BS
2410
N55
CHRISTIANITY
IN ITS
CRADLE.
A 549484
BY
FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN,
Once Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford; now Emeritus Professor of
University College, London.

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BS
2410
·N55

CHRISTIANITY
IN ITS CRADLE.
BY
FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN,
ONCE FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD ;
NOW EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
LONDON:
TRÜBNER & CO., 57 & 59, LUDGATE HILL.
M.DCCC.LXXXIV.
NOTTINGHAM:
PRINTED BY STEVENSON, BAILEY, AND SMITH,
LISTER GATE.
8-26-38
9-7-38 JA
PRELIMINARY NOTICE TO THE READER.
For thirty or thirty-five years I have hoped in vain that
some authority, or some respectable band of known
writers, would take up the problem of lessening the
chasm between our written and our spoken medium of
thought. I at length reluctantly conclude that we
must act individually. Ignorant whether I may be
spared to write another English book, I feel driven to
take one step forward, such as I see that some in
America are taking. I here limit myself to that in
which there is hope that newspapers may follow, as
lessening the printer's toil: viz., the omission of such
vowels as are misleading as well as superfluous. Such
are especially final e mute in many words; a when ea
means short e; u in final -our; o in final -ous.
I claim also in English (what exist in French, German,
Greek and Polish) marks on vowels to aid the pronuncia-
tion; but we cannot expect these to be adopted in any
printing where speed is important. We must not
innovate too fast, if we hope to be followed. I try to
follow cautiously: this is but a first step. If no one
will move on, entire revolution will in fifty years be
victorious. I reject the doctrine intensely, that varying
utterance should be the standard to which we conform
that which is naturally stable; but where the current
mode on writing is palpably wrong, we weaken our
conservative power by upholding it.
On what the late PROFESSOR JARRETT called the name-
SOUND of our letters, it would be convenient to place
two dots; as,
ängel, dänger, ägu; even, evil; hinder (as differing
from hinder), child, mild; söul, öld; cüre, pürity.
Other distinctions are important: our disease is complex.
iv.
Until some part of the public which is truly conserva-
tive, not revolutionary, of our writing, takes interest in
gradual and cautious improvement, the difficulty of
gaining attention to any written proposals is intense.
Perhaps something concrete must be set forth, before
reasons and theory will be listened to.
List of words in which ea ought to be e.
1. dealt, dreamt, heard, leapt, leant, meant, breadth,
dearth, health, stealth, wealth, cleanse, cleanly,
zealot, zealous, jealous, jealousy, treacherous,
treachery.
2. bread, breast, breath, breakfast, dead, death, deaf,
dread, dreadful, endeavour, feather, heather,
leather, weather, meadow, head, heaven, leaven.
weapon, lead (metal), read (p.p.), ready, already,
spread, stead, steady, tread, thread, realm, sweat,
measure, pleasure, treasure, pleasant, peasant,
pheasant.
3. earl, early, earn, earnest, earth, heaven, hearse,
rehearse, learn, pearl, search. [In Scotland the
old pronunciation of No. 3 is retained, which
explains the "ear." In the words heart, hearth,
we need to imitate the Scottish utterance, and
not to confound heart with hart.]
For distinction, Read (p.p.) should be written Redd;
Bred (p.p. from Breed) should be Bredd, and Led (from
verb Lead) Ledd.
The eye would soon cease to miss the intrusive vowel.
Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON made a fight for k in publick,
mimick, tragick, &c., but good sense prevailed against
him.
F. W. N.
CHRISTIANITY IN ITS CRADLE.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL VIEW OF JUDAISM.
HISTORY is a vast topic, of which few of us can know much;
yet to know a little correctly is valuable. An obvius
parallel is Geography. We must be contented with great
ignorance, yet an outline map is superflüus to no one.
To study the birth of a Religion is eminently instructiv,
yet generally is very difficult from the absence of written
documents contemporaneus and trustworthy. So much
the more do we need to lern the people and the cir-
cumstances under which it rose; which in the case of
Christianity are no wise obscure.
These pages do not compete with complete Christian
histories, nor attempt continüus narrativ, but önly aim
to summarize what will throw most light on the topic,
and thereby aid to sound judgment.
The peculiarity of the Jewish people has turned on two
pivots, Monotheism and Ceremonialism; and in the secondary
stage, which alone here concerns us, each principle has
derived its energy from a belief in Sacred Books. In the
erlier period, before and during the Hebrew Monarchy,
an activ warfare was carried on against Polytheism, to
which a majority of the people, surrounded by Polytheistic
and Idolatrus nations, was inclined: but the chief cham-
pions of the characteristic Hebrew faith were then, not
established Priests, but Prophets rising untaught, or reared
in voluntary seminaries; men who professed to utter the
voice of God, not to expound any sacred book, or rest
upon any sacred law. The name of Moses is hard to find
in these prophets, nor do they argüe for the doctrin of
One God by quoting the Pentateuch or the Decalog.
2
"
An eminent Christian divine of this century avowed
that it was scarcely possible to worship a God who had
neither place nor form nor geometrical size, so that an
incarnate God is a necessary condescension to human
infirmity. Nevertheless the Hebrews (indeed, it seems,
the Persians before them) had quite dispensed with in-
carnation. It is hard to understand how any one can read
the Hebrew psalms, and not see that an intense devotion
of soul to an omnipresent God pervades them.* Even the
Roman Tacitus, malignant as he is to the Jews and full
of slander, yet seems in spite of himself to admire, when he
approaches their absolute monotheism. "The Jews (says he)
apprehend a single Deity, and that by the mind alone;
accounting those profane who out of decaying substances
"fashion images of gods into the likeness of men, while
"that which is Supreme and Eternal can neither chänge
nor perish." From our modern point of view, we must
call the attachment of the Jews to the sole worship of
Jehovah a fanaticism; because it enacted deth by stoning
for any one who enticed to the violation of this para-
mount doctrin. But in that day all nations which had
an established creed accounted its deliberate violation a
dedly guilt. The asperity of Persians against idolatry
and the still greater severity of the Jews, denote, not that
they were more cruel than Egyptians or Greeks, but that
they were more definit and ernest in religius belief.
..
(6
But the Ceremonialism of Israel grew up in the Priest-
hood, which (as apparently in Syria, Asia Minor and
Greece) had its origin in unconnected sacred temples,
each accumulating and digesting its own routine. When
union came about, selection and codification were sure to
follow and gain national assent. Jewish history frankly
* Ponder well that magnificent outburst of devout piety: "Whom
hav I in heven but Thee? there is none upon erth that I desire
in comparison with Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God
is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever." Possibly the
explanation of "for ever" is found in another Psalm; "I will bless
my God, as long as I hav any being."
3
informs us of an era (nearly at the close of the monarchy,
while the pius King Josiah was still yung) which first
established the Book of the Law in permanence.* In the
received narrativ there is no indication that any copy of
this book was in the hands of the public, or even of the
most esteemed and venerated kings. Zeal for Ceremonial-
ism is scarcely found in rulers until this later era. The
Passover, and the Sabbatical year, hav no rigid and con-
tinüus observance before the captivity. Erly kings
ministered at the altar, in Jerusalem equally as in old
Greece. Levites were confounded with other tribes, and
had no actual possession of lands or tithes. Yet a fright-
ful tale is told concerning the very erliest time, in
illustration of a law delivered by Jehovah to Moses
(Exodus xxxi. 15), “Whosoever doeth any work on the
“sabbath day, he shall surely be put to deth." Accord-
ingly, for the crime of gathering sticks in the wilderness on
the sabbath day (Numbers xv. 32-36) Moses himself is
represented to hav caused a man to be stoned to deth.
We may disbelieve the fact and acquit Moses; but it is
told in the sacred book: the belief of it by the later Jews
cannot be doubted, nor the evil of its belief denied. All
other ceremonial offences had a ceremonial expiation; but
"sabbath-breaking" was imagined to be a breach of the
tie which united the Most High to his peculiar people
(Exodus xxxi. 16, 17), a breach of the covenant; therefore
to be worse than most immoralities.
In Ceremonialism of course must be included the rite of
Circumcision. But this was imposed in infancy once for
all. To be uncircumcised, was in the national estimate a
disgrace, as with the Egyptians (Joshua v. 9, Herod. ii. 36),
* An exhaustiv analysis of this transaction from the pen of the
late Rev. John Robertson, of Coupar Angus, with the title, "The
Finding of the Book," was published by the late Mr. Thomas Scott
in 1870. It may not be easy to get this now. In my own history of
the Hebrew Monarchy, as early as 1847, I commented largely on the
matter, and concluded that to alledge a discovery is to confess an
invention.
4
also probably with a majority of the Syrians and Arabians.
It scarcely ever could come into prominence. Foreiners
had no right to resent it. There is an opinion that
nations so diverse adopted this strange practice from a
prevailing medical theory. It has no proper place in our
history. The Greeks believed it to hav been lerned
from Egypt; the Hebrews supposed it to hav come down
as a solemn covenant and command of God to Abraham.
It was cardinal to Judaism, yet not so peculiar as the
Sabbatical Law, which forbad labor on the seventh day.
One thing ought to be known, on which modern Jews
pointedly insist;—that there never was any prohibition of
innocent plesure and merriment on the sabbath, nor of
lerning and teaching any form of knowledge, provided
only that no money be erned by the teacher. All that is
forbidden (they assure us) is servile work and work for
gain; but the cultivation of the intellect is highly
approved.
CHAPTER II.
JUDAISM RESTORED.
In different national stages Israel had different teachers;
first Prophets, next Psalmists (who were apparently a
growth out of musicians and priests at the temple of
Jerusalem); thirdly, Doctors of the Law, whom we call
Rabbis. The erlier priesthood, when it rose above mere
ceremony, was virtually a political element, struggling to
enforce constitutional rule on the kings; but seldom on
good terms with the prophets. When the monarchy
vanished, the Priesthood came into power, and coalesced
with the Rabbis, who did not write sacred books, but
expounded the older scriptures.
The final conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonian king
Nebuchadnezzar (about 600 B.C.) terminated the Hebrew
Monarchy. The policy of the conqueror was, to carry
away the whole population and replace it by foreiners;
5
10
this obviusly aimed at destroying the national spirit
which resists Imperialism. It gained partial or at least
temporary success. It had indeed erlier been carried out
against Israel, whether by a Syrian or an Assyrian king:
and somewhat later the whole northern district of Palestine
was swamped by new comers, varius in origin and creed;
indeed as erly as the prophet Isaiah we are surprized to
read of Gentile Galilee. But Babylon, which had assisted
the Median monarchy to overthrow that of Assyria, and
had eagerly effaced the great city of Nineveh, fell in her
turn by the power which she had helped to make supreme.
Cyrus the Persian, supplanting the Medes and wielding all
their resources, conquered and annexed Babylon; then,
by reversing the Babylonian policy won the allegiance of
all the Jews. Probably indeed Cyrus, whose creed was
Monotheism, felt a true sympathy for monotheistic Israel.
He warmly encuraged the return of the Jews to their own
land; nay, according to the book of Ezra, he lavishly gave
vessels of gold and silver to reestablish splendor in their
Temple when rebuilt. So delightful a change of policy
roused up a new and glorius prophet, whose book has
unhappily been tacked on to the work of Isaiah, which
ended with the 39th chapter. The new prophet begins.
with the joyful announcement: "Comfort ye my people,
saith your God," and continues to the end in a like strain
of triumph, though without any hint of life in an after-
world for individual saints. This anonymus prophet has
so long been quoted as Isaiah, that it is hard to find any
better title for him than "the Later Isaiah." In obedience
to the frendly edict of Cyrus, the most zelous of the
nation flocked back. The law of Moses assumed in the
eyes of all Israel a dignity and a sacredness never before
realized. The Jews who were dispersed north-eastward
or in Egypt, looked up to Jerusalem with pride and joy,
as in the days of David and Solomon. The central
figure in that city for three centuries and a half was no
longer a military king, but a professed High Priest, guided
6
by Doctors of the Law. The law was in some matters (as
other antique law) too severe; but how much better than
Greek, Roman, Persian, or Assyrian!
The effects of the DISPERSION were vast and permanent.
It had begun in detail by a harassing slave trade, as far
as we can judge. In antiquity, to no nation had other
nations any human rights, unless guaranteed by treaty
and oath. Each preyed upon others as on wild game,
even without previus enmity. But the Imperialist King
David, son of Jesse, had left rankling hatred in all the
petty tribes around. Whenever the Jewish power was
weak, marauders infested the land; Tyre and Sidon were
activ slave-markets, and every merchant was a slave-
dealer. Oh! what have not been the miseries of mankind
in the past! History is the little book of the Apocalyps,
sweet in the mouth, but most bitter of digestion. Grievus
as ar human sufferings now, they were formerly far
wider and more constant, if not more terrible.
A large migration of Jews into Egypt had probably risen
out of commerce. Isaiah (xix. 18) expects five cities in
Egypt to speak the Hebrew tongue and propagate widely
the worship of Jehovah. Some centuries later, when a
Macedonian dynasty ruled in Egypt, the Jewish residents
confronted Greek philosophy in Alexandria, then the most
lerned of all Greek cities. Something must hav been
imbibed in Jerusalem from that attempt to combine Moses
with Plato, which culminated in the theosophy of Philo
the Jew. The word of the Lord, so often mentioned in
Hebrew prophets and psalmists, was compared with the
logos* of Plato. A deliberate effort was made to interpret
* Logos in Greek may be rendered Word, as in Mark ii. 2, "He
preached the word unto them; "but the pervading idea in Plato is,
that Mind is the cause of whatever goes on "by plan" which plan
he calls Logos. Timaeus in Plato (§ 10) teaches that the Univers
is a living creature endowed with a soul,—that it is a god begotten by
God (§ 12), eternal, perfect, and only begotten (µovoyevǹs, unigenitus.)
Philo somehow adapted these epithets to the Word of Hebrew poetry.
-The divine logos in the noble ode of Cleanthes the Stoic means
"well ordered plan."
7
Hebrew notions into harmony with Greek philosophy; an
effort in which ingenuity was sure to overpower good
sense, and strained analogies to be mistaken for sober
logic.
But the great mass of the dispersed Jews were carried
to the north-east, to Nineveh or Babylon. These, when-
ever they submitted to a rural life, were probably lost
among the Gentiles; but when, clinging to their religion
and to one another, they abode in towns, their families as
they multiplied could only liv by successiv migrations
eastward or westward. For they necessarily betook
themselves to such employments as still ar familiar with
Jews, and indeed with the similarly dispersed Armenians.
(It is an axiom in Western Asia that Jews and Armenians
cannot flurish in the same town.) From this cause it
happened, that in the course of six centuries Jews of every
tribe* were found, westward as far as Italy, eastward we
know not how far. The new generations born amid men
who believed in inferior gods and demons, in magic and
witchcraft, necromancy and astrology, Furies and
Tartarus, imbibed grave additions to the national
creed, even when they stedily retained Jehovah as the
sole object of worship. The doctrin of a Devil and fiery
Hell, of a Future Life and Judgment, of demoniacal
possessions and religius exorcisms, did not come to the
Jews by divine teaching, if thereby we mean Moses and the
prophets; for neither in Moses nor in the prophets under
the monarchy ar these beliefs found. They were imbibed
by the Jewish race during its dispersion among nations,
whose superstitions it had despised, as we despise
them. The pedigree of these tenets is open to us and
undeniable. The "lying spirit" of Micaiah's vision
(1 Kings xxii. 19) and even the Satan of the book of Job,
* The modern Jews undoubtedly ar descendants of the twelve
tribes, as the dispersed Jews ar entitled in Acts xxvi. 7, James i. 1.
That they ar the descendants of the two tribes, is a baseless fiction,
with nothing to make it even plausible.
8
ar (strange as is the notion) base ministers of Jehovah,
and cannot be identified with the Christian devil. In
Zechariah iii. 1 and 2, a step forward may perhaps be
claimed; but Zechariah wrote in the time of King Darius,
four generations after the captivity.
It much excited the wrath of Tacitus, that Jews every-
where looked up to restored Jerusalem as a mother city,
and often had great success in converting Gentiles to their
higher spiritual faith. He tells it in these bitter and
slanderous words: "These ceremonies [of sacrifice] are
defended by their antiquity: all their other institutions,
"ill-omened and foul, hav prevailed by their perversity.
"For whoever was worst [in any nation], discarding his
"country's religion, used to carry to Jerusalem tributes,
"and petty moneys; whereby the resources of the Jews
were enlarged."
But the restored Jews had much to suffer, both from
petty neighbors and from great monarchies. Judæa
was a passage-land between Syria and Egypt, and when
the kings of those regions (Macedonian dynasties) fell
into conflict, this small territory was trampled down.
length under Antiochus, called Epiphanes, a dredful
persecution fell upon them. This monarch of Syria,
Babylon and nearly all Asia Minor, was resolved to break
down by violence all their religius scruples; but thereby
raised up against himself the Asmonean family; heroes,
called by us Maccabees (about 167 B.C.), who, in the time
of this king and his successor, after immense suffering,
defeated trained armies vastly superior, and at length
established the new Jerusalem in a strength and glory
which seemed miraculus.
66
The gratitude of the Jewish nation foolishly recognized
the Asmonean family (that of Judas Maccabeus) as
hereditary holders of the priesthood; but the High Priest,
being not only hed of the Civil Government, but trustee
for the public defence, soon became in spirit a military
king. Not only were cities in Hollow Syria and Idumea
9
coveted, besides Ammon, Moab and Philistia, but
municipal rights were grudged to Jewish towns. The
nation desired peace, and government according to the
law of Moses; and to a great extent attained the latter:
but like more than one modern European nation, the
peaceable desires of the people were sadly thwarted by the
ambition of hereditary chiefs.
66
Tacitus (Hist. book v. ch. 8) thus sums up the account
of these times: "Then the Jews placed kings over them-
"selves, who, expelled by the fickleness of the populace,
' regained dominion by force of arms, and shrank not from
"exile of citizens, destruction of cities, slaughter of
"brothers, of wives, of parents, and other enormities
"usual with kings. These men fostered superstition,
"because it added the honor of priesthood as a support to
"their power." This writer loves to retail malevolent
folly concerning Judaism; and his words ar far from
depicting the whole case fairly: yet most certainly their
priest-kings were the bane of Judaism. Children of a
patriotic chief do not inherit patriotism by birth in the
purple. It does not appear that they had any standing
army except for the defence of the temple and certain
fortresses; yet in Josephus's narrativ their facility of
getting troops surprizes a reader. Still, this Judaism had
another side, widely diverse, of which Tacitus knew
nothing. The law of Moses was the national code, and
never was so sacredly observed. Its law of land was
antique and rational. The land belonged to Jehovah.
Each generation possessed and cultivated it in turn, but
no one owned it, no one could sell it; only its use, until
the next Jubilee, could be sold. There was no military
aristocracy, no caste of landlords to sponge the tillers of
the soil, no pensioned idlers. The aristocracy consisted
of the lerned,-moralists trained in the sacred law, re-
cruited from all ranks, and (as it is believed) all were
taught some manual trade; certainly none of them were
disgraced if he so erned his living. From these institu-
10
tions sprang an energetic patriotic pesantry, brave and
devoted; also a highly popular and large class of doctors
of the law, chiefly of the sect called Pharisees, who labored
diligently to soften the rigor of antique law by tradition
and subtle comment.
In spite of royal pride and violence (for the high-priest
at last assumed the title of King) Palestine under the
Mosaic doctors flurished greatly, until Roman tyranny
galled, tormented and drove to madness a high-spirited
and free people.
Soon after the deth of thát cruel Antiochus the
prophecy called Daniel's must hav been written. Criticism
for which we hav no room, shows abundantly that the
narrativ is opposed to history and truth. The wars of
the kings of Syria and Egypt ar detailed accurately in
chapter xi. but at the very next step the prophecy is false:
for, Resurrection of the ded follows, in which Jewish
saints rise to everlasting life and glory: all erthly affairs
seem suddenly to close. Special remarks on this
"prophecy" may here be in place.
This book has astonishing diversities from all the
previus Judaic literature. In Ezekiel, in Jeremiah, in
the later Isaiah and all the erlier prophets, there is no
word to suggest resurrection from the ded, or renewed
life for individuals. Jeremiah's endless laments have no
assuagement from thát topic, which was needed then, if
ever, for his bleeding and crushed people. He, like the
rest, sees in their sufferings nothing but the anger of
Jehovah and proof of their guilt. No such idea is found
in this book, called Daniel's. The saints whom he records
by name have miraculus triumphs over their imperial
persecutors; king Nebuchadnezzar (ii. 46) falls on his face
and worships Daniel !! Concerning the rest, the tone is
jubilant, even in looking forward to a time of unpreceden-
ted suffering (xii. 2). "At that time," says the Angel to
Daniel, “thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall
“be found written in the book." Here the Apocalyptic
11
"Lamb's book of life" is anticipated. It proceeds:
"Many who sleep in the dust of the erth shall awake,
some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting
"contempt." This magnificent announcement was un-
known to Isaiah and his patron king Hezekiah; nothing
like it appears in Ezra or Nehemiah. Then as to his
notions of the human world: he represents each kingdom
to hav its guardian angel, who is called its prince.
Michael is the great prince of Israel. Another tutelary
angel was "withstood" for 21 days by the prince of the
kingdom of Persia, until Michael came to aid him in the
conflict (x. 13). "Afterwards," says he, "I must return
"to fight with the prince of Persia (x. 20) and when I am
'gone forth, the prince of Graecia will come.” These
notions certainly ar not Judaic; apparently they ar
Persian. One step more, and the guardian angels of
Gentile powers were degraded into demons, thus com-
pleting the Rabbinical idea of "principalities aloft,"
subject to Satan, potentate of the air. Here a vast mass
of Oriental mythology corrupted Hebrew simplicity.
""
In the book of Daniel we also find a Theatrical Tribunal
held by the Supreme God. In the Psalms and Prophets
hitherto, the throne of judgment was but a metaphor and
poetical ornament. The thrones ar cast down (angelic or
human), the Ancient of Days takes his seat; a fiery stream
issues from him, millions (of angels) minister to him,
myriads of myriads (of mankind?) stand before him, the
judgment is set, and the books ar opened,-as in an
Egyptian trial? Beyond this, a novel annunciation is
made. One like unto a son of man* comes with the clouds
of heven, and receives over all peoples, nations and
languages a dominion which shall never pass away. This
appears to be the erliest statement, that some one in
human shape, but coming in the clouds of heven, is to rule
..
{{
* By some fatuity our translators here write one like unto the
"Son of Man; and in iii. 25 give us "the Son of God," where the
sense clearly needs and the original plainly says, a son of God.
>
12
permanently over this erth and its inhabitants.—But was
it the erliest statement? We cannot be sure for we do
not know the date of the prophecy called the Book of
Enoch. Concerning this, a few words may be appropriate.
To some of us the chief interest of the Book of Enoch
turns on the fact, that in the Canonical Epistle of Jude it
is quoted as the writing of Enoch the seventh from Adam
(14) without any suspicion that it was a recent fraud.
German critics, whose pride it is to disintegrate ancient
books, think it has been interpolated by Christians. When
discovered, erly in this century, it was translated by our
Archbishop Lawrence. Unless large parts of it ar gene-
rated by fraud upon fraud, it may hav cöoperated with
the book of Daniel in preparing the Jewish mind for the
idea of a son of man who should be a son of God, a Judge
of the ded, and a universal Ruler over the living. But
the idea of Messiah is so important, as to deserve a
chapter for itself.
CHAPTER III.
MESSIAH, THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS.
WHо can read the miserable tale of Western Asia with
intelligence and without sympathy? After nations
hav begun to be consolidated, cultivated and softened,
they ar again torn in pieces by imperial encroachment.
Industry is interrupted, families ar broken up, prosperity
is wrecked, those tenderly reared ar carried into exile
or actual slavery; national as well as personal love is
trampled down and dishonored merely for the aggrandize-
ment of some foreiner. The Assyrian, after conquering
widely both eastward and northward, wielded a vast popu-
lation of mountaineers as his weapon for western conquest.
But the Medes and Persians revolt, and a Median dynasty
rears its hed. Babylon joins the Medes, and at length
13
lays Assyria prostrate. Babylon clutches Syria and
Palestine; indeed invades Egypt, with no advantage to
herself. Cyrus the Persian subdues first in a civil war
the Medes, next Babylonia and Syria, finally all Asia
Minor and its highly cultivated population of many races.
and languages. His son conquers Egypt: after his deth
usurpers arise in ten different centres whom Darius con-
quers, one by one, in complex war. Darius next crosses
the Bosporus and conquers all Thrace (the modern Rou-
melia), Paeonia and Macedonia. Incensed by Athenian
attack (for the Athenians had as yet no understanding of
his vast resources) he and his son made war on Greece.
The Greeks ar saved by their mountains and by the
enemy's pride, and forthwith begin an endless harassing
of his innocent and injured subjects. This culminates in
the irruption of Alexander the Great into Asia, who
perpetrates cruelties and horrors unmatched in the Persian
invasion of Greece. On his deth, his generals carry on
civil war for twenty years, till they can agree on a four-
fold division of his kingdom. Great standing armies hav
become the organ of empire. Greece has now nominally
conquered Asia; but this merely means, that her youth
ar dragged from home or migrate to be tools of bloodshed,
and her population rapidly wastes. Barbarians whose
nerves and hearts ar hard may think perpetual warfare
the natural state; but with industrius populations,
trained to gentleness and proud of nationality, a series of
successiv Empires involves intense suffering.
No wonder that lamentation, mourning and woe came
forth from many nations, whatever their religion, with
aspirations for a Deliverer. What may giv some idea of
the suffering of a civil population from capture by even a
Greek enemy, (and the Greeks were far from being cruel,
in comparison with other nations), we hav definit nar-
rativs concerning more than one town, that when it
found longer resistance impossible, then, rather than
encounter the fate of being sold into slavery, they killed
M
14
their wives and children, burned their precius goods, and
lept into the fire themselves, or died on the spears of the
enemy. Historians who record such horrors, hav no
better comment than to remark,-What madmen and
fools they were! As a general fact, whatever the origin
of a war, if (as ordinarily) greed of conquest alone impelled
the aggressor, yet resistance to his arms was resented and
punished as a crime. The nobler the national spirit, the
greater the sacrifices it made in defence of its hereditary
prince or its rightful independence, so much the fiercer
and more unrelenting was its conqueror, both in revenge
for his own losses and in the hope of deterring like bravery
in others. Thus did ambition in the conqueror demoralize
the conquered.
Each nation looked to its own God to support its rights.
Each, when vanquished, supposed it had encountered the
anger of its God. Not least was this the case with Israel,
which never admitted the other alternativ, that its god
had proved inferior to his adversary. No Jew could
impute to Jehovah military weakness; but every Jew
unawares imputed to him the moral weakness of fearing
discredit with the heathen, if his chosen people be
trampled down. It runs through the whole Hebrew
literature, that however much that people may deserve
chastisement and get it, yet at last, for the glory of his own
name, Jehovah must exalt them over their enemy. Hence
in national misfortunes, repentance for real or imagined
sin blended with intense supplication that Jehovah would
avenge his own dishonor and send a Deliverer. A like
aspiration under other phrases rose in many cruelly op-
pressed peoples; so this champion, to be sent by God,
became the Desire of all Nations.
We hav no chronology for the erliest Greek literature,
nor trustworthy remains of any of the Sibyls. It here
suffices to go back to Isaiah, who wrote when the Assyrian
power in Nineveh had become the formidable enemy, both
a little before and after the capture of Samaria and the
15
(6
deportation of the ten tribes. He at once anticipates for
Jerusalem herself the direst calamities, that ar to sweep
off nine-tenths of the people (vii. 11-13), yet believes that
from her all nations shall lern religius wisdom.
"Out
“of Zion shall go forth the law: Jehovah shall become
'Judge among the peoples: nation shall not lift up sord
against nation, neither shall they lern war any more.”
Calamity had thus taught the elect of Israel a far higher
wisdom than that of King David. Among the latest deeds
of Samaria, its king confederated with the king of Syria
against Ahaz king in Jerusalem. Isaiah tried to inspire
Ahaz with his own belief, that these two enemies were not
to be feared. In vain he urged that in a very few years,
before a certain child should have lerned to talk (viii. 3)
-the king of Assyria would destroy them both. Ahaz
could not afford to wait those few years, but at once sent
tribute to Nineveh, and bribed its king to a work which he
cheerfully undertook and completed, the conquest of
Damascus. The prophet was fully aware that Samaria
would be the next victim (ix. 8—21) and that the Assyrian
would overflow into Judæa; but he believed that, before
long, a prince of the house of David would overthrow him,
and apparently declares that a child just born was to be the
great Deliverer and mighty Restorer. "Under him a new
"Eden shall be established, with rightëusness and uni-
"versal peace (ch. xi.) Ephraim shall be reconciled to
"Judah and all the dispersed of Israel shall be brought
"back in triumph."-The last tuches to this prophecy
must hav been given (xi. 16) after the Samaritans had
been carried to Assyria.
16
It is not imagined that anything here written could
carry general conviction as to the real meaning of Isaiah's
mysterius announcement (ix. 6), "Unto us a child is born,
"unto us a son is given." So much we may say there
is nothing in the known chronology to forbid, and there is
much to suggest, that Hezekiah, heir to the throne of
Ahaz, was just then born. An inaccurate, perhaps rather
16
a fraudulent, translation deceives most English readers.
No attempt to improve it can here be made. It suffices
to state, that with German scholars the rendering differs
essentially from ours, and that the Jewish translation into
Greek, called the Septuagint, instead of "his name shall
"be called Wonderful, &c., &c.," has: "his name is called,
"Messenger of Great Counsel (or Council): for I will bring
peace upon the rulers, and helth to him. Great is his
rule; and to his peace no limit, on the throne of David,
"&c." Nothing on the surface forbids our supposing the
prophet to hav expected the realization of his glorius.
vision by the future reign of infant Hezekiah.
Be that as
it may, we here notice two facts; first, that Isaiah predicted
a mighty Deliverer and a blessed time of justice and
peace; secondly, that Hezekiah, though a pius king, did
not fulfil this hope. The Deliverer was to be a legitimate
offspring of David, seated on David's throne; consequently
to be an Anointed king. In Hebrew the word Messiah
means anointed: therefore after the continüus royalty had
vanished, the epithet Messiah became peculiar to the
expected Deliverer. The Greeks translated it by Christos.
("
Contemporary with Isaiah, but perhaps yunger, was
the prophet Micah, who adopts, as in choral chant, Isaiah's
grand prediction that the Gentiles shall become religius
pupils of the Jews (Micah iv. 2, 3) and proceeds to glorify
Jerusalem (8) as the centre of coming dominion. Zion
shall dash the nations in pieces with her iron horn and
trample them down with her brazen hoof: their gain and
substance shall be consecrated to Jehovah (13); and though
the king of Samaria shall suffer outrage (ch. v. 1), yet
out of Bethlehem shall come the mighty Ruler of Israel,
whose grandeur the prophet further describes. This is
the celebrated text, which declares that Messiah shall
come out of little Bethlehem: but (sadly to our confusion)
it goes on to assign as his great function, the ravaging of
Assyria with the sord and turning the now captiv
Israelites into a lion among the flocks of sheep.-While
17
Assyria was still a terrible foe, those who revered these.
great prophets found the interpretation of Messiah to be
clear. He was to be Israel's victorius leader against that
foe. But after the Assyrian power had vanished by
Babylonian and Median arms, where and what was
Messiah?
The Hebrew Psalms ar full of bitter cries against the
men who lie in wait to shed blood. Wild banditti had the
land at their mercy for many long years. Prayers against
enemies painfully color many otherwise beutiful pieces:
and a great day is often predicted when Jehovah will
avenge his people and rule over the erth (or land?) him-
self; but it is hard to lay the finger on one which puts
forward a military chieftain, like unto Micah's Messiah, as
Jehovah's agent and sub-ruler. The seventy-second
Psalm most nearly harmonizes with the picture of restored
Eden in Isaiah, and ascribes the rightëus rule to a king
of Israel. The last verse, which implies the Psalm to be
David's, may be believed, or may be rejected as spurius.
That is of secondary importance: the fact remains, that
the Psalm does not define when we ar to expect this great
king, nor how to recognize him before he achieves his
mighty deeds. The same remark applies to the second
Psalm, which in the last verse shows a false translation
("Kiss the Son,") made with a Christian purpose. The
LXX have Apáčaσ0e πaideíus, "Lay hold of instruction, lest
the Lord be angry." The king who is here brought for-
ward, the Psalmist magnificently represents to hav been
constituted "a son of God," on that day. For this
reason he is claimed as Messiah by the Christian writer
to the Hebrews (Hebrews i. 6). But that writer also
seizes for Messiah the words of the eighth Psalm, that
God hath made man a little lower than the angels (ii. 6—9):
and (what here alone concerns us), the Psalm givs us no
instruction, how to know Messiah when he comes.
Δράξασθε παιδείας, σε
The very same complaint may be repeated concerning
all the other texts called Messianic. It was therefor
B
18
natural, indeed inevitable, that the Jewish doctors should
be uncertain, and greatly divided, when interrogated con-
cerning Messiah. To reply from Isaiah or Micah was
possible, if single verses were quoted, as they would be by
the unlerned, who had no access to the entire prophecy;
but wise and lerned men knew that after the Assyrian
power and all the petty tribes contemporary had dis-
appeared, such a reply was folly or fraud.
One collateral prophecy by Malachi rested in the
popular memory: 'Behold, I will send you Elijah the
prophet before the great and dredful day of the Lord."
According to the narrativ which has been received among
the Jews for two thousand years, Elijah did not die, as
other men, but (like Romulus ?) was carried up to heven
in a whirlwind by a chariot and horses of fire (2 Kings ii. 11).
Therefor he did not need to be raised from the ded; he
had only to come back from heven. Thus the popular
idea accepted him as the forerunner of Messiah, since
Messiah was to introduce the great and terrible day of
God's vengeance.
(6
Another topic must be added. The final prophecy of
[the true] Isaiah, given in our books as chapters xxxiv.,
xxxv., is an intense invectiv against the land and people
of Edom. David, if we believe the frightful story (1 Kings
xi. 15, 16) had kept his chief captain Joab with all Israel
(that is, with his whole military force) six months on
Idumean soil, "until he had cut off every male in Edom."
Such murderus attempts never succeed entirely, but they
always succeed in bequeathing untractable enmity of the
weaker nation against the generally innocent posterity of
the stronger. Israel long suffered miseries from Edomite
retaliation, and bitterly cursed these enemies, while herself
mourning by the waters of Babylon (Psalm cxxxvii. 7—9).
It cannot surprize us to find Isaiah, a century erlier,
vehement against Edom,-predicting her utter desolation,
and the joy of her deserts that nothing but wild beasts
and birds liv there (xxxv. 1). It does surprize to find this
19
66
utterance suddenly turn into a quasi-Messianic description
of the ensuing kingdom of God. Messiah indeed (i.e. God's
chosen captain) is not named: but in his own high poetry
the prophet declares, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be
opened and the ears of the def shall be unstopped:
"then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue
"of the dumb sing." From these words* the vulgar
managed to deduce that when Messiah came, he would work
miracles of healing.-That no Gamaliel so reasoned, we
may infer with some confidence from Gamaliel's great
pupil, Paul of Tarsus; who seems quite unaware of any
Messianic miracles.
To turn from Israel to other nations, it is interesting
to read Virgil's Eclogue called Pollio, which opens by
suggesting that he is reproducing a Cumaan song; thát
is, one concerning the blessed age predicted by the Sibyl
of Cumac. In Virgil the scene of Paradise does for a
moment recal Isaiah to us, as likewise his announcement
of an auspicius birth impending. But Virgil's picture is
blurred by his dream that history recurs in a circle.
The Argonautic expedition is to be repeated, and a second
Achilles is to fight at Troy! This sweet poet barely shows
how widely spred was the idea that a great Deliverer was
about to be born; who would rule over the world with
Justice and Glory.
In the pages of Tacitus and Suetonius it is curius to
find traces of a Gentile Messiah in the person of a Roman
Emperor. The expectation had been widely diffused, that
a great deliverer would come from the East. After the
tumultüus alarms and suffering from the contests for
Empire caused by the deth of Nero, Vespasian coming
from the Roman armies in Judæa was by many believed
to be this mighty savior. Omens and oracles confirmed
* Chapter xlii. 7, of [the later] Isaiah speaks of opening blind
eyes in very obvius metaphor. It was quite pardonable there to
believe that the servant of the Lord ment an individual Messiah, if
one had no means of studying the whole series of the prophecy, and
comparing xlix. 3, and other passages.
20
the idea, and Vespasian to his great perplexity found him-
self expected to work miracles on the sick. The two
historians ar in substantial agreement. Tacitus details
two of the cases somewhat more amply, and it may be of
interest to my readers to hav the whole passage set before
them. It occurs in his Histories, book iv. chapter 81.
"In the course of those days, while Vespasian was
waiting at Alexandria for summer seas and safe voyage,
many marvels occurred, to display the favor of Heven
"towards him. A certain man of the Alexandrian populace,
"known to suffer from wasted eyeballs, clasped his knees
and with a moan claimed of him a remedy for his blind-
"ness. The goddess Serapis, whom above all other deities.
"this superstitius race honors, had urged him to this
"step, and he kept imploring the prince, to deign to
"spatter saliva on his cheeks and eyeballs. Another,
"who was crippled in the hand, prompted by the same
'dëity, begged that the foot and step of Cæsar might
'trample on his lim. Vespasian at first laughed at it,
"and refused; but when the patients persisted, he at one
"moment dreded the discredit of silly assumption; at the
"next was moved into hope by their urgent entreaties
"and by the flattering cheers from others. Finally, he
"ordered the physicians to form a judgment, whether
"such blindness and such disablement were within human
"aid. The physicians discussed the case on several sides,
saying: that in the blind eye force of sight was not
"extinct, but only impeded: that the crippled lim was
"dislocated, yet possibly force wisely applied might restore.
"it; that perhaps the gods had such a result at heart,
"and a Prince had been chosen for a divine ministration,
"In fine, if the remedy succeeded, Cæsar would win the
"glory: if it failed, the poor wretches would hav to bear
"the ridicule. Thereupon Vespasian, thinking all things
"open to his fortune, and nothing any longer incredible,
put on a joyful countenance, and while the crowd around
"gave ernest attention, performed the bidding [of the
""
66
(6
""
(6
6.6
Ma
21
""
"patients.]
Instantly the hand became manageable, and
""
light re-illumined the blind eye. Each fact is asserted
'by bystanders, up to the present day, when falsehood
"has nothing to gain."-So far Tacitus. As he probably
wrote full thirty years later, it is open to conjecture that
in place of "bystanders" he ought to hav written, "those
"who are said to profess to hav been present."
But it is a fair inference that a belief had gone widely
abroad in Western Asia and Egypt, even reaching to the
Greek and Italian Sibyls, that a Great Deliverer was to
come from the East; also, that when he came, he would
work miracles of healing on varius classes of disease.
No other note of Messiah can be named as popular in Asia.
CHAPTER IV.
ROMAN CONQUEST OF JUDEA.
THE Greek monarchy in Syria received its first shock from
the Romans (B.c. 190) under the two Scipios, which estab-
lished in Asia a Roman province with Ephesus as its
chief city. Thenceforward they were ever encroaching,
and B.C. 74 they were involved in renewed war with Mith-
ridates, king of Pontus or Cappadocia. This war lingered
on until Pompey the Great was sent to conduct it, then
at the height of his celebrity for his wonderful rapidity of
success against the ubiquitus pirates of the seas. He was
eminently mild and humane; but, entrusted with a great
army, he was quite aware that more would be expected of
him in Rome than to put the last stroke to an old war.
He had traversed Armenia and approached the Caspian
Sea, but now resolved to march into Syria. He did so,
and conquered it from north to south; deposed the XIth
Antiochus, and made a present of Syria and Palestine to
the Roman people.
22
The Romans had been glad to win the Jews as allies
against kings of Syria, and ordinarily accounted allies as
a second morsel to be devoured. But this time the
foreiner invited the Roman commander in. There were
three parties in Jerusalem; a popular party which disliked
royalty, and two brothers, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, in
civil war for the pontifical throne. Pompey listened to
the pleas of all three, but deferred his verdict until he
could hear what the Idumean chief Aretas, ally of the
elder brother Hyrcanus, had to plead. Meanwhile Pompey
commanded abstinence from warlike action. Aristobulus
was too fierce, or dreded to lose all by losing time. His
disobedience and activity seem to hav thrown Pompey
on to the side of Hyrcanus. Before long, the Romans
found self-defence needful, and a stubborn conflict ensued.
Though Hyrcanus largely controuled the rural populace,
and had many partizans in Jerusalem itself, yet from no
city in Syria did Pompey meet with resistance so formid-
able. These Jews were stricter in observance of the
sabbath than those of Maccabean times. At the erlier
era, when it was perceived that to allow the enemy's
works to proceed without molestation during the sabbath,
was to yield themselves to slaughter, they had worked
against him in those sacred hours, though reluctantly.
But Pompey, besides important aid from one faction, en-
countered men too scrupulus to work against him on the
sabbath; who indeed calmly continued their incense, their
sacrifices or expiation, while slaughtered by his missiles.
Finally, only in the third month of his siege was he able
to surmount the inner wall of the temple, though at the
hed of a veteran army. He marvelled at the scene, as
we in reading of it. He is not likely to have reflected, as
we do, on the mischiefs of a sacred code, which none may
criticize and improve.
Much as we must honor the self-devotion of those Jews,
it is clear that Reverence paralyzed their intellect. Men's
good sense will struggle upwards against a misplaced
23
reverence. Sacredness of the letter therefor generates a
perverse logic, just as in lawyers whose problem it is, to
reconcile a barbarus code with maturer judgments.
Fanciful analogies, arbitrary presumption, subtle dis-
tinctions, ar invoked and approved, in aid of justice or
mercy. In the Mosaic books religion, law, medicin, agri-
culture were interfused. Gentile beliefs were superadded:
out of this mass the Rabbi had to hammer results that
satisfy utility and wisdom; and every bigot had advantage
over a larger-hearted expounder. From this system pro-
ceeded much heroism and fanatical energy, also much
crooked subtlety of the moderate and comparativly wise.
Pompey from curiosity entered the Holy of Holies, but
refused to plunder the gold of the temple, and restrained
his soldiers from violence. From rudeness and insult to
Jewish scruples, to restrain them was impossible. More-
over the eagles on his standard, being worshipped as idols,
were a dire abomination. Their very entrance into the
Holy City was an affliction to Jewish sentiment.
This new conquest by an idolatrus foe was a painful
wound, after a century of belief that under Jehovah's pro-
tection Jehovah's people were safe. Severe doubts awoke
as to the lawfulness of professing allegiance. The book
of Deuteronomy seemed expressly to forbid; for (xvii. 11)
in allowing them to choose a king, it imposes two con-
ditions, first, the king must be the man whom Jehovah
shall choose (therefor could not be an idolater); next, he
must be "one of thy brethren; but a stranger thou mayest
"not set over thee, who is not thy brother." This pro-
hibition was to many decisiv. Besides, a fine Psalm
(cxxv.) givs a powerful moral reason. The sceptre of the
wicked shall not rest on the lot of the rightëus, lest the
rightëus put forth his hand to injustice. From every pro-
vince the Roman rule tore away the yung men to fight in
aggressiv wars against distant peoples. Jehovah seemed
to affirm that he rested "like the mountains around his
"people," to shield them from this base subservience.
Malay
24
Tender consciences were pierced by this liability. Brave
and ardent souls must hav braced themselves like our
Quakers, to refuse it, and to deny the rightfulness of
allegiance and loyalty. Not many of the wisest would see
how to reconcile the command of the law to the dictates
of prudence; nor how in sincerity to make professions.
which the conqueror would not interpret to mean,
"We
"shall rebel, as soon as we dare,"-if nothing but inability
to resist justified submission. That the religion was an
intense explosiv, was soon manifest, and the Romans felt
towards it, in vehement combination, Fear, Disgust and
Hatred. How else feel Britons toward Islâm in India ?
After so difficult a conquest, no one will wonder that
hevier tribute was laid on the Jews than on the Syrian
towns. Romans indeed could justify this by a very
peculiar reason. Because of suspension of culture in the
sabbatical year, it was impossible to collect taxes. There-
for if in six years they collected seven years' revenu, they
did nothing unfair to this eccentric people. At the same
time it gave them a new stone to fling at Jews, as lovers
of idleness.
Pompey, with his uniform humanity, tried to conciliate
good will, and to arrange all things by healing mesures.
After his departure, first a son of Aristobulus, next the
father himself, escaping from Roman captivity, renewed
civil war, with nothing but distress to the Jews. Presently,
the Roman consul Crassus plundered all the tresures
which Pompey had spared, and perished with the chief
part of his army in an expedition against the Parthians.
Tranquillity was chiefly restored through the energy and
sagacity of an Edomite prince, Antipater, son-in-law to a
powerful Arabian chieftain. Apparently he belonged to
the part of Idumea which had accepted with circumcision
the whole Mosaic ceremonial; so that he and his family
passed as Jews. He had been a vehement and serviceable
partizan of Hyrcanus and Pompey; but after civil war
had divided the Romans and Pompey was murdered in
25
Egypt, he quickly espoused the side of Cæsar, and rendered
him signal service in a dangerus crisis. For this he was
made prefect of Judæa, and conducted affairs cautiusly
through the terrible struggle which still convulsed the
empire. His son is known to us as Herod the Great.
The ascent of Herod to power was singularly rapid.
His father made him governor of Galilee when he was
twenty-five years old. Sextus Cæsar, being temporarily
in command, added to him the rule over Hollow Syria,
B.C. 43. Driven out by the Parthians, who invaded Syria
after their success against Crassus, he escaped to Rome.
By large bribes he had previusly won favor with Mark
Antony, whose influence now gained for him the title,
King of Judæa. But to turn the name into a fact, a new
war was needed, and a new capture of unhappy Jerusalem.
His actual reign is dated from B.c. 37. Twenty years
later he began to rebild the temple magnificently.
His
reign was energetic, but violent; to his wife and kinsfolk
murderus. He rebilt the town called the Tower of
Straton and named the new city Cæsarea, in honor of
Augustus Cæsar. It had a temple in Greek fashion; but
in his later years he cast off all pretence of Judaism, and
brought in Roman customs. His deth is computed to
hav fallen in March, B.C. 4. It will be observed that,
according to historians, the current reckoning of the
Christian era is wrong by three years. *
* As we admit no year of zero, the common chronology supposes
Jesus to hav been born in B.C. 1, and to hav been one year old in
A.D. 1. From B.C. ≈ to A.D. y is not (x + y) years, but (x + y−1).
26
CHAPTER V.
JEWISH SECTS AND JUDAS GAULONITIS.
THE prophet Isaiah looked forward with joy to the time,
when, under the rightëus rule of a king from the root of
Jesse, Ephraim would not envy Judah and Judah would
not vex Ephraim. The hed of Ephraim was Samaria,
and the hed of Judah was Jerusalem. But alas! in five
hundred years the enmity of these rivals did not come to
an end. After the captivity of the ten tribes, miscellanëus
Eastern colonists were planted in all the towns of Samaria,
who never wholly accepted the religius law of Jerusalem.
They ar mentioned in a contemptüus tone (2 Kings xvii.
32-41) as "fearing Jehovah and serving graven images.
"unto this day,"-probably full as late as Ezra.
Even
now no Samaritan can obtain a Jewess as his wife! They
hav the Pentateuch in a character older than the square
Chaldee type, and, it is believed, they do not accept any
other writing as sacred. Circumcision did not suffice to
unite them cordially with Jerusalem. Which was erlier
to blame, is unknown; but Samaria ill-endured subjection
to Maccabean rule: we may conjecture that sufficient local
freedom was denied to her. This system of centralization
made other towns disaffected. She is said to hav pre-
ferred a Syrian master. Josephus narrates that (perhaps
about B.c. 120) while two brothers, the VIIIth and IXth
called Antiochus, were in long contest for the throne of
Syria, a Jewish High Priest called Hyrcanus took the
opportunity of revenge against Samaria for being the ally.
of Syria against Jerusalem. After a year's siege he not
only captured the city (Antiq. xiii. 10, 3), but by diverting
mountain torrents against the walls swept away all
appearance that it had been fortified. Hereby the
Samaritans were made more and more hostile, though the
weaker party. Their town being in the high road from
Upper Galilee to Jerusalem, they had opportunity to
insult, vex and sometimes to murder; a crime which was
27
imputed. Later, on the sacred day of Jerusalem, when
the Holy Place was accessible to the multitude, Samaritans
tumultüusly rushed in and defiled it by throwing-in ded
men's bones. For this offence all Samaritans were
excluded from the temple, and the Jews sought to avoid all
needless dealings with them. When, through insurgency
against Rome, banditti abounded in the land whom it was
hard to distinguish from patriots, new opportunities arose
to Samaritans for outbursts of vengeance and spite. Thus
against the Romans the real force of Pan-Judæa was never
united.
Among the Jews at large three religius sects were at
this time reckoned: Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes.
The Sadducees adhered to the old law and refused to
accept the imported doctrins of future life and retribution,
heven and hell, genii or demons enthroned in the air and
reigning over special nations, angels personally united to
individuals (the Roman or Etruscan idea of each man's
special genius? Compare Matthew xviii. 10), demons
possessing men's bodies, and other tenets which the Jews
of that day had imbibed. Against the doctrin of life
renewed to an individual after deth they were able to
argue, that it had been in very erly days the established
dogma in Egypt; that Moses, being well educated in
Egyptian lore, cannot hav been unacquainted with it;
therefor his total omission of it in the Law is a virtual
protest against it as false. If he had believed it, such
suppression would hav been guilt and cannot be imputed
to him. They refused all attempts to soften the asperities
of his law; hereby were accounted very severe as judges.
Moreover, they ar spoken of as existing chiefly among
the richer, perhaps the haughtier, part of the community,
-a sacerdotal caste, virtually royalist.
The Pharisees were far more numerus and far more
popular. To them, apparently, belonged the majority of
the Doctors of the Law or Rabbis. To the multitude the
Sadducees did not appear devout; but the Pharisees much
28
more commanded their veneration. These diligently
cultivated moral science (no doubt with frequent over-
subtlety)—and honored the maxims of deceased worthies,
under the name of tradition. They largely adopted and
systematized forein religius notions. Partly by tradition
and partly by ingenius reasoning, they labored to adapt
all the laws of the Pentateuch to the needs of the modern
nation, and to soften down some of its very harsh punish-
ments. We may conjecture from the apocryphal story in
John viii., that they judged the punishments commanded
by the law against female unchastity to be extreme and
barbarus. Of course they could not avow this,—perhaps
not even to themselves. A crooked ingenuity was their
only practical resource, and such lawyer-like habit must
somewhat pervert the intellect. Nevertheless to this sect
mainly were due such prosperity and goodness as prevailed
in domestic life, and such just and mild administration as
largely conduced to the public welfare.
The third sect, the Essenes, is far more peculiar. That
any establishment of it existed in Jerusalem we ar not
informed. There were many of them in Syria and in
Egypt, as attested by Philo. Their number is estimated
(in Judæa) at four hundred thousand. They were Jews,
yet they had peculiarities as to ceremonial practices which
forbad their admission to the altar in Jerusalem. They
were like an Order in Christendom, with separate govern-
ment and stringent laws; a Church within a Church.
The basis of their Union was common property. For any
one who wished to join them the first step was, to throw
his private property into their general fund. From it
each had his equal share of food and clothes, as brethren.
There was no one centre for the Order, but special
Establishments in many towns. Each member was at
home in any of them, and partook of all things on a par
with residents. Hence in travelling they needed no
baggage, or wallet of provisions, no purse, no second coat,
only arms for defence against robbers. Thus they were not
29
absolute Quakers. Their costume was probably simple.
and uniform; it was of pure white, like that of priests in
Egypt, and many in Syria and Crete. Their food was
equally simple. Virtue they placed in superiority to
appetite and pleasure. On Marriage a majority of them
looked down as a weakness; yet they zelusly adopted
the children of others. They eagerly studied ancient
books concerning the Soul and the Body, Philosophy and
Helth. From Greek Poets they imported a belief con-
cerning the Iles of the Blessed, and other notions; from
Plato or from the East, ideas concerning Spirit and
Matter. Though scrupulusly clenly, they yet avoided
to oil the skin,—a process like our use of soap,—whether
regarding it as luxurius, or because the oils in the market
prevalently came from Syria, and were manufactured by
idolaters.
The managers of their common property were elected
by general vote; and in each establishment a special care-
taker for strange members was appointed. Clothes and
shoes they wore without change, until useless by time and
rents. Among themselves they neither bought nor sold,
but freely received and freely gave.
The routine of their work and meals as described in
Josephus reminds one of a well-ordered Catholic friarhood
or a community of American Shakers. At the common
table they hav two meals in a day. Religion is every
where prominent, and noble moral precepts ar inculcated.
Silence, gravity and respect for Elders ar always
maintained. They go to varius work, under the despotic
rule of a director, and hav no free action, save to bring
Aid and Mercy to those who ar in need. Before entering
the dinner-hall they bathe in cold water and dress in linen
coverings, which after dinner they put off as sacred. At
the beginning and end of the meal a priest says grace, and
the whole company pays honor to God as the provider of
food. Neither cries nor tumult pollute the house, but
they concede alternate gentle talk. Anger they deal out
30
justly, passion they restrain, good faith they uphold, to
make peace they ar activ. Oaths among themselves ar
superflüus and forbidden, but from candidates for admission
they exact frightful oaths, with a probation lasting for three
years. Each candidate swears to keep nothing from the
community, and to suffer deth rather than reveal its
secrets. But these secrets must hav been quite harmless
in ordinary times; for Peace, Truth, and Justice were the
paramount principles of the Order, and, as it were, its
normal mottoes.
Yet such a community would seem to any Roman officer
detestable, the moment he lerned that it had oaths of
secrecy; and after the insurrection of Judas, called the
Galilean, he would think his horror and his hatred to be
fully justified. A few words ar needed concerning this
Judas, and we take up the tale from the deth of Herod
the Great.
War, says the erliest of philosophic historians, is a
severe schoolmaster. The sufferings of the Jewish people,
the hopelessness of revolt, the vehemence of Herod hushed
for awhile the outbreaks of religius zeal: but on Herod's
deth new tumults arose. The dissensions among his
children probably awakened in the discontented a hope
that a time of redress was come: but the complexity of
affairs is far too great here to detail. Archelaus, son of
Herod, made promises which were perhaps interpreted as
a sign of weakness. Strange movements followed, which
frightened the Roman officers in the province; and, to
inspire terror, one officer, Sabinus, is stated by Josephus.
to hav crucified about two thousand Jews as insurgents.
(Bell. Jud. ii. 5, 8.) Their action being necessarily that
of guerilla, the Romans treated them all as robbers. Yet
we may hope that popular report or Roman policy
exaggerated the number.
Archelaus, by the decision of Augustus Cæsar, succeeded
to about half of his father's kingdom, with the title
ethnarch (nativ magistrate); but after ten years of very
31
unpopular rule, he was deposed by Augustus, and the
whole of his territory was absorbed in the Roman province
of Syria. Thus Judæa, Samaria, and Galilee were placed
for the first time under direct Roman rule, about A.D. 6 or
7, and Quirinius (or in Greek Cyrenius), governor of
Syria, became also chief governor of the western half of
Palestine. Augustus ordered the usual Roman registration
of income to be made with a view to taxation. Herod or
his son Archelaus may in their irregular way hav fleeced
the Jews as much in the past, as was to be feared in the
future; but these Idumeans passed as nativ princes,
being circumcised. The fact that a forein idolater was
registering every field and farm-house with a view to tax
it, brought home to the Galileans the completeness of
their slavery as never before. Judas, of the city of
Gamala, beyond Jordan, in the district of Gaulana, first
stirred the hill-people to resistance, in company with
Sadok, a Pharisee. This Judas was an Essene, a religius
devotee; Josephus calls him a sophist, that is, a student
of science or wisdom. He not only roused his own sect,
but spred revolt through the most thickly peopled part of
Palestine, refusing to listen to the prudential counsels of
the high priest at Jerusalem. His doctrin was mainly
religius. The Jews, having God for their king, were base
in enduring mortal lords; but he made also the political
addition, that to submit to be registered for forein taxation
was a first step to utter slavery. With brave men who
were not zelots in religion, he was able to use the very
effectiv argument-It is better to die, fighting for nativ
law and liberty, than to be forced into the ranks of Rome,
and sent abroad to die in fighting against the liberty of
other brave nations. In Galilee his revolt was apparently
most formidable, therefor he was popularly called Judas
of Galilee. Galilee is inferior in acreage to that ultra-
Jordan district, the old land of Bashan, Ammon, and
Moab, then called the Peraa, and included in Palestine;
but Josephus says, Galilee was more populus. The soil
32
remained soft in the driest summer, being watered by
mountain streams. For fruit and for every kind of crop
it was excellently suited. Petty towns or large villages
abounded, the smallest having a population of 5,000.
Such a nativ population of brave agriculturists made a
Roman general tremble, if he herd the whisper of religius
fanaticism. Though Judas belonged to the very peaceful
and rightëus sect of Essenes, yet, once lanched into
insurgency, he could not afford to reject brave and ernest
allies from any quarter. Guerilla subject to a local
captain ar ill-distinguishable anywhere from banditti and
robbers; and when their fanaticism rose to the point of
treating Jews who would not join them as partizans of the
enemy, they virtually became robbers and assassins, as
the Romans describe them. It was a frightful struggle,
but Roman resources gave to Rome the victory. The
cruelty of her revenge may mesure her losses and her
alarm. The Roman commander thought to crush out
future insurrection by crushing out the religion of the
Essenes; with this object he insisted on their blaspheming
Moses and eating food forbidden by their ceremonial law.
Josephus summarizes their treatment in a few dredful
lines. After stating their great longevity,-many of them
living above a hundred years, and their astonishing con-
tempt of pain and deth, he adds the following:-" The
"Romans racked and twisted, burnt and broke them, and
*
""
passed them through all instruments of torture, to force
"them to blaspheme Moses, or eat some forbidden food.
They not only refused; but disdaining to coax their
tormentors, addressed them with irony, and yielded up
"their lives cheerfully, as about soon to recover them."
Augustus Cæsar would not have formally sanctioned
any such violences against a national religion; but his
"C
"C
""
*In the Anglo-American war of independence, the insurgents
treated the "Tories" as spies and friends of England. But Lord
Cornwallis pressed them into English ranks, and in so far exhibited
them as marks for attack.
33
subordinates well knew that he never punished provincial
authorities even for enriching themselves unjustly; and
that too great zeal in the public service was never resented.
In short, while military weakness was a bar to promotion,
high-handed cruelties in or after insurrection would be
accepted as marking an energetic officer. But on the Jewish
nation what must hav been the moral result? Who can
blame them, if they more and more abhorred subjection to
Rome? No doubt, they did hate Roman rule, as we should;
perhaps they hated the sight of a Roman. Thereupon,
Roman historians call them haters of all mankind, and
believe themselves impartial and philosophic.
CHAPTER VI.
JOHN THE BAPTIST.
CONCERNING John the Baptist we lern not only from the
books of the Christian Canon: we hav corroboration from
the historian Josephus (Antt. xvii. 5, 1-2). No one has
seen reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of all that
will be here adduced concerning the career of this singular
man.
Some hav plausibly maintained that he must hav
belonged to the Essene sect; but whether rightly or
wrongly, is of no importance whatever. He did not adopt
the Essene costume, nor subject himself in any way to
the authorities of that sect. His very partial clothing
reminds one of an Egyptian monk. He had a gown of
camel's hair and a girdle of lether; very insufficient in a
winter of frost and snow: but as the description places
him by the side of the river Jordan, probably in the plain
of Jericho celebrated in antiquity for its palm trees, at a
depth of many hundred feet below the Mediterranean sea,
raiment so scanty may well hav suited that climate. His
C
84
food is stated to hav been locusts and wild honey. Locusts
make their appearance only for a very short season, and
in exceptional years: hence it has been plausibly suggested
that the fruit of the locust tree has been confounded with
the insects. If on such fruit and on wild honey he sub-
sisted for some time, this may hav been set down as his
sole and uniform food. The likeness of his exterior to
that which was believed to hav been assumed by ancient
Hebrew prophets, caused a great sensation even in Jeru-
salem itself; especially when the topic of his preaching
became known, for his great announcement was,
"The
"kingdom of God (or of Heven) is at hand." Most accept-
able was such a message to a people who for above eighty
years had groaned under Roman despotism-a power
which had inflicted countless miseries not only on
insurgents, but also on the most peaceable and submissiv,
in the unrelenting and cruel struggle of ambition. More-
over, if in very truth the kingdom of God were at hand,
the prophet Malachi warned them that God would send
to them Elijah the prophet before that great and terrible
day. Would it not appear that this strange and mysterius
John was (somehow) Elijah in disguise?
But that was not all. John was a fervent preacher of
rightëusness and a rebuker of sin, and taught that the
great day of God would bring destruction not only on
forein oppressors and idolators, but also on all wicked
members of the Jewish nation itself. Therefor he cried
to all who were conscius of sin, Repent ye; for the
"kingdom of Heven is at hand." In token of repentance
he urged them to adopt a rite employed by the Pharisees
and others in the admission of proselytes (that is, converts)
to Jewish religion, the rite of baptism; a Greek word
which means plunging (or being plunged) under water. In
that latitude, especially in the climate of Jericho, a dip
under water could seldom be very disagreeable, often the
contrary. "To wash away filth of the flesh," (as an
Apostle entitles it,) betokened the renunciation of all that
""
35
defiles the soul. Numbers of the Jews flocked to John,
"and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their
"sins."
The belief further went abroad, perhaps even in this erly
stage, that certain other words of high prophecy pointed
at this John. He whom we call the later Isaiah, exhorting
his cuntrymen to return to Jerusalem when permitted by
Cyrus, imagins Jehovah himself journeying back to Jeru-
salem, and a voice in the desert commanding a royal high
road to be constructed for his easy passage. The multi-
tude who had no access to the entire roll of the prophet,
and no ability to interpret poetical imagery, easily believed
John to be ment by "the voice crying in the wilderness,"
in preparation of the coming kingdom of God.
"C
The three first books which we call Gospels agree that a
vast multitude from Jerusalem as well as from other parts
flocked to John, to confess sin and to be baptized. All
three represent him as uttering severe rebuke, and pre-
dicting that every tree which bore no good fruit would be
cut down and cast into the fire. Luke represents him as
entitling the mixed concourse a brood of adders."
Matthew says, he uttered the phrase against certain
Pharisees and Sadducees from Jerusalem, scornfully ask-
ing them, "Whó hath warned you to flee from the
"impending wrath (of God) ? " On the whole, his
preaching is broadly clear. A day of fiery wrath and
judgment is close at hand. Repent ye, and your sins will
be remitted: so alone can ye find admission into the
coming kingdom of God.
John uttered no direct word, so far as we know, against
Roman rule. He attacked the sins of his own people.
Its priestly rulers had been stripped by the Romans of the
royal name, of royal revenues and all the highest initiativ,
by putting over them on one side a Roman prefect, on
another Idumean ethnarchs. They remembered painfully
that the scandalus controversy between two Jewish princes
had helped these foreiners into their galling supremacy.
1
36
Undeniably the nation was suffering through the sin of
its chiefs, their predecessors. They bowed the hed, at
least in secret, to John's sharp invectivs. Besides, as
Roman taxation seized for itself all the main revenues, it
is very probable that the High Priest and his Great
Council were unable to maintain their own dignity without
severe exaction from petty sources, called in contempt,
mint and cummin; exaction which perhaps seemed mean
to themselves, even while they knew not how to dispense
with it. Their conscience was uneasy, and an idea per-
vaded even Jerusalem that John was a prophet sent by
God to rebuke them.
Out of this arose a new question in many minds, and
especially in those least able to study the prophets care-
fully and intelligently; namely, Is not Messiah to be mani-
fested as the Divine agent of Vengeance in the approaching
Great Day of wrath and restitution? Must not John be
a forerunner of Messiah, if the kingdom of God is really
nigh at hand?
In the belief of a somewhat later generation,—a belief
which may hav been correct,-John himself distinctly
replied to this question, by awowing; "After me cometh
one mightier than I, whose shoe-latchet I am not worthy
"to unfasten. I indeed baptize you with water: he shall
"baptize you with the Holy Spirit;" words possibly
alluding to the prophecy of diffused personal inspiration
in the promised sacred era. (Jeremiah xxxi. 33, 34.) The
Herod of that generation was at first impressed with much
reverence for John; but when Herod proceeded to dismiss
his own wife, and seduce his brother's wife, John faith-
fully rebuked him. Herod in anger first imprisoned, and
finally beheded John. War against Herod followed from
the father of the divorced wife. Herod was defeated; and
Josephus tells us, that from the universal reverence felt
for John, the defeat was ascribed to a judgment of God.
66
37
CHAPTER VII.
SOURCES OF THE ACCOUNT OF JESUS.
WHEN John the Baptist vanishes from the page of Josephus,
we ar cast upon the books called Gospels for information
concerning the erthly life of Jesus. Justin Martyr, who
wrote in defence of Christianity about A.D. 150,--hardly
erlier—is supposed to quote often from our Gospels, but
seldom in exact words as we hav them. He does not
name them as separate books, but calls them Memorials
of the Apostles. Enormus study has been spent on the
four books by modern theologians; and according to the
positiv decision of those ostensibly best able to judge, the
three first were compiled with at least one common document
before all three writers' eyes. Luke had some additional
documents. None of them can hav written as eye-and-
ear witnesses. Some of the materials which they trusted
may hav been penned in the erliest time. They may
also hav been notes taken by hearers of the men called
Evangelists, who orally recited to the first Gentile
Churches the tales current among Jewish Christians. In
the opening of the third Gospel we ar informed that many
had already undertaken the same task. Luke's four first
verses ar in a widely different Greek style from all that
follows, showing that the writer of the preface is compiling,
not composing. Of course this is favorable to his honesty
of purpose; as showing that, in transmitting the account,
he does not needlessly change its forms of expression.
To accept marvellus tales on the word of writers who
do not define their grounds of assurance, the date and
names of their authorities, nor giv to their own con-
temporaries any means of examining, belongs to
inexperience. We see that no idea of the necessity
of Criticism had presented itself to them. If we happened
to know that their date was much erlier than that of
Justin Martyr, it would not accredit their books; chiefly,
because they evidently count upon extreme credulity in
dang
38
their readers and hereby display their own credulity.
They expect us to receive religius miracles with immense
results, if true, and very pernicius, if untrue,—solely
because an unknown writer tells us he has carefully com-
piled them; or even without his saying so much as that.
They could not so write, unless they were ignorant of the
deceptivness of report and the mischiefs of credulity;-
ignorant that all the baneful follies of false religion rise
out of the too great rediness of mankind to believe in
marvel. As to the current pretence that these writers ar
divinely shielded from error, it is sufficient to reply that
they themselves advance no such claim. It is made for
them, for the convenience of Christian assumption. Of
course, if they made it, that would no more in itself prove
anything, than if made by any of us moderns. It would
need proof, if made; and would be liable to disproof. In
fact the disproof is in the case before us easy and obvius.
The pretence to divine exemption from error is refuted by
single clear instances; for God cannot be the author of
falsehood. The frequent error of these writers in inter-
preting ancient prophecy is palpable. That it is
impossible to reconcile the four Gospels has been dis-
covered with dismay by many pius Christians, when they
tried to interweave the four into a continuus narrativ.
The demonstration has been set forth many times over.
Space cannot here be allowed for an argument hard to
exhaust. A few words on the first gospel may be premised
with the remark, that no Unitarian can (with the late
Dr. Lant Carpenter) gain credit for the rest of the book by
cutting away the two first chapters as unworthy of credit.
All comes out of the same mint.
Matthew opens by an error in his genealogy. He has
confounded Ahaziah with his great grandson Uzziah in
the name of Ozias, and has omitted thereby three
generations, and he counts fourteen where there ar
seventeen or eighteen. He also confounds Jehoiakim
with his son Jehoiachin or Jeconiah. Such blunders ar
39
·
not made by the Spirit of God. He proceeds to narrate
the miraculus conception on the strength of a dream which
Joseph is said to hav had many years back; a miracle
unherd of by the local public during the life of Jesus.
This writer rests an event, on which he supposes the
salvation of the world to depend, on evidence which
nowhere would suffice to establish the most ordinary fact.
In corroboration he misinterprets Isaiah's words, "A
"maiden shall conceive," Isaiah vii. 14. But the prophet
spoke of that which was to happen immediately. Before
the child should be able to talk, the king of Assyria was
to plunder Damascus. He evidently contemplated an
ordinary birth, which apparently was fulfilled in his own
son, Isaiah viii. 3. So easily is a miracle accepted and
supposed to be confirmed!
Next follows a miraculus travelling star which conducts
Persian Magi to the birthplace of Jesus; a tale which to
no astronomer is plausible. A horrible cruelty is ascribed
to Herod the Great, a public deed that must hav been
notorius, and must hav been recorded by Josephus in
narrating his great crimes;-the massacring of all infants
under the age of two years, in and round Bethlehem,
Here again he perverts prophecy to establish his apocryphal
fact. Further, a journey of Joseph into Egypt is fabricated
out of a ludicrus blunder. The prophet Hosea, alluding
historically to the residence of the Israelites in Egypt,
represents Jehovah as saying: "When Israel was a child,
“I loved him; and called my son out of Egypt." Matthew
misquotes it as a prophecy concerning Jesus; and from it
invents for him a residence in Egypt during his infancy.
Can there be any literary weakness greater, than to accept
this writer as divinely guided?
Presently he givs us a calm narrativ of Satan carrying
away Jesus to a pinnacle of the Temple, and again to the
top of a high mountain whence all the kingdoms of the
world, and the glory of them, could be seen; an absurdity
which confutes itself. Philosophical divines may interpret
40
(6
this as an allegory; but the writer accepted it and
transmits it as fact. But again, he omits to tell us, whence
came the knowledge of it; whether from Satan or from
Jesus, the only two who were cognizant of it.
A general remark must not be omitted concerning a
superstition pervading the three first gospels, a superstition
imported from heathenism surrounding them. Diseases.
well-known to us ar ascribed to indwelling demons. As if
to prevent philosophic divines from explaining it away,
the demons ar said to hav a preternatural acquaintance
with Jesus as the Holy One of God. In one signal case
told by all three, a legion of such demons obtain leave
from Jesus to enter the bodies of swine, when he expels
them from the bodies of men. The exchange is effected.
To argue against a story worthy only of the "Arabian
Nights" is hardly worth while.
One who in the present light of geographical, physical
and historical culture, to say nothing of sound principles
of literary interpretation,-can accept miracles in a past
day on the mere word of such writers, otherwise unknown,
may be pius and estimable, no doubt; but his judgment
in the immediate question is not worth a rush. We need
not go so far as the celebrated doctrin of David Hume,
taken in its extremest form. It suffices to say that mar-
vellus tales cannot be accredited by writers of whom we
know nothing certain, except their credulity and their
tendency to make history out of fancied prophecy.
There is no end of proof as to imaginary miracle. It is
not amiss to speak of what oneself can testify. (1) When
I returned from abroad in 1833, a lady eagerly inquired
the details of my miraculus recovery from sickness. I did
not understand her question. She explained: "I was
"told that in desperate fever you were anointed with oil
"in the name of the Lord, and that restored you to
"" helth." Most true (I replied) that I was thus anointed,
but the fever got worse. After a sixth violent sweating
it finally left me, unable to rise from the bed for a fort-
11
41
night; and only after six months, by help of riding, I
gradually regained my muscle. That there was any
miracle, never occurred to me.-The lady was much dis-
appointed. I believe she had trumpeted the cure.
(2) Another lady, a Mrs. Cummings, cousin to the late
Lady Powerscourt, gave me the following account of her-
self. While Edward Irving, Hugh McNeil, and other
religius persons well-known in 1830 33 were full of
debates about the Second Advent of Jesus, Lady Powers-
court's house was made a place of conference. Many
assembled there, when (as happened) Mrs. Cummings was
laid up in (supposed) pulmonary consumption. Edward
Irving herd of it, and sent a message up to the lady's
chamber, that he should like to pray over her, and hoped
the prayer of faith might restore her. She sent down a
flat refusal, begging him not to invade her privacy. In-
sted of obeying, he suddenly marched into her chamber,
and began to pray aloud. She hid herself under the
clothes, but presently by a stolen glance saw that he held
both hands up to heven while vociferating. Much re-
lieved she was, when he, as abruptly, vanished; for she
had no belief in his prayers. Yet, continuing her tale,
"certain it seemed to others that every day after his
"prayer I got a little better, until I rose from my bed and
was accounted well. Mr. Irving used to reproach me
' with unbelief, that I did not recognize my recovery as
"miraculus. I never had belief in the efficacy of his
""
prayer; I still do not know whether it aided my re-
"covery.”—(3) While I write, placards in the shop
windows of this town (Weston-super-Mare) profess to
attest miraculus cures wrought by mere faith. To deny
its power in some maladies seems unavailing.
That the original of Matthew xxiv. was first imagined
during the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, is almost certain.
Christian interpreters hav commented triumphantly on
the close agreement of the prophecy with known history
in verses 15-28; yet in the next verse, 29, it becomes
""
C
42
manifestly and hopelessly false. For it predicts a con-
vulsion of sun, moon, and stars, and the appearance of the
sign of THE SON OF MAN in heven. One might explain
away sun, moon and stars as oriental extravagance; but
the Son of Man coming in the clouds was a definit miracle
long ernestly expected, and incapable of being misunder-
stood. The text asserts that this great event shall be
seen immediately after the tribulation; and Jesus is made
to add (v. 34), "This generation shall not pass, till all
these things be fulfilled." A prophecy of which the
close is false, cannot be divine. If the erlier part is too
close to actual history to hav been foreseen by human
faculties, the whole must hav been composed after those
historical events. (A like case was noticed in Daniel xi.
xii.) Evidently then, Jesus never uttered this prophecy at
all; but it was imagined for him during the terrible ex-
citement of the war with Titus. The fact givs us a very
definit warning as to the quality of these writings.
A few historical errors ar notorius, which may here be
briefly indicated. Luke gravely mistakes the Roman
census enforced by Cyrenius (Quirinius), both as to sub-
stance and as to time. Augustus (says he) ordered a
census over the whole inhabited world—(wonderful extrava-
gance of language): really over Syria and that part of
Palestine which had been under Archelaus. This was not
while Herod the Great was still alive, as Luke asserts;
but when his son Archelaus was deposed by Augustus,-
full ten years after Herod's deth.-The same writer in
Acts v. 36, makes Gamaliel speak of the tumult of Theudas
as preceding the insurrection of Judas Galilaeus; but the
affair of Theudas was while Cuspius Fadus was prefect, in
the reign of Claudius Cæsar. Gamaliel is made to speak
historically of an event then in the future. Evidently his
speech is an after-fiction. Such is the writer on whose
word we are to accept miracles!
Also, Jesus is made to speak historically of Zacharias,
son of Barachias, as last of the martyrs; while in the
43
actual history he was martyred thirty-seven years later,
during the siege of Jerusalem by Titus.
Out of such documents no man can construct a tale
claiming to be certain history-ascertained fact. The
utmost that can be fairly asked or wisely undertaken, is,
an account possible and not improbable. The three first
gospels, though full of tales that cannot reasonably be
accepted as fact, and of facts that may justly be suspected
as falsely colored, yet contain much beside which was
hard to invent, and much which the writers would never
hav willingly penned, had not a strong current of tradition
'floated it down to them as true. Such are varius small
details which prima facie are derogatory to Jesus.
Theodore Parker put forth the epigram, that it would
take a Jesus to invent a Jesus: an epigram which has a
a mesure of truth, but far less than he supposed. Every
artist knows, that the more peculiar ar any man's features,
the easier it is to caricature them. So, the more original
a man's discourses and the more eccentric his conduct,
the easier it is to interlard fictitious additions that shall
be plausible. Given a first sketch of Jesus, and it needs
no high genius to amplify and paint it up. Given an
eccentric Jesus, time and oral tradition suffice for the genesis
of a caricature, venerable to some, damaging with others.
If any one can purge these narrativs of their dross, by all
means let him do it, and that quickly: but to acknowledge.
that they ar full of false representations, yet to read them
as sacred books, is "a mockery, a delusion, and a snare.”
Another topic here presses on us. The greater the
value of the discourses of Jesus and the wider the authority
they were to exercise, so much the more urgent was the
need of a well-authenticated primitiv version. Nothing
of the sort has been bequeathed by him. He has left us
to guess how the narrativs were framed, preserved, com-
piled. Can he possibly hav foreseen the prominence
which they were about to receive, and the malignant con-
sequences in the far future of leaving his doctrin as
matter of controversy ?
44
Concerning the fourth gospel we may briefly say: (1)
that it starts by contradicting the other three on a
cardinal point, in representing the Messiahship of Jesus
as notorius to Andrew, brother of Simon, before they
became disciples of Jesus; (2) that it replaces demoniac
cures chiefly by two stupendus miracles performed in
Jerusalem under the immediate cognizance of the rulers,
who in vain strove to confute them. If the first three
writers had ever herd of them, they must hav recorded
them. If they never herd of them, the tales ar fraudulent
inventions. (3) The Greek style of the fourth gospel
credibly fixes it to be the work of John the Elder, from
whom we hav three epistles. The doctrin in both is that
of the second century, not of the first. (4) By substituting
the magnificent address and prayer in John xiv.-xvii. for
the agony in the garden, he betrays his object to be, not
historical truth, but the glorification of Jesus.
(5) The
tale of Thomas, if true, could not hav been omitted by the
others. This also must hav been a wilful conscius fiction.
A learned Unitarian* tells us that all difficulties of the
fourth gospel "fall away at once, when we note that this
"gospel is not and does not intend to be a source of infor-
"mation concerning the historical Jesus, but is a profession
"and testimony of faith put forward a century after his
"deth.”—How easy to say, does not intend to be! Forsooth,
the writer did not wish readers to believe what he writes
solemnly and earnestly! It is only a testimony of faith!
Is it then matter of indifference to faith, whether the
things told ar true or false? I respect the three first
writers. I believe that, according to their faculties and
culture, they aimed to write and propagate truth. If the
fourth is regardless of truth and knowingly propagates
false facts, surely we ought to warn the simple that he is
base and fraudulent, not use smooth phrases that make
light of pernicius delusion.
Modern Review, July, 1881, p. 849.
45
CHAPTER VIII.
JESUS OF NAZARETH.
SCARCELY was John thrown into prison, when a successor
appeared who adopted John's own proclamation: "Repent
ye: for the kingdom of heven is at hand." The recital of
this formula is entitled: "preaching the Gospel (or good
"news) of the Kingdom," and still more concisely,
"preaching the word" (Tóv Móyov-Mark ii. 2.) The new
preacher was a young man of Nazareth, by name Joshua,
(in Greek Jesus) but he assumed as his mystic title, "The
Son of Man." Ezekiel in vision believed himself
addressed by the phrase, "Oh Son of Man," equivalent to
Son of Adam, or mortal man. The prophecy called
Daniel's, represents one "like to a Son of Man" coming
in the clouds of Heven in God's great day to receive
universal dominion. Based on this was another pro-
phetical book, which pretended to be written by Enoch,
the seventh from Adam, and was accepted so widely as to
deceive Jude, author of a Canonical Epistle. In this book
Messiah is called both Son of Man and Son of God. Thus
the title of Son of Man was advantageusly ambigüus. It
could not be attacked as an assumption; for it was
ostensibly humble. But if any one interpreted it
magnificently, Jesus (unless the narrators wonderfully
belie him) had no objection at all to that..
The first matter here needing notice, is, the prevalent
ascription to him of miraculus power in healing the sick,
especially (according to the superstition of the age) in
casting out demons. To disentangle truth out of a mass
of untrustworthy legends is (as above remarked) a task,
to which at best we can but approximate. The following
attempt at an outline givs certainly a possible solution;
many will say,-one that is quite probable.
Much excitement had gone abroad, especially in the
rural districts, through the preaching of John, who not
only announced the kingdom of God to be nigh at hand,
46
but added that one greater than himself would follow.
Who could that be but Messiah? When therefor Jesus
came forth, uttering the same note of warning, but
accompanied by tones of comfort to the captiv and the
prisoner, to the poor and the oppressed, he was redily
believed to be the greater prophet foretold by John, and
at once drew to himself a wide and eager audience.
Reasons hav been given for believing that beyond the
limits of Judaism a great deliverer was expected, who
would relieve men's bodily diseases. In Jewish dialect,
Messiah was to destroy all the works of the Devil; and in
Jewish belief, such diseases were eminently Satan's work.
Jesus in consequence found himself expected to open blind
eyes and restore crippled limbs. One and another, avowing
faith in his ability, implored him to heal them. Parents
or kinsfolk brought to him paralytic patients, or pressed
him to come and chase away fevers or epilepsy, and other
maladies ascribed to demons.
That Jesus on many occasions reluctantly undertook to
work cures, is attested distinctly by statements which
must hav been transmitted to the writers as fact; for none
who believed in his power would forge reluctance for him.
Sometimes, after effecting a cure, he strictly forbad the
patient to disclose it; an unintelligible and misanthropic
charge, as commonly understood. It admits of one.
reasonable explanation. Though he had been successful
in the particular case, he yet had no confidence in his
ability to repeat the cure, if a new case were brought,
apparently alike, yet perhaps less tractable. On several
occasions he emphatically says: "Thy faith hath saved
thee," as if disowning power in himself. He shuns the
crowd, who beseech him for miraculus cure. He is often
represented as marvelling at their faith. He repelled a
Syrophoenician woman rather harshly, until overpowered
by her faith. Further, when pressed to show some sign,
i.e., some external display of his credentials from heven,
he severely rebukes the request, calling those who made it
47
"an evil and adulterus generation."
If his words ar
correctly reported, they necessarily imply that he made
no pretension to miracles.
These statements ar not compatible with the theory
that Divine Pity and Sympathy dictated the miracles of
healing. (Indeed it cannot reasonably be believed that
the Most High who leaves mankind at large to struggle
against diseases unaided, was led by Pity to giv miraculus
cure to a definit number of Jews in that one age.) But
their very opposition to the popular theory givs to the
statements an augury of truth. Evasiv as they appear,
no one believing his miraculus power would hav
originated them. By a still more formal deputation
somewhat later he was asked for his authority. That
must have ment his " authority to use the high and
"imperius tone of a prophet." Now if he had worked.
notorius miracles, he must hav appealed to them as his
reply. Insted of this, he asks in turn: "What authority
"had John the Baptist ?" putting himself on a par, as
regards authority, with one to whom no miracles were
imputed, Matt. xxi. 23.
In summary then, we may believe, that Jesus, when
pressed by patients and their frends for miraculus cures,
as was Vespasian some forty years later,* yielded to their
pressure, very doubtfully and anxiously. After he had
found that some were apparently benefited, he attributed
the benefit to their faith, while he marvelled at it. He
gradually became less able to resist similar entreaties, but
still was diffident, and unless he found faith to prëexist,
made no attempt whatever at miraculus cure, Matt. xiii.
58. Also, on some occasions, when he had seemed to be
successful in private, he so well knew the uncertainties
of such affairs, that he charged the patient not to reveal
the cure.
If such was the true outline of facts, we might
confidently predict how the tale would be painted up. The
* See page 20.
48
accretion of vague reports would become ever greater with
the lapse of time. Fifty years later, narrators were sure
to exaggerate the number, the nature and the complete-
ness of the cures. We may add, that with the more
enlightened even of the Jews, the casting out of demons
was regarded as medical, not miraculus, nor would the
rumour of occasional success easily raise religius expecta-
tion in their minds.-So much may here suffice concerning
Demoniacs and their cure.
The order of events is varius in different Gospels,
therefor seldom can be trusted. We cannot be sure when
first Jesus surrounded himself with twelve permanent
companions. It is agreed that he very erly called two
brothers, Andrew and Simon, sons of Jonah, also two
other brothers, John and James, sons of Zebedee. All
were fishermen on the lake of Galilee. His previus
celebrity as a preacher is implied in the fact, that at his
call they abandoned their trade, and the second pair their
father. Jesus himself had been a carpenter in Nazareth,
a town of Galilee. If he had, merely as an aid to travel,
taken some comrade, this would move no comment; but
when he proceeded to augment his train of followers to
twelve, which was the mythological number of the tribes of
Israel, the case is altered. In retrospect we lern that
when they asked what reward they should hav for
abandoning their all, he promised that they should sit on
twelve thrones, and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. It
cannot be doubted that the number twelve was carefully
planned in this aspect. It was a claim of supremacy
on his part, such as no erlier prophet had made. The
lerned Christian historian Mosheim confidently interprets
it as a silent claim of dominion over all Israel. Like the
title "Son of Man," the procedure was eminently cautius.
The deed implied much, but asserted nothing: it was
enigmatic. It called on the multitude to interpret it
themselves: it did not commit Jesus to anything. The
twelve at once became religius mendicants, living on the
49
pius for the honor of the Master; and if we believe our
narrators, he thretened perdition to those who failed to
giv them free entertainment. Matt. x. 15. See also
x. 40.
Luke further ascribes to him the organization of seventy
other disciples. The thought might occur, that they
were a virtual bodyguard, too powerful for the feeble police
of the Sanhedrin; a guard of whom the rulers were
afraid. Mosheim thinks their number alluded to that of
this sacred Council, and that this second appointment
was also typical of dominion over Israel. But it is
equally possible, that the "seventy" ar a later fiction,
which deceived Luke.
The twelve in Matthew and the seventy in Luke ar
sent on a mission with orders moulded on Essene travel.
“Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor copper, in your
"purses, nor wallet for your journey, nor two coats nor
"shoes." Moreover he is said to hav endowed them with
power over demons. (How little he trusted his own power
in the matter, has been noticed.) When they tried and
failed, he is made to ascribe their failure to the fact that
thát sort of demon needed prayer and FASTING as well as
more faith! Yet his charge to them and his gift of power
is made unhesitating and ample: "Heal the sick, clense
"the lepers, raise the ded, cast out demons: freely ye hav
“received; freely giv." He either did not foresee that their
lack of faith, lack of fasting or lack of prayer, would make
his "free gift" useless; or else he never attempted at all
to confer on them this wonderful and varius power. The
latter is the more respectful, as well as the obvius
alternativ. The whole idea is a later fiction. From the
apostolic epistles no hint of such a thing can be gathered.
Indeed when the apostles ar supposed to be fullest of
spiritual power, not one of them claims to raise the ded.
Is it credible that they possessed it during the era of their
imagined stupidity?
We can scarcely speak of any other Deeds of Jesus; we
D
50
proceed therefor to his Words and Doctrin. As alredy
said, following up John the Baptist, he announces the
imminence of the Day of Wrath and God's Kingdom; but
in one or two Parables (that is, Comparisons) by which he
chiefly taught, he introduced a strange deviation, which
annuls the imminence of the day of wrath. In the
Parable of the Tares, the "kingdom of heven" seems to
differ little from the evil rule which preceded it. For the
Supreme Master forbids his servants to root up plants
sown by the enemy (Satan). A day yet future is to be
waited for, when the tares will be burned. Similarly as
to the bad fish mixed with the good. Thus the day of
wrath, which with John was nigh at hand and gave power
to the call, Repent ye! is suddenly deferred to an era
indefinitly distant,-if the narrativ is correct. What
moral wisdom or lesson not previusly well known is con-
veyed in Matthew's parables, is far from clear.
A peculiarity in Jesus often remarked is, his choice of
hearers. He avoids all who have power to criticize him.
He preaches his "Glad tidings" by preference to the poor.
His domestic audience is said to be Publicans and
Sinners. Publican (a word vexatius to our English)
means, a Roman taxgatherer. No scrupulus Jew would
collect Roman taxes. There is no reason whatever for
supposing that Sinners means females.
"Sinners" may
well mean Hebrews who neglected legal ceremonies, never
fasted, dipped in the dish with dirty fingers, and thereby
were in ill-repute. Such men would peculiarly rejoice to
hear Scribes and Pharisees disparaged.
With regard to the Sinners, it may be worth while to
note that Luke's account (vii. 37, 38) is apparently a
garbled remaking of Matthew and Mark's tale of what
happened before the last supper: that was in the house
of Simon the leper. The anonymus woman of the two
first Evangelists has no aspersion cast on her. Luke
tries to outdo the other tale by making the woman a
notorius sinner, whose sin is forgiven because she has a
51
personal love for Jesus; who is made to assert this in the
least edifying style, at the same time reproaching his host
Simon for not kissing him, and so on.
Luke has tried to
improve the story and has spoiled it. John has identified
the woman told of in Matthew with Mary of Bethany. So
careless are Christian readers, that they infer Luke's
woman to be Mary of Magdala, thereby blasting the good
Magdalen's reputation down to this day. Putting aside
this untrustworthy tale, there is absolutely no ground for
supposing that Jesus ever had among his attached hearers
so much as one woman of ill-repute.-There is another
apocryphal tale in John viii. where Jesus evades the duty
of a prophet higher than Moses, that is, the duty to
confirm Moses, if Moses was right, or to correct Moses,
if Moses was too severe; but this in no respect puts him
into the relation of teacher to the guilty woman.
It would be quite superflüus here to make the patronizing
remark that in the discourses attributed to Jesus "a great
deal is good." Thoughtful and very able men who
professed no allegiance to him, have spoken their mind.
Ram Mohun Roy translated "the Precepts of Jesus" for
his countrymen. John Stuart Mill in his latest writings
caused surprize by his panegyric. If honor were claimed
for Jesus as for Socrates, for Seneca, for Hillel, for
Epictetus, we might apologize for his weak points as either
incident to his era and country or to human nature itself;
weakness to be forgiven and forgotten. But the un-
remitting assumption of superhuman wisdom, not only
made for him by the moderns, but breathing through every
utterance attributed to him, changes the whole scene, and
ought to change our treatment of it. Unless his prodigius
claim of Divine Superiority is made good in fact, it betrays
an arrogance difficult to excuse, eminently mischievus and
eminently ignominius.
It is hard to point to anything in the teaching of Jesus,
at once new to Hebrew and Greek sages, and likewise in
general estimate true. Forgivness of injuries, kindness.
Mag
52
to enemies, life after deth, future retribution, had all been
taught in Greece or in Egypt long ago.
The pure
attributes of God, his oversight of human conduct, his
forgivness of penitent sinners, his love of righteusness,
his judgments on the obstinately wicked, had been amply
enforced by Hebrew prophets and psalmists. Voluntary
poverty, equality of all disciples, had been vigorusly
exemplified among the Essenes; nay, perhaps long before
in Pythagorean and Indian schools. One may serch in
vain through the Gospels for a precept or sentiment so
novel and valuable, as to justify the grandiloquent boast:
“Blessed ar ye who hear now from me things which many
"prophets and kings hav in vain longed to hear."-One
piece of originality, and that, highly important, may in-
deed be claimed as a logical deduction from his tone and
attitude or from the implied assumption in his teaching.
Whether he himself intended and discerned it, is not clear.
All ancient nations, Gentile or Hebrew, accounted it a
rightful function of the civil power to dictate religion to
the community. The deep-thinking Aristotle agreed
herein with received Mosaic doctrin. Among barbarians
religius ideas are only skin-deep. If their Chief adopts a
new religion, the whole tribe easily follow him: but when
time has consolidated institutions, the public religion, with
all its barbarian error, is, as it were, burnt in and
consecrated. Then the hed of the State runs risk of
deposition, if he be bold to innovate. If a citizen dare to
decline a ceremony commanded by the nativ law, it is a
high offence against the State. When indeed an Imperial
power claims of the conquered a renunciation of their
hereditary religion, this was in most cases judged to be
tyranny, and has been resisted to deth by Indian martyrs,
as well as by Jews. But Antiquity certainly had not
lerned, that private men had any right to a conscience of
their own in religion. The main reason was this: Religion
in their idea was essentially external and corporate, not
individual, personal, internal, as Jesus in every utterance
53
assumes it to be. He never dilates on the covenant of
Jehovah with collectiv Israel, but dwells on the relation of
each separate worshipper to a Father in Heven as a
private affair. This was the fruitful germ, this was the
"seed of mustard" by which he virtually called his
cuntrymen to Free Thinking concerning their national
institutions.
His preaching was dictatorial, but his example eminently
encuraged Private Judgment. He did not parade his
opposition to "Moses," and if we could trust Matthew, he
declared that every jot and tittle of the law is sacred. But
in that same sermon "On the Mount,"
On the Mount," "Moses" himself
is attacked, Matt. v. 38. "Ye hav herd that it hath been
1.
"
said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, but I say
"unto you," &c.-Now to whom does he here refer?
Knowingly or unknowingly, to Deuter. xix. 21. "Thine
'eye shall not pity, but life shall go for life, eye for eye,
"tooth for tooth," &c. With the erly prophets he agrees
in not being dependent on Mosaism; but he differs from
them herein: They conceal their own dogmatism by the
formula, "Thus saith Jehovah," he reveals his dogmatism
by "I say unto you"-the Ego being paramount, and
sometimes prefaced by Surely, surely, Aµǹv, Aµǹv. Few
will doubt Matthew's word, that in Jesus this vehemence
of self-assertion most struck the multitude, in contrast to
the reverential modesty of their usual teachers. He
persistently disparages and keenly assails the religius
authorities of his own nation. He shows lofty contempt
of the ancients in vague terms which do not exclude
Moses; which certainly invite all to criticize ancient
doctrin. He never appeals to the lerned and cultivated
intellect, but to the poor, as though "babes and sucklings"
were the best judges. When in one matter Moses is quoted,
he calmly sets aside that paramount authority, by the
assertion that this was an imperfect law, given to the people
for the hardness of their hearts. If that were true in one
case, it might be true in twenty more: then what becomes
54
of Mosaic authority? Scruples about the Sabbath,—thát
tuchstone of a faithful Jew-he several times treats from
a point of lofty independence. Once, if we can believe
Mark (ii. 28) he claims as
"Son of man" to be Lord of
the Sabbath, because the Sabbath was made for man!
Luke (vi. 5) omits this clause; and perhaps thought the
logical conclusion required was: "Therefor Man is Lord
"of the Sabbath." Either utterance must to reverent
and anxius doctors hav seemed profane in the extreme,
who might comment as follows. "When Moses com-
“manded a man to be stoned to deth for picking sticks in
"the wilderness, did he look on the sacredness of the
“sabbath with the same eyes as does this Jesus? We
“know that God spake by Moses: but as for this man, we
"cannot lern what is his authority so to dogmatize.".
Whenever the law is quoted, the virtual treatment of it by
Jesus is suggested by his words, "Wherefor judge ye not
"of yourselves what is right?" If in one breth (as in
Matt. xxiii. 3) he bid to obey the religius officials, in the
next he teaches by his invectiv to despise them.
Some of his invectivs (as reported to us) outdo Tacitus
and Suetonius in malignity, and seem to convict them-
selves of falsehood and bitter slander. Believing, as
Christians believe, the Hebrew doctrin of religion to be
vastly superior to that of Italy, Greece and Asia Minor,
what Christian (if the words were uttered from an un-
known source) would accept as truth the assertion that in
proselyting a heathen, the Pharisees make him a child of
hell (Gehenna) ? Tacitus had no vocabulary spiteful
enough for this. Is it certain that Jesus had any close
acquaintance with the mythologies which every proselyte
unlerned? In special cases converts ar not morally im-
proved by their change; but to a vast majority the effort
of private judgment in religion, and the sacrifices made
for conscience' sake, entrain a visible improvement; much
more so when made from the Paganism of that day into
its Hebraism. In the same breth he calls the Pharisees
55
collectivly children of hell and reproaches them for zeal in
proselyting. (How Christians can read this without
shuddering is a marvel.) Again, he bitterly insults them
(if we accept the narrativ) for bilding tombs of the
martyred prophets and deploring the outrages of their
ancestors against them. Yet what better could they do
than grieve for the past, and honor these martyrs?
Such daring defiance of superior authority was in Jesus
spontanëus and self-initiated. On the part of his disciples
resistance shortly became inevitable, and, as time went
on, was normal to the whole Church. Thus grew up the
greatest moral novelty universal to Christendom,—separa-
tion of the two ideas, Church and State. Hence also the
axiom cardinal to Protestantism: Religion is not corporate,
but is an inward allegiance of the individual to the Supreme
Power of the Universe.
Moreover, by emphatically declaring that of his disciples
no one shall hav authority over another, nor be called
Father or Rabbi, Jesus cast scorn on all Sacerdotalism.
In no point has his teaching been more grossly reversed
by historical Christianity. Even Toleration for those who
ar satisfied to remain outside of the Church had to be
fought out by wepons of war against Popes, Bishops,
Presbyters and Cæsars, though it cannot be reasonably
denied that in calling heathens to cast off the religion of
their birth, Christian apostles did but imitate their Lord.
in judging the conscience and religius heart to belong to
God, not to Cæsar. Undoubtedly Imperialists hav every-
where felt, that in men devoted to the precepts ascribed
to Jesus they hav but a lame and partial allegiance.
"Dissidents ar the foul fly that corrupts the sacred
ointment of royalty.
The contrast established by him between the things of
Cæsar and the things of God was valuable as limiting
Cæsar's claims: but as enforcing Cæsar's right to tribute,
the account is so very strange, that its quiet reception is
wonderful. Christians hereby show how little thought
56
they giv to tales which ar palmed on them as sacred. Of
all difficulties pressing on a scrupulus Jew, most painful
was the opinion that divine books forbad his recognition
of an idolatrus and forein prince. This opinion had in
recent memory kindled a direful war, entraining Roman
cruelties most horrible. The embers were still hot, and
redy to flame anew. Of this grave difficulty some solution
might be hoped from one who presented himself as a
heven-sent preeminent teacher. A solution therefor was
requested in a peculiarly respectful tone, if our narrators
tell truth. Yet they attribute to Jesus the fierce reply:
Ye hypocrits, why put ye me to proof?" As if it were
not their obvius duty to put him to proof, and a thing to
be rejoiced in by a prophet equal to the occasion; more-
over, as if he had not himself solemnly warned, "Beware
"of false prophets." He proceeds (if we believe the tale)
to pronounce that a coin is Cæsar's property, if it bear
Cæsar's image! Does a Frenchman who by giving an
equivalent has possessed himself of an English soverein,
account the coin to be Queen Victoria's property, or admit
that he is justly tributary to her? When the Queen or
her ministers parted with the coin, they did not lend it,
but sold it. If the Queen issued notes signed "Victoria,
her signature, like her image, would guarantee something,
but would not imply that without payment she could
resume possession.-To call it "tribute money," (if it can
be proved that at this era the Emperor accepted no other
coin) does not alter the moral argument. Whoever
doubted the lawfulness of tribute, doubted the lawfulness
of allegiance. Cæsar's command (if there were such com-
mand) could not establish his right. No solution therefor
is given to those who need it.
"3
If Jesus did really thus reply, we may be confident as
to the effect. His questioners would say among them-
selves: "This man is an impostor, as well as impudent,
slanderus, and reckless of the law of Moses. He takes
"no notice at all of the law. He has no tenderness for
"
57
،،
our pius brethren, who ar in agony from our perplexing
"subjection. He assumes arrogant tones of superior
"wisdom; yet, when interrogated on a pressing difficulty,
"he displays puerile unwisdom: and because we, as is
"our duty, test him by a very respectful and reasonable
question, he insults us as hypocrits. Truly we ar wrong
"to be respectful to so ill-bred a churl. What further
proof need we, that such a man, pretending to be a
"divine messenger, is really an impostor?" Will it be
said that Jesus did not foresee such a result of his reply?
or that, foreseeing it, he deliberately intended the result?
66
""
Into politics Jesus appears seldom to venture. The
virtue cardinal to his moral system, the virtue without
which no disciple can be perfect, is that fundamental one
of the Essenes, the renunciation of private property. This
pervades his discourses from end to end. Not many
Christians in any age hav obeyed him, and the prevalent
excuse is, that he intended this precept for the twelve
apostles only. But the Sermon on the Mount was ad-
dressed to the multitude, and therein he enjoins: "Giv
"to him that asketh of thee, and from him who would
"borrow of thee, turn not away." The precept has no
limitation. He who asks may be idle, may be a worthless
beggar or a drinker; no special case is suggested as
ground for just refusal. That industry is a human duty,
cannot be gathered from his doctrin: how could it, when
he kept twelve religius mendicants around him? No one
who obeys him will long be able to keep property. Indeed
in Luke the passage parallel to one given by Matthew as
on the Mount, is: "Sell that ye hav, and giv alms: provide
yourselves bags that wax not old, a tresure in the hevens
"that fadeth not; " &c. Almsgiving is prominent with
him, as a sort of sanctification.
""
Many precepts of the law had a sanitary purpose, and
the Pharisees, like Egyptian priests, were studius of
clenliness. Jesus, deriding them for it, says (Luke xi. 31):
Giv alms of your substance, and all things ar clean unto
58
""
(6
you." It is not mere compassion for the destitute that
is enforced; much rather is welth treated as unsaintly,
an unrightëus thing, that will lessen our COMPENSATION in
heven. This is forcibly brought out in the Parable of
Divés and Lazarus; but without pressing that parable
into the argument, we find in Luke that Jesus says:
"Woe unto you that ar rich, for ye hav received your con-
"solation." Nay, he brands welth with the title,
"the
"mammon of unrightëusness." In a Parable which is
the despair of those who teach simple folk, he insists, that,
as by clever wrong a certain steward won frends, so each
rich man by a clever use of wrongful possessions ought to
buy frends who will receive him into everlasting habita-
tions. By shovelling away welth, we ar to buy tresures
in heven. Unless our narrators belie him, Jesus never
warns hearers that to giv without a heart of charity does
not prepare a soul for heven nor ern salvation;" and
that selfish pre-speculation turns virtue into despicable
marketing. To forgiv that we may be forgiven, to avoid
judging lest we be judged, to do good that we may get
extrinsic reward, to affect humility that we may be
promoted, to lose life that we may gain it with advantage,
are precepts not needing a lofty prophet. But to return
to the topic of welth, the remarkable tale of a rich yung
man, narrated with close agreement in three Gospels, is
quite decisiv. He asks: "What shall I do (besides
keeping the commandments of the second table) that I
may inherit eternal life? " Jesus replies: "Thou
"lackest one thing. If thou wilt be perfect, sell all that
“thou hast and distribute to the poor, and thou shalt hav
"tresure in heven." Thus it is not on the twelve apostles
only that he lays this charge, but upon all who will buy
the Perl of Great Price, all who desire to win heven as
the paramount object, whatever the sacrifice. He does
not say, “Rather lose all your possessions than be false to
"your religius convictions," but "fling away your welth,
"in order to ern hevenly remuneration for your sacrifice :
a very different doctrin indeed.
""
""
((
59
Some other tenets deserve notice. The doctrin of Life
after Deth is often named as eminently due to his
teaching. In the theory of Paul (2 Tim. i. 10)—who had
no historical knowledge of Jesus,—" Christ abolished Deth
"and brought Life and Immortality to light." Yet Paul
must hav known that human immortality was a doctrin of
the Pharisees, imported from abroad before Jesus was
born. At most he could but establish it. But how? The
Sadducees (we ar told) plied him with an objection there-
upon he not only swept it away, but elicited immortality
out of Jehovah's words to Moses, "I am the God of
Abraham, &c. God is not the God of the ded but of
"the living." With good reason the multitude
66 were
"astonished at his doctrin." Hitherto, the words had been
interpreted: "I am he, who, when Abraham was alive,
""
was God to Abraham." They must hav been thus
accepted by Isaiah and Jeremiah, who understood Hebrew
well. If the Supreme Ruler condescended to speak in
the Hebrew language to Moses, he was sure to speak in-
telligibly to all the great spiritual minds of the Hebrew
nation. Sadducees were not likely to be convinced by the
new interpretation. Even Luke found something deficient;
for, to complete the argument, he makes Jesus add: "for
“all (or, for they all) liv (or are alive) unto him." Unfor-
tunately this reason assumes the very thing to be proved.
Besides, the argument avails only to those who believe
that Moses duly reported the very words of Jehovah.
Moses, who did not knowingly teach immortality, is made
the Mediator through whom immortality is to be lerned!
Undoubtedly Jesus, like the Pharisees and Essenes, always
presumes an after-life for man. This is all that can justly
be said.
66
A Hebrew doctrin, false and mischievus, dominated in
erly days, ascribing to the anger of God against sin
calamity of whatever kind, whether defeat in war, failure
of crops, or bodily disease:—a folly which mars many of
the Hebrew psalms. In the case of some on whom the
60
•
tower of Siloam fell, Jesus opposed this error; but he
startles one by entirely adopting it, when he identifies the
two phrases, Thy sins be forgiven thee, and Be thou healed
of thy malady. But perhaps these words ar foolishly im-
puted, in the wish to glorify him. Nevertheless, if we
accept the narrativs as substantially correct, concerning
his doctrin, there is much indeed to regret, much reason
to wonder that thoughtful persons can approve. His
vehement and frequent thret of a hell with unquenchable
flames and undying worm, has above all things given
vitality to this noxius doctrin, which darkens the character
of God and hardens the hearts of men. From none of the
other Christian writings could the dredful idea of Eternal
Sin, Eternal Despair and Eternal Agony be established.
He thretens this doom to the simple townsfolk to whose
conscience his message of "The Kingdom" did not com-
mend itself:-
:--a worse doom at the day of judgment than
that of Sodom and Gomorrha. A preacher so dogmatic
and so full of thret ought above all to be cautius in ex-
pression. With his enigmatic and hyperbolical style and
precepts paradoxically framed, (such as, "Hate your
"father and mother for my sake,") he must hav puzzled
and revolted many hearers. A teacher with ordinary
wisdom who expected docility and submission from simple
folk, would know how dangerus ar hyperbolical and vague
precepts. The writer whom we call Matthew gravely
assures us that Jesus purposely made his teaching obscure,
in order to fulfil prophecy; lest the people be converted
and he should heal them!! (Matt. xiii. 11-17.) How
grave the danger of ambigüus precept, is disagreeably
shown in his panegyric on those who hav made themselves
eunuchs for the kingdom of heven's sake. To this day it
is debated whether he spoke figurativly or literally. For
the latter an Origen could plead that the zeal which adopts
the cruel letter may carry the gospel into Eastern harems
from which a mere celibate Paul is excluded. Whether
here also the fault is thrown on the stupidity of reporters,
I wait to lern.
61
In his teaching is a still more fundamental unsoundness.
He repels by rudeness or evasion the more educated in-
quirers who may approach him; and then solemnly thanks
God that "He had hidden these things" (i.e. the divine
mission of Jesus? or his divine wisdom ?) " from the wise
"and prudent, and revealed them unto babes.
Even so,
"Father! for so it seemed good in thy sight." Was he
unaware that Reasons ar necessary to convince the wise
and prudent? He demanded that his hearers should be-
come babes, thus identifying Credulity with Faith. This
rottenness at the core has been fatal to Christianity.
Truth, even if nobly established at first, cannot maintain
itself, if Credulity is consecrated as a virtue; but Fantasy
overcrusts and smothers it, because Criticism is frowned
down.
A time arrived, which, according to our three narrators,
was critical to Jesus. Rumors favorable to him had
thickened among the populace. He inquired of his
apostles, what was the prevalent opinion. They replied:
Some think thee to be John the Baptist, others one of
"the old prophets, or Elijah" (brought back from heven).
"But whóm think ye that I am?" is his further question:
to which Simon replied, "The Messiah of God." According
to Matthew, Jesus hereon burst into the joyful utterance:
"Blessed art thou, Simon son of Jonah! for flesh and
"blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father which is
"in heven." He proceeds to bestow on him the title Kefa
(ROCK)-which we render by Peter or Cephas-and adds:
"On this Rock will I bild my Church"-whether on Simon
or Simon's confession is hotly debated: "and the gates of
“Hades shall not prevail against it." Mark and Luke ar
here more concise: but all three agree that after accepting
Simon's avowal, Jesus strictly charged them to tell no
man of it. Only one reasonable explanation here offers
itself; for such a dialog will not be ascribed to wanton
fancy. Jesus, while despising the doctors and daring to
denounce them, had (like them) great difficulty in defining
62
how Messiah was to be discerned. Though inwardly
believing himself to be the pre-destined One, he had never
dared to utter the claim. If he even had a complete copy
of the old prophets, to reconcile them was so hard, that
doubt was perhaps inevitable. Naturally he wished others
to enunciate his Messiahship; hence his eager delight and
exultation when Simon made the bold avowal. Neverthe-
less, after a short interval, old doubts recurred, with
painful misgivings. He was frightened at his own elation;
therefor he forbad them to tell any one.
Nevertheless, the arrow stuck deep in his side. From
this era he began to ponder on an ambitius career, which
must lead either to glorius triumph or to violent and
ignominius deth. He is consistently said to hav tried
from this moment to prepare his disciples for the worst,
often warning them of the fate in store for him.
Here an interesting question arises, Hav we any clue
that may suggest what was his own conception of the task
and function of Messiah? In answer, a remark must be
premised. It is not credible that Jesus should not hav
discerned what were the expectations of his disciples, and
should not hav corrected them, if he judged them to be
futile. Therefor, whatever error on this topic they all
held down to his deth, must hav been his error also.
Several passages giv us information. In Luke xxii. 29,
we read: "I appoint unto you a kingdom; as my Father
"hath appointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at
"my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging
"the twelve tribes of Israel." We should call a teacher
mad, who used such words to simple men, and did not
expect them to understand him literally. The royal table,
and the chief ministers eating and drinking at it; the
judicial thrones, and the same favored ministers dealing
out awards to the inferior multitude,-precisely hit off
the idea cardinal in those days to a hevenly monarchy
planted on erth. As, in a Greek republic, to be dieted in
the City Hall at public expense was the highest honor, so
63
in a royalty to liv at the king's table. The eating and
drinking distinctly marks that continued life in the flesh
was intended. Bred and Wine were the normal food, as
with king Melchisedek; and so, a little above, Luke xxii. 18,
Jesus says: "I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine
“until the kingdom of God is come." Matthew and Mark
vary the phrase, into "until I drink it new with you in
"the kingdom of God;' " from which it is inferred that
new wine means, not wine at all, but spiritual joy! As
above insisted, Jesus cannot hav expected so enormus a
change of sense to be wrought by the epithet new, and
Luke's version shows that no such change was wrought.
Moreover Acts i. 6 converges to the same result. The
disciples there ask Jesus: "Lord! wilt thou at this time
“restore the kingdom to Israel? words on which it is
useless to foist any spiritual sense.
He does not reprove
them for the belief, that the kingdom (now held by Rome)
is to be restored to Israel, nor does he deny that he is
himself God's champion to restore it; but simply avows
that the time of the event is a secret with God, thus
virtually asserting that erthly dominion is to be restored
to Israel :-as indeed every Jew who accepted Isaiah was
bound to believe. Of course it may be objected that this
discourse was fictitius, being held after the deth of Jesus;
but it does not the less attest the sharply defined persistent
tradition that at that era the disciples continued to believe
such to be Messiah's function.
""
An indirect confirmation meets us in Zachariah's hymn,
Luke i. 68. We cannot know when first it was penned;
but Luke's authority (some erlier Christian) received it as
an inspired prophecy. "Zachariah was filled with the
"Holy Ghost and prophesied.” We must infer that
Zachariah uttered what the erly Christian Church ac-
cepted as sound doctrin. Twice he distinctly intimates
the great function of Messiah to be, deliverance of Israel
from a heathen yoke; "that we should be saved from our
"enemies and from the hand of all that hate us”—v. 71 ;
64
again, v. 74, “that we, being delivered out of the hand
"of our enemies might serve him without fear," &c.
Deliverance from the power of the heathen was the first
condition requisit for the pure and permanent service of
God; therefor is here put forward as the main result to be
achieved by the new-born Messiah. It is called Redemp-
tion. Such being the Christian belief when this hymn
was first incorporated with Christian sacred writings, the
belief cannot hav newly sprung up, but must hav sub-
sisted all along, first among those devout Jews who were
precursors of Christianity; next, in the first Christian
Church. It cannot hav been a secret to Jesus, neither
can it hav been reproved by him.
One more broad historical fact ought to be considered
in this connexion, viz., that in the final war of the Jews
under Hadrian, their leader Bar Coceb was accepted as
Messiah; so persistent was the national belief that to
deliver Israel from the oppressiv foreiner was Messiah's
task. That it was the prevalent conviction in the time of
Jesus is thus dubly confirmed; and of this he cannot hav
been ignorant. Not to oppose it, was to acquiesce in it.
If he had opposed it, such opposition must in some way
hav been transmitted to us in his teaching.
The strong probability therefor is this. Jesus himself
not merely knew that his nation in general and his dis-
ciples in particular expected Messiah to break the yoke of
Rome and establish Israel in supremacy, but by his
occasional distinct utterances he encuraged them in it;
though at other moments when his fears prevailed over
his hopes, he foreboded violent treatment, perhaps deth,
for himself. The stupidity imputed to them would be a
natural result of his vacillation. While he lived, they
could not believe that Messiah, instead of saving Israel
from the proud and violent heathen, would himself be
slain. But after his deth, they wondered that they had
not accepted his own plain words, which warned them
that he was rushing voluntarily on destruction.
65
To that issue at length he hastened. He accepted a
triumphal entrance into Jerusalem previusly planned by
himself according to all the narrators. For he sent for-
ward to provide a suitable ass, that he might fulfil the
prophecy of Zechariah (ix. 9) and represent himself as
King of Jerusalem. The words ar: Behold, thy king
"cometh to thee, riding on an ass, and on a colt* the
foal of an ass." A crowd escorted him, and spred their
garments on the road before him, in acknowledgment of
royalty. Others cut branches from the trees to hold as
triumphant laurels amid shouts to him as Son of David.
Knowingly or unknowingly, he hereby put himself into the
power of those on whom he had heaped invectiv and insult
without discrimination and without mesure. They had
now only to whisper to the Roman prefect (Pontius Pilatus)
"Do you intend to let this man pass himself off to the
"multitude as King and Son of David ? Judas of Galilee
never went so far in daring.” In their resentment a
genuine fear was probably mingled. An echo of this is
preserved in the fourth Gospel, John xi. 48:
"If this
man be allowed to go on, he will draw away people after
him, and the Romans will take away our place and nation."
Yet, inasmuch as no armed force had been embattled by
Jesus, Pilate could not believe that any serius insurrection
was planned. He probably regarded the outcry about a
Son of David and King of Jerusalem as child's play and
Jewish nonsense, so long as neither sord nor spear was
forthcoming. At the same time the temperament of the
people had to be considered. Even in Jerusalem a perfect
stranger no sooner rides on a white ass with a small com-
pany to call out Hosannat (the war-cry, it is said, of
66
(6
(C
* Matthew is here supremely ridiculus. Misled by Hebrew
parallelism, he thinks two animals ar intended; makes the disciples
bring two, put their garments on them and seat Jesus upon them.
Our translators, new and old, to disguise the absurdity, adopt the
word thereon which hides the plural number of the Greek.
† Hosanna, Ps. cxviii. 25. Salva quacso. An appeal to Jehovah
against the foe.
E
66
previus insurrections) than a great multitude is redy to
proclaim him Son of David and King of Israel. If such a
thing be possible where the High Priest and Great Council
ar at hand to repress popular tumult, what may not
happen if this man return to the warlike and more
excitable population of Galilee, with the name of King,
and with the report that he has been received as King in
Jerusalem? One with whom in Jerusalem this was mere
vanity, may be carried, even against his intention, into
real insurrection, when urged on and elated by thousands
of brave fanatics who bitterly remember Roman cruelties.
Before the matter could be brought to Pilate, night had
come on, and a strange scene is revealed, which none of
the narrators was likely to invent. Jesus had withdrawn
with several of his disciples into a garden (Gethsemane,
an olive yard) escaping public notice. From agitation of
mind he could not sleep, but woke his companions and
chided them for sleeping lazily, instead of staying awake
with him. He is reported to hav prayed ernestly that "if
"possible, this cup might pass away without his drinking it."
The cup must hav ment punishment, perhaps deth, from
Roman jelusy. Presently, when some one proposed to
defend him with the sord, he replied (according to Matthew)
"Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father,
"and he shall presently giv me more than twelve legions
of angels." It would seem therefor that this hope had
buoyed him up. He still leaned on the fond idea, though
it had alredy broken under him. If in his agony "his
"swet was like great drops of blood falling to the ground,"
it denotes a terrible fall from high hope.
This was
succeeded by an immovable calm. How is that to be in-
terpreted? Christians say, he was now at length resolved
to die ;—to "make an offering" of his life as a victim;-
to slay himself as a High Priest;-to lay down his life
freely; that is by a kind of deliberate suicide. Another
theory might call it the stupor of despair. Indeed two of
the narrators ascribe to him the shriek, "My God, why
""
67
"hast thou forsaken me?" No one would invent this cry
to glorify him; therefor it looks like truth. It implies
that he had, up to the last, clung to the belief that legions
of angels would carry him victoriusly through the career
into which he had plunged, and that, when struck down
from lofty imaginations, a total collapse of mind ensued.
The third and fourth narrators suppress his cry of despair,
apparently as unworthy of him. Luke ascribes to him a
nobler utterance; "Father! forgiv them; for they know
"not what they do." But Luke is here quite untrustworthy:
for he represents one of the robbers who was crucified
with him as reproving the other, and making actual
prayer to Jesus as Lord of Paradise, which is magnificently
accepted. So marked a contrast of the two robbers could
not hav been unknown to Matthew and Mark, who dis-
tinctly declare that both of them insulted him. The
fourth narrator makes him die with the grand utterance:
"It is finished:" certainly a great improvement.
But
how much is here historically true, will be judged
differently by different minds.
Pilate condemned Jesus against his own convictions,
through fear of being thought at Rome feeble against
insurrection. That the crime for which Jesus was crucified
was the assumption of the title, "King of the Jews," is
proved by Pilate's inscription, Matth. xxvii. 37.* He would
hav saved him, if he could hav extorted any distinct and
intelligible renunciation of erthly royalty. Tiberius Cæsar
would no more hav been trubled by any claim of hevenly
grandeur than by a Stoic's boast that he was a king, and
the mass of mankind slaves. But Jesus, after professing
to be a King, refused further utterance, and remained (as
a Roman officer would call it) contumaciusly silent; thus
depriving Pilate of all excuse available at Rome, where the
memory of Judas Galilæus might be his ruin.
Pilate
* Mr. Charles Hennell is the erliest English writer known to me
who insisted that political fears were the main influence in the deth
of Jesus.
68
even at the last (it seems) tried to save the life of Jesus;
for he took him down from the cross prematurely and
delivered him to his frends.
That the priests could not identify Jesus without the
aid of one of his intimate companions, denotes that his
person was wholly strange in Jerusalem. Archbishop
Whately (late of Dublin) teaches, that Judas expected his
Lord to summon angels to his rescue, as soon as an arrest
was attempted; and hanged himself in despair, when no
such event followed. But how much to believe concerning
Judas is a hard problem, when we discern that our nar-
rators hav made history out of misunderstood prophecy.
Their "potter's field" is a blunder. The true sense of
the Hebrew is probably given by the LXX., as the foundry
or mint; and no sound exposition can connect the pro-
phecy with the proceeding of Judas.
CHAPTER IX.
FIRST STAGE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
DISMAY and Despair ar described as the first emotions
in the disciples deprived of their Master; which were
gradually dissipated, when the opinion gained currency,
that the soul of Jesus, on leaving the body, had ascended
to heven, and was there glorified. That this was the
original meaning of the doctrin, that "God raised him
“from the ded" is attested by Peter's first Epistle, which
says:
"Christ was put to deth in flesh, but was made
"alive in spirit; words that show the writer to hav no
belief that the flesh of Jesus was called back into life.
Indeed in Charles Knight's Cyclopædia the doctrin of
Resurrection held by the Pharisees is described as con-
sisting not in the reanimation of the body, but in the
passage of the soul into some other body. We might
""
·
69
therefor make sure that this was the current doctrin with
those Jews. The same result may be confidently inferred
concerning the belief of Paul (1 Cor. xv. 38, 44), who
soon became the great apostle of the Gentiles. On so
fundamental a topic neither apostle could differ from the
collectiv church. No tale concerning the flesh of Jesus.
being made alive after deth is found in any book which
can be proved to hav existed in the life-time of those
apostles. We know that the disciples accepted doctrin
from what were called visions; which, being either simply
dreams, or results of abnormal sleep, can bring no evidence
as to exterior truth, certainly no proof of fact. The
Church settled down into a belief that the spirit of Jesus
had appeared to many, but (according to one tale in Luke)
so transformed that he was not recognized by the outward
likeness. When we further consider what is assumed by
his ascending into heven in their sight, with flesh and
bones (as an Anglican article expresses it), viz., that in
the plumb-line vertical to the Mount of Olives, there is
a local heven aloft, into which his body soared, we ar
warned as to the credulity of that age; yet, as in the
"assumption" of Elijah and Romulus, we hav no reason
to believe the tale to hav been current among actual con-
temporaries. Pardon is given to antiquity," says the
historian Livy, "to mingle things divine with human,
"and thus make the origin of cities" [or of religions?]
more august."
،،
With what ease absurd stories were circulated concern-
ing events of an erlier generation is instructivly shown in
Matt. xxvii. 50-53. No sooner has Jesus uttered his
despairing cry, than (we ar told) the erth quakes, rocks ar
rent, the graves open; "and many bodies of the saints
"which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his
"resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared
"unto many." So vague and impossible a statement
passed as fact fifty or seventy years later. Bodies coming
out of the graves! By whom could they be recognized?
66
-
70
[But only after his resurrection! We need not comment
on this, though the words ar in the Sinaitic version; but
they ar absent in some other, according to Titschendorf's
note.] Criticism is superflüus.
Comparing our Gospels, we can see indications how
stories hav grown in telling. Matthew, after saying that
the disciples met Jesus on a mountain of Galilee after his
deth on the cross, honestly adds, that some doubted. He
says nothing about the body of Jesus passing through
closed doors. But in the twelve apocryphal verses added
to Mark it is stated that Jesus appeared to the eleven as
they sat at meat. Luke adds, they supposed it was a
spirit, but Jesus showed them his hands and his feet, and
said,
“Handle me: a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as
"ye see me hav.” Thus the writer, unlike Peter and
Paul, supposed Jesus to hav his old body; so notably had
the story grown in two generations. But "John" goes.
far beyond. Out of "some doubted," he boldly manu-
factures the romance of Thomas.
He invents a spear-
wound in Jesus's side large enough to receive Thomas's
hand, and makes Thomas exclaim, "My Lord and my God."
The moderns, assuming that these Gospels were written in
the very first age, ar naturally confounded, and see no
reasonable intermediate hypothesis.
In this second stage it was necessary to modify and
refashion the idea of Messiah. "He was to suffer before
"entering into his glory." A truly new doctrin, quite
irreconcilable with Isaiah ix. and xi., and with Micah v.
2-8, the very sources of Messianic expectation. Messiah
was still to be personal Ruler on Erth, still to sit with his
faithful saints on a royal throne; but he had now to come
back from heven and so assume his dominion. Daniel's
prophecy was made the basis.
"One like a Son of man,"
(that is, he who had called himself the Son of Man,)
would come "in the clouds of heven." This mythological
picture was made cardinal, with the addition of "God's
trumpet," of which the sound would wake the ded out of
71
their graves. (1 Thess. iv. 16.) Still the original cry was
uttered, The kingdom of God is at hand; which con-
tinued to be the tuchstone of faith for more than fifty
years. This ernest expectation and looking for "the
"Lord from heven" was made the primitiv Gospel of the
Church.
Ca
The doctrin of a suffering Messiah could only be main-
tained by arbitrary and uncritical interpretation of the
old prophets. But one school of Rabbis was very fanciful.
Their methods were available for obtruding the new tenet.
By isolating the fifty-second chapter of Isaiah from the
chain of prophecy in which it is one link, a specius
beginning was made, and varius Psalms of moaning and
complaint were presently assumed to be "Messianic."
The cry of despair which was imputed to the dying Jesus
is a quotation from the first verse of Psalm xxii.; which
was sufficient to suggest that the Psalm prefigured Mes-
siah's bitter complaints. After this, v. 18 of this Psalm
was likely to be borrowed and transmuted into history as
we see in so many other cases. In modern England
Daniel ix. 26 is thought to assert that Messiah shall be
slain; but in the Greek version it is the Anointing (not
the Anointed) that shall come to an end. Such also is
the rendering by erudite German scholars. No school of
Jews in high repute for lerning has ever admitted that
their prophets taught a suffering Messiah. Evidently
Christians betook themselves to the idea, in order to find
comfort in their blank disappointment.
But on the day of Pentecost which followed the deth of
Jesus, i.e., about seven weeks later, a new event suddenly
broke out, of which a garbled account is given in the book
of Acts. Garbled we may boldly pronounce it; for the
lerned Evangelical Professor Augustus Neander in his
History abandons it as indefensible. After long strained
religius emotion, many of those present babbled in unin-
telligible sounds, which were supposed to denote a Divine
Inspiration. Paul (in 1 Cor.) givs a lucid account of what
72
he personally knew: he makes plain that the strange
sounds were not forein languages, as the writer in the
"Acts" pretends; but were explicable only by a new
miracle, i. e., by some one gifted divinely with a power of
interpretation. All was closely similar to the phenomena
displayed in Edward Irving's London Church from 1830
for several years. In modern England the delusion could
not long abide unexposed, but it permanently deceived
the erly Christians. The idea that such carnal and morbid
excitement was a special mark of the Divine presence and
approval, and was "a gift of the Holy Spirit "—pervades
the whole book of Acts. So little discrimination of helthy
from morbid emotion do we find in those primitiv
Christians, whose warmth of devotion and self-abandon-
ment is often transcendent. We may honor their self-
sacrifice and their many virtues, while deploring their
weakness of understanding.
This outburst on the day of Pentecost gave a mighty
impetus to new enthusiasm. It roused all the disciples
into the belief that God was on their side. The Church
was, as it were, set on flame. Among the apostles, Peter
and John seemed suddenly to enter upon new life. Many
new converts were made. The disciples remembered the
preachings of Jesus against the retention of Welth. Some
of the richer men among them, seeking for perfection along
the lines laid down by Jesus, sold their possessions and
brought the proceeds to the apostles. Open tables were
spred, at which all the converts, new and old, fed without
charge, as in an Essene Establishment. But after a little
while, the apostles felt the administration of such funds
to be an invidius and unsuitable task, and begged the
assembly to elect seven deacons, (i. e., ministers) for its
due discharge. Seven were elected, of whom one was
called Stephen. But Stephen presently showed himself
far too high for this duty. He forthwith flamed out as a
new apostle. His short career is of great importance,
and deserves far more attention and closer detail than has
73
been given to it. According to the narrator, "Being full
“of faith and power, he did great wonders and miracles
"among the people." No details ar given of these
miracles, nor even a hint of their nature; nor how his
'faith" was displayed: but we lern that he stirred deep
resentment in the Jewish rulers by the doctrin which he
preached; resentment wholly new. This makes it im-
portant to examin the narrativ closely.
His offence (we ar told) was an avowal that Jesus would
destroy the holy place and change the Mosaic law. Change
of the law does seem to be implied in the coming kingdom
of Messiah; yet no hostile emotion had been awakened
when Peter announced this event as impending. Stephen
is conjectured to hav added, that in Messiah's kingdom
Jews would hav no advantage over Gentiles: but at this
era Gentiles were not even admissible into the Church,—a
fact which does not commend the conjecture as probable.
What is more, the penalty of stoning is not commanded
by the law against religius error except when anyone is
guilty of introducing some new god; and it is manifest
that on this occasion the tribunal was strictly judicial,
with priests of high rank presiding. Thus a high proba-
bility arises, that the introduction of the worship of Jesus
was the main guilt imputed. The writer of the "Acts
professes to giv us in great detail Stephen's actual speech
of defence. Unless Stephen is maligned by the narrator,
he must hav tried the patience of his judges sorely. It is
impossible to find out from his speech that any offence
was imputed to him. He denies nothing, he defends
nothing, he explains nothing. He enters upon a tedius
and very superflüus recital of events from Abraham in
Mesopotamia downwards, — matters notorius to every
boyish Jew; digresses to quote prophecy against the
idolatrus; then goes back to Solomon and his temple.
At last he bursts out into fierce attack on his judges, as
resisting the Holy Spirit, now equally as of old, and en-
titles them “betrayers and murderers of The Just One,”
"(
""
74
and "transgressors of the Law."-Up to this point the
tribunal had controlled itself; but (we must infer) it now
concluded that he had no defence to offer; that he knew
himself guilty of the crime imputed, and, like a dashing
captain of war, thought his best defence lay in counter-
attack. Abundant time had been granted. He had used
freedom of speech only to abuse it. Conviction of his
guilt was now universal. The law of Moses (as alone
known to them) strictly forbad mercy, and prescribed the
dredful form of punishment-namely in Deuter. xiii.; for
by this chapter they evidently were guided. He discerned
anger rising in the countenance of his judges, and aggra-
vated it by declaring that he "saw the hevens opened and
“the Son of man standing at the right hand of God."
They can hardly hav been ignorant that by the Son of man
he ment that Jesus of whom he called them betrayers and
murderers. A terrible scene followed, the popular
stoning to deth, which the law strictly commanded against
anyone who might try to bring-in the worship of a new
god. It is not credible that the Christian account defines
correctly the crime alledged against him. The last words.
ascribed to Stephen, ar an invocation of the ded Jesus as
a god: "Lord Jesus! receive my spirit." We cannot
suppose that Stephen now invoked Jesus for the first time.
It must hav been his habit, and it can hardly hav been
secret. The evident probability is, that Invocation of Jesus
was the main offence imputed; but after such invocation
had become universal in the Gentile Church and the
Jewish Church was nowhere, the writer of the
"Acts"
was unwilling to record that the Jews had resented such
invocation as idolatrus. Of course no Jew could see any
difference between the Greek invocation of a ded hero, and
the Christian invocation of a ded man, however saintly.
If they had been physically unable (as they may hav been)
to keep Greek hero-worship out of Cæsarea, this was no
reason for conniving at the like in Jerusalem itself.
Subtle devices which explain away the charge of idolatry,
75
and evade the Jewish law of Monotheism, had not yet been
concocted by Christians, nor in any case could hav weight
with Jews. The plea that "Jesus is God," if it had been
made, could only be understood as setting up two Gods.
Hebrew doctors knew well, how idolatry crept in among
the heathen by reverence to deceased parents, ancestors,
heroes and kings, and that the fatal beginning was through
Invocation of the Ded. No plausible fantasies can set
aside the fact, that men who implore aid from an unseen
spirit, treat that spirit as omnipresent on this globe and
indefinit in power. Thus they virtually raise it into a
second god, who in their hearts dethrones the One
Supreme. Hence the unrelenting attack on Stephen.
The words of the law rang in their ears, "Thine eye shall
"not pity him, neither shalt thou spare, were it thy
"brother, the son of thy mother." Let Christians attack
the law one might praise them for that. But when they
call the law divine, and bitterly censure the Jews for
obeying it, how can one then praise them?
This tragedy was the beginning of a wider persecution.
No doubt, all Christians were suspected of complicity in
Stephen's guilt. Saul, a disciple of Gamaliel, (Saul,
better known to us as Paul) was eager in enmity, and
went to distant cities as inquisitor of like criminality. No
similar outbreak is recorded until about A.D. 63, which
will be noticed below. Why Herod Agrippa put to deth
James son of Zebedee (Acts xii. 2), no hint is given: only
it is said, that by it Herod "pleased the Jews." For no
religius offence short of imputed idolatry, would the Jews
approve. They may hav been glad that Herod relieved
them from the odius necessity of another popular move-
ment of violence; but this is only one possibility. We
must be contented with ignorance why this James was
slain. With this exception, the Christians of Jerusalem
seem to hav long lived in peace with the priestly rulers.
We must infer that none of them avowed themselves
followers of Stephen's doctrin; which by reasonable.
76
interpretation seems to mean, that the Church in Jeru-
salem did not teach nor practise Invocation of Jesus.
In the extant epistle of James, long President of that
Church, no hint can be found to justify the practice; no
allusion to it; not even such a formula as "The favor
"[grace] of our Lord Jesus be with you," nor any word
which could offend a Jew however bigoted. In "the
"Lord's Prayer" Jesus did not teach the disciples to
introduce his name into their worship. Perhaps Stephen
originated the practice. This subject is brought up again
in the doctrin of Paul's gospel.
K
Another remarkable event, cardinal to the history, soon
followed,—namely, the admission of Gentile converts to
the Church. The chief man was a Roman centurion (or
petty captain) of the Italian band at Cæsarea, by name
Cornelius, previusly known by Jews to be devout. As the
tale is given us in the "Acts," a discourse of the apostle
Peter so moved the Italian audience, that the Holy Spirit
fell upon them: whereupon "they spake with tongues and
"glorified God." Peter accepted the omen (as Greeks
might phrase it), saw in it a manifestation of the divine
will, proposed baptism and baptized them forthwith.
""
On his return to Jerusalem murmur arose against him.
He had gone in to men uncircumcised and had eaten with
them. The complaint implied that he had eaten some
forbidden food. He justified himself (it is said) first, by a
dream or vision which bade him kill and eat; a voice
saying, “what God hath clensed, call not thou unclean :
secondly, by narrating how the Holy Spirit had fallen
upon his audience, just as on themselves at the first
Pentecost. Those who had been thus baptized by the
Holy Spirit (Peter argued) might surely be baptized with
water. His arguments were convincing, and drew from
his hearers the glad words: "Then hath God granted to
the Gentiles also repentance unto life.”
Who of us can rightly call these erly Christians of Jeru-
salem narrow-hearted and bigoted? Many such unjust
77
2
epithets ar poured out against them. These ar they who
ar branded by the epithet Judaizers, because they continued
to believe their Sacred Scripture, which had taught that
all descendants of Abraham must be circumcised, and
that Circumcision had a religius value. Rather might one
here deride them for the ease with which they resigned
their old prejudices. Evidently they were glad to hav
their hearts and minds enlarged: what more could we
expect? Born and bred in that atmosphere, they in-
herited its errors with its wisdom. They could not be
wide in knowledge, nor sage in caution, as ar we, eighteen
centuries later. Their belief in the Holy Tongues, we
must pity. Peter's vision they seem to have interpreted
metaphorically, not as abolishing ceremonial restrictions
on food, but as establishing that comradeship with con-
verted Gentiles was not a defilement. But it is possible
that Peter himself was led by it to hold the prohibitions
on food with a looser hand.
""
We here attain a critical fact defining a new error in
the four Gospels. We now see that the disciples had
never lerned from Jesus, that Gentiles were to be admitted
into his Church. Hitherto they had supposed that it was
to consist of“ a select remnant" of Jews only. A super-
natural revelation (for so Peter's dream or vision was
esteemed) had been necessary to teach them the opposite :
to teach them indeed that the "Good News
was to be
preached to all nations, and that Gentiles were admissible
to baptism. We infer that all passages in the Gospels
which represent Jesus as contemplating a world-wide
church ar later fictions; and in particular the close of
Matthew's gospel is anachronistic and untrue. Jesus
cannot hav told them to go into all nations and baptize
them in the name of the Holy Trinity. Had he done so,
then neither Peter's dream nor the Holy Tongues would
hav been needed. Peter, when arraigned for baptizing
converted Gentiles, would simply hav pleaded the solemn
last commands of Jesus as his sufficient justification.
78
Since he makes absolutely no allusion to such commands,
the fact (as told in the "Acts") proves that Peter had never
received such commands. We also now understand some-
what better why Jesus did not take precautions that his
sacred words should be accurately conveyed to the many
distant nations who were to be converted. Though
Matthew makes him give definit charge to teach his
discourses to foreiners, yet in fact he had neither design
nor foresight that his "Gospel" would be preached to
foreiners; much less that his discourses would be pre-
served, transmitted and translated.
The argument by which modern Christians try to evade
these inferences is truly astonishing. They say, that
before the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire sat upon the
disciples, the apostles were so carnal and dull of mind
that they could not understand the words of Jesus, even
when he spoke plainly. If our books ar at all credible,
his speech was notoriusly often far from plain; Matthew
says, was purposely obscure. Grant that this rose out of
the depth of spiritual mysteries in which he delt: yet
when he spoke of matters external, which a wholly un-
spiritual man or a child could understand, then it becomes
ludicrus to impute the apostolic ignorance to dulness of
mind. When Paul declared that Gentiles might enter the
church without circumcision, every Jew, however carnal,
understood him: yet we ar expected to believe, that when
Jesus commanded his apostles to preach to the Gentiles.
and baptize them, these apostles, being very carnal and
dull, could not understand him ;-nay, not even after they
had been illuminated by the Holy Spirit did they remember
his commands.-But this is to expect stupidity in us.
After the principle had been established that the uncir-
cumcised were admissible to the Christian church, a hope
arose that, from among heathen proselytes to Judaism
converts might be made to Christianity. Few of these
received circumcision: but they had shown independence
of mind in throwing off their hereditary mythology: they
79
were presumably devout persons, and not likely to resist
innovation in religion so stiffly as born Jews. In fact the
first convert, Cornelius, seems to hav been previusly “a
"proselyte of the gate." But of necessity every Christian
Jew who believed in the only natural sense of the Hebrew
prophets, and had not lerned the art of blurring the
contrast of Jew and Gentile therein established as sharply
as possible, was led even by kindness and sympathy to
wish that every converted Gentile should be incorporated
into the Hebrew body; so that, insted of being one of the
faithful Gentile vassals and servants, bringing tribute and
performing menial offices for the Holy People under
Messiah's reign, he should himself become one of the
sacred ruling caste. One short passage from the later
Isaiah is a clue to all beside: lxi. 5, 6,—" Strangers shall
"stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien
"shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers: but ye
"shall be named the Priests of the Lord; men shall call
you the Ministers of our God. Ye shall eat the riches
"of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast your-
"selves." Such was the exalted rank into which Jesus,
descending from heven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel and the trump of God, would establish his
faithful Jewish disciples. While they believed this, love
to Gentile converts made them long to embrace them as
fully graduated Jews: and how could any of them throw
off belief in that glorius later Isaiah? Nay, were they
not now basing their belief in a Messiah who had to suffer
before ruling in glorified Zion, mainly on the words of
this very prophet? -We cannot therefor wonder,—we
must almost take for granted-that a strong and powerful
movement came forth from Jerusalem, urging in much
love and seeking to persuade Gentile converts to adopt
circumcision, the sabbath and the peculiarities of Mosaism.
CC
In fact, this was no question internal to Christianity.
In the historian Josephus (Antiq. xx. 2, § 3-5) we hav a
very interesting account concerning Izates, the yung
80
prince of Adiabênè and his mother queen Helena. The
prince, while residing abroad, was converted to Judaism
by a Hebrew merchant called Ananias. At the same time
his mother remaining at home was converted by another
Jew. When, by the deth of the king of Adiabênè, Izates
was called home to take his father's place, mother and
son were alike delighted to find their mutual zeal for the
pure monotheistic faith. The yung man was eager to
become a complete Jew by circumcision. The mother
dissuaded, and appeal was made to Ananias. He also
dissuaded, saying that without circumcision Izates could
do what was vastly better,-revere God; and with the
mother he thought it unwise to stir up violent feeling in
the nation by submitting to a forein ceremony. But after
this, came a third Jew, Eleazar from Galilee, whom the
historian calls most exact as to Jewish customs. This
man finding the yung king to be reading the books of
Moses, vehemently censured him, as "lerning and not
obeying." Izates was ambitius of perfection, accepted
circumcision and thereby encountered much calamity,
temporarily losing his throne and strangely regaining it.
These events were under the empire of Claudius Cæsar.
The sons and brothers of Izates were brought before
Titus Cæsar after Jerusalem was captured. Thus the
chronology is fixed. The three Jewish proselyters gained
access to royal persons contemporanëusly with the career
of Paul of Tarsus. Queen Helena went on pilgrimage to
the temple of Jerusalem. She arrived in the midst of a
great famine, bringing with her much tresure. She at
once sent to Alexandria for wheat and to Cyprus for dry
figs. Her son, on hearing the news, sent large funds to
the leading men in Jerusalem for public relief, and later
they continued their liberalities.-Since all this was after
the deth of Jesus, we ar not forced to say, that these three
Jewish devotees and their royal proselytes were accounted
by him to be "children of hell."
Not a word has come down to us that can justly imply
،،
81
any sacerdotal terrors to hav been wielded by those who
ar contemptüusly called Judaizers: they had no power
but kind argumentativ suasion. To us, of course, the
suasion is empty of force. We do not believe in any
secular domination promised to the Jewish race, or to
others who hav accepted the Jewish ceremonial. But it
is on the one hand unjust to call these Christians narrow
and bigoted for desiring to hav the Gentile converts as
equals and partners; on the other hand it is futile to
censure them for believing the evident and plain sense of
their great and magnificent prophet. This controversy
concerning the value of the Jewish law, and the advantage
of the Jew over the Gentile was presently to be quickened
by the energies and enthusiasm of one man into a furius
and deplorable heat. Here it may be added that in the
book of Acts (xv.) a solitary occasion is reported, on
which certain Christians from Jerusalem taught the Gen-
tiles, that without circumcision "they could not be saved."
But the immediate result of this was (if we accept that
narrativ) that the Church in Jerusalem collectivly re-
proved such teaching. If by "salvation" acceptance with
God was ment, the doctrin was narrower than that of the
Pharisees, who admitted proselytes of the gate. When
the mother church so promptly disowned it, we may infer,
even from the book of Acts itself, that the error was an
exceptional indiscretion, and cannot hav had any deep
roots or permanent strength. Yet another possibility
must not be forgotten. If the Judaizers only taught that
without circumcision converts could not take equal rank
with Jews in Messiah's kingdom, this might be unfairly
represented in the oral tradition of the Church fifty years
later, after Jerusalem had perished, as teaching that
without circumcision they could not be saved.
F
82
CHAPTER X.
PAUL AND JAMES.
THE introduction of Gentiles into the Christian faith
before long broke the Church in twain: but the actual
process was not one of natural development. It could
not hav been pre-imagined, and it needs special and
detailed narrativ. Happily we ar here landed on solid
historical ground. We hold Paul's own letters, the letters
of that pupil of Gamaliel who played a leading part in the
first persecution of Christians. We may rest on them
with the same confidence as on those of our own contem-
poraries. But he writes as an eager controversialist
against Christians of the erliest school. We hav not their
statements. To accept his bitter accusations of them as a
complete and final account, is not the way to truth or
justice. With such light as we hav, we must do our best
to imagin their side of the case.
(6
This is not easy. For from childhood we hav been
trained into contempt and aversion for the "Judaizers,”
that is, for the primitiv Christians of Jerusalem. Paul,
we were told, was an apostle;" therefor all that he wrote
must be true. But Paul sharply opposed Peter. Peter
was made an apostle by Jesus; Paul had no credentials
but his own. His apostleship rests on his own assertion
that he was "called to be an apostle" (by
(by a private
vision ?) after the deth of Jesus. In a difference between
two apostles, apostolic infallibility cannot be ascribed to
either.
Paul was at first called Saul in the book of Acts; no
reason is assigned for his change of name. But since he
was by birth a Roman citizen, and Paullus is a well-known
family name at Rome, we may conjecture that Saul was
his personal Hebrew name and Paulus the name which,
as a Roman, he used and preferred.—In this second stage
of Christianity, two names, Paul and James, represent the
two contending schools. The collision between these two
83
was not confined to the question of Justification as under-
stood by Luther. It took a much wider sweep; namely,
Did Christianity overthrow and annihilate the Mosaic
law? James replied: "Certainly not; not one jot or
"tittle we Jews ar bound to the law, as well as to cir-
"cumcision and the sabbath; only Gentile Christians ar
"free." Paul replied: "Nay, but all the ceremonies ar
mere types and shadows: the substance is in Christ;
"(Coloss. ii. 17) Jews ar free, equally as Gentiles: Christ
"has made me free, though I am a Jew."—It is natural,
almost necessary, for us moderns to admire the bredth of
Paul's view, just as we admire Pythagoras in Astronomy.
But in the actual controversy we hav to consider by what
arguments Paul vindicated his position, and what personal
authority he assumed in pronouncing that he had a right
to dictate. That the living Jesus never taught the doctrin
of Paul, is so obvius that no words ar here needed. Paul
professed to hav lernt it by a special revelation to himself:
James continued reverently to obey his Master and Lord.
<<
James son of Alphæus, (strangely entitled James the
less) is supposed to hav been first cousin of Jesus, because
both by Paul and by the historian Josephus he is called
brother of Jesus. It is agreed that at least after the deth
of James son of Zebedee (of whom nothing is reported but
that he was put to deth by Herod Agrippa the first) this
other James became President, or first Bishop, of the
Church in Jerusalem. Paul was a far greater man than
James, if greatness be measured by the magnitude and
permanence of his doings; but if we ought to esteem men
chiefly for modesty, for fairness and sobriety of mind, in
these qualities James was apparently superior. We know
Paul better by his numerus letters. This controversy is
opened most sharply by himself in his Epistle to the
Galatians, which splendidly reveals the man. Perhaps
Martin Luther, who commented upon it at enormus
length, judged it to be the most valuable of his epistles.
To us it is certainly valuable, as signally displaying all
Paul's weakest points.
84
66
If he prided himself on anything, it was on his skill and
sagacity in interpreting the Hebrew scriptures. It is
worth while to examin his use of them in this epistle.
(1) "Unto Abraham and his seed" (argues he, iii. 16)
were the promises made, He saith not, unto seeds, as of
many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ."
At first this strikes one with amazement. The writer
seems not to know that a noun in the singular number
may denote a collection of individuals. But on considering
that Paul himself (Rom. ix. 7) calls the Jews the seed of
Abraham, and does not say seeds, it appears that we ought
not to impute this enormus and ridiculus blunder to real
ignorance and stupidity, but only to haste. He fancies
he sees an argument for his purpose, and he jumps at it
without allowing himself time to think.-And ar we really
to accept so hot-headed a writer as guided by a secret
divine power too high for our criticism? This attempt at
reasoning is so ludicrus, as to forbid deference to his judg-
ment, however great our admiration of other qualities in
him.
(6
(2) He proceeds to bild upon this by argument, with
which few moderns would hav patience. It suffices to
remark, that he closes with the wild words," The law
"(of Moses) was ordained by angels in the hand of a
"mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one,
"but God is one."-Was he going to sleep as he wrote ?
or will anyone maintain that words ar lost from the text?
(3) He undertakes to prove that the deth of Christ has
annihilated all the ceremonial of Moses, or as elsewhere
he puts it, has nailed the ordinances to his cross. His
proof is as follows. It is written, Cursed is every one
"that continueth not in all things that ar written in the
"book of the law, to do them. Christ hath redeemed us
"from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us:
"for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a
"tree." At first sight this argument is quite enigmatic.
Most unwillingly we ar forced to see that he means,
"So
85
impotent was the law really to curse Christ, that by
cursing him, it has made its curse vain: it has lost
cursing power; it is like a bee which has tried to sting
a buffalo, and has stung out its vitals: the law has thus
"lost all power of prohibiting, and may safely and rightly
"be disobeyed."
((
(6
<<
66
(6
But if the curse fell justly on Messiah, how can this
make the curse void? and if unjustly, then how is the law
holy, just and good"? Did Paul know what he was
writing? Hardly. The law which he quotes (Deut. xxi. 23)
on sanitary grounds commanded the erly burial of a
corpse. If a criminal was hanged, he must be buried
before night. His body had become an accursed thing,-
that is, a pollution, 'evayés as a Greek would say.
Snatching at the word Curse, Paul confounds physical
pollution incident to the corpse of a saint with the moral
offence of disobeying a sacred law strange want of moral
sensitiveness! He argues: "The body of Messiah (having
"been hanged) is pronounced by the law to be an accursed
thing: hereby the law has manifestly so put itself in the
wrong, that henceforth no one need care what it curses
or what it commands; all its ordinances are made null
"and void, as if nailed to the cross." Among these ordi-
nances he makes circumcision prominent, all through this
epistle, and indeed everywhere; and forgets that circum-
cision is older than Moses! Forgets? but if in haste he
forgot, he cannot hav been permanently ignorant. In his
belief the Most High prescribed to the Hebrew nation by
Abraham (Gen. xvii. 7—10), as AN EVERLASTING COVENANT,
the duty of circumcision. That now goes for nothing with
Paul, because Moses enacted a sanitary precaution on a
wholly different matter! Those may justify Paul, who
care not a straw what Jehovah is said to hav said to
Abraham, nor what promises of high rank and grandeur
the prophets made to Israel. The command of Jehovah
to Abraham is so clear and positiv, that the attempt to
argue it down might in those days seem a reckless pro-
66
(
66
86
fanity. We do not need high imagination to understand
how outrageus such argument must hav seemed to Jews,
devout or patriotic, whether Christian or not. It goes far
beyond exempting Gentiles from the Mosaic ceremonies:
it exempts Jews as completely as Gentiles, justifying the
accusation in Acts xxi. 21; for Paul's argument goes as
far, if his intention was otherwise.
Orthodox Christians surely ought to see that his argu-
ment is utterly delusiv. His boast that his doctrin on
this subject was given him by divine revelation (Eph. iii. 3)
must be accounted a folly, unless the Pentateuch is funda-
mentally renounced. Nay, Paul shows, that in calling the
law "holy, just and good," his sentiment was transient
and unsubstantial. In real fact he professes to look down
upon it as childish lore, which he has outgrown-Gal. iv.
1-7. He had no more reverence for it than had any
Greek philosopher. He tried to argue it down, not by
philosophy, but as a Rabbi, by quoting its own texts
against it: hence his manifest failure.
(4) His allegories ar equally wild. He complacently
undertakes to teach the law to those Galatian converts
who ar disposed to embrace it; and assures them, that
Abraham's two wives ar an allegory,-Hagar, the slave-
concubine, typifies Mount Sinai, who is in bondage with
her children (thus assuming that all who observe the law
ar in bondage!)—and that Sarah typifies Hevenly Jeru-
salem.—Anything can thus be proved.—In the same spirit
he teaches in the first Epistle to Corinthians that the
Israelites in the wilderness were baptized unto Moses in
the cloud and in the sea, and drank of that spiritual rock
which followed them—(a rock followed them!! a fancy of
his own, it seems) and that rock was Christ.—Such argu-
ment can conjure up any amount of arbitrary mythology.
It is the lowest type of Rabbinism.
Paul's notion of the law as "added because of transgres-
sion," and as the centre of" sin, bondage and curse," is in
wonderful contrast to the joyful delight in it expressed in
S
87
the 19th, the 119th, and many other Psalms. It may
be
said, "Those Psalms were perhaps written erlier than
"Josiah's reign. The law of Moses was not yet known.
"The Psalmist by the law' ment the general Hebrew
"precepts, known to them partly from the prophets, partly
"by the traditions of daily life." Be it so: but how
speaks James? Did he regard the law as a bondage, or a
source of curses? Nay, remarkably enough, he entitles
it "the law of liberty.”—But pass we now to the substance
of the Epistle to the Galatians, and its occasion.
Paul had converted these Galatians to his own Gospel.
He is careful to style it his own. Aware that it gravely
differed from that which might be taught them from
another quarter, he took the precaution of charging them
to account any man accursed who should teach them any
other gospel than that which he had delivered to them.
The report comes to him, not that they hav in heart thrown
aside his gospel, but that they hav adopted the law of
Moses concurrently with it. They might naturally think it
impossible for any Christian to hold Mosaism and Christ-
ianism incompatible. How could the union offend their
first teacher, himself of the tribe of Benjamin, and often
acting as a law-abiding Hebrew, when he wished to in-
gratiate himself with strict Jews ?—But Paul resented it
gravely. Having lerned Christ from him, their minds
became his property. They were not free to lern anything
from anyone else. He reminds them of the solemn curse
which he had pronounced upon all who taught any other
gospel than that which he had taught: and that there
may be no mistake, he defines this as applying to certain
FALSE BRETHREN "who came from James" and "truble
them," and of these he says (v. 12) "I wish that they were
even cut off." He elsewhere complains of persecution
incited by the Jews: but it would appear from these words
that Paul would hav been, not sorry, but even glad, if
some Herod or Nero had put to deth these trublesome
advocates of the law of Moses.
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88
James beautifully answers Paul's monstrus curse of
brother Christians. While defining True Religion as de-
pending on Deed, that is, on Kindness and Purity, not on
notions or knowledge [called or miscalled Faith], he presses
the danger of rash words, saying that a man's religion is
vain, who bridles not his tongue; that the tongue is a fire,
a world of iniquity, an unruly evil, full of dedly poison;
wherewith at one moment we bless God, in the next we
curse man! My brethren, these things ought not to be.
Who is a wise man? Let him show out of good conduct
his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter
envying and strife in your hearts, THIS wisdom cometh not
down from above, but is erthly, from the carnal intellect,
such as even a devil may hav.
Paul richly erned these censures. As here he calls the
brethren who came from James "false brethren privily
"brought in" and curses them; so in 2nd Corinthians he
styles the same class "false apostles, deceitful workers,
"transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ; and
(6
(6
no marvel: for Satan himself also is transformed into
an angel of light." Moreover to the Galatians he sneers
at "James, Peter and John, who seemed to be somewhat;
but whatever they were, it maketh no matter to me." Evi-
dently he knew that on one or other important matter he
had the weight of the apostles at Jerusalem against him;
and he glories in the public rebuke which he gave to Peter
at Antioch.—We hav not Peter's account of the affair.
When Paul was so vehement, so self-confident, so in-
sulting, it must not be assumed that the opposite party
was always meek. In the outset they were wrong, accord-
ing to Acts xv. 1. Rather must we expect that some of
them sharply retaliated, and that the bitterness and strife
which James deprecated was shown on both sides. But
the cursing system was Paul's invention, and it is universally
agreed that James pursued a just and reasonable course,
neither pressing into Mosaism an unwilling Christian
Gentile, nor forbidding, to one who desired it, incorpora-
89
tion with the Hebrew body: whereas Paul invented a
prohibition, supported it by an extravagant assumption of
authority, and (one can hardly doubt) by conveniently
misunderstanding the doctrin of his opponents.
What James would hav replied to the words addressed
by Paul to Peter, we need not doubt: "if rightëusness
come by the law," says Paul "then Christ is ded in vain."
James would say: "Rightëusness, we all agree, consists in
"obedience to God's law; therefor, of necessity, rightëus-
ness can only come by God's law, Nevertheless, God
“has not laid on Gentiles that law to which we Jews ar
bound. A Gentile Christian is free to join our Hebrew
"nation, free also not to join whichever he does, affects not
"his state before God. You hav no right to reproach him
"for desiring to join our community. As to saying, that
"Christ is then ded in vain,' this simply means that
according to your private theory Christ died in order to
"annihilate the law of Moses. WE HAVE NOT SO LERNED
“CHRIST, and your contempt for the everlasting covenant
"which God made with Abraham does not commend it-
"self to us."
(6
"C
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After all, what is the basis of Paul's unmeasured self-
assertion? He himself tells us, and throws a flood of
light over his position and his character. His first claim
is, that his apostleship is wholly INDEPENDENT; his gospel
is superior to that taught in Jerusalem. He is an apostle,
not of men, neither by man. He has lernt nothing from
any man, not even from those at Jerusalem who seem to
be pillars. His assertion that he saw no apostle in Jeru-
salem but Peter and James, three years after his conver-
sion, seems to him so important, that he confirms it by a
solemn oath, "behold! before God! I lie not."-On what
then does his apostleship rest? He explains: "When it
'pleased God to reveal his Son in me, immediately I con-
'ferred not with flesh and blood." He had an inward
revelation! Just so, in 2 Cor. xii. he claims "to hav been
caught up into the third heven." To us it might seem
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needless to add so solemnly: "whether in the body or
"out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth;" but there
he herd "unutterable words;" again to us necessarily
unimportant, because unutterable. Of course he regarded
this revelation and this ecstacy as preternatural: but he
makes no allusion to the vision of Jesus in the clouds,
striking him blind, nor to the scales that fell off his eyes
when Ananias laid hands on him, and conferred on him
the Holy Spirit. The last is virtually denied by him, and
since he is silent concerning the external miracles, they
must be a later fiction. But no inward revelation made
to one man can ever be a fit argument for belief to another.
Paul himself is anxious (1 Cor. ii. 5) that "the faith of
"his converts should not stand in the wisdom of men, but
"in the power of God." This at once condemns his
authoritativ teaching of things beyond human cognizance.
If one of his Galatian converts were asked, Why do you
“believe that Jesus of Nazareth lived long before his
"human birth and was the very and unique Son of God?”
he has no answer, but: "Because Paul, who had a vision,
(C
or some sort of inward revelation, tells me so, and knows
"all about it ;" thus the convert's faith stands not on the
power of God, but on Paul's sagacity in discriminating
divine visions from human dreams. Paul's presumption
goes so far, as not to desire his private convictions, inter-
pretations and impressions to be corrected by comparison
with the creed of those who had had personal relations
with Jesus. In fear of lowering his claims of independence,
he purposely holds aloof, and remains contentedly ignorant
of the teachings of the living Jesus. Meanwhile his
innovations in Christian doctrin ar enormus and mo-
mentus: he well might proudly claim them as his own
Gospel. First of all, it is not clear, that anyone before
Paul adopted for Jesus the title "Son of God" in an ex-
clusive sense. The Jews called angels "Sons of God,"
and would no more hav shrunk from so entitling all good
men, than we to use the phrase children of God. But
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91
with Paul, Son of God is a unique title, and is elsewhere
interpreted by him that Christ is "the image of the in-
"visible God, and first-born of all creation," also that he
was the agent of God in all after-creation; so that Paul
(1 Cor. viii. 5, 6) sums up his contrast to the Polytheism
of the Pagans, in words which to Jews would only
mean "One chief God, and a second inferior god."
He says:
Insted of gods many and lords many,
We hav one God, the Father, of whom (ex quo) ar all
"things, and one Lord, Jesus, through whom (per quem,
"by whom as an agent or instrument) are all things."
Never for a moment does he pretend that THESE TWO AR
ONE. Nevertheless, towards Jesus he cherishes and
exercises all the sentiments in which divine worship con-
sists. He trusts in his power and protection; he rests
hope upon him; he makes petition to him; he receives
commands from him; he inwardly and habitually holds
communion with him as ever present. What is this, but
to believe in a second god, inferior in rank, holding de-
rived power, though morally perfect? To us it may seem,
that to believe in a hundred gods, all morally perfect and
among themselves harmonius, is consistent with the
purest piety, and is far better than to believe in One God
who indulges in petty passions: but the Jews had not
reached that stage of thought, and it is unreasonable to
doubt that many of the Jerusalem Christians judged Paul
to offend against monotheism as taught by Moses and
Samuel.
If anyone now were to advance a new revelation, on the
strict lines of Paul, such as, that "the archangel Raphael
، ،
was the first being created by the Son of God," it would
be easier to accept, than if for Raphael one substituted
some historical man; say-Moses. Yet to believe this of
Raphael, simply because some pius man had had an inward
revelation to that effect, would not be judged compatible
with ordinary good sense. In rejecting such evidence, no
one would think that we were disparaging the man. Paul
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therefor, in expecting men to believe hevenly mysteries
essentially shut out from human knowledge, (such as, the
First Creative Action of him who is Supreme and Invisible,)
on the testimony of Paul that they were inwardly revealed
to him, does not commend to us his sobriety of thought.
He teaches us to beware of accepting him as competent to
disclose to us the counsels and mind of God. He mistakes
the laws imposed on the human mind.
We see in Paul's Epistle to the Romans that he could
not escape the question, "What advantage then hath the
Jew?" Knowing, as we do, his doctrin, to us it must
seem that his honest reply ought to be, "None whatever.
Zion and Jacob in the prophets mean the spiritual Israel;
"that is, Christian converts of any nation." But he was
not quite brave enough to avow this: we see his evasive
reply, Rom. iii. 2—“ Much every way; chiefly that unto
"them were committed the oracles (rá Móyia, the sacred
"utterances) of God." Thus the chief advantage is not a
present advantage at all, but one enjoyed in a former
generation. The question was: What advantage hath the
Jew? not, What had he once? In Paul's mind, the
Gentile Christian had access to the oracles, and advantage
from them, in entire equality with the Jew. Thus, in his
controversy with Jews, Paul could not always afford to
meet their argument squarely. The topic recurs, less
formally, in Rom. ix. 4, 5; but there too the advantages
ascribed to the Jews ar all in the past.
In this Epistle to the Galatians and elsewhere a
"glorying in the cross" appears to be claimed by Paul as
something peculiar to himself, something from which the
Jewish Christians shrink: certainly nothing of the sort
comes out in James's epistle: James does not suggest that
the deplorable deth on the cross was in any way beneficial
to mankind. But Paul further has a dialect of his own,
and a new vocabulary needed for new doctrin. He is ded
to the law by the body of Christ; he is ded with Christ;
he is crucified with Christ; he has put on Christ; he is
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married to Christ; he is baptized into the deth of Christ;
he is in Christ, and Christ in him, Christ liveth in him,
and he livs his life by faith in Christ.-What more can
possibly be said concerning the Supreme God?
And yet by Athanasius Paul ought to hav been accounted
a direful heretic. Paul's epistles thoroughly justify Arius,
who believed the Son of God to hav been the erliest indeed
of created beings, but still created, and not eternal in the
past. St. John in the Apocalypse agrees with Paul, calling
Jesus Christ" the beginning of the creation of God." So
entirely did the Catholic church deviate from the erly
Gentile church in less than three centuries.
What was Paul's doctrin concerning the Reconciliation
(of man to God) by the blood of the cross, is still much
controverted; treatises ar written on opposite sides. He
certainly teaches that by the blood of his cross Christ
somehow made peace not only between Jew and Gentile,
but also between God and man; and that "faith in his
"blood" is essential to peace with God. The metaphor
afterwards culminates in the Apocalypse, where the saints
wash their robes white in this blood.
?
Whatever was the efficacy imagined in "the blood,” it
certainly was a great change for the worse from the simple
Hebrew doctrin, which taught that God is a father, who
beyond all other epithets, deserves that of Ever Merciful;
who knows man's frailty, pities it, makes allowance for it,
and to the penitent forgivs transgression. Here is no
difficulty imagined about Reconciliation, nor any apparatus
of deth or blood to effect it: no idea that it is self-rightëus
to find no need of a Mediator and Intercessor, a Divine
Usher, Testator and Representativ. A simple and reason-
able belief has been here corrupted into something artificial,
arbitrary, obscure and opposed to general good sense.
Truly he makes Christians pay a high price for getting rid
of typical ceremonies.
It is a mysterius reproach which Paul casts on the
Judaizers, that they teach circumcision in order to escape
94
persecution. Thus too he says: "If I teach circumcision,
"why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of
"the cross ceased." Romans had no wish to promote
circumcision. The Jerusalem Church did not require it
of Cornelius. Pharisees did not try to enforce it on pro-
selytes; therefor its non-enforcement by Paul cannot hav
been the main cause of anger against him. Some deeper
collision is concealed under this talk about circumcision.
Elsewhere the truth is manifest. That which may rea-
sonably be held to be Stephen's offence was Paul's offence
with the Jews. He not merely invoked a ded saint, as
an occasional act, but established an entire system of
worshipping an inferior God.
Thus by three separate practices he exasperated the
Jews: 1. By the dedly sin of idolatry, as they neces-
sarily viewed it. This would everywhere be reported
against him, but before a tribunal could seldom be proved,
unless his actual epistles were produced. Once he was
stoned, like Stephen, and left for ded, probably on this
accusation. 2. He taught "the Jews who were among
“the Gentiles" that the Mosaic law was abolished by the
deth of Jesus. This may hav been punished (mercifully,
in Jewish esteem) by thirty-nine stripes, which he five
times received. 3. He alternately broke or kept the legal
rules, according as convenient for winning favor. What
Peter may hav done once through weakness,-if Paul's
assertion (Gal. ii. 12) is true,-Paul tells us, he himself
did from systematic policy, (1 Cor. ix. 20). This must
hav degraded him in moral repute.-In Alexandria pre-
eminently, but in many other cities also, Jewish tribunals
had large power over men of their own nation. In this
way Paul fell under their Jurisdiction.
But his worship of Jesus suggests another explanation
of his charge against the Judaizers,—that they planned
to avoid persecution. No doubt, as Paul himself could
not in Jerusalem escape attack as idolatrus, it would be
dangerus there to be accounted one of his partizans.
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Hero-worship could not be tolerated in the Holy City.
Paul by it moved not only animosity among the uncon-
verted Jews, but grave disapproval in Christians of the
primitive school; and if (what was to be expected) some
of them complained that his doctrin exposed all the
Christians in Jerusalem to unjust attack, it gave him an
opening to say scornfully, that their opposition to him
turned on their fear of persecution. Yet certain it was,
that no preaching of circumcision would save a Christian
from persecution in Jerusalem, if with Paul he also
preached the worship of Jesus. On this account he can-
not be esteemed accurate and candid in his representation
of his opponents; though the first group of these in
Galatia may hav been the rash zelots whose extravagance
James and the Jerusalem Church ar said to hav disowned.
Neither he, nor the writer of the Acts, was likely to make
clear all the offence which Paul gave. They state only
the idea of compulsory circumcision, in which the ultra-
zelots were wrong, and say nothing about the charge of
idolatry incident to Paul's new gospel.
With many eminent virtues, Paul had the defects often
met in enthusiasts of novel opinion. While he was, not
tender only and affectionate, but warm in love, to all who
accepted him as a guide, it is more than doubtful whether
he could brook an equal. Rather it may seem, that any
one who opposed any of his special tenets roused quickly
his indignation, as opposing divine truth. He does not
pretend to possess the gift of miraculus healing; though
in the Acts (xiii. 11) not only was Elymas the sorcerer
struck blind by his word, but (xiv. 8) a cripple is healed,
an evil spirit (xvi. 18) is cast out; even napkins (xix. 12)
taken from Paul's body heal divers maladies! But Paul
made no attempt to cure his fellow-laborer Epaphroditus
(Philip. ii. 23-27) when dangerusly sick by his side,
nor yet to relieve Trophimus (2 Tim. iv. 20) whom he
left at Miletus sick. So little can we trust the book of
Acts concerning miracles.
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Sad to say, men who by honest enthusiasm rush into
a false position seldom can complete their career without
pretensions less clearly honest. Paul cannot wholly afford
to avow that he is not a miracle-worker. In singularly
vague high-sounding words he says to a strange church
(Romans xv. 18): "I will not dare to speak of any of
"those things which God hath not wrought by me, through
"mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of
God;" and to the Corinthians he seems to put forth a
thret that he will inflict miraculus sickness on a certain
immoral church-member. "I have decided alredy (says
"he, 1 Cor. v. 3—5) to deliver such a one to Satan, for the
“destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in
"the day of the Lord Jesus." Satan here, as prince of
demons, stands for any demon who can cause disease.
Paul then announces: "I will inflict disease on him for
"his spiritual benefit." So later (2 Cor. xiii. 10) "If I
come again, I will not spare, since ye seek a proof of
“Christ speaking in me. ・ ・ ・
Therefor I write, lest I use
"sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath
given me for edification, not for destruction." The thret
is worded with ingenius obscurity. Again, though his
good sense led him to disparage the noisy babble called
Spiritual Tongues (1 Cor. xiv.), yet he adds: "I thank my
'God, that I speak with tongues more than ye all."
""
"6
(6
The quotations given in the last paragraph savor more
of cunning, than of honorable simplicity. "The Jews
"seek for a sign," elsewhere says Paul, "and the Greeks
"seek after wisdom:" he frankly admits that he has no
pretensions to giv a sign, i. e., a miraculus credential; yet
in these passages he insinuates that it is not from want of
power, but only from tenderness. Thus does erring
Enthusiasm generate Fanaticism even in nobler souls.
Mr. Hampden (afterwards Bishop) in our day appealed
from Paul disputing and philosophizing to Paul exhorting
morally. Weak as he is in logic and in literary interpreta-
tion, yet as a practical moralist he is generally admirable.
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The chief exception rises out of the primitiv Gospel itself.
By teaching that Christ was speedily to overturn all
existing rule and govern the world justly himself, it anni-
hilated zeal for erthly improvement. Who could care (for
improving the laws or the tribunals, or for any enterprize
needing time to achieve and still longer time to bear fruit,
if he expected Messiah in a few years to make all things
new? Even slavery is with Paul indifferent; marriage
also is unimportant, because the fashion of this world
passeth away. Patriotism is superseded, because the
Christian's citizenship is in heven (Philip. iii. 20): therefor
"to mind erthly things" is a shame. On this side all
apostolic morality is weak. We could not expect him to
rise above his age in regard to the rights of women; yet
it is truly extraordinary that in treating on the expediency
of giving or not giving a maiden into marriage, (1 Cor.
vii. 38) he does not regard her wishes or judgment to need
for a moment to be consulted! Truth forces one to say
something more. We may not blame him, that his idea
of marriage was so little edifying; that he treated even
the desire of it as an infirmity. We see that he intended
to be humble, when he attributed his own freedom from
so trublesome a desire to a peculiar gift of God. But the
stubborn fact recurs upon us, that on this topic a yung
Englishman will find Walter Scott and plenty of other
non-religius modern writers more elevating and more
purifying than Paul. Paul's doctrin was made offensivly
prominent by Luther, and no doubt has been calamitus
to many an unhappy monk. Undeniably, marriage, insted
of being exalted, is degraded by Paul's treatment. But
with these exceptions, his moral excellencies ar broad,
solid and fruitful; his moral enthusiasm glorius. The
form of his doctrin gave him a vast advantage over James
and Jesus. They exhorted men to work for life, Paul
exhorted to accept life freely given, and work from it.
Faith is with him the seed of life, works the after-fruit.
They could only say, "Do right, Obey the law, Shun
G
*
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"worldly pollutions, Renounce evil welth, and you shall
"be saved." Paul can tell of an "unspeakable gift of God,"
which men hav only gladly to accept; after which he calls
them in gratitude to walk worthy of their high calling.
"I beseech you," says he, "by the mercies of God!"
Beyond a doubt the human heart answers far more redily
to this appeal than to any prudential warning against a
predicted divine judgment. No Gospels had yet been
written. Paul did not hamper himself by caring about
Jesus in the flesh. He did not do what all Christians now
do, tie themselves down to the portrait of Jesus as set
forth in our books; but drew, either from his private
“revelation" or his own free interpretation of old Scrip-
tures, his own picture of a Savior far too amiable to be
ever repulsive; who is assumed to be morally perfect,
much on the same grounds as is God himself. No one
can believe that the Supreme God has ever suffered for us:
towards a Savior who has suffered for us, gratitude more
easily becomes a passion; then the Son is loved more
than the Father; the Mediator gets the heart, and God
himself only the bowing of the hed.
James, like the Greek philosophers, was too high and
pure for the age: he would not preach to it the worship
of a ded saint. The pagans liked gods in human form,
and Paul humored them by setting up a human god, who
had suffered, and therefor could sympathize with suffering;
-one nearer to us than (to our dull minds) he who is
Infinite, Eternal and Unsusceptible of Passion seems able
to be. The same cause, after Jesus had been absorbed
into the Trinity, made the worship of the Virgin and of
many ded saints popular. Paul's doctrin avoided the
worst evils of idolatry by representing Jesus as morally
perfect, the very image of God, a marvellus sympathizing
benefactor, preternatural, yet human. He could even
draw his history with a free hand as in a heathen
mythology. To the Gentiles the Hebrew command of
loving God appeared impossible. Love, however tempered,
99
seemed impertinent, out of place and even ludicrus.*
Reverence and Gratitude were appropriate, but these did
not easily become impulsive, nor at all passionate. Ad-
dressing men accustomed to receive magic and marvellus
tales without asking for proof, or scrutinizing the moral
consistency of a story, Paul announced that the Son of
God came down from heven, took human flesh, endured
contempt and suffering, solely to bless mankind in eternal
life. Many believed; and the belief often changed them
morally, by implanting new affections, new meditations,
new hopes, new associations. With such cases in his
mind, Paul wrote, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new
"creation." The amplitude of this mythology gave to
the uneducated a new fund of thought, pure and ennobling
in contrast to all the Pagan mythologies, and far more
acceptable to these Gentiles, than the meagre and severe
doctrin of James,—we may add, of Plato or Epictetus.
The unhappy fact was, that the educated asked proof of
Paul's doctrin, and Paul had no answer but that "it was
"revealed to him.' The Greeks (said he) "seek after
“wisdom,” -a sad reproach! But ought he not rather to
hav said, seek after truth. If, after hearing Paul's doctrin,
a heathen at once accepted it joyfully, without further
inquiry, without suspicion, without caution, he would
seem in that age “to receive the kingdom of God as a little
"child," he would ern congratulation; thanks would be
paid to God: but no man of ordinary culture will dare to
say that such a convert had sought ernestly after truth,
as we ought to seek, and as many Greek philosophers did
seek. "Most unpainstaking," old Thucydides would repeat,
"is the quest of truth with these enthusiasts." When
Paul found very few educated men to accept his word as a
guarantee of truth, he moralized on it, nearly as in old
days jelusy was attributed to God. Jehovah overthrew
Tyre "to stain the pride of all glory and bring into con-
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tempt the honorable of the erth.” Seest thou not how
*So Aristotle calls it. Ει” τις φαίη φιλεῖν Δία, γελοιον ἄν ἐνη.
99
100
the God in heven strikes with his lightning all things that
ar lifted up,-high towers, high trees, high hills,—but the
little ones fret him not at all? Even so, God hides his
mysteries from the wise, that no flesh may glory in his
presence. So far, the moralizing of Paul is nearly the
same as that which is imputed to Jesus. Each of them
expects belief without evidence. Each confounds Credulity
with Faith. Perhaps each regarded Faith as the special
gift of God to an Elect remnant. However beautiful and
lovely in some cases the immediate results of some untruth
may be, yet because it has no solid back-bone, it cannot
stand in firm shape. Neither the doctrin nor its results
can be permanent. Truth alone can stand the strain of
Time: Truth cannot rest on Visions and Dreams, nor on
mere Hearsay: Truth cannot be tested and established
without much Incredulity and Criticism, which most re-
ligius teachers hav unwisely condemned, which also all
Sham Sciences dred.
Yet Paul had great qualities. Though he preached a
Christ of his own fancy, careless to lern what Jesus really
was, he was the most effectiv preacher of the name of
Christ that ever existed, and was the chief founder of
Gentile Christianity. Possibly guided in part by the
spurius book of Enoch, he defined Messiah to be Son of
God, Lord of angels and men, erliest of Created Beings,
agent of God in all further Creation, future Judge of living
and ded, predestined Ruler on erth, dispenser of all God's
favors; and he taught that Jesus the crucified was this
Messiah. To this he added much about the Law, its
Curse, its Overthrow; the Cross and Reconciliation and
Justification by Faith, Human Depravity and Helplessness,
arbitrary Decrees of God under whose wrath we ar born,
Predestination to be Saints, our Ruin through Adam's
sin, our Recovery by the Lord from heven; nor did he
forget, that when the same Lord should come back to
claim his kingdom, then the saints would judge the world.
(1 Cor. vi. 2). Therein he retained the primitiv gospel of
101
Jerusalem, with its literal thrones for the saints. In this
mass of new mythology was material for future contro-
versy painfully abundant. Out of it came Augustinianism
and what we now call Calvinism. Nevertheless in one
cardinal matter Paul was the direct opposite to Calvin;
for he taught Final Universal Salvation. This is manifest
in several places, especially Rom. xi. and 1 Cor. xv. 22-28;
a fact which totally changes the moral aspect of much
which at first sight appears in his doctrin to be harsh,
dredful and darkening to the character of God. He has
indeed sentences and arguments to which, as coming from
so hot and hasty a writer, it is reasonable to believe, he
would not hav tied himself. He did not know that his
Epistles would be turned into a new Sacred Letter for
distant ages.
His moral teaching must in every respect be preferred
to that which is ascribed to Jesus. It may hardly be too
much to say, that all the meaner side of Catholic doctrin
comes from Jesus, and all the nobler morals of successiv
Reformers from Paul, who had imbibed Greek as well as
Hebrew thoughts. Paul's precepts ar never extravagant,
but commend themselves always to practical good sense,
however pure and lofty. He never condemns Welth, nor
suggests that in seeking Perfection we must renounce it :
he confines himself to charging rich men to be "rich in
"good works." He says, "If I giv all my goods to feed
"the poor, and hav not Charity (caritas, kindliness?) it
“profiteth me nothing." Compensation in the other
world for poverty in this, is nowhere suggested by Paul.
He neither blesses poverty, nor approves of religius men-
dicants; but of such he says: "If any man will not work,
“neither let him eat." While preaching, he supported
himself by his own labor, living so simply, that he erned
the privilege of even supporting the weaker. He severely
avows that with Food and Raiment we ought to be content.
He warns of the danger of zeal to become rich, yet he
never forbids to lay up for old age or for contingent weak-
102
ness; but even acknowledges that it is seemly for parents
to lay up for children (2 Cor. xii. 14). All of his utter-
ances ar those of a disinterested, generus, very warm-
hearted man, pure in his aims, and longing for inward
perfection, persistent in enduring hardship, ambitius to
infuse spiritual life into others, and aware that the
privilege of the strong is to support the weak and patiently
endure their follies. The duty of renouncing the enjoy-
ment of things lawful, when they tend either to bring us
into bondage to them, or to lead another into wrong ways,
is presented as natural to one who livs in the new life.
His heart seems ever full and gushing with glorius thought
and affectionate desire, so as to leave in a reader the con-
viction: "This is a man who was sure to inspire deep love
"and communicate high enthusiasm," an enthusiasm,
not for mere notions (of which he had plenty) but for
justice, simplicity, purity, benevolence and tender mercy;
indeed for all that he calls the Fruits of the Spirit.
Having also intense conviction, boldness of assertion and
unflinching bravery, he united all the moral elements
needed in the apostle of a new religion. His extant
Epistles ar a precius and beautiful tresure of Christian
morality.
He knew that he was incapable of fascinating minds
which demanded evidence before they could believe. Of
those gathered into the church by him, very few were
strong in intellect. Many were illiterate or slaves, others
were highly emotional and credulus; some had a tinge of
Oriental philosophy; many were allured by the promise
of a hevenly Deliverer from oppression; some were at-
tracted by the equality and fraternity of the church;
perhaps most of all by admiration of the pure morals
which were preached. But while writing and talking
constantly concerning Faith, Paul does not discern the
great ambiguity of this word, which in Greek, as in
English, means (1) fidelity, (2) trust, (3) belief in a pro-
position. In the two first senses it may be a moral virtue,
103
testing human character: in the third sense it cannot be
a virtue to believe when the particular proposition has
no proof, may rather be called a vice. Through entire
want of scientific culture, he (like Jesus) mistook Credulity
for Faith, and wood, hay, stubble, for gold and silver.
But his moral precepts ar gold that endures the fire.
Immoralities into which heathen converts relapsed,
were a form of misery to Paul which we all should expect:
but he encountered them also from perverse opinion, as in
those who, having thrown off ceremonialism by the argu-
ment that external things cannot defile the spirit, deduced
that no sexual act can be sin. He was further distressed
to find some members at Corinth who denied human rèsur-
rection. We know that Paul's church at Thessalonica
grieved over those who died before Christ's return, as
though they hereby lost participation in his erthly rule.
No resurrection of individuals entered into the scene of
Paradise as presented by the Hebrew prophets. Paul
teaches the Thessalonicans, and argues with the Corinth-
ians. Perhaps the latter identified Resurrection with
Regeneration, as in Eph. v. 14 and Matt. xix. 28, thence
inferring (2 Tim. ii. 18) that "the Resurrection is past
already." Paul in his reply to the Corinthians lets us
know his theory, that the kingdom of Christ is to hav a
limit of time during which Deth is to continue and (since
with him Deth implies Sin) more or less of Sin. But
when all enemies (of which Sin is the typical name) hav
been destroyed, Deth also shall finally vanish. Then no
longer will there be need of Rule. The Son of God will.
become subject to his Father and deliver up the kingdom.
This full and far-reaching anticipation was apparently
worked out of a prophetical verse : "Messiah shall rule,
“until God has put all enemies under his feet." If this
comes from Psalm cx. 1 (as we may suspect) it is a new
illustration how doctrin was generated in those days.
The Pauline churches were generally found in places
where Greek was understood; in Syria, in Asia Minor or
(6
104
in Greece itself. We do not know that he understood
Latin, or any language but Greek and Hebrew. He
desired to visit Rome. At last, coming into danger from
a tumult in Jerusalem, he used his privilege as a Roman
citizen to appeal to Cæsar, and was carried to Rome as a
prisoner. Hitherto he had known Roman magistrates as
protectors, and fancied that while Christians acted aright,
they would hav nothing to fear from Roman power.
Hebrew Patriotism he had entirely cast off with zeal for
Mosaism. But he lived to lern, how violent, pitiless and
unjust was Roman rule. All Christian tradition holds
that he was beheded in Nero's atrocius massacre of
Christians, A.d. 64.
A year or two erlier, James had been stoned to deth in
Jerusalem, on what pretence we do not know. Josephus
givs details, as follows, The Roman prefect Festus was
ded : his successor was on the road. The high-priest
Ananos was one of the Sadducees, a sect rigidly main-
taining the old law in its worst severity. He seized his
opportunity, while no Roman officer was at hand to
restrain him, convoked a Great Council, brought James
and others before it as transgressors of the law, and
carried against them a Verdict that commanded stoning
them to deth, which was actually inflicted. But the
sentence caused great indignation in Jerusalem. So for-
midable a protest was made against Ananos to the new
Roman prefect and to King Herod Agrippa the Second,
that the high-priest was deposed for the deed. By what
pleas he prevailed on the Council, no hint is given; but
the punishment suggests that he imputed Hero Worship.
-We may here note that the Christian Bishops of a later
century were sure to dislike the Epistle of James, as
testifying his wide difference from their mythology, and
tried to discountenance it. But had it not been genuine,
had it been a later fabrication, it never could hav gained
any acceptance.
James and Paul were both true Jews in glorifying
105
Abraham's rediness to sacrifice his son on a supposed
divine command. The respect which to the present day
this monstrus fable receives, warns us how little depth
there still is in religius thought. A voice from heven
which urges us to an immorality ought rather to be
ascribed to a Demon than to God. Paul and James would
both hav seen this, if the story had been concerning a
contemporary: but being told concerning an ancient
patriarch, it passed without criticism. Datur hæc venia
antiquitati. James also believes in the validity of prayer
for external phenomena, such as Rain and Disease; and
the Christian Church to this day upholds the doctrin.
CHAPTER XI.
CLOSE OF THE APOSTOLIC ERA.
WHEN Paul and James had been removed, the chief pillars
of the Church may be recounted as Apollos, John son of
Zebedee, and Simon called Peter.
Apollos was a Jew of Alexandria, who had received
superior literary culture, suggestiv of Greek rhetoric. He
may hav been baptized by John himself, whose disciple he
regarded himself to be; and we find in the Acts of the
Apostles that by reason of the close likeness of John's
disciples to those of Jesus, Apollos and his wife passed as
Christians. Paul easily converted them to his own gospel;
and before long Apollos must hav become very eminent as
a Christian teacher among the Gentiles, with some
originality in his doctrin. For Paul (in 1st Epistle to
Corinth) represents different Christians as saying, I am
of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Peter. It was cleverly
conjectured by Martin Luther, that Apollos is the author
of the anonymus Epistle to the Hebrews, which cannot be
Paul's, as the Greek style at once proves; though the
106
Anglican translation (even the Recent Version) most im-
properly advertises it as Paul's. The Greek is far superior
to that of Paul, the eloquence more polished and delicate,
less fervid. The argumentation is less harsh and abrupt,
though it has the fanciful subtlety to be expected from
any Christian Rabbi. To no one can the Epistle be so
plausibly ascribed as to Apollos. After the deth of Paul,
Timotheus (Paul's yunger frend) might reasonably attach
himself to Apollos.
The chief novelty in this Epistle consists in representing
Jesus as High-Priest of the Church, and Intercessor with
God. Thus he becomes at once Priest and Victim, offering
himself without spot to God. He rests his doctrin on the
110th Psalm, "Thou art a Priest for ever after the Order
"of Melchisedek." To many of us it is clear that that
Psalm was composed by a priest, seer or musician in
honor of some Jewish king, possibly of David himself.
Melchisedek was a king and priest. To say that David
was a king after the Order of Melchisedek, was a poetical
form of ascribing to him a right of sacrifice; and we know
that David did sacrifice at the altar of Araunah the
Jebusite. But in this Epistle the Psalm is assumed to be
a glorification of Messiah (as probably Paul esteemed it)
whence further a discussion concerning the priest-king
Melchisedek. The writer's power of making much out of
little is quite equal to Paul's, but perhaps this is only
Rabbinical. Melchisedek in Genesis is brought-in ab-
ruptly, and nothing is said concerning his parentage, nor
his birth and deth. Out of these omissions, the writer
grandiloquently raises a mighty fabric, calling him
"Without father, without mother, without descent, having
"neither beginning of days nor end of life, but being made
"like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually."
On such a swollen bladder he would bild a solid religion!
What better illustration could we need of a "Castle in
"the Air" than this? His rhetoric culminates in his
register of Faith, after giving a most unsatisfactory defini-
107
tion (if definition is intended), "Faith is the substance of
"things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Then
follows a long list of ancient worthies, among whom so
many deserve sympathy and veneration, that to protest
against special names is painful. Still, it is necessary to
point at one monstrus assumption, contrary to the whole
tenor of Hebrew literature,-that the patriarchs looked
forward to a better cuntry, that is, a hevenly;" besides
his fantasy that Moses in Egypt "endured the reproach
"of Christ."
In the exaltation of Christ, as God's agent in creation,
and therefor his first-begotten, also as the "off-shining'
(or reflection?) of God's glory, he agrees with Paul; yet
steps beyond him in saying that Jesus is the same Yester-
day, To-day and For Ever, which adds to him one more
attribute of Godhead, Immutability. Yet he calls "God
"the Judge of all," while with Paul God judges men by
Jesus. His moral exhortations ar worthy of Paul. The
"blood of sprinkling" is his phrase, seemingly by allusion
to the process for saving the first-born in Egypt from the
destroying angel. This blood (he says) is "to clense the
"conscience from ded works to serve the living God;
rhetorically elegant, morally very obscure. He informs
us that "Christ through the Eternal Spirit offered himself
"without spot to God,”—a new glorification of his ghastly
deth.
""
""
Apparently, with or without Paul, the cross was destined
to a poetical glorification. Christians in the retrospect
could not bear to think of their Lord's deth as simply a
cruel murder, as it is regarded in the opening of the
"Acts." They felt bound to find out some divine purpose
in it, some reason for saying that he had not "died in
"vain." This writer, who is still fuller than Paul of
Hebrew sacerdotalism Rabbinically Christianized, signal-
izes the following curius analogy. "The bodies of those
"beasts were burned without the camp; wherefor Jesus
"also, that he might sanctify the people with his own
108
"blood, suffered without the gate." How deplorable a use
of a fine intellect! Sanitary reasons obviusly dictated
where the bodies of the beasts should be burned; therefor
(forsooth!) Jesus was crucified outside the gate. Want of
good sense is too manifest. He also teaches us that in or
"by the blood of the everlasting covenant' God raised
Jesus from the ded, xiii. 20; quite a new covenant (it
seems) here revealed, between God and Christ. But why
in the blood? because covenants were confirmed among
men by killing something! ix. 18. On this word covenant
(AιýÊη) he sadly blunders. In Greek it means also
Last Will or Testament. He has (unawares to himself)
in ix. 15-20 drawn up an argument in which this word
vacillates between these two very diverse senses: whence
hopeless nonsense is detected by an attempt at translation,
But on the whole we cannot wonder that this Epistle
attained high honor and loyal acceptance with the Christian
Church. Being in many respects like Paul and worthy of
Paul, it was supposed to be Paul's. The date cannot be
fixed. It has no historical allusion, either to the persecu-
tion by Nero or to the coming trubles of Jerusalem. If
written in Paul's life, in alluding to Timothy one might
expect allusion to Paul. This is not decisiv, yet may
seem to turn the scale in favor of believing that it was
written after Paul's deth.
""
Nero's persecution of the Christians in Rome is dated
A.D. 64. It was a very critical time for the Church, which
hitherto, both in Palestine and among the Gentiles, had
striven to avoid all offence to the Roman authorities.
The belief that the Lord from heven would quickly super-
sede all erthly rule, made it easier to them, than to the
mass of the Jews, to endure Roman supremacy; nay, to
many Roman rule may hav seemed more tolerable than the
power of Sadducees. To converted Gentiles an idolatrus
power in Italy was no worse, than if it had been in Alex-
andria or Babylon, Antioch or Sardis. Paul, as a Roman
citizen, had lent all his influence to inculcate loyal sub-
109
mission to Rome: Peter, still later, followed in his track.
But events were too stormy and overpowering. The
temperament and judgment of the Church concerning
Roman rule was changed violently, inevitably,-by cruelty
which could not hav been pre-imagined.
This change is first indicated to us in the book which
has for title The Apocalypse (or Revelation) of Jesus
"Christ." The author's name is given as John. He
writes, as if with authority, to the Seven Churches of
Asia. Internal evidence proves that the book was penned
not long after the deth of Nero, and before the destruction
of Jerusalem. All Christian antiquity ascribes to John
the son of Zebedee a long life. During his life it was
hardly possible for any one to write as personating him.
The Greek is the worst of all in the New Testament, and
is that of a Hebrew. Absolutely nothing in the book
exists to throw doubt on its being the genuine work of the
son of Zebedee; and Justin Martyr, the erliest Christian
writer who names it, ascribes it distinctly to the Apostle
John. This apostle was one of the three who according
to Paul, were accounted Pillars of the Church. Of any
superiority in Peter, Paul was evidently quite ignorant.
That must hav been a later fancy, equally that John was
peculiarly beloved.
Innocent Englishmen seldom ar able to imagin what
Roman "persecution" ment. We know that Romish
legend is apt to exaggerate, and a vague distrust is often
felt, when the horrors of old days ar alluded to. It there-
for is not amiss to go into some detail as to the intense
hardheartedness of Roman rule, which is often trumpeted
as mild and tolerant, sagacius and civilizing. There can
be no just suspicion that the cruelties of that persecution
were less than the tale. Will anyone say, Perhaps hatred
of the Emperor Nero, who commanded it, led the historians
to exaggerate? But the very eminent historian Tacitus,
who narrates hideus details, while confessing the Christians
innocent of the crime imputed, viz., the burning of Rome,
110
tells all without pity, rather with ferocius exultation,
slandering Christians as per flagitia invisos, "hateful for
"profligacies," "convicted of the crime of hating the
"human race." This philosophic and typical Roman
proceeds: "Their punishments were made a sport some
"were covered by skins of beasts, to make dogs mangle
"them to deth: others were crucified; others again,
"wrapped up in cloths covered with pitch and brimstone,
were burnt in the night to serve as torches. For this
spectacle Nero opened his own gardens. Hence arose
"pity for a set of men, guilty though they were and deserving
“of the most extreme punishments; yet they now seemed to
"be sacrificed, not for the public good, but for the in-
"human plesure of one man." By their "guilt," the
historian means guilt of opinion, guilt of religion, not guilt
of deed of this he acquits them. Yet he thinks pity for
them quite misplaced. When such a writer could hold
such sentiments, incredulity seems vain. The horrors ar
not narrated by a Christian priest, but by the highest
genius then living in Rome, who tells events which oc-
curred in his father's life-time. Suetonius in few words
is equally slanderus and unpitying. Trajan and Pliny,
without knowing what Christianity is, assume as an Axiom
that it is dedly guilt.
"
66
No wonder that Paul's roseate view of Roman power
became untenable to Christian hearts. Roman rule had
previusly seemed as good or as bad as other Pagan rule.
To those who lerned the facts, it now glared forth signally
as the guilty and dedly foe "of God and his Christ."
Christians, before long, painted it to themselves in the
same lurid colors as did the bitterest Jewish insurgent.
In the Apocalypse of John the Roman Empire is set forth
as a fierce Beast: the city Rome is drunk with the blood
of the saints. In one and only one chapter of this singular
book (ch. xvii.) is an authoritativ interpretation added,
which the Christian historian Neander has lucidly ex-
plained, nor is the explanation open to any reasonable
111
doubt. The chapter sets forth that the seven heds of the
beast represent kings, of whom five ar fallen, one still
exists, a seventh is yet to come. We must count them:
1, Augustus Cæsar; 2, Tiberius; 3, Caligula; 4, Claudius;
5, Nero for Julius Cæsar was known only as one out of
several successful combatants in civil war. The Monarchy
was recognized in the Eastern provinces only after Antony
was defeated by Octavianus B.C. 30.-Nero is the hed
which received a dedly wound: yet "this dedly wound
was healed." This is explained by the fact that for some
twenty years after the deth of Nero the Eastern provinces
did not believe in his deth, but supposed that he had
escaped into Parthia. Hence two false Neros attained a
great and dangerus following. Nero is denoted also by
the 8th hed, which is to be one of the seven.
Who ar
intended by the 6th and 7th must remain uncertain, since
tidings concerning Galba, Otho and Vitellius came thick
and confusing in that year of civil war. The burning
down of the temple of Jupiter in Rome by the contending
armies is apparently alluded to in ch. xvii. 16, which givs
close limits of time for the composition of this book.
Tacitus says that in that year the Roman Empire nearly
came to an end. We thus redily understand the mental
excitement under which "the Apocalypse" was written,
and the vehemence with which in the opening and in the
close it avows that the events prophesied ar about to be
accomplished speedily. Not merely the impending fall of
the Empire was declared, but the final triumph in which
the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of God
and his Christ.
(6
Our Gospels did not yet exist. The dredful persecution
under Nero (which was not wholly confined to Rome) left
open the possibility of a rumor that Jesus had foreseen
and predicted such sufferings for his faithful disciples:
though we see, that if he did not plan or imagin a Gentile
church, it is scarcely credible that he foretold these events.
After forty or fifty years, in the midst of the mental strain
112
which the imperial violence laid on the Christians, no one
need wonder at the rise of numerus unhistorical traditions,
which in time would be chronicled as truth. The pre-
dictions concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and the
temple (as observed above), cannot hav proceeded from the
mouth of Jesus: consequently there is none but the
feeblest reason for attributing to him a foresight that his
disciples would suffer extreme persecution.
""
and in a very
In the phraseology of the Apocalypse a novelty appears
in the use of the word Lamb for Christ: as, "God and
"the Lamb; "the Lamb that was slain ; "the Lamb
"that is in the midst of the throne;
startling metaphor: "they hav washed their robes and
"made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Paul set
the example of comparing Christ to the Paschal Lamb.
This lamb in the Hebrew law was not a sacrifice on the
altar, but a food in each house. Its blood was (in Exodus)
sprinkled on every Israelite doorpost that the inmates.
might be spared by the angel sent to destroy the Egyp-
tians. That is why Paul said: "Christ our Passover is
"slaughtered for us." But John's use of the Lamb may
be borrowed from Isaiah liii., "He is brought as a Lamb
“to the slaughter."
Another novelty of greater importance is found in its
entitling Jesus in one passage only (Rev. xix. 13) the
Word of God. This is the beginning of sublimating him
into an abstract principle, and dealing with Christianity
as Philo had delt with Judaism. The erly Christian might
now claim a Trinity in a verse of the Hebrew Psalms:
'By the Word of Jehovah were the hevens made, and all
"the host of them by the Breth (Spirit) of his mouth."
In Paul, the Lord Jesus is a solid person, no less separate
from God, the Source of being, than is every individual man.
So indeed is the Lamb of the Apocalypse: but as soon as
the Son of God is entitled the Word of God, (especially
""
""
""
* In Rev. i. 5, the Sinaitic version for "washed" has "loosed,
freed, liberated," by reading simple v for ov.
113
since the same Greek term means Word and Reason) a
foundation is laid for endless fantasy and endless contro-
versy.
John in the Apocalypse closely follows Paul's exalta-
tion of Christ. Paul calls him the first-born of all creation
(Coloss. i. 15), so in Rev. iii. 14, he is the beginning of the
creation of God. Each shows that Arius went the full
length of apostolic orthodoxy, and that Athanasius was
an innovator. John goes on to call Jesus the King of
kings and Lord of lords, "the first and the last," who has
the keys of Hades and of Death.-Whatever may be said
by calm critics as to the want of sobriety in this book, it
has a strange magnificence and purity of its own, and an
admirable moral depth. In these dredful times it must
hav had an overpowering fascination to the suffering
christian.
Some phenomena in it ar hard to explain. Is he
literally Judaical, when he represents twelve thousand
saints to be sealed from each of the twelve tribes of Israel?
or if not, what can the statement mean? When he makes
out twelve tribes by omitting Dan, and numbering
Manasseh and Joseph (i.e. Ephraim) as two, does he
merely follow the reckoning alredy popular? The tribe
of Dan was never able to conquer its allotted territory: a
portion of it conquered by cruel attack a single town, in
the farthest north of "the Holy Land:" but this perhaps
was never accounted one of the twelve.-Can any but a
literal sense be put on his phrase: "These ar they which
ar not defiled with women: for they ar virgins," (Rev.
xiv. 4.) One can understand that in these terrible days
such Christians as followed Paul in refraining from
marriage, lest tenderness to wife and children lessen their
power of endurance and faithfulness, were considered pre-
eminent saints: but to brand marriage as "defilement"
is simply dredful, and one is unwilling to impute this to
the apostle John. Whatever he ment, it would seem that
this text had a very fatal effect on all the old historical
H
114
churches. From a different side it buttressed Paul's per-
nicius doctrin that God does not grant the gift of chastity
to men in general; whence a detestable tenet, current in
modern false science for defence of male unchastity, gains
support among Christian dignitaries.
Not only is the Roman Empire denounced in the Apo-
calypse as the dedly enemy of God and his saints (in
marked contrast to Paul's notion and hope), but much
stress is laid on the wickedness of worshipping the Beast
(i.e. the Empire) and his image. There can be no reason-
able doubt that this ment the image of Cæsar. A mon-
strus and abominable tyranny had crept in, which
Augustus or Tiberius Cæsar would hav abhorred,—that of
demanding, as a test of loyalty, to worship the Emperor's
image. We see in the Apocalypse the terrible prominence
which this had obtained.
This book became classical, as promising a First and
Second Resurrection, and between them a Thousand Years
reign on Erth of Jesus and his Saints. That is why it
was disparaged when Christians became ashamed of that
expectation. It also, more than any other Christian book,
undertakes to depict to the imagination the delights of a
Christian heven. The effort at spirituality is plausible,
but a cessation of toil, pain, and sorrow (as in Hebraic
deth) is the only solid idea in it. In continued life the
total absence of pain and want is fatal to the idea of pro-
gressiv virtue. There is absolutely nothing to be done.
No self-sacrifice is possible. No motiv for any exertion is
imaginable, except to increase knowledge and science; so,
after all, nothing beyond a Ciceronian heven is propounded
Personal vision of "the Lamb" is in itself not
more satisfying than was personal vision of the living
Jesus.
to us.
Concerning this John we may remark that when Paul
wrote to the Galatians, John apparently was still resident
in Jerusalem; but afterwards he must hav had long
familiarity with the seven churches of Asia to whom he
115
inscribed the book of Apocalypse. Among them he lerned
to deviate widely from the primitiv creed of Jerusalem, as
we see it in James's Epistle. Nevertheless it is not pro-
bable that he ever formally sanctioned Paul; for he
pointedly upholds only twelve apostles, whereas if Paul's
apostleship were admitted, there were thirteen. He also
puts into the mouth of Jesus severe words against those
who say they ar apostles, and ar not: which seems to strike
at Paul.
""
A few words ar needed concerning Simon, called Cephas
in Hebrew, Petros in Greek. No reason appears for doubt,
that Jesus gave to Simon the surname Rock, because of
his forwardness in avowing that Jesus was the Messiah.
Paul never calls him Simon; James in the "Acts is
made to call him Simeon. In his first and genuine Epistle,
he calls himself Petros. The second Epistle, which even
by Augustus Neander is judged spurius, opens by the
name Simon Petros. The word Simon is Greek, meaning
snubnosed. In Galilee this may hav been of Greek origin :
but Simeon is clearly Hebrew. Was then the spelling
Simon the mistake of men familiar with Greek?
Peter's character as depicted in the gospels is that of
generus ardor unsupported by moral tenacity. Paul
also in writing to the Galatians represents him as aiming
at the impossible task of pleasing both sides; the error of
one amiable, but not strong. He had moved on quite
redily in admitting Gentiles into the Church. He could
not go along with Paul's vehemence at Antioch, and
encountered Paul's severe rebuke; yet he certainly had no
desire to impose on Gentiles the ceremonial law. German
critics have disputed the authenticity of even Peter's first
Epistle, on the ground (solely, I believe,) of its being too
like Paul's doctrin. It however is Paul without Pauline
argumentation or Pauline subtleties. It is far more
popular and less scholastic than is Paul normally, and
seems to come from a tender and sweet nature which
would both forgiv Paul's rudeness and be willing to lern
of him.
116
No trace of Rabbinical argument appears in it, though
it has what may be thought a Pharisaic doctrin concern-
ing Spirits in Prison (rebel angels ?) to whom Christ was
supposed to preach the gospel (iii. 19) by going down into
Hades or Gehenna. These ar the angels (or sons of God)
in Gen. vi. who through love of women (Jude 6 and 7) kept
not their first estate. A peculiar obscurity is in iii. 6,
where he speaks of the gospel as preached to the ded,
which whether literal or figurativ is very perplexing.
His most Pauline trait is the comparison of Baptism to
Noah's ark, but the Baptism of which he speaks is not the
mere external rite, but the confession of a sincere heart.
It may be objected that nothing in this Epistle denotes
the writer ever to hav seen and listened to Jesus. But
the objection assumes that in those days the business of
an apostle was to play the part of an "evangelist," making
much of the deeds and words of the living Jesus. It
assumes that the practical morality taught by Jesus was
more valuable than that of Paul and Peter. Rather, these
apostles believed that they had to teach truths and hopes
concerning the risen Jesus which he, while alive, did not
teach, and that change of circumstances made change of
moral exhortation suitable. The perfect virtue of Jesus
himself could not be attested by an apostle as though eye
or ear were a competent judge; so transcendent a quality
could only be inferred by the prophecies concerning
Messiah.
The last words of this remarkably beutiful and edify-
ing epistle send a salutation from the Church in Babylon.
No valid reason appears for doubting that he wrote from
the historical city of Babylon. The tone of iv. 17 denotes
that he saw the destruction of Jerusalem under Vespasian
and Titus to impend. He may hav written A.D. 69. In
iv. 12 his expectation of the fiery trial (to all Jewish
Christians for it is to these that he writes) attests that
the fierce enmity of the Roman Government to Christians
was no secret to him. Yet he perseveres in Paul's theory
117
concerning governors (ii. 14), and is most ernest that
Christian Jews shall giv no symptom of disloyalty. His
modesty in addressing Elders as himself an Elder, and
exhorting them not to be lords over God's heritage, is in
very pleasing contrast to that of bishops in the following
centuries. Whether Peter ever set foot on Italy, is his-
torically quite doubtful. No well attested fact denotes
that he ever held or desired any supremacy in the Church,
Jewish or Gentile. The four Gospels accuse him of having
three times denied Christ with vehement oaths: but the
lead which in Acts i. 15 is conceded to him ungrudgingly,
makes this story as improbable as ar the details concerning
the motivs of Judas.
The reasons for rejecting as spurius the 2nd Epistle
called Peter's, cannot here be fully treated. It is enough to
say, that the second chapter is judged to be a mere importa-
tion of Jude's Epistle, and Jude writes, looking back to the
apostles as an erlier generation: also the third chapter is
written after much disappointment had been felt that
Christ's second coming was delayed. The excuse for this,
that" with the Lord a thousand years ar as one day" is
fatal to all truth, making God a wilful deceiver of men.
Such doctrin is self-confuting.
CHAPTER XII.
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM AND ITS EFFECT ON
CHRISTIANITY.
UNHAPPILY it was not the Romans alone who hated the
Jews. No conquering empire has yet made itself beloved,
except that of the Incas in Peru, who (according to Spanish
accounts) conquered by that blessed Christian rule, which
bids us show greatness by becoming servant of the weaker.
To imperial kindness the barbarian heart pays grateful
118
allegiance, as surely as do horses and dogs. But Assy-
rians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians and
Romans, following the doctrin that Might makes Right,
and, Woe to the conquered! were hated by those whom they
trod down. It is not wonderful, that so too were the Jews
during their short term of imperialism. The Hebrew
annals frankly inform us how very far was their pius king
David from gentleness towards Edom, Ammon and even
Moab; how lighthanded also his plundering of Syrian
towns. All this comes as it were naturally to one who has
proved superior in war.
The tale was repeated by the Jewish power after the
marvellus Maccabean successes. These exalted the
Jewish spirit everywhere and gave honor to the Jewish
name. The successiv kings of Egypt looked on Jews
with respect, and (in modern phraseology) admitted them
to diplomatic equality. Maccabean princes ruled in Sheba.
A million Jews dwelt in Alexandria with nativ autonomy
under the Ptolemies. The Romans were glad to make the
Jewish power their ally. The sacrosanct hed of the
Jews, alredy a Priest-King in fact, delt with a very high
hand towards foreiners, grudging municipal local free-
dom even to nativ towns, in order to centralize power in
Jerusalem. Syrian towns, of which many were conquered,
ar not likely to hav had much freedom left to them,
though their language was that of Jerusalem. All that is
reported of them implies, that at every time they felt them-
selves to be under a forein yoke. Jewish dealing with
Edomite towns was severer still; for after conquest, cir-
cumcision and the whole of the Mosaic ritual was violently
imposed. Yet here it may seem that the violence was
successful; for, as the descendants of Saxons who had
been driven to baptism by the spear of Charlemagne, and
Hungarians forcibly converted by St. Stephen, came to
pride themselves on their Christianity, so (in two genera-
tions perhaps) were these Edomites proud of their Judaism,
and practically were incorporated into Israel. The fierce
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119
demolition of Samaria by the high-priest Hyreanus was
mentioned above. Jerusalem was not virtüus enough for
her own successes and temporary power. When Rome
came down in might on Syria, it may well be believed
that from the evil reports of the Syrians, many of whom
avowed disaffection to Jewish rule, the Romans quickly
imbibed strong aversion to the Jewish character. More-
over, it is every way credible, that the Jews under their
new regimen were more offensive to their neighbors than
under their former royalty. David, however acceptable
his piety to the strict worshippers of Jehovah, and how-
ever unbridled his personal elation, was not king over
a whole nation possessed by ceremonial zeal. His people
were only too prone to adopt the superstitions of their
neighbors, as indeed were many of the kings who
succeeded him. But in the later period, when all the
nation had become devoted to the law of Moses, and had
seemed to experience that Jehovah indeed fought for them;
then, to avoid religius arrogance was hardly possible.
They had rejected marriage with Gentiles as a defilement
and a breach of sacred law. To eat at a common table
involved ceremonial uncleanness. On a smaller scale, like
causes separate Turks from their Christian subjects, and
Englishmen in India from nativs. To be conquered and
governed by foreiners is a grievus sore; but to be in-
sulted by the perpetual suggestion: "We domineer, be-
cause we ar pure, and you ar defiled," drops poison into
the wound. It can scarcely be doubted, that the ordinary
insolence of conquerors was inflamed by ecclesiastical pride.
The Hebrew scriptures fanned the flame. Every Israelite
remembered such texts as: "God shall subdue the nations
“under us, and the peoples under our feet! Moab is my
washpot; over Edom will I cast my shoe," &c. Texts ar
too numerus here to quote; indeed that glorius (later)
Isaiah abounds with ampler and varied chants of triumph.
Erthly dominion, erthly welth and splendor, erthly
vassalage of Gentiles, ar announced in words unmis-
(6
..
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takable. It is childish to pretend that Jerusalem and
Zion do not mean the cities so called, but mean mis-
cellaneous saints who profess a different and higher religion
than that of Isaiah. Most certainly no such idea could
enter the Hebrew nation, even if a few eccentric Rabbis,
with Paul, imagined it. But Christians, insted of con-
fessing that these beutiful prophecies were patriotic error
and an unhappy source of delusion, continue to insist that
they ar divine, scold at the Jews for accepting their obvius
and only sense, and twist the words to their own glory.*
*
The language of Jerusalem hardly differed from that of
the Syrians: we call both at that time Syriac. The
Asmonean princes conquered much or all of Hollow Syria,
-the lofty plain between Libanus and Anti-Libanus.
Some towns were alternately conquered and lost. Many
Syrian towns had Jewish residents in time of peace; but
probably all Syrian towns preferred Syrian to Jewish rule;
and at least at first, preferred Roman masters to Jews.
The city of Cæsarea approached the ancient Tyrian
frontier. It had been bilt up into splendor by Herod the
Great, and named in honor of Augustus Cæsar. It con-
tained a temple adorned with statues in Greek style,
which seemed to alienate it from Judæa. It had a Jewish
synagog; but the Syrian residents, under the patronage
of Herod and his successors, may hav been more numerus
than the Jews. In this city a fatal flame was first lighted
(if we can believe the details in Josephus) by the very
wicked machinations of the Roman prefect Florus.
Every Roman officer expected to return home rich
enough to liv in high state. Man differed from man in
shamelessness and cruelty, but very few indeed made
justice or humanity paramount. Florus (according to our
historian) was so extreme in his odius malversations,
* The amiable and lerned Crévier says that the Jews, when they
made insurrection against Trajan, had only to complain of "the
"heavy yoke laid upon them contrary in their opinion (!) to the express
promises and predictions of the prophets."
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that accusation against him in Rome was likely to be fatal,
unless he could paralyze his accusers by involving them
in imputation as insurgents. His policy therefor was,
to get up an insurrection, and ern credit for crushing it.
In order to provoke the Jews to resistance, he stirred up
a quarrel in Cæsarea; he also himself committed slaughter
in Jerusalem. Aware of his policy, the Jews at first tried
to curb him by appealing to Cestius Gallus, governor of
Syria, who was superior to Florus: but much delay
followed. The Jews in all parts, when they herd of
massacres in Jerusalem and in Cæsarea, with complicity
of the Roman authorities partly clear, partly suspected,
were exasperated beyond endurance. Bands of guerilla
took arms.
A Roman fortress near the Ded Sea was
captured with a highly stored arsenal. Violent counsels
prevailed in Jerusalem itself, the son of the high-priest
regarding the state of things unendurable. Presently wild
and frantic auxiliaries came in, led by a son of Judas of
Galilee: thus the counsels of the more timid or more
prudent (whichever epithet is more proper) were over-
powered. Caestius Gallus himself came to mediate, too
late. His conscience seems to hav been on the side of the
Jews perhaps he abhorred the deeds of Florus. Either
his moderation, or his inward vacillation, courted attack.
The fierce bandits, after defeating him, violated military
faith; hereby making it morally impossible for the
authorities at Rome not to take up in ernest the war
which had begun by Roman defeat. After this Jewish
perfidy, though it was the deed of wild unmanageable
banditti,—no declaration of loyalty from Jerusalem could
be listened to. So began the eminently dredful war
against brave fanaticism and patriotic despair.
The historian Crévier thinks the calculation of Josephus
credible, that eleven hundred thousand Jews perished in
the siege of Jerusalem alone. Another quarter of a mil-
lion must be added for the war in other parts; besides
ninety-seven thousand who were reduced to slavery. This
P
122
destruction deprived primitiv Christianity of its nativ
centre and purest traditions, and gave scope for credulus
invention in the Gentile Churches. Jewish Christians
lost all authority. They were scolded down as unsound
in the faith, for not accepting the additions made to their
creed from the visions of Paul and John. The remains of
the Jerusalem churches after the destruction of Jerusalem,
according to the lerned Mosheim, fell into two sects, called
Ebionites and Nazarenes. The former regarded Jesus as
born in the ordinary way from Joseph and Mary; and
they clung to Mosaism as necessary to salvation, for
Gentiles as well as Jews;—but we hav this statement only
from their enemies. In both points the Nazarenes less
offended the Gentiles. They believed Jesus "to hav been
"born of a Virgin and to be in a certain manner united to
"the Divine nature." They did not press Mosaic cere-
monies on Gentile Christians; but held them to be obliga-
tory on themselves as Jews.-The Ebionites were quickly
denounced as heretics; the Nazarenes somewhat later.
But neither sect by traditional position, numbers, welth
or lerning had any controul over the Gentile Church.*
Thus it became easy to suffocate the primitiv Creed, and
the doctrin of Jesus himself, by the new incrustations.
When the second century opened, the doctrin of Paul,
Apollos and John son of Zebedee, that "Jesus was the
"beginning of the creation of God," was accepted in all
the Gentile Churches. Under Trajan we find that the
Christians known to Pliny were supposed by him to chant
a hymn to Christ as God (or, as a god). His miraculus
birth from a virgin was perhaps alredy received in all
* The account given of these two sects belongs to the second
century after the further massacre of the Jews, first in Cyrene, Alex-
andria, Cyprus and Mesopotamia under Trajan, next in Palestine
itself under Hadrian, 65 years later than the destruction of the temple
by Titus.
In the 3 years of this last war, says Crévier, 580 thousand
Jews perished by the sord. Their leader, Barcoceb, was accepted by
them as Messiah.-These two wars were final: Palestine was nearly
a wilderness. Babylon became the feeble centre of Jewish lerning.
-
123
these Churches. The Son of God was understood to be
the Mediator through whom alone God can be known and
approached. It is not wonderful that words to this effect
should be attributed to Jesus himself, though nothing of
the sort is in the celebrated Lord's Prayer, which does
not suggest to pray in his name. In Matthew and in Luke
(as we receive the books) there is a passage, evidently from
the same source, of a tone strikingly new; namely, Matt.
xi. 25-30, and Luke x. 21, 22: "All things ar delivered
“to me by my Father; and no man knoweth the Son, but the
"Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son,
"and he to whom the Son will reveal him." In the spurius
prophecy Matt. xxiv. 36, the prescience of the Son is
denied, precisely where, if "all things ar delivered unto
"him," he ought to know when to act, as well as what to
do. Thus a growth is discernible in the power attributed
to Jesus, after that prophecy was imagined, that is, after
the great siege of Jerusalem. How writers who depict
Jesus as assuming all but Divine power and honor can
account “lowliness" a virtue appropriate to him and put
into his mouth self-praise for meekness, might seem
astonishing, if anything in these matters could astonish.
But to dwell on this topic would be here out of place.
A new Epic was ere long imagined and executed by
John the Elder, whom ecclesiastical tradition refers to
Ephesus. His style is quite his own, though so like to
the verses just quoted that they might pass as his. If in
this day anyone claimed Divine Power either for himself
or for another, it would seem rather madness than childish-
ness to believe without any evidence at all. Yet if anyone
ask, What evidence would suffice? it is impossible to reply,
so extreme is our demand. If evidence quite stupendus
in amount and unprecedented in quality would be justly
required now, less cannot hav been really needed 1800
years ago: nor hav we any adequate proof that the pre-
tension was ever advanced by or for Jesus during his life.
It would seem that the Christian books regard as piety to
124
accept such statements as if self-evident, or at least, as if
the assertion "Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God, be-
"gotten of his Father before all worlds," were a proposition
of the same rank, and to be approved by the same facul-
ties, as The visible Universe is the work of Super Human
"power."
John the Elder wrote three extant Epistles, to which
the Fourth Gospel is so like in style that it is natural to
attribute them to the same hand. This Gospel, like many
a bold romance, has been accepted as history, and has
cast the three first narrativs into the shade, by its specius
pretence of spirituality. Undoubtedly the address and
prayer of Jesus by which the writer audaciusly supplants.
the agony in the garden is singularly majestic and capti-
vating. As with certain writers of history, so here style
gains attention and accredits a tale, when there is no
ostensible proof and no probability.
Whether any of Justin Martyr's quotations (during the
reign of one of the Antonines) came from the fourth
gospel, is hotly debated. Justin does not quote as from
a separate book, nor attribute his quotations to the apostle
John. But he definitly attributes to this apostle the
authorship of the Apocalypse,-a book written in a mar-
vellusly different Greek style.
From the Apocalypse, this Gospel borrows the title
"Word of God" for Jesus in its opening. Neither in it,
nor in the Epistles of John do we meet the topic of looking
for the return of the Lord from Heven, which was the
cardinal gospel in the first age. A subtle effort is perhaps
made to replace it by the promise of "the Comforter,'
which is to supply a mystical interpretation of the words :
"I will come unto you." All the facts converge to the
belief, that this Gospel was written after the most
thoughtful members of the Church had abandoned the
primitiv expectation of that great event which the Apo-
calypse solemnly declared to impend.
With this book the Canon of the New Testament may
125
seem to close; yet the Epistle of Jude was perhaps as
late, and the second (or spurius) Epistle of Peter must be
later than this of Jude.
A survey of near two centuries exhibits a rapid change
of fundamental doctrin. First of all, the Gospel, or Good
News, is, that the Kingdom of God is nigh at hand. This
formula belongs both to John the Baptist, and to Jesus
with slight changes. After the deth of Jesus, the Good
News is, that Jesus, who has ascended to Heven will
speedily return in the clouds to reign on the Erth with
his Saints. Such was the Gospel common to James and
Paul. But Paul added details concerning Jesus, which
were not accepted and incorporated in the Gospel of Jeru-
salem, making "One God and one Lord" a dual object of
worship. "God and the Lamb ar much the same as
this. Sixty years later the belief in the return of Christ
to reign on erth was dying out through the disappoint-
ment of hope. The primitiv gospel vanished; but insted
remained, Washing away Sin by the Blood of the Cross,
Predestination to Life, and a mysterius tenet concerning
"the Son and the Father." This doctrin of "the Blood"
was subversiv of all that had been taught in Judaism
concerning God's free forgivness. Protestants hav now
another fundamental condition of saintship,—a belief that
"the Bible" is the Word of God.
""
-
Such a change of front is truly damaging; but as
though this were not enough, Sacerdotalism also was set up.
The primitiv peculiarity of the doctrin of Jesus is hereby
overthrown. With him religion was a personal relation
between the individual soul and God; but his degenerate
followers hav gone back to the erlier conception of Jews
and Pagans that religion is corporate and is attained only
by becoming a member of a special community, which
virtually mediates between the soul and its God. When
we see such phenomena we may modify Paul's phrase,
and say "ever shifting, and never advancing towards
"truth."
126
What ar the Gates of Hades which, according to Jesus,
shall never prevail against his Church, is a very obscure
matter; but certainly nothing in its history suggests any
divine exemption from unlimited error.
CHAPTER XIII.
OUR MODERN PROBLEM.
FAR and wide there is outcry for a religion free from super-
stition, and not based on historical error or empty assump-
tion. Our modern task is to attain such a religion. To
avoid historical error, there is one and only one sure way:
namely, to avoid History altogether. History is a field
of erudition, precisely the matter in which the mass of
mankind (“babes and sucklings") ar necessarily weak and
very deceivable. If religion is not to be dictated by the
few lerned in antiquity to the unlerned many; if we ar
ever to attain the state predicted by Hebrew prophets, in
which the Spirit of God, diffused in the multitude, shall
make each separately to "know the Lord," we must hav
a religion of which the bulk of the adult community can
judge fundamentally, without the aid of ancient lerning.
What indeed can Religion have to do with History?
Religion treats of the relations of Man to God, which are
the same everywhere and at all times. History details
special human events on special areas in past times ; none
of which can possibly affect the relations of the unchange-
able God to an unchanged race of his creatures; none of
which ar open to the cognizance of the unlerned human
millions. Religion dependent on human history is as
much a chimæra and a delusion, as astronomy founded
on human history.
A positiv condition requisit for a True Religion, is,
that it be acceptable to the good sense of all the most
127
cultivated races of men. In old times national minds
were separated by barriers insurmountable. Oceanic
navigation has thrown these barriers down. Existing
national religions divide mankind and propagate enmity :
they must do so, if they rest on special history: but the
times ar ripe for a religion which shall unite us, and for-
bid the unnatural collision. A proof that the times ar
ripe, is found in the reception given in China and Japan
to Derzhavin's hymn to God. [I here quote a paragraph
which I cut out from a newspaper, but hav lost the
reference. A translation of the Hymn is in my hands.]
"The Hymn to God by a Russian born in 1763 was trans-
"lated into Japanese by order of the Emperor, and is
hung up, embroidered with gold, in the temple of Jeddo. It
“has been translated also into the Chinese and Tartar
languages, written on a piece of rich silk, and suspended
"in the imperial palace at Pekin." If men would but lay
aside bitterness and bigotry, the intellectual state of the
world now eminently invites effort in the direction of
religius agreement. But alas! the rival pretensions of
the Cross and the Crescent ar everywhere big with war
and bloodshed. Claims to exclusiv and divine authority
ar the fundamental mischief. With the renunciation of
(alledged) History as part of Religion all haughty preten-
sion to Authority vanishes. What other conditions ar
needed for World-wide Religion?
(1.) First of all, be it remembered, what alone makes
religion desirable ;-it is not for the benefit and honor of
God, but for the benefit and ennoblement of Man. A
religion is good, only in proportion as it stimulates men
to be good. It must be a practical aid to pure morality.
Since God has nothing to gain by our devotion, but men
hav very much to gain by other men's rightëusness, Duty
to men ought to take precedence of Duty to God, and
what Christians call the Second Commandment is right-
fully the First.
John the Elder very nearly alighted on this doctrin, in
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128
asking: "If a man love not his brother whom he hath
seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen?"
Love to God is a chimæra in one who does not yet love
virtüus conduct for its own sake. The love of God is the
love of perfect goodness.
(C
(2.) Next, we hav to reverse the doctrin of Christianity,
or else go back to Judaism, by teaching that the interests
of this life ar of primary importance, whatever after-life
may be in store; because, undeniably, this world is given
into our hands as a trust and a task, while the future world
is not. This life is known to us as fact; the future life
(as Paul says) is known only by hope; and no one can
imagin any preparation for a future life but that of per-
forming all known present duties. Therefor the maxim
of Lycurgus may be applied: "Sparta has been assigned
66
as thy lot; busy thyself to adorn this trust." The
American sect called Shakers express their notion well :
"We ar now in the millennium (say they) and our business
"is to beutify and glorify the erth." In our dialect we need.
but small change of phrase: "As trustees in our genera-
"tion, our task is to improvethe world,"-an undertaking
which alas! some Biblical Evangelical Christians pro-
nounce to be impossible and fatüus. The more we think
of making this world better, the better is our religion. The
more we neglect this world through expecting a better
world to be provided from on high, the vainer and the
more mischievus is our religion. A bishop of Beziers (if
the tale in History is true) illustrates this topic by his
behavior to his Catholic brethren. The Crusaders who
wished to massacre the Albigensian heretics, asked how
they were to distinguish them from good Catholics. He
replied: "Kill all; God will distinguish his own at the day
"of judgment."
(3.) Closely related hereto is the principle, that the less
we think of any reward to ourselves in a future life for the
performance of duty in this life, the better is our religion :
for it ought to teach us, not only that when we hav done

129
our best, we hav failed of much, but that all virtue is its
own reward, inasmuch as virtue is man's best state. Greek
philosophy more than two millenniums ago, taught, that
we must do good because it is good not from expecting
extraneus advantage from it ;-" in respect to the recom-
"pense of reward.”—Heb. xi. 26.
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(4.) Again, because Good Action is better than Right
Opinion, and Right Loves or Hatreds better than Full
Beliefs, it follows that we must esteem men for their
moral worth even when they fall of religius orthodoxy;
and we must disesteem the orthodox when they ar
deficient in moral worth. Therefor a Creed neither can
by its acceptance accredit a saint, nor by its rejection
detect a reprobate.


While congregations depend for their instruction on one
or at most two men, who may not be contradicted nor
answered, some previus intellectual agreement, clearly
defined, which may be called a Creed, will be required of
the teachers by the dumb laity. As Edmund Burke coarsely
said, "The freedom of the clergy would be the slavery of
"the laity." But the present Congregational routine is
not certain to be eternal. The platform may hereafter
enter the Congregation and be merely organized by its
President for free speech. Be this as it may, no Congrega-
tion can fill up the received ideal of a Church. Those
whose hearts beat together for Virtüus Action and Virtüus
Sentiment ar the true Church, even if they be intellectually
severed too much for Congregational Union.
Remark was made above on the woful blunder rising
out of the ambigüus word Faith. In theory it is insisted
that Faith is a moral quality and a test of virtüus char-
acter in practice the churches merge it in belief of one
or more propositions; to which James tartly replies:
"The Devils believe, and tremble." Endless facts show,
that heathens, however dark as to religius opinion, may
be truly estimable men. In Paul's words: "Having not
"the law, yet by nature they do the deeds of the law."
I
130
If possible, we need what a German has called,
"The
"(
Religion of Deed." Jesus himself sets virtüus heathens
higher than oppressiv Jews.
(5.) Though Religion cannot dictate Morals any more
than it can dictate Philosophy or Science, yet it may and
must uphold Morals. Just so must every Polity, while
mesuring moral right by the judgment of collectiv man-
kind. We cannot pretend that this judgment will ever be
absolutely final; but any modification applies to details.
chiefly, and in every age is exceptional. Certain broad
foundations remain immovable, such as, that Men ar not
machines destitute of self-control; that Praise and Blame,
Punishment and Reward, hav their reasonable places;
that Moral Interests ar higher than Material; that
Virtue is better than Helth or Ease; that Self-sacrifice
for others is nobler than Self-seeking: that Justice is of
all qualities paramount and indispensable, and is the right
of all God's creatures.
(6.) Some further hints ar given us in the history of
wide-spred religions. These attained reverence and
strength for action nearly as did that one which is best
known to us, the Medieval Christian Church: which
strove to bridle the evil tendencies of wayward Power and
greedy Welth; and insted of confining its citizenship to
Heven (Paul to Philipp. iii. 20) as the first Christians
had been forced to do, emphatically became an agent of
this world. Insted of treating worldly interests as too
transitory to be worthy of struggle, a wise Religion of the
Future must turn a blind eye to the fact that erthly
interests never can be strictly eternal. By accepting them
as if eternal, we shall better forget Self and better fulfil
the task imposed on us by God and Nature. A future
Religion must not be satisfied with lopping twigs of an
evil tree, but must strive to pull up the roots, under the
firm belief that in working for good here, it is working for
an indefinit futurity.
Unjust national institutions and depraving national

131
habits ar the deepest and most permanent sources of
Moral Evil. Therefor the Catholic Church discerned that
to be philanthropic, a Church must be eminently political
in her aims and actions. Of course philanthropic aims
degenerate into ambitius schemes when the establishment.
of the Church herself as an organized power is an accepted
policy. On this rock our Ideal Church of the Future
cannot split, because, having no defined creed, she cannot
hav corporate organization, nor fixed existence in any
visible form. Good men and women will, as in the past,
but more cordially and widely than in the past, recognize
each other, being thrown together in action, while striving
for a common good. God has so formed our hearts, that
Compassion and Justice in the millions of mankind ar
stronger than base cupidity; hence to the voice of one
who calls for Justice, the heart of every nation responds.
Therefor the pure, the tender, the noble and ennobling
passions in the long run overpower Injustice and Sen-
suality: the Woman in us is stronger than the Man.
Therefor also,—though not in a year, not without lengthy
struggle to enlighten the multitude,—yet more and more,
as new generations rise, Religion will shake herself
free from enfeebling tradition and become more conscius
of her true duties, more able to execute them. Thus
we shall approximate to the ideal of Glory to God, Peace
among men, Kindliness to all God's creatures.
95.0
STEVENSON, BAILEY, AND SMITH, PRINTERS, NOTTINGHAM.
Among Works by the same Author, are:
PHASES OF FAITH; or, Passages from the History of my
Creed. New Edition; with Reply to Professor Henry Rogers,
Author of the "Eclipse of Faith.” By F. W. Newman. Crown
8vo, cloth. 3s. 6d.
THE SOUL: Her Sorrows and her Aspirations.
An Essay
towards the Natural History of the Soul, as the True Basis of
Theology. By F. W. Newman. Tenth Edition. Post 8vo, cloth.
3s. 6d.
RELIGION NOT HISTORY. By F. W. NEWMAN. Foolscap,
paper wrapper. IS.
MORNING PRAYERS IN THE HOUSEHOLD of a Believer in
GOD. By F. W. Newman. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, limp
cloth. Is. 6d.
A CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. By F. W. Newman. Crown
8vo, cloth.
IS.
WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHIST? By F. W.
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CATHOLIC UNION: Essay towards a Church of the Future
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A DISCOURSE
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THEISM, DOCTRINAL AND PRACTICAL ; or, Didactic Religious
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HEBREW THEISM.
By F. W. Newman,
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A HISTORY OF THE HEBREW MONARCHY from the Adminis-
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