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THE RELIGION OF JESUS:
ITS MODERN DIFFICULTIES
AND
ITS ORIGINAL SIMPLICITY.
bourse of Sunhj (Jtaing Jettas,
BY
J. ALLANSON PICTON.
I.
The Religion of Jesus; how it is ascertained.
The main question of course, is what the religion of Jesus
really was. And this, which we now proceed to discuss, is
here raised only because some answer to it was absolutely
necessary, if we are to obtain any satisfaction in regard to
the main issue. At the same time, it must be borne in mind
that the question now before us is subsidiary to our present
course of enquiry; and all that can be fairly expected is the
suggestion of a method, as to the soundness and the results
of which every man of candour and common sense can, to a
considerable extent, judge for himself. The method, however,
is likely to be depreciated, unless the real reasons for our
interest in the main issue are understood. On these, there
fore, we must at once say a few words.
Why then are we so anxious to know what was the
personal religion of Jesus himself? The times in which we
live show a good deal of change in feeling about this subject;
but still there are not wanting those who say “ we want to
know the religion of Jesus, because 1 whosoever will be saved,
before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic
�Faith; which faith except every one do keep whole and
undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.’ ”
According to this view, correct theological opinions are
necessary to secure everlasting happiness. Jesus taught
correct theological opinions. Therefore, it is absolutely
necessary to know with infallible certainty what he taught.
*
Now I do not hold this view.
I regard it as injurious
to man and blasphemous against God. It is injurious
to man; because it diverts his attention from character,
which is the only key to the higher life; because it puts
pride of intellect in place of lowliness of spirit; because it
makes dogmatic confidence of more importance than loyalty
of soul. It is blasphemous against God, because it charges
Him with making salvation dependent on two conditions,—
exhaustive learning or stupid credulity,—one of which is
impossible to all but the very few, while the other degrades
and even brutalizes those who comply with it. From such
a conception of the reasons which give interest to the reli
gion of Jesus I differ fundamentally, essentially and utterly.
I repudiate the notion of salvation which it implies, as well
as the means it supposes necessary for attainment. For me
salvation has no meaning at all, except safety from sin,
whether in this world or in any other. Theological opinions
can have no merit or demerit in themselves; and would
have no importance whatever, were it not for the influence
which they directly or indirectly exert- on character.
If then it is not in pursuit of correct metaphysical opinions
about God that we go to Jesus, what is the real nature of
our interest in his religion ? We are floating far down
amidst a stream of influences, which, collectively, are termed
Christian. But this stream has been swollen by innumerable
tributaries, some entering high up, others far down the
current, and each of them bringing with it some special
qualities which sensibly affect the main stream. We talk
of ritualism on the one hand, and -rationalism on the other.
We discuss the effects produced on modern Christianity by
lutheranism or ultramontanism. And learned critics can
tell us what conflicting influences were exerted by Ebionite,
Pauline, and neo-Platonist doctors in the primitive ehurch.
But after all there is one main stream, the deep bed of which
has drawn all these tributaries into itself.
We may venture, perhaps, to carry the illustration a little
• * It will be said that this description is exaggerated. Perhaps it is, if we had
to do only with what people fully realize of their religious position. But much
mental distress is caused by dim apprehension of the logical consequences of
unrealized positions. Does the Athanasian Creed mean anything or nothing ?
�3
further. Here is a town on the banks of a fair river; and
the whole reputation of the city rests on the health-giving
qualities of the water. But this river has many contributing
streams unequally exposed to pollution. As time goes on
experience shows that the river water is losing both its
purity and its healthful qualities; and it is proposed to
remedy the evil by supplying the town directly from the
upper reaches of the stream. But opponents of the project
observe that all the tributaries have special qualities of their
own; and they argue that these are essential to the complex
properties of the river. That river grows, they say, in its
medicinal virtues as it descends and increases in volume.
True, the nearer tributaries are mere drainage, which might
well be got rid of; but if you go beyond a certain point,
about the exact position of which there may be difference of
opinion, you will experience a distinct loss for every sub
sidiary stream you exclude. In fact, by a providential
arrangement, the qualities of the original fountain are
necessarily latent until they are developed by the infall of
the earlier tributaries.
However sacred the waters of the
prime source may be, they are unavailable for restorative
purposes until thus mingled. On the other hand, it is
urged that however valuable the special qualities of the
lower st reams may be, yet these afford no sufficient com
pensation for the harm that is done by the peculiar liability
of even the earliest tributaries to pollution. At all events,
it may be said, let us try ! Let us mount up to the prime
source of all, the transparent fount that bubbles out of the
living rock, and let us draw thence and drink. It may be
that much may be wanting of what we are accustomed to;
but on the other hand, the water there may have properties
of its own, which have been dropped or neutralized in the
windings and comminglings of the course. It may even be
that we shall find there, in hitherto unimagined vigour, the
qualities which make the river’s fame.
Now Christianity, or at least the church, which ought to
be embodied Christianity, has, with fine meaning, been
called “ the city of God,” and it stands by the river of the
water of life. But the tributaries of that river, as we know
it, are many and various, and they are all alike exposed to
pollution. We hold this to be true, not only of mediaeval
and modern influences which have affected the church, but
of the very earliest streams of thought and feeling that
swelled the tide of its life. For it can hardly be denied
that even the teaching of apostles shows considerable traces
of theosophic speculation and metaphysical elaboration, en-
�4
tirely foreign to the original simplicity of Christ.
*
It may
of course he said that the maturer teaching of the apostles
was necessary in order to give practical efficacy to the
profounder elements, which, from the beginning, lay hidden
in the wisdom of Christ. This may, or may not have been
so; but, inasmuch as the prime impulse of the Christian
movement was indisputably given by Jesus, it is surely
worth our while to study the original ideas of the great
master himself, apart, if possible, from their later elaboration
by others. There must have been something very wonderful
in the first outburst of that mighty spiritual force, which
afterwards absorbed so many and such diverse intellectual
and moral energies into itself. Are there left any records
which may enable us to frame for ourselves a conception of
the mode of its operation ? There is much in the theories
and reasonings of St. Paul, for instance, which we feel that
we cannot now appropriate without doing violence to in
tellectual habits of judgment, and moral habits of feeling,
such as have obtained an unchallenged supremacy over
all ordinary affairs of life. Thus, his insistance on a vision
in the sky, as proof positive of the physical resurrection of
Christ, is entirely foreign to modern habits of reasoning.
And no ingenuity of commentators will enable us to read
the ninth or the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the
Romans, without a sense of painful incongruity with our
feeling of justice. Nevertheless St. Paul and the other apos
tles impress us with the idea of men profoundly moved by a
grand impulse towards a higher life; and that impulse is
clearly traceable to the ministry of Jesus. If we then, by
any means, could put ourselves imaginatively in their place,
is it not possible that we should feel that impulse too ? At
any rate, we long to know whether there is anything in the
reminiscences of Jesus still extant, which can at all account
for the extraordinary influence he exerted over such men.
And here we must not neglect a special reason for this
desire; a reason arising out of the prevalent and irreversible
tendency to depreciate miracle as an instrument of revelation.
This tendency is almost as clearly marked in those who still
believe in the historical reality of miracles as in those who
entirely reject them. It becomes then most profoundly
interesting to know whether, apart from the traditions of
miraculous power, which have surrounded the memory of
Jesus with a supernatural halo, there was sufficient in the
* As to the grounds of this assertion, let any one give one Sunday to the reading
,of St. Mark’s Gospel, and another to the Epistle to the Romans or Hebrews, and
he can estimate them for himself. As to St. John’s Gospel, see below.
�5
greatness of his character and the nobility of his teaching to
account for the impluse he gave to the higher life of man.
In other words, we want to learn whether, if the prevalent
theology and the whole of its miraculous associations were
abandoned, there is still that in the personal religion of
Jesus, which would attract us to profess ourselves Christians
and to justify us in doing so.
But further, for those who surrender theosophical theories
about the nature of Christ, there must arise special reasons
of peculiar force for the present enquiry. For the influence
he still exerts on the world is so immense, so profound and
searching; the hold he has taken on the hearts of men so
pathetic and inspiring, that the personal characteristics
which account for these things must appear of transcendent
interest. Indeed his career was, by all accounts, so short, his
social position was so lowly, his national associations were,
in the eyes of the western world, so despicable, his reported
doctrines were so unworldly in spirit, and often so paradoxical
in form, that the intellect is paralysed with astonishment,
and appeals to the heart’s experience of moral miracles, if
perchance it may find a solution there. What keen purity
of soul give vividness to the light that darts so far across
the ages ? What was the original music of the voice, whoes
broken echoes charm us even in their dying ? It is for the
answer to such questions that we want to know what was
the real religion of Jesus.
You have before you now two opposite reasons, or classes
of reasons, for interest in this question.
On the one hand,
we are told that eternal bliss or endless misery is dependent
on the answer. On the other hand, it is suggested that in
the simple origins of Christianity we may find anew an
inspiration sorely needed by this age.
But let us note here that the sort of information desirable,
as well as the degree of certainty necessary, is very different
in the two cases. If you are called upon to cross a plank
over an apparently bottomless abyss, you will need some
thing not far short of infallible testimony before you trust
it. But if you want to know what sort of spring-board will
enable you to leap the highest, the slightest testimony in
favour of any particular pattern may induce you to try it;
and then experience will be all the proof you require. Just
so, if you think that your” deliverance from the flames of hell,
or your enjoyment of the blessings of heaven, depends upon
your choice of a theology, you may well desire supernatural
and infallible testimony in favour of the system you select.
To talk of experimental proof is out of the question here.
�6
We may know by experience what excites and colours our
hopes ; but we cannot know by experience that these are
justified, until we have passed the abyss of death. We are,
therefore, dependent on the testimony of those whom we
suppose to have had superhuman means of knowledge. Thus
it becomes of crucial importance to us to prove, first, that
such persons existed; next, that they had superhuman means
of knowledge ; thirdly, that they taught precisely these
opinions and no others. But the case is very different when
you wish approximately to ascertain what it was that gave
the original moral impulse, of which Calvinistic and even
Pauline theology seems in itself incapable. This question is
of course susceptible only of a probable answer. But the
mere probability may attract your attention, and then
perhaps you can try it for yourself. In this kind of enquiry
you can expect no supernatural authority to decide, and no
infallible voice to direct. But you have this consolation;
character is not formed by infallible dictation, but by pic
tured ideals and imaginative sympathy.
A description of the method on which we proceed in this
enquiry will occupy the remainder of the present lecture.
Keep in mind the nature of the problem. We are asking
what was the personal religion of Jesus; not what it was
thought to be by Primitive Church Fathers, nor even by
Apostles. We are asking what there was original and dis
tinctive in the religion of Jesus; not what ideas he held in
common with the Jews.
Further, we are instituting no
enquiry now as to the historical outlines of his career. We
take for granted the common basis of facts on which all
historians, both sacred and secular, are agreed,—the lowly
origin, the prophetic ministry in Galilee, the establishment
of a circle of disciples, the excitement of opposition amongst
the great religious authorities of the day, and the tragic
death at Jerusalem. About these there is no dispute. The
difficulty begins when we attempt to distinguish, amongst
the reminiscences of unequal value and often conflicting
testimony left to us, the probable germs of the stupendous
results that followed. For these germs we are directed to
certain books of various character and independent purpose,
which, bound up together, make the New Testament.
Now, in taking up these for the purpose of enquiry, the
first condition we make is that, we shall be allowed to treat
them, so far as criticism is concerned, precisely as we should
treat any other books whatever.
So far as feeling is con
cerned, their venerable associations with man’s highest life,
and with our own holiest affections, necessarily put a differ
�7
ence between them and ordinary literature., But what we
ask is, that, so far as it is possible to prevent it, this difference
shall not interfere with the application of critical principles
such as we instinctively apply to works like George Fox’s
journal, or to the most trustworthy accounts of Emanuel
Swedenborg. In such books, common sense compels us to
account for many exceptional experiences, and improbable
assertions, either by misunderstanding, or visionary interpre
tations of ordinary facts, or by illusions of an excitable and
morbid spirit.
But an additional difficulty arises in regard
to some few of the New Testament books, and particularly
those of the utmost consequence to us in this enquiry. For in
the proper sense of the word, they had no individual authors,
but were a multitudinous expression of many minds, for
which the first writer effected little if anything more than a
transcription, from the vagueness of social memory, to the
distinctness of manuscript. In such a case, we shall have to
allow for the possible refractions and distortions caused by
the fluid medium of the social memory, as well as for inevit
able personal errors.
If any one thinks that this entire
freedom of criticism is inconsistent with true reverence, or is
not permissible in dealing with religion, he will do well not
to attempt to follow us any farther. We will not argue with
him now. The time-spirit will undeceive him, or at any
rate his children.
Now at a first inspection of the New Testament books, a
clear distinction is apparent at once between the epistles and
the gospels. The epistles give us theories about Jesus. The
gospels confine themselves for the most part to what he said
and did. The epistles are very largely concerned with the
ontology of the divine nature, and with the supernatural
offices assigned to Christ therein; the gospels tell us mainly
what Jesus was in this life, and his bearing toward human
sin and sorrow. The epistles describe a system; the gospels
exhibit a person ; the epistles discover to us an inspiration
hardening into a creed; the gospels show a creed dissolving
under an inspiration. To which then shall we go—to the
epistles or the gospels—with most hope of finding the
religion of Jesus?
Surely, however valuable the epistles
may be for other purposes, to make them our prime authority
in such an enquiry would be to obtain an answer .as to what
the apostles thought about Jesus, and not what he was in
himself. But, as we have already said, this is precisely
what we wish to avoid.
We will go then to the gospels; and in doing so it is
impossible to suppress the questions, who wrote them, and
�8
when were they written ? The importance of such questions
for our purpose, may be, and often is greatly exaggerated.
There are many simple souls who appear to imagine that
when they have thrown doubt on the apostolic origin and
date of the gospels, all questions about them cease hence
forward to have either interest and importance; and that we
might as well make a bonfire of them at once. And of
course if our object had been that which we have expressly
repudiated, the discovery of an infallibly certain theology,
there might be much force in such reasoning.
But such is
not our object, and therefore the reasoning is beside the
mark altogether.
For our more modest design, it is quite
sufficient if we can find any probably authentic record of the
memories and affections current in the early church, one or
two generations after the death of Christ.
For whatever
additions may, even so early, have been made to the actual
facts, we may well suppose that a supremely great character
and a creative spirit must have left traces which will be more
or less discernible. We have no object then in exaggerating
the antiquity of the gospels. The almost unanimous ac
knowledgments of very various critics are sufficient for us;
while as to the authorship of these works, if it can fairly be
made out, we are satisfied; and if it cannot, no theory of ours
is disturbed.
At the outset, it is to be observed that there is as clear
and palpable a difference in scope and feeling between the
first three gospels, and the fourth, as there is between the
gospels and epistles. The former three are called “synoptic,”
a word which means “ seeing together,”—because they give
substantially the same selection of anecdotes concerning
Jesus. The fourth gospel stands apart, having a distinctly
individual character of its own, and implying a much more
elaborate theory of Christ’s supernatural being than is found
in the others. As to the synoptical gospels, it is possible or
even probable that they existed pretty much as we have them
before the end of the first century.
*
I do not say that these
very books, identical in arrangement and wording, were
handed about then with the names of Matthew, Mark and
* This assertion is fully justified by these facts amongst many others. Justin
Martyr, writing in the middle of the second century, quoted as documents well
known in the church, certain “memoranda” or “memoirs of the apostles,” and
the quotations he gives, are for the most part free quotations of passages from our
three gospels, or else are a medley from all three. Again, Papias, of Hierapolis,
writing about the year 125, A.D., relates certain traditions he had received from
“ the elders,” as to a Hebrew gospel written by Matthew, and a Greek gospel by
Mark. But it is too bold a conclusion to say our first gospel is a translation of
the former; or that the book assigned to Mark, was precisely identical with what
goes under that name now.
�Luke, attached to them; for that is scarcely made out. But
a selection of anecdotes existed, “familiar as household
words,” in the mouths of the earliest Christians. And this
selection, besides a good deal more, contained the substance
of these existing gospels.
So much may be said with
confidence, but beyond this we cannot go.
We cannot
assign a date within a range of thirty or forty years, to the
writing of these sacred anecdotes.
They certainly • cannot
have existed as books, when St. Paul was writing his epistles;
or in his references to the events of Christ’s ministry there
must surely have been some allusion to them. This would
shut us up to the last thirty-five years of the first century,
and we cannot pretend to speak more exactly. The question
of authorship, for reasons which will presently appear, is
scarcely worth discussing. The real truth is, as just now
hinted, that properly speaking they never had any authors
at all; but only editors.
Here we must try to estimate a most singular and interest
ing feature of these synoptical gospels; we have seen how
they differ from the epistles, and if you bear those differences
in mind, you will acknowledge that in spite of what has just
been said, they suggest strongly the priority of the gospels.
I am sure that if the New Testament books were put into the
hands of a scholarly and impartial critic, who had a feeling
for the growth of literature, but knew nothing whatever of
the theological issues supposed to be dependent on the
question, he would judge from internal evidence that the
gospels were earlier productions than the epistles. For there
is about the primitive literature of any creative epoch a
childlike freshness, a confidence independent of evidence, an
unconscious fulness of life, a healthy outwardness of imagin
ation, which cannot possibly be afterwards imitated by
art. To expect a work like the Iliad from the age of Pericles,
would be like expecting snowdrops in the blaze of summer.
Now, although the case of the gospels is very different from
that of a poem, yet they make upon us precisely the impres
sion of childlike freshness, unconsciousness, and uncritical
confidence inspired by imagination or affection. The epistles
on the contrary, show a laborious effort to build up a system,
a critical handling of older materials, and a self conscious
logic. To imagine that the church could pass through this
epistolary stage, and afterwards enter on the gospel stage,
*
would be to suppose that a boy who had reached the prag
matical age, could ever again become a genuine child. The
thing is impossible: and all the Dry-as-dusts in Germany can
never persuade me that the synoptical gospels were created
after the epistles had been written.
�10
You will say then there seems to be here a flat contradic
tion, for on one hand we have maintained that these gospels
could not have been written before St. Paul’s epistles ; on
the other hand we declare that they bear all the marks of an
earlier stage of church life. But the two positions are not
so inconsistent as they appear to be, and the reconciliation
is to be found in the highly probable suggestion, that the
anecdotes of Jesus now embodied in the gospels floated about
in an unwritten form many years before they were committed
to writing. This is quite in accordance with what is known
of the manner in which popular traditions were preserved
before the invention of printing; nay, it is certain, that some
great monuments of ancient literature, the poems of Homer
for instance, were handed down in this way for generations
before any written copies existed. Besides, this mode of
preserving the thoughts and memories of departed generations
was specially adapted to the customs of the jewish teachers;
thus the Talmud, a vast body of detailed commentary on the
Law, was developed to a marvellous extent between the
captivity and final destruction of the Temple, without a word
being written. Now it is not mere conjecture which leads
us to suppose that the very first followers of Jesus pursued a
similar plan, for there are certain appearances in the synop
tical gospels which cannot be satisfactorily accounted for on
any other supposition.
Take up the little 11 harmony ” of the gospels, published
years ago for Sunday Schools, by Mr. Robert Mimpriss, and
founded on Greswell’s “ Dissertations ”. Disregard the in
troductory chapters of Matthew and Luke, and also the
supplementary stories of the resurrection, in regard to both of
which sections of the combined narrative, the attempted
<l harmony” is most conspicuously hopeless. Confine your
attention to the actual period of Christ’s ministry, beginning
from his baptism and ending with his death. Exclude from
view the passages violently thrust in there from the fourth
gospel; and in the combined synoptical narrative which
remains you will find the remarkable features to which we
have referred.
You will observe that the selection of
anecdotes given, is to a large extent identical in all three ;
and if you compare the exact language used in any single
instance as in that of the leper healed or the paralysed
,
*
man let down through the rooff, the phraseology is strikingly
similar but also curiously different. The similarity is such
that you cannot suppose each writer to be composing an
* Matt, viii, 2. Mark i, 40. Luke v, 12.
t Matt, ix, 2. Mark ii, 3. Luke, v, 18.
�11
independent narrative; for this similarity is found not only
in reported speech, which we might suppose every author
would try to reproduce, according to accepted accounts; but
it is found also in the relation of events, which really
independent narrators would certainly describe entirely in
their own words.
On the other hand the differences are such that we cannot
imagine all the writers to have had the same document before
them, which they copied or altered according to their own views.
Experience shows that such a mode of working would
produce differences and agreements of a very different kind
from those actually before us
Three men having one
document before them with one general aim, though with
various views of detail, are morally certain to transcribe
some considerable portions of that document word for word.
Thus the whole three of them occasionally, and oftener two
of them, will give a whole paragraph without an alteration.
But such a case as this never occurs in a single instance,
throughout the whole course of the synoptic narrative. Now
on the hypothesis of a common document this is a most ex
traordinary circumstance. Whoever the writers were, they
were men whose religious ideas were so much in accord, that
attempts to point out minor differences between them
generally look fanciful and arbitrary. Is it possible then that
men having so much in common, and editing one single
document, would never have; agreed to reproduce a single
paragraph of it unaltered ? Their only reason for editing it
must have been that it seemed to them valuable. It might
require supplementing from their own traditional knowledge;
might require alteration here and there. But it is in the or it
highest degree improbable and unreasonable to suppose that
they would not leave a single paragraph as it stood.
Again, the differences are such as cannot be accounted for
on this supposition.
Men editing a common document,'
which on the whole inspires their confidence, will not as a
rule alter its wording, without some object in view; and this
object it is usually in the power of criticism to detect. If for
instance the original document, in relating the baptism of
Jesus, made the impression that the descent of the Spirit upon
him in the form of a dove was only an exstatic vision in his
own soul, we can well understand why the third evangelist
should add, as he does, the phrase “ in a bodily shape”* He
.
felt himself perfectly justified in giving expression to the
confident belief of the church circle in which he moved, that
* Luke iii, 22.
�12
the miraculous appearance was external and real. And if
all the differences were of that kind, although this would
leave our previous argument untouched, the fact, so far as it
goes, would be consistent with the idea of a common docu
ment variously edited.
But the truth is, the differences are
very rarely indeed of this kind. Not one out of a hundred
variations in phraseology can be accounted for in this manner.
In many cases it is only the order of the words that is
different; and even when the words are changed, they mean
very often precisely the same thing. On the supposition of a
common document these verbal alterations must appear nine
times out of ten, arbitrary, capricious and unnecessary. But
proceeding, as we do throughout, on the supposition that
human nature at the Christian era was very much what it is
now, we cannot believe that three reasonable men would
gratuitously have given themselves such unnecessary trouble.
The limits of similarity and the nature of the detailed
differences between these gospels therefore constrain us to
reject as improbable the idea that they spring from one
original document.
On the other hand it is equally impossible to believe that
these works are of entirely independent origin. It is incon
ceivable that three men, uninfluenced by any previously
existing model, should have hit upon nearly the same selection
of events for narration and should so often and continually
have used a phraseology so similar. And so we come back to
the suggestion mentioned, that the earliest, the original
selection of gospel anecdotes current in the church, was not
written at all, but existed only in an oral form. A simple ex
periment will prove that this supposition accounts for all the
appearances just described. Let a tale be told several times
over in nearly the same language to a number of intelligent
young people, and let them afterwards write out from memory
and entirely apart from each other, their recollections of the
story. The result will be found to present several of the
phenomena of these synoptical gospels. The arrangement
and the wording will be so nearly alike as to imply a common
source ; yet the differences will be of such a character, and so
capriciously distributed, as to suggest tricks of memory
rather than deliberate variations from a copy.
The process in the case of the synoptical gospels must have
been something of this kind. The words and deeds of Jesus
were of course the subject of constant conversation amongst
the apostles after his death. And as, little by little, their
mission opened out before them, their immediate business
was to make others acquainted with what had so powerfully
�13
influenced themselves. But their conversations and confer
ences one with another had settled, by a process of what may
not irreverently be called natural selection, the particular
anecdotes most available for their purpose. These anecdotes
therefore speedily became the common property of the Jewish
church: and so long as the apostles lived, there was probably
no thought of writing out these treasures of memory. But
as these first fathers of the church died off, there would
naturally arise a desire to have in some fixed form, the testi
mony popularly associated with their names. Thus many
“ took in hand ” as it is said in the third gospel, 11 to set
forth in order those things which were most confidently held”
by the churches. And amongst these attempts, three finally
eclipsed all others, probably because they were believed to
give in an authoritative form the preaching of the three
apostles, Matthew, Peter, and Paul.
*
The writers who wrote
these various versions of the story followed the one oral
gospel; but that oral gospel had differed in the lips of
various preachers, and these differences were certainly not
lessened by the reporters who wrote from memory. You will
now understand what is meant when we said that the synop
tical gospels had, properly speaking, no authors, but only
editors. The writers neither invented, nor made researches,
in our modern sense of the word1 they simply wrote what
they recognized as the common stock of Christian tradition.
In this way, such a gospel as that of Mark would be produced,
which begins with the baptism, and ends, in the most
ancient copies, with the mystery of the open tomb, but
without any account of the resurrection.
Gospels written
later, or re-edited, were enriched with such stories of the
birth and the resurrection of Christ as were current a few
years afterwards, when curiosity on these subjects had been
excited. And so we get the introductory and concluding
chapters of Matthew and Luke, which have manifestly a
different origin from that of the common synoptical gospel.
These three narratives then give the imaginative memories
that gladdened and hallowed the church at the very time
when Paul was elaborating his new theology, and the elder
apostles were alarmed at his innovations.
They reveal an
earlier stage of Christian life than his writings do; although
they did not assume a written form till his epistles were
given to the world. On this account the gospels form a
most interesting study.
Very little of what has now been said is applicable to the
* Mark was commonly believed to have been an attendant of St. Peter, and
Luke of St. Paul.
�14
fourth gospel, called by the name of St. John. On the
question whether it is rightly so called, we can only say here
that the balance of argument seems to be against the idea
that St. John wrote it himself, but rather favourable to the
opinion that this apostle founded a special school of doctrine
of which this gospel is the outcome. According to the
common belief, it was not written before the extreme end of
the first, or the beginning of the second century, and it is
quite possible that it was produced as late as the year 125,
but hardly later.
*
Of more consequence for us, however,
is the fact that it is not founded on the same cycle of
anecdotes as the synoptical gospels, and that it differs very
much from them in bearing all the marks of individuality, both in conception and execution. It is not at all improbable
that the writer followed certain traditional memories specially
preserved in the section of the church to which he belonged.
But, however this may be, these memories certainly received
the stamp of his own particular character and feeling; and
this is even more marked in his report of the words of Jesus,
than in his record of events. Thus, we do not seem to get
as near to the reality of Christ’s ministry in this gospel, as in
the synoptics. Yet perhaps there is a sense in which it may
occasionally take us even nearer. A great artist may treat
the landscape before him very freely, and yet may call up
more of the feeling impressed on actual beholder, than would
be possible with a more correct representation.
So it is in
matters of history. The story of the crucifixion in the fourth
gospel, is much grander than in the other three; and probably
excites more of the feelings with which the dread scene was
witnessed by sympathetic beholders. Nevertheless, there is
for the most part a lack of the childlike freshness which is so
charming in the earlier narratives.
It does not present us
with the impersonal memory of the church, but with the
choice recollections of a particular school, edited by a man of
uncommon genius and strong opinions. In fact, as was said,
between the synoptical gospels and the fourth, we find very
much the same difference which we remarked between the
gospels generally and the epistles. And carrying out the
same principle, we shall expect more information about the
personal religion of Jesus from the synoptics, than from the
later gospel. Still there are gleams of a special insight in
this work, of which we shall do well to avail ourselves when
we can.
* The late date assigned by some critics (A.D. 150—160) would leave its
position in the writings of Irenivus entirely unaccountable, to say nothing of the
evidence that it was known to the eaily Gnostics.
�15
The three synoptical narratives offer us the richest mine.
But even here it ought to occasion no surprise if we find
much alloy
“ The Jews require a sign,” said St- Paul,
speaking from his own experience; and certainly there are
miracles enough here to answer the longing of the Jews.
There are also interpretations of the Old Testament scriptures
which savour much more of pedantic rabbinism, than of the
simplicity of Christ. And there are apocalyptic visions which
at best are only reflections of Daniel, Esdras and Enoch.
But there runs throughout a vein of nobler metal, as clearly
distinguishable from primitive church gossip, as yellow gold
is from the hoary quartz and twinkling stars of mica amongst
which it is found. There are words of loving wisdom ; there
are suggestions of piercing insight; there are gleams of a
peculiarly exalted ideal of human life; there are pulsations
of an universal charity; all of which bear the stamp of
individual character, and are utterly foreign to the peddling
prejudices of Judaism.
Now suppose the diggers at Pompeii, should strike upon
a sculptor’s studio, where, in the confusion wrought by the
volcanic overthrow of the city, there lie scattered the frag
mentary remains of many works of art. , In many of them
there are traces of the poverty in thought, and sensationalism
in feeling, which mark a debased provincial taste. Others
show attempts at least towards a better ideal. But here is
detected a godlike head, and there a divinely carved arm,
and there again a grand torso, all of them betraying the
conception of a single mind, with the unerring stroke of the
hand that it directed. In such a case there is no hesitation.
Here, cry all beholders, is the work of the master; and all
the well meant rubbish around is no doubt the contribution
of apprentices or journeymen. Just so we judge as to the
fragmentary, often confused, relics left us in the gospels.
The difference in value between the materials they afford
is often too striking to escape the attention of even the most
careless ; though in other cases, an educated spiritual tact is
needed to appreciate it.
In Matthew xxiv, 29, we read—u immediately after the
tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the
moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from
heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken ; and
then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven.”
These words are said to have been uttered, amongst a number
of similar predictions made, in answer to a question of the
disciples who asked “ what shall be the sign of thy coming
and of the end of the world ? ” And throughout these pas-
�16
sages, it is assumed that the “ coming of the Son of Man/’
the end of the world, and the establishment of the kingdom
of heaven are different phrases meaning the same thing. *
But in Luke xvii, 20, we are told that when the Jews
asked a very similar question, Jesus answered, “thekingdom'
of God cometh not with observation ; neither shall they say
lo, lo, here ! or lo, there ! for, behold, the kingdom of God
is within you.” These two descriptions of the kingdom of
God are in clear, unmistakeable and palpable contradiction to
one another. They cannot have been taught by the same
teacher. And there can be no hesitation in deciding which
of them we should attribute to the head and source of
Christian inspiration. The former passage is entirely in the
style of Dr. Cumming. It has all the appearance of being a
parody on the book of Daniel. And it is difficult to conceive
that he who reproved men for morbid anxieties which be
trayed a want of faith in God, would have stooped to gratify
the vulgar appetite, always felt by ignorance, for a cheap
insight into the mysteries of the future, apart from the
divinely appointed labour of induction. But the other pas
sage, in St. Luke, has a peculiar dignity. It is suggestive
of a serenely contemplative spirit that can look both beneath
and beyond the symbols of popular hope. It shows the
sympathy that can appreciate the value of such symbols,
and the inspired idealism, which expands their meaning.
It tells of a marvellous insight into the destinies of a
traditional phrase. It reveals the master who taught St.
Paul to say “ the kingdom of God is not meat and drink,
but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” f
Again, it is said in John vii, 31, that the appetite of the
crowd for wonders being entirely satisfied, they asked “when
Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than this man hath
done ? ” According to this signs were the accepted test of
Christ’s mission to men. And indeed the gospels appear to
be generally written on this assumption. But here and
there, we find words implying a conception almost startlingly
different. And as this was contrary to all the prejudices of
the disciples, it is more likely to have come from the master
whom in many things they misunderstood. “ Except ye
see signs and wonders ye will not believe.” The words
sound harsh in their present connection, addressed to a
father who applied for aid to a sick child. But'what if they
are a relic of Christ’s remembered impatience with the desire
of the people for wonders? In Mark viii, 11, we are told
* See Matthew xxv, 1,—31. t Note also Mark iv, 26, as equally in consistent
with the visions of chaos and cataclysm referred to.
�17
distinctly, that on one occasion being asked for a sign, Jesus
sighed deeply in spirit and said a why doth this generation
seek after a sign ? verily, I say unto you, there shall no
sign be given to this generation. And he left them and
departed.” *
The notion of sectarian privilege was strongly developed
among the early Christians; an inheritance derived perhaps
from the overweening ideas of national privilege entertained
by the Jews. Surely it must have been under the influence
of such prejudices that they wrote how, in explaining the
parable of the sower, for the initiated few, Jesus said, “unto
them that are without all these things are done in parables,
that seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they
may hear and not understand; lest at any time they should
be converted and their sins should be forgiven them.” f
How utterly opposed is such a speech in motive and feeling,
to the words St. Matthew attributes to Jesus, when he found
that rank and fashion scorned him, and that his mission
must be amongst the ignoble multitudes who could render
him no reward ! 111 thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven
and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” It was
just these babes who could not understand the parable of the
sower. And to our mind there can be no doubt which
saying really reveals the heart of Christ.
It will very likely appear to many of you that the method
we have now described must depend very much upon indi
vidual tact, and must always be uncertain in its operation.
But the tact required is such as all may cultivate. It is not
dependent upon scholarship. All it needs is such a sense of
moral fitness between excuse and effect, as can detect in the
misty but shining uplands of the gospels, the fountain heads
from which the purest streams of moral influence in church
history have flowed. Those whose business it is to deal with
money, acquire, without scientific acquaintance with theprocess
of assaying, a tactual and visual perception which enables
them instantly to detect the difference between spurious and'
genuine coin. So those who make it the business of their
lives to emulate the spirit of Christ, need not be slow to learn
the art of practically distingushing the fine gold of His
words even though otherwise ignorant of Biblical criticism.
Besides, we may now recall with advantage what was said
about the absence of any need in such an enquiry, for
infallible certainty. You may and you will fall into error.
*See also Matt. xvi. 1 —4. tMark iv. 11.
�But such errors do not make the difference between salvation
and damnation; and with every step of progress in the
spiritual life, our tact will become more subtle and our per
ception more sure. The more we realize the essential spirit
of Christ, the more will all the complex elements of the
gospels fall into their proper places, until we shall feel
surprise that confusion should ever have arisen. How much
disappointed travellers sometimes are with great pictures, to
the sight of which they have looked forward as one chief end
of their journey 1 The features of Saint or Martyr are obscure
with stains of neglect and age, or with the blotches of more
than One inferior artist. But if the travellers have eyes to see,
they sometimes find that as they gaze, the familiar lines and
colours of antiquity seem as it were to detach themselves from
the corruptions of time, and to go back and back into majestic
loneliness, until they stand apart in their own venerable
sweetness, a miracle of art. Then the beholders wonder at
their own blindness that could for a moment confuse the
dust and daub of later ages, with the visions that first
brightened the world. So perhaps it may be with the image
of Jesus in the gospels. Primitive misconceptions have
dimmed it; and sectarian passions have distorted it. But
in some hour of sacred contemplation, undisturbed by pre
judice or fear, we feel as though a miracle were wrought. Then
(c all at once beyond the will
We hear a wizard music roll;
And through a lattice on the soul,
Looks thy fair face and makes it still.”
At least the subject is worth farther thought, for no darkness
of the past enshrines a more fascinating enigma than that of
the wonder working speaker, who with the breath of his lips
overthrew the temples of antiquity and on their ruins built
the modern world.
tTPFIEtD GREEX, Printer, Tenter Street, E.C.
�THE RELIGION OF JESUS:
ITS MODERN DIFFICULTIES
AND
ITS ORIGINAL SIMPLICITY.
J. ALLANSON PICTON.
IL
The Religion of Jesus; His doctrine of God.
It would be a great mistake if we were to expect, in the
religion of Jesus, any philosophical explanation of the
mystery of eternal power.
Indeed, that is not the proper
business of religion at all. The work of religion is rather to
cultivate in men the temper most susceptible to the ultimate
sanctions of morality. But our approach to those ultimate
sanctions, is always approximate only; for they lie in the
region of the infinite; and this is the reason, though we
cannot admit that it is a justification, for the confusion
persistently kept up between religion and theology. The
influences that cultivate a moral susceptibility, and those
that shape an intellectual scheme, though they may often be
allied, are yet clearly distinguishable; and are seldom, if
ever, wielded with equal force by the same man.
In other
words, prophets and philosophers are distinct races.
Nevertheless, a religion is ineffectual unless it to some
extent satisfies intellectual as well as moral needs.
The
discovery of facts is a perpetual revelation. The world is
hardly of the same size to two successive generations of men.
�■;f
V
i«
fr
!
2
And in the growth of knowledge, some new born, but not
newly created, religion is continually wanted, to elevate the
moral temper of men, and fit it to appreciate the fresh aspect
in which the same eternal sanctions of righteousness are
from time to time presented. This is what the religion of
Jesus did. And it did it in such a way as to afford a type, or
method, that is always applicable when the same process is
necessary again. But to clear this up, a slight digression
will be necessary.
If, amongst pre-historic savages, the question was ever
asked, what reason is there in the nature of things why I
should not steal my neighbour’s bow and arrows, now when
his absence gives me the chance ?■—the only possible answer
would probably have been, because he has set up a mighty
fetish close by his hut, which will eat you up if you do. It
would be a mistake to think such superstitions only ridicu
lous. For to my mind, they show the dawn of a recognition
that the mysterious powers, which rule the world, take note
of human conduct, and have established in the nature of
things, a standard to which we should do well to conform.
In other words, such superstitions showed some susceptibil
ity, however faint, to the ultimate sanctions of morality.
*
But we shall not dispute that the intellectual idea of these
sanctions was very grossly inadequate. It would lead us too
far to trace the parallel development of theology and religion
through the ascending grades of polytheism and monotheism.
Most of you would admit, I presume, that there has generally
been some kind of correspondence between the tone of
morality, and the elevation of the sanction.
Where the
latter has been rude and base, the former has been low and
coarse. Indeed, it may be said, we did fetishism too much
honour to suppose that it was associated with anything that
we should now recognize as morality. Wherever it is known
in the surviving barbarism of the present day, all that it
does, so far as we are informed, is to give the force of fear to
the authority which binds men to the observance of apparently
unmeaning customs in dress, food or language.
The polytheism of the Greeks originated in the personifi
cation of various powers of nature. And this is a much
higher thing than fetishism. But even amongst them, the
philosophers complained that morality was kept down by
* I may be told that fetishism was cruel, base and foul in its morality, if
morality it could be said to have. But is it not possible that we know fetishism,
as we know Christianity, only in a degraded form ? At any rate, it touched imbruted men with awe; and that is something. Without that feeling, there is no
real susceptibility to moral sanctions.
�unworthy ideas entertained about the Gods. The monotheism
of the Mosaic religion furnished, in the sovereign will of the
Most High, a far nobler sanction of the moral law, than any that
was known to the poetic imagination specially characteristic
of the Greeks. But still the Jews, who were forbidden to
represent the deity by sculptured forms, certainly pictured
him mentally as a magnified man.
And the prophets
frequently warned them against the dangers of such a con
ception. “ Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an
one as thyself,” says the psalmist, speaking in the name of
Jehovah. “ Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood
of goats ? ” “Wherewith shall I come before Jehovah,” asks
Micah, “ and bow myself before the high God ? Shall I
come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year
old?
....
He hath showed thee, 0 man, what is
good; and what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but
to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy
God?” To what is the appeal in these last words? It can
hardly be said that it is to the Mosaic law. For that is full
of minute directions concerning sacrifice and ceremonial.
The appeal seems rather to be to a common sense view of the
facts of life, seen in the light of a sincere conscience.
So
again, when Ezekiel, in the name of the Lord, condemns the
abuse of the proverb “ the fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge,” and declares that
there cau be no transference either of guilt or merit, he
appeals from a corrupt tradition to the actual facts of divine
government, and especially to the inward facts of conscience.
In such instances, we have particular cases of a general
law, which is this; that the movement from a lower to a
higher stage, both of theology and morality, is effected
directly or indirectly by a closer observance and a better
estimate of facts, whether inward or outward, and generally
of both. A higher intelligence showed that, as a general
rule, the fetish did not act as was believed. An effort of
moral courage proved that character did not suffer, and that
a fuller inward harmony was gained by disregarding the
petty rules of superstition.
Outward facts proved that the
world was not ruled on the principles assumed by tradition ;
and facts of conscience showed that a nobler life could be
lived by abandoning them. But in this process, it is always
the theological form given to the sanction of morality that is
the most difficult to deal with.
It retains its hold both on
the affections and the fears, long after its incongruity with
outward facts is apparent. The cry, “ great is Diana of the
Ephesians,” will be roared from ten thousand throats, long
�after the name has ceased to mean anything but an excuse
for the trade in silver shrines.
And this obstructive
ness has always a reflex influence on advancing morality,
tending to repress it to the level of effete ideas. In such
circumstances, the arguments of philosophy have very little
apparent effect. So far as they are directed against the
prevalent theology, they are necessarily of a negative
character; and men cannot live on negatives. But let men’s
attention be attracted to hitherto neglected facts, whether of
the inner or the outer world; and the theology will transform
itself. If you walk with a timid child along a dark road at
night, it is not reason that can dissolve away the gaunt arms
of the arboreal ghost that threatens at a turn of the way.
But attract her eyes to the glowworm that sparkles under the
hedge, and to the closed eyes of the sleeping daisies, and to
the dewy gossamer touched by the rising moon; teach her to
weave these into healthier fancies than those of the super
stitious nursery; and when she faces the road again, there is
no ghost to be seen.
To my mind there are many hints in the gospels, which
would lead us to suppose that the real ministry of Jesus as a
teacher was very much of the character here suggested. It
so exhibited the interest of present facts as to change, so to
speak, the spiritual centre of gravity. And so, to those
whom he inspired, the world was insensibly transformed.
11 If any man be in Christ,” said St. Paul, “ there is a new
creation; old things are passing away; behold all things
are become new.” Jesus found the Jews at just such a
critical stage of spritual history as we have supposed. A
haze of unreality had gathered over the ancient sanctities
of their religion. And this unreality both warped their own
consciences, and disguised their true relations to the outward
world. There is no doubt that in old times their sacred
songs, which proclaimed thatli all the gods of the nations
are idols, but the Lord made the heavens,” were instinct
with a moral energy such as often gave the nation superiority
on the battle-field. But this consciousness of a special in
spiration had developed into the monstrous fiction, that
they were singled out by the Infinite One to be his peculiar
treasure, and that in virtue of this favour they were destined
to world-wide dominion. Whatever we may say now about
the spiritual fulfilment of such expectations, the notion, as
they entertained it, was grotesquely false. They were not
God’s favourite people in any such sense as they supposed.
And there was not the slightest prospect of their ever
attaining again even the modest degree of political im
�5
portance enjoyed by Solomon. Indeed it was only the
contemptuous indifference of their Roman masters which
left to them, in their sanhedrim and synagogues, the
semblance of self-government. But the long disappoint
ment of their hopes, so far from leading them to doubt the
assumptions on which those hopes had been based, only
added a feverish scrupulosity to their observance of the
letter of the law. There must, they imagined, be some
reason for the shadow of divine displeasure that rested upon
their fortunes.
Some “ accursed thing ” must surely
be cherished; some particulars of their ancestral religion
must have been neglected. And therefore they redoubled
their attention to ritual and feast and fast, to sacrifices and
purifications, if by any means they might attain the perfect
obedience which would bring back the blessing of God. The
religion of the time, like that of many churches at the
present day, was passionately bent upon a past and im
possible, instead of a future and realizable ideal.
Now what Jesus did was to call these people back to
reality. He insisted upon present, actual and undeniable
facts, whether of their own consciousness or of the outer
world. That these facts were often dressed in a figurative
or parabolic form is no objection to this statement. For it
is just in this form that they go straight home to the com
mon heart of humanity. The image, the parable is but the
feathering of the arrow which gives directness to its flight,
and sends its point foremost to its aim. There are certain
discourses indeed about the end of the world, in which the
*
ideal of Christ’s religion seems to leave the earth and to
*
become dissolved amongst the clouds of sibylline oracle.
But the entire want of originality in these pictures contrasts
so singularly with the inimitable individuality characteristic
of both maxim and parable in other parts of the gospels,
that we have grave reason to suspect the intrusion of some
foreign element here. The disciples, living towards the end
of the first century, probably drew largely upon such books
as those of Daniel and Henoch in their own forecasts of the
future, and they insensibly enlarged some ill understood
expressions of their master by drawing upon such sources.
This however is mere conjecture. What is certain is that
those apocalyptic discourses are not original, but repro
ductions of earlier professed revelations. And it is precisely
where the teachings of the gospel seem to come freshest
from an original source, that they are characterized by
* e.g. Matthew xxir, Mark xiii, Luke xxi.
�6
an appeal from the phantasms of superstition to facts of
present experience.
There is a curious testimony to the startling impression
made by the words of Jesus when he first opened his lips as
a teacher. All these synoptical evangelists agree in saying
that what struck the people most was the “ authority ” with
which he spoke.
*
The usual theological interpretation of this
is, that he spoke as a divine being, having authority to give
commands. But that is a poor meaning; and does injustice
to the inherent moral weight of his words. Two of the
gospels give us a hint of the real siginificance, when they
contrast his manner with that of the scribes. “ He taught
them as one having authority and not as the scribes' ’ Now
how did the scribes teach ? They taught by adducing the
authority of the great rabbis, as interpreters of the ancient
scriptures. If they were discussing a question of perplexity,
as for instance whether it was lawful to light a candle on the
Sabbath day, they would refer to the views of various rabbis,
just as lawyers now reckon up opinions pronounced from the
bench. <( Rabbi Simeon allows it; Rabbi Judah disallows
it; Rabbi Joshua says the thing may be done under special
circumstances.” This mode of teaching was very dreary and
dry; and the more so, because it induced a habit of techni
cality which dwarfed the subjects of instruction. There
were no great broad issues manifestly affecting human life,
and making a direct appeal to the heart. Their lessons
bristled with points of law, and rasped the mind with
arbitrary decisions.
Now only think of the effect likely to be produced upon
people accustomed to that kind of thing, by a preacher
glowing with a grave earnestness, who deals only with
subjects interesting to every heart, and lets the truths he
teaches carry their own witness to the conscience! “ Blessed
are the lowly in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
“ Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.” “ Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.” There was rarely any reference to
sacred writings ; and never any appeal to the wisdom of the
ancients.
The appeal was rather from, such overrated
authorities to common sense, right feeling and the manifest
facts of life.
Ye have heard that it was said to f them of
old time, thou shall not kill; and whosoever shall kill, shall
* Matt. vii. 28. Mark i. 22. Luke iv. 32. In the last passage the English version
has “ power.” But the Greek word is the same as in the others.
t The marginal reading is the better.
�7
be in danger of the judgment.
But I say unto you, that
whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be
in danger of the judgment.”
“Take heed that ye do not
your alms before men, to be seen of them : otherwise ye have
no reward of your Father who is in heaven.” 11 All things
whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even
so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.”
Will it be said that the speaker in such utterances depended
on a supernatural dignity, such at as that time he could nothave
asserted, and which never was conceded before his death ? I
think it much more probable and reasonable to say that he
depended upon the power of moral facts, to bear witness for
themselves. “ The light of the body is the eye; ” he said,
“ If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be
full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall
be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be
darkness, how great is that darkness.” Here is a case in which
a figure of speech only gives force and point to the fact. For
it is clearly reason and conscience, united in the faculty of
moral judgment, about which the parable is spoken.
And
Jesus teaches that when reason and conscience are sincere,
they are the highest judges to which we can appeal. They
need training; they need information; they need careful
guarding against perversion; and all the more so, because
if they wholly fail, it is impossible that any light from earth
or heaven can help us. “ This it is which adds emphasis to
the solemn warning; “ take heed that the light which is in
thee be not darkness.” But so long as they are sincere, they
judge, and in the main judge aright, however action may
contradict them, what is best for the moral welfare of man.
To them all arguments and motives, to them revelation itself,
must appeal. Through them the light of God himself must
shine. Happy the man in whom reason and conscience are
most sincere, most free from beclouding humours of prejudice
and interest! For, says Jesus, “then the whole man shall
be full of light, as when in a humble dwelling, isled in
darkness, the bright shining of a candle doth give thee
light.”*
We can now understand what gave so startling an air of
authority to the teaching of Jesus, as distinguished from that
of the scribes. He believed in the affinity of the human
conscience for moral truth. And therefore he did not hold it
necessary to argue much, still less to appeal to the dried-up
wisdom of the ancients. He simply threw out his facts and
* Luke xi 36.
�8
principles with force sufficient to bring them within range of
the consciences of his hearers, assured that mutual attraction
between the soul and truth would do the rest. il The sabbath
was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.” Did he
announce this as a sort of supernatural expert, who had been
behind the scenes at the m aki n g of the divine 1 aws, and therefore
knew their precise scope? It seems at once more reverent
and more reasonable to suppose that he said it as one “ who
knew what was in man,” that is, the facts of consciousness,
and understood how to appeal to them.
Jesus had not so much to say about the external world,
although no one knew better how to use it for purposes of
illustration
But when he had to deal’ with it directly he
used precisely the same method. He insisted on facing the
facts. And he would not allow that even the most specious
sentiments were any justification for ignoring them. Thus
on one occasion a number of Jews, partly with the object of
laying a trap for him, partly it may be in the hope of finding
sympathy for their own political discontent, asked him for a
plain opinion on the dangerous question, whether it was
lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not. The answer was
characteristic. He asked for the tribute money, and pointed
to the head of Caesar stamped upon it. That head was sym
bolic of a great and palpable fact, the imperial power of Caesar.
The right of coinage was associated with supreme powers of
government, and responsibility for public order. Acknow
ledge the facts, says Jesus. “ Render unto Caesar the things
that are Caesar’s.” But lest he should be for a moment
supposed to teach that physical might constitutes right, he
adds “ render unto God the things that are God’s.” The
facts of the time made Caesar’s rule necessary and inevitable.
And if the questioners supposed that the mere acknowledg
ment of this rule by tribute was inconsistent with allegiance
to God, it only showed that they did not sufficiently estimate
the divinity of fact; and completely misunderstood the
relations of temporal and spiritual power. Another illustra
tion of the same loyalty to facts, is the contempt with which
Jesus dismissed the reasoning of those who argued, that the
victims of accident or tyranny must in some way or other
have been obnoxious to the special vengeance of heaven.
4< Those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and
slew them, suppose ye that they were sinners above all men
that dwelt at Jerusalem ?” He knows very well that this
was notoriously not the case. Nothing but the sort of
perverse ingenuity so often displayed in interpreting divine
providence according to private judgment, could have given
�9
the least show of reason to the inference. Jesus is certain
that both the reason and the conscience of his hearers is
against the supposition. And therefore without argument he
says “ I tell you nay ; but except ye repent ye shall all like
wise perish.”
But whether he was dealing with the inner or the outer
world, the consequence of his method, in appealing from
fancy to fact, was a simplicity of feeling and a lucidity of
thought, amidst which the soul fretted by Jewish superstitions
moved with a thrilling sense of sudden liberty, like a prisoner
set free from a dungeon. Indeed there is no mental feeling
so near akin to sudden release from physical agony, as is the
relief we gain, in the midst of perplexity, from loyal sub
mission to facts. Through what haunted mazes of unhallowed
confusion have many of us struggled in our younger days, im
pelled by a childish anxiety to reconcile scripture and geology '
First we eagerly welcomed any patent method for hastening
the slow movement's of nature, so that the world’s history
might be packed into six thousand years. Then, when we
found that would not do, we were devoutly grateful to the
Septuagint version for giving us some thousand years
additional, though, alas, we wanted a hundred millions.
Then perhaps there was some mistake in the Hebrew figures.
And we were glad to be informed by our learned friends that
a jot or a tittle might make all the difference between ten
and a thousand. What a stroke of genius seemed the sug
gestion of an ingenious person, that the winged fowl which
appear inconveniently on the fifth day, between the
“ whales ” of that day and the u creeping things ” of the
next,, were after all pterodactyls, or flying lizards, which
would be in their appropriate place. Still there was a sense
of elaborate unnaturalness pervading our wonderful harmony,
which every now and then shot a sharp twinge of pain from
the intellect to the conscience. Till at last, in some happy
moment, we quietly said to ourselves, Genesis is wrong, and
geology right, and we passed from the Babel of fictions to the
peace of reality. Nothing happened which we had foreboded.
The foundations of character, and the objects of spiritual
aspiration remained just what they had been before, only less
encumbered by rubbish or mist. And being rid of an intoler
able perplexity, we gained more instruction from the book of
Genesis itself than ever we had done in all our previous
abuse of it.
bo we may conceive many of the more candid young Jews,
in the time of Christ, to have been troubled in mind about
the apparently irrational character of some of their religious
�10
traditions. The heathen philosophers laughed at their notion
that idleness on one day in the week could be gratifying to
heaven. And had they not reason? How could it be
pleasing to God for them to neglect obvious duties, on the
plea that it was the sabbath day ? What a delight then it
must have been to them to have the knot of their perplexity
not cut by logic, but dissolved away by healthy moral
feelingI “ It is not pleasing to God,” said Jesus, “ that you
should neglect obvious duties; and it lawful to do well on
the sabbath day.”
So too, how fretting to any mind
absorbed in the essentials of conduct, must have been the
tendency, so marked on Christ’s day, to magnify the washing
of cups and pots, and brazen vessels and tables, as a religious
rite. Unconsciously to themselves they might lack the moral
courage to speak out what they knew to be the truth. But
the words of Jesus must have been to them like the relaxing
of a moral cramp. “ Hearken every one of you, and under
stand I There is nothing from without a man that, entering
into him can defile him: but the things which come out of
him, those are they that defile him....................... For from
within, out of the heart, proceed evil thoughts, blasphemy,
pride, foolishness. These are the things that defile a man;
but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.”* Thus
one distinctive feature, perhaps we may even say the original
motive of the religion of Jesus, was a claim of reverence for
facts instead of falsehoods; an insistance on less attention to.
figments of tradition, and more care about the divine side of
present realities.
It was this, his pre-eminent susceptibility to the divine
side of present realities, which distinguished Jesus so
supremely, and made him, in a spiritual sense “ the light of
the world.” And this characteristic was specially marked in
his method of dealing with the traditional idea of God. He
neither controverted noi affirmed it, except indirectly.
*
If
we might presume to judge by the proportion of prominence
given to subjects in these gospels, no church doctor ever
talked so little theology as the great Founder of the church
himself. He makes no pretence whatever of revealing any
mystery of the divine nature; nor, if the apocalyptic discourses
be excluded, any secret of the divine government. He simply
accepts the sense of God which the people around him have
inherited, and at the same time he endeavours to separate it
from all degrading associations, and to correct it with all the
brightest, best and purest experiences of life. He made no
* Mark vii, and Matthew xv.
�11
attempt at any metaphysical conception of God. To onto
logical speculation, he had not the least tendency. But
supreme providence, the ideal life, peace, righteousness,
mercy and justice, all seemed to him to have the grandeur of
eternity, and to be inseparable from the thought of God.
Suppose a blind child whom you loved, were to ask you,
what is the sun ? To tell him that it is an enormous globe,
more than a million times bigger than the earth, would be
to convey no real conception at all. Nor would it be of any
use to say that the sun is the source of light; for light the
child has never seen. Perhaps you would despair of answer
ing the question directly, until the child is more mature.
But you might lead him from the shadow into sunlight, and
from sunlight into shade, that he might feel for himself the
difference between the presence and absence of its rays; and
he would think of it as a diffusive glow which only something
intruding between the sky and himself can keep away. And
you would lead him out where wallflowers, or honeysuckle,
or roses bloom, and with the difference between that fragrance
and the damp decay of winter, he would learn to associate
the greater or less power of the sun. And you would make
him listen to the lark, and the thrush, and the blackbird, as
they burst into song when the morning rises, so that music
and gladness should be added to the glow and the fragrance
in which he has learned to feel the presence of the sun. So
Jesus dealt with men in his doctrine of God.
For men are
born, and necessarily remain, blind to the ultimate glory of
God. They keep on asking what is God? But it is a
question which cannot be directly answered. Therefore Jesus
sought to hallow the associations of the name. For he knew
that the heart can take in far more of its meaning than the
head.
He used the name of Father, indicative of all-pervasive,
all-moulding providence.
<c Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.” What did lie mean by this, but that
the presence of God is felt in the subtle sense of an infinite
spiritual order, which only comes to those who are lowly and
sincere? “ Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be
called the children of God.” In these words the moral
harmonies that are constituted by loving sympathies, are
made specially divine; and they who seek to maintain and
extend them, so manifestly do the work of God, that we see
in them his image. “ Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
*
his righteousness.” The conjunction <( and ” here expresses
identification rather than addition. Righteousness is the
kingdom or God, because it is the rule of his spirit in the
�12
heart. (( If ye had known what this meaneth f I will have
mercy and not sacrifice/ ye would not have condemned the
guiltless.” No, surely; for mercy softens away traditional
prejudice, and extends symyathy to every feeblest spark of the
divine life. Thus a Father’s heart, and purity and peace, and
righteousness and mercy are all associated with the thought
of him who is the ultimate mystery of all being. Or as some
one (I forget who) has said, “ God is the best that one
knows or feels.”
Do you ask me how this agrees with my view that the
method of Jesus is to recall men from fancy to fact? Well,
all facts are not like stones and bricks which you demonstrate
by kicking your foot or bruising your hand. As we have
often said, the most certain facts of all, are those of con
sciousness; for by these all others must be interpreted.
There are facts of the heart’s nature, as well as facts of gra
vitation and chemical afSnity. And when Jesus recalled
men’s thoughts from morbid speculations about theprophecies,
and told them they realised God best when they were loving
and just and merciful, I say he did recall their attention from
fancies to facts. And would to heaven their was some one to
do so now! From the soul-choking theology of the rabbis he
appealed to God’s ever dawning revelation in the heart. He
insisted that in exaltation of the moral life lay the best chance
of realizing the immeasurable fact of God’s being; that all
the best feelings there, were like rays that the eye might
follow back till they were lost in infinite light.
If the purpose and scope of these lectures did not forbid,
I would undertake to show that there underlies such teaching,
though never appearing on this surface, the ultimate philoso
phy of God, towards which all thought is tending. And
though that purpose prevents my going farther, this I will
say, that every one who finds a significance in Coleridge's lines
“ ’Tis the sublime in man, our noontide majesty,
to know ourselves,
Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole,”
must surely realise how all the virtues which subordinate
self and magnify the eternal all in all, do verily bring us
into the immediate presence of God.
But I hasten on to point out some specially practical
advantages attendant on this method of Jesus in dealing
with the doctrine of God. For (1) it did not directly attack
any sacred traditions. And (2) it required no abstruse
theories about God to be first established. And (3) finally
it was capable of endless expansion, and is applicable at the
present day.
�13
1.—It did not unnecessarily attack any sacred traditions.
Do not misunderstand me. There was no cunning reticence
on the part of Christ. The modern plan of believing one
creed and ostentatiously subscribing to another, for social
reasons, or reasons of prudence, formed no part of his
method. There were some traditions which were not sacred;
and these he did not hesitate to denounce. The supersti
tions, for instance, that polluted the sabbath were in his eyes
hurtful, from the spiritual pride and the morbid narrowness
of conscience they inspired.
Such superstitions he did
attack openly and fearlessly, in the teeth of their devotees.
He “ looked round about upon them in anger, being grieved
for the hardness -of their hearts.” He wondered that the
plain facts of God’s manifest rule did not touch them with
shame for their obliquity of vision. And if he were walking
our streets on Sundays now—if he were to see those homes
of intellectual light, those possible fountains of moral sweet
ness, our public libraries and museums grimly silent, dark
and empty, while crowds roll in and out at the reeking
doors of public houses, he would surely manifest the same
emotions now. He would look round about with anger on
us and our boasted civilization,—our lavishness in gun
powder and great guns, our timid parsimony in education,
the torrents of drink that roll down our street, the sprinkling
of popular knowledge that satisfies us,—and the fair future,
which is to us what the kingdom of heaven was to the Jews,
would receive its indignant vindication. “Woe unto you,
ye hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of knowledge
against men ; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer
ye them that are entering to go in.”
But apart from such reactionary superstitions, Jesus
accepted in the main, as a man of the age, the sacred
traditions of the people amongst whom he was born. It
was principally in his interpretation of the future which was
to grow out of the past that he differed from his country
men. He reverenced the ancient scriptures; but he saw a
higher meaning in them than others did. He cherished the pro
phecies ; but he gave to their material symbols a spiritual
meaning. He worshipped the God of his fathers ; but the
glory of that God reflected in his heart was like a new
revelation. And sects of considerable magnitude in the
early church were so impressed by the difference between
the Heavenly Father of Jesus, and the Jehovah of Moses,
that they maintained they were not the same God at all.
We shall not fall into their error. The ultimate mystery of
being hl ways and everywhere veiled under the name of God,
�14
or gods, is the same to all generations, though they dress it
in various forms and make of it very different applications.
To the philosophy of the subject Jesus apparently gave no
thought. He was only anxious that the abiding sense men
have of eternal being should be used as an inspiration of the
higher life. And this he accomplished by enshrining the
Supreme Name, reverenced by all alike, in a halo of the
best affections.
The example is one which we should do well to study at
the present day. We should not trouble ourselves too much
about theological opinions. Where they are clearly obstructive
and degrading in their influence, we may of course be bound
to expose their falsehood. Otherwise we shall do well to try
what is the best use we can make of the various forms, in
which men represent to themselves one ultimate fact. I
know there are some people now, as there always have
been any time these two thousand years, who exhort us to
get rid of the name and extirpate the feeling of God. They
might as well attempt to forbid the sense of infinity as we
look up to the midnight sky; or of eternity as we gaze on
the everlasting mountains. Far more sensible and more
feasible is the suggestion of Mr. Matthew Arnold, that we
we should think of God as the power impelling each creature
to fulfil the law of its being; or as the power, not ourselves,
that makes for righteousness. And indeed this last was
very much the course adopted by Christ.
2.—By thus accepting sacred traditions, and giving them
a higher meaning, Jesus avoided the necessity for any
abstruse theories about God. It is very unfortunate that
people will form their ideas of Christianity from the three
creeds, or from the Westminster catechism, rather than from
thy synoptical gospels. The general notion seems to be that
Jesus taught the doctrines of the Trinity and the Fall, and
Original Sin. It is true that something very much akin to
the first of these doctrines is laid down in the fourth gospel,
which, for reasons already given, we cannot regard as an
uncoloured description of earliest church memories. But in
the synoptics we repeat that there is hardly anything which
can be called theology, as this term is understood in the schools.
There is nothing about divine ontology. There is very little, and
that of doubtful origin, about the secrets of the divine counsels.
There is only a loyal endeavour to give a nobler, moral and
emotional interpretation to an accepted faith. Even the
moral attributes of God are described indirectly, by taking
it for granted that they answer to the human heart. “ Love
your enemies, bless them that persecute you, . .
that
�IS
ye may be the children of your Father who is in Heaven; for
he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and
sendeth his rain on the just and on the unjust.” “ Take
heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of
them; otherwise ye have no reward of your Father who is
in Heaven.” In such words we have an assumption, jus
tified by the whole ‘scope and law of human progress, that
generosity and sincerity and lowliness are pure and unper
verted inspirations of the power by which humanity at large
tends to fulfil the law of its being. Or think again of the
words Jesus is reported to have uttered, when he was forced
unwillingly to the conclusion that the learning and the
fashion and the social power of the times had no ears for
him, but that his mission was to the lowly and ignorant and
poor. It is not resentment but contentment; not a su
perstitious notion of a divine judgment against learning and
culture, but acquiescence in an inevitable law of human
progress, that we hear in his address to heaven. a I thank
thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid
these things from the wise and prudent * and hast revealed
them unto babes. Even so Father, for so it seemed good in
thy sight.” That is to say, God cares for the poor, and makes
them his mightiest instruments. The most decisive revolu
tions, whether ecclesiastical or political, begin from below
and work upwards. There is a great deal about the method
of God’s government implied here. But it is founded upon
no abstruse reasonings. It comes from identifying the
impulses of philanthropy with the movements of the Divine
Spirit.
3.—Finally, one most striking advantage of such a doctrine
of God is its capacity for expansion in accordance with the
growth of knowledge. This is a point of the utmost possible
interest for us. For there can be no dispute but that men’s
notions of the world and of its order have entirely changed
since the era of Christ; and if he had imposed on his imme
diate followers a definition of God suitable to their intel
lectual limitations, it must necessarily have grown more
and more incongruous with the ideas of after ages. Indeed
this is just what many assume to be actually the case.
Taking their notion of the religion of Jesus from the creeds,
* The real matter of thankfulness is not that they were hidden from any one ;
hut that they were revealed to simple folk even at the cost of being hidden from
the learned. Let any one who thinks himself fitted to be Archbishop of Canter
bury and finds himself only a scripture reader in a low neighbourhood, contrast
his own feelings with those expressed in the text, and that will bring out its
meaning.
�rather than from the gospels, they insist that the a magnified
non-natural Man,” whom Christianity teaches us to worship,
can find no place either in or beyond the universe as it is
now beginning to be understood. And they have so much to
say for themselves, that it sometimes seems as though a
cheerless atheism were staring us into stone.
But in
truth we have no evidence that Jesus ever attempted any
definition of God.
*
He simply accepted the sense of eternal
being, which’ every man has, whether he knows it by that
phrase or not; and he told men to think of that eternal
being as the source of every impulse which impelled them
to their best. He said nothing to depreciate the sacred
tradition of a heavenly Monarch, the personal King of the
Jews ; but his method of dealing with the sense of eternal
being was a solvent, under which that Jewish tradition was
sure to pass away. And I think the same method is appli
cable now, amidst all the confusion of contending theologies.
They all assume, and they rightly assume, a sense in man of
eternal being, a unity in diversity, a whole comprehending
all parts, an abiding reality which no passing shows exhaust.
But then they try to give definite intellectual notions of this
Eternal, and their notions are all different. One says that
he is three persons in one God; another that he is the soul
of the world without body, parts or passions ; a third that
he is an infinite person who thinks and loves. For our
part we have no hesitation in allowing that all these notions
have germs of truth.
But as compared with the scale of
the subject, the germs are so very small that we are con
strained to regard them as infinitely distant from the reality.
Now if we would follow the method of Jesus, we should
rather say,—hold to your sacred tradition if you will, so far
as it expands and does not narrow your heart. But do not
expect to realize in it the living God, the Father of your
spirit. Rather he finds you and you find him in every im
pulse towards a better life. For as that Eternal Power
inspires the lilies of the field to clothe themselves with more
than Solomon’s glory, and the birds of the air to provide by
instinct for their young, so does he touch you with an impulse
to fulfil the law of your being, in a noble life. And if you
accustom yourself to it, this way of regarding God will grow
upon you, until you have an abiding sense of a divine
presence, and a constant incentive to that sort of prayer
whose highest expression is work.
* The words, “God is a Spirit,” supposing them to be authentic, are not a
definition. They really mean “ God is greater than any intellectual or cere
monial forms, and is to be approached by the heart.”
�17
Let me refer to the blind child again. I think, if you had
told him of a mighty ball rolling, with enormous force, the
little worlds around it, you would not have succeeded in con
veying any adequate intellectual conception of the reality;
but you would certainly have distracted his attention from
the tenderer and to him the more real significance of the sun.
But in establishing in his mind the association of some
unknown and unknowable splendour with the glow of summer
warmth, and the perfume of flowers, and the songs of birds,
you would at once make the sun very real to him; and yet
you would leave him free to adapt his ideas to every successive
instalment of knowledge about the subject which he might
prove capable of receiving. So it is with Christ’s doctrine of
God. It is not scientific. It is addressed to the heart. But
the very absence of any attempt at scientific definition makes
it as expansive as man’s knowledge of the universe.
One word more. Such a doctrine of God suggests an
Incarnation, which may be a permanent element in universal
religion.
The light of the body is the eye,” says Jesus.
But surely the eye is not illuminative by itself. It is light,
he says; because it appreciates light, and brings us into
communion with light. Just so the God of the soul is con
science ; not that conscience is eternal or boundless, but that
through it we get that sense of eternal right, or fitness, or
self-consistency, and that feeling of infinite authority on the
one hand and limitless obligation on the other, which seem
most to bring us into communion with God. It is always in
a realization of the sacredness of duty that the sense of God
is most impressive ; always in the commanding sweetness of
moral affections that the universal divinity seems to be
specially present. And these experiences are more intensely
human than any triumphs of the intellect. So God always
comes to us nearest in the form of humanity. And William
Blake seems to me to express in a few notes of music that
doctrine of God which we have been labouring for an hour to
explain when he sings—
To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love,
All pray in their distress,
And to these virtues of delight,
Return their thankfulness.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love,
Is God our Father dear;
And Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love,
Is man, His child and care.
�18
For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity, a human face;
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, a human dress.
Then every man, in every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form,
In Heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Peace and Pity dwell,
There God is dwelling to.
TJPFIELD GREEN, Printer, Tenter Street, E.C.
�THE RELIGION OF JESUS:
ITS MODERN DIFFICULTIES
AND
ITS ORIGINAL SIMPLICITY.
J. ALLANSON PICTON.
III.
The Religion of Jesus; His doctrine of Man.
The two main topics of every religious teacher are neces
sarily God and man. We have seen how Jesus dealt with
the former of these topics. He accepted the sacred tradition,
current amongst his countrymen, of an Eternal Power, at
once the supreme fount of law and the universal inspiration
of righteousness. But in his treatment of this great topic,
he differed very much from most of the teachers of his time.
To heighten the sense of God in the hearts of men, Jesus
did not think it necessary to grope amidst the mouldering
ruins of antiquity. He rather preferred to call attention to,
and to insist upon, the divine side of present facts, whether
the springing of the corn, the blooming of the lily, or the
best ideals of the heart. In dealing with human nature,
the method of Jesus was entirely similar. Whatever he
may have thought of the story of Adam and the garden of
Eden, he clearly had no theory whatever such as would
require a demonstrable foundation in any forgotten and
irrecoverable past. He took men as he found them, in
their sins, in their sorrows, in their better aspirations ; and
�2
his only doctrine of human nature was a practical inculcation
of the most obvious method, for making such better aspira
tions triumph over both sorrow and sin.
For such a doctrine of man Jesus had at least one pre
eminent qualification. He loved mankind with a purity
and disinterestedness of devotion, such as in all the records,
at least of western story, has never been paralleled before
or since. Those skilled in the learning of the east, tell us
that we may find in the philanthropy of Buddha, a striking
parallel to the love of Christ for mankind. But such au
thorities also inform us, that Buddha looked upon human
life as a wholly hopeless problem: and that he prized the
exercise of the highest virtues only as the speediest means
for getting rid of it altogether. Jesus, however, took a
more hopeful view of the condition of mankind. He came,
it is said, that they might have life, and that they might
have it more abundantly. The reminiscences of this sym
pathy in the gospels, especially where they bear the stamp
of historic truth, are so brief as to imply far more than they
distinctly state. But they are perhaps all the more touching
because of their simplicity and unconsciousness. Thus, for
instance, we read, in the first chapter of St. Mark, how on a
certain occasion Jesus, wearied perhaps with the excitement
of public employment, retired amongst the mountains that
he might meditate and pray, thus refreshing his spirit with
heavenly communion. But the multitude, who had learned
to appreciate the blessing of his presence, hungered for him
now in his absence as for their daily bread. So general and
strong was this feeling, that his disciples were driven to
search for him; and when they had found him, Peter said
to him, i( all men seek for thee.” There is more in these
words than mere curiosity. Indeed if our view of the gospel
story be correct, it could hardly have been at that time the
expectation of miracle which prompted this universal desire.
The people felt that he answered to their deepest needs. He
had a treasure to communicate, which was worth more to
them than any earthly riches, and therefore they hungered
after him as children after their parents. Now mark, how
quick is the response on the part of Jesus to this tie between
him and the multitude. His philantropic sympathies were
stirred ; he felt afresh the burden of his mission, “ Let us
go,” he said, ((into the next towns and villages that I may
preach there also ; for therefore came I forth.”
You know what is the effect produced on any feeling
heart, by the sight of a great multitude. Ten thousand
faces, ten thousand minds, ten thousand hearts, eack one
�3
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opening a vista of life’s experience, overwhelm us with the
vastness of the interests which are embodied there. Now
there are several hints, scattered through the pages of these
gospels, which show how keenly susceptible Jesus was to
this kind of impression. More than once, we are told how
the mere sight of a great multitude of men stirred in him
deep emotion. In the sixth chapter of the same gospel of
St. Mark it is said, that when, on another occasion, Jesus
had retired into a sacred solitude, some thousands of people
were gathered together in the mountain glades waiting for
his appearance. The story goes on, il and Jesus, when he
came out, saw much people, and was moved with com
passion towards them, because they were as sheep having
no shepherd, and he began to teach them many things.” A
passage in St. Matthew, referring to the same or a similar
occasion, gives a touching detail of the reason for his feeling.
“ They were tired and lay down,” it is said, as though faint,
hopeless and desolate. Can you not picture to yourselves
the scene ? We may suppose that as Jesus turned an angle
of the valley, he was suddenly confronted with the crowd.
There were scattered on the grass slumbering men, worn
out with weariness and hunger; there were lost children
crying for their parents; there were mothers fainting under
the drudgeries of life; there were anxious faces that seemed
to tell of broken hearts. I like to think of the tide of feel
ing which arose in the heart of Jesus as he looked on such
a sight. The enthusiasm of humanity was upon him, “ the
harvest truly is plenteous ” he said, “ but the labourers are
few; pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that he will
send forth labourers into his harvest.” This feeling of quick
and deep sympathy, stirred by the sight of a vulgar mul
titude, does not appear to have been very common in
antiquity. And we may fairly see, in such emotions of
Jesus, the first spring of that side of benevolence, which
has covered the Christian world with hospitals, missions
and schools.
None can revive the moral life of men, without a deep
sympathy for them in his heart. In vain will a teacher
open before you the treasures of wisdom; in vain will he
draw pictures of the works of God, unless he feels at one
with the common instincts of humanity. Of course such
philanthropic sympathies may be, and often are, simulated
for selfish purposes. But such a cheat is always in the long
run detected. For there are times when the true philan
thropist must stand alone, because his very sympathy for
humanity, and his realization of its true interest will drive
�4
him to take up an attitude hostile to the passions of the
time' Will lie dare, for instance, to denounce a Russian war,
when millions of throats are howling for human blood ?
Will he dare to oppose the brutalities of popular vindictive
ness, whether directed against mutinous sepoys, or home
enemies of society ? A man that will stand such tests as
these, however eccentric his opinions may be, has at least
the good of his kind at heart. It might at first sight be
supposed that, however obnoxious the teachings of Jesus
were to the scribes and pharisees, his capacity of resisting
more popular prejudices was never put to the proof. This
however would be a great mistake. The word “ Messiah,”
according to its ancient associations, led the people generally
to anticipate a career of military victory, and the establish
ment of a world-wide dominion, the profits of which would
have been enjoyed mainly by the Jews. A man who cared
more for the applause of the people than for their good,
would have known how to turn such expectations to his own
advantage, even though he never entertained any thought
of attempting to realise them. But the course of Jesus was
very different. There are some hints in the gospels, which
appear to suggest that, at first, Jesus shrank from the title
of Messiah, and at any rate repudiated its public assumption.
And when, from causes which we cannot now investigate,
he allowed himself to be called by the name, he persistently
gave to it a spiritual significance such as^was directly con
trary to popular prejudice. By this he showed that his
sympathy for mankind was not assumed for any interested
purpose, but was deep and strong enough to enable him to
stand firm against prejudice, and ignorance, and perverted
faith, in whatever quarter they were found.
So far then as love and sympathy will go, he was well
qualified to deal with humanity. And though he professed
no philosophy, and did not enrich the treasures of learning
with any contribution towards a metaphysical analysis of
human nature, we shall not regret the absence of such
philosophical pretensions, if we find that he makes plain to
us, both the need and the possibility of religion. We shall
now show that, as in dealing with the name of God, so in
regard to human nature, his method was an insistance on
obvious facts of pregnant meaning, and an endeavour to
turn them to the divinest issues.
Well then, in the first place; we must note his significant
use of the word “ heart.” For by this term Jesus sum
marized and emphasized innumerable common and easily
recognized facts of consciousness, which may be neglected,
�5
but cannot possibly be denied. In the teaching of Jesus
the heart represents the whole moral nature in its unity
apart altogether from the metaphysical analyses which may
be useful for science, but have nothing to do with religion.
It expresses all the voluntary energies of human nature,
which are, or may be, touched with a sense of responsibility.
It included also the affections, which go with the voluntary
energies, and partake directly or indirectly in their respon
sibility. li Where your treasure is, there will your heart be
also,” that is to say, the whole of your voluntary energies
which are touched by a sense of responsibility. “ A good
man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth
good things ; and an evil man out of the evil treasure
bringeth forth evil things.” “ This people draweth nigh
unto me with their mouth and honoureth me with their
lips, but their heart is far from me.” This is of course a
quotation from the prophets; but Jesus gives it a special
reference to the ruling classes of his day. And when he
says “ their heart is far from me,” what he means is, that
however they may comply with sacred forms, the reason of
compliance is not religion, because their voluntary energies
are given not to God, but to society, to fashion and to their
own interests. Thus you see Jesus makes no division be
tween intellect and emotion, imagination and reason. He
cares little for intellect arid imagination in themselves,
though he uses both for action on the moral nature. He
rather strove to concentrate all attention on those voluntary
energies touched with a sense of responsibility, which, as we
say, he expressed by the word “heart.” Now this is a part of
ourselves which is surely more interesting than any other.
For it is this which makes character, and character makes
conduct, and from conduct far the greater part of our hap
piness or misery must ever spring.
Here, however, I anticipate a difficulty, certain to be
started by some disputant, if we were holding a discussion.
And it is as well to notice that difficulty, because it enables
us to bring out more clearly the practical method of Jesus,
which consists in dealing with the obvious facts of conscious
ness, and leaving all more subtle analysis to philosophers,
whose province it is. The disputant, whom I have sup
posed to be present, would not patiently endure such a
description as I have given of Christ’s idea of the heart, as
representing the sum of the voluntary energies. “ Voluntary
energies indeed! ” he would exclaim; “ but there is no such
thing as freedom of the will at all. That is an old world
Bofion-which has long since been explained away. For of
�6
course every human action is a link in the endless chain of
causation. To suppose anything else would be to imagine
that chaos and order can exist not only side by side, but
intermingled and mutually co-operating.
The thing is
impossible and absurd; yet you preachers, with your talk
about 4 voluntary energies,’ will persist in assuming, as a
matter of course, what is demonstrably false.”
To such a disputant I should say; my friend, you altoge
ther mistake the subject in hand. We are not talking about
metaphysics, but about religion. If indeed we were to enter
on the philosophy of the will, I am very far from admitting
that your case is so strong as you suppose. But whether it
is strong or weak, we have nothing whatever to do with it
just now. Do not mistake me ; I am not about to back out
of the argument, and then go on as though it had been
decided in my favour. And to convince everyone of this, I
will try to explain how the case really stands.
All that religion assumes is something known to con
sciousness as will,—something that we agree to speak of by
that name. You may maintain, if you like, that the feeling
of self-determination suggested by the word is only an appear
ance, or a phenomenon, which when it is examined turns out
to be something very different. Well then let us call it the
phenomenal will. All I say is, it is there; and like all
other faculties requires an appropriate treatment. When
the judgment goes astray it wants fuller information ; when
fancy fails it needs kindling suggestions ; and when the will
decides wrongly it wants persuasion, warning, or encourage
ment. And this stands good whether the power of self-de
termination is merely apparent or not. After all, phenomena
are rather important things, and, not least, the phenomenal
will.
Everybody, whatever his metaphysical belief may
be, recognizes, in his actual practice, that the voluntary
energies,—those which are, as we have said, touched with a
feeling of responsibility,—must be treated in accordance
with their nature. If, for instance, you find a poor family
stricken down with fever through bad drainage, and too
ignorant to know what is wrong with them, you do not stop
to reason with them. You take means to get the defect
mended at once; and meanwhile you send them medical
advice and medicine. u Poor souls” you say, “it is no
fault of theirs ; and the remedy is beyond their power.”
But if, on the other hand, you see a lazy father lounging
about with his hands in his pockets, and starving his wife
and children, you do not deal with him after the same
fashion. You persuade him, you try to shame him, you
�7
upbraid, you even threaten, if by any means you may affect
his will. Not that you thus concede anything as to the
metaphysical question of free will. That is not at all involved.
But you do recognize some difference between the voluntary
energies which you are trying to touch with a keener sense
of responsibility, and involuntary properties, susceptibilities,
or accidents. You show that you recognize this difference
by your different methods in the two cases. Now that is
just what the gospel does ; no more. And we say that the
gospel method of dealing with the heart, that is, the sum of
the voluntary energies, is well worthy of your attention, no
matter what the metaphysical sect to which you own
allegiance.
li But,” says another, 11 this method of dealing with the
voluntary energies in a lump is most unscientific. We must
distinguish; we must analyse. There is the great question
of motives, and the power, possessed by attention, to single
out of a hundred motives the one that shall prevail. There
is the power of habit to be considered, and social sympathies,
and hereditary tendencies. All these must have their due,
if we are to have any rational conception of the voluntary
energies.” Certainly, I reply, if that is what you are
seeking. But it is not what we are seeking at present. It
is the business of philosophy to analyse. But religion,
dealing practically with conduct, or with feeling, must treat
the moral nature as a whole. In fact religion deals with the
moral nature very much as the moral nature deals with
muscular exertion. A lazy man does not like effort. But
if he is not wholly devoid of conscience, moral principle
says to him “ exert yourself; pull with all your might at
this rope; lift those stones out of the way.” Now there is
nothing more perplexing than the action of intention or
purpose on the muscles. There are impressions made on
the sensory ganglia of the brain. There is the conveyance
of some impression from the sensory ganglia to the cere
brum. There is a co-ordination of action amongst various
cells of the cerebrum. There are orders conveyed by the
spinal column, and from this through one set of nerves
called efferent, to the particular muscle to be exerted. There
is a return message through another set of nerves called
afferent, to inform the cerebrum of the progress made in
complying with its decrees, that is to say, of the extent to
which the muscle is contracted or expanded. There is a
determination of a flow of blood to the muscle. There is
the contraction of muscular fibre. All these facts anatomy
has detected iu what, to the consciousness, seems a very
�8
principles with force sufficient to "bring them within range of
the consciences of his hearers, assured that mutual attraction
between the soul and truth would do the rest. 11 The sabbath
was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.” Did he
announce this as a sort of supernatural expert, who had been
behind thescenes at the makingof thedivinelaws, and therefore
knew their precise scope? It seems at once more reverent
and more reasonable to suppose that he said it as one 11 who
knew what was in man,” that is, the facts of consciousness,
and understood how to appeal to them.
Jesus had not so much to say about the external world,
although no one knew better how to use it for purposes of
illustration
But when he had to deal' with it directly he
used precisely the same method. He insisted on facing the
facts. And he would not allow that even the most specious
sentiments were any justification for ignoring them. Thus
on one occasion a number of Jews, partly with the object of
laying a trap for him, partly it may be in the hope of finding
sympathy for their own political discontent, asked him for a
plain opinion on the dangerous question, whether it was
lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not. The answer was
characteristic. He asked for the tribute money, and pointed
to the head of Caesar stamped upon it. That head was sym
bolic of a great and palpable fact, the imperial power of Caesar.
The right of coinage was associated with supreme powers of
government, and responsibility for public order. Acknow
ledge the facts, says Jesus. 11 Render unto Caesar the things
that are Caesar’s.” But lest he should be for a moment
supposed to teach that physical might constitutes right, lie
adds “ render unto God the things that are God’s.” The
facts of the time made Caesar’s rule necessary and inevitable.
And if the questioners supposed that the mere acknowledg
ment of this rule by tribute was inconsistent with allegiance
to God, it only showed that they did not sufficiently estimate
the divinity of fact; and completely misunderstood the
relations of temporal and spiritual power. Another illustra
tion of the same loyalty to facts, is the contempt with which
Jesus dismissed the reasoning of those who argued, that the
victims of accident or tyranny must in some way or other
have been obnoxious to the special vengeance of heaven.
“ Those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and
slew them, suppose ye that they were sinners above all men
that dwelt at Jerusalem ?” He knows very well that this
was notoriously not the case. Nothing but the sort of
perverse ingenuity so often displayed in interpreting divine
providence according to private judgment, could have given
�9
the least show of reason to the inference. Jesus is certain
that both the reason and the conscience of his hearers is
against the supposition. And therefore without argument he
says “ I tell you nay ; but except ye repent ye shall all like
wise perish.”
But whether he was dealing with the inner or the outer
world, the consequence of his method, in appealing from
fancy to fact, was a simplicity of feeling and a lucidity of
thought, amidst which the soul fretted by Jewish superstitions
moved with a thrilling sense of sudden liberty, like a prisoner
set free from a dungeon. Indeed there is no mental feeling
so near akin to sudden release from physical agony, as is the
relief we gain, in the midst of perplexity, from loyal sub
mission to facts. Through what haunted mazes of unhallowed
confusion have many of us struggled in our younger days, im
pelled by a childish anxiety to reconcile scripture and geology I
First we eagerly welcomed any patent method for hastening
the slow movements of nature, so that the world’s history
might be packed into six thousand years. Then, when we
found that would not do, we were devoutly grateful to the
Septuagint version for giving us some thousand years
additional, though, alas, we wanted a hundred millions.
Then perhaps there was some mistake in the Hebrew figures.
And we were glad to be informed by our learned friends that
a jot or a tittle might make all the difference between ten
and a thousand. What a stroke of genius seemed the sug
gestion of an ingenious person, that the winged fowl which
appear inconveniently on the fifth day, between the
“whales” of that day and the “creeping things” of the
next,, were after all pterodactyls, or flying lizards, which
would be in their appropriate place. Still there was a sense
of elaborate unnaturalness pervading our wonderful harmony,
which every now and then shot a sharp twinge of pain from
the intellect to the conscience. Till at last, in some happy
moment, we quietly said to ourselves, Genesis is wrong, and
geology right, and we passed from the Babel of fictions to the
peace of reality. Nothing happened which we had foreboded.
The foundations of character, and the objects of spiritual
aspiration remained just what they had been before, only less
encumbered by rubbish or mist. And being rid of an intoler
able perplexity, we gainefl more instruction from the book of
Genesis itself than ever we had done in all our previous
abuse of it.
So we may conceive many of the more candid young Jews,
in the time of Christ, to have been troubled in mind about
the apparently irrational character of some of their religious
�10
traditions. The heathen philosophers laughed at their notion
that idleness on one day in the week could be gratifying to
heaven. And had they not reason? How could it be
pleasing to God for them to neglect obvious duties, on the
plea that it was the sabbath day? What a delight then it
must have been to them to have the knot of their perplexity
not cut by logic, but dissolved away by healthy moral
feelingI “ It is not pleasing to God,” said Jesus, “ that you
should neglect obvious duties; and it is lawful to do well on
the sabbath day.”
So too, how fretting to any mind
absorbed in the essentials of conduct, must have been the
tendency, so marked on Christ’s day, to magnify the washing
of cups and pots, and brazen vessels and tables, as a religious
rite. Unconsciously to themselves they might lack the moral
courage to speak out what they knew to be the truth. But
the words of Jesus must have been to them like the relaxing
of a moral cramp. I Hearken every one of you, and under
stand ! There is nothing from without a man that, entering
into him can defile him: but the things which come out of
him, those are they that defile him....................... For from
within, out of the heart, proceed evil thoughts, blasphemy,
pride, foolishness. These are the things that defile a man;
but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.”* Thus
one distinctive feature, perhaps we may even say the original
motive of the religion of Jesus, was a claim of reverence for
facts instead of falsehoods; an insistance on less attention to.
figments of tradition, and more care about the divine side of
present realities.
It was this, his pre-eminent susceptibility to the divine
side of present realities, which distinguished Jesus so
supremely, and made him, in a spiritual sense “ the light of
the world.” And this characteristic was specially marked in
his method of dealing with the traditional idea of God. He
neither controverted nor affirmed it, except indirectly. If
we might presume to judge by the proportion of prominence
given to subjects in these gospels, no church doctor ever
talked so little theology as the great Founder of the church
himself. He makes no pretence whatever of revealing any
mystery of the divine nature; nor, if the apocalyptic discourses
be excluded, any secret of the divine government. He simply
accepts the sense of God which the people around him have
inherited, and at the same time he endeavours to separate it
from all degrading associations, and to correct it with all the
brightest, best and purest experiences of life. He made no
* Mark vii, and Matthew xy.
�11
attempt at any metaphysical conception of God. To onto
logical speculation, he had not the least tendency. But
supreme providence, the ideal life, peace, righteousness,
mercy and justice, all seemed to him to have the grandeur of
eternity, and to be inseparable from the thought of God.
Suppose a blind child whom you loved, were to ask you,
what is the sun ? To tell him that it is an enormous globe,
more than a million times bigger than the earth, would be
to convey no real conception at all. Nor would it be of any
use to say that the sun is the source of light; for light the
child has never seen. Perhaps you would despair of answer
ing the question directly, until the child is more mature.
But you might lead him from the shadow into sunlight, and
from sunlight into shade, that he might feel for himself the
difference between the presence and absence of its rays; and
he would think of it as a diffusive glow which only something
intruding between the sky and himself can keep away. And
you would lead him out where wallflowers, or honeysuckle,
or roses bloom, and with the difference between that fragrance
and the damp decay of winter, he would learn to associate
the greater or less power of the sun. And you would make
him listen to the lark, and the thrush, and the blackbird, as
they burst into song when the morning rises, so that music
and gladness should be added to the glow and the fragrance
in which he has learned to feel the presence of the sun. So
Jesus dealt with men in his doctrine of God.
For men are
born, and necessarily remain, blind to the ultimate glory of
God. They keep on asking what is God? But it is a
question which cannot be directly answered. Therefore Jesus
sought to hallow the associations of the name. For he knew
that the heart can take in far more of its meaning than the
head.
He used the name of Father, indicative of all-pervasive,
all-moulding providence.
“ Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.” What did he mean by this, but that
the presence of God is felt in the subtle sense of an infinite
spiritual order, which only comes to those who are lowly and
sincere? “ Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be
called the children of God.” In these words the moral
harmonies that are constituted by loving sympathies, are
made specially divine; and they who seek to maintain and
extend them, so manifestly do the work of God, that we see
in them his image. “ Seek ye first the kingdom of God andv
his righteousness.” The conjunction “and ” here expresses
identification rather than addition. Righteousness is the
kingdom or God, because it is the rule of his spirit in the
�heart. “ If ye had known what this meaneth ‘I will have
mercy and not sacrifice/ ye would not have condemned the
guiltless.” No, surely; for mercy softens away traditional
prejudice, and extends symyathy to every feeblest spark of the
divine life. Thus a Father’s heart, and purity and peace, and
righteousness and mercy are all associated with the thought
of him who is the ultimate mystery of all being. Or as some
one (I forget who) has said, u God is the best that one
knows or feels.”
Do you ask me how this agrees with my view that the
method of Jesus is to recall men from fancy to fact? Well,
all facts are not like stones and bricks which you demonstrate
by kicking your foot or bruising your hand. As we have
often said, the most certain facts of all, are those of con
sciousness ; for by these all others must be interpreted.
There are facts of the heart’s nature, as well as facts of gra
vitation and chemical affinity. And when Jesus recalled
men’s thoughts from morbid speculations about theprophecies,
and told them they realised God best when they were loving
and just and merciful, I say he did recall their attention from
fancies to facts. And would to heaven their was some one to
do so now 1 From the soul-choking theology of the rabbis he
appealed to God’s ever dawning revelation in the heart. He
insisted that in exaltation of the moral life lay the best chance
of realizing the immeasurable fact of God’s being; that all
the best feelings there, were like rays that the eye might
follow back till they were lost in infinite light.
If the purpose and scope of these lectures did not forbid,
I would undertake to show that there underlies such teaching,
though never appearing on this surface, the ultimate philoso
phy of God, towards which all thought is tending. And
though that purpose prevents my going farther, this I will
say, that every one who finds a significance in Coleridge's lines
“ ’Tis the sublime in man, our noontide majesty,
to know ourselves,
Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole,”
must surely realise how all the virtues which subordinate
self and magnify the eternal all in all, do verily bring us
into the immediate presence of God.
But I hasten on to point out some specially practical
advantages attendant on this method of Jesus in dealing
with the doctrine of God. For (1) it did not directly attack
any sacred traditions. And (2) it required no abstruse
theories about God to be first established. And (3) finally
it was capable of endless expansion, and is applicable at the
present day.
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1.—It did not unnecessarily attack any sacred traditions.
Do not misunderstand me. There was no cunning reticence
on the part of Christ. The modern plan of believing one
creed and ostentatiously subscribing to another, for social
reasons, or reasons of prudence, formed no part of his
method. There were some traditions which were not sacred;
and these he did not hesitate to denounce. The supersti
tions, for instance, that polluted the sabbath were in his eyes
hurtful, from the spiritual pride and the morbid narrowness
of conscience they inspired.
Such superstitions he did
attack openly and fearlessly, in the teeth of their devotees.
He “ looked round about upon them in anger, being grieved
for the hardness -of their hearts.” He wondered that the
plain facts of God’s manifest rule did not touch them with
shame for their obliquity of vision. And if he were walking
our streets on Sundays now—if he were to see those homes
of intellectual light, those possible fountains of moral sweet
ness, our public libraries and museums grimly silent, dark
and empty, while crowds roll in and out at the reeking
doors of public houses, he would surely manifest the same
emotions now. He would look round about with anger on
us and our boasted civilization,—our lavishness in gun
powder and great guns, our timid parsimony in education,
the torrents of drink that roll down our street, the sprinkling
of popular knowledge that satisfies us,—and the fair future,
which is to us what the kingdom of heaven was to the Jews,
would receive its indignant vindication. “ Woe unto you,
ye hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of knowledge
against men ; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer
ye them that are entering to go in.”
But apart from such reactionary superstitions, Jesus
accepted in the main, as a man of the age, the sacred
traditions of the people amongst whom he was born. It
was principally in his interpretation of the future which was
to grow out of the past that he differed from his country
men. He reverenced the ancient scriptures; but he saw a
higher meaning in them than others did. He cherished the pro
phecies ; but he gave to their material symbols a spiritual
meaning. He worshipped the God of his fathers; but the
glory of that God reflected in his heart was like a new
revelation. And sects of considerable magnitude in the
early church were so impressed by the difference between
the Heavenly Father of Jesus, and the Jehovah of Moses,
that they maintained they were not the same God at all.
We shall not fall into their error. The ultimate mystery of
being hl ways and everywhere veiled under the name of God,
�14
or gods, is the same to all generations, though they dress it
in' various forms and make of it very different applications.
To the philosophy of the subject Jesus apparently gave no
thought. He was only anxious that the abiding sense men
have of eternal being should be used as an inspiration of the
higher life. And this he accomplished by enshrining the
Supreme Name, reverenced by all alike, in a halo of the
best affections.
The example is one which we should do well to study at
the present day. We should not trouble ourselves too much
about theological opinions. Where they are clearly obstructive
and degrading in their influence, we may of course be bound
to expose their falsehood. Otherwise we shall do well to try
what is the best use we can make of the various forms, in
which men represent to themselves one ultimate fact. I
know there are some people now, as there always have
been any time these two thousand years, who exhort us to
get rid of the name and extirpate the feeling of God. They
might as well attempt to forbid the sense of infinity as we
look up to the midnight sky; or of eternity as we gaze on
the everlasting mountains. Far more sensible and more
feasible is the suggestion of Mr. Matthew Arnold, that we
we should think of God as the power impelling each creature
to fulfil the law of its being; or as the power, not ourselves,
that makes for righteousness. And indeed this last was
very much the course adopted by Christ.
2.—By thus accepting sacred traditions, and giving them
a higher meaning, Jesus avoided the necessity for any
abstruse theories about God. It is very unfortunate that
people will form their ideas of Christianity from the three
creeds, or from the Westminster catechism, rather than from
thy synoptical gospels. The general notion seems to be that
Jesus taught the doctrines of the Trinity and the Fall, and
Original Sin. It is true that something very much akin to
the first of these doctrines is laid down in the fourth gospel,
which, for reasons already given, we cannot regard as an
uncoloured description of earliest church memories. But in
the synoptics we repeat that there is hardly anything which
can be called theology, as this term is understood in the schools.
There is nothing about divine ontology. There is very little, and
that of doubtful origin, about the secrets of the divine counsels.
There is only a loyal endeavour to give a nobler, moral and
emotional interpretation to an accepted faith. Even the
moral attributes of God are described indirectly, by taking
it for granted that they answer to the human heart. u Love
your enemies, bless them that persecute you, . . • that
�15
ye may be the children of your Father who is in Heaven; for
he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and
sendeth his rain on the just and on the unjust.” “ Take
heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of
them; otherwise ye have no reward of your Father who is
in Heaven.” In such words we have an assumption, jus
tified by the whole ’scope and law of human progress, that
generosity and sincerity and lowliness are pure and unper
verted inspirations of the power by which humanity at large
tends to fulfil the law of its being. Or think again of the
words Jesus is reported to have uttered, when he was forced
unwillingly to the conclusion that the learning and the
fashion and the social power of the times had no ears for
him, but that his mission was to the lowly and ignorant and
poor. It is not resentment but contentment; not a su
perstitious notion of a divine judgment against learning and
culture, but acquiescence in an inevitable law of human
progress, that we hear in his address to heaven. il I thank
thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid
these things from the wise and prudent * and hast revealed
them unto babes. Even so Father, for so it seemed good in
thy sight.” That is to say, God cares for the poor, and makes
them his mightiest instruments. The most decisive revolu
tions, whether ecclesiastical or political, begin from below
and work upwards. There is a great deal about the method
of God’s government implied here. But it is founded upon
no abstruse reasonings! It comes from identifying the
impulses of philanthropy with the movements of the Divine
Spirit.
3.—Finally, one most striking advantage of such a doctrine
of God is its capacity for expansion in accordance with the
growth of knowledge. This is a point of the utmost possible
interest for us. For there can be no dispute but that men’s
notions of the world and of its order have entirely changed
since the era of Christ; and if he had imposed on his imme
diate followers a definition of God suitable to their intel
lectual limitations, it must necessarily have grown more
and more incongruous with the ideas of after ages. Indeed
this is just what many assume to be actually the case.
Taking their notion of the religion of Jesus from the creeds,
lit
1;
iil
I
* The real matter of thankfulness is not that they were hidden from any one ;
but that they were revealed to simple folk even at the cost of being hidden from
the learned. Let any one who thinks himself fitted to be Archbishop of Canter
bury and finds himself only a scripture reader in a low neighbourhood, contrast
his own feelings with those expressed in the text, and that will bring out its
meaning.
�16
rather than from the gospels, they insist that the {t magnified
non-natural Man,” whom Christianity teaches us to worship,
can find no place either in or beyond 'the universe as it is
now beginning to be understood. And they have so much to
say for themselves, that it sometimes seems as though a
cheerless atheism were staring us into stone.
But in
truth we have no evidence that Jesus ever attempted any
definition of God.
*
He simply accepted the sense of eternal
being, which’ every man has, whether he knows it by that
phrase or not; and he told men to think of that eternal
being as the source of every impulse which impelled them
to their best. He said nothing to depreciate the sacred
tradition of a heavenly Monarch, the personal King of the
Jews ; but his method of dealing with the sense of eternal
being was a solvent, under which that Jewish tradition was
sure to pass away. And I think the same method is appli
cable now, amidst all the confusion of contending theologies.
They all assume, and they rightly assume, a sense in man of
eternal being, a unity in diversity, a whole comprehending
all parts, an abiding reality which no passing shows exhaust.
But then they try to give definite intellectual notions of this
Eternal, and their notions are all different. One says that
he is three persons in one God; another that he is the soul
of the world without body, parts or passions ; a third that
he is an infinite person who thinks and loves. For our
part we have no hesitation in allowing that all these notions
have germs of truth.
But as compared with the scale of
the subject, the germs are so very small that we are con
strained to regard them as infinitely distant from the reality.
Now if we would follow the method of Jesus, we should
rather say,—hold to your sacred tradition if you will, so far
as it expands and does not narrow your heart. But do not
expect to realize in it the living God, the Father of your
spirit. Rather he finds you and you find him in every im
pulse towards a better life. For as that Eternal Power
inspires the lilies of the field to clothe themselves with more
than Solomon’s glory, and the birds of the air to provide by
instinct for their young, so does he touch you with an impulse
to fulfil the law of your being, in a noble life. And if you
accustom yourself to it, this way of regarding God will grow
upon you, until you have an abiding sense of a divine
presence, and a constant incentive to that sort of prayer
whose highest expression is work.
* The words, “God is a Spirit,” supposing them to be authentic, are not a
definition. They really mean “ God is greater than any intellectual or cere
monial forms, and is to be approached by the heart.”
�17
Let me refer to the blind child again. I think, if you had
told him of a mighty ball rolling, with enormous force, the
little worlds around it, you would not have succeeded in con
veying any adequate intellectual conception of the reality;
but you would certainly have distracted his attention from
the tenderer and to him the more real significance of the sun.
But in establishing in his mind the association of some
unknown and unknowable splendour with the glow of summer
warmth, and the perfume of flowers, and the songs of birds,
you would at once make the sun very real to him; and yet
you would leave him free to adapt his ideas to every successive
instalment of knowledge about the subject which he might
prove capable of receiving. So it is with Christ’s doctrine of
God. It is not scientific. It is addressed to the heart. But
the very absence of any attempt at scientific definition makes
it as expansive as man’s knowledge of the universe.
One word more. Such a doctrine of God suggests an
Incarnation, which may be a permanent element in universal
religion. ((The light of the body is the eye,” says Jesus.
But surely the eye is not illuminative by itself. It is light,
he says; because it appreciates light, and brings us into
communion with light. Just so the God of the soul is con
science ; not that conscience is eternal or boundless, but that
through it we get that sense of eternal right, or fitness, or
self-consistency, and that feeling of infinite authority on the
one hand and limitless obligation on the other, which seem
most to bring us into communion with God. It is always in
a realization of the sacredness of duty that the sense of God
is most impressive ; always in the commanding sweetness of
moral affections that the universal divinity seems to be
specially present. And these experiences are more intensely
human than any triumphs of the intellect. So God always
comes to us nearest in the form of humanity. And William
Blake seems to me to express in a few notes of music that
doctrine of God which we have been labouring for an hour to
explain when he sings—
To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love,
All pray in their distress,
And to these virtues of delight,
Beturn their thankfulness.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love,
Is God our Father dear;
And Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love,
Is man, His child and care.
�For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity, a human face;
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, a human dress.
Then every man, in every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form,
In Heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Peace and Pity dwell,
There God is dwelling to.
UPFIELD GREEN, Printer, Tenter Street, E.C.
�THE RELIGION OF JESUS:
ITS MODERN DIFFICULTIES
AND
ITS ORIGINAL SIMPLICITY.
bourse of Smito Staling Jutuns,
BY
J. ALLANSON PICTON.
Ill
The Religion of Jesus; His doctrine of Man.
The two main topics of every religious teacher are neces
sarily God and man. We have seen how Jesus dealt with
the former of these topics. He accepted the sacred tradition,
current amongst his countrymen, of an Eternal Power, at
once the supreme fount of law and the universal inspiration
of righteousness. But in his treatment of this great topic,
he differed very much from most of the teachers of his time.
To heighten the sense of God in the hearts of men, Jesus
did not think it necessary to grope amidst the mouldering
ruins of antiquity. He rather preferred to call attention to,
and to insist upon, the divine side of present facts, whether
the springing of the corn, the blooming of the lily, or the
best ideals of the heart. In dealing with human nature,
the method of Jesus was entirely similar. Whatever he
may have thought of the story of Adam and the garden of
Eden, he clearly had no theory whatever such as would
require a demonstrable foundation in any forgotten and
irrecoverable past. He took men as he found them, in
their sins, in their sorrows, in their better aspirations ; and
�2
his only doctrine of human nature was a practical inculcation
of the most obvious method, for making such better aspira
tions triumph over both sorrow and sin.
For such a doctrine of man Jesus had at least one pre
eminent qualification. He loved mankind with a purity
and disinterestedness of devotion, such as in all the records,
at least of western story, has never been paralleled before
or since. Those skilled in the learning of the east, tell us
that we may find in the philanthropy of Buddha, a striking
parallel to the love of Christ for mankind. But such au
thorities also inform us, that Buddha looked upon human
life as a wholly hopeless problem: and that he prized the
exercise of the highest virtues only as the speediest means
for getting rid of it altogether. Jesus, however, took a
more hopeful view of the condition of mankind. He came,
it is said, that they might have life, and that they might
have it more abundantly. The reminiscences of this sym
pathy in the gospels, especially where they bear the stamp
of historic truth, are so brifef as to imply far more than they
distinctly state. But they are perhaps all the more touching
because of their simplicity and unconsciousness. Thus, for
instance, we read, in the first chapter of St. Mark, how on a
certain occasion Jesus, wearied perhaps with the excitement
of public employment, retired amongst the mountains that
he might meditate and pray, thus refreshing his spirit with
heavenly communion. But the multitude, who had learned
to appreciate the blessing of his presence, hungered for him
now in his absence as for their daily bread. So general and
strong was this feeling, that his disciples were driven to
search for him; and when they had found him, Peter said
to him, ■ all men seek for thee.” There is more in these
words than mere curiosity. Indeed if our view of the gospel
story be correct, it could hardly have been at that time the
expectation of miracle which prompted this universal desire.
The people felt that he answered to their deepest needs. He
had a treasure to communicate, which was worth more to
them than any earthly riches, and therefore they hungered
after him as children after their parents. Now mark, how
quick is the response on the part of Jesus to this tie between
him and the multitude. His philantropic sympathies were
stirred ; he felt afresh the burden of his mission, “ Let us
go,” he said, “ into the next towns and villages that I may
preach there also ; for therefore came I forth.”
You know what is the effect produced on any feeling
heart, by the sight of a great multitude. Ten thousand
faces, ten thousand minds, ten thousand hearts, each one
�3
opening a vista of life’s experience, overwhelm us with the
vastness of the interests which are embodied there. Now
there are several hints, scattered through the pages of these
gospels, which show how keenly susceptible Jesus was to
this kind of impression. More than once, we are told how
the mere sight of a great multitude of men stirred in him
deep emotion. In the sixth chapter of the same gospel of
St. Mark it is said, that when, on another occasion, Jesus
had retired into a sacred solitude, some thousands of people
were gathered together in the mountain glades waiting for
his appearance. The story goes on, il and Jesus, when he
came out, saw much people, and was moved with com
passion towards them, because they were as sheep having
no shepherd, and he began to teach them many things.” A
passage in St. Matthew, referring to the same or a similar
occasion, gives a touching detail of the reason for his feeling.
tl They were tired and lay down,” it is said, as though faint.,
hopeless and desolate. Can you not picture to yourselves
the scene ? We may suppose that as Jesus turned an angle
of the valley, he was suddenly confronted with the crowd.
There were scattered on the grass slumbering men, worn
out with weariness and hunger; there were lost children
crying for their parents; there were mothers fainting under
the drudgeries of life; there were anxious faces that seemed
to tell of broken hearts. I like to think of the tide of feel
ing which arose in the heart of Jesus as he looked on such
a sight. The enthusiasm of humanity was upon him, 11 the
harvest truly is plenteous ” he said, “but the labourers are
few; pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that he will
send forth labourers into his harvest.” This feeling of quick
and deep sympathy, stirred by the sight of a vulgar mul
titude, does not appear to have been very common in
antiquity. And we may fairly see, in such emotions of
Jesus, the first spring of that side of benevolence, which
has covered the Christian world with hospitals, missions
and schools.
None can revive the moral life of men, without a deep
sympathy for them in his heart. In vain will a teacher
open before you the treasures of wisdom; in vain will he
draw pictures of the works of God, unless he feels at one
with the common instincts of humanity. Of course such
philanthropic sympathies may be, and often are, simulated
for selfish purposes. But such a cheat is always in the long
run detected. For there are times when the true philan
thropist must stand alone, because his very sympathy for
humanity, and his realization of its true interest will drive
iii;
S'
I
I?
�4
him to take up an attitude hostile to the passions of the
time' Will he dare, for instance, to denounce a Russian war,
when millions of throats are howling for human blood ?
Will he dare to oppose the brutalities of popular vindictive
ness, whether directed against mutinous sepoys, or home
enemies of society ? A man that will stand such tests as
these, however eccentric his opinions may be, has at least
the good of his kind at heart. It might at first sight be
supposed that, however obnoxious the teachings of Jesus
were to the scribes and pharisees, his capacity of resisting
.more popular prejudices was never put to the proof. This
however would be a great mistake. The word “ Messiah,”
according to its ancient associations, led the people generally
to anticipate a career of military victory, and the establish
ment of a world-wide dominion, the profits of which would
have been enjoyed mainly by the Jews. A man who cared
more for the applause of the people than for their good,
would have known how to turn such expectations to his own
advantage, even though he never entertained any thought
of attempting to realise them. But the course of Jesus was
very different. There are some hints in the gospels, which
appear to suggest that, at first, Jesus shrank from the title
of Messiah, and at any rate repudiated its public assumption.
And when, from causes which we cannot now investigate,
he allowed himself to be called by the name, he persistently
gave to it a spiritual significance such as'-was directly con
trary to popular prejudice. By this he showed that his
sympathy for mankind was not assumed for any interested
purpose, but was deep and strong enough to enable him to
stand firm against prejudice, and ignorance, and perverted
faith, in whatever quarter they were found.
So far then as love and sympathy will go, he was well
qualified to deal with humanity. And though he professed
no philosophy, and did not enrich the treasures of learning
with any contribution towards a metaphysical analysis of
human nature, we shall not regret the absence of such
philosophical pretensions, if we find that he makes plain to
us, both the need and the possibility of religion. We shall
now show that, as in dealing with the name of God, so in
regard to human nature, his method was an insistance on
obvious facts of pregnant meaning, and an endeavour to
turn them to the divinest issues.
Well then, in the first place; we must note his significant
use of the word <( heart.” For by this term Jesus sum
marized and emphasized innumerable common and easily
recognized facts of consciousness, which may be neglected,
�5
but cannot possibly be denied. In the teaching of Jesus
the heart represents the whole moral nature in its unity
apart altogether from the metaphysical analyses which may
be useful for science, but have nothing to do with religion.
It expresses all the voluntary energies of human nature,
which are, or may be, touched with a sense of responsibility.
It included also the affections, which go with the voluntary
energies, and partake directly or indirectly in their respon
sibility. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be
also,” that is to say, the whole of your voluntary energies
which are touched by a sense of responsibility. “ A good
man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth
good things ; and an evil man out of the evil treasure
bringeth forth evil things.” “ This people draweth nigh
unto me with their mouth and honoureth me with their
lips, but their heart is far from me.” This is of course a
quotation from the prophets; but Jesus gives it a special
reference to the ruling classes of his day. And when he
says “ their heart is far from me,” what he means is, that
however they may comply with sacred forms, the reason of
compliance is not religion, because their voluntary energies
are given not to God, but to society, to fashion and to their
own interests. Thus you see Jesus makes no division be
tween intellect and emotion, imagination and reason. He
cares little for intellect arid imagination in themselves,
though he uses both for action on the moral nature. He
rather strove to concentrate all attention on those voluntary
energies touched with a sense of responsibility, which, as we
say, he expressed by the word “heart.” Now this is a part of
ourselves which is surely more interesting than any other.
For it is this which makes character, and character makes
conduct, and from conduct far the greater part of our hap
piness or misery must ever spring.
Here, however, I anticipate a difficulty, certain to be
started by some disputant, if we were holding a discussion.
And it is as well to notice that difficulty, because it enables
us to bring out more clearly the practical method of Jesus,
which consists in dealing with the obvious facts of conscious
ness, and leaving all more subtle analysis to philosophers,
whose province it is. The disputant, whom I have sup
posed to be present, would not patiently endure such a
description as I have given of Christ’s idea of the heart, as
representing the sum of the voluntary energies. “ Voluntary
energies indeed! ” he would exclaim; “ but there is no such
thing as freedom of the will at all. That is an old world
notion-Avhich -has long since been explained away. For of
�6
course every human action is a link in the endless chain of
causation. To suppose anything else would be to imagine
that chaos and order can exist not only side by side, but
intermingled and mutually co-operating.
The thing is
impossible and absurd; yet you preachers, with your talk
about 1 voluntary energies,’ will persist in assuming, as a
matter of course, what is demonstrably false.”
To such a disputant I should say; my friend, you altoge
ther mistake the subject in hand. We are not talking about
metaphysics, but about religion. If indeed we were to enter
on the philosophy of the will, I am very far from admitting
that your case is so strong as you suppose. But whether it
is strong or weak, we have nothing whatever to do with it
just now. Do not mistake me; I am not about to back out
of the argument, and then go on as though it had been
decided in my favour. And to convince everyone of this, I
will try to explain how the case really stands.
All that religion assumes is something known to con
sciousness as will,—something that we agree to speak of by
that name. You may maintain, if you like, that the feeling
of self-determination suggested by the word is only an appear
ance, or a phenomenon, which when it is examined turns out
to be something very different. Well then let us call it the
phenomenal will. All I say is, it is there; and like all
other faculties requires an appropriate treatment. When
the judgment goes astray it wants fuller information; when
fancy fails it needs kindling suggestions ; and when the will
decides wrongly it wants persuasion, warning, or encourage
ment. And this stands good whether the power of self-de
termination is merely apparent or not. After all, phenomena
are rather important things, and, not least, the phenomenal
will.
Everybody, whatever his metaphysical belief may
be, recognizes, in his actual practice, that the voluntary
energies,—those which are, as we have said, touched with a
feeling of responsibility,—must be treated in accordance
with their nature. If, for instance, you find a poor family
stricken down with fever through bad drainage, and too
ignorant to know what is wrong with them, you do not stop
to reason with them. You take means to get the defect
mended at once; and meanwhile you send them medical
advice and medicine. “Poor souls” you say, “it is no
fault of theirs ; and the remedy is beyond their power.”
But if, on the other hand, you see a lazy father lounging
about with his hands in his pockets, and starving his wife
and children, you do not deal with him after the same
fashion. You persuade him, you try to shame him, you
�7
upbraid, you even threaten, if by any means you may affect
his will. Not that you thus concede anything as to the
metaphysical question of free will. That is not at all involved.
But you do recognize some difference between the voluntary
energies which you are trying to touch with a keener sense
of responsibility, and involuntary properties, susceptibilities,
or accidents. You show that you recognize this difference
by your different methods in the two cases. Now that is
just what the gospel does ; no more. And we say that the
gospel method of dealing with the heart, that is, the sum of
the voluntary energies, is well worthy of your attention, no
matter what the metaphysical sect to which you own
allegiance.
li But,” says another, “ this method of dealing with the
voluntary energies in a lump is most unscientific. We must
distinguish; we must analyse. There is the great question
of motives, and the power, possessed by attention, to single
out of a hundred motives the one that shall prevail. There
is the power of habit to be considered, and social sympathies,
and hereditary tendencies. All these must have their due,
if we are to have any rational conception of the voluntary
energies.” Certainly, I reply, if that is what you are
seeking. But it is not what we are seeking at present. It
is the business of philosophy to analyse. But religion,
dealing practically with conduct, or with feeling, must treat
the moral nature as a whole. In fact religion deals with the
moral nature very much as the moral nature deals with
muscular exertion. A lazy man does not like effort. But
if he is not wholly devoid of conscience, moral principle
says to him “ exert yourself; pull with all your might at
this rope ; lift those stones out of the way.” Now there is
nothing more perplexing than the action of intention or
purpose on the muscles. There are impressions made on
the sensory ganglia of the brain. There is the conveyance
of some impression from the sensory ganglia to the cere
brum. There is a co-ordination of action amongst various
cells of the cerebrum. There are orders conveyed by the
spinal column, and from this through one set of nerves
called efferent, to the particular muscle to be exerted. There
is a return message through another set of nerves called
afferent, to inform the cerebrum of the progress made in
complying with its decrees, that is to say, of the extent to
which the muscle is contracted or expanded. There is a
determination of a flow of blood to the muscle. There is
the cod traction of muscular fibre. All these facts anatomy
has detected in what, to the consciousness, seems a very
�8
simple process.
In fact the consciousness hardly detects
any parts at all. It wants to move an arm and it moves it,
without the .slightest notion of the delicate and complex
machinery of which it is making use. To this day, many
questions as to the mode in which that machinery operates
remain entirely insoluble even by the latest scientific dis
coveries. But does that, in the slightest degree, affect the
ordinary relations of the moral nature and the muscular
system in the lazy man ? Fancy the opening which such a
suggestion would give to the sort of person called by sailors
a “ sea-lawyer.” “ What is the use of ordering me about?”
he would ask, “your words certainly reach my sensory
organs; but really the connection of these with my cere
brum, and the co-ordination of the various ganglia there are
anything but satisfactory. Besides, I am greatly perplexed
about the action of the afferent and efferent nerves, and the
more I think about it the less can I control my limbs ” All
this would be very ridiculous; but not in the least degree
more so, than it is to interpose, between religion and the
moral nature, your ingenious metaphysical analysis. The
case supposed would be ridiculous, because, in the conscious
ness, determination and exertion appear to be a single act,
practically dependent for its energy on the amount of good
will thrown into it. And this is all that is assumed by
exhortation, persuasion or warning.
So is it with the proper influence of religion on the moral
nature. Mental anatomy may do good service in its own
place. But it cannot possibly alter the facts of conscious
ness, which testify that imagination, affection, reverence, all
unite to make one act of homage by which a man bows to
the eternal sanction of righteousness. Thus, by a simple
practical view of the moral nature, as a unity in conscious
ness, Christ puts the gospel outside philosophy; aye and
above it, inasmuch as conduct is the issue, and character
the highest aim of knowledge. However wise and analytical
we may be, we want some power to take us as a whole, to
inspire the instinctive movements of desire and affection;
and so to mould directly the grand evolution of increasing
purpose, by which a life is built up. Therefore it is that
the power of Jesus over the moral nature of man, a power
testified by the experience of eighteen centuries, is well
worthy of our study.
2.—The next fact brought into prominence in the original
simplicity of Christ’s religion, is that of universal sinfulness.
Here again there is an opening for endless analysis and
disputation. . What is the innermost secret of sin? How
�9
did it at first enter into the world ? Is it the attribute of a
fallen race ? or is it necessarily incidental to the existence of
a progressive race, always growing towards a higher condi
tion of life ? Well now, in the synoptical gospels, and
almost equally so even in the fourth gospel, Jesus seems to
take hardly the slightest notice of such incidental questions.
He simply notes the sinfulness of man as a palpable and a
terrible fact, which must be recognized, weighed, and felt, by
any one who would do any good to the world in which he
lives. This is implied in the words attributed to him at the
outset of his career. “Repent ye” that is, change to a
better mind, “ for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Hu
man sinfulness is assumed, even in the beauty and sweetness
of the beatitudes. “ Blessed are they who mourn,” surely
not those who mourn only because of pain or affliction; but
those who mourn for sin; because such sadness is already
touched with the dawn of a better life. The same, universal
fact is implied in the contrast always drawn between the
moral tendencies of men and the will of God. 11 If ye then,
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more shall your heavenly Father give his Holy
Spirit to them that ask him ? ” It is confessed in the prayer
which Jesus taught to his disciples. J Forgive us our
trespasses, as we also forgive them that trespass against us.”
It is not a superficial accident, but pervades the totality
of the moral nature.
“ Out of the heart proceed evil
thoughts, murders, adulteries.” It is not individual but
universal. “ Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.”
11 Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye
and forgettest the beam that is in thine own eye?” 11 Woe
unto the world because of offences, for it must needs be that
offences come.” It tends to general ruin, fl Except ye repent
ye shall all likewise perish.” And the ruin to which it tends
is utter and unremediable. “ If then the light that is in thee
be darkness, how great is that darkness.” “ What shall it'
profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose himself or
be cast away?”
Perhaps it may be said that there is nothing striking or
original in mere insistance upon palpable facts. That is so.
But perhaps there is some originality, in this contentment
with palpable fact as a basis of religion. And though Jesus
limits himself to a practical view of human sinfulness, many
passages imply that the term was not used without a clear
and intelligent significance. In the view of Jesus sin was a
revolt from the will of God, a wilful or careless discord with
£he divine ideal manifest in the conscience. According to
�the teaching of Jesus, the will of God is to be identified with
“ the best one knows or feels; ” and whenever any one
wilfully or carelessly falls short of his best, this is rebellion
against the will of God. Accordingly it is in its aspect
towards God that sin appears in its worst character. Thus
in the parable of the unmerciful servant, the debt owing to
this servant was only a hundred pence, while that which he
owed his lord was ten thousand talents, a disproportion which
is certainly intended to represent Christ’s own estimate of the
difference between our guilt as against God, and our guilt
as against man. If you ask how is the will of God revealed
according to the teaching of Jesus? we can only refer to
what was said in the last lecture. It then appeared, on a
general review of the doctrine of Jesus about the Divine
Nature, that sacred tradition, association, nature, and
experience, all unite to suggest an ideal life which pictures
to us the will of God.
In all this there is no reference to the doctrine of
original sin,” as commonly taught in theological treatises.
Christ never mentions Adam or Eve by name; and only
indirect y refers to them when declaring the primeval sanctity
of the marriage tie. It is true that both moral and physical
evil is apparently traced to Satan, as in the parable of the
sower; and indeed in the Lord’s prayer, when correctly
rendered. But here Jesus is speaking according to the ideas
of the time, and not according to the new spirit which he
himself breathed. Besides, these references to the Evil One
are just of that vague and passing character natural to a
teacher, whose attention is more engaged by actual facts than
by the popular forms under which he instinctively expresses
them. Otherwise no one can read the synoptical gospels
without feeling that when Jesus had traced sin to the heart,
he was not in the least degree interested in tracing it any
further. In the heart it must be attacked ; in the heart it
could be overcome; and so far as the direct operation of
religion was concerned, there is no evidence that he
encouraged or approved any farther speculation concerning
the subject. Thus his doctrine of sin is not chargeable
either with theological or philosophical sectarianism. The
mystery of moral evil is still left open to any explanation
which science or philosophy may hereafter hope to give.
In illustration of the openness of the speculative questions
as left by the religion of Jesus, we may touch upon two
possible theories about universal sin. According to the
first it is the result of a fall from a previous state of perfec
tion ; according to the second it is rather a coming short of,
�11
or a hanging back from, a higher and better life which is
always being revealed to man. In the one case Eden is
behind us, in the other case it is before us. To make our
meaning clear, take as an example an innocent babe to
whom you cannot possibly attribute any actual sin, whether
your theological theory would condemn him as polluted by
original sin or not. There is no actual sin, for the simple
reason that nothing whatever is required of the voluntary
energies of the babe; and therefore it cannot have come
short of any requirement. But as soon as it grows to a
child, and begins to learn lessons, the possibility of a higher
life is set before it and forced upon its attention. But the
attainment of this higher life requires disciplined exertion;
and disciplined exertion is not always pleasant. Hence
disobedience and bad temper. And here is the first mani
festation of that “ foolishness ” or sin, which the proverb
assures us is bound up in the heart of a child, Now it is
quite possible to take either of two views about such
beginnings of sin. You may say, here is a fall from the
innocence of babyhood; or you may prefer to say, here is a
shrinking from the better life which begins to dawn upon the
opening consciousness. For myself I think the latter view
is more in accordance with the facts. But if you prefer the
other, I should never think of complaining, so long as the
theory has no evil influence on your educational methods.
Just so in regard, to the probable history of man; it may be
argued that in the pre-human state,—whatever that may
have been,—it would have been impossible to impute sin to
him, because he was not conscious of any alternative between
better and worse. Conscience did not require anything from
him; and therefore he was as incapable of sin as a babe.
But as reason awoke, law was conceived, and an ideal life
began to dawn. However low and poor the earliest ideal of
mankind might seem to us now, it was pregnant with the
promise of a better future. But one great price that had to
be paid-for this revelation was the possibility and, alas, the
actuality of sin. Now some still prefer to call this B the Fall
of man.” And some would even insist that the story of
Adam represents actual facts. But others say that the only
original sin is the innate conservatism of our nature, which
always tempts us to hang back from the better life just
within our reach. And all the significance they allow to the
doctrine of the Fall is, that it is the projection backwards, in
the generic memory, of that sharp schism between an
advancing ideal and a lagging practice, of which the whole
race is everywhere .conscious.
�12
But what we are anxious to insist upon now is, that what
ever theory you may prefer, it ought not to make the
slightest difference in your appreciation of the doctrine of
Jesus concerning human sin. He says nothing about a fall,
and nothing about the original awakening of conscience.
He takes moral facts simply as they are, and his language
concerning them answers to the feelings of the heart. What
ever may have been the origin of sin, no one can deny the
soundness of the exhortation “ if thy right hand cause thee to
*
sin, cut it off and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for
thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than thy
whole body should be cast into hell.”f And whatever may
be the philosophical explanation of the general tendency
amongst men to build on false moral - principles rather than
on sound ones, it is certainly true that when “ the rains
descend and the floods come and the winds blow,” the
structure raised upon them, whether life or character, will
be exposed to ruin.
(3.) How entirely free from pragmatical theory was
Christ’s doctrine of human nature, is shown by his generous
assumption of a natural and original tendency to good in
man Theologians, more anxious about logical consistency
of system than about faithfulness to facts, have asserted
that, as a result of original sin, “ we are utterly indisposed,
disabled and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined
to all evil.” | Such a misanthropic conception of human
nature was, however, no part of the religion of Jesus.
Indeed the opposite is clearly implied in his reference to
early childhood as an emblem of the better life. “ Except
ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall in no
wise enter into the kingdom of Heaven.”
Surely such
words are entirely incongruous with the notion that Jesus
looked on little children as corrupt, condemned, and
instinctively with germs of evil. <£ Suffer the little children
to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the
kingdom of Heaven.” It is in vain to say that in such- words
he referred only to their freedom from actual transgression.
It was rather because he saw in them the germs of all virtue,
that he likened the beginnings of the heavenly life to them.
Lord Palmerston, who on one occasion declared that all
children were born good, may not have expressed himself
with accuracy, as most parents know. But the heresy with
♦ That is the meaning of “ offend thee” in this passage.
t Hell—that is utter corruption; such for instance as the condition of a hope
less drunkard, or the moral state of the author of the Bremer Explosion.
| Westminster Confession vi 4.
�13
which he was charged by so-called religious newspapers,
breathed much more the spirit of the religion of Jesus than
any doctrine of “ total depravity.”
Already, for other purposes, I have called. attention to
Christ’s significant words about the light that is in every
man. And they are equally available to prove that Jesus,
however stern in his rebukes of sin, could never have taught
that human nature was “utterly indisposed, disabled, and
made opposite to all good.” Indeed he teaches that sincerity
is all that is necessary, to make this susceptibility to divine
light the entrance for all heaven to the soul. For “ if thine
eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light.” The
existence of this susceptibility and tendency to good is also
implied in several of his finest appeals to men. “ Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”
What desire could total depravity feel for divine perfection ?
“ Love your enemies . . . that ye may be the children
of your Father who is in Heaven.” I do not think that
creatures “ utterly indisposed” to all good, would be likely to
care much about the motive here. Again when speaking to
the people of the signs of the times, he denied that they had
any need of supernatural indications to enable them to
distinguish “ the power that makes for righteousness ” from
the powers of this world. They had an inward monitor to
which they would do well to take heed. “ Why,” he asks,
“ even of yourselves judge ye not what is right ?”*
When the young ruler came to him asking the way of
eternal life, and professing surprise at the simplicity of that
obedience to the commandments which was at first demanded,
it is said that “Jesus, beholding him, loved him.” It is
true that he added a special test, which had a very humbling
effect on the young man. Theologians of the Calvinistic
school, therefore, can hardly contend that, in their sense of
the word, the youth was a converted character. And the
emphatic record which is made of the feeling Jesus enter
tained for him suggests that the great Master warmly
appreciated the good elements that he found in the “ natural
man.” The unsectarian breadth of sympathy, with which
Jesus recognized the goodness of Zacchaeus, affords another
illustration of the same thing. All these reminiscences go
to show that, amongst the earliest recollections of the
teaching of Jesus, the doctrine of total depravity as well as
of original sin, was conspicuously absent. And thus we
confirm our position that Christ’s view of the facts of human
life was not warped by any theological or national prejudice.
* Luke xii, 57.
�14
He accepted such facts as they were, and made such use of
them as seemed best adapted to serve, not any theological
school, nor any ecclesiastical institution, but the practical
interests of universal religion.
Perhaps it will be thought that we have hitherto kept
unduly out of sight the obvious difficulties of the subject.
We have said nothing of Christ’s claim to fulfil the Jewish
prophecies concerning the Messiah. We have not touched
upon the question of miracles. We have paid no attention
to the germs of the doctrine of atonement, undoubtedly
contained in the gospels. I quite acknowledge the import
ance of these points; and we shall not shrink from dealing
with them in due course. But it is better in such a study
first to fix our attention on the positive claims which the
religion of Jesus has on our allegiance. It is a good rule not
to neglect obvious truth because of doubtful questions with
which it has been accidentally mixed up. Our observations,
so far, go to show that there is very much in the gospels, at
once fresh, vital, pointed, and clear, attractive to the sym
pathies of all humanity. This, does not depend for its
interest upon any miraculous stories; and therefore our
judgment concerning them cannot affect our estimate of this
more human element. In particular, we have seen much
evidence that one distinctive characteristic of the teaching of
Jesus was an honest recognition of facts as they are, apart
from the perversions and prejudices of traditional superstition.
But this is just an anticipation of the modern spirit cul
tivated by science. What constitutes such a recognition
religious is the application that is made of it. Science looks
at quantities, qualities and successions, in order to increase
knowledge. Religion considers facts, whether of the inner
or the outer world, only to sanctify the relations of the heart,
the sum of our voluntary energies, to the Supreme Power
which both sets of facts alike proclaim.
As to his essential condition and his ultimate destiny,
man is no less mysterious, than nature. He comes forth
from darkness, a spark of consciousness. He grows into
magnificence, covering the historic heavens with a train of
glory. But, as is the case with some comets, the curve of
his orbit is as yet beyond all human calculation. All we can
do is to note the facts of his nature and career; and turn
them where we can to our own salvation. This was what
Jesus did. How he did it we shall endeavour to learn
when we consider his doctrine of redemption.
�THE RELIGION OF JESUS:
ITS MODERN DIFFICULTIES
AND
ITS ORIGINAL SIMPLICITY.
% fioarse ojj j^undaj ffltuquinfl
BY
J. ALLANSON PICTON.
IV.
The Religion of Jesus; His doctrine of Redemption.
We have seen how, in dealing with human nature, Jesus
sought ever to divert attention from mere fancies, dreams,
and superstitions, to actual palpable facts. His chief inter
est in human nature, lay in the moral faculties; but he did
not consider the moral nature as it is seen in the last results
of philosophical analysis. He rather considered it as it pre
sents itself in the individual consciousness, in those activities
which both form and exhibit character. He traced the evil
that afflicts the world to its original root in the heart of
man; but he clearly enough allowed that there is also in
the heart of man a germ of good, capable of flowering out
into all the fruits of holiness and peace.
The doctrine of redemption from this evil, acknowledged
�2
and profoundly felt by Jesus, presents, in the form in which
it has come down to us, greater difficulties than any of the
subjects we have hitherto treated. To a much larger ex
tent than has been the case with Christ’s ideas of human
nature, his doctrine of redemption has been presented to
us in forms which involve forms of Jewish thought, which
it is occasionally very difficult for us to translate into mo
dern ideas and modern language. And tins seems to have
been the case because the hopes and feelings of Jesus him
self, on this subject, were more affected by the imaginations
of his predecessors concerning the future than his percep
tion of facts were by Rabbinical interpretations. You must
add to this, that the disciples were much more susceptible
to the attractive splendours of dominion, pomp, and political
power than they were to the charms of a present righteous
ness; an d under the influence of this susceptibility they
developed the very slightest hints that Jesus gave concern
ing the future into imitations of the prophecies of DanieL
and others immediately preceding the Christian era. Hence
it must be allowed that our Gospels, as we have them, are
not so consistent on this subject as they are in regard to the
doctrine of human nature. We find that spiritual ideas
conflict with material conceptions of the reign of God. In
connection with the former—that is, the spiritual ideas as
set forth in the Gospels—there are cleai’ traces of the same
simplicity which we have observed hitherto in all the teach
ings of Jesus ; and we may find perhaps, that, however per
plexing it may be to translate the other and more material
conceptions into modern ideas and language, it is not very
difficult to shew how they arose.
I shall, perhaps, best bring the whole matter before you
by considering, first, the kingdom of Heaven as set forth in
the Gospels; secondly, the conditions of heavenly citizenship;
and finally, the idea of Jesus as the Messiah, so far as this
idea seems to have been developed in the Synoptical
Gospels.
(1.) First, we have to deal with the kingdom of Heaven.
So far as we are aware, the first suggestion of this phrase—
“ Kingdom of Heaven,” or, “ Kingdom of God,” is to be
found in the book of Daniel. In Daniel ii. 44, we read: —
“ And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven
set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed ; and the
�kingdom shall not be left to other people, bat it shall break
in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand
for ever.” Then again in the seventh chapter of the same
book of Daniel, and at the 13th verse:—“I saw in the
night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came
with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days,
and they brought him near before Him. And there was
given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all
people, nations, and languages should serve him : his do
minion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass
away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.”
This idea of a Divine kingdom proved to be exceedingly
attractive to the Jewish writers who flourished in the cen
turies immediately preceding the birth of Christ. There
was one very remarkable book written within one hundred
years before Christ was born into the world, which was attri
buted to Enoch. That apocryphal book is quoted in the Epis
tle of Jude as though it were genuine Scripture, in the four
teenth verse—“ “ And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam,
prophesied of these, saying, “ Behold, the Lord cometh with
ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all,
and to convince all that are ungodly of all their ungodly
deeds which they have ungodly committed.” The quotation
here suggests a description of the end of the world, and the
triumph of divine justice over human rebellion.
Such
visions occupy a considerable portion of this book, which
contains, perhaps, the most highly developed doctrine of the
Kingdom of God and of the Messiah to be found in preChristian literature. You will understand, then, that as
this idea had attracted so very much attention in the time
immediately preceding the Advent of Christ, it was likely
to be a subject of continual conversation and expectation
during the period of his activity. There was a stedfast
opinion prevailing, that all the troubles of the Jews were to
pass away; and not only so, but that the injustice which
triumphed at that time in all regions of the world should be
vanquished and put down by a kingdom diverse from all
preceding kingdoms, not only different in its attributes of
supernatural power, by which it was to prevail over all
others, but also, as regards its moral attributes, which
should, for the first time in the history of the world, estab
lish a universal rule of righteousness.
�4
There was a feeling prevalent in Europe, especially in
France, in the last quarter of the preceding century, which
may well be compared to this stedfast expectation of the
Jews. True, those who preached the Gospel of Humanity,
according to Rousseau, expected no miraculous interference
with the laws of Nature, as the Jews did. But they rZZrZ
expect, these preachers of the French Gospel, that, by some
marvellous transition and revolution in politics, all old and
imperfect forms of rule should pass away, and the reign of
“Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity” be established for
ever. Those who remember anything of the excitement of
men’s minds during the years preceding the passing of the
first Reform Bill—or those who have read attentively the
history of the time, wili understand how, at critical periods,
a whole people may be possessed with the idea that the
adoption of some particular law, or the triumph of some
particular man, may bring about a perfect state of things in
the world.
Now a man who would mould the future of a people
musX to some extent follow the forms of their imagination.
If he. cannot do this he must inevitably fail. Louis the
16th, and the glittering circle around him, had not sym
pathy enough to realize the attractions which certain forms
of political imagination had fox the people of the age ; and
therefore, though weakly good in his intentions, the poor
king entirely failed to stem the torrent of revolution. Mira
beau, on the other hand, had a strong and deep sympathy
with the forms of imagination popular among the people at
the time. And though his view of things was far more wide
and extended than theirs, his ideas of politics more expan
sive, and his realization of the difficulty of the problem be
fore them far truer to the actual facts of the case, his sym
pathy gave him a power over them which enabled him to
wield their feelings and wills with a sceptre mightier than
that of any king. With much appearance of probability it
has been conjectured that, had he lived, the whole course of
the Revolution might have been changed. Other illustrations might be given from the history of our own country ;
but-as that would lead us into the forbidden realm of poli
tics, we must abstain.
Now Jesus had a deep sympathy wTith the forms of ima
gination prevalent among his countrymen, the Jews of His
�5
day. He fell in with the idea of a time when injustice
should give place to an equitable rule : but if we read the
Gospels aright he gave a wider meaning to this idea than
any before him. True, the prophecies about the final
judgment of the world present great difficulties. But you
will be able to anticipate the way in which these difficulties
may be solved, by your knowledge that, in our view, these
books are of a complex character, for the most part consist
ing of simple popular reminiscences, but occasionally out of
a mere hint or germ in the sayings of Christ elaborating a
portentous vision of the coming days.
Jesus, in speaking of the future, using the imaginative
forms of language that the people loved, urging his hearers
to “ seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”
Now, please observe, the two phrases “ kingdom of God,”
and “ righteousness of God ” may be fairly regarded as
identical. And Jesus thus anticipated, or rather suggested,
the phrase used by the Apostle Paul—“ the righteousness
of God which is revealed from heaven.” Thus, by the
“ kingdom of God ” it would appear that Jesus meant the
rule of God in the heart; that is to say, he concentrated
attention almost exclusively upon the moral attributes of
this kingdom of God. It is as if he had said :—<f I heartily
sympathise with your longings; I join in your expectations.
A better time is certainly in store for us in the providence
of God. But that better time will never come till you have
better hearts; lor the root of the evil of mankind is there ;
and never can the better time come till the race is lifted
into a higher level, and led to adopt a higher standard of
life. This, I take, to be the meaning of the phrase in mod
ern English. John the Baptist had the same idea: —
“ Repent (change to a better mind); for the kingdom of
God is at hand.” But Christ carried this moral conception
of the kingdom of God much farther than John had any
■opportunity of doing, if indeed he had the moral capacity.
There are some words which would amply justify us in
saying that Jesus held this kingdom before his hearers as
entirely and exclusively a moral condition of mankind; as
for instance when he diverted the attention of his disciples
from all possible external scenes, denying that they could
see it in the outward sense in which they supposed it was
to come, 4< For,” said he, “ the Kingdom of God is within
you”
�liemember again, how at another time he sighed deeply
in spirit and said a How hardly shall they that have ricnes
enter into the kingdom of God.” And his disciples were
“ astonished out of measure, saying who then can be saved ? ”
What astonished them out of measure ? They had heard
him frequently discourse of the beauty of humility, the
attractiveness of a lowly heart. They knew that he valued
moral virtues more than political power or wealth, or the
pomps of warlike triumph. But they had never yet realized
how completely, almost exclusively, moral, was his notion of
the kingdom of heaven. What he said was in his view
of the kingdom, a mere common-place, a veritable truism.
“I low hard is it for them that trust in uncertain riches,” who
make these their idols, “to enter into the kingdom of Heaven.
Surely this indicates that a moral condition of the soul was
an essential requisite, even to understanding the nature of
that kingdom. It is not impossible that this spiritual con
ception was the “ mystery ” concerning the kingdom, which
Jesus explained to his disciples so far as they were sus
ceptible to these explanations, but which he distinctly said
was, as yet, hidden from the eyes of the multitude, to whom
he must needs speak in parables. But the parables are them
selves full of this conception throughout. “So is the King
dom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;
and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should
spring and grow up he knoweth not how. For the earth
bringeth forth fruit of herself; first, the blade, then the ear,
afterwards the full corn in the ear.” Could any image be
devised, so pregnant with suggestiveness concerning the
spiritual nature of the kingdom of God as this ? There is
no miracle here, as there is no violence,—everything going
on according to the law of vital processes. So is it with the
kingdom of God. And the same truth is taught in the
parable of the leaven “ which a woman took and hid in
three measures of meal till the whole was leavened.” The
progress here is noiseless, is imperceptible to ordinary obser
vation, and it is also dependent upon a vital process. So
far then the idea taught by Jesus was, that the Jews were
perfectly right in looking forward to a time when righteous
ness should reign, and peace and love abound; but that it
was a superstition on their part to identify it with any poli
tical dominion, or to suppose that it would be established
to pamper their pride.
�Now throughout the Gospels there is no absolute con
tradiction to this mode of conceiving the kingdom of God.
But it must be allowed that there is another element in the
synoptical ideas concerning it, intruding here and there, and
causing no small perplexity to those who believe in the
literal infallibility of the Bible. There is a certain externalisin in the conception of the kingdom of Heaven, quite
inconsistent with this teaching, and excluding this spirituality
of thought which we have noticed in the parables just now
mentioned.
This externalism culminates in the 24th chapter of Mat
thew, where the final triumph of the kingdom of God is
described after the fashion of that passage in Daniel, where
one like unto the Son of Man comes in the clouds of Heaven,
and there is given unto him an everlasting dominion. Such
modes of conceiving of the kingdom may have grown out of
certain ideas of future judgment to which Jesus certainly
looked forward. We find, for instance, in the end of the
parable of the tares—“ Then shall the righteous shine forth
as the sun in the kingdom of my Father.” Such words as
these seem not very far from the portentous visions set
forth in the chapter just mentioned. At least, it would pro
bably appear so to the disciples; but the distance between
the brief and natural image on the one hand, and the apoc
alyptic pictures on the other, wTas too great to be traversed
by him who spoke that parable of the seed dropped uoiselessly into the ground and producing at length the harvest.
In the parable of the tares, the sun-like radiance of the
righteous, in the glory of their Father, is a mere incident of
the judgment which should condemn wickedness. In the
24th chapter of Matthew the fearful portents in heaven and
earth are the whole substance of the Gospel which is preached.
I cannot believe that the man who conceived the kingdom
of God as a moral and spiritual growth should also conceive
it as a universal revolution or cataclysm. I therefore cling
to the idea that Jesus sought as far as possible to spiritualize
the ideas of His countrymen, Though he bade them not
to say “ Lo, here ! or lo, there ! ” he sympathised with their
outlook to the future, their eager expectations of better
times. But he insisted that the germ of those better times
was to be found in themselves. It was goodness which
made all the difference between the kingdom of Heaven
�8
and the kingdom of Hell. “ The kingdom of Heaven is at
hand,” not because the sky is likely to fall, or the mountains
to be swallowed up in the great deep; but because new
aspects of truths are proclaimed, and new ideas are in the
world, pregnant with glorious hopes for the future. Yet
“ except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish ”—none of
you shall have part or lot in the glory which is to follow ;
“ for the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”
Is not there the lesson for us in the teaching of Jesus ?
We want better times, and there are many who cherish eager
expectations of their coming. We look forward to a time
when religion shall no longer be the symbol of division, but
the emblem and guarantee of universal charity. We look
forward to a time when our children shall cease to suppose
that God is pleased with that universal compromise between
Bible and beer, which seems to form the whole philosophy
of contemporary politics. We look forward to a time when
men will gladly spend on the education of their children, as
much, at least, as they lavish on the means for destroying
their fellow-creatures’ lives. W e seem to have waited a
weary time; and therefore, some cry to God “ Oh Lord, how
long ?” and some petition Parliament, and some harangue
the working classes. Alas, the power that is to hasten that
better time is neither in the thunder of the skies, nor in the
clatter of debate; but it lies wholly in that which makes a
higher standard of human good, whether in politics or in any
otheraspect of human life. It is character that makes the
difference; it is character whcih faces difficulties ; it is char
acter which contemns superstition. It is character which
determines our ideas of good. Therefore character is the
seed of the kingdom.
(2) Now let us glance at the conditions of heavenly
citizenship. Throughout the synoptical Gospels it seems to
be implied that the kingdom of Heaven shall be established
on the earth. True, in the trouble and persecution which
distressed and embarrassed the early followers of Christ the
scene of that kingdom was shifted to another world. But
we accept the idea of that kingdom as it existed in the
original simplicity of the Gospel. Jn this kingdom of
Heaven each individual man is not only an element, but a
type, of the whole. Those who have read any outlines of the
philosophy of the ancients, will remember that Pluto,
�9
speaking through, the lips of Socrates, and desiring to
expound the nature of justice, says, that it will be better to
take a whole realm or state, instead of an individual man
as an example; for the state may be regarded as an enlarged
diagram of the individual; and in the enlarged diagram all
parts are seen more clearly. So is it with the kingdom of
heaven. What it is universally, that also it is in the indivi
dual man. When the kingdom of heaven is fully established
on earth, the reign of righteousness, peace and joy will extend
over all, simply because it has undisputed sway in every breast.
We have been told, by a great scientific discoverer, that the
blue of the firmament above our heads is constituted of an in
finite number of infinitesimal particles, so inconceivably mi
nute that they can vibrate only in response to the swiftest
constituents in the ray of light. Thus each sends to our eyes
the blue beam alone; and each little particle in itself contains
the secret of the whole heavens, and is an epitome of all its
grandeur. So is it with the kingdom of God; or so shall it
be when it is established among men. Each man in himself
shall shew forth the grandeur and purity which constitute the
whole,
*
Well then, this kingdom of heaven which is to be realized
on earth, and shine in each individual man, is characterized
above all by the fulfilment of the law of God : “ 3 hink not
that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not
come to destroy but to fulfil.” Such words are most important
for our instruction ; because there is often a tendency to treat
religion as a mere matter of sentiment or emotion. Ike reli
gion of Jesus is obedience to law. It requires clearness of
view, persistency of purpose, the full control of our faculties,
which alone can enable us to shew loyal obedience to law.
“ Whosoever shall break the least of these commandments ”
(for you must bear in mind that the law of Moses was regarded
as not only venerable but authoritative)- “ he shall be
called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever
shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the
kingdom of heaven.” He wished to intimate that during the
period of transition to a different dispensation, which there
are many hints that he foresaw, men must not loose their
hold upon the bands of law, but must remember that the reign
of God is a reign of law. His view of this divine law was
utterly opposed to the idea of force; for it was to regulate,
�10
not the actions only, but the affections and sympathies of the
heart as well. “ If ye had known what that meaneth, ‘ I will
have mercy and not sacrifice‘if your affections as well as
your garments and your ostentatious observances of religious
rites had been brought into obedience to the law of God, you
would have shewn love and charity to your brethren.’ ” So
when he cries “ come unto me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden,- and I will give you rest,” he but gives utter
ance to the longing that he felt, to make his own obedience
to the divine will the type and the centre of attraction that
should draw all men into the sacred peace enjoyed by his own
soul.
This obedience to divine law, as conceived by Christ, involves
nothing short of an inward perfection of heart. Therefore he
says, “ be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is
in Heaven is perfect; ” that is to say “ your obedience must
be rounded and complete, with an entire, unreserved surrender
to the will of God. It was to be shewn by consistency
between the outward and the inward man;—“ ye shall know
them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs
of thistles ? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit,
but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.” “ Either make
the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt
and his fruit corrupt.” In the kingdom of God the outward
and the inward ever correspond.
One thing above all others, this subjection of the heart and
feelings to the law of God involves; and that is unrestrained
self-sacrificing love to God and man. “ Thou shalt love the
Lord thy Godwithall thy heart and with all thy soul, and with
all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself. On these two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets ” Every
thing was to be sub-ordinated to unreserved allegiance to this
supreme attraction. “ No man ” he said, “ can serve two
masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or
else he will hold to the one and despise the other.”
From this springs the doctrine of the cross; for no man
can yield himself implicitly, unreservedly, to the supreme
will of God, without meeting in the course of his service, many
a time of trial when his own will is in direct contrariety to
what he feels to be the will of God, and when the acceptance
of the dictates of the divine Spirit, instead of the impulses of
his own heart, means disappointment, means loss, means suf
�11
fering, means everything that is involved in that sacred
emblem “ the cross of Christ.” But if we so far enter into
the Kingdom of Heaven that the Will of God becomes our
supreme law, then we shall love God more than ourselves, and
set our duty to Him above our own pleasure.
“A bright and noble picture,” you say I “but how is it to
be realized amid the circumstances under which we live ? ”
Jesus taught also his own idea of the method in which the
kingdom of God was to be established; and if we show how it
is to be established in every heart, we picture the process by
which gradually it is to be spread over the world.
First of all the evil is to be recognised. There is to be no
blinking of facts, either in our own consciences, or in the
world around us. “ Repent,” seek a change of mind; not so
much a change of opinion, as of aim and tendency. The
necessity of this is not only declared in plain words, but it is
implied in the practice of Jesus, who everywhere especially
addressed himself to the lowly and the weak, vho were moved
even to tears by a sense of their own imperfection and the
glorious possibilities of a divine rule. But under the teach
ing of Jesus, this repentance was not what it too often is
according to the modem representation—of one type only.
Jn the case of open sinners, whose acts daringly defied divine
law and public sentiment, there was indeed a deep passion of
self-condemnation, and bitter self-reproach. Thus, the Prodi
gal Son is pictured as saying, “ Father, I have sinned against
heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called
thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants; ” and the
sinful woman is portrayed as bowing at the feet of Jesus,
grovelling in the dust, and washing with her tears the feet of
the Saviour.
But there are other types presented in the Gospels.
“ Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they shall be filled;” and in his encomium on such
characters as Zacchseus, and, we may add, Nathaniel, we see
that Jesus could recognize the blessedness of such yearnings
after a better life as are found in guileless souls, who have
never descended to the depths of iniquity to which others have
fallen.
Another type is seen in the case of certain heathen who
came to him and moved his sympathy by the artless simplicity
of their bearing. The centurion, for example, who pleaded
�12
with Jesus for his servant, and the Syro-Phoenician Woman
who besought him on behalf of her daughter, had not received,
so far as we know, the spiritual education which had been
accorded to the Jews. They were humble people who knew
nothing but the very first aspirations of the divine life;
but they shewed that they were susceptible to the influence of
better things, and therefore they had his hearty sympathy.
Again, repentance is to be followed by faith, the lowest
degree of which we may suppose to be that required for the
working of miracles; about which we shall say nothing now,
because the subject of miracles is to come before us in the
next Lecture. But the faith most spoken of in the synoptical
Gospels is the willinghood of heart which readily answers to
divine call of the better life proclaimed by Jesus. This kind
of faith is continually implied, even where the word itself is
not used. It is the sort of fruitful receptivity, in which hearing
leads straight to action. “ Not everyone that saith unto me
Lord, Lord,- shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven, but he
that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.” “ Who
soever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them I will liken
him to a wise man that built his house upon a rock.” Such
words describe very clearly the sort of faith that is needed for
moral improvement. It is an allegiance of the whole moral
nature, -that is, as we have said, of the voluntary energies
touched with a sense of responsibility. The same meaning is
also often clearly apparent where the word faith, or belief, is
used. Thus Jesus said to the rulers at Jerusalem, “John
came to you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him
not: but the publicans and harlots believed him : and ye,
when ye had seen it, repented not afterward that ye might be
lieve him.” Belief, or faith, here evidently signifies the sort
of hearing that leads to doing. It is the hunger and thirst
after righteousness, to which satisfaction is assured. It is the
allegiance of the soul to a moral power whose sway it has
begun to feel, and from which it confidently expects a prac
tical solution of the problems of life.
We shall perhaps understand it better if we look at its
opposite, which is sometimes reprobated by Jesus. “Ye are
like unto children sitting in the market-place, and calling
to their fellows and saying, ‘ we have piped unto you and ye
have not danced, we have mourned unto you and ye have
not lamented.’ ” There was nothing serious about them,
�13
no recognition of the greatness of the problem of life.
The same frivolity and want of seriousness is seen in the case
of those, who on hearing from the King an invitation to attend
the marriage supper, “ made light of it,” and went every
one to his business. The opposite of this inate frivolity,
the earnestness of spirit that burns for truth and right, is
the noblest type of faith which we find in the Gospels.
On the whole then there does not appear to be necessarily
involved in the process of conversion to the Kingdom of
God anything unnatural .or supernatural. We all of us
want a better world, and we must all anticipate it in
our own lives and characters. It is to be obtained, not
by imagination, or sentiment, or emotion, but by obedi
ence to the law of God. Happy he who, if need be,
ihrough the pangs and tears of penitence, with earnest
devotion and loyalty of soul, gives himself to its realization.
(3) Now in a few words let us look at the idea of
Jesus as the Messiah, so far as it is contained in the synop
tical Gospels. We have noticed that Jesus does not, so
far as we can see, seem to have wholly sympathised with
the apocalyptic views of Messiah’s office entertained by his
immediate predecessors. But the views set forth in these apoc
alyptic visions had here and there a reverse side. This is
notably set forth in Isaiah liii. A servant of God is pictured
who, through his zeal for the divine will, becomes a subject
of scorn and persecution to the prosperous wickedness of the
world. Several prophets, whose works are not contained in
the canon, afterwards describe this servant of God as the
Christ, living a life of sorrow and toil, labouring, suffering and
even dying in the service of God. Nay, within the limits of
the canon—in the book of Daniel—the Messiah, it is prophe
sied. shall be “ cut off, but not for himself.” Let us bear in
mind this reverse side of the image of the conquering h ing,
which is to be found here and there in the sacred writings of
antiquity.
Now, inthebeginning of the life and ministry of Jesus there
does seem to be an unwillingness on his part to take up the great
title and to claim to be the Messiah at all. We cannot treat the
subject exhaustively now; but you remember that he suf
fered not the demoniacs to speak because they knew him, and
cried out that he was the Son of God. It is noteworthy that
although three apostles are represented as accompanying him
�14
I
ql
$
)■
ti the Mount of Transfiguration, a strict injunction is laid upon
them not to speak of it “ until the Son of Man is risen from
the dead.” We seem to haye in these reminiscenses clear
hints of a certain unwillingness in Jesus to take upon himself
openly the title and offices of the Messiah. The subject is per
plexing and difficult; but I think it possible that, as Jesus reali
sed more and more of the opposition inevitably to be offered by
the world to his doctrine, he felt within himself an answer to the
typical experiences ascribed to the suffering servant of God
in the prophecies of Isaiah, and in the later visions. It is
possible, it may be even probable, that he in his great heart
comforted himself with the thought that by his poverty many
should be made rich; and that by his endurance to the end
many would be strengthened to triumph over every sin.
Refer to that interesting and suggestive chapter, the 11th
of St. Matthew, and you will there find the soul of Jesus
is bowed down by the disappointment he must have felt in
the uncertainty of John the Baptist concerning the work
he was to accomplish in the world. This leads him to
reflect upon his failure to reach the hearts of men; and
then he lifts up his eyes to heaven, and says “ I thank
thee, 0 Father, that thou hast hid these things from the
wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.”
he means that his mission is a lowly one; and he winds up
with the invitation to all who are labouring and are heavy
laden, to come to him to be his friends and followers, that
they may find rest.
Surely it is possible that this sense of a special bur
den imposed on him by human sin and sorrow might
lead him to believe that he was bound to give his life a
ransom for many. If so, we may say with some degree of
confidence, that there is no such doctrine of Atonement
contained in the Synoptical Gospels as is enshrined in the
Creeds of the .Churches. Yet a doctrine of Atonement
and of reconciliation between man and the divine nature there
certainly is; and it is intimately connected with the Sufferings
of Jesus both in his life and in his death. In the parable
of the Prodigal Son there is beautifully set forth what may
be called the generosity of the divine nature in its relations
to human sin. The poor Prodigal comes shrinking into him
self, with fearful and trembling steps, dreading the kind of
reception he may meet with, dreading the first sight of his
�15
father’s figure, lest he should be met with strict justice and
therefore with rejection. But when he was yet a great way
off the father saw him. And an impression is given to the
hearers, that before the son had caught sight of the father’s
form, the father had set out to meet him. He ran with eager
ness and “fell on his neck and kissed him.” Every one be
lieves that in this Jesus intended to typify the eagerness, the
readiness, the anxious willingness of the divine mercy. The
father had been robbed, wronged, and had spent days and
months of misery and anxiety about his sinning and wander
ing son ; yet all this is forgiven when the miserable aspect of
the son reveals the sufferings that the child of his heart had
brought upon himself.
Now it does appear to me that Jesus in his contemplations
of humanity felt himself to represent the Father’s love. For
he was one with the divine purpose, one with the divine idea.
A feeling, ever stronger and nearer to his heart than any
anger against sin, was a sense of the burden with which
human waywardness and perversity pressed upon divine
love in its effort to purify and ennoble mankind. This di
vine love reigned in his own heart; and in his consciousness
of that, he represented the universal Father to men. He
could not but know that it must ultimately triumph, that it
must at length touch, and soften, and regenerate by its pa
thos and purity even the very hardest.
From the tumult of passion rising within him at the
intolerable hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees at Jeru
salem, how swift was the transition of feeling to that out
burst of tears and pity with which he cried, “ Oh, Jeru
salem, Jerusalem, how often would 1 have gathered thy
children together, even as a hen doth gather her chickens
under wings, and ye would not!” The whole atonement,
the whole truth in it, is there—a compassionate meeting
of divine love with the human sin and perversity that has
wronged it. And it is this that the memory, apd the image,
and the spirit of Jesus embody to us. Still, you cannot go
from the better light before you without feeling that there
is something in the Universe that yearns over you, and
moves you to return. You cannot do any wrong without
injuring society, and so crucifying afresh the Son of God,
inasmuch as all humanity is embraced in the heart of God
*
If you are a father wronging a family by your vices, child
�16
hood is divine, and Christ pleads for its interests and rebukes
its wrongs. If you are a hard tyrannical husband, woman
hood is divine; and in the dealings of the Jews with the suf
fering Christ there is an emblem of your self-willed and
cruel deeds. If you are a selfish, grasping, unsympathetic
man of business, bent only upon greed and aggrandisement,
humanity is divine; and its bleeding wounds cry to heaven
against you and your indifference.
The first step towards entering that kingdom of heaven,
of which we have been speaking, is susceptibility to voices
such as these, as we hear them from the lips of Christ.
“ See then that ye refuse not him that speaketh; ”•—for,
the heart that is steeled against the sufferings caused by
its own sin is, we may well fear, past all possibility of
redemption.
Upfield Greex, Printer, Tenter Street, Moorgate Street, E.C.
�THE RELIGION OF JESUS:
ITS MODERN DIFFICULTIES
AND
ITS ORIGINAL SIMPLICITY.
floury of Jlundaj)
BY
J. ALLANSON PICTON.
V.
The Gospel Miracles.
In pursuance of the plan announced at the beginning of this
course of lectures, we have dealt first with those principles of
Christianity which address themselves to the heart, and may
safely be regarded as equaUy enduring with the moral nature
of man. But I have not concealed, and do not conceal from
myself, that the minds of my hearers have, probably, been
haunted by speculations as to what is to be said about other
and more perplexing questions, on which we have not hitherto
touched, lhe broad, even, shining path we have hitherto
traversed is bordered on either hand by junglesand quagmires
of theology, and legend, the dread and horror of many spiritual
travellers. Many, indeed, have been prevented from entering
upon this king’s highway of simplicity and truth, because of
�the clouds and mists generated by the doubtful region on
either side. But as even jungles and quagmires may be, and
have been, reclaimed by cultivation, so a courageous application
of common sense may possibly, will assuredly hereafter, make
both theology’and legend fruitful in a harvest of spiritual sug
gestions. It is to that task that we turn at the present mo
ment, with no expectation of any great achievements, but
forced by our own convictions to do the best we can towards
helping those who may have suffered from perplexities similar
to our own. Amongst the difficulties which, in modern times,
surround the religion of Jesus as it has come down to us, none
perhaps, is more crucial than that of miracles. Of no difficulty
is the solution more decisive of the position which a man is to
hold in the classification of religious opinion. In fact, obser
vation leads us to think that all sects are being gradually
swallowed up in two classes of thinkers, so far as religion is
concerned, naturalists on the one hand and supernaturalists on
the other. The distinction between these two sects is not
merely one of less or of more belief. It is one that goes abso
lutely down to the very basis of our conceptions concernin g
the world and God. So far as our intellectual theory of the
universe is concerned, there is more difference between the
man who believes in one single miracle, though he may reject
all others, and the man who accepts absolutely none whatever,
than between the first man, accepting only one miracle, and
an adherent of the Roman system with all its latest additions,
including the Vatican decrees.
You will see, therefore, that I do not for one moment con
ceal the greatness of the intellectual issue. Nor is there any
danger that that should be disguised from you. The real
danger, at the present moment, is lest the moral and spiritual
issue involved should be exaggerated. Against that danger I
have hitherto done as much as I possibly could to guard. I
have shown that all of Christ’s religion which commends it
self to the affections of the heart, and to the mystic suscepti
bilities of the spirit in contemplation of the works of God,
must remain to us after we have made all abstraction of points
which rest on doubtful evidence. Now the heart of Christ is
surely much more precious to us than any wonders of his
hands; and that remains to us when these are dissolved away
into the mists of antiquity. The difference between these two
sects, of which I have spoken, is not a spiritual difference. It
�affects the intellectual theory held by different classes of men,
and by no means the attitude of the heart towards the divine
side of present facts. No rationalism can possibly dwarf the
mystery of this universe in which we live. No analysis can
ever neutralize the enchantment with which it kindles rever
ence, awe, and aspiration. If, then, we were to classify men,
not by intellectual opinions, but by the feelings of the heart,
and by spiritual susceptibilities, we should assuredly find that
there are many naturalists in religious opinion, who are far
nearer akin to such men as St. Francis, and St. Augustine,
and St. Paul, than are many of the most fanatical upholders
of miracles. The issue is not between religion on the one
hand and no religion on the other. The issue is rather between
dogma and conviction.
A word or two on the meaning of these terms may be ne
cessary, in order to explain clearly the idea before my own
mind. By dogma is properly meant any opinion that •• seems
good to ” a sufficient authority. It is derived from— or ra
ther it is simply a Greek word transferred into our own lan
guage, signifying that which has been decreed, or which has
seemed good to a sufficient authority. Concerning most dog
mas, it is to be remarked, that the assertion by the authority is
the evidence on which it rests. It is at least unverifiable, even in
conception, by far the largest portion of mankind. Convic
tion, on the other hand, signifies an opinion, always carrying
some feeling with it, which is borne home to the mind and
heart by observation, by personal experience, or by sympathy
with the experience of mankind. Such an opinion, or the
feelings associated with it, can always be tried for ourselves,
and so verified, independently of the ruthority of others. In
the doctrine of the Trinity£ whether as stated in the Articles
of the Church of England, or in the Westminster Confession,
you have an instance of dogma. Whether it is to be regarded
as true or not, it is impossible for any man to verify it for
himself, and to know by experience that it is true. On the
other hand, the spiritual fruitfulness of humility, concerning
which Jesus has so much to say, and on which he so largely
insists, is a conviction borne home to our own hearts, whenso
ever we open our eyes or our spiritual susceptibilities, by ob
servation, by experience, by sympathy with our kind. Every
man can try it for himself. Again, the doctrine of the In
carnation. In the last result the assertion of a presumably suffi
�4
cient authority is its only evidence; and it is certainly inca
pable of verification. But the blessedness of disinterested devo
tion, as the highest attitude of life, comes to us with convic
tion, when we have marked the manifestations of it in the
example of others, whether living in the present day, or in
past times. It is verified when we have imagined it for our
selves by sympathy with others, and above all when we have
tried it in our own action upon the world around us.
Now the essence of the strength of dogma will almost al
ways be found to depend upon miracle. Trace the evidence
sufficiently far, and you will always find it ultimately to rest
upon the assertion that it must be so, because certain portents
Were wrought in support of the doctrine declared. If then
miracle should dissapear from men’s sincere belief, dogma
must, however, slowly and gradually, sooner or later disap
pear with it; and we must learn to be content with such
convictions of the mind and heart as are verifiable by human
experience at the present day.
I shall not waste your time and my own by any attempt
to define miracle ; because it is not necessary for our present
purpose. Suffice it that certain events are related in the
Gospels, which are allowed to be contrary to all our daily
experience. It is alleged that thousands of men were fed
with a few loaves and small fishes, that would not have suf
ficed as a meal for more than six or a dozen. It is alleged
that people, from whom the vital spark had entirely fled,
were called back to life; nay, in one instance that a man
who had lain four days in the grave, and in whose body the
process of decomposition must have made considerable pro
gress, was, by a word of authority, summoned back once
more to this earthly scene. It is alleged that by a touch, or
by a word, the eyes of the blind have been opened ; still
farther, that veritable demons have taken possession of the
bodies of men, and have been expelled by the charm of a
spiritual authority. Such are but a few instances of the
marvels that crowd the pages of the Gospels. That there
are difficulties involved in such allegations, no one for a
moment disputes. If we take, for instance, the miracle in
which five thousand were fed by a few loaves and fishes, we
find that the paradoxes involved in it are almost beyond
computation, as well as imagination. Bread is the result of
a certain process of vegetable growth, followed by one of
�artificial manufacture. The same thing, the terms being
changed, may be asserted concerning the flesh of fishes. It
is the result of a certain process of animal growth ; and when
presented for food in a cooked form, is also the result of
a certain process of artificial preparation. In the endeavour
then to conceive, as a real transaction, what is alleged to
have taken place on that occasion, we find that three sup
positions only are possible. Either bread and fish were
created at nnce, in a cooked form, out of nothing; or secondly,
chemical elements were brought together from the surround
ing scene, and in an instant of time transformed into the
shape which usually requires months, if not a year, for its
accomplishment; or thirdly, we should be driven to conclude
that, the miracle consisted in producing upon the people the
impression that they had eaten a sufficient meal, and in dis
pelling their feeling of hunger, when the whole transaction
was an illusion.
Now whichever supposition a man takes—and one of these
must be taken—he finds that it does not at all fit into any
corner of his mind. He feels as though he were struggling
in a dream, with chimeras which set all sense and calculation
at defiance. There can then be only one reason for receiv
ing such a wonder as this, namely that it is proved, demon
strably proved, with a strength of evidence adequate to the
enormous burden that has to be sustained To that question
of proof then we at once proceed, and you will see that this
justifies me in leaving on one side the definition of miracle.
In practical life, the value assigned to testimony or evi
dence, is always determined by two factors. One of these
is the character of the evidence itself, specially its directness,
and the trustworthiness of the channel through which it
comes; while the other factor (too often forgotton) is the
experience and the mental condition of the recipient. If the
subject coucerning which testimony is given, is one that
naturally adapts itself to the experience and the mental con
dition of the person addressed, very little trouble is usually
taken to enquire into the other factor, the directness and the
trustworthiness of the evidence. Thus, for instance, you
may have been seated, at some time in the course of a journey,
on the box of a coach, and have been whiling away the time
in conversation with the driver. ♦ See that house Sir?” he
*
says, pointing over his shoulder at a mansion on the hill side,
�6
standing in the midst of an extensive estate. “ Yes,” you
say. “ Well Sir,” he goes on, “the owner of that mansion
twenty years ago, was a boy in our stable yard. Be set up
a coal yard on a very small scale, with a little money that he
had saved; and being a sober, industrious, prudent man, he
continued saving. He then bought a share in a coal mine.
He bought his share at a very fortunate moment; for just
then the price of coals suddenly rose, doubled in fact, and his
fortune was at once made. So rapidly did his wealth increase,
that he is now the owner of a third of the whole county.”
You scarcely thought at such a time of enquiring into the
evidence. The fact that the story was told you by a man
coming from the very stable-yard where this rich landed
proprietor was stated to have worked some twenty years
ago, perhaps prevented you from asking any farther ques
tions. But the circumstances are by no means unprece
dented ; they are not even in these days extraordinary. They
fit themselves to your experience, and to your knowledge of
the world. Therefore you accept the tale without any
farther enquiry; and if in the course of a month or two
afterwards, you are driving in company with a friend along
the same road, you repeat to him the story, as on your own
authority, without feeling the necessity of giving any evi
dence for it. And similarly he being accustomed to such
things, will receive it because you tell him so.
A little farther on, however, the same coachman says
again : “ See that house Sir ? A very curious circumstance
has taken place at that house several times. It is an old
family that lives there, and whenever the master of that
house brings home his bride, the ghost of a white lady
parades the passages, goes up the stairs, enters the bridal
chamber, and then disappears. If you will believe me, Sir,
I have seen it myself. For I was serving with the family
at the very time when the present master was married. And
at midnight, we were all of us on the look out, and there
I saw as plain as I can see you, the white lady coming along
the passage, and going up the stairs.” Well, when you
hear such a story as this, you smile. If you can avoid doing
it outwardly, you keep your smile to yourself; but you are
not in the least convinced. All your experience is against
the reality of such an occurrence as this; while the same
experience enables you to suggest many ways in which the
�7
impression might be made upon susceptible people. But if
a superstitious uneducated labourer be sitting by the coach
man at the same time, he takes it as simply and frankly as
you took the story concerning the landed proprietor, who
had risen from being a stable-boy to being the richest per
son in the county. He is used to believe in such things.
From his childhood such stories have been told to him by
his companions, and by his friends; and the coachman’s
own personal testimony is amply sufficient for him. He
goes his way and tells it among his boon companions at the
public-house bar, or amongst his fellow-labourers on the
harvest field. And they scarcely think of doubting it. The
very love of marvel confirms their belief, and they go on
circulating the story from one to another, so that it survives
from age to age. This is the way in which, what is called
by the Germans, Sage ”—and we have no English word
which gives the meaning so well—or, to use the Latin term,
it is the way in which legend arises. It is rarely to be traced
to any personal source. In the present instance the coachman
whom I am supposed to be quoting, was not himself the ori
ginator of the story ; for it existed in previous generations.
It grows up we know not how. It is in the air, or it is in
the constitution of a race. And it is always alleged with a
confidence which seems to require no evidence whatever.
Have you ever noticed the way in which children will re
late to each other the most extraordinary marvels, without
the slightest appearance of doubt, or any suspicion that evi
dence is required ? If you can go back to a sufficiently
remote period in your own childhood or infancy, you must
remember how you have told things to your younger brothers
and sisters, for belief in which you had not the slightest
trace of reason, but which nevertheless you did believe as
firmly as you now believe in the multiplication table. At
such an age no evidence is required. The very fact that,
by any means whatever, a strong impression has been made
upon the imagination, is sufficient to induce belief. Now
be it remembered, that as the embryo of any living creature
is said, and apparently with considerable truth, by physi
ologists, to pass through all the stages of development which
have in by-gone generations preceded the attainments of the
present form of the species, so the mind, in the course of its
education, passes through all the early stages to which we
�8
can hardly look back now by means of history or tradition,
and presents all the phenomena that used to be manifested
by adults in those days. Just as little children now, of a
highly educated race, will tell to each other without the
slightest, suspicion of any uncertainty, the most marvellous
tales, because by some unknown means a strong impression
has been made upon their imagination, so in remote times and
even now, amongst simple uneducated people, equally mar
vellous stories are related with a corresponding lack of any
foundation.
But now let me ask, why do you disbelieve the coachman
who tells you this ghost story on his own testimony ? Do
you doubt his word ? No; it may be you are sufficiently ac
quainted with him to be assured that he is a thoroughly
honest man, and that he has a character for truth
fulness amongst all his acquaintance.
But you dis
believe him because, in your own experience, you know
that frightened and ignorant people are exceedingly apt to
be deceived about ghosts. You know that they may mistake
the play of a flickering moonbeam on the wall, for a white
figure advancing towards them. You know that any piece of
drapery left in an unaccustomed place, and fluttering in the
draught at midnight, would make an impression that no argu
ment could possibly destroy. You feel that it is far more
probable that the experience should have been caused in such
ways than that the ghost should have been an actual, an ob
jective thing.
The extent to which this principle is to be carried, no doubt
sometimes excites serious questions as to the justice of its ap
plication. All we do now, however, is to note that such is a
principle commonly applied when we have to deal with stories
of the marvellous, related on the very best attainable evi
dence. I dare say that most of this congregation have read
some years ago, in common with myself, a statement made on
the personal authority of a respectable nobleman, that he had
seen a certain spiritualist float out of a window in the room
where this nobleman stood, go through the air, and enter
again at another window into the same, or into another room.
The story excited a good deal of attention at the time. But
how many people believed it ? I dare say not half-a-dozen in
this present assembly. And why not? Because you are
aware that? however honest and thoroughly truthful people
�9
may be, all are liable to some fallacies of perception and of
memory ; and that sometimes these fallacies take an altogether
abnormal shape, which it is impossible to predict. In Dr.
Carpenter’s " Mental Physiology ” you may read for your
selves a number of illustrations of these fallacies, which are
given with the names of the authorities, most of them of high
repute, on which they rest. I have spoken of fallacies of per
ception. Dr. Tuke, quoted by Dr. Carpenter, in his " Mental
Physiology,” relates that within his own personal knowledge,
a lady interested in the establishment of drinking fountains
for the multitude, was, on one occasion, on a visit with some
benevolent friends at a distance from her own home. In walk
ing along the road near to this house, she noticed what she
took to be a drinking fountain, erected in admirable taste,
upon which she distinctly read the inscription—“ If any man
thirst let him come unto me and drink.” Re-entering the
house amongst her friends, and believing that to them, as the
benevolent people of the neighbourhood, this public benefit
must be traced, she congratulated them upon the admirable
taste in which this fountain had been erected They opened
their eyes in astonishment. They had never heard of any
such drinking fountain; and they assured her upon their per
sonal knowledge, that there was nothing of the kind in the
neighbourhood. She, believing of course, as we all do, in rhe
own senses, insisted that she must be right. The scene was
re-visited, and no cause for the illusion could be discovered,
except a few scattered stones in the part of the road at which
she had seen this strange vision.
Another, Dr. Hibbert relates (also quoted in Dr. Carpenter’s
“ Mental Physiology,”) that on board a certain ship, the cook
died of disease, and his body, as is usual, was buried in the sea.
The man was lame, and always walked with a peculiar halting
gait, so that his figure could scarcely be mistaken when once
one had become acquainted with it. On a certain day, the
man on the look-out cried out in horror that there the figure
of the cook, walking with precisely his well-known lame gait,
was to be seen pacing the waters of the sea, at some distance
from the vessel. One after another came to observe; and all
of them, the whole ship’s company together, were convinced
that they saw before them the wraith, or corpse, or ghost, of
their deceased companion. Yet when the ship was steered
towards it, it was found to be simply a piece of floating wreck
that had deceived their vision,
�10
Such fallacies of perception are often greatly heightened
by fallacies of memory. Miss Cobbe (also quoted by Dr. Car
penter), relates, that on one occasion, when discussing with a
friend the subject of table-turning and spiritualistic phenom
ena, her friend asserted that in her own experience, a table
had rapped intelligibly to the hearers, when no one was within
a yard of it, so that it was beyond the touch of any of the com
pany. Miss Cobbe doubting it, asked how long ago this ex
perience might be. Well, it was nine years ago, but it was as
fresh in the friend’s memory as though it had occurred the
other day. The friend was asked, had she made any note at
the time ? Oh, yes, she had. And referring to her notes she
found the memorandum to be, that the table had rapped when
the hands of six persons rested upon it. Yet there was not
the slightest intention on her part to deceive. The experience
had simply become distorted in her memory, in the lapse of
seven years. And every one can recall how difficult it is to
reproduce exactly what took place some five or six, much more
what took place some ten or fifteen years ago. Nay, how
very hard it is to separate the events of one particular day, or
even year, from another! They will come back in groups,
strung together in a perplexity that ve find it difficult to
resolve. Those who have travelled rapidly through any new
country, will be aware how continually a church belonging to
one town, is by the imagination erected in another; how a
circumstance which took place in one locality is by the memory
referred to another. In fact, when anything of consequence
is depending upon our memory, we have to use the utmost
effort by recalling past associations, by looking up old letters,
and memoranda, and diaries, to correct the mis-impressions
that have grown into our minds by the lapse of time.
Another instance of the same kind may be mentioned here.
At the time when the late Miss Martineau was taking very
mnch interest in the phenomena of Mesmerism, she had a
young female dependant, who was very susceptible to the mes
meric influence, and under it used to show some very strange
phenomena. It was alleged currently amongst the friends of
Miss Martineau, that this young woman was capable, in the
mesmeric trance, of conversing in foreign tongues which
she had never learned, with those who were capable of
speaking them. Dr. Noble, who relates the incident, ventured
to doubt whether it really were so. “ Oh,” he was assured,
�11
“ there can be no doubt whatever of the matter; Lord Mor
peth himself bears testimony to it; he has conversed in foreign
languages with her, and she has answered him with apparent
ease.” Not quite satisfied, Dr. Noble took the opportunity
of mentioning the matter to a relative of Miss Martineau’s.
He said in reply that the story was not quite accurately re
lated. It was true that the young woman seemed to under
stand Lord Morpeth, when he spake to her in foreign tongues,
and that she answered him in the vernacular—in English
Meeting Lord Morpeth some time afterwards, Doctor Noble
asked whether this version of the story was literally correct.
“Why, no,” said his lordship, “not exactly. It is true I
did address her in foreign languages, and she answered in a sort
of inarticulate jargon which I took to be an imitation of the
sounds which I was uttering.” And so, by careful enquiry
the whole fallacy was discovered. But amongst those who
narrated it, on what they considered good authority, there
was no intention to deceive. Their memories had simply got
a misimpression through lapse of time, and they consequently
related the incident in a different form from that in which
they had received it.
Such experiences as these then, of the fallacies to which
both perception and memory are liable, justify us in sus
pending our judgment when anything strikingly contrary to
experience is related, and sometimes justify us in an entire
refusal to believe unless we are afforded an opportunity of per
sonal verification. Some cases occur in which you can however
scarcely impute a fallacy of perception or a fallacy of memory,
and yet you are unable to draw the inferences from the
occurence which those who narrate it would have you draw.
Not very long ago, a remarkable circumstance was related
by the Twnes’ correspondent, dating from the city of Brussels,
where, in emulation of the various sacred shrines, which have
sprung up in all parts of the Continent—illustrative of the
facility with which miraculous stories grow—a cave had been
found in a garden in the suburbs which it was alleged
the Virgin Mary was in the habit of haunting. Within this
cave there was a well or fountain to which the presence of
the Virgin, it was asserted, communicated miraculous powers.
In Brussels, at the time, there was a lady, the wife of a
well-known physician. The Times correspondent would
*
not give the name, because he said it was so well known
throughout the city, but the case he asserted was notorious
�12
to all. A lady, the wife of a certain physician, was afflicted
with a disease of the eyes, that threatened entirely to destroy
her sight. Her husband and the members of his profession
whom he consulted, could give her no relief; and it seemed
as if nothing but blindness was before her. Failing all
other means of restoration, and when she had all but, if not
entirely, lost the use of her eyes, she drove out to this
enchanted grotto in company with a female friend. They
prayed and performed their devotions in the grotto for nearly
an hour, without any result being obtained. At length the
coachman began to remonstrate, as he was impatient to re
turn. In despair the lady dipped her handkerchief in the
sacred water and re-entered her carriage. Wiping her eyes
with the dipped handkerchief, as she journeyed back, she
seemed to perceive a sudden brightness of sight, and this
grew upon her, so that by the time she reached home she
could see as well as ever. That very night a thanksgiving
service was performed on account of the miraculous cure, in
the church she attended. Farther, the next day a more
public service was celebrated to commemorate the re
covery, and you may be sure that the event lacked
nothing for want of reiteration and circulation. Who
thinks, now, of concluding from this that the story is
true—that the Virgin Mary did haunt the grotto, and
that the water possessed the miraculous power ? "Xou are
completely baffled, you have no explanation to offer. Ail
you say is, 1 will not accept the narration, I will not believe
in the virtue asserted to have been communicated to the
water by the Virgin Mary.
I have so far purposely dealt with incidents narrated in
our own generation, alleged on the testimony for the most
part of people now living. But it is necessary for a moment
to go back to the days of antiquity. I read for instance in
the work of Irenasus in refutation of all heresies, that
the heretics were convicted of falsehood by their inability
to work miracles. “ As for us,” he says “ it is notorious, it
is a common experience, that Devils are cast out, confessing
a,s they come out, the power that is exerted. The sick are
continually healed, the dead have been raised by the united
reiterated prayers of the Church, and they have continued
with us many years from the time of their resurrection.”®
* The translation here is not literal.
but it is substantially correct.
It was given freely from memory,
�13
This was written about the year 190 after Christ, and he
testifies it on his own experience. According to Eusebius,
Papias living in the early part of the second century, also
alleges that a dead man was raised in his own time, and it ap
pears to be implied, within circumstances pf his own know
ledge. Augustine, whose mind appears in many of its attri
butes above that of most of mankind, himself says that in the
town of Milan, where he was then residing, at the time of
his baptism, a revelation was made of the place where two
martyrs, St. Anastasius and St. Gervasius were buried.
St. Ambrose, who was then the Archbishop of Milan, had
these bodies raised up from the earth, and they were carried
amidst the acclamation of multitudes to the Cathedral Church.
A certain man who was entirely blind, hearing the outcry,
asked what it meant. He was told that the bodies of St.
Anastasius, and St. Gervasius, were being carried to the
Cathedral Church. Obtaining some one to lead him, the
blind man made his way to the church, obtained admission
to the shrine where the bodies lay, had his hand guided to
the face-cloth of one of the sacred corpses, and applied it to
his eyes. Thereupon, says Augustine, he received his sight.
And the circumstance was known to the whole city, and
excited their joy to a passion of gratitude. This is related
of a city in which he was living, and of the very time that
was likely to be most profoundly impressed upon him, be
cause of the spiritual experiences through which he had
passed, and the great step in life he had taken.
You will ask me, perhaps, what is the application of all
these illustrations ? Well now, I should be wrong both to
myself and to you, if I were to attempt to give that applica
tion this evening. The time is too far advanced. I have
felt it necessary to go into some amount of detail; and on the
whole, I believe that my duty both to the subject and to you,
will necessitate my delaying the completion of this lecture to
next Sunday evening. It is a most important subject, having
a vital bearing, not as I have already said, upon our spiritual
life, but upon our intellectual theory of the universe, and upon
the harmony of our spiritual life with facts as God reveals
them to us at the present day. I dare not, therefore, run the
riskofmisleadingyou,orof causing any misimpression through
the abbreviation to which I must necessarily submit my argu
ment if I endeavoured to carry it out at the present moment.
So far as I have at present gone, I have tried to show you
�14
that there are some assertions in sacred history, which do
not commend themselves to our experience of life. There
can only be one reason for believing the allegations made,
and this is, that the proof is demonstrative, having a force
of evidence able to bear the enormous weight that it is to
carry. I. have shown to you that, in dealing with evidence,
we always have to consider two factors, first, the nature of
the evidence itself, its directness and its trustworthiness, and
secondly the mental experience, and knowledge, and suscep
tibilities of the persons to whom that evidence is addressed.
I have then shown to you that in many cases where the
event commends itself to personal experience, it is accepted
without any strong evidence whatever. I have shown that
the experience of many people, especially of children and
child-like minds, adapts itself readily to marvels which are
entirely repulsive to us. I have shown that in endeavouring
to estimate the value of evidence alleged on behalf of any
particular events, we have to make great allowances for
fallacies of perception and memory. I have given many in
stances in which, owing to such fallacies, people have been
led to believe what has turned out to be utterly false. I
have shown that this is continually occurring in our own
day, and I have mentioned some similar instances—hun
dreds of which might be added—which took place in centu
ries gone by. It will remain for us, next Sunday evening,
to show how and to what extent, this argument is necessarily
applicable to the wonders that are contained in the Gospel
story.
Upfiekd Green, Printer, Tenter Street, Moorgate Street, E.C.
�THE RELIGION OF JESUS:
ITS MODERN DIFFICULTIES
AND
ITS ORIGINAL SIMPLICITY.
floury of J^undag
BY
J. ALLANSON PICTON.
VI.
lhe Gospel Miracles.
The division of the present lecture into two parts, has,
at any rate, this advantage; that it will enable us to give a
somewhat fuller treatment to the subject than had been
intended. It will be necessary for me, however in the first
place, very briefly to remind you of the course of thought
which was pursued last Sunday evening.
We showed then that the value of evidence depends upon
two factors; the first of these being its own directness andtrustworthiness; while the second consists in the mental
condition, experience, and predispositions of the person to
whom the evidence appeals. We showed that where any state
ment is made in accordance with our own.ordinary ex
perience, or expectations, we rarely think—unless the matter
�r/T
S'
2
is of very great and vital importance—of enquiring into the
precise worth of the evidence on which the assertion rests.
But on rhe other hand, where the allegation made is contrary
to our own experience, or our predisposition to certain mo les
of thought, more and more evidence is required in proportion
to the degree of opposition existing, until at length, in many
cases, nothing whaiever would induce belief, excepting the
opportunity of personal verification for ourselves. U e showed
that on such principles, we do as a matter of fact proceed in
all rhe ordin try transactions of life, and in the formation of
<>ur general opinions We showed, (and gave il u^trations in
detail which of course we cannot now repeat) that we are
justified in taking this course, by many fallacies both of per
ception and memory, to which average minds are subject.
You will thus see, that the case here maintained, is not
that miracles are impossible ; but that in ordinary practical
life, the most direct and apparently trustworthy evidence is
not allowed to shake our faith in the uniformity of the laws
which govern the universe. Here then, in setting out afresh,
it occurs to me to notice two objections which we should not
have been able to handle had we completed the subject last
Sunday evening. It may be said that the argument, so far
as hitherto pursued, would require that we should absolutely
never believe in anything which is alleged in contrariety to
our own experience. And we might be reminded of the wellkDown story of the Indian prince, who would believe any
number of purposely invented fables concerning the civiliza
tion of western lands, but who, when told that at certain
periods of the year, water could be carried ab^ut in a solid
form, positively refused to listen any further, on the ground
that he was evidently being duped. Here it may be said is
a case in which a man would not believe, because something
was alleged in contrariety to his own ordinary experience,
and it is a case in which he was clearly deceived in his
dependence upon that experience. Now on this I would
observe that the contrariety to the experience of the Indian
prince was only apparent, and not real. There was an
apparent opposition, but there was no real inconsistency with
his experience of the laws that govern the world around him.
For had he reflected, he would have discovered many in
stances of different objects that exist now in a liquid, and
now in a solid form. He might have observed that wax,
�3
when exposed to the heat of a candle, speedily becomes
liquid; and when the former temperature is restored, comes
back to the solid form again.
So many instances of this
kind might he have observed, even in his own climate, that
if he had sufficient intelligence, he might have seen some
hint in these illustrations of a general law, going to show
that the difference between a liquid and a solid form of any
particular object does very frequently depend upon tem
perature. It might then have occurred to him that in lands
where a greater variety of temperature was found than in
his own country, a larger number of objects would be sus
ceptible of these two forms than in the region to which he
was accustomed.
Thus in that case, although there was an
apparent opposition to his ordinary experience of water, there
was absolutely no inconsistency with the constant
experience he and his fathers had had of the uniformity of
the laws of nature. This is always found to be the case with
alleged exceptions to this grand uniformity, that pervades the
government of the world. The untutored savages, who first
meet with the wonders of civilization, see and hear in the
rifle, in its flash, in its report, and in its death-dealing force,
a miracle, equal, in its suggestions of divine power, to the
lightning and the thunder of the heavens. But a very little
education enables them to see that here is only a special
instance of exceedingly rapid combustion—lower degrees of
which they must have known even in their own uncivilized
arts.
So again, if an ignorant countryman is told, that by
looking through a little tube an astronomer is able to judge
what chemical substances may be found in Sirius, or even in
one of the far more distant nebulae, it seems to him like a
case of necromancy. But a little education will teach him,
that various objects in combustion produce different kinds of
light; and that these different kinds of light produce various
lines upon the spectrum, which may be illustrated to him by
every rainbow that spans the heaven. And when he has
been taught this much, he will bring the novel experience
within the order to which he has been accustomed in past
times.
There is therefore nothing in our arguments which would
lead us to deny, as impossible, everything that is apparently
opposed to our own experience. It would only lead us to
require as direct and trustworthy testimony as possible to
�4
anything which seems an exception to the laws of nature, as
we have understood them in the light of previous science.
And our argument, so far, would go to suggest that in the
case of any such apparent exceptions being really proved,
farther light upon the subject will enable us to see how they
fall under some still more general law than any we have
known before, or some modified interpretation of laws that
have been already understood.
Another objection to the line of argument hitherto pursued,
is to be found in certain most profound and interesting
lectures delivered by the Rev. Canon Mozley on the subject
of Christian Miracles. In the course of his argument he
*
enquires what is the principle on which our belief in the uni
formity of nature rests. He finds that the only proof that
can be given is constant observation. But he replies, and it
seems to me with very considerable acumen and force, that
observation can only apply to past time, and can afford no
certainty whatever as to the future. At any rate, you
cannot found upon observation of past times any proof
demonstrative of uniformity in the time to come. He acknow
ledges that if a certain phenomenon is seen to recur under
the same conditions a hundred times, a presumption is ex
cited that it will occur again. But if asked why this pre
sumption should be excited, he alleges that the only answer
to be given is that we are so constituted that we cannot avoid
entertaining it; whereas, no logical syllogism can be set
forth which will bear the weight of the proposition involved.
I he proposition is this : that if a physical phenomenon hap
pens a considerable number of times under the same apparent
conditions, we may be sure that this, and nothing else, will
always happen under those conditions. Any attempt to prove
this always sets out by assuming the fundamental uniformity
of nature, which, in the argument, is just *he point at issue.0
t
I think that it is impossible to reply to this argumentasregards
future time, except on the ground which I shall mention.
But farther, if it is impossible to apply, with any logical
demonstrative force, the observations made in past time, to
the probabilities, or at any rate to the certainties of future
time, so also it is impossible to say that any uniform results
* Bampton Lecture, 1865.
* I may be permitted to refer to my fuller discussion of this subject in “ the
Mystery of Matter.” p. 149. Macmillan &Co. 1873.
�5
derived from observation can certainly, and always, and in
fallibly, bind our conjectures as to any regions, or any times,
over which our observation has not been extended. The fact
that you cannot construct a syllogism which will bear the
presumption that because a thing has happened half-a-dozen
times it will therefore happen the seventh clearly implies,
Canon Mozley argues, that you can never obtain any absolute
certainty as to what goes on in unknown times or places. He
grants that conduct is necessarily governed, to a large
extent, by observations of what has taken place in past
times.
He holds that we are so constituted as to argue
the future from the past, in order that we may conform our
selves to the general laws by which the world is governed.
But he insists that it is impossible on such grounds to obtain
any logical proof, that miracles are impossible, or have never
happened.
I most cordially agree with him. I have never argued
that miracles are impossible; nor am I going to say now that
in no possible instance did anything of the kind ever occur.
My ground is, as you may already have gathered, somewhat
different from that. I hold with Canon Mozley, that it is im
possible logically to prove that because a thing has happened
a hundred, or a thousand, or a million times, it will necessarily
happen the time after, under the same conditions.
But I
say, as he does, we are so constituted that a presumption of
the kind is necessarily excited in our minds. And if we may
for a moment indulge in a teleological argument, it would
appear that we are so constituted, in order that we may live
and work in harmony with the constitution of the world
around us. Very well, then, I say, our assurance that the
sun will rise to-morrow morning is a case of loyalty to our
own constitution, and to the constitution of the universe
around us.
Here we find ourselves constituted so that a
certain presumption arises in our minds whenever we observe
a phenomenon to take place repeatedly without any excep
tion under the same conditions. I should think that we
were doing dishonor to the mysterious Power who so con
stituted us, if we did not. practically act on the suggestions
of such a presumption.
But loyalty to rhe constitution of
the universe is to my thinking an act of faith, just the
religious virtue which i< most insisted upon bv < hri-tian
teachers
So the ■ it <• m - * thi
o
I,
'
�6
uniformity of the laws of the world is a matter of faith. On
the other hand, if we are required to believe that, in any
instance, these laws of the universe have been suspended, or
have been overridden, we must have such proof demon
strative as will absolutely require us to act contrary to
what is apparently a fundamental law of our own being—to
be, to all appearance, disloyal to our faith in the constitution
of the universe, out of a still more binding loyalty to the com
mands of manifest, demonstrable, clearly proved truth.
But the view generally taken as to miracles is very
different from this. It is alleged that they are to be received
with faith. Not so however, according to Canon Mozley’s
argument, nor according to the most reasonable views of the
universe. It is the Divine order of the universe, that is the
object of faith, exceptions to which, (if such there are) must
be proved as clearly as any proposition in Euclid, before we
can be fairly called upon so far to do violence to our mental
constitution as to accept them.
This is the principle, we repeat, on which you act in
dealing with every allegation that is made concerning the
wonders of spiritualism, or concerning the miraculous powers
said to have been exercised during the middle ages, or
during the earlier ages of the Church. But if so, how is it
possible for you, when
you arrive at the first
century of the Christian era, suddenly to change your
mental attitude, and deal with the wonders alleged of that
time on wholly different, nay, on absolutely contrary
principles? It may be said that the stories recorded of
that golden time are worthier, more beautiful, instinct with
nobler moral motives, than the fables related by the
spiritualists, or by monks of the middle ages.
Granted.
This only shows, however, that they originated amongst a
people actuated by finer, purer, higher, moral feelings. It
does not, and cannot in the least prove, that they are stated
with more of historical accuracy; unless the evidence on
which they who originated them relied, can be produced, and
will stand the test of modern examination.. Will you plead
the sacredness of the ground upon which we have entered,
and demand the reverence that is due to the manifestations •
of the Divine Presence ? Such a plea we should be ex
ceedingly loth to reject; and it will certainly encounter no
want of sympathy on our part. But such a plea appears to
�7
us to raise far different suggestions from those that seem to
be implied. If the ground is sacred; if the age to which we
look back is m)re instinct than others with divine in
spirations; then there is all the more reason for sincerity and
truth on our part, in dealing with its traditions. . Never can
falsehood adorn the shrine of the Most High. Never can
insincerity, inconsistency, or double-dealing with ourselves,
fit us the better for worship and aspiration. Here, above
all, we must be true, if we would breathe the air of Heaven.
Here, above all, we must cleanse that mystic eye, of which
the Lord speaks in the Gospel, from all the dust and foulness
of wordly expediency and selfish cunning ; for says he,—
“ If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that
darkness! ”
Coining then to the stories that are told of that age, and
dealing with them on the same logical principles, or principles
of historical evidence, that are constantly applied to all other
cases of the kind, I. think, if we deal candidly with ourselves,
we shall be compelled to acknowledge, that it is impossible
to mention one of the sources of confusion and fallacy
noticed in the course of last Sunday evening’s lecture, which
is not present in the stories of the Gospels or the Acts. The
testimony given to us, with a certain exception or exceptions,
presently to be noticed, is not direct, scarcely even
professedly direct, and with one or two trivial exceptions, it
is impossible to trace that testimony to its exact personal
source. At the end of the 4th Gospel we are told, in a
supplementary chapter, and not. in the main body of rhe work,
that the narrative is the testimony of one of the Apostles of
the L<>rd, who attended upon him during his earthly
ministry. But the difficulty of believing that the vague
assertion in that later addition to the 4th Gospel is strictly
and literally true, is overwhelming.
And if it be once
admitted that another hand, however closely connected with
the authority of John, has been employ ed in writing the
Gospel, the directness of the testimony disappears at once.
You would scarcely decide an ordinary case in a criminal
trial upon indirect testimony. As you know, lawyers always
shrink irom it; and will only allow it even in extreme cases,
when it can be supported or corroborated in a variety of
other indirect methods.
Butin such a case as this there
tyould be no corroboration possible, still less, any verification
�8
on our own part. And if you consider the stupendous weight
of the assertions in the Gospel to be sustained, you must feel
that when once the directness, the clear and certainly proved
directness of the testimony is gone, all possibility of attach
ing any overwhelming weight to it disappears likewise. Nay
even if,—what is impossible,—it were to be maintained that
this 4th Gospel is the handwriting of John, yet it is admitted
on all hands that he could not possibly have written it till
towards the extreme end of the 1st century, when he would
be a man of some 90 to 95. years of age.
Such a man,
writing sixty years after the events, would scarcely be taken
as a sufficient witness to allegations that go contrary to the
whole experience of mankind. I have myself, as I have
repeatedly urged, no sympathy with those German critics
who make the synoptical Gospels to be a creation of the 2nd
century. I firmly believe that, in an oral form, they arose as
a cycle of narrative or anecdote familiar to the Church, during
the twenty or thirty years after the departure of Jesus from
the world. But it is impossible to call such narratives as
these, personal testimony. If you will remember, we showed
in the first of this series of lectures how they gradually grew
up by repetition from mouth to mouth amongst the various
Churches. AVe showed that they were wholly impersonal in
their character, a trait which, it may be observed in passing,
they share with all the most sacred parts of the sacred
Scriptures of the world. It seems as though, in deal
ing with the mysteries of religion, men do not care
much for personal testimony. They value rather the im
personal utterance of the heart of a whole generation, or
of the heart of a race. And in proof of such impersonal utter
ance, the reality of convictions and feelings, is most
valuable. But in evidence of any events alleged to have taken
place at definite times in certain particular places, 1 need
scarcely say that impersonal testimony of this kind is often
untrustworthy. Now the very description of the synoptical
gospels, as the Gospel not by Matthew but according to
Matthew, the gospel not by Mark but according to Mark, the
gospel not by Luke but according to Luke, would show that,
even in primitive times, these books were not regarded as in
any ordinary sense the personal testimony of the authors to
whom they were traced. A\ hatever authors they may be
supposed to have had, those authors only reduced to writing, as we
�have seen, a cycle of anecdotes which were current in the im
personal memory of the Church.
But again, if the evidence cannot be shown to be direct, and
personal, it is also exposed to objection on the ground of
probable fallacies both of perception and memory. All the
testimony we have on the subject goes to prove, that the early
generation amongst whom these narratives arose, were of the
kind described by the words of Jesus, when he said :—“ Except
ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.” They were
on the look-out for miracles
They believed them to be an
ordinary part of Divine manifestations in the past; and they
looked for them therefore in their own experience. Such
people are specially liable to what we have described as
fallacies of perception. And years after the apppearance that
excited in them the conviction of a miracle, they are also
peculiarly liable to fallacies of memory. It is easily con
ceivable, for instance, that the commanding peace, which, I am
well assured, the presence of Jesus always brought with it, had
a healing influence upon the sick, whose homes he visited.
Paroxysms of fever may have been assuaged by his calm com
forting voice. And there was in him a loving authority that
subdued passion, even demoniacal passion, as we in tumultuous
hours are soothed by “ the sound of many waters.” A few
instances of this kind, parallels to which may be found in medical
records even of our own day, would be quite sufficient to excite
amongst a generation like that which lived in Gralilee, a belief in
hundreds of similar instances,—would be enough to quicken ima
gination by their description, would be enough to give the
firmest confidence in their circulation through the world.
But it may be said, there is one event above all, to
which we have the clearest and directest testimony; and
if that be proved, then all others may easily be believed,
because they are far inferior to it in the demands which they
make upon our belief. It is alleged that Jesus was crucified,
and that his death was clearly ascertained, and that after he
had lain one day and two nights (called three days in ordinary
rough reckoning) in the grave, he suddenly arose, and
manifested himself to his disciples. It is argued that these
appearances of Jesus constituted their chief reason for belief
in his divine power and majesty. It is urged that they must
have been confident of what they had seen, because many of
them sealed their testimony with their blood. Let us then,
�10
itLost reverentially, look at the case as it stands with regard to
the physical resurrection of Jesus. This wonderful event is
recorded in the four Gospels which, as we have seen, are all of
them of uncertain origin and date. Granting that we may
well believe they were written before the end of the first
century, or at any rate at the beginning of the second, still
we cannot fix their authorship with any certainty within a
few years. Now this in itself, in dealing with so stupendous
an assertion as that which is before us at present, is a grave
obj ction to the evidence adduced. But when we look farther,
we find still more difficulty
All four accounts given of the
appearances of Jesus, are exceedingly fragmentary ; just such
as would arise from the excited utterances of some remote
period, the experiences of which were never very particularly
described. They are of a fragmentary character, which could
scarcely have been permitted, if the narrations of this wonder
had been set down in writing within a brief period of the time
when it really took place.
You know how careful men
generally are, to set down memoranda of anything very ex
traordinary that has occurred to them. And they are the
more careful to do this in cases where they witness ex
traordinary events without any passing excitement, and in the
use of their ordinary reason. It does therefore appear at the
very first onset most extraordinary, that, of an event on which
the whole faithand expectations of Christians are said to rest,
we should have only the most fragmentary disjointed
descriptions, which scarcely fill a few pages of a small
book.
But looking farther, we find that these fragments are entirely
and hopelessly inconsistent one with another.
In the first
gospel—that of Matthew—we have related to us, first, a certain
vision of angels to the women who went to anoint the body of
the Lord.
Secondly, it is alleged that on their return from
the grave, Jesus appeared to them in person. Thirdly he is
said to have appeared some time afterwards, (but when is not
stated) to eleven of the disciples only, on a mountain in Galilee,
of which eleven disciples it is said with considerable
significance, “ some doubted.”
So far for the first
gospel.
In the second Gospel the two oldest manu
scripts give absolutely no narrative at all of the resurrec
tion. • In the Gospel according to St. Mark the narrative
ends in those manuscripts, with the words, “Neither
�11
said they anything to any man for they were afraid.” * I
grant that the previous words irnply that Jesus had risen from
the dead. But still it is not the less a significant circum
stance, that the oldest manuscripts of this Gospel should cease
at the 8th verse, and give no account whatever of any appear
ance of Jesus in the flesh. The narrative that is supplied from
the 9th to the 20th verse, will be found by any one who
carefully and candidly examines it, to be a mixture of the
other narrations to be read in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke
and John. That therefore cannot count at all as any evidence
on the question.
In the third gospel we find again the visit of the women to
the tomb. All agree in this. Secondly, ve are told of an
interview which was granted to two disciples, walking to
Emmaus, on the same day, the first day of the week. And in
the course of the conversation with those two disciples going
to Emmaus, it is certainly implied, if not distinctly stated,
*
that the women who went to the tomb in the morn
ing saw nothing but a vision of angels. Here is a direct
contradiction of the allegation contained in the narrative ’ of
St. Matthew’s gospel. Thirdly, on the same day, the first day
in the week, it is said that Jesus appeared to Simon alone.
Fourthly, it is said that, still on the same day of the week—
for there is no division of times—Jesus appeared to the eleven
in Jerusalem as they sat at meat. Finally, it is said that, in
the same day, or in the course of the night following, he led
them out to Bethany, and thence ascended to heaven. You
will see there is scarcely a single element in common
between the narrative in Matthew except the ordinary circum
stance that the women went to the grave in order to anoint
the body of Jesus, and found, as we may well believe, the
grave entirely empty. Not only is there no element in com
mon beyond this ; unless the divergent narratives of the angels
be so accounted ; but the one virtually contradicts the other,
and all the efforts of harmonists have failed to reconcile
them.
We proceed to the fourth Gospel. Here is alleged first a
vision to Mary Magdalen, which is often connected with the
vision to the women as narrated in Matthew. But certainly it
* Mark xvi. 8. The two manuscripts are theSinaitic and the Vatican; Loth
of which are assigned by I'Uchendorf to the- 4th century.
* Luke xxiv 23, 24.
�would scarcely occur to an ordinary reader that the same thing
was intended. Secondly, we are told that Jesus appeared to
the disciples the same day,—the first day in the week. Thirdly,
we are told that he appeared to them eight days afterwards,
in the same place; whereas in the Gospel of Matthew the
women were directed to tell the disciples to proceed at once to
Galilee. Fourthly, we have a vision in Galilee by the sea,
and not on a mountain, as is alleged in Matthew. Now, look
ing at the inconsistency, the fragmentary character, the un
certain date and origin of these stories, we are compelled to
come to the conclusion that, if they were related in connection
with any other religion than that which we ourselves profess,
or did they form a part of any ancient secular history, we
should immediately conclude that they only testified to a
general rumour reflected from many memories, and refracted
through many thoughts.
But I might be reminded, were we engaged in conversa
tion,—and such suggestions I always like if possible to an
ticipate—that the 15th chapter of the 1st Epistle to the
Corinthians stands on entirely different ground. I purposely
read it last Sunday evening, in order that you might have
ringing in your minds the clear and nervous utterances of the
Apostle concerning his own experience, and that which he
believed to have been the experience of other Christians as
well. Here there can be no doubt as to the authorship of the
testimony. The severest critics are agreed in saying that St.
Paul wrote this first Epistle to the Corinthians. In the course
of this first Epistle, the Apostle alleges that Jesus appeared six
times and you will observe that his account of the appearances
is another version, entirely different from anything that we
have in the four Gospels. He says he was seen first of all
by Cephas, “ then, of the twelve; after that he was seen of
above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater
part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep,
After that he was seen of James”—not mentioned in the
Synoptical Gospels—“ then, of all the apostles.” And last, of
all he was seen of me also as of one born out of due time.” The
key to the whole of this passage is found in the lust, words,
‘ last of all he was seen of me also.’ There cannot be the
slightest, doubt, of course, ihut St. Paul is here stating a
veritable experience which he had himself enjoyed. But
what was that experience? There is no clear description
�IS
given of it in his own words in any of his epistles. We
therefore are obliged to have recourse to the Acts of the Apostles
which do not stand exactly on the same ground of certainty.
Still we may accept the accounts there as giving, in all
probability, what was believed actually to have taken place.
We there find then that on occasion of a journey to
Damascus, when there is much reason for suoposing that he
was labouring under grave anxiety of mind, and reflecting
anxiously upon his past course of life; when he was fatigued
by travel and probably oppressed by the burning heat of
the sun; he suddenly fell from his horse in a trance ; and
in this trance saw the figure of Jesus and heard a voice address
ing him from the heavens. Tnsuch an experience there isof course
nothing in the least degree incredible; nothing which we
can have any difficulty whatever in imagining. But the
point here is, that St. Paul places the experienne of the
other disciples in precisely the same category as his own.
If they had seen the Lord so has he; ** he is not inferior
to any one of them. If they have known Christ after the
flesh so has he. Did not he listen to the voice of Jesus
from the skies, and did not he see him in his glorious
form ?
Thus you see we must carefully bear in mind, in estimating
the words before us, that the visions enjoyed by the other
Apostles were in the mind of St. Paul precisely equivalent
to what he had enjoyed himself. Now, will you say—bearing
in mind the multitude of visions that men have had in abnor
mal conditions of their brain and nervous system—that this
appearance to St. Paul could be nothing else but the very
figure of Jesus floating in the heavens ? Try to picture it—
for any real thing ought to be capable of being pictured—
dare you say that you can reverentially think of the body of
the Lord Jesus floating suspended in the heavens, the very
hands and feet, and lips and eyes, that had been known on the
Galilean shore ? Ts there not something utterly unworthy of
the whole dignity of the Gospel, in supposing that a piece of
magic like this took place ? How far more reverential it is
to believe, that on the over-wrought mind and heart of Paul an
impression was made—as vivid as the impression of the mid
day sun itself—that the figure of Jesus was there before him,
and that the lips of Jesus addressed him in rebuke.
* 1 Cor. ii. 9-
�It may, however, be said, granting this in the case of Paul,
and even granting that he was mistaken in supposing that his
was an objective, or external sight of Jesus, yet the case of
the other Apostles alleged by and known to himself, is so
very different that we must put a different interpretation upon
them, lie was seen by eleven men at once. At another time
it is said that he was seen by about five hundred brethren at
once. Now, it is clear that here we labour under a difficulty,
from not having the advantage of putting questions to the
writer. You know how often such things are said, on what
seems to the speaker himself the very best possible testimony,
but which, when closely followed up to its original source, dis
solves away into imagination, or the accumulations of various
personal errors of observation and memory. “ Above five hun
dred brethren at once ” —we should naturally wish to ask who
counted them, and how was there an assurance that they ex
ceeded that number ? Where were they ? At what season
of the year was it ? At what part of the day ? Was it on a
bare mountain ? Was it in a wood ? Was it on a cloudy or
a cloudless day ? What was the condition of the saints behold
ing ? Had they been fasting for any length of time previous ?
Had they any reason to suppose that some such vision would
be manifested to them all ? Vpon the answers to questions
such as these, would depend the whole value that we could
assign to even apparently formidable testimony like this. And
yet such questions can neither be asked nor answered at the
present day. We know, as a matter of fact, that cases have
occurred in which the same illusion has been experienced by
several people at the same time. One illustration was given
of this last Sunday evening, and I do not care to repeat it now;
mainly because I desire to keep as far as possible from these
sacred contemplations anything that might appear to have the
slightest tendency to ridicule. But cases have occurred re
peatedly, in which some object, not quite clearly seen, has
made the same illusive impression upon a considerable number
of minds at once. And failing the opportunity of asking
questions, such as I have mentioned, it is impossible for us to
say with any confidence that this alleged by St. Paul was not
one of them. We do not know with how many Christians in
Jerusalem he came into close personal converse. We know
that he preferred,rather to wander far off amongst the Gen
tiles ; and that he was comparatively little associated with the
�very first cirele of Christian disciples. It is, therefore, easily
conceivable, that a man full of enthusiasm as he was after bis
experience on th j way to Damascus, would very readily re
*
ceive any allegations concerning the personal appearance of
Jesus, without caring closely to examine on what evidence they
rested, or (what is possibly more important) under what cir
cumstances they occurred.
.Now, it is not sufficient in dealing with any matter of this
kind ,to say that any possible theory leaves difficulties behind.
Of course it does. But our position throughout has been that
our faith, faith in the divine order of the universe, requires proof
demonstrative, before we dare sin against it, by allowing that
the laws of that universe have been suspended. And we may
ask with confidence is such proof demonstrative before us here ?
Considering the fragmentary, contradictory character of the
Gospel testimony, its uncertain date and origin; considering
the manifestly visionary character of St. Paul’s own experience,
his identification of this experience with that of the other
Apostles as well, and in the absence of any information as to the
testimony that he himself required concerning the vision to the
twelve or to the .five hundred—we must candidly allow that,
however much our hearts might otherwise lean to belief in this
beautiful legend of ( hristian antiquity, we cannot, dare not,
say in the sight of the God of truth, that the proof is demon
strative, such as is needed.
Again we insist, it is not for us to construct any theory.
The question is whether the evidence supports the weight
of the stupendous assertion.
We can hardly maintain
that it does. The experience of the primitive disciples
may be for ought I know, utterly inexplicable to us now.
But at any rate we cannot concede that the physical
resurrection of the flesh and limbs of Jesus is the true ex
planation. If, however, we were pressed on the subject, we
should say that what we know of spectral illusions, and
what we know of the action of the . mind on the nerves
and senses, enables us to conceive some possible explana
tion. Think, what must have been the feelings of the
disciples after that dark hour when the voice of Jesus was
silenced on the cross. One dread cry of agony, pity, and
prayer, and the voice that had been their music was
silenced for ever on the earth. Do you not know what is
the sensitiveness of a bereaved heart ? Even, in ordinary
�16
life’s experience, it seems impossible to realise -that the so
familiar form is vanished for ever,—that the lips, whose
tones were so dear, can never stir again in articulate
utterance,—that the fair and beautiful form on which we
doted, must be irrevocably borne away into darkness. All
the earth seems shrouded under a terrific pall. It is not
the beloved form,—it seems rather the world itself that is
dead, and we buried with it in the heart of a universal grave.
In the intensity of silent endurance through which we pass
at such hours, the mind, quivering in all its susceptibilities,
is exposed to all kinds of illusions. And there are those
here in this present assembly, who have seen vividly in
dream the departed form of their beloved ones. Or even
walking in the quiet meadow in the stillness of the even
ing, they have heard a rustle and have felt a touch, as
though the dear hand were laid once more upon the
shoulder, and the sweet voice were whispering again in the ear.
If it is an almost insupportable agony, to lose those who
are bound to us only by the ties of private affection, how
complicated and accumulated was the grief of those men
who had lost, not only the light of their eyes, but, as they
verily, and indeed rightly believed, the light and hope of
the whole world ? Quivering as they were with the anguish
of that shock, any unusual sight or sound would be sufficient
to stir in them the sense of the sacred presence of their
master.
And divine whispers in their own hearts, ex
hortations to endurance and self sacrifice, directions how to
proceed in the the great mission upon which they were
bent, would by exceedingly possible fallacies of memory, be
come translated into the bodily vision of their master and the
articulate utterances of his voice.
Physiologists, some of them, tell us that the production of
organic life from dead matter—if any matter is dead, which I
am sometimes very strongly inclined to doubt—has only been
possible in certain eras of past time, and under special condi
tions of nature. In the early days, it is suggested, when the
crust of the world had not long solidified, and when all things
were quivering with heat, certain chemical combinations might
possibly be formed, which can never be renewed except by the
process of life. And thus was originated the organic world.
What the worth of that theory is I care not now for a moment
to estimate. But it may be that there do occur crises in the
�17
story of the human heart and soul, when visions and imagina
tions are possible, and inspirations are given, that are utter
ly unparalleled, and never to be recalled in any other age.
So it may be conjectured that the condition of mind which
produced the resurrection of Jesus, only existed once and
can never exist again.
You will see that throughout the argument in which
we have been engaged, I have never said a word or
breathed a breath, to hint at any slight upon the moral
character of the reporters of these events. The vulgar
argument on the subject often has been, that it is more
likely that witnesses told lies, than that miracles were
wrought. In my incapacity to define what a miracle is, I
can have no sympathy whatever with that argument. There
are laws of the moral nature as well as of matter, which I
should tremble to think could ever be set aside. I could
almost as soon believe in the real arrest of the sun in heaven,
or in the rising of the dead after the corruption of four
days in the grave, as I could believe that a man, burning
with the sacred fire of enthusiasm, like Paul, could ever do
evil that good might come, or tell lies to establish truth.
If, indeed, the elevation of the human conscience depended
upon, or originated in, degrading falsehood, then all our
notions of moral laws must fall into confusion. Then, truly,
the words of Jesus are falsified, and we do gather grapes of
thorns and figs of thistles. Our holiest blessings may be traced
back to the very pit of corruption.
“ Gracious deceivers who have lifted us
Out of the slough where passed our unknown youth 5
Beneficent liars! who have gifted U3,
With sacred love of truth.”
But it cannot be. The loveliest mirages spring up in the
purest air. The bright daylight of the loftiest spiritual life,
most removed from the ordinary world, is likewise most prolific
in vision and miracle. The keenest imagination, for the most
part, goes with the fullest heart. And be you sure, the hearts
that were full of Christ in those days of old, must needs project
their feelings upon the outward world, must needs picture to
themselves his moral beauty in visions of outward majesty, that
had no reality save in their own convictions and their own
feelings.
©
*
We have, however, this consolation, that the wonders
�18
related are in strict accordance with the feelings that the
inspirations of Jesus must have stirred.
No vengeful
wonders are told of him. He manifested the love of God.
No pride is ever hinted in his alleged disturbance of the
laws of nature, nothing but benevolence, kindness, love,
beneficence, pictured doubtless in imaginative and outwardly
unreal forms, but most true to the reality of Christ’s spirit
and mission. Read you the Gospels in the light of such
principles as these, and you will need to be haunted by no
critical suspicions as to this and the other word therein.
Irrational imaginations, where they exist, drop out of the mind.
The image of the heart of Christ, the spirit of his inspirations re
mains. Indeed, reflecting upon the necessities of mankind, the
darkness and the perversity of the generations through which
the stream of traditions has flowed, one may give thanks that
the Gospel took the form in which it has come down to us.
Dry, clear, prosaic truth never could have affected the hearts
of the simple as the same truth’ when arrayed in imagi
native forms.
“For wisdom dwelt with mortal powers.
Where truth in closest words shall fail,
When truth embodied in a tale
Shall enter in at lowly doors.
“ And so the word had breath and wrought
With human hands, the creed of creeds,
In loveliness of perfect deeds,
More strong than all poetic thought,
“ Which he may read, who binds the sheaf,
Or builds the house, or digs the grave,
And those wild eyes that watch the wave
In roarings round the coral reef.”
No prose could ever have told in so brief a space and with such
telling effect, of a love that passeth knowledge, of a self lost in
humanity, of a life which, through death, has become the inspi
ration of a world.
Upfield Green, Printer, Tenter Street, Moorgate Street, E.C.
�THE RELIGION OF JESUS:
ITS MODERN DIFFICULTIES
AND
ITS ORIGINAL SIMPLICITY.
(Bourse, of jSundag (Bailing J^tturos,
BY
J. ALLANSON PICTON.
VII.
Revelation.
A certain friend of mine, one not unsympathetic with
the feelings uttered in the present course of lectures, though
entirely repudiating the opinions advocated, remarked to
me, after reading the first two, that probably I did not
believe in any revelation whatever. It was very difficult
to answer such a question as this by a single word, whether
negative or affirmative; for as I put it to him, either must
necessarily create a mis-impression as to my real position.
For if I had answered “ No, I do not believe in any
revelation,” this would have given the impression that I
recognise no certainty of any kind beyond the facts of
sense; whereas to me, the existence of some immeasurable
reality answering to the religious consciousness of mankind,
�2
is at least as certain as any facts of sense, and, in a true
meaning of the words, far more so. Or I might have given
the impression that I denied the reality of any communion
with the Spirit of God, in which communion I have a most
unfeigned'belief. But if, on the other hand, I had replied,
“ Yes, I do believe in a revelation,” then it must have been
supposed that I regarded, as real events in the history of the
world, the supernatural communication to special men of
secrets concerning the unseen world, which secrets are
unverifiable by the experience of any others. This, how
ever, I regard as a notion which is irrevocably doomed ; and
which cannot possibly survive the coming, or the third
generation. The present lecture gives me an opportunity
of more fully developing my own views on this point, which
of course can have no importance whatever, save so far
forth as they are able to attract the sympathies of those who
listen, or to carry conviction to their minds.
The word ‘ Revelation 5 then signifies simply the throwing
hack of a veil, or the discovering of a prospect which had
been previously hid. In certain gardens in the North of
England, much visited by tourists, the walk of the visitors
through the horticultural scenery there is made to culminate
in a theatrical effect, which excites the pleased surprise of
those who are subject to it. In a certain passage, between
lofty banks of evergreens, a folding gate is suddenly thrown
open. There stands revealed a wide shining prospect of
flood and field, of woodland and of distant hills, which fills
the mind with delight and admiration. So it has happened
in the history of past times, that the intellectual vision of
mankind, or, at other crises, their spiritual insight, has been
more or less suddenly enlarged front the petty limits of
former ignorance to a grander realm of order and of beauty,
the sight of which has permanently widened the experience
and the capacities of men. But Revelation has not
been confined to any special crises of human experience.
Mountain mists are not always instantaneously lifted;
oftener they gradually melt away, or are broken here and
there, revealing fragmentary vistas into distant beauties
which you are not able for some time to bring into relation
ship one with another. So has it been with the expansion
of human knowledge and feeling in contemplation of this
measureless universe. There have been great moments in
�the experience of mankind, when, as by a lightning flash
the cloudy firmament of ignorance has been rolled away,
and the eternal heavens of truth have been laid bare. But
such experiences as these have been by no means frequent.
More commonly the process of revelation has been gradual;
“precept,” as the prophet says, “has been upon precept,
line upon line, here a little, and there a little,” as powers of
human perception and reflection increased, until at length
this present generation arose, which inherits the glorious
prospect that has gradually dawned upon ages gone by.
Time was, if we may believe certain philosophers of the
present day, when man was simply one amongst the greater
apes, having eyes capable of perceiving nothing but the
promise of food, or the suggestions of physical pleasure.
He was capable at that time of no mental emotions but,
possibly, some dull confused curiosity about the more
startling effects produced on his mind by the outward world.
Now, however, his eyes perceive a myriad indications of
order and of purpose in the world without. Now knowledge
kindles imagination ; and imagination swells the heart with
rapturous delight, and the heart reacts upon imagination
and knowledge; while the most precious fruit of all is that
self abasement, which makes the spirit tender in contempla
tion of the Infinite. All this is matter of simple fact patent
to all who are capable of studying the past. And therefore,
revelation there certainly has been.
But generally, as you are aware, the word is used in a
narrower sense, with which it would be uncandid on my
part not to deal. For that narrower sense we must go back,
not indeed to extreme antiquity, but to the after-glow of
prophetic and apostolic times. In those days the govern
ment of the world was necessarily conceived, to some extent,
after the fashion of oriental despotisms.
Those who
believed in one Ruler of the Universe certainly perceived a
measure of harmony in the operations of Nature, and in the
arrangements of Providence; but they did not realize any
continuity of law. The operations both of Nature and
Providence were supposed to be dependent upon a will, so
far like human wills, as to be in a course of perpetual
change. In a word, nature and human experience, the
whole frame of material and spiritual things was supposed to
be dependent upon the will of a monarch, mysteriously
�4
shrouded from human observation, at whose behest the sun
at any moment might be blotted out in midday, or rivers
rolled back to their courses, or the march of the tide arrested.
Like the unseen monarchs of oriental courts, this Supreme
Being was supposed from time to time to issue decrees, or to
make known secrets of his counsels to those who stood very
near to him, and were his favourite servants; decrees and
counsels, a knowledge of which was withheld from common
men, unless indirectly communicated through these elect
messengers. Such knowledge as this of the decrees of the
Most High, or of the secrets of the unseen world, was for the
most part imagined to be communicated by symbolic visions,
taking place often in the night, and in unconscious sleep, or
or at other times in waking visions, when the soul was
wrapped from all external things, and bent only on the
spiritual world. Such visions as these were not only miraculous
in themselves, but oftentimes they needed supernatural com
munications for their interpretation. To such visions as these
the name of a 1 Revelation,’ literally of an unfolding of the
unseen, was specially and technically given. Of such revela
tions you have instances in the book of Daniel; also in the
apochryphal 4th book of Esdras; also in the book of Enoch,
quoted in the Epistle of Jude. If you compare these with
the greeter portion of the works of Isaiah, and Jeremiah, you
must be struck by a very marked difference.
Isaiah and
Jeremiah undoubtedly do imply a sort of miraculous com
munication from Heaven to their souls. But for the most
part they deal with moral exhortations and spiritual principles,
such as carry their own witness to the hearts of men. The
others we have named :—Daniel, Esdras, and Enoch, on the
other hand, deal mainly with the mysterious secrets of the
Divine decrees, with events of forthcoming times, which
could not be in any wise known except by a whisper from
Heaven, and which do not necessarily of themselves carry
any spiritual lessons to the heart. It is to such as these, that
the word Revelation came to be specially applied. Thus, for
instance, it is the title given to the last book in the Bible,
which deals mainly with such topics as those already described.
Turn to the 14th Chapter of 1st Corinthians which we read this
evening. There we find the Apostle giving a catalogue of the
various exercises that occupied the Christian congregation,
when they came together for worship:—“ How is it then
�5
brethren ? when ye come together, every one of you hath a
psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath
an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.”
It is clear then, that the doctrine literally teaching—for you
are for a moment to confuse it,with any theological dogma—was
distinguishable in the Apostle’s mind, and in the minds of
those to whom he wrote, from this which is technically called
a revelation. What that revelation was, we can only gather
by analogy and comparison. Looking at the special use of
the word to describe the last book in the Bible, with its visions
of unseen things, we should suppose that it signified here
some sudden, deep impression upon the mind of the
worshipping Christians, concerning the wonders of the unseen
world, or the events of the coming age. This distinction
may also, I think, be discerned more or less distinctly in that
chapter of the book of Jeremiah, which we read as our first
*
lesson.
On this point I will not speak so confidently, for it
must be confessed that the chapter is obscure. But there are
reasons for thinking that this distinction between a heavenly
message to the soul carrying its own witness with it concern
ing moral and spiritual truth on the one hand, and a
miraculous communication of some secret that can have no
testimony but testimony of a supernatural order, was in the
heart of the prophet, as he uttered these words :—“ When
this people, or a prophet, or a priest shall ask thee saying :—
W hat is the burden of the Lord ? Thou shalt, then, say unto
them, What burden ? I will even forsake you saith the
Lord.” And he goes on to denounce the use of this expresion,
the burden of the Lord,” as though it were a most serious
offence in the sight of Heaven. But why should he ? Why
should it be better to ask, “ What hath the Lord answered ?
What hath the Lord spoken ?” as they are here commanded,
then to enquire after the burden of the Lord ?
The
answer can only be conjectured from the significance of the
word '* burden.” It is a word of double significance, and
there is a play upon that double significance in the passage
before us. It is originally derived from a verb signifying to
" lift up,” often to lift up the voice to an exalted strain of
utterance. It was used then, to describe any charm or super
natural utterance, which was generally communicated in an
elevated, singing tone of voice. We may illustrate this from
* Jer. xxiii. see especially v. 33—38.
�6
our English word ‘ incantation,’ which means properly a sing
ing or a chanting, but came to be applied exclusively to the
charm, half muttered, half recited, in a singing tone, by the
wizards or the witches of bygone days. So, in the days of
Jeremiah, it would appear that certain prophets, against whom
he inveighs in the course of this chapter, were in the habit of
reciting their dreams, or their visions, or secrets supposed
to have been communicated from the unseen world, in a whin
ing, singing tone of voice, supposed to be specially fitted for
discourses concerning religion. It is against this that it
seems to me the prophet is inveighing. They are not to ask
what is the burden of the Lord; or if they do, it will become
in a very literal sense a burden to them. They are rather to
ask, what hath the Lord annwered them, what hath the Lord
spoken,—that is to say, what plain message have you from
our Lord and God, that can commend itself to our hearts, and
consciences ? Speak this and we will obey. Here I think is
hinted, with tolerable plainness, the germ of a distinction be
tween revelations, that deal only with alleged secrets of the un
seen world, and communications from the Divine Spirit to the
conscience, such as bring their own witness with them. Such
a distinction, perhaps is still farther confirmed by the observa
tion, that the name Revelation is rarely given to the preach
ing of Christ on earth, I say rarely because I do not wish to
speak too strongly; but I think, I should be within strict
limits if I were to say that it is never applied to the discourses
of Christ, only now and then to the Gospel as a whole. The
preaching of Christ was always described as the Word, either
the Word of Christ, or the Word of God. He himself is
represented as saying, “ the sower soweth the word.” The
Apostles in the beginning of the Acts speak of “ the Word
God sent to Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ.” But
when the Apostles began to see visions for themselves, and to
communicate secrets concerning the eternal world, then the
word Revelation was applied to such utterances as these, h’ow
I do not for ODe moment, mean to imply that these ex
pressions, the ‘Word of God,’ or the ‘Gospel,’ the ‘good
news’ on the one hand, and ‘ revelation ’ on the other, were
always kept perfectly distinct. But certain it is that the
word Revelation when used with full emphasis, and in a
technical sense, did mean secrets about the unseen world,
which do not necessarily carry any moral lesson with them
�7
whereas the Word of God or the Gospel, “the glad tidings”
generally, almost uniformly, does mean such spiritual teaching
as carries its own witness with it to the heart. This distinc
tion, I think then, is important in dealing with this subject of
Revelation. Unfortunately, the distinction was not always
kept up; the name of Revelation in its narrower and more
technical sense, was gradually in the post-apostolic times ex
tended to the whole body of Christianity. Afterwards it was
extended to the Old Testament as well; and then, when the
various books of the Bible were bound up together, and not
till then, that is till a comparatively recent period—this word
Revelation was applied to the whole Scriptures. And thus
we are said to be deniers of Revelation, if we cannot hold that
this book gives to us infallible certainty as to the will, and the
works of God.
I am anxious that the distinction between these two things,
‘ Revelation ’ in its technical sense, on the one hand, and the
word of God in its moral and spiritual sense, on the other hand,
should be very plainly marked in the minds of all of you;
because upon your appreciation of this will necessarily depend
the conclusion to which you come, as to the probable tendency
of doctrines Such as those, which I have been preaching
during the last few Sunday evenings.
If you cannot
appreciate that distinction, then, I can well understand your
saying that the inevitable issue of such teaching must be
godlessness and irreligion. But if you do appreciate that
distinction, and will reflect upon it, then, however per
plexed the subject may be at the present moment,
1 think you will gradually come to see, that so far are these
doctrines from being fatal to real religion, that the only pos
sibility of the survival of religion in the future age, depends
upon the reality of such a distinction as this.
This use of the word Revelation in its narrower sense, must
be reckoned amongst the most formidable difficulties, which
entangle modern Christianity. For it necessarily divides
all human knowledge into two branches, which branches
come to be judged of, and estimated, on wholly different, and
often entirely incompatible principles. In the one branch
of knowledge we depend upon observation, upon experience,
upon reflection, upon verification. - In the other branch of
knowledge, that is the knowledge of Revelation, we are made
to depend, not upon the observed order of the Universe, or
�the constant experience of mankind, but upon certain ex
ceptions to that order and that experience, which exceptions
have very rarely occurred, and the reality of which is
dependent upon the directness and force of the testimony,
given from old times concerning them.
It must be
evident to you that Revelation in its narrower sense is
necessarily dependent upon miracle. If a man tells us, for
instance, that beyond this world there are three heavens,
and that departed spirits pass from one heaven to another,
in accordance with certain degrees of progress made in virtue
and spirituality, until at length they approach to the throne
of God himself, we naturally ask how he knows this. If he
replies ‘because it is revealed from Heaven,’ we are compelled
farther to ask how are we to be assured that it is revealed to
him from Heaven ? The only possibility of having any
certainty upon this point is necessarily bound up with his
power to work some miracle, that shall be a sign or token
to us of his receipt of the message from Heaven. I do not
say that a miracle or wonder wrought by him would be proof
demonstrative that he has such a message. But certainly,
if he is unable to give any such token, or sign as this, then
we have no evidence whatever to go upon, and we can only
imagine that some very strong impression has been made
upon his mind, which he takes to be a miraculous com
munication. You will see clearly, then, that if our views
propounded, during the last two Sunday evenings as to the
weakness of testimony to miraculous events are sound, and
likely to prevail, then, Revelation, in its narrower and
technical sense, cannot much longer be held to be a real
thing. It is dependent, as we have said, upon special com
munications of the secrets of the unseen world, evidenced
by miraculous powers. But the other branch of knowledge
is dependent upon observation and constant experience.
These * observations, and this experience, are capable of
renewal and verification from age to age. For instance, we
know now that the atmospheric air consists of certain gases.
We know the proportions in which they ought to be mingled,
in order to secure safety for life, and continued health. When
this discovery was made, it was a Revelation to mankind.
We are so certain of it now, that we care not to investigate
for ourselves, even if we have chemical knowledge to do so.
We, however, are secured by the fact, assured to us on all
�9
hands, that if we choose at any moment, now to make the
experiment for ourselves, we can obtain just those gases
of which air has been found to consist, in just the pro
portions, which have been discovered years ago.
This is a
fact that can always be verified; and our confidence
that it can be verified, makes us comparatively easy about
its truth.
So with regard to principles concerning the
organization of nations or society.
We have found, in
modern times, that free-trade is the true principle of pros
perity. It was very long before people would believe it.
But demonstrative arguments were discovered that con
vinced the minds of statesmen, and now we have verified
their truth by our experience. We can appeal to all to
witness for themselves ; to see the successes that have been
achieved by this principle. We are not dependent for this
truth upon mere testimony from others ; we can see it for
ourselves.
But religious knowledge, on the other hand, if it is to be
confounded with Revelation, in its narrower and more
technical sense, is necessarily dependent upon the testimony
given, by people in remote ages, toeventsofa most startling
and inconceivable character. Thus while all other branches
of knowledge have their testimony ready at any moment,
for anyone who chooses to enquire into it, religious knowledge
on the other hand, is made to be like an army ill-generaled,
which is always moving farther and farther from its supports,
and incurring continually increasing danger of being
helplessly surrounded by its foes. Hence there is often
times on arbitrariness, and a perversity, in the arguments
which are used to sustain belief in certain religious
doctrines, of which the very men who use them, would be
heartily ashamed if they were dealing with any other object
whatever. These are some of the evils which come from
dividing human knowledge into two branches, with which
we must necessarily deal on completely different, and often
on incompatible principles.
But besides, we have already seen the uncertainty of
historical evidence. And this uncertainty specially affects
those wonderful events, that are said to have been brought
about by miraculous power. Just in proportion as this un
certainty increases, the insecurity of all religion dependent
upon miracle must grow. And it is most sad and painful to
�10
look into the future, when we for a moment think that
religion is necessarily bound up with Revelation in this
narrower, or more technical sense.
It is impossible to
dispute that people’s common sense—I do not mean their
scientific knowledge—their common sense, their ordinary
tone, and habit of mind—is daily becoming increasingly
intolerant of any apparent exceptions to the order of the
universe; daily becoming increasingly intolerant, like
wise of insufficient evidence concerning past events.
And
no efforts of ecclesiastical bodies, no decrees of Con
vocation on the one hand, or of Congregational Unions on the
other, will ever succeed in fencing r^und this sacred area of
religious belief from the constantly advancing waves of
enquiry and certain knowledge. Farther still, this very un
certainty, which can hardly be disputed, begets in those who
think it important to cling to revelation in its narrower, and
more technical sense, evil tempers altogether inconsistent
with religion; the odium theologicum, theological hatred,
is already a proverb and a bye-word. If you yourselves
have cared to study the reports, now and then giveu forth to
the world, of debates that have been held between the pro
fessors of belief in miraculous revelation on the one hand,
and the professors of unbelief on the other, one of the most
painful impressions on your mind must have been the sense
of the far greater patience and confidence of the advocates
of unbelief, as compared with the advocates of belief. It
seems as though the very uncertainty of the position
irritated believers, and drove them to make use of
abusive epithets, instead of arguments. Nay, you know
yourselves, that wherever such questions as these are
agitated, in any society, or in any neighbourhood, they are
certain to give rise to angry feeling, and to abusive
language; and in nine cases out of ten this angry feeling,
and abusive language is found to be on the side, not of
those who doubt., but of those who profess to be believers in
miraculous revelation. Now, their natures are certainly
quite as good as the natures of those who take the opposite
side. VV e are not for a moment to believe that their tempers
are necessarily worse; but uncertainty,— incapability of
finding any foundation which commends itself as everlasting,
— vexes and irritates the spirit, and so leads men to supply
the lack of evidence by strength of language. iSo it comes
�H
to pass that religion oftentimes is apparently bound up with
moral evils, against which anciently it used to raise its most
eloquent protest, and which, if religion does not destroy them,
in the end will corrupt, incap icitate and slay it.
For such reasons as these, then, I cannot bear to think of
the future of spiritual religion as bound up with the fate of
so called revelation,—revelation in its narrower and more
technical sense. But I should be utterly false to myself were
I to admit for an instant that there is no such thing as revela
tion. Bevelation, that is, the unfolding of the works and of
the will of God to the consciousness of men, is perhaps the
very grandest aspect of human progress. It comes, as it
appars to me, through three channels : first, man’s observation
of the outward world, next the general experience of manknd,
and thirdly the spiritual insight occasionally given to in
dividual minds. Observation of the outward world, with its
riches of divine fact, gives to us our creed; the experience
of mankind gives to us the religious affections, feelings and
aspirations associated with that creed; and the spiritual insight
of some specially gifted individuals gives to us beauty and
effectiveness of religious form.
Let me illustrate these observations in a very few words
before I conclude. I have said that observation of the outward
world with its riches of divine fact gives to us the creed of
religion. I cannot myself doubt that the belief in one
Almighty Maker of the universe, reigning for ever unap
proachable and unrivalled in his glory, was suggested
originally by the harmony of the works of God and the unity
that manifestly stamps them. Indeed, we are told by
philologists that the name most commonly given, at any rate
by the classical races, to the Supreme Being, originally
signified the shining heavens, the expanse of the firmament
which binds or apparently binds all things in one. It was
the contemplation of the mid-day, or the mid-night heavens,
that-overwhelmed the souls of good men of old with a feeling
of the majesty and power witnessed there, and led them to
regard the superstitions of surrounding idolaters as worthless
falsehoods; while they bowed themselves in reverence before
one supreme Maker of all things.
But if it is objected that most nations in antiquity did
believe in a variety of Gods; 1 may rejoin, on the other hand,
that even those who believed in a variety of Gods always had
�12
a dim and awful sense of one supreme Fate behind and above
them all, wielding the destinies alike of Gods and men.
And this sense of some unity ultimately behind all inferior
powers must have been suggested to men’s minds by the
manifest harmony or indeed unity of the works of creation.
This revelation has been,—not weakened, if you consider it
aright, and will bear to have the significance of the name of
the Most High enlarged—this revelation has not been weakened
but materially strengthened by the discoveries of science in
modern days. There, perhaps, has rarely been a grander
moment in the history of the world than that in which Sir
Isaac Newton saw, in the falling of stones to the ground, the
one power that wields the planets in their course, and the
stars in the remote distances of space. At once a unity was
conceived that probably, almost certainly, grasps all things,
however unimaginably remote, nay infinitely distant from
ourselves. But this grand revelation has only been brightened
and enlarged by other discoveries of a more recent character.
We have been taught latterly, for instance, that all forms of
force are resolvable one into another. There is a shrewd
suspicion that substances, commonly considered as elementary,
may by a more powerful analysis hereafter be resolved into a
very few others, if not found to be all diverse forms of one.
In truth it cannot be denied that the researches of scientific
philosophers, so far as they have gone, all proceed on con
verging lines. I hey may be, as yet, far remote one from the
other, and we find it quite impossible to conceive in any
articulate manner what the ultimate unity of things may be.
Nevertheless, these discoveries all point in converging direc
tions upon one sublime unity that embraces all things.
Here, then, we have the outward facts of the world forming
our creed, And so does the experience of mankind by a more
imperceptible process, beget in us habits of reverence, a feel
ing of dependence, keen aspirations towards a higher life. It
is impossible for you to trace subtle consciousness of this
kind to any precise or individual origin. Such feelings have
gradually grown up in the race, they have been generated
by communion between the race and the mysterious divine
world without us. Never let us for a moment be supposed
to undervalue feelings of this kind, or to doubt the immortal
realities to which they answer. To me those feelings are in
themselves proof demonstrative that there must be a religion
�13.,
for mankind. Let us always cherish them as amongst the
most precious results of the traditions of past days.
Farther, there have arisen every now and then, indivi
dual souls specially gifted with spiritual insight, in whose
thoughts and feelings the religious creed of the race, and
still farther, the religious sentiments of the race, have crystalized into forms of beauty and power, that have attracted
the sympathy, and kindled afresh the feelings of all the
world. Such men were Moses and Samuel; such men, in
perhaps an inferior, or some may think in at least an
equal sense, were Pythagoras and Buddha; above all, such
a being was Jesus of Nazareth, who chiefly concerns us,
coming nearer to our hearts than any, and embodying in
himself the brightest of all the inspirations of our individual
lives. The real revelation in Jesus was not—if you will
simply read his own words—the communication of any unverifiable secret concerning the eternal world, or the mys
terious nature of the Most High. Barely did he speak of Buchthings at all. The real revelation that Jesus gave, con
sisted in the clearing up of certain facts of the moral and religigious consciousness, which, when cleared up, can always
bear witness for themselves. He stamped upon the hearts
of men, as it had never been felt before, the Fatherhood of
God above, whose children all men alike are, of every colour of
every race. He inspired men with a sense of brotherhood
one to another, and gave them to feel how reasonable it is
that on two great commands—love to God and love to man
—should hang the whole harmony of life. He taught that
the blessedness of the K ingdom of Heaven consists in estab
lishing the rule of God in the heart of man. He brought
out with an intensity that it had scarcely possessed before,
the abiding curse that is inflicted on humanity by sin. He
gave us to feel, likewise, the healing power of love. And
above all, not in words only, but in deeds, and, perhaps,
still more in suffering, he taught the transparent divine para
dox that the loss of self is the gain of God; that the true
throne of moral victory is the cross of endurance.
We have no time to sum up as we might have desired;
but here, I think is revelation enough to fill the heart
with gratitude, and the soul with admiring reverence. It
is a revelation that can always prove itself. Terms may
be changed—some of you may not. be able to accept in
�14
precisely the meaning that T give to the words, certain
phrases that have passed my lips now, but the thing sig
nified, the feelings of the heart, you all realize as most
precious, yea, and as most divine. Such a revelation as this
can be shaken by no discoveries of science, but is rather
strengthened by every increase of knowledge. Such a reve
lation as this does not of itself divide men into sects and
parties, but rather gathers all into the unity of one sacred
brotherhood.
Finally, let me say that, whatever conclusions may be
drawn—and freedom of thought, and freedom of language,
I should be the very last to deny to any—these lectures
have not been conceived in any spirit of hostility, to spiritual
religion. Rather they have been forced from me by the
deep conviction I have that only in the direction indicated,
can spiritual religion at length survive. The present day knows
but little of education. Most men as yet, make little attempt
to harmonize their knowledge, to balance one perception or
one opinion against another. Thousands, millions, there are,
content to use one kind of logic in dealing with business
matters, and another, and a wholly inferior, worthless logic,
in dealing with the most sacred matters. But these in
congruities cannot possibly last. Little by little education
is spreading, little by little the very youngest are being
taught to reflect; more and more is the embargo removed
from freedom of honest enquiry | and if not in your days,
then in the days of your children, or at any rate, in the days
of your grandchildren, a time will come, when if men
cannot separate spiritual religion f<6m belief in a mir
aculous revelation, spiritual religion must die the
death of all the superstitions of by-gone days. And this
would be, to my mind, the most frightful calamity that
coubl possibly overtake the race. It could not endure, or
humanity would wholly perish from off the faceol the earth.
All our finest feelings would die away; all the highest
delights of existence would be gone; and universal suicide
would be preierable to the sort of existence that would be
left. Such an event I believe to be altogether impossible
But terrible trials might be caused ; agonising perplexities
of mind ; and a long period of blank materialistic atheism,
from which men would only slowly emerge after the bitter
est suffering. It is against such a fate that we ought, if we
�15
have any care for posterity, to do our best to guard ; and it
is with such a view—if I may humbly say so—with some
lowly idea of doing a little towards an achievement of this
kind, that the present lectures have been delivered here.
The reality, the permanence of religion, I believe to be
guaranteed by the manifestation of the eternal God in the
Universe around us, by the constant experience of mankind,
by the religious susceptibilities of the race. Religion itself
is eternal as the heaven; but the sectarian opinions, on
which too many dote, are fleetingas the clouds that half ob
scure and half adorn the face of the sky.
Upfleed Green, Printer, Tenter Street, Moorgate Street, E. C.
�
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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 Ethical Society
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The religion of Jesus: its modern difficulties and its original simplicity. A course of Sunday evening lectures
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Picton, J. Allanson (James Allanson) [1832-1910]
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 7 pamphlets ; 21 cm.
Notes: Seven separate pamphlets: I: The Religion of Jesus; How it is Ascertained. II. The Religion of Jesus; His Doctrine of God. III. The Religion of Jesus; His Doctrine of Redemption. V: The Gospel Miracles. VI. The Gospel Miracles [Part 2]. VII: Revelation. Includes bibliographical references. Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 6.
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[Upfield Green]
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[1876]
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G3385
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Jesus Christ
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English
Jesus Christ-Historicity
Morris Tracts
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE TRUTH OF HISTORY.
BY
Colonel
R. Gk
Ingersoll.
'England, printed the following:
__
“ CONVERSION OF THE ARCH ATHEIST.
“ Mr. Isaac Loveland, of Shoreham, desires ns to insert the
■following:
through Mr. Hine’s grand mission work, the other side of the Atlantic.
The colonel’s cousin, the Rev. Mr. Ingersoll, wrote to Mr. Hine soon
after he began lecturing in America, informing him that his lectures
had made a great impression on the colonel and other Atheists. 1
noted it at the time in the Messenger. Bradlaugh will yet be converted;
his brother has been, and has joined a British Israel Identity Associa
tion. This is progress, and shows what an energetic, determined man
(dike Mr. Hine) who is earnest in his faith can do.
“ ‘ Very faithfully yours,
H. Hodson RuGG.
How can we account for an article like that ? . Who made
up this story ? Who had the impudence to publish it ?
As a matter of fact, I never saw Mr. Hine, never heard of
him until this extract was received by me in the month of
December. I never read a word about the “ Identity of Lost
Israel with the British Nation.’’ It is a question in which I
never had, and never expect to hav®, the slightest possible
-interest.
�2
man, in whose vd^ca/bFfo8^’0^ V^^hat tbe Englishpane, the Norman,the Het thl SenfbI°Od °+f?he Saxof, the
descendant of nbrZm
Scot, and the Celt, is the
language does ntt be^ ’the
dacok” The
Hebrew, and yet it is claimed hv +L°^St reser?lblan®« to the
be used bj
what w^SSeXiI’T“*d about'a living man,
opposed the Church p P
oncerning the dead who have
opponents of^uperstition
Clrcill,ated about all the
falsehoods of hisPtime will firJdihV1’ attacks the popular
telling other lies Noth!™ d thatake defends itself by
multiply itself, nothing can lay ZuF hatch n°thing ean 80
as a good, healthy, religious lie 7
d h * h as many
be^eta^
sedulity Of the
obligation to believe^vo^v-n • ’ •
^eel under a kind of
against any form of what fhev^ 1U ^avor
their religion, op
The old falsXod^iii 7^uP-eaSe- cal1 “ Infidelity.”
Diderot, and hundreds of nth ° taire’ Paine, Hume, Julian,
They are answered th^ J u 8 gr°w green every spring,
slightest foundation • but thev emon,straiied to be without the
dots die there reems to L n
• And when one
that in each instance althono-h^t^ of pa3sa^ian operation, so
to undergo, if’ nSsarv
die8’the cMd
child, and sometimes two’
operation, leaving another
°f t™gueS
to
part of the stock in trade tn ° J36 {¥se’ and these lies are a
No Church can afford to th™ Vnluable assets> of superstition
that these stories are false nn^ dsProPer.ty away. To admit
has been busy1lyi^gfo^r hundred^ of vdm1^
°hurch
admit that the word of‘the Chord ‘ 7TS’ Td li; 18 also to
as evidence of aZy fact.
not’ and cannot be taken
of^heVew YoiT
a
£ontl’°Versy with the editor
now supposed to be in k’’
^8V' ?reneus Prime (who is
Infidels in hell) as tn w^+u11 emx,°^1Ilg
bliss of seeing
religious opinions 1 offerT/10mas Paine recanted his
for the benefit of a^hfrity if th?°Slt ® tkousand dollars
substantiate the charee
P
reverend doctor would
NewYorkO&Xer toflfot VaTp Feca^d. I forced the
compelled that -nn-ner
au Paine did not recant, and
blaspheming Infidel.”
837 ka^ “Thomas Paine died a
�3
A few months afterward an English paper was sent to me
—a religions paper—and in that papei’ was a statement to the
effect that the editor of the New York Observer had claimed
that Paine recanted; that I had offered to give a thousand
dollars to any charity that Mr. Prime might select, if he would
establish the fact that Paine did recant; and that so over
whelming was the testimony brought forward by Mr. Prime
that I admitted that Paine did recant, and paid the thousand
dollars.
This is anothei* instance of what might be called the truth
of history.
I wrote to the editor of that paper, telling the exact facts,
and offering him advertising rates to publish the denial, and
in addition stated that if he would send me a copy of his
paper with the denial, I would send him twenty-five dollars
for his trouble. I received no reply, and the lie is in all pro
bability still on its travels, going from Sunday-school to
Sunday-school, from pulpit to pulpit, from hypocrite to savage
—that is to say, from missionary to Hottentot—without the
slightest evidence of fatigue—fresh and strong, and in its
cheeks the roses and lilies of perfect health.
Some person, expecting to add another gem to his crown of
glory, put in circulation the story that one of my daughters
had joined the Presbyterian church—a story without the
slightest foundation—and although denied a hundred times, it
is still being printed and circulated for the edification of the
faithful. Every-few days I receive some letter of inquiry as
to this charge, and I have industriously denied it foi years,
but up to the present time it shows no signs of death—not
even of weakness.
Another religious gentleman put in print the chargethat
my son, having been raised in the atmosphere of Infidelity,
had become insane and died in an asylum. Notwithstanding
the fact that I never had a son? the story still goes right on,
and is repeated day after day without the semblance of a blush’
Now, if all this is done while I am alive and well, and while
I have all the facilities of our century for spreading the
denials, what will be done after my lips are closed ?
The mendacity of superstition is almost enough to make a
man believe in the supernatural.
And so I might go on for a hundred columns. Billions of
falsehoods have been told, and there are trillions yet to com 6
The doctrines of Malthus have nothing to do with this
particular kind of reproduction.
And there are also many other falsehoods which the
Church has told, the which if they should be written every
one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the
books that should be written,
�This Tract can be obtained for
gratuitous distribution from :
R. FORDER,
28 Stonecutter St,
Farringdon Rd, E.C.
PRICE 1/- PER 100, POST FREE 1/3.
ALL COL
INGERSOLL’S” LECTURES KEPT
IN STOCK.
CATAL OUGE ONE PENNY STAMP.
THE
‘National Reformer’
WEEKLY
2zd.
The FREETHINKER
WEEKLY lzo.
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY R, BORDER, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Dublin Core
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Title
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The truth of history
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 3 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: "From Truth Seeker, 1887"--Stein, who does not list this ed. Tentative date of publication from KVK. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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[R. Forder]
Date
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[188-?]
Identifier
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N406
Subject
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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 (The truth of history), 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
Language
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English
Christianity
Jesus Christ-Historicity
NSS
-
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8e7a1a94dc36c6992bb96b4e294e694e
PDF Text
Text
4»
*•
f*
natTonal secular sooety
INGERSOLL
• ANSWERS
QUESTIONS
Is the Character of Jesus Christ, as
described in the Four Gospels,
Real or Mythical ?
London :
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY GEO. STANDRING,
“ Paine Press,” 8 & 9, Finsbury Street, E.C.
1884.
PRICE ONE HALFPENNY.
�I
�e> 2-e ? r7
M361
Ingersoll Answers Questions.
Is the Character of Jesus of Nazareth, as described
in the Four Gospels, Mythical or Neal ?
In all probability there was a man by the name of Jesus
Christ, who was, in his day and generation, a reformer—
a man who was infinitely shocked at the religion of
Jehovah—who became almost insane with pity as he con- ,
templated the sufferings of the weak, the poor, and the /
ignorant at the hands of an intolerant, cruel, hypocritical,/
and blood-thirsty church. It is no' wonder that such fy •/
man predicted the downfall of the temple. In all proba/
bility he hated, at last, every pillar and stone in it, aiyl
despised even the “ Holy of Holies.” This man, of course;,
like other men, grew. He did not die with the opinions
he held in his youth. He changed his views from time to
time-—fanned the spark of reason into a flame, and as he
grew older his horizon* extended and widened, and he
became gradually a wiser, greater, and better man. /
I find two oi' three Christs described in the four gospels.
In some portions you would imagine that he was aii ex
ceedingly pious Jew. When he says that people must not
swear by Jerusalem because it is God’s holy city, certainly
no Pharisee could hase gone beyond that expression. So,
too, when it is recorded that he drove the money changers
�4
from the temple. This, had it happened, would have been
the act simply of one who had respect foi' this temple and
for the religion taught in it.
It would seem that, at first, Christ believed substantially
in the religion of his time; that afterwards, seeing its
faults, he wished to reform it; and, finally, comprehending
it in all its enormity, he devoted his fife to its destruction.
This view shows that he “ increased in stature and grew in
knowledge.”
This view is also supported by the fact that, at first,
according to the account, Christ distinctly stated that his
Gospel was not for the Gentiles. At that time he had
altogether more patriotism than philosophy. In my own
opinion, he was driven to like the Gentiles by the perse
cution he had endured at home. He found, as every Free
thinker now finds, that there are many saints that are not
inside churches, and many devils that are not outside.
The character of Christ, in many particulars, as described
in the gospels, depends upon who wrote the gospels. Each
one endeavored to make a Christ to suit himself. So that
Christ, after all, is a growth; and since the gospels were
finished, millions of men have been adding to and changing
tie character of Christ.
There is another thing that should not be forgotten, and
that is, that the gospels were not written until after the
epistles. And I take it for granted that Paul never saw
any of the gospels, for the reason that he quotes none of
them. There is also this remarkable fact: Paul quotes
none of the miracles of the New Testament. He says not one
word, about the multitude being fed miraculously, not one
word about the resurrection of Lazarus, nor of the widow’s
son. He had never heard of the lame, the halt, and the
blind that had been cured; or if he had, he did not think
�5
these incidents of sufficient importance to be embalmed
in an epistle.
So we find that none of the early fathers ever quoted
from the four gospels. Nothing can be more certain than
that the four gospels were not written until after the Epistles,
and nothing can be more certain than that the early Chris
tians knew nothing of what we call the Gospels of Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John. All these things have been
growths. At first it was believed that Christ was a direct
descendant from David. At that time the disciples of
Christ, of course, were Jews. The Messiah was expected
through the blood of David. For that reason the genea
logy of Joseph, a descendant of David, was given. It was
not until long after that the idea came into the minds of
Christians that Christ was the son of the Holy Ghost. If
they, at the time the genealogy was given, believed that
Christ was in fact the son of the Holy Ghost, why did they
give the genealogy of Joseph to show that Christ was re
lated to David ? In other words, why should the son of
God attempt to get glory out of the fact that he had in his
veins the blood of a barbarian king ? There is only one
answer to this : The Jews expected the Messiah through
David, and in order to prove that Christ was the Messiah,
they gave the genealogy of Joseph. Afterwards, the idea
became popularised that Christ was the son of God, and
then were interpolated the words “ as was supposed” in
the genealogy of Christ. It was a long time before the
disciples became great enough to include the world in their
scheme, and before they thought it proper to tell the “ glad
tidings of great joy ” beyond the limits of Judsea.
My own opinion is, that the man called Christ lived; but
whether he lived in Palestine, or not, is of no importance.
His life is worth its example, its moral force, its benevo
�6
lence, its self-denial and heroism. It is of no earthly im
portance whether he changed water into wine or not. All
his miracles are merely dust and darkness, compared with
what he actually said and actually did. We should be
kind to each other, whether Lazarus was raised or not.
We should be just and forgiving, whether Christ lived or
not. All the miracles in the world are of no use to virtue,
morality, or justice. Miracles belong to superstition, to
ignorance, to fear and folly.
Neither does it make any difference who wrote the
gospels. They are worth the truth that is in them, and no
more.
The words of Paul are often quoted, that “ all Scripture
is given by inspiration of God.” Of course, that could not
have applied to anything written after that time. It could
only have applied to the scriptures then written, and then
known. It is perfectly clear that the four gospels were
not at that time written, and, therefore, this statement of
Paul’s does not apply to the four gospels. Neither does it
apply to anything written after that statement was written.
Neither does it apply to that statement. If it applied to
anything, it was the Old Testament and not the New.
Christ has been belittled by his worshippers. When
stripped of the miraculous; when allowed to be, not divine,
but divinely human, he will have gained a thousand-fold,
in the estimation of mankind. I think of, him as I do of
Buddha, as I do of Confucius, of Epictetus, of Bruno. I
place him with the great, the generous, the self-denying of
the earth, and for the Man Christ I feel only admiration
and respect. I think he was in many things mistaken.
His reliance upon the goodness of God was perfect. He
seemed to believe that his father in heaven would protect
him. He thought that if God clothed the lilies of the
�7
field in beauty, if lie provided for the sparrows, he would
surely protect a perfectly just and loving man. In this
he was mistaken; and in the darkness of death, over
whelmed, he cried out: “ Why hast thou forsaken me ? ”
I do not believe that Christ ever claimed to be divine,
ever claimed to be inspired, ever claimed to work a
miracle. In short, I believe that he was an honest man.
These claims were all put in his mouth by others—by
mistaken friends, by ignorant worshippers, by zealous and
credulous followers, and sometimes by dishonest and
designing friends. This has happened to all the great
men in the world. All historical characters are, in part,
deformed or reformed by fiction. There was a man by the
name of George Washington, but no such George Wash
ington ever existed as we find portrayed in history.
The historical Caesar never lived. The historical
Mohammed is simply a myth. It is the task of modern
criticism to rescue these characters, and in the mass of
superstitious rubbish to find the actual man. Christians
borrowed the old clothes of the Olympian gods and gave
them to Christ. To me, Christ the Man is far better than
Christ the God.
To me, it has always been a matter of wonder that
Christ said nothing as to the obligation man is under to
his country, nothing as to the rights of the people as
against the will and wish of kings, nothing against the
frightful system of human slavery—almost universal in
his time. What he did not say is altogether more wonder
ful than what he did say. It is marvellous that he said
nothing about the subject of intemperance, nothing about
education, nothing about philosophy, nothing about nature,
nothing about art. He said nothing in favor of the home,
except to offer a reward to those who would desert their
�wives and families. Of course, I do not believe that he
said the words attributed to him, in which a reward is
offered to any man who will desert his kindred. But if we
take the account given in the four gospels as the true one,
then Christ did offer a reward to a father who would
desert his children. It has always been contended that he
was a perfect example of mankind, and yet he never
married. As the result of wdiat he did not teach in con
nexion with what he did teach, his followers saw no harm
in slavery, no harm in polygamy. They belittled this
world and exaggerated the importance of the next. They
consoled the slave by telling him that in a little while he
would exchange his chains for wings. They comforted
the captive by saying that in a few days he would leave
his dungeon for the bowers of paradise. His followers
believed that he had said that “whosoever believeth not
shall be damned.” This passage was the cross upon which
intellectual liberty was sacrificed.
If Christ had given us the laws of health—if he had told
us how to cure disease by natural means—if he had set the
captive free—if he had crowned the people, with their
rightful power—if he had placed the home above the
church—if he had broken all the mental chains—if he had
flooded all the caves and dens of Fear with light, and
filled the future with a common joy, he would in truth
have been the savior of this world.
�
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ingersoll answers questions : Is the character of Jesus Christ, as described in the four gospels, real or mythical?
Creator
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Not in Stein checklist. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Geo. Standring, "Paine Press"
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1884
Identifier
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N361
Subject
The topic of the resource
Jesus Christ
Bible
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Ingersoll answers questions : Is the character of Jesus Christ, as described in the four gospels, real or mythical?), 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
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Bible. N.T. Gospels
Jesus Christ-Historicity
NSS
-
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5a09cf6832cf6349b0d74cfaf2f32980
PDF Text
Text
STRAUSS’S NEW WORK ON THE LIFE OF JESUS.
Das Leben Jesu, fur das deutsche Volk bearbeitet. (The
Life of Jesus, adapted to the German People.) von
David Friedrich Strauss. Leipzig : F. A. Brockhaus.
1864.
Nearly thirty years have now elapsed since a “ Life of
Jesus” by David Frederic Strauss made its first appearance.
We were at that time in Germany, and remember well the
startling effect that it produced. There were not indeed
wanting men who at once perceived, that the views which
it set forth with such uncompromising fearlessness, were a
natural consequence of principles of criticism which had
been for a long time partially and perhaps unsuspectingly
applied. But even those who were familiar with such prin
ciples and ’freely recognized them in relation to insulated
points of the gospel history, had never fully realized to
themselves the results with which they were pregnant, and
were filled with a sort of terror when they saw all their
possible applications gathered to a focus and urged home
with remorseless consequentiality to their legitimate issue.
Of replies to this alarming book there was no lack; but
none of them, not even that of Neander, were felt to have
effectually repelled the serious blow which it aimed at the
old traditional trust in the strictly historical character of the
evangelical narratives. Every ensuing contribution to the
. criticism of the New Testament which bore on it the stamp
of solid learning and thorough honesty, though it might
approach the subject from another point of view, moved in
the same direction, and tended rather to confirm than to
weaken the scepticism raised by Strauss. This was espe
cially true of the Tubingen school of theology. The imme
diate effect' was a general unsettling of opinion and a
pervading sense of uneasiness. It was impossible for things
to remain as they were. The old rationalism, which, assu
ming the impossibility of miracle, had attempted to unite
with this negative theory a literal acceptance of the facts
recorded in the Gospels, had exhausted'its resources, and
was shewn by the unanswerable logic of Strauss to be more
untenable and absurd than the simple, childlike faith which
it had undertaken to replace. Only one of two courses now
A
�2
Strauss's New Work on the Life of Jesus.
remained: either to fall hack into broad, self-consistent
orthodoxy, which took things as they were written with
unquestioning credulity; or else to go boldly forward in the
path opened by Strauss and Baur, and develop the results
which they had established, with courageous honesty into
all their consequences. A perfect trust in truth and fearless
ness of the world, such as few men possess, was indispensable
to the adoption of the latter alternative. It was a trial of
the spirits, and not many were equal to it.
From the storm of reproach and execration which assailed
him on all sides, Strauss took shelter in studious privacy ;
and for many years, finding little encouragement to the
prosecution of theological research, busied himself with pur
suits of another though still kindred character, which bore
valuable fruit in his biographies of Ulrich von Hutten and
Reimarus. Meantime the world moved on, however theolo
gians might wish to be stationary. The events of 1848 and
1849 had powerfully roused the popular mind of Germany;
and the outbreak of the almost contemporary movements
of the German Catholics on one hand, and of the Protestant
Friends of Light on the other, shewed what a craving there
was in all quarters for release from ecclesiastical bondage
and freer religious development. Strauss from his retreat
marked these ominous phenomena with thoughtful and not
irreverent eye. Cautious and temperate in his political
views, he felt with growing conviction, what he has so
strongly expressed in the preface to his present work—that
the country of the Reformation can only become politically
free, to the extent that it has wrought out for itself a
spiritual, religious and moral freedom.
*
He discerned the
risk to which many minds were exposed from their inability
to draw a clear line of separation between the permanent
and the perishable in Christianity—of renouncing the spi
ritual substance with the historical form—or at least of
oscillating continually between a wild unbelief and a spas
modic piety.-f- The result was a firm persuasion that it
was a duty to come to the relief of this morbid condition of
the popular mind. He had convinced himself that, owing
* “Wir Deutsche konnen politisch nur in dem Masse frei werden, als wir
uns geistig, religios und sittlich frei gemacht haben.”—Vorrede, xx.
+ Ibid, xviii.
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to the wide diffusion of education, the people of Germany
were prepared for the profitable entertainment of many
questions, which might have been justly thought to be
prematurely agitated a quarter of a century before. He had
gained the experience, which has been constantly that of
other teachers of religion,—that on spiritual topics where
the premisses lie within every human consciousness, there
is often a readier perception of deep, fundamental truth in
simple and earnest men of the lowest class, than is to be
found among their superiors in social position, whose minds
are clouded by conventional prejudices, and not seldom dark
ened by the interposition of an useless mass of artificial
book-learning between their inner vision and the eternal
realities of the universe. In this purpose of bringing his
views before the general public, he was encouraged by the
warm sympathy of his brother, who, though himself a manu
facturer, took a strong and intelligent interest in the theolo
gical controversies of the time, and was regarded by Strauss
as no unfitting type of the middle-class intellect of Germany,
fully competent to decide on the main points at issue be
tween the conservative and the progressive schools. Before
the publication of the present work, Renan's Vie de Jesus
appeared in France. The reception it met with furnished
additional proof, that the time had come when the ancient
limits of learned insulation might be broken through, and
an appeal be safely made to the popular mind and heart.
Beyond this general appeal from the verdict of a craft to
the judgment of the world, the works of Renan and Strauss
have little in common.
*
Strauss’s first-work was intended immediately for theolo
gians. Some wished at the time that, like Bretschneider’s
Probabilia, it had veiled its heresies in Latin. From the
task that it proposed to itself, it was essentially analytic
and destructive, and it seemed to leave behind it a very
negative result. It took the whole mass of gospel narra
tives as it found them, and subjecting them to the severest
* In one point they touchingly agree—in the dedications prefixed to each ;
one to the memory of a beloved sister, the other to that of a brother. In both
we painfully miss the distinct recognition of a hope, which to us seems the only
availing consolation in such cases. Yet both are affectionate in tone, and, we
do not doubt, are genuine utterances of the heart—each strongly marked by
the idiosyncrasy of character and race—that of Strauss, grave and earnest; that
of Renan, airy and sentimental.
A 2
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critical test, it affirmed that it had succeeded in dissolving
much that had been received as history, into legend and
even into myth, of which the source could often be traced,
and of which the aim was obvious. Like the lines of ap
proach drawn round a beleaguered city, the hostile move
ment was from the circumference towards the centre—
constantly advancing further and further, and breaking
down one defence after another, till at last it seemed doubt
ful whether the inmost citadel itself would not be. stormed
and reduced to a ruin. There was something almost ap
palling in the imperturbable coolness and apparent reck
lessness of consequences with which Strauss pursued his
work. But it was a work which had to be done. It was
desirable to test the utmost force of criticism on the histo
rical frame-work of Christianity. Dissent as we may from
the author’s conclusion, and even in cases where he leaves
no way to any definite conclusion at all, it is impossible
not to admire, in many sections of the book, the remarkable
acuteness and skill with which a number of widely dis
persed and scarcely appreciable, indications are combined to
throw light on the possible origin of a particular narrative.
Though the general theory of Strauss, in the unqualified
largeness of its earliest enunciation, must doubtless undergo
important limitations, yet his first work will ever retain a
high value, as opening the source from which many ele
ments have been supplied to the present texture of the
gospel history, and furnishing the student with a model of
thorough critical investigation.
His new work has been written with quite another view. It
is in no sense a revised edition of the first. If the object of
the former was to decompose a multifarious whole into its
constituent parts, the main design of the present volume is to
reconstruct, by gathering up the residuary facts into a solid
nucleus, and then attempting to explain how a mythic atmo
sphere has formed around it. It reverses the order of the
foregoing process. It advances from the centre towards the
circumference, making good its ground as it proceeds—striv
ing to convey as distinct an impression of the origin and
founder of Christianity as facts now ascertainable permit,
and maintaining with calm earnestness throughout, that no
results of historical criticism can affect the certainty of those
eternal truths, or impair the influence of that beautiful life,
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5
which make the gospel what it is—a possession for ever to
mankind. This is evidently the aim of the hook. No
candid reader can dispute it. There are occasions on which
we think he has overstrained his theory. We cannot accept
all his assumptions without material qualification; and his
own premisses appear to us to yield more positive and con
solatory conclusions than he has himself drawn from them.
But the volume before us, with all its deficiencies, is the
clear expression of an honest, an earnest, and, we will add,
a noble mind—a mind which has sought truth for its own
sake, though on some vital points we feel strongly that it
has missed it, and which has at least proved its own since
rity by cheerfully paying the penalty which truth’s loyal
service too constantly incurs. Strauss, in his preface, does
not conceal his anxiety that his two works, as having dif
ferent objects, should be kept perfectly distinct; and he
has even left directions in his will, that in case a new edi
tion of his former work should be called for, it should be
faithfully reprinted, without any reference to the present
volume, from the first edition, with only a few corrections
from the fourth.
*
The limits to which we are restricted, will prevent us
from giving more than a summary outline of the plan and
contents of this learned and suggestive work. After a rapid
survey of successive attempts to write a “ Life of Jesus”—
beginning with Hess near a century ago, and terminating
with Renan and Keimf—Strauss proceeds to determine the
criteria of authenticity, and to inquire how far they are
satisfied by any extant testimony to the Gospels. He de
cides, that in their present form they furnish no evidence
at first hand. They are the embodiment of a cumulative
tradition, carrying down with it some written memorials of
particular discourses and transactions from a very early
date. He shews how credulous and uncritical were the
earliest witnesses to the books that form our actual canon
* Vorrede, xiii.
+ Die Meftschliche Entwickelung Jesu Christi (The Human Development of
Jesus Christ), a very interesting inaugural address on accepting the chair of
Theology at .Zurich, December 17, 1860 ; much commended by Strauss, and
furnishing, in the warm devotional sentiment with which it envelopes the
person of Christ, a not unwelcome relief from the somewhat chilling influence
of his own more negative views.
•
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—Irenaeus and Tertullian, and even the more learned and
philosophical Origen and Eusebius. Fidelity to simple fact,
even after the desire to harmonize the four evangelists had
awakened something like a critical spirit, was constantly
overpowered in their minds by dogmatic or practical consi
derations—by the wish to extract a moral or establish a con
clusion. This was the spirit of their age.' They were conscious
of no wrong in yielding to it. The examination of Papias’s
account of the origin of Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels,
proves that the works referred to by him could not have been
identical with those which we now possess under the same
names. Indeed, the preposition rara—according to—hardly
allows direct authorship. In like manner the indication in
Luke’s preface of many contemporary records of Christ’s
ministry, and the evident desire which both the Gospel and
the Acts betray, of reconciling the opposite tendencies of
the Jewish and the Pauline schools, presuppose a later
period for the composition of both those books than is re
concilable with their having proceeded in their present form
from a companion of the apostle Paul. Contrary to the
opinion which he once held, Strauss has yielded to the
arguments of Baur, and is now convinced that the apostle
John cannot have been the author of the fourth GospeL
He ascribes the tenacity with which Schleiermacher and
some other eminent men have clung to the opposite view,
rather to sentiment than to critical proof, and thinks it had
its source in strong reaction against the old rationalism
■which was supposed to find its chief support in the Synop
tical Gospels. Only in the Epistles of Paul, and in the
Apocalypse which he regards as the work of the apostle
John, does Strauss recognize any works of direct apostolic
origin in our present canon. Having upset the earlier dates
which the old apologists had attempted to fix, he does not
pretend to find any more definite lower down. We gather
from the general tenor of his criticism, that he supposes our
four Gospels to have assumed their present form some time
in the earlier part of the second century. With the notions
now prevalent in the Christian world, this may appear dis
tressingly vague. But can those who complain, satisfacto
rily establish anything more certain? We want evidence,
not declamation. When we consider how these narratives
have been composed, of what materials they consist, through
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7
what changes of form they have passed, how gradually they
have in all probability been accumulated, and how little
anything like formal publication, in our sense of the word,
can be predicated of them, till their authoritative recogni
tion by the Catholic Church towards the close of the second
century—it is obvious that the assignment of a precise date
to the authorship of any one of them, is altogether out of
the question. By taking this broad though vague ground,
from which there is as yet no final verdict of criticism to
warn him off, Strauss gains time and space for that free
development of tradition and its consequences, in which he
finds a natural solution of many perplexing enigmas in the
gospel history. Possibly he may carry his theory too far
in this direction, as he certainly on some points overstrains
its application ; but he is at least more self-consistent than
Ewald, who agreeing to the full with Strauss in an absolute
renunciation of the miraculous, cuts off by his limitation of
the date of the Gospels, especially the Gospel of John, all
possibility of accounting without violence for its introduction
into the narrative of the New Testament
*
Notwithstand
ing this free treatment of the written documents of Chris
tianity, Strauss distinctly admits that a full and living
stream of tradition poured itself into them, which bore along
with it the new spirit of Christ,—vivid impressions of the
most salient features of his personality, and authentic records
of his most remarkable words and acts—and with such a
penetrating and diffusive power, wherever it spread, that it
“ created a soul,” to use a fine expression of Milton’s, “ under
the ribs of death,” and deposited far and wide over the ex
hausted soil of heathenism the elements of a higher faith
and a nobler life. We have often thought we could trace
a wonderful providence in the apparently defective medium
through which Christ has been revealed to us;—not set
* Most unnecessarily, on more occasions than one, Strauss seems to us to
have explained away a very probable fact into the exposition of a mere idea.
Can anything be more fanciful than his interpretation of Luke’s statement, that
Jesus, in consequence of the unbelief of his own kindred, transferred his resi
dence from Nazareth to Capernaum, where he met with a more cordial reception
—as a symbolical announcement of the rejection of Christianity by the Jews,,
and its acceptance by the heathen ? (p. 121). There is to us also something
equally unreal in his comparison of the Sermon on the Mount with the Sinaitic
legislation (p. 124), though this may have been suggested to him by his strong
persuasion that, according to the Messianic conceptions of that age, the Christ
was to be a second Moses.
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forth in clear and definite outline, with every feature exactly
delineated, and every light and shade filled up—a present
ment which would have exhausted by at once satisfying
the imagination,—but disclosed to us in transient glimpses
of ineffable sweetness and surpassing majesty, which require
the co-operation of our own highest thought to interpret
and complete them, and make the Christ in whom is our
deepest trust, the creation in part of God’s own spirit within
us. What Christ planted in the world, was not a dogma
nor a form, but a living word, which had its root in his own
life, and carried with it his own spirit. It propagated itself
under God’s blessing, but through human agencies, over all
the earth, imbibing a flavour from the various soils which
nourished it, and taking a new colour from changing skies.
We mark its earliest growth in the Galilean records of
Matthew. We observe how its vital juices sprout into lux
uriant tendrils and put forth leaves and blossoms in Paul
and Luke.. We see it bending with purple clusters in
John. There is a sense in which the fourth Gospel, while
deeply tinged with the ideas of the time, may still be said
to present us with the most genuine expression of the spirit
of Christ, because it exhibits the highest point of organic
development within the New Testament; though it may
not have been written by the apostle whose name it bears,
and though many of its contents may not correspond to
historical fact.
“The Johannean Gospel,” writes Strauss (p. 143), “with its
image of Christ, attracts more sympathy from the present gene
ration than the Synoptical with theirs. These, written out from
the quiet heart of undoubting faith in the primitive society (for,
in their conception of the person and being of Christ, there is
comparatively little difference between the liberal Judaism of the
first, and the tempered Paulinism of the third Gospel), found a
natural response in the equally sure and quiet trust of the cen
turies of faith. The former, with its restless striving to recon
cile a, new idea with the existing tradition—to represent as an
objective faith, what it grasped subjectively as certain truth—
must be better suited to the temper of a time, whose faith is no
longer a tranquil possession, but an incessant struggle, and that
would fain believe more than it yet properly can. In reference
to the impression which this side of its influence makes on our
present Christianity, we might call the Gospel of John, the
romantic Gospel, though in itself, it is anything but a romantic
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9
*
production. The unrest, the intense sensitiveness, which in the
believer of to-day result from his effort, amid the new views
which irresistibly force themselves on him, still to keep firm hold
of his ancient faith—proceeded, on the contrary, in the evangel
ist, from his endeavouring to raise the old tradition to the height
of his new ideas, and mould it into accordance with them; but
the restlessness and the effort, the flickering before the eye, the
wavering in the outline of the image so produced, is on both
sides the very same ; and hence it is precisely towards this Gospel
that the modern Christian feels himself especially drawn. The
Johannean Christ, who in his self-delineations continually, as it
were, overdoes himself, is the counterpart of the modern believer,
who to be a believer must be ever in like manner overdoing him
self. The Johannean miracles, which are resolved into spiritual
signs, and yet at the same time exhibit the extreme form of out
ward miracle, which are reported and attested in every way, and
yet are not to be regarded as the true ground of faith—are mira
cles and yet no miracles ; people ought to believe them, and yet
believe without them : just as this half-hearted age seeks to do,
which wears itself out in contradictions, and is too worn and
spiritless to attain to clear insight and decisive speech in reli
gious things.”
There is much truth' in these words, but not the whole
truth. They do not do full justice to the very case which
they so forcibly put. No doubt we have in the fourth Gospel
a vivid expression of the endeavour to reconcile the simple,
popular trusts which are transmitted to us in the three
first, with a philosophic conception of God’s relation to the
universe which at that time pervaded with its subtle influ
ence the whole upper region of thought throughout the
Greco-Roman world. But it was not all unrest; it was not
interminable struggle. In those wonderful chapters, from
the 13th to the 17th, which are the highest utterance of
the Johannean Gospel, the problem has its solution. In
love and trust, in oneness of affection and endeavour with
the omnipresent God, in self-surrender to the Parent Mind
through the heart’s deep sympathy with the holiest human
manifestation of filial obedience—the troubled spirit finds
at last the rest and peace for which it has yearned. And so
it will be in the final issue of this agitated and questioning
* The allusion is to the distinction between the classical and the romantic
schools, familiar to all who are acquainted with the history of German litera
ture in the early part of the present century.
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age of ours. When the battle between science and faith,
between historical traditions and the religion of the in Tier
consciousness, has been fought out, and their mutual rela
tionship has been adjusted ; the spirit of Christ will survive
these controversies of the intellect, and disengaged at length
from artificial obstructions and gratuitous difficulties, will
descend with all its power into the human soul, and fill it
with a profounder faith and a holier love.
*
The somewhat tentative character of Strauss’s first book
and its large application of the mythic principle, that on
the image of Christ, as presented to us in the Gospels, some
of the most striking features had been impressed by the
Messianic assumptions of the primitive Church,—left on the
reader’s mind a painful doubt whether the author recognized
any historical Christ at all, and whether what we had been
accustomed to accept as such, was not to a large extent a
product of the imaginative enthusiasm of the first believers ;
or, to put it in the briefest form, whether, instead of Christ’s
having created the Church, the Church had not rather created
Christ. The supposition, conceived in this broad, unquali
fied way, is so preposterous that it furnished those who
were eager to find in the work not what it might contain
of truth, but where it could be most effectively assailed, a
ready and obvious point of attack. It is only justice to
Strauss to say, that his mature thoughts embodied in the
present volume, afford no ground for imputing to him so
wild an extravagance. He affirms most distinctly not only
the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth, but the won
derful effect of his personality in introducing the greatest
spiritual revolution in the history of the human race. What
he contends for is simply this : that the image of that per
sonality has not been conveyed to us through perfectly
transparent media ; and that though the features are suffi
ciently distinct to enable us to verify the individual, they
have been blended in their transmission with the deep sub
jective influence of the recording mind. Before we condemn
this view, we must first shew that with a thoroughly honest
criticism we are able to escape it. That Jesus was born
* How searching are these words of the great Augustine! “Vae animae
audaci, quae speravit si a te recessisset, se aliquid melius habituram. Versa et
reversa in tergum et in latera et in ventrem, et dura sunt omnia. Tu Solus
requies.”—Confess. Lib. vi. c. 16.
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11
and bred of humble parentage in Nazareth of Galilee ; that
he was a hearer of John, and received baptism at his hands ;
that he commenced the career of an independent religious
reformer in Galilee, sharing in the general Messianic ex
pectations of his time ; that he penetrated to the spiritual
substance of the law, and believed that in the coming age
its outward form would be abolished for ever; that he
attached followers to himself from his own rank in life,
and preached to multitudes repentance and faith, awaken
ing into consciousness the higher life that was slumbering
in them ; that he waged an unsparing war with the formal
ism and hypocrisy of the professed guides and instructors
of the people, and gave his interest and sympathy in pre
ference to publicans and sinners; that the essence of his
teachings is condensed in the Sermon on the Mount, in
innumerable parables, and in occasional words that escaped
from the fulness of his inmost spiritual being in varied inter
course with the world,—all summed up in the two great com
mandments of love to God and love to man, of which his
whole life was a living impersonation ; that, though he
foresaw the fate which awaited him from direct encounter
with an irritated and malignant priesthood at Jerusalem,
this did not deter him from resolutely pursuing his pro
phetic career till its close ; that, betrayed by one of his own
followers, he fell into the hands of his enemies, and was
executed ignominiously by the Boman authorities on the
cross ; that notwithstanding the dismay and the dispersion
which this event immediately produced among his disciples,
they nevertheless after a season recovered their confidence
and hope, and firmly believed in his resurrection from the
dead and his continued presence and visitation from the
heavenly world;—these are facts which Strauss clearly
recognizes as the historic frame-work of the evangelical
narrative, and as the basis of his further speculations re
specting their accompaniments. He thinks that in conse
quence of being so far above the ideas of his age and coun
try, Jesus has been often misunderstood by those who heard
him ; and that we are therefore justified in interpreting the
general tenor of his instructions by the highest and most
spiritual utterances recorded of him ; that, for instance, we
have probably a truer reflection of his spirit in some of the
parables peculiar to the Pauline Gospel of Luke than in
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others which occur in Matthew’s, and hear evident marks
of the Judaic narrowness of its original materials. He
believes that we can trace a spiritual growth in the mind
of Jesus, and that the consciousness of his Messianic mission did not take possession of him all at once,—that it first
becomes distinctly conspicuous about the time of the trans
figuration. Having once acquired the conviction that he
had been chosen by God to fulfil the Messianic work, it
was only a natural consequence that Jesus should apply to
himself, and expect to find realized in himself as God’s
instrument for a great purpose, the several predicates that
were attached by universal belief to his office. In this part
of his life, however, it is especially difficult to disentangle
what he may actually have said about himself, from the
stronger and ampler language respecting the Messiah then
current among the Jews, which later faith assumed that he
must have used, and therefore unhesitatingly applied to him.
Enough—he was profoundly sincere in his conviction, cou
rageous and ready for self-sacrifice in carrying it out; and
if the admission implies that there was a certain tinge of
enthusiasm in his character, he possessed this quality in
common with some of the purest and noblest spirits that
have adorned the human race; nor is it in any wise incom
patible with a providential vocation and a divine life. Such
we gather to be Strauss’s impression of the historical Jesus.
But in this history there are two elements—one which we
have just described, probable in itself and consistent with
the known laws of matter and mind ; another, intermingled
with it, which transcends those laws and stands out as an
exceptional case in the history of the world. Strauss’s
theory of the universe (of which we shall have to say a
word or two by and by) precludes him from admitting the
possibility under any imaginable circumstances of such
occurrences as would constitute the latter element. The
problem, therefore, which he has to solve, is to account for
the copious infusion of this element into every part of a
history which contains so much of the highest truth and
has left so profound an impression on the subsequent course
of human affairs. His explanation is the following: that
assuming the traditional facts of Christ’s actual life as their
basis, it was the object, first of the preachers of the gospel,
and afterwards of those who reduced our earliest records t(
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13
writing, to establish on that basis a conclusive argument
that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ or expected Messiah,
the Son of David, the second Moses, the Son of God; and
that the working of this strong purpose, blended with intense
conviction, on the traditional materials subjected to it in a
mental atmosphere already deeply charged with foregone
conclusions, evolved more and more, as the actual facts re
ceded into further distance, the mythical halo which has
invested the whole narrative with a supernatural character.
If Jesus were the Messiah, then all the passages of the Old
Testament which had a Messianic import, and all the ex
pectations to which the current interpretations of them had
given rise, must have had their fulfilment in his person
and his life; and this assumption, ever present to the mind
of the evangelists, moulded unconsciously the loose and
fluctuating mass of oral tradition into the form in which
we now possess it, and mingled with it elements that had
their source in the fervid faith of the believing mind. This
is what has been called the mythic theory of Strauss. The
old rationalistic school, including Eichhorn and Paulus and
not wholly excluding Schleiermacher himself, disbelieved
equally with Strauss the possibility of the strictly miracu
lous ; but they attempted by various expedients to explain
it away from a narrative which they accepted in the main
as historical. Strauss saw the futility of this method, and
the violence which it did to the plainest rules of exegesis;
but he attained the same object of accounting for the intro
duction of the miraculous, by carrying down the Gospels
to a later date, and ascribing it to the imperceptible growth
of tradition.
It becomes necessary here, for the sake of the English
reader, to define a little more exactly the idea conveyed by
the word myth, when used in this sense. Heyne was one
of the first who shewed that the myth was a necessary form
of thought in the earlier stages of human development.
While language is yet imperfectly furnished with abstract
terms, and the imaginative are ascendant over the reasoning
faculties, ideas struggling for utterance clothe themselves
in an objective shape and find expression in narrative and
personification. Heyne made a distinction between conscious
and unconscious fiction; and regarded the latter alone as
properly a myth. In this sense a myth has been called the
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spontaneous expression in a historical form of the indwelling
idea of a community. Since Heyne’s time the subject has
been more scientifically developed by George in his essay
on “ Myth and Legend.”* In legend, according to him, there
is always at bottom some fact, however much it may have
been subsequently overgrown by the wild offshoots of the
imagination. A myth, on the contrary, fills up with its own
creations from the first—imagining what must have been—
the absolute vacancy of the past. But in the proper myth,
as in the proper legend, according to this interpretation of
them, whatever fiction they may involve is unconscious, is
unintentional. With the progress of the intellect, however,
and a clearer perception of the distinction between a fact
and an idea, this primeval unconsciousness becomes no
longer possible. Fiction is still practised, but it now justi
fies itself by its intention, that of ineulcating a moral or
enforcing a truth. The literary conscience of antiquity was
much laxer in this respect than our own. The line between
fiction and history was far less distinctly recognized. If a
good end could be served, no hesitation was felt in assum
ing a false name to recommend a work, and in arbitrarily
combining and interpolating the actual facts of history to 1
bring out more effectually the impression intended to be
produced. The centuries preceding and following the birth
of Christ, abounded in works of this description. It was
almost a characteristic of the age. The late F. C. Baur was
the first theologian of standing and authority who ventured
boldly to assert the occurrence of this practice within the
limits of the New Testament, as an element towards the
solution of the complicated question of the relative credi
bility of the evangelists. It was with him an unavoidable
consequence of the conclusions at which he had arrived
respecting the origin and composition of the fourth Gospel.
Indeed his clear and forcible reasonings reduce us to this
dilemma ; we must either admit the authenticity and trust
worthiness of John, in which case the Synoptics fall at once
in value, as shewn to be constantly in error; or else, assum
ing the three first Gospels to exhibit the primitive Pales* Mythus und Saga: Ver such einer wissenschaftlichen Entwickelung dieser
Begriffe und ihrer Verhaltnisses zurn christlichen Glauben. Berlin, 1837..
Legend is an inadequate, and in reference to its etymology, an inaccurate ren
dering of Saga, for which there is no exact equivalent in English.
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15
tinian tradition and John to have used their materials, we
must allow that he has handled them, in many instances
at least, with a freedom that deprives them of all proper
historical character. No third course seems possible. Strauss
has embraced apparently in their whole extent the views of
Baur on this subject. He describes the Johannean Gospel
as another Apocalypse, projecting its images not, like that
of the apostle whose name it has assumed, on the thunder
clouds of the future, but on the quiet wall of the past
(p. 156). He has been compelled, too, under the same in
fluence, to use the word myth in a much wider sense than
that to which it had been restricted by Heyne and George,
including conscious as well as unconscious fiction. In its
application to the evangelical narratives, he considers the
only distinction of importance to lie between the historical
and the ideal, from whatever source the latter may proceed.
“In this new form of the Life of Jesus, I have,” he says,
“ chiefly in pursuance of the indications of Baur, allowed more
scope than formerly to the supposition of conscious and inten
tional fiction; but I have not on that account thought it neces
sary to employ another term. Rather in reply to the question,
whether even the conscious fictions of an individual can properly
be called myths, I must, even after all that has been written on
the subject, still say : by all means, so far as they have found
credence, and passed into the tradition of a people or a religious
party; for this is at the same time a proof that they were fash
ioned by their author not simply at the instance of his particular
fancy, but in harmony with the consciousness of numbers. Every
unhistorical narrative, however it may have arisen, in which a
religious community finds an essential portion of the holy foun
dation on which it rests, inasmuch as it is an absolute expression
of the feelings and conceptions which constitute it what it is, is
a myth ; and if Greek mythology is concerned in separating from
this wider definition of myth, a narrower one which excludes
the idea of conscious fiction, critical, on the other hand, as
contrasted with orthodox theology, has an interest in embracing
under the general conception of myth, all those evangelical nar
ratives to which it assigns a purely ideal significance.”—P. 159.
The mythic principle so understood Strauss applies to
the explanation of the second of the two elements which
we have described as entering into the composition of the
Gospels. The earliest, evangelists preached and wrote to
shew that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ; and the course
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of their argument, with the kind of proofs on which they
chiefly insisted to sustain it, was powerfully influenced by
the conception through which they habitually realized to
themselves the Messianic character and office—whether as
the Son of David, the Son of God or the Incarnate Word.
The devout Jew of that age firmly believed that the Messi
anic era was at hand. His exalted faith threw its own
glowing imagery on the sacred pages of the law and the
prophets; so that wherever he opened them, whether he
lighted on history or poetry or precept, the mystic interpre
tation in which he had been trained, enabled him to discern
some foreshadowing of him that was to come. The Chris
tian had convinced himself that he was already come in
Jesus ; and consequently all those passages of the ancient
Scripture, in which "he had been accustomed to find the
clearest indications of the future deliverer of Israel and
mankind, he assumed without doubting, as God was true,
must have their fulfilment in his person and life. What
men are persuaded they must see, we know as a rule that
they will see, even when present appearances are against
them; but when this enthusiastic conviction operates not
on contemporary facts, but on a continually receding tradi
tion, it inevitably overpowers the objective by the subjec
tive, and envelopes the history of the past in a hazy atmo
sphere of imaginative feeling. Without adopting Strauss’s
theory in all its details, and strongly questioning some of
his assumptions, truth nevertheless compels us to admit,
that of many statements in the Gospels, after thoroughly
analyzing and comparing them, the origin and character are
best explained on the supposition that this mythic principle
was largely concerned in producing them.
This side of the history of Jesus, Strauss has brought out
in a series of mythic groups, in each of which he endeavours
to discover the formative idea which gave birth to it; in
other words, what Messianic assumption has invested the
simple historical nucleus with a character of its own. In
the first of these mythic groups relating to the birth of
Jesus and the communication of his supernatural powers,
three views are clearly traceable which must have origi
nated in different conceptions, and are incapable of perfect
reconcilement with each other, though they are blended to
some extent in our existing Gospels. We have first the
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17
account of the. descent of the Spirit at his baptism, which
is probably the oldest view ; then two narratives, in Mat
thew and in Luke, of his conception by a virgin under
divine influence, which are inconsistent with each other;
and lastly, the doctrine of the word made flesh in John,
who omits the genealogies, and has no allusion to Christ’s
having come into the world in any other than the ordinary
way. His birth at Bethlehem, with the miraculous accom
paniments of the star and the heavenly host, and the adora
tion of the magi and the shepherds,—the murderous jealousy
of Herod, the flight into Egypt, and the presentation in the
Temple,—incidents which it is utterly impossible to weave
together into a self-consistent narrative, and which, strange
and startling as they were, do not appear to have exercised
the slightest effect on thirty ensuing years of tranquil ob
scurity,—we can hardly doubt were assumed to have
occurred, because certain passages referring to the Messi
anic advent in the Old Testament were believed to require
them, and because they were such as antiquity, Jewish and
heathen, constantly associated with the entrance of great
men into the world. Strauss has instituted a parallelism
between the life of Moses and that of Jesus which is to us
novel, and which we think he has somewhat overstrained.
Both, however, were deliverers; both effected the emanci
pation of their people through sore trials and temptations ;
and both, according to the popular belief, ran a risk of
perishing in infancy. This last incident often occurs in
the legendary memorials of the heroes of the world. It is
told of Augustus by his freedman Julius Marathus, in the
broad daylight of Roman civilization, and in an age contem
porary with Christ.
*
The relations of Jesus with the Bap* Suetonius, Octavianus c. 94. It had been announced a few months before
the birth of Augustus, that a citizen of Velitraa (to which his family belonged)
should become the ruler of the world ; whereupon the Senate being alarmed,
issued a decree that no child bom in that year should be reared. We had
marked this passage some time ago as forming a parallel to the story of the
murder of the innocents, and noticed, what Strauss has omitted to mention—
that the language used is identical with that in which Suetonius in another
part of his book, and Tacitus in his History, describe the Messianic expecta
tion of the Jews. The following is the prophecy about Augustus: “ Velitris,
antiquitus tactfl, de coelo parte muri, responsum est, ejus oppidi civern quundoque rerum potiturum.'’ Of the Jewish belief Suetonius thus writes : “Esse
in fatis, ut eo tempore, Judced profecti rerum potirentur” (Vespas. c. 4); and
Tacitus in the very same words: “Profectique Judaa rerum potirentur”
(Hist. v. 13).
B
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tist and with his earliest followers have probably, according
to Strauss, been tinged in the later conceptions of them
with something of a mythic hue. The acknowledgment of
his superiority by the former, could not have been so clear
and decided from the first as is represented ; otherwise the
disciples of the Baptist would not have continued to form
a separate sect, nor would Christ’s own ministry have first
taken independent ground when the Baptist had been
silenced by being cast into prison. With regard to his dis
ciples, Christ is described as summoning them at once, and
the call (to give a greater air of authority to his words) as
having been immediately obeyed. In both cases, probably,
the effect was gradual. The result only is given. What
had preceded it is passed over. The development of these
two relationships—the first with his forerunner, the second
with his followers—forms the subject of two separate mythic
groups in this part of Strauss’s exposition of the life of
Jesus. Less difficulty will generally be felt in accepting
the accounts of the temptation and the transfiguration as
mythical; for few thoughtful theologians of any school can
now for a long time past have seriously treated them as
historical. A conflict with the Evil One is the fundamental
idea pervading the whole ministry of Christ; and a sym
bolical representation of it would form a natural introduc
tion to the history of his public life. So, again, Moses and
Elias had prepared the way for the gospel; and besides the
current belief that the old prophets would reappear in the
days of the Messiah, it was a fitting consecration of the last
and most trying period of his ministry, when death was
awaiting him and all worldly hopes were about to be extin
guished in the blood of the cross, that his great predecessors
should be seen to be associated with him in glory, and that
the voice from heaven should once more be heard pronounc
ing him the Beloved Son. In these transactions we have
two other mythic groups. It is unnecessary to go through
the entire series. We would simply remark, that in those
passages of the life of Jesus which record the exertion of
miraculous power, the theory of the author assumes its
strongest expression and most uncompromising application.
Strauss’s philosophical system precludes his recognizing
the strictly miraculous in any sense. Its utter impossibility
is an assumption which he carries with him ab initio to the
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19
criticism of the evangelical narrative; and it is an assump
tion so deeply rooted in his first principles of belief, that no
accumulation of outward testimony could overcome it, any
more than it could make him accept a logical contradiction.
His theory, therefore, leaves him no alternative but to eli
minate the miraculous from the history as something neces
sarily untrue. He starts from this premiss; and all his
reasonings are in harmony with it. His book is self-con
sistent throughout. With him the phenomenal universe is
an ultimate fact, carrying its cause and principle within
itself. There is nothing, and we can know nothing, beyond
it. He would not, of course, deny that there may hereafter
be an evolution of new and unexpected results from laws
and agencies already in operation; but those laws and
agencies, once clearly ascertained, themselves furnish, in his
view, the limit to any further development of phenomena
that can be conceived. Any power not already contained
in the phenomenal, that could control its course and infuse
a new element of life into the growth of the universe, he
would disown as a gratuitous assumption. His belief, if
we understand him correctly, is limited to the phenomenal
alone, and does not extend to any power extraneous and
antecedent to the phenomenal.
Every theory of the universe must start from some
assumption : the question is, whether the assumption which
admits or that which excludes benevolent intelligence and
righteous will as the root and sustaining principle of the
universe, is most in accordance with the only analogies that
can guide us in a matter so entirely beyond our experience,
and best satisfies the instinctive belief, the spontaneous trust,
the devout yearning which, if the voice of our collective
humanity be not the utterance of a falsehood, must indicate
some corresponding object in reality. It is not our intention
to argue this question with Strauss. It is one too vast and
deep to be discussed within the limits of the present paper,
and belongs in fact rather to philosophy than to theology.
We notice it here only to mark with distinctness the point
where our own views diverge widely from those of the
author, which, though not essential to his historical criticism,
nevertheless underlie it throughout, and give to his conclu
sions the cold and negative character that need not of
necessity belong to them. The religious philosophy implied
B 2
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in this book, which, we again say, should be considered
something apart from its historical criticism, seems to us
essentially pantheistic, and at war with the deepest heart of
the religion of whose history it is the exposition. Take away
the belief in a Living God who can be approached in prayer
and has communion through his omnipresent Spirit with the
human soul; take away the sense of our personal relation to
a Personal God—the child’s sense of kindred with an Ever
lasting Father, which gives the hope of an undying life in
Him ; take away the trust, that the love and the worth and
the beauty which shew themselves in things perishing and
phenomenal, are an influx from an exhaustless Source which
is at once within and beyond them; and what remains that
deserves the name of religion—to carry home the words of
Jesus to the inmost recesses of the heart, or to explain the
power and sanctity of his own life? We feel, therefore, a
much stronger objection to the philosophic theory which pre
vents our author’s admission of the miraculous—that is, of
the intrusion of any power from without into the phenomenal
—than to the historical criticism which shews that in any
particular case the report of the miracle has probably had a
mythic origin. We will even add, that were criticism to suc
ceed in demonstrating that not one miracle recorded in the
New Testament was historically true, with a better religious
philosophy put under that criticism and tempering its re
sults, our faith would receive no shock, and our trust in the
great truths of Christianity would be as strong as ever.
The difficulty that we experience in wholly giving up the
miraculous, is not a religious, but a critical one. Not a few
of the miracles of the New Testament, it is true, may, we
think, not unreasonably be considered as the product of
tradition, interpreting literally the poetic imagery of Isaiah,
*
and assuming that the wonderful works of Elijah and Elisha
must have been repeated by Messiah himself. But allow
ing the utmost for this source of the miraculous, there still
remains so large an amount of extraordinary curative influ
ence, .explicable by no laws at present accessible to us,
interwrought with the inmost substance of the history of
Jesus, that if we attempt to separate it, the very texture of
* “ Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall
be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the
dumb sing.” (Isaiah xxxv. 5, 6.)
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the narrative is destroyed; and if we suppose it altogether
the creation of a pious fancy, so sharp a blow would be
inflicted on the credibility of even the great fundamental
outlines of the history, that we could hardly tell whether
we were dealing with any reality at all. Our faith in
Christ’s word and work does not depend, we are free to
confess, on any alleged miraculous attestation in their favour,
but on our inward experience of their truth and power ; we
should believe in them just as firmly, if it could be proved
that not a single miracle had ever been wrought: but we
wish to save the character of the narrative through which
they are conveyed to us ; and taking our stand on the ear
liest and most authentic Palestinian traditions, which have
probably been preserved to us in Matthew, and partly, per
haps, in Mark,—we have never yet met with any critical
process which could entirely extrude what has at least the
semblance of miracle, and leave eveji the ground-work of a
credible history behind. What the consistent anti-supernaturalist has to shew is this—how he can divest the
person of Jesus of all miraculous influence attaching to it,
and yet leave as large a residuum of positive history as
Strauss himself accepts as the basis of his theory. John the
Baptist was in the first instance as much the object of Mes
sianic expectation as Jesus, and for some time their two
ministries appear to have occupied independent spheres;
yet no traditions of supernatural power have gathered round
the person of the former. We find it difficult, therefore, to
believe that gifts of some extraordinary kind, displayed
chiefly in curative effects, and involving al.^o deep spiri
tual insight, were not possessed by Jesus—a result of the
peculiar organization with which he was originally endowed;
and that these formed, as it were, the punctum saliens of
primitive fact out of which the whole mass of mythic and
legendary amplification naturally grew, as they may at first
have been the providential means of exciting and securing
the attention of some whom more spiritual influences would
not so readily have reached. Obscurity is cast over this sub
ject by the vague meaning attached to the word miraculous.
Scarcely two persons use it in the same sense. No one of
any philosophical culture, whatever his religious theory,
ever supposes God to act without law. Law springs out of
the very nature of mind. The more perfect mind is, the more
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surely it is obedient to law, as the condition of harmonious
and self-consistent action,—involving in its effects all the
difference between a kosmos and a chaos. But it does not,
therefore, follow that the deepest laws of the infinite working
can be seized by a finite intelligence, or are even contained
as yet within the limits of the phenomenal. The idea of
progress and development which the past history of our
planet irresistibly forces on us, implies the continual acces
sion of something new, which, as it transcends the actual,
the actual is not of itself competent to originate. Out of
the vast, unexplored possibilities of the spiritual, which
enfold and pervade and underlie the phenomenal, influences
at times may, and (if the world is to advance) must issue,
which contradict the results of experience, and limit the
universality of laws which a premature generalization had
accepted as final. It is this occasional intrusion of the spi
ritual into the phenomenal, which we suppose people mean
in general to express when they speak of the miraculous.
No doubt the disposition to believe in such intrusion (which
is in itself significant, as forming a part of the natural faith
of the human soul) has led constantly to its gratuitous sup
position, and, in ages when there was no science, assumed
its presence in cases which further inquiry shewed were
resolvable into laws uniformly in operation around us. The
number of such cases, it must be confessed, has been regu
larly on the decrease with the progress of science. Never
theless, after every deduction on this account, phenomena
are still on record, supported by unexceptionable testimony
(testimony, the rejection of which would subvert the foun
dations of all history), and inexplicable by any laws which
science can define, for the solution of which we must go to
something beyond the phenomenal as yet known to us.
Every one at all acquainted with the history of religion, or,
if the reader so pleases, of superstition (for the two histories
are closely interwoven with each other), is well aware how
constantly every fresh outbreak of the religious life, espe
cially after a long suppression in formality and indifference,
has been accompanied by some mysterious and unaccount
able phenomena. Our own generation has witnessed them.
The miracles ascribed to St. Bernard are reported on more
direct testimony than can be alleged for those of the Gos
pels. All such cases we would have subjected to the seve-
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23
rest scrutiny, and left to rest each on its appropriate evidence,
apart from any theory. They will probably be found to
contain a large mixture of delusion and self-deception with
some unaccountable reality at bottom—linking our human
nature, here and there, amid the tangled web of the actual,
with dim, mysterious agencies which are slumbering as yet
in the bosom of the Infinite, and of which only at the rarest
intervals we catch a passing glimpse. This is a subject on
which no man will venture to dogmatize. It is the truest
philosophy to hold the mind in candid and reverent sus
pense. The extreme devotion of the present age to the
physical sciences confines its interest and belief to the
ascertainable and phenomenal, and indisposes it to any
recognition of the vaguer realities of the spiritual. We only
desire to enter our protest against the narrow and one-sided
philosophy which would shut up all possibility within the
limits of law reducible to scientific formulas, and exclude
the great Parent Mind from all direct action on the condi
tion of his human family.
*
The logical rigour with which Strauss carries out the
consequences of his system, and his determination to ex
plain every word and every act which appear to him not
to come within the range of the strictly historical, in ac
cordance with its pervading principle, have blinded him
in some cases to the moral beauty and significance of the
narrative, and the deep spiritual intuitions which, amidst
errors of scriptural interpretation, have filled Christ’s words
with enduring light. His theory binds his faculties as with
a spell, and keeps him intent on exploring the dim traces
of rabbinical refinement and mysticism, when with a mind
* There is a superficial philosophy cun-ent in some quarters, that will probably
treat with derision the conceded possibilities of the foregoing paragraph ; that
accepts without difficulty, by the aid of certain traditional formulas, all the
miracles of the Old and New Testament, as exceptional cases (peculiar and
limited to them) in the order of the world, and yet scouts as weak and irrational
credulity every attempt to reduce such cases to deeper but constant laws, and
bring them into harmony with the facts of universal history. To the consider
ation of such persons, who, to be consistent, should believe more or believe less,
we commend the following wise and seasonable words, ascribed (we have reason
to know, on the best authority) to one of the first mathematicians of the age :
“What I reprobate is, not the wariness which widens and lengthens inquiry,
but the assumption which prevents or narrows it; the imposture theory, which
frequently infers imposture from the assumed impossibility of the phenomena
asserted, and then alleges imposture against the examination of the evidence.”
Preface to a book entitled, “ From Matter to Spirit,” p. xxix.
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more open and erect he could not have failed to bring more
prominently into view that remarkable feature of the gos
pel history—the sympathy, if we may so express it, of its
miraculous elements with the moral life of Christ himself,
glowing with the same warm hues of human tenderness
and love, breathing the same deep tone of devout trust and
aspiration, as if the common and the miraculous of the re
cord grew out of the same spiritual root. This may be no
sufficient proof of the strictly historical character of these
narratives, but it attests at least the intensity of the im
pression under which they were conceived, and shews how
the spirit of Christ had entered into and moulded anew
the minds that consorted with him, and handed down the
living tradition of his personal presence which has taken
shape and consistency in our present Gospels. The pre
dominance of this moral and religious element is the great
distinction of the canonical from the apocryphal Gospels,
and a proof of the fine spiritual tact of the primitive Church
which so clearly separated them.
We shall notice only two instances of what appears to
us a certain logical narrowness in Strauss. In commenting
on the beautiful words about the resurrection, Matt. xxii.
51, 52; Mark xii. 26, 27; and Luke xx. 37, 38 (pp. 259, 260),
he sees no force, as De Wette does, and as we do, in the
inference drawn by Christ from the pregnant expression,
“the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,” clenched by
the sublime universalism peculiar to Luke—iravrse yap avrw
Z&<nv—“ for all live unto him.” We may admit that the exe
gesis adopted by Christ in this passage was a rabbinical one,
and that the words taken by themselves furnish no direct
proof of the doctrine associated with them. But Strauss
himself discerns an evidence of Christ’s greatness in the new
spirit with which he read the old scripture, shewing him
to be a prophet, though no interpreter; and it is surprising
to us that one who can see and acknowledge all this, should
not also feel the depth and force of the spiritual intuition
which perceived at once there could be no death for the
soul in God, and, truer than the ancient words in which it
*
found utterance, was the revelation of an eternal reality to
the world. - The other passage is the story of the raising of
Lazarus. We are constrained by internal and external evi
dence to believe with Strauss that this narrative cannot be
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25
historical We cannot else understand how an event of
such importance, affecting the most intimate friends of
Jesus, could have been so entirely passed over without the
remotest allusion by the Synoptical Gospels. We think
there is great force in Strauss’s reasons for regarding it as
an embodiment in this concrete form of the doctrine, that
the Word is in himself, h avaoraaic, koI f) fah—“the resur
rection and the life.” But in his rigid development of this
idea, and in his anxiety to shew how it has influenced
every part of the narrative, he loses all sense of that ex
quisite tenderness and pathos which would seem to have
so entirely possessed the mind of the evangelist, that in
the glow of composition he forgets the divinity of his sub
ject, and is completely carried away by his human sympa
thies, and in individual expressions falls into dissonance
with his general theme. Strauss, like some other critics,
more logical than his author, is driven to harsh interpre
tations to bring him into harmony with himself. The be
trayal of deep emotion at the grave, conveyed by the words,
ive[ipip.T]ffaTo, trapafcv, f.p.[3pipLpEV0Q (John xi. 34, 38), he un
derstands of the indignation of Jesus at the insensibility of
the bystanders to the greatness and power of the present
Logos. The whole context, however, shews that the writer
meant something very different, and permitting his human
traditions of Christ to overpower for the moment the hypo
thesis of his divinity, has described with uncommon beauty
the struggle in the mind of Jesus with the strength of his na
tural affections. That this is the true rendering of the pas
sage is evident from the subjoined rip Trvsvpan and er lavra,
which qualify the original force of the verb Ipflpipaopat, and
from the single word ISaKpvaEv which furnishes a key to
the whole.
As John has added some things not contained in the
Synoptics, so he has strangely omitted others which are
pre-eminently characteristic of them. There is no curative
effect more constantly recorded in the three first Gospels
than the expulsion of evil spirits, while no instance of it
occurs in the fourth. Strauss’s explanation of this pecu
liarity is at least plausible and entitled to consideration.
Reported cases of this kind were common in that age all
over the world. Josephus and the sophists make frequent
mention of them. And something analogous is said to be
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met with to this day in the East. Strauss thinks that the
great moral power of Jesus, and the reverence which his
presence inspired, might exercise a healing influence on 1
persons liable to the affections that were popularly ascribed
to demoniacal possession. This was in perfect harmony
with the popular persuasion respecting him. We know
there were then regular exorcists by profession both among
the Jews and the heathens. But this class of persons had
already fallen into disrepute at the commencement of the
second century; and Strauss finds an indication of the later
origin of John’s Gospel in the exclusion from its pages of
all cures of this kind, which it would have been no longer
regarded as consistent with the dignity of the incarnate
Word to ascribe to him.
After the foregoing exposition of his theory, it is hardly
necessary to add that Strauss does not believe in the histo
rical fact of the resurrection of the body on the third day,
nor, we fear we must add, in individual immortality. Indi
viduals, like all other phenomena, according to his view of
things, are transient and perishable. Only the primal idea
which evolves and develops itself in and through them, is
eternal. He exposes with great acuteness the complexities
and inconsistencies of the several evangelical narratives, and
shews that they exhibit traces of two perfectly distinct tra
ditions of the appearances of the risen Jesus—one dreamy
and phantom-like, the other, and probably the later, hard
ened into the distincter outlines of corporeal manifestation.
He thinks that the apostles and their associates fled on the
event of the crucifixion into Galilee ; and that hence arose
the tradition that Christ first manifested himself to them
amid the scenes of his early ministry, in fulfilment of his
promise to meet them there. It took more time, in his
opinion, than is allowed by our present Gospels, for the full
growth of the conviction that he had risen from the dead,
had appeared to his first disciples, and was still spiritually
present with his church. The minuter specifications of time
and place and particular appearance—three, eight and forty
days, the Galilean mountain, the walk to Emmaus, the
closed chamber at Jerusalem, the shore of the Sea of Tibe
rias—he considers to be altogether the product of a later
tradition. All idea of resuscitation after an apparent death,
which was a favourite resource of the old rationalists, and
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27
which appears from his posthumous papers to have been
entertained by Schleiermacher himself, is rejected by Strauss
unconditionally, as inconsistent with the best attested facts
of the case. What became of the mortal remains of Jesus
there are no means, he thinks, of our ever knowing. The
belief in the resurrection of Christ he regards with Ewald
as a result of the intense hopes and longings of the disciples,
tradition magnifying dim and uncertain rumours, and the
words of Messianic promise working with a foregone con
clusion on fervid and enthusiastic minds. But this expla
nation does not appear to us, any more than that of Ewald,
sufficient to explain the extraordinary fact in the origin of
the new religion which five words of Tacitus have impressed
in indelible characters on the page of universal history—
repressaque in prcesens—rursus erumpebat. What was the
cause of that wonderful change in the mind of Paul which
made the spiritual world a reality to him ? His own words
imply (1 Cor. xv. 5—8) that the same appearances which
convinced him that Jesus was risen from the dead, had con
vinced others before him. And what was the effect of that
conviction ? It transformed their whole mind and life. The
disciples before and the disciples after the death of Jesus
(an event which might have been expected wholly to crush
the nascent faith, and in the first instance seemed actually
to do so) were completely different men; before, doubting,
timid and carnal; after, bold, confident and spiritual. Nor
was the effect limited to them. Through them, a new light
entered the world, a new hope brightened the horizon of
our planet. Immortality, which had been the floating dream
of a speculative^ few, became the steadfast trust of multi
tudes. The earliest literature and art of the Christians,
their simple hymns and the rude frescoes which adorned
their tombs, touchingly shew how the future beyond the
grave, to which friends and kindred had already passed,
was to them a nearer and more vivid reality than the
troubled and persecuted present in which they lived on
earth. And this has been the animating principle of Chris
tianity throughout its subsequent diffusion over the earth,
marking a new era in the spiritual development of our race,—•
the assurance of a wider and more glorious future for the
immortal soul. The origin of this new conviction we can
trace back to a definite period in past history associated
�28
Strauss’s JVew Work on the Life of Jesus.
with the traditions of Christ. And can we account for it
without the supposition of some fresh infusion from the
spiritual into the phenomenal ? Can that which renovated
the world have grown out of the world? Could death
develop life ? We may never be able to give an objective
precision to our conception of the cause. It is involved in
deepest mystery. But we think Baur was nearer to the
truth than either Ewald or Strauss with all their elaborate
explanations, when of the impression—which transformed
the mind of Paul and of all who with him were engaged in
evangelizing the world,—which linked invisible by a living
bond with visible things, and constituted the firm, immove
able basis of the whole superstructure of the future church
—he declared, as the result of a long life of profound and
fearless inquiry, he did not believe that we should ever by
any psychological analysis be able to give a satisfactory
account. And the deep conviction produced in our mind
by the contemplation of these historical phenomena is this—
that as in relation to the present world the welcome recep
tion of Christ’s spirit and the experience of its happy effects
are an evidence of the eternal truth which flowed in it,—so,
by whatever means it may have been first infused into the
tide of human thought, the firm hold which the doctrine of
immortality has had on the mind of civilized men ever
since the days of the apostles, the response that it has met
with, the uneffaceable mark which it has left on literature,
philosophy and art, and the way in which it has contributed
to harmonize and round, off into a consistent whole, our
conceptions of God and providence and human life,—are
proof conclusive that a doctrine which possesses such en
during vitality and draws its nourishment from the deepest
sources of humanity, can be no other than the voice of God,
and must have its certain counterpart in some invisible
reality.
One satisfaction at least we can derive from this work of
Strauss. It shews us the utmost that we have to fear from
hostile criticism. We now know the worst. Never were the
earliest records of our faith subjected to a more rigorous and
searching scrutiny. Never were the possible elements of
truth and falsehood sifted with a more suspicious and un
sparing hand. The author has done his work with a cold
blooded courage and determination. No lingering affectior
�Strauss's New Work on the Life of Jesus.
29
has blinded the clearness of his intellectual vision. No pre
judice of the heart has hindered him from seeing the bare,
simple fact involved in any dubious narrative. And now—
bating his religious philosophy, which is something quite
extraneous to his historical criticism—what, after all, is the
result ? What great principle of conduct, what consolatory
trust of humanity, is weakened—that would have stood on
a firmer basis and been surrounded with clearer evidence,
had we still continued to take the whole mass of the gospel
history as historical truth, and had no one ever thought of
separating myth and fact? We have still authentic indica
tion of the earliest workings of the greatest moral revolution
that has taken place in the world; and we have glimpses,
so original that they must be true, of the wonderful perso
nality which introduced it, and the more stimulating, the
more spiritually creative, for the very reason that they are
glimpses. We can still trace the first swelling and shooting
forth of the prolific seed which has impregnated the world
with a new life. We feel to this day that we are possessors
of the same deep consciousness and the same aspiring trust
which originated those great changes, and unites us with
them in one unbroken continuity of spiritual life. Now, as
then, it is through the heart and conscience of believing
man that God speaks to our world. As we trace back the
great stream of human thought through the ages to its
source, we observe how it is enriched at a particular point
by a sudden accession of moral and spiritual strength ; and
that alone would prove the intervention of some great in
spiring mind, were the result of modern criticism on ancient
books more destructive than it really is—and would still
have proved it, had those books never existed at all, or been
entirely swept away in the persecution of Diocletian. We
are thankful indeed for their preservation as they are ; but
their chief value to us is the witness which they bear to
the regenerating influence of a spirit which could only
have issued from some great and holy mind, and through
that mind from God himself. Dor the grandest of human
trusts is the presence of a Living God in history, suggesting
the highest thoughts and noblest impulses that animate it,
and guiding them to distant issues, which the very souls
through which they worked, did not anticipate and could
not conceive.
%
�30
Strauss's New Work on the Life of Jesus.
We have remarked in an earlier part of this paper, that
Strauss does not do justice to the resources of his own theory.
It is more conservative than he allows it to be. His philo
sophy has marred the applications of his criticism. He
remarks (p. 624), with a cold desolateness of tone which
sometimes chills the reader in his pages, that the dispersion
of the mythic from a narrative does not restore the historical;
and that we know less of the actual Jesus of Nazareth than
of any great man of antiquity—less, for example, than we
know of Socrates. Even if we confine ourselves to the intel
lectual and objective life, which is all that the criticism of
Strauss here contemplates, this statement is certainly over
done. It is not more difficult to trace the characteristic fea
tures of the man Jesus through the different media by which
it is transmitted to us in the three first Gospels and the
fourth, than it is to form an idea of the peculiar idiosyncrasy
of Socrates from the widely different representations of Xeno
phon and Plato. But if we descend into the deeper life of
the soul, into the region of affection and sympathy, where
the truest evidence of personality is to be found,—then we
say the advantage is altogether on the side of Christ, and
we have proofs of love and reverence and the transforming
influence of a great and genial soul in the diversified con
ceptions of the apostolic tradition, such as the records of
the Socratic school are unable to supply. Even the mythic
may here be said to cumulate the evidence; for it could
only spring from a depth of impression and an intensity of
feeling, going down to the very sources of the moral life,
which the cold admiration of Athenian intellect was impo
tent to produce.
Strauss remarks, that only one side of our humanity is
fully exemplified in the person of Christ—that which con
nects us with God and the religious life; while the indus
trial, the political, the scientific and the artistic elements,
which are so indispensable to the progress of our race, are all
wanting. This is true, no doubt; but he should have added,
that the spiritual element which is so perfectly revealed in
Christ, is essential to the growth of all the rest, and in every
human being of every class and in every age is the source
of inward peace and the principle of a real sanctification of
the life. When, the soul is once placed, as it is by the
spirit of Christ, in a right relation towards God, the great
�Strauss's New Work on the Life of Jesus.
31
conversion of humanity is effected; it is put in the path of
Bhealthful self-development; and the qualities which may
yet be needed to complete the full proportions of our nature,
may be left to arrange themselves organically around this
central germ, through the free working of our collective
faculties guided by the results of experience. In a fine
passage (p. 625), which we have not left ourselves space to
quote, Strauss does ample justice to Christianity, and places
Jesus in the first rank of those who have contributed to
develop the ideal of humanity.
We cannot close this volume, strongly as on some points
we have expressed our dissent, and notwithstanding our pain
ful sense of the serious deficiencies of its religious philosophy,
without a strong feeling of respect for the author, not only
for his learning and ability, which none will dispute, but
also for his courage and truthfulness, his moral earnestness,
and his general candour towards those who are opposed to
him. With all its faults and extravagances, for no theory
finds its true limits all at once, his book will leave its per
manent mark on the theology of the future. It has fixed
one or two points in advance, from which it will henceforth
be impossible to go back. What we have most to complain
of is a certain one-sidedness, which the author no doubt
identifies with completeness and consequentiality. On all
points he makes it too much an absolute question of Yes
or No. He therefore shews on all occasions far more tole
ration for the old thorough-going orthodox than for those
who, cautiously feeling their way towards a wider truth,
stop short of the sweeping results at which he has himself
arrived. Our own modification of his theory would doubt
less bring us under the censure which he pronounces on all
who seek their rest in a juste milieu. We can only say we
have striven to imitate him, where he is most worthy of
imitation—in his love of truth—by giving utterance simply
and without reserve to the conviction that has been produced
in us by the perusal of his book, and by some previous
years of thought and study on the same subject. For the
rest, we regard with no slight suspicion all violent disruption
from the faith and hope which have guided and consoled
the best and wisest of our race through long thousands of
years; and we have yet to learn that truth must always
be sought in one of two contradictory extremes.
��
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Strauss's new work on the life of Jesus
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Taylor, John James
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Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 31 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: A review in English by John James Taylor of David Friedrich Strauss's work 'Das Leben Jesu, fur das deutsche Volk bearbeitet; Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1864. Inscription in ink on front page: With the respect of J.J.T. Includes bibliographical references. Reprinted from Theological Review 1:335-365, July 1864. Author not named in the review. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Title of the book translated: 'The Life of Jesus, adapted to the German People'.
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Conway Tracts
David Friedrich Strauss
Jesus Christ-Historicity
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Text
THE LAST WORD ABOUT JESUS.
BY JOHN
FISKE.
THE JESUS OF HISTORY*
StW Jill the great founders of religions, Jesus is at once the best
.1 1 known and the least known to the modern scholar. From
/ the dogmatic point of view he is the best known, from the
historic point of view he is the least known. The Jesus of
dogma is in every lineament familiar to us from early childhood ; but
concerning the Jesus of history we possess but few facts resting upon
trustworthy evidence ; and in order to form a picture of him at once
consistent, probable, and distinct in its outlines, it is necessary to enter
upon a long and difficult investigation, in the course of which some of
the most delicate apparatus of modern criticism will not fail to be re
quired. This circumstance is sufficiently singular to require especial
*
explanation. The case of Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, which
may perhaps be cited as parallel, is in reality wholly different. Not
only did Sakyamuni live five centuries earlier than Jesus, among a
people that have at no time possessed the art of insuring authenticity
in their records of events, and at an era which is at best but dimly dis
cerned through the mists of fable and legend, but the work which be
achieved lies wholly out of the course of European history, and it is
only in recent times that his career has presented itself to us as a
problem needing to be solved. Jesus, on the other hand, appeared in
an age which is familiarly and in many respects minutely known to us,
and among a people whose fortunes we can trace with historic certainty
for at least seven1 centuries previous to his birth ; while his life and
achievements have probably had a larger share in directing the entire
subsequent intellectual and moral development of Europe than those
of any other man who has ever lived. Nevertheless, the details of his
personal career are shrouded in an obscurity almost as dense as that
which envelops the life of the remote founder of Buddhism.
* The Jesus of History (Anonymous). 8vo, pp. 426. London : Williams &
Norgate, 1869. New York : Scribner, Welford & Co.
Vie De Jesus, par Ernest Renan. Paris, 1867. (Thirteenth edition, revised and
partly rewritten.)
�10
THE
J ES US
OF
HISTORY.
This phenomenon, however, appears less strange and paradoxical
when we come to examine it more closely. A little reflection will dis
close to us several good reasons why the historical records of the life of
Jesus should be so scanty as they are. In the first place, the activity
of Jesus was private rather than public. Confined within exceedingly
narrow limits, both of space and of duration, it made no impression
whatever upon the politics or the literature of the time. His name
does not occur in the pages of any contemporary writer, Roman. Greek,
or Jewish. Doubtless the case would have been wholly different, had
he, like Mohammed, lived to a ripe age, and had the exigencies of his
peculiar position as the Messiah of the Jewish people brought him into
relations with the empire; though whether, in such case, the success
of his grand undertaking would have been as complete as it has
actually been, may well be doubted.
Secondly, Jesus did not, like Mohammed and Paul, leave behind
him authentic writings which might serve to throw light upon his
mental development as well as upon the external facts of his career.
Without the Koran and the four genuine Epistles of Paul, we should
be nearly as much in the dark concerning these great men as we now
are concerning the historical Jesus. We should be compelled to rely,
in the one case, upon the untrustworthy gossip of Mussulman chron
iclers, and in the other case upon the garbled statements.of the “ Acts
of the Apostles,” a book written with a distinct dogmatic pui
p
*ose,
sixty or seventy years after the occurrence of the events which it pro
fesses to record.
It is true, many of the words of Jesus, preserved by hearsay tradi
tion through the generation immediately succeeding his death, have
come down to us, probably with little alteration, in the pages of the
three earlier evangelists. These are priceless data, since, as we shall
see, they are almost the only materials at our command for forming
even a partial conception of the character of Jesus’ work. .Neverthe
less, even here the cautious inquirer has only too often to pause in face
of the difficulty of distinguishing the authentic utterances ’of the great
teacher from the later interpolations suggested by the dogmatic neces
sities of the narrators. Bitterly must the historian regret that Jesus
had no philosophic disciple, like Xenophon, to record his Memorabilia.
Of the various writings included in the New Testament, the Apocalypse
alone (and possibly the Epistle of Jude), is from the pen of a personal
acquaintance of Jesus; and besides this, the four epistles of Paul, to
the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans, make up the sum of the
writings from which we may demand contemporary testimony. Yet
from these we obtain absolutely nothing of that for which we are
seeking. The brief writings of Paul are occupied exclusively with the
internal significance of Jesus’ work. The epistle of Jude—if it be
really written by Jesus’ brother of that name, which is doubtful—is
solely a polemic directed against the innovations of Paul. And the
�THE
JESUS
OF
HISTORY.
11
Apocalypse, the work of the fiery and imaginative disciple John, is con
fined to a prophetic description of the Messiah’s anticipated return, and
tells us nothing concerning the deeds of that Messiah while on the earth.
Here we touch upon our third consideration,—the consideration
which best enables us to see why the historic notices of Jesus are so
meagre. Rightly considered, the statement with which we opened this
article is its own explanation. The Jesus of history is so little known,
just because the Jesus of dogma is so well known. Other teachers—
Paul, Mohammed, Sakyamuni—have come merely as preachers of
righteousness, speaking in the name of general principles with which
their own personalities were not directly implicated. But Jesus, as we
shall see, before, the close of his life, proclaimed himself to be some
thing more than a preacher of righteousness. He announced himself—
and justly, from his own point of view—as the long-expected Messiah
sent by Jehovah to liberate the Jewish race. Thus the success of his
religious teachings became at once implicated with the question of his
personal nature and character. After the sudden and violent termina
tion of his career, it immediately became all-important with his fol
lowers to prove that he was really the Messiah, and to insist upon the
certainty of his speedy return to the earth. Thus the first generation
of disciples dogmatized about him, instead of narrating his life—a task
which to them would have seemed of little profit. For them the allabsorbing object of contemplation was the immediate future rather than
the immediate past. As all the earlier Christian literature informs us,
for nearly a century after the death of Jesus, his followers lived in daily
anticipation of his triumphant return to the earth. The end of all
things being so near-at hand, no attempt was made to ensure accurate
and complete memoirs for the use of a posterity which was destined, in
Christian imagination, never to arrive. The first Christians wrote but
little ; even Papias, at the end of a century, preferring second-hand or
third-hand oral tradition to the written gospels which were then be
ginning to come into circulation. Memoirs of the life and teachings
of Jesus were called forth by the necessity of having a written stan
dard of doctrine to which to appeal amid the growing differences of
opinion which disturbed the Church. Thus the earlier gospels exhibit,
though in different degrees, the indications of a modifying, sometimes
of an overruling dogmatic purpose. There is, indeed, no conscious
violation of historic truth, but from the varied mass of material sup
plied by tradition, such incidents are selected as are fit to support the
views of the writers concerning the personality of Jesus. Accordingly,
while the early gospels throw a strong light upon the state of Christian
opinion at the dates when they were successively composed, the infor
mation which they give concerning Jesus himself is, for that very
reason, often vague, uncritical, and contradictory. Still more is this
true of the fourth gospel, written late in the second century, in which
historic tradition is moulded in the interests of dogma until it becomes
�12
THE
JESUS
OF HISTORY.
no longer recognizable, and in the place of the human Messiah of the
earlier accounts, we have a semi-divine Logos or zEon, detached from
God and incarnate for a brief season in the likeness of man.
Not only was history subordinated to dogma by the writers of the
gospel-narratives, but in the minds of the Fathers of the Church who
assisted in determining what writings should be considered canonical,
dogmatic prepossession went very much further than critical acumen.
Nor is this strange when we reflect that critical discrimination in
questions of literary authenticity is one of the latest acquisitions of the
cultivated human mind. In the early ages of the Church, the evidence
of the genuineness of any literary production was never weighed critic
ally ; writings containing doctrines acceptable to the majority of Chris
tians, were quoted as authoritative, while writings which supplied no
dogmatic want were overlooked, or perhaps condemned as apocryphal.
A striking instance of this is furnished by the fortunes of the Apoca
lypse. Although perhaps the best authenticated work in the New
Testament collection, its millenarian doctrines caused it to become
unpopular as the Church gradually ceased to look for the speedy return
of the Messiah, and, accordingly, as the canon assumed a definite
shape, it was placed among the “ Antilegomena,” or doubtful books,
and continued to hold a precarious position until after the time of the
Protestant Reformation. On the other hand, the fourth gospel, which
was quite unknown and probably did not exist at the time of the
Quartodeciman controversy (A. D. 168), was accepted with little hesi
tation, and at the beginning of the third century is mentioned by
Irenapus, Clement, and Tertullian, as the work of the Apostle John.
To this uncritical spirit, leading to the neglect of such books as failed
to answer the dogmatic requirements of the Church, may probably be
attributed the loss of so many of the earlier gospels. It is doubtless
for this reason that we do not possess the Aramaean original of the
“Logia” of Matthew, or the “Memorabilia” of Mark, the companion
of Peter,—two works to which Papias (A. D. 120) alludes as containing
authentic reports of the utterances of Jesus.
These considerations will, we believe, sufficiently explain the curious
circumstance that, while we know the Jesus of dogma so intimately,
we know the Jesus of history so slightly. The literature of early
Christianity enables us to trace with tolerable completeness the
progress of opinion concerning the nature of Jesus, from the time of
Paul’s early missions to the time of the Nicene Council; but upon the
actual words and deeds of Jesus it throws a very unsteady light. The
dogmatic purpose everywhere obscures the historic basis.
This same dogmatic prepossession which has rendered the data for
a biography of Jesus so scanty and untrustworthy, has also until com
paratively recent times prevented any unbiased critical examination of
such data as we actually possess. Previous to the eighteenth century
any attempt to deal with the life of Jesus upon purely historical
�TSE JESUS
OE BISTORT.
13
methods would have been not only contemned as irrational, but stig
matized as impious. And even in the eighteenth century, those
writers who had become wholly emancipated from ecclesiastic tradition
were so destitute of all historic sympathy and so unskilled in scientific
methods of criticism, that they utterly failed to comprehend the re
quirements of the problem. Their aims were in the main polemic, not
historical. They thought more of overthrowing current dogmas than
of impartially examining the earliest Christian literature with a view of
eliciting its historic contents; and, accordingly, they accomplished but
little. Two brilliant exceptions must, however, be noticed. Spinoza,
in the seventeenth century, and Lessing, in the eighteenth, were men
far in advance of their age. They are the fathers of modern historical
criticism; and to Lessing in particular, with his enormous erudition
and incomparable sagacity, belongs the honor of initiating that method
of inquiry which, in the hands of the so-called Tübingen School, has
led to such striking and valuable conclusions concerning the age and
character of all the New Testament Literature. But it was long
before any one could be found fit to bend the bow which Lessing and
Spinoza had wielded. A succession of able scholars—Semler, Eich
horn, Paulus, Schleiermacher, Bretschneider, and De Wette,—were re
quired to examine, with German patience and accuracy, the details of
the subject, and to propound various untenable hypotheses, before such
a work could be performed as that of Strauss. The “ Life of Jesus,”
published by Strauss when only twenty-six years of age, is one of the
monumental works of the nineteenth century, worthy to rank, as a
historical effort, along with Niebuhr’s “ History of Rome,” Wolf’s
“ Prolegomena,” or Bentley’s “ Dissertations on Phalaris.” It instantly
superseded and rendered antiquated everything which had preceded it;
nor has any work on early Christianity been written in Germany for
the past thirty years which has not been dominated by the recollection
of that marvelous book. Nevertheless, the labors of another genera
tion of scholars have carried our knowledge of the New Testament
literature far beyond the point which it had reached when Strauss first
wrote. At that time the dates of but few of the New Testament
writings had been fixed with any approach to certainty; the age and
character of the fourth gospel, the genuineness of the Pauline epistles,
even the mutual relations of the three Synoptics, were still undeter
mined ; and, as a natural result of this uncertainty, the progress of
dogma during the first century was ill understood. At the present day
it is impossible to read the early work of Strauss without being im
pressed with the necessity of obtaining positive data as to the origin
and dogmatic character of the New Testament writings, before at
tempting to reach any conclusions as to the probable career of Jesus.
These positive data we owe to the genius and diligence of the Tübingen
School, and, above all, to its founder, Ferdinand Christian Baur. Be
ginning with the epistles of Paul, of which he distinguished four as
�14
THE JESUS
OE HISTORY.
genuine, Baur gradually worked his way through the entire New
Testament collection, detecting—with that inspired insight which only
unflinching diligence can impart to original genius—the age at which
each book was written, and the circumstances which called it forth.
To give any account of Baur’s detailed conclusions, or of the method
by which he reached them, would require a volume. They are very
scantily presented in Mr. Mackay’s work on the “ Tübingen School and
its Antecedents,” to which we may refer the reader desirous of further
information. We can here merely say that twenty years of energetic
controversy have only served to establish nearly all Baur’s leading
conclusions more firmly than ever. The priority of the so-called
gospel of Matthew, the Pauline purpose of “ Luke,” the second in date
of our gospels, the derivative and second-hand character of “ Mark,”
and the unapostolic origin of the fourth gospel, are points which may
for the future be regarded as completely established by circumstantial
evidence. So with respect to the pseudo-Pauline epistles, Baur’s work
was done so thoroughly that the only question still left open for much
discussion is that concerning the date and authorship of the first
and second “ Thessalonians,”—a point of quite inferior importance, so
far as our present subject is concerned. Seldom have such vast results
been achieved by the labor of a single scholar. Seldom has any
historical critic possessed such a combination of analytic and of co
ordinating powers as Baur. His keen criticism and his wonderful
flashes of insight, exercise upon the reader a truly poetic effect like
that which is felt in contemplating the marvels of physical discovery.
The comprehensive labors of Baur were followed up by Zeller’s able
work on the “ Acts of the Apostles,” in which that book was shown
to have been partly founded upon documents written by Luke, or
some other companion of Paul, and expanded and modified by a
much later writer with the purpose of covering up the traces of the
early schism between the Pauline and the Petrine sections of the
Church. Along with this, Schwegler’s work on the “ Post-Apostolic
Times ” deserves mention as clearing up many obscure points relating
to the early development of dogma. Finally,- the “New Life of Jesus,”
by Strauss, adopting and utilizing the principal discoveries of Baur
and his followers, and combining all into one grand historical pic
ture, worthily completes the task which the earlier work of the same
author had inaugurated.
The reader will have noticed that, with the exception of Spinoza,
every one of the names- above cited in connection with the literary
analysis and criticism of the New Testament is the name of a German.
Until xvithin the last decade, Germany has indeed possessed almost an
absolute monopoly of the science of Biblical criticism ; other countries
having remained not only unfamiliar with its methods, but even grossly
ignorant of its conspicuous results, save when some German treatise of
more than ordinary popularity has now and then been translated.
�THE
JESTS
<iE HISTORY.
15
But during the past ten years France has entered the lists ; and the
writings of Reville, Reuss, Nicolas, D’Eichthal, Scherer, and Colarie
testify to the rapidity with which the German seed has fructified upon
her soil.
None of these books, however, have achieved such wide-spread
celebrity, or done so much toward interesting the general public in this
class of historical inquiries, as the “ Life of Jesus,” by Renan. This
pre-eminence of fame is partly, but not wholly, deserved. From a
•purely literary point of view, Renan’s work doubtless merits all the
celebrity it has gained. Its author writes a style such as is perhaps
equaled by that of no other living Frenchman. It is by far the most
readable book which has ever been written concerning the life of Jesus.
And no doubt some of its popularity is due to its very faults, which,
from a critical point of view, are neither few nor small. • For Renan is
certainly very faulty, as a historical critic, when he practically ignores
the extreme meagreness of our positive knowledge of the career of
Jesus, and describes scene after scene in his life as minutely and with
as much confidence as if he had himself been present to witness it all.
Again and again the critical reader feels prompted to ask, How do you
know all this ? or why, out of two or three conflicting accounts, do you
quietly adopt some particular one, as if its superior authority were
self-evident ? But in the eye of the uncritical reader, these defects are
excellences ; for it is unpleasant to be kept in ignorance when we are
seeking after definite knowledge, and it is disheartening to read page
after page of an elaborate discussion which ends in convincing us that
.definite knowledge cannot be gained.
In the thirteenth edition of the “Vie de Jesus,” Renan has cor
rected some of the most striking errors of the original work, and in
particular has, with praiseworthy candor, abandoned, his untenable
position with regard to the age and character of the fourth gospel. As
is well known, Renan, in his earlier editions, ascribed to this gospel a
historical value superior to that of the synoptics, believing it to have
been written by an eye-witness of the events which it relates; and
from this source, accordingly, he drew the larger share of his mate
rials. Now, if there is any one conclusion concerning the New Testa
ment literature which must be regarded as incontrovertibly established
by the labors of a whole generation of scholars, it is this, that the
fourth gospel was utterly unknown until about A. D. 170, that it was
written by some one who possessed very little direct knowledge of
Palestine, that its purpose was rather to expound a dogma than to give
an accurate record of events, and that as a guide to the comprehension
of the career of Jesus it is of far less value than the three synoptic
gospels. It is impossible, in a brief review like the present, to epito
mize the evidence upon which this conclusion rests, which may more
profitably be sought in the Rev. J. J. Tayleris work on “ The Fourth
Gospel,” or in Davidson s “ Introduction to the New Testament.” It
�16
THE
JESUS
OF HISTORY.
must suffice to mention that this gospel is not cited by Papias; that
Justin, Marcion, and Valentinus make no allusion to it, though, since
it furnishes so much that is germane to their views, they would gladly
have appealed to it, had it been in existence, when those view's were as
yet questionable ; and that, finally, in the great quartodeciman contro
versy, A. D. 168, the gospel is not only not mentioned, but the authority
of John is cited by Polycarp in flat contradiction of the view after
wards taken by this evangelist. Still more, the assumption of Renan
led at once into complicated difficulties with reference to the Apoca
lypse. The fourth gospel, if it does not unmistakably announce itself
as the work of John, at least professes to be Johannine; and it cannot
for a moment be supposed that such a book, making such claims, could
have gained currency during John’s lifetime without calling forth his
indignant protest. For, in reality, no book in the New Testament col
lection would so completely have shocked the prejudices of the Johan
nine party. John’s own views are well known to us from the Apoca
lypse. John was the most enthusiastic of millenarians and the most
narrow and rigid of Judaizers. In his antagonism to the Pauline
innovations he went farther than Peter himself. Intense hatred of
Paul and his followers appears in several passages of the Apocalypse,
where they are stigmatized as “ Nicolai tans,” “ deceivers of the people,”
“ those who say they are apostles and and are not,” “ eaters of meat
offered to idols,” “ fornicators,” “pretended Jews,” “ liars,” “ synagogue
of Satan,” etc. (Chap. II.) On the other hand, the fourth gospel con
tains nothing millenarian or Judaical; it carries Pauline universalism
to a far greater extent than Paul himself ventured to carry it, even
condemning the Jews as children of darkness, and by implication con
trasting them unfavorably with the Gentiles ; and it contains a theory
of the nature of Jesus which the Ebionitish Christians, to whom John
belonged, rejected to the last.
In his present edition Renan admits the insuperable force of these
objections, and abandons his theory of the apostolic origin of the fourth
gospel. And as this has necessitated the omission or alteration of all
such passages as rested upon the authority of that gospel, the book is
to a considerable extent rewritten, and the changes are such as greatly
to increase its value as a history of Jesus. Nevertheless, the author
has so long been in the habit of shaping his conceptions of the career
of Jesus by the aid of the fourth gospel, that it has become very diffi
cult for him to pass freely to another point of view. He still clings to
the hypothesis that there is an element of historic tradition contained
in the book, drawn from memorial writings which had perhaps been
handed down from John, and which were inaccessible to the synoptists.
In a very interesting appendix, he collects the evidence in favor of this
hypothesis, which indeed is not without plausibility, since there is
*
every reason for supposing that the gospel was written at Ephesus,
which a century before had been John’s place of residence. But even
�THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
17
granting most of Renan’s assumptions, it must still follow that the
authority of this gospel is far inferior to that of the synoptics, and can
in no case be very confidently appealed to.“ The question is one of the
first importance to the historian of early Christianity. In inquiring
into the life of Jesus, the very first thing to do is to establish firmly in
the mind the true relations of the fourth gospel to the first three.
Until this has been done, no one is competent to write on the subject ;
and it is because he has done this so imperfectly that Renan’s work is,
from a critical point of view, so imperfectly successful.
The anonymous work entitled “ The Jesus of History,” which we
have placed at the head of this article, is in every respect noteworthy
as the first systematic attempt made in England to follow in the foot
steps of German criticism in writing a life of Jesus. We know of no
good reason why the book should be published anonymously ; for as a
historical essay it possesses extraordinary merit, and does great credit
not only to its author, but to English scholarship and acumen. It is
not, indeed, a book calculated to captivate the imagination of the read
ing public. Though written in a clear, forcible, and often elegant style,
it possesses no such wonderful rhetorical charm as the work of Renan ;
and it will probably never find half-a-dozen readers where the “ Vie de
Jésus ” has found a hundred. But the success of a book of this sort
is not to be measured by its rhetorical excellence, or by its adaptation
to the literary tastes of an uncritical and uninstructed public, but
rather by the amount of critical sagacity which it brings to bear upon
the elucidation of the many difficult and disputed points in the subject
of which it treats. Measured by this standard, the “ Jesus of History”
must rank very high indeed. To say that it throws more light upon
the career of Jesus than any work which has ever before been written
in English would be very inadequate praise, since the English language
has been singularly deficient in this branch of historical literature.We shall convey a more just idea of its merits if we say that it will
bear comparison with anything which even Germany has produced,
save only the works of Strauss, Baur, and Zeller.
The fitness of our author for the task which he has undertaken is
shown at the outset by his choice of materials. In basing his con
clusions almost exclusively upon the statements contained in the first
gospel, he is upheld by every sound principle of criticism. The times
and places at which our three synoptic gospels were written have been,
through the labors of the Tiibingen critics, determined almost to a
certainty. Of the three, “ Mark ” is unquestionably the latest ; with
the exception of about twenty verses, it is entirely made up from
“ Matthew ” and “ Luke,” the diverse Petrine and Pauline tendencies
of which it strives to neutralize in conformity to the conciliatory dis
position of the Church at Rome, at the epoch at which this gospel
was written, about A. D. 130. Thé third gospel was âlsp written at
Rome, some fifteen years earlier. In the preface, its author describes
�18
THE
JEEUE
OE HIE To RY.
it as a compilation from previously existing written materials. Among
these materials was certainly the first gospel, several passages of which
are adopted word for word by the author of “ Luke.” Yet the narra
tive varies materially from that of the first gospel in many essential
points. The arrangement of events is less natural, and, as in the
“ Acts of the Apostles ” by the same author, there is apparent through
out the design of suppressing the old discord between Paul and the
Judaizing disciples, and of representing Christianity as essentially
Pauline from the outset. How far Paul was correct in his interpreta
tion of the teachings of Jesus, it is difficult to decide. It is, no doubt,
possible that the first gospel may have lent to the words of Jesus an
Ebionite coloring in some instances,' and that now and then the third
gospel may present us with a truer account. To this supremely im
portant point we shall by and by return. For the present it must
suffice to observe that the evidences of an overruling dogmatic pur
pose are generally much more conspicuous in the third synoptist than
in the first; and that the very loose manner in which this writer has
handled his materials in the “Acts” is not calculated to inspire us
with confidence in the historical accuracy of his gospel. The writer
who, in spite of the direct testimony of Paul himself, could represent
the apostle to the Gentiles as acting under the direction of the dis
ciples at Jerusalem, and who puts Pauline sentiments into the mouth
of Peter, would certainly have been capable of unwarrantably giving
a Pauline turn to the teachings of Jesus himself. We are therefore,
as a last resort, brought back to the first gospel, which we find to
possess, as a historical narrative, far stronger claims upon our attention
than the second and third. In all probability it had assumed nearly
its present shape before A. I). 100; its origin is unmistakably Pales
tinian ; it betrays comparatively few indications of dogmatic purpose;
and there are strong reasons for believing that the speeches of Jesus
recorded in it are in substance taken from the genuine “ Logia ” of
Matthew mentioned by Papias, which must have been written as early
as A. D. 60-70, before the destruction of Jerusalem. Indeed, we are
inclined to agree with our author that the gospel, even in its present
shape (save only a few interpolated passages), may have existed as
early as A. D. 80, since it places the time of Jesus’ second coming
immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem; whereas the third
evangelist, who wrote forty-five years after that event, is careful to tell
us, “ The end is not immediately.” Moreover, it must have been
written while the Paulo-Petrine controversy was still raging, as is
shown by the parable of the “ enemy who sowed the tares,” which
manifestly refers to Paul, and also by the allusions to “ false prophets,”
(vii. 15,) to those who say, “ Lord, Lord,” and who “ cast out demons
in the name of the Lord,” (vii. 21-23,) teaching men to break the
commandinents, (v. 17-20.) There is, therefore, good reason for be
lieving that we have here a narrative written not much more than fifty
�THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
19
years after the death of Jesus, based partly upon the written memorials
of an apostle, and in the main trustworthy, save where it relates oc
currences of a marvelous and legendary character. Such is our
author’s conclusion, and in describing the career of the Jesus of his
tory, he relies almost exclusively upon the statements contained in the
first gospel. Let us now, after this long but inadequate introduction,
give a brief sketch of the life of Jesus, as it is to be found in our
author.
II.
Concerning the time and place of the birth of Jesus, we know next
to nothing. According to uniform tradition, based upon a statement
of the third gospel, he was about thirty years of age at the time when
he began teaching. The same gospel states, with elaborate precision,
that the public career of John the Baptist began in the fifteenth year
of Tiberius, or A. D. 28. In the winter of A. D. 35-36, Pontius Pilate
was recalled from Judaea, so that the crucifixion could not have taken
place later than in the spring of 35. Thus we have a period of about
six years during which the ministry of Jesus must have begun and
ended; and if the tradition with respect to his age be trustworthy, we
shall not be far out of the way in supposing him to have been born
somewhere between B. C. 5 and A. D. 5. He is everywhere alluded to
in the gospels as Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee, where lived also his
father, mother, brothers and sisters, and where very likely he was born.
His parents’ names are said to have been Joseph and Mary. His own
name is a Hellenized form of Joshua, a name very common among the
Jews. According to the first gospel (xiii. 55), he had four brothers,—
Joseph and Simon; James, who was afterward^
one
**
of the heads of
the church at Jerusalem, and the most formidable enemy of Paul; and
Judas or Jude, who is perhaps the author of the anti-Pauline epistle
commonly ascribed to him.
Of the early youth of Jesus, and of the circumstances which guided
his intellectual development, we know absolutely nothing, nor have we
the data requisite for forming any plausible hypothesis. He first
appears in history about A. D. 29 or 30, in connection with a very
remarkable person whom the third evangelist describes as his cousin,
and who seems, from his mode of life, to have been in some way con
nected with or influenced by the Hellenizing sect of Essenes. Here
we obtain our first clue to guide us in forming a consecutive theory of
the development of Jesus’ opinions. The sect of Essenes took its rise
in the times of the Maccabees, about B. C. 170. Upon the funda
mental doctrines of Judaism it had engrafted many Pythagorean
notions, and was doubtless in the time of Jesus instrumental in
spreading Greek ideas among the people of Galilee, whei^ Judaism
was far from being so narrow and rigid as at Jerusalem. The Essenes
�20
THE
JESUS
OF HISTORY.
•attached but little importance to the Messianic expectations of the
Pharisees, and mingled scarcely at all in national politics. They lived
for the most part a strictly ascetic life, being indeed the legitimate pre
decessors of the early Christian hermits and monks. But while pre
eminent for sanctity of life, they heaped ridicule upon the entire
sacrificial service of the Temple, despised the Pharisees as hypocrites,
and insisted upon charity toward all men instead of the old. Jewish
exclusiveness.
It was once a favorite theory that both John the Baptist and Jesus
were members of the Essenian brotherhood; but that theory is now
generally abandoned. Whatever may have been the case with John,
who is said to have lived like an anchorite in the desert, there seems to
have been but little practical Essenism in Jesus, who is almost uni
formly represented as cheerful and social in demeanor, and against
whom it was expressly urged that he came eating and drinking, making
no pretence of puritanical holiness. He was neither a puritan, like the
Essence, nor a ritualist, like the Pharisees. Besides-which, both John
and Jesus seem to have begun their careers by preaching the un-Essene
doctrine of the speedy advent of the “ kingdom of heaven,” by which is
meant the reign of the Messiah upon the earth. Nevertheless, though
we cannot regard Jesus as actually a member of the Essenian commu
nity or sect, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that he, as well as
John the Baptist, had been at some time strongly influenced by Es
senian doctrines. The spiritualized conception of the “kingdom of
heaven” proclaimed by him was just what would naturally and logi
cally arise from a remodeling of the Messianic theories of the Phar
isees in conformity to advanced Essenian notions. It seems highly
probable that some such refined conception of the functions of the
Messiah was reached by John, who, stigmatizing the Pharisees and
Sadducees as a “generation of vipers,” called aloud to the people to re
pent of their sins, in view of the speedy advent of the Messiah, and to
testify to their repentance by submitting to the Essenian rite of bap
tism. There is no positive evidence that Jesus was ever a disciple of
John; yet the account of the baptism, in spite of the legendary char
acter of its details, seems to rest upon a historical basis; and perhaps
the most plausible hypothesis which can be framed is, that Jesus re
ceived baptism at John’s hands, became for awhile his disciple, and
acquired from him a knowledge of Essenian doctrines.
The career of John seems to have been very brief. His stern puritanism brought him soon into disgrace with the government of Galilee.
He was seized by Herod, thrown into prison, and beheaded. After the
brief hints given as to the intercourse between Jesus and John, we next
hear of Jesus alone in the desert, where, like Sakyamuni and Moham
med, he may have brooded in solitude over his great project. Yet we
do not find that he had as yet formed any distinct conception of his
own Messiahship. The total neglect of chronology by our authorities
�THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
21
renders it impossible to trace the development of his thoughts step by
step; but for some time after John’s catastrophe we find him calling
upon the people to repent, in view of the speedy approach of the Mes
siah, speaking with great and commanding personal authority, but
using no language which would indicate that he was striving to do
more than worthily fill the place and add to the good work of his late
master. The Sermon on the Mount, which the first gospel inserts in
this place, was probably never spoken as a continuous discourse; but it
no doubt for the most part contains the very words of Jesus, and repre
sents the general spirit of his teaching during this earlier portion of
his career. In this is contained nearly all that has made Christianity
so powerful in the domain of ethics. If all the rest of the gospel were
taken away, or destroyed in the night of some future barbarian inva
sion, we should still here possess the secret of the wonderful impression
which Jesus made upon those who heard him speak. Added to the
Essenian scorn of Pharisaic formalism, and the spiritualized conception
of the Messianic kingdom, which Jesus may probably have shared with
John the Baptist, we have here for the first time the distinctively
Christian conception of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of
men, which ultimately insured the success of the new religion. The
special point of originality in Jesus was his conception of Deity. As
Strauss well says, “ he conceived of God, in a moral point of view, as
being identical in character with himself in the most exalted moments
of his religious life, and strengthened in turn his own religious life by
this ideal. But the most exalted religious tendency in his own con
sciousness was exactly that comprehensive love, overpowering the evil
only by the good, and which he therefore transferred to God as the
fundamental tendency of His nature.” From this conception of God,
observes Zeller, flowed naturally all the moral teaching of Jesus; the
insistance upon spiritual righteousness instead of the mere mechanical
observance of Mosaic precepts; the call to be perfect even as the Father
is perfect; the principle of the spiritual equality of men before God and
the equal duties of all men toward each other.
How far, in addition to these vitally important lessons, Jesus may
have taught doctrines of an ephemeral or visionary character, it is very
difficult to decide. We are inclined to regard the third gospel as of
some importance in settling this point. The author of that gospel rep
resents Jesus as decidedly hostile to the rich. Where Matthew has
“ Blessed are the. poor in spirit,” Luke has “ Blessed are ye poor.” In
the first gospel we read, “ Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for they will be filled; ” but in the third gospel we find,
“ Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye will be filled; ” and this assur
ance is immediately followed by the denunciation, “ Woe to you that
are rich, for ye have received your consolation! Woe to you that are
full now, for ye will hunger.” The parable of Dives and Lazarus illus
trates concretely this view of the case, which is still further corroborated
�22
THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
by the account, given in both the first and the third gospels, of the
young man who came to seek everlasting life. Jesus here maintains
that righteousness is insufficient unless voluntary poverty be super
added. Though the young man has strictly fulfilled the greatest of the
commandments—»to love his neighbor as himself—he is required, as a
needful proof of his sincerity, to distribute all his vast possessions
among the poor. And when he naturally manifests a reluctance to
perform so superfluous a sacrifice, Jesus observes that it will be easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
share in the glories of the anticipated Messianic kingdom. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that we have here a very primitive and
probably authentic, tradition; and when we remember the importance
which, according to the “ Acts,” the earliest disciples attached to the
principle of communism, as illustrated in the legend of Ananias and
Sapphira,.we must admit strong reasons for believing that Jesus him
self held views which tended toward the abolition of private property.
On this point, the testimony of the third evangelist singly is of consid
erable weight; since at the time when he wrote, the communistic the
ories of the first generation of Christians had been generally abandoned,
and in the absence of any dogmatic motives, he could only have inserted
these particular traditions because he believed them to possess histori
cal value. But we- are not dependent on the third gospel alone. The
story just cited is attested by both our authorities, and is in perfect
keeping with the general views of Jesus as reported by the first evan
gelist. Thus his disciples are enjoined to leave all, and follow him; to
take no thought for the morrow; to think no more of laying up treas
ures on the earth, for in the Messianic kingdom they shall have treas
ures in abundance, which can neither be wasted nor stolen. On
making their journeys, they are to provide neither money, nor clothes,
nor food, but are to live at the expense of those whom they visit; and
if any town refuse to harbor them, the Messiah, on his arrival, will deal
with that town more severely than Jehovah dealt with the cities of the
plain. Indeed, since the end of the world was to come before the end
of the generation then living (Matt. xxiv. 34; 1 Cor. xv. 51-56; vii, 29),
there could be no need for acquiring property or making arrangements
for the future; even marriage became unnecessary. These teachings
of Jesus have a marked Essenian character, as well as his declaration
that in the Messianic kingdom there was to be no more marriage, per
haps no distinction of sex (Matt. xxii. 30). The sect of Ebionites, who
represented the earliest doctrine and practice of Christianity before it
had been modified by Paul, differed from the Essenes in no essential
respect save in the acknowledgment of Jesus as the Messiah, and the
expectation of his speedy return to the earth.
How long, or with what success, Jesus continued to preach the
coming of the Messiah in Galilee, it is impossible to conjecture. His
fellow-townsmen of Nazareth appear to have ridiculed him in his pro
�THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
23
phetical capacity; or, if we may trust the third evangelist, to have
arisen against him with indignation, and made an attempt upon his
life. To them he was but a carpenter, the son of a carpenter (Matt,
xiii. 55 ; Mark vi. 3), who told them disagreeable truths. Our author
represents his teaching in Galilee to have produced but little result,
but the gospel narratives afford no definite data for deciding this point.
We believe the most probable conclusion to be that Jesus did attract
many followers, and became famous throughout Galilee ; for Herod is
said to have regarded him as John the Baptist risen from the grave.
To escape the malice of Herod, Jesus then retired to Syro-Phoenicia,
and during this eventful journey, the consciousness of his own Messiahship seems for the first time to have distinctly dawned upon him
(Matt. xiv. 1, 13 ; xv. 21; xvi. 13-20). Already, it appears, specula
tions were rife as to the character of this wonderful preacher. Some
thought he was John the Baptist, or perhaps one of the prophets of the
Assyrian period returned to the earth. Some, in accordance with a
generally-received tradition, supposed him to be Elijah, who had never
seen death, and had now at last returned from the regions above the
firmament to announce the coming of the Messiah in the clouds. It
was generally admitted, among enthusiastic hearers, that he who spake
as never man spake before must have some divine commission to exe
cute. These speculations, coming to the ears of Jesus during his
preaching in Galilee, could not fail to excite in him a train of self-con
scious reflections. To him also must have been presented the query as
to his own proper character and functions ; and, as our author acutely
demonstrates, his only choice lay between a profitless life of exile in
Syro-Phoenicia, and a bold return to Jewish territory in some pro
nounced character. The problem being thus propounded, there could
hardly be a doubt as to what that character should be. Jesus knew
well that he was not John the Baptist; nor, however completely he
may have been dominated by his sublime enthusiasm, was it likely that
he could mistake himself for an ancient prophet arisen from the lower
world of shades, or for Elijah descended from the sky. But the Mes
siah himself he might well be. Such indeed was the almost inevitable
corollary from his own conception of Messiahship. We have seen that
he had, probably from the very outset, discarded the traditional notion
Qf a political Messiah, and recognized the truth that the happiness of a
people lies not so much in political autonomy as in the love of God and
the sincere practice of righteousness. The people were to be freed
from the bondage of sin, of meaningless formalism, of consecrated
hypocrisy,—a bondage more degrading than the payment of tribute to
the emperor. The true business of the Messiah, then, was to deliver
his people from the former bondage; it might be left to Jehovah, in
his own good time, to deliver them from the latter. Holding these
views, it was hardly possible that it should not sooner or later occur to
Jesus that he himself was the person destined to discharge this glorious
�34
THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
function, to liberate his countrymen from the thraldom of Pharisaic
ritualism, and to inaugurate the real Messianic kingdom of spiritual
righteousness. Had he not already preached the advent of this spiritual
kingdom, and been instrumental in raising many to loftier conceptions
of duty, and to a higher and purer life ? And might he not now, by a
grand attack upon Pharisaism in its central stronghold, destroy its
prestige in the eyes of the people, and cause Israel to adopt a nobler
religious and ethical doctrine ? The temerity of such a purpose
detracts nothing from its sublimity. And if that purpose should be
accomplished, Jesus would really have performed the legitimate work
of the Messiah. Thus, from his own point of view, Jesus was thor
oughly consistent and rational in announcing himself as the expected
Deliverer; and in the eyes of the impartial historian his course is fully
justified.
From that time,” says the first evangelist, “ Jesus began to show
to his disciples, that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things
from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be put to death, and
rise again on the third day.” Here we have, obviously, the knowledge
of the writer, after the event, reflected back and attributed to Jesus.
It is of course impossible that Jesus should have predicted with such
definiteness his approaching death ; nor is it very likely that he enter
tained any hope of being raised from the grave “ on the third day.”
To a man in that age and country, the conception of a return from the
lower world of shades was not a difficult one to frame; and it may well
be that Jesus’ sense of his own exalted position was sufficiently great
to inspire him with the confidence that, even in case of temporary fail
ure, Jehovah would rescue him from the grave and send him back with
larger powers to carry out the purpose of his mission. But the diffi
culty of distinguishing between his own words and the interpretation
put upon them by his disciples becomes here insuperable; and there
will always be room for the hypothesis that Jesus had in view no
posthumous career of his own, but only expressed his unshaken confi
dence in the success of his enterprise, even after and in spite of his
death.
At all events, the possibility of his death must now have been often
in his mind. He was undertaking a well-nigh desperate task,—to
overthrow the Pharisees in Jerusalem itself. No other alternative was
left him.' And here we believe Mr. F. W. Newman to be singularly at
fault in pronouncing this attempt of Jesus upon Jerusalem a “fool
hardy ” attempt. According to Mr. Newman, no man has any busi
ness to rush upon certain death, and it is only a crazy fanatic who will
do so. But such “ glittering generalizations ” will here help us but
little. The historic data show that to go to Jerusalem, even at the
risk of death, was absolutely necessary to the realization of Jesus’ Mes
sianic project. Mr. Newman certainly would not have had him drag
out an inglorious and baffled existence in Syro-Phoenicia. If the
�THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
25
Messianic kingdom was to be fairly inaugurated, there was work to be
done in Jerusalem, and Jesus must go there as one in authority,, cost
what it might- We believe him to have gone there in a spirit of grand
and careless braverv. vet seriously and soberly and under the influence
of no fanatical delusion. He knew the risks, but deliberately chose to
incur them, that the will of Jehovah might be accomplished.
We next hear of Jesus traveling down to Jerusalem by way of
Jericho,, and entering the sacred city in his character of Messiah, at
tended by a great multitude. It was near the time of the Passover,
when people from all parts of Galilee and Judaea were sure to be at
x
Jerusalem, and the nature of his reception seems to indicate that he
had already secured a considerable number of followers upon whose
assistance hc^might hope to rely, though it nowhere appears that he
intended to use other than purely moral weapons to insure a favorable
reception. We must remember that for half a century many of the
Jewish people had been constantly looking for the arrival of the Mes
siah, and there can be little doubt that the entry of Jesus riding upon
an ass in literal fulfilment of prophecy must have wrought powerfully
upon the imagination of the multitude. That the believers in him
were verv numerous must be inferred from the cautious, not to say
timid, behavior of the rulers at Jerusalem, who are represented as
Hearing to arrest him, but as deterred from taking active steps
through fear of the people. We are led to the same conclusion by his
driving the monev-changers out of the temple; an act upon which he
could hardly have ventured, had not the popular enthusiasm in his
favor been for the moment overwhelming. But the enthusiasm of a
mob is short-lived, and needs to be fed upon the excitement of brilliant
and dramatically arranged events. The calm preacher of righteousness,
or even the fierv denouncer of the scribes and Pharisees, could not
_ hope to retain nndiminished authority save by the display of extraor
dinary powers to which, so far as we know, Jesus (like Mohammed)
made no pretence. (Matt. xvi. 1—L) The ignorant and materialistic
populace could not understand the exalted conception of Messiahship
which had been formed by Jesus, and as day after day elapsed without
the appearance of any marvelous sign from Jehovah, their enthusiasm
must naturally have cooled down. Then the Pharisees appear cau
tiously endeavoring to entrap him into admissions which might render
him obnoxious to the Boman governor. He saw through their design,
however, and foiled them by the magnificent repartee, “ Render unto
Caesar the things that are Caesars, and unto God the things that are
God’s.” Nothing could more forcibly illustrate the completely non
political character of his Messianic doctrines. Nevertheless, we are
told that, failing in this attempt, the chief priests suborned false wit
nesses to testify against him: this sabbath-breaker, this derider of
Mosaic formalism, who with his Messianic pretensions excited the
people against their hereditary teachers, must at all events be put out
�26
THE JESUS
OF HIS T O R U.
of the way. Jesus must suffer the fate which society has too often had
in store for the reformer; the fate which Socrates and Savonarola,
Vanini and Bruno have suffered for being wiser than their own genera
tion. Messianic adventurers had already given much trouble to the
Roman authorities, who were not likely to scrutinize critically the
peculiar claims of Jesus. And when the chief priests accused him.
before Pilate of professing to be “ King of the Jews,” this claim could
in Roman apprehension bear but one interpretation. The offence was
treason, punishable, save in the case of Roman citizens, by crucifixion.
Such in its main outlines is the historic career of Jesus, as con
structed by our author from data furnished chiefly by the first gospel.
Connected .with the narrative there are many interesting topics of dis
cussion, of which our rapidly diminishing space will allow us to select
only one for comment. That one is perhaps the most important of all,
namely, the question as to how far Jesus anticipated the views of Paul
in admitting Gentiles to share in the privileges of the Messianic king
dom. Our author argues, writh much force, that the designs of Jesus
were entirely confined to the Jewish people, and that it was Paul
who first, by admitting Gentiles to the Christian fold without requiring
them to live like Jews, gave to Christianity the character of a universal
religion. Our author reminds us that the third gospel is not to be
depended upon in determining this point, since it manifestly puts
Pauline sentiments into the mouth of Jesus, and in particular attrib
utes to Jesus an acquaintance with heretical Samaria which the first
gospel disclaims. He argues that the apostles were in every respect
Jews, save in their belief that Jesus was the Messiah ; and he perti
nently asks, if James, who was the brother of Jesus, and Peter and
John, who were his nearest friends, unanimously opposed Paul and
stigmatized him as a liar and heretic, is it at all likely that Jesus had
ever distinctly sanctioned such views as Paul maintained ?
In the course of many years’ reflection upon this point, we have
several times been inclined to accept the narrow interpretation of
Jesus’ teaching here indicated; yet, on the whole, we do not believe it
can ever be conclusively established. In the first place it must be re
membered that if the third gospel throws a Pauline coloring .over the
events which it describes, the first gospel also shows a decidedly anti
Pauline bias, and the one party was as likely as the other to attribute
its own views to Jesus himself. One striking instance of this tendency
has been pointed out by Strauss, who has shown that the verses Matt,
v. 17-20, are an interpolation. The person who teaches men to break
the commandments is undoubtedly Paul, and in order to furnish a text
against Paul’s followers, the “ Nicolaitans,” Jesus is made to declare
that he came not to destroy one tittle of the law, but to fulfil the
whole in every particular. Such an utterance is in manifest contradic
tion to the spirit of Jesus’ teaching, as shown in the very same chapter,
and throughout a great part of the same gospel. He who taught in
�THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
2Ÿ
his own name and not as the scribes, who proclaimed himself Lord
over the Sabbath, and who manifested from first to last a more than
Essenian contempt for rites and ceremonies, did not come to fulfil the
law of Mosaism, but to supersede it. Nor can any inference ad
verse to this conclusion be drawn from the injunction to the disciples,
(Matt. x. 5-7,) not to preach to Gentiles and Samaritans, but only “to
the lost sheep of the house of Israelfor this remark is placed before
the beginning of Jesus’ Messianic career, and the reason assigned for
the restriction is merely that the disciples will not have time even to
preach to all the Jews before the coming of the Messiah, whose ap
proach Jesus was announcing. (Matt. x. 23.)
These examples show that we must use caution in weighing the
testimony even of the first gospel, and must not too hastily cite it as
proof that Jesus supposed his mission to be restricted to the Jews.
When we come to consider what happened a few years after the death
of Jesus, we shall be still less ready to insist upon the view defended
by our anonymous author. Paul, according to his own confession, per
secuted the Christians unto death. Now what, in the theories or in
the practice of the Jewish disciples of Jesus, could have moved Paul
to such fanatic behavior ? Certainly not their spiritual interpretation
of Mosaism, for Paul himself belonged to the liberal school of Gama
liel, to the views of which the teachings and practices of Peter, James
and John might easily be accommodated. Probably not their belief in
Jesus as the Messiah, for at the riot in which Stephen was murdered
and all the Hellenist disciples driven from Jerusalem, the Jewish disci
ples were allowed to remain in the city unmolested. (See Acts viii.
1, 14.) This marked difference of treatment indicates that Paul re
garded Stephen and his friends as decidedly more heretical and obnox
ious than Peter, James and John, whom, indeed, Paul’s own master
Gamaliel had recently (Acts v. 34) defended before the council. And
this influence is fully confirmed by the account of Stephen’s death,
where his murderers charge him with maintaining that Jesus had
founded a new religion which was destined entirely to supersede and
replace Judaism. (Acts vi. 14.) The Petrine disciples never held
this view of the mission of Jesus; and to this difference it is undoubt
edly owing that Paul and his companions forbore to disturb them. It
would thus appear that even previous to Paul's conversion, within five
or six years after the death of Jesus, there was a prominent party
among the disciples which held that the new religion was not a modi
fication but an abrogation of Judaism ; and their name “ Hellenists ”
sufficiently shows either that there were Gentiles among them or that
they held fellowship with Gentiles. It was this which aroused Paul to
persecution, and upon his sudden conversion it was with these Hellen
istic doctrines that he fraternized, taking little heed of the Petrine
disciples (Galatians i. 15), who were hardly more than a Jewish
sect.
�Now the existence of these Hellenists at Jerusalem so soon after
the death of Jesus is clear proof that he had never distinctly and irrev
ocably pronounced against the admission of Gentiles to the Messianic
kingdom, and it makes it very probable that the downfall of Mosaism
as a result of his preaching was by no means unpremeditated. While,
on the other hand, the obstinacy of the Petrine party in adhering to
Jewish customs shows equally that Jesus could not have unequivocally
committed himself in favor of a new gospel for the Gentiles. Probably
Jesus was seldom brought into direct contact with others than Jews,
so that the questions concerning the admission of Gentile converts did
not come up during his lifetime; and thus the way was left open for
the controversy which soon broke out between the Petrine party and
Paul. Nevertheless, though Jesus may never have definitely pro
nounced. upon this point, it will hardly be denied that his teaching,
even as reported in the first gospel, is in its utter condemnation of for
malism far more closely allied to the Pauline than to the Petrine doc
trines. In his hands Mosaism became spiritualized until it really lost
its identity, and was transformed into a code fit for the whole Roman
world. And we do not doubt that if any one had asked Jesus whether
circumcision were an essential prerequisite for admission to the Mes
sianic kingdom, he would have given the same answer which Paul after
wards gave. We agree with Zeller and Strauss that, “as Luther was a
more liberal spirit than the Lutheran divines of the succeeding genera
tion, and Socrates a more profound thinker than Xenophon or Antisthenes, so also Jesus must be credited with having raised himself far
higher above the narrow prejudices of his nation than those of his dis
ciples who could scarcely understand the spread of Christianity among
the heathen when it had become an accomplished fact.”
THE JESUS OF DOGMA
*
HE meagerness of our information concerning the historic
career of Jesus stands in striking contrast to the mass of
information which lies within our reach concerning the
primitive character of Christologie speculation. First we
have the epistles of Paul, written from twenty to thirty years after
the crucifixion, which, although they tell us next to nothing about
T
* Saint-Paul. par Ernest Renan. Paris, 1869. (English translation. New
York : Carleton, 1869.)
Histoire du Dogme de la Divinité de Jesus-Christ, par Albert Réville.
Paris, 1869.
The End of the.World and the Day of Judgment. Two Discourses by
the Rev. W. R. Alger. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1870.
�THE JESUS
OF DOGMA.
29
what Jesus did. nevertheless give us very plain information as to
the impression which he made. Then we have the Apocalypse,
written by John, AD. 68, which exhibits the Messianic theory en
tertained by the earliest disciples. Next we have the epistles to the
Hebrews, Philippians. Colossians, and Ephesians, besides the four gos
pels, constituting altogether a connected chain of testimony to the
progress of Christian doctrine from the destruction of Jerusalem to the
time of the quartodeciman controversy (A. D. 70-170). Finallv, there
is the vast collection of apocryphal, heretical, and patristic literature,
from the writings of Justin Martin, the pseudo-Clement, and the
pseudo-Ignatius, down to the time of the Council of Nikaia. when the
official theories of Christ's person assumed very nearly the shape which
they have retained, within the orthodox churches of Christendom,
down to the present day. As we pointed out in “ The Jesus of His
tory,” while all this voluminous literature throws but an uncertain
light upon the life and teachings of the founder of Christianity, it
nevertheless furnishes nearly all the data which we could desire for
knowing what the early Christians thought of the master of their
faith. Having given a brief account of the historic career of Jesus, so
far as it can now be determined, we propose here to sketch the rise and
progress of Christologic doctrine, in its most striking features, during
the first three centuries. Beginning with the apostolic view of the
human Messiah sent to deliver Judaism from its spiritual torpor, and
prepare it for the millennial kingdom, we shall briefly trace the pro
gressive metamorphosis of this conception until it completely loses its
identity in the Athanasian theory, according to which Jesus was God
himself, the creator of the universe, incarnate in human flesh.
The earliest dogma held by the apostles concerning Jesus was that
of his resurrection from the grave after death. It was not only the
earliest, but the most essential to the success of the new religion.
Christianity might have overspread the Roman Empire, and main
tained its hold upon men’s faith until to-day, without the dogmas of
the incarnation and the Trinity; but without the dogma of the resur
rection it would probably have failed at the very outset. Its lofty
morality would not alone have sufficed to insure its success. For what
men needed then, as indeed they still need, and will always need, was
not merely a rule of life and a mirror to the heart, but also a compre
hensive and satisfactory theory of things, a philosophy or theosophy.
The times demanded intellectual as well as moral consolation; and the
disintegration of ancient theologies needed to be repaired, that the new
ethical impulse imparted by Christianity might rest upon a plausible
speculative basis. The doctrine of the resurrection was but the begin
ning of a series of speculative innovations which prepared the way for
the new religion to emancipate itself from Judaism, and achieve the
conquest of the Empire. Even the faith of the apostles in the speedy
return of their master the Messiah must have somewhat lost ground,
�30
THE JESUS
OE DOGMA.
had it not been supported by their belief in his resurrection from the
grave and his consequent transfer from Sheol, the gloomy land of
shadows, to the regions above the sky.
The origin of the dogma of the resurrection cannot be determined
with certainty. The question has, during the past century, been the
subject of much discussion, upon which it is not necessary for us
here to comment. Such apparent evidence as there is in favor of the
old theory of Jesus’ natural recovery from the effects of the cruci
fixion, may be found in Salvador’s “ Jesus-Christ et sa Doctrine
but, as Zeller has shown, the theory is utterly unsatisfactory. The
natural return of Jesus to his disciples never could have given rise to
the notion of his resurrection, since the natural explanation would
have been the more obvious one; besides which, if we were to adopt
this hypothesis, we should be obliged to account for the fact that the
historic career of Jesus ends with the crucifixion. The most probable
explanation, on the whole, is the one suggested by the accounts in the
gospels, that the dogma of the resurrection is due originally to the
excited imagination of Mary of Magdala. The testimony of Paul may
also be cited in favor of this view, since he always alludes to earlier
Christophanies in just the same language which he uses in describing
his own vision on the road to Damascus.
But the question as to how the belief in the resurrection of Jesus
originated is of less importance than the question as to how it should
have produced the effect that it did. The dogma of the resurrection
has, until recent times, been so rarely treated from the historical point
of view, that the student of history at firsts finds some difficulty in
thoroughly realizing its import to the minds of those who first pro
claimed it. We cannot hope to understand it without bearing in mind
the theories of the Jews and early Christians concerning the structure
of the world and the cosmic location of departed souls. Since the time
of Copernicus modern Christians no longer attempt to locate heaven
and hell; they are conceived merely as mysterious places remote from
the earth. The theological universe no longer corresponds to that
which physical science presents for our contemplation. It was quite
different with the Jew. His conception of the abode of Jehovah
and the angels, and of departed souls, was exceedingly simple and
definite. In the Jewish theory the universe is like a sort of threestory house. The flat earth rests upon the waters, and under the
earth’s surface is the land of graves, called Sheol, where after death the
souls of all men go, the righteous as well as the wicked, for the Jew
had not arrived at the doctrine of heaven and hell. The Hebrew Sheol
corresponds strictly to the Greek Hades, before the notions of Elysium
and Tartarus were added to it,—a land peopled with flitting shadows,
suffering no torment, but experiencing no pleasure, like those whom
Dante met in one of the upper circles of his Inferno. Sheol is the first
story of the cosmic house ; the earth is the second. Above the earth is
�TH R
JESUS
Of
DOGMA.
31
the firmament or sky, which, according to the book of Genesis (chap. i.
v. 6, Hebrew text), is a vast plate hammered out by the gods, and sup
ports a great ocean like that upon which the earth rests. Rain is
caused by the opening of little windows or trap-doors in the firmament,
through which pours the water of this upper ocean. Upon this water
rests the land of heaven, where Jehovah reigns, surrounded by hosts
of angels. To this blessed land two only of the human race had ever
been admitted,—Enoch and Elijah, the latter of whom had ascended in
a chariot of fire, and was destined to return .to earth as the herald and
forerunner of the Messiah. Heaven forms the third story of the cosmic
house. Between the firmament and the earth is the air, which is the
habitation of evil demons ruled by Satan, the “prince of the powers of
the air.”
Such was the cosmology of the ancient Jew ; and his theology was
equally simple. Sheol was the destined abode of all men after death,
and no theory of moral retribution was attached to the conception.
The rewards and punishments known to the authors of the Pentateuch
and the early Psalms are all earthly rewards and punishments. But in
course of time the prosperity of the wicked and the misfortunes of the
good man furnished a troublesome problem for the Jewish thinker;
and after the Babylonish Captivity, we find the doctrine of a resurrec
tion from Sheol devised in order to meet this case. According to this
doctrine—which was borrowed from the Zarathustrian theology of
Persia—the Messiah on his arrival was to free from Sheol all the souls
of the righteous, causing them to ascend reinvested in their bodies to a
renewed and beautiful earth, while on the other hand the wicked were
to be punished with, tortures like those of the valley of Hinnom, or
were to be immersed in liquid brimstone, like that which had rained
upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Here we get the first announcement of
a future state of retribution. The doctrine was peculiarly Pharisaic,
and the Sadducees, who were strict adherents to the letter of Mosaism,
rejected it to the last. By degrees this doctrine became coupled with
the Messianic theories of the Pharisees. The loss of Jewish independ
ence under the dominion of Persians, Macedonians and Romans, caused
the people to look over more earnestly toward the expected time when
the Messiah should appear in Jerusalem to deliver them from their
oppressors. The moral doctrines of the Psalms and earlier prophets
assumed an increasingly political aspect. The Jews were the righteous
“ under a cloud,” whose sufferings were symbolically depicted by the
younger Isaiah as the afflictions of the “ servant of Jehovah;” while on
the other hand, the “ wicked ” were the Gentile oppressors of the holy
people. Accordingly the Messiah, on his arrival, was to sit in judg
ment in the valley of Jehoshaphat, rectifying the. wrongs of his chosen
ones, condemning the Gentile tyrants to the torments of Gehenna, and
raising from Sheol all those Jews who had lived and died during the
evil times before his coming. These were to find in the Messianic
�32
THE JESUS
OF DOGMA.
kingdom the compensation for the ills which they had suffered in their
first earthly existence. Such are the main outlines of the theory found
in the Book of Enoch, written about B. C. 100, and it is adopted in the
Johannine Apocalypse, with little variation, save in the recognition of
Jesus as the Messiah, and in the transference to his second coming of
all these wonderful proceedings. The manner of the Messiah's coming
had been variously imagined. According to an earlier view, he was to
enter Jerusalem as a King of the house of David, and therefore of
human lineage. According to a later view, presented in the Book of
Daniel, he was to descend from the sky, and appear among the clouds.
Both these views were adopted by the disciples of Jesus, who harmo
nized them by referring the one to his first and the other to his second
appearance.
Now to the imaginations of these earliest disciples the belief in the
resurrection of Jesus presented itself as a needful guarantee of his
Messiahship. Their faith, which must have been shaken by his execu
tion and descent into Sheol, received welcome confirmation by the
springing up of the belief that he had been again seen upon the face
of the earth. Applying the imagery of Daniel, it became a logical
conclusion that he must have ascended into the sky, whence he might
shortly be expected to make his appearance, to enact the scenes foretold
in prophecy. That such was the actual process of inference is shown
by the legend of the Ascension in the first chapter of the “Acts,” and
especially by the words, “This Jesus who hath been taken up from you
into heaven, will come in the same manner in which ye beheld him
going into heaven.” In the Apocalvpse, written A. T). G8, just after
the death of Nero, this second coming is described as something im
mediately to happen, and the colors in which it is depicted show how
closely allied were the Johannine notions to those of the Pharisees.
The glories of the New Jerusalem are to be reserved for Jews, while
for the Roman tyrants of Judaea is reserved a fearful retribution.
They are to be trodden under-foot by the Messiah, like grapes in a
wine-press, until the gushing blood shall rise to the height of the
horse’s bridle.
In the writings of Paul, the dogma of the resurrection assumes a
very different aspect. Though Paul, like the older apostles, held that
Jesus, as the Messiah, was to return to the earth within a few years, yet
to his catholic mind this anticipated event had become divested of its
narrow Jewish significance. In the eyes of Paul, the religion preached
by Jesus was an abrogation of Mosaism, and the truths contained in it
were a free gift to the Gentile as well as to the Jewish world. Accord
ing to Paul, death came into the world as a punishment for the sin of
Adam. By this he meant that, had it not been for the original trans
gression, all men escaping death would either have remained upon
earth or have been conveyed to heaven, like Enoch and Elijah, in in
corruptible bodies. But in reality as a penance for disobedience, all
�THE
JESUS
OF
DOGMA.
33
men, with these two exceptions, had suffered death, and been exiled
to the gloomy caverns of Sheol. The Mosaic ritual was powerless to
free men from this repulsive doom, but it had nevertheless served a
good purpose in keeping men’s minds directed toward holiness, pre
paring them, as a schoolmaster would prepare his pupils, to receive the
vitalizing truths of Christ. Now, at last, the Messiah or Christ had
come as a second Adam, and being without sin had been raised by Je
hovah out of Sheol and taken up into heaven, as testimony to men
that the power of sin and death was at last defeated. The wav hence
forth to avoid death and escape the exile to Sheol was to live spiritually
like Jesus, and with him to be dead to sensual requirements. Faith,
in Paul’s apprehension, was not an intellectual assent to definitely pre
scribed dogmas, but, as Matthew Arnold has well pointed out, it was
an emotional striving after righteousness, a developing consciousness
of God in the soul, such as Jesus had possessed, or in Paul’s phrase
ology, a subjugation of the flesh by the spirit. All those who should
thus seek spiritual perfection should escape the original curse. The
Messiah was destined to return to the earth to establish the reign of
spiritual holiness, probably during Paul’s own lifetime. (1 Cor. xv.
51.) Then the true followers of Jesus should be clothed in ethereal
bodies, free from the imperfections of “ the flesh,” and should ascend
to heaven without suffering death, while the righteous dead should at
the same time be released from Sheol, even as Jesus himself had been
released.
To the doctrine of the resurrection, in which ethical and speculative
elements are thus happily blended by Paul, the new religion doubtless
owed in great part its rapid success. Into an account of the causes
which favored the spreading of Christianity, it is not our purpose to
enter at present. * ut we may note that the local religions of the ancient
B
pagan world had partly destroyed each other by mutual intermingling,
and had lost their hold upon people from the circumstance that their
ethical teaching no longer corresponded to the advanced ethical feeling,
of the age. Polytheism, in short, was outgrown. It was outgrown
both intellectually and morally. People were ceasing to believe in its
doctrines, and were ceasing to respect its precepts. The learned were
taking refuge in philosophy, the ignorant in mystical superstitions im
ported Trom Asia. The commanding ethical motive of ancient repub
lican times had been patriotism—devotion to the interests of the com
munity. But Roman dominion had destroyed patriotism as a guiding
principle of life, and thus in every way the minds of men were left in
a sceptical, unsatisfied state,—craving after a new theory of life, and
craving after a new stimulus to right action. Obviously the only
theology which could now be satisfactory to philosophy or to common
sense was some form of monotheism;—some system of doctrines which
should represent all men as spiritually subjected to the will of a single
God, just as they were subjected to the temporal authority of the Em
�34
THE JESUS
Of DOGMA.
peror. And similarly the only system of ethics which could have a
chance of prevailing must be some system which should clearly pre
scribe the mutual duties of all men without distinction of race or
locality. Thus the spiritual morality of Jesus, and his conception of
God as a father and of all men as brothers, appeared at once to meet
the ethical and speculative demands of the time.
Yet whatever effect these teachings might have produced, if un
aided by further doctrinal elaboration, was enhanced myriadfold by the
elaboration which they received at the hands of Paul. Philosophic
Stoics and Epicureans had arrived at the conception of the brotherhood
of men, and the Greek hymn of Kleanthes had exhibited a deep spirit
ual sense of the fatherhood of God. The originality of Christianity lay
not so much in its enunciation of new ethical precepts as in the fact
that it furnished a new ethical sanction—a commanding incentive to
holiness of living. That it might accomplish this result, it was abso
lutely necessary that it should begin by discarding both the ritualism
and the narrow theories of Judaism. The mere desire for a mono
theistic creed had led many pagans, in Paul’s time, to embrace Juda
ism, in spite of its requirements, which to Romans and Greeks were
meaningless, and often, disgusting; but such conversions could never
have been numerous. Judaism could never have conquered the Roman
world; nor is it likely that the Judaical Christianity of Peter, James,
and John would have been any more successful. The doctrine of the
resurrection, in particular, was not likely to prove attractive wheu ac
companied by the picture of the Messiah treading the Gentiles in the
wine-press of his righteous indignation. But here Paul showed his
profound originality. The condemnation of Jewish formalism which
*
Jesus had pronounced, Paul turned against the older apostles, who in
sisted upon circumcision. With marvelous flexibility of mind, Paul
placed circumcision and the Mosaic injunctions about meats upon a
level with the ritual observances of pagan nations, allowing each feeble
brother to perform such works as might tickle his fancy, but bidding
all take heed that salvation was not to be obtained after any such me
chanical method, but only by devoting the whole soul to righteousness,
after the example of Jesus.
This was the negative part of Paul’s work. This was the knocking
down of the barriers which had kept men, and would always have kept
them, from entering into the kingdom of heaven. But the positive
part of Paul’s work is contained in his theory of the salvation of men
from death through the second Adam, whom Jehovah rescued from
Sheol for his sinlessness. The resurrection of Jesus was the visible
token of the escape from death which might be achieved by all men
who, with God’s aid, should succeed in freeing themselves from thè
burden of sin which had encumbered all the children of Adam. The
end of the world was at hand, and they who would live with Christ
must figuratively die with Christ—must become dead to sin. Thus to
�THE
JESUS
OF DOGMA.
35
the pure and spiritual ethics contained in the teachings of Jesus, Paul
added an incalculably’powerful incentive to right action, and a theory
of life calculated to satisfy the speculative necessities of the pagan or
v Gentile world. To the educated and sceptical Athenian, as to the criti
cal scholar of modern times, the physical resurrection of Jesus from the
grave, and his ascent through the vaulted floor of heaven, might seem
foolishness or naïveté. But to the average. Greek or Roman the con
ception presented no serious difficulty. The cosmical theories upon
. which the conception was founded were essentially the same among
Jews and Gentiles, and indeed were but little modified until the estab
lishment of the Copernican astronomy. The doctrine of the Messiah’s
second coming was also received without opposition, and for about a
century men lived in continual anticipation of that event, until hope
long deferred produced its usual results ; the writings in which that
event was predicted were gradually explained away, ignored, or stigma
tized as uncanonical ; and the Church ended by condemning as a
heresy the very doctrine which Paul and the Judaizing apostles, who
agreed in little else, had alike made the basis of their spéculative
teachings. Nevertheless, by the dint of allegorical interpretation, the
belief has maintained an obscure existence even down to the present
time ; the Antiochus of the Book of Daniel and the Nero of the Apoc
alypse having given place to the Roman Pontiff or to the Emperor of
the French.
But as the millenarism of the primitive Church gradually died out
during the second century, the essential principles involved in it lost
none of their hold on men’s minds. As the generation contemporary
with Paul died away and was gathered into Sheol, it became apparent
that the original theory must be somewhat modified, and to this ques
tion the author of the second epistle to the Thessalonians addresses
himself. Instead of literal preservation from death, the doctrine of a
resurrection from the grave was gradually extended to the case of the
new believers, who were to share in the same glorious revival with the
righteous of ancient times. And thus by slow degrees the victory over
death, of which the resurrection of Jesus was a symbol and a witness,
became metamorphosed into the comparatively modern doctrine of the
rest of the saints in heaven, while the banishment of the unrighteous
to Sheol was -made still more dreadful by coupling with the vague con
ception of a gloomy subterranean cavern the horrible imagery of the
lake of tire and brimstone borrowed from the apocalyptic descriptions
of Gehenna. But in this modification of the original theory, the fun
damental idea of a future state of retribution was only the more dis
tinctly emphasized; although, in course of time, the original incentive
to righteousness supplied by Paul was more and more subordinated to
the comparatively degrading incentive involved in the fear of damna
tion. There can hardly be a doubt that the definiteness and vividness
• of the Pauline theory of a future life contributed very largely to the
�36
THE JESUS
OF DOGMA.
rapid spread of the Christian religion; nor can it be doubted that to
the desire to be holy like Jesus, in order to escape death and live with
Jesus, is due the elevating ethical influence which, even in the worst
times of ecclesiastic degeneracy, Christianity has never failed to exert.
Doubtless, as Lessing long ago observed, the notion of future reward
and punishment needs to be eliminated in order that the incentive to
holiness may be a perfectly pure one. The highest virtue is that which
takes no thought of reward or punishment; but for a conception of
this sort the mind of antiquity was not ready, nor is the average mind
of to-day yet ready; and the sudden or premature dissolution of the
Christian theory—which is fortunately impossible—would no doubt
entail a moral retrogradation.
The above is by no means intended as a complete account of the
religious philosophy of Paul. We have aimed only at a clear definition
of the character and scope of the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus,
at the time when it was first elaborated. We have now to notice the
influence of that doctrine upon the development of Christo logic specu
lation.
In neither of the four genuine epistles of Paul is Jesus described
as superhuman, or as differing in nature from other men, save in his
freedom from sin. As Baur has shown, “the proper nature of the
Pauline Christ is human. He is a man, but a spiritual man, one in
whom spirit or pneumo, was the essential principle, so that he was
spirit as well as man. The principle of an ideal humanity existed
before Christ in the bright form of a typical man, but was manifested
to mankind in the person of Christ.” Such, according to Baur, is
Paul’s interpretation of the Messianic idea. Paul knows nothing of
the miracles, of the supernatural conception, of the incarnation, or of
the Logos. The Christ whom he preaches is the man Jesus, the
founder of a new and spiritual order of humanity, as Adam was the
father of humanity after the flesh. The resurrection is uniformly
described by him as a manifestation of the power of Jehovah, not of
Jesus himself. The later conception of Christ bursting the barred
gates of Sheol, and arising by his own might to heaven, finds no
warrant in the expressions of Paul. Indeed it was essential to Paul’s
theory of the Messiah as a new Adam, that he should be human and
not divine ; for the escape of a divine being from Sheol could afford no
precedent and furnish no assurance of the future escape of human
beings. It was expressly because the man Jesus had been rescued from
the grave because of his spirituality, that other men might hope, by
becoming spiritual like him, to be rescued also. Accordingly Paul is
careful to state that “ since through man came death, through man
came also the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor. xv. 21); a passage
which would look like an express denial of Christ’s superhuman
character, were it probable that any of Paul’s contemporaries had ever
conceived of Jesus as other than essentially human.
�THE JESES
OE DOGMA.
But though Paul’s Christology remained in this primitive stage, it
contained the germs of a more advanced theory. For even Paul con
ceived of Jesus as a man wholly exceptional in spiritual character ; or,
in the phraseology of the time, as consisting to a larger extent of
pneuma than any man who had lived before him. The question was
sure to arise, whence came thisyuie^ma or spiritual quality? Whether
the question ever distinctly presented itself to Paul’s mind cannot be
determined. Probably it did not. In those writings of his which
have come down to us, he shows himself careless of metaphysical con
siderations. He is mainly concerned with exhibiting the unsatisfactory
character of Jewish Christianity, and with inculcating a spiritual
morality, to which the doctrine of Christ’s resurrection is made to
supply a surpassingly powerful sanction. But attempts to solve the
problem were not long in coming. According to a very early tradition,
of which the obscured traces remain in the ^noptic gospels, Jesus
received theyme/wn« at the time of his baptism, when the Holy Spirit,
or visible manifestation of the essence of Jehovah, descended upon him
and became incarnate in him. This theory, however, was exposed to
the objection that it implied a sudden and entire transformation of an
ordinary man into a person inspired or possessed by the Deity.
Though long maintained by the Ebionites or primitive Christians, it
was very soon rejected by the great body of the Church, which asserted
instead that Jesus had been inspired by the Holy Spirit from the
moment of his conception. From this it was but a step to the theory
that Jesus was actually begotten by or of the Holy Spirit; a notion
which the Hellenic mind, accustomed to the myths of Leda, Anchises,
and others, found no difficulty in entertaining. According to the
Gospel of the Hebrews, as cited by Origen, the Holy Spirit was the
mother of Jesus, and Joseph was his father. But according to the
prevailing opinion, as represented in the first and third synoptists, the
relationship was just the other way. With greater apparent plausibil
ity, the divine vEon was substituted for the human father, and a myth
sprang up, of which the materialistic details furnished to the oppo
nents of the new religion an opportunity for making the most gross
and exasperating insinuations. • The dominance of this theory marks
the era at which our first and third synoptic gospels were composed,—
from sixty to ninety years after the death of Jesus. In the luxuriant
mythologic growth there exhibited, we may yet trace the various suc
cessive phases of Christologic speculation but imperfectly blended. In
“Matthew” and “Luke” we find the original Messianic theory ex
emplified in the genealogies of Jesus, in which, contrary to historic
probability, (cf. Matt. xxii. 41-46,) but in accordance with a tihiehonored tradition, his pedigree is traced back to David ; “ Matthew ”
referring him to the royal line of Judah, while “ Luke ” more cautiously
has recourse to an assumed younger branch. Superposed upon this
primitive mythologic stratum, we find, in the same narratives, the ac-
�38
>
b
I
i
THE JESUS
OF DOGMA.
count of the descent of the pneumo, at the time of the baptism ; and
crowning the whole, there are the two accounts of the nativity which,
though conflicting in nearly all their details, agree in representing the
divine pneuma as the father of Jesus. Of these three stages of
Christology, the last becomes entirely irreconcilable with the first; and
nothing can better illustrate the uncritical character of the synoptists
than the fact that the assumed descent of Jesus from David through
his father Joseph is allowed to stand side by side with the account of
the miraculous conception which completely negatives it. Of this
difficulty “Matthew” is quite unconscious, and “Luke,” while vaguely
noticing it, (iii. 23,) proposes no solution, and appears .undisturbed by
the contradiction.
Thus far the Christology with which we have been dealing is pre
dominantly Jewish, though to some extent influenced by Hellenic
conceptions. None of the successive doctrines presented in Paul,
“ Matthew,” and “ Luke,” assert or imply the pre-existence of Jesus.
At this early period he was regarded as a human being raised to parti
cipation in certain attributes of divinity; and this was as far as the
dogma could be carried by the Jewish metaphysics. But soon after
the date of our third gospel, a Hellenic system of Christology arose
into prominence, in which the problem was reversed, and Jesus was
regarded as a semi-divine being temporarily lowered to participation in
certain attributes of humanity. For such a doctrine Jewish mythol
ogy supplied no precedents; but the Indo-European mind was familiar
with the conception of deity incarnate in human form, as in the
avatars of Vishnu, or even suffering in the interests of humanity, as in
the noble myth of Prometheus. The elements of Christology pre-ex
isting in the religious conceptions of Greece, India, and Persia, are too
rich and numerous to be discussed here. A very full account of them
is given in Mr. R. W. Mackay’s treatise on the “ Religious Development
of the Greeks and Hebrews,”—one of the most acute and erudite theo
logical works which this century has produced.
It was in Alexandria, where Jewish theology first came into contact
with Hellenic and Oriental ideas, that the way was prepared for the
dogma of Christ’s pre-existence. The attempt to rationalize the con
ception of deity as embodied in the Jehovah of the Old Testament,
gave rise to the class of opinions described as Gnosis, or Gnosticism.
The signification of Gnosis is simply “rationalism,”—the endeavor to
harmonize the materialistic statements of an old mythology with the
more advanced spiritualistic philosophy of the time. The Gnostics
rejected the conception of an anthropomorphic deity who had appeared
visibly and audibly to th^ patriarchs ; and they were the authors of the
doctrine, very widely spread during the second and third centuries,
that God could not in person have been the creator of the world. Ac
cording to them, God, as pure spirit, could not act directly upon vile
and gross matter. The difficulty which troubled them was curiously
�THE ,J E 8 US
OF
D () C M J
39
analogous to that which disturbed the Cartesians and followers of Leib
nitz in the seventeenth century : how was spirit to act upon matter,
without ceasing, pro tanto, to be spirit ? To meet this difficulty, the
Gnostics postulated a series of emanations from God, becoming success
ively less and less spiritual and more and more material, until at the
lowest end of the scale was reached the Demiurgus or Jehovah of the
Old Testament, who created the world and appeared, clothed in mate
rial form, to the patriarchs. According to some of the Gnostics, this
lowest mon or emanation was identical with the Jewish Satan, or Ahri
man of the Persians, who is called “ the prince of this world,” and the
creation of the world was an essentially evil act. But all did not share
in these extreme opinions. In the prevailing theory, this last of the
divine emanations was identified with the “ Sophia,” or personified
“Wisdom,” of the Book of Proverbs, (viii. 22-30,) who is described as
present with God before the foundation of the world. The totality of
these icons constituted the ptleroma, or “ fullness of God,” (Coloss. i. 20;
Ephes, i. 23,) and in a corollary which bears unmistakable marks of
Buddhist influence, it was argued that, in the final consummation of
things, matter should be eliminated and all spirit reunited with God,
from whom it had primarily flowed.
It was impossible that such .views as these should not soon be taken
up and applied to the fluctuating Christology of the time. According
to the “ Shepherd of Hermas,” an apocalyptic writing nearly contem
porary with the gospel of “ Mark,” the ¿eon or son of God who existed
previous to the creation was not the Christ, or the Sophia, but the
Pneuma or Holy Spirit, represented in the Old Testament as the
“angel of Jehovah.” Jesus, in reward for his perfect goodness, was
admitted to a share in the privileges of this Pneuma. (Reville, p. 39.)
Here, as M. Reville observes, though a Gnostic idea is adopted, Jesus is
nevertheless viewed as ascending humanity, and not as descending
divinity. The author of the “Clementine Homilies” advances a step
farther, and clearly assumes the pre-existence of Jesus, who, in his
opinion, was the pure, primitive man, successively incarnate in Adam,
Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and finally in the Messiah
or Christ. The author protests, in vehement language, against those
Hellenists who, misled by their polytheistic associations, would elevate
Jesus into a god. Nevertheless his own hypothesis of pre-existence
supplied at once the requisite fulcrum for those Gnostics who wished
to reconcile a strict monotheism with the ascription of divine attri
butes to Jesus. Combining With this notion of pre-existence the pneu
matic or spiritual quality attributed to Jesus in the writings of Paul,
the gnosticising Christians maintained that Christ was an mon or em
anation from God, redeeming men from the consequences entailed by
their imprisonment in matter. At this stage of Christologic specu
lation appeared the anonymous epistle to the “Hebrews,” and the
pseudo-Pauline euistles to the “Colossians,” “Ephesians,”and “Philip-
�40
THE
JESUS
OF DOGMA.
pians.” (A. D. 130.) In these epistles, which originated among the
Pauline Christians, the Gnostic theosophy is skillfully applied to the
Pauline conception of the scope and purposes of Christianity. Jesus
is described as the creator of the world, (Coloss. i. 16,) the visible image
J •
of the invisible God, the chief and ruler of the “thrones, dominions,
¡principalities and powers,” into which, in Gnostic phraseology, the em
anations of God were classified. Or, according to “ Colossians ” and
t1|
“ Ph ilippians,” all the ieons are summed up in him, in whom dwells
the pleroma, or “fullness of God.” Thus Jesus is elevated quite above
ordinary humanity, and a close approach is made to ditheism, although
he is still emphatically subordinated to God by being made the creator
of the world,—an office then regarded as incompatible with absolute
divine perfection. In the celebrated passage, “ Philippians” ii. 6-11,
the aeon Jesus is described as being the form or visible manifestation
of God, yet as humbling himself by taking on the form or semblance
of humanity, and suffering death, in return for which he is to be exalt•
ed even above the archangels. A similar view is taken in “ Hebrews ; ”
and it is probable that to the growing favor with which these doctrines
were received, we owe the omission of the miraculous conception from
the gospel of “Mark,”—a circumstance which has misled some critics
into assigning to that gospel an earlier date than to “ Matthew” and
“ Luke.” Yet the fact that in this gospel Jesus is implicitly ranked
above the angels, (Mark xiii, 32, 33,) reveals a later stage of Christologic doctrine than that reached-by the first and third synoptists; and
if is altogether probable that, in accordance with the noticeable con
ciliatory disposition of this evangelist, the supernatural conception is
omitted out of deference to the gnosticising theories of “ Colossians ”
and “Philippians,” in which this materialistic doctrine seems to have
had no assignable place. In “ Philippians ” especially, many expres
sions seem to verge upon Docefism, the extreme form of Gnosticism,
according to which the human body of Jesus was only a phan tom.
Valentinus, who was contemporary with the Pauline writers of the
second century, maintained that Jesus was not born of Mary by any
process of conception, but merely passed through her, as light traverses
a translucent substance. And finally Marcion (A. D. 140) carried the
theory to its extreme limits by declaring that Jesus was the pure Pneuma or Spirit, who contained nothing in common with carnal humanity.
The pseudo-Pauline writers steered clear of this extravagant doc
trine, which erred by breaking entirely with historic tradition, and was
consequently soon condemned as heretical. Their language, though
unmistakably Gnostic, was sufficiently neutral and indefinite to allow
of their combination with earlier and later expositions of dogma,
and they were therefore eventually received into the canon, where they
exhibit a stage of opinion midway between that of Paul and that of
the fourth gospel.
For the construction of a durable system of Christology, still
i
t
�THE JESUS
OF DOGMA.
41
further elaboration was necessary. The pre-existence of Jesus, as an
emanation from God, in whom were summed up the attributes of the
pleroma or full scale of Gnostic a?ons, was now generally conceded.
Blit the relation of this pleroma to the Godhead of which it was the
visible manifestation, needed to be more-accurately defined. And here
recourse was had to the conception of the “Logos,”—a notion which
Philo had borrowed from Plato, lending to it a theosophic significance.
In the Platonic metaphysics, objective existence was attributed to
general terms, the signs of general notions. Besides each particular
man, horse, or tree, and besides all men, horses, and trees, in the
aggregate, there was supposed to exist an ideal Man, Horse, and Tree.
Each particular man, hors#, or tree consisted of abstract existence plus
a portion of the ideal man, horse, or tree. Socrates, for instance, con
sisted of Existence, plus Animality, plus Humanity, plus Socraticity.
The visible world of particulars thus existed only by virtue of its par
ticipation in the attributes of the ideal world of universals. God
created the world by encumbering each idea with an envelopment or
clothing of visible matter; and since matter is vile or imperfect, all
things are more or less perfect as they partake more or less fully of the
idea. The pure unencumbered idea, the “ Idea of ideas,” is the Logos,
or divine Reason, which represents the sum-total of the activities
which sustain the world, and serves as a mediator between the abso
lutely ideal God and the absolutely non-ideal matter. Here we arrive
at a Gnostic conception, which the Philonists of Alexandria were not
slow to appropriate. The Logos, or divine Reason, was identified with
the Sophia, or divine Wisdom of the Jewish Gnostics, which had dwelt
with God before the creation of the world. By a subtle play upon the
double meaning of the Greek term {logos = “ reason ” or “ word,”) a
distinction was drawn between the divine Reason and the divine Word.
The former was the archetypal idea or thought of God, existing from
all eternity; the latter was the external manifestation or realization of
that idea which occurred at the moment of creation, when, according
to Genesis, God spoke, and the world was.
In the middle of the second century, this Philonian theory was the
one thing needful to add metaphysical precision to the Gnostic and
Pauline speculations concerning the nature of Jesus. In the writings
of Justin Martyr, (A. D. 150-1G6,) Jesus is for the first time identified
with the Philonian logos or “Word of God.” According to Justin, an
impassable abyss exists between the Infinite Deity and the Finite
World; the one cannot act upon the other; pure spirit cannot con
taminate itself by contact with impure matter. To meet this difficulty,
God evolves from himself a secondary God, the Logos,—yet without
diminishing himself any more than a flame is diminished when it
gives birth to a second flame. Thus generated, like light begotten of
light, {lumen de lumine,) the Logos creates the world, inspires the
ancient prophets with their divine revelations, and finally reveals him
�42
THE
JESUS
OE DOGMA.
self to mankind in the person of Christ. Yet Justin sedulously guards
himself against ditheism, insisting frequently and emphatically upon
the immeasurable inferiority of the Logos as compared with the actual
God (7zo ontos theos.)
We have here reached very nearly the ultimate phase of New Tes
tament speculation concerning Jesus. The doctrines enunciated by
Justin became eventually, with slight modification, the official doc
trines of the Church : yet before they could thus be received, some
further elaboration was needed. The pre-existing Logos-Christ of
Justin was no longer the human Messiah of the firstand third gos
pels, born of a woman, inspired by the divine Pneuma, and tempted
by the Devil. There was danger that Christologie speculation might
break quite loose from historic tradition, and pass into the metaphysical
extreme of Docetism. Had this come to pass, there might perhaps
have been a fatal schism in the Church. Tradition still remained
Ebionitish ; dogma had become decidedly Gnostic ; how were the two
to be moulded into harmony with each other ? Such was the prob
lem which presented itself to the author of the fourth gospel (A. D.
170-180). As M. Réville observes, “if the doctrine of the Logos
were really to be applied to the person of Jesus, it was necessary to re
model the evangelical history.” Tradition must be moulded so as to
fit the dogma, but the dogma must be restrained by tradition from
running into Docetic extravagance. It must 'be shown historically
how “ the Word became flesh ” and dwelt on earth, (John i. 14,) how
the deeds of Jesus of Nazareth were the deeds of the incarnate Logos,
in whom was exhibited the pleroma or fullness of the divine attri
butes. The author of the fourth gospel is, like Justin, a Philonian
Gnostic; but he differs from Justin in his bold and skilful treatment
of the traditional materials supplied by the earlier gospels. The prooess of development in the theories and purposes of Jesus, which can
be traced throughout the Messianic descriptions of the first gospel,
is entirely obliterated in the fourth. Here Jesus appears at the out
set as the creator of the world, descended from his glory, but des
tined soon to be reinstated. The title “ Son of Man ” has lost its
original significance, and become synonymous with “ Son of God.”
The temptation, the transfiguration, the scene in Gethsemane, are
omitted, and for the latter is substituted a Philonian prayer. Never
theless, the author carefully avoids the extremes of Docetism or di
theism. Not only does he represent the human life of Jesus as real,
and his death as a truly physical death, but he distinctly asserts the
inferiority of the Son to the Father (John xiv. 28.) Indeed, as M. Ré
ville well observes, it is part of the very notion of the Logos that it
should be imperfect relatively to the absolute God ; since it is only its
relative imperfection which allows it to sustain relations to the world
and to men which are incompatible with absolute perfection, from the
Philonian point of view. The Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity
�THE JESUS
OF DOGMA.
43
finds no support in the fourth gospel, any more than in the earlier
books collected in the New Testament.
The fourth gospel completes the speculative revolution by which
the conception of a divine being lowered to humanity was substituted
for that of a human being raised to divinity. We have here traveled a
long distance from the risen Messiah of the genuine Pauline epistles,
or the preacher of righteousness in the first gospel. Yet it does not
seem probable tliat the Church of the third century was thoroughly
aware of the discrepancy. The authors of the later Christology did not
regard themselves as adding new truths to Christianity, but merely as
giving a fuller and more consistent interpretation to what must have
been known from the outset. They were so completely destitute of the
historic sense, and so strictly confined to the dogmatic point of view,
that they projected their own theories back into the past, and vituper
ated as heretics those who adhered to tradition in its earlier and sim
pler form. Examples from more recent times are not wanting, which
show that we are dealing here with an inveterate tendency of the
human mind. New facts and new theories are at first condemned as
heretical or ridiculous; but when once firmly established, it is imme
diately maintained that every one knew them before. After the Coper
nican astronomy had won the day, it was tacitly assumed that the
ancient Hebrew astronomy was Copernican, and the Biblical concep
tion of the universe as a kind of three-story house was ignored, and has
been, except by scholars, quite forgotten. When the geologic evidence
of the earth’s immense antiquity could no longer be gainsaid, it was
suddenly ascertained that the Bible had from the outset asserted that
antiquity; and in our own day we have seen an elegant popular writer
perverting the testimony of the rocks and distorting the Elohistic cos
mogony of the Pentateuch, until the twain have been made to furnish
what Bacon long ago described as “ a heretical religion and a false
philosophy.” Now just as in the popular thought of the present day
the ancient Elohist is accredited with a knowledge of modern geology
and astronomy, so in the opinion of the fourth evangelist and his con
temporaries the doctrine of the Logos-Christ was implicitly contained
in the Old Testament and in the early traditions concerning Jesus, and
needed only to be brought into prominence by a fresh interpretation.
Hence arose the fourth gospel, which was no more a conscious violation
of historic data than Hugh Miller’s imaginative description of the
“ Mosaic Vision of Creation.” Its metaphysical discourses were readily
accepted as equally authentic with the Sermon on the Mount. Its
Philonian doctrines were imputed to Paul and the apostles, the pseudo
Pauline epistles furnishing the needful texts. The Ebionites—who
were simply Judaizing Christians, holding in nearly its original form
the doctrine of Peter, Janies, and John—were ejected from the Church
as the most pernicious of heretics ; and so completely was their historic
position misunderstood and forgotten, that, in order to account for
�44
THE JESUS
OF DOGMA.
their existence, it became necessary to invent an epoifymous heresiarch,
Ebion, who was supposed to have led them astray from the true faith I
The Christology of the fourth gospel is substantially the same as
that which was held in the next two centuries by Tertullian, Clement
of Alexandria, Origen, and Arius. When the doctrine of the Trinity
was first announced by Sabellius (A. D. 250-260), it was formally con
demned as heretical, the Church being not yet quite prepared to receive
it. In 269 the Council of Antioch solemnly declared that the Son was
not consubstantial with the Father—a declaration which, within sixty
years, the Council of Nikaia was destined as solemnly to contradict
The trinitarian Christology struggled long for acceptance, and did not
finally win the victory until the end of the fourth century. Yet from
the outset its ultimate victory was hardly doubtful. The peculiar doc
trines of the fourth gospel could retain their
integrity
*
only so long as
Gnostic ideas were prevalent. When Gnosticism declined in importtance, and its theories faded out of recollection, its peculiar phraseology
received of necessity a new interpretation. The doctrine that God
could not act directly upon the world sank gradually into oblivion as
the Church grew more and more hostile to the Neo-Platonic philoso
phy. And when this theory was once forgotten, it was inevitable that
the Logos, as the creator of the world, should be raised to an equality
or identity with God himself. In the view of the fourth evangelist, the
Creator was necessarily inferior to God; in the view of later ages, the
Creator could be none other than God. And so the very phrases which
had most emphatically asserted the subordination' of the Son were
afterward interpreted as asserting his absolute divinity. To the Gnos
tic formula, “ lumen de lumine,” was added the Athanasian scholium,
“Deum verum de Deo vero ; ” and the trinitarian dogma of the union of
persons in a single Godhead became thus the only available logical
device for preserving the purity of monotheism.
The modern theory, however, at which we seem to be slowly arriv
ing is, that light, heat, electricity, life itself, are only forms of motion,
and that death is merely the cessation of this motion; that the deity
is, throughout the universe, the embodiment (sinee that is the only
word I can think of to express myself) of motion itself; and that all
which dies, or, in other words, ceases to move, falls back into the uni
verse, and is absorbed into the deity. This was the belief of the Bud
dhist—the framer or acceptor of a pure and beautiful religion ; and to
this belief modern science and the enlargement of knowledge slowly
tend.—Macmillan’s Magazine.
�
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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 last word about Jesus
Creator
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Fiske, John
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: [9]-48 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Extracted from Modern Thinker, no. 1, 1870. Includes bibliographical references. Printed on grey paper. Marks from adhesive tape on first page.
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[American News Company]
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[1870]
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G5413
Subject
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Jesus Christ
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The last word about 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>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ-Historicity