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<pre>
The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Fair Haven, by Samuel Butler, Edited by
R. A. Streatfeild
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 Fair Haven
Author: Samuel Butler
Editor: R. A. Streatfeild
Release Date: July 30, 2014 [eBook #6092]
[This file was first posted on November 4, 2002]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAIR HAVEN***
</pre>
<p>Transcribed from the 1913 A. C. Fifield edition by David
Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
<h1>The Fair Haven</h1>
<p style="text-align: center"><i>A Work in Defence of the
Miraculous Element</i><br />
<i>in our Lord’s Ministry upon Earth</i>, <i>both as
against</i><br />
<i>Rationalistic Impugners and certain Orthodox Defenders</i>,<br
/>
<i>by the late John Pickard Owen</i>, <i>with a Memoir</i><br />
<i>of the Author by William Bickersteth Owen</i>.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">By</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><b>Samuel Butler</b></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">Author of
“Erewhon”</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall"><span
class="smcap">Op</span></span><span class="GutSmall">.
2</span></p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center"><i>Now Reset</i>; <i>and
Edited</i>, <i>with an Introduction</i>,<br />
<i>by R. A. Streatfeild</i></p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center">London<br />
A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford’s Inn, E.C.<br />
1913</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">WILLIAM
BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><span
class="GutSmall">Contents</span></p>
<table>
<tr>
<td><p> </p>
</td>
<td><p>Introduction by R. A. Streatfeild</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#pageix">ix</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p> </p>
</td>
<td><p>Butler’s Preface to the Second Edition</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#pagexv">xv</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p> </p>
</td>
<td><p>Memoir of the late John Pickard Owen</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page1">1</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="GutSmall">CHAPTER</span></p>
</td>
<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: right"> </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p style="text-align: right">I.</p>
</td>
<td><p>Introduction</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page61">61</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p style="text-align: right">II.</p>
</td>
<td><p>Strauss and the Hallucination Theory</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page83">83</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p style="text-align: right">III.</p>
</td>
<td><p>The Character and Conversion of St. Paul</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page105">105</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p style="text-align: right">IV.</p>
</td>
<td><p>Paul’s Testimony considered</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page120">120</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p style="text-align: right">V.</p>
</td>
<td><p>A Consideration of Certain Ill-judged Methods of
Defence</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page134">134</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p style="text-align: right">VI.</p>
</td>
<td><p>More Disingenuousness</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page153">153</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p style="text-align: right">VII.</p>
</td>
<td><p>Difficulties felt by our Opponents</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page170">170</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p style="text-align: right">VIII.</p>
</td>
<td><p>The Preceding Chapter Continued</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page194">194</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p style="text-align: right">IX.</p>
</td>
<td><p>The Christ-Ideal</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page230">230</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p style="text-align: right">X.</p>
</td>
<td><p>Conclusion</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page255">255</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p> </p>
</td>
<td><p>Appendix</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page273">273</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h2><a name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
ix</span>INTRODUCTION<br />
By R. A. Streatfeild</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">The</span> demand for a new edition of
<i>The Fair Haven</i> gives me an opportunity of saying a few
words about the genesis of what, though not one of the most
popular of Samuel Butler’s books, is certainly one of the
most characteristic. Few of his works, indeed, show more
strikingly his brilliant powers as a controversialist and his
implacable determination to get at the truth of whatever engaged
his attention.</p>
<p>To find the germ of <i>The Fair Haven</i> we should probably
have to go back to the year 1858, when Butler, after taking his
degree at Cambridge, was preparing himself for holy orders by
acting as a kind of lay curate in a London parish. Butler
never took things for granted, and he felt it to be his duty to
examine independently a good many points of Christian dogma which
most candidates for ordination accept as matters of course.
The result of his investigations was that he eventually declined
to take orders at all. One of the stones upon which he then
stumbled was the efficacy of infant baptism, and I have no doubt
that another was the miraculous element of Christianity, which,
it will be remembered, was the cause of grievous searchings of
heart to Ernest Pontifex in Butler’s semi-autobiographical
novel, <i>The Way of All Flesh</i>. While Butler was in New
Zealand (1859–64) he had leisure for prosecuting his
Biblical studies, the result of which he published in 1865, after
his return to England, in an anonymous pamphlet entitled
“The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as given
by the Four Evangelists critically examined.” This
pamphlet passed unnoticed; probably only a few copies were
printed and it is now extremely rare. After the publication
of <i>Erewhon</i> in 1872, Butler returned once more to theology,
and made his anonymous pamphlet the basis of the far more
elaborate <i>Fair Haven</i>, which was originally published as
the posthumous work of a certain John Pickard Owen, preceded by a
memoir of the deceased author by his supposed brother, William
Bickersteth Owen. It is possible that the memoir was the
fruit of a suggestion made by Miss Savage, an able and witty
woman with whom Butler corresponded at the time. Miss
Savage was so much impressed by the narrative power displayed in
<i>Erewhon</i> that she urged Butler to write a novel, and we
shall probably not be far wrong in regarding the biography of
John Pickard Owen as Butler’s trial trip in the art of
fiction—a prelude to <i>The Way of All Flesh</i>, which he
began in 1873.</p>
<p>It has often been supposed that the elaborate paraphernalia of
mystification which Butler used in <i>The Fair Haven</i> was
deliberately designed in order to hoax the public. I do not
believe that this was the case. Butler, I feel convinced,
provided an ironical framework for his arguments merely that he
might render them more effective than they had been when plainly
stated in the pamphlet of 1865. He fully expected his
readers to comprehend his irony, and he anticipated that some at
any rate of them would keenly resent it. Writing to Miss
Savage in March, 1873 (shortly before the publication of the
book), he said: “I should hope that attacks on <i>The Fair
Haven</i> will give me an opportunity of excusing myself, and if
so I shall endeavour that the excuse may be worse than the fault
it is intended to excuse.” A few days later he
referred to the difficulties that he had encountered in getting
the book accepted by a publisher: “— were frightened
and even considered the scheme of the book unjustifiable.
— urged me, as politely as he could, not to do it, and
evidently thinks I shall get myself into disgrace even among
freethinkers. It’s all nonsense. I dare say I
shall get into a row—at least I hope I shall.”
Evidently there is here no anticipation of <i>The Fair Haven</i>
being misunderstood. Misunderstood, however, it was, not
only by reviewers, some of whom greeted it solemnly as a defence
of orthodoxy, but by divines of high standing, such as the late
Canon Ainger, who sent it to a friend whom he wished to
convert. This was more than Butler could resist, and he
hastened to issue a second edition bearing his name and
accompanied by a preface in which the deceived elect were held up
to ridicule.</p>
<p>Butler used to maintain that <i>The Fair Haven</i> did his
reputation no harm. Writing in 1901, he said:</p>
<p>“<i>The Fair Haven</i> got me into no social disgrace
that I have ever been able to discover. I might attack
Christianity as much as I chose and nobody cared one straw; but
when I attacked Darwin it was a different matter. For many
years <i>Evolution</i>, <i>Old and New</i>, and <i>Unconscious
Memory</i> made a shipwreck of my literary prospects. I am
only now beginning to emerge from the literary and social injury
which those two perfectly righteous books inflicted on me.
I dare say they abound with small faults of taste, but I rejoice
in having written both of them.”</p>
<p>Very likely Butler was right as to the social side of the
question, but I am convinced that <i>The Fair Haven</i> did him
grave harm in the literary world. Reviewers fought shy of
him for the rest of his life. They had been taken in once,
and they took very good care that they should not be taken in
again. The word went forth that Butler was not to be taken
seriously, whatever he wrote, and the results of the decree were
apparent in the conspiracy of silence that greeted not only his
books on evolution, but his Homeric works, his writings on art,
and his edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Now that he
has passed beyond controversies and mystifications, and now that
his other works are appreciated at their true value, it is not
too much to hope that tardy justice will be accorded also to
<i>The Fair Haven</i>. It is true that the subject is no
longer the burning question that it was forty years ago. In
the early seventies theological polemics were fashionable.
Books like Seeley’s <i>Ecce Homo</i> and Matthew
Arnold’s <i>Literature and Dogma</i> were eagerly devoured
by readers of all classes. Nowadays we take but a languid
interest in the problems that disturbed our grandfathers, and
most of us have settled down into what Disraeli described as the
religion of all sensible men, which no sensible man ever talks
about. There is, however, in <i>The Fair Haven</i> a good
deal more than theological controversy, and our Laodicean age
will appreciate Butler’s humour and irony if it cares
little for his polemics. <i>The Fair Haven</i> scandalised
a good many people when it first appeared, but I am not afraid of
its scandalising anybody now. I should be sorry,
nevertheless, if it gave any reader a false impression of
Butler’s Christianity, and I think I cannot do better than
conclude with a passage from one of his essays which represents
his attitude to religion perhaps more faithfully than anything in
<i>The Fair Haven</i>: “What, after all, is the essence of
Christianity? What is the kernel of the nut? Surely
common sense and cheerfulness, with unflinching opposition to the
charlatanisms and Pharisaisms of a man’s own times.
The essence of Christianity lies neither in dogma, nor yet in
abnormally holy life, but in faith in an unseen world, in doing
one’s duty, in speaking the truth, in finding the true life
rather in others than in oneself, and in the certain hope that he
who loses his life on these behalfs finds more than he has
lost. What can Agnosticism do against such Christianity as
this? I should be shocked if anything I had ever written or
shall ever write should seem to make light of these
things.”</p>
<p style="text-align: right">R. A. <span
class="smcap">Streatfeild</span>.</p>
<p><i>August</i>, 1913.</p>
<h2><a name="pagexv"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
xv</span>Butler’s Preface to the Second Edition</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">The</span> occasion of a Second Edition of
<i>The Fair Haven</i> enables me to thank the public and my
critics for the favourable reception which has been accorded to
the First Edition. I had feared that the freedom with which
I had exposed certain untenable positions taken by Defenders of
Christianity might have given offence to some reviewers, but no
complaint has reached me from any quarter on the score of my not
having put the best possible case for the evidence in favour of
the miraculous element in Christ’s teaching—nor can I
believe that I should have failed to hear of it, if my book had
been open to exception on this ground.</p>
<p>An apology is perhaps due for the adoption of a pseudonym, and
even more so for the creation of two such characters as <span
class="smcap">John Pickard Owen</span> and his brother. Why
could I not, it may be asked, have said all that I had to say in
my own proper person?</p>
<p>Are there not real ills of life enough already? Is there
not a “lo here!” from this school with its gushing
“earnestness,” it distinctions without differences,
its gnat strainings and camel swallowings, its pretence of
grappling with a question while resolutely bent upon shirking it,
its dust throwing and mystification, its concealment of its own
ineffable insincerity under an air of ineffable candour? Is
there not a “lo there!” from that other school with
its bituminous atmosphere of exclusiveness and self-laudatory
dilettanteism? Is there not enough actual exposition of
boredom come over us from many quarters without drawing for new
bores upon the imagination? It is true I gave a single drop
of comfort. <span class="smcap">John Pickard Owen</span>
was dead. But his having ceased to exist (to use the
impious phraseology of the present day) did not cancel the fact
of his having once existed. That he should have ever been
born gave proof of potentialities in Nature which could not be
regarded lightly. What hybrids might not be in store for us
next? Moreover, though <span class="smcap">John
Pickard</span> was dead, <span class="smcap">William
Bickersteth</span> was still living, and might at any moment
rekindle his burning and shining lamp of persistent
self-satisfaction. Even though the <span
class="smcap">Owens</span> had actually existed, should not their
existence have been ignored as a disgrace to Nature? Who
then could be justified in creating them when they did not
exist?</p>
<p>I am afraid I must offer an apology rather than an
excuse. The fact is that I was in a very awkward
position. My previous work, <i>Erewhon</i>, had failed to
give satisfaction to certain ultra-orthodox Christians, who
imagined that they could detect an analogy between the English
Church and the Erewhonian Musical Banks. It is
inconceivable how they can have got hold of this idea; but I was
given to understand that I should find it far from easy to
dispossess them of the notion that something in the way of satire
had been intended. There were other parts of the book which
had also been excepted to, and altogether I had reason to believe
that if I defended Christianity in my own name I should not find
<i>Erewhon</i> any addition to the weight which my remarks might
otherwise carry. If I had been suspected of satire once, I
might be suspected again with no greater reason. Instead of
calmly reviewing the arguments which I adduced, <i>The Rock</i>
might have raised a cry of <i>non tali auxilio</i>. It must
always be remembered that besides the legitimate investors in
Christian stocks, if so homely a metaphor may be pardoned, there
are unscrupulous persons whose profession it is to be bulls,
bears, stags, and I know not what other creatures of the various
Christian markets. It is all nonsense about hawks not
picking out each other’s eyes—there is nothing they
like better. I feared <i>The Guardian</i>, <i>The
Record</i>, <i>The John Bull</i>, etc., lest they should suggest
that from a bear I now turned bull with a view to an eventual
bishopric. Such insinuations would have impaired the value
of <i>The Fair Haven</i> as an anchorage for well-meaning
people. I therefore resolved to obey the injunction of the
Gentile Apostle and avoid all appearance of evil, by dissociating
myself from the author of <i>Erewhon</i> as completely as
possible. At the moment of my resolution <span
class="smcap">John Pickard Owen</span> came to my assistance; I
felt that he was the sort of man I wanted, but that he was hardly
sufficient in himself. I therefore summoned his
brother. The pair have served their purpose; a year
nowadays produces great changes in men’s thoughts
concerning Christianity, and the little matter of <i>Erewhon</i>
having quite blown over I feel that I may safely appear in my
true colours as the champion of orthodoxy, discard the <span
class="smcap">Owens</span> as other than mouthpieces, and relieve
the public from uneasiness as to any further writings from the
pen of the surviving brother.</p>
<p>Nevertheless I am bound to own that, in spite of a generally
favourable opinion, my critics have not been unanimous in their
interpretation of <i>The Fair Haven</i>. Thus, <i>The
Rock</i> (April 25, 1873, and May 9, 1873), says that the work is
“an extraordinary one, whether regarded as a biographical
record or a theological treatise. Indeed the importance of
the volume compels us to depart from our custom of reviewing with
brevity works entrusted to us, and we shall in two consecutive
numbers of <i>The Rock</i> lay before its readers what appear to
us to be the merits and demerits of this posthumous
production.”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
<p>“His exhibition of the certain proofs furnished of the
Resurrection of our Lord is certainly masterly and
convincing.”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
<p>“To the sincerely inquiring doubter, the striking way in
which the truth of the Resurrection is exhibited must be most
beneficial, but such a character we are compelled to believe is
rare among those of the schools of neology.”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
<p>“Mr. <span class="smcap">Owen’s</span> exposition
and refutation of the hallucination and mythical theories of
Strauss and his followers is most admirable, and all should read
it who desire to know exactly what excuses men make for their
incredulity. The work also contains many beautiful passages
on the discomfort of unbelief, and the holy pleasure of a settled
faith, which cannot fail to benefit the reader.”</p>
<p>On the other hand, in spite of all my precautions, the same
misfortune which overtook <i>Erewhon</i> has also come upon
<i>The Fair Haven</i>. It has been suspected of a satirical
purpose. The author of a pamphlet entitled <i>Jesus versus
Christianity</i> says:—</p>
<p>“<i>The Fair Haven</i> is an ironical defence of
orthodoxy at the expense of the whole mass of Church tenet and
dogma, the character of Christ only excepted. Such at least
is our reading of it, though critics of the <i>Rock</i> and
<i>Record</i> order have accepted the book as a serious defence
of Christianity, and proclaimed it as a most valuable
contribution in aid of the faith. Affecting an orthodox
standpoint it most bitterly reproaches all previous apologists
for the lack of candour with which they have ignored or explained
away insuperable difficulties and attached undue value to
coincidences real or imagined. One and all they have, the
author declares, been at best, but zealous ‘liars for
God,’ or what to them was more than God, their own
religious system. This must go on no longer. We, as
Christians having a sound cause, need not fear to let the truth
be known. He proceeds accordingly to set forth the truth as
he finds it in the New Testament; and in a masterly analysis of
the account of the Resurrection, which he selects as the
principal crucial miracle, involving all other miracles, he shows
how slender is the foundation on which the whole fabric of
supernatural theology has been reared.”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
<p>“As told by our author the whole affords an exquisite
example of the natural growth of a legend.”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
<p>“If the reader can once fully grasp the intention of the
style, and its affectation of the tone of indignant orthodoxy,
and perceive also how utterly destructive are its ‘candid
admissions’ to the whole fabric of supernaturalism, he will
enjoy a rare treat. It is not however for the purpose of
recommending what we at least regard as a piece of exquisite
humour, that we call attention to <i>The Fair Haven</i>, but
&c. &c.”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
<p>This is very dreadful; but what can one do?</p>
<p>Again, <i>The Scotsman</i> speaks of the writer as being
“throughout in downright almost pathetic
earnestness.” While <i>The National Reformer</i>
seems to be in doubt whether the book is a covert attack upon
Christianity or a serious defence of it, but declares that both
orthodox and unorthodox will find matter requiring thought and
answer.</p>
<p>I am not responsible for the interpretations of my
readers. It is only natural that the same work should
present a very different aspect according as it is approached
from one side or the other. There is only one way out of
it—that the reader should kindly interpret according to his
own fancies. If he will do this the book is sure to please
him. I have done the best I can for all parties, and feel
justified in appealing to the existence of the widely conflicting
opinions which I have quoted, as a proof that the balance has
been evenly held, and that I was justified in calling the book a
defence—both as against impugners and defenders.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">S. <span
class="smcap">Butler</span>.</p>
<p><i>Oct.</i> 8, 1873.</p>
<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>Memoir
of<br />
The late John Pickard Owen</h2>
<h3>Chapter I</h3>
<p><span class="smcap">The</span> subject of this Memoir, and
Author of the work which follows it, was born in Goodge Street,
Tottenham Court Road, London, on the 5th of February, 1832.
He was my elder brother by about eighteen months. Our
father and mother had once been rich, but through a succession of
unavoidable misfortunes they were left with but a very moderate
income when my brother and myself were about three and four years
old. My father died some five or six years afterwards, and
we only recollected him as a singularly gentle and humorous
playmate who doted upon us both and never spoke unkindly.
The charm of such a recollection can never be dispelled; both my
brother and myself returned his love with interest, and cherished
his memory with the most affectionate regret, from the day on
which he left us till the time came that the one of us was again
to see him face to face. So sweet and winning was his
nature that his slightest wish was our law—and whenever we
pleased him, no matter how little, he never failed to thank us as
though we had done him a service which we should have had a
perfect right to withhold. How proud were we upon any of
these occasions, and how we courted the opportunity of being
thanked! He did indeed well know the art of becoming
idolised by his children, and dearly did he prize the results of
his own proficiency; yet truly there was no art about it; all
arose spontaneously from the wellspring of a sympathetic nature
which knew how to feel as others felt, whether old or young, rich
or poor, wise or foolish. On one point alone did he neglect
us—I refer to our religious education. On all other
matters he was the kindest and most careful teacher in the
world. Love and gratitude be to his memory!</p>
<p>My mother loved us no less ardently than my father, but she
was of a quicker temper, and less adept at conciliating
affection. She must have been exceedingly handsome when she
was young, and was still comely when we first remembered her; she
was also highly accomplished, but she felt my father’s loss
of fortune more keenly than my father himself, and it preyed upon
her mind, though rather for our sake than for her own. Had
we not known my father we should have loved her better than any
one in the world, but affection goes by comparison, and my father
spoiled us for any one but himself; indeed, in after life, I
remember my mother’s telling me, with many tears, how
jealous she had often been of the love we bore him, and how mean
she had thought it of him to entrust all scolding or repression
to her, so that he might have more than his due share of our
affection. Not that I believe my father did this
consciously; still, he so greatly hated scolding that I dare say
we might often have got off scot free when we really deserved
reproof had not my mother undertaken the <i>onus</i> of scolding
us herself. We therefore naturally feared her more than my
father, and fearing more we loved less. For as love casteth
out fear, so fear love.</p>
<p>This must have been hard to bear, and my mother scarcely knew
the way to bear it. She tried to upbraid us, in little
ways, into loving her as much as my father; the more she tried
this, the less we could succeed in doing it; and so on and so on
in a fashion which need not be detailed. Not but what we
really loved her deeply, while her affection for us was
unsurpassable still, we loved her less than we loved my father,
and this was the grievance.</p>
<p>My father entrusted our religious education entirely to my
mother. He was himself, I am assured, of a deeply religious
turn of mind, and a thoroughly consistent member of the Church of
England; but he conceived, and perhaps rightly, that it is the
mother who should first teach her children to lift their hands in
prayer, and impart to them a knowledge of the One in whom we live
and move and have our being. My mother accepted the task
gladly, for in spite of a certain narrowness of view—the
natural but deplorable result of her earlier
surroundings—she was one of the most truly pious women whom
I have ever known; unfortunately for herself and us she had been
trained in the lowest school of Evangelical literalism—a
school which in after life both my brother and myself came to
regard as the main obstacle to the complete overthrow of
unbelief; we therefore looked upon it with something stronger
than aversion, and for my own part I still deem it perhaps the
most insidious enemy which the cause of Christ has ever
encountered. But of this more hereafter.</p>
<p>My mother, as I said, threw her whole soul into the work of
our religious education. Whatever she believed she believed
literally, and, if I may say so, with a harshness of realisation
which left very little scope for imagination or mystery.
Her plans of Heaven and solutions of life’s enigmas were
direct and forcible, but they could only be reconciled with
certain obvious facts—such as the omnipotence and
all-goodness of God—by leaving many things absolutely out
of sight. And this my mother succeeded effectually in
doing. She never doubted that her opinions comprised the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; she therefore
made haste to sow the good seed in our tender minds, and so far
succeeded that when my brother was four years old he could repeat
the Apostles’ Creed, the General Confession, and the
Lord’s Prayer without a blunder. My mother made
herself believe that he delighted in them; but, alas! it was far
otherwise; for, strange as it may appear concerning one whose
later life was a continual prayer, in childhood he detested
nothing so much as being made to pray and to learn his
Catechism. In this I am sorry to say we were both heartily
of a mind. As for Sunday, the less said the better.</p>
<p>I have already hinted (but as a warning to other parents I had
better, perhaps, express myself more plainly), that this aversion
was probably the result of my mother’s undue eagerness to
reap an artificial fruit of lip service, which could have little
meaning to the heart of one so young. I believe that the
severe check which the natural growth of faith experienced in my
brother’s case was due almost entirely to this cause, and
to the school of literalism in which he had been trained; but,
however this may be, we both of us hated being made to say our
prayers—morning and evening it was our one bugbear, and we
would avoid it, as indeed children generally will, by every
artifice which we could employ. Thus we were in the habit
of feigning to be asleep shortly before prayer time, and would
gratefully hear my father tell my mother that it was a shame to
wake us; whereon he would carry us up to bed in a state
apparently of the profoundest slumber when we were really wide
awake and in great fear of detection. For we knew how to
pretend to be asleep, but we did not know how we ought to wake
again; there was nothing for it therefore when we were once
committed, but to go on sleeping till we were fairly undressed
and put to bed, and could wake up safely in the dark. But
deceit is never long successful, and we were at last
ignominiously exposed.</p>
<p>It happened one evening that my mother suspected my brother
John, and tried to open his little hands which were lying clasped
in front of him. Now my brother was as yet very crude and
inconsistent in his theories concerning sleep, and had no
conception of what a real sleeper would do under these
circumstances. Fear deprived him of his powers of
reflection, and he thus unfortunately concluded that because
sleepers, so far as he had observed them, were always motionless,
therefore, they must be quite rigid and incapable of motion, and
indeed that any movement, under any circumstances (for from his
earliest childhood he liked to carry his theories to their
legitimate conclusion), would be physically impossible for one
who was really sleeping; forgetful, oh! unhappy one, of the
flexibility of his own body on being carried upstairs, and, more
unhappy still, ignorant of the art of waking. He,
therefore, clenched his fingers harder and harder as he felt my
mother trying to unfold them while his head hung listless, and
his eyes were closed I as though he were sleeping sweetly.
It is needless to detail the agony of shame that followed.
My mother begged my father to box his ears, which my father
flatly refused to do. Then she boxed them herself, and
there followed a scene and a day or two of disgrace for both of
us.</p>
<p>Shortly after this there happened another misadventure.
A lady came to stay with my mother, and was to sleep in a bed
that had been brought into our nursery, for my father’s
fortunes had already failed, and we were living in a humble
way. We were still but four and five years old, so the
arrangement was not unnatural, and it was assumed that we should
be asleep before the lady went to bed, and be downstairs before
she would get up in the morning. But the arrival of this
lady and her being put to sleep in the nursery were great events
to us in those days, and being particularly wanted to go to
sleep, we of course sat up in bed talking and keeping ourselves
awake till she should come upstairs. Perhaps we had fancied
that she would give us something, but if so we were
disappointed. However, whether this was the case or not, we
were wide awake when our visitor came to bed, and having no
particular object to gain, we made no pretence of sleeping.
The lady kissed us both, told us to lie still and go to sleep
like good children, and then began doing her hair.</p>
<p>I remember that this was the occasion on which my brother
discovered a good many things in connection with the fair sex
which had hitherto been beyond his ken; more especially that the
mass of petticoats and clothes which envelop the female form were
not, as he expressed it to me, “all solid woman,” but
that women were not in reality more substantially built than men,
and had legs as much as he had, a fact which he had never yet
realised. On this he for a long time considered them as
impostors, who had wronged him by leading him to suppose that
they had far more “body in them” (so he said), than
he now found they had. This was a sort of thing which he
regarded with stern moral reprobation. If he had been old
enough to have a solicitor I believe he would have put the matter
into his hands, as well as certain other things which had lately
troubled him. For but recently my mother had bought a fowl,
and he had seen it plucked, and the inside taken out; his
irritation had been extreme on discovering that fowls were not
all solid flesh, but that their insides—and these formed,
as it appeared to him, an enormous percentage of the
bird—were perfectly useless. He was now beginning to
understand that sheep and cows were also hollow as far as good
meat was concerned; the flesh they had was only a mouthful in
comparison with what they ought to have considering their
apparent bulk—insignificant, mere skin and bone covering a
cavern. What right had they, or anything else, to assert
themselves as so big, and prove so empty? And now this
discovery of woman’s falsehood was quite too much for
him. The world itself was hollow, made up of shams and
delusions, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.</p>
<p>Truly a prosaic young gentleman enough. Everything with
him was to be exactly in all its parts what it appeared on the
face of it, and everything was to go on doing exactly what it had
been doing hitherto. If a thing looked solid, it was to be
very solid; if hollow, very hollow; nothing was to be half and
half, and nothing was to change unless he had himself already
become accustomed to its times and manners of changing; there
were to be no exceptions and no contradictions; all things were
to be perfectly consistent, and all premises to be carried with
extremest rigour to their legitimate conclusions. Heaven
was to be very neat (for he was always tidy himself), and free
from sudden shocks to the nervous system, such as those caused by
dogs barking at him, or cows driven in the streets. God was
to resemble my father, and the Holy Spirit to bear some sort of
indistinct analogy to my mother.</p>
<p>Such were the ideal theories of his
childhood—unconsciously formed, but very firmly believed
in. As he grew up he made such modifications as were forced
upon him by enlarged perceptions, but every modification was an
effort to him, in spite of a continual and successful resistance
to what he recognised as his initial mental defect.</p>
<p>I may perhaps be allowed to say here, in reference to a remark
in the preceding paragraph, that both my brother and myself used
to notice it as an almost invariable rule that children’s
earliest ideas of God are modelled upon the character of their
father—if they have one. Should the father be kind,
considerate, full of the warmest love, fond of showing it, and
reserved only about his displeasure, the child having learned to
look upon God as His Heavenly Father through the Lord’s
Prayer and our Church Services, will feel towards God as he does
towards his own father; this conception will stick to a man for
years and years after he has attained manhood—probably it
will never leave him. For all children love their fathers
and mothers, if these last will only let them; it is not a little
unkindness that will kill so hardy a plant as the love of a child
for its parents. Nature has allowed ample margin for many
blunders, provided there be a genuine desire on the
parent’s part to make the child feel that he is loved, and
that his natural feelings are respected. This is all the
religious education which a child should have. As he grows
older he will then turn naturally to the waters of life, and
thirst after them of his own accord by reason of the spiritual
refreshment which they, and they only, can afford.
Otherwise he will shrink from them, on account of his
recollection of the way in which he was led down to drink against
his will, and perhaps with harshness, when all the analogies with
which he was acquainted pointed in the direction of their being
unpleasant and unwholesome. So soul-satisfying is family
affection to a child, that he who has once enjoyed it cannot bear
to be deprived of the hope that he is possessed in Heaven of a
parent who is like his earthly father—of a friend and
counsellor who will never, never fail him. There is no such
religious nor moral education as kindly genial treatment and a
good example; all else may then be let alone till the child is
old enough to feel the want of it. It is true that the seed
will thus be sown late, but in what a soil! On the other
hand, if a man has found his earthly father harsh and
uncongenial, his conception of his Heavenly Parent will be
painful. He will begin by seeing God as an exaggerated
likeness of his father. He will therefore shrink from
Him. The rottenness of stillborn love in the heart of a
child poisons the blood of the soul, and hence, later, crime.</p>
<p>To return, however, to the lady. When she had put on her
night-gown, she knelt down by her bedside and, to our
consternation, began to say her prayers. This was a cruel
blow to both of us; we had always been under the impression that
grownup people were not made to say their prayers, and the idea
of any one saying them of his or her own accord had never
occurred to us as possible. Of course the lady would not
say her prayers if she were not obliged; and yet she did say
them; therefore she must be obliged to say them; therefore we
should be obliged to say them, and this was a very great
disappointment. Awe-struck and open-mouthed we listened
while the lady prayed in sonorous accents, for many things which
I do not now remember, and finally for my father and mother and
for both of us—shortly afterwards she rose, blew out the
light and got into bed. Every word that she said had
confirmed our worst apprehensions; it was just what we had been
taught to say ourselves.</p>
<p>Next morning we compared notes and drew the most painful
inferences; but in the course of the day our spirits
rallied. We agreed that there were many mysteries in
connection with life and things which it was high time to
unravel, and that an opportunity was now afforded us which might
not readily occur again. All we had to do was to be true to
ourselves and equal to the occasion. We laid our plans with
great astuteness. We would be fast asleep when the lady
came up to bed, but our heads should be turned in the direction
of her bed, and covered with clothes, all but a single
peep-hole. My brother, as the eldest, had clearly a right
to be nearest the lady, but I could see very well, and could
depend on his reporting faithfully whatever should escape me.</p>
<p>There was no chance of her giving us anything—if she had
meant to do so she would have done it sooner; she might, indeed,
consider the moment of her departure as the most auspicious for
this purpose, but then she was not going yet, and the interval
was at our own disposal. We spent the afternoon in trying
to learn to snore, but we were not certain about it, and in the
end regretfully concluded that as snoring was not <i>de
rigueur</i> we had better dispense with it.</p>
<p>We were put to bed; the light was taken away; we were told to
go to sleep, and promised faithfully that we would do so; the
tongue indeed swore, but the mind was unsworn. It was
agreed that we should keep pinching one another to prevent our
going to sleep. We did so at frequent intervals; at last
our patience was rewarded with the heavy creak, as of a stout
elderly lady labouring up the stairs, and presently our victim
entered.</p>
<p>To cut a long story short, the lady on satisfying herself that
we were asleep, never said her prayers at all; during the
remainder of her visit whenever she found us awake she always
said them, but when she thought we were asleep, she never
prayed. It is needless to add that we had the matter out
with her before she left, and that the consequences were
unpleasant for all parties; they added to the troubles in which
we were already involved as to our prayers, and were indirectly
among the earliest causes which led my brother to look with
scepticism upon religion.</p>
<p>For a while, however, all went on as though nothing had
happened. An effect of distrust, indeed, remained after the
cause had been forgotten, but my brother was still too young to
oppose anything that my mother told him, and to all outward
appearance he grew in grace no less rapidly than in stature.</p>
<p>For years we led a quiet and eventless life, broken only by
the one great sorrow of our father’s death. Shortly
after this we were sent to a day school in Bloomsbury. We
were neither of us very happy there, but my brother, who always
took kindly to his books, picked up a fair knowledge of Latin and
Greek; he also learned to draw, and to exercise himself a little
in English composition. When I was about fourteen my mother
capitalised a part of her income and started me off to America,
where she had friends who could give me a helping hand; by their
kindness I was enabled, after an absence of twenty years, to
return with a handsome income, but not, alas, before the death of
my mother.</p>
<p>Up to the time of my departure my mother continued to read the
Bible with us and explain it. She had become deeply
impressed with the millenarian fervour which laid hold of so many
some twenty-five or thirty years ago. The Apocalypse was
perhaps her favourite book in the Bible, and she was imbued with
the fullest conviction that all the threatened horrors with which
it teems were upon the eve of their accomplishment. The
year eighteen hundred and forty-eight was to be (as indeed it
was) a time of general bloodshed and confusion, while in eighteen
hundred and sixty-six, should it please God to spare her, her
eyes would be gladdened by the visible descent of the Son of Man
with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, with the trump of
God; and the dead in Christ should rise first; then she, as one
of them that were alive, would be caught up with other saints
into the air, and would possibly receive while rising some
distinguishing token of confidence and approbation which should
fall with due impressiveness upon the surrounding multitude; then
would come the consummation of all things, and she would be ever
with the Lord. She died peaceably in her bed before she
could know that a commercial panic was the nearest approach to
the fulfilment of prophecy which the year eighteen hundred and
sixty-six brought forth.</p>
<p>These opinions of my mother’s were positively
disastrous—injuring her naturally healthy and vigorous mind
by leading her to indulge in all manner of dreamy and fanciful
interpretations of Scripture, which any but the most narrow
literalist would feel at once to be untenable. Thus several
times she expressed to us her conviction that my brother and
myself were to be the two witnesses mentioned in the eleventh
chapter of the Book of Revelation, and dilated upon the
gratification she should experience upon finding that we had
indeed been reserved for a position of such distinction. We
were as yet mere children, and naturally took all for granted
that our mother told us; we therefore made a careful examination
of the passage which threw light upon our future; but on finding
that the prospect was gloomy and full of bloodshed we protested
against the honours which were intended for us, more especially
when we reflected that the mother of the two witnesses was not
menaced in Scripture with any particular discomfort. If we
were to be martyrs, my mother ought to wish to be a martyr too,
whereas nothing was farther from her intention. Her notion
clearly was that we were to be massacred somewhere in the streets
of London, in consequence of the anti-Christian machinations of
the Pope; that after lying about unburied for three days and a
half we were to come to life again; and, finally, that we should
conspicuously ascend to heaven, in front, perhaps, of the
Foundling Hospital.</p>
<p>She was not herself indeed to share either our martyrdom or
our glorification, but was to survive us many years on earth,
living in an odour of great sanctity and reflected splendour, as
the central and most august figure in a select society. She
would perhaps be able indirectly, through her sons’
influence with the Almighty, to have a voice in most of the
arrangements both of this world and of the next. If all
this were to come true (and things seemed very like it), those
friends who had neglected us in our adversity would not find it
too easy to be restored to favour, however greatly they might
desire it—that is to say, they would not have found it too
easy in the case of one less magnanimous and spiritually-minded
than herself. My mother said but little of the above
directly, but the fragments which occasionally escaped her were
pregnant, and on looking back it is easy to perceive that she
must have been building one of the most stupendous aerial fabrics
that have ever been reared.</p>
<p>I have given the above in its more amusing aspect, and am half
afraid that I may appear to be making a jest of weakness on the
part of one of the most devotedly unselfish mothers who have ever
existed. But one can love while smiling, and the very
wildness of my mother’s dream serves to show how entirely
her whole soul was occupied with the things which are
above. To her, religion was all in all; the earth was but a
place of pilgrimage—only so far important as it was a
possible road to heaven. She impressed this upon both of us
by every word and action—instant in season and out of
season, so that she might fill us more deeply with a sense of
God. But the inevitable consequences happened; my mother
had aimed too high and had overshot her mark. The influence
indeed of her guileless and unworldly nature remained impressed
upon my brother even during the time of his extremest unbelief
(perhaps his ultimate safety is in the main referable to this
cause, and to the happy memories of my father, which had
predisposed him to love God), but my mother had insisted on the
most minute verbal accuracy of every part of the Bible; she had
also dwelt upon the duty of independent research, and on the
necessity of giving up everything rather than assent to things
which our conscience did not assent to. No one could have
more effectually taught us to try <i>to think</i> the truth, and
we had taken her at her word because our hearts told us that she
was right. But she required three incompatible
things. When my brother grew older he came to feel that
independent and unflinching examination, with a determination to
abide by the results, would lead him to reject the point which to
my mother was more important than any other—I mean the
absolute accuracy of the Gospel records. My mother was
inexpressibly shocked at hearing my brother doubt the
authenticity of the Epistle to the Hebrews; and then, as it
appeared to him, she tried to make him violate the duties of
examination and candour which he had learnt too thoroughly to
unlearn. Thereon came pain and an estrangement which was
none the less profound for being mutually concealed.</p>
<p>This estrangement was the gradual work of some five or six
years, during which my brother was between eleven and seventeen
years old. At seventeen, I am told that he was remarkably
well informed and clever. His manners were, like my
father’s, singularly genial, and his appearance very
prepossessing. He had as yet no doubt concerning the
soundness of any fundamental Christian doctrine, but his mind was
too active to allow of his being contented with my mother’s
child-like faith. There were points on which he did not
indeed doubt, but which it would none the less be interesting to
consider; such for example as the perfectibility of the
regenerate Christian, and the meaning of the mysterious central
chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. He was engaged in
these researches though still only a boy, when an event occurred
which gave the first real shock to his faith.</p>
<p>He was accustomed to teach in a school for the poorest
children every Sunday afternoon, a task for which his patience
and good temper well fitted him. On one occasion, however,
while he was explaining the effect of baptism to one of his
favourite pupils, he discovered to his great surprise that the
boy had never been baptised. He pushed his inquiries
further, and found that out of the fifteen boys in his class only
five had been baptised, and, not only so, but that no difference
in disposition or conduct could be discovered between the
regenerate boys and the unregenerate. The good and bad boys
were distributed in proportions equal to the respective numbers
of the baptised and unbaptised. In spite of a certain
impetuosity of natural character, he was also of a matter-of-fact
and experimental turn of mind; he therefore went through the
whole school, which numbered about a hundred boys, and found out
who had been baptised and who had not. The same results
appeared. The majority had not been baptised; yet the good
and bad dispositions were so distributed as to preclude all
possibility of maintaining that the baptised boys were better
than the unbaptised.</p>
<p>The reader may smile at the idea of any one’s faith
being troubled by a fact of which the explanation is so obvious,
but in truth my brother was seriously and painfully
shocked. The teacher to whom he applied for a solution of
the difficulty was not a man of any real power, and reported my
brother to the rector for having disturbed the school by his
inquiries. The rector was old and self-opinionated; the
difficulty, indeed, was plainly as new to him as it had been to
my brother, but instead of saying so at once, and referring to
any recognised theological authority, he tried to put him off
with words which seemed intended to silence him rather than to
satisfy him; finally he lost his temper, and my brother fell
under suspicion of unorthodoxy.</p>
<p>This kind of treatment might answer with some people, but not
with my brother. He alludes to it resentfully in the
introductory chapter of his book. He became suspicious that
a preconceived opinion was being defended at the expense of
honest scrutiny, and was thus driven upon his own unaided
investigation. The result may be guessed: he began to go
astray, and strayed further and further. The children of
God, he reasoned, the members of Christ and inheritors of the
kingdom of Heaven, were no more spiritually minded than the
children of the world and the devil. Was then the grace of
God a gift which left no trace whatever upon those who were
possessed of it—a thing the presence or absence of which
might be ascertained by consulting the parish registry, but was
not discernible in conduct? The grace of man was more
clearly perceptible than this. Assuredly there must be a
screw loose somewhere, which, for aught he knew, might be
jeopardising the salvation of all Christendom. Where then
was this loose screw to be found?</p>
<p>He concluded after some months of reflection that the mischief
was caused by the system of sponsors and by infant baptism.
He therefore, to my mother’s inexpressible grief, joined
the Baptists and was immersed in a pond near Dorking. With
the Baptists he remained quiet about three months, and then began
to quarrel with his instructors as to their doctrine of
predestination. Shortly afterwards he came accidentally
upon a fascinating stranger who was no less struck with my
brother than my brother with him, and this gentleman, who turned
out to be a Roman Catholic missionary, landed him in the Church
of Rome, where he felt sure that he had now found rest for his
soul. But here, too, he was mistaken; after about two years
he rebelled against the stifling of all free inquiry; on this
rebellion the flood-gates of scepticism were opened, and he was
soon battling with unbelief. He then fell in with one who
was a pure Deist, and was shorn of every shred of dogma which he
had ever held, except a belief in the personality and providence
of the Creator.</p>
<p>On reviewing his letters written to me about this time, I am
painfully struck with the manner in which they show that all
these pitiable vagaries were to be traced to a single
cause—a cause which still exists to the misleading of
hundreds of thousands, and which, I fear, seems likely to
continue in full force for many a year to come—I mean, to a
false system of training which teaches people to regard
Christianity as a thing one and indivisible, to be accepted
entirely in the strictest reading of the letter, or to be
rejected as absolutely untrue. The fact is, that all
permanent truth is as one of those coal measures, a seam of which
lies near the surface, and even crops up above the ground, but
which is generally of an inferior quality and soon worked out;
beneath it there comes a layer of sand and clay, and then at last
the true seam of precious quality and in virtually inexhaustible
supply. The truth which is on the surface is rarely the
whole truth. It is seldom until this has been worked out
and done with—as in the case of the apparent flatness of
the earth—that unchangeable truth is discovered. It
is the glory of the Lord to conceal a matter: it is the glory of
the king to find it out. If my brother, from whom I have
taken the above illustration, had had some judicious and
wide-minded friend to correct and supplement the mainly admirable
principles which had been instilled into him by my mother, he
would have been saved years of spiritual wandering; but, as it
was, he fell in with one after another, each in his own way as
literal and unspiritual as the other—each impressed with
one aspect of religious truth, and with one only. In the
end he became perhaps the widest-minded and most original thinker
whom I have ever met; but no one from his early manhood could
have augured this result; on the contrary, he shewed every sign
of being likely to develop into one of those who can never see
more than one side of a question at a time, in spite of their
seeing that side with singular clearness of mental vision.
In after life, he often met with mere lads who seemed to him to
be years and years in advance of what he had been at their age,
and would say, smiling, “With a great sum obtained I this
freedom; but thou wast free-born.”</p>
<p>Yet when one comes to think of it, a late development and
laborious growth are generally more fruitful than those which are
over-early luxuriant. Drawing an illustration from the art
of painting, with which he was well acquainted, my brother used
to say that all the greatest painters had begun with a hard and
precise manner from which they had only broken after several
years of effort; and that in like manner all the early schools
were founded upon definiteness of outline to the exclusion of
truth of effect. This may be true; but in my
brother’s case there was something even more unpromising
than this; there was a commonness, so to speak, of mental
execution, from which no one could have foreseen his
after-emancipation. Yet in the course of time he was indeed
emancipated to the very uttermost, while his bonds will, I firmly
trust, be found to have been of inestimable service to the whole
human race.</p>
<p>For although it was so many years before he was enabled to see
the Christian scheme <i>as a whole</i>, or even to conceive the
idea that there was any whole at all, other than each one of the
stages of opinion through which he was at the time passing; yet
when the idea was at length presented to him by one whom I must
not name, the discarded fragments of his faith assumed shape, and
formed themselves into a consistently organised scheme.
Then became apparent the value of his knowledge of the details of
so many different sides of Christian verity. Buried in the
details, he had hitherto ignored the fact that they were only the
unessential developments of certain component parts.
Awakening to the perception of the whole after an intimate
acquaintance with the details, he was able to realise the
position and meaning of all that he had hitherto experienced in a
way which has been vouchsafed to few, if any others.</p>
<p>Thus he became truly a broad Churchman. Not broad in the
ordinary and ill-considered use of the term (for the broad
Churchman is as little able to sympathise with Romanists, extreme
High Churchmen and Dissenters, as these are with himself—he
is only one of a sect which is called by the name broad, though
it is no broader than its own base), but in the true sense of
being able to believe in the naturalness, legitimacy, and truth
<i>quâ</i> Christianity even of those doctrines which seem
to stand most widely and irreconcilably asunder.</p>
<h3>Chapter II</h3>
<p><span class="smcap">But</span> it was impossible that a mind
of such activity should have gone over so much ground, and yet in
the end returned to the same position as that from which it
started.</p>
<p>So far was this from being the case that the Christianity of
his maturer life would be considered dangerously heterodox by
those who belong to any of the more definite or precise schools
of theological thought. He was as one who has made the
circuit of a mountain, and yet been ascending during the whole
time of his doing so: such a person finds himself upon the same
side as at first, but upon a greatly higher level. The
peaks which had seemed the most important when he was in the
valley were now dwarfed to their true proportions by colossal
cloud-capped masses whose very existence could not have been
suspected from beneath: and again, other points which had seemed
among the lowest turned out to be the very highest of
all—as the Finster-Aarhorn, which hides itself away in the
centre of the Bernese Alps, is never seen to be the greatest till
one is high and far off.</p>
<p>Thus he felt no sort of fear or repugnance in admitting that
the New Testament writings, as we now have them, are not by any
means accurate records of the events which they profess to
chronicle. This, which few English Churchmen would be
prepared to admit, was to him so much of an axiom that he
despaired of seeing any sound theological structure raised until
it was universally recognised.</p>
<p>And here he would probably meet with sympathy from the more
advanced thinkers within the body of the Church, but so far as I
know, he stood alone as recognising the wisdom of the Divine
counsels in having ordained the wide and apparently
irreconcilable divergencies of doctrine and character which we
find assigned to Christ in the Gospels, and as finding his faith
confirmed, not by the supposition that both the portraits drawn
of Christ are objectively true, but <i>that both are objectively
inaccurate</i>, <i>and that the Almighty intended they should be
inaccurate</i>, inasmuch as the true spiritual conception in the
mind of man could be indirectly more certainly engendered by a
strife, a warring, a clashing, so to speak, of versions, all of
them distorting slightly some one or other of the features of the
original, than directly by the most absolutely correct impression
which human language could convey. Even the most perfect
human speech, as has been often pointed out, is a very gross and
imperfect vehicle of thought. I remember once hearing him
say that it was not till he was nearly thirty that he discovered
“what thick and sticky fluids were air and water,”
how crass and dull in comparison with other more subtle fluids;
he added that speech had no less deceived him, seeming, as it
did, to be such a perfect messenger of thought, and being after
all nothing but a shuffler and a loiterer.</p>
<p>With most men the Gospels are true in spite of their
discrepancies and inconsistencies; with him Christianity, as
distinguished from a bare belief in the objectively historical
character of each part of the Gospels, was true because of these
very discrepancies; as his conceptions of the Divine manner of
working became wider, the very forces which had at one time
shaken his faith to its foundations established it anew upon a
firmer and broader base. He was gradually led to feel that
the ideal presented by the life and death of our Saviour could
never have been accepted by Jews at all, if its whole purport had
been made intelligible during the Redeemer’s life-time;
that in order to insure its acceptance by a nucleus of followers
it must have been endowed with a more local aspect than it was
intended afterwards to wear; yet that, for the sake of its
subsequent universal value, the destruction of that local
complexion was indispensable; that the corruptions inseparable
from <i>vivâ voce</i> communication and imperfect education
were the means adopted by the Creator to blur the details of the
ideal, and give it that breadth which could not be otherwise
obtainable—and that thus the value of the ideal was
indefinitely enhanced, and <i>designedly enhanced</i>, alike by
the waste of time and by its incrustations; that all ideals gain
by a certain amount of vagueness, which allows the beholder to
fill in the details according to his own spiritual needs, and
that no ideal can be truly universal and permanents unless it
have an elasticity which will allow of this process in the minds
of those who contemplate it; that it cannot become thus elastic
unless by the loss of no inconsiderable amount of detail, and
that thus the half, as Dr. Arnold used to say, “becomes
greater than the whole,” the sketch more preciously
suggestive than the photograph. Hence far from deploring
the fragmentary, confused, and contradictory condition of the
Gospel records, he saw in this condition the means whereby alone
the human mind could have been enabled to conceive—not the
precise nature of Christ—but <i>the highest ideal of which
each individual Christian soul was capable</i>. As soon as
he had grasped these conceptions, which will be found more fully
developed in one of the later chapters of his book, the spell of
unbelief was broken.</p>
<p>But, once broken, it was dissolved utterly and entirely; he
could allow himself to contemplate fearlessly all sorts of issues
from which one whose experiences had been less varied would have
shrunk. He was free of the enemy’s camp, and could go
hither and thither whithersoever he would. The very points
which to others were insuperable difficulties were to him
foundation-stones of faith. For example, to the objection
that if in the present state of the records no clear conception
of the nature of Christ’s life and teaching could be
formed, we should be compelled to take one for our model of whom
we knew little or nothing certain, I have heard him answer,
“And so much the better for us all. The truth, if
read by the light of man’s imperfect understanding, would
have been falser to him than any falsehood. It would have
been truth no longer. <i>Better be led aright by an error
which is so adjusted as to compensate for the errors in
man’s powers of understanding</i>, <i>than be misled by a
truth which can never be translated from objectivity to
subjectivity</i>. In such a case, it is the error which is
the truth and the truth the error.”</p>
<p>Fearless himself, he could not understand the fears felt by
others; and this was perhaps his greatest sympathetic
weakness. He was impatient of the subterfuges with which
untenable interpretations of Scripture were defended, and of the
disingenuousness of certain harmonists; indeed, the mention of
the word harmony was enough to kindle an outbreak of righteous
anger, which would sometimes go to the utmost limit of
righteousness. “Harmonies!” he would exclaim,
“the sweetest harmonies are those which are most full of
discords, and the discords of one generation of musicians become
heavenly music in the hands of their successors. Which of
the great musicians has not enriched his art not only by the
discovery of new harmonies, but by proving that sounds which are
actually inharmonious are nevertheless essentially and eternally
delightful? What an outcry has there not always been
against the ‘unwarrantable licence’ with the rules of
harmony whenever a Beethoven or a Mozart has broken through any
of the trammels which have been regarded as the safeguards of the
art, instead of in their true light of fetters, and how
gratefully have succeeding musicians acquiesced in and adopted
the innovation.” Then would follow a tirade with
illustration upon illustration, comparison of this passage with
that, and an exhaustive demonstration that one or other, or both,
could have had no sort of possible foundation in fact; he could
only see that the persons from whom he differed were defending
something which was untrue and which they ought to have known to
be untrue, but he could not see that people ought to know many
things which they do not know.</p>
<p>Had he himself seen all that he ought to have been able to see
from his own standpoints? Can any of us do so? The
force of early bias and education, the force of intellectual
surroundings, the force of natural timidity, the force of
dulness, were things which he could appreciate and make allowance
for in any other age, and among any other people than his own;
but as belonging to England and the Nineteenth Century they had
no place in his theory of Nature; they were inconceivable,
unnatural, unpardonable, whenever they came into contact with the
subject of Christian evidences. Deplorable, indeed, they
are, but this was just the sort of word to which he could not
confine himself. The criticisms upon the late Dean
Alford’s notes, which will be given in the sequel, display
this sort of temper; they are not entirely his own, but he
adopted them and endorsed them with a warmth which we cannot but
feel to be unnecessary, not to say more. Yet I am free to
confess that whatever editorial licence I could venture to take
has been taken in the direction of lenity.</p>
<p>On the whole, however, he valued Dean Alford’s work very
highly, giving him great praise for the candour with which he not
unfrequently set the harmonists aside. For example, in his
notes upon the discrepancies between St. Luke’s and St.
Matthew’s accounts of the early life of our Lord, the Dean
openly avows that it is quite beyond his purpose to attempt to
reconcile the two. “This part of the Gospel
history,” he writes, “is one where the harmonists, by
their arbitrary reconcilement of the two accounts, have given
great advantage to the enemies of the faith. <i>As the two
accounts now stand</i>, it is wholly impossible to suggest any
satisfactory method of <i>uniting them</i>, every one who has
attempted it has in some part or other of his hypothesis violated
probability and common sense,” but in spite of this, the
Dean had no hesitation in accepting both the accounts. With
reference to this the author of <i>The Jesus of History</i>
(Williams and Norgate, 1866)—a work to which my brother
admitted himself to be under very great obligations, and which he
greatly admired, in spite of his utter dissent from the main
conclusion arrived at, has the following note:—</p>
<p>“Dean Alford, N.T. for English readers, admits that the
narratives as they stand are contradictory, but he believes
both. He is even severe upon the harmonists who attempt to
frame schemes of reconciliation between the two, on account of
the triumph they thus furnish to the ‘enemies of the
faith,’ a phrase which seems to imply all who believe less
than he does. The Dean, however, forgets that the faith
which can believe two (apparently) contradictory propositions in
matters of fact is a very rare gift, and that for one who is so
endowed there are thousands who can be satisfied with a plausible
though demonstrably false explanation. To the latter class
the despised harmonists render a real service.”</p>
<p>Upon this note my brother was very severe. In a letter,
dated Dec. 18, 1866, addressed to a friend who had alluded to it,
and expressed his concurrence with it as in the main just, my
brother wrote: “You are wrong about the note in <i>The
Jesus of History</i>, there is more of the Christianity of the
future in Dean Alford’s indifference to the harmony between
the discordant accounts of Luke and Matthew than there would have
been <i>even in the most convincing and satisfactory</i>
explanation of the way in which they came to differ. No
such explanation is possible; both the Dean and the author of
<i>The Jesus of History</i> were very well aware of this, but the
latter is unjust in assuming that his opponent was not alive to
the absurdity of appearing to believe two contradictory
propositions at one and the same time. The Dean takes very
good care that he shall not appear to do this, for it is
perfectly plain to any careful reader that he must really believe
that one or both narratives are inaccurate, inasmuch as the
differences between them are too great to allow of reconciliation
by a supposed suppression of detail.</p>
<p>“This, though not said so clearly as it should have
been, is yet virtually implied in the admission that no sort of
fact which could by any possibility be admitted as reconciling
them had ever occurred to human ingenuity; what, then, Dean
Alford must have really felt was that the spiritual value of each
account was no less precious for not being in strict accordance
with the other; that the objective truth lies somewhere between
them, and is of very little importance, being long dead and
buried, and living in its results only, in comparison with the
subjective truth conveyed by both the narratives, which lives in
our hearts independently of precise knowledge concerning the
actual facts. Moreover, that though both accounts may
perhaps be inaccurate, yet that <i>a very little</i> natural
inaccuracy on the part of each writer would throw them apparently
very wide asunder, that such inaccuracies are easily to be
accounted for, and would, in fact, be inevitable in the sixty
years of oral communication which elapsed between the birth of
our Lord and the writing of the first Gospel, and again in the
eighty or ninety years prior to the third, so that the details of
the facts connected with the conception, birth, genealogy, and
earliest history of our Saviour are irrecoverable—a general
impression being alone possible, or indeed desirable.</p>
<p>“It might perhaps have been more satisfactory if Dean
Alford had expressed the above more plainly; but if he had done
this, who would have read his book? Where would have been
that influence in the direction of truly liberal Christianity
which has been so potent during the last twenty years? As
it was, the freedom with which the Dean wrote was the cause of no
inconsiderable scandal. Or, again, he may not have been
fully conscious of his own position: few men are; he had taken
the right one, but more perhaps by spiritual instinct than by
conscious and deliberate exercise of his intellectual
faculties. Finally, compromise is not a matter of good
policy only, it is a solemn duty in the interests of Christian
peace, and this not in minor matters only—we can all do
this much—but in those concerning which we feel most
strongly, for here the sacrifice is greatest and most acceptable
to God. There are, of course, limits to this, and Dean
Alford may have carried compromise too far in the present
instance, but it is very transparent. The narrowness which
leads the author of <i>The Jesus of History</i> to strain at such
a gnat is the secret of his inability to accept the divinity and
miracles of our Lord, and has marred the most exhaustively
critical exegesis of the life and death of our Saviour with an
impotent conclusion.”</p>
<p>It is strange that one who could write thus should
occasionally have shown himself so little able to apply his own
principles. He seems to have been alternately under the
influence of two conflicting spirits—at one time writing as
though there were nothing precious under the sun except logic,
consistency, and precision, and breathing fire and smoke against
even very trifling deviations from the path of exact
criticism—at another, leading the reader almost to believe
that he disregarded the value of any objective truth, and
speaking of endeavour after accuracy in terms that are positively
contemptuous. Whenever he was in the one mood he seemed to
forget the possibility of any other; so much so that I have
sometimes thought that he did this deliberately and for the same
reasons as those which led Adam Smith to exclude one set of
premises in his <i>Theory of Moral Sentiments</i> and another in
his <i>Wealth of Nations</i>. I believe, however, that the
explanation lies in the fact that my brother was inclined to
underrate the importance of belief in the objective truth of any
other individual features in the life of our Lord than his
Resurrection and Ascension. All else seemed dwarfed by the
side of these events. His whole soul was so concentrated
upon the centre of the circle that he forgot the circumference,
or left it out of sight. Nothing less than the strictest
objective truth as to the main facts of the Resurrection and
Ascension would content him; the other miracles and the life and
teaching of our Lord might then be left open; whatever view was
taken of them by each individual Christian was probably the one
most desirable for the spiritual wellbeing of each.</p>
<p>Even as regards the Resurrection and Ascension, he did not
greatly value the detail. Provided these facts were so
established that they could never henceforth be controverted, he
thought that the less detail the broader and more universally
acceptable would be the effect. Hence, when Dean
Alford’s notes seemed to jeopardise the evidences for these
things, he could brook no trifling; for unless Christ actually
died and actually came to life again, he saw no escape from an
utter denial of any but natural religion. Christ would have
been no more to him than Socrates or Shakespeare, except in so
far as his teaching was more spiritual. The triune nature
of the Deity—the Resurrection from the dead—the hope
of Heaven and salutary fear of Hell—all would go but for
the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ; nothing would
remain except a sense of the Divine as a substitute for God, and
the current feeling of one’s peers as the chief moral check
upon misconduct. Indeed, we have seen this view openly
advocated by a recent writer, and set forth in the very plainest
terms. My brother did not live to see it, but if he had, he
would have recognised the fulfilment of his own prophecies as to
what must be the inevitable sequel of a denial of our
Lord’s Resurrection.</p>
<p>It will be seen therefore that he was in no danger of being
carried away by a “pet theory.” Where light and
definition were essential, he would sacrifice nothing of either;
but he was jealous for his highest light, and felt “that
the whole effect of the Christian scheme was indefinitely
heightened by keeping all other lights
subordinate”—this at least was the illustration which
he often used concerning it. But as there were limits to
the value of light and “finding”—limits which
had been far exceeded, with the result of an unnatural forcing of
the lights, and an effect of garishness and unreality—so
there were limits to the as yet unrecognised preciousness of
“losing” and obscurity; these limits he placed at the
objectivity of our Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension.
Let there be light enough to show these things, and the rest
would gain by being in half-tone and shadow.</p>
<p>His facility of illustration was simply marvellous. From
his conversation any one would have thought that he was
acquainted with all manner of arts and sciences of which he knew
little or nothing. It is true, as has been said already,
that he had had some practice in the art of painting, and was an
enthusiastic admirer of the masterpieces of Raphael, Titian,
Guido, Domenichino, and others; but he could never have been
called a painter; for music he had considerable feeling; I think
he must have known thorough-bass, but it was hard to say what he
did or did not know. Of science he was almost entirely
ignorant, yet he had assimilated a quantity of stray facts, and
whatever he assimilated seemed to agree with him and nourish his
mental being. But though his acquaintance with any one art
or science must be allowed to have been superficial only, he had
an astonishing perception of the relative bearings of facts which
seemed at first sight to be quite beyond the range of one
another, and of the relations between the sciences generally; it
was this which gave him his felicity and fecundity of
illustration—a gift which he never abused. He
delighted in its use for the purpose of carrying a clear
impression of his meaning to the mind of another, but I never
remember to have heard him mistake illustration for argument, nor
endeavour to mislead an adversary by a fascinating but irrelevant
simile. The subtlety of his mind was a more serious source
of danger to him, though I do not know that he greatly lost by it
in comparison with what he gained; his sense, however, of
distinctions was so fine that it would sometimes distract his
attention from points of infinitely greater importance in
connection with his subject than the particular distinction which
he was trying to establish at the moment.</p>
<p>The reader may be glad to know what my brother felt about
retaining the unhistoric passages of Scripture. Would he
wish to see them sought for and sifted out? Or, again, what
would he propose concerning such of the parables as are
acknowledged by every liberal Churchman to be immoral, as, for
instance, the story of Dives and Lazarus and the Unjust
Steward—parables which can never have been spoken by our
Lord, at any rate not in their present shape? And here we
have a remarkable instance of his moderation and truly English
good sense. “Do not touch one word of them,”
was his often-repeated exclamation. “If not directly
inspired by the mouth of God they have been indirectly inspired
by the force of events, and the force of events is the power and
manifestation of God; they could not have been allowed to come
into their present position if they had not been recognised in
the counsels of the Almighty as being of indirect service to
mankind; there is a subjective truth conveyed even by these
parables to the minds of many, that enables them to lay hold of
other and objective truths which they could not else have
grasped.</p>
<p>“There can be no question that the communistic
utterances of the third gospel, as distinguished from St.
Matthew’s more spiritual and doubtless more historic
rendering of the same teaching, have been of inestimable service
to Christianity. Christ is not for the whole only, but also
for them that are sick, for the ill-instructed and what we are
pleased to call ‘dangerous’ classes, as well as for
the more sober thinkers. To how many do the words,
‘Blessed be ye poor: for your’s is the kingdom of
Heaven’ (Luke vi., 20), carry a comfort which could never
be given by the ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ of
Matthew v., 3. In Matthew we find, ‘Blessed are the
poor in spirit: for their’s is the kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness:
for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for
they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for
they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they
shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which
are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for their’s
is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall
revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil
against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding
glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they
the prophets which were before you.’ In Luke we read,
‘Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be
filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. .
. . But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received
your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall
hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and
weep. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you!
for so did <i>their</i> fathers to the false prophets,’
where even the grammar of the last sentence, independently of the
substance, is such as it is impossible to ascribe to our Lord
himself.</p>
<p>“The ‘upper’ classes naturally turn to the
version of Matthew, but the ‘lower,’ no less
naturally to that of Luke, nor is it likely that the ideal of
Christ would be one-tenth part so dear to them had not this
provision for them been made, not by the direct teaching of the
Saviour, but by the indirect inspiration of such events as were
seen by the Almighty to be necessary for the full development of
the highest ideal of which mankind was capable. All that we
have in the New Testament is the inspired word, directly or
indirectly, of God, the unhistoric no less than the historic; it
is for us to take spiritual sustenance from whatever meats we
find prepared for us, not to order the removal of this or that
dish; the coarser meats are for the coarser natures; as they grow
in grace they will turn from these to the finer: let us ourselves
partake of that which we find best suited to us, but do not let
us grudge to others the provision that God has set before
them. There are many things which though not objectively
true are nevertheless subjectively true to those who can receive
them; and subjective truth is universally felt to be even higher
than objective, as may be shown by the acknowledged duty of
obeying our consciences (which is the right <i>to us</i>) rather
than any dictate of man however much more objectively true.
It is that which is true <i>to us</i> that we are bound each one
of us to seek and follow.”</p>
<p>Having heard him thus far, and being unable to understand,
much less to sympathise with teaching so utterly foreign to
anything which I had heard elsewhere, I said to him,
“Either our Lord did say the words assigned to him by St.
Luke or he did not. If he did, as they stand they are bad,
and any one who heard them for the first time would say that they
were bad; if he did not, then we ought not to allow them to
remain in our Bibles to the misleading of people who will thus
believe that God is telling them what he never did tell
them—to the misleading of the poor, whom even in low
self-interest we are bound to instruct as fully and truthfully as
we can.”</p>
<p>He smiled and answered, “That is the Peter Bell view of
the matter. I thought so once, as, indeed, no one can know
better than yourself.”</p>
<p>The expression upon his face as he said this was sufficient to
show the clearness of his present perception, nevertheless I was
anxious to get to the root of the matter, and said that if our
Lord never uttered these words their being attributed to him must
be due to fraud; to pious fraud, but still to fraud.</p>
<p>“Not so,” he answered, “it is due to the
weakness of man’s powers of memory and communication, and
perhaps in some measure to unconscious inspiration.
Moreover, even though wrong of some sort may have had its share
in the origin of certain of the sayings ascribed to our Saviour,
yet their removal now that they have been consecrated by time
would be a still greater wrong. Would you defend the
spoliation of the monasteries, or the confiscation of the abbey
lands? I take it no—still less would you restore the
monasteries or take back the lands; a consecrated change becomes
a new departure; accept it and turn it to the best
advantage. These are things to which the theory of the
Church concerning lay baptism is strictly applicable.
<i>Fieri non debet</i>, <i>factum valet</i>. If in our
narrow and unsympathetic strivings after precision we should
remove the hallowed imperfections whereby time has set the glory
of his seal upon the gospels as well as upon all other aged
things, not for twenty generations will they resume that
ineffable and inviolable aspect which our fussy meddlesomeness
will have disturbed. Let them alone. It is as they
stand that they have saved the world.</p>
<p>“No change is good unless it is imperatively called
for. Not even the Reformation was good; it is good now; I
acquiesce in it, as I do in anything which in itself not vital
has received the sanction of many generations of my
countrymen. It is sanction which sanctifieth in matters of
this kind. I would no more undo the Reformation now than I
would have helped it forward in the sixteenth century.
Leave the historic, the unhistoric, and the doubtful to grow
together until the harvest: that which is not vital will perish
and rot unnoticed when it has ceased to have vitality; it is
living till it has done this. Note how the very passages
which you would condemn have died out of the regard of any but
the poor. Who quotes them? Who appeals to them?
Who believes in them? Who indeed except the poorest of the
poor attaches the smallest weight to them whatever? To us
they are dead, and other passages will die to us in like manner,
noiselessly and almost imperceptibly, as the services for the
fifth of November died out of the Prayer Book. One day the
fruit will be hanging upon the tree, as it has hung for months,
the next it will be lying upon the ground. It is not ripe
until it has fallen of itself, or with the gentlest shaking; use
no violence towards it, confident that you cannot hurry the
ripening, and that if shaken down unripe the fruit will be
worthless. Christianity must have contained the seeds of
growth within itself, even to the shedding of many of its present
dogmas. If the dogmas fall quietly in their maturity, the
precious seed of truth (which will be found in the heart of every
dogma that has been able to take living hold upon the
world’s imagination) will quicken and spring up in its own
time: strike at the fruit too soon and the seed will
die.”</p>
<p>I should be sorry to convey an impression that I am
responsible for, or that I entirely agree with, the defence of
the unhistoric which I have here recorded. I have given it
in my capacity of editor and in some sort biographer, but am far
from being prepared to maintain that it is likely, or indeed
ought, to meet with the approval of any considerable number of
Christians. But, surely, in these days of
self-mystification it is refreshing to see the boldness with
which my brother thought, and the freedom with which he
contemplated all sorts of issues which are too generally
avoided. What temptation would have been felt by many to
soften down the inconsistencies and contradictions of the
Gospels. How few are those who will venture to follow the
lead of scientific criticism, and admit what every scholar must
well know to be indisputable. Yet if a man will not do
this, he shows that he has greater faith in falsehood than in
truth.</p>
<h3>Chapter III</h3>
<p><span class="smcap">On</span> my brother’s death I came
into possession of several of his early commonplace books filled
with sketches for articles; some of these are more developed than
others, but they are all of them fragmentary. I do not
think that the reader will fail to be interested with the insight
into my brother’s spiritual and intellectual progress which
a few extracts from these writings will afford, and have
therefore, after some hesitation, decided in favour of making
them public, though well aware that my brother would never have
done so. They are too exaggerated to be dangerous, being so
obviously unfair as to carry their own antidote. The reader
will not fail to notice the growth not only in thought but also
in literary style which is displayed by my brother’s later
writings.</p>
<p>In reference to the very subject of the parables above alluded
to, he had written during his time of unbelief:—“Why
are we to interpret so literally all passages about the guilt of
unbelief, and insist upon the historical character of every
miraculous account, while we are indignant if any one demands an
equally literal rendering of the precepts concerning human
conduct? He that hath two coats is not to give to him that
hath none: this would be ‘visionary,’
‘utopian,’ ‘wholly unpractical,’ and so
forth. Or, again, he that is smitten on the one cheek is
not to turn the other to the smiter, but to hand the offender
over to the law; nor are the commands relative to indifference as
to the morrow and a neglect of ordinary prudence to be taken as
they stand; nor yet the warnings against praying in public; nor
can the parables, any one of them, be interpreted strictly with
advantage to human welfare, except perhaps that of the Good
Samaritan; nor the Sermon on the Mount, save in such passages as
were already the common property of mankind before the coming of
Christ. The parables which every one praises are in reality
very bad: the Unjust Steward, the Labourers in the Vineyard, the
Prodigal Son, Dives and Lazarus, the Sower and the Seed, the Wise
and Foolish Virgins, the Marriage Garment, the Man who planted a
Vineyard, are all either grossly immoral, or tend to engender a
very low estimate of the character of God—an estimate far
below the standard of the best earthly kings; where they are not
immoral, or do not tend to degrade the character of God, they are
the merest commonplaces imaginable, such as one is astonished to
see people accept as having been first taught by Christ.
Such maxims as those which inculcate conciliation and a
forgiveness of injuries (wherever practicable) are certainly
good, but the world does not owe their discovery to Christ, and
they have had little place in the practice of his followers.</p>
<p>“It is impossible to say that as a matter of fact the
English people forgive their enemies more freely now than the
Romans did, we will say in the time of Augustus. The value
of generosity and magnanimity was perfectly well known among the
ancients, nor do these qualities assume any nobler guise in the
teaching of Christ than they did in that of the ancient heathen
philosophers. On the contrary, they have no direct
equivalent in Christian thought or phraseology. They are
heathen words drawn from a heathen language, and instinct with
the same heathen ideas of high spirit and good birth as belonged
to them in the Latin language; they are no part or parcel of
Christianity, and are not only independent of it, but savour
distinctly of the flesh as opposed to the spirit, and are hence
more or less antagonistic to it, until they have undergone a
certain modification and transformation—until, that is to
say, they have been mulcted of their more frank and genial
elements. The nearest approach to them in Christian phrase
is ‘self-denial,’ but the sound of this word kindles
no smile of pleasure like that kindled by the ideas of generosity
and nobility of conduct. At the thought of self-denial we
feel good, but uncomfortable, and as though on the point of
performing some disagreeable duty which we think we ought to
pretend to like, but which we do not like. At the thought
of generosity, we feel as one who is going to share in a
delightfully exhilarating but arduous pastime—full of the
most pleasurable excitement. On the mention of the word
generosity we feel as if we were going out hunting; at the word
‘self-denial,’ as if we were getting ready to go to
church. Generosity turns well-doing into a pleasure,
self-denial into a duty, as of a servant under compulsion.</p>
<p>“There are people who will deny this, but there are
people who will deny anything. There are some who will say
that St. Paul would not have condemned the Falstaff plays,
<i>Twelfth Night</i>, <i>The Tempest</i>, <i>A Midsummer
Night’s Dream</i>, and almost everything that Shakspeare
ever wrote; but there is no arguing against this.
‘Every man,’ said Dr. Johnson, ‘has a right to
his own opinion, and every one else has a right to knock him down
for it.’ But even granting that generosity and high
spirit have made some progress since the days of Christ,
allowance must be made for the lapse of two thousand years,
during which time it is only reasonable to suppose that an
advance would have been made in civilisation—and hence in
the direction of clemency and forbearance—whether
Christianity had been preached or not, but no one can show that
the modern English, if superior to the ancients in these
respects, show any greater superiority than may be ascribed
justly to centuries of established order and good
government.”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
<p>“Again, as to the ideal presented by the character of
Christ, about which so much has been written; is it one which
would meet with all this admiration if it were presented to us
now for the first time? Surely it offers but a peevish view
of life and things in comparison with that offered by other
highest ideals—the old Roman and Greek ideals, the Italian
ideal, and the Shakespearian ideal.”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
<p>“As with the parables so with the Sermon on the
Mount—where it is not commonplace it is immoral, and
<i>vice versâ</i>; the admiration which is so freely
lavished upon the teachings of Jesus Christ turns out to be but
of the same kind as that bestowed upon certain modern writers,
who have made great reputations by telling people what they
perfectly well knew; and were in no particular danger of
forgetting. There is, however, this excuse for those who
have been carried away with such musical but untruthful sentences
as ‘Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be
comforted,’ namely, that they have not come to the subject
with unbiassed minds. It is one thing to see no merit in a
picture, and another to see no merit in a picture when one is
told that it is by Raphael; we are few of us able to stand
against the <i>prestige</i> of a great name; our self-love is
alarmed lest we should be deficient in taste, or, worse still,
lest we should be considered to be so; as if it could matter to
any right-minded person whether the world considered him to be of
good taste or not, in comparison with the keeping of his own soul
truthful to itself.</p>
<p>“But if this holds good about things which are purely
matters of taste, how much more does it do so concerning those
who make a distinct claim upon us for moral approbation or the
reverse? Such a claim is most imperatively made by the
teaching of Jesus Christ: are we then content to answer in the
words of others—words to which we have no title of our
own—or shall we strip ourselves of preconceived opinion,
and come to the question with minds that are truly candid?
Whoever shrinks from this is a liar to his own self, and as such,
the worst and most dangerous of liars. He is as one who
sits in an impregnable citadel and trembles in a time of
peace—so great a coward as not even to feel safe when he is
in his own keeping. How loose of soul if he knows that his
own keeping is worthless, how aspen-hearted if he fears lest
others should find him out and hurt him for communing truthfully
with himself!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
<p>“That a man should lie to others if he hopes to gain
something considerable—this is reckoned cheating, robbing,
fraudulent dealing, or whatever it may be; but it is an
intelligible offence in comparison with the allowing oneself to
be deceived. So in like manner with being bored. The
man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the
bore. He who puts up with shoddy pictures, shoddy music,
shoddy morality, shoddy society, is more despicable than he who
is the prime agent in any of these things. He has less to
gain, and probably deceives himself more; so that he commits the
greater crime for the less reward. And I say emphatically
that the morality which most men profess to hold as a Divine
revelation was a shoddy morality, which would neither wash nor
wear, but was woven together from a tissue of dreams and
blunders, and steeped in blood more virulent than the blood of
Nessus.</p>
<p>“Oh! if men would but leave off lying to
themselves! If they would but learn the sacredness of their
own likes and dislikes, and exercise their moral discrimination,
making it clear to themselves what it is that they really love
and venerate. There is no such enemy to mankind as moral
cowardice. A downright vulgar self-interested and
unblushing liar is a higher being than the moral cur whose likes
and dislikes are at the beck and call of bullies that stand
between him and his own soul; such a creature gives up the most
sacred of all his rights for something more unsubstantial than a
mess of pottage—a mental serf too abject even to know that
he is being wronged. Wretched emasculator of his own
reason, whose jejune timidity and want of vitality are thus
omnipresent in the most secret chambers of his heart!</p>
<p>“We can forgive a man for almost any falsehood provided
we feel that he was under strong temptation and well knew that he
was deceiving. He has done wrong—still we can
understand it, and he may yet have some useful stuff about
him—but what can we feel towards one who for a small motive
tells lies even to himself, and does not know that he is
lying? What useless rotten fig-wood lumber must not such a
thing be made of, and what lies will there not come out of it,
falling in every direction upon all who come within its
reach. The common self-deceiver of modern society is a more
dangerous and contemptible object than almost any ordinary felon,
a matter upon which those who do not deceive themselves need no
enlightenment.”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
<p>“But why insist so strongly on the literal
interpretation of one part of the sayings of Christ, and be so
elastic about that of the passages which inculcate more than
those ordinary precepts which all had agreed upon as early as the
days of Solomon and probably earlier? We have cut down
Christianity so as to make it appear to sanction our own
conventions; but we have not altered our conventions so as to
bring them into harmony with Christianity. We do not give
to him that asketh; we take good care to avoid him; yet if the
precept meant only that we should be liberal in assisting
others—it wanted no enforcing: the probability is that it
had been enforced too much rather than too little already; the
more literally it has been followed the more terrible has the
mischief been; the saying only becomes harmless when regarded as
a mere convention. So with most parts of Christ’s
teaching. It is only conventional Christianity which will
stand a man in good stead to live by; true Christianity will
never do so. Men have tried it and found it fail; or,
rather, its inevitable failure was so obvious that no age or
country has ever been mad enough to carry it out in such a manner
as would have satisfied its founders. So said Dean Swift in
his <i>Argument against abolishing Christianity</i>.
‘I hope,’ he writes, ‘no reader imagines me so
weak as to stand up in defence of real Christianity, such as used
in primitive times’ (if we may believe the authors of those
ages) ‘to have an influence upon men’s beliefs and
actions. To offer at the restoring of that would be,
indeed, a wild project; it would be to dig up foundations, to
destroy at one blow all the wit and half the learning of the
kingdom, to break the entire frame and constitution of things, to
ruin trade, extinguish arts and sciences, with the professors of
them; in short, to turn our courts of exchange and shops into
deserts; and would be full as absurd as the proposal of Horace
where he advises the Romans all in a body to leave their city,
and to seek a new seat in some remote part of the world by way of
cure for the corruption of their manners.</p>
<p>“‘Therefore, I think this caution was in itself
altogether unnecessary (which I have inserted only to prevent all
possibility of cavilling), since every candid reader will easily
understand my discourse to be intended only in defence of nominal
Christianity, the other having been for some time wholly laid
aside by general consent as utterly inconsistent with our present
schemes of wealth and power.’</p>
<p>“Yet but for these schemes of wealth and power the world
would relapse into barbarianism; it is they and not Christianity
which have created and preserved civilisation. And what if
some unhappy wretch, with a serious turn of mind and no sense of
the ridiculous, takes all this talk about Christianity in sober
earnest, and tries to act upon it? Into what misery may he
not easily fall, and with what life-long errors may he not
embitter the lives of his children!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
<p>“Again, we do not cut off our right hand nor pluck out
our eyes if they offend us; we conventionalise our
interpretations of these sayings at our will and pleasure; we do
take heed for the morrow, and should be inconceivably wicked and
foolish were we not to do so; we do gather up riches, and indeed
we do most things which the experience of mankind has taught us
to be to our advantage, quite irrespectively of any precept of
Christianity for or against. But why say that it is
Christianity which is our chief guide, when the words of Christ
point in such a very different direction from that which we have
seen fit to take? Perhaps it is in order to compensate for
our laxity of interpretation upon these points that we are so
rigid in stickling for accuracy upon those which make no demand
upon our comfort or convenience? Thus, though we
conventionalise practice, we never conventionalise dogma.
Here, indeed, we stickle for the letter most inflexibly; yet one
would have thought that we might have had greater licence to
modify the latter than the former. If we say that the
teaching of Christ is not to be taken according to its
import—why give it so much importance? Teaching by
exaggeration is not a satisfactory method, nor one worthy of a
being higher than man; it might have been well once, and in the
East, but it is not well now. It induces more and more of
that jarring and straining of our moral faculties, of which much
is unavoidable in the existing complex condition of affairs, but
of which the less the better. At present the tug of
professed principles in one direction, and of necessary practice
in the other, causes the same sort of wear and tear in our moral
gear as is caused to a steam-engine by continually reversing it
when it is going it at full speed. No mechanism can stand
it.”</p>
<p>The above extracts (written when he was about twenty-three
years old) may serve to show how utter was the subversion of his
faith. His mind was indeed in darkness! Who could
have hoped that so brilliant a day should have succeeded to the
gloom of such mistrust? Yet as upon a winter’s
morning in November when the sun rises red through the smoke, and
presently the fog spreads its curtain of thick darkness over the
city, and then there comes a single breath of wind from some more
generous quarter, whereupon the blessed sun shines again, and the
gloom is gone; or, again, as when the warm south-west wind comes
up breathing kindness from the sea, unheralded, suspected, when
the earth is in her saddest frost, and on the instant all the
lands are thawed and opened to the genial influences of a sweet
springful whisper—so thawed his heart, and the seed which
had lain dormant in its fertile soil sprang up, grew, ripened,
and brought forth an abundant harvest.</p>
<p>Indeed now that the result has been made plain we can perhaps
feel that his scepticism was precisely of that nature which
should have given the greatest ground for hope. He was a
genuine lover of truth in so far as he could see it.</p>
<p>His lights were dim, but such as they were he walked according
to them, and hence they burnt ever more and more clearly, till in
later life they served to show him what is vouchsafed to such men
and to such only—the enormity of his own mistakes.
Better that a man should feel the divergence between Christian
theory and Christian practice, that he should be shocked at
it—even to the breaking away utterly from the theory until
he has arrived at a wider comprehension of its scope—than
that he should be indifferent to the divergence and make no
effort to bring his principles and practice into harmony with one
another. A true lover of consistency, it was intolerable to
him to say one thing with his lips and another with his
actions. As long as this is true concerning any man, his
friends may feel sure that the hand of the Lord is with him,
though the signs thereof be hidden from mortal eyesight.</p>
<h3>Chapter IV</h3>
<p><span class="smcap">During</span> the dark and unhappy time
when he had, as it seems to me, bullied himself, or been bullied
into infidelity, he had been utterly unable to realise the
importance even of such a self-evident fact as that our Lord
addressing an Eastern people would speak in such a way as Eastern
people would best understand; it took him years to appreciate
this. He could not see that modes of thought are as much
part of a language as the grammar and words which compose it, and
that before a passage can be said to be translated from one
language into another it is often not the words only which must
be rendered, but the thought itself which must be transformed; to
a people habituated to exaggeration a saying which was not
exaggerated would have been pointless—so weak as to arrest
the attention of no one; in order to translate it into such words
as should carry precisely the same meaning to colder and more
temperate minds, the words would often have to be left out of
sight altogether, and a new sentence or perhaps even simile or
metaphor substituted; this is plainly out of the question, and
therefore the best course is that which has been taken,
<i>i.e.</i>, to render the words as accurately as possible, and
leave the reader to modify the meaning. But it was years
before my brother could be got to feel this, nor did he ever do
so fully, simple and obvious though it must appear to most
people, until he had learned to recognise the value of a certain
amount of inaccuracy and inconsistency in everything which is not
comprehended in mechanics or the exact sciences. “It
is this,” he used to say, “which gives artistic or
spiritual value as contrasted with mechanical
precision.”</p>
<p>In inaccuracy and inconsistency, therefore (within certain
limits), my brother saw the means whereby our minds are kept from
regarding things as rigidly and immutably fixed which are not yet
fully understood, and perhaps may never be so while we are in our
present state of probation. Life is not one of the exact
sciences, living is essentially an art and not a science.
Every thing addressed to human minds at all must be more or less
of a compromise; thus, to take a very old illustration, even the
definitions of a point and a line—the fundamental things in
the most exact of the sciences—are mere compromises.
A point is supposed to have neither length, breadth, nor
thickness—this in theory, but in practice unless a point
have a little of all these things there is nothing there.
So with a line; a line is supposed to have length, but no
breadth, yet in practice we never saw a line which had not
breadth. What inconsistency is there here, in requiring us
to conceive something which we cannot conceive, and which can
have no existence, before we go on to the investigation of the
laws whereby the earth can alone be measured and the orbits of
the planets determined. I do not think that this
illustration was presented to my brother’s mind while he
was young, but I am sure that if it had been it would have made
him miserable. He would have had no confidence in
mathematics, and would very likely have made a furious attack
upon Newton and Galileo, and been firmly convinced that he was
discomfiting them. Indeed I cannot forget a certain look of
bewilderment which came over his face when the idea was put
before him, I imagine, for the first time. Fortunately he
had so grown that the right inference was now in no danger of
being missed. He did not conclude that because the
evidences for mathematics were founded upon compromises and
definitions which are inaccurate—therefore that mathematics
were false, or that there were no mathematics, but he learnt to
feel that there might be other things which were no less
indisputable than mathematics, and which might also be founded on
facts for which the evidences were not wholly free from
inconsistencies and inaccuracies.</p>
<p>To some he might appear to be approaching too nearly to the
“Sed tu vera puta” argument of Juvenal. I
greatly fear that an attempt may be made to misrepresent him as
taking this line; that is to say, as accepting Christianity on
the ground of the excellence of its moral teaching, and looking
upon it as, indeed, a superstition, but salutary for women and
young people. Hardly anything would have shocked him more
profoundly. This doctrine with its plausible show of
morality appeared to him to be, perhaps, the most gross of all
immoralities, inasmuch as it cuts the ground from under the feet
of truth, luring the world farther and farther from the only true
salvation—the careful study of facts and of the safest
inferences that may be drawn from them. Every fact was to
him a part of nature, a thing sacred, pregnant with Divine
teaching of some sort, as being the expression of Divine
will. It was through facts that he saw God; to tamper with
facts was, in his view, to deface the countenance of the
Almighty. To say that such and such was so and so, when the
speaker did not believe it, was to lead people to worship a false
God instead of a true one; an
ειδωλον; setting them,
to quote the words of the Psalmist, “a-whoring after their
own imaginations.” He saw the Divine presence in
everything—the evil as well as the good; the evil being the
expression of the Divine will that such and such courses should
not go unpunished, but bring pain and misery which should deter
others from following them, and the good being his sign of
approbation. There was nothing good for man to know which
could not be deduced from facts. This was the only sound
basis of knowledge, and to found things upon fiction which could
be made to stand upon facts was to try and build upon a
quicksand.</p>
<p>He, therefore, loathed the reasoning of Juvenal with all the
intensity of his nature. It was because he believed that
the Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord were just as much
matters of actual history as the assassination of Julius
Cæsar, and that they happened precisely in the same way as
every daily event happens at present—that he accepted the
Christian scheme in its essentials. Then came the
details. Were these also objectively true? He
answered, “Certainly not in every case.” He
would not for the world have had any one believe that he so
considered them; but having made it perfectly clear that he was
not going to deceive himself, he set himself to derive whatever
spiritual comfort he could from them, just as he would from any
noble fiction or work of art, which, while not professing to be
historical, was instinct with the soul of genius. That
there were unhistorical passages in the New Testament was to him
a fact; therefore it was to be studied as an expression of the
Divine will. What could be the meaning of it? That we
should consider them as true? Assuredly not this.
Then what else? This—that we should accept as
subjectively true whatever we found spiritually precious, and be
at liberty to leave all the rest alone—the unhistoric
element having been introduced purposely for the sake of giving
greater scope and latitude to the value of the ideal.</p>
<p>Of course one who was so firmly persuaded of the objective
truth of the Resurrection and Ascension could be in no sort of
danger of relapsing into infidelity as long as his reason
remained. During the years of his illness his mind was
clearly impaired, and no longer under his own control; but while
his senses were his own it was absolutely impossible that he
could be shaken by discrepancies and inconsistencies in the
gospels. What small and trifling things are such
discrepancies by the side of the great central miracle of the
Resurrection! Nevertheless their existence was
indisputable, and was no less indisputably a cause of stumbling
to many, as it had been to himself. His experience of his
own sufferings as an unbeliever gave him a keener sympathy with
those who were in that distressing condition than could be felt
by any one who had not so suffered, and fitted him, perhaps, more
than any one who has yet lived to be the interpreter of
Christianity to the Rationalist, and of Rationalism to the
Christian. This, accordingly, was the task to which he set
himself, having been singularly adapted for it by Nature, and as
singularly disciplined by events.</p>
<p>It seemed to him that the first thing was to make the two
parties understand one another—a thing which had never yet
been done, but which was not at all impossible. For
Protestantism is raised essentially upon a Rationalistic
base. When we come to a definition of Rationalism nothing
can be plainer than that it demands no scepticism from any one
which an English Protestant would not approve of. It is
another matter with the Church of Rome. That Church openly
declares it as an axiom that religion and reason have nothing to
do with one another, and that religion, though in flat
contradiction to reason, should yet be accepted from the hands of
a certain order as an act of unquestioning faith. The line
of separation therefore between the Romanist and the Rationalist
is clear, and definitely bars any possibility of arrangement
between the two. Not so with the Protestant, who as
heartily as the Rationalist admits that nothing is required to be
believed by man except such things as can be reasonably
proved—i.e., proved to the satisfaction of the
reason. No Protestant would say that the Christian scheme
ought to be accepted in spite of its being contrary to reason; we
say that Christianity is to be believed because it can be shewn
to follow as the necessary consequence of using our reason
rightly. We should be shocked at being supposed to maintain
otherwise. Yet this is pure Rationalism. The
Rationalist would require nothing more; he demurs to Christianity
because he maintains that if we bring our reason to bear upon the
evidences which are brought forward in support of it, we are
compelled to reject it; but he would accept it without hesitation
if he believed that it could be sustained by arguments which
ought to carry conviction to the reason. Thus both are
agreed in principle that if the evidences of Christianity satisfy
human reason, then Christianity should be received, but that on
any other supposition it should be rejected.</p>
<p>Here then, he said, we have a common starting-point and the
main principle of Rationalism turns out to be nothing but what we
all readily admit, and with which we and our fathers have been as
familiar for centuries as with the air we breathe. Every
Protestant is a Rationalist, or else he ought to be ashamed of
himself. Does he want to be called an
“Irrationalist”? Hardly—yet if he is not
a Rationalist what else can he be? No: the difference
between us is one of detail, not of principle. This is a
great step gained.</p>
<p>The next thing therefore was to make each party understand the
view which the other took concerning the position which they had
agreed to hold in common. There was no work, so far as he
knew, which would be accepted both by Christians and unbelievers
as containing a fair statement of the arguments of the two
contending parties: every book which he had yet seen upon either
side seemed written with the view of maintaining that its own
side could hold no wrong, and the other no right: neither party
seemed to think that they had anything to learn from the other,
and neither that any considerable addition to their knowledge of
the truth was either possible or desirable. Each was in
possession of truth already, and all who did not see and feel
this must be either wilfully blinded, or intensely stupid, or
hypocrites.</p>
<p>So long as people carried on a discussion thus, what agreement
was possible between them? Yet where, upon the Christian
side, was the attempt to grapple with the real difficulties now
felt by unbelievers? Simply nowhere. All that had
been done hitherto was antiquated. Modern Christianity
seemed to shrink from grappling with modern Rationalism, and
displayed a timidity which could not be accounted for except by
the supposition of secret misgiving that certain things were
being defended which could not be defended fairly. This was
quite intolerable; a misgiving was a warning voice from God,
which should be attended to as a man valued his soul. On
the other hand, the conviction reasonably entertained by
unbelievers that they were right on many not inconsiderable
details of the dispute, and that so-called orthodox Christians in
their hearts knew it but would not own it—or that if they
did not know it, they were only in ignorance because it suited
their purpose to be so—this conviction gave an overweening
self-confidence to infidels, as though they must be right in the
whole because they were so in part; they therefore blinded
themselves to all the more fundamental arguments in support of
Christianity, because certain shallow ones had been put forward
in the front rank, and been far too obstinately defended.
They thus regarded the question too superficially, and had erred
even more through pride of intellect and conceit than their
opponents through timidity.</p>
<p>What then was to be done? Surely this; to explain the
two contending parties to one another; to show to Rationalists
that Christians are right upon Rationalistic principles in all
the more important of their allegations; that is to say, to
establish the Resurrection and Ascension of the Redeemer upon a
basis which should satisfy the most imperious demands of modern
criticism. This would form the first and most important
part of the task. Then should follow a no less convincing
proof that Rationalists are right in demurring to the historical
accuracy of much which has been too obstinately defended by
so-called orthodox writers. This would be the second
part. Was there not reason to hope that when this was done
the two parties might understand one another, and meet in a
common Christianity? He believed that there was, and that
the ground had been already cleared for such mutual compromise as
might be accepted by both sides, not from policy but
conviction. Therefore he began writing the book which it
has devolved upon myself to edit, and which must now speak for
itself. For him it was to suffer and to labour; almost on
the very instant of his having done enough to express his meaning
he was removed from all further power of usefulness.</p>
<p>The happy change from unbelief to faith had already taken
place some three or four years before my return from
America. With it had also come that sudden development of
intellectual and spiritual power which so greatly astonished even
those who had known him best. The whole man seemed
changed—to have become possessed of an unusually capacious
mind, instead of one which was acute, but acute only. On
looking over the earlier letters which I received from him when I
was in America, I can hardly believe that they should have been
written by the same person as the one to whom, in spite of not a
few great mental defects, I afterwards owed more spiritual
enrichment than I have owed to any other person. Yet so it
was. It came upon me imperceptibly that I had been very
stupid in not discovering that my brother was a genius; but
hardly had I made the discovery, and hardly had the fragment
which follows this memoir received its present shape, when his
overworked brain gave way and he fell into a state little better
than idiocy. His originally cheerful spirits left him, and
were succeeded by a religious melancholy which nothing could
disturb. He became incapable either of mental or physical
exertion, and was pronounced by the best physicians to be
suffering from some obscure disease of the brain brought on by
excitement and undue mental tension: in this state he continued
for about four years, and died peacefully, but still as one in
the profoundest melancholy, on the 15th of March, 1872, aged
40.</p>
<p>Always hopeful that his health would one day be restored, I
never ventured to propose that I should edit his book during his
own life-time. On his death I found his papers in the most
deplorable confusion. The following chapters had alone
received anything like a presentable shape—and these
providentially are the most essential.</p>
<p>A dream is a dream only, yet sometimes there follows a
fulfilment which bears a strange resemblance to the thing dreamt
of. No one now believes that the Book of Revelation is to
be taken as foretelling events which will happen in the same way
as the massacre, for instance, of St. Bartholomew, indeed it is
doubtful how far the whole is not to be interpreted as an
allegory, descriptive of spiritual revolutions; yet surely my
mother’s dream as to the future of one, at least, of her
sons has been strangely verified, and it is believed that the
reader when he lays down this volume will feel that there have
been few more potent witnesses to the truth of Christ than John
Pickard Owen.</p>
<h2><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>The
Fair Haven</h2>
<h3>Chapter I<br />
Introduction</h3>
<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is to be feared that there is no
work upon the evidences of our faith, which is as satisfactory in
its completeness and convincing power as we have a right to
expect when we consider the paramount importance of the subject
and the activity of our enemies. Otherwise why should there
be no sign of yielding on the part of so many sincere and eminent
men who have heard all that has been said upon the Christian side
and are yet not convinced by it? We cannot think that the
many philosophers who make no secret of their opposition to the
Christian religion are unacquainted with the works of Butler and
Paley—of Mansel and Liddon. This cannot be: they must
be acquainted with them, and find them fail.</p>
<p>Now, granting readily that in some minds there is a certain
wilful and prejudiced self-blindness which no reasoning can
overcome, and granting also that men very much preoccupied with
any one pursuit (more especially a scientific one) will be apt to
give but scant and divided attention to arguments upon other
subjects such as religion or politics, nevertheless we have so
many opponents who profess to have made a serious study of
Christian evidences, and against whose opinion no exception can
be fairly taken, that it seems as though we were bound either to
admit that our demonstrations require rearrangement and
reconsideration, or to take the Roman position, and maintain that
revelation is no fit subject for evidence but is to be accepted
upon authority. This last position will be rejected at once
by nine-tenths of Englishmen. But upon rejecting it we look
in vain for a work which shall appear to have any such success in
arresting infidelity as attended the works of Butler and Paley in
the last century. In their own day these two great men
stemmed the current of infidelity: but no modern writers have
succeeded in doing so, and it will scarcely be said that either
Butler or Paley set at rest the many serious and inevitable
questions in connection with Christianity which have arisen
during the last fifty years. We could hardly expect one of
the more intelligent students at Oxford or Cambridge to find his
mind set once and for ever free from all rising doubt either by
the <i>Analogy</i> or the <i>Evidences</i>. Suppose, for
example, that he has been misled by the German writers of the
Tübingen school, how will either of the above-named writers
help him? On the contrary, they will do him harm, for they
will not meet the requirements of the case, and the inference is
too readily drawn that nothing else can do so. It need
hardly be insisted upon that this inference is a most unfair one,
but surely the blame of its being drawn rests in some measure at
the door of those whose want of thoroughness has left people
under the impression that no more can be said than what has been
said already.</p>
<p>It is the object, therefore, of this book to contribute
towards establishing Christian evidences upon a more secure and
self-evident base than any upon which they are made to rest at
present, so far, that is to say, as a work which deliberately
excludes whole fields of Christian evidence can tend towards so
great a consummation. In spite of the narrow limits within
which I have resolved to keep my treatment of the subject, I
trust that I may be able to produce such an effect upon the minds
of those who are in doubt concerning the evidences for the hope
that is in them, that henceforward they shall never doubt
again. I am not sanguine enough to suppose that I shall be
able to induce certain eminent naturalists and philosophers to
reopen a question which they have probably long laid aside as
settled; unfortunately it is not in any but the very noblest
Christian natures to do this, nevertheless, could they be
persuaded to read these pages I believe that they would find so
much which would be new to them, that their prejudices would be
greatly shaken. To the younger band of scientific
investigators I appeal more hopefully.</p>
<p>It may be asked why not have undertaken the whole subject and
devoted a life-time to writing an exhaustive work? The
answer suggests itself that the believer is in no want of such a
book, while the unbeliever would be repelled by its size.
Assuredly there can be no doubt as to the value of a great work
which should meet objections derived from certain recent
scientific theories, and confute opponents who have arisen since
the death of our two great apologists, but as a preliminary to
this a smaller and more elementary book seems called for, which
shall give the main outlines of our position with such boldness
and effectiveness as to arrest the attention of any unbeliever
into whose hands it may fall, and induce him to look further into
what else may be urged upon the Christian side. We are
bound to adapt our means to our ends, and shall have a better
chance of gaining the ear of our adversaries if we can offer them
a short and pregnant book than if we come to them with a long one
from which whole chapters might be pruned. We have to bring
the Christian religion to men who will look at no book which
cannot be read in a railway train or in an arm-chair; it is most
deplorable that this should be the case, nevertheless it is
indisputably a fact, and as such must be attended to by all who
hope to be of use in bringing about a better state of
things. And let me add that never yet was there a time when
it so much behoved all who are impressed with the vital power of
religion to bestir themselves; for the symptoms of a general
indifference, not to say hostility, must be admitted to be widely
diffused, in spite of an imposing array of facts which can be
brought forward to the contrary; and not only this, but the
stream of infidelity seems making more havoc yearly, as it might
naturally be expected to do, when met by no new works of any real
strength or permanence.</p>
<p>Bearing in mind, therefore, the necessity for prompt action,
it seemed best to take the most overwhelming of all
miracles—the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
show that it can be so substantiated that no reasonable man
should doubt it. This I have therefore attempted, and I
humbly trust that the reader will feel that I have not only
attempted it, but done it, once and for all so clearly and
satisfactorily and with such an unflinching examination of the
most advanced arguments of unbelievers, that the question can
never be raised hereafter by any candid mind, or at any rate not
until science has been made to rest on different grounds from
those on which she rests at present.</p>
<p>But the truth of our Lord’s resurrection having been
once established, what need to encumber this book with further
evidences of the miraculous element in his ministry? The
other miracles can be no insuperable difficulty to one who
accepts the Resurrection. It is true that as Christians we
cannot dwell too minutely upon every act and incident in the life
of the Redeemer, but unhappily we have to deal with those who are
not Christians, and must consider rather what we can get them to
take than what we should like to give them: “Be ye wise as
serpents and harmless as doves,” saith the Saviour. A
single miracle is as good as twenty, provided that it be well
established, and can be shewn to be so: it is here that even the
ablest of our apologists have too often failed; they have
professed to substantiate the historical accuracy of all the
recorded miracles and sayings of our Lord, with a result which is
in some instances feeble and conventional, and occasionally even
unfair (oh! what suicidal folly is there in even the remotest
semblance of unfairness), instead of devoting themselves to
throwing a flood of brilliancy upon the most important features
and leaving the others to shine out in the light reflected from
these. Even granting that some of the miracles recorded of
our Lord are apocryphal, what of that? We do not rest upon
them: we have enough and more than enough without them, and can
afford to take the line of saying to the unbeliever,
“Disbelieve this miracle or that if you find that you
cannot accept it, but believe in the Resurrection, of which we
will put forward such ample proofs that no healthy reason can
withstand them, and, having accepted the Resurrection, admit it
as the manifestation of supernatural power, the existence of
which can thus no longer be denied.”</p>
<p>Does not the reader feel that there is a ring of truth and
candour about this which must carry more weight with an opponent
than any strained defence of such a doubtful miracle as the
healing of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda? We
weight ourselves as against our opponents by trying to defend too
much; no matter how sound and able the defence of one part of the
Christian scheme may have been, its effect is often marred by
contiguity with argument which the writer himself must have
suspected, or even known, to be ingenious rather than sound: the
moment that this is felt in any book its value with an opponent
is at an end, for he must be continually in doubt whether the
spirit which he has detected here or there may not be existing
and at work in a hundred other places where he has not detected
it. What carries weight with an antagonist is the feeling
that his position has been mastered and his difficulties grasped
with thoroughness and candour.</p>
<p>On this point I am qualified to speak from long and bitter
experience. I say that want of candour and the failure to
grasp the position occupied, however untenably, by unbelievers is
the chief cause of the continuance of unbelief. When this
cause has been removed unbelief will die a natural death.
For years I was myself a believer in nothing beyond the
personality and providence of God: yet I feel (not without a
certain sense of bitterness, which I know that I should not feel
but cannot utterly subdue) that if my first doubts had been met
with patient endeavour to understand their nature and if I had
felt that the one in whom I confided had been ready to go to the
root of the matter, and even to yield up the convictions of a
life-time could it be shewn that they were unsafely founded, my
doubts would have been resolved in an hour or two’s quiet
conversation, and would at once have had the effect, which they
have only had after long suffering and unrest, of confirming me
in my allegiance to Christ. But I was met with anger and
impatience. There was an instinct which told me that my
opponent had never heard a syllable against his own convictions,
and was determined not to hear one: on this I assumed rashly that
he must have good reason for his resolution; and doubt ripened
into unbelief. Oh! what years of heart-burning and utter
drifting followed. Yet when I was at last brought within
the influence of one who not only believed all that my first
opponent did, but who also knew that the more light was thrown
upon it the more clearly would its truth be made apparent—a
man who talked with me as though he was anxious that I should
convince him if he were in error, not as though bent on making me
believe whatever habit and circumstances had imposed as a formula
upon himself—my heart softened at once, and the dry places
of my soul were watered.</p>
<p>The above may seem too purely personal to warrant its
introduction here, yet the experience is one which should not be
without its value to others. Its effect upon myself has
been to give me an unutterable longing to save others from
sufferings like my own; I know so well where it is that, to use a
homely metaphor, the shoe pinches. And it is chiefly
here—in the fact that the unbeliever does not feel as
though we really wanted to understand him. This feeling is
in many cases lamentably well founded. No one likes hearing
doubt thrown upon anything which he regards as settled beyond
dispute, and this, happily, is what most men feel concerning
Christianity. Again, indolence or impotence of mind
indisposes many to intellectual effort; others are pained by
coming into contact with anything which derogates from the glory
due to the great sacrifice of Christ, or to his Divine nature,
and lastly not a few are withheld by moral cowardice from daring
to bestow the pains upon the unbeliever which his condition
requires. But from whichever of these sources the
disinclination to understand him comes, its effect is equally
disastrous to the unbeliever. People do not mind a
difference of opinion, if they feel that the one who differs from
them has got a firm grasp of their position; or again, if they
feel that he is trying to understand them but fails from some
defect either of intellect or education, even in this case they
are not pained by opposition. What injures their moral
nature and hardens their hearts is the conviction that another
could understand them if he chose, but does not choose, and yet
none the less condemns them. On this they become imbued
with that bitterness against Christianity which is noticeable in
so many free-thinkers.</p>
<p>Can we greatly wonder? For, sad though the admission be,
it is only justice to admit that we Christians have been too
often contented to accept our faith without knowing its grounds,
in which case it is more by luck than by cunning that we are
Christians at all, and our faith will be in continual
danger. The greater number even of those who have
undertaken to defend the Christian faith have been sadly inclined
to avoid a difficulty rather than to face it, unless it is so
easy as to be no real difficulty at all. I do not say that
this is unnatural, for the Christian writer must be deeply
impressed with the sinfulness of unbelief, and will therefore be
anxious to avoid raising doubts which will probably never yet
have occurred to his reader, and might possibly never do so; nor
does there at first sight appear to be much advantage in raising
difficulties for the sole purpose of removing them; nevertheless
I cannot think that if either Butler or Paley could have foreseen
the continuance of unbelief, and the ruin of so many souls whom
Christ died to save, they would have been contented to act so
almost entirely upon the defensive.</p>
<p>Yet it is impossible not to feel that we in their place should
have done as they did. Infidelity was still in its infancy:
the nature of the disease was hardly yet understood; and there
seemed reason to fear lest it might be aggravated by the very
means taken to cure it; it seemed safer therefore in the first
instance to confine attention to the matter actually in debate,
and leave it to time to suggest a more active treatment should
the course first tried prove unsatisfactory. Who can be
surprised that the earlier apologists should have felt thus in
the presence of an enemy whose novelty made him appear more
portentous than he can ever seem to ourselves? They were
bound to venture nothing rashly; what they did they did, for
their own age, thoroughly; we owe it to their cautious pioneering
that we so know the weakness of our opponents and our own
strength as to be able to do fearlessly what may well have seemed
perilous to our forefathers: nevertheless it is easy to be wise
after the event, and to regret that a bolder course was not taken
at the outset. If Butler and Paley had fought as men eager
for the fray, as men who smelt the battle from afar, it is
impossible to believe that infidelity could have lasted as long
as it has. What can be done now could have been done just
as effectively then, and though we cannot be surprised at the
caution shewn at first, we are bound to deplore it as
short-sighted.</p>
<p>The question, however, for ourselves is not what dead men
might have done better long ago, but what living men and women
can do most wisely now; and in answer to it I would say that
there is no policy so unwise as fear in a good cause: the bold
course is also the wise one; it consists in being on the lookout
for objections, in finding the very best that can be found and
stating them in their most intelligible form, in shewing what are
the logical consequences of unbelief, and thus carrying the war
into the enemy’s country; in fighting with the most
chivalrous generosity and a determination to take no advantage
which is not according to the rules of war most strictly
interpreted against ourselves, but within such an interpretation
showing no quarter. This is the bold course and the true
course: it will beget a confidence which can never be felt in the
wariness, however well-intentioned, of the old defenders.</p>
<p>Let me, therefore, beg the reader to follow me patiently while
I do my best to put before him the main difficulties felt by
unbelievers. When he is once acquainted with these he will
run in no danger of confirming doubt through his fear in turning
away from it in the first instance. How many die hardened
unbelievers through the treatment which they have received from
those to whom their Christianity has been a matter of
circumstances and habit only? Hell is no fiction.
Who, without bitter sorrow, can reflect upon the agonies even of
a single soul as being due to the selfishness or cowardice of
others? Awful thought! Yet it is one which is daily
realised in the case of thousands.</p>
<p>In the commonest justice to brethren, however sinful, each one
of us who tries to lead them to the Saviour is bound not only to
shew them the whole strength of our own arguments, but to make
them see that we understand the whole strength of theirs; for men
will not seriously listen to those whom they believe to know one
side of a question only. It is this which makes the
educated infidel so hard to deal with; he knows very well that an
intelligent apprehension of the position held by an opponent is
indispensable for profitable discussion; but he very rarely meets
with this in the case of those Christians who try to argue with
him; he therefore soon acquires a habit of avoiding the subject
of religion, and can seldom be induced to enter upon an argument
which he is convinced can lead to nothing.</p>
<p>He who would cure a disease must first know what it is, and he
who would convert an infidel must know what it is that he is to
be converted from, as well as what he is to be led to; nothing
can be laid hold of unless its whereabouts is known. It is
deplorable that such commonplaces should be wanted; but, alas! it
is impossible to do without them. People have taken a panic
on the subject of infidelity as though it were so infectious that
the very nurses and doctors should run away from those afflicted
with it; but such conduct is no less absurd than cruel and
disgraceful. <i>Infidelity is only infectious when it is
not understood</i>. The smallest reflection should suffice
to remind us that a faith which has satisfied the most brilliant
and profound of human intellects for nearly two thousand years
must have had very sure foundations, and that any digging about
them for the purpose of demonstrating their depth and solidity,
will result, not in their disturbance, but in its being made
clear to every eye that they are laid upon a rock which nothing
can shake—that they do indeed satisfy every demand of human
reason, which suffers violence not from those who accept the
scheme of the Christian redemption, but from those who reject
it.</p>
<p>This being the case, and that it is so will, I believe, appear
with great clearness in the following pages, what need to shrink
from the just and charitable course of understanding the nature
of what is urged by those who differ from us? How can we
hope to bring them to be of one mind in Christ Jesus with
ourselves, unless we can resolve their difficulties and explain
them? And how can we resolve their difficulties until we
know what they are? Infidelity is as a reeking fever den,
which none can enter safely without due precautions, but the
taking these precautions is within our own power; we can all rely
upon the blessed promises of the Saviour that he will not desert
us in our hour of need if we will only truly seek him; there is
more infidelity in this shrinking and fear of investigation than
in almost any open denial of Christ; the one who refuses to
examine the doubts felt by another, and is prevented from making
any effort to remove them through fear lest he should come to
share them, shews either that he has no faith in the power of
Christianity to stand examination, or that he has no faith in the
promises of God to guide him into all truth. In either case
he is hardly less an unbeliever than those whom he condemns.</p>
<p>Let the reader therefore understand that he will here find no
attempt to conceal the full strength of the arguments relied on
by unbelievers. This manner of substantiating the truth of
Christianity has unhappily been tried already; it has been tried
and has failed as it was bound to fail. Infidelity lives
upon concealment. Shew it in broad daylight, hold it up
before the world and make its hideousness manifest to
all—then, and not till then, will the hours of unbelief be
numbered. <i>We</i> have been the mainstay of unbelief
through our timidity. Far be it from me, therefore, that I
should help any unbeliever by concealing his case for him.
This were the most cruel kindness. On the contrary, I shall
insist upon all his arguments and state them, if I may say so
without presumption, more clearly than they have ever been stated
within the same limits. No one knows what they are better
than I do. No one was at one time more firmly persuaded
that they were sound. May it be found that no one has so
well known how also to refute them.</p>
<p>The reader must not therefore expect to find fictitious
difficulties in the way of accepting Christianity set up with one
hand in order to be knocked down again with the other: he will
find the most powerful arguments against all that he holds most
sacred insisted on with the same clearness as those on his own
side; it is only by placing the two contending opinions side by
side in their utmost development that the strength of our own can
be made apparent. Those who wish to cry peace, peace, when
there is no peace, those who would take their faith by fashion as
the take their clothes, those who doubt the strength of their own
cause and do not in their heart of heart believe that
Christianity will stand investigation, those, again, who care not
who may go to Hell provided they are comfortably sure of going to
Heaven themselves, such persons may complain of the line which I
am about to take. They on the other hand whose faith is
such that it knows no fear of criticism, and they whose love for
Christ leads them to regard the bringing of lost souls into his
flock as the highest earthly happiness—such will admit
gladly that I have been right in tearing aside the veil from
infidelity and displaying it uncloaked by the side of faith
itself.</p>
<p>At the same time I am bound to confess that I never should
have been able to see the expediency, not to say the absolute
necessity for such a course, unless I had been myself for many
years an unbeliever. It is this experience, so bitterly
painful, that has made me feel so strongly as to the only manner
in which others can be brought from darkness into light.
The wisdom of the Almighty recognised that if man was to be saved
it must be done by the assumption of man’s nature on the
part of the Deity. God must make himself man, or man could
never learn the nature and attributes of God. Let us then
follow the sublime example of the incarnation, and make ourselves
as unbelievers that we may teach unbelievers to believe. If
Paley and Butler had only been <i>real infidels</i> for a single
year, instead of taking the thoughts and reasonings of their
opponents at second-hand, what a difference should we not have
seen in the nature of their work. Alas! their clear and
powerful intellects had been trained early in the severest
exercises; they could not be misled by any of the sophistries of
their opponents; but, on the other hand, never having been misled
they knew not the thread of the labyrinth as one who has been
shut up therein.</p>
<p>I should also warn the reader of another matter. He must
not expect to find that I can maintain everything which he could
perhaps desire to see maintained. I can prove, to such a
high degree of presumption as shall amount virtually to
demonstration, that our Lord died upon the cross, rose again from
the dead upon the third day, and ascended into Heaven: but I
cannot prove that none of the accounts of these events which have
come down to us have suffered from the hand of time: on the
contrary, I must own that the reasons which led me to conclude
that there must be confusion in some of the accounts of the
Resurrection continue in full force with me even now. I see
no way of escaping from this conclusion: but it seems equally
strange that the Christian should have such an indomitable
repugnance to accept it, and that the unbeliever should conceive
that it inflicts any damage whatever upon the Christian
evidences. Perhaps the error of each confirms that of the
other, as will appear hereafter.</p>
<p>I have spoken hitherto as though I were writing only for men,
but the help of good women can never be so precious as in the
salvation of human souls; if there is one work for which women
are better fitted than another, it is that of arresting the
progress of unbelief. Can there be a nobler one?
Their superior tact and quickness give them a great advantage
over men; men will listen to them when they would turn away from
one of their own sex; and though I am well aware that courtesy is
no argument, yet the natural politeness shewn by a man to a woman
will compel attention to what falls from her lips, and will thus
perhaps be the means of bringing him into contact with Divine
truths which would never otherwise have reached him. Yet
this is a work from which too many women recoil in
horror—they know that they can do nothing unless they are
intimately acquainted with the opinions of those from whom they
differ, and from such an intimacy they believe that they are
right in shrinking.</p>
<p>Oh, my sisters, my sisters, ye who go into the foulest dens of
disease and vice, fearless of the pestilence and of man’s
brutality, ye whose whole lives bear witness to the cross of
Christ and the efficacy of the Divine love, did one of you ever
fear being corrupted by the vice with which you came in
contact? Is there one of you who fears to examine why it is
that even the most specious form of vice is vicious? You
fear not infection here, for you know that you are on sure
ground, and that there is no form of vice of which the
viciousness is not clearly provable; but can you doubt that the
foundation of your faith is sure also, and can you not see that
your cowardice in not daring to examine the foul and
soul-destroying den of infidelity is a stumbling-block to those
who have not yet known their Saviour? Your fear is as the
fear of children who dare not go in the dark; but alas! the
unbeliever does not understand it thus. He says that your
fear is not of the darkness but of the light, and that you dare
not search lest you should find that which would make against
you. Hideous blasphemy against the Lord! But is not
the sin to be laid partly at the door of those whose cowardice
has given occasion for it?</p>
<p>Is there none of you who knows that as to the pure all things
are pure, so to the true and loyal heart all things will confirm
its faith? You shrink from this last trial of your
allegiance, partly from the pain of even seeing the wounds of
your Redeemer laid open—of even hearing the words of those
enemies who have traduced him and crucified him afresh—but
you lose the last and highest of the prizes, for great as is your
faith now, be very sure that from this crowning proof of your
devotion you would emerge with greater still.</p>
<p>Has none of you seen a savage dog barking and tearing at the
end of his chain as though he were longing to devour you, and yet
if you have gone bravely up to him and bade him be still, he is
cowed and never barks again? Such is the genius of
infidelity; it loves to threaten those who retreat, yet it
shrinks daunted back from those who meet it boldly; it is the
lack of boldness on the part of the Christian which gives it all
its power; when Christians are strong in the strength of their
own cause infidels will know their impotence, but as long as
there are cowards there will be those who prey upon cowardice,
and as long as those who should defend the cross of Christ hide
themselves behind battlements, so long will the enemy come up to
the very walls of the defence and trouble them that are
within. The above words must have sounded harsh and will I
fear have given pain to many a tender heart which is conscious of
the depth of its own love for the Redeemer, and would be shocked
at the thought that anything had been neglected in his service,
but has not the voice of such a heart returned answer to itself
that what I have written is just?</p>
<p>Again, I have been told by some that they have been aware of
the necessity of doing their best towards putting a stop to
infidelity, and that they have been unceasing in their prayers
for friends or husbands or relations who know not Christ, but
that with prayers their efforts have ended. Now, there can
be no one in the whole world who has had more signal proofs of
the efficacy of prayer than the writer of these pages, but he
would lie if he were to say that prayer was ever answered when it
was only another name for idleness, a cloak for the avoidance of
obvious duty. God is no helper of the indolent and the
coward; if this were so, what need to work at all? Why not
sit still, and trust in prayer for everything? No; to the
women who have prayed, and prayed only, the answer is ready at
hand, that work without prayer is bad, but prayer without work
worse. Let them do their own utmost in the way of sowing,
planting, and watering, and then let them pray to God that he
will vouchsafe them the increase; but they can no more expect the
increase to be of God’s free gift without the toil of
sowing than did the blessed Apostle St. Paul. If God did
not convert the heathen for Paul and Apollos in answer to their
prayers alone, how can we expect that he will convert the infidel
for ourselves, unless we have first followed in the footsteps of
the Apostles? The sin of infidelity will rest upon us and
our children until we have done our best to shake it off; and
this not timidly and disingenuously as those who fear for the
result, but with the certainty that it is the infidel and not the
Christian who need fear investigation, if the investigation only
goes deep enough. Herein has lain our error, we have feared
to allow the unbeliever to put forth all his strength lest it
should prove stronger than we thought it was, when in truth the
world would only have known the sooner of its weakness; and this
shall now at last be abundantly shewn, for, as I said above, I
will help no infidel by concealing his case; it shall appear in
full, and as nearly in his own words as the limits at my disposal
will allow. Out of his own mouth shall he be condemned, and
yet, I trust, not condemned alone; but converted as I myself, and
by the same irresistible chain of purest reason; one thing only
is wanted on the part of the reader, it is this, the desire to
attain truth regardless of past prejudices.</p>
<p>If an unbeliever has made up his mind that we must be wrong,
without having heard our side, and if he presumes to neglect the
most ordinary precaution against error—that of
understanding the position of an opponent—I can do nothing
with him or for him. No man can make another see, if the
other persists in shutting his eyes and bandaging them: if it is
a victory to be able to say that they cannot see the truth under
these circumstances, the victory is with our opponents; but for
those who can lay their hands upon their heart and say truly
before God and man that they care nothing for the maintenance of
their own opinions, but only that they may come to know the
truth, for such I can do much. I can put the matter before
them in so clear a light that they shall never doubt
hereafter.</p>
<p>Never was there a time when such an exposition was wanted so
much as now. The specious plausibilities of a
pseudo-science have led hundreds of thousands into error; the
misapplication of geology has ensnared a host of victims, and a
still greater misapplication of natural history seems likely to
devour those whom the perversion of geology has spared. Not
that I have a word to say against <i>true</i> science: true
science can never be an enemy of the Bible, which is the
text-book of the science of the salvation of human souls as
written by the great Creator and Redeemer of the soul itself, but
the Enemy of Mankind is never idle, and no sooner does God
vouchsafe to us any clearer illumination of his purposes and
manner of working, than the Evil One sets himself to consider how
he can turn the blessing into a curse; and by the all-wise
dispensation of Providence he is allowed so much triumph as that
he shall sift the wise from the foolish, the faithful from the
traitors. God knoweth his own. Still there is no
surer mark that one is among the number of those whom he hath
chosen than the desire to bring all to share in the gracious
promises which he has vouchsafed to those that will take
advantage of them; and there are few more certain signs of
reprobation than indifference as to the existence of unbelief,
and faint-heartedness in trying to remove it. It is the
duty of all those who love Christ to lead their brethren to love
him also; but how can they hope to succeed in this until they
understand the grounds on which he is rejected?</p>
<p>For there <i>are</i> grounds, insufficient ones, untenable
ones, grounds which a little loving patience and, if I may be
allowed the word, ingenuity, will shew to be utterly rotten; but
as long as their rottenness is only to be asserted and not
proved, so long will deluded people build upon them in fancied
security. As yet the proof has never been made sufficiently
clear. If displayed sufficiently for one age it has been
necessary to do the work again for the next. As soon as the
errors of one set of people have been made apparent, another set
has arisen with fresh objections, or the old fallacies have
reappeared in another shape. It is not too much to say that
it has never yet been so clearly proved that Christ rose again
from the dead, that a jury of educated Englishmen should be
compelled to assent to it, even though they had never before
heard of Christianity. This therefore it is my object to do
once and for ever now.</p>
<p>It is not for me to pry into the motives of the Almighty, nor
to inquire why it is that for nearly two thousand years the
perfection of proof should never have been duly produced, but if
I dare hazard an opinion I should say that such proof was never
necessary until now, but that it has lain ready to be produced at
a moment’s notice on the arrival of the fitting time.
In the early stages of the Church the <i>vivâ voce</i>
testimony of the Apostles was still so near that its force was in
no way spent; from those times until recently the universality of
belief was such that proof was hardly needed; it is only for a
hundred years or so (which in the sight of God are but as
yesterday) that infidelity has made real progress. Then God
raised his hand in wrath; revolution taught men to see the nature
of unbelief and the world shrank back in horror; the time of fear
passed by; unbelief has again raised itself; whereon we can see
that other and even more fearful revolutions <a
name="citation82"></a><a href="#footnote82"
class="citation">[82]</a> are daily threatening. What
country is safe? In what part of the world do not men feel
an uneasy foreboding of the wrath which will surely come if they
do not repent and turn unto the Lord their God? Go where we
will we are conscious of that heaviness and oppression which is
the precursor of the hurricane and the earthquake; none escape
it: an all-pervading sense of rottenness and fearful waiting upon
judgment is upon the hearts of all men. May it not be that
this awe and silence have been ordained in order that the still
small voice of the Lord may be the more clearly heard and
welcomed as salvation? Is it not possible that the infinite
mercy of God is determined to give mankind one last chance,
before the day of that coming which no creature may abide?
I dare not answer: yet I know well that the fire burneth within
me, and that night and day I take no rest but am consumed until
the work committed to me is done, that I may be clear from the
blood of all men.</p>
<h3><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
83</span>Chapter II<br />
Strauss and the Hallucination Theory</h3>
<p><span class="smcap">It</span> has been well established by
Paley, and indeed has seldom been denied, that within a very few
years of Christ’s crucifixion a large number of people
believed that he had risen from the dead. They believed
that after having suffered actual death he rose to actual life,
as a man who could eat and drink and talk, who could be seen and
handled. Some who held this were near relations of Christ,
some had known him intimately for a considerable time before his
crucifixion, many must have known him well by sight, but all were
unanimous in their assertion that they had seen him alive after
he had been dead, and in consequence of this belief they adopted
a new mode of life, abandoning in many cases every other earthly
consideration save that of bearing witness to what they had known
and seen. I have not thought it worth while to waste time
and space by introducing actual proof of the above. This
will be found in Paley’s opening chapters, to which the
reader is referred.</p>
<p>How then did this intensity of conviction come about?
Differ as they might and did upon many of the questions arising
out of the main fact which they taught, as to the fact itself
they differed not in the least degree. In their own
life-time and in that of those who could confute them their story
gained the adherence of a very large and ever increasing
number. If it could be shewn that the belief in
Christ’s reappearance did not arise until after the death
of those who were said to have seen him, when actions and
teachings might have been imputed to them which were not theirs,
the case would then be different; but this cannot be done; there
is nothing in history better established than that the men who
said that they had seen Christ alive after he had been dead, were
themselves the first to lay aside all else in order to maintain
their assertion. If it could be maintained that they taught
what they did in order to sanction laxity of morals, the case
would again be changed. But this too is impossible.
They taught what they did because of the intensity of their own
conviction and from no other motive whatsoever.</p>
<p>What then can that thing have been which made these men so
beyond all measure and one-mindedly certain? Were they thus
before the Crucifixion? Far otherwise. Yet the men
who fled in the hour of their master’s peril betrayed no
signs of flinching when their own was no less imminent. How
came it that the cowardice and fretfulness of the Gospels should
be transformed into the lion-hearted steadfastness of the
Acts?</p>
<p>The Crucifixion had intervened. Yes, but surely
something more than the Crucifixion. Can we believe that if
their experience of Christ had ended with the Cross, the Apostles
would have been in that state of mind which should compel them to
leave all else for the sake of preaching what he had taught
them? It is a hard thing for a man to change the scheme of
his life; yet this is not a case of one man but of many, who
became changed as if struck with an enchanter’s wand, and
who, though many, were as one in the vehemence with which they
protested that their master had reappeared to them alive.
Their converse with Christ did not probably last above a year or
two, and was interrupted by frequent absence. If Christ had
died once and for all upon the Cross, Christianity must have died
with him; but it did not die; nay, it did not begin to live with
full energy until after its founder had been crucified. We
must ask again, what could that thing have been which turned
these querulous and faint-hearted followers into the most earnest
and successful body of propagandists which the world has ever
seen, if it was not that which they said it was—namely,
that Christ had reappeared to them alive after they had
themselves known him to be dead? This would account for the
change in them, but is there anything else that will?</p>
<p>They had such ample opportunities of knowing the truth that
the supposition of mistake is fraught with the greatest
difficulties; they gave such guarantees of sincerity as that none
have given greater; their unanimity is perfect; there is not the
faintest trace of any difference of opinion amongst them as to
the main fact of the Resurrection. These are things which
never have been and never can be denied, but if they do not form
strong <i>primâ facie</i> ground for believing in the truth
and actuality of Christ’s Resurrection, what is there which
will amount to a <i>primâ facie</i> case for anything
whatever?</p>
<p>Nevertheless the matter does not rest here. While there
exists the faintest possibility of mistake we may be sure that we
shall deal most wisely by examining its character and
value. Let us inquire therefore whether there are any
circumstances which seem to indicate that the early Christians
might have been mistaken, and been firmly persuaded that they had
seen Christ alive, although in point of fact they had not really
seen him? Men have been very positive and very sincere
about things wherein we should have conceived mistake impossible,
and yet they have been utterly mistaken. A strong
predisposition, a rare coincidence, an unwonted natural
phenomenon, a hundred other causes, may turn sound judgments
awry, and we dare not assume forthwith that the first disciples
of Christ were superior to influences which have misled many who
have had better chances of withstanding them. Visions and
hallucinations are not uncommon even now. How easily belief
in a supernatural occurrence obtains among the peasantry of
Italy, Ireland, Belgium, France, and Spain; and how much more
easily would it do so among Jews in the days of Christ, when
belief in supernatural interferences with this world’s
economy was, so to speak, omnipresent. Means of
communication, that is to say of verification, were few, and the
tone of men’s minds as regards accuracy of all kinds was
utterly different from that of our own; science existed not even
in name as the thing we now mean by it; few could read and fewer
write, so that a story could seldom be confined to its original
limits; error, therefore, had much chance and truth little as
compared with our own times. What more is needed to make us
feel how possible it was for the purest and most honest of men to
become parents of all fallacy?</p>
<p>Strauss believes this to have been the case. He supposes
that the earliest Christians were under hallucination when they
thought that they had seen Christ alive after his Crucifixion; in
other words, that they never saw him at all, but only thought
that they had done so. He does not imagine that they
conceived this idea at once, but that it grew up gradually in the
course of a few years, and that those who came under its
influence antedated it unconsciously afterwards. He appears
to believe that within a few months of the Crucifixion, and in
consequence of some unexplained combination of internal and
external causes, some one of the Apostles came to be impressed
with the notion that he had seen Christ alive; the impression,
however made, was exceedingly strong, and was communicated as
soon as might be to some other or others of the Apostles: the
idea was welcome—as giving life to a hope which had been
fondly cherished; each inflamed the imagination of the other,
until the original basis of the conception slipped unconsciously
from recollection, while the intensity of the conviction itself
became stronger and stronger the more often the story was
repeated. Strauss supposes that on seeing the firm
conviction of two or three who had hitherto been leaders among
them, the other Apostles took heart, and that thus the body grew
together again perhaps within a twelve-month of the
Crucifixion. According to him, the idea of the Resurrection
having been once started, and having once taken root, the soil
was so congenial that it grew apace; the rest of the Apostles,
perhaps assembled together in a high state of mental enthusiasm
and excitement, conceived that they saw Christ enter the room in
which they were sitting and afford some manifest proof of life
and identity; or some one else may have enlarged a less
extraordinary story to these dimensions, so that in a short time
it passed current everywhere (there have been instances of
delusions quite as extraordinary gaining a foothold among men
whose sincerity is not to be disputed), and finally they
conceived that these appearances of their master had commenced a
few months—and what is a few months?—earlier than
they actually had, so that the first appearance was soon looked
upon as having been vouchsafed within three days of the
Crucifixion.</p>
<p>The above is not in Strauss’s words, but it is a careful
<i>résumé</i> of what I gather to be his conception
of the origin of the belief in the Resurrection of Christ.
The belief, and the intensity of the belief, need explanation;
the supernatural explanation, as we should ourselves readily
admit, cannot be accepted unless all others are found wanting; he
therefore, if I understand him rightly, puts forward the above as
being a reasonable and natural solution of the
difficulty—the only solution which does not fail upon
examination, and therefore the one which should be
accepted. It is founded upon the affection which the
Apostles had borne towards their master, and their unwillingness
to give up their hope that they had been chosen, as the favoured
lieutenants of the promised Messiah.</p>
<p>No man would be willing to give up such hope easily; all men
would readily welcome its renewal; it was easy in the then
intellectual condition of Palestine for hallucination to
originate, and still easier for it to spread; the story touched
the hearts of men too nearly to render its propagation
difficult. Men and women like believing in the marvellous,
for it brings the chance of good fortune nearer to their own
doors; but how much more so when they are themselves closely
connected with the central figure of the marvel, and when it
appears to give a clue to the solution of that mystery which all
would pry into if they could—our future after death?
There can be no great cause for wonder that an hallucination
which arose under such conditions as these should have gained
ground and conquered all opposition, even though its origin may
be traced to the brain of but a single person.</p>
<p>He would be a bold man who should say that this was
impossible; nevertheless it cannot be accepted. For, in the
first place, we collect most certainly from the Gospel records
that the Apostles were <i>not</i> a compact and devoted body of
adherents at the time of the Crucifixion; yet it is hard to see
how Strauss’s hallucination theory can be accepted, unless
this was the case. If Strauss believed the earliest
followers of Christ to have been already immovably fixed in their
belief that he was the Son of God—the promised Messiah, of
whom they were themselves the especially chosen
ministers—if he considered that they believed in their
master as the worker of innumerable miracles which they had
themselves witnessed; as one whom they had seen raise others from
death to life, and whom, therefore, death could not be expected
to control—if he held the followers of Christ to have been
in this frame of mind at the time of the Crucifixion, it might be
intelligible that he should suppose the strength of their faith
to have engendered an imaginary reappearance in order to save
them from the conclusion that their hopes had been without
foundation; that, in point of fact, they should have accepted a
new delusion in order to prop up an old one; but we know very
well that Strauss does not accept this position. He denies
that the Apostles had seen any miracles; independently therefore
of the many and unmistakable traces of their having been but
partial and wavering adherents, which have made it a matter of
common belief among those who have studied the New Testament that
the faith of the Apostles was unsteadfast before the Crucifixion,
he must have other and stronger reasons for thinking that this
was so, inasmuch as he does not look upon them as men who had
seen our Lord raise any one from the dead, nor restore the eyes
of the blind.</p>
<p>According to him, they may have seen Christ exercise unusual
power over the insane, and temporary alleviations of sickness,
due perhaps to mental excitement, may have taken place in their
presence and passed for miracles; he would doubt how far they had
even seen this much, for he would insist on many passages in the
Gospels which would point in the direction of our Lord’s
never having professed to work a single miracle; but even though
he granted that they had seen certain extraordinary cases of
healing, there is no amount of testimony which would for a moment
satisfy him of their having seen more. <i>We</i> see the
Apostles as men who before the Crucifixion had seen Lazarus
raised from death to life after the corruption of the grave had
begun its work, and who had seen sight given to one that had been
born sightless; as men who had seen miracle after miracle, with
every loophole for escape from a belief in the miraculous
carefully excluded; who had seen their master walking upon the
sea, and bidding the winds be still; our difficulty therefore is
to understand the incredulity of the Apostles as displayed
abundantly in the Gospels; but Strauss can have none such; for he
must see them as men over whom the influence of their master had
been purely personal, and due to nothing more than to a strength
and beauty of character which his followers very imperfectly
understood. <i>He</i> does not believe that Lazarus was
raised at all, or that the man who had been born blind ever
existed; he considers the fourth gospel, which alone records
these events, to be the work of a later age, and not to be
depended on for facts, save here and there; certainly not where
the facts recorded are miraculous. He must therefore be
even more ready than we are to admit that the faith of the
Apostles was weak before the Crucifixion; but whether he is or
not, we have it on the highest authority that their faith was not
strong enough to maintain them at the very first approach of
danger, nor to have given them any hope whatever that our Lord
should rise again; whereas for Strauss’s theory to hold
good, it must already have been in a white heat of
enthusiasm.</p>
<p>But even granting that this was so—in the face of all
the evidence we can reach—men so honest and sincere as the
Apostles proved themselves to be, would have taken other ground
than the assertion that their master had reappeared to them
alive, unless some very extraordinary occurrences had led them to
believe that they had indeed seen him. If their faith was
glowing and intense at the time of the Crucifixion—so
intense that they believed in Christ as much, or nearly as much,
after the Crucifixion as before it (and unless this were so the
hallucinations could never have arisen at all, or at any rate
could never have been so unanimously accepted)—it would
have been so intense as to stand in no need of a
reappearance. In this case, if they had found that their
master did not return to them, the Apostles would probably have
accepted the position that he had, contrary to their expectation,
been put to a violent death; they would, perhaps, have come
sooner or later to the conclusion that he was immediately on
death received into Heaven, and was sitting on the right hand of
God; while some extraordinary dream might have been construed
into a revelation of the fact with the manner of its occurrence,
and been soon generally believed; but the idea of our
Lord’s return to earth in a gross material body whereon the
wounds were still unhealed, was perhaps the last thing that would
have suggested itself to them by way of hallucination. If
their faith had been great enough, and their spirits high enough
to have allowed hallucination to originate at all, their
imagination would have presented them at once with a glorious
throne, and the splendours of the highest Heaven as appearing
through the opened firmament; it would not surely have rested
satisfied with a man whose hands and side were wounded, and who
could eat of a piece of broiled fish and of an honeycomb. A
fabric so utterly baseless as the reappearances of our Lord (on
the supposition of their being unhistoric) would have been built
of gaudier materials. To repeat, it seems impossible that
the Apostles should have attempted to connect their
hallucinations circumstantially and historically with the events
which had immediately preceded them. Hallucination would
have been conscious of a hiatus and not have tried to bridge it
over. It would not have developed the idea of our
Lord’s return to this grovelling and unworthy earth prior
to his assumption into glory, unless those who were under its
influence had either seen other resurrections from the
dead—in which case there is no difficulty attaching to the
Resurrection of our Lord himself—or been forced into
believing it by the evidence of their own senses; this, on the
supposition that the devotion of the first disciples was intense
before the Crucifixion; but if, on the other hand, they were at
that time anything but steadfast, as both <i>a priori</i> and
<i>a posteriori</i> evidence would seem to indicate, if they were
few and wavering, and if what little faith they had was shaken to
its foundations and apparently at an end for ever with the death
of Christ, it becomes indeed difficult to see how the idea of his
return to earth alive could have ever struck even a single one of
them, much less that hallucinations which could have had no
origin but in the disordered brain of some one member of the
Apostolic body, should in a short time have been accepted by all
as by one man without a shadow of dissension, and been strong
enough to convert them, as was said above, into the most earnest
and successful body of propagandists that the world has ever
seen.</p>
<p>Truly this is not too much to say of them; and yet we are
asked to believe that this faith, so intensely energetic, grew
out of one which can hardly be called a faith at all, in
consequence of day-dreams whose existence presupposes a faith
hardly if any less intense than that which it is supposed to have
engendered. Are we not warranted in asserting that a
movement which is confined to a few wavering followers, and which
receives any very decisive check, which scatters and demoralises
the few who have already joined it, will be absolutely sure to
die a speedy natural death unless something utterly strange and
new occurs to give it a fresh impetus? Such a resuscitating
influence would have been given to the Christian religion by the
reappearance of Christ alive. This would meet the
requirements of the case, for we can all feel that if we had
already half believed in some gifted friend as a messenger from
God, and if we had seen that friend put to death before our eyes,
and yet found that the grave had no power over him, but that he
could burst its bonds and show himself to us again unmistakably
alive, we should from that moment yield ourselves absolutely his;
but our faith would die with him unless it had been utter before
his death.</p>
<p>The devotion of the Apostles is explained by their belief in
the Resurrection, but their belief in the Resurrection is not
explained by a supposed hallucination; for their minds were not
in that state in which alone such a delusion could establish
itself firmly, and unless it were established firmly by the most
apparently irrefragable evidence of many persons, it would have
had no living energy. How an hallucination could occur in
the requisite strength to the requisite number of people is
neither explained nor explicable, except upon the supposition
that the Apostles were in a very different frame of mind at the
time of Christ’s Crucifixion from that which all the
evidence we can get would seem to indicate. If Strauss had
first made this point clear we could follow him. But he has
not done so.</p>
<p>Strauss says, the conception that Christ’s body had been
reawakened and changed, “a double miracle, exceeding far
what had occurred in the case of Enoch and Elijah, could only be
credible to one who saw in him a prophet far superior to
them”—<i>i.e.</i>, to one who notwithstanding his
death was persuaded that he was the Messiah: “this
conviction” (that a double miracle had been performed)
“was the first to which the Apostles had to attain in the
days of their humiliation after the Crucifixion.”
Yes—but how were they to attain to it, being now utterly
broken down and disillusioned? Strauss admits that before
they could have come to hold what he supposes them to have held,
they must have seen in Christ even after his Crucifixion a
prophet far greater than either Moses or Elias; whereas in point
of fact it is very doubtful whether they ever believed this much
of their master even before the Crucifixion, and hardly
questionable that after it they disbelieved in him almost
entirely, until he shewed himself to them alive. Is it
possible that from the dead embers of so weak a faith, so vast a
conflagration should have been kindled?</p>
<p>I submit, therefore, that independently of any direct evidence
as to the when and where of Christ’s reappearances, the
fact that the Apostles before the Crucifixion were irresolute,
and after it unspeakably resolute, affords strong ground for
believing that they must have seen something, or come to know
something, which to their minds was utterly overwhelming in its
convincing power: when we find the earliest and most trustworthy
records unanimously asserting that that something was the
reappearance of Christ alive, we feel that such a reappearance
was an adequate cause for the result actually produced; and when
we think over the condition of mind which both probability and
evidence assign to the Apostles, we also feel that no other
circumstance would have been adequate, nor even this unless the
proof had been such as none could reasonably escape from.</p>
<p>Again, Strauss’s supposition that the Apostles antedated
their hallucinations suggests no less difficulty. Suppose
that, after all, Strauss is right, and that there was no actual
reappearance; whatever it was that led the Apostles to believe in
such reappearance must have been, judging by its effect, intense
and memorable: it must have been as a shock obliterating
everything save the memory of itself and the things connected
with it: the time and manner of such a shock could never have
been forgotten, nor misplaced without deliberate intention to
deceive, and no one will impute any such intention to the
Apostles.</p>
<p>It may be said that if they were capable of believing in the
reality of their visions they would be also capable of antedating
them; this is true; but the double supposition of self-delusion,
first in seeing the visions at all, and then in unconsciously
antedating them, reduces the Apostles to such an exceedingly low
level of intelligence and trustworthiness, that no good and
permanent work could come from such persons; the men who could be
weak enough, and crazed enough, if the reader will pardon the
expression, to do as Strauss suggests, could never have carried
their work through in the way they did. Such men would have
wrecked their undertaking a hundred times over in the perils
which awaited it upon every side; they would have become victims
of their own fancies and desires, with little or no other grounds
than these for any opinions they might hold or teach: from such a
condition of mind they must have gone on to one still worse; and
their tenets would have perished with them, if not sooner.</p>
<p>Again, as regards this antedating; unless the visions happened
at once, it is inconceivable that they should have happened at
all. Strauss believes that the disciples fled in their
first terror to their homes: that when there, “outside the
range to which the power of the enemies and murderers of their
master extended, the spell of terror and consternation which had
been laid upon their minds gave way,” and that under the
circumstances a reaction up to the point at which they might have
visions of Christ is capable of explanation. The answer to
this is that it is indeed likely that the spell of terror would
give way when they found themselves safe at home, but that it is
not at all likely that any reaction would take place in favour of
one to whom their allegiance had never been thorough, and whom
they supposed to have met with a violent and accursed end.
It might be easy to imagine such a reaction if we did not also
attempt to imagine the circumstances that must have preceded it;
the moment we try to do this, we find it to be an
impossibility. If once the Apostles had been dispersed, and
had returned home to their former avocations without having seen
or heard anything of their master’s return to earth, all
their expectations would have been ended; they would have
remained peaceable fishermen for the rest of their lives, and
been cured once and for ever of their enthusiasm.</p>
<p>Can we believe that the disciples, returning to Galilee in
fear, and bereaved of that master mind which had kept them from
falling out with one another, would have remained a united and
enthusiastic body? Strauss admits that their enthusiasm was
for the time ended. Is it then likely that they would have
remained in any sense united, or is it not much more likely that
they would have shunned each other and disliked allusions to the
past? What but Christ’s actual reappearance could
rekindle this dead enthusiasm, and fan it to such a burning
heat? Suppose that one or two disciples recovered faith and
courage, the majority would never do so. If Christ himself
with the magic of his presence could not weld them into a devoted
and harmonious company, would the rumour arising at a later time
that some one had seen him after death, be acceptable enough to
make the others believe that they too had actually seen and
handled him? Perhaps—if the rumour was
believed. But <i>would</i> it have been believed? Or
at any rate have been believed so utterly?</p>
<p>We cannot think it. For the belief and assertion are
absolutely without trace of dissent within the Christian body,
and that body was in the first instance composed entirely of the
very persons who had known and followed Christ before the
Crucifixion. If some of the original twelve had remained
aloof and disputed the reappearances of Christ, is it possible
that no trace of such dissension should appear in the Epistles of
St. Paul? Paul differed widely enough from those who were
Apostles before him, and his language concerning them is
occasionally that of ill-concealed contempt and hatred rather
than of affection; but is there a word or hint which would seem
to indicate that a single one of those who had the best means of
knowing doubted the Resurrection? There is nothing of the
kind; on the contrary, whatever we find is such as to make us
feel perfectly sure that none of them <i>did</i> doubt it.
Is it then possible that this unanimity should have sprung from
the original hallucinations of a small minority?
True—it is plain from the Epistle to the Corinthians that
there were some of Paul’s contemporaries who denied the
Resurrection. But who were they? We should expect
that many among the more educated Gentile converts would throw
doubt upon so stupendous a miracle, but is there anything which
would point in the direction of these doubts having been held
within the original body of those who said that they had seen
Christ alive? By the eleven, or by the five hundred who saw
him at once? There is not one single syllable. Those
who heard the story second-hand would doubtless some of them
attempt to explain away its miraculous character, but if it had
been founded on hallucination it is not from these alone that the
doubts would have come.</p>
<p>Something is imperatively demanded in order to account for the
intensity of conviction manifested by the earliest Christians
shortly after the Crucifixion; for until that time they were far
from being firmly convinced, and the Crucifixion was the very
last thing to have convinced them. Given (to speak of our
Lord as he must probably appear to Strauss) an unusually gifted
teacher of a noble and beautiful character: given also, a small
body of adherents who were inclined to adopt him as their master
and to regard him as the coming liberator, but who were
nevertheless far from settled in their conviction: given such a
man and such followers: the teacher is put to a shameful death
about two years after they had first known him, and the followers
forsake him instantly: surely without his reappearing in some way
upon the scene they would have concluded that their doubts had
been right and their hopes without foundation: but if he
reappeared, their faith would, for the first time, become
intense, all-absorbing. Surely also they might be trusted
to know whether they had really seen their master return to them
or not, and not to sacrifice themselves in every way, and spend
their whole lives in bearing testimony to pure hallucination?</p>
<p>There is one other point on which a few words will be
necessary, before we proceed to the arguments in favour of the
objective character of Christ’s Resurrection as derivable
from the conversion and testimony of St. Paul. It is
this. Strauss and those who agree with him will perhaps
maintain that the Apostles were in truth wholly devoted to Christ
before the Crucifixion, but that the Evangelists have represented
them as being only half-hearted, in order to heighten the effect
of their subsequent intense devotion. But this looks like
falling into the very error which Rationalists condemn most
loudly when it comes from so-called orthodox writers. They
complain, and with too much justice, that our apologists have
made “anything out of anything.” Yet if the
Apostles were not unsteadfast, and did not desert their master in
his hour of peril, and if all the accounts of Christ’s
reappearances are the creations of disordered fancy, we may as
well at once declare the Evangelists to be worthless as
historians, and had better give up all attempt at the
construction of history with their assistance. We cannot
take whatever we wish, and leave whatever we wish, and alter
whatever we wish. If we admit that upon the whole the
Gospel writings or at any rate the first three Gospels, contain a
considerable amount of historic matter, we should also arrive at
some general principles by which we will consistently abide in
separating the historic from the unhistoric. We cannot deal
with them arbitrarily, accepting whatever fits in with our
fancies, and rejecting whatever is at variance with them.</p>
<p>Now can it be maintained that the Evangelists would be so
likely to overrate the half-heartedness of the Apostles, that we
should look with suspicion upon the many and very plain
indications of their having been only half-hearted?
Certainly not. If there was any likelihood of a tendency
one way or the other it would be in the direction of overrating
their faith. Would not the unbelief of the Apostles in the
face of all the recorded miracles be a most damaging thing in the
eyes of the unconverted? Would not the Apostles themselves,
after they were once firmly convinced, be inclined to think that
they had from the first believed more firmly than they really had
done? This at least would be in accordance with the natural
promptings of human instinct: we are all of us apt to be wise
after the event, and are far more prone to dwell upon things
which seem to give some colour to a pretence of prescience, than
upon those which force from us a confession of our own
stupidity. It might seem a damaging thing that the Apostles
should have doubted as much as long as they clearly did; would
then the Evangelists go out of their way to introduce more signs
of hesitation? Would any one suggest that the signs of
doubt and wavering had been overrated, unless there were some
theory or other to be supported, in order to account for which
this overrating was necessary? Would the opinion that the
want of faith had been exaggerated arise prior to the formation
of a theory, or subsequently? This is the fairest test; let
the reader apply it for himself.</p>
<p>On the other hand, there are many reasons which should incline
us to believe that, before the Resurrection, the Apostles were
less convinced than is generally supposed, but it would be
dangerous to depart either to the right hand or to the left of
that which we find actually recorded, namely, that in the main
the Apostles were prepared to accept Christ before the
Crucifixion, but that they were by no means resolute and devoted
followers. I submit that this is a fair rendering of the
spirit of what we find in the Gospels. It is just because
Strauss has chosen to depart from it that he has found himself
involved in the maze of self-contradiction through which we have
been trying to follow him. There is no position so absurd
that it cannot be easily made to look plausible, if the strictly
scientific method of investigation is once departed from.</p>
<p>But if I had been in Strauss’s place, and had wished to
make out a case against Christianity without much heed of facts,
I should not have done it by a theory of hallucinations. A
much prettier, more novel and more sensational opening for such
an attempt is afforded by an attack upon the Crucifixion
itself. A very neat theory might be made, that there may
have been some disturbance at one of the Jewish passovers, during
which some persons were crucified as an example by the Romans:
that during this time Christ happened to be missing; that he
reappeared, and finally departed, whither, no man can say: that
the Apostles, after his last disappearance, remembering that he
had been absent during the tumult, little by little worked
themselves up into the belief that on his reappearance they had
seen wounds upon him, and that the details of the Crucifixion
were afterwards revealed in a vision to some favoured believer,
until in the course of a few years the narrative assumed its
present shape: that then the reappearance of Christ was denied
among the Jews, while the Crucifixion as attaching disgrace to
him was not disputed, and that it thus became so generally
accepted as to find its way into Pliny and Josephus. This
tissue of absurdity may serve as an example of what the
unlicensed indulgence of theory might lead to; but truly it would
be found quite as easy of belief as that the early Christian
faith in the Resurrection was due to hallucination only.</p>
<p>Considering, then, that Christianity was not crushed but
overran the most civilised portions of the world; that St. Paul
was undoubtedly early told, in such a manner as for him to be
thoroughly convinced of the fact, that on some few but sufficient
occasions Christ was seen alive after he had been crucified; that
the general belief in the reappearance of our Lord was so strong
that those who had the best means of judging gave up all else to
preach it, with a unanimity and singleness of purpose which is
irreconcilable with hallucination; that all our records most
definitely insist upon this belief and that there is no trace of
its ever having been disputed among the Jewish Christians, it
seems hard to see how we can escape from admitting that Jesus
Christ was crucified, dead, and buried, and yet that he was
verily and indeed seen alive again by those who expected nothing
less, but who, being once convinced, turned the whole world after
them.</p>
<p>It is now incumbent upon us to examine the testimony of St.
Paul, to which I would propose to devote a separate chapter.</p>
<h3><a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
105</span>Chapter III<br />
The Character and Conversion of St. Paul</h3>
<p><span class="smcap">Setting</span> aside for the present the
story of St. Paul’s conversion as given in the Acts of the
Apostles—for I am bound to admit that there are
circumstances in connection with that account which throw doubt
upon its historical accuracy—and looking at the broad facts
only, we are struck at once with the following obvious
reflection, namely, that Paul was an able man, a cultivated man,
and a bitter opponent of Christianity; but that in spite of the
strength of his original prejudices, he came to see what he
thought convincing reasons for going over to the camp of his
enemies. He went over, and with the result we are all
familiar.</p>
<p>Now even supposing that the miraculous account of Paul’s
conversion is entirely devoid of foundation, or again, as I
believe myself, that the story given in the Acts is not correctly
placed, but refers to the vision alluded to by Paul himself (I.
Cor. xv.), and to events which happened, not coincidently with
his conversion, but some years after it—does not the
importance of the conversion itself rather gain than lose in
consequence? A charge of unimportant inaccuracy may be thus
sustained against one who wrote in a most inaccurate age; but
what is this in comparison with the testimony borne to the
strength of the Christian evidences by the supposition that <i>of
their own weight alone</i>, <i>and without miraculous
assistance</i>, <i>they succeeded in convincing the most
bitter</i>, <i>and at the same time the ablest</i>, <i>of their
opponents</i>? This is very pregnant. No man likes to
abandon the side which he has once taken. The spectacle of
a man committing himself deeply to his original party, changing
without rhyme or reason, and then remaining for the rest of his
life the most devoted and courageous adherent of all that he had
opposed, without a single human inducement to make him do so, is
one which has never been witnessed since man was man. When
men who have been committed deeply and spontaneously to one
cause, leave it for another, they do so either because facts have
come to their knowledge which are new to them and which they
cannot resist, or because their temporal interests urge them, or
from caprice: but if they change from caprice in important
matters and after many pledges given, they will change from
caprice again: they will not remain for twenty-five or thirty
years without changing a jot of their capriciously formed
opinions. We are therefore warranted in assuming that St.
Paul’s conversion to Christianity was not dictated by
caprice: it was not dictated by self-interest: it must therefore
have sprung from the weight of certain new facts which overbore
all the resistance which he could make to them.</p>
<p>What then could these facts have been?</p>
<p>Paul’s conduct as a Jew was logical and consistent: he
did what any seriously-minded man who had been strictly brought
up would have done in his situation. Instead of half
believing what he had been taught, he believed it wholly.
Christianity was cutting at the root of what was in his day
accepted as fundamental: it was therefore perfectly natural that
he should set himself to attack it. There is nothing
against him in this beyond the fact of his having done it, as far
as we can see, with much cruelty. Yet though cruel, he was
cruel from the best of motives—the stamping out of an error
which was harmful to the service of God; and cruelty was not then
what it is now: the age was not sensitive and the lot of all was
harder. From the first he proved himself to be a man of
great strength of character, and like many such, deeply convinced
of the soundness of his opinions, and deeply impressed with the
belief that nothing could be good which did not also commend
itself as good to him. He tested the truth of his earlier
convictions not by external standards, but by the internal
standard of their own strength and purity—a fearful error
which but for God’s mercy towards him would have made him
no less wicked than well-intentioned.</p>
<p>Even after having been convinced by a weight of evidence which
no prejudice could resist, and after thus attaining to a higher
conception of right and truth and goodness than was possible to
him as a Jew, there remained not a few traces of the old
character. Opposition beyond certain limits was a thing
which to the end of his life he could not brook. It is not
too much to say that he regarded the other Apostles—and was
regarded by them—with suspicion and dislike; even if an
angel from Heaven had preached any other doctrine than what Paul
preached, the angel was to be accursed (Gal. i., 8), and it is
not probable that he regarded his fellow Apostles as teaching the
same doctrine as himself, or that he would have allowed them
greater licence than an angel. It is plain from his
undoubted Epistles to the Corinthians and Galatians that the
other Apostles, no less than his converts, exceedingly well knew
that he was not a man to be trifled with. If the arm of the
law had been as much on his side after his conversion as before
it, it would have gone hardly with dissenters; they would have
been treated with politic tenderness the moment that they
yielded, but woe betide them if they presumed on having any very
decided opinions of their own.</p>
<p>On the other hand, his sagacity is beyond dispute; it is
certain that his perception of what the Gentile converts could
and could not bear was the main proximate cause of the spread of
Christianity. He prevented it from becoming a mere Jewish
sect, and it has been well said that but for him the Jews would
now be Christians, and the Gentiles unbelievers. Who can
doubt his tact and forbearance, where matters not essential were
concerned? His strength in not yielding a fraction upon
vital points was matched only by his suppleness and conciliatory
bearing upon all others. To use his own words, he did
indeed become “all things to all men” if by any means
he could gain some, and the probability is that he pushed this
principle to its extreme (see Acts xxi., 20–26).</p>
<p>Now when we see a man so strong and yet so yielding—the
writer moreover of letters which shew an intellect at once very
vigorous and very subtle (not to say more of them), and when we
know that there was no amount of hardship, pain, and indignity,
which he did not bear and count as gain in the service of Jesus
Christ; when we also remember that he continued thus for all the
known years of his life after his conversion, can we think that
that conversion could have been the result of anything even
approaching to caprice? Or again, is it likely that it
could have been due to contact with the hallucinations of his
despised and hated enemies? Paul the Christian appears to
be the same sort of man in most respects as Paul the Jew, yet can
we imagine Paul the Christian as being converted from
Christianity to some other creed, by the infection of
hallucinations? On the contrary, no man would more quickly
have come to the bottom of them, and assigned them to diabolical
agency. What then can that thing have been, which wrenched
the strong and able man from all that had the greatest hold upon
him, and fixed him for the rest of his life as the most
self-sacrificing champion of Christianity? In answer to
this question we might say, that it is of no great importance how
the change was made, inasmuch as the fact of its having been made
at all is sufficiently pregnant. Nevertheless it will be
interesting to follow Strauss in his remarks upon the account
given in the Acts, and I am bound to add that I think he has made
out his case. Strange! that he should have failed to see
that the evidences in support of the Resurrection are
incalculably strengthened by his having done so. How
short-sighted is mere ingenuity! And how weak and cowardly
are they who shut their eyes to facts because they happen to come
from an opponent!</p>
<p>Strauss, however, writes as follows:—“That we are
not bound to the individual features of the account in the Acts
is shewn by comparing it with the substance of the statement
twice repeated in the language of Paul himself: for there we find
that the author’s own account is not accurate, and that he
attributed no importance to a few variations more or less.
Not only is it said on one occasion that the attendants stood
dumb-foundered: on another that they fell with Paul to the
ground; on one occasion that they heard the voice but saw no one;
on another that they saw the light but did not hear the voice of
him who spoke with Paul: but also the speech of Jesus himself, in
the third repetition, gets the well known addition about
“kicking against the pricks,” to say nothing of the
fact that the appointment to the Apostleship of the Gentiles,
which according to the two earlier accounts was made partly by
Ananias, partly on the occasion of a subsequent vision in the
Temple at Jerusalem, is in this last account incorporated in the
speech of Jesus. There is no occasion to derive the three
accounts of this occurrence in the Acts from different sources,
and even in this case one must suppose that the author of the
Acts must have remarked and reconciled the discrepancies; that he
did not do so, or rather that without following his own earlier
narrative he repeated it in an arbitrary form, proves to us how
careless the New Testament writers are about details of this
kind, important as they are to one who strives after strict
historical accuracy.</p>
<p>“But even if the author of the Acts had gone more
accurately to work, still he was not an eye witness, scarcely
even a writer who took the history from the narrative of an eye
witness. Even if we consider the person who in different
places comprehends himself and the Apostle Paul under the word
‘we’ or ‘us’ to have been the composer of
the whole work, that person was not on the occasion of the
occurrence before Damascus as yet in the company of the
Apostle. Into this he did not enter until much later, in
the Troad, on the Apostle’s second missionary journey (Acts
xvi., 10). But that hypothesis with regard to the author of
the Acts of the Apostles is, moreover, as we have seen above,
erroneous. He only worked up into different passages of his
composition the memoranda of a temporary companion of the Apostle
about the journeys performed in his company, and we are therefore
not justified in considering the narrator to have been an eye
witness in those passages and sections in which the
‘we’ is wanting. Now among these is found the
very section in which appear the two accounts of his conversion
which Paul gives, first, to the Jewish people in Jerusalem,
secondly, to Agrippa and Festus in Cæsarea. The last
occasion on which the ‘we’ was found was xxi., 18,
that of the visit of Paul to James, and it does not appear again
until xxvii., 1, when the subject is the Apostle’s
embarkation for Italy. Nothing therefore compels us to
assume that we have in the reports of these speeches the account
of any one who had been a party to the hearing of them, and, in
them, Paul’s own narrative of the occurrences that took
place on his conversion.”</p>
<p>The belief in the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures having
been long given up by all who have considered the awful
consequences which it entails, the Bible records have been opened
to modern criticism:—the result has been that their general
accuracy is amply proved, while at the same time the writers must
be admitted to have fallen in with the feelings and customs of
their own times, and must accordingly be allowed to have been
occasionally guilty of what would in our own age be called
inaccuracies. There is no dependence to be placed on the
verbal, or indeed the substantial, accuracy of any ancient
speeches, except those which we know to have been reported
<i>verbatim</i>, they were (as with the Herodotean and
Thucydidean speeches) in most cases the invention of the
historian himself, as being what seemed most appropriate to be
said by one in the position of the speaker. Reporting was a
rare art among the ancients, and was confined to a few great
centres of intellectual activity; accuracy, moreover, was not
held to be of the same importance as at the present day.
Yet without accurate reporting a speech perishes as soon as it is
uttered, except in so far as it lives in the actions of those who
hear it. Even a hundred years ago the invention of speeches
was considered a matter of course, as in the well-known case of
Dr. Johnson, than whom none could be more conscientious,
and—according to his lights—accurate. I may
perhaps be pardoned for quoting the passage in full from Boswell,
who gives it on the authority of Mr. John Nichols; the italics
are mine. “He said that the Parliamentary debates
were the only part of his writings which then gave him any
compunction: <i>but that at the time he wrote them he had no
conception that he was imposing upon the world</i>, <i>though
they were frequently written from very slender materials</i>,
<i>and often from none at all—the mere coinage of his own
imagination</i>. He never wrote any part of his works with
equal velocity.” (Boswell’s <i>Life of
Johnson</i>, chap. lxxxii.)</p>
<p>This is an extreme case, yet there can be no question about
its truth. It is only one among the very many examples
which could be adduced in order to shew that the appreciation of
the value of accuracy is a thing of modern date only—a
thing which we owe mainly to the chemical and mechanical
sciences, wherein the inestimable difference between precision
and inaccuracy became most speedily apparent. If the reader
will pardon an apparent digression, I would remark that that sort
of care is wanted on behalf of Christianity with which a cashier
in a bank counts out the money that he tenders—counting it
and recounting it as though he could never be sure enough before
he allowed it to leave his hands. This caution would have
saved the wasting of many lives, and the breaking of many
hearts.</p>
<p>We, on the other hand, however reckless we may be ourselves,
are in the habit of assuming that any historian whom we may have
occasion to consult, and on whose testimony we would fain rely,
must have himself weighed and re-weighed his words as the cashier
his money; an error which arises from want of that sympathy which
should make us bear constantly in mind what lights men had, under
what influences they wrote, and what we should ourselves have
done had we been so placed as they. But if any will
maintain that though the general run of ancient speeches were, as
those supposed to have been reported by Johnson, pure invention,
yet that it is not likely that one reporting the words of
Almighty God should have failed to feel the awful responsibility
of his position, we can only answer that the writer of the Acts
did most indisputably so fail, as is shewn by the various reports
of those words which he has himself given: if he could in the
innocency of his heart do this, and at one time report the
Almighty as saying this, and at another that, as though, more or
less, this or that were a matter of no moment, what certainty can
we have concerning such a man that inaccuracy shall not elsewhere
be found in him? None. He is a warped mirror which
will distort every object that it reflects.</p>
<p>It follows, then, that from the Acts of the Apostles we have
no data for arriving at any conclusion as to the manner of
Paul’s change of faith, nor the circumstances connected
with it. To us the accounts there given should be simply
non-existent; but this is not easy, for we have heard them too
often and from too early an age to be able to escape their
influence; yet we must assuredly ignore them if we are anxious to
arrive at truth. We cannot let the story told in the Acts
enter into any judgement which we may form concerning
Paul’s character. The desire to represent him as
having been converted by miracle was very natural. He
himself tells us that he saw visions, and received his
apostleship by revelation—not necessarily at the time of,
or immediately after, his conversion, but still at some period or
other in his life; it would be the most natural thing in the
world for the writer of the Acts to connect some version of one
of these visions with the conversion itself: the dramatic effect
would be heightened by making the change, while the change itself
would be utterly unimportant in the eyes of such a writer; be
this however as it may, we are only now concerned with the fact
that we know nothing about Paul’s conversion from the Acts
of the Apostles, which should make us believe that that
conversion was wrought in him by any other means, than by such an
irresistible pressure of evidence as no sane person could
withstand.</p>
<p>From the Apostle’s own writings we can glean nothing
about his conversion which would point in the direction of its
having been sudden or miraculous. It is true that in the
Epistle to the Galatians he says, “After it had pleased God
to reveal his Son in me,” but this expression does not
preclude the supposition that his conversion may have been led up
to by a gradual process, the culmination of which (if that) he
alone regarded as miraculous. Thus we are forced to admit
that we know nothing from any source concerning the manner and
circumstances of St. Paul’s change from Judaism to
Christianity, and we can only conclude therefore that he changed
because he found the weight of the evidence to be greater than he
could resist. And this, as we have seen, is an exceedingly
telling fact. The probability is, that coming much into
contact with Christians through his persecution of them, and
submitting them to the severest questioning, he found that they
were in all respects sober plainspoken men, that their conviction
was intense, their story coherent, and the doctrines which they
had received simple and ennobling; that these results of many
inquisitions were so unvarying that he found conviction stealing
gradually upon him against his will; common honesty compelled him
to inquire further; the answers pointed invariably in one
direction only; until at length he found himself utterly unable
to resist the weight of evidence which he had collected, and
resolved, perhaps at the last suddenly, to yield himself a
convert to Christianity.</p>
<p>Strauss says that, “in the presence of the believers in
Jesus,” the conviction that he was a false teacher—an
impostor—“must have become every day more doubtful to
him. They considered it not only publicly honourable to be
as convinced of his Resurrection as they were of their own
life—but they shewed also a state of mind, a quiet peace, a
tranquil cheerfulness, even under suffering, which put to shame
the restless and joyless zeal of their persecutor. Could
<i>he</i> have been a false teacher who had adherents such as
these? Could that have been a false pretence which gave
such rest and security? on the one hand, he saw the new sect, in
spite of all persecutions, nay, in consequence of them, extending
their influence wider and wider round them; on the other, as
their persecutor, he felt that inward tranquillity growing less
and less which he could observe in so many ways in the
persecuted. We cannot therefore be surprised if in hours of
inward despondency and unhappiness he put to himself the
question, ‘Who after all is right, thou, or the crucified
Galilean about whom these men are so enthusiastic?’
And when he had got as far as this, the result, with his bodily
and mental characteristics, naturally followed in an ecstasy in
which the very same Christ whom up to this time he had so
passionately persecuted, appeared to him in all the glory of
which his adherents spoke so much, shewed him the perversity and
folly of his conduct, and called him to come over to his
service.”</p>
<p>The above comes simply to this, that Paul in his constant
contact with Christians found that they had more to say for
themselves than he could answer, and should, one would have
thought, have suggested to Strauss what he supposes to have
occurred to Paul, namely, that it was not likely that these men
had made a mistake in thinking that they had seen Christ alive
after his Crucifixion. There can be no doubt about
Strauss’s being right as to the Christian intensity of
conviction, strenuousness of assertion, and readiness to suffer
for the sake of their faith in Christ; and these are the main
points with which we are concerned. We arrive therefore at
the conclusion that the first Christians were sufficiently
unanimous, coherent and undaunted to convince the foremost of
their enemies. They were not so <i>before</i> the
Crucifixion; they could not certainly have been made so by the
Crucifixion alone; something beyond the Crucifixion must have
occurred to give them such a moral ascendancy as should suffice
to generate a revulsion of feeling in the mind of the persecuting
Saul. Strauss asks us to believe that this missing
something is to be found in the hallucinations of two or three
men whose names have not been recorded and who have left no mark
of their own. Is there any occasion for answer?</p>
<p>It is inconceivable that he who could write the Epistle to the
Romans should not also have been as able as any man who ever
lived to question the early believers as to their converse with
Christ, and to report faithfully the substance of what they told
him. That he knew the other Apostles, that he went up to
Jerusalem to hold conferences with them, that he abode fifteen
days with St. Peter—as he tells us, in order “to
question him”—these things are certain. The
Greek word
ιστορησαι is a
very suggestive one. It is so easy to make too much out of
anything that I hardly dare to say how strongly the use of the
verb ιστορειν suggests
to me “getting at the facts of the case,”
“questioning as to how things happened,” yet such
would be the most obvious meaning of the word from which our own
“history” and “story” are derived.
Fifteen days was time enough to give Paul the means of coming to
an understanding with Peter as to what the value of Peter’s
story was, nor can we believe that Paul should not both receive
and transmit perfectly all that he was then told. In fact,
without supposing these men to be so utterly visionary that
nothing durable could come out of them, there is no escape from
holding that Peter was justified in firmly believing that he had
seen Christ alive within a very few days of the Crucifixion, that
he succeeded also in satisfying Paul that this belief was
well-founded, and that in the account of Christ’s
reappearances, as given I. Cor. xv., we have a virtually
<i>verbatim</i> report of what Paul heard from Peter and the
other Apostles. Of course the possibility remains that Paul
may have been too easily satisfied, and not have cross-examined
Peter as closely as he might have done. But then Paul was
converted <i>before</i> this interview; and this implies that he
had already found a general consent among the Christians whom he
had met with, that the story which he afterwards heard from Peter
(or one to the same effect) was true. Whence then the
unanimity of this belief? Strauss answers as
before—from the hallucinations of an originally small
minority. We can only again reply that for the reasons
already given we find it quite impossible to agree with him.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>[The quotation from Strauss given in this chapter will be
found pp. 414, 415, 420, of the first volume of the English
translation, published by Williams and Norgate, 1865. I
believe that my brother intended to make a fresh translation from
the original passages, but he never carried out his intention,
and in his MS. the page of the English translation with the first
and last words of each passage are alone given. I could
hardly venture to undertake the responsibility of making a fresh
translation myself, and have therefore adhered almost word for
word to the published English translation—here and there,
however, a trifling alteration was really irresistible on the
scores alike of euphony and clearness.—W. B. O.]</p>
<h3><a name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
120</span>Chapter IV<br />
Paul’s Testimony Considered</h3>
<p><span class="smcap">Enough</span> has perhaps been said to
cause the reader to agree with the view of St. Paul’s
conversion taken above—that is to say, to make him regard
the conversion as mainly, if not entirely, due to the weight of
evidence afforded by the courage and consistency of the early
Christians.</p>
<p>But, the change in Paul’s mind being thus referred to
causes which preclude all possibility of hallucination or ecstasy
on his own part, it becomes unnecessary to discuss the attempts
which have been made to explain away the miraculous character of
the account given in the Acts. I believe that this account
is founded upon fact, and that it is derived from some
description furnished by St. Paul himself of the vision
mentioned, I. Cor. xv., which again is very possibly the same as
that of II. Cor. xii. For the purposes of the present
investigation, however, the whole story must be set aside.
At the same time it should be borne in mind, that any detraction
from the historical accuracy of the writer of the Acts, is more
than compensated for, by the additional weight given to the
conversion of St. Paul, whom we are now able to regard as having
been converted by evidence which was in itself overpowering, and
which did not stand in need of any miraculous interference in
order to confirm it.</p>
<p>It is important to observe that the testimony of Paul should
carry more weight with those who are bent upon close critical
investigation than that even of the Evangelists. St. Paul
is one whom we know, and know well. No syllable of
suspicion has ever been breathed, even in Germany, against the
first four of the Epistles which have been generally assigned to
him; friends and foes of Christianity are alike agreed to accept
them as the genuine work of the Apostle. Few figures,
therefore, in ancient history stand out more clearly revealed to
us than that of St. Paul, whereas a thick veil of darkness hangs
over that of each one of the Evangelists. Who St. Matthew
was, and whether the gospel that we have is an original work, or
a translation (as would appear from Papias, our highest
authority), and how far it has been modified in translation, are
things which we shall never know. The Gospels of St. Mark
and St. Luke are involved in even greater obscurity. The
authorship, date, and origin of the fourth Gospel have been, and
are being, even more hotly contested than those of the other
three, and all that can be affirmed with certainty concerning it
is, that no trace of its existence can be found before the latter
half of the second century, and that the spirit of the work
itself is eminently anti-Judaistic, whereas St. John appears both
from the Gospels and from St. Paul’s Epistles to have been
a pillar of Judaism.</p>
<p>With St. Paul all is changed: we not only know him better than
we know nine-tenths of our own most eminent countrymen of the
last century, but we feel a confidence in him which grows greater
and greater the more we study his character. He combines to
perfection the qualities that make a good witness—capacity
and integrity: add to this that his conclusions were forced upon
him. We therefore feel that, whereas from a scientific
point of view, the Gospel narratives can only be considered as
the testimony of early and sincere writers of whom we know little
or nothing, yet that in the evidence of St. Paul we find the
missing link which connects us securely with actual eye-witnesses
and gives us a confidence in the general accuracy of the Gospels
which they could never of themselves alone have imparted.
We could indeed ill spare either the testimony of the Evangelists
or that of St. Paul, but if we were obliged to content ourselves
with one only, we should choose the Apostle.</p>
<p>Turning then to the evidence of St. Paul as derivable from I.
Cor. xv. we find the following:</p>
<p>“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which
I preached unto you, which also ye have received and wherein ye
stand. By which also ye are saved if ye keep in memory what
I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I
delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures: and
that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day
according to the Scriptures; and that He was seen of Cephas, then
of the twelve: after that He was seen of above five hundred
brethren at once; of whom the greater portion remain unto this
present, but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen
of James; then of all the Apostles. And last of all He was
seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.”</p>
<p>In the first place we must notice Paul’s assertion that
the Gospel which he was then writing was identical with that
which he had originally preached. We may assume that each
of the appearances of Christ here mentioned had in Paul’s
mind a definite time and place, derived from the account which he
had received and which probably led to his conversion; the words
“that which I also received” surely imply “that
which I also received <i>in the first instance</i>”: now we
know from his own mouth (Gal. i., 16, 17) that <i>after</i> his
conversion he “conferred not with flesh and
blood”—“neither,” he continues,
“went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before
me, but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus:
then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see
(ιστορησαι)
Peter, and abode with him fifteen days, but others of the
Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s
brother.” Since, then, he must have heard <i>some</i>
story concerning Christ’s reappearances before his
conversion and subsequent sojourn in Arabia, and since he had
heard nothing from eye-witnesses until the time of his going up
to Jerusalem three years later, it is probable that the account
quoted above is the substance of what he found persisted in by
the Christians whom he was persecuting at Damascus, and was at
length compelled to believe. But this is very unimportant:
it is more to the point to insist upon the fact that St. Paul
must have received the account given I. Cor. xv., 3–8
within a very few years of the Crucifixion itself, and that it
was subsequently confirmed to him by Peter, and probably by James
and John, during his stay of fifteen days in Peter’s
house.</p>
<p>This account can have been nothing new even then, for it is
plain that at the time of Paul’s conversion the Christian
Church had spread far: Paul speaks of <i>returning</i> to
Damascus, as though the writer of the Acts was right as regards
the place of his conversion; but the fact of there having been a
church in Damascus of sufficient importance for Paul to go
thither to persecute it, involves the lapse of considerable time
since the original promulgation of our Lord’s Resurrection,
and throws back the origin of the belief in that event to a time
closely consequent upon the Crucifixion itself.</p>
<p>Now Paul informs us that he was told (we may assume by Peter
and James) that Christ first reappeared <i>within three days of
the Crucifixion</i>. There is no sufficient reason for
doubting this; and one fact of weekly recurrence even to this
day, affords it striking confirmation—I refer to the
institution of Sunday as the Lord’s day. We know that
the observance of this day in commemoration of the Resurrection
was a very early practice, nor is there anything which would seem
to throw doubt upon the fact of the first “Sunday”
having been also the Sunday of the Resurrection. Another
confirmation of the early date assigned to the Resurrection by
St. Paul, is to be found in the fact that every instinct would
warn the Apostles <i>against</i> the third day as being
dangerously early, and as opening a door for the denial of the
completeness of the death. The fortieth day would far more
naturally have been chosen.</p>
<p>Turning now from the question of the date of the first
reappearance to what is told us of the reappearances themselves,
we find that the earliest was vouchsafed to St. Peter, which is
at first sight opposed to the Evangelistic records; but this is a
discrepancy upon which no stress should be laid; St. Paul might
well be aware that Mary Magdalene was the first to look upon her
risen Lord, and yet have preferred to dwell upon the more widely
known names of Peter and his fellow Apostles. The facts are
probably these, that our Lord first shewed Himself to the women,
but that Peter was the first of the Apostolic body to see Him; it
was natural that if our Lord did not choose to show Himself to
the Apostles without preparation, Peter should have been chosen
as the one best fitted to prepare them: Peter probably collected
the other Apostles, and then the Redeemer shewed Himself alive to
all together. This is what we should gather from St.
Paul’s narrative; a narrative which it would seem arbitrary
to set aside in the face of St. Paul’s character,
opportunities and antecedent prejudices against
Christianity—in the face also of the unanimity of all the
records we have, as well as of the fact that the Christian
religion triumphed, and of the endless difficulties attendant on
the hallucination theory.</p>
<p>We conclude therefore that Paul was satisfied by sufficient
evidence that our Lord had appeared to Peter on the third day
after the Crucifixion, nor can any reasonable doubt be thrown
upon the other appearances of which he tells us. It is true
that on the occasion of his visit to Peter he saw none other of
the Apostles save James—but there is nothing to lead us to
suppose that there was any want of unanimity among them: no trace
of this has come down to us, and would surely have done so if it
had existed. If any dependence at all is to be placed on
the writers of the New Testament it did not exist. Stronger
evidence than this unanimity it would be hard to find.</p>
<p>Another most noticeable feature is the fewness of the recorded
appearances of Christ. They commenced according to Paul
(and this is virtually according to Peter and James) immediately
after the Crucifixion. Paul mentions only five appearances:
this does not preclude the supposition that he knew of more, nor
that the women who came to the sepulchre had also seen Him, but
it does seem to imply that the reappearances were few in number,
and that they continued only for a very short time. They
were sufficient for their purpose: one of preparation to
Peter—another to the Apostles—another to the outside
world, and then one or two more—but still not more than
enough to establish the fact beyond all possibility of
dispute. The writer of the Acts tells us that Christ was
seen for a space of forty days—presumably not every day,
but from time to time. Now forty days is a mystical period,
and one which may mean either more or less, within a week or two,
than the precise time stated; it seems upon the whole most
reasonable to conclude that the reappearances recorded by Paul,
and some few others not recorded, extended over a period of one
or two months after the Crucifixion, and that they then came to
an end; for there can be no doubt that St. Paul conceived them as
having ended with the appearance to the assembled Apostles
mentioned I. Cor. xv., 7, and, though he does not say so
expressly, there is that in the context which suggests their
having been confined to a short space of time.</p>
<p>It is perfectly clear that St. Paul did not believe that any
one had seen Christ in the interval between the last recorded
appearance to the eleven, and the vision granted to
himself. The words “and last of all he was seen also
of me <i>as of one born out of due time</i>” point strongly
in the direction of a lapse of some years between the second
appearance to the eleven and his own vision. This confirms
and is confirmed by the writer of the Acts. St. Paul never
could have used the words quoted above, if he had held that the
appearances which he records had been spread over a space of
years intervening between the Crucifixion and his own
vision. Where would be the force of “born out of due
time” unless the time of the previous appearances had long
passed by? But if, at the time of St. Paul’s
conversion, it was already many years since the last occasion
upon which Christ had been seen by his disciples, we find
ourselves driven back to a time closely consequent upon the
Crucifixion as the only possible date of the reappearances.
But this is in itself sufficient condemnation of Strauss’s
theory: that theory requires considerable time for the
development of a perfectly unanimous and harmonious belief in the
hallucinations, while every particle of evidence which we can get
points in the direction of the belief in the Resurrection having
followed very closely upon the Crucifixion.</p>
<p>To repeat: had the reappearances been due to hallucination
only, they would neither have been so few in number nor have come
to an end so soon. When once the mind has begun to run riot
in hallucination, it is prodigal of its own inventions.
Favoured believers would have been constantly seeing Christ even
up to the time of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, and the
Apostle would have written that even then Christ was still
occasionally seen of those who trusted in him, and served him
faithfully. But we meet with nothing of the sort: we are
told that Christ was seen a few times shortly after the
Crucifixion, then <i>after a lapse of several years</i> (I am
surely warranted in saying this) Paul himself saw Him—but
no one in the interval, and no one afterwards. This is not
the manner of the hallucinations of uneducated people. It
is altogether too sober: the state of mind from which alone so
baseless a delusion could spring, is one which never could have
been contented with the results which were evidently all, or
nearly all, that Paul knew of. St. Paul’s words
cannot be set aside without more cause than Strauss has shewn:
instead of betraying a tendency towards exaggeration, they
contain nothing whatever, with the exception of his own vision,
that is not imperatively demanded in order to account for the
rise and spread of Christianity.</p>
<p>Concerning that vision Strauss writes as follows:</p>
<p>“With regard to the appearance he (Paul)
witnessed—he uses the same word (ωφθη)
as with regard to the others: he places it in the same category
with them only in the last place, as he names himself the last of
the Apostles, but in exactly the same rank with the others.
Thus much, therefore, Paul knew—or supposed—that the
appearances which the elder disciples had seen soon after the
Resurrection of Jesus had been of the same kind as that which had
been, only later, vouchsafed to himself. Of what sort then
was this?”</p>
<p>I confess that I am wholly unable to feel the force of the
above. Strauss says that Paul’s vision was
ecstatic—subjective and not objective—that Paul
thought he saw Christ, although he never really saw him.
But, says Strauss, he uses the same word for his own vision and
for the appearances to the earlier Apostles: it is plain
therefore that he did not suppose the earlier Apostles to have
seen Christ in the same sort of way in which they saw themselves
and other people, but to have seen him as Paul himself did,
<i>i.e.</i>, by supernatural revelation.</p>
<p>But would it not be more fair to say that Paul’s using
the same word for all the appearances—his own vision
included—implies that he considered this last to have been
no less real than those vouchsafed earlier, though he may have
been perfectly well aware that it was different in kind?
The use of the same word for all the appearances is quite
compatible with a belief in Paul’s mind that the manner in
which he saw Christ was different from that in which the Apostles
had seen him: indeed, so long as he believed that he had seen
Christ no less really than the others, one cannot see why he
should have used any other word for his own vision than that
which he had applied to the others: we should even expect that he
would do so, and should be surprised at his having done
otherwise. That Paul did believe in the reality of his own
vision is indisputable, and his use of the word
ωφθη was probably dictated by a desire to
assert this belief in the strongest possible way, and to place
his own vision in the same category with others, which were so
universally known among Christians to have been material and
objective, that there was no occasion to say so.
Nevertheless there is that in Paul’s words on which Strauss
does not dwell, but which cannot be passed over without
notice. Paul does not simply say, “and last of all he
was seen also of me”—but he adds the words “as
of one born out of due time.”</p>
<p>It is impossible to say decisively that this addition implies
that Paul recognised a difference in kind between the
appearances, inasmuch as the words added may only refer to
time—still they would explain the possible use of
[ωφθη] in a somewhat different sense, and I
cannot but think that they will suggest this possibility to the
reader. They will make him feel, if he does not feel it
without them, how strained a proceeding it is to bind Paul down
to a rigorously identical meaning on every occasion on which the
same word came from his pen, and to maintain that because he once
uses it on the occasion of an appearance which he held to be
vouchsafed by revelation, therefore, wherever else he uses it, he
must have intended to refer to something seen by revelation: the
words “as of one born out of due time” imply the
utterly unlooked for and transcendent nature of the favour, and
suggest, even though they do not compel, the inference that while
the other Apostles had seen Christ in the common course of
nature, as a visible tangible being before their waking eyes, he
had himself seen Him not less truly, but still only by special
and unlooked for revelation. If such thoughts were in his
mind he would not probably have expressed them farther than by
the touching words which he has added concerning his own
vision. So much for the objection that the evidence of Paul
concerning the earlier appearances is impaired by his having used
the same word for them, and for the appearance to himself.
It only remains therefore to review in brief the general bearings
of Paul’s testimony as given I. Cor. xv., 1–8.</p>
<p>Firstly, there is the early commencement of the reappearances:
this is incompatible with hallucination, for the hallucination
must be supposed to have occurred when most easy to refute, and
when the spell of shame and fear was laid most heavily upon the
Apostles. Strauss maintains that the appearances were
unconsciously antedated by Peter; we can only say that the
circumstances of the case, as entered into more fully above,
render this very improbable; that if Peter told Paul that he saw
Christ on the third day after the Crucifixion, he probably firmly
believed that he did see Him; and that if he believed this, he
was also probably right in so believing.</p>
<p>Secondly, there is the fact that the reappearances were few,
and extended over a short time only. Had they been due to
hallucination there would have been no limit either to their
number or duration. Paul seems to have had no idea that
there ever had been, or ever would be, successors to the five
hundred brethren who saw Christ at one time. Some were
fallen asleep—the rest would in time follow them. It
is incredible that men should have so lost all count of fact, so
debauched their perception of external objects, so steeped
themselves in belief in dreams which had no foundation but in
their own disordered brains, as to have turned the whole world
after them by the sheer force of their conviction of the truth of
their delusions, and yet that suddenly, within a few weeks from
the commencement of this intoxication, they should have come to a
dead stop and given no further sign of like extravagance.
The hallucinations must have been so baseless, and would argue
such an utter subordination of judgement to imagination, that
instead of ceasing they must infallibly have ended in riot and
disorganisation; the fact that they did cease (which cannot be
denied) and that they were followed by no disorder, but by a
solemn sober steadfastness of purpose, as of reasonable men in
deadly earnest about a matter which had come to their knowledge,
and which they held it vital for all to know—this fact
alone would be sufficient to overthrow the hallucination
theory. Such intemperance could never have begotten such
temperance: from such a frame of mind as Strauss assigns to the
Apostles no religion could have come which should satisfy the
highest spiritual needs of the most civilised nations of the
earth for nearly two thousand years.</p>
<p>When, therefore, we look at the want of faith of the Apostles
before the Crucifixion, and to their subsequent intense devotion;
at their unanimity at their general sobriety; at the fact that
they succeeded in convincing the ablest of their enemies and
ultimately the whole of Europe; at the undeviating consent of all
the records we have; at the early date at which the reappearances
commenced,—at their small number and short
duration—things so foreign to the nature of hallucination;
at the excellent opportunities which Paul had for knowing what he
tells us; at the plain manner in which he tells it, and the more
than proof which he gave of his own conviction of its truth; at
the impossibility of accounting for the rise of Christianity
without the reappearance of its Founder after His Crucifixion;
when we look at all these things we shall admit that it is
impossible to avoid the belief that after having died, Christ
<i>did</i> reappear to his disciples, and that in this fact we
have the only intelligible explanation of the triumph of
Christianity.</p>
<h3><a name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
134</span>Chapter V<br />
A Consideration of Certain Ill-Judged<br />
Methods of Defence</h3>
<p><span class="smcap">The</span> reader has now heard the utmost
that can be said against the historic character of the
Resurrection by the ablest of its impugners. I know of
nothing in any of Strauss’s works which can be considered
as doing better justice to his opinions than the passages which I
have quoted and, I trust, refuted. I have quoted fully, and
have kept nothing in the background. If I had known of
anything stronger against the Resurrection from any other source,
I should certainly have produced it. I have answered in
outline only, but I do not believe that I have passed any
difficulty on one side.</p>
<p>What then does the reader think? Was the attack so
dangerous, or the defence so far to seek? I believe he will
agree with me that the combat was one of no great danger when it
was once fairly entered upon. But the wonder, and, let me
add, the disgrace, to English divines, is that the battle should
have been shirked so long. What is it that has made the
name of Strauss so terrible to the ears of English
Churchmen? Surely nothing but the ominous silence which has
been maintained concerning him in almost all quarters of our
Church. For what can he say or do against the other
miracles if he be powerless against the Resurrection? He
can make sentences which sound plausible, but that is no great
feat. Can he show that there is any <i>a priori</i>
improbability whatever, in the fact of miracles having been
wrought by one who died and rose from the dead? If a man
did this it is a small thing that he should also walk upon the
waves and command the winds. But if there is no <i>a
priori</i> difficulty with regard to these miracles, there is
certainly none other.</p>
<p>Let this, however, for the present pass, only let me beg of
the reader to have patience while I follow out the plan which I
have pursued up to the present point, and proceed to examine
certain difficulties of another character. I propose to do
so with the same unflinching examination as heretofore,
concealing nothing that has been said, or that can be said; going
out of my way to find arguments for opponents, if I do not think
that they have put forward all that from their own point of view
they might have done, and careless how many difficulties I may
bring before the reader which may never yet have occurred to him,
provided I feel that I can also shew him how little occasion
there is to fear them.</p>
<p>I must, however, maintain two propositions, which may perhaps
be unfamiliar to some of those who have not as yet given more
than a conventional and superficial attention to the Scriptural
records, but which will meet with ready assent from all whose
studies have been deeper. Fain would I avoid paining even a
single reader, but I am convinced that the arresting of
infidelity depends mainly upon the general recognition of two
broad facts. The first is this—that the Apostles,
even after they had received the gift of the Holy Spirit were
still fallible though holy men; the second—that there are
certain passages in each of the Gospels as we now have them,
which were not originally to be found therein, and others which,
though genuine, are still not historic. This much of
concession we must be prepared to make, and we shall find (as in
the case of the conversion of St. Paul) that our position is
indefinitely strengthened by doing so.</p>
<p>When shall we Christians learn that the truest ground is also
the strongest? We may be sure that until we have done so we
shall find a host of enemies who will say that truth is not
ours. It is we who have created infidelity, and who are
responsible for it. <i>We</i> are the true infidels, for we
have not sufficient faith in our own creed to believe that it
will bear the removal of the incrustations of time and
superstition. When men see our cowardice, what can they
think but that we must know that we have cause to be
afraid? We drive men into unbelief in spite of themselves,
by our tenacious adherence to opinions which every unprejudiced
person must see at a glance that we cannot rightfully defend, and
then we pride ourselves upon our love for Christ and our hatred
of His enemies. If Christ accepts this kind of love He is
not such as He has declared Himself.</p>
<p>We mistake our love of our own immediate ease for the love of
Christ, and our hatred of every opinion which is strange to us,
for zeal against His enemies. If those to whom the
unfamiliarity of an opinion or its inconvenience to themselves is
a test of its hatefulness to Christ, had been born Jews, they
would have crucified Him whom they imagine that they are now
serving: if Turks, they would have massacred both Jew and
Christian; if Papists at the time of the Reformation they would
have persecuted Protestants: if Protestants, under Elizabeth,
Papists. Truth is to them an accident of birth and
training, and the Christian faith is in their eyes true because
these accidents, as far as they are concerned, have decided in
its favour. But such persons are not Christians. It
is they who crucify Christ, who drive men from coming to Him
whose every instinct would lead them to love and worship Him, but
who are warned off by observing the crowd of sycophants and
time-servers who presume to call Him Lord.</p>
<p>But to look at the matter from another point of view; when
there is a long sustained contest between two bodies of capable
and seriously disposed people, (and none can deny that many of
our adversaries have been both one and the other), and when this
contest shews no sign of healing, but rather widens from
generation to generation, and each party accuses the other of
disingenuousness, obstinacy and other like serious defects of
mind—it may be certainly assumed that the truth lies wholly
with neither side, but that each should make some concessions to
the other. A third party sees this at a glance, and is
amazed because neither of the disputants can perceive that his
opponent must be possessed of some truths, in spite of his trying
to defend other positions which are indefensible. Strange!
that a thing which it seems so easy to avoid, should so seldom be
avoided! Homer said well:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Perish strife, both from among gods and
men,<br />
And wrath which maketh even him that is considerate, cruel,<br />
Which getteth up in the heart of a man like smoke,<br />
And the taste thereof is sweeter than drops of honey.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But strife can never cease without concessions upon both
sides. We agree to this readily in the abstract, but we
seldom do so when any given concession is in question. We
are all for concession in the general, but for none in the
particular, as people who say that they will retrench when they
are living beyond their income, but will not consent to any
proposed retrenchment. Thus many shake their heads and say
that it is impossible to live in the present age and not be aware
of many difficulties in connection with the Christian religion;
they have studied the question more deeply than perhaps the
unbeliever imagines; and having said this much they give
themselves credit for being wide-minded, liberal and above vulgar
prejudices: but when pressed as to this or that particular
difficulty, and asked to own that such and such an objection of
the infidel’s needs explanation, they will have none of it,
and will in nine cases out of ten betray by their answers that
they neither know nor want to know what the infidel means, but on
the contrary that they are resolute to remain in ignorance.
I know this kind of liberality exceedingly well, and have ever
found it to harbour more selfishness, idleness, cowardice and
stupidity than does open bigotry. The bigot is generally
better than his expressed opinions, these people are invariably
worse than theirs.</p>
<p>The above principle has been largely applied in the writings
of so-called orthodox commentators, not unfrequently even by men
who might have been assumed to be above condescending to such
trickery. A great preface concerning candour, with a
flourish of trumpets in the praise of truth, seems to have
exhausted every atom of truth and candour from the work that
follows it.</p>
<p>It will be said that I ought not to make use of language such
as this without bringing forward examples. I shall
therefore adduce them.</p>
<p>One of the most serious difficulties to the unbeliever is the
inextricable confusion in which the accounts of the Resurrection
have reached us: no one can reconcile these accounts with one
another, not only in minute particulars, but in matters on which
it is of the highest importance to come to a clear
understanding. Thus, to omit all notice of many other
discrepancies, the accounts of Mark, Luke, and John concur in
stating that when the women came to the tomb of Jesus very early
on the Sunday morning, they found it <i>already empty</i>: the
stone was gone when they came there, and, according to John,
there was not even an angelic vision for some time
afterwards. There is nothing in any of these three accounts
to preclude the possibility of the stone’s having been
removed within an hour or two of the body’s having been
laid in the tomb.</p>
<p>But when we turn to Matthew we find all changed: we are told
that the stone was gone <i>not</i> when the women came, but that
on their arrival there was a great earthquake, and that an angel
came down from Heaven, and rolled away the stone, <i>and sat upon
it</i>, and that the guard who had been set over the tomb (of
whom we hear nothing from any of the other evangelists) became as
dead men while the angel addressed the women.</p>
<p>Now this is not one of those cases in which the supposition
can be tolerated that all would be clear if the whole facts of
the case were known to us. No additional facts can make it
come about that the tomb should have been sealed and guarded, and
yet <i>not</i> sealed and guarded; that the same women, at the
same time and place, should have witnessed an earthquake, and yet
<i>not</i> witnessed one; have found a stone already gone from a
tomb, and yet <i>not</i> found it gone; have seen it rolled away,
and <i>not</i> seen it, and so on; those who say that we should
find no difficulty if we knew <i>all</i> the facts are still
careful to abstain from any example (so far as I know) of the
sort of additional facts which would serve their purpose.
They cannot give one; any mind which is truly
candid—white—not scrawled and scribbled over till no
character is decipherable—will feel at once that the only
question to be raised is, which is the more correct account of
the Resurrection—Matthew’s or those given by the
other three Evangelists? How far is Matthew’s account
true, and how far is it exaggerated? For there must be
either exaggeration or invention somewhere. It is
inconceivable that the other writers should have known the story
told by Matthew, and yet not only made no allusion to it, but
introduced matter which flatly contradicts it, and it is also
inconceivable that the story should be true, and yet that the
other writers should not have known it.</p>
<p>This is how the difficulty stands—a difficulty which
vanishes in a moment if it be rightly dealt with, but which, when
treated after our unskilful English method, becomes capable of
doing inconceivable mischief to the Christian religion. Let
us see then what Dean Alford—a writer whose professions of
candour and talk about the duty of unflinching examination leave
nothing to be desired—has to say upon this point. I
will first quote the passage in full from Matthew, and then give
the Dean’s note. I have drawn the greater part of the
comments that will follow it from an anonymous pamphlet <a
name="citation141"></a><a href="#footnote141"
class="citation">[141]</a> upon the Resurrection, dated 1865, but
without a publisher’s name, so that I presume it must have
been printed for private circulation only.</p>
<p>St. Matthew’s account runs:—</p>
<blockquote><p>“Now the next day, that followed the day of
the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together
unto Pilate, saying, ‘Sir, we remember that that deceiver
said, while he was yet alive, “After three days I will rise
again.” Command therefore that the sepulchre be made
sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night and
steal him away and say unto the people, “He is risen from
the dead:” so the last error shall be worse than the
first.’ Pilate said unto them, ‘Ye have a
watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can.’ So
they went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone and
setting a watch. In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to
dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and
the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was
a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from
heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat
upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his
raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake,
and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said
unto the women, ‘Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek
Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is
risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord
lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is
risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into
Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told
you.’ And they departed quickly from the sepulchre
with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples
word. And as they went to tell his disciples, Jesus met
them, saying, ‘All hail.’ And they came and
held him by the feet, and worshipped him (<i>cf.</i> John xx.,
16, 17). Then said Jesus unto them, ‘Be not afraid:
go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall
they see me.’ Now when they were going, behold, some
of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief
priests all the things that were done. And when they were
assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large
money unto the soldiers, saying, ‘Say ye, His disciples
came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if
this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him and
secure you.’ So they took the money, and did as they
were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews
until this day.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Let us turn now to the Dean’s note on Matt. xxvii.,
62–66.</p>
<p>With regard to the setting of the watch and sealing of the
stone, he tells us that the narrative following (<i>i.e.</i>, the
account of the guard and the earthquake) “has been much
impugned and its historical accuracy very generally given up even
by the best of the German commentators (Olshausen, Meyer; also De
Wette, Hase, and others). The chief difficulties found in
it seem to be: (1) How should the chief priests, &c., <i>know
of His having said</i> ‘in three days I will rise
again,’ when the saying was hid even from His own
disciples? The answer to this is easy. The
<i>meaning</i> of the saying may have been, and was hid from the
disciples; <i>but the fact of its having been said</i> could be
no secret. Not to lay any stress on John ii., 19 (Jesus
answered and said unto them, ‘Destroy this temple and in
three days I will build it up’), we have the direct
prophecy of Matt. xii., 40 (‘For as Jonah 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):
besides this there would be a rumour current, through the
intercourse of the Apostles with others, that He had been in the
habit of so saying. (From what source can Dean Alford know
that our Lord <i>was</i> in the habit of so saying? What
particle of authority is there for this alleged habit of our
Lord?) As to the <i>understanding</i> of the words we must
remember that <i>hatred is keener sighted than love</i>: that the
<i>raising of Lazarus</i> would shew <i>what sort of a thing
rising from the dead was to be</i>; and the fulfilment of the
Lord’s announcement of his <i>crucifixion</i> would
naturally lead them to look further to <i>what more</i> he had
announced. (2) How should the women who were solicitous about the
<i>removal</i> of the stone not have been still more so about its
being sealed and a guard set? The answer to this last has
been given above—<i>they were not aware of the circumstance
because the guard was not set till the evening before</i>.
There would be no need of the application before the <i>approach
of the third day</i>—it is only made for a watch,
εως της
τρίτης
ημέρας (ver. 64), and it is not
probable that the circumstance would transpire that
night—certainly it seems not to have done so. (3) That
Gamaliel was of the council, and if such a thing as this and its
sequel (chap. xxviii., 11–15) had really happened, he need
not have expressed himself doubtfully (Acts v., 39), but would
have been certain that this was from God. But, first, it
does not necessarily follow that <i>every member</i> of the
Sanhedrim was present, and applied to Pilate, or even had they
done so, that all bore a part in the act of xxviii., 12”
(the bribing of the guard to silence). “One who like
Joseph had not consented to the deed before—and we may
safely say that there were others such—would naturally
withdraw himself from further proceedings against the person of
Jesus. (4) Had this been so the three other Evangelists would not
have passed over so important a testimony to the
Resurrection. But surely we cannot argue in this
way—for thus every important fact narrated by <i>one
Evangelist alone</i> must be rejected, e.g. (which stands in much
the same relation), <i>the satisfaction of Thomas—another
such narrations</i>. <i>Till we know more about the
circumstances under which</i>, <i>and the scope with which</i>,
<i>each Gospel was compiled</i>, <i>all a priori arguments of
this kind are good for nothing</i>.”</p>
<p>(The italics in the above, and throughout the notes quoted,
are the Dean’s, unless it is expressly stated
otherwise.)</p>
<p>I will now proceed to consider this defence of Matthew’s
accuracy against the objections of the German commentators.</p>
<p>I. The German commentators maintain that the chief
priests are not likely to have known of any prophecy of
Christ’s Resurrection when His own disciples had evidently
heard of nothing to this effect. Dean Alford’s answer
amounts to this:—</p>
<p>1. They had heard the words but did not understand their
meaning; hatred enabled the chief priests to see clearly what
love did not reveal to the understanding of the Apostles.
True, according to Matthew, Christ had said that as Jonah was
three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so the
Son of Man should be three days and three nights in the heart of
the earth; but it would be only hatred which would suggest the
interpretation of so obscure a prophecy: love would not be
sufficiently keen-sighted to understand it.</p>
<p>But in the first place I would urge that if the Apostles had
ever heard any words capable of suggesting the idea that Christ
should rise, after they had already seen the raising of Lazarus,
on whom corruption had begun its work, they <i>must</i> have
expected the Resurrection. After having seen so stupendous
a miracle, any one would expect anything which was even suggested
by the One who had performed it. And, secondly, hatred is
not keener sighted than love.</p>
<p>2. Dean Alford says that the raising of Lazarus would
shew the chief priests what sort of a thing the Resurrection from
the dead was to be, and that the fulfilment of Christ’s
prophecy concerning his Crucifixion would naturally lead them to
look further to what else he had announced.</p>
<p>But, if the raising of Lazarus would shew the chief priests
what sort of thing the Resurrection was to be, it would shew the
Apostles also; and again if the fulfilment of the prophecy of the
Crucifixion would lead the chief priests to look further to the
fulfilment of the prophecy of the Resurrection, so would it lead
the Apostles; this supposition of one set of men who can see
everything, and of another with precisely the same opportunities
and no less interest, who can see nothing, is vastly convenient
upon the stage, but it is not supported by a reference to Nature;
self-interest would have opened the eyes of the Apostles.</p>
<p>II. The German commentators ask how was it possible that
the women who were solicitous about the removal of the stone,
should not be still more so about “its being sealed and a
guard set?” If the German commentators have asked
their question in this shape, they have asked it badly, and Dean
Alford’s answer is sufficient: they might have asked, how
the other three writers could all tell us that the stone was
already gone when the women got there, and yet Matthew’s
story be true? and how Matthew’s story could be true
without the other writers having known it? and how the other
writers could have introduced matter contradictory to it, if they
had known it to be true?</p>
<p>III. The German commentators say that in the Acts of the
Apostles we find Gamaliel expressing himself as doubtful whether
or no Christianity was of God, whereas had he known the facts
related by Matthew he could have had no doubt at all. He
must have <i>known</i> that Christianity was of God.</p>
<p>Dean Alford answers that perhaps Gamaliel was not there.
To which I would rejoin that though Gamaliel might have had no
hand in the bribery, supposing it to have taken place, it is
inconceivable that such a story should have not reached him; the
matter could never have been kept so quiet but that it must have
leaked out. Men are not so utterly bad or so utterly
foolish as Dean Alford seems to imply; and whether Gamaliel was
or was not present when the guard were bribed, he must have been
equally aware of the fact before making the speech which is
assigned to him in the Acts.</p>
<p>IV. The German commentators argue from the silence of
the other Evangelists: Dean Alford replies by denying that this
silence is any argument: but I would answer, that on a matter
which the other three writers must have known to have been of
such intense interest, their silence is a conclusive proof either
of their ignorance or their indolence as historians. Dean
Alford has well substantiated the independence of the four
narratives, he has well proved that the writer of the fourth
Gospel could never have seen the other Gospels, and yet he
supposes that that writer either did not know the facts related
by Matthew, or thought it unnecessary to allude to them.
Neither of these suppositions is tenable: but there would
nevertheless be a shadow of ground for Dean Alford to stand upon
if the other Evangelists were simply silent: but why does he omit
all notice of their introducing matter which is absolutely
incompatible with Matthew’s accuracy?</p>
<p>There is one other consideration which must suggest itself to
the reader in connection with this story of the guard. It
refers to the conduct of the chief priests and the soldiers
themselves. The conduct assigned to the chief priests in
bribing the guard to lie against one whom they must by this time
have known to be under supernatural protection, is contrary to
human nature. The chief priests (according to Matthew) knew
that Christ had said he should rise: in spite of their being well
aware that Christ had raised Lazarus from the dead but very
recently they did not believe that he <i>would</i> rise, but
feared (so Matthew says) that the Apostles would steal the body
and pretend a resurrection: up to this point we admit that the
story, though very improbable, is still possible: but when we
read of their bribing the guards to tell a lie under such
circumstances as those which we are told had just occurred, we
say that such conduct is impossible: men are too great cowards to
be capable of it. The same applies to the soldiers: they
would never dare to run counter to an agency which had nearly
killed them with fright on that very selfsame morning. Let
any man put himself in their position: let him remember that
these soldiers were previously no enemies to Christ, nor, as far
as we can judge, is it likely that they were a gang of
double-dyed villains: but even if they were, they would not have
dared to act as Matthew says they acted.</p>
<p>And now let us turn to another note of Dean
Alford’s.</p>
<p>Speaking of the independence of the four narratives (in his
note on Matt. xxviii., 1–10) and referring to their
“minor discrepancies,” the Dean says,
“<i>Supposing us to be acquainted with every thing said and
done in its order and exactness</i>, <i>we should doubtless be
able to reconcile</i>, <i>or account for</i>, <i>the present
forms of the narratives</i>; but not having this key to the
harmonising of them, all attempts to do so in minute particulars
must be full of arbitrary assumptions, and carry no certainty
with them: and I may remark that <i>of all harmonies</i> those of
the <i>incidents of these chapters</i> are to me the <i>most
unsatisfactory</i>. Giving their compilers all credit for
the best intentions, I confess they seem to me to <i>weaken</i>
instead of strengthening the evidence, which now rests (speaking
merely <i>objectively</i>) on the unexceptionable testimony of
three independent narrators, and one who besides was an eye
witness of much that happened. If we are to compare the
four and ask which is to be taken as most nearly reporting the
<i>exact</i> words and incidents, on this there can, I think, be
no doubt. On internal as well as external ground <i>that of
John</i> takes the <i>highest place</i>, but not of course to the
exclusion of those parts of the narrative which he <i>does not
touch</i>.”</p>
<p>Surely the above is a very extraordinary note. The
difficulty of the irreconcilable differences between the four
narratives is not met nor attempted to be met: the Dean seems to
consider the attempt as hopeless: no one, according to him, has
been as yet successful, neither can he see any prospect of
succeeding better himself: the expedient therefore which he
proposes is that the whole should be taken on trust; that it
should be assumed that no discrepancy which could not be
accounted for would be found, if the facts were known in the
exact order in which they occurred. In other words, he
leaves the difficulty where it was. Yet surely it is a very
grave one. The same events are recorded by three writers
(one being professedly an eye-witness, and the others independent
writers), in a way which is virtually the same, in spite of some
unimportant variations in the manner of telling it, while a
fourth gives a totally different and irreconcilable account; the
matter stands in such confusion at present that even Dean Alford
admits that any attempt to reconcile the differences leaves them
in worse confusion than ever; the ablest and most spiritually
minded of the German commentators suggest a way of escape;
nevertheless, according to the Dean we are not to profit by it,
but shall avoid the difficulty better by a simpler
process—the process of passing it over.</p>
<p>A man does well to be angry when he sees so solemn and
momentous a subject treated thus. What is trifling if this
is not trifling? What is disingenuousness if not
this? It involves some trouble and apparent danger to admit
that the same thing has happened to the Christian records which
has happened to all others—<i>i.e.</i>, that they have
suffered—miraculously little, but still something—at
the hands of time; people would have to familiarise themselves
with new ideas, and this can seldom be done without a certain
amount of wrangling, disturbance, and unsettling of comfortable
ease: it is therefore by all means and at all risks to be
avoided. Who can doubt that some such feeling as this was
in Dean Alford’s mind when the notes above criticised were
written? Yet what are the means taken to avoid the
recognition of obvious truth? They are disingenuous in the
very highest degree. Can this prosper? Not if Christ
is true.</p>
<p>What is the practical result? The loss of many souls who
would gladly come to the Saviour, but who are frightened off by
seeing the manner in which his case is defended. And what
after all is the danger that would follow upon candour?
None. Not one particle. Nevertheless, danger or no
danger, we are bound to speak the truth. We have nothing to
do with consequences and moral tendencies and risk to this or
that fundamental principle of our belief, nor yet with the
possibility of lurid lights being thrown here or there.
What are these things to us? They are not our business or
concern, but rest with the Being who has required of <i>us</i>
that we should reverently, patiently, unostentatiously, yet
resolutely, strive to find out what things are true and what
false, and that we should give up all, rather than forsake our
own convictions concerning the truth.</p>
<p>This is our plain and immediate duty, in pursuance of which we
proceed to set aside the account of the Resurrection given in St.
Matthew’s Gospel. That account must be looked upon as
the invention of some copyist, or possibly of the translator of
the original work, at a time when men who had been eye-witnesses
to the actual facts of the Resurrection were becoming scarce, and
when it was felt that some more unmistakably miraculous account
than that given in the other three Gospels would be a comfort and
encouragement to succeeding generations. We, however, must
now follow the example of “even the best” of the
German commentators, and discard it as soon as possible. On
having done this the whole difficulty of the confusion of the
four accounts of the Resurrection vanishes like smoke, and we
find ourselves with three independent writers whose differences
are exactly those which we might expect, considering the time and
circumstances in which they wrote, but which are still so
trifling as to disturb no man’s faith.</p>
<h3><a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
153</span>Chapter VI<br />
More Disingenuousness</h3>
<p>[Here, perhaps, will be the fittest place for introducing a
letter to my brother from a gentleman who is well known to the
public, but who does not authorise me to give his name. I
found this letter among my brother’s papers, endorsed with
the words “this must be attended to,” but with
nothing more. I imagine that my brother would have
incorporated the substance of his correspondent’s letter
into this or the preceding chapter, but not venturing to do so
myself, I have thought it best to give the letter and extract in
full, and thus to let them speak for themselves.—W. B.
O.]</p>
<p style="text-align: right">June 15, 1868.</p>
<p>My dear Owen,</p>
<p>Your brother has told me what you are doing, and the general
line of your argument. I am sorry that you should be doing
it, for I need not tell you that I do not and cannot sympathise
with the great and unexpected change in your opinions. You
are the last man in the world from whom I should have expected
such a change: but, as you well know, you are also the last man
in the world whose sincerity in making it I should be inclined to
question. May you find peace and happiness in whatever
opinions you adopt, and let me trust also that you will never
forget the lessons of toleration which you learnt as the disciple
of what you will perhaps hardly pardon me for calling a freer and
happier school of thought than the one to which you now believe
yourself to belong.</p>
<p>Your brother tells me that you are ill; I need not say that I
am sorry, and that I should not trouble you with any personal
matter—I write solely in reference to the work which I hear
that you have undertaken, and which I am given to understand
consists mainly in the endeavour to conquer unbelief, by really
entering into the difficulties felt by unbelievers. The
scheme is a good one <i>if thoroughly carried out</i>. We
imagine that we stand in no danger from any such course as this,
and should heartily welcome any book which tried to grapple with
us, even though it were to compel us to admit a great deal more
than I at present think it likely that even you can extort from
us. Much more should we welcome a work which made people
understand us better than they do; this would indeed confer a
lasting benefit both upon them and us.</p>
<p>However, I know you wish to do your work thoroughly; I want,
therefore, to make a trifling suggestion which you will take
<i>pro tanto</i>: it is this:—Paley, in his third book,
professes to give “a brief consideration of some popular
objections,” and begins Chap. I. with “The
discrepancies between the several Gospels.”</p>
<p>Now, I know you have a Paley, but I know also that you are
ill, and that people who are ill like being saved from small
exertions. I have, therefore, bought a second-hand Paley
for a shilling, and have cut out the chapter to which I
especially want to call your attention. Will you kindly
read it through from beginning to end?</p>
<p>Is it fair? Is the statement of our objections anything
like what we should put forward ourselves? And can you
believe that Paley with his profoundly critical instinct, and
really great knowledge of the New Testament, should not have been
perfectly well aware that he was misrepresenting and ignoring the
objections which he professed to be removing?</p>
<p>He must have known very well that the principle of
confirmation by discrepancy is one of very limited application,
and that it will not cover anything approaching to such wide
divergencies as those which are presented to us in the
Gospels. Besides, how <i>can</i> he talk about
Matthew’s object as he does, and yet omit all allusion to
the wide and important differences between his account of the
Resurrection, and those of Mark, Luke, and John? Very few
know what those differences really are, in spite of their having
the Bible always open to them. I suppose that Paley felt
pretty sure that his readers would be aware of no difficulty
unless he chose to put them up to it, and wisely declined to do
so. Very prudent, but very (as it seems to me)
wicked. Now don’t do this yourself. If you are
going to meet us, meet us fairly, and let us have our say.
Don’t pretend to let us have our say while taking good care
that we get no chance of saying it. I know you
won’t.</p>
<p>However, will you point out Paley’s unfairness in
heading this part of his work “A brief consideration of
some popular objections,” and then proceeding to give a
chapter on “the discrepancies between the several
Gospels,” without going into the details of any of those
important discrepancies which can have been known to none better
than himself? This is the only place, so far as I remember,
in his whole book, where he even touches upon the discrepancies
in the Gospels. Does he do so as a man who felt that they
were unimportant and could be approached with safety, or as one
who is determined to carry the reader’s attention away from
them, and fix it upon something else by a <i>coup de
main</i>?</p>
<p>This chapter alone has always convinced me that Paley did not
believe in his own book. No one could have rested satisfied
with it for moment, if he felt that he was on really strong
ground. Besides, how insufficient for their purpose are his
examples of discrepancies which do not impair the credibility of
the main fact recorded!</p>
<p>How would it have been if Lord Clarendon and three other
historians had each told us that the Marquis of Argyll <i>came to
life again after being beheaded</i>, and then set to work to
contradict each other hopelessly as to the manner of his
reappearance? How if Burnet, Woodrow, and Heath had given
an account which was not at all incompatible with a natural
explanation of the whole matter, while Clarendon gave a
circumstantial story in flat contradiction to all the others, and
carefully excluded any but a supernatural explanation?
Ought we to, or should we, allow the discrepancies to pass
unchallenged? Not for an hour—if indeed we did not
rather order the whole story out of court at once, as too wildly
improbable to deserve a hearing.</p>
<p>You will, I know, see all this, and a great deal more, and
will point it better than I can. Let me as an old friend
entreat you not to pass this over, but to allow me to continue to
think of you as I always have thought of you hitherto, namely, as
the most impartial disputant in the world.—Yours,
&c.</p>
<div class="gapshortline"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center">(<i>Extract from Paley’s</i>
“<i>Evidences</i>.”—<i>Part III.</i>,
<i>Chapter 1</i>. “<i>The Discrepancies between the
Gospels</i>.”)</p>
<p>“I know not a more rash or unphilosophical conduct of
the understanding, than to reject the substance of a story, by
reason of some diversity in the circumstances with which it is
related. The usual character of human testimony is
substantial truth under circumstantial variety. This is
what the daily experience of courts of justice teaches.
When accounts of a transaction come from the mouths of different
witnesses, it is seldom that it is not possible to pick out
apparent or real inconsistencies between them. These
inconsistencies are studiously displayed by an adverse pleader,
but oftentimes with little impression upon the minds of the
judges. On the contrary, close and minute agreement induces
the suspicion of confederacy and fraud. When written
histories touch upon the same scenes of action, the comparison
almost always affords ground for a like reflection.
Numerous and sometimes important variations present themselves;
not seldom, also, absolute and final contradictions; yet neither
one nor the other are deemed sufficient to shake the credibility
of the main fact. The embassy of the Jews to deprecate the
execution of Claudian’s order to place his statue in their
temple Philo places in harvest, Josephus in seed-time, both
contemporary writers. No reader is led by this
inconsistency to doubt whether such an embassy was sent, or
whether such an order was given. Our own history supplies
examples of the same kind. In the account of the Marquis of
Argyll’s death in the reign of Charles II., we have a very
remarkable contradiction. Lord Clarendon relates that he
was condemned to be hanged, which was performed the same day; on
the contrary, Burnet, Woodrow, Heath, Echard, concur in stating
that he was condemned upon the Saturday, and executed upon a
Monday. <a name="citation158a"></a><a href="#footnote158a"
class="citation">[158a]</a> Was any reader of English
history ever sceptic enough to raise from hence a question,
whether the Marquis of Argyll was executed or not? Yet this
ought to be left in uncertainty, according to the principles upon
which the Christian religion has sometimes been attacked.
Dr. Middleton contended that the different hours of the day
assigned to the Crucifixion of Christ by John and the other
Evangelists, did not admit of the reconcilement which learned men
had proposed; and then concludes the discussion with this hard
remark: ‘We must be forced, with several of the critics, to
leave the difficulty just as we found it, chargeable with all the
consequences of manifest inconsistency.’ <a
name="citation158b"></a><a href="#footnote158b"
class="citation">[158b]</a> But what are these
consequences? By no means the discrediting of the history
as to the principal fact, by a repugnancy (even supposing that
repugnancy not to be resolvable into different modes of
computation) in the time of the day in which it is said to have
taken place.</p>
<p>“A great deal of the discrepancy observable in the
Gospels arises from <i>omission</i>; from a fact or a passage of
Christ’s life being noticed by one writer, which is
unnoticed by another. Now, omission is at all times a very
uncertain ground of objection. We perceive it not only in
the comparison of different writers, but even in the same writer,
when compared with himself. There are a great many
particulars, and some of them of importance, mentioned by
Josephus in his Antiquities, which as we should have supposed,
ought to have been put down by him in their place in the Jewish
Wars. <a name="citation159a"></a><a href="#footnote159a"
class="citation">[159a]</a> Suetonius, Tacitus, Dion
Cassius have all three written of the reign of Tiberius.
Each has mentioned many things omitted by the rest, <a
name="citation159b"></a><a href="#footnote159b"
class="citation">[159b]</a> yet no objection is from thence taken
to the respective credit of their histories. We have in our
own times, if there were not something indecorous in the
comparison, the life of an eminent person, written by three of
his friends, in which there is very great variety in the
incidents selected by them, some apparent, and perhaps some real,
contradictions: yet without any impeachment of the substantial
truth of their accounts, of the authenticity of the books, of the
competent information or general fidelity of the writers.</p>
<p>“But these discrepancies will be still more numerous,
when men do not write histories, but <i>memoirs</i>; which is
perhaps the true name and proper description of our Gospels; that
is, when they do not undertake, or ever meant to deliver, in
order of time, a regular and complete account of <i>all</i> the
things of importance which the person who is the subject of their
history did or said; but only, out of many similar ones, to give
such passages, or such actions and discourses, as offered
themselves more immediately to their attention, came in the way
of their enquiries, occurred to their recollection, or were
suggested by their <i>particular design</i> at the time of
writing.</p>
<p>“This particular design may appear sometimes, but not
always, nor often. Thus I think that the particular design
which St. Matthew had in view whilst he was writing the history
of the Resurrection, was to attest the faithful performance of
Christ’s promise to his disciples to go before them into
Galilee; because he alone, except Mark, who seems to have taken
it from him, has recorded this promise, and he alone has confined
his narrative to that single appearance to the disciples which
fulfilled it. It was the preconcerted, the great and most
public manifestation of our Lord’s person. It was the
thing which dwelt upon St. Matthew’s mind, and he adapted
his narrative to it. But, that there is nothing in St.
Matthew’s language which negatives other appearances, or
which imports that this his appearance to his disciples in
Galilee, in pursuance of his promise, was his first or only
appearance, is made pretty evident by St. Mark’s Gospel,
which uses the same terms concerning the appearance in Galilee as
St. Matthew uses, yet itself records two other appearances prior
to this: ‘Go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he
goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said
unto you’ (xvi., 7). We might be apt to infer from
these words, that this was the <i>first</i> time they were to see
him: at least, we might infer it with as much reason as we draw
the inference from the same words in Matthew; yet the historian
himself did not perceive that he was leading his readers to any
such conclusion, for in the twelfth and two following verses of
this chapter, he informs us of two appearances, which, by
comparing the order of events, are shown to have been prior to
the appearance in Galilee. ‘He appeared in another
form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country:
and they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they
them. Afterward He appeared unto the eleven as they sat at
meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief, because they
believed not them which had seen Him after He was
risen.’ Probably the same observation, concerning the
<i>particular design</i> which guided the historian, may be of
use in comparing many other passages of the Gospels.”</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>[My brother’s work, which has been interrupted by the
letter and extract just given, will now be continued. What
follows should be considered as coming immediately after the
preceding chapter.—W. B. O.]</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p><span class="smcap">But</span> there is a much worse set of
notes than those on the twenty-eighth chapter of St. Matthew, and
so important is it that we should put an end to such a style of
argument, and get into a manner which shall commend itself to
sincere and able adversaries, that I shall not apologise for
giving them in full here. They refer to the spear wound
recorded in St. John’s Gospel as having been inflicted upon
the body of our Lord.</p>
<p>The passage in St. John’s Gospel stands thus (John xix.,
32–37)—“Then came the soldiers and brake the
legs of the first and of the other which was crucified with
Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was dead
already they brake not His legs: but one of the soldiers with a
spear pierced His side, and forthwith came there out blood and
water. And he that saw it bare record, and we know that his
record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true that ye might
believe. For these things were done that the Scripture
should be fulfilled, ‘A bone of Him shall not be
broken’ and again another Scripture saith, ‘They
shall look on Him whom they pierced.’”</p>
<p>In his note upon the thirty-fourth verse Dean Alford
writes—“The lance must have penetrated deep, for the
object was to <i>ensure</i> death.” Now what warrant
is there for either of these assertions? We are told that
the soldiers saw that our Lord was dead already, and that for
this reason they did not break his legs: if there had been any
doubt about His being dead can we believe that they would have
hesitated? There is ample proof of the completeness of the
death in the fact that those whose business it was to assure
themselves of its having taken place were so satisfied that they
would be at no further trouble; what need to kill a dead
man? If there had been any question as to the possibility
of life remaining, it would not have been resolved by the thrust
of the spear, but in a way which we must shudder to think
of. It is most painful to have had to write the foregoing
lines, but are they not called for when we see a man so well
intentioned and so widely read as the late Dean Alford
condescending to argument which must only weaken the strength of
his cause in the eyes of those who have not yet been brought to
know the blessings and comfort of Christianity? From the
words of St. John no one can say whether the wound was a deep
one, or why it was given—yet the Dean continues, “and
see John xx., 27,” thereby implying that the wound must
have been large enough for Thomas to get his hand into it,
because our Lord says, “reach hither thine hand and thrust
it into my side.” This is simply shocking.
Words cannot be pressed in this way. Dean Alford then says
that the spear was thrust “probably into the <i>left</i>
side on account of the position of the soldier” (no one can
arrive at the position of the soldier, and no one would attempt
to do so, unless actuated by a nervous anxiety to direct the
spear into the heart of the Redeemer), “and of what
followed” (the Dean here implies that the water must have
come from the pericardium; yet in his next note we are led to
infer that he rejects this supposition, inasmuch as the quantity
of water would have been “so small as to have scarcely been
observed”). Is this fair and manly argument, and can
it have any other effect than to increase the scepticism of those
who doubt?</p>
<p>Here this note ends. The next begins upon the words
“blood and water.”</p>
<p>“The spear,” says the Dean, “perhaps pierced
the pericardium or envelope of the heart” (but why
introduce a “perhaps” when there is ample proof of
the death without it?), “in which case a liquid answering
to the description of water may have” (<i>may</i> have)
“flowed with the blood, but the quantity would have been so
small as scarcely to have been observed” (yet in the
preceding note he has led us to suppose that he thinks the water
“probably” came from near the heart). “It
is scarcely possible that the separation of the blood into
placenta and serum should have taken place so soon, or that if it
had, it should have been described by an observe as blood and
water. It is more probable that the fact here so strongly
testified was a consequence of the extreme exhaustion of the body
of the Redeemer.” (Now if this is the case, the
spear-wound does not prove the death of Him on whom it was
inflicted, and Dean Alford has weakened a strong case for
nothing.) “The medical opinions on the subject are
very various and by no means satisfactory.”
Satisfactory! What does Dean Alford mean by
satisfactory? If the evidence does not go to prove that the
spear-wound must have been necessarily fatal why not have said so
at once, and have let the whole matter rest in the obscurity from
which no human being can remove it. The wound may have been
severe or may not have been severe, it may have been given in
mere wanton mockery of the dead King of the Jews, for the
indignity’s sake: or it may have been the savage thrust of
an implacable foe, who would rejoice at the mutilation of the
dead body of his enemy: none can say of what nature it was, nor
why it was given; but the object of its having been recorded is
no mystery, for we are expressly told that it was in order to
shew <i>that prophecy was thus fulfilled</i>: the Evangelist
tells us so in the plainest language: he even goes farther, for
he says that these things were <i>done</i> for this end (not only
that they were <i>recorded</i>)—so that the primary motive
of the Almighty in causing the soldier to be inspired with a
desire to inflict the wound is thus graciously vouchsafed to us,
and we have no reason to harrow our feelings by supposing that a
deeper thrust was given than would suffice for the fulfilment of
the prophecy. May we not then well rest thankful with the
knowledge which the Holy Spirit has seen fit to impart to us,
without causing the weak brother to offend by our special
pleading?</p>
<p>The reader has now seen the two first of Dean Alford’s
notes upon this subject, and I trust he will feel that I have
used no greater plainness, and spoken with no greater severity
than the case not only justifies but demands. We can hardly
suppose that the Dean himself is not firmly convinced that our
Lord died upon the Cross, but there are millions who are not
convinced, and whose conviction should be the nearest wish of
every Christian heart. How deeply, therefore, should we not
grieve at meeting with a style of argument from the pen of one of
our foremost champions, which can have no effect but that of
making the sceptic suspect that the evidences for the death of
our Lord are felt, even by Christians, to be insufficient.
For this is what it comes to.</p>
<p>Let us, however, go on to the note on John xix., 35, that is
to say on St. John’s emphatic assertion of the truth of
what he is recording. The note stands thus, “This
emphatic assertion of the fact seems rather to regard the whole
incident than the mere outflowing of the blood and water.
It was the object of John to shew that the Lord’s body was
a <i>real body</i> and <i>underwent real death</i>.”
(This is not John’s own account—supposing that John
is the writer of the fourth Gospel—either of his own object
in recording, or yet of the object of the wound’s having
been inflicted; his words, as we have seen above, run
thus:—“and he that saw it bare record, and we know
that his record is true; and he knoweth that he saith true that
ye might believe. <i>For these things were done that the
Scripture should be fulfilled</i> which saith ‘a bone of
him shall not be broken,’ and, again, another Scripture
saith, ‘they shall look upon’ him whom they
pierced.’” Who shall dare to say that St. John
had any other object than to show that the event which he relates
had been long foreseen, and foretold by the words of the
Almighty?) And both these were shewn by what took place,
<i>not so much by the phenomenon of the water and
blood</i>” (then here we have it admitted that so much
disingenuousness has been resorted to for no advantage, inasmuch
as the fact of the water and blood having flowed is not <i>per
se</i> proof of a necessarily fatal wound) “as by the
infliction of such a wound” (Such a wound! What can
be the meaning of this? What has Dean Alford made clear
about the wound? We know absolutely nothing about the
severity or intention of the wound, and it is mere baseless
conjecture and assumption to say that we do; neither do we know
anything concerning its effect unless it be shewn that the
issuing of the blood and water <i>prove</i> that death must have
ensued, and this Dean Alford has just virtually admitted to be
not shewn), after which, <i>even if death had not taken place
before</i> (this is intolerable), <i>there could not by any
possibility be life remaining</i>.” (The italics on
this page are mine.)</p>
<p>With this climax of presumptuous assertion these disgraceful
notes are ended. They have shewn clearly that the wound
does not in itself prove the death: they shew no less clearly
that the Dean does not consider that the death is proved beyond
possibility of doubt <i>without</i> the wound; what therefore
should be the legitimate conclusion? Surely that we have no
proof of the completeness of Christ’s death upon the
Cross—or in other words no proof of His having died at
all! Couple this with the notes upon the Resurrection
considered above, and we feel rather as though we were in the
hands of some Jesuitical unbeliever, who was trying to undermine
our faith in our most precious convictions under the guise of
defending them, than in those of one whom it is almost impossible
to suspect of such any design. What should we say if we had
found Newton, Adam Smith or Darwin, arguing for their opinions
thus? What should we think concerning any scientific cause
which we found thus defended? We should exceedingly well
know that it was lost. And yet our leading theologians are
to be applauded and set in high places for condescending to such
sharp practice as would be despised even by a disreputable
attorney, as too transparently shallow to be of the smallest use
to him.</p>
<p>After all that has been said either by Dean Alford or any one
else, we know nothing more than what we are told by the Apostle,
namely, that immediately before being taken down from the Cross
our Lord’s body was wounded more severely, or less
severely, as the case may be, with the point of a spear, that
from this wound there flowed something which to the eyes of the
writer resembled blood and water, and that the whole was done in
order that a well-known prophecy might be fulfilled. Yet
his sentences in reference to this fact being ended, without his
having added one iota to our knowledge upon the subject, the Dean
gravely winds up by throwing a doubt upon the certainty of our
Lord’s death which was not felt by a single one of those
upon the spot, and resting his clenching proof of its having
taken place upon a wound, which he has just virtually admitted to
have not been necessarily fatal. Nothing can be more
deplorable either as morality or policy.</p>
<p>Yet the Dean is justified by the event. One would have
thought he could have been guilty of nothing short of infatuation
in hoping that the above notes would pass muster with any
ordinarily intelligent person, but he knew that he might safely
trust to the force of habit and prejudice in the minds of his
readers, and his confidence has not been misplaced. Of all
those engaged in the training of our young men for Holy Orders,
of all our Bishops and clergy and tutors at colleges, whose very
profession it is to be lovers of truth and candour, who are paid
for being so, and who are mere shams and wolves in sheep’s
clothing if they are not ever on the look-out for falsehood, to
make war upon it as the enemy of our souls—not one,
<i>no</i>, <i>not a single one</i>, so far as I know, has raised
his voice in protest. If a man has not lost his power of
weeping let him weep for this; if there is any who realises the
crime of self-deception, as perhaps the most subtle and hideous
of all forms of sin, let him lift up his voice and proclaim it
now; for the times are not of peace, but of a sowing of wind for
the reaping of whirlwinds, and of the calm that is the centre of
the hurricane.</p>
<p>Either Christianity is the truth of truths—the one which
should in this world overmaster all others in the thoughts of all
men, and compared with which all other truths are insignificant
except as grouping themselves around it—or it is at the
best a mistake which should be set right as soon as
possible. There is no middle course. Either Jesus
Christ was the Son of God, or He was not. If He was, His
great Father forbid that we should juggle in order to prove Him
so—that we should higgle for an inch of wound more, or an
inch less, and haggle for the root νυy in the Greek
word ενυξε. Better admit that
the death of Christ must be ever a matter of doubt, should so
great a sacrifice be demanded of us, than go near to the handling
of a lie in order to make assurance doubly sure. No
truthful mind can doubt that the cause of Christ is far better
served by exposing an insufficient argument than by silently
passing it over, or else that the cause of Christ is one to be
attacked and not defended.</p>
<h3><a name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
170</span>Chapter VII<br />
Difficulties felt by our Opponents</h3>
<p><span class="smcap">There</span> are some who avoid all close
examination into the circumstances attendant upon the death of
our Lord, using the plea that however excellent a quality
intellect may be, and however desirable that the facts connected
with the Crucifixion should be intelligently considered, yet that
after all it is spiritual insight which is wanted for a just
appreciation of spiritual truths, and that the way to be
preserved from error is to cultivate holiness and purity of
life. This is well for those who are already satisfied with
the evidences for their convictions. We could hardly give
them any better advice than simply to “depart from evil, do
good, seek peace and ensue it” (Psalm xxxiv., 14), if we
could only make sure that their duty would never lead them into
contact with those who hold the external evidences of
Christianity to be insufficient. When, however, they meet
with any of these unhappy persons they will find their influence
for good paralysed; for unbelievers do not understand what is
meant by appealing to their spiritual insight as a thing which
can in any way affect the evidence for or against an alleged fact
in history—or at any rate as forming evidence for a fact
which they believe to be in itself improbable and unsupported by
external proof. They have not got any spiritual insight in
matters of this sort; nor, indeed, do they recognise what is
meant by the words at all, unless they be interpreted as
self-respect and regard for the feelings and usages of other
people. What spiritual insight they have, they express by
the very nearly synonymous terms, “current feeling,”
or “common sense,” and however deep their reverence
for these things may be, they will never admit that goodness or
right feeling can guide them into intuitive accuracy upon a
matter of history. On the contrary, in any such case they
believe that sentiment is likely to mislead, and that the
well-disciplined intellect is alone trustworthy. The
question is, whether it is worth while to try and rescue those
who are in this condition or not. If it <i>is</i> worth
while, we must deal with them according to their sense of right
and not ours: in other words, if we meet with an unbeliever we
must not expect him to accept our faith unless we take much pains
with him, and are prepared to make great sacrifice of our own
peace and patience.</p>
<p>Yet how many shrink from this, and think that they are doing
God service by shrinking; the only thing from which they should
really shrink, is the falsehood which has overlaid the best
established fact in all history with so much sophistry, that even
our own side has come to fear that there must be something
lurking behind which will not bear daylight; to such a pass have
we been brought by the desire to prove too much.</p>
<p>Now for the comfort of those who may feel an uneasy sense of
dread, as though any close examination of the events connected
with the Crucifixion might end in suggesting a natural instead of
a miraculous explanation of the Resurrection, for the comfort of
such—and they indeed stand in need of comfort—let me
say at once that the ablest of our adversaries would tell them
that they need be under no such fear. Strauss himself
admits that our Lord died upon the Cross; he does not even
attempt to dispute it, but writes as though he were well aware
that there was no room for any difference of opinion about the
matter. He has therefore been compelled to adopt the
hallucination theory, with a result which we have already
considered. Yet who can question that Strauss would have
maintained the position that our Lord did not die upon the Cross,
unless he had felt that it was one in which he would not be able
to secure the support even of those who were inclined to
disbelieve? We cannot doubt that the conviction of the
reality of our Lord’s death has been forced upon him by a
weight of testimony which, like St. Paul, he has found himself
utterly unable to resist.</p>
<p>Here then, we might almost pause. Strauss admits that
our Lord died upon the Cross. Yet can the reader help
feeling that the vindication of the reality of our Lord’s
reappearances, and the refutation of Strauss’s theories
with which this work opened, was triumphant and conclusive?
Then what follows? That Christ died and rose again!
The central fact of our faith is proved. It is proved
externally by the most solid and irrefragable proofs, such as
should appeal even to minds which reject all spiritual evidence,
and recognise no canons of investigation but those of the purest
reason.</p>
<p>But anything and everything is believable concerning one whose
resurrection from death to life has been established. What
need, then, to enter upon any consideration of the other
miracles? Of the Ascension? Of the descent of the
Holy Spirit? Who can feel difficulty about these
things? Would not the miracle rather be that they should
<i>not</i> have happened! May we not now let the wings of
our soul expand, and soar into the heaven of heavens, to the
footstool of the Throne of Grace, secure that we have earned the
right to hope and to glory by having consented to the pain of
understanding?</p>
<p>We may: and I have given the reader this foretaste of the
prize which he may justly claim, lest he should be swallowed up
in overmuch grief at the journey which is yet before him ere he
shall have done all which may justly be required of him.
For it is not enough that his own sense of security should be
perfected. This is well; but let him also think of
others.</p>
<p>What then is their main difficulty, now that it has been shewn
that the reappearances of our Lord were not due to
hallucination?</p>
<p>I propose to shew this by collecting from all the sources with
which I was familiar in former years, and throwing the whole
together as if it were my own. I shall spare no pains to
make the argument tell with as much force as fairness will
allow. I shall be compelled to be very brief, but the
unbeliever will not, I hope, feel that anything of importance to
his side has been passed over. The believer, on the other
hand, will be thankful both to know the worst and to see how
shallow and impotent it will appear when it comes to be
tested. Oh! that this had been done at the beginning of the
controversy, instead of (as I heartily trust) at the end of
it.</p>
<p>Our opponents, therefore, may be supposed to speak somewhat
after the following manner:—“Granted,” they
will say, “for the sake of argument, that Jesus Christ did
reappear alive after his Crucifixion; it does not follow that we
should at once necessarily admit that his reappearance was due to
miracle. What was enough, and reasonably enough, to make
the first Christians accept the Resurrection, and hence the other
miracles of Christ, is not enough and ought not to be enough to
make men do so now. If we were to hear now of the
reappearance of a man who had been believed to be dead, our first
impulse would be to learn the when and where of the death, and
the when and where of the first reappearance. What had been
the nature of the death? What conclusive proof was there
that the death had been actual and complete? What
examination had been made of the body? And to whom had it
been delivered on the completeness of the death having been
established? How long had the body been in the
grave—if buried? What was the condition of the grave
on its being first revisited? It is plain to any one that
at the present day we should ask the above questions with the
most jealous scrutiny and that our opinion of the character of
the reappearance would depend upon the answers which could be
given to them.</p>
<p>“But it is no less plain that the distance of the
supposed event from our own time and country is no bar to the
necessity for the same questions being as jealously asked
concerning it, as would be asked if it were alleged to have
happened recently and nearer home. On the contrary,
distance of time and space introduces an additional necessity for
caution. It is one thing to know that the first Christians
unanimously believed that their master had miraculously risen
from death to life; it is another to know their reasons for so
thinking. Times have changed, and tests of truth are
infinitely better understood, so that the reasonable of those
days is reasonable to us no longer. Nor would it be enough
that the answers given could be just strained into so much
agreement with one another as to allow of a <i>modus vivendi</i>
between them, <i>and not to exclude the possibility of death</i>,
<i>they must exclude all possibility of life having remained</i>,
or we should not hesitate for a moment about refusing to believe
that the reappearance had been miraculous: indeed, so long as any
chink or cranny or loophole for escape from the miraculous was
afforded to us, we should unhesitatingly escape by it; this, at
least, is the course which would be adopted by any judge and jury
of sensible men if such a case were to come before their
unprejudiced minds in the common course of affairs.</p>
<p>“We should not refuse to believe in a miracle even now,
if it were supported by such evidence as was considered to be
conclusive by the bench of judges and by the leading scientific
men of the day: in such a case as this we should feel bound to
accept it; but we cannot believe in a miracle, no matter how
deeply it has been engrained into the creeds of the civilised
world, merely because it was believed by ‘unlettered
fishermen’ two thousand years ago. This is not a
source from which such an event as a miracle should be received
without the closest investigation. We know, indeed, that
the Apostles were sincere men, and that they firmly believed that
Jesus Christ had risen from the dead; their lives prove their
faith; but we cannot forget that the fact itself of
Christ’s having been crucified and afterwards seen alive,
would be enough, under the circumstances, to incline the men of
that day to believe that he had died and had been miraculously
restored to life, although we should ourselves be bound to make a
far more searching inquiry before we could arrive at any such
conclusion. A miracle was not and could not be to them,
what it is and ought to be to ourselves—a matter to be
regarded <i>a priori</i> with the very gravest suspicion.
To them it was what it is now to the lower and more ignorant
classes of Irish, French, Spanish and Italian peasants: that is
to say, a thing which was always more or less likely to happen,
and which hardly demanded more than a <i>primâ facie</i>
case in order to establish its credibility. If we would
know what the Apostles felt concerning a miracle, we must ask
ourselves how the more ignorant peasants of to-day feel: if we do
this we shall have to admit that a miracle might have been
accepted upon very insufficient grounds, and that, once accepted,
it would not have had one-hundredth part so good a chance of
being refuted as it would have now.</p>
<p>“It should be borne in mind, and is too often lost sight
of, that <i>we have no account of the Resurrection from any
source whatever</i>. We have accounts of the visit of
certain women to a tomb which they found empty; but this is not
an account of a resurrection. We are told that Jesus Christ
was seen alive after being thought to have been dead, but this
again is not an account of a resurrection. It is a
statement of a fact, but it is not an account of the
circumstances which attended that fact. In the story told
by Matthew we have what comes nearest to an account of the
Resurrection, but even here the principal figure is wanting; the
angel rolls away the stone and sits upon it, but we hear nothing
about the body of Christ emerging from the tomb; we only meet
with this, when we come to the Italian painters.</p>
<p>“Moreover, St. Matthew’s account is utterly
incredible from first to last; we are therefore thrown back upon
the other three Evangelists, none of whom professes to give us
the smallest information as to the time and manner of
Christ’s Resurrection. <i>There is nothing in any of
their accounts to preclude his having risen within two hours from
his having been laid in the tomb</i>.</p>
<p>“If a man of note were condemned to death, crucified and
afterwards seen alive, the almost instantaneous conclusion in the
days of the Apostles, and in such minds as theirs, would be that
he had risen from the dead; but the almost instantaneous
conclusion now, among all whose judgement would carry the
smallest weight, would be that he had never died—that there
must have been some mistake. Children and inexperienced
persons believe readily in all manner of improbabilities and
impossibilities, which when they become older and wiser they
cannot conceive their having ever seriously accepted. As
with men, so with ages; an unusual train of events brings about
unusual results, whereon the childlike age turns instinctively to
miracle for a solution of the difficulty. In the days of
Christ men would ask for evidence of the Crucifixion and the
reappearance; when these two points had been established they
would have been satisfied—not unnaturally—that a
great miracle had been performed: but no sane man would be
contented now with the evidence that was sufficient then, any
more than he would be content to accept many things which a child
must take upon authority, and authority only. <i>We</i>
ought to require the most ample evidence that not only the
appearance of death, but death itself, must have inevitably
ensued upon the Crucifixion, and if this were not forthcoming we
should not for a moment hesitate about refusing to believe that
the reappearance was miraculous.</p>
<p>“And this is what would most assuredly be done now by
impartial examiners—by men of scientific mind who had no
wish either to believe or disbelieve except according to the
evidence; but even now, if their affections and their hopes of a
glorious kingdom in a world beyond the grave were enlisted on the
side of the miracle, it would go hard with the judgement of most
men. How much more would this be so, if they had believed
from earliest childhood that miracles were still occasionally
worked in England, and that a few generations ago they had been
much more signal and common?</p>
<p>“Can we wonder then, if we ourselves feel so strongly
concerning events which are hull down upon the horizon of time,
that those who lived in the very thick of them should have been
possessed with an all absorbing ecstasy or even frenzy of
excitement? Assuredly there is no blame on the score of
credulity to be attached to those who propagated the Christian
religion, but the beliefs which were natural and lawful to them,
are, if natural, yet not lawful to ourselves: they should be
resisted: they are neither right nor wise, and do not form any
legitimate ground for faith: if faith means only the believing
facts of history upon insufficient evidence, we deny the merit of
faith; on the contrary, we regard it as one of the most
deplorable of all errors—as sapping the foundations of all
the moral and intellectual faculties. It is grossly immoral
to violate one’s inner sense of truth by assenting to
things which, though they may appear to be supported by much, are
still not supported by enough. The man who can knowingly
submit to such a derogation from the rights of his self-respect,
deserves the injury to his mental eye-sight which such a course
will surely bring with it. But the mischief will
unfortunately not be confined to himself; it will devolve upon
all who are ill-fated enough to be in his power; he will be
reckless of the harm he works them, provided he can keep its
consequences from being immediately offensive to himself.
No: if a good thing can be believed legitimately, let us believe
it and be thankful, otherwise the goodness will have departed out
of it; it is no longer ours; we have no right to it, and shall
suffer for it, we and our children, if we try to keep it.
It has been said that the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the
children’s teeth are set on edge, but, more truly, it is
the eating of sweet and stolen fruit by the fathers that sets the
teeth of the children jarring. Let those who love their
children look to this, for on their own account they may be
mainly trusted to avoid the sour. Hitherto the intensity of
the belief of the Apostles has been the mainstay of our own
belief. But that mainstay is now no longer strong
enough. A rehearing of the evidence is imperatively
demanded, that it may either be confirmed or
overthrown.”</p>
<p>It cannot be denied that there is much in the above with which
all true Christians will agree, and little to find fault with
except the self-complacency which would seem to imply that common
sense and plain dealing belong exclusively to the unbelieving
side. It is time that this spirit should be protested
against not in word only but in deed. The fact is, that
both we and our opponents are agreed that nothing should be
believed unless it can be proved to be true. We repudiate
the idea that faith means the accepting historical facts upon
evidence which is insufficient to establish them. We do not
call this faith; we call it credulity, and oppose it to the
utmost of our power.</p>
<p>Our opponents imply that we regard as a virtue well-pleasing
in the sight of God, and dignify with the name of faith, a state
of mind which turns out to be nothing but a willingness to stand
by all sorts of wildly improbable stories which have reached us
from a remote age and country, and which, if true, must lead us
to think otherwise of the whole course of nature than we should
think if we were left to ourselves. This accusation is
utterly false and groundless. Faith is the “evidence
of things not seen,” but it is not “insufficient
evidence for things alleged to have been seen.” It is
“the substance of things hoped for,” but
“reasonably hoped for” was unquestionably intended by
the Apostle. We base our faith in the deeper mysteries of
our religion, as in the nature of the Trinity and the sacramental
graces, upon the certainty that other things which are within the
grasp of our reason can be shewn to be beyond dispute. We
know that Christ died and rose again; therefore we believe
whatever He sees fit to tell us, and follow Him, or endeavour to
follow Him, whereinsoever He commands us, but we are not required
to take both the commands of the Mediator <i>and His
credentials</i> upon faith. It is because certain things
within our comprehension are capable of the most irrefragable
proof, that certain others out of it may justly be required to be
believed, and indeed cannot be disbelieved without contumacy and
presumption. And this applies to a certain extent to the
credentials also: for although no man should be captious, nor ask
for more evidence than would satisfy a well-disciplined mind
concerning the truth of any ordinary fact (as one who not
contented with the evidence of a seal, a handwriting and a matter
not at variance with probability, would nevertheless refuse to
act upon instructions because he had not with his own eyes
actually seen the sender write and sign and seal), yet it is both
reasonable and indeed necessary that a certain amount of care
should be taken before the credentials are accepted. If our
opponents mean no more than this we are at one with them, and may
allow them to proceed.</p>
<p>“Turn then,” they say, “to the account of
the events which are alleged to have happened upon the morning of
the Resurrection, as given in the fourth Gospel: and assume for
the sake of the argument that that account, if not from
John’s own hand, is nevertheless from a Johannean source,
and virtually the work of the Apostle. The account runs as
follows:</p>
<p>“‘The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene
while it was yet dark unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone
taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth and cometh
to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and
saith unto them, ‘They have taken away the Lord out of the
sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid Him.’
Peter therefore went forth and that other disciple, and came to
the sepulchre. So they both ran together: and the other
disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.
And he stooping down and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying,
yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him
and went into the sepulchre and seeth the linen clothes lie, and
the napkin that was about His head not lying with the linen
clothes but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then
went in also that other disciple, which came first to the
sepulchre, and he saw and believed. For as yet they knew
not the Scripture that he must rise from the dead. Then the
disciples went away again to their own home. But Mary stood
without at the sepulchre weeping; and as she wept, she stooped
down, and looked into the sepulchre, and seeth two angels in
white sitting, the one at the head, the other at the feet, where
the body of Jesus had lain, and they say unto her, ‘Woman,
why weepest thou?’ She saith unto them,
‘Because they have taken away my Lord and I know not where
they have laid him.’”</p>
<p>“Then Mary sees Jesus himself, but does not at first
recognise him.</p>
<p>“Now, let us see what the above amounts to, and,
dividing it into two parts, let us examine first what we are told
as having come actually under John’s own observation, and,
secondly, what happened afterwards.</p>
<p>I. “It is clear that Mary had seen nothing
miraculous before she came running to the two Apostles, Peter and
John. She had found the tomb empty when she reached
it. She did not know where the body of her Lord then was,
<i>nor was there anything to shew how long it had been
removed</i>: all she knew was that within thirty-six hours from
the time of its having been laid in the tomb it had disappeared,
but how much earlier it had been gone neither did she know, nor
shall we. Peter and John went into the sepulchre and
thoroughly examined it: they saw no angel, nor anything
approaching to the miraculous, simply the grave clothes (<i>which
were probably of white linen</i>), lying <i>in two separate
places</i>. Then, <i>and not till then</i>, do they appear
to have entertained their first belief or hope that Christ might
have risen from the dead.</p>
<p>“This is plain and credible; but it amounts to an empty
tomb, and to an empty tomb only.</p>
<p>“Here, for a moment, we must pause. Had these men
but a few weeks previously seen Lazarus raised from the
corruption of the grave—to say nothing of other
resurrections from the dead? Had they seen their master
override every known natural law, and prove that, as far as he
was concerned, all human experience was worthless, by walking
upon rough water, by actually talking to a storm of wind and
making it listen to him, by feeding thousands with a few loaves,
and causing the fragments that remained after all had eaten, to
be more than the food originally provided? Had they seen
events of this kind continually happening for a space of some two
years, and finally had they seen their master transfigured,
conversing with the greatest of their prophets (men who had been
dead for ages), and recognised by a voice from heaven as the Son
of the Almighty, and had they also heard anything approaching to
an announcement that he should himself rise from the
dead—or had they not? They might have seen the
raising of Lazarus and the rest of the miracles, but might not
have anticipated that Christ himself would rise, for want of any
announcement that this should be so; or, again, they might have
heard a prophecy of his Resurrection from the lips of Christ, but
disbelieved it for the want of any previous miracles which should
convince them that the prophecy came from no ordinary person; so
that their not having expected the Resurrection is explicable by
giving up either the prophecies, or the miracles, but it is
impossible to believe that <i>in spite both of the miracles and
the prophecies</i>, the Apostles should have been still without
any expectation of the Resurrection. If they had both seen
the miracles and heard the prophecies, they must have been in a
state of inconceivably agitated excitement in anticipation of
their master’s reappearance. And this they were not;
on the contrary, they were expecting nothing of the kind.
The condition of mind ascribed to them considering their supposed
surroundings, is one which belongs to the drama only; it is not
of nature: it is so utterly at variance with all human experience
that it should be dismissed at once as incredible.</p>
<p>“But it is very credible if Christ was seen alive after
his Crucifixion, and his reappearance, though due to natural
causes, was once believed to be miraculous, that this one
seemingly well substantiated miracle should become the parent of
all the others, and of the prophecies of the Resurrection.
Thirty years in all probability elapsed between the reappearances
of Christ and the earliest of the four Gospels; thirty years of
oral communication and spiritual enthusiasm, among an oriental
people, and in an unscientific age; an age by which the idea of
an interference with the modes of the universe from a point
outside of itself, was taken as a matter of course; an age which
believed in an anthropomorphic Deity who had back parts, which
Moses had been allowed to see through the hand of God; an age
which, over and above all this, was at the time especially
convulsed with expectations of deliverance from the Roman
yoke. Have we not here a soil suitable for the growth of
miracles, if the seed once fell upon it? Under such
conditions they would even spring up of themselves, seedless.</p>
<p>“Once let the reappearances of Christ have been believed
to be miraculous (and under all the circumstances they might
easily have been believed to be so, though due to natural
causes), and it is not wonderful that, in such an age and among
such a people, the other miracles and the prophecies of the
Resurrection should have become current within thirty
years. Even we ourselves, with all our incalculably greater
advantages, could not withstand so great a temptation to let our
wish become father to our thoughts. If we had been the
especially favoured friends of one whom we believed to have died,
but who yet was not to beholden by death, no matter how careful
and judicially minded we might be by nature, we should be blind
to everything except the fact that we had once been the chosen
companions of an immortal. There lives no one who could
withstand the intoxication of such an idea. A single
well-substantiated miracle in the present day, even though we had
not seen it ourselves, would uproot the hedges of our caution; it
would rob us of that sense of the continuity of nature, in which
our judgements are, consciously or unconsciously, anchored; but
if we were very closely connected with it in our own persons, we
should dwell upon the recollection of it and on little else.</p>
<p>“Few of us can realise what happened so very long
ago. Men believe in the Christian miracles, though they
would reject the notion of a modern miracle almost with ridicule,
and would hardly even examine the evidence in its favour.
But the Christian miracles stand in their minds as things apart;
their <i>prestige</i> is greater than that attaching to any other
events in the whole history of mankind. They are hallowed
by the unhesitating belief of many, many generations. Every
circumstance which should induce us to bow to their authority
surrounds them with a bulwark of defences which may make us well
believe that they must be impregnable, and sacred from
attack. Small wonder then that the many should still
believe them. Nevertheless they do not believe them so
fully, nor nearly so fully, as they think they do. For even
the strongest imagination can travel but a very little way beyond
a man’s own experience; it will not bear the burden of
carrying him to a remote age and country; it will flag, wander
and dream; it will not answer truly, but will lay hold of the
most obvious absurdity, and present it impudently to its tired
master, who will accept it gladly and have done with it.
Even recollection fails, but how much more imagination! It
is a high flight of imagination to be able to realise how weak
imagination is.</p>
<p>“We cannot therefore judge what would be the effect of
immediate contact even with the wild hope of a miracle, from our
conventional acceptance of the Christian miracles. If we
would realise this we must look to modern alleged
miracles—to the enthusiasm of the Irish and American
revivals, when mind inflames mind till strong men burst into
hysterical tears like children; we must look for it in the effect
produced by the supposed Irvingite miracles on those who believed
in them, or in the miracles that followed the Port Royal miracle
of the holy thorn. There never was a miracle solitary yet:
one will soon become the parent of many. The minds of those
who have believed in a single miracle as having come within their
own experience become ecstatic; so deeply impressed are they with
the momentous character of what they have known, that their power
of enlisting sympathy becomes immeasurably greater than that of
men who have never believed themselves to have come into contact
with the miraculous; their deep conviction carries others along
with it, and so the belief is strengthened till adverse
influences check it, or till it reaches a pitch of grotesque
horror, as in the case of the later Jansenist miracles.
There is nothing, therefore, extraordinary in the gradual
development within thirty years of all the Christian miracles, if
the Resurrection were once held to be well substantiated; and
there is nothing wonderful, under the circumstances, in the
reappearance of Christ alive after his Crucifixion having been
assigned to miracle. He had already made sufficient
impression upon his followers to require but little help from
circumstances. He had not so impressed them as to want
<i>no</i> help from any supposed miracle, but nevertheless any
strange event in connection with him would pass muster, with
little or no examination, as being miraculous. He had
undoubtedly professed himself to be, and had been half accepted
as, the promised Messiah. He had no less undoubtedly
appeared to be dead, and had been believed to be so both by
friends and foes. Let us also grant that he reappeared
alive. Would it, then, be very astonishing that the little
missing link in the completeness of the chain of
evidence—<i>absolute certainty concerning the actuality of
the death</i>—should have been allowed to drop out of
sight?</p>
<p>“Round such a centre, and in such an age, the other
miracles would spring up spontaneously, and be accepted the
moment that they arose; there is nothing in this which is foreign
to the known tendencies of the human mind, but there would be
something utterly foreign to all we know of human nature, in the
fact of men not anticipating that Christ would rise, if they had
already seen him raise others from the dead and work the miracles
ascribed to him, and if they had also heard him prophesy that he
should himself rise from the dead. In fact nothing can
explain the universally recorded incredulity of the Apostles as
to the reappearance of Christ, except the fact that they had
never seen him work a single miracle, or else that they had never
heard him say anything which could lead them to suppose that he
was to rise from the dead.</p>
<p>“We are therefore not unwilling to accept the facts
recorded in the fourth Gospel, in so far as they inform us of
things which came under the knowledge of the writer. Mary
found the tomb empty. Ignorant alike of what had taken
place and of what was going to happen, she came to Peter and John
to tell them that the body was gone; this was all she knew.
The two go to the tomb, and find all as Mary had said; on this it
is not impossible that a wild dream of hope may have flashed upon
their minds, that the aspirations which they had already indulged
in were to prove well founded. Within an hour or two Christ
was seen alive, nor can we wonder if the years which intervened
between the morning of the Resurrection and the writing of the
fourth Gospel, should have sufficed to make the writer believe
that John had had an actual belief in the Resurrection, while in
truth he had only wildly hoped it. This much is at any rate
plain, that neither he nor Peter had as yet heard any clearly
intelligible prophecy that their master should rise from the
dead. Whatever subsequent interpretation may have been
given to some of the sayings of Jesus Christ, no saying was yet
known which would of itself have suggested any such
inference. We may justly doubt the caution and accuracy of
the first founders of Christianity, without, even in our hearts,
for one moment impugning the honesty of their intentions.
We are ready to admit that had we been in their places we should
in all likelihood have felt, believed, and, we will hope, acted
as they did; but we cannot and will not admit, in the face of so
much evidence to the contrary, that they were superior to the
intelligence of their times, or, in other words, that they were
capable critics of an event, in which both their feelings and the
<i>primâ facie</i> view of the facts would be so likely to
mislead them.</p>
<p>II. “Turning now to the narrative of what passed
when Peter and John were gone, we find that Mary, stooping down,
looked through her tears into the darkness of the tomb, and saw
two angels clothed in white, who asked her why she wept. We
must remember the wide difference between believing what the
writer of the fourth Gospel tells us that John saw, and what he
tells us that Mary Magdalene saw. All we know on this point
is that he believed that Mary had spoken truly. Peter and
John were men, they went into the tomb itself, and we may say for
a certainty that they saw no angel, nor indeed anything at all,
but the grave clothes (<i>which were probably of white
linen</i>), lying <i>in two separate places</i> within it.
Mary was a woman—a woman whose parallel we must look for
among Spanish or Italian women of the lower orders at the present
day; she had, we are elsewhere told, been at one time possessed
with devils; she was in a state of tearful excitement, and
looking through her tears from light into comparative
darkness. Is it possible not to remember what Peter and
John <i>did</i> see when they were in the tomb? Is it
possible not to surmise that Mary in good truth saw nothing
more? She thought she saw more, but the excitement under
which she was labouring at the time, an excitement which would
increase tenfold after she had seen Christ (as she did
immediately afterwards and before she had had time to tell her
story), would easily distort either her vision or her memory, or
both.</p>
<p>“The evidence of women of her class—especially
when they are highly excited—is not to be relied upon in a
matter of such importance and difficulty as a miracle. Who
would dare to insist upon such evidence now? And why should
it be considered as any more trustworthy eighteen hundred years
ago? We are indeed told that the angels spoke to her; but
the speech was very short; the angels simply ask her why she
weeps; she answers them as though it were the common question of
common people, and then leaves them. This is in itself
incredible; but it is not incredible that if Mary looking into
the tomb saw two white objects within, she should have drawn back
affrighted, and that her imagination, thrown into a fever by her
subsequent interview with Christ, should have rendered her
utterly incapable of recollecting the true facts of the case; or,
again, it is not incredible that she should have been believed to
have seen things which she never did see. All we can say
for certain is that before the fourth Gospel was written, and
probably shortly after the first reappearance of Christ, Mary
Magdalene believed, or was thought to have believed, that she had
seen angels in the tomb; and this being so, the development of
the short and pointless question attributed to
them—possibly as much due to the eager cross-questioning of
others as to Mary herself—is not surprising.</p>
<p>“Before the Sunday of the Resurrection was over, the
facts as derivable from the fourth Gospel would stand thus.
Jesus Christ, who was supposed to have been verily and indeed
dead, was known to be alive again. He had been seen, and
heard to speak. He had been seen by those who were already
prepared to accept him as their leader, and whose previous
education, and tone of mind, would lead them rather to an excess
of faith in a miracle, than of scepticism concerning its
miraculous character. The Apostles would be in no impartial
nor sceptical mood when they saw that Christ was alive. The
miracle was too near themselves—too fascinating in its
supposed consequences for themselves—to allow of their
going into curious questions about the completeness of the
death. The Master whom they had loved, and in whom they had
hoped, had been crucified and was alive again. Is it a
harsh or strained supposition, that what would have assuredly
been enough for ourselves, if we had known and loved Christ and
had been attuned in mind as the Apostles were, should also have
been enough for them? Who can say so? The nature of
our belief in our Master would have been changed once and for
ever; and so we find it to have been with the Christian
Apostles.</p>
<p>“Over and above the reappearance of Christ, there would
also be a report (probably current upon the very Sunday of the
Resurrection), that Mary Magdalene had seen a vision of angels in
the tomb in which Christ’s body had been laid; and this,
though a matter of small moment in comparison with the
reappearance of Christ himself, will nevertheless concern us
nearly when we come to consider the narratives of the other
Evangelists.”</p>
<h3><a name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
194</span>Chapter VIII<br />
The Preceding Chapter Continued</h3>
<p>“<span class="smcap">Let</span> us now turn to
Luke. His account runs as follows:—</p>
<p>“‘Now upon the first day of the week, very early
in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre bringing the spices
which they had prepared, and certain others with them.
<i>And they found the stone rolled away from the
sepulchre</i>. <i>And they entered in</i>, <i>and found not
the body of the Lord Jesus</i>. And it came to pass as they
were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in
shining garments, <i>and as they were afraid</i>, <i>and bowed
their faces to the earth</i>, they said unto them, “<i>Why
seek ye the living among the dead</i>? He is not here, but
is risen: <i>remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in
Galilee</i>, saying, ‘<i>The Son of Man must be delivered
into the hands of sinful men and be crucified</i>, <i>and the
third day rise again</i>.” <i>And they remembered his
words</i>, and returned from the sepulchre, and told all these
things unto the eleven, and to all the rest. It was Mary
Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other
women that were with them which told these things unto the
Apostles. <i>And their words seemed unto them as idle
tales</i>, <i>and they believed them not</i>. Then arose
Peter, and went unto the sepulchre: and, stooping down, he beheld
the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed wondering in
himself at that which was come to pass.’</p>
<p>“When we compare this account with John’s we are
at once struck with the resemblances and the discrepancies.
Luke and John indeed are both agreed that Christ was seen alive
after the Crucifixion. Both agree that the tomb was found
empty very early on the Sunday morning (<i>i.e.</i>, within
thirty-six hours of the deposition from the Cross), and neither
writer affords us any clue whatever as to the time and manner of
the removal of the body; but here the resemblances end; the
angelic vision of Mary, seen <i>after</i> Peter and John had
departed from the tomb, and seen apparently by Mary alone, in
Luke finds its way into the van of the narrative, and Peter is
represented as having gone to the tomb, <i>not in consequence of
having been simply told that the body of Christ was missing</i>,
<i>but because he refused to believe the miraculous story which
was told him by the women</i>. In the fourth Gospel we
heard of no miraculous story being carried by Mary to Peter and
John. The angels instead of being seen by one person only,
as would have appeared from the fourth Gospel, are now seen <i>by
many</i>; and the women instead of being almost stolidly
indifferent to the presence of supernatural beings, are afraid,
and bow down their faces to the earth; instead of merely wanting
to be informed why Mary was weeping, the angels speak with
definite point, and as angels might be expected to speak; they
allude, also, to past prophecy, which the women at once
remember.</p>
<p>“Strange, that they should want reminding! And
stranger still that a few verses lower down we should find the
Apostles remembering no prophetic saying, but regarding the story
of the women as mere idle tales. What shall we say?
Are not these differences precisely similar to those which we are
continually meeting with, when a case of exaggeration comes
before us? Can we accept <i>both</i> the stories? Is
this one of those cases in which all would be made clear if we
did but know <i>all</i> the facts, or is it rather one in which
we can understand how easily the story given by the one writer
might become distorted into the version of the other? Does
it seem in any way improbable that within the forty years or so
between the occurrences recorded by John and the writing of
Luke’s Gospel, the apparently trifling, yet truly most
important, differences between the two writers should have been
developed?</p>
<p>“No one will venture to say that the facts, upon the
face of them, do not strongly suggest such an inference, and
that, too, with no conscious fraud on the part of any of those
through whose mouths the story must have passed. If the
fourth Gospel be assigned to John (and if it is <i>not</i>
assigned to John the difficulties on the Christian side become so
great that the cause may be declared lost), his story is that of
a principal actor and eye-witness; it bears every impress of
truth and none of exaggeration upon any point which came under
his own observation. Even when he tells of what Mary
Magdalene said she saw, we see the myth in its earliest and
crudest form; there is no attempt at circumstance in connection
with it, and abundant reason for suspecting its supernatural
character is given along with it; reason which to our minds is at
any rate sufficient to make us doubt it, but which would
naturally have no weight whatever with John after he had once
seen Christ alive, or indeed with us if we had been in his
place. It is not to be wondered at that in such times many
a fresh bud should be grafted on to the original story; indeed it
was simply inevitable that this should have been the case.
No one would mean to deceive, but we know how, among uneducated
and enthusiastic persons, the marvellous has an irresistible
tendency to become more marvellous still; and, as far as we can
gather, all the causes which bring this about were more actively
at work shortly after the time of Christ’s first
reappearance than at any other time which can be readily called
to mind. The main facts, as we derive them from the consent
of <i>both</i> writers, were simply these:—That the tomb of
Christ was found unexpectedly empty on the Sunday morning; that
this fact was reported to the Apostles; that Peter went into the
tomb and saw the linen clothes laid by themselves; that Mary
Magdalene said that she had seen angels; and that eventually
Christ shewed himself undoubtedly alive. Both writers agree
so far, but it is impossible to say that they agree farther.</p>
<p>“Some may say that it is of little moment whether the
angels appeared first or last; whether they were seen by many or
by one; whether, if seen only by one, that one had previously
been insane; whether they spoke as angels might be expected to
speak, <i>i.e.</i>, to the point, and are shewn to have been
recognised as angels by the fear which their appearance caused;
or whether they caused no alarm, and said nothing which was in
the least equal to the occasion. But most men will feel
that the whole complexion of the story changes according to the
answers which can be made to these very questions. Surely
they will also begin to feel a strong suspicion that the story
told by Luke is one which has not lost in the telling. How
natural was it that the angelic vision should find its way into
the foreground of the picture, and receive those little
circumstantial details of which it appeared most to stand in
need; how desirable also that the testimony of Mary should be
corroborated by that of others who were with her, and out of whom
no devils had been cast. The first Christians would not
have been men and women at all unless they had felt thus; but
they <i>were</i> men and women, and hence they acted after the
fashion of their age and unconsciously exaggerated; the only
wonder is that they did not exaggerate more, for we must remember
that even though the Apostles themselves be supposed to have been
more judicially unimpassioned and less liable to inaccuracy than
we have reason to believe they were, yet that from the very
earliest ages of the Church there would be some converts of an
inferior stamp. No matter how small a society is, there
will be bad in it as well as good—there was a Judas even in
the twelve.</p>
<p>“But to speak less harshly, there must from the first
have been some converts who would be capable of reporting
incautiously; visions and dreams were vouchsafed to many, and not
a few marvels may be referable to this source; there is no
trusting an age in which men are liable to give a supernatural
interpretation to an extraordinary dream, nor is there any end to
what may come of it, if people begin seriously confounding their
sleeping and waking impressions. In such times, then, Luke
may have said with a clear conscience that he had carefully
sifted the truth of what he wrote; but the world has not passed
through the last two thousand years in vain, and we are bound to
insist upon a higher standard of credibility. Luke would
believe at once, and as a matter of course, things which we
should as a matter of course reject; yet it is probable that he
too had heard much that he rejected; he seems to have been
dissatisfied with all the records with the existence of which he
was aware; the account which he gives is possibly derived from
some very early report; even if this report arose at Jerusalem,
and within a week after the Crucifixion, it might well be very
inaccurate, though apparently supported by excellent authority,
so that there is no necessity for charging Luke with unusual
credulity. No one can be expected to be greatly in advance
of his surroundings; it is well for every one except himself if
he should happen to be so, but no man is to be blamed if he is
not; it is enough to save him if he is fairly up to the standard
of his own times. ‘Morality’ is rather of the
custom which <i>is</i>, than of the custom which ought to be.</p>
<p>“Turning now to the account of Mark, we find the
following:—</p>
<p>“‘And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene,
and Mary the mother of James, and Salome had bought sweet spices
that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the
morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre
at the rising of the sun. And they said among
themselves,</p>
<p>“Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the
sepulchre?” And when they looked they saw that the
stone was rolled away; for it was very great. And entering
into the sepulchre they saw <i>a young man</i> sitting on the
right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were
affrighted. And he saith unto them, “Be not
affrighted; ye seek Jesus of Nazareth which was crucified; he is
risen; he is not here; behold the place where they laid
him. But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he
goeth before you into Galilee: there ye shall see him, as he said
unto you.” And they went out quickly, and fled from
the sepulchre; <i>for they trembled and were amazed</i>,
<i>neither said they any thing to any man</i>, <i>for they were
afraid</i>. Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of
the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had
cast seven devils. And she went and told them that had been
with him as they mourned and wept. And they, when they
heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, <i>believed
not</i>.’</p>
<p>“Here we have substantially the same version as that
given by Luke; there is only one angel mentioned, but it may be
said that it is possible that there may have been another who is
not mentioned, inasmuch as he remained silent; the angelic
vision, however, is again brought into the foreground of the
story and the fear of the women is even more strongly insisted on
than it was in Luke. The angel reminds the women that
Christ had said that he should be seen by his Apostles in
Galilee, of which saying we again find that the Apostles seem to
have had no recollection. The linen clothes have quite
dropped out of the story, and we can detect no trace of Peter and
John’s visit to the tomb, but it is remarkable that the
women are represented as not having said anything about the
presence of the angel immediately on their having seen him; and
this fact, which might be in itself suspicious, is apologised for
on the score of fear, notwithstanding that their silence was a
direct violation of the command of the being whom they so greatly
feared. We should have expected that if they had feared him
so much they would have done as he told them, but here again
everybody seems to act as in a dream or drama, in defiance of all
the ordinary principles of human action.</p>
<p>“Throughout the preceding paragraph we have assumed that
Mark intended his readers to understand that the young man seen
in the tomb was an angel; but, after all, this is rather a bold
assumption. On what grounds is it supported? Because
Luke tells us that when the women reached the tomb they found
<i>two</i> white angels within it, are we therefore to conclude
that Mark, who wrote many years earlier, and as far as we can
gather with much greater historical accuracy, must have meant an
angel when he spoke of a ‘young man’? Yet this
can be the only reason, unless the young man’s having worn
a long white robe is considered as sufficient cause for believing
him to have been an angel; and this, again, is rather a bold
assumption. But if St. Mark meant no more than he said, and
when he wrote of a ‘young man’ intended to convey the
idea of a young man and of nothing more, what becomes of the
angelic visions at the tomb of Christ? For St.
Matthew’s account is wholly untenable; St. Luke is a much
later writer, who must have got all his materials second or third
hand; and although we granted, and are inclined to believe, that
the accounts of the visits of Mary Magdalene, and subsequently of
Peter and John to the tomb, which are given in the fourth Gospel,
are from a Johannean source, if we were asked our reasons for
this belief, we should be very hard put to it to give them.
Nevertheless we think it probable.</p>
<p>“But take it either way; if the account in the fourth
Gospel is supposed to have been derived from the Apostle John, we
have already seen that there is nothing miraculous about it, so
far as it deals with what came under John’s own
observation; if, on the other hand, it is <i>not</i> authentic we
are thrown back upon St. Mark as incomparably our best authority
for the facts that occurred on the Sunday after the Crucifixion,
and he tells us of nothing but a tomb found empty, with the
exception that there was a young man in it who wore a long white
dress and told the women to tell the Apostles to go to Galilee,
where they should see Christ. On the strength of this we
are asked to believe that the reappearance of Christ alive, after
a hurried crucifixion, must have been due to supernatural causes,
and supernatural causes only! It will be easily seen what a
number of threads might be taken up at this point, and followed
with not uninteresting results. For the sake, however, of
brevity, we grant it as most probable that St. Mark meant the
young man said to have been seen in the tomb, to be considered as
an angel; but we must also express our conviction that this
supposed angelic vision is a misplaced offshoot of the report
that Mary Magdalene had seen angels in the tomb after Peter and
John had left it.</p>
<p>“It is possible that Mark’s account may be the
most historic of all those that we have; but we incline to think
otherwise, inasmuch as the angelic vision placed in the
foreground by Mark and Luke, would not be likely to find its way
into the background again, as it does in the fourth Gospel,
unless in consequence of really authentic information; no
unnecessary detraction from the miraculous element is conceivable
as coming from the writer who has handed down to us the story of
the raising of Lazarus, where we have, indeed, <i>a real account
of a resurrection</i>, the continuity of the evidence being
unbroken, and every link in the chain forged fast and strong,
even to the unwrapping of the grave clothes from the body as it
emerged from the sepulchre. Is it possible that the writer
may have given the story of the raising of Lazarus (of which we
find no trace except in the fourth Gospel), because he felt that
in giving the Apostolic version with absolute or substantial
accuracy, he was so weakening the miraculous element in
connection with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ himself, that it
became necessary to introduce an incontrovertible account of the
resurrection of some other person, which should do, as it were,
vicarious duty?</p>
<p>“Nevertheless there are some points on which all the
three writers are agreed: we have the same substratum of facts,
namely, <i>the tomb found already empty when the women reached
it</i>, a confused and contradictory report of an angel or angels
seen within it, and the subsequent reappearance of Christ.
Not one of the three writers affords us the slightest clue as to
the time and manner of the removal of the body from the tomb;
there is nothing in any of the narratives which is incompatible
with its having been taken away on the very night of the
Crucifixion itself.</p>
<p>“Is this a case in which the defenders of Christianity
would clamour for <i>all</i> the facts, unless they exceedingly
well knew that there was no chance of their getting them?
<i>All</i> the facts, indeed—what tricks does our
imagination play us! One would have thought that there were
quite enough facts given as the matter stands to make the
defenders of Christianity wish that there were not so many; and
then for them to say that if we had more, those that we have
would become less contradictory! What right have they to
assume that if they had all the facts, the accounts of the
Resurrection would cease to puzzle us, more than we have to say
that if we had all the facts, we should find these accounts even
more inexplicable than we do at present? Had <i>we</i>
argued thus we should have been accused of shameless impudence;
of a desire to maintain any position in which we happened to find
ourselves, and by which we made money, regardless of every common
principle of truth or honour, or whatever else makes the
difference between upright men and self-deceivers.</p>
<p>“It may be said by some that the discrepancies between
the three accounts given above are discrepancies concerning
details only, but that all three writers agree about the
‘main fact.’ We are continually hearing about
this ‘main fact,’ but nobody is good enough to tell
us precisely what fact is meant. Is the main fact the fact
that Jesus Christ was crucified? Then no one denies
it. We all admit that Jesus Christ was crucified. Or,
is it that he was seen alive several times after the
Crucifixion? This also we are not disposed to deny.
We believe that there is a considerable preponderance of evidence
in its favour. But if the ‘main fact’ turns out
to be that Christ was crucified, <i>died</i>, and then came to
life again, we admit that here too all the writers are agreed,
but we cannot find with any certainty that one of them was
present when Christ died or when his body was taken down from the
Cross, or that there was any such examination of the body as
would be absolutely necessary in order to prove that a man had
been dead who was afterwards seen alive. If Christ
reappeared alive, there is not only no tittle of evidence in
support of his death which would be allowed for a moment in an
English court of justice, but there is an overwhelming amount of
evidence which points inexorably in the direction of his never
having died. If he reappeared, there is no evidence of his
having died. If he did not reappear, there is no evidence
of his having risen from the dead.</p>
<p>“We are inclined, however, as has been said already, to
believe that Jesus Christ really did reappear shortly after the
Crucifixion, and that his reappearance, though due to natural
causes, was conceived to be miraculous. We believe also
that Mary fancied that she had seen angels in the tomb, and
openly said that she had done so; who would doubt her when so far
greater a marvel than this had been made palpably manifest to
all? Who would care to inquire very particularly whether
there were two angels or only one? Whether there were other
women with Mary or whether she was quite alone? Who would
compare notes about the exact moment of their appearing, and what
strictly accurate account of their words could be expected in the
ferment of such excitement and such ignorance? Any speech
which sounded tolerably plausible would be accepted under the
circumstances, and none will complain of Mark as having wilfully
attempted to deceive, any more than he will of Luke: the
amplification of the story was inevitable, and the very candour
and innocence with which the writers leave loophole after
loophole for escape from the miraculous, is alone sufficient
proof of their sincerity; nevertheless, it is also proof that
they were all more or less inaccurate; we can only say in their
defence, that in the reappearance of Christ himself we find
abundant palliation of their inaccuracy. Given one great
miracle, proved with a sufficiency of evidence for the capacities
and proclivities of the age, and the rest is easy. The
groundwork of the after-structure of the other miracles is to be
found in the fact that Christ was crucified, and was afterwards
seen alive.”</p>
<p>There is no occasion for me to examine St. Matthew’s
account of the Resurrection in company with the unhappy men whose
views I have been endeavouring to represent above. For
reasons which have already been sufficiently dwelt upon I freely
own that I agree with them in rejecting it. I shall
therefore admit that the story of the sealing of the tomb, and
setting of the guard, the earthquake, the descent of the angel
from Heaven, his rolling away the stone, sitting upon it, and
addressing the women therefrom, is to be treated for all
controversial purposes as though it had never been written.
By this admission, I confess to complete ignorance of the time
when the stone was removed from the mouth of the tomb, or the
hour when the Redeemer rose. I should add that I agree with
our opponents in believing that our Lord never foretold His
Resurrection to the Apostles. But how little does it matter
whether He foretold His Resurrection or not, and whether He rose
at one hour or another. It is enough for me that he rose at
all; for the rest I care not.</p>
<p>“Yet, see,” our opponents will exclaim in answer,
“what a mighty river has come from a little spring.
We heard first of two men going into an empty tomb, finding two
bundles of grave clothes, and departing. Then there comes a
certain person, concerning whom we are elsewhere told a fact
which leaves us with a very uncomfortable impression, and
<i>she</i> sees, not two bundles of grave clothes, but two white
angels, who ask a dreamy pointless question, and receive an
appropriate answer. Then we find the time of this
apparition shifted; it is placed in the front, not in the
background, and is seen by many, instead of being vouchsafed to
no one but to a weeping woman looking into the bottom of a
tomb. The speech of the angels, also, becomes effective,
and the linen clothes drop out of sight entirely, unless some
faint trace of them is to be found in the ‘long white
garment’ which Mark tells us was worn by the young man who
was in the tomb when the women reached it. Finally, we have
a guard set upon the tomb, and the stone which was rolled in
front of it is sealed; the angel <i>is seen to descend from
Heaven</i>, to roll away the stone, and sit upon it, and there is
a great earthquake. Oh! how things grow, how things
grow! And, oh! how people believe!</p>
<p>“See by what easy stages the story has grown up from the
smallest seed, as the mustard tree in the parable, and how the
account given by Matthew changes the whole complexion of the
events. And see how this account has been dwelt upon to the
exclusion of the others by the great painters and sculptors from
whom, consciously or unconsciously, our ideas of the Christian
era are chiefly drawn. Yes. These men have been the
most potent of theologians, for their theology has reached and
touched most widely. We have mistaken their echo of the
sound for the sound itself, and what was to them an aspiration,
has, alas! been to us in the place of science and reality.</p>
<p>“Truly the ease with which the plainest inferences from
the Gospel narratives have been overlooked is the best apology
for those who have attributed unnatural blindness to the
Apostles. If we are so blind, why not they also? A
pertinent question, but one which raises more difficulties than
it solves. The seeing of truth is as the finding of gold in
far countries, where the shepherd has drunk of the stream and
used it daily to cleanse the sweat of his brow, and recked little
of the treasure which lay abundantly concealed therein, until one
luckier than his fellows espies it, and the world comes flocking
thither. So with truth; a little care, a little patience, a
little sympathy, and the wonder is that it should have lain
hidden even from the merest child, not that it should now be
manifest.</p>
<p>“How early must it have been objected that there was no
evidence that the tomb had not been tampered with (not by the
Apostles, for they were scattered, and of him who laid the body
in the tomb—Joseph of Arimathæa—we hear no
more) and that the body had been delivered not to enemies, but
friends; how natural that so desirable an addition to the
completeness of the evidences in favour of a miraculous
Resurrection should have been early and eagerly accepted.
Would not twenty years of oral communication and Spanish or
Italian excitability suffice for the rooting of such a
story? Yet, as far as we can gather, the Gospel according
to St. Matthew was even then unwritten. And who was
Matthew? And what was his original Gospel?</p>
<p>“There is one part of his story, and one only, which
will stand the test of criticism, and that is this:—That
the saying that the disciples came by night and stole the body of
Jesus away was current among the Jews, at the time when the
Gospel which we now have appeared. Not that they did
so—no one will believe this; but the allegation of the
rumour (which would hardly have been ventured unless it would
command assent as true) points in the direction of search having
been made for the body of Jesus—and made in vain.</p>
<p>“We have now seen that there is no evidence worth the
name, for any miracle in connection with the tomb of
Christ. He probably reappeared alive, but not with any
circumstances which we are justified in regarding as
supernatural. We are therefore at length led to a
consideration of the Crucifixion itself. Is there evidence
for more than this—that Christ was crucified, was
afterwards seen alive, and that this was regarded by his first
followers as a sufficient proof of his having risen from the
dead? This would account for the rise of Christianity, and
for all the other miracles. Take the following passage from
Gibbon:—‘The grave and learned Augustine, whose
understanding scarcely admits the excuse of credulity, has
attested the innumerable prodigies which were worked in Africa by
the relics of St. Stephen, and this marvellous narrative is
inserted in the elaborate work of “The City of God,”
which the Bishop designed as a solid and immortal proof of the
truth of Christianity. Augustine solemnly declares that he
had selected those miracles only which had been publicly
certified by persons who were either the objects or the
spectators of the powers of the martyr. Many prodigies were
omitted or forgotten, and Hippo had been less favourably treated
than the other cities of the province, yet the Bishop enumerates
above seventy miracles, of which three were resurrections from
the dead, within the limits of his own diocese. If we
enlarge our view to all the dioceses and all the saints of the
Christian world, it will not be easy to calculate the fables and
errors which issued from this inexhaustible source. But we
may surely be allowed to observe that a miracle in that age of
superstition and credulity lost its name and its merits, since it
could hardly be considered as a deviation from the established
laws of Nature.’—(Gibbon’s <i>Decline and
Fall</i>, chap. xxviii., sec. 2).</p>
<p>“Who believes in the miracles, or who would dare to
quote them? Yet on what better foundation do those of the
New Testament rest? For the death of Christ there is no
evidence at all. There is evidence that he was believed to
have been dead (under circumstances where a misapprehension was
singularly likely to arise), by men whose minds were altogether
in a different <i>clef</i> to ours as regards the miraculous, and
whom we cannot therefore fairly judge by any modern
standard. We cannot judge <i>them</i>, but we are bound to
weigh the facts which they relate, not in their balance, but in
our own. It is not what might have seemed reasonably
believable to them, but what is reasonably believable in our own
more enlightened age which can be alone accepted sinlessly by
ourselves. Men’s modes of thought concerning facts
change from age to age; but the facts change not at all, and it
is of them that we are called to judge.</p>
<p>“We turn to the fourth Gospel, as that from which we
shall derive the most accurate knowledge of the facts connected
with the Crucifixion. Here we find that it was about twelve
o’clock when Pilate brought out Christ for the last time;
the dialogue that followed, the preparations for the Crucifixion,
and the leading Christ outside the city to the place where the
Crucifixion was to take place, could hardly have occupied less
than an hour. By six o’clock (by consent of all
writers) the body was entombed, so that the actual time during
which Christ hung upon the cross was little more than four
hours. Let us be thankful to hope that the time of
suffering may have been so short—but say five hours, say
six, say whatever the reader chooses, the Crucifixion was
avowedly too hurried for death in an ordinary case to have
ensued. The thieves had to be killed, as yet alive.
Immediately before being taken down from the cross the body was
delivered to friends. Within thirty-six hours afterwards
the tomb in which it had been laid was discovered to have been
opened; for how long it had been open we do not know, but a few
hours later Christ was seen alive.</p>
<p>“Let it be remembered also that the fact of the body
having been delivered to Joseph <i>before</i> the taking down
from the cross, greatly enhanced the chance of an escape from
death, inasmuch as the duties of the soldiers would have ended
with the presentation of the order from Pilate. If any
faint symptom of returning animation shewed itself in consequence
of the mere change of position and the inevitable shock attendant
upon being moved, the soldiers would not know it; their task was
ended, and they would not be likely either to wish, or to be
allowed, to have anything to do with the matter. Joseph
appears to have been a rich man, and would be followed by
attendants. Moreover, although we are told by Mark that
Pilate sent for the centurion to inquire whether Christ was dead,
yet the same writer also tells us that this centurion had already
come to the conclusion that Christ was the Son of God, a
statement which is supported by the accounts of Matthew and Luke;
Mark is the only Evangelist who tells us that the centurion
<i>was</i> sent for, but even granting that this was so, would
not one who had already recognised Christ as the Son of God be
inclined to give him every assistance in his power? He
would be frightened, and anxious to get the body down from the
cross as fast as possible. So long as Christ appeared to be
dead, there would be no unnecessary obstacle thrown in the way of
the delivery of the body to Joseph, by a centurion who believed
that he had been helping to crucify the Son of God. Besides
Joseph was rich, and rich people have many ways of getting their
wishes attended to.</p>
<p>“We know of no one as assisting at the taking down or
the removal of the body, except Joseph of Arimathæa, for
the presence of Nicodemus, and indeed his existence, rests upon
the slenderest evidence. None of the Apostles appear to
have had anything to do with the deposition, nor yet the women
who had come from Galilee, who are represented as seeing where
the body was laid (and by Luke as seeing <i>how</i> it was laid),
but do not seem to have come into close contact with the
body.</p>
<p>“Would any modern jury of intelligent men believe under
similar circumstances that the death had been actual and
complete? Would they not regard—and ought they not to
regard—reappearance as constituting ample proof that there
had been no death? Most assuredly, unless Christ had had
his head cut off, or had been seen to be burnt to ashes.
Again, if unexceptionable medical testimony as to the
completeness of the death had reached us, there would be no help
for it; we should have to admit that something had happened which
was at variance with all our experience of the course of nature;
or again if his legs had been broken, or his feet pierced, we
could say nothing; but what irreparable mischief is done to any
vital function of the body by the mere act of crucifixion?
The feet were not always, ‘nor perhaps generally,’
pierced (so Dean Alford tells us, quoting from Justin Martyr),
nor is there a particle of evidence to shew that any exception
was made in the present instance. A man who is crucified
dies from sheer exhaustion, so that it cannot be deemed
improbable that he might swoon away, and that every outward
appearance of death might precede death by several hours.</p>
<p>“Are we to suppose that a handful of ignorant soldiers
should be above error, when we remember that men have been left
for dead, been laid out for burial and buried by their best
friends—nay, that they have over and over again been
pronounced dead by skilled physicians, when the facilities for
knowing the truth were far greater, and when a mistake was much
less likely to occur, than at the hurried Crucifixion of Jesus
Christ? The soldiers would apply no polished mirror to the
lips, nor make use of any of those tests which, under the
circumstances, would be absolutely necessary before life could be
pronounced to be extinct; they would see that the body was
lifeless, inanimate, to all outward appearance like the few other
dead bodies which they had probably observed closely; with this
they would rest contented.</p>
<p>“It is true, they probably believed Christ to be dead at
the time they handed over the body to his friends, and if we had
heard nothing more of the matter we might assume that they were
right; but the reappearance of Christ alive changes the whole
complexion of the story. It is not very likely that the
Roman soldiers would have been mistaken in believing him to be
dead, unless the hurry of the whole affair, and the order from
Pilate, had disposed them to carelessness, and to getting the
matter done as fast as possible; but it is much less likely that
a dead man should come to life again than that a mistake should
have been made about his having being dead. The latter is
an event which probably happens every week in one part of the
world or another; the former has never yet been known.</p>
<p>“It is not probable that a man officially executed
should escape death; but that a <i>dead man</i> should escape
from it is more improbable still; in addition to the enormous
preponderance of probability on the side of Christ’s never
having died which arises from this consideration alone, we are
told many facts which greatly lessen the improbability of his
having escaped death, inasmuch as the Crucifixion was hurried,
and the body was immediately delivered to friends without the
known destruction of any organic function, and while still
hanging upon the cross.</p>
<p>“Joseph and Nicodemus (supposing that Nicodemus was
indeed a party to the entombment) may be believed to have thought
that Christ was dead when they received the body, but they could
not refuse him their assistance when they found out their
mistake, nor, again, could they forfeit their high position by
allowing it to be known that they had restored the life of one
who was so obnoxious to the authorities. They would be in a
very difficult position, and would take the prudent course of
backing out of the matter at the first moment that humanity would
allow, of leaving the rest to chance, and of keeping their own
counsel. It is noticeable that we never hear of them again;
for there were no two people in the world better able to know
whether the Resurrection was miraculous or not, and none who
would be more deeply interested in favour of the miracle.
They had been faithful when the Apostles themselves had failed,
and if their faith had been so strong while everything pointed in
the direction of the utter collapse of Christianity, what would
it be, according to every natural impulse of self-approbation,
when so transcendent a miracle as a resurrection had been worked
almost upon their own premises, and upon one whose remains they
had generously taken under their protection at a time when no
others had ventured to shew them respect?</p>
<p>“We should have fancied that Mary would have run to
Joseph and Nicodemus, not to the Apostles; that Joseph and
Nicodemus would then have sent for the Apostles, or that, to say
the least of it, we should have heard of these two persons as
having been prominent members of the Church at Jerusalem; but
here again the experience of the ordinary course of nature fails
us, and we do not find another word or hint concerning
them. This may be the result of accident, but if so, it is
a very unfortunate accident, and we have already had a great deal
too much of unfortunate accidents, and of truths which <i>may</i>
be truths, but which are uncommonly like exaggeration.
Stories are like people, whom we judge of in no small degree by
the dress they wear, the company they keep, and that subtle
indefinable something which we call their expression.</p>
<p>“Nevertheless, there arise the questions how far the
spear wound recorded by the writer of the fourth Gospel must be
regarded, firstly, as an actual occurrence, and, secondly, as
having been necessarily fatal, for unless these things are shewn
to be indisputable we have seen that the balance of probability
lies greatly in favour of Christ’s having escaped with
life. If, however, it can be proved that it is a matter of
certainty both that the wound was actually inflicted, and that
death must have inevitably followed, then the death of Christ is
proved. The Resurrection becomes supernatural; the
Ascension forthwith ceases to be marvellous; the Miraculous
Conception, the Temptation in the Wilderness, all the other
miracles of Christ and his Apostles, become believable at once
upon so signal a failure of human experience; human experience
ceases to be a guide at all, inasmuch as it is found to fail on
the very point where it has been always considered to be most
firmly established—the remorselessness of the grip of
death. But before we can consent to part with the firm
ground on which we tread, in the confidence of which we live,
move, and have our being—the trust in the established
experience of countless ages—we must prove the infliction
of the wound and its necessarily fatal character beyond all
possibility of mistake. We cannot be expected to reject a
natural solution of an event however mysterious, and to adopt a
supernatural in its place, so long as there is any element of
doubt upon the supernatural side.</p>
<p>“The natural solution of the origin of belief in the
Resurrection lies very ready to our hands; once admit that Christ
was crucified hurriedly, that there is no proof of the
destruction of any organic function of the body, that the body
itself was immediately delivered to friends, and that thirty-six
hours afterwards Christ was seen alive, and it is impossible to
understand how any human being can doubt what he ought to
think. We must own also that once let Joseph have kept his
own counsel (and he had a great stake to lose if he did
<i>not</i> keep it), once let the Apostles believe that
Christ’s restoration to life was miraculous (and under the
circumstances they would be sure to think so), and their reason
would be so unsettled that in a very short time all the
recognised and all the apocryphal miracles of Christ would pass
current with them without a shadow of difficulty.”</p>
<p>It will be observed that throughout both this and the
preceding chapter I have been dealing with those of our opponents
who, while admitting the reappearances of our Lord, ascribe them
to natural causes only. I consider this position to be only
second in importance to the one taken by Strauss, and as perhaps
in some respects capable of being supported with an even greater
outward appearance of probability. I therefore resolved to
combat it, and as a preliminary to this, have taken care that it
shall be stated in the clearest and most definite manner
possible. But it is plain that those who accept the fact
that our Lord reappeared after the Crucifixion differ hardly less
widely from Strauss than they do from ourselves; it will
therefore be expedient to shew how they maintain their ground
against so formidable an antagonist. Let it be remembered
that Strauss and his followers admit that <i>the Death</i> of our
Lord is proved, while those of our opponents who would deny this,
nevertheless admit that we can establish <i>the
reappearances</i>; it follows therefore that each of our most
important propositions is admitted by one section or other of the
enemy, and each section would probably be heartily glad to be
able to deny what it admits. Can there be any doubt about
the significance of this fact? Would not a little
reflection be likely to suggest to the distracted host of our
adversaries that each of its two halves is right, as <i>far as it
goes</i>, but that agreement will only be possible between them
when each party has learnt that it is in possession of only half
the truth, and has come to admit both the <i>Death of our Lord
and His Resurrection</i>?</p>
<p>Returning, however, to the manner in which the section of our
opponents with whom I am now dealing meet Strauss, they may be
supposed to speak as follows:—</p>
<p>“Strauss believes that Christ died, and says (<i>New
Life of Jesus</i>, Vol. I., p. 411) that ‘the account of
the Evangelists of the death of Jesus is clear, unanimous, and
connected.’ If this means that the Evangelists would
certainly know whether Christ died or not, we demur to it at
once. Strauss would himself admit that not one of the
writers who have recorded the facts connected with the
Crucifixion was an eyewitness of that event, and he must also be
aware that the very utmost which any of these writers can have
<i>known</i>, was <i>that Christ was believed to have been
dead</i>. It is strange to see Strauss so suddenly struck
with the clearness, unanimity, and connectedness of the
Evangelists. In the very next sentence he goes on to say,
‘Equally fragmentary, full of contradiction and obscurity,
is all that they tell us of the opportunities of observing him
which his adherents are supposed to have had after his
resurrection.’ Now, this seems very unfair, for,
after all, the gospel writers are quite as unanimous in asserting
the main fact that Christ reappeared, as they are in asserting
that he died; they would seem to be just as ‘clear,
unanimous, and connected,’ about the former event as the
latter (for the accounts of the Crucifixion vary not a little),
and they must have had infinitely better means of knowing whether
Christ reappeared than whether he had actually died. There
is not the same scope for variation in the bare assertion that a
man died, as there is in the narration of his sayings and doings
upon the several occasions of his reappearance. Besides, in
support of the reappearances, we have the evidence of Paul, who,
though not an eye-witness, was well acquainted with those who
were; whereas no man can make more out of the facts recorded
concerning the death of Jesus, than that he was believed to be
dead under circumstances in which mistake might easily arise,
that there is no reason to think that any organic function of the
body had been destroyed at the time that it was delivered over to
friends, and that none of those who testified to Christ’s
death appear to have verified their statement by personal
inspection of the body. On these points the Evangelists do
indeed appear to be ‘clear, unanimous, and
connected.’</p>
<p>“Later on Strauss is even more unsatisfactory, for on
the page which follows the one above quoted from, he writes:
‘Besides which, it is quite evident that this (the natural)
view of the resurrection of Jesus, apart from the difficulties in
which it is involved, does not even solve the problem which is
here under consideration: the origin, that is, of the Christian
Church by faith in the miraculous resurrection of the
Messiah. It is impossible that a being who had stolen
half-dead out of a sepulchre, who crept about weak and ill,
wanting medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening,
and indulgence, and who still, at last, yielded to his
sufferings, could have given to the disciples the impression that
he was a conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of Life,
an impression which lay at the bottom of their future
ministry. Such a resuscitation could only have weakened the
impression which he had made upon them in life and in death; at
the most could only have given it an elegiac voice, but could by
no possibility have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, have
elevated their reverence into worship.’</p>
<p>“Now, the fallacy in the above is obvious; it assumes
that <i>Christ</i> was in such a state as to be compelled to
creep about, weak and ill, &c., and ultimately to die from
the effects of his sufferings; whereas there is not a word of
evidence in support of all this. He may have been weak and
ill when he forbade Mary to touch him, on the first occasion of
his being seen alive; but it would be hard to prove even this,
and on no subsequent occasion does he shew any sign of
weakness. The supposition that he died of the effects of
his sufferings is quite gratuitous; one would like to know where
Strauss got it from. He <i>may</i> have done so, or he may
have been assassinated by some one commissioned by the Jewish
Sanhedrim, or he may have felt that his work was done, and that
any further interference upon his part would only mar it, and
therefore resolved upon withdrawing himself from Palestine for
ever, or Joseph of Arimathæa may have feared the revolution
which he saw approaching—or twenty things besides might
account for Christ’s final disappearance. The only
thing, however, which we can say with any certainty is that he
disappeared, and that there is no reason to believe that he died
of his wounds. All over and above this is guesswork.</p>
<p>“Again, if Christ on reappearing had continued in daily
intercourse with his disciples, it might have been impossible
that they should not find out that he was in all respects like
themselves. But he seems to have been careful to avoid
seeing them much. Paul only mentions five reappearances,
only one of which was to any considerable number of people.
According also to the gospel writers, the reappearances were few;
they were without preparation, and nothing seems to have been
known of where he resided between each visit; this rarity and
mysteriousness of the reappearances of Christ (whether dictated
by fear of his enemies or by policy) would heighten their effect,
and prevent the Apostles from knowing much more about their
master than the simple fact that he was indisputably alive.
They saw enough to assure them of this, but they did not see
enough to prevent their being able to regard their master as a
conqueror over death and the grave, even though it could be shewn
(which certainly cannot be done) that he continued in infirm
health, and ultimately died of his wounds.</p>
<p>“If the Apostles had been highly educated English or
German Professors, it might be hard to believe them capable of
making any mistake; but they were nothing of the kind; they were
ignorant Eastern peasants, living in the very thick of every
conceivable kind of delusive influence. Strauss himself
supposes their minds to have been so weak and unhinged that they
became easy victims to hallucination. But if this was the
case, they would be liable to other kinds of credulity, and it
seems strange that one who would bring them down so low, should
be here so suddenly jealous for their intelligence. There
is no reason to suppose that Christ <i>was</i> weak and ill after
the first day or two, any more than there is for believing that
he died of his wounds. This being so, is it not more simple
and natural to believe that the Apostles were really misled by a
solid substratum of strange events—a substratum which seems
to be supported by all the evidence which we can get—than
that the whole story of the appearances of Christ after the
Crucifixion should be due to baseless dreams and fancies?
At any rate, if the Apostles could be misled by hallucination,
much more might they be misled by a natural reappearance, which
looked not unlike a supernatural one.</p>
<p>“The belief in the miraculous character of the
Resurrection is the central point of the whole Christian
system. Let this be once believed, and considering the
times, which, it must always be remembered, were in respect of
credulity widely different from our own, considering the previous
hopes and expectations of the Apostles, considering their
education, Oriental modes of thought and speech, familiarity with
the ideas of miracle and demonology, and unfamiliarity with the
ideas of accuracy and science, and considering also the
unquestionable beauty and wisdom of much which is recorded as
having been taught by Christ, and the really remarkable
circumstances of the case—we say, once let the Resurrection
be believed to be miraculous, and the rest is clear; there is no
further mystery about the origin of the Christian religion.</p>
<p>“So the matter has now come to this pass, that we are to
jeopardise our faith in all human experience, if we are unable to
see our way clearly out of a few words about a spear wound,
recorded as having been inflicted in a distant country nearly two
thousand years ago, by a writer concerning whom we are entirely
ignorant, and whose connection with any eye-witness of the events
which he records is a matter of pure conjecture. We will
see about this hereafter; all that is necessary now is to make
sure that we do not jeopardise it, if we <i>do</i> see a way of
escape, and this assuredly exists.”</p>
<p>I will not pain either the reader or myself by a
recapitulation of the arguments which have led our opponents as
well as the Dean of Canterbury, and I may add, with due apology,
myself, to conclude that nothing is known as to the severity or
purpose of the spear wound. The case, therefore, of our
adversaries will rest thus:—that there is not only no
sufficient reason for believing that Christ died upon the cross,
but that there are the strongest conceivable reasons for
believing that He did not die; that the shortness of time during
which He remained upon the cross, the immediate delivery of the
body to friends, and, above all, the subsequent reappearance
alive, are ample grounds for arriving at such a conclusion.
They add further that it would seem a monstrous supposition to
believe that a good and merciful God should have designed to
redeem the world by the infliction of such awful misery upon His
own Son, and yet determined to condemn every one who did not
believe in this design, in spite of such a deficiency of evidence
that disbelief would appear to be a moral obligation. No
good God, they say, would have left a matter of such unutterable
importance in a state of such miserable uncertainty, when the
addition of a very small amount of testimony would have been
sufficient to establish it.</p>
<p>In the two following chapters I shall show the futility and
irrelevancy of the above reasoning—if, indeed, that can be
called reasoning which is from first to last essentially
unreasonable. Plausible as, in parts, it may have appeared,
I have little doubt that the reader will have already detected
the greater number of the fallacies which underlie it. But
before I can allow myself to enter upon the welcome task of
refutation, a few more words from our opponents will yet be
necessary. However strongly I disapprove of their views, I
trust they will admit that I have throughout expressed them as
one who thoroughly understands them. I am convinced that
the course I have taken is the only one which can lead to their
being brought into the way of truth, and I mean to persevere in
it until I have explained the views which they take concerning
our Lord’s Ascension, with no less clearness than I shewed
forth their opinions concerning the Resurrection.</p>
<p>“In St. Matthew’s Gospel,” they will say,
“we find no trace whatever of any story concerning the
Ascension. The writer had either never heard anything about
the matter at all, or did not consider it of sufficient
importance to deserve notice.</p>
<p>“Dean Alford, indeed, maintains otherwise. In his
notes on the words, ‘And lo! I am with you always
unto the end of the world,’ he says, ‘These words
imply and set forth the Ascension’; it is true that he
adds, ‘the manner of which is not related by the
Evangelist’: but how do the words quoted, ‘imply and
set forth’ the Ascension? They imply a belief that
Christ’s spirit would be present with his disciples to the
end of time; but how do they set forth the fact that his body was
seen by a number of people to rise into the air and actually to
mount up far into the region of the clouds?</p>
<p>“The fact is simply this—and nobody can know it
better than Dean Alford—that Matthew tells us nothing about
the Ascension.</p>
<p>“The last verses of Mark’s Gospel are admitted by
Dean Alford himself to be not genuine, but even in these the
subject is dismissed in a single verse, and although it is stated
that Christ was received into Heaven, there is not a single word
to imply that any one was supposed to have seen him actually on
his way thither.</p>
<p>“The author of the fourth Gospel is also silent
concerning the Ascension. There is not a word, nor hint,
nor faintest trace of any knowledge of the fact, unless an
allusion be detected in the words, ‘What and if ye shall
see the Son of Man ascending where he was before?’ (John
vi., 62) in reference to which passage Dean Alford, in his note
on Luke xxiv., 52, writes as follows:—‘And might not
we have concluded from the wording of John vi., 62, that our Lord
must have intended an ascension <i>insight of some of those to
whom he spoke</i>, and that the Evangelist <i>gives that
hint</i>, <i>by recording those words without comment</i>,
<i>that he had seen it</i>?’ That is to say, we are
to conclude that the writer of the fourth Gospel actually
<i>saw</i> the Ascension, because he tells us that Christ uttered
the words, ‘What and if ye shall see the Son of Man
ascending where he was before?’</p>
<p>“But who <i>was</i> the author of the fourth
Gospel? And what reason is there for thinking that that
work is genuine? Let us make another extract from Dean
Alford. In his prolegomena, chapter v., section 6, on the
genuineness of the fourth Gospel, he writes:—‘Neither
Papias, who carefully sought out all that Apostles and Apostolic
men had related regarding the life of Christ; nor Polycarp, who
was himself a disciple of the Apostle John; nor Barnabas, nor
Clement of Rome, in their epistles; nor, lastly, Ignatius (in his
genuine writings), makes any mention of, or allusion to, this
gospel. <i>So that in the most ancient circle of
ecclesiastical testimony</i>, <i>it appears to be unknown or not
recognised</i>.’ We may add that there is no trace of
its existence before the latter half of the second century, and
that the internal evidence against its genuineness appears to be
more and more conclusive the more it is examined.</p>
<p>“St. Paul, when enumerating the last appearances of his
master, in a passage where the absence of any allusion to the
Ascension is almost conclusive as to his never having heard a
word about it, is also silent. In no part of his genuine
writings does he give any sign of his having been aware that any
story was in existence as to the manner in which Christ was
received into Heaven.</p>
<p>“Where, then, does the story come from, if neither
Matthew, Mark, John, nor Paul appear to have heard of it?</p>
<p>“It comes from a single verse in St. Luke’s
Gospel—written more than half a century after the supposed
event, when few, or more probably none, of those who were
supposed to have seen it were either living or within reach to
contradict it. Luke writes (xxiv., 51), ‘And it came
to pass that while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and
carried up into Heaven.’ This is the only account of
the Ascension given in any part of the Gospels which can be
considered genuine. It gives Bethany as the place of the
miracle, whereas, if Dean Alford is right in saying that the
words of Matthew ‘set forth’ the Ascension, they set
it forth as having taken place on a mountain in Galilee.
But here, as elsewhere, all is haze and contradiction.
Perhaps some Christian writers will maintain that it happened
both at Bethany and in Galilee.</p>
<p>“In his subsequent work, written some sixty or seventy
years after the Ascension, St. Luke gives us that more detailed
account which is commonly present to the imagination of all men
(thanks to the Italian painters), when the Ascension is alluded
to. The details, it would seem, came to his knowledge after
he had written his Gospel, and many a long year after Matthew and
Mark and Paul had written. How he came by the additional
details we do not know. Nobody seems to care to know.
He must have had them revealed to him, or been told them by some
one, and that some one, whoever he was, doubtless knew what he
was saying, and all Europe at one time believed the story, and
this is sufficient proof that mistake was impossible.</p>
<p>“It is indisputable that from the very earliest ages of
the Church there existed a belief that Christ was at the right
hand of God; but no one who professes to have seen him on his way
thither has left a single word of record. It is easy to
believe that the facts may have been revealed in a night vision,
or communicated in one or other of the many ways in which
extraordinary circumstances <i>are</i> communicated, during the
years of oral communication and enthusiasm which elapsed between
the supposed Ascension of Christ and the writing of Luke’s
second work. It is not surprising that a firm belief in
Christ’s having survived death should have arisen in
consequence of the actual circumstances connected with the
Crucifixion and entombment. Was it then strange that this
should develop itself into the belief that he was now in Heaven,
sitting at the right hand of God the Father? And finally
was it strange that a circumstantial account of the manner in
which he left this earth should be eagerly accepted?”</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>[In an appendix at the end of the book I have given the
extracts from the Gospels which are necessary for a full
comprehension of the preceding chapters.—W. B. O.]</p>
<h3><a name="page230"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
230</span>Chapter IX<br />
The Christ-Ideal</h3>
<p>I <span class="smcap">have</span> completed a task painful to
myself and the reader. Painful to myself inasmuch as I am
humiliated upon remembering the power which arguments, so shallow
and so easily to be refuted, once had upon me; painful to the
reader, as everything must be painful which even appears to throw
doubt upon the most sublime event that has happened in human
history. How little does all that has been written above
touch the real question at issue, yet, what self-discipline and
mental training is required before we learn to distinguish the
essential from the unessential.</p>
<p>Before, however, we come to close quarters with our opponents
concerning the views put forward in the preceding chapters, it
will be well to consider two questions of the gravest and most
interesting character, questions which will probably have already
occurred to the reader with such force as to demand immediate
answer. They are these.</p>
<p>Firstly, what will be the consequences of admitting any
considerable deviation from historical accuracy on the part of
the sacred writers?</p>
<p>Secondly, how can it be conceivable that God should have
permitted inaccuracy or obscurity in the evidence concerning the
Divine commission of His Son?</p>
<p>If God so loved the World that He sent His only begotten Son
into it to rescue those who believed in Him from destruction, how
is it credible that He should not have so arranged matters as
that all should find it easy to believe? If He wanted to
save mankind and knew that the only way in which mankind could be
saved was by believing certain facts, how can it be that the
records of the facts should have been allowed to fall into
confusion?</p>
<p>To both these questions I trust that the following answers may
appear conclusive.</p>
<p>I. As regards the consequences which may be supposed to
follow upon giving up any part of the sacred writings, no matter
how seemingly unimportant, it is undoubtedly true that to many
minds they have appeared too dangerous to be even
contemplated. Thus through fear of some supposed
unutterable consequences which would happen to the cause of truth
if truth were spoken, people profess to believe in the
genuineness of many passages in the Bible which are universally
acknowledged by competent judges of every shade of theological
opinion to be interpolations into the original text. To say
nothing of the Old Testament, where many whole books are of
disputed genuineness or authenticity, there are portions of the
New which none will seriously defend;—for example, the last
verses of St. Mark’s Gospel,—containing, as they do,
the sentence of damnation against all who do not
believe—the second half of the third, and the whole of the
fourth verse of the fifth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, the
story of the woman taken in adultery, and probably the whole of
the last chapter of St. John’s Gospel, not to mention the
Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and to
the Ephesians, the Epistles of Peter and James, the famous verses
as to the three witnesses in the First Epistle of St. John, and
perhaps also the book of Revelation. These are passages and
works about which there is either no doubt at all as to their not
being genuine, or over which there hangs so much uncertainty that
no dependence can be placed upon them.</p>
<p>But over and above these, there are not a few parts of each of
the Gospels which, though of undisputed genuineness, cannot be
accepted as historical; thus the account of the Resurrection
given by St. Matthew, and parts of those by Luke and Mark, the
cursing of the barren fig-tree, and the prophecies of His
Resurrection ascribed to our Lord Himself, will not stand the
tests of criticism which we are bound to apply to them if we are
to exercise the right of private judgement; instead of handing
ourselves over to a priesthood as the sole custodians and
interpreters of the Bible. It has been said by some that
the miracle of the penny found in the fish’s mouth should
be included in the above category, but it should be remembered
that we have only the injunction of our Lord to St. Peter that he
should catch the fish and the promise that he should find the
penny in its mouth, but that we have no account of the sequel, it
is therefore possible that in the event of St. Peter’s
faith having failed him he may have procured the money from some
other source, and that thus the miracle, though undoubtedly
intended, was never actually performed. How unnecessary
therefore as well as presumptuous are the Rationalistic
interpretations which have been put upon the event by certain
German writers!</p>
<p>Now there are few, if any, who would be so illiberal as to
wish for the exclusion from the sacred volume of all those books
or passages which, though neither genuine nor perhaps edifying,
have remained in the Canon of Scripture for many centuries.
Any serious attempt to reconstruct the Canon would raise a
theological storm which would not subside in this century.
The work could never be done perfectly, and even if it could, it
would have to be done at the expense of tearing all Christendom
in pieces. The passages do little or no harm where they
are, and have received the sanction of time; let them therefore
by all means remain in their present position. But the
question is still forced upon us whether the consequences of
openly admitting the certain spuriousness of many passages, and
the questionable nature of others as regards morality,
genuineness and authenticity, should be feared as being likely to
prejudice the main doctrines of Christianity.</p>
<p>The answer is very plain. He who has vouchsafed to us
the Christian dispensation may be safely trusted to provide that
no harm shall happen, either to it or to us, from an honest
endeavour to attain the truth concerning it. What have we
to do with consequences? These are in the hands of
God. Our duty is to seek out the truth in prayer and
humility, and when we believe that we have found it, to cleave to
it through evil and good report; <i>to fail in this is to fail in
faith</i>; to fail in faith is to be an infidel. Those who
suppose that it is wiser to gloss over this or that, and who
consider it “injudicious” to announce the whole truth
in connection with Christianity, should have learnt by this time
that no admission which can by any possibility be required of
them can be so perilous to the cause of Christ as the appearance
of shirking investigation. It has already been insisted
upon that cowardice is at the root of the infidelity which we see
around us; the want of faith in the power of truth which exists
in certain pious but timid hearts has begotten utter unbelief in
the minds of all superficial investigators into Christian
evidences. Such persons see that the defenders have
something in the background, something which they would cling to
although they are secretly aware that they cannot justly claim
it. This is enough for many, and hence more harm is done by
fear than could ever have been done by boldness. Boldness
goes out into the fight, and if in the wrong gets slain,
childless. Fear stays at home and is prolific of a brood of
falsehoods.</p>
<p>It is immoral to regard consequences at all, where truth and
justice are concerned; the being impregnated with this conviction
to the inmost core of one’s heart is an axiom of common
honesty—one of the essential features which distinguish a
good man from a bad one. Nevertheless, to make it plain
that the consequences of outspoken truthfulness in connection
with the scriptural writings would have no harmful effect
whatever, but would, on the contrary, be of the utmost service as
removing a stumbling-block from the way of many—let us for
the moment suppose that very much more would have to be given up
than can ever be demanded.</p>
<p>Suppose we were driven to admit that nothing in the life of
our Lord can be certainly depended upon beyond the facts that He
was begotten by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary; that He worked
many miracles upon earth, and delivered St. Matthew’s
version of the sermon on the mount and most of the parables as we
now have them; finally, that He was crucified, dead, and buried,
that He rose again from the dead upon the third day, and ascended
unto Heaven. Granting for the sake of argument that we
could rely on no other facts, what would follow? Nothing
which could in any way impair the living power of
Christianity.</p>
<p>The essentials of Christianity, <i>i.e.</i>, a belief in the
Divinity of the Saviour and in His Resurrection and Ascension,
have stood, and will stand, for ever against any attacks that can
be made upon them, and these are probably the only facts in which
belief has ever been absolutely necessary for salvation; the
answer, therefore, to the question what ill consequences would
arise from the open avowal of things which every student must
know to be the fact concerning the biblical writings is that
there would be none at all. The Christ-ideal which, after
all, is the soul and spirit of Christianity would remain
precisely where it was, while its recognition would be far more
general, owing to the departure on the part of its apologists
from certain lines of defence which are irreconcilable with the
ideal itself.</p>
<p>II. Returning to the objection how it could be possible
that God should have left the records of our Lord’s history
in such a vague and fragmentary condition, if it were really of
such intense importance for the world to understand it and
believe in it, we find ourselves face to face with a question of
far greater importance and difficulty.</p>
<p>The old theory that God desired to test our faith, and that
there would be no merit in believing if the evidence were such as
to commend itself at once to our understanding, is one which need
only be stated to be set aside. It is blasphemy against the
goodness of God to suppose that He has thus laid as it were an
ambuscade for man, and will only let him escape on condition of
his consenting to violate one of the very most precious of
God’s own gifts. There is an ingenious cruelty about
such conduct which it is revolting even to imagine. Indeed,
the whole theory reduces our Heavenly Father to a level of wisdom
and goodness far below our own; and this is sufficient answer to
it.</p>
<p>But when, turning aside from the above, we try to adopt some
other and more reasonable view, we naturally set ourselves to
consider why the Almighty should have required belief in the
Divinity of His Son from man. What is there in this belief
on man’s part which can be so grateful to God that He
should make it a <i>sine quâ non</i> for man’s
salvation? As regards Himself, how can it matter to Him
what man should think of Him? Nay, it must be for
man’s own good that the belief is demanded.</p>
<p>And why? Surely we can see plainly that it is the beauty
of the Christ-ideal which constitutes the working power of
Christianity over the hearts and lives of men, leading them to
that highest of all worships which consists in imitation.
Now the sanction which is given to this ideal by belief in the
Divinity of our Lord, raises it at once above all possibility of
criticism. If it had not been so sanctioned it might have
been considered open to improvement; one critic would have had
this, and another that; comparison would have been made with
ideals of purely human origin such as the Greek ideal,
exemplified in the work of Phidias, and in later times with the
mediæval Italian ideal, as deducible from the best
fifteenth and early sixteenth Italian painting and sculpture, the
Madonnas of Bellini and Raphael, or the St. George of Donatello;
or again with the ideal derivable from the works of our own
Shakespeare, and there are some even now among those who deny the
Divinity of Christ who will profess that each one of these ideals
is more universal, more fitted for the spiritual food of a man,
and indeed actually higher, than that presented by the life and
death of our Saviour. But once let the Divine origin of
this last ideal be admitted, and there can be no further
uncertainty; hence the absolute necessity for belief in
Christ’s Divinity as closing the most important of all
questions, Whereunto should a man endeavour to liken both himself
and his children?</p>
<p>Seeing then that we have reasonable ground for thinking that
belief in the Divinity of our Lord is mainly required of us in
order to exalt our sense of the paramount importance of following
and obeying the life and commands of Christ, it is natural also
to suppose <i>that whatever may have happened to the records of
that life</i> should have been ordained with a view to the
enhancing of the preciousness of the ideal.</p>
<p>Now, the fragmentary character, and the partial
obscurity—I might have almost written, the incomparable
<i>chiaroscuro</i>—of the Evangelistic writings have added
to the value of our Lord’s character as an ideal, not only
in the case of Christians, but as bringing the Christ-ideal
within the reach and comprehension of an infinitely greater
number of minds than it could ever otherwise have appealed
to. It is true that those who are insensible to spiritual
influences, and whose materialistic instinct leads them to deny
everything which is not as clearly demonstrable by external
evidence as a fact in chemistry, geography, or mathematics, will
fail to find the hardness, definition, tightness, and, let me
add, littleness of outline, in which their souls delight; they
will find rather the gloom and gleam of Rembrandt, or the golden
twilight of the Venetians, the losing and the finding, and the
infinite liberty of shadow; and this they hate, inasmuch as it
taxes their imagination, which is no less deficient than their
power of sympathy; they would have all found, as in one of those
laboured pictures wherein each form is as an inflated bladder
and, has its own uncompromising outline remorselessly insisted
upon.</p>
<p>Looking to the ideals of purely human creation which have come
down to us from old times, do we find that the Theseus suffers
because we are unable to realise to ourselves the precise
features of the original? Or again do the works of John
Bellini suffer because the hand of the painter was less dexterous
than his intention pure? It is not what a man has actually
put upon his canvas, but what he makes us feel that he felt,
which makes the difference between good and bad in
painting. Bellini’s hand was cunning enough to make
us feel what he intended, and did his utmost to realise; but he
has not realised it, and the same hallowing effect which has been
wrought upon the Theseus by decay (to the enlarging of its
spiritual influence), has been wrought upon the work of Bellini
by incapacity—the incapacity of the painter to utter
perfectly the perfect thought which was within. The early
Italian paintings have that stamp of individuality upon them
which assures us that they are not only portraits, but as
faithful portraits as the painter could make them, more than this
we know not, but more is unnecessary.</p>
<p>Do we not detect an analogy to this in the records of the
Evangelists? Do we not see the child-like unself-seeking
work of earnest and loving hearts, whose innocence and simplicity
more than atone for their many shortcomings, their distorted
renderings, and their omissions? We can see <i>through</i>
these things as through a glass darkly, or as one looking upon
some ineffable masterpiece of Venetian portraiture by the fading
light of an autumnal evening, when the beauty of the picture is
enhanced a hundredfold by the gloom and mystery of dusk. We
may indeed see less of the actual lineaments themselves, but the
echo is ever more spiritually tuneful than the sound, and the
echo we find within us. Our imagination is in closer
communion with our longings than the hand of any painter.</p>
<p>Those who relish definition, and definition only, are indeed
kept away from Christianity by the present condition of the
records, but even if the life of our Lord had been so definitely
rendered as to find a place in their system, would it have
greatly served their souls? And would it not repel hundreds
and thousands of others, who find in the suggestiveness of the
sketch a completeness of satisfaction, which no photographic
reproduction could have given? The above may be difficult
to understand, but let me earnestly implore the reader to
endeavour to master its import.</p>
<p>People misunderstand the aim and scope of religion.
Religion is only intended to guide men in those matters upon
which science is silent. God illumines us by science as
with a mechanical draughtsman’s plan; He illumines us in
the Gospels as by the drawing of a great artist. We cannot
build a “Great Eastern” from the drawings of the
artist, but what poetical feeling, what true spiritual emotion
was ever kindled by a mechanical drawing? How cold and dead
were science unless supplemented by art and by religion!
Not joined with them, for the merest touch of these things
impairs scientific value—which depends essentially upon
accuracy, and not upon any feeling for the beautiful and
lovable. In like manner the merest touch of science chills
the warmth of sentiment—the spiritual life. The
mechanical drawing is spoiled by being made artistic, and the
work of the artist by becoming mechanical. The aim of the
one is to teach men how to construct, of the other how to
feel.</p>
<p>For the due conservation therefore of both the essential
requisites of human well-being—science, and
religion—it is requisite that they be kept asunder and
reserved for separate use at different times. Religion is
the mistress of the arts, and every art which does not serve
religion truly is doomed to perish as a lying and unprofitable
servant. Science is external to religion, being a separate
dispensation, a distinct revelation to mankind, whereby we are
put into full present possession of more and more of God’s
modes of dealing with material things, according as we become
more fitted to receive them through the apprehension of those
modes which have been already laid open to us.</p>
<p>We ought not therefore to have expected scientific accuracy
from the Gospel records—much less should we be required to
believe that such accuracy exists. Does any great artist
ever dream of aiming directly at imitation? He aims at
representation—not at imitation. In order to attain
true mastery here, he must spend years in learning how to see;
and then no less time in learning how <i>not</i> to see.
Finally, he learns how to translate. Take Turner for
example. Who conveys so living an impression of the face of
nature? Yet go up to his canvas and what does one find
thereon? Imitation? Nay—blotches and daubs of
paint; the combination of these daubs, each one in itself when
taken alone absolutely untrue, forms an impression which is quite
truthful. No combination of minute truths in a picture will
give so faithful a representation of nature as a wisely arranged
tissue of untruths.</p>
<p>Absolute reproduction is impossible even to the
photograph. The work of a great artist is far more truthful
than any photograph; but not even the greatest artist can convey
to our minds the whole truth of nature; no human hand nor
pigments can expound all that lies hidden in
“Nature’s infinite book of secrecy”; the utmost
that can be done is to convey an impression, and if the
impression is to be conveyed truthfully, the means must often be
of the most unforeseen character. The old Pre-Raphaelites
aimed at absolute reproduction. They were succeeded by a
race of men who saw all that their predecessors had seen, but
also something higher. The Van Eycks and Memling paved the
way for painters who found their highest representatives in
Rubens, Vandyke, and Rembrandt—the mightiest of them
all. Giovanni Bellini, Carpaccio and Mantegna were
succeeded by Titian, Giorgione, and Tintoretto; Perugino was
succeeded by Raphael. It is everywhere the same story; a
reverend but child-like worship of the letter, followed by a
manful apprehension of the spirit, and, alas! in due time by an
almost total disregard of the letter; then rant and cant and
bombast, till the value of the letter is reasserted. In
theology the early men are represented by the Evangelicals, the
times of utter decadence by infidelity—the middle race of
giants is yet to come, and will be found in those who, while
seeing something far beyond either minute accuracy or minute
inaccuracy, are yet fully alive both to the letter and to the
spirit of the Gospels.</p>
<p>Again, do not the seeming wrongs which the greatest ideals of
purely human origin have suffered at the hands of time, add to
their value instead of detracting from it? Is it not
probable that if we were to see the glorious fragments from the
Parthenon, the Theseus and the Ilyssus, or even the Venus of
Milo, in their original and unmutilated condition, we should find
that they appealed to us much less forcibly than they do at
present? All ideals gain by vagueness and lose by
definition, inasmuch as more scope is left for the imagination of
the beholder, who can thus fill in the missing detail according
to his own spiritual needs. This is how it comes that
nothing which is recent, whether animate or inanimate, can serve
as an ideal unless it is adorned by more than common mystery and
uncertainty. A new Cathedral is necessarily very
ugly. There is too much found and too little lost.
Much less could an absolutely perfect Being be of the highest
value as an ideal, as long as He could be clearly seen, for it is
impossible that He could be known as perfect by imperfect men,
and His very perfections must perforce appear as blemishes to any
but perfect critics. To give therefore an impression of
perfection, to create an absolutely unsurpassable ideal, it
became essential that the actual image of the original should
become blurred and lost, whereon the beholder now supplies from
his own imagination that which is <i>to him</i> more perfect than
the original, though objectively it must be infinitely less
so.</p>
<p>It is probably to this cause that the incredulity of the
Apostles during our Lord’s life-time must be
assigned. The ideal was too near them, and too far above
their comprehension; for it must be always remembered that the
convincing power of miracles in the days of the Apostles must
have been greatly weakened by the current belief in their being
events of no very unusual occurrence, and in the existence both
of good and evil spirits who could take possession of men and
compel them to do their bidding. A resurrection from the
dead or a restoration of sight to the blind, must have seemed
even less portentous to them, than an unusually skilful treatment
of disease by a physician is to us. We can therefore
understand how it happened that the faith of the Apostles was so
little to be depended upon even up to the Crucifixion, inasmuch
as the convincing power of miracles had been already, so to
speak, exhausted, a fact which may perhaps explain the early
withdrawal of the power to work them; we cannot indeed believe
that it could have been so far weakened as to make the Apostles
disregard the prophecies of their Master that He should rise from
the dead, if He had ever uttered them, and we have already seen
reason to think that these prophecies are the <i>ex post
facto</i> handiwork of time; but the incredulity of the
disciples, when seen through the light now thrown upon it, loses
that wholly inexplicable character which it would otherwise
bear.</p>
<p>But to return to the subject of the ideal presented by the
life and death of our Lord. In the earliest days of the
Church there can have been no want of the most complete and
irrefragable evidence for the objective reality of the miracles,
and especially of the Resurrection and Ascension. The
character of Christ would also stand out revealed to all, with
the most copious fulness of detail. The limits within which
so sharply defined an ideal could be acceptable were narrow, but
as the radius of Christian influence increased, so also would the
vagueness and elasticity of the ideal; and as the elasticity of
the ideal, so also the range of its influence.</p>
<p>A beneficent and truly marvellous provision for the greater
complexity of man’s spiritual needs was thus provided by a
gradual loss of detail and gain of breadth. Enough evidence
was given in the first instance to secure authoritative sanction
for the ideal. During the first thirty or forty years after
the death of our Lord no one could be in want of evidence, and
the guilt of unbelief is therefore brought prominently
forward. Then came the loss of detail which was necessary
in order to secure the universal acceptability of the ideal; but
the same causes which blurred the distinctness of the features,
involved the inevitable blurring of no small portions of the
external evidences whereby the Divine origin of the ideal was
established. The primary external evidence became less and
less capable of compelling instantaneous assent, according as it
was less wanted, owing to the greater mass of secondary evidence,
and to the growth of appreciation of the internal evidences, a
growth which would be fostered by the growing adaptability of the
ideal.</p>
<p>Some thirty or forty years, then, from the death of our
Saviour the case would stand thus. The Christ-ideal would
have become infinitely more vague, and hence infinitely more
universal: but the causes which had thus added to its value would
also have destroyed whatever primary evidence was superabundant,
and the vagueness which had overspread the ideal would have
extended itself in some measure over the evidences which had
established its Divine origin.</p>
<p>But there would of course be limits to the gain caused by
decay. Time came when there would be danger of too much
vagueness in the ideal, and too little distinctness in the
evidences. It became necessary therefore to provide against
this danger.</p>
<p><i>Precisely at that epoch the Gospels made their
appearance</i>. Not simultaneously, not in concert, and not
in perfect harmony with each other, yet with the error
distributed skilfully among them, as in a well-tuned instrument
wherein each string is purposely something out of tune with every
other. Their divergence of aim, and different authorship,
secured the necessary breadth of effect when the accounts were
viewed together; their universal recognition afforded the
necessary permanency, and arrested further decay. If I may
be pardoned for using another illustration, I would say that as
the roundness of the stereoscopic image can only be attained by
the combination of two distinct pictures, neither of them in
perfect harmony with the other, so the highest possible
conception of Christ, cannot otherwise be produced than through
the discrepancies of the Gospels.</p>
<p>From the moment of the appearing of the Gospels, and, I should
add, of the Epistles of St. Paul, the external evidences of
Christianity became secured from further change; as they were
then, so are they now, they can neither be added to nor
subtracted from; they have lain as it were sleeping, till the
time should come to awaken them. And the time is surely
now, for there has arisen a very numerous and increasing class of
persons, whose habits of mind unfit them for appreciating the
value of vagueness, but who have each one of them a soul which
may be lost or saved, and on whose behalf the evidences for the
authority whereby the Christ-ideal is sanctioned, should be
restored to something like their former sharpness.
Christianity contains provision for all needs upon their
arising. The work of restoration is easy. It demands
this much only—the recognition that time has made
incrustations upon some parts of the evidences, and that it has
destroyed others; when this is admitted, it becomes easy, after a
little practice, to detect the parts that have been added, and to
remove them, the parts that are wanting, and to supply
them. Only let this be done outside the pages of the Bible
itself, and not to the disturbance of their present form and
arrangement.</p>
<p>The above explanation of the causes for the obscurity which
rests upon much of our Lord’s life and teaching, may give
us ground for hoping that some of those who have failed to feel
the force of the external evidences hitherto, may yet be saved,
provided they have fully recognised the Christ-ideal and
endeavoured to imitate it, although irrespectively of any belief
in its historical character.</p>
<p>It is reasonable to suppose that the duty of belief was so
imperatively insisted upon, in order that the ideal might thus be
exalted above controversy, and made more sacred in the eyes of
men than it could have been if referable to a purely human
source. May not, then, one who recognises the ideal as his
<i>summum bonum</i> find grace although he knows not, or even
cares not, how it should have come to be so? For even a
sceptic who regarded the whole New Testament as a work of art, a
poem, a pure fiction from beginning to end, and who revered it
for its intrinsic beauty only, as though it were a picture or
statue, even such a person might well find that it engendered in
him an ideal of goodness and power and love and human sympathy,
which could be derived from no other source. If, then, our
blessed Lord so causes the sun of His righteousness to shine upon
these men, shall we presume to say that He will not in another
world restore them to that full communion with Himself which can
only come from a belief in His Divinity?</p>
<p>We can understand that it should have been impossible to
proclaim this in the earliest ages of the Church, inasmuch as no
weakening of the sanctions of the ideal could be tolerated, but
are we bound to extend the operation of the many passages
condemnatory of unbelief to a time so remote as our own, and to
circumstances so widely different from those under which they
were uttered? Do we so extend the command not to eat things
strangled or blood, or the assertion of St. Paul that the
unmarried state is higher than the married? May we not
therefore hope that certain kinds of unbelief have become less
hateful in the sight of God inasmuch as they are less dangerous
to the universal acceptance of our Lord as the one model for the
imitation of all men? For, after all, it is not belief in
the facts which constitutes the essence of Christianity, but
rather the being so impregnated with love at the contemplation of
Christ that imitation becomes almost instinctive; this it is
which draws the hearts of men to God the Father, far more than
any intellectual belief that God sent our Lord into the world,
ordaining that he should be crucified and rise from the
dead. Christianity is addressed rather to the infinite
spirit of man than to his finite intelligence, and the believing
in Christ through love is more precious in the sight of God than
any loving through belief. May we not hope, then, that
those whose love is great may in the end find acceptance, though
their belief is small? We dare not answer this positively;
but we know that there are times of transition in the clearness
of the Christian evidences as in all else, and the treatment of
those whose lot is cast in such times will surely not escape the
consideration of our Heavenly Father.</p>
<p>But with reference to the many-sidedness of the Christ-ideal,
as having been part of the design of God, and not attainable
otherwise than as the creation of destruction—as coming out
of the waste of time—it is clear that the perception of
such a design could only be an offspring of modern thought; the
conception of such an apparently self-frustrating scheme could
only arise in minds which were familiar with the manner in which
it is necessary “to hound nature in her wanderings”
before her feints can be eluded, and her prevarications brought
to book. A deep distrust of the over-obvious is wanted,
before men can be brought to turn aside from objections which at
the first blush appear to be very serious, and to take refuge in
solutions which seem harder than the problems which they are
intended to solve. What a shock must the discovery of the
rotation of the earth have given to the moral sense of the age in
which it was made. How it contradicted all human
experience. How it must have outraged common sense.
How it must have encouraged scepticism even about the most
obvious truths of morality. No question could henceforth be
considered settled; everything seemed to require reopening; for
if man had once been deceived by Nature so entirely, if he had
been so utterly led astray and deluded by the plausibility of her
pretence that the earth was immovably fixed, what else, that
seemed no less incontrovertible, might not prove no less
false?</p>
<p>It is probable that the opposition to Galileo on the part of
the Roman church was as much due to some such feelings as these,
as to theological objections; the discovery was felt to unsettle
not only the foundations of the earth, but those of every branch
of human knowledge and polity, and hence to be an outrage upon
morality itself. A man has no right to be very much in
advance of other people; he is as a sheep, which may lead the
mob, but must not stray forward a quarter of a mile in front of
it; if he does this, he must be rounded up again, no matter how
right may have been his direction. He has no right to be
right, unless he can get a certain following to keep him company;
the shock to morality and the encouragement to lawlessness do
more harm than his discovery can atone for. Let him hold
himself back till he can get one or two more to come with
him. In like manner, had reflections as to the advantage
gained by the Christ ideal in consequence of the inaccuracies and
inconsistencies of the Gospels—reflections which must now
occur to any one—been put forward a hundred years ago, they
would have met justly with the severest condemnation. But
now, even those to whom they may not have occurred already will
have little difficulty in admitting their force.</p>
<p>But be this as it may, it is certain that the inability to
understand how the sense of Christ in the souls of men could be
strengthened by the loss of much knowledge of His character, and
of the facts connected with His history, lies at the root of the
error even of the Apostle St. Paul, who exclaims with his usual
fervour, but with less than his usual wisdom, “Has Christ
been divided?” (I. Cor. i., 13). “Yea,”
we may make answer, “He is divided and is yet divisible
that all may share in Him.” St. Paul himself had
realised that it was the spiritual value of the Christ-ideal
which was the purifier and refresher of our souls, inasmuch as he
elsewhere declares that even though he had known Christ Himself
after the flesh, he knew Him no more; the spiritual Christ, that
is to say the spirit of Christ as recognisable by the spirits of
men, was to him all in all. But he lived too near the days
of our Lord for a full comprehension of the Christian scheme, and
it is possible that had he known Christ after the flesh, his soul
might have been less capable of recognising the spiritual
essence, rather than more so. Have we here a faint
glimmering of the motive of the Almighty in not having allowed
the Gentile Apostle to see Christ after the flesh? We
cannot say. But we may say this much with certainty, that
had he been living now, St. Paul would have rejoiced at the
many-sidedness of Christ, which he appears to have hardly
recognised in his own life-time.</p>
<p>The apparently contradictory portraits of our Lord which we
find in the Gospels—so long a stumbling-block to
unbelievers—are now seen to be the very means which enable
men of all ranks, and all shades of opinion, to accept Christ as
their ideal; they are like the sea, which from having seemed the
most impassable of all objects, turns out to be the greatest
highway of communication. To the artisan, for instance, who
may have long been out of work, or who may have suffered from the
greed and selfishness of his employers, or again, to the farm
labourer who has been discharged perhaps at the approach of
winter, the parable of “the Labourers in the
Vineyard” offers itself as a divinely sanctioned picture of
the dealings of God with man; few but those who have mixed much
with the less educated classes, can have any idea of the
priceless comfort which this parable affords daily to those whose
lot it has been to remain unemployed when their more fortunate
brethren have been in full work. How many of the poor,
again, are drawn to Christianity by the parable of Dives and
Lazarus. How many a humble-minded Christian while
reflecting upon the hardness of his lot, and tempted to cast a
longing eye upon the luxuries which are at the command of his
richer neighbours, is restrained from seriously coveting them, by
remembering the awful fate of Dives, and the happy future which
was in store for Lazarus. “Dives,” they
exclaim, “in his life-time possessed good things and in
like manner Lazarus evil things, but now the one is comforted in
the bosom of Abraham, and the other tormented in a lake of
fire.” They remember, also, that it is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
enter into the kingdom of Heaven.</p>
<p>It has been said by some that the poor are thus encouraged to
gloat over the future misery of the rich, and that many of the
sayings ascribed to our Lord have an unhealthy influence over
their minds. I remember to have thought so once myself, but
I have seen reason to change my mind. Hope is given by
these sayings to many whose lives would be otherwise very nearly
hopeless, and though I fully grant that the parable of Dives and
Lazarus can only afford comfort to the very poor, yet it is most
certain that it <i>does</i> afford comfort to this numerous
class, and helps to keep them contented with many things which
they would not otherwise endure.</p>
<p>On the other hand, though the poor are first provided for, the
rich are not left without their full share of consolation.
Joseph of Arimathæa was rich, and modern criticism forbids
us to believe that the parable of Dives and Lazarus was ever
actually spoken by our Lord—at any rate not in its present
form. Neither are the children of the rich forgotten; the
son who repents at length of a course of extravagant or riotous
living is encouraged to return to virtue, and to seek
reconciliation with his father, by reflecting upon the parable of
the Prodigal Son, wherein he will find an everlasting model for
the conduct of all earthly fathers. I will say nothing of
the parable of the Unjust Steward, for it is one of which the
interpretation is most uncertain; nevertheless I am sure that it
affords comfort to a very large number of persons.</p>
<p>Christ came not to the whole, but to those that were sick; he
came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.
Even our fallen sisters are remembered in the story of the woman
taken in adultery, which reminds them that they can only be
condemned justly by those who are without sin. It is to the
poor, the weak, the ignorant and the infirm that Christianity
appeals most strongly, and to whose needs it is most especially
adapted—but these form by far the greater portion of
mankind. “Blessed are they that mourn!”
Whose sorrow is not assuaged by the mere sound of these
words? Who again is not reassured by being reminded that
our Heavenly Father feeds the sparrows and clothes the lilies of
the field, and that if we will only seek the kingdom of God and
His righteousness we need take no heed for the morrow what we
shall eat, and what we shall drink, nor wherewithal we shall be
clothed. God will provide these things for us if we are
true Christians, whether we take heed concerning them or
not. “I have been young and now am old,” saith
the Psalmist, “yet never saw I the righteous forsaken nor
his seed begging their bread.”</p>
<p>How infinitely nobler and more soul-satisfying is the ideal of
the Christian saint with wasted limbs, and clothed in the garb of
poverty—his upturned eyes piercing the very heavens in the
ecstasy of a divine despair—than any of the fleshly ideals
of gross human conception such as have already been alluded
to. If a man does not feel this instinctively for himself,
let him test it thus—whom does his heart of hearts tell him
that his son will be most like God in resembling? The
Theseus? The Discobolus? or the St. Peters and St. Pauls of
Guido and Domenichino? Who can hesitate for a moment as to
which ideal presents the higher development of human
nature? And this I take it should suffice; the natural
instinct which draws us to the Christ-ideal in preference to all
others as soon as it has been once presented to us, is a
sufficient guarantee of its being the one most tending to the
general well-being of the world.</p>
<h3><a name="page255"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
255</span>Chapter X<br />
Conclusion</h3>
<p><span class="smcap">It</span> only remains to return to the
seventh and eighth chapters, and to pass in review the reasons
which will lead us to reject the conclusions therein expressed by
our opponents.</p>
<p>These conclusions have no real bearing upon the question at
issue. Our opponents can make out a strong case, so long as
they confine themselves to maintaining that exaggeration has to a
certain extent impaired the historic value of some of the Gospel
records of the Resurrection. They have made out this much,
but have they made out more? They have mistaken the
question—which is this—“Did Jesus Christ die
and rise from the dead?” And in the place of it they
have raised another, namely, “Has there been any inaccuracy
in the records of the time and manner of His
reappearing?”</p>
<p>Our error has been that instead of demurring to the relevancy
of the issue raised by our opponents, we have accepted it.
We have thus placed ourselves in a false position, and have
encouraged our opponents by doing so. We have undertaken to
fight them upon ground of their own choosing. We have been
discomfited; but instead of owning to our defeat, and beginning
the battle anew from a fresh base of operations, we have declared
that we have not been defeated; hence those lamentable and
suicidal attempts at disingenuous reasoning which we have seen
reason to condemn so strongly in the works of Dean Alford and
others. How deplorable, how unchristian they are!</p>
<p>The moment that we take a truer ground, the conditions of the
strife change. The same spirit of candid criticism which
led us to reject the account of Matthew <i>in toto</i>, will make
it easy for us to admit that those of Mark, Luke, and John, may
not be so accurate as we could have wished, and yet to feel that
our cause has sustained no injury. There are probably very
few who would pin their faith to the fact that Julius Cæsar
fell exactly at the feet of Pompey’s statue, or that he
uttered the words “Et tu, Brute.” Yet there are
still fewer who would dispute the fact that Julius Caesar was
assassinated by conspirators of whom Brutus and Cassius were
among the leaders. As long as we can be sure that our Lord
<i>died and rose from the dead</i>, we may leave it to our
opponents to contend about the details of the manner in which
each event took place.</p>
<p>We had thought that these details were known, and so thinking,
we had a certain consolation in realising to ourselves the
precise manner in which every incident occurred; yet on
reflection we must feel that the desire to realise is of the
essence of idolatry, which, not content with knowing that there
is a God, will be satisfied with nothing if it has not an effigy
of His face and figure. If it has not this it falls
straight-way to the denial of God’s existence, being unable
to conceive how a Being should exist and yet be incapable of
representation. We are as those who would fall down and
worship the idol; our opponents, as those who upon the
destruction of the idol would say that there was no God.</p>
<p>We have met sceptics hitherto by adhering to the opinions as
to the necessity of accuracy which prevailed among our
forefathers, and instead of saying, “You are right—we
do <i>not</i> know all that we thought we did—nevertheless
we know enough—we know the fact, though the manner of the
fact be hidden,” we have preferred to say, “You are
mistaken, our severe outline, our hard-and-fast lines are all
perfectly accurate, there is not a detail of our theories which
we are not prepared to stand by.” On this comes
recrimination and mutual anger, and the strife grows hotter and
hotter.</p>
<p>Let us now rather say to the unbeliever, “We do not deny
the truth of much which you assert. We give up
Matthew’s account of the Resurrection; we may perhaps
accept parts of those of Mark and Luke and John, but it is
impossible to say which parts, unless those in which all three
agree with one another; and this being so, it becomes wiser to
regard all the accounts as early and precious memorials of the
certainty felt by the Apostles that Christ died and rose again,
but as having little historic value with regard to the time and
manner of the Resurrection.”</p>
<p>Once take this ground, and instead of demurring to the truth
of many of the assertions of our opponents, demur to their
relevancy, and the unbeliever will find the ground cut away from
under his feet independently of the fact that the reasonableness
of the concession, and the discovery that we are not fighting
merely to maintain a position, will incline him to calmness and
to the reconsideration of his own opinions—which will in
itself be a great gain—he will soon perceive that we are
really standing upon firm ground, from which no enemy can
dislodge us. The discovery that we know less of the time
and manner of our Lord’s death and Resurrection than we
thought we did, does not invalidate a single one of the
irresistible arguments whereby we can establish the fact of His
having died and risen again. The reader will now perhaps
begin to perceive that the sad division between Christians and
unbelievers has been one of those common cases in which both are
right and both wrong; Christians being right in their chief
assertion, and wrong in standing out for the accuracy of their
details, while unbelievers are right in denying that our details
are accurate, but wrong in drawing the inference that because
certain facts have been inaccurately recorded, therefore certain
others never happened at all. Both the errors are natural;
it is high time, however, that upon both sides they should be
recognised and avoided.</p>
<p>But as regards the demolition of the structure raised in the
seventh and eighth chapters of this book, whereinsoever, that is
to say, it seems to menace the more vital part of our faith, the
ease with which this will effected may perhaps lead the reader to
think that I have not fulfilled the promise made in the outset,
and have failed to put the best possible case for our
opponents. This supposition would be unjust; I have done
the very best for them that I could. For it is plain that
they can only take one of two positions, namely, <i>either</i>
that Christ really died upon the Cross but was never seen alive
again afterwards at all, and that the stories of His having been
so seen are purely mythical, <i>or</i>, if they admit that He was
seen alive after His Crucifixion, they must deny the completeness
of the death; in other words, if they are to escape miracle, they
must either deny the reappearances or the death.</p>
<p>Now in the commencement of this work I dealt with those who
deny that our Lord rose from the dead, and as the exponent of
those who take this view I selected Strauss, who is undoubtedly
the ablest writer they have. Whether I shewed sufficient
reason for thinking that his theory was unsound must remain for
the decision of the reader, but I certainly believe that I
succeeded in doing so. Perhaps the ablest of all the
writers who have treated the facts given us in the Gospels from
the Rationalistic point of view, is the author of an anonymous
work called <i>The Jesus of History</i> (Williams and Norgate,
1866); but this writer (and it is a characteristic feature of the
Rationalistic school to become vague precisely at this very
point) leaves us entirely in doubt as to whether he accepts the
reappearances of Christ or not, and his treatment of the facts
connected both with the Crucifixion and Resurrection is less
definite than that of any other part of the life of our
Lord. He does not seem to see his own way clearly, and
appears to consider that it must for ever remain a matter of
doubt whether the Death of Christ or His reappearance is to be
rejected.</p>
<p>It is evident that it was most desirable to examine
<i>both</i> sets of arguments, <i>i.e.</i>, those against the
Resurrection, and those against the completeness of the Death; I
have therefore mainly drawn the opinions of those who deny the
Death from the same pamphlet as that from which I drew the
criticisms on Dean Alford’s notes. I know of no other
English work, indeed, in which whatever can be said against us
upon this all-important head has been put forward, and was
therefore compelled to draw from this source, or to invent the
arguments for our opponents, which would have subjected me to the
accusation of stating them in such way as should best suit my own
purpose. The reader, however, must now feel that since
there can be no other position taken but one or other of the two
alluded to above, and since the one taken by Strauss has been
shewn to be untenable, there remains nothing but to shew that the
other is untenable also, whereupon it will follow that our
Saviour did actually die, and did actually shew Himself
subsequently alive; and this amounts to a demonstration of the
miraculous character of the Resurrection. If, then, this
one miracle be established, I think it unnecessary to defend the
others, because I cannot think that any will attack them.</p>
<p>But, as has been seen already, Strauss admits that our Lord
died upon the Cross, and denies the reality of the
reappearances. It is not probable that Strauss would have
taken refuge in the hallucination theory if he had felt that
there was the remotest chance of successfully denying our
Lord’s death; for the difficulties of his present position
are overwhelming, as was fully pointed out in the second, third,
and fourth chapters of this work. I regret, however, to say
that I can nowhere find any detailed account of the reasons which
have led him to feel so positively about our Lord’s
Death. Such reasons must undoubtedly be at his command, or
he would indisputably have referred the Resurrection to natural
causes. Is it possible that he has thought it better to
keep them to himself, as proving the Death of our Lord <i>too</i>
convincingly? If so, the course which he has adopted is a
cruel one.</p>
<p>We must endeavour, however, to dispense with Strauss’s
assistance, and will proceed to inquire what it is that those who
deny the Death of our Lord, call upon us to reject.</p>
<p>I regret to pass so quickly over one great field of evidence
which in justice to myself I must allude to, though I cannot
dwell upon it, for in the outset I declared that I would confine
myself to the historical evidence, and to this only. I
refer to spiritual insight; to the testimony borne by the souls
of living persons, who from personal experience <i>know</i> that
their Redeemer liveth, and that though worms destroy this body,
yet in their flesh shall they see God. How many thousands
are there in the world at this moment, who have known Christ as a
personal friend and comforter, and who can testify to the work
which He has wrought upon them! I cannot pass over such
testimony as this in silence. I must assign it a foremost
place in reviewing the reasons for holding that our hope is not
in vain, but I may not dwell upon it, inasmuch as it would carry
no weight with those for whom this work is designed, I mean with
those to whom this precious experience of Christ has not yet been
vouchsafed. Such persons require the external evidence to
be made clear to demonstration before they will trust themselves
to listen to the voices of hope or fear, and it is of no use
appealing to the knowledge and hopes of others without making it
clear upon what that knowledge and those hopes are
grounded. Nevertheless, I may be allowed to point out that
those who deny the Death and Resurrection of our Lord, call upon
us to believe that an immense multitude of most truthful and
estimable people are no less deceivers of their own selves and
others, than Mohammedans, Jews and Buddhists are. How many
do we not each of us know to whom Christ is the spiritual meat
and drink of their whole lives. Yet our opponents call upon
us to ignore all this, and to refer the emotions and elation of
soul, which the love of Christ kindles in his true followers, to
an inheritance of delusion and blunder. Truly a melancholy
outlook.</p>
<p>Again, let a man travel over England, North, South, East, and
West, and in his whole journey he shall hardly find a single spot
from which he cannot see one or several churches. There is
hardly a hamlet which is not also a centre for the celebration of
our Redemption by the Death and Resurrection of Christ. Not
one of these churches, say the Rationalists, not one of the
clergymen who minister therein, not one single village school in
all England, but must be regarded as a fountain of error, if not
of deliberate falsehood. Look where they may, they cannot
escape from the signs of a vital belief in the
Resurrection. All these signs, they will tell us, are signs
of superstition only; it is superstition which they celebrate and
would confirm; they are founded upon fanaticism, or at the best
upon sheer delusion; they poison the fountain heads of moral and
intellectual well-being, by teaching men to set human experience
on the one side, and to refer their conduct to the supposed will
of a personal anthropomorphic God who was actually once a
baby—who was born of one of his own creatures—and who
is now locally and corporeally in Heaven, “of reasonable
soul and <i>human flesh</i> subsisting.”</p>
<p>Thus do our opponents taunt us, but when we think not only of
the present day, but of the nearly two thousand years during
which Christianity has flourished, not in England only, but over
all Europe, that is to say, over the quarter of the globe which
is most civilised, and whose civilisation is in itself proof both
of capacity to judge and of having judged rightly—what an
awful admission do unbelievers require us to make, when they bid
us think that all these ages and countries have gone astray to
the imagining of a vain thing. All the self-sacrifice of
the holiest men for sixty generations, all the wars that have
been waged for the sake of Christ and His truth, all the money
spent upon churches, clergy, monasteries and religious education,
all the blood of martyrs, all the celibacy of priests and nuns,
all the self-denying lives of those who are now ministers of the
Gospel—according to the Rationalist, no part of all this
devotion to the cause of Christ has had any justifiable base on
actual fact. The bare contemplation of such a stupendous
misapplication of self-sacrifice and energy, should be enough to
prevent any one from ever smiling again to whose mind such a
deplorable view was present: we wonder that our opponents do not
shrink back appalled from the contemplation of a picture which
they must regard as containing so much of sin, impudence and
folly; yet it is to the contemplation of such a picture, and to a
belief in its truthfulness to nature, that they would invite us;
they cannot even see a clergyman without saying to themselves,
“There goes one whose trade is the promotion of error;
whose whole life is devoted to the upholding of the
untrue.” To them the sight of people flocking to a
church must be as painful as it would be to us to see a
congregation of Jews or Mohammedans: they ought to have no
happiness in life so long as they believe that the vast majority
of their fellow-countrymen are so lamentably deluded; yet they
would call on us to join them, and half despise us upon our
refusing to do so.</p>
<p>But upon this view also I may not dwell; it would have been
easy and I think not unprofitable, had my aim been different, to
have drawn an ampler picture of the heart-rending amount of
falsehood, stupidity, cruelty and folly which must be referable
to a belief in Christianity, if, as our opponents maintain, there
is no solid ground for believing it; but my present purpose is to
prove that there <i>is</i> such ground, and having said enough to
shew that I do not ignore the fields of evidence which lie beyond
the purpose of my work, I will return to the Crucifixion and
Resurrection.</p>
<p>What, then, let me ask of freethinkers, <i>became of Christ
eventually</i>? Several answers may be made to this
question, <i>but there is none but the one given in Scripture
which will set it at rest</i>. Thus it has been said that
Christ survived the Cross, lingered for a few weeks, and in the
end succumbed to the injuries which He had sustained. On
this there arises the question, did the Apostles know of His
death? And if so, were they likely to mistake the
reappearance of a dying man, so shattered and weak as He must
have been, for the glory of an immortal being? We know that
people can idealise a great deal, but they cannot idealise as
much as this. The Apostles cannot have known of any death
of Christ except His Death upon the Cross, and it is not credible
that if He had died from the effects of the Crucifixion the
Apostles should not have been aware of it. No one will
pretend that they were, so it is needless to discuss this theory
further.</p>
<p>It has also been said that our Lord, having seen the effect of
His reappearance on the Apostles, considered that further
converse with them would only weaken it; and that He may have
therefore thought it wiser to withdraw Himself finally from them,
and to leave His teaching in their hands, with the certainty that
it would never henceforth be lost sight of; but this view is
inconsistent with the character which even our adversaries
themselves assign to our Saviour. The idea is one which
might occur to a theorist sitting in his study, and enlightened
by a knowledge of events, but it would not suggest itself to a
leader in the heat of action.</p>
<p>Another supposition has been that our Lord on recovering
consciousness after He had been left alone in the tomb, or
perhaps even before Joseph had gone, may have been unable to
realise to Himself the nature of the events that had befallen
Him, and may have actually believed that He had been dead, and
been miraculously restored to life; that He may yet have felt a
natural fear of again falling into the hands of His enemies; and
partly from this cause, and partly through awe at the miracle
that He supposed had been worked upon Him, have only shewn
Himself to His disciples hurriedly, in secret, and on rare
occasions, spending the greater part of His time in some one or
other of the secret places of resort, in which He had been wont
to live apart from the Apostles before the Crucifixion.</p>
<p>I have known it urged that our Lord never said or even thought
that He had risen from the dead, but shewed Himself alive
secretly and fearfully, and bade His disciples follow Him to
Galilee, where He might, and perhaps did, appear more openly,
though still rarely and with caution; that the rarity and mystery
of the reappearances would add to the impression of a miraculous
resurrection which had instantly presented itself to the minds of
the Apostles on seeing Christ alive; that this impression alone
would prevent them from heeding facts which must have been
obvious to any whose minds were not already unhinged by the
knowledge that Christ was alive, and by the belief that He had
been dead; and that they would be blinded by awe, which awe would
be increased by the rarity of the reappearances—a rarity
that was in reality due, perhaps to fear, perhaps to
self-delusion, perhaps to both, but which was none the less
politic for not having been dictated by policy; finally that the
report of Christ’s having been seen alive reached the Chief
Priests (or perhaps Joseph of Arimathæa), and that they
determined at all hazards to nip the coming mischief in the bud;
that they therefore watched their opportunity, and got rid of so
probable a cause of disturbance by the knife of the assassin, or
induced Him to depart by threats, which He did not venture to
resist.</p>
<p>But if our Lord was secretly assassinated how could it have
happened that the body should never have been found, and
produced, when the Apostles began declaring publicly that Christ
had risen? What could be easier than to bring it forward
and settle the whole matter? It cannot be doubted that the
body must have been looked for when the Apostles began publishing
their story; we saw reason for believing this when we considered
the account of the Resurrection given by St. Matthew.
<i>Now those that hide can find</i>; and if the enemies of Christ
had got rid of Him by foul play, they would know very well where
to lay their hands upon that which would be the death blow to
Christianity. If then Christ did not go away of His own
accord, as feeling that His teaching would be better preserved by
His absence, and if He did not die from wounds received upon the
Cross, and if He was not assassinated secretly, what remains as
the most reasonable view to be taken concerning His
disappearance? Surely the one that <i>was</i> taken; the
view which commended itself to those who were best able to
judge—namely, <i>that He had ascended bodily into Heaven
and was sitting at the right hand of God the Father</i>.</p>
<p>Where else could He be?</p>
<p>For that He disappeared, and disappeared finally, within six
weeks of the Crucifixion must be considered certain; there is no
one who will be bold enough even to hazard a conjecture that the
appearance of Christ alluded to by St. Paul, as having been
vouchsafed to him some years later, was that of the living
Christ, who had chosen upon this one occasion to depart from the
seclusion and secrecy which he had maintained hitherto. But
if Christ was still living on earth, how was it possible that no
human being should have the smallest clue to His
whereabouts? If He was dead how is it that no one should
have produced the body? Such a mysterious and total
disappearance, even in the face of great jeopardy, has never yet
been known, and can only be satisfactorily explained by adopting
the belief which has prevailed for nearly the last two thousand
years, and which will prevail more and more triumphantly so long
as the world shall last—the belief that Christ was restored
to the glory which He had shared with the Father, as soon as ever
He had given sufficient proofs of His being alive to ensure the
devotion of His followers.</p>
<p>Before we can reject the supernatural solution of a mystery
otherwise inexplicable, we should have some natural explanation
which will meet the requirements of the case. A confession
of ignorance is not enough here. <i>We</i> are <i>not</i>
ignorant; we <i>know</i> that Christ died, inasmuch as we have
the testimony of all the four Evangelists to this effect, the
testimony of the Apostle Paul, and through him that of all the
other Apostles; we have also the certainty that the centurion in
charge of the soldiers at the Crucifixion would not have
committed so grave a breach of discipline as the delivery of the
body to Joseph and Nicodemus, unless he had felt quite sure that
life was extinct; and finally we have the testimony of the Church
for sixty generations, and that of myriads now living, whose
experience assures them that Christ died and rose from the dead;
in addition to this tremendous body of evidence we have also the
story of the spear wound recorded in a Gospel which even our
opponents believe to be from a Johannean source in its later
chapters; and though, as has been already stated, this wound
cannot be insisted upon as in itself sufficient to prove our
Lord’s death, yet it must assuredly be allowed its due
weight in reviewing the evidence. The unbeliever cannot
surely have considered how shallow are all the arguments which he
can produce, in comparison with those that make against
him. He cannot say that I have not done him justice, and I
feel confident that when he reconsiders the matter in that spirit
of humility without which he cannot hope to be guided to a true
conclusion, he will feel sure that Strauss is right in believing
that the death of our Lord cannot be seriously called in
question.</p>
<p>But this being so, the reappearances, which we have seen to be
established by the collapse of the hallucination theory, must be
referred to supernatural or miraculous agency; that is to say,
our Lord died and rose again on the third day, according to the
Scriptures. Whereon His disappearance some six weeks later
must be looked upon very differently from that of any ordinary
person. If our Lord could have been shewn to have been a
mere man, who had escaped death only by a hair’s breadth,
but still escaped it, perhaps some one of the theories for His
disappearance, or some combination of them, or some other
explanation which has not yet been thought of, might be held to
be sufficient; but in the case of One who died and rose from the
dead, there is no theory which will stand, except the one which
it has been reserved for our own lawless and self-seeking times
to question. Through the light of the Resurrection the
Ascension is clearly seen.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>My task is now completed. In an age when Rationalism has
become recognised as the only basis upon which faith can rest
securely, I have established the Christian faith upon a
Rationalistic basis.</p>
<p>I have made no concession to Rationalism which did not place
all the vital parts of Christianity in a far stronger position
than they were in before, yet I have conceded everything which a
sincere Rationalist is likely to desire. I have cleared the
ground for reconciliation. It only remains for the two
contending parties to come forward and occupy it in peace
jointly. May it be mine to see the day when all traces of
disagreement have been long obliterated!</p>
<p>To the unbeliever I can say, “Never yet in any work upon
the Christian side have your difficulties been so fully and
fairly stated; never yet has orthodox disingenuousness been so
unsparingly exposed.” To the Christian I can say with
no less justice, “Never yet have the true reasons for the
discrepancies in the Gospels been so put forward as to enable us
to look these discrepancies boldly in the face, and to thank God
for having graciously allowed them to exist.” I do
not say this in any spirit of self-glorification. We are
children of the hour, and creatures of our surroundings. As
it has been given unto us, so will it be required at our hands,
and we are at best unprofitable servants. Nevertheless I
cannot refrain from expressing my gratitude at having been born
in an age when Christianity and Rationalism are not only ceasing
to appear antagonistic to one another, <i>but have each become
essential to the very existence of the other</i>. May the
reader feel this no less strongly than I do, and may he also feel
that I have supplied the missing element which could alone cause
them to combine. If he asks me what element I allude to, I
answer Candour. This is the pilot that has taken us safely
into the Fair Haven of universal brotherhood in Christ.</p>
<h3><a name="page273"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
273</span>Appendix</h3>
<h4>I<br />
The Burial</h4>
<p style="text-align: center">(John xix. 38–42)</p>
<p>And after this Joseph of Arimathæa, being a disciple of
Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he
might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him
leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.
And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus
by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an
hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and
wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the
Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified
there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein
was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore
because of the Jews’ preparation day; for the sepulchre was
nigh at hand.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">(Luke xxiii. 50–56)</p>
<p>And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and
he was a good man, and a just: (the same had not consented to the
counsel and deed of them;) he was of Arimathæa, a city of
the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God.
This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.
And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a
sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was
laid. And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath
drew on. And the women also, which came with him from
Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his
body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and
ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the
commandment.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">(Mark xv. 42–47)</p>
<p>And now when the even was come, because it was the
preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of
Arimathæa, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for
the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and
craved the body of Jesus. And Pilate marvelled if he were
already dead: and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him
whether he had been any while dead. And when he knew it of
the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. And he bought
fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and
laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled
a stone unto the door of the sepulchre. And Mary Magdalene
and Mary the mother of Joseph beheld where he was laid.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">(Matthew xxvii. 57–61)</p>
<p>When the even was come, there came a rich man of
Arimathæa, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’
disciple. He went to Pilate, and begged the body of
Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be
delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped
it in a clean linen cloth. And laid it in his own new tomb,
which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to
the door of the sepulchre, and departed. And there was Mary
Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the
sepulchre.</p>
<h4>II<br />
The Guard set upon the Tomb<br />
(<i>Peculiar to Matthew</i>)</h4>
<p style="text-align: center">(Matthew xxvii. 62–66)</p>
<p>Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation,
the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate.
Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was
yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command
therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day,
lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say
unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error
shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Ye
have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So
they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and
setting a watch.</p>
<h4>III<br />
Visit of Mary Magdalene, and Others, to the Tomb</h4>
<p style="text-align: center">(John xx. 1–13)</p>
<p>The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it
was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away
from the sepulchre. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon
Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith
unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre,
and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore
went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the
sepulchre. So they ran both together: and the other
disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.
And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes
lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter
following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen
clothes lie. And the napkin, that was about his head, not
lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by
itself. Then went in also that other disciple, which came
first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. For as
yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the
dead. Then the disciples went away again unto their own
home. But Mary stood without the sepulchre weeping: and as
she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, And
seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the
other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And
they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto
them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where
they have laid him.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">(Luke xxiv. 1–12)</p>
<p>Now upon the first day of the week very early in the morning,
they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had
prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the
stone rolled away from the sepulchre. And they entered in,
and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to
pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men
stood by them in shining garments: and as they were afraid, and
bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why
seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is
risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee,
saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful
men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And
they remembered his words, and returned from the sepulchre, and
told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.
It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James,
and other women that were with them, which told these things unto
the apostles. And their words seemed to them as idle tales,
and they believed them not. Then arose Peter, and ran unto
the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes
laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at that
which was come to pass.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">(Mark xvi. 1–8)</p>
<p>And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the
mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they
might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning
the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the
rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who
shall roll us away the stone from the door of the
sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone
was rolled away: for it was very great. And entering into
the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side,
clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.
And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of
Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here:
behold the place where they laid him. But go your way, tell
his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee:
there shall ye see him, as he said unto you. And they went
out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and
were amazed: neither said they anything to any man; for they were
afraid.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">(Matthew xxviii. 1–8)</p>
<p>In the end of the sabbath, as it began to draw toward the
first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to
see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great
earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and
came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon
it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment
white as snow, and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and
became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto
the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was
crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he
said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go
quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead;
and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see
him: lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from
the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his
disciples word.</p>
<h4>IV<br />
Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene and Others</h4>
<p style="text-align: center">(John xx. 14–18)</p>
<p>And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw
Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith
unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?
She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if
thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and
I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She
turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say,
Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not
yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto
them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God,
and your God. Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples
that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things
unto her.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">(Mark xvi. 9–11)</p>
<p>Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he
appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven
devils. And she went and told them that had been with him,
as they mourned and wept. And they, when they had heard
that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">(Matthew xxvii. 9–10)</p>
<p>And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met
them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the
feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not
afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there
shall they see me.</p>
<h4>V<br />
The Bribing of the Guard<br />
(<i>Peculiar to Matthew</i>)</h4>
<p style="text-align: center">(Matthew xxviii. 11–15)</p>
<p>Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into
the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that
were done. And when they were assembled with the elders,
and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers,
saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away
while we slept. And if this come to the governor’s
ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took
the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is
commonly reported among the Jews until this day.</p>
<h4>VI<br />
Appearance to Cleopas (and James?)</h4>
<p style="text-align: center">(Luke xxiv. 13–35)</p>
<p>And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village
called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore
furlongs. And they talked together of all these things
which had happened. And it came to pass, that, while they
communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went
with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not
know him. And he said unto them, What manner of
communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk,
and are sad? And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas,
answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem,
and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in
these days? And he said unto them, What things? And
they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a
prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:
And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be
condemned to death, and have crucified him. But we trusted
that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside
all this, to-day is the third day since these things were
done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us
astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; and when they
found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a
vision of angels, which said that he was alive, and certain of
them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even
so as the women had said: but him they saw not. Then he
said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that
the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these
things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses
and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the
scriptures the things concerning himself. And they drew
nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though
he would have gone further. But they constrained him,
saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is
far spent. And he went in to tarry with them. And it
came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and
blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes
were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their
sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn
within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he
opened to us the scriptures? And they rose up the same
hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered
together, and them that were with them, saying, The Lord is risen
indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. And they told what
things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in
breaking of bread.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">(Mark xvi. 12–13)</p>
<p>After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as
they walked, and went into the country. And they went and
told it unto the residue: neither believed they them.</p>
<h4>VII<br />
Appearance to the Apostles<br />
(<i>Twice in John</i>)</h4>
<p style="text-align: center">(John xx. 19–29)</p>
<p>Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week,
when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for
fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith
unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he
shewed them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples
glad, when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them
again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even, so
send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them,
and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose
soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose
soever sins ye retain, they are retained. But Thomas, one
of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus
came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have
seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in
his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the
print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not
believe. And after eight days again his disciples were
within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being
shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.
Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my
hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and
be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and
said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him,
Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed
are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>[I have not quoted the twenty-first chapter of St.
John’s Gospel on account of its exceedingly doubtful
genuineness.—W. B. O.]</p>
<p style="text-align: center">(Luke xxiv. 36–49)</p>
<p>And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of
them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were
terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a
spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why
do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my
feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit hath
not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had
thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. And
while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto
them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a
broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did
eat before them. And he said unto them, These are the words
which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things
must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in
the prophets, and in the psalms concerning me. Then opened
he their understanding, that they might understand the
scriptures. And said unto them, Thus it is written, and
thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the
third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be
preached in his name among all nations, beginning at
Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And,
behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in
the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on
high.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">(Mark xvi. 14–18)</p>
<p>Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and
upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because
they believed not them which had seen him after he was
risen. And he saith unto them, Go ye into all the world,
and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall
be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe;
In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new
tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any
deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the
sick, and they shall recover.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">(Matthew xviii. 16–20)</p>
<p>Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a
mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw
him, they worshipped him: but some doubted. And Jesus came
and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven
and in earth, go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have
commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of
the world. Amen.</p>
<h4>VIII<br />
The Ascension</h4>
<p style="text-align: center">(Luke xxiv. 50–53)</p>
<p>And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his
hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he
blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into
heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem
with great joy. And were continually in the temple,
praising and blessing God. Amen.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">(Mark xvi. 19–20)</p>
<p>So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received
up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they
went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them,
and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">(Acts i. 1–12)</p>
<p>The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that
Jesus began both to do and teach, Until the day in which he was
taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given
commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen. To whom
also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible
proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things
pertaining to the kingdom of God: and, being assembled together
with them, commanded them that they should not depart from
Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith
he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with
water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days
hence. When they therefore were come together, they asked
of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the
kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you
to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in
his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the
Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me
both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and
unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when he had
spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a
cloud received him out of their sight, And while they looked
stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by
them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why
stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is
taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye
have seen him go into heaven. Then returned they unto
Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a
sabbath day’s journey.</p>
<h4>IX<br />
St. Paul’s account of our Lord’s Reappearances</h4>
<p style="text-align: center">(I. Corinthians xv. 3–8)</p>
<p>For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also
received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the
scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the
third day according to the scriptures: and that he was seen of
Cephas, then of the twelve; after that he was seen of above five
hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto
this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he
was seen of James: then of all the apostles. And last of
all he was seen of me also as of one born out of due time.</p>
<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2>
<p><a name="footnote82"></a><a href="#citation82"
class="footnote">[82]</a> It should be borne in mind that
this passage was written five or six years ago, before the
commencement of the Franco-Prussian war, What would my brother
have said had he been able to comprehend the events of 1870 and
1871?—W. B. O.</p>
<p><a name="footnote141"></a><a href="#citation141"
class="footnote">[141]</a> This pamphlet was by Butler
himself.</p>
<p><a name="footnote158a"></a><a href="#citation158a"
class="footnote">[158a]</a> See Biog. Britann.</p>
<p><a name="footnote158b"></a><a href="#citation158b"
class="footnote">[158b]</a> Middleton’s Reflections
answered by Benson. Hist. Christ, vol. iii., p. 50.</p>
<p><a name="footnote159a"></a><a href="#citation159a"
class="footnote">[159a]</a> Lardner, part I., vol. ii., p.
135 et seq.</p>
<p><a name="footnote159b"></a><a href="#citation159b"
class="footnote">[159b]</a> Ibid., part I., vol. ii., p.
742.</p>
<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAIR HAVEN***</p>
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