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ORTHODOXY FROM THE HEBREW
POINT OF VIEW.
PART II.
Z
BY THE
Rev. THOS. P. KIRKMAN, M.A., F.R.S.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Sixpence.
�i
�ORTHODOXY FROM THE HEBREW
POINT OF VIEW.
PART II.
EFORE the dispersion of the clerical party, it was
necessary, by the rule, to decide upon the place of
the next monthly meeting, as well as upon a subject
for discussion. It was the turn of Mr E. the next
time to entertain his brethren, and to preside ; but he
had unluckily disappeared. The majority present were
easily convinced by Mr P., that the debate on the lan
guage spoken by our Lord and the apostles ought to be
continued ; and, above all, from this consideration, that
one side only had been heard. Nobody doubted that
the learned Dean Alford had what appeared to him
valid grounds for his statement, that Greek was in
these days almost universally understood in Jerusalem;
and all the clergy of the club, who had sufficient leisure
and reading, engaged to give to the question, during
the coming month, the best attention in their power.
It was decided that Mr P. should endeavour to obtain
the consent of Mr. E. to the desired arrangement. Dr
Marcus promised, at the request of the party, to be
present at the next meeting; and I also had the good
fortune to receive an invitation.
In the forenoon of the day on which Mr. E. received
the communication of Mr P., as he was pondering about
the answer he should give to it, the archdeacon and
the rural dean walked into his vicarage, having occa-
B
�4
Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
sion to inspect his registers. He gave to them an
account of the discussion in the house of P., which we
have related, and desired the opinion of the two
divines. On the lawfulness or unlawfulness of baptis
ing the Jew, neither of them was prepared to decide at
the moment; but after Mr E.’s account of the argu
ments of Dr Marcus, drawn from Josephus, the
archdeacon exclaimed—“Quotations from Josephus
against the Gospels ! How utterly ridiculous I A fig
for Josephus! He was a bigotted Jew, and a bitter
enemy of the truth. Can any sane man treat him as
an unprejudiced witness ? Not a word that he has to
say against the testimony of the primitive apostolic
church can deserve one moment’s attention.” “ I
agree with you about the value of arguments drawn
from Josephus against the teaching of the church,”
said the rural dean ; “but I am by no means certain
that he was the mere Jew that you term him. The
learned editor of my Whiston’s ‘Josephus’ affirms
that he was a Nazarene Christian, and gives what I
consider to be good reasons for his opinion.”
Mr E. was at this moment called out to speak with a
parishioner, whereupon the archdeacon found it con
venient to change the topic of discourse, saying—
“ What an awful thing it is to find these parochial clergy
and their curates debating such perilous points as these,
and that in the absence of any controlling dignitary 1 ”
“ It is bad enough,” replied the rural dean, “ when the
dignitary is there; for I suppose you consider a rural
dean to be a dignitary, don’t you?” “Assuredly,”
was the reply; “I am but a deacon, but you are a
dean. The whole diocese holds you to be a Euler
Dean, the greatest swell among us.”
“Then,” said the dean, “ you will not ask me again how
it comes to pass that, while other rural deans invite their
clergy to a debate three or four times a year, I do that
only once. I find once rather more than enough. I dis
approve utterly, as the bishop well knows, of these ruri-
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
5
decanal gatherings; and if I had the power, I would
prevent all discussion, except under a dignified and
discreet president, at the meetings of the clerical book
clubs ; for nothing but mischief can possibly come of
this spirit of debate among the inferior clergy.” “ You
told me,” said the archdeacon, “ that the subject of
discussion at your annual gatherings is chosen by the
members of the chapter. What would you do if they
determined to handle in your house this question of
the language spoken by our Lord and the apostles
The rural dean answered, with a little laugh—“ They
shall never meddle with such a topic before me. The
subject would be formally announced, of course ; but I
should fall back upon our fundamental regulation, that
a subject proposed by the bishop must take precedence
of all others. I have a stock of such always on hand.
Diocesan finance is a capital one. I could easily occupy
half the time with a speech about that, much to their
instruction; for, I am sorry to say, they know and
care little about it, and do not raise half the money
that they might.” Here Mr E. came in again, and the
two dignitaries urged and implored him to refuse the
permission asked to continue such an unprofitable dis
cussion in the house, and to protest against the debate
anywhere. They were, as the reader can imagine,
quite eloquent about the danger of corrupting the
minds of curates and young divines, and on the utter
absurdity of attempting to mend the historical decisions
of such men as Dean Alford, on whom, from their
superior learning and leisure, was specially devolved
the task of investigating such questions. Mr E.
listened respectfully to all they had to say, but did
not pledge himself to more than a serious consideration
of their counsel. The truth was, that although the
two gardeners of these highly connected and splendidly
beneficed gentlemen had together about twice the
income of Mr E.’s vicarage, he firmly believed—and for
good reasons—that the two dignified heads were very
�6
Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
far from containing twice his own brains and learning.
Soon after their departure, he took his stout cane, and
walked six miles to the Independent College, of which
the Rev. Dr Jones, E.R.A.S., was the Principal, a *
gentleman of great ability and erudition, with whom
Mr E. had the liberality and good taste to be cordially
intimate. Brought up in the school of the evangelical
Simeon, he and his friend Jones were heartily together
in their abhorrence of the rising tide of conjuring and
pardoning sacerdotalism, and held fast to the leading
principles of the Nicene theology, and to the doctrine
of the Atonement; but their reverence for the old
dogmatic anathemas, and their early faith in the
infallible inspiration and correctness of canonical
Scripture, had been more shaken by their frank inter
change of thought than either was accustomed to con
fess to others.
Dr Jones rubbed his hands with delight when Mr
E., after placing the whole case before him, asked his
advice. “ ’Tis the luckiest thing in the world,” said
the doctor. “ That question has been completely set
at rest by my friend, Dr Roberts. Here is his book
(removing from the shelf a volume of 600 pages) : take
that with you and read it. I know it well. Accede
by all means to the proposal made, and ask me to be
of the party. Together we shall utterly demolish the
Jew.’’ The book was “ Discussions on the Gospels,”
by Dr Alexander Roberts. Mr E. was so pleased, after
turning over a few pages, that he at once 'wrote a note
to Mr P------ , expressing his consent, and begging that
all the members of the club, including Dr Marcus,
should come early enough to begin the resumed debate
at eleven o’clock on the day appointed. He added,
after a little conversation with Dr Jones, that he
thought it of the highest importance, and that as pre
sident he should insist upon it, that the question to
which all the speakers should address themselves,
should be, not whether Greek was understood by the
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View,
y
learned and the higher classes in Palestine, but what
tongue was commonly spoken by the class to which
our Lord and his disciples belonged ; and that all col
lateral and dependent inquiries should be at present
avoided, such as the shewing reasons why the gospels
were written and preserved in Greek only, or the de
manding of reasons why no Hebrew documents have
come down to us. For he was sure that there would be
time little enough for the main discussion of the main
question. He wished to see an honest attempt to de
cide that, or to prove that no decision is attainable.
From either issue, results would follow too vast for one
day’s debate.
The day arrived. The little vicarage was crowded
with guests. Warm was the welcome, and delicious
the cup of fine home-brewed ale which awaited the
smiling visitors, all, for a distance, foot travellers. Mr
and Mrs E. were advanced in life ; and by the prac
tice of self-denial and economy, which our equally rich
artizans and miners will not learn for centuries to come,
had always been able to exercise, on occasion, a refined
though not ambitious hospitality.
Mr E------ had
grown old on a clerical income little more than the
wages and the perquisites of his late enormously en
dowed Hector’s confidential valet; he had done in his
vast parish ten times that Rector’s work in his splendid
park and pretty little village, and, by wonderful energy
in writing and teaching at home, he had made for
himself a literary name, brought up a family, and
turned out a son as second wrangler, fellow of a most
distinguished college, and a rising barrister.
The
reward of his talents and virtues had been not merely
neglect; that can easily be borne ; but insult of pecu
liar cruelty, the true story of which this is not the
place to telL
Mr E------ took the chair at the head of a table,
on which lay his own Philo, Mr P.’s Josephus and
Eusebius, Dr Robert’s “ Dissertations,” with other
�8 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
books. The party was composed of just the persons
of the preceding meeting. Dr Jones, after all, was
not there, as certain members of the Book Society had
objected to the assistance of a non-member who had
not been present at the preceding debate. The book
of Dr Roberts had been read by several of the divines.
Mr E------stated his wish to confine the discussion
to this one question—What was the language commonly
spoken in Judea in the time of our Lord by persons of
the class to which he and his disciples belonged?
“ Before we consider what reply can be given to Dr
Marcus’s inference frem the works of Josephus, that
Greek was not commonly spoken by his countrymen,
but was a foreign tongue unknown to all but a few, I
should wish to have his whole argument before us, and
I would ask him what other passages in Josephus he
can adduce in support of his opinion.” “ There is
something to the purpose,” said Dr Marcus, “ in the
autobiography of Josephus, prefixed to his works. He
speaks of one Justus of Tiberias, the son of Pistus (of
course translations of Hebrew names), the leader of
a faction in Tiberias, thus § 9 : ‘ and, as he said this,
he exhorted the multitude (to go to war against the
Romans) ; for his abilities lay in making harangues
to the people, and in being too hard in his speeches
for such as opposed him, and this by his craftiness and
fallacies ; for he was not unskilful in the learning of the
Greeks, and in dependence on that skill it was that he
undertook to write a history of these affairs.’ Of the
said Justus, he speaks thus in § 65 :—“But if thou
art so hardy as to affirm that thou hast written this
history better than all the rest, why didst thou not
publish thy history whilst the Emperors Vespasian and
Titus, the generals in that war, as well as King
Agrippa and his family, who were men well skilled in
the learning of the Greeks, were all alive ? for then
thou couldest have had the testimony of thy accuracy ?”
“ If,” continued Dr Marcus, “ Greek, the good
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
9
grammatical Greek of the New Testament, was com
monly understood in Jerusalem before Justus was born,
and, as Dr Roberts, whose book is on the table, main
tains, by all classes, even the rabble, all over Palestine,
it would have been a matter of course, that a leader of
a faction in Tiberias should know the language well,
and still more, that King Agrippa and his family should
be familiar with it. How then could it have come into
the head of Josephus to observe of his opponent Justus,
and of those royal personages, that they were not un
skilled in the learning of the Greeks ? According to
Dr Roberts, Greek was more spoken in Palestine than
English is now in Wales. Would any educated Welsh
man think of remarking about his superior or equal
in that country, that he was not unskilful in English ?
I submit that the words of Josephus are not consistent
with the supposition that Greek was commonly under
stood. It is most absurd to imagine that a Jewish
writer, born in a country where the Greek of the New
Testament was spoken by everybody, should treat as a
noteworthy accomplishment that King Agrippa, born
and bred there, should be able to understand the Greek
of Josephus or Justus, which is not a bit more difficult
than that of any literary or diplomatic document of the
day. Josephus evidently speaks of Justus as well able
to stir up the people in Hebrew, and to wrangle with
officials and others in Greek.
“ There is another important passage which should be
well considered by those who argue from the confessedly
wide dissemination of the Greek language after the
conquests of Alexander, that it must needs have be
come familiar to all in the jealous land of Israel,
although they have no evidence in the world that it
was, except that which is founded on the theological
necessity that the first, second, and fourth gospels should
be the writing of Palestinian Jews. In the first book
against Apion, § 12, we read thus—“As for ourselves,
we neither inhabit a maritime country, nor do we de-
�i o Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
light in merchandise, nor in such a mixture with other
men as arises from it; hut, the cities we dwell in are
remote from the sea, and having a fruitful country for
our habitation, we take pains in cultivating that only.
Our principal care of all is this, to educate our children
well; and we think it to be the most necessary busi
ness of our whole life, to observe the laws which have
been given us, and to keep those rules of piety that
have been delivered down to us. Since, therefore,
besides what we have already taken notice of, we have
had a peculiar way of living of our own, there was no
occasion ever offered us in ancient ages for intermix
ing with the Greeks, as they had for mixing among
the Egyptians, by their intercourse of exporting and
importing their several goods ; as they also mixed with
the Phoenicians, who lived by the sea-side, by means of
their love of lucre in trade and merchandise.” It is
plain that Josephus, though he knew that the central
port of Caesarea, the seat of the Roman government,
was a Greek speaking city, and that there were forti
fied cities in the country where many foreigners dwelt,
is here describing his native land as unaltered by com
munion and mixture with the Greeks ; and how is it
possible, that without such mixture the Greek tongue
could have become as familiar as the Hebrew or Ara
maic of the country ? Caesarea, though considered by
geographers to be in Judaea, is spoken of by Josephus,
as the land of the foreigner ; e.g., he begins the 18th
chapter of the second book of the Wars thus —•“ How
the people of Cesarea had slain the Jews that were
among them on the very same day and hour,” &c. In
the fourteenth book also, he speaks of the people of
Cesarea as distinct from the thousands of Jews who
dwelt there ; as when he says, “ the Jews that dwelt at
Cesarea had a synagogue near the place, whose owner
was a certain Cesarean Greek,” evidently a heathen
Greek, who is described as taking pleasure in insult
ing the religion of his Jewish tenants.
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
11
“ In the preface to the Antiquities,” continued Dr
Marcus, “in section 2, Josephus says, in giving an
account of the difficulties he had overcome : ‘ In process
of time, as usually happens to those who undertake great
things, I grew weary, and went on slowly, it being a
large subject, and a difficult thing to translate our
history into a foreign, and to us, unaccustomed lan
guage.’ I ought also to have read to you the words
immediately preceding those to which I first referred
(Part I., p. 14) : ‘ And I am so bold to say, now that
I have so completely perfected the work I proposed to
do, that no other person, whether he were a Jew or a
foreigner, had he ever so great an inclination to it,
could so accurately deliver these accounts to the Greeks
as is done in these books. Por those of my own
nation freely acknowledge that I far exceed them in
the learning belonging to the Jews ; I have also taken
great pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks,’ &c.,
as before quoted.
“ Here Josephus calls Greek a language 1 foreign and
unaccustomed ’ (more correctly foreign and outlandish)
to his countrymen. And he had taken great pains to
learn to write it. What need was there of such great
pains to a scholar born and bred where it was
commonly spoken ? What Welsh or Highland gentle
man will place it on record that he has taken great
pains to obtain the learning of the English ? And,
make what allowances we may for his vanity, it is a
remarkable thing for him to declare his conviction,
that no man living, Jew or Greek, could have written
his book. We can understand why no Greek could do
it—because none had the requisite knowledge of the
ancient Hebrew Scriptures. But why no Jew 1 there
were numbers of learned Jews at Alexandria who
knew far more of Greek literature than he did : but
these he plainly considered disqualified by their ignor
ance of the Hebrew, the Septuagint being the only
form in which they studied the scriptures. What then
�/
12
Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
disqualified all the learned Jews of Jerusalem? they
surely were not all incompetent to throw the Old
Testament into such a narrative as that in the Antiqui
ties. They could be disqualified only by their want of
Greek. And yet they were, as your divines pretend,
educated men, the sons of fathers who had continually
heard the good grammatical, though not most elegant,
Greek of the New Testament, spoken by all classes,
high and low, in Judea.”
When Dr Marcus had ended his remarks, the chair
man said : “ As Josephus is the only Jew born in
Judea in those times, whose testimony distinct from
that of our gospels we have before us, I think we had
best examine carefully the passages of his writing,
which Dr Marcus has adduced, and try to satisfy our
selves whether they prove, as Dr Marcus holds, that
Greek was an unspoken and completely foreign tongue
in Judea in the time of our Lord, or whether, as Dr
Roberts maintains, they prove nothing’ of the kind.
Dr Roberts, in his chap, viii., part I., considers the
objections from the writings of Josephus to his thesis,
that Greek wTas the prevailing language.”
“ Before you read Dr Roberts’s criticisms,’ said Mr
G------ , “ let me beg you, for the information of myself
and others, who have not read his large volume, to give
us in his own words, the exact statement of his thesis.”
Mr E------ . assented, and opening the volume, said,
“ at page 4, Dr Roberts observes : ‘ The Greek language
I believe to have been almost universally prevalent,
and to have been understood and employed, more or
less, by all classes of the community. But I believe
that the Greek, though thus generally used, was
attended by the Aramaean, which was frequently spoken
by all ranks of the native population, was made use by
such, at times, on public as well as private occasions ;
but was, for the most part, employed only in homely
and familiar intercouse, and might still be said, though
with difficulty, and amid many exceptions, to maintain
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View, i 3
its position as the mother-tongue of the inhabitants of
the country.” “ So that,” said Mr G------, “ is the
result of six hundred pages of historical inquiry ! To
me it sounds very like—whichever you please, my
dear, you pay your money, and you take your choice.
Is there anything more definite?” “Do not be in
such a hurry, friend G------ ,” said B------ ; “ on page
5, he says : ‘What I maintain, and shall endeavour to
prove, is that Greek was, in several important respects,
the then prevailing language (prevailing in capitals) of
Palestine; that it was, in particular, the language of
literature and commerce; the language generally
employed in public intercourse ; the language which a
religious teacher would have no hesitation in selecting
and making use of, for the most part, as the vehicle for
conveying his instructions, whether orally or in writ
ing ; and the language, accordingly, which was thus
employed both by our Lord and his apostles.’ ”
“ Hmm ! ” said Mr G------ , “he begins by maintaining
in capitals, and then endeavours to prove, I fear, in
very small. Evidently, he cares little for mere
historical inquiry, but is about to fight his way through
thick and thin, as special pleader for the utterance in
Greek, by our Lord and the apostles, of all their words
recorded in Greek. I do not expect from him much
aid in our examination of Josephus. Does he allow
that Jesus ever spoke Hebrew?” “I cannot find
that he does,” was the answer. “At page 486, he
winds up thus : ‘We must discard such notions and
errors, whosoever may sanction and maintain them,
and cling to that one simple and satisfactory
hypothesis, by which, as has been shown, the whole
facts of the case are easily explained, and by which
alone they become intelligible—that (here all that
follows is in capitals) ‘ Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke
in Greek, and the Evangelists independently
NARRATED HIS ACTIONS, AND REPORTED HIS DISCOURSES
IN THE SAME
EMPLOYED.’ ”
LANGUAGE WHICH
HE
HAD
HIMSELF
�14 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
At this, G------, P----- , and a few others, laughed
heartily, and one gentleman was facetious enough to
venture something funny about capital logic. “ I
suppose,” said one, who had not seen the book, “ he
allows, at least, that our Lord said, talitha cumi.”
“ He does,” said the reader, “ and gives a reason for it
thus, at page 92 : ‘ The person on whom the miracle
was performed, was of tender years, and being the
daughter of a strictly Jewish family, she was probably,
as yet, but little acquainted with the Greek. At any
rate, Greek was to her, as to every native Jew, a
language not generally employed in the domestic circle ;
and it was to Hebrew that her ears, from infancy, had
been accustomed. How beautifully accordant then,
with the character of Him whose heart was tenderness
itself, that now, as he bent over the lifeless frame of
the maiden, and breathed that life-giving whisper into
her ear, it should have been in the loved and familiar
accents of her mother-tongue ! ’ ”
Later in his book, in his concluding chapter, he
claims to have established that our Lord and his apostles
habitually made use of the Greek language. “ And the
conclusion which I have sought to make good amounts
to this—that throughout the whole of his public
ministry : ... in the house of Mary at Bethany, as
well as in the city, our blessed Lord continually made
use of the Greek language” (p. 519).
“ G------is quite correct,” said Mr P. in his estimate of
Dr Roberts. “ He is the most daring and dogmatic
of special pleaders. His one great argument is—the
words of Jesus have come down to us in Greek—ergo,
He uttered them in Greek. He is grand in main
taining and affirming. At page 16, he says, ‘ What I
maintain and mean to prove is, that Greek was the
language which they habitually used in their public
addresses; so that if any one affirms that Hebrew was
used on some occasions, when their discourses have
been reported in Greek, it remains with him to shew
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 15
it. I may be inclined to believe that some such occa
sions are possibly to be met with in the Gospel history;
but, at any rate, I affirm that these were altogether ex
ceptional, and that Greek was the language usually em
ployed in addressing even the very humblest of the
people.’ He allows you as much Aramaic as you like,
attending the Greek, as he says, Aramaic in homely and
familiar intercourse, Aramaic maintaining its position
* as the mother tongue of the inhabitants of the country,’
Aramaic as the language employed in the domestic
circle, even in the house of rulers of the synagogue;
but not a word of it ever uttered by our Lord, unless
you can demonstrate it. The only general notion
which he allows me to frame, so far as I can under
stand him is this;—that the moment a Jew, in any
part of Palestine, put his nose out of doors, he changed
his language and began to talk Greek, or else held his
peace, except on the rarest occasions; afraid, I fancy,
that his old mother tongue would catch the rheu
matics.”
“ Enough,” said the chairman, “ and more than
enough, about the thesis of Dr Roberts. Let us con
sider his replies to objections from Josephus.” “ Are
the replies lengthy,” demanded Mr G. “ Only seven
pages,” was the answer.
“ Then we ought to hear
every word of them,” said Mr G. The chairman read
as follows, from page 286 of the chapter “ Considera
tion of Objections
“The first passage calling for re
mark is found in the preface to his ‘ History of the
Jewish War: ’—‘ I have devoted myself to the task of
translating, for the sake of those who live under the
government of the Romans, the narrative which I for
merly composed in our national language
yXwa'o'jj),
and transmitted to the Barbarians of the interior (roi$
/3a,pf3apois).‘ In section following, he explains that
his object in re-writing his history was, that the Greeks
and Romans, as well as the Parthians, the Babylonians,
the further Arabians, and the Jews beyond the
�16 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
Euphrates, might have access to a true narrative of
events. Dr Roberts concludes his argument thu,s:—
“ Josephus, in composing his history in Greek, intended
it for the use generally of those who lived under the
government of the Romans — manifestly, therefore,
though not exclusively, for his brethren in Palestine.
The same thing appears from his not enumerating the
Jews of Palestine, among those for whom the Hebrew
edition of his narrative was designed.” The inference
drawn is,—“ That a history intended for the natives of
Palestine, among others, would naturally be composed
in the Greek language.” “ Bravo ! Dr Roberts,” cried
Mr G. “ From that inference, and from the remark
that the Jews of Palestine were not named as the in
tended readers of the Hebrew history, we all see what
a dunce Dr Marcus was for telling us that the book
written by Josephus in his native tongue was meant
(Part I., p. 25) for the information of his countrymen!
It was the translation in the foreign and outlandish
tongue which was naturally composed for their reading.”
The fun of this was too much even for the chairman’s
gravity, and there was a peal of refreshing laughter all
round. Mr E. went on—“ there are two other passages
generally quoted from Josephus, in the former of which
(the third quoted above by Dr Marcus, page 11) he
speaks of the Greek in which he wrote his antiquities
as a
xai aWohavi] SiaXtxroc (literally a foreign and
outlandish speech or dialect) ; and in the latter— ”
“ Pardon me,” said Mr P., “ it will save time to take
one passage at once. Tell us how he gets out of the
1 foreign and outlandish.’” “They are dealt with to
gether, and I can find nothing,” said the reader, “ be
sides these two sentences in the page following. •' It was
not his purpose merely to write in Greek, but as far as
possible in pure and classical Greek. The Hebraistic
Greek to which he was accustomed, might almost have
been reckoned a different language from that employed
by the classical historians.’ ”
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
17
“ Here,” said Mr P., “we have completely changed
our ground. Instead of the merry inference just drawn,
that the Greek, into which Josephus translated his
work in his native tongue, was the language in which
information for his countrymen would be 1 naturally
composed,’ we learn now that, compared with that
translation, the Greek to which his countrymen, even
polished scholars like himself, were accustomed, might
almost have been reckoned a different language—so
different, that Josephus calls his own historical Greek
a ‘ foreign and outlandish tongue ’ to his countrymen!
And this laughable juggle of contradiction is an answer
to the objection founded on the plain words of
Josephus! Just now we heard, and Dr Roberts is
never tired of repeating it, that the Greek of our Gospels
is the very Greek which fell from the lips of the Saviour
and the Apostles, and the Greek spoken by all classes
of Jews. Now, we are told that the Greek of the most
polished society in Jerusalem was, from its corruptions,
almost a different language from that strange and out
landish classical Greek. Still more corrupt, then,
must have been the Greek of the fishermen of Galilee.
But this we have, word for word, says the Doctor, in
the New Testament; and we can compare it with the
classical—with what result? The fact is, that the dif
ference is so small, that none of us ever saw it, till
after the labour of years we had learned the refinements
of the language. Both are studied from the same
grammar and dictionary; not one of us, I fancy, is able
to point out anything ungrammatical in one more
than in the other, vast as the complexities of Greek
grammar are. Nor do I believe that all of us together
can recal half-a-dozen phrases in the utterances of our
Lord and the apostles, which can be termed Hebraistic
Greek.”
“ I am astonished,” said Mr C., “ at all this fuss
about
iS/dXEzrog. It means either strange tongue,
or strange dialect. Evidently Josephus is speaking of
B
�18 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
two dialects of Greek. You may shake your heads,
but you cannot deny that, with the grammarians,
means simple dialectus, dialect. We have no
right to affirm that the Greek spoken by our Lord and
the apostles, and by Jews of their station, was quite as
pure and grammatical as our present text. Broad
Scotch or broad Lancashire may well be called a strange
outlandish dialect in comparison with classical English.”
“ That may be,” said the chairman; “but it is not
the same thing as if a writer of classical English should
term his own language strange and outlandish in com
parison of the ruder speech, as you seem to think
Josephus did.”
“ And what harm in that? That’s another thing,”
said C., who was that scarce commodity an Irish highchurchman ; “ I say that, if a divine teacher were to
appear speaking either dialect, his words might be
handed down in pure grammatical English, with perfect
faithfulness as to the phrases used, but modified for all
mankind, not in the tongue spoken, but in dialect only.
I say that the thesis of Dr Roberts is not damaged at
all by this phrase of Josephus.” “That,” said the
chairman, “ demands full consideration, and I am
partly inclined to agree with C. Indeed, I intended to
state, if not to maintain, his view of the matter. You
had best hear Dr Roberts out on these two passages.”
He read on—“ and in the latter he tells us he had de
voted himself, to the study of Greek learning, but had
not been able to acquire a correct pronunciation, on
account of the habit which prevailed in his native
country.” (Vid. the Greek, Part I., p. 24). These
passages have been much insisted on by those who
deny the prevalence of Greek in Palestine. But the
whole difficulty which they seem to present vanishes
when we take into account the object which Josephus
had professedly in view. It was not his purpose
merely to write in Greek, but, as far as possible, in pure
and classical Greek. And it is in perfect consistency
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 19
■with the position which I uphold as to the linguistic
condition of Palestine at the time, that he should have
felt great difficulty in accomplishing his purpose. His
<!rdrpios <fvv7)6eia, greatly hindered it. The Hebraistic
Greek to which he was accustomed, might almost have
been reckoned a different language from that employed
by the classical historians. He adds in a note: ‘ I may
observe that it is not uncommon to find Scottish
writers of the last century speaking in their prefaces of
the pains which they had taken, often, as was felt,
with but partial success, to write in correct and classical
English—Comp. e. g., the Preface to Campbell’s work ‘On
the Gospels.’ “I confess,” added the chairman, “that if
it could be maintained that such Hebraistic Greek was
familiarly spoken by the Jews, the reply of Dr Roberts
to objections from Josephus, is to me satisfactory.”
“ That exactly amounts,” said Mr B., “ to this: that
in your judgment, if the thesis of Dr Roberts be first
vastly altered, and then granted, without one word of
historical proof, the thesis, in spite of Josephus, will
stand. The Greek posited in his thesis is the good
grammatical Greek of the New Testament; the altera
tion required, and ready for use, is to put for that a
Greek as different from it, as broad Scotch or broad
Lancashire is diverse from decent English. Don’t you
twig this sleight of hand? The doctor is conjuring
with two cards, not one.”
“That is precisely so,” said Mr P., rising, “there’s
not in Dr Roberts’ large book a shadow of demonstra
tion that Greek was commonly spoken in Judea 1800
years ago, except his argument from the New Testa
ment books, assumed as authentic. And the only con
siderations worth notice in that argument, besides sim
ple assumption of the matter in debate, are these ; first,
that no hint is even given by the narrators that they
are translating into Greek what was said in Aramaic;
and secondly, that no mention of interpreter be
tween Jew and Greek is ever made. By the help of
�20 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
these two considerations and Dr Roberts’ capitals, it
would be easy to write a book proving that the Iberian,
Celtic and German tribes, with whom the Roman
generals had so much intercourse and correspondence,
all spoke commonly the Latin tongue along with their
vernacular. Such a book would be probably more
difficult to confute from cotemporary history than is
Dr Roberts’ volume. Where could we find a direct
negative, that they did not know Latin? With respect
to these passages from Josephus, I observe, first, that
they all conspire to agree exactly, without qualification
or quibble, with the flat negation of Dr Roberts’ thesis.
Josephus is for him never a witness; he pleads only
against the evidence of that writer. The enormous argu
ment from silence is dead against him. No terms in the
Greek language can be found to describe the strange
ness and difficulty of a foreign tongue, though it were
Chinese, stronger than those used by Josephus about
Greek to a Jew, a life-time after the days of our Lord.
In order to make Josephus in any way agree with Dr
Roberts, we must first get this Hebraistic Greek into
Judea, in spite of the evidence of that author which Dr
Marcus has read to us, concerning the jealous seclusion
of his people from Greek intercourse. Next, we must
conceive of Josephus, a noble and a priest, a renowned
scholar, a famous warrior and diplomatist of the capital,
so drenched in these vulgar Hebraisms, that, in spite
of all the reasons which would have urged him to ob
tain more knowledge than the rabble, whom Dr Roberts
describes at page 188 as perfectly familiar with Greek,
and in spite also of the close relation into which he
was brought for years as a public person, with men,
both friends and enemies, round about Judea, who
spoke and wrote Greek perfectly—we must conceive of
such a man, with such early training, such opportunities
and motives, as content to place on record, when over
forty years old, what very great pains he had taken to
learn Greek, how he had become skilled in the gram-
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 21
mar ot it, how at great he cost had put himself under
tuition in the Greek tongue at Rome, how he had
never managed to pronounce it properly, and how with
the help of others he had surmounted the mighty
difficulty of writing a Greek book, which after all the
rhetorical touching of his “ Graeculus esuriens,” is far
from being a model of classic elegance.
“ This may be natural and pardonable in a man who
had never had nor been supposed to have opportunities
of learning Greek ; but most ridiculous in a scholar
brought up in a capital city where Greek was commonly
spoken before he was born.
“ Yet, far the greatest difficulty in our way to Dr
Robert's thesis, is the getting that Hebraistic Greek
into Palestine. Such a result is contrary to all that
is known of the diffusion of a superior language,
which is always introduced and established by govern
ment officials, military men, or the better class of
proprietors and employers of brains and labour. A
tongue so diffused over a land invariably corrupts the
vernacular, but is not corrupted by it. The Welsh,
Irish, and Gaelic spoken in these islands are ungram
matical and mixed ’with English words ; but the men
who speak them utter a grammatical English, free
from the vernacular, and which they have learned
from their superiors. A Hebraistic Greek is just as
much a nonentity as a Cymricised English. Your
Welsh, Irish, or Highland peasant speaks far better
English than hundreds of wealthy employers in Lan
cashire.
“ Mr C.’s notion of a Scotch or Lancashire sort of
Greek spoken in Judeea is a chimera: it is the cart
before the horse. Our provincial dialects are all ancient
speech which has lagged behind in improvement, not
modern speech imported and degraded, so that they
have no likeness to this fancied Hebraistic Greek. If
we examine the languages of Europe sprung from the
Latin, at least this is true of French, we find scarcely
�22
Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
any mixture in them of the Celtic and Teutonic dis
placed by them. The only book of the New Testament
which deserves to be called Hebraistic Greek is the
Apocalypse. There is not a tittle of evidence that
such Greek was ever a spoken language. The book is
probably the work (I. allude here not to its poetic
splendour) of a Jew, poorly educated, who, late in life,
and with imperfect opportunities, set himself to learn
and write a foreign tongue, just as a half-educated and
ambitious Englishman might turn out a French book
full of Anglicisms. I have read what a writer in
Macmillan’s Magazine has to say concerning the pigeon
English about our factories in the Chinese ports; but
there is no reason to believe that such a jargon ever
was or ever will be commonly spoken by all classes of
a community. Yet I can well imagine that such a
pigeon Greek was current among a meaner sort of Jews
in Caesarea, if there were any who chose to sell their
labour to the Gentiles, and perhaps among the few
who sold their produce there.
“ I shall not debate with Dr Roberts the meaning of
'Trarpiog euvijSeia; that is of little moment; but I do
not admire his concealing from the English reader the
statements of Josephus in two of his passages, that he
had taken lessons in Greek at Rome, and had got hold
of the Greek grammar; and the doctor has no right to
say that the “ custom of his country ” prevented his
writing, but only his pronunciation.” Mr P. sat down.
“It is really wonderfully hard to see one’s way to
the truth in this question,” said the chairman. “We
must read the reply to the remaining passages ■ and
here I shall not have to read all that is written. The
author says : ‘ Other passages are frequently referred
to (“ Wars,” v. 9, 2 ; vi. 2, 6) in which J osephus speaks
of himself as having, by command of Titus, addressed
his besieged countrymen, tjj 'Trarpi^ yXussp (in their
native tongue), and ‘Efipoufyiv (in Hebrew). The only
part of Dr Roberts’ answer to them which appears to
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 23
me worth reading is this : “ They were in arms against
the Roman invaders, and we know that the greatest
fanaticism then prevailed among them. There was a
violent recoil from all that savoured of Gentilism, and
this feeling would be sure to display itself in regard to
language as in other particulars. In fact, as was for
merly mentioned, we find a statement in the Mischna
to the effect that the employment of Greek for certain
purposes was formally prohibited during the war with
Titus; so that we have no difficulty in understanding
why, on the occasions referred to, Josephus should
have made use of the Hebrew language.”
“ That appears to me a sufficient reply,” said the
president.
“With all my heart,” answered Dr Marcus; “but
I beg you not to suppose that there is one word in the
Mischna which indicates that Greek was commonly
spoken. Dr Roberts and the host of writers who have
before handled this question would have produced such
evidence, if it had been there. There were many
things connected with property, marriage, and divorce,
about which the Roman Government had decreed for
their own convenience that legal documents in Greek
should be as valid as those in Hebrew.”
' Hereupon Mr B. remarked : “ In the utter absence
of historical evidence that Greek was a familiar lan
guage, the use of Hebrew by the heralds of Titus will
still found a very strong suspicion, although it supplies
no proof, that no other language would have been
understood. And no more can be urged, from these
passages of Josephus, besides what P. calls the enor
mous historical argument of silence. Josephus has
preserved two long orations which he delivered to his
countrymen by command of Titus in Hebrew; and
tells us, that at the final conference of Titus in person
with the mad generals, an interpreter was employed.
And yet we are to believe that Greek was as familiar
to those generals from their earliest days as to Titus
himself.”
�24 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
11 One more passage,” said the chairman ; “ that in
which Josephus affirms (Cont. Ap. 1-9) that he was
the only person who understood (yvvird) the reports
brought by deserters from the city. The answer of
Dr Roberts is : ‘ I would be inclined to take ovv'njv not
in the sense of understood, but of became acquainted
with, a meaning which the word might possibly bear.
If this explanation of the difficulty be not accepted, I
see no other resource than perhaps the most natural
one of all—that of regarding the statement as cne of
the many exaggerations by which, in the course of his
writings, Josephus seeks to magnify his own import
ance.’ ”
At this there was another laugh all round, and a
great relief we all felt it to be.
One observed that if Dr Roberts chose to maintain
that the ancient Gauls and Britons talked Latin, he
would soon floor arguments from Caesar’s Commentaries.
Here Mr D. rose and said: “ Before we finish our
study of Josephus, I would make a remark which
to me appears of weight. The evidence is strong to
my mind that Josephus grew up without a knowledge
of Greek, such as enabled him either to speak or to
write it. Very likely he never studied it till he was
the prisoner of the Romans, as he affirms (Cont.
Ap. 1, 9) thus : ‘ Vespasian also and Titus had me
kept under a guard, and forced me to attend them con
tinually. At the first I was put into bonds; but was
set at liberty afterward, and sent to accompany Titus,
when he came from Alexandria to the siege of Jeru
salem ; during which time there was nothing done
which escaped my knowledge; for what happened in
the Roman camp I saw and wrote down carefully; and
what information the deserters brought out of the city,
I was the only man that understood them. After
wards I got leisure at Rome,’ &c. (y. part i., p. 25 for
the rest).
“ I agree,” continued Mr D., “ with Dr Alford and
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 25
Dr Roberts as to the prevalence of Greek in Judaea;
but I do not see how any one can read the accounts
given by Josephus of his own studies and acquire
ments, without perceiving that he meant the reader
to conclude that he himself was unacquainted with
that language. The explanation of all that is easy,
and I am amazed that it never occurred to Dr Roberts.
Josephus was a priest, brought up in the house of a
priest, educated among priests, who, as is very well
known, despised and hated the literature and language
of the Gentiles. After his imprisonment, kept as he
was about Vespasian and Titus, who determined to
employ him, he would have both leisure and the
strongest reasons, with good opportunities, to study
Greek; and he doubtless acquired enough of it to
make himself of great use to Titus in the siege. I
think that explains, better than the supposition of
Dr Marcus, how Josephus acted as interpreter.”
To this Dr Marcus, rising, said in reply: “I grant
that Mr D.’s explanation of the last-named matter is
better than mine, which was given at the moment
without due consideration. But I think he will soon
confess as much about the error of his persuasion that
the priests could remain ignorant of Greek in a country
where it was, as he fancies, generally spoken. Priests
know their own interests too well for that. You have
only to read the account given by Josephus of the
distribution of the highest military offices among the
priests. In Book II. of the ‘ Wars,’ c. 20, 4, we read :
‘They also chose other generals for Idumea; Jesus,
the son of Sapphias, one of the high priests, and
Eleazar, the son of Ananias, the high priest. . .Nor
did they neglect the care of other parts of the country;
hut Joseph, the son of Simon—both high priests—
(Antiq. xx., 8, 117) was sent as general to Jericho, as
was Manasseh to Perea; and John, the son of Matthias
(evidently brother of Josephus), was made governor of
the toparchies of Gophnitica and Acrabattene, as was
�26 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
Josephus, the son of Matthias, of both the Galilees
(i.e. the historian himself).’ Now, on your supposition,
that these little governments were not only, as all well
know, surrounded by fortresses full of Greek-speaking
officers, but also crowded with a Greek-speaking popu
lation, it is certainly the most comical of all blunders
that can be attributed by you to the Sanhedrim of
Jerusalem, that they should choose for their generals,
diplomatists, and governors the only men in the coun
try, namely the priests, who were ignorant of Greek !
The truth is, that not half a dozen men in Judaea
proper, resident natives of the country, were familiar
enough with that language to be able to speak it.”
Here the chairman rose and said, “We have done
all in our power, I think, to discuss the information
supplied by Josephus, about this puzzling question.
He was a sad blunderer who called history an old
almanack. I never was so baffled in making out the
meaning of an almanack as I am by this folio of
Josephus, on a subject which he every moment knew
as exactly as the number of his fingers, and which to
me, as a theologian, is of unspeakable importance. If
he had only used the word
or yXc5<r<ra or
instead of &aXs%rog, all would have been clear as the
noon. The words are frequently equivalent, but the
ambiguity in the last is undeniable. I must produce
for your consideration the only passage which I can
find in Philo, which bears upon our inquiry; but I
know that Dr Roberts could fairly argue that it is not
decisive. In his tract Ilepi tou navra, &irovda,7bv Itvai
s'ktvtepov, he praises the Essenes of Judea thus : rot
ovrovg i}
‘irepiep'/itag eXXijvixaiv ovoflLctrwv ddXrirdg
aptrrig cwrtp'yaffrai
•yvfJbvdefLo.ra vponditoa rag
irraivtrdg 'irpdl'iig,
a>v aSouXurog ektutepia, faPaiovrat,
i.e., “ Such athletes of virtue has the philosophy made
them, which, without the superfluous apparatus of
Greek names (or words), sets before them for exercises
those honourable deeds by which the noblest liberty is
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View, zy
established.” I want to know, if any of you can inform
me, what was Philo’s exact meaning in this, ‘ without
the needless fuss of Greek names 1 ’ Does he mean to
affirm that those Essenes knew nothing of Greek1 ”
All agreed that the words might bear the meaning,
though oddly expressed. Some thought he meant to
affirm that: others would have it that the ovo/zara were
the phrases of Greek philosophy: others that the
variety of sects and the names of sophists and philoso
phers are intended.
I begged the chairman’s permission to look for a
clue. I turned to the next tract, Hept (3iov 6eopririx6u.
Here Philo compares with the piety of the Egyptian
Theraputaa, a sort of monastic Jews more contempla
tive than the Essenes, that of the heathen, which
filled its strains with such names as Hephaestus, Hera,
Poseidon, Demeter, and the like, and with their deriva
tions from fanciful connection with the elements. He
goes on to say, aXXa rd [Ltv hh^ara sotpiordv early
'evprifJMra rd St ffroi^edx,
ilXjj Kai
eaurijs
dK/wiro$ (but the names are the inventions of sophists,
and the elements are lifeless matter of itself immov
able). He compliments the Theraputaa on thinking of
something higher than such empty names and mere
elements. They were, as we all know, all Greek-speaking
Jews. But he introduces the epithet sAXjju/xwv into
his compliment to the Essenes, not so much, I think,
by way of making an affirmation about their language,
as by way of allusion to what everybody knew,
that they were encumbered neither with the emptynames of Greek piety, nor with the language in which
they were coined. “ I submit,” said I, that this phrase
of Philo, vague as it is, is a testimony not for, but
against the thesis of Dr Roberts.”
Here Mr B. rose and said—“ We have given time
enough to Josephus and Philo. One thing I am
curious to know. How does Dr Roberts dispose of the
fact established by all ecclesiastical history and tradi
�2 8 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
tion, if they are to be held competent to establish any
thing, that the first record of our Lord’s words was
written in Hebrew by the apostle Matthew ? If none
of our Greek evangelists has translated the words of
Jesus into another tongue, Matthew, at all events, must
have been a translator.”
“ To that question,” said the chairman, “ Dr Roberts
devotes 80 pages ‘ on the original language of St
Matthew’s gospel.’ It is a weary tissue of other men’s
opinions. He assumes that he has proved that our
Lord spoke in Greek all that is recorded of his words,
except a very few. From this it follows, of course,
that the first record must have been in Greek ; but he
does not quite press that. He appeals to evidence.
The internal evidence he shews in his way to be over
whelming that our Greek Matthew is an original. The
external he makes light of, because nobody ever saw
that Hebrew gospel; and he concludes triumphantly
(page 448) that there is no sufficient ground for believ
ing that Matthew ever wrote a gospel in Hebrew at
all. He considers that the ‘ Gospel of the Hebrews,’
of which Eusebius and Jerome speak, was an early
translation from the Greek Matthew, afterwards cor
rupted.”
“No sufficient ground for believing?” said Mr G.
“ I say, because I have taken the trouble to examine
for myself, that there is quite as much ground for
believing the testimony to a Hebrew Matthew, as for
believing anything else of what is called primitive
external evidence for the authenticity of our gospels.
The whole story must stand or fall together. This
blow in the mouth from the staff of Dr Roberts leaves
hardly a tooth in the gums of our poor Church Clio 1
Dr Roberts is almost a match in penetration into
antiquity for our wise and modest Manning. He alone
is worthy to stand cheek by jowl with that dolichouatous dignitary, and cry to us all, 1 Were you ever in
antiquity, or any that belong to you ? We two were
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 2 9
there ! ’ To which the classical mitre could not fail
to wag the rejoinder,
Istis ‘ ‘ florentes aetatibus, Arcades ambo,
Et cantare pares, et respondere parati.”
“ I am grievously disappointed,” said the president,
“ wdth the result of our labour. I am not convinced
either that our Lord spoke Hebrew only, or Greek
only, or sometimes Greek, and sometimes Hebrew.
One of these must be the truth; but I declare to
you honestly, that with my present light and learning,
I am unable to determine which. I can only conclude
that this is one of those things which it is not necessary
for me to know. You may be, or may not be, in a
less embarrassed state of mind; but I have a wish to
know what that state is. There are fourteen of us here,
besides Dr Marcus, and our friend Mr Kirkman. I
put a question to you thirteen. As many of you as have
come to a defined conclusion, satisfactory to your
judgment, about the language in which the Lord Jesus
conveyed his teaching, hold up your hands.” Six
hands were raised. “Then,” said he, “ there are eight
of us not satisfied in our judgments. Now, of the six
who are satisfied, let as many as are convinced that
our Lord taught in the Greek language, hold up their
hands.” Three hands were held up. “ Then the other
three are convinced that our Lord taught in Hebrew.
I heartily wish we could have arrived at a result more
unanimous.”
Upon this Dr Marcus rose with sparkling eyes.
“ Allow me to express my admiration of the learning,
the patience, and the thorough honesty, with which
you have faced my argument from Josephus. Your
result has doubled the power of my general comparison
between the boastful pretensions and the actual assets,
as you say in your Bankruptcy Courts, of your ortho
dox faith and truth. I beg to repeat my statement of
those pretensions, and to write under them your own
valuation of your stock of real knowledge; that with
all your ecclesiastical pomp and pride, with all your
�30 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
Fathers and your pedigrees, the most learned synod
you can assemble is unable to determine in what human
language your Incarnate God delivered to you your
church authority and your dogmatic revelation, ‘ which
whosoever keepeth not whole and undefiled, without
doubt he shall perish everlastingly.’
“ The chairman regrets that no statement is pro
ducible, at least from cotemporary history, of the
direct negative, that no other tongue than the Hebrew
of the day was spoken by Jesus and his disciples.
“ In the discussion which we had about that famous
letter of Jesus to the King of Edessa, you heard evi
dence that ought to count among you almost for that
of an ear witness. If you doubt the story that the
correspondence was to be seen in the day of Eusebius,
in the public records of Edessa, in the Syrian tongue ;
if you doubt his having translated into Greek, or even
his having seen, that Syrian document, or a copy of it;
you cannot doubt that it was the belief and conviction
of Eusebius, the learned bishop of the chief city in his
day of Palestine, that Jesus corresponded in Syrian, if..»
at all, and that his apostle Thomas delivered his words
in Syrian. Now, by Syrian, Eusebius meant exactly
the language of the Jews at the time of Jesus. Proof
of this is in that book of Dr Roberts, and along with
it the direct negative which the chairman desires to
find ; but it is pretty well concealed from the English
reader in the Greek in the small of a note, without
translation. The chairman will kindly read that note,
in which there is nothing but what has been adduced
by Milman and a crowd of writers on this question.”
The note was read thus, from page 24, “ Euseb.
Dem. Evang., Lib. iii. In one passage of this book,
Eusebius speaks of the apostles, as
ibpuv ou v'/.sov
wraJovres tpurfs, (speaking no other tongue but the
Syrian). And in another passage, he represents the
apostles as (but for the promise of Divine assistance)
being in circumstances to reply to their Lord’s com-
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 31
mand to go and teach all nations,” in such words as
these; <ro/a Se
Xsi'ti <irpbs "EXXjjpag, avdpe$ rfi
'Svpuv tvrpa^ivnc, imvv\ tpcuy/j; (but in what language shall
we preach to the Greeks, we who have been bom and
bred to speak the Syrian tongue only?) To the same
effect, Chrysostom in several passages; Comp. Milman,
“ Bampton Leet. ” p. 173.
“ How in the world does Dr Roberts dispose of
those familiar passages ? ” said Mr G. “ I cannot ad
mire his tactics here,” said the president. “ His treat
ment of Eusebius is very summary. In the text over
that note I can find nothing more than this : ‘ Euse
bius may tell us again and again, that the apostles
understood no language except Syriac; but let not
that deter us,’ &c.”
“ That’s right,” said Mr G., “ bundle him out, neck
and shoulders. I could have sworn he would do it,
when I heard his wonderful thesis. Poor Eusebius !
He is very old, and he is all we have; but he is plainly
gone mad. He has contradicted Dr Roberts ; so lock
him up, lock him up, at page 24, and leave the doctor
at peace with his capitals and small, to display his
genius for composing.
“ Here we are left, with a riddle to solve, which
beats all the rest. We have the demonstration of Dr
Roberts, that the true story was at the beginning cor
rectly handed down from bishop to bishop, from sire to
son, in the Churches of Palestine, that our Lord and
the Apostles habitually and continually spoke Greek.
In less than two centuries, antecedently to a period
within certain reach of the learned Pamphilus, the
friend of Eusebius, who did so much for the library of
Caesarea, the true tradition of the Greek speech had been
rooted out of the land, and the opposite falsehood
read in Eusebius had been established in its place,
namely that of Syriac, or what is here the same thing,
Hebrew speech and that only, in the mouths of Christ
and the apostles. We can understand the growth of a
�3 2 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
complex legend, by gradual accretions about some nu
cleus of fact, especially in a story which has travelled
far, and supports some great interest, but where is the
brain that can comprehend this mystery ; how a simple
and clear affirmative, capable of no accretion or orna
ment, that of this Greek speech, an affirmative about
public fact most conducive to the interests of Greek
orthodoxy, should have become transformed in the
mouths of the greatest Greek bishops, such as Chrys
ostom and Eusebius, into its distressing negative ; and
this, too, without travelling at all, the marvellous
transformation having occurred at home in Palestine,
in the very focus of ecclesiastical light, in that library
of Caesarea 1 How many thousand Roberts’s would it
take to accomplish that in all the documents and in
all the memories ? It is a mad impossibility !
“ To me the evidence of Eusebius on this question of
national fact, the language spoken by our Lord and his
disciples, notwithstanding my low opinion of his general
trustworthiness in what concerns church pedigree and
orthodoxy, is as certain a bit of history, as the report
that King George the first and his family talked Ger
man.” To this speech of Mr G------ , no reply was
attempted.
The reader will not suppose that I am reciting all
that was uttered by sixteen speakers, none of whom
was silent, in a debate of five hours before and after
luncheon. My wish is to place on record just the
cream of what was said.
Some time was devoted to the evidence of the Acts
on this question. One urged the inference from Acts
xxii. 2 : “ And when they heard that he spoke in the
Hebrew tcngue to them, they kept the more silence
that they were not accustomed to be always addressed
in Hebrew, but often, perhaps usually, in Greek.
Against this was placed the inference, from the sur
prise of the Ghiliarch, who said, on being addressed
by Paul, ‘ Canst thou speak Greek 1 ’ that Greek was
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 33
quite unusual in the mouth of a Jew in custody in the
streets. The surprise was by some denied, as referring
to a Jew ; it was Greek from an Egyptian which was
surprising j to which it was replied that all the Jews
in Egypt and all other men there likely to travel, spoke
Greek continually. One gentleman created . some
amusement by producing Dr Adam Clarke s evasion of
the argument from surprise; according to whom, by
reason of the noise, the Chiliarch never heard Paul’s
< May I speak with thee 1 ’ nor knew that he could
speak Greek, till after putting the usual 1 Canst thou
speak Greek ? ’ preliminary to examination. All agreed
that that was capital commentating. The result was,
that the inference from xxi. 37, about balanced that
from xxii. 2. One divine was wicked enough to ask
significantly how the parenthesis (xxii. 2) came to be
there, with its repetition of what precedes, and its odd
interruption of the speech. Nothing of importance
was made out of the Acts on the subject, for the chair
man disallowed debate on quotations from the Septuagint, as I thought, very properly, on that occasion.
Mr D------ enquired whether any answer had ever
appeared to the “ Dissertations ” of Dr Roberts.. No
one present could give account of any reply to it. I
then begged leave to draw their attention to a paper
entitled “ An enquiry into the original language of St
Matthew’s Gospel,” by John Newton, Esq., M.R.C.S.,
in Vol. xx. of the Proceedings of the Literary and
Philosophical Society of Liverpool, 1865-66. Mr
Newton says : “ By far the most able and zealous
advocate for the Greek view is Dr Alexander Roberts,
whose recent work, ‘ Dissertations on the Gospels, if
one may judge by the numerous commendatory notices
of it that have appeared in the Reviews, and also in
recent standard religious works, appears to have quite
turned the tide against the ancient opinion.” [Dr
Roberts in the preface to his second edition is able to
quote a very flattering report .of his convincing logic
c
�34 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
from the Saturday Review. ] Mr Newton fills more than
ten pages with an account of Dr Robert’s positions, and
then fills fifty pages more with a scholar-like, convincing,
and very interesting refutation. He states forcibly
the argument from the obstinate conservatism of the
Jews, and from the well-known adherence of the
Welsh (to whom it did not suit Dr Robert’s game to
make allusions) to their native tongue. He states
also fully the argument from Josephus ; but makes
no attempt to show the weakness of Dr Roberts in his
reply to that argument; and this omission is the defect
of Mr Newton’s excellent paper. One or two passages
I may read :—“ If Dr Roberts had been able to tell us
that the Jews of Christ’s time had so intense an
appreciation of the beauties of the Greek tongue, that
the wealthier sent their children to Athens to be
educated, and that the Greek literature was known
to all classes of the Jews, through translations into
Hebrew, this would have been something to the point.
All this and more might have been said of the
Romans. Yet it would be taken for no evidence that
the people of Rome, the Latin race, living in the
country of their fathers, habitually spoke in Greek !
Take another illustration. The French language is
familiarly taught and cultivated among ourselves.
French books abound. All educated persons are well
acquainted with French literature.
Many English
authors have even written works in French. If Dr
Roberts’ mode of argument be worth anything, there
would be here abundant evidence to some foreign
writer, ages hence, that our Wesleys and Spurgeons
must have spoken and taught in French. I have been
putting the argument at the strongest, that we might
better see its absurdity. But the fact is, that Dr
Roberts, with all his industry, has not been able to
adduce the slightest proof that the Palestinian Jews of
Christ’s time had any acquaintance whatever with the
Greek language” (p. 78).
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 35
“ To this end he (Ezra) founded the Great Syna
gogue, as a new centre of religious life among them.
The £ Sopherim,’ as their first care, collected the sacred
writings and established the canon. They authorita
tively expounded the book of the law, and regulated,
by their decisions and teachings, the whole social and
religious life of the Jews. From this beginning arose
that vast literature, which, at first transmitted orally,
was at length, after the destruction of Jerusalem and
the final dispersion of the Jews, carefully committed
to writing by successive Eabbis, and, with ever increasing
amplification, has descended to our times. As Talmud,
it is divided into Mischna, or authoritative exposition,
and Gemara, or the later supplement of Jerusalem
and Babylon. As Midrash, or exposition, it is divided
into Halachah, or authoritative law, and Haggadah, or
sayings, teachings, homilies. In these vast collections
we find recorded the sayings and doings of the great
leaders of Israel during the very life-time of our Lord.
Yet they are entirely written in Shemitic dialects,—
the older in literary Hebrew, the latter portion in
Aramaic. Not a single one of the innumerable
writings and traditions has come down to us in Greek.
Ample materials are thus furnished for judging of the
state of national education, manners, and opinion in
the days of our Lord. A few extracts will illustrate
sufficiently the exclusive spirit of ancient Judaism.
£ Saith Abraham to God, didst thou not raise up
seventy nations unto Noah ? God saith unto him, I
will raise up that nation from thee, of whom it shall
be written, How great a nation is it 1 ’ The gloss is,
£ That peculiar people, excelling all the seventy
nations, as the holy language excells all the seventy
languages? 1 The holy blessed God created seventy
nations, but he found no pleasure in any of them,
save Israel only.’ £ A wise man (that is, one learned
in the law of Moses) is to be preferred before a king ;
for if a wise man die, he hath not left his equal; but
�36 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
if a king die, any Israelite is fit for a kingdom.’ ‘ The
nations of the world are like to dogs.’ ‘ The people ot
the earth do not live.’ The Talmudists speak very ill
even of proselytes. After all, they were not of the
Jewish stock. 1 Our Eabbins teach that proselytes
and Sodomites hinder the coming of the Messiah.’
‘ Proselytes are as a scab to Israel.’ The lawyer who
asked Christ, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ might
well put the question, for he had been taught, the law
‘ excepts all Gentiles, when it saith £< his neighbour.” ’
Again, ‘ An Israelite killing a stranger doth not die for
it by the Sanhedrim, though it saith, “ If any one lift
up himself against his neighbour
he must not be
condemned on account of a Gentile, for they are not to
be esteemed as neighbours.’ In other places it was
taught that a Jew was not bound to. point out to a
Gentile the right path, nor to save him from drowning,
since their law as to neighbours did not apply, ‘ for
such a one is not thy neighbour.’ What Juvenal said
of them was strictly true :—
Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti,
Qusesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpas.
Into this Jewish world, then, Christ was born. He
was the contemporary of three most illustrious
teachers and presidents of colleges j Hillel I., his rival
Shammai* Simon ben Hillel, and Gamaliel I., the
teacher of Paul. It was enjoined that at five years
* A curious story of these two famous teachers is told in the
Babylon G-emara. ‘‘ A heathen came to R. Shammai and offered
to become a proselyte, if he might learn the whole law whilst he
could stand upon one foot. But Shamrnai, who was a hot tem
pered man, drove him away, as asking an impossibility. Then he
went to R. Hillel, and he found him taking a bath. . But R. Hillel
folded a sheet hastily around him, and hearing his question he
answered, ‘Yes, my son; whatsoever thou wouldest not have
done to thyself, that do not to thy neighbour. This is the whole
law.’ And he admitted him as a proselyte.” Many other sayings
of this enlightened Rabbi bear a striking resemblance to the teach
ing of Christ.
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 37
old, a boy should commence the study of the Hebrew
Bible, at ten years old the Mischna, at fifteen the
Gemara. Thus the sum and substance of Jewish
education was, after all, their Holy Scriptures, and the
expositions of their Rabbis thereon. Accordingly, our
Lord is represented as lingering behind his parents,
when a boy of twelve years, forgetting his food, every
thing, that he might listen to the teachings of the
Rabbins, and question them in his turn. Traces of the
influence of Rabbinical teaching are to be found in
abundance in his discourses ; as any one may see who
will go through the numerous parallel passages to our
Lord’s teaching, from Rabbinical literature, given by Dr
Lightfoot in Horen Hebraicoe et Talmduicce. Every
phrase in the Lord’s Prayer was already familiar to
the Jews. In the Gemara of Babylon we find the
parable of Dives and Lazarus ; also the parable of the
wise and foolish virgins ; in the Jerusalem Gemara,
the story of the husbandman and the vineyard. These
examples might be multiplied indefinitely. And since
these parallels to, nay often the sources of, the teach
ing, were certainly delivered in Hebrew only, surely
the probabilities are overwhelming against our Lord
having delivered them in Greek” (p. 81).
“ It (the LXX.) was regarded from the first by the
Jews of Palestine with intense dislike. They even
instituted a fast-day to commemorate the origin of so
great a calamity. It is said in the Jerusalem Talmud,
“ That day was bitter to Israel, even as the day when
the golden calf was made. Eor the law could not be
translated according to all things proper for it.” Dr
Roberts would have us believe that Christ himself read
from this Greek version when he stood up in the
synagogue at Nazareth, because the passage of Scrip
ture is given by Luke (iv. 18) from the Septuagint.
But if the Greek translation had thus usurped the
Hebrew verity, even in the synagogues of Judea, of
course the change would be still more complete out of
�38 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View.
the Holy Land. How comes it, then, that not a single
copy of the Septuagint has ever been found in a Jewish
synagogue, or has ever been traced or derived from,
one ? The ancient MSS. of it which we possess have
all been obtained from Greek monasteries. Again : if
in the Holy Land itself, nineteen hundred years ago,
and in a time of peace, this Greek version had taken
the place of the Hebrew Scriptures, even in the service
of the synagogues, three events must have happened.
First, a new school of Jewish expositors would have
sprung up, using the new version, commenting on it,
and writing in Greek. No trace of such a school
exists. Philo is no exception to the rule; he was a
Greek Jew of Alexandria, not a Palestinian Jew.
Secondly, the Hebrew Scriptures would have utterly
disappeared; instead of which, every synagogue, every
library throughout the world, affords a ready contradic
tion to Dr Roberts’s theory. Lastly, the traditional
interpretation of the Hebrew text might have been
lost” (page 92).
I received many thanks for introducing the instruc
tive and well-written paper of Mr Newton to my
brethren. “ So then,” said Dr Marcus, “ it devolved
upon a scholar of the medical profession to expose
these arguifications of Dr Roberts, which have turned
the tide of belief in England! But why should he
entomb his thoughts in those ‘ Proceedings ? ’ ”
“ Simply,” answers Mr P------ , “ because he had not
the slightest chance of being heard by the English
public, not even by theologians. He might have
printed his tract, and given away a thousand copies,
presenting one to each of the Reviews—the Saturday,
among the rest—who were so fascinated by Dr Roberts;
but he would not have been noticed by any one of
them. If he had written a book as large as Dr
Roberts’s, and made up his mind to throw away £100
for the benefit of printers and publishers, some notice
of it would have appeared, but not with the unctuous
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 39
compliments paid to the genius of Dr Roberts; and
there is no public in England who would have bought
it. We have a religious world which spends vast sums
in books, but it is a world which has a thorough con
tempt for either logic or information; and it is the
business of reviewers to write what pleases them and their
publishers, and to pander to their small sectarianisms.”
“ I think,” said Mr G------ , “ it is very much to the
honour of the Philosophical Society of Liverpool that
they not only heard, but printed, that valuable paper.
The majority of those societies have a most unscientific
dislike for the grandest questions of human thought,
for the noblest problems of human history, and for all
the topics even of learned and critical divines. I
know one of them, of no mean fame, in which, if the
reader of a paper should happen to pronounce the word
Theism, he is very likely to be called to order by the
president for violating the rule against theology; and
if, in a purely philosophical sense, and with the greatest
respect for gentlemen of that school, he should pro
nounce the word Atheism, he is more loudly called to
order for ‘giving a dog a bad name.’ Let us hope
that, in another hundred years, we may have room in
England for such a science as Theological and Biblical
Criticism. At present, I do not think there is a journal
of any kind in the country which would lay before its
readers a concise account of the debate which we have
all enjoyed in this and in our last meeting. And if
we were silly enough to print such a report, we should
have to stamp all our copies, and give them away; nor
is there more than the very faintest probability that any
editor would condescend to notice, or even to read it.”
Mr P'------, Dr Marcus, and I, staid a short time at
the vicarage after the departure of the rest. Nothing
of our conversation needs to be recorded, except Mr
E------ ’s account of the sentiments of his friend, Dr
Jones. “He is a Welshman, a determined adherent
of Dr Roberts, and expresses himself with great force
�40 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of TZfw.
and heat on the subject. From his point of view he
puts the matter somewhat in this way. Suppose that
the claims of divine commission and catholic authority
made in these islands by the bishops, from Cardinal
Cullen to the Colonials, were laid down thus,-—that
God had appeared on earth three or four hundred years
ago in the form of one of my countrymen ; that he had
lived a human lifetime in Wales, a Welshman with
Welshmen, among whom he had taught in their own
tongue, laying the foundation of a church for all the
world, and choosing only Welsh disciples: suppose
that these bishops presented to me, as the title-deeds of
their pedigree, power, and dignity, four little English
books containing an account of the works and teachings
of their Divine Founder, I should certainly ask,
Where are the Welsh originals? If they replied that
the Incarnate and his countrymen had in those days
spoken English habitually, I should be sure they
uttered falsehood. If they affirmed that the Divine
Welshman had spoken only the Welsh of his day and
country; that what he said had been committed to the
love and loyalty of his countrymen, and by them
recorded in their language; but that somehow, by
pure chance and forgetfulness, every scrap of Welsh
writing on the subject had disappeared, and English,
by Divine Inspiration, had taken its place,—then
nothing, not even a visit of God’s Mother in person,
nor any miracle that she could work, would induce me
to believe their story. Vainly would they point out to
me how much more useful to the world were English
documents than Welsh. I should feel quite sure that
there had been falsehood and foul play somewhere;
and every Welshman alive, with brains in his head,
would agree with me. Now, if Dr Roberts is not in
the right, this supposition states the truth of the case,
as it stood in the time of the first great Councils.”
“ Here,” said Dr Marcus, “ you seem to have a key
to that amazing mystery of Hebrew infidelity, which,
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of View. 41
from the days of the apostles, your Greek and Latin
saints have with such affectionate piety deplored, and,
with hands so murderous, punished. Do you wonder
that, in their bright roll of dignitaries, they have not
one authentic J ewish name 1 ”
“ Is it true,” I enquired, “ that the supposition just
stated describes the case of Jerome’s day, late in the
fourth century, a lifetime after Eusebius 1 He tells of
something more than a scrap of Hebrew documenthe
savs that he saw what went in Palestine for the original
Hebrew, ‘ quod vocatur a plerisque Matthasi authenticum,’ of the first Gospel.”
“ Yes,” answered Dr Marcus, “ and he translated it
into Greek! There seems to have been little need to
do that, if it was the true Hebrew original of your
translated Greek Matthew. How comes it to pass that
neither the Hebrew, which he says he found current
and saw, nor the Greek version which he says Tie made
of it, has been permitted to come down to us ? Not a
single line of either is known to exist, or was ever
heard of! Has there been no falsehood nor foul play
of those Greek and Latin saints and fathers, think
you? Jerome was a most learned scholar, employed
by a learned pope to hunt for such documents; and
they had all power to preserve and to destroy, all
power both of burking and forging. Our libraries are
crowded with ponderous folios of their day. Dr
Manning could inform us, because ‘ I was there,’ who
it was that with his holy poker punched that Hebrew
Gospel in the same fire with Jerome’s Greek transla
tion of it.”
Cboft Rectory, near Warrington,
Jan. 24, 1874.
TURNBULL AND Bl'EARS, PRINTERS EDINBURGH.
�
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Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of view. Part II
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Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. Tentative date of publication from KVK. Dated: Croft Rectory, near Warrington, Jan. 24, 1874 [p. 41].
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Judaism
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Text
JEWISH LITERATURE
AND
MODERN EDUCATION:
OR,
THE USE AND MISUSE OF THE BIBLE IN
THE SCHOOLROOM.
BEING TWO LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE SUNDAY LECTURE
SOCIETY, MARCH 26th AND APRIL 2d 1871.
PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR,
BT
THOMAS SCOTT, RAMSGATE.
Price One Shilling and Sixpence, stitched.
On better paper and bound in cloth, Two Shillings and Sixpence.
�“ These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that
they
.
.
.
searched the Scriptures daily, whether those
things were so.”—Acts xvii. 11.
�PREFACE.
Whether or not the Solution, given in these Lectures,
of the “Religious Difficulty” in our National Education,
be acceptable for practical application, is a question other
than that of the intrinsic soundness of that Solution.
It is to this only that my responsibility extends. The
responsibility of declining to accept a proffered remedy
must rest with those to whom the offer is made.
I had intended to keep these Lectures in manuscript,
and repeat them wherever an audience might be found
desirous of hearing facts stated without respect to aught
but the facts. It is in compliance with very many
and pressing solicitations that I have, by printing them,
withdrawn them from further delivery as Public Lectures.
My hope now is that the readers will not be less nume
rous than the hearers would have been, had I adhered
to my original intention.
The Lectures are printed with the changes made on
their second delivery, in Edinburgh.
I cannot let them
�iv
Preface.
go from me without acknowledging my obligations to
the series of small publications issued periodically by
Mr Thomas Scott of Ramsgate, to whose indefatigable
self-devotion to the cause of “ Free Inquiry and Free
Expression,” the present rapid spread of information,
and consequent movement of thought on religious
matters, especially among the clergy of the Establish
ment,—(a movement far greater than the public is aware
of)—is in no small degree attributable. The tracts
entitled, The Defective Morality of the New Testament, by
Professor F. W. Newman; The Gospel of the Kingdom,
and The Influence of Sacred History on the Intellect and
Conscience,—especially deserve mention for the use I
have made of them.
A few brief passages given as
quotations, but without reference, are for the most part
taken, with more or less exactness, from The Pilgrim and
the Shrine.
E. M.
London, September 1871.
�SYNOPSIS.
LECTURE THE FIRST.
KOri 3TIOS
.11.
J2.
.83.
i4.i 5.
’ .‘< 6.
7.
- , J 8..
: .(9.
INTRODUCTION,
.....
DEFINITION AND FUNCTION OF EDUCATION,
THE SCHOOL BOARDS AND THE “RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY,”
THE GENESIS AND HABITAT OF THE “DIFFICULTY,”
THE BIBLE AS A MORAL TEACHER,
THE BIBLE AS AN INTELLECTUAL TEACHER,
THE BIBLE “WITHOUT NOTE OR COMMENT,”
THE GOSPELS AND THE CHARACTER OF JESUS,
.
THE “KINGDOM OF HEAVEN,”
1
3
6
11
12
24
27
35
37
LECTURE THE SECOND.
.0110.
ill.
THE NEW TESTAMENT AS A RULE OF LIFE AND FAITH,
.
41
THE “CONTINUITY OF SCRIPTURE,” DOCTRINAL AND
OTHER,
.
.
.
.
.
.48
12. WHY THE BIBLE SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS, .
57
13. HOW IT SHOULD BE DEALT WITH,
.
.
.65
;14. “notes and comments;” the principle of thf.tr
CONSTRUCTION,
.....
69
115. BIBLICAL INFALLIBILITY,
.
.
.
.74
16. BIBLICAL INSPIRATION,
.
.
.
.78
17. THE BIBLE AND MODERN COMMENTATORS,
.
.
86
>18. THE BIBLE AND MODERN PRACTICE,
.
.
.88
19. THE SCHOOL AND TEACHER OF THE FUTURE, .
.
94
��LECTURE THE FIRST.
------- o-------
I.
Why is it with, us in England, that with all our achieve
ments in Science, Literature, and Art; in Government,
Industry, and Warfare; in Honour, Religion, and Virtue;
with conquests ranging over the whole threefold domain
of Humanity, the Physical, the Intellectual, and the
Moral,—why is it that the moment we attempt to ex
tend the manifold blessings of our civilisation to the
entire mass of our countrymen, we find ourselves at fault
and utterly baffled 1
Long has the condition of myriads among us been
known to be terrible in its degradation. Long have we
acknowledged an earnest desire to raise them out of that
condition. Measure after measure have we devised and
enacted; but none of them, not even the vast Church
establishment of the realm, has proved in any degree
commensurate with the evil. At length our efforts have
culminated in the elaboration and enactment of one
comprehensive scheme; and we have proceeded so far as
to have elected as our representatives to carry it into
effect, those of us whom, for superior intelligence and
energy, we deem best qualified for the task.
Shortlived, however, do our exultant hopes promise to
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be. The very agents of our beneficent intentions, the
Schoolboards, in whose hands are borne the germs of our
redemption and future civilisation, are altogether at such
odds within themselves upon some of the leading and
most essential principles, that the scheme threatens
wholly to collapse in disheartening failure, or to become
a perennial source of bitterness and dissension.
Is it not passing strange ? Based though our culture
has for centuries been, upon one and the self-same book,
so far from our having attained any degree of unity
thereby, we are divided and rent into sects and factions
innumerable and irreconcilable, until it would appear as
if the very spirit of that proverbially perverse and stiff
necked people whose sacred literature we have adopted
as the rule of our faith and practice, had passed into
ourselves and become a constituent part of our very
nature.
The greatness of the emergency,—for it is the redemp
tion of our masses from pauperism, ignorance, and bar
barism that is at stake,—not justifies merely, but impe
ratively demands the strenuous collaboration of all who,
having the good of their kind at heart, have made this
question one of special investigation. It is in no spirit
of hasty presumption,—scarcely is it with much hope of
wide acceptance,—at least in the present,—that I have
responded to the invitation to recite here to-day the con
clusions to which my study of the points at issue has
brought me. Rather is it that it will be a relief to my
self to have thrown off the reflections and results which,
in a somewhat varied experience at home and abroad,
have accumulated upon me, and to feel that I have done
this at the time when there is most chance of their being
useful. It is thus that I have prepared my contribution
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towards the solution of “ the Religious Difficulty ” which
lies “ a lion in the path ” of our National Education and
all our national improvement, showing as- yet not the
smallest symptom of discomposure through any “ Reso
lution ” of Metropolitan or other School-board.
II.
In all emergencies, whether of conduct or of opinion,
where there is doubt and space for deliberation, it is
best to go back to the very beginning of the matter, and
there, in its initial principles, seek the clue which is to
conduct us safely out of our dilemma. It is wonderful
sometimes how readily a skein is disentangled when
once the right end of the thread has been found. Our
friends across the Atlantic, the Americans, were for a long
time disastrously hampered in their attempts at legisla
tion. It is not surprising that it should have been so,
when we consider that the principal object of legislation
is Man, and that the two great sections of the American
community differed altogether in their definition of Man;
the one holding that persons who had dark complexions
and a peculiar kind of rough curly hair, several millions
of whom lived in the country, were not men L and the
other holding that they were just as much entitled to be
treated as human beings as people with light complexions
and smooth hair. At length, after many years of bitter
quarrelling, ending with one of the most fearful inter
necine conflicts ever known, it was agreed to regard all
people as human, and to legislate alike for them with per
fect equality; whereupon the difficulty entirely vanished,
and the course of the nation became smooth and easy.
In like manner our difficulties, in regard to popular
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instruction, have all arisen through our neglect of a de
finition. We have not defined to ourselves the precise
object of the system of National Education, which, after
generations of anxious endeavour, we have at length
succeeded in obtaining, and which we are now seeking
to bring into operation throughout the length and
breadth of the land.
The first step towards obtaining what we want, ever
is to know what we want; and since in this case we
cannot purchase the article ready-made, but have to
fabricate it for ourselves, it is not sufficient to have a
bare name for it, or a vague apprehension about it, but
we must be conversant with its nature, characteristics,
and uses.
Let us further simplify and enlarge the scope of the
question, and ask what is the object of all the education,
public or private, which we give, or seek to give, to our
children ? What, in short, is the purpose of education 1
Using the term education in its broad sense, and
without reference to technical instruction in special
subjects, we can only answer, that its purpose is to
make children into good and capable men and women by
cultivating their intelligence and their moral sense, or
conscience.
It follows, if we agree to this definition, that we are
bound to reject as worse than useless, any instruction
which is calculated to repress or pervert either of those
faculties from their proper healthy development.
Those who at first hesitate to acquiesce in this defini
tion, in the belief that education should have a more
special object, such as to make good Christians, good
Catholics, good Protestants, good Churchmen, or good
Nonconformists, must on a little reflection perceive that
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they cannot really mean to rank the intelligence and
moral sense as secondary and subordinate to such ends,
but that they only desire people to be good Christians,
good Churchmen, and so on, because the fact of being so
would, in their view, involve the best culture of the
faculties in question. So that if they believed it did not
involve this end, they would abandon their preference
for such denominations. That is, they would rather
have people to be good men and bad (say) Noncon
formists, than good Nonconformists and bad men.
Agreeing, then, that the object of education is the
development of the intellect and moral sense, we shall,
no doubt, further agree that the best chance of success
fully cultivating those desirable qualities which we
designate virtues, lies in impressing the mind while
young with the most elevated and winning examples of
them, and guarding it from any familiarity with their
opposites ; and that it is because we deem such qualities
to be best, that we regard the Deity as possessing them
in the Infinite, and hold up as a pattern of life the most
perfect example of them in the finite.
Yet, though agreeing both in the object and method
of education when thus plainly put before us, so ingeni
ously perverse and inconsistent are we that we first
refuse to agree upon any common system of instruction
whatever, and then we insist upon neutralising or
vitiating such instruction as we do agree upon, by
mingling it with teaching which is at once repressive of
the Intellect, and injurious to the Moral Sense.
The sole impediment to the success of our efforts, the
rock upon which all our hopes of rescuing the mass of our
countrymen from ignorance and barbarism are in danger
of being dashed, consists in the unreasoning and indis
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criminate veneration in which the Bible is popularlyheld among us. Impelled by that veneration, we hesi
tate not to degrade our children’s view of Deity by
familiarising them with a literature in which He is
represented as feeble, treacherous, implacable, and
unjust; and confound at once their Intelligence and
Moral Sense, by compelling them to regard that litera
ture as altogether divine and infallible.
Strange infatuation and inconsistency, if, after toiling
for years to obtain an effective system of national edu
cation, we either abandon the task as hopeless, or insist
upon accompanying it by teaching which involves a fatal
outrage upon the very intellect and conscience which it
is the express purpose of that education to foster and
develop!
III.
Before' considering the action of the School-boards, I
must advert for a moment to the principle of their constitution.
There is this difference between Government by Re
presentation and Government by Delegation. It is the
‘ duty of the mere delegate to vote on any given question
precisely as a majority of his constituents may instruct
him. The deliberative function rests with them. He is
their faithful, but unintelligent instrument. The repre
sentative, on the contrary, is selected on account of his
superior faculties or attainments, to go on behalf of his
constituents to the headquarters of information, and
there, in conference with other selected intellects, form
the best judgment in his power; his constituents deter
mining only the general principles and direction of his
policy.
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The School-boards which are charged with the deter
mination of our new educational system, having been
selected on this principle of representation, we are
entitled to look to their superior intelligence to sup
plement popular deficiencies ; to be superior to popular
prejudices; to be teachers, and, if need be, rebukers,
rather than followers and flatterers of the less instructed
masses : and it is due to such bodies that we carefully
examine the methods by which they propose to deal with
existing difficulties.
Those difficulties turning exclusively upon Religion,
one great step towards their solution has been gained by
the agreement to exclude from the common schools such
minor subjects of difference as the creeds and catechisms
of particular denominations. The Bible remains, the sole
stumbling-block and rock of offence.
The London Board may be taken as representative
not only of the largest and most intelligent. body of
constituents, but also of all the other School-boards. I
propose, therefore, to deal with the propositions by
which the members of that Board have sought to meet
the “religious difficulty.” They are six in number :
1. That the Bible be excluded altogether, on the
ground that its admission is inconsistent with religious
equality.
2. That the Bible be admitted and read,, but without
note or comment.
3. That the Bible be read for the purpose of religious
culture, at the discretion of the teacher.
4. That the teacher’s discretion in the use of the Bible
be so restricted as to exclude the distinctive doctrines of
any sect.
5. That no principle respecting the use of the Bible
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be laid down, but that each separate school be dealt with
by itself.
6. That the Bible be read with such explanations in
matters of language, history, customs, &c., as may be
needed to make its meaning plain; and that there be
given such instruction in its teaching, on the first prin
ciples of morality and religion, as is suitable to the
capacities of children; always excluding denominational
teaching.
The Fifth Resolution, “ that no principle be laid down,”
aptly describes the condition of the question up to that
point. In the absence of a definition of its object, it
was impossible for the Board to lay down any principle
for its guidance. In the absence of any controlling
definition, it could only look back to its constituents to
see what they would bear from it. And looking to the
confused mass of public opinion and prejudice in the
absence of any light of one’s own, is like shutting one’s
eyes to avoid seeing the dark.
Travelling one day by a railway on which there are
several tunnels, I observed that whenever the train
entered a tunnel, a little boy who sat next to me, im
mediately pressed his hands over his eyes, and buried his
face in the cushions. To my inquiry why he did this,
he answered that it was because he was afraid of the
dark. I asked him whether it was not just as dark to
him when his face was buried in the cushions. He said
yes; but he had not thought of that, and he would not
know now what to do. I could not bear to deprive him
of his faith, however unenlightened, without giving him
another. A lamp was burning in the roof of the car
riage, too dim in the broad daylight to have attracted
his attention, yet bright enough to dispel the gloom of
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the tunnel. I suggested that, instead of covering his
face, he would do better to keep his eyes fixed on the
lamp. The little fellow brightened with joy at the
thought; and during the rest of the journey, the in
stant we entered a tunnel, there he was, no longer fear
ful and burying himself in deeper darkness, but steadfastly
looking to the light that shone above him.
“ Look to the light 1 ” is no bad maxim even for those
who have to determine grave questions for the benefit
of others. We have but to “look to the light” of the
definition we have already agreed upon, and difficulties
fly like darkness before the approaching dawn. Even
the difficulties themselves, like Daphne before the Sun
god, are apt to turn into flowers for our delectation. .
The Sixth Resolution, that proposed by Dr Angus, and
supported by Professor Huxley, is the first that shows
any consciousness that there is a light to which we may
look for encouragement and guidance. “ That instruc
tion should be given in the Bible on the first principles of
morality and religion” According to our definition, Edu
cation consists in the cultivation of the Intelligence and
the Moral Sense. This is the light on which the gaze
must be so steadily fixed, that no conflicting influences
shall be capable of diverting our attention. Interpreted
by it, the Bible itself bears witness to the way in which
it should be used. Here, in full accordance with it, is
one of its utterances, “ God is no respecter of persons;
but in every nation, he that feareth Him and worketh
righteousness, is accepted with Him.” (Acts x. 34-5.)
Acting in this spirit, our School-boards will be no re
specters of authors or books, but in every writing that,
and that only, “ which feareth God and worketh righte
ousness,” shall be accepted by them. Here is another,
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also on the positive side: “ Whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any
virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
(Phil. iv. 8.) And another seems to define that Scrip
ture or writing, as alone given by a holy inspiration,
which “ is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for cor
rection, for instruction in righteousness.” (2 Tim. iii. 16.)
And on the negative side we have “ Refuse profane and
old wives’ fables;” (1 Tim. iv. 7.) “not giving heed to
Jewish fables.” (Titus i. 14.) “But all uncleanness let
it not be once named among you ;” “ for it is a shame
even to speak of those things which are done of them in
secret.” (Eph. v. 3, 12.) And one more on the posi
tive side. “ Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of
God.” (1 Cor. x. 31.)
Yet with these plain rules for our guidance, not one
of the resolutions proposes to place any restriction upon
the use of the Bible by the children. One, indeed, pro
poses to exclude it bodily from the schools, the good and
the evil together, but upon grounds in no way connected
with its fitness for the perusal of youth. And even the
resolution finally accepted by the Board, while ambigu
ously proposing “ to give from the Bible such instruction
in the principles of religion and morality as is suitable
to the capacities of children,” ventures on no protest
against the Bible as it now stands being put into the
hands of children at all.
The fact is, that the members have allowed themselves
to be so exclusively guided by the “ winds” of popular
“ doctrine,” that they “ have omitted the weightier mat
ters of the law” of morality, and “ passed over judgment
and the love of God.”
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IV.
The reason is not far to seek. A representative body
would not be representative were any wide interval to
intervene between its own intelligence and attainments
and those of its constituents. The latter can be guided
in their selection only by the light they possess j not by
that which they do not possess. Wherefore, for the
School-board to have passed any more radical Resolution
than that which it did pass, would have been for it to
have made itself, not the representative, but the inde
pendent superior of the body which elected it. The
primary defect, therefore, lies with the people at large.
It is the vast amount of bigoted ignorance and supersti
tion still remaining among us that constitutes the real
obstacle to any sound system of national education. It
is the elders who require to be instructed, before we can
begin to teach the children. It is true that a transition
has begun. But every step of the progress from the old
to the new, from darkness to light, is so vehemently
opposed by the vested interests of the dead past, that
the patience of those who believe in the possibility of
progress may well be exhausted, and their faith quenched
in despair.
To be effectual, therefore, remonstrance must be ad
dressed to the people at large, rather than to their
representatives on the School-boards. The transition of
which I spoke as having already begun, is the transition
from a morality affecting to be based upon theology, to
a religion really based upon morality, and, consequently,
to a sound system of morality. This transition must
attain a far more advanced stage in its progress before
the School-board can even begin to carry out the Re-
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solution it has passed. It is absolutely impossible to
“ give from the Bible, instruction in the principles of
morality and religion suitable to children,” until the
popular theory respecting the Bible, and the theology
based upon it, is so vastly modified as to amount to
an almost total renunciation of that theory. The ab
solute and irreconcilable antagonism between what is
called Biblical Theology and the modern principles of
“ Religion and Morality,” cannot be too distinctly
asserted or loudly proclaimed, if we sincerely desire
our children to have an education really consisting in
the development of their intelligence and moral sense.
Valuing the Bible highly as I do, for very much
that is very valuable in it, it is no grateful task to have
to search out and expose the characteristics which
render it an unsuitable basis for the instruction of
children, whether in morality or in religion. Such ex
posure, however, being indispensable to the solution of
the problem of our national education; to shrink from
it would be to abandon that problem as insoluble, that
education as impossible.
V.
Bearing always in mind our definition of the purpose
and method of education, namely the development of
the intelligence and moral sense by the inculcation of
“ the true, the pure, and the honest,”—bearing in mind
also the fundamental fact in human nature, that man’s
view of Deity inevitably reacts upon himself, tending
to form him in the image of his own ideal,—it is selfevident that to familiarise children with the imperfect
morality, the coarse manners and expressions, the rude
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fables, and the degrading ideas of Deity, appertaining to
a people low in culture—such as were the Israelites—
and to confound their minds and consciences at the most
impressible period of life by telling them that such
narratives and representations are all divinely inspired
and infallibly true,—is to utterly stultify ourselves and
the whole of the principles by which we profess to be
actuated in giving them an education at all. Did we
find any others than ourselves, say South Sea savages,
putting into the hands of their children, books containing
coarse and impure stories, detailing the morbid anatomy
of the most execrable vices, extollipg deeds prompted by
a spirit of the lowest selfishness, exulting in fraud,
rapine, and murder, and justifying whatever is most
disgraceful to humanity by representing it as prompted
or approved by their Deity, and so making Him alto
gether such an one as themselves,—surely we should say
that they must indeed be savages of the lowest and most
degraded type, and sad proofs of the utter depravity of
human nature.
In investigating from our present point of view the
contents of this most read, yet most misread, of books,
we must dismiss from our minds any idea that its most
objectionable features are amenable to revision or re
translation. The faults thus removable are but as
freckles upon the skin compared with a constitutional
taint. For it is the spirit as well as the letter of a large
portion of it, that whether “ for reproof, for correction,
or for instruction in righteousness,” is hopelessly in
fault: and the spirit of a book is of infinitely greater
importance than its superficial details.
Palpable to the eyes of all are the hideous tales of Lot
and his daughters; (Gen. xix.) Judah and Tamar;
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(xxxvii.) the massacre of the Shechemites; (xxxiv.)
the Levite of Ephraim; (Jud. xix.) David and Bathsheba;
(2 Sam. ix.) Amnon and his sister ; (xiii.) and whole
chapters in Leviticus and the Prophets. That such
things should be in a book given freely to children to
read, and that they should be expected notwithstanding
to grow up pure and uncontaminated in mind and habit,
is one of those anomalies in the British character which
makes it a hopeless puzzle to the world. Who can say
that much of the viciousness at present prevalent among
us, is not attributable to early curiosity being aroused
and stimulated by the obscenities of the Old Testament ?
To put the Bible as it is into the hands of our children,
is not only totally to bewilder their sense of right and
wrong,—it is to invite familiarity with the idea of the
worst Oriental vices.
Even in the case of those vices being mentioned only
to be denounced, the suggestion is apt to remain, and
the denunciation to be disregarded. It notoriously is
injudicious to put into the minds of children faults of
which they might never have thought themselves, for
the sake of admonishing them against them. It is
related somewhere that a catalogue of offences punish
able by law was once posted in the Roman forum as a
warning to the citizens; but that this was followed by
such a vast increase in the number and variety of the
crimes committed, that it was found advisable to remove
it. I myself know an instance of a pious mother sending
her daughter to a boarding-school, having first written
in her Bible a list of the chapters and passages which she
was not to read. It is remarkable how popular in the
school that particular Bible became. The other girls
were always borrowing it. There is no reason to suppose
that boys would have acted differently.
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It is true that the particular instances I have adduced
may not he immoral as they stand in the Bible, but they
are assuredly provocative of immorality in children who
read them. A far more serious indictment against the
Bible as a handbook of moral instruction must be founded
on its habit of representing the Deity as a consenting
party to some of the worst actions of its characters :
nay, so unreliable is it as a basis of anything what
ever, that after thus characterising the Deity, it deals in
strong denunciations against those “ who not only com
mit such things themselves, but have pleasure in them
that do them
(Rom. i. 32.) thus, by direct implication
condemning the Deity Himself. If it be desirable to
impress upon children the belief that only those “ who
fear God and work righteousness are acceptable to him,”
it is to stultify the whole principle of their education to
represent Him to them as an eastern monarch, selecting
his favourites by caprice, and independently of any merit
or demerit on their part. Yet the entire Bible rests
upon the idea that so far from being an equal Father of
all, “ whose tender mercies are over all His works,”
(Ps. cxlv. 9.) the Almighty selected out of all mankind
one race to be “ His own peculiar people,” (Deut. xiv. 9.)
and out of that race certain individuals to be His own
peculiar favourites, and this in spite of the most glaring
defects in their characters and conduct; and sustained
those whom He had thus chosen through the whole
course of their misdeeds.
Thus, Abraham is said to have had “ faith,” and this
faith is said to have been “ imputed to him for righteous
ness (Rom. iv. 22.) but how far was his actual conduct
righteous, and how much faith did it imply 1 Assured
by repeated promises of the divine favour and protection,
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as well as of a great posterity through his then childless
wife Sarai, he twice voluntarily prostituted her to Pagan
chieftains, pretending that she was only his sister. And
we read that “the Lord plagued,”—not the liar and
poltroon who thus degraded his wife, and entrapped the
kings, whose hospitality he was enjoying;—not the wife
so extraordinarily ready to “ obey her husband in all
things(it appears that her age was about sixty-five on
one occasion, and ninety on the other);—but “ the Lord
plagued Pharaoh and Abimelech with great plagues be
cause of Sarai, Abraham’s wife,” and in the case of the
latter, would only grant forgiveness upon the intercession
of Abraham, saying, “ for he is a prophet.” (Gen. xii. 20.)
Isaac, we read, copied the twice committed fault of his
father, in passing off his wife Rebekah as his sister upon
another king, and was divinely blessed notwithstanding.
In short, in all three transactions, out of the whole of the
parties to them, Abraham, Isaac, Sarai, Rebekah, .the
three kings, and the Deity, those only who indicate the
possession of any moral sense whatever are the Pagan
kings, who show it in no small degree, and these alone
are punished; while Abraham and Isaac retain the divine
favour throughout, the former being honoured by the
distinctive title of “ Friend of God.” (James ii. 23.)
The selfishness and cowardice of Abraham are still
farther illustrated by his treatment of Hagar and Ish
mael. There is no reason to doubt the perfect truthful
ness of the Bible narrative in respect to him. But when
it goes on to represent the Deity as encouraging him in
his cruel and unfatherly conduct to his son, and bid
ding him follow the lead of a frivolous and heartless
wife;—“ In all that Sarai hath said unto thee, hearken
unto her voice(Gen. xxi. 12.) then our m'oral sense is
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offended, and we refuse to identify the God of Abraham
with the God of our own clearer perceptions.
The utter indifference of “ the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob” to any moral law whatever, reaches its climax
in the history of Jacob. A liar and a trickster from
early youth, yet constantly enjoying the presence and
approbation of God, who finds no word or sign of re
proach wherewith to touch his conscience or arouse his
fears,—such is the patriarch whom the Bible sets forth
as one of God’s especial favourites, because, forsooth, he
had “ faith.” In presence of this mystic quality, right
and wrong sink into absolute nothingness; and that
most fatal of all impieties, a total divorce between the
.will of God and the moral law, finds its plea and justi
fication. It is little that I would give for the moral
sensibility of the child who could read without a pang of
indignation and a tear of pity the tale of this ingrained
blackleg’s atrocities ; his taking advantage of his rough,
honest-hearted brother’s extremity of exhaustion through
hunger to extort from him his birthright; (Gen.
xxv.) his heartless deception of his poor, blind old
father; (xxvii.) his repeated cheats, thefts, and false
hoods against his father-in-law; (xxx., &c.) and the
divine confirmation to him of the blessings thus fraudu
lently acquired ; “ yea, and he shall be blessed,” and con
stant assurance of the divine presence and approbation.
It is without a word of repudiation that the Bible ac
quiesces in Jacob’s degradation of the Deity to a huck
stering or bargaining God; a God, too, who can be got
the better of in a business transaction. For, “Jacob
vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me in this
way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment
to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in
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peace; then shall the Lord be my God; and this stone
which I have set for a pillar shall be God’s house; and
of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth
unto thee.” (xxviii. 20, &c.)
When the Israelites reach the Promised Land, their
“ sacred history” consists of little beside perpetual but
cheries. The more directly they are represented as being
under divine guidance, the more sanguinary is their
career. Slaughter of men, women, children, infants at
the breast. None spared, none, except, sometimes—
and mark the exception made by the followers, not of
Mahomet, but of Jehovah—the unmarried girls. Every
sentiment of humanity and mercy is accounted an un
pardonable weakness. Jehovah appears as a savage
patriot-God, approving impurity, treachery, murder, and
whatever else was perpetrated on the side of his “ chosen
people.” A Bushman of South Africa being once asked
to define the difference between good and evil, replied,
“ It is good when I steal another man’s wives; evil when
another man steals mine.” Such is precisely the standard
of right and wrong laid down by the Bible in respect to
the Israelites and their neighbours. Can we wonder that
recent moralists have written to vindicate the Almighty
from the aspersions cast upon his character in the Bible.*
In all the events of the late dreadful war upon the
Continent, probably no single incident caused such a
thrill of horror as that of the wounded German soldier
who staggered from the field of battle into a peasant’s
cottage, and fell fainting upon the bed, and only lived
long enough to tell his comrades how that the woman of
the cottage had taken advantage of his helpless condition
to pick out his eyes with a fork. Possibly the French
* E.g. Theodore Parker in America, and Dr Perfitt in England.
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woman had heard of the blessing pronounced upon Jael
for a similar act. Possibly she had learned from “ Sacred
History” that the most revolting perfidy and cruelty be
come heroic virtues when exercised upon one’s own side.
And were not we Europeans of to-day, with all our faults,
infinitely in advance of those bad times, we too might
find a patriot-poet rivalling the utterances of the
“divinely-inspired” Deborah, to laud the French tigress
as the Jewish one was lauded, detail with rapturous
glee every particular of the fiendish deed, and mock the
wretched victim’s mother watching and longing in vain
for her murdered son’s return.
Nay, the conduct of her whom the Bible pronounces
as “ blessed above women,” was even more flagrant in
its utter heinousness than that of the French woman.
For the husband of Jael had severed himself from the
hostile peoples; “there was peace between Jabin, the
King of Hazor, and the house of Heber, the Keliite
and he dwelt, a friendly neutral, in a region apart. The
general Sisera, moreover, utterly beaten and discomfited,
had fled expressly to Jael’s tent for safety, knowing the
family to be friendly, and she had invited him in with
assurances of protection. “ Turn in, my lord, fear not.”
(Jud. iv.)
While Abraham is described as “ the friend of God,”
to David is awarded the honour of being styled “ a man
after God’s own heart; ” (1 Sam. xiii. 14; Acts xiii. 22.)
“who turned not away from anything that he com
manded him all the days of his life, save only ” in one
particular instance. (1 Kings xv. 5.) In order to see how
little the Bible is fitted for the instruction of children in
respect of a moral sense, let us brush aside for a moment
the halo with which the name of David is surrounded,
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and read his history for ourselves. It is through want
of doing this, that a popular writer has recently described
his life as uniformly “bright and beautiful up to the
time of his one great sin.”* Yet, his career, soon after
the intrepid act which first brought him into notice, was
one of rebellion and brigandage. Collecting all that were
in debt, distress, and discontent, (1 Sam. xxii. 2.) he or
ganised them into bands of freebooters to levy blackmail
upon the farmers. One of these, named Nabal, when
applied to on account of David, boldly and naturally
answered, “ Who is David ? and who is this son of Jesse?
there be many servants now-a-days that break away
every man from his master. Shall I then take my
bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed
for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I know not
whence they be ?”
However, Abigail, the wife of Nabal, touched by her
servant’s account of the gallantry of the band, took of
her husband’s stores and gave liberally to them. Upon
this David assured her that, but for her conduct, he
would not have left even a dog of Nahal’s household
alive by next morning. A few days afterwards Nabal
died; the Bible, as if to remove any suspicion of foul
play, stating that “ the Lord smote him;” when David im
mediately took Abigail to be his own wife. (1 Sam. xxv.)
When the great contest took place between the Philis
tines and the Israelites, in which the latter were utterly
routed, and Saul and Jonathan, David’s bosom friend,
were slain, David with his forces stood aloof, unheeding
the peril of his countrymen. (1 Sam. xxx.) The crown
thus devolved upon Ishbosheth the son of Saul, who was
supported by eleven out of the twelve tribes. David,
* Miss Yonge, in “ Musings on the Christian Year.”
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however, would not accept their choice, even though the
whole strength of Israel was needed at that critical mo
ment to withstand the Philistines. (2 Sam. ii.) Exciting
a civil war, he got himself acknowledged as king by the
dissentient tribe of Judah. Treachery and murder came
freely to his aid, and he at length found the crown of
Israel in his hands. But he felt his tenure of it insecure
so long as any descendant of Saul remained to dispute it
with him. He therefore concerted with the priests, who,
since Saul had slighted their authority, had sided with
David, a plot to get rid of the seven sons and grandsons
of Saul. The country having been for three years dis
tressed by famine, David consulted the Oracles. In
Bible phraseology, he “ inquired of the Lord.” Of what
kind of a Lord he inquired, may be judged by the re
sponse. “ It is for Saul and his bloody house, because
he slew the Gibeonites ” many years before. Upon this
the Gibeonites, duly instructed, besought of David that,
as an “ atonement,” seven males of Saul’s family should
be 11 hanged up unto the Lord.” And David took the
seven and delivered them into the hands of the Gibe
onites, five of them being sons of his own former wife
Michal, “ and they hanged them in the hill before the
Lord. . . . And after that, God was intreated for the
land.” (2 Sam. xxi. 1-14.) Revolt, treason, murder,
human sacrifices, all in the name of “ the Lord ” !
On one occasion, after defeating the Moabites, David,
we read, assembled all the people of that nation on a
plain, made them lie down, and divided them into three
groups with a line. Two of these groups he put to death,
and the other he reduced to slavery. (2 Sam. viii. 2.) The
conquered Ammonites he treated with even greater fero
city, tearing and hewing some of them in pieces with
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harrows, axes, and saws, and roasting others in brick
kilns. (xii. 31.) His luxury and voluptuousness equalled
his cruelty. Having had seven wives while he ruled
over Judah alone, he added to the number all those who
had belonged to Saul, (8.) and took yet more wives and
concubines after he had come from Hebron, (v. 13.) But
these, and his vast pomp, were insufficient to satiate him.
Having caught sight of Bathsheba, the wife of one of his
captains named Uriah, he took her to himself, and sent
Uriah to join the army in the field, giving express orders
to his commanding officer to place him in the fore front
of the fight to insure his being killed.
It appears that there was then in Israel an honest pro
phet named Nathan, who had the courage to remonstrate
with the king, and who did so with such effect, that
David was made, for once, to see the enormity of his
conduct. We read, however, that the Lord put away
David’s sin, so that he did not die. But his child did.
And no sooner was the innocent thus punished for the
guilty, than “ David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and
she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon; and
the Lord loved him. And he sent by the hand of
Nathan the prophet,” now subsided into the obsequious
court chaplain, “and he called his name Jedidiah,” or
“ Beloved of the Lord.” (2 Sam. xii.)
Old age and infirmity wrought no amendment in the
truculent spirit of David ; a spirit so truculent as to make
it morally impossible that he could really have been the
author of any of those psalms which in after ages it
pleased his countrymen to ascribe to him; excepting
only, perhaps, the more ferocious of them. He has been
called, “ the Byron of the Bible,” which, after what has
just been stated, seems exceedingly unfair to Byron.
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Early in David’s career of blood, one Shimei had, in
generous indignation, cursed him for his murder of the
sons of Saul. (2 Sam. xvi.) He had afterwards begged
forgiveness and received it. (xix. 16-23.) Yet David’s
last instructions to Solomon were in this wise—“ Behold
thou hast with thee Shimei the son of Gera, which cursed
me with a grievous curse in the day when I came to
Mahanaim: but he came down to meet me at Jordan,
and I sware to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put
thee to death with the sword. Now, therefore, hold
him not guiltless . . . but his hoar head bring thou
down to the grave with blood. So David slept with his
fathers.” (1 Kings ii. 8-10, &c.) And Solomon “com
manded Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, which went out and
fell upon Shimei, that he died.” (46.) “ And Solomon
loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David, his
father.” And “ the Lord appeared to Solomon in a
dream by night; and God said, ask what I shall give
thee. And Solomon said, Thou hast shown unto thy
servant David, my father, great mercy, according as he
walked before thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in
uprightness of heart with thee : and thou hast kept for
him this great kindness, that thou hast given him a son
to sit on his throne. . . . And God said unto him . . .
if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and
my commandments, as thy father David did walk, then
will I lengthen thy days.” (1 Kings iii.)
The mystery of these astounding utterances is not far
to seek. History in those days was the work of the
sacerdotal class. To support and subserve that class was
then, as it has been, for the most part, ever since, to be
pronounced, “ beloved of the Lord,” no matter how evil
the individual really was, or how derogatory to the di
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vine honour it might be to have such a preference ascribed
to it. To have “ faith ” in the priests counterbalanced
and condoned any quantity of wicked “ works.” Their
standard of right and wrong, good and evil, was that of
the Bushman. Whatever was for them was good ; what
ever was against them was evil. It is, then, for us seri
ously to ask ourselves whether, when we set before our
children as a fit object of worship such a being as the
Bible represents the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
of Samuel, David, and Solomon, to have been, we are
ministering towards the end we have in view in giving
to them an education; or whether, in place of raising
them in the scale of being, we are not rather ministering
to the total degradation in them of the human soul.
VI.
1 .
These are but a few of the instances in which the
Bible is antagonistic to one of the main objects of educa
tion, the development of the moral sense. We will now
examine how far its teaching is adapted to promote the
cultivation of the intellect, still confining ourselves to
the Old Testament.
What are the “ glorious gains ” of the modern mind,
of which we are justly proud, and what are the ideas re
specting the constitution of the universe, the recognition
of which we regard as necessary to entitle any one to
the appellation of an intelligent and educated person 1
Surely they are that the order of nature is invariable,
the whole universe being governed by laws so perfectly
appointed as to need no rectification, and fixed so inher
ently in it as to constitute its nature. That, though in
capable of interference from without, inasmuch as there
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can be no without, all things proceeding from within
from its divine immanent character,—its parts are en
dowed with a capacity of advancing by a process of con
tinual evolution to a degree ever higher of complexity
and organisation, as within the physical structure rises
the mental, with all its capabilities of moral, intellectual,
and spiritual, in grandeur surpassing the majesty of the
whole external Cosmos. That it is a low and degrading
superstition to regard deity as other than One, ever liv
ing and operating equally and impartially throughout the
whole domain of existence; or as dwelling apart from
the world, and only occasionally giving proof of his being
by disturbance of the general order. And that,—while it
is impossible truly to ascribe to him aught of feeling cor
responding to the love, hate, fear, passion, caprice, appe
tite, or other affection of men,—when for purposes of
instruction or devotion we seek to utilise the anthropo
morphic tendency of our nature, He is to be represented
as the absolute impersonation of all that we recognise as
best in Humanity.
To what depths do we fall when, abandoning these
hard-won gains of the Intellect’s long warfare against
ignorance, barbarism, and superstition, instead of placing
our children upon the vantage ground we have acquired,
and handing to them our lights at the point which we
ourselves have attained, that they may carry them on
yet further, we abuse their understandings at the most
impressible age, by compelling them to regard the
Almighty as no equal God and Father of the whole
human race, but the exclusive patron of a small Semitic
tribe dwelling in Palestine, whom he supported by
prodigies and miracles in their aggressions upon their
neighbours, revealing to them alone the light of his
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word, and condemning all others to enforced darkness.
By teaching them to believe in magic and witchcraft,
in talismans, charms, and vows; in beasts speaking
with human voices and sentiments; (Gen. iii. 1-4;
Num. xxii. 28-30.) in a deity writing with a finger; (Ex.
xxxi. 18.) speaking with a voice; (xix. 19.) enjoying
the smell of roast meat; (Gen. viii. 21.) standing face to
face ; (xxxii. 30.) walking in a garden ; (iii. 8.) revealing
his hinder parts; (Ex. xxxiii. 23.) coming down to obtain
information as to what men were doing, and to devise
measures in accordance therewith; (Gen. xi. 5-7 ; xviii.
20, 21.) impressing men, not through their consciences,
but by signs and wonders, miracles and dreams; recog
nising and confirming advantages gained by fraud, to the
irreparable disadvantage of their rightful owner; (Gen.
xxvii. 33-37.) in the case of one deliverer of his chosen
people, making his strength depend upon the length of
his hair; (Jud. xvi. 17.) allowing another, in virtue of
a hasty vow, to offer up his daughter in human sacrifice
as a burnt-offering; (xi. 30-39 ; Num. xxx.) and, lastly,
teaching them to believe in man created perfect, and
yet unable to resist the first and smallest temptation;
and, for such a peccadillo as the eating of the fruit of a
magical tree, being with his whole unborn progeny so
ferociously damned as to be redeemable only by another
human sacrifice, even the stupendous sacrifice of God’s
only Son.
How utterly bewildering to the expanding intelligence
of youth to be told that the God whom they are to
worship is revealed in the Bible, and to find him such a
being as this ! Terrible indeed is their responsibility
who proclaim as divinely infallible every absurd or
monstrous narrative to be found in the fragmentary
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legends of a barbarous and imaginative people. When
we consider how great is the difficulty of detaching the
mind from pernicious ideas when imprinted on it in
childhood, and fitting it to receive the later revelations
of reason and morality, we can but shudder at the sum
of misery undergone in the conflict between the Intellect
and the Conscience, through the former having com
menced its onward march, while the latter still continues
bound to the beliefs of childhood. A very Nessus-shirt
of burning poison and agony to all generations of
Christendom, has been the garb of ancient faith which we
have adopted and worn, in spite of its being totally
unfitted to us.
VII.
It is a practice with many savage tribes to invest some
object with certain magical properties, altogether inde
pendent of its real qualities, and to worship this with a
blind adoration, the whole process being known by the
name of Fetich-worship.
Now what else than precisely such Fetich-worship is
theirs who would put up a book to be venerated, but
refuse to allow it to be made comprehensible by any
kind of interpretation ? Yet, of all the Resolutions
considered by the School-board, that for which the
country at largS manifested the strongest preference at
the elections was the proposition “that the Bible be
read in the schools, but without note or comment.”
It can only be the absence of any precise notion as to
what education consists in that has prompted a sugges
tion so utterly opposed to any sort of wholesome de
velopment. To suggest difficulties—such difficulties—
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and forbid their explanation ! Better far that the
children read the Bible in the original tongues at once,
than in the “ authorised version.” They might not get
much good from the process, but they would assuredly
get less harm.
But we will test the working of this suggestion by a
few out of the numerous instances of apparent contra
diction which, “ without note or comment,” cannot fail
to plunge youthful readers in hopeless perplexity.
And first, concerning the Deity, we read that “ God
saw everything that he had made, and behold it was
very good.” (Gen. i. 31.) This was said after the
creation of man, when the character and liabilities of
that creation must have been fully known to God.
Yet we are told soon after that “ it repented the Lord
that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him
at his heart; (iv. 6.) implying that he was surprised and
disappointed at the way man had turned out, having
expected better things of him : implying, too, that the
divine prescience was at fault, the divine work a failure.
And in many other passages we read of the Deity as
repenting and changing his mind; being weary and
resting. Yet elsewhere in the same book it is declared
that “ God is not a man that he should repent;” (Num.
xxxiii. 19.) being one “with whom is no variable
ness, neither shadow of turning;” (Jam. i. 17.) “who
fainteth not, neither is weary.” (Is. xl. 28 ; also 1 Sam.
xv, 35 ; Jonah iii. 10 ; Ex. xxxiii. 1 ; &c.)
Even the all-important questions of God’s justice and
power remain in suspense with such passages as these
unreconciled : “ A God of truth and without iniquity,
just and right is he.” (Deut. xxxii. 4.) “ Hear now, 0
house of Israel; are not my ways equal ? are not your
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ways unequal ? Therefore I will judge you.............
every one according to his ways, saith the Lord God.”
“ The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.”
(Ez. xviii. 20, 25-30.) And, “ I . . . . am a jealous
God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the
children.” (Ex. xx. 5.) Also, “For the children being
not yet bom, neither having done any good or evil, that
the purpose of God according to election might stand,
not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said unto
her (by God), the elder shall serve the younger. As it
is written, Jacob have I loved (Jacob !) but Esau have I
hated.” (Eom. ix. 11-13 ; Gen. ix. 25 ; Matt. xiii. 11-17.)
How, moreover, are children to reconcile this with the
declaration that “God is no respecter of persons?”
And while, notwithstanding that “ with God all things
are possible,” (Matt. xix. 25.) we are told that “ the
Lord was with Judah, and he drave out the inhabitants
of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabi
tants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.”
(Jud. i. 19 ; Josh. xvii. 18.) Also that the inhabitants
of Meroz were bitterly cursed “because they came not
to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” (Jud. v. 23.)
Notwithstanding that we read in several places that
God was seen face to face, and his voice heard, (Gen. iii.
9, 10 ; xxxii. 30; Ex. xxiv. 9-11; xxxiii. 11 ; Is. vi. 1.)
we are yet assured that “ no man hath seen God at any
time; ” (John i. 18.) hath “ neither heard his voice at any
time, nor seen his face.” (v. 37.) And God himself said
unto Moses, “ Thou canst not see my face; for there shall
no man see me and live.” (Ex. xxiii. 20.) And Paul
speaks of him as one “ whom no man hath seen, nor can
see.” (1 Tim. vi. 16.)
It is little that children will learn from the Bible con
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cerning the origin of evil, when, against “ I make peace
and create evil. I the Lord do all these things;” (Is.
xiv. 7.) “ out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good ?” (Lam. iii. 38.)—they set, “ with
out note or comment,” “ God is not the author of con
fusion;” (1 Cor. xiv. 33.) “a God of truth, and without
iniquity, just and right is he.” (Deut. xxxii. 4.) “God
cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any
man.” (Jas. i. 13.)
Concerning the divine dwelling-place, we read that
“ the Lord appeared to Solomon, and said ... I have
chosen and sanctified this house . . . and mine eyes and
heart shall be there perpetually.” (2 Chron. vii. 12-16.)
Yet we also read, “ Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not
in temples made with hands.” (Acts vii. 48.) In one
place he is described as “ dwelling in light which no man
can approach;” (1 Tim. iv. 16.) and in another it is
said, “ clouds and darkness are round about him.” (Ps.
xcvii. 2.)
Similarly contrast these also: “ The Lord is a man of
war(Ex. xv. 3.) “ The Lord mighty in battle(Ps.
xxiv. 8.) “ The Lord of hosts is his name.” (Is. li. 15.)
And, “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.” (1
Cor. xiv. 33.) “ Bloody men shall not live out half their
days.” (Ps. lv. 23.) “ The God of peace be with you all.”
(Rom. xv. 33.)
In reference to the making and worshipping of images,
we have the positive command, “ Thou shalt not make
unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything
that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath. Thou
shalt not bow down to them, nor serve (or worship)
them,” (Ex. xxii. 4.) and many repeated denunciations
of idolatry. Yet Moses was commanded to “ make two
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cherubim of gold.” (xxv. 18.) Also, “ the Lord said
unto Moses, make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a
pole, and it shall come to pass that every one that is
bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.” (Num. xxi. 8.)
A direct act of idolatry commanded by God himself!
The books of Exodus and Leviticus abound in direc
tions instituting and regulating sacrifice, in terms such
as “ Thou shalt offer every day a bullock for a sin-offering
for atonement;” (Ex. xxix. 36; also xviii.; Lev. i. 9;
xxiii. 27, &c.) and the most complex and gorgeous
system of ceremonial worship was based upon it, ex
pressly by divine command. Yet in the Psalms we find
the Almighty exclaiming, “ Will I eat the flesh of bulls,
or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanks
giving, and pay thy vows unto the Most High.” (Ps. 1.
13, 14.) And in Isaiah, “To what purpose is the mul
titude of your sacrifices unto me ? saith the Lord . . .
I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of
he-goats . . . When ye come to appear before me, who
hath required this at your hand ? Bring no more vain
oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new
moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot
away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.”
(Is. i. 11-13.) And Jeremiah represents the Almighty
as positively repudiating any connection with the Levitical code. “ I spake not unto your fathers, nor com
manded them in the day that I brought them out of the
land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices.”
(Gen. vii. 22.)
“ Without note or comment,” children would assuredly
fail to comprehend the significance of the antagonism
necessarily existing between the whole sacerdotal
class, with its “ trivial round” of ritual and observance,
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and immoral doctrine of compensation for moral de
ficiencies by material payments, and the honest, out
spoken prophet or teacher of practical religion. And to
fail to comprehend this, is to fail to learn one of the
most valuable lessons to be derived from the Bible.
Even the horrible practice of human sacrifice finds
justification with the sacerdotal followers of the Jewish
divinity. We have already seen how, backed by the
priests, David delivered up the seven sons and grandsons
of Saul, “ and they hanged them in the hill before the
Lord . . . and after that God was entreated for the
land.” (2 Sam. xxi.) Moreover, “God said unto Abra
ham, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac . . . and
offer him fora burnt-offering.” (Gen. xxii. 2.) Jephthah,
too, “ vowed a vow unto the Lord” that he would “ offer
up for a burnt-offering” whatever he met first on his re
turn home, provided the Lord would give him a victory.
The victory was given, and the bargain was kept; “ the
Lord,” of course, being in his omniprescience, well aware
what it involved; and, to judge by his antecedent and
subsequent conduct, by no means incapable of being in
duced thereto by the magnitude of the bribe. Jephthah’s
own daughter was the first to come to congratulate her
father j “ and he did with her according to his vow.”
(Jud. xi.) The sacerdotal law gave him no choice, for it
positively enacted that vows, however iniquitous, were
not to be broken, except when taken under certain cir
cumstances by a maid, a wife, or a widow. (Num. xxx.)
The liberality and mercifulness of God find expression
in many touching declarations in the Scriptures. We
read that “ every one that asketh, receiveth, and he that
seeketh, findeth.” (Matt. vii. 8.) “ Those that seek me
early shall find me.” (Prov. viii. 17.) Yet on the other
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side we have, “ Then shall they call upon me, but I will
not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not
find me.” (i. 28.) And notwithstanding such assertions
as: “The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.” (James
v. 11.) “He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the
children of men.” (Lam. iii. 33.) “ The Lord is good to
all, and his tender mercies are over all his works.” (Ps.
cxlv. 9.) “I have no pleasure in the death of him that
dieth, saith the Lord God.” (Ezek. xviii. 32.) “ God is
love;” (1 John iv. 16.) “Who will have all men to be
saved;” (1 Tim. ii. 4.) “For his mercy endureth for
ever;” (1 Chron. xvi. 34, &c.)—we find also the following
ferocious utterances : “ The Lord thy God is a consuming
fire.” (Deut. iv. 34.) “ I will dash them one against
another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the
the Lord. I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy,
but destroy them.” (Jer. xiii. 14.) “And thou shalt
consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall
deliver thee: thine eye shall have no pity upon them.”
(Deut. vii. 16, and 2.) “ Thus saith the Lord of hosts , . .
slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and
sheep, camel and ass.” (1 Sam. xv. 2, 3.) “ Because they
had looked into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of
the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men.
And the people lamented because the Lord had smitten
many of the people with great slaughter.” (1 Sam. vi. 19.)
" I also will deal in fury; mine eye shall not spare,
neither will I have pity. And though they cry in mine
ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.” (Ezek.
viii. 18.) “And the Lord said, Go through the city and
smite; let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: slay
utterly old and young, both maids and little children,
and women. . . . and begin at my sanctuary.” (ix. 4-6.)
c
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It is no less impossible to derive from the Bible alone
any- certainty of God’s unfailing truthfulness than of his
mercy. It is true that we are told, “It is impossible for
God to lie.” (Heb. vi. 18.) “ Lying lips are an abomina
tion to the Lord.” (Prov. xii. 22.) “‘Thou shalt not
bear false witness against thy neighbour.” (Ex. xx. 16.)
“ These things doth the Lord hate ... a lying tongue
. . . a false witness that speaketh lies.” (Prov. iv. 17-19.)
And, “ all liars shall have their part in the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone.” (Rev. xxi. 8.) Yet,
on the other hand, we find the lies of the Israelitish
women in Egypt, and of Rahab in Jericho, justified;—
“ that admirable falsehood,” as St. Chrysostom called
the latter. (Ex. i. 18-20; Josh. ii. 4-6.) We find the
atrocious deceit of Jael more than justified. (Jud. iv. v.)
And we have also this astounding revelation from behind
the scenes in heaven :—“ And the Lord said, who shall
persuade Ahab 1 . . . And there came forth a spirit and
stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him.
And the Lord said, wherewith 1 And he said, I will go
forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy
prophets. And he said, thou shalt persuade him, and
prevail also; go forth and do so. Now, therefore, be
hold the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all
these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil con
cerning thee.” (1 Kings xxii. 21-23.) And in confirma
tion of this otherwise incredible narrative, we read later,
“ If the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a
thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will
stretch out mine hand upon him, and will destroy him
from the midst of my people.” (Ezek. xiv. 9.) The New
Testament adopts a similar view of God’s dealings; for,
mingled with its “ glad tidings of salvation,” we read,—
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“ God shall send them strong delusion, that they should
believe a lie, that they all might be damned.” (2 Thess.
ii. 11, 12.)
Once more it must be asked, Can we wonder that
earnest and pious men of our own times have, in their
zeal for the honour of God, endeavoured to rescue his
character from the treatment it receives in the Scriptures ?
VIII.
The character of Jesus is as variously drawn in the
New Testament as that of the Deity in the Old; and
those who desire the children in our schools to recognise
in him the perfect man and infallible Teacher, should, to
be consistent, be the very last to wish them to read the
New Testament “ without note or comment.” Too often
it happens that the explanatory lessons with which the
Scriptures are accompanied, are utterly pernicious, and
even blasphemous. This very year, a youth who has
been for some years a student in one of the wealthiest of
our public foundation-schools, was required to give some
instances of human feeling on the part of Jesus. Of
the value, whether intellectually or religiously, of the
education given at that school, we may judge by
his answer. Of the tender sympathy shown by Jesus
towards all who were suffering : of his unselfish devotion
to the cause of the poor and the depraved; of his noble
indignation against injustice and oppression; of his in
tense sense of a personal Father in God, and instinctive
detestation of all sacerdotal interference;—of all these so
eminently human characteristics, our scholar said nothing.
The result of his compulsory attendance at the school
chapel every morning, and at two full services every
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Sunday, beside much other Scripture instruction, was to
impress upon him the belief that whatever is human is
bad, and whatever is bad is human. He concluded,
therefore, that by human feeling on the part of Jesus,
an instance of something bad was intended. And he
actually sent up for answer, as a solitary instance of
human feeling on the part of Jesus, the story of his losing
his temper, and cursing a fig-tree for being barren when
it was not the season for figs 1 (Mark xi. 13, 14, 21.)
As any explanations which accompany the reading of
the Old Testament should be contrived to disabuse chil
dren of the notion that the Deity could ever have been
such a being as is there described, so in reading of Jesus
in the New Testament they should be told that there are
indications of a better man than the Gospels make him,
peeping out through the corrupted text. “ It is impos
sible that such love and devotion as followed him through
out his life could ever have been won by a hard, unjust,
or intolerant character.” Yet he is represented as more
than once addressing his admirable and devoted mother
in a rough, unfilial tone; (John ii. 4; Luke ii. 4.) and
launching most uncalled for reproaches at a gentleman of
whose hospitality he was partaking, on the occasion of a
woman coming in and washing his feet with her tears,
and wiping them with her hair. (Luke vii. 32-50.)
Nor can there be any doubt as to what must be their
natural judgment of the spirit of one who could describe
his own mission in these terms : “ Whosoever shall con
fess me before men, him will I also confess before my
Father which is in heaven. But whosoever will deny
me before men, him will I also deny before my Father
which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to
send peace on earth: I come not to send peace, but a
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sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against
his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s
foes shall be they of his own household.” (Matt. x. 32-36.)
Hardly will they reconcile this with the promise of his
birth-song, “On earth peace, good-will toward men;”
(Luke ii. 14.) but will hastily conclude that the angels
were sadly misinformed. And when they read that one
who is elsewhere described as “ going about teaching and
healing” among a people who were “ perishing for lack
of knowledge,” uttered to his disciples such words as
these, “ Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of
the kingdom of God : but unto others in parables ; that
seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not
understand;” (Luke viii. 8.) and read further, “ Therefore
they could not believe, because he hath blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart; that they should not see with
their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be con
verted, and I should heal them; ” (John xii. 39, 40.)—and
from these fearful utterances, turn to the declaration, that
this same Jesus had received “ all power in heaven and
earth;” (Matt, xxviii. 18.) and that he “ came not to judge
but to save the world;” (John xii. 27.) came especially
“ to seek and to save that which was lost;” (Luke xix. 10.)
it will be no wonder if their souls finally succumb to
despair, and they cry to their teachers, “ Be merciful:
take away from us this book, if you dare not explain to
us its meaning.”
IX.
I shall conclude the present lecture by pointing out
the notable contradiction apparent between the Bible
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and the fact of the world’s present existence. The New
Testament contains scarcely a passage of any length that
does not make some allusion to the near approach of the
end of the world.
We may conceive the perplexity of children when,
after reading in ordinary history the events of the last
eighteen hundred years, with their piteous tale of cruelty
and oppression, disease and death, they open their
Bibles and read that, all those centuries ago, men were
summoned to repent because “ the kingdom of heaven ”
was then “at hand;” (Matt. iv. 17.) and find that by
“ the kingdom of heaven ” was meant, not merely a social
or moral regeneration, though the phrase is sometimes
used in this sense, but the personal second coming of
Christ, and end of all things. That both the Baptist and
Jesus preached thus : that the twelve apostles were sent
forth to preach thus; (x. 7.) that the seventy were
charged with injunctions to announce to the inhabitants
of any city-on their entry, “the kingdom of God is
come nigh unto you (Luke x. 8-11.) that Jesus repre
sented himself as a nobleman who had gone into a far
country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return;
and instructed his disciples in these terms, “ Occupy till
I come (xix. 13.) that this was the kingdom for which
Joseph of Arimathea “ waited (xxiii. 51.) unto which
Paul prayed that he might be preserved; (2 Tim. iv. 18.)
charging Timothy to “ keep the commandment.............
until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Tim.
vi. 14.)
How bewildering to the youthful intelligence, to per
ceive the world still going on much in its old track,
slowly elaborating its own destiny, and to find in the
records of its history no trace of the dread phenomena
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which they read in their Testaments were to portend
and accompany the return of the Son of Man and of God,
—the darkened sun, the falling stars, the bloodshot
moon, the roaring sea, the myriad hosts of heaven, the
voice of the archangel, and the trump of God; the
judgment of the quick and dead, the wailing of the lost,
and the gathering of the elect from the four winds of
heaven, the resurrection of those who slept, the ecstasy
of “we who remain,” as Paul said, (1 Thess. iv. 15-17.)
when “ caught up to meet the Lord in the air,” on his
“ coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great
glory;” (Matt. xxiv. 29-35.) for which all the disciples
were bid to watch ; (Mark xiii. 37.) and which some of
them were still to be alive on earth to see. For Jesus
had said, " Verily I say unto you, that there be some of
them that stand here now which shall not taste of death
till they have seen the kingdom of God come with
power.” (Matt. xvi. 28; Mark xi. 1; Luke xix. 27.)
“ Immediately after the tribulation of those days
and,
“ Verily I say unto you, this generation shall notpassaway,
until all these things shall be fulfilled.” (Matt. xxiv. 29,
35.) Add, too, the assurance of the angels to the disci
ples as they stood watching the Ascension, that he should
return “ in like manner;” (Acts i. 11.) add the declara
tion of Peter that “the end of all things is at hand;”
(1 Pet. iv. 7.) add the admonition of Paul to the
Romans, “ Now it is high time to awake out of sleep,
for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
The night is far spent, the day is at hand;” (Rom. xiii.
11, 12.) “ these last days;” (Heb. i. 2.) even the days of
us “ upon whom the ends of the world are come ; ” (1 Cor.
x. 11.) add, lastly, the final book of “The Revelation,”
opening with the announcement that these things “ must
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shortly come to pass •” and concluding with the declara
tion, “ Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come,
Lord Jesus,”—a book which, claiming to be the final
utterance of divine truth, is charged with dire curses
against any who should add to it; instead of saying,
rather, “to be continued, so long as God continues to
work in man,”—add, I say, to all that has been set forth,
these and the yet other numerous similar intimations of
the then expected rapidly approaching end ; set children
to read them “ without note or comment,” but with the
belief which they will inevitably acquire, from the fact
of the Bible being put into their hands without informa
tion to the contrary,—the belief that it must therefore
be all infallibly true, that God did speak, the Lord did
say, all the things therein ascribed to him; and then,
if they retain any particle of intelligence whatever, most
surely they will have but a confused idea of God, a con
fused idea of man, and a confused idea of the relations
between them; a confused idea of right and wrong, a
confused idea of faith and fact; or rather, we may con
fidently declare, a false and pernicious idea of all things
whatsoever, in heaven and earth, from beginning to end.
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LECTURE THE SECOKD.
X.
It is not unusual for people, when pressed upon the
subject, to say, “ We do not lay much store by the Old
Testament. We concede much of what you say against
it as a teacher of morality and even of religion. We
value it chiefly as the basis and introduction of the New.
It is upon the New Testament that we take our stand.
The sufficient, and only sufficient, rule of life, its prac
tical religion and morality, are distinct and unimpeach
able.” I propose, therefore, to conclude my examination
of the effects of the popular proposition, “ that the Bible
be read without note or comment,” by showing that in
respect of its teaching, both religious and moral, even
the New Testament requires elucidation and correction
to prevent it from being productive of much that would
be immoral, irreligious, and grossly superstitious.
Passing over the innumerable discrepancies in the
gospel narratives, to reconcile which so many “ Har
monies ” have been constructed in vain, let us compare
first those utterances of the New Testament which have
regard to life—civil, political, and social. Are our chil
dren to learn from its pages to grow up to be intelligent
and independent citizens, respecting the laws, and re
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specting themselves ? It is clear that, “ without note or
comment,” they will hardly escape great perplexity of
conscience when on one side they read, “ Be subject to
principalities and powers, obey magistrates.” (Tit. iii. 1.)
“ Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit
yourselves.” (Heb. xiii. 17.) “The powers that be are
ordained of God. Whoso therefore resisteth the power,
resisteth the ordinance of God:” (Rom. xiii. 1, 2.) and
on the other side, find, that no sooner did a dilemma
arise, than “ Peter and the other apostles answered and
said, We ought to obey God rather than man.” (Acts
v. 29.)
Concerning the institution of Slavery, we find in the
Old Testament the most conflicting utterances, of which
one is, “ Of the children of the strangers that do sojourn
among you, of them shall ye buy . . . and they shall be
your possession. . . . They shall be your bondmen for
ever(Lev. xxv. 45, 46.) and another, “ Thou shalt
neither vex a stranger nor oppress him (Ex. xxxii. 21.)
both of which are in the books ascribed to Moses. While
the New Testament contains no direct reprobation of
Slavery, but rather the reverse. It must be remembered
that, wherever in our translation the word servant occurs,
the original means slave. And while masters are enjoined
to “ give unto their slaves that which is just and equal”
for their labour, and to “ forbear threatening ” them;
(Col. iv. 1; Eph. vi. 9.) it says nothing in repudiation
of the institution itself as being unjust and unequal;
but repeatedly admonishes slaves to be content with
their condition ; to “ count their masters worthy of all
honour (1 Tim. vi. 1.) and be “ obedient to them with
fear and trembling.” (Eph. vi. 5.) We read, moreover,
that Paul himself sent back to his master the slave Onesimus, after converting him to Christianity. (Philemon.)
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There are, indeed, ample grounds for fearing lest all
respect for Rights vanish in the prominence given exclu
sively to Duties. And even in the important matter of
respect and affection for parents and relatives, children
may fail to find a sufficient rule to exclude hesitation.
It is true that they read, “ Honour thy father and
mother,” for the low and unsatisfactory motive, “ that
thy days may be long.” (Ex. xx. 12.) “Husbands love
your wives.” (Eph. v. 25.) And “whoso hateth his
brother is a murderer.” (1 John iii. 15.) But there is to
be set on the other side this of Jesus himself, “ If any
man hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and chil
dren, and brethren, and sisters ... he cannot be my
disciple.” (Luke xiv. 26.)
Great will be their perplexity, too, when, after the
ordinary lessons of the schoolroom, inculcating respect
for property, the duty of industry, forethought, and thrift,
the disgrace of beggary, and evil of pauperism, they read
“ without note or comment,” “ Take therefore no thought
for the morrow“Lay not up for yourselves treasures
upon earth.” (Matt. vi. 34,19.) “ Sell whatsoever thou hast
and give to the poor;” (Mark x. 21.) and see how Jesus
backed up his communistic precepts by his practice, in
instituting the order of Mendicant Friars, by sending
forth the Twelve and the Seventy with injunctions to
“ carry neither purse nor scrip.” (Luke x. 3-7, &c.)
Neither can we consistently endeavour to cherish in
children a love of science, literature, and art, and all the
glorious uses of which man’s high faculties are capable ;
a love, in short, of that mental culture to obtain which
we expressly send them to school; if we ply them with
such contemptuous allusions to it as “ Beware lest any
man spoil you with philosophy and vain deceit; ” (Col.
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ii. 8.) “The Greeks seek after wisdom ;” (1 Cor. i. 22.)
“ Vain babblings and oppositions of science falsely so
called;” (1 Tim. vi. 20.) “Knowledge puffeth up;” (1
Cor. viii. 1.)—without telling them at the same time,
that ignorance ever “ puffeth up ” far more than know
ledge; that “science,” now-a-days stands on a very dif
ferent basis to that on which it stood in those days,
namely, on a basis of positive fact as ascertained by
actual investigation into the phenomena of the universe,
instead of on the imaginations and foregone conclusions
of men who believed in the infallibility of their mental
impressions, and pretended to knowledge independently
of experience; and that it is our highest duty and pri
vilege to cultivate “ every good gift and every perfect
gift,” intellectual and other, “ which cometh down from
the Father of lights.” (Jam. i. 17.)
Even in so simple a matter as the advantage of bear
ing a good character, they will be at a loss to determine
between “a good name is better than precious oint
ment ;” (Eccl. vii. 1.) “ it is rather to be chosen than
great riches;” (Prov. xxii. 1.) and, “Woe unto you
when all men shall speak well of you.” (Luke vi. 25.)
The Bible makes it a reproach to King Asa that “ in
his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physi
cians,” and significantly adds, “Asa slept with his
fathers.” (2 Chron. xvi. 12.) Of another patient it is
said that she had “ for twelve years suffered many things
of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and
was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,” but straight
way was healed through faith. (Mark v. 25-29.) And
there is this express injunction, “ Is any sick among you?
let him call for the elders of the Church, and let them
pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the
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Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the
Lord shall raise him up.” (Jam. v. 14.) “Without note
or comment,” but influenced, unconsciously perhaps,
within school or without it, to regard the plain teaching
of the Bible as intended to be followed unshrinkingly,
the children in our National Schools will be apt to grow
up with the belief that it is unchristian and wicked to
call in a doctor, or to take medicine, when they are ill.
Lawyers are scarcely named but to be censured in
such terms as these: “Woe unto you lawyers ! for ye
lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye your
selves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.
Woe unto you lawyers I” (Luke xi. 45, 52.) For “with
out note or comment,” the term rendered “ lawyers,” will
inevitably be held to signify, not the expounders of Rab
binical doctrine, but the members of that eminent profes
sion which is so indispensable to the maintenance of our
rights and privileges. While the despised “ publicans ”
of Jewish times, instead of being recognised as mere
collectors of taxes, are sure to be confounded with our
own respectable company of “ licensed victuallers.”
We have seen how summarily two of the learned pro
fessions may be disposed of. Following the Bible with
out guidance by “ note or comment,” the clergy will be
in danger of faring little better than the lawyers or doc
tors. And this brings us to the subject of religious
duties as laid down in the New Testament.
It is, whether rightly or wrongly I do not venture to
decide, a subject of peculiar pride with us, that we are a
prayerful and churchgoing people. But what is really
curious is, that the practice of assembling together for pub
lic worship, we regard as essential to our character as Chris
tians. Now, how can children be expected to understand
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“without note or comment” that it is their duty to
attend “ divine service,” when they find that Jesus, who is
held up to them as the infallible pattern and guide of life,
never joined in public prayer himself, but always when
he wished to pray or meditate went apart, either “ up
into a mountain,” (Matt. xiv. 23.) or some other “ solitary
place,” (Mark i. 35.) or “ withdrew about a stone’s cast
(Luke xxii. 24.) that he only went into the synagogue or
the temple to read or to teach ; (Luke iv. 16: Matt. xxi.
23.) or to indulge in what to children and unexplained
must appear to be riotous conduct in church, namely to
drive out with blows and threats a number of persons
who were exercising a lawful industry in its precincts;
(Matt. xxi. 12.) that the persons he mentioned in one of
his parables as “ going up to the temple to pray,” (Luke
xviii. 10.) belonged to the classes he most persistently de
nounced, being a pharisee and a publican; and even these
he distinctly exonerates from the reproach of having
joined in common prayer ; that moreover, in addition to
his example, he delivered precepts absolutely prohibitory
of all public praying in these emphatic terms: “ When
thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for
they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the
corners of the streets to be seen of men. Verily, I say
unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou
prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut
thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy
Father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly;”
(Matt. vi. 5, 6.)—a rule which he relaxed only on the
condition that two, or at most three, should agree upon
a subject for petition, in which case they might gather
together in his name. (Matt, xviii. 19, 20.) It is indeed
a painful perplexity in which the minds of the more sen
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sitive children will be plunged when they ask themselves
how, in the face of Christ’s most positive precepts and
example, they can continue to pray in church or chapel,
and at the same time deserve to be called by his name.
The propriety of continuing to observe the Sabbath, if
rested on the Bible alone, will remain, to say the least,
doubtful. The difference in the reasons assigned for its
institution can hardly fail to create wonder as to the
authority upon which the command said to be “ written
with the finger of God” himself, basing the appointment
upon the creation of the universe in six days, (Ex. xxxi.
17, &c.) was changed to one representing it as a memo
rial of the deliverance out of Egypt. (Deut. v. 15.)
While the institution itself is, on account of the abuses
to which it led, referred to variously by the later pro
phets ; and, in the New Testament, seems to have been
repudiated in a great measure, if not altogether, by Jesus
and the apostles; Paul distinctly admonishing the Colossians in these terms : “You hath Christ quickened. . .
blotting out the handwriting of ordinances. . . Let
no man therefore judge you . . in respect of an holi
day, . . or of the Sabbath.” (Col. ii. 13-16.) So that
something at any rate has to be added to the New Tes
tament to justify our present usage in this respect.
In the absence of explanatory comment, the statements
of scripture respecting the resurrection of the body appear
in direct conflict with each other; as also do those re
specting the after-life of the soul. In the Old Testament
we are told, “ He that goeth down £0 the grave shall
come up no more.” (Job vii. 9.) “The dead know not
anything, neither have they any more reward.” (Eccl. ix.
5, 10.) And in the New Testament, “ The trumpet shall
sound, and the dead shall be raised(1 Cor. xv. 52.)
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“Then shall he reward every man according to his
works.” (Matt. xvi. 27.) While the narratives of the
ascent of Enoch and Elijah seem to find a positive con
tradiction in the declaration of Jesus, “No man hath
ascended up to heaven but he that came down from
heaven, even the son of man;” and the narrative makes
him add, “ which is in heaven,” putting what appears to
be an absurd contradiction into the mouth of Jesus.
(John iii. 12.)
And even concerning the status of Jesus himself, expla
nations are needed to reconcile the various contradictory
declarations; “I and my Father are one.” (John x. 30.)
“ He thought it not robbery to be equal with God.”
(Phil. ii. 6.) “ Jesus increased in wisdom and stature,
and in favour with God and man.” (Luke ii. 52.) “ My
Father is greater than I.” (John xiv. 28.) “ Of that day
and that hour knoweth no man. . . Neither the Son,
but the Father.” (Mark xiii. 32.) And his agonised ex
clamation when dying, which we can easily believe to
have been held up by the clergy of those days as uttered
in remorse of soul for a life spent in opposition to the
church orthodoxy of his country,—“ My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me ?” (Matt, xxvii. 46.)
XI.
Much stress has been laid by orthodox writers on the
“ Continuity,” or uninterrupted connection, of Scripture.
The inference which they have drawn from the con
sistency existing between its various parts, is that it
must all be alike the result of one divine harmonious
scheme. That such Continuity exists it is impossible to
help seeing, but the extent to which it exists, and its
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significance in relation to what is called doctrinal
religion, are likely, “ without note or comment,” wholly
to escape the observation of youthful scholars.
The whole religious system of the Old Testament rests
upon the theory that the object of Religion is, not the
exaltation of man, but the delectation of the Deity; and
the stimulants offered in it to the practice of religion are
of the most material and seductive kind, wealth, honour,
long life, numerous posterity. In the New Testament
the same idea is continued, with this difference, that
experience having demonstrated the theory to be unsound
as regards this life, inasmuch as prosperity does not by
any means always accompany virtue, nor adversity vice,
rewards and punishments are there reserved for a future
state of existence, in a region inaccessible to verification
by experience.
Two other instances of Continuity between the two
divisions of Scripture may be classed together as being
intimately connected with each other. These are, the
institution of Sacrifice, and the character of the Jewish
Deity. To the instances already given of the amazing
ferocity of this Being, as represented in the Sacred Books
of the Jews, may be added the tremendous threats and
penalties denounced for the smallest transgressions, the
readiness to dart forth from the mountain and deal
destruction upon any who might but touch it; and the
perpetual demand for blood. This propensity for blood
constitutes a notable instance of Continuity in the
character of the God of the Bible. Blood of animals;
blood of peoples hostile to the Israelites; blood of
transgressors among the Israelites; and in numerous
instances, blood of unoffending men, women, and
children, even from among his own chosen people.
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(1 Sam. vi. 19 ; 2 Sam. xxiv. 15 ; Ezek. ix. 6 ; &c.) We
have already dealt with David’s sacrifice of the seven
sons of Saul: “ They hanged them in the hill before
the Lord. .... and after that God was entreated for
the land;” (2 Sam. xxi.) Jephthah’s sacrifice of his
daughter; (Jud. xi.) and Abraham’s attempt to sacri
fice his son. (Gen. xxii.) Of this last I must speak
more fully, because there are, holding high positions
both in the church and in popular estimation, as thinkers
and scholars, men who insist on drawing from it a moral
which they deem favourable to the character of the deity
as represented in the Jewish Scriptures. But at present
they have failed to do more than read back into the
Bible the civilisation of their age and their own personal
amiability. So far from their being justified in regard
ing the arrest of Abraham as a protest on the part of
the Deity against the prevailing custom of human sacri
fices, the narrative distinctly asserts that “ God tempted
Abraham ” to commit the horrid deed: that his consent
to commit it was accepted at the time as an “ act of faith,”
and rewarded by a renewal of the promise of a numerous
posterity; and not only is there in the Scriptures no
expression whatever commending him for refraining
from completing the sacrifice, but the New Testament
treats it approvingly as being as good as completed,
saying in one place, “ By faith Abraham, when he was
tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the
promises offered up his only-begotten son;” (Heb. xi. 17.)
and in another place, “Was not Abraham our father
justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son
upon the altar ? Seest thou how faith wrought with his
works, and by works faith was made perfect ?” (Jam. ii.
21, 22.)
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So far from the principle of human sacrifices, or the
belief in a deity who required to be propitiated by blood,
being repudiated in the New Testament, “the Continuity
of Scripture ” is in these respects plain and indisputable,
and the principle is carried to a height undreamt of in
Old Testament times. The God of the Jewish priests
requires at length the blood of his own “ only-begotten,”
“ beloved ” son ! It is only when this tremendous climax
has been reached that the dread thirst is appeased. This
is the fundamental argument of the eminently sacerdotal
epistle to the Hebrews, (of unknown authorship). In it
we are assured that “ without shedding of blood there is
no remission of sins.” (Heb. ix. 22.) A human parent, not
in this respect “ made in the image of God,” can forgive
a repenting errant child. The divine parent, made by
priests, and at once unhuman and inhuman, must have
his “pound of flesh” from somebody. This epistle tells
us concerning Christ that “ neither by the blood of goats
and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into
the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for
us............... So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of
many;” (ix. 12, 28.) thus adopting and justifying the
view of the high-priest Caiaphas, who, by virtue of his
sacerdotal office, counselled and I prophesied that Jesus
should die for the people;” (John xi. 50, 51.) — a
view shared even by John himself, who in one of his
epistles declares that “ God sent his only begotten Son
to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John iv. 9, 10.)
Thus early were the attempts of Jesus to abolish sacer
dotalism, and promulgate purer notions of the Deity,
defeated by his own disciples, or by those who wrote in
their names; and the reformation which constituted the
real Christianity, overlaid and stifled by “ the Church.”
I
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Let the churches called Christian, demonstrate, if they
will, their “ Continuity ” with the most hideous of
Jewish superstitions ; and cherish the recollection of the
worst side of the Jewish Divinity, by perpetual repetitions
of the rite which, while declining to practice it simply
“ in remembrance ” of a loved and lost benefactor, they
yet profanely style “the holy Eucharist.” Say they, it
requires a miracle to keep the church up ? Well, perhaps
it does. But if we who “ have not so learned Christ ”
are to act consistently with our more advanced ideas of
religion and morality, the “notes and comments” by which
the reading of these passages in our schools is accom
panied, must direct attention rather to the higher and
better teaching of prophetical lips ; “ the sacrifices of
God are a contrite heart; ” (Ps. li. 17.) “ he saveth such
as be of a contrite spirit;” (xxxiv. 18.) and “ dwelleth
with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit;” (Is. lvii.
15.) as well as that of Jesus himself, “If a man love
me he will keep my words; and my Father will love
him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with
him.” (John xiv. 23.) There is no savour of blood here.
If an education is.to be imparted that is consistent
with “ the development of the intellect and mor^J sense,”
the doctrine that justice can be satisfied by the substitu
tion of the innocent for the guilty, must be rigidly ex
cluded from our schools. It is true that this doctrine is
not without a certain significance; that there is a way by
which the position of the wicked may be bettered through
the condemnation of the righteous. For the punishment
of the innocent involves the divine law of justice being,
not fulfilled, but so utterly shattered and destroyed, as to
be thenceforth absolutely non-existent. The sinner’s gain,
therefore, would consist in there being no law of justice
by which he could be arraigned.
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But so invincibly implacable is the deity of at least a
great portion of the New Testament, that even such stu
pendous atonement fails to gain him over. Its benefits
are confined to a fortunate few, and his fury towards the
rest is redoubled. As Burns says, he
“ Sends ane to heaven, and ten to hell
A’ for his glory.”
The penalties of evil-doing are infinitely enhanced, and
they are applied to a fresh class of offences. Here, too,
Continuity is combined with progression; but it is,
morally, a progression backwards. The Old Testament
consigns no one to eternal punishment, neither does it
make penal the conclusions of the intellect. The New
Testament abounds in menaces of the most fearful cha
racter, not only against malefactors, but also against un
believers. It represents the Almighty, when punishing
the reprobate, as uninfluenced by anything analogous to
the human motive of promoting the security of society or
the reformation of the criminal, but inflicting torture in
the spirit of a fiend, out of pure malignity, because with
no advantage to any. “ The unbelieving and the abomi
nable” are classed together, and, we read, “shall have their
part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone;”
(Rev. xxi. 8.) “where their worm dieth not, and the
fire is not quenched;” (Mark ix. 44.) “there shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matt. viii. 12.) “Depart
ye cursed,” is the final doom of those who had failed to
recognise Christ on earth, “ depart ye cursed into ever
lasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matt,
xxv. 41.)
Nay, more than this. The gospels, as we have them,
actually represent Jesus himself as pronouncing sentence
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of damnation upon all who cannot work miracles. His
last words to his disciples are thus reported: “Go ye
into all the world, and preach the gospel to every crea
ture. . . He that helieveth not shall be damned.
And these signs shall follow them that believe: in my
name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak with
new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they
drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall
lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” (Mark
xiv. 16.) Not to work miracles is not to believe, and
not to believe is to be damned. Is it not certain that if
the young are allowed to read the New Testament with
out explanation or correction by “note or comment,”
they will, as have millions of tender souls to their in
expressible terror and anguish, find the gospel of Jesus to
be to them but a gospel of damnation ?
Let us return to this world and the practical concerns
of life. In its manner of dealing with the crucial act of
life, marriage, and its treatment of the relations of the
sexes generally, the New Testament takes, in regard to
the Old, a great step backwards. A demonstration of its
vacillation and utter inadequacy to provide rules for the
conduct of civilised life on this most important of all
points connected with morals, will fitly conclude this
division of the subject. To the commendation of impotency uttered by Jesus, the stress laid by him upon mere
physical fidelity, (Matt. xix. 9, 12.) and his disregard of
all incongruity or incompatibility of character or affec
tion, as a plea for separation, (a peculiarity which we
have in our institutions but too faithfully followed), must
be added these sentences of Paul: “ Art thou bound to a
wife ? Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a
wife 1 Seek not to be bound. . . It is better to marry
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than to burn,” and, “ good for the present distress.” (1 Cor.
vii. 27, 9, 29.) Hardly from this will our youth learn to
recognise love as capable of being a pure and an elevating
influence, or to give to Christianity the credit, so often
claimed for it, of having raised woman from the depressed
position in which that age found her. It will be in vain
that they read “Marriage is honourable in all,” (Heb.
xiii. 4.) when they find the prevailing spirit of the
gospel to be ascetic, exalting absolute chastity as one of
the loftiest of virtues, and denouncing all natural desire
as sinful in itself. (1 Cor. vii. 1, 38; Rev. xiv. 4.) Will
not the later teaching of Scripture appear to them to
have receded sadly in its fitness for humanity, from the
earlier which commanded men to “ increase and multi
ply;” (Gen. i. 28.) commended a virtuous woman as “a
crown to her husband;” (Prov. xii. 4.) and pronounced a
blessing on “children and the fruit of the womb;” (Ps.
cxxvii. 3, &c.) and, in so far as the relations of the
sexes are concerned, excite in them a preference for the
Jewish regime over the Christian 1
The number is beyond all reckoning, of women, the
best and noblest of their sex, the most fitted to be the
mothers and early trainers of mankind, who through a
superstitious regard to this characteristic of the New
Testament, have renounced their natural “ high calling,”
leaving to inferior types the fulfilment of the functions
upon the right exercise of which the progress, elevation,
and happiness of mankind depend ; who have withdrawn
themselves from the duties of real life into artificial
isolation, through a conscientious but mistaken belief,
that in practising the selfishness of the devotee, they are
seeking a virtue which is possible only through the exer
cise of the affections. It is in vain that Paul in his
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riper experience wrote, “ I will that the younger women
marry, bear children, guide the house,” (1 Tim. v. 14.)
when Churches persist in making so much of his earlier
utterance delivered, as he himself acknowledges, with
hesitation and doubt. “ The unmarried woman careth
for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both
in body and spirit: but she that is married careth for
the things of the world, how she may please her hus
band,” and . . . “ I think that I have the spirit of God,”
(1 Cor. vii. 34, 40.)—as if the best, the only way of serv
ing God was not by serving man. This is but an
expression and echo of that same Manichaean principle
of Asceticism, which has led alike Pagans and Christians
innumerable to despise the material world. Blasphem
ously divorcing the Creator from his work, it teaches
that nature is so utterly corrupt and wrong, that the
more we go against and mortify it, the more likely we
are to be pure and right.
‘ And so it comes that woman, while promoted theo
logically to be “Queen of Heaven” and “Mother of
God,” ecclesiastically is regarded as a mistake of nature,
a thing to be snubbed and repressed, and condemned to
the living death of an enforced celibacy.’
One whom I dare to call the greatest of our philo
sophers, Herbert Spencer, has epitomised in a single
sentence all that can be said on this subject:—“Morality
is essentially one with physical truth. It is a kind of
transcendental physiology.” (“ Social Statics.”) It is
.through ignorance of this, the real basis and nature of
morality, that myriads of the best women in Christendom
have, in every generation, to the incalculable loss of the
whole species, made the saddest shipwreck both of their
own lives and of the lives which by their sweet and holy
influence they might have rendered supremely blest.
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There is a “ Higher Law” of morality which impels
ns to suppress our own affections and desires, not through
hope of reward here or hereafter; not through deference
to conventional standards, hut solely through an un
selfish regard to the feelings of those to whom it is our
lot to be allied. But that such a law is to be the law of
our lives, and sole standard of virtue, we find no intima
tion in the Testament, Old or New.
XII.
Yet, notwithstanding the failure of the Bible to pro
vide an authoritative or satisfactory rule either of morals
or of religion, I hold that, both for its own intrinsic
merits, and for the place which it occupies in the litera
ture and history of ourselves and of mankind, it ought
not to be excluded from the educational course of our
children.
It was proposed in the London School-board to exclude
it on the ground that its use as a religious text-book
outside the schools, makes its admission into the schools
inconsistent with religious equality. It certainly would
be, as is generally allowed, an act of gross unfairness to
admit partisan theology into a common school. But,
happily, as is also very generally allowed, speculative
dogma and practical religion are very far indeed from
being one and the same thing; and even those who
object most strongly to dogma in itself, desire to see
children brought up religiously, that is with reverential
regard for divine truth and law.
If fairness and impartiality forbid the Bible to be in
troduced and used as the text-book of any party or sect,
they equally forbid it to be excluded for happening to be
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such a text-book. For this would equally constitute
dogmatic teaching, though of a negative kind. Perfect
fairness requires that the question of the introduction
and use of a book within the schools, should not be in
any way dependent upon dogmatic opinions entertained
respecting it by parties outside the schools. Perfect
fairness forbids that anything which is good and instruc
tive in itself, be excluded merely on account of the source
from which it is derived; be it from Turk, Infidel, Heretic,
Pagan, Jew, or Christian. It is here that the limitation
imposed by our definition of education, comes to our aid,
“ The cultivation of the intelligence and moral sense” by
means of “ whatsoever things are true, pure, and honest;”
“ that fear God, and work righteousness;” and are “pro
fitable for doctrine (or teaching), for reproof, for correc
tion, for instruction in righteousness.”
Thus, in the common schools, nothing must be taught
as being the “ Word of God,” or as not being the “ Word
of God either assertion being equally dogmatic. But
everything must be allowed to derive its force from its
own intrinsic character. And. those who hold that the
children ought to be taught to regard the Bible as being,
or containing, exclusively the “ Word of God,” will only
betray their own want of faith if they express misgivings
lest that word fail to assert its own efficacy and speak its
own divine message to the soul, without special enforce
ment as such by the schoolmaster.
Perhaps, too, upon the idea being put before them,
they will even acquiesce in the suggestion, that for any
man, be he schoolmaster or priest, or any body of men,
lay or cleric, ancient or modern, even though dignified
by the title of “ General Council,” to take upon them
selves the responsibility of determining or declaring what
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is, or what is not, “ the Word of God,” is to lay them
selves open to the charge of the most stupendous pre
sumption of which finite being can possibly be guilty:
a presumption which is no other than that of declaring
themselves to be infallible, and entitled to sit in the
temple of God as if they were God. (2 Thess. ii. 4.)
And further, to declare that the Bible is or contains
exclusively “ the Word of God,” is to forbid the souls of
men to find a divine message elsewhere than in the
Bible. It is to dictate to God as well as to man. For
it is to forbid God to make of others “ ministers to do
his will.” (Ps. ciii. 21; Heb. i. 24.) It is to extract all
meaning from the saying of Jesus, “ Lo, I am with you
alway, even unto the end of the world.” (Matt, xxviii. 20.)
It is to reject that “ Spirit of truth” who was promised
to “guide us into all truth.” (John xvi. 13.) It is to
“ quench the Spirit that giveth life,” in “ the letter that
killeth.” (1 Thess. v. 1, 9; 2 Cor. iii. 6.) It is to insist
that the Almighty speak to men, like a clergyman of the
Establishment, only from a text in the Bible. Let us, if
we will, define as “ the Word of God” that which “feareth
him and worketh righteousness;” but let us not dog
matise as to what particular author or composition comes
under that category^ For “ the Word of God” can only
be the word or thought of which God makes use to im
press the heart of any. If we “ search the Scriptures,”
we find that neither by the writers of the Psalms, by the
prophets, nor by Jesus, scarcely, if ever, is the phrase
used to denote that which was already written, but only
the deeper impression then present in the mind of the
speaker or writer. If not used by God to impress the
heart, it is then not “ his word.” The same utterance
may be “ his word” on one occasion, and not on another.
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Varying for each person, it is not always the same for
any person, inasmuch as that which impresses us in
one mood, does not necessarily affect us in another. A
“ word of God” cannot fail, any more than a “ law of
God” can be broken. Any definition of Deity that does
not exclude such a possibility, is an utterly inadequate
definition, and one dishonouring to God.
But in the matter of the education of the young, we
have to use our best judgment in apportioning the means
to the end we have in view. And therefore we must
put into their hands such reading only as is plainly
adapted for their edification, whether we take it from
the Bible or from any other book. It is for children to
to be in statu pupillari to men. It is for men to be in
statu pupillari to God.
I hold, then, that the Bible should be used in our com
mon schools, First, for its intrinsic merits. In its pages
we find the most complete revelation of humanity to be
found in any written book, showing the gradual growth
of the moral and spiritual faculties from the most rudi
mentary ages to the Christiaii era. We find this mainly
in the exhibition of the rise and development, however
irregular, of the idea of God, until, from a Being so
limited in his nature and operations as to be able to
sympathise and side with only a few individuals or a
particular race, partaking all the deficiencies of their own
gross, rude natures, bribed by gifts, appeased by sacri
fices, partial, cruel, jealous, capricious, the patron and in
stigator of blood-thirsty and fraudulent men and actions,
the resort and associate of “ lying spirits,” and sharing
his sovereignty with the devil, — he is at length pre
sented to us as “ the high and holy one that inhabiteth
eternity;” (Is. lviii. 15.) “ the righteous judge;” (Rev.
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xix. 11.) “creator of all things;” (Gen. i. 1, &c.)
“ Saviour of all men;” (1 Tim. iv. 10.) “ whose kingdom
ruleth over all.” (Ps. ciii. 19).
Here we find first recorded the existence of a sense of
responsibility for our actions to a law and a power which
are above us. “ Here human nature is drawn in all its
extent, from its lowest depths to its loftiest reach; for the
Bible is a gallery in which all the paintings are life-like,
but the subjects so varied, that none are too gross for
admission. Being a revelation of God according to the
characters and imaginations of the men in whose con
sciousness his idea was conceived, it is emphatically a
revelation of man, inasmuch as man’s ideal is the index
to his own character and degree of intelligence.
This, however, is no speciality of the Bible. It is the
characteristic of all art and literature which speaks out
the genuine deeper feelings of men’s hearts ; and in this
respect, as containing the truest art, the Bible ranks as
the highest classics.
In selecting from the world’s literature, reading lessons
inculcating “ the true, the* pure, and the lovely,” who
could have the heart to exclude the remarkable hymn of
the creation; the significant allegory of Eden; the charm
ing pastoral of Isaac and Rebekah in their first love; the
touching idyl of Joseph and his brethren and their aged
father; the wondrous romance of the Exodus; the story
of Moses, that king of men; the noble recitations of law
and legend in Deuteronomy; the interesting narratives of
Samson, Samuel, David, and Solomon; the simple tales
of Ruth and of Esther, so illustrative of the manners of
the ancient east; the sublime poetry of Job and the
Psalms; the shrewd wisdom of the Proverbs; the genial
cynicism of Ecclesiastes; the magnificent outpourings of
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Isaiah, denouncing the degradation and despair of his
countrymen, and encouraging them anew to hope and to
restoration through the moral regeneration of their
nature ? (Which of us even now could not point out
some nation that has sore need of an Isaiah ?) Then the
noble lesson of Jonah, wherein children are oftener
taught to see a tale of a cross-grained prophet, a whale,
and a gourd, than to recognise the poet’s protest against
the popular notion, shared by Jonah, that the Lord was
a mere district-god who could be avoided by change of
place, and to see the moral of the fable in the representa
tion of deity as everywhere present alike, even in the
depths of the sea.
And, added to these, the exquisite purity and simpli
city of the gospels, with their central figure of Jesus and
his enthusiastic life-devotion to the cause of man’s re
demption from sin and suffering, and deliverance from
the blighting effects of religious formalism, and the
crushing weight of sacerdotalism; producing from the
harmonious depths of his own great soul a sublime ideal
of God as a Father, and a rule of life for man most noble
in conception even when most impracticable of applica
tion. (Of all the characters of history, I know of none
who would have sympathised more intensely with the
object and the views I am seeking to advance, than the
Christ whom I find in the gospels. Of course to the or
thodox and the vested interests of his day, he was only a
sad blasphemer and dangerous revolutionist.) Then, the
varied and genuine humanity of the Epistles; and, no
tably, the magnificent monologue on charity, (in the thir
teenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians,)
wherein Paul, dropping his too favourite character of
Rabbinical lawyer and quibbling controversialist, soars to
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an altitude whither the churches have never yet been
able to follow him. And, lastly, the lofty rhapsody of
the Apocalypse, wherein fervid imagination, escaping
from the woes beneath which mankind was being crushed
by a Domitian and a Nero, took refuge in an ideal
“ state of God,” where all wrongs should be redressed,
all tears wiped away, the tormentors relegated to ever
lasting punishment, and sorrow and pain be no more for
their victims.
And not for its intrinsic merits only, but for its in
fluence’ on the hearts of mankind, should our children not
be strangers to the volume in which, to borrow words
from one of our most highly inspired writers, “book after
book,Law and truth and example, oracle and lovely hymn,
and choral song of ten thousand thousand, and accepted
prayers of saints and prophets, sent back as it were from
heaven, like doves to be let loose again with a new
freight of spiritual joys and griefs and necessities; where
the hungry have found food, the thirsty a living spring,
the feeble a staff, and the victorious warfarer songs of
welcome and strains of music: which for more than a
thousand years has gone hand in hand with civilisation,
. . often leading the way. . . a book which good
and holy men, thepest and wisest of mankind, the kingly
spirits of historyl enthroned in the hearts of mighty
nations, have borne witness to its influences, and declared
to be beyond compare the most perfect instrument, the
only adequate organ of humanity; the organ and instru
ment of all the gifts, powers, and tendencies, by which
the individual is privileged to rise above himself.”*
To exclude all knowledge of the Bible from our youth,
would be to make a greater gap in the education of a
* S.T. Coleridge’s “Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit.”
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Briton than to omit almost any calculable number of
other books, including the bulk of the world’s history.
Indeed it would be to exclude almost all history what
soever; not ancient history merely, with knowledge of
Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Rome in its decline and fall;
but the history of all Christendom itself, with that of the
Papacy and the Reformation, and the whole of our own
struggles for and against liberty | (for even we have not
always been consistently on the side of freedom:) almost
all of which struggles have been associated more or less
with the Bible; the rise and origin, too, of the United
States of America. All these in the past, together with
our own condition in the present and hopes in the future,
and the signification of the vast bulk of our literature,
would, without some knowledge of the book that has
filled a leading part in them all, be absolutely dark and
meaningless.
Besides, there is not so much wisdom and beauty in
the world that we can afford to throw any away. If we
exclude the Bible altogether as being a text-book of our
own religious sects, there is no plea upon which we can
admit the admirable teaching that is to be found in the
sacred books of the Hindoos and Chinese, the Mohamme
dans and Buddhists. Nay, to exclude the good parts of
any book merely because it happens to be the text-book
of a sect, is to put it in the power of any small knot of
persons to secure the exclusion of any book whatsoever,
by claiming it as one of their sacred books. Fancy a sect
of Shakespeare worshippers getting by such means all
knowledge of Shakespeare excluded from our educational
course ! Or a new sect of Pythagoreans to revive the
worship of numbers, and, setting up Colenso as their highpriest, forcing us to exclude arithmetic from our schools !
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Indeed, if only because of the very power and popular
ity of the Bible, it should not be left to be dealt with
exclusively by a class of interpreters who acknowledge
other allegiance than to the developed intellect and con
science of men. But, containing as it does, the whole
sacred literature of the most remarkable of all ancient
peoples, the Jews, and that of their most remarkable
sect of religious reformers, the Christians, who, together,
more than any other people, have influenced the develop
ment of the human mind and the course of human his
tory; to exclude all knowledge of it from our youth
would be to keep back from them the master-key to the
heart and facts of humanity.
XIII.
But the fact of the Bible being, not a single book, but
a whole literature ranging over many centuries, greatly
simplifies the question of dealing with it. We rarely use
the whole of any book in the schoolroom; never an entire
literature. Imagine the whole, or samples of the whole, of
our own literature being put at once into the hands of a
child, with its rude early legends and ballads, its laws and
statutes, its medicine and science, its trials and police
reports, and all the revolting details which even the least
respectable of our newspapers suppress as “ unfit for pub
lication !” Yet this is what we have done with the
ancient literature of the Jews. Instead of exercising any
discrimination, we crowd our houses with it, we read it
aloud to our families, we put it entire into the hands of
■our children; and when we find impurity and supersti
tion rife among us, instead of admitting that we have
■done our best to promote them, we postulate the horrible
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doctrines of “ original sin ” and “ total depravity,” and
shift the responsibility from our own shoulders to those
of “the devil!” It was remarked once by a well-known
Frenchman that “the English tolerate no indecencies
except in their Bibles.” Fatal exception, when we print
Bibles in millions, in all the languages of the earth, and
thrust them into the hands of every babe and suckling
and growing youth.
The remedy which I propose is twofold : First, that a
new version, omitting the whole of the parts which are
objectionable on the score of decency, omitting also the
headings by which ecclesiastical editors have sought to
palliate immorality or strain the meaning to the support
of particular doctrines, be made to take the place of the
existing “ authorised versionand that this be done
so completely that the old version be no longer accessible
to the young, but continue to exist only as a curiosity
or book of reference upon the shelves of students.
This change is one which, while it might be'initiated
by the School-boards undertaking to produce such a
version for the use of their schools, would require both
general and individual action on the part of the people
themselves. It will be aided by the wise resolve of the
Bible-revision Committee to omit the headings from their
new and improved version. If the powers of this Com
mittee were extended so as to enable it to make these
changes, a great step towards carrying out this part of
my proposed remedy would be gained. To further it
would be an admirable occupation for a society which
has existed for years among us under the presidency of
Lord Shaftesbury, calling itself “ The Pure Literature
Society.” Strange to say that, with all its zeal for
purity in literature, it has never yet tried its hand on
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the Bible. It will indeed prove itself worthy of its high
title and calling, when it joins in the chase of the
“ authorised version ” from our homes, and the pews of
our churches, so that children shall no longer be tempted
to beguile the tedium of a sermon by feeding their
curiosity on its improprieties.
It is related of Goethe that he was present at a meeting
of the Dutch clergy, when it was proposed to establish
a censorship to enforce the expurgation of any improper
books which might be brought forward for publication!
Goethe at once expressed his admiration of the plan, and
recommended that they commence with the Bible.
Whereupon the king of Holland said to him, “ My dear
Goethe, pray hold your tongue. Of course you are quite
right: but it won’t do to say so.”
This, however, is not enough. There are, as we have
seen, very many portions of the Bible which, while not
totally “ unfit for publication,” are yet shocking, to the
intellect and moral sense if accepted literally as true,
inasmuch as they are libellous to the Deity. I propose,
therefore, Secondly, that teachers be required, alike by
School-boards and by parents, whenever such portions
of Scripture are read,—(and they ought to be read, if
only to show the advance we have made)—to make their
pupils clearly understand that they represent only the
imperfect notions of a barbarous age and people. ' That
just as the Greeks had their supreme ruling divinity in
Zeus, their divinity of song in Apollo, of war in Ares, of
gain in Hermes, of storms in JEolus, of wisdom in Pallas,
and of love in Aphrodite; so the Jews, instead of dis
tributing these functions among a number of distinct
divinities, ascribed them all in turn, no matter how
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incongruously, as occasion required, to their own Jehovah.
By turn he is a “ man of war,” he is “love,” he is “fire,”
he “ rides on the wings of the wind,” and so on.
We cannot even accord to the Jews the credit, often
claimed for them, of being, in a world of polytheists, the
only pure monotheists. It is true that their institutions
forbade the worship of more than one God.; but they
recognised the existence of many gods. They were
monotheists in worship, but not in faith. Their Jehovah
was a far too unsociable, exclusive, “jealous” God, to
share their homage with others. He thus was made
strictly in the image of the Jews themselves, the most
exclusive of human races. That Baal and Chemosh,
Ashtoreth and Molech, were all realities for them, is
shown in frequent utterances ascribed even to Jehovah
himself. And Solomon, though “ the wisest of men,”
established their worship in Jerusalem. The Bible
shows, tod, by numerous instances, that the Jews were
by no means satisfied with their own deity. The minds
of their loftiest poets, indeed, occasionally, in their
loftiest moods, rose to the conception of a deity, one and
universal; but they did this in common only with the
loftiest minds of all peoples, ages, and religions; those
minds whose opinions have ever been regarded by the
conventional and superstitious as atheistic and blasphem
ous, whether it be Socrates, Spinoza, Shelley, or Jesus.
But even if the Jews acknowledged but one God, they
called him by various names ; and it would be an addi
tional safeguard against superstition if, in the new
version, those names were preserved. In translating
the Latin and Greek writers we never think of substitu
ting God for Jupiter or Apollo. There is no valid
reason for dealing differently with Jehovah, Elohim,
Adonai, Shaddai.
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This, then, is the whole conclusion :—
(1.) That the Bible should be admitted into the
schools; but it must be a purified, an expurgated Bible;
and (2.) That its reading must be accompanied by such
“ notes and comments ” as will make it really conducive
to the development of the Intelligence and Moral Sense
of the scholars.
But to minister to these ends, it must be read with no
adventitious solemnity that might specialise it as a
superior authority, and invest it with a preter-educational
character. For this would at once be to remove it from
the category of legitimate educational uses, by exempting
it from the operation of the normal digestive apparatus
of the intellect. In short, to make the Bible useful for
education, it must be taught comparatively. And as this
implies the possession of a certain amount of related
knowledge, it is clear that there is but very little of it
that is suited to the very young or very ignorant.
XIV.
Now for the general principle on which these u notes
and comments ” should be based.
It is universally acknowledged that the human mind
is endowed with a tendency to imagine the Deity as pos
sessed in perfection of all the qualities which are recog
nised by itself as best. The strength of this tendency is
ever in inverse proportion to the degree of the mind’s
development, being greatest in the most rudimentary
stage of intelligence.
Investing the Deity with the attributes of personality,
the finite mind cannot do otherwise than make God in
its own image. The character of that image is the mea
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sure of our own moral and spiritual capacity. For, when
by God we mean the ideal of our own imagination, it
follows that the character of our God indicates the de
gree of our own development. Later on, when the mind
attains a certain advanced stage of intellectual progress,
we find our conception of Deity so transcendently en
larged, that no definition satisfies us, save one which re
cognises Him as the sum of all the forces, physical, moral,
and spiritual, at work in the universe; the divine work,
which we call Nature, being the sum of all phenomena.
God the sum of causes, Nature the sum of effects. This
is no dogma. It is only a definition of what we mean
by God, what by nature.
For the purposes of early education, however, we have
to deal with God in a moral aspect, as the Ideal of
Humanity j the perfection towards which it is our high
est function to strive. Wherefore, nothing can be more
fatal to our moral progress than to have that ideal de
graded to a low type of character. If we are to call him
“ Fool,” who, denying cause and effect, says, “ there is
no God,” (Ps. xiv. 1.) what are we to say of him who
teaches that God is evil ? What, again, are we to call
those who, holding that God is absolutely good, and that
a firm belief in that goodness is requisite to enable man
to be good also, and who, moreover, desire to cultivate
goodness in their children, yet hesitate not to put into
the hands of those children narratives of impurity,
cruelty, and deceit, and tell them that the perpetrators
and their deeds were acceptable to, and indeed prompted
by, the Deity ? If the purpose of right education be to
develop the moral sense, what sort of education is this ?
If another- purpose be to develop the intellect, how is this
end to be served, when the only way of escape that such
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teachers have, on being questioned by their perplexed
pupils, lies in declaring it to be a “ mystery,” and so
closing the doors of their intelligence the moment it
begins to expand ? .
Keeping in mind the remarks I have made respecting
the inevitable anthropomorphism of all imperfectly de
veloped minds, you will perceive that it involves no
reproach to the Jews that, in those early stages of human
progress, they partook of the universal tendency, and
constructed their God in their own image; that they
credited him with the qualities, moral and immoral,
which they found in themselves; and, in their total
ignorance of natural law and phenomena, were more ready
to seek the divine hand in departures from the regular
order of nature, than to recognise it in its establishment
and maintenance. It is thus that all early literatures
necessarily contain prodigies and fables illustrative of the
imperfect notions of their period. And so far from these
things being true because they are in the Bible, or a re
proach to the Jews in being untrue, the miracle really
would have been if there were no miracles, no anthro
pomorphism, in the Scriptures. In this sense, therefore,
it may be said that the truth of the Bible is proved by
the untruths of the Bible.
Even if we give the Jews credit as having done their
best for the honour of their god in thus constructing him
in their own image, we assuredly cannot lay claim to
similar credit for ourselves. For we have fallen infinitely
below our own best, in the character we have assigned
to our God. Think for a moment how marvellous is the
anomaly we present. For six days of the week we avail
ourselves freely of the wondrous results of the most ad
vanced science and culture, philosophy and thought, of
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this nineteenth century after Christ, in which the labours
of all former centuries have culminated, and we do this for
our own advantage and enjoyment; and on the seventh
day, when the honour of our God is concerned, we are con
tent to jump back to the nineteenth century before Christ,
and borrow for him both character and lineaments from
a semi-barbarous Syrian tribe, whose whole literature
proves their absolute incapacity to comprehend the
simplest of his works in nature. And in their image,
fitful and vengeful, we make our God, refusing him the
benefits of the light we have gained. A wondrous feat
of moral and intellectual athletics is this our weekly
jump backward and then-forward again.
The resolution finally passed by the London Board
provides that “ the Bible shall be read, and there shall
be given therefrom such instruction in the principles of
religion and morality, as is suitable to the capacities of
children, no attempt being made to attach the children
to any particular denomination.”
Thus, the Bible is to be read “ with notes and com
ments.” If, however, these notes and comments are not
to be of the kind I have just described, the Resolution
means absolutely nothing. If the teachers are not to
explain that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Samuel, David,
and Solomon, were, in respect of the acts which have been
enumerated, exceedingly bad men, and that the deity
who is said in the Bible to have approved of them, was
but the imaginary local divinity of the Hebrews as re
presented by their priests, the Resolution is nothing but
an illusion and a blind. If the teacher is not to say that
Abraham was wrong to follow his impulse to sacrifice
his son; Jacob wrong to cheat his nearest and dearest
relations ; Samuel wrong to revoke his sovereign’s pledge
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73
of clemency, and rebelliously to set up a rival to him;
David wrong to sacrifice the sons of Saul, and to order
the execution of the man he had sworn to spare; if
he is not to say that Jesus and the apostles were mis
taken in expecting the early end of the world rand
re-appearance of Christ; that the story of his birth
is a piece of mere paganism, and that many of the
injunctions in the New Testament are not fitting rules
for civilised life—the Resolution is utterly devoid
of meaning. I am not saying that it may not be per
fectly sound theology to praise Abraham and Jacob for
these things, and represent the deity as approving of
them, but only that it is neither good religion nor good
morality; and it is not theology, but religion and mor
ality, which, both by the Education Act and the Resolu
tion, the teacher is bound to inculcate. Even if it be
true that morality is based upon religion, the religion
containing such theology can certainly not claim to be in
any way connected with morality. And to teach it will
be to go directly in the face of the Resolution which
provides “ that instruction be given from the Bible in
the principles,” not of theology, but “of religion and
morality.” Wherefore, when a question arises in the
schools, such as that of the propriety of Abraham’s com
pliance, of Jael’s treachery, or of Caiaphas’s counsel to
offer up Jesus in human sacrifice as an atonement for the
people;—the teacher acting in accordance with our
definition and the Board’s Resolution, will have no
choice but to reply, “ The justification of these actions
belongs to the domain of theology. Morality unequivo
cally condemns them. And my duty here is to teach
you morality.”
And this, I think, settles the question which has been
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raised since the passing of the Resolution, namely, the
question, Who is to give Biblical or religious instruction
in the schools, whether the ordinary teachers who are
responsible to the Board, or the clergy or other persons
specially appointed for that ^purpose by the various reli
gious bodies themselves ? The resolution declares that
the children are to be taught, not theology, but Religion
and Morality. To admit, therefore, independent teachers
of theology, would be, in so far as such theology is in
conflict with religion and morality, to admit teachers of
irreligion and immorality, and would thus neutralise the
Resolution of the Board, and the whole object of educa
tion, which, as cannot be repeated too often at this time,
consists in the development of the intellect and moral
sense.
Probably nothing could be put before the young more
pernicious than the teaching of the official theologian.
It was but the other day that a clergyman of the English
Establishment preached a sermon to the effect that Jacob
was quite right to cheat his father and brother because
he knew that he should make a better use of the property
than they would. No, however sound the theology of such
teaching may be, and this is no rare or extreme instance,
it certainly is not the teaching by which either the
intelligence or the moral sense of children is likely to be
developed.
XV.
So far from the simple and natural explanation which
I have given of the incongruities and contradictions con
tained in the Bible, having been diligently promulgated
by those who have’ undertaken to be its interpreters, our
spiritual teachers have, on the contrary, during some
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75
three hundred years done their best to erect the Bible
into an jinfallible standard, not merely of theology, but
of religion and morality. Outvying the apostle who, in
the excess of his zeal, cut off one ear, they have done
their best to stop up both ears against the voice of reason
and conscience. They forget that Jesus restored the in
jured organ.
It is true that an excuse for the existence of the popular
theory, and for the tenacity with which it has held its
ground, is not far to seek. It was natural that we should
feel a high degree of gratitude towards the book which
materially aided us in emancipating ourselves from the
yoke of mediaeval Papalism, and asserting our own indi
viduality among the community of the nations. It was
natural that our enthusiasm for the agent of our deliver
ance should lead us to place it high, even too high, in our
regards. And so it came that we replaced an infallible,
but discomfited, Pope by an infallible book; not per
ceiving that, if indeed it was a credit to the Bible to
have made us free, we do the reverse of honour to it by
allowing it to tyrannise over us in turn.
Again, in addition to being a grateful, we are an emi
nently prudent, folk. We prefer to be on with a new *
love before we are quit of the old. Hating anything
like an interregnum, we cry, “ The king is dead. Long
live the king,” without the interval of a moment. And
so we continue to cling to the old accustomed dwelling,
letting it crumble into ruin around us, rather than endure
a brief season of discomfort while waiting for the rear
ing of a new habitation on its site. “ If we give up the
Bible as an infallible guide,” it is asked, “ to what are
we to look in its place 1 ”
Having at present to deal with facts, and not with
fancies, there is no need to enlarge on the popular dogma
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further than to say that, not being contained in the Bible
itself, but being unknown alike to the Fathers of the
primitive Church, to the Reformers of the sixteenth cen
tury, and to the articles and formularies of both the
Romish Church and the English, it must have its basis
in modern innovation rather than in ancient authority.
I ascribe, then, the popular theory respecting the
Bible in some degree to the causes I have named, but
mainly to that instinctive monarchical tendency which
leads the uneducated to distrust their own intelligence
and moral sense, and require some palpable ruler and
guide. “ In their ignorance of the experimental cha
racter of human nature, men will seek infallibility some
where ; in an oracle, a priest, a church, or a book.” This
tendency has been, as a rule, sedulously fostered by
governments and teachers. Once deprived of their
Fetich, and roused from indolent acquiescence in its
supposed commands, they cry out that their gods have
been stolen from them, and fancy that the universe
will collapse, because they are now forced to fulfil their
proper vocation, and use their own faculties.
It was in virtue of this characteristic that the Swiss
theologians of the seventeenth century maintained the
inspiration • of the comparatively recent vowel-points of
the Hebrew text: that the early Christians ascribed a
supernatural origin to the Septuagint; and the Council of
Trent gave an authority superior to that of the original
texts to the Vulgate, which attained such a height of
superstitious respect that, according to Erasmus, some
monks, on seeing it printed in parallel columns between
the Greek and the Hebrew, likened it to Christ crucified
between the two thieves. (Colloquies.) And it was even
seriously proposed by the theological faculty of Mayence,
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^■r,'‘'7?-,?>,''z
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77
in the 15th century, to make a total “ revision and cor
rection of the Hebrew Bible, inasmuch as it differed
from the authorised Latin translation ! ”
Perhaps the most singular fact in connection with the
popular doctrine is, that to doubt its accuracy has come
to be treated as a piece of heinous moral depravity, and
this even by some who ought to know better. When
the eminent author of the “Christian Year” was con
sulted respecting a difficulty in the way of receiving it,
felt by Dr Arnold, then a student, Keble’s advice was
“ work it down 1 Throw yourself wholly into your
parish or your school, and work it down! ” * This
simply meant, “ ignore itas if faith consisted in the
suppression of doubt, and conscientious scruples were
demons to be exorcised.
Later in life, when pressed on the same point by Sir
John Coleridge, who urged the subject on him as one
that he was competent to deal with, adding that it pro
mised shortly to become the great religious question of
the time, Mr Keble, after endeavouring to evade an
swering, replied shortly that “most of the men who had
difficulties on this subject were too wicked to be reasoned
with.”t Such was the answer of one of the most vene
rated of modern Sacerdotalists to a near relative. of the
great Coleridge, who (in the book I have already quoted)
had pronounced the popular doctrine to be “ superstitious
and unscriptural.”
“ Ignore a conscientous scruple, or you are too wicked
to be reasoned with I” Respect a dogma because it is a
dogma, no matter how the reason and the conscience, nay,
the Almighty himself, be outraged thereby! Submit
humbly to authority, no matter how immoral its require* Stanley’s Life of Arnold.
f Coleridge’s Memoirs of Keble.
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ments! Ignore your scruples, and instead of manfully
“facing your doubts” and “beating your music out,” let
your doubt remain, an unresolved discord, to jar ever
more within your soul! To such straits are they driven
who remain in bondage to “ the weak and beggarly ele
ments” of the popular orthodoxy. Surely it is time for
us to say positively that we will not commit the minds
and consciences of our children to teachers who will bring
them up to regard sincerity as a vice, and crush at once
both intellect and moral sense by superstition, popular or
ecclesiastical.
XVI.
But though our immediate teachers in nursery, school
and pulpit, have laboured assiduously to inculcate this
dogma, it may safely be affirmed that, in addition to the
vast range of authorities already named who reject it,
there is not at this day a single scholar, (I do not say
“learned divine,” but scholar of acknowledged critical
ability,) lay or cleric, orthodox or heretic, in Christendom,
who holds it for himself. One and all, they recognise the
existence in the Bible of, at the very least, a largely per
vading. element of human imperfection. It is true that
Dr Hook in his “ Church Dictionary” defines “ Inspira
tion” as being “the extraordinary or supernatural in
fluence of the Spirit of God on the human mind, by
which the prophets and sacred writers were qualified to
receive and set forth divine communications without any
mixture of error,” and asserts upon his own sole autho
rity that in this sense the term occurs in the passage,
“ all scripture (is) given by inspiration of God.” (2 Tim.
iii. 16.) It is true that in this he is followed by Dr
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Wordsworth and other prominent churchmen. But no
critical scholar ventures to affirm that “ Inspiration ” is
identical with, or implies, “ Infallibility.” On the con
trary, their profoundest investigations only serve to de
monstrate the truth of the conclusion patent to common
sense, that humanity is so constructed as to be incapable
of infallibility in the absence of means of verification;
and that the being prompted by a “ holy spirit,” or dis
position, by no means guarantees a man against error,
however wide his spiritual range, or deep his spiritual
insight.
But farther, even if the original text could be regarded
as infallible, there is the. fact that we do not possess that
original text, and that the documents which claim to be
derived from it, have passed through the hands of many
copyists, each more or less accurate, more or less honest.
And were the text certainly perfect as it is certainly most
defective, there are still the difficulties of translation, diffi
culties which are, as every scholar knows, often absolutely
insurmountable. For the language of different nations
varies with their ideas, and their ideas vary with their
institutions, associations, and habits; so that different
languages frequently have no terms whatever in which to
express the ideas contained in other languages. Many
tropical tribes, for instance, have no words to express
such things as ice and snow, because those things are alto
gether unknown to them. A translation, therefore, of
the Bible into their language is, so far as ice and snow
are concerned, impossible. “ In the islands of the South
Seas there were no quadrupeds Until the first navigators
took some pigs there, when the name given by the natives
to the pigs, became the generic term for all four-legged
animals. The horse was the big pig that runs over the
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‘ ewish Literature
ground. The cow was the great milky pig. The sheep
the curly pig. We may imagine the feelings with which
the pious translators of the Bible for the islanders found
themselves compelled to use a corresponding designation
for the phrase “Lamb of God.” The Zulus of South
Africa had no idea of God or a future state, and prized
above all things flesh in an advanced stage of decomposi
tion. Wherefore the missionaries in translating the Bible
for them, and rendering the supreme good in their lan
guage, were obliged to identify God and heaven with
rotten meat.
The same lack of corresponding terms exists more or
less between all languages, as is shown by the fact that
words and phrases are often transported whole from one
language into another. Moreover, words used to express
actions, principles, or qualities, in one language, often be
come concreted into persons and things by the genius of
another. And in all languages, or nearly all, the same
word frequently has many different significations. (As
in English the words Jac,
&c., have each half-a-dozen
meanings.) It sometimes happens, therefore, that a trans
lator has to be guided by what he is led by the context
or some other criterion to think the passage is likely to
mean.
Thus, in the passage, “ Whosoever will save his life
shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake
shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain
the whole world, and lose his own soul ? or what shall a
man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. xvi. 25, 26.)
—the word rendered soul is precisely the same, article
and all, with the word rendered life.
Again, for the word spirit, which is used by us in nearly
a score of different senses, personal and impersonal, the
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Greek equivalent, pneumo,, generally, if not always, signi
fies the air, breath, or life. In the well-known passage
in John, (iii. 8.) “ The wind bloweth where it listeth, and
thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence
it cometh and whither it goeth; so is every one that is
born of the spirit,”—the word rendered wind, and the
word spirit, are identical, article and all, with each other.
Yet the translators have given to the same word, occur
ring in the same sentence, two entirely different mean
ings. And, as if to justify this, the modern printers of
the. Greek text sometimes give a capital initial to the
word which is translated spirit; thus in a measure, alter
ing the text to suit the authorised version.
Such was the imperfection of the ancient Hebrew for
the purposes of expression in writing, that it was not
until long after the Bible had been written that the dis
tinction between the tenses of past and future was pro
perly developed. It was in their confusion between these
tenses that our translators, in the magnificent ode of
Isaiah beginning, “ Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,”
produced the absurd and impious phrase, “ She hath re
ceived at the Lord’s hand double for all her sins,” in
stead of the joyous assurance, “ She shall receive . . .
double for all her sufferings.” (xl. 2.) It is easy to im
agine the difficulty attending prophetic expression in a
language which had no distinct future tense !
A very little reflection on the modus operandi of what
theologically is called “ Inspiration,” will at once exhibit
to us the fallacy of the popular notion. It can only con
sist of an impulse or impression on the mind, so strong
as to make the individual receiving it, ascribe it to a
preternatural source. But, however irresistible for him,
the authority and character of the impression must still
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be determined, not by its strength in relation to his
mind, but by its own intrinsic nature. A bad impres
sion cannot proceed from a healthy source; neither does
a strong impression imply accuracy of doctrine. It is
under an irresistible impulse that the maniac mother
flings her child down a well. It is under an impression
so strong as to be for him an inspiration or divine reve
lation that the celibate takes his unnatural vow, the
devotee starves himself into bad health, the Russian
fanatic mutilates his body, and the Revivalist goes into
convulsions of madness. Thus, whatever is claimed to
be a divine revelation, must be referred ultimately to the
test of the Intellect and Moral Sense, as the sole canon
of criticism. Even the common notion that infallibility
may be attested by the power to work miracles, must be
disclaimed in presence of the instances ascribed in
Scripture to magical or diabolical agency.
“ Wherefore, although a man may have an overwhelm
ing sense that something claiming to be God has spoken
to him, it is clear, that unless he has a prior, personal and
infallible knowledge of God,—a knowledge prior, that is,
to his ‘ inspiration,’—he knows not but that it may be
a demon assuming the garb of light, perhaps even one of
those ‘ lying spirits’ who are represented in the Bible as
infesting even heaven itself, or a fantastic creation of his
own excited fancy. It behoves him, therefore, still to
judge the communication in his calmer moments by its
own intrinsic character, and to deliberate upon the actions
to which it impels him.” The wider the range we learn
to assign to Nature and the human faculties, the less be
comes our necessity for seeking a preternatural origin for
our ideas and impulses, and the more honour we pay to
the divine worker and his work.
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The prevalent readiness to distrust our own ability to
.perceive the higher moral facts of the universe, and our
consequent liability to refer all revelation to the con
sciousness of men who lived ages ago, is, no doubt, attri
butable partly to our possession of so many ancient books
which claim our attention, and draw our minds away
from the contemplation of the direct action of the uni
verse upon our own individual consciousness; and partly
to the repressing influence of those sacerdotal interests
which naturally repose upon traditional authority rather
than upon living insight and reason.
The habit is one to be firmly checked if we would
avoid the practical Atheism of banishing G-od and Truth
from the living present to the dead past. “ The creed or
belief of any age is, at best, but the index to the height
■of the divine presence of Truth in that ago.” To adopt
its limitations as our own, is to turn a deaf ear to the
voice of that “ Spirit of Truth” or Truthfulness, of whom
it was said by one who himself drew all his inspiration from
within, that “ when he is come he will guide you into all
truth.” (John xvi. 13.) It is but a limited sway that this
Spirit of Truthfulness has as yet obtained. Wherefore
the effect of all dogmas,—whether formulated in creeds,
■catechisms, or articles of faith,—and their maintenance by
oaths and emoluments, independently of intrinsic pro
bability or any possibility of verification, is to arrest
the natural development of Humanity and to disturb and
retard the whole process of the evolution of the species,
in regard to its highest functions. It is to give the
world a base money-bribe to retain in its maturity the
form, the garb, the dimensions, the ^maturity of its
childhood. Hear a recent utterance of one who, with
whatever drawbacks, seeks still to combine the prophet
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and the poet, and thus, with “ Songs before Sunrise,’^ •
heralds the dawn of better times:
A creed is a rod,
And weapon of night:
But this thing is God,
To be man with thy might,
To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit,
And live out thy life as the light. *
The very word Inspiration, in its primary meaning,
relates to the atmosphere. It is an ancient supposition
that ideas are inhaled with the breath. A man found
himself possessed of an idea or thought which the
moment before he had not. Whence could it have
come, if not in-breathed, or inspired, with the air 1 It
was Pythagoras who conceived the idea that the vital
process of the world is a process of breathing, the
infinite breath or atmosphere of the Universe being the
source of all life. An imaginative Oriental people
readily, in their expressions, personified such supposed
source of life and thought. We matter-of-fact Westerns
go on to make such personification absolute and dog
matic. Pn&uma, the air, becomes a personal spirit, or
assemblage of spirits, and divinely “ inspires ” us: as in
the old days of philosophy in Persia, under the influence
of which, during, or after the Babylonish captivity,
many of the Jewish sacred books evidently were com
posed,—’the breath, or Div, formed a linguistic basis for
a personal Devil,j
Ideas in the air !
Those who know what it is to
* Swinburne, very slightly altered.
t Cons. Donaldson’s “ Christian OrthodoxyArt. “Interme
diate Intelligences.”
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-crouch in the unhealthy confinement of close study, ever,
as the Poet says,
“ With blinded eyesight poring over miserable books,”
till heart and head become heavy and dull; and then to
betake themselves to seaside or mountain, where the
fresh winds of heaven blow freely upon them, inflating
their lungs, aerating their blood, and “sweeping the
cobwebs from their brains,” until the renovated organism
becomes re-charged with creative energy, and ideas
begin anew to spring up in the mind, revealing to it
“ Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything, ”
—such as these can well appreciate the charming old
fancy that peopled the air with ideas, and regarded
every new thought as a separate spirit. It is only under
theologic manipulation that such gentle poetry becomes
steam-hammered into hard dogma, that existence is rob
bed of its charm, and millions of mankind are doomed
to pass through life, and to leave it, without ever having
been allowed to know how good the world really is.
But above and beside the questions of Inspiration, of
Language, of Transcription, and Translation, there is
the question of Interpretation. And, supposing all other
difficulties surmounted, we are here met by an impass
ible barrier. For the proposition is nothing less than
axiomatic, that “ an infallible revelation requires an
infallible interpreter : and that both are useless without
an infallible understanding wherewith to comprehend
the interpretation.”
By such demonstration of the utter impossibility of
infallibility, (in the theologic sense,) the ground is
entirely cut away from beneath, not only all past, but all
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• future superstitions. For, by. annihilating “ authority,
it compels us to refer everything whatsoever to the
criterion of the intellect and moral sense of man. There
is now, therefore, no longer any space for " dogma.”
XVII.
To the list of authorities already given, I propose to
add a few representative names from the various schools
of theologic thought within the Established Church.
The first is that of the Bev. Dr Irons, who, in his
remarkable little volume, “ The Bible and its Inter
preters,” declares that “ any reasonable being who
would accept the Scriptures at all, must take them on
some other ground than that which identifies the written
Word with God’s Eevelation. A more hopeless, carnal,
and, eventually sceptical position, it is impossible to
conceive.” (p. 39.) Dr Irons, in this, follows the learned
Bishop of St David’s, Dr Thirlwall, whose recent noble
protest against the dishonesty of sacerdotal bigotry in
high places, in relation to the work of Biblical revision,
may well raise our respect for him to veneration, as one
who, in spite of his position, has dared practically to
point the distinction between Morality and the prevalent
Theology. In one of his Episcopal charges, Dr Thirlwall
points out the fact that “ Among the numerous passages
of the New Testament in which the phrase The Word
of God,” occurs, there is not one in which it signifies the
Bible, or in which that word could be substituted for it
without manifest absurdity.
It is notorious that the popular imagination is wont
to regard the same phrase, when used in the Psalms, as re
ferring, if not to the whole of the Old and New Testaments,
at least to the books ascribed to Moses and Samuel. .
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The late Dean of Canterbury, Dr. Alford, in his
“New Testament for English readers,” (p. 3.) says,
“Each man reported and each man selected according
to his own personal characteristics of thought and
feeling.”
Yet one other name, that of Bishop Colenso, whose
critical analysis of the Hebrew text is allowed by
scholars to constitute one of the most remarkable monu
ments of patient labour and sober judgment to be
found in literature. These scholars, approaching the
subject from opposite directions, agree in their main
conclusions. Their immediate motives, however, differ
considerably. The object of Dr. Irons is to force us
back, in the search for Infallibility, to rely altogether
upon “the Church.” “Hearthe Church,” is his maxim.
(Matt, xviii. 17.) But which Church ? we must ask,
and ask in vain. What saith the Church of England
in her articles? “As the Churches of Jerusalem,
Antioch, and Alexandria, have erred, so also hath the
Church of Rome erred.” (Art. xix.) Moreover, “General
Councils.............sometimes have erred.” (xxi.) (It was
a general Council that determined what books should
form the canon of Scripture, and what should be
rejected.) Can we wonder if the other Churches rejoin,
as at least one of them has done, with anathemas,
“ So also hath the Church of England erred ?”
The object of Dean Alford was to mediate between
the two extremes of popular orthodoxy and the results
of critical knowledge.
That of Bishop Colenso is simply to find out and state
what is the fact, believing that such purpose alone is
consistent with the deference due to the intellect and
moral sense of man, to truth, and to God Himself. In
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'Jewish Literature
one of his “ Natal Sermons,” he sums up the results of
his labours by describing the Bible as containing the
“Early attempts at History,” the writers of which
record, with «the simplicity of childhood, the first ima
ginings of thoughtful men about the Earth’s formation
and history, and mingle with traditionary lore and
actual fact, the legends and mythical stories of a hoar
antiquity, yet tell us how men were “ moved by the
Holy Ghost,” in those days, how they were “feeling
after God,” and finding Him, how the light shone
clearer and clearer upon their minds, as the day-star
of Eternal truth rose higher and higher upon them. . . .
A human book, in short, though a book full of divine
life.............written, as Paul says, for our learning, but
not all infallibly true.” (i. p. 62, &c.) •
But Dr. Irons and Bishop Colenso, while differing
apparently so widely in their motives, yet have in reality .
the same object. The Bishop would force us back
directly upon the Intellect and the Moral Sense. And
Dr Irons would force us back upon them through the
intermedium of “ the Church,” whatever that may be.
For we need not entertain the uncharitable supposition,
that he would have us substitute the authority of the
Church for that of the Mind and the Conscience.
XVIII.
There is yet another authority to which it is necessary
to refer, inasmuch as it is the highest present expression
of the intellect and moral sense of the country applied
to the regulation of human life in its secular relations.
We have seep that, so far as following Christ and his
precepts are concerned, there are many respects in
�and Modern Education.
89
which both the Church and the world are palpably
anti-Christian. The world rejects communism, celibacy,
and contempt of knowledge; and both Church and
world set at nought the most positive injunctions of
Christ and of the Bible, as in taking medicine and in
praying in Church. The practice of our Courts of
Law is equally in opposition to the. popular doctrine of
an infallible Bible. Yet, with curious confusion, the
popular mind still endeavours to concur with both;
and judges still have the audacity to assert that the law .
of the land is founded on the Bible.
I will give an example or two.
You will remember the passages I quoted (p. 44.) in
reprobation of the medical profession, and of those who,
in illness, “ Seek not to the Lord, but to the physicians.”
Well, we have among us a small sect calling itself after
a Bible-phrase, “ The Peculiar People.” These hold
that prayer is the only allowable resource for Christians
in tijne of sickness. They do not refuse to cure them
selves of hunger by food, of fatigue by rest, or to pick
themselves up when they fall. They have no consistent
theory or uniform practice respecting the relation of
means to ends. But because a verse in one of the
Epistles enjoins the calling in of the elders to pray over
the sick, and declares that “the prayer of faith shall
save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up;” (Jam.
v. 14.) they prefer to die sooner than call in a doctor, or
take any medicine. Had the Apocrypha been thought
fit by our Church to be included in the Canon, this sect
would have had no existence, for the Book of Ecclesiasticus contains several warm commendations of medicine
and medical men : saying, “ Honour the physician. . . .
for the Lord hath created him............... the Lord hath
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'Jewish Literature
created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise
will not abhor them.” (xxxviii. i. 1-15, &c.)
A short time ago, however, the neighbours of the
people who are so very “ peculiar” as to show their faith
in the New Testament by their works, and to risk their
lives on the strength of a vote in an ecclesiastical council,
(that rejecting the Apocrypha,) were scandalised by
observing that they had allowed a child to die without
taking any human means to save it. An appearance in
the police-court followed, when the leaders of the sect
attempted to justify their conduct by an. appeal to the
Scriptures. But so diametrically opposed is the Spirit of
our Law to that of the Sacred Books upon which our
Law-Established Church is founded, that the magistrate,
though he made allowance for the offenders on the ground
of gross ignorance, flatly refused to receive their plea, and
warned them that on a repetition of the offence, nothing
would save them from being committed for trial on a
charge of manslaughter. And his conduct received the
approbation of a country calling itself Christian!
The other instance is that of the late case of “ Lyon
versus Home.” This was an action for restitution of’
money obtained under false pretences; and of course in
an action of this nature the one thing to be proved is
that the pretences under which the money was obtained,
were false.
The defendant Home is one of a sect of persons who
claim to hold intercourse with the spirits of the dead.
The prosecutor Lyon is, (or was,) a believer in thedoctrines of that sect, and in the defendant Home as one
of its chief apostles. She is, (or was,) also a wealthy
widow; and under the supposed injunctions of her
departed husband, as made known to her through the-
�and Modern Education.
91
mediumship of Home, she made over to Home a large
portion of her property, I believe some <£60,000, but
the amount, however material elsewhere, is not material
to our argument.
You will bear in mind that what I am about to relate
occurred in a country whose laws maintain, at an enormous
expense to its people, a Church called Christian, whose
Sacred Books,—which are accepted by the whole nation
officially as divinely inspired, and by the bulk of the
nation individually as infallibly true,—repeatedly and
unmistakeably affirm the leading doctrines of the sect to
which the parties in this case belonged; namely, that
intercourse is possible and frequent between the living
and the spiritual world.
To quote some of the numerous passages involving this
belief, there is the well-known story of the witch of
Endor, in which the spirit of Samuel is represented as
appearing to the witch, and delivering a discourse for the
benefit of king Saul. (1. Sam. xxxvii.) There is the
statement that at the crucifixion of Jesus, many of “ the
Saints which slept arose. . . . and appeared unto many.”
(Matt, xxvii. 52-53.) There is the story of the “Trans
figuration,” in which Moses and Elias, dead for hundreds
of years, appeared to the disciples; (xvii. &c.) the con
version of Paul, in which Jesus himself, sometime dead,
addressed Paul in an audible voice from heaven, (in the
words of a Greek Play ;*) (Acts ix. 4-6.) and the
summoning back of the spirit of Lazarus to his body.
(John xi. 25-43, &c.) There is the parable of the rich
man in torment conversing with the spirit of Abraham
in bliss, begging, with curious confusion between spirit
and matter, that the spirit of Lazarus might be permitted
* The Bacchae of Euripides.
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Jewish Literature
to “ dip the tip of his finger in water ” and cool the rich
man’s tongue : or, in case the alleviation of suffering
were not among the functions of the blessed, that the
spirit of Lazarus might be sent back to earth to convert
the five living brethren of the rich man; which last
request-was refused, not as the first was on the ground of
its impossibility, but as superfluous and useless. (Luke
xvi. 22, &c.). We read, too, of guardian angels, (Matt,
iv. 4.) and “ministering spirits;" (Heb. i. 14.) and of
a whole apparatus of intermediate intelligences existing
between God and man. In the Acts we find certain
pious Pharisees exclaiming of Paul, “ if an angel or
spirit hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God.” ♦
(xxiii. 9.) John tells us to “ believe not every spirit, but
try the spirits whether they be of God.” (1 John iv. 1.)
Job, in thrilling language, describes a spirit as passing
before his face and pausing to speak to him. (iv. 15, &c.)
The practice of necromancy is forbidden in Deuteronomy,
(xviii. 2.) its reality not being called in question; (though
how the Jews reconciled it with their denial of the after
life, does not appear.) The Gospels repeatedly refer to
cases of possession by spirits, without specifying their
nature or origin; and in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible,
the fact of apparitions of the dead is regarded as being,
for the Bible, past a doubt.
S.uch, on this point, are the tenets of the book which
it is an article of faith with the very people whose law
was invoked in the case of “Lyon versus Home,” im
plicitly to believe. And yet, so far from any proof
being required of the falsity of the defendant’s pretences,
they were at once assumed to be an utter and monstrous
imposition; and the defence was laughed out of court,
in face of the contents of the very book upon which the
�and Modern Education.
93
witnesses in it had been sworn : the book upon which
our Religion is “ by law established
and for the sake
of inculcating which as infallible, we insist upon vitiating
or crippling our whole system of National Education !
To these illustrations of the growing divorce between
ancient credulity and modem Belief must be added that
of Witchcraft; concerning the belief in which John
Wesley said that “The Bible and Witchcraft must stand
or fall together.” While the anger excited among us by
the devout utterances of the Prussian king over his late
successes, may be ascribed in some degree to the fact
that we are learning to repudiate the old notions which,
recognising success as the test of merit, make Divine
Providence the arbiter in human quarrels ; and in some
degree to the consciousness of having ourselves been
such eminent practisers in the same pietistic line as to
make king William’s conduct look very much as if meant
for a caricature of our own.
Having paid some attention to the recent sittings of
the Church Assemblies in Edinburgh, I have been pleased
to observe symptoms of a growing respect for the authority
of the Intellect and the Conscience in regard to matters of
Eaith, north of the Tweed. I have read that one clergy
man declared his belief that the sacrifice of Christ was
an atonement of sufficient value to counterbalance the
misdeeds of Satan himself, and justify the Almighty in
pardoning the Arch-fiend; and that another “ elder ”
valued the character of the Deity so highly “that his hair
stood on end at the notion that God could ever be re
conciled to the devil.” I take it as a hopeful sign that
these two theologians should thus renounce all claim to
judge such questions by the old dogmatic standards, and
appeal instead to their own moral sense. They have only
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'Jewish Literature
to carry the process somewhat further to perceive that the
God who could create such a being as the devil at dll, or
who could require to be propitiated towards his own off
spring by such a sacrifice as that of Christ at dll, is no
God worthy of being acknowledged or revered by any
being possessed of a spark of intelligence or independence
of spirit.
Lord Chesterfield once wrote to a friend, “Both
Shaftesbury and I have been- dead for several years; but
we don’t wish the fact to be generally known.” In the
same way very much of the Bible has been dead for
some time. It still exists, but is outliving its influence
for evil; and there are many who fancy themselves in
terested in keeping the fact from being generally known.
Yet that it is no chimera which I am encountering,
has just been powerfully illustrated by a discussion in
the House of Lords * in relation to University Tests;
wherein it was declared, both by Lord Houghton and by
the Marquis of Salisbury, that “ the immense majority
of the people of this country adhere to the authority and
teaching of the Bible; their reverence for it being so
absolute that any person who avows hostility to its
doctrines is disabled, not only from holding any office
connected with moral and religious teaching, but almost
from any political office. And that no one can appear at
the hustings with any chance of success, and announce
that he does not accept the Bible.”
XIX.
Sir John Coleridge was right when he said that this
Bible question promised shortly to become the great
* (Debate of May 11th 1871.)
�and Modern Education.
95
religious question of the time. It is so; not for the
reason he then anticipated, hut because the Bible, or
rather the popular theory about the Bible, stops the way
to our advance in all that favours the redemption, or
constitutes the highest good, of a people.
By reason of this one impediment our whole system
of national education “ hangs fire; ” while our systems
of private education are neutralised or vitiated. It is
therefore for those who are under no obligation to refrain
from using their reasoning faculties; those who decline
allegiance to any dispensation which imposes a penalty
for putting forth a hand to .sustain and forward that
which they regard as the Ark of their country’s redemp
tion ; (1 Chron. xiii. 9, &c.) those who believe that it is
only through man working together freely and intelli
gently with man towards the highest moral ends, that
real good is to be done;—it is for these, I say, to grapple
with the difficulty, and if need be, to take the place of
those who have hitherto been our teachers. If we are
no longer to regard the Bible as a Fetich, to be adored,
but not comprehended; if wfe are not to adopt as an
article of Faith the suggestion of the flippant Frenchman,
that the God of the Jewish Scriptures and of our own
advanced intelligence and moral sense, is in reality one
and the self-same Being ;■—that he was once as bad as
the Jews made him out to be, but has improved with
age and experience, (a suggestion I have lately heard
seriously propounded by a clergyman in despair at the diffi
culties he found in the Bible)—then the solution which
has now been proposed must be accepted by us: other
wise the intellect and the conscience must be rejected
altogether as illusory and inventions of the devil; and
some other criterion, and one which discards both
�96
yewish Literature
intellect and conscience, must be sought for to regulate
our judgment.
For my part, I think better of my countrymen than
to believe that when once the truth is put plainly before
them, they will long halt between the two opinions. I
believe that when once the alternative is shown to them
to lie between gross superstition and a rational religious
ness,—they will no longer endure that their faith be only
definable as believing what they know to be untrue; but will
insist on their children being trained to subject all
things to the test of a cultivated intelligence and moral
sense. Thus trained, they will peruse the Bible, no
longer as slaves, but in a spirit of intelligent appreciation,
sifting out the germs of truth for themselves, and not
scoffing at or rejecting the whole on account of the husks.
From henceforth the teacher in the schools of the
nation must never forget that it is the purpose of his
schoolroom to be the training-ground, not of any party or
sect, but whereon to develop the faculties which later in
life are to determine the nature of individual belief. To
impart a bias, or to anticipate or prevent the formation
of genuine, honest opinion, by the early instilment of
dogma, is at once to stultify every principle of sound
education, inasmuch as it is to repress the intellect and
contravene the moral sense. Whatever the views which
may be adopted in mature age by those who have been
educated under the system I am advocating, there will
be no cause to fear that they will be the' worse for being'
founded in an intelligence and moral sense which have
been thus rigidly trained in youth.
Shall it be said of our solution as was said by one
upon first beholding the sea, “ Is this the mighty ocean, •
�and Modern Education.
97
is this all ? ”
“ Yes,” we may confidently reply, in
respect to our reliance upon the intellect and the con
science developed by rational education, “ these are all.”
At first, indeed, you see from the margin but a small part
of them. But only trust yourself to them: launch boldly
out upon them: sail where you will with them, and they
will bear you safely through the whole universe of
being.”
At present, for us in England, the issue lies with our
School-boards. If their members are themselves ignorant
of the simple law of human development in religious
ideas, or are unworthily complacent to the ignorance and
superstition of their constituents, generations may pass
before the standard of education and religion is brought
up to the standard of modern thought and knowledge.
Generations may pass and the Bible will still be found
the subject of hopeless contention, and source of fatal
disunion and weakness. And generations long here
after will find the country sunk deeper and deeper in
ignorance and barbarism; while the nations which have
sprung from our race, and speak our language, will have
passed so far ahead of us that they can only look back
upon “ poor England” with pity and contempt as an effete
and imbecile land, “ whose prophets prophesied falsely,
whose priests bore rule by their means, and whose people
loved to have it so.”
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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Jewish literature and modern education, or: the use and misuse of the Bible in the schoolroom, being two lectures delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, March 26th and April 2d 1871
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Place of publication: Ramsgate
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Judaism
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ORTHODOXY
FROM THE HEBREW POINT OF VIEW.
BY
REV. THOMAS P. KIRKMAN, M.A., F.R.S.,
RECTOR OF CROFT, NEAR WARRINGTON.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Sixpence.
��ORTHODOXY FROM
THE
HEBREW
POINT OF VIEW.
N the rural rectory-house of my old college-friend,
Henry P., I had the pleasure of making the
acquaintance of Dr. Marcus, a Professor of Mathe
matics in a foreign university, a man of pleasing
manners and varied culture, and distinguished by
original research in his department. ‘This gentleman,
having as professor extraordinary an income by no
means extraordinary, was desirous of a vacant mathe
matical chair in one of our colonies. His reputation
and attainments were far higher than those of any
Englishman likely to become a candidate, and he spoke
English well; but he was unluckily a Jew. My
friend’s recommendation was certain to have weight
with the parties who had the appointment; but a
member of the Church of England was sure to be pre
ferred by them, and to propose to them a Jew appeared
hopeless. Dr. Marcus was a devout Theist of the
school, not of Moses and the Priests, but of Moses
and the Prophets. For genuine priests of all religions
he had little love; and he was at the same time a
hearty despiser of the negation-philosophy of those
sectarians who rejoice in the bigotry of Atheism, Anti
theism, Nontheism, Positivism, Materialism, and what
not, dogmatisms which are becoming so fashionable,
and fancy themselves so scientific and original nowa-days.
“ And why should you not become a member of the
I
�4 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
Church of England ? ” said Mr P. “ I will baptize you
in my church next Sunday but one, if you will declare
your assent to what we call the Apostles’ creed. You
will then be as good a Christian as dozens of our dig
nitaries. We all believe that document in a certain
literal and grammatical sense, with an allowance con
ceded to all but the youngest children, for theological
rhetoric.” “ I am aware,” replied Dr Marcus, “ of the
explanations that divines give of the descent into hell,
of the session at the right hand of God the Father, of
the Holy Catholic Church, of the resurrection of the
body, &c. ; and there is no dishonesty in taking refuge
in them from the letter, thrown open as they are ; but
there is at least one word in that creed which I could
not recite without hypocrisy; it is the word only.
There is no literal and grammatical sense, even with
the light of theological rhetoric, in which I can utter
that word in its connexion. Take that away, and I
will recite your creed, regardless of the self-satisfied
dunces, Jew or Christian, who may affirm that I
cannot honestly do it without committing myself to all
their unwritten, illogical, and childish implications,
and who vent their sectarian spite by frequently
affirming it.”
“I should have expected,” said I, “that in the
article, 1 And in Jesus Christ, his only Son,’ you would
have objected to 1 Christ ’ rather than to 1 only.’ “ The
proposition,” he answered, “ that A, B, or C was or is
the Christ, to me propounds nothing but an empty
name. It is more than a name to thousands of my
ignorant brethren, and was of old far more to millions..
That frantic faith in a conquering Christ to come,
which the mischievous priests of the Levitical system,
and the prophets by whose falsehoods they bore rule,
had stamped on the hearts of my people before your
era, was the perennial fountain of all their shame and
sorrow. Hundreds of devout thinkers and believers
of my faith, along with many of our noblest reli-
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 5
.gious teachers, have published our relinquishment of
■that ruinous dream. We no more look for a personal
Messiah, who shall appear for the exaltation of Israel
among the nations, than we desire to restore on Mount
.Zion the bloody worship of our fathers. We cherish
■no longer the old contempt and hatred ’ we have
ceased to pray for the fulfilment of those wild hopes,
or for the restoration of those semi-pagan ordinances.
11 But,” I ventured to enquire, “ does the clause
about the miraculous birth of Jesus present to you no
difficulty? ”
“ I read nothing miraculous,” said he, “ in the literal
.and grammatical meaning of the clause. I myself was
conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin
Mary; for nothing is more God’s own work than the
generation even of a fly; and my mother Mary, whose
first-born I am, was as pure a maid as was ever blessed
in wedlock. The Virgin Mary is to me merely an his
torical designation of the Mother of Jesus, just as the
Maid of Orleans figures in the pedigree of certain
persons in France, who pretend that she was not
burnt, but that she was married. And the virgin who
conceived and bore a son in Isaiah was the prophet’s
lawful wife, as he informs us; and the child was his
offspring. If your creed affirmed that my compatriot
Jesus had come into the world without a human
father, that would be an objection insuperable. Your
contradictory legends of that Hebrew Infancy in your
Greek gospels count for nothing.”
I enquired, “ How do you take the clause affirming
the resurrection of Jesus from the dead?” He replied,
“ I see nothing to prevent its being read as literally
and grammatically as all your divines contrive to read
the descent into hell, which to some of the Fathers
affirmed an actual taste of the eternal fire of torment,
and to all of them involved a most exciting story of
under-ground adventures. Divines now find in it a
simple assertion that Jesus died like other men; and
�6 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
they and I can read in the clause following, if we
choose, with no more violence to the letter, that Jesus
lived on after death, like other men, in conscious per
sonality. The creed does not say that no one else ever
rose from the dead. If it affirmed that the re-animated
body walked living out of the sepulchre, I could not
recite it. As it stands, he who rose again from the
dead is, by all the rules of grammar, he who descended
into hell; that is, the disembodied spirit. Does any
one pretend that he went down thither in the body?
Further, I cannot find in your gospels any record of
the miracle of the resurrection-moment, still less an
attested record. It is not intimated that either man
or angel saw Jesus quit the tomb; and the Romish,
divines, along with some of your own, say boldly that
he passed out through the stone invisibly before it
was removed. The bodily resurrection of Jesus is
nowhere attested as a fact in time and place ■ it is not
even recorded.”
“ But,” said I, “ there are certainties of inference
which it is utter folly to doubt. If after burying your
friend, whose death you had witnessed, you should
find him sitting by your fire; if he should greet you
and converse with you, his hand in yours, with every
evidence of every sense before you that he was your
living friend unchanged, you could not doubt that he
had risen from the dead? ” “I certainly would not
infer,” said the Jew, “that he had so risen: I should
have no right even to infer that he had come in at the
door. An inference from a miraculous fact of the
present moment to any fact in the past or in the
future is not justifiable. Such inferences to past or
future are valid only on the hypothesis that the course
of nature remains the same, that is, on the hypothesis
that no miracle happens. If you were to see oranges
growing on an apple tree in your garden, and satisfied
yourself, by every test of sense and examination, that
they were oranges, it would be a miracle which you
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
7
could not deny or doubt. But could you infer that the
oranges had been preceded by orange flowers on that
tree 1 Could you be certain that the tree would bear
such fruit next year, or that from the pips in these
oranges, orange seedlings would grow1? You might
have an opinion on every question, but if you attempted
to compel me to share your opinion, and made, me
suffer for my doubt, you would commit a crime. I
shook my head, and remarked that that was a dan
gerous style of reasoning.
Once more I inquired, “What sense do you give to the
clause affirming that Jesus will come from the right
hand of the Father to judge the quick and dead ?
“ Much the same sense,” answered he, “which you and
every thinking Christian put into a prediction so very
vague. As I reject with you the old unbelieving
blunder in space that Jehovah was more present on
Mount Zion than upon other hills, so you reject with
me the unbelieving blunder in time, that God s righteous
judgment on the living and the dead is to be first pro
nounced and executed at some far future day. You
are convinced that His judgments are now and ever
working themselves out both on men and nations in
all worlds, by the grand eternal law of His government,
which rules alike on this and on yonder side of the
gravethe law whereby suffering from which no
pardoning priest can save must follow sin, and bliss
which no priestly curse can hinder must be the
reward of righteousness, without revenge, and, in the
long mn, without respect of persons. Not only Jesus,
but every prophet whose words form part of the world s
wealth of divine truth, is at this moment judging the
quick and the dead.” “ That appears to me, ’ I re
joined, “a perilous tampering with the Churchs plain
teaching of her children.” “Do your bishops tamper
less or more,” he inquired, “with their conception of
God sitting at God’s right hand? If they can fritter
away from their lessons to children that plain concept
�8
Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
in space, why not a far less plain concept in time?
Why should ‘ He shall come from that right hand ’ be
literal, and ‘ he sitteth there ’ be not literal at all ? ”
“ I wish,” said Mr P., “ that you would reconsider
your objection to the word only. It is simply equiva
lent to the ancient only-begotten, and you know the
refinements of theologians, both Jewish and Christian,
about that term. It is not a numerical term; it is a
sublimely figurative and vague superlative.” “ All that
I knowreplied the Jew, “ but nothing can overcome
my repugnance to the heathenish flavour which taints
the word. If your grand apostle Paul were here, I
could readily be admitted as a Christian. I am willing
to accept brotherhood among you on the terms which
he proposed to the Romans ; ‘-If thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Master Jesus, and believe in thine
heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou
shalt be saved.’ Knowing as I do, that Jesus only
affirmed the noblest truths of the law and the prophets,
against those Priests and Pharisees who had so much
debased the religion of the older seers, I can gladly
call him Master; and I believe that God raised him
from the dead in that spiritual body of which Paul
discourses, as I believe that he has raised from the
dead every good man that ever died.”
“ I am delighted,” said I, “ by your reference to that
word of Paul in Romans x. Several times in my pub
lished papers bearing my name, and scores of times in
my sermons, I have declared my conviction that the
confession and the creed which the great apostle of the
Gentiles affirmed 1800 years ago to be sufficient for
Christian fraternity and salvation, ought to be held
sufficient now. What I have written has been circu
lated pretty widely among the dignitaries, but it has
evoked neither answer nor rebuke from any quarter.
If our reverend and right-reverend wranglers would
only bow their stubborn necks to the authority of an
inspired apostle, the sting would be taken out of our
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 9
poisonous sectarianisms.” “Ah! said he, it was a
brief campaign, that of Paul and his band of broad
churchmen against the old priestcraft and hatreds. His
sad prophecy of invading wolves was soon fulfilled.
And so it has ever been in the history of religious
progress. In vain has the army of prophets overthrown
the strongholds of superstition, smashed the old gods,
■and scattered the sacerdotal conjurors. The wily
priests have too soon returned, and made fresh idols of
the battering-rams. When after the struggle of cen
turies the prophets of my people had expelled poly
theism, and established for ever the worship of Jehovah,
the priests were not long in building up their worse
than Pagan tyranny, and they went on heating in the
blinded people that inflation of arrogant frenzy, whose
explosion at last scattered us for ever. Adorable are
God’s counsels; scattered as we are, we have yet a
great part to play, in witnessing among the nations for
the Divine Unity, and against both the ignorant pride
of atheism and the wickedness of priestly cursing.
“ It is fortunate,” said Mr P., “ that our Clerical Book
Society meets here to-morrow. There will be some
dozen of us, and there will be plenty of time for a dis
cussion on this matter. A really practical question
will be a treat, and it will be interesting to hear the
opinions of my brethren about baptizing a Jew on the
terms proposed by Paul; for there are churchmen of all
patterns among us.” “ Let me not be misunderstood,
.said Dr. Marcus : “I am willing to become a member
of your Church, as a society of good and learned men,
for the sake of any advantage that I can receive or
render in all love and honesty. I will not pretend to
believe that my soul will be better saved in your com
munion than in mine, nor shall I think myself one
whit less a Jew for being made a Christian. I main
tain that there is nothing true in your religion which
is not comprised in the noblest truths of mine. I shall
�IO Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
be no more a sectarian if baptized than I am unbaptized,
and I shall continue to deny and detest, as I do nowj
all anathemas whatever upon other virtuous and con
scientious thinkers.”
The morrow came; the party met; and I was per
mitted to be one of them. After the perusal of a
paper by one divine, which seemed to evoke no
animated discussion, the president, Mr P., laid before
them the case of his catechumen, a learned Jew,
desirous of admission into our Church, as he would
seek entrance into any other society, not for the im
provement of his spiritual health, or his chance of sal
vation, but for most honourable reasons pertaining to
this life. “ He declines,” said the president, “ to receive
public baptism, because he cannot assent to every word
of the Apostles’ Creed. He considers our Christianity,
with his present light, to be a corrupted development
of. pure Judaism, not the Judaism of the Levitical
priests who crucified Jesus, but that of the Psalms and
the Prophets, which Jesus sought to restore; and he
believes that when our sectarianisms and those of his
own people have run their course, the two churches
will be one again. We know that there are thousands of
good and cultivated men among us, and not a few among
the clergy, whose notions of religion differ little from
those of my friend, and who are not subjected to any
disadvantage or censure on that account. The gentle
man is willing to qualify himself for baptism by making
the confession and affirming the belief which PauL
declared to the Homans in his tenth chapter to be
sufficient for salvation; that is, to confess with hismouth the Lord Jesus and to believe in his heart that.
God hath raised him from the dead, and this I am surehe will do in the literal and grammatical sense of the
words as they stand. He will profess no adhesion to
our theory of the divine nature of Jesus Christ. By
Lord he means Master, just what the Greek means,
a master whose commandments, especially his great
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View, n
commandment of love, he means to keep, and, to my
personal knowledge, has kept from his yonth np. I
know him to he a godly man of faith and prayer:
Would any of you, being satisfied about his life and
conversation, baptize him on his making this Pauline
profession, and give him a certificate of baptism ? Allow
me to observe, that Paul does not trouble the Romans,
in his concise statement of conditions, with any specula
tion on the pre-existence or divinity of Christ, nor does
he use the title Christ; he expressly bars that, out, as
well as curious inquiries into the mystery of his resur
rection. ‘ Say not in thine heart, who shall ascend up
into heaven,’ i.e., &c., or ‘ who shall go down into the
deep,’ i.e., &c. If words so guarded and deliberate
are intended to be understood in their honest liberal
meaning, I cannot help believing that if Paul were now
among us, he would say, ‘ Baptize him without delay.
Por some moments no one replied; a question so
much out of clerical routine surprised them. The Rev.
Mr A. first rose and said, “Will your Jew declare his
belief that J esus is the Son of God ? I ask this, be
cause on that confession Philip baptized the eunuch ,
and St John says, 1 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is
the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.’”
The chairman answered, “lam sure he will; but he
will tell you that he does not believe him to be the only
Son of God. Nor do you and I, I presume, if we
honestly say to each other, ‘ Beloved, now are. we the
Sons of Godif we believe that we shall see him as he
is, and be like him ; if we maintain with Paul that ‘ we
are children and heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs of
Christ.’ But,” added he, “ my friend is learned enough
to know that in the phrase of 1800 years ago. the Son
of God and the Christ were the same designation ; and
this is abundantly evident from the chapter of John’s
epistle that you have quoted. He considers that old
expectation of the Christ to have been a most fatal
superstition, and that the belief in Jesus as the Christ,
�12 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
though useful at the time, was of no value except as
■equivalent to this,—it is madness to look forward any
.more to the coming of a miraculous Messiah.”
“ We are all bound, of course,” said Mr B., 11 by the
Act of Uniformity in our public Offices ; there we are
bond slaves. But in our private ministrations we have
a large discretion.
I do not see what there is to pre
vent you privately baptizing your friend. If I felt
that I was rendering a service to him and to others,
I think I should do it.”
“ Of course, you would,” said C.: “ it would be un
christian and inhuman to refuse. The Catholic Church
has ever been accustomed to facilitate the entrance into
the ark of salvation, and to extend as far as possible
the priceless blessing of the sacrament of regeneration.
The Catholic missionaries have rescued thousands from
eternal perdition by wholesale baptism; it is said they
have done this with a broom, without confession of any
kind. The consent to receive Christian baptism has
been considered to be sufficient qualification. I am
ready to baptize all the Jews on earth, if they will
permit me, and to teach them the Catholic faith after
wards.”
‘‘There is some countenance,” said D., “for C.’s
notion of baptising without formal statement of dog
matic belief, from the result of criticism on the verse
quoted by A., Acts vii. 37, in which the eunuch is
made to utter a profession of faith. The verse is thrown
out by Griesbach as unquestionably an interpolation,
as proved by the best manuscripts and versions. Nor
is there any account of a creed being pronounced by
the three thousand on the day of Pentecost.”
“ That may be so,” said E.; “ but you will observe
that Philip had preached to him Jesus. He had led
•him, from that text in Isaiah, to the cross on which
hung his dying God and Saviour ; and he saw before
he baptized him that he had a justifying faith, and had
found an interest in the precious blood of the Lamb.
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 13
Precisely in the same way, they who were baptized on
the day of Pentecost were such as had gladly received
the word of Peter, who preached to them Jesus, and
taught every one of them to say,
‘ My God, through Jesus pacified,
My God, thyself declare,
And draw me to that open side,
And plunge the sinner there.’
God forbid that any of us should pollute a sacrament of
the church by administering it to a professed infidel.
Souls cannot be saved with brooms. There are thou
sands of regenerate men and women who were never
baptized with water.”
“Does your Jew,” said P., “believe the promises of'
God made to him in baptism ? That faith is the only
thing besides repentance which our church requires of
persons to be baptized.”
“I am certain,” said P., “that he devoutly believes
all God’s promises. No man can discourse more
eloquently on their fulfilment in the past, or on the
glorious accomplishment of them awaiting mankind in
the future. As our catechism does not explain to the
child what are the definite promises of God made to it
on baptism, his general faith will, it is to be hoped,
meet the requirement. I thank you for pointing out
that simple statement in our formularies of what is really
required.”
“ Yes,” said G., “it is satisfactory to dwell on a simple
statement of the church’s meaning, if it be not very
precise : the unpleasant thing is to dwell on statements
and usages absurd and contradictory. It is plain, from
the rubric about baptism of adults, that the church
requires that a candidate should be examined for a
week, after formal notice to the bishop, whether he be
sufficiently instructed in the principles of the Christian
religion : it is equally true that no bishop can tell us
what those principles are, even so far as is required for
�14 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
the instruction of children; and all the leaders of our
sects and schools, inside the church and out of it, are
ready to fight like cat and dog about what those first
lessons should be. To a child they all give this con
venient reply : Do as your priest or preacher bids you
and believe all he tells you. But if I were to ask an
archbishop what is the meaning for me of the first
lessons, of the catechism to children, and press for an
unambiguous answer, he would tell me he was not the
Church, and bid me, as funny Archbishop Sumner did
when so publicly pressed, to read the Word for myself.”
In spite of the rubric we are left to baptize whom we
please,, and no bishop would thank us for troubling
him with formal notice, or for asking his precise opinion.
We baptize infants incapable of instruction. We are
compelled to look gravely into a baby’s face, and ask,
AVilt thou be baptized in this faith '? ’—and we pretend
to hear the baby answer, ‘I will,’ and make solemn pro
fessions about mysteries and duties, because three per
sons, who often know and care as much as the child
about the matter, repeat words of routine prescribed by
act of parliament hundreds of years ago. Wh are ex
pected, to say to the child in after years, ‘You promised
all this by your sureties;’ bewildering its budding
reason and conscience with a sham, instead of appealing
directly to the grand reality, the present teaching of
God in its reason and conscience. We do, indeed
appeal to the latter ; but we cannot prevent the mis
chief done by the respect thus shewn to lip-service and
religion by proxy. We teach the child that two
sacraments are by God’s decree generally necessary to
salvation, that is universally, if we please to put it so,
or not universally, but certainly in your case, if we like
to. put it so: and you may bombard bishops for ten years
v ith demands of information ; they will never tell you
what they mean by that generally. Then, we treat all
alike as Christian people, whether they do or do not
receive the second sacrament for all their lives, and we
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 15
bury them alike in the same sure and certain hope of
life eternal. The men whom we cursed while living,
we send to heaven when dead. We then go and grin
at Popish and heathenish mockeries in religion. We
are to believe that any baptized old woman who is
wise enough to repeat the words of the baptismal
formulary, can, by sprinkling a few drops of water,
make your Jew into a member of Christ, a child of
God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven; and
no bishop is able to undo, nor dares to mend, her
miracle. We are to believe at the same time that he
is a damned child of God for his infidelity, and that if
the spotless life you say he is living were to terminate
while that water is on his nose, he would, without
doubt, perish everlastingly. This is our act-of-parliament Christianity! ”
“It is of no use for us to continue this debate: if we
contradict each other for an hour, we shall be at the
end just where we are now. Absurdities like these
would not be endured in the manuals of any science,
except our sham science of theology. There is
not a bishop among them who would not be proud
to expose every one of them, and to kick it out at
any cost, from any book but the Prayer Book. Such
absurdities will of course disappear in time, in spite of
bishops, as moral and mental culture extend among the
people. The grand third and seventeenth articles of
our Church have already evaporated. Each is now a
husk without an import. The second, the ninth, and
that eighteenth, most atrocious in the Latin, and the
priestcraft of pardons, that fatal fountain of all mischief,
have well-nigh evaporated. In vain do our young
ritualists try to replenish the last from their decorated
pagan pocket-flasks of popery and water. I advise you
to baptize the Jew, and prepare him, if he is willing,
for holy orders in our Church. We want such men to
help us fight that spawn of priestcraft, the materialism
and atheism of our day. There is nothing in our
�16 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
formularies of which he cannot honestly and rationally
unlock the literal and grammatical sense, by using the
keys which our divines and dignitaries are publicly
handling every hour.”
“ That is a little too peppery, friend G.” said H.
“ But we all know you, grim as you look sometimes,
to be as kind-hearted as you are outspoken; and a
little plain speaking can do us no harm. Let us debate
no longer. We shall hope to meet the Jew at luncheon.
We do not often fall in with a godly and learned man
of his persuasion. I, for one, should be greatly pleased
to hear from his own lips a candid statement of his
notions about the value of our Christian evidences, if he
can give it without going into details of harmony and
criticism, which are getting a little old. He may be
able to convey to us a new idea about the matter from
the Hebrew point of view. And I should be glad to
know what account he has to give of the rise and pro
gress of Christianity. What think you all ? ”
All agreed that nothing could be more interesting.
And P. promised that they should be gratified.
We enjoyed ourselves much at P.’s hospitable table,
and after a ramble over his pleasant lawn and shrubbery,
and a feast of strawberries in his garden, we found our
selves again in his library, prepared to listen to the
discourse of the Jew.
“ It is fortunate,” said Dr. Marcus, “ that I can comply
with your request, communicated to me by our friend
P., without touching any of the matters usually dis
cussed in your treatises on what are politely called the
Evidences of Christianity. The point of view from
which an enlightened Jew considers your orthodoxy is
one at which you have probably never tried to place
yourselves. One single consideration demonstrates to
me the falsehood (I use the word historically, I hope
without offence) of your story. This is the language of
your original documents, which is Greek, and Greek
only. If your story were all true, you would certainly
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 17
have vouchers for its truth in the Hebrew tongue, that
is in the Hebrew spoken in Palestine 1800 years
•ago, which differed from the pure Hebrew of the
Old Testament certainly less than your English differs
from the Anglo-Saxon of your fathers of 900 years
ago. First of all, let me state in brief your story.
You say that God was incarnate in the form of a
carpenter of Galilee 1850 years ago 5 that he became
man for the sake of making a revelation, and founding
a religious dispensation which was to supersede that
which he had given to my fathers by the revelations of
his will made in the old Hebrew Scriptures j that after
instructing disciples who adored him as Very God, doing
the most wonderful works of power, and suffering
death on the cross for the redemption of all mankind,
he rose again from the dead in the body which had
been buried, and for forty days more conversed with
his disciples, giving them infallible proof of the reality
of his resurrection j that in that' interval he opened
their understandings, endowed them and their succes
sors to the end of the world with the most awful
powers and authority over the minds and consciences
of the whole human race, speaking to them as he had
always spoken, in that Hebrew which alone they and
their countrymen understood ; and that after his ascen
sion into heaven, he sent down on those chosen dis
ciples a still larger inspiration of his Holy Spirit,
whereby they were gifted and directed to organise in
its Hebrew beginnings as it was through all time to
endure, his Catholic Church, which alone was to be the
channel of his divine grace, and the keeper of his word
and will, for the salvation of all nations : and that for
the more secure preservation of this teaching, he spe
cially inspired one of these disciples to commit to writ
ing, in his native Hebrew tongue, an account of his
works and words. Further, your story is, that the
Catholic Church of this day continues to preserve and
to teach what those first apostles taught, and that there
B
�18 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
has been no gap of oblivion nor faltering in the testi
mony of this Church from its foundation to the words of
God made flesh ; so that you, by virtue of the training
that you have received from your learned and autho
rised teachers, whose knowledge of the original treasure
of revelation you share, are yourselves linked by an
apostolic succession and unerring tradition of all that
is essential in an unbroken chain of loyalty and unfor
getting love to the lips of the Incarnate. This is your
story. Now, here I am, a Hebrew man, speaking to
men, as I suppose, of Hebrew learning, and a man able
to understand the language of that Incarnate Deity,
and of his disciples. I will receive your sacrament,
and subscribe your thirty-nine articles to-day, if you
will repeat to me, as they fell from his lips, three sen
tences of the teaching of that revealing Emmanuel.”
There was a little pause. Then one bore witness that
Emmanuel said “ Epphatha,” another remembered that
be said 11 Talitha cumi.” “Any more,” said the Jew,
“besides the cry upon the cross?” We were com
pelled to own that we had no more. “ The question to
us is a puzzler,” I remarked, “ but it could easily be
answered to any extent if the right man were here.
Dr Manning would be more than a match for Dr
Marcus.” I took out of my pocket-book a cutting from
the Liverpool Mercury, reporting an oration of Dr
Manning in that city in October last, and read as fol
lows :—-“Who told you these things ? You had them
all from me, from me alone, to whom the scriptures
were committed in custody and guardianship, from me
who preserved them and handed them on to this day. . . .
And when men appeal to antiquity, and tell us, ‘ This
is not the primitive tradition of the Church,’ were you
ever in antiquity, or any that belong to you ? I was
there, and as a perpetual witness, antiquity is to me
nothing but my early days, and antiquity exists in my
consciousness to this hour as men grown to riper years
remember their childhood. ... I may say that the
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 19
■Church of God, which testifies at this hour, saw the
Son of God, and heard his words, and was witness of
diis miracles. More than that, it was witness of the
day of Pentecost, and upon it the Holy Spirit descended.
It heard the sound of the mighty wind, and it saw the
tongues of fire; and that which the Church witnesses
to this day it witnesses as an ear-witness, as an eye
witness, of the divine facts which it declares. And
how ? Because that which they saw and heard, they
delivered,” &c. The doctor asks no allowance for
rhetoric he does not condescend to intimate to his
•awe-struck hearers that he is figuring or personifying.
With metallic coolness, with chin outstretched, and ele
vated eyebrows, he stops to put to my Bishop and me
his contemptuous question, and then he swaggers on
in the first person singular—“Were you ever in an
tiquity, or any that belong to you ? I was there, and
■as a perpetual witness, antiquity is to me nothing but my
early days,” &c. All laughed in harmony. And we did
wish that the most reverend Doctor had been there in
his mitred dignity of ears four figures long. We felt
that he would have either silenced the Jew by his
knowledge, or else have knocked the breath out of him
by his—No, put it very mildly, thus
by his stupen
dous modesty, the dare-devil mace-bearer of his Car
dinal graces and virtues.
The Jew -went on : “ Take a possible case. Suppose
that a teacher of men should arise in a. country civilized
enough to have a written literature many centuries old ;
that he should deliver new truth to a chosen body of
disciples; that he should have a strong influence of
love upon their hearts ; that he should lay the founda
tion of a great school to endure after him • and that he
should direct one of his disciples to commit to writing,
under the master’s guidance, and with his sanction for
publication, an account of his sayings and doings in
his own tongue : then there is, if the language of the
document should happen to become an unspoken
�20 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
tongue, a certain probability that not only the docu
ment in the original, but all historic trace whatever in
that language of the teacher’s life and utterances, might
in the lapse of ages perish, and no record of them
remain, except, perhaps, in later tongues. Nobody
can deny that such a loss to literature might occur,
either by mere mouldering and oblivion, or by the
stupidity or malice of after times.
Let us call this chance of loss of all original docu
ments C, and try to consider on what its value would
depend. First, it would depend to a large degree on the
rank and dignity of the teacher. Call this D. If D were
inconsiderable, C might be great. If D were very great,
C would be small, other things being equal. Another ele
ment would be the wisdom of the teacher. Call this W.
Other things being supposed invariable, the chance C
would be higher or lower as W was smaller or greater.
The greater the wisdom of the founder of the school
in his knowledge of the present and his plans for the
future, the smaller would be the chance of his words
in the original perishing from the world’s treasures of
learning. A third element would be the loving in
fluence of the teacher over the heart and memories of
men. Call this L, the mighty power of love. This
has degrees of less and more. If L were nothing
unusual, the chance C of original record perishing
would be higher than if L were very wonderful and
memorable. Apd we may affirm that if other things
were given the same, C would be larger as L was
smaller, and smaller as L was larger. A fourth element
controlling the value of C would be the importance
to all mankind of the teacher’s lessons, along with the
practical value of the institution founded by him.
Call this importance I; then we can affirm as before
that the chance C, all things remaining unchanged
besides, would take, as I were given smaller or greater,
a higher or lower value. Lastly, we may consider the
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 21
influence upon the chance C of the rank and honour
■among men that would attach to the successors of this
teacher in carrying out his plans and working his
institution. Call this honour H; then I say again,
that if all other elements are supposed to be of in
variable value, C would rise or fall as H was incon
siderable or of great estimation. Nothing would
■contribute so surely to make the chance C. small, as a
high degree of renown and power devolving on the
succession of officers in the supposed institution, who
would be proud of their pedigree, and watchful to
preserve its oldest evidences. The value of the chance
thus appears to depend on the product DWLIH,
being small or great as the product is great or small.
It is incorrect to talk of a product of anything - but
numbers. But as we can speak of different degrees of
•dignity, wisdom, love, &c., we may conceive Iff D2 Dg,
Wx W2 W3, . . degrees rising in order, as registered
with more or less exactness, and we could estimate
roughly the value of the product by that of the
appended numbers. So long as these numbers are not
given, so long as some may be imagined great and some
small, we can affirm nothing about the variation of
value of the chance C which depends on the product.
But there are two supposable cases in which we can
pronounce upon the value of C with something like
mathematical precision. If we suppose D, W, L, I, H,
to be each next to nothing, the value of the probability
C will rise to something near certainty. We may say,
that that which has no claim whatever to be preserved
or remembered will of course disappear from the record
of history in process of time. The other case is wflien
D, W, L, I, H, are given as each the greatest possible.
Their product will then be greater than anything
■conceivable, and if one or more of the factors be in
finite, the chance C, which diminishes as the product
increases, will be a vanishing quantity. In that case,
the chance of all original record disappearing is reduced
�22 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
to nothing ; the probability that genuine historic tracesof the teacher’s words and works will be preserved in
his own tongue rises to certainty; and it becomesutterly absurd to believe or to imagine that the record
about him prepared for posterity under his own guid
ance, with wisdom infinite, could possibly be lost in
any convulsions of human affairs, and this in spite of
the pleasure and the pride with which his disciples and
successors in days of civilization would endeavour tomultiply and preserve it : nay, it is ridiculous to
suppose that other records and commentaries on his
doings in the original language would not be handed
down along with it, among the learned, in defiance of
all the hostile agencies of ignorance and of the knaveries
that thrive on it.
11 Now, this latter case is precisely that of your ortho
dox story. You tell me of a teacher who appeared in
Palestine above 1800 years ago, of infinite dignity,
infinite wisdom, and infinite love, none less than theone Eternal God in human form ; that this confessed
Jehovah of my fathers spoke and taught in Hebrew, for
more than thirty years among a lettered people who
could understand no other language, truth indispensable
for the salvation of all mankind ; that he miraculously
inspired Matthew, his disciple, to compose in Hebrew
a history of himself and his teachings; that this
document was committed to the keeping of the Church,
whom his Holy Spirit has never suffered to forget his
words, but has constantly aided in diffusing them; and
■when I asked you, as learned men in possession of all
that your wise and modest Mannings have handed,
down to you, for something that really fell from that
divine mouth, you repeated just three words ! Where
is that Hebrew gospel of Matthew, which Dr Manningsays was committed to his guardianship ? You cannot
find in all your fathers and historians the name of a
man who ever saw a man who pretended to have seen
that document. If your story is true, then this unre-
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 23
corded miracle of the utter loss, beyond three short
sentences, of every echo of those utterances of the
Hebrew-speaking God, appears to me greater far than
any of the miracles affirmed in your Greek gospels.”
“ I think,” said P., “that I may thank you, for all
here present, for the pains you have taken to set before
us your argument ; and I am sure it has been highly
interesting to all. Put I am afraid that none of us feels
it to be as convincing as it is elaborate. It carries with
it all through too many unproved assumptions.” “ To
save time,” said Dr Marcus, “ may I beg you to point
them out one at once, and first, that which strikes you
as the most detrimental to my position.”
“ First of all,” answered P., “ you assume, what I am
pretty certain none of us will grant without demon
stration, that the generation whom Jesus and his
disciples after him addressed in Palestine understood
no language besides the vernacular Hebrew of the day.
Does any one here, let me ask, believe that to be a
true statement of the matter ? ”
All evidently were ready to deny the assumption ;
and one of them observed that it was something like
assuming that the people of Wales, a country of like
extent with Palestine, can understand no language but*
Welsh. Another remarked, that if a divine teacher
were to appear in Wales, he would provide that all
documents necessary for the instruction of the world in
general, should be written not in Welsh, but in English;
and that a writing in Welsh would hardly be worth
preserving, and might easily perish, without harm to
history. Another called to mind that Dean Alford, a
very accurate scholar, is inclined to the opinion, in his
notes on the Acts, that the speech of Stephen was
delivered in Greek, from the quotations of the LXX.
which occur in it; where there is a considerable differ
ence between that version and the Hebrew. The Dean
considers it improbable that Luke, translating into
�24 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
Greek a Hebrew speech, containing of course quotations
from the Hebrew Scriptures, would alter those passages
to make them agree with the LXX. And the Dean
affirms it for certain that Greek “was almost universally
understood at Jerusalem.”
“That, matter,” said the Jew, “is easily settled.
Have you a Josephus?”. Josephus was laid on'the
table. “ You are aware,” said Dr Marcus, “ that
Josephus lived in the generation following that of
Jesus, being born some six or seven years after the
crucifixion. If Greek was well understood in Jerusalem
in the time of the former, it would be still more
familiar when the latter flourished. Forty years would
make a considerable increase in the use of the language
in Judea. And as Josephus was of noble birth, and
numbered among the priests, as he informs us, well
educated at Jerusalem, and remarkable from his youth
for his aptitude and love-for learning, we should expect
to find him as much at home in Greek as in Hebrew.”
“ In the last chapter of his Antiquities, which he says
he wrote in the 56th year of his life, he gives this
account of himself, adorned with terms of sufficient
self-commendation :—‘ I have taken pains to acquire a
knowledge of Greek: I have become skilled in it
grammatically, but the habitual use of my native
tongue has prevented my accurate utterance of that
language? 1
tuv
8s ypapb/judraiv s(r7rov8a.oa
tt[v ypaijjijM'ri-A/rpj s/M^sipiav avaXaftuv, rfy
ds ‘Trspi Ttju ‘itpotpopav a%piZsia,v ‘jrarpioc, sxwXvffs
It is plain from this, that Josephus spoke Greek
imperfectly with the tongue of a foreigner. He does
not affirm that he tried to speak it, even at Rome. It
may be doubted that he was able to converse in it
fluently ; for if a man so vain as he evidently was of his
learning had been able to use it habitually with ever
so poor a pronunciation, he would hardly have placed
it on record that his habitual Hebrew prevented his
utterance of Greek. He had learned Greek, as he tells
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 15
ns, late in life, after the destruction of Jerusalem, when
he was near 40 years old. In his first book against
Apion, § 9, he says, ‘Afterwards, (i.e., after the siege)
I got leisure at Rome, and when all my materials were
prepared for that work, I made use of some persons to
assist me in learning the Greek tongue, and by these
means I composed the history of these transactions.’
Then after telling us that he had presented these books,
‘Wars of the Jews,’ to Vespasian and Titus, and to
other Romans, he adds, ‘ I sold them also to many of
our own men who understood Greek,* among whom
were Julius Africanus, Herod, [King of Chaicis] a
person of great gravity, and King Agrippa himself, a
person that deserved the greatest admiration.’
“ It was evidently an unusual tiling for Jews of the
highest rank to read Greek. Ko man would place it
on record that the Marquis of Anglesea or the Duke of
Argyll are English scholars. He informs us in the
preface to his Greek ‘ Wars of the Jews,’ that he had
translated those books into Greek which he had formerly
composed in the language of his own country. That
is, after the year 71, Josephus published in Hebrew
his account of the Jewish wars up to the destruction of
Jerusalem, for the information of his countrymen and
other orientals. This is far from a proof that even the
educated natives of Syria were able to read Greek.”
“ In the section against Apion already quoted Josephus
says, that he was set at liberty out of prison and sent to
accompany Titus to the siege of Jerusalem, and that
he was the only man who could understand the
deserters. Again and again he informs us that he was
employed as interpreter; he was sent several 'times to
parley with the besieged in their native tongue; and in
his sixth Book of the Wars, he gives us im Greek a
long address which, he says, he delivered to them by
-command of Caesar in the Hebrew language. How
* rrjs 'EXXriviKTjs aortas nerecrx'rjKiaLv.
�26 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
Josephus managed to interpret does not appear. Hemay have rendered the various dialects of the deserters,
into polite Hebrew, which was translated by some
Hellenist Jew to Titus in Greek. However that may
be, we have evidence overwhelming that Greek was
not understood at Jerusalem even by the officers to
whom the herald of Titus would mainly address him
self. And it is simply ridiculous to imagine, that the
Jews of the preceding generation to whom Jesus and
his disciples preached, were able to understand a word
erf that language, much more that they were so familiarwith it, that the preservation of a gospel in Hebrew
was of small importance to that nation and the world?’
“ My argument,” continued Dr Marcus,11 is enfeebled
by the distance at which we stand from the facts. It
is not necessary to play at long bowls over eighteen cen
turies ; such a lapse of time may appear to some minds
to condone anything. Every word I have uttered could
have been urged with greater force sixteen hundred
years ago. I could have said all this and more, to thevery first historian of your church; to Eusebius, on
whose most questionable honesty and veracity depends,
as on one single thread, the truth of all your story. If’
you wish to give me a fair chance of testing that truth,
let one of you be Eusebius, and let me be a Hebrew who.
has read his history. Let me be permitted in this
house, the palace of that great bishop in Palestine, to
pay my respects to’ the historian, to request information,
to speak my sentiments candidly, in this first quarter
of the fourth century, when Christianity is newly esta
blished by Constantine as the religion of the Eomaji
Empire, and his friend Eusebius is enjoying his promo- .
tion to the see of Cesarea.”
The idea was novel, and tickled all our fancies.
11 Come along, G.,” said P., “you know Eusebius well,
and I will help you. You shall be Eusebius. Between,
us we shall be able to defeat this Jew.” A folio Euse
bius being placed and opened before them, the two-
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 27
scholars, P. and G. sat together at the table. Therewas a little twinkle in G’s. eye, who evidently enjoyed
the situation. "Whether he had much confidence of
victory, I could not determine ; but from what I had
heard of him as an acute controversialist, I was sure he
would make a manful fight of it, and I prepared myself
for an intellectual treat.
The Jew began, with a grave reverence—“ I think
myself fortunate, most learned Eusebius, in having your
permission to offer you my congratulations on the dig
nity to which your merits, and the great discernment
of your friend Caesar Constantine have raised you, and
in being allowed to ask for a little information for my
instruction on a subject which no living man under
stands so well as you. My inquiries will be confined
to one point, which is of much importance to all Jews
who, like me, desire to acquire more knowledge of the
Christian revelation. I would beg to ask, are there in
the library of Cesarea, which you and your learned
friend Pamphilus have so much enriched, any early
Hebrew documents about the great Nazarene and his
apostles 1 It has occurred to me, that here in this
country, where those great events happened, some two
centuries and a half ago, on ground within a day s
journey from where I stand, that here, if anywhere,,
from the lips of a bishop born in Palestine, I should
obtain the information that I desire.” .
11 I regret to say,” answered Eusebius, “that not a
scrap of genuine Christian writing in Hebrew can be
found in all the Churches of Palestine and Syria. There
are some contemptible heretics, the lowest of mankind,
who possess something in Hebrew ; a heap of corrup
tion and forgery now, whatever it may have once been.
It is a remarkable fact, that in the country where the
Lord Jesus taught, and where his apostles preached
and founded churches for forty years, not a relic of
authentic Christian documents in the vernacular of
their time can be found. If it existed, I should cer-
�2 8 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
tainly have laid my hands upon it.” “And yet,” said
the Jew, “ among those thousands of disciples whom
they made, comprising a great multitude of the priests,
who, as your Greek history affirms, were obedient to
the faith, there must have been numbers, who, for the
sake of their own and of future generations, would be
able and forward to write much in their own ton°-ue
about the wonderful words and works that had to°be
for ever remembered : it seems but a brief space of
time in which everything they wrote has perished.”
“ So it may appear,” was the reply : “ but do you infer
from that that the truth and certainty of the Catholic
faith have suffered any diminution 1 You will give me
no offence by speaking out boldly what you think.”
“ Then, learned Eusebius, I shall be pardoned if I con
fess that to many of us Jews, who have so jealously
guarded through all the agonies which we have en
dured every tittle of that Hebrew revelation which
God gave to us, the fact that you Christians have no
Hebrew vouchers of any kind to show, does appear to
throw a little discredit on your story.” “What is the
use of running your head against a hard fact ? ” replied
Eusebius. “ Here are the Christian churches of Pales
tine, all Greek-speaking communities, except a few of
the. very meanest of the people, all worshipping and
praising God in the Greek tongue, and all descended
by succession never interrupted, as all the world knows
and confesses, from the Hebrew apostles; having the
faith and the ritual, the Hymns and the Scriptures which
have been from the days of the apostles ; but we have
them in Greek : because Greek, after the fearful and
unparalleled convulsions through which this unhappy
land has passed, has driven out the Hebrew. And you
are standing there prepared to prove, I suppose, that
such a transformation of Hebrew churches into Greek
churches is impossible, without the co-existence of He
brew documents, whose preservation through the storms
of two centuries has been impracticable, and would
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 29
have been useless, if practicable. You remind me of
the gentleman, who, finding his friend in the stocks,
began, after hearing his story, to demonstrate to him
by law, that it was impossible for any man to be put
into the stocks, under the like circumstances j to
which the prisoner replied, That is all very learned
but here I am verily in the stocks. The reasoner was
merely running his head, like you, against a fact. I
own, we have lost, to all appearance, every Hebrew
document of our origins. But here we are the one
Catholic and Apostolic church for all that, with all our
documents complete.” “ Such illustrations, replied the
Jew, “are ingenious, and may be useful in the teaching
of children. Suppose that your steward should come
into your library with his account-book in one hand,
and his cash-box in the other ; that the book showed
that in his hands was a balance due to you of 100
minas, while his cash-box contained but 50. You begin
to object to the arrangement: he replies, Figures are one
thing, facts are another: the cash-box speaks for it
self, and that is the fact : count for yourself, and do
not run your head against a fact. That would hardly
diminish your curiosity about what was become of the
other fifty. Pardon me, if I seem too bold. I will not
discuss against you the Question of Hebrew documents
and Liturgies. May I ask for information on two points
only. What is known about Hebrew writing by the
hand of Jesus of Nazareth ? And what is known about
such writing by any of his apostles 1 ”
Eusebius—I am not aware that any writing was
ever spoken of from the hand of the Lord Jesus, except
that short epistle to King Abgarus at Edessa, which
you read at the beginning of my ecclesiastical history.
And to tell you the truth, I half suspect now that I
was taken in in the matter of that letter.
Jew.—That disarms criticism on the truth of the
story. But I must be permitted to say, as one of those
to whom you have given the trouble of reading such
�30 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
nonsense, that if your history is handed down to future
times, as the first attempt to distinguish, as you pretend
to do, between what is genuine and what is spurious in
Christian documents, men will form their judgments on
your trustworthiness, by your long and most positive
detail of what is to be read to this day, as you say, in
the public records of Edessa. These are your words :
‘ There is nothing like listening to the very letters,
which we have taken from the archives,* and have
translated in this manner in the exact words from the
Syrian tongue.’ Of course you do not precisely affirm
what the ordinary reader must infer, that you had ever
seen that Syrian document, or even a copy of it, and
translated it yourself. You were taken in ; and I dare
say you paid handsomely for such a treasure to be the
frontispiece of your history, which occupies, I thinly
rather more space than what you give to your account
of the four gospels. My chief anxiety is to learn what
you know of Hebrew writings by the first disciples of
Jesus.
Eusebius.—All the information that I can give you
on that point is what you read in my history about the
Hebrew gospel of Matthew. Thus : “ So then, of all
the disciples of the Lord, Matthew and John have left
us two memoirs only. And the story goes, that they
took up their pens at the spur of compulsion. Matthew,
when about to depart for some other quarter, gave to
the Hebrews in writing, in their native tongue, the
gospel according to him which he had before preached
to them, and thus made a compensation by a written
document for the loss of his own presence, to those
from whom he was fetched away.” ‘ to /.s/vov rr avrou
vapoveia tovtoiq dp’ay FtfrskXero oia
ypatpr^ u.kzkMipov.’ Then follows the statement of the pressing
reason which induced John to write, namely, to supply
an account of the acts of Jesus before John was cast
into prison.
* eTTiaToXuv airo tu>v dpxeluv 'qiMv avaXT]<f>Geio'2ii>.
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 31
Jew.—I must press for some explanation of tlie
■complete loss of the precious Hebrew gospel, in the
course of two centuries. It must have disappeared
above a lifetime ago, or else your learned predecessors
would have secured a copy of it.
Eusebius.—Its loss is of very small consequence,
•since we have the Gospel of Matthew in the exact and
final form in which he meant it to be diffused over the
•civilized world, in the only form in which that diffusion
is best secured, in Greek. How the Hebrew copy
came to be lost, I know not, nor am I bound to tell.
But if you Jews can produce it, or any other Hebrew
writing, we are ready to face the comparison of it with
the Greek which we have preserved. Or, if you have
any evidence of remissness or dishonesty on our part,
you will not offend me by bringing it forward. It is
wonderfully difficult to preserve manuscripts in a perish
ing language. Suppose that I could have the good
fortune to discover a copy of the Hebrew Matthew, I
should carefully deposit it in our library of Cesarea.
But that would not guarantee its existence one hundred
years hence. Some stupid or fanatical official in days
to come might cast it away as so much Ebionitish or
Jewish rubbish; or, in order to make room for some
thing else, he might sell the parchment, if it was good,
to those who make their living by erasing ancient
writing and covering the pages with something more
saleable.
Jew.—Ah 1 You know well, learned Eusebius, that
you would do more than place a copy in your library.
If the discovered Hebrew were a verification of your
Greek Matthew, it would become renowned over the
Christian world as a priceless treasure, infinitely more
valuable than gold or precious stones. Copies of it
would soon be carefully enshrined at all the great
centres of your faith, and no library of any see would
be thought complete without it. It would be impos
sible for that Hebrew text ever to be lost, while
�32 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
Christian creeds and dignities endure. Weakest of all
is your remark, that its preservation would have been
useless even if practicable. Was it of no use, when it
was the only written means of teaching your faith to
the countless thousands who then spoke the various
Syriac and Chaldean dialects, and knew not a word of
Greek, while that Hebrew of Palestine would have been
intelligible? Was it of no use to the nation of the
Jews, amoDg whom, you say, their God was incarnate ?
Would it be of no use now to the myriads of orientals
who could understand it, and cannot understand Greek ?
Would it be of no use to silence me and other men of
learning among my brethren, who consider its loss so
fatal to your evidences ? Affect not to think it would
have been useless. As you have given me leave to
speak, I will candidly tell you what impression is made
on my mind by your account of the Hebrew gospel of
Matthew. When you began to write that history, you
knew as well as now the importance of the question,
What is become of that Hebrew gospel? You were
reluctant to suggest such an enquiry to the reader, yet
naturally desirous of hinting an answer to it, the best
in your power, ready for the time when it should be
raised. Ostensibly you are answering this enquiry,—
how came it to pass that only two of the disciples of
Jesus wrote memoirs? But I fancy I read a desire, of
which, perhaps, you were but half conscious, to meet
and to push aside the query, Why has that Hebrew
gospel been lost ? Out of what you say a good pleader
could extract some explanation like this : the Hebrew
gospel was hardly intended for the whole church, nor
was it of essential importance that it should be pre
served : it arose on a temporary emergency: it answered
a temporary purpose among a certain section of Christians
whom Matthew taught: it was to supply his place for
a season while absent on a sudden journey : Matthew’s
full and final gospel is what we possess. This is not
exactly said; but it is cleverly left to be inferred. It
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 33
is in quite another tone that your divines speak of the
majesty of the Greek first gospel, the leading book of
the church’s treasure for all ages and all nations. But
let that pass. It is no part of my business to-day to
ask how the Greek Matthew came into existence. None
of you pretends to have a ray of light as to when or
where, or by what hand, the supposed translation out
of the Hebrew was made.
What a marvellous contrast there is between the
blaze of historic light which rests as you acknowledge
on the details of time and place concerning the writings
of those two Jews, Philo and Josephus, one contempo
rary with Jesus, the other immediately following him,
and the mysterious unfathomable darkness which hides
from criticism and research all certainty about the birth
place, the time, nay, even the real authorship of these
more modern books of yours, your Gospels, and your
Acts of the Apostles !
Eusebius.—For any thing that you have shewn, or are
able to shew to the contrary, our Greek Matthew may
be no translation at all, but the work just as we have
it of Matthew’s own hand. The greater number of
our learned men affirm this to be so, and I defy you to
disprove the ’assigned authorship of our other books.
Jew.'—-If Matthew wrote Greek, or John either, he
wrote it by miracle. Recourse must be had to the gift
of tongues to defend your account of your oldest Greek
document, the gift of tongues being proved only by a
later Greek document. That is hardly logical enough
to convert a Jew, either now or a thousand years hence.
I will intrude no further upon you, except to ask a
question about your testimony concerning the Ebionites,
those poor despised heretics, half Jew, half Christian.
In your third book, chap, xxv., in your enumeration of
spurious Christian books, after observing about the
Revelation of St John, 1 This some set aside, while
others enumerate it among our accepted sacred books,’
you proceed thus : ‘ And there are some who count
�34 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
among these also the Gospel of the Hebrews, in which
they among the Hebrews who have' received Christ
take special delight.’ Do you mean by ‘ among these,’
among the accepted, or among the spurious books ?
Eusebius.—There is indeed a little ambiguity tested
by strict grammar, but, of course, I mean to put that
( Gospel of the Hebrews ’ among the spurious books.
This is evident from the chapter xxvii., in which I
record that “ the Ebionites use only the Gospel of the
Hebrews, making small account of the other gospels,
and rejecting the Epistles of Paul, whom they designate
an apostate from the law.”
Jew.—Allow me to state one final consideration,
which has great weight in my mind. You say that
Peter, as well as Paul, preached at Rome, and that
Peter was the first Bishop at Rome. Would Peter
forget, when he departed for Rome, that the only
record of those exact divine words which gave him the
pre-eminence among the apostles was in the Hebrew
Gospel of Matthew 1 Would he have no Hebrew train
of enthusiastic followers and admirers when he came
to found the glorious pedigree of that imperial see?
And would they all forget it too ? Eorsooth they were
content to carry with them a mere translation into
Latin or Greek of words like these—‘ Blessed art thou,
Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood have not revealed
it unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven.’
‘ And I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon
this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee
the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever
thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed
in heaven.’—Matt. xvi. 17. Or words like these—
‘ And if he shall neglect to hear the Church, let him be
to thee as a heathen man and a publican.’—Matt, xviii.
17. If that gospel had existed in Hebrew exactly as you
have it in Greek, that famous play on the name Cephas
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 35
would have decorated in the original tongue thousands
of sermons and episcopal allocutions in both the Greek
and Latin Churches, the genuine pun, not the poor
imitation of it that figures in the gospels in those two
languages. The Hebrew gospel would, so surely as the
crescent moon fills her orb, have been carried to Home,
where it never could have been lost, as well as the
Hebrew of much that is not in Matthew, as the hymns
of Mary and of Simeon, if their use in Christian worship
is so old as it is pretended to be. Inspired hymns do
not easily perish from old liturgies. And above all, the
Hebrew words for hoc est corpus meum which have
become such a terrific mystery, these at least would
have been as familiar as the cry upon the cross, if what
you all say be true about their origin and import in the
first apostolic churches. Your story is not all true.”
Hereupon followed much debate on the evidences.
The main argument, and what we most of us appeared
to rely upon as a confutation of all scepticism, was the
.conversion and testimony of Paul, in comparison of
which the objection from the disappearance of Hebrew
originals appeared to us a trifle. The high churchmen
diverted themselves greatly with the notion of the Jew
that the church’s tradition about the mysterious import
of the eucharistic formula was enfeebled by the absence
of the Hebrew for it in Christian antiquity ; and they
made much of Paul’s testimony in Cor. xi. to that
universal bond of connexion by those awful words
with the very lips of the Saviour; which testimony they
held to be all the more weighty from the confessed
differences that existed between Paul’s school and that
of the apostles at Jerusalem. The Jew said boldly,
that while he held the first epistle to the Corinthians
to be by the hand of Paul, he did not believe that that
apostle ever wrote the passage between the 22d and
33d verses of the 11th chapter. All the proof of the
negative which he had to offer was, first, the antiritualistic teaching of Paul, and secondly, what he
�36 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View:
called the manifest breach of continuity in the locus
and the train of thought, which continuity is perfect if
the ten verses be removed. Before and after, said he,
we have a scene in which people bring their own victuals,
and eat in social estrangement, not waiting for each
other, while some are hungry, and others commit
excess. In the interpolation, as he called it, we
have almost the full-blown eucharistic magic of later
times lugged in by force, with a sermon about it un
worthy of Paul. But we all remarked how much
easier it was to say that than to prove it j and this bit
of criticism so turned the laugh against the Jew as
to deaden partly the effect of his previous argument.
“ The anachronism,” said he, 11 is glaring. It is im
possible that devout men, who had from the first been
tutored by the apostle in the style of that sermon,
would have brought themselves under his lash for such
irregularities. And the anti-climax in the two senses
of the word nfiiJM (vv. 29-34) which the English
translators have faithfully. rendered 1 damnation ’ and
‘ condemnation,’ betrays the bungler.”
Here Mr P. said, “Time presses: I must adjourn
our debate. We have learned what is both new and
important; and if we be not all knaves and cowards,
we shall face this question again. Can we doubt that
good Dean Alford, if he were living and with us to
day, would confess his error about Greek being under
stood at Jerusalem ? I withdraw my first objection to
the reasoning of Dr Marcus; and I return to the ques
tion which I proposed to you at the beginning—Shall
I baptize this Jew?” He then left the library, and
returned with a china basin in one hand and a caraffe
in the other. Setting them down, he said, “Of a
truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons;
but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh
righteousness, is accepted with Him. 1 Can any man
forbid water,’ that this Jew should not be baptized,
who has ‘ received the Holy Ghost as well as we,’ and.
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
is so much nearer to us in sentiment and learning than
was the heathen Cornelius? Speak, if you object;
but give me a reason?’ No man spoke. Then, turning
to the Jew, he solemnly said, in the exact Greek of
Paul, iav 6fjJo\o'y7]<rrjs sv rw (Sto/jmti (Sou Kupiov ’IjjffW,
.x.r.k., i.e., “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth
Jesus as Master, and shalt believe in thine heart that
God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved.” The Jew answered in the same Greek of Paul,
'O/AoXoyw 'K.upiov ’iytsouv, tl.t.T.., i.e., “I confess Jesus
for Master, and I believe in my heart that God hath
raised Him from the dead.” “ Wilt thou be baptized
in this faith ? ” asked P. “I will,” was the answer.
Then, after pouring out water, P. took him lov
ingly by the hand, and bestowing on him his own
name as he sprinkled his brow, said, “ Henry, I
baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Let us pray.” We all
fervently joined him in the Lord’s Prayer, and we
added most devout Amens to the collects which he
selected. When we rose, after his benediction, from
our knees, two of our number were missing. E. and
his curate had stolen away in silent horror, unable, as
they afterwards explained it, to continue breathing
that atmosphere of infidelity. All present warmly
greeted their new Christian brother, and I was not the
only one who tried to persuade him to seek ordination
in the Church of England, and to join the growing
array of Broad and Deep Believers, with whom our
Priests and priestlings, notwithstanding their noisy
silence and woman-winning charms, have imminent
before them that dangerous reckoning. Is there a
■single dignitary, or aspirant to dignity among them,
said I to myself, who has the manhood to face this
Jew ? Silence is all their' panoply: and silence, in the
presence of History, becomes the quibblers well.
Dr Marcus was requested to state briefly what was
his conception of the facts of the origin of Christianity.
�38 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
He said, “ It is a blunder to talk of one Christianity
rising out of one Judaism. There were two Judaisms :
one the priestly and profligate Judaism of Palestine,
with its hatreds, its ignorant bigotry, its ridiculousletter worship, and its lunatic messianic delusions; the
other, that of the cultured Jews outside Palestine,
whose language was Greek, and whose principal centre
was Alexandria. These two parties had little love for
each other. Josephus informs us how the knowledge
of any tongue besides that of the old Law and the
Prophets was discouraged and despised at Jerusalem.
That was the accomplishment of slaves ! It was a
much admired saying of a Eabbi of Judea, t Cursed is
the man who breeds pigs ; cursed is he who has his
children taught Greek.’ The Jewish thinkers, the men
of science and philosophy, such as it then was, were all
men of Greek training, to many of whom Hebrew was
a foreign tongue. The Septuagint had utterly displaced
among them the original Scriptures. These men
detested the arrogance and airs of . superior sanctity put
on by the butchering priests and drivelling Pharisees
of Jerusalem, and they deplored the ignorance and
immorality of the multitudes who had no idea of
religion beyond the bloody superstitions of the temple.
And there were two first Gospels. Christianity was
the natural and double resultant along two lines of
least resistance of moral and social forces long in conflict.
It was a necessity for Jewish thought and progress,
that the mad visions of a conquering Messiah should
cease, that the waU of hatred which divided Jews from
•. the nations should be thrown down, that the baleful
power of the priesthood should be broken, that the
increasing profligacy of the worshippers who fattened
them should be abated.
“ The character of Jesus, his power over men’s hearts,
his daring attacks on priestcraft and hypocrisy, and
his shocking sufferings from sacerdotal vengeance, gave
occasion to the grand solving movement, and kindled the
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 39
flame of faith in a suffering and risen Christ, soon to
return. On one hand were the believers of Palestine,
for the most part still unmitigated Jews, among whom
thousands of hearts were touched with remorse that
they and their people had crucified the Lord of Glory,
Prince of Life, and the Great Teacher of Love : to this
party belonged the majority of the immediate disciples
of Jesus. On the other hand was the grand army
of progress, the Hellenistic Jews and the Gentile Greeks,
with whom, to the horror of the churches in Judaea,
they consorted. Paul led the van, he who was both a
Hebrew of the Hebrews, and a cultured Grecian. He
preached the suffering Christ who had been revealed
among the people, the risen Christ, by faith in whom
the distinction of Jew and Gentile was for ever at an
end. To Paul the human personality of the wondrous
carpenter’s son was unknown and of small consequence :
nowhere does he make allusion to him, «.e., to “Christ
after the flesh.” He threw all his noble energy and heart
into the work of preaching him whom the people had so
fortunately found, and set him forth as the object of
passionate loyalty and love to Jew and Gentile alike,
and as the divinely-ruling head of the great body in
which all were to be one. And when he spoke ‘ wisdom
among them that were perfect,’ he knew how to clothe
the majesty of that risen Christ with the magnificent
robes which had long been embroidered by the Alex
andrian philosophy of the Logos, a philosophy which
the sacerdotal horde which followed him, with their
sure instinct of provision for the widest and best
paying popular demand, easily transformed into Catholic
Polytheism, protected by murderous anathemas and,
too soon, laws. The helpers of Paul were the devout
men of science of the day: however widely they dif
fered in their daring speculations about the Infinite,
they were all the foes of the old priestcraft, ignorance
and hatred, and bold assertors of freedom in debate.
The adherents of the Jerusalem preachers of Christ,
�40 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
and those of the Hellenist party, repelled each other
as strongly as the older divisions of Judaism. The lat
ter grew and grew, till a sufficient number of different
orders of society had joined the movement to make it
worth the while of shrewd priests and practical men to
take command of it: and this issued in the construc
tion of those sacerdotal jumbles of Judaism and Pagan
ism, decided improvements on the worst forms of both,
which the nations have been pleased to call Orthodoxy.
Already, in the days of Eusebius, the cursing priests
had completely driven out the men of science, and the
chains which for a brief season had been broken were
reimposed on human ^thought and conscience. The
narrower and more impracticable Judseo-Christian
churches of Palestine had dwindled by degrees, after the
desolation of Judsea, down to what the dominant
priestly conquerors of the free Hellenist movement
called the Ebionite heresy. These probably had among
them either the Hebrew composition of Matthew, or
something founded upon it. The churches of Palestine
in the days of Eusebius were no more the descendants
of the first Hebrew Christian communities, than the
landowners of Ireland are the descendants of the old
Celts and Milesians. The Greek church there was an
invasion of foreigners, whose heresy-hunters must
have made wholesale destruction of the memorials and
documents of the first Hebrew-speaking churches of the
land.” In such style did the Jew express himself.
He ended by recommending us to read a tract which
lay in rough proof on P.’s table, “Our First Century,”
published- by Thomas Scott. “It is the work of a
vigorous and learned searcher after truth,” said he ; “I
never saw a pamphlet in any language which contains
in the same compass so much valuable information
about the sublimest problem of history. Yet I do not
agree with all its propositions.”
I have thought it may be a contribution to the great
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 41
question which is every day more forcing itself into open
discussion, that of the value of our foul sectarian divi
sions and cursing creeds, to place these views and argu
ments of a devout Jew, of scientific habits of thought,
before the reader who shares my devotion and loyalty
to him who said before his torturers : “ To this end was
I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I
should bear witness unto the truth ; ” the old truth, of
Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, of Moses and the Prophets.
“ Let them hear them.” So long as we put our
trust in conjuring and pardoning Priests of no sex, orin semi-sacerdotal Preachers of no science, so long will
there be robbery of Glory to God in the highest,’ and
hindrance to ‘ Peace on earth, and good will towards,
men.’
Croft Rectory, Aw/7. 7, 1873.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH..
�
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Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of view. [Part I]
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4-
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
ON THE
PENTATEUCH:
A Comprehensive Summary of Bishop Colenso’s Argu
ment,
cally
Proving that the Pentateuch is not Histori
True; and that it was composed by several
WRITERS, THE EARLIEST OF WHOM LIVED IN THE TIME OF
\
Samuel, from 1100 to 1060 B. C., and the latest in
time of Jeremiah, from 641 to 624 B. C.
the
PREFACE.
The author of the book of which this pamphlet is an ab
stract is not an Infidel, but a Bishop of the Church of England,
having charge of the Diocese of Natal, in South Africa. While
engaged in the translation of the Scriptures into the Zulu tongue,
with the aid of intelligent natives, he was brought face to face
with questions which in former days had caused him some uneasi
ness, but with respect to which he had been enabled to satisfy his
mind sufficiently for practical purposes, as a Christian minister,
by means of the specious explanations given in most commenta
ries on the Bible, and had settled down into a willing acquies
cence in the general truth of the narrative of the Old Testament,
whatever difficulties might still hang about particular parts of it.
�ii
PREFACE.
But while translating the story of the Flood, a simple-minded but
intelligent native, with the docility of a child but the reasoning
powers of mature age, looked up and asked: “ Is all that true ?
Do you really believe that all the beasts, birds, and creeping
things, from hot countries and cold, came thus by pairs and en
tered Noah’s ark ? And did Noah gather food for them all; for
the beasts and birds of prey as well as the rest ? ” The Bishop
had recently acquired sufficient knowledge of geology to know
that a universal Deluge, such as is described in Genesis, could not
have taken place. So his heart answered in the words of the
Prophet, “ Shall a man speak lies in the name of the Lord ? ”
(Zech, xiii., 3.) He dared not do so, but gave the brother such a
reply as satisfied him for the time, without throwing any dis
credit upon the general veracity of the Bible history. But being
driven to search more deeply into these questions, the Bishop
wrote to a friend in England to send him the best books on both
sides of the question of the credibility of the Mosaic history. His
friend sent him the works of Ewald and Kurtz, the former in
German and the latter in an English translation. Laying Ewald
on the shelf, he studied Kurtz, who maintained with great zeal
and ability tho historical accuracy of the Pentateuch. He then
grappled with Ewald, who maintained an opposite view. The
result of the Bishop’s study, with the aid of a few other German
books, appeared in the first volume of his work issued in 1862,
followed soon after by four more volumes. The books met with
a very large sale in England. The first two volumes only aro
published as yet in this country. Perhaps the demand would not
encourage the republication of the complete set. A great deal
of the work is made up of apology, much more of answers to
orthodox expositors and critics who have attempted to explain the
very difficulties which presented themselves to the inquiring mind
of the author, and a large part of the last three volumes consists
of elaborate criticism, and a presentation of various portions of
the Pentateuch attributed to the different writers thereof. In
this Abstract all those portions are passed by, the object being to
compress into the smallest practicable compass the gist of the
whole argument. Should the reader wish to see what can be said
in answer to the very criticisms which Colenso makes, he will find
it fairly presented and candidly considered by the author in his
complete work.
�VOL. I.
INCREDIBLE NARRATIVES OF THE PENTATEUCH.
In Vol. I. Bishop Colenso shows, by means of a number of
prominent instances, that the books of the Pentateuch contain, in
their own account of the story which they profess to relate, such
remarkable contradictions, and involve such plain impossibilities,
that they cannot be regarded as true narratives of actual histori
cal matters of fact. Passing over the many difficulties which ex
ist in the earlier parts of the history, he begins at once with the
account of the Exodus.
THE FAMILY OF JUDAH.
Judah was forty-two years old when he went down with Jacob
into Egypt, being three years older than his brother Joseph, who
was then thirty-nine. For “Joseph was thirty years old when
he stood before Pharaoh ” (G. xli. 46) ; and from that time nine
years elapsed (seven of plenty and two of famine) before Jacob
came down into Egypt. Judah was born in the fourth year of
Jacob’s double marriage (G. xxix. 35), being the fourth of the
seven children of Leah born in seven years; and Joseph was born
of Rachel in the seventh year (G. xxx. 24, 26; xxi. 41). In these
forty-two years of Judah’s life the following events are recorded
in G. xxxviii.:
He grows up, marries, and has three sons. The eldest grows
up, marries, and dies. The second son marries his brother’s widow
and dies. The third son, after waiting to grow to maturity, de
clines to marry the widow. The widow then deceives Judah him
self, and bears him twins—Pharez and Zarah. One of these twins
grows up and has two sons—Hezron and Hamul—born to him be
fore Jacob goes down into Egypt.
ALL THE PEOPLE AT THE DOOR OF THE TABERNACLE.
Moses, at the command of Jehovah, gathered “ all the congre
gation together unto the door of the tabernacle.” (L. viii. 1-4.)
�4
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
By “ all the congregation ” is meant the whole body of the peo
ple, or at all events the main body of adult males in the prime
of life, as is shown by numerous texts where the expression is
used. (E. xvi. 2; L. xxiv. 14 ; N. i. 18.) In Jo. viii. 35, the
women and children are included. The mass of the male adults
must have numbered more than the number of warriors, which is
nowhere fixed at less than 600,000. Now the whole width of the
tabernacle was only eighteen feet, as may be gathered from E.
xxvi., so that a close column of 600,000 men covering this front,
allowing two feet in width and eighteen inches in depth for each
full-grown man, would have reached back nearly twenty miles ;
or if the column covered the whole width of the court, which was
ninety feet, it would have extended back nearly four miles. The
whole court of the tabernacle comprised not more than 1,692
square yards, after deducting the area of the tabernacle itself,
which covered 108 square yards, and therefore could have held only
5,000 people closely packed. The ministering Levites “ from thirty
to fifty years old ” numbered 8,580 (N. iv. 48); even they, conse
quently, could not all have stood within the court.
MOSES AND JOSHUA ADDRESSING ALL ISRAEL.
“ These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel.”
(D.i. 1.)
“ And Moses called all Israel and said unto them.” (D. v. 1.)
“ There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which
Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the
women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conver
sant among them.” (Jo. viii. 35.)
How was it possible to do this before at least 2,000,000 people ?
Could Moses or Joshua, as actual eye-witnesses, have expressed
themselves in such extravagant language ? Surely not.
EXTENT OF THE CAMP AND DUTIES OF THE PRIESTS.
The camp of the Israelites must have been at least a mile and
a half in diameter. This would be allowing to each person on
the average a space three times the size of a coffin for a fullgrown man. The ashes, offal, and refuse of the sacrifices would
therefore have to be carried by the priest in person a distance of
three-quarters of a mile “ without the camp, unto a clean place."
tL. iv. 11, 12.) There were only three priests, namely, Aaron,
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
5
Eleazer, and Ithamar, to do all this work for 2,000,000 people.
All the wood and water would have to be brought into this im
mense camp from the outside. Where could the supplies have
been got while the camp was under Sinai, in a desert, for nearly
twelve months together ? How could so great a camp have been
kept clean ?
But how huge does the difficulty become if we take the more
reasonable dimensions of twelve miles square for this camp ; that
is, about the size of London ! Imagine at least half a million of
men having to go out daily a distance of six miles and back, to
the suburbs, for the common necessities of nature, as the law
directed.
TWO NUMBERINGS SIX MONTHS APART ; EXACT COINCIDENCE.
In E. xxx. 11-13, Jehovah commanded Moses to take a census
of the children of -Israel, and in doing it to collect half a shekel
of the sanctuary as atonement money. This expression “ shekel
of the sanctuary ” is put into the mouth of Jehovah six or seven
months before the tabernacle was made. In E. xxxviii. 26, we
read of such a tribute being paid, but nothing is there said of any
census being taken, only the number of those who paid, from twenty
years old and upward, was 603,550 men. In N. i. 1-46, more than
six months after this occasion, an account of an actual census is
given, but no atonement money is mentioned. If in the first in
stance a census was taken, but accidentally omitted to be men
tioned, and in the second instance the tribute was paid but
accidentally omitted likewise, it is nevertheless surprising that the
number of adult males should have been identically the same
(603,550) on both occasions, six months apart.
THE ISRAELITES DWELLING IN TENTS.
The Israelites at their exodus were provided with tents (E. xvi.
16), in which they undoubtedly encamped and dwelt. They did
not dwell in tents in Egypt, but in “ houses ” with “ doors,” “ side
posts,” and “ lintels.” These tents must have been made either
of hair or of skin (E. xxvi. 7, 14, xxxvi. 14, 19)—more probably
of the latter—and were therefore much heavier than the modern
canvas tents. At least 200,000 were required to accommodate
2,000,000 people. Supposing they took these tents from Egypt,
how did they carry them in their hurried march to the Red Sea ?
�6
ABSTRACT OF COeENSO
The people had burdens enough without them. They had to
carry their kneading troughs with the dough uflleavened, their
clothes, their cooking utensils, couches, infants, aged and infirm
persons, and food enough, for at least a month’s use, or until
manna was provided for them in the wilderness, which was “ on
the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure out
of the land of Egypt” (E. xvi. 1.). One of these tents, with its
poles, pegs, etc , would be a load for a single ox, so that they
would have needed 200,000 oxen to carry the tents. But oxen
are not usually trained to carry goods on their backs, and will
not do so without training.
THE ISRAELITES ARMED.
“ The children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of
Egypt.” (E. xiii. 18.)
The marginal reading for “ harnessed ” is “ by five in rank.”
But as this would make of the 600,000 men a column sixty-eight
miles long, this translation only increases the difficulty, as it
would have taken several days to have started them all off. The
Hebrew word is elsewhere rendered “ armed,” or “ in battle array.”
Certainly about a month after the exodus the Israelites “ discom
fited ” the Amalekites “ with the edge of the sword.” (E. xvii.
13.) Hence they somehow possessed arms. And yet this army
of 600,000 had become so debased by long servitude that they
could not strike a single blow for liberty in Egypt, but could only
weakly wail and murmur against Moses, saying, “ It had been
better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in
the wilderness! ”
INSTITUTION OF THE PASSOVER.
The whole population of Israel were instructed in one single
day to keep the passover, and actually did keep it. (E. xii.) At
the first notice of any such feast, Jehovah said, “ I will pass
through the land of Egypt this night.” The passover was to be
killed “ at even ” on the same day that Moses received the com
mand. The women were at the same time ordered to borrow
jewels of their neighbors, the Egyptians. After midnight of the
same day the Israelites received notice to start for the wilderness.
No one was to go out of his house till morning, when they were
to take their hurried flight with their cattle and herds. How
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
7
could 2,000,000 people, scattered about over a wide district as they
must have been with their cattle and* herds, have gotten ready
and taken a simultaneous hurried flight at twelve hours’ notice ?
MARCH OUT OF EGYPT.
The Israelites, with their flocks and herds, reached the Red
Sea, a distance of from fifty to sixty miles over a sandy desert
in three days ! Marching fifty abreast, the able-bodied warri
ors alone would have filled up the road for seven miles, and the
whole multitude would have made a column twenty-two miles long,
so that the last of the body could not have been started until the
front had advanced that distance—more than two days’ journey
for such a mixed company. Then the sheep and cattle must have
formed another vast column, covering a much greater tract of
ground in proportion to their number. Upon what did these two
millions of sheep and oxen feed in the journey to the Red Sea
over a desert region, sandy, gravelly, and stony alternately ?
How did the people manage with the sick and infirm, and espe
cially with the 750 births that must have taken place in the three
days’ march ?
THE SHEEP AND CATTLE IN THE WILDERNESS.
The Israelites undoubtedly had flocks and herds of cattle.
(E. xxxiv. 3.)^ They sojourned nearly a year before Sinai, where
there was no feed for cattle; and the wilderness in which
they sojourned nearly forty years is now and was then a desert.
(D. xxxii. 10; viii. 15.) The cattle surely did not subsist on
manna !
EXTENT AND POPULATION OF THE LAND OF CANAAN.
The extent of land occupied by the Israelites in the time of
Joshua was about 11,000 square miles, or 7,000,000 acres—a little
larger than the State of Vermont. The number of Israelites was
not less than 2,000,000. This limited, mountainous, and by no
means fertile area of country, therefore, had to subsist these 2,000,000 people, and prior to their occupation of it had subsisted “ seven
nations greater and mightier ” than the Israelitish nation itself.
(D. vii, 1.)
�8
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
FECUNDITY OF THE HEBREW MOTHERS.
“ All the first-born males from a month old and upwards, of
those that were numbered, were 22,273.” (N. iii. 43.) The lowest
computation of the whole number of the people at that time is
2,000,000. The number of males would be 1,000,000. Dividing
the latter number by the number of first born gives 44, which
would be the average number of boys in each family, or about
88 children by each mother. Or, if where the first born were
females the males were not counted, the number of children by
each mother would be reduced to 44.
PRODIGIOUS INCREASE IN FOUR GENERATIONS.
The number of the children of Israel who went into Egypt
was 70 (E. i. 5). They sojourned in Egypt 215 years. It could
not have been 430 years, as would appear from E. xii. 40. The
marginal chronology makes the period 215 years, and there were
only four generations to the exodus, namely, Levi, Kohath, Amram, and Moses (E. vi. 16, 18, 20). How could these people have
increased in 215 years from 70 souls so as to number 600,000 war
riors ? It would have required an average number of 46 children
to each father. The 12 sons of Jacob had between them only 53
sons. At this rate of increase, in the fourth generation there
would have been only 6,311 males, provided they were all living
at the time of the exodus, instead of 1,000,000. If we add the
fifth generation, who would be mostly children, the total number
of males would not have exceeded 28,465.
EXTRAORDINARY INCREASE OF THE DANITES.
Dan in the first generation had but one son (G. xlvi. 23), and
yet in the fourth generation his descendants had increased to
62,700 warriors (N. ii. 26), or 64,400 (N. xxvi. 43). Each of his
sons and grandsons must have had about 80 children of both
sexes. On the other hand, the Levites increased the number of
“ males from a month old and upwards ” during the 38 years in
the wilderness only from 22,000 to 23,000 (N. iii. 39, xxvi. 62)
and the tribe of Manasseh during the same time increased from
32,200 (N. i. 35) to 52,700 (xxvi. 34).
IMPOSSIBLE DUTIES OF THE PRIESTS.
Aaron and his two sons were the only priests during Aaron’s
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
9
ifetime. They had to make all the burnt offerings on a single
11 tar nine feet square (E. xxxvii. 1), besides attending to other
priestly duties for 2,000,000 people. At the birth of every child,
both a burnt offering and a sin offering had to be made. The
number of births must be reckoned at least 250 a day, for
which consequently 500 sacrifices would have to be offered daily
-—an impossible duty to be performed by three priests. For poor
women pigeons were accepted instead of lambs. If half of
them offered pigeons, and only one instead of two, it would have
required 90,000 pigeons annually for this purpose alone. Where
did they get the pigeons ? How could they have had them at all
under Sinai ? There were thirteen cities where the presence of
these three priests was required (Jo. xxi. 19). The three priests
had to eat a large portion of the burnt offerings (N. xviii. 10) and
,all the' sin offerings—250 pigeons a day—more than 80 for each
priest.
IMPOSSIBLE SACRIFICES AT THE PASSOVER.
In keeping the second passover under Sinai, 150,000 lambs
must have been killed, i. e., one for each family (E. xii. 3, 4). The
Lecites slew them, and the three priests had to sprinkle the
blood from their hands (1 Chr. xxx. 16, xxxv. 11). The killing
had to be done “ between two evenings ” (E. xii. 6), and the
sprinkling had to be done in about two hours. The kifiing must
have been done in the .court of the tabernacle (L. i. 3, 5, xvii.
2-6). The area of the court could have held but 5,000 people at
most. Here the lambs had to be sacrificed at the rate of 1,250 a
minute, and each of the three priests had to sprinkle the blood of
more than 400 lambs every minute for two hours.
INCREDIBLE SLAUGHTER.
The number of warriors of the Israelites, as recorded at the
exodus, was 600,000 (E. xii. 37); subsequently it was 603,530
(E. xxxviii. 25-28), and at the end of their wanderings it was
601,730 (N. xxvi. 51). But in 2 Chr. xiii. 3 Abijah, king of Judah,
brings 400,000 men against Jeroboam, king of Israel, with
800,000, and “ there fell down slain of Israel 500,000 chosen men ”
(®. 17). On another occasion, Pekah, king of Israel, slew of Ju
dah in one day 120,000 valiant men (2 Chr. xxviii. 6.)
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ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
UNPARALLELED PRODIGY OF VALOR.
Among other prodigies of valor, 12,000 Israelites are recorded
in. N. xxxi. as slaying all the male Midis nites, taking captive all
the females and children, seizing all their cattle and flocks, num
bering 808,000 head, taking all their goods and burning all their
cities, without the loss of a single man. Then they killed all the
women and children except 32,000 virgins, whom they kept for
themselves. There would seem to have been at least 80,000
females in the aggregate, of whom 48,000 were killed, besides
(say) 20,000 boys. The number of men slaughtered must have
been about 48,000. Each Israelite therefore must have killed four
men in battle, carried off eight captive women and children, and
driven home sixty-seven head of cattle. And then after reaching
home, as a pastime, by command of Moses, he had to murder six
of his captive women and children in cold blood.
II
IRRECONCILABLE DIFFICULTIES.
In vol. II. Bishop Colenso devotes a preface and a first chapter
to the maintenance of the criticisms of vol. I. He shows that it
is impossible to apply any system of reduction to the exaggerated
numbers given in every part of the Pentateuch, without encoun
tering difficulties and contradictions quite as- formidable as those
presented by him. He then proceeds to investigate the question
of the real origin, age, and authorship of the different portions of
the Pentateuch and other early books of the Bible, and makes the
following points :
CONTRADICTORY STORY OF THE CREATION AND DELUGE.
The cosmogony of the 2d chapter of Genesis is contradictory
to that of chapter 1 in six particulars, the chief of which is, that
in the first chapter the birds and beasts are created before man,
and in the second after man. Again, in the first account Adam
find Eve are created together, completing the work of creation,
and in the second man is first made, then the beasts and birds,
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
11
and lastly woman. It is therefore apparent that the two accountg
were written by different men j and this is corroborated by the
use of the name Lord God (Jehovah Elohim) in chapter 2, while
in chapter 1 it is simply God (Elohim).
A similar criticism is applied to the story of the flood, which
is evidently composed by two different writers, one making Noah
take into the ark animals of every kind, including clean beasts,
by twos (G. vii. 8, 9), and the other making him take in the clean
beasts by sevens (v. 2, 5). In this story, as in that of tne cre
ation, one writer uses the name of God simply, and the other
Lord God.
ELOHISTIC AND JEHOVISTIC WRITERS.
The book of Genesis bears evidence throughout of being the
work of two different writers, one of whom is distinguished by
the constant use of the word Elohim (translated “ God ”), and the
other by the admixture with it of the name Jehovah (translated
“ Lord ”). The Elohistic passages, taken together, form a very
tolerably connected whole, only interrupted here and there by a
break caused apparently by the Jehovistic writer having removed
some part of the Elohistic narrative, replacing it, perhaps, by one
of his own. Thus there are two contradictory accounts of the
creation and of the deluge intermingled.
THE PENTATEUCH COMPOSED EONG AFTER MOSES’S DEATn.
The books of the Pentateuch are never ascribed to Moses in
the inscriptions of Hebrew manuscripts, or anywhere else, except
in our modern translations. They must have been composed
at a later age than that of Moses or Joshua, as is shown by nu
merous passages that speak of places and things by names that
were not known nor given till long after the death of these men.
For example, Gilgal, mentioned in D. xi. 30, was not given as the
name of that place till after the entrance into Canaan (Jo. v. 9).
Lan, mentioned in G. xiv. 14, was not so called till long after the
time of Moses (Jo. xix. 47). In G xxxvi. 31, the beginning of
the reign of kings over Israel is spoken of historically, an event
which did not occur before the time of Samuel.
THE BOOK OF JOSHUA WRITTEN IN DAVID’S LIFETIME.
In Josh. x. 12-14, the miracle of the sun and moon standing
�12
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
still is recorded, and in verse 13 these words are found: “Is not
this written in the Book ci Jasher?” Now, in 2 Sam. i. 18, we
read that David “ hade them teach the children of .Tudah the use
of the bow. Behold, it is written in the book of Jasher.” The
natural inference is, that this book was written not earlier than
the time of David, and the above passage in the bcok of Joshua
was written of course after that.
THE BOOKS OE KINGS WRITTEN AS LATE AS 561 B. C.
The Books of Kings seem to have been written as late, at least,
as 561 B. C., because in 2 Kings xxv. 27-30, mention is made of
Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, taking Jehoiachin, king of
Judah, out of prison, and feeding him “ all the days of his life.”
Evil-merodach came to the throne 561 B. C., and reigned two
years.
THE CHRONICLES WRITTEN ABOUT 400 B. C.
The author of the Books of Chronicles was probably a priest
or Levite, who wrote about 400 B. C. or nearly 200 years after
the captivity, and 650 years after David came to the throne.
These books go over the same grounds as the books of Samuel
and Kings, and often in the very same words. The Chronicles
are very inaccurate, and often contradictory to Samuel and Kings.
In 1 Chr. iii. 19-21, we have the following genealogy : Zerubbabel, Hananiah, Pelatiah; so that the Book was written after the
birth of Zerubbabfel’s grandson, and Zerubbabel was the leader
of the expedition which returned to Jerusalem after the decree
of Cyrus, 536 B. C.
EZRA AND NEHEMIAH WRITTEN AFTER 456 B. C.
The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah were, of course, written
after 456 B. C., when Ezra arrived at Jerusalem. Nehemiah’s
last act of reformation was in 409 B. C., and yet in Neh. xii. 11,
we have given the genealogy of Jaddua, who was high priest in
Alexander’s time, 332 B. C.
FIRST INTRODUCTION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH.
In E. vi. 2-8, God says to Moses: “ By my name Jehovah was
I not known to them ” (the patriarchs), and yet the name Jehovah,
translated Lord, is repeatedly used in the book of Genesis.’ If
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
13
the name originated in the days of Moses, he certainly would
not, in writing the story of the Pentateuch, have put it into the
mouths of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (G. xiv. 22,
xxvi. 22, xxviii. 16), much less into that of a heathen man,
Abimelech (xxvi. 28). The contradiction is explained by the fact
that two different writers were concerned in composing the nar
rative, one of whom, in speaking of God, uses the name Elohim,
and the other the name Jehovah. The ground-work of the Pen
tateuch (and but a small portion of it, as the Bishop proposes to
show hereafter) was composed before the name Jehovah had been
familiar.
SAMUEL PKOBABLY THE ELOHISTIC WRITEH.
During and after the time of Samuel, we observe in the books
known by his name a gradually increasing partiality for the use
of names compounded with Jehovah (jo or iah), while there is
no instance of the kind throughout the Book of Judges, which
contains numerous names compounded with Elohim (el). In the
first seven chapters of the first Book of Samuel we find the follow
ing names compounded with Elohim : A^kanah, A'Zihu, Eli, Sam
uel, Ele&zex; while we meet with but one name compounded with
Jehovah, viz : Joshua (vi. 18). But this name evidently belongs to
a man living considerably later than the time of Samuel, for the
passage reads, “ which stone remaineth unto this day in the field
of Joshua.” Then we read in viii. 1, 2, “ When Samuel was old,
he made his sons judges over Israel; now the name of his first
born was Joel, and the name of his second AbzoA.” It is remark
able that his first-born son should be named Joel, a contraction
of the compound name Jehovah and Elohim. In 1 Chr. vi. 28,
we are told that the name of Samuel’s eldest son was Vashni.
From this it would seem that the name was afterwards changed
to Joel. In the subsequent chapters there is a gradual increase
of names compounded with Jehovah.
In the Elohistic portions of the Book of Genesis, in some
of which a multitude of names occur, and many of them com
pounded with Elohim, in the form of El, there is not a single
one compounded with Jehovah, in the form either of the prefix
Jeho or Jo, or the termination jah, both of which were so com
monly employed in the later times. The name Jehovah is first
�14
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
introduced by the Elohistic writer in Ex. vi. 3, as a,new name for
the God of Israel.
From these and other evidences adduced, Bishop Colenso con
cludes with some degree of confidence that Samuel was the Elo
histic writer of the Pentateuch, and that the Jehovistic writer
must have written not earlier than the latter part of David’s life,
when the name of Jehovah had become quite common, and n^#ies
began to be compounded with it freely. The narrative being
written from 300 to 400 years after the death of Moses, could not,
therefore, have been historically true, but may have been intended
as a series of parables, based on legendary facts, somo of which,
perhaps, had been recorded from time to time in a roll deposited
in the temple archives, to which access was occasionally had by
the priests.
[Note.—Sir Isaac Newton, in. his “Observations upon the
Prophecies,” etc., concludes that Samuel put the books of Moses
and Joshua into the form now extant, inserting into the book of
Genesis (xxxvi. 31-39) the race of the kings of Edom.]
Ill
THE AUTHOR OF DEUTERONOMY.
In vol. III., Bishop Colenso presents in great detail arguments
to prove that the book of Deuteronomy was written by a differ
ent hand from that or those which wrote the rest of the Penta
teuch. No attentive reader of the Bible, he says, can have failed
to remark the striking difference which exists between the stylo
and contents of Deuteronomy and those of the other books gen
erally of the Pentateuch. Deuteronomy forms the living portion,
the sum and substanee, of the whole Pentateuch. When wo
speak of the “ law of Moses,” we speak of Deuteronomy. In tho
New Testament Deuteronomy is frequently quoted with emphasis
as the law of Moses.
The principal proofs of a different authorship of this book are
as follows :
1. Each writer distinctly professes to give the identical com
mandments as spoken (E. xx. 11) or written (D. v. 22) by Jehovah ;
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
15
W each assigns an entirely different reason for the observance
of the Sabbath. In Exodus it is because God rested on the seventh
day ; in Deuteronomy it is because he brought the Israelites out of
E^ypt “through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm.”
It is remarkable that the Deuteronomist should ignore the reason
assigned in Exodus.
2. In the other books of the Pentateuch, the priests are always
styled the “ sons of Aaron” (L. i. 5, 7, 8, 11, ii. 2, iii. 2, xiii. 2 ; N.
x. 8; comp. L. xxi. 21), and never the “ sons of Levi.” In
Deuteronomy they are always called “ sons of Levi, or “ Levitcs
(D. xvii. 9, 18, xviii. 1, xxi. 5, xxiv. 8, xxvii. 9, xxxi. 9 ; comp,
xviii. 1, 5), and never “ sons of Aaron.”
3. The Deuteronomist, in using the word “ law,” invariably re
fers to the whole law (D. i. 5, iv. 8, 44, xvii. 11, 18, 19, xxvii. 3, 8,
26) ; the other books almost always use the words with reference
to particular laws (E. xii. 49 ; L. vi. 9, 14, 25, vii. 1, 7, 11, 37).
4. The Deuteronomist confines all sacrifices to one place
“ which Jehovah would choose,” “ to put his name there” (D. xii.
5, 11, 14, 18, 21, 26); the other books say nothing about this, but
expressly imply the contrary (E. xx. 24).
5. The Deuteronomist, though he strictly enjoins the observ
ance of the other three great leasts, and the Passover (xvi. 1—1 <),
makes no mention whatever of the Feast of Trumpets (L. xxiii.
23-25, N. xxix. 1-6), or the Day of Atonement (L. xxiii. 26-32,
N. xxix. 7-11), on each of which days it was expressly ordered
that the people should “ do no servile work,” but should hold “ a
holy convocation.” The directions in N. xxix are supposed to
have been laid down by Jehovah only a few weeks previous to
the address of Moses in Deuteronomy ; yet here in making a final
summary of duties, as he is represented as doing, he omits all
mention of those two important days, upon which the same stress
is laid in L. xxiii. as on the other three great feasts, and for the
neglect of which death was threatened as a punishment.
6. In D. viii. 4, xxix. 5, and elsewhere, mention is made of
clothing which lasted the Israelites forty years without waxing old
upon them. No mention is made in the older narrative of this
miraculous provision of clothing.
7. In D. ix. 18, Moses says he “fell down before the Lord as
at the first forty days and nights,” and fasted as he had done also
at the first (®. 9). According to the older story, he fasted only
�16
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
when he went up the second time—not the first (E. xxiv. 18,
xxxiv. 28).
8. In E. xviii. 25, 26, we read that Moses chose able men out
of all Israel, and made them judges over the people. This was
just before the giving of the law at Sinai. In D. i. 6-18, the ap
pointment of these same officers is made to take place nearly
twelve months after the giving of the law, when the Israelites
are just about to leave Horeb (v. 6). In E. xix. we find that the
giving of the law was in the third month after the de
parture from Egypt. The Israelites took their departure from
Sinai in the second month of the second year (N. x. 11), and this
was the time referred to in D. i. when these judges were appoint
ed (®. 6, 9).
9. In D. x. 1-5, mention is made of the ark being prepared as
a receptacle of the table of the laws before Moses goes up into
the mount. The older narrative says nothing about an ark being
prepared beforehand for the tables (E. xxxiv. 29). It is only
after comiug down with the second set of tables that Moses sum
mons the wise-hearted (E. xxxv. 10-12) to “come and make all
that the Lord hath commanded, the tabernacle, his tent and his
covering, etc., the ark,” etc. The tabernacle is constantly men
tioned in the three middle books of the Pentateuch, but is never
once named in Deuteronomy until the announcement to Moses in
xxxi. 14, 15, that he should die. And this passage is shown to be
an interpolation, with several others at the close of the book.
10. In D. x. 8, we read, “At that time the Lord separated the
tribe of Levi,” i. e., after the death of Aaron (®. 6). In N. iii. 5,
6, 7, the separation is made to take place in Aaron’s lifetime.
11. The Deuteronomist lays great stress on the duty of being
charitable and hospitable to the Levite, placing him in the same
category as the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and treat
ing him as a sort of mendicant when sojourning within the gates,
thus ignoring the fact that the children of Levi were entitled to
one-tenth in Israel for an inheritance (N. xviii. 21). Not a word
is said about the Levites having any divine right to demand or at
least to accept the payment of tithes from the people, according
to the provisions supposed to have been made by Jehovah him
self in N. xviii. 21. The Deuteronomist makes Moses speak of
the Levite as an object of charity only a few months after the pro
mulgation of this law in Numbers about the Levites’ inheritance.
�ON THE PENTATEUCH
17
Not a trace of poverty in regard to the Levites is found in the
first four books. Under the later kings we have unmistakable
indications of the poverty of the priests.
12. In D. xiv. 19, every creeping thing that flieth is declared
unclean, and is forbidden to be eaten. In L. xi. 21-23, every
creeping thing that flieth is allowed to be eatea, and four forms
of locusts are mentioned.
13. Numerous expressions common throughout the first four
books are never employed by the Deuteronomist, and vice versa.
Bishop Colenso ciles thirty-three expressions in Deuteronomy,
each of which is found on an average eight times in that book,
but not one of which is found even once in the other four books.
In Deuteronomy the expression “ the Lord thy God,” or “ the
Lord our God,” occurs with remarkable frequency ; but it is very
rarely found in the other books.
WHEN WAS DEUTERONOMY WRITTEN, AND BY WHOM?
1. The author of Deuteronomy must have lived after the other
writers of the Pentateuch, since he refers throughout to passages
in the story of the exodus recorded in the other books, and refers
directly, in xxiv. 8, to the laws about leprosy given in Leviticus.
If, therefore, the Elohistic and Jehovistic portions of the Penta
teuch were written not earlier than the times of Samuel, David,
and Solomon, it is plain that the Deuteronomist must have lived
no earlier, but probably later than the time of Solomon.
2. The phrase “ sons of Levi ” and “ Levites,” always used by
the Deuteronomist, is invariably used by Jeremiah and the other
later prophets (Jer. xxxiii. 18, 21, 22 ; Ezek. xliii. 19, xliv. 15,
xlviii. 13 ; Mai. iii. 3. Comp. Mai. ii, 4, 8). The Deuteronomist,
like Jeremiah, uses the word “ law ” in the singular only in speak
ing of the whole law (Jer. ii. 8, vi. 19, viii. 8, ix. 13). The Deuter
onomist confines all sacrifices to the place where “ Jehovah would
place his name so Jeremiah speaks repeatedly of Jerusalem or
the temple as a place called by Jehovah’s name (vii. 10, 11, 14,
30, xxv. 29). Numerous other expressions are used by the Deu
teronomist in common with the ) iter Biblical writers only. Out
of thirty-three expressions, each of which occurs on an average
eight times in Deuteronomy, but not one of which is found in
the other books of the Pentateuch, seventeen are found repeated
with more or less frequency in Jeremiah, and many of the others
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ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
or their representatives are partially repeated in his prophecies,
Expressions do occasionally occur in the other books of the Pen
tateuch which are peculiar to Deuteronomy ; but it is possible, if
not probable, that the writer of the latter book may have inter
polated those few passages.
3. The Deuteronomist, in xvii. 2-7, expresses strong abhor
rence of all manner of idolatry, and especially of the worship of
the “ sun or moon, or any of the host of heaven,” the first in
timation of which worship is found in the reign of Josiah’s father,
Manasseh (2 K. xxi. 3, 5).
4. That the book of Deuteronomy was written after the time
of Samuel is shown by the fact that the laws referring to the
kingdom seem not to have been known to Samuel (1 S. viii. 6-18),
nor to the later writer of Samuel’s doings. In S. xii. 17-19, he
charges it upon the people as a great sin that they had desired a
king.
5. The mention of the kingdom in D. xvii. 14-18, with the
distinct reference to the dangers likely to arise to the State from
the king multiplying to himself “ wives,” “ silver,” “ gold,” and
“ horses,” implies that the book was written after the age of Sol
omon ; and this is confirmed by the frequent reference to the
place which Jehovah would choose, i. e., Jerusalem and the
temple.
6. The tabernacle, so frequently spoken of in the three middle
books of the Pentateuch, but never once named by the Deuteron
omist till near the close of the book, in an interpolated passage,
had long since passed away in Jeremiah’s time.
7. That the book was written after the captivity of the ten
tribes, in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign, is evident from the
fact that the sorrows of that event are referred to as matters well
known and things of the past (D. iv. 25-28).
8. In 2 K. xxii. and xxiii. we find an account of the dis
covery of the “ book of the law in the house of the Lord,” in
the eighteenth year of King Josiah, which caused a great sensa
tion. Where conld this book have been hidden for eight centu
ries ? Could it have escaped the notice of David, Solomon, and
others ? Can we resist the suspicion that the writing of the book
and the placing of it where it was found were pretty nearly con
temporaneous ? Shaphan, the scribe, read the book before the
king, and appears to have read all the words of it. Again the
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
19
next day the king himself read in the ears of the people “ all the
words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house
of the Lord.” The name “ book of the covenant ” cannot well
apply to all the Pentateuch, though it may apply to the book of
Deuteronomy, or to the chief portion of it, since we find it written
in D. xxix. 1, “ These are the words of the covenant.”
9. The whole description of the nature and effect of the words
contained in the book shows that it must have been the book of
Deuteronomy. A reform took place in regard to idolatrous prac
tices immediately after the discovery of this book. Never before
was such a passover held as in that same year; but we have no
sign whatever of another such passover being held, even by
Josiah. Perhaps after a time the young king also became aware
of the real facts of the case, and his zeal may have been dampened
by the discovery.
10. In that age and time of Jewish debasement, when the law
book as it then existed was not well suited to the present necessi
ties of the people, Jeremiah or any other seer may have considered
himself justified in summoning up the spirit of the older law in
a powerful address adapted to the pressing circumstances of the
times, putting words into the mouth of the departed lawgiver,
Moses, to reinforce the laws by solemn prophetical utterances.
The intention may have been to put down by force the gross idol
atries which abounded in the kingdom, through the influence of
a disguised prophecy upon the mind of a well-meaning king.
11. The book of Deuteronomy must have been written after
the great spread among the tribes of Canaan of the worship of
the sun and moon and host of heaven (D. iv. 19). It seems to
have been first generally practised in Judah in the reign of Manasseh, the father of Josiah (2 K. xxi. 3, 5 ; 2 Chr. xxxiii. 3).
Manasseh’s grandfather Ahaz may have introduced it, as appears
from a comparison of 2 K. xxiii. 12 ; but it probably was not
much practised, and it certainly was not adopted by his son
Hezekiah. In Manasseh’s reign, however, it seems to have
flourished.
12. It must have been written before the time of Josiah’s
reformation, since the words ascribed to Huldah the prophetess,
in D. xxii. 15-20, refer to it; for she says, “ All the words of this
book wherein the king hath read shall be fulfilled.” She was
probably in the secret, and shared the hope of a great reforma-
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ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
tion, and there is little doubt that the “ book of the law ” was the
direct cause of that reformation. The whole theocratic state was
in imminent danger from the idolatrous practices that were pre
vailing. So the Deuteronomist laid down a new set of laws in
the name of Moses, and gave a new and firmer foundation to the
theocratic state. The attempted reformation was not, however,
successful, except to secure temple service at Jerusalem. That
introduced dead formalism, which existed until the Israelitish
nation became extinct.
13. It can scarcely be doubted, therefore, that it was written
either in the latter part of Manasseh’s reign or the early part of
Josiah’s. If it was written in the latter part of Manasseh’s reign,
the author must have lived, and probably have died, without see
ing the result of his labor—without betraying his secret; or, if
he lived j^Hl the disclosure of it, it is difficult to account for his
long silence with respect to its existence, which was maintained
during seventeen years of Josiah’s reign, when the king’s docile
piety and youth would have encouraged the production of such
a book if it really existed, and there was such imperative necessity
for that reformation to be begun as soon as possible, with a view
to which the book was written. Thus it seems most reasonable
to suppose that the book was in process of composition during
the first seventeen years of Josiah’s reign, when the youth of the
prince and his willingness to follow the teachings of the prophets
around him gave every encouragement for such an attempt being
made to bring about the great change that was needed.
14. Jeremiah lived in that very age, and began to prophesy
in the thirteenth year of Josiah, four or five years before this
book was found.
IMMORAL COMMANDS OP DEUTERONOMY.
Bishop Colenso is glad to know that such commands as these,
taken from this book, are at variance with God's law :
1. Excluding from the congregation of the Lord persons mu
tilated in helpless infancy, while those by whose agency the act
in question was encouraged or perhaps performed are allowed
free access to the sanctuary.
2. Excluding in like manner the innocent base-born child,
but taking no account of the vicious parent.
3. Commanding the stubborn, rebellious son to be stoned to
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
21
death, when, oftentimes the father and mother, who by their bad
example had corrupted, or by their faulty training had ruined
their child, deserved rather to suffer punishment.
4. Ordering that any city of any distant people with whom
Israel might be at war should first be summoned to surrender,
and if it should refuse to make peace on condition of all its in
habitants becoming tributary and doing service to Israel, it should
then be besieged and every male thereof should be put to the
sword; while of the cities which Israel was to inherit they were
to save nothing that breathed, lest they should become corrupted
by their idolatries and abominations.
THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY.
In vol. IV., after a long preface devoted to answers to objections
made to positions taken and supported in the previous volumes,
Bishop Colenso proceeds to make a critical comparison of the
Elohistic and Jehovistic passages in the first eleven chapters of
Genesis, to show that they were composed by two distinct writers.
The author then attacks the scientific and historical truthful
ness of the Scripture cosmogony, making the following points-:
THE SIX DAYS OF CREATION.
Despite all the criticisms of the word “create,” the plain
meaning of the first verse in Genesis is, that in the beginning of
the six days, as the first act of that continuous six days’ work
about six thousand years ago, according to the Biblical chronolo
gy, God created the heaven and the earth. But geology teaches
that the earth had existed millions of years before, and was brought
into its present form by continual changes through a long succes
sion of ages, during which enormous periods innumerable varieties
of animal and vegetable life abounded, from a time beyond all pow
er of calculation. So, also, God is represented as completing the
work of creation in six literal days, and resting upon and sancti
fying the seventh. In E. xx. 11, it is expressly said that “ in six
days God made the heaven and the earth, and all that in them is.”
�22
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
That they were not indefinite periods of time is further shown by
the setting of two great lights in the firmament on the fourth day,
to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light
from the darkness. If the first three days were indefinite days,
why is the same word in the Hebrew used for that portion of the
twenty-four hours which the sun rules over ? Is the sense of the
word day, from the fourth day onward, to be considered different
from that of the same word as used prior thereto?
THE ORDER OF CREATION.
The order of creation in Genesis is, first plants, then fish, then
fowls, then cattle and reptiles, and lastly man. Geology shows
that in the different ages plants and animals of all kinds appeared
together at the same time on the earth; so that they were not
successively created, as the Bible says, first all the plants, and then
dll the fish, etc.
CHAOS.
Genesis represents the earth as “ without form and void,” in a
state of utter chaos and confusion, and wrapped in darkness, im
mediately before the races of plants and animals now existing on
its face were created. Geology proves that the earth had existed
generally just as now, with the same kind of animal and vegeta
ble life as now, long before the six thousand years implied in the
Bible story, and that no sudden convulsion took place at that time
by which they might have been destroyed, so as to give occasion
for a new creation.
THE SUN AND MOON CREATED ON THE FOURTH DAY.
It is a mere evasion of the plain meaning of words to say that
God meant the sun and moon to appear first only on the fourth
day, although they had been long before created—appear, that is,
to the earth, when, however, according to the story, there was as.
yet no living creature on its face to see them I The writer uses
the same Hebrew word “ made ” as he had used before when he
says God made the firmament, and which he afterwards uses when
he says God made the animals.
THE FIRMAMENT OF WATERS.
The dividing of the waters below the firmament from the
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
23
waters above it was founded upon the idea that the sky was an
expanse, a spread-out surface, and that the upper waters dropped
rain.
WHAT DID BEASTS OE PREY EAT ?
To every animal God gave every green herb for meat. The
question arises, how were the beasts of prey to be supported, since
their teeth, stomachs, and bodily form were not adapted for eating
herbs ? But in fact geology teaches that ravenous creatures
preyed on their fellow creatures, and lived on flesh, in all ages of
the world’s past history, just exactly as they do now. Besides, al
most all fishes are carnivorous.
THE ZENDAVESTA STORY OF CREATION.
The account of the creation in Genesis corresponds with that
of the Zendavesta, which was composed near the same locality.
According to the latter, the universe was created in six periods of
time by Ormuzd, in the following order : 1. The heaven and the
terrestrial light between heaven and earth ; 2. The water; 3. The
earth ; 4. The trees and plants ; 5. Animals ; 6. Man ; whereupon
the Creator rested and connected the Divine origin of the festivals
with these periods of creation. The Persian tradition is substan
tially the same, showing that the story of Genesis had the same
origin. It is an ancient myth.
ADAM FORMED OF DUST.
“And the Lord God formed man (Adam) of the dust of the
ground” (Adamha). A play upon words.
THE RIVERS EUPHRATES, TIGRIS, NILE, AND INDUS UNITED.
The four rivers of Eden are made to unite in one. One of
these rivers is the Euphrates, and there is but little doubt that the
Hiddekel and the Gihon, as Josephus says, are the Tigris and Nile
respectively, and Pison probably the Indus.
DEATH THREATENED FOR DISOBEDIENCE.
“ In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
How could the first man understand what death was ? He had
not seen it.
NAMING OF THE ANIMALS.
Man was created before the other animals (the fishes excepted)
�24
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
according to the second chapter, and they were brought to Adam
to be named. How could the white bear of the frozen zone and
the humming bird of the tropics have met in one spot to be
named, and then dispersed again ?
WAS EDEN THE CENTRE OF CREATION ?
Was there only one centre of creation? Were all reptiles,
fishes, and insects, as well as all plants, created in Eden only, and
thence scattered to the ends of the earth ?—the Indian corn, for
instance, which was not known in the eastern hemisphere until
after the discovery of America ?
ORIGIN OF THE DIFFERENT HUMAN RACES.
It is even now an open scientific question whether the Austra
lian savage, the African negro, the American Indian, and the Cau
casian are all descendants of a first pair.
WOMAN MADE OUT OF A RIB.
The making of the woman out of the man’s rib is thought by
some to convey an idea of the intimate relationship, sacredness,
and indissolubility of the conjugal state. The Greenlanders
believe that the first woman was fashioned out of the man’s
thumb I
THE CUNNING SERPENT.
“Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the
field.” It is the Jehovistic interpolator who writes this passage.
Here is the origin of evil, in a speaking serpent.
THE SERPENT CRAWLING AND EATING DUST.
“ Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shall thou eat.”
Here the serpent is represented as degraded and debased from
what it was originally. But geology shows that it was the same
kind of creature before man existed on the earth. As to the ser
pent’s eating dust, it is a falsehood founded on the scantiness of
its food. As to the enmity between the woman’s seed and the
serpent, it is not true. A snake is held in great respect among
the Zulus. It was an emblem of healing wisdom among the
Greeks, and a symbol of eternity to the Phoenicians.
PAIN IN CHILDBIRTH.
Pain to the woman in childbirth, and the subjection of woman
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
25
to her husband, are fancies in the imagination of the Hebrew
writer. The subjection of the female to the male is not peculiar
to man amongst animals; and in tropical countries childbirth is
attended with little more pain and disturbance than the birth of
a beast.
CURSING THE GROUND.
“ Cursed is the ground for thy sake.” Geology shows no signs
of any such curse. Thorns and briers were as plentiful in the
primeval world as now ; and a life of toil and exertion is far more
healthful and ennobling than one of indolence and inactivity.
RETURNING TO DUST.
“ Till thou return unto the ground, for out of it thou wast
taken.” Geology shows that living creatures died long before.
“For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” This
would imply that Ada'm was not punished by death for his sin.
Death of the body was regarded by the ancient writers as the
end of all. No mention is made of the immortality of the soul.
PERSIAN STORY OF THE FIRST PAIR.
The Persian myth is similar to that of the Hebrews. The
first couple, Meshia and Meshiana, lived originally in purity and
innocence. Perpetual happiness was promised to them by the
Creator. An evil demon (Dev) came to them in the form of a
serpent, and gave them fruit of a wonderful tree, which imparted
immortality. Consequently they fell and forfeited the eternal
happiness for which they were destined. They killed beasts and
clothed themselves; they built houses, but paid not their debt of
gratitude to the Deity, and the evil demon obtained still more
perfect power over their minds.
CHINESE STORY OF HIE FALL.
The Chinese have their age of virtue, when Nature furnished
abundant food, and man lived peacefully, surrounded by all the
beasts, not knowing what it meant to do good or evil, and not
subject to disease or death. But partly by an undue thirst for
knowledge, and partly by increasing sensuality and the seduction
of woman, he fell. Passion and lust ruled his mind, war with
the animals began, and all Nature stood inimically arrayed
against him.
�26
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
PARADISE OF THE GREEKS.
The Greeks had their Paradise or Elysium—their garden of
Hesperides, with its golden apples, in the islands of the blessed,
guarded by ever-watchful serpents.
SACRED MOUNTAIN- OF THE HINDOOS.
The Hindoos have their sacred mountain, Meru, in which no
sinful man can exist. It is perpetually clothed in the golden
rays of the sun, guarded by dreadful dragons, adorned by celes
tial plants, and watered by four rivers, which separate and flow
in four directions.
WHO WAS TO KILL CAIN ?
Cain is made to say, “ Every one that findeth me shall slay
me.” The only man on the face of the earth was Adam; Seth
was not yet born.
cain’s descendants favored.
The introduction of cattle-keeping, music, and smithery is
ascribed to the descendants of Cain, on whom the curse had
been pronounced I
LONGEVITY IN PREHISTORIC TIMES.
The great longevity of ancient times is common to the tra
ditions of all nations. As soon as we come down to historical
times we see no more of these great ages.
SONS OF GOD AND DAUGHTERS OF MEN.
“ The sons of God saw the daughters of men.” This is bor
rowed from foreign or heathen sources. See Book of Enoch—
an acknowledged forgery.
ANCIENT GIANTS.
“ There were giants in the earth in those days.” The belief in
races of giants was universal among the ancients, but that the
stature of the human race was really the same generally in those
days as now, is shown by the remains discovered in ancient tombs
and pyramids.
STORY OF THE DELUGE.
In the story of the deluge the ark is made to rest on the
highest summit of Ararat, and remain there seventy-three or
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
27
seventy-four days after the waters had retired from the earth.
At this elevation of 17,00u feet—1,000 feet higher than Mont
Blanc, and 3,000 feet above the region of perpetual snow—all the
inhabitants of the ark must have frozen to death. Many other
difficulties are presented and discussed, and in conclusion Colenso
says that geology absolutely disproves the story.
WAS IT A PARTIAL DELUGE?
1. The difficulty of worms and snails crawling into the ark
from some large terrestrial basin in western Asia, is just as great as
from distant parts of the earth. One small brook would have been
a barrier to further progress. Nor could Noah have provided for
the wild carnivorous animals—the lion, leopard, eagle, vulture,
etc. And what need to crowd the ark with birds which could
easily have escaped beyond the boundaries of the inundation ?
2. The language of the Bible is too sweeping. God says,
“ Every living substance that I have made will I destroy from
off the face of the earth.” (G. vii. 4.)
3. One volcanic region, forty miles by twenty, in the provinces
of Auvergne and Languedoc, in France, contains deposits of sco
ria and lava extending over many miles, and in some places from
fifty to one hundred feet deep, which must have taken many
thousands of years to accumulate, and which have certainly not
been submerged during at least eighteen thousand years past.
4. In all the diluvian deposits no trace of human remains has
ever been found.
CHALDEAN STORY OE THE DELUGE.
Many heathen nations have traditions concerning a universal
deluge. There is a Chaldean story of Xisthurus building an immense ship, 3,000 by 1,200 feet, loading it with provisions, enter
ing it with his family and all species of quadrupeds, birds, and
reptiles, and sailing toward Armenia. When the rain ceased he
sent out birds to ascertain the condition of the earth. Twice
they returned—the second time with mud on their feet. The
third time they returned no more. By this time the ship had
grounded on the side of an Armenian mountain, whereupon Xis
thurus and his family left it, erected an altar, and offered sacri
fices to the gods. Pieces of bitumen and timber, ostensibly taken
from the ship, were in later times chiefly used as amulets.
�28
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
GENERATIONS OE NOAH.
In G. x. the generations of Noah are enumerated. The nations
of Eastern Asia are not enumerated at all, though the writer
seems to have had some vague notion of the existence of distant
families (». 30).
IDENTITY OF LANGUAGE OF THE HEBREWS AND CANAANITES.
The fact that the patriarchs and Hebrews could converse with
the surrounding nations shows that their language was common,
and the indications are that the vernacular language of the
Canaanites was substantially the same as that of the Hebrews.
The language was radically the same from the earliest times.
THE HEBREW LANGUAGE, WHENCE DERIVED.
Whence was the Hebrew language derived ? The fact that
the Pentateuch was written in pure Hebrew appears to be strong
if not positive proof of its having been written at a much later
period of their national history than the exodus, or at a time
when the language of Canaan had become, after several genera
tions, the common tongue of the invading Hebrews, as well as of
the heathen tribes which they drove out, and ■which they were
unwilling to acknowledge as brethren. We never read of any in
terpreter between the Hebrews and the Philistines.
THE DISPERSION OF TONGUES.
The story of the dispersion of tongues is connected by the
Jehovistic writer with the famous unfinished temple of*Belus, of
which probably some wonderful reports had reached him, in
whatever age he may have lived. The derivation of the name
Babel from the Hebrew word meaning confound, which seems to
be the connecting point between the story and the tower of
Babel, is altogether incorrect, the literal meaning of the word
being house, or court, or gate of Bel.
REMARKABLE INCREASE IN FOUR HUNDRED YEARS.
In Abraham’s time, not four hundred years after the deluge,
the descendants of Noah’s three sons, none of whom had a child
before the deluge, had so multiplied that four kingdoms are men
tioned as engaging in war against five other kingdoms (G. xv.
1, 2). Besides these there are a multitude of other nations named
�ON THE PENTATEUCH,
29
in the same chapter, some of which had attained a high state of
civilization.
COMPLETE CHANGE OE PHYSICAL CHARACTER.
Moreover, in this short interval we find the most marked dif
ferences of physiognomy stamped on the different races, as shown
on the ancient monuments of Egypt. There was a completo
change of form, color, and general physical character, which
seem not to have been modified during the four thousand years
since.
NOAH’S VNDVTIFUL PROGENY.
Noah, and all the rest of Abraham’s ancestors after Noah,
were still living, as appears from the following record:
Noah
Sliem .
Arphaxad, born
Salah,
“
Eber,
“
Peleg,
“
Rmi,
“
Serug,
“
Nahor,
“
Terah,
“
Abraham, “
Isaac,
“
Jacob,
“
.
.
’2
37
67
101
131
163
193
222
292
392
452
.
died
“
years after, died
<<
“
“
Cl.
“
cc
“
cc
“
Cl
“
Cf
“
Cl
“
14
“
Cl
“
.
350 years after the flood.
cl
CC
502
cc
cc
404
cc
cc
470
cc
cc
351
cc
cc
340
cc
cc
370
cc
cc
393
cc
cc
341
«
u
427
cc
cc
467
cc
cc
572
cc
cc
599
And yet we do not find the slightest intimation that Abraham,
Isaac, or Jacob paid any kind of reverence or attention to their
illustrious ancestors.
ABRAHAM’S INCREDULITY ABOUT HAVING A SON.
Abraham laughed when told that a son should be born to him
that was a hundred years old ; and yet there were actually living
those ancestors of his from one hundred and seventy to five hun
dred and eighty years old at the time. Shein was one hundred
years old two years after the deluge, when he begat Arphaxad,
and he lived thereafter five hundred years, and begat sons and
daughters.
�30
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
SILENCE OF THE REST OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ABOUT EDEN,
THE FALL, AND THE DELUGE.
The fact that nowhere in the other books of the Old Testa
ment is found any reference to the story in Genesis of the crea
tion, or the fall of man, or the deluge, except in Isaiah liv. 9
(where the waters of Noah are mentioned), and Ezek. xiv. 14-20
(where the name of Noah is mentioned), is easy of explanation if
the writer of these stories lived in the latter part of David’s reign.
THE BOOK OF ENOCH.
In an appendix to vol. IV. the book of Enoch is examined.
The Bishop says there is no doubt that the book is a fiction. Ac
cording to Archbishop Laurence, it was composed within about
fifty years immediately preceding the birth of Christ. From it
most of the language of the New Testament, in which the judg
ment of the last day is described, appears to have been directly de
rived. It is full of such expressions and sentences as these : “ Day
of judgment.” “ Judgment which shall last forever.” “ Lowest
depths of fire in torment.” “Ancient of Days upon the throne of
his glory.” “ The book of the living was opened in his presence.”
“ Valley burning with fire.” “Fetters of iron without weight.”
“ Furnace of burning fire.” “ The word of his wrath shall de
stroy all the sinners and all the ungodly, who shall perish at his
presence.” “ Trouble shall seize upon them when they shall be
hold this son of woman sitting upon the throne of his glory.’’
“ They shall fix their hopes on this son of man, shall pray to him
and petition for mercy. Then shall the Lord of spirits hasten to
expel them from his presence. Their faces shall be full of confu
sion, and their faces shall darkness cover. The angels shall take
them to punishment that vengeance may be inflicted on those
who have opposed his children and his elect. . . . But the saints
and the elect shall be safe in that day. . . . The Lord of spirits
shall remain over them, and with his son of man shall they dwell,
eat, lie down, and rise up forever and ever.”
BOOK OF JOSHUA.
Vol. V. opens with an examination of the book of Joshua
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
31
after which the Bishop endeavors to separate the different por
tions of the different writers of the Pentateuch and the book of
Joshua, and to fix their exact age. The larger portion of the book
of Joshua, he believes, is due to the Deuteronomist, who must
consequently have lived at all events after the days of Moses,
since the death and burial of Moses are recorded in D. xxxiv.
The argument proceeds as follows :
THE DEUTERONOMIST.
Numerous expressions common to Deuteronomy and Joshua
occur nowhere else in the Pentateuch. These Deuteronomistic
formulas do not occur throughout the whole of the book of Joshua,
but only in certain portions of it; in the remaining parts of the
book, in which we find none of these formulas, we meet again
with the peculiar phrases of the old writers of the Pentateuch
which are never used by the Deuteronomist. The original lan
guage has been retouched and blended with that of the Deuter
onomist. The same also is true of the other four books ; there
is plain evidence that the Deuteronomist has revised and retouched
the manuscript before he added to it the sum and substance of the
law of the book of Deuteronomy. More than half of the book of
Joshua, especially of the historical and hortatory matter, consists
of interpolations by the Deuteronomist.
RESEARCHES OF HUPFIELD AND EOEnMER.
The author gives a summary of the researches of Hupfield
and Boehmer, exhibiting the Elohistic passages in Genesis, and
showing great unanimity as the result of three independent re
searches. They all agree substantially, except in regard to four
genealogical sections.
ELOHISTIC AND JEnOVISTIC PECULIARITIES.
There are more than one hundred different formulas or expres
sions, each of which occurs on an average more than ten times in
Genesis, but only in those portions of it which remain when the
Elohistic parts are removed. Some of them occur three times in
one verse. On the other hand, the Eloliistic portions in their
turn exhibit their own phraseology, which is never repeated in
the Jehovistic parts. Thus, only the Jehovistic portions contain
such expressions as “ lift up the eyes and see “ lift up the voice
and weep •” “ fall on the neck and weep ; ” “ find favor in the eyes
�32
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
of;” “ see the face of; ” “run to meet,” etc.; and such words as
“ sin,” “ swear,” “ steal,” “ smite,” “ slay,” “ fear,” “ hate,” “ com
fort,” “ embrace,” “ kiss,” and even “ love.”
SIMPLICITY OF TIIE ELOHIST.
The Elohist appears to have had more correct views of the
nature of the Divine Being and of his paternal relations to mankind, and less gloomy views of man’s nature and the prospects of
the human race. According to him, “ God saw everything that
he had made, and behold it was very good.” But the Jehovist
speaks of the earth as corrupt and filled with violence. The lat
ter has a deep sense of sin and its consequences. The former
knows nothing about the Garden of Eden, the forbidden fruit, the
wily serpent, or the fall of man ; it is only the Jehovist who mul
tiplies curses upon the earth and pains of child-birth as the bitter
consequences of our first parents’ sin. The Jehovist gives all the
darkest parts of the histories of indvidual life, such as the drunk
enness of Noah, the presumption of the Babel builders, the great
selfishness of Lot, the uncleanness of Sodom, the wickedness of
Onan, etc. All those stories of impurity which make so many of
the passages of Genesis totally unfit to be read in public or in the
family are due to the Jehovist. The original Elohittic writer
presents the character of the three patriarchs substantially with
out a flaw. It is the Jehovist who lowers them.
INTERPOLATIONS IN THE JEHOVISTIO NARRATIVE.
We have seen that there are interpolations in the original
Elohistio narrative. We also find similar interpolations in differ
ent portions of the non-Elohistic matter itself. The non-Elohistic matter consists of the contributions of three or four different
■writers. For instance, chapter xiv. has no relation with any other
part of Genesis. It brings Abraham before us in the. character of
a warlike Sheik, with 318 trained servants. But in the subse
quent account of his going to Gerar (chap. xx.). where Abimelech
takes his wife from him, Abraham is afraid of his life, and prac
tises deceit, showing plainly that he could have had no such im
mense band of trained servants with him. lie had routed the
combined forces of Eastern kings, and needed not therefore, to
have ieared the power of the petty Prince of Gerar. This
chapter contains four times the expression, “God most high,”
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
33
which occurs nowhere else in the Pentateuch, and only three
times besides in the Bible—namely, in the Psalms.
THE DEUTERONOMIST AN EDITOR.
The later writer or Deuteronomist was not the compiler, but
the editor of the Pentateuch and book of Joshua, which he inter
polated throughout and enlarged, especially by the addition of
the book of Deuteronomy. The interpolated passages for the
most part seem to have been inserted for the purpose of quicken
ing the history with a deeper spiritual meaning and stirring more
effectually the reader’s heart with words of religious life and
earnestness. To this editor Colenso ascribes sixty-three verses
entire of Genesis, and many more fragmentary notes.
FIRST AND SECOND ELOHIST.
About three-fourths of Genesis remain after removing the
parts due to the second Jehovist and Deuteronomist. This threefourths is so homogeneous in style that it is almost impossible to
distingush the difference in style between the different sections
of it except in one respect. There is a second Elohistic writer
who uses decidedly Jehovistic formulas, though he has abstained
from the use of the name Jehovah (Lord). But though it is diffi
cult to separate the parts due to these two writers, Colenso has
endeavored to do it. According to the critics there arc five wri
ters of the Pentateuch—namely, the Elohist, the Elohist number
two, the Jehovist, the Jehovist number two, and the Deuterono
mist. But Colenso thinks Elohist number two is the same as the
Jehovist, only at an earlier period of his life. In his earliest at
tempts at interpolation he was perhaps somewhat stiff in style,
which stiffness he overcame in his later years. Therefore the two
may be identical.
HOW THE JEHOVIST REGARDED THE ELOHISTIC NARRATIVE.
It has been already shown in vol. II. that the first chapter of
Genesis was written by the same hand which wrote Exodus
v. 2-7, revealing the name of Jehovah to Moses. The Elohistic
writer not having used that name until he used it in the above
passage, intended to be understood that the name was unknown
among men till then. Now if Moses himself really recorded that
fact is it possible that other writers of his time would have dared
to contradict it by interpolations ? It is incredible. The interpo-
�34
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
lations must have been made at a later age by a writer who knew
that the original record was not historically true, and therefore
ventured to interpolate the name Jehovah. He must have known
that the original narrative was a work of the imagination, and
therefore that it was not necessary to adhere to the older state
ment.
AGE OF THE ELOHIST.
1. There is an air of primitive simplicity pervading the whole
Elohistic story. The style is grave, prosaic, and unadorned.
There is no instance of a story of indecency; crimes of violence
are mentioned, but none of an indecent character.
2. According to the Elohist mankind first lived on vegetable
food, and were not allowed to eat animals until after the flood.
3. In the Elohistic narrative there is no mention made of houses.
The ark is the only exception, but the details of if—the dimensions,
the door, the window, the roof, the stories—are given by the Jehovistic writer.
4. The Elohist makes no mention of sacrifices, priests, or tithes.
5. In G. xlviii. 5, 13, 14, Ephraim is set before Manasseh, though
the latter was the first born, and both are reckoned as tribes of Is
rael. “As Reuben and Simeon they shall be mine.” Now Manasseh
was the most prominent among the Northern tribes until shortly
before the time of Samuel, through its hero, Gideon (Jud. vi. 15).
Hence the composition of Genesis cannot be assigned at an earlier
period than about fifty years before Samuel, the time of Jephthah,
nor later than the time of David, shortly after Samuel.
6., In S. xxxv. 11, God promises Jacob that “a nation and a
company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of
thy loins,” No reference is made to his desccendants forming, as
they did, two nations, Judah and Israel; but a nation is spoken of
There is no enmity whatever implied in the Elohistic narrative
between Joseph and his brethren. The children of Israel are
plainly united in one body.
7. There is no enmity existing betweenEsau and Jacob—i. e.,
Edom and Israel; so that the narrative must have been written
before the feeling between them became bitter, as recorded in 2
S. viii. 14. This brings the date to a time not later than Samuel.
8. “ These are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before
there reigned any king over the children of Israel” (G. xxxvi. 31)
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
35
—meaning of course, all Israel, which restricts the time to that
of Saul, David, and Solomon, the first three kings. But as the
signs of a more primitive civilization in the narrative forbid our
assigning it to the age of Solomon, or even the latter part of
David’s reign, we must refer it to the early part or the time of
Samuel, when “ all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to
sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his ax, and his
mattock and when “ in the day of battle there was neither
sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were
with Saul and Jonathan ” (1 S. xiii. 20, 23),
9. The Elohist lays great stress on Hebron, in the land of
Canaan, where the field of Machpelah lay, as the resting place of
the bones of the Patriarchs. David, by Divine command, was di
rected (2 S. ii. 1) to make Hebron the centre of his power or seat
of Government. He reigned in Hebron over Judah seven
and a half years, and then in Jerusalem thirty-three years over
Israel and Judah (2 S. v. 5). After this Hebron disappears from
history altogether, except that Absalom begins his rebellion by
asking leave to go and pay a vow unto the Lord in Hebron (2 S.
xv. 7), and there sets up his kingdom (y. 10). It would seem highly
improbable that all this importance should be ascribed to Hebron
if the writer wrote after the first few years of David’s reign, when
he had captured the fortress of Zion and made Jerusalem his royal
city (2 S. v. 6, 7).
10. Samuel lived three years after the anointment of David,
and must have been aware of his valiant acts ; and his hopes seem
to have been centred in David after he had utterly despaired of
Saul. He may have advised David to go to Hebron, and may have
written the passages before us with a view to that event. Samuel,
having most likely a band of young men under his training, had to
provide instruction for them as a school of prophets. They had
no Bible, no body of Divinity; and what is more likely than that
he should have done his best to prepare such a narrative ?
AGE OF THE JEHOVIST.
1. The style of the Jehovist seems to be freer and easier than
that of the second Elohist, thereby indicating a later authorship.
2. Extended geographical knowledge is exhibited, pointing to
a later age than Samuel (G. ii. 11-14 and x.), when the people had
�36
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
passed out of the mere agricultural condition in which they were
living in the time of Samuel, and had begun to have freer inter
course with surrounding nations and more especially with the
maritime people of Tyre and Sidon.
3. Indications of advanced civilization and even luxury are
found in the Jehovistic portions (G. ii. 11, 12). Instruments of
music and working in brass and iron are spoken of (iv. 21, 22),
whereas in Saul’s time “ there was no smith found throughout all
the land of Israel ” (1 S. xiii. 19).
4. Considerable acquaintance with Egyptian affairs and cus
toms is exhibited (xxxix. 20, xliii. 32, xlvi. 34, xlvii. 26, 1. 3).
5. Jacob is recorded as building himself a house (xxxiii. 17).
The details of Noah’s ark are similar to the directions for the
tabernacle. There are indications of artistic skill of every kind
which can scarcely have existed before the age of Solomon, and
which in fact never was indigenous, but belonged to the Tyrian
builders and other artisans engaged in the erection of the temple.
6. The hatred of Esau by Jacob is spoken of. In 2 K. viii. 2022, we read of Edom revolting from under the hand of Judah.
The prophecy in G. xxv. 23, that “ the elder shall serve the
younger,” seems to have had its fulfilment in the latter part of
David’s reign, when Edom was crushed and did remain a servant
to his younger brother Israel during the remainder of David’s
reign. But Edom recovered its independence at the beginning of
Solomon’s reign.
7. This w'ould also explain another phenomenon in connection
with this matter which we observe in the Jehovistic portion of
Genesis—viz., the reconciliation of Esau and Jacob, and the gen
erous conduct described in the narrative of chapter xxxviii.
8. The result remains that the Jehovistic sections of G. xxvii.
40, etc. referring to Esau, cannot have been written till after Da
vid’s death, but were probably composed at the very beginning of
Solomon’s reign, when Edom had long been serving his brother
and had just thrown off the yoke.
9. The Jehovist lays almost as much stress on Beer
sheba as the Elohist does on Hebron. Both Abraham and Isaac
dig a well at Beersheba and acquire the right of possession in
connection vi-ith a solemn covenant made with the Philistine king;
whereas, according to the Elohist, each of the three patriarchs
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
37
lived solely at Hebron—at least after Abraham’s acquisition of
property there. And the Jehovist also in various places takes
account of their having lived there at some time in their lives.
10. In the days of David and Solomon the Israelitish territory
extended from Dan to Beersheba. The great stress laid on Beer
sheba therefore seems to point to the time of David and Solomon.
The phrase “from Dan even to Beersheba” is first used in Jud.
xx. 1, and in 1 S. iii. 20, narratives written, no doubt, in this age.
It is afterwards repeated.
AGES OF THE DIFFERENT WRITERS.
The result of Colenso’s researches is to fix the age3 of the dif
ferent writers, with the names of distinguished cotemporary
prophets, as follows :
Elohist, . . 1100—1060 B. C., cotemporary prophet, Samuel
2d Elohist,
Jehovist, )f 1AAA 1A1A
1060-1010
“
“
“
Nathan.
2d Jehovist, 1035
“
“
“
Gad.
Deuteronomist, 641—624
“
“
“ Jeremiah.
Samuel may have begun the Elohistic story, and left it unfin
ished in the hands of his disciples, Nathan and Gad, whom we
may fairly suppose to have been thrown under his auspices.
PHOENICIAN ORIGIN OF THE NAME JEHOVAn.
The name Jehovah the author traces to the Phoenicians. They
no doubt practiced substantially the same religion and spoke the
same language as the Israelites. Most decisive proof is given of
this by the series of Phoenician inscriptions lately published by
the authorities of the British Museum. The great Phoenician
Deity was the Sun, the male principle, while the Moon was re
garded as the symbol of the co-operating recipient powers of na
ture, the female principle. The Sun was worshipped under a
variety of names, among others that of Baal (Lord) and Adonis
(my Lord). But there was one name more augu-t and mysterious,
employed chiefly at the great feast of the harvest, and expressed
both by Christian and heathen writers by the very same Greek
letters, by which they express also the mysterious Hebrew name.
Thus there must have been a very close resemblance between the
two names, and accordingly we find Phoenician names compound-
�38
ABSTRACT OF C0LEN.50
ed with Jah exactly as Hebrew. It is preposterous to suppose
that the Phoenicians derived their names from the Hebrews.
It is not necessary to suppose that the Elohist invented the
name of Jehovah for his people. Samuel probably finding the
tribes, the northern especially, already in possession of the name,
adopted it as the name of the God of Israel. Afterwards the
Deuteronomist breathed new life into the dead letter of the law.
Meanwhile the people generally practised idolatry, even in the
reign of David and Solomon. Jehosophat, Asa, Ahaziah, and
Amaziah worshipped Jehovah (JHVH) on the high places, who
was the Baal of Israel. There is no censure of the kings for al
lowing this idolatry by the writer of the books of Samuel and
Kings. Yet all this while the great prophets of Israel were striv
ing with their stolid and perverse countrymen, to raise their
minds to higher views of the Divine nature, and nobler concep
tions of the meaning of that name they were daily profaning.
CORRUPT WORSHIP OF JEHOVAH.
The worship of Jehovah being introduced among the Hebrews
was long continued among them, as regards the great mass of the
people, in the same low form in which it existed among the Ca
naanite tribes, and was only gradually purified from its grosser
pollutions by the long continued efforts of those great prophets
whom God raised up for the purpose from time to time in differ
ent ages, aided no doubt in this work by the powerful national
calamities which befell them, and probably also in some measure by
their coming in contact during the time of their captivity with
those divine truths which were taught in the Zroasterian religion.
In fact, the state of Israel may be compared with that which, in
the view of many ardent Protestants, exists even now in Catholic
communities. The people in such cases worship the same God as
the Protestants; they call themselves Christians, servants of the
same Lord, yet there is much in their religion which Protestant
travelers regard as profound idolatry, and denounce as gross
abominations.
�THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
By W. H. B.
Very erroneous ideas prevail in regard to the magnitude of the nation
and country of the Jews, and their importance in history. Most maps
of ancient Palestine assign far too much territory to that nation. They
make the greatest length of the country from 160 to 17-5 miles, and its
greatest breadth from 70 to 90, inclosing an area of from 10,000 to
12,000 square miles—a little larger than the State of Vermont. They
not only include the entire Mediterranean coast for 160 miles, but a
considerable mountain tract on the north, above Dan, and a portion of
the desert on the south, below Beersheba, besides running the eastern
boundary out too far. Moreover, they lengthen the distances in every
direction. From Dan to Beersheba, the extreme northern and southern
towns, the distance on Mitchell’s map is 165 miles, and on Colton’s, 150;
but on a map accompanying “Biblical Researches in Palestine,” by
Edward Robinson, D. D., which is one of the most recent and elaborate,
and will doubtless be accepted as the best authority, the distance is only
128 miles.
Now, the Israelites were never able to drive out the Canaanites from
the choicest portion of the country—the Mediterranean coast—nor even
from most parts of the interior. (Judges i. 16-31 ; 1 Kings ix. 20, 21.) The
Phenicians, a powerful maritime people, occupied the northern portion
of the coast, and the Philistines the southern ; between these the Jebusites, or some other people, held control, so that the Israelites were
excluded from any part of the Mediterranean shore. The map of their
country must therefore undergo a reduction of a strip on the west at
least 10 miles wide by 160 long, or 1,600 square miles. A further reduc
tion must be made of about 400 square miles for the Dead Sea and Lake
of Tiberias. This leaves at most 9,000 square miles by Colton’s map.
But on this map the extreme length of the country is 175 miles ; which
is 47 miles too great; for the whole dominion of the Jews extended only
from Dan to Beersheba, which Dr. Robinson places only 128 mi es apart.
We must therefore make a further reduction of an area about 47 by 60
miles, or 2,800 square miles. Then we must take off a slice on the east,
at least 10 miles broad by 60 long, or 600 square miles. Thus we reduce
the area of Colton’s map, from 11,000 square miles, to 5,600—a little
less than the State of Connectidlit.
But now if we subtract from this what was wilderness and desert,
and also what was at no time inhabited and controlled by the Israelites,
we further reduce their habitable territory about one-lialf. The land of
�40
THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
Canaan being nearly all mountainous, and bounded on the south and east
by a vast desert which encroached upon the borders of the country, a
great part of it was barren wilderness. Nor did but one-fifth of the Is
raelites (two and a half tribes) occupy the country east of the Jordan
which was almost equal in extent to that on the west, the proper land of
promise. The eastern half, therefore, must have been but thinly popu
lated by the two and a half tribes, who were only able to maintain a
precarious foothold against the bordering enemies. So then it is not
probable that the Israelites actually inhabited and governed at any time,
a territory of more than 3,000 square miles, or not much if any larger
than the little State of Delaware. At all events, it can hardly be doubted
that Delaware contains more good land than the whole country of the
Jews ever did.
The promise to Abraham in Gen. xv. 18, is “from the river of Egypt
to the river Euphrates.” But the Jewish possessions never reached the
Nile by 200 miles. In Ex. xxxiii. 31, the promise is renewed, but the
river of Egypt is not named. The boundaries are “from the Red Sea
to the Sea of the Philistines (the Mediterranean), and from the desert to
the river.” By “the river ” was doubtless meant the Euphrates; and
assuming that by “ the desert ” was meant the eastern boundary (though
Canaan was bounded on the south also by the same great desert, which
reached to the Red Sea), we have in this promise a territory 600 miles
long by an average of about 180 broad, making an area of about 100.000
square miles, or ten times as much as the Jews ever could claim, and
nearly one-half of it uninhabitable. So then the promise was never ful
filled, for the Israelites were confined to a very small central portion of
their land of promise, and whether they occupied 3,000 or 12,000 square
miles in the period of their greatest power, the fact is not to be disputed
that their country was a very small one.
What was the physical character of the land of Canaan ? It is de
scribed in the Pentateuch as a “ land flowing with milk and honey.”
Such it may have seemed to the Israelites after wandering forty years
through the frightful desert of Sinai and Edom, where but for the
miraculous supply of food and water, every soul of them would have per
ished. But what was there in Canaan to warrant so extravagant an enco
mium 2 Surely there are no signs there now of its ever having been even
a fertile country. Modern travelers all agree that it is very barren and
desolate. How could it be otherwise 2 It is a country of rocks and
mountains, and is bounded on two sides by a vast desert.
Lamartine describes the journey from Bethany to Jericho as singularly
toilsome and melancholy—neither houses nor cultivation, mountains
without a shrub, immense rocks split bjitime, pinnacles tinged with colors
like those of an extinct volcano. “ From the summit of these hills, as
far as the eye can reach, wo see only black chains, conical or broken peaks,
a boundless labyrinth of passes rent through the mountains, and those
�THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
41
ravines lying in perfect and perpetual stillness, without a stream, with
out a wild animal, without even a flower, the relics of a convulsed land,
with waves of stone.” (Vol. II., p. 146.)
But lest it may be thought that these dismal features arc due to modern
degeneracy, let us take the testimony of an early Christian father, St.
Jerome, who lived a long time in Bethlehem, four miles south of Jeru
salem. In the year 414 he wrote to Dardanus thus :—
“ I beg of those who assert that the Jewish people after coming out of
Egypt took possession of this, country (which to us, by the passion and
resurrection of our Saviour has become truly the land of promise), to
show us w]iat this people possessed. Their whole dominions extended
only from Dan to Beersheba, hardly 160 Roman miles in length (147 geo
graphical miles). The Scriptures give no more to David and Solomon,
except what they acquired by alliance, after conquest......... Iam ashamed
to say what is the breadth of the land of promise, lest I should thereby
give the pagans occasion to blaspheme. It is but 47 miles (42 geograph
ical m:les) from Joppa to our little town of Bethlehem, beyond which,
all is a frightful desert.” (Vol. II., p. 605.)
Elsewhere he describes the country as the refuse and rubbish of nature.
He says that from Jerusalem to Bethlehem there is nothing but stones,
and in the summer the inhabitants can scarcely get water to drink.
In the year 1847, Lieut. Lynch, of the U. S. Navy, was sent to explore
the river Jordan and the Dead Sea. He and his party with great diffi
culty crossed the country from Acre to the lake of Tiberias, with trucks
drawn by camels. The only roads from time immemorial were mule
paths. Frequent detours had to be made, and they were compelled ac
tually to make some portions of their road. Even then the last declivity
could not be overcome, until all hands turned out and hauled the boats
and baggage down the steep places ; and many times it seemed as if, like
the ancient herd of swine, they would all rush precipitately into the sea.
Over three days were required to make the journey, which, in a straight
line would be only 27 miles. For the first few miles they passed over a
pretty fertile plain, but this was the ancient Phenician country, which
the Jews never conquered. The rest of the route was mountainous and
rocky, with not a tree visible, nor a house outside the little walled vil
lages. (pp. 135 to 152.)
. Arriving at the ancient sea of Galilee, they purchased the only boat
owned there (Letter to the Secretary of State). On this insignificant body
of water, 12 miles long by 7 wide, all the commerce of the Jews was
carried on, except in the reign of Solomon, when they had the use of
a port on the Red Sea. From thence, the party proceeded down the
Jordan; some in boats, the rest by land. They had to clear out old
channels, make new ones, and sometimes, trusting in Providence, they
plunged with headlong velocity down appalling descents. On the third
morning the frame boat was smashed and abandoned. The metallic boats
which they had provided for this perilous voyage were the only kind that
�42
THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
would survive. They plunged down twenty-seven threatening rapids,
besides many smaller ones in their passage from the lake to the Dead
Sea, a distance of 200 miles by the crooked Jordan, but only 56 in a
straight line. The fall in the whole distance is 654 feet. The width of
the river, Lieut. Lynch says, was 75 feet; but as this was at the time of
the flood, it must have been much less at low water. Other travelers
say it is only 40 feet wide. Even as it was, their boat, drawing only eight
inches of water, grounded in mid-channel, showing how very shallow
the river must have been in summer. A bridge spanning the stream with
a single pointed Saracenic arch is described by Lieut. Lynch, and a draw
ing of it is given by the Rev. Mr. Tristram in his “ Land of Israel ” (Lon
don, 1865) Through this single arch the waters have rushed for centu
ries, and still the bridge endures. Such is the famous Jordan—a narrow,
shallow, crooked, impetuous mountain stream.
In a book entitled “ The Holy Land, Syria,” etc., by David Roberts,
R. A. (London, 1855), the valley of the Jordan is thus described:—
“A large portion of the valley of the Jordan has been from the earliest
time almost a desert But in the northern part, the great number of rivu
lets which descend from the mountains on both sides, produce in many
places a luxuriant growth of wild herbage. So too in the southern part, ,
where similar rivulets exist, as around Jericho, there is even an exuber
ant fertility; but those rivulets seldom reach the Jordan, and have no
effect on the middle of the Ghor. The mountains on each side are rug
ged and desolate; the western cliffs overhanging the valley at an eleva
tion of 1,000 or 1,200 feet, while the eastern mountains fall back in rano-es
of from 2,000 to 2,500 feet.”
From the mouth of the Jordan to Jerusalem, the elevation is 3,927 feet.
The distance in a straight line on Robinson’s map is 16 miles. From the
nearest point on the Dead Sea it is 12 1-2 miles. An air-line railroad,
therefore, from the mouth of the river to Jeru alem would require an
average grade of 245 feet to the mile; and from the nearest point on the
Dead Sea, 314 feet to the mile. The length of the route would have to
be more than doubled or trebled to make a railroad practicable. From
Jerusalem to Yafa, the nearest practicable point on the Mediterranean,
is 33 miles in a direct line. As Jerusalem is 2,610 feet higher than the
sea level, the average grade of an air-line railroad between the two places
would be about 80 feet per mile. Should the time ever come when a
railroad would be required from the Mediterranean to the river Jordan,
via Jerusalem, the question might arise, which would be the most prac
ticable—the heavy grades required, or a tunnel from ten to twenty miles
long, and from one to two thousand feet below the site of the holy city.
What -was the size of ancient Jerusalem? We know pretty nearly
what it is now, and how many inhabitants it contains. It is three-quar
ters of a mile long, by a half a mile wide, and its population is not more
than 11,500 {Biblical Researches, Vol. I., p. 421), a large proportion of
whom are drawn thither by the renowned sanctity of the place. Dr.
�THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
43
Robinson measured the wall of the city, and found it to be only 12,978
feet in circumference, or nearly two and a half miles. (Vol. I., p. 268.)
In a book entitled “An Essay on the Ancient Topography of Jerusa
lem,’’ by James Fergusson (London, 1847), a diagram is given of the
walls of ancient and modern Jerusalem, from which it appears that the
greatest length of the city was at no time more than 6C00 feet, or a little
more than a mile, and its greatest width about three-quarters of a mile;
while the real Jerusalem of old was but a little more than a quarter that
size. The author gives the area of the different walled inclosures as
follows (p. 52): —
■ Area of the old city. ------ 513,000 yards.
That of the city of David, . 213,000
Partial Total,
-.................................... 756,000
That inclosed by the wrall of Agrippa,
- 1,456,000
Grand total, -----2,212,000
With these measurements Mr. Fergusson undertakes to estimate the
probable population o: the ancient city, as follows:—
“ If we allow the inhabitants of the first named cities fifty yards to
each individual, and that one-half of the new city was inhabited at the
rate of one person to each one hundred yards, this will give a permanent
population of 23,000 souls. If on the other hand we allow only thirtythree yards to each of the old cities, and admit that the whole of the new
was as densely populated as London; or allowing one hundred yards to
each inhabitant, we obtain 37,000 souls for the whole—which I do not
think it at all probable that Jerusalem ever could have contained as a
permanent population.”
In another part of the book (p. 47) he says :—
“If we were to trust Josephus, he would have us believe that Jerusa
lem contained at one time, or could contain, two and a half or three
millions of souls, and that at the siege of Titus, 1,100,000 perished by
famine and the sword; 97,000 were taken captive, and 40,000 allowed by
Titus to go free.”
In order to show the gross exaggeration of these numbers, he cites the
fact that the army of Titus did not exceed, altogether, 30,000, and that
Josephus himself enumerates the fighting men of the city at 23,400,
which would give a population something under 100,000. But even this
he believes to be an exaggeration. For says he :—
“ In all the sallies it cannot be discovered that at any time the Jews
could bring into the field 10,000 men, if so many.............. Titus inclosed
the city with a line four and one half miles in extent, which, with his j
small army, was so weak a disposition that a small body of the Jews
could easily have broken through it; but they never seem to have had
numbers sufficient to be able to attempt it.”
The author guesses that the Jews might have mustered at the begin
ning of the seige about 10,000 men, and that the city might have con
tained altogether about 40,000 inhabitants, permanent and transient, in
�44
THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
a space which in no other city in the world could accommodate 30,000
souls. But the wall of Agrippa was built, as this same author states,
twelve or thirteen years after the crucifixion ; hence prior to that time
the area of Jerusalem was only 756.000 yards, and it was capable of con
taining only 23,000 inhabitants at most, but probably never did contain
more than 15,000.
Now Jerusalem was the chief city of the Jews, and the greatest extent
of territory occupied by that nation does not now contain more than
200,000 inhabitants, if as many. Allowing to Jerusalem, in the period of
the greatest prosperity of the Jews, a population of even 20,000, is it at
all probable that the whole country could have contained anything like
even the lowest estimate to be gathered from the Scripture record? In
1 Chr. xxi. 5, 6, we read that the number of “ men that drew the sword ”
of Israel and Judah, amounted to 1,570,000, not counting the tribes of
Levi and Benjamin. In 2 Samuel xxiv. 9, the number given at the same
census is 1,300,000, and no omission is mentioned. Assuming the larger
number to be correct, and adding only one-eighth for the two tribes of
Levi and Benjamin, which may have been the smallest, we have 1,766,000
fighting men. This would give, at the rate of one fighting man to four
inhabitants, a total population of over 7,000,000 souls. But if we adopt
a more reasonable ratio, of one to six, we have a population of over
10,500,000 souls. And then we omit the aliens. These numbered 153,600
working men only two years later (2 Chr. ii 17), and the total alien
population, therefore, must have been about 500,000, which, added to the
census, would make the total population from 7,500,000 to 11,000,000, or
more. Can any intelligent man believe that a mountainous, barren coun
try, no larger than Connecticut, without commerce, without manufactures,
without the mechanical arts, without civilization, ever did, or could sub
sist even two millions of people ? Much less can it be believed that it
subsisted “ seven nations greater and mightier than the Israeliti'li nation
itself” (Deut. vii. 1), i. e., not less than 14,000,000.
That the Jews were a very barbarous people is undeniable. Assuming
as true, the account of their remarkable battle with the Midianites prior
to their entrance into Canaan, the wholesale slaughter of men, women
and children was an act peculiar only to a savage people. Who but a
barbarian chief could have commanded the murder in cold blood by
the returning victors, of all their captive women and children, save
32,000 virgins whom they were to keep alive for themselves I
Again, on taking the town of Jericho, they massacred all its inhabi
tants, saving only the harlot Rahab, who by falsehood and treachery had
betrayed her own people.
Sometime afterwards a civil war broke out among the Israelites them
selves, in which the tribe of Benjamin was almost, exterminated, leaving
only 600 males; whereupon the people, unwilling that one of their tribes
should be annihilated, fell upon and sacked a whole city of another of
�THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
45
their tribes, killing all its inhabitants except the virgins whom they gave
for wives to the survivors of the tribe of Benjamin. The Benjamites
lost in that battle 26,100 men, and their adversaries 40,030. (Judges xx.
15, 21, 25, 81.) The latter, however, not content with slaughtering all
the Benjamites but 600, proceeded to their towns and slew every man,
woman and child of the tribe. These must have numbered at least
80,000 ; so that the whole number killed in the three days of fraticidal
warfare was not less than 146,000.
Slavery necessarily makes a people barbarous. Not only were the
Israelites a nation of slaves, according to their own record, but after
their entry into Canaan, they were six times reduced to bondage in their
own land of promise. During a period of 281 years, they were in slavery
111 years, viz :—
Under the King of Mesopotamia, - 8 years. (Judges, iii. 8.)
iii. 14.)
- 18 (C
Under the-King of Moab,
( “
iv. 3.)
- 20 cc
Under the King of Canaan,
( “
vi. 1.)
7 cc
Under the Midianites,
( “
x. 8.)
- 18
In Gilead,
( “
- 40 :c
Under the Philistines,
( “ xiii. 1.)
That the Jews were far behind their surrounding neighbors in civili
zation is shown by the fact that in the first battle they fought under their
first king, Saul. they had in the whole army “neither sword nor spear
in the hand of any of the people,” except Saul and Jonathan. (1 Samuel
xiii. 22.) Nor was any “smith found throughout all the land of Israel”
(.r 19), but “ all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen
cvo-y man his share, and his coulter, and his ax, and his mattock.” (v.
20.) This was 404 years after the exodus, and only 75 years prior to the
building of Solomon's temple. Their weapons of war were those of the
rudest savage. David used a sling to kill Goliath, showing that he had
not yet learned the use of more civilized weapons; not even the bow,
which he afterwards caused to be taught to liis people. (2 Samuel i. 18.)
As another evidence of the barbarism of the Jews, when David resolved
to build a house for himself, he had no native artisans, but had to send to
Hiram, King of Tyre, for masons and carpenters. (2 Samuel v. 11.)
Even the wood itself had to be brought from Tyre. It would seem that
even in those days, as now, the mountains of Canaan were destitute of
trees—a sure sign of a sterile country. The wood of course had to be
carried over land. Wheel-carriages were unknown to the Israelites, ex
cept in the form of chariots of iron used by their enemies, which pre
vented Judah, even with the help of the Lord, from driving out .the
inhabitants of the valleys. (Judges i 19.) David captured 1,000 chariots
in about the 16th year of his reign, of which he preserved only 100,
disabling all the horses. (1 Chr. xviii. 3.) Prior to this event neither
chariots nor horses had been used by the Israelites, nor was much use
made of them by the subsequent kings. Oxen and asses were their
�46
THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
beasts of burden; camels were rare even long after Solomon’s reign.
How then was the wood brought from Tyre over the mountains, unless
it was carried on the backs of oxen or asses, or dragged along the
ground ?
The national wealth seems to have increased prodigiously in David’s
reign—chiefly from spoils—but the amount is manifestly greatly exag
gerated. Among his spoils was the crown of the King of Rabbah, the
weight of which was a talent of gold (2 Samuel xii. 30) ; i. e., 93 3-4
pounds avoirdupois—a pretty heavy burden for a royal head. At the
beginning of his reign, David had not even iron with which to forge
weapons of war or implements of agriculture, and yet after forty years
it is said that he left to his son Solomon, for the temple; 3,000 talents
of gold and 7,000 of silver. (1 Chr. xxix. 4.) Now a talent of gold,
according to the “ table of weights and money ” in the Bible, pub
lished by the American Bible Society, is equal to 5,4647. 5s 8 1-27.,
or §26,447 ; and a talent of silver is equal to 3417. 10s. 4 1-27., or
§1,653. The amount of gold and silver, therefore, which David con
tributed was equal to §90,912,000. But this is not all. The chiefs,
princes, captains, and rulers over the King’s work gave 5,000 talents, and
10,000 drachms of gold, and 10,000 talents of silver (v. 7),—equal to
§153,845,000. So that the total sum of gold and silver contributed by
David and his chiefs was §244,757,000, besides precious stones and an
incredible quantity of brass and iron. Can it be believed that David and
his men acquired such riches that they were able to make these enormous
contributions ?
In the reign of Solomon gold and silver continued to pour in so that
he was able to buy a fleet of ships in the Red Sea, of Hiram, King of
Tyre, and these ships brought him from Ophir 450 talents of gold, as we
read in 2 Chr. viii. 18—equal to about §12,000,000—though in 1 Kings ix.
28, the amount given is 420 talents, or about §800,000 less. Again, we
read in 1 Kings x. 14, that the weight of gold that came to him in. one
year was 666 talents—equal to about §18.000,000. And yet this same
monarch, who “exceeded all the Kings of the earth for riches ” (v. 23),
had neither wood, nor skilled workmen to build his palace and temple,
but bought the wood and hired the artisans of the King of Tyre. (2 Chr.
ii. 3-10 ; 1 Kings v 6-12.) The laborers erffployed in the Temple were all
the strangers in the land, numbering 153,000, of whom 3,600 were made
overseers. (2 Chr. ii. 17, 18.) Over these were set 550 Jewish overseers
according to 1 Kings ix. 33, or 250 according to 2 Chr. viii. 10. With
this great number of wkmen Solomon was seven years in building this
celebrated Temple, which was only 110 feet long, 36 wide, and 55 high.
(1 Kings vi. 2.) How many a modern church edifice exceeds in size
Solomon’s great Temple .' But there were additions to the house. First,
there was a porch at one end 36 feet by 18 (r. 3). This porch is said, in
2 Chr. iii. 4, to have been 220 feet high, or four times the height of the
�THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
47
house! But as nothing is said about the hight of it in Kings, we may
assume that the chronicler made a mistake in his figures in this case, as
he has so frequently done in others. Then there were added to the walls
of the house outside chambers, nine feet high, and from nine to thirteen
feet broad, in three tiers, making a hight of 27 feet. But even with
these additions, the temple was not remarkable for size, and the story
that 150,000 laborers were employed seven years in its construction, is
incredible.
So, too, as regards the amount of the precious metals said to have been
used in the building of the Temple, it is fabulous. And yet the amount
that David and his chiefs contributed was but a seventeenth part of what
David promised, namely, 100,000 talents of gold and 1,000,000 of silver,
(1 Chr., xxii, 14)—equal to $4,297,700,000, or twice our national debt.
The gold alone would weigh 9,375,000 pounds, or 4,347 tons—enough to
have built the walls two feet thick of that metal; and the silver, being ten
times that weight, would have filled the temple three-quarters full.
On the death of Solomon a division took place among the tribes, the
kingdom was torn asunder and divided into two small provinces, called
Judah and Israel ; two and a half tribes composing the former, and nine
and a half the latter. A religious war broke out between the two king
doms, and while it was going on the kings of Assyria came down upon
the nine and a half tribes and carried them away captive. The captives
never returned, nor can any one to this day tell where they were dis
persed. The small remnant of the Jews soon after became a prey to
conquerors and were carried captive to Babylon. The captivity of the
two and a half tribes took place 588 years B. C., and was practically an
end of the Jewish nation. They were slaves in Babylon and its vicinity,
till 536 years B. C. (Ezra i. 1-6), a period of 52 (not 70) years, when they
were released by Cyrus and allowed to return to Judea. But it appears
that less than 50,000 returned. (Ezra ii. 64, 65.) These, no doubt, were
of the poorer class, the wealthier remaining in Babylon, and contribut
ing alms for the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem and the Temple.
The amount contributed, according to Ezra ii 68, 69, was 61,000 drachms
of gold, and 5000 pounds of silver—equal in the aggregate to about
$110,000; but according to Nehemiah vii. 70, 72, it was 41,000 drachms of
gold and 4,200 pounds of silver—equal to 'about $290,000. Whichever
was the correct amount, it was not a 600th part of what David and his
men contributed for the first temple.*
About eighty years later, further contributions were made, amounting
* These two chapters, Ezra ii. and Nehemiah vii. are almost exactly alike, the
whole of the former being’ repeated in the latter, with slight variations. Both give
the names of the families that returned, and the number of each. They agree in
making the whole number 42,360, besides 7,337 servants ; but on casting up the sep
arate numbers, the whole sum in Ezra is 29,818 ; and in Nehemiah 31,089. Again,
on comparing the two chapters verse by verse, we find twenty-seven discrepancies in
figures, and thirty in names.
�48
THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
to nearly $1,000,000 (only a 60th part of what David and his men gave),
and sent by Ezra with a guard of about 1.750 men from Babylon to Jeru
salem. (Ezra viii.) But the effort to re-establish the Jewish nation proved
futile. Though they.were permitted in some degree to establish their
superstitious religious rites in their former country, they were ever af
terwards the subjects of other powers, until their final dispersion at the
siege of Jerusalem, by Titus, A. D. 70. For half a century after its
destruction, says Dr. Robinson, there is no mention of Jerusalem in his
tory ; and even until the time of Constantine its history presents little
more than a blank. (Vol. I., pp. 367, 371.)
Such was the insignificance of the Jews as a people, that the historical
monuments preceding the time of Alexander the Great, who died 323
years B. C., make not the slightest mention of any Jewish transaction.
The writings of Thales, Solon, Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Herodotus,
and Xenophon, all of whom visited remote countries, contain no mention
of the Jews whatever. Neither Homer, the cotemporary of Solomon,
nor Aristotle, the correspondent of Alexander, makes any mention c-f
them. The story of Josephus, that Alexander visited Jerusalem, ha
been proved to be a fabrication. Alexander’s historians say nothin"
about it. He did pass through the coast of Palestine, and the only,
sistance he encountered was at Gaza, which was garrisoned by Persiahi
(TVyttenbacKs Opuscula, Vol. II., pp. 416, 421.)
Soon after the death of Alexander, the Jews first came into notic-*
under Ptolemy I. of Egypt, and some of their books were collected at
the new-built city of Alexandria. But they remained an obscure people,
so much so that when Christ was crucified in the province of Judea under
the Roman government, no record of the event seems to have been r 'gistered in the archives of that great empire; for if any had been, it
would doubtless have heen preserved, at least for 300 years, and pro
duced by the Emperor Constantine, the first royal pagan convert to Chris
tianity, in his oration before the council of Nicaea, A D. 326, on the evi
dences of the Christian religion.
Persecution has probably made the Jews in modern times more numer
ous than they ever were as an ancient nation. Little reliance can be
placed upon their early history, which is entirely unsupported by cot1
porary records. The story of their origin is doubtless fabulous. It is
more probable that they were at first a wandering tribe of Bedouin Arabs
who got possession of the sterile portion of Palestine, and held it until
it was pretty thoroughly ruined. At all events it is clear that their im
portance has been unduly magnified.
���
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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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Abstract of Colenso on the Pentateuch: a comprehensive summary of Bishop Colenso's argument, proving that the Pentateuch is not historically true; and that it was composed by several writers, the earliest of whom lived in the time of Samuel, from 1100 to 1060 B. C., and the latest in the time of Jeremiah, from 641 to 624 B. C.
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Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. "A comprehensive summary of Bishop Colenso's argument, proving that the Pentateuch is not historically true; and that it was composed by several writers, the earliest of whom lived in the time of Samuel, from 1100 to 1060 B.C., and the latest in the time of Jeremiah, from 641 to 624 B.C. To which is appended an essay on the nation and country of the Jews." Date of publication from KVK.
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Judaism
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Burr, William Henry (ed)
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Bible. O.T. Joshua
Bible. O.T. Pentateuch
Conway Tracts
Jews
Judaism
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CT 25
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH:
ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
-
■ "
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A Controversy Between the Rev. Dr. Sunderland,
Wm. Henry Burr, and Others.
.... num!
ii
in
i
i
In the Washington Daily Chronicle of October 10, 1871, a
sermon was published, two columns in length, with the follow
ing heading:
THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH.
DISCOURSE BY DR. SUNDERLAND IN HIS CHURCH ON SUNDAY MORN
ING, OCTOBER 8, 1871—A NEW VIEW OF THE QUESTION—THE
JEWISH WEEK SET ASIDE—THE CHRISTIAN WEEK ESTABLISHED—
THE SABBATH IS ALWAYS “THE SEVENTH DAY” OF THE ESTAB
LISHED -WEEK—AS REQUIRED BY THE MORAL OBLIGATION OF THE
DECALOGUE.
The only portion of the discourse which it is necessary for the
present purpose to reproduce is the following :
In Acts xiii, 14, it is stated that Paul and his company, hav
ing arrived at Antioch, “ went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down.” The Sabbath day here mentioned
was undoubtedly a “Jewish Sabbath.” In the 44th verse it is
said: “And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city
together to hear the word of God.” The Greek phrase for “the
next Sabbath day,” as our English translation has it in this
verse, is: to te erchomeno Sabbato—that is, “ on the approach
ing or coming Sabbath.” This was likewise undoubtedly a
“Jewish Sabbath,” occurring after the six secular days which
followed the Sabbath mentioned in the 14th verse. But what
had occurred in the meantime in the synagogue and in the city ?
What had occurred between these two consecutive Jewish
�2
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH :
Sabbaths ? . . . . Some Gentiles, who had either wit
nessed or heard of the scene which had transpired, and who had
become deeply interested in the declaration of Paul, besought
that these words might be preached to them, (not, as in our own
version, “ the next Sabbath,” but as in the original,) “ on the
intervening Sabbath,” or “ the Sabbath betweeny This was the
request not of Jews, but of Gentiles, who paid no special regard
to Jewish ordinances, and who were doubtless aware of the new
institution and custom of the observance of “ the Christian Sab
bath” or “ the Lord’s day,” and who here, for the want of better
terms, described it as “the Sabbath between,” or “the inter
vening Sabbath”—that is, the Sabbath coming between two
Jewish Sabbaths, This was a matter of fact, and while the
record is silent as to whether Paul complied with this request
of the Gentiles—though in all probability he did—yet one thing
is beyond dispute, if we read the account in the Greek, and
that is, the Sabbath mentioned in the 42d verse is not identical
with that mentioned in the 44th verse. The conclusion is inevi
table—one was “ a Christian Sabbath,” the other was a “Jewish
Sabbath.”
On the next day a communication appeared in the Chronicle,
as follows :
AN INTERESTING QUESTION—DR. SUNDERLAND’S POSITION ON “THE
CHRISTIAN SABBATH ” DISPUTED.
To the Editor of the Chronicle ;
In the discourse of the Rev. Dr. Sunderland, which appeared
in yesterday’s Chronicle, he draws the “ inevitable conclusion”
that Paul preached to the Gentiles on a “ Christian Sabbath,”
because in Acts xiii, 42, the Greek words “ to metazu sabbaton”
mean “ on the Sabbath between,” or “ on the intervening Sab
bath,” and not “ on the next Sabbath,” as rendered in our Bi
bles. It is true that the marginal translation in our reference
Bibles sustains [favors] the Doctor’s view. But if he will exam
ine one of the latest and best authorities, namely, the Greek
Testament, by Henry Alford, D.D., of Cambridge, England,
1868, (which may be found at Ballantyne’s book-store,) he will
see that this marginal translation is not sustained. Therefore,
unless we discard this latest standard authority, we cannot ac
cept Dr. Sunderland’s “ inevitable conclusion.” Moreover, his
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
3
admission that “ the record is silent as to whether Paul did
preach on a ‘ Sabbath between,’” must be taken in favor of the
rendering in our Bi,bles, viz : “ the next Sabbath ” of the Jews.
The attempt to prove that Paul observed the so-called Chris
tian Sabbath is futile. In Acts xx, 7, we read that on one oc
casion, when the disciples came together to break bread on the
first day of the week, Paul preached (p them, and the preaching
and breaking of bread continued till daybreak, i. e., about ten
hours into the second day of the week, which began at s-unset.
But this breaking of bread was a daily occurrence at the first,
(Acts ii, 46,) and therefore proves nothing as to the sanctity of
any particular day. The proof, therefore, fails that Paul ob
served a Christian Sabbath. On the contrary, during a ministry
of twenty years he constantly preached in the synagogues on the
Jewish Sabbath, (Acts ix, 20 ; xiii, 14, 44; xiv, 1 ; xvii, 2, 10,
17; xviii, 4, 11, 19; xix, 18.)
If space were allowed me, I can prove that the following emi
nent Christian authorities are against the observance of both the
Jewish and Christian Sabbath as a sacred day: Justin Martyr,
Tertullian, Eusebius, Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, Neander,
Jeremy Taylor, and many others.
W. H. B
This brought out a reply from Dr. S., followed by a further
correspondence, as reproduced below.
HAVE WE A CHRISTIAN SABBATH?—A PROPOSAL TO “W. H. B.” FROM
DR. SUNDERLAND.
To the Editor of the Chronicle:
It is easy to show the fallacy of the comments of “ W. H. B.”
on my discourse in last Tuesday’s Chronicle. But not “ to make
two bites of a cherry,” and to save the daily journals of the city
the burden of an extensive and gratuitous publication, I have this
proposition to submit to “ W. H. B.,” (he must give his full
name.) Let us correspond upon the subject privately at first, and
when each has concluded what he wishes to say, let us then pub
lish the whole correspondence in pamphlet form.
I would not propose this labor and expense did I not feel so
deeply the importance of the truth in regard to the Christian Sab
bath. It is high time the present generation should know whether
we have left to us a Sabbath of divine authority and perpetual
�4
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH I
obligation, or whether the whole Christian world has been hood
winked and deceived by a stupendous imposition which has been
palmed upon them without any Scriptural authority whatever.
I think I have a right to expect an affirmative reply to the
above proposition, or in some way its equivalent.
B. SUNDERLAND.
REPLY OF “ W. H. B.” TO DR. SUNDERLAND.
Much as I desire to see the question of the Christian Sabba.h discussed, I feel constrained to decline the proposition of
Di .. Sunderland in yesterday’s Chronicle. In the first place, my
native modesty shrinks from the publicity of a controversy with
so distinguished an antagonist. I prefer to withhold my full
name altogether, especially as I take the unpopular side. I am
an obscure layman ; my antagonist is a distinguished clergyman.
Unknown as I am to him now, I am quite certain that he
would prefer a, more equal adversary. Iu coming out to meet
me he would reel as Goliath did when he saw the stripling
David, while I could never acquire the courage and confidence
of David, nor would I like, after all, to triumph, metaphorically
speaking, as David did. Therefore I propose to offer a sub
stitute ; and with that view I have written to one who I believe
will accept the challenge and do ample justice to my side of the
question. I mean Parker Pillsbury, of Ohio. Should he not
accept it there are several other men of distinction that I can
name, some one of whom doubtless will be willing to discuss the
question as fully as Dr. Sunderland desires.
Let us have light, and let truth prevail, though the heavens
aL
W. H. B.
THE DOCTOR READY FOR A SKIRMISH.
“W. H. B.” declines my proposition. His “native mod
esty is certainly a curious thing. It permits him, with an
apparent show of learning, to dispute my position and to vaunt
before the public what he could do if he only had “ the space.”
At the same time, it hides his name, especially as he is “ on the
unpopular side.” It suggests a comparison between himself and
David, and yet disclaims any desire for a similar triumph. Be
yond this, however, it prompts him to seek “a substitute,” and
to inform the public that he has written to Mr. Pillsbury.
�5
ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
.Well,.when Mr. Pillsbury is ready let me know, and I will com
mence’ the suggested correspondence at once. After we have
finished we will have it all published in pamphlet form, if
possible.
B. SUNDERLAND.
In the next issue of the same paper another writer makes the
following strictures on Dr. Sunderland’s discourse :
ANOTHER RICHMOND IN THE FIELD.
I have read with some curiosity Dr Sunderland’s sermon on
this subject, and, if I had been a firm believer before in the
duty of keeping Sunday, I should have had my faith severely
shaken finding that two columns of special pleading in fine print
were necessary even to get up a showing of a case in favor of the
obligation. I know I cannot have two columns to answer the
reverend Doctor, but perhaps you will let me state a few proposi
tions, which, I think, are clearer than his argument:
1. The observance of any day is not, in itself, a moral duty,
2. It can become a duty only by divine command.
3. inere was such a divine command in reference to the
seventh day.
4. There was a reason given for the observance of the sev
enth day, viz : that God rested on that day.
5. It is taught in the New Testament, and admitted by Dr.
Sunderland, that there is no longer any obligation to keep the
day originally appointed.
6. It would have been a very simple matter to make known
any transfer of obligation from the seventh day to the first day
of the week, in a plain command to that effect.
7. It is not pretended that there ever has been any such com
mand.
8. The pretended obligation to keep Sunday is merely a mat
ter of unfair inference, sustained by a tissue of sophistical special
pleading, such as would drive any lawyer out of court.
9. The idea of attaching superlative importance to an observ
ance wholly ceremonial, and as a duty wholly artificial, involv
ing no moral principle whatever, is simply preposterous.
SIGMA.
The Doctor replies to the foregoing as follows :
�6
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH :
FIGHTING IN AMBUSH—DR.
SUNDERLAND’S COUNTER PROPOSITIONS.
While waiting for Mr. Pillsbury on the Sabbath question, it
seems a new gun is opened from another ambush. Does it not
look like a sign of conscious weakness in their cause for men to
hide themselves behind some signature which keeps them from
being known to the public? I must confess I don’t like such
opponents. My general rule is not to notice them. If a man is
afraid or ashamed to let the public know who he is, I say he is not
the man to conduct a public discussion on a subject of this kind.
I should not reply to “ Sigma,” were it not for the importance
of meeting every objection which it is possible to urge against
‘ ‘ the Christian Sabbath.” I suggest, in answer to his communi
cation, the following counter propositions :
1. The moral welfare of man is an object of prime considera
tion .
2. To divide and spend our time in such a manner as best to
promote our moral welfare is a moral duty.
3. The Bible teaches (and all experience and observation con
firm it) that spending one day in seven as a day of sacred rest is
pre-eminently conducive to our moral welfare, and therefore it im
poses the moral obligation to do so.
4. Keeping the seventh day of the established week becomes
a duty by divine command, just as “ Thou shalt not steal” be
comes a duty by divine command.
5. There is now such a divine command in reference to the
seventh day of the present established week, which command is
accompanied by the reason that God set an example of such rest
at the conclusion of the creation week.
6. It is taught in the New Testament, and maintained by me,
that there is no longer any obligation to keep “ the Jewish Sab
bath,” but that such obligation is now transferred to “ the Chris
tian Sabbath.”
7. It is a false issue to assert that the question is upon trans
ferring the obligation from the seventh to the first day of the
Jewish week, and that there is no command for such transfer,
when the whole “ Jewish week” itself has been set aside and
‘‘the Christian week” has been established.
8. Such an issue as the above, sustained by no facts, and even
by no pleadings, sophistical, special, general, or otherwise, worthy
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
7
of the name, would drive not only “lawyers” but “laymen”
out of court.
9. The duty of observing and keeping the Sabbath day holy
is not for the benefit of the day, but for the benefit of man him
self. It is not, therefore, either “ a ceremonial or artificial duty;”
and when God commanded it as a part of the moral law, He was
probably about as wise as the anti-Sabbatarian, Mr. “Sigma,”
who, it seems, does not even comprehend either the nature of the
Sabbath or the first principles of morality.
B. SUNDERLAND.
And now another writer steps in with the following reply to
the above:
A THIRD RICHMOND—THE ARGUMENT BECOMING CONTAGIOUS.
In reply to Dr. Sunderland’s nine propositions, I observe, sev
erally and consecutively, as follows :
1. Good health is the greatest of all earthly blessings.
2. The twenty-four hours of the day are best divided into three
equal parts-, eight hours for labor, eight for refreshment and
sleep, and eight for the service of God and a distressed brother.
3. Petitio Principii.
4. “ Thou shalt not steal” is mala per se; “ Remember the
Sabbath day” is mala prohibita.
5. “ The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
Sabbath.”
6. “ Let no man judge you in keeping the Sabbath day.”
7. 11 False issue” denied in toto. The question is upon the
transfer.
8. Matter of private opinion as to the form of a special plea.
9. “ Mr. Sigma does not comprehend either the nature of the
Sabbath or the first principles of morality.” The old dodging
place of the clergy when close run.
RICHMOND No. 3.
To this the Doctor puts in a rejoinder, the essential part of
which is given below.
THE DOCTOR PRESSING ON—WHERE IS MR. PILLSBURY?—“ RICHMOND
NO. 3 ” DISPOSED OF.
As the argument of the anti-Sabbatarians (while waiting for
Mr. Pillsbury) seems to be rather “ running emptyings,” it is
�8
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH :
hardly worth while to spend much time on “Richmond No. 3.”
However, his propositions may be answered in few words, as fol
lows :
1. As “ good health is the greatest earthly blessing,” virtue,
of course, will have to take a back seat.
2. Obiter dictum.
3. Ipse dixit.
4. An affirmative precept,, mala prohibita ! Ha! ha ! ha !
Hog-latin; up with the hog-latin ! up with a baseless distinc
tion !
5. The Sabbath was made for man.’’ Man continues and
the Sabbath remains.
6. Misquotation and misapplication of Scripture.
7. The question is not upon the transfer from the seventh to
the first day of the Jewish week.
8. Private opinion—a great responsibility.
9. Smart thing for men in their holes to talk about “the old
dodging-place of the clergy.”
Let us now attend to the matter of Dean Alford on Acts xiii,
42. The meaning of this text turns on the word metaxu. Al
ford says, “ to metaxu Sabbaton appears by the usage of Luke to
mean the next Sabbath day, not the ‘ following week.’ This last
rendering would hardly suit eis, which fixes a definite occasion.”
Thus he merely conjectures that metaxu signifies here “ next,”
and in the margin he makes two references to Josephus and one
to Plutarch in support of his conjecture. Our answer is four
fold :
1. Altord, following many others in this error, did not under
stand the allusion of this passage, and consequently resorted to
a conjecture wholly unnecessary.
2. ^ The word metaxu has no such meaning in classic Greek,
but invariably signifies that which intervenes or comes between.
3.. There is no such usage of the word metaxu either in the
writings of Luke or of any other part of the New Testament
Greek. In fact, it is used only nine times, all told.
[In seven of the passages cited by Dr. S. the word is rendered
“between,” and in two, “ meanwhile.”]
Now, can any man tell me why the word metaxu in the New
lestament Greek has an invariable signification—that of inter-
�ALL DAYS ALIKE IIOLY,
9
vening or coming between, and yet it must be used out of its ac
customed import in this single text alone—that is, Acts xiii, 42?
What authority has Alford or any other scholar to make such a
•departure from the established meaning of words ?
4. My fourth point is that the references given by Alford do
not sustain his conjecture, but show that just the opposite is the
fact.
[Having considered and discussed the references, the Doctor
continues :]
Thus we see that every reference made by Alford is against the
sense of “ next,'1' or ‘‘following” for the word metaxu in this
passage. Beside this, neither Josephus nor Plutarch, both of
whom wrote about a century after the New Testament was com
posed, can furnish authority for the usage of words by writers so
long before them. The law of usage does not ascend.
Such being the case, I would say to Mr, “ W. H. B.,” whoso
ever he may be, that we feel constrained on this text “to dis
card” Dr. Alford as “ the latest standard authority,” and to hold
to the old classic and New Testament usage of the word metaxu
in the interpretation of this passage. Our English translators
stand corrected here. They mistook the allusion of the passage
and the learned Doctor of Cambridge has only followed in their
footsteps.
B. SUNDERLAND.
IS DR. SUNDERLAND A ROMAN CATHOLIC?
And now comes in still another adversary, who insists that Dr.
S., in taking the position he has assumed, has, “unknowingly,
demolished the groundwork of Protestant belief, namely, the
Bible, and practically indorsed that of the Catholic, namely,
Tradition.” The obligation to keep holy the first day of the
week, says the writer, “is nowhere stated to have been imposed,
either by Christ or his apostles; nowhere recorded, or so much
as alluded to in any one of the Gospels or Epistles.” The obli
gation rests “ wholly and exclusively upon the authority of tra
dition.”
The Doctor replies to the above as follows :
�10
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH:
THE CHARGE OF ROMANISM:—THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES—SCRIPTURE
AND TRADITION.
Has Rip Van Winkle come again? The article of “ M.” in
yesterday’s paper takes us back to the dark ages. In those days
tradition was a huge thing. The Bible was of but little account.
Few people knew much about it.
When the Reformation rose the English Church combated the
authority of tradition by affirming the article quoted by “ M.,”
namely: “ Holy Scripture containeth all things,” &c. This was,
and is, good Christian doctrine.
Our new Rip Van Winkle thinks he has me here. His trap
is remarkably novel and ingenious. He begins by reiterating the
old/aZse issue about “ changing the Sabbath from the seventh to
the first day of the Jewish week.” He says the warrant for this
change is not to be found “ in any one of the Gospels, or in any
one of the Epistles;” but yet it is an article of Christian faith,
and must, therefore, be founded on tradition.
And having come to this conclusion, he makes the astounding
discovery that I have “unknowingly demolished the groundwork
of Protestant belief 1”
It is curious to see what makeshifts are adopted by the anti
Sabbatarians (while waiting for Mr. Pillsbury) to conceal their
total discomfiture in the discussion of “ the Christian Sabbath.”
Driven from one point they fly to another, if possible, still more
irrelevant and untenable. Like Samson’s foxes, tail to tail, they
run in all directions and in no direction long.
B. SUNDERLAND.
In the same paper containing the above “ W. H. B.” comes
out with the following essay :
“w. H. B.” AT LAST SIGNS IN FULL—DAVID MEETS GOLIATH.
Not having heard from Mr. Pillsbury, whom I addressed at
Toledo, Ohio, but who doubtless is now absent from that city, I
will, with your permission, Mr. Editor, reply to Dr. Sunder
land’s defence of his position in regard to the proper rendering of
to metazu sabbaton. But before doing so allow me to say that,
while I protest against the injustice of his charge that I am ‘ fight
ing in ambush ”—while I insist that it is both customary and
proper for an obscure writer to withhold his name from the pub
lic in sending contributions to the press, except where the public
�ALL DAYS ALIKE IIOLY.
II
interest demands it—and though I am not aware that I am known
personally to a single editor in this city, I will, nevertheless, to
use the elegant expression of my adversary, “ come out of my
hole ” and disclose my full name.
There is another reason why I preferred in this case to remain
anonymous; that reason may be inferred from the last sentence
in Dr. S.’s reply to “ Sigma,” who, he says, “ it seems does not
even comprehend either the nature of the Sabbath or the first
principles of morality.” I have a private character which I hope
to maintain, and I do not wish to have it brought before the pub
lic with any imputation of that sort upon it, which, in my estima
tion, is little short of a libel. That is a style of discussion that I
wish to avoid.
The main point that I made against Dr. S.’s sermon was that
his “inevitable conclusion ” that Paul preached on a Christian
Sabbath, between two Jewish Sabbaths, was at variance with the
latest and best Christian standard anthority, Dean Alford. This
the Doctor admits, but he says that Dean Alford does not under
stand the allusion in the passage in question.
In order to present the question intelligibly let me give the two
verses in Acts xiii:
Verse 42.—“And when the Jews were gone out of the syna
gogue the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached
to them the next Sabbath.”
Verse 44.—“And the next Sabbath day came almost the
whole city together to hear the word of God.”
Dean Alford says that this rendering in verse 42, “ the next
Sabbath,” is correct; that it means the next Sabbath day, and
not the 1‘following week.” And he adds : “ This last rendering
would hardly suit eis, which fixes a definite occasion, nor verse
44, which gives the result.” The last clause was not quoted by
Dr. S., nor the author’s note on verse 44, which is as follows:
“ Whether erch (omeno} or ech (omeno') be read, the sense will
be ‘ on the following [ day,’ and not as Henrichs, ‘ on the fol
]
*
lowing week day.’ ”
Now, I submit to scholars and common-sense people whether
Dean Alford’s rendering is not more probably correct than that
* The intelligent reader will here supply the word “Sabbath,” for
verse 44 reads, to te erchomeno Sabbato—“ the next Sabbath day.”
�12
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH I
of Dr. Sunderland. This point is one on which the whole argu
ment of Dr. S. hinges ; if it fails his Christian Sabbath falls. If
Paul did not then and there observe a Christian Sabbath, there
was none at that time, and there is none now.
But I have not done with Christian authorities in support of
the passage as given in our Bibles. I find it sustained by John
Calvin, Adam Clarke, Matthew Henry, Thomas Scott, and
Joseph Benson. I will not take the space to quote them all, but
content myself with an extract from the last. Says Benson :
“In the intermediate Sabbath, i. e., says Bengelius, ‘ the
Sabbath that should occur in the remaining days about to be spent
by Paul and Barnabas at Antioch.’ But Grotius is confident
that the reading ought to be ‘ in the intermediate time between
the two Sabbaths,’ or ‘ in the course of the ensuing week;’ Mon
days and Thursdays, or the second and fifth days of the week,
being times in which the pious Jews were accustomed to meet
together in the synagogue for the study of the law, in compli
ance, says Lightfoot, with the appointment of Isaiah. It seems,
however, to be fully determined by ver. 44 that our version
gives the true expression.”
Thus I have brought five Christian commentators against the
rendering which Dr. S. gives. I do not know whether he
claims originality of discovery or not. I am not aware, as yet,
of any authority on his side except the marginal reading of our
reference Bibles, and that is ambiguous. If Dr. S. is right, let
him try and convince Christian scholars who accept the Lord’s
day as a Christian Sabbath, but who reject this passage as proof
of it; and then let him try to convert us anti-Sabbatarians.
As David chose five smooth stones from the brook, so have I
cited five eminent commentators, any one of whom is fatal to
Goliath.
WM. HENRY BURR.
GOLIATH THINKS DAVID HAS HIT HIMSELF.
We wait no longer for Mr. Pillsbury. “ W. H. B.” comes
out from his obscurity. I think Mr. Burr is not personally
known to me, and he will excuse any omission of titles, as I do
not know whether I should address him as judge, professor, gen
eral, colonel, major, or captain.
This is just what comes of men not doing right in the
�ALL DAYS ALIKE IIOLY.
13
first place. If lie had announced himself he would have been
saved the trouble of the protest in his first .paragraph. As to
the “little short of a libel” on “Sigma,” there was the same
difficulty. I had nothing to judge by but his propositions, and
my conclusion, as I think, was perfectly logical from the premises.
Mr. Burr is deceived when he thinks that the argument for
“the Christian Sabbath” rests solely on the meaning of Acts
xiii, 42. This text is, in fact, but a subordinate incident in the
general discussion. But when rightly understood, it does clearly
confirm the truth of the Christian Sabbath. The great argu
ment springs from another quarter.
Mr. Burr, it seems, relies on the opinions of distinguished
Christian scholars, and expects to triumph through the over
whelming weight of great names. He will find before he gets to
the end that this is a very precarious game, which two can
play at.
His main point against me was that metaxu, (not metazu, as
he writes it,) in Acts xiii, 42, does not mean between or inter
vening, but next or following. To support this position, he cited
the authority of Alford. I have shown that Alford is totally
mistaken. If he is mistaken, then all who agree with him are
mistaken.
I am glad Mr. Burr calls my attention to Alford’s note on verse
44, as it furnishes a new argument from his stand-point for my
rendering of metaxu in verse 42. If, as Alford says, “ the sense
will be on the following day, and not as Heinrichs, on the fol
lowing week-day,” this shows conclusively it was “ the Christian
Sabbath,” for if the day following the Jewish Sabbath “ was not
a week-day,” then it was “the Christian Sabbath,” as we know is
now the fact.
Thank you, Mr. Burr ! Truth always shines brighter the more
it is rubbed!
He has not done, however, “with Christian authorities.” He
produces his five smooth stones, Calvin, Clarke, Henry, Scott,
and Benson, but only slings one of them. The shot, however,
by some singular freak, instead of hitting his adversary, twirls
round and sinks into his own head I Quoting Benson, who
quotes Grotius, who was the most learned man of his time, he
distinctly proves the truth of my rendering of metaxu. Grotius
insists that the reading should be “ the intermediate Sabbath
�14
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH :
that is, the Sabbath between two Jewish Sabbaths. So much for
the quotation from Benson.
Four stones remain unslung.
“ He is not aware of any authority on my side, except the mar
ginal reading, which is ambiguous. ” He had better go back to
the old classic Greek, to the usage of the New Testament Greek
itself, and to hundreds of authorities far more decisive of my ren
dering of me tax u in this passage than any he has yet produced
against it.
But to do this I fear will require more time and space than can
be devoted to the subject in the columns of the daily journals.
And now that the gentleman appears in his own proper person,
and Mr. Pillsbury is out of the question, I have the pleasure of
renewing to Mr. Burr my original proposition. Let us corres
pond, privately at first, till we have concluded what we have to
say, and then publish the correspondence in pamphlet form.
B. SUNDERLAND.
DAVID CUTS OFF GOLIATH’S HEAD.
Prostrate Goliath flounders. He speaks. It is David, he says,
that is smitten. David thinks Goliath is blind, and in the death
struggle.
My adversary says that the weight of Christian authority is a
game that two can play at. Just so. Play away, Doctor. You
are plaintiff, I defendant. I demand a jury of your peers, all
drawn from the Christian Church. I challenge now [none] for
bias ; and if I can’t get a verdict for defendant, all the plaintiff
can hope for is a disagreement; so that he loses his case any way.
The Doctor’s Greek is good ; not so his logic. First, he admits
that Dean Alford is against him, and then claims that he is for
him. This will be news to the Dean of Canterbury. Grotius,
he says, is for him, because he insists on the reading, “ the inter
mediate Sabbath.” Not so, Doctor. Surely, you did not intend
to garble and pervert Grotius, who says, “in the intermediate
time between the two Sabbaths,” specifying Monday and Thurs
day, {not Sunday,) which were the lecture days of the Jews.
My opponent having thus perverted both Alford and Grotius,
let him try his hand at the other four authorities. It is unneces
sary for me to quote them; they are clearly and strongly against
him. And I will add that I have two more of the same sort,
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
15
namely, Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople, who first made
public in that city the existence of the Book of Acts in the year
400, and the late Albert Barnes. The earliest Christian com
mentator [upon the book of Acts] never dreamed of the render
ing of the passage in question, revealed to Dr. Sunderland, and
his brother Barnes, the latest commentator, died without the dis
covery.
Having slung the stone, I now proceed to cut off Goliath’s
head with his own two-edged sword. Eight years after the cru
cifixion the Gospel was first preached and the Christian Church
established at Antioch, in Syria. (Actsxi, 19-26.) Fouryears
later, Paul and Barnabas, being sent on a missionary tour, reached
Antioch, in Pisidia, a sequestered town, remote from the sea,
lying at the foot of impassable mountains, and distant about 330
miles in a straight line from the other place. There were a few
Jews in this second Antioch, but not a Christian until Paul went
there. How, then, could the Gentiles, who had never before
heard of Christianity, have besought Paul to preach to them on
the next Christian Sabbath ?
Dear Doctor, is not this one of those passages ‘ ‘ which they that
be unlearned and unstable wrest unto their own destruction ?” I
mean polemically, not literally.
Enough on this point. I have said that Paul, during a minis
try of twenty years, constantly preached in the synagogues on the
Jewish Sabbath. I now give the proof. Straightway after his
conversion he began to preach in the synagogues, (Acts, ix, 20.)
He did so at Antioch, in Pisidia, two Sabbath days in succession,
(xiii, 14, 44,) then at Iconium, (xiv, 1,) then at Thessalonica,
“as his manner was,” three Sabbath days, (xvii, 2,) then at
Berea, (ver. 10,) then at Athens, (ver. 17,) then at Corinth
“ every Sabbath,” for a year and a half, (xviii, 4-11,) then at
Ephesus, (ver. 19,) and again at the same place for “ three
months,” (xix, 8.) During all this time I do not find the slight
est evidence that Paul observed the first day of the week as a
Sabbath.
I decline a private correspondence. In three or four articles
of a quarter of a column each, I can say all I desire to on this
subject. But if my opponent declines a further newspaper discus
sion, I rest my case here.
J
WM. HENRY BURR.
�16
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH :
GOLIATH, THOUGH DEAD, YET SPEAKS.
Mr. Burr positively declines the private correspondence. I
must, therefore, make short work of his last communication.
1. I quoted Grotius from memory. The original has tempore
instead of Sabbato. I have no intention to misquote.
2. Can Mr. Burr say as much, when he has misrepresented
Alford on verse 42, and misquoted him on verse 44?
3. Mr. Burr cannot be permitted to select a jury from wiinesses whom we are going to put on the stand !
4. We will attend to these witnesses in due time. Alford is
already discredited. Benson gets his quietus from Grotius, and
the rest will follow as fast as we can reach them ?
5. He praises my Greek. Of course, after his blunder in
orthography I fully appreciate the compliment.
6. He says my logic, &c., “ will be news to the Dean of Can
terbury,” (meaning Alford.) As the Dean is dead, the “ news”
will, of course, be penetrating.
7. He need not spend time on “ the Jewish Sabbath,” or to
prove that the Apostles availed themselves of those occasions to
preach the Gospel. Nobody denies this.
8. It is equally useless to enter upon any historical researches
of the early Church to show that none of the Gentiles in Pisidia
had ever heard of “ the Christian Sabbath.” Dozens of people
might have been in Antioch on that very Sabbath who had
recently come from Palestine.
9. The issue between us, mind, is the meaning of ’metaxu.
He says it means next. I say it means between.
I will endeavor to be perfectly fair in examining the witnesses
he produces on his side, and in presenting such witnesses as I
may on my side. But it will take more time and space than can
be usually given in the columns of a daily journal like the Chron
icle. I therefore defer further observations to a future occasion.
B. SUNDERLAND.
DAVID ADDRESSES GOLIATH’S GHOST.
The ghost of
from memory I
his eyes. Why
In answer to
intend to do so,
Goliath appears. He says he quoted Grotius
The passage, as given by Benson, was before
did he garble it ?
my charge of misquoting, he says he did not
and insinuates that I intended to misrepresent
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
17
and misquote Dean Alford. I neithei intended it nor did it.
The charge is false. I quoted from Alford what Dr. S. omitted.
In impannelling a jury of authorities I said, “ I challenge
none for bias.” The word none was printed novo. I don’t want
to “ select'’ a jury. I will take them as they come.
I mistook a Greek letter for another almost exactly similar,
and I was not aware that Dean Alford had died within a year.
I acknowledge my mistakes; my opponent persists in his.
The lexicons say that metaxu means not only between, but
afterwards.
Ghost of Goliath, an revoir.
WILLIAM HENRY BURR.
THE GHOST APPEAHS AGAIN.
Mr. Burr sees a ghost! Quite likely! Men’s minds do
wander sometimes.
1. He says the passage as given by Benson was before my
eyes, and wants to know why I garbled it? Does he know the
primary meaning of garble? But let that pass. I would say to
Mr. Burr, just in this connection, that Grotius wrote in Latin. I
choose to read him in the original, not at second-hand. I made
the proper correction in Latin without any reference to Benson.
Is this persisting in a mistake ?
2. Mr. Burr denies that he misrepresented and misquoted
Alford, and disclaims the intention. I do not charge him with
the intention; but that he did it I will show. His words are,
“Alford says that this rendering in verse 42, ‘ the next Sabbath’
is correct." Alford does not use the word correct. To ascribe it
to him is what I call misrepresentation.
Again, on verse 44, he quotes Alford as saying, “ the sense
will be on the following day.” Alford’s words are, “ the sense
will be on the following Sabbath-day.” This is what I call mis
quotation.
3. Bias or no bias, we cannot consent to have a jury made up
of the rednesses in the case.
4. Lexicons at the best are only secondary authority. Cer
tainly they cannot settle the meaning of metau in Acts xiii., 42.
I am preparing an article on the weight of authority as to the
meaning of this text, which, when completed, I hope to have
published in some form as a full expression of my views.
B. SUNDERLAND.
�18
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH :
WHAT DAVID SAYS TO IT A SECOND TIME.
Dr. Sunderland did not make “the proper correction” of his
misquotation of Grotius. The passage reads “ medio tempore
inter duo Sabbata ”—“in the intermediate time between two
Sabbaths.” To make it read, “ in the intermediate Sabbath,” is
garbling.
I did not “ ascribe” the word “ correct” to Alford, and Dr.
Sunderland knows it. In the quotation, “ the following Sabbath
day,” the word “ Sabbath” is not to be found in Alford’s latest
edition, which I saw. I knew and Dr. Sunderland knew it ought
to be there, and yet upon that omission he sought to make Alford
stultify himself; and now, finding the word supplied in a former
edition, with strange perversity he charges me with misquotation.
WM. HENRY BURR.
THE GHOST RETURNS A THIRD TIME.
1. Mr. Burr thinks I did not make the proper correction. Let
us see. Quoting Grotius from memory, I made him read “ the
intermediate Sabbath,” as though his words were medio Sabbato.
Discovering the mistake, I corrected it by saying ‘ ‘ the original
has tempore instead of SabbataS This would make it read, as it
actually does, medio tempore.
But Mr. Burr hastens to tell us that the passage reads “ medic
tempore inter duo Sabbato.” And he adds, to make it read “ in
the intermediate Sabbath ” is garbling. He might as well accuse
me of garbling because I did not quote the entire work of Gro
tius bodily.
2. Mr. Burr’s words are, “Alford says that this rendering in
verse 42, ‘ the next Sabbath,’ is correct.” If this is not ascribing
to Alford the word “ correct,” will Mr. Burr tell us what it is?
3. How will Mr. Burr reconcile what he represents Alford as
saying with what he quotes Grotius as saying in regard to the
meaning of metaxu, in Acts xiii, 42.
4. I am inclined to think that Mr. Burr muddles himself and his
foremost witness, Alford, by confessing that he quoted an error
from an erroneous copy of Alford, knowing it to be such at the
time 1 Isn’t that being rather hard-pushed for testimony ?
5. Now, Mr. Burr, see what you have done ? By quoting
from your erroneous edition of Alford you have led me into error
in quoting the same thing after you, to make, from your stand-
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
19
point, an argument on my side. This is “stultifying” Alford
with a vengeance I I have never seen the erroneous edition of
which you speak. Is it at Ballantyne’s ?
B. SUNDERLAND.
A FINAL WORD BY DAVID.
Mr. Burr, deeming it unnecessary to reply to the foregoing,
leaves his adversary to have the last word in the Chronicle. But
in reproducing the controversy he submits the following final
word:
“ There is no God,” (Ps. liii, 1 ;) “ Trust in vanity and speak
lies,” (Is. lix, 4.) Who says that is garbling? Must I quote
the whole Bible ?
How “ hard-pushed” the Doctor must have been for an argu
ment when he eagerly seized upon so apparent an omission as that
of the word “ Sabbath,” in Dean zllford’s note on Acts xiii, 44,
not only to make nonsense of the note, but to make the “ Sab
bath-day,” mentioned in verse 44, mean the first day of the week,
contrary to the Doctor’s own admission in his discourse I (See
page 1.)
HOW THE EARLY FATHERS, REFORMERS, AND OTHER
EMINENT CHRISTIAN WRITERS REGARDED
SUNDAY AND THE SABBATH.
In the Daily Chronicle of October 31, one day prior to the
appearance of Dr. Sunderland’s last article in the controversy
with Mr. Burr, the Doctor uses this language in reply to an asser
tion by “J. R.,” on the previous day, that there is no authority
in history or Christianity for a special sacred day:
‘ ‘ Whoever will undertake deliberately to assert that there is
no authority for the Christian Sabbath in history or Christianity
is too far gone in self-complacent ignorance to be reasoned with.”
And yet so eager was the Doctor at the outset to discuss the
�20
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH I
question, that he challenged an anonymous writer, (“ W. II. B.,”)
who clearly denied the authority for the Christian Sabbath, to a
private controversy. (See page 3.) But letting that pass, let us
see how the early Fathers, Reformers, and other eminent Christian
writers regarded Sunday and the Sabbath, and whether the charge
of iC self-complacent ignorance ” will apply to them,
JUSTIN MARTYR,
So called from his being believed to have suffered martyrdom
about A. D. 163, was supposed to have been born A. D. 89. In
his Dialogue with Trypho, the Jew, reported by himself, (AnteNicene Library, vol. ii,) the following passages referring to the
Sabbath are gathered:
Trypho. “ This is what we are most at a loss about: that you,
professing to be pious and supposing yourself better than others,
are not in any particular separate from them, and do not alter
your mode of living from the nations, in that you observe no fes
tivals or Sabbaths, and do not have the rite of circumcision.”
Justin. “We do not trust through Moses or through the law,
for then we would be the same as yourselves. . . For the
law, promulgated on Iloreb, is now old and belongs to yourselves
alone. . . Now, law placed against law has abrogated that
which is before it, and a covenant which comes after in like man
ner has put an end to the previous one, and an eternal final law,
namely, Christ, has been given to us; and the covenant is trust
worthy, after which there shall be no law, no commandment, no
ordinance. . . The new law requires you to keep a per
petual Sabbath ; and you, because you are idle for one day, sup
pose you are pious, not discerning why this has been commanded
you. . . As if it were not the same God who existed in
the times of Enoch and all the rest, who neither were circumcised
after the flesh, nor observed Sabbaths, nor any other rites.
Do you see that the elements are not idle and keep no Sabbaths ?
. For if there was no need of circumcision before Abra
ham, or of the observance of Sabbaths, feasts, and sacrifices,
before Moses, no more need is there of them now, after that,
according to the will of God, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has
been born without sin.”
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
*
21
Trypho. ‘ ‘ Why do you select and quote whatever you wish from
the prophetic writings, but do not refer to those which expressly
command the Sabbath to be observed ?”
Justin. “I have passed them by, not because such prophecies
were contrary to me, but because you have understood and do
understand, that although God commands you by all the prophets
to do the same things which He commanded Moses, it was on
account of the hardness of your hearts and your ingratitude
towards Him that He continually proclaims them. . . Why
did He not teach those who are called righteous and pleasing to
Him, who lived before Moses and Abraham . . and
observed no Sabbaths, to keep these institutions ?”
TERTULLIAN
Was presbyter of the Church of Carthage about A. D. 193, and
died about A. D. 220. In his Apology addressed to the rulers
of the Roman Empire, (Ante-Nicene Library, vol. xi, p. 85,) he
says:
“But you, many of you, also, under pretence sometimes of
worshipping the heavenly bodies, move your lips in the direction
of the sunrise. In the same way, if we devote Sun-day to
rejoicing from a far different reason than Sun-worship, we have
some resemblance to those who devote the day of Saturn to ease
and luxury, though they, too, go far away from the Jewish ways,
of which indeed they are ignorant.”
In his essay On Idolatry (Ibid, p. 162) are these words:
“ By us, to whom Sabbaths are strange, and the new moons
and festivals, formerly beloved by God, the Saturnalia and Newyear’s and Mid-winter’s festivals and Matronalia are frequented.
J • • • We are not apprehensive lest we seem to be heaj thens ! If any indulgence is to be granted to the flesh you have
it. I will not say your own days, but more too; for, to the
heathens each festive day occurs but once annually: you have a
i festive day every eighth day.”
In his -address To the Nations, (Ibid, p. 449,) he thus
speaks of Sunday:
“Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be
�22
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH :
confessed, suppose that the Sun is the God of the Christians, be
cause it is a well-known fact that we pray towards the East or
because we make Sunday a day of festivity.”
Lastly, in his Answer to the Jews, (Ibid, vol. xviii, chap. 4,)
he maintains that the temporal, Jewish Sabbath is abrogated:
“It follows accordingly, that in so far as the abolition of carnal
circumcision and of the old law is being demonstrated as having
been consummated at its specific times, so also the observance of
the Sabbath is being demonstrated to have been temporary.
We [Christians] understand that .we still more
ougiht to observe a Sabbath from all ‘ servile work’ always, and
not only every seventh day, but through all time.
For the Scriptures point to a Sabbath eternal and a Sabbath
temporal.”
EUSEBIUS,
The father of church history, who wrote about A. D. 315, in
Book i, chap. 4, of his Ecclesiastical History, says:
“They [the patriarchs] did not therefore regard circumcision
nor observe the Sabbath, neither do we; neither do we abstain
from certain foods, nor regard other injunctions which Moses
subsequently delivered to be observed in types and symbols,
because such things as these do not belong to Christians.”
MARTIN LUTHER,
The father of the Reformation, is quoted by Mitchelet in his Af/e
qf Luther, (Book iv, chap. 2,) as follows :
“As regards the Sabbath or Sunday, there is no necessity
for keeping it; but if we do, it ought to be not on account of
Moses’ commandment, but because nature teaches us from time
to time to take a day of rest.”
The following quotation is also made from Luther, by Cole
ridge, in his Table Talk, article ‘ ‘ Christian Sabbath
“ Keep it for its use’ sake both to body and soul. But if any
where the day is made holy for the mere day’s sake—if any
where any one sets up its observance upon a Jewish foundation,
then I order you to work on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, to
feast on it—to do anything that shall reprove this encroachment
on the Christian spirit of liberty.”
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
23
In a hasty search of Luther’s writings we have been unable to
find either of the above passages; but their verity is not contro
verted, even by the Rev. James Gilfillan, of Scotland, the latest
and perhaps most learned advocate of the Christian Sabbath,
whose elaborate work on that subject has been recently reissued
by the American Tract Society. And we have found in Luther’s
works enough to prove that he did cherish such views, as will
appear from his instructions to Christians how to make use of
Moses, a few sentences of which we here translate from Lutheri
Opera Latina, Tom. iii, pp. 72-3 :
“ The whole of the law of Moses, in its promulgation, be
longs to the Jews alone, and not to other nations, nor to us
Christians. It was manifestly given to that people only, and
they received it to be observed by them and their posterity to
the exclusion of all other nations. . . . Nothing of it
pertains to other nations, not even the words delivered from
Mount Sinai. ... I say this on account of certain
ignorant and pernicious spirits, who, because the laws and polity
of Moses were prescribed to the people of God, say it is necessary
that we should observe the same. These new masters would
teach us something more than the Gospel of Christ.
Their doctrines are fanatical, and foreign from the true under
standing of the Gospel. Do not listen to them ; rather let no
mention of Moses be made at all. . . . We neither wish,
nor ought we to acknowledge Moses as our legislator, nor has
God so intended it. . . . When, therefore, you hear
these men say, ‘ Thus Moses wrote and commanded the people
of God by Divine authority, and therefore these things are bind
ing on us,’ you will answer them in a word : ‘ What is Moses to
us? We have nothing to do with his ministry or vocation’
For if you concede that you are bound by one of his
laws you cannot eScape the observance of the whole.
Let Moses go; he is dead, and was buried long ago by God him
self. . . . That the decalogue does not bind the Gen
tiles is shown by the very words of its promulgation, in Exodus
xx, where God says, ‘ I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee
out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage.’
Clearly he speaks and gives commandments to those whom he had
�24
. SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH :
led out of Egypt. Therefore the words have no reference to other
nations, nor to us, for we were not brought out of Egypt.
Here we might also show that the Sabbath in no way per
tained to the Gentiles. It was not commanded to them nor
observed by any of them. Even Paul and the Apostles, after
the Gospel began to be preached and spread over the world,
clearly released the people from the observance of the Sabbath.
And even the prophets foretold that the time would come when
the Jewish Sabbath would cease to exist. Thus Isaiah, in the
last chapter, says that after Christ has come the distinction be
tween the Sabbath and other days shall be removed, ‘ and there
shall be month after month and Sabbath after Sabbath.’ ”—
[Douay version, Is. lxvi 23.]
PHILIP MELANCTHON,
The bosom friend of Luther, framed and presented the Augsburg
Confession to the Assembly in 1530. In it (Omnium Operum,
1562, vol. i, p. 37,) are these words, which we translate from
the Latin :
“They who think that the observance of the Lord’s day has
been appointed by the authority of the Church instead of the Sab
bath, as a necessary thing, do greatly err. The Scripture allows
that the observance of the Sabbath has now become void, for it
teaches that the Mosaic ceremonies are not needful after the rev
elation of the Gospel. And yet, because it was requisite to assign
a certain day that the people might know when to come together,
it seems that the Church did, for that purpose, appoint the Lord’s
day, which day, for this cause also, seemed to have better pleased
the Church, that in it men might have an example of Christian
liberty, and might know that the observance neither of the Sab
bath nor of any other day is necessary.”
JOHN CALVIN,
*
The father of Presbyterianism, in Book ii, chap. 8, of his Insti
tutes, concludes a long essay on the fourth commandment as fol
lows :
“Thus vanish all the dreams of false prophets who, in past
ages, have infected the people with a Jewish notion, affirming
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
25
that nothing but the ceremonial part of this commandment
(which, according to them, is the appointment of the seventh day)
is abrogated; but that the moral part of it—that is, the obser
vance of one day in seven—still remains. But this is only
changing the day in contempt of the Jews, while retaining the
same opinion of the holiness of a day; for on this principle the
same mysterious signification would still be attributed to particu
lar days which formerly obtained among the Jews.”
GROTIUS,
The distinguished Dutch jurist and theologian, was born A. D.
1583. In his Annotations on the Old Testament he thus com
ments on Exodus xx:
“ These things refute those who suppose that the first day of
the week (that is, the Lord’s day) was substituted in place of
the Sabbath; for no mention is ever made of such a thing, either
by Christ or the Apostles; and when the Apostle Paul says,
Christians are not to be condemned on account of Sabbaths, &c.,
(Col. ii, 16,) he shows that they were entirely free from that law ;
which liberty would be of no effect, if, the law remaining, the
day merely were changed. Therefore the day of the Lord’s res
urrection was not observed by Christians, any more than the Sab
bath, from any precept of God, or of the Apostles, but by volun
tary agreement of the liberty which had? been given them.”
WILLIAM TYNDALE,
The distinguished English reformer and martyr, in his Answer to
Sir Thomas Moore's Dialogue, chap. 25, says:
“ As for the Sabbath, we be lords over the Sabbath, and may
yet change it into Monday or into any other day, as we see need;
or make every tenth day a holy day only, if we see cause why.
We may make two every week, if it were expedient, and not one
enough to teach the people. Neither was there any cause to
change it from Saturday than to put difference between us and
the Jews, and lest we should become servants unto the day, after
their superstition. Neither need we any holy day at all if the
people might be taught without it.”
�26
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH :
JOHN FRITH,
A cotemporary of Tyndale, and also a martyr, in his Declaration'
of Baptism, takes a similar view, as follows :
“ Our forefathers which were in the beginning of the Church
did abrogate the Sabbath, to the extent that men might have an
example of Christian liberty, and that they might know that
neither the keeping of the Sabbath nor of any other day is neces
sary. . . Howbeit, because it was necessary that a day
should be reserved in which the people should come together to
hear the word of God, they ordained in the stead of the Sabbath,
which was Saturday, the next day following, which was Sunday.
And although they might have kept Saturday with the Jews as
a thing indifferent, yet did they much better, and overset the day,
to be a perpetual memorial that we are free and not bound to any
day, but that we may do all lawful works to the pleasure of God
and profit of our neighbor. We are in manner as superstitious
in the Sunday as they were in the Saturday; yea, are we much
madder ; for the Jews have the word of God for their Saturday,
since it is the seventh day, and they were commanded to keep the
seventh day solemn; and we have not the word of God for us,
but rather against us, for we keep not the seventh day as the Jews
do, but the first, which is not commanded by God’s law.”
JOHN MILTON,
In his Treatise on Christian Doctrines, vol. ii, p. 331, says:
“ Since, then, the Sabbath was originally an ordinance of the
Mosaic law, since it was given to the Israelites alone, and that for
the express purpose of distinguishing them from other nations, if
follows that if (as was shown in the former book) those who live
under the Gospel are emancipated from the ordinances of the law
in general, least of all can they be considered as bound by that
of the Sabbath, which was the special cause of its institution.”
Again, on page 332 :
“ The law of the Sabbath being thus repealed, that no particu
lar day of worship has been appointed in its place is evident from
the same Apostle, (Rom. xiv, 5.”)
And on page 339 he concludes :
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
27
‘ ‘ First, that under the gospel no one day is appointed for
divine worship in preference to another, except such as the Church
may set apart, of its own authority, for the voluntary assembling
of its members; . . . and, secondly, that this may con
veniently take place once every seven days, particularly on the
first day of the week. ... I perceive also that several of
the best divines, as Bucer, Calvin, Peter Martyr, Musculus, Ursinus, Gomarus, and others, concur in the opinions above ex
pressed.”
PETER HEYLYN,
Chaplain to Charles I and Charles II, as cited by Bannerman
in his Modern Sabbath Examined, (London, 1832, p. 139,) dis
courses as follows:
“ It was left to God’s people to pitch on the first day of the
week or any other, as the public use might require; for there
was no divine command that it particularly should be sanctified,
as there was concerning the Jewish Sabbath. And though this
day was taken up and made a day of meeting in the congrega
tion for religious exercises, yet for three hundred years there was
neither law to bind them to it nor rest from labor or from worldly
business required upon it. And when it seemed good unto
Christian princes to lay restraints upon their people, yet at first
it was not general, but only this: that certain men in certain
places should lay aside their ordinary works to attend to God’s
service in the church ; those engaged in employments that were
most toilsome and most repugnant to the true nature of a Sab
bath being allowed to follow and pursue their labors, because
most necessary to the Commonwealth. And in following times,
when the princes and prelates endeavored to restrain them from
that also, it was not brought about without much strugglin''
and opposition of the people; more than a thousand years being
past after Christ’s ascension before the Lord’s day had attained
that state in which it now standeth. ... In all this
time, in twelve hundred years, we find no Sabbath.”
ARCHBISHOP WHATELY,
In his Difficulties in the Writings of St. Paul., (Andover edi
tion, p. 160,) says:
�2S
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH :
“ Throughout the whole liturgy and rubric the word Sabbath
never once occurs. Our reformers, there is every reason to
believe, concurred in taking the same view of the obligation of
the fourth commandment as is set forth in the catechism extant
under the name of Archbishop Cranmer, published in the be
ginning of the reign of Edward VI: ‘ The Jews in the Old Tes
tament were commanded to keep the Sabbath day; and they
observed every seventh day, called the Sabbat or Satterday.
But we Christian men in the New Testament are not bound to
such commandments of Moses’ law.”
Again, on page 163 :
“We find, in short, the most ample evidence of the observance
of the Lord’s day as a Christian festival by the Apostles and
their immediate converts, whose example has been followed by
all Christian churches down to this day; but that in so doing
they conceived themselves to be observing a precept of he
Levitical law, that they taught the doctrine of a transfer of the
Sabbath from one day to another, we find not only no evidence,
but every conceivable evidence to the contrary.”
JEREMY TAYLOR
Treats of the Sabbath at great length. We subjoin a few pas
sages from vol. xii, of his Whole Works :
‘ ‘ The Christians for a long time together did keep their conven
tions upon the Sabbath, in which some portions of the law were
read. ... At first they kept both days, with this only dif
ference : that though they kept the Sabbath, yet it was after the
Christian, that is, after the spiritual manner. . . . They
did it without any opinion of essential obligation and without the
Jewish rest. . . . We find it affirmed by Balsamo, ‘ The
Sabbath day and the Lord’s day were almost in all things made
equal by the holy fathers.’ . . . The effect of which
consideration is, that the Lord’s day did not succeed in the place
of the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was wholly abrogated, and the
Lord’s day was merely an ecclesiastical institution.
And the primitive Christians did all manner of works upon the
Lord's day, even in times of persecution, when they are the
strictest observers of all the Divine commandments. But in this
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
29
they knew there was none; and therefore when Constantine, the
Emperor, had made an edict against working upon the Lord’s
day, yet he excepts and still permitted to agriculture the labors
of the husbandman whatsoever; for ‘ God regardeth not outward
cessation from works more upon one day than another,’ as St.
Epiphanius disputes well against the Ebionites and Manichseans.”
NEANDER,
The most profound Church historian, in vol. i, sec. 3, of his Gen
eral History of the Christian Religion and Church in the three
first centuries, (first edition,) thus speaks of Sunday :
“The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always
only a human ordinance ; and it was far from the intention of the
Apostles to establish a divine command in this respect; far from
them and from the early Apostolic Church, to transfer the laws
of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the second
century a false application of this kind had begun to take place,
for men appear by that time to have considered laboring on Sun
day as a sin.”
In the second edition, which the author issued in 1843, the
foregoing passage is not found, nor indeed anything like it. The
explanation of so remarkable an omission is given by the trans
lator in his preface to the English edition, (Edinburgh, 1851-2,)
as follows : “In this new edition the alterations are numerous and
important. . . . These important changes, not here and there,
but through the entire page and paragraphs, have made it neces
sary to translate nearly the whole of the first volume anew.”
That Neander did modify bis views on the Sunday question ap
pears not only from the radical changes made in the second edi
tion of his General Church History, but from the following pas
sages contained in his prior work, entitled, History of the Plant
ing and Training of the Christian Church, (Edinburgh, 1842,
vol. i, p. 156 :)
“According to the doctrine of the Apostle Paul, the Mosaic
law in its whole extent had lost its value as such to Christians ;
. . . but whatever was binding as a law for the Christian life
�30
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH :
must, as such, derive its authority from another quarter. Hence
the transference of the Old Testament command of the sanctity
of the Sabbath to the New Testament standing point was not
admissible. . . , Thus all the days of the Christian life must
be equally holy to the Lord. . . . He fears that his labors
among them, [the Galatians,] to make them Christians, had been
in vain, because they reckoned the observance of certain days as
holy to be an essential part of religion. . . . We must de
duce the religious observance of Sunday, not from the Jewish
Christian churches, but from the peculiar circumstances of the Gen
tile Christians, and may account for the practice in the following
manner: Where the circumstances of the churches did not allow
of daily meetings for devotion, . . . although on the Chris
tian standing point all days were to be considered as equally holy,
in an. equal manner devoted to the Lord, yet, on account of
peculiar outward relations, such a distinction of a particular day
was adopted for religious communion.”
WILLIAM PALEY,
Author of standard works on Natural Theology, Evidences of'
Christianity, and Moral and Political Philosophy, in discussing
the Sabbath question in the last mentioned work, chap, vii,
says :
“St. Paul evidently appears to have considered the Sabbath
as part of the Jewish ritual, and not obligatory on Christians as
such.” (Col. ii, 16, 17.)
And in regard to the first day of the week he speaks as follows :
“A cessation upon that day from labor beyond the time of
attendance upon public worship is not intimated in any passage
of the New Testament; nor did Christ or his Apostles deliver,
that we know of, any command to their disciples for a discontin
uance, upon that day, of the common affairs of their professions.
The opinion that Christ and his Apostles meant to
retain the duties of the Jewish Sabbath, shifting only the dav
from the seventh to the first, seems to prevail without sufficient
reason ; uor does any evidence remain in the Scripture (of what,
howevei, is not improbable) that the first day of the week was
thus distinguished in commemoration of our Lord’s resurrec
tion.”
�ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH.
If the Christian Sabbath, so called, be of Divine appointment,
to commemorate the resurrection of Christ, it must take its origin
from that event. During the forty days thereafter that Jesus
remained on earth, (Acts i, 3,) it is conceded that He gave no
command to observe any day as a Sabbath. Did He then by His
example indicate such an observance ?
According to Matthew, He met the two Marys on the morning
of the day of his resurrection, and bade them “ go tell my breth
ren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.”
(xxviii, 10.) “ Then the eleven disciples went away into Gal
ilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them,” (v. 16;)
and after receiving from Him a command to teach and baptize,
the narrative ends. Is it not very remarkable, if this was the
first Christian Sabbath, that we find no intimation of it here, but
on the contrary an order sent to the disciples, which they seem
to have straightway obeyed, to set out on a journey of more than
fifty miles ? Only one meeting with the disciples after the resur
rection is recorded, and that, being in a far off mountain, can
hardly be supposed to have occurred on Sunday. In short, there
is no intimation in Matthew’s narrative that the risen Jesus met
His disciples at all on the first day of the week.
According to Mark, the two Marys and Salome received the
instruction to tell the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee from the
young man in a long, white garment. A little later in the day
Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene alone, who went and told the
disciples that He was alive, (xvi, 10;) afterward He appeared to
two of His disciples as they went into the country, (v. 12;) and
lastly, to the eleven as they sat at meat, (y. 14.) The three
appearances seem to have occurred on the same day; and not only
31
�32
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH :
is there no indication of the special observance of that day, but
quite the contrary ; for two of the disciples were journeying into
the country, an act entirely inconsistent with the keeping of a
Sabbath, and Jesus appears to have kept them company. The
meeting of the eleven at meat would seem to have been in the
evening, (John xx, 19,) which, according to the Jewish division
of time, was the beginning of another day. So there is no inti
mation in Mark’s narrative of the observance of the first day of
the week.
According to Luke, the two Marys, Joanna, and other women,
having visited the empty sepulchre, went and told the fact to the
eleven, (xxiv, 9.) Then that same day, as two of the disciples were
going to the village of Emmaus, (v. 13,) a distance of seven and a
half miles, Jesus drew near and walked with them ; and when they
came to the village “ He made as though He would have gone
further,” (v. 28,) but they constrained Him to take supper with
them, the day being “far spent;” after which they returned to
Jerusalem, where they met the rest of the eleven and others
gathered together. But presently Jesus himself appeared among
them, (y. 36.) Here we have the fact of Jesus and two of the
disciples traveling a distance of fourteen miles, which is adverse
to the recognition, even by Jesus himself, of the sacredness of
the day. Nor did He meet the eleven disciples until late in the
evening, which was the second day of the week; for it is not to
be supposed that the disciples, who were all Jews, had suddenly
discarded the Jewish division of time, by which the day began at
sunset. Moreover, there is nothing to show that this meeting of
the disciples was extraordinary, or more than accidental. The
two disciples appear to have returned from Emmaus on purpose
to tell the rest that Jesus was alive, so that their attendance at
least was accidental; and in spite of the information that the other
nine had received of the resurrection from these two, as well as
from the women, His appearance among them was a surprise, and
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
33
with difficulty did He persuade them that He was not a spirit.
Then He led them out to Bethany, (w. 50,) whence He was car
ried up into heaven. Luke, like Mark, mentions but this one
meeting of Christ with His disciples, and every circumstance
recorded is opposed to the recognition of the day of the resurrec
tion as a Sabbath.
According to John, Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene,
(xx, 14,) who went and told the disciples, (y. 18.) “Then the
same day at evening/’ ten of the eleven disciples being assembled,
Jesus came among them, (v. 19.) This meeting was not on the
first but the second day of the week, as we have already seen,
and the appearance of Jesus among the ten was a surprise. He
convinced His incredulous disciples that He was alive; but they
could not afterward convince the absent Thomas of the fact. So,
“after eight days,” when the eleven were assembled, Jesus ap
peared again among them, (y. 26,) apparently for the sole pur
pose of convincing Thomas. Admitting that “ after eight days”
means one week, which is disputed by learned theologians, it is
certain that this second meeting, which is mentioned by John
only, was, like the first, on the second day of the week. John
mentions a third appearance of Jesus to the disciples when they
were fishing, (xxi, 3, 4,) which of course could not have been
on a Sabbath.
So, then, there is not the slightest testimony in any of the four
Gospels to the observance of Sunday as a Sabbath. Surely, if
the day was thenceforth to be hallowed, there must have been
some intimation of it by at least one of the Evangelists ; but on
the contrary, every recorded circumstance is against it.
Here we might rest the case, for if Christ did not institute a
Christian Sabbath, what authority had His Apostles, much less
their successors, to do it? But waiving that objection, let us turn
to the Acts of the Apostles and remaining books of the New Tes
tament, and see if they contain any warrant for the sanctification
of Sunday.
�34
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH
The first nineteen chapters of Acts contain no reference what
ever to the first day of the week. On the other hand, we there
have a history of twenty-five years of Paul’s ministry, in which
he constantly preached in the synagogues on the Sabbath-day of
the Jews, showing that if he had any regard for one day as holier
than another it was the seventh day. But there is no intimation
even of this, and many passages in his epistles are clearly against
the observance of any Sabbath. (Rom. xiv, 5; Gal. iv, 10Col. ii, 16.)
The first and only mention of the first day of the week in Acts
is in chap, xx, 7, where it is said the disciples came together on
that day to break bread, and Paul, ready to depart on the mor
row, preached to them till midnight; i. e., six hours into the sec
ond day of the week. But after midnight they again broke bread,
(y. 11,) and Paul talked till daybreak; i. e., ten hours or more
into the second day of the week. ,Rut if, as may be the fact, this
meeting was on Saturday evening, which was the beginning of
the Jewish first day, then it is certain that Paul, in taking his
departure in the morning, traveled on Sunday. The fact of the
disciples coming together to break bread on the first day of the
week has no significance as to the sacredness of that day, because
it was a daily practice, as we read in Acts ii, 46. So there is
nothing in Acts xx, 7, to indicate the special observance of Sun
day.
The last and only othei- mention of the first day of the week
in the New Testament is in 1st Corinthians, xvi, 2, where every
one is exhorted to lay by him in store on that day for a collection.
Nothing further can be inferred from this than that on that par
ticular day the Corinthian Christians, like the Galatians, were to
lay by their contributions—reserved, perhaps, from the earnings
of the past week.
The only mention of the “Lord’s day” in the New Testament
is in Revelations i, 10 : “I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day.”
�ALL DAYS ALIKE IIOLY.
Granting that by this was meant the first day of the week, and
not a particular day of the year, (which was possible,) it proves
nothing as to the sacredness of Sunday, especially as it was the
custom in the early Christian church to meet on other days as
well as Sunday for religious purposes. To establish this fact we
produce Neander, author of the most profound and exhaustive
history of the Christian church yet produced, who, in speaking
of the observance of festive days in the first three centuries, (vol.
i, second edition, p 402,) says :
“ Sunday was distinguished as a day of joy. . . . The Friday of
•each week, this day in particular, and the Thursday, were specially con
secrated to the remembrance of the sufferings of Christ and of the prepara
tory circumstances. On those days there were meetings for prayer and
fasting till three o’clock in the afternoon. . . . Those Churches, how
ever, which were composed of Jewish Christians, though they admitted
with the rest the festival of Sunday, yet retained also the Sabbath.”
Again, in vol. iii, p. 398:
“ Yet the most distinguished Church teachers of this period continue still
to express the purely Christian idea of the relation of the festivals to the
whole Christian life. . . . Thus Jerome asserts that, considered in a
purely Christian point of view, all days are alike, and every day is for the
Christian a Friday, . . . every day a Sunday. . . . Chrysostom
delivered a discourse at Antioch, in which he showed that those who never
attended church except on the principal festivals adopted the Jewish point
of view ; that on the other hand the Christian celebration of festivals was
not necessarily restricted to certain times, but embraced the whole life.
. . . In like manner the Church historian Socrates remarks that Christ
and the Apostles, conformably to Christian freedom, gave no law respect
ing feasts, but left everything open here to the free expression of feelings.
. . Socrates mentions it as a peculiarity of the Alexandrian Church,
that on Wednesday and Friday the Holy Scriptures were read in the Church
and expounded by homilies; and in general the whole service conducted
as on Sunday, the celebration of the communion excepted. This custom
probably vanished by degrees in most of the Churches ; only Friday con
tinued to be consecrated to the memory of Christ’s passion. The Emperor
Constantine, as Sozomon relates, enacted a law that on Friday, as on Sun
day, there should be a suspension of business at the courts and in other
civil offices, so that the day might be devoted with less interruption to the
purpose of devotion. At Antioch the communion was celebrated on Fri
day as well as on Sunday. Also, at Constantinople, Friday was observed
by the more serious Christians as a day of penitence and fasting, conse
crated to the memory of Christ’s passion, and the Sacrament of the Sup
per was distributed. . . . In several of the Eastern Churches the Sab
bath was celebrated nearly after the same manner as Sunday.”
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SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH:
In Mosheim’s Church History (cent, ii, part ii, ch. iv, sec.
8) the observance of four days of the week by the Christians of
the second century is mentioned, namely : the first, the fourth,
the sixth, and the seventh—the fourth being the day on which
Christ was betrayed, and the sixth day on which he was crucified.
In Jeremy Taylor’s treatise on the Sabbath ( Whole Works, vol.
xii,) he says that the primitive Christians continued to meet
publicly on the Jewish Sabbath until the time of the Council of
Laodicea, (A. D. 368,) when the observance of that day was ex
pressly forbidden in these words: “ Christians must not keep a
rest Sabbath, but work upon that day, preferring the Lord’s day
before it. If they will rest on that day let them rest as Chris
tians ; but if they rest as Jews, let them be accursed.”
It is needless to cumulate proof of the fact that the primitive
Christians were accustomed to meet for religious purposes on other
days beside Sunday. There can be no question of it. Indeed,
if any day of the week was more generally used than another
for Christian worship in the first three centuries it was the sev
enth day, or Jewish Sabbath.
The “Lord’s day” mentioned in Rev. i, 10, probably meant
the “great day of God Almighty,” (xvi, 14,) or “ the great day
of His wrath,” (vi, 17,) and the proper rendering of the passage
would be, “I was in spirit on the Lord’s day,” i. e., the day of
God’s wrath. At all events it is mere conjecture that it meant
Sunday, and it would be a bettei’ conjecture that it meant the old
Sabbath. The date of the book of Revelation is given in the
margin of our Bibles as A. D. 96, but modern criticism fixes it
about A. D. 70. The earliest use of the expression “ Lord’s
day” we have been able to find in the writings of the Fathers is
in the Miscellanies of Clement of Alexandria, (B. v, p. 284;
Ante-Micene Lib., vol. xii,) the date of which is assigned be
tween A. D. 194 and 202. Eusebius, however, (B. iv, ch. 23,)
quotes it from an epistle (not now extant) of Dionysius, who was
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
37
made bishop of Corinth, A. D. 170. Assuming that Eusebius
quoted it correctly, we have but these two occurrences of it in the
writings of the Fathers of the first two centuries, unless what is
known as the long epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians, which
is generally regarded as spurious, was forged before the year 200.
That epistle, which is an enlargement of the short one, contains
these words:
“Let us, therefore, no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish manner,
and rejoice in days of idleness, . . . but let every one of you keep the
Sabbath after a spiritual mauner. . . . And after the observance of
the Sabbath let every friend of Christ keep the Lord’s day as a festival ;
the resurrection day, the queen and chief of days.” (Ch. ix.)
The short epistle, which, though questionable, is believed by
some to be genuine, and therefore written about the end of the
first century, also contains the expression “Lord’s day” in our
translations, but not in the original Greek. In Archbishop
Wake’s translation we read, “No longer observing Sabbaths, but
keeping the Lord’s day.” (Ch. iii, 3.) The Greek reads, kata
kuriaken zoen zontes, and the rendering should be, “living
according to the Lord’s life.” This, too, makes far better sense
of the whole passage, thus : “ No longer observing Sabbaths, but
living according to the Lord’s life, in which also our life is sprung
up,” &c.
It therefore appears that until about the close of the second cen
tury the expression “ Lord’s day” occurs but barely once in any
existing manuscript, namely, the Book of Revelations; and it is
presumptuous to assume that it meant a Christian Sabbath. Nor
is the meaning of the expression as used by Clement of Alexan
dria, A. D. 194-202, any more certain; for in repeating it
(B. vii, ch. xii) he seems to regard any day as the Lord’s day.
Furthermore, it is a remarkable fact that the most learned advo
cates of the Christian Sabbath, in applying Rev. i, 10, to Sunday,
never refer to any writer earlier than the fourth century who
quotes it. Hence there may be just ground for the suspicion that
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SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH !
the passage was interpolated in that Book about or prior to the
time of Constantine.
Still it is conceded that Sunday had begun to be observed in a
special manner about the middle of the second century. Justin
Martyr, in his Apology, written about this time, speaks of the
celebration of the “day of the Sun, because on this first day God
made the world, and Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead.”
But no observance of Sunday is to be traced in any writer of the
first century; and when the observance began, the laws of the
Sabbath were not transferred to Sunday; nor were they so applied
at all until, says Neander, “perhaps at the end of the second
century a false application of this kind had begun to take place.”
(First Edition, vol. i, sec. 3.) The observance of the day seems
to have grown up gradually from about A. D. 140 to A. D. 321,
when the Emperor Constantine issued the following edict:
“Let all judgesand people of the town and all the various trades be
suspended on the venerable day of the Sun, [die Solis.] Those who live
in the country, however, may freely and without fault attend to the culti
vation of their fields, (since it often happens that no other day may be so
suitable for sowing grain and planting the vine;) lest, with the loss of
favorable opportunity, the commodities offered by Divine Providence
should be destroyed.’’ ( Cod. Justin., lib. iii, tit. 12, secs. 2, 3.)
In this edict the day is not called the ‘ ‘ Lord’s day,” but ‘ ‘ Sun
day,” or literally the “Sun’s day,” which was the Pagan desig
nation. And not only did Constantine ordain the observance of
Sunday, but also of Friday.Says Eusebius, in his Life of Con
stantine, Book iv, chap. 18 :
“ He commanded that through all the Roman empire they should forbear
to do any work upon the Lord’s day, and that they should reverence the
day immediately before the Sabbath, in regard to our Saviour’s memorable
and divine actions performed on those days.”
It is the Christian historian Eusebius, and not Constantine,
who here uses the expression “Lord’s day ” Sylvester, who was
bishop of Rome while Constantine was emperor, in order, as it
is stated, to give more solemnity to the first day of the week,
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
39
changed its name from Sunday, which Constantine had given it,
to the more imposing one of the “Lord’s day.” (ZtictW Eccl.
Hist., cent, v, p. 470.)
The Rev. James Gilfillan, in his able work on the Sabbath,
indorsed and extensively distributed by the New York Sabbath
Committee in 1865, concedes that “ the Fathers of the first three
centuries believed that the Jewish Sabbath-day had been set
aside,” (p. 377,) but labors to prove that they recognized the
Divine appointment of the first day of the week, in place of the
seventh, as a “day of rest and worship,” citing several of the
early Fathers. Let us take them up in their order, and see what
they prove.
All that Clement of Rome (A. D. 68-97) says is, that “ offer
ings and sacred services ” were commanded by our Lord to be
rendered “ at appointed times and hours.”
“ Barnabus, disclaiming the old Sabbath-day,” says Gilfillan,
“ declares the eighth day to be its acceptable substitute.” The
epistle of Barnabus is unquestionably spurious, and its date can
not be fixed earlier than A. D. 120. (Ante-Nicene Lib., vol. i.)
Here is what the writer of that epistle says:
“Therefore, my children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, all
things will be finished. ‘And He rested on the seventh day.’ This meaneth : when His Son, coming [again,] shall destroy the time of the wicked
man and judge the ungodly, and change the sun, and the moon, and the
stars, then shall He truly rest on the seventh day. . . . Further, He
says to them: 1 Your new moons and your Sabbaths I cannot endure.’
Ye perceive how He speaks. Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to
me, but that is which I have made, [namely, this,] when giving rest to all
things, I shall make a beginning of the eighth day; that is, a beginning
of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyful
ness, the day, also, on which Jesus rose again from the dead, and, when
He had manifested Himself, ascended into the heavens.” (Ante-Nicene Lib.,
vol. i, ch. xv )
Whatever the character of the observance of the eighth day
may have been when this epistle was written, it is clear that it
was not a day of rest, and the “joyfulness” of its observance
�40
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH :
implies that it was a festive day. It was, therefore, by no means
■an ‘ acceptable substitute,” as Gilfillan asserts, for the “ old Sab
bath-day.”
Justin Martyr (A. D. 140-165) is claimed as the next wit
ness for the substitution of Sunday for the Jewish Sabbath, be
cause he says that the Christians assembled for worship in his
time on the day of the Sun, “because on this first day God made
the world, and Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead.”
{Apology, ch. lxvii.) This is a most unfortunate passage to prove
a Sabbath, for it denies all possible connection between Sunday
and the fourth commandment. Nothing is said by Justin about
observing Sunday as a day of rest in obedience to the law of the
Decalogue, and we have already seen (p. 20) that he says there
is no more need of Sabbaths now.
The testimony of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, is based on the statemont of Eusebius (B. iv, ch. 26) that he wrote a book on the
subject of the Lord's day in A. D. 170, or later. This is a mis
translation; in the original Greek it is Kuriakes logos—“Lord’s
discourse.”
That of Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, (A. D. 170 or later,)
is, that Eusebius, in the fourth century, quotes him as having
written, “ We have passed the Lord’s holy day, in which we have
read your epistle.” It is second-hand testimony, and amounts
to little or nothing if true.
That of Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, (A. D. 168-188,) is
that he “ appeals to the observance of the Lord’s day as a cus
tom in the churches.” Eusebius, to whom reference is made,
states no such thing in regard to Theophilus of Antioch, but he
does speak of a Theophilus, Bishop of Cesarea, (A. D. 180-192,)
who presided at a council which enacted “ that the mystery of
our Lord’s resurrection should be celebrated on no other day than
the Lord’s day.” (B. v., ch. 23.) This is also second-hand
testimony, and of little or no weight if true.
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY,
41
The testimony of Irenaeus (A. D. 177-202) is in his saying
that the “true sanctification of the Sabbath consists in doing
works of mercy;” and that the commandments of the Decalogue
“ continue with us, extended and enlarged, not abolished.” (B.
iv, ch. 16.) But in the very next sentence Irenaeus calls these
commandments “laws of bondage,” and adds: “These things,
therefore, which were given for bondage and for a sign to them
He cancelled by the new covenant of liberty. But He has in
creased and widened those laws which are natural, and noble, and
common to all.” Furthermore, in section 1 of the same chapter,
he quotes Exod. xxxi, 13, and Ezek. xx, 12, to prove that the
Sabbath was a sign, and says: “The Sabbaths taught that we
should continue, day by day, in God’s service.” Again, in sec
tion 2, he says:
“And that man was not justified by these things, but that they were
given as a sign to the people, this fact shows—that Abraham himself, with
out circumcision and without the observance of Sabbaths, ‘ believed God
and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend
of God.’ . . . Moreover, all the rest of themultitude of those righteous
men who lived before Abraham, and of those patriarchs who preceded
Moses, were justified independently of the things above mentioned and
without the law of Moses. As also Moses himself says to the people in
Deuteronomy: 1 The Lord thy God formed a covenant in Horeb. The
Lord formed not this covenant with your fathers, but for you.’ ”
Clement of Alexandria (A. D. 189-202) is quoted by Gilfillan
is saying, “ The eighth day appears rightly to be named the sev
enth, and to be the true Sabbath.” This, if correctly rendered,
would be testimony of some weight, but in the recent translation
(Ante-Flcene Lib., vol. xii, B. vi, The Fourth Commandment') it,
is rendered thus : ‘ ‘ The eighth day may possibly turn out to be
properly the seventh, and the seventh manifestly the sixth, and
the latter properly the Sabbath. ” So the passage proves nothing
in favor of Sunday Sabbatarianism.
Tertullian (A. D. 193-220) is cited in proof of the sanctity
of the Lord’s day. In his time it is quite possible, as Neander
�42
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH !
intimates, that a false application of the laws of the Sabbath to
Sunday began to prevail. Tertullian discusses the question of
kneeling in prayer on the Sabbath and on the day of the Lord’s
resurrection, (not “ Lord’s day/’ as Gilfillan quotes it,) and says
that on the last-mentioned day we “ought to guard not only
against kneeling, but every posture and office of solicitude; defer
ring even our business lest we give any place to the devil.” And
he adds : “ Similarly, too, in the period of Pentecost,which period
we distinguish by the same solemnity of exultation. But who
would hesitate every day to prostrate himself before God, at least
in the first prayer, with which we enter on the daylight ?” (AnteNicene Lib., vol. xi, ch. xxiii, On Prayer.We have seen, fur
thermore, that Tertullian speaks of Sunday as “ a day of festiv
ity/’ and of observing “ a Sabbath from all servile work always,
not only every seventh day, but through all time.” (P. 22.)
He is certainly, therefore, far from being a witness in favor of
Sabbatarianism.
All that Minutius Felix (A. D. 210) says on the subject, as
quoted by Gilfillan, is this: “ On a solemn da,y persons of 'both
sexes and of every age assemble at a feast, with all their children,
sisters, and mothers.” The scene described by this enemy of
Christianity, if at all truthful, is one that does not in the least
comport with the observance of a holy day. {Octavius of Minu
tius Felix, ch. ix, Anti-Nicene Lib., vol. xiii.)
Origen, who wrote about A. D. 230, while he repudiates the
“Jewish Sabbath observances,” commends the “Christian ob
servance of the Sabbath,” in abstaining from secular duties to
attend to spiritual exercises. Here is the first witness of any
weight in favor of modern Sabbatarianism. He concludes his
instructions by saying : “ This is the observance of the Christian
Sabbbath”—Sabbati Christiani. Here, 200 years after the cruci
fixion, we find the first use of the term “Christian Sabbath.”
We believe not a solitary writer can be found prior to Origen who
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
43
ever called Sunday the Sabbath, and even he seems to have ap
plied the term only by way of contrast. Nor did any one of them,
Origen included, claim the fourth commandment as authorizing
Sunday observance. If we are perchance mistaken in regard to
these facts, we will fall back on the statement of Richard Baxter,
who,in speaking of Sunday, says: “ The ancient churches called
it constantly by the name of ‘ Lord’s day,’ and never called it the
SabbathWit, when they spoke analogically by allusion to the Jew
ish Sabbath.” (-Baxter’s Works, vol. iii, “ On the Lord’s Day,”
ch. 7.) Gilfillan erroneously makes Tertullian speak of the duty
of abstaining from work on Sunday, (p. 378,) when it was the
Jewish Sabbath that Tertullian was discussing.
The next one of the Fathers cited is Cyprian, Bishop of Car
thage, (A. D 253,) who says: “The eighth day, that is, the
first day after the Sabbath, and the Lord’s day, went before in
the figure; which figure ceased when, by-and-by, the truth came
and spiritual circumcision was given.” (Ante-Nicene Lib., vol.
viii, Ep. lviii.) Cyprian, in this chapter, discusses solely the
question of infant baptism—whether or not it should be admin
istered before the eighth day—and makes no allusion whatever to
any observance of the Lord’s day.
To complete the proof of “ the ordinance of a weekly season
of rest and devotion ” in the first three centuries, Gilfillan says
that Commodian, a Christian poet, (A. D. 270,) mentions the
Lord’s day, and that Victorinus, Bishop of Petau, (A. D. 290,)
speaks of the custom of fasting on the seventh day, lest they
“ should seem to observe the Sabbath of the Jews.” This quo(ation is neither correct nor complete. It reads : “ Lest we should
appear to observe any Sabbath with the Jews, which Christ Him
self, the Lord of the Sabbath, says by His prophets that ‘ His
soul hateth ;’ and which Sabbath He, in His body, abolished.”
Furthermore, Victorinus says that the “true and just Sabbath
should be observed in the seventh millenary of years, when Christ
�44
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH I
with His elect shall reign.” {Ante-Nicene Lib., vol. xviii, p
390.)
Such is the meagre and barren testimony upon which the ex
istence of a Christian Sabbath is vainly sought to be traced
through the first three centuries. The proof is entirely wanting,
with the possible exception of the uncertain testimony of Origen.
Modern Sabbatarians may trace the first use of their favorite term
■“ Christian Sabbath” to him, whom they have facetiously styled
the “ Origin of all heresies.” That Sunday was observed as a
festival from a very early period is not denied, nor that in the
latter part of the second century it began to be called the Lord’s
day. But, says Jeremy Taylor—
“ It was not introduced by virtue of the fourth commandment, because
they for almost 300 years together kept that day which was in that com
mandment ; but they did it also without any opinion of prime obligation,
and therefore they did not suppose it moral. . . . They affirmed it to
be ceremonial and no part of the moral law, as is to be seen in Irenaeus,
Tertuliian, Origen, St. Cyprian, and others before quoted.”
Says the learned Heylyn, as quoted by Bannerman, {.Modern
Sabbath Examined, p. 139 :)
“ Thus do we see upon what grounds the Lord’s day stands—on custom
first, and voluntary consecration of it to religious meetings; that custom
continued by the authority of the Church of God, which tacitly approved
the same, and finally confirmed and ratified by Christian princes through
out their empires.”
This same author, Heylyn, as we have already seen, (p. 27,)
says that more than a thousand years passed after Christ’s ascen
sion before the Lord’s day had attained that state in which it
stood in his time, (A. D. 1660,) and that for “ 1,200 years we
find no Sabbath.” Until some time after the Reformation, in the
sixteenth century, Sunday was uniformly regarded throughout
Christendom as a weekly festival or holiday. How it grew up to
be a holy day will appear from the extracts subjoined. Says Ban
nerman, (p. 143:)
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
45
“ In 1541 Edward VI thus directed the clergy : ‘All parsons,vicars, and
curates shall teach and declare unto their parishioners that they may, with
a safe and quiet conscience, in the time of harvest, labor upon the holy and
festival days and save that which God hath sent.’ . . . The festival
days mentioned included, it is well known, all Sundays in the year. These
directions were adopted by Elizabeth in 1559, adding merely to the words
‘quiet conscience,’ ‘ after their common prayer.’ The act of 1552 declared
it ‘ lawful for every husbandman, laborer, fisherman, &c., upon the holy
days aforesaid, in harvest time or any other time in the year, when neces
sity shall require, to labor, ride, fish, or work any kind of work, at their
free wills and pleasure.’ ”
“ It was shortly after this that the doctrine that the prescriptions of the
fourth commandment have been transferred to the first day of the week
was introduced into this country, [England.] It has been traced to Dr.
Bownd, who published a book upon the subject in the year 1594[5.] . . .
This new doctrine was for a long time strenuously opposed by the leading
divines of the English church ; it was warmly contended for, however, by
the Puritans, and shortly became one of the most distinguishing tenets of
that party.”
Says Dr. Heylyn, in his History of the Presbyterians, p. 24 :
“He [Calvin] esteemed no otherwise of the Lord’s day Sabbath than of
an ecclesiastical constitution appointed by our ancestors in the place of the
Sabbath, and, therefore, alterable from one day to another at the Church’s
pleasure, followed therein by all the churches of his party, who thereupon
permit all lawful recreations and many works of necessary labor on the day
itself, provided that the people be not thereby hindered from giving their
attendance in the Church at the times appointed ; insomuch that in Ge
neva, itself, all manner of exercises, as running, vaulting, leaping, shoot
ing, and many others of that nature, are as indifferently indulged on the
Lord’s day as on any other. How far the English Puritans departed from
their mother Church, both in doctrine and practice, with reference to this
particular, we shall see hereafter.”
Then on p. 337 he shows how the Puritan Sabbath was estab
lished :
“The brethren had tried many ways to suppress them [the ancient fes
tivals] formerly, as having too much in them of the superstitions of the
Church of Rome, but they had found no way successful till they fell on
this, which was to set on foot some new Sabbath doctrine, and, by advanc
ing the authority of the Lord’s day Sabbath, to cry down the rest. Some
had been hammering at this anvil ten years before, and had procured the
mayor and aidermen of London to present a petition to the Queen for the
suppression of all plays and interludes on the Sabbath (as they pleased to
call it) within the liberties of their city, the gaining of which point made
them hope for more, and secretly to retail those speculations which after
ward [Dr.] Bownd sold in gross by publishing his treatise on the Sabbath,,
which came out in this year, 1595.”
�46
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH :
“ Now for the doctrine. It was marshalled in these positions ; that is to
say, that the commandment of sanctifying every Sabbath-day, as in the
Mosaical decalogue, is natural, moral, and perpetual; that when all other
things in the Jewish Church were so changed that they were clean taken
away, this stands—the observation of the Sabbath. And though Jewish
and Rabbinical this doctrine was, it carried a fair show of piety, at the
least, in the opinion of the common people, and such as did not stand to
examine the true grounds thereof, but took it upon the appearance; such
as did judge, not by the workmanship of the stuff, but the gloss and color,
in which it is not strange to see how suddenly men were induced not only
to give way unto it. but without more ado to abet the same, till in the end
and in very little time it grew the most bewitching error and most popu
lar infatuation that ever was infused into the people of England.”
Coleridge also bears testimony to the modern origin of the Chris
tian Sabbath. Commenting upon the passage which he quotes
from Luther, (p. 22,) he says:
“ The English reformers took the same view of the day as Luther and
the early Church. But, unhappily, our Church, in the reigns of James
and Charles First, was so identified with the undue advancement of the
royal prerogative that the puritanical Judaism of the Presbyterians was
too well seconded by the patriots of the nation in resisting the wise efforts
of the Church to prevent the incipient alteration of the character of the
day of rest. After the restoration the bishops and clergy in general
adopted the view taken and enforced by their enemies.”
The astounding spread of the new Sabbath doctrine is attested
also by Gilfillan himself, who quotes Fuller, the historian, as say
ing
It is almost incredible how taking this doctrine was. . . .
For some years together Dr. Bownd alone carried the garland
away, none offering openly to oppose, and not so much as a feather
of a quill in print did wag against him.” (P. 70.) The publi
cation of Dr. Bownd’s treatise, says Gilfillan, was “the com
mencement of the earliest Sabbatic contest, entitled to the name,
in the Christian Church,” (p. 66 ;) and the author goes on to give a
history of the agitation, which culminated in the incorporation of
the new Sabbath doctrine in the Westminster Confession of Faith,
agreed upon in 1643, approved by the General Assembly of the
Church of Scotland in 1647, and ratified by act of Parliament in
1649. The doctrine was introduced into Holland by some Eng
lish Puritans, but with poor success. John Robinson, pastor of
�ALL DAYS ALIKE HOLY.
47
the Pilgrim Fathers, left England in 1608, and settled in Hol
land, whence in 1620 he and his flock came to America. “Of
the various reasons for the resolution to quit their adopted coun
try for America,” says Gilfillan, “ one was that they could not
bring the Dutch to observe the Lord’s day as a Sabbath.” (P.
91.) “The controversy,” says Hengstenberg, {Ibid., p. 117,)
“ was kept up in Holland till the eighteenth century, but with
great calmness. However, the more liberal views gradually ad
vanced, and became more and more prevalent throughout the Re
formed Churches, with the exception of Great Britain.”
Thus we see where the so-called Christian Sabbath originated,
when it was instituted, and by whom it was ordained. Its origin
was not in Judea, but in Great Britain; it was instituted not
in the first century, but in the seventeenth; it was ordained not
by Christ or His Apostles, but by the Puritans.
ORIGIN AND ABROGATION OF THE JEWISH SABBATH.
The origin of the seventh-day Sabbath is not involved in the
present discussion, but the weight of evidence, as well as of Chris
tian authority, fixes it after the exodus of the Israelites from
Egypt. Says Calmet, in his Dictionary of the Bible, first pub
lished by him in 1730 :
“The greater part of the Divines and Commentators hold that the ben
ediction and sanctification of the Sabbath mentioned by Moses in the be
ginning of Genesis signifies only that appointment then made of the sev
enth day, to be afterward solemnized and sanctified by the Jews.”
The learned Dr. Gill, in commenting on Gen. ii, 3, “And Godblessed the seventh day,” &c., remarks:
“These words may be read in a parenthesis, as containing an account of
a fact that was done not at the beginning of the world and on the seventh
day of it, but of what had been done in the time of Moses, who wrote this
after the giving of the law of the Sabbath.”
Throughout all history we discover no trace of a Sabbath among
the nations of antiquity. Says Theodoretus, a Christian Father,
�48
SUNDAY NOT THE SABBATH.
(A. D. 429 :) “ No other nation beside the Jews ever observed
the Sabbatic rest.” (Comment, in Ezek. xx.) Passages from
Josephus, Philo, and other ancieut writers, have been mistrans
lated to support a contrary theory. The Christian Fathers uni
formly regarded the Sabbath as a ceremonial institution peculiar
to the Jews, and as having been abrogated by the advent of Christ,
with no other day substituted therefor. Such also were the views
of the most illustrious reformers and many of the most brilliant
ecclesiastical writers, besides those already quoted. That the
Apostle Paul taught the same doctrine is clear from Col. ii, 16,
1/; Gal. iv, 10, 11, and Rom. xiv, 5. His teachings in this
respect are in harmony with the adjudication of the first great
Council of the Church, A. D.52, which decreed that the keeping
of the law, with the exception of three (or four) things named, two
of them of a moral nature and the other ceremonial, was a burden
not to be laid upon the Gentiles. (Acts xv, 24, 28, 29.) The
observance of the Sabbath was not one of the articles enjoined.
The Gentile converts knew no Sabbath, and it is incredible that
that question should have been ignored if Sabbath-keeping was
an essential part of Christianity. Therefore, by the formal de
cree of that first Church Council, the Sabbath was wholly and
unequivocally abrogated.
Stereotyped and Printed by Gibson Brothers, Washington, D. C.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Sunday not the Sabbath: all days alike holy. A controversy between the Rev. Dr. Sunderland, Wm. Henry Burr, and others
Creator
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Burr, William Henry
Sunderland, Byron [1819-1901]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 48 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Stereotyped and printed by Gibson Brothers, Washington D.C. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Byron Sunderland was an American Presbyterian minister, author, and Chaplain of the United States Senate during the American Civil War. Date of publication from KVK.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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[1872]
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CT25
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Christianity
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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 (Sunday not the Sabbath: all days alike holy. A controversy between the Rev. Dr. Sunderland, Wm. Henry Burr, and others), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Christian church
Conway Tracts
Judaism
Sabbath
Sunday
-
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30b4899f46e2beee000586c2b158ac0e
PDF Text
Text
History and Biography.
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269
Thucydides, against the modern “ temptation to read into an inscrip
tion more, than is really to be found in it.”
Mr. Moncure Conway, following up his invaluable elucidations of
Folk-lore, discusses in his new book the significance and the teaching of
the legend of the Wandering Jew.9 It is scarcely necessary to remark
that the book is full of interest. The main feature in the argument
is that this legend of the Wandering Jew is a notable example of that
“ sacerdotal sorcery which, for the lover of enemies, substituted a
curser of enemies in the earliest Christian theology.” We are told,
first of all, how the legend is recorded in Roger de Wendover’s “ Ilistoria Major,” and how the Wandering Jew himself appeared in Ger
many in 1547, and in various other European countries, with a clever
and wonderful knowledge of previous history, and so forth. From
this we are led on to a most instructive account of the more general
legend of “ the Undying Ones” and. of Curses. The ramifications and
amplifications of the Wandering Jew legend are portrayed with most
entertaining and instructive detail. And the story is carried through
the ages of popular ignorance and vivid beliefs to the more recent
renovation of the Ahasueres as a poetic ideal. The Eternal Jew
becomes the favourite “ subject” of great German poets from Schubert
to Goethe.
Edgar Quinet, Eugene Sue, and Grenier follow the
same lead in France. And we have an admirable account of the in
fluence of the legend on the English drama and on English poetry. But
underlying the whole, and gradually working its way in the end to
prominence, comes a powerful vindication of the Jewish race, and a
powerful exposition of the hoped-for approach of better times for
humanity at large.
The growing prosperity of India and its consequently increasing
importance to Englishmen of all classes ensure a welcome for Mr.
Talboy Wheeler’s “Tales from Indian History.”10 The author himself
had some misgivings concerning this title, and it is matter for regret
he did not allow these misgivings more influence; for the title fails
to convey to the ordinary mind an adequate idea of the character and
value of the book. It is, in short, an epitomized account of most things
Indian ; and he who has read it will have no bad idea of nearly every
point that Indian affairs present to English notice. The author in
this volume manages to communicate to the reader his own firm hope
in a great future for India—closer bound to the British empire by
representative and business connections; and his belief that the
English, having instituted law and order in India, are now offering
most favourable opportunities for the great native races to work out
their own advancement by assimilating the educational and science
achievements of Western civilization.
Yet another national history11 is put before the public, and it may
9 “The Wandering Jew.” By Moncure Conway. London: Chatto & Windus
1881.
10 “Tales from Indian History.” By J. Talboy Wheeler. London: W.
Thacker & Co. 1881.
11 “A History of the British Empire.” By Edgar Sanderson. London:
Blackie & Son. 1881.
�270
Contemporary Literature.
well be asked how it comes about that such a uever-ending issue can
“pay.” It will be observed that the title, “History of the British
Empire,” might lead us to expect more account than is usually given
of the oversea realms the nation has ruled from time to time. But
beyond a short chapter devoted to the history of the Indian Empire,
and three pages devoted to the growth of our Colonial Empire, the
book is merely a new version of the oft-told tale of the successions of
sovereigns and the wars of the English nation, rigidly confined to the
British Islands. Of its kind the work is good, and it has a very
complete accompaniment of tables, maps, plans, illustrations, and
index.
It would be well if the numerous class of reformers would carefully
study an admirable outline of the history of the English Constitution
now published by Messrs. Longman.* They would thus understand
12
the true story of the development in English history of self-govern
ment, and learn that kings and nobles, as well as the commons, have
each in turn assisted’ in the good work. The politician of to-day is
too apt to forget that the future will be worked out of the past. Our
land reformers will do well to bear in mind the result worked out in
the book, “All ownership in theory is tenancy; in practice all tenancy
is ownership.” And in regard to Ireland it is interesting to trace the
obstruction Celtic influence has always opposed to the spread of repre
sentative self-government. In Scotland the same influence delayed
this for some three hundred years after its introduction into England;
and in Ireland local Parliamentary government, inaugurated in 1300,
could only take root “within the pale” when English descent and
custom came to prevail. As a whole this little work is admirably
written. We would, however, point out that in its opening chapters
the Norse element in our population is altogether ignored, though
it is now proved to have largely modified our institutions and our
national character. Again, on the last page there is a very partial
account of the main principle of free-trade. It is described as
merely prescribing that ho import duty should be levied on necessary
food, and so securing the people “ from being overcharged for the
necessaries of life.” The utter inadequacy of such a description of
free-trade should be remedied in the future editions to which the
work is sure to run.
It has been termed a natural function of Women to provide for the
education of children ; and the compiling of schoolbooks for the special
use of children is a task by no means neglected by women. “A French
History for English Children” is a full, clearly-written account of historica^France suited to schoolroom capacities.13 It has no pretensions to
advanced erudition, and is a plain matter-of-fact account of persons and
events that young people are expected to be familiar with. The book
13 “ Historical Outline of the English Constitution, for Beginners.” By D. W.
Itannie. London : Longmans. 1881.
13 “French History for English Children.” By Sarah Brook. London: Mac
millan. 1881.
�
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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
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Title
A name given to the resource
[The Wandering Jew]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 270 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A review of Moncure Conway's 'The Wandering Jew' by an unknown reviewer in an unidentified journal. Includes bibliographical references.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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[188-]
Identifier
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G5604
Subject
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Book reviews
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[Unknown]
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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 Wandering Jew]), 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
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English
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Demonology
Folklore
Judaism
Moncure Conway
-
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PDF Text
Text
NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM.
BY C. BRADLAUGH.
Most undoubtedly father Abraham is a personage whose his
tory should command our attention, if only because he figures
as the founder of the Jewish race—a race which, having
been promised protection and favour by Deity, appear to
have experienced little else besides the infliction or suffer
ance of misfortune and misery. Men are taught to believe
that God, following out a solemn covenant made with
Abraham, suspended the operations of nature to aggrandise
the Jews; that he promised always to bless and favour
them if they adhered to his worship and obeyed the priests.
The promised blessings were usually—political authority,
individual happiness and sexual power, long life, and great
wealth; the threatened curses for idolatry or disobedience
—disease, loss of property and children, mutilation, death.
Amongst the blessings—the right to kill, plunder, and ravish
their enemies, with protection, whilst pious, against any
subjection to retaliatory measures. And all this because
they were Abraham’s children!
Abraham is an important personage. Without Abraham,
no Jesus, no Christianity, no Church of England, no bishops,
no tithes, no church rates. But for Abraham, England
would have lost all these blessings. Abraham was the great
grandfather of Judah, the head of the tribe to which God’s
father, Joseph, belonged.
In gathering materials for a short biographical sketch, we
are at the same time comforted and dismayed by the fact
that the only reliable account of Abraham’s career is that
furnished by the book of Genesis, supplemented by a few
brief references in other parts of the Bible, and that, outside
“ God’s perfect and infallible revelation to man,” there is
no reliable account of Abraham’s existence at all. We are
comforted by the thought that Genesis is unquestioned by
the faithful, and is at present protected by Church and State
against heretic assaults; but we are dismayed when we think
that, if Infidelity, encouraged by Colenso and Kalisch, up
sets Genesis, Abraham will have little historical claim on
our attention. Some philologists have asserted that Brama
and Abraham are alike corruptions of Abba Rama, or
Abrama, and that Sarah is identical with Sarasvati.
�■ - I W-I-V
2
• ,•
„ ,,1. ?k,y
NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM.
Abram, is a Chaldean compound, meaning father of the
elevated, or exalted father. OFTON is a compound of
Chaldee and Arabic, signifying father of a multitude. In
part v. of his work, Colenso mentions that Adonis was for
merly identified with Abram, “ high father,” Adonis being
the personified sun.
Leaving incomprehensible philology for the ordinary au
thorised version of our Bibles, we find that Abraham was
the son of Terah. The text does not expressly state where
Abraham was born, and I cannot therefore describe his birth
place with that accuracy of detail which a true believer might
desire, but I may add that he “ dwelt in old time on the
other side of the flood.” (Joshua xxiv. 2 and 3.) The
situation of such dwelling involves a geographical problem
most unlikely to be solved unless the inquirer is “ half seas
over.” Abraham was born when Terah, his father, was
seventy years of age; and, according to Genesis, Terah and
his family came forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and went
to Haran and dwelt there. We turn to the map to look for
Ur of the Chaldees, anxious to discover it as possibly
Abraham’s place of nativity, but find that the translators of
God’s inspired word have taken a slight liberty with the text
by substituting “ Ur of the Chaldees” for “Aur Kasdim,”
the latter being, in plain English, the light of the magi, or con
jurors, or astrologers.
is stated by Kalisch to
have been made the basis for many extraordinary legends,
as to Abraham’s rescue from the flames.
Abraham, being born—according to Hebrew chronology,
2083 years after the creation, and according to the Septuagint 3549 years after that event—when his father was
seventy, grew so slowly that when his father reached the good
old age of 205 years, Abraham had only arrived at 75 years,
having, apparently, lost no less than 60 years’ growth during
his father’s life-time. St. Augustine and St. Jerome gave
this up as a difficulty inexplicable. Calmet endeavours to
explain it, and makes it worse. But what real difficulty is
there ? Do you mean, dear reader, that it is impossible
Abraham could have lived 135 years, and yet be only 75 years
of age? Is this your objection? It is a sensible one, I
admit, but it is an Infidel one. Eschew sense, and retaining
only religion, ever remember that with God all things are
possible. Indeed, I have read myself that gin given to
young children stunts their growth ; and who shall say what
�NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM.
3
influence of the spirit prevented the full development of
Abraham’s years ? It is a slight question whether Abraham
and his two brothers were not born the same year; if this be
so, he might have been a small child, and not grown so
quickly as he would have otherwise done. “ The Lord ”
spoke to Abraham, and promised to make of him a great
nation, to bless those who blessed Abraham, and to curse
those who cursed him. I do not know precisely which Lord
it was that spake unto Abraham. In the Hebrew it says it
was
Jeue, or, as our translators call it, Jehovah,
but as God said (Exodus vi. 2) that by the name “Jehovah
was I not known ” to either Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, we
must conclude either that the omniscient Deity had forgotten
the matter, or that a counterfeit Lord had assumed a title to
which he had no right. The word Jehovah, which the book
of Exodus says Abraham did not know, is nearly always the
name by which Abraham addresses or speaks of the Jewish
Deity.
Abraham having been promised protection by the God of
Truth, initiated his public career with a diplomacy of state
ment worthy Talleyrand, Thiers, or Gladstone. He repre
sented his wife Sarah as his sister, which, if true, is a sad
reproach to the marriage. The ruling Pharaoh, hearing the
beauty of Sarah commended, took her into his house, she
being at that time a fair Jewish dame, between 60 and 70
years of age, and he entreated Abraham well for her sake,
and he had sheep and oxen, asses and servants, and camels.
We do not read that Abraham objected in any way to the
loss of his wife. The Lord, who is all just, finding out that
Pharaoh had done wrong, not only punished the king, but
also punished the king’s household, who could hardly haw
interfered with his misdoings. Abraham got his wife back
and went away much richer by the transaction. Whethc<
the conduct of father Abraham in pocketing quietly the prict.
of the insult—or honour—offered to his wife, is worthy
modern imitation, is a question I leave to be discussed by
Convocation when it has finished with the Athanasian Creed.
After this transaction we are not surprised to hear that
Abraham was very rich in “ silver and gold.” So was the
Duke of Marlborough after the King had taken his sister in
similar manner into his house. In verse 19 of chapter xii.
there is a curious mistranslation in our version. The text
is : “ It is for that I had taken her for my wifeour version
�4
NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM.
has : “ I might have taken her.” The Douay so translates as
to take a middle phrase, leaving it doubtful whether or not
Pharaoh actually took Sarah as his wife. In any case, the
Egyptian king acted well throughout. Abraham plays the
part of a timorous, contemptible hypocrite. Strong enough
to have fought for his wife, he sold her. Yet Abraham was
blessed for his faith, and his conduct is our pattern !
Despite his timorousness in the matter of his wife, Abraham
was a man of wonderful courage and warlike ability. To
rescue his relative, Lot—with whom he could not live on the
same land without quarrelling, both being religious—he armed
318 servants, and fought with four powerful kings, defeating
them and recovering the spoil. Abraham's victory was so de
cisive, that the King of Sodom, who fled and fell (xiv. 10) in
a previous encounter, now met Abraham alive (see v. 17), to
congratulate him on his victory. Abraham was also offered
bread and wine by Melchisedek, King of Salem, priest of
the Most High God. Where was Salem ? Some identify it
with Jerusalem, which it cannot be, as Jebus was not so
named until after the time of the Judges (Judges xix. 10).
How does this King, of this unknown Salem, never heard of
before or after, come to be priest of the Most High God ?
These are queries for divines—orthodox disciples believe
without inquiring. Melchisedek was most unfortunate as
far as genealogy is concerned. He had no father. I do
not mean by this that any bar sinister defaced his escutcheon.
He not only was without father, but without mother also; he
had no beginning of days or end of life, and is therefore
probably at the present time an extremely old gentleman,
who would be an invaluable acquisition to any antiquarian
association fortunate enough to cultivate his acquaintance.
God having promised Abraham a numerous family, and the
promise not having been in any part fulfilled, the patriarch
grew uneasy, and remonstrated with the Lord, who explained
the matter thoroughly to Abraham when the latter was in a
deep sleep, and a dense darkness prevailed. Religious ex
planations come with greater force under these or similar con
ditions. Natural or artificial light and clear-sightedness are
always detrimental to spiritual manifestations.
Abraham’s wife had a maid named Hagar, and she bore
to Abraham a child named Ishmael; at the time Ishmael
was born, Abraham was 86 years of age. Just before Ish
mael’s birth Hagar was so badly treated that she ran away.
�NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM.
5
As she was only a slave, God persuaded Hagar to return,
and humble herself to her mistress. Thirteen years after
wards God appeared to Abraham, and instituted the rite of
circumcision—which rite had been practised long before by
other nations—and again renewed the promise. The rite
of circumcision was not only practised by nations long an
terior to that of the Jews, but appears, in many cases, not
even to have been pretended as a religious rite. (See
Kalisch, Genesis, p. 386; Cahen, Genese, p. 43.) After God
had “ left off talking with him, God went up from Abraham.”
As God is infinite, he did not, of course, go up; but still
the Bible says God went up, and it is the duty of the people
to believe that he did so, especially as the infinite Deity
then and now resides habitually in “ heaven,” wherever that
may be. Again the Lord appeared to Abraham, either as
three men or angels, or as one of the three; and Abraham,
who seemed hospitably inclined, invited the three to wash
their feet, and to rest under the tree, and gave butter and
milk and dressed calf, tender and good, to them, and they
did eat; and after the inquiry as to where Sarah then was,
the promise of a son is repeated. Sarah—then by her own
admission an old woman, stricken in years—laughed when
she heard this, and the Lord said, “ Wherefore did Sarah
laugh ?” and Sarah denied it, but the Lord said, “ Nay, but
thou didst laugh.” The three then went toward Sodom, and
Abraham went with them as a guide ; and the Lord ex
plained to Abraham that some sad reports had reached him
about Sodom and Gomorrah, and that he was then going to
find out whether the report was reliable. God is infinite,
and was always therefore at Sodom and Gomorrah, but had
apparently been temporarily absent; he is omniscient, and
therefore knew everything which was' happening at Sodom
and Gomorrah, but he did not know whether or not the
people were as wicked as they had been represented to him.
God, Job tells us, “ put no trust in his servants, and his angels
he charged with folly.” Between the rogues and the fools,
therefore, the all-wise and all-powerful God seems to be as
liable to be mistaken in the reports made to him as any
monarch might be in reports made by his ministers. Two
of the three men, or angels, went on to Sodom, and left the
Lord with Abraham, who began to remonstrate with Deity
on the wholesale destruction contemplated, and asked him
to spare the city if fifty righteous should be found within
�6
NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM.
it. God said, “ If I find fifty righteous within the city, then
will I spare the place for their sakes.” God, being all-wise,
he knew there were not fifty in Sodom, and was deceiving
Abraham. By dint of hard bargaining in thorough Hebrew
fashion, Abraham, whose faith seemed tempered by distrust,
got the stipulated number reduced to ten, and then “ the
Lord went his way.”
Jacob Ben Chajim, in his introduction to the Rabbinical
Bible, p. 28, tells us that the Hebrew text used to read in
verse 22 : “ And Jehovah still stood before Abraham /’ but
the scribes altered it, and made Abraham stand before the
Lord, thinking the original text offensive to Deity.
The 18th chapter of Genesis has given plenty of work to the
divines. Augustin contended that God can take food,
though he does not require it. Justin compared “the eating
of God with the devouring power of the fire.” Kalisch
sorrows over the holy fathers “ who have taxed all their in
genuity to make the act of eating compatible with the attri
butes of Deity.”
In the Epistle to the Romans, Abraham’s faith is greatly
praised. We are told, iv. 19 and 20, that—
“ Being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body
now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither
yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb.”
“ He staggered not at the promise of God through un
belief ; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God.”
Yet, so far from Abraham giving God glory, we are told
in Genesis, xvii. 17, that—
“ Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in
his heart, shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred
years old ? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear ?”
The Rev. Mr. Boutell says that “ the declaration which
caused Sarah to ‘laugh,’ shows the wonderful familiarity
which was then permitted to Abraham in his communica
tions with God.”
After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham
journeyed south and sojourned in Gerar, and either untaught
or too well taught by his previous experience, again repre
sented his wife as his sister, and Abimelech, king of Gerar,
sent and took Sarah. As before, we find neither remon
strance nor resistance recorded on the part of Abraham.
This time God punished, d la Malthus, the women in
Abimelech’s house for an offence they did not commit, and
�NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM.
7
Sarah was again restored to her husband, with sheep, oxen,
men-servants, and women-servants, and money. Infidels
object that the Bible says Sarah “ was old and well stricken
in age;” that “it had ceased to be with her after the manner
of womenthat she was more than 90 years of age; and
that it is not likely King Abim elech would fall in love with
an ugly old woman. We reply, “ chacun a son gout.” It is
clear that Sarah had not ceased to be attractive, as God re
sorted to especial means to protect her virtue from Abimelech.
At length Isaac is born, and his mother Sarah now urges
Abraham to expel Hagar and her son, “ and the thing was
very grievous in Abraham’s sight because of his sonthe
mother being only a bondwoman does not seem to have
troubled him. God, however, approving Sarah’s notion.
Hagar is expelled, “ and she departed and wandered in the
wilderness, and the water was spent in the bottle, and she
cast the child under one of the shrubs.” She had apparently
carried the child, who being at least more than 14, and
according to some calculations as much as 17 years of age,
must have been a heavy child to carry in a warm climate.
God never did tempt any man at any time, but he “ did
tempt Abraham ” to kill Isaac by offering him as a burnt
offering. The doctrine of human sacrifice is one of the holy
mysteries of Christianity, as taught in the Old and New
Testament. Of course, judged from a religious or Biblical
stand-point, it cannot be wrong, as if it were, God would
not have permitted Jephtha to sacrifice his daughter by
offering her as a burnt offering, nor have tempted Abraham
to sacrifice his son, nor have said in Leviticus, “ None de
voted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed;
but shall surely be put to death” (xxvii. 29), nor have in the
New Testament worked out the monstrous sacrifice of his
only son Jesus, at the same time son and begetting father.
Abraham did not seem to be entirely satisfied with his
own conduct when about to kill Isaac, for he not only con
cealed from his servants his intent, but positively stated that
which was not true, saying, “ I and the lad will go yonder
and worship, and come again to you.” If he meant that he
and Isaac would come again to them, then he knew that the
sacrifice would not take place. Nay, Abraham even deceived
his own son, who asked him where was thelamb for the burnt
offering ? But we learn from the New Testament that
Abraham acted in this and other matters “ by faith/ so his
�8
NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM.
falsehoods and evasions, being results and aids of faith, must
be dealt with in an entirely different manner from transactions
of every day life. Just as Abraham stretched forth his hand
to slay his son, the angel of the Lord called to him from
heaven, and prevented the murder, saying, “Now I know
that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy
son.” This would convey the impression that up. to that
moment the angel of the Lord was not certain upon the
subject.
In Genesis xiii. God says to Abraham, “Lift up now
thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art north
ward, and southward, and eastward, and westward. For all
the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy
seed for ever. Arise, walk through the land, in the length
of it, and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee.”
Yet, as is admitted by the Rev. Charles Boutell, in his
“Bible Dictionary,” “ The only portion of territory in that
land of promise, of which Abraham became possessed,” was
a graveyard, which he had bought and paid for. Although
Abraham was too old to have children before the birth of
Isaac, he had many children after Isaac is bom. He
lived to “ a good old age,” and died “ full of years,” but
was yet younger than any of those who preceded him,
and whose ages are given in the Bible history, except
Nahor.
Abraham gave “ all that he had to Isaac,” but appears
to have distributed the rest of the property amongst his
other children, who were sent to enjoy it somewhere down
East.
According to the New Testament, Abraham is now in
Paradise, but Abraham in heaven is scarcely an improvement
upon Abraham on earth. When he was entreated by an
unfortunate in hell for a drop of water to cool his tongue,
father Abraham replied, “ Son, remember that in thy life
time thou receivedst thy good things, and now thou art
tormented,” as if the reminiscence of past good would
alleviate present and future continuity of evil.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London : Printed and published by Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s
Court, Fleet Street.
�
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Title
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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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Dublin Core
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Title
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New life of Abraham
Creator
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Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891.]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from KVK.
Publisher
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[Austin & Co.]
Date
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[1861]
Identifier
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G4948
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Judaism
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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 (New life of Abraham), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Abraham
Bible-O.T.
Judaism