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WILL CHRIST
SAVE US?
AN EXAMINATION OF
THE CLAIMS OF JESUS CHRIST TO BE CONSIDERED
THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD.
BY
G. W. FOOTE.
Price Sixpence.
LONDON :
R. FORDER, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
1893.
��M17I
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
WILL
CHRIST SAVE US?
G. W. FOOTE.
LONDON:
R. FORDER, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.O.
1892
�LONDON :
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY G. W. FOOTE,
28
STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�Will Christ Save Us?
----------♦----------
Christian Churches are big firms in the soul-saving business.
The principal of all these firms is a person who is said
to have established the trade nearly nineteen hundred years
ago. Some sceptics have doubted his very existence, but
they are generally held to be obstinately blind or wilfully
captious. Yet in any case it is indisputable that if Jesus
Christ ever lived he died, and though he is declared to
have risen from the dead, he is also said to have ascended
into heaven. He is no longer on earth, except in a theological
or mystical sense. The salvation business is carried on
by his agents, real or fictitious, appointed or self-appointed.
They charge various rates, and issue diverse prospectuses.
It seems impossible that the founder of the business can
authorise such contradictory advertisements or such various
price-lists; nevertheless the many different firms, who all
pretend to be branches of the original house, and sometimes
to be the original house itself, are all busy, and some do
a roaring,, profitable trade.
Soul-saving, as we have said, is the business of all these
Christian establishments or branches. Many people, however,
are doubtful whether they have souls to save, and they are
not the least moral and intelligent members of the human
species. Science is leaving little room for souls in our
economy. Evolution shows a gradual line of development
from the lowest to the highest orders of life, and it is more
and more difficult to see where the soul comes in. The very
Churches, indeed, are beginning to appreciate the growing
indifference on this subject, and are issuing manifestoes
about their intention to save men’s bodies as well as their
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Will Christ Save Us?
souls. General Booth himself was obliged to follow this
line when he wanted to raise £100,000 for the promotion
of his scheme of Salvation.
All these Christian establishments or branches profess
to be powerless in themselves. Their strength and efficacy
are derived. They do all things through Christ. It is he
who works in them. They vend salvation medicine, but he
is the patentee. We may therefore set them aside, and deal
with him, his recipe, its virtues, and its testimonials.
We will consider, first, the disease for which he offers
a remedy. He is to save us, but what is it he is to save us
from? We are told it is from sin, and its consequences.
What then is sin ?
If sin is offence against our fellow men, inflicting misery
upon them for our own interest or gratification, or with
holding assistance when we might render it without greater
injury to ourselves, it is hard to see how Christ can save
us from it. Preaching appears to be of little avail. Didactic
morality has always been barren. Many a boy has written
“honesty is the best policy” all down the length of his
copybook, and gone to the playground and sneaked another
boy’s marbles. Have all the billions of sermons fiom the
pulpit had any appreciable effect on the morale of human
society? But culture, wise conditions of life, examples of
actual heroism, flashing utterances from the brooding depths
of genius, an arresting picture, a pregnant poem, a story
of love stronger than death, of virtue stronger than doom;
these have improved and elevated men, and quickened
the springs of goodness in millions of hearts.
Selfishness is the root of much evil. In the natural sense
of the word it is the only sin. But how will Christ save us
from selfishness ? We are told that he gave his life for us
and this should make us kind to our fellows, out of mere
gratitude. He did not die for us, however; every man
has to die for himself. If it be meant that he gave his
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life as an atonement to God, we reply that such a transaction
is unintelligible. Jurisprudence does not allow one person
to atone for another ; and how can the suffering of innocence
diminish the selfishness of guilt ? Supposing Jesus Christ
to be merely a man, he could n ot bear the sins of the world
upon his own shoulders. Supposing him to be God, does
it not seem farcical for God to atone to himself, satisfy
himself, pay himself, and discharge himself?
Sin, in the form of selfishness, vitiates our nature ;
its consequences afflict our fellow men; and neither the
interior mischief noi’ the exterior evil can be remedied by
theological hocus-pocus.
Setting aside the huge improbabilities of the Crucifixion
story, and treating it as substantially true, it is impossible to
regard Jesus Christ as a real martyr. He died for no prin
ciple. He was not called upon to renounce his convictions.
The slightest exercise of common sense would have saved his
life. His end was rather a suicide than a martyrdom. His
trial and execution are an incomparable tragic picture, which
has made the fortune of Christianity; but if we allow reason
to operate in the midst of terror and compassion, we cannot
fail to perceive that the tragedy involves no ethical lesson or
heroic example.
We are equally disappointed if we turn to the teaching of
Jesus Christ. Nearly all his ethics have a selfish sanction.
Future reward and punishment, the lowest motives to right
conduct, are systematically proffered. Those who forsook
family and property for his sake were to receive a hundred
fold in this life, and a still greater profit in the next life.
“ Great is your reward in heaven ” Was his highest incentive,
except in occasional moments when he was truer to the
natural instincts of sympathy and benevolence. Not in such
teaching is the cure for selfishness, but rather its intensifica
tion. A finer spirit breathed in the Pagan maxim that
“ Virtue is its own reward.”
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Christ cannot save us from selfishness, because he appeals
to selfish motives. Still less, if possible, can he save us from
the consequences of selfishness. No man or god can do thatWhat is said is said, what is done is done. The lie, the
slander, the innuendo; the harsh word, the malicious smile,
the savage frown; the fraud, the curse, the blow; these have
passed from effects into causes, and produce misery in ever
widening circles, as the stone dropped into a still lake pro
duces an extending circle of ripple, whose vibrations continue
when lost to the perception of human eyes.
Even if we admit the blamelessness of Christ’s life, for the
sake of argument, without laying stress on many high
qualities that were lacking in his nature, it is impossible to
regard him as our “ great exemplar,” and in that sense as
our Savior. Regarded as God, he is beyond our imitation.
We have not his means, he had not our weakness. If he was
“ tempted as we are, yet without sin,” he was not tempted as
we are. The external solicitation is powerless without the
internal proclivity. Public-houses are the same to drunkards
as teetotallers, yet they alternately attract and repel. On
the other hand, if we regard Jesus as a man, how are we to
imitate him then ? Most of his life-story is miraculous. We
cannot cure the sick, give sight to the blind, hearing to the
deaf, speech to the dumb, or restore dead sons and brothers
to their mothers and sisters. Our powers and duties are
more prosaic. VTe want incentive and guidance as husbands
and wives, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, friends
and citizens: and here the example of Jesus fails us as utteily
as his teaching.
Let us first look at the example and the teaching of Jesus
from the domestic standpoint, which is of incalculable impor
tance.
The unit of the human race is neither the man nor the
woman; it is the family. Here the supplementary natures
of men and women find free scope, as husband and wife, and
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as parents, whose various functions, alike on the physical
and on the moral side, are equally necessary to the nurture
and education of their offspring. The family, indeed, is the
ark of civilisation, containing the sacred elements of
humanity, and preserving the germ of all social organisation
amidst the worst disasters that flow from the folly and
wickedness of nations or their rulers.
In this respect the example of Jesus is worthless. He
was certainly not remarkable for filial devotion. Of his
relations with his brothers and sisters we know next to
nothing. He was not married, * and was therefore unac
quainted with the duties of a husband and a father. What
ever else his example may be worth, it is entirely valueless
in regard to domestic obligations. Men, and even gods, can
only be an example to us so far as they have been in our
position. Without this qualification their very advice is
apt to provoke laughter or impatience; a truth which is
reflected in the proverb that bachelor’s children are always
well brought up.
The teaching of Jesus, on this point, is as barren as his
example. It is a singular fact, which rarely attracts the
attention of believers, that the domestic ethics of Christianity
are not to be found in the Gospels, but in the epistles of
Saint Paul. Jesus does occasionally condescend to touch the
question of sexuality, which lies at the basis of all our social
life; but on such occasions he is either enigmatic or repulsive.
He appears to have regarded sexual relations in the spirit of
an Essenean. One of his sayings went still farther; it
prompted the great Origen to emasculate himself as a candi
date for the kingdom of heaven. Another fervent disciple
of Jesus in our own age, the great Russian writer, Count
Tolstoi, argues that no true Christian can enter into the
marriage relation. He quotes a number of the sayings of
Jesus in support of his argument. And what is the answer
of the Churches ? Their only answer is silence. They dare
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not meet him on this ground. They trust his article will bo
forgotten, and they act on the maxim “ the least said the
soonest mended.”
In a certain sense the virtue of industry is a part of
domestic morality. Although every worker may be regarded
as a cell of the entire social organism, it is not for society
that he primarily labors, but for his own subsistence and
the maintenance of his family. Now Jesus never taught
the virtue of industry. “How could he,” asks Professor
Newman, “ when he kept twelve religious mendicants around
him?” Here again it is to Saint Paul that we must go
for ethical teaching. So far as Jesus can be understood,
he taught a doctrine of special providence which cuts at
the roots of thrift and foresight. “ Take no thought for
the morrow,” and similar maxims, would, if acted upon,
reduce civilised communities to the condition of the lowest
savages, who live from hand to mouth, and feast to-day
and starve to-morrow.
The only escape from this difficulty is to treat such
maxims as mystical, hyperbolic, or allegorical. It is difficult,
however, to regard them in this light, when we remember
the whole drift of Christ’s teaching. We have not a few
isolated texts to deal with, but a whole body of inculcations,
culminating in the advice to a rich young man to sell all
he possessed and give the proceeds to the poor; advice,
indeed, which was universally acted upon by the primitive
Church, if we may trust the narrative in the Acts of the
Apostles.
We may further remark that if Jusus did not mean
precisely what he said in these numerous instances, the
Churches are bound to tell us two things; first, what he
did mean; secondly, why he spoke in a misleading or
perplexing manner. Was it worth while to cloud the path
of salvation with dark sayings ? And if a writer or speaker
does not mean what he says, is it really possible for anyone
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to be certain what he does mean ? Unless language is used
with its ordinary significance, every man will interpret it
according to his fancy, and the conception of its meaning
will vary with taste and temperament.
So much for Christ’s example and teaching with respect
to domestic morality. We will now, before examining his
other teaching, briefly consider his claim as “the great
exemplar ” in the more general sense of the words.
Not only is it impossible for us to imitate his miracles;
not only does he afford us no practical example in the
ordinary duties of life; his example in all other respects
is perfectly useless. As a god, we cannot imitate him;
as a man we cannot imitate him either, since it is impossible
to ascertain his real character; and the very fact that he
has been worshipped as a god precludes his serving as a
human model.
Let us elaborate these propositions a little. When a king
is dethroned it is undignified for him to take part in public
affairs. He should retire into private life. In the same way, as
Professor Bain observes, a dethroned God should not set up
as a great man, but retire into the region of poetry and
mythology. “ He who has once been deified,” says Strauss,
“ has irretrievably lost his manhood.” This is the reason
why Unitarianism, despite wealth, learning, and ability
achieves no success amongst the people. It is also the reason
why Christian panegyrists of the character of Jesus indulge
in such hectic eloquence. They must maintain a certain
feverishness; a lapse into cool reason would betray the
hollowness of their cause.
Jesus as a man is one of the most shadowy figures in
history, and his outlines perpetually shift as we read the
gospel narratives. It was this confusing fact which prompted
the following objection of Strauss to regarding the Prophet
of Nazareth as a human model:—
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“ I must have a distinct, definite conception of him in whom I am to
believe, whom I am to imitate as an exemplar of moral excellence. A
being of which I can only catch fitful glimpses, which remains obscure to
me in essential respects, may, it is true, interest me as a problem for
scientific investigation, but it must remain ineffectual as regards practical
influence on my life. But a being with distinct features, capable of
affording a definite conception, is only to be found in the Christ of faith,
of legend, and there, of course, only by the votary who is willing to take
into the bargain all the impossibilities, all the contradictions contained in
the picture; the Jesus of history, of science, is only a problem; but a
problem cannot be an object of worship or a pattern'¡by which to shape
our lives.”
Thus the “great exemplar” vanishes in the light of
rationalism; it can only exist in the twilight of faith.
There is, however, a more subtle and plausible aspect of
this “ great exemplar ” fallacy, which imposes on some who
are entirely free from orthodox superstition. It imposed
even on John Stuart Mill. That great man’s essay on Theism
was published after his death by Miss Helen Taylor, who
confesses that it had “ never undergone the repeated exa
mination which it certainly would have passed through
before he would himself have given it to the world,” and that
even its style is “ less polished than that of any other of his
published works.” At the close of this unfortunate essay
there occurs the famous panegyric on Christ. It is an
unusually rhetorical piece of writing for Mill; its statements
betray a great want of information on the subject, and its
reasoning is remarkably loose and inconsequent. Neverthe
less it has been eagerly seized upon by Christian apologists ;
and, as Professor Bain remarks, the inch of concession to the
existing Theology has been stretched into an ell. Mill dis
misses contemptuously the doctrine of Christ’s divinity, and
declares that the Prophet of Nazareth “ would probably have
thought such a pretension as blasphemous.” Yet he treats
it as “ a possibility ” that Christ was “ a man charged with a
special, express, and unique commission from God to lead
mankind to truth and virtue.” “ Religion,” he says—meaning
of course Christianity—“ cannot be said to have made a bad
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choice in pitching on this man as the ideal representative
and guide of humanity.” And he adds that even the un
believer would have difficulty in finding “ a better translation
of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete,
than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our
life.”
“ My dear sir,” might the unbeliever reply to Mill, “ your
illustration and argument are alike arbitrary and fantastic.
Profound scholars like Strauss, and patient, well-informed
thinkers like George Eliot, plainly declare (and who can
seriously dispute it?) that the materials for a biography of
Jesus Christ do not exist. The ideal Christ is a creation of
centuries ; nay, the process still continues, each generation of
Christians. adding to, subtracting from, or in some way
modifying the never-finished portrait. The real Christ, if he
ever existed, is lost beyond all hope of recovery; he is buried
under impenetrable mountains of dogma, legend, and
mythology. In vain will you search the New Testament for
any coherent conception of his personality. The protean
figure is ever passing into fresh shapes; a hundred contra
dictory aspects flash upon your baffled vision. The total
impression upon the beholder is, as it were, a composite
photograph, representing types and qualities, but no individu
ality. To make it one’s ideal is only self-delusion. Even if
this objection be waived, and the intelligible personality of
Christ be conceded for the sake of argument, why should a
rational, self-respecting man bind himself to the perpetual
study and emulation of one type of character ? The seeker
for moral beauty, like the seeker for intellectual truth, should
gather honey from every flower that blooms in the garden of
the world. And why should Christ be made the ideal critic
of our actions ? Many a man devotedly loves his mother, or
cherishes her memory. Would it not be a safe rule for him
to act so that the dear dead or living parent would approve
his conduct ? But even this rule, in the wisest and loftiest
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estimate, is too personal and limited. It would be better to
act so that every honest man would approve our conduct;
better still, to act so as to secure our own approval. Let
men be true to themselves, let them broaden and deepen
their intellectual light, let them gain what help they can
from the example of great and beautiful lives, let them con
sider the consequences of their deeds; and having acted, let
them practise the benign art of self-reflection, bringing
their conduct before the inner tribunal of a sensitive con
science, whose judgment, if sometimes mistaken, will always
be pure and nearly always decisive. For every man who
takes the trouble to think (and without thinking what avails?)
will always know himself better than he can be known by
others; and thus the verdict of his own conscience is not only
superior to the brawling judgment of the ignorant world
outside him, but even superior to the judgment of the wisest
and best, who can never know exactly his motives, his powers,
and his necessities, or the myriad circumstances of his
position.”
Having seen that Christ is no real exemplar, and that fie
cannot save us from sin in the form of selfishness^ let us now
consider his power to save us from sin in its theological
significance.
The Christian theory is delightfully simple, and at the
same time brutally crude. It is not entirely derived from
the Gospels, but the Epistles are an integral part of the
Christian revelation, and a successful attempt to discard the
inspired authority of Saint Paul would eventually wreck the
entire structure of Christianity.
We must start with Adam, in whom all men sinned, as in
Christ all men are saved, who will be saved. The grand old
gardener, as Tennyson calls this mythical personage, was
created as the father of the human race. He was placed in
the Garden of Eden, and allowed to eat of the fruit of every
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tree except one, which was strictly forbidden. He was also
given a wife, who was made from one of his ribs, extracted
while he lay in a deep sleep. These two were the only
inhabitants of the garden, but there came a visitor, called
Satan, a powerful rival of the creator. This subtle and wily
adversary tempted the woman to taste the forbidden fruit;
she yielded, and induced her husband to taste it also. For
this act of disobedience they were expelled from the garden;
they were cursed by -their offended God, and the curse fell
upon all their posterity. Sin had vitiated their once pure
natures, and this vitiation was necessarily transmitted to their
offspring. Thus the whole human race is corrupt; in other
words, full of original sin.
This original sin puts enmity between God and his
creatures. God hates sin and must punish it. Every
sinner, therefore—and all men are sinners—owes God an
infinite debt, not because his sin is infinite, but because he
sins against an infinite being. But finite men can never
pay an infinite debt; therefore they are doomed to eternal
imprisonment in Hell, where the God of infinite justice
and mercy immures and tortures his wicked children.
This theory is set forth by hundreds of Christian divines,
in thousands of treatises, but no one puts it more cleaily
than the once-famous Rev. Charles Simeon in Nine Ser
mons on 1 he Sorrows of the Son of God, preached before
the University of Cambridge.
“ We, by sin, had incurred a debt, which not all' the men on earth, or
angels in heaven, were able to discharge. In consequence of this, we
must all have been consigned over to everlasting perdition if, Jesus had
not engaged on our behalf to satisfy every demand of law and justice.
.... Jesus having thus become our surety, our debt ‘ was exacted of
him, and he was made answerable ’ for it. . . . Hence, when the time
was come, in which Jesus was to fulfil the obligations he had contracted,
he was required to pay the debt of all for whom he had engaged ; and to
pay it to the very utmost farthing. It was by his sufferings that he dis
charged this debt.”
The suffering of Jesus was but for a time, but as an infinite
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being he suffered infinitely, and hence his death was “ a full,
perfect, and sufiicient propitiation for the sins of the whole
world.
Such is the metaphysical juggling of Christian
dogmatists!
Now if this orthodox scheme of salvation be closely
examined, it will be found to be rotten to its foundation.
Adam never fell, and we are not inheritors of his vitiated
nature, nor participators in his curse. No such persons as
Adam and Eve ever existed. Their very names are not per
sonal but generical. Only modern ignorance or ancient
mythology speaks of the “ first parents ” of mankind. Evolu
tion does not admit the conception of a first man and woman.
The simian progenitors of the human race did not suddenly
develop into the genus homo. They did not wake up one
morning and find themselves men. Their progress was slow
and gradual, precisely like the psychical progress of humanity
since it virtually became such. Nature does not advance by
leaps and bounds, but by infinitesimal changes which only
amount to decisive alterations in vast periods of time. This
is the teaching of modern science, and in the age of Darwinism
the old story of the special creation of man falls into its proper
place, beside the other guesses of ancient ignorance.
If Adam did not fall, because he never existed, there is an
end to the Christian doctrine of original sin. The just and
merciful God, of whom we hear so much, did not curse his
children in the Garden of Eden for violating a prohibition
which had no moral significance; nor did he involve in the
curse the whole of their unborn posterity. The idea is only
mythological. Yet it adumbrates a certain truth. We now
perceive the great law of heredity, which applies in the
mental and moral as well as in the physical world. Children
do inherit something from their parents; not sin, for that is
an act, but tendency, disposition, or whatever name it passes
under. And in all of us there are passions inherited from
our far-off brute ancestors, that do war against our highest
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interests. But these passions are not in themselves a curse.
The evil is one of excess, or want of equilibrium, which it is
the business of social and individual culture to rectify. Take
away our passions, volcanic and insurgent as they sometimes
are, and you would reduce us to nonentity. Passion is our
motive power. Let the intellect and conscience employ this
natural force, directing it to the permanent good of each and
all, which in the long run are identical.
The new truth supplants the old error, at the same time
preserving whatever grain of verity it concealed. Only the
most docile and degraded slaves of superstition now believe
the hideous doctrine of original sin as it was preached by our
Puritan forefathers, and is still set forth in the creeds of the
Churches. Generous natures always revolted against it.
Loving mothers, bending over their little ones, never thought
them reeking masses of spiritual corruption. The answering
love in the child’s eye, the clasp of its little fingers, its
appealing helplessness, and its boundless trust, nursed the
holy flame in the mother’s heart, until it grew into a fire of
affection that consumed the evil dogma of birth-sin with
which the priest sought to over-lay her natural instinct.
Stern old Jonathan Edwards, that consummate logician of a
devilish creed, was not deflected from “ God’s truth ” by the
smiles of his children; but it is said that he never quite
convinced their loving mother. The logic of her heart was
better than the logic of his head.
Obliged to dismiss, as we are, the story of the Fall and the
doctrine of Original Sin, what becomes of the Atonement ?
Must it not go with them? Every student of religion
perceives that the doctrine of the Atonement is a last subli
mation of the old theory of Sacrifice. Men were once
slaughtered to appease the wrath of the gods; animals were
substituted for men as civilisation progressed; finally a
compromise was effected in the death of a man-god, whose
blood was a universal atonement.
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The savage origin of this central dogma of Christian
theology is betrayed in its nomenclature. “ Without shedding
of blood there is no remission.” “The blood of Christ
cleanseth from all sin.” “ Washed in the blood of the Lamb.”
Such are the flowers of speech in the garden of the Atone
ment. And who that has ever heard it fails to remember the
famous hymn ?—
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged within that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.
This language of the shambles would never be adopted by
civilised people. It comes down to us from ages of barbarism.
We lisp the words before we comprehend their meaning, and
familiarity in after years deadens our sense of horror and
disgust. Only when we break through the mesh of custom
do we realise the shocking nature of the “ holy ” language of
our hereditary faith.
Having once begun to reflect upon it, we soon perceive the
absurdity of the doctrine it expresses. We see it is false,
immoral, and foolish. Punishment is justifiable only as it
aims at the protection of society or the reformation of the
criminal. Having satisfaction out of somebody is simply
vengeance. Jesus Christ, therefore, could not be “ a propitia
tion ” for our sins, unless God were a brutal tyrant, who went
upon the principle of “ so much sin, so much suffering,”
regardless upon whom it was inflicted. Nor could the suffer
ings of Jesus Christ, borne for our sins, even if they appeased
our angry God, either remove the consequences of our illdoing in human society or prevent the inevitable deterioration
of our characters. And when we consider that God the Son,
who makes expiation, is “ of the same substance ” with God the
Father, who exacts it; and that the discharge of this “ debt ”
is like robbing Peter to pay Paul; we lose all control of our
risible muscles, and drown the demented dogma in floods of
laughter.
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17
What honest man would be saved by the loss of another ?
It were noble for a friend to offer to die for me; it were base
for me to accept the sacrifice. He who hopes for heaven
through the sufferings of an innocent substitute, is not worth
saving, and scarcely worth damning. People are growing
ashamed of the advice to “ lay it all upon Jesus.” Selfrespecting men and women prefer to bear their own respon
sibilities. It is disreputable to sneak into heaven in the
shadow of Jesus Christ.
According to orthodoxy, Jesus saves us from the wrath of
God, who seems to be in a permanent passion with his
children. To speak plainly, he saves us from hell. But the
belief in future torment is dying out in the light of civilisa
tion and humanity. Men have advanced, and their god must
advance with them. Hell is being recogniseds^as “ the dark
delusion of a dream ” by the most educated, thoughtful, and
humane of our species ; and the progress of this emancipation
may be measured by the desperate efforts of the more astute
clergy to “ limit the eternity of hell’s hot jurisdiction,” or to
explain away a literal hell altogether as a false interpretation
of metaphorical teaching.
Salvation from hell in another fifty or a hundred years will
be universally laughed at, if not forgotten, in all civilised
countries. And the fate of the Devil is no less certain.
“ Deliver us from the evil one ”—as the Lord’s Prayer now
reads in the Revised Version—will only be a monument of
old superstition. The great bogie of the priest is going the
way of the . bogies of the nursery. We do not need to be
saved from Old Nick. Our real peril is in quite another
direction. The suggestions of evil do not come from Satan,
but from our own faulty and ill-regulated natures. Stupidity,
ignorance, sensuality, egotism, and cowardice; these are the
devils against which we must carry on an incessant warfare.
It may of course be plausibly argued that Christ was (and
is) God; that, being so, his ability to save us, here and hereB
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Will Christ Save Us?
after, is unquestionable; that, having the power to save us,
he may be presumed to have the desire; that he is the Son
of “ our Father which art in heaven,” and that we may—and
indeed ought to—rely upon his mercy and generosity for our
salvation.
Now there are two fatal defects in this argument. In the
first place, it is not clear that Christ was God; in the second
place, it is not clear that, if he was, he will certainly save us.
The deity of Christ has always been rejected by a more or
less numerous section of professed Christians. Learned
books have been written to prove that the doctrine is incon
sistent with the teaching of Christ and the utterances of the
primitive Church. Even an outsider, who studies Christianity
as he studies Buddhism or Brahminism, sees that the doctrine
of the deity of Christ—or the dogma of God the Son—was
slowly developed as primitive Christianity made its way
among the Gentiles. It required centuries to reach its per
fection in the metaphysical subtleties of the great Creeds,
which are accepted alike by Protestant and Catholic. Peter,
in the Acts of the Apostles, speaks to his countrymen of “ the
man ” Jesus whom they had slain; the god Christ was an
after construction of the Grasco-Oriental mind.
We do not propose, however, to trouble the reader with
laborious proofs of this position. We prefer to leave the
historical ground—at least in the present inquiry—and to
tread the ground of common knowledge and common sense.
Apart from history and metaphysics, for which the popular
mind has neither leisure nor inclination, and in which it is
often as easy for a skilled intelligence to go wrong as to go
right—there are only two ways in which the belief in Christ’s
divinity can be supported. It may be argued that he was not
born, and that he did not live or die, like a mere human
being; and that his supernatural career proves his deity. Or
it may be argued that he taught the world what it did not
know, and could never have discovered for itself.
�Will Christ Save Us?
,19
We will take the second argument first; and in reply w©
have simply to observe that a very slight acquaintance with
the teachings of antiquity will convince us of the truth of
Buckle’s statement, that whoever asserts that Christianity
revealed to mankind truths with which they were previously
unacquainted is guilty either of gross ignorance or of wilful
fraud. The note of absolute originality is lacking in the
utterances of Christ; what he said had been said in other
words before him; and it is inconceivable that God should
come upon earth, and go through all the painful and un
dignified stages of human life, merely to inform his creatures
of what they had already discovered.
Let us now take the first argument—the supernatural career
of Christ. We are told that he was born without a father;
but whoever will read the Gospels critically, without the
slightest reference to any other authority, will see that they
do not contain the first-hand testimony of any valid witness.
If the Gospels were written in the second century (as they
were) they are no evidence at all. If they were written
by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they are still no
evidence of the miraculous birth of Jesus; for neither of
those writers was in a position to know the facts. The
only persons who could know anything about the matter
were Joseph and Mary. Joseph himself could only know
he was not the father of Jesus; he could not know who
was, Mary, indeed, knew if there was anything uncommon ;
but she does not appear to have informed any one; in fact,
she is said to have kept all these things hidden in her heart.
How then did the Gospel writers—or rather two of them, for
Mark and John were ignorant or silent—how, we ask, did
they discover the minute details of the annunciation and
miraculous conception ? Joseph and Mary appear to have
kept the secret, if there was one to keep; and during all the
public life of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, not a whisper
transpired of his supernatural birth ; on the contrary, he is
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TPzZZ Christ Save Us ?
unsuspectingly referred to as “ the carpenter’s son ” by his
neighbors and fellow citizens.
Were such “ evidence ” as this tendered in a court of law,
it would damnify the case for which it was adduced; and
Catholics are sagacious in reminding the Protestants that the
witness of the Bible is insufficient without the living wit
ness of the Church.
A miraculous birth is necessarily suspicious. The advent
of a Cod should be entirely supernatural. It is not enough
to dispense with a father; he should also dispense with a
mother. Both are alike easy in physiology. But when there
is a mother in the case, it is natural to suppose that there is
a father somewhere.
With regard to the miracles of Christ’s life, however they are
acceptable to faith, they are not acceptable to reason. There
is an utter lack of evidence in their favor—at least of such
evidence as would be admitted in a legal investigation. It
is this fact, indeed, which induces advocates like Cardinal
Newman to lay stress upon the “ antecedent probability ” of
the New Testament miracles; which is only supplying the
deficiency of evidence by the force of prepossession. Even
the Resurrection is unattested. There is no first-hand evi
dence, and the narrative is full of self-contradiction. This is
perceived by Christian apologists, who have abandoned the
old-fashioned argument. They say as little as possible about
the Gospel witnesses. They stake almost everything on Paul,
who is not mentioned in the Gospels, who never saw Jesus in
the flesh, who only saw him in a vision several years after the
Ascension, and whose testimony (if it may be called such)
would be laughed at by any committee of inquiry. They
also argue, in a supplemental way, that the early Christians
believed in the resurrection of Christ. Yes, and they believed
in all the miracles of Paganism. But in any case belief is not
evidence; it is only, at best, a reason for investigation. The
resurrection was a fact or it was not a fact, and the disincli-
�Will Christ Save Us ?
21
nation of Christian writers to face this plain alternative is an
indication of their own misgivings. A counsel does not resort
to subtleties when he has a good case upon the record.
The deity of Christ, therefore, is very far from proved; it
is even far from probable. Faith may cry “ He was God,”
but Reason declares “He was man.” Even, however, if he
were God, it does not follow that he will save us. What he
may do behind the curtain of death is only a conjecture. In
this world it is patent that God only helps those who help
themselves; he also helps them as far as they help them
selves ; that is, he does not help them at all. Prayer is no
longer a hearty request for divine assistance. Christians ask
on Sunday, but they do not expect to receive on Monday.
Their supplication is formal and perfunctory. They know
that it will not deflect the lightning from its path, or turn
the course of the avalanche, or divert the lava’s stream, or
change the line of an explosion, or banish a pestilence, or
bring rain in drought, or draw sunshine for the crops, or
quicken the growth of a single blade of grass, or diminish
by one iota the statistics of human crime.
It is, of course, impossible to prove that Jesus Christ did
not work miracles; nor is it incumbent upon the unbeliever
to attempt such an undertaking. He who asserts must
prove; other persons have only to try his arguments and
weigh his evidence. Is not every prisoner in the dock
presumed to be innocent until he is proved to be guilty? And
should not the career of every being in the form of humanity
be presumed to be natural until it is proved to be super
natural ?'
This much, however, may be safely asserted by the
unbeliever—that whatever miracles were wrought by Jesus
Christ were only useful to his contemporaries; that he does
not posthumously save their successors from pain and
hunger, and disease and death; and that he certainly has
not through the Religion he came to promulgate, and the
7
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Will Christ Save Us ?
Church he came to establish—in the least degree succeeded
in saving the world, or any part of it, from evil and mianry
Let us expatiate a little upon each of these assertions; so
that, if they are disputed, they may first be understood.
There is no suggestion in the Gospels, or elsewhere in the
New Testament, that Jesus wrought any miracle on an
extensive scale, except the feeding of some thousands of
people at a religious picnic, by supernaturally multiplying a
few leaves and fishes, so that they served as an ample repast
for the hungry multitude. This was very convenient—for
that particular assembly. But of what service was it after
wards to the rest of mankind ? Has it ever filled out the
pinched cheek of want, put fresh blood in the blue lips of
famine, or new fire in the dull eyes of despair ? Babes have
died at the drained and flaccid breasts of their mothers, and
strong men have withered into shadows, for whom a little of
the miraculous food of Christ would have meant a real and
blessed salvation.
The other alleged miracles of Jesus Christ were entirely
personal. A blind man has his sight restored and a deaf
person his hearing; a dumb man is made to speak, who
might, perhaps, as usefully have remained silent; a cripple
is enabled to walk, a diseased person is healed, a widow’s
dead son and a sister’s dead brother are restored to their
loving embraces. All this was very interesting—at the time;
though it seems to have had a marvellously feeble effect upon
the Jews. But of what interest is it now ? Jesus did, indeed,
promise that his faithful disciples should work miracles
even greater than his own, and for a while they are said to
have done so; but their powers in this direction very
curiously declined as they came into contact with the educated
classes, and except in the most ignorant parts of Catholic
countries it is impossible to find a trace of the miraculous
virtue that was to be the “ sign of them that believed.”
Accordingly, the apologists of Christianity seek refuge in
�Will Christ Save Us 7
23
an arbitrary assertion, and a vague, unsustainable, and irre
futable argument. The arbitrary sssertionis (not in Catholic,
but in Protestant countries) that the miraculous powers of
the disciples of Christ ceased at some time aftei* his Ascen
sion. They do not say when; and it is easy to prove that
the miracles of the Church since the days of Constantine (for
instance) are better substantiated than the miracles of the
primitive ages. Still more extravagant, if possible, is the
argument that, whatever may be said as to individual cases
of miracle, the establishment of Christianity and its perpetual
maintainance is a miracle of miracles, a colossal and perma
nent proof of the ceaseless care of Christ for the salvation
of mankind. Logic, indeed, is powerless against the
assumption of something supernatural behind the Christian
Church—proof and disproof being alike impossible; but so
far as its history can be traced, its growth and progress are
entirely natural, like the growth and progress of Buddhism,
Mohammedanism, or any othei’ system that has arisen within
the historic period.
In any case the Christian Church has not saved the world.
Christianity lives upon the falsification of history in the past,
and irredeemable promises in the future. Its apologists
have systematically blackened the ancient civilisations; they
have taken credit for such improvement in human society as
was inevitable in the progress of two thousand years; and
against the objection that the world is still in a very wretched
condition, they have replied that Christianity has not had
time enough to produce all its beneficial fruits. Give it
another two thousand years, and it will turn the wilderness
into a paradise, and make the desert bloom with roses!
Now no one can give Christianity another two thousand
years; and if prophecy is easy, it is also unprofitable. What
will be will be, at the end of two thousand years as to-morrow,
but none of us will live to see it. Let us, therefore, take a
more practical course. We will take a few broad character
�24
Will Christ Save Us ?
istics of progress, and see what has been the effect of
Christianity upon European civilisation. In other words,
we shall ask whether Christ has saved the world; and the
result will help us to answer—as far as it can be answered—
the further question whether he will save the world.
There is one indispensable condition of all progress—
Liberty of Thought. Truth is the highest interest of man
kind ; it cannot be found unless we are free to search for it,
and even if it were found we could nevei- be sure of it without
examination. And it is impossible to say which of us will
find the next truth that may revolutionise the belief and
practice of society. Wise man was he, wrote Carlyle, who
said that thought should be free at every point of the com
pass. The wider the area of selection the greater the
variety; and he who seems one of the most insignificant of
men may link his name with a great discovery, a splendid
invention, or sublime principle. You cannot tell where your
Arkwright, Watt, or Stephenson will come from; your
Edison may be a street-arab selling newspapers; your
Shakespeare and Burns are born in unknown poor men’s
houses; your philosopher of the century may be unknown,
or half contemptible, until he flashes his truth upon the
minds of the few, who become his apostles to the many;
your social regenerator may live and die despised, or perish
in the prison or on the scaffold, and only earn fame and
gratitude when his ashes cannot be gathered from the
general dust of death.
Let thought be free then; free as the air, free as the
sunshine. Set it no limits. Let its only limit be its power
and opportunity. Let genius contribute its wealth, and
mediocrity its mite, to the treasure-house of humanity.
This priceless freedom of thought has always been hated
by Christianity. No religion has ever equalled it in steady,
relentless oppression. In every age, and in every nation, it
has called unbelief a crime. It has punished honest thinkers
�Will Christ Save Us?
25
with imprisonment, torture, and death; and threatened
them with everlasting hell when beyond the reach of its
malice. It has blessed ignorant faith and damned earnest
inquiry ; it has prejudiced the child and terrorised the man;
it has protected its dogmas with penal laws after usurping
authority in the schools; it has excluded Freethinkers from
universities, parliament, and public offices, when it could
not murder them; and even in the most civilised countries
it still clings to enactments against blasphemy and heresy.
It has fought Science, trampled upon Freethought, and
opposed every step of Progress in the name of God.
Christianity has always lent itself to the arts of pi'iestcraft.
All its ethical teaching—which is scattered, various, and
sometimes self-contradictory—has been overshadowed by its
supernatural elements. There have ever been some, it is
true, who have made a faith for themselves out of the finer
maxims of the Hew Testament, and held it up as the real
Christianity. But these have been only as a few loose stones
lying about a mighty edifice. The great mass of Christians,
in every age, have been under the dominion of priests; a
body of men who, except in very low states of barbarism,
where superstition comes to the aid of such culture as is then
possible, are always in a common conspiracy against the
progress of mankind. Strife for precedence and authority
took place at a very early period in the primitive Church, and
continued until Christendom was a vast hierarchy. Popes,
cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, have lorded it over the
common herd. Even in our own age, when the spirit of
democracy is abroad, the most successful novelty in Christian
organisation—namely, the Salvation Army—is a sheer
tyranny; a fact which shows that Christianity, despite a few
convenient texts paraded by “ advanced ” Christians, is in
natural harmony with the principles of despotism.
It is idle to cite particular texts against this perennial
tendency. We must judge a system by its general spirit»
�26
Will Christ Save Us ?
and its general spirit by its prevalent practice. Even if we
were to admit, for the sake of argument, that there is no
obvious connection between the doctrines of Christianity and
the existence of priestcraft, it would still remain a fact that
the religion of Jesus Christ has been manipulated by priests
for their own advantage, and the robbery and oppression of
the people; and surely a religion which, during eighteen
centuries, has not been able to save itself from this disgrace,
is never likely, either in the immediate or in the remote
future, to effect our salvation.
Everywhere in Europe, America, and Australia, at the
present moment, Priestcraft, in some form or other, directs
the energies of the Christian faith. If they were ever
separate, the two things are now in absolute alliance. Prac
tically, they are one and the same; they stand or fall
together. Do we not see that those who break away from
Churches, swim or drift down the stream of Rationalism ?
Quakerism itself, after two centuries of sturdy protest against
priestcraft, is now dwindling. Christianity arose quite
naturally in a superstitious age, when the old national
religions of the Roman Empire had fallen into discredit, and
the populace was ready to embrace a more universal religion;
but it never could have been upheld in subsequent ages with
out the combined arts of political and ecclesiastical despotism •
the altar supporting the throne, and the throne the altar; and
both exploiting the ignorance and credulity of the people.
Had freedom prevailed, and free scope been allowed to
inquiry, the Church would long ago have perished, with the
whole system of Christian supernaturalism.
After Liberty of Thought comes Education. The one is
necessary to make the other fruitful. And Christianity has
never been a true friend of education. We are often pointed
to the colleges it established in the dark ages; but it made
the darkness of those ages, and it did not establish the
colleges. It simply took possession of them, and made all
�Will Christ Save Us ?
27
permitted learning its subject. Even the study of ancient
literature, which followed the Reformation, was a sheer
accident, at least in religious circles. In order to maintain
their challenge of Rome, the Reformers had to appeal to
antiquity; and thus, as Bacon observed, the “ ancient authors,
both in divinity and humanity, which had long time slept m
libraries, began generally to be read and revolved.” Those
sleeping authors were only roused for the purpose of contention, not from any desire to extract their wisdom for the
welfare of mankind.
Why, indeed, were those ancient authors allowed to sleep
so long in libraries ? Why was the dust of so many centuries
allowed to accumulate upon them P The proper answer to
this question is to be found in an appeal to Christian
Gibbon remarks that the primitive Christians “ despised
all knowledge that was not useful to salvation.” Some of
their leaders, in the second century, were obliged to study
“human wisdom” inorder to reply to their Pagan adversaries; but a great majority were opposed to this policy.
They wished, as Mosheim observes, to “ banish all reasoning
and philosophy out of the confines of the Church.” After
the triumph of Christianity under Constantine it became
unnecessary to oppose the advocates of Paganism by any
other weapons than proscription and imprisonment. From
that moment the darkness crept over the face of Europe.
The Council of Carthage, in the following century, forbade
the reading of Pagan books. “ The bishops,” says Jortin,
“ soon began to relish this advice, and not to trouble their
heads with literature.” Some of the Byzantine emperors,
less bigoted than the Church dignitaries, tried to cherish
learning; but they were defeated by the ecclesiastics, who,
as Mosheim tells us, “ considered all learning, and especially
philosophic learning, as injurious and even destructive to
true piety and godliness.” What wonder that in the fifth
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�28
Will Christ Save Us?
century “learning was almost extinct” and “only a faint
shadow of it remained ” ?
After a dismal lapse of hundreds of years the clouds of
intellectual darkness began to lift from the face of Europe.
Mohammedan learning slowly spread through Christendom.
All the knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, medicine
and philosophy, propagated in Europe from the tenth cen
tury onward,” says Mosheim, “was derived principally
from the schools and books of the Arabians in Italy and
Spain.”
After the Reformation the Jesuits carried on the work of
education among Catholics. Their object was simply to train
promising young men for the service of the Church. And
the same policy obtained in Protestant seminaries. The
clergy and the privileged classes, as far as possible, mono
polised the extant learning. The wealthier middle-class
gradually gained a share of it, but the common people were
left m the outer darkness. Even in the early part of the
present century they were still excluded. The student of
history is aware that the Christian Churches steadily opposed
popular education. English bishops, in the House of Lords,
voted against the first Education Acts; a famous Bishop of
Exeter remarking in debate that the education of the lower
classes would render them proud and discontented, and
unwilling to work for their superiors.
When it was seen that popular education was bound to
come, the Churches resolved to take time by the forelock.
To prevent Secular education they set up schools for Christian
education. And this is still the secret of their interest in
the working of the present Education Acts. Their real
anxiety is about their own dogmas; they care not for educa
tion, but for theology. Church and Dissent fight each other
at School Board elections. The real issue between them is
what sort of religion shall be taught to the children. Were
religion banished from public schools; were State education
�Will Christ Save Us ?
29
made purely secular; parsons and ministers would cease to
display any interest in the matter.
With respect to education, as in the case of every other
element of progress, we shall of course be met with the
hackneyed objection that Christ has not opposed it. The
crim A will be laid to the charge of the Christian priesthood.
Be it so. We must then ask if there is anything in the
teaching of Christ in favor of education. Where is it to
found, even by the fondest partiality? Jesus himself,
in all probability, was but poorly instructed. His disciples
belonged to the ignorant and unlettered classes. Nor is
it likely that he ever conceived the value of any other
education than the reading of the Jewish Scriptures. The
curriculum of the great schools of Greece and Rome would
have astonished him; he might even have regarded it
as a waste of time, or a wicked self-assertion of the human
intellect.
Cardinal Newman has said that Christianity was always a
learned religion. In a certain sense this is true, though
purely accidental. A kind of learning was needed by
Jerome, who translated the Old Testament into Latin;
a higher learning was required when the Greek of the New
Testament became practically a dead tongue; and a still
higher learning when the Bible and the Fathers were
minutely discussed by the opposed schools of Protestant and
Catholic divinity. Giants of such learning arose in this
mighty contest. But it must be admitted that their learning
was entirely subsidiary to theological disputes. We have
already observed that it was confined to the clergy; we
must now add that it was not very profitable, except in
quite an indirect way, to the general civilisation of Europe.
The vital spring of modern civilisation is science; the
study of nature and of human nature. Shakespeare was as
much a scientist as Newton. We must never narrow science
down to the investigation of physical phenomena. Psycho
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Will Christ Save Us ?
logy and sociology are as noble and fruitful as astromony
and chemistry. It must be admitted, however, that the
study of physical science gives power and precision to our
study of mental science; accuracy in objective investigation
must, in the main, precede accuracy in subjective investi
gation; and as physics precede biology, so biology must
precede sociology.
The methods and conclusions of physical science are there
fore indispensable, apart altogether from their practical value
in providing the material basis of civilisation. Let us inquire
then, what is the relation of Christianity to this requisite of
all real and durable progress.
We shall pass by the fatuous argument that Christianity is
a friend to science because many eminent men of science have
been Christians. Suffice it to say that they were not pro
duced by Christianity. They were born and reared in
Christian countries, and hence they became Christians. Men
of genius have arisen in all civilisations. They were the
gift of Nature to the human race. Scientists, artists, poets,
historians, and philosophers, were born with genius; they were
taught to be Christians, Mohammedans, Jews, Brahmans, or
Buddhists. Genius belongs to no creed; it belongs to
Humanity.
Should it be argued that the fact of men of science having
been professed Christians shows that there is no real opposi
tion between science and Christianity, we should reply that
this is taking a very narrow view of the situation. The real
questions to be considered are these; first, is there anything
in Christianity calculated to make it hostile to science ;
secondly, has it displayed hostility to science through its
chief teachers and great organisations ?
There is something in Christianity calculated to make it
hostile to science. Its sacred books are defaced by a puerile
cosmogony, and a vast number of physical absurdities ; while
�Will Christ Save Us ?
31
its whole atmosphere, in the New as well as in the Old
Testament, is in the highest degree unscientific.
The Bible gives a false account of the origin of the world ;
a foolish account of the origin of man; a ridiculous account
of the origin of languages. It tells us of a universal flood
which never happened. And all these falsities are bound up
with essential doctrines, such as the fall of man and the
atonement of Christ; withimportant moral teachings andsocial
regulations. It was therefore inevitable that the Church,
deeming itself the divinely appointed guardian of Revelation,
should oppose such sciences as astronomy, geology, and
biology, which could not add to the authority of the
Scripture, but might very easily weaken it. Falsehood
was in possession, and truth was an exile or a prisoner.
Even the science of medicine was hated and oppressed.
It was seen to be in opposition to the New Testament
theory that disease is spirit ual—which is still the current
theory among savages. Medical men saw that disease
is material. Hence the proverb “Among three Doctors
two Atheists.”
Christianity has been called by Cardinal Newman “a
religion supernatural, and almost scenic.” It is miraculous
from beginning to end. Setting aside the extravagances
of the Old Testament, the Gospels and the Acts of the
Apostles are replete with prodigies. Scarcely anything
is natural. Not only is the career of Jesus entirely
superhuman; his very disciples suspend the laws of nature
at their pleasure; they miraculously heal the sick and
raise the very dead.
A history so marvellous fed the superstition of the multi
tude, confirmed their credulous habit of mind, and prejudiced
them against a more scientific conception of nature. It also
compelled the Church to oppose the spread of rational inves
tigation. The spirit of science and the spirit of Christianity
were mutually antagonistic. A conflict between them was
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Will Christ Save Us ?
inevitable. The natural and the miraculous could not dwell
together in peace. The conquests of the one were necessarily
at the expense of the other. This was instinctively felt by
the Church, which could not help acting as the bitter enemy
of Science.
Accordingly we find that the splendid remains of ancient
science were speedily destroyed. The work of demolition
was almost completed within a century after the conversion
of Constantine. Hypatia was murdered by Christian monks
at Alexandria. The magnificent Museum of that city was
also reduced to ruins, and its superb Library was
burnt to ashes or scattered to the winds. Astronomy,
physics, geography, optics, physiology, botany, and
mechanics were annihilated. Before another century had
elapsed they were utterly forgotten. Oosmas Indicopleustes,
a Christian topographer, gravely taught that the earth was
not round, but a quadrangular plane, enclosed by mountains
on which the sky rests; that night was caused by a northern
mountain intercepting the rays of the sun; that the earth
leans towards the south, so that the Euphrates and Tigris,
which run southward, have a rapid current, while the Nile
has a slow current because it runs uphill!
Science simply ceased to exist in Christendom, and it did
not revive for hundreds of years; not, in fact, until Christian
torches were lit at Mohammedan fire. The light of Alexan
drian science was followed by the long darkness of Christian
superstition. “ Looking at the history of science,” says Dr.
Tylor, “ for eighteen hundred years after this flourishing
time, though some progress was made, it was not what might
have been expected, and on the whole things went wrong.”
Things went wrong. Yes, and Christianity was the principal
cause of the mischief. There is no clearer fact in the course
of human history. And it is equally clear that when Science
reappeared in Europe, after an absence of a thousand years,
the Church once more attacked it with tiger-like ferocity.
�Will Christ Save Us ?
33
Astronomy was the first object of the Church’s wrath. It
gave the lie to the Bible theory of the earth being the
centre of the universe; the sun, moon, and stars merely
existing to give it illumination, or to decorate the sky. It
opened up vistas of time and space in which the Christian
ideas of the universe were lost like drops of water in the ocean.
Farther, by diminishing the relative importance of this
world, it tended to discredit the notion that God was chiefly
occupied with the sins, the repentances, and the destiny of
mankind.
Astronomy came to Christendom from the Mohammedans.
Like other sciences it was unknown in Europe after the
triumph of Christianity, during “the long dead time when
so much was forgotten ”—to use the forcible language of Dr.
Tylor. “ Physical science,” the same writer says, “ might
almost have disappeared [from the world, that is] if it had not
been that while the ancient treasure of knowledge was lost
to Christendom, the Mohammedan philosophers were its
guardians, and even added to its store.” Galileo invented
the pendulum three hundred years ago ; but Dr. Tylor tells
us that “ as a matter of fact, it appears that six centuries
earlier Ebn Yunis and other Moorish astronomers were
already using the pendulum as a time-measurer in their
observations.” According to Professor Draper, the Moham
medan astronomers made catalogues and maps of the stars,
ascertained the size of the earth, determined the obliquity of
the elliptic, published tables of the sun and moon, fixed the
length of the year, and verified the procession of the
equinoxes. “ Meanwhile,” says Draper, “ such waB the
benighted condition of Christendom, such its deplorable
ignorance, that it cared nothing about the matter. Its atten
tion was engrossed by image-worship, transubstantiation, the
merits of the saints, miracles, shrine-cures.”
This indifference lasted till the end of the fifteenth century,
when it was broken by the great navigators, like Columbus
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De Gama, and Magellan, who settled the true shape of the
earth, practically demonstrated its rotundity, and struck a
death-blow at the old teaching of the Church. Then came
the great astronomers, Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, who
completed the work of destruction by restoring the true
theory of the universe.
The treatment of these great men shows us the real spirit
of Christianity. Copernicus was called “ an old fool ” i»y
Martin Luther. His great work On the Revolutions of the
Heavenly Bodies, kept back from publication for thirty-six
years through fear of the consequences, was condemned as
heretical by the Inquisition, and put upon the Index of
prohibited books, his system being denounced as “that
false Pythagorean doctrine utterly contrary to the Holy
Scriptures.”
Galileo invented the telescope, and with it perceived the
phases of Mercury and "Venus, the mountains and valleys of
the moon, and the spots on the sun. He demonstrated the
earth’s orbit and the sun’s revolution on its own axis. A
terrible blow was given to the cosmogony of the Church and
the book of Genesis. Galileo was accused of heresy, blas
phemy, and Atheism. The Inquisition told him his teaching
was “ utterly contrary to the Scriptures.” He was required
to pledge himself to desist from his wickedness. Tor sixteen
years he obeyed. But in 1632—only 260 yearB ago—he
ventured to publish his System of the World. He was again
brought before the Inquisition, and compelled to fall upon his
kneeR and recant the truth of the earth’s movement round
the sun. Then he was thrown into prison, and treated with
great severity. When he died, after ten years of martyrdom,
the Church denied him burial in consecrated ground.
Giordann Bruno, the poet-prophet of the new astronomy,
was imprisoned for seven years, mercilessly tortured, and at
last burnt to ashes on the Field of Flowers at Borne.
It will be said that these persecutions were the work of
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Catholics. But were the Protestants more friendly to science ?
Martin Luther railed at Copernicus, and John Calvin hunted
Servetus to a fiery death at the stake.
Christianity has now lost its power of opposing science.
But even in the present century it has barked where it cou d
not bite. It was Christian bigotry which made the author of
the Vestiges of Creation conceal his identity; it was orthodox
prepossession which so long prevented Sir Charles Lyell from
admitting the truth of evolution; it was Biblical teaching
which inspired all the pulpit diatribes against Charles Darwin.
Evolution has practically triumphed, but where its evidences
are still imperfect the clergy continue to trade upon the con
jectures of ancient ignorance.
The effect of Christian doctrine upon the lay mind, even in
a high state of development, may be seen in Mr. Gladstone’s
defence of the Bible. His labored absurdities, and unscru
pulous special pleading, show a deep distrust, not only of the
teachings, but of the very spirit of Science.
There is, indeed, an essential opposition between Science
and Christianity. The whole atmosphere of the Bible is
miraculous. Nor is the New Testament any improvement in
this respect upon the Old Testament. It incorporates the
savage theory of disease as the work of evil spirits. Its
stories of demoniacal possession belong to the ages when
madness was treated as a spiritual disorder. The narrative
of Jesus casting devils out of men and sending them into pigs
is an aspect of the same superstition which inspired the
terrible text “ Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” And
the healing of disease by Paul with magic handkerchiefs, or
by Peter with his Bhadow, goes down to the lowest depths of
credulity.
Net a single sentence is to be found in the New Testament
showing the slightest appreciation of science or philosophy.
It is clear that the writers of those books looked for the
speedy second coming of Christ. Nothing therefore was of
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any importance in their eyes except an earnest preparation
for “ the great and terrible day of the Lord.”
This superstition of the Second Advent is not yet extinct
in Christendom. It still retains a hold upon millions of the
most stupid and illiterate; and its strength, after so many
centuries, and amid such hostile influences, enables us to
realise its tremendous power in the early ages of Christianity.
The great majority of Christians are, of course, emanci’
pated from this superstition. They take it for granted that
the earth and the human race will exist for thousands and
perhaps millions of years. They are reconciled to the idea of
mental, moral, and material progress in this world. Never
theless, their inherited instincts, the teaching of their religious
instructors, and the reading of their sacred scriptures, make
the most pious and zealous among them look askance at
Science, even while they are ready to enjoy her benefactions.
They feel that she is the natural enemy of their faith.
The clergy themselves treat science in precisely the same
spirit, only their hatred is sometimes tempered by discretion.
The more ignorant and presumptuous still denounce “ science
falsely so called,” preach against Darwinism, and dread every
new scientific discovery. They share the feeling (in their
small way) of Leibniz, who declared that “ Newton had robbed
the Deity of some of his most excellent attributes, and had
sapped the foundation of natural religion.” They also share
the feeling of those who asserted that the use of chloroform
in cases of confinement was an impious interference with
God’s curse on the daughters of Eve. The better instructed
and more cautious clergy profess a certain respect for science.
But it is a respect of fear. You may tell by their faces, tones,
and gestures, that they detest it while they sing its praises.
They are unable to disguise their real sentiments. When
they are most successful they merely treat Science as the
prodigal son, who has too strong a taste for husks and swine
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37
and is to be coaxed into renting a pew and taking the com
munion.
Let us pause for a moment to see how Science, having
grown to manhood in spite of the murderous hostility of the
Church, has completely subverted the ideas that were the
very foundation of Christianity. The notion that God was
solely concerned with the salvation or perdition of the inhabi
tants of this little planet was connected with, and supported
by, the belief that this world is the centre of the universe,
and that all the other heavenly bodies existed for its
advantage. That belief is for ever annihilated, and with it
the religious conception it countenanced and cherished. The
notion of the world’s antiquity, based upon the Bible
genealogies from Adam to Christ, is dwarfed and made
ridiculous by the discovery that the world has existed for
myriads of ages, and man himself for a period immensely
greater than the orthodox chronology of six thousand years.
But the most terrible blow at the Genesaic theory has been
struck by Darwinism. It is now certain that Adam was not
the first man; nay, that there never was a first man. Man
is not a special creation, but the highest product of a long
process of evolution. The story of the Ball, therefore, is
only a piece of ancient mythology. Man is not a fallen
creature, but a risen organism. He did not degenerate from
a paradisaical condition; he was not cursed by God; he did
not need an atonement. Thus the historic doctrine of Chris
tian salvation is deprived of its basis and meaning. Man did
not die in Adam, and cannot live again in Christ. The
salvation which was proffered to the world was founded upon
a complete misunderstanding of its history, its nature, and
its necessities.
Seeing, then, how fantastic is the religious salvation of
Christianity, let us pursue our inquiry into the character of
its natural salvation. Let us see, that is, in what respect it
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has aided or hindered the political and social progress of
Europe.
It has already been shown that Christianity opposed
liberty of thought and the advance of science, and did not
befriend the education of the masses of the people. We shall
now see that its political and social influence has always been
conservative, and never progressive.
Misty-minded sentimentalists affect to regard Jesus Christ
as the most illustrious of democrats. It is difficult, however»
to find the slightest justification of this view. He himself
paid tribute to the Roman tax-gatherer, and taught “ Render
unto Caasar the things which are Csesar’s.” His language to
his disciples was that of a would-be tyrant, as the word was
understood in the vocabulary of the free people of Greece.
He promised them that when he came into his kingdom they
should sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of
Israel. It was a promise as magnificent, and as empty, as
Don Quixote’s promise of a governorship to Sancho PanzaNevertheless, as we may presume it was made in good faith,
it must be held to indicate something very different from a
republican sentiment.
Simon Peter enjoins us to “ Pear God and honor the King ”
— quite irrespective of his deserts. “ Let every soul,” says
Paul, “ be subject unto the higher powers : for there is no
powei’ but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God.”
He adds that whoever resists any established authority “ shall
receive unto themselves damnation.” According to tradition
this was uttered in the reign of the cruel and detestable
Nero, who would have been a greater scourge than he was if
the Romans had not acted on other maxims than Paul’s, and
forcibly terminated his sanguinary career.
Professor Sewell, who once filled the chair of Moral Philo
sopher at Oxford, in a work of considerable ability, entitled
Christian Politics, quotes many other texts from the New
Testament in corroboration of Paul’s teaching. He then
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39
declares that 41 It is idle, and worse than idle, to attempt to
restrict and explain away this positive command. And the
Christian Church has always upheld it in its full extent.
With one uniform unhesitating voice it has proclaimed the
duty of passive obedience.”
There is no disputing Professor Sewell’s dictum on this
point. He spoke as a Churchman, not as a sceptic; he knew
the history of Christianity, and was competent to pronounce
an authoritative judgment.
Gibbon had previously remarked, in his sarcastic way, that
it was this feature of Christianity which attracted the
admiration of Constantine. “ The throne of the emperors,
he wrote, “ would be established on a fixed and permanent
basis if all their subjects, embracing the Christian religion,
should learn to suffer and obey.”
The doctrine of passive obedience is strongly enforced in
the sermon “ Against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion ” at
the end of the Book of Homilies, which, according to the
thirty-fifth Article of the Church of England, is full of “ a
godly and wholesome doctrine,” and is therein appointed “ to
be read in Churches by the Ministers, diligently and dis
tinctly, that they may be understanded of the people.”
The first rebel, according to this Homily, was Satan him
self, who was expelled from heaven. “We shall find,” it
says, “ in very many and almost infinite places, as well of the
Old Testament as of the New, that kings and princes, as well
the evil as the good, do reign by God’s ordinance, and that
subjects are bounden to obey them.” “ A rebel,” it declares,
“ is worse than the worst prince, and rebellion worse than
the worst government.” And in proof of this doctrine it
cites many passages of scripture, and many illustrations from
Bible history.
The universality of Christian teaching on this subject is
strikingly exhibited in the History of Passive Obedience
Since the lieformation, dated Amsterdam, 1689. It is a rare
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and curious book, written with energy and great learning.
The author ransacks the theological literature of two cen
turies, and shows that the doctors of all schools, including
the Puritans, upheld the doctrine of passive obedience, and
the absolute unlawfulness, nay, the heinous sin, of rebelling
against any prince, however weak, vicious, cruel, or
despotic.
Christians who have rebelled against tyranny have violated
the teaching of the New Testament. They have acted on the
impulses of their own nature. Oliver Cromwell disobeyed
the injunctions of Peter, Paul and Jesus. John Hampden
was more of a Jew than a Christian, and more of a Roman
than either, when he drew his sword against his king.
Mazzini, Garibaldi, Victor Hugo, and Kossuth, if the Chris
tian scriptures be true, were guilty of insurrection against
the ordinance of God.
George Pox and the Quakers were consistent Christians.
They obeyed the order of Jesus to “ resist not evil.” If they
were smitten on one cheek they turned the other to the
smiter. Count Tolstoi preaches, and as far as possible prac
tises, the same doctrine. Every form of violence, he says, is
inconsistent with the teaching of Christ. Not only the
soldier, but the policeman, is in opposition to the Sermon on
the Mount. Count Tolstoi believes it would be an un
Christian act to kill or injure the wretch he might find
ravishing his wife or slaying his child. Active resistance to
evil must never be offered; passive resistance is all that is
permitted; and the rest must be left to Providence.
To certain minds of a soft, peaceful, and humane disposi
tion this doctrine is attractive. But it would never quell
the world’s tyrannies. Wolves do not care for the pious
bleating of sheep.
Inquiry shows us that political freedom has been systemati
cally opposed by the Christian Church, and always won in
spite of it. The English bishop who once declared in the
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House of Lords that “ all the people had t>o do with the laws
was to obey them,” voiced the real spirit of Christianity.
Political freedom is, indeed, a very recent phenomenon in
modern society. A hundred years ago it was as unknown
in other parts of Europe as it is to-day in Russia. Czars,
emperors, kings, and aristocracies held the multitude in sub
jection. The people were outside the pale of such constitu
tions as existed. Prussia and Austria were sheer autocracies.
Spain and Italy had less civil freedom than a province of the
Roman Empire. France had no constitution before 1789.
England had a parliament, but the House of Commons was
filled with nominees of the House of Lords. The suffrage
was confined to a handful of citizens. For this reason Shelley
described the House of Commons as a place
Where thieves are sent
Similar thieves to represent.
“ Infidels ” won political liberty for France. Rousseau
was a Deist; Mirabeau, Danton, and many other leading
spirits of the Revolution were Atheists. Christianity is still
on the side of reaction in the land of Voltaire, while Republi
can and Freethinker are almost convertible terms.
“ Infidels ” were the chief fighters for political freedom in
England. Thomas Paine, who wrote the Age of Reason,
was found guilty of treason for penning the Rights of Man.
Bentham was a Freethinker, and probably an Atheist.
James and John Mill were Freethinkers. Shelley, Byron,
Leigh Hunt, Landor, and most of the Chartist leaders were
all tainted with “ infidelity.” Christian leaders were gene
rally on the side of wealth and privilege, while Freethought
leaders were always on the side of the people.
Ebenezer Eliot, the Corn-Law rhymer, exclaimed—
When wilt thou save the People,
0 God of mercies, when ?
Not thrones, 0 Lord, but peoples,
Not kings, 0 God, but men !
This exclamation was uttered eighteen hundred years after
the death of Jesus Christ, in a land which boasted of being
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the most Christian on earth. This is itself a proof that
Christ had not saved the people. Their salvation since has
been due to other causes ; chiefly, it must be said, to the
progress of science, which is the great equaliser. Was it not
Buckle who declared that “ the hall of science is the temple
of democracy ” ?
One of the most significant facts in recent history was the
the attempt of the German Emperor to strengthen his power
over his subjects. Feeling that the democratic movement
was threatening his throne, he introduced a Bill in the
Reichstag by his ministers, providing that Christian instruc
tion should be given in the public schools, even when scholars
were children of Freethinkers. Happily the Bill was defeated.
King-deluded ” as Germany is, she has outgrown such
illiberalism. Yet the very fact that the Emperor sought
to Christianise the young more completely, in order that
they might grow up his very obedient slaves, is a striking
proof of the essential antagonism between Christianity and
political freedom.
Christian apologists are often obliged to confess that their
faith has cherished, or certainly countenanced, the super
stition of the divine right of kings ; a superstition that is
even now Btamped on our English coinage, although in a
dead language which makes it less obstrusive. Nor can they
deny that the maxims of free government are rather found
in the writings of the philosophers and historians of Greece
and Rome than in the pages of the New Testament. They
sometimes contend, however, that it is not the object of
Christianity to meddle with political polities ; that its prin
ciples and sentiments enter as a leaven into human life; and
that its influence is to be traced in the gradual improvement
of human society. In other words, Christ saves us individually
and socially, and the outcome of this in the sphere of politics
is left to the ordinary course of things.
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Now it is plain to every candid student of history that
Christ has not saved the world from social evils, and equally
plain to the student of philosophy that he is incapable of
doing so. The Civilisation of modern Europe is not the
creation of Christianity, nor has it conformed to Christian
methods. Comparatively speaking, it is a thing of yesterday.
It came in with the dawn of modern Science. We have little
in common with our Christian forefathers of the Middle
Ages, still less with our Christian forefathers of the Dark
Ages. The Grgeco-Roman world, as Mr. Cotter Morison
observes, went down into an abyss after the days of Con
stantine. “ The revival of learning and the Renaissance,” he
says, “ are memorable as the first sturdy breasting by
humanity of the hither slope of the great hollow which lies
between us and the ancient world. The modern man,
reformed and regenerated by knowledge, looks across it, and
recognises on the opposite ridge, in the far-shining cities and
stately porticoes, in the art, politics, and science of antiquity,
many more ties of kinship and sympathy than in the mighty
concave between, wherein dwell his Christian ancestry, in
the dim light of scholasticism and theology.” This truth
was in Shelley’s mind when he wondered how much better
off we might have been if the Christian interregnum had not
occurred, and civilisation had been carried on continuously
from the point reached by the Pagan world.
What a picture is drawn by Professor Draper of the
squalid life of our ancestors only a few hundred years ago.
In Paris and London the houses were of wood daubed with
clay, and thatched with straw or reeds. They had no
windows and few wooden floors. There were no chimneys,
the smoke escaping through a hole in the roof. Drainage
was unknown. A bag of straw served as a bed, and a wooden
log as a pillow. No one washed himself; the very arch
bishops swarmed with vermin, and the stench was drowned
with perfumes. The citizens wore leather garments which
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lasted for many years. It was a luxury to eat fresh meat
once a week. The streets had neither sewers, pavements,
nor lamps. Slops were emptied out of the chamber shutters
after nightfall, Hlneas Sylvus, afterwards Pope Pius II.,
visited England about 1430. He describes the houses of the
peasantry as built of stones without mortar: the roofs were
of turf, and a stiffened bull’s-hide served for a door. Coarse
vegetable products, including the bark of trees, were the
staple food; bread was quite unknown in some places. Is it
any wonder that famine and pestilence raged periodically ?
In the famine of 1030 human flesh was cooked and sold; in
that of 1258, fifteen thousand people died of hunger in London;
in the plague of 1348 all Europe suffered, and one-third of the
population of France was destroyed. Nor was the moral
prospect a whit superior. “ Men, women, and children,” says
Draper, “ slept in the same apartment; not unfrequently,
domestic animals were their companions; in such a confusion
of the family, it was impossible that modesty or morality
could be maintained.” Sexual licentiousness was so universal
that, on the introduction of the dreadful disease of syphilis
from America, it spread with wonderful rapidity, and infected
all ranks and classes, from the Holy Father Pope Leo X. to
the beggar by the wayside.
For this wretched state of things the only remedy was
knowledge. Science was necessary to alter the environment,
and produce the conditions of a happier and purer life.
Christianity had nothing to offer but charity. This is an
admirable virtue in its proper sphere, but a poor substitute
for independence and self-respect. Charity will go to a
plague-stricken city; it will tend the sick and comfort the
dying. Science will guard the city and drive the plague
from its gates.
Christ has not, therefore, been our social savior any more
than our political savior. The modern (in fact, very recent)
improvement in the general condition of the people, is solely
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45
owing to the conquests of Science. Were our vast accumula
tion of scientific knowledge and appliances to be lost, it is
easy to see that Christianity could not save us from falling
back into a state of barbarism.
It is frequently alleged that Christ has saved the Western
world from the curse of Slavery. This is a most ridiculous
assertion. Slavery has nearly always been under a religious
sanction. There is no instance in the history of the world of
religion having abolished the ownership of men and women
and the traffic in human flesh and blood. The great causes
of emancipation have been economic and material.
His
tory,” says Mr. Finlay, the great historian, “affords its
testimony that neither the doctrines of Christianity, nor the
sentiments of humanity, have ever yet succeeded in extin
guishing slavery, where the soil could be cultivated with
profit by slave-labor. No Christian community of slave
holders has yet voluntarily abolished slavery.” Mr. Finlay’s
assertion is profoundly true, though the fact is disguised to
superficial observers. Slavery was abolished in the West
Indies by England, who compensated the slave-owners. True,
but not until England had completely outgrown her own
slavery of the feudal system. In the United States, also, the
Confederate party of the South tried to maintain slavery,
with the sanction and blessing of the ministers of religion.
The Federalists of the North were against slavery, and they
put it down within the Union, because they had reached a
higher stage of industrial development.
So much for the fact, and now for the theory. What right
has anyone to say that Slavery could be abolished by Chris
tianity ? Christ himself never uttered a word against the
institution. His object was personal piety, and not social
reformation. Not a single Apostle so much as hinted a
dislike of Slavery, though it was condemned by the leading
Stoics as unjust and inhuman. St. Paul sent a runaway slave
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back to his master, with words of kindness, bat without one
word against Slavery itself. All the great Christian writers,
from Basil to Bossuet, through a period of thirteen hundred
years, taught that Slavery was a divine institution. It was
defended as such by Christian jurisprudists in the eighteenth
century. Mrs. Beecher Stowe, in America, said that the
Church was notoriously in favor of Slavery. “ Statesmen on
both sides of the question,” she said, “ have laid that down
as a settled fact.” Theodore Parker showed that 80,000
slaves were owned by Presbyterians, 225,000 by Baptists, and
250,000 by Methodists. He declared that if the whole
American Church had “ dropped through the continent and
disappeared altogether, the anti-Slavery cause would have
been further on.” Professor Moses Stuart, the greatest
American divine since Jonathan Edwards, announced that
“ The precepts of the New Testament respecting the demeanor
of slaves and their masters, beyond all question recognise
the existence of slavery.” Mrs. Beecher Stowe, in her Key to
Uncle Tom's Cabin, prints a great number of resolutions in
favor of Slavery as a Bible Christian institution, passed by
all sorts of Churches in the Southern States. One sample of
these precious documents may suffice ; it emanated from the
Harmony Presbytery of South Carolina—
“ Resolved, That slavery has existed from the days of those good old
slaveholders and patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (who are now in
the kingdom of heaven), to the time when the apostle Paul sent a runa
way home to his master Philemon, with a Christian and fraternal letter
to this slaveholder, which we find still stands in the canon of the
Scriptures ; and that slavery has existed ever since the days of the
apostle, and does now exist.
“ Resolved, That as the relative duties of master and slave are taught
in the Scriptures, in the same manner as those of parent and child, and
husband and wife, the existence of slavery is not opposed to thé will of
G»d ; and whosoever has a conscience too tender to recognise this
relation as lawful, is ‘righteous over much,' is ‘wise above what is
written,’ and has submitted his neck to the yoke cf men, sacrificed his
Christian liberty of conscience, and leaves the infallible word of God for
the fancies and doctrines of men.”
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Equally striking facts are cited in the series of Anti
Slavery Tracts, edited by Wilson Armistead, of Leeds, in
1853, and apparently published for the English Quakers.
Pronouncements in favoi’ of Slavery are given from a host of
American ministers. Bishop Hopkins, of Vermont, for
instance, was asked, “ What effect had the Bible in doing
away with slavery ?” He replied, “ None whatever.” Mis
sionary, Tract, and Bible Societies, were all abettors of
Slavery. Fred Douglass, the runaway slave, cried out thus
in one of his eloquent speeches: “ They have men-stealers
for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle
plunderers for church-members. The man who wields the
blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on
Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly
Jesus. . . . We have men sold to build churches, women
sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles
for the poor heathen! . . . The slave auctioneer’s bell and
the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter
cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious
shouts of his pious master. . . . The dealer gives his blood
stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return,
covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity.”
Enough has been said to show that the Bible has been used
as the slaveholder’s manual, that Christianity did not abolish
Slavery, that the institution flourished for centuries under
the sanction of the Christian Church, that Christian divines
blesBed it and approved it with a text wherever it was
possible and profitable, and that it only disappeared in very
recent times under the influence of a higher type of
material civilisation. It Bhould be added, however, that
Slavery has always found an enemy in Freethought. It was
the sceptical Montaigne who first denounced the villainies of
the Spanish Conquest of America; it was the sceptical
Montesquieu who first branded negro slavery as wicked; it
was the sceptical Voltaire who took up the same attitude in
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•a later generation; and the first pen couched against Slavery
in America was wielded by the sceptical Thomas Paine. Let
it also be remembered that Christian England was not the
first emancipator of slaves. “The first public act against
slavery,” says Professor Newman, “ came from Republican
France, in the madness of atheistic enthusi&sm.”
Christ has been no savior of the world in respect to the
condition of woman, which is one of the best criteria of
civilisation. The ordinary Christian, seeing polygamy prevail
beyond the borders of Christendom, and monogamy within
them, imagines the difference is due to Christianity; and his
clerical guides, who know better, confirm him in the delusion.
Here again it is obvious that religion only consecrates the
established social order. It sanctions polygamy in the East
and monogamy in the West. Christianity found monogamy
existing, and did not create it. Greeks, Romans, and even
Jews, in spite of the Mosaic law, had become monogamists
by a natural evolution. Polygamy was illegal in the Roman
Empire at the advent of Jesus Christ. Nor did any dis
turbing influence arise from the conversion of the Northern
barbarians, for monogamy existed among the Teutonic tribes,
who held women in high honor and esteem, and allowed them
to participate in the public councils.
Had monogamy not prevailed before the triumph of Chris
tianity, it is difficult to see in what way the new faith would
have established it. There is not a word against polygamy,
as a general custom, from Genesis to Revelation. Jehovah’s
favorites were all polygamists, neither did Christ command
the marriage of one man with one woman. The Mormons
justify polygamy from the Bible, and the United States
government answers them, not by argument, but by penal
legislation. Concubinage is also justified from the Bible.
The more a man is steeped in the Christian Scriptures, his
sexii.,1 and domestic views become the more patriarchal.
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Christianity, indeed, has been woman’s enemy, and not her
friend. Christ’s own teaching on sexual matters is much
disputed. His language is very largely veiled and enigmatic,
but it gives a strong plausibility to the opinion of Count
Tolstoi, that sexual intercourse is always more or less sinful,
and that no one who desires to be Christlike can think of
marrying. St. Paul’s language is more precise. He plainly
bids men and women to live single; only, if they cannot do
so without fornication, he allows of marriage as a concession
to the weakness of the flesh. Essentially, therefore, he
places the union of men and women on the same ground as
the coupling of beasts. Further, he orders wives to obey
their husbands as absolutely as the Church obeys Christ;
coating the pill with the nauseous reminder that the man
was not made for the woman, but the woman for the man.
Following Christ and Paul, as they understood them, the
Christian fathers lauded virginity to the skies, emphasised
woman’s dependence on man, and treated her with every
conceivable indignity. Their language is often too foul to
transcribe. Let it suffice to say that they were intensely
scriptural in thought and expression. Taking the story of
the Fall as true, they regarded woman as the door of sin and
damnation. Logically, also, they saw in the birth of Christ
from a virgin, a stigma on natural motherhood. Under the
old Jewish law, every woman who brought forth the fruit of
love was “ unclean.” This sentiment survived in the Chris
tian Church. It was deepened by the miraculous birth of
Christ, and strengthened by contact with the great oriental
doctrine of the opposition between matter and spirit; a
doctrine which lies at the root of all asceticism, and is the
key to the sexual morbidity of all the creeds.
These are debateable matters, and it is easy for Christian
rhetoricians to find ways of escape by subtle methods of
interpretation. The Bible becomes in their hands “ a nose
of wax,” as Erasmus said, to be twisted into any shape or
D
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Will Christ Save Us ?
direction. Plain matters of fact, however, are not so easily
perverted; and an appeal to history will show that Chris
tianity lowered, instead of raising, the whole status of women.
Principal Donaldson (and it is well to take a clerical
authority) is the author of an important article in the Con
temporary Review for September, 1889, on “ The Position of
Women among the Early Christians.” It is very unflattering
to Christian vanity, and it has been answered by silence.
“ It is a prevalent opinion,” says Principal Donaldson, “ that
woman owes her present high position to Christianity, and
the influences of the Teutonic mind. I used to ¿believe this
opinion, but in the first three centuries I have not been able
to see that Christianity had any favorable effect on the
position of women, but, on the contrary, that it tended to
lower their character and contract the range of their
activity.” He points out that at the dawn of Christianity
women had attained great freedom, power, and influence in
the Homan Empire. “They dined in the company of
men,” he says, “they studied literature and philosophy,
they took part in political movements, they were allowed
to defend their own law cases if they liked, and
they helped their husbands in the government of pro
vinces and the writing of books.” All this was stopped
by Christianity. “ The highest post to which she rose ”
in the Christian Church “ was to be a door-keeper and
a message-woman.” A woman bold enough to teach was in
the eyes of Tertullian a “ wanton.” The duties of a wife were
simple—“ She had to obey her husband, for he was her head,
her lord, and superior; she was to fear him, reverence him,
and please him alone; she had to cultivate silence; she had
to spin and take care of the house, and she ought to stay at
home and attend to her children.”
Sir Henry Maine had previously observed, in his remark
able Ancient Law, that Christianity tended from the first to
narrow the rights and liberties of women. Not Homan juris
�Will Christ Save Us ?
51
prudence, but the Canon Law, was responsible for the dis
abilities on married women that obtained in Europe down
to the present century. The personal liberty conferred on
married women by the middle Roman law, in Sir Henry
Maine’s opinion, was not likely to be restored to them by a
society which preserved “ any tincture of Christian institu
tion.” Married women, however, in every civilised country
are now rising into a position of legal independence; and this
is but a revival of the best Roman law, which prevailed before
the triumph of Christianity.
It must be a remarkable fact, to any thoughtful Christian
who is interested in the great problem of woman’s emancipa
tion, that the most strenuous advocates of her rights during
the past century have belonged to the sceptical camp. The
first striking essay on the subject was written by Condorcet.
It was Mary Wollstonecraft, the wife of William Godwin,
and the mother of Mrs. Shelley, who wrote the first important essay on the subject in England. Shelley himself
was an ardent champion of sexual equality. His poignant
cry, “ Can man be free if woman be a slave ?” expresses the
very essence of the question. Jeremy Bentham, Robert
Owen, and John Stuart Mill, are a few of the names in the
subsequent muster-roll of custodians of the high tradition;
indeed, it is hardly too much to say that Mill’s great essay
on The Subjection of Women marks an epoch in the history
of social progress. Let it be added that the Ereethought
party has steadily upheld the banner of common rights, making
absolutely mo distinction in position or service between men
and women. The Christians are but slowly and timidly
following in the wake of a party they affect to despise.
Descending from the mothers of the race to its criminal
members, who are still a large section of the community, let
us see what Christ or Christianity has done for them; or
rather for the society which they curse and disgrace. The
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Will Christ Save Us ?
Christian method of reform is preaching. Sublime, pathetic»
or ridiculous, as you happen to regard it, is the Christian
belief in exhortation. It is a legacy from the pre-scientific
ages. A clergyman mountB a pulpit, informs people that
they ought to be good, tells them that in view of a future
life and a day of judgment honesty is the best policy, and
imagines that he has done a good stroke of work for the
moral elevation of society. How profoundly is he mistaken!
It is not thus that human beings are really acted upon. The
way to empty gaols, said John Ruskin, is to fill schools; and,
although this is a partial and exaggerated statement, as
epigrams are wont to be, it expresses truth enough to show
the utter futility of the common “ spiritual ” recipes for
human salvation.
Let our yearning for social improvement be ever so intense,
it is only by scientific methods that we can do any lasting
good. Social diseases must be studied like bodily diseases,
and the proper remedies discovered and applied. To preach
at sinners, either by the way of promises or threats, is in the
long run, and in a general way, as idle as to preach at
persons who suffer from fever or rheumatics.
“Man,” said D’Holbach, “will always be a mystery for
those who insist on regarding him with the prejudiced eyes
of theology.” “ The dogma of the spirituality of the soul,”
he added, “ has turned morality into a conjectural science,
which does not in the least help us to understand the true
way of acting on men’s motives.” Accordingly, it was not
until the Christian view had largely given place to the
scientific view, in ethics and in jurisprudence, that any
radical reform was possible m the treatment of crime; which
is, by the way, a very different thing from the amelioration
ppisons, with which we associate the name of John Howard.
Criminology is an impossible science while we are under the
dominion of Christian ideas. The criminal is merely endowed
with an extra quantity of original sin, which must be
�Will Christ Save Us ?
53
counteracted by spiritual agencies; indeed, it is still set
forth, in the language of indictments, that the prisoner in
the dock was instigated by the Devil. Madness itself, while
Christianity was dominant, was “ an intolerable exaggeration
of this perversity.” “ It is certainly true as an historical
fact,” says Mr. John Morley, whose words we have jusi
quoted, “ that the rational treatment of insane persons, and
the rational view of certain kinds of crime, were due to men
like Pinel, trained in the materialistic school of the eighteenth
century. And it waB clearly impossible that the great and
humane reforms in this field could have taken place before
the decisive decay of theology.”
Science is indeed far more humane than Christianity. It
does not boast so much about its “ great heart,” but it keeps
its eye upon the problem to be solved. At the present
moment the science of Criminology is almost exclusively in
the hands of materialists, who smile at the notion of “ sin ”
and scorn the idea of “punishment”; regarding crime as
moral insanity, and aiming at its treatment by scientific
methods, without cruelty to the criminal, but rather with
the same constant firmness and gentle skill which we have
learnt to apply to the victims of mental insanity.
The jurisprudence of Christian ages was savage and
scandalous. When madmen were beaten to drive the Devil
out of them, it is no wonder that criminals were treated with
monstrous severity. Torture, for instance, was common and
systematic; it was not only applied to accused persons, but
even to witnesses. “ It is curious to observe, says Mr.
Henry C. Lea, “that Christian communities, where the
truths of the gospel were received with unquestioning
veneration, systematised the administration of torture with
a cold-blooded ferocity unknown to the legislation of the
heathen nations whence they derived it. The careful restric
tions and safeguards, with which the Roman jurisprudence
sought to protect the interests of the accused, contrast
�4
54
Will Christ Save Vs?
strangely with the reckless disregard of every principle of
justice which sullies the criminal procedure of Europe from
the thirteenth to the nineteenth century.” The death
penalty was inflicted with shocking frequency in every part
of Christendom. Until the early years of the present cen
tury it was common, in England, to see men and women
hung in batches, some of them for petty o fiences, such as
stealing goods to the value of five shillings; and when the
great Romilly attempted to reform this ferocious law, he
was opposed by the whole bench of bishops in the House of
Lords. Since then we have witnessed a vast improvement;
not in consequence of Christ’s teaching, or the spirit of
Christianity, but in consequence of the general spread of
science, education, mental liberty, and democracy; or, in
other words, the progress of secular civilisation.
Coincidently with this movement there has been a diminu
tion in the statistics of crime. What could not be effected
by pulpit anathemas and penal cruelty, has been effected by
wiser and nobler agencies. In England, for instance, since
the passing of the Education Act of 1870, the number of
convicted prisoners has largely decreased, despite the con
siderable growth of population; and it is worthy of special
notice that the principal decrease is among the youthful
offenders.
Christian nations are fond of boasting their superior
virtue, yet it is among Christian nations that we find the
worst developments of th& three great vices of gambling,
drink and prostitution. The present Archbishop of Canterbury,
in a volume entitled Christ and His Times, confesses that
“ Intemperance is in far greater rage and ravage ” in England
than it was “ among those Gentiles ” denounced by St. Peter.
His Grace confesses, also, that England is debauching whole
populations of “heathen.” “The earth’s long-sealed dark
continent, stored with her grandest products,” he declares,
�Will Christ Save Us ?
55
“ is being developed for the wealth of the world through the
application of intoxication to its innumerable tribes by
civilised traders and Christian merchants.” With regard to
prostitution His Grace admits that we are in a sorry plight.
“ The streets of London,” the Archbishop says, “ fling temp
tation broadcast before youth and inexperience,” and “ Our
medical authorities speak of a river of poison flowing into the
blood of this nation.”
These are shameful words to come from the highest
dignitary of the richest Church in the world. And the
shame lies in their truth. After eighteen hundred years of
Christianity, it is very questionable, if allowance be made
for mere differences of manners as distinguished from morals,
whether the Christian nations do in practice exhibit a higher
level of morality than many of the “ heathen ” nations. The
general practice of Christian apologists is to single out some
particular virtues in which we have an advantage, to the
neglect of other virtues in which we are distinctly inferior;
and then to bid us plume ourselves on our superiority. But
this special pleading is abashed by such admissions as those
of Archbishop Benson. Christian nations are the greatest
gamblers and drunkards. Christian nations have. almost
a monopoly of prostitution. The vice of Christian cities is as
bad as any recorded of the worst imperial cities of antiquity.
Perhaps the corruption is not so widespread, and it is
covered with a thicker veil of decorum. Some improvement
has no doubt taken place, especially amongst the middle and
upper-lower classes; but some improvement might be
expected in the course of two thousand years. What there
is of it is not enough to establish any great ethical claim on
behalf of Christianity. It has not reformed the world, as a
divine revelation should do ; in other words, Christ has not
saved us morally ; and what he has not done in such a long
past, he is not likely to do in any possible future.
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Will Christ Save Us?
Poverty is another curse of Christian countries. From the
point of view of material comfort, there are myriads of our
pauper and semi-pauper population who are far worse off
than the slaves of ancient Greece and Rome. St. Peter
spoke of a suffering population. “ We know of one,” says
Archbishop Benson, “ which can only just exist, hanging on
a sharp edge of illness, hunger, uncleanness physical and
moral, incapacity mental and bodily, in full sight of abund
ance, luxury, and waste.”
Christianity promises many fine blessings to the poor, but
they are only realisable in heaven. Poverty is represented as
a blessing in itself. Jesus seems to have regarded it as a
permanent characteristic of human society, and the Church
has been ready to do everything for poverty except to remove
it. But its abolition is the chief object of modern reform.
Poverty is not a blessing; it is a curse. It is “ an imprison
ment of the mind, a vexation of every worthy spirit,” wrote
Sir Walter Raleigh; nay more, it “provokes a man to do
infamous and detested deeds.” Poverty is one of the chief
secrets of popular abasement. Even in the sphere of
economics, strange as it may sound to the superficial, it is
not low wages that are the cause of poverty, but poverty
that is the cause of low wages. Yes, it is absolutely
indispensable to a civilisation worthy of the name, that
poverty—the want of the necessaries and decencies of lifeshould be exterminated. But there is nothing in the teaching
of Christ, or in the traditions of Christianity, to be helpful
in the accomplishment of this great object; indeed, it would
appear from a study of Christian writings that the poor are
providentially kept in that position as whetstones for the
rich man’s benevolence. The Gospel of Giving has been
preached with incredible vigor and unction, and even now
it is the pride of Churches to act as rich men’s almoners.
But giving, if excellent in crises, is bad as a policy; it pre
supposes folly or injustice, or perhaps both, and it perpetuates
�Will Christ ¡Save Us ?
57
and intensifies the evil it affects to mitigate. The true,
deep, and lasting charity is justice ; and for that the world
has looked to Christianity in vain. It will be a glorious
moment when the poor despise the “ charity” which wealth
flings to them as conscience-money or ransom, when they
acorn the eleemosynary cant of the Churches, when they cry
“ Keep your bounty, and give us our rights.”
Meanwhile it is well to observe the industry with which
the apostles of Christ shun the “blessings” of poverty.
They do not take it themselves, they recommend it to others;
it is good for foreign export, bad for domestic consumption.
Blessed be ye poor ” is the text. The clergy never say
«< Blessed are we poor.” They preach with their tongues in
their cheeks, and an Archbishop is the greatest harlequin of
all. How Christ has saved the world from poverty may be
seen in the fact that, nearly two thousand years after his
advent, an Archbishop is paid £15,000 a year to preach
“ Blessed be ye poor.”
There is nothing in the teaching ascribed to Christ which
indicates that he understood poverty to be a curse, or that he
had the slightest appreciation of its causes or its remedies*
He was a preacher and a pietist, with the usual knowledge of
secular affairs possessed by that description of persons. Wellmeaning he may have been; there is no reason whatever to
dispute it; but good intentions will never, by themselves,
■effect the salvation of mankind.
On one occasion the Prophet of Nazareth gave a counsel of
perfection to a wealthy young man. It was to sell his
property and give the proceeds to the poor. Can anyone
conceive a greater economical absurdity? Most assuredly
we want a better distribution of wealth, but this is not the
method to bring it about. It would simply plunge all who
have anything into the slough of poverty. Such advice is a
counsel of ignorance or despair : of ignorance, if the teacher
thinks it would help the poor; of despair, if he regards
�58
Will Christ Save Us ?
poverty as irremediable, and aims at nothing but an equality
>
of misery.
Christ’s teaching as to poverty, if reduced to practice,
would pauperise and ruin society. Of course it may be
contended—it has been contended—that the advice to sell
out for the benefit of the poor, was solely meant for the
individual to whom it was tendered. But this is inconsistent
with the practice of Christ’s disciples, who must surely have
been in the most favorable position to understand his meaning.
They held all things in common, and those who had posses
sions sold them and paid the price into the common exchequer.
Here again, however, the later disciples of Christ find a
convenient explanation. According to Archbishop Benson,
for example, it was “ no instance of Communism,” but “ au
extraordinary effect to meet a sudden emergency.” Such
are the devices by which it is sought to escape from a
palpable difficulty ! Whenever the plain meaning of Scrip
ture is unpleasant, it is always nullified by artful interpreta
tions. But the slippery exegetes, in this particular instance,
overlook the fact that they are explaining away the only
practical bit of Christ’s teaching with respect to poverty.
They remove a difficulty and leave a blank. And there we
will leave them.
So great is the practical failure of Christianity to save
mankind in this world—so great its failure to save us
from the evils that too often make a hell on earth—that
two distinct lines of apology are pursued by its advocates.
According to the first, it was not the object of Christ to save
us from mere worldly evils; according to the second, we
might have been saved in this very sense of salvation, but we
have obstinately rejected our Redeemer.
As a representative of the first line of apology we select Mr.
Coventry Patmore, who is a Roman Catholic, and a poet of
some distinction. “ Some,” he remarks, “ who do not consider
�Will Christ Save Us ?
59'
that Christianity has proved a failure, do, nevertheless, hold
that it is open to question whether the race, as a race, has been,
much affected by it, and whether the external and visible
evil and good which have come of it do not pretty nearly
balance one another.” Mr. Patmore denies that it was the
main purpose of Christ, or any part of his purpose, that
“ everybody should have plenty to eat and drink, comfortable
houses, and not too much to do.” Neither material nor
moral amelioration was to be expected: on the contrary,
Christ was so far from prophesying “ that the world would
get better and happier for his life, death, and teaching, that
he actually prophesied “ it would become intolerably worse.
“ He tells us,” says Mr. Patmore, “ that the poor will be
always with us, and does not hint disapproval of the institu
tion even of slavery, though he counsels the slave to be
content with his status.” Christ came to save those who.
would, could, or should be saved from their sins, and fitted
for the Kingdom of Heaven. “ It was practically for those
few only that he lived and died,” and, shocking as it may
seem, it is the teaching of the New Testament.
This is clear, emphatic, and straightforward. With such a
defender of Christianity as Mr. Patmore even an Atheist can
have no quarrel. They may salute each other respectfully
across an impassable chasm.
It is not so easy to select a representative of the second
line of apology. The name of such is now Legion. They
tell us that Christ has been blindly misunderstood or wilfully
misrepresented. He was the great, the sublime preacher,
they say, of the doctrine of human brotherhood, which, if
reduced to practice, would make earth a heaven. His Sermon
on the Mount, they add, is the charter of our secular
redemption.
Now if Christ has been misunderstood, or even misrepre
sented, for two thousand years, some at least of the blame
must surely attach to himself. Why did he not expiess
�60
Will Christ Save Us ?
himself with the clearness of a Confucius. a Cicero, a Seneca,
a Marcus Aurelius? We are told that he used oriental
metaphors; true, and metaphors are good adornments, but
bad foundations. Something plain, solid, and satisfying
should form the basis of every structure.
As for the doctrine of human brotherhood, it was taught
before Christ, and after him by moralists who owed nothing
to his influence. Besides, such a doctrine is but a poor
truism or a barren platitude unless it takes a practical shape
in government and society. Louis the Fourteenth would
have allowed that the meanest peasant in France was his
brother in Christ. Such a broad generalisation means any
thing or nothing, according to individual circumstances.
What is wanted is something more precise, something
addressed to the intellect as well as the emotions. What is
the real value of a doctrine of brotherhood which saw nothing
wrong in slavery? What is the worth of it when the agri
cultural laborer and the landlord sit and listen to it in the
same church, and go their several ways afterwards with no
sense of incongruity, the one to slave for a bare pittance, and
the other to live in comparative idleness on the fruits of his
“ brother’s ” labor ?
With regard to the Sermon on the Mount—which, of
course, is no sermon, but a disorderly collection of maxims—
it has well been described as a series of “ pathetic exaggera
tions.” The moment it is discussed as a basis of action,
nearly every sentence has to be explained, qualified, or hedged
in with reservations. “ Resist not evil ” means, resist evil,
but resist it passively. “ Take no thought for the morrow ”
means, take as much thought as is necessary. “ Blessed are
the poor in spirit ” means, blessed are the rich who do not
keep their noses too high in the air. “ Blessed are the
meek ” works out as, blessed are those who stand up for their
rights. The way in which Christian Socialists turn and
twiBt, amplify and contract, explain and obscure this Sermon
�Will Christ Save Us?
61
on the Mount, is a fine illustration of how men will trim and
decorate their gods sooner than discard them altogether,
Morally, it may be “ touching.” Intellectually, it is contemp
tible. In any other cause it would be treated as downright
dishonesty. We are bound to tell these Christian Socialists
—or Social Christians, as some of the species would prefer to
be designated—that they are lacking in subtlety. Archbishop
Magee knew what he was about in declaring that any society
which tried to base itself upon the Sermon on the Mount
would go to ruin in a week. This he knew was indisputable,
except by softs, cranks, or lunatics. But he did not there
fore abandon the Sermon on the Mount. He sheltered it
behind a pretty, convenient theory; namely, that its injunc
tions are meant for the Church, not for the State—for the
individual, not for society—for Christians, not for citizens.
Jeremy Taylor also knew what he was about in declaring
that the clauses of the Sermon on the Mount are not com
mands, but counsels of perfection. Intellectually, this is not
contemptible; it is very clever—whatever else we may think
of it; whereas our Christian Socialists, or Social Christians,
play the confidence trick too clumsily, being as open as a hat
through the whole performance.
From any rational point of view, it is impossible to regard
Jesus Christ as the savior of the world. For a god, his
failure is egregious. His apostles were to go into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature; according to the
last chapter of Mark, those who believed were to be saved, and
those who disbelieved were to be damned. Eighteen centuries
have rolled by, and little more than a quarter of the world’s
inhabitants even profess Christianity. Missionaries are still
laboring to convert the “ heathen,” but the proselytes they
make are not a tithe of those who are lost to the Churches
at home through scepticism or mere indifference. Further,
the “ revelation ” through Christ is so obscure, so compli-
�«2
cated, or so self-contradictory, that Christendom is split up
into a multitude of sects, each declaring itself the only true
custodian of “ the faith once delivered unto the saints.” The
only points on which they are universally agreed, are the
cardinal doctrines of pre-Christians religion. To imagine
such a poor, confused result as the work of a deity, is to sink
gods below the level of men. To bid us regard it as the work
of a being at once omnipotent and omniscient, is to insult
the very meanest intelligence.
Christ is a failure also as a man; though, perhaps, it is
less his fault than his misfortune. The true story of his
life—if, indeed, he ever lived at all—has been buried under
a monstrous mass of myths and legends. The sayings
ascribed to him have given rise to endless disputes and
bitter quarrels, in the course of which blood has flowed like
water and tears have fallen like rain. His very name has
been an instrument of terror and oppression. Priests and
kings, age after age, and century after century, have used it
to delude and despoil the people. The nails of his hands and
feet have been driven into the brains of honest thinkers; the
blood from his wounds has been turned into a poison for the
veins of society. Could he see all the frauds and crimes done
in his name, he would wish it to perish in oblivion.
In no sense has this Galilean saved the world. As a simple
man, and no god, how could he possibly do so ? The world’s
salvation is far too huge a task for any man, let him be ever
so wise and great. It is a task for the soldiers of liberty,
truth, and progress in every age and every land. Why
should millions of men be constantly bending over the tomb
of a single dead young Jew ? Is not the whole world a
sepulchre of poets, artists, philosophers, statesmen, and
heroes? Do not the stars shine like night-lamps over the
slumbers of our mighty dead ? And why confine ourselves
to one little country, one petty nation, and one type of cha
racter ? Kot in Palestine, not in Jewry, not in Christ, shall
�. TP7ZZ Christ Save Us?
63
we find all the elements of human greatness and nobility.
Let us be more catholic than our forefathers. They were
narrowed by a creed; we will be as broad as humanity. It is
a poor, cowardly spirit that dreads the cry of “Lo here!” or
“ Lo there!” The wise, brave man will be curious and eclectic.
He will store the honey of truth, beauty, and goodness from
every flower that blooms in the garden of the world.
�TT
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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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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Will Christ save us?
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Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 63 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Cover subtitle: An examination of the claims of Jesus Christ to be considered the savior of the world. Publisher's series list on back page. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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R. Forder
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1893
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N271
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Christianity
Jesus Christ
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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 (Will Christ save us?), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Jesus Christ
NSS
Salvation
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national secular society
WHO WAS
THE
FATHER OF JESUS?
G. W. FOOTE
LONDON :
R. FORDER, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
1895
Price Twopence
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY G. W. FOOTE,
AT 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�WHO WAS THE FATHER OF JESUS?
tS? T
JeSUS ■” asked a teacher in a
London Board school, and a boy replied “Joseph” The
lad s answer was heard by a friend of the Rev. J. Coxhead
C.ne of the clerical members of the Board, and was conveyed
Jo the reverend gentleman, who lost no time in bringing it
it° Jwf V^011 °i H1S colleagues- Mr- Coxhead considered
it awful that such an answer should be given to such a
question. Joseph the father of Jesus! Angels and
ministers of grace defend us! It was flat bllphemy
The doctrine of the Incarnation was in deadly peril If
children were to be taught in this fashion.
7 P
Mr. Coxhead imparted his alarm to the majority of his
colleagues who carried a resolution that “Christian”
should qualify the “religion” taught in the Board school
and issued a circular , to the teachers enjoining them to
nstruct the children in the doctrine of the Trinity with
Special emphasis on the deity of Jesus Christ.
7’
. 1 • i teacker,s revolted against this circular, Noncon
formists sent deputations to the Board to protest agX'
the priestly machinations of the Church party, and a fierce
controversy was waged in the newspapers. The agitation
lasted for eighteen months, and culminated in an flection
which was contested with as much zeal as though the fate
of the empire were trembling in the balance. Every staa^
of the struggle was marked by acrimonious charges and
passionate recrimination. London wa«
n g6S
“J tHhXpXnaXeA ”senuousIy
month J great.events from little causes spring. Eighteen
months agitation, an unparalleled School Board Xk
and, in fact, the convulsion of London, all flowed from^’
Jesfsi’°y 7eH 7 tOhthe TSti°n’ “ Who was the father^ of
J esus ? And perhaps there will be other long andXr™
battles over the same transcendent problem. &
fier e
�4
WHO WAS THE FATHER OF JESUS ?
Despite all the wrangling and hubbub, that schoolboy’s
answer seems to us a very sensible one. It showed, at any
rate, that the obscenities of the orthodox faith had fallen
harmlessly upon his young intelligence. Probably he was
not old enough to understand them. All the boys he knew
had fathers, though perhaps some were missing. It seemed
to him perfectly natural that Jesus also had a father, and
he had read in the New Testament that this father was
Joseph. How could he understand the “virgin mother,
the “ Holy Ghost,” the “overshadowing,” the “immaculate
conception,” and the “Incarnation”? All this had been
written by some ancient gentlemen m Greek, and certainly
it was Greek to him.
Since this question, however, is of such importance that
a wrong, or even a questionable, answer is enough to
convulse the greatest city in the world, let us give it a
full consideration.
Presumption is always in favor of the natural. It is
rational to believe that any baby has two parents This is
taken for granted when a woman seeks an order for main
tenance against the father of her illegitimate child The
magistrate never supposes a possible alternative. It never
occurs to him that the child may be the offspring of a
supernatural being. There is a father somewhere, and the
father is a man.
.
.
T,
Every natural presumption is universal. it applies
without exception. The onus of proof lies upon those who
assert the contrary. If a man has been buried, the pre
sumption is that he will lie quietly. Those who say that
he still walks about must prove the allegation^ . The certi
ficates of the doctor and the cemetery are sufficient on the
other side. Similarly, when a baby is produced inlong
clothes, the presumption is that it came into the world in
the ordinary manner. A mother on earth and a father m
heaven is unnatural. Every child of woman born has a
father on this planet, and if . he cannot be found it is not
the fault of biology. It is simply a case for the police.
It is presumable, therefore, that Jesus Christ (if he ever
lived) came into existence like every other little Jew of his
generation. Those who say that his mother was a woman,
but his father was not a man, must prove the statement.
�WHO WAS THE FATHER OF JESUS ?
5
They should also explain why a mother was necessary if a
father was dispensable. A half miracle is doubly suspicious.
It is as easy to be born without one parent as without two.
Why then did Jesus Christ avail himself of the assistance
of Mary ? Why did he not drop down ready-born from
heaven ? He is said to have returned there as a man, after
burial. Could he not also have come from there as a baby,
without birth ? Why was the plain natural mixed with
the uncertain supernatural, to the subsequent confusion of
every honest and candid intelligence ?
Until we have evidence to the contrary, we are justified
in saying that the father of Jesus was a man, and probably
a Jew. Celsus, in the second century, twitted the Chris
tians with worshipping the bastard child of a Jewish
maiden and a Roman soldier ; and the same idea is found
in the Sepher Toldoth Jeshu—the Jewish Life of Christ.
But we shall not believe this aspersion on Mary without
cogent evidence. Still, there is nothing in it of a super
natural character. It may be libellous, but it is not
miraculous. Whether a soldier or a carpenter, the father
of Jesus was a man.
There is plenty of proof of this in the New Testament,
and proof that the man was Joseph. And this proof is all
the more striking and convincing because it has clearly
been left in the “ sacred books ” to the detriment of the
Church doctrines.
Several passages show that the countrymen of Jesus, his
neighbors, and even his brothers, believed him to be the .
son. of Joseph. In “his own country”—that is, in
Galilee—the people were offended at his pretensions, and 11
exclaimed: “Is not this the carpenter’s son ? is not his '
mother called Mary ? and his brethren, James, and Joses,
and Simon, and Judas ? And his sisters, are they not all
with us ?” (Matthew xiii. 55, 56). Luke (iv. 22) represents i
them as saying: “Is not this Joseph’s son ?” John (vi. 42) . j
gives their words : “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph ?” 11
Other passages might be cited, but these will suffice. They
show that the people of his own countryside, the people
in and about Nazareth, regarded him as the son of Joseph.
Philip, the fourth apostle, after being called to follow
Jesus, meets Nathaniel, and says he has found the one
written of by Moses and the prophets—“ Jesus of Naza-
�6
WHO WAS THE FATHER OF JESUS
1
s reth, the son of Joseph” (John i. 45). Not one of the
f apostles, in person, ever utters a doubt upon this point.
. The brothers of Jesus (John vii. 5) did not believe in him,,
and on one occasion (Mark iii. 21, 31) they tried to put
him under restraint as a lunatic; which is~ quite irreconcileable with any knowledge on their part of his super
natural character. Mary herself (Luke ii. 48) speaks to
i Jesus of Joseph as “thy father.”
r~AH these passages, witE~ othbrs which we omit, are very
awkward for the orthodox. They prove conclusively—
that is, if the Gospels are to be regarded as at all historical
—that the neighbors of Jesus, his brothers, and even his
mother, treated him as the son of Joseph. Nobody at that
time appears to have known anything about the Holy
Ghost.
It is a curious fact that in the newly-discovered Syriac
Gospels, which the Rev. J. Rendel Harris regards as
certainly “ superior in antiquity to anything yet known,”
it is distinctly stated that “ Joseph begat Jesus, who is
called Christ.” The farther we go back the more is the
natural birth of Jesus a matter of common acceptation.
Our third Gospel, which is generally supposed to be the
oldest, opens with the public ministry of Jesus. There
is not a word in it about his childhood, nothing about his
having been born of a virgin mother. Paul’s “ authentic ”
1 epistles, which are older still, are just as silent about the
supernatural birth of Christ. Neither is there a word
- about it in the fourth Gospel, which the orthodox say
was written by John, the most beloved and intimate
of all the twelve apostles. Positive and negative evi
dence abounds that Jesus was the son of Joseph, as
well as of Mary, and born precisely like other children.
The story of his supernatural birth, with all its far-reaching
doctrinal issues, depends upon the authority of Matthew
and Luke; and what that is worth we will proceed to
investigate.
Let us first take Luke. There are many traditions about
him which we are at liberty to disbelieve. He is said to
have been a physician and also a painter; indeed, the
Catholic Church, with its usual effrontery, exhibited
pictures of the Virgin Mary pretendedly drawn by him, or
�WHO WAS THE FATHER OF JESUS ?
7
at least as copies of his original paintings. According to
OHB tradition, he suffered martyrdom ; according to another
tradition, he died a natural death at the age of eighty-four.
His death occurred at several different places. His tomb
was shown at Thebes in Boeotia, but travellers have found
it a comparatively modern structure. The number of
countries in which he is said to have preached the Gospel
i® a tribute to his prodigious and even preternatural
activity. He is alleged to have been converted by Paul, of
whom he became the constant companion j a view which is
reflected in the Acts of the Apostles. It has even been
maintained that he wrote the third Gospel at Paul’s
dictation. According to Irenaeus, he digested into writing
what Paul preached to the Gentiles. Gregory Nazianzen
says that he wrote with the help of the great Apostle. All
this, of course, is very precarious; but it is sufficient to
show that Luke was not a personal follower of Jesus. He
wrote down as much as he remembered of what Paul
remembered of what other people had told him. His
exordium puts him outside the category of eye-witnesses.
He relates, not what he knew, but what was “ most surely
believed,” on the testimony of those who handed down the
information, and who “ from the beginning were eye
witnesses, and ministers of the word.” It is perfectly
certain, therefore, that Luke could have had no first-hand
knowledge of the supernatural birth of Christ. He merely
recorded what was then the tradition of the Church, which
is not adequate evidence to support a miracle, especially
one so astounding that a famous old English divine, Dr.
John Donne, declared that if God had not said it he would
never have believed it.
The historical authority of the third Gospel is in a still
worse plight if we accept the conclusion of the majority of
modern critics, that it was not written by Luke, nor by
any person living in the apostolic age, but is a production
of the second century, and of unknown authorship. Who
can credit a. staggering miracle on the authority of a
document written God alone knows exactly when, where,
and by whom ?
Let us now turn to Matthew. What the Gospels tell us
about him is trifling. He was a Jew and a publican—that
iSj a tax-collector. On one occasion he entertained Jesus
�8
WHO WAS THE FATHER OF JESUS ?
at dinner (Matthew ix. 10). And here endeth the story.
All the rest that is told of Matthew is tradition. He was
a vegetarian, he preached the Gospel extensively, he died
a natural death, and he also suffered martyrdom. Even
his martyrdom was ambiguous, for he was burnt alive and
also beheaded. The earliest writers, such as Papias and
Irenaeus, say that he wrote the logia, or sayings, of Christ
in Hebrew. But our first Gospel is a complete history,
from the birth of Jesus to his ascension; it is also written
in Greek, and by some one who was not conversant with
the Hebrew language. Whatever may have been written
by Matthew is universally allowed to have perished. But
the orthodox have pretended that, before it was lost, it
was translated into Greek, and thence again into Latin.
I They are unable to say, however, who made the translation,
or even when it was made; nor can they tell us why the
translation was preserved, and the inspired original allowed
A to perish.
Matthew may have written something, but it is for ever
lost to the world; nor is there the slightest evidence that
our Greek Gospel is a translation from it, but much
evidence to the contrary. In the judgment of all competent
critics, our first Gospel, like all the others, is not of apostolic
origin. It cannot be traced back beyond the second half
of the second century.
So much for the authorship and authority of Matthew
and Luke. Now let us take them as they stand, and
examine what they say.
Each of them gives a genealogy of Jesus, right up to
Adam—a gentleman who never existed. There is a con
siderable difference, however, in the two genealogies ;
which proves that they were not derived from a well-kept
family pedigree. They are doubtless as imaginary as the
pedigrees made out at the Herald’s Office for modern
gentlemen who are knighted or ennobled.
As the Messiah was to be of the blood of David, and
k Joseph belonged to that “ house/’ both Matthew and Luke
i trace the family descent through him. But if Jesus was
not the son of Joseph, he was not really of the house of
David, any more than Moses was of the house of Pharaoh.
* It is extremely probable, as Strauss argues, that the
�WHO WAS THE FATHER OF JESUS ?
9
genealogies of Jesus were compiled before our Gospels were
written, at a time when the supernatural birth of Jesus
Was not entertained. He was then believed to be the
lawful son of Joseph and Mary, and the genealogies were
compiled to show his descent from David, which was
requisite to his Messiahship.
Luke speaks of Jesus, in his genealogy, as “being (as
was supposed) the son of Joseph.” This is a very eloquent
parenthesis. As_was supposed ! By whom ? Why, by
the very persons who ought to know; by the countrymen,
neighbors, and brothers of Jesus. They supposed him to
be the son of Joseph, but they forsooth were mistaken,
and their blunder was corrected long afterwards by a
gentleman who was not even a Jew, and never lived in
Palestine.
Having to represent Jesus as not the son of Joseph, but
a child of supernatural birth, both Matthew and Luke
give us circumstantial narratives of his entrance into the
world. On some points they agree, on others they differ,
and each relates many things which the other omits.
Evidently they were working upon various sets of traditions.
And just as evidently the whole of these birth-traditions
were unknown to Mark and John, or considered by them
as false or doubtful, and not worth recording.
Matthew starts with his genealogy, which Luke reserves
till the end, and then plunges into the middle of his
subject.
“Now the birth of Jesus was in this wise : When as
his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they
came, together, she was found with child of the Holy
Ghost.”
Wait a minute, Matthew ! Not so fast! You, or any
other man, can tell that a young woman is with child, but
by whom is quite another matter. Let us see what you
know on this subject. And for the sake of argument we
will suppose you one of the twelve Apostles. As for Luke,
he is out of court altogether; it being impossible for him
to give more than hearsay, which no court of law would
®dmit as evidence.
From the very nature of the case, Matthew could not
have had any personal knowledge of who was the father of
Jesus. Whether it was a man, or a ghost, or any other
�10
WHO WAS THE FATHER OF JESUS
1
being, Matthew was not in a position to know more than
he was told. Well then, who told him ? Unluckily he
does not inform us. We have therefore nothing to rely
upon but his own authority, which (we repeat) from the
very nature of the case is absolutely worthless.
No one has a right to say that Joseph told Matthew.
Even if he did, he could only say that he was not the father
of Jesus. He could not say who was. At least he could
not say so with any certainty. Nor was it a matter on
which he was likely to be loquacious.
It may be argued that Matthew derived his information
from Jesus. But there is no evidence of this in the Gospels.
Jesus never called attention to any miraculous circum
stances in connection with his birth. Even if a private
conversation be alleged, as at least possible, what is its
value ? Jesus himself was no authority on the. subject. It
is a wise child that knows its own father. How could
Jesus be aware, except by report, of what occurred nine
months before he was born ? It may be objected that he
was God, and, therefore, omniscient; but this is begging
the very question in dispute. We must begin the
argument with his manhood, and go on to his godhead
afterwards, if the evidence justifies the proceeding. It
will never do to bring in the conclusion to prove the
premises.
The only person who knew for certain was Mary. Did
she tell Matthew ? It is not alleged that she did. Accord
ing to Luke, Mary “ kept all these things.” She does not
appear to have told even Joseph. Is it probable then
that she told a third person ?
Matthew states that Joseph, finding Mary as ladies wish
to be who love their lords, before he had married her, and
certainly without his assistance, was “ minded to put her
away privily.” He did not like the look of affairs, and he
“thought on these things.” No doubt! We are not dis
posed to quarrel with this part of the narrative.
f Joseph’s brain could not stand much thinking. He was
better at dreaming. It was in a dream that he was
ordered to take his flight into Egypt, in a dream that he
\was told to return to Palestine, and in a dream that he was
warned to avoid Judsea and go into Galilee.
v How natural, then, that “ the angel of the Lord appeared
�WHO WAS THE FATHER OF JESUS ?
11
unto Jim in a dream,'’ telling him to marry Mary, and
Worming him that the approaching little stranger was the
progeny “ of the Holy Ghost.”
We had better reproduce the exact words of this angelic
intimation :—
“Behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in Li
a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to 11 \
take unto thee Mary thy wife : for that which is con- II f .
ceived of her is of the Holy Ghost” (i. 20).
3ia®t reflect on the absurdity of this message. Had I
anyone, whether man or angel, told it to Joseph, he would «
naturally have exclaimed : “ Who the devil is the Holy ll
Ghost?” Joseph had never heard of such a personage. ij
The Holy Ghost was not then invented. Even in the '
Acts of the Apostles (xix. 2) we read that Paul found 1/1
“ certain disciples” at Ephesus who had “not so much as >
heard whether there be a Holy Ghost ’’—and, on the t
orthodox chronology, this was fifty or sixty years after
th® dream of Joseph.
Is it not perfectly clear that this story of the super
natural birth of Christ was made up long afterwards, and
entirely amongst the Christians, who had accepted the
Holy Ghost as one of the persons of their Trinity ? The
very language put into the mouth of the angel betrays
the concoction. Joseph was simply a Jew; the time in
question was before the birth of Christ; and to talk to a
Jew of that period about the Holy Ghost would have been
mere nonsense—utterly unintelligible.
However, we are told that Joseph was perfectly satis
fied, though he could hardly have been enlightened. He
married Mary, and fathered her prospective baby ; but for
some time he was only her nominal husband. “ He knew
h® not, says Matthew, “until she had brought forth her
firstborn son.”
We dare not, in this pamphlet at least, dwell upon the
extraordinary indecencies in which Christian fathers and
divines have indulged with regard to the occult part of this
affair. There is no reason why their pious obscenities
should not be exposed, but we shrink from doing it in a
pamphlet which is intended for readers of both sexes, of all
ages, and of every degree of education.
�12
WHO WAS THE FATHER OF JESUS ?
What must be said here is, that the birth of a savior
from a woman and a god is far from being a speciality of
the Christian religion. It was common in the religions
of antiquity. Even historical characters were sometimes
assigned a semi-divine origin. Alexander boasted his
descent from the god Ammon; Gautama, the founder of
Buddhism, was born exactly like Jesus Christ; and even in
the most cultivated age of the most cultivated city in the
world, the disciples of Plato declared that Ariston was
only his putative father, his recd father being the god
Apollo. This legend prevailed in Athens while Plato’s
nephew was still living. And the most curious coincidence
is that, in words very similar to those of Matthew, Diogenes
Laertius, in his Lives of the Philosophers, relates that Ariston,
being warned in a dream by Apollo, deferred his marriage,
and did not approach his intended wife until after her
iconfinement. Indeed, the Greek word translated “till” in
4 Matthew i. 25 is the very same word used by Diogenes
Laertius in relating the legendary birth of Plato.
Orthodoxy has pretended that Mary remained a virgin
all her life, in spite of the birth of Jesus; that Joseph was
always her nominal husband; and that Jesus had neither
brother nor sister. They have made “ first born ” mean
“ only born,” and “ till” to cover, not only the period of
her miraculous pregnancy, but all the time afterwards.
Language, like common sense, has been mercilessly twisted
in the interest of dogma.
It is perfectly clear from the New Testament that Jesus
had natural brothers and sisters. We have already quoted
the passage in Matthew (xiii. 55, 56) in which four of his
brothers are mentioned, with a reference to “ his sisters.”
Paul himself (Galatians i. 19) states that when he went up
to Jerusalem he saw Peter and “James the Lord’s brother.”
Paul never learnt on the spot, and at the time, what the
Church discovered at a distance, and long afterwards;
namely, that brother James, like all the others, was a
cousin of Jesus. It is astonishing what a lot has been
I, found out about “ the Savior ” by Christian divines, which
Iwas utterly unknown to the “ inspired ” writers of the New
^Testament.
Accepting the dogma of the miraculous birth of Jesus,
without a tittle of evidence from any valid witness, the
�WHO WAS THE FATHER OF JESUS ?
13
“ fathers ” of the Christian Church carried it to its highest
degree of intensity. Mary was represented as a virgin
from birth to death ; Joseph was represented as an old
man, who was merely her guardian ; finally, he also was
represented as a life-long virgin. Epiphanius allowed that
Joseph had sons by a former marriage ; but this was too
much for the fastidious faith of Jerome, who stigmatised
the supposition as impious and audacious; and from that
time it became a point of orthodoxy to regard the
“brothers” of Jesus as his “cousins.”
It is not claimed, however, that these “fathers” were
inspired, nor is the claim advanced on behalf of their
successors in the subtle art of divinity. We are therefore h ,
free to take our notions from the New Testament, and the |
following conclusions may be deduced from it beyond a .
reasonable doubt: (1) That Jesus was the son of Mary,
(2) that Joseph was her husband, (3) that Mary and ■
everyone else spoke of Joseph as the father of Jesus, :
(4) that Jesus had four brothers and an unknown number I
of sisters, who were all reckoned as the natural offspring of | p
his own father and mother.
We are thus forced back upon the argument we have
already elaborated. All the natural, historical, and
undesigned evidence is in favor of Joseph having been
the father of Jesus. In support of the contrary position
we have certain statements in the first and third Gospels,
which are discredited by the complete silence of the second
and fourth Gospels, as well as by the complete silence of
Paul; and still further discredited by the fact that these
statements—in themselves so marvellous and so loosely
woven—are made by two really anonymous writers,
neither of whom was in a position to know anything
whatever about the subject, who could only relate what
they had heard at second-hand, and who do not even hint
that they derived any information from the only person—
namely, Mary—who was in possession of the facts.
This difficulty, which has never to our knowledge been
adequately emphasised, is at least perceived by Canon
Gore. This writer admits that the miraculous birth of
Jesus “does not rest primarily on apostolic testimony,”
and that it was “ not part of the primary apostolic
preaching.” The apostles “ had no knowledge given them
�14
WHO WAS THE FATHER OF JESUS ?
to start with of his miraculous origin,” but when they
came to believe it [whenever that was !] they “ must have
been interested to know the circumstances of the Incarna
tion.”*
Canon Gore thus supports our contention that the
twelve apostles who were constantly with Jesus for the
space of three years, and who must surely have seen the
members of his family, never heard a word, during the
whole of that time, which led them to doubt that he was
the natural son of Joseph.
Our further contention is also supported by this eminent
preacher. “ There were two sources,” he says, “ of original
evidence, Joseph and Mary.” Just as we do, therefore, he
narrows the inquiry down to the question whether’we
have their testimony in the opening chapters of St.
Matthew and St. Luke. ’ And let the reader observe that
no notice whatever is taken of the absolute silence of Mark
whom we cannot imagine to have been less
“interested to know the circumstances of the Incarnation ”
than the other evangelists.
“ Read St. Matthew’s account of the birth,” says Canon
Gore, “ and you will see how unmistakably everything is
told from the side of Joseph, his perplexities, the intima
tions which he received, his resolutions and his actions.”
“Unmistakably”, is a big bold word, but it only
expresses the certitude of the writer’s own judgment.
The author of the first Gospel does not allege, or even
hint, that he received any information from Joseph ; and
if what he relates “ has all the marks of being Joseph’s
story at the bottom,” we are still in the dark as to its
authenticity, for Canon Gore admits that “ we cannot tell
by what steps it comes to us ”—which is the most
important point in the whole investigation.
Luke s narrative is said to have “ all the appearance of
containing directly or indirectly Mary’s story.” But
“ appearance ” is a very vague word in an argument, and
in this case it means no more than the personal impression
of an individual reader. There are no links between Mary
and the writer of the third Gospel. He relates what was
* Canon Gore, The Incarnation of the Son of God (Bamnton
Lectures for the year 1891), pp. 77, 78.
I
<
�WHO WAS THE FATHER OF JESUS ?
15
“believed ” at the time he wrote, and is dependent on what
was “ delivered ” down by the original “ eye-witnesses and
ministers of the word.” Such a confession deprives him
of all independent authority. What he relates may be
true, but its truth depends on the accuracy and veracity
of his informants. Who these persons were is left in
obscurity; and certainly it is an unwarrantable strain upon
the language of his exordium to include Mary amongst
them.
Canon Gore does not seem satisfied with his own argu
ment, for he goes on to say that it is “a perversion of
evidential order to begin with the miracle of the virginbirth.” We must first learn to accept the “apostolic
testimony ” and gain confidence in the “evangelical narra
tive,” and then we shall have little difficulty in believing
the mystery of the Incarnation. We must begin, that is,
with minor wonders, and advance to major wonders in our
successful practice of credulity; which is another way of
stating the aphorism of Cardinal Newman, that evidence is
not the proof but the reward of faith.
We have now concluded our inquiry as to “ Who was
the father of Jesus ?” And the result is that the schoolboy’s
answer of “Joseph,” with which we started, is justified by
the most rigorous criticism. Once more the truth, which
is hidden from the “ wise,” is revealed unto “ babes and
sucklings,” and what is imperceptible to the spoilt eyes of
a theological pedant is as clear as daylight to the
unperverted vision of a little child.
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WHAT WAS CHRIST?
JL REPLY
TO
JOHN
STUART MILL.
BY
1
:
:
:
TWOPENCE,
PRICE
i
4
J
:
♦
♦
4
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LONDON :
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
1887.
�LONDON :
POINTED AND PUBLISHED BY G. W. EOOTE,
AT 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�11
national secular society
WHAT WAS CHRIST?
Thebe are many passages in John Stuart Mill’s Three
Essays on Religion which the apologists of Christianity very
prudently ignore. Orthodoxy naturally shrinks from the descrip
tion of a God who could make a Hell as a “ dreadful idealisa
tion of wickedness.” Nor is it pleasant to read that “ Not even
on the most distorted and contracted theory of good which
ever was framed by religious or philosophical fanaticism, can the
government of nature be made to resemble the work of a being
at once good and omnipotent.”
But Christian lecturers are never tired of quoting the pane
gyric on their blessed Savior, which occurs in another part of
the same volume. They never mention the fact that the Essay
which contains this eulogium was not revised by the author for
publication, while the other two essays were finally prepared
for the press. It is enough for them that the passage is found
in a volume of Mill’s. Whether it harmonises with the rest of
the volume, or whether the author might have considerably
modified it-in revision, are questions with which they have no
concern. “ Here is Mill’s testimony to Christ,” they cry, “ and
we fling it like a bombshell into the Freethought camp.” We
propose to pick up this bombshell, to dissect and analyse it, and
to show that it is perfectly harmless.
Mill’s panegyric on Christ, as Professor Newman says, “ caused
surprise.”* Professor Bain, who was one of Mill’s most
intimate friends, and has written his biography,f uses the very
same expression. The whole of the Essay on Theism “was a
surprise to his friends,” not for its attacks on orthodoxy, but for
its concessions to “ modern sentimental Theism.” Professor
Bain observes that these concessions have been made the most
of, “ and, as is usual in such cases, the inch has been stretched
to an ell.” Speaking with all the authority of his position,
Professor Bain adds that the “ fact remains that in everything
* “ Christianity in its Cradle,” p. 57.
f “ John Stuart Mill: A Criticism; with Personal Recollections.”
�(4 )
characteristic of the creed of Christendom, he was a thorough
going negationist.
He admitted neither its truth nor its
utility.”
How, then, did Mill come to write those passages of his
Three Essays which caused such surprise to his intimate friends ?
The answer is simple. “ Who is the woman ? ” asked Talley
rand, when two friends wished him to settle a dispute.
There
was a woman in Mill’s case.
Mrs. Taylor, afterwards his wife,
and the object of his adoring love, disturbed his judgment in
life and perverted it in death. He buried her at Avignon, and
resided near her grave until he could lie beside her in the eternal
sleep. No doubt the long vigil at his wife’s tomb shows the
depth of his love, but it necessarily tended to make his brain the
victim of his heart. There can be no worse offence against the
laws of logic than to argue from our feelings; and when Mill
began to talk about “ indulging the hope ” of immortality, he
had set his feet, however hesitatingly, on the high road of senti
mentalism and superstition. How different was his attitude in
the vigor of manhood, when his intellect was unclouded by
personal sorrow ! In closing his splendid Essay on fhe Utility
of Religion, he wrote :
“ It seems to me not only possible, but probable, that in a higher, and,
above all, a happier condition of human life, not annihilation, but immor
tality, may be the burdensome idea; and that human nature, though
pleased with the present, and by no means impatient to quit it, would find
comfort and not sadness in the thought that it is not chained through
eternity to a conscious existence which it cannot be assured that it will
always wish to preserve.”
How great is the range of egoism, even with the best of us!
Writing before his own great loss, Mill sees no argument for
immortality in the yearning of bereaved hearts for reunion with
the beloved dead ; but when- he himself craves “ the touch of a
vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still,” he perceives
room for hope. His own passion of grief lights a beacon in the
darkness, which his sympathy with the grief of others had never
kindled.
We can easily understand how Mill’s profound love for his
wife affected his intellect after her death, when we see how it
deluded him while she lived. In his Autobiography he describes
her as a beauty and a wit. Mr. Maccall says that she was 'not
brilliant in conversation, and decidedly plain-looking; and the
same objection appears to be hinted by Professor Bain. Carlyle
refers to her several times in his Reminiscences, always as a light
gossamery creature.
It is notorious that the Grotes regarded
�( 5 )
Mill’s attachment to her as an infatuation. And certainly he
did a great deal to justify their opinion. In the dedication of
his Essay on Liberty, he refers to her “ great thoughts and noble
feelings,” and her “ all but unrivalled wisdom.
This eulogium
a little astonished those who had read her Essay in the West
minster Review, reprinted by Mill in his Dissertations and Dis
cussions, which revealed no very wonderful ability, and assuredly
did not place her beside Harriet Martineau or George Eliot.
But in his Autobiography this panegyric was completely eclipsed.
Mill informs the world in that volume that her mind “included
Carlyle’s and infinitely more,” and that in comparison with her
Shelley was but a child. Apparently seeing, however, that
sceptics might inquire why a woman of such profound and
original genius did not leave some memorable work, Mill con
fidingly tells us that she was content to inspire other minds
rather than express herself through the channels of literature.
In other words, she played second fiddle in preference to first,
which is exactly what men and women of original genius will
never do. But whom did she inspire ? We know of none but
Mill, and on examining his works chronologically we find that
all his greatest books were composed before he fell under her
influence. Mr. Gladstone explains Mill’s “ ludicrous estimate of
his wife’s powers,” by saying that she was a quick receptive
woman, who gave him back the echo of: his own thoughts, which
he took for the independent oracles of truth.
Over the tomb of this idolised wife, whom his fancy clothed
with fictitious or exaggerated attributes, Mill wrote his Essay on
Theism. Miss Helen Taylor says it shows “the carefullybalanced results of the deliberations of a life-time.” But she
allows that—
“ On the other hand, there had not been time for it to undergo the
revision to which from time to time he subjected most of his writings
before making them public. Not only, therefore, is the style less polished
than of any other of his published works, but even the matter itself, at
least in the exact shape it here assumes, has nevei' undergone the
repeated examination which it certainly would have passed through
before he would himself have given it to the world.”
If Mill had lived, he would perhaps have made many improve
ments and excisions in this unfortunate essay. As it stands it is
singularly feeble in comparison with the two former Essays. He
“hopes” for immortality, and “regrets to say” that the Design
Argument is not inexpugnable, as though this were the language
of a philosopher or a logician. After writing several pages on
the “Marks of Design in Nature,” he passingly notices the
�( 6 )
Darwinian Theory and admits that, if established, it “would
greatly attenuate the evidence ” for Creation. Yet he drops
this great hypothesis in the next paragraph, and talks about
“ the large balance of probability in favor of creation by intel
ligence ” in the present state of our knowledge. What he meant
was, in the present state of our ignorance. Mill neither under
stood nor felt the force of Darwinism. We shall find, in
examining his panegyric on Christ, that he understood that
subject just as little, and that, where his knowledge did apply,
he flatly contradicted what he had written before.
Let us now ascertain what were Mill’s qualifications for the
task of estimating the teachings and personality of Christ. He
had a subtle logical mind, strong though restricted sympathies,
a singular power of mastering an opponent’s case, and remark
able candor in stating it. But his intellect was of the purely
speculative order. He possessed a “ rich storage of principles,
doctrines, generalities of every degree, over several wide depart
ments of knowledge,” as Professor Bain says ; but he “ had not
much memory for detail of any kind,” although “ by express
study and frequent reference he had amassed a store of facts
bearing on political or sociological doctrines.” In short, “ he
had an intellect for the abstract and the logical out of all pro
portion to his hold of the concrete and the poetical.” He was
cut out for a metaphysician, a political speculator and a
sociologist. But he never could have become an historian or a
man of letters. He had little sense of style, no faculty of
literary criticism, a dislike of picturesque expression, a scanty
knowledge of human nature, and an extremely feeble imagina
tion. He was a great philosopher, but perhaps less an artist
than any other thinker of the same eminence that ever lived.
Now the faculties required in dealing with the origin of
Christianity, including the character of its founder, are obviously
those of the literary critic and the historian, in which Mill was
deficient. He was, therefore, not equipped by nature for the
task.
Had he even the necessary knowledge ? Certainly not.
There is not the slightest evidence that he had studied the
relation of Christianity to previous systems, the growth of its
literature, the formation of its canon, and the development of
its ethics and its dogmas. He probably knew next to nothing
of the oriental religions, and was only acquainted with the name
of Buddhism. Nay, if we may trust Professor Bain (his friend,
his biographer, and his eulogist), he knew very little of Chris-
�( 7 )
inanity itself. He “ searcely ever read a theological book,” and
he only knew “ the main positions of theology from our general
literature.” Just when Mill’s Three Essays on Eehgwn ap
peared, Strauss’s Old Faith and the New was published m
England, and Professor Bain justly remarks that Anyone
reading it would, I think, be struck with its immense superiority
to Mill’s work, in all but the logic and metaphysics. Strauss
speaks like a man thoroughly, at home with his subject.
Mill
does indeed say, in his Autobiography, that Ins. father made
him, at a very early age, “a reader of ecclesiastical history ;
but he does not tell us that he continued so in his after lite, and
even if he did, ecclesiastical, history begins just where the
problem of the origin of Christianity ends.
.
Another thing must be said. Professor Bain states, and we
can well believe him, that Mill was “ not even well read, m the
sceptics that preceded him.” He was really ignorant on both
sides of the controversy. His idea of Christ was formed from
a selection of the best things in the New Testament. A most
uncritical process, and in fact an impossible one ; for the New
Testament is not history, but an arbitrary selection from a
mass of early Christian tracts, of uncertain authorship, different
dates, and various value. The literature on this subject, even
from the pens of eminent writers, is vast enough to show, its
immense complication. Unless it is read m a cluld-like spirit
which in grown men and women is childish, the New. Testament
needs to be explained ; and when the process has fairly begun,
you find all the familiar features shifting like the pieces in. a
kaleidoscope, until at last they reassume an organic, but a dif
ferent, form and color. Twenty Christs may be elicited from
the New Testament as it stands. Mill deduced one, but the
nineteen others are just as valid.
.
Strictly speaking, our task is completed. It would logically
suffice to say that Mill’s panegyric on Christ is a mere piece of
fancy. Like other men of genius, he had his special aptitudes
and special knowledge, and his authority only extends as far as
they carry him. Mr. Swinburne’s opinion of Newton is of no
particular importance, and Newton’s famous ineptitude about
Paradise Lost in no way affects our estimate of Milton.
Let us go further, however, and examine Mill’s panegyric on
Christ in detail. In justice to him, as well as to the subject, it
should be quoted in full:
“Above all, the most valuable part of the effect on the character
which Christianity has produced by .holding up m a Divine Person a
�ÉTotíe ufnbpH±nCe Td a m°del f01’ÍmÍtatÍOn’ bailable even to the
absolute unbellever and can never more be lost to humanity. For
is Christ, lather than God, whom Christianity has held up to
believers as the pattern of perfection for humanity.
It is the God
ideahsede’hTs°teithan
Gfd °/ tbe JeWS or °f Nature, who being
AndhXbdfh ^ken so,great and salutary a hold on the modern mind,
is stiH íeft T 6lS-e mac be tak<3n aWay fr°m US by rational criticism, Christ
hL fnii
’ Umq?K figUre’ n0t more unlike a11 his precursors than 4»
Ins followers even those who had the direct benefit of his personal teachhiSoric« «nA th
tOi Say tha\Ohrist as exhibited in the Gospels is not
sunerad/lía h
7® ^°W n?tbow much of what is admirable has been
suffice« Í
7 t tradition of his followers. The tradition of followers
miSelf?
any number °f marvels’ and may have inserted all the
dSS™hlCh
.rePutedt°have wrought. But who among his
ascGbld + among their proselytes was capable of inventing the sayings
SV i,eT.01; Of lma«lnin& the life and character revealed in the
p ? /
ertamly not the fishermen of Galilee; as certainly not St.
Sil í J th® cbara<^®rand idiosyncracies were of a totally different sort:
fb?f th the TTly1 9bristlan writers m whom nothing is more evident than '
fXiS F? wbicb.was m timm was all derived, as they always professed that it was derived, from a higher source. What could be added
XJ^w rd?y a dlsclPle we may see in the mystical parts of the
gospel of St John, matter imported from Philo and the Alexandrian
himSí t
mt° the mouth of the Savior in long speeches about
tffi?™h S as?be/tber Gospels contain not the slightest vestige of,
though pretended to have been delivered on occasions of the deepest
interest and when his principal followers were all present; most promt,
nently at the last supper. The East was full of men who could have
stolen any quantity of this poor stuff, as the multitudinous Oriental sects
of Gnostics afterwards did. But about the life and sayings of Jesus there •
13vVa-?P of Per®onal originaiity combined with profundity of insight,
which if we abandon the idle expectation of finding scientific precision
wheie something very different was aimed at, must place the Prophet of
Nazareth, even m the estimation of those who have no belief in his
inspiration, m the very first rank of the men of sublime genius of whom
our species can boast. When this pre-eminent genius is combined with
the qualities of probably the greatest moral reformer, and martyr to that
mission, who ever existed upon earth, religion cannot be said to have
made a bad choice in pitching on this man as the ideal representative
ana guide of humanity; nor even now, would it be easy, even for ail un•
a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract
into the concrete, than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve
our life.
Our first complaint is that the whole passage is too vague and
rhetorical. What is the meaning of “ the absolute unbeliever ”
m the first sentence ? If it means a person who rejects all the
pretensions of Christ, the sentence is absurd. If it means a
person who rejects his divinity, it is practically untrue ; for. as a
matter of fact, those who have thought themselves out of Chris
tianity (which Mill did not, as he was never in it) very seldom
do take Christ as “ a standard of excellence and a model for
�(9)
imitation,” much less as “ the pattern of perfection for
humanity.” When the supernatural glamor is dispelled, we
see that Christ is no example whatever. He is simply a
preacher, and his personal conduct fails to illustrate a single
public or private virtue, or assist us in any of our practical diffi
culties as husbands, fathers, sons, or citizens. Mill has himself
shown that even Christians do not attempt to imitate their
Savior ; and we are puzzled to understand how he could speak
of Christ’s having “ taken so great and salutary hold on the
modern mind ” after telling us, in his Essay on Liberty, that he
has done nothing of the kind. He there says:
“ By Christianity, I here mean what is acconnted such by all churches
and sects, the maxims and precepts contained in the New Testament.
These are considered sacred, and accepted as laws by all professing Chris
tians. Yet it is scarcely too much to say that not one Christian in a
thousand guides or tests his individual conduct by reference to those
laws. . . . Whenever conduct is concerned, they look round for Mr. A
and B to direct them how far to go in obeying Christ.”
Had Mill forgotten this passage when he wrote the Essay on
Theism, or had Christendom changed in the interval ? Scarcely
the latter. John Bright has justly said that the lower classes
in England care as little for the dogmas of Christianity as the
upper classes care about its practice.
Until Christians follow their Savior’s teachings, it is idle to
expect unbelievers to do so. Yet it is perhaps as well they do
not, for there are many things recorded in the Gospels which are
far from redounding to his credit. It is a great pity that Mill,
before eulogising Christ, could not read the chapter on “Jesus
of Nazareth ” in Professor Newman’s last work. Why did Jesus
consort with Publicans (or Roman tax-gatherers), rhe very sight
of whom was hateful to every patriotic Jew ? .Why did he herd
with Sinners, who so far despised ceremony as to dip in the dish
with dirty fingers ? Why did he avoid all who were able to
criticise him ? Why did he exclaim, “Ye hypocrites, why put
ye me to proof?” when the Jews sought to test his claims, and
to act on his own advice to “ Beware of false prophets ” ? Why
did he rudely repel educated inquirers, and then solemnly thank
God that “ he had hidden these things from the wise and pru
dent, and revealed them unto babes ” ? Why did he denounce
inhabitants of cities he could not convince, and prophesy that
they would fare worse in the Day of Judgment than the filthy
inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah ? Why did he assail his
religious rivals with invectives which, as Professor Newman
�( 10 )
says, “ outdo Tacitus and Suetonius in malignity,, and seem to
convict themselves of falsehood and bitter slander ?” Why, in
short, did he so constantly display the vanity and passion of a
spoilt child ? Surely these are not characteristics we should
emulate, but glaring blots in a “ pattern of perfection.” When
the arrogance of Christ is countenanced by a writer like Mill,
these defects must be insisted on. Professor Newman rightly
says that
“ If honor were claimed for Jesus as for Socrates, for Seneca, for Hillel,
for Epictetus, we might apologise for his weak points as either incident
to his era and country or to human nature itself—weakness to be forgiven
and forgotten. But the unremitting assumption of super-human wisdom,
not only made for him by the moderns, but breathing through every
utterance attributed to him, changes the whole scene, and ought to
change our treatment of it. Unless his prodigious claim of divine
superiority is made good in fact, it betrays an arrogance difficult to
excuse, eminently mischievous and eminently ignominious.”
But this prodigious claim cannot be made good. As Pro
fessor Newman says : “It is hard to point to anything in the
teaching of Jesus at once new to Hebrew and Greek sages, and
likewise in general estimate true.” The same view was ex
pressed by Buckle, with more vigor if less urbanity. “ Whoever,”
he said, “ asserts that Christianity revealed to the world truths
with which it was previously unacquainted, is guilty either of
gross ignorance or of wilful fraud.”
Mill had himself, in the Essay on Liberty, shown the evil of
taking Christ, or any other man, as “the ideal representative
and guide of humanity.” He there charged Christianity with
possessing a negative rather than a positive ideal; abstinence
from evil rather than energetic pursuit of good constituting its
essence, in which “ thou shalt not ” unduly predominated over
“ thou shalt.” He accused it of making an idol of asceticism,
of holding out “ the hope of heaven and the threat of hell as
the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life, and
of thus “ giving to human morality an essentially selfish
character.” And he added that—
“ What little recognition the idea of obligation to the public obtains in
modern morality, is derived from Greek and Roman sources, not fiom
Christian; as, even in the morality of private life, whatever exists of
magnanimity, high-mindedness, personal dignity, even the sense of honor,
is derived from the purely human, not the religious, part of our educa
tion, and never could have grown out of a standard of ethics in which the
only worth, professedly recognised, is that of obedience.”
Mill does indeed throw a sop to orthodoxy by allowing that
Christ and Christianity are different things ; but he is obliged
�(11)
to add that the Founder of Christianity failed to provide for
“ many essential elements of the highest morality.” He main
tains that “ other ethics than any which can be evolved from
exclusively Christian sources must exist side by side with
Christian ethics to produce the moral regeneration of mankind.”
And he deprecates ihe policy of “formingthe mind and feelings
on an exclusively religious type.” Surely these arguments are
quite inconsistent with Mill’s later notion of taking Christ as our
ideal, and living so that he would approve our life.
Besides, as Professor Bain points out, the morality of Christ
belongs to this exclusively religious type. Its sanctions are all
religious, and if religion is dispensed with they “ must lose their
suitability to human life.” Professor Bain very justly observes
that “the best guidance, under such altered circumstances,
would be that furnished by the wisest of purely secular
teachers.”
That Christ was “ probably the greatest moral reformer ”
that ever lived is a statement easy to make and difficult to
prove. When Mill, in the Essay on Liberty, twits the Chris
tians with professing doctrines they never practise, he furnishes
■a catalogue of the duties they neglect.
“ All Christians believe that the blessed are the poor and humble, and
those who are ill-used by the world ; that it is easier for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of
heaven; that they should judge not lest they should be judged; that
they should swear not at all; that they should love their neighbors as
themselves ; that if one take their cloak, they should give him their coat
also ; that they should take no thought for the morrow; that if they
would be perfect they should sell all they have and give it to the poor.”
Surely Mill was aware that all these absurd and impracticable
maxims were taught by Christ. Hgw, then, except on the
theory we have advanced, could he call him the greatest moral
reformer in history ?
The “rational criticism ” by means of which Mill obtains
the “ unique figure ” of Christ is a purely arbitrary process.
George Eliot, who knew the subject far better, said in one
of. her letters that the materials for any biography of Jesus
do not exist.
The Unitarians have tried Mill’s process
with small success ; and, as Professoi’ Bain maliciously observes,
“ It would seem in this, as in other parts of religion, that what
the rationalist disapproves of most the multitude likes best.”
Professor Bain’s remarks on Mill’s construction of his “ unique
figure ” from the Gospels are so pertinent and happy that we
venture to give them in full:
�(12)
“ We are, of course, at liberty to dissent from the prevailing view,
which makes Christ a divine person. But to reduce a Deity to the human
level, to rank him simply as a great man, and to hold ideal intercourse
with him in that capacity is, to say the least of it, an incongruity. His
torians and moralists have been accustomed to treat with condemnation
those monarchs that, after being dethroned, have accepted in full the
position of subjects. Either to die, or else to withdraw into dignified isola
tion, has been accounted the only fitting termination to the loss of royal
power. So, a Deity dethroned should retire altogether from playing a
part in human affairs, and remain simply as an historic name.”
Mill finds in Christ “ sublime genius ” and “ profundity of
insight.” Surely it did not require any very sublime genius to
teach those peculiar doctrines which Mill catalogued for back
sliding Christians, nor any very great profundity of insight to
see that none but paupers and lunatics could evei’ practise them.
Many of the best sayings ascribed to Jesus were the common
possession of the East before his birth ; but many of the worst
seem more his own. “ Leave all and follow me ” is a vain and
foolish command. “ Give to everyone that asketh ” is an excel
lent rule for pauperising society. “ That industry is a human
duty,” says Professor Newman, “ cannot be gathered from his
doctrine: how could it, when he kept twelve religious men
dicants around him ?” “ Resist not evil ” is a premium on
tyranny. “ Blessed be ye poor ” and “• Woe unto you rich ” are
the exclamations of a vulgar demagogue, a cunning agent of
privilege, or an irresponsible maniac. “ By shovelling away
wealth,” says Professor Newman, “ we are to buy treasures in
heaven. Unless our narrators belie him, Jesus never warns
hearers that to give without a heart of charity does not prepare
a soul for heaven nor ‘ earn salvation ’; and that ¿elfish pre
speculation turns virtue into despicable marketing. To forgive
that we may be forgiven, to avoid judging lest we be judged, to
do good that we may get extrinsic reward, to affect humility
that we may be promoted, to lose life that we may gain it with
advantage, are precepts not needing a lofty prophet.” - It is also
from the words of Christ alone, according to the New Testa
ment, that the doctrine of Eternal Punishment can be estab
lished ; and he is responsible for the intellectual crime of
identifying Credulity with Faith, which has been a fatal rotten
ness at the very core of Christianity.
As for the “personal originality” of Mill’s “ unique figure,
**
he might be safely challenged to demonstrate it from the
Gospels.
We shall have something more to say about the
originality of Christ’s teaching presently ; we confine our-
�( 13 )
«elves now to his personal character. Take away from the
Gospel story the pathetic legend of Calvary, which throws around
him a glamor of suffering, and what is there in his whole life of
a positive heroic quality ? He is a tame, effeminate, shrinking
figure, beside hundreds of men who have not been made the
-object of a superstitious cultus. His brief, ineffective career, so
■soon closed by his own madness or ambition, will not bear a
moment’s comparison with the long and glorious life of Buddha.
It pales into insignificance before the mighty genius of
Muhammed. Doctrine apart, the Nazarene is to the Meccan as
a pallid moon to a fiery sun. With the single exception of
•Cromwell, who was a more original character than twenty Christs
rolled into one, where shall we find Muhammed’s equal in
history ? As Eliot Warburton well said, he stands almost alone
in “ the sustained and almost superhuman energy with which he
carried out his views, in defiance, as it would seem, of God and
man.” Christ quails in his Gethsemane. Muhammed struggles
through his seven years’ ordeal of obloquy and danger like a
resolute swimmer, who scorns to turn back, and will reach the
■other shore or die. When his followers faint under the burning
desert sun, he tells them that “Hell is hotter,” and silences
their murmurs. Christ cries in ah agony of despair, “My
■God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ”
When
Muhammed’s assassination is resolved on at Mecca, each of
the tribes devoting a sword to drink his blood, and Abubekar,
the companion of his flight, says “We are but two,” the
indomitable prophet answers “We are three, for God is
with us.” Christ implores “ 0 my' father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me.” When Muhammed is threa
tened by the Koreishites, so that his most devoted followers
remonstrate against his projects, he makes the sublime answer,
“ If they should place the sun on my right hand, and the moon
on my left, they should not divert me from my course.” Within
a century after the Hegira, the empire of Islam had spread from
Arabia eastward to Delhi and westward to Granada. Oh, it is
•said, Muhammed used the sword. True, but not before it was
drawn against him. The man who rode to Jerusalem, and
-called himself King of the Jews, would have used the sword too
had he dared. “ The sword indeed,” snorts Carlyle at this
rubbish, “ but where will you get your sword ? Every new
■opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one. In one
man’s head alone there it dwells as yet. That Ae'take a sword
•and try to propagate with that will do little for him. You
�( 14 )
must first get your sword. On the whole, a thing will propa
gate itself as it can. We do not find, of the Christian religion
either, that it always disdained the sword, when once it had gotone.” True, thou sarcastic old sage of Chelsea, and the sting
is in the tail. From Constantine downwards, Christianity has
not been imposed on mankind without, as Sir James Stephen
remarks, exhausting all the terrors of this life as well as the
next.
Mill tells us that Christ was a “martyr” to his “mission ”
as a “moral reformer.” We should like to know how he dis
covered the fact. Certainly not from the Gospels. It was not
the Sermon on the Mount, but his vagaries at Jerusalem, that
led to the crucifixion. Christ deliberately chose twelve disciples,
the legendary number of the tribes of Israel, and told them that
when he came into his kingdom they should sit on twelve
" thrones as judges. Professor Newman answers those who call
this language figurative with the just remark that “ we should
call a teacher mad who used such words to simple men, and did
not expect them to understand him literally.” When the dis
ciples ask him, “ Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom '
unto Israel ?” he does not rebuke them (although it is after his
resurrection), but simply says that the time is a secret. His
triumphal entry into Jerusalem can only be considered as a
, declaration of sovereignty, and his countenancing the shout
' of Hosanna! (the war cry of previous insurrections, and an
appeal to Jehovah against the foe) could only be construed as
rebellion against Rome. His conduct inside Jerusalem was that
of a man intoxicated with vanity and ambition, without judg
ment, policy, or purpose. The very inscription on the cross shows
that he was believed to aim at earthly royalty. Pontius Pilate
tried to save Jesus, acting wisely and humanely as the repre
sentative of an empire that was always tolerant in matters of
religion. He would not receive a charge of blasphemy, but he
could not overlook a charge of sedition. Yet he still gave Jesus
an opportunity of escaping. “ Come now,” he seems to say,
“ your enemies want your blood. Your blasphemy is no businessof mine, and I shall not decide a squabble between your rabid
sects. But I must try you if they accuse you of sedition. You
are young, and cannot wish to die. Plead ‘not guilty.’ Deny
the charge. Say you are not the King of the Jews and do not
contemplate rebellion. One word, and I save you from death. You
shall go free though all the rabbis in Jerusalem howled like mad
dogs. Rome shall stand between bigotry and blood.” But-
�( 15 )
Jesus actually admits the indictment, and afterwards remains
contumaciously silent. Pilate had no alternative ; he sentenced
Jesus to execution ; but amid all the absurd fictions of the nar
rative, the fact shines out clearly that he did so with the utmost
reluctance. To call the death of Christ, in these circumstances,
a martyrdom, is to degrade the name. He died for no principle.
The truth would have saved him, and he would not utter it.
Either he was in a stupor of despair, or so crazed with the
Messianic delusion that he still trusted to the legion of angels
for his rescue. In any case it was an act of insanity. He
courted his doom. It was not a martyrdom but a suicide.
We may also observe that, if a cultus had not been formed
around it, and men’s imaginations suborned in its favor from
the cradle, the “ martyrdom ” of Christ would be obviously lesssevere than that of many persecuted reformers.
Giordano
Bruno’s Gethsemane was an Inquisition dungeon, where he
languished in solitude for seven years, and was tortured no one
knows how often. What was Christ’s few hours’ agony of
weakness before death compared with this ? Bruno died by.
fire, the most cruel form of murder, whilst Christ suffered the
milder doom of crucifixion. Christ was watched by weeping
women, whose sympathy must have alleviated his pain; and it
was not until the hand of death touched his very heart that he
despaired of assistance from heaven. Bruno stood alone against
the world, without any sources of courage but his own quench
less heroism. Christ quailed before the inevitable. Bruno met
it with a serene smile, for he had that within him which only
death could extinguish—a daring fiery spirit, that nothing could
quell, that outsoared the malice of men, and outshone the flames
of the stake.
Mill’s remarks on the originality of Christ’s teaching betray
his utter ignorance of the subject. It is of no use, he says, to
assert that the Christ of the Gospels is not historical. Begging
his pardon, that is the most important factor in the problem.
If the Gospels are what we allege (and no scholar would dispute
it), George Eliot is right in saying that the materials for a
biography of Jesus do not exist, and Mill’s “ rational criticism ”
is a purely fantastic process. But the reason he assigns for his
position is still more absurd. Who, he asks, could have in
vented the sayings ascribed to Jesus ? Certainly, he says, not
St. Paul: a sentence which alone stamps him as an incompetent
critic. No man who understood the subject would ever have
thought of anticipating such a preposterous objection. “Cer
�( 16 )
tainly not the fishermen of Galilee,” is equally futile, for no
student of the origin of Christianity supposes that the Gospels
were written by the first disciples. They are of much later
date. But except for that fact, why might not the “ fishermen
of Galilee ” have been able to invent the logia of the Gospels
as well as Jesus ? He was only a carpenter, and there is no
reason in the nature of things why fishermen should not equal
carpenters as prophets, preachers, and moralists. Mill is alto
gether on the wrong scent. There was no need for Christ or
his disciples to invent the sayings ascribed to him. As we have
already remarked, they were the common possession of the East
before his birth. The Lord’s Prayer is merely a cento from the
Talmud, and, as Emanuel Deutsch showed, every catchword of
Christ’s was a household word of Talmudic Judaism before he
began his ministry. There is not a single maxim, however good
or bad, however sensible or silly, in the whole of Christ’s dis
courses that cannot be found in the writings of Pagan moralists
and poets or Jewish doctors who flourished before him; and his
best sayings, if they may be called his, were all anticipated by
Buddha several centuries before he was born. It is also well
known that the Golden Rule, as it is called, was taught by Con
fucius long before the time of Christ, without any of the
absurdities with which the Nazarene surrounded it. “ Love
your enemies,” says Christ, as though it were wise or possible to
do so. Confucius corrected this exaggeration. “No,” he said,
“ if I love my enemies, what shall I give to my friends ? To
my friends I give my love, and to my enemies—justice.! ”
We think we have said enough to show that Mill’s panegyric
on Christ is utterly valueless. Mr. Matthew Arnold is far more
subtle and dexterous in his eulogy; but he knows the subject
as well as Mill knew it badly. If the apologists of Christianity
are prudent, they will cease to make use of Mill’s tribute to
their Blessed Savior, or at least employ it only before people
who are in that blissful ignorance which fancies it folly to be
•wise.
�
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What was Christ? a reply to John Stuart Mill
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Jesus Christ
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Jesus Christ
John Stuart Mill
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o
-'¿Z A.
WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
BY C. BEADLAUGH.
The doctrines of Jesus may be sought for and found 'in a small compass.
Four thin gospels are alleged to contain nearly the entirety of his sayings,
and as most Englishmen are professedly Christians, it might be fairly sup
*
posed that the general public were conversant with Christ’s teachings.
This, however, is not the case. The bulk of professors believe from custom
rather than from reading. They profess a faith as they follow a fashion—
because others have done so before them. What did Jesus teach? Manly
self-reliant resistance of wrong, and practise of right? No; the key-stone
of his whole teaching may be found in the text, “Blessed are the poor in.
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”* Is poverty of spirit the chief
amongst virtues, that Jesus gives it the prime place in his teaching? Is
poverty of spirit a virtue at all? Surely not. Manliness of spirit, honesty
of spirit, fulness of rightful purpose, these are virtues; but poverty of spirit
is a crime. When men are poor in spirit, then do the proud and haughty
in spirit oppress and trample upon them, but when men are true in spirit
and determined (as true men should be) to resist and prevent evil, wrong,
and injustice whenever they can, then is there greater'opportunity for hap
piness here, and no lesser fitness for the enjoyment of further happiness, in
some may-be heaven, hereafter. Are you poor in spirit, and are you
smitten; in such case what did Jesus teach?—“ Unto whom that smiteth thee
on the one cheek, offer also the other.’’f ’Twere better far to teach that
* he who courts oppression shares the crime.” Rather say, if smitten once,
take careful measure to prevent a future smiting. I have heard men preach
passive resistance, but this teaches actual invitation of injury, a course
degrading in the extreme. Shelley breathed higher humanity in his noble
advice:—
“ Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks, which are
Weapons of an unvanquished war.”
There is a wide distinction between the passive resistance to wrong and
the courting of further injury at the hands of the wrongdoer. I have in no
case seen this better illustrated than in Mr. George Jacob Holyoake s
history of his imprisonment in Gloucester Jail,J where passive resistance
• Matthew v., 3.
t Luke, vi., 29.
Last Trial by Jury for Atheism,” p. C®.
�3
WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
saved him from the indignity of a prison dress, and also from compulsory
attendance at morning prayer in the prison chapel, which in his case would
have been to him an additional insult. But the teaching of Jesus goes much
beyond this kind of conduct; the poverty of spirit principle is enforced to
the fullest conceivable extent—“ Him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid
not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee, and from
him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again.”* Poverty of person
is the only possible sequence to this extraordinary manifestation of poverty
of spirit. Poverty of person is attended with many unpleasantnesses; and
if Jesus knew that poverty of goods would result from his teaching, we
might expect some notice of this. And so there is—as if he wished to keep
the poor content through their lives with poverty, he says, “ Blessed be
ye poor for yours is the kingdom of God.”f “ But woe unto you that are
rich, for ye have received your consolation.’’^ He pictures one in hell,
Whose only related vice is that in life he was rich; and another in heaven,
whose only related virtue is that in life he was poor.§ He at another time
tells his hearers that it is as difficult for a rich man to get into heaven as
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. || • The only intent of such
teaching could be to induce the poor to remain content with the want and
misery attendant on their wretched state in this life, in the hope of a higher
recompense in some future life. Is it good to be content with poverty?
Nay, ’tis better far to investigate the cause for such poverty, with a view to
its cure and prevention. The doctrine is a most horrid one which declares
that the poor shall not cease from the face of the earth. Poor in spirit and
poor in pocket. With no courage to work for food, or money to purchase
it! we might well expect to find-the man who held these doctrines with
empty stomach also; and what does Jesus teach?—“ Blessed are ye thatdiunger now, for ye shall be filledHe does not say when the filling shall take
place, but the date is evidently postponed until the time when you will have
no stomachs to replenish. It is not in this life that the hunger is to be
sated. Do you doubt me, turn again to your Testament and read, “ Woe
unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger.”** This must surely settle the
point. It would be but little vantage to the hungry man to bless him by
filling him, if when he had satisfied his appetite, he were met by a curse
which had awaited the completion of his repast. Craven in spirit, with an
empty purse and hungry mouth—what next? The man who has not man
liness enough to prevent wrong, will probably bemoan his hard .fate, and
cry bitterly that so sore are the misfortunes he endures. And what does
Jesus teach?—“Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh.”■f•|■ Is this
true, and if true, when? “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be com
forted.”^ Aye, but when? Not while they mourn and weep. Weeping for the
past is vain; ’tis past, and a deluge of tears will never wash away its history.
Weeping for the present is worse than vain—it obstructs your sight. In
each minute of your life the aforetime future is present-born, and you need
dry and keen eyes to give it and yourself a safe and happy deliverance.
When shall they that mourn be comforted? Are slaves that weep salt tear• Luke, vi., vv. 29, 30.
L.
2533 Matthew, v., i.
t Luke, vi., 20.
3 Luke, vi., 21.
3 Luke, vi., 24.
•• Luke, vi., 25,
} Luke, xvi., 19—3b
ff Luke, vi., 21.
�WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
drops on their steel shackels comforted in their weeping? Nay, but each
pearly overflowing, as it falls, rusts mind as well as fetter. Ye who are
slaves and weep, will never be comforted until ye dry your eyes and ®arve
your arms, and, in the plentitude of your manliness—
“ Shake your chains to earth like dew,
Which in sleep have fall’n on you.”
Jesus teaches tha.t the poor, the hungry, and the wretched shall be
blessed? This is not so. The blessing only comes when they have ceased
to be poor, hungry, and wretched. Contentment under poverty, hunger,
and misery is high treason, not to yourself alone, but to your fellows.
These three, like foul diseases, spread quickly wherever humanity is stag
nant and content with wrong.
What did Jesus teach? ts Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”*
So far well, but how if thy neighbour will not hear thy doctrine when thou
preacheth the “ glad tidings of great joy ” to him? Then forgetting all thy
love, and with the bitter hatred that a theological disputant alone can
manifest, thou “shalt shake off the dust from your feet,” and by so doing
make it more tolerable in the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and
Gomorrah than for your unfortunate neighbour who has ventured to main
tain an opinion of his own, and who will not let you be his priest.f It is,
indeed, a mockery to speak of love, as if love to one another could result
from the dehumanising and isolating faith required from the disciple of
Jesus. Ignatius Loyola in this, at least, was more consistent than his Pro
testant brethren. “ If any man come unto me, and hate not his father, and
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own
life also, he cannot be my disciple.’’^ “ Think not that I am come to send
peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come
to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her
mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s
foes they shall be of his own household.”§ “ Every one that hath forsaken
houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or
lands for my sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlast
ing life,”|| The teaching of Jesus is, in fact, save yourself by yourself.
The teaching of humanity should be, to save yourself save your fellow.
The human family is a vast chain, each man and woman a link. There is
no snapping off one link and preserving for it an entirety of happiness; our
joy depends on our brother’s also. But what does Jesus teach? That
“many are called, but few are chosen:” that the majority will inherit an
eternity of misery, while it is but the minority who obtain eternal happi
ness. And on what is the eternity of bliss to depend? On a truthful
course of life? Not so. Jesus purs Father Abraham in Heaven, whose
reputation for faith outstrips his character for veracity. The passport
through Heaven’s portals is faith. “ He that believeth and is baptised shall
be saved, and he that believeth not, shall be damned.”^ Are you married ?
Have you a wife you love? She dies and you. You from your firs> speech
to your last had ever said, “ I believe,” much as a clever parrot might say
* Matthew, xix., 19.
§ Matthew, x., 34—36.
t Matthew, x., 14,15,
H Matthew, xix., 29.
t Luke, xiv., 26.
f Mark, xvi., 16.
�WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
4
it, if well taught. You had never examined your reasons for your faithi
for, like a true believer should, you distrusted the efficacy of your carnal
reason. You said, therefore, “I believe in God and Jesus Christ,”because
you had been taught to say it, and you would have as glibly said, “ I believe
in Allah, and in Mahomet his prophet,” had your birth-place been a few
degrees more eastward, and your parents and instructors Turks. You
believed in this life and awake in Heaven. Your much-loved wife did not
think as you did—she could not. Her organisation, education, and tempe
rament were all different from your own. She disbelieved because she_
could not believe. She was a good wife, but she disbelieved. A good and'
affectionate mother, but she disbelieved. A virtuous and kindly woman,
but she disbelieved. And you are to be happy for an eternity in Heaven,
while she is writhing in agony in HeU. If true, I could say with Shelley,
of this Christianity, that it
“ Peoples earth with demons, hell with men,
And heaven with slaves.”
It is often urged that Jesus is the Saviour of the world, that he brought
redemption without let or stint to the whole human race. But what did
Jesus teach? “ Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and into any city of
the Samaritan enter ye not.”* These were his injunctions to those whom
he first sent out to preach. “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the
house of Israel,” is his hard answer to the poor Syropheni ian woman who
s entreating succour for her child. Christianity, as first taught by Jesus,
was for the Jews alone, and it is only upon his rejection by them, that the
world at large has the opportunity of salvation afforded it. “ He came
unto his own and his own received him not.”f Why should the Jews
be more God's own than the Gentiles? Is God the creator of all? and
did he create the descendant of Abraham with greater right and privilege
than all other men? Then, indeed, is great and grievous injustice done.
You and I had no choice whether we would be boru Jews or Gentiles; yet
to the accident of such a birth is attached the first offer of a salvation which,
if accepted, shuts out all beside. The Kingdom of Heaven is a prominent
feature in the teachings of Jesus, and it may be well to ascertain, as
precisely as we can, the picture drawn by God incarnate of his own
special domain. ’Tis likened to a wedding feast, to which the invited
guests coming not, servants are sent out into the highways to gather
all ’they can find—both good and bad. The King comes in to see his
motley array of guests, and findeth one without a wedding garment.
The King inquired why he came in to the feast without one, and ihe man,
whose attendance has been compulsorily enforced, is speechless. And who
can wonder ? he is a guest from necessity, not choice, he neither chose the
fashion of his coming or his attiring. Then comes the King’s decree, the
command of the all-merciful and loving King of Heaven. “ Bind him hand
and foot, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.” Commentators urge that it w ;s the custom to provide
wedding garments for all guests, and that this man is punished for his nonacceptance of the customary and ready robe. The text Joes not warrant
• Matthew, x, 5.
f John, 1., ik
�WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
ihis position, but assigns, as an explanation of the parable, that an invitation
to the heavenly feast will not ensure its partakal, for that many are called,
but few are chosen. What more of the Kingdom of Heaven? “ There shall
be joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and
nine just persons which need no repentance.”* Nay, it is urged that the
greater sinner one has been, the better saint he makes, and the more he has
sinned, so much the more he loves God. “ To whom little is forgiven, the
same loveth little.”f Is not this indeed asserting that a life of vice, with its
stains washed away by a death-bed repentance, is better than a life of consis
tent and virtuous conduct? Why should the fatted calf be killed for the ,
prodigal son?J Why should men be taught to make to themselves friends
of the mammon of unrighteousness?
These ambiguities, these assertions of punishment and forgiveness ofcrime,
instead of directions for its prevention and cure, are serious detractions from
a system alleged to have been inculcated by one for whom his followers claim
divinity.
Will you again turn back to the love of Jesus as the redeeming feature of
the whole? Then, I ask you, read the story of the fig-tree§ withered by the
hungry Jesus. The fig-tree, if he were all-powerful God, was made by him, he
limited its growth and regulated its development. He prevented it from bear
ing figs, expected fruit where he had rendered fruit impossible, and in his infi
nite love was angry that the tree had not upon it that it could not have. Tell
rne the love expressed in that remarkable speech which follows one of his
pai iib s, and in which he says:—“Eor, I say unto you, that unto every one
which hath shall be given, and from him that hath not, even that which he
hatii shall be taken aw iy from him. But those, mine enemies, which would
not that 1 should reign over them, bring them hither, and slay them before wze.’ j|
What love is expressed by that Jesus who, if he were God, represents him
self as saying to the majority of his unfortunate creatures (for it is the few
who are chosen):—“Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, pre
pared for the devil and his angels.”^- Ear from love is this horrid notion
of eternal torment. And yet the popular preachers of to-day talk first of
love and then of
“ Hell, a red gulf of everlasting fire,
Where poisonous and undying worms prolong
Eternal misery to those hapless slaves,
Whose life has been a penance for its crimes.”
In reading the sayings attributed to Jesus, all must be struck by that
passage which so extraordinarily influenced the famous Origen, ff If he
understood it aright, its teachings are most terrible. If he understood it
wrongly, what are we to say for the wisdom of teaching which expresses
so vaguely the meaning which it rather hides than discovers by its words?
The general intent of Christ’s teaching seems to be an inculcation of
neglect of this life, in the search for another. “ Labour not for the meat
which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life.”fJ
• Luke, xv., 7.
f Luke, vii., 47.
§ Matt., xxi., 18-22; Mark, xi., 12-24. || Luke, xix., 26, 27.
ft Matt., xix., 1%
jt John, vi., 27.
t Luke, xv., 27.
V Matt., xxv.,41.
�s
WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
** Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor
yet for your body, what ye shall put on.......... take no thought, saying, what
shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or wherewithal shall we be clothed?
..........But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all
these things shall be added unto you.” The effect of these texts, if fully
carried out, would be most disastrous: they would stay all scientific dis
coveries, prevent all development of man’s energies. It is in the struggle for
existence here, that men are compelled to become acquainted with the condi
tions which compel happiness or misery. It is only by the practical application
of that knowledge, that the wants of society are understood and satisfied, and
disease, poverty, hunger, and wretchedness, prevented. Jesus substitutes
“ I believe,” for “ I think,” and puts “ watch and pray,” instead of “ think,
then act.” Belief is made the most prominent feature, and is, indeed,
the doctrine which pervades, permeates, and governs all Christianity. It
is represented that, at the judgment, the world will be reproved “ Of sin
because they believe not.” This teaching is most disastrous; man should
be incited to active thought: belief is a cord which would bind him to the
teachings of an uneducated past. Thought, mighty thought, mighty in
making men most manly, will burst this now rotting cord, and then—
shaking off the cobwebbed and dust-covered traditions of dark old times,
humanity shall stand crowned with a most glorious diadem of facts, which,
like jems worn on a bright summer’s day, shall grow more resplendent as
they reflect back the rays of truth’s meridian sun. Fit companion to blind
belief is slave-like prayer. Men pray as though God needed most abject
entreaty ere he would grant them justice. What does Jesus teach on this?
What is his direction on prayer? “After this manner pray ye—Our
Father, which art in Heaven.” Do you think that God is the Father of all,
when you pray that he will enable you to defeat some others of his chil
dren, with whom your nation is at war? And why “which art in Heaven?”
Where is Heaven? you lookupward, and if you were at the antipodes, would
look upward still. But that upward would be downward to us. Do you
know where Heaven is, if not, why say “ which art in Heaven?” Is God
infinite, then he is in earth also, why limit him to Heaven? “ Hallowed be
thy name.” What is God’s name? and if you know it not, how can you
hallow it? how can God’s name be hallowed even if you know it? “Thy
kingdom come.” What is God’s kingdom, and will your praying bring it
quicker? Is it the Judgment day, and do you say “Love one another,”
pray for the more speedy arrival of that day, on which God may say to your
fellow “depart ye cursed into everlasting fire?” “ Thy will be done on
earth, as it is in Heaven.” How is God’s will done in Heaven? If the devil
be a fallen angel, there must have been rebellion even there. “ Give us this
day our-daily bread.” Will the prayer get it without work? No. Will
work get it without the prayer? Yes. Why pray then for bread to God,
who says, “ Blessed be ye that hunger...........woe unto you that are full?”
“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” What debts have
you to God? Sins? Samuel Taylor Coleridge says, “A sin is an evil which
has its ground or origin in the agent, and not in the compulsion of circum
stances. Circumstances are compulsory, from the absence of a power to
resist or control them: and if the absence likewise be the effect of circum»‘•mces...........the evil derives from the circumstances........... and such evil is
�T
WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
not sin.”* Do you say that you are Independent of all circumstances, that
you can control them, that you have a free will? Mr. Buckle says that the
assertion of a free will “ involves two assumptions, of which the first, though
possibly true, has never been proved, and the second is unquestionably false.
These assumptions are that there is. an independent faculty, called con
sciousness, and that the dictates of that faculty are infallible.”! “ And
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Do you think God
will possibly lead you into temptation? if so, you cannot think him all-good,
if not all-good he is not God, if God, the prayer is a blasphemy.
I close this paper with the last scene in Jesus’ life, not meaning that I
have—in eight pages—fully examined his teachings; but hoping that
enough is even here done to provoke inquiry and necessitate debate. Jesus,
according to the general declaration of Christian divines, came to die, and
what does he teach by his death-? The Rev. F. D. Maurice it is, I think,
who well says, “ That he who kills for a faith must be weak, that he who dies
for a faith must be strong.” How did Jesus die? Giordano Bruno, and
Julius Casar Vanini, were burned for Atheism. They died calm, heroic,
defiant of wrong. Jesus, who could not die, courted death, that he, as
God, might accept his own atonement, and might pardon man for a sin
which he had not committed, and in which he had no share. The death
he courted came, and when it eame he could not face it, but prayed to himbClf that he might not die. And then, when on the cross, if two of the gos
pels do him no injustice, his last words—as there recorded—were a bitter
cry of deep despair, “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The
Rev. Enoch Mellor, in his work on the Atonement, says, “ I seek not to
fathom the profound mystery of these words. To understand their full
import would require one to experience the agony of desertion they ex
press.” Do the words, “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
express an “ agony ” caused by a consciousness of “ desertion?” Doubtless
they do; in fact, if this be not the meaning conveyed by the despairing
death-cry, then there is in it no meaning whatever. And if those words do
express a “ bitter agony of desertion,” then they emphatically contradict
the teachings of Jesus. “ Before Abraham was, I am.” “ I and my father
are one.” “ Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” These were the
words of Jesus, words conveying (together with many other such texts) to the
reader an impression that divinity was claimed by the man who uttered them.
If Jesus had indeed beenGod, the words “My God, my God,” would have
been a mockery most extreme. God could not have deemed himself forsaken
by himself. The dying Jesus, in that cry, confessed himself either the dupe of
some other teaching, a self-deluded enthusiast, or anarch-impostor, who, in
that bitter, cry, with the wide-opening of the flood-gates through which
life’s stream ran out, confessed .aloud that he, at least, was no deity, and
deemed himself a God-forsaken man. The garden scene of agony is fitting
prelude to this most terrible act. Jesus, who is God, prays to himself, in
“ agony he prayed most earnestly.”! He refuses to hear his own prayers,
and he, the omnipotent, is forearmed against his coming trial by an angel
from heaven, who “ strengthened ” the' great Creator. Was Jesus the Son of
• “ Aids to Reflection,” 1843, p. 200.
J Luke, xxa., 44,
f » History of Civilisation,” Vol. I., p. 14.
>
»r
�8
WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
God? Praying, he said, “Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy
Son also may glorify thee.”* And was he glorified? His death and resurrec
tion most strongly disbelieved in the very city where they happened, if, indeed,
they ever happened at all. His doctrines rejected by the only people to whom
he preached them. His miracles denied by the only nation where they are
alleged to have been performed; and he himself thus on the cross, crying
out, “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Surely no further
comment is needed on this head, to point more distinctly to the most mon
strous mockery the text reveals.
To those who urge that the course I take is too bold, or that the pro
blems I deal with are too deep or sacred, I will reply in Herschel’s version
of Schiller—
Wouldst thou reach perfection’s goat,
Stay notl rest not!
Forward strain,
Hold not hand, and draw not rein.
•
•
•
•
Perseverance strikes the mark,
Expansion clears whate’er is dark,
Truth in the abyss doth dwell.
My say is said—now fare thee well»
G©
Published by Austin & Co , at 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
�
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What did Jesus teach?
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891.]
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t“V
<*W"
72
WAS CHRIST A POLITICAL
AND SOCIAL REFORMER ?
CHARLES WATTS'
( Vice-President 0/ the National Secular Society).
LONDON:
WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT,
FLEET STREET, E.C.
Price Fourpence.
��WAS CHRIST A POLITICAL AND
SOCIAL REFORMER?
' Although Thomas Carlyle has said that “ in these days it
is professed that hero-worship has gone out and finally
ceased,” thousands of the professed followers of Christ
idolise his memory to such an extent that they appear to
be entirely oblivious of any defect either in his character
or in his teachings. They regard their hero as having been
the very embodiment of truth, virtue, and perfection; and
those persons who are compelled to doubt the correctness
of these assumptions are regarded by orthodox believers
as most unreasonable and perverse members of society.
Probably the principal cause why such erroneous and
extravagant notions are entertained of one who, according
to the New Testament, was very little, if at all, superior to
other religious heroes can be accounted for by the fact that
the worshippers of Christ were taught in their childhood to
reverence him as an absolutely perfect character, and as
being beyond criticism. Thus youthful impressions
resulted in fancied creations which, in matured life, have
been accepted as realities. The Rev. James Cranbrook
recognised this truth, for in the preface to his work, The
Founders of Christianity (page 5), he observes : “ Our own
idealisations have invested him (Jesus) with a halo of
spiritual glory, that by the intensity of its brightness
conceals from us the real figure presented in the Gospels.
We see him, not as he is described, but as the ideally
perfect man our own fancies have conceived. But let any
one sit down and critically analyse the sayings and doings
ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels—let him divest his mind
of the superstitious fear of irreverence, and then ask him
self whether all those sayings and doings are in harmony
with the highest wisdom speaking for all ages and races of
�4
AVAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
mankind, and with the conceptions of an absolutely perfect
human nature, and I am mistaken if he will not find a very
great deal he will be forced to condemn.”
Even the sons of Labor, the apostles of Democracy, and
the advocates of Socialism appear disposed to adopt Jesus
as their Patron Saint. Conjectures are being constantly
made by professed modern reformers as to what the
Carpenter of Nazareth would say upon the many political
and social questions that agitate the public mind in this
the latter half of the nineteenth century. These hero
worshippers seem to overlook the apathy of Jesus in
respect to the evils of his own time. Of course, it is not
difficult for an impartial observer to learn why the name of
Christ is invoked to support the various schemes that are
now put forward to aid the regeneration of society.
However little Christianity is practised among us, it is
extensively professed, and it is thought by many a virtue
to assume a belief, whether there are sufficient grounds for
doing so or not. This slavish adherence to fashion is an
undignified prostration of mental freedom and independ
ence, and it is also a fruitful source of the perpetuation of
error. My purpose in examining the claims set up for
Jesus as a political and social reformer, is to ascertain
if the records of his life, doings, and teachings justify such
claims. If Jesus were judged as an ordinary man, living
nearly two thousand years ago, my present task would be
unnecessary. If we assume that such a man once lived, and
that what he said and did is accurately reported, he. should,
in my opinion, be considered as a youth possessing but
limited education, surrounded by unfavorable influences for
intellectual acquirements, belonging to a race not very
remarkable for literary culture, retaining many of the
failings of his progenitors, and having but little regard for
the world or the things of the world. Viewed under these
circumstances, I could, while excusing many of his errors,
recognise and admire something that is praiseworthy in the
life of “ Jesus of Nazareth.” But when he is raised upon a
pinnacle of greatness, as an exemplar of virtue and wisdom,
surpassing the production of any age or country, he is then
exalted to a position which he does not merit, and which,
to my mind, deprives him of that credit which otherwise he
would, perhaps, be entitled to.
�WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
5
The contentions which it is my purpose to dispute are :
that Jesus was a political and social reformer, and that
his alleged teachings contain the remedies for the wrongs
of modern society. Before directly dealing with these
points it may be necessary to glance at the various aspects
of reform that have, at different times in our national
history, been presented to the community; also to briefly
consider the nature of the required reforms, and some of
the principal methods that have been adopted to secure
them.
In quite primitive ages important struggles took place
to establish greater equality in the conditions of life. In
the time of Moses, according to the Bible, the land, for
instance, was not merely the subject of “tracts for the
times,” but the laws and regulations relating to it were
practically dealt with. It did not, however, cease to be
property, and its inheritance was recognised as a rightful
thing. The stock-in-trade of many modern reformers is
the denunciation of those who “ add house to house, field to
field, and grind the faces of the poor.” If this condemnation
is one of the many features of Socialism, then Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel may, in this particular, be fairly
termed Socialists—a name foreign to their language and to
the ideas of their day.
The contention with some is, that Christ was a successor
to all these prophets, that he took the same kind of
objection as they did to the then existing state of things,
and that he used the same form of speech in denouncing
them. The general reply to this is, that Christ was, if
anything, only a prophetic reformer, not a real one. In
proof of this many facts in his alleged history may be
cited. For instance, he did not rescue the land from the
control of the Romans, who held it from the people very
much in the same way as landholders do now; he did not
attempt to render any aid to the laborers of Rome, who in
his day were resisting the injustice of the capitalists; he
did not deliver his brethren of “ the royal house ” from
their foreign rulers; he did not redeem the Jews from
their social evils, or restore justice to their nation. In a
word, he entirely failed to do the reforming work that was
expected of him. About the year 1825 the “Christian
Socialists of London ” called special attention to the question
�6
WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
of land as regulated by Moses, and the living in common
by the early Christians; but no practical issue arose out of
the discussion. From that period down to the present
the same subject has been more or less agitated, and still
the matter is very far from being settled. Now, if it is
alleged that Christ sought to bring about a just settlement
of the land problem, then the existence of the present
oppressive land laws proves that he failed, and that his
most devout followers have been equally unfortunate.
If Christ had been a practical reformer, we should not have
in our midst the deplorable injustice, the wrongs, and the
inequalities that now afflict society. These evils and draw
backs—the growth of centuries during which Christianity
was in power—-will doubtless be lessened, if not altogether
destroyed; but the work will be achieved by a moral
revolution, inaugurated and conducted by men who will
possess ability and experience that it is evident Jesus never
had.
It must be borne in mind that there are two kinds of
revolution—one that is gradual and intellectual, and there
fore useful; the other that is sudden, born of passion, and
therefore often useless as an important factor in securing
permanent reforms. We know that every change of
thought, or condition of things, involves a revolution which,
if controlled by reason and regulated by the lessons of
experience, must aid rational progress, and tend to build up
a State, and secure its permanence. But there is another
kind of revolution, which is sought to be produced by
Nihilism and Anarchism, both of which aim at the
destruction of the State. I am not in favor of either of
these “isms,” believing, as I do, that in our present
condition of society some form of government is necessary.
Law and order, based upon the national will, and the
principle of justice, appear to me to be essential in any
scheme that is accepted for the purpose of furthering the
political and social progress of the world. Then we have
Socialism, which concerns itself with economic, ethical,
political, and industrial questions. The principal subject,
however, dealt with by Socialists is the accumulation
and distribution of wealth. State Socialism dates from
the time of the eminent French writer, Claude, H. Count
de St. Simon, whose works were published in 1831. He
�WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
tried to secure the amelioration of the condition of the
poor, and aimed at the organisation of labor and the
distribution of the fruits of industry, upon the principle of
every man being rewarded according to his works.
Socialism is, in fact, an attempt (whether it is the best that
could be made is with some persons a debateable point) to
regulate the social relations, making them more equal than
they are at present, either by individual combination, by
municipal or co-operative action, by a philanthropic policy
of the Church, or by the control of the State. This last
phase of the Socialistic scheme means the complete
regulation by law of the equality of individuals, the State
being the owner of the land, and of all the instruments of
industry that are at present possessed by individuals, public
companies, etc., who now regulate, in their own interest,
production and distribution.
Having thus briefly stated the general conceptions and
aims of political and social reformers, the next step is to
inquire in what relation Jesus stands to any or all of them.
Of course there is only one source of information upon the
subject at our command—that of the four Gospels. From
these it will not be difficult to demonstrate that Jesus was
no mundane reformer. Although he was surrounded by
poverty, slavery, oppression, and mental degradation, he
made no effort to rid society of these curses to humanity.
As John Stuart Mill observes, in his work upon
Liberty (pp. 28, 29), in referring to Christian morality:
“I do not scruple to say of it that it is, in many im
portant points, incomplete and one-sided, and that, unless
ideas and feelings, not sanctioned by it, had contributed
to the formation of European life and character, human
affairs would have been in a worse condition than they now
are.”
Professor Huxley, in the Nineteenth Century, No. 144,
pp. 178-186, points out that Christians have no right to
force their idealistic portraits of Jesus on the unbiassed
scientific world, whose business it is to study realities and
to separate fiction from fact. The Professor’s words are :
“ In the course of other inquiries, I have had to do with
fossil remains, which looked quite plain at a distance, and
became more and more indistinct as I tried to define their
outline by close inspection. There was something there—
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WAS CHRIST A REFORMER
1
something which, if I could win assurance about it, might
mark a new epoch in the history of the earth; but, study as
long as I might, certainty eluded my grasp. So has it
been with me in my efforts to define the grand figure of
Jesus as it lies in the primitive strata of Christian litera
ture. Is he the kindly, peaceful Christ depicted in the
catacombs 1 Or is he the stern judge who frowns above
the altar of Saints Cosmas and Damianus ? Or can he be
rightly represented in the bleeding ascetic broken down by
physical pain of too many mediaeval pictures ? Are we to
accept the Jesus of the second or the Jesus of the fourth
Gospel as the true Jesus ? What did he really say and do ?
and how much that is attributed to him in speech and
action is the embroidery of the various parties into which
his followers tended to split themselves within twenty
years of his death, when even the three-fold tradition was
only nascent ? .... If a man can find a friend, the
hypostasis of all his hopes, the mirror of his ethical ideal, in
the Jesus of any or all of the Gospels, let him live by faith
in that ideal. Who shall, or can, forbid him ? But let
him not delude himself that his faith is evidence of the
objective reality of that in which he trusts. Such evidence
is to be obtained only by the use of the methods of science
as applied to history and to literature, and it amounts, at
present, to very little.”
Equally emphatic are the remarks of John Vickers, the
author of The New Koran, etc., who, in his work, The Real
Jesus, on pp. 160, 161, writes: “Many popular preachers
at the present day are accustomed to hold Jesus up to
admiration as the special friend of the poor-—that is, as
the benefactor of the humble working class, and their
representations to this effect are doubtless very generally
believed. But a greater delusion respecting him than this
can scarcely be imagined ; for, however much he may have
been disposed to favor those who forsook their industrial
calling and led a vagrant life, his preaching and the course
which he took were prejudicial to all who honestly earned
their bread. He did nothing with his superior wisdom to
develop the resources of the country and provide employ
ment for the poor; all his efforts were directed to the
unhinging of industry, the diminution of wealth, and the
promotion of universal idleness and beggary. It was no
�WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
9
part of his endeavor to see the peasant and the artisan
better remunerated and more comfortably housed, for he
despised domestic comforts as much as Diogenes, and
believed that their enjoyment would disqualify people for
obtaining the everlasting pleasures of Paradise. A
provident working man who had managed to save enough
for a few months’ subsistence he would have classed with
the covetous rich, and required him to give away in alms
all that he had treasured as the indispensable condition
of discipleship. On one occasion he is said to have
distributed food liberally to the hungry multitude; but
the food was none of his providing, since he was him
self dependent on alms. Moreover, the recipients of his
bounty were not a band of ill-fed laborers returning from
work/not a number of distressed farmers who had suffered
heavy losses from murrain or drought, but a loafing crowd
who had followed him about from place to place, and
spent the day in idleness. Such bestowment of largess
would only tend to produce a further relaxation of
industrial effort; it would induce credulous peasants, to
throw down their tools and follow the wonder-working
prophet for the chance of a meal; they would see little
wisdom in plodding at their tasks from day to day, like
the ants and the bees, if people were to be fed by
wandering about trustfully for what should turn up, as the
idle, improvident ravens (Prov. vi. 6 ; Luke xii. 24).”
Many eminent Christian writers maintain that Jesus was
a social reformer, because he is represented as having, been
in favor of dispensing with the private ownership of
property, and also of people living together, enjoying what
is called “ a common repast.” Professor Graetz, in the
second volume of his able History of the Jews, devotes a
chapter to the social practices which prevailed at the time
when Jesus is alleged to have lived. On page 117 he
states that Christianity was really an offshoot from the
principles held by the Essenes, and that Christ inherited
their aversion to Pharisaical laws, while he approved of
their practice of putting their all into the common treasury.
Further, like them, Jesus highly esteemed self-imposed
poverty, and despised riches. In fact, we are told that
the “ community of goods, which was a peculiar doctrine
of the Essenes, was not only approved, but enforced.............
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WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
The repasts they shared in common formed, as it were, the
connecting link which attached the followers of Jesus to
one another; and the alms distributed by the rich publicans
relieved the poor disciples of the fear of hunger; and this
bound them still more strongly to Jesus.” But Graetz
also adds that Christ thoroughly shared the narrow views
held by the Judaeans of his time, and that he despised the
heathen world. Thus he said : “ Give not that which is
holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before
swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn
again and rend you ” (Matt. vii. 6). If this is “ Christian
Socialism,” it is far from being catholic in its nature. The
Socialistic element of having “all things in common ” was
limited by Christ to one particular community ; it lacked
that universality necessary to all real social reforms. It
was similar to his idea of the brotherhood of man. Those
only were his brothers who believed in him. He desired
no fellowship with those who did not accept his faith;
hence he exclaimed : “ If a man abide not in me, he is cast
forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them,
and cast them into the fire, and they are burned ” (John xv.
6); “I pray not for the world, but for them which thou
hast given me ” (John xvii. 9); “But he that denieth me
before men shall be denied before the angels of God ”
(Luke xii. 9); “ He that believeth not shall be damned ”
(Mark xvi. 16). This may be the teaching of theology, but
it is not indicative of a broad humanity, neither would it,
if acted upon, tend to promote the social welfare of mankind.
. Professor Graham, M.A., of Belfast College, contends, in
his work, Socialism: Olcl and New, that Christ taught
“ Communism ” when he preached “ Blessed be ye poor,”
when “ he repeatedly denounced ” the rich, and when he
recommended the wealthy young man to voluntarily
surrender his property to the poor. The Professor also
says: “ In spite of certain passages to the contrary,
pointing in a different direction, the Gospels are pervaded
with the spirit of Socialism ”; but he adds : “ It is not quite
State Socialism, because the better society was to be
brought about by the voluntary union of believers.” He
admits, however, that “ the ideal has hitherto been found
impossible; but let not any say that it does not exist in
the Gospels—that Christ did not contemplate an earthly
�WAS CHRIST A REFORMER?
11
society.” Now this last point is just what could be fairly
urged, if the Gospels were trustworthy. There can be no
reasonable doubt that the disregard of mundane duties
would be the logical sequence of acting up to many of the
teachings ascribed to Jesus. For instance, he said, “My
kingdom is not of this world ” (John xviii. 36). “He that
loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in
this world shall keep it unto life eternal” (John xii. 25).
“ I am not of the world ” (John xvii. 9). “ Take no. thought
for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink; nor
yet for your body what ye shall put on. . . . Take there
fore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take
thought for the things of itself ” (Matthew vi. 25, 34). “ If
any man comes to me and hate not his father, and mother,
and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and
his own life, he cannot be my disciple ” (Luke xiv. 26).
“Everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or
sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands,
for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall
inherit everlasting life” (Matthew xix. 29). Even the
disciple who wished to bury his father was advised by
Christ to forego that duty of affection, for “Jesus said,
Follow me ; let the dead bury the dead.”
The fact is, Christ was a spiritualiser, and not a social
reformer. If he had been to his age what Bacon and
Newton were to theirs, and what Darwin, Spencer, Huxley,
and Tyndall have been to the present generation ; if he had
written a book teaching men how to avoid the miseries of
life; if he had revealed the mysteries of nature, and
exhibited the beauties of the arts and sciences, what an
advantage he would have conferred upon mankind, and
what an important contribution he would have given to
the world towards solving the problems of our present
social wrongs and inequalities. But the usefulness of Jesus
was impaired by the idea which he entertained, that this
world was but a state of probation, wherein the human
family were to be prepared for another and a better home,
where “ the wicked cease from troubling and the weary
are at rest.”
We have thus seen the views of the scientist, the
historian, and the professor, upon the subject under con
sideration ; it will now be interesting to learn what one
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WAS CHRIST A REFORMER?
of the successors to the apostles has to say in reference
to the same question. B. F. Westcott, D.D., the present
Bishop of Durham, in his work, Social Aspects of Christianity,
says : “Of all places in the world, the Abbey, I think,
proclaims the social gospel of Christ with the most touch
ing eloquence. ... If I am a Christian, I must bring
within the range of my religion every interest and difficulty of man, ‘ for other foundation can no man lay than
that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.’ ”
This is not by any means correct, for many other
“foundations,” which have nothing to do with Christ,
have been laid, and upon them systems, some good and
some bad, have been built. For instance, there are
Individualism, Socialism, material standards of progress,
unlimited competition, and the application of science.
These are “ other foundations ” that men have had apart
altogether from Christ. But the solution to present social
evils, Dr. Westcott considers, is to be found only in the
Christian faith. He says : “ We need to show the world
the reality of spiritual power. We need to gain and
exhibit the idea that satisfies the thoughts, the aspirations,
the aims of men straining towards the light.” He admits
that science has increased our power and resources; but, he
adds, it “ cannot open the heavens and show the glory of
God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” Of
course it cannot; for science has nothing to do with
the impossible, or with the wild speculations of theology.
In the Social Aspects of Christianity, as presented by the
Bishop, it would be difficult, indeed, to recognise the
principles of true Socialism. Moreover, as it is admitted
by him that science has increased our “power and
resources,” it is a proof that Jesus must have been a poor
reformer, when we remember that he did nothing what
ever to aid this strong element of modern progress.
From the references which I have here made to some of
the ablest writers of to-day, it will be seen how Jesus is
estimated by them. I now propose to analyse the various
statements which, according to the Four Gospels, were
uttered by him, that have any bearing upon the political
and social questions of our time. It will then be seen
whether Christ has any claim to be considered a political
and social reformer.
�WAS CHRIST A REFORMER?
13
That the political views held by Jesus were exceed
ingly crude is evident from the circumstance recorded in
Matthew xxii. It is there stated that, on finding a coin of
the realm bearing the superscription of Caesar, Jesus
declared that both Caesar and God were to have their due.
The very pertinent question put by the disciples afforded
a good opportunity for some sound advice to be given upon
the political subjection in which the people to whom Christ
was talking were living. They were in bondage to a
foreign power, and were anxious to know if it were
“lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not.” Instead of
returning a clear and intelligible answer, Jesus replied in
words which were evasive and meaningless, so far as the
information sought for was concerned. If he had any
desire to alter the then existing political, relations, or. to
suggest any improvement, he might have given a practical
lesson upon the duties and obligations of the ruled to the
rulers. Another opportunity was lost when, Pilate having
asked Christ an important question, “ Jesus gave him no
answer” (John xix. 9).
Subsequently, however, Jesus recognised the “divine
government,” for he said : “ Thou couldst have no power
at all against me, except it were given thee from above.”
(John xix. 11). He also, having stated, “My kingdom is
not of this world,” added : “ If my kingdom were of this
world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be
delivered to the Jews.” Christ s notions of government
were similar to those of St. Paul, who said: “The
powers that be are ordained of God. . .. . and they that
resist shall receive to themselves damnation (Romans xiii.
1, 2).
Now, in the very face of these scriptural utterances, we
have men to-day who allege that Christ is their hero of
democracy. The belief that he ever intended to. improve
the government of this world by secular means is utterly
groundless. His negligence in this particular cannot be
explained away by saying that society was not ripe for
reform, and that Jesus lacked the power to revolutionise
the institutions of his time. There is truth, no doubt, in
the latter allegation, for the power of Christ for all practical
work seems to have been very limited indeed. He did not
attempt any political reform, as other men in all ages have-
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WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
done; he did not make honest endeavors to inaugurate
improvements which, under happier circumstances, might
have been carried out. There is no evidence that Christ
ever concerned himself with such reforms as civil and
religious liberty, the freedom of the slaves, the equality
of human rights, the emancipation of women, the spread of
science and of education, the proper use of the land, and the
fostering of the fundamental elements of human progress.
His language was : “ Behold the fowls of the air : for they
sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet
your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much
better than they ? And why take ye thought for raiment ?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil
not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, That
even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of
these. Wherefore, if God so clothes the grass of the field,
which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall
he not much more clothe you, 0 ye of little faith ? But
seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Christ’s declaration that his kingdom was not of this
world may be taken as a reason why he made no adequate
provision for secular government; but those who worship
him assert that his plan is the only one that can be success
fully adopted to secure the desired reforms, and that he
really did contemplate a better state of society on earth
than the one that then obtained. Where is the evidence
that this was so 1 Not in the New Testament, for it is
nowhere recorded therein that such was his mission. With
him the question was : “ For what shall it profit a man if
he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul ?” Even
Renan, who is so frequently quoted by Christian advocates
as extolling Jesus, admits that he lacked the qualities of a
great political and social reformer. In his Life of Jesus
Renan says that Christ had “ no knowledge of the general
condition of the world ” (p. 78); he was unacquainted with
science, “ believed in the devil, and that diseases were the
work of demons” (pp. 79, 80); he was “harsh” towards
s family, and was “no philosopher” (pp. 81-83); he
“went to excess” (p. 174); he “aimed less at logical
conviction than at enthusiasm”; “sometimes his intolerance
of all opposition led him to acts inexplicable and apparently
�WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
15
absurd” (pp. 274, 275); and “bitterness and reproach
became more and more manifest in his heart” (p. 278.)
But let us further consider what it is said that he taught
in reference to life’s social requirements, and also what was
his estimate of the world and the things of the world.
Under any system conducted upon rational principles the
first social requirement is to provide for sufficient food,
clothes, and shelter; for to talk of comfort and progress
without these requisites is absurd. Now, it was about
these very things that Jesus, as it has already been shown,
taught that we should take no thought. In Matthew (c. vi.)
special reference is made to the Gentiles who did take
thought as to the necessities of life ; but other people were
not to be anxious upon the subject, “ for your Heavenly
Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things,” and
a promise is given that he will provide them as he
“ feedeth ” “ the fowls of the air.” Poverty and idleness
were essentials to Christ’s idea of a social state, as is proved
by his advice to the rich young man, to whom he said:
“ If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and
give to the poor” (Matthew xix. 21). In John (vi. 27) it
is also said : “ Labor not for the meat which perisheth.”
What wealthy Christian will sell what he has and give to
the poor, and thus carry out Christ’s idea of social duties ?
And if the toiling millions did not labor for their meat,
they would get but little of it. It is not overlooked
that Jesus said to the young man, “and follow me”;
which meant, I presume, that he was to join the Chris
tian society in which they had “all things common”
(Acts iv.). But this state of existence could only be
maintained by giving up all one’s possessions and adding
them to the general stock. If all did this, the stock would
be soon exhausted. And the point here to be noted is, that
in Christ’s scheme no provision is made to provide for a
permanent mode of living, except by prayer or miracle.
Surely it must be obvious to most people that a
communion of saints, fed directly by God, could not be any
solution of the social problem for those outside such
communities Besides, there is little prospect of outsiders
being made partakers with the saints, unless God the
Father draws them unto Christ (John vi. 44); but no one
can go to the Father except by Christ (John xiv. 6).
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WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
Thus our chances of admission into the Christian fold are
very remote, for if we are admitted it must be through
Christ, to whom we cannot go unless the Father draws us ;
but then we cannot go to the Father except by Christ.
This is a theological puzzle, which must be left for a
“ Christian Socialist ” to unravel if he can.
The belief that a social condition of society is sustained
by an invisible power, where no labor is performed, and
where no interest is taken in its progress, or in the dignity
and personal independence of its members, is the height of
folly. It implies the destruction of all human institutions,
and the substitution of a “divinely-ordered state of
things,” such as some of Christ’s followers allege they are
now hourly expecting. Well might the late Bishop of
Peterborough say : “ It is not possible for the State to
carry out all the precepts of Christ. A State that
attempted to do so could not exist for a week. If there be
any person who maintains the contrary, his proper place is
in a lunatic asylum ” (Fortnightly, January, 1890).
The Sermon on the Mount, or “in the plain,” as
stated by Luke (vi. 17), has been called the. Magna Charta
of the kingdom of God, proclaimed by Christ, although it
has never been made the basis of any human government.
Its injunctions are so impracticable and antagonistic to. the
requirements of modern civilisation that no serious
attempt has ever been made to put them in practice.
It may be mentioned that the genuineness of the “ Sermon ”
has been boldly questioned. Professor Huxley writes:
“I am of opinion that there is the gravest reason for
doubting whether the Sermon on the Mount was ever
preached, and whether the so-called Lord’s Prayer was
ever prayed by Jesus of Nazareth” (Controverted Questions,
p. 415). The Professor then gives his reasons for arriving
at this conclusion.
The Rev. Dr. Giles, in his Christian Records, speaking of
the Sermon on the Mount, says : “ There is good ground
for believing that such a collective body of maxims was
never, at any time, delivered from the lips of our.Lord’;
and Milman declares that scarcely any passage is more
perplexing to the harmonist of the Gospels than this
sermon, which, according to Matthew and Luke, appears to
have been delivered at two different places.
�*S-'
WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
17
Mr. Charles B. Cooper, a very able American writer,
aptly observes: “If this discourse is so important, as
Christians profess to believe—the sum of all the teachings
of Jesus, and the sufficient source of all morality—it is
curious that Mark and John knew nothing about it, and
that Luke should dismiss it with such a short report.
Luke, omitting the larger part of the matter, takes only
one page to tell what occupies three pages in Matthew;
and to find any parallel to much of Matthew we have to go
to other chapters of Luke and to other occasions. In
addition to which, they disagree as to whether it was given
on a mountain or in a plain.”
Taking a broad view of the teachings as ascribed to
Christ, I should describe most of them as being the result
of emotion rather than the outcome of matured reflection.
They are based upon faith, not upon knowledge, trust in
Providence being the cornerstone of his system, so far as
his fragmentary utterances can be systematised. In my
opinion, the idea of his being a political and social reformer
rests upon an entirely mistaken view of the union of what
are termed temporal and spiritual things. Examples of this
maybe seen in such injunctions as “Love one another ”
and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The first was
clearly applicable to the followers of Christ, for he
expressly states, “ By this shall all men know that ye are
my disciples” (John xiii. 35); and the second command
applied only to the Jewish community, not to strangers
who lived outside. These injunctions did not mean that
those who heard them were to love all mankind. Christ
himself divided those who were for him from those who
were against him. To the first he said, “ Come, ye blessed
of my father ”; to the other, “ Depart from me, ye cursed,
into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
It has always appeared to me to be remarkably strange
that Christ should be regarded as the exemplar of universal
love. Neither his own words, nor the conduct of his
followers, justify such a belief. It is, of course, desirable
that a social state of society should be based upon love and
the universal brotherhood of man. This is the avowed
foundation of the religion of the Positivists, their motto
being, “Love our basis, order our method, and progress
our end”; but no such commendable features are to be
B
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WAS CHRIST A REFORMER
1
found in the Gospel of Christ, or in the history of the
Church. Jesus declared that his mission was only to “the
lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew xv. 24).
Moreover, the conditions of discipleship which he imposed
would, if complied with, exclude the possibility of love
among all men (Luke xiv. 26); as would also his avowed
object of breaking the peace and harmony of the domestic
circle (Matthew x. 34, 35). It may be said that such are
the contingencies attending the belief and adoption of a
new religion. Be it so; but that only shows the futility
of the contention that Christ established universal brother
hood. It is absurd to argue that he did so, when we are
told in the Gospels that his mission was to the Jews only
(Matthew xv. 24); that he would have no fellowship with
unbelievers (Matthew xv. 26); that he threatened to have
his revenge upon those who denied him (Matthew x. 33);
that he instructed his disciples to “go not into the way of
the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye
not” (Matthew x. 5); and, finally, that he commanded
those disciples, when they were about to start on a
preaching expedition, that “Whosoever shall not receive
you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that
house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I
say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of
Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment than for
that city” (Matthew x. 14, 15). Shaking the dust from
the feet, be it remembered, was an Oriental custom of
exhibiting hatred towards those against whom the act was
performed. And surely the punishment that it is said was
to follow the refusal of the disciples’ administration was
the very opposite of the manifestation of love. This
accords with the non-loving announcement that “ the Lord
Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty
angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that
know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the
glory of his power” (2 Thess. i. 7, 8, 9).
These references ought to be sufficient to convince any
one that Jesus cannot be reasonably credited with a
feeling of unqualified love for the whole of the human
race. His conduct, and the general spirit of his teachings
�WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
19
towards those who differed from him, forbid such a
supposition. His injunctions, if acted upon, would annul
the influence of the ancient maxim of “ doing unto others
as you would they should do to you.” Certainly he failed
to set a personal example by complying with this rule, as
his harsh language to those who did not accept his
authority amply proves. It is reported that Jesus said
(Matthew v. 22), “ Whosoever shall say Thou fool shall be
in danger of hell fire”; yet we find him exclaiming, “Ye
fools, ye fools and blind” (Lukexi. 40; Matthewxxiii. 17).
He advised others to “Love your enemies, bless them that
curse you,” while he himself addressed those who were not
his friends as “hypocrites ” (Matthew vii. 5); “ye serpents,
ye generation of vipers ” (Matthew xxiii. 33). We may
here apply Christ’s own words to himself: “I say unto
you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall
give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy
words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt
be condemned ” (Matthew xii. 36, 37). In Luke (vi. 37)
he counsels us to “forgive, and ye shall be forgiven ”; but
in Mark (iii. 29) it is stated, “He that shall blaspheme
against the Holy G-host hath never forgiveness, but is in
danger of eternal damnation.” The unfortunate point here
is, that we are not told what constitutes blasphemy against
the Holy Ghost.
From these cases, and there are many more in the
Gospels of like nature, it is clear that Jesus taught one
thing and practised another—a course of conduct which
his followers have not been slow to emulate. But such an
inconsistent trait of character disqualifies those in whom it
is found from being the best of social reformers. Example
is higher than precept.
Whatever may be urged in favor of Christ’s supposed
“ spiritual kingdom,” his teachings have but little value in
regulating the political and social affairs of daily life, using
those terms in the modern and legitimate sense, inasmuch
as he has given the world no practical information upon
either the science of politics or of sociology. The affairs of
this world had but little interest with Christ. With him
pre-eminence was given to the soul over the body. We are
not to fear him who can kill the body only, but rather fear
him “ who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell ”
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WAS CHRIST A REFORMER?
(Matthew x. 28). Here we recognise the great defect in
Jesus as a societarian reformer. He treats this world as if
it were of secondary importance, and he furnishes no useful
rules for its practical government. True he says, “ Blessed
are ye poor,” and “Woe unto you that are rich but what
does this amount to ? These empty exclamations will not
abolish pauperism, neither will they produce the organisation
of honest industry, whereby human wants can be supplied
and social comforts secured. Would it not have been
better if Jesus had devised some plan whereby poverty
should become extinct ?
To talk, as Professor Graham does, about producing a
better state of society by a “ union of believers ” is, in my
opinion, folly. How is it to be done ? Every member of
“ the union ” would have to live on the alms of the wealthy
members. It would, in fact, be a society of the destitute
supported by voluntary contributions. Surely no sane
Socialists ever proposed to divide mankind into two
classes—z.e., paupers and those who feed them. We know
what the result of such a policy was in the case of the
Church. As the Professor says, the Church obtained the
funds of the rich in return for certain considerations which
were supposed to affect them in this world and in the next;
and out of such proceeds the clergy distributed bread to
the poor and kept something better for themselves. Thus
Europe for centuries was infested by fat, idle monks . and
an army of miserable beggars. A more detestable condition
of society to men of honor and independent spirit never
existed. Yet this “ Christian plan ” finds favor, as we have
seen, in “ the Abbey,” and is really the necessary outcome of
Christ’s mendicant teachings. For did he not allege that
the poor were blessed, and that “ ye hath the poor always
with you” (Matthew xxvi. 11)? If he contemplated that
the period would arrive when “it should be impossible for
men to be poor,” why did he not give some practical
instructions to hasten its advent ? This would have been
a o-rand contribution to social reform. But his overwhelm
ing anxiety about another life was, with him, the “one
thing needful,” and to it every other consideration had to
give way.
.
I am quite unable to understand how anyone can mistake
the obvious meaning of the parable in which the rich man
u-*** yMita
�WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
21
appears in hell and the poor man in heaven (Luke
xvi. 19-26). The only assigned reason is that the one was
well-to-do in this life, while the other suffered privations.
This is no justification for either of the men being where
they are represented to have been. For poverty is no
virtue, neither is it a crime to be rich. Men of wealth can
be worthy characters, and poverty may be allied with
much rascality. The wrong does not consist in possessing
riches, but rather in the misuse of them; and, therefore, to
be poor does not seem the highest qualification for future
bliss, and to be rich is not a sufficient cause for anyone
being excluded from an abode of happiness. But this
parable is another illustration of Christ’s exaltation of
poverty. He even dispatched his disciples on a mission of
propaganda, without scrip, money, or purse, to beg their
way through the world (Luke x. 7-10). Is this the highest
model that can be given for a mission to the poor ? It is
thought so little of to-day, even by professed Christians,
that they never adopt the plan suggested by their
“ Master.” They may preach “ Blessed be ye poor,” but
they have no desire to be one of them. They read the
warning, “Woe unto you that are rich; for ye have
received your consolation ” (Luke vi. 24); but they appear
to be exceedingly comfortable with their material consola
tion. “ A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” and
they are consoled more with the riches of this world than
with the chance of having a harp in the next. In the case
of the rich young man (Luke xviii.) it is true Christ
advised the giving up of private property; but it is also
true that the advice was not deemed practical, for the
young man “went away sorrowful” (Matthew xix. 22).
Supposing he had accepted the advice, he would then
have swelled the ranks of the poor unemployed, and
thereby have become the recipient rather than the bene
factor, although it is recorded that “it is more blessed to
give than to receive” (Acts xx. 35). The giving up all
one’s possessions would be as injurious to a community as
the amassing of wealth by the few is pernicious.
What is required is a social arrangement whereby all
members of the community shall have their fair share of
the necessities and comforts of life ; and this arrangement
Christ did not understand, or, if he did, he made no effort
�99!
WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
to bring it into force, and consequently he lacked the
elements of a true social reformer.
There is an incident recorded in Luke (xii.) which shows
that Christ refused to say anything upon the subjects of
property, civil rights, and law and government. “ One of
the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother,
that he divide the inheritance with me. And he said unto
him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you ?”
Here Jesus had an opportunity, as a social reformer, to
give the world an important lesson upon the duty of one
man to another; but he did not avail himself of it. He
acted more like a modern lawyer would do, who, when
asked by a stranger to give him advice, would reply: “I
am not your appointed solicitor ; if you want information,
you must consult your own legal adviser.”
The parable of “ the rich man who set up greater barns,”
related in Luke (xii.), is another illustration of Christ’s
defective teachings in reference to the affairs of this life.
The man in the parable proposed to enlarge his premises so
that he might be able to put by increased stock of fruits
and goods, and thus be in a position to take his “ ease, eat,
drink, and be merry.” There does not appear to be any
great crime in this, for he lacked room wherein to bestow
his fruits, etc. (v. 17). Surely there could be no serious
objection to making such careful provision for “a rainy
day.” Such conduct is frequently necessary to the advance
ment of personal comfort and general civilisation. Have
not Christians in all ages, since their advent, done the
same thing, when they have had the opportunity ? Layingup treasures on earth, although forbidden by Christ, is
often an effective precaution against starvation, and against
being in old age the slave of charity. But for doing this
very thing the man was told : “ Thou fool, this night thy
soul shall be required of thee ; then whose shall those
things be which thou hast provided ?” (v. 20). Jesus then
said, “ Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your
life, what ye shall eat,” etc. Here we have the prominent
Christian requirement of making the duties of this world
subservient to the demands of a future existence put forth
by one who is claimed as being a model social reformer.
If it is alleged that Christ meant that the man in the parable
should have distributed his fruits and goods rather than
�WAS CHRIST A REFORMER?
23
store them up, the reply is, the account does not say so.
Why did not Christ, instead of making heaven the principal
consideration, point out the evil influence of the monopoly
of wealth upon human society ? The social problems cannot
be solved by indulging in speculations as to another world,
of which we have had no experience. The principle sought
to be enforced in this parable is evidently that the soul is
of more importance than the body, and that heaven is of
greater value than earth. Thoughtlessness of the things of
time is directly encouraged by reference to the ravens :
“ For they neither sow nor reap; which neither have store
house nor barn; and God feedeth them ” (v. 24).
It is worthy of note that Jesus never once intimated
throughout his career, either by direct statement or
illustration, that this world was the noblest and most
desirable dwelling place for man, and that it was the home
of social felicity and mutual happiness. His heart and
home were in his Father’s house, whither he went to
prepare a place for his followers, to whom he gave a
promise that he would come and receive them unto
himself (John xiv. 2, 3). So little did Christ understand
the philosophy of secular reform that when he condemned
covetousness (which was very laudable upon his part) it
was because he thought it interfered with the preparation
for inhabiting “mansions in the skies,” rather than in
consequence of its effects upon homes on earth. He
entirely overlooked the agencies that promote human
comfort. The means that have been employed to produce
and to advance civilisation received from him no matured
consideration. If every word attributed to him had been
left unuttered, not one feature of modern progress would be
missing to-day. Let anyone carefully read, with an
unbiassed mind, the four Gospels, and then ask himself the
questions : What philosophic truth did Jesus propound ?
What scientific fact did he explain ? What social problem
did he solve ? What political scheme did he unfold 1 The
New Testament does not inform us. On the contrary,
while other men, with less pretensions than himself, were
active in giving the world their thoughts upon these great
questions, Jesus remained silent in reference to them. It
is no answer to say that to deal with the subjects was not
his mission. For, if he came simply to talk about another
�24
WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
world, at the sacrifice of the requirements of this, then my
contention is made good that, whatever else he was, he
certainly was no political and social reformer.
It appears to me that the gospel of Christ is a very poor
one for any practical purposes, inasmuch as it never deals
with the material comforts of human beings. It does not
suggest any means by which the poor could obtain that
power by which they could secure the amelioration of their
sad condition. It is not here overlooked that Christ is
credited with saying that those who sought the “Kingdom
of God ” should have food, drink, etc., added unto them
(Luke xii.). But, unfortunately, experience teaches that
such a promise cannot be relied upon, for it is too well
known that many of those persons who occupied much of
their time in seeking the kingdom of God remained
destitute of the necessaries of life. It was during the
prevalence of this superstitious belief, and of an un
reasonable reliance upon Christ, that personal misery and
intellectual sterility prevailed throughout the land. For
many generations the indiscriminate followers of Jesus
failed to give the world any new thought, or to establish
any new political or social institution; and from the
Church nothing of practical secular value emanated during
the fifteen centuries of its uninterrupted reign. This,
however, is not all that can be fairly urged upon this
point. The followers of Christ not only failed to originate
any social scheme for the good of general society them
selves, but they did their utmost to crush those who did.
It appears almost incredible that such persistent efforts
were ever made to extinguish every new thought as those
recorded of Christians, when they had the power to do as
they pleased. New books were despised and destroyed,
and new inventions were said to be the work of the Devil.
True happiness cannot co-exist with physical slavery and
mental serfdom, and yet, it must be repeated, Jesus did
nothing to remove these evils. His apathy towards the
institution of slavery is the more strange if we accept the
authority of Gratz, that Christ was connected with the
Essenes, and that, to some extent, he founded his system
upon theirs. By that community slavery, we are told,
was prohibited ; yet we read that both bond and free were
one in Christ Jesus. Is not this striking evidence that
�WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
25
Jesus had no intention to seek the removal of this inhuman
blot from the history of our race 1
Those persons to-day who desire to establish a relation
ship between Socialism and Christianity dwell with much
persistency upon Christ’s views as to the division of
property. But let us see what are the facts of the case.
Jesus told those who were willing to leave their homes,
families, and lands for his “ sake and the Gospels ”
(Mark x.), that they should receive “an hundredfold” of
each in this world, besides “ eternal life in the world to
come.” Now, this is ridiculous in the extreme ; for what
possible advantage could it be to any one to have his or
her relatives multiplied a hundredfold ? Besides, where
could Christ get either a hundred mothers to replace
every one that had been forsaken, or a hundred acres of
land to compensate for each one that had been given up ?
And even supposing he could do this, what becomes of the
theory of despising landed possessions ? Moreover, if the
smaller number and quantity were a drawback, the larger
must be more so. Further, there is but little self-denial
involved in parting with ten acres of land to secure a
thousand. It is really surprising that the Jews did not
“ catch on ” in this matter. Probably they saw that it
was all a sham, because Christ had no means of keeping
his promise. Where were the houses, land, etc., to come
from ? Evidently Christ had none, for he appears to have
been entirely destitute of all worldly goods, having “ not
where to lay his head” (Matthew viii. 20). Would not
such an augmentation of property be antagonistic to the
principle Jesus taught on another occasion, when he said
“ lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth ”
(Matthew vi.) ? No marvel that his friends thought he
was “beside himself” (Mark iii. 21), or that the Jews
considered “he hath a devil, and is mad” (John x. 20),
and that “ neither did his brethren believe in him ”
(John vii. 5). If any man at the present time dealt with
the question of property in the same way as Christ is here
represented to have done, he would not be regarded as a
social reformer, but rather as a man whose intellect was
far from being brilliant, and whose ideas were exceedingly
confused. Christ’s reply to the high priest, who asked
him the question, “ Art thou the Christ, the Son of the
�26
WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
Blessed?” (Mark xiv. 61), is, to my mind, clear evidence
that he was neither the political nor the social Messiah
that some persons allege him to have been. His reply
was, “ 1 am; and he shall see the son of man sitting on the
right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”
Does not this accord with his statement, “ I am not of the
world,” and “ my kingdom is not of this world ” 1 Should
not this settle at once, as a fact, that the mission of Jesus
was not to be the founder of an earthly government, or
the promoter of a mundane social system ?
As to the idea that Christ will come, as he said, “in the
clouds,” that relates to the future, and has no bearing upon
the present inquiry, the results of which will not be affected
by either the fulfilment or the failure of that prediction.
The question is not what will be, but rather what Christ
did to entitle him to be classified as a secular reformer.
Professor Graham, as we have seen, admits that Christ did
not inaugurate State Socialism, but that he only proposed
a sort of friendly society among Christians themselves. In
doing even this, however, he showed himself sadly defective
in the knowledge necessary to a real reformer. There exists
to-day in this country an old-established Christian sect,
termed Quakers, who keep a common treasury for the
purpose of aiding those of their numbers who are in need.
But, be it observed, they fill their treasury by industry and
the result of laboring “ for the meat which perisheth,” the
very thing that Jesus forbade. The method of the Quakers
is a very charitable one, for it prevents their poorer
members from going to the workhouse, or from begging in
the streets, as other Christians are so often forced to do.
They are enabled, by this plan'of industry and of “ taking
thought for the morrow,” to preserve their dignity and
self-respect, and to receive all the advantages of assistance
without being branded as paupers, who have to forfeit
many rights in consequence of their poverty. This scheme
of mutual aid is not based upon Christ’s advice to “ forsake
all,’’.under the insane idea that they will be kept alive, upon
the same principle that the ravens and the lilies of the field
are; on the contrary, among the Quakers all who can both
“toil and spin.” Jesus, in his method, counselled no sort
of thrift, nor made any provision for the time of need.
There is no record, that I am aware of, that any society of
�WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
27
men ever lived upon help from heaven without labor, and
due care being taken for the requirements of life. Certainly
such a society does not exist in “ Christian England.”
The burden of Christ’s preaching was, “ Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand.” What was meant by this
kingdom it is rather difficult to decide, for it is variously
described in the Gospels. It is certain, however, that,
whether it signified the reign of peace and justice on
earth, or the appearance of Jesus “in the clouds,” neither
event has taken place up to date, although Christ said that
in his time the kingdom was “ at hand.” In Luke (xvii. 21)
it is stated “ the kingdom of God is within you ”; but that
does not quite harmonise with the description given of it
in Matthew (xiii. 47-50), where it is alleged that the
kingdom of heaven is “ like unto a net that was cast into
the sea,” which, when full, had the good of its contents
retained, and the bad cast away. “ So shall it be at the
end of the world,” when the angels are to “ sever the wicked
from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace
of fire : there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
Now, if this refers to a condition upon earth, it is not a
very happy one. And in neither case is there any light
thrown upon the rational conduct of men, either politically or
socially. Besides, the repeated references made by Christ
to the approaching end of all earthly institutions render
the idea of his being a reformer of this world altogether
meaningless. The termination of mundane affairs was to
occur in the presence of those to whom Jesus was speaking
(Matthew xvi. 28). Whatever other texts may be cited to
the contrary, the meaning here is clear, that no opportunity
was to be given, and no provisions made, to reform the
political and social conditions of earth. Let any one read
the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, and try to harmonise
the declarations there ascribed to Christ with the belief that
his mission was to reform the world, and the impossibility
of the task will soon be evident. True, in Matthew (xxv.)
works of utility are required to secure a place at the
“right hand” of God. But what does this involve?
Uniformity of belief (Mark xvi. 16), and only the relief,
not the cure, of poverty. No scheme was even hinted at
by Christ whereby the great army of the poor and
depraved should be impossible. He was inferior to the
�28
WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
French philosopher, who aimed at providing a condition of
society wherein men should be neither depraved nor poor.
To put the matter concisely, what are the factors of
political and social progress ? Briefly, they are these:
The cultivation of the intellect, the extension of physical
and mental freedom, the recognition and the application of
the principle of justice and liberty to all members of the
community, regardless of their belief or non-belief in
theology, the knowledge and application of science and
art, the organisation of labor and the proper cultivation of
the soil, the possession of political power, the under
standing of the true value and use of wealth, and, finally,
the persistent study of, and the constant struggling against,
the numerous evils, wrongs, and injustice that now rob life
of its comforts and real worth. These are the agencies
that all men, who claim to be political and social reformers,
should support and cultivate. Not one of these originated
with Jesus, and throughout his career he never availed
himself of these essentials of all progress. Thus, to
designate him as the great social redeemer is entirely
unjustifiable. His very mode of living was the opposite to
that of a practical reformer. He was an ascetic, and
avoided as much as possible the turmoil of public life,
from which he might have learnt something of what was
necessary to adjust the social relations. Prayer, not work,
was his habit. In the day, and at night, would he retire
to the solitude of the mountain, and there pray to his
father (Luke vi. 12 and xxi. 37). So far did he believe in
the efficacy of supplications to God that he frequently told
his disciples that whatever they asked of his father he
would grant the request (Matthew xviii. 19 ; xxi. 22;
John xvi. 23). That this was a delusion is clear from the
fact that he prayed himself for the unity of Christendom,
that his followers might be one (John xvii. 21); yet from
his time down to the present divisions have always existed
among Christians. He distinctly promised that “What
soever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do” (John
xiv. 13, 14). Relying upon this, the Church for centuries
has been asking that unbelief should cease, and yet we find
it more extensive to-day than it ever was. The lesson
learnt from experience is, that all reforms are the result of
active work, not the outcome of prayerful meditations.
�WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
29
With all these drawbacks in the character of Jesus, it is
to me marvellous how he can be accepted as a model for us
in the present age. But thousands of his devotees insist
upon claiming him as their Ideal, although they cannot
regulate their conduct by such a standard. Such persons
overlook the fact that, if the better parts of an Ideal are
marred by that which is erroneous and impracticable, it is
comparatively useless as a guide in life. That Christ’s
alleged teachings are so marred the Gospels amply testify.
His conduct, on several occasions, was such as his
followers would not attempt to emulate to-day. Such, for
instance, as his treatment of his parents (Luke ii. 43-49 ;
John ii. 4); his cursing of the fig-tree (Matthew xxi. 18, 19);
his driving the money changers from the temple with “ a
scourge of small cards ” (John ii. 15); his possession of an
ass and a colt, which evidently did not belong to him, and
riding upon both of them into Jerusalem (Matthew xxi.
2-11); his expletives to the Pharisees (Luke xi. 37-44); his
breaking up the peace of the domestic circle (Matthew x.
34-36).
Judged by the New Testament, Christ was certainly not
“The Light of the World,” for he revealed nothing of
practical value, and he taught no virtues that were before
unknown. No doubt in his life, supposing he ever lived,
there were many commendable features; but he was far
from being perfect. While he might have been wellmeaning, he was in belief superstitious, in conduct
inconsistent, in opinions contradictory, in teaching arbi
trary, in knowledge deficient, in faith vacillating, and in
pretensions great. He taught false notions of existence,
had no knowledge of science; he misled his followers by
claiming to be what he was not, and he deceived himself
by his own credulity. He lacked experimental force,
frequently living a life of isolation, and taking but slight
interest in the affairs of this world. It is this lack of
experimental force throughout the career of Christ that
renders his notions of domestic duties so thoroughly
imperfect. The happiness of a family, according to his
teaching, was to be impaired before his doctrines could be
accepted. So far as we know, he was never a husband or a
father ; and he did not aspire to be a statesman, a man of
science, or a politician.
Now, a person who lacks
�30
WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
experience in these phases of life is not in the best
position to give practical and satisfactory lessons thereon.
Even in the conditions of life he is said to have filled, this
“ Light of the World ” failed to exhibit any high degree of
excellence, discrimination, or manly courage. As a son, he
lacked affection and consideration for the feelings of his
parents. As a teacher, he was mystical and rude; and as a
reasoner, he was defective and illogical. Lacking a true
method of reasoning, possessing no uniformity of character,
Christ exhibited a strange example—an example injudicious
to exalt and dangerous to emulate. At times he was
severe when he should have been gentle. When he might
have reasoned he frequently rebuked. When he ought to
have been firm and resolute he was vacillating. When he
should have been happy he was sorrowful and desponding.
After preaching faith as the one thing needful, he himself
lacked it when he required it the most. Thus, on the cross,
when a knowledge of a life of integrity, a sensibility of the
fulfilment of a good mission, a conviction that he was
dying for a good and righteous cause, and fulfilling the
object of his life—when all these should have given him
moral strength, we find him giving vent to utter despair.
So overwhelmed was he with grief and anxiety of mind
that he “began to be sorrowful and very heavy.” “My
soul,” he exclaimed, “ is sorrowful even unto death.” At
last, overcome with grief, he implores his father to rescue
him from the death which was then awaiting him.
Christ is paraded as the one redeemer of the world, but
his system lacks such essentials of all reform as worldly
ambition, and reliance upon the human power of regenera
tion. If we lament the poverty and wretchedness we
behold, we are told by Christians that “the poor shall
never cease out of the land.” If we seek to remove the
sorrow and despair existing around us, we are reminded
that they were “ appointed curses to the sons of Adam.”
If we work to improve our condition, we are taught that
we should remain “in that state of life in which it has
pleased God to call us.” When we endeavor to improve
our minds and to cultivate our intellects, we are informed
that “ we are of ourselves unable to do any good thing.”
If we seek to promote the happiness of others, we are
assured that “ faith in Christ is of more importance than
�WAS CHRIST A REFORMER 1
31
labor for man.” We to-day have but a vague idea of the
extent of the influence such teachings once exercised over
the minds of those who believed them. These teachings
have permeated the minds of orthodox Christians, stifling
their reason and perverting their judgment, till they
cherish the delusion that the reasonings of philosophers,
the eloquence of poets, and the struggles of patriots are
all worse than useless unless purified by the “ Spirit of
Christ.” It is such delusions which foster the erroneous
and retarding belief that every thought which does not
aspire to the throne of Christ, every action which is not
sanctioned by him, and every motive which does not
proceed from a love for him should be discouraged as
antagonistic to our real progress in life.
It is contended by some that, although Christ did not
give detailed remedies for existing evils, he taught
“ general principles ” which would, if acted upon, prove a
panacea for the wrongs of life. This was not so, for his
“general principles” lacked the saving power that was
desired. What were those “ principles ” as laid down in
the Gospels ? So far as they can be understood, they were
as follows: Absolute trust in God ; implicit belief in
himself; reliance upon the prayer of supplication; disregard
of the world; taking no anxious thought for the morrow ;
encouragement of poverty, and contempt of riches;
obedience to the law of the Old Testament; neglect of
home and families; non-resistance of evil; that persecution
in this world and punishment in some other would follow
the rejection of Christianity; and that sickness was caused
by the possession of devils. These are among the leading
“ principles ” taught by Christ; and, if they were acted
upon, there would be an end of all progress, harmony, and
self-reliance.
But even if the “general principles”
propounded by Jesus were good, that would not be enough
to make him the greatest reformer. It is necessary, in
addition to knowing what is to be done, to have the
knowledge of how it is to be done. And this is just what
Jesus has not taught us. Principles do not aid progress
unless they can be applied ; and, whatever value his
teachings may have as matters of belief, they are incapable
of application in the great cause of political and social
advancement in the nineteenth century.
�32
WAS CHRIST A REFORMER ?
Judged from the Secular standpoint, the real redeemers
of the world are those who study the great facts of
nature, learning her secrets, and revealing her power and
value to the human family. While Christ devoted himself
to the mysteries of theology, such reformers as Copernicus,
Galileo, Bruno, and subsequently Newton, Locke, Darwin,
and a host of other servants of humanity, endeavored
to the best of their ability to ascertain the truths of
existence, and to vindicate the principle of freedom.
Copernicus and his immediate successors redeemed the
world from errors which for ages had been nursed by the
Church; Locke based his philosophy upon knowledge, not
upon the faiths of theology; Newton contended that' the
universe was regulated by natural law, not by supernatural
power; and Darwin exploded the Bible error of creation.
These redeemers rescued mankind from the burden of
ignorance and superstition that had so long prevented the
recognition of truth and the advancement of knowledge.
Shakespeare contributed more to the enlightenment of the
human race than Christ was capable of doing; Darwin far
surpassed St. Paul in bringing to view the great forces of
nature, and the Freethought heroes and martyrs aided the
emancipation of intellect to a far higher degree than either
the “Carpenter of Nazareth ” or the whole of his followers.
The power that has enabled these secular redeemers of the
world to achieve their glorious results was found, not in
perplexing theologies, but in the principles of Science and
Liberty—the true saviors of men.
�
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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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Was Christ a political and social reformer?
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Notes: Date of publication from Cooke, Bill. The blasphemy depot. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Watts, Charles, 1836-1906
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[1895]
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Jesus Christ
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Christianity
Jesus Christ
politics
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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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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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Title
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The virgin birth and the gospel of the infancy
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Martindale, C. C. (Cyril Charlie)
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Publication details from KVK (OCLC WorldCat). Some of the text on the first page has been torn away and rewritten by hand.
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Catholic Truth Society
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[1911]
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RA1549
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Jesus Christ
Bible
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The virgin birth and the gospel of the infancy), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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English
Bible. N.T. Gospels
Jesus Christ
Virgin Birth
-
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THE TRUE TEMPTATION
OF JESUS.
BY
PROFESSOR F. W. NEWMAN.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
Price Sixpence.
�TURNBULL AND SPEARS; PRINTERS, EDINBURGH
�THE TBUE TEMPTATION OF JESUS.
VERY one who has opened the New Testament is
aware that in the first and third Gospel a
remarkable story is found (alluded to also in the
second Gospel) in which the devil is represented to
have assailed Jesus with three special temptations,
and to have been repelled by quotation of Old Testa
ment texts. That it is impossible to maintain the
literal truth of this account has been reluctantly con
ceded by writers, who, like the author of “ Ecce
Homo,” are wholly unconcerned to ascertain when,
where, by whom, and with what means of knowledge,
these narratives were penned. Those who desire to
save their credit, try to rid them of a damaging burden
by declaring this scene to be allegorical. No spectator
is pretended. The idea that Jesus communicated
such inward trials to his disciples is contrary to
everything which is reported concerning his char
acter: for he is everywhere represented as wholly
uncommunicative, self-contained, more or less
mysterious, and moving in a separate region of
thought and feeling from the disciples. Evidently
this story does but express the opinion of the first
Christians, while Jesus was as yet believed to be only
human, that he, as others, must have had a struggle
against temptations, and therefore, against the devil.
It is not here intended to point out what is plain of
itself, that none of the temptations are worthy of the
acumen attributed to the experienced and wily Satan;
E
�6
The True Temptation of fesus.
and are merely puerile in fiction, whether Jesus be
imagined as the Second Person of the Divine Trinity,
or merely as a great and holy, but human prophet.
Here I intend to give prominence to that which I
believe to be the fundamental trial of a religious
reformer, especially when he attains great ascendancy
and commands high veneration. But first I must
say, I shall be truly sorry, if any Trinitarian read
these pages, and find himself wounded. I do not
address him. I argue on the assumption that Jesus
was subject to human limitations like all the rest of
us, and that it is our duty to criticize him and the
story of him, if it be of sufficient importance.
AV hat are the temptations of the prophet, can be no
secret in the present day: we see them in the
ordinary life of the admired preacher. To be run
after by a multitude, to be ministered to by fascinated
ladies, to see grey-haired men submissively listening
and treasuring up words,—easily puffs a young
preacher into self-conceit. In one who has too much
strong sense to be drawn into light vanity, fresh and
fresh success inspires, first, the not unreasonable hope
or belief that he is fulfilling a great work, and is
chosen for it by God, (not for his own merit, but be
cause, if a work is to be done, some one must be
chosen for it); next, an undue confidence in the truth
and weight of his own utterances, an extravagant
conviction that whoever resists his word, impugns
God’s truth, and makes himself the enemy of God.
In the denunciations of Luther against Zuingle, his
own wiser and more temperate coadjutor, in the
vehemences of John Knox, in the cruelty of Calvin
to Servetus, we see variously developed the same
dangerous tendency. If we cast the eye eastward,
to more illiterate nations, to those accustomed to
revere the hermit and the semi-savage as akin to the
prophet, to peoples whose homage expresses itself by
prostration, we see the tendency of the prophet to
�The True Temptation of Jesus.
7
assume a regal and dictatorial mien even in the garb
of a half naked Bedouin. Many an eastern monk or
prophet, Syrian, Persian, or Indian, has been obeyed
as a prince; some have been attended on by large
armies : to some the native king has paid solemn
obeisance. In ancient Greece, where philosophy
overtopped religion, ascetic philosophers have been
accepted as plenipotentiary legislators; in which, no
doubt, we see portrayed, on a small scale, the legis
lative influence of a Buddha, a Confucius, or a
Zoroaster. When an Indian prophet found it natural
for multitudes to kneel to him or to prostrate them
selves, how hard must it have been to accept such
homage and retain a sense of human equality! how
hard not to think it reasonable that others bow down,
and unreasonable that any stand up and argue with
the prophet as his equal!
In the Gospels and Acts the habit of prostration
among these nations is sufficiently indicated; and we
see how it is resented (according to the narrative) by
Peter. When Cornelius falls at Peter’s feet and does
homage (certainly intending respect only, not divine
worship), Peter regards it. as quite unbecoming from
a man to a man. But Jesus is represented as accept
ing such homage without the least hesitation, and
apparently with approval. The cases are not few,
nor confined to any one narrative. Matt. viii. 2,
“ There came a leper and worshipped him.” Matt,
ix. 18, “There came a certain ruler and worshipped
him.” Matth. xiv. 33, “ They worshipped him, say
ing, Of a truth thou art the [or a] Son of God.”
Matt. xv. 25, “Then came the woman and
worshipped him, saying, Lord! help me.” On this
Jesus comments approvingly, “ 0 woman, great is
thy faith.” Matt. xvii. 14, “There came a certain
man, kneeling down to him and saying, Lord ! have
mercy on my son ! ” Matt. xx. 20, “ There came
the mother of Zebedee’s children, worshipping him,”
�8
The True Temptation of fesus.
Matt, xxviii. 9, “ They held him by the feet and wor
shipped him—this is after the resurrection, thereby
differing in kind from the rest. The same remark
applies to verse 17. We have substantially the same
fact in Mark i. 40; v. 6, 22, 33 ; vii. 25 ; x. 17. In
the last passage the rich young man kneels to Jesus: he
was not so represented in Matt. xix. 6. Luke v. 8,
“ Simon Peter fell down at Jesus’ knees.” Luke v.
12, “A man full of leprosy fell on his face, and be
sought Jesus.” In Luke vii. an account is given,
perhaps not at all authentic. A woman is repre
sented to bathe the feet of Jesus with her tears, and
wipe them dry with her long hair, and after that,
anoint them with ointment and kiss his feet inces
santly. Jesus, according to the narrative, highly
applauds her conduct, and avows that “ therefore,, her
sins, which are many, are forgiven.” Such conduct
on his part is far above criticism, if he was either a
person of the Divine Trinity, or a superhuman being,
who existed before all worlds and all angels, being
himself the beginning of the creation of God. I can
not doubt that the writer, called Luke, believed Jesus
to be superhuman, and therefore found no impro
priety in the conduct here imputed to him; but I
do not understand how any one who regards him as
a human being, can fail to censure him in the
strongest terms, if he believe this account. As I see
special grounds for doubting it, (inasmuch as it looks
like a re-making of the story reported in Matt,
xxvi. 6-13, which it exaggerates), I lay no stress upon
it: but even in that other account there is a selfcomplacency hardly commendable in a mere man.
Again, in Luke viii. 20, we read, “the woman fell
down before him.” She does not fall down in
Matt. ix. 22; therefore, here also the story may
have been “ improved ” by credulity. But it is need
less to follow this topic further. Suffice it to say,
that though we do not know exactly how much to
�The True Temptation of Jesus.
9
believe, though we have frequent reason to suspect
exaggeration, yet the narratives all consistently
represent Jesus to have received complacently an
unmanly and degrading submission from his followers,
such as no apostle would have endured for a moment;
and it is hard to believe that such reports could have
gained currency, with no foundation at all. If, there
fore, we are to criticize Jesus on the belief that he
was man, and not God, nor a superhuman spirit, we
must admit, I think, that a real and dangerous
temptation beset him in this matter. He was prone
to take pleasure in seeing men and women profound
in their obeisance, prostrate in mind and soul before
his superior greatness ;—for prostration of the body
brings satisfaction to pride, only as it denotes
prostration of soul. It is difficult, with these narra
tives before us, to think that Jesus took to himself
that precept which Peter gives to the elders, that
they be not lords over God’s heritage, but be subject
one to another, and clothed with humility, that they
may be ensamples to the flock. Indeed, unless we
utterly throw away all the narratives, it is hardly too
much to say, that this is the very opposite to the
portrait of Jesus. If we will accept the theory that
he was superhuman, we can justify his immeasurable
assumption of superiority; but the fact remains, that
in places, too many to reject, he puts himself forward
as “ lord over God’s heritage.”
Two classes of facts, presented in the narratives,
must be carefully separated. The former is the
general superiority asserted by Jesus for himself;
the latter, is the special assumption of Messianic dig
nity. On the latter, there is notoriously an irrecon
cilable diversity of the fourth gospel from the rest.
The writer of the fourth, unquestionably ascribing to
Jesus pre-existence with God in some mysterious
way, and sonship in a sense perfectly unique, repre
sents his Messiahship as notorious to John the
�io
The True Temptation of^Jesus.
Baptist, to Andrew and Philip, from the very begin
ning, says it was avowed by Nathanael (whoever
this was), and preached by Jesus to Nicodemus
and to the woman of Samaria. All this is in so
flat contradiction to the three first gospels, that
nothing historical can be made out of the account;
and in trying to attain a true picture of Jesus, I
necessarily set aside the fourth gospel as a mischie
vous romance.—Nevertheless, the element which I
call an assumption of general superiority, is as com
plete and persistent in the three first gospels as in
the fourth.
Keshub Chunder Sen entitles it “ a sublime
egotism” in Jesus, to say, “Come unto me, and I
will give you rest: take my yoke upon you, and
learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in spirit.”
Yet if Luther, or John Knox, or Wesley had said it,
we should adduce it in proof that he was eminently
lacking in that very grace,—lowliness of spirit,—for
which he was commending himself. But is this the
only egotism ascribed to him in Matthew ? Nay,
but in the celebrated beatitudes of the sermon on
the Mount, which some esteem the choice flower and
prime of the precepts of Jesus, he winds up with,
“ Blessed are ye when men shall speak evil against
you falsely for my sake.” He does not say “for
righteousness’ sake,” if the narrative can be trusted.
The discourse continues like itself to the end, for in
the close he says : “ Many shall say to me in that
day, Lord ! Lord ! have we not prophesied in thy
name, .... and then will I profess unto them, I
never knew you : depart from me, ye that work
iniquity.” This is, it may be said, a very energetic
way of declaring, that no pretence of following in his
train as a prophet could compensate for personal
iniquity. As such we may accept it: but it remains
clear, that he is claiming for himself a position
above the human; such as no beauty or truth of teach-
�The True Temptation of fesus.
11
ing could ever commend, as rightful from men to a
man, to the conscience of those reared in the schools
of modern science : while of course, if he claimed to
be higher than man, the first reasonable necessity,
and therefore his first duty, was to exhibit the
proofs of supernatural knowledge and authority.
Undoubtedly, the alternative lies open of disbelieving
the Evangelist. It may be urged, that the text
represents Jesus as also saying that in his name
they will claim to have cast out devils and done
many wonderful works; but that this is an exaggera
tion belonging to a later time, and so therefore
may the pretensions be, with which it is coupled.
Well; so be it: let us then look further.
According to Matt. ix. 6, Jesus claimed power
to forgive sin ; he brought on himself rebuke for it,
but proceeded to justify himself by working a miracle.
Whence did his disciples get the idea of his advancing
such extravagances, if really he did not go farther
than his disciples James and John? Presently after,
he is represented as preaching that he is the bride
groom of the Church, in whose presence the disciples
cannot mourn, and therefore ought not to fast; but
that when he is taken away, then they will fast.
How very peculiar and strange a sentiment to invent
for him, if it was not uttered ! Does it not rather
seem to have the stamp of individualism and truth,
thoroughly as it is in harmony with the tales of his
rejoicing to see men and women kneel before him ?
Next when Jesus sends out twelve disciples to say,
“ The kingdom of heaven is at hand,” he is repre
sented to assert, that it shall be more tolerable for
Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than
for the house or city which has not received his
messenger. Surely, if any one were now to knock
at our house door with such a formula of words, and
on the strength of it expect to be accepted with the
honours of a prophet, only the weak-minded would
�12
The True Temptation of Jesus.
give him pleasant reception. Yet no ground what
ever appears for believing that there was anything
•to accredit such messengers then, any more than now :
certainly nothing more appears in the narrative,
which quite consistently everywhere holds, that
Jesus regarded the non-reception of his messengers as
a super-eminent guilt, merely because it was he who
sent them.
When it is added, “ ye shall be hated of all men
for my name's sake," we are perhaps justified in
esteeming that prediction as an after-invention of
popular credulity. But in the same discourse (Matt,
x. 23) we alight for the first time on the remarkable
phrase, “ The Son of Man,” afterwards indisputably
applied by Jesus to himself. “ Ye shall not have
gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man
he come.” No one but Jesus himself ever calls him
the Son of Man. Whatever he then meant, the
book puts into his mouth yet more of sublime
•egotism. “Whosoever shall confess me before men,”
x(says he), “ him will I confess before my Father which
is in heaven : but whosoever shall deny me before
men, him will I also deny before my Father which is
heaven. He that loseth his life for my sake shall
find it. He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he
that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent me.”
Certainly, when we begin to pare down these utter
ances, and try to reduce them to something that
would not be highly offensive in James or Paul, we
seem in danger of cutting away so much that is
characteristic, as to impair all confidence in what
remains. But unless we are bound to reject the
pervading colour of the narrative, I feel it not too
much to say, that in a mere man, the self-exaltation
approaches to impiety. What can it concern any
of us, that his brother-man should “deny him” before
our common Father? How suddenly would the
honour which we felt for a preacher be turned into
�The True Temptation of fesus.
13
grief and disappointment, or even indignation, if
we heard him to say, “ Blessed is he, whoever shall
not be offended in me!” He would fall in our
esteem, from the highest pinnacle to a very low
place, nor could any pretence of “ sublime egotism ”
save him.
In the same chapter in which the last words occur
(Matt, xi.) the Evangelist goes on into language not
dissimilar to that of the fourth gospel. “ All things
are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man
knoweth the Son but the Father: neither knoweth
any man the Father save the Son; and he to whom
soever the Son will reveal him.” When it is
considered that, although the nucleus of this gospel
probably existed before the first century was ended,
we have absolutely no guarantee that the text was
finally settled, as we now have it, much before the
time of Irenaeus, toward the close of the second
century; no one has a right to be very confident that
this passage, so strongly smacking of the doctrines
which won ascendancy in that century, was not intro
duced at a later time. Perhaps the more reasonable
course here, is to strike out verse 27, (about the Son
and the Father) as foisted upon Jesus by a later
generation. What then shall be said of the words
which follow, already quoted, “ Come unto me, take
my yoke on you, and I will give you rest?” I can
accept them, if he is God, or a pre-existing Mighty
Spirit. I cannot accept them if he was only man : I
then do not entitle them sublime at all, but some
thing else.
Something or other to the same effect is for ever
cropping up in this narrative of Matthew, which I
purposely take as giving a more human representation
of Jesus than Luke or J ohn. He is presently reported
to say (Matt. xii. 6), “ In this place is one greater
than the temple............... the Son of Man is Lord even
of the Sabbath day.” Unless his words have been
�14
The True Temptation of fesus.
monstrously distorted, he intended to assert that he
was himself the Son of Man spoken of by Daniel the
Prophet, that he was personally greater than the
temple, and was Lord even of the Sabbath-day.
Will any one say, that Jesus merely claimed the
right possessed by every man to interpret the law of
the Sabbath by the dictates of good sense, and that
he regarded every pious man as greater than a temple
built of stone; and that the egotistic form of his
utterance was an accident ? In that case it certainly
was a highly unfortunate accident, and we may add, an
accident often repeated, which generated in his dis
ciples a veneration for him too great for humanity.
But accident so systematic is surely no accident at
all. If a good man who makes no pretensions is
worshipped as a god after his death, he is guiltless :
but if a man be worshipped as a god, who has
made enormous personal pretensions,—and if a
decisive weight in the argument for worshipping
him is, that he has left us no choice between
worship and reprobation, can one who regards
the superhuman claims untenable, doubt that self
exaltation and monstrous vanity was a deplorable
foible in the prophet ? I find only two ways of
avoiding the disagreeable inference : (1), by the
theory of Paul, or some higher theory; (2.) by so
rejecting all our accounts of his doctrine and miracles
alike as untrustworthy, that nothing is left us to
trust at all, nothing on which a faithful picture of
Jesus can be founded.
From beginning to end the narrative has but one
colour as regards the self-exaltation of Jesus. Matt,
xii., “Behold! a greater than Solomon is here.”
Matt, xiii., “ Many prophets and righteous men have
desired to see the things which ye see, and hear the
things which ye hear. Blessed are your eyes, for
they see; and your ears, for they hear.” And what
was this so precious instruction ? the Parable of the
�The True Temptation of'Jesus.
15
Sower ! Surely no sober-minded person can esteem
this so highly above all the teaching of Hebrew
sages.
But I pass to a new topic in the sixteenth chapter
of Matthew,—the anger of Jesus, when he is asked
for a sign from heaven. He replies by calling the
persons who asked him hypocrites, when evidently,
according to the notions of that age and nation, it
was a most reasonable and proper request. In fact,
the narratives elsewhere represent him as giving
them miraculous signs, which are signs from heaven,
in abundance; insomuch that, if he had been repre
sented as here appealing to these signs, and alleging
that these very persons had already witnessed them
plentifully, his imputation of hypocrisy might have
seemed natural. But that is not his line of argument.
He says : “ A wicked, and adulterous generation seeketh
after a sign,” as though the desire itself were wicked
ness, “ and there shall no sign be given unto it, but
the sign of the prophet Jonas.” And he left them
and departed. Such words refuse a sign not to the
individual only, but to the generation. Are we then
to believe that he consistently repudiated all pretence
of working miracle ? that he esteemed the desire of
seeing a miracle wrought, in confirmation of his pre
eminent claims, to be such a fatuous absurdity, that
he had a right to heap contumelious epithets on the
head of any one who asked for it ? In favour of
this opinion, appeal may be made to the epistles of
Paul, who does not betray any knowledge whatever
that Jesus had wrought miracles. Let us tentatively
adopt this view. Then, first, what a heap of gross
misrepresentation is put before us in all four narratives
if Jesus not only never affected to work miracles,
but even vehemently flouted the idea itself and
rebuked those who desired it. Next, it will follow
that no justification of his high pretensions was
even attempted by him, and therefore no denuncia-
�16
The True Temptation of Jesus.
tion of men for neglect of him was reasonable. It
follows that those resolved to justify him must cut
out all his denunciations likewise. Who will write
for us an expurgated gospel, to let us know what
was the true Jesus ? Who will convince us, that
a history thus garbled can ever be truly recovered,
or deserves our intent study ?
In the same chapter of Matthew (the sixteenth)
the momentous question is proposed to his disciples,
“ Whom say ye that I am ']'” According to the
narrative, he first gave them the hint, what to reply,
by a leading question, “ Whom do men say that I, the
Son of Man, am ? ” but perhaps that is only a stupid
exaggeration of the narrator, who did not see what
it would imply. Let us then drop this portion of the
words.
He feels his way cautiously with the
disciples, and sounds them. Simon Peter replies,
“ Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
Again I ask, Is this narrative grossly and delusively
false ? or may we trust a vague outline ? According
to it, Jesus is lifted by the reply into a most exalted
state, “ Blessed art thou, Simon son of Jonas,” says
he, ££ for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto
thee, but my Father which is in heaven............... I
will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven*
and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be
bound in heaven, .... &c.” After this outburst,
what is it that we read as a consequence ? “ Then
charged he his disciples that they should tell no man
that he was Jesus the Christ.”
It seems utterly irrational and unworthy alike of
* Any one who doubts whether Jesus ever uttered such
words, may fortify the doubt by opining that the words
have got into the gospel from Rev. iii. 7, where nevertheless
Jesus, so far from giving the “power of the keys ” to any
apostle, retains the power strictly in his own hand. The
words in Rev. iii. 7, are borrowed from Isaiah xxii. 22,
which have no reference to Messiah at all, according to any
scientific interpretation,
�The True Temptation of fetus.
17
the most High God and of his specially anointed
Prophet (if one special Prophet was indeed so
promised), that Messiah should come into his
nation,—should expect subjection of mind from all
around,—should haughtily evade, instead of enlight
ening, those who mildly inquired into his claims to
authority; finally, should sedulously preserve his
incognito, and forbid his disciples to tell that he was
Messiah. Men may be either convinced or com
manded. To convince them you must kindly and can
didly answer their difficulties, and allow them to argue
against you; you must meet their questions as plainly
and honestly as possible, not browbeat or threaten
the interrogators, nor marvel over their unbelief and
stupidity. You must descend in the argument on
to a perfect level with the man whom you desire to
convince, and entirely lay aside all airs of authority,
even if you have authority. That is one course of
proceeding; but it is the very opposite of that
imputed to Jesus. But if men are to be commanded,
if submission is to be required of them, you must
make some display of power.* In that case you
seek to convince them, not that a precept is wise, or
a doctrine is true, but that you, its enunciator, have
a special right of dictation, drawing after it in the
hearer a special duty of submission. Of course, those
with whom the idea of miracles is inadmissible, do not
ask for signs from heaven; not the lessmustthey justify
the countrymen of Jesus in requiring from him some
credentials, when he claimed submission and used a
dictatorial tone. If the nation believed miracles to
be the marks of Messiah, and was in error, it
* Men of science appeal to power as an argument why
they should be believed, when want of leisure or talents
forbid the mastering of their arguments : thus Astronomers
appeal to their fore-knowledge of eclipses, and their power of
finding the longitude by their tables ; Electricians appeal to
the telegraph, and so on.
�18
The True Temptation of fesus.
belonged to Messiah to unteach them the error,
and, as one aware of their folly, to take precautions
lest miracles be imputed to him. Surely it was
quite unjustifiable, to require submission from Priests
and Pharisees, yet exhibit to them no credentials what
ever of the mighty function with which he was
invested. If words dropping from the mouth of
Messiah were divine commands, which it was impious
to dispute, nothing could supersede the public an
nunciation of his office, and the display of his
credentials, whatever they might be. No evasions
are here endurable, on the ground of the political
danger to be incurred, or the propriety of giving
insufficient proof in order to try people’s “ faith.”
To say that political danger forbade, is to say that
God sent Messiah insufficiently prepared for his work,
and afraid to assume His functions publicly. As to
trying “ faith ” by insufficient proof, nothing can be
less rightful or more pernicious. If the proof ad
duced be of the right kind and appropriate, it cannot
be excessive, but may be defective; and if defective,
it is a cruel trap, as if designed to lead honesty astray.
The only plausibility in this notion rises from con
fusion of truths which we ought to see by light from
within, with truths which can only be established
from without. No man can know by his inward
faculties that a Messiah is promised from heaven,
nor what will be the external marks of Messiah.
False Messiahs had already come. To accept lightly
any one as Messiah was the height of imprudence, and
certainly could not be commended as pious. Under
such circumstances, to dissemble Messiahship, and
work upon susceptible minds by giving them evidence
necessarily imperfect, was conduct rather to be
imputed to a devil, than to a prophet from God, if
done with serious intent. Those who defend it,
plead that the evidence was moral, and did not need
external proofs. If so, on the one hand full freedom
�The True Temptation of'Jesus.
19
of investigation was needed, not authority and brow
heating ; on the other, this alleges external proof to
be worse than superfluous,—to be in fact misleading;
so that to plead for its “ insufficiency” as a needful
trial of faith is a gross error. If external evidence
was wholly inappropriate, the producing of that
which you concede to be insufficient does but tend to
confuse ■ and mislead the simple-hearted, and cause
unbelief in the strong-headed. But if external evi
dence is admissible and appropriate at all for faith
to rest upon, then it ought to be in quantity and
quality sufficient to make the faith reasonable and
firm. If only internal light is to the purpose of
faith, and external evidence was not wanted for
Messiah, then neither was an authoritative Messiah
wanted at all; that is, a teacher to whom we should
submit without conviction; then it was right to
claim that Messiah would convince by argument and
reply to questions; would invite question or opposi
tion, not dictate and threaten; then we have to
sweep away the greater part of the four Gospels as a
false representation of Messiah. Whatever else may
have been true, one thing is certainly false;—that
God sent a special messenger to teach authoritatively,
and that the messenger thus sent forbade his disciples
to publish his character and claims.
From narratives so disfigured by false representa
tion, as every one is obliged to confess them, who
does not believe the miracles, and seeks to defend
Jesus by remoulding the accounts of Him ; how can
any one be blamed for despairing to arrive at accurate
and sound knowledge concerning his character and
teaching? What right has any one to expect to
recover lost history, or to think worse of his brother
if he regard the effort to be waste time ? Yet if I
were to say, I seem to myself to know nothing of Jesus,
I should speak untruly; for in the midst of the obscurity
and the inconsistencies of the narratives, there are
�20
’The True Temptation of Jesus.
some things unvarying, many things very hard to in
vent, and others unlikely to be invented, yet easily
admitting explanation, if we reason about Jesus as
we do about every other public teacher or reformer.
The details of doctrine are often untrustworthy, but
the current, the broad tendencies, the style and tone
of the teacher, seem to have made too strong an
impression to be lost, though round them has been
gathered a plentiful accretion of mistake and fable.
In outline we must say that the first peculiarity of the
preacher was, that he did not comment upon the law
and prophets, but spoke dictatorially, dogmatically,
as with authority—a thing quite right and proper,
while only moral truth is taught, which makes appeal
to the conscience of the hearer. But the Jews,
accustomed like the modern English to nothing but
comment and deduction from a sacred book, were
apt to enquire of Jesus by what right he spoke so
confidently, and paid so little deference to the learned.
On one occasion he is said to have given a very fair
reply, to the effect that they had listened to the
preaching of John the Baptist, without asking his
authority: “If John might preach to you dogmati
cally, why may not 12 ” was the substance of that
argument. But it is clear that, numbers of honest
sincere Jews, impressed by the moral weight in these
preachings, had begun to inquire whether this was
not a renewal of divine prophecy, whether divine
prophets must not have some recognizable note of
their mission, other than the influence of their doc
trine on the human conscience; whether, in fine,
Jesus might not be the expected Messiah. This was
a very anxious question, especially since delusive
Messiahs had appeared; but it was a question that
Jews were sure to make, and the three narratives
before us, defective as they are, persuade me that it •
was made, both in private talk, and in direct interro
gation to Jesus.
Now if we accept to the full the traditional Jewish
�The True Temptation of fesus.
21
belief of what Messiah was to be, (which falls short
of the dignity ascribed to him by Christians),
it is incredible that after commencing his public
functions he should remain ignorant of his being
Messiah, or need confirmation from his disciples or
from others. But if Jesus had little trust in learned
Rabbis or traditional doctrine, he may have had a
very vague and imperfect belief as to what Messiah
was to be; and the idea that he himself was Messiah
may not have at all occurred to him, until after he
had experienced the zeal of the multitude, and was
aware that a rumour was gone abroad among the
people, that “ a great prophet was arisen,” and that
some said he was the Messiah. Can any one study
his character as that of a man, subject to all human
limitations, and not see, that the question, “ Am I
then possibly the Messiah ?” if at all entertained,
instantly became one of extreme interest and anxiety
to Jesus himself? Indeed from the day that it
fixed itself upon him for permanent rumination his
character could not but lose its simplicity. Pre
viously he thought only, What doctrine is true
morality ? What are the crying sins of the day 2
But now his own personality, his own possible
dignity, became matters of inquiry ; and the inquiry
was a Biblical one. He was brought hereby on to
the area of the learned commentator, who studies
ancient books to find out what has been promised and
predicted about a Messiah. An unlearned carpenter,
however strong and clear-minded while dealing with a
purely moral question, was liable to lose all his super
iority and be hurtfully entangled when entering into
literary interpretation. Wholly to get rid of tradi
tional notions was impossible, yet enough of distrust
would remain, to embarrass fixed belief and produce
vacillation. Nothing is then more natural, than
that the teacher should desire to know what was the
general opinion concerning him, should be pleased
when it confirmed his rising hopes, should be elated
�22
The True Temptation of fetus,
when Simon Peter declared him to be Messiah, and
should bless his faith, even if not with the extrava
gance of giving him the keys of the kingdom of
heaven; finally, should be displeased with himself
-and frightened at his own elation, and, in order to
repair his error, should charge his disciples to tell
no one that he was Messiah; not that he desired to
keep the nation in ignorance, but because he was
himself conscious of uncertainty. After this his
conduct could not be straightforward and simple.
Such is the only reasonable interpretation which
I have ever been able to see, of this perplexed and
perplexing narrative, which is not likely to have
grown out of nothing. Jesus came into a false
position from that day, and of necessity (as I think)
his whole character must have changed for the worse.
Thenceforth, the dogmatism which had been a mere
form of teaching, and had involved arrogance only
in appearance, changed into definite and systematic
personal assumption. It is not likely that he began it
so early, or ever carried it so far, as even the narrative
of Matthew pretends; for as a caricaturist exag
gerates every peculiarity of a face, making its promi
nences more prominent, so does tradition deal with
the popular hero. I pretend not to know how much
is exactly true; but it comes before me as certain
fact, that the true temptation of Jesus was the
whisper made to him, “ Are not you possibly the
Messiah ?” and by it the legendary devil overcame
him. That whisper has cost to Europe an infinite
waste of mind and toil, no end of religious wars,
cruelties, injustices, anathemas, controversies, without
bringing any sure advance of religious truth to man
kind. How much more convulsion of hearts and
entanglement of intellects, how much of violent
political upturnings are inevitable, before European
nations can now become able to learn that to think
freely is a duty, and that religion is spiritual and
rational, not magical and supernatural ?
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The true temptation of Jesus
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Newman, Francis William [1805-1897.]
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[1871]
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Jesus Christ
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Christianity-Controversial Literature
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Jesus Christ-Temptation
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Text
I the
true temptation
OF JESUS.
BY
PBOFESSOK F. W. NEWMAN.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
Price Sixpence.
\
�WRNBUII, AND SPEAKS, PRINTEE3, EDINBURGH
�THE THUE TEMPTATION OP JESUS.
VERY one who has opened the New Testament is
aware that in the first and third Gospel a
remarkable story is found (alluded to also in the
second Gospel) in which the devil is represented to
have assailed Jesus with three special temptations,
and to have been repelled by quotation of Old Testa
ment texts. That it is impossible to maintain the
literal truth of this account has been reluctantly con
ceded by writers, who, like the author of “ Ecce
Homo,” are wholly unconcerned to ascertain when,
where, by whom, and with what means of knowledge,
these narratives were penned. Those who desire to
save their credit, try to rid them of a damaging burden
by declaring this scene to be mytfwW. No spectator
is pretended. The idea that Jesus communicated
such inward trials to his disciples is contrary to
everything which is reported concerning Jlis charJtl acter: for Jte is everywhere represented as wholly
I uncommunicative, self-contained, more or less
mysterious, and moving in a separate region of
thought and feeling from the disciples. Evidently
this story does but express the opinion of the first
Christians, while Jesus was as yet believed to be only
human, that he, as others, must have, had a struggle
against temptations, and therefore, against the devil.
It is not here intended to point out what is plain of
itself, that none of the temptations are worthy of the
acumen attributed to the experienced and wily Satan;
E
I
�6
The True Temptation of fesus.
and are merely puerile in fiction, whether Jesus be
imagined as the Second Person of the Divine Trinity,
or merely as a great and holy, but human prophet.
Here I intend to give prominence to that which I
believe to be the fundamental trial of a religious
reformer, especially when he attains great ascendancy
and commands high veneration. But first I must
say, I shall be truly sorry, if any Trinitarian read
these pages, and find himself wounded. I do not
address him. I argue on the assumption that Jesus
was subject to human limitations like all the rest of
us, and that it is our duty to criticise him and the Z
story of him if it be of sufficient importance.
i
hat are the temptations of the prophet, can be no
secret in the present day: we see them in the
ordinary life of the admired preacher. To be run
after by a multitude, to be ministered to by fascinated
ladies, to see grey-haired men submissively listening
and treasuring up words,—easily puffs a young
preacher into self-conceit. In one who has too much
strong sense to be drawn into light vanity, fresh and
fresh success inspires, first, the not unreasonable hope
or belief that he is fulfilling a great work, and is
chosen for it by God, (not for his own merit, but be
cause, if a work is to be done, some one must be
chosen for it); next, an undue confidence in the truth
and weight of his own. utterances, an extravagant
conviction that whoever resists his 'word, impugns
God’s truth, and makes himself the enemy of God.
In the denunciations of Luther against Zuingle, his
own wiser and more temperate coadjutor, in the
vehemences of John Knox, in the cruelty of Calvin
to Servetus, we see variously developed the same
dangerous tendency. If we cast the eye eastward,
to more illiterate nations, to those accustomed to
revere the hermit and the semi-savage as akin to the
prophet, to peoples whose homage expresses itself by
prostration, we see the tendency of the prophet to
�The True Temptation of Jesus.
7
assume a regal and dictatorial mien even in the garb
of a half naked Bedouin. Many an eastern monk or
prophet, Syrian, Persian, or Indian, has been obeyed
as a prince; some have been attended on by large
armies : to some the native king has paid solemn
obeisance. In ancient Greece, where philosophy
overtopped religion, ascetic philosophers have been
accepted as plenipotentiary legislators; in which, no
doubt, we see portrayed, on a small scale, the legis
lative influence of a Buddha, a Confucius, or a
Zoroaster. When an Indian prophet found it natural
for multitudes to kneel to him or to prostrate them
selves, how hard must it have been to accept such
homage and retain a sense of human equality! how
hard not to think it reasonable that others bow down,
and unreasonable that any stand up and argue with
the prophet as his equal!
In the Gospels and Acts the habit of prostration
among these nations is sufficiently indicated; and we
see how it is resented (according to the narrative) by
Peter. When Cornelius falls at Peter’s feet and does
homage (certainly intending respect only, not divine
worship), Peter regards it as quite unbecoming from
a man to a man. But Jesus is represented as accept
ing such homage without the least hesitation, and
apparently with approval. The cases are not few,
nor confined to any one narrative. Matt. viii. 2,
“ There came a leper and worshipped him.” Matt,
ix. 18, “There came a certain ruler and worshipped
him.” Matth. xiv. 33, “ They worshipped him, say
ing, Of a truth thou art the \or a] Son of God.”
Matt. xv. 25, “Then came the woman and
worshipped him, saying, Lord! help me.” On this
Jesus comments approvingly, “ 0 woman, great is
thy faith.” Matt. xvii. 14, “There came a certain
man, kneeling down to him and saying, Lord 1 have
mercy on my son ! ” Matt. xx. 20, “ There came
the mother of Zebedee’s children, worshipping him,”
�'8 .
The True Temptation of fetus,
Matt, xxviii. 9, “ They held him by the feet and wor
shipped him—this is after the resurrection, thereby
differing in kind from the rest. The same remark
applies to verse 17. We have substantially the same
fact in Mark i. 40; v. 6, 22, -33 ; vii. 25 ; x. 17. In
■the last passage the rich young man kneels to Jesus: he
was not so represented in Matt. xix. 6. Luke v. 8,
“ Simon Peter fell down at Jesus’ knees.” Luke v.
12, “A man full of leprosy fell on his face, and be
sought Jesus.” In Luke vii. an account , is given,
perhaps not at all authentic. A woman is repre
sented to bathe the feet of Jesus with her tears, and
wipe them dry with her long hair, and after that,
anoint them with ointment and kiss his feet inces
santly. Jesus, according to the narrative, highly
applauds her conduct, and avows that “ therefore, her
sins, which are many, are forgiven.” Such conduct
on his part is far above criticism, if he was either a
person of the Divine Trinity, or a superhuman being,
who existed before all worlds and all angels, being
himself the beginning of the creation of God. I can
not doubt that the writer, called Luke, believed Jesus
to be superhuman, and therefore found no impro
priety in the conduct here imputed to him; but I
do not understand how any one who regards him as
a human being, can fail to censure him in the
strongest terms, if he believe this account. As I see
special grounds for doubting it, (inasmuch as it looks
like a re-making of the story reported in Matt,
xxvi. 6-13, which it exaggerates), I lay no stress upon
it,: but even in that other account there is a selfcomplacency hardly commendable in a mere man.
Again, in Luke viii. 20, we read, “the woman fell
down before him.” She doers not fall down in
Matt. ix. 22; therefore, here also the story may
■have been “ improved ” by credulity. But it is need
less to follow this topic further. Suffice it to say,
that though we do not know exactly how much to
�The True Temptation of Jesus.
9
Relieve, though we have frequent reason to suspect
exaggeration, yet the narratives all consistently
represent Jesus to have received complacently an
unmanly and degrading submission from his followers,
such as no apostle would have dndured for a moment;
and it is hard to believe that such reports could have
gained currency, with no foundation ctif nil. If, there
fore, we are to criticise Jesu'S on the belief that he ~z
was’man, and not God; nor a superhuman spirit, we /
must admit, I tliinlt, that a real and dangerous
temptation beset him in this matter. He was prone
to take pleasure in seeing men and women profound
in their obeisance, prostrate in mind and soul before
his superior greatness ;—for prostration of the body
brings satisfaction to pride, only as it denotes
prostration of soul It is difficult, with these narra
tives before us, to think that Jesus took to himself
that precept which Peter gives to the elders, that
they be not lords Over God’s heritage, but be subject
one tb another, and clothed with humility, that they
may be ensamples to the flock. Indeed, unless we
utterly throw away all the narratives, it is hardly too
much to say, that this is the very opposite to the
portrait of Jesus. If we will accept the theory thit
he was superhuman, we can justify his immeasurable
assumption of superiority; but the fact remains, that
in places, too many to reject, he puts himself forward
as “ lord over God’s heritage.”
Two classes of facts, presented in the narratives,
must be carefully separated. The former is the
'general superiority asserted by Jesus for himself;
the latter, is the special assumption of Messianic dig
nity. On the latter, there is notoriously an irrecon
cilable diversity of the fourth gospel from the rest.
The writer of the fourth, unquestionably ascribing to
Jesus pre-existence with God in some mysterious
way, and sonship in a sense perfectly unique, repre
sents his Messiahship as notorious to John the
�io
The True Temptation of^Jesus.
Baptist, to Andrew and Philip, from the very begin
ning,—to be avowed by Nathanael (whoever this
was),''and to be- preached by Jesus to Nicodemus
and to the woman of Samaria. All this is in so
flat contradiction to the three first gospels, that
nothing historical can be made out of the account;
and in trying to attain a true picture of Jesus, f :
necessarily set aside the fourth gospel as a mischie|w~~
ous romance.—Nevertheless, the element which I
call an assumption of general superiority, is as com
plete and persistent in the three first gospels as in
the fourth.
Keshub Chunder Sen entitles it “a sublime
egotism” in Jesus, to say, “Come unto me, and I
will give you rest: take my yoke upon you, and
learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in spirit.”
Yet if Luther, or John Knox, or Wesley had said it,
we should adduce it in proof that he was eminently
lacking in that very grace,—lowliness of spirit,—for
which he was commending himself. But is this the
only egotism ascribed to him in Matthew 1 Nay,
but in the celebrated beatitudes of the sermon on
the Mount, which some esteem the choice flower and
prime of the precepts of Jesus, he winds up with,
“ Blessed are ye when men shall speak evil against
you falsely for my sake.'’ He does not say “ for
’
righteousness’ sake,” if the narrative can be trusted.
The discourse continues like itself to the end, for in
the close he says : “ Many shall say to me in that
day, Lord ! Lord ! have we not prophesied in thy
name, .... and then will I profess unto them, I
never knew you : depart from me, ye that work
iniquity.” This is, it may be said, a very energetic
way of declaring, that no pretence of following in his
train as a prophet could compensate for personal
iniquity. As such we may accept it: but it remains
clear, that he is claiming for himself a position
above the human; such as no beauty or truth of teach-
�The True Temptation of Jesus.
11
ing could ever commend, as rightful from men to a
man, to the conscience of those reared in the schools
of modern science : while of course, if he claimed to
be higher than man, the first reasonable necessity,
and therefore his, first duty, was to exhibit the
proofs of supernatural knowledge and authority.
Undoubtedly, the alternative lies open of disbelieving
the Evangelist. It may be urged, that the text
represents Jesus as also saying that in his name
they will claim to have cast out devils and done
many wonderful works; but that this is an exaggera
tion belonging to a later time, and so therefore
may the pretensions be, with which it is coupled.
Well; so be it: let us then look further.
According to Matt. ix. 6, Jesus claimed power
to forgive sin ; he brought on himself rebuke for it,
but proceeded to justify himself by working a miracle.
Whence did his disciples get the idea of his advancing
such extravagances, if really he did not go farther
than his disciples James and John? Presently after,
he is represented as preaching that he is the. bride
groom of the Church, in whose presence the disciples
cannot mourn, and therefore ought not to fast; but
that when he is taken away, then they will fast.
How very peculiar and strange a sentiment to invent
for him, if it was not uttered ! Does it not rather
seem to have the stamp of individualism and truth,
thoroughly as it is in harmony with the tales of his
rejoicing to see men and women kneel before him ?
Next when Jesus sends out twelve disciples to say,
“ The kingdom of heaven is at hand,” he is repre
sented to assert, that it shall be more tolerable for
Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than
for the house or city which has not received his
messenger. Surely, if any one were now to knock
at our house door with such a formula of words, and
on the strength of it expect to be accepted with the
honours of a prophet, only the weak-minded would
�12
The True Temptation of fetus.
give him pleasant reception. Yet no ground what
ever appears for believing that there was anything
to accredit such messengers than, any more than now^
certainly nothing more appears in the narrative,
which quite consistently everywhere holds, that
-Jesus regarded the non-reception of his messengers as
a super-eminent guilt, merely because it was he who
sent them.
When it is added, “ ye shall be hated of all men
for my uamds sake’' we are perhaps justified in
esteeming that prediction as an after-invention of
popular credulity. But in the same discourse (Matt,
x. 23) we alight for the first time on the remarkable
phrase, “ The Son of Man,” afterwards indisputably
applied by Jesus to himself. “ Ye shall not have
gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man
be come.” No one but Jesus himself ever calls him
the Son of Man. Whatever he then meant, the
book puts into his mouth yet more of sublime
egotism. Whosoever shall confess me before men,
(says he), him will I confess before my Father which
is in heaven : but whosoever shall deny me before
men, him mil I also deny before my Father which is
heaven. He that loseth his life for my sake shall
find it. He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he
that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent me.”
Certainly, when we begin to pare down these utter
ances, and try to reduce them to something that
would not be highly offensive in James or Paul, we
seem in danger of cutting away so much that is
characteristic, as to impair all confidence in what
remains. But unless we are bound to reject the
pervading colour of the narrative, I feel it not too
much to say, that in a mere man, the self-exaltation
approaches to impiety. What can it concern any
of us, that his brother-man should “ deny him ” before
our common Father 1 Hqw suddenly would the
honour which we felt for a preacher be turned into
�The True Temptation of Jesus.
ij
.grief and disappointment, or even indign^tipp, -if
pve heard him to say, “ Blessed is he, whoever shall
not be offended in me!” He would fall in our
.esteem, from the higli/est pinnacle to a very, low ^7
•.place, nor could any pretence of “ sublime egotism ’
save him.
" In the same chapter in which the last words occur
(Matt, xi.) the Evangelist goes on into language.not
dissimilar to that of the fourth gospel. “ All things
are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man
knoweth the Son but the Father: neither knoweth
any man the Father save the Son; and he to whom
soever the Son will reveal him.” When it is
considered that, although the nucleus of this gospel
probably existed before the first century was ended,
we have absolutely no guarantee that the text was
finally settled, as we now have it, much before the
'time of Irenseus, toward the close of the second
century; no one has a right to be very confident that
this passage, so strongly smacking of the doctrines
■which won ascendancy in that century, was not intro
duced at a later time. Perhaps the more reasonable
course here, is to strike out verse 27, (about the Son
and the Father) as foisted upon Jesus by a later
generation. What then shall be said of the words
which follow, already quoted, “ Come.unto me, take
my yoke on you, and I will give you. rest?” I can
accept them, if he is God, or a pre-existing Mighty
Spirit. I cannot accept them if he was onLy man : I
then do not entitle them sublime at all, but some
thing else.
h .
Something or other to the same effect is for.ever
cropping .up in this narrative of Matthew, which I
purposely take as giving a more human representation
of J esus than Luke or John. He is presently reported
to say (Matt. xii. 6), “ In this place is one greater
than the temple. .... the Son of Man is Lord even
of the Sabbath day.” Unless his wotds have been
�14
The True Temptation of Jesus.
monstrously distorted, he intended to assert that he
was himself the Son of Man spoken of by Daniel the
Prophet, that he was personally greater than the
temple, and was Lord even of the Sabbath-day.
Will any one say, that Jesus merely claimed the
right possessed by every man to interpret the law of
the Sabbath by the dictates of good sense, and that
he .regarded every pious man as greater than a temple
built of stone; and that the egotistic form of his
utterance was an accident ? In that case it certainly
was a highly unfortunate accident, and we may add, an
accident often repeated, which generated in his dis
ciples a veneration for him too great for humanity.
But accident so systematic is surely no accident at
all. If a good man who makes no pretensions is
worshipped as a god after his death, he is guiltless^ ;/
but if a MAN be worshipped as a god, who has i
made enormous personal pretensions,—and if a
decisive weight in the argument for worshipping
him is, that he has left us no choice between
worship and reprobation, can one who regards
the superhuman claims untenable, doubt that self
exaltation and monstrous vanity was Ja deplorable
foible, in the prophet ? I find only two ways of
avoiding the disagreeable inference : (1), by the
theory of Paul, or some higher theory; (2.) by so
rejecting all our accounts of his doctrine and miracles
alike as untrustworthy, that nothing is left us to
trust at all, nothing on which a faithful picture of
Jesus can be founded.
From beginning to end the narrative has but one
colour as regards the self-exaltation of Jesus. Matt,
xii., “Behold! a greater than Solomon is here.”
Matt, xiii., “Many prophets and righteous men have
desired to see the things which ye see, and hear the
things which ye hear. Blessed are your eyes, for
they see; and your ears, for they hear.” And what
was this so precious instruction ? the Parable of the
�ThqTrue Temptation of'Jesus.
r5
Sower ! Surely no sober-minded person can esteem
this so highly above all the teaching of Hebrew
sages.
\
.
But I pass to a new topic in the sixteenth chapter
of Matthew,—the anger of Jesus, when he is asked
for a sign from heaven. He replies by calling the
persons who asked him hypocrites, when jevidently,
according to the notions of that age and nation, it
was a most reasonable and proper request. In fact,
the narratives elsewhere represent him as giving
them miraculous signs, which are signs from heaven,
in abundance j insomuch that, if he had been repre
sented as here appealing to these signs, and alleging
that these very persons had already witnessed them
plentifully, his imputation of hypocrisy might have
seemed natural. But that is not his line of argument.
He says : “ A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh
after a sign,” as though the desire itself were wicked
ness, “ and there shall no sign be given unto it, but
the sign of the prophet Jonas.” And he left them
and departed. Such words refuse a sign not to the
individual only, but to the generation. Are we then
to believe that he consistently repudiated all pretence
of working miracle ? that he esteemed the desire of
seeing a miracle wrought in confirmation of his pre
eminent claims to be such a fatuous absurdity, that
he had a right^o heap contumelious epithets on the
head of any one who asked for it ? In favour of
this opinion, appeal may be made to the epistles of
Paul, who does not betray any knowledge whatever
that Jesus had wrought miracles. Let us tentatively
adopt this view. Then, first, what a heap of gross
misrepresentation is put before us in all four narratives
if Jesus not only never affected to work miracles,
but even vehemently flouted the idea itself and
rebuked those who desired it. Next, it will follow
that no justification of his high pretensions was
even attempted by him, and therefore no denuncia-
�16
'The True Temptation of Jesus.
tion of men for neglect of him was reasonable. It
follows that those resolved to justify him must cut
out all his denunciations likewise. Who will write
for us an expurgated gospel, tQ let us know what
was the true Jesus 1 Who will convince us, that
a history thus garbled carij. ever be truly recovered,
or deserves our intent study ? .
In the same chapter of Matthew (the sixteenth)
the momentous question is proposed to his disciples,
Whom say ye that I am ?” According to the
narrative, he first gave them the hint, what to reply,
by a leading question, “ Whom do men say that I, the
Son of Man, am ? ” but perhaps that is only a stupid
exaggeration of the narrator, who did not see what
it would imply. Let us then drop this portion of the
words.
He feels his way cautiously with the
disciples, and sounds them. Simon Peter replies,
“ Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
Again I ask, Is this narrative grossly and delusively
false ? or may we trust a vague outline ? Accprding
to it, Jesus is lifted by the reply into a most exalted
state, “ Blessed art thou, Simon son of Jonas,” says
he, “ for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto
thee, but my Father which is in heaven............... I
will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven*
and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be
bound in heaven, .... &c.” After this outburst,
■what is it that we react as a consequence ? “ Then
charged he his disciples that they should tell no man
that he was Jesus the Christ.”
It seems utterly ^irrational and unworthy .alite of
* Any one who doubts whether Jesus ever uttered such
words, may fortify the doubt by opining that the words
have got into the gospel from Rev. iii. 7, where nevertheless
Jesus, so far from giving the “power of the keys ” to any
apostle, retains the power strictly in his own hand. The
words in Rev. iii. 7, are borrowed from Isaiah xxii. 22,
which have no reference to Messiah at all, according to any
scientific interpretation.
�The True Temptation of Jesus.
the most High God and of his specially anointed
Prophet (if one special Prophet was’ indeed so
promised), that Messiah should come into his
nation,—should expect subjection of mind from all
around,—should haughtily evade, instead of enlight
ening, those who mildly inquired into his claims to
authority; finally, should sedulously preserve his
incognito, and forbid his disciples to tell that he was
Messiah. Men may be either convinced or com
manded. To convince them you must kindly and can
didly answer their difficulties, and allow them to argue
against you; you must meet their questions as plainly
and honestly as possible, not browbeat or threaten
the interrogators, nor marvel over their unbelief and
stupidity. You must descend in the argument on
to' a perfect level with the man whom you desire to
convince,, and entirely lay aside all airs of authority,
even if you have authority. That is one course of
proceeding; but it is the very opposite of that
Imputed to Jesus. But if men are to be
if submission is to be required of them, you must
make some display of POWER.* In that , case you
seek to convince them, not that a precept is wise, or
a doctrine is true, but that you, its enunciator, have
a special right of dictation, drawing after it in the
hearer a special duty of submission. Of course those
with whom the idea of miracles is inadmissible, do not
ask for signs from heaven; not the less must they justify
the countrymen of Jesus in requiring from him some
credentials, when he claimed submission and used a
dictatorial tone. If the nation believed miracles to
be the marks of Messiah, and was m error, it
* Men of science appeal to power as an argument why
they should be believed, when want of leisure or talents
forbid‘the mastering of their arguments : thus Astronomers
appeal to their fore-knowledge of eclipses, and their power of
finding the longitude by their tables ; Electricians appeal to
the telegraph, and so’ on.
�18
The True Temptation of Jesus.
belonged to Messiah to unteach them the error,
and, as one aware of their folly, to take precautions
lest miracles be imputed to him. Surely it was
quite unjustifiable, to require submission from Priests
and Pharisees, yet exhibit to them no credentials what
ever of the mighty function with which he was
invested. If words dropping from the mouth of
Messiah were divine commands, which it was impious
to dispute, nothing could supersede the public an
nunciation of his office, and the display of his
credentials, whatever they might be. No evasions
are here endurable, on the ground of the political
danger to be incurred, or the propriety of giving
insufficient proof in order to try people’s “ faith.”
To say that political danger forbade, is to say that
God sent Messiah insufficiently prepared for his work,
and afraid to assume His functions publicly. As to
trying “ faith ” by insufficient proof, nothing can be
less rightful or more pernicious. If the proof ad
duced be of the right kind and appropriate, it cannot
be excessive, but may be defective; and if defective,
it is a cruel trap, as if designed to lead honesty astray.
The only plausibility in this notion rises from con
fusion of truths which we ought to see by light from
within, with truths which can only be established
from without. No man can know by his inward
faculties that a Messiah is promised from heaven,
nor what will be the external marks of Messiah.
False Messiahs had already come. To accept lightly
any one as Messiah was the height of imprudence, and
certainly could not be commended as pious. Under
such circumstances, to dissemble Messiahship, and
work upon susceptible minds by giving them evidence
necessarily imperfect, was conduct rather to be
imputed to a devil, than to a prophet from God, if
done with serious intent. Those who defend it,
plead that the evidence was moral, and did not need
external proofs. If so, on the one hand full freedom
�The True Temptation of Jesus.
19
of investigation was needed, not authority and brow
beating ; on the other, this alleges external proof to
be worse than superfluous,—to be in fact misleading;
so that to plead for its “ insufficiency” as a needful
trial of faith is a gross error. If external evidence
was wholly inappropriate, the producing of that
which you concede to be insufficient does but tend to
confuse and mislead the simple-hearted, and cause
unbelief in the strong-headed. But if external evi
dence is admissible and appropriate at cdl for faith
to rest upon, then it ought to be in quantity and
quality sufficient to make the faith reasonable and
firm. If only internal light is to the purpose of
faith, and external evidence was not wanted for
Messiah, then neither was an authoritative, Messiah
wanted at all; that is, a teacher to whom we should
submit without conviction; then it was right to
claim that Messiah would convince by argument and
reply to questions ; would invite question or opposi
tion, not dictate and threaten; then we have to
sweep away the greater part of the four Gospels as a
false representation of Messiah. Whatever else may
have been true, one thing is certainly false;—that
God sent a special messenger to teach authoritatively,
and that the messenger thus sent forbade his disciples
to publish his character and claims.
From narratives so disfigured by false representa
tion, as every one is obliged to confess them, who
does not believe the miracles, and seeks to defend
Jesus by remoulding the accounts of Him ; how can
any one be blamed for despairing to arrive at accurate
and sound knowledge concerning his character and
teaching? What right has any one to expect to
recover lost history, or to think worse of his brother
if he regard the effort to be waste time ? Yet if I
were to say, I seem to myself to know nothing of Jesus,
I should speak untruly; for in the midst of theobscurity
and. the inconsistencies of the narratives, there are
�ip
The True Teinptatiqn of ffsuT
some things unvarying, many things very hard to in
vent, and-others unlikely to be invented, yet easily
admitting explanation if we reason about Jesus as
we do about every other public teacher or reformer.
The details of doctrine are often untrustworthy, but
the-current, the broad tendencies, the style and tone
of the teacher, seem to have made too strong an
impression to be lost, though round them has been
gathered a plentiful accretion of mistake and fable.
In outline we must say that the first peculiarity of rhe
preacher was, that he did not comment upon the law
and prophets, but spoke dictatorially, dogmatically,
as’with authority—a thing quite right and proper,
while only moral truth is taught, which makes appeal
to the conscience of the hearer. But the Jews,
accustomed like the modern English to nothing but
comment and deduction from a sacred book, were
apt to enquire of Jesus by what right he spoke so
confidently, and paid so little deference to the learned^
On one occasion he is said to have given a very fair
reply, to the effect that they had listened to the
preaching of John the Baptist, without asking his
authority : “ If John might preach to you dogmati
cally, why may not I ? ” was the substance of that
argument. But it is clear that, numbers of honest
sincere Jews, impressed by the moral weight in these
preachings, had begun to inquire whether this was
not a renewal of divine prophecy, whether divine
prophets must not have some recognizable note of
their mission, other than the influence of their doc
trine on the human conscience; whether, in fine,
Jesus might not be the expected Messiah. This was
a very anxious question, especially since delusive
Messiahs had appeared; but it was a question that
Jews were sure to make, and the three narratives
before us, defective as they are, persuade me that it
was made, both in private talk, and in direct interro
gation to Jesus.
Now if we accept to the full the traditional Jewish
�The True Temptation of Jesus.
belief of what Messiah was to be, (which falls short
of the dignity ascribed to him by Christians),
it is incredible that after commencing his public
functions he should remain ignorant of his being
Messiah, or need confirmation from his disciples or
from others. But if Jesus had little trust in learned
Rabbis or traditional doctrine, he may have had a
very vague and imperfect belief as to what Messiah
was to be; and the idea that he himself was Messiah
may not have at all occurred to him, until after he
had experienced the zeal of the multitude, and was
aware that a rumour was gone abroad among the
people, that “ a great prophet was arisen,” and that
some said he was the Messiah. Can any one study *
his character as that of a man, subject to all human/ '
limitations, and not see, that the question, “ Am I
then possibly the Messiah ?” if at all entertained,
instantly became one of extreme interest and anxiety
to Jesus himself? Indeed from the day that it
fixed itself upon him for permanent rumination his
character could not but lose its simplicity. Pre
viously he thought only, What doctrine is true
- morality ? What are the crying sins of the day ?
But now his own personality, his own possible,
dignity, became matters of inquiry; and the inquiry
was a. Biblical one. He was brought hereby on to
the plane of the learned commentator, who studies
ancienAbooks to find out what has been promised and
predicted about a Messiah. An unlearned carpenter,
(\
however strong and clear-minded^ while dealing with a
purely moral question, was liable to lose all his super
iority and .be hurtfully entangled when entering into
literary interpretation. Wholly - to get rid of tradi
tional notions was impossible, yet,enough of distrust
would remain, to embarrass fixed belief and produce
vacillation, . Nothing is then more natural, than
that the teacher should desire to know what was the
general opinion concerning him, should be pleased
when it confirmed his rising hopes, should be elated
�2
The True Temptation of Jesus.
when Simon Peter declared him to be Messiah, and
should bless his faith, even if not with the extrava
gance of giving him the keys of the kingdom of
heaven ; finally, should be displeased with himself
and frightened at his own elation, and, in order to
repair his error, should charge his disciples to tell
no one that he was Messiah^not that he desired to
keep the nation in ignorance, but because he was J
himself conscious of uncertainty. After this his
conduct could not be straightforward and simple
Such is the only reasonable interpretation which
I have ever been able to see, of this perplexed aid
perplexing narrative, which is not likely to have
-nnf.hino-false
___ ™ ^4grown out of nothing. Jesus came into a false
rUv and of necessity* as 1 think*
�
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Victorian Blogging
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The true temptation of Jesus
Creator
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Newman, Francis William [1805-1897]
Description
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Place of publication: Ramsgate
Collation: 22 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: The portrait is a photo that has been cut out and pasted to the title page. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. Date of publication from KVK. An annotated (proof?) copy bound in Conway Tracts 31.
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Thomas Scott
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[1871]
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CT159
G5743
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Jesus Christ
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (The true temptation of Jesus), identified by Humanist Library and Archives, is free of known copyright restrictions.
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Text
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English
Christianity-Controversial Literature
Conway Tracts
Jesus Christ
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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.
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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
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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.
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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 ?
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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
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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
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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
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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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The subject of the four gospels
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Julian
Propagandist Press Committee
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Place of publication: London
Collation: [43]-56 p. ; 18 cm.
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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[1891]
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Bible
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Bible. N.T. Gospels
Jesus Christ
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Text
PORTRAITURE AND MISSION
OF JESUS.
BY
THOMAS LUMISDEN STRANGE.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
1 8 7 6.
Price Sixpence.
��THE PORTRAITURE AND MISSION
OF JESUS.
IIAVE been, drawn to this subject by the work of
Prebendary Row, entitled “ The Supernatural in
the New Testament.” This defence of Christianity has
been undertaken by Mr Row at the desire of the Chris
tian Evidence Society, of which he is an active member,
as a reply to “ Supernatural Religion,” the extensive
currency of which able work has aroused action in
Christian circles.
Mr Row strengthens himself with his previous effort,
“ The Jesus of the Evangelists,” and in endeavouring
to meet him I must refer inquiring readers for a fuller
exhibition of the subjects I now handle to my volume,
“The Sources and Development of Christianity”
(Trubner & Co.).
Mr Row, in his earlier work, acknowledges the in
sufficiency of the endeavours hitherto made to clear
Christianity of the difficulties raised against the creed
by objectors of the present day, but, unfortunately, in
his attempt to supply a remedy, he shows himself un
acquainted with the sentiments of the more advanced
opponents of his cherished beliefs, who remain thus,
so far as he is concerned, still unanswered.
Mr Row considers the idea of the Christ, as embodied
in the Christian scriptures, to be a representation so
pure, so exalted, so consistent, so unprecedented, and
so realistic, that man was incapable of figuring such a
being out of his imagination, and that, consequently,
in this description, we have before us a true personage,
drawn from the life, and that life superhuman and
I
�6
The Portraiture and Mission of Jesus.
divine. But he sees the need at the same time to
point to the offered proofs of the alleged reality, and
his great source of testimony is that Jesus rose from
the dead. Here human supports are requisite, and
that upon which he substantially builds is the evidence
derived from the epistles attributed to Paul, who, it is
assumed, at a very early period, preached the resurrec
tion to audiences already cognizant of the’fact.
The conclusion I have come to is that there is not a
reliable trace of the existence of Christianity, from any
quarter, Jewish, Pagan, or Christian, for a hundred
and fifty years from the time alleged for the death of
the asserted founder. The sphere of Christianity I judge
must have been Alexandria, and not Jerusalem, which
had ceased to be, whence we have the Grecian, Egyp
tian, and Eastern elements, mingled with what was
derivable from Judaism, so characterizing Christianity,
and of which Alexandria was the focus. The tale of
Christianity thus with me is not dependent upon
enacted facts. I can allow that there was a person
such as the alleged founder of Christianity. His being
a carpenter, occupying the field of barbaric Galilee, and
suffering death as a culprit, are not features which the
constructor of an imaginary tale would go out of his way
to introduce wherewith to associate his hero, and there
fore, probably, we have here real facts presented to us;
but all beyond these circumstances, in illustration of the
being, preaching, and actions of the founder, I take to
be purely pictorial.
Mr Row, in dealing with the author of “ Supernatural
Religion,” insists on the possibility of what are termed
miracles. He assumes his adversary to be a Theist, one
who acknowledges the existence of a divine Creator,
handling created objects, and moulding them according
to his will. Introducing new force, such a Being may
convert water into wine without the intervention of the
grape; he may satisfy multitudes with supplies suffi
cient for but two or three persons, the debris of the
�The Portraiture and Mission of Jesus.
7
feasts amounting to more than the quantity of food
originally begun upon; he may enable a heavy body to
move upon water without sinking into and displacing
it; he may cure all diseases with a word, eject by a
command demons invading mankind, and raise the
dead. These are exercises of power liberally appealed
to by the heathen, in common with Jews and Chris
tians, from the remotest to the latest times. But it has
to be considered whether the Creator ever thus indulges
in exhibitions in reversal of his fixed rules of procedure;
and whether, when so many tales of the kind are sum
marily dismissed as unfounded, these particular instances
appearing in the Christian record may not be equally
untrue. What we should not credit now, whoever
asserted the facts, why should we receive because men
of old have made the assertion of the occurrences ? The
very essence of such testimony is the conviction arising
from ocular demonstration. Would the Creator need
to resort to such a source of evidence as this which can
only be passed on, in a diluted form, in the way of hear
say, and may be left to expire, as at this day, without
other support than unestablished tradition ? The ar
gument for the possibility of a miracle is of little account
when weighed against its improbability. Things of
divine origin stamp themselves as such by their inherent
properties. If the Creator has a testimony to offer of
his hand in the production of an object, it is never of a
dubious character. Between what he has done, and
what man may have done, there is no room to raise a
question. A blade of grass or a leaf reveals itself as
truly of his origination as the most stupendous orbs
circling in space. But when we come to miracles, there
is always the doubt to solve, were these manifestations
real ? Might they not have been due to trickery 1
Have they been rightly reported ? May not the whole
representations be figments, resorted to for an end 1
Mr Row does not, as far as I have observed, clear his
matter of these defects.
•
�8
The Portraiture and Mission of Jesus.
Mr Row apparently is not himself sure of the ground
on which he would have us place our feet as being per
fectly stable. Some of the representations he seeks to
reduce within limits that may be reasonably accepted.
The being of Satan, as currently apprehended, staggers
him. Wicked men are capable of exerting evil in
fluences, and Satan’s power is merely a higher sample
of such influence. If so, the agency of good may be
placed on the same sort of sliding scale, and the Deity
be figured as only a more exalted example of a benefi
cent man. The scripture distinctions are, however, as
absolute between Satanic and human capacity and
power, as between what is divine and what is human.
Again the temptation of Jesus is more than Mr Row
can receive in the naked form of the narrative. He
does not accept the idea of a personal Satan holding
intercourse with Jesus, transferring him bodily to a
pinnacle of the temple, or to the top of an exceedinghigh mountain, whence he was able to see “ all the
kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.” Mr
Row is satisfied that there could be no such mountain,
or such exhibition, especially upon a spherical globe,
and would dispose of the whole representation as para
bolic. The sacred writer really did not mean what he
has apparently said. Drawing upon the infinite re
sources of the Creator, Mr Row observes of the multipli
cation of the few loaves and fishes upon which thous
ands were fed, that the materials were already existing
in the ground, the water, and the air, and had only to
be put together in the required forms by the additional
exercise of creative force he demands ; but he seems to
have overlooked that somehow, to produce bread, the
corn required to be ground and baked. The demons
transferred to the swine is an action he does not like to
contemplate as a reality. “The ‘going out from the
man ’ and 1 entering into the swine,’ may only denote the
cessation of the influence of the demons over the man,
and its exertion on the swine, without determining the
�The Portraiture and Mission of festis.
9
mode in which, that influence was exerted.” If we may
thus deal with the recounted miracles when they seem
to us too hard for belief pursuant to the terms in which
they have been narrated, these representations may one
and all be readily disposed of without offending reason
or warring against experience. The wine converted
water at the feast of Cana would be merely joy diffused
into the human heart; the diseases overcome would be
moral defects remedied; the restoring the blind, the
deaf, the dumb, and the lame, would be the imparting
moral and spiritual faculties where these were wanting
or dull and inactive; and the raising the dead would
be the introduction of spiritual life into a soul dead in
trespasses and sins. If the chosen advocate of a Society
constituted for the defence of Christianity may thus
lead the way in the path of rationalistic interpretation,
there will soon be nothing left of Christianity either to
object to or to defend.
Mr Row lowers the scripture representations in cer
tain other respects to have them reasonably received.
When Philip is said to have desired to see the Father,
and Jesus to have sought to satisfy him by pointing to
himself, this is held to imply no more than that in
Jesus was an exhibition of the Father’s character, his
person not being in question. Elsewhere we are told
that Jesus was “ the image of the invisible God,” “ the
express image of his person,” than which no stronger
phrases could be employed to denote a personal exhibi
tion. The choice being between rationalism and Chris
tianity, we cannot elect to have both.
Again, the allegation that miracles should be “signs”
which should “ follow them that believe,” affords a
test applicable to faith in miracles to the present day.
Mr Row, conscious that there is no such power among
believers, chooses to assert that it was a special tempo
rary endowment, “ designed for the building up of the
church into a distinct community, and when that
purpose was accomplished they (the miracles) were to
B
�io The Portraiture and Mission of Jesus.
cease.” The limitation in question is not in the text,
and is of Mr Row’s creation. And we may ask, when
has there ever been a “ distinct community” exhibiting
Christians in happy union in the faith ? The “ signs ”
effected nothing of the sort in the so-called apostolic
days, heresies and schisms having prevailed among the
body from the earliest age, and this condition has
accompanied Christianity through every period of its
existence to the present day. May we not then
reasonably doubt whether such “ signs ” were ever pro
vided for the effectuating that which never was accom
plished ?
Mr Row’s theory is, that miracles were provided in
order to vouch for a mission, and not for the purpose
of supporting lines of doctrine. “ Can miracles,” he
asks, “ prove moral truths 1 I answer emphatically in
the negative.” “ Moral truths cannot be proved by
the evidence of miracles, but must rest on their own
inherent evidence.” The existence of the Deity has,
he sees, been made known to man irrespective of any
written revelation. All the real elements of religion
are thus provided for the spiritual governance of the
human race without any appeal to miraculous agency,
which has been resorted to, it would seem, merely to
support certain wondrous tales. Judged of in this light,
of what value, it may be asked, is the scheme of Chris
tianity to the moral man, who stands so completely free
of and above its specialities ?
Restricted as is the use of miracles, as thus under
stood by Mr Row, we find them unessential even with
in this described, confined, sphere. Where was the
miraculous attestation to the mission of John the
Baptist ? He is described as the forerunner of the
Messiah, appointed to “ go before the face of the Lord
to prepare his ways,” “ to give light to them that sit in
darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide their
feet into the way of peace,” “ to make ready a people
prepared for the Lord.” So important were his func-
�The Portraiture and Mission of Jesus.
11
tions considered to be, that he stands proclaimed as a
prophet, “and more than a prophet,” “greater” in
effect than any who had yet been “ born of women,”
surpassing thus Elijah, Samuel, and even Moses him
self ; and yet his mission, so necessary to the introduc
tion of that of Jesus, is ushered in without a miracle.
On the other hand, the most stupendous miracle that
ever is alleged to have been exhibited, namely, the
resuscitation of a corpse by accidental contact with the
bones of Elisha, was a manifestation unassociated with
any mission. Thus we have the chiefest of all human
missions presented without the voucher of a miracle,
and the chiefest of all miracles enacted without alliance
to a mission, and Mr Row must find some other pur
pose for the miraculous than that assigned by him to
such action.
But supposing it the case that miracles were to attest
missions, does not the repetition of them involve the
weakness of the testimony they are to supply ? One
miracle apparently proves nothing unless followed up
by another, and another, and we have to ask whether
one or more insufficiencies will supply us with a suffi
ciency. And the whole collection of these wonders,
it would seem, required the corroboration of the
supreme miracle of the resurrection; and this again
required and received confirmation from the wonder
workings of the first Christians. Thus Mr Row weaves
his web to the entanglement of his own feet.
An essential to a miracle, according to Mr Row, is
that it should have been preannounced. Judged of by
this test, how will the miracle of the resurrection stand
its ground ? It is true there are passages attributing
to Jesus, when in life, that he said he was to rise again
on the third day from the dead; but there are circum
stances, taking them as stated, which completely defeat
the representation that he ever made such a declara
tion. The women who are said to have visited his
tomb on this third day, went there for the purpose of
�12 The Portraiture and Mission of fesus.
embalming the body. They could not have expected
that the body was just then to pass into restored life.
Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus are declared to
have actually embalmed it. According to the fourth
Gospel, Mary Magdalene first visited the tomb, and
finding the body gone, went in bewilderment to Peter
and John saying, “ They have taken away the Lord out
of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have
laid him.” The apostles are said to have ran and
.satisfied themselves of the fact, but as yet, it is re
marked, “ they knew not the scripture, that he must
rise again from the dead.” Any announcement of the
coming resurrection by Jesus himself is not referred to,
and as to the scripture testimony, it must be observed,
it is nowhere fairly discoverable. According to the
third Gospel, the women were told distinctly by two
angels, who were standing at the tomb, that the resurrec
tion had been effected; and when they went and made
their report to the apostles, so little was the event
looked for, that their words were accounted as “idle tales,
and they believed them not.” The two disciples, said
to have been met with at Emmaus, showed that their hopes
in Jesus had been extinguished by his death. Thomas
is described as stoutly refusing to credit any evidence to
his re-appearance in life but that of his own senses. And,
according to Matthew, when the eleven had the risen
Jesus before them, some of them even then “ doubted.”
The announcement that he should rise from the dead,
had it been made by Jesus, was a circumstance of too
simple a sort to be misapprehended, especially from the
lips of one said to have repeatedly shown his power
over death by restoring others to life ; had he, conse
quently, made this announcement, the disciples, on
the day specified, would have been expecting his reap
pearance, and certainly would not have refused evi
dence to the event when it was certified to them that it
had occurred. Mr Row’s desideratum of preannounce
ment of the coming marvel, as necessary to the accept-
�The Portraiture and Mission of fesus.
i3
ance of a miracle as such, is assuredly wanting in
respect of this chief instance on which he depends as a
fundamental testimony for Christianity.
Mr Row’s most important authority for the fact of
the resurrection is Paul, and of the occasions mentioned
by him when the risen Jesus manifested himself, he
selects, as entitled to most consideration, that when he
is said to have shown himself to “ above five hundred
brethren at once.” Mr Row supposes that this may
have happened when there was the apparition in
Galilee, recorded in Matthew, but here the text is
against his conclusion. It is said in Matthew, that
after his resurrection Jesus told the two Marys to
direct his “ brethren ” to “ go into Galilee,” where they
should see him. “ Then,” it is added, “ the eleven dis
ciples went into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus
had appointed them,” showing that the message was to
these only, and to them the exhibition. And this is
in accordance with the statement in the Acts, that he
manifested himself “ not to all the people, but unto
witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did
eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.”
This excludes the idea that Jesus ever appeared after
death to an indiscriminate multitude exceeding five
hundred in number; nor can we see that he had so
many followers at this time, as the believers were num
bered, it is said, after Pentecost, and then found to be
but “ about an hundred and twenty.”
The evidence thus attributed to Paul, which was at
best only hearsay, is found to be wanting in every
characteristic of true evidence, as judged of by other
associated scripture. Still Mr Row is entitled to say
that Paul asserted the fact of the resurrection, and he
makes much of this assertion as coming from him within
twenty or thirty years of the alleged occurrence.
Here Mr Row builds upon the circumstance that
four of the Pauline epistles—namely, that to the
Romans, the 1st and 2d to the Corinthians, and that
�14 The Portraiture and Mission of fesus.
to the Galatians—are currently accepted by even ad
verse critics as genuine. I am aware that this is so,
but on the other hand know not on what grounds this
assurance is founded. Certainly there are no collateral
supports for Christianity, of a recognizable character,
from any quarter, during the so-called apostolic age, or,
it may be added, for a century later; and the mere
occurrence in these epistles of features to exhibit the
writer as a living personage, moving in the midst of
events and persons alluded to by him, may show him
to be a clever draftsman, but do not prove the realities
of any part of his descriptions, or that he was that Paul
of the apostolic period he professes to be. To me there
is abundant room for concluding that he was not that
Paul, and that these and the other epistles bearing the
name of Paul are from Gentile hands at indeterminate
periods.
It is apparent that the Paul of the Acts stood in a
very different position from the Paul of the epistles.
The Paul of the Acts is described as visiting Jerusalem
at an early stage in his Christian career, as associating
himself with the constituted apostles, as acting in
subordination to the churches of Jerusalem and Antioch, and as in every respect of the type of the first
Christians, who were merely a Jewish sect. He pro
claimed himself, it is said, a Pharisee, and had never
diverged from the law of Moses or the temple ordi
nances. But the Paul of the Galatians, we are told,
kept himself aloof from Jerusalem and the apostles,
held a particular line of doctrine of his own which he
traced to a revelation made specially to himself, asserted
for himself independent authority coming to him, like
his doctrine, by commission from above, thought lightly
of the apostles, and swept away every reliance on
Judaism as being a system powerless for good, and
absolutely superseded by the new dispensation. The
other associated epistles inculcate the same view of
Judaism. Here we have, assuredly, between the Acts
�The Portraiture and Mission of Jesus.
15
and these epistles, two or more several Pauls; and the
scene being laid in the extinguished Jerusalem, it be
comes evident, as in the instance of the gospel descrip
tions of Christ personally, that we have in the Paul of
the alleged apostolical age merely pictorial representa
tions of such a preacher.
The epistle to the Romans presents special difficulties
to its acceptance as a genuine address to the Church of
Rome in the era ascribed to it. The faith of this
church, at this early period, is said to be “ spoken of
throughout the whole world,” and yet when Paul,
according to the Acts, at a later time visited Rome, so
little had this alleged church influenced the neighbour
hood, that the inquiring Jews of Rome are shown to
be totally ignorant of what constituted Christianity,
and to have looked to Paul to enlighten them; and as
Josephus made Rome his place of abode from the year 7 0
to the end of the century, there inditing his history of
all that concerned the Jews, it is apparent that, had
there been a sect flourishing in the city who were pro
claiming the risen Jesus as the Messiah in his time,
the circumstance was one this careful and discerning
writer could not have failed to notice and to comment
on. Furthermore, the last two chapters of this epistle
contain matters inconsistent with other portions of
Paul’s accepted history, and attribute to him an ac
quaintance with residents of Rome which he could not
have had before visiting the place ; to save the epistle
from which defects it is usual to sever these chapters
from it as spurious additions. When, however, the in
tegrity of the whole epistle may be called in question,
the occurrence of these particular chapters, we may
suppose, very possibly, to be indiscretions on the part
of the hand that fabricated the earlier portion.
The scripture shows that there was a time when the
disciples Considered themselves precluded from offering
the gospel to the Gentiles, and the restriction is ac
counted for by the founder when in life having enjoined
�16 The Portraiture and Mission of Jesus.
it on them to confine their ministry to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel. The church was then in Jewisli
form, and accordingly in the Acts we find the first
teachers, and prominently the alleged Paul, described
as frequenting the temple and practising and upholding
Judaism. At some undiscernible period the door was
opened to the Gentiles, and the character of the dis
pensation became materially altered. Attempts are
made to place the change upon a warrantable footing,
but the statements here are so inconsistent, that all the
conclusion we can come to is that we have not true
history before us. The proclamation of the gospel to
the Gentiles could not have been owing, as alleged, to
a command issued by Jesus at his resurrection, else it
would not have been necessary to provide Peter with a
vision from heaven to encourage him to exercise this
liberty ; nor could there have been this vision to Peter,
or Paul and Barnabas would not have had to resort to
a questionable interpretation of the Jewish scripture to
justify their free ministry among the Gentiles ; and, it
may be added, were there this scriptural support, either
Jesus could not have been conscious of it, or he could
not have given the edict of exclusion against this scrip
ture. We arrive, therefore, at this result, that at some
unrevealed time, and under some circumstances not
properly disclosed, the Judaic form of Christianity
became altered and a dispensation for the Gentiles was
introduced, and in this unknown period, and certainly
not within twenty or thirty years of the alleged resur
rection, as assumed by Mr Row, the Pauline epistles
made their appearance, and probably from Gentile
hands.
Mr Row comforts himself with the idea that no one
looks upon the Christian narrative as a deliberate in
vention. It is time assuredly to remove from the
advocates of Christianity such a refuge. What is the
meaning of that host of criticism in which, in modern
times, Dr Strauss has led the way, founded upon the
�The Portraiture and Mission of fesus.
17
conflict of statement in the gospel narratives, one repre
sentation destroying or excluding another, if it be not
that these critics disallow the historical value of the
narratives ? They may admit some sort of foundation
for the proferred history, but in its essential parts,
figuring the hero in a desired form, they see that reali
ties have not been followed. Marks, in fact, indicating
what must be looked upon as deliberate fabrication on
the part of the gospel writers are not wanting, and I
will point out a few.
It is transparent that these writers have had the
desire to exhibit Jesus as fulfilling ancient prophecies,
and there must always have been a tendency on their
parts to find events to correspond with the predictions.
Some of the circumstances so brought together are of a
character to give evidence of designed adaptations, as
that of Jesus being taken to and brought from Egypt
merely to carry out the saying, “ Out of Egypt have I
called my son;” the “voice of him that crieth in the
wilderness,” said to have been realized literally in the
instance of John the Baptist; the being borne up by
angels lest his foot should he dashed against a stone, as
being met by Jesus when Satan tempted him to throw
himself down from a pinnacle of the temple; the people
of Zabulon and Napthalim being visited by a great
light, provided by Jesus in his ministrations in those
among other localities; the attempt to prove John to
be the precursor before “ the great and dreadful day of
the Lord” spoken of by Malachi, of which no more
could be said than, “ If ye will receive it, this is Elias,
which was for to come;” the purging the temple be
cause Jeremiah had complained of God’s house being
converted into a den of thieves; the casting lots for
the garments of Jesus to accomplish a saying of the
Psalmist; and Jesus calling out in his last moments
“I thirst” in order to fulfil another passage in the
Psalms. A history composed with materials thus
selected carries with it on its face the appearance of
�18 The Portraiture and Mission of Jesus.
having been so arranged for a purpose, and if there are
anywhere positive indications of statements introduced
of a nature warring with fact, the whole representation
becomes tainted as based upon fiction.
The gospels of Matthew and Luke contain genealogies
deriving Joseph in a direct line from David. Now, as
it is freely admitted in Jewish circles that the people
had no knowledge of their tribal distinctions from the
time of the Babylonish captivity, it is clear that the
family of Joseph, a carpenter of Galilee, could have
had no means of ascertaining their lineage as traceable
through David to the tribal patriarch Judah. It was
held desirable, to meet the requirements of assumed
prophecy, in presenting Jesus as the Messiah, to show
him lineally descended from David, and therefore it is
that we have these genealogies. They were framed by
the two writers independently of each other, and they
effectually disagree, as might be expected when put to
gether with imaginary data.
These same writers also give us a divine nativity for
Jesus, a circumstance to entirely defeat the aforesaid
genealogies; for if Jesus had no human father, he be
comes cleared of association with Joseph and David,
who had no part in his paternity. The event of this
divine procreation is never made use of again to the last
page of the sacred record, and the probability is that it
was a late introduction. The tale could not have been
current in the times depicted in the Acts, else it would
have been an offence charged against Paul, that he had
preached the new divinity, whereas he stood acquitted
of having transgressed in any way against accepted
Judaism as expressed by the law of Moses and em
bodied in the ordinances of the temple; nor would it
have been said at this time, as it has been said, that
Jesus obtained his divine sonship only at the day of
his resurrection, according to the saying applied to him
from the second Psalm.
With the account of the divine nativity in Matthew
�The Portraiture and Mission of fesus.
19
is linked Herod’s slaughter of the infants at Bethlehem,
a matter the want of historical support for which has
been commonly noticed. The conspiracy of Pheroras,
as recounted by Josephus, would seem to have sug
gested this portion of the tale. Certain Pharisees,
supposed to be gifted with the power of seeing into the
future, predicted that Herod’s line should be over
thrown in favour of that of Pheroras. On this Herod
put these prophets, and all of his own family who
favoured the pretensions of Pheroras, to death.
Pheroras he drove away to his own tetrarchy, and
he went swearing with many oaths that he would
not return till Herod was dead. Thus we have the
prophecy of the subversion of the line of Herod, the
consequent slaughter, the withdrawal of the rival, and
his remaining in retreat till the death of Herod, all
which circumstances the gospel writer has apparently
made use of, and converted them in altered form to
embellish his history of Jesus. As Josephus’ history
was not indited till the year 93, it follows that this
portion of the narrative respecting Jesus was not even
imagined until a later time.
Jesus is described as having been of Nazareth, and
the distinction is kept up even by a voice from heaven
alleged to have addressed Paul in effecting his conver
sion. Josephus mentions no such place, and we first
hear of it, outside the pages of the scripture, from
Eusebius, in the fourth century, when it is called
Nazara, and said to be a village not of Galilee but of
Judea. Matthew, ever striving to adapt fact to pro
phecy, asserts that it had been predicted that Jesus
should be “called a Nazarene,” but by which of the
prophets he did not venture to point out. Possibly
he was thinking of the term Nazarite, and there is the
appearance that the name Nazareth has been coined
under a play upon the Hebrew word nazar, consecra
tion.
The second Psalm has a saying which has been
�20 The Portraiture and Mission of Jesus.
frequently appealed to in the Christian scriptures as
applicable to Jesus. The phrase is, “ Thou art my son;
this day have I begotten thee.” The question is of
what day did the Psalmist speak ? He shows in the
verse next preceding that the time involved was when
it could also be said of the personage adverted to, “yet
have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion,” which
was to be effected when the confederacy of the kings and
rulers of the earth against him had been overthrown.
This is sufficiently definite, and shows the eventful
birth to be still in the womb of futurity. The Chris
tian writers, anxious for the support of so marked a
declaration, blind themselves to its surroundings, and
Say that it took effect in the instance of Jesus. The
earliest statement, namely, that in the Acts, was, that
it was by the means of his resurrection that this sonship was conferred upon him. The epistle to the
Romans supports this representation, and twice in the
epistle to the Hebrews the passage in question in its
integrity is made applicable to Jesus. At some later
time, seemingly, various other and conflicting allegations
were introduced to support the title of Jesus to this pro
phesied sonship. An angel informs Mary that he was
to acquire the divine sonship at his birth, his procreator
being the Holy Ghost; a voice from heaven proclaims
his sonship thirty years later at his baptism, as if then
conferred on him, using the words of the Psalm, but
(suspiciously) in a modified manner; and there is the
same declaration, with the same modified use of the
language of the Psalm, brought in at the transfigura
tion. On this one important point, therefore, how and
when Jesus was made to be the son of God, we have a
variety of conflicting statements, the leading statement,
namely, that of the Psalm, which is the foundation of
all the others, showing that it is an event that has yet
to be accomplished. It is a mockery of our senses if
the specific “ this day ” when the son in question was
to be “ begotten,” is applicable to five different occasions.
�The Portraiture and Mission of fesus.
21
One would think also if God could introduce among
us an individual thus begotten by himself, his divinity
would have been recognizable without the need of the
offices of any herald.
There are some minor matters in which the hand of
the constructor is also shown. To meet a prophecy,
Jesus has to enter Jerusalem as its king upon an ass.
The writer of Matthew, misapprehending the Hebrew
phrase, brings upon the scene two animals, and curi
ously enough places Jesus upon them both. Mark and
Luke, reading the Hebrew aright, have but one
animal. Matthew and Luke state that Jesus predicted
that before the cock crowed Peter should deny him
thrice, and accordingly it is said, after his denial of any
knowledge of Jesus three several times, 11 immediately
the cock crew.” Mark has it that the saying of Jesus
to Peter was, “before the cock crow twice, thou shalt
deny me thrice and accordingly he makes it out that
there was a crowing of the cock after the first denial,
and again after the third, shaping his events to suit
his sense of the prophetic utterance. At the crucifixion
of Jesus the soldiers are said to have cast lots for his
garments in fulfilment of a saying in the twenty-second
Psalm. Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree that the
whole of the garments were thus disposed of by lot.
John, misapprehending the force of the Hebrew, thinks
that it was meant that the “ vesture,” or upper “ coat,”
as he takes it to have been, had been referred to dis
tinctively, and was alone to be subjected to lot, and he
puts his facts accordingly, saying that the “ garments ”
were divided into four portions, for each soldier a por
tion, and that as the “ coat ” was without seam theycould not divide, it, but cast lots to decide which of
them should have it.
Mr Row furthermore supports himself with the
belief that the representation of Christ, as given in the
gospel accounts, is so drawn as to demonstrate that it
must have been taken from a real life, and that life of
�'ll Pbe Portraiture and Mission of Jesus.
such a character as to have been of divine mould.
Assuredly the picture of a god-man was one difficult
to portray. We may say indeed that there is an im
possibility to conceive the incidents proper to prove the
being to be described as at once truly man and truly
God, the conditions of the two natures and spheres
being so diverse, and that of one of the two standing
essentially beyond our cognizance. That the gospel
writers in their portraiture have had nothing to draw
from but human models, and that they have failed to
present their subject with the attribute of perfection, or
to maintain the composition of the divine with the
human in consistency, was to have been expected; and
we may readily see, in the imperfections of their work,
that in a dark and ignorant age, building upon imagina,tion and not upon fact, they have ventured upon a task
which could not have been even attempted in an
enlightened one.
The object placed before us is a carpenter, the re
puted son of a carpenter, living in remote and barbaric
Galilee, suddenly presenting himself, at the mature age
of thirty, as in being an incarnate god, and in office the
long-expected Messiah of the Jews. His credentials
are his mighty works, or a system of thaumaturgical
displays, his own assertions, and the character of his
teaching, all to be judged of in an age incompetent to
discern or weigh the facts, and to be sustained through
all time by the hearsay reports of we know not who.
The humanity of the mother is certain, but we are
perplexed to decide whether on the father’s side he
sprang from a human or a divine parent. It is as when
the renowned conqueror Alexander was traceable either
to Philip or to Jupiter Amon; or as when Hercules
was derivable from the same supreme god or from
Amphitr.yo; or, nearer still in parallelism, as when
the imprisoned virgin Danae was visited and “ over
shadowed” by this divinity and brought forth the
heroic Perseus. Both parentages are asserted and sup-
�The Portraiture and Mission of Jesus.
23
ported, the divine by angelic messengers, visiting, how
ever, only the ostensible parents, the human by elabo
rate details of the father’s pedigree. What Jesus said
of himself is equally doubtful. His pleasure appears
to have been to style himself “ son of man; ” when
devils, cognizant of his divine constitution, were about
to disclose who he was, he authoritatively shut their
mouths; when at a late period in his ministry Peter
asserted his divine sonship and position as the Christ
or Messiah, he attributed his knowledge of him to a
direct revelation from heaven, showing that hitherto he
had never thus proclaimed himself; and at the same
time he interdicted his disciples from declaring him to
others. Currently he was considered to be a prophet,
and if, as held in the Acts and the Epistle to the
Romans, his condition as the son of God dated only
from his resurrection, his career in the flesh must have
been devoid of the divine ingredient. His place in the
godhead has therefore, it is apparent, been imagined for
him under the ordinary stimulus of the desire of his
followers to magnify their master, as in the instance of
the Hindu reformer Buddha, or of the Roman em
perors, or of any other example of apotheosis or
canonization.
The appeal to miracles is a very questionable resort.
Now as Jesus is repeatedly represented to have
exhorted those on whose behalf they were wrought to
keep the matter secret to themselves, and as when such
signs, upon being asked for, were refused to be accorded
by him, and the desire to have them was repressed as
sinful, it is to be gathered, in spite of the sayings to the
contrary, that the writers were aware that there was no
such public sense of the occurrence of these marvels as
must have attached to them had they really been
enacted, and we are left to the conclusion that there
were in fact no such demonstrations. Not only there
fore was the divine Messiahship, it may be seen, not
asserted in the lifetime of Jesus, the testimony of the
�24 The Portraiture and Mission of Jesus.
miracles to fall back upon as evidences of his super
human being and mission, was also, it may be under
stood, equally wanting. Such displays of alleged power
are after all a very weak and hacknied device, common
among the Hebrew prophets, asserted as current among
the followers of Jesus, and traceable in every mythology
that has prevailed, Hindu, Chaldean, Egyptian, Grecian,
•and Roman, with which the Christian writers were
familiar when they drew up their narratives, and from
which sources, it may be judged, they derived their
models.
Nor were the acts ascribed to Jesus of a character
uniformly to sustain the pretensions asserted for him of
his divinity. It certainly was not ennobling that he
should by a miracle have supplied a vast quantity of
wine to promote the revelry of those who had already
“ well drunk; ” that he should make clay with his
spittle to anoint the eyes of a blind man and restore
him to sight; that he should drive swine to self-destruc
tion by infesting them with demons; that he should
look for his tribute money in a fish’s mouth ; that he
should curse and blight a senseless fig-tree for not pro
ducing fruit out of due season; that he should castigate
with a whip, made up by him of small cords, merchants
and money changers assembled in the temple courts, in
promotion of the ordinary temple services. These are
defective pictures betraying the pencils of inferior
artists.
We have Jesus represented as stretching out his arms
longingly to Jerusalem, exclaiming, “How often would
I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would
not;” but as his divine sonship and Messiahship were
both profound secrets, in what capacity, it must be
asked, could he have offered himself to Jerusalem and
been refused 1 In fact there is no such action towards
the city on his part described, and the attitude in ques
tion is a mere sensational protraiture.
�The Portraiture and Mission of Jesus.
25
We have him described as speaking as never man
spake before, but such a thing as a novel elevated senti
ment is not recorded as falling from his lips. He retails
what was current among Essenes and devout Jews of
his day, and preaches natural religion as prevailing
among the godly in all times. His famous sermon on
the mount, for example, contains nothing but what is
fairly traceable to the teachers of his people who had
preceded him, as transmitted to us in the Talmudic
traditions. But in these unequal delineations he is
also represented to us as designedly withholding from
the people instruction in godliness. He veils his dis
courses in parables with the professed intention that
they should not be intelligible to his hearers, to their
benefit, “lest at any time they should see with their
eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand
with their heart, and should be converted, and he should
heal them,” (the parables, however, nevertheless, being
simple in structure, and transparent as to their import) ;
and he solemnly thanks God that “these things,”
necessary for their salvation, are “ hid ” from the wise
and prudent, and revealed only to those who are without
discernment as “ babes.”
He is made, contrary to all sense of modesty, to an
nounce himself as “ meek and lowly,” ever ready “ to
seek and to save the lost ones.” We find him far from
accessible to those who looked to him for instruction,
rebuffing them with short and enigmatical answers; he
reviles Scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites, whitened
sepulchres, liars, and children of the devil; he is rude
to his own mother ; he holds earthly ties of relationship
in small account when measured by his personal mission,
and represents that he has “ come to set a man at vari
ance against his father, and the daughter against her
mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-inlaw,” adding that under his dispensation “ a man’s foes
shall be they of his own household.” “ There is nothing
more remarkable,” acknowledges Mr Bow himself, in
�26 The Portraiture and Mission of fesus.
his earlier work, “ The Jesus of the Evangelists,”—“in
the Evangelical portraiture of the Christ than the
manner in which the humblest of men is depicted as
habitually preaching himself.’’ “In no other man
would such an assumption wear anything but the
appearance of arrogance.” And yet we are to accept
the feature as consistent with a perfect specimen of
humanity fortified and exalted with a divine essence
ever permeating through it.
The being so composed is in truth a mass of bewilder
ing inconsistencies. God is said to have “ so loved the
world ” that he gave up his son “ that the world through
him might be saved,” and yet the son solemnly inti
mates to the Father, “ I pray not for the world ; ” he
is “ the light of the world,” “ the true light which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” and
nevertheless consigns multitudes to perdition, of whom
he will say, “ I never knew you; ” he expresses in him
self the type of poverty, as one who had not a hole
wherein to lay his head, but can pass forty days and
forty nights without food, create sustenance for thou
sands out of nothing, fabricate wine out of water, and
supply himself with cash from a fish’s mouth; he is
at once the bridegroom, the centre of joy, and spreading
joy around him, and the man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief; he is the source of life, and yet cannot pro
tect his own life from his enemies ; he is God, “ equal
with God,” and nevertheless, in an agony of distress,
“ with strong crying and tears,’’ entreats God for
deliverance, and his prayer is unheeded ; again he is
God, and yet feels himself abandoned by God ; he came
to lay down his life as a sacrifice for others, and when
he undergoes his destined fate, not recognizing his own
work, he upbraids God with forsaking him, and wonders
“ why” he has done so.
It is a relief to know that this is no true life, but a
mere portraiture of an ideal personage drawn by ignorant
men, for ignorant classes, in days of darkness. Josephus
�The Portraiture and Mission of°Jesus.
27
knew nothing of these wonderments, and he wrote up to
the year 93, being familiar with all the chief scenes of
the alleged Christianity. Nicolaus of Damascus, who
preceded him and lived to the time of Herod’s successor
Archelaus, and Justus of Tiberias, who was the con
temporary and rival of Josephus in Galilee, both Jewish
historians, equally knew nothing of the movement.
Philo-Judseus, who occupied the whole period ascribed
to Jesus, and engaged himself deeply in figuring out the
Logos, had heard nothing of the being who was realizing
at Jerusalem the image his fancy was creating ; and for
about a hundred and fifty years from the time given as
that of the death of Jesus, there is not a single reliable
name or record connected with Christianity which can
be safely associated with the period. After this lapse
of time, when Jerusalem had been destroyed and the
Jews exiled by Hadrian, the Christian representations
were conceived and gradually put together. The Jewish
scriptures and the traditionary teaching of their doctors,
the Essenes and Therapeuts, the Greek philosophies, the
neo-platonism of Alexandria, and the Buddhism of the
East, gave ample supplies for the composition of the
doctrinal portion of the new faith; the divinely pro
created personages of the Grecian and Roman pantheons,
the tales of the Egyptian Osiris, and of the Indian
Rama, Krishna, and Buddha, furnished the materials
for the image of the new saviour of mankind; and
every surrounding mythology poured forth samples of
the “ mighty works ” that were to be attributed to him
to attract and enslave his followers ; and thus, first
from Judaism, and finally from the bosom of heathen
dom, we have our matured expression of Christianity.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The portraiture and mission of Jesus
Creator
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Strange, Thomas Lumisden
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 27 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. The pamphlet, in part, challenges the work of Prebendary Row entitled 'The Supernatural in the New Testament'.
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Thomas Scott
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1876
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CT179
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Jesus Christ
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The portraiture and mission of Jesus), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Jesus Christ
Superstition