreliable, that it ought to be got rid of
altogether, and a new text constructed. And this declara
tion is circulated by the Religious Tract Society, which
sends the sixpenny edition of the Gospel with one hand,
and in the other the shilling Tischendorf pamphlet, declaring
that many passages of the Religious Tract Society’s New
Testament have undergone such serious modifications of
meaning as to leave us in painful uncertainty as to what
was originally written.
The very latest contribution from orthodox sources to the
study of the Gospels, as contained in the authorised version,
is to be found in the very candid preface to the recentlyissued revised version of the New Testament, where the
ordinary Bible receives a condemnation of the most sweeping
description. Here, on the high authority of the revisers,
we are told that, with regard to the Greek text, the trans
lators of the authorised version had for their guides “manu
scripts of late date, few in number and used with little
critical skill.” The revisers add what Freethinkers have
long maintained, and have been denounced from pulpits for
maintaining, viz., “ that the commonly received text needed
thorough revision,” and, what is even more important,
they candidly avow that “it is but recently that materials
have been acquired for executing such a work with even
approximate completeness.” So that not only “ God’s
Word” has admittedly for generations not been “God’s
Word ” at all, but even now, and with materials not formerly
known, it has only been revised with “ approximate com
pleteness,” whatever those two words may mean. If they
have any significance at all, they must convey the belief of
the new and at present final revisers of the Gospel, that, even
�38
WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
after all their toil, they are not quite sure that god’s reve
lation is quite exactly rendered into English. So far as the
ordinary authorised version of the New Testament goes—
i and it is this, the law-recognised, version which is still used
in administering oaths—we are told that the old translators
“used considerable freedom,” and “ studiously adopted a
variety of expressions which would now be deemed hardly con
sistent with the requirements of faithful translation.” This
I is a pleasant euphemism, but a real and direct charge of dis
honest translation by the authorised translators. The new
revisers add, with sadness, that “ it cannot be doubted that
they (the translators of the authorised version) carried this
liberty too far, and that the studied avoidance of uniformity
in the rendering of the same words, even when occurring in
the same context, is one of the blemishes of their work.”
These blemishes the new revisers think were increased by
the fact that the translation of the authorised version of the
New Testament was assigned to two separate companies, who
never sat together, which “ was beyond doubt the cause of
many inconsistencies,” and, although there was a final super
vision’, the new revisers add, most mournfully : “ When it
is remembered that the supervision was completed in nine
months, we may wonder that the incongruities which remain
are not more numerous.”
Nor are the revisers by any means free from doubt and
misgiving on their own work. They had the “ laborious
task ” of “ deciding between the rival claims of various
readings which might properly affect the translation,” and,
as they tell us, “ Textual criticism, as applied to the Greek
New Testament, forms a special study of much intricacy and’
difficulty, and even now leaves room for considerable variety
of opinion among competent critics.” Next they say: “ the
■ frequent inconsistencies in the authorised version have caused
| us much embarrassment,” and that there are “ numerous
passages in the authorised version in which .... the
studied variety adopted by the Translators of 1611 has pro
duced a degree of inconsistency that cannot be reconciled
with the principle of faithfulness.” So little are the new
revisers always certain as to what god means that they
provide “alternative readings in difficult or debateable
passages,” and say “ the notes of this last group are
numerous and largely in excess of those which were ad
�WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?
39
mitted by our predecessors.” And with reference to the
pronouns and other words in italics we are told that “ some
of these cases .... are of singular intricacy, and make
it impossible to maintain rigid uniformity.” The new
revisers conclude by declaring that “ through our manifold
experience of its abounding difficulties we have felt more
and more as we went onward that such a work can never be
accomplished by organised efforts of scholarship and criticism
unless assisted by divine help.” Apparently the new revisers r
are conscious that they did not receive this divine help in
their attempt at revision, for they go on: “We know full H
well that defects must have their place in a work so long and
so arduous as this which has now come to an end. Blemishes
and imperfections there are in the noble translation which 11
we have been called upon to revise ; blemishes and imper- ‘
fections will assuredly be found in our own revision; . .
. . we cannot forget how often we have failed in express- I
ing some finer shade of meaning which we recognised in the
original, how often idiom has stood in the way of a perfect
rendering, and how often the attempt to preserve a familiar
form of words, or even a familiar cadence, has only added ,
I another perplexity to those which have already beset us.”
J
THE END.
��
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When were our gospels written?
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Edition: 4th ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 39 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Annotations in pencil. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
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1881
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Bible
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Bible. N.T. Gospels
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCrr?nr,v
ZZ/A OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT EXAMINED.
THE
SUBJECT OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.
JULIAN,
Author of “ The Popular Faith Exposed," “Bible Words: Human,
not Divine," “ The Pillars of the Church," Etc.
ISSUED FOR THE
London:
WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET St.
Price One Penny.
�OUR PROPAGANDIST PRESS COMMITTEE.
This Committee is formed for the purpose of assisting in the pro
duction and circulation of liberal publications.
The members of the Committee are Mr. G. J. Holyoake, Dr.
Bithell, Mr. F. J. Gould, Mr. Frederick Millar, and Mr. Charles
A. Watts.
It is thought that the most efficient means of spreading the prin
ciples of Rationalism is that of books and pamphlets. Many will
read a pamphlet who would never dream of visiting a lecture hall.
At the quiet fireside arguments strike home which might be dissi
pated by the excitement of a public debate. The lecturer wins his
thousands, the penman his tens of thousands.
The aim of the various writers is to obtain converts by per
suasiveness rather than undue hostility towards the popular creeds.
The author of each pamphlet is alone responsible for the state
ments contained therein.
All who are in sympathy with the movement are earnestly re
quested to contribute towards the expenses as liberally as their
means will allow. The names of donors will not be published
without their consent.
Contributions should be forwarded to Mr. Charles A. Watts,
17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C. Cheques should
be crossed “ Central Bank uf London, Blackfriars Branch.”
PUBLICATIONS ISSUED FOR THE COMMITTEE BY
MESSRS. WATTS & CO.
Agnostic Problems. Being an Examination of Some Questions
of the Deepest Interest, as Viewed from the Agnostic Standpoint.
By R. Bithell, B.Sc. Ph.D. Cheap Popular Edition, cloth, 2s. 6d.
post free.
_____
id. each, by post ij£d.,
Agnosticism and Immortality. By S. Laing, author of “ Modern
Science and Modern Thought,” etc.
Humanity and Dogma. By Amos Waters.
What the Old Testament Says About Itself. By Julian.
The Old Testament Unhistoric and Unscientific. By Julian.
The Four Gospels. By Julian.
The Subject of the Four Gospels. By Julian.
LIBERTY OF BEQUESTS COMMITTEE.
This Committee is formed for procuring the passing of a law
legalising bequests for Secular and Free Thought purposes.
Subscriptions in furtherance of the object of this Committee may
be sent to Mr. George Anderson, Hon. Treasurer, 35a, Great
George Street, London, S.W.
�6
IS’
Part IV.
THE SUBJECT OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.
In the former paper we dwelt on the books called
“ Gospels,” and showed them to be unworthy of credit;
we will now take up the subject of the main character,
Jesus, and show why the memoirs cannot be historically
true.
The Birth of Jesus.—Fortunately, both Matthew and
Luke have given us particulars of the birth of Jesus,
which may be tested : so that we are not left without
data. Matthew informs us that when Jesus was born
in Bethlehem, in the days of Herod the King, there
came wise men (Magi) from the East to Jerusalem,
saying, Where is he that is born—King of the Jews—
for we have seen his star in the East, and are come to
worship him ?
After the murder of Julius Caesar, Antony constituted
his friend Herod “ King of Judea.” This was b.c. 40.
He reigned somewhat less than 37 years, and died at
the age of 70, b.c. 4. Towards the close of his life he
suffered much from ulceration of the bowels, and, being
ordered by his physicians to try the warm baths of
Callirhoe, he was absent from Jerusalem about two
years, and died at Jericho, on his way home; so that he
was not in Jerusalem at all after B.c. 6. If, therefore,
the Magi had an interview with him, it must have been
before he started for Callirhoe—that is, before b.c. 6.
Now look what Luke says. He tells us that Jesus
was born at Bethlehem when Cyrenius was governor of
Judaea and Augustus Emperor of Rome. Cyrenius, or
Quirinus, was pro-consul of Syria a.d. 5-14, and
Augustus died a.d. 5 ; so that the birth of Jesus, accord
ing to Luke, was a.d. 5. According to Matthew, it was
�44
THE old and new testament examined.
b.c. 6 or 7, a difference of eleven or twelve years. As
both these writers were guided into all truth by the Holy
Ghost, I must leave it to that unerring authority to re
concile these two accounts. We, who are guided by
common sense, cannot see how 6 or 7 b.c. is the same
date as a.d. 5 or 6.
But there is just another little difficulty : how came
Mary and Joseph to be wandering about Bethlehem for
two years ? They lived in Galilee, went to Bethlehem to
be taxed, and, as the caravansary was full, took up their
quarters in an out-house, a kind of cave used occasion
ally as a shed for oxen ; and here Mary was confined.
A new star, we are told, appeared at the time in Persia,
which the Magi, by some occult science, knew to
announce the birth of a child in Judea, destined to
become King of the Jews; but he never was, From
Ispahan to Jerusalem, as a caravan travels, would be
some 1,500 miles over pathless deserts, lofty mountains,
and numberless deviations from a bee-line, or, as we say
in England, “as the crow flies.” Herod himself calcu
lated that the journey would take somewhat less than
two years. What business had Mary and Joseph to be
loitering about this cave for the best part of two years ?
And a child about two years old is not generally swathed
in swaddling-clothes and laid in a manger. Mary was
well enough to go down into Egypt; why on earth did
she not return home ?
See what a host of fabrications hang on this fable.
Jesus could not have been born b.c. 6 or 7, and also a.d. 5.
As Herod was not alive, and was not at Jerusalem, the
Magi could not have had an interview with him, and
there was no slaughter of the Innocents. Mary and
Joseph were not at Bethlehem, nor did they go down
into Egypt.
The Death of Jesus Uncertain.—It has been stated
already that three of the evangelists assure us that Jesus
was crucified after the Pascha ; but one of them insists
that he was “ crucified, dead, and buried ” before that
feast was held. As they all profess to speak what they
did know, and some, at least, assure us they were eye
witnesses of the event, what are we to say ?
Mark tells us that he (Jesus) was crucified at nine
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
45
o’clock in the morning, and at twelve o’clock, or noon
day, an Egyptian darkness covered all the land for three
hours. This could not have been an eclipse, seeing it
was full moon. John tells us that Jesus wras not crucified,
but under examination at twelve o’clock, or mid-day. If
John is right, Mark must be wrong; for he could not
have been three hours on the cross, and there was no
miraculous darkness at the time.
Basilides (110-160) tells us that Christ was not
crucified, but that Simon of Cynene suffered in his
stead.
According to Irenseus, Jesus was about fifty when he
died; but, according to general belief, he was about
thirty-three. Irenaeus, however, seems to be supported
by the remark of the Jews: “Thou art not yet fifty
years old, and hast thou seen Abraham ?” Suppose the
latter to have been the age of Jesus at crucifixion, then,
according to Irenaeus, the crucifixion took place a.d. 50 ;
according to Luke, it took place a.d. 38; according to
Dionysius Exiguus, it was a.d. 33; according to Euse
bius, a.d. 31 ; according to Jerome and Scaliger, a.d. 30;
according to Anger, Bengel, Petavius, Winer, and Usher,
it was a.d. 29 ; according to Ewald, it was a.d. 28 ;
according to Idler, a.d. 23; according to Bunsen, a.d. 18;
and according to Matthew, a.d. 17. A difference hardly
consistent with historic accuracy.
Resurrection and Ascension Uncertain.—As the birth
and death are uncertain, so are the resurrection and
ascension. Matthew tells us it was a general belief
among the Jews, long after the crucifixion, that the dead
body was stolen out of the sepulchre during the night by
some of the disciples. The sepulchre being in a private
garden would render this more feasible; for no doubt
the master, his gardener, and others of his household,
would be allowed a freedom denied to strangers ; and
even soldiers and policemen can shut their eyes for a
consideration. You say it would be a capital offence.
Granted. But hundreds of examples can be quoted
where gaolers have connived at the escape of their
prisoners; and, in this case, all the high officers of
Jerusalem would look over the offence. As for Pilate,
we well know that he was completely under their thumb.
�46
THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT EXAMINED.
Nothing can be a greater proof of this than his giving
up Jesus to death after declaring in open court that he
could find no offence whatever in him. If it be said
that Jesus was seen alive after his crucifixion, the reply
is, Where is the proof that he ever died ? Pilate evidently
thought it most unlikely. He could not have been
fastened to the cross above two hours, according to the
Fourth Gospel; and we are told that criminals often lived
on a cross for several days. If Jesus only swooned,
then his appearance afterwards was by no means wonder
ful. Indubitably what appeared to the disciples was
flesh and blood; for it ate food, was palpable to the
touch, and in every respect resembled the man of
Nazareth so well known.
In regard to the ascension, Matthew omits all men
tion of it. The last twelve verses of Mark, in which it
is mentioned, are interpolated, and are marked as such
in the new version. John says nothing about it, so that
Luke is our only authority for the hypothesis, and the
Gospel of Luke is a mere compilation, voted into the
canonical Scriptures by only a single vote. Elijah’s
voyage through the air was a tale of Jewish mythology;
and the ascension of Jesus was not difficult of credibility.
The Jews believed that God and his angels, as well as
Satan and his imps, held free intercourse with man, so
that coming down from Heaven and coming up from
Hell were common occurrences ; but what is meant by
up and down is not so easy of explanation.
A-W Mentioned by Roman or Other Writers.—As
Judaea was a Roman province belonging to that of Syria,
and had a pro-consul of its own, it must have been filled
with Romans in all the upper walks of society. There
wTere the court and household of Pilate, a goodly army of
Roman soldiers with their officers, the collectors of the
tribute, and other officials almost without number, be
sides the constant intercourse on festival days and for
purposes of commerce. So that any events of unusual
occurrence would get noised abroad, and would spread
like wildfire.
There was no lack of authors in those days—Jewish,
Greek, and Roman, in every line of literature. In fact,
it was the Augustan age of letters. And never since
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
47
the foundation of Rome were authors so numerous—
dramatists, satirists, poets, gossip litterateurs, and so on.
If the wonderful things recorded in the Gospels had
really happened, they must have been known, they must
have been talked about, they must have been referred to,
by some of the literary gossips of the day. Miracles, like
feeding thousands of people with a few small loaves and
fishes, raising the dead to life again, ghosts walking out
of their tombs, miraculous darkness covering all the
land for several hours, earthquakes, mysterious voices
from the clouds, rising through the air into the clouds—
these things are so uncommon, so striking, they must
have formed topics of general conversation, and must
have found place in the literature of the day. It is in
credible that no one, except the four interested partisans,
should ever have referred to them. Yet the writers of
the first century are wholly silent about them. They do
not even mention the name of Jesus. Josephus was a
Jew who actually lived in the country where these things
are said to have occurred; but Josephus alludes not to
them, although he wrote a history of the times. Philo,
Pliny, Justus, etc., have not so much as named the name
of Jesus or of any one of his apostles. None of them
even hint at the marvellous works mentioned in the
Gospels. The omission is so striking, so demonstrative,
that something had to be done to supply it; and accord
ingly, in that uncritical age, when books were not broad
cast over the land as they are now, and forgeries, before
printing was invented, were easy, a purple patch, wholly
cut of character with the rest of the book, was foisted
into the manuscript copy of Josephus; and, if, indeed,
“The Annals of Tacitus” are not altogether a forgery,
a line or two was thrust into them also, as a sort of bythe-by, ten times more suspicious than absolute silence.
Perhaps there is no evidence so incontestable as such
forgeries as these, that the Gospel narratives are not
narratives of current events, but a sort of religious
romance of a much later date.
Of course, it will be said, how can the name of Christ
be accounted for, with such festivals as Christmas Day
and all the rites connected with the Christian religion,
if there is no foundation of truth in the Christian story ?
�48
THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT EXAMINED.
Well, we ourselves have the weekly festivals of Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday; but who
believes in the gods Tuesco, Woden, Thor, Frega, or
Saturn ? We have the annual festivals of January and
March; but who believes in Janus or Mars ? The
Romans teemed with allusions to Romulus: streets were
named after him ; there were knights of Romulus, the
highest of the aristocracy ; there were colleges of Romulian priests; there were numerous festivals and rites
alluding to the supposititious founder; there were serious
histories, hymns, and popular songs ; in fact, Rome is
nothing without Romulus; yet Romulus was a mere
myth; his godfather and virgin mother were mere
myths; his ascent into Heaven is a mere myth ; his
being suckled by a wolf is a mere myth ; his foundation
of a city, his wonderful wars, and his civil institutions
are mere dreams of the imagination. Here, then, is our
answer, and I think it is unanswerable.
If Jesus was the Son of God, his Relationships were
indeed Strange.—We are told that Jesus of Nazareth
had Mary for his mother and the Holy Ghost for his
father, and, furthermore, that he was God, the equal of
God the Father, and that the three persons were insepar
ably one, both before the incarnation and after the
ascension. Assuming this to be true, where does it land
us ? Look :—
1. He must have been his own grandfather, his own
father, and his own son :—his own grandfather, seeing
he was one with God the Father; his own father, seeing
he was one with the Holy Ghost, and his own son,
being the son of God the Father.
2. He was his mother’s father or maker, his mother’s
husband, and his mother’s son :—his mother’s maker,
seeing that by him all things were made, and without
him nothing was made that is made; his mother’s
husband, seeing he is all one with the Holy Ghost; and
his mother’s son, seeing he was the son of Mary.
3. As God, no one could call him to account. As
man, he must be called to account like other men. As
judge, he must judge himself, and number himself with
the goats or sheep.
4. Being one with God, God was one with him. On
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
49
the cross God forsook him. Therefore, on the cross he
forsook himself. It is not easy for a man to jump out
of himself.
5. Being man and God, he was not man, like other
men. Being God and man, he was not God, like God
the Father and God the Spirit. He was, therefore,
neither one with God nor one with man. What, then,
was he ?
6. If, as he asserted, he could have avoided death, he
died of his own free will, and, therefore, was virtually
guilty of his own death. Look. If a man is thrown
into a river, and could swim ashore if he liked, but does
not choose to do so, he is guilty of felo de se, morally, if
not legally. And if Jesus could have saved his life if he
liked, but did not choose to do so, morally he was guilty
of his own death ; and so the Bible teaches, “ I lay
down my life of myself. I have power to lay it down
or not.” The case is not the same as that of a patriot
dying in battle, or a martyr dying for his faith-sake. A
patriot does not go into battle for the sake of dying, but
risks his life out of love for his country, and loses it. A
martyr does not believe for the sake of being burnt to
death, but suffers death rather than live a living lie. The
cases are not at all parallel. Jesus, we are told, went
into battle with prepense to die. He was a martyr for
the sake of being a martyr. A condition very different.
TW Fall, no Redemption.—However, when all is said,
we must remember that the whole story of Jesus, from
beginning to end, is inextricably connected with Eve and
the Forbidden Fruit. This myth has already been
alluded to in a previous chapter, but cannot wholly
be ignored in this connection.
No one can really
believe that extremely foolish and illogical story about
the Fall to be sober history. It is such a mass of
confusion and contradiction, such a Pelion upon Ossa
of injustice, that it will not bear the slightest examina
tion. A talking serpent chatting familiarly with a young
woman, as a gossip, is the first absurdity. Then the
serpent was no serpent at all, because it did not creep
on the ground till after the fall; and, if not a creeping
thing (serpens), it was no serpent. Nor was it, for it
was the Devil in masquerade. The Devil pretended to
�5°
THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT EXAMINED.
be a serpent before there was such a reptile as a serpent,
and, because the Devil chose to assume this form and
fashion, the whole ophidian order were deprived of feet.
It is too ridiculous. Because the Devil assumed a false
character, the Devil was not punished, but serpents,
who had no more to do with it than the North Star.
Eve believed the lying fiend; and, therefore, you and I,
born thousands of years afterwards, are tainted with
original sin. It is monstrous. Six thousand years ago
a. man named Adam ate sour graspes; and, therefore,
your teeth and mine are set on edge. Because the Devil
deluded a young woman, therefore it was absolutely
necessary for God to become man that he might be put
to death. Why, how is it that God did not break the
neck of the lying fiend ? He was able to cast him out
of Heaven, and surely he might have flung him neckand-crop out of the garden. Had he no will to crush
sin in the bud ? Why did he let Satan drive Adam and
Eve out of Paradise, bring a flood of waters on the earth
to destroy it, drag God’s only and well-beloved son out
of Heaven to be nailed to the cross as a malefactor,
when, by a single word, he might have prevented all this
iniquity, misery, and death? It cannot be! No, it
cannot be ' It is too revolting, too absurd. Yet, if not
true—true every inch of it—the story of Jesus falls to
the ground. The two stories hang on one thread. If
one falls, both fall. Jesus may have lived, he may have
been the wisest and best of the sons of men; but, if
there was no Fall, there was no Redemption, and Church
“ orthodoxy ” is the grossest of all heterodoxies. There
is no middle path. If the tale of the talking serpent is
a myth—and it cannot be otherwise—the tale of the Re
demption is a myth also. If there was no Paradise Lost,
there was no Paradise Regained.
The Prevailing Opinion of the First Five Centuries
was “Arian"—-What is now called Arianism for the
sake of brevity was undoubtedly the prevailing faith of
the first four centuries; and the first three Gospels favour
this view of the “man Christ Jesus” far more than the
subsequent one maintained by Athanasius. The space
at my disposal is too short to enter upon a detailed proof
of this subject; but, to the best of my knowledge, it
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
51
has never been denied that the Church of Pella, presided
over first by James, and afterwards by Simon or Simeon,
was, to all intents and purposes, in sympathy with the
views afterwards set forth by the presbyter Arius.
The great contest between the manhood and divinity
of Jesus pervaded the third and fourth centuries, but
ran on, though less severely, for ages before and after
wards. Dr. Harold Browne tells us that the voice of the
Church is final on all points of discipline and doctrine.
Well, it may be so ; but the voice is most uncertain. In
360 the Council of Ariminum, convened by the Emperor
Constantius, condemned Arianism; but in 484 the
Council of Carthage confirmed the doctrines held by
Arius, and exiled all the bishops who entertained any
other religious views.
Before these two councils, the great Council of Nicaea,
in 325, had decreed Arius to be a “pernicious heretic,”
and put forth this loud protest: “ The Catholic and
Apostolic Church anathematises all who say that there
ever was a time when the Son did not exist.” And
it goes on to curse “ all and any who believe the Son
had no existence prior to his birth in Bethlehem, or that
he was created out of nothing, or that say he was
of another substance to the Father, or that he was
capable of change.” As, however, the father must be
prior to the son, I fear this “ voice ” is vox et praterea
nihil. And, as Jesus changed from God to a compound
of God and man, grew in grace as well as in stature, and
returned to Heaven an imponderable body, I cannot see
how any one is to escape the anathema maranatha of
Nicaea.
Notwithstanding these bellowings from Nicaea, the
Church of Constantinople dared to convene three
Councils (one in 336, another in 339, and a third in 360),
all of which gave the lie direct to the judgment of Nicaea,
and pronounced the views of Arius to be alone orthodox,
scriptural, and true. Which was the “ voice of the
Church”—the packed Council of Nicaea, called expressly
to condemn Arius, or the three subsequent Councils of
Constantinople ?
No doubt Carthage and Constantinople were infinitely
more important places than Nicaea in Asia Minor, and
�52
THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT EXAMINED.
Rimini in Italy. They were the chief cities of the civi
lised world—the London and Berlin of the time. They
would command all the learning and scholarship of the
world. The voice of the Church, spoken at Nicsea and
Rimini, declared Arius to be a spawn of the Devil. The
voice of the Church, spoken at Carthage and Constan
tinople, declared him the expositor of truth. The former
repudiated the Arian bishops, the latter dismissed
Athanasius and his followers.
The contest still ran on. In 403 the Council of Arles
condemned Athanasius as “ a pestilent fellow,” no better
than Simon Magus, if indeed so good. Other Councils
followed, and swore that the voice of the Church uttered
at Arles was the voice of the “ father of lies.” As all
Councils were composed of Church dignitaries and leaders
of the laity, it is not a little perplexing to know which
is which; but of one thing we may be quite sure, that
the voice of truth is always one and the same: 11 Discute,
quod audias, omne ; quod credas, froba.”
The “Logici ” of Jesus.—We are constantly told that
the words spoken by Jesus were so wise, so beyond the
reach of human genius, that never man did speak, or
could speak, as he did, and, therefore, he must have
been divine. I candidly confess I cannot call to mind
a single sentence to justify this laudation.
I suppose the most characteristic “ logia ” were those
in the Sermon on the Mount; but how utterly impractic
able are many of those precepts; and, if carried out,
how utterly would society be subverted 1 The reference
to the “lilies of the field ” is very pretty; but the lesson
taught is practically absurd. I think it is Paul who
says : “ If any provide not for his own, he is worse than
an infidel;” but in the Sermon on the Mount it is:
“Take no thought of the morrow;” “Lay not up
treasures on earth.” Sufficient for the day are provisions
for the day. Fathers, do not lay up for your children ; do
not provide for their education and for placing them in
life. Mothers, lay up no store in your larders. Begin
each day with an empty purse and empty larder, like
sparrows and lilies; for you cannot make yourself an
inch taller by trying ever so hard. Very true ; but this
does not bear upon the question. You might just as
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
53
well say, Do not buy a loaf of bread for to-morrow, or
put a shilling in the saving’s bank, because you cannot
make a sun or moon, or add a cubit to an oa.k tree. It
is a non sequitur, and very foolish. God will provide,
says the preacher ; but he does not. Starving hundreds
is the proof. If man does not provide, there is no hope
for him. I do not think the provision of sparrows has
much to do with the question ; for it would apply to rats,
bugs, and all other vermin, the pests of the earth. How
far garbage is a provision by God for rats is a long ques
tion ; but I am quite sure all that is said about the
growth of the lilies will apply to nettles and poisonous
weeds; though perhaps it would not be so pastoral.to
say, Behold the choking weeds of a corn-field, which
smother the good seed ; God provided them with their
proper sustenance. Behold the vermin which annoy our
warehouses and devour our corn—the bugs, the fleas,
and the ticks—God provided them their food. This is
less pretty, but just as true.
See what a wretched fallacy is this thriftless teaching.
“ Go to the ant, and learn of him.” No, no, Solomon 1
Lay up no store at all. If this precept were acted on,
there could be no progress, no commerce, no little nestegg to help our children to settle in life. The world
would be a world of beggars, incapable of helping each
other. Would this banish care? If a mother knew
not how to provide the next meal——if a father had
neither house nor home, nor penny in his pocket, nor
means of living, would he be free from care ? I trow
not. He would be devoured with anxiety, worried to
death; paralysed in hope, without energy, without
stimulus to exertion, without motive of improvement.
A terrible, terrible world would this be then. It is bad
enough now; but it would be all workhouse then, with
no one to pay the piper.
Of the same impracticable character is that direction :
“ Sell all thou hast and give unto the poor, and thou
shalt have treasure in Heaven.” If so, Heaven is not
the award of faith, but the reward of alms-giving. Yet
I remember something is said about “ If I give all my
goods to feed the poor, it profiteth me nothing.” Io
carry out this direction would pauperise and paralyse
�54
THE old and new testament examined.
society. Of all the useless lumber that ever lived
hermits were the worst. What good did the pillar
saints do—standing on one foot on the top of a monu
ment for thirty or forty years ? What good did hermits
do by never washing their bodies or changing their linen
or by feeding on roots and garbage far from the sight of
man
Such foolery is a mere travesty of holiness
And I very much doubt whether their reward in Heaven
will equal that of John Howard and Mr. Peabody
I have instanced the unwisdom of the Nazarene in
these few directions ; but his whole teaching from begin
ning to end is wrong. It is intensely Jewish, and never
rises above an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth
Honesty is the best policy ” is the alpha and omega of
the Gospel teaching, if for honesty you substitute creu
Believe in Christ as the Messiah, and great
shall be your reward in Heaven. Holiness has the
promise of the life that now is and of that which is to
come. If you take up your cross now, you shall wear
a crown hereafter. There is not one word about the
dignity of morality, the manliness of benevolence the
self-reward of good action ; it is always policy, selfish
policy, never reaching beyond the little insignificant
circle of “ I myself I.”
. The Teaching of Jesus was that of a Jew.—“ Go not
mto the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the
Samaritans enter ye not ” was the direction of Jesus to
his seventy disciples. Can national exclusiveness go
further. “ I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel ” is a similar dictum. “ It is not meet
to take the children’s bread and cast it unto dogs.” I
maintain there is nothing like universality in such sen
tences as these—no large-heartedness. God is no
respecter of persons, but the equal father of all. It is
Jewish prejudice, Jewish exclusiveness. And even when
it is said, “ Go ye into all nations and teach the gospel
to every creature,” nothing more is meant than this:
Go wherever the Jews are scattered abroad, and tell the
Israel of God what I have taught you.
The Parables and Miracles Objectionable. —But I must
be brief. As the teaching of Jesus is most objection
able, many of his parables and “ miracles ” are not less
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
55
so. The parable of the unjust steward is wretched
morality. The miracle of Cana of Galilee, and the
miracle of the devils driven into the swine, are quite
indefensible. That some fourteen firkins of strong wine
should be supplied to a family party, when all the guests
had “ well drunken,” would make the feast worse than a
Scotch orgie. Say there were fourteen guests, this would
give a firkin apiece. A firkin is nine gallons, or thirtysix quarts. Pretty well that for a sober party well soaked
already. Thirty-six pints of wine for Mary, and thirtysix for her son ! Quite enough, I fancy, for a temper
ance club. But, after all, the most objectionable of the
miracles is the raising of the dead. Take that of
Lazarus, for example, always flourished in our faces as
proof of proofs of the divinity of Christ, but, to my
thinking, a demonstration to the very contrary. Of
course Lazarus was a good man, for Jesus loved him
dearly; and, being such, would go to Paradise imme
diately after death. Was it the part of a benevolent
being to bring him from Paradise to earth again—from
the joys which know no ending to a vale of tears ? In
Paradise he was reaping the reward of the battle of life
well fought, the prize of his high calling; on earth he
was in the thick of the fight once more, and the race
was still to be run. There he could know no sickness ;
here sickness is the birthright of all. There death was
swallowed up in victory; here death is the wages of sin.
Was it the part of a God to call Lazarus from Heaven
to earth ? Jesus, we are told, knew what Heaven was,
and he knew what earth is—a place of grief, sorrow, and
disappointment. Was it the part of a God to bring the
angel from before the throne, to tear from his brow his
golden crown, pluck off his robe of righteousness, and
lay again upon him the cross ? Would you think that
man did a kind act who reduced a prince to the state of
a beggar; who drove him from palace to hovel; severed
him from the wise and good, to herd with fallen men ?
Would it be an act of Divine benevolence to change his
“ pleasures for evermore ” into want and misery ?
If a God, Jesus knew what Heaven is, and he knew
on earth that every man is “ a man of sorrow, acquainted
with grief.” He must have known that no unkinder act
�56
THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT EXAMINED,
could have been done than to call his friend from Para
dise to a sinful world, where the Devil goes about daily
seeking whom he may devour.
It was not only unspeakably unkind, it was infamously
unjust, to put Lazarus on his trial again. He had won
his crown, and ought to have been allowed to wear it;
he had finished his course, and ought not to have been
set another task. Suppose, in his second life, he had
proved a Judas or Barabbas—and truly the injustice
put upon him was enough to wean him from ever trust
ing again to the promises of God—suppose, I say, he
had turned out an outcast, what then ? No 1 no ! He
had changed the Church militant for the Church trium
phant, and had no right to be degraded to the rank and
file again. It was unthinking, cruel, unjust. Such a
God could be no God at all.
A miracle of this sort might have served to display
the power of Jesus might gratify his vanity and love of
popular applause might astound a Jewish mob; but
could only make the thoughtful grieve, and drive those
who trusted in the word of God to utter infidelity.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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The subject of the four gospels
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Julian
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Place of publication: London
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Notes: Date of publication from Cooke, Bill. The blasphemy depot (RPA 2003), Appx. 1. 'Julian' is the pseudonym of Ebenezer Cobham Brewer (1810-1897). Issued for the Propagandist Press Committee. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Bible. N.T. Gospels
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Text
THE VIRGIN BIRTH
AND THE GOSPEL OF THE INFANCY
By C. C. Martindale, S.J.
That Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin is part of
the Catholic faith.1 All admit that the Gospels, in
their present form, assert it (M i16,18'25 and L I34-35 3 23).
The Church has again and again formally declared it,
explaining her assertion as implying not only t1
negative doctrine that Jesus Christ had no h’
father, but that His Mother remained virginHis birth as before it, throughout the
life. No further commentary upon, nor
deductions from, her doctrine does sh£ ' ‘
That the doctrine is untrue was, however
' aa&d
both in ancient and modern times ; and of t/U-i attack
we shall first give an outline.
I
i. Cerinthus (c. ioo), herald of the Judaizing
Gnostics, declared that Jesus was not virgin-born
because (Irenaeus says with simplicity2) “ it seemed to
1 The formula Born of the Virgin Mary recurs in the creeds. Pope
Siricius in 392 approves the condemnation of Bonosus’ assertion that
Mary, virgin at Christ’s birth, bore other children ; Leo I. in 449
dwells, against Eutyches, upon the miracle of a virginity inviolate by
child-bearing; in 539 John II. repeats this, using as normal the title
ever-virgin ; the Lateran Council of 649 proclaims Mary ever-virgin
and immaculate, her virginity persisting indissoluble even after her Son’s
birth, and Toledo XI. (675) expands its stately paradoxes. Paul IV. in
1544 reaffirms against the Socinians that Mary “ever persevered in
integrity of virginity, that is, before the Birth, in it, and after it.” This
tradition is undisputed. Bannwart-Denzinger, Enchiridion, ed. IO,
1908, 2 etc., 86, 91, 144, 202, 256, 282, 993.
2 Adu. Heer., I. xxvi. 2, P.G., 7689 [we shall thus refer to the volume
and column of the Patrologia Grceca (P.L. = Pair. Latina} of Migne].
�2
History and Dogma
him impossible.” Deity could not be sullied by human
contact: the Christ, therefore, or the Spirit, descended
at the Baptism on the son of Joseph and Mary.
So too Carpocrates (y. 125).1 Justin (y. 150) shows
that the modern arguments were, in all essentials,
anticipated.
In Justin’s Dialogue the Jew Trypho attacks the Virgin Birth :
Isaiah’s famous prophecy,2 he argues, is mistranslated: the
Hebrew ’•almah means “young woman” (so Theod., Aq.), not
“virgin” (LXX.). The promise was fulfilled in Hezekiah(7VW.,67).
A pre-existent Christ, born in time, is “ disconcerting prap^o^ :
contrary to (general) expectation ?] and indeed nonsense ” (48).
In short, “do not dare,” he says, “to tell fairy tales, lest
you be proved as frivolous as the Greeks’’—referring to the
hero-births to which Justin, as an argumentum adhominem, had
compared (in 1 Apol., 54: 6409) Christ’s.3
Origen puts into the mouth of Celsus (r. 180)
language which many a modern rationalist would not
disavow.
The Isaian prophecy is denied (r. Cels., i. 34); hero
births (e.g. Plato’s) alleged (c. 37); and especially the
blasphemy, already current, that Jesus was born of
Mary and Panthera—a legend which in some shape
or other survived for centuries.4 To refer to this, says
Origen, is mere ribaldry (c. 32, 37 : 1 1719,733).
But Jerome’s controversy with Helvidius (who
denied Mary’s perpetual virginity, c. 383) is even
more striking. Helvidius argues as follows :—
Mary is Joseph’s “espoused wife”; destined, therefore, to
full wedlock. Mi18 implies that in time the marriage was con1 For the Ebionites, infr., p. 5, n. 2.
2 714: Ecce uirgo concipiet Vulgate ; lSoi> yirapOevos LXX. ;. . . veavis
Theodotion, Aquila.
3 P.G., 6629- 58°. Cf. Irenaeus’ opponents, 7943, etc. A few Gentile
converts believed Christ of human parentage. Ir., 6381; cf. Orig. in
Mt. xvi. 12 : I3141S. They were formally disapproved.
4 Panthera (or Pandera): the name is genuine and not an anagram
(Deissmann, Noldeke): usually represented as a centurion. The story is
highly involved, and may be connected with pre-Christian legend. It
is taken up in the Talmud, reappears in the thirteenth-century pamphlet
Toledoth fesu, and in modern literature of a scurrilous description.
See Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash, pp. 35, 348;
Lagrange, Messianisme chez les fuifs, p. 288, 1909,
�The Virgin Birth
3
summated (c. 3). Joseph knew her not until she brought forth
her first-born ; he did so, therefore, afterwards (c. 5), and she
had later sons (c. 9). Indeed, the Gospels speak of Jesus’
brethren (c. 11). Finally, virginity is no holier than wedlock
(c. 18): P.L., 23185- 189, 1921 202. The arguments adduced in the
controversy with Jovinianus, c. 385, and by Ambrose against
Bonosus, c. 390 (De institutions uirginum, c. 5 : 16314) add
nothing new.
2. The modern attack 1 begins with Voltaire, and
takes definite form first in the system which deals
with the Gospels as with historical or poetical “ myths,”
according as it conceives the objective, historical facts
to have been distorted by the author’s tendency to
account supernaturally for natural events, or at least
to idealize them.2 Genuine “ myth ”—the dressingup of a doctrine in historical guise, though no, or
barely any, objective fact corresponding to the
tale exist at all—is the system of D. F. Strauss’ Life
(1838).3 Popular feeling, individual writers, moulded
the myth round the memory of a man who may not
even have existed. Gradually the legend grew—and
here the system profited by Chr. Baur’s new theory,
that the Gospels were but second-century productions.
Not only had an O.T. “ Messiah-myth ” long been in
existence, and needed but to be applied to a popular
name; but a century and more was to elapse, during
which it might grow into the full, familiar Gospel.
Thus, it was foretold Messiah should be born at
Bethlehem, and work miracles. Jesus, therefore, must
have been born there, and shall be credited with miracles.
The Shepherds, the Magi, are complementary stories
picturing the universality of His influence.
He
dies, but this influence survives, indestructible ; His
1 Cf Durand, D Enfance de Jesus-Christ, Paris, 1908 (Engl, tr.,
Philadelphia, 1910), c. 3, p. 35. We warmly recommend this little
book, to which we are throughout deeply indebted.
2 Cf, e.g., Gottlob Paulus, Leben Jesu, 1828. The application of his
method is often clumsy—angelic apparitions he explains as dreams;
Gabriel, as a flesh-and-blood adventurer.
3 Thus, “Jesus denounces the spiritually barren synagogue. This may
be fact. He describes it as a barren, withered fig-tree. This is parable.
Soon the myth grows up that He cursed and shrivelled a real fig-tree.”
�4
History and Dogma
name is exalted—that is, He is risen and ascended.
Historically, a virgin birth, a resurrection, are false;
“ religiously,” they are eternally true.—Now that Baur’s
theory is universally abandoned, literary criticism
dissects the Gospel texts, assigning to “ editors,”
or interpolation, the passages teaching the Virgin
Birth. Thus, the “ original ” genealogy in Matthew
made Joseph the father of Jesus;1 in the “ earliest ”
form of Luke I, verses 34-35 were missing;2 and the
theories are many and complicated—too much so for
M. Loisy, who allows the Gospels to be no patchwork :
the Evangelists wrote what we read and meant what
we believe, but only because the “ faith ” of even that
early date dictated this.3
To this “faith” Prof. O. Pfleiderer assigned 4 three stages : first,
men felt that Jesus was the Saviour-Messiah—was made God’s
“ Son ” by adoption, at the Resurrection or else at the Baptism.
So Mark ; so the earlier parts of Acts and of Paul. But afterwards
Paul remembered the Rabbinic notion of the ideal Man, the pre
existent Image and “ Son ” of God—he it was who revealed
himself in flesh ; while John, under the spell of Alexandrian
theosophy, acknowledges a genuine “incarnation” of the Word.
But though Jesus was thus morally and metaphysically “ Son of
God,” neither Synoptists, nor Paul, nor John felt this to conflict
with His purely human descent. A virgin birth is not yet above
the horizon. Quite late, in the second century, it was asked,
If He be Son of God, why give Him a human father? Heroes,
born of gods and women, abounded in mythology. A synthesis
was made : physically, too, Jesus should be God’s Son, and His
mother, a virgin. The Gospels were then “emended” at the
bidding of this now completed “ faith.”5
We propose succinctly to consider the authenticity
of the Gospel “ Infancy ” record, especially in view of
1 Schmiedel, Biblical Encycl., iii, 2962 ; infr., p. 13.
2 Cf. Harnack, Hist, of Dogma, vol. i. p. 100, n. 1, Engl, tr., 1897 ;
infr., p. 6.
3 A. Loisy, L' fa-vangile et Ffaglise, ed. 2, 1903, p. 31.
4 Das Christusbild des urchristlichen Glaubens, 1903.
5 See Cheyne’s Biblical Encyl., art. Mary, Nativity, etc.; and
F. C. Conybeare, the Standard, nth May 1905, for examples of popular
sentiment. The Declaration on Biblical Criticism by 1725 Anglican
Clergymen, ed. H. Handley, 1906, asks that the historicity of the
narrative of Christ’s conception be kept an open question.
�The Virgin Birth
5
early Christian belief, and in relation to the rest of
the New Testament, with, which it is considered to
conflict: we shall examine a few particular points on
which Matthew and Luke are said to contradict them
selves, or one another, or to be intrinsically at fault;
finally, we shall discuss the sources given as those of
the Infancy narrative by those who do not believe it
reposes upon fact.
II
It is said, first, that the Gospels, as they stand, give
us no true presentment of the facts. The text has
been tampered with.1 We hear :—
(i.) (a) The Ebionites’2 copy of Matthew began
only at c. 3, the Mission of the Baptist.—But we
know this only from Epiphanius ;3 if then we accept
it, we must also accept his statement (ibi) that they
had struck off cc. 1 and 2 in the interests of their
heresy. He also says (zb.) that the Nazarene Ebionites
used the full text, as did the early heretics Cerinthus
and Carpocrates.4 So there is no extrinsic evidence
that Matthew began, originally, with the Mission of
John.
(b) The unity of M’s “ Childhood Gospel ” is only
1 We must here disregard the argument that the Gospels must be
untruthful because they relate miracles, and miracles cannot happen.
Eliminate the miracles, it is suggested, and you will find the historical
substratum of fact. Be that as it may, all we assert, here, is that there
is no evidence of an “original ” Gospel of which ours is a later edition
modified in the interests of the Virgin Birth.
2 A vague name attached to very early heretics of Judaizing tendencies
or (Duchesne, Hist, anc.de VEglise, i. 124) a survival of Judseo-Christians,
in a state of “arrested” development, or retrogression, as to dogma.
Some admitted, some rejected, the Virgin Birth. Origen, c. Cels., v. 6l :
n1277 ; Eus., H.E., iii. 27: 20273. Those rejected it who believed
Jesus to have become Messiah at His baptism. Epiph., Adu. Heer.
I. xxx. 16: 41432.
3 TA, 14.
4 Tatian’s Harmony of the Gospels omits M’s genealogy (as it does
L’s), not because it did not exist, but because Tatian aimed at giving,
not a complete but a continuous account of the contents of the Gospels
(though infr,, p. 13); anyhow, he keeps i18-25, which contain the
Virgin Birth. Though in some MSS. M I18 begins in capital letters,
that may be merely because the genealogy was omitted in public readings.
�6
History and Dogma
artificial. The genealogy originally made Jesus the
son of Joseph, and was clumsily altered by an editor
to fit the Infancy stories, which in their turn were
affixed to the pristine record. This centres wholly
round i16, on which cf. infr., p. 15, n. 3.
(ii.) The internal unity of Luke’s “ Infancy ” seemed,
till recently, obvious to all, and its homogeneity with
the rest of his Gospel to most; though the heretic
Marcion, unable to believe, not, like the Ebionites,
that Jesus had God for His Father, but that He had
a woman for mother, struck out of his text the
whole Infancy record ;1 while Schmiedel2 would, on
the a priori assumption that the earliest Gospel must
have been Ebionite, assign 221'52, where Christ seems
but an ordinary Jewish child, to an ancient document,
while the “supernatural” 1-220 is a later addition.—
But 221 clearly supposes i31—the flow of the chapters
is quite continuous. To put this down to “ editorial
touching up” which conceals original divergences,
and then to tell us what those divergences were, is
perverse.
Prof. Harnack is, however, contented if L i34*35 be suppressed
as interpolated. («) L is consistent in his use of particles. But
here appear 8tJ> (wherefore}, else only in f (which H. considers
doubtful), and «rel (seeing that}, found perhaps nowhere else in
the Third Gospel. But all critical editions keep 8d> in 77; and H.
(who argued thus in 1901) has since (1906) proved Acts to be by
the same author as that Gospel, namely, Luke. But in Acts, Sto
occurs frequently 1—(b} Verses 34-35 are said to break the flow of
the chapter, adding a new and discrepant explanation of the
Child’s origin to that in 31-32. They add to it, granted : they do
not contradict it. Mary’s question, “ How shall this be ?” etc., is
natural enough, when all the circumstances, so far, had been so
strange ; doubly natural if she had resolved to remain a virgin,
as Catholics piously believe.3
1 Iren., Adti. Heer., I. xxvi. 2 : 7s88, III. xii. 12 : zA906 ; Tert., Adv.
Marc., i. 1: 2247, ix. 2 : zA363 ; cf. Plummer, who (Gosp. acc. to St. Luke,
1900, p. lxix.) shows Marcion’s text was mutilated, not ours added to.
2 Encycl. Bibl., iii. 2960.
3 We are told, too, that if Jesus is to be virginally conceived,
Gabriel accredits that greater miracle by quoting a lesser one (the con
ception of John by the aged Elizabeth). —There is here no difficulty.
�The Virgin Bzrth
1
But the Childhood narratives have positive claims
to belief. Luke’s preface (iw) is a revelation of the
writer’s industry, common sense, and real feeling of
a historian’s duty and responsibility.
He seeks
“ eye-witnesses from the beginning ”; he claims to
surpass, in order and accuracy, contemporary ac
counts ; his object is the historical grounding of the
doctrine preached. What were his authorities? Many
have thought, Mary herself.* The whole of this part
1
of Luke is written from her point of view (Matthew,
from Joseph’s). Delicacy of touch, intimacy of detail,
are felt everywhere. Women (to whom Luke, the
physician, will have had easier access) figure much in
his pages, especially those holy persons who were much
in Mary’s company.2 Then the events he records,
though lost sight of in the “ hidden ” thirty years, must
have had some publicity, at any rate. From these and
other sources he may have gained his oral tradition.
Moreover, it is acknowledged that, so markedly Hebraic in
their structure (as contrasted with the rest of his Gospel and the
Acts) are the first three chapters of Luke, both linguistically and in
local colour, so minutely accurate and prolific in details of place,
person, cult,3 that it is practically clear he is here using an
older Hebrew (or Aramaic) document.4 This brings us very close
to the beginnings! Anyhow, that “faith working on history”
In the O.T., Yahweh constantly gives a marvellous sign to guarantee
His future performance of a yet greater thing. And to this the Angel’s
concluding words look forward.—But, Zachary is punished for his
“ How shall I know?” Mary praised for her “How shall this be?”
Surely contradictory ?—No : Mary believes, accepts, asks the “how ” of
what is to be. Zachary hesitates : is he to believe ? How feel sure ?—One thing is clear : Mary never supposes that the promised child will be
Joseph’s {cf. Plummer, adloc.').—Harnack’s contention that this “con
versation” (I34, 35) takes Mary out of her role of “silence” may be
neglected. Of course, it forces him to assign the Magnificat to Elizabeth.
On this, see C.T. S. The Magnificat: Its Author and Meaning, by M. N.
1 So W. Ramsay (ITas Christ born at Bethlehem? 1898, p. 74: we
cordially recommend this excellent book) and others.
2 Sanday, Hastings’ Diet. Bibl., ii. 644.
3 Especially those connected with Zachary (L alone in the N.T. uses
the technical word “course,” I8 : he knows the angel stood “at the
right ” of the incense-altar), Anna, etc.
4 Plummer, op. c., p. 45 ; Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 1898, p. 31.
�8
History and Dogma
should have created this sober, profoundly “ Palestinian ” narra
tive 1 and the canticles in particular,2 is a gratuitous hypothesis.
What pious imagination did create, was a library of “ apocryphal
gospels.” A single page of their insipid anecdotes, gross realisms,
and vulgar wonder-lust convinces us that between them and our
Gospels is the gulf between human and Divine.
As for the story in Matthew, its homogeneity is
generally admitted — each part presupposes what
precedes—and above all, its Palestinian colouring,
its insistence on the fulfilment and applicability of
prophecy, proclaim a Palestinian origin and audience.
Certain details we shall examine below.3*
We have therefore the right to conclude that
Matthew and Luke are homogeneous, authentic docu
ments, intrinsically intact. There is no evidence from
tradition or even legend that they were added to or
interpolated. On the contrary, we know that those
who tampered with them did so to excise, not to
expand, in favour of their own theories. And we
urge that those who, by internal, literary criticism,
1 Lepin, Jdsus Messie, etc., 1906, p. 62; Rose, 5. Luc, 1904, P2 On their “ essentially Hebraic and pre-Christian character,” to
gether with their exclusive appropriateness to the occasion to which L
assigns their utterance, see Durand, pp. 158-165, and the references
in note 1 there. L may have cast the traditional sentiments into shape :
scarcely, have adapted older Jewish, or even Christian, liturgical
hymns. For the special question of the Enrolment, and of the reputed
pagan origins of this story, cf. infr., p. 17.
3 P. 19. It is said, we saw, that the phrase, “he knew her not until
shehad brought forth her [first-born: omitted by excellent MSS.; probably
a gloss from L 27] son,” implies that Mary lived afterwards with Joseph.
—It need not do so (in Hebrew idiom, what is denied until an event is
not thereby asserted as happening after it; cf. M 2820, 1 Co 1528, Ps 1223,
already quoted by Jerome, 23189); and must not be so interpreted, if it
clash thus with other evidence. — “ Her first-born son,” L 27, is taken
as implying that Mary had other children.—Again, it need not, and in
these circumstances must not, be so taken. “ First-born,” to a Jew,
connoted, not later births, but the privileges legally due to one who
“ opened the womb.” L looks only to the typical value of the word as
applied to the Eldest-born, the heir of Yahweh’s promises. So Israel
is constantly called, in O.T., Yahweh’s first-born, without implying in
the least that the other nations were His later born. That M and
L freely speak of the “brethren” of Jesus, and L of Joseph as His
father, e.g. 2®, is psychologically true and no contradiction. So do the
apocryphal Gospels, which insist violently on Mary’s virginity.
�The Virgin Birth
9
affirm that they detect joints and rivets in the text,
have no right to do so: only a conviction that the
doctrine of the Virgin Birth must be a late develop
ment, while it is agreed that the Gospels are fairly
early, can account for the discovery of reasons for
the excision of those passages in which that doctrine
is mentioned.
Ill
But Mark (whose Gospel is now considered by
nearly all to be the earliest of the Synoptists, and
indeed was probably treated by Matthew as the
nucleus of his own work), Mark, we are told, knows
nothing of the Virgin Birth, though he must have
known it had it been believed in his day, and must
have mentioned it had he known it. Paul ignores
this dogma, and indeed virtually denies it, holding
Jesus to be God’s “ Son ” because adopted by the
Father. John ignores it no less, explaining Christ’s
relation to the Father in terms of Alexandrian Logosdoctrine. Do not Matthew, then, and Luke clash
with Mark, Paul, and John ? Do we not see the
legend, with our own eyes, springing up, late, and on
Palestinian soil ?
(i.) The Gospels reflect what was currently preached,
not necessarily everything that was actually believed;
for all will grant that the articles of the faith were
not at first preached with equal emphasis or publicity.
Mark reflects this earlier preaching with accuracy.
The claim of Jesus to be Messiah, Teacher and Saviour
of men ; His ransoming death and victorious resurrec
tion ; His foundation of a Church, and the minimum
of discipline conditioning membership—this is preached
in the Acts, and Mark’s Gospel supplies a more than
sufficient historical background thereto. But none of
this presupposes, or flows from, the Virgin Birth.1
1 It cannot too emphatically be recalled that Jesus is not Son of God
because He is virgin-born ; nor does pre-existence necessitate virgin
birth. This misconception pervades and stultifies most of the theological
argument of Lobstein’s Virgin Birth of Christ (Eng. tr.), 1903, e.g.
I
2
�IO
History and Dogma
Jesus Himself but gradually unfolded His doctrine,
starting from Jewish beliefs which He was to tran
scend and transform. There was much His hearers
“ could not bear ” at first. And sheer consideration for
Mary’s feelings will have precluded too public a preach
ing of this exquisitely delicate event in her lifetime.1
(ii.) As for the “silence of John,” and indeed his
“substitution” of the Incarnation of the Logos for
the Virgin Birth as explanation of the Divine Sonship
of Jesus, we briefly say: (a) His doctrine does not
exclude that of the Virgin Birth ; indeed, (£) it in a
sense involves it, for apparently the Churches of Asia,
at anyrate, linked the Divinity and Virgin Birth more
closely together than modern theology would.2 And
{c) John, who certainly knew Matthew and Luke,
and wrote his Gospel almost entirely to assert the true
doctrine of the Divinity of Christ, would surely have
contradicted them had he thought them wrong.3
p. 88. A necessary connection between the Divinity and the Virgin
Birth, he says (p. 89), “is the official theology in all Christian confes
sions.” That is not so.
1 Mk’s phrase “son of Mary,” 63, when M, L, and J freely speak
of Joseph as “father” of Jesus, and his insistence on the title “Son
of God,” may hint that he (not having related the Birth) took special
care to use unambiguous language (V. M'Nabb, O.P., “ Mk’s Witness
to the V. Birth, ” Journal Theol. Studies, April 1907, p. 448). Anyhow,
the incident in 321-31 does not prove that his Mary is ignorant of the
nature and destiny of her Son. It is argued that 321’31 go closely
together: Mary joins with the relatives (? friends? neighbours?) who
kept saying (or was it the crowd!} that Jesus was mad (? “ beside him
self,” i.e. an enthusiast?). This interpretation is violent and against
tradition. Mary’s anxiety, and wonder, and gradual realization of the
future {cf. L 250, “and they understood not”) are no stumbling-block to
us. “ Christ’s Mother, supernaturally informed in detail of all that was
to happen in her Son’s life, and assisting unmoved at its accomplishment,
would be a character worthy only of the apocryphal gospels ” (Durand,
op. c., 105). Cf. Vasssall Phillips, Mr Conybeare on Mk. 321, Lk. 11 ,
Oxford, 1910.
2 Gore, Dissertations on the Incarnation, 1896, p. 8.
3 A. Carr, Expositor, April 1907, p. 311 ; Expos. Times, 1907, xviii.
521. If. B, the very probable reading, I13, “who not of blood, nor of
the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God was born”
(eyewf)9-n : natus est), which excludes a human parentage for Christ.
Authorities in Durand, op. c., p. 107, n. I ; Tertull., De Came Chr.,
19, 24 : 2784-791, is explicit.
�The Virgin Birth
II
(iii.) But does not Paul ignore, if not exclude, our
dogma ? He has been held to leave the human life of
Christ so much in the shade, that it has been argued
he knew nothing of it—even that no human life existed,
and Christ was a “mythical person”! Yet his allu
sions to it are frequent, and he always presupposes it.
And he too is absorbed in his message—faith, forgive
ness, glorification in and through Christ, for Gentile
as for Jew. This is “his” gospel, and it neither rests
upon, nor leads to, the Virgin Birth.1 Doubtless he
maintains strongly2 that Christ is Son of David
“according to the flesh.” But he is son of David
whom Jewish law recognises as such; and Jesus, born
of the legal wife of Joseph, and not by adultery, is
Joseph's legal son, and heir of Joseph’s ancestor. Legal
sonship satisfies the prophecies without excluding
superior, Divine filiation. To this Jesus looks when
He deprecates insistence on the Davidic descent
(M 2241, Mk 1235, L 2041; cf Ro i4): that is not His
only, nor chief, prerogative.3 Nor can the two texts,
Ac 1333, Ro i2-4, prove for a moment that Paul thought
Jesus became God only at the Resurrection. The
Son pre-exists the human life from eternity. The
Divine filiation is of nature, not the result of baptism,
miracles, transfiguration, resurrection, virginal con1 We do not rely upon the expression “made of a woman,” Ga 44,
vividly though it recall I Co it13 and Gen 2s3. It does perhaps imply
birth from a mother (not merely human birth), while paternal generation
would have suited P’s argument perhaps better could he have adduced
it.—Nor will we argue that he conceives transmitted guilt as a taint in
the flesh, to be got rid of only by a break in the paternal line. The
wrong idea that Catholic doctrine (at any rate) so regards original
sin, vitiates the rest of Lobstein’s argument (<?/>. c., p. 79) that miracul
ous birth was “anecessary condition of the Saviour’s sinlessness.”
The substantial union of the Word with the humanity at once made the
Person, Jesus, true God and Son of God, and made sin (and its con
sequent subtraction of supernatural grace, which is original sin)
impossible in Him, quite independently of virgin birth.
2 Ro i3, 413, Ga 316, 2 Ti 28, etc. ; cf. Ac 230 (these are especially
strongLobstein, op. c., pp. 52, 53, thinks they necessitate human
generation. But they are conventional formulas).
3 On His so-called “rejection” of Davidic filiation, cf. Durand, pp.
118-122 ; Dalman, op. c., p. 234.
�12
History and Dogma
ception.1 Because of the filiation, these glories are
His. Because at certain crises (baptism, etc.) the
Sonship asserts itself and is recognized by God, “ this
day have I begotten thee ” is quoted ; and “ it was
impossible',' St Peter had long ago preached (Ac 224),
“ that hell should hold Him who was Captain of Life "
(315 ; cf. He 210).
All these writers were men who had known each
other intimately—Luke, at any rate, the “ beloved
physician,” the most “scientific” of the Evangelist
historians, was the close companion, and in part
biographer, of Paul. Each and all of them regarded
it as his life’s work to preach the true doctrine about
Jesus Christ. The bonds of personal devotion which
bound them to Him, bound them also to one another.
Deep divergences of doctrine in such men are un
believable. But so profoundly “individual” were their
characters and outlooks—above all, so inexhaustibly
rich, so many-sided, so infinitely communicative was
their subject—that it must not be wondered at if their
accounts are highly personal, and enlarge, illuminate,
complete, though never contradict, each other.
That any of these documents should have ignored or denied
the Virgin Birth is unthinkable, given the tradition of the
Christian Church. They did not create this : they arose within
it, according to and because of it. It is a vicious circle to say :
Christian faith created the Childhood Gospels ; and then : The
first- and second-century tradition rests merely on “ a few texts ”
in Matthew and Luke. The very earliest sub-Apostolic docu
ments2 are amazingly explicit. Ignatius, when he cried that
Our Lord is “made truly of a virgin,” is “born of Mary and
God,” knew surely that his doctrine was not at variance with his
beloved master, John’s ! Once more, the Gospels assume the
Christian faith in their readers.3
1 Phil 25-12, Col i15-21, 1 Co io4, 1545, Ga 4?, 2 Co 521, etc. And
C.T.S. Relig. of Gk. Test., C. C. Martindale, pp. 19, 20.
2 Ignatius (c. Iio), Ephes. 19, and 5; Smyrn. 1: ^ 652. 660,708. Aristides
(c. 125); Justin, 1 Ap., 31: 6377, Dial., c. 84, 100, ib. 673-709 (a magnifi
cent parallel between the virgin Eve and the incorrupt, obedient virgin
Mary, Eve’s advocate); Irenaeus, Adu. Har., i. 10. 1 ; iii. 19. 1:
7s49. 937, especially c. 21, /A 945.
3 Ramsay, op. c., p. 98, etc.
�The Virgin Birth
13
IV
We shall now consider a few points connected with
the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which, it is urged,
make against the virginity of Mary (the Genealogies,
the Brethren of the Lord), or at least throw doubt
upon the value of Matthew (the Magi, the Flight) or
of Luke (the “ Census ”) as historians at all.
(<2) The Genealogies showing Christ’s descent from
David (M i2-17, L 323"28) agree in three names only :
Joseph, Zorobabel, Salathiel.1 Else, the discrepancy
is complete. This perhaps is why Tatian omitted both
lists in his Diatessaron (supr., p. 5, n. 4). Origen
(c. Cels., ii. 32: 11852) recognises it as a frequent
stumbling-block. How explain it?
Julianus Africanus (ap. Eus., H.E., i. 7 : 2097) suggested (he
owned he had no evidence) that Joseph was born of levirate
marriage,2 Jacob and Heli being brothers, one his legal, one his
real father. But even so, we must assume that they had different
fathers ; and would not this uterine-levirate marriage (in itself of
doubtful possibility) have to be conjectured anew to explain
Salathiel, son of Jechonias (M) and of Neri (L), and yet again, if
indeed Matthan (s. of Eleazer, M) is Matthat (s. of Levi, L) ?
Though Matthew’s deliberate omission of steps in the descent
might account for these differences.—Annius of Viterbo (c. 1490)
suggested that L’s genealogy was that of Mary.3 But this is
against universal ancient belief: Jewish law disregarded maternal
ancestry: when it was felt Mary should be of David’s house,
her pedigree was linked artificially with that of Joseph (Eus., ib. ;
cf. 4881); while the Proteuangelium Iacobi makes her daughter
of Joachim. Moreover, we should have to construe L323, “ being
the son (as was supposed, of Joseph, [but really]) of Heli” [using
1 M’s Matthan »z«y = L’s Matthat.—If Rhesa, L 3s7 ( = “prince,”
and absent from the lists in M and 1 Paralip. 3), were really a title of
Zorobabel, but treated by some earlier copyist whom L reproduces as a
separate proper name, L would here fit with M and also with 1 Par. ;
for L’s Ionas is the Hananiah of 1 Par 319 (omitted by M), and his
Iuda is M’s Ab-iud — 1 Par 3s34 Hodaviah {cf. Ezra 39, 240 ; Neh. 119;
I Par 97. u, where the names interchange).
’
2 One in which a childless widow marries her deceased husband’s
brother, his and her children being legally accounted to the first
husband (Dt 25s).
3 Victorinus {c. 300) says M gives Mary’s genealogy : 5s24.
�14
History and Dogma
whs =son in regard of Joseph,=grandson in regard of Heli] ; or
else, “ son of Joseph the son-in-law of Heli.”
not tolerate this violence.
But the text will
What matters to the Evangelists, is the claim of
Jesus to Davidic rights. That He was “descended
from David ” was tacitly assumed by contemporaries
(M 2241"46) and explicitly recognized by early
preaching;1 while the “Desposyni” (kindred of
Christ—Symeon, son of Clopas His uncle, and two
grandsons of Judas His brother) were in danger
under Domitian as claiming royal, because Davidic,
descent.2 Our genealogies commend, but do not
prove, this claim. It was currently discussed (Eus.,
Ad Steph., iii. 2: P.G., 22896) whether Messiah was to
descend from David through Solomon (dead in
idolatry; his house, in the person of Jechonias,
rejected by God, Jer 2230) or Nathan. Matthew and
Luke satisfy, respectively, the two opinions ; for while
it is through Solomon that the Davidic rights descend
to Joseph and his (legal) Son Jesus; through Nathan
Christ’s true Davidic ancestry may be traced.
Matthew shows Jesus as legal heir of David; Luke,
that He is his Son by physical descent.3 Matthew’s
genealogy is indeed highly conventional. It claims to
consist of three groups of fourteen names.4 To obtain
this, many names had to be omitted ; thus Matthew’s
“ begat ” need never mean “ was father of.” Contrary
to Jewish custom, he inserts women—Rahab, Tamar,
Ruth, Bathsheba—perhaps to suggest that God
1 Ro I3, 2 Ti 28, Ac 2s8, 1323, etc. —M 1522, 2030, <p; 219 show that
in popular opinion (1) Messiah descends from David, (2) Jesus is
Messiah.
2 See this charming story in Africanus, ap. Eus., z'A, and Hegesippus,
ib., iii, 19-32.
3 Durand, p. 201: Comely, Introd. N.T., p. 201, n. 6; F. C.
Burkitt, Evangelion da Mepharrashe, Cambridge, I9°4> & PP- 258-266.
This theory is increasingly accepted. Clearly we have no space to
discuss minor difficulties.
4 In the third, thirteen only occur, making it additionally likely
that M used an existing, already slightly disfigured document. His
symbolism may well allude to the numerical value {fourteen) of the {three')
letters (th) of the name David.
�The Virgin Birth
i5
excludes neither sinner nor stranger from His plan
of mercy. Doctrine, then, dictates his scheme: Luke
keeps closer to “history” in our sense. For while
we may never become sure on what precise system
these lists were drawn up, it is certain that, if the
Evangelists composed them, they did so according
to contemporary ideals as to the construction of
genealogies;1 and if they are quoting official docu
ments, we may assume they do so “ without attribut
ing to them other authority than that of tradition
or of the public registers which provided them.”2
Eusebius actually applies the “ as was supposed ” of
L 323 to the whole list; Luke offers it simply as the
popular opinion as to Jesus’ ancestry !3
1 On various O.T. systems for editing genealogies, cf. Prat, Etudes,
1901, lxxxvi. pp. 488-494; 1902, xciii. pp. 617-620.
2 Cf. Durand, p. 207 ; Brucker, Eludes, 1903, xciv. p. 229 ; 1906, cix.
p. 801.
3 m x 16 reads. “Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom
was born Jesus,” etc. [tV.B. in Latin and Greek the same word stands for
to bear and to beget (gignere, yevvav}]. One group of MSS. accentuates
the virgin-motherhood. “. . . Joseph, to whom being betrothed, the
Virgin Mary bare,” etc. “. . . Joseph, to whom was betrothed the
Virgin Mary ; but the Virgin Mary bare,” etc. The Sinai-Syriac MS.
(admirably edited 1894 by Lewis) astonishingly reads: “Jacob begat
Joseph ; Joseph, to whom was betrothed the Virgin Mary, begat Jesus, ”
etc.—a heterodox text, yet containing, interpolated, the “virgin”
additions. Finally, the Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila (F. C.
Conybeare, Oxford, 1898), a work of c. 430 discovered in 1898, is said
to quote the heterodox phrase; thus: “. . . Joseph, the husband of
Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ. And Joseph
begat fesus who is called Christ.”—But it is clear that the Jew Aquila’s
quotation stops at the first Christ. He resumes, sophistically : “ And
so (koI often bears this meaning; and indeed in this very dialogue)
Joseph,” etc. The Christian Timothy immediately rebukes him:
“ Quote,” he says, “ correctly and in the right order”; he then him
self quotes M i16, substituting “to whom was betrothed the Virgin
Mary” for “the husband of Mary,” and finally, the ordinary text,
save that ‘ ‘ who was betrothed to Mary, ” and ‘‘ the Christ the Son of
God,” replace “the husband of M.,” and “who is called Christ.” The
dialogue, then, does not support the Sinai-Syriac, whose erratic reading
may be due to (i.) an Ebionite ‘ ‘ correction ” ; (ii.) a copyist’s error, due
to a mechanical continuation of the formula, And X begat Y ; (iii.) the
form in which the original document genuinely stood. No doubt an
official record would put Joseph as father of Jesus. Notice that Sin. Syr. leaves, e.g., verse 18 (which clearly asserts the Virgin Birth) intact,
�16
History and Dogma
(If) The relationship of the “ brethren ” of the Lord1
cannot be defined with certainty. We summarize
possible interpretations as briefly as possible, premising
that the answer to this question can, of course, only
affect the dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary.
(i.) The “ brethren ” are children of Mary.2
(ii.) They were children of Joseph by a former
marriage. So the Gospel ofJames, and that of Peter
(end of second century); cf. Jerome, Comm, in Mt.,
xii. 4984, and perhaps Clement of Alexandria (9731);
Epiphanius, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa,
and, hesitatingly, Origen and Hilary, and others per
haps, follow these. Jerome (zA) says that they who
so conjecture are following the dreams of the Apo
cry phas : he proclaims, too, the “virginity” of Joseph
(Adu. Helu., 19: 23203). It is unnecessary to follow
the history of his opinion, which is dear to Catholic
conviction.
(iii.) The “ brethren” were cousins of Jesus.
There is no doubt that
rater, and (what is
of most importance), HS' (ah) in Hebrew and Aramaic
can quite easily mean “ relative,” not strictly brother
and that no one would dream of using this MS. to correct the rest of
the Gospel text; why then insist that its unique reading must alone be
right here ? Read Durand, 74-82; Burkitt, op. c., ii. 265 ; Academy,
17th Nov. 1894-24^ June 1895.
1 James, Jude, Joseph, Simeon. M 1246, 1365, Mk 331, 6s, L 820,
J 212, 75, Ac I14, 2C095: M and Mk speak too of His “sisters.” Cf.
Lightfoot, Ep. to Gal., Dissert. II. ; C. Harris, Diet, of Christ and the
Gospels, 1906, i. 232 ; Corluy, Etudes religieuses, 1878, i. 22; Durand,
221-276 (excellent account). Fl. Josephus, Ant. Iud., xx. 9. 1,
Hegesippus and Julianus in Euseb., H.E., ii. 23, i 7, also refer to the
kinsfolk of the .Lord {supr., p. 14). Their testimony relates to the
years c. 62, 160, 210.
2 Tertullian, already half-heretic, may have taught this {De Carn.
Christi, 7, 23 : 7766.79°.
Jerome believed he did {cf. Contr. Helu.,
17: 23201; d’Ales, TI1A0I. de Tert., 1905, p. 196). Lightfoot (p. 278)
is against it. Origen (ap. Jer., Hom. 7 in Luc., P.L., 7233) seems to refer
to Tertullian, and possibly Hilary {Comm, in Mt., i. 3-4: 9921). But
about 350, in Syria and Arabia, the denial of Mary’s perpetual virginity
became explicit : in 380 Helvidius, and a little later Jovinianus. both at
Rome, provoked Jerome’s vigorous attacks. Condemned at Milan, they
were excommunicated by Siricius in 390. Bonosus of Myria was
condemned a little later {supr., pp. 2, 3).
�The Virgin Birth
17
(Gen 3716, 1 Par 2321, Lev io4: Cicero, Tacitus:
Euripides: it is quite common). Hegesippus, who
calls James “the Lord’s brother,” calls Simeon
“ another cousin ” of the Lord. The words are then
convertible. Of Jude he says that “ he was called the
brother of the Lord according to the flesh.” Probably
(Durand, p. 229), at this very early period, that phrase
was not so much honorific, as meant to distinguish
between the several prominent disciples of the same
name. Jerome (c. Helu., 12-17) insists on this solution,
alleging that (#) Mary had vowfed virginity;1 (fi) that
Mary was confided from the Cross to none of the
“ brethren,” but to John. The brethren were not,
then, her sons.2 (c) Jesus is often called “ Son of
Mary ”: the brethren never; nor she their mother.
Moreover, had Mary been mother, afterwards, of six or
seven children (of whom several will have held high
rank in the Church), and lived long as widow, the
most perverse tradition could scarcely have succeeded
in fixing on her, as uniquely distinctive title, that of
Virgin. (So even Renan.) Finally, the “brethren”
seem definitely older than Jesus.
(c) The “ Census.”—Luke says, 21-3, that an enrolment,
imposed by the Emperor on the whole Empire,3 was
carried out in Palestine by tribal and household enumer
ation. Thus Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem, and
Jesus was born there. “This happened [I translate
literally] as a first enrolment when Quirinius was in
office in Syria.” But we are told :—
The Roman census was based on property, not persons ; and
when Christ was born (B.C. 6-4: for His birth preceded
1 So too Aug., Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose ; cf. Harris, l.c. i. 235.,
2 So Jerome, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Hilary, Ambrose, Siricius.
To Lightfoot this argument seems conclusive : l.c., p. 272.
3 “ In the whole world ” means this. The plan was quite in keeping
with Augustus’ ideals. He wished to assess the poll-tax fairly and
accurately. That contemporary records do not mention it is unim
portant : they are silent, too, about local enrolments known to us
from inscriptions and papyri. Roman historians scorned the recurrent
details of provincial administration.
�18
History and Dogma
Herod's death, 4 B.C.), there was no census.in Palestine, nor was
Publius Sulpicius Quirinius then in office. Sentius Saturninus
governed Syria 9-6 B.C. ; Quinctilius Varus, 6-4 ; 1 B.C.-4 A.D.,
Gaius, the Emperor’s grandson, was legate, the intervening
years being unaccounted for. But Quirinius was legate 6 A.D.,
and did indeed effect what Ac 537 calls “ the enrolment.” If
Christ, then, was born 6-4 B.C., and Quirinius held office, and
had the enrolment in 6 A.D., Luke is clearly wrong.
Even were he wrong in this detail of chronology,
that scarcely should impair his general value as a
historian. Still, mistake on this point were odd in
one who so accurately had sought out the “ origins ”
(i2; sup?.., p. 7). But (i.) it is acknowledged (from
inscriptions) that Quirinius twice held office in Syria.
But when ?
May not Augustus, who associated
Volumnius with Saturninus, have similarly added the
notoriously energetic (so Tacitus) Quirinius to the
indolent Varus in some semi-official (probably military)
office?1 Thus he may well have been “in office”
in Syria 6-4 B.C., and (possibly) even have succeeded
Varus in 4. (ii.) Recent discoveries2 make it certain
that family enrolments besides the land-assessments
were held in Egypt every fourteen years. Enrolment
papyri for A.D. 90, 104, etc. till 230 were unearthed ;
then for 76 ; then, 62 ; then, 20! Now Luke says the
enrolment was general; and we know that Syria was
enrolled in 34 A.D., also in 6 : Clement of Alexandria,
too (Strom., i. 21, 147: 8885), implies that it had
its periodical enrolments like those he knew in
Egypt. Tertullian actually says (Adv. Marc., iv. 19,
P.L., 2405) one happened under Saturninus (9-6),3 and
that Christ was born during it. This is quite possible
1 L says ^ye^ovevovros, “holding office,” an untechnical word
applied to various positions, and by Josephus, Ant., XVI. ix. I, to
Volumnius. Justin, 1 Apol., 34, calls Q. neither legate nor proconsul,
but eirirpoiros, procurator.
2 Read the romantic account of this triple simultaneous independent
discovery by Kenyon {Class. Rev., 1893, P- IIO)> Wilcken {Hermes,
1893, p. 203), Viereck {Philologus, 1893, p. 563), in Ramsay, op. c.,
preface.
3 In fact, 8 B.C. is fourteen years before 6 a.d., as 34 a.d. is twenty
eight years after it.
�The Virgin Birth
19
if a clumsy household numbering in 8 B.C. was dragged
out till 7-6 B.C.—as was practically inevitable owing to
the chaotic political situation.1 11 is thus, independently
of Luke, almost certain that there was such an en
rolment in 6 B.C. in Palestine, the first of its sort,2
Quirinius being in office.
The displacement of so many families is no difficulty. Only
Palestinian Jews would be bound : the whole land could be
crossed in three or four days : all devout Jews went thrice a
year to Jerusalem.—Why does Mary accompany Joseph ? We
are not sure. Perhaps Joseph feared to leave her at such a
crisis. Anyhow, in Syria, women, too, paid the poll-tax.
How idle, then, is the theory that this story is forged to get the
Holy Family from Nazareth (where L knew they lived) to
Bethlehem (where the prophets said Messiah must be born):
and alas for Mr Robertson, who says 3 of household enumeration,
“ There was no such practice in the Roman world” 1
(d) Of the story of the Magi we are told that its
details are vague; its incidents improbable; that
it clashes with Luke.
It was invented to satisfy
Messianic prophecies, or is the echo of pagan myth.
Indeed, the date of its insertion into the Gospel is
given. We deal with this first.
A Syriac document entitled “ Concerning the Star : showing
how and through what the Magi recognised the star,” etc., says
that Balaam’s prophecy (Nu 2417) was written by Balak to
Assyria, and there kept till the star appeared, and King Pir
Shabur sent the Magi to do homage to the Messiah. “ And in
the year 430 (118-119 A.D.) . . . this concern arose in [the minds
of] men acquainted with the Holy Books, and through the pains
of great men in various places this history was sought for and
found, and written in the tongue of those who took this care ”
(W. Wright, Journ. of Sacr. Lit., ix., x., 1866). Hence M 21-12,
1 Ramsay, p. 174.
2 The fourteen-years cycle being reckoned, Romanwise, from 23 B. c.,
the year of Augustus’ reception of the Tribunician Power. In that year
no enrolment will have occurred. 8 B.c. will therefore be the first.
A. d. 6 is called “ the enrolment,” because Judea having just become
a province, an enrolment consequently on purely Roman lines (local—
not familial and tribal) made the Jews realize their subjection, and
accordingly revolt. In 20 a.d. (end of the next cycle) Tiberius forbids
interference with local customs.
3 Christianity and Mythology, 19CO, p. 194.
�20
History and Dogma
based on this legend, was added to the Gospel in 119 a.d.—But:
certainly before that time Ignatius of Antioch assumes the story
to be universally popular (he rhetorically expands it ad Eph.
xix., P.G., 5652). So it is clear that the “ Holy Books ” are not the
O.T. with its story of Balaam, but the Gospels with that of the
Magi; while what was first written in 118 a.d. is not the latter
story, but the legend of Balaam’s message to Assyria.1
Of the Magi (probably priests ; perhaps astrologers;
certainly heathen), as to number, nationality, rank,
and later history, nothing is known. The star which
they saw “ at its rising ”2 has been identified (first by
Kepler, 1605) with astronomical phenomena, eg. the
conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, B.C. 7. To pursue
such investigations leads nowhere.3
No merely
natural phenomenon could have seemed “ to travel,”
to “ stand over ” a house, etc., though the Magi may
(conceivably) have heard from Jews of the Dispersion
of the expected birth of a Deliverer, and have (inde
pendently) interpreted what they saw as a sign that
this had happened. But their information will not
have been based on Nu 2417: still less was the
whole story invented to satisfy that prediction ! The
star in Numbers, as in Isaiah 60,4 uniformly
means the Messiah himself: it was not his herald.
The pseudo-Messiah Simeon actually called himself
Bar-Kokeba, Son of the Star. And that Matthew,
eager to quote O.T. prophecy whenever he can, should
not here have cited Nu, Is, and Ps 7210, 6829, had he
seen their fulfilment in his story, is unthinkable.
V
We must now notice those writers who try to
find the origin of the Gospel history in mythology,
and shall, owing to the great popularity of this
system, give it far more space than its intrinsic value
merits. I am anxious to emphasize this. It is popular
1 Cf. Allen, Commentary on St. Matthew, p. 22, 1907 ; Plummer,
idem., 1909, ad loc.
2 “In the east" would probably need the plural ava-roKdis.
3 Though see Ramsay, op. c., pp. 215-218.
4 Cf., later, Test. XII. Pair., Judah 24 (Gk.), etc.
�The Virgin Birth
21
polemic, not serious scholarship, that attaches real
weight to these pagan “parallels.” With the Magi,
however, mythologists have no easy task. Cheyne 1
and others quote the stars which constantly herald
the birth of great men.
Thus the Magi, on seeing Alexander’s, declared that the
destroyer of Asia was born; the star of the Julian family was
famous (Verg., Aen.). The Pushya, on the horizon when the
Buddha was born, was, however, a regular annual phenomenon
(an asterism consisting of 7, 8, 0 of the constellation Cancer) and
served to mark a date, not to glorify the infant.2 The Magi
may indeed have deduced a new birth from what they considered
adequate evidence {N.B. “ his star”) ; but Matthew draws no con
clusion as to Christ’s preternatural character from it; it merely
guided the Magi to Bethlehem.3
But we hear: In 66 a.d. Tiridates, king of Parthia (Pliny,
H.N., xxx. 6, calls him a magus') came with magi (Dio. Cass., lxiii.
1-7) to do homage to Nero, and went home “another way”
(Suet., Nero, 13). Nero is anti-Christ: even as incidents of
Christ’s life attached themselves to Nero’s {e.g. His expected
return), so incidents of Nero’s life accrued to Christ’s.4
We prefer to admit a score of miracles rather than
so grotesque an explanation. How, and why, were
the stories so utterly transformed in detail ? so
Judaized in tone? so raised in religious value? why
inserted in this peculiarly un-Hellenic part of the
Gospel?5 And how dissociate the Magi from the
1 Bible Problems, 1904.
2 C. F. Aiken, Dhamma of Gotama the Buddha, Boston, 1900, p. 240.
3 Prof. R. Seydel {Evangel v. Jesu, 1882, p. 139) quotes a (postChrfstian) tale that the god Brahman gave the unborn Buddha a
dewdrop containing all power; the babe Buddha received perfumes
from nymphs and palaces from princes; Mr Lillie adds {Buddhism in
Christendom, 1887, p. 30; cf. Aiken, p. 243) that the young hero was
escorted to a garden, eclipsing with his bodily brilliance the jewels
that smothered him. Hence the tale of Magi with gifts !
J. M. Robertson, in Christianity and Mythology, p. 199, however,
has to misinterpret the famous representation of the Magi (Northcote
and Brownlow, Roma Sotteranea, 1879, ii. 258), universally recognized
as Christian, as “surely Mithraic,” “since there is really no other way
of explaining the entrance of the Magi into the Christian legend.”
4 Cf. Soltau, Geburtsgesch. J.C., 1902, p. 73 ; Usener, Encyl. Bibl.,
iii. 3351.
5 These considerations are in place whenever pagan myth is offered
as origin for the Gospels.
�I
22
History and Dogma
organically connected Massacre and Flight, for which
these pagan “sources” cannot be used? But other
sources ain? suggested! Persecution of infant-heroes by
jealous kings is a mere ‘ myth-TzztfZz/’; Josephus should
have mentioned the Massacre, had it occurred ; hence
no doubt the murdered Innocents but picture ‘the
disappearance of the stars at morning before the sun.’1
Finally, Jesus is said to fly to Egypt because thither
the giant Typhon drove the Olympian gods (Usener,
Encycl. Brit., l.ci).
But in the same place Usener agrees that Egypt, with its
large Jewish colonies, its numerous synagogues, its vicinity, etc.,
was exactly the natural place for a Palestinian Jew to fly to :
Josephus, who has to relate Herod’s murder of wife, mother-inlaw, three sons, brother-in-law, uncle, and numbers of Pharisees,
may be forgiven for omitting the obscure murder of a score
(at most) of babies in a tiny town : the quaint solar parallel would
be more perfect did the stars flee before an eclipse (for such,
rather than sunrise, is the Child’s flight)! Finally, because
Herod’s action is so natural, and naturally has its parallels in
legend and popular tales, it need not therefore be mythical, or
else we should have to accept for true only the unnatural events
narrated in history.2 As for the Loss and Finding in the Temple,
one set of critics 3*
8
assigns the tale of the Buddha and the ploughing
match as “pattern” (the baby hero, left under a tree by his
nurses absorbed by the spectacle of a ploughing match, lapsed
into meditation, and was found there, hours after, still sheltered
by the stationary shadow of the Jamba ; other versions put the
incident quite late in the Buddha’s life) ; while another (J. M.
Robertson, Chr. and Myth., p. 334, quoting Strabo, xvi. 2. 38,
and Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 14), says that the story of parents
{who had exposed their children} going to Delphi to inquire of
the oracle if the child yet lived, and there being met by
the child himself (who had gone to inquire about the parent)
1 J. M. Robertson (momentarily all for solar myth), op. c., p. 333.
2 Observe the Buddhist “prototype” (dating, moreover, from the
sixth century A.D.), adduced by Seydel, op. c., p. 142 ; Lillie, Infhience
of Buddhism on Christianity, 1893, p. 28 ; cf. Aiken, p. 244. King
Bimbiskara is advised to send an army to crush the increasing power
of his neighbour the Buddha, now a young man. He refuses, and is
converted to Buddhism !
8 E. v. Bunsen, The Angel Messiah of Buddhists, Essenes, and
Christians, 1880, p. 30; Seydel, p. 48; Lillie, B. in Chr., p. 25 ; cf.
Aiken, p. 245.
�The Virgin Birth
23
“ supplies the source of the first part ” of our story ; while
Plutarch mentions that in Egypt the cries of children at play in
temple-courts were held for prophetic ; and this accounts for
the second part 1—We prefer Luke’s history to modern myth.
Yet Matthew contradicts Luke ?—Not at all. Grant
that the Magi’s visit followed the Purification (not
necessarily soon), and we need only assume that
Luke did not mix his sources. For if the Magi-tale
was current as in Matthew, Luke did not insert it
into what he had learnt (probably) from Mary
(supr., p. 7), nor repeat it in a new form when the
old was satisfactory. The Magi are no “ doublet ” of
the Shepherds. The spirit of Matthew’s tale which
shows the universality of Christ’s saving power is
quite different from that which relates the homely
incident so suited to the “ Gospel of the Poor.”
We are constantly told, quite generally, that Jesus
is but one among many virgin-born gods, and that
His myth is discredited by theirs. Especially to the
BUDDHA Sakyamuni are we pointed as origin of the
Christian dogma.1 Doubtless the tangled question
of the dates of the Buddhist “ scriptures ” makes it
difficult to criticize this briefly, but our references will
supply details of evidence. We may say : The tradi
tions of the Buddha’s birth are contradictory, and, es
pecially the earlier, assign no “virginity” to his mother
1 Bunsen, op. c. : “Zoroastrian magi invented an angel-messiah ; the
Buddha imported this into India, the Essenes into Palestine ; Christ
was an Essene ; thus Buddhist legends reached and fastened on Him.”
Sharply criticized by Kuenen, Natural Religion, etc., 1882.—R. Seydel,
op. c., maintains : A pre-Synoptic Jewish apocalyptic gospel existed
(highly “Buddhized” by traditions journeying westwards by traderoutes opened up by Alexander), utilized by the Synoptists. —All
imagination work, supposing an impossibly late date for the Gospels.
Criticized by Oldenberg, Hardy, and even J. E. Carpenter (who
patronizes the theory that Christianity borrowed from Buddhism),
XIXth Century, viii. 971. A. Lillie, opp. citt. These three books
well discussed by C. F. Aiken, op. c. A. J. Edmunds, Buddhist and
Christian Gospels, etc., London, 1904, is admirably considered by
L. de la V. Poussin, Revue Biblique, 1906, iii. pp. 355-381. See, too,
the latter’s Bouddhisme, Paris, 1909, p. 239 sqq., and C.T.S. Buddhism,
by the same.
�24
History ana, Dogma
Maya. Later speculation held her to be virgin.1 But
note: for Buddhists, all birth is rebirth.
A pre
existing being, a ghandarva, escaped from a previous
life, is reincarnated.
Ordinary mortals are born
where necessity dictates : superior beings—e.g. future
Buddhas—can choose their moment, and their parents.
This is why Maya dreams that the future Buddha
enters her side, of his own accord, as a six-tusked white
elephant. She had lived some thirty-three years with
her husband, and only after the conception of the
Buddha resolves to abandon earthly love. The Buddha
chose Maya, because she was doomed to die ten months
seven days afterwards: now’, all mothers of Buddhas
must die seven days after their child’s birth, lest another
child should occupy what had been a Buddha’s shrine.
There is in all this no hint of virgin birth. Indeed,
feminine virginity was of little interest to Hindus or
earlier Buddhists.2* When the Mahavastu does at
last insist on Maya’s virginity, it is at the cost of
the birth, for the Buddha is now represented as
remaining in heaven, sending only a phantom self
to be seemingly born of Maya. Thus the birth is, at
the first, marvellous, but not virgin.
Once Maya is
virgin, the birth has ceased to be real.
The sage Asita, on the Buddha’s birthday, sees “ the gods of
shining vesture forming the band of the thirty-two (gods),” [not
“angels white-stoled” : Edmunds] rejoicing. Ascending into the
sky, he asks the reason. They answer : “ The Buddha-to-be, the
excellent jewel, the incomparable, is born in the world of men
[leaving, that is, that of gods] to save [creatures] and to make them
happy, in the village of the Sakyas,” etc. Asita magically flies
thither, and “ because he knew the [32] signs ” [set. the webbed
fingers, etc., which marked the child a superior being] exclaimed
“ with faith,” “ This is the unsurpassed, the excellent among men.”
He weeps, indignant that he will be dead before the child begins
1 Jerome, Adu. Iou., i. 42 : 23s73, on doubtful evidence calls the
Buddha virgin-born. The extremely late writings of the Mongol
Buddhists, and one other very late document, are our only sources here. 4
2 Even the Lalitavistara {-possibly as early as the Christian era) only
asks how the Buddha could live without being defiled by (physical) «
contact with Maya’s womb. The answer is, that tents of jewels and
perfumes enveloped him therein.
�The Virgin Birth
25
its work of salvation.—Graceful as are many incidents of this tale,
not even in the words of the devas is a source found for Luke’s
narrative, though “ peace on earth to men [objects] of [God’s]
goodwill ” is not unlike the “ utility and pleasantness ” for which
the Buddha is born.—The pre-existence of the Son is not like
that of the Buddha in the Tusita heaven, which many odd in
carnations (as king, pigeon, god, jackal, etc.) had preceded.
Nor is Maya’s visit to a royal garden, surrounded with un
imagined luxuries, like Mary’s to Bethlehem, that we should
say “both children were born when their mothers were on a
journey.” Such suggestions destroy the real charm of the
Buddhist legends.1
The god Krishna2 is declared3 to have been born of
a virgin Devakl. Now, not only is there a well-defined
modern Indian movement to assimilate the legend
of Krishna “ the Black ” to the life of Christ, while of
the books which contain it “the earliest are at the
very least several hundreds of years later than the
composition of the Gospels,” 4 but even in the Hindi
version of that part of the documents which relates
it we read that Devaki had already, before Krishna's
conception, borne seven children to her husband
Vasudeva. Considering too that Krishna had “ eight
specially beautiful wives of his own, besides over
16,000 others, and by them he had a family of
180,000 sons, all of whom finally killed one another,
or were murdered by their father,”5 virginity would
seem low enough in the esteem of the Black God’s
evangelists; and that Mr Vivian should include him
among those “ suffering Saviours ” whose stories had
been “ for ages past similar in all essentials to the
Gospel narratives” (p. 161) is amazing.
Of Adonis, Attis, Dionysus, Osiris, Mithra,
CHRIST, Mr Robertson says 6 “ all six deities were born
of a virgin.” “ In Persia, Zoroaster was miraculously
1 Seydel, pp. 295, 136 ; Bunsen, p. 34; Lillie, Influence, etc., p. 26 ;
W. St. C. Tisdall, Mythic Christs and the True, 1909, p. 36.
2 C.T.S. Hinduism, E. Hull, pp. 12, 14, 27.
3 P. Vivian, The Churches and Modern Thought, Watts, 1910,
p. 121, etc.
4 Tisdall, Mythic Christs, p. 27.
6 Tisdall, p. 28.
6 Short History of Christianity, 1902, p. 63.
�26
History and Dogma
conceived.”1 “ In Parsi mythology, Saoshyant is
virgin-born.”2 We need but glance at these assertions.
Dionysus3 was the son of Zeus and a woman, Semele. While
pregnant, she was shrivelled to death by the sight of her lover’s
glory. The unborn infant was snatched from her womb, stitched
into Zeus’s thigh, and ultimately “born” in circumstances which
the poets easily made absurd.—Zoroaster4 is said in the Avesta
(much of which is extremely late) to be the son of Pourushaspa,
a man whose genealogy was traced back for ten generations.
His mother’s name is not even mentioned. Even in the latest
mythologizing documents {cf. Zaratusht-Namah, c. A.D. 1278),
the most we hear is that Pourushaspa had drunk some haoma
uice in which Zoroaster’s fravashi (genius) had been placed. The
conception was normal; the child was the third of five brothers.—
Saoshyant and his two brothers, prophets to appear before the
end of the world, are (literally) to be conceived of Zoroaster’s
seed—Saoshyant by a woman bathing in a lake.5 Here I cannot
transcribe the details ; still less, in the case of Attis and Adonis.
Adonis was the son of Cinyras in one myth, of Phoenix in
another, but (in the commonest version) of King Theias by his
own daughter, Myrrha. The whole of this story, like Adonis’
career and worship, is one of sexual abnormalities. Even more
so is that of Attis, son of Nana and the androgynous monster
Agdestis, itself offspring of Zeus and Earth.6 The cults of
Adonis and Attis became bywords even among pagans for
unbridled licence and hysterical perversities. In them, as in
Krishna’s, vice became of the essence of worship.
That Mithra7 was virgin-born is argued by Mr
J. M. Robertson as follows:8 Mithra is often coupled
with the goddess Anahita. But an inscription men
tions “the tree of Zeus-Sabazios and Artemis-Anahita.”
Therefore Mithra = Sabazios.
But Strabo says
Sabazios “is in a sense the son of the Mother” (set.
the Eastern goddess, Cybele, etc.). Therefore Mithra
was son of a mother. But this mother must be
1 P. Vivian, op. c., p. 128.
2 Robertson, Pagan Christs, p. 339.
3 C.T.S. Relig. of Anc. Greece, J. Huby, pp. 4, 21, etc.
4 C.T.S. Relig. of Avesta, A. Carnoy,passim.
5 Tisdall, p. 86.
6 Pausan., vii. 17. 5 > Arnob., Adu. Gent., v. 9. 4, P.L., 51100; Minuc.
Felix, 21 ; on Adonis and Attis, C.T S. Relig. of Syria, G. S. Hitch
cock, pp. 10, 23 ; of Imper. Rome, C. C. Martindale, pp. 12, 14.
7 C.T.S. Mithra, C. C. Martindale.
8 Pagan Christs, 1903, p. 337 sqq. Every step of the argument
might be disputed.
�The Virgin Birth
27
Anahita, for not only is she goddess of fertilizing
waters, and hence " must necessarily figure in her cultus
as a mother,” but Mithra, “ who never appears ... as
a father,” “ would [therefore] perforce rank as her son?
Astounding logic! But all this apparatus to get
Mithra born of a mother at all, has not yet shown
she was virgin.—Simplicity itself! "It was further
practically a matter of course that his divine mother
should be styled Virgin, the precedents being uni
form” (p. 337). Precedents? He quotes Agdestis,
Attis, and Saoshyant (supr., p. 26), and unexpectedly
concludes: "Asa result ... we find Mithra figuring in
the Christian Empire of the fourth and fifth centuries
as supernaturally born of a Virgin Mother and of the
Most High God ” (p. 340). We find nothing of the
sort. Mithra was invariably regarded as “ rock-born,”
that is, sprung from the Petra Genetrix, “mother
rock,” imaged by a conical stone (representing the
sky-vault in which, or the mountains over which, the
light-god first appears). Mithra had no human mother
at all, virgin or otherwise.1
It is idle to urge : Mithra was worshipped in crypts; but
Mithra=Adonis, who was “born and worshipped in a cave”
[surely not, and anyhow these identifications are ludicrously
inexact]; Adonis = Tammuz, who was adored (Jerome says) in
the unreclaimed Cave of Bethlehem; therefore Mithra was
born in a cave.—He was not virgin-bctrn, nor yet cave-born. If
anywhere, the rock-birth occurred (as bas-reliefs suggest) under
a tree by a river.2
1 Mr Robertson oddly appeals to two savage myths, known to us
third or fourth hand, in which Mithra is found born of a god and a woman,
or (incestuously) of that god’s own mother. Of these, M. Cumont (the
leading authority on Mithraism) says: “Their character is radically
different from the dogmas accepted by the Western believers in the
Persian god.” Reff. in The Month, Dec. 1908, p. 582 sq.
2 Much has been made of a group of “adoring shepherds” some
times sculptured near the rock-birth. . They appear but rarely, and in no
obvious connection with the birth. They are not clearly shepherds,
and certainly do not adore. C.T. S. Mithra, p. 12. It is (with probabil
ity) conjectured that Mithra’s birthday was kept on Dec. 25. Pie was
indeed closely identified with the Sun, whose birthday was then kept.
For Dec. 25, cf. C.T.S. Ret. Imper. Rome, p. 29; Cath. Encycl.,
Christmas, Martindale, iii. 726.
�28
History and Dogma
OSIRIS1 comes to us, like his pictures, enswathed in
mummy-clothes of myth—in this case of contra
dictory, irreconcilable myths. A turn, first of gods, but
also Primeval Man, engenders from the substance of his
own heart the Heliopolis Ennead of gods, one of whom
was Osiris. Elsewhere, Osiris is son of Seb (Earth)
and Nuit (Sky), and rules as frankly human Pharaoh,
married to his sister Isis. He certainly is not virginborn. Isis herself, though in some very late syncre
tistic myths of great beauty she is virgin, is not so
in relation with Osiris; indeed, one legend shows
her losing that quality in her mother’s womb by
union with her twin-brother.
As for her son
Horus, he was conceived by the murdered Osiris
(triumphantly “surviving himself”), but normally.2
Nor were the Pharaohs “virgin-born.” True, they
first have gods for ancestors; then, God for father;
then, are gods. But notice: the god is explicitly
said to be incarnate in the Pharaoh’s human father.
Each reigning Pharaoh is the god’s physical instru
ment in the conception of the next.3 In conscious
imitation of this, Alexander the Great and others—
often deliberately, to gain influence in an Egypt
accustomed to have gods’ sons for governors—claimed
as ancestor or sire Zeus or Apollo. Popular romance
and court flattery elaborated the legend, which few if
any took seriously. Nor did anyone believe the
3 C.T.S. Relig. Anc. Egypt, A. Mallon, pp. 15, 30.
2 La relig. de Fane. Egypte, Virey, Beauchesne, 1910, p. 96;
Budge, Book of the Dead, Introd., pp. cxxxiv. and lxxx. All the
Osiris myths focus in the idea of life victorious over death : new wheat
springs from the rotting grain ; dawn from the dead day. But Isis, as
Earth fertilized by the flooding Nile, affords no hint of virginity.
Except (perhaps) in art, her worship has not affected ours, though
Prof. Petrie—talia talis?—asserts “that it became the popular
devotion of Italy ; and after a change of name due to the growth of
Christianity, she has continued to receive the adoration of a large part
of Europe down to the present day as the Madonna” {Relig. Anc.
Egypt, 1906, p. 44, cf. 91).
3 Inscriptions at Deir-el-Bahari and Luqsor make this certain.
Virey, pp. 95-98 ; Moret, Caractere relig. de la royauti pharaoniqtie,
pp. 50-52, there quoted.
�The Virgin Birth
29
stories about Apollo, father of Plato, or Proteus, of
Apollonius. They were literary imitations of the
old myths which made Zeus visit Alcmene in the
shape of her husband, or Europa, Leda, Danae as
bull, swan, or golden shower, thereby glorifying
(and explaining) their heroic offspring, Herakles,
Perseus, etc. There is no question here of virginity.1
From this point of view it is a pity that some
Fathers (Origen, Jerome, Justin) use these tales
as an argumentum ad hominem against pagan critics
of the miraculous conception of Christ. “You,”
they argue, “ account for heroes by saying: A God
was their sire. Why then cavil if we teach that a
greater far than heroes was Son of God ? ” But that
Justin, e.g., had no faith in the pagan virgin births is
clear from the words he puts in the mouth of Trypho
{supr., p. 2). Even he saw that the difference between
the stories was profound. We may add that the
title Diui Filius, Yto? 0eov, “ Son of God,” taken by
emperors, in no sense denies human parentage, still
less claims virgin birth (C.T.S. Imper. Rome, p. 4;
King-Worship, C. C. Lattey, p. 31).
Indeed, the stories which approach nearest to a suggestion of
the Virgin Birth—where maid becomes mother by treading in a
giant’s footsteps, eating a fruit, by the action of sunbeams, or (as
did Chimalma, mother of Quetzalcoatl) by the god’s breath—
nearly all belong to levels of civilization where no one will look
for the origin (at any rate) of the Gospel story. They are folk
lore so inferior even to myth, that interaction, causal influence,
is unthinkable. They have been used2 as basis of a theory that
primitive savages were ignorant of the “ true cause of offspring,”
an ignorance which resulted in tales of virgin birth, some still
surviving in a purified form. But (i.) it is quite unlikely that the
Australian savages (who alone can be quoted) are really so
ignorant of the cause of birth as the authors suppose—the exist1 Farnell, Cults of Gk. States, ii. 447, and others make it clear that
the name Parthenos itself need not imply virginity. It often means
just “ unmarried,” and is compatible with great licence.
2 Cases accumulated in E. S. Hartland, Legend of Perseus, 1894
(a chaos simplified by “ P. Saintyves,” Vierges mires et naissances
miraculeuses, 1908), and argued from by Dr. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, and
Osiris, 1907, ii. 169.
�History and Dogma
ence among savages of complicated marriage tabus and legisla
tion, and of widespread sex-worships, is quite against such
(antecedently unlikely) ignorance—but (ii.) there is no sort of
reason for supposing such ignorance to have been universal,
especially as “ primitive ” savages are often probably “ degener
ates,” not just embarking on a career of improvement.1
To sum up. In nearly all these cases (and there are
scores of others) the birth may be preternatural, but
is not virgin. In important examples, it remains
obscure when the traditions embodying the analogies
are to be dated (Buddha) ; or borrowing from Chris
tianity is actually certain (Krishna). As a rule the
legend is attached to a mythical, not historic, person
(Herakles, Perseus), or was never taken seriously
(Plato, Alexander, Augustus). The whole setting is
usually frivolous, often obscene. The Gospels are
profoundly Judaic, and uncoloured by pagan, especi
ally Hellenic, tradition.
Conscious adaptation of
myth by their writers is a grotesque supposition,
neglected by reputable scholarship; there was no
time for an unconscious deformation of historical
events in view of the early date now generally
admitted for the composition of the Gospels.2
Dr. Abbott (Encycl. Bibl., ii. 1778) seeks the origin of our
tradition in Philo’s allegorical treatment of certain O.T. stories
—thus : Yahweh is the true father, e.g. of Isaac, because Isaac
= “laughter,” and “God sows and begets happiness in souls.”
(The reff. to Philo are i. 131, 147, 215, 273, 598, ed. Mangey.)
But even if Philo sometimes “allegorized” the Patriarchs, he
never implies their historical virgin birth, still less could he
foster an opinion that the Messiah (whose role he almost
1 A. H. Sayce, Relig. oj Anc. Egypt and Babylon, 1902, p. 17.
Instances of “degeneration,” C.T.S. Lectures on Hist. Relig., vols. i.
and ii., Relig. of Hindus, Early Rome, Buddha, etc., etc.
2 Harnack vigorously says: “ The conjecture of Usener, that the idea
of the birth from a virgin is a heathen myth which was received by the
Christians, contradicts the entire earliest development of Christian
tradition, which is free from heathen myths so far [he adds] as these
had not already been received by wide circles of Jews, . . . which in the
case of that idea is not demonstrable.'” [Usener himself says (Encycl.
Bibl., ii. 3350): “The idea is quite foreign to Judaism.”] Hist, of
Dogma, Engl, tr., i., 1897, p. 100, I; cf. Chase, Cambridge Theol.
Essays, ed. H. B. Swete, 1905, p. 412: “ The solution of Prof. Usener
is directly at variance with the primary conditions of the problem.”
�The Virgin Birth
3i
obliterates) was to be virgin-bom;1 and anyhow Alexandrian
(Philonic) Judaism was very different from the purely Palestinian
religion of the Gospels.2
Finally, Harnack himself (cf. note 2,p. 30) argues that
the source of our belief was but a misinterpretation of
Is. 714 (Ecce uirgo concipiet, etc., Vulgate). It is impos
sible here to discuss the true interpretation of the
text. The Fathers with practical unanimity saw in
it from the first a prophecy of the actual event, but it
could only support, not generate, a belief or story.
For, once more, virgin birth was not an idea to which
the Jewish mind was accustomed. Whatever floating
myths or confused- traditions or indistinct expecta
tions may have at times occupied it, we cannot
suppose that a sudden, mysterious misinterpretation
of a single and not well-known text should have been
so general and potent as to impose, as true, a belief
such as the virgin birth of Jesus upon His almost
immediate disciples.
The Gospels, then, as we have them teach that Jesus
was born of a Virgin. So too the early Church believed.
Either, then, the belief was founded upon the Gospels,
or the Gospels were the literary expression of the
belief. The dogma must be assailed, if the former be
the case, by an attack upon the value of the Gospel
narrative; if the latter, by discrediting the value of
the belief. We saw (i.) that there is no external or
1 Whether a virgin-mother ever, or still, appeared on a purely
Jewish, horizon remains doubtful. Trypho, we saw (p. 2), practically
denies it. That Enoch, 62®, 6929,fcalls the Messiah son of the woman
does not help. Could we be sure that the LXX. meant their itapQl-vos
(virgin) (later modified by Theodotion and Aquila to veavis, “young
woman ”) in Is. 714 to be taken in its complete sense, and that the
virgin as virgin was to bear, the argument for a Jewish virgin-mother
tradition would be stronger ; but cf. Condamin, Isaie, p. 67 ; Lagrange,
Messianisme, p. 222 sqq.
f Lobstein, op. c., p. 68, maintains the gradual adornment of Christ’s
child-life, like that of Moses, Samuel, etc. This is far more plausible ;
but is yet (i.) unprovable, (ii.) improbable: even had the Childhood
been “embroidered,” virgin birth would not have been chosen as a
motif. Except among the Esaenes, the unmarried state was not esteemed
by the Jews,
�32
History and Dogma
internal evidence that the Gospels are late, or patch
work, or interpolated as regards the Childhood-story.
Their mutilation can only be attempted in obedience
to a priori conviction that miracle is impossible.
Incriminated episodes, like that of the Magi, have no
evidence against them ; or even, like that of the enrol
ment, are amazingly accredited by modern research,
and reflect honourably upon the Evangelist as
historian. Finally, neither is Matthew in conflict with
Luke, nor yet with the “ silence ” of Mark, nor the
doctrine of Paul or John: (ii.) while one group of
critics, rejecting as absurd the hypothesis that the
Gospels are indebted to pagan sources for their
narratives, seeks their origins in Jewish prophecy
or myth or allegory, another group, insisting that a
virgin birth was wholly alien to Jewish expecta
tion or ambition, assigns Indian, Persian, Greek, nay
“ savage ” cult and fancy as the fountain-head of the
Christian dogma.
We, while acknowledging that the serene and
universal faith of the early Church makes the back
ground of the Gospels, and that they must be inter
preted according to it, and could not have denied it
without being detected and flung aside, yet realise
that those Gospels were written, or at least reproduce
a doctrine existing long before alien influences of what
ever sort could enter to violate the primitive traditions,
and even memories, of the early disciples. Not the
conflicting, apocryphal forecasts of the Messiah, not
perverse misreadings of the sacred books, not the
unclean or grotesque or (at best) romantic and graceful
legends of pagandom could create the simple, pure,
and fragrant Gospel of the Childhood, so purely
Jewish and of its own time, yet so potent to reach the
love of the children of our distant day ; nor need the
older and more learned readers of that record hesitate
still to refresh their eyes with the gentle mysteries of
Bethlehem, or fear for the honour of the Virgin whom
all generations shall name blessed.
�
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The virgin birth and the gospel of the infancy
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Jesus Christ
Bible
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Bible. N.T. Gospels
Jesus Christ
Virgin Birth
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT EXAMINED.
THE FOUR GOSPELS.
BY
,< v
JULIAN,
Author of “ The Popular Faith Exposed," “Bible Words: Human,
not Divine," “ The Pillars of the Church," Etc.
ISSUED FOR THE
London:
WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET St.
Price One Penny.
�OUR PROPAGANDIST PRESS COMMITTEE.
This Committee is formed for the purpose of assisting in the pro
duction and circulation of liberal publications.
The members of the Committee are Mr. G. J. Holyoake, Dr.
Bithell, Mr. F. J. Gould, Mr. Frederick Millar, and Mr. Charles
A. Watts.
It is thought that the most efficient means of spreading the
principles of Rationalism is that of books and pamphlets. Many
will read a pamphlet who would never dream of visiting a lecture
hall. At the quiet fireside arguments strike home which might
be dissipated by the excitement of a public debate. The lecturer
wins his thousands, the penman his tens of thousands.
The aim of the various writers is to obtain converts by per
suasiveness rather than undue hostility towards the popular creeds.
The author of each publication is alone responsible for the state
ments contained therein.
All who are in sympathy with the movement are earnestly re
quested to contribute towards the expenses as liberally as their
means will allow. The names of donors will not be published
without their consent.
Contributions should be forwarded to Mr. Charles A. Watts,
17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C. Cheques should
be crossed “Central Bank of London, Blackfriars Branch.”
PUBLICATIONS ISSUED FOR THE COMMITTEE BY
MESSRS. WATTS & CO.
Agnostic Problems. Being an Examination of Some Questions
of the Deepest Interest, as Viewed from the Agnostic Standpoint.
By R. Bithell, B.Sc., Ph.D. Cheap Popular Edition, cloth, 2s. 6d.
post free.
_____
id. each, by post i%d.,
Agnosticism and Immortality. By S. Laing, author of “ Modern
Science and Modern Thought,” etc.
Humanity and Dogma. By Amos Waters.
What the Old Testament Says About Itself. By Julian.
The Old Testament Unhistoric and Unscientific. By Julian.
The Four Gospels. By Julian.
The Subject of the Four Gospels. By Julian.
LIBERTY OF BEQUESTS COMMITTEE.
This Committee is formed for procuring the passing of a law
legalising bequests for Secular and Free Thought purposes.
Subscriptions in furtherance of the object of this Committee may
be sent to Mr. George Anderson, Hon. Treasurer, 35a> Great
George Street, London, S.W.
�82^0
bJ4H?
Part III.
THE FOUR GOSPELS.
What is Required in a Treaty.—The New Testament
professes to be a message of reconciliation between God
and man, and the messenger, we are told, was God’s
own son. If so, without doubt the only thing for man
to do is to ascertain these three things :—
1. Is the envoy what he professes to be ?
2. Was he sent to bring the treaty ?
3. Are the terms stated the exact terms he was com
missioned to deliver ?
If we disbelieve any one of these points, w7e should
dismiss the messenger and break up the negotiation.
Edward I. laid siege to Calais, and when the people
were reduced to great straits he sent a herald to the
governor of the town, promising to raise the siege on
certain conditions. These conditions -were fully stated
in a roll, which was handed in. Plainly, the Mayor of
Calais would make himself sure that no trick was played
him before he delivered up the keys of the city. As
this is now a matter of history, you and I must judge
for ourselves whether the writer has stated the case
rightly or not; and, if we find him perpetually blunder
ing in his names, dates, incidents, and parallel events,
we should read the book as we read the Chronicles of
Geoffrey of Monmouth, or Arthur and his Round Table.
Parts may be true, but they must be proved from other
sources ; for falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus is a principle
applicable to all historians.
Apply this to the New Testament. Jesus, a man of
Nazareth, and called the son of Joseph the village carpen
ter, professed to be the son of Almighty God. Is this quite
certain ? Is it quite certain that the man proved to be
�30
THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT EXAMINED.
a descendant of David, and known by his townsmen as
the son of Joseph and Mary, was neither one nor the
other ? Is it quite certain that he, of whom his neigh
bours and kinsfolk said “ his brothers and sisters dwell
among us,” had neither brother nor sister ? Is it quite
certain that God sent Jesus from Heaven to earth to
bring his treaty of peace to man ? And is it quite certain
that the record given in the Gospels may be fully relied
on as exact in every particular ? Is all this so certain
that none can doubt it, or ever has doubted it ?
The Gospels our Only Record of the Treaty.—As we
are living many hundreds of years since these things are
said to have happened, we can know about them only
historically; and the records ought to be by contem
poraries of undoubted veracity, of approved ability, and
wholly without bias. Have we such documents ?
We have four books called “Gospels,” which profess
to give us an unvarnished record, without extenuation or
addition; and, furthermore, they profess to have been
written under the direct guidance of God himself. This
is a great claim, and ought to be established without
a shade of doubt. Every founder of a religion, and
many founders of civil laws also, have claimed a similar
inspiration; but no one qualified to judge places
the least reliance on such claims. Mohammed asserted
that he was instructed by the angel Gabriel. He tells
us the original copy of his Koran was written by rays
of light upon a tablet resting on the throne of the
Almighty, and that a copy, bound in white silk, was read
to him piecemeal by Gabriel, and inscribed by “ holy
inspiration” on his heart. This certainly is even a
higher claim than that made by the evangelists ; but its
truth must be tested in precisely the same wTay. If the
Koran is worthy of credit, the Gospels are false; for the
“ book written by the light of Heaven,” and inscribed
by the Holy Ghost on the prophet’s heart, affirms that
Christ was not crucified, whereas the Four Gospels,
inspired by the same Holy Ghost, declare that he was.
In one respect the Koran has this advantage. It was
dictated chapter after chapter by the prophet himself,
and was inscribed upon date-leaves and tablets of white
stone not above a year after the prophet’s death; whereas
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
31
the Gospels were not given to the world, at least as we
have them, for many a year after the death of the Nazarene. There is one other point of advantage in the
Koran : it is model Arabic, the most tuneful, the most
elegant, the most perfect ever written. If God himself
had written in Arabic, he could not have improved on
the Koran. If not actually inspired, it might be so;
for never man wrote such Arabic as this. On the other
hand, the Greek of the New Testament is, for the most
part, harsh and scrannelled, full of solecisms, and so bad
in every respect that no teacher would place it in the
hands of a schoolboy to whom he wished to teach Greek.
Certainly, if the Holy Ghost wrote the New Testament,
he would not pass an ordinary degree at any of our
universities; and any of our upper schools would dis
allow such Greek even in a third form.
Only One Koran, but Many Bibles.—We are told
that God has given to man 104 Bibles, only four of
which have survived : the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the
Gospels, and the Koran. The first three, we are told,
have come down to us mutilated and falsified ; but the
Koran remains just as it came by the hands of Gabriel
from the throne of the Almighty.
No one believes the Gospels with the same sincerity
that an Arab believes the Koran; and no one even
attempts to act up to their precepts, as every faithful
Mussulman wishes to square his life to the requirements
of the Koran.
Not a doctrine, not a dogma, not a rite, not a Church
practice, rests: on the New Testament teaching. They
all lean upon Church Councils, and may be added to
or withdrawn from time to time; but no Councils have
been required to determine the doctrines and dogmas of
Islam, and, as for the introduction of new points of
faith, an Arab would be instantly put to death who even
suggested such an innovation.
How is it with the Christian religion ? Even so late
as the year 1870 the Catholic Church “proclaimed”
the doctrine of “ Papal Infallibility ” as an article
of faith; and in 1890 a part of the Anglican Church
charged a bishop of the same Church with unlawful rites
and practices even in his own diocese. As for Councils,
�32
THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT EXAMINED.
some 2,000 have been required to settle moot points;
and 2,000 more would not avail to produce uniformity
of practice or unanimity of belief.
Undoubtedly, if the Gospels spake as plainly as the
Koran, such diversity on fundamental doctrines could
not exist; but history shows us that not a single doctrine
now held to be essential has been drawn from the Bible
without the interference of Church Councils.
The Doctrine of the Trinity.—Take an example or
two : The doctrine of the Trinity, a fundamental symbol
of the Catholic creed. Noctus denied that any such
doctrine is taught in the Bible; and what was done to
prove it ? In 245 a Council was convened at Ephesus,
and this Council, by a show of hands, voted that the
Doctrine of the Trinity should be considered an article of
Christian faith.
The Divinity of Christ.—Take the divinity of Christ:
Paul, bishop of Samosata (third century), denied that
this dogma is taught either by the Church or in the New
Testament. And how was it proved? In 264 a
Council was called at Antioch, and the question put to
the vote. A show of hands being called, the chairman
declared that the “ ayes ” had it; so the divinity of
Christ was pronounced by this Council to be an article
of the Catholic faith ; but for 150 years longer the
doctrine was a bone of contention, and certainly for 400
years what is called the Arian “ heresy ” was far more
prevalent than the “ Athanasian Creed.” The Council
of Arles, the Council of Tyre, the Council of Milan, and
the Council of Constantinople, all declared against the
Council of Antioch, and voted that Jesus of Nazareth
was not a divine being, but only a man born of a woman,
and of the substance of that woman. This certainly
was a perplexing state of things; so in 336 a “ final
Council ” was convened at Sardica to settle the matter.
And what happened ? The Council was about equally
divided. The “ ayes ” excommunicated the “ noes,”
and the “noes” excommunicated the “ayes.” Those
who believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ, and those
who believed it not, both had their part in the lake of
fire with Satan and his angels. Whichever horn of the
dilemma you laid hold of was equally fatal.
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
33
The Holy Ghost.—And what about the Holy Ghost ?
The Macedonians denied that any such dogma could be
found in the Bible. So, as usual, a Council was called
in 381 by Theodosius to settle the point, and the vote
turned against the Macedonians; but in
another
Council reversed the previous judgment.
In like manner we might go through every article of
the symbol, and show that it has been adopted, not
because the Bible definitely and distinctly enounces it,
but because it has been elected into the Creed by a
majority of Church dignitaries in some local Council.
Anything more unsatisfactory it is not possible to
imagine. The Church dignitaries were interested partisans.
They were never unanimous, and often a subsequent
Council reversed the judgment of a preceding one. Had
the voters been qualified to judge, they could not possibly
have disagreed. They must always have been unanimous.
Church doctrines are not matters of opinion, but matters
of Scripture teaching; and, if the inspired Bible gives
such an uncertain sound that Councils cannot agree
upon the matter, it certainly is not the voice of God,
and is useless as a guide to man. Protestants ignore all
Councils since that of Nicsea in 325, though those called
afterwards were formed on the same pattern, some of
them were attended by the same ecclesiastics, and all
are equally respected by the majority of Christians. If
you ask why the Councils had power to determine these
matters, you will receive for answer that God has pro
mised to guide his Church into all truth. But, if so, why
do Councils contradict Councils ? and why are many
divided in opinion ? The voice of a king, self-interest,
the party spirit of some leader, have always ruled the
votes, and such ruling can never be relied on.
No One Practically Believes or Acts up to the Gospel.
—We have said above that no one practically believes
or acts up to the Gospel. Such belief is impossible, and
such conformity would disorganise society and render
social life an impossibility. One of the silliest screams
ever uttered by man is “ the Bible, the whole Bible, and
nothing but the Bible.” No man in his senses believes
that “he can remove mountains by faith.” Let him try
on the Alps or Apennines. If these be too big, let him
�34
THE old and new testament examined.
try upon the Gog Magog hills of Cambridge ; and, if he
can remove one single grain of sand by faith or prayer, I
will doubt no longer.
No one out of Colney Hatch believes that these
things shall follow his credulity : “ He shall cast out
devils, speak with new tongues, take up serpents with
impunity, and if he drinks poison it shall do him no
harm” (Mark xvi. 17, 18). This promise was not
limited to the apostles. The words distinctly are, “ These
things shall follow them that believe.” It is notoriously
false; and, therefore, though spoken by Jesus himself,
was not spoken by the God of truth.
“ The whole Bible ”: let us see. “ Sell all thou hast
and give unto the poor.” “ Blessed are the meek, for
they shall inherit the earth.” Is there a Christian in all
Christendom that does the former or believes the latter ?
“ Is any sick among you—let him call for the elders of the
Church, and let them pray over him ; and the prayer
of faith shall save the sick.” Does anyone believe it ?
If tried, would any court of law in Protestant England
acquit those of criminality who followed such a direction
in scarlet fever, small-pox, diphtheria, or any other
disease? Is it ever tried in our hospitals? Would
any of our bishops try it ? Would any of the hierarchy
of Rome ? It is palpably untrue. How, then, can it
be said that “ every word of the Bible is true from the
first chapter of Genesis to the last of the Revelation ” ?
The Four Gospels Uncertain.—Our knowledge of the
“ Good Tidings ” offered to man is derived solely from
four anonymous books, of uncertain date, and proved to
demonstration not to be original copies. It is “ Somebody
one day came to me and said that somebody else had
somewhere readand upon such uncertain tenure as
this we are asked to give up body and soul, mind and
understanding, reason and common-sense, to follow “ a
cunningly-devised fable.”
The Gospels do not even profess to be by Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John, but only to be in accordance
with their respective schools of teaching. By whom they
were compiled, or who reduced them to their present
form, nobody has the most remote idea. Papias tells us
it was a general belief in the middle of the second
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
35
century that Peter was the dictator of the second
gospel; but, if so, it ought to be called the Gospel
according to Peter, and not the Gospel according to
Mark.
The same bishop of Hierapolis informs us that Matthew
wrote in Hebrew what was called the “ Sayings [Ta
Logia] of Jesus,” probably from chapter iv., verse 23, to
the end of chapter vii. of the first gospel; but who wrote
the rest, and who translated the ‘‘ Ta Logia ” into Greek,
is as uncertain as the authorship of the letters of Junius.
The Gospel according to Luke was a mere compilation
by someone who made a rechauffe which he termed
“ according to Luke.” This third gospel professes to
be selections from eye-witnesses ; but Luke himself was
no eye-witness ; who he was nobody knows ; probably he
was a Roman slave. In any law-court the testimony of
an eye-witness would outweigh a whole theatre of second
hand witnesses. It certainly is marvellous that the
Councils which determined our canonical books should
have preferred a mere compilation to the “ writings in
order” of eye-witnesses.
Asfor the Gospel according to John, it could not have
been in existence till late in the second century. Papias,
who died 164, and Polycarp, said to have been a disciple of
John, never heard of it; which would be quite incredible
if it had been in existence in their lifetime.
Why Four Gospels, and Neither More nor Less 2—
There were at least eighty gospels in the second century,
and 200 in the fourth; why, then, was the number reduced
to four ? Irenaeus (second century), the great pillar of
the Christian Church, tells us : “ It is meet and right to
have four gospels and no more, because there are four
quarters of the globe, and four winds of Heaven.” He
tells us furthermore that “ there are four dispensations—
that of Noah, that of Abraham, that of Moses, and that
of Christ.” There would be some sense in this remark
if he had shown the analogy between the four gospels
and the four dispensations. And, in regard to the four
quarters of the world, he should have shown that Matthew
was meant for one quarter, Mark for another, Luke for
the third quarter, and John for the fourth.
But, above all other reasons, Irenseus tells us that
�36
THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT EXAMINED.
Ezekiel’s cherubim prefigured the four evangelists. “ I
beheld,” says the prophet, “four wheels....... and the ap
pearance of these wheels was as the colour of a beryl •
....... ar*d the wheels had one likeness, as if a wheel had
been in the midst of a wheel.” This is not very intel
ligible. Four wheels all alike, each in the middle of the
other. Four penny-pieces, all alike, and each penny
piece in the middle of the three other penny-pieces. It
would require a clever draughtsman to draw this
quaternian wheel which was not a wheel. Now, the
prophet says: “ When the wheels went on their four
sides....... they turned not as they went. And....... the
wheels were full of eyes round about, even the wheels
that they four had.” I have not the remotest idea of
what is meant by “ the wheels that they four had;” have
you ? But see further on : “ As for the wheels, it "was
cried out to them, O wheels ! And every wheel had
four faces—the face of a cherub, the face of a man, the
face of a lion, and the face of an eagle.” The face of
the cherub is represented by that of a calf or ox.
This extremely queer wheel seems to have taken hold
of the public fancy, and we still find the four evangelists
symbolised by “ four faces,” but not exactly as Irenaeus
arranged them. Irenaeus makes John to be the lion, and
Mark the eagle; but, now-a-days, John is the eagle,
Mark the lion, Luke the calf, and Matthew the man.
Ezekiel says each wheel had four faces, and, if the four
wheels prefigured the Four Gospels, each Gospel ought
to have been four-faced.
This funny analogy of the Gospels to the wheel of
Ezekiel, “which was no wheel,” which “went on its
four sides without turning round,” which was “full of
eyes ” and yet had sixteen faces, seems to me unmitigated
nonsense; and, if the Gospels resemble it, no wonder
they “are hard to be understood.” That, according to
Irenaeus, is the reason why only four of the two hundred
gospels were selected, and I hope the reason will be
found highly satisfactory.
Why the Four which Form our Canon were Selected
in Preference to Others.—The next question is, Why
were the four compilations which form our canonical
books preferred to all the host of others ? We read of
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
37
the Gospel of Andrew, the Gospel of Apelles, the Gospel
of Barnabas, of James the elder, of Matthias, of Matthew
(not our first gospel), of Nicodemus, of Paul, of Peter,
of Philip, of Thaddeus, of Thomas, of the Apostles,
and scores of others. Some are certainly older than
Luke’s Gospel, according to his own acknowledgment.
The Reason Given in the Synodocon.—YvpfS, or
Pappus, in his “Synodocon” to the Council of Nicaea,
says that the two hundred “versions of the gospel were
all placed under a Communion Table, and, while the
Council prayed, the inspired books jumped on the slab,
but the rest remained under it.” If this was the way
the choice was made, it was a mere Jack-in-the-box
dodge, about equal to the card tricks of a circus-horse
or learned pig.
,
The Reason Given by Irenaus.—Irenaeus tells us that
“the Church selected the four most popular of the
gospels : Matthew’s, because it was the gospel used by
the Ebionites ; Mark’s, because it was the gospel used by
the Docetse; Luke’s, because it was the gospel used by
the Marcionites ; and John’s, because it was the go>pe
used by the Valentinians.” It is very strange ; but all
these four sects were accounted heretical, and were
denounced by Church Councils. The Ebionites were
Judaising Christians, who wanted to weld together the
Mosaic and Christian rites, which Paul protested against
so indignantly. The Docetse were Gnostics, and disciples
of Simon Magus. The Marcionites were heretics who,
as Origen informs us, taught that there are three gods
—one of the Jews, another of Christians, and the third
of the Gentiles. As for the Valentinians, they were
Platonists, who wanted to mix Platonism and Chris
tianity into pinchbeck, and pass it off for gold. .
The Account Given by the Council of Laodicea.—In
the Council of Laodicea, held in 366, each book of the
New Testament, we are told, was decided by ballot.
The Gospel of Luke escaped by only one vote, while
the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse were re
jected as forgeries. A subsequent Council, held later
in the same year, reversed the latter part of this judg
ment. Some forty years afterwards another Council
pronounced the two books undoubted forgeries, and in
�38
THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT EXAMINED.
twenty other Councils they w:re tossed about from limbo
to Paradise; at one time pronounced to be inspired by the
Holy Ghost, and at another time ascribed to the “father
When doctors disagree who is to decide?
Why is Council A better than Council B ? How can
such a question be settled by a ballot-box ? And what
is the value of Councils if they flatly disagree ? The
vote of such convocations is of no more value than a
toss up. It is ridiculous. Why is all this suppressed
by ecclesiastical writers ? He who suppresses the truth
is as much a false witness as he who utters direct false
hoods.
What is Meant by the Church.—Harold Browne, late
Bishop of Winchester, tells us that the “ canon of both the
Old and New Testament depends solely on the authority
of the Church, which alone can determine what books
shall be received and what rejected” (“Articles,” p.
159); but he fails to inform us what he means by the
Church. Does he mean the Greek Church, the Catholic
Church, the Anglican Church, any or all of the thousand
and one sects which have called themselves the true
Church since the death of Jesus to the present hour ?
Apparently the voice of the Councils is the voice of the
Church, and, if so, it is wholly worthless, as it constantly
gives itself the “ lie direct ;” and one Council anathema
tises another Council with all the bitterness of the most
ignorant bigotry.
The Church, says Dr. Browne, is the one and only
tribunal to which appeal is to be made. Well, what has
the Church decided respecting the Apocalypse ? Let us
see. In 366 the Council of Laodicea excluded it from
the canon of Scripture ; but, in 397, the Council of
Carthage declared it to be “ equal in every respect to all
the other books.
Will Dr. Browne, or any other bishop,
inform us which of these two Councils was the “voice
of the Church,” and why ?
Several Books Accepted by the Church are not Con
tained in our Canon.—We have referred to the uncer
tain voice of the Church respecting books admitted into
our canon; we would now refer to some which the
Church at one time received, but which are not enrolled
in our New Testament. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth,
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
39
in the second century, tells us, in a letter to the Church
of Rome, that “all Christians read on the Lord’s Day
Clement’s Epistle in their assemblies.” But I fail to
find this book in the New Testament. Eusebius also
says that Clement’s Epistle was universally read and
received in the Church, “ both in his own day and in all
former times.” That, I think, is pretty strong language.
“ The Codex Damascenus ” contains, as part of the
canonical New Testament, the Epistle of Barnabas and
part of “The Shepherd of Hermas.” “The Codex
Sinaiticus,” certainly one of the oldest in existence, con
tains the same. Why have these books been discarded ?
Eusebius (iii. 3) informs us that “ The Shepherd of
Hermas ” was read in all churches when he was Bishop
of Cesarea. Justin Martyr, who died in 167, quotes
entirely from “ Memoirs of the Apostles ;” and Rufinus
mentions other books which, in his time, were received
into the Church, but are now cast out. If we examine
the quotations of the Church Fathers, we shall undoubt
edly decide that the books they cited are not the books
which have come down to us. Justin Martyr tells us
that “when Jesus was baptised the river Jordan burst
into flames.” Where is this stated by the four evan
gelists ?
Again, the same Justin says that “believers are the
true children of God;” and we are told that this is a
quotation from the Fourth Gospel. It is not only no
quotation from that gospel; but the phrase, “true
children,” never once occurs in that gospel. Again, he
says : “ The blood of Christ sprang not of human seed,
but from the will of Godand this we are told is quoted
from the Fourth Gospel; but nothing like it occurs in
our version of any one of the Four Gospels. Again,
Justin says : “If anyone prunes a vine, it sprouts out
again;” and this is claimed as a quotation from the
Gospel according to John. If so, most assuredly our
Gospel is not the same as that used by Justin; for no
such words can be found in our New Testament. It
would occupy too much space to go over all the quota
tions of the Christian Fathers ; but I think I am not
wrong in stating that no quotation in all these numerous
books, except, perhaps, a short phrase or two, can be
�40
THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT EXAMINED.
found in any book of our Canonical Scriptures, and
the inference is irresistible that our Scriptures and theirs
are not the same.
The Witness of the Spirit no Guide to Truth.—The
framers of the Belgic Confession, seeing the difficulty,
tell us that “they accept the authorised books, not
because the Church enforces them on us, but because
their own minds assure them that they are the word of
God.” Methinks this is a very uncertain tribunal, for
education made Romans Pagans, Britons it made Druids,
the Chinese Buddhists, Jews it made believers in Moses,
and the Arabs believers in the Koran. A Unitarian
does not see with the same eye as a Trinitarian, a Non
conformist as a Ritualist, a Protestant as a Catholic.
At ten years of age we may be fully persuaded in our
own mind one way, at twenty another, at fifty something
else, and at eighty we may see the unwisdom of all our
former convictions.
What Baxter Says.—Baxter says : “ The Light of the
Spirit would never have enabled me to see that ‘ Solo
mon’s Song’ was canonical, and the ‘Book of Wisdom’
apocryphal. Nor could I, by my own unaided spirit,
ever credit as historical the Books of Joshua, Judges,
Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and
Daniel.” To these he might have added the Apocalypse.
He accepted those books, not because his “ mind
assured him that they were inspired,” but in spite of his
conviction the other way.
7W Gospel Contemporaneous with Apostolic Times.—No
gospel was contemporaneous with apostolic times. The
Gospel according to Matthew is generally considered
the oldest of the four; but it certainly was not written
by a contemporary. In chap, xxviii. 7, 8, the writer,
speaking of the potter’s field, bought by the blood
money cast by Judas into the temple, says : “ It is
called the ‘ Field of Blood ’ even to the present day.”
This remark shows to demonstration that a considerable
lapse of time had passed between the event and the
record. In verse 15 of the same chapter we have
another similar instance. Speaking of the hush-money
given to the soldiers, to induce them to say that the
disciples came by night and stole away the body of
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
41
Jesus, the author adds : “ This tale is commonly reported
among the Jews even to the present day.” The im
pression left on the mind by these words is, that the
writer was not writing to Jews, nor from the country of
the Jews, but from some other country, and that the
event was one of long ago. If this is true of the oldest
gospel, a fortiori it applies to all subsequent ones.
The Gospels Flatly Contradict Each Other.—The
synoptic gospels distinctly state that Jesus made his
“ triumphant entry into Jerusalem ” at the beginning of
his ministry. The Fourth Gospel informs us it was his
last function, just before his trial and execution. Both
these statements cannot possibly be true; and apostles,
disciples, and eye-witnesses could not have so blundered.
They must have known whether it was the first act of
his public ministry or the last.
Mark says that Jesus was crucified at the third hour
of the day (9 a.m.), and at the “ sixth hour there was
darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour,” when
Jesus expired (xv. 25, 33). The Johannine Gospel
asserts with equal precision that Pilate said to the Jew's
at the sixth hour, “Behold your king !” and the Jewish
mob yelled out, “ Away with him ! away with him 1”
Both these statements cannot be correct. If Jesus was
crucified at nine o’clock in the morning, he certainly could
not be standing at the bar of Pilate three hours later.
Again, the first three gospels inform us that Jesus
was crucified after the Pascha; but John affirms that he
was “ crucified, dead, and buried ” before that feast.
Matthew and Luke profess to prove that Jesus was
the son of Joseph, a lineal descendant of David, which, no
doubt, was an essential characteristic of the promised
Messiah. John ignores all this, and insists that he was
the Logos, the incarnate son of God, and no descendant
of David at all.
These maybe called the four most important incidents
in the life of Jesus; but the witnesses contradict each
other on every one of them. There are a host of such
discrepancies. I will mention one out of many,
not in the gospels, but in Paul’s epistle. Job xix.
26 says: “Though after my skin worms destroy this
body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Paul says (Cor.
�42
THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT EXAMINED.
xv. 50) : “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom
of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”
Comment is needless. Everyone must see in a moment
that these two statements are not reconcilable.
Christian Writers Accused of Falsehood and Forgery
by Christian Writers.—But infinitely the worst im
peachment of all is that of gross interpolation and a
wilful falsifying of Scriptures. This charge, be it re
membered, is made not by enemies only, but by the
most honoured of the Christian Fathers and historians.
Eusebius declares that it is “lawful and fitting to
employ falsehood in behoof of the Church;” and he
speaks of “ the gross prevalence of sacred forgeries and
lying frauds” introduced into the books of Scripture.
“ Whole paragraphs,” he adds, “ have been foisted in
by our predecessors.”
Origen tells us that falsehood is actually laudable if
thereby the cords of the Church are lengthened and its
stakes strengthened. “It is not only justifiable,” he
says, “but our bounden duty, to lie and deceive if by
such guiles we can catch souls.”
Augustine says : “ Many things have been added by
our forefathers even to the words of our Lord himself.
Sentences have been added neither uttered by Christ,
nor yet written down by any of his apostles. No one
knows by whom.”
Bishop Faustus (who died 320) hesitated not to say
that “words and whole paragraphs have been inserted
into the books of Scripture ad libitum.”
Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, says the same thing
(see Eusebius i-v. 23).
Mosheim, the Church historian, is very indignant at
this palpable interpolation and falsifying of Scripture.
Indeed, no one can read Church history, so full of false
decretals, lying miracles, and guileful ways, without
feeling that the Boaz of the Temple is falsehood, and its
Jachin deception
�
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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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Pamphlet
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Title
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The four gospels
Creator
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Julian
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: [29]-42 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Date of publication from Cooke, Bill. The blasphemy depot (RPA 2003), Appx. 1. 'Julian' is the pseudonym of Ebenezer Cobham Brewer (1810-1897). Issued for the Propagandist Press Committee.
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Watts & Co.
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[1891]
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N419
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Bible
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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 (The four gospels), 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
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English
Bible. N.T. Gospels
NSS