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diff --git a/38092-8.txt b/38092-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a5b6b2d --- /dev/null +++ b/38092-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3048 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Book Of God, by G. W. Foote + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Book Of God + In The Light Of The Higher Criticism + +Author: G. W. Foote + +Release Date: November 22, 2011 [EBook #38092] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF GOD *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +THE BOOK OF GOD + +IN THE LIGHT OF THE HIGHER CRITICISM + +WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO DEAN FARRAR'S NEW APOLOGY + +By G. W. Foote + +London: R. Forder, 28 Stonecutter Street, E.C. + + + + +THE BOOK OF GOD. + + + + +I. INTRODUCTION. + +During the fierce controversy between the divines of the Protestant +Reformation and those of the Roman Catholic Church, the latter asserted +that the former treated the Bible--and treated it quite naturally--as a +wax nose, which could be twisted into any shape and direction. Those +who championed the living voice of God in the Church, against the +dead letter of the written Bible, were always prone to deride the +consequences of private judgment when applied to such a large and +heterogeneous volume as the Christian Scriptures. They contended that +the Bible is a misleading book when read by itself in the mere light +of human reason; that any doctrine may be proved from it by a +judicious selection of texts; and that Christianity would break up into +innumerable sects unless the Church acted as the inspired interpreter of +the inspired revelation. They argued, further, that the Bible was really +not what the Protestants supposed it to be; and what they said on this +point was a curious anticipation of a good deal of the so-called Higher +Criticism. + +Both sides were right, and both sides were wrong, in this dispute. The +Protestants were right against the Church; the Catholics were right +against the Bible. It was reserved for Rationalism to accept +and harmonise the double truth, and to wage war against both +infallibilities. + +The Bible is said to be inspired, but the man who reads it is not. The +consequence is that he deduces from it a creed in harmony with his own +taste, temper, fancy, and intelligence. He lays emphasis on what fits in +with this creed, and slurs over all that is opposed to it. Every one of +the various and conflicting Protestant sects is founded upon one and +the same infallible book. "The Bible teaches this," says one; "The Bible +teaches that," says another. And they are both right. The Bible does +teach the doctrines of all the sects. But do they not contradict each +other? They do. What is the explanation, then? Why this--the Bible +contradicts itself. + +The self-contradictions of the Bible have occasioned the writing of many +"Harmonies," in which it is sought to be proved that all the apparent +discrepancies are most admirable agreements when they are properly +understood. All that is requisite is to add a word here, and subtract a +word there; to regard one and the same word as having several different +meanings, and several different words as having one and the same +meaning; and, above all things, to apply this method with a strong and +earnest desire to find harmony everywhere, and a pious intention of +giving the Bible the benefit of the doubt in every case of perplexity. + +This sort of jugglery, which would be derided and despised in the case +of any other book, is now falling into discredit. Most of the clergy are +ashamed of it. They frankly own, since it can no longer be denied, +that a more honest art of criticism is necessary to save the Bible from +general contempt. + +But the "Harmony" game is not the only one that is played out. All the +"Reconciliations" of the Bible with science, history, morality, and +common sense, are sharing the same fate. The higher clergy leave +such exhibitions of perverted ingenuity to laymen like the late Mr. +Gladstone. Divines like Canon Driver see that this mental tight-rope +dancing may cause astonishment, but will never produce conviction. They +therefore recognise the difficulties, and seek for a more subtle and +plausible method of removing them. They admit that Moses and Darwin are +at variance with each other; that a great deal of Bible "history" is +legendary, and some of it distinctly false; that such stories as those +of Lot's wife and Jonah's whale are decidedly incredible; that some +passages of Scripture are vulgar and brutal, and others detestably +inhuman; and that it is positively useless to disguise the fact. Yet +they are naturally anxious to keep the Bible on its old pedestal; +and this can only be done by means of a new theory of inspiration. +Accordingly, these gentlemen tell us that the Bible is not the Word of +God, but it contains the Word of God. Its writers were inspired, but +their own natural faculties were not entirely suppressed by the +divine spirit. Sometimes the writer's spirit was predominant in the +combination, and the composition was mainly that of an unregenerate +son of Adam. At other times the divine spirit was predominant, and the +result was lofty religion and pure ethics. Moreover, the sacred writers +were only inspired in one direction. God gave them a lift, as it were, +in spiritual matters; but in science and sociology he let them blunder +along as they could. + +The old wax nose is now receiving a decided new twist, and a +considerable number of accomplished and clever divines are engaged in +manipulating it. One of them is Dean Farrar, who has recently published +a bulky volume on _The Bible: its Meaning and Supremacy_, which we shall +subject to a very careful criticism. + +Dean Farrar's book contains nothing that is new to fairly well-read +sceptics. It presents the commonplaces of modern Biblical criticism, +with a due regard to the interests of "the grand old book" and of "true" +and "fundamental" Christianity, which is probably no more than the +particular form of Christianity that is likely to weather the present +storm of controversy. But although this book contains no startling +novelties, it is of importance as the work of a dignitary of the Church +of England. It is also of value, inasmuch as it will be read by many +persons who would shrink from Strauss and Thomas Paine. It is well that +someone should tell Christians the truth, if not the _whole_ truth, +about the Bible, and tell it them from within the fold of faith. His +motive in doing so may be less a regard for truth itself than for the +immediate interests of his own Church; but the main thing is that he +does it, and Freethinkers may be glad even if they are not grateful. + +Dr. Farrar's book has an Introduction, and we propose to examine it +first. He opens by telling the clergy that they ought not to pursue an +"ostrich policy" in regard to religious difficulties; that they +should not indulge in "vituperative phrases," nor assume a "disdainful +infallibility"; that they do wrong in denouncing as "wicked," +"blasphemous," or "dangerous" every conviction which differs from their +own form of orthodoxy; and that they must not expect all that they +choose to assert to be "accepted with humble acquiescence." No doubt +this advice is quite necessary; and the fact that it is so shows +the value of Christianity, after eighteen centuries of trial, as a +training-school in the virtues of modesty and humility, to say nothing +of justice and temperance. + +The clergy are also invited by Dr. Farrar to recognise the general +diffusion of scepticism:-- + +"In recent years much has been written under the assumption that +Christianity no longer deserves the dignity of a refutation; or that, +at any rate, the bases on which it rests have been seriously undermined. +The writings of freethinkers are widely disseminated among the working +classes. The Church of Christ has lost its hold on multitudes of men +in our great cities. Those of the clergy who are working in the crowded +centres of English life can hardly be unaware of the extent to which +scepticism exists among our artizans. Many of them have been persuaded +to believe that the Church is a hostile and organised hypocrisy." + +This is a sad state of things, and how is it to be met? + +Not by denouncing reason as a wild beast, nor yet by relying on emotion +and ceremonial, for "no religious system will be permanent which is +not based on the convictions of the intellect." Dr. Farrar recommends a +different policy. He has "frequently observed that the objections urged +against Christianity are aimed at dogmas which are no part of Christian +faith, or are in no wise essential to its integrity." Even men of +science have been led astray by objections "based on travesties of its +real tenets." One of these false opinions is that "which maintains +the supposed inerrancy and supernatural infallibility of every book, +sentence, and word of the Holy Bible." This is the principal point to be +dealt with; it is here that we must make an adjustment. Nine-tenths of +the case of sceptics "is made up of attacks on the Bible," and the only +way to answer them is to show that they misunderstand it, and that what +they demolish is not Christianity, but "a mummy elaborately painted in +its semblance," or "a scarecrow set up in its guise." + +"It is no part of the Christian faith," Dr. Farrar says, "to maintain +that every word of the Bible was dictated supernaturally, or is equally +valuable, or free from all error, or on the loftiest levels of morality, +as finally revealed." Such a view of the Bible has been popularly +expressed by divines, but they really did not mean it, and it "never +formed any part of the Catholic creed of Christendom." The doctrine of +everlasting punishment is another of these delusions. There is such +a thing as future punishment, but it is not everlasting--it is only +eternal. In the same way, the Bible is the Word of God, but it is not +infallible--it is only inspired. And what _that_ means we shall see as +we proceed. + + + + +II. THE BIBLE CANON + +The first chapter of Dean Farrar's book deals with the Bible Canon. +After another slap at the poor benighted Christians who still hold +that every word of Scripture is "supernaturally dictated and infallibly +true," Dr. Farrar remarks that the Bible is "not a single nor even a +homogeneous book." Strictly speaking, it is not a book, but a library; +and, as is pointed out later on, it is the remains of a much larger +collection which has mostly perished. The Canon of the Old Testament was +"arrived at by slow and uncertain degrees." The common assertion, that +it was fixed by Ezra and the so-called Great Synagogue in the fifth +century before Christ, is in direct opposition to the facts. It was not +really _settled_ until seventy years after the birth of Christ, when the +Rabbis met at Jamnia, and decided in favor of our present thirty-nine +books. According to Dr. Farrar, there was no special influence from +heaven in the determination of the Canon. It was a work which God left +to "the _ordinary_ influences of the Holy Ghost." Let us see then how +these influences operated on the last and most critical occasion. "The +gathering at Jamnia," says Dr. Farrar, "was a tumultuous assemblage, and +in the faction fights of the Rabbinic parties blood was shed by their +scholars. Hence the decision was regarded as irrevocable and sealed +by blood." Such are the _ordinary_ influences of the Holy Ghost. Its +_extraordinary_ influences may be easily imagined. Their history is +written in blood and fire in every country in Christendom. + +Dr. Farrar allows that the Canon of the New Testament was formed "in the +same gradual and tentative way." Many Gospels, Epistles, and Apocalypses +were "current" in the "first two centuries." Some of them were "quoted +as sacred books" and read aloud in Christian churches. Seven, at least, +of the books which are now canonical were then "disputed"--namely, the +Second Epistle of St. Peter, the Second and Third Epistles of St. John, +the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude, and +the Book of Revelation. The Canon was "formally and officially settled" +by the Council of Laodicea (a.d. 363), and the two Councils of Carthage +(a.d. 397 and 419), the decrees of which were sanctioned by the Trullian +Council (a.d. 692), nearly seven hundred years after Christ. Dr. Farrar +holds, however, that these Councils merely registered the general +agreement of the Christian Church. The real test of canonicity is not +the decision of Councils, which may and do err, but "the verifying +faculty of the Christian consciousness." Dr. Farrar's argument, if it +means anything at all, implies that while Councils may err, consisting +as they do of fallible men, this "Christian consciousness" is really +infallible. But as this Christian consciousness only exists, after +all, in individual Christians, however numerous they may be, or through +however many centuries they may be continued, it is difficult to see how +the greatest multitude of fallibilities can make up one infallibility. +And unless it can, it is also difficult to see how Dr. Farrar can have +an infallible Canon. He disclaims the authority of the Church, on which +Catholics rely; indeed, he says it can hardly be said that the "whole +Church" has pronounced any opinion on the Canon at all. What really +happened is perhaps unconsciously admitted by Dr. Farrar in a rather +simple footnote. "Books were judged," he says, "by the congruity of +their contents with the general Christian conviction." Precisely so; the +books did not decide the doctrine, but the doctrine decided the fate of +the books. And how was the doctrine decided? By fierce controversy, by +forgery and sophistication, by partisan struggles, and finally, after +the adhesion of Constantine, by faction fights that involved the loss of +myriads (some say millions) of lives. + +Not the slightest attempt is made by Dr. Farrar to meet the difficulty +of his position; indeed, he seems unaware that the difficulty exists. +All he sees is the difficulty of the positions taken up by the Catholics +and the early Protestants. It never occurs to him that he has only +shifted from one difficulty to another. The Catholics rely upon the +living voice of God in the Church. That covers everything, like the +sky; and is perfectly satisfactory, if you can only accept it. The +early Protestants repudiated the authority of the Church, at least +as represented by the Pope and Councils; but they acknowledged the +authority of the _primitive_ Church. They were shrewd enough to see +that what cannot possibly rest on mere reason must rest somewhere on +authority; so they admitted as much as was sufficient to cover the +Scriptures and the Creeds, and refused to go a step farther. Dr. Farrar +breaks away from both parties, and what is the result? He talks +about the Canon of the New Testament being formed "by the exercise of +enlightened reason," but he lays down no criterion by which reason can +decide whether a book is inspired or not, or so specially inspired as +to require a place in the Canon. The "verifying faculty of the Christian +consciousness" is one of those comfortable phrases, like the blessed +word Mesopotamia, which are designed to save the pains of accuracy and +the trouble of definite thought. What light does it really shed upon +the following questions? Why is the Protestant Canon different from +the Catholic Canon? Is it owing to some inexplicable difference in the +"verifying faculty of the Christian consciousness" in the two cases; and +by what test shall we decide when the Christian consciousness delivers +two contradictory verdicts? Why is the book of Ecclesiastes in the +Canon, while the book of Ecclesiasticus is (by the Protestants) +relegated to the Apocrypha? Why is the book of Esther in the Canon, and +the book of Judith in the Apocrypha? Why is the book of Jonah in the +Canon, and the book of Tobit in the Apocrypha? Why is the book of +Proverbs in the Canon, and the book of the Wisdom of Solomon in the +Apocrypha? These are questions which the early Protestants answered in +their way, but we defy Dr. Farrar to answer them at all. + +Let us follow Dr. Farrar into his second chapter. He states, truly +enough, that both the Old and the New Testaments represent "the selected +and fragmentary remains of an extensive literature." Many books referred +to in the Old Testament are lost. Some of the canonical books are +anonymous; we do not know who wrote them. Others bear the names of men +"by whom they could not have been composed." The Pentateuch is "a work +of composite structure," which has been "edited and re-edited several +times." The Psalms are a collection of sacred poems in "five separate +books of very various antiquity." The Proverbs consist of "four or +five different collections." The New Testament is a selection from the +voluminous Christian literature of the earliest centuries. Many Gospels +were already in existence when St. Luke prepared his own. "It is all but +certain," Dr. Farrar says, "that St. Paul, and probable that the other +Apostles, must have written many letters which are no longer preserved." +That is to say, some letters actually written by St. Paul were allowed +to perish, while others not written by him were allowed to bear his +name, and were placed as his in the New Testament Canon! There are +passages in the Gospels that are known to be interpolations; for +instance, the story of the Woman taken in Adultery. This story is +"exquisite and supremely valuable," but it is bracketed in the Revised +Version as of "doubtful genuineness." Such passages are eliminated +because they do not "meet the standard of modern critical requirements." +_O sancta simplicitas!_ Is there any reason, in the natural sense of +that word, for believing that John the Apostle wrote the rest of the +Fourth Gospel, any more than he wrote this rejected story? Dr. Farrar +strains at gnats and swallows camels, and prides himself on his +discrimination. + +His references to Justin Martyr and Papias seem less than ingenuous. +It is not true that Justin Martyr "freely uses the Gospels." Dr. Farrar +admits that he "does not name them." Saying that he "used" them is +quietly assuming that they existed. All that Justin Martyr does, as a +matter of fact, is to cite sayings ascribed to Jesus, but not in one +single case does he cite a saying of Jesus in exactly the form in which +it appears in the Four Gospels. Supposing that he wrote freely, and +had ever so bad a memory, and never took the trouble to refer to the +originals, it is simply inconceivable that he should never be right. Now +and then he must have deviated into accuracy. And the fact that he never +does is plain proof that he had not our Gospels before him. Nor does +Papias mention "the Gospels." He mentions only two, Matthew and Mark, +and he says that Matthew was written in _Hebrew_, Now, the earliest date +at which Papias can be fixed is a.d. 140. This is chosen by Dr. Farrar, +and we will let it pass unchallenged. And what follows? Why this, that +no Christian writer before a.d. 140 betrays that he has so much as heard +of _any_ Gospel, and even then but _two_ are known instead of _four_, +and one of these is most certainly _not_ the Gospel which opens the New +Testament. + +All this was proved a quarter of a century ago by the author of +_Supernatural Religion_--a work which is systematically ignored by +the so-called Higher Critics because its author was a pronounced +Rationalist. An excellent summary of this writer's demonstrations +appears in the late Matthew Arnold's _God and the Bible_:-- + +"He seems to have looked out and brought together, to the best of his +powers, every extant _passage_ in which, between the year 70 and the +year 170 of our era, a writer might be supposed to be quoting one of our +Four Gospels. + +"And it turns out that there is constantly the same sort of variation +from our Gospels, a variation inexplicable in men quoting from a real +Canon, and quite unlike what is found in men quoting from our Four +Gospels later on. It may be said that the Old Testament, too, is often +quoted loosely. True; but it is also quoted exactly; and long passages +of it are thus quoted. It would be nothing that our canonical Gospels +were often quoted loosely, if long passages from them, or if passages, +say, of even two or three verses, were sometimes quoted exactly. But +from writers before Irenĉus not one such passage can be produced so +quoted. And the author of _Supernatural Religion_ by bringing all the +alleged quotations forward, has proved it."* + +Now what is the exact value of these demonstrations? We will give it in +Mr. Arnold's words: "There is no evidence of the establishment of our +Four Gospels as a Gospel-Canon, or even of their existence as they now +finally stand at all, before the last quarter of the second century." +Not only is there no evidence of the orthodox theory, but, as Mr. Arnold +says, the "great weight of evidence is against it." + +Dr. Giles--another ignored writer, although a clergyman of the Church +of England--had said and proved the very same thing in his _Christian +Records_; and had appended the following significant declaration:-- + +"There is positive proof, in the writings of the first ages of +Christianity, that the same question as to the age and authorship of the +books of the New Testament was even then agitated, and if it was then +set at rest, this was done, not by a deliberate sentence of the judge, +but by burning all the evidence on which one side of the controversy was +supported,"** + + * Arnold, God and the Bible, pp. 222-3. + + ** Dr. Giles, Christian Records, p. 10. + +It is probable that Dr. Farrar is well aware that our Four Gospels +cannot be traced beyond the second half of the second century--that is, +considerably more than a century after the alleged date of the death of +Christ. But he shrinks from a frank admission of the fact, and leaves +the reader to find it out for himself. + +Instead of making this important and, as some think, damning admission, +Dr. Farrar continues his remarks on the Bible Canon. That thirty-six +books are accepted "on the authority of the Church" simply means, +he tells us, that they are accepted "by the general consensus of +Christians." The whole Church, as such, has hardly pronounced an +opinion on the subject. The Churchmen who voted at Laodicea and Carthage +"exercised no independent judgment," and their critical knowledge was +"elementary." Nor was the decision of the Council of Trent any real +improvement. Dr. Farrar approves the reply of the Reformed Churches, +that "any man may reject books claiming to be Holy Scripture if he do +not feel the evidence of their contents." But this is to make every man +a judge, not only of what the Bible means, but also of what it should +contain. Each unfettered Christian may therefore make up a Bible for +himself; which is simply chaos come again. What then is the way of +escape from this grotesque confusion? Dr. Farrar indicates it with a +crooked finger:-- + +"The decision as to what books are or are not to be regarded as true +Scripture, though we believe it to be wise and right, depends on no +infallible decision. It must satisfy the scientific and critical as well +as the spiritual requirements of each age." + +This reduces the Bible Canon to a perpetual transformation scene. It is +a tacit confession that the Protestant Bible is an arbitrary collection +of questionable documents; that it has nothing to plead for itself but +common usage; that its very contents, as well as their interpretation, +are liable to change; in short, that if the Catholic stands upon the +rock of implicit faith, and defies all dangers by closing his eyes and +clutching the reassuring hand of his Holy Mother Church, the Protestant +flounders about with the poor little dark-lantern of private judgment +in a frightful mud-ocean--his old rock of faith in an infallible Bible +having been reduced to dust by the engines of criticism, and finally to +slush by a downflow from the lofty reservoir of pure reason.* + + * It would be a pity to omit an amusing instance of the + contemptuous dogmatism of Christian divines when they had + the field to themselves. Dr. William Whitaker, a famous + learned writer on the side of the Reformation in England, in + his Disputation with two of the foremost Jesuits, Bellarmine + and Stapleton, wrote as follows:--"Jerome, in the Proem of + his Commentaries on Daniel, relates that Porphyry the + philosopher wrote a volume against the book of our prophet + Daniel, and affirmed that what is now extant under the name + of Daniel was not published by the ancient prophet, but by + some later Daniel, who lived in the times of Antiochus + Epiphanes. But we need not regard what the impious Porphyry + may have written, who mocked at all the scriptures and + religion itself." Well, this opinion of the blasphemous + Porphyry, whose writings were burnt by the Christian Church, + is now accepted by the Higher Critics. Canon Driver, for + instance, admits that the Book of Daniel is not the work of + Daniel, that it could not have been written earlier than 300 + B.C., and that "it is at least _probable_ that it was + composed under the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, B.C. + 168 or 167" (Introduction to the Literature of the Old + Testament, p. 467). This involves that the fulfilled + prophecies of Daniel were written after the events. + + + + +III. THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE + +Having examined Dean Farrar's observations on the Bible Canon, and seen +that it is a more or less arbitrary selection from Hebrew and early +Christian literature, many of the books being anonymous, while others +bear the names of authors who did not write them, and most of them being +much later compositions than orthodoxy supposes; we now take a leap +forward to his twelfth chapter to see what he has to say on the subject +of the Bible and Science. His first object is to drive home to his +co-religionists the mischief of adhering to the old doctrine of Bible +infallibility. Consequently he does not mince matters in dealing with +the difficulties of the literal theory of inspiration. Writers like +Gaussen contend that the Bible is a perfect authority in matters of +science. Mr. Gladstone argues that Moses supernaturally anticipated +the teachings of modern evolution, and that the inspired fishermen of +Galilee, notably St. Peter, no less supernaturally anticipated all that +modern astronomy teaches as to the final destiny of our planet. Dr. +Farrar declines to follow them in this perilous path. He does not walk +in the opposite direction, for that would lead him among the "infidels." +He strikes off at right angles, and takes the line that the Bible was +never intended to teach science, or anything else but religion. +He quotes with approval the saying of Archbishop Sumner, that "the +Scriptures have never revealed a scientific truth." He maintains that +the writers of Scripture had only a natural knowledge of exact science; +and that was precious little, and was indeed rather ignorance than +knowledge, as they belonged to "the most unscientific of all nations in +the most unscientific of all ages." "It is now understood by competent +inquirers," he says, "that geology is God's revelation to us of one set +of truths, and Genesis of quite another." "Nature," he says, "is a book +which contains a revelation of God in one sphere, and Scripture a book +which contains a revelation of him in another. Both books have often +been misread, but no _truth_ revealed in the one can be irreconcilable +with any truth revealed in the other." This, however, is a mere truism; +for one truth cannot be irreconcilable with another truth. Dr. Farrar's +statement sounds imposing and consolatory, but when you look into its +meaning you see it is only a pulpit platitude. + +But before we proceed to criticise Dr. Farrar's position, let us glance +at his attack upon the literalists. He charges them with having opposed +and persecuted every modern science, and with having manufactured the +most absurd scientific theories from the text of the Bible; the said +theories being not only ludicrous, but irreconcilably opposed to each +other. Lactantius, with the Bible in his hand, ridiculed the rotundity +of the earth. Roger Bacon and Galileo were imprisoned and tortured for +teaching true science instead of the false science of the Church. +John Wesley declared the Copernican astronomy to be in opposition to +Scripture. Thomas Burnet's "Sacred Theory of the Earth," founded upon +the Bible, was assailed by William Whiston, who based a different +"Sacred Theory" upon the very same book. Buffon, the great French +scientist, was compelled by the Sorbonne to recant, and to abandon +everything in his writings that was "contrary to the narrative of +Moses." Even when God (that is to say Dr. Simpson) gave to the world the +priceless boon of anaesthetics, there were many Biblicists who declared +that the use of chloroform in cases of painful confinement was flying +in the face of God's curse upon the daughters of Eve. Catholic and +Protestant have alike pitted the Bible against Science, and both have +been ignominiously beaten. + +But this is not all. The theologians have been disgraced as well as +defeated. With respect to the Buffon case, for instance, Dr. Farrar +writes as follows:-- + +"The line now taken by apologists is very different from that of +previous centuries, and less honest. It declares that Genesis and +geology are in exact accord. It no longer refuses to believe the facts +of nature, but instead of this it boldly sophisticates the facts of +Scripture." + +John Stuart Mill said that every new truth passes through three phases +of reception. At first, it is declared to be false and dangerous; +secondly, it is discovered that there is something to be said for it; +lastly, its opponents turn round and declare "we said so all along." +Dr. Farrar dots all the "i's" in Mill's statement. He asserts that +"religious teachers" first say of every scientific discovery, "It is +blasphemous and contrary to Scripture." Next they say, "There is nothing +in Scripture which absolutely contradicts it." Finally they say, "It is +distinctly revealed in Scripture itself." + +Dr. Farrar puts the historic case against "orthodoxy"--which, of course, +is not Christianity!--in the following fashion:-- + +"The history of most modern sciences has been as follows. Its +discoverers have been proscribed, anathematised, and, in every possible +instance, silenced or persecuted; yet before a generation has passed +the champions of a spurious orthodoxy have had to confess that their +interpretations were erroneous; and--for the most part without an +apology and without a blush--have complacently invented some new line +of exposition by which the phrases of Scripture can be squared into +semblable accordance with the now acknowledged facts." + +Even in the comparatively recent case of Darwin this was perfectly true. +Dr. Farrar, who preached Darwin's funeral sermon in Westminster Abbey, +says that he "endured the fury of pulpits and Church Congresses." He +did so with quiet dignity; not an angry word escaped him. Yet before +Darwin's death not only was the scientific world converted, but leading +theologians said that, if Darwinism were proved to be true, there was +"nothing in it contrary to the creeds of the Catholic faith." + +Darwin never answered the clergy. He had better work to do. All he did +was to smile at them. In one of his letters he said that when the men +of science are agreed about anything all the clergy have to do is to say +ditto. He understood that when science is victorious it will always have +clerical patronage. Had he been able to do it, he would have smiled, in +that beautiful benevolent way of his, at Dr. Farrar's funeral sermon. +The worthy Dean thought they had got Darwin at last; and the grand old +philosopher might have said, "Why yes, my _corpse!_" + +So much for Dr. Farrar's impeachment of "orthodoxy" and its doctrine +of plenary inspiration. Let us now examine his own position, and see +whether it is logical as well as convenient. + +Take the first chapter of Genesis. It is not a scientific revelation, +though it seems to be. Whoever wrote it had only the science of his +time. Nevertheless, it is of "transcendent value," according to Dr. +Farrar. "Its true and deep object," he says, "was to set right an erring +world in the supremely important knowledge that there was one God and +Father of us all, the Creator of heaven and earth, a God who saw all +things which he has made, and pronounced them to be very good." + +This is very pretty in its way; but how absurd it is in the light of the +fact that the Hebrew creation story is all _borrowed!_ While the +Jews were desert nomads, long before the concoction of their sacred +scriptures the doctrine of a Creator of heaven and earth was known in +India and in Egypt, not to recite a list of other nations. If this is +all the first chapter of Genesis teaches, we may well exclaim, "Thank +you for nothing!" It is a curious "revelation" which only discloses +what is familiar. Had the Bible never been written, had the Jews never +existed, the "true and deep object" of the first chapter of Genesis +would have been quite as well subserved. Wherever the Christian +missionaries have gone they have found the creation story in front of +them. Wherever they took it they were carrying coals to Newcastle. + +We venture to suggest that if Dr. Farrar thinks that all things God has +made are very good, there are many persons who do not share his opinion. +It would be idle to read that text to a sailor pursued by a shark. We +could multiply this instance a thousandfold; but why give a list of +all the predatory and parasitical creatures on this planet, from human +tyrants and despoilers down to cholera microbes? Dr. Farrar may reply +that everything ends in mystery, that we must have faith, that it is our +interest as well as our duty to believe. But that is exactly what the +Catholic Church says, and Dr. Farrar laughs it to scorn. The truth is, +that all theology is ultimately a matter of faith; and the quarrel about +more or less is a domestic difference. The greater difference is between +Faith and Reason. This was clearly seen by Cardinal Newman, who pointed +out that every mystery of the Roman Catholic faith is matched by a +mystery in Protestant theology. + +Finally, we have to remark that Dr. Farrar overlooks a very important +point in this controversy. Having argued that the Bible was not intended +to teach science, and has not in fact helped the world to a single +scientific discovery; having also admitted that the Bible has all along +been used to hinder the progress of natural knowledge, and to justify +the persecution of honest investigators; he seems to imagine that there +is no more to be said. But there is _much_ more to be said. We forbear +to press the objection that Omniscience was very curiously employed in +entangling a religious revelation with scientific blunders, which would +necessarily retard the progress of scientific truth, and therefore of +human civilisation. What we wish to emphasise is less open to the retort +that Omniscience is beyond our finite judgment. We desire to urge that +the Bible is not simply non-scientific. It is anti-scientific. Let us +take, for instance, the story of the creation and fall of man. Even +if it be not taken literally, but allegorically, it is thoroughly +antagonistic to the teachings of Evolution. At the very least it implies +that man is something special and unique, whereas he is included in the +general scheme of biology, and is but "the paragon of animals." Get rid +of the actual garden and the actual tree of knowledge, as Dr. Farrar +does, and there still remains the fact that the fall of man is a +falsehood, and the ascent of man a verity. The allegory does not +correspond to the essential truth of man's history; and in spite of all +the flattering rhetoric with which Dr. Farrar invests it--a rhetoric +so inharmonious with its own consummate simplicity--there is something +inexpressibly childish to the modern mind in the awful heinousness which +is attributed to the mere eating of forbidden fruit. An act is really +not vicious because it is prohibited, or virtuous because it conforms to +the dictates of authority. When man attains to intellectual maturity +he smiles at the ethical trick which was played upon his youthful +ignorance. It is not sufficient to tell him that he must do this, and +must not do that. He requires a reason. His intelligence must go hand in +hand with his emotions. It is this union, indeed, which constitutes what +we call conscience. + +The truth is that the Bible is steeped in superstition and +supernaturalism. Its cosmogony, its conception of man's origin and +position in the universe, its infantile legends, its miracles and magic, +its theory of madness and disease, its doctrine of the external efficacy +of prayer, its idea that man's words and wishes avail to change the +sweep of universal forces and the operation of their immutable laws: all +this is in direct opposition to the letter and spirit of Science. The +special pleading of clergymen like Dr. Farrar may afford a temporary +relief to trembling Christians, and keep them for a further term in +the fold of faith; but it will never make the slightest impression upon +sceptics, unless it fills them with contemptuous pity for a number of +clever men who are obliged, for personal reasons, to practise the lowest +arts of sophistry. + + + + +IV. MIRACLES AND WITCHCRAFT + +Dr. Farrar, as we have seen, holds that the Bible is not a revelation +in science. The inspired writers were, in such matters, left to their +natural knowledge. The Holy Spirit taught them that God made the world +and all which it inhabits; but _how_ it was made they only conjectured. +The truth, in _this_ respect, was left to the discovery of later ages. + +This is a pretty and convenient theory, but it does not provide for +every difficulty in the relationship between science and the Bible. +There still remain the questions of miracles and witchcraft. + +Dr. Farrar does not discuss these questions thoroughly. He only ventures +a few observations. In his opinion, the two miracles of the Creation and +the Incarnation "include the credibility of _all_ other miracles." +We agree with him. Admit creation out of nothing, and you need not be +astonished at the transformation of water into wine. Admit the birth +of a boy from a virgin mother, and you need not raise physiological +objections to the story of a man being safely entertained for three +days in a whale's intestines. It is absurd to strain at gnats after +swallowing camels. For this reason we are unable to understand Dr. +Farrar's fastidiousness. He is ready to believe that some miracles are +mistaken metaphors, that some were due to the action of unnoticed +or ill-understood natural causes, and that others were providential +occurrences instead of supernatural events. All this, however, is but a +concession to the sceptical spirit. It is throwing out the children to +the wolves. It may stop their pursuit for a little while, but they will +come on again, and flesh their jaws upon the parents. + +A mixed criterion of true miracles is laid down by Dr. Farrar. They must +be (1) adequately attested, and (2) wrought for adequate ends, and (3) +in accordance with the revealed laws of God's immediate dealings with +man. The second and third conditions are too fanciful for discussion. +They are, in fact, entirely subjective. The first condition is the only +one which can be applied with decisive accuracy. The miracles must be +_adequately attested_. But was it not David Hume who declared that "in +all history" there is not a single miracle attested in this manner? And +did not Professor Huxley say that Hume's assertion was "least likely" +to be challenged by those who are used to weighing evidence and giving +their decision with a due sense of moral responsibility? + +It is easy enough to sneer at Hume. It is just as easy to answer what he +never said. What the apologists of Christianity have to do is to take +a single miracle of their faith and show that it rests upon adequate +evidence. Anything short of this is intellectual thimble-rigging. + +Dr. Farrar does not face this dreadful task. He treats us, instead, to +some personal observations on the Fall, the Tower of Babel, Balaam's +ass, Joshua's arrest of the sun and moon, and Jonah's submarine +excursion. Let us examine these observations. + +No Christian, says Dr. Farrar, is called upon to believe in an actual +Garden of Eden and an actual talking serpent. Christians have believed +in these things by the million. But that was before the clergy invented +"the Higher Criticism" to disarm "infidelity." They know better now. +The story of the Fall is false as a narrative. It is true as a "vivid +pictorial representation of the origin and growth of sin in the human +heart." All the literature of the world has failed to set forth anything +"comparable to it in insight." Therefore it is "inspired." + +How hollow this sounds when we recollect that the Hebrew story of the +Fall was borrowed from the Persian mythology! How much hollower when we +consider it as it stands, stripped of the veil of fancy and divested of +the glamor of association! The "insight" of the inspired writer could +only represent God as the landlord of an orchard, and man as a being +with a taste for forbidden apples. The "philosopheme," as Dr. Farrar +grandiosely styles it, is so absurd in its native nakedness that Rabbis +and other divines have suspected a carnal mystery behind the apples, in +order to give the "sin" of Adam and Eve a darker vein of sensuality.* + + * We cannot elaborate this point in a publication which is + intended for general reading. Suffice it to say that one + famous commentator suggests that Eve was seduced by an ape. + +Nor is this all. The very idea of a Fall is inconsistent with Evolution. +The true Garden of Eden lies not behind us, but before us. The true +Paradise is not the earth as God made it for man, but the earth as +man is making it for himself. The Bible teaches the _descent_ of man. +Science teaches the _ascent_ of man. And the two theories are the +antipodes of each other, not only in physical history, but in every +moral and spiritual implication. + +With regard to the story of the tower of Babel, we must not regard it +as an inspired account of the origin of the diversity of human language. +That is what it appears to be upon the face of it. But philology has +exploded this childish legend, and a new meaning must be read into it. +According to Dr. Farrar, it is a "symbolic way of expressing the +truth that God breaks up into separate nationalities the tyrannous +organisation of cruel despotisms." Now we venture to say that there is +not a suggestion of this in the text. And the "truth" which Dr. +Farrar reads into it so arbitrarily is a phenomenon of modern times. +Nationality is a great force at present, but in ancient days the only +power that could bind tribes together in one polity was a military +despotism. From the point of view of evolution, both conquest and +slavery were inevitable steps in the progress of civilisation. It is +really nothing against the ancient Jews, for instance, that they fought +like devils and made slaves of their enemies. It was the fashion of the +time. The mischief comes in when we are told that their proceedings were +under the sanction and control of God. + +Dr. Farrar next tackles the story of Balaam, which is "another theme for +ignorant ridicule." It is astonishing how sublime these Bible wonders +become in the light of the Higher Criticism. A talking ass sounds like +an echo of the Arabian Nights. But the author himself never intended +you to believe it. Dr. Farrar is quite sure of that. You must forget the +ass, and fix your attention on Balaam. Then you perceive that the story +is "rich in almost unrivalled elements of moral edification." That is to +say, you perceive it if you borrow Dr. Farrar's spectacles. But if you +look with your own naked eyes you see that ass in the foreground of +the picture, with outstretched neck and open jaws, holding forth to an +astonished universe. + +With regard to Joshua's supreme miracle, Dr. Farrar avows his unbelief. +A battle ode got mistaken for actual history. "He who chooses," says Dr. +Farrar, "may believe that the most fundamental laws of the universe were +arrested to enable Joshua to slaughter a few more hundred fugitives; and +he who chooses may believe that nothing of the kind ever entered into +the mind of the narrator." You pay your money and take your choice. +Shape the old wax nose as you please. Believe what you like, and +disbelieve what you like--and swear the author disbelieved it too. + +Nor must the story of Jonah be taken literally. Regard the moral, and +forget its fishy setting. Jesus Christ, indeed, referred to Jonah's +sojourn in the "whale's belly" as typical of his own sojourn in the +heart of the earth. But referring to a story is no proof of any belief +in its truth. Not in the Bible. Jesus Christ also said, "Remember Lot's +wife." But of course he did not believe the story literally. He used +it for his own purpose. For the rest, he did not wish to unsettle men's +minds by throwing doubt on such a time-honored narrative; besides, the +time had not arrived to explain the chemical composition of rock-salt. + +Witchcraft is a more serious matter. The Bible plainly says, "Thou shalt +not suffer a witch to live." This text sealed the doom of millions of +old women. It is the bloodiest text in all literature. The Jews believed +in witchcraft, and the law against witches found its way into their +sacred Scriptures. Sir Matthew Hale, a great English judge and a good +man, sentenced witches to be burnt in 1665, and said that he made no +doubt at all that there were witches, for "the Scriptures had affirmed +so much." Wesley, a century later, said that to give up witchcraft was +to give up the Bible. Dr. Farrar sets down these facts honestly. He is +also eloquent in reprobation of the cruelty inflicted on millions +of "witches" in the Middle Ages. But he denies that the Bible is +responsible for those infamies. "Witches" in the Bible may not mean +witches, but "nefarious impostors." Good old wax nose again! Moreover, +that ancient Jewish law was not binding upon Christians, and to make +it so was "a gross misuse of the Bible." But how on earth could the +Christians use it in any other way? The time came when men outgrew the +superstition of witchcraft. Before that time they killed witches on +Bible authority. Dr. Farrar himself, had he lived then, would have +done the same. Living in a more enlightened age, he says that former +Christians acted wrongly, and in fact diabolically. But what of the book +which misled them? What of the book which, if it did not mislead them +by design, harmonised so completely with their ignorant prejudices, and +gave such a pious color to their unspeakable brutalities? Nor is this +by any means the last word upon the subject. The witchcraft of the Old +Testament has its counterpart in the demoniacal possession of the New +Testament. Both are aspects of one and the same superstition. + +The Bible _is_ responsible for the cruel slaughter of millions of +alleged witches. It is also responsible for the prolonged treatment +of lunatics as possessed. The methods of science are now adopted in +civilised countries. Hysterical women are no longer tortured as witches. +Lunatics are no longer chained and beaten as persons inhabited by +devils. Kindness and common sense have taken the place of cruelty and +superstition. This change was brought about, not through the Bible, but +in spite of it. + +Sir Matthew Hale and John Wesley were at least honest. They were too +sincere to deny the plain teaching of the Bible. Dr. Farrar represents +a more enlightened, but a more hypocritical, form of Christianity. He +sneers at "reconcilers" like Mr. Gladstone, who try to bolster up the +Creation story as a scientific revelation. But is he not a "reconciler" +himself in regard to miracles? And does he not play fast and loose +with truth and honesty in his attempt to clear the Bible of its guilty +responsibility in connection with that witch mania which is one of the +darkest episodes in Christian history? + + + + +V. THE BIBLE AND FREETHOUGHT + +The Bible may well be called the persecutor's text-book. It is +difficult, if not impossible, to find in all its pages a single text +in favor of real freedom of thought. Dr. Farrar champions what he +calls "true Christianity," to which he declares that all persecution is +entirely "alien." This "true Christianity" appears to depend upon "the +spirit" of Christ, and seems to have little or no relation to the letter +of Scripture. But what is the actual fact, when we view it in the light +of history? In one of his lucid intervals of mere common sense, Dr. +Farrar makes an important admission with regard to the worse than +Armenian atrocities of the Jewish policy of extermination in Palestine. +Those atrocities of cruelty and lust are said to have been ordered by +God, but Dr. Farrar says that on this point the Jews were mistaken. They +thought they were doing God a service, but they thought so ignorantly. +And how was their ignorance corrected? Not by a special monition from +heaven, but by the ordinary progress and elevation of the human mind. +"It required," Dr. Farrar says, "but the softening influence of time +and civilisation to obliterate in the best minds those fierce +misconceptions." Precisely so. And is it anything but the softening +influence of time and civilisation that makes Christians like Dr. Farrar +ashamed of the bloody deeds of their co-religionists; which bloody +deeds, by the way, have always been justified by appeals to the +teachings of the Bible? Let there be no mistake on this point. Dr. +Farrar himself does not scruple to write of the "deep damnation of deeds +of deceit and sanguinary ferocity committed in the name of Holy Writ." +"In some of their deadliest sins against the human race," he further +says, "corrupted and cruel Churches have ever been most lavish in their +appeals to Scripture." He admits that "the days are not far distant +when it was regarded as a positive duty to put men to death for their +religious opinions," and that this was defended by Old Testament +examples, and also by some texts from the New Testament. And it was +"by virtue of texts like these" that enemies of the human race were +"enabled" to combine the "garb and language of priests with the temper +and trade of executioners." + +Now, what has Dr. Farrar to urge _per contra?_ Simply this: that the +"early Christians" pleaded for toleration. "Force," they said, "is +hateful to God." "It is no part of religion," said Tertullian, "to +_compel_ religion." But suppose all this be admitted--and there is much +to be said by way of qualification--what does it amount to? The "early +Christians" were in a minority. They did not yet command the sword of +the magistrate. They could not persecute except by holding no fellowship +with unbelievers, by shaking off the dust of their feet against those +who rejected their Gospel, and by other harmless though detestable +exhibitions of bigotry. They had to plead for their own existence, and +in doing so they were obliged to appeal to the principle of general +toleration. But the moment they triumphed, under Constantine, they began +to flout the very principle to which they had formerly appealed. The +humility of their weakness was more than equalled by the pride of their +power. And what was the result? "From Augustine's days down to those +of Luther," Dr. Farrar says, "scarcely one voice was raised in favor, +I will not say of _tolerance_, but even of abstaining from fire and +bloodshed in support of enforced uniformity." Dr. Farrar denounces in +creditable language the frightful butcheries of Alva in the Netherlands, +for which the Pope presented him with a jewelled sword bearing a +pious inscription. He is properly horrified at the massacre of St. +Bartholomew, in honor of which Pope Gregory XIII. struck a triumphant +medal, and went in procession to sing a Te Deum to God, while the cannon +thundered from the Castle of St. Angelo and bonfires blazed in the +streets of Rome. He is bitter against the Church of Rome for its +vast shedding of innocent blood. He reminds us that the infamous Holy +Inquisition is still toasted by Catholic professors at Madrid; and that +intolerance, having lost its power, has not lost its virulence, nor +"ceased to justify its burning hatred by Scripture quotations." And +he cites Manning's successor at Westminster, the truculent Cardinal +Vaughan, as declaring with perfect approval that "the Catholic Church +has never spared the knife, when necessary, to cut off rebels against +her faith and authority." + +But let it not be imagined that all the guilt of persecution rested upon +the Church of Rome. Protestantism persecuted as freely as the Papacy. +That heretics should be put down, and if necessary killed, was a +principle common to both Churches. The question in dispute was, Which +_were_ the heretics? This is so incontestable that we need not fortify +it with Protestant quotations and Protestant examples. It is not true, +as Dr. Farrar alleges, that Luther "boldly proclaimed that thoughts are +toll-free," if it is meant that he condemned persecution. Thoughts were +toll-free against Romish exactions; that was what Luther meant. He held +as strongly as any Papist that those who denied one essential doctrine +of Christianity should be punished by the magistrates. He declared that +reason always led to unbelief. He besought the Protestant princes to +uphold "the faith" by every means in their power. And when the serfs +rebelled, thinking that the "freedom" the Reformers talked about was +to become a reality, it was Luther who wrote against them with +unsurpassable ferocity, and advised that they should be "slaughtered +like mad dogs." + +Dr. Farrar rather judiciously refrains from mentioning Calvin in this +connection, but in another part of the volume he refers to the great +Genevian "reformer" in a somewhat gingerly manner. When the sins of +Catholics have to be condemned he is quite dithyrambic; but when he +has to censure the sins of Protestants he displays a most touching +tenderness. Nothing could well be worse than the mixture of religious +bigotry, personal spleen, and low duplicity, with which Calvin hunted +Servetus to his fiery doom. Dr. Farrar sympathetically describes this +vile act as an "error." He tries to satisfy his conscience, afterwards, +by confessing that the Calvinists in general "were for the most part as +severe to all who differed from them as they imagined God to be severe +to the greater part of the human race." + +Dr. Farrar's treatment of this subject is superficial. It is not a Bible +text here or there which is the real basis of persecution. We advise him +to read George Eliot's review of Lecky's _History of Rationalism_. He +will then see that persecution is founded upon the fatal doctrine of +salvation by faith. This doctrine makes the heretic more noxious than a +serpent. A serpent poisons the body, a heretic poisons the soul. If it +be true that his teaching may draw souls to hell, human welfare demands +his extermination. Dr. Farrar does not disclaim this doctrine, and if he +fails to act upon it he only betrays an amiable inconsistency. His heart +is better than his head. + +Dr. Farrar, like other Protestants, talks about the right of private +judgment. But this is only fine and futile verbiage, unless he admits +the sinlessness of intellectual error. If judgment depends on the will, +it is through the will amenable to motives; consequently, the way +to pro-mote correct opinions is to promise rewards and threaten +punishments. But if judgment does not depend on the will; if it is +necessarily determined by the laws of reason and evidence; then it is +an absurdity to bribe and intimidate. Now there is no third alternative. +One of these two theories must be right, and the other must be wrong. +Dr. Farrar is logically bound to take his choice. If he believes that +judgment depends on the will, he has no right to denounce persecution. +If he believes that judgment does not depend on the will, he has no +right to censure the most absolute freethought. + +There are but two camps--the camp of Faith and the camp of Reason. +Dr. Farrar belongs to the former. But he does not find his position +comfortable. He casts a longing eye on the other camp. He wants to be +in both. He therefore tries to form an alliance between them, if not to +amalgamate them under one banner. + +Reason, said Bishop Butler, is the only faculty wherewith we can judge +of anything, even of revelation itself. Dr. Farrar quotes this statement +with approval. He quotes similar sentences from other Protestant +writers. Then he turns upon the Roman Church for keeping the Bible +out of the hands of the people, and denounces it for this with +ultra-Protestant vigor. He imagines that this is a vindication of +Protestantism, at any rate relatively, as a champion of reason in +opposition to blind faith and absolute authority. But _private_ judgment +and _free_ judgment are not identical. When the Protestant puts an open +Bible into your hands, and tells you to read it and judge of it for +yourself, he is acting like a Freethinker; but when he proceeds to say +that if you do not find it to be a divine book, and believe all its +teaching about God, and Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, and heaven +and hell, you will infallibly be damned, he is acting like a Papist. +His right of private judgment, at the finish, always means the right to +differ from him on trivial points, and the duty of agreeing with him on +every point which he chooses to regard as essential. If this is denied +by Dr. Farrar, let him honestly answer this question--Is a Freethinker +who has examined the Bible, and rejected it as a divine revelation, +liable to any sort of penalty for his disbelief? The answer to this +question will decide whether Dr. Farrar is really maintaining the rights +of reason, or is merely maintaining the Protestant theory of faith +against that of the Catholics, and standing up for the authority of the +Book instead of the authority of the Church. + +Meanwhile we venture to suggest that the Bible texts referred to by Dr. +Farrar, as requiring us to exercise the right of private judgment, are +very little to the point. "The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord" +is a pretty text, but it does not seem to have much bearing on the +issue. "Try the spirits" is all right in its way; but what if you find +that _all_ the spirits are illusions? "Prove all things" is good, but it +must be taken with the context. Jesus indeed is reported to have said, +"Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?" But he is also +reported to have said, "He that believeth and is baptised shall be +saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." + +By a judicious selection of texts you can prove anything from the Bible, +and disprove anything--as Catholics have often reminded Protestants. To +pick out passages that to some extent are favorable to a certain view, +and to ignore much stronger passages that are clearly opposed to it, may +be an exercise of private judgment, and may satisfy the conscience +of neo-Protestants of the school of Dr. Farrar; but it invites a +contemptuous smile from Freethinkers who believe that Reason ought not +to suffer such a prostitution. + +We have to point out, finally, that Protestantism, with its open Bible, +has everywhere maintained laws against blasphemy and heresy. The laws +against heresy have fallen into desuetude in England, but while they +lasted they were simply ferocious. We heard the late Lord Coleridge say +from his seat in the Court of Queen's Bench, as Lord Chief Justice, that +the Protestant laws against Roman Catholics, particularly in Ireland, +where they were executed with remorseless ferocity, are without a +parallel in the history of the world. Catholicism, however, is no longer +under a ban. Even the Jews have been admitted to equal rights with their +fellow citizens. But laws still remain in existence, and are +occasionally put into operation, against "blasphemers." According to the +language of common law indictments, it is a crime to bring the Holy +Scripture or the Christian Religion into disbelief and contempt. It is +true that many Christians are ready to profess a certain aversion to +such laws, but they make no effort to repeal them. Many others contend +that "blasphemy" is a question of manner, that the feelings of +Christians should be protected, and that while men should not be +punished for being Freethinkers, they should be punished for wounding +orthodox susceptibilities. It is not proposed, however, that any +limitations of taste or temper should be imposed upon Christian +controversialists; and this contention may therefore be regarded as a +subterfuge of bigotry. On the whole, it may be said that Catholics +without the Bible, and Protestants with the Bible, persecute unbelief to +the full extent of their opportunities; and it is only as toleration +grows from other roots, and is nourished by other causes, that the +Bibliolaters find out subtle interpretations of simple texts in favor of +the prevailing tendency. + + + + +VI. MORALS AND MANNERS + +Dr. Farrar takes the position that "the Bible is not homogeneous in its +morality." There is a higher and a lower; and, to adopt the fine but +paradoxical metaphor of Milton, within the lowest deep a lower deep +still opens its dreadful abyss of crime and brutality. The same +admission is made by Professor Bruce,* of the Free Church of Scotland; +but this gentleman is more subtle than Dr. Farrar, and tries to save +the reputation of the Bible by a notable piece of cauistical +special-pleading. He does not allow, though he does not expressly +deny, that the Bible contains any immorality. What he does is to draw +a distinction between high morality and low morality. Immorality is +sinning against your conscience. High morality is acting right up to its +noblest dictates. Low morality is conduct in honest conformity to the +low standard of a conscience but half-enlightened. When the prophetess +Deborah sings triumphantly over the infamous exploit of Jael, who +invited the fugitive Sisera into her tent, and assassinated him while he +slept in the confidence of her hospitality, we must not say that either +of these precious females was guilty of immorality. They were simply +carrying out a low morality. And the same applies to Deborah's +exclamation: "To every man a damsel or two"--meaning that the Jewish +soldiers slew their male enemies and dragged home a brace of maidens +each for themselves. Such conduct would be highly improper now, but it +was all right then; at least it was as right as they knew; and we must +not judge the actors by later ethical standards. So says Professor +Bruce, and it would be true enough if the Bible were not put forward as +a divine book, or if it ever reprehended the infamies of God's chosen +people. But it does nothing of the kind; it mentions Jael and Deborah in +terms of absolute approval. + + * Christian Apologetics, p. 309. + +Dr. Farrar severely denounces the Jewish wars of extermination in +Palestine, regardless of the fact--which is as true as any other +religious fact in the Bible--that these atrocities were expressly +commanded by Jehovah. Divines have defended the massacre of the +Midianites, for instance, and the appropriation of their unmarried +women; but Dr. Farrar calls their arguments "miserable pleas," and adds +that if such "guilty and horrible" doings were "recorded without +blame," it only shows that "the moral views of the desert tribes on such +subjects were in this respect very rudimentary." These desert tribes +were the chosen people of God; their prophets spoke under divine +inspiration; yet even Jeremiah, in denouncing Moab, cries: "Cursed be he +that keepeth back his sword from blood." According to Dr. Farrar, this +proves how "slow" was the "development of the religious consciousness of +mankind." But how did it happen that the Jews, with all the advantage +of special inspiration, were just as slow in this respect as any other +nation in the world's history? What is the use of "inspiration" if +it does not appreciably quicken the natural development of the human +conscience? + +Many of the Bible heroes are fit for a distinguished place in the +Newgate Calendar. Dr. Farrar himself cannot stomach "some details" in +the lives of Abraham, Jacob, Jephthah, and David. Still, he urges +that "the use made of them in the sceptical propaganda is often +illegitimate." These worthies were not "faultless." It is their "general +faithfulness" which is "rightly held up to admiration as our example." +Faithfulness to what? Simply to their own greed and ambition, first of +all, and secondly to the dominance of their tribal god Jehovah, who by +such instruments triumphed over his rival dieties, and became at last +the sole Lord God of Israel. + +Dr. Farrar allows no palliating plea for the cursing Psalms. He cites +a few of the very worst passages, black with hatred and red with blood, +and asks: "Can the casuistry be anything but gross which would palm off +such passages as the very utterance of God?" Moses was "a great lawgiver +and a great prophet," but Dr. Farrar will not "defend the divinity of +passages so morally indefensible" as that, for instance, which gives the +slave-owner impunity in killing his slave, provided he does not slay +him on the spot, but beats him so that he dies "in a day or two." Nor +is there "divinity" in the order to the Jews to refrain from eating bad +meat, but to sell it to the Gentiles. Neither is there "divinity" in +the order (Deut. xxi. 10-14) to take a wife for a month on trial. These +things are parts of an ostensibly divine code, but lawgivers and people +were alike mistaken. Inspiration did not guide them aright, but somehow +or other it enables Dr. Farrar to correct their blunders three thousand +years afterwards; which is merely saying, after all, that inspiration +does not pioneer but follow the march of human progress. + +During the reign of David a dreadful incident occurred. There had been +a three years' famine, and David "inquired of the Lord." The answer was, +"Blood upon Saul and upon his house!" Seven of Saul's sons were hung +up "unto the Lord," and the famine was stopped. Dr. Farrar tells of an +intelligent artisan who got up at a meeting and asked "whether it was +not meant to imply that God was pacified by the blood of innocent human +victims?" But he does not give the answer; and it either means this or +it means nothing at all. In the same way, the story of Jephthah, who +offered his daughter as a burnt-offering to the Lord, takes such an +immolation for granted as a religious act of perfect propriety. Jephthah +is mentioned as a hero of faith in the New Testament, and no hint is +given that he acted wrongly in sacrificing his daughter on the altar of +Jehovah. + +We have said enough on this subject to give the reader a fair idea +of Dr. Farrar's position. Let us now pass from Bible morals to Bible +manners. + +"The Bible," says Dr. Farrar, "is assailed on the ground that it +contains coarse and unedifying stories." Take the story of Lot and his +daughters, to say nothing of the bestial attempt on the angels in Sodom. +Could anything be more repulsive? Is there any excuse for putting such +abominable feculence into the hands of children? After a lot of talk +about it, and about, Dr. Farrar offers us the following most sapient +observation: "The story of Lot wears a very different complexion if we +regard it as an exhibition of unknown traditions about the connection +between the Israelites and the tribes of Moab and Ammon." But what does +this mean? The Moabites and Ammonites, according to the Bible, were +hereditary enemies of the Jews, and it was impossible to exterminate +them. They were evidently near of kin to the chosen people. Now, if +these two facts are put together, it is easy to see the purpose of this +story of Lot and his daughters. The Jews traced their own descent, in a +perfectly honorable way, from Abraham and his legitimate wife Sarah, who +are doubtless legendary characters. On the other hand, they traced +the descent of the Moabites and Ammonites, their cousins and enemies, +through the no less legendary Lot and his two daughters, thus throwing +the aspersion of incest upon the cradle of both those races. This is the +adequate and satisfactory explanation of the story. It is an exhibition +of dirty and unscrupulous hatred; and, as such, it is a curious fragment +of "the Word of God." + +Take next what Dr. Farrar calls "the pathetic story of Hosea," the +prophet who was ordered by God to marry a prostitute--not to use the +more downright language of the English Bible. Dr. Farrar suggests that +there is some doubt as to the meaning of the original. Hosea's wife +may have turned out a baggage after the nuptials, instead of being one +before. "It was the anguish caused by her infidelity," he says, "that +first woke Hosea to the sense of Israel's infidelity to Jehovah." And +read in the light of this "modern criticism" the story of Hosea is "in +the highest degree pure and noble." How pretty! All that remains for Dr. +Farrar to do is to explain away as equally "pure and noble" the imagery +of Ezekiel in reference to Aholah and Aholibah. There is no reason why +"modern criticism" in the hands of gentlemen like Dr. Farrar should not +transform Priapus into a Sunday-school teacher. + +Not only are there very gross stories in the Bible, many of which +are too beastly to dwell upon, but its language is often gratuitously +disgusting. And every scholar knows that the Hebrew text is sometimes +far more "purple" than our English version. Dr. Farrar admits that if +the "exact meaning" of certain passages were understood, they "could not +be read without a blush." "Happily," he says, they are "disguised by the +euphemisms of translations." That is to say, the inspired Bible writers, +or penmen of the Holy Ghost, as old divines called them, were often +indecent and sometimes positively obscene. Dr. Farrar's explanation is, +that "ancient and Eastern readers" were not easily shocked, and that our +modern "sensibility" is of "recent growth." But this proves again +that "inspiration" is in no sense the cause of progress, and does not +anticipate it in the slightest degree. + + + + +VII. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS + +"The Bible," Dr. Farrar says, "is inextricably mingled with all that is +greatest in human history." This is a fair specimen of his roystering +style. We presume he has contracted it through long years of preaching +from the coward's castle of the pulpit, where a man can exaggerate as +much as he pleases without the slightest fear of contradiction. Dr. +Farrar does not say that the Bible is mixed up with _much_ of the +greatest in human history; no, it must be mixed up with _all_ the +greatest--which is a transparent falsehood and a no less transparent +absurdity. What did Greece and Rome owe to the Bible? Absolutely +nothing. There is no evidence that they were acquainted with any part +of the Old Testament, and Greece had become a mere name before a line of +the New Testament was written. Some of the greatest things in the world +were done and said by the "heathen." Greek philosophy, Greek literature, +Greek art, are imperishable. Roman jurisprudence and Roman government +are the basis of every civilised polity. Plutarch's heroes are all +Pagans, and let Dr. Farrar match them if he can in the history of +Christendom. + +Dr. Farrar calls the Bible "the statesman's manual," but he judiciously +refrains from showing that statesmen ever act upon its teaching; indeed, +he spends a great deal of time in showing that they ought _not_ to act +upon its teaching, unless they carefully avoid the obvious "letter," +and allow themselves to be influenced by the recondite "spirit." For +instance, it is perfectly clear that the Bible does not contain a single +word against slavery; it is also perfectly clear to all who possess +a tincture of scholarship that many of its references to slavery are +fraudulently translated. "Servants obey your masters" really means +"Slaves obey your owners." Moreover, the Bible contains precise +regulations of slavery. God did not tell the Jews that holding slaves +was infamous, that man could never have honest property in human flesh +and blood. He allowed them to buy and sell Gentiles at their pleasure. +He permitted them to enslave their own countrymen for a period of seven +years, and in certain cases "for ever." Even in the New Testament we +find St Paul sending back a runaway slave to his master. True, he sent +with the slave a touching letter to the slave-owner, but sending him +back at all was giving a sanction to the institution. Dr. Farrar admits +that American pulpits "rang with incessant Scriptural defences of +slavery." He quotes from a Southern bishop, who described slavery as "a +curse and a blight," yet declared it to be "recognised by the Bible," +so that "every man has a right to his own slaves, provided they are not +treated with unnecessary cruelty." Dr. Farrar asks whether there was +ever "a stranger utterance on the lips of a Christian bishop." He calls +this "distorting the Bible." But he does not prove the distortion. He +calmly assumes it. He cannot deny the existence of all those slavery +texts in the Bible. All he can do is to say that what was "relatively +excusable" among the Jews is at present "execrable," and is now +"absolutely and for ever wrong." Very good; but how was that discovered? +Not by reading the Bible. The Jews read the Bible, the early Christians +read the Bible, just as well as Dr. Farrar, but they did not find that +it condemned slavery. Dr. Farrar lives in a later age, in the light of +a higher civilisation. He therefore _reads into_ the Bible whatever it +_ought to_ contain as the word of God. He does not scruple to override +explicit texts by more or less arbitrary deductions from vague maxims +and ejaculations. He pretends that the "spirit" of the Bible in some +way wrought the abolition of slavery. But every well-informed student is +aware that the abolition of slavery depended upon economical conditions. +We _outgrow_ slavery by advancing beyond it in the process of +industrial development, and when we _have_ outgrown it we regard it with +abhorrence. When the institution is in the way of being supplanted by +a higher form of productive labor, the moral revolt against it begins, +growing in strength and intensity as the economical change approaches +its climax. It was natural that the anti-slavery movement in America +should take place in the Northern States, where the conditions +favourable to slavery did not exist as they did in the Southern States. +We may be pardoned for supposing that if Dr. Farrar's lot had been +cast in a Southern State he would have defended slavery as a Bible +institution. He is preaching now after its abolition, when denunciation +of it is cheap and easy, and is no particular credit to the preacher's +religion. While slavery existed in America, it was at first justified +by the Bible in all parts of the Union. Northern abolitionists at last +found that the Bible did not teach slavery after all; but this did not +alter the view of the Southern slaveholders and the Southern Churches. +Here again we see the force of the Catholic taunt that Protestants can +prove anything, and disprove anything, by appealing to texts in such a +composite book as the Bible. Here again we also see that the Bible never +_instigates_ any step in the march of human improvement. + +Dr. Farrar waxes eloquent, after his special fashion, over the glories +of England in the age of Elizabeth. He attributes them all to the "open +Bible," which was then placed in the hands of the people. Of course they +had nothing to do with the new astronomy, the discovery of America, and +the invention of printing! Such paltry causes as these cannot enter +into competition with the might and majesty of the Bible! Still, we may +venture to remind Dr. Farrar that these Englishmen of the Elizabethan +age, with the "open Bible" in their hands, went and started the African +slave trade. Evidently they did not read in it then, as Dr. Farrar does +now, any condemnation of that horrible business. They worked it for all +it was worth. England, with the "open Bible" in its hand, continued to +do so for another two hundred years. One of the chief centres of +the slave trade was the pious city of Bristol. It grew rich on the +abominable traffic. Slavery has been abolished, but the old odor of +piety still clings to the city of Bristol. Its merchants fattened on the +slave trade with the "open Bible" in their hands. They now subscribe to +missionary societies to convert the blacks, and they still stick to the +"open Bible." It was good for upholding black slavery, and it is still +good for upholding white slavery. + +All that we have said about slavery applies in its degree to polygamy. +Both institutions are sanctioned by the Bible, and the pleas of the +"Higher Criticism" in relation to the one are just as hollow as they are +in relation to the other. We may go farther and say that the Bible is +very far from being woman's best friend, as it is often represented. It +starts by making her the Devil's first customer, and the introducer of +sin and death; it continues to hold her as inferior and subject to man, +lumping her in the tenth commandment with the house, the ox, and the +ass, as the man's property; and, finally, in the New Testament, it +expressly tells her that her duty is to be silent and submissive, for +the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church. + +We need not follow Dr. Farrar in his rhapsodical references to the +various achievements of the Bible. We may remark, however, that his +reference to Japan is singularly unhappy. That country _has_ accepted +the leading ideas of Western civilisation, but it has _not_ accepted +Christianity. Nor is Dr. Farrar well advised in laying so much stress on +the Pilgrim Fathers. He says that they had a preference for the "pure, +unadulterated lessons of the Bible." Perhaps they had. But what were +those lessons as illustrated by their actions? Certainly intolerance was +one of them. They had no conception of religious liberty. "The Pilgrim +Fathers," as Sir Walter Besant remarks in his little book on _The Rise +of the Empire_, "believed that everybody should think as they themselves +thought. Had they achieved their own way, they would have sent Laud +himself, and all who thought like him, across the ocean with the +greatest alacrity." They also believed in witchcraft, probably because +Dr. Farrar was not at hand to explain that the Bible did not mean what +it said; and they tortured and burnt witches with remarkable gusto. + +It would also be a waste of time to correct all Dr. Farrar's statements +about the influence of the Bible in other directions. We will take a +single illustration of his fantastical method. He tells us that the +Bible "inspired the pictures of Fra Angelico and Raphael, the music of +Handel and Mendelssohn." Perhaps he will tell us whether it inspired +Raphael's picture of the Fornarina, and why it did not inspire the music +of Beethoven and Wagner. Both those great composers, as a matter of +fact, were "infidels." + +Nothing could be more absurd than orthodox talk about the Bible +"inspiring" great poets, artists, and musicians. Men of genius are +inspired by nature. Their inspiration is born with them. It cannot be +made; it can only be utilised. All that religions have done is to employ +the genius they could not create. Every religion has done this in turn. +The genius was there always as a natural endowment. It existed before +all the world's religions, and it will outlive them. + + + + +VIII. INSPIRATION + +The Higher Criticism, as expounded by Dr. Farrar, admits nearly all +the Bible difficulties that have been advanced by "infidels." Let us +recapitulate the most important. The Bible is hopelessly at variance +with science. It sometimes contradicts well-established history. Many of +its stories, taken literally, are obviously absurd. Some of the actions +it records with apparent approval are wicked or disgusting. A good deal +of its language sins against common decency. Several books were not +written by the authors whose names they bear. Others are, and must for +ever remain, anonymous. The dates of composition of the various +books are not what has been generally supposed. Occasionally the true +chronology differs from the received chronology by many centuries. To +the great majority of readers the Bible has never been known, and never +can be known, except in translations. No translation can possibly be +perfect. Every translation of the Bible is known to contain grave and +numerous errors. Even in the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts there +are thousands of various readings. In some cases the text is uncertain, +in some cases interpolated, and in others irrecoverably impaired. The +vowel points by which Hebrew is now read are demonstrably a modern +invention. Even the discourses of Jesus Christ, in the New Testament, +are not reported with accuracy. The New Testament writers seldom quote +from the Old Testament exactly, but generally rely upon the Greek +translation called the Septuagint. + +Sometimes they quote passages which are not in Scripture at all. "Out of +288 passages quoted from the Old Testament in the New," says Dr. Farrar, +"there are but 53 which agree accurately with the original Hebrew. In 76 +the New Testament differs both from the Greek and the Hebrew; and in 99 +the New Testament, the Greek, and the Hebrew are all variant." + +On the face of it, then, the Bible is doomed. A book of which all these +things can be said, without the slightest fear of contradiction, must +sooner or later be dropped as the Word of God. It will be recognised as +a human composition. + +Meanwhile, those who live by the Bible, and are professionally +interested in its "supremacy," as Dr. Farrar calls it, cast about a +for means of giving it a fresh reputation. The old conception of it is +fatally discredited; a new one may give it a fresh lease of life. + +Evidently there is only one direction open to the theological trimmers. +They must start another theory of inspiration--one that will conserve +the "sacred" character of the Bible in spite of every difficulty that +has been, or can be discovered. + +The Bible is no longer to be called _the_ Word of God. Ruskin says, and +Dr. Farrar seems to quote it approvingly, that "it is a grave heresy (or +wilful source of division) to call any book, or collection of books, the +Word of God." Ten pages later, however, we are told that the Bible, as a +whole, _may_ be spoken of as the Word of God, because it "contains words +and messages of God to the human soul." This word "contains" is the +magical spell by which Dr. Farrar seeks to dissipate all difficulties. +He finds the expression in the Church Articles, in the Book of Homilies, +and in the Shorter Catechism. But in order to see how illegitimate is +Dr. Farrar's use of these authorities, let us take his extract from the +last of them: "The Word of God which is _contained_ in the Scriptures of +the Old and New Testament is the only rule to direct us how we may enjoy +and glorify Him." Is it not clear that the word "_contained_" is used +here in its primary meaning? Did not the writers mean that the Word of +God is included or comprehended in the Old and New Testament only, and +is not to be found elsewhere? Would they not have been shocked to hear a +clergyman of the Church of England say that some parts of the Bible were +_not_ the Word of God? If so, their use of the word "contain" lends no +countenance to the use made of it by Dr. Farrar. And is it not a shallow +trick upon our intelligence to argue that different persons, using +the same word, necessarily mean the same thing? Words are the money of +fools, as Hobbes said, but only the counters of wise men. We must get at +the actual value of the thing which is symbolised. And the moment we do +this, we see that Dr. Farrar's theory of the Word of God is _not_ the +same as that of the gentlemen who drew up the Shorter Catechism. They +would indeed have laughed at his "contains," and excommunicated and +imprisoned him, and perhaps burnt him at the stake. It is not by +torturing one poor word ten thousand ways that such wide differences can +be reconciled. + +Passing by this ridiculous legerdemain, let us take Dr. Farrar's theory +for what it is worth. The Bible _contains_ the Word of God. But how are +we to find it? What is the criterion by which we are to separate God's +word from man's word? Dr. Farrar bids us use "the ordinary means of +criticism and spiritual discernment." But such a vague generality is +nothing but verbiage. What we want is the _criterion_. Now the nearest +approach to it in all Dr. Farrar's pages is the following:-- + +"Is it not a plain and simple rule that anything in the Bible which +teaches, or is misinterpreted to teach, anything which is not in +accordance with the love, the gentleness, the truthfulness of Christ's +Gospel, is _not_ God's word to us, however clearly it stands on the page +of Scripture?" + +This is at best a _negative_ criterion; and, on close examination, it +turns out to be no criterion at all. The criterion, to be valid, must be +_external_ to the book itself. Dr. Farrar's criterion is _internal_. +He picks out one part of the Bible as the standard for judging all +the rest. This is entirely arbitrary. Moreover, it would soon be found +impossible in practice. Dr. Farrar's criterion may be "plain," but it +is not so "simple," except in the uncomplimentary sense of the word. +For "Christ's Gospel," by which the rest of the Bible is to be tried, +is itself a very composite and self-contradictory thing. Further, if +all that agrees with Christ's Gospel is the Word of God, is it not +superfluous as being a mere repetition? Dr. Farrar would therefore bring +the actual, valid Word of God within the compass of the Four Gospels; +dismissing all the rest, like the Arabian Caliph who commanded a whole +library to be burnt on the ground that if the books differed from +the Koran they were pernicious, and if they agreed with it they were +useless. Nor is this all. Dr. Farrar admits that the discourses of +Jesus Christ are not reported with accuracy. Therefore, having made the +Gospels the criterion of the Word of God in the rest of the Bible, he +would be obliged to select some special passages as the criterion of the +Word of God in the rest of the Gospels. This is what Shakespeare would +call a world-without-end process. + +Candidly, it seems to us that if the Bible _is_ not the Word of God, but +only _contains_ the Word of God--that is to say, if it is partly God's +word and partly man's word--the clergy of all denominations should unite +in publishing a Bible with the divine and human parts clearly specified +by being printed in different types. And surely, if the Bible is in +any sense inspired, it should be possible, by a new and final act of +inspiration, to settle this distinction for ever. + +Allowing the clergy to meditate this holy enterprise, we proceed to +consider Dr. Farrar's theory of inspiration. Of course he discards +the old theory of verbal dictation; indeed, he calls it "irreverent," +because it attributes to God what modern men of intelligence and good +manners would be ashamed to own. He even quarrels with the very term +inspiration as "vague," and says it would be "a boon if some less +ambiguous word could be adopted." Four theories, he says, have been +entertained in the Christian Church. The first is the _mechanical_ +theory, which implies that the Holy Ghost dictated, and the inspired +penmen were merely his amanuenses. The second is the _dynamic_, which +recognises "the indefeasible guidance of the Holy Spirit." The third is +that of _illumination_, which confines the divine guidance to matters of +faith and doctrine. The fourth is that of _general_ inspiration, which +regards the Holy Spirit as influencing the writers in the same way as it +influences "other noble and holy souls." This fourth theory is the one +which Dr. Farrar himself affects. Every pure and sweet influence upon +the human soul, he says, is a heavenly inspiration. We owe to it "all +that is best and greatest in philosophy, eloquence, and song." Haydn +said of his grandest chorus in the "Creation": "Not from me but from +above it all has come!" "There is inspiration," says Dr. Farrar, +"whenever the spirit of God makes itself heard in the heart of man." +Apparently--for we can never be quite sure of Dr. Farrar--the only +superiority of the Bible lies in the fact that "the voice of God" speaks +to us "far more intensely" out of it than out of "any [other?] form of +human speech." + +Such a theory of inspiration is too vague and universal. Sooner than +give up inspiration altogether Dr. Farrar is prepared to share it all +round. But is not proving too much as bad as proving too little? If the +Bible is only inspired--where it _is_ inspired--in the same sense as +other books are inspired; if the difference is not one of kind, but +simply of degree; then it is really idle to talk about its inspiration +any longer. The word _inspiration_ loses all its original meaning. It +becomes a poetical expression, implying nothing supernatural, but merely +the exaltation of natural powers and faculties. God is then behind the +Bible only as God is behind everything; and Christianity, ceasing to be +a special revelation, becomes only a certain form of Theism. + +This loose theory of _general_ inspiration will doubtless serve the +present turn of the clergy, who have to face a general and growing +dissatisfaction with the Bible. But it cannot live very long in a +scientific age. It will be found out in time, like all the Bible +theories that preceded it. The first Protestant dogma was the +infallibility of Scripture. That was exploded by modern science and +textual criticism. Then came the dogma of plenary inspiration, which had +a comparatively short-lived existence, as it was only the old dogma of +infallibility in disguise. Next came the dogma of illumination, which +may be said to have begun with Coleridge and ended with Maurice. +Finally, we have the dogma of general inspiration, which began nowhere +and ends nowhere, which means anything or nothing, and which is a sort +of "heads we win, tails you lose" theory in the hands of the clever +expounders of the Higher Criticism. + +Behind the last, as well as the first, of all these theories +of inspiration stands the fatal objection of Thomas Paine, that +inspiration, to be real, must be personal. A man may be sure that God +speaks to him, but how can he be sure that God has spoken to another +man? He may think it possible or probable, but he can never be certain. +What is revelation at first-hand, said Paine, is only hearsay at +second-hand. Real inspiration, therefore, eventuates in mysticism. +The inner light shines, the inner voice speaks; God holds personal +communication with the individual soul. Each believer carries what the +author of _Hudibras_ calls "the dark lanthorn of the spirit," which +"none see by but those who bear it." And the very multiplicity and +diversity of the oracle's deliverances are a proof that in all of them +man is speaking to himself. He questions his gods, and hears only the +echo of his own voice. + + + + +IX. THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS + +Some of the teaching of the Higher Criticism as to the authorship and +credibility of the Old Testament is, on the face of it, contrary to +the plain language of Jesus Christ himself in the Gospels. Moses, for +instance, is no longer considered as the author of the Pentateuch. Canon +Driver, who is perhaps the chief scholar of this movement in the Church +of England, as Dean Farrar is perhaps its chief rhetorician, locates the +composition of the book of Deuteronomy in the period between Isaiah and +Jeremiah. Throughout the book, he observes, the writer introduces Moses +in the third person, and puts speeches in his mouth which of course +he never uttered. But in "framing discourses appropriate to Moses' +situation!" he was not guilty of "forgery," for he was "doing nothing +inconsistent with the literary usages of his age and people." That is +to say, everybody did it, and this writer was no worse than his +contemporaries--which is probably true. But passing by the question of +casuistry here involved, we repeat that the Mosaic authorship of the +Pentateuch is entirely abandoned. Dr. Farrar is quite as emphatic as +Dr. Driver on this point. He denies that there is "any proof of the +existence of a _collected_ Pentateuch earlier than the days of Ezra +(b.c. 444 )"--a thousand years after the time of Moses. He points out +that the salient features of the so-called Mosaic Law, such as the +Passover, the Sabbatical year, and the Day of Atonement, are not to be +traced in the old historical books or in the earlier prophets. Nor +does he scruple to assert that the Pentateuch is "a work of composite +structure," which has been "edited and re-edited several times," and +"contains successive strata of legislation." In the New Testament, +however, Moses is repeatedly spoken of as the author of the Pentateuch.* +Not to multiply texts, for in such a case one is as good as a thousand, +we will take a decisive passage in the fourth Gospel:-- + + * Matthew xix. 7, 8; Mark x. 3, 4; xii. 26; Luke xvi. 29-31; + Luke xx. 37; John v. 45, 46; vii. 19, 22, 23. + +"Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one that +accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, +ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his +writings, how shall ye believe my words?" (John v. 45-47). + +The speaker in this instance is Christ himself. It is he, and not the +evangelist, who speaks of the writings of Moses, and declares that Moses +"wrote of me." + +Now let us turn to the book of Psalms, which has been well called the +Hymn Book of the Second Temple. According to Dr. Farrar, they are +"a collection of sacred poems in five separate books of very various +antiquity." Canon Driver points out that they are mostly posterior to +the prophetical writings. "When the Psalms," he says, "are compared +with the prophets, the latter seem to show, on the whole, the greater +originality; the psalmists, in other words, _follow_ the prophets, +appropriating and applying the truths which the prophets proclaimed." +Very few of the Psalms are earlier than the seventh century before +Christ. Dr. Driver affirms this with "tolerable confidence." Dr. Farrar +says that "some may mount to an epoch earlier than David's," but this +is mere conjecture. The more cautious Dr. Driver will not commit himself +further than "a verdict of _non liquet_"; that is to say, there is no +proof that David did not write one or two of the Psalms, and no evidence +that he did. His name was associated with the collection, in the +same way as the name of Solomon was associated with the Proverbs. +Nevertheless it is David who is referred to by Jesus as the author of +the hundred-and-tenth Psalm.* But this Psalm is one of those which are +allowed to belong to a much later period. Jesus quoted it as David's, +but Professor Sanday says "it seems difficult to believe it really came +from him"**--which is as strong an expression as a Christian divine +could be expected to permit himself in a case of such delicacy. + + * Matthew xxii. 43-45; Mark xii. 36, 37; Luke xx. 42-44. + + ** Professor W. Sanday, Bampton Lectures on Inspiration, p. + 409. Canon Gore, with this utterance of Jesus right before + him, still more emphatically denies that this Psalm was, or + could have been, composed by David. See his Bampton Lectures + on The Incarnation of the Son of God, p. 197. + +We have already seen that the book of Daniel was not written by the +prophet Daniel, but by some unknown author hundreds of years later, +probably in the second century before Christ. Upon this subject +Professor Sanday takes precisely the same view as Canon Driver. He says +that this is "the critical view" and has "won the day." All the facts +support the "supposition that the book was written in the second century +b.c.," and not "in the sixth." "The real author," he says, "is unknown," +and "the name of Daniel is only assumed." He was writing, not a history, +but a homily, to encourage his brethren at the time of the Maccabean +struggle. "To this purpose of his," Professor Sanday says, "there were +features in the traditional story of Daniel which appeared to lend +themselves; and so he took that story and worked it up in the way which +seemed to him most effective." Jesus Christ, however, held the orthodox +view of his own time, and spoke of Daniel as the actual author of this +book (Matthew xxiv. 15). "But this," Professor Sanday observes, "it is +right to say, is only in one Gospel, where the mention of Daniel may be +an insertion of the Evangelist's." Such conjectural shifts are Christian +critics reduced to in their effort to minimise difficulties; as though +_reducing_ the mistakes of Jesus in any way saved his _infallibility_. + +We will now turn to some portions of the Old Testament narrative which +the Higher Criticism regards as legendary, but which Jesus regarded as +strictly historical. One of these is the story of the Flood. No one of +any standing is now prepared to defend this story, at least as we find +it in the book of Genesis. A few orthodox scientists, like Sir James +W. Dawson, pour out copious talk about tremendous floods in former +geological ages; but what has this to do with the Bible narrative of a +universal deluge which occurred some four thousand five hundred years +ago? The Higher Critics have the impatience of Freethinkers with such +intellectual charlatanry. They regard the story of the Flood as a Jewish +legend, which was not even original, but borrowed from the superstitions +of Babylon. Yet the opinion of Jesus Christ seems to have been very +different. Here are his own words:-- + +"But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man +be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating +and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe +entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them +all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Matthew xxiv. +37-39). + +Jesus Christ appears to have believed, like the disciples he was +addressing, like all the rest of his countrymen, and like nearly +all Christians until very recently, that the Flood was an historical +occurrence, that Noah and his family were saved in the ark, and that all +the other inhabitants of the world were drowned. + +Another story which the Higher Criticism dismisses as legendary is that +of Jonah. The book in which it is related was, of course, not written by +Jonah, the son of Amittai, of whom we read in 2 Kings xiv. 25, and who +lived in the reign of Jeroboam II. "It cannot," as Dr. Driver says, +"have been written until long after the lifetime of Jonah himself." Its +probable date is the fifth century before Christ. Dr. Driver says it is +"not strictly historical "--that is to say, the events recorded in it +never happened. Jonah was not really entertained for three days in a +whale's belly, nor did his preaching convert the whole city of Nineveh. +The writer's purpose was didactic; he wished to rebuke the exclusiveness +of his own people, and to teach them that God's care extended, at least +occasionally, to other nations as well as the Jews. Some critics, such +as Cheyne and Wright, regard the story as allegorical; Jonah standing +for Israel, the whale for Babylon, and the vomiting up of the prophet +for the return of the Jews from exile. Dr. Farrar draws attention to the +"remarkable" fact that in the book of Kings "no allusion is made to any +mission or adventure of the historic Jonah." He adds that there is not +"the faintest trace of his mission or its results amid the masses of +Assyrian inscriptions." Even the writer of the book of Jonah, according +to Dr. Farrar, attached "no importance" to its "supernatural incidents," +which "only belong to the allegorical form of the story." So much for +the Higher Critics; and now let us hear Jesus Christ:-- + +"An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall +no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas +was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son +of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The +men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall +condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and behold +a greater than Jonas is here" (Matthew xii. 39-41). + +This utterance of Jesus is also reported in Luke (xi. 29-32), but with +an important variation, the reference to Jonah in the whale's belly +being entirely omitted. This variation is seized upon by Dr. Farrar. +The fishy reference, he says, occurs in Matthew _alone_, and it may +"represent a comment or marginal note by the Evangelist, or of some +other Christian teacher." This, however, is an arbitrary supposition, +which everyone is free to repudiate; and Dr. Farrar feels obliged to add +that "even if our Lord did allude to the whale" it does not follow that +we should regard it as "literal history." But this is not the question +at issue. The real question is, did Jesus Christ believe the story of +Jonah and the whale? If he did not, it must be admitted that he had a +most unfortunate way of expressing himself. + +No educated Christian in the present age believes the story of Lot's +wife being changed into a pillar of rock salt, although Josephus +pretended that he had seen it, and many travellers and pilgrims have +searched for it as a sacred relic. Jesus Christ, however, gave great +prominence to this salted lady. "Remember Lot's wife" is a verse by +itself in the Protestant Bible (Luke xvii. 32). Jesus also refers to the +rain of fire and brimstone by which Sodom was destroyed. + +Here then, upon the face of it, we have Jesus Christ's testimony to +three documents as having been written by men who did not write them, +and to the historical character of three incidents which are purely +fabulous. Now the Higher Criticism must be wrong, or else Jesus Christ +was mistaken; in other words, he was not infallible, and therefore not +God. But the Higher Critics declare that they are not wrong; they also +declare that Jesus Christ was not mistaken. Let us see how they try to +save their own accuracy and his infallibility. + +We must remark, in passing, that some of these critics hint, without +exactly asserting, that Jesus _may_ have been mistaken. Dr. Farrar bids +us remember that "by the very fact of taking our nature upon him Christ +voluntarily submitted himself to human limitations." There were some +things which, as a man, he did not know. Yes, but he was also God; and +the conjunction of "knowledge" and "ignorance" in one person, and with +respect to a single subject, would dissolve the unity of the God-man, +which is a dogma of Christian theology. Moreover, as Canon Liddon +argued, it is not so much a question of Christ's omniscience as a +question of his infallibility. Supposing there were some matters, such +as the date of the day of judgment, of which he was ignorant; he might +confess his ignorance or remain silent, and no harm would accrue to +anyone; but if he spoke upon any matter, and was mistaken through want +of knowledge, he would become a propagator of error; and this would not +only destroy the doctrine of his deity, but very seriously impair his +authority as a teacher, and cause everything he said to be open to +the gravest suspicion. No less dangerous is it to fall back upon the +explanation that "the discourses of Christ are not reproduced by the +Evangelists with verbal identity"--to use Dr. Farrar's own language. Dr. +Sanday seems a little attracted by this explanation. He reminds us that, +whatever views Jesus himself entertained as to the Scriptures of the Old +Testament, his views have come down to us through the medium of persons +who shared the erroneous ideas that were then current on the subject. We +must be prepared, he says, for the possibility that Christ's sayings in +regard to it "have not been reported with absolute accuracy." But +after all "not much allowance" should be made for this; which means, we +suspect, that the worthy Professor saw the dreadful peril of pursuing +this vein of observation, and desisted from it before he had said enough +to cause serious mischief. + +The more astute Higher Critics avoid such dangers. They resort to a +theory that combines mystery and plausibility, by which they hope to +satisfy believers on both sides of their natures. Dr. Farrar tells us +that Christ, to become a man, emptied himself of his glory; and that +this "examination" involved the necessity of speaking as a man to men. +This position is perhaps best expressed by Canon Gore:-- + +"It is contrary to his whole method to reveal his Godhead by any +anticipations of natural knowledge. The Incarnation was a self-emptying +of God to reveal himself under conditions of human nature, and from the +human point of view. We are able to draw a distinction between what he +revealed and what he used......Now when he speaks of the 'sun rising' he +is using ordinary human knowledge. Thus he does not reveal his eternity +by statements as to what had happened in the past, or was to happen in +the future, outside the ken of existing history. He made his Godhead +gradually manifest by his attitude towards men and things about him, by +his moral and spiritual claims, by his expressed relation to his father, +not by any miraculous exemptions of himself from the conditions of +natural knowledge in its own proper province. Thus the utterances of +Christ about the Old Testament do not seem to be nearly definite or +clear enough to allow of our supposing that in this case he is departing +from the general method of the Incarnation, by bringing to bear the +unveiled omniscience of the Godhead, to anticipate or foreclose a +development of natural knowledge."* + +This would perhaps be sublime if it were only intelligible. We are not +surprised at Dr. Driver's turning away from the metaphysics of this +theory. His mind is cast in a more sober and practical mould. It is +enough for him that the aim of Christ's teaching was a religious one; +that he naturally accepted, as the basis of his teaching, the opinions +respecting the Old Testament that were current around him; that he did +not raise "issues for which the time was not yet ripe, and which, had +they been raised, would have interfered seriously with the paramount +purpose of his life."** + + * Rev. Charles Gore, Lux Mundi (seventh edition), pp. 360, + 361. + + ** Introduction, Preface, xix. + + +This is excellently said. It is just what Paley might have written in +present-day circumstances. But it contains no note of the supernatural. +It deals with Jesus as a mere man, who did not disclose all the +information he possessed, but sometimes veiled his knowledge for +temporary reasons. It leaves his Godhead in the background. It does not +recognise how easy it was for Omnipotence to act differently. And when +the Higher Criticism points out that the human mind could, in the course +of time, free itself from errors as to the authorship and credibility +of the Old Testament, it forgets that Jesus Christ, by accommodating +himself to those errors, _perpetuated_ them. His authority was appealed +to for centuries--it is appealed to now--in favor of falsehood. Nor is +this falsehood trivial and innocuous. It has been extremely harmful. It +has fostered a wrong view of the Bible, it has prolonged the reign of +superstition, and thus hindered the growth of true civilisation. This is +an impeachment of the moral character of Jesus. It is a confession that +he served a temporary object at the expense of the permanent interests +of humanity. We feel constrained, therefore, to admit the force of the +words of Canon Liddon:-- + +"We have lived to hear men proclaim the legendary and immoral character +of considerable portions of those Old Testament scriptures, upon which +our Lord has set the seal of his infallible authority. And yet, side +by side with this rejection of Scriptures so deliberately sanctioned +by Christ, there is an unwillingness which, illogical as it is, we must +sincerely welcome, to profess any explicit rejection of the Church's +belief in Christ's divinity. Hence arises the endeavour to intercept +a conclusion, which might otherwise have seemed so plain as to make +arguments in its favor an intellectual impertinence. Hence a series of +singular refinements, by which Christ is presented to the modern world +as really Divine, yet as subject to fatal error; as Founder of the true +religion, yet as the credulous patron of a volume replete with worthless +legends; as the highest Teacher and Leader of humanity, yet withal as +the ignorant victim of the prejudices and follies of an unenlightened +age."* + + * Canon H. P. Liddon, The Divinity of Christ (fourteenth + edition), p. 462. + +Canon Gore devotes several pages of his Bampton Lectures to this +subject, but he does not fairly answer the straightforward objections +raised by Canon Liddon. Dealing with the references of Jesus to +the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and to Jonah's three days' +entombment in the whale's belly, and with the argument that this +endorsement by Jesus "binds us to receive these narratives as simple +history," he blandly declares, "To this argument I do not think that we +need yield." Of course not. There is no need to yield to anything you do +not like; for this is a free country, at least to Christians. But what +is the logical conclusion? That is the point to be decided. Canon +Gore does not face it; he merely expresses a personal disinclination. +Subsequently he pleads that "a heavy burden" should not be laid on +"sensitive consciences," and that men should not be asked "to accept as +matter of revelation what seems to them an improbable literary theory." +But this again is a personal appeal. These men must be left to attend +to their own consciences. They have no right to demand a suppression of +truth, or a perversion of logic, for their particular advantage. + +When a candid reader has finished all that the Higher Criticism has to +say on this matter, we believe he will be filled with a sense of its +insincerity. It never strikes a note of triumph, or even a note of +conviction. It is timid, furtive, and apologetic; and shelters +itself against reason by plunging into mystery. In place of all +the difficulties it removes it sets up a colossal one of its own +manufacture; the difficulty, to wit, of conceiving that God himself lent +a sanction to grave and far-reaching error as to his own Word; or what +would inevitably be regarded as a sanction, and would necessarily delay +for many hundreds of years the discovery and reception of the truth. +The Higher Criticism, in short, has supplied a new argument against the +deity of Jesus Christ. + + + + +X. THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND + +Dr. Farrar's book has naturally given offence to the more orthodox +Christians. Clergymen like "Father" Ignatius stigmatise him, and indeed +all clerical exponents of the Higher Criticism, as wolves in sheeps' +clothing, who eat the Church's meat and do the work of "infidelity." +We are not surprised, therefore, that some reassurance has been +deemed necessary; nor astonished that it took the form of a popular +announcement in the newspapers. Some months ago--to be accurate, it was +in September--the following paragraph went the round of the press:-- + +"Dean Farrar and the Scriptures.--A correspondent called the attention +of Dean Farrar to the fact that Atheistic lecturers are in the habit of +affirming that he does not believe in the Bible (referring to his works +as a confirmation of the statement), and observed that, if such a grave +assertion were allowed to be propagated without contradiction, the young +and the ignorant might be deceived by it. The Dean, who is at present +staying in Yorkshire, replied as follows: 'The statement to which you +refer is ignorant nonsense. The doctrine of the Church of England about +Holy Scripture is stated in her Sixth and Seventh. Articles, and that +doctrine I most heartily accept." + +This strikes us as a rather paltry evasion. The Sixth and Seventh +Articles of the Church of England do not state the full Christian belief +as to the Bible, but only the Protestant belief as against that of the +Church of Rome. They emphasise two points, and two points only: first, +that the Scriptures contain all that is necessary to salvation, so +that no man is at the Pope's mercy for a seat in heaven; second, that +fourteen books of the Roman Catholic Bible are apocryphal, and cannot be +used to establish any doctrine. The general Christian view of the Bible, +common to Catholics and Protestants, is taken for granted, as it had +not then been brought into controversy. There is one word in the Sixth +Article, however, which may be commended to Dr. Farrar's attention. +The last clause explains what is meant by "Holy Scripture," and runs +as follows:--"In the name of the holy Scripture we do understand those +Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was +never any doubt in the Church." Now, unless Dr. Farrar means to juggle +with the word "authority"--and we do not doubt his capacity for doing +so--it is idle for him to say that he believes in the Bible according to +these terms. He does _not_ believe, for instance, in the "authority" of +the book of Jonah; on the contrary, he believes that Jonah did not write +it, and that it is not history, but romance, from beginning to end. If +_this_ is believing in the Bible, then Atheistic lecturers believe in it +as well as Dr. Farrar. He does not believe that Jonah spent three +days in a whale's belly--nor do they; he does not believe that +Jonah's deep-sea adventure was a prefigurement of the burial of Jesus +Christ--nor do they; he does not believe that the Jonah story is any +the truer because Jesus Christ really or apparently believed it--nor do +they; he simply believes that the story's moral is a good one, as far as +it represents people who are not Jews as entitled to consideration--and +so do they. Substantially there is not the smallest difference between +them. The only discernible difference is a hypothetical one. Dr. Farrar +claims that the book of Jonah is inspired. But he also claims that +everything good and true--that is, everything worth reading--is +inspired. "Very well then," the Atheist may reply, "I agree with you +still, in substance. The only point in dispute between us is whether +there is a God who interferes with the natural course of things, either +in the external world or in the human mind. But on your definition of +the word _inspired_, this makes no particular difference to any one book +or collection of books. And unless you alter (and narrow) your theory of +inspiration, our difference begins outside, not inside, the library--and +is, in brief, not practical, but metaphysical." + +But let us return to Dr. Farrar's method of proving his sufficient +orthodoxy; and let us tell him that if he will only pursue it far +enough, he may get rid of the Bible altogether. + +Suppose we take Pearson's classic _Exposition of the Creed_, and open +it at his address "to the Reader." In the second paragraph he writes as +follows:--"The Creed, without controversy, is a brief comprehension of +the objects of our Christian faith, and is generally taken to contain +all things necessary to be believed." Now this Creed does not mention +the Bible at all. A heathen might read it, and never infer from it that +there was such a thing as the Scriptures in existence. What then is to +prevent Dr. Farrar, or some more audacious clergyman, from saying +that he does not believe in the Bible, as it is nowhere laid down +as necessary to be believed; but that his orthodoxy is nevertheless +unimpeachable, because he "most heartily accepts" the Catholic and +Apostolic Creed which is "without controversy" an accurate compendium of +the Christian faith, and which, being prescribed in the Prayer Book, +is of course binding--and is _alone_ binding--on every loyal son of the +Church of England? + +Dr. Farrar claims, as a clergyman, what he calls a "Christian liberty" +in dealing with the Bible; although, if God has indeed spoken in the +Bible, it is difficult to see what liberty a Christian can have but that +of absolute belief and obedience. In a lengthy footnote of his volume +which we have been criticising, he refers to the famous "Essays and +Reviews Case," and the decisions of the judges in the Court of Arches +and in the Privy Council. Dr. Lushington laid it down that: "Provided +the Articles and Formularies are not contravened, the law lays down no +limits of construction, no rule of interpretation, of the Scriptures." +Lord Westbury declared that the Sixth Article of the Church of England +was based upon "the revelations of the Holy Spirit," and therefore the +Bible might be denominated "holy" and be said to be "the Word of +God"; but this was not "distinctly predicated of every statement and +representation contained in every part of the Old and New Testaments." +"The framers of the Articles," Lord Westbury added, "have not used the +word 'inspiration' as applied to the Holy Scriptures, nor have they laid +down anything as to the nature, extent, or limits of that operation of +the Holy Spirit." + +According to this sapient judgment, which perhaps is very good law, and +covers all possible developments of the Higher Criticism, every member +of the Church of England is bound to regard the Bible as containing "the +revelations of the Holy Spirit," but is not bound to regard it as a work +of "inspiration." A judge, with his legal spectacles on, is notoriously +able to discriminate subtleties where laymen see only what is plain; +and clergymen may take advantage of his preternatural sagacity, without +being able in the long run to impose upon the common sense of the +people, who will always look upon "revelation" and "inspiration" as +interchangeable terms. + +It is quite natural that Dr. Farrar should wish to get rid of this word +"inspiration," since it can no longer be defined without danger. But we +must remind him that, if it does not occur in the Church Articles, it +certainly does occur in the Bible. "All scripture," Paul said, "is given +by inspiration of God."* + + * Timothy iii. 16. + + +And as the New Testament was not then in existence, Paul of course +referred to the Old Testament. This was the "holy scriptures" which +Timothy had "known from a child." And Peter is, if possible, more +definite than Paul. He speaks of the "more sure word of prophecy," +surer than the very voice heard by the three disciples on the mount +of transfiguration. This "prophecy of the scripture" he declares to be +never of "any private interpretation"--which means, according to the +commentators, that it did not spring from any knowledge or personal +conjecture in the prophet. Finally, he clinches his exposition by +affirming that "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy +Ghost."* + + * 2 Peter i. 19-21. We quote this epistle as Peter's, + because it passes as his in the New Testament, not because + it was really his writing. + +According to the Sixth Article of the Church of England, both these +epistles, bearing the names of Paul and Peter, are among the books +"of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church." Dr. Farrar is +therefore bound by them in logic and honor. He is not free to cast aside +the Biblical term of _inspiration_ nor free to minimise as he pleases +the "moving" influence of the Holy Ghost in either the New or the +Old Testament. As a clergyman of the Church of England, he assumes an +unwarrantable freedom; a freedom which is no more sanctioned by her +Articles than it is by the letter or spirit of the Scriptures. He +departs entirely from the primitive and real position of Protestantism; +namely, that the Bible is the absolute standard of faith and practice, +and that, wherever it is dark or dubious, it must be interpreted by +itself. He treads the _via media_ of compromise and irrationality; +neither going over to Rome, which claims to be inspired, like the Bible, +and to be the vehicle of the living voice of God for the infallible +interpretation of the written revelation--nor going over to Rationalism, +which regards the Catholic Church as but a human institution, and the +Bible as but a human composition. Believe that God has spoken, according +to the words of Paul and Peter, and the Catholic theory is the only +satisfactory one; disbelieve it, and there is no logical alternative but +the most thoroughgoing Rationalism. + + + + +XI. AN ORIENTAL BOOK + +Dr. Farrar stumbles, on one occasion, against the true theory of the +Bible. Having to furnish an excuse, if not a justification, for the +outrageous crudity of a good deal of its language, he reminds us that +decorum changes with time and place. "The rigid external modesty and +propriety of modern and English literature," he observes, "is disgusted +and offended by statements which gave no such shock to ancient and +Eastern readers." And he adds that "The plain-spokenness of Orientals +involved no necessary offence against abstract morality." This is +true enough, but the argument should be developed. What is urged in +extenuation of the grossness of the Scripture is really applicable all +round--to its mythology, its legends, its religion, its philosophy, +its ethics, and its poetry. The Bible is an oriental book. And this +one statement, when properly understood, gives us the true key to +its interpretation, the real criterion of its character, and the just +measure of its value. + +It has been well remarked that the ordinary Christian in this part of +the world appears to imagine that the Bible dropped down from heaven--in +English. Even the expounders of the Higher Criticism, in our own +country, read it first in their mother tongue; and although they +afterwards read it in the original Greek, and sometimes in the original +Hebrew, they are under the witchery of early impressions, and their +apologetics are almost entirely founded upon the vernacular Bible. +Thus they lose sight, and their readers never catch a glimpse, of the +predominant element, the governing factor, of the problem. + +All the Bibles in the world, like all the religions in the world, came +from the East. "Not one of them," as Max Müller remarks, "has been +conceived, composed, or written down in Europe."* + + * Max Müller, Natural Religion, p. 538. + +He classes the _Pilgrim's Progress_ among the "many books which have +exercised a far greater influence on religious faith and moral conduct +than the Bibles of the world"; but Bunyan's originality was artistic and +not religious; he absorbed the Puritanism of his age, and reproduced it +in the form of a magnificent allegory. Religious originality does not +belong to the Western mind, which is too scientific and practical. Every +one of the fashionable crazes that spring up from time to time, and have +their day and give place to a successor, is merely a garment from the +old wardrobe of superstition. This is true of Theosophy, for instance; +all its doctrines, ideas, and jargon being borrowed from India. +"There are five countries only," Max Müller says, "which have been +the birthplace of Sacred Books: (1) India, (2) Persia, (3) China, (4) +Palestine, (5) Arabia." All come from the East, and all have a generic +and historic resemblance. Not one of them was written by the founder of +its religion. Moses did not write the Pentateuch, Christ did not write +a line of the New Testament, Mohammed did not write the Koran, Zoroaster +did not write the Avesta, the Buddhist Scriptures were not written by +Buddha, and the Vedic hymns are far more ancient than writing in India. +All these Sacred Books embody the accepted beliefs of whole peoples; all +of them are canonical and authoritative; all contain very much the same +ethical groundwork, in the form of elementary moral prohibitions; all +of them are held to be of divine character; all of them become a kind of +fetish, which is worshipped and obeyed at the expense of the free spirit +of man, who is told not to be wise above what is written. Ecclesiastical +or kingly authority has generally given these books their final form and +character. Their establishment takes place in open daylight, but their +origin is more or less shrouded in mystery. "It is curious," Max Müller +says, "that wherever we have sacred books, they represent to us the +oldest language of the country. It is so in India, it is the same +in Persia, in China, in Palestine, and very nearly so in Arabia."* +According to Max Müller, the Veda was referred to in India fifteen +hundred years before Christ. Consequently it precedes by many centuries +even the earliest parts of the Bible:-- + +"The Vedic hymns come to us as a collection of sacred poetry, belonging +to certain ancient families, and afterwards united in one collection, +called the Rig-veda-sa_m_hitâ. The names of the poets, handed down by +tradition, are in most cases purely imaginary names. What is really +important is that in the hymns themselves the poets speak of their +thoughts and words as _God-given_--this we can understand--while at a +later time the theory came in that not the thoughts and words only, but +every syllable, every letter, every accent, had been communicated to +half-divine and half-human prophets by Brahma, so that the slightest +mistake in pronunciation, even to the pronunciation of an accent, would +destroy the charm and efficacy of these ancient prayers."** + + * Natural Religion, p. 295. + + ** Max Müller, ibid, p. 558. + +With a slight variation of language, to suit the special circumstances, +nearly all this would apply to the Bible. + +Christianity, like Brahmanism, like Buddhism, like Mohammedanism, is a +book religion. It is "God-given," or revealed, and its Bible has been +elevated to a position of infallibility, above the reach of human +reason, precisely like the Bibles of other oriental faiths. This +sanctification of every thought and word and letter is declared by +Max Müller to have been "the death-blow given to the Vedic religion," +destroying its power of growth and change. A similar observation is made +by Sir William Muir respecting the petrified gospel of the Koran:-- + +"From the stiff and rigid shroud in which it is thus swathed, the +religion of Mohammed cannot emerge. It has no plastic power beyond +that exercised in its earliest days. Hardened now and inelastic, it can +neither adapt itself nor yet shape its votaries, nor even suffer them +to shape themselves, to the varying circumstances, the wants and +developments of mankind."* + +How curious it is, after reading this strong passage, to come across a +diametrically opposite one in the work of another eminent writer on +the same subject. Professor Arnold closes his important book on the +propagation of the Muslim faith with a reference to "the power of this +religion to adapt itself to the peculiar characteristics and the stage +of development of the people whose allegiance it seeks to win."** +Historically, it is perfectly certain that Mohammedanism _has_ been +found compatible with a high degree of civilisation. Many instances +might be given, but a single one is sufficient. The Mohammedan +civilisation in Spain was far superior to the Christian civilisation +which, after terrible bloodshed and enormous destruction, was +established upon its ruins. The truth is, that religions always change +when they must change, and never otherwise. When the necessity +arises, learned divines will always be found to make the requisite +accommodations. This, indeed, is the explanation of the labors of Dr. +Farrar and other exponents of the Higher Criticism. They are simply +accommodating Christianity, and the Bible with it, to the serious +changes that have taken place in educated opinion and sentiment, in +consequence of the development of physical science, the progress of +historical criticism, and the growth of moral culture. All the truth in +Sir William Muir's impeachment of Mohammedanism is no less applicable +to Christianity. The Bible, like the Koran, and like every other +revelation, stereotyped old ideas, and gave them a factitious longevity. +Dr. Farrar himself not only admits, but contends, that the Bible has +been invoked against every advance in science, politics, and sociology. +What more could be said of the Koran or any other sacred book? + + * Sir William Muir, Rise and Decline of Islam, pp. 40, 41. + + ** T. W. Arnold, The Preaching of Islam. + +Bring any oriental religion into Europe, and it must change or perish. +Christianity is not true, as Mr. Gladstone and so many orthodox +apologists have argued, because the Christian nations are at the top +of civilisation. The Caucasian mind led the world before the advent of +Christianity, and it is doing the same now. Christians are apt to forget +that Greece and Italy are in Europe, and that Athens and Rome--two +imperishable names in the world's history--were far-shining cities +before a good deal of the Old Testament was written. + +Keep any oriental religion in the East, however, and there is no +saying how long it will last unaltered. Do not travellers talk of +the unchanging East? The civilisation of China is almost what it was +thousands of years ago. Syrian life to-day is like a picture from the +Bible. And the old Orient, as Flaubert said, is the land of religions; +and where Asia looks upon Europe, and the communication between them +began of yore, you may sample all the faiths of antiquity. Flaubert +remarked that the assemblage of all the old religions in Syria was +something incredible; it was enough to study for centuries.* + + * Flaubert, Correspondence, vol. i., p. 344. + +Asia spawned forth all the great religions, and produced all the great +revelations. Arabia is in Africa, but the Arabs are not Africans; they +belong to the Semitic race, like the Jews, and the Koran embodies Jewish +and other Semitic traditions. + +The Bible, then, is an oriental book, an Asiatic book, in spite of the +Greek elements which are incorporated in the New Testament, notably in +the fourth Gospel. It has never been in harmony with the real life of +the West. When it has dominated the life of a particular locality, for a +certain period, the result has been something typically non-European; as +in the case of Scotland under the despotism of the Kirk, whose spiritual +slaves prompted Heine's epigram that the Presbyterian Scotchman was a +Jew, born in the north, who ate pork. Modern civilisation is mainly a +return to the spirit of secular progress which inspired the immortal +achievements of Greece and Rome. + +"The revival of learning and the Renaissance are memorable as the first +sturdy breasting by humanity of the hither slope of the great hollow +which lies between us and the ancient world. The modern man, reformed +and regenerated by knowledge, looks across it, and recognises on the +opposite ridge, in the far-shining cities and stately porticoes, in the +art, politics, and science of antiquity, many more ties of kinship and +sympathy than in the mighty concave between, wherein dwell his Christian +ancestry, in the dim light of scholasticism and theology."* + + * James Cotter Morison, The Service of Man, p. 178. + +Well, if we once fully recognise the Bible as an oriental book, we are +on the road to its complete comprehension. Its grossness of speech, its +gratuitous reference to animal functions, its designation of males +by their sexual attributes even on the most serious occasions, its +religious observances in connection with pregnancy and birth, its +very rite of circumcision; all this, and much more, becomes perfectly +intelligible. It is in keeping with all we know of the ideas, practices, +and language of the East. Moreover, we perceive why it is that +similarities to the theology, the poetry, and the ethics of the Bible +have been so liberally disclosed by the progress of oriental studies. +The Bible, being brought from the East, has to be carried back there to +be properly understood. It is true that Christian divines have offered +their own explanation of these similarities. At first they declared them +to be Satanic anticipations, devilish pre-mockeries, of God's own truth. +Then they declared them to be confused echoes of the oracles of Jehovah. +Finally, they declare them to be evidences of the fact that, although +God chose the Jewish race as the medium of his special revelation, he +also revealed himself partially to other nations. But these explanations +are alike fantastic. They rest upon no ground of history or evolution. +The real explanation is that the Bible is one of the many sacred books +of the East. Its differences from the rest are not of kind, but of +degree; and any superiority that may be claimed for it must henceforth +be argued upon this basis. + +This oriental Bible is at utter variance with the vital beliefs, the +political and social tendencies, and the ethical aspirations, of the +present age. Science has destroyed its naive supernaturalism; reason +has placed its personal God--the magnified, non-natural man--in his own +niche in the world's Pantheon; philosophy has carried us far beyond its +primitive conceptions of human society; our morality has outgrown its +hardness and insularity, however we may still appreciate its finer +ejaculations; even the most pious Christians, with the exception of a +few "peculiar" people, only pay a hypocritical homage to its clearest +injunctions; and the higher development of decency and propriety makes +us turn from its crude expressions with a growing sense of disgust, +while the progress of humanity fills us more and more with a loathing +of its frightful wars and ruthless massacres, its tales of barbaric +cruelty, and its crowning infamy of an everlasting hell. + + + + +XII. FICTITIOUS SUPREMACY + +There are two remarkable characteristics of present-day apologies for +Christianity: one is extravagant laudation of Jesus as man and +teacher, the other is extravagant laudation of the Bible as ethics and +literature. Both these characteristics are really signs of the decadence +of positive faith. Anyone who sincerely believed in the deity of Jesus +would shrink from praising his human virtues. To such a person it would +savor strongly of impertinence. Nor would anyone who really believed the +Bible to be the Word of God make it the subject of meaner panegyrics. +It seems ridiculous to argue that God wrote with unusual power and +sublimity, and is actually the very first of known authors. But this +is what Dr. Farrar does, essentially, in the last six chapters of +his volume. No wonder, therefore, that all the vices of his style are +displayed in the accomplishment of this extraordinary task. He has to +make several quotations from great or distinguished writers, but he +catches no literary infection from them. One of these quotations is from +brave old George Fox. "I saw," the great Quaker wrote, "that there was +an ocean of darkness and death; but an infinite ocean of Light and Love +flowed over the ocean of Darkness; and in that I saw the infinite +love of God." This is magnificent writing. It has vision, force, and +simplicity. In its way it could hardly be beaten. And how poor in +comparison is the turgid pulpit rhetoric of Dr. Farrar! + +We are told by this wordy defender of the faith that the Christian +Scriptures are "the Supreme Bible of Humanity"--as though, if it be the +Word of God, it could be anything less. Our attention is called to +its "unique transcendence"--which is a penny-a-lining pleonasm. We +are informed that it has "triumphed with ease over the assaults of its +enemies"--which is a remarkably modest assertion, especially in view +of the fact that the "enemies" of the Bible were, for fifteen hundred +years, generally subdued by persecution, imprisonment, torture, +assassination, and the burning of their writings. We are further +informed that the Bible commands the reverence, guides the thoughts, +educates the souls, and kindles the moral aspirations of men "through +all the world"--which is an extremely sober statement in view of the +fact that all the _nominal_ Christians, not to be too precise about +the _real_ ones, do not amount to more than a fourth of the world's +inhabitants. So wonderful a book is the Bible that "the Lord Jesus +Christ himself did not disdain to quote from the Old Testament"--which +was his own word, in the sense that it was (professedly) written under +divine inspiration. This is absurd enough, but it is nothing to the +rapturous eulogy of the Bible which follows it. "All the best and +brightest English verse [not _some_, mark, but _all!_], from the poems of +Chaucer to the plays of Shakespeare in their noblest parts, are echoes +of its lessons; and from Cowper to Wordsworth," Dr. Farrar says, "from +Coleridge to Tennyson, the greatest of our poets have drawn from its +pages their loftiest wisdom." Really, one is tempted to ask whether such +stuff as this is possible in any other country than England, or perhaps +America; and whether, even in England or America, it is possible outside +churches, chapels, and Sunday-schools. Sixty pages later--Dr. Farrar +could not sober down in that long interval--he declares that "It was the +Bible which created the prose literature of England." Now if this were +true it would not serve Dr. Farrar's ostensible purpose. It would not +prove that the Bible is a divine revelation. It would only prove the +historical--that is to say, the largely accidental--importance of +the Authorised Version of the Bible in the development of English +literature. But this declaration of Dr. Farrar's is _not_ true. The +Authorised Version did not initiate, it rather closed, a period of our +literary history. The English of the translators in their Preface is +vastly different from the English of their translation. Indeed, they +were rather collators than translators. They took the older versions +as the basis of their work, they altered as little as possible, and the +alterations they did make were strictly in harmony with the time-honored +style of those older versions, a style which was even then very archaic. +Dr. Marsh, himself a devout Christian, contends that "the dialect of +this translation was not, at the time of the revision, or, indeed, at +any other period, the actual current book-language nor the colloquial +speech of the English people." He maintains that it was "a consecrated +diction" which had been "gradually built up" from the time of Wycliffe.* +Its language was not the language of Chaucer's prose, nor even of +Wycliffe's own prose, any more than it was the language of Bacon's +or Shakespeare's, or even that of divines like Hooker. The Authorised +Version is indeed a monument of English, but of special English. It has +always stood aside from the main development of English prose. Of course +it has exercised a considerable influence, but that influence has been +chiefly indirect. From the young naive prose of Malory to the mature and +calculated prose of Swift--not to come farther--there is a clear stream +of development, to which the language and style of the English Bible +have contributed infinitely less than is generally assumed. With the +single exception of Bunyan's masterpiece, which stands apart and alone, +it is difficult to name a first-class prose competition that was greatly +indebted to our Authorised Version. Even the divines disregarded it as +a literary model, and perhaps most conspicuously so in the seventeenth +century, immediately after its publication. + + * George P. Marsh, Lectures on the English Language + (Murray), pp. 441, 445. + +Dr. Farrar is entirely wrong in declaring that the Bible created the +prose literature of England. Even if he only means that English prose +was vastly profited by the religious literature which followed upon the +heels of the Reformation, it is easy to reply that this literature was +mainly controversial and never remarkable for the higher graces and +dexterities. For those virtues, prior to the time of Taylor and South, +we must turn to secular and even to "profane" compositions; a fact which +is well known to every real student of English literature. + +The next device of Dr. Farrar's advocacy would be astounding if one +did not know the muddle-headed public for whom he writes. He devotes a +monstrous number of pages to the citing of a "cloud of witnesses to the +glory and supremacy of the Holy Scriptures," beginning with the +great John Henry Newman and winding up with the notorious Hall Caine. +Sandwiched between these dissimilar "witnesses" are Heine, Goethe, +Rousseau, Wesley, Emerson, Carlyle, Huxley, Arnold, Ruskin, and a host +of others. Most of them were Christians, and afford a partisan testimony +which is not very valuable. In any case, there is no real argument in +a list of names. When a man is being tried on a definite charge, it is +idle to recite a catalogue of his distinguished friends. Witnesses to +character are only heard in mitigation of sentence after the jury has +returned a verdict of Guilty. Perhaps this fact had its influence on Dr. +Farrar's mind; at any rate, he calls his "cloud of witnesses" when he +has ended all he had to say in the form of argument. + +These witnesses, moreover, are jumbled together without the slightest +discrimination. Let us take a few illustrations to show the futility of +Dr. Farrar's method. + +John Wesley cried "Give me the book of God! Here is knowledge enough +for me. Let me be a man of one book." Yes, and John Wesley believed in +witchcraft, and honestly declared that to throw over witchcraft was to +throw over the Bible. He had, also, his own way of proving "the divine +inspiration of the Holy Scriptures." He wrote a "Clear and Concise +Demonstration," from which we take the following extract:-- + +"I beg leave to propose a short, clear, and strong argument to prove the +divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. + +"The Bible must be the invention either of good men or angels, bad men +or devils, or of God. + +"(1) It could not be the invention of good men or angels; for they +neither would nor could make a book, and tell lies all the time they +were writing it, saying, 'Thus saith the Lord,' when it was their own +invention. + +"(2) It could not be the invention of bad men or devils; for they would +not make a book which commands all duty, forbids all sin, and condemns +their souls to hell to all eternity. + +"(3) Therefore, I draw this conclusion, that the Bible must be given by +divine inspiration."* + + * John Wesley's Works (1865), vol. xi., pp. 464-465. + +Could anything be more childish than this ridiculous play upon the word +"invention," and this absurd supposition that "good men" and "bad men" +are two sharp divisions of the human species? We know that all men +are mixtures, and that honest men may be mistaken, and tell falsehoods +without lying. We are therefore able to measure the value of John +Wesley's "demonstration" that the Bible is inspired. + +John Ruskin thanks his mother for daily reading the Bible with him in +his childhood, and daily making him learn a part of it by heart. This is +seized upon by Dr. Farrar, who places it in his list of testimonies. But +it might have been wise--it would certainly have been honest--to tell +the reader how Ruskin views the Bible. This great writer has formulated +four theories of the Bible, the third of which he has declared to be +"for the last half-century the theory of the soundest scholars and +thinkers in Europe." And what is this theory? Here it is in Ruskin's own +words:-- + +"That the mass of religious Scripture contains merely the best efforts +which we hitherto know to have been made by any of the races of men +towards the discovery of some relations with the spiritual world; that +they are only trustworthy as expressions of the enthusiastic visions or +beliefs of earnest men oppressed by the world's darkness, and have no +more authoritative claim on our faith than the religious speculations +and histories of the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, and Indians; but are, +in common with all these, to be reverently studied, as containing +a portion, divinely appointed, of the best wisdom which the human +intellect, earnestly seeking for help from God, has hitherto been able +to gather between birth and death."* + + * Time and Tide, pp. 48, 49. It should be noted that the + Letters in this pregnant little volume were written by + Ruskin as far back as 1867. + +Surely this is a very different view of the Bible from the one which is +presented by Dr. Farrar. Setting aside a little religious phraseology, +a Freethinker might endorse Ruskin's theory of the Bible. Everything is +substantially granted to the Freethinker when it is admitted that the +Bible has "no authoritative claim on our faith." Whatever truth and +beauty it contains may then be thankfully accepted. + +Professor Huxley's famous eulogy of the Bible, as a book to be read in +Board Schools, is made the most of by Dr. Farrar. He must have winced, +however, at Huxley's reference to what a sensible teacher would +"eliminate" as "not desirable for children to occupy themselves with." +He was not sensitive enough to wince at the statement that "even the +noble Stoic, Marcus Antoninus, is too high and refined for an ordinary +child"--which is virtually a testimonial in his favor for grown-up +men and women. Dr. Farrar crows lustily over what he calls "Professor +Huxley's testimony to the unique glory of the Scriptures." It is +perhaps well for him that Huxley is incapable of resenting this +misrepresentation. Still, it must be admitted that on this occasion, as +on one or two others, Huxley did gratuitously play into the hands of +the enemy. He might have known the kind of use they would make of his +"graceful concessions." + +Dr. Farrar had not the honesty to tell his readers that Huxley had +the most sovereign contempt for _his_ theory of the Bible. The great +Agnostic held, for instance, that "belief in a demonic world" is +inculcated throughout the New Testament, and that this belief is +"totally devoid of foundation." He declared that Inspiration, in the +school of the Higher Criticism, is "deprived of its old intelligible +sense," and is "watered down into a mystification." He laughed at +the miracles of the Gospels, and made great fun of the story of the +bedevilled Gadarean swine. He held that religion and morality +have really no necessary connection, and sneered at the +"supernaturalists"--gentlemen like Dr. Farrar--who took to patronising +morality when they saw its importance, and "have ever since tried to +persuade mankind that the existence of ethics is bound up with that of +supernaturalism."* + +To accept a testimonial from such a writer is abject on the part of a +clergyman defending the inspiration of the Bible; and to parade it is +simply contemptible. More than fifty years ago, when this petty trick of +Christian apologetics was coming into vogue, it was rebuked by Newman, +who disdained as "unworthy" the practice of "boasting of the admissions +of infidels concerning the beauty or utility of the Christian system, as +though," he added with fine sarcasm, "it were a great thing for a divine +gift to obtain praise for human excellence."** + + * Huxley, Science and Christian Tradition, pp. xv., 25, 54, + etc. + + ** John Henry Newman, University Sermons, p. 71. + +Dr. Farrar's citation of Matthew Arnold is open to the same kind of +criticism. "He retained but little faith in the miraculous," we are +told, and "his creed was anything but orthodox." But is it fair to +suggest that Arnold had any creed at all? He rejected the idea of a +personal God, he regarded Jesus as a merely human teacher, and it is +evident from his books and his published correspondence that he had no +belief in personal immortality. As for his "faith in the miraculous," it +was not "little," with or without the "but"; it was a minus quantity. +He positively disbelieved in the miraculous. It was a part of his plain +message to the Churches that the reign of the Bible miracles was doomed, +that they were all fairy tales, and that, if the fate of the Bible was +bound up with theirs, the Bible was doomed too. Arnold said all this +when he was living, and it is useless for Dr. Farrar to disguise +the fact, or to minimise it by artful phrases. We commend to his +attention--would that we could commend it to the attention of his +readers!--the following passage from a letter of Arnold's to Sir +Mountstuart Grant Duff, dated July 22, 1882:-- + +"The central fact of the situation always remains to me this: that +whereas the basis of things amidst all chance and change has even in +Europe generally been for ever so long supernatural Christianity, and +far more so in England than in Europe generally, this basis is certainly +going--going amidst the full consciousness of the continentals that it +is going, and amidst the provincial unconsciousness of the English that +it is going."* + + * Matthew Arnold, Letters, vol. ii., p. 201. + +Considering what Arnold's views really were, is it of any use to make +the statement of rather doubtful accuracy that the Bible was his "chief +and constant study"? Is it not misleading to talk of his "intense +reverence and admiration for the Sacred Books"? He did not regard them +as _sacred_. He studied and valued the Bible as literature, not as +revelation; and it is monstrous to cite him as a witness in favor of the +Bible as it is represented in the school of Dr. Farrar. + +We need not waste time over Dr. Farrar's _banal_ remark that +Livingstone, Stanley, and the Bible together have caused "the extension +of the British protectorate over 170,000 square miles" in a certain +part of Africa. We may treat with the same indifference his boast of the +millions of copies of the "Sacred Books" distributed by the British +and American Bible Societies. Such "evidences" are only fit for the +street-corner. Only a low-minded, commercial-sodden Christian could +imagine that the multiplication of copies of a book is any sort of +testimony to its intrinsic truth and value; and in this particular case +the demand is a forced one, depending on the incessant stimulus of the +supply. + +Another argument of Dr. Farrar's for the "supremacy" of the Bible +is based upon the history of Christian martyrdoms. He gives several +instances of Christians, old and young, rich and poor, high-placed and +humble, who have died for their faith, and entered "the dark river and +its still waters with a smile upon their faces." He attributes their +fortitude to trust in the promises of the Bible. But he does not tell us +how it proves the truth of the Bible either as history or as revelation. +Millions of Jews have died at the hands of Christian bigots, and their +heroism amidst torture and massacre has never been exceeded in human +annals. Does this prove that the New Testament is not a revelation, and +that Jesus Christ was not God? Men of other faiths have faced death +with sublime courage. Does this prove that their beliefs were accurate? +Mohammedans are notoriously ready to die for their religion; the +Mohammedan dervishes in the Soudan never quailed before the most +murderous storm of shell and bullets; they fell in thousands at +Omdurman, and the Khalifa's standard-bearer, when all around him were +slain, stood upright under the holy flag, with a smile of defiance on +his face, which never left it until he sank shot-riddled upon the heap +of his dead comrades. Does this prove that the Koran is the Word of God? + +The orthodox argument seems to be this: if a Christian dies for the +Bible, that proves it to be a divine book; if a devotee of any other +faith dies for his Sacred Scripture. That proves nothing--unless it be +the obstinacy of wrong opinions. + +There is something intensely comical in the seriousness with which Dr. +Farrar relates the martyrdom of Christians who were put to death by +other Christians. He does not see that all he gains on one side is lost +on the other, that Christian persecution balances Christian fortitude, +and that nothing is left to the credit of his account. He devotes a +whole page to the murder of Margaret Lachlan and Margaret Wilson by +"brutal and tyrannous bigots" at Wigton in 1677. These two women +were Covenanting Christians, and their murderers were Episcopalian +Christians. They died singing psalms which their murderers believed +to be the word of God. It is difficult to see what advantage the Bible +derives from this incident. + +One may be interested by the reminder that Oliver Cromwell quoted two +verses from the hundred and seventeenth Psalm after his victory at +Dunbar; but one may remember on one's own account that David Leslie, the +defeated Scots general, was as devout a Christian and Bible-reader as +Oliver Cromwell, and that his piety was stimulated by the presence in +his camp of a whole congregation of Presbyterian ministers. Altogether +it is a pity that Dr. Farrar picks his illustrations in this one-eyed +fashion. He forgets that other people may have two eyes, and see on both +sides of them. He almost invites the sarcasm that the one-eyed man is +only a leader amongst the blind. + +The real secret of whatever supremacy belongs to the Bible is to be +sought in a different direction. It was long ago remarked by a French +Freethinker, in a work attributed to Boulanger, but really written by +D'Holbach, that education and authority were the two great pillars of +the Christian revelation. + +"If a body of men in possession of power, and able to like advantage of +the credulity of mankind, were to find their interest concerned in doing +so, they would make men believe at the end of a few centuries that the +adventures of Don Quixote are perfectly true, and that the prophecies +of Nostrodamus have been inspired by God himself. By dint of glosses, +of commentaries, and of allegories, it is easy to discover and to prove +what one pleases; however glaring an imposture may be, it can be made at +last, by the aid of time, cunning, and power, to pass for truth which +no one must doubt. Deceivers who are obstinate, and who are supported +by public authority, can make ignorant people, who are always credulous, +believe anything, especially if they can persuade them that there is +merit in not noticing inconsistencies, contradictions, and palpable +absurdities, and that there is danger in making use of their reason."* + + * Examen Critique de St. Paul, c. 3. + +Abolish all the Churches that exist for the purpose of preaching up the +Bible as a divine revelation; destroy all the clerical corporations +that live and operate upon this basis; take away, at least, the +public revenues and special privileges they enjoy; deprive them of +the patronage of the legislature and the government; remove their Holy +Scriptures from the public schools, where they are retained in defiance +of the principles of civil and religious liberty; let little children +no longer be suborned in favor of the supernatural claims of this book +before they are able to judge for themselves; let the Bible take its own +chance with the rest of the world's literature; and then, and not till +then, can its natural supremacy be established. But the clergy know that +such an experiment would be absolutely fatal to their pretensions. They +dare not accept a fair field and no favor. They know in their heart +of hearts that they are serving a lie. Their dishonesty is apparent at +every turn. Dr. Farrar calls upon England to "cling to her open Bible." +Well, the Peculiar People do so. They read the open Bible, they follow +its teaching as closely as possible, they obey the commandments of Jesus +Christ. And what is the result? They are cast into prison like felons. +One of them is suffering that pain and indignity at the present moment. + +A good husband, a good father, a good neighbor, a good citizen, he has +committed the crime of practically believing what Dr. Farrar and the +rest of the clergy facetiously preach--namely, that the Bible is the +Book of God, and the divine rule of faith and conduct. For this crime he +is imprisoned under the verdict of a Christian jury and the sentence of +a Christian judge; and not a single Christian minister raises his voice +against this infamous spectacle. Christianity is now only an organised +hypocrisy. It subsists upon an inherited fund of power, wealth, and +reputation. Even the clergy have no vital belief in the inspiration +of the Bible. It is merely the charter under which they trade. It is a +source of oracular texts for their ambiguous sermons. It is lauded +and adored, and neglected and defied. To bring it into disbelief and +contempt by argument and ridicule is a misdemeanor; to bring it into +disbelief and contempt by acting upon it is a felony. The only safe +course is that adopted by the clergy, who neither believe it nor +disbelieve it, but use it as it serves their occasions; and as long as +it answers their ends it will remain the Book of God. + +Let us not be misunderstood. We are far from desiring to engage in a +crusade against the Bible as a collection of ancient literature. We are +neither called upon nor disposed to deny its real merits, however they +are exaggerated in religious circles. It undoubtedly contains some fine +poetry, occasional pathos, and more frequent sublimity. Its style has +nearly always the charm of simplicity. All this may be allowed without +playing into the hands of the super-naturalists. Further than this we +need not go. In our opinion, it is absurd to place the Bible at the +top of human compositions. More than sixty writers are alleged to have +contributed to its production, but the whole mass of them do not rival +the magnificent and fecund genius of Shakespeare. Above all, they have +no wit or humour, in which Shakespeare abounds; and wit and humor belong +to the higher development of intellect and emotion. No, the Bible is +not the unapproachable masterpiece which it is declared to be by its +fanatical devotees. But whatever its intrinsic merits may prove to be, +in the light of long and free appreciation, the Bible cannot be accepted +as a revelation from God without wilful self-delusion on the part of +educated men and women. If God had a message for his children, he would +at least make it clear; but this revelation needs another revelation +to explain it, and creeds and commentaries are the symbols of its +obscurity. God's message would tell us what we could not otherwise +learn, but there is no such information in the Bible. God would apprise +us of what he specially desired us to remember, and would not mix it +confusedly with a tremendous mass of alien matter. God would not puzzle +us; he would enlighten us. He would make his communication so clear that +a wayfaring man, though a fool, could understand it; whereas, if the +Bible be his communication, no wayfaring man, unless he _is_ a fool, +pretends to understand it. God would not clog his message with myths, +legends, mysteries, absurdities, falsehoods, and filth; and leave us to +extricate it with endless labor and perpetual uncertainty. The so-called +Higher Criticism is therefore as absurd as the old Orthodoxy in calling +the Bible a work of inspiration. Its exponents affirm that God has left +us to our own knowledge and reason in regard to every other subject but +religion and morality. They are Evolutionists in part. But the principle +of Evolution must be applied over the whole field. Everything is +natural, and happens under the universal law of causation. There are no +miracles, and there never were any except in ignorant imaginations. +But the death of miracles is the death of inspiration. The triumph of +science involves the ruin of every supernatural system. Revelation is +necessarily miraculous, and when the belief in miracles expires the +death-knell rings for every Book of God. We are then left to the +discipline of culture. + +And what is culture? It is steeping our minds in the wisest and +loveliest thoughts of all the ages. And each of us may thus make his own +Bible for himself--a true Bible of Humanity. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Book Of God, by G. W. Foote + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF GOD *** + +***** This file should be named 38092-8.txt or 38092-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/0/9/38092/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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