Chapter II (3)

Considerations of this kind go far also to remove the difficulty which has been felt as to the main facts of the narrative of Esther, the intended massacre of the Jews, and the counter-edict allowing them to defend themselves and slay their enemies. Such facts are altogether out of the ordinary experience of Western nations; and it is not surprising that they have been met with incredulity on the part of those whose knowledge of the past is limited to an acquaintance with the course of European, and especially of modern European, history. But can it be said that they are altogether out of nature? that they have no counterpart in the history of the East? that they transcend altogether what authentic history relates of the doings of Oriental tyrants? Here again the German sceptic is more cautious than some of those who have sought to popularise him, and allows that from what we know of the base character and despotism of Xerxes it may perhaps be believed that Haman obtained from him a decree for the extirpation of the Jews, and Mordecai in return a corresponding counter-decree[98]. All that he objects to is, the fierceness with which the Jews set to work, and the consequent massacre by them of above 75,000 persons. This fact he thinks "incredible." It may be allowed that had the persons slain been, as the objectors suppose, "Persians," the circumstances related would have been extremely hard of belief; but it is on the whole most probable that there were few or no "Persians" among them. A religious sympathy united the Persians with the Jews; and it is scarcely likely that any of them would have taken part in the proposed destruction of the Jewish nation. The adversaries of the Jews were to be found in the ranks of the conquered nations, not of the conquering one. They were Persian subjects, not Persians. There is no reason to think that the loss even of 75,000 of such persons would have been felt by Xerxes as a matter of much importance. We must remember, however, that the number 75,000 is doubtful. The Septuagint version has 15,000; and this number is more in harmony than the other with the 800 slain in the capital.

Finally, to the objection that the honours granted to Mordecai are excessive, it may be replied, in the first place, that they are analogous to those granted to Joseph,[99] and Daniel,[100] and therefore such as were occasionally allowed to subjects by Oriental sovereigns; and secondly, that if there were anything abnormal in them, it would be sufficiently accounted for by the wild and extravagant temper of Xerxes, which delighted in strange acts and exhibitions of an unusual character. Haman, who knew his master's weakness, might well speculate upon it, and suggest extraordinary honours, since he imagined that it was himself for whom they were intended.

I have now noticed _all_ the historical difficulties of any force or weight, which have come before me in the course of my studies on the history of the Old Testament. I have dwelt particularly on those connected with the Pentateuch and with the two Books of Daniel and Esther, because of late years the attacks of sceptics have been especially directed against those portions of the Sacred volume. I have left myself but scant time for noticing historical difficulties connected with the narrative of the New Testament; but this is of the less consequence, since there are no more than one or two such difficulties on which any stress has recently been laid by our opponents.

It has been said that St. Luke, in connecting the name of Cyrenius with the "taxing" which caused Joseph and Mary to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem, "undeniably contradicts history."[101] Cyrenius (or Quirinus) was appointed governor of Syria about ten years after the death of Herod the Great, and made a census of his province shortly afterwards. This census St. Luke is accused of placing ten years too early. The answer to this charge is, that the words of St. Luke (chap. ii. 2) cannot possibly mean that Cyrenius was governor at the time of the taxing; had it been St. Luke's intention to express this, the verse would have ran thus: "This taxing was made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria," and not "this taxing was first made," etc. "First," that is, which is manifestly the emphatic word of the sentence, would then have been absent from it. Evidently, therefore, St. Luke's words must bear some other meaning. They may signify, "_this_ taxing was made _before_ Cyrenius was governor," and so before that better known taxing which he ordered. This is an allowable translation of the passage. Or they may mean, and I think they do mean, "this taxing was first completed--first took full effect--when Cyrenius was governor;" that is to say, the taxing ordered by Augustus, and commenced under Herod the Great, was interrupted (as it may easily have been, since the Jews were very bitter against it), and the business was first accomplished under Cyrenius. This is a sense which the Greek verb translated incur version "was made" sometimes has.

Again, it has been said that St. Luke erred in stating that Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene (iii. 1) in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar.[102] Lysanias, it is said, died sixty years previously; and St. Luke has ignorantly made him alive, being deceived by the fact that Abilene continued to be called "the Abilene of Lysanias," after its former ruler, for sixty or seventy years subsequently. Now here it is in the first place assumed, without any word of proof, that the Lysanias who died B.C. 34 once ruled over Abilene. Secondly, it is assumed, also without any word of proof, that Abilene came to be known as "the Abilene of Lysanias," from him. I venture to assert that there is absolutely no ground for believing that the old Lysanias was ever ruler of Abilene; and I venture to maintain that Abilene came to be called "the Abilene of Lysanias" from a second or later Lysanias, a son of the former one, who is the person intended by St. Luke. Till recently, Christian apologists were defied to show historically that there was ever more than one Lysanias, and were accused of inventing a second to escape a difficulty. But a few years since, a discovery was made which must be regarded by all reasonable persons as having set the whole matter at rest. This was an inscription found near Baalbek,[103] containing a dedication of a memorial tablet or statue to "Zenodorus, son of the tetrarch Lysanias, and to Lysanias, her children," by (apparently) the widow of the first, and the mother of the second Lysanias. Zenodorus was already known as having succeeded the first Lysanias in his government. It is thus clear, that there were, as previously suspected, two persons of the name, a father, and a son, and there is not the slightest reason for doubting St. Luke's statement that the latter was tetrarch of Abilene in the fifteenth of Tiberius.

I know of no other cavil against the historical accuracy of the New Testament, that I can regard as worthy of being dignified with the name of difficulty. It has been denied that any decree ever went out from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed,[104] but as Savigny, the best authority on Roman antiquities, holds the contrary to be certain, this denial need not detain us. It has been asserted that if the massacre of the Innocents had taken place, it _must_ have been noticed by Josephus;[105] but this argument from omission is too weak to deserve more than a passing notice. Nothing is more familiar to historical students than the unaccountable omissions which occur in the works of almost all historians. Scepticism has searched in the most minute and unsparing way every detail of the Gospel and the Acts, and has endeavoured earnestly to find "differences" and "divergences" between these facts and those of profane history; but again and again has it been compelled to own that the divergences are slight, and the differences such as may be reconciled by natural and probable suppositions. The entire result of the searching criticism, whereto the historical character of the New Testament has been exposed, has been to show that not only the general narrative, but all its minutiæ, are trustworthy. No evangelist has been convicted of error in respect of any historical statements. Where a shallow learning and a defective knowledge of the records of the past have led men to think that they had found a slip or a mistake, and a shout of triumph has been raised, profounder research has always demonstrated the veracity and accuracy of the sacred writer, and has exposed the ignorance of his assailant. The historical character of the New Testament is, I think I may say, in the eyes of all sober historical critics established.

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.

BY THE

REV. CHARLES ROW, M.A.,

OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD.

MYTHICAL THEORIES OF CHRISTIANITY.

It is hardly possible to over-estimate the importance of the issues to which it will be my duty to address myself in this lecture. They involve the central position of Christianity; viz., the all-important question whether Jesus Christ was an historical person, or a creation of the imagination. Is the Church which is erected on Him founded on an historic fact, which had an objective existence; or is the Jesus of the Evangelists a subjective creation which existed only in the minds of its originators?

Many of the attacks which have been made on Revelation are directed against its outworks merely; this is one directed against the very key of the Christian position. If it can be carried by our opponents, the whole line of our defences becomes untenable. Let us not deceive ourselves. If the Gospels are not _in their main outlines_ historically true, Christianity is no more divine than Shakespeare. It may be the highest development of man; but it can have no pretence to be esteemed a revelation from God.

The objections of this school have done more to undermine the belief of the educated classes in Christianity as a divine revelation than any one single cause. They have largely created the so-called rationalism of the Continent. They are widely diffused in America. In our own country, a numerous class of writers who obtain ready access to our periodical literature are not only imbued with similar views, but write with the quiet assumption that the historical foundation of Christianity cannot be defended.

As my subject is a wide one, I must address myself to it without any preliminary observations. The question before us is simply this, Are the Gospels credible histories, in the sense that other writings of the same description are? or are the larger portion of their contents fictitious?

It should be observed that although these schools support their views by an immense critical apparatus, the real σκάνδαλον [Greek: skandalon] of the Gospels is the supernatural element which they contain. Apart from this, their historical character would never have been questioned. The theory that miracles are impossible underlies the entire mass of these objections. But the question of the miraculous has been already handled by another lecturer. I shall therefore only observe on it that it forms no portion of a strictly historical inquiry. It appertains to the abstract regions of thought. History has to deal with evidence, not with abstract dogmas or philosophical questions. To begin an historical inquiry with the assumption that miracles are impossible, and that any event which involves the supernatural must be a fiction, is quietly to assume the point at issue.

But as the Christian Church is an institution which actually exists, and as its origin can be traced up to the times of Jesus Christ, and as it is erected on the Gospels as its foundation, these schools are fully aware that the question cannot be settled by the quiet assumption that miracles are impossible. The case stands thus. The Christian Church exists. It has had its origin in the events of past history. The Church itself asserts now, and has asserted in all ages, that it is founded on the historical truth of the divine person of Christ our Lord, as He is depicted in the Gospels. If the Gospels are true, they give a rational account of its origin, But those with whom I am reasoning deny that they are a statement of historic facts, and consequently that they are not the true account of it. But as the Church is an historic fact, they are quite aware that any mere general assumption that miracles are impossible is not sufficient. They find themselves, therefore, compelled to do two things,--first, to invent a critical apparatus to destroy the credibility of the Gospels; and, secondly, to propound a theory which shall account for the origin of the Church on principles purely human. The solution propounded is the mythical and Tübingen theories.

This critical apparatus keeps two aims in view,--first, to prove the existence of statements in the Gospels at variance with those of contemporaneous history; secondly, to show that these narratives abound with a multitude of contradictions. To effect this latter purpose, every variation of statement is made to assume the character of a contradiction. The extent to which this has been carried is scarcely credible.

This process having as they hope destroyed the substance of the Gospels, the next procedure is to invent a theory out of the imagination as the account of the origin of Christianity, and to propound it as true history.

At first sight it would appear to have been the easiest course to assert that they are simple forgeries, in the same sense in which the Donation of Constantine or the False Decretals are forgeries. But this is what no unbeliever of the present day who regards his literary reputation ventures to propound as the alternative to their historical credibility. Why is the simple course abandoned, and an infinitely complicated theory substituted in its place? The answer is that their entire phenomena negative the supposition that they could have originated in directly conscious fraud.

A more elaborate theory, therefore, has to be substituted for the simple one. It must be observed that I can only speak of it in its general aspect, for its modifications are extremely numerous, and hardly any two writers can be found who take precisely the same view. But the following may be stated as the principles which underlie these systems of modern unbelief, throwing aside their minor details.

First. That miracles being impossible, no supernatural element whatever enters into the character of the historical Jesus.

Second. That He was probably a very great man, though, whenever the exigencies of the system require it, it is necessary to assume that He was deeply implicated in the prejudices and superstitions of the age in which He lived.

Third. That He probably believed Himself to be the Messiah expected by His countrymen, though as to the precise nature of His Messianic claims my opponents are not agreed.

Fourth. That He succeeded in inspiring a crowd of followers with an enthusiastic attachment to Him.

Fifth. That they were honest people after their fashion; but were impelled by an enthusiasm only equalled by their credulity.

Sixth. That they invented a multitude of fabulous stories, ascribed them to Jesus, and in time mistook them for facts.

Seventh. That out of these and kindred elements, aided by a succession of developments, the human Jesus was gradually metamorphosed, in the course of the seventy years which followed the crucifixion, into the Christ of the Synoptic Gospels, and in a hundred and thirty into that of the Gospel of St. John.

Now, as these schools deny the existence of the supernatural, this whole development must have been due to causes which are purely human; in one word, to the laws which regulate the developments of the moral and spiritual worlds. As those of the natural world have been effected through the agency of natural laws, so the creation of the Jesus of the Evangelists is due to laws which regulate with equal potency the action of the mind. Both sets of laws are equally constant and invariable.

To examine the critical apparatus which has been applied to the Gospels for the purpose of proving their unhistorical character, could only be accomplished in a work of considerable length. I shall therefore only make two observations on the principles adopted.

First. These schools assault the Gospels by charging them with containing a multitude of inaccuracies, discrepancies, and contradictions. While they do this they carefully keep in the background the minute accuracies, agreements with contemporaneous history, and plain indications of autoptic testimony with which they abound. Such a line of conduct is the same thing as to place before the Court which is to try the cause everything which an acute counsel can adduce in opposition, and to suppress the whole evidence for the defence.

Secondly. A great majority of these objections are founded on a view of the Gospels which their writers expressly repudiate. It is taken for granted that the Gospels are histories in the strictest sense of that word. By a strict history I mean a narrative in which the events are connected together in accordance with the sequences of time and place. This is the arrangement which is generally adopted in modern histories and biographies. But the Gospels expressly assert that they belong to a different class of writings. They are not _histories_, but _memoirs_. In a memoir, the arrangement of events in the strict sequence of time and place is not the predominant idea. The Gospels are not only memoirs, but memoirs of a peculiar character. They are details of the actions and teachings of Jesus Christ written for the express purpose of teaching the Christian religion. In works of this kind the arrangement and grouping of events are formed on very different principles from those adopted in the composition of pure histories.

As this is a most important point, I must adduce proof of it which is beyond all contradiction. St. John's Gospel asserts, in as many words, that it was the purpose of its author to write such a memoir, and not a strict history. At chap. xx., ver. 30, 31, he says, "And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life through His name." Again, in the last verse of the Gospel it is expressly stated that Jesus did many things which the writer has not recorded.

The author therefore clearly asserts that he has made a selection of certain events in the life of Jesus Christ, from a very much larger number, with which he was acquainted, and that the principle which guided him, both in the selection and arrangement, was a religious one. "These are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ," etc. It is impossible more distinctly to assert that the Gospel is a religious memoir.

No less clear is the statement of St. Luke. He says "that he wrote in order to the most excellent Theophilus, that he might know the certainty of the things in which he had been instructed." The original shows that the instruction was given with a definite religious purpose. The Gospel is "a declaration of those things most surely believed among Christians." In one word, the work is a memoir, and not a history.

If it be replied that Luke says that he wrote "in order," εν ταξει [Greek: en taxei], I answer that there are other orderly arrangements besides those of time and place; and that if a work is a religious memoir, the arrangement would be regulated, though not exclusively, by the reference of the facts to the religious end in view.

The assertions of the other two Gospels are not so express, but viewed in connection with their contents they prove that they belong to the same class of writings. Mark writes, "The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." Here a religious purpose is asserted to be the guiding principle of the work. Matthew, in accordance with Hebrew phraseology, entitles his work "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the son of Abraham." The whole contents of the Gospel answer to this description. It was written to prove that Jesus was the Messiah of prophecy according to the conceptions of Jewish Christianity.

Such being the distinct assertions of the writers of the Gospels as to the character of their works, it is absurd to criticize them as one might be justly entitled to do if four Boswells had set forth four lives of Dr. Johnson, the arrangement of which was professedly regulated by the historical sequence. The writer of a religious memoir is entitled to adopt a very different order of events in his narrative from that which ought to be adopted by the writer of a history.

An illustration will make this matter plain. If I were to compose a biography of Wesley, I should be bound to narrate the events in the order of time, with a distinct specification of the order of place; but if I were to compose a memoir for the purpose of teaching the doctrines of Wesleyanism, I should follow a very different arrangement. Still more remarkable would be the variation in the arrangement if I wrote his memoir for the purpose of proving that Wesley never designed that the Church which he founded should dissent from the Church of England.

Such being the character of the Gospels, objections which would be serious as against regular histories are harmless against compositions of this description. A large portion of their alleged discrepancies arise from the different arrangement of the events narrated in them, owing to the predominance in them of the religious idea.

Now observe that in compositions of this description it frequently happens that the connecting links which would make events perfectly harmonize together, are wanting, simply because the purpose of the writer has not led him to record them. I adduce a single instance where the connecting link has been accidentally preserved, and which at once converts a narrative against which most serious objections might have been alleged, into one of the strongest proofs of the historical truthfulness of the Evangelists.

We all remember the account of the murder of John the Baptist. It is told with all those minute and delicate touches which are the peculiar indication of autoptic testimony. It places before our eyes the great feast--the young lady dancing her lascivious dance--the words of Herod's vow--the girl's going out with excitement to her mother--the demand of the Baptist's head in a large dish--the sorrow and reluctant consent of Herod--the mission of the executioner--the presentation of the head to the girl, and by her to her mother. Everything betokens the presence of an eye-witness.

The narrative is open to this obvious objection: How could the disciples of Christ, mean and low as they were, procure so accurate a description of an event which happened in the palace at the great feast? There were neither newspapers nor reporters in those days. But this is only the beginning of the difficulty. The authors of the Gospels profess to give us the _ipsissima verba_ which were uttered by Herod, in the retirement of his palace, when the reports brought him of the fame of Jesus rendered him conscience-stricken. The words are most remarkable, and leave no alternative between their being the words of Herod or a forgery. "It is John," says he, "whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him." Our version spoils the force of the last words--αἱ δυνάμεις ἐνεργοῦσιν ἐν αὐτῷ [Greek: hai dunameis energousin en autô]--which, rendered literally, are, "The powers energize in him." This is certainly a most singular expression, and one open to a strong suspicion of forgery; for how could the followers of Jesus have got hold of the very words of an utterance of Herod spoken in the retirement of the palace?

But besides all this, the words αἱ δυνάμεις ἐνεργοῦσιν ἐν αὐτῷ [Greek: hai dunameis energousin en autô] plainly imply that it was the general idea that a large number of miracles had been wrought by our Lord. My opponents suppose that the historic Jesus only attempted to work miracles in a very few questionable cases, and that the multitude of miracles which have been subsequently ascribed to Him are the inventions of His deluded followers. Such are the difficulties. Now for their solution.

It has been observed that the author of the Acts of the Apostles tells us that among the teachers of the Church at Antioch during Paul's sojourn there, was Manaen, who was a foster-brother of Herod the Tetrarch. This is told us in a manner which is purely incidental, and supplies us with a possible source from whence the information might have been derived. Still it by no means follows that a man who had the same wet-nurse as Herod was an inmate of his palace, or witnessed the great feast.

But a passage of the most incidental character in St. Luke's Gospel supplies us with the source of information which we want. In narrating our Lord's last journey to Jerusalem, Luke tells us that He was accompanied by the twelve apostles, and several women who ministered to Him. Of these he designates three by name. One of these is described as Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward.

Here then we have the very person we are in want of. Chuza's office of ἐπίτροπος [Greek: epitropos], or steward, imposed on him the duty of superintending the great feast. He therefore witnessed the whole procedure, and his wife was in constant communication with the disciples. His office must have brought him into daily communication with his master. What more likely than when he waited on Herod for his orders, he would ask him the news; and that he should report to him the fame of the great teacher with whom his wife was in attendance? He was therefore in the exact situation to have heard Herod's conscience-stricken exclamation. The source of information is before us. The incidental mention of Joanna and her husband affords to this narrative an attestation such as few events in past history possess. If this incident had been lost, the difficulty would have been insuperable. The manner in which little circumstances dovetail into one another in the Gospels is only consistent with their historical character. It would be impossible if they were bundles of myths or legends.

I adduce one instance of the manner in which the Gospels fulfil the conditions of history, even where the absence of the connecting link has occasioned serious difficulty. You all know that the want of any reference in the Synoptics to the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus is the stronghold of those who deny its historical credibility. In the absence of any direct information, we are driven for the solution of the difficulty to the regions of conjecture.

Let us suppose, then, that the story is a myth. If so, it is obvious that it is a very grand and perfect one. The inventor must have been a man of the highest genius in his way. If a person wished to invent a description of a resurrection, he would find it impossible, in the same number of words, to surpass its perfection. If the author of St. John's Gospel has failed to depict another resurrection in an equally graphic manner, it was not for want of sufficient genius. Yet the Gospel asserts the fact of another resurrection--that of Jesus Christ; but it utters not one word descriptive of it. All that it says is that Mary Magdalene came in the morning, and found the tomb empty.

I put it to your common sense to determine, on the sup position that this Gospel was written by a partisan for the purpose of throwing a halo of glory around the person of his Master, whether the author of the resurrection of Lazarus would not have forged a still more magnificent description of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. His failure to do so is clearly not owing to lack of ability.

But how stands the case on the supposition that the Gospel is historical? Everything is exactly as it should be. The Evangelist has given his pictorial description of the resurrection of Lazarus, because he witnessed it. He has not done so with respect to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, because no human eye beheld it. The narrative therefore fulfils the conditions of history, and breaks down under the tests which belong to fiction.

The limits of a single lecture necessarily preclude me from entering on any minor consideration.[106] I therefore proceed at once to address myself to the demolition of the central position of my opponents, that while the Gospels contain a few grains of historic truth, buried beneath a multitude of fables, the greater portion of their contents is a spontaneous growth which sprung up in the bosom of the Christian society in the last seventy years of the first century; and that by means of a number of mythical and legendary inventions, and a succession of developments, a good and holy Jew, named Jesus, was metamorphosed into the divine Christ of the Evangelists. In reasoning on this point, I shall assume nothing but what is conceded by the Schools in question.

What are the concessions which I ask as the foundations of my reasoning? Very simple ones indeed, and such that no man can deny me. First, that the Gospels exist; secondly, that the three first Gospels were in existence about A.D. 100, and the fourth about 160; thirdly, that in addition to the facts or fictions which make up our Gospels, they contain the delineation of a great character--Jesus Christ.

On the existence of this character my argument is founded. I now concentrate your attention on it, which I shall call for the future the portraiture of Jesus Christ our Lord. I need not prove that it exists in the Gospels, for the most ordinary reader perceives that it is there. The question is, How did it get there? It is very easy to say that the Gospels consist of a mass of fictions. But this is no account of the origin of the portraiture. St. Paul's Cathedral undoubtedly consists of an immense multitude of stones. But to say that a multitude of quarrymen dug them, and that a multitude of masons arranged them according to their spontaneous impulses, is no account of the origin of that magnificent structure.

Let us carefully observe what this great portraiture of Jesus Christ, as it is exhibited in the Gospels, consists of. It is the delineation of a great moral and spiritual character dramatized over a wide sphere of action. This portraiture is not the result of the artificial delineation of a character such as we see very commonly presented to us by historians, and of which we see very numerous examples in Lord Macaulay's History of England. Such characters are the artificial creations of the historian, and exhibit his view of what his heroes actually were. But neither of the authors of the Gospels have once attempted thus to delineate the character of his Master. But the portraiture of Jesus Christ is delineated in the Gospels most clearly and most distinctly. Of what materials then does it consist? Only one answer can be returned. It is the combined result of all the facts, or, as my opponents say, fictions, which compose the Gospels.

Now as the existence of this portraiture is not a theory, but a fact, it is plain that it must be accounted for. The assumption that the Gospels are historically true, and that their authors have truly delineated the actions and sayings of one who had an historical existence, is a rational account of its origin. But as these Schools deny their historical character, they are bound to tell us how the portraiture got there. The only answers which they propound are the mythic and Tübingen theories.

According to these theories, a good and holy Jew, who had attracted a crowd of enthusiastic and credulous followers, was gradually metamorphosed by them into the divine Christ of the Evangelists. The inventors of the character were impelled by purely spontaneous instincts. They had no intention of conscious deception. They mistook their Master for the Messiah. In the depths of their enthusiastic credulity, they invented multitudes of fictions, and in time mistook them for realities, and innocently ascribed them to Jesus. Development succeeded development. The fruitful mind of the infant Church created myth after myth. Party spirit raged. Compromise followed compromise. Spontaneous impulse by the end of the century had created the materials of our present Gospels. At last three unknown men appeared who arranged these materials into their present form, and produced the Synoptics. Sixty years later, another great unknown arose, whose character must have been a compound of mysticism, enthusiasm, and imposture, and produced the fourth Gospel, which he successfully palmed off on the Church as the work of the Apostle John, some seventy or eighty years after he was silent in the grave. Such is the alternative which modern unbelief presents as a substitute for the historical reality of the portraiture of Jesus Christ as we behold it in the Gospels.

One cannot help pausing to observe the kind of analogy which exists between these theories and those of a certain class of philosophers who attempt to prove that the moral and religious being whom we designate man has been slowly developed out of the lower forms of life by causes purely physical. Like as in the one case each development became an improvement on its predecessor, so in the other the lower fabulous creations must have died out, and the nobler ones prevailed, until at last there emerged from them Christianity and the glorious Christ of the Gospels. Physical philosophers, however, work at a great advantage in developing an ape into a moral being, compared with the mythologists who developed a Jew of the year 30 into a Christ. The one can draw cheques to any extent on the bank of eternity. If a million of years is not sufficient, a million of millions may be easily had. But in the other case my opponents are limited by the stern conditions of history; and the respective periods of seventy and one hundred and thirty years are all that they venture even to demand.

Now, observe; the portraiture of the Jesus of the Evangelists consists of a multitude of parts which harmoniously blend into a complicated whole. It is composed, in fact, of as many distinct portions as there are incidents recorded in the Gospels, which all concur in imparting to it a common effect. Those with whom I am contending admit that the character is a very great one. Many of them allow that it is greater and more perfect than any which has ever existed as a fact or been conceived as a fiction. Yet the character, taken as a whole, presents us with an essential unity. This is obviously the case in the three first Gospels, and will hardly be disputed except on a very few subordinate points. But it is equally remarkable that of the various traits which compose the character, and which are very numerous, each presents us with a similar unity, although they are dramatized over a very wide sphere of action. To this fact I earnestly invite your attention. In the portraiture of Jesus at least twenty distinct aspects of moral character are blended together, and a number of subordinate ones not easy to be counted; and each of these constitutes a separate unity, which harmoniously blends with the others, and together compose the great unity of the portraiture. Numerous as they are, and dramatized over a wide sphere of action, they are yet depicted with a faultless propriety, even in the most minute details. Nor does it to any serious extent differ with the fourth Gospel. This is certainly the case as far as the actions attributed to Jesus are concerned, though it is not so obvious in the case of the discourses. Still even in these an underlying unity of conception can be found.[107] The four Gospels contain, in fact, four portraitures of one and the same Christ, only differing from each other in the point of view from which they are taken.

Now the obvious course would have been to have assumed that the conception of the original character was the creation of some great poet, and that the fourfold modification of it which our present Gospels exhibit has been the work of four subsequent poets. But this supposition the facts and phenomena of the case consign to the region of hopeless impossibilities. It is therefore necessary to assume that the character itself, and the Christianity of the New Testament, have been gradually elaborated bit by bit, not by a succession of great poets, but of credulous, enthusiastic mythologists; and that the Synoptic Gospels originated in piecing together a multitude of tales which in the latter end of the first century were floating on the surface of the Christian Church.

It is impossible to deny that the Jesus of the Evangelists is an immeasurably finer conception than either the Prometheus of Æschylus, which exhibits the divine in suffering, or the Macbeth or Hamlet of Shakspeare. Each of these characters is distinguished by a unity of conception which proves that as characters they are the creation of a single mind. But supposing we were to be told that these, and the dramas which contain them, were not the creations of single poets, nor even of a succession of poets, but had been slowly elaborated, step by step, during a considerable interval of time by a number of credulous enthusiasts. My opponents would be the first to receive such a suggestion with shouts of derision.

It is plain that if the portraiture of our Lord be an ideal creation, those who framed it must have been gifted with a high order of genius.

Let me illustrate the position by the art of painting. High genius in painting is analogous to high genius in poetry. Let us suppose that we are contemplating a great ideal picture,--_e.g._, the Marriage Feast in Cana of Galilee, at the Louvre,--and that we are told that it is not the work of a single artist, nor even of four, but of a succession who gradually developed it.

Nor, to make the case a parallel one, is this all which we should be asked to believe. As I have already observed, the portraiture of the Jesus of the Evangelists is made up of a multitude of parts, each of which has a separate unity, from the union of which the unity of the whole results. These are said to have been elaborated out of a number of myths and developments which have been the creations of many minds. In a similar manner the picture of the Marriage Feast at Cana consists of a number of separate figures which harmoniously blend into a whole, and to which the magnificent colouring has been adapted. Now suppose that we were told that each of these figures had been gradually developed into its present form by a set of improvements effected unconsciously by a succession of painters; and that all that the artist who formed the picture did was skilfully to combine these separate figures, and place them in juxtaposition. Surely one would not be uncharitable in assuming that the author of such a suggestion had escaped from a lunatic asylum.

Similar is the theory of these Schools as to the origin of the Gospels, and of the great character contained in them. Such a theory of their origin demands our acquiescence in a greater miracle than all the miracles of the New Testament united together.

Viewed in its great outlines, this theory is self-condemned by its inherent absurdity. But when we apply a sound logic to its details, it vanishes like one of the palaces of the Arabian Nights. Professing to be based on rational principles, it violates all the laws of reason. For historic truth it substitutes wild dreams of the imagination.

You will please to keep steadily in mind that the means by which my opponents undertake to metamorphose a Jew of the year 30 into a divine Christ, stated generally, are a succession of mythical and legendary creations and developments, contests and compromises, between hostile sects evolved in conformity with the laws of the intellectual and moral world. Let us now assume the truth of their position, and see how it will work.

If the Jesus of the Evangelists be a development, it is evident that it must have had a starting-point. This could have been none other than the atmosphere of thought and feeling which existed in Judæa during the first thirty years of the first century.[108]

But none more firmly profess their belief in the reign of law in the world of mind and matter than those whose theories I am controverting. In consequence of this belief they pronounce all supernatural interventions in human affairs impossible. I thankfully concede to them the fact that all developments affecting the mind of man which are of purely human origin must be brought about in conformity with law. Let it be clearly understood, therefore, that my reasoning is based on this assumption.

This point being clear, the question immediately presents itself, what is the nature of the laws which regulate the mental developments of man, especially in his character of a moral and religious being? Are they rapid, or do they require long intervals of time for their elaboration? Are great changes in our moral or religious ideas of a quick or a slow growth? The answer to these questions is of vital importance to the argument, because on the showing of my opponents they have only seventy years at their command during which they can develop the Christ of the Synoptics, and the Christianity of nearly all the Epistles, from the religious and moral ideas of the Judaism of the year 30.

Fortunately for us, the universal testimony of history answers these questions with no ambiguous voice. The developments of man, whether moral, social, or religious, are slow. The whole course of civilization, including within that term everything which relates to the growth of the mind of man, and which tends to his refinement and higher culture, is a very gradual one; and its successive stages require long intervals of time for their development. Whenever unbelievers attempt to account for the growth of human civilization from a savage state, or to develop a man out of an ape, in the one case they demand tens of thousands and in the other millions of years for its accomplishment. As this point is of great importance to the argument, I must adduce distinctive proof of it.

No truth is more certain than that it is impossible for men, either individually or collectively, to raise themselves except by very gradual stages above that moral and spiritual atmosphere in which they were born. We are united by the closest ties of habit and education with the past. We breathe from the dawn of our consciousness the very atmosphere of its thought and feeling. Every succeeding state of society is most closely bound to that which preceded it. Every great change in thought or feeling has been produced by a succession of changes leaving no deep gulf between. Individual progress, unless external influences are brought to bear on the mind, follows the same law of gradual growth.

Even genius, and what are called the creative powers of the mind, are fettered by these conditions. All greatness is relative to and bears the impress of the age which produced it. Great men differ from others only in being able to advance a few stages beyond ordinary humanity. But the greatest genius is unable to elevate itself into a very high region of thought or feeling at a single bound, or to sever the links which unite it with the past. The utmost effect which the greatest of men have been able to produce on those by whom they have been surrounded is to cause their actual developments to advance at a somewhat accelerated ratio.

To the truth of these general principles all history testifies. When we measure each stage of human growth, we find that it has occupied long intervals of time. So gradual is the process, that considerable changes can only be discovered after the lapse of lengthened periods. The whole history of philosophy, art, morality, and religion testifies to this. All philosophic schools of thought have been of gradual growth. The daub of a savage has never suddenly developed itself into the creations of a Michael Angelo or a Rubens, nor have his rough imitations of the human form passed but by a succession of gradual stages into the perfection of a Phidias. Poetry, the most creative of arts, is subject to similar conditions. The ideas with which the poet works are those of the age in which he lives. He paints the phenomena and reflects the line of thought, the morality, the religion, the intellectual and social conditions of the times which gave him birth. What he accomplishes is to exhibit them under new combinations. A bushman never at a single bound became a Homer or a Shakspeare.

The history of philosophy bears witness that the universal law of our nature is a gradual growth. Each of its developments was closely allied to that which preceded it, and directly grew out of it. Each School has occupied a considerable time in its development, has grown out of that which preceded it, and prepared the way for its successor. The interval which separates the respective stages is small. Each great race of mankind has also created a philosophy stamped with its own impress, and directly related to its peculiar character. A native of Australia has never suddenly elevated himself into a Socrates.

The same law is no less applicable to religions. We know no instance of the direct creation of one. It is true that the origin of many is buried in the obscurity of the past. Yet as soon as they emerge into the light of history, it is clear that they are subject to a law of gradual growth; and after they have attained their full development, to a no less remarkable law of gradual decay. All the religions on earth, with the exception of Christianity, bear witness to this rule. What have been called new religions, have been evolved out of previously existing materials, modified and adapted to the growth and decay of civilization. No Fetish worshipper, however lofty his genius, could have evolved the systems of Brahmanism or Buddhism by a single bound of his imagination.

If the law of the growth of religions is a very gradual one, that of our moral ideas is far more so. Improvements in the great moral principles which regulate the life of man are most painfully slow. All the great races of mankind have presented the same general outlines of character, with only slight improvements, from age to age. I quote only two examples, the modern French and Germans. How strikingly like are certain portions of the character of the former, to the picture of the Gauls given in the pages of Cæsar; or to the descriptions of the same race inhabiting a distant region which the great apostle has drawn in the Epistle to the Galatians. We may still read the general outline of the character of the German race in the pages of Tacitus. Developments there have been, and the slowness is sadly disappointing to the philanthropist. To be able even to recognize progress, we must survey long intervals of time. The optimist has indeed need of patience; and the most enthusiastic may be certain that long ages before any considerable advance is made, according to the mere laws of natural development, he will be slumbering in the grave.

But it must not be forgotten that the developments which our opponents postulate are always in the way of progressive improvements. Stern historical fact compels us to assert that developments are frequently retrogressive.

No less gradual is the moral progress of the individual. It is also a painful but undeniable fact that retrogressive ones are much more rapid than progressive ones. The moral ideas in the midst of which we are educated cling to us with the firmest grasp. The best men exhibit only a slight advance above the general morality of their age.

I now draw your attention to the fact that the inventive powers of the composer of fiction are limited by the same laws. He too, in the strict sense of that term, is unable to create the new. The materials with which he can work are the idealization of the times in which he lives. Whether he be poet or novel writer, he can neither invent a new religion or a new morality. Mythical inventions of every kind embody the state of thought, feeling, and general idealization of the times which produced them. The entire mass of existing mythology testifies to this fact.

Such, then, are the instruments and materials with which my opponents have to work in the elaboration of Christianity out of Judaism, and in metamorphosing a human Jesus into a divine Christ. Let us examine the possibility of the attempt.

We must place ourselves in the position of the followers of Jesus on the evening of the crucifixion. His individual influence had gathered around Him a number of enthusiastic and credulous followers who mistook Him for the Messiah of popular expectation. The crucifixion certainly dashed their hopes. But according to the theory of my opponents, in the height of their enthusiasm they determined to believe in Him as the Messiah still. To carry out this resolution, it is obvious that new ground had to be taken. A development of some kind was absolutely necessary. No amount of credulity could mistake a dead body mouldering in the grave for the Messiah of Jewish expectation.

It was absolutely necessary, therefore, if His Messiahship could become a possibility, that the crucified Jesus should be rescued from the tomb. If a resurrection could not be effected in reality, it was indispensable that one should be in imagination. Until His followers could be brought in considerable numbers to believe that this had happened, no developments in the direction of the Gospels were possible.

The most obvious expedient to have accomplished this would have been for some of the disciples to have done that which, according to one of the Evangelists, the Jews accused them of, viz., to have stolen the body, and report that Jesus was risen from the dead. But those against whom I am reasoning do not venture to accuse them of conscious fraud. This assumption all educated unbelievers have long abandoned as hopelessly untenable. Such a basis will certainly not bear the weight of the Christianity of the New Testament. In place of this, they assume that the credulity, idealism, and enthusiasm of the followers of Jesus was bottomless. With this machinery they think that He can be rescued from the grave.

Two theories have been propounded for this purpose. One is that some enthusiastic woman--Mary Magdalene, for example--thought that she saw Jesus with the mind's eye, or mistook the gardener for Him, and converted this appearance into a bodily reality. She communicated her enthusiasm to the rest. Others may have imagined that they saw Him in a similar manner, and committed a similar mistake. The other theory is that He was buried in a swoon, that He managed to creep out of His grave, that He partially recovered, and died shortly after in retirement. On such a foundation my opponents propose to erect the whole weight of the historic Church, and from such a chimera to develop the portraiture of the divine Christ.

The second theory I should not have mentioned if it had not been dignified by the name of Bunsen. It is obvious that it will not support the weight of the Christian Church. What! a man who died from weakness shortly after creeping out of his grave, metamorphised by his followers into a divine Messiah, and seated on the right hand of God! If He lived in retirement, and died in Phœnicia shortly afterwards,--according to an assumption for which there is not even the ghost of historical testimony,--His followers had access to Him or they had not. If we adopt the former part of the alternative, no amount of credulity could have mistaken Him for a glorious Messiah rescued from the tomb. The very sight of Him must have acted as a complete extinguisher on the powers of the imagination. If we adopt the latter, it falls under the general head that the belief in the resurrection was merely due to an excited imagination. All the assistance which it renders is to dispose of the dead body.