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Title: The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II.
Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History
Author: Annie Besant
Release Date: September 1, 2004 [EBook #13349]
Language: English
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THE FREETHINKER'S TEXT-BOOK.
PART II.
CHRISTIANITY:
ITS EVIDENCES.
ITS ORIGIN.
ITS MORALITY.
ITS HISTORY.
BY ANNIE BESANT.
SECTION I.--ITS EVIDENCES UNRELIABLE.
The origin of all religions, and the ignorance which is the root of the
God-idea, having been dealt with in Part I. of this Text-Book, it now
becomes our duty to investigate the evidences of the origin and of the
growth of Christianity, to examine its morality and its dogmas, to study
the history of its supposed founder, to trace out its symbols and its
ceremonies; in fine, to show cause for its utter rejection by the
Freethinker. The foundation stone of Christianity, laid in Paradise by
the Creation and Fall of Man 6,000 years ago, has already been destroyed
in the first section of this work; and we may at once, therefore,
proceed to Christianity itself. The history of the origin of the creed
is naturally the first point to deal with, and this may be divided into
two parts: 1. The evidences afforded by profane history as to its origin
and early growth. 2. Its story as told by itself in its own documents.
The most remarkable thing in the evidences afforded by profane history
is their extreme paucity; the very existence of Jesus cannot be proved
from contemporary documents. A child whose birth is heralded by a star
which guides foreign sages to Judæa; a massacre of all the infants of a
town within the Roman Empire by command of a subject king; a teacher who
heals the leper, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, the lame, and who raises
the mouldering corpse; a King of the Jews entering Jerusalem in
triumphal procession, without opposition from the Roman legions of
Cæsar; an accused ringleader of sedition arrested by his own countrymen,
and handed over to the imperial governor; a rebel adjudged to death by
Roman law; a three hours' darkness over all the land; an earthquake
breaking open graves and rending the temple veil; a number of ghosts
wandering about Jerusalem; a crucified corpse rising again to life, and
appearing to a crowd of above 500 people; a man risen from the dead
ascending bodily into heaven without any concealment, and in the broad
daylight, from a mountain near Jerusalem; all these marvellous events
took place, we are told, and yet they have left no ripple on the current
of contemporary history. There is, however, no lack of such history, and
an exhaustive account of the country and age in which the hero of the
story lived is given by one of his own nation--a most painstaking and
laborious historian. "How shall we excuse the supine inattention of the
Pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented by
the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses?
During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples,
the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies.
The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were
raised, demons were expelled, and the laws of nature were frequently
suspended for the benefit of the Church. But the sages of Greece and
Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary
occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations
in the moral or physical government of the world. Under the reign of
Tiberius the whole earth, or at least a celebrated province of the Roman
Empire, was involved in a preternatural darkness of three hours. Even
this miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the
curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age
of science and history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and
the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or
received the earliest intelligence, of the prodigy. Each of these
philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena
of nature--earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses, which his
indefatigable curiosity could collect. Both the one and the other have
omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has
been witness since the creation of the globe. A distinct chapter of
Pliny is designed for eclipses of an extraordinary nature and unusual
duration; but he contents himself with describing the singular defect of
light which followed the murder of Cæsar, when, during the greatest part
of the year, the orb of the sun appeared pale and without splendour.
This season of obscurity, which cannot surely be compared with the
preternatural darkness of the Passion, had been already celebrated by
most of the poets and historians of that memorable age" (Gibbon's
"Decline and Fall," vol. ii., pp. 191, 192. Ed. 1821).
If Pagan historians are thus curiously silent, what deduction shall we
draw from the similar silence of the great Jewish annalist? Is it
credible that Josephus should thus have ignored Jesus Christ, if one
tithe of the marvels related in the Gospels really took place? So
damning to the story of Christianity has this difficulty been felt, that
a passage has been inserted in Josephus (born A.D. 37, died about A.D.
100) relating to Jesus Christ, which runs as follows: "Now, there was
about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man,
for he was a doer of wonderful works--a teacher of such men as receive
the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and
many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the
suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the
cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he
appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had
foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him;
and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this
day" ("Antiquities of the Jews," book xviii., ch. iii., sect. 3). The
passage itself proves its own forgery: Christ drew over scarcely any
Gentiles, if the Gospel story be true, as he himself said: "I am not
sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew xv. 24). A
Jew would not believe that a doer of wonderful works must necessarily be
more than man, since their own prophets were said to have performed
miracles. If Josephus believed Jesus to be Christ, he would assuredly
have become a Christian; while, if he believed him to be God, he would
have drawn full attention to so unique a fact as the incarnation of the
Deity. Finally, the concluding remark that the Christians were "not
extinct" scarcely coincides with the idea that Josephus, at Rome, must
have been cognisant of their increasing numbers, and of their
persecution by Nero. It is, however, scarcely pretended now-a-days, by
any scholar of note, that the passage is authentic. Sections 2 and 4
were manifestly written one after the other. "There were a great number
of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded; and
thus an end was put to this sedition. _About the same time another sad
calamity put the Jews into disorder_." The forged passage breaks the
continuity of the history. The oldest MSS. do not contain this section.
It is first quoted by Eusebius, who probably himself forged it; and its
authenticity is given up by Lardner, Gibbon, Bishop Warburton, and many
others. Lardner well summarises the arguments against its
authenticity:--
"I do not perceive that we at all want the suspected testimony to Jesus,
which was never quoted by any of our Christian ancestors before
Eusebius.
"Nor do I recollect that Josephus has any where mentioned the name or
word _Christ_, in any of his works; except the testimony above
mentioned, and the passage concerning James, the Lord's brother.
"It interrupts the narrative.
"The language is quite Christian.
"It is not quoted by Chrysostom, though he often refers to Josephus, and
could not have omitted quoting it, had it been then in the text.
"It is not quoted by Photius, though he has three articles concerning
Josephus.
"Under the article Justus of Tiberias, this author (Photius) expressly
states that historian (Josephus) being a Jew, has not taken the least
notice of Christ.
"Neither Justin in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, nor Clemens
Alexandrinus, who made so many extracts from Christian authors, nor
Origen against Celsus, have ever mentioned this testimony.
"But, on the contrary, in chapter xxxv. of the first book of that work,
Origen openly affirms, that Josephus, who had mentioned John the
Baptist, did not acknowledge Christ" (Answer to Dr. Chandler, as quoted
in Taylor's "Diegesis," pp. 368, 369. Ed. 1844).
Keim thinks that the remarks of Origen caused the forgery; after
criticising the passage he winds up: "For all these reasons, the passage
cannot be maintained; it has first appeared in this form in the Catholic
Church of the Jews and Gentiles, and under the dominion of the Fourth
Gospel, and hardly before the third century, probably before Eusebius,
and after Origen, whose bitter criticisms of Josephus may have given
cause for it" ("Jesus of Nazara," p. 25, English edition, 1873).
"Those who are best acquainted with the character of Josephus, and the
style of his writings, have no hesitation in condemning this passage as
a forgery interpolated in the text during the third century by some
pious Christian, who was scandalised that so famous a writer as Josephus
should have taken no notice of the Gospels, or of Christ their subject.
But the zeal of the interpolator has outrun his discretion, for we might
as well expect to gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles, as
to find this notice of Christ among the Judaising writings of Josephus.
It is well known that this author was a zealous Jew, devoted to the laws
of Moses and the traditions of his countrymen. How then could he have
written that _Jesus was the Christ?_ Such an admission would have proved
him to be a Christian himself, in which case the passage under
consideration, too long for a Jew, would have been far too short for a
believer in the new religion, and thus the passage stands forth, like an
ill-set jewel, contrasting most inharmoniously with everything around
it. If it had been genuine, we might be sure that Justin Martyr,
Tertullian, and Chrysostom would have quoted it in their controversies
with the Jews, and that Origen or Photius would have mentioned it. But
Eusebius, the ecclesiastical historian (i., II), is the first who quotes
it, and our reliance on the judgment or even the honesty of this writer
is not so great as to allow of our considering everything found in his
works as undoubtedly genuine" ("Christian Records," by Rev. Dr. Giles,
p. 30. Ed. 1854).
On the other side the student should consult Hartwell Horne's
"Introduction." Ed. 1825, vol. i., p. 307-11. Renan observes that the
passage--in the authenticity of which he believes--is "in the style of
Josephus," but adds that "it has been retouched by a Christian hand."
The two statements seem scarcely consistent, as such "retouching" would
surely alter "the style" ("Vie de Jésus," Introduction, p. 10. Ed.
1863).
Paley argues that when the multitude of Christians living in the time of
Josephus is considered, it cannot "be believed that the religion, and
the transaction upon which it was founded, were too obscure to engage
the attention of Josephus, or to obtain a place in his history" ("Evid.
of Christianity," p. 73. Ed. 1845). We answer, it is plain, from the
fact that Josephus entirely ignores both, that the pretended story of
Jesus was not widely known among his contemporaries, and that the early
spread of Christianity is much exaggerated. But says Paley: "Be,
however, the fact, or the cause of the omission in Josephus, what it
may, no other or different history on the subject has been given by him
or is pretended to have been given" (Ibid, pp. 73, 74). Our contention
being that the supposed occurrences never took place at all, no history
of them is to be looked for in the pages of a writer who was relating
only facts. Josephus speaks of James, "the brother of Jesus, who was
called Christ" ("Antiquities," book xx., ch. ix., sect. 1), and this
passage shares the fate of the longer one, being likewise rejected
because of being an interpolation. The other supposed reference of
Josephus to Jesus is found in his discourse on Hades, wherein he says
that all men "shall be brought before God the Word; for to him hath the
Father committed all judgment; and he, in order to fulfil the will of
his Father, shall come as judge, whom we call Christ" ("Works of
Josephus," by Whiston, p. 661). Supposing that this passage were
genuine, it would simply convey the Jewish belief that the
Messiah--Christ--the Anointed, was the appointed judge, as in Dan. vii.,
9-14, and more largely in the Book of Enoch.
The silence of Jewish writers of this period is not confined to
Josephus, and this silence tells with tremendous weight against the
Christian story. Judge Strange writes: "Josephus knew nothing of these
wonderments, and he wrote up to the year 93, being familiar with all the
chief scenes of the alleged Christianity. Nicolaus of Damascus, who
preceded him and lived to the time of Herod's successor Archelaus, and
Justus of Tiberias, who was the contemporary and rival of Josephus in
Galilee, equally knew nothing of the movement. Philo-Judæus, who
occupied the whole period ascribed to Jesus, and engaged himself deeply
in figuring out the Logos, had heard nothing of the being who was
realising at Jerusalem the image his fancy was creating" ("Portraiture
and Mission of Jesus," p. 27).
We propose now to go carefully through the alleged testimonies to
Christianity, as urged in Paley's "Evidences of Christianity," following
his presentment of the argument step by step, and offering objections to
each point as raised by him.
The next historian who is claimed as a witness to Christianity is
Tacitus (born A.D. 54 or 55, died A.D. 134 or 135), who writes, dealing
with the reign of Nero, that this Emperor "inflicted the most cruel
punishments upon a set of people, who were holden in abhorrence for
their crimes, and were commonly called Christians. The founder of that
name was Christus, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was punished as a
criminal by the procurator, Pontius Pilate. This pernicious
superstition, thus checked for awhile, broke out again; and spread not
only over Judæa the source of this evil, but reached the city also:
whither flow from all quarters all things vile and shameful, and where
they find shelter and encouragement. At first, only those were
apprehended who confessed themselves of that sect; afterwards, a vast
multitude discovered by them; all which were condemned, not so much for
the crime of burning the city, as for their hatred of mankind. Their
executions were so contrived as to expose them to derision and contempt.
Some were covered over with the skins of wild beasts, and torn to pieces
by dogs; some were crucified. Others, having been daubed over with
combustible materials, were set up as lights in the night-time, and thus
burned to death. Nero made use of his own gardens as a theatre on this
occasion, and also exhibited the diversions of the circus, sometimes
standing in the crowd as a spectator, in the habit of a charioteer; at
other times driving a chariot himself; till at length these men, though
really criminal, and deserving exemplary punishment, began to be
commiserated as people who were destroyed, not out of regard to the
public welfare, but only to gratify the cruelty of one man" ("Annals,"
book xv., sect. 44).
This was probably written, if authentic, about A.D. 107. The reasons
against the authenticity of this passage are thus given by Robert
Taylor: "This passage, which would have served the purpose of Christian
quotation better than any other in all the writings of Tacitus, or of
any Pagan writer whatever, is not quoted by any of the Christian
Fathers.
"It is not quoted by Tertullian, though he had read and largely quotes
the works of Tacitus: and though his argument immediately called for the
use of this quotation with so loud a voice, that his omission of it, if
it had really existed, amounts to a violent improbability.
"This Father has spoken of Tacitus in a way that it is absolutely
impossible that he should have spoken of him had his writings contained
such a passage.
"It is not quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus, who set himself entirely to
the work of adducing and bringing together all the admissions and
recognitions which Pagan authors had made of the existence of Christ or
Christians before his time.
"It has nowhere been stumbled on by the laborious and all-seeking
Eusebius, who could by no possibility have missed of it....
"There is no vestige nor trace of its existence anywhere in the world
before the fifteenth century.
"It rests then entirely upon the fidelity of a single individual. And
he, having the ability, the opportunity, and the strongest possible
incitement of interest to induce him to introduce the interpolation.
"The passage itself, though unquestionably the work of a master, and
entitled to be pronounced the _chef d'oeuvre_ of the art, betrays the
_penchant_ of that delight in blood, and in descriptions of bloody
horrors, as peculiarly characteristic of the Christian disposition as it
was abhorrent to the mild and gentle mind, and highly cultivated taste
of Tacitus.
* * * * *
"It is falsified by the 'Apology of Tertullian,' and the far more
respectable testimony of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, who explicitly states
that the Christians, up to his time, the third century, had never been
victims of persecution; and that it was in provinces lying beyond the
boundaries of the Roman Empire, and not in Judæa, that Christianity
originated.
"Tacitus has, in no other part of his writings, made the least allusion
to Christ or Christians.
"The use of this passage as a part of the 'Evidences of the Christian
Religion,' is absolutely modern" ("Diegesis," pp. 374--376).
Judge Strange--writing on another point--gives us an argument against
the authenticity of this passage: "As Josephus made Rome his place of
abode from the year 70 to the end of the century, there inditing his
history of all that concerned the Jews, it is apparent that, had there
been a sect flourishing in the city who were proclaiming the risen Jesus
as the Messiah in his time, the circumstance was one this careful and
discerning writer could not have failed to notice and to comment on"
("Portraiture and Mission of Jesus," p. 15). It is, indeed, passing
strange that Josephus, who tells us so much about false Messiahs and
their followers, should omit--as he must have done if this passage of
Tacitus be authentic--all reference to this additional false Messiah,
whose followers in the very city where Josephus was living, underwent
such terrible tortures, either during his residence there, or
immediately before it. Burning men, used as torches, adherents of a
Jewish Messiah, ought surely to have been unusual enough to have
attracted his attention. We may add to these arguments that, supposing
such a passage were really written by Tacitus, the two lines regarding
Christus look much like an interpolation, as the remainder would run
more connectedly if they were omitted. But the whole passage is of more
than doubtful authenticity, being in itself incredible, if the Acts and
the Epistles of the New Testament be true; for this persecution is said
to have occurred during the reign of Nero, during which Paul abode in
Rome, teaching in peace, "no man forbidding him" (Acts xxviii. 31);
during which, also, he wrote to the Romans that they need not be afraid
of the government if they did right (Romans xii. 34); clearly, if these
passages are true, the account in Tacitus must be false; and as he
himself had no reason for composing such a tale, it must have been
forged by Christians to glorify their creed.
The extreme ease with which this passage might have been inserted in all
editions of Tacitus used in modern times arises from the fact that all
such editions are but copies of one single MS., which was in the
possession of one single individual; the solitary owner might make any
interpolations he pleased, and there was no second copy by which his
accuracy might be tested. "The first publication of any part of the
'Annals of Tacitus' was by Johannes de Spire, at Venice, in the year
1468--his imprint being made from a single MS., in his own power and
possession only, and purporting to have been written in the eighth
century.... from this all other MSS. and printed copies of the works of
Tacitus are derived." ("Diegesis," p. 373.)
Suetonius (born about A.D. 65, died in second century) writes: "The
Christians, a race of men of a new and mischievous (or magical)
superstition, were punished." In another passage we read of Claudius,
who reigned A.D. 41-54: "He drove the Jews, who, at the suggestion of
Chrestus, were constantly rioting, out of Rome." From this we might
infer that there was at that time a Jewish leader, named Chrestus,
living in Rome, and inciting the Jews to rebellion. His followers would
probably take his name, and, expelled from Rome, they would spread this
name in all directions. If the passage in Acts xi. 20 and 26 be of any
historical value, it would curiously strengthen this hypothesis, since
the "disciples were called Christians first in Antioch," and the
missionaries to Antioch, who preached "unto the Jews only," came from
Cyprus and Cyrene, which would naturally lie in the way of fugitives
from Rome to Asia Minor. They would bring the name Christian with them,
and the date in the Acts synchronises with that in Suetonius. Chrestus
would appear to have left a sect behind him in Rome, bearing his name,
the members of which were prosecuted by the Government, very likely as
traitors and rebels. Keim's good opinion of Suetonius is much degraded
by this Chrestus: "In his 'Life of Claudius,' who expelled the Jews from
Rome, he has shown his undoubted inferiority to Tacitus as a historian
by treating 'Christ' as a restless and seditious Jewish agitator, who
was still living in the time of Claudius, and, indeed, in Rome" ("Jesus
of Nazara," p. 33).
It is natural that modern Christians should object to a Jewish Chrestus
starting up at Rome simultaneously with their Jewish Christus in Judæa,
who, according to Luke's chronology, must have been crucified about A.D.
43. The coincidence is certainly inconvenient; but if they refuse the
testimony of Suetonius concerning Chrestus, the leader, why should they
accept it concerning the Christians, the followers? Paley, of course,
although he quotes Suetonius, omits all reference at this stage to the
unlucky Chrestus; his duty was to present evidences of, not against,
Christianity. Most dishonestly, however, he inserts a reference to it
later on (p. 73), where, in a brief _résumé_ of the evidence, he uses it
as a link in his chain: "When Suetonius, an historian contemporary with
Tacitus, relates that, in the time of Claudius, the Jews were making
disturbances at Rome, Christus being their leader." Why does not Paley
explain to us how Jesus came to be leading Jews at Rome during the reign
of Claudius, and why he incited them to riot? No such incident is
related in the life of Jesus of Nazareth; and if Suetonius be correct,
the credit of the Gospels is destroyed. To his shame be it said, that
Paley here deliberately refers to a passage, _which he has not ventured
to quote_, simply that he may use the great name of Suetonius to
strengthen his lamentably weak argument, by the pretence that Suetonius
mentions Jesus of Nazareth, and thus makes him a historical character.
Few more disgraceful perversions of evidence can be found, even in the
annals of controversy. H. Horne refers to this passage in proof of the
existence of Christ (Introduction, vol. i., page 202); but without
offering any explanation of the appearance of Christ in Rome some years
after he ought to have been dead.
Juvenal is next dragged forward by Paley as a witness, because he
mentioned the punishment of some criminals: "I think it sufficiently
probable that these [Christian executions] were the executions to which
the poet refers" ("Evidences," p. 29.) Needless to say that there is not
a particle of proof that they were anything of the kind; but when
evidence is lacking, it is necessary to invent it.
Pliny the Younger (born A.D. 61, died A.D. 115) writes to the Emperor
Trajan, about A.D. 107, to ask him how he shall treat the Christians,
and as Paley has so grossly misrepresented this letter, it will be well
to reproduce the whole of it. It contains no word of Christians dying
boldly as Paley pretends, nor, indeed, of the punishment of death being
inflicted at all. The word translated "punishment" is _supplicium_ (acc.
of _supplicium_) in the original, and is a term which, like the French
_supplice_, derived from it, may mean the punishment of death, or any
other heavy penalty. The translation of the letter runs as follows: "C.
Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, Health.--It is customary with me to refer
to you, my lord, matters about which I entertain a doubt. For who is
better able either to rule my hesitation, or to instruct my ignorance? I
have never been present at the inquiries about the Christians, and,
therefore, cannot say for what crime, or to what extent, they are
usually punished, or what is the nature of the inquiry about them. Nor
have I been free from great doubts whether there should not be a
distinction between ages, or how far those of a tender frame should be
treated differently from the robust; whether those who repent should not
be pardoned, so that one who has been a Christian should not derive
advantage from having ceased to be one; whether the name itself of being
a Christian should be punished, or only crime attendant upon the name?
In the meantime I have laid down this rule in dealing with those who
were brought before me for being Christians. I asked whether they were
Christians; if they confessed, I asked them a second and a third time,
threatening them with punishment; if they persevered, I ordered them to
be led off. For I had no doubt in my mind that, whatever it might be
which they acknowledged, obduracy and inflexible obstinacy, at all
events should be punished. There were others guilty of like folly, whom
I set aside to be sent to Rome, because they were Roman citizens. In the
next place, when this crime began, as usual, gradually to spread, it
showed itself in a variety of ways. An indictment was set forth without
any author, containing the names of many who denied that they were
Christians or ever had been; and, when I set the example, they called on
the gods, and made offerings of frankincense and wine to your image,
which I, for this purpose, had ordered to be brought out, together with
the images of the gods. Moreover, they cursed Christ; none of which acts
can be extorted from those who are really Christians. I consequently
gave orders that they should be discharged. Again, others, who have been
informed against, said that they were Christians, and afterwards denied
it; that they had been so once but had ceased to be so, some three years
ago, some longer than that, some even twenty years before; all of these
worshipped your image, and the statues of the gods; they also cursed
Christ. But they asserted that this was the sum total of their crime or
error, whichever it may be called, that they were used to come together
on a stated day before it was light, and to sing in turn, among
themselves, a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and to bind themselves by an
oath--not to anything wicked--but that they would not commit theft,
robbery, or adultery, nor break their word, nor deny that anything had
been entrusted to them when called upon to restore it. After this they
said that it was their custom to separate, and again to meet together to
take their meals, which were in common and of a harmless nature; but
that they had ceased even to do this since the proclamation which I
issued according to your commands, forbidding such meetings to be held.
I therefore deemed it the more necessary to enquire of two servant
maids, who were said to be attendants, what was the real truth, and to
apply the torture. But I found that it was nothing but a bad and
excessive superstition, and I consequently adjourned the inquiry, and
consulted you upon the subject. For it seemed to me to be a matter on
which it was desirable to take advice, in consequence of the number of
those who are in danger. For there are many of every age, of every rank,
and even of both sexes, who are invited to incur the danger, and will
still be invited. For the infection of this superstition has spread
through not only cities, but also villages and the country, though it
seems possible to check and remedy it. At all events it is evident that
the temples, which had been almost deserted, have begun to be
frequented, and the sacred solemnities, which had been intermitted, are
revived, and victims are sold everywhere, though formerly it was
difficult to find a buyer. It is, therefore, easy to believe that a
number of persons may be corrected, if the door of repentance be left
open" (Ep. 97).
It is urged by Christian advocates that this letter at least shows how
widely Christianity had spread at this early date; but we shall later
have occasion to draw attention to the fact that the name "Christian"
was used before the reputed time of Christ to describe some
extensively-spread sects, and that the worshippers of the Egyptian
Serapis were known by that title. It may be added that the authenticity
of this letter is by no means beyond dispute, and that R. Taylor urges
some very strong arguments against it. Among others, he suggests: "The
undeniable fact that the first Christians were the greatest liars and
forgers that had ever been in the whole world, and that they actually
stopped at nothing.... The flagrant atopism of Christians being found in
the remote province of Bithynia, before they had acquired any notoriety
in Rome.... The inconsistency of the supposition that so just and moral
a people as the primitive Christians are assumed to have been, should
have been the first to provoke the Roman Government to depart from its
universal maxims of toleration, liberality, and indifference.... The use
of the torture to extort confession.... The choice of women to be the
subjects of this torture, when the ill-usage of women was, in like
manner, abhorrent to the Roman character" ("Diegesis," pp. 383, 384).
Paley boldly states that Martial (born A.D. 43, died about A.D. 100)
makes the Christians "the subject of his ridicule," because he wrote an
epigram on the stupidity of admiring any vain-glorious fool who would
rush to be tormented for the sake of notoriety. Hard-set must Christians
be for evidence, when reduced to rely on such pretended allusions.
Epictetus (flourished first half of second century) is claimed as
another witness, because he states that "It is possible a man may arrive
at this temper, and become indifferent to these things from madness, or
from habit, as the Galileans" (Book iv., chapter 7). The Galileans,
i.e., the people of Galilee, appear to have had a bad name, and it is
highly probable that Epictetus simply referred to them, just as he might
have said as an equivalent phrase for stupidity, "like the Boeotians."
In addition to this, the followers of Judas the Gaulonite were known as
Galileans, and were remarkable for the "inflexible constancy which, in
defence of their cause, rendered them insensible of death and tortures"
("Decline and Fall," vol. ii., p. 214).
Marcus Aurelius (born A.D. 121, died A.D. 180) is Paley's last support,
as he urges that fortitude in the face of death should arise from
judgment, "and not from obstinacy, like the Christians." As no one
disputes the existence of a sect called Christians when Marcus Aurelius
wrote, this testimony is not specially valuable.
Paley, so keen to swoop down on any hint that can be twisted into an
allusion to the Christians, entirely omits the interesting letter
written by the Emperor Adrian to his brother-in-law Servianus, A.D. 134.
The evidence is not of an edifying character, and this accounts for the
omission: "The worshippers of Serapis are Christians, and those are
consecrated to the god Serapis, who, I find, call themselves the bishops
of Christ" (Quoted in "Diegesis," p. 386).
Such are the whole external evidences of Christianity until after A.D.
160. In a time rich in historians and philosophers one man, Tacitus, in
a disputed passage, mentions a Christus punished under Pontius Pilate,
and the existence of a sect bearing his name. Suetonius, Pliny, Adrian,
possibly Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, casually mention some people
called Christians.
The Rev. Dr. Giles thus summarises the proofs of the weakness of early
Christian evidences in "profane history:"--
"Though the remains of Grecian and Latin profane literature which belong
to the first and second centuries of our era are enough to form a
library of themselves, they contain no allusion to the New Testament....
The Latin writers, who lived between the time of Christ's crucifixion
and the year A.D. 200, are Seneca, Lucan, Suetonius, Tacitus, Persius,
Juvenal, Martial, Pliny the Elder, Silius Italicus, Statius, Quintilian,
and Pliny the Younger, besides numerous others of inferior note. The
greater number of these make mention of the Jews, but not of the
Christians. In fact, Suetonius, Tacitus, and the younger Pliny, are the
only Roman writers who mention the Christian religion or its founder"
("Christian Records," by Rev. Dr. Giles, P. 36).
"The Greek classic writers, who lived between the time of Christ's
crucifixion and the year 200, are those which follow: Epictetus,
Plutarch, Ælian, Arrian, Galen, Lucian, Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
Ptolemy, Marcus Aurelius (who, though a Roman emperor, wrote in Greek),
Pausanias, and many others of less note. The allusions to Christianity
found in their works are singularly brief" (Ibid, p. 42).
What does it all, this "evidence," amount to? One writer, Tacitus,
records that a man, called by his followers "Christ"--for no one
pretends that Christ is anything more than a title given by his
disciples to a certain Jew named Jesus--was put to death by Pontius
Pilate. And suppose he were, what then? How is this a proof of the
religion called Christianity? Tacitus knows nothing of the
miracle-worker, of the risen and ascended man; he is strangely ignorant
of all the wonders that had occurred; and, allowing the passage to be
genuine, it tells sorely against the marvellous history given by the
Christians of their leader, whose fame is supposed to have spread far
and wide, and whose fame most certainly must so have spread had he
really performed all the wonderful works attributed to him. But no
necessity lies upon the Freethinker, when he rejects Christianity, to
disprove the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth, although we
point to the inadequacy of the evidence even of his existence. The
strength of the Freethought position is in no-wise injured by the
admission that a young Jew named Joshua (i.e. Jesus) may have wandered
up and down Galilee and Judæa in the reign of Tiberius, that he may have
been a religious reformer, that he may have been put to death by Pontius
Pilate for sedition. All this is perfectly likely, and to allow it in no
way endorses the mass of legend and myth encrusted round this tiny
nucleus of possible fact. This obscure peasant is not the Christian
Jesus, who is--as we shall later urge--only a new presentation of the
ancient Sun-God, with unmistakeable family likeness to his elder
brothers. The Reverend Robert Taylor very rightly remarks, concerning
this small historical possibility: "These are circumstances which fall
entirely within the scale of rational possibility, and draw for no more
than an ordinary and indifferent testimony of history, to command the
mind's assent. The mere relation of any historian, living near enough to
the time supposed to guarantee the probability of his competent
information on the subject, would have been entitled to our
acquiescence. We could have no reason to deny or to doubt what such an
historian could have had no motive to feign or to exaggerate. The proof,
even to demonstration, of these circumstances would constitute no step
or advance towards the proof of the truth of the Christian religion;
while the absence of a sufficient degree of evidence to render even
these circumstances unquestionable must, _à fortiori_, be fatal to the
credibility of the less credible circumstances founded upon them"
("Diegesis," p. 7).
But Paley pleads some indirect evidence on behalf of Christianity, which
deserves a word of notice since the direct evidence so lamentably breaks
down. He urges that: "there is satisfactory evidence that many,
professing to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed
their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily under-gone,
in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in
consequence of their belief of those accounts; and that they also
submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct." Nearly 200
pages are devoted to the proof of this proposition, a proposition which
it is difficult to characterise with becoming courtesy, when we know the
complete and utter absence of any "satisfactory evidence" that the
original witnesses did anything of the kind.
It is pleaded that the "original witnesses passed their lives in
labours, etc., in attestation of the accounts they delivered." The
evidence of this may be looked for either in Pagan or in Christian
writings. Pagan writers know literally nothing about the "original
witnesses," mentioning, at the utmost, but "the Christians;" and these
Christians, when put to death, were not so executed in attestation of
any accounts delivered by them, but wholly and solely because of the
evil deeds and the scandalous practices rightly or wrongly attributed to
them. Supposing--what is not true--that they had been executed for their
creed, there is no pretence that they were eye-witnesses of the miracles
of Christ.
Paley's first argument is drawn "from the nature of the case"--i.e.,
that persecution ought to have taken place, whether it did or not,
because both Jews and Gentiles would reject the new creed. So far as the
Jews are concerned, we hear of no persecution from Josephus. If we
interrogate the Christian Acts, we hear but of little, two persons only
being killed. We learn also that "many thousands of Jews" belonged to
the new sect, and were propitiated by Christian conformity to the law;
and that, when the Jews rose against Paul--not as a Christian, but as a
breaker of the Mosaic law--he was promptly delivered by the Romans, who
would have set him at liberty had he not elected to be tried at Rome. If
we turn to the conduct of the Pagans, we meet the same blank absence of
evidence of persecution, until we come to the disputed passage in
Tacitus, wherein none of the eye-witnesses are said to have been
concerned; and we have, on the other side, the undisputed fact that,
under the imperial rule of Rome, every subject nation practised its own
creed undisturbed, so long as it did not incite to civil disturbances.
"The religious tenets of the Galileans, or Christians, were never made a
subject of punishment, or even of inquiry" ("Decline and Fall," vol.
ii., p. 215).
This view of the matter is thoroughly corroborated by Lardner: "The
disciples of Jesus Christ were under the protection of the Roman law,
since the God they worshipped and whose worship they recommended, was
the God of the heavens and the earth, the same God whom the Jews
worshipped, and the worship of whom was allowed of all over the Roman
Empire, and established by special edicts and decrees in most, perhaps
in all the places, in which we meet with St. Paul in his travels"
("Credibility," vol. i., pt. I, pp. 406, 407. Ed. 1727). He also quotes
"a remarkable piece of justice done the Jews at Doris, in Syria, by
Petronius, President of that province. The fact is this: Some rash young
fellows of the place got in and set up a statue of the Emperor in the
Jews' synagogue. Agrippa the Great made complaints to Petronius
concerning this injury. Whereupon Petronius issued a very sharp precept
to the magistrates of Doris. He terms this action an offence, not
against the Jews only, but also against the Emperor; says, it is
agreeable to the law of nature that every man should be master of his
own places, according to the decree of the Emperor. I have, says he,
given directions that they who have dared to do these things contrary to
the edict of Augustus, be delivered to the centurion Vitellius Proculus,
that they may be brought to me, and answer for their behaviour. And I
require the chief men in the magistracy to discover the guilty to the
centurion, unless they are willing to have it thought, that this
injustice has been done with their consent; and that they see to it,
that no sedition or tumult happen upon this occasion, which, I perceive,
is what some are aiming at.... I do also require, that for the future,
you seek no pretence for sedition or disturbance, but that all men
worship [God] according to their own customs" (Ibid, pp. 382, 383).
After giving some other facts, Lardner sums up: "These are authentic
testimonies in behalf of the equity of the Roman Government in general,
and of the impartial administration of justice by the Roman
presidents--toward all the people of their provinces, how much soever
they differed from each other in matters of religion" (Ibid, p. 401).
The evidence of persecution which consists in quotations from the
Christian books ("Evidences," pages 33-52) cannot be admitted without
evidence of the authenticity of the books quoted. The Acts and the
Pauline epistles so grossly contradict each other that, having nothing
outside themselves with which to compare them, they are mutually
destructive. "The epistle to the Romans presents special difficulties to
its acceptance as a genuine address to the Church of Rome in the era
ascribed to it. The faith of this Church, at this early period, is said
to be 'spoken of throughout the whole world'; and yet when Paul,
according to the Acts, at a later time visited Rome, so little had this
alleged Church influenced the neighbourhood, that the inquiring Jews of
Rome are shown to be totally ignorant of what constituted Christianity,
and to have looked to Paul to enlighten them" ("Portraiture and Mission
of Jesus," p. 15). 2 Cor. is of very doubtful authenticity. The passage
in James shows no fiery persecution. Hebrews is of later date. 2 Thess.
again very doubtful. The "suffering" spoken of by Peter appears, from
the context, to refer chiefly to reproaches, and a problematical "if any
man suffer as a Christian." Had those he wrote to been then suffering,
surely the apostle would have said: "_When_ any man suffers ... let him
not be ashamed." The whole question of the authenticity of the canonical
books will be challenged later, and the weakness of this division of
Paley's evidences will then be more fully apparent. Meanwhile we subjoin
Lardner's view of these passages. He has been arguing that the Romans
"protected the many rites of all their provinces;" and he proceeds:
"There is, however, one difficulty which, I am aware, may be started by
some persons. If the Roman Government, to which all the world was then
subject, was so mild and gentle, and protected all men in the profession
of their several religious tenets, and the practice of all their
peculiar rites, whence comes it to pass that there are in the Epistles
so many exhortations to the Christians to patience and constancy, and so
many arguments of consolation suggested to them, as a suffering body of
men? [Here follow some passages as in Paley.] To this I answer: 1. That
the account St. Luke has given in the Acts of the Apostles of the
behaviour of the Roman officers out of Judæa, and in it, is confirmed
not only by the account I have given of the genius and nature of the
Roman Government, but also by the testimony of the most ancient
Christian writers. The Romans did afterwards depart from these moderate
maxims; but it is certain that they were governed by them as long as the
history of the Acts of the Apostles reaches. Tertullian and divers
others do affirm that Nero was the first Emperor that persecuted the
Christians; nor did he begin to disturb them till after Paul had left
Rome the first time he was there (when he was sent thither by Festus),
and, therefore, not until he was become an enemy to all mankind. And I
think that, according to the account which Tacitus has given of Nero's
inhumane treatment of the Christians at Rome, in the tenth year of his
reign, what he did then was not owing to their having different
principles in religion from the Romans, but proceeded from a desire he
had to throw off from himself the odium of a vile action--namely,
setting fire to the city--which he was generally charged with. And
Sulpicius Severus, a Christian historian of the fourth century, says the
same thing" ("Credibility of the Gospel History," vol. i., pages
416-420). Lardner, however, allows that the Jews persecuted the
Christians where they could although they were unable to slay them. They
probably persecuted them much in the same fashion that the Christians
have persecuted Freethinkers during the present century.
But Paley adduces further the evidence of Clement, Hermas, Polycarp,
Ignatius, and a circular letter of the Church of Smyrna, to prove the
sufferings of the eye-witnesses ("Evidences," pages 52-55). When we pass
into writings of this description in later times, there is, indeed,
plenty of evidence--in fact, a good deal too much, for they testify to
such marvellous occurrences, that no trust is possible in anything which
they say. Not only was St. Paul's head cut off, but the worthy Bishop of
Rome, Linus, his contemporary (who is supposed to relate his martyrdom),
tells us how, "instead of blood, nought but a stream of pure milk flowed
from his veins;" and we are further instructed that his severed head
took three jumps in "honour of the Trinity, and at each spot on which it
jumped there instantly struck up a spring of living water, which retains
at this day a plain and distinct taste of milk" ("Diegesis," pp. 256,
257). Against a mass of absurd stories of this kind, the _only evidence_
of the persecution of Paley's eye-witnesses, we may set the remarks of
Gibbon: "In the time of Tertullian and Clemens of Alexandria the glory
of martyrdom was confined to St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. James. It was
gradually bestowed on the rest of the Apostles by the more recent
Greeks, who prudently selected for the theatre of their preaching and
sufferings some remote country beyond the limits of the Roman Empire"
("Decline and Fall," vol. ii., p. 208, note). Later there was, indeed,
more persecution; but even then the martyrdoms afford no evidence of the
truth of Christianity. Martyrdom proves the sincerity, _but not the
truth_, of the sufferer's belief; every creed has had its martyrs, and
as the truth of one creed excludes the truth of every other, it follows
that the vast majority have died for a delusion, and that, therefore,
the number of martyrs it can reckon is no criterion of the truth of a
creed, but only of the devotion it inspires. While we allow that the
Christians underwent much persecution, there can be no doubt that the
number of the sufferers has been grossly exaggerated. One can scarcely
help suspecting that, as real martyrs were not forthcoming in as vast
numbers as their supposed bones, martyrs were invented to fit the
wealth-producing relics, as the relics did not fit the historical
martyrs. "The total disregard of truth and probability in the
representations of these primitive martyrdoms was occasioned by a very
natural mistake. The ecclesiastical writers of the fourth and fifth
centuries ascribed to the magistrates of Rome the same degree of
implacable and unrelenting zeal which filled their own breasts against
the heretics, or the idolaters of their own time.... But it is certain,
and we may appeal to the grateful confessions of the first Christians,
that the greatest part of those magistrates, who exercised in the
provinces the authority of the Emperor, or of the Senate, and to whose
hands alone the jurisdiction of life and death was entrusted, behaved
like men of polished manners and liberal education, who respected the
rules of justice, and who were conversant with the precepts of
philosophy. They frequently declined the odious task of persecution,
dismissed the charge with contempt, or suggested to the accused
Christian some legal evasion by which he might elude the severity of the
laws. (Tertullian, in his epistle to the Governor of Africa, mentions
several remarkable instances of lenity and forbearance which had
happened within his own knowledge.)... The learned Origen, who, from his
experience, as well as reading, was intimately acquainted with the
history of the Christians, declares, in the most express terms, that the
number of martyrs was very inconsiderable.... The general assertion of
Origen may be explained and confirmed by the particular testimony of his
friend Dionysius, who, in the immense city of Alexandria, and under the
rigorous persecution of Decius, reckons only ten men and seven women who
suffered for the profession of the Christian name" ("Decline and Fall,"
vol. ii., pp. 224-226. See throughout chap. xvi.). Gibbon calculates the
whole number of martyrs of the Early Church at "somewhat less than two
thousand persons;" and remarks caustically that the "Christians, in the
course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater
severities on each other than they had experienced from the zeal of
infidels" (pp. 273, 274). Supposing, however, that the most exaggerated
accounts of Church historians were correct, how would that support
Paley's argument? His contention is that the "eye-witnesses" of
miraculous events died in testimony of their belief in them; and myriads
of martyrs in the second and third centuries are of no assistance to
him. So we will retrace our steps to the eye-witnesses, and we find the
position of Gibbon--as to the lives and labours of the Apostles being
written later by men not confining themselves to facts--endorsed by
Mosheim, who judiciously observes: "Many have undertaken to write this
history of the Apostles, a history which we find loaded with fables,
doubts, and difficulties, when we pursue it further than the books of
the New Testament, and the most ancient writers in the Christian Church"
("Eccles. Hist.," p. 27, ed. 1847). What "ancient writers" Mosheim
alludes to it is difficult to guess, as may be judged from his
criticisms quoted below, on the "Apostolic Fathers," the most ancient of
all; and in estimating the worth of his opinion, it is necessary to
remember that he was himself an earnest Christian, although a learned
and candid one, so that every admission he makes, which tells against
Christianity, is of double weight, it being the admission of a friend
and defender.
To the credit of Paley's apostolic evidences (Clement, Hermas, Polycarp,
Ignatius, and letter from Smyrna), we may urge the following objections.
Clement's writings are much disputed: "The accounts which remain of his
life, actions, and death are, for the most part, uncertain. Two
_Epistles to the Corinthians_, written in Greek, have been attributed to
him, of which the second has been looked upon as spurious, and the first
as genuine, by many learned writers. But even this latter seems to have
been corrupted and interpolated by some ignorant and presumptuous
author.... The learned are now unanimous in regarding the other writings
which bear the name of Clemens (Clement) ... as spurious productions
ascribed by some impostor to this venerable prelate, in order to procure
them a high degree of authority" (Ibid, pp. 31, 32).
"The first epistle, bearing the name of Clement, has been preserved to
us in a single manuscript only. Though very frequently referred to by
ancient Christian writers, it remained unknown to the scholars of
Western Europe until happily discovered in the Alexandrian
manuscript.... Who the Clement was, to whom these writings are ascribed,
cannot with absolute certainty be determined. The general opinion is,
that he is the same as the person of that name referred to by St. Paul
(Phil. iv. 3). The writings themselves contain no statement as to their
author.... Although, as has been said, positive certainty cannot be
reached on the subject, we may with great probability conclude that we
have in this epistle a composition of that Clement who is known to us
from Scripture as having been an associate of the great apostle. The
date of this epistle has been the subject of considerable controversy.
It is clear from the writing itself that it was composed soon after some
persecution (chapter I) which the Roman Church had endured; and the only
question is, whether we are to fix upon the persecution under Nero or
Domitian. If the former, the date will be about the year 68; if the
latter, we must place it towards the close of the first century, or the
beginning of the second. We possess no external aid to the settlement of
this question. The lists of early Roman bishops are in hopeless
confusion, some making Clement the immediate successor of St. Peter,
others placing Linus, and others still Linus and Anacletus, between him
and the apostle. The internal evidence, again, leaves the matter
doubtful, though it has been strongly pressed on both sides. The
probability seems, on the whole, to be in favour of the Domitian period,
so that the epistle may be dated about A.D. 97" ("The Writings of the
Apostolic Fathers." Translated by Rev. Dr. Roberts, Dr. Donaldson, and
Rev. F. Crombie, pp. 3, 4. Ed. 1867). "Only a single-manuscript copy of
the work is extant, at the end of the Alexandrian manuscript of the
Scriptures. This copy is considerably mutilated. In some passages the
text is manifestly corrupt, and other passages have been suspected of
being interpolations" (Norton's "Genuineness of the Gospels," vol. i, p.
336. Ed. 1847).
The second epistle is rejected on all sides. "It is now generally
regarded as one of the many writings which have been falsely ascribed to
Clement.... The diversity of style clearly points to a different writer
from that of the first epistle" ("Apostolic Fathers," page 53). "The
second epistle ... is not mentioned at all by the earlier Fathers who
refer to the first. Eusebius, who is the first writer who mentions it,
expresses doubt regarding it, while Jerome and Photius state that it was
rejected by the ancients. It is now universally regarded as spurious"
("Supernatural Religion," pp. 220, 221). "There is a second epistle
ascribed to Clement, but we know not that this is as highly approved as
the former, and know not that it has been in use with the ancients.
There are also other writings reported to be his, verbose and of great
length. Lately, and some time ago, those were produced that contain the
dialogues of Peter and Apion, of which, however, not a syllable is
recorded by the primitive Church" (Eusebius' "Eccles. Hist." bk. iii.,
chap. 38). "The first Greek Epistle alone can be confidently pronounced
genuine" (Westcott on the "Canon of the New Testament," p. 24. Ed. 1875).
The first epistle "is the only piece of Clement that can be relied on as
genuine" ("Lardner's Credibility," pt. ii., vol. i., p. 62. Ed. 1734).
"Besides the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians there is a fragment
of a piece, called his second epistle, which being doubtful, or rather
plainly not Clement's, I don't quote as his." (Ibid, p. 106.)
This very dubious Clement (Paley quotes, be it said, from the first--or
least doubtful--of his writings) only says that _one_ of Paley's
original witnesses was martyred, namely Peter; Paul, of course, was not
an eye-witness of Christ's proceedings.
The _Vision of Hermas_ is a simple rhapsody, unworthy of a moment's
consideration, of which Mosheim justly remarks: "The discourse which he
puts into the mouths of those celestial beings is more insipid and
senseless than what we commonly hear among the meanest of the multitude"
("Eccles. Hist," p. 32). Its date is very doubtful; the Canon of
Muratori puts it in the middle of the second century, saying that it was
written by Hermas, brother to Pius, Bishop of Rome, who died A.D. 142.
(See "Norton's Genuineness of the Gospels," vol. i., pp. 341, 342.) "The
_Epistle to the Philippians_, which is ascribed to Polycarp, Bishop of
Smyrna, who, in the middle of the second century, suffered martyrdom in
a venerable and advanced age, is looked upon by some as genuine; by
others as spurious; and it is no easy matter to determine this question"
("Eccles. Hist," p. 32). "Upon no internal ground can any part of this
Epistle be pronounced genuine; there are potent reasons for considering
it spurious, and there is no evidence of any value whatever supporting
its authenticity" ("Sup. Rel.," p. 283).
The editors of the "Apostolic Fathers" dispute this assertion, and say:
"It is abundantly established by external testimony, and is also
supported by the internal evidence" (p. 67). But they add: "The epistle
before us is not perfect in any of the Greek MSS. which contain it. But
the chapters wanting in Greek are contained in an ancient Latin version.
While there is no ground for supposing, as some have done, that the
whole epistle is spurious, there seems considerable force in the
arguments by which many others have sought to prove chap. xiii. to be an
interpolation. The date of the epistle cannot be satisfactorily
determined. It depends on the conclusion we reach as to some points,
very difficult and obscure, connected with that account of the martyrdom
of Polycarp which has come down to us. We shall not, however, be far
wrong if we fix it about the middle of the second century" (Ibid, pp.
67, 68). Poor Paley! this weak evidence to the martyrdom of his
eye-witnesses comes 150 years after Christ; and even then all that
Polycarp may have said, if the epistle chance to be authentic, is that
"they suffered," without any word of their martyrdom!
The authenticity of the letters of Ignatius has long been a matter of
dispute. Mosheim, who accepts the seven epistles, says that, "Though I
am willing to adopt this opinion as preferable to any other, yet I
cannot help looking upon the authenticity of the epistle to Polycarp as
extremely dubious, on account of the difference of style; and, indeed,
the whole question relating to the epistles of St. Ignatius in general
seems to me to labour under much obscurity, and to be embarrassed with
many difficulties" ("Eccles. Hist.," p. 22).
"There are in all fifteen epistles which bear the name of Ignatius.
These are the following: One to the Virgin Mary, two to the Apostle
John, one to Mary of Cassobelæ, one to the Tarsians, one to the
Antiochians, one to Hero (a deacon of Antioch), one to the Philippians,
one to the Ephesians, one to the Magnesians, one to the Trallians, one
to the Romans, one to the Philadelphians, one to the Smyrnians, and one
to Polycarp. The first three exist only in Latin; all the rest are
extant also in Greek. It is now the universal opinions of critics that
the first eight of these professedly Ignatian letters are spurious. They
bear in themselves indubitable proofs of being the production of a later
age than that in which Ignatius lived. Neither Eusebius nor Jerome makes
the least reference to them; and they are now, by common consent, set
aside as forgeries, which were at various dates, and to serve special
purposes, put forth under the name of the celebrated Bishop of Antioch.
But, after the question has been thus simplified, it still remains
sufficiently complex. Of the seven epistles which are acknowledged by
Eusebius" ("Eccles. Hist," bk. iii., chap. 36), we possess two Greek
recensions, a shorter and a longer. "It is plain that one or other of
these exhibits a corrupt text; and scholars have, for the most part,
agreed to accept the shorter form as representing the genuine letters of
Ignatius.... But although the shorter form of the Ignatian letters had
been generally accepted in preference to the longer, there was still a
pretty prevalent opinion among scholars that even it could not be
regarded as absolutely free from interpolations, or as of undoubted
authenticity.... Upon the whole, however, the shorter recension was,
until recently, accepted without much opposition ... as exhibiting the
genuine form of the epistles of Ignatius. But a totally different aspect
was given to the question by the discovery of a Syriac version of three
of these epistles among the MSS. procured from the monastery of St. Mary
Deipara, in the desert of Nitria, in Egypt [between 1838 and 1842]....
On these being deposited in the British Museum, the late Dr. Cureton,
who then had charge of the Syriac department, discovered among them,
first, the epistle to Polycarp, and then again the same epistle, with
those to the Ephesians and to the Romans, in two other volumes of
manuscripts" ("Apostolic Fathers," pp. 139-142). Dr. Cureton gave it as
his opinion that the Syriac letters are "the only true and genuine
letters of the venerable Bishop of Antioch that have either come down to
our times or were ever known in the earliest ages of the Christian
Church" ("Corpus Ignatianum," ed. 1849, as quoted in the "Apostolic
Fathers," p. 142).
"I have carefully compared the two editions, and am very well satisfied
upon that comparison that the larger are an interpolation of the
smaller, and not the smaller an epitome or abridgment of the larger. I
desire no better evidence in a thing of this nature.... But whether the
smaller themselves are the genuine writings of Ignatius, Bishop of
Antioch, is a question that has been much disputed, and has employed the
pens of the ablest critics. And whatever positiveness some may have
shown on either side, I must own I have found it a very difficult
question" ("Credibility," pt. 2, vol. ii., p. 153). The Syriac version
was then, of course, unknown. Professor Norton, the learned Christian
defender of the Gospels, says: "The seven shorter epistles, the
genuineness of which is contended for, come to us in bad company....
There is, as it seems to me, no reasonable doubt that the seven shorter
epistles ascribed to Ignatius are equally, with all the rest,
fabrications of a date long subsequent to his time." "I doubt whether
any book, in its general tone of sentiment and language, ever betrayed
itself as a forgery more clearly than do these pretended epistles of
Ignatius" ("Genuineness of the Gospels," vol. i., pp. 350 and 353, ed.
1847).
"What, then, is the position of the so-called Ignatian epistles? Towards
the end of the second century Irenæus makes a very short quotation from
a source unnamed, which Eusebius, in the fourth century, finds in an
epistle attributed to Ignatius. Origen, in the third century, quotes a
few words, which he ascribes to Ignatius, although without definite
reference to any particular epistle; and, in the fourth century,
Eusebius mentions seven epistles ascribed to Ignatius. There is no other
evidence. There are, however, fifteen epistles extant, all of which are
attributed to Ignatius, of all of which, with the exception of three,
which are only known in a Latin version, we possess both Greek and Latin
versions. Of seven of these epistles--and they are those mentioned by
Eusebius--we have two Greek versions, one of which is very much shorter
than the other; and, finally, we now possess a Syriac version of three
epistles, only in a form still shorter than the shorter Greek version,
in which are found all the quotations of the Fathers, without exception,
up to the fourth century. Eight of the fifteen epistles are universally
rejected as spurious (ante, p. 263). The longer Greek version of the
remaining seven epistles is almost unanimously condemned as grossly
interpolated; and the great majority of critics recognise that the
shorter Greek version is also much interpolated; whilst the Syriac
version, which, so far as MSS. are concerned, is by far the most ancient
text of any letters which we possess, reduces their number to three, and
their contents to a very small compass indeed. It is not surprising that
the vast majority of critics have expressed doubt more or less strong
regarding the authenticity of all these epistles, and that so large a
number have repudiated them altogether. One thing is quite
evident--that, amidst such a mass of falsification, interpolation, and
fraud, the Ignatian epistles cannot, in any form, be considered evidence
on any important point.... In fact, the whole of the Ignatian literature
is a mass of falsification and fraud" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., pp. 270,
271, 274). The student may judge from this confusion, of fifteen reduced
to seven long, and seven long reduced to seven short, and seven short
reduced to three, and those three very doubtful, how thoroughly reliable
must be Paley's arguments drawn from this "contemporary of Polycarp."
Our editors of the "Fathers" very frankly remark: "As to the personal
history of Ignatius, almost nothing is known" ("Apostolic Fathers," p.
143). Why, acknowledging this, they call him "celebrated," it is hard to
say. Truly, the ways of Christian commentators are dark!
Paley's quotation is taken from the epistle to the Smyrnaeans (not one
of the Syriac, be it noted), and is from the shorter Greek recension. It
occurs in chap. iii., and only says that Peter, and those who were with
him, saw Jesus after the resurrection, and believed: "for this cause
also they despised death, and were found its conquerors." Men who
believed in a resurrection might naturally despise death; but it is hard
to see how this quotation--even were it authentic--shows that the
apostles suffered for their belief. What strikes one as most
remarkable--if Paley's contention of the sufferings of the witnesses be
true, and these writings authentic--is that so very little mention is
made of the apostles, of their labours, toils, and sufferings, and that
these epistles are simply a kind of patchwork, chiefly of Old Testament
materials, mixed up with exhortations about Christ.
The circular epistle of the Church of Smyrna is a curious document.
Paley quotes a terrible account of the tortures inflicted, and one would
imagine on reading it that many must have been put to death. We are
surprised to learn, from the epistle itself, that Polycarp was only the
twelfth martyr between the two towns of Smyrna and Philadelphia! The
amount of dependence to be placed on the narrative may be judged by the
following:--"As the flame blazed forth in great fury, we, to whom it was
given to witness it, beheld a great miracle, and have been preserved
that we might report to others what then took place. For the fire,
shaping itself into the form of an arch, like the sail of a ship when
filled with the wind, encompassed as by a circle the body of the martyr.
And he appeared within, not like flesh which is burnt, but as bread that
is baked, or as gold and silver glowing in a furnace. Moreover, we
perceived such a sweet odour, as if frankincense or some such precious
spices had been burning there. At length, when those men perceived that
his body could not be consumed by the fire, they commanded an
executioner to go near, and pierce him with a dagger. And on his doing
this, there came forth a dove, and a great quantity of blood, so that
the fire was extinguished" ("Apostolic Fathers," p. 92). What reliance
can be placed on historians(?) who gravely relate that fire does not
burn, and that when a man is pierced with a dagger a dove flies out,
together with sufficient blood to quench a flaming pile? To make this
precious epistle still more valuable, one of its transcribers adds to
it:--"I again, Pionius, wrote them (these things) from the previously
written copy, having carefully searched into them, and the blessed
Polycarp having manifested them to me through a revelation[!] even as I
shall show in what follows. I have collected these things, when they had
almost faded away through the lapse of time" (Ibid, p. 96). If this is
history, then any absurd dream may be taken as the basis of belief. We
may add that this epistle does not mention the martyrdoms of the
eye-witnesses, and it is hard to know why Paley drags it in, unless he
wants to make us believe that his eye-witnesses suffered all the
tortures he quotes; but even Paley cannot pretend that there is a
scintilla of proof of their undergoing any such trials. Thus falls the
whole argument based on the "twelve men, whose probity and good sense I
had long known," dying for the persistent assertion of "a miracle
wrought before their eyes," who are used as a parallel of the apostles,
as an argument against Hume. For we have not yet proved that there were
any eye-witnesses, or that they made any assertions, and we have
entirely failed to prove that the eye-witnesses were martyred at all, or
that the death of any one of them, save that of Peter, is even mentioned
in the alleged documents, so that the "satisfactory evidences" of the
"original witnesses of the Christian miracles" suffering and dying in
attestation of those miracles amount to this, that in a disputed
document Peter is said to have been martyred, and in another, still more
doubtful, "the rest of the apostles" are said to have "suffered." Thus
the first proposition of Paley falls entirely to the ground. The honest
truth is that the history of the twelve apostles is utterly unknown, and
that around their names gathers a mass of incredible and nonsensical
myth and legend, similar in kind to other mythological fables, and
entirely unworthy of credence by reasonable people.
Nor is proof less lacking of submission "from the same motives, to new
rules of conduct." Nowhere is there a sign that Christian morality was
enforced by appeal to the miracles of Christ; miracles were, in those
days, too common an incident to attract much attention, and, indeed, if
they could not win belief in the mission from those Jews before whom
they were said to have been performed, what chance would they have had
when the story of their working was only repeated by hearsay? Again, the
rules of conduct were not "new;" the best parts of the Christian
morality had been taught long before Christ (as we shall prove later on
by quotations), and were familiar to the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians,
from the writings of their own philosophers. There would have been
nothing remarkable in a new sect growing up among these peoples,
accustomed as they were to the schools of the philosophers, with their
various groups of disciples distinguished by special names. Why is there
anything more wonderful in these Christian societies with a high moral
code, than in the severe and stately morality inculcated and practised
by the Stoics? For the submission of conduct to the "new rules," the
less said the better. 1 Corinthians does not give us a very lofty idea
of the morality current among the Christians there, and the angry
reproaches of Jude imply much depravity; the messages to the seven
Churches are generally reproving, not to dwell on many scattered
passages of the same character. Outsiders, moreover, speak very harshly
of the Christian societies. Tacitus--whose testimony must be allowed
some weight, if he be quoted as a proof of the existence of the
sect--says that they were held in abhorrence for their crimes, and were
condemned for their "enmity to mankind" (the expression of Tacitus may
either mean _haters of_ mankind, or _hated by_ mankind), expressions
which show that the adherents of the higher and purer morality were, at
least, singularly unfortunate in the impressions of it which they
conveyed to their neighbours by their lives; and we find, further, the
most scandalous crimes imputed to the Christians, necessitating the
enforcement against them of edicts passed to put down the shameful
Bacchanalian mysteries. And here, indeed, is the true cause of the
persecution to which they were subjected under the just and merciful
Roman sway, and this is a point that should not be lost sight of by the
student.
About 186 B.C., according to Livy (lib. xxxix. c. 8-19), the Roman
Government, discovering that certain "Bacchanalian mysteries" were
habitually celebrated in Rome, issued stern edicts against the
participants in them, and succeeding in, at least partially, suppressing
them. The reason given by the Consul Postumius for these edicts was
political, not religious. "Could they think," he asked, "that youths,
initiated under such oaths as theirs, were fit to be made soldiers? That
wretches brought out of the temple of obscenity could be trusted with
arms? That those contaminated with the foul debaucheries of these
meetings should be the champions for the chastity of the wives and
children of the Roman people?" "Let us now closely examine how far the
Eleusinian and Bacchanalian feasts resembled the Christian
Agapae--whether the latter, modified and altered a little according to
the change which would take place in the taste of the age, originated
from the former, or were altogether from a different source. We have
seen that the forementioned Pagan feasts were, throughout Italy, in a
very flourishing state about 186 years before the Christian era. We have
also seen that about this time they were, at least, partially suppressed
in Italy, and those who were wont to take part in them dispersed over
the world. Being zealously devoted to the religion of which these feasts
were part, it is very natural to suppose that, wherever the votaries of
this superstition settled, they soon established these feasts, which
they were enabled to carry on secretly, and, therefore, for a
considerable time, undetected.... Both Pagans and Christians, in ancient
times, were particularly careful not to disclose their _mysteries_; to
do so, in violation of their oaths, would cost their lives" ("The
Prophet of Nazareth," by E.P. Meredith, notes, pp. 225, 226). Mr.
Meredith then points out how in Rome, in Lyons, in Vienne, "the
Christians were actually accused of murdering children and others--of
committing adultery, incest, and other flagrant crimes in their secret
lovefeasts. The question, therefore, arises--were they really guilty of
the barbarous crimes with which they were so often formally charged, and
for the commission of which they were almost as often legally condemned,
and punished with death? Is it probable that persons _at Rome_, who had
once belonged to these lovefeasts, should tell a deliberate falsehood
that the Christians perpetrated these abominable vices, and that other
persons _in France_, who had also been connected with these feasts,
should falsely state that the Christians were guilty of the very same
execrable crimes? There was no collusion or connection whatever between
these parties, and in making their statements, they could have no
self-interested motive. They lived in different countries, they did not
make their statements within twenty years of the same time, and by
making such statements they rendered themselves liable to be punished
with death.... The same remark applies to the disclosures made, about
150 years after, by certain females in Damascus, far remote from either
Lyons or Rome. These make precisely the same statement--that they had
once been Christians, that they were privy to criminal acts among them,
and that these Christians, in their very churches, committed licentious
deeds. The Romans would never have so relentlessly persecuted the
Christians had they not been guilty of some such atrocities as were laid
to their charge. There are on record abundant proofs that the Romans,
from the earliest account we have of them, tolerated all harmless
religions--all such as were not directly calculated to endanger the
public peace, or vitiate public morals, or render life and property
unsafe.... So well known were those horrid vices to be carried on by all
Christians in their nocturnal and secret assemblies, and so certain it
was thought that every one who was a Christian participated in them,
that for a person to be known to be a Christian was thought a strong
presumptive proof that he was guilty of these offences. Hence, persons
in their preliminary examinations, who, on being interrogated, answered
that they were Christians, were thought proper subjects for committal to
prison.... Pliny further indicates that while some brought before him,
on information, refused to tell him anything as to the nature of their
nocturnal meetings, others replied to his questions as far as their oath
permitted them. They told him that it was their practice, as Christians,
to meet on a stated day, before daylight, to sing hymns; and to bind
themselves by a solemn oath that they would do no wrong; that they would
not steal, nor rob, nor commit any act of unchastity; that they would
never violate a trust; and that they joined together in a common and
innocent repast. While all these answers to the questions of the
Proconsul are suggestive of the crimes with which the Christians were
charged, still they are a denial of every one of them.... The whole
tenor of historical facts is, however, against their testimony, and the
Proconsul did not believe them; but, in order to get at the entire
truth, put some of them to the torture, and ultimately adjourned their
trial [see ante, pp. 203-205]. The manner in which Greek and Latin
writers mention the Christians goes far to show that they were guilty of
the atrocious crimes laid to their charge. Suetonius (in Nero) calls
them, 'A race of men of new and villainous superstition' [see ante, p.
201]. The Emperor Adrian, in a letter to his brother-in-law, Servianus,
in the year 134, as given by Vospicius, says: 'There is no presbyter of
the Christians who is not either an astrologer, a soothsayer, or a
minister of obscene pleasures.' Tacitus tells us that Nero inflicted
exquisite punishment upon those people who, under the vulgar appellation
of Christians, were held in abhorrence for their crimes. He also, in the
same place, says they were 'odious to mankind;' and calls their religion
a 'pernicious superstition' [see ante, p. 99]. Maximus, likewise, in his
letter, calls them 'votaries of execrable vanity,' who had 'filled the
world with infamy.' It would appear, however, that owing to the extreme
measures taken against them by the Romans, both in Italy and in all the
provinces, the Christians, by degrees, were forced to abandon entirely
in their Agapae infant murders, together with every species of
obscenity, retaining, nevertheless, some relics of them, such as the
_kiss of charity_, and the bread and wine, which they contended was
transubstantiated into real flesh and blood.... A very common way of
repelling these charges was for one sect of Christians, which, of
course, denounced all other sects as heretics, to urge that human
sacrifices and incestuous festivals were not celebrated by that sect,
but that they _were_ practised by other sects; such, for example, as the
Marcionites and the Capocratians. (Justin Mart., 'Apology,' i., 35;
Iren., adv. Haer. i., 24; Clem. Alex., i., 3.) When Tertullian joined
the Montanists, another sect of Christians, he divulged the criminal
secrets of the Church which he had so zealously defended, by saying, in
his 'Treatise on Fasting,' c. 17, that 'in the Agapae the young men lay
with their sisters, and wallowed in wantonness and luxury'.... Remnants
of these execrable customs remained for a long time, and vestiges of
them exist to this very day, as well in certain words and phrases as in
practice. The communion table to this very day is called _the altar_,
the name of that upon which the ancients sacrificed their victims. The
word _sacrament_ has a meaning, as used by Pliny already cited, which
carries us back to the solemn oath of the Agapaeists. The word _mass_
carries us back still further, and identifies the present mass with that
of the Pagans.... Formerly the consecrated bread was called _host_,
which word signifies a _victim_ offered _as sacrifice_, anciently
_human_ very often.... Jerome and other Fathers called the communion
bread--_little body_, and the communion table--_mystical table_; the
latter, in allusion to the heathen and early Christian mysteries, and
the former, in reference to the children sacrificed at the Agapae. The
great doctrine of transubstantiation directly points to the abominable
practice of eating human flesh at the Agapae.... Upon the whole, it is
impossible, from the mass of evidence already adduced, to avoid the
conclusion that the early Christians, in their Agapae, were really
guilty of the execrable vices with which they were so often charged, and
for which they were sentenced to death. This once admitted, a reasonable
and adequate cause can be assigned for the severe persecutions of the
Christians by the Roman Government--a Government which applied precisely
the same laws and modes of persecution and punishment to them as to the
votaries of the Bacchanalian and Eleusinian mysteries, well known to
have been accustomed to offer human sacrifices, and indulge in the most
obscene lasciviousness in their secret assemblies; and a Government
which tolerated all kinds of religions, except those which encouraged
practices dangerous to human life, or pernicious to the morals of
subjects. Nor can the facts already advanced fail to show clearly that
the Christian Agapae were of Pagan origin--were identically the same as
those Pagan feasts which existed simultaneously with them" (Ibid, notes,
pp. 227, 231).
There can be no doubt that the Christians suffered for these crimes
whether or no they were guilty of them: "Three things are alleged
against us: Atheism, Thyestean feasts, OEdipodean intercourse," says
Athenagoras ("Apology," ch. iii). Justin Martyr refers to the same
charges ("2nd Apology," ch. xii). "Monsters of wickedness, we are
accused of observing a holy rite, in which we kill a little child and
then eat it, in which after the feast we practise incest.... Come,
plunge your knife into the babe, enemy of none, accused of none, child
of all; or if that is another's work, simply take your place beside a
human being dying before he has really lived, await the departure of the
lately-given soul, receive the fresh young blood, saturate your bread
with it, freely partake" ("Apology," Tertullian, secs. 7, 8). Tertullian
pleads earnestly that these accusations were false: "if you cannot do
it, you ought not to believe it of others. For a Christian is a man as
well as you" (Ibid). Yet, when Tertullian became a Montanist, he
declared that these very crimes _were_ committed at the Agapae, so that
he spoke falsely either in the one case or in the other. "It was
sometimes faintly insinuated, and sometimes boldly asserted, that the
same bloody sacrifices and the same incestuous festivals, which were so
falsely ascribed to the orthodox believers, were in reality celebrated
by the Marcionites, by the Carpocratians, and by several other sects of
the Gnostics.... Accusations of a similar kind were retorted upon the
Church by the schismatics who had departed from its communion; and it
was confessed on all sides that the most scandalous licentiousness of
manners prevailed among great numbers of those who affected the name of
Christians. A Pagan magistrate, who possessed neither leisure nor
abilities to discern the almost imperceptible line which divides the
orthodox faith from heretical depravity, might easily have imagined that
their mutual animosity had extorted the discovery of their common guilt"
("Decline and Fall," Gibbon, vol. ii., pp. 204, 205). It was fortunate,
the historian concludes, that some of the magistrates reported that they
discovered no such criminality. It is, be it noted, simultaneously with
the promulgation of these charges that the persecution of the Christians
takes place; during the first century very little is heard of such, and
there is very little persecution [see ante, pp. 209-213]. In the
following century the charges are frequent, and so are the persecutions.
To these strong arguments may be added the acknowledgment in 1. Cor.
xi., 17, 22, of disorder and drunkenness at these Agapae; the habit of
speaking of the communion feast as "the Christian _mysteries_," a habit
still kept up in the Anglican prayer-book; the fact that they took place
_at night_, under cover of darkness, a custom for which there was not
the smallest reason, unless the service were of a nature so
objectionable as to bring it under the ban of the tolerant Roman law;
and lastly, the use of the cross, and the sign of the cross, the central
Christian emblem, and one that, especially in connection with the
mysteries, is of no dubious signification. Thus, in the twilight in
which they were veiled in those early days, the Christians appear to us
as a sect of very different character to that bestowed upon them by
Paley. A little later, when they emerge into historical light, their own
writers give us sufficient evidence whereby we may judge them; and we
find them superstitious, grossly ignorant, quarrelsome, cruel, divided
into ascetics and profligates, between whom it is hard to award the palm
for degradation and indecency.
Having "proved"--in the above fashion--that a number of people in the
first century advanced "an extraordinary story," underwent persecution,
and altered their manner of life, because of it, Paley thinks it "in the
highest degree probable, that the story for which these persons
voluntarily exposed themselves to the fatigues and hardships which they
endured, was a _miraculous_ story; I mean, that they pretended to
miraculous evidence of some kind or other" ("Evidences," p. 64). That
the Christians believed in a miraculous story may freely be
acknowledged, but it is evidence of the truth of the story that we want,
not evidence of their belief in it. Many ignorant people believe in
witchcraft and in fortune-telling now-a-days, but their belief only
proves their own ignorance, and not the truth of either superstition.
The next step in the argument is that "the story which Christians have
_now_" is "the story which Christians had _then_" and it is urged that
there is in existence no trace of any story of Jesus Christ
"substantially different from ours" ("Evidences," p. 69). It is hard to
judge how much difference is covered by the word "substantially." All
the apocryphal gospels differ very much from the canonical, insert
sayings and doings of Christ not to be found in the received histories,
and make his character the reverse of good or lovable to a far greater
extent than "the four." That Christ was miraculously born, worked
miracles, was crucified, buried, rose again, ascended, may be accepted
as "substantial" parts of the story. Yet Mark and John knew nothing of
the birth, while, if the Acts and the Epistles are to be trusted, the
apostles were equally ignorant; thus the great doctrine of the
Incarnation of God without natural generation, is thoroughly ignored by
all save Matthew and Luke, and even these destroy their own story by
giving genealogies of Jesus through Joseph, which are useless unless
Joseph was his real father. The birth from a virgin, then has no claim
to be part of Paley's miraculous story in the earliest times. The
evidence of miracle-working by Christ to be found in the Epistles is
chiefly conspicuous by its absence, but it figures largely in
post-apostolic works. The crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension are
generally acknowledged, and these three incidents compose the whole
story for which a consensus of testimony can be claimed; it will,
perhaps, be fair to concede also that Christ is recognised universally
as a miracle-worker, in spite of the strange silence of the epistles. We
need not refer to the testimony of Clement, Polycarp or Ignatius, having
already shown what dependence may be placed on their writings. But we
have now three new witnesses, Barnabas, Quadratus, and Justin Martyr.
Paley says: "In an epistle, bearing the name of Barnabas, the companion
of Paul, probably genuine, certainly belonging to that age, we have the
sufferings of Christ," etc. (Evidences p. 75). "Probably genuine,
certainly belonging to that age!" Is Paley joking with his readers, or
only trading on their ignorance? "The letter itself bears no author's
name, is not dated from any place, and is not addressed to any special
community. _Towards the end of the second century, however, tradition
began to ascribe it to Barnabas, the companion of Paul. The first writer
who mentions it is Clement of Alexandria_ [head of the Alexandrian
School, A.D. 205] who calls its author several times the 'Apostle
Barnabas'.... We have already seen in the case of the Epistles ascribed
to Clement of Rome, and, as we proceed, we shall become only too
familiar with the fact, the singular facility with which, in the total
absence of critical discrimination, spurious writings were ascribed by
the Fathers to Apostles and their followers.... Credulous piety which
attributed writings to every Apostle, and even to Jesus himself, soon
found authors for each anonymous work of an edifying character.... In
the earlier days of criticism, some writers, without much question,
adopted the traditional view as to the authorship of the Epistles, but
the great mass of critics are now agreed in asserting that the
composition, which itself is perfectly anonymous, cannot be attributed
to Barnabas the friend and fellow worker of Paul. Those who maintain the
former opinion date the Epistle about A.D. 70-73, or even earlier, but
this is scarcely the view of any living critic" ("Supernatural
Religion," vol. i., pp. 237-239).
"From its contents it seems unlikely that it was written by a companion
of Apostles and a Levite. In addition to this, it is probable that
Barnabas died before A.D. 62; and the letter contains not only an
allusion to the destruction of the Jewish temple, but also affirms the
abnegation of the Sabbath, and the general celebration of the Lord's
Day, which seems to show that it could not have been written before the
beginning of the second century" ("Westcott on the Canon," p. 41).
"Nothing certain is known as to the author of the following epistle. The
writer's name is Barnabas; but scarcely any scholars now ascribe it to
the illustrious friend and companion of St. Paul.... The internal
evidence is now generally regarded as conclusive against this
opinion.... The external evidence [ascribing it to Barnabas] is of
itself weak, and should not make us hesitate for a moment in refusing to
ascribe this writing to Barnabas, the apostle.... The general opinion
is, that its date is not later than the middle of the second century,
and that it cannot be placed earlier than some twenty or thirty years or
so before. In point of style, both as respects thought and expression, a
very low place must be assigned it. We know nothing certain of the
region in which the author lived, or where the first readers were to be
found" ("Apostolic Fathers," pp. 99, 100). The Epistle is not ascribed
to Barnabas at all until the close of the second century. Eusebius marks
it as "spurious" ("Eccles. Hist," bk. iii., chap. xxv). Lardner speaks
of it as "probably Barnabas's, and certainly ancient" ("Credibility,"
pt. ii., vol. ii., p. 30). When we see the utter conflict of evidence as
to the writings of all these "primitive" authors, we can scarcely wonder
at the frank avowal of the Rev. Dr. Giles: "The writings of the
Apostolical Fathers labour under a more heavy load of doubt and
suspicion than any other ancient compositions, either sacred or profane"
("Christian Records," p. 53).
Paley, in quoting "Quadratus," does not tell us that the passage he
quotes is the only writing of Quadratus extant, and is only preserved by
Eusebius, who says that he takes it from an apology addressed by
Quadratus to the Emperor Adrian. Adrian reigned from A.D. 117-138, and
the apology must consequently have been presented between these dates.
If the apology be genuine, Quadratus makes the extraordinary assertion
that some of the people raised from the dead by Jesus were then living.
Jesus is only recorded to have raised three people--a girl, a young man,
and Lazarus; we will take their ages at ten, twenty, and thirty. "Some
of" those raised cannot be less than two out of the three; we will say
the two youngest. Then they were alive at the respectable ages of from
95-116, and from 105-126. The first may be taken as just within the
limits of possibility; the second as beyond them; but Quadratus talks in
a wholesale fashion, which quite destroys his credibility, and we can
lay but little stress on the carefulness or trustworthiness of a
historian who speaks in such reckless words. Added to this, we find no
trace of this passage until Eusebius writes it in the fourth century,
and it is well known that Eusebius was not too particular in his
quotations, thinking that his duty was only to make out the best case he
could. He frankly says: "We are totally unable to find even the bare
vestiges of those who may have travelled the way before us; unless,
perhaps, what is only presented in the slight intimations, which some in
different ways have transmitted to us in certain partial narratives of
the times in which they lived.... _Whatsoever_, therefore, _we deem
likely to be advantageous to_ the proposed subject we shall endeavour to
reduce to a compact body" ("Eccles. Hist.," bk. i., chap. i).
Accordingly, he produces a full Church History out of materials which
are only "slight intimations," and carefully draws out in detail a path
of which not "even the bare vestiges" are left. Little wonder that he
had to rely so much upon his imagination, when he had to build a church,
and had no straws for his bricks.
Paley brings Justin Martyr (born about A.D. 103, died about A.D. 167) as
his last authority--as after his time the story may be taken as
established--and says: "From Justin's works, which are still extant,
might be collected a tolerably complete account of Christ's life, in all
points agreeing with that which is delivered in our Scriptures; taken,
indeed, in a great measure, from those Scriptures, but still proving
that this account, and no other, was the account known and extant in
that age" ("Evidences," p. 77). If "no other" account was extant, Justin
must have largely drawn on his own imagination when he pretends to be
quoting. Jesus, according to Justin, is conceived "of the Word"
("Apol.," i. 33), not of the Holy Ghost, the third person, the Holy
Ghost being said to be identical with the Word; and he is thus conceived
by himself. He is born, not in Bethlehem in a stable, but in a "cave
near the village," because Joseph could find no lodging in Bethlehem
("Dial." 78). The magi come, not from "the East," but from Arabia
("Dial." 77). Jesus works as a carpenter, making ploughs and yokes
("Dial." 88). The story of the baptism is very different ("Dial." 88).
In the trial Jesus is set on the judgment seat, and tauntingly bidden to
judge his accusers ("Apol.," i. 35). All the apostles deny him, and
forsake him, after he is crucified ("Apol.," i. 50). These instances
might be increased, and, as we shall see later, Justin manifestly quotes
from accounts other than the canonical gospels. Yet Paley pretends that
"no other" account was extant, and that in the very face of Luke i. 1,
which declares that "many have taken in hand" the writing of such
histories. If Paley had simply said that the story of a miracle-worker,
named the Anointed Saviour, who was born of a virgin, was crucified,
rose and ascended into heaven, was told with many variations among the
Christians. from about 100 years after his supposed birth, he would have
spoken truly; and had he added to this, that the very same story was
told among Egyptians and Hindoos, many hundreds of years earlier, he
would have treated his readers honestly, although he might not thereby
have increased their belief in the "divine origin of Christianity."
Before we pass on to the last evidences offered by Paley, which
necessitate a closer investigation into the value of the testimony borne
by the patristic, to the canonical, writings, it will be well to put
broadly the fact, that these Fathers are simply worthless as witnesses
to any matter of fact, owing to the absurd and incredible stories which
they relate with the most perfect faith. Of critical faculty they have
none; the most childish nonsense is accepted by them, with the gravest
face; no story is too silly, no falsehood too glaring, for them to
believe and to retail, in fullest confidence of its truth. Gross
ignorance is one of their characteristics; they are superstitious,
credulous, illiterate, to an almost incredible extent. Clement considers
that "the Lord continually proves to us that there shall be a future
resurrection" by the following "fact," among others: "Let us consider
that wonderful sign which takes place in Eastern lands--that is, in
Arabia and the countries round about. There is a certain bird which is
called a phoenix. This is the only one of its kind, and lives 500 years.
And when the time of its dissolution draws near that it must die, it
builds itself a nest of frankincense, and myrrh, and other spices, into
which, when the time is fulfilled, it enters and dies. But, as the flesh
decays, a certain kind of worm is produced, which, being nourished by
the juices of the dead bird, brings forth feathers. Then, when it has
acquired strength, it takes up that nest in which are the bones of its
parent, and, bearing these, it passes from the land of Arabia into
Egypt, to the city called Heliopolis. And in open day, flying in the
sight of all men, it places them on the altar of the sun, and, having
done this, hastens back to its former abode. The priests then inspect
the registers of the dates, and find that it has returned exactly as the
500th year was completed" (1st Epistle of Clement, chap. xxv.). Surely
the evidence here should satisfy Paley as to the truth of this story:
"the open day," "flying in the sight of all men," the priests inspecting
the registers, and all this vouched for by Clement himself! How reliable
must be the testimony of the apostolic Clement! Tertullian, the
Apostolic Constitutions, and Cyril of Jerusalem mention the same tale.
We have already drawn attention to that which _was seen by_ the writers
of the circular letter of the Church of Smyrna. Barnabas loses himself
in a maze of allegorical meanings, and gives us some delightful
instruction in natural history; he is dealing with the directions of
Moses as to clean and unclean animals: "'Thou shalt not,' he says, 'eat
the hare.' Wherefore? 'Thou shalt not be a corrupter of boys, nor like
unto such.' Because the hare multiplies, year by year, the places of its
conception; for as many years as it lives, so many _foramina_ it has.
Moreover, 'Thou shalt not eat the hyaena.'... Wherefore? Because that
animal annually changes its sex, and is at one time male, and at another
female. Moreover, he has rightly detested the weasel ... For this animal
conceives by the mouth.... Behold how well Moses legislated" (Epistle of
Barnabas, chapter x.). "'And Abraham circumcised ten and eight and three
hundred men of his household.' What, then, was the knowledge given to
him in this? Learn the eighteen first, and then the three hundred. The
ten and the eight are thus denoted--Ten by I, and Eight by H. You have
Jesus. And because the cross was to express the grace by the letter T,
he says also Three Hundred. He signifies, therefore, Jesus by two
letters, and the cross by one.... No one has been admitted by me to a
more excellent piece of knowledge than this, but I know that ye are
worthy" (Ibid, chapter ix.). And this is Paley's companion of the
Apostles! Ignatius tells us of the "star of Bethlehem." "A star shone
forth in heaven above all other stars, and the light of which was
inexpressible, while its novelty struck men with astonishment. And all
the rest of the stars, with the sun and moon, formed a chorus to this
star" (Epistle to the Ephesians, chap. xix.). Why should we accept
Ignatius' testimony to the star, and reject his testimony to the sun and
moon and stars singing to it? Or take Origen against Celsus: "I have
this further to say to the Greeks, who will not believe that our Saviour
was born of a virgin: that the Creator of the world, if he pleases, can
make every animal bring forth its young in the same wonderful manner.
As, for instance, the _vultures propagate their kind in this uncommon
way,_ as the best writers of natural history do acquaint us" (chap,
xxxiii., as quoted in "Diegesis," p. 319). Or shall we turn to Irenæus,
so invaluable a witness, since he knew Polycarp, who knew John, who knew
Jesus? Listen, then, to the reminiscences of John, as reported by
Irenæus: "John related the words of the Lord concerning the times of the
kingdom of God: the days would come when vines would grow, each with
10,000 shoots, and to each shoot 10,000 branches, and to each branch
10,000 twigs, and to each twig 10,000 clusters, and to each cluster
10,000 grapes, and each grape which is crushed will yield twenty-five
measures of wine. And when one of the saints will reach after one of
these clusters, another will cry: 'I am a better cluster than it; take
me, and praise the Lord because of me.' Likewise, a grain of wheat will
produce 10,000 ears, each ear 10,000 grains, each grain ten pounds of
fine white flour. Other fruits, and seeds, and herbs in proportion. The
whole brute creation, feeding on such things as the earth brings forth,
will become sociable and peaceable together, and subject to man with all
humility" ("Iren. Haer.," v., 33, 3-4, as quoted in Keim's "Jesus of
Nazara," p. 45). What trust can be placed in the truth of facts to which
these men pretend to bear witness when we find St. Augustine preaching
that "he himself, being at that time Bishop of Hippo Regius, had
preached the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to a whole
nation of men and women that had no heads, but had their eyes in their
bosoms; and in countries still more southerly he preached to a nation
among whom each individual had but one eye, and that situate in the
middle of the forehead" ("Syntagma," p. 33, as quoted in "Diegesis," p.
257).
Eusebius tells us of a man, named Sanctus, who was tortured until his
body "was one continued wound, mangled and shrivelled, that had entirely
lost the form of man;" and, when the tormentors began again on the same
day, he "recovered the former shape and habit of his limbs" ("Eccles.
Hist," bk. v., chap. i.). He then was sent to the amphitheatre, passing
down the lane of scourgers, was dragged about and lacerated by the wild
beast, roasted in an iron chair, and after this was "at last
dispatched!" Other accounts, such as that of a man scourged till his
bones were "bared of the flesh," and then slowly tortured, are given as
history, as though a man in that condition would not speedily bleed to
death. But it is useless to give more of these foolish stories, which
weary us as we toil through the writings of the early Church. Well may
Mosheim say that the "Apostolic Fathers, and the other writers, who, in
the infancy of the Church, employed their pens in the cause of
Christianity, were neither remarkable for their learning nor their
eloquence" ("Eccles. Hist," p. 32). Thoroughly unreliable as they are,
they are useless as witnesses of supposed miraculous events; and, in
relating ordinary occurrences, they should not be depended upon in any
matter of importance, unless they be corroborated by more trustworthy
historians.
The last point Paley urges in support of his proposition is, that the
accounts contained in "the historical Books of the New Testament" are
"deserving of credit as histories," and that such is "the situation of
the authors to whom the four Gospels are ascribed that, if any one of
the four be genuine, it is sufficient for our purpose." This brings us,
indeed, to the crucial point of our investigation, for, as we can gain
so little information from external sources, we are perforce driven to
the Christian writings themselves. If they break down under criticism as
completely as the external evidences have done, then Christianity
becomes hopelessly discredited as to its historical basis, and must
simply take rank with the other mythologies of the world. But before we
can accept the writings as historical, we are bound to investigate their
authenticity and credibility. Does the external evidence suffice to
prove their authenticity? Do the contents of the books themselves
commend them as credible to our intelligence? It is possible that,
although the historical evidence authenticating them be somewhat
defective, yet the thorough coherency and reasonableness of the books
may induce us to consider them as reliable; or, if the latter points be
lacking from the supernatural character of the occurrences related, yet
the evidence of authenticity may be so overwhelming as to place the
accuracy of the accounts beyond cavil. But if external evidence be
wanting, and internal evidence be fatal to the truthfulness of the
writings, then it will become our duty to remove them from the temple of
history, and to place them in the fairy gardens of fancy and of myth,
where they may amuse and instruct the student, without misleading him as
to questions of fact.
The positions which we here lay down are:--
_a_. That forgeries bearing the names of Christ, and of the apostles,
and of the early Fathers, were very common in the primitive Church.
_b_. That there is nothing to distinguish the canonical from the
apocryphal writings.
_c_. That it is not known where, when, by whom, the canonical writings
were selected.
_d_. That before about A.D. 180 there is no trace of _four_ Gospels
among the Christians.
_e_. That before that date Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not
selected as the four evangelists.
_f_. That there is no evidence that the four Gospels mentioned about
that date were the same as those we have now.
_g_. That there is evidence that two of them were not the same.
_h_. That there is evidence that the earlier records were not the
Gospels now esteemed canonical.
_i_. That the books themselves show marks of their later origin.
_j_. That the language in which they are written is presumptive evidence
against their authenticity.
_k_. That they are in themselves utterly unworthy of credit, from (1)
the miracles with which they abound, (2) the numerous contradictions of
each by the others, (3) the fact that the story of the hero, the
doctrines, the miracles, were current long before the supposed dates of
the Gospels; so that these Gospels are simply a patchwork composed of
older materials.
Paley begins his argument by supposing that the first and fourth Gospels
were written by the apostles Matthew and John, "from personal knowledge
and recollection" ("Evidences," p. 87), and that they must therefore be
either true, or wilfully false; the latter being most improbable, as
they would then be "villains for no end but to teach honesty, and
martyrs without the least prospect of honour or advantage" (Ibid, page
88). But supposing that Matthew and John wrote some Gospels, we should
need proof that the Gospels which we have, supposing them to be copies
of those thus written, have not been much altered since they left the
apostles' hands. We should next ask how Matthew can report from
"personal knowledge and recollection" all that comes in his Gospel
_before he was called from his tax-gathering_, as well as many incidents
at which he was not present? and whether his reliability as a witness is
not terribly weakened by his making no distinction between what was fact
within his own knowledge, and what was simple hearsay? Further, we
remark that some of the teaching is the reverse of teaching "honesty,"
and that such instruction as Matt. v. 39-42 would, if accepted, exactly
suit "villains;" that the extreme glorification of the master would
naturally be reflected upon "the twelve" who followed him, and the
authority of the writers would thereby be much increased and confirmed;
that pure moral teaching on some points is no guarantee of the morality
of the teacher, for a tyrant, or an ambitious priest, would naturally
wish to discourage crime of some kinds in those he desired to rule; that
such tyrant or priest could find no better creed to serve his purpose
than meek, submissive, non-resisting, heaven-seeking Christianity. Thus
we find Mosheim saying of Constantine: "It is, indeed, probable that
this prince perceived the admirable tendency of the Christian doctrine
and precepts to promote the stability of government, by preserving the
citizens in their obedience to the reigning powers, and in the practice
of those virtues that render a State happy" ("Eccles. Hist," p. 87). We
discover Charlemagne enforcing Christianity among the Saxons by sword
and fire, hoping that it would, among other things, "induce them to
submit more tamely to the government of the Franks" (Ibid, p. 170). And
we see missionaries among the savages usurping "a despotic dominion over
their obsequious proselytes" (Ibid, p. 157); and "St. Boniface," the
"apostle of Germany," often employing "violence and terror, and
sometimes artifice and fraud, in order to multiply the number of
Christians" (Ibid, p. 169). Thus do "villains" very often "teach
honesty." Nor is it true that these apostles were "martyrs [their
martyrdom being unproved] without the least prospect of honour or
advantage;" on the contrary, they desired to know what they would get by
following Jesus. "_What shall we have_, therefore?... Ye which have
followed me shall sit upon twelve thrones" (Matt. xix. 27-30); and,
further, in Mark ix. 28-31, we are told that any one who forsakes
anything for Jesus shall receive "an hundredfold _now in this time,"_ as
well as eternal life in the world to come. Surely, then, there was
"prospect" enough of "honour and advantage"? These remarks apply quite
as strongly to Mark and Luke, neither of whom are pretended to be
eye-witnesses. Of Mark we know nothing, except that it is said that
there was a man named John, whose surname was Mark (Acts xii. 12 and
25), who ran away from his work (Acts xv. 38); and a man named Marcus,
nephew of Barnabas (Col. iv. 10), who may, or may not, be the same, but
is probably somebody else, as he is with Paul; and one of the same name
is spoken of (2 Tim. ii.) as "profitable for the ministry," which John
Mark was not, and who (Philemon 24) was a "fellow-labourer" with Paul in
Rome, while John Mark was rejected in this capacity by Paul at Antioch.
Why Mark, or John Mark, should write a Gospel, he not having been an
eye-witness, or why Mark, or John Mark, should be identical with Mark
the Evangelist, only writers of Christian evidences can hope to
understand.
A. _That forgeries, bearing the names of Christ, of the apostles, and of
the early Fathers, were very common in the primitive Church_.
"The opinions, or rather the conjectures, of the learned concerning the
time when the books of the New Testament were collected into one volume,
as also about the authors of that collection, are extremely different.
This important question is attended with great and almost insuperable
difficulties to us in these latter times" (Mosheim's "Eccles. Hist.," p.
31). These difficulties arise, to a great extent, from the large number
of forgeries, purporting to be writings of Christ, of the apostles, and
of the apostolic Fathers, current in the early Church. "For, not long
after Christ's ascension into heaven, several histories of his life and
doctrines, full of pious frauds and fabulous wonders, were composed by
persons whose intentions, perhaps, were not bad, but whose writings
discovered the greatest superstition and ignorance. Nor was this all;
productions appeared which were imposed upon the world by fraudulent
men, as the writings of the holy apostles" (Ibid, p. 31). "Another
erroneous practice was adopted by them, which, though it was not so
universal as the other, was yet extremely pernicious, and proved a
source of numberless evils to the Christian Church. The Platonists and
Pythagoreans held it as a maxim, that it was not only lawful, but even
praiseworthy, to deceive, and even to use the expedient of a lie, in
order to advance the cause of truth and piety. The Jews, who lived in
Egypt, had learned and received this maxim from them, before the coming
of Christ, as appears incontestably from a multitude of ancient records;
and the Christians were infected from both these sources with the same
pernicious error, as appears from the number of books attributed falsely
to great and venerable names, from the Sibylline verses, and several
suppositious productions which were spread abroad in this and the
following century. It does not, indeed, seem probable that all these
pious frauds were chargeable upon the professors of real Christianity,
upon those who entertained just and rational sentiments of the religion
of Jesus. The greatest part of these fictitious writings undoubtedly
flowed from the fertile invention of the Gnostic sects, though it cannot
be affirmed that even true Christians were entirely innocent and
irreproachable in this matter" (Ibid, p. 55). "This disingenuous and
vicious method of surprising their adversaries by artifice, and striking
them down, as it were, by lies and fiction, produced, among other
disagreeable effects, a great number of books, which were falsely
attributed to certain great men, in order to give these spurious
productions more credit and weight" (Ibid, page 77). These forged
writings being so widely circulated, it will be readily understood that
"It is not so easy a matter as is commonly imagined rightly to settle
the Canon of the New Testament. For my own part, I declare, with many
learned men, that, in the whole compass of learning, I know no question
involved with more intricacies and perplexing difficulties than this.
There are, indeed, considerable difficulties relating to the Canon of
the Old Testament, as appears by the large controversies between the
Protestants and Papists on this head in the last, and latter end of the
preceding, century; but these are solved with much more ease than those
of the New.... In settling the old Testament collection, all that is
requisite is to disprove the claim of a few obscure books, which have
but the weakest pretences to be looked upon as Scripture; but, in the
New, we have not only a few to disprove, but a vast number to exclude
[from] the Canon, which seem to have much more right to admission than
any of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament; and, besides, to
evidence the genuineness of all those which we do receive, since,
according to the sentiments of some who would be thought learned, there
are none of them whose authority has not been controverted in the
earliest ages of Christianity.... The number of books that claim
admission [to the canon] is very considerable. Mr. Toland, in his
celebrated catalogue, has presented us with the names of above
eighty.... There are many more of the same sort which he has not
mentioned" (J. Jones on "The Canon of the New Testament," vol. i., pp.
2-4. Ed. 1788).
The following list will give some idea of the number of the apocryphal
writings from which the four Gospels, and other books of the New
Testament, finally emerge as canonical:--
GOSPELS.
1. Gospel according to the Hebrews.
2. Gospel written by Judas Iscariot.
3. Gospel of Truth, made use of by the Valentinians.
4. Gospel of Peter.
5. Gospel according to the Egyptians.
6. Gospel of Valentinus.
7. Gospel of Marcion.
8. Gospel according to the Twelve Apostles.
9. Gospel of Basilides.
10. Gospel of Thomas (extant).
11. Gospel of Matthias.
12. Gospel of Tatian.
13. Gospel of Scythianus.
14. Gospel of Bartholomew.
15. Gospel of Apelles.
16. Gospels published by Lucianus and Hesychius
17. Gospel of Perfection.
18. Gospel of Eve.
19. Gospel of Philip.
20. Gospel of the Nazarenes (qy. same as first)
21. Gospel of the Ebionites.
22. Gospel of Jude.
23. Gospel of Encratites.
24. Gospel of Cerinthus.
25. Gospel of Merinthus.
26. Gospel of Thaddaeus.
27. Gospel of Barnabas.
28. Gospel of Andrew.
29. Gospel of the Infancy (extant).
30. Gospel of Nicodemus, or Acts of Pilate and Descent
of Christ to the Under World (extant).
31. Gospel of James, or Protevangelium (extant).
32. Gospel of the Nativity of Mary (extant).
33. Arabic Gospel of the Infancy (extant).
34. Syriac Gospel of the Boyhood of our Lord Jesus (extant).
MISCELLANEOUS.
35. Letter to Agbarus by Christ (extant).
36. Letter to Leopas by Christ (extant).
37. Epistle to Peter and Paul by Christ.
38. Epistle by Christ produced by Manichees.
39. Hymn by Christ (extant).
40. Magical Book by Christ.
41. Prayer by Christ (extant).
42. Preaching of Peter.
43. Revelation of Peter.
44. Doctrine of Peter.
45. Acts of Peter.
46. Book of Judgment by Peter.
47. Book, under the name of Peter, forged by Lentius.
48. Preaching of Peter and Paul at Rome.
49. The Vision, or Acts of Paul and Thecla.
50. Acts of Paul.
51. Preaching of Paul.
52. Piece under name of Paul, forged by an "anonymous writer in Cyprian's
time."
53. Epistle to the Laodiceans under name of Paul (extant).
54. Six letters to Seneca under name of Paul (extant).
55. Anabaticon or Revelation of Paul.
56. The traditions of Matthias.
57. Book of James.
58. Book, under name of James, forged by Ebionites.
59. Acts of Andrew, John, and Thomas.
60. Acts of John.
61. Book, under name of John, forged by Ebionites.
62. Book under name of John.
63. Book, under name of John, forged by Lentius.
64. Acts of Andrew.
65. Book under name of Andrew.
66. Book, under name of Andrew, by Naxochristes and Leonides.
67. Book under name of Thomas.
68. Acts of Thomas.
69. Revelation of Thomas.
70. Writings of Bartholomew.
71. Book, under name of Matthew, forged by Ebionites.
72. Acts of the Apostles by Leuthon, or Seleucus.
73. Acts of the Apostles used by Ebionites.
74. Acts of the Apostles by Lenticius.
75. Acts of the Apostles used by Manichees.
76. History of the Twelve Apostles by Abdias (extant).
77. Creed of the Apostles (extant).
78. Constitutions of the Apostles (extant).
79. Acts, under Apostles' names, by Leontius.
80. Acts, under Apostles' names, by Lenticius.
81. Catholic Epistle, in imitation of the Apostles of
Themis, on the Montanists.
82. Revelation of Cerinthus, nominally apostolical.
83. Book of the Helkesaites which fell from Heaven.
84. Books of Lentitius.
85. Revelation of Stephen.
86. Works of Dionysius the Areopagite (extant).
87. History of Joseph the carpenter (extant).
88. Letter of Agbarus to Jesus (extant).
89. Letter of Lentulus (extant).
90. Story of Veronica (extant).
91. Letter of Pilate to Tiberius (extant).
92. Letters of Pilate to Herod (extant).
93. Epistle of Pilate to Cæsar (extant).
94. Report of Pilate the Governor (extant).
95. Trial and condemnation of Pilate (extant).
96. Death of Pilate (extant).
97. Story of Joseph of Arimathraea (extant).
98. Revenging of the Saviour (extant).
99. Epistle of Barnabas.
100. Epistle of Polycarp.
101-15. Fifteen epistles of Ignatius (see above, pages 217-220.)
116. Shepherd of Hermas.
117. First Epistle to the Corinthians of Clement (possibly partly
authentic).
118. Second Epistle to the Corinthians of Clement.
119. Apostolic Canons of Clement.
120. Recognitions of Clement and Clementina.
121-122. Two Epistles of St. Clement of Rome (written in Syriac).
123-128. Six books of Justin Martyr.
129-132. Four books of Justin Martyr.
The above are collected from Jones' On the Canon, Supernatural Religion,
Eusebius, Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, Cowper's Apocryphal Gospels,
Dr. Giles' Christian Records, and the Apostolic Fathers.
After reading this list, the student will be able to appreciate the
value of Paley's argument, that, "if it had been an easy thing in the
early times of the institution to have forged Christian writings, and to
have obtained currency and reception to the forgeries, we should have
had many appearing in the name of Christ himself" ("Evidences," p. 106).
Paley acknowledges "one attempt of this sort, deserving of the smallest
notice;" and, in a note, adds three more of those mentioned above. Let
us see what the evidence is of the genuineness of the letter to Agbarus,
the "one attempt" in question, as given by Eusebius. Agbarus, the prince
of Edessa, reigning "over the nations beyond the Euphrates with great
glory," was afflicted with an incurable disease, and, hearing of Jesus,
sent to him to entreat deliverance. The letter of Agbarus is carried to
Jesus, "at Jerusalem, by Ananias, the courier," and the answer of Jesus,
also written, is returned by the same hands. The letter of Jesus runs as
follows, and is written in Syriac: "Blessed art thou, O Agbarus, who,
without seeing me, hast believed in me! For it is written concerning me,
that they who have seen me will not believe, that they who have not seen
me may believe and live. But in regard to what thou hast written, that I
should come to thee, it is necessary that I should fulfil all things
here, for which I have been sent. And, after this fulfilment, thus to be
received again by Him that sent me. And after I have been received up, I
will send to thee a certain one of my disciples, that he may heal thy
affliction, and give life to thee, and to those who are with thee."
After the ascension of Jesus, Thaddaeus, one of the seventy, is sent to
Edessa, and lodges in the house of Tobias, the son of Tobias, and heals
Agbarus and many others. "These things were done in the 340th year"
(Eusebius does not state what he reckons from). The proof given by
Eusebius for the truth of the account is as follows: "Of this also we
have the evidence, in a written answer, taken from the public records of
the city of Edessa, then under the government of the king. For, in the
public registers there, which embrace the ancient history and the
transactions of Agbarus, these circumstances respecting him are found
still preserved down to the present day. There is nothing, however, like
hearing the epistles themselves, taken by us from the archives, and the
style of it, as it has been literally translated by us, from the Syriac
language" ("Eccles. Hist.," bk. i., chap. xiii.). And Paley calls this
an attempt at forgery, "deserving of the smallest notice," and dismisses
it in a few lines. It would be interesting to know for what other
"Scripture," canonical or uncanonical, there is evidence of authenticity
so strong as for this; exactness of detail in names; absence of any
exaggeration more than is implied in recounting any miracle; the
transaction recorded in the public archives; seen there by Eusebius
himself; copied down and translated by him; such evidence for any one of
the Gospels would make belief far easier than it is at present. The
assertion of Eusebius was easily verifiable at the time (to use the
favourite argument of Christians for the truth of any account); and if
Eusebius here wrote falsely, of what value is his evidence on any other
point? A Freethinker may fairly urge that Eusebius is _not_ trustworthy,
and that this assertion of his about the archives is as likely to be
false as true; but the Christian can scarcely admit this, when so much
depends, for him, on the reliability of the great Church historian, all
whose evidence would become worthless if he be once allowed to have
deliberately fabricated that which did not exist.
We have already noticed the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, and
pointed out the numerous forgeries circulated under their names, and the
consequent haze hanging over all the early Christian writers, until we
reach the time of Justin Martyr. Thus we entirely destroy the whole
basis of Paley's argument, that "the historical books of the New
Testament ... are quoted, or alluded to, by a series of Christian
writers, beginning with those who were contemporary with the Apostles,
or who immediately followed them" ("Evidences," page 111;) for we have
no certain writings of any such contemporaries. In dealing with the
positions _f_. and _h_., we shall seek to prove that in the writings of
the Apostolic Fathers--taking them as genuine--as well as in Justin
Martyr, and in other Christian works up to about A.D. 180, the
quotations said to be from the canonical Gospels conclusively show that
other Gospels were used, and not our present ones; but no further
evidence than the long list of apocryphal writings, given on pp. 240-243
is needed in order to prove our first proposition, that _forgeries,
bearing the name of Christ, of the apostles, and of the early fathers,
were very common in the primitive Church_.
B. "_That there is nothing to distinguish the canonical from the
apocryphal writings_." "Their pretences are specious and plausible, for
the most part going under the name of our Saviour himself, his apostles,
their companions, or immediate successors. They are generally thought to
be cited by the first Christian writers with the same authority (at
least, many of them) as the sacred books we receive. This Mr. Toland
labours hard to persuade us; but, what is more to be regarded, men of
greater merit and probity have unwarily dropped expressions of the like
nature. _Everybody knows_ (says the learned Casaubon against Cardinal
Baronius) _that Justin Martyr, Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, and the
rest of the primitive writers, were wont to approve and cite books which
now all men know to be apocryphal. Clemens Alexandrinus_ (says his
learned annotator, Sylburgius) _was too much pleased with apocryphal
writings_. Mr. Dodwell (in his learned dissertation on Irenæus) tells us
that, _till Trajan, or, perhaps, Adrian's time, no canon was fixed; the
supposititious pieces of the heretics were received by the faithful, the
apostles' writings bound up with theirs, and indifferently used in the
churches._ To mention no more, the learned Mr. Spanheim observes, _that
Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen very often cite apocryphal books under
the express name of Scripture_.... How much Mr. Whiston has enlarged the
Canon of the New Testament, is sufficiently known to the learned among
us. For the sake of those who have not perused his truly valuable books
I would observe, that he imagines the 'Constitutions of the Apostles' to
be inspired, and of greater authority than the occasional writings of
single Apostles and Evangelists. That the two Epistles of Clemens, the
Doctrine of the Apostles, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of
Hermas, the second book of Esdras, the Epistles of Ignatius, and the
Epistle of Polycarp, are to be reckoned among the sacred authentic books
of the New Testament; as also that the Acts of Paul, the Revelation,
Preaching, Gospel and Acts of Peter, were sacred books, and, if they
were extant, should be of the same authority as any of the rest" (J.
Jones, on the "Canon," p. 4-6). This same learned writer further says:
"That many, or most of the books of the New Testament, have been
rejected by heretics in the first ages, is also certain. Faustus
Manichæus and his followers are said to have rejected all the New
Testament, as not written by the Apostles. Marcion rejected all, except
St. Luke's Gospel. The Manichees disputed much against the authority of
St. Matthew's Gospel. The Alogians rejected the Gospel of St. John as
not his, but made by Cerinthus. The Acts of the Apostles were rejected
by Severus, and the sect of his name. The same rejected all Paul's
Epistles, as also did the Ebionites, and the Helkesaites. Others, who
did not reject all, rejected some particular epistles.... Several of the
books of the New Testament were not universally received, even among
them who were not heretics, in the first ages.... Several of them have
had their authority disputed by learned men in later times" (Ibid, pp.
8, 9).
If recognition by the early writers be taken as a proof of the
authenticity of the works quoted, many apocryphal documents must stand
high. Eusebius, who ranks together the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of
Hermas, the Revelation of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, the
Institutions of the Apostles, and the Revelation of John (now accounted
canonical) says that these were not embodied in the Canon (in his time)
"notwithstanding that they are recognised by most ecclesiastical
writers" ("Eccles. Hist.," bk. iii., chap. xxv.). The Canon, in his
time, was almost the same as at present, but the canonicity of the
epistles of James and Jude, the 2nd of Peter, the 2nd and 3rd of John,
and the Revelation, was disputed even as late as when he wrote. Irenæus
ranks the Pastor of Hermas as Scripture; "he not only knew, but also
admitted the book called Pastor" (Ibid, bk. v., chap. viii.). "The
Pastor of Hermas is another work which very nearly secured permanent
canonical rank with the writings of the New Testament. It was quoted as
Holy Scripture by the Fathers, and held to be divinely inspired, and it
was publicly read in the churches. It has place with the Epistle of
Barnabas in the Sinaitic Codex, after the canonical books"
("Supernatural Religion," vol. i., p. 261).
The two Epistles of Clement are only "preserved to us in the Codex
Alexandrinus, a MS. assigned by the most competent judges to the second
half of the fifth, or beginning of the sixth century, in which these
Epistles follow the books of the New Testament. The second Epistle ...
thus shares with the first the honour of a canonical position in one of
the most ancient codices of the New Testament" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., p.
220). These epistles are, also, amongst those mentioned in the Apostolic
Canons. "Until a comparatively late date this [the first of Clement]
Epistle was quoted as Holy Scripture" (Ibid, p. 222). Origen quotes the
Epistle of Barnabas as Scripture, and calls it a "Catholic Epistle"
(Ibid, p. 237), and this same Father regards the Shepherd of Hermas as
also divinely inspired. (Norton's "Genuineness of the Gospels," vol. i.,
p. 341). Gospels, other than the four canonical, are quoted as authentic
by the earliest Christian writers, as we shall see in establishing
position _h_; thus destroying Paley's contention ("Evidences," p. 187)
that there are no quotations from apocryphal writings in the Apostolical
Fathers, the fact being that such quotations are sown throughout their
supposed writings.
It is often urged that the expression, "it is written," is enough to
prove that the quotation following it is of canonical authority.
"Now with regard to the value of the expression, 'it is written,' it may
be remarked that in no case could its use, in the Epistle of Barnabas,
indicate more than individual opinion, and it could not, for reasons to
be presently given, be considered to represent the opinion of the
Church. In the very same chapter in which the formula is used in
connection with the passage we are considering, it is also employed to
introduce a quotation from the Book of Enoch, [Greek: peri hou gegraptai
hos Henoch legei], and elsewhere (c. xii.) he quotes from another
apocryphal book as one of the prophets.... He also quotes (c. vi.) the
apocryphal book of Wisdom as Holy Scripture, and in like manner several
unknown works. When it is remembered that the Epistle of Clement to the
Corinthians, the Pastor of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas itself, and
many other apocryphal works have been quoted by the Fathers as Holy
Scripture, the distinctive value of such an expression may be
understood" (Ibid, pp. 242, 243). "The first Christian writers ... quote
ecclesiastical books from time to time as if they were canonical"
(Westcott on "The Canon," p. 9). "In regard to the use of the word
[Greek: gegraptai], introducing the quotation, the same writer
[Hilgenfeld] urges reasonably enough that it cannot surprise us at a
time when we learn from Justin Martyr that the Gospels were read
regularly at public worship [or rather, that the memorials of the
Apostles were so read]; it ought not, however, to be pressed too far as
involving a claim to special divine inspiration, as the same word is
used in the epistle in regard to the apocryphal book of Enoch; and it is
clear, also, from Justin, that the Canon of the Gospels was not yet
formed, but only forming" ("Gospels in the Second Century," Rev. W.
Sanday, p. 73. Ed. 1876). Yet, in spite of all this, Paley says, "The
phrase, 'it is written,' was the very form in which the Jews quoted
their Scriptures. It is not probable, therefore, that he would have used
this phrase, and without qualification, of any books but what had
acquired a kind of Scriptural authority" ("Evidences," p. 113).
Tischendorf argues on Paley's lines and says that "it was natural,
therefore, to apply this form of expression to the Apostles' writings,
as soon as they had been placed in the Canon with the books of the Old
Testament. When we find, therefore, in ancient ecclesiastical writings,
quotations from the Gospels introduced with this formula, 'it is
written,' we must infer that, at the time when the expression was used,
the Gospels were certainly treated as of equal authority with the books
of the Old Testament" ("When Were Our Gospels Written?" p. 89. Eng. Ed.,
1867). Dr. Tischendorf, if he believe in his own argument, must greatly
enlarge his Canon of the New Testament.
Paley's further plea that "these apocryphal writings were not read in
the churches of Christians" ("Evidences," p. 187) is thoroughly false.
Eusebius tells us of the Pastor of Hermas: "We know that it has been
already in public use in our churches" ("Eccles. Hist.," bk. iii., ch.
3). Clement's Epistle "was publicly read in the churches at the Sunday
meetings of Christians" ("Sup. Rel," vol. i., p. 222). Dionysius of
Corinth mentions this same early habit of reading any valued writing in
the churches: "In this same letter he mentions that of Clement to the
Corinthians, showing that it was the practice to read in the churches,
even from the earliest times. 'To-day,' says he, 'we have passed the
Lord's holy-day, in which we have read your epistle, in reading which we
shall always have our minds stored with admonition, as we shall, also,
from that written to us before by Clement'" (Eusebius' "Eccles. Hist.,"
bk. iv., ch. 23). So far is "reading in the churches" to be accepted as
a proof, even of canonicity, much less of genuineness, that Eusebius
remarks that "the disputed writings" were "publicly used by many in most
of the churches" (Ibid, bk. iii., ch. 31). Paley then takes as a further
mark of distinction, between canonical and uncanonical, that the latter
"were not admitted into their volume" and "do not appear in their
catalogues," but we have already seen that the only MS. copy of
Clement's first Epistle is in the Codex Alexandrinus (see ante p. 246),
while the Epistle of Barnabas and the Pastor of Hermas find their place
in the Sinaitic Codex (see ante p. 246); the second Epistle of Clement
is also in the Codex Alexandrinus, and both epistles are in the
Apostolic constitutions (see ante p. 247). The Canon of
Muratori--worthless as it is, it is used as evidence by
Christians--brackets the Apocalypse of John and of Peter ("Sup. Rel.,"
vol. ii., p. 241). Canon Westcott says: "'Apocryphal' writings were
added to manuscripts of the New Testament, and read in churches; and the
practice thus begun continued for a long time. The Epistle of Barnabas
was still read among the 'apocryphal Scriptures' in the time of Jerome;
a translation of the Shepherd of Hermas is found in a MS. of the Latin
Bible as late as the fifteenth century. The spurious Epistle to the
Laodicenes is found very commonly in English copies of the Vulgate from
the ninth century downwards, and an important catalogue of the Apocrypha
of the New Testament is added to the Canon of Scripture subjoined to the
Chronographia of Nicephorus, published in the ninth century" ("On the
Canon," pp. 8, 9). Paley's fifth distinction, that they "were not
noticed by their [heretical] adversaries" is as untrue as the preceding
ones, for even the fragments of "the adversaries" preserved in Christian
documents bear traces of reference to the apocryphal writings, although,
owing to the orthodox custom of destroying unorthodox books, references
of any sort by heretics are difficult to find. Again, Paley should have
known, when he asserted that the uncanonical writings were not alleged
as of authority, that the heretics _did_ appeal to gospels other than
the canonical. Marcion, for instance, maintained a Gospel varying from
the recognised one, while the Ebionites contended that their Hebrew
Gospel was the only true one. Eusebius further tells us of books
"adduced by the heretics under the name of the Apostles, such, viz., as
compose the Gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Matthew, and others beside
them, or such as contain the Acts of the Apostles, by Andrew and John,
and others" ("Eccles. Hist," bk. iii., ch. 25. See also ante p. 246). It
is hard to believe that Paley was so grossly ignorant as to know nothing
of these facts; did he then deliberately state what he knew to be
utterly untrue? His last "mark" does not touch our position, as the
commentaries, etc., are too late to be valuable as evidence for the
alleged superiority of the canonical writings during the first two
centuries. The other section of Paley's argument, that "when the
Scriptures [a very vague word] are quoted, or alluded to, they are
quoted with peculiar respect, as books _sui generis_" is met by the
details given above as to the fashion in which the Fathers referred to
the writings now called uncanonical, and by the evidence adduced in this
section we may fairly claim to have proved that, so far as external
testimony goes, _there is nothing to distinguish the canonical from the
apocryphal writings_.
But there is another class of evidence relied upon by Christians,
wherewith they seek to build up an impassable barrier between their
sacred books and the dangerous uncanonical Scriptures, namely, the
intrinsic difference between them, the dignity of the one, and the
puerility of the other. Of the uncanonical Gospels Dr. Ellicott writes:
"Their real demerits, their mendacities, their absurdities, their
coarseness, the barbarities of their style, and the inconsequence of
their narratives, have never been excused or condoned" ("Cambridge
Essays," for 1856, p. 153, as quoted in introduction of "The Apocryphal
Gospels," by B.H. Cowper, p. x. Ed. 1867). "We know before we read them
that they are weak, silly, and profitless--that they are despicable
monuments even of religious fiction" (Ibid, p. xlvii). How far are such
harsh expressions consonant with fact? It is true that many of the tales
related are absurd, but are they more absurd than the tales related in
the canonical Gospels? One story, repeated with variations, runs as
follows: "This child Jesus, being five years old, was playing at the
crossing of a stream, and he collected the running waters into pools,
and immediately made them pure, and by his word alone he commanded them.
And having made some soft clay, he fashioned out of it twelve sparrows;
and it was the Sabbath when he did these things. And there were also
many other children playing with him. And a certain Jew, seeing what
Jesus did, playing on the Sabbath, went immediately and said to Joseph,
his father, Behold, thy child is at the water-course, and hath taken
clay and formed twelve birds, and hath profaned the Sabbath. And Joseph
came to the place, and when he saw him, he cried unto him, saying, Why
art thou doing these things on the Sabbath, which it is not lawful to
do? And Jesus clapped his hands, and cried unto the sparrows, and said
to them, Go away; and the sparrows flew up and departed, making a noise.
And the Jews who saw it were astonished, and went and told their leaders
what they had seen Jesus do" ("Gospel of Thomas: Apocryphal Gospels,"
B.H. Cowper, pp. 130, 131). Making the water pure by a word is no more
absurd than turning water into wine (John ii. 1-11); or than sending an
angel to trouble it, and thereby making it health-giving (John v. 2-4);
or than casting a tree into bitter waters, and making them sweet (Ex.
xv. 25). The fashioning of twelve sparrows out of soft clay is not
stranger than making a woman out of a man's rib (Gen. ii. 21); neither
is it more, or nearly so, curious as making clay with spittle, and
plastering it on a blind man's eyes in order to make him see (John ix.
6); nay, arguing _à la_ F.D. Maurice, a very strong reason might be made
out for this proceeding. Thus, Jesus came to reveal the Father to men,
and his miracles were specially arranged to show how God works in the
world; by turning the water into wine, and by multiplying the loaves, he
reminds men that it is God whose hand feeds them by all the ordinary
processes of nature. In this instructive miracle of the clay formed into
sparrows, which fly away at his bidding, Jesus reveals his unity with
the Father, as the Word by whom all things were originally made; for
"out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and
every fowl of the air" (Gen. ii. 19) at the creation, and when the Son
was revealed to bring about the new creation, what more appropriate
miracle could he perform than this reminiscence of paradise, clearly
suggesting to the Jews that the Jehovah, who, of old, formed the fowls
of the air out of the ground, was present among them in the incarnate
Word, performing the same mighty work? Exactly in this fashion do
Maurice, Robertson, and others of their school, deal with the miracles
of Christ recorded in the canonical gospels (see Maurice on the
Miracles, Sermon IV., in "What is Revelation?"). The number, twelve, is
also significant, being that of the tribes of Israel, and the local
colouring--the complaining Jews and the violated Sabbath--is in perfect
harmony with the other gospels. The action of Jesus, vindicating the
conduct complained of by the performance of a miracle, is in the fullest
accord with similar instances related in the received stories. It is,
however, urged that some of the miracles of Jesus, as given in the
apocrypha, are dishonouring to him, because of their destructive
character; the son of Annas, the scribe, spills the water the child
Jesus has collected, and Jesus gets angry and says, "Thou also shalt
wither like a tree;" and "suddenly the boy withered altogether" (Ap.
Gos., p. 131). This seems in thorough unity with the spirit Jesus showed
in later life, when he cursed the fig-tree, because it did not bear
fruit in the wrong season, and "presently the fig-tree withered away"
(Matt. xxi. 19). Or a child, running against him purposely, falls dead;
or a master lifting his hand against him, has the arm withered which
essays to strike. Later, of Judas, who betrays him, we read that,
"falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels
gushed out" (Acts i. 18); while, in the Old Testament, which speaks of
Christ, we are told, in figures, we learn that, when Jeroboam tried to
seize a prophet, "his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so
that he could not pull it in again to him" (1 Kings xiii. 4). If
destructiveness be thought injurious when related of Jesus, what shall
we say to the wanton destruction of the herd of swine which Jesus filled
with devils, and sent racing into the sea? (Matt. viii. 28-34.) The
miracle the child works to rectify a mistake of his father's in his
carpenter's business, taking hold of some wood which has been cut too
short and lengthening it, is certainly not more silly than the miracle
worked by the man when money is short, and he (Matt. xvii. 24-27) sends
Peter to catch a fish with money in its mouth (why not, by the way, have
fished directly for the coin? it would be quite as possible for a coin
to transfix itself on a hook, as for a fish, with a piece of money in
its mouth, to swallow a hook). Other miracles recorded in the apocryphal
gospels, of healing and of raising the dead, are identical in spirit
with those told of him in the canonical. We may also remark that, unless
there were some received traditions of miracles worked by Jesus in his
household, there is no reason for the evident expectation of some help
which is said to have been shown by Mary when the guests want wine at
the wedding (John ii. 3-5). That verse 11 states that this was his first
miracle is only one of the many inconsistencies of the gospel stories.
Passing from these gospels of the infancy to those which tell of the
sufferings of Jesus, we shall find in the "Gospel of Nicodemus, or Acts
of Pilate," much that shows their full accordance with the received
writings of the New Testament. This point is so important, as equalising
the canonical and uncanonical gospels, that no excuse is needed for
proving it by somewhat extensive extracts. The gospel opens as follows:
"I, Ananias, a provincial warden, being a disciple of the law, from the
divine Scriptures recognised our Lord Jesus Christ, and came to him by
faith; and was also accounted worthy of holy baptism. Now, when
searching the records of what was wrought in the time of our Lord Jesus
Christ, which the Jews laid up under Pontius Pilate, I found that these
Acts were written in Hebrew, and by the good pleasure of God I
translated them into Greek for the information of all who call on the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the government of our Lord Flavius
Theodosius, the 17th year, and in the 6th consulate of Flavius
Valentinianus, in the 9th indiction." It may here be noted for what it
is worth that Justin Martyr (1st Apology, chap, xxxv.) refers the Romans
to the Acts of Pilate as public documents open to them, which is
testimony far stronger than he gives to any canonical gospel. "In the
15th year of the government of Tiberius Cæsar, King of the Romans, and
of Herod, King of Galilee, the 9th year of his reign, on the 8th before
the calends of April, which is the 25th of March; in the consulship of
Rufus and Rubellio; in the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad, when Joseph
Caiaphas was high priest of the Jews. Whatsoever, after the cross and
passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour God, Nicodemus recorded
and wrote in Hebrew, and left to posterity, is after this fashion"
("Apocryphal Gospels," B.H. Cowper, pp. 229, 230). In the first chapter
we learn how the Jews came to Pilate, and accuse Jesus, "that he saith
he is the son of God and a king; moreover, he profaneth the Sabbaths,
and wisheth to abolish the law of our fathers." After some conversation,
Jesus is brought, and in chap. 2 we read the message from Pilate's wife,
and "Pilate, having called the Jews, said to them, Ye know that my wife
is religious, and inclined to practise Judaism with you. They said unto
him, Yea, we know it. Pilate saith to them, Behold my wife hath sent to
me, saying, Have nothing to do with this just man, for I have suffered
very much because of him in the night. But the Jews answered, and said
to Pilate, Did we not tell thee that he is a magician? Behold, he hath
sent a dream to thy wife." The trial goes on, and Pilate declares the
innocence of Jesus, and then confers with him as in John xviii. 33-37.
Then comes the question (chaps, iii. and iv.): "Pilate saith unto him,
What is truth? Jesus saith to him, Truth is from heaven. Pilate saith,
Is truth not upon earth? Jesus saith to Pilate, Thou seest how they who
say the truth are judged by those who have power upon earth. And,
leaving Jesus within the prætorium, Pilate went out to the Jews, and
saith unto them, I find no fault in him." The conversation between
Pilate and the Jews is then related more fully than in the canonical
accounts, and after this follows a scene of much pathos, which is far
more in accord with the rest of the tale than the accepted story,
wherein the multitude are represented as crying with one voice for his
death. Nicodemus (chap. v.) first rises and speaks for Jesus: "Release
him, and wish no evil against him. If the miracles which he doth are of
God, they will stand; but, if of men, they will come to nought... Now,
therefore, release this man, for he is not deserving of death." Then
(chaps. vi., vii., and viii.): "One of the Jews, starting up, asked the
governor that he might say a word. The governor saith, If thou wilt
speak, speak. And the Jew said, I lay thirty-eight years on my bed in
pain and affliction. And when Jesus came, many demoniacs, and persons
suffering various diseases, were healed by him; and some young men had
pity on me, and carried me with my bed, and took me to him; and when
Jesus saw me, he had compassion, and said the word to me, Take up thy
bed, and walk; and I took up my bed and walked. The Jews said to Pilate,
Ask him what day it was when he was healed. He that was healed said, On
the Sabbath. The Jews said, Did we not tell thee so? that on the Sabbath
he healeth and casteth out demons? And another Jew, starting up, said, I
was born blind; I heard a voice, but saw no person; and as Jesus passed
by, I cried with a loud voice, Have pity on me, Son of David, and he had
pity on me, and placed his hands upon my eyes, and immediately I saw.
And another Jew, leaping up, said, I was a cripple, and he made me
straight with a word. And another said, I was a leper, and he healed me
with a word. And a certain woman cried out from a distance, and said, I
had an issue of blood, and I touched the hem of his garment, and my
issue of blood, which had been for twelve years, was stayed. The Jews
said, We have a law not to admit a woman to witness. And others, a
multitude, both of men and of women, cried and said, This man is a
prophet, and demons are subject unto him. Pilate said to those who said
that demons were subject to him, Why were your teachers not also subject
to him? They say unto Pilate, We know not. And others said, That he
raised up Lazarus from the sepulchre, when he had been dead four days.
And the governor, becoming afraid, said to all the multitude of the
Jews, Why will ye shed innocent blood?" The story proceeds much as in
the gospels, the names of the malefactors being given; and when Pilate
remarks the three hours' darkness to the Jews, they answer, "An eclipse
of the sun has happened in the usual manner" (chap. xi.). Chap. xiii.
gives a full account of the conversation between the Jews and the Roman
soldiers alluded to in Matt. xxviii. 11-15. The remaining chapters
relate the proceedings of the Jews after the resurrection, and are of no
special interest. There is a second Gospel of Nicodemus, varying on some
points from the one quoted above, which assumes to be "compiled by a
Jew, named Aeneas; translated from the Hebrew tongue into the Greek, by
Nicodemus, a Roman Toparch." Then we find a second part of the Gospel of
Nicodemus, or "The Descent of Christ to the Under World," which relates
how Jesus descended into Hades, and how he ordered Satan to be bound,
and then he "blessed Adam on the forehead with the sign of the cross;
and he did this also to the patriarchs, and the prophets, and martyrs,
and forefathers, and took them up, and sprang up out of Hades." This
story manifestly runs side by side with the tradition in 1. Pet. iii.
19, 20, wherein it is stated that Jesus "went and preached unto the
spirits in prison," and that preaching is placed between his death (v.
18) and his resurrection (v. 21). The saving by baptism (v. 21) is also
alluded to in this connection in Nicodemus, wherein (chap, xi.) the dead
are baptised. The Latin versions of the Gospels of Nicodemus vary in
details from the Greek, but not more than do the four canonical. In
these, as in all the apocryphal writings, there is nothing specially to
distinguish them from the accepted Scriptures; improbabilities and
contradictions abound in all; miracles render them all alike incredible;
myriad chains of similarity bind them all to each other, necessitating
either the rejection of all as fabulous, or the acceptance of all as
historical. Whether we regard external or internal evidence, we come to
the same conclusion, _that there is nothing to distinguish the canonical
from the uncanonical writings_.
C. _That it is not known where, when, by whom, the canonical writings
were selected_. Tremendously damaging to the authenticity of the New
Testament as this statement is, it is yet practically undisputed by
Christian scholars. Canon Westcott says frankly: "It cannot be denied
that the Canon was formed gradually. The condition of society and the
internal relations of the Church presented obstacles to the immediate
and absolute determination of the question, which are disregarded now,
only because they have ceased to exist. The tradition which represents
St. John as fixing the contents of the New Testament, betrays the spirit
of a later age" (Westcott "On the Canon," p. 4). "The track, however,
which we have to follow is often obscure and broken. The evidence of the
earliest Christian writers is not only uncritical and casual, but is
also fragmentary" (Ibid, p. 11). "From the close of the second century,
the history of the Canon is simple, and its proof clear... Before that
time there is more or less difficulty in making out the details of the
question.... Here, however, we are again beset with peculiar
difficulties. The proof of the Canon is embarrassed both by the general
characteristics of the age in which it was fixed, and by the particular
form of the evidence on which it first depends. The spirit of the
ancient world was essentially uncritical" (Ibid, pp. 6-8). In dealing
with "the early versions of the New Testament," Westcott admits that "it
is not easy to over-rate the difficulties which beset any inquiry into
the early versions of the New Testament" ("On the Canon," p. 231). He
speaks of the "comparatively scanty materials and vague or conflicting
traditions" (Ibid). The "original versions of the East and West" are
carefully examined by him; the oldest is the "Peshito," in Syriac--i.e.,
Aramæan, or Syro-Chaldaic. This must, of course, be only a translation
of the Testament, if it be true that the original books were written in
Greek. The time when this version was formed is unknown, and Westcott
argues that "the very obscurity which hangs over its origin is a proof
of its venerable age" (Ibid, p. 240); and he refers it to "the first
half of the second century," while acknowledging that he does so
"without conclusive authority" (Ibid). The Peshito omits the second and
third epistles of John, second of Peter, that of Jude, and the
Apocalypse. The origin of the Western version, in Latin, is quite as
obscure as that of the Syriac; and it is also incomplete, compared with
the present Canon, omitting the epistle of James and the second of Peter
(Ibid, p. 254). All the evidence so laboriously gathered together by the
learned Canon proves our proposition to demonstration. But, it is
admitted on all hands, that "it is impossible to assign any certain time
when a collection of these books, either by the Apostles, or by any
council of inspired or learned men, near their time, was made.... The
matter is too certain to need much to be said of it" (Jones "On the
Canon," vol. i, p. 7). Jones adds that he hopes to confute "these
specious objections ... in the fourth part of this book," in which he
endeavours to prove the Gospels and Acts to be _genuine_, so that it
does not much matter when they were collected together. In the time of
Eusebius the Canon was still unsettled, as he ranks among the disputed
and spurious works, the epistles of James and Jude, second of Peter,
second and third of John, and the Apocalypse ("Eccles. Hist.," bk. iii.,
chap. 25). It is not necessary to offer any further proof in support of
our position, _that it is not known where, when, by whom, the canonical
writings were selected._
D. _That before about_ A.D. 180 _there is no trace of_ FOUR _gospels
among the Christians_. The first step we take in attacking the four
canonical gospels, apart from the writings of the New Testament as a
whole, is to show that there was no "sacred quaternion" spoken of before
about A.D. 180, i.e., the supposed time of Irenæus. Irenæus is said to
have been a bishop of Lyons towards the close of the second century; we
find him mentioned in the letter sent by the Churches of Vienne and
Lyons to "brethren in Asia and Phrygia," as "our brother and companion
Irenæus," and as a presbyter much esteemed by them ("Eccles. Hist." bk.
v., chs. 1, 4). This letter relates a persecution which occurred in "the
17th year of the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Verus," i.e., A.D. 177.
Paley dates the letter about A.D. 170, but as it relates the persecution
of A.D. 177, it is difficult to see how it could be written about seven
years before the persecution took place. In that persecution Pothinus,
bishop of Lyons, is said to have been slain; he was succeeded by Irenæus
(Ibid bk. v., ch. 5), who, therefore, could not possibly have been
bishop before A.D. 177, while he ought probably to be put a year or two
later, since time is needed, after the persecution, to send the account
of it to Asia by the hands of Irenæus, and he must be supposed to have
returned and to have settled down in Lyons before he wrote his
voluminous works; A.D. 180 is, therefore, an almost impossibly early
date, but it is, at any rate, the very earliest that can be pretended
for the testimony now to be examined. The works against heresies were
probably written, the first three about A.D. 190, and the remainder
about A.D. 198. Irenæus is the first Christian writer who mentions
_four_ Gospels; he says:--"Matthew produced his Gospel, written among
the Hebrews, in their own dialect, whilst Peter and Paul proclaimed the
Gospel and founded the church at Rome. After the departure of these,
Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, also transmitted to us in
writing what had been preached by him. And Luke, the companion of Paul,
committed to writing the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards John, the
disciple of our Lord, the same that lay upon his bosom, also published
the Gospel, whilst he was yet at Ephesus in Asia" (Quoted by Eusebius,
bk. v., ch. 8, from 3rd bk. of "Refutation and Overthrow of False
Doctrine," by Irenæus).
The reasons which compelled Irenæus to believe that there must be
neither less nor more than four Gospels in the Church are so convincing
that they deserve to be here put on record. "It is not possible that the
Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since
there are four zones [sometimes translated 'corners' or 'quarters'] of
the world in which we live, and four Catholic spirits, while the Church
is scattered throughout all the world, and the pillar and grounding of
the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting she
should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and
vivifying men afresh. From which fact it is evident that the Word, the
Artificer of all, He that sitteth upon the Cherubim, and contains all
things, He who was manifested to men, has given us the Gospel under four
aspects, but bound together by one Spirit.... For the Cherubim too were
four-faced, and their faces were images of the dispensation of the Son
of God.... And, therefore, the Gospels are in accord with these things,
among which Christ Jesus is seated" ("Irenæus," bk. iii., chap, xi.,
sec. 8). The Rev. Dr. Giles, writing on Justin Martyr, the great
Christian apologist, candidly says: "The very names of the Evangelists
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are never mentioned by him--do not occur
once in all his works. It is, therefore, childish to say that he has
quoted from our existing Gospels, and so proves their existence, as they
now are, in his own time.... He has nowhere remarked, like those Fathers
of the Church who lived several ages after him, that there are _four_
Gospels of higher importance and estimation than any others.... All this
was the creation of a later age, but it is wanting in Justin Martyr, and
the defect leads us to the conclusion that our four Gospels had not then
emerged from obscurity, but were still, if in being, confounded with a
larger mass of Christian traditions which, about this very time, were
beginning to be set down in writing" ("Christian Records," pp. 71, 72).
Had these four Gospels emerged before A.D. 180, we should most certainly
find some mention of them in the Mishna. "The Mishna, a collection of
Jewish traditions compiled about the year 180, takes no notice of
Christianity, though it contains a chapter headed 'De Cultu Peregrino,
of strange worship.' This omission is thought by Dr. Paley to prove
nothing, for, says he, 'it cannot be disputed but that Christianity was
perfectly well known to the world at this time.' It cannot, certainly,
be disputed that Christianity was _beginning_ to be known to the world,
but whether it had yet emerged from the lower classes of persons among
whom it originated, may well be doubted. It is a prevailing error, in
biblical criticism, to suppose that the whole world was feelingly alive
to what was going on in small and obscure parts of it. The existence of
Christians was probably known to the compilers of the Mishna in 180,
even though they did not deign to notice them, but they could not have
had any knowledge of the New Testament, or they would undoubtedly have
noticed it; if, at least, we are right in ascribing to it so high a
character, attracting (as we know it does) the admiration of every one
in every country to which it is carried" (Ibid, p. 35).
There is, however, one alleged proof of the existence of four, and only
four, Gospels, put forward by Paley:--Tatian, a follower of Justin
Martyr, and who flourished about the year 170, composed a harmony or
collection of the Gospels, which he called Diatessaron, of the Four.
This title, as well as the work, is remarkable, because it shows, that
then, as now, there were four and only four, Gospels in general use with
Christians ("Evidences," pp. 154, 155). Paley does not state, until
later, that the "follower of Justin Martyr" turned heretic and joined
the Encratites, an ascetic and mystic sect who taught abstinence from
marriage, and from meat, etc.; nor does he tell us how doubtful it is
what the Diatessaron--now lost--really contained. He blandly assures us
that it is a harmony of the four Gospels, although all the evidence is
against him. Irenæus, as quoted by Eusebius, says of Tatian that "having
apostatised from the Church, and being elated with the conceit of a
teacher, and vainly puffed up as if he surpassed all others," he
invented some new doctrines, and Eusebius further tells us: "Their chief
and founder, Tatianus, having formed a certain body and collection of
Gospels, I know not how, has given this the title Diatessaron, that is
the Gospel by the four, or the Gospel formed of the four" ("Eccles.
Hist," bk. iv., ch. 29). Could Eusebius have written that Tatian formed
this, _I know not how_, if it had been a harmony of the Gospels
recognised by the Church when he wrote? and how is it that Paley knows
all about it, though Eusebius did not? And still further, after
mentioning the Diatessaron, Eusebius says _of another of Tatian's
books_: "This book, indeed, appears to be the most elegant and
profitable of all his works" (Ibid). More profitable than a harmony of
the four Gospels! So far as the name goes, as given by Eusebius, it
would seem to imply one Gospel written by four authors. Epiphanius
states: "Tatian is said to have composed the Gospel by four, which is
called by some, the Gospel according to the Hebrews" ("Sup. Rel.," vol.
ii., p. 155). Here we get the Diatessaron identified with the
widely-spread and popular early Gospel of the Hebrews. Theodoret (circa
A.D. 457) says that he found more than 200 such books in use in Syria,
the Christians not perceiving "the evil design of the composition;" and
this is Paley's harmony of the Gospels! Theodoret states that he took
these books away, "and instead introduced the Gospels of the four
Evangelists;" how strange an action in dealing with so useful a work as
a harmony of the Gospels, to confiscate it entirely and call it an evil
design! To complete the value of this work as evidence to "four, and
only four, Gospels," we are told by Victor of Capua, that it was also
called Diapente, i.e., "by five" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., p. 153). In
fact, there is no possible reason for calling the work--whose contents
ate utterly unknown--a _harmony_ of the Gospels at all; the notion that
it is a harmony is the purest of assumptions. There is some slight
evidence in favour of the identity of the Diatessaron with the Gospel of
the Hebrews. "Those, however, who called the Gospel used by Tatian the
Gospel according to the Hebrews, must have read the work, and all that
we know confirms their conclusion. The work was, in point of fact, found
in wide circulation precisely in the places in which, earlier, the
Gospel according to the Hebrews was more particularly current. The
singular fact that the earliest reference to Tatian's 'harmony' is made
a century and a half after its supposed composition, that no writer
before the 5th century had seen the work itself, indeed, that only two
writers before that period mention it at all, receives its natural
explanation in the conclusion that Tatian did not actually compose any
harmony at all, but simply made use of the same Gospel as his master
Justin Martyr, namely, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, by which
name his Gospel had been called by those best informed" ("Sup. Rel.,"
vol. ii., pp. 158, 159). As it is not pretended by any that there is any
mention of _four_ Gospels before the time of Irenæus, excepting this
"harmony," pleaded by some as dated about A.D. 170, and by others as
between 170 and 180, it would be sheer waste of time and space to prove
further a point admitted on all hands. This step of our argument is,
then, on solid and unassailable ground--_that before about_ A.D. 180
_there is no trace of FOUR Gospels among the Christians_.
E. _That, before that date, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are not
selected as the four evangelists._ This position necessarily follows
from the preceding one, since four evangelists could not be selected
until four Gospels were recognised. Here, again, Dr. Giles supports the
argument we are building up. He says: "Justin Martyr never once mentions
by name the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This circumstance
is of great importance; for those who assert that our four canonical
Gospels are contemporary records of our Saviour's ministry, ascribe them
to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and to no other writers. In this they
are, in a certain sense, consistent; for contemporary writings [?
histories] are very rarely anonymous. If so, how could they be proved to
be contemporary? Justin Martyr, it must be remembered, wrote in 150; but
neither he, nor any writer before him, has alluded, in the most remote
degree, to four specific Gospels, bearing the names of Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John. Let those who think differently produce the passages in
which such mention is to be found" ("Christian Records," Rev. Dr. Giles,
p. 73). Two of these names had, however, emerged a little earlier, being
mentioned as evangelists by Papias, of Hierapolis. His testimony will be
fully considered below in establishing position _g_.
F. _That there is no evidence that the four Gospels mentioned about that
date were the same as those we have now._ This brings us to a most
important point in our examination; for we now attack the very key of
the Christian position--viz., that, although the Gospels be not
mentioned by name previous to Irenæus, their existence can yet be
conclusively proved by quotations from them, to be found in the writings
of the Fathers who lived before Irenæus. Paley says: "The historical
books of the New Testament--meaning thereby the four Gospels and the
Acts of the Apostles--are quoted, or alluded to, by a series of
Christian writers, beginning with those who were contemporary with the
Apostles or who immediately followed them, and proceeding in close and
regular succession from their time to the present." And he urges that
"the medium of proof stated in this proposition is, of all others, the
most unquestionable, the least liable to any practices of fraud, and is
not diminished by the lapse of ages" ("Evidences," pp. 111, 112). The
writers brought in evidence are: Barnabas, Clement, Hermas, Ignatius,
Polycarp, Papias, Justin Martyr, Hegesippus, and the epistle from Lyons
and Vienne. Before examining the supposed quotations in as great detail
as our space will allow, two or three preliminary remarks are needed on
the value of this offered evidence as a whole.
In the first place, the greater part of the works brought forward as
witnesses are themselves challenged, and their own dates are unknown;
their now accepted writings are only the residuum of a mass of
forgeries, and Dr. Giles justly says: "The process of elimination, which
gradually reduced the so-called writings of the first century from two
folio volumes to fifty slender pages, would, in the case of any other
profane works, have prepared the inquirer for casting from him, with
disgust, the small remnant, even if not fully convicted of spuriousness;
for there is no other case in record of so wide a disproportion between
what is genuine and what is spurious" ("Christian Records," p. 67).
Their testimony is absolutely worthless until they are themselves
substantiated; and from the account given of them above (pp 214-221, and
232-235), the student is in a position to judge of the value of evidence
depending on the Apostolic Fathers. Professor Norton remarks: "When we
endeavour to strengthen this evidence by appealing to the writings
ascribed to Apostolical Fathers, we, in fact, weaken its force. At the
very extremity of the chain of evidence, where it ought to be strongest,
we are attaching defective links, which will bear no weight"
("Genuineness of the Gospels," vol. i., p. 357). Again, supposing that
we admit these witnesses, their repetition of sayings of Christ, or
references to his life, do not--in the absence of quotations specified
by them as taken from Gospels written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John--prove that, because similar sayings or actions are recorded in the
present canonical Gospels, therefore, these latter existed in their
days, and were in their hands. Lardner says on this point: "Here is,
however, one difficulty, and 'tis a difficulty which may frequently
occur, whilst we are considering these very early writers, who were
conversant with the Apostles, and others who had seen or heard our Lord;
and were, in a manner, as well acquainted with our Saviour's doctrine
and history as the Evangelists themselves, unless their quotations or
allusions are very express and clear. The question, then, here is,
whether Clement in these places refers to words of Christ, written and
recorded, or whether he reminds the Corinthians of words of Christ,
which he and they might have heard from the Apostles, or other
eye-and-ear-witnesses of our Lord. Le Clerc, in his dissertation on the
four Gospels, is of opinion that Clement refers to written words of our
Lord, which were in the hands of the Corinthians, and well known to
them. On the other hand, I find, Bishop Pearson thought, that Clement
speaks of words which he had heard from the Apostles themselves, or
their disciples. I certainly make no question but the three first
Gospels were writ before this time. And I am well satisfied that Clement
might refer to our written Gospels, though he does not exactly agree
with them in expression. But whether he does refer to them is not easy
to determine concerning a man who, very probably, knew these things
before they were committed to writing; and, even after they were so,
might continue to speak of them, in the same manner he had been wont to
do, as things he was well informed of, without appealing to the
Scriptures themselves" ("Credibility," pt. II., vol. i., pp. 68-70).
Canon Westcott, after arguing that the Apostolic Fathers are much
influenced by the Pauline Epistles, goes on to remark: "Nothing has been
said hitherto of the coincidences between the Apostolic Fathers and the
Canonical Gospels. From the nature of the case, casual coincidences of
language cannot be brought forward in the same manner to prove the use
of a history as of a letter. The same facts and words, especially if
they be recent and striking, may be preserved in several narratives.
References in the sub-apostolic age to the discourses or actions of our
Lord, as we find them recorded in the Gospels, show, as far as they go,
that what the Gospels relate was then held to be true; but it does not
necessarily follow that they were already in use, and were the actual
source of the passages in question. On the contrary, the mode in which
Clement refers to our Lord's teaching--'the Lord said,' not
'saith'--seems to imply that he was indebted to tradition, and not to
any written accounts, for words most closely resembling those which are
still found in our Gospels. The main testimony of the Apostolic Fathers
is, therefore, to the substance, and not to the authenticity, of the
Gospels" ("On the Canon," pp. 51, 52). An examination of the Apostolic
Fathers gives us little testimony as to "the substance of the Gospels;"
but the whole passage is here given to show how much Canon Westcott,
writing in defence of the Canon, finds himself obliged to give up of the
position occupied by earlier apologists. Dr. Giles agrees with the
justice of these remarks of Lardner and Westcott. He writes: "The
sayings of Christ were, no doubt, treasured up like household jewels by
his disciples and followers. Why, then, may we not refer the quotation
of Christ's words, occurring in the Apostolical Fathers, to an origin of
this kind? If we examine a few of those quotations, the supposition,
just stated, will expand into reality.... The same may be said of every
single sentence found in any of the Apostolical Fathers, which, on first
sight, might be thought to be a decided quotation from one of the
Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. It is impossible to
deny the truth of this observation; for we see it confirmed by the fact
that the Apostolical Fathers do actually quote Moses, and other old
Testament writers, by name--'Moses hath said,' 'but Moses says,'
etc.--in numerous passages. But we nowhere meet with the words, 'Matthew
hath said in his Gospel,' 'John hath said,' etc. They always quote, not
the words of the Evangelists, but the words of Christ himself directly,
which furnishes the strongest presumption that, though the sayings of
Christ were in general vogue, yet the evangelical histories, into which
they were afterwards embodied, were not then in being. But the converse
of this view of the case leads us to the same conclusion. The
Apostolical Fathers quote sayings of Christ which are not found in our
Gospels.... There is no proof that our New Testament was in existence
during the lives of the Apostolical Fathers, who, therefore, could not
make citations out of books which they had never seen" ("Christian
Records," pp. 51-53). "There is no evidence that they [the four Gospels]
existed earlier than the middle of the second century, for they are not
named by any writer who lived before that time" (Ibid, p. 56). In
searching for evidence of the existence of the Gospels during the
earlier period of the Church's history, Christian apologists have
hitherto been content to seize upon a phrase here and there somewhat
resembling a phrase in the canonical Gospels, and to put that forward as
a proof that the Gospels then were the same as those we have now. This
rough-and-ready plan must now be given up, since the most learned
Christian writers now agree, with the Freethinkers, that such a method
is thoroughly unsatisfactory.
Yet, again, admitting these writers as witnesses, and allowing that they
quote from the same Gospels, their quotations only prove that the
isolated phrases they use were in the Gospels of their day, and are also
in the present ones; and many such cases might occur in spite of great
variations in the remainder of the respective Gospels, and would by no
means prove that the Gospels they used were identical with ours. If
Josephus, for instance, had ever quoted some sentences of Socrates
recorded by Plato, that quotation, supposing that Josephus were
reliable, would prove that Plato and Socrates both lived before
Josephus, and that Plato wrote down some of the sayings of Socrates; but
it would not prove that a version of Plato in our hands to-day was
identical with that used by Josephus. The scattered and isolated
passages woven in by the Fathers in their works would fail to prove the
identity of the Gospels of the second century with those of the
nineteenth, even were they as like parallel passages in the canonical
Gospels as they are unlike them.
It is "important," says the able anonymous writer of "Supernatural
Religion," "that we should constantly bear in mind that a great number
of Gospels existed in the early Church which are no longer extant, and
of most of which even the names are lost. We will not here do more than
refer, in corroboration of this fact, to the preliminary statement of
the author of the third Gospel: 'Forasmuch as many ([Greek: polloi])
have taken in hand to set forth a declaration of those things which are
surely believed among us, etc.' It is, therefore, evident that before
our third synoptic was written, many similar works were already in
circulation. Looking at the close similarity of the large portions of
the three synoptics, it is almost certain that many of the [Greek:
polloi] here mentioned bore a close analogy to each other, and to our
Gospels; and this is known to have been the case, for instance, amongst
the various forms of the 'Gospel according to the Hebrews,' distinct
mention of which we meet with long before we hear anything of our
Gospels. When, therefore, in early writings, we meet with quotations
closely resembling, or, we may add, even identical with passages which
are found in our Gospels--the source of which, however, is not
mentioned, nor is any author's name indicated--the similarity, or even
identity, cannot by any means be admitted as evidence that the quotation
is necessarily from our Gospels, and not from some other similar work
now no longer extant; and more especially not when, in the same
writings, there are other quotations from apocryphal sources different
from our Gospels. Whether regarded as historical records or as writings
embodying the mere tradition of the early Christians, our Gospels cannot
for a moment be recognised as the exclusive depositaries of the genuine
sayings and doings of Jesus; and so far from the common possession by
many works in early times of such words of Jesus, in closely similar
form, being either strange or improbable, the really remarkable
phenomena is that such material variation in the report of the more
important historical teaching should exist amongst them. But whilst
similarity to our Gospels in passages quoted by early writers from
unnamed sources cannot prove the use of our Gospels, variation from them
would suggest or prove a different origin; and, at least, it is obvious
that quotations which do not agree with our Gospels cannot, in any case,
indicate their existence" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., pp. 217-219).
We will now turn to the witness of Paley's Apostolic Fathers, bearing
always in mind the utter worthlessness of their testimony; worthless as
it is, however, it is the only evidence Christians have to bring forward
to prove the identity of their Gospels with those [supposed to have
been] written in the first century. Let us listen to the opinion given
by Bishop Marsh: "From the Epistle of Barnabas, no inference can be
deduced that he had read any part of the New Testament. From the genuine
epistle, as it is called, of Clement of Rome, it may be inferred that
Clement had read the first Epistle to the Corinthians. From the Shepherd
of Hermas no inference whatsoever can be drawn. From the Epistles of
Ignatius, it may be concluded that he had read St. Paul's Epistle to the
Ephesians, and that there existed in his time evangelical writings,
though it cannot be shown that he has quoted from them. From Polycarp's
Epistle to the Philippians, it appears that he had heard of St. Paul's
Epistle to that community, and he quotes a passage which is in the first
Epistle to the Corinthians, and another which is in the Epistle to the
Ephesians; but no positive conclusion can be drawn with respect to any
other epistle, or any of the four Gospels" (Marsh's "Michaelis," vol.
i., p. 354, as quoted in Norton's "Genuineness of the Gospels," vol. i.,
p. 3). Very heavily does this tell against the authenticity of these
records, for "if the four Gospels and other books were written by those
who had been eye-witnesses of Christ's miracles, and the five Apostolic
Fathers had conversed with the Apostles, it is not to be conceived that
they would not have named the actual books themselves which possessed so
high authority, and would be looked up to with so much respect by all
the Christians. This is the only way in which their evidence could be of
use to support the authenticity of the New Testament as being the work
of the Apostles; but this is a testimony which the five Apostolical
Fathers fail to supply. There is not a single sentence, in all their
remaining works, in which a clear allusion to the New Testament is to be
found" ("Christian Records," Rev. Dr. Giles, p. 50).
Westcott, while claiming in the Apostolic Fathers a knowledge of most of
the epistles, writes very doubtfully as to their knowledge of the
Gospels (see above p. 264), and after giving careful citations of all
possible quotations, he sums up thus: "1. No evangelic reference in the
Apostolic Fathers can be referred certainly to a written record. 2. It
appears most probable from the form of the quotations that they were
derived from oral tradition. 3. No quotation contains any element which
is not substantially preserved in our Gospels. 4. When the text given
differs from the text of our Gospels it represents a later form of the
evangelic tradition. 5. The text of St. Matthew corresponds more nearly
than the other synoptic texts with the quotations and references as a
whole" ("On the Canon," p. 62). There appears to be no proof whatever of
conclusions 3 and 4, but we give them all as they stand. But we will
take these Apostolic Fathers one by one, in the order used by Paley.
BARNABAS. We have already quoted Bishop Marsh and Dr. Giles as regards
him. There is "nothing in this epistle worthy of the name of evidence
even of the existence of our Gospels" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., p. 260).
The quotation sometimes urged, "There are many called, few chosen," is
spoken of by Westcott as a "proverbial phrase," and phrases similar in
meaning and manner may be found in iv. Ezra, viii. 3, ix. 15 ("Sup.
Rel.," vol. i., p. 245); in the latter work the words occur in a
relation similar to that in which we find them in Barnabas; in both the
judgment is described, and in both the moral drawn is that there are
many lost and few saved; it is the more likely that the quotation is
taken from the apocryphal work, since many other quotations are drawn
from it throughout the epistle. The quotation "Give to every one that
asketh thee," is not found in the supposed oldest MS., the Codex
Sinaiticus, and is a later interpolation, clearly written in by some
transcriber as appropriate to the passage in Barnabas. The last supposed
quotation, that Christ chose men of bad character to be his disciples,
that "he might show that he came not to call the righteous, but
sinners," is another clearly later interpolation, for it jars with the
reasoning of Barnabas, and when Origen quotes the passage he omits the
phrase. In a work which "has been written at the request, and is
published at the cost of the Christian Evidence Society," and which may
fairly, therefore, be taken as the opinion of learned, yet most
orthodox, Christian opinion, the Rev. Mr. Sanday writes: "The general
result of our examination of the Epistle of Barnabas may, perhaps, be
stated thus, that while not supplying by itself certain and conclusive
proof of the use of our Gospels, still the phenomena accord better with
the hypothesis of such a use. This epistle stands in the second line of
the Evidence, and as a witness is rather confirmatory than principal"
("Gospels in the Second Century," p. 76. Ed. 1876). And this is all that
the most modern apologetic criticism can draw from an epistle of which
Paley makes a great display, saying that "if the passage remarked in
this ancient writing had been found in one of St. Paul's Epistles, it
would have been esteemed by every one a high testimony to St. Matthew's
Gospel" ("Evidences," p. 113).
CLEMENT OF ROME.--"Tischendorf, who is ever ready to claim the slightest
resemblance in language as a reference to new Testament writings, admits
that although this Epistle is rich in quotations from the Old Testament,
and here and there that Clement also makes use of passages from Pauline
Epistles, he nowhere refers to the Gospels" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i. pp.
227, 228). The Christian Evidence Society, through Mr. Sanday, thus
criticises Clement: "Now what is the bearing of the Epistle of Clement
upon the question of the currency and authority of the Synoptic Gospels?
There are two passages of some length which are, without doubt,
evangelical quotations, though whether they are derived from the
Canonical Gospels or not may be doubted" ("Gospels in the Second
Century," page 61). After balancing the arguments for and against the
first of these passages, Mr. Sanday concludes: "Looking at the arguments
on both sides, so far as we can give them, I incline, on the whole, to
the opinion that Clement is not quoting from our Gospels; but I am quite
aware of the insecure ground on which this opinion rests. It is a nice
balance of probabilities, and the element of ignorance is so large that
the conclusion, whatever it is, must be purely provisional. Anything
like confident dogmatism on the subject seems to me entirely out of
place. Very much the same is to be said of the second passage" (Ibid, p.
66).
The quotations in Clement, apparently from some other evangelic work,
will be noted under head _h_, and these are those cited in Paley.
HERMAS.--Tischendorf relinquishes this work also as evidence for the
Gospels. Lardner writes: "In _Hermas_ are no express citations of any
books of the New Testament" ("Credibility," vol. i. pt. 2, p. 116). He
thinks, however, that he can trace "allusions to" "words of Scripture."
Westcott says that "The _Shepherd_ contains no definite quotation from
either Old or New Testament" ("On the Canon," p. 197); but he also
thinks that Hermas was "familiar with" some records of "Christ's
teaching." Westcott, however, does not admit Hermas as an Apostolic
Father at all, but places him in the middle of the second century. "As
regards the direct historical evidence for the genuineness of the
Gospels, it is of no importance. No book is cited in it by name. There
are no evident quotations from the Gospels" (Norton's "Genuineness of
the Gospels," vol. i, pp. 342, 343).
IGNATIUS.--It would be wasted time to trouble about Ignatius at all,
after knowing the vicissitudes through which his supposed works have
passed (see ante pp. 217-220); and Paley's references are such vague
"quotations" that they may safely be left to the judgment of the reader.
Tischendorf, claiming two and three phrases in it, says somewhat
confusedly: "Though we do not wish to give to these references a
decisive value, and though they do not exclude all doubt as to their
applicability to our Gospels, and more particularly to that of St. John,
they nevertheless undoubtedly bear traces of such a reference" ("When
were our Gospels Written," p. 61, Eng. ed.). This conclusion refers, in
Tischendorf, to Polycarp, as well as to Ignatius. In these Ignatian
Epistles, Mr. Sanday only treats the Curetonian Epistles (see ante, p.
218) as genuine, and in these he finds scarcely any coincidences with
the Gospels. The parallel to Matthew x. 16, "Be ye, therefore, wise as
serpents and harmless as doves," is doubtful, as it is possible "that
Ignatius may be quoting, not directly from our Gospel, but from one of
the original documents (such as Ewald's hypothetical 'Spruch-Sammlung'),
out of which our Gospel was composed" ("Gospels in the Second Century,"
p. 78). An allusion to the "star" of Bethlehem may have, "as it appears
to have, reference to the narrative of Matt, ii... [but see, ante, p.
233, where the account given of the star is widely different from the
evangelic notice]. These are (so far as I am aware) the only
coincidences to be found in the Curetonian version" (Ibid, pp. 78, 79).
POLYCARP.--This epistle lies under a heavy weight of suspicion, and has
besides little worth analysing as possible quotations from the Gospels.
Paley quotes, "beseeching the all-seeing God not to lead us into
temptation." Why not finish the passage? Because, if he had done so, the
context would have shown that it was not a quotation from a gospel
identical with our own--"beseeching the all-seeing God not to lead us
into temptation, as the Lord hath said, The spirit, indeed, is willing,
but the flesh is weak." If this be a quotation at all, it is from some
lost gospel, as these words are nowhere found thus conjoined in the
Synoptics.
Thus briefly may these Apostolic Fathers be dismissed, since their
testimony fades away as soon as it is examined, as a mist evaporates
before the rays of the rising sun. We will call up Paley's other
witnesses.
PAPIAS.--In the fragment preserved by Eusebius there is no quotation of
any kind; the testimony of Papias is to the names of the authors of two
of the Gospels, and will be considered under _g_.
JUSTIN MARTYR.--We now come to the most important of the supposed
witnesses, and, although students must study the details of the
controversy in larger works, we will endeavour to put briefly before
them the main reasons why Freethinkers reject Justin Martyr as bearing
evidence to the authenticity of the present Gospels, and in this
_résumé_ we begin by condensing chapter iii. of "Supernatural Religion",
vol. i., pp. 288-433, so far as it bears on our present position. Justin
Martyr is supposed to have died about A.D. 166, having been put to death
in the reign of Marcus Aurelius; he was by descent a Greek, but became a
convert to Christianity, strongly tinged with Judaism. The longer
Apology, and the Dialogue with Trypho, are the works chiefly relied upon
to prove the authenticity. The date of the first Apology is probably
about A.D. 147; the Dialogue was written later, perhaps between A.D. 150
and 160. In these writings Justin quotes very copiously from the Old
Testament, and he also very frequently refers to facts of Christian
history, and to sayings of Jesus. Of these references, for instance,
some fifty occur in the first Apology, and upwards of seventy in the
Dialogue with Trypho; a goodly number, it will be admitted, by means of
which to identify the source from which he quotes. Justin himself
frequently and distinctly says that his information and quotations are
derived from the "Memoirs of the Apostles," but, except upon one
occasion, which we shall hereafter consider, when he indicates Peter, he
never mentions an author's name. Upon examination it is found that, with
only one or two brief exceptions, the numerous quotations from these
"Memoirs" differ more or less widely from parallel passages in our
Synoptic Gospels, and in many cases differ in the same respects as
similar quotations found in other writings of the second century, the
writers of which are known to have made use of uncanonical Gospels; and
further, that these passages are quoted several times, at intervals, by
Justin, with the same variations. Moreover, sayings of Jesus are quoted
from the "Memoirs" which are not found in our Gospels at all, and facts
in the life of Jesus, and circumstances of Christian history, derived
from the same source, not only are not found in our Gospels, but are in
contradiction with them. Various theories have been put forward by
Christian apologists to lessen the force of these objections. It has
been suggested that Justin quoted from memory, condensed or combined to
suit his immediate purpose; that the "Memoirs" were a harmony of the
Gospels, with additions from some apocryphal work; that along with our
Gospels Justin used apocryphal Gospels; that he made use of our Gospels,
preferring, however, to rely chiefly on an apocryphal one. Results so
diverse show how dubious must be the value of the witness of Justin
Martyr. Competent critics almost universally admit that Justin had no
idea of ranking the "Memoirs of the Apostles" among canonical writings.
The word translated "Memoirs" would be more correctly rendered
"Recollections," or "Memorabilia," and none of these three terms is an
appropriate title for works ranking as canonical Gospels. Great numbers
of spurious writings, under the names of apostles, were current in the
early Church, and Justin names no authors for the "Recollections" he
quotes from, only saying that they were composed "by his Apostles and
their followers," clearly indicating that he was using some collective
recollections of the Apostles and those who followed them. The word
"Gospels," in the plural, is only once applied to these "Recollections;"
"For the Apostles, in the 'Memoirs' composed by them, which are called
Gospels." "The last expression [Greek: kaleitai euaggelai], as many
scholars have declared, is a manifest interpolation. It is, in all
probability, a gloss on the margin of some old MS. which some copyist
afterwards inserted in the text. If Justin really stated that the
'Memoirs' were called Gospels, it seems incomprehensible that he should
never call them so himself. In no other place in his writings does he
apply the plural to them, but, on the contrary, we find Trypho referring
to the 'so-called Gospel,' which he states that he had carefully read,
and which, of course, can only be Justin's 'Memoirs,' and again, in
another part of the same dialogue, Justin quotes passages which are
written 'in the Gospel.' The term 'Gospel' is nowhere else used by
Justin in reference to a written record." The public reading of the
Recollections, mentioned by Justin, proves nothing, since many works,
now acknowledged as spurious, were thus read (see ante, pp. 248, 249).
Justin does not regard the Recollections as inspired, attributing
inspiration only to prophetic writings, and he accepts them as authentic
solely because the events they narrate are prophesied of in the Old
Testament. The omission of any author's name is remarkable, since, in
quoting from the Old Testament, he constantly refers to the author by
name, or to the book used; but in the very numerous quotations, supposed
to be from the Gospels, he never does this, save in one single instance,
mentioned below, when he quotes Peter. On the theory that he had our
four Gospels before him, this is the more singular, since he would
naturally have distinguished one from the other. The only writing in the
New Testament referred to by name is the Apocalypse, by "a certain man
whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ," and it is
impossible that John should be thus mentioned, if Justin had already
been quoting from a Gospel bearing his name under the general title of
Recollections. Justin clearly quotes from a _written_ source and
excludes oral tradition, saying that in the Recollections is recorded
"_everything_ that concerns our Saviour Christ." (The proofs that Justin
quotes from records other than the Gospels will be classed under
position _h_, and are here omitted.) Justin knows nothing of the
shepherds of the plain, and the angelic appearance to them, nor of the
star guiding the wise men to the place where Jesus was, although he
relates the story of the birth, and the visit of the wise men. Two short
passages in Justin are identical with parallel passages in Matthew, but
"it cannot be too often repeated, that the mere coincidence of short
historical sayings in two works by no means warrants the conclusion that
the one is dependent on the other." In the first Apology, chaps, xv.,
xvi., and xvii. are composed almost entirely of examples of Christ's
teaching, and with the exception of these two brief passages, not one
quotation agrees verbally with the canonical Gospels. We have referred
to one instance wherein the name of Peter is mentioned in connection
with the Recollections. Justin says: "The statement also that he (Jesus)
changed the name of Peter, one of the Apostles, and that this is also
written in _his_ 'Memoirs,'" etc. This refers the "Memoirs" to Peter,
and it is suggested that it is, therefore, a reference to the Gospel of
Mark, Mark having been supposed to have written his Gospel under the
direction of Peter. There was a "Gospel according to Peter" current in
the early Church, probably a variation from the Gospel of the Hebrews,
so highly respected and so widely used by the primitive writers. It is
very probable that this is the work to which Justin so often refers, and
that it originally bore the simple title of "The Gospel," or the
"Recollections of Peter." A version of this Gospel was also known as the
"Gospel According to the Apostles," a title singularly like the
"Recollections of the Apostles" by Justin. Seeing that in Justin's works
his quotations, although so copious, do not agree with parallel passages
in our Gospels, we may reasonably conclude that "there is no evidence
that he made use of any of our Gospels, and he cannot, therefore, even
be cited to prove their very existence, and much less the authenticity
and character of records whose authors he does not once name." Passing
from this case, ably worked out by this learned and clever writer (and
we earnestly recommend our readers, if possible, to study his careful
analysis for themselves, since he makes the whole question thoroughly
intelligible to _English_ readers, and gives them evidence whereby they
can form their own judgments, instead of accepting ready-made
conclusions), we will examine Canon Westcott's contention. He admits
that the difficulties perplexing the evidence of Justin are "great;"
that there are "additions to the received narrative, and remarkable
variations from its text, which, in some cases, are both repeated by
Justin and found also in other writings" ("On the Canon," p. 98). We
regret to say that Dr. Westcott, in laying the case before his readers,
somewhat misleads them, although, doubtless, unintentionally. He speaks
of Justin telling us that "Christ was descended from Abraham through
Jacob, Judah, Phares, Jesse, and David," and omits the fact that Justin
traces the descent to Mary alone, and knows nothing as to a descent
traced to Joseph, as in both Matthew and Luke (see below, under _h_). He
speaks of Justin mentioning wise men "guided by a star," forgetting that
Justin says nothing of the guidance, but only writes: "That he should
arise like a star from the seed of Abraham, Moses showed beforehand....
Accordingly, when a star rose in heaven at the time of his birth, as is
recorded in the 'Memoirs' of his Apostles, the Magi from Arabia,
recognising the sign by this, came and worshipped him" ("Dial.," ch.
cvi.). He speaks of Justin recording "the singing of the Psalm
afterwards" (after the last supper), omitting that Justin only says
generally ("Dial.," ch. cvi., to which Dr. Westcott refers us) that
"when living with them (Christ) sang praises to God." But as we
hereafter deal with these discrepancies, we need not dwell on them now,
only warning our readers that since even such a man as Dr. Westcott thus
misrepresents facts, it will be well never to accept any inferences
drawn from such references as these without comparing them with the
original. One of the chief difficulties to the English reader is to get
a reliable translation. To give but a single instance. In the version of
Justin here used (that published by T. Clark, Edinburgh), we find in the
"Dialogue," ch. ciii., the following passage: "His sweat fell down like
drops of blood while he was praying." And this is referred to by Canon
Westcott (p. 104) as a record of the "bloody sweat." Yet, in the
original, there is no word analogous to "of blood;" the passage runs:
"sweat as drops fell down," and it is recorded by Justin as a proof that
the prophecy, "my bones are poured out _like water_" was fulfilled in
Christ. The clumsy endeavour to create a likeness to Luke xxii. 44
destroys Justin's argument. Further on (p. 113) Dr. Westcott admits that
the words "of blood" are not found in Justin; but it is surely
misleading, under these circumstances, to say that Justin mentions "the
bloody sweat." Westcott only maintains seven passages in the whole of
Justin's writings, wherein he distinctly quotes from the "Memoirs;"
_i.e.,_ only seven that can be maintained as quotations from the
canonical Gospels--the contention being that the "Memoirs" _are_ the
Gospels. He says truly, if naively, "The result of a first view of these
passages is striking." Very striking, indeed; for, "of the seven, five
agree verbally with the text of St. Matthew or St. Luke, _exhibiting,
indeed, three slight various readings not elsewhere found_, but such as
are easily explicable. The sixth is a condensed summary of words related
by St. Matthew; the seventh alone presents an important variation in the
text of a verse, which is, however, otherwise very uncertain" (pp. 130,
131. The italics are our own). That is, there are only seven distinct
quotations, and all of these, save two, are different from our Gospels.
The whole of Dr. Westcott's analysis of these passages is severely
criticised in "Supernatural Religion," and in the edition of 1875 of Dr.
Westcott's book, from which we quote, some of the expressions he
previously used are a little modified. The author of "Supernatural
Religion" justly says: "The striking result, to summarise Canon
Westcott's own words, is this. Out of seven professed quotations from
the 'Memoirs,' in which he admits we may expect to find the exact
language preserved, five present three variations; one is a compressed
summary, and does not agree verbally at all; and the seventh presents an
important variation" (vol. i., p. 394).
Dr. Giles speaks very strongly against Paley's distortion of Justin
Martyr's testimony, complaining: "The works of Justin Martyr do not fall
in the way of one in a hundred thousand of our countrymen. How is it,
then, to be deprecated that erroneous statements should be current about
him! How is it to be censured that his testimony should be changed, and
he should be made to speak a falsehood!" ("Christian Records," p. 71).
Dr. Giles then argues that Justin would have certainly named the books
and their authors had they been current and reverenced in his time; that
there were numberless Gospels current at that date; that Justin mentions
occurrences that are only found related in such apocryphal Gospels. He
then compares seventeen passages in Justin Martyr with parallel passages
in the Gospels, and concludes that Justin "gives us Christ's sayings in
their traditionary forms, and not in the words which are found in our
four Gospels." We will select two, to show his method of criticising,
translating the Greek, instead of giving it, as he does, in the
original. In the Apology, ch. xv., Justin writes: "If thy right eye
offend thee, cut it out, for it is profitable for thee to enter into the
kingdom of heaven with one eye, than having two to be thrust into the
everlasting fire." "This passage is very like Matt. v. 29: 'If thy right
eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it is
profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that
thy whole body should be cast into hell.' But it is also like Matt,
xviii. 9: 'And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from
thee; it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than
having two eyes to be cast into hell-fire.' And it bears an equal
likeness to Mark ix. 47: 'And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out; it
is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than,
having two eyes, to be cast into hell-fire.' Yet, strange to say, it is
not identical in words with either of the three" (pp. 83, 84). "I came
not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." "In this only
instance is there a perfect agreement between the words of Justin and
the canonical Gospels, three of which, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, give the
same saying of Christ in the same words. A variety of thoughts here rush
upon the mind. Are these three Gospels based upon a common document? If
so, is not Justin Martyr's citation drawn from the same anonymous
document, rather than from the three Gospels, seeing he does not name
them? If, on the other hand, Justin has cited them accurately in this
instance, why has he failed to do so in the others? For no other reason
than that traditionary sayings are generally thus irregularly exact or
inexact, and Justin, citing from them, has been as irregularly exact as
they were" (Ibid, p. 85). "The result to which a perusal of his works
will lead is of the gravest character. He will be found to quote nearly
two hundred sentiments or sayings of Christ; but makes hardly a single
clear allusion to all those circumstances of time or place which give so
much interest to Christ's teaching, as recorded in the four Gospels. The
inference is that he quotes Christ's sayings as delivered by tradition
or taken down in writing before the four Gospels were compiled" (Ibid,
pp. 89, 90). Paley and Lardner both deal with Justin somewhat briefly,
calling every passage in his works resembling slightly any passage in
the Gospels a "quotation;" in both cases only ignorance of Justin's
writings can lead any reader to assent to the inferences they draw.
HEGESIPPUS was a Jewish Christian, who, according to Eusebius,
flourished about A.D. 166. Soter is said to have succeeded Anicetus in
the bishopric of Rome in that year, and Hegesippus appears to have been
in Rome during the episcopacy of both. He travelled about from place to
place, and his testimony to the Gospels is that "in every city the
doctrine prevails according to what is declared by the law, and the
prophets, and the Lord" ("Eccles. Hist," bk. iv., ch. 22). Further,
Eusebius quotes the story of the death of James, the Apostle, written by
Hegesippus, and in this James is reported to have said to the Jews: "Why
do ye now ask me respecting Jesus, the Son of Man? He is now sitting in
the heavens, on the right hand of great power, and is about to come on
the clouds of heaven." And when he is being murdered, he prays, "O Lord
God and Father forgive them, for they know not what they do" (see
"Eccles. Hist.," bk. ii., ch. 23). The full absurdity of regarding this
as a testimony to the Gospels will be seen when it is remembered that it
is implied thereby that James, the brother and apostle of Christ, knew
nothing of his words until he read them in the Gospels, and that he was
murdered before the Gospel of Luke, from which alone he could quote the
prayer of Jesus, is thought, by most Christians, to have been written.
One other fragment of Hegesippus is preserved by Stephanus Gobarus,
wherein Hegesippus, speaking against Paul's assertion "that eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard," opposes to it the saying of the Lord, "Blessed are
your eyes, for they see, and your ears that hear." This is paralleled by
Matt. xiii. 16 and Luke x. 23. "We need not point out that the saying
referred to by Hegesippus, whilst conveying the same sense as that in
the two Gospels, differs as materially from them as they do from each
other, and as we might expect a quotation taken from a different, though
kindred, source, like the Gospel according to the Hebrews, to do" ("Sup.
Rel.," vol. i., p. 447). Why does not Paley tell us that Eusebius writes
of him, not that he quoted from the Gospels, but that "he also states
some particulars from the Gospel of the Hebrews and from the Syriac, and
particularly from the Hebrew language, showing that he himself was a
convert from the Hebrews. Other matters he also records as taken from
the unwritten tradition of the Jews" ("Eccles. Hist.," bk. iv., ch 22).
Here, then, we have the source of the quotations in Hegesippus, and yet
Paley conceals this, and deliberately speaks of him as referring to our
Gospel of Matthew!
EPISTLE OF THE CHURCHES OF LYONS AND VIENNE.--Paley quietly dates this
A.D. 170, although the persecution it describes occurred in A.D. 177
(see ante, pp. 257, 258). The "exact references to the Gospels of Luke
and John and to the Acts of the Apostles," spoken of by Paley
("Evidences," p. 125), are not easy to find. Westcott says: "It contains
no reference by name to any book of the New Testament, but its
coincidences of language with the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John, with
the Acts of the Apostles, with the Epistles of St. Paul to the Romans,
Corinthians (?), Ephesians, Philippians, and the First to Timothy, with
the first Catholic Epistles of St. Peter and St. John, and with the
Apocalypse, are indisputable" ("On the Canon," p. 336). Unfortunately,
neither Paley nor Dr. Westcott refer us to the passages in question,
Paley quoting only one. We will, therefore, give one of these at full
length, leaving our readers to judge of it as an "exact reference:"
"Vattius Epagathus, one of the brethren who abounded in the fulness of
the love of God and man, and whose walk and conversation had been so
unexceptionable, though he was only young, shared in the same testimony
with the elder Zacharias. He walked in all the commandments and
righteousness of the Lord blameless, full of love to God and his
neighbour" ("Eusebius," bk. v., chap. i). This is, it appears, an "exact
reference" to Luke i. 6, and we own we should not have known it unless
it had been noted in "Supernatural Religion." Tischendorf, on the other
hand, refers the allusion to Zacharias to the Protevangelium of James
("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., p. 202).
The second "exact reference" is, that Vattius had "the Spirit more
abundantly than Zacharias;" "such an unnecessary and insidious
comparison would scarcely have been made had the writer known our Gospel
and regarded it as inspired Scripture" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., p. 204).
The quotation "that the day would come when everyone that slayeth you
will think he is doing God a service," is one of those isolated sayings
referred to Christ which might be found in any account of his works, or
might have been handed down by tradition. This epistle is the last
witness called by Paley, prior to Irenæus, and might, indeed, fairly be
regarded as contemporary with him.
Although Paley does not allude to the "Clementines," books falsely
ascribed to Clement of Rome, these are sometimes brought to prove the
existence of the Gospels in the second century. But they are useless as
witnesses, from the fact that the date at which they were themselves
written is a matter of dispute. "Critics variously date the composition
of the original Recognitions from about the middle of the second century
to the end of the third, though the majority are agreed in placing them,
at least, in the latter century" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., p. 5). "It is
unfortunate that there are not sufficient materials for determining the
date of the Clementine Homilies" ("Gospels in the Second Century," Rev.
W. Sanday, p. 161). Part of the Clementines, called the "Recognitions,"
is useless as a basis for argument, for these "are only extant in a
Latin translation by Rufinus, in which the quotations from the Gospels
have evidently been assimilated to the canonical text which Rufinus
himself uses" (Ibid). Of the rest, "we are struck at once by the small
amount of exact coincidence, which is considerably less than that which
is found in the quotations from the Old Testament" (Ibid, p. 168). "In
the Homilies there are very numerous quotations of expressions of Jesus,
and of Gospel History, which are generally placed in the mouth of Peter,
or introduced with such formula as 'The teacher said,' 'Jesus said,' 'He
said,' 'The prophet said,' but in no case does the author name the
source from which these sayings and quotations are derived.... De Wette
says, 'The quotations of evangelical works and histories in the
pseudo-Clementine writings, from their free and unsatisfactory nature,
permit only uncertain conclusions as to their written source.' Critics
have maintained very free and conflicting views regarding that source.
Apologists, of course, assert that the quotations in the Homilies are
taken from our Gospels only. Others ascribe them to our Gospels, with a
supplementary apocryphal work, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, or
the Gospel according to Peter. Some, whilst admitting a subsidiary use
of some of our Gospels, assert that the author of the Homilies employs,
in preference, the Gospel according to Peter; whilst others, recognising
also the similarity of the phenomena presented by these quotations with
those of Justin's, conclude that the author does not quote our Gospels
at all, but makes use of the Gospel according to Peter, or the Gospel
according to the Hebrews. Evidence permitting of such divergent
conclusions manifestly cannot be of a decided character" ("Sup. Rel.,"
vol. ii., pp. 6, 7).
On Basilides (teaching c. A.D. 135) and Valentinus (A.D. 140), two of
the early Gnostic teachers, we need not delay, for there is scarcely
anything left of their writings, and all we know of them is drawn from
the writings of their antagonists; it is claimed that they knew and made
use of the canonical Gospels, and Canon Westcott urges this view of
Basilides, but the writer of "Supernatural Religion" characterises this
plea "as unworthy of a scholar, and only calculated to mislead readers
who must generally be ignorant of the actual facts of the case" (vol.
ii., p. 42). Basilides says that he received his doctrine from Glaucias,
the "interpreter of Peter," and "it is apparent, however, that
Basilides, in basing his doctrines on these apocryphal books as
inspired, and upon tradition, and in having a special Gospel called
after his own name, which, therefore, he clearly adopts as the exponent
of his ideas of Christian truth, absolutely ignores the canonical
Gospels altogether, and not only does not offer any evidence for their
existence, but proves that he did not recognise any such works as of
authority. Therefore, there is no ground whatever for Tischendorf's
assumption that the Commentary of Basilides 'On the Gospel' was written
upon our Gospels, but that idea is, on the contrary, negatived in the
strongest way by all the facts of the case" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., pp.
45, 46). Both with this ancient heretic, as with Valentinus, it is
impossible to distinguish what is ascribed to him from what is ascribed
to his followers, and thus evidence drawn from either of them is weaker
even than usual.
Marcion, the greatest heretic of the second century, ought to prove a
useful witness to the Christians if the present Gospels had been
accepted in his time as canonical. He was the son of the Christian
Bishop of Sinope, in Pontus, and taught in Rome for some twenty years,
dating from about A.D. 140. Only one Gospel was acknowledged by him, and
fierce has been the controversy as to what this Gospel was. It is only
known to us through his antagonists, who generally assert that the
Gospel used by him was the third Synoptic, changed and adapted to suit
his heretical views. Paley says, "This rash and wild controversialist
published a recension or chastised edition of St. Luke's Gospel"
("Evidences," p. 167), but does not condescend to give us the smallest
reason for so broad an assertion. This question has, however, been
thoroughly debated among German critics, the one side maintaining that
Marcion mutilated Luke's Gospel, the other that Marcion's Gospel was
earlier than Luke's, and that Luke's was made from it; while some,
again, maintained that both were versions of an older original. From
this controversy we may conclude that there was a strong likeness
between Marcion's Gospel and the third Synoptic, and that it is
impossible to know which is the earlier of the two. The resolution of
the question is made hopeless by the fact that "the principal sources of
our information regarding Marcion's Gospel are the works of his most
bitter denouncers Tertullian and Epiphanius" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., p.
88). "At the very best, even if the hypothesis that Marcion's Gospel was
a mutilated Luke were established, Marcion affords no evidence in favour
of the authenticity or trustworthy character of our third Synoptic. His
Gospel was nameless, and his followers repudiated the idea of its having
been written by Luke; and regarded even as the earliest testimony for
the existence of Luke's Gospel, that testimony is not in confirmation of
its genuineness and reliability, but, on the contrary, condemns it as
garbled and interpolated" (Ibid, pp. 146, 147).
It is scarcely worth while to refer to the supposed evidence of the
"Canon of Muratori," since the date of this fragment is utterly unknown.
In the year 1740 Muratori published this document in a collection of
Italian antiquities, stating that he had found it in the Ambrosian
library at Milan, and that he believed that the MS. from which he took
it had been in existence about 1000 years. It is not known by whom the
original was written, and it bears no date: it is but a fragment,
commencing: "at which, nevertheless, he was present, and thus he placed
it. Third book of the Gospel according to Luke." Further on it speaks of
"the fourth of the Gospels of John." The value of the evidence of an
anonymous fragment of unknown date is simply _nil_. "It is by some
affirmed to be a complete treatise on the books received by the Church,
from which fragments have been lost; while others consider it a mere
fragment itself. It is written in Latin, which by some is represented as
most corrupt, whilst others uphold it as most correct. The text is
further rendered almost unintelligible by every possible inaccuracy of
orthography and grammar, which is ascribed diversely to the transcriber,
to the translator, and to both. Indeed, such is the elastic condition of
the text, resulting from errors and obscurity of every imaginable
description, that, by means of ingenious conjectures, critics are able
to find in it almost any sense they desire. Considerable difference of
opinion exists as to the original language of the fragment, the greater
number of critics maintaining that the composition is a translation from
the Greek, while others assert it to have been originally written in
Latin. Its composition is variously attributed to the Church of Africa,
and to a member of the Church in Rome" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., pp. 238,
239). On a disputable scrap of this kind no argument can be based; there
is no evidence even to show that the thing was in existence at all until
Muratori published it; it is never referred to by any early writer, nor
is there a scintilla of evidence that it was known to the early Church.
After a full and searching analysis of all the documents, orthodox and
heretical, supposed to have been written in the first two centuries
after Christ, the author of "Supernatural Religion" thus sums
up:--"After having exhausted the literature and the testimony bearing on
the point, we have not found a single distinct trace of any one of those
Gospels during the first century and a half after the death of Jesus....
Any argument for the mere existence of our Synoptics based upon their
supposed rejection by heretical leaders and sects has the inevitable
disadvantage, that the very testimony which would show their existence
would oppose their authenticity. There is no evidence of their use by
heretical leaders, however, and no direct reference to them by any
writer, heretical or orthodox, whom we have examined" (vol. ii., pp,
248, 249). Nor is the fact of this blank absence of evidence of identity
all that can be brought to bear in support of our proposition, for there
is another fact that tells very heavily against the identity of the now
accepted Gospels with those that were current in earlier days, namely,
the noteworthy charge brought against the Christians that they changed
and altered their sacred books; the orthodox accused the unorthodox of
varying the Scriptures, and the heretics retorted the charge with equal
pertinacity. The Ebionites maintained that the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew
was the only authentic Gospel, and regarded the four Greek Gospels as
unreliable. The Marcionites admitted only the Gospel resembling that of
Luke, and were accused by the orthodox of having altered that to suit
themselves. Celsus, writing against Christianity, formulates the charge:
"Some believers, like men driven by drunkenness to commit violence on
themselves, have altered the Gospel history, since its first
composition, three times, four times, and oftener, and have re-fashioned
it, so as to be able to deny the objections made against it" ("Origen
Cont. Celsus," bk. ii., chap. 27, as quoted by Norton, p. 63). Origen
admits "that there are those who have altered the Gospels," but pleads
that it has been done by heretics, and that this "is no reproach against
true Christianity" (Ibid). Only, most reverend Father of the Church, if
heretics accuse orthodox, and orthodox accuse heretics, of altering the
Gospels, how are we to be sure that they have come down unaltered to us?
Clement of Alexandria notes alterations that had been made. Dionysius,
of Corinth, complaining of the changes made in his own writings, bears
witness to this same fact: "It is not, therefore, matter of wonder if
some have also attempted to adulterate the sacred writings of the Lord,
since they have attempted the same in other works that are not to be
compared with these" ("Eusebius," bk. iv., ch. 23). Faustus, the
Manichæan, the great opponent of Augustine, writes: "For many things
have been inserted by your ancestors in the speeches of our Lord, which,
though put forth under his name, agree not with his faith; especially
since--as already it has been often proved by us--that these things were
not written by Christ, nor his Apostles, but a long while after their
assumption, by I know not what sort of half Jews, not even agreeing with
themselves, who made up their tale out of report and opinions merely;
and yet, fathering the whole upon the names of the Apostles of the Lord,
or on those who were supposed to have followed the Apostles; they
mendaciously pretended that they had written their lies and conceits
_according to_ them" (Lib. 33, ch. 3, as quoted and translated in
"Diegesis," pp. 61, 62).
The truth is, that in those days, when books were only written, the
widest door was opened to alterations, additions, and omissions;
incidents or remarks written, perhaps, in the margin of the text by one
transcriber, were transferred into the text itself by the next copyist,
and were thereafter indistinguishable from the original matter. In this
way the celebrated text of the three witnesses (1 John, v. 7) is
supposed to have crept into the text. Dealing with this, in reference to
the New Testament, Eichhorn points out that it was easy to alter a
manuscript in transcribing it, and that, as manuscripts were written for
individual use, such alterations were considered allowable, and that the
altered manuscript, being copied in its turn, such changes passed into
circulation unnoticed. Owners of manuscripts added to them incidents of
the life of Christ, or any of his sayings, which they had heard of, and
which were not recorded in their own copies, and thus the story grew and
grew, and additional legends were incorporated with it, until the
historical basis became overlaid with myth. The vast number of readings
in the New Testament, no less--according to Dr. Angus, one of the
present Revision Committee--than 100,000, prove the facility with which
variations were introduced into MSS. by those who had charge of them. In
heated and angry controversy between different schools of monks appeals
were naturally made to the authority of the Scriptures, and what more
likely--indeed more certain--than that these monks should introduce
variations into their MS. copies favouring the positions for which they
were severally contending?
The most likely way in which the Gospels grew into their present forms
is, that the various traditions relating to Christ were written down in
different places for the instruction of catechumens, and that these,
passing from hand to hand, and mouth to mouth, grew into a large mass of
disjointed stories, common to many churches. This mass was gradually
sifted, arranged, moulded into historical shape, which should fit into
the preconceived notions of the Messiah, and thus the four Gospels
gradually grew into their present form, and were accepted on all hands
as the legacy of the apostolic age. No careful reader can avoid noticing
the many coincidences of expression between the three synoptics, and
deducing from these coincidences the conclusion that one narrative
formed the basis of the three histories. Ewald supposes the existence of
a _Spruchsammlung_--collected sayings of Christ--but such a collection
is not enough to explain the phenomena we refer to. Dr. Davidson says:
"The rudiments of an original oral Gospel were formed in Jerusalem, in
the bosom of the first Christian Church; and the language of it must
have been Aramæan, since the members consisted of Galileans, to whom
that tongue was vernacular. It is natural to suppose that they were
accustomed to converse with one another on the life, actions, and
doctrines of their departed Lord, dwelling on the particulars that
interested them most, and rectifying the accounts given by one another,
where such accounts were erroneous, or seriously defective. The
Apostles, who were eye-witnesses of the public life of Christ, could
impart correctness to the narratives, giving them a fixed character in
regard to authenticity and form. In this manner an original oral Gospel
in Aramæan was formed. We must not, however, conceive of it as put into
the shape of any of our present Gospels, or as being of like extent; but
as consisting of leading particulars in the life of Christ, probably the
most striking and the most affecting, such as would leave the best
impression on the minds of the disciples. The incidents and sayings
connected with their Divine Master naturally assumed a particular shape
from repetition, though it was simply a rudimental one. They were not
compactly linked in regular or systematic sequence. They were the oral
germ and essence of a Gospel, rather than a proper Gospel itself, at
least, according to our modern ideas of it. But the Aramæan language was
soon laid aside. When Hellenists evinced a disposition to receive
Christianity, and associated themselves with the small number of
Palestinian converts, Greek was necessarily adopted. As the
Greek-speaking members far out-numbered the Aramæan-speaking brethren,
the oral Gospel was put into Greek. Henceforward Greek, the language of
the Hellenists, became the medium of instruction. The truths and facts,
before repeated in Hebrew, were now generally promulgated in Greek by
the apostles and their converts. The historical cyclus, which had been
forming in the Church at Jerusalem, assumed a determinate character in
the Greek tongue" ("Introduction to the New Testament," by S. Davidson,
LL.D., p. 405. Ed. 1848). Thus we find learned Christians obliged to
admit an uninspired collection as the basis of the inspired Gospel, and
laying down a theory which is entirely incompatible with the idea that
the Synoptic Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Our
Gospels are degraded into versions of an older Gospel, instead of being
the inspired record of contemporaries, speaking "that we do know."
Canon Westcott writes of the three Synoptic Gospels, that "they
represent, as is shown by their structure, a common basis, common
materials, treated in special ways. They evidently contain only a very
small selection from the words and works of Christ, and yet their
contents are included broadly in one outline. Their substance is
evidently much older than their form.... The only explanation of the
narrow and definite limit within which the evangelic history (exclusive
of St. John's Gospel) is confined, seems to be that a collection of
representative words and works was made by an authoritative body, such
as the Twelve, at a very early date, and that this, which formed the
basis of popular teaching, gained exclusive currency, receiving only
subordinate additions and modifications. This Apostolic Gospel--the oral
basis, as I have endeavoured to show elsewhere, of the Synoptic
narratives--dates unquestionably from the very beginning of the
Christian society" ("On the Canon," preface, pp. xxxviii., xxxix). Mr.
Sanday speaks of the "original documents out of which our Gospel was
composed" ("Gospels in the Second Century," page 78), and he writes:
"Doubtless light would be thrown upon the question if we only knew what
was the common original of the two Synoptic texts" (Ibid, p. 65). "The
first three Gospels of our Canon are remarkably alike, their writers
agree in relating the same thing, not only in the same manner, but
likewise in the very words, as must be evident to every common reader
who has paid the slightest attention to the subject.... [Here follow a
number of parallel passages from the three synoptics.] The agreement
between the three evangelists in these extracts is remarkable, and leads
to the question how such coincidences could arise between works which,
from the first years of Christianity until the beginning of the
seventeenth century, were understood to be perfectly independent, and to
have had each a separate and independent origin. The answer to this
question may at last, after more than a hundred years of discussion, be
given with tolerable certainty, if we are allowed to judge of this
subject according to the rules of reason and common sense, by which all
other such difficulties are resolved. 'The most eminent critics'--we
quote from 'Marsh's Michaelis,' vol. iii., part 2, page 170--'are at
present decidedly of opinion that one of the two suppositions must
necessarily be adopted--either that the three evangelists copied from
each other, or that all the three drew from _a common source_, and that
the notion of an absolute independence, in respect to the composition of
our three first Gospels, is no longer tenable'.... The alternative
between _a common source_ and _copying from each other_, is now no
longer in the same position as in the days of Michaelis or Bishop Marsh.
To decide between the two is no longer difficult. No one will now admit
that either of the four evangelists has copied from the other three, 1.
Because in neither of the four is there the slightest notice of the
others. 2. Because, if either of the evangelists may be thought, from
the remarkable similarity of any particular part of his narrative, to
have copied out of either of the other Gospels, we immediately light
upon so many other passages, wholly inconsistent with what the other
three have related on the same subject, that we immediately ask why he
has not copied from the others on those points also. It only remains,
therefore, for us to infer that there was a common source, first
traditional and then written--the [Greek: Apomnemoneumata], in short, or
'Memorials,' etc., of Justin Martyr, and that from this source the four
canonical Gospels, together with thirty or forty others, many of which
are still in existence, were, at various periods of early Christianity,
compiled by various writers" ("Christian Records," Dr. Giles, pp. 266,
270, 271). Dean Alford puts forward a somewhat similar theory; he
considers that the oral teaching of the apostles to catechumens and
others, the simple narrative of facts relating to Christ, gradually grew
into form and was written down, and that this accounts for the marked
similarity of some passages in the different Gospels. He says:--"I
believe, then, that the Apostles, in virtue not merely of their having
been eye-and-ear witnesses of the Evangelic history, but especially of
_their office_, gave to the various Churches their testimony in _a
narrative of facts_, such narrative being modified in each case by the
individual mind of the Apostle himself, and his sense of what was
requisite for the particular community to which he was ministering....
It would be easy and interesting to follow the probable origin and
growth of this cycle of narratives of the words and deeds of our Lord in
the Church at Jerusalem, for both the Jews and the Hellenists--the
latter under such teachers as Philip and Stephen--commissioned and
authenticated by the Apostles. In the course of such a process some
portions would naturally be written down by private believers for their
own use, or that of friends. And as the Church spread to Samaria,
Caesarea, and Antioch, the want would be felt in each of those places of
similar cycles of oral teaching, which, when supplied, would
thenceforward belong to, and be current in, those respective Churches.
And these portions of the Evangelic history, oral or partially
documentary, would be adopted under the sanction of the Apostles, who
were as in all things, so especially in this, the appointed and
divinely-guided overseers of the whole Church. This _common substratum
of Apostolic teachings_--never formally adopted by all, but subject to
all the varieties of diction and arrangement, addition and omission,
incident to transmission through many individual minds, and into many
different localities--_I believe to have been the original source of the
common part of our three Gospels_" ("Greek Test.," Dean Alford, vol. i.,
Prolegomena, ch. i., sec. 3, par. 6; ed. 1859. The italics are Dean
Alford's).
Eichhorn's theory of the growth of the Gospels is one very generally
accepted; he considers that the present Gospels were not in common
circulation before the end of the second century, and that before that
time other Gospels were in common use, differing considerably from each
other, but resting on a common foundation of historical fact; all these,
he thinks, were versions of an "original Gospel," a kind of rough
outline of Christ's life and discourses, put together without method or
plan, and one of these would be the "Memoirs of the Apostles," of which
Justin Martyr speaks. The Gospels, as we have them, are careful
compilations made from these earlier histories, and we notice that, at
the end of the second, and the beginning of the third, centuries, the
leaders of the Church endeavour to establish the authority of the four
more methodically arranged Gospels, so as to check the reception of
other Gospels, which were relied upon by heretics in their
controversies.
Strauss gives a careful _resume_ of the various theories of the
formation of the Gospels held by learned men, and shows how the mythic
theory was gradually developed and strengthened; "according to George,
_mythus_ is the creation of a fact out of an idea" ("Life of Jesus,"
Strauss, vol. i., p. 42; ed. 1846), and the mythic theory supposes that
the ideas of the Messiah were already in existence, and that the story
of the Gospels grew up by the translation of these ideas into facts:
"Many of the legends respecting him [Jesus] had not to be newly
invented; they already existed in the popular hope of the Messiah,
having been mostly derived, with various modifications, from the Old
Testament, and had merely to be transferred to Jesus, and accommodated
to his character and doctrines. In no case could it be easier for the
person who first added any new feature to the description of Jesus, to
believe himself its genuineness, since his argument would be: Such and
such things must have happened to the Messiah; Jesus was the Messiah;
therefore, such and such things happened to him" (Ibid, pp. 81, 82). "It
is not, however, to be imagined that any one individual seated himself
at his table to invent them out of his own head, and write them down as
he would a poem; on the contrary, these narratives, like all other
legends, were fashioned by degrees, by steps which can no longer be
traced; gradually acquired consistency, and at length received a fixed
form in our written Gospels" (Ibid, p. 35). From the considerations here
adduced--the lack of quotations from our Gospels in the earliest
Christian writers, both orthodox and heretical; the accusations against
each made by the other of introducing chants and modifications in the
Gospels; the facility with which MSS. were altered before the
introduction of printing; the coincidences between the Gospels, showing
that they are drawn from a common source; from all these facts we
finally conclude _that there is no evidence that the Four Gospels
mentioned about that date_ (A.D. 180) _were the same as those we have
now._
G. _That there is evidence that two of them were not the same._ "The
testimony of Papias is of great interest and importance in connection
with our inquiry, inasmuch as he is the first ecclesiastical writer who
mentions the tradition that Matthew and Mark composed written records of
the life and teaching of Jesus; but no question has been more
continuously contested than that of the identity of the works to which
he refers with our actual Canonical Gospels. Papias was Bishop of
Hierapolis, in Phrygia, in the first half of the second century, and is
said to have suffered martyrdom under Marcus Aurelius about A.D.
164-167. About the middle of the second century he wrote a work in five
books, entitled 'Exposition of the Lord's Oracles,' which, with the
exception of a few fragments preserved to us chiefly by Eusebius and
Irenæus, is unfortunately no longer extant. This work was less based on
written records of the teaching of Jesus than on that which Papias had
been able to collect from tradition, which he considered more authentic,
for, like his contemporary, Hegesippus, Papias avowedly prefers
tradition to any written works with which he was acquainted" ("Sup.
Rel.," vol. i., pp. 449, 450). Before giving the testimony attributed to
Papias, we must remark two or three points which will influence our
judgment concerning him. Paley speaks of him, on the authority of
Irenæus, as "a hearer of John, and companion of Polycarp" ("Evidences,"
p. 121); but Paley omits to tell us that Eusebius points out that
Irenæus was mistaken in this statement, and that Papias "by no means
asserts that he was a hearer and an eye-witness of the holy Apostles,
but informs us that he received the doctrines of faith from their
intimate friends" ("Eccles. Hist.", bk. iii., ch. 39). Eusebius subjoins
the passage from Papias, which states that "if I met with any one who
had been a follower of the elders anywhere, I made it a point to inquire
what were the declarations of the elders: what was said by Andrew,
Peter, or Philip; what by Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any other of
the disciples of our Lord; what was said by Aristion, and the Presbyter
John, disciples of the Lord" (Ibid). Seeing that Papias died between
A.D. 164 and 167, and that the disciples of Jesus were Jesus' own
contemporaries, any disciple that Papias heard, when a boy, would have
reached a portentous age, and, between the age of the disciple and the
youth of Papias, the reminiscences would probably be of a somewhat hazy
character. It is to Papias that we owe the wonderful account of the
vines (ante, p. 234) of the kingdom of God, given by Irenæus, who states
that "these things are borne witness to in writing by Papias, the hearer
of John, and a companion of Polycarp.... And he says, in addition, 'Now
these things are credible to believers.' And he says that 'when the
traitor, Judas, did not give credit to them, and put the question, How
then can things about to bring forth so abundantly be wrought by the
Lord? the Lord declared, They who shall come to these (times) shall
see'" ("Irenæus Against Heresies," bk. v., ch. 33, sec. 4). The
recollections of Papias scarcely seem valuable as to quality. Next we
note that Papias could scarcely put a very high value on the Apostolic
writings, since he states that "I do not think that I derived so much
benefit from books as from the living voice of those that are still
surviving" ("Eccles. Hist," bk. iii., ch. 39), i.e., of those who had
been followers of the Apostles. How this remark of Papias tallies with
the supposed respect shown to the Canonical Gospels by primitive
writers, it is for Christian apologists to explain. We then mark that we
have no writing of Papias to refer to that pretends to be original. We
have only passages, said to be taken from his writings, preserved in the
works of Irenæus and Eusebius, and neither of these ecclesiastical
penmen inspire the student with full confidence; even Eusebius mentions
him in doubtful fashion; "there are said to be five books of Papias;" he
gives "certain strange parables of our Lord and of his doctrine, and
some other matters rather too fabulous;" "he was very limited in his
comprehension, as is evident from his discourses" ("Eccles. Hist.," bk.
iii., ch. 39). We thus see that the evidence of Papias is discredited at
the very outset, perhaps to the advantage of the Christians, however,
for his testimony is fatal to the Canonical Gospels. Papias is said to
have written: "And John the Presbyter also said this: Mark being the
interpreter of Peter, whatsoever he recorded he wrote with great
accuracy, but not, however, in the order in which it was spoken or done
by our Lord, but as before said, he was in company with Peter, who gave
him such instruction as was necessary, but not to give a history of our
Lord's discourses; wherefore Mark has not erred in anything, by writing
some things as he has recorded them; for he was carefully attentive to
one thing, not to pass by anything that he heard, or to state anything
falsely in these accounts" ("Eccles. Hist.," bk iii., ch. 39). How far
does this account apply to the Gospel now known as "according to St.
Mark?" Far from showing traces of Petrine influence, such traces are
conspicuous by their absence. "Not only are some of the most important
episodes in which Peter is represented by the other Gospels _as_ a
principal actor altogether omitted, but throughout the Gospel there is
the total absence of anything which is specially characteristic of
Petrine influence and teaching. The argument that these omissions are
due to the modesty of Peter is quite untenable, for not only does
Irenæus, the most ancient authority on the point, state that this Gospel
was only written after the death of Peter, but also there is no modesty
in omitting passages of importance in the history of Jesus, simply
because Peter himself was in some way concerned in them, or, for
instance, in decreasing his penitence for such a denial of his master,
which could not but have filled a sad place in the Apostle's memory. On
the other hand, there is no adequate record of special matter which the
intimate knowledge of the doings and sayings of Jesus possessed by Peter
might have supplied to counterbalance the singular omissions. There is
infinitely more of the spirit of Peter in the first Gospel than there is
in the second. The whole internal evidence, therefore, shows that this
part of the tradition of the Presbyter John transmitted by Papias does
not apply to our Gospel" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., pp. 459, 460). But a far
stronger objection to the identity of the work spoken of by Papias with
the present Gospel of Mark, is drawn from the description of the
document as given by him. "The discrepancy, however, is still more
marked when we compare with our actual second Gospel the account of the
work of Mark, which Papias received from the Presbyter. Mark wrote down
from memory some parts [Greek: enia] of the teaching of Peter regarding
the life of Jesus, but as Peter adapted his instructions to the actual
circumstances [Greek: pros tas chreias] and did not give a consecutive
report [Greek: suntaxis] of the discourses or doings of Jesus, Mark was
only careful to be accurate, and did not trouble himself to arrange in
historical order [Greek: taxis] his narrative of the things which were
said or done by Jesus, but merely wrote down facts as he remembered
them. This description would lead us to expect a work composed of
fragmentary reminiscences of the teaching of Peter, without orderly
sequence or connection. The absence of orderly arrangement is the most
prominent feature in the description, and forms the burden of the whole.
Mark writes 'what he remembered;' 'he did not arrange in order the
things that were either said or done by Christ;' and then follow the
apologetic expressions of explanation--he was not himself a hearer or
follower of the Lord, but derived his information from the occasional
preaching of Peter, who did not attempt to give a consecutive narrative,
and, therefore, Mark was not wrong in merely writing things without
order as he happened to hear or remember them. Now it is impossible in
the work of Mark here described to recognise our present second Gospel,
which does not depart in any important degree from the order of the
other two Synoptics, and which, throughout, has the most evident
character of orderly arrangement.... The great majority of critics,
therefore, are agreed in concluding that the account of the Presbyter
John recorded by Papias does not apply to our second Canonical Gospel at
all" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. 1, pp. 460, 461). "This document, also, is
mentioned by Papias, as quoted by Eusebius; the account which they give
of it is not applicable to the work which we now have. For the 'Gospel
according to St. Mark' professes to give a continuous history of
Christ's life, as regularly as the other three Gospels, but the work
noticed by Papias is expressly stated to have been memoranda, taken down
from time to time as Peter delivered them, and it is not said that Mark
ever reduced these notes into the form of a more perfect history"
("Christian Records," Rev. Dr. Giles, pp. 94, 95). "It is difficult to
see in what respects Mark's Gospel is more loose and disjointed than
those of Matthew and Luke.... We are inclined to agree with those who
consider the expression [Greek: ou taxei] unsuitable to the present
Gospel of Mark. As far as we are able to understand the entire fragment,
it is most natural to consider John the Presbyter or Papias assigning a
sense to [Greek: ou taxei] which does not agree with the character of
the canonical document" ("Introduction to the New Testament," Dr.
Davidson, p. 158). This Christian commentator is so disgusted with the
conviction he honestly expresses as to the unsuitability of the phrase
in question as applied to Mark, that he exclaims: "We presume that John
the Presbyter was not infallible.... In the present instance, he appears
to have been mistaken in his opinion. His power of perception was
feeble, else he would have seen that the Gospel which he describes as
being written [Greek: ou taxei], does not differ materially in
arrangement from that of Luke. Like Papias, the Presbyter was apparently
destitute of critical ability and good judgment, else he could not have
entertained an idea so much at variance with fact" (Ibid, p. 159). We
may add, for what it is worth, that "according to the unanimous belief
of the early Church this Gospel was written at _Rome._ Hence the
conclusion was drawn that it must have been composed in _the language of
the Romans_; that is, Latin. Even in the old Syriac version, a remark is
annexed, stating that the writer preached the Gospel in Roman (Latin) at
Rome; and the Philoxenian version has a marginal annotation to the same
effect. The Syrian Churches seem to have entertained this opinion
generally, as may be inferred not only from these versions, but from
some of their most distinguished ecclesiastical writers, such as
Ebedjesu. Many Greek Manuscripts, too, have a similar remark regarding
the language of our Gospel, originally taken, perhaps from the Syriac"
(Ibid, pp. 154, 155). We conclude, then, that the document alluded to by
the Presbyter John, as reported by Papias through Eusebius, cannot be
identical with the present canonical Gospel of Mark. Nor is the
testimony regarding Matthew less conclusive: "Of Matthew he has stated
as follows: 'Matthew composed his history in the Hebrew dialect, and
every one translated it as he was able'" ("Eccles. Hist," Eusebius, bk.
iii., ch. 39). The word here translated "history" is [Greek: ta logia]
and would be more correctly rendered by "oracles" or "discourses," and
much controversy has arisen over this term, it being contended that
[Greek: logia] could not rightly be extended so as to include any
records of the life of Christ: "It is impossible upon any but arbitrary
grounds, and from a foregone conclusion, to maintain that a work
commencing with a detailed history of the birth and infancy of Jesus,
his genealogy, and the preaching of John the Baptist, and concluding
with an equally minute history of his betrayal, trial, crucifixion, and
resurrection, and which relates all the miracles, and has for its
evident aim throughout the demonstration that Messianic prophecy was
fulfilled in Jesus, could be entitled [Greek: ta logia] the oracles or
discourses of the Lord. For these and other reasons ... the majority of
critics deny that the work described by Papias can be the same as the
Gospel in our Canon bearing the name of Matthew" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i.,
pp. 471, 472). But the fact which puts the difference between the
present "Matthew" and that spoken of by Papias beyond dispute is that
Matthew, according to Papias, "wrote in the Hebrew dialect," i.e., the
Syro-Chaldaic, or Aramæan, while the canonical Matthew is written in
Greek. "There is no point, however, on which the testimony of the
Fathers is more invariable and complete than that the work of Matthew
was written in Hebrew or Aramaic" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., p. 475). This
industrious author quotes Papias, Irenæus, Pantænus in Eusebius,
Eusebius, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Jerome, in support of
his assertion, and remarks that "the same tradition is repeated by
Chrysostom, Augustine and others" (Ibid, pp. 475-477). "We believe that
Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, meaning by that term the common
language of the Jews of his time, because such is the uniform statement
of all ancient writers who advert to the subject. To pass over others
whose authority is of less weight, he is affirmed to have written in
Hebrew by Papias, Irenæus, Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome. Nor does any
ancient author advance a contrary opinion" ("Genuineness of the
Gospels," Norton, vol. i., pp. 196, 197). "Ancient historical testimony
is unanimous in declaring that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, i.e.,
in the Aramæan or Syro-Chaldaic language, at that time the vernacular
tongue of the Jews in Palestine" (Davidson's "Introduction to the New
Testament," p. 3). After a most elaborate presentation of the evidences,
the learned doctor says: "Let us now pause to consider this account of
the original Gospel of Matthew. It runs through all antiquity. None
doubted of its truth, as far as we can judge from their writings. There
is not the least trace of an opposite tradition" (Ibid, p. 37). The
difficulty of Christian apologists is, then, to prove that the Gospel
written by Matthew in Hebrew is the same as the Gospel according to
Matthew in Greek, and sore have been the shifts to which they have been
driven in the effort. Dean Alford, unable to deny that all the testimony
which could be relied upon to prove that Matthew wrote at all, also
proved that he wrote in Hebrew, and aware that an unauthorised
translation, which could not be identified with the original, could
never claim canonicity, fell back on the remarkable notion that he
himself translated his Hebrew Gospel into Greek; in the edition of his
Greek Testament published in 1859, however, he gives up this notion in
favour of the idea that the original Gospel of Matthew was written in
Greek.
Of his earlier theory of translation by Matthew, Davidson justly says:
"It is easy to perceive its gratuitous character. It is a clumsy
expedient, devised for the purpose of uniting two conflicting
opinions--for saving the credit of ancient testimony, which is on the
side of a Hebrew original, and of meeting, at the same time, the
difficulties supposed to arise from the early circulation of the
Greek.... The advocates of the double hypothesis go in the face of
ancient testimony. Besides, they believe that Matthew wrote in Hebrew,
for the use of Jewish converts. Do they also suppose his Greek Gospel to
have been intended for the same class? If so, the latter was plainly
unnecessary: one Gospel was sufficient for the same persons. Or do they
believe that the second edition of it was designed for Gentile
Christians? if so, the notion is contradicted by internal evidence,
which proves that it was written specially for Jews. In short, the
hypothesis is wholly untenable, and we are surprised that it should have
found so many advocates" ("Introduction to the New Testament," p. 52).
The fact is, that no one knows who was the translator--or, rather, the
writer--of the Greek Gospel. Jerome honestly says that it is not known
who translated it into Greek. Dr. Davidson has the following strange
remarks: "The author indeed must ever remain unknown; but whether he
were an apostle or not, he must have had the highest sanction in his
proceeding. His work was performed with the cognisance, and under the
eye of Apostolic men. The reception it met with proved the general
belief of his calling, and competency to the task. Divine
superintendence was exercised over him" (Ibid, pp. 72, 73). It is
difficult to understand how Dr. Davidson knows that divine
superintendence was exercised over an unknown individual. Dr. Giles
argues against the hypothesis that our Greek Gospel is a translation:
"If St. Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, why has the original
perished? The existing Greek text is either a translation of the Hebrew,
or it is a separate work. But it cannot be a translation, for many
reasons, 1. Because there is not the slightest evidence on record of its
being a translation. 2. Because it is unreasonable to believe that an
authentic work--written by inspiration--would perish, or be superseded
by, an unauthenticated translation--for all translations are less
authentic than their originals. 3. Because there are many features in
our present Gospel according to St. Matthew, which are common to the
Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke; which would lead to the inference that
the latter are translations also. Besides, there is nothing in the
Gospel of St. Matthew, as regards its style or construction, that would
lead to the inference of its being a translation, any more than all the
other books contained in the New Testament. For these reasons we
conclude that the 'Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew,' which perhaps no one
has seen since Pantænus, who brought it from India, and the 'Greek
Gospel according to St. Matthew,' are separate and independent works"
("Christian Records." Rev. Dr. Giles, pp. 93, 94). It must not be
forgotten that there was in existence in the early Church a Hebrew
Gospel which was widely spread, and much used. It was regarded by the
Ebionites, or Jewish Christians, later known as Nazarenes, as the only
authentic Gospel, and Epiphanius, writing in the fourth century, says:
"They have the Gospel of Matthew very complete; for it is well known
that this is preserved among them as it was first written in Hebrew"
("Opp.," i. 124, as quoted by Norton). But this Gospel, known as the
"Gospel according to the Hebrews," was not the same as the Greek "Gospel
according to St. Matthew." If it had been the same, Jerome would not
have thought it worth while to translate it; the quotations that he
makes from it are enough to prove to demonstration that the present
Gospel of Matthew is not that spoken of in the earliest days. "The
following positions are deducible from St. Jerome's writings: 1. The
authentic Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew. 2. The Gospel
according to the Hebrews was used by the Nazarenes and Ebionites. 3.
This Gospel was identical with the Aramæan original of Matthew"
(Davidson's "Introduction to the New Testament," p. 12). To these
arguments may be added the significant fact that the quotations in
Matthew from the Old Testament are taken from the Septuagint, and not
from the Hebrew version. The original Hebrew Gospel of Matthew would
surely not have contained quotations from the Greek translation, rather
than from the Hebrew original, of the Jewish Scriptures. If our present
Gospel is an accurate translation of the original Matthew, we must
believe that the Jewish Matthew, writing for Jews, did not use the
Hebrew Scriptures, with which his readers would be familiar, but went
out of his way to find the hated Septuagint, and re-translated it into
Hebrew. Thus we find that the boasted testimony said to be recorded by
Papias to the effect that Matthew and Mark wrote our two first
synoptical Gospels breaks down completely under examination, and that
instead of proving the authenticity of the present Gospels, it proves
directly the reverse, since the description there given of the writings
ascribed to Matthew and Mark is not applicable to the writings that now
bear their names, so that we find that in Papias _there is evidence that
two of the Gospels were not the same_.
H. _That there is evidence that the earlier records were not the Gospels
now esteemed Canonical._ This position is based on the undisputed fact
that the "Evangelical quotations" in early Christian writings differ
very widely from sentences of somewhat similar character in the
Canonical Gospels, and also from the circumstance that quotations not to
be found in the Canonical Gospels are found in the writings referred to.
Various theories are put forward, as we have already seen, to account
for the differences of expression and arrangement: the Fathers are said
to have quoted loosely, to have quoted from memory, to have combined,
expanded, condensed, at pleasure. To prove this general laxity of
quotation, Christian apologists rely much on what they assert is a
similar laxity shown in quoting from the Old Testament; and Mr. Sanday
has used this argument with considerable skill. But it does not follow
that variations in quotations from the Old Testament spring from laxity
and carelessness; they are generally quite as likely to spring from
multiplicity of versions, for we find Mr. Sanday himself saying that
"most of the quotations that we meet with are taken from the LXX.
Version; and the text of that version was, at this particular time
especially, uncertain and fluctuating. There is evidence to show that it
must have existed in several forms, which differed more or less from
that of the extant MSS. It would be rash, therefore, to conclude at
once, because we find a quotation differing from the present text of the
LXX., that it differed from that which was used by the writer making the
quotation" ("Gospels in the Second Century," pp. 16, 17). Besides, it
must not be forgotten that the variation is sometimes too persistent to
spring from looseness of quotation, and that the same variation is not
always confined to one author. The position for which we contend will be
most clearly appreciated by giving, at full length, one of the passages
most relied upon by Christian apologists; and we will take, as an
example of supposed quotation, the long passage in Clement, chap.
xiii.:--
MATTHEW. CLEMENT. LUKE.
Especially remembering
the word of the Lord Jesus
when he spake, teaching
gentleness and
long-suffering.
For this he said:
v. 7. Blessed are Pity he, that he may be vi. 36. Be ye,
the pitiful, for they pitied: forgive, that it therefore,
shall be pitied. may be forgiven unto merciful, as
vi. 14. For if ye you. your Father also
forgive men their As ye do, so shall it is merciful.
trespasses, your heavenly be done unto you; vi. 37. Acquit,
Father will as ye give, so shall it and ye shall be
also forgive you. be given unto you; as acquitted.
vii. 12. All things, ye judge, so shall it vi. 31. And as ye
therefore, whatsoever be judged unto you; would that they
ye would that as ye are kind, so should do unto
men should do unto shall kindness be you, do ye also
you, even so do ye shown unto you; with unto them
unto them. that measure ye mete, likewise.
vii. 2. For with with it shall it be vi. 18. Give, and
what judgment ye measured unto you. it shall be given
judge, ye shall be unto you.
judged, and with vi. 37. And judge
what measure ye not, and ye shall
mete it shall be not be judged. For
measured unto you. with what measure
ye mete, it shall
be measured unto
you again.
The English, as here given, represents as closely as possible both the
resemblances and the differences of the Greek text. What reader, in
reading this, can believe that Clement picked out a bit here and a bit
there from the Canonical Gospels, and then wove them into one connected
whole, which he forthwith represented as said thus by Christ? To the
unprejudiced student the hypothesis will, at once, suggest itself--there
must have been some other document current in Clement's time, which
contained the sayings of Christ, from which this quotation was made.
Only the exigencies of Christian apologetic work forbid the general
adoption of so simple and so natural a solution of the question. Mr.
Sanday says: "Doubtless light would be thrown upon the question if we
only knew what was the common original of the two Synoptic texts ... The
differences in these extra-Canonical quotations do not exceed the
differences between the Synoptic Gospels themselves; yet by far the
larger proportion of critics regard the resemblances in the Synoptics as
due to a common written source used either by all three or by two of
them" ("Gospels in the Second Century," p. 65). It is clear that Jesus
could not have said these passages in the words given by Matthew,
Clement, and Luke, repeating himself in three different forms, now
connectedly, now in fragments; two, at least, out of the three must give
an imperfect report. Mr. Sanday, by speaking of "the common original of
the two Synoptic texts," clearly shows that he does not regard the
Synoptic version as original, and thereby helps to buttress our
contention, that the Gospels we have now are not the only ones that were
current in the early Church, and that they had no exclusive
authority--in fact, that they were not "Canonical." Further on, Mr.
Sanday, referring to Polycarp, says: "I cannot but think that there has
been somewhere a written version different from our Gospels to which he
and Clement have had access ... It will be observed that all the
quotations refer either to the double or treble Synoptics, where we have
already proof of the existence of the saying in question in more than a
single form, and not to those portions that are peculiar to the
individual Evangelists. The author of 'Supernatural Religion' is,
therefore, not without reason when he says that they may be derived from
other collections than our actual Gospels. The possibility cannot be
excluded" ("Gospels in the Second Century," pp. 86, 87). The other
passage from Clement is yet more unlike anything in the Canonical
Gospels: in chap. xlvi. we read:--
MATTHEW. CLEMENT. LUKE. MARK.
xxvi. 24. He said: xvii. 1. xiv. 21. Woe to
Woe to that Woe to that man; Woe through that man by whom
man by whom well for him whom they the Son of man is
the Son of man that he had not (offences) delivered up, well
is delivered been born, than come. for him if that
up; well for that he should 2. It were man had not been
him if that offend one of my advantageous for born.
man had not elect; better him that a great ix. 42. And
been born. for him a millstone were whosoever shall
xviii. 6. But millstone should hanged around offend one of
whoso shall be attached (to his neck, and he these little ones
offend one of him), and he cast in the sea, which believe in
these little should be than that he me, it is well for
ones which drowned in the should offend him rather that a
believe in me, it sea, than that one of these great millstone
were profitable he should offend little ones. were hanged about
for him that a one of my little his neck, and he
great millstone ones. thrown in the sea.
were suspended
upon his
neck, and that
he were drowned
in the depth
of the sea.
"This quotation is clearly not from our Gospels, but is derived from a
different written source.... The slightest comparison of the passage
with our Gospels is sufficient to convince any unprejudiced mind that it
is neither a combination of texts, nor a quotation from memory. The
language throughout is markedly different, and, to present even a
superficial parallel, it is necessary to take a fragment of the
discourse of Jesus at the Last Supper, regarding the traitor who should
deliver him up (Matt. xxvi. 24), and join it to a fragment of his
remarks in connection with the little child whom he set in the midst
(xviii. 6)" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., pp. 233, 234).
In Polycarp a passage is found much resembling that given from Clement,
chap, xiii., but not exactly reproducing it, which is open to the same
criticism as that passed on Clement.
If we desire to prove that Gospels other than the Canonical were in use,
the proof lies ready to our hands. In chap. xlvi. of Clement we read:
"It is written, cleave to the holy, for they who cleave to them shall be
made holy." In chap. xliv.: "And our Apostles knew, through our Lord
Jesus Christ, that there would be contention regarding the office of the
episcopate." The author of "Supernatural Religion" gives us passages
somewhat resembling this. He said: "There shall be schisms and
heresies," from Justin Martyr ("Trypho," chap. xxxv): "There shall be,
as the Lord said, false apostles, false prophets, heresies, desires for
supremacy," from the "Clementine Homilies": "From these came the false
Christs, false prophets, false apostles, who divided the unity of the
Church," from Hegesippus (vol. i. p. 236).
In Barnabas we read, chap. vi.: "The Lord saith, He maketh a new
creation in the last times. The Lord saith, Behold I make the first as
the last." Chap. vii.: Jesus says: "Those who desire to behold me, and
to enter into my kingdom, must, through tribulation and suffering, lay
hold upon me."
In Ignatius we find: Ep. Phil., chap, vii.: "But the Spirit proclaimed,
saying these words: Do ye nothing without the Bishop." "There is,
however, one quotation, introduced as such, in this same Epistle, the
source of which Eusebius did not know, but which Origen refers to 'the
Preaching of Peter,' and Jerome seems to have found in the Nazarene
version of the 'Gospel according to the Hebrews.' This phrase is
attributed to our Lord when he appeared 'to those about Peter and said
to them, Handle me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit.' But
for the statement of Origen, that these words occurred in the 'Preaching
of Peter,' they might have been referred without much difficulty to Luke
xxiv. 39" ("Gospels in the Second Century," p. 81). And they most
certainly would have been so referred, and dire would have been
Christian wrath against those who refused to admit these words as a
proof of the canonicity of Luke's Gospel in the time of Ignatius.
If, turning to Justin Martyr, we take one or two passages resembling
other passages to be found in the Canonical, we shall then see the same
type of differences as we have already remarked in Clement. In the
fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of the first "Apology" we find a
collection of the sayings of Christ, most of which are to be read in the
Sermon on the Mount; in giving these Justin mentions no written work
from which he quotes. He says: "We consider it right, before giving you
the promised explanation, to cite a few precepts given by Christ
himself" ("Apology," chap. xiv). If these had been taken from Gospels
written by Apostles, is it conceivable that Justin would not have used
their authority to support himself?
MATTHEW. JUSTIN.
v. 46. For if ye should love And of our love to all, he
them which love you, what reward taught this: If ye love them
have ye? do not even the that love ye, what new things
publicans the same? do ye? for even fornicators do
this; but I say unto you: Pray
v. 44. But I say unto you, for your enemies, and love them
love your enemies, bless them which hate you, and bless them
which curse you, do good to which curse you, and offer
them which hate you, and pray prayer for them which
for them which despitefully use despitefully use you.
you and persecute you.
The corresponding passage in Luke is still further from Justin (Luke vi.
32-35). "It will be observed that here again Justin's Gospel reverses
the order in which the parallel passage is found in our synoptics. It
does so indeed, with a clearness of design which, even without the
actual peculiarities of diction and construction, would indicate a
special and different source. The passage varies throughout from our
Gospels, but Justin repeats the same phrases in the same order
elsewhere" ("Sup. Rel," v. i. p. 353, note 2).
MATTHEW. JUSTIN.
v. 42. Give thou to him that He said: Give ye to every one
asketh thee, and from him that that asketh, and from him that
would borrow of thee turn not desireth to borrow turn not ye
thou away. away: for if ye lend to them
from whom ye hope to receive,
Luke vi. 34. And if you lend what new thing do ye? for even
to them from whom ye hope to the publicans do this.
receive, what thank have ye; for
sinners also lend to sinners to But ye, lay not up for yourselves
receive as much again. upon the earth, where moth and
rust do corrupt, and robbers
Matt. vi. 19, 20. Lay not up for break through, but lay up for
yourselves treasures upon earth, yourselves in the heavens, where
where moth and rust doth corrupt, neither moth nor rust doth
and where thieves break corrupt.
through and steal. But lay up
for yourselves treasures in heaven, For what is a man profited, is he
where neither moth nor shall gain the whole world, but
rust doth corrupt, and where destroy his soul? or what shall he
thieves do not break through give in exchange for it? Lay up,
nor steal. therefore, in the heavens, where
neither most nor rust doth corrupt.
xvi. 26. For what shall a
man be profited if he shall gain
the whole world, but lose his
soul? or what shall a man give in
exchange for his soul?
This passage is clearly unbroken in Justin, and forms one connected
whole; to parallel it from the Synoptics we must go from Matthew v., 42,
to Luke vi., 34, then to Matthew vi., 19, 20, off to Matthew xvi. 26,
and back again to Matthew vi. 19; is such a method of quotation likely,
especially when we notice that Justin, in quoting passages on a given
subject (as at the beginning of chap. xv. on chastity), separates the
quotations by an emphatic "And," marking the quotation taken from
another place? These passages will show the student how necessary it is
that he should not accept a few words as proof of a quotation from a
synoptic, without reading the whole passage in which they occur. The
coincidence of half a dozen words is no quotation when the context is
different, and there is no break between the context and the words
relied upon. "It is absurd and most arbitrary to dissect a passage,
quoted by Justin as a consecutive and harmonious whole, and finding
parallels more or less approximate to its various phrases scattered up
and down distant parts of our Gospels, scarcely one of which is not
materially different from the reading of Justin, to assert that he is
quoting these Gospels freely from memory, altering, excising, combining,
and inter-weaving texts, and introverting their order, but nevertheless
making use of them and not of others. It is perfectly obvious that such
an assertion is nothing but the merest assumption" ("Sup. Rel.," vol.
i., p. 364). Mr. Sanday's conclusion as to Justin is: "The _à priori_
probabilities of the case, as well as the actual phenomena of Justin's
Gospel, alike tend to show that he did make use either mediately or
immediately of our Gospels, but that he did not assign to them an
exclusive authority, and that he probably made use along with them of
other documents no longer extant" ("Gospels in the Second Century," p.
117). It is needless to multiply analyses of quotations, as the system
applied to the two given above can be carried out for himself by the
student in other cases. But a far weightier proof remains that Justin's
"Memoirs of the Apostles" were not the Canonical Gospels; and that is,
that Justin used expressions, and mentions incidents which are _not_ to
be found in our Gospels, and some of which _are_ to be found in
Apocryphal Gospels. For instance, in the first "Apology," chap. xiii.,
we read: "We have been taught that the only honour that is worthy of him
is not to consume by fire what he has brought into being for our
sustenance, but to use it for ourselves and those who need, and with
gratitude to him to offer thanks by invocations and hymns for our
creation, and for all the means of health, and for the various qualities
of the different kinds of things, and for the changes of the seasons;
and to present before him petitions for our existing again in
incorruption through faith in him. Our teacher of these things is Jesus
Christ, who also was born for this purpose." "He has exhorted us to lead
all men, by patience and gentleness, from shame and the love of evil"
(Ibid, chap. xvi.). "For the foal of an ass stood _bound to a vine_"
(Ibid, chap. xxxii.). "The angel said to the _Virgin_, Thou shalt call
his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins" (chap.
xxxiii.). "They tormented him, and set him on the judgment seat, and
said, Judge us" (chap. xxxv.). "Our Lord Jesus Christ said, In
whatsoever things I shall take you, in these I shall judge you"
("Trypho," chapter xlviii.). These are only some out of the many
passages of which no resemblance is to be found in the Canonical
Gospels.
The best way to show the truth of Paley's contention--that "from
Justin's works, which are still extant, might be collected a tolerably
complete account of Christ's life, in all points agreeing with that
which is delivered in our Scriptures; taken indeed, in a great measure,
from those Scriptures, but still proving that this account and no other,
was the account known and extant in that age" ("Evidences," p. 77)--will
be to give the story from Justin, mentioning every notice of Christ in
his works, which gives anything of his supposed life, only omitting
passages relating solely to his teaching, such as those given above. The
large majority of these are taken from the "Dialogue with Trypho," a
wearisome production, in which Justin endeavours to convince a Jew that
Christ is the Messiah, by quotations from the Jewish Scriptures (which,
by the way, include Esdras, thus placing that book on a level with the
other inspired volumes). A noticeable peculiarity of this Dialogue is,
that any alleged incident in Christ's life is taken as true, not because
it is authenticated as historical, but simply because it was prophesied
of; Justin's Christ is, in fact, an ideal, composed out of the
prophecies of the Jews, and fitted on to a Jew named Jesus.
Christ was the offspring truly brought forth from the Father,
before the creation of anything else, the Word begotten of God,
before all his works, and he appeared before his birth,
sometimes as a flame of fire, sometimes as an angel, as at
Sodom, to Moses, to Joshua. He was called by Solomon, Wisdom;
and by the Prophets and by Christians, the King, the Eternal
Priest, God, Lord, Angel, Man, the Flower, the Stone, the
Cornerstone, the Rod, the Day, the East, the Glory, the Rock,
the Sword, Jacob, Israel, the Captain, the Son, the Helper, the
Redeemer. He was born into the World by the over-shadowing of
God the Holy Ghost, who is none other than the Word himself, and
produced without sexual union by a virgin of the seed of Jacob,
Judah, Phares, Jesse, and David, his birth being announced by an
angel, who told the Virgin to call his name Jesus, for he should
save his people from their sins. Joseph, the spouse of Mary,
desired to put her away, but was commanded in a vision not to
put away his wife, the angel telling him that what was in her
womb was of the Holy Ghost. At the first census taken in Judæa,
under Cyrenius, the first Roman Procurator, he left Nazareth
where he lived, and went to Bethlehem, to which he belonged, his
family being of the tribe of Judah, and then was ordered to
proceed to Egypt with Mary and the child, and remain there until
another revelation warned them to return to Judæa. At Bethlehem
Joseph could find no lodging in the village, so took up his
quarters in a cave near, where Christ was born and placed in a
manger. Here he was found by the Magi from Arabia, who had been
to Jerusalem inquiring what king was born there, they having
seen a star rise in heaven. They worshipped the child and gave
him gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and warned by a revelation,
went home without telling Herod where they had found the child.
So Herod, when Joseph, Mary, and the child had gone into Egypt,
as they were commanded, ordered the whole of the children then
in Bethlehem to be massacred. Archelaus succeeded Herod, and was
succeeded himself by another Herod. The child grew up like all
other men, and was a man without comeliness, and inglorious,
working as a carpenter, making ploughs and yokes, and when he
was thirty years of age, more or less, he went to Jordan to be
baptised by John, who was the herald of his approach. When he
stepped into the water a fire was kindled in the Jordan, and
when he came out of the water the Holy Ghost lighted on him like
a dove, and at the same instant a voice came from the heavens:
"Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee." He was tempted
by Satan, and of like passions with men; he was spotless and
sinless, and the blameless and righteous man; he made whole the
lame, the paralytic, and those born blind, and he raised the
dead; he was called, because of his mighty works, a magician,
and a deceiver of the people. He stood in the midst of his
brethren the Apostles, and when living with them sang praises
unto God. He changed the names of the sons of Zebedee to
Boanerges, and of another of the Apostles to Peter. He ordered
his acquaintance to bring him an ass, and the foal of an ass
which stood bound to a vine, and he mounted and rode into
Jerusalem. He overthrew the tables of the money-changers in the
temple. He gave us bread and wine in remembrance of his taking
our flesh and of shedding his blood. He took upon him the curses
of all, and by his stripes the human race is healed. On the day
in which he was to be crucified (elsewhere called the night
before) he took three disciples to the hill called Olivet, and
prayed; his sweat fell to the ground like drops, his heart and
also his bones trembling; men went to the Mount of Olives to
seize him; he was seized on the day of the Passover, and
crucified during the Passover; Pilate sent Jesus bound to Herod;
before Pilate he kept silence; they set Christ on the judgment
seat, and said: "Judge us;" he was crucified under Pontius
Pilate; his hands and feet were pierced; they cast lots for his
vesture, and divided it; they that saw him crucified, shook
their heads and mocked him, saying: "Let him who raised the dead
save himself." "He said he was the Son of God; let him come
down; let God save him." He gave up his spirit to the Father,
and after he was crucified all his acquaintance forsook him,
having denied him. He rose on the third day; he was crucified on
Friday, and rose on "the day of the Sun," and appeared to the
Apostles and taught them to read the prophecies, and they
repented of their flight, after they were persuaded by himself
that he had beforehand warned them of his sufferings, and that
these sufferings were prophesied of. They saw him ascend. The
rulers in heaven were commanded to admit the King of Glory, but
seeing him uncomely and dishonoured they asked, "Who is this
King of Glory?" God will keep Christ in heaven until he has
subdued his enemies the devils. He will return in glory, raise
the bodies of the dead, clothe the good with immortality, and
send the bad, endued with eternal sensibility into everlasting
fire. He has the everlasting kingdom.
These references to Jesus are scattered up and down through Justin's
writings, without any chronological order, a phrase here, a phrase
there; only in one or two instances are two or three things related even
in the same chapter. They are arranged here connectedly, as nearly as
possible in the usually accepted order, and the greatest care has been
taken not to omit any. It will be worth while to note the differences
between this and our Gospels, and also the allusions to other Gospels
which it contains. Christ is clearly subsequent in time to the Father,
being brought forth from him; he conceives himself, he being here
identified with the Holy Ghost; it is the _virgin_ who descends from
David, a fact of which there is no hint given in our Gospels; the reason
of the name Jesus is told to the Virgin instead of to Joseph; we hear
nothing of the shepherds and the glory of the Lord round the chanting
angels; Jesus is uncomely, and works making ploughs and yokes, of which,
we hear nothing in the Gospels; the fire at the baptism is not mentioned
in the Gospels, and the voice from heaven speaks in words not found in
them; he is called a magician, of which accusation we know nothing from
the four; the colt of the ass is tied to a vine, a circumstance omitted
in the canonical writings; it is no where said in the New Testament that
the bread at the Lord's supper is given in remembrance of _the
incarnation_, but, on the contrary, it is in remembrance of _the death_
of Christ; the crucifixion is not stated to have taken place during the
Passover, but on the contrary the Fourth Gospel places it before, the
others after, the Passover; we hear nothing of Christ set on the
judgment seat in the Gospels: the _vesture_ is not divided according to
John, who draws a distinction between the _vesture_ and the _raiment_
which is not recognised by Justin; the taunts of the crowd are
different; the denial of Christ by all the Apostles is uncanonical, as
is also their forsaking him _after_ the crucifixion; we do not hear of
the "day of the Sun" in our Gospels, nor of the rulers of heaven and
their reception of Christ. In fact, there are more points of divergence
than of coincidence between the details of the story of Jesus given by
Justin and that given in the Four Gospels, and yet Paley says that: "all
the references in Justin are made without mentioning the author; which
proves that these books were perfectly notorious, and that there were no
other accounts of Christ then extant, or, at least, no others so
received and credited, as to make it necessary to distinguish these from
the rest" ("Evidences," p. 123). And Paley has actually the hardihood to
state that what "seems extremely to be observed is, that in all Justin's
works, from which might be extracted almost a complete life of Christ,
there are but two instances in which he refers to anything as said or
done by Christ, which is not related concerning him in our present
Gospels; which shows that these Gospels, and these, we may say, alone,
were the authorities from which the Christians of that day drew the
information upon which they depended" (Ibid pp. 122, 123). Paley,
probably, never intended that a life of Christ should "be extracted"
from "all Justin's works." It is done above, and the reader may judge
for himself of Paley's truthfulness. One of the "two instances" is given
as follows: "The other, of a circumstance in Christ's baptism, namely, a
fiery or luminous appearance upon the water, which, according to
Epiphanius, is noticed in the Gospel of the Hebrews; and which might be
true; but which, whether true or false, is mentioned by Justin with a
plain mark of diminution when compared with what he quotes as resting
upon Scripture authority. The reader will advert to this distinction.
'And then, when Jesus came to the river Jordan, where John was
baptising, as Jesus descended into the water, a fire also was kindled in
Jordan; and when he came up out of the water, _the apostles of this our
Christ have written_, that the Holy Ghost lighted upon him as a dove'"
(Ibid, p. 123). The italics here are Paley's own. Now let the reader
turn to the passage itself, and he will find that Paley has deliberately
altered the construction of the phrases, in order to make a
"distinction" that Justin does not make, inserting the reference to the
apostles in a different place to that which it holds in Justin. Is it
credible that such duplicity passes to-day for argument? one can only
hope that the large majority of Christians who quote Paley are ignorant,
and are, therefore, unconscious of the untruthfulness of the apologist;
the passage quoted is taken from the "Dialogue with Trypho," chap. 88,
and runs as follows: "Then, when Jesus had gone to the river Jordan,
where John was baptising, and when he had stepped into the water, a fire
was kindled in the Jordan; and when he came out of the water, the Holy
Ghost lighted on him like a dove; the apostles of this very Christ of
ours wrote" [thus]. The phrase italicised by Paley concludes the
account, and if it refers to one part of the story, it refers to all;
thus the reader can see for himself that Justin makes no "mark of
diminution" of any kind, but gives the whole story, fire, Holy Ghost,
and all, as from the "Memoirs." The mockery of Christ on the cross is
worded differently in Justin and in the Gospels, and he distinctly says
that he quotes from the "Memoirs." "They spoke in mockery the words
which are recorded in the memoirs of his Apostles: 'He said he was the
Son of God; let him come down: let God save him'" ("Dial." chap. ci.).
If we turn to the Clementines, we find, in the same way, passages not to
be found in the Canonical Gospels. "And Peter said: We remember that our
Lord and Teacher, as commanding us, said: Keep the mysteries for me, and
the sons of my house" ("Hom." xix. chap. 20). "And Peter said: If,
therefore, of the Scriptures some are true and some are false, our
Teacher rightly said: 'Be ye good money-changers,' as in the Scriptures
there are some true sayings and some spurious" ("Hom." ii. chap. 51; see
also iii. chap. 50. and xviii. chap. 20). This saying of Christ is found
in many of the Fathers. "To those who think that God tempts, as the
Scriptures say he [Jesus] said: 'The tempter is the wicked one, who also
tempted himself'" ("Hom." iii. chap. 55).
Of the Clementine "Homilies" Mr. Sanday remarks, "several apocryphal
sayings, and some apocryphal details, are added. Thus the Clementine
writer calls John a 'Hemerobaptist,' _i.e.,_ member of a sect which
practised daily baptism. He talks about a rumour which became current in
the reign of Tiberius, about the 'vernal equinox,' that at the same time
a King should arise in Judæa who should work miracles, making the blind
to see, the lame to walk, healing every disease, including leprosy, and
raising the dead; in the incident of the Canaanite woman (whom, with
Mark, he calls a Syrophoenician) he adds her name, 'Justa,' and that of
her daughter 'Bernice.' He also limits the ministry of our Lord to one
year" ("Gospels in the Second Century," pp. 167, 168). But it is
needless to multiply such passages; three or four would be enough to
prove our position: whence were they drawn, if not from records
differing from the Gospels now received? We, therefore, conclude that in
the numerous Evangelical passages quoted by the Fathers, which are not
in the Canonical Gospels, we find _evidence that the earlier records
were not the Gospels now esteemed Canonical._
I. _That the books themselves show marks of their later origin._ We
should draw this conclusion from phrases scattered throughout the
Gospels, which show that the writers were ignorant of local customs,
habits, and laws, and therefore could not have been Jews contemporary
with Jesus at the date when he is alleged to have lived. We find a clear
instance of this ignorance in the mention made by Luke of the census
which is supposed to have brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem
immediately before the birth of Jesus. If Jesus was born at the time
alleged "the Roman census in question must have been made either under
Herod the Great, or at the commencement of the reign of Archelaus. This
is in the highest degree improbable, for in those countries which were
not reduced _in formam provinciæ_, but were governed by _regibus
sociis_, the taxes were levied by these princes, who paid a tribute to
the Romans; and this was the state of things in Judæa prior to the
deposition of Archelaus.... The Evangelist relieves us from a further
inquiry into this more or less historical or arbitrary combination by
adding that this taxing was first made when Cyrenius (Quirinus) _was
Governor of_ Syria [Greek: haegemoneuontos taes Surias Kuraeniou] for it
is an authenticated point that the assessment of Quirinus did not take
place either under Herod or early in the reign of Archelaus, the period
at which, according to Luke, Jesus was born. Quirinus was not at that
time Governor of Syria, a situation held during the last years of Herod
by Lentius Saturninus, and after him by Quintilius Varus; and it was not
till long after the death of Herod that Quirinus was appointed Governor
of Syria. That Quirinus undertook a census of Judæa we know certainly
from Josephus, who, however, remarks that he was sent to execute this
measure when Archelaus' country was laid to the province of Syria
(compare "Ant.," bk. xvii. ch. 13, sec. 5; bk. xviii. ch. 1, sec. 1;
"Wars of the Jews," bk. ii. ch. 8, sec. 1; and ch. 9, sec. 1) thus,
about ten years after the time at which, according to Matthew and Luke,
Jesus must have been born" (Strauss's "Life of Jesus," vol. i., pp.
202-204).
The confusion of dates, as given in Luke, proves that the writer was
ignorant of the internal history of Judæa and the neighbouring
provinces. The birth of Jesus, according to Luke, must have taken place
six months after the birth of John Baptist, and as John was born during
the reign of Herod, Jesus must also have been born under the same King,
or else at the commencement of the reign of Archelaus. Yet Luke says
that he was born during the census in Judæa, which, as we have seen just
above, took place ten years later. "The Evangelist, therefore, in order
to get a census, must have conceived the condition of things such as
they were after the deposition of Archelaus; but in order to get a
census extending to Galilee, he must have imagined the kingdom to have
continued undivided, as in the time of Herod the Great. [Strauss had
explained that the reduction of the kingdom of Archelaus into a Roman
province did not affect Galilee, which was still ruled by Herod Antipas
as an allied prince, and that a census taken by the Roman Governor
would, therefore, not extend to Galilee, and could not affect Joseph,
who, living at Nazareth, would be the subject of Herod. See, as
illustrative of this, Luke xxiii. 6, 7.] Thus he deals in manifest
contradictions; or, rather, he has an exceedingly sorry acquaintance
with the political relations of that period; for he extends the census
not only to the whole of Palestine, but also (which we must not forget)
to the whole Roman world" (Strauss's "Life of Jesus," vol. i., p. 206).
After quoting one of the passages of Josephus referred to above, Dr.
Giles says: "There can be little doubt that this is the mission of
Cyrenius which the Evangelist supposed to be the occasion of the visit
of Christ's parents to Bethlehem. But such an error betrays on the part
of the writer a great ignorance of the Jewish history, and of Jewish
politics; for, if Christ was born in the reign of Herod the Great, no
Roman census or enrolment could have taken place in the dominions of an
independent King. If, however, Christ was born in the year of the
census, not only Herod the Great, but Archelaus, also, his son, was
dead. Nay, by no possibility can the two events be brought together; for
even after the death of Archelaus, Judæa alone became a Roman province;
Galilee was still governed by Herod Antipas as an independent prince,
and Christ's parents would not have been required to go out of their own
country to Jerusalem, for the purpose of a census which did not comprise
their own country, Galilee. Besides which, it is notorious that the
Roman census was taken from house to house, at the residence of each,
and not at the birth-place or family rendezvous of each tribe"
("Christian Records," pp. 120, 121). Another "striking witness to the
late composition of the Gospels is furnished by expressions, denoting
ideas that could not have had any being in the time of Christ and his
disciples, but must have been developed afterwards, at a time when the
Christian religion was established on a broader and still increasing
basis" (Ibid, p. 169). Dr. Giles has collected many of these, and we
take them from his pages. In John i. 15, 16, we read: "John bare witness
of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh
after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. And of his
fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." At that time none
had received of the "fulness of Christ," and the saying in the mouth of
John Baptist is an anachronism. The word "cross" is several times used
symbolically by Christ, as expressing patience and self-denial; but
before his own crucifixion the expression would be incomprehensible, and
he would surely not select a phraseology his disciples could not
understand; "Bearing the cross" is a later phrase, common among
Christians. Matthew xi. 12, Jesus, speaking while John the Baptist is
still living, says: "From the days of John the Baptist until now"--an
expression that implies a lapse of time. The word "gospel" was not in
use among Christians before the end of the second century; yet we find
it in Matthew iv. 23, ix. 35, xxiv. 14, xxvi. 13; Mark i. 14, viii. 35,
x. 29, xiii. 10, xiv. 9; Luke ix. 6. The unclean spirit, or rather
spirits, who were sent into the swine (Mark v. 9, Luke viii. 30),
answered to the question, "What is thy name?" that his name was Legion.
"The Four Gospels are written in Greek, and the word 'legion' is Latin;
but in Galilee and Peraea the people spoke neither Latin nor Greek, but
Hebrew, or a dialect of it. The word 'legion' would be perfectly
unintelligible to the disciples of Christ, and to almost everybody in
the country" (Ibid, p. 197). The account of Matthew, that Jesus rode on
the ass _and_ the colt, to fulfil the prophecy, "Behold thy king cometh
unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass"
(xxi. 5. 7), shows that Matthew did not understand the Hebrew idiom,
which should be rendered "sitting upon an ass, even upon a colt, the
foal of an ass," and related an impossible riding feat to fulfil the
misunderstood prophecy. The whole trial scene shows ignorance of Roman
customs: the judge running in and out between accused and people,
offering to scourge him _and_ let him go--a course not consistent with
Roman justice; then presenting him to the people with a crown of thorns
and purple robe. The Roman administration would not condescend to a
procedure so unjust and so undignified. The mass of contradictions in
the Gospels, noticed under _k_, show that they could not have been
written by disciples possessing personal knowledge of the events
narrated; while the fact that they are written in Greek, as we shall see
below, under _j_, proves that they were not written by "unlearned and
ignorant" Jews, and were not contemporary records, penned by the
immediate followers of Jesus. From these facts we draw the conclusion.
_that the books themselves show marks of their later origin._
J. _That the language in which they are written is presumptive evidence
against their authenticity._ We are here dealing with the supposed
history of a Jewish prophet written by Jews, and yet we find it written
in Greek, a language not commonly known among the Jews, as we learn from
the testimony of Josephus: "I have so completely perfected the work I
proposed to myself to do, that no other person, whether he were a Jew or
a foreigner, had he ever so great an inclination to it, could so
accurately deliver these accounts to the Greeks as is done in these
books. For those of my own nation freely acknowledge that I far exceed
them in the learning belonging to the Jews. I have also taken a great
deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the
elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed
myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with
sufficient exactness; for our nation does not encourage those that learn
the languages of many nations ... on which account, as there have been
many who have done their endeavours with great patience to obtain this
learning, there have yet hardly been so many as two or three that have
succeeded therein, who were immediately well rewarded for their pains"
("Ant." bk. xx. ch. 11, sec 2). He further tells us that "I grew weary,
and went on slowly, it being a large subject, and a difficult thing to
translate our history into a foreign and, to us, unaccustomed language"
(Ibid, Preface). The chief reason, perhaps, for this general ignorance
of Greek was the barbarous aversion of the Rabbis to foreign literature.
"No one will be partaker of eternal life who reads foreign literature.
Execrable is he, as the swineherd, execrable alike, who teaches his son
the wisdom of the Greeks" (translated from Latin translation of Rabbi
Akiba, as given in note in Keim's "Jesus of Nazara," vol. i. p, 295). It
is noteworthy, also, that the Evangelists quote generally from the
Septuagint, and that loyal Jews would have avoided doing so, since "the
translation of the Bible into Greek had already been the cause of grief,
and even of hatred, in Jerusalem" (Ibid, p. 294). In the face of this we
are asked to believe that a Galilean fisherman, by the testimony of Acts
iv. 13, unlearned and ignorant, outstripped his whole nation, save the
"two or three that have succeeded" in learning Greek, and wrote a
philosophical and historical treatise in that language. Also that
Matthew, a publican, a member of the most degraded class of the Jews,
was equally learned, and published a history in the same tongue. Yet
these two marvels of erudition were unknown to Josephus, who expressly
states that the two or three who had learned Greek, were "immediately
well rewarded for their pains." The argument does not tell against Mark
and Luke, as no one knows anything about these two writers, and they may
have been Greeks, for anything we know to the contrary. If Mark,
however, is to be identified with John Mark, sister's son to Barnabas,
then it will lie also against him. Leaving aside the main difficulty,
pointed out above, it is grossly improbable, on the face of it, that
these Jewish writers should employ Greek, even if they knew it, instead
of their own tongue. They were writing the story of a Jew; why should
they translate all his sayings instead of writing them down as they fell
from his lips? Their work lay among the Jews. Eight years after the
death of Jesus they rebuked one of their number, Peter, who eat with
"men uncircumcised" (Acts xi. 3); nineteen years afterwards they still
went only "unto the circumcision" (Gal. ii. 9); twenty-seven years
afterwards they were still in Jerusalem, teaching Jews, and carefully
fulfilling the law (Acts xxi. 18-24); after this, we hear no more of
them, and they must all have been old men, not likely to then change the
Jewish habits of their lives. Besides, why should they do so? their
whole sphere of work was entirely Jewish, and, if they were educated
enough to write at all, they would surely write for the benefit of those
amongst whom they worked. The only parallel for so curious a phenomenon
as these Greek Gospels, written by ignorant Jews, would be found if a
Cornish fisherman and a low London attorney, both perfectly ignorant of
German, wrote in German the sayings and doings of a Middlesex carpenter,
and as their work was entirely confined to the lower classes of the
people, who knew nothing of German, and they desired to place within
their reach full knowledge of the carpenter's life, they circulated it
among them in German only, and never wrote anything about him in
English. The Greek text of the Gospels proves that they were written in
later times, when Christianity found its adherents among the Gentile
populations. It might, indeed, be fairly urged that the Greek text is a
suggestion that the creed did not originate in Judæa at all, but was the
offshoot of Gentile thought rather than of Jewish. However that may be,
the Greek text forbids us to believe that these Gospels were written by
the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus, and we conclude _that the language
in which they are written is presumptive evidence against their
authenticity_.
K. _That they are in themselves utterly unworthy of credit from (1) the
miracles with which they abound. (2) The numerous contradictions of each
by the others. (3) The fact that the story of the hero, the doctrines,
the miracles, were current long before the supposed dates of the
Gospels, so that these Gospels are simply a patchwork composed of older
materials._
(1) _The miracles with which they abound._ Paley asks: "Why should we
question the genuineness of these books? Is it for that they contain
accounts of supernatural events? I apprehend that this, at the bottom,
is the real, though secret cause of our hesitation about them; for, had
the writings, inscribed with the names of Matthew and John, related
nothing but ordinary history, there would have been no more doubt
whether these writings were theirs, than there is concerning the
acknowledged works of Josephus or Philo; that is, there would have been
no doubt at all" ("Evidences," pp. 105, 106). There is a certain amount
of truth in this argument. We _do_--openly, however, and not
secretly--doubt any and every book which is said to be a record of
miracles, written by an eye-witness of them; the more important the
contents of a book, the more keenly are its credentials scrutinised; the
more extraordinary the story it contains, the more carefully are its
evidences sifted. In dealing with Josephus, we examine his authenticity
before relying at all on his history; finding there is little doubt that
the book was written by him, we value it as the account of an apparently
careful writer. When we come to passages like one in "Wars of the Jews,"
bk. vi. ch. 5, sec. 3--which tells us among the portents which
forewarned the Jews of the fall of the temple: "A heifer, as she was led
by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst
of the temple"--we do _not_ believe it, any more than we believe that
the devils went into the swine. If such fables, instead of forming
excrescences here and there on the history of Josephus, which may be cut
off without injury to the main record, were so interwoven with the
history as to be part and parcel of it, so that no history would remain
if they were all taken away, then we should reject Josephus as a teller
of fables, and not a writer of history. If it were urged that Josephus
was an eye-witness, and recorded what he saw, then we should answer:
Either your history is not written by Josephus at all, but is falsely
assigned to him in order to give it the credit of being written by a
contemporary and an eye-witness; or else your Josephus is a charlatan,
who pretended to have seen miracles in order to increase his prestige.
If this supposed history of Josephus were widely spread and exercised
much influence over mankind, then its authenticity would be very
carefully examined and every weak point in the evidences for it tested,
just as the Gospels are to-day. We may add, that it is absurd to
parallel the Evangelists and Josephus, as though we knew of the one no
more than we do of the others. Josephus relates his own life, giving us
an account of his family, his childhood, and his education; he then
tells us of his travels, of all he did, and of the books he wrote, and
the books themselves bear his own announcement of his authorship; for
instance, we read: "I, Joseph, the son of Matthias, by birth an Hebrew,
a priest also, and one who at first fought against the Romans myself,
and was forced to be present at what was done afterwards, am the author
of this work" ("Wars of the Jews," Preface, sec. I). To which of the
Gospels is such an announcement prefixed? even in Luke, where the
historian writes a preface, it is not said: "I, Luke," and anonymous
writings must be of doubtful authenticity. Which of the Evangelists has
related for us his own life, so that we may judge of his opportunities
of knowing what he tells? To which of their histories is such external
testimony given as that of Tacitus to Josephus, in spite of the contempt
felt by the polished Roman towards the whole Jewish race? Nothing can be
more misleading than to speak of Josephus and of the Evangelists as
though their writings stood on the same level; every mark of
authenticity is present in the one; every mark of authenticity is absent
in the other.
We shall argue as against the miraculous accounts of the Gospels--first,
that the evidence is insufficient and far below the amount of evidence
brought in support of more modern miracles; secondly, that the power to
work miracles has been claimed by the Church all through her history,
and is still so claimed, and it is, therefore, impossible to mark any
period wherein miracles ceased; and, thirdly, that not only are
Christian miracles unproven, but that all miracles are impossible, as
well as useless if possible.
Paley, arguing for the truth of Christian miracles, _and of these only_,
endeavours to lay down canons which shall exclude all others. Thus, he
excludes: "I. Such accounts of supernatural events as are found only in
histories by some ages posterior to the transaction.... II. Accounts
published in one country of what passed in a distant country, without
any proof that such accounts were known or received at home.... III.
_Transient_ rumours.... IV. _Naked_ history (fragments, unconnected with
subsequent events dependent on the miracles).... V. In a certain way,
and to a certain degree, _particularity_, in names, dates, places,
circumstances, and in the order of events preceding or following.... VI.
Stories on which nothing depends, in which no interest is involved,
nothing is to be done or changed in consequence of believing them....
VII. Accounts which come merely _in affirmance_ of opinions already
formed.... It is not necessary to admit as a miracle, what can be
resolved into a _false perception_ (such miracles as healing the blind,
lame, etc., cannot be reduced under this head), ... or _imposture_ ...
or _tentative_ miracles (where, out of many attempts, one succeeds) ...
or _doubtful_ (possibly explainable as coincidence, or effect of
imagination) ... or exaggeration" ("Evidences," pp. 199-218). Paley then
criticises some miracles alleged by Hume, and argues against them. He
very fairly criticises and disposes of them, but fails to see that the
same style of argument would dispose of his Gospel ones. The Cardinal de
Retz sees, at a church in Saragossa, a man who lighted the lamps, and
the canons told him "that he had been several years at the gate with one
leg only. I saw him with two." Paley urges that "it nowhere appears that
he (the Cardinal) either examined the limb, or asked the patient, or
indeed any one, a single question about the matter" ("Evidences," page
224). Well argued, Dr. Paley; and in the man who sat outside the
beautiful gate of the Temple, who examined the limb, or questioned the
patient? Canons I. and II. exclude the Gospel miracles, unless the
Gospels are proved to be written by those whose names they bear, and
even then there is no proof that either Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John,
published their Gospels in Judæa, or that their accounts were "received
at home." The doubt and obscurity hanging over the origin of the Gospels
themselves, throws the like doubt and obscurity on all that they relate.
"Transient rumours," "false perception," "imposture," "doubtful," and
"exaggeration"--there is a door open to all these things in the slow and
gradual putting together of the collection of legends now known as "the
Gospels." We argue that the witness of the Gospels to the miracles
cannot be accepted until the Gospels themselves are authenticated, and
that the evidence in support of the miracles is, therefore,
insufficient. Strauss shows us very clearly how the miracles recorded in
the Gospels became ascribed to Jesus. "That the Jewish people in the
time of Jesus expected miracles from the Messiah is in itself natural,
since the Messiah was a second Moses, and the greatest of the prophets,
and to Moses and the prophets the national legend attributed miracles of
all kinds.... But not only was it pre-determined in the popular
expectation that the Messiah should work miracles in general--the
particular kinds of miracles which he was to perform were fixed, also in
accordance with Old Testament types and declarations. Moses dispensed
meat and drink to the people in a supernatural manner (Ex. xvi. xvii.):
the same was expected, as the rabbis explicitly say, from the Messiah.
At the prayer of Elisha, eyes were in one case closed, in another,
opened supernaturally (2 Kings vi.): the Messiah also was to open the
eyes of the blind. By this prophet and his master, even the dead had
been raised (1 Kings xvii; 2 Kings iv.); hence to the Messiah also power
over death could not be wanting. Among the prophecies, Is. xxxv, 5, 6
(comp. xlii. 7), was especially influential in forming this part of the
Messianic idea. It is here said of the Messianic times: Then shall the
eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then
shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall
sing" ("Life of Jesus," vol. ii., pp. 235, 236.) In dealing with the
alleged healing of the blind, Strauss remarks: "How should we represent
to ourselves the sudden restoration of vision to a blind eye by a word
or a touch? as purely miraculous and magical? That would be to give up
thinking on the subject. As magnetic? There is no precedent of magnetism
having influence over a disease of this nature. Or, lastly, as
psychical? But blindness is something so independent of the mental life,
so entirely corporeal, that the idea of its removal at all, still less
of its sudden removal by means of a mental operation, is not to be
entertained. We must, therefore, acknowledge that an historical
conception of these narratives is more than merely difficult to us; and
we proceed to inquire whether we cannot show it to be probable that
legends of this kind should arise unhistorically.... That these deeds of
Elisha were conceived, doubtless with reference to the passage of
Isaiah, as a real opening of the eyes of the blind, is proved by the
above rabbinical passage [stating that the Messiah would do all that in
ancient times had been done by the hands of the righteous, vol. i., p.
81, note], and hence cures of the blind were expected from the Messiah.
Now, if the Christian community, proceeding as it did from the bosom of
Judaism, held Jesus to be the Messianic personage, it must manifest the
tendency to ascribe to him every Messianic predicate, and, therefore,
the one in question" (Ibid, 292, 293).
Not only, then, are the miracles rendered doubtful by the dubious
character of the records in which they are found, but there is a clear
and reasonable explanation why we should expect to find them in any
history of a supposed Messiah. Christian apologists appear to have
overlooked the statement in the Gospels that Jesus objected to publicity
being given to his supposed miracles; the natural conclusion that
sceptics draw from this assertion, is that the miracles never took place
at all, and that the supposed modesty of Jesus is invented in order to
account for the ignorance of the people concerning the alleged marvels.
Judge Strange fairly remarks: "The appeal to miracles is a very
questionable resort. Now, as Jesus is repeatedly represented to have
exhorted those on whose behalf they were wrought to keep the matter
secret to themselves, and as when such signs, upon being asked for, were
refused to be accorded by him, and the desire to have them was repressed
as sinful, it is to be gathered, in spite of the sayings to the
contrary, that the writers were aware that there was no such public
sense of the occurrence of these marvels as must have attached to them
had they really been enacted, and we are left to the conclusion that
there were in fact no such demonstrations" ("The Portraiture and Mission
of Jesus," p. 23). Clearly, miracles are useless, as evidence, unless
they are publicly performed, and the secresy used by Jesus suggests
fraud rather than miraculous power, and savours of the conjuror rather
than of the "God." But, further, there is far stronger evidence for
later Church miracles than for those of Christ, or of the apostles, and
if evidence in support of miracles is good for anything, these more
modern miracles must command our belief. Eusebius relates the following
miracle of Narcissus, the thirtieth Bishop of Jerusalem, A.D. 180, as
one among many: "Whilst the deacons were keeping the vigils the oil
failed them; upon which all the people being very much dejected,
Narcissus commanded the men that managed the lights to draw water from a
neighbouring well, and to bring it to him. They having done it as soon
as said, Narcissus prayed over the water, and then commanded them, in a
firm faith in Christ, to pour it into the lamps. When they had also done
this, contrary to all natural expectation, by an extraordinary and
divine influence, the nature of the water was changed into the quality
of oil, and by most of the brethren a small quantity was preserved from
that time until our own, as a specimen of the wonder then performed"
("Eccles. Hist," bk. vi., chap. 9). St. Augustine bears personal witness
to more than one miracle which happened in his own presence, and gives a
long list of cures performed in his time. "One thing may be affirmed,
that nothing of importance is omitted, and in regard to essential
details they are as explicit as the mass of other cases reported. In
every instance names and addresses are stated, and it will have been
observed that all these miracles occurred in, or near to, Hippo, and in
his own diocese. It is very certain that in every case the fact of the
miracle is asserted in the most direct and positive terms" ("Sup. Rel.,"
vol. i., pp. 167, 168).
None can deny that miraculous powers have been claimed by Christian
Churches from the time of Christ down to the present day, and that there
is no break which can be pointed to as the date at which these powers
ceased. "From the first of the Fathers to the last of the Popes a
succession of bishops, of saints, and of martyrs, and of miracles, is
continued without interruption; and the progress of superstition was so
gradual, and almost imperceptible, that we know not in what particular
link we should break the chain of tradition. Every age bears testimony
to the wonderful events by which it was distinguished; and its testimony
appears no less weighty and respectable than that of the preceding
generation, till we are insensibly led on to accuse our own
inconsistency, if in the eighth or in the twelfth century we deny to the
venerable Bede, or to the holy Bernard, the same degree of confidence
which, in the second century, we had so liberally granted to Justin or
to Irenæus. If the truth of any of those miracles is appreciated by
their apparent use and propriety, every age had unbelievers to convince,
heretics to confute, and idolatrous nations to convert; and sufficient
motives might always be produced to justify the interposition of heaven.
And yet, since every friend to revelation is persuaded of the reality,
and every reasonable man is convinced of the cessation, of miraculous
powers, it is evident that there must have been _some period_ in which
they were either suddenly or gradually withdrawn from the Christian
Church. Whatever era is chosen for that purpose, the death of the
Apostles, the conversion of the Roman empire, or the extinction of the
Arian heresy, the insensibility of the Christians who lived at that time
will equally afford a just matter of surprise. They still supported
their pretensions after they had lost their power. Credulity performed
the office of faith; fanaticism was permitted to assume the language of
inspiration; and the effects of accident or contrivance were ascribed to
supernatural causes. The recent experience of genuine miracles should
have instructed the Christian world in the ways of Providence, and
habituated their eye (if we may use a very inadequate expression) to the
style of the Divine Artist" (Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. ii.,
chap, xv., p. 145). The miraculous powers were said to have been given
by Christ himself to his disciples. "These signs shall follow them that
believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with
mew tongues; they shall take up serpents; and, if they drink any deadly
thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and
they shall recover" (Mark xvi. 17, 18). This power is exercised by the
Apostles (see Acts throughout), by believers in the Churches (1 Cor.
xii. 9, 10; Gal. iii. 5; James v. 14, 15); at any rate, it was in force
in the time with which these books treat, according to the Christians.
Justus, surnamed Barsabas, drinks poison, and is unhurt (Eusebius, bk.
iii., chap. xxxix.). Polycarp's martyrdom, supposed to be in the next
generation, is accompanied by miracle (Epistle of Church of Smyrna;
Apostolical Fathers, p. 92; see ante, pp. 220, 221). At Hierapolis the
daughters of Philip the Apostle tell Papias how one was there raised
from the dead (Eusebius, bk. iii., ch. xxxix.). Justin Martyr pleads the
miracles worked in his own time in Rome itself (second "Apol.," ch.
vi.). Irenæus urges that the heretics cannot work miracles as can the
Catholics: "they can neither confer sight on the blind, nor hearing on
the deaf, nor chase away all sorts of demons ... nor can they cure the
weak, or the lame, or the paralytic" ("Against Heretics," bk. ii., ch.
xxxi., sec. 2). Tertullian encourages Christians to give up worldly
pleasures by reminding them of their grander powers: "what nobler than
to tread under foot the gods of the nations, to exorcise evil spirits,
to perform cures?" ("De Spectaculis," sec. 29). "Origen claims for
Christians the power still to expel demons, and to heal diseases, in the
name of Jesus; and he states that he had seen many persons so cured of
madness, and countless other evils" (quoted from "Origen against Celsus"
in "Sup. Rel.," vol. i., p. 154. A mass of evidence on this subject will
be found in chap. v. of this work, on "The Permanent Stream of
Miraculous Pretension"). St. Augustine's testimony has been already
referred to. St. Ambrose discovered the bones of SS. Gervasius and
Protasius; and "these relics were laid in the Faustinian Basilic, and
the next morning were translated into the Ambrosian Basilic; during
which translation a blind man, named Severus, a butcher by trade, was
cured by touching the bier on which the relics lay with a handkerchief,
and then applying it to his eyes. He had been blind several years, was
known to the whole city, and the miracle was performed before a
prodigious number of people; and is testified also by St. Austin
[Augustine], who was then at Milan, in three several parts of his works,
and by Paulinus in the Life of St. Ambrose" ("Lives of the Fathers,
Martyrs, etc.," by Rev. Alban Butler, vol. xii., pp. 1001, 1002; ed.
1838; published in two vols., each containing six vols.). The sacred
stigmata of St. Francis d'Assisi (died 1226) were seen and touched by
St. Bonaventure, Pope Alexander IV., Pope-Gregory IX., fifty friars,
many nuns, and innumerable crowds (Ibid, vol. x., pp. 582, 583). This
same saint underwent the operation of searing, and, "when the surgeon
was about to apply the searing-iron, the saint spoke to the fire,
saying: 'Brother fire, I beseech thee to burn me gently, that I may be
able to endure thee.' He was seared very deep, from the ear to the
eyebrow, but seemed to feel no pain at all" (Ibid, p. 575). The miracles
of St. Francis Xavier (died 1552) are borne witness to on all sides, and
resulted in the conversion of crowds of Indians; even so late as 1744,
when the Archbishop of Goa, by order of John V. of Portugal, attended by
the Viceroy, the Marquis of Castel Nuovo, visited the saint's relics,
"the body was found without the least bad smell," and had "not suffered
the least alteration, or symptom of corruption" (Ibid, vol. xii., p.
974). The chain of miracles extends right down to the present day. At
Lourdes, in this year (1876), the Virgin was crowned by the Cardinal
Archbishop of Paris in the presence of thirty-five prelates and one
hundred thousand people. During the mass performed at the Grotto by the
Nuncio, Madeleine Lancereau, of Poictiers, aged 61, known by a large
number of the pilgrims as having been unable to walk without crutches
for nineteen years, was radically cured. Here is a better authenticated
miracle than anyone in the Gospel story; yet no Protestant even cares to
investigate the matter, or believes its truth to be within the limits of
possibility. Thus we see that not a century has, passed since A.D. 30
which has not been thickly sown with miracles, and there is no reason
why we should believe in the miracles of the first century, and reject
those of the following eighteen; nor is the first century even "the
beginning of miracles," for before that date Jewish and Pagan miracles
are to be found in abundance. Why should Bible miracles be severed from
their relations all over the world, so that belief in them is
commendable faith, while belief in the rest is reprehensible credulity?
"The fact is, however, that the Gospel miracles were preceded and
accompanied by others of the same type; and we may here merely mention
exorcism of demons, and the miraculous cure of disease, as popular
instances; they were also followed by a long succession of others, quite
as well authenticated, whose occurrence only became less frequent in
proportion as the diffusion of knowledge dispelled popular credulity.
Even at the present day a stray miracle is from time to time reported in
outlying districts, where the ignorance and superstition which formerly
produced so abundant a growth of them are not yet entirely dispelled"
("Sup. Rel.," vol. i., p. 148). "Ignorance, and its invariable
attendant, superstition, have done more than mere love of the marvellous
to produce and perpetuate belief in miracles, and there cannot be any
doubt that the removal of ignorance always leads to the cessation of
miracles" (Ibid, p. 144).
Special objection has often been raised against one class of
miracles--common to the Gospels and to all miraculous narratives--which
has severely taxed the faith even of the Christians themselves--that
class, namely, which consists of the healing of those "possessed with
devils." Exorcism has always been a favourite kind of miracle, but, in
these days, very few believe in the possibility of possession, and the
language of the Evangelists on the subject has consequently given rise
to much trouble of mind. Prebendary Row, in a work on "The Supernatural
in the New Testament Possible, Credible, and Historical"--one of the
volumes issued by the Christian Evidence Society in answer to
"Supernatural Religion"--deals fully with this difficulty; it has been
urged that possession was simply a form of mania, and on this Mr. Row
say: "Now, on the assumption that possession was simple mania, and
nothing more, the following suppositions are the only possible ones.
First, that our Lord really distinguished between mania and possession;
but that the Evangelists have inaccurately reported his words and
actions, through the media of their own subjective impressions, or, in
short, have attributed to him language that he did not really utter.
Second, that our Lord knew that possession was a form of mania, and
adopted the current notions of the time in speaking of it, and that the
words were really uttered by him. Third, that with similar knowledge, he
adopted the language as part of the curative process. Fourth, that he
accepted the validity of the distinction, and that it was a real one
during those times" ("Supernatural in the New Testament," pp. 251, 252).
Mr. Row argues that: "If possession be mania, there is nothing in the
language which the Evangelists have attributed to our Lord which
compromises the truthfulness of his character. If, on the other hand, we
assume that possession was an objective fact, there is nothing in our
existing scientific knowledge of the human mind which proves that the
possessions of the New Testament were impossible" (Ibid). Mr. Row
rejects the first alternative, and accepts the accuracy of the Evangelic
records. But he considers that if possession were simply mania, Jesus,
knowing the nature of the disease, might reasonably use language suited
to the delusion, as most likely to effect a cure; he could not argue
with a maniac that he was under a delusion, but would rightly use
whatever method was best fitted to ensure recovery. If this idea be
rejected, and the reality of demoniacal possession maintained as most
consonant with the behaviour of Jesus, then Mr. Row argues that there is
no reason to consider it impossible that either good or evil spirits
should be able to influence man, and that psychological science does not
warrant us in a denial of the possibility of such influence.
The utter uselessness of miracles--supposing them to be possible--is
worthy of remembrance. They must not be accepted as proofs of a divine
mission, for false prophets can work them as well as true (Deut. xiii.,
1-5; Matt. xxiv., 24; 2 Thess. ii., 9; Rev. xiii., 13-15, etc.) and it
may be that God himself works them to deceive (Deut. xiii., 3). Satan
can work miracles to authenticate the false doctrines of his
emissaries, and there is no test whereby to distinguish the miracle
worked by God from the miracle worked by Satan. Hence a miracle is
utterly useless, for the credibility of a teacher rests on the morality
that he teaches, and if this is good, it is accepted without a miracle
to attest its goodness, so that the attesting miracle is superfluous. If
it is bad, it is rejected in spite of a miracle to attest its authority,
so that the attesting miracle is deceptive. The only use of a miracle
might be to attest a revelation of otherwise unknowable facts, which had
nothing to do with any moral teaching; and seeing that such revelation
could not be investigated, as it dealt with the unknowable, it would be
highly dangerous--and, perhaps, blasphemous--to accept it on the faith
of the miracle, for it might quite as likely be a revelation made by
Satan to injure, as by God to benefit, mankind. Allowing that God and
Satan exist, it would seem likely--judging Christianity by its
fruits--that the Christian religion is such a malevolent revelation of
the evil one.
The objection we raise is, however, of far wider scope than the
assertion of the lack of evidence for the New Testament miracles; it is
against all, and not only against Christian, miracles. "As far as the
impossibility of supernatural occurrences is concerned, Pantheism and
Atheism occupy precisely the same grounds. If either of them propounds a
true theory of the universe, any supernatural occurrence, which
necessarily implies a supernatural agent to bring it about, is
impossible, and the entire controversy as to whether miracles have ever
been actually performed is a foregone conclusion. Modern Atheism, while
it does not venture in categorical terms to affirm that no God exists,
definitely asserts that there is no evidence that there is one. It
follows that, if there is no evidence that there is a God, there can be
no evidence that a miracle ever has been performed, for the very idea of
a miracle implies the idea of a God to work one. If, therefore, Atheism
is true, all controversy about miracles is useless. They are simply
impossible, and to inquire whether an impossible event has happened is
absurd. To such a person the historical inquiry, as far as a miracle is
concerned, must be a foregone conclusion. It might have a little
interest as a matter of curiosity; but even if the most unequivocal
evidence could be adduced that an occurrence such as we call
supernatural had taken place, the utmost that it could prove would be
that some most extraordinary and abnormal fact had taken place in nature
of which we did not know the cause. But to prove a miracle to any person
who consistently denies that he has any evidence that any being exists
which is not a portion of and included in the material universe, or
developed out of it, is impossible" ("The Supernatural in the New
Testament," by Prebendary Row, pp. 14, 15). We maintain that Nature
includes _everything_, and that, therefore, the _supernatural_ is an
impossibility. Every new fact, however marvellous, must, therefore, be
within Nature; and while our ignorance may for awhile prevent us from
knowing in what category the newly-observed phenomenon should be
classed, it is none the less certain that wider knowledge will allot to
it its own place, and that more careful observation will reduce it under
law, i.e., within the observed sequence or concurrence of phenomena. The
natural, to the unthinking, coincides with their own knowledge, and
supernatural, to them, simply means super-known; therefore, in ignorant
ages, miracles are every-day occurrences, and as knowledge widens the
miraculous diminishes. The books of unscientific ages--that is, all
early literature--are full of miraculous events, and it may be taken as
an axiom of criticism that the miraculous is unhistorical.
(2). _The numerous contradictions of each by the others._--We shall here
only present a few of the most glaring contradictions in the Gospels,
leaving untouched a mass of minor discrepancies. We find the principal
of these when we compare the three synoptics with the Fourth Gospel, but
there are some irreconcilable differences even between the three. The
contradictory genealogies of Christ given in Matthew and Luke--farther
complicated, in part, by a third discordant genealogy in
Chronicles--have long been the despair of Christian harmonists. "On
comparing these lists, we find that between David and Christ there are
only two names which occur in both Matthew and Luke--those of Zorobabel
and of Joseph, the reputed father of Jesus. In tracing the list
downwards from David there would be less difficulty in explaining this,
at least, to a certain point, for Matthew follows the line of Solomon,
and Luke that of Nathan--both of whom were sons of David. But even in
the downward line, on reaching Salathiel, where the two genealogies
again come into contact, we find, to our astonishment, that in Luke he
is the son of Neri, whilst in Matthew his father's name is Jechonias.
From Zorobabel downwards, the lists are again divergent, until we reach
Joseph, who in St. Luke is placed as the son of Heli, whilst in St.
Matthew his father's name is Jacob" ("Christian Records," Dr. Giles, p.
101). According to Chronicles, Jotham is the great-great-grandson of
Ahaziah; according to Matthew, he is his son (admitting that the Ahaziah
of Chronicles is the Ozias of Matthew); according to Chronicles,
Jechonias is the grandson of Josiah, according to Matthew, he is his
son; according to Chronicles, Zorababel is the son of Pedaiah, according
to Matthew, he is the son of Salathiel, according to Luke, he is the son
of Neri; according to Chronicles, Zorobabel left eight children, but
neither Matthew's Abiud, nor Luke's Rhesa, are among them. The same
discordance is found when Matthew and Luke again touch each other in
Joseph, the husband of Mary; according to the one, Jacob begat Joseph,
according to the other, Joseph was the son of Heli. To crown the
absurdity of the whole, we are given two genealogies of Joseph, who is
no relation to Jesus at all, if the story of the virgin-birth be true,
while none is given of Mary, through whom alone Jesus is said to have
derived his humanity. We have, therefore, no genealogy at all of Jesus
in the Gospels. Various theories have been put forward to reconcile the
irreconcilable; some say that the genealogy in Luke is that of Mary, of
which supposition it is enough to remark that "Mary, the daughter of,"
can scarcely be indicated by "Joseph, the son of." It is also said that
Joseph was legally the son of Jacob, although naturally the son of Heli,
it being supposed that Jacob died childless, and that his brother Heli
according to the Levitical law, married the widow of Jacob; but here
Joseph's grand-fathers and great-grand-fathers should be the same, Heli
and Jacob being supposed to be brothers. Besides, if Joseph were legally
the son of Jacob, only the genealogy of Jacob should be given, since
that only would be Joseph's genealogy. No man can reckon his paternal
ancestry through two differing lines. To make matters in yet more
hopeless confusion, we find Chronicles giving twenty-two generations
where Matthew gives seventeen, and Luke twenty-three; while, from David
to Christ, Matthew reckons twenty-eight and Luke forty-three, a most
marvellous discrepancy.
"If we compare the genealogies of Matthew and Luke together, we become
aware of still more striking discrepancies. Some of these differences
indeed are unimportant, as the opposite direction of the two tables....
More important is the considerable difference in the number of
generations for equal periods, Luke having forty-one between David and
Jesus, whilst Matthew has only twenty-six. The main difficulty, however,
lies in this: that in some parts of the genealogy in Luke totally
different persons are made the ancestors of Jesus from those in Matthew.
It is true, both writers agree in deriving the lineage of Jesus through
Joseph from David and Abraham, and that the names of the individual
members of the series correspond from Abraham to David, as well as two
of the names in the subsequent portion: those of Salathiel and
Zorobabel. But the difficulty becomes desperate when we find that, with
these two exceptions about midway, the whole of the names from David to
the foster father of Jesus are totally different in Matthew and in Luke.
In Matthew the father of Joseph is called Jacob; in Luke, Heli. In
Matthew the son of David through whom Joseph descended from that King is
Solomon; in Luke, Nathan; and so on, the line descends, in Matthew,
through the race of known Kings; in Luke, through an unknown collateral
branch, coinciding only with respect to Salathiel and Zorobabel, whilst
they still differ in the names of the father of Salathiel and the son of
Zorobabel.... A consideration of the insurmountable difficulties, which
unavoidably embarrass every attempt to bring these two genealogies into
harmony with one another, will lead us to despair of reconciling them,
and will incline us to acknowledge, with the more free-thinking class of
critics, that they are mutually contradictory. Consequently, they cannot
both be true.... In fact, then, neither table has any advantage over the
other. If the one is unhistorical, so also is the other, since it is
very improbable that the genealogy of an obscure family like that of
Joseph, extending through so long a series of generations, should have
been preserved during all the confusion of the exile, and the disturbed
period that followed.... According to the prophecies, the Messiah could
only spring from David. When, therefore, a Galilean, whose lineage was
utterly unknown, and of whom consequently no one could prove that he was
not descended from David, had acquired the reputation of being the
Messiah; what more natural than that tradition should, under different
forms, have early ascribed to him a Davidical descent, and that
genealogical tables, corresponding with this tradition, should have been
formed? which, however, as they were constructed upon no certain data,
would necessarily exhibit such differences and contradictions as we find
actually existing between the genealogies in Matthew and in Luke" ("Life
of Jesus," by Strauss, vol. i., pp. 130, 131, and 137-139).
The accounts of the several angelic warnings to Mary and to Joseph
appear to be mutually exclusive. Most theologians, says Strauss,
"maintaining, and justly, that the silence of one Evangelist concerning
an event which is narrated by the other, is not a negation of the event,
they blend the two accounts together in the following manner: 1, the
angel makes known to Mary her approaching pregnancy (Luke); 2, she then
journeys to Elizabeth (the same Gospel); 3, after her return, her
situation being discovered, Joseph takes offence (Matthew); whereupon,
4, he likewise is visited by an angelic apparition (the same Gospel).
But this arrangement of the incidents is, as Schliermacher has already
remarked, full of difficulty; and it seems that what is related by one
Evangelist is not only pre-supposed, but excluded, by the other. For, in
the first place, the conduct of the angel who appears to Joseph is not
easily explained, if the same, or another, angel had previously appeared
to Mary. The angel (in Matthew) speaks altogether as if his
communication were the first in this affair. He neither refers to the
message previously received by Mary, nor reproaches Joseph because he
had not believed it; but, more than all, the informing Joseph of the
name of the expected child, and the giving him a full detail of the
reasons why he should be so called (Mat. i. 21), would have been wholly
superfluous had the angel (according to Luke i. 31) already indicated
this name to Mary. Still more incomprehensible is the conduct of the
betrothed parties, according to this arrangement of events. Had Mary
been visited by an angel, who had made known to her an approaching
supernatural pregnancy, would not the first impulse of a delicate woman
have been to hasten to impart to her betrothed the import of the divine
message, and by this means to anticipate the humiliating discovery of
her situation, and an injurious suspicion on the part of her affianced
husband? But exactly this discovery Mary allows Joseph to make from
others, and thus excites suspicion; for it is evident that the
expression [Greek: heurethae en gastri echousa] (Mat. i. 18) signifies a
discovery made independent of any communication on Mary's part, and it
is equally clear that in this manner only does Joseph obtain the
knowledge of her situation, since his conduct is represented as the
result of that discovery [Greek: (euriskesthai)]" ("Life of Jesus," v.
i., pp. 146, 147).
Strauss gives a curious list, showing the gradual growth of the myth
relating to the birth of Jesus (we may remark No. 3 is distinctly out of
place when referred to Olshausen: it should be referred to the early
Fathers, from whom Olshausen derived it):--
"1. Contemporaries of Jesus and composers of the genealogies: Joseph and
Mary man and wife--Jesus the offspring of their marriage.
"2. The age and authors of our histories of the birth of Jesus: Mary and
Joseph betrothed only; Joseph having no participation in the conception
of the child, and, previous to his birth, no conjugal connection with
Mary.
"3. Olshausen and others: subsequent to the birth of Jesus, Joseph,
though then the husband of Mary, relinquishes his matrimonial rights.
"4. Epiphanius, Protevangelium, Jacobi, and others: Joseph a decrepit
old man, no longer to be thought of as a husband; the children
attributed to him are of a former marriage. More especially it is not as
a bride and wife that he receives Mary; he takes her merely under his
guardianship.
"5. Protevang., Chrysostom, and others: Mary's virginity was not only
not destroyed by any subsequent births of children by Joseph, it was not
in the slightest degree impaired by the birth of Jesus.
"6. Jerome: Not Mary only, but Joseph also, observed an absolute
virginity, and the pretended brothers of Jesus were not his sons, hut
merely cousins to Jesus" ("Life of Jesus," vol. i., p. 188).
Thus we see how a myth gradually forms itself, bit after bit being added
to it, until the story is complete.
The account given by Luke of the meeting of Elizabeth and Mary is
clearly mythical, and not historical: "Apart from the intention of the
narrator, can it be thought natural that two friends visiting one
another should, even in the midst of the most extraordinary occurrences,
break forth into long hymns, and that their conversation should entirely
lose the character of dialogue, the natural form on such occasions? By a
supernatural influence alone could the minds of the two friends be
attuned to a state of elevation, so foreign to their every-day life. But
if indeed Mary's hymn is to be understood as the work of the Holy
Spirit, it is surprising that a speech emanating immediately from the
divine source of inspiration should not be more striking for its
originality, but should be so interlarded with reminiscences from the
Old Testament, borrowed from the song of praise spoken by the mother of
Samuel (1 Sam. ii) under analogous circumstances. Accordingly, we must
admit that the compilation of this hymn, consisting of recollections
from the Old Testament, was put together in a natural way; but allowing
its composition to have been perfectly natural, it cannot be ascribed to
the artless Mary, but to him who poetically wrought out the tradition in
circulation respecting the scene in question" ("Life of Jesus," by
Strauss, vol. i., pp. 196, 197).
The notes of time given for the birth of Christ are irreconcilable.
According to Matthew he is born in the reign of Herod the King:
according to Luke, he is born six months after John Baptist, whose birth
is referred to the reign of the same monarch; yet in Luke, he is also
born at the time of the census, which must have taken place at least ten
years later; thus Luke contradicts Matthew, and also contradicts
himself. The discrepancies surrounding the birth are not yet complete;
passing the curious differences between Matthew and Luke, Matthew
knowing nothing about the visit of the shepherds, and Luke nothing of
the visit of the Magi, and the consequent slaughter of the babes, we
come to a direct conflict between the Evangelists; Matthew informs us
that Joseph, Mary, and the child, fled into Egypt from Bethlehem to
avoid the wrath of King Herod, and that they were returning to Judæa,
when Joseph, hearing that Archelaus was ruling there, turned aside to
Galilee, and came and dwelt "in a city called Nazareth." Luke, on the
contrary, says that when the days of Mary's purification were
accomplished they took the child up to Jerusalem, and presented him in
the Temple, and then, after this, returned to Galilee, to "their own
city, Nazareth." Moreover, had Herod wanted to find him, he could have
taken him at the Temple, where his presentation caused much commotion.
In Matthew, the turning into Galilee is clearly a new thing; in Luke, it
is returning home; and in Luke there is no space of time wherein the
flight into Egypt can by any possibility be inserted. We may add a
wonder why Galilee was a safer residence than Judæa, since Antipas, its
ruler, was a son of Herod, and would, _primâ facie_, be as dangerous as
his brother Archelaus.
The conduct of Herod is incredible if we accept Matthew's account:
"Herod's first anxious question to the magi is to ascertain the time of
the appearance of the star. He 'inquires diligently' (ii. 7); and he
must have had a motive for so doing. What was this motive? Could he have
any other purpose than that of determining the age under which no
infants in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem should be allowed to live?
But, according to the narrative, Herod never conceived the idea of
slaughtering the children till he found that he had been 'mocked of the
wise men;' and the mythical nature of the story is betrayed by this
anticipation of motives which, at the time spoken of could have no
existence. Yet, further, Herod, who, though in a high degree cruel,
unjust, and unscrupulous, is represented as a man of no slight sagacity,
clearness of purpose, and strength of will, and who feels a deadly
jealousy of an infant whom he _knows_ to have been recently born in
Bethlehem, a place only a few miles distant from Jerusalem, is here
described not as sending his own emissaries privately to put him to
death, or despatching them with the Magi, or detaining the Magi at
Jerusalem, until he had ascertained the truth of their tale, and the
correctness of the answer of the priests and scribes, but as simply
suffering the Magi to go by themselves, at the same time charging them
to return with the information for which he had shown himself so
feverishly anxious. This strange conduct can be accounted for only on
the ground of a judicial blindness; but they who resort to such an
explanation must suppose that it was inflicted in order to save the
new-born Christ from the death thus threatened; and if they adopt this
hypothesis, they must further believe that this arrangement likewise
ensured the death of a large number of infants instead of one. A natural
reluctance to take up such a notion might prompt the question, Why were
the Magi brought to Jerusalem at all? If they knew that the star was the
star of Christ (ii. 2), and were by this knowledge conducted to
Jerusalem, why did it not suffice to guide them straight to Bethlehem,
and thus prevent the slaughter of the innocents? Why did the star desert
them after its first appearance, not to be seen again till they issued
from Jerusalem? or, if it did not desert them, why did they ask of Herod
and the priests the road which they should take, when, by the
hypothesis, the star was ready to guide?" ("The English Life of Jesus,"
by Thomas Scott, pp. 34, 35; ed. 1872). To these improbabilities must be
added the remarkable fact that Josephus, who gives a very detailed
history of Herod, entirely omits any hint of this stupendous crime.
The story of the temptation of Jesus is full of contradictions. Matthew
iv. 2, 3, implies that the first visit of the tempter was made _after_
the forty days' fast, while Mark and Luke speak of his being tempted for
forty days. According to Matthew, the angels came to him when the Devil
left him; but, according to Mark, they ministered to him throughout.
According to Matthew, the temptation to cast himself down is the second
trial, and the offer of the kingdoms of the world the third: in Luke the
order is reversed. In additions to these contradictions, we must note
the absurdity of the story. The Devil "set him on a pinnacle of the
temple." Did Jesus and the Devil go flying through the air together,
till the Devil put Jesus down? What did the people in the courts below
think of the Devil and a man standing on a point of the temple in the
full sight of Jerusalem? Did so unusual an occurrence cause no
astonishment in the city? Where is the high mountain from which Jesus
and the Devil saw all round the globe? Is it true that the Devil gives
power to whom he will? If so, why is it said that the powers are
"ordained of God"?
Another "discrepancy, concerning the denial of Christ by Peter,
furnishes a still stronger proof that these records have not come down
to us with the exactness of a contemporary character, much less with the
authority of inspiration. The four accounts of Peter's denial vary
considerably. The variations will be more intelligible, exhibited in a
tabular form" (Giles' "Christian Records," p. 228). We present the
table, slightly altered in arrangement, and corrected in some details:--
MATTHEW. MARK. LUKE. JOHN.
1st. Seated without Beneath in In the On entering
in the the palace, by midst of the to the
palace, to a the fire, to a hall where damsel that
damsel. maid. Jesus was kept the
being tried, door.
seated by
the fire, to a
maid.
2nd. Out in the Out in the Still in the In the hall,
porch, having porch, having hall, in standing by
left the room, left the room, answer to a the fire, in
in answer to in answer to man. answer to the
a second a second bystanders.
maid. maid.
3rd. Out in the Out in the Still in the Still in the
porch, to the porch, to the hall, to a man. hall, to a
bystanders. bystanders. man.
In addition to these discrepancies, we find that Jesus prophesies that
Peter shall deny him thrice "before the cock crow," while in Mark the
cock crows immediately after the first denial: in Luke, Jesus and Peter
remain throughout the scene of the denial in the same hall, so that the
Lord may turn and look upon Peter; while Matthew and Mark place him
"beneath" or "without," and make the third denial take place in the
porch outside--a place where Jesus, by the context, certainly could not
see him.
How long did the ministry of Jesus last? Luke places his baptism in the
fifteenth year of Tiberius (iii. 1), and he might have been crucified
under Pontius Pilate at any time within the seven years following. The
Synoptics mention but one Passover, and at that Jesus was crucified,
thus limiting his ministry to one year, unless he broke the Mosaic law,
and disregarded the feast; clearly his triumphal entry into Jerusalem is
his first visit there in his manhood, since we find all the city moved
and the people asking: "Who is this? And the multitude said, This is
Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth of Galilee" (Matt. xxi. 10, 11). His
person would have been well known, had he visited Jerusalem before and
worked miracles there. If, however, we turn to the Fourth Gospel, his
ministry must extend over at least two years. According to Irenæus, he
"did not want much of being fifty years old" when the Jews disputed with
him ("Against Heresies," bk. ii., ch. 22, sec. 6), and he taught for
nearly twenty years. Dr. Giles remarks that "the first three Gospels
plainly exhibit the events of only one year; to prove them erroneous or
defective in so important a feature as this, would be to detract greatly
from their value" ("Christian Records," p. 112). "According to the first
three Gospels, Christ's public life lasted only one year, at the end of
which he went up to Jerusalem and was crucified" (Ibid, p. 11). "Would
this questioning [on the triumphal entry] have taken place if Jesus had
often made visits to Jerusalem, and been well known there? The multitude
who answered the question, and who knew Jesus, consisted of those 'who
had come to the feast,'--St. John indicates this [xii. 12]--but the
people of Jerusalem knew him not, and, therefore, asked 'Who is this?'"
(Ibid, p. 113). The fact is, that we know nothing certainly as to the
birth, life, death, of this supposed Christ. His story is one tissue of
contradictions. It is impossible to believe that the Synoptics and the
fourth Gospel are even telling the history of the same person. The
discourses of Jesus in the Synoptics are simple, although parabolical;
in the Fourth they are mystical, and are being continually misunderstood
by the people. The historical divergences are marked. The fourth Gospel
"tells us (ch. 1) that at the beginning of his ministry Jesus was at
Bethabara, a town near the junction of the Jordan with the Dead Sea;
here he gains three disciples, Andrew and another, and then Simon Peter:
the next day he goes into Galilee and finds Philip and Nathanael, and on
the following day--somewhat rapid travelling--he is present, with these
disciples, at Cana, where he performs his first miracle, going
afterwards with them to Capernaum and Jerusalem. At Jerusalem, whither
he goes for 'the Jews' passover,' he drives out the traders from the
temple and remarks, 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise
it up:' which remark causes the first of the strange misunderstandings
between Jesus and the Jews peculiar to this Gospel, simple
misconceptions which Jesus never troubles himself to set right. Jesus
and his disciples then go to the Jordan, baptising, whence Jesus departs
into Galilee with them, because he hears that the Pharisees know he is
becoming more popular than the Baptist (ch. iv., 1, 3). All this happens
before John is cast into prison, an occurrence which is a convenient
note of time. We turn to the beginning of the ministry of Jesus as
related by the three. Jesus is in the south of Palestine, but, hearing
that John is cast into prison, he departs into Galilee, and resides at
Capernaum. There is no mention of any ministry in Galilee and Judæa
before this; on the contrary, it is only 'from that time' that 'Jesus
_began_ to preach.' He is alone, without disciples, but, walking by the
sea, he comes upon Peter, Andrew, James, and John, and calls them. Now
if the fourth Gospel is true, these men had joined him in Judæa,
followed him to Galilee, south again to Jerusalem, and back to Galilee,
had seen his miracles and acknowledged him as Christ, so it seems
strange that they had deserted him and needed a second call, and yet
more strange is it that Peter (Luke v. 1-11) was so astonished and
amazed at the miracle of the fishes. The driving out of the traders from
the temple is placed by the Synoptics at the very end of his ministry,
and the remark following it is used against him at his trial: so was
probably made just before it. The next point of contact is the history
of the 5,000 fed by five loaves (ch. vi.); the preceding chapter relates
to a visit to Jerusalem unnoticed by the three: indeed, the histories
seem written of two men, one the 'prophet of Galilee' teaching in its
cities, the other concentrating his energies on Jerusalem. The account
of the miraculous feeding is alike in all: not so the succeeding account
of the multitude. In the fourth Gospel, Jesus and the crowd fall to
disputing, as usual, and he loses many disciples: among the three, Luke
says nothing of the immediately following events, while Matthew and Mark
tell us that the multitudes--as would be natural--crowded round him to
touch even the hem of his garment. This is the same as always: in the
three the crowd loves him; in the fourth it carps at and argues with
him. We must again miss the sojourn of Jesus in Galilee according to the
three, and his visit to Jerusalem according to the one, and pass to his
entry into Jerusalem in triumph. Here we notice a most remarkable
divergence: the Synoptics tell us that he was going up to Jerusalem from
Galilee, and, arriving on his way at Bethphage, he sent for an ass and
rode thereon into Jerusalem: the fourth Gospel relates that he was
dwelling at Jerusalem, and leaving it, for fear of the Jews, he retired,
not into Galilee, but 'beyond Jordan, into a place where John at first
baptised,' i.e., Bethabara, 'and _there he abode_.' From thence he went
to Bethany and raised to life a putrefying corpse: this stupendous
miracle is never appealed to by the earlier historians in proof of their
master's greatness, though 'much people of the Jews' are said to have
seen Lazarus after his resurrection; this miracle is also given as the
reason for the active hostility of the priests, 'from that day forward.'
Jesus then retires to Ephraim near the wilderness, from which town he
goes to Bethany, and thence in triumph to Jerusalem, being met by the
people 'for that they heard that he had done this miracle.' The two
accounts have absolutely nothing in common except the entry into
Jerusalem, and the preceding events of the Synoptics exclude those of
the fourth Gospel, as does the latter theirs. If Jesus abode in
Bethabara and Ephraim, he could not have come from Galilee; if he
started from Galilee, he was not abiding in the south. John xiii.-xvii.
stand alone, with the exception of the mention of the traitor. On the
arrest of Jesus, he is led (ch. xviii. 13) to Annas, who sends him to
Caiaphas, while the others send him direct to Caiaphas, but this is
immaterial. He is then taken to Pilate: the Jews do not enter the
judgment-hall, lest, being defiled, they could not eat the passover, a
feast which, according to the Synoptics, was over, Jesus and his
disciples having eaten it the night before. Jesus is exposed to the
people at the sixth hour (ch. xix. 14), while Mark tells us he was
crucified three hours before--at the third hour--a note of time which
agrees with the others, since they all relate that there was darkness
from the sixth to the ninth hour, i.e., there was thick darkness at the
time when, 'according to St. John,' Jesus was exposed. Here our
evangelist is in hopeless conflict with the three. The accounts about
the resurrection are irreconcilable in all the Gospels, and mutually
destructive. It remains to notice, among these discrepancies, one or two
points which did not come in conveniently in the course of the
narrative. During the whole of the fourth Gospel, we find Jesus
constantly arguing for his right to the title of Messiah. Andrew speaks
of him as such (i. 41); the Samaritans acknowledge him (iv. 42); Peter
owns him (vi. 69); the people call him so (vii. 26, 31, 41); Jesus
claims it (viii. 24); it is the subject of a law (ix. 22); Jesus speaks
of it as already claimed by him (x. 24, 25); Martha recognises it (xi.
27). We thus find that, from the very first, this title is openly
claimed by Jesus, and his right to it openly canvassed by the Jews.
But--in the three--the disciples acknowledge him as Christ, and he
charges them to 'tell _no man_ that he was Jesus the Christ" (Matt. xvi.
20; Mark viii. 29, 30; Luke ix. 20, 21); and this in the same year that
he blames the Jews for not owning this Messiahship, since he had told
them who he was 'from the beginning' (ch. viii. 24, 25): so that, if
'John' was right, we fail to see the object of all the mystery about it,
related by the Synoptics. We mark, too, how Peter is, in their account,
praised for confessing him, for flesh and blood had not revealed it to
him, while in the fourth Gospel, 'flesh and blood,' in the person of
Andrew, reveal to Peter that the Christ is found; and there seems little
praise due to Peter for a confession which had been made two or three
years earlier by Andrew, Nathanael, John Baptist, and the Samaritans.
Contradiction can scarcely be more direct. In John vii. Jesus owns that
the Jews know his birthplace (28), and they state (41, 42) that he comes
from Galilee, while Christ should be born at Bethlehem. Matthew and Luke
distinctly say Jesus was born at Bethlehem; but here Jesus confesses the
right knowledge of those who attribute his birthplace to Galilee,
instead of setting their difficulty at rest by explaining that though
brought up at Nazareth he was born in Bethlehem. But our writer was
apparently ignorant of their accounts ("According to St John," by Annie
Besant. Scott Series, pp. 11-14, ed. 1873). These are but a few of the
contradictions in the Gospels, which compel us to reject them as
historical narratives.
(3) _The fact that the story of the hero, the doctrines, the miracles,
were current long before the supposed dates of the Gospels_, etc. There
are two mythical theories as to the growth of the story of Jesus, which
demand our attention; the first, that of which Strauss is the best known
exponent, which acknowledges the historical existence of Jesus, but
regards him as the figure round which has grown a mythus, moulded by the
Messianic expectations of the Jews: the second, which is indifferent to
his historical existence, and regards him as a new hero of the ancient
sun-worship, the successor of Mithra, Krishna, Osiris, Bacchus, etc. To
this school, it matters not whether there was a Jesus of Nazareth or
not, just as it matters not whether a Krishna or an Osiris had an
historical existence or not; it is _Christ_, the Sun-god, not _Jesus_,
the Jewish peasant, whom they find worshipped in Christendom, and who
is, therefore, the object of their interest.
According to the first theory, whatever was expected of the Messiah has
been attributed to Jesus. "When not merely the particular nature and
manner of an occurrence is critically suspicious, its external
circumstances represented as miraculous and the like; but where likewise
the essential substance and groundwork is either inconceivable in
itself, or is in striking harmony with some Messianic idea of the Jews
of that age, then not the particular alleged course and mode of the
transaction only, but the entire occurrence must be regarded as
unhistorical" (Strauss' "Life of Jesus," vol. i., p. 94). The mythic
theory accepts an historical groundwork for many of the stories about
Jesus, but it does not seek to explain the miraculous by attenuating it
into the natural--as by explaining the story of the transfiguration to
have been developed from the fact of Jesus meeting secretly two men, and
from the brilliancy of the sunlight dazzling the eyes of the
disciples--but it attributes the incredible portions of the history to
the Messianic theories current among the Jews. The Messiah would do this
and that; Jesus was the Messiah; therefore, Jesus did this and
that--such, argue the supporters of the mythical theory, was the method
in which the mythus was developed. The theory finds some support in the
peculiar attitude of Justin Martyr, for instance, who believes a number
of things about Jesus, not because the things are thus recorded of him
in history, but because the prophets stated that such things should
happen to the Messiah. Thus, Jesus is descended from David, because the
Messiah was to come of David's lineage. His birth is announced by an
angelic visitant, because the birth of the Messiah must not be less
honoured than that of Isaac or of Samson; he is born of a virgin,
because God says of the Messiah, "this day have _I_ begotten thee,"
implying the direct paternity of God, and because the prophecy in Is.
vii. 14 was applied to the Messiah by the later Jews (see Septuagint
translation, [Greek: parthenos], _a pure virgin_, while the Hebrew word
[Hebrew: almah] signifies a young woman; the Hebrew word for virgin
[Hebrew: betulah] not being used in the text of Isaiah), the ideas of
"son of God" and "son of a virgin" completing each other; born at
Bethlehem, because there the Messiah was to be born (Micah v. 1);
announced to shepherds, because Moses was visited among the flocks, and
David taken from the sheepfolds at Bethlehem; heralded by a star,
because a star should arise out of Jacob (Num. xxiv. 17), and "the
Gentiles shall come to thy light" (Is. lx. 3); worshipped by magi,
because the star was seen by Balaam, the magus, and astrologers would be
those who would most notice a star; presented with gifts by these
Eastern sages, because kings of Arabia and Saba shall offer gifts (Ps.
lxxii. 10); saved from the destruction of the infants by a jealous king,
because Moses, one of the great types of the Messiah, was so saved;
flying into Egypt and thence returning, because Israel, again a type of
the Messiah, so fled and returned, and "out of Egypt have I called my
son" (Hos. xi. 1); at twelve years of age found in the temple, because
the duties of the law devolved on the Jewish boy at that age, and where
should the Messiah then be found save in his Father's temple? recognised
at his baptism by a divine voice, to fulfil Is. xlii. 1; hovered over by
a dove, because the brooding Spirit (Gen. i. 2) was regarded as
dove-like, and the Spirit was to be especially poured on the Messiah
(Is. xlii. 1); tempted by the devil to test him, because God tested his
greatest servants, and would surely test the Messiah; fasting forty days
in the wilderness, because the types of the Messiah--Moses and
Elijah--thus fasted in the desert; healing all manner of disease,
because Messiah was to heal (Is. xxxv. 5, 6); preaching, because Messiah
was to preach (Is. lxi. 1, 2); crucified, because the hands and feet of
Messiah were to be pierced (Ps. xxii. 16); mocked, because Messiah was
to be mocked (Ibid 6-8); his garments divided, because thus it was
spoken of Messiah (Ibid, 18); silent before his judges, because Messiah
was not to open his mouth (Is. liii. 7); buried by the rich, because
Messiah was thus to find his grave (Ib. 9); rising again, because
Messiah's could not be left in hell (Ps. xvi. 10); sitting at God's
right hand, because there Messiah was to sit as king (Ps. cx. 1). Thus
the form of the Messiah was cast, and all that had to be done was to
pour in the human metal; those who alleged that the Messiah had come in
the person of Jesus of Nazareth, adapted his story to the story of the
Messiah, pouring the history of Jesus into the mould already made for
the Messiah, and thus the mythus was transformed into a history.
This theory is much strengthened by a study of the prophecies quoted in
the New Testament, since we find that they are very badly "set;" take as
a specimen those referred to in Matthew i. and ii. "Now all this was
done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the
prophet, saying, Behold a virgin shall be with child," etc (i. 22, 23).
If we refer to Is. vii., from whence the prophecy is taken, we shall see
the wresting of the passage which is necessary to make it into a
"Messianic prophecy." Ahaz, king of Judah, is hard pressed by the kings
of Samaria and Syria, and he is promised deliverance by the Lord, before
the virgin's son, Immanuel, should be of an age to discern between good
and evil. How Ahaz could be given as a sign of a birth which was not to
take place until more than 700 years afterwards, it is hard to say, nor
can we believe that Ahaz was not delivered from his enemies until Jesus
was old enough to know right from wrong. According to the Gospels, the
name "Immanuel" was never given to Jesus, and in the prophecy is
bestowed on the child simply as a promise that, "God" being "with us,"
Judah should be delivered from its foes. The same child is clearly
spoken of as the child of Isaiah and his wife in Is. viii. 3, 4; and in
verses 6-8 we find that the two kings of Samaria and Syria are to be
conquered by the king of Assyria, who shall fill "thy land, O
_Immanuel!_" thus referring distinctly to the promised child as living
in that time. The Hebrew word translated "virgin" does not, as we have
already shown, mean "a pure virgin," as translated in the Septuagint. It
is used for a young woman, a marriageable woman, or even to describe a
woman who is being embraced by a man. Micah's supposed prophecy in Matt.
ii. 5, 6, is as inapplicable to Christ as that of Isaiah. Turning back
to Micah, we find that he "that is to be ruler in Israel" shall be born
in Bethlehem, but Jesus was never ruler in Israel, and the description
cannot therefore be applied to him; besides, finishing the passage in
Micah (v. 5) we read that this same ruler "shall be the peace when the
Assyrian shall come into our land," so that the prophecy has a local and
immediate fulfilment in the circumstances of the time. Matthew ii. 15 is
only made into a prophecy by taking the second half of a historical
reference in Hosea to the Exodus of Israel from Egypt; it would be as
reasonable to prove in this fashion that the Bible teaches a denial of
God, "as is spoken by David the prophet, There is no God." The
fulfilment of the saying of Jeremy the prophet is as true as all the
preceding (verses 17, 18); Jeremy bids Rahel not to weep for the
children who are carried into bondage, "for they shall come again from
the land of the enemy ... thy children shall come again to their own
border" (Jer. xxxi. 16, 17). Very applicable to the slaughtered babes,
and so honest of "Matthew" to quote just so much of the "prophecy" as
served his purpose, leaving out that which altered its whole meaning.
After these specimens, we are not surprised to find that--unable to find
a prophecy fit to twist to suit his object--our evangelist quietly
invents one, and (verse 23) uses a prophecy which has no existence in
what was "spoken by the prophets." It is needless to go through all the
other passages known as Messianic prophecies, for they may all be dealt
with as above; the guiding rule is to refer to the Old Testament in each
case, and not to trust to the quotation as given in the New, and then to
read the whole context of the "prophecy," instead of resting content
with the few words which, violently wrested from their natural meaning,
are forced into a superficial resemblance with the story recorded in the
Gospels.
The second theory, which regards Jesus as a new hero of the ancient
sun-worship, is full of intensest interest. Dupuis, in his great work on
sun-worship ("Origines de Tous les Cultes") has drawn out in detail the
various sun-myths, and has pointed to their common features. Briefly
stated, these points are as follows: the hero is born about Dec. 25th,
without sexual intercourse, for the sun, entering the winter solstice,
emerges in the sign of Virgo, the heavenly virgin. His mother remains
ever-virgin, since the rays of the sun, passing through the zodiacal
sign, leave it intact. His infancy is begirt with dangers, because the
new-born sun is feeble in the midst of the winter's fogs and mists,
which threaten to devour him; his life is one of toil and peril,
culminating at the spring equinox in a final struggle with the powers of
darkness. At that period the day and the night are equal, and both fight
for the mastery; though the night veil the sun, and he seems dead;
though he has descended out of sight, below the earth, yet he rises
again triumphant, and he rises in the sign of the Lamb, and is thus the
Lamb of God, carrying away the darkness and death of the winter months.
Henceforth, he triumphs, growing ever stronger and more brilliant. He
ascends into the zenith, and there he glows, "on the right hand of God,"
himself God, the very substance of the Father, the brightness of his
glory, and the "express image of his person," "upholding all things" by
his heat and his life-giving power; thence he pours down life and warmth
on his worshippers, giving them his very self to be their life; his
substance passes into the grape and the corn, the sustainers of health;
around him are his twelve followers, the twelve signs of the zodiac, the
twelve months of the year; his day, the Lord's Day, is Sunday, the day
of the Sun, and his yearly course, ever renewed, is marked each year, by
the renewed memorials of his career. The signs appear in the long array
of sun-heroes, making the succession of deities, old in reality,
although new-named.
It may be worth noting that Jesus is said to be born at Bethlehem, a
word that Dr. Inman translates as the house "of the hot one" ("Ancient
Faiths," vol. i., p. 358; ed. 1868); Bethlehem is generally translated
"house of bread," and the doubt arises from the Hebrew letters being
originally unpointed, and the points--equivalent to vowel sounds--being
inserted in later times; this naturally gives rise to great latitude of
interpretation, the vowels being inserted whenever the writer or
translator thinks they ought to come in, or where the traditionary
reading requires them (see Part 1., pp. 13, and 31, 32).
Each point in the story of Jesus may be paralleled in earlier tales; the
birth of Krishna was prophesied of; he was born of Devaki, although she
was shut up in a tower, and no man was permitted to approach her. His
birth was hymned by the Devas--the Hindoo equivalent for angels--and a
bright light shone round where he was. He was pursued by the wrath of
the tyrant king, Kansa, who feared that Krishna would supplant him in
the kingdom. The infants of the district were massacred, but Krishna
miraculously escaped. He was brought up among the poor until he reached
maturity. He preached a pure morality, and went about doing good. He
healed the leper, the sick, the injured, and he raised the dead. His
head was anointed by a woman; he washed the feet of the Brahmins; he was
persecuted, and finally slain, being crucified. He went down into hell,
rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven (see "Asiatic
Researches," vol. i.; on "The Gods of Greece, Italy, and India," by Sir
William Jones, an essay which, though very imperfect, has much in it
that is highly instructive). He is pictorially represented as standing
on the serpent, the type of evil; his foot crushes its head, while the
fang of the serpent pierces his heel; also, with a halo round his head,
this halo being always the symbol of the Sun-god; also, with his hands
and feet pierced--the sacred stigmata--and with a hole in his side. In
fact, some of the representations of him could not be distinguished from
the representations of the crucified Jesus.
The name of "Krishna" is by Sir William Jones, and by many others
written "Crishna," and I have seen it spelt "Cristna." The resemblance
it bears, when thus written, to "Christ" is apparent only, there is no
etymological similarity. Krishna is derived from the Sanscrit "Krish,"
to scrape, to draw, to colour. Krishna means black, or violet-coloured;
Christ comes from the Greek [Greek: christos] the anointed. Colonel
Vallancy, Sir W. Jones tells us, informed him that "Crishna" in Irish
means the Sun ("As. Res.," p. 262; ed. 1801); and there is no doubt that
the Hindu Krishna is a Sun-god; the "violet-coloured" might well be a
reference to the deep blue of the summer sky.
If Moses be a type of Christ, must not Bacchus be admitted to the same
honour? In the ancient Orphic verses it was said that he was born in
Arabia; picked up in a box that floated on the water; was known by the
name of Mises, as "drawn from the water;" had a rod which he could
change into a serpent, and by means of which he performed miracles;
leading his army, he passed the Red Sea dryshod; he divided the rivers
Orontes and Hydaspes with his rod; he drew water from a rock; where he
passed the land flowed with wine, milk, and honey (see "Diegesis," pp.
178, 179).
The name Christ Jesus is simply the anointed Saviour, or else Chrestos
Jesus, the good Saviour; a title not peculiar to Jesus of Nazareth. We
find Hesus, Jesous, Yes or Ies. This last name, [Greek: Iaes], was one
of the titles of Bacchus, and the simple termination "us" makes it
"Jesus;" from this comes the sacred monogram I.H.S., really the Greek
[Greek: UAeS]--IES; the Greek letter [Greek: Ae], which is the capital
E, has by ignorance been mistaken for the Latin H, and the ancient name
of Bacchus has been thus transformed into the Latin monogram of Jesus.
In both cases the letters are surrounded with a halo, the sun-rays,
symbolical of the sun-deity to whom they refer. This halo surrounds the
heads of gods who typify the sun, and is continually met with in Indian
sculptures and paintings.
Hercules, with his twelve labours, is another source of Christian fable.
"It is well known that by Hercules, in the physical mythology of the
heathens, was meant the _Sun_, or _solar light_, and his twelve famous
labours have been referred to the sun's passing through the twelve
zodiacal signs; and this, perhaps, not without some foundation. But the
labours of Hercules seem to have had a still higher view, and to have
been originally designed as emblematic memorials of what the real _Son
of God_ and _Saviour of the world_ was to do and suffer for our
sakes--[Greek: Noson Theletaeria panta komixon]--'_Bringing a cure for
all our ills_,' as the Orphic hymn speaks of Hercules" (Parkhurst's
"Hebrew Lexicon," page 520; ed. 1813). As the story of Hercules came
first in time, it must be either a prophecy of Christ, an inadmissible
supposition, or else of the sources whence the story of Christ has been
drawn.
Aesculapius, the heathen "Good Physician," and "the good Saviour,"
healed the sick and raised the dead. He was the son of God and of
Coronis, and was guarded by a goatherd.
Prometheus is another forerunner of Christ, stretched in cruciform
position on the rocks, tormented by Jove, the Father, because he brought
help to man, and winning for man, by his agony, light and knowledge.
Osiris, the great Egyptian God, has much in common with the Christian
Jesus. He was both god and man, and once lived on earth. He was slain by
the evil Typhon, but rose again from the dead. After his resurrection he
became the Judge of all men. Once a year the Egyptians used to celebrate
his death, mourning his slaying by the evil one: "this grief for the
death of Osiris did not escape some ridicule; for Xenophanes, the
Ionian, wittily remarked to the priests of Memphis, that if they thought
Osiris a man they should not worship him, and if they thought him a God
they need not talk of his death and suffering.... Of all the gods Osiris
alone had a place of birth and a place of burial. His birthplace was
Mount Sinai, called by the Egyptians Mount Nyssa. Hence was derived the
god's Greek name Dionysus, which is the same as the Hebrew
Jehovah-Nissi" ("Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christianity," by
Samuel Sharpe, pp. 10, 11; ed. 1863). Various places claimed the honour
of his burial. "Serapis" was a god's name, formed out of "Osiris" and
"Apis," the sacred bull, and we find (see ante, p. 206) that the Emperor
Adrian wrote that the "worshippers of Serapis are Christians," and that
bishops of Serapis were bishops of Christ; although the stories differ
in detail, as is natural, since the Christian tale is modified by other
myths--Osiris, for instance, is married--the general outline is the
same. We shall see, in Section II., how thoroughly Pagan is the origin
of Christianity.
We find the Early Fathers ready enough to claim these analogies, in
order to recommend their religion. Justin Martyr argues: "When we say
that the word, who is the first birth of God, was produced without
sexual union, and that he, Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and
died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing
different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of
Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribe to
Jupiter; Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; Aesculapius,
who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and
so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from
limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to
escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, the Dioscuri; and Perseus, son
of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to
heaven on the horse Pegasus" ("First Apology," ch. xxi.). "If we assert
that the Word of God was born of God in a peculiar manner, different
from ordinary generation, let this, as said above, be no extraordinary
thing to you, who say that Mercury is the angelic word of God. But if
anyone objects that he was crucified, in this also he is on a par with
those reputed sons of Jupiter of yours, who suffered as we have now
enumerated.... And if we even affirm that he was born of a virgin,
accept this in common with what you accept of Perseus. And in that we
say that he made whole the lame, the paralytic, and those born blind, we
seem to say what is very similar to the deeds said to have been done by
AEsculapius" (Ibid, ch. xxi.). "Plato, in like manner, used to say that
Rhadamanthus and Minos would punish the wicked who came before them; and
we say that the same thing will be done, but at the hand of Christ"
(Ibid, ch. viii.) In ch. liv. Justin argues that the devils invented all
these gods in order that when Christ came his story should be thought to
be another marvellous tale like its predecessors! On the whole, we can
scarcely wonder that Caecilius (about A.D. 211) taunted the early
Christians with those facts: "All these figments of cracked-brained
opiniatry and silly solaces played off in the sweetness of song by
deceitful poets, by you, too credulous creatures, have been shamefully
reformed, and made over to your own God" (as quoted in R. Taylor's
"Diegesis," p. 241). That the doctrines of Christianity had the same
origin as the story of Christ, and the miracles ascribed to him, we
shall prove under section ii., while section iii. will prove the same as
to his morality. Judge Strange fairly says: "The Jewish Scriptures and
the traditionary teaching of their doctors, the Essenes and Therapeuts,
the Greek philosophers, the neo-platonism of Alexandria, and the
Buddhism of the East, gave ample supplies for the composition of the
doctrinal portion of the new faith; the divinely procreated personages
of the Grecian and Roman pantheons, the tales of the Egyptian Osiris,
and of the Indian Rama, Krishna, and Buddha, furnished the materials for
the image of the new saviour of mankind; and every surrounding mythology
poured forth samples of the 'mighty works' that were to be attributed to
him to attract and enslave his followers: and thus, first from Judaism,
and finally from the bosom of heathendom, we have our matured expression
of Christianity" ("The Portraiture and Mission of Jesus," p. 27). From
the mass of facts brought together above, we contend that the Gospels
_are in themselves utterly unworthy of credit, from (1) the miracles
with which they abound, (2) the numerous contradictions of each by the
others, (3) the fact that the story of the hero, the doctrines, the
miracles, were current long before the supposed dates of the Gospels; so
that these Gospels are simply a patchwork composed of older materials_.
We have thus examined, step by step, the alleged evidences of
Christianity, both external and internal; we have found it impossible to
rely on its external witnesses, while the internal testimony is fatal to
its claims; it is, at once, unauthenticated without, and incredible
within. After earnest study, and a careful balancing of proofs, we find
ourselves forced to assert that THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY ARE
UNRELIABLE.
* * * * *
APPROXIMATE DATES CLAIMED FOR THE CHIEF CHRISTIAN AND HERETICAL
AUTHORITIES.
A.D.
Between 92 and 125 Clement of Rome Very doubtful
Between 90 and 138 Barnabas " "
Said to be martyred 107 Ignatius " "
Between 117 and 138 Quadratus " "
Possibly 138 Hermas " "
About 150-170 Papias " "
About 135-145 Basilides and " "
Valentinus
About 140-160 Marcion
Said to be martyred 166 Polycarp Very doubtful
Said to be martyred 166 Justin Martyr
After 166 Hegesippus
About 177 Epistle of Lyons
and Vienne
Between 150 and 290 Clementines Real date quite unknown
Between 166 and 176 Dionysius of Corinth
About 176 Athenagoras
Between 170 and 175 Tatian
177 to about 200 Irenæus
About 193 Tertullian
About 200 Celsus Very doubtful
205 Clement of Alexandria
succeeded as head of
School.
About 205 Porphyry
205-249 Origen
THE SO-CALLED TEN PERSECUTIONS.
A.D.
61 under Nero
81 " Domitian
107 " Trajan
166 " Marcus Aurelius
193 " Severus
235 under Maximin
249 " Decius
254 " Valerian
272 " Aurelian
303 " Diocletian
DATES OF ROMAN EMPERORS.
AT ALLEGED BIRTH OF CHRIST.
Augustus Cæsar
A.D.
14 Tiberius
33 Caligula
41 Claudius
54 Nero
68 Galba
Otho
69 Vitellius
69 Vespasian
79 Titus
81 Domitian
96 Nerva
98 Trajan associated
117 Hadrian
138 Antoninus Pius
161 Marcus Aurelius
180 Commodus
192 Pertinax
193 Julian
Severus
211 Caracalla and Geta
217 Macrinus
218 Heliogabalus
222 Alexander Severus
235 Maximin
237 The Gordians
Maximus and Galbinus
238 Maximus, Galbinus, and Gordian
238 Gordian alone
244 Philip
249 Decius
251 Gallus
253 Valerian
260 Gallienus
268 Claudius
270 Aurelian
275 Tacitus
276 Florianus
276 Probus
282 Carus
283 Carinus and Numerian
285 Diocletian
286 Maximian associated
305 Galerius and Constantius
305 Severus and Maximin
306 Constantine
Licinius
Maxentius
324 Constantine alone
* * * * *
INDEX TO SECTION I. OF PART II.
* * * * *
INDEX OF BOOKS USED.
Adrian...206
" quoted by Meredith...225
Agbarus, letter of, in Eusebius...243
Akiba, quoted in Keim...315
Alford, Greek Testament...288
Apostolic Fathers...215, 216, 217, 218, 220, 221, 230
Athenagoras, Apology...226
Augustine, Syntagma, quoted in Diegesis...234
Barnabas, Epistle of...233, 302
Besant, According to St. John...337
Butler, Lives of the Fathers, etc...324
Caecilius, quoted in Diegesis...348
Celsus, quoted by Norton...233
Clement, First Epistle...233, 299, 300, 301
Clementine, Homilies...310
" quoted in Supernatural Religion...301
Corpus Ignatianum, quoted in Apostolic Fathers...218
Davidson, Introduction to New Testament...286, 294, 295, 296, 298
Ellicott, quoted in Cowper's Apocryphal Gospels...250
Epictetus...206
Epiphanius, quoted by Norton...297
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History...216, 230, 231, 234, 243, 246, 248
250, 257, 260, 277, 279, 284, 290
291, 292, 294, 321, 323
" quoted in Apostolic Fathers...217
Faustus, quoted in Diegesis...284
Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire...195, 206, 209, 112
213, 227, 322
Giles, Christian Records...197, 207, 230, 259, 261, 263, 265
267, 276, 288, 293, 297, 313, 328
335, 336
Hegesippus, quoted in Supernatural Religion...302
Home, Introduction to New Testament...197, 203
Ignatius, Epistle to the Smyrnaeans...220
" " Ephesians...233
" " Philippians...302
Inman, Ancient Faiths...344
Irenæus, Against Heresies...258, 291, 323, 336
" quoted in Keim...234
" quoted in Eusebius...258
Jones, The Canon of the New Testament...240, 245, 257
Jones, Sir W., Asiatic Researches...345
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews...195, 198, 315
" Wars of the Jews...317
" Discourse on Hades...198
Justin Martyr, First Apology...231, 253, 302, 347
" Second Apology...226, 323
" Dialogue with Trypho...231, 275, 302, 310
Juvenal...203
Keim, Jesus of Nazara...197, 202, 315
Lardner, Answer to Dr. Chandler, quoted from
Diegesis...196
" Credibility of the
Gospels...209, 210, 211, 216, 218
230, 263, 269
Livy...222
Marcus Aurelius...206
Marsh, quoted in Norton...267
" quoted in Giles...287
Meredith, Prophet of Nazareth...223
Mosheim, Ecclesiastical
History...214, 216, 217, 235, 237, 238, 239
Muratori, Canon of...282
Nicodemus, Gospel of...253
Norton, Genuineness of the Gospels...215, 216, 219, 247,
263, 269, 295
Origen, quoted in Gibbon...213
" " Diegesis...234
" " Supernatural Religion...323
Paley, Evidences of Christianity...198, 202, 203, 205
208, 209, 210, 212, 228, 229, 231
235, 236, 243, 244, 247, 248, 260
262, 269, 273, 281, 290, 309, 317
319
Papias, quoted by Eusebius...291
" Irenæus...291
Parkhurst, Hebrew Lexicon...346
Pliny, Epistles...203
Pilate, Acts of...253
Quadratus, quoted by Eusebius...230
Renan, Vie de Jésus...197
Row, The Supernatural in the New Testament...325, 327
Sanday, Gospels in the Second Century...248, 269, 270
279, 287, 298, 300, 302, 305, 311
Scott, English Life of Jesus...334
Sharpe, Egyptian Mythology...347
Smyrna, Circular Epistle of the Church of...221
Strange, Portraiture and Mission of Jesus...198, 201, 210
321, 348
Strauss, Life of Jesus...289, 312, 320, 330, 331, 332
Suetonius...201, 202, 225
Supernatural Religion... 215, 216, 219, 229, 246, 247, 248
249, 260, 261, 266, 268, 269, 271
276, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283
290, 292, 293, 295, 301, 302, 303
304, 322, 325
Tacitus, Annals...199, 222, 225
Taylor, Diegesis...196, 200, 201, 205, 206, 208, 212, 346
Tertullian, Apology...226
" De Spectaculis...323
" quoted in Gibbon...213
" " Meredith...225
Thomas, Gospel of...251
Tischendorf, When were our Gospels Written?...248, 270
Westcott, On the Canon of the New Testament...216, 229, 247, 249
256, 268, 270, 274
275, 278, 286
* * * * *
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Analogies of Christian doctrines...347
Apocryphal Gospels, specimens of...250
" Books, recognised...245
Authenticity of Apology of Quadratus...230
" Epistle of Barnabas...229
" " Clement...214
" " Ignatius...217
" " Polycarp...216
" " Smyrna...220
" Vision of Hermas...216
Books read in churches...248
" in volume of Scriptures...249
Christian Agapae...223
Christianity advantageous to tyrants...237
Date of birth of Christ...333
Dates of Fathers, etc...349
Dates of Roman Emperors...350
Diatessaron of Tatian...259
Evidence of Adrian...206
" Apostolic Fathers...263, 267
" Barnabas...268
" Basilides and Valentinus...280
" Canon of Muratori...282
" Clement ...269
" Clementines...279
" Hegesippus...277
" Hermas...269
" Ignatius...270
" Josephus...195
" Justin Martyr...271
" Marcion...281
" Marcus Aurelius...206
" Papias...271
" Pliny...203
" Polycarp...270
" Suetonius...201
" Tacitus...199
Forgeries in Early Church...238
" List of...240
Four Gospels: when recognised...257
" why only four...258
Gospels, changes made in...283
" contradictions in...328
" contradictions between synoptical and fourth...337
" growth of...285, 289
" identity of modern and ancient unproven...262
" many current...266
" of later origin...311
" of Matthew and Mark not those of Papias...290
" original, different from canonical...298
" similarity of canonical and uncanonical...245
" synoptical...286
" time of selection unknown...256
Genealogies of Jesus...328
Greek not commonly known by Jews...314
Ignorance of Early Fathers...232
Krishna, meaning of...345
Length of Jesus' Ministry..336
Life of Christ from Justin Martyr...306
Martyrs, small number of...212
Massacre of infants unlikely...333
Matthew, written in Hebrew...394
Miracles...316
Morality of Early Christians...221
Mythical Theory of Jesus...340
Passages in Fathers, not in canonical Gospels...301
Persecution, absence of...209
Phrase "it is written"...247
Positions laid down as to Gospels...236
Position A...238
" B...245
" C...256
" D...257
" E...261
" F...262
" G...290
" H...298
" I...311
" J...314
" K...316
Prophecies, Messianic...342
Silence of Jewish writers...198, 201, 259
" Pagan " ...193, 206
Story of Christ pre-Christian...340
Son-worship and Christ...343
Temptation of Christ...334
Ten Persecutions...350
Types of Christ...345
SECTION II.--ITS ORIGIN PAGAN.
There are two ancient and widely-spread creeds to which we must chiefly
look for the origin of Christianity, namely, Sun-worship and
Nature-worship. It is doubtful which of the twain is the elder, and they
are closely intertwined, the central idea of each being the same;
personally, I am inclined to think that Nature-worship is the older of
the two, because it is the simpler and the nearer; the barbarian, slowly
emerging into humanity, would be more likely to worship the force which
was the most immediately wonderful to him, the power of generation of
new life; to recognise the sun as the great life producer seems to imply
some little growth of reason and of imagination; sun-worship seems the
idealisation of nature-worship, for the same generative force is adored
in both, and round the idea of this production of new life all creeds
revolve. Christian symbols and Christian ceremonies speak as plainly to
the student of ancient religions as the stars speak to the astronomer,
and the rocks to the geologian; Christian Churches are as full of the
fossil relics of the old creeds as are the earth's strata of the bones
of extinct animals. We shall expect to find, then, a family resemblance
running through all Eastern creeds--of which Christianity is one--and we
shall not be surprised to find similar symbols expressing similar ideas;
there are, in fact, cardinal symbols re-appearing in all these allied
religions; the virgin and child; the trinity in unity; the cross; these
have their roots struck deep in human nature, and are found in every
Eastern creed. So also can we trace sacraments and ceremonies, and many
minor dogmas. In looking back into those ancient creeds it is necessary
to get rid of the modern fashion of regarding any natural object as
immodest. Sir William Jones justly remarks that in Hindustan "it never
seems to have entered the heads of the legislators, or people, that
anything natural could be offensively obscene; a singularity which
pervades all their writings and conversation, but is no proof of
depravity in their morals" ("Asiatic Researches," vol. i., p. 255).
Gross injustice is sometimes done to ancient creeds by contemplating
them from a modern point of view; in those days every power of Nature
was thought divine, and most divine of all was deemed the power of
creation, whether worshipped in the sun, whose beams impregnated the
earth, or in the male and female organs of generation, the universal
creators of life in the animal world; thus we find in all ancient
sculptures carvings of the phallus and the yoni, expressed both
naturally and symbolically, the representations becoming more and more
conventional and refined as civilisation advanced; of the infant world
it may be said that it was "naked, and was not ashamed;" as it grew
older, and clothed the human form, it also draped its religious symbols,
but as the body remains unaltered under its garments, so the idea
concealed beneath the emblems remains the same.
The union of male and female is, then, the foundation of all religions;
the heaven marries the earth, as man marries woman, and that union is
the first marriage. Saturn is the sky, the male, or active energy; Rhea
is the earth, the female, or receptive; and these are the father and the
mother of all. The Persians of old called the sky Jupiter, or Jupater,
"Ju the Father." The sun is the agent of the generative power of the
sky, and his beams fecundate the earth, so that from her all life is
produced. Thus the sun becomes worshipped as the Father of all, and the
sun is the emblem which crowns the images of the Supreme God; the vernal
equinox is the resurrection of the sun, and the sign of the zodiac in
which he then is becomes the symbol of his life-producing power; thus
the bull, and afterwards the ram, became his sign as Life-Giver, and the
Sun-god was pictured as bull, or as ram (or lamb), or else with the
horns of his, emblem, and the earthly animals became sacred for his
sake. Mithra, the Sun-god of Persia, is sculptured as riding on a bull;
Osiris, the Sun-god of Egypt, wears the horns of the bull, and is
worshipped as Osiris-Apis, or Serapis, the Sun-god in the sign of Apis,
the bull. Later, by the precession of the equinoxes, the sun at the
vernal equinox has passed into the sign of the ram (called in Persia,
the lamb), and we find Jupiter Ammon, Jupiter with ram's horns, and
Jesus the Lamb of God. These symbols all denote the sun victorious over
darkness and death, giving life to the world. The phallus is the other
great symbol of the Life-Giver, generating life in woman, as the sun in
the earth. Bacchus, Adonis, Dionysius, Apollo, Hercules, Hermes,
Thammuz, Jupiter, Jehovah, Jao, or Jah, Moloch, Baal, Asher, Mahadeva,
Brahma, Vishnu, Mithra, Atys, Ammon, Belus, with many another, these are
all the Life-Giver under different names; they are the Sun, the Creator,
the Phallus. Red is their appropriate colour. When the sun or the
Phallus is not drawn in its natural form, it is indicated by a symbol:
the symbol must be upright, hard, or else burning, either conical, or
clubbed at one end. Thus--the torch, flame of fire, cone, serpent,
thyrsus, triangle, letter T, cross, crosier, sceptre, caduceus, knobbed
stick, tall tree, upright stone, spire, tower, minaret, upright pole,
arrow, spear, sword, club, upright stump, etc., are all symbols of the
generative force of the male energy in Nature of the Supreme God.
One of the most common, and the most universally used, is THE CROSS.
Carved at first simply as phallus, it was gradually refined; we meet it
as three balls, one above the two; the letter T indicated it, which, by
the slightest alteration, became the cross now known as the Latin: thus
"Barnabas" says that "the cross was to express the grace by the letter
T" (ante, p. 233). We find the cross in India, Egypt, Thibet, Japan,
always as the sign of life-giving power; it was worn as an amulet by
girls and women, and seems to have been specially worn by the women
attached to the temples, as a symbol of what was, to them, a religious
calling. The cross is, in fact, nothing but the refined phallus, and in
the Christian religion is a significant emblem of its Pagan origin; it
was adored, carved in temples, and worn as a sacred emblem by sun and
nature worshippers, long before there were any Christians to adore,
carve, and wear it. The crowd kneeling before the cross in Roman
Catholic and in High Anglican Churches, is a simple reproduction of the
crowd who knelt before it in the temples of ancient days, and the girls
who wear it amongst ourselves, are--in the most innocent unconsciousness
of its real signification--exactly copying the Indian and Egyptian women
of an elder time. Saturn's symbol was a cross and a ram's horn. Jupiter
bore a cross with a horn. Venus a circle with a cross. The Egyptian
deities a cross and oval. (The signification of these will be dealt with
below.) The Druids sought oak trees with two main arms growing in shape
of a cross, and, if they failed to find such, nailed a beam cross-wise.
The chief pagodas in India are built, like many Christian churches, in
the form of a cross. I have read in a book on church architecture that
churches should be built either in the form of a cross, or else in that
of a ship, typifying the ark; i.e., they should either be built in the
form of the phallus or the yoni, the ship or ark being one of the
symbols of the female energy (see below, p. 361).
The CRUCIFIX, or cross with human figure stretched upon it, is also
found in ancient times, although not so frequently as the simple cross.
The crucifix appears to have arisen from the circle of the horizon being
divided into four parts, North, South, East, and West, and the Sun-god,
drawn within, or on, the circle, came into contact with each cardinal
point, his feet and head touching, or intersecting, two, while his
outstretched arms point to the other quarters. Plato says that the "next
power to the Supreme God was decussated, or figured in the shape of a
cross, on the universe." Krishna is painted and sculptured on a cross.
The Egyptians thus drew Osiris, and sometimes we find a circle drawn
with the dividing lines, and in the midst is stretched the dead body of
Osiris. Robert Taylor gives another origin for the crucifix: "The
ignorant gratitude of a superstitious people, while they adored the
river [Nile] on whose inundations the fertility of their provinces
depended, could not fail of attaching notions of sanctity and holiness
to the posts that were erected along its course, and which, by a
_transverse beam_, indicated the height to which, at the spot where the
beam was fixed, the waters might be expected to rise. This cross at once
warned the traveller to secure his safety, and formed a standard of the
value of land. Other rivers may add to the fertility of the country
through which they pass, but the Nile is the absolute cause of that
great fertility of the Lower Egypt, which would be all a desert, as bad
as the most sandy parts of Africa without this river. It supplies it
both with soil and moisture, and was therefore gratefully addressed, not
merely as an ordinary river-god, but by its express title of the
Egyptian Jupiter. The crosses, therefore, along the banks of the river
would naturally share in the honour of the stream, and be the most
expressive emblem of good fortune, peace, and plenty. The two ideas
could never be separated: the fertilising flood was the _waters of
life_, that conveyed every blessing, and even existence itself, to the
provinces through which they flowed. One other and most obvious
hieroglyph completed the expressive allegory. The _Demon of Famine_,
who, should the waters fail of their inundation, or not reach the
elevation indicated by the position of the transverse beam upon the
upright, would reign in all his horrors over their desolated lands. This
symbolical personification was, therefore, represented as a miserable
emaciated wretch, who had grown up 'as a tender plant, and as a root out
of a dry ground, who had no form nor comeliness; and when they should
see him, there was no beauty that they should desire him.' Meagre were
his looks; sharp misery had worn him to the bone. His crown of thorns
indicated the sterility of the territories over which he reigned. The
reed in his hand, gathered from the banks of the Nile, indicated that it
was only the mighty river, by keeping within its banks, and thus
withholding its wonted munificence, that placed an unreal sceptre in his
gripe. He was nailed to the cross, in indication of his entire defeat.
And the superscription of his infamous title, 'THIS IS THE KING OF THE
JEWS,' expressively indicated that _Famine, Want_, or _Poverty_, ruled
the destinies of the most slavish, beggarly, and mean race of men with
whom they had the honour of being acquainted" ("Diegesis," p. 187).
While it may very likely be true that the miserable aspect given to
Jesus crucified is copied from some such original as Mr. Taylor here
sketches, we are tolerably certain that the general idea of the crucifix
had the solar origin described above.
Very closely joined to the notion of the cross is the idea of the
TRINITY IN UNITY, and we need not delay upon it long. It is as universal
in Eastern religions as the cross, and comes from the same idea; all
life springs from a trinity in unity in man, and, therefore, God is
three in one. This trinity is, of course, symbolised by the cross, and
especially by the lotus, and any "three in one" leaf; from this has come
to Christianity the conventional triple foliage so constantly seen in
Church carvings, the _fleur-de-lis_, the triangle, etc., which are
now--as of old--accepted as the emblems of the trinity. The persons of
the trinity are found each with his own name; in India, Brahma, Vishnu,
Siva, and it is Vishnu who becomes incarnate; in Egypt different cities
had different trinities, and "we have a hieroglyphical inscription in
the British Museum as early as the reign of Sevechus of the eighth
century before the Christian era, showing that the doctrine of Trinity
in Unity already formed part of their religion, and that in each of the
two groups last mentioned the three gods only made one person"
("Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christology," by S. Sharpe, p. 14).
Mr. Sharpe might have gone to much earlier times and "already" have
found the adoration of the trinity in unity; as far back as the first
who bowed in worship before the generative force of the male three in
one. Osiris, Horus, and Ra form one of the Egyptian trinities; Horus the
Son, is also one of a trinity in unity made into an amulet, and called
the Great God, the Son God, and the Spirit God. Horus is the slayer of
Typhon, the evil one, and is sometimes represented as standing on its
head, and as piercing its head with a spear, reminding us of Krishna,
the incarnation of Vishnu, the second person of the Indian Trinity.
These trinities, however, were not complete in themselves, for the
female element is needed for the production of life; hence, we find that
in most nations a fourth person is joined to the trinity, as Isis, the
mother of Horus, in Egypt, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, in
Christendom; the Egyptian trinity is often represented as Osiris, Horus,
and Isis, but we more generally find the female constituting the fourth
element, in addition to the triune, and symbolised by an oval, or
circle, typical of the female organ of reproduction; thus the _crux
ansata_ of the Egyptians, the "symbol of life" held in the hand by the
Egyptian deities, is a cross or oval, i.e., the T with an oval at the
top; the circle with the cross inside, symbolises, again, the male and
female union; also the six-rayed star, the pentacle, the double
triangle, the triangle and circle, the pit with a post in it, the key,
the staff with a half-moon, the complicated cross. The same union is
imaged out in all androgynous deities, in Elohim, Baalim, Baalath,
Arba-il, the bearded Venus, the feminine Jove, the virgin and child. In
countries where the Yoni worship was more popular than that of the
Phallus, the VIRGIN and CHILD was a favourite deity, and to this we now
turn.
Here, as in the history of the cross, we find sun and nature worship
intertwined. The female element is sometimes the Earth, and sometimes
the individual. The goddesses are as various in names as the gods. Is,
Isis, Ishtar, Astarte, Mylitta, Sara, Mrira, Maia, Parvati, Mary,
Miriam, Eve, Juno, Venus, Diana, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hera, Rhea, Cybele,
Ceres, and others, are the earth under many names; the receptive female,
the producer of life, the Yoni. Black is the special colour of female
deities, and the black Isis and Horus, the black Mary and Jesus are of
peculiar sanctity. Their emblems are: the earth, moon, star of the sea,
circle, oval, triangle, pomegranate, door, ark, fish, ship, horseshoe,
chasm, cave, hole, celestial virgin, etc. They bore first the titles now
worn by Mary, the virgin mother of Jesus, and were reverenced as the
"queen of heaven." Ishtar, of Babylonia, was the "Mother of the Gods,"
and the "Queen of the Stars." Isis, of Egypt, was "our Immaculate Lady."
She was figured with a crown of stars, and with the crescent moon. Venus
was an ark brooded over by a dove, or the moon floating on the water.
They are "the mother," "mamma," "emma," "ummah," or "the woman." The
symbols are everywhere the same, though given with different names.
Everywhere it is Mary, the mother; the female principle in nature,
adored side by side with the male. She shares in the work of creation
and salvation, and has a kind of equality with the Father of all; hence
we hear of the immaculate conception. She produces a child alone in some
stories, without even divine co-operation. The Virgo of the Zodiac is
represented in ancient sculptures and drawings as a woman suckling a
child, and the Paamylian feasts were celebrated at the spring equinox,
and were the equivalent of the Christian feast of the Annunciation, when
the power of the highest overshadowed Mary of Nazareth. Thus in India,
we have Devaki and Krishna; in Egypt, Osiris and Horus--the "Saviour of
the World;" in Christendom, Mary and Christ; the pictures and carvings
of India and Egypt would be indistinguishable from those of Europe, were
it not for the differences of dress. Apis, the sacred Egyptian bull, was
always born without an earthly father, and his mother never had a second
calf. So the later Sun-god, Jesus, is born without sexual intercourse,
and Mary never bears another child. Jupiter visits Leda as a swan; God
visits Mary as an overshadowing dove. The salutation of Gabriel to Mary
is curiously like that of Mercury to Electra: "Hail, most happy of all
women, you whom Jupiter has honoured with his couch; your blood will
give laws to the world, I am the messenger of the gods." The mother of
Fohi, the great Chinese God, became _enceinte_ by walking in the
footsteps of a giant. The mother of Hercules did not lose her virginity.
The savages of St. Domingo represented the chief divinity by a female
figure called the "mother of God." On Friday, the day of Freya, or
Venus, many Christians still eat only fish, fish being sacred to the
female deity.
In Comtism we find the latest development of woman-worship, wherein the
"emotional sex" becomes the sacred sex, to be guarded, cherished,
sustained, adored; and thus in the youngest religion the stamp of the
eldest is found.
Thus womanhood has been worshipped in all ages of the world, and
maternity has been deified by all creeds: from the savage who bowed
before the female symbol of motherhood, to the philosophic Comtist who
adores woman "in the past, the present, and the future," as mother,
wife, and daughter, the worship of the female element in nature has run
side by side with that of the male; the worship is one and the same in
all religions, and runs in an unbroken thread from the barbarous ages to
the present time.
The doctrines of the mediation, and the divinity of Christ, and of the
immortality of the soul, are as pre-Christian as the symbols which we
have examined.
The idea of _the Mediator_ comes to us from Persia, and the title was
borne by Mithra before it was ascribed to Christ. Zoroaster taught that
there was existence itself, the unknown, the eternal, "Zeruane Akerne,"
"time without bounds." From this issued Ormuzd, the good, the light, the
creator of all. Opposite to Ormuzd is Ahriman, the bad, the dark, the
deformer of all. Between these two great deities comes Mithra, the
Mediator, who is the Reconciler of all things to God, who is one with
Ormuzd, although distinct from him. Mithra, as we have seen, is the Sun
in the sign of the Bull, exactly parallel to Jesus, the Sun in the sign
of the Lamb, both the one and the other being symbolised by that sign of
the zodiac in which the sun was at the spring equinox of his supposed
date. "Mithras is spiritual light contending with spiritual darkness,
and through his labours the kingdom of darkness shall be lit with
heaven's own light; the Eternal will receive all things back into his
favour, the world will be redeemed to God. The impure are to be
purified, and the evil made good, through the mediation of Mithras, the
reconciler of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Mithras is the Good, his name is Love.
In relation to the Eternal he is the source of grace, in relation to man
he is the life-giver and mediator. He brings the 'Word,' as Brahma
brings the Vedas, from the mouth of the Eternal. (See Plutarch 'De Isid.
et Osirid.;' also Dr. Hyde's 'De Religione Vet. Pers.,' ch. 22; see also
'Essay on Pantheism,' by Rev. J. Hunt.) It was just prior to the return
of the Jews from living among the people who were dominated by these
ideas, that the splendid chapter of Isaiah (xl.), or indeed the series
of chapters which form the closing portion of the book, were written:
'Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Prepare ye the way of
the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every
valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.' And
then follows a magnificent description of the greatness and supremacy of
God, and this is followed by chapters which tell of a Messiah, or
conquering prince, who will redeem the nation from its enemies, and
restore them to the light of the divine favour, and which predict a
millennium, a golden age of purified and glorified humanity. It is thus
manifest that the inspiration of these writings came to the Jewish
people from their contact with the religious thought of the Persians,
and not from any supernatural source. From this time the Jews began to
hold worthier ideas concerning God, and to cherish expectations of a
golden age, a kingdom of heaven, which the Messiah, who was to be the
sent messenger of God, should inaugurate. And this kingdom was to be a
kingdom of righteousness, a day of marvellous light, a rule under which
all evil and darkness were to perish" ("Plato, Philo, and Paul," Rev.
J.W. Lake, pp. 15, l6.)
The growth of the philosophical side of the dogma of the _Divinity of
Christ_ is as clearly traceable in Pagan and Jewish thought as is the
dogma of the incarnation of the Saviour-God in the myths of Krishna,
Osiris, etc. Two great teachers of the doctrine of the "Logos," the
"Word," of God, stand out in pre-Christian times--the Greek Plato and
the Jewish Philo. We borrow the following extract from pp. 19, 20, of
the pamphlet by Mr. Lake above referred to, as showing the general
theological position of Plato; its resemblance to Christian teaching
will be at once apparent (it must not be forgotten that Plato lived B.C.
400):--
"The speculative thought and the religious teaching of Plato are
diffused throughout his voluminous writings; but the following is a
popular summary of them, by Madame Dacier, contained in her introduction
to what have been classed as the 'Divine Dialogues:'--
"'That there is but one God, and that we ought to love and serve him,
and to endeavour to resemble him in holiness and righteousness; that
this God rewards humility and punishes pride.
"'That the true happiness of man consists in being united to God, and
his only misery in being separated from him.
"'That the soul is mere darkness, unless it be illuminated by God; that
men are incapable even of praying well, unless God teaches them that
prayer which alone can be useful to them.
"'That there is nothing solid and substantial but piety; that this is
the source of all virtues, and that it is the gift of God.
"'That it is better to die than to sin.
"'That it is better to suffer wrong than to do it.
"'That the "Word" ([Greek: Logos]) formed the world, and rendered it
visible; that the knowledge of the Word makes us live very happily here
below, and that thereby we obtain felicity after death.
"'That the soul is immortal, that the dead shall rise again, that there
shall be a final judgment--both of the righteous and of the wicked, when
men shall appear only with their virtues or vices, which shall be the
occasion of their eternal happiness or misery.'"
It is this Logos who was "figured in the shape of a cross on the
universe" (ante, p. 358). The universe, which is but the materialised
thought of God, is made by his Logos, his Word, which is the expression
of his thought. In the Christian creed it is the Logos, the Word of God,
by whom all things are made (John i. 1-3). The very name, as well as the
thought, is the same, whether we turn over the pages of Plato or those
of John. Philo, the great Jewish Platonist, living in Alexandria at the
close of the last century B.C. and in the first half of the first
century after Christ, speaks of the Logos in terms that, to our ears,
seem purely Christian. Philo was a man of high position among the Jews
in Alexandria, being "a man eminent on all accounts, brother to
Alexander the alabarch [governor of the Jews], and one not unskilful in
philosophy" (Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews," bk. xviii., ch. 8,
sec. 1). This "Alexander was a principal person among all his
contemporaries both for his family and wealth" (Ibid, bk. xx, ch. 5,
sec. 2). He was the principal man in the Jewish embassage to Caius
(Caligula) A.D. 39-40, and was then a grey-headed old man. Keim speaks
of him as about sixty or seventy years old at that time, and puts his
birth at about B.C. 20. He writes: "The Theology of Philo is in great
measure founded on his peculiar combination of the Jewish, the Platonic,
and the Neo-Platonic conception of God. The God of the Old Testament,
the exalted God, as he is called by the modern Hegelian philosophy,
stood in close relations to the Greek Philosophers' conception of God,
which believed that the Supreme Being could be accurately defined by the
negative of all that was finite. In accordance with this, Philo also
described God as the simple Entity; he disclaimed for him every name,
every quality, even that of the Good, the Beautiful, the Blessed, the
One. Since he is still better than the good, higher than the Unity, he
can never be known _as_, but only _that_, he is: his perfect name is
only the four mysterious letters (Jhvh)--that is, pure Being. By such
means, indeed, neither a fuller theology nor God's influence on the
world was to be obtained. And yet it was the problem of philosophy, as
well as of religion, to shed the light of God upon the world, and to
lead it again to God. But how could this Being which was veiled from the
world be brought to bear upon it? By Philo, as well as by all the
philosophy of the time, the problem could only be solved illogically.
Yet, by modifying his exalted nature, it might be done. If not by his
being, yet by his work he influences the world; his powers, his angels,
all in it that is best and mightiest, the instrument, the interpreter,
the mediator and messenger of God; his pattern and his first-born, the
Son of God, the Second God, even himself God, the divine Word or Logos
communicate with the world; he is the ideal and actual type of the world
and of humanity, the architect and upholder of the world, the manna and
the rock in the wilderness" ("Jesus of Nazara," vol. i., pp. 281, 282).
"Man is fallen.... There is no man who is without sin, and even the
perfect man, if he should be born, does not escape from it.... Yet there
is a redemption, willed by God himself, and brought to pass by the act
of a wise man. Adam's successors still preserve the types of their
relationship to the Father, although in an obscure form, each man
possesses the knowledge of good and evil and an incorruptible judgment,
subject to reason; his spiritual strength is even now aided by the
Divine Logos, the image, copy, and reflection of the blessed nature.
Hence it follows that man can discern and see all the stains with which
he has wilfully or involuntarily defiled his life, that man by means of
his self-knowledge can decide to subdue his passions, to despise his
pleasures and desires, to wage the battle of repentance, and to be just
at any cost, and by the fundamental virtues of humanity, piety, and
justice, to imitate the virtues of the Father.... In such perfection as
is possible to all, even to women and to slaves, since no one is a slave
by nature, the wise man is truly rich. He is noble and free who can
proudly utter the saying of Sophocles, God is my ruler, not one among
men! Such a one is priest, king, and prophet, he is no longer merely a
son and scholar of the Logos, he is the companion and son of God.... God
is the eternal guide and director of the world, himself requiring
nothing, and giving all to his children. It is of his goodness that he
does not punish as a judge, but that, as the giver of grace, he bears
with all. With him all things are possible; he deals with all, even with
that which is almost beyond redemption. From him all the world hopes for
forgiveness of sins, the Logos, the high priest, and intercessor, and
the patriarchs pray for it; he grants it, not for the world's sake, but
of his own gracious nature, to those who can truly believe. He loves the
humble, and saves those whom he knows to be worthy of healing. His grace
elects the pious before they are born, giving them victory over
sensuality, and steadfastness in virtue. He reveals himself to holy
souls by his Spirit, and by his divine light leads those who are too
weak by nature even to understand the external world, beyond the limits
of human nature to that which is divine" ("Jesus of Nazara," pp.
283-287). Such are the most important passages of Keim's _résumé_ of
Philo's philosophy, and its resemblance to Christian doctrine is
unmistakeable, and adds one more proof to the fact that Christianity is
Alexandrian rather than Judæan. It will be well to add to this sketch
the passages carefully gathered out of Philo's works by Jacob Bryant,
who endeavoured to prove, from their resemblance to passages in the New
Testament, that Philo was a Christian, forgetting that Philo's works
were mostly written when Jesus was a child and a youth, and that he
never once mentions Jesus or Christianity. It must not be forgotten that
Philo lived in Alexandria, not in Judæa, and that between the
Canaanitish and the Hellenic Jews there existed the most bitter
hostility, so that--even were the story of Jesus true--it could not have
reached Philo before A.D. 40, at which time he was old and gray-headed.
We again quote from Mr. Lake's treatise, who prints the parallel
passages, and we would draw special attention to the similarity of
phraseology as well as of idea:
_Identity of the Christ of the New Testament with the Logos of Philo._
Philo, describing the Logos, The New Testament, speaking
says:-- of Jesus says:--
'The Logos is the Son 'This is the Son of God.'
of God the Father.'--De John i. 34.
Profugis.
'The first begotten of God.' 'And when he again bringeth
--De Somniis. his first-born into the
world.'--Heb. i. 6.
'And the most ancient of 'That he is the first-born
all beings.'--De Conf. Ling. of every creature.'--Col. i. 15.
'The Logos is the image 'Christ, the image of the
and likeness of God.'--De invisible God.'--Col. i. 15.
Monarch. 'The brightness of his
(God's) glory, and the express
image of his person.'--Heb.
i. 3.
'The Logos is superior to 'Being made so much
the angels.'--De Profugis. better that the angels. Let
all the angels of God worship
him.'--Heb. i. 4, 6.
'The Logos is superior to 'Thou hast put all things
all beings in the world.'--De in subjection under his feet.'
Leg. Allegor. --Heb. ii. 8.
'The Logos is the instrument 'All things were made by
by whom the world was him (the Word or Logos),
made.'--De Leg. Allegor. and without him was not
anything made that was
'The divine word by whom made.'--John i. 3
all things were ordered and
disposed.'--De Mundi Opificio. 'Jesus Christ, by whom
are all things.'--i Cor. viii. 6.
'By whom also he made
the worlds.'--Heb. i. 2.
'The Logos is the light of 'The Word (Logos) was
the world, and the intellectual the true light.'--John i. 9.
sun.'--De Somniis.
'The life and the light of
men.'--John i. 4.
'I am the light of the world.'
--John viii. 12.
'The Logos only can see 'He that is of God, he
God.'--De Confus. Ling. hath seen the Father.'--John
vi. 46.
'No man hath seen God
at any time. The only begotten
Son which is in the
bosom of the Father, he
hath declared him."--John
i. 18.
'He is the most ancient 'Now, O Father, glorify
of God's works.'--De Confus thou me with thine own self
Ling. with the glory which I had
with thee before the world
'And was before all things.' was.'--John xvii. 5.
--De Leg. Allegor.
'He was in the beginning
with God.'--John i. 2.
'Before all worlds.'--2
Tim. i. 9.
'The Logos is esteemed 'Christ, who is over all,
the same as God.'--De God blessed for evermore.'
Somniis. --Rom. ix. 5.
'Who, being in the form
of God. thought it no robbery
to be equal with God.'--Phil.
ii. 6.
'The Logos was eternal.' 'Christ abideth for ever.
--De Plant. Noë. --John xii. 34.
'But to the Son he saith,
Thy throne, O God, is for
ever and ever.'--Heb. i. 8.
'The Logos supports the 'Upholding all things by
world, is the connecting the word of his power.'--Heb.
power by which all things i. 3.
are united.'--De Profugis.
'By him all things consist.'
'The Logos is nearest to --Col. i. 17.
God, without any separation;
being, as it were, fixed upon 'I and my Father are one.'
the only true existing Deity, --John x. 30.
nothing coming between to 'That they may be one as
disturb that unity."--De we are.'--John i. 18.
Profugis.
'The Logos is free from 'The only begotten Son,
all taint of sin, either who is in the bosom of the
voluntary or involuntary.'--De Father.'--John i. 18.
Profugis.
'The blood of Christ, who
'The Logos the fountain offered himself without
of life. spot to God.'--Heb. ix. 14.
'It is of the greatest 'Who did no sin, neither
consequence to every person to was guile found in his
strive without remission to mouth.'--1 Pet. ii. 22.
approach to the divine Logos,
the Word of God above, who 'Whosoever shall drink of the
is the fountain of all wisdom; water that I shall give him,
that by drinking largely shall never thirst, but the
of that sacred spring, instead water that I shall give him
of death, he may be rewarded shall be in him a well of
with everlasting life.'--De water springing up into
Profugis. everlasting life,'--John iv. 14.
'The Logos is the shepherd 'The great shepherd of the
of God's flock. flock... our Lord Jesus.'--
Heb. xiii. 20.
'The deity, like a shepherd,
and at the same time 'I am the good shepherd, and
like a monarch, acts with the know my sheep, and am known
most consummate order and of mine.'--John x. 14.
rectitude, and has appointed
his First-born, the upright 'Christ ... the shepherd and
Logos, like the substitute of guardian of your souls.'--
a mighty prince, to take care 1 Pet. ii. 25.
of his sacred flock.'--De
Agricult. 'For Christ must reign till he
hath put all his enemies under
The Logos, Philo says, is his feet.'--1 Cor xv. 25.
'The great governor of the
world; he is the creative and 'Christ, above all principality,
princely power, and through and might, and dominion, and
these the heavens and the every name that is named, not
whole world were produced.' only in this world, but in the
--De Profugis. world to come .. and God hath
put all things under his feet.'--
Eph. i. 21, 22
'The Logos is the physician 'The spirit of the Lord is
that heals all evil.'--De upon me, because he hath
Leg. Allegor. anointed me to heal the
broken-hearted.'--Luke iv.
18.
_The Logos the Seal of God._ _Christ the Seal of God._
'The Logos, by whom the 'In whom also, after that
world was framed, is the seal, ye believed, ye were sealed
after the impression of which with the holy seal of promise.'
everything is made, and is --Eph. i. 13
rendered the similitude and 'Jesus, the son of man ... him
image of the perfect Word of hath God the Father
God.'--De Profugis. sealed.'--John vi. 27.
'The soul of man is an 'Christ, the brightness of
impression of a seal, of which his (God's) glory, and the
the prototype and original express image of his person.
characteristic is the everlasting --Heb. i. 3.
Logos.'--De Plantatione
Noë.
_The Logos the source of _Christ the source of eternal
immortal life_. life_.
Philo says 'that when the 'The dead (in Christ) shall
soul strives after its best and be raised incorruptible.'--1
noblest life, then the Logos Cor. xv. 52
frees it from all corruption, 'Because the creature itself
and confers upon it the gift also shall be delivered
of immortality.'--De C.Q. from the bondage of corruption
Erud. Gratiâ. into the glorious liberty of
the children of God.'--Rom.
vii. 21.
The New Testament calls
Philo speaks of the Logos Christ the Beloved Son:--'This
not only as the Son of God is my beloved Son
and his first begotten, but in whom I am well pleased.'
also styles him 'his beloved --Matt. iii. 17; Luke ix. 35;
Son.'--De Leg. Allegor. 2 Pet. i. 17
'The Son of his love.'--Col.
i. 13.
Philo says 'that good men 'But ye are come unto mount
are admitted to the assembly Zion, and to the city of the
of the saints above. living God, and to an
innumerable company of angels,
'Those who relinquish human and to the spirits of just men
doctrines, and become made perfect.'--Heb. xii. 22, 23
the well-disposed disciples of
God, will be one day translated 'Giving thanks unto the Father
to an incorruptible and which hath made us the
perfect order of beings."--De inheritance of the saints in
Sacrifices. light.'--Col. i. 12.
Philo says 'that the just The New Testament makes Jesus to
man, when he dies is translated say:
to another state by the
Logos, by whom the world 'No man can come to me, except
was created. For God by the Father which hath sent me
his said Word (Logos), by draw him; and I will raise him
which he made all things, up on the last day.'--John vi. 44
will raise the perfect man
from the dregs of this world, 'No man cometh to the Father but
and exalt him near himself. by me.'--John xvi. 6.
He will place him near his
own person.'--De Sacrificiis. 'Where I am, there also shall my
servant be ... him will my father
Philo says that the Logos honour.'
is the true High Priest, who
is without sin and anointed The New Testament speaks of Jesus
by God:-- as the High Priest:
'It is the world, in which 'Seeing then that we have a great
the Logos, God's First-born, High Priest that is passed into
that great High Priest, resides. the heavens, Jesus, the Son of
And I assert that this God, let is hold fast our
High Priest is no man, but profession.'--Heb. iv. 14.
the Holy Word of God; who
is not capable of either 'For such an High Priest became us,
voluntary or involuntary sin, who is holy, harmless, undefiled,
and hence his head is anointed separate from sinners.'--Heb. vii. 26.
with oil.'--De Profugis.
The New Testament says of Christ:
Philo mentions the Logos
as the great High Priest and 'We have such an High Priest, who is
Mediator for the sins of the set on the throne of the majest in
world. Speaking of the rebellion the heavens, a mediator of a
of Korah, he introduces the better covenant.'--Heb. viii. 1-6.
Logos as saying :--
'But Christ being come an High
'It was I who stood in the Priest ... entered at once into
middle between the Lord and the holy place, having obtained
you. eternal redemption for us.'--Heb.
ix. 11, 12.
'The sacred Logos pressed
with zeal and without remission The New Testament says of John, the
that he might stand forerunner of Jesus, that he preached
between the dead and the 'the baptism of repentance for the
living.--Quis Rerum Div. remission of sins.'--Mark i. 4.
Haeres.
Jesus says:--
The Logos, the Saviour
God, who brings salvation as 'Ye will not come to me, that ye
the reward of repentance and might have life.'--John v. 40.
righteousness.
'Beloved, we be now the sons of
'If then men have from God; and it doth not yet appear
their very souls a just what we shall be; but we know that
contrition, and are changed, when he doth appear we shall be
and have humbled themselves for like him.'--1 John iii. 2.
their past errors, acknowledging
and confessing their 'As we have born the image of the
sins, such persons shall find earthy, we shall also bear the image
pardon from the Saviour and of the heavenly.'--1 Cor. xv. 49.
merciful God, and receive a
most choice and great advantage 'For if we have been planted
of being like the Logos together in the likeness of his
of God, who was originally death, we shall be also in the
the great archetype after likeness of his resurrection.'--
which the soul of man was Rom. vi. 5.
formed.'--De Execrationibus.
Here, then, we get, complete, the idea of Christ as the Word of God, and
we see that Christianity is as lacking in originality on these points as
in everything else. We may note, also, that this Platonic idea was
current among the Jews before Philo, although he gives it to us more
thoroughly and fully worked out: in the apocryphal books of the Jews we
find the idea of the Logos in many passages in Wisdom, to take but a
single case.
The widely-spread existence of this notion is acknowledged by Dean
Milman in his "History of Christianity." He says: "This Being was more
or less distinctly impersonated, according to the more popular or more
philosophic, the more material or the more abstract, notions of the age
or people. This was the doctrine from the Ganges, or even the shores of
the Yellow Sea to the Ilissus; it was the fundamental principle of the
Indian religion and the Indian philosophy; it was the basis of
Zoroastrianism; it was pure Platonism; it was the Platonic Judaism of
the Alexandrian school. Many fine passages might be quoted from Philo,
on the impossibility that the first self-existing Being should become
cognisable to the sense of man; and even in Palestine, no doubt, John
the Baptist and our Lord himself spoke no new doctrine, but rather the
common sentiment of the more enlightened, when they declared that 'no
man had seen God at any time.' In conformity with this principle, the
Jews, in the interpretation of the older Scriptures, instead of direct
and sensible communication from the one great Deity, had interposed
either one or more intermediate beings as the channels of communication.
According to one accredited tradition alluded to by St. Stephen, the law
was delivered by the 'disposition of angels;' according to another, this
office was delegated to a single angel, sometimes called the angel of
the Law (see Gal. iii. 19); at others, the Metatron. But the more
ordinary representative, as it were, of God, to the sense and mind of
man, was the Memra, or the Divine Word; and it is remarkable that the
same appellation is found in the Indian, the Persian, the Platonic, and
the Alexandrian systems. By the Targumists, the earliest Jewish
commentators on the Scriptures, this term had been already applied to
the Messiah; nor is it necessary to observe the manner in which it has
been sanctified by its introduction into the Christian scheme. This
uniformity of conception and coincidence of language indicates the
general acquiescence of the human mind in the necessity of some
mediation between the pure spiritual nature of the Deity and the moral
and intellectual nature of man" (as quoted by Lake). And "this
uniformity of conception and coincidence of language indicates," also,
that Christianity has only received and repeated the religious ideas
which existed in earlier times. How can that be a revelation from God
which was well known in the world long before God revealed it? The
acknowledgment of the priority of Pagan thought is the destruction of
the supernatural claims of Christianity based on the same thought; that
cannot be supernatural after Christ which was natural before him, nor
that sent down from heaven which was already on earth as the product of
human reason. The Rev. Mr. Lake fairly says: "We have evidence--clear,
conclusive, irrefutable evidence--as to what this doctrine really is. We
can trace its birth-place in the philosophic speculations of the ancient
world, we can note its gradual development and growth, we can see it in
its early youth passing (through Philo and others) from Grecian
philosophy into the current of Jewish thought; then, after resting
awhile in the Judaism of the period of the Christian era, we see it
slightly changing its character, as it passes through Gamaliel,
Paul--the writers of the Fourth Gospel and of the Epistle to the
Hebrews--through Justin Martyr and Tertullian, into the stream of early
Christian thought, and now from a sublime philosophical speculation it
becomes dwarfed and corrupted into a church dogma, and finally gets
hardened as a frozen mass of absurdity, stupidity, and blasphemy, in the
Nicene and Athanasian creeds" ("Philo, Plato, and Paul," pp. 71, 72).
The idea of IMMORTALITY was by no means "brought to light" by Christ, as
is pretended. The early Jews had clearly no idea of life after death;
"for in death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave who shall
give thee thanks?" (Ps. vi. 5). "Like the slain that lie in the grave,
whom thou rememberest no more.... Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead?
Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Shall thy lovingkindness be
declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy
wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of
forgetfulness?" (Ps. lxxxviii. 5, 10-12). "The dead praise not the Lord"
(Ps. cxv. 17). "I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons
of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they
themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men
befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so
dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that man hath no
pre-eminence above a beast" (Eccles. iii. 18, 19). "There is no work,
nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave" (Ibid, ix. 10).
"The grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go
down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he
shall praise thee" (Is. xxxviii. 18, 19). In strict accordance with this
belief, that death was the end of man, the pre-captivity Jews regarded
wealth, strength, prosperity, and all earthly blessings, as the reward
of virtue. After the captivity they change their tone; in the
post-Babylonian Psalms life after death is distinctly spoken of: "My
flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell"
(Ps. xvi. 9, 10); together with other passages. In the apocryphal Jewish
Scriptures the belief in immortality appears over and over again.
To say that Jesus "brought life and immortality to light through the
Gospel," even to the Jews, is to contend for a position against all
evidence. If from the Jews we turn to the Pagan thinkers, immortality is
proclaimed by them long before the Jews have dreamed about it. The
Egyptians, in their funeral ritual, went through the judgment of the
soul before Osiris: "The resurrection of the dead to a second life had
been a deep-rooted religious opinion among the Egyptians from the
earliest times" ("Egyptian Mythology," Sharpe, p. 52), and they appear to
have believed in a transmigration of souls through the lower animals,
and an ultimate return to the original body; to this end they preserved
the body as a mummy, so that the soul, on its return, might find its
original habitation still in existence: any who believe in the
resurrection of the body should clearly follow the example of the
ancient Egyptians. In later times, the more instructed Egyptians
believed in a spiritual resurrection only, but the mass of the people
clung to the idea of a bodily resurrection (Ibid, p. 54). "It is to the
later times of Egyptian history, perhaps to the five centuries
immediately before the Christian era, that the religious opinions
contained in the funeral papyri chiefly belong. The roll of papyrus
buried with the mummy often describes the funeral, and then goes on to
the return of the soul to the body, the resurrection, the various trials
and difficulties which the deceased will meet and overcome in the next
world, and the garden of paradise in which he awaits the day of
judgment, the trial on that day, and it then shows the punishment which
would have awaited him if he had been found guilty" (Ibid, p. 64). We
have already seen that the immortality of the soul was taught by Plato
(ante, p. 364). The Hindus taught that happiness or misery hereafter
depended upon the life here. "If duty is performed, a good name will be
obtained, as well as happiness, here and after death" ("Mahabharata,"
xii., 6,538, in "Religious and Moral Sentiments from Indian Writers," by
J. Muir, p. 22). The "Mahabharata" was written, or rather collected, in
the second century before Christ. "Poor King Rantideva bestowed water
with a pure mind, and thence ascended to heaven.... King Nriga gave
thousands of largesses of cows to Brahmans; but because he gave away one
belonging to another person, he went to hell" (Ibid, xiv. 2,787 and
2,789. Muir, pp, 31, 32). "Let us now examine into the theology of
India, as reported by Megasthenes, about B.C. 300 (Cory's 'Ancient
Fragments,' p. 226, _et seq_.). 'They, the Brahmins, regard the present
life merely as the conception of persons presently to be born, and death
as the birth into a life of reality and happiness, to those who rightly
philosophise: upon this account they are studiously careful in preparing
for death'" (Inman's "Ancient Faiths," vol. ii., p. 820). Zoroaster
(B.C. 1,200, or possibly 2,000) taught: "The soul, being a bright fire,
by the power of the Father remains immortal, and is the mistress of
life" (Ibid, p. 821). "The Indians were believers in the immortality of
the soul, and conscious future existence. They taught that immediately
after death the souls of men, both good and bad, proceed together along
an appointed path to the bridge of the gatherer, a narrow path to
heaven, over which the souls of the pious alone could pass, whilst the
wicked fall from it into the gulf below; that the prayers of his living
friends are of much value to the dead, and greatly help him on his
journey. As his soul enters the abode of bliss, it is greeted with the
word, 'How happy art thou, who hast come here to us, mortality to
immortality!' Then the pious soul goes joyfully onward to Ahura-Mazdao,
to the immortal saints, the golden throne, and Paradise" (Ibid, p. 834).
From these notions the writer of the story of Jesus drew his idea of the
"narrow way" that led to heaven, and of the "strait gate" through which
many would be unable to pass. Cicero (bk. vi. "Commonwealth," quoted by
Inman) says: "Be assured that, for all those who have in any way
conducted to the preservation, defence, and enlargement of their native
country, there is a certain place in heaven, where they shall enjoy an
eternity and happiness." It is needless to further multiply quotations
in order to show that our latest development of these Eastern creeds
only reiterated the teaching of the earlier phases of religious thought.
"But, at least," urge the Christians, "we owe the sublime idea of the
UNITY OF GOD to revelation, and this is grander than the Polytheism of
the Pagan world." Is it not, however, true, that just as Christians urge
that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are but one God, so the thinkers
of old believed in one Supreme Being, while the multitudinous gods were
but as the angels and saints of Christianity, his messengers, his
subordinates, not his rivals? All savages are Polytheists, just as were
the Hebrews, whose god "Jehovah" was but their special god, stronger
than the gods of the nations around them, gods whose existence they
never denied; but as thought grew, the superior minds in each nation
rose over the multitude of deities to the idea of one Supreme Being
working in many ways, and the loftiest flights of the "prophets" of the
Jewish Scriptures may be paralleled by those of the sages of other
creeds. Zoroaster taught that "God is the first, indestructible,
eternal, unbegotten, indivisible, dissimilar" ("Ancient Fragments,"
Cory, p. 239, quoted by Inman). In the Sabaean Litany (two extracts only
of this ancient work are preserved by El Wardi, the great Arabic
historian) we read: "Thou art the Eternal One, in whom all order is
centred.... Thou dost embrace all things. Thou art the Infinite and
Incomprehensible, who standest alone" ("Sacred Anthology," by M.D.
Conway, pp. 74, 75). "There is only one Deity, the great soul. He is
called the Sun, for he is the soul of all beings. That which is One, the
wise call it in divers manners. Wise poets, by words, make the
beautiful-winged manifold, though he is One" ("Rig-Veda," B.C. 1500,
from "Anthology," p.76). "The Divine Mind alone is the whole assemblage
of the gods.... He (the Brahmin) may contemplate castle, air, fire,
water, the subtile ether, in his own body and organs; in his heart, the
Star; in his motion, Vishnu; in his vigour, Hara; in his speech, Agni;
in digestion, Mitra; in production, Brahma; but he must consider the
supreme Omnipresent Reason as sovereign of them all" ("Manu," about B.C.
1200; his code collected about B.C. 300; from "Anthology," p. 81). On an
ancient stone at Bonddha Gaya is a Sanscrit inscription to Buddha, in
which we find: "Reverence be unto thee, an incarnation of the Deity and
the Eternal One. OM! [the mysterious name of God, equivalent to pure
existence, or the Jewish Jhvh] the possessor of all things in vital
form! Thou art Brahma, Veeshnoo, and Mahesa!... I adore thee, who art
celebrated by a thousand names, and under various forms" ("Asiatic
Researches," Essay xi., by Mr. Wilmot; vol. i., p. 285). Plato's
teaching is, "that there is but one God" (ante, p. 364), and wherever we
search, we find that the more thoughtful proclaimed the unity of the
Deity. This doctrine must, then, go the way of the rest, and it must be
acknowledged that the boasted revelation is, once more, but the
speculation of man's unassisted reason.
Turning from these cardinal doctrines to the minor dogmas and ceremonies
of Christianity, we shall still discover it to be nothing but a survival
of Paganism.
BAPTISM seems to have been practised as a religious rite in all solar
creeds, and has naturally, therefore, found its due place in the latest
solar faith. "The idea of using water as emblematic of spiritual
washing, is too obvious to allow surprise at the antiquity of this rite.
Dr. Hyde, in his treatise on the 'Religion of the Ancient Persians,'
xxxiv. 406, tells us that it prevailed among that people. 'They do not
use circumcision for their children, but only baptism or washing for the
inward purification of the soul. They bring the child to the priest into
the church, and place him in front of the sun and fire, which ceremony
being completed, they look upon him as more sacred than before. Lord
says that they bring the water for this purpose in bark of the
Holm-tree; that tree is in truth the Haum of the Magi, of which we spoke
before on another occasion. Sometimes also it is otherwise done by
immersing him in a large vessel of water, as Tavernier tells us. After
such washing, or baptism, the priest imposes on the child the name given
by his parents'" ("Christian Records," Rev. Dr. Giles, p. 129).
"The Baptismal fonts in our Protestant churches, and we can hardly say
more especially the little cisterns at the entrance of our Catholic
chapels, are not imitations, but an unbroken and never interrupted
continuation of the same _aquaminaria_, or _amula_, which the learned
Montfaucon, in his 'Antiquities,' shows to have been _vases of holy
water, which were placed by the heathens at the entrance of their
temples, to sprinkle themselves with upon entering those sacred
edifices_" ("Diegesis," R. Taylor, p. 219). Among the Hindus, to bathe
in the Ganges is to be regenerated, and the water is holy because it
flows from Brahma's feet. Tertullian, arguing that water, as being God's
earliest and most favoured creation, and brooded over by the
spirit--Vishnu also is called Narayan, "moving on the waters"--was
sanctifying in its nature, says: "'Well, but the nations, who are
strangers to all understanding of spiritual powers, ascribe to their
idols the imbuing of waters with the self-same efficacy.' So they do,
but these cheat themselves with waters which are widowed. For washing is
the channel through which they are initiated into some sacred rites of
some notorious Isis or Mithra; and the gods themselves likewise they
honour by washings.... At the Appollinarian and Eleusinian games they
are baptised; and they presume that the effect of their doing that is
the regeneration, and the remission of the penalties due to their
perjuries.... Which fact, being acknowledged, we recognise here also the
zeal of the devil rivalling the things of God, while we find him, too,
practising baptism in his subjects" ("On Baptism," chap. v.). As "the
devil" did it first, it seems scarcely fair to accuse _him_ of copying.
Closely allied to baptism is the idea of regeneration, being born again.
In baptism the purification is wrought by the male deity, typified in
the water flowing from the throne or the feet of the god. In
regeneration without water the purification is wrought by the female
deity. The earth is the mother of all, and "as at birth the new being
emerges from the mother, so it was supposed that emergence from a
terrestrial cleft was equivalent to a new birth" (Inman's "Ancient
Faiths," vol. i., p. 415; ed. 1868). Hence the custom of squeezing
through a hole in a rock, or passing through a perforated stone, or
between and under stones set up for the purpose; a natural cleft in a
rock or in the earth was considered as specially holy, and to some of
these long pilgrimages are still made in Eastern lands. On emerging from
the hole, the devotee is re-born, and the sins of the past are no longer
counted against him.
CONFIRMATION was also a rite employed by the ancient Persians.
"Afterwards, in the fifteenth year of his age, when he begins to put on
the tunic, the sudra and the girdle, that he may enter upon religion,
and is engaged upon the articles of belief, the priest bestows upon him
confirmation, that he may from that time be admitted into the number of
the faithful, and may be looked upon as a believer himself" (Dr. Hyde on
"Religion of the Ancient Persians," tr. by Dr. Giles in "Christian
Records," pp. 129, 130).
LORD'S SUPPER.--Bread and wine appear to have been a regular offering to
the Sun-god, whose beams ripen the corn and the grape, and who may
indeed, by a figure, be said to be transubstantiated thus for the food
of man. The Persians offered bread and wine to Mithra; the people of
Thibet and Tartary did the same. Cakes were made for the Queen of
heaven, kneaded of dough, and were offered up to her with incense and
drink-libations (Jer. vii. 18, and xliv. 19). Ishtar was worshipped with
cakes, or buns, made out of the finest flour, mingled with honey, and
the ancient Greeks offered the same: this bread seems to have been
sometimes only offered to the deity, sometimes also eaten by the
worshippers; in the same way the bread and the wine are offered to God
in the Eucharist, and he is prayed to accept "our alms _and oblations_."
The Easter Cakes presented by the clergyman to his parishioners--an old
English custom, now rarely met with--are the cakes of Ishtar, oval in
form, symbolising the yoni. We have already dealt fully with the
apparent similarity between the Christian Agapae, and the Bacchanalian
mysteries (ante, pp. 222-227). The supper of Adoneus, Adonai, literally,
the "supper of the Lord," formed part of these feasts, identical in name
with the supper of the Christian mysteries. The Eleusinian mysteries,
celebrated at Eleusis, in honour of Ceres, goddess of corn, and Bacchus,
god of wine, compel us to think of bread and wine, the very substance of
the gods, as it were, there adored. And Mosheim gives us the origin of
many of the Christian eucharistic ceremonies. He writes: "The profound
respect that was paid to the Greek and Roman mysteries, and the
extraordinary sanctity that was attributed to them, was a further
circumstance that induced the Christians to give their religion a mystic
air, in order to put it upon an equal foot, in point of dignity, with
that of the Pagans. For this purpose they gave the name of mysteries to
the institutions of the gospel, and decorated particularly the holy
Sacrament with that solemn title. They used in that sacred institution,
as also in that of baptism, several of the terms employed in the heathen
mysteries; and proceeded so far, at length, as even to adopt some of the
rites and ceremonies of which these renowned mysteries consisted. This
imitation began in the Eastern provinces; but after the time of Adrian,
who first introduced the mysteries among the Latins, it was followed by
the Christians, who dwelt in the Western parts of the Empire. A great
part, therefore, of the service of the church, in this century [A.D.
100-200], had a certain air of the heathen mysteries, and resembled them
considerably in many particulars" ("Eccles. Hist.," 2nd century, p. 56).
The whole system of THE PRIESTHOOD was transplanted into Christianity
from Paganism; the Egyptian priesthood, however, was in great part
hereditary, and in this differs from the Christian, while resembling the
Jewish. The priests of the temple of Dea (Syria) were, on the other
hand, celibate, and so were some orders of the Egyptian priests. Some
classes of priests closely resembled Christian monks, living in
monasteries, and undergoing many austerities; they prayed twice a day,
fasted often, spoke little, and lived much apart in their cells in
solitary meditation; in the most insignificant matters the same
similarity may be traced. "When the Roman Catholic priest shaves the top
of his head, it is because the Egyptian priest had done the same before.
When the English clergyman--though he preaches his sermon in a silk or
woollen robe--may read the Liturgy in no dress but linen, it is because
linen was the clothing of the Egyptians. Two thousand years before the
Bishop of Rome pretended to hold the keys of heaven and earth, there was
an Egyptian priest with the high-sounding title of Appointed keeper of
the two doors of heaven, in the city of Thebes" ("Egyptian Mythology,"
S. Sharpe, preface, p. xi.). The white robes of modern priests are
remnants of the same old faith; the more gorgeous vestments are the
ancient garb of the priests officiating in the temple of female deities;
the stole is the characteristic of woman's dress; the pallium is the
emblem of the yoni; the alb is the chemise; the oval or circular
chasuble is again the yoni; the Christian mitre is the high cap of the
Egyptian priests, and its peculiar shape is simply the open mouth of the
fish, the female emblem. In old sculptures a fish's head, with open
mouth pointing upwards, is often worn by the priests, and is scarcely
distinguishable from the present mitre. The modern crozier is the hooked
staff, emblem of the phallus; the oval frame for divine things is the
female symbol once more. Thus holy medals are generally oval, and the
Virgin is constantly represented in an oval frame, with the child in her
arms. In some old missals, in representations of the Annunciation, we
see the Virgin standing, with the dove hovering in front above her, and
from the dove issues a beam of light, from the end of which, as it
touches her stomach, depends an oval containing the infant Jesus.
The tinkling bell--used at the Mass at the moment of consecration--is
the symbol of male and female together--the clapper, the male, within
the hollow shell, the female--and was used in solar services at the
moment of sacrifice. The position of the fingers of the priest in
blessing the congregation is the old symbolical position of the fingers
of the solar priest. The Latin form, with the two fingers and thumb
upraised--copied in Anglican churches--is said rightly by ecclesiastical
writers to represent the trinity; but the trinity it represents is the
real human trinity: the more elaborate Greek form is intended to
represent the cross as well. The decoration of the cross with flowers,
specially at Easter-tide, was practised in the solar temples, and there
the phallus, upright on the altar, was garlanded with spring blossoms,
and was adored as the "Lord and Giver of Life, proceeding from the
Father," and indeed one with him, his very self. The sacred books of the
Egyptians were written by the god Thoth, just as the sacred books of the
Christians were written by the god the Holy Ghost. The rosary and cross
were used by Buddhists in Thibet and Tartary. The head of the religion
in those countries, the Grand Llama, is elected by the priests of a
certain rank, as the Pope by his Cardinals. The faithful observe fasts,
offer sacrifice for the dead, practise confession, use holy water,
honour relics, make processions; they have monasteries and convents,
whose inmates take vows of poverty and chastity; they flagellate
themselves, have priests and bishops--in fact, they carry out the whole
system of Catholicism, and have done so, since centuries before Christ,
so that a Roman Catholic priest, on his first mission among them,
exclaimed that the Devil had invented an imitation of Christianity in
order to deceive and ruin men. As with baptism, the imitation is older
than the original!
"The rites and institutions, by which the Greeks, Romans, and other
nations, had formerly testified their religious veneration for
fictitious deities, were now adopted, with some slight alterations, by
Christian bishops, and employed in the service of the true God. [This is
the way a Christian writer accounts for the resemblance his candour
forces him to confess; we should put it, that Christianity, growing out
of Paganism, naturally preserved many of its customs.].... Hence it
happened that in these times the religion of the Greeks and Romans
differed very little in its external appearance from that of the
Christians. They had both a most pompous and splendid ritual. Gorgeous
robes, mitres, tiaras, wax-tapers, crosiers, processions, lustrations,
images, gold and silver vases, and many such circumstances of pageantry,
were equally to be seen in the heathen temples and the Christian
churches" (Mosheim's "Eccles. Hist.," fourth century, p. 105). Says
Dulaure: "These two Fathers [Justin and Tertullian] are in no fashion
embarrassed by this astonishing resemblance; they both say that the
devil, knowing beforehand of the establishment of Christianity, and of
the ceremonies of this religion, inspired the Pagans to do the same, so
as to rival God and injure Christian worship" ("Histoire Abrégée de
Differens Cultes," t. i., p. 522; ed. 1825).
The idea of _angels and devils_ has also spread from the far East; the
Jews learned it from the Babylonians, and from the Jews and the
Egyptians it passed into Christianity. The Persian theology had seven
angels of the highest order, who ever surrounded Ormuzd, the good
creator; and from this the Jews derived the seven archangels always
before the Lord, and the Christians the "seven spirits of God" (Rev.
iii. 1), and the "seven angels which stood before God" (Ibid, viii. 2).
The Persians had four angels--one at each corner of the world;
Revelation has "four angels standing on the four corners of the earth"
(vii. 1). The Persians employed them as Mediators with the Supreme; the
majority of Christians now do the same, and all Christians did so in
earlier times. Origen, Tertullian, Chrysostom, and other Fathers, speak
of angels as ruling the earth, the planets, etc. Michael is the angel of
the Sun, as was Hercules, and he fights with and conquers the dragon, as
Hercules the Python, Horus the monster Typhon, Krishna the serpent. The
Persians believed in devils as well as in angels, and they also had
their chief, Ahriman, the pattern of Satan. These devils--or dews, or
devs--struggled against the good, and in the end would be destroyed, and
Ahriman would be chained down in the abyss, as Satan in Rev. xx. Ahriman
flew down to earth from heaven as a great dragon (Rev. xii. 3 and 9),
the angels arming themselves against him (Ibid, verse 7). Strauss
remarks: "Had the belief in celestial beings, occupying a particular
station in the court of heaven, and distinguished by particular names,
originated from the revealed religion of the Hebrews--had such a belief
been established by Moses, or some later prophet--then, according to the
views of the supranaturalist, they might--nay, they must--be admitted to
be correct. But it is in the Maccabaean Daniel and in the apocryphal
Tobit that this doctrine of angels, in its more precise form, first
appears; and it is evidently a product of the influence of the Zend
religion of the Persians on the Jewish mind. We have the testimony of
the Jews themselves that they brought the names of the angels with them
from Babylon" ("Life of Jesus," vol. i., p. 101).
Dr. Kalisch, after having remarked that "the notions [of the Jews]
concerning angels fluctuated and changed," says that "at an early
period, the belief in spirits was introduced into Palestine from eastern
Asia through the ordinary channels of political and commercial
interchange," and that to the Hebrew "notions heathen mythology offers
striking analogies;" "it would be unwarranted," the learned doctor goes
on, "to distinguish between the 'established belief of the Hebrews' and
'popular superstition;' we have no means of fixing the boundary line
between both; we must consider the one to coincide with the other, or we
should be obliged to renounce all historical inquiry. The belief in
spirits and demons was not a concession made by educated men to the
prejudices of the masses, but a concession which all--the educated as
well as the uneducated--made to Pagan Polytheism" ("Historical and
Critical Commentary on the Old Testament." Leviticus, part ii., pp.
284-287. Ed. 1872). "When the Jews, ever open to foreign influence in
matters of faith, lived under Persian rule, they imbibed, among many
other religious views of their masters, especially their doctrines of
angels and spirits, which, in the region of the Euphrates and Tigris,
were most luxuriantly developed." Some of the angels are now
"distinguished by names, which the Jews themselves admit to have
borrowed from their heathen rulers;" "their chief is Mithron, or
Metatron, corresponding to the Persian Mithra, the mediator between
eternal light and eternal darkness; he is the embodiment of divine
omnipotence and omnipresence, the guardian of the world, the instructor
of Moses, and the preserver of the law, but also a terrible avenger of
disobedience and wickedness, especially in his capacity of Supreme Judge
of the dead" (Ibid, pp. 287, 288). This is "the angel of the Lord" who
went before the children of Israel, of whom God said "my name is in him"
(see Ex. xxiii. 20-23), and who is identified by many Christian
commentators as the second person in the Trinity. The belief in devils
is the other side of the belief in angels, and "we see, above all, Satan
rise to greater and more perilous eminence both with regard to his power
and the diversity of his functions." "This remarkable advance in
demonology cannot be surprising, if we consider that the Persian system
known as that of Zoroaster, and centering in the dualism of a good and
evil principle, flourished most and attained its fullest development,
just about the time of the Babylonian exile" (Ibid, pp. 292, 293). The
Persian creed supplies us, as Dr. Kalisch has well said, with "the
sources from which the demonology of the Talmud, the Fathers and the
Catholic Church has been derived" (Ibid, p. 318).
The whole ideas of the _judgment of the dead_, the _destruction of the
world by fire_, and the _punishment of the wicked_, are also purely
Pagan. Justin Martyr says truly that as Minos and Rhadamanthus would
punish the wicked, "we say that the same thing will be done, but by the
hand of Christ" ("Apology" 1, chap. viii). "While we say that there will
be a burning up of all, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of the
Stoics; and while we affirm that the souls of the wicked, being endowed
with sensation even after death, are punished, and that those of the
good being delivered from punishment spend a blessed existence, we shall
seem to say the same things as the poets and philosophers" (Ibid, chap.
xx). In the Egyptian creed Osiris is generally the Judge of the dead,
though sometimes Horus is represented in that character; the dead man is
accused before the Judge by Typhon, the evil one, as Satan is the
"accuser of the brethren;" forty-two assessors declare the innocence of
the accused of the crimes they severally note; the recording angel
writes down the judgment; the soul is interceded for by the lesser gods,
who offer themselves as an atoning sacrifice (see Sharpe's "Egyptian
Mythology," pp. 49-52). A pit, or lake of fire, is the doom of the
condemned. The good pass to Paradise, where is the tree of life: the
fruit of this tree confers health and immortality. In the Persian
mythology the tree of life is planted by the stream that flows from the
throne of Ormuzd (Rev. xxii. i and 2). The Hindu creed has the same
story, and it is also found among the Chinese.
The monastic life comes to us from India and from Egypt; in both
countries solitaries and communities are found. Bartholémy St. Hilaire,
in his book on Buddha, gives an account of the Buddhist monasteries
which is worthy perusal. From Egypt the contagion of asceticism spread
over Christendom. "From Philo also we learn that a large body of
Egyptian Jews had embraced the monastic rules and the life of
self-denial, which we have already noted among the Egyptian priests.
They bore the name of Therapeuts. They spent their time in solitary
meditation and prayer, and only saw one another on the seventh day. They
did not marry; the women lived the same solitary and religious life as
the men. Fasting and mortification of the flesh were the foundation of
their virtues" ("Egyptian Mythology," S. Sharpe, p. 79). In these
Egyptian deserts grew up those wild and bigoted fanatics--some Jews,
some Pagans, and apparently no difference between them--who, appearing
later under the name of Christians, formed the original of the Western
monasticism. It was these monks who tore Hypatia to pieces in the great
church of Alexandria, and who formed the strength of "that savage and
illiterate party, who looked upon all sorts of erudition, particularly
that of a philosophical kind, as pernicious, and even destructive to
true piety and religion" (Mosheim's "Eccles. Hist," p. 93). There can be
no doubt of the identity of the Christians and the Therapeuts, and this
identity is the real key to the spread of "Christianity" in Egypt and
the surrounding countries. Eusebius tells us that Mark was said to be
the first who preached the Gospel in Egypt, and "so great a multitude of
believers, both of men and women, were collected there at the very
outset, that in consequence of their extreme philosophical discipline
and austerity, Philo has considered their pursuits, their assemblies,
and entertainments, as deserving a place in his descriptions" ("Eccles.
Hist," bk. ii., chap. xvi). We will see what Philo found in Egypt,
before remarking on the date at which he lived. Eusebius states (we
condense bk. ii., chap. xvii) that Philo "comprehends the regulations
that are still observed in our churches even to the present time;" that
he "describes, with the greatest accuracy, the lives of our ascetics;"
these Therapeuts, stated by Eusebius to be Christians, were "everywhere
scattered over the world," but they abound "in Egypt, in each of its
districts, and particularly about Alexandria." In every house one room
was set aside for worship, reading, and meditation, and here they kept
the "inspired declarations of the prophets, and hymns," they had also
"commentaries of ancient men," who were "the founders of the sect;" "it
is highly probable that the ancient commentaries which he says they
have, are the very Gospels and writings of the apostles;" Eusebius
thinks that none can "be so hardy as to contradict his statement that
these Therapeuts were Christians, when their practices are to be found
among none but in the religion of Christians;" and "why should we add to
these their meetings, and the separate abodes of the men and the women
in these meetings, and the exercises performed by them, which are still
in vogue among us at the present day, and which, especially at the
festival of our Saviour's passion, we are accustomed to pass in fasting
and watching, and in the study of the divine word? All these the
above-mentioned author has accurately described and stated in his
writings, and are the same customs that are observed by us alone, at the
present day, particularly the vigils of the great festival, and the
exercises in them, and the hymns that are commonly recited among us....
Besides this, he describes the grades of dignity among those who
administer the ecclesiastical services committed to them, those of the
deacons, and the presidencies of the episcopate as the highest." Thus
Philo wrote of "the original practices handed down from the apostles."
The important points to notice here are: that in the time of Philo,
these Christians were scattered all over the world; that the
commentaries they had, which Eusebius says were the Christian's gospels,
were the works of _ancient_ men, who founded the sect, so that the
founders were men who lived long before Philo's time; that they were
thoroughly organised, proving thereby that their sect was not a new one
in his day; that the "discipline," organised association, ranks of
priests, etc., implied a long existence of the sect before Philo studied
it, and that such existence was clearly not consistent with any
persecution being then directed against it. Philo writes of flourishing
and orderly communities, founded by men who had long since passed away,
and had bequeathed their writings to their followers for their
instruction and guidance. And what was the date of Philo? He himself
gives us a clear note of time; in A.D. 40 he was sent on an embassy to
the Emperor Caligula at Rome, to complain of a persecution to which the
Jews were being subjected by Flaccus; he describes himself as being, in
A.D. 40, "a grey-headed old man." The Rev. J.W. Lake puts him at
sixty-five or seventy years of age at that period, and consequently
would place his birth twenty-five or thirty years before the birth of
Jesus ("Plato, Philo, and Paul," by Rev. J.W. Lake, pp. 33, 34).
Gibbon, in a note to chap. 15, vol. ii. (p. 180), says that "by proving
it (the treatise on the Therapeuts) was composed as early as the time of
Augustus, Basnage has demonstrated, in spite of Eusebius, and a crowd of
modern Catholics, that the Therapeuts were neither Christians nor
monks." Or rather, he has proved that Christians existed before the time
of Christ, since Augustus died A.D. 14, and before that date Philo found
a long-established sect holding Christian doctrines and practising
"apostolic" customs. A man, who in A.D. 40 was grey-headed, spoke of the
Christian Gospels as writings of ancient men, founders of a
well-organised sect. Now we see why Christianity has so much in common
with the Egyptian mythology. Because it grew out of Egypt; its Gospels
came from thence; its ceremonies were learned there; its virgin is Isis;
its Christ Osiris and Horus; the mask of the revelation of God drops
from off it, and we see the true face, the ancient Egyptian religion,
with a feature here and there moulded by the cognate ideas of other
Eastern creeds, all of which flowed into Alexandria, and mingled in its
seething cauldron of thought.
There is also a Jewish sect which we must not overlook, in dealing with
the sources of Christianity, that, namely, known as the Essenes. Gibbon
regards the Therapeuts and the Essenes as interchangeable terms, but
more careful investigation does not bear out this conclusion, although
the two sects strongly resemble each other, and have many doctrines in
common; he says, however, truly: "The austere life of the Essenians,
their fasts and excommunications, the community of goods, the love of
celibacy, their zeal for martyrdom, and the warmth, though not the
purity of their faith, already offered a lively image of the primitive
discipline" ("Decline and Fall," vol. ii., ch. xv., p. 180). It is to
Josephus that we must turn for an account of the Essenes; a brief sketch
of them is given in Antiquities of the Jews, bk. xviii., chap. i. He
says: "The doctrine of the Essenes is this: That all things are best
ascribed to God. They teach the immortality of souls, and esteem that
the rewards of righteousness are to be earnestly striven for; and when
they send what they have dedicated to God into the temple, they do not
offer sacrifices, because they have more pure lustrations of their own;
on which account they are excluded from the common court of the temple,
but offer their sacrifices themselves; yet is their course of life
better than that of other men; and they entirely addict themselves to
husbandry." They had all things in common, did not marry and kept no
servants, thus none called any master (Matt. xxiii. 8, 10). In the "Wars
of the Jews," bk. ii., chap, viii., Josephus gives us a fuller account.
"There are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The followers of
the first of whom are the Pharisees; of the second the Sadducees; and
the third sect who pretends to a severer discipline are called Essenes.
These last are Jews by birth, and seem to have a greater affection for
one another than the other sects [John xiii. 35]. These Essenes reject
pleasures as an evil [Matt. xvi. 24], but esteem continence and the
conquest over our passions to be virtue. They neglect wedlock.... They
do not absolutely deny the fitness of marriage [Matt. xix. 12, last
clause of verse, 1 Cor. vii. 27, 28, 32-35, 37, 38, 40].... These men
are despisers of riches [Matt. xix. 21, 23, 24] ... it is a law among
them, that those who come to them must let what they have be common to
the whole order [Acts iv. 32-37, v. 1-11].... They also have stewards
appointed to take care of their common affairs [Acts vi. 1-6].... If any
of their sect come from other places, what they have lies open for them,
just as if it were their own [Matt. x. 11].... For which reason they
carry nothing with them when they travel into remote parts [Matt. x. 9,
10].... As for their piety towards God, it is very extraordinary; for
before sunrising they speak not a word about profane matters, but put up
certain prayers which they have received from their forefathers, as if
they made a supplication for its rising [the Essenes were then
sun-worshippers].... A priest says grace before meat; and it is unlawful
for anyone to taste of the food before grace be said. The same priest,
when he hath dined, says grace again after meat; and when they begin,
and when they end, they praise God, as he that bestows their food upon
them [Eph. v. 18-20. 1 Cor. x. 30, 31. 1 Tim. iv. 4, 5].... They
dispense their anger after a just manner, and restrain their passion
[Eph. iv. 26].... Whatsoever they say also is firmer than an oath; but
swearing is avoided by them, and they esteem it worse than perjury; for
they say, that he who cannot be believed without swearing by God, is
already condemned [Matt. v. 34-37]." We insert these references into the
account given by Josephus of the Essenes, in order to show the identity
of teaching of the Gospels and the Essenes. The Essenes excommunicated
those who sinned grievously; each promised, on entrance to the society,
to exercise piety, observe justice, do no harm to any, show fidelity to
all, and especially to those in authority, love truth, reprove lying,
keep his hands clear from theft, and his soul from unlawful gains. The
resemblance between the Essenes and the early Christians is on many
points so strong that it is impossible to deny that the two are
connected; if Jesus of Nazareth had any historical existence, he must
have been one of the sect of the Essenes, who publicly preached many of
their doctrines, and endeavoured to popularise them. We are thus led to
conclude that the Jewish side of Christianity is simply Essenian, but
that the major part of the religion is purely Pagan, and that its rise
under the name of Christianity must be sought for in Alexandria rather
than in Judæa.
The saints who play so great a part in the history of Christianity are,
solely and simply, the old Pagan deities under new names. The ancient
creeds were intertwined with the daily life of the people, and passed
on, practically unchanged, although altered in name. "Ancient errors, in
spite of the progress of knowledge, were respected. Civilisation, as it
grew, only refined them, embellished them, or hid them under an
allegorical veil" ("Histoire Abrégée de Differens Cultes," Dulauré, t.
i., p. 20). "A remarkable passage in the life of Gregory, surnamed
Thaumaturgus, i.e., the wonder-worker, will illustrate this point in the
clearest manner. This passage is as follows [here it is given in Latin]:
'When Gregory perceived that the ignorant multitude persisted in their
idolatry, on account of the pleasures and sensual gratifications which
they enjoyed at the Pagan festivals, he granted them a permission to
indulge themselves in the like pleasures, in celebrating the memory of
the holy martyrs, hoping that, in process of time they would return, of
their own accord, to a more virtuous and regular course of life.' There
is no sort of doubt that, by this permission, Gregory allowed the
Christians to dance, sport, and feast at the tombs of the martyrs upon
their respective festivals, and to do everything which the Pagans were
accustomed to do in their temples, during the feasts celebrated in
honour of their gods" (Mosheim's "Eccles. Hist.," 2nd century; note, p.
56). "The virtues that had formerly been ascribed to the heathen
temples, to their lustrations, to the statues of their gods and heroes,
were now attributed to Christian churches, to water consecrated by
certain forms of prayer, and to the images of holy men. And the same
privileges that the former enjoyed under the darkness of Paganism, were
conferred upon the latter under the light of the Gospel, or, rather,
under that cloud of superstition that was obscuring its glory. It is
true that, as yet, images were not very common [of this there is no
proof]; nor were there any statues at all [equally unproven]. But it is,
at the same time, as undoubtedly certain, as it is extravagant and
monstrous, that the worship of the martyrs was modelled, by degrees,
according to the religious services that were paid to the gods before
the coming of Christ" (Ibid, 4th century; p. 98). The fact is, that
wherever there was a popular god, he passed into the pantheon of
Christendom under a new name, as "Christianity" spread. Dulaure, in his
work above-quoted, gives a mass of details--mostly very unsavoury--which
leave no doubt upon this point. The essence of the old worship was the
worship of Nature, as we have seen, and a favourite deity was Priapus;
this god was worshipped under the names of St. Fontin, St. Guerlichon,
or Greluchon, St. Remi, St. Gilles, St. Arnaud, SS. Cosmo and Damian,
etc., in the various provinces of France, Italy, and other Roman
Catholic lands; and his worship, with its distinctive rites of the most
indecent character, remained in practice up to, at least, 1740 in
France, and 1780 in Italy. (See throughout the above work.) If
Christians knew a little more about their creed they would be far less
proud of it, and far less devout, than they are at present.
Mr. Glennie, in a pamphlet reprinted from "In the Morning Land," points
out the resemblance between Christianity and "Osirianism," as he names
the religion of Osiris: "'The peculiar character of Osiris,' says Sir
Gardner Wilkinson, 'his coming upon earth for the benefit of mankind,
with the titles of "Manifester of Good" and "Revealer of Truth;" his
being put to death by the malice of the Evil One; his burial and
resurrection, and his becoming the judge of the dead, are the most
interesting features of the Egyptian religion. This was the great
mystery; and this myth and his worship were of the earliest times, and
universal in Egypt.' And, with this central doctrine of Osirianism, so
perfectly similar to that of Christianism, doctrines are associated
precisely analogous to those associated in Christianism with its central
doctrine. In ancient Osirianism, as in modern Christianism, the Godhead
is conceived as a Trinity, yet are the three Gods declared to be only
one God. In ancient Osirianism, as in modern Christianism, we find the
worship of a divine mother and child. In ancient Osirianism, as in
modern Christianism, there is a doctrine of atonement. In ancient
Osirianism, as in modern Christianism, we find the vision of a last
judgment, and resurrection of the body. And finally, in ancient
Osirianism, as in modern Christianism, the sanctions of morality are a
lake of fire and tormenting demons on the one hand, and on the other,
eternal life in the presence of God. Is it possible, then, that such
similarities of doctrines should not raise the most serious questions as
to the relation of the beliefs about Christ to those about Osiris; as to
the cause of this wonderful similarity of the doctrines of Christianism
to those of Osirianism; nay, as to the possibility of the whole
doctrinal system of modern orthodoxy being but a transformation of the
Osiris-myth?" ("Christ and Osiris," pp. 13, 14).
Thus we find that the cardinal doctrines and the ceremonies of
Christianity are of purely Pagan origin, and that "Christianity" was in
existence long ages before Christ. Christianity is only, as we have
said, a patchwork composed of old materials; from the later Jews comes
the Unity of God; from India and Egypt the Trinity in Unity; from India
and Egypt the crucified Redeemer; from India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome,
the virgin mother and the divine son; from Egypt its priests and its
ritual; from the Essenes and the Therapeuts its ascetism; from Persia,
India, and Egypt, its Sacraments; from Persia and Babylonia its angels
and its devils; from Alexandria the blending into one of many lines of
thought. There is nothing original in this creed, save its special
appeal to the ignorant and to babes; "not many wise men after the flesh"
are found among its adherents; it is an appeal to the darkness of the
world, not to its light: to superstition, not to knowledge; to faith,
not to reason. As its root is, so also are its fruits, and when--after
glancing at its morality--we turn to its history, we shall see that the
corrupt tree bears corrupt fruit, and that from the evil stem of a
thinly disguised Paganism spring forth the death-bringing branches of
the Upas-tree Christianity, stunting the growth of the young
civilisation of the West, and drugging, with its poisonous
dew-droppings, the Europe which lay beneath its shade, swoon-slumbering
in the death stupor of the Ages of Darkness and of Faith.
* * * * *
INDEX TO SECTION II. OF PART II.
* * * * *
INDEX OF BOOKS USED.
Cicero, Commonwealth, quoted by Inman...376
Cory, Ancient Fragments, quoted by Inman...377
Dulaure, Histoire Abregee de Differens Cultes...383, 390
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History...386
Gibbon, Decline and Fall...388
Glennie, In the Morning Land...391
Hyde, quoted by Giles...378, 379
Inman, Ancient Faiths...376, 379
Jones, Sir W., Asiatic Researches...356, 377
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews...364, 388
" Wars of the Jews...389
Justin Martyr, First Apology...385
Kalisch, Historical and Critical Commentary...384, 385
Keim, Jesus of Nazara...365
Lake, Plato, Philo, and Paul...363, 364, 367, 374, 388
Mahabharata, quoted by Muir...376
Manu, quoted in Anthology...377
Milman, History of Christianity, quoted by Lake...373
Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History...380, 382, 386, 390, 391
Plato...358
" summarised by Mdme. Dacier...364
Rig Veda, quoted in Anthology...377
Sabaean Litany, quoted in Anthology...377
Sharpe, Egyptian Mythology...360, 375, 381, 385, 386
Strauss, Life of Jesus...383
Taylor, Diegesis...359, 378
Tertullian, On Baptism...379
Zoroaster, quoted by Inman...376
* * * * *
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Angels and devils...383
Baptism...378
Confirmation...379
Cross...357
Crucifix...358
Devils and angels...383
Divinity of Christ...363
Essenes...388
Immortality...374
Judgment of the Dead...385
Logos, ideas of...364
Lord's Supper...379
Mediator...362
Mithras...362
Monasticism...385
Nature and Sun-worship the origin of creeds...355
Osirianism and Christianity...391
Philo, date of...367, 387
Plato's teaching...364
Priesthood...381
Saints, old gods...391
Symbols of male energy...356
" female energy...361
" both in present ceremonies...381
Therapeuts...386
Trinity...359
Union of male and female foundation of religion...355
Unity of God...377
Virgin and child...360
Zoroaster's teaching...362, 376
SECTION III.--ITS MORALITY FALLIBLE.
How much may fairly be included under the title "Christian Morality"?
Some of the more enlightened Christians would confine the term to the
morality of the New Testament, and would exclude the Hebrew code as
being the outcome of a barbarous age. But the Freethinker may fairly
contend that any moral rules taught by the Bible are part of Christian
morality. By the statute 9 and 10 William III, cap. 32, the "Holy
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament" are declared to be "of divine
authority," and there is no exclusion indicated of the Mosaic code; this
statute is binding on all British subjects educated as Christians, and
enacts penalties against those who infringe it. By Article VI. of the
Church of England, Holy Scripture is defined as "those canonical books
of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in
the Church," and a list is subjoined. In Article VII. we are instructed
that the "Commandments which are called moral" are to be obeyed, but
that the "civil precepts" of the Mosaic code ought not "of necessity to
be received in any commonwealth;" from which we may conclude that the
Church does not feel bound to enforce, as "of necessity," polygamy,
prostitution, murder of heretics, and slavery. She does not venture to
designate such precepts as immoral, but she does not feel bound in
conscience to enforce them, for which small concession we must feel
grateful. Passing from the law of the land to the Bible itself, we find
that the Mosaic code must certainly be recognised as divine. Jesus
himself proclaims: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the
prophets, I am not come to destroy but to fulfil," and this is
emphasised by the declaration: "Whosoever, therefore, shall break _one
of these least_ commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called
least in the kingdom of heaven." The Broad Church party will be very
little, if this be true. Turning to the Old Testament, we find that some
of the most immoral precepts are spoken by God himself, immediately
after the "Ten Commandments;" surely that which "The Lord said" out of
"the thick darkness where God was," from the top of Sinai "on a smoke,
with the thunderings and lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet," can
scarcely be reverently designated as "the outcome of a barbarous age"?
Yet it is under these circumstances that God taught that a Hebrew
servant might be bought for seven years; that a wife might be given him
by his master, and that the wife and the children proceeding from the
union belonged to the master; that the servant could only go free by
deserting his wife and his own children and leaving them in slavery (Ex.
xxi. 1-6). It was under these circumstances that God taught that a man
might sell his daughter to be a "maid servant" (the translator's
euphemism for concubine), and that, "if she please not her master" she
may be bought back again, or if he "take him another" (translator
supplying "wife" as throwing an air of respectability over the
transaction) she may go free (Ibid. 7-11). It was under these
circumstances that God taught that if a man should beat a male or female
slave to death, he should not be punished, providing the slave did not
die till "a day or two" after, because the slave was only "his money"
(Ibid. 20, 21). Why blame a Legree, when he only acts on the permission
given by God from Mount Sinai? Dr. Colenso writes: "I shall never forget
the revulsion of feeling with which a very intelligent Christian native,
with whose help I was translating these words into the Zulu tongue,
first heard them as words said to be uttered by the same great and
gracious Being whom I was teaching him to trust in and adore. His whole
soul revolted against the notion, that the great and blessed God, the
merciful Father of all mankind, would speak of a servant, or maid, as
mere 'money,' and allow a horrible crime to go unpunished, because the
victim of the brutal usage had survived a few hours. My own heart and
conscience at the time fully sympathised with his" ("The Pentateuch and
Book of Joshua," p. 9, ed. 1862). It was under these circumstances that
God taught that a thief, who possessed nothing of his own, should "be
sold for his theft" (Ex. xxii. 3). It was under these circumstances that
God taught: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Ibid 18). To this
cruel and wicked command myriads of unfortunate human beings have been
sacrificed; in the course of the Middle Ages hundreds of thousands
perished; in France and Germany "many districts and large towns burned
two, three, and four hundred witches every year, in some the annual
executions destroyed nearly one per cent. of the whole population....
The Reformation, which swept away so many superstitions, left this, the
most odious of all, in full activity. The Churchmen of England, the
Lutherans of Germany, the Calvinists of Geneva, Scotland, and New
England rivalled the most bigoted Roman Catholics in their severities.
Indeed, the Calvinists, though the most opposite of all to the Church of
Rome, were in this respect perhaps the most implicit imitators of her
delusions" ("The Bible; What it is," by C. Bradlaugh, p. 262). "During
the seventeenth century, 40,000 persons are said to have been put to
death for witchcraft in England alone. In Scotland the number was
probably, in proportion to the population, much greater; for it is
certain that even in the last forty years of the sixteenth century the
executions were not fewer than 17,000" (Ibid, p. 263). The Puritans in
New England signalised themselves by their merciless severity towards
wizards and witches. France was the first country to stem the tide of
cruelty. In 1680 Louis XIV. "issued a proclamation prohibiting all
future prosecutions for witchcraft; and directing that even those who
might profess the art should only be punished as impostors." In England
"the last execution was at Huntingdon, in 1716;" in Scotland, at
Darnock, in 1722. The last person burned as a witch was Maria Sanger, at
Wurzburg, in Bavaria, 1749 (Ibid, p. 265). Such fruit has borne the
command of God from Sinai. It was under these circumstances that God
taught that any who sacrificed to any God but himself should be "utterly
destroyed" (Ex. xxii. 20). The practical effect of this we shall
presently see, in conjunction with other passages.
If we pass from these precepts, given with such special solemnity, to
the other articles of the so-called Mosaic code, we shall find rules of
an equally immoral character. Lev. xxiv. 16 commands that "he that
blasphemeth the name of the Lord" shall be stoned. Lev. xxv. 44-46
directs the Hebrews to buy bondmen and bondwomen of the nations around
them, "and ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after
you, to inherit them for a possession," thus sanctioning the
slave-traffic. Leviticus xxvii. 29 distinctly commands human sacrifice,
forbidding the redemption of any that are "devoted of men." Clear as the
words are, their meaning has been hotly contested, because of the stain
they affix on the Mosaic code. "[Hebrew: MOT VOMOT]" that he die. The
commentators take much trouble to soften this terrible sentence.
According to Raschi, it concerns a man condemned to death, in which case
he must not be redeemed for money. According to others, it is necessary
that the person shall be devoted by public authority, and not by private
vow; and the Talmud speaks of Jephthah as a fanatic for having thought
that a human being could serve as a victim, as a burnt-offering; but
there are too many facts which prove the existence and the execution of
this barbarous law; see, besides, the paraphrase of Ben Ouziel: [Hebrew:
KL APRShA TMVL DDYN QShVL MYTChYYB] "all anathema which shall be
anathematised of the human race cannot be redeemed neither by money, by
vows, nor by sacrifices, neither by prayers for mercy before God, since
he is condemned to death" (Lévitique, par Cahen, p. 143; ed. 1855).
Thus Jephthah devoted to the Lord "whatsoever cometh out of the doors of
my house to meet me," and, his daughter being the one who came, he "did
with her according to his vow" (Judges xi. 30-40).
Kalisch, in his Commentary on the Old Testament, gives us an exhaustive
essay on "Human Sacrifices among the Hebrews," endeavouring, as far as
possible, to defend his people from the charge of offering such
sacrifices to Jehovah by reducing instances of it to a minimum. He says,
however: "Yet we have at least two clear and unquestionable instances of
human sacrifices offered to Jehovah. The first is the immolation of
Jephthah's daughter." He then analyses the account, pointing out that it
was clearly a sacrifice to _Jehovah_, and that Jephthah's "intention of
sacrificing his daughter was publicly known for two full months; no
priest, no prophet, no elder, no magistrate interfered, or even
remonstrated." Even further: "The event gave rise to a popular custom
annually observed by the maidens of Israel; Jephthah's deed evidently
met with universal approbation; it was regarded as praiseworthy piety;
and indeed he could not have ventured to make his vow, had not human
victims offered to Jehovah been deemed particularly meritorious in his
time; otherwise he must have apprehended to provoke by it the wrath of
God, rather than procure his assistance. Nothing can be clearer or more
decided.... The fact stands indisputable that human sacrifices offered
to Jehovah were possible among the Hebrews long after the time of Moses,
without meeting a check or censure from the teachers and leaders of the
nation--a fact for which the sad political confusion that prevailed in
the period of the Judges is insufficient to account" (Leviticus, Part
I., pp. 383-385; ed. 1867). Kalisch further points out that the vow of
Jephthah promises a _human_ sacrifice; the Hebrew expression signifies
"_whoever_ comes forth" (see p. 383), and "the Hebrew words, in fact,
absolutely exclude any animal whatever; they admit none but a human
being, who alone can be described as going out of the house to meet
somebody; for, though the restrictive usage of the East binds girls
generally to the seclusion of the house, it seems to have been a common
custom for Hebrew women to proceed and meet returning conquerors with
music and rejoicing; and the sacrifice of one animal, an extremely poor
offering after a most signal and most important success, would certainly
not have been promised by a previous vow solemnly pronounced" (Ibid, pp.
385, 386). Our commentator justly adds: "From the tenour of the
narrative it is manifest that the deed was no isolated case, but that
human sacrifices were on emergencies of peculiar moment habitually
offered to God, and expected to secure his aid. One instance like that
of Jephthah not only justifies, but necessitates, the influence of a
general custom. Pious men slaughtered human victims not to Moloch, nor
to any other foreign deity, but to the national God Jehovah" (Ibid, p.
390). "The second recorded instance of human sacrifices killed in honour
of Jehovah forms a remarkable incident in the life of David" (Ibid, p.
390). We read in 2 Sam. xxi. that God said that a famine then prevailing
was on account of Saul and of his bloody house; that David desired to
make an "atonement;" that seven men of Saul's family were hanged "in the
hill _before the Lord_;" that then they were buried, with Saul and
Jonathan, "and, _after that_, God was intreated for the land." "It
particularly concerns us to observe that the whole matter was, in the
first instance, referred to Jehovah; that David was plainly informed of
the intention of the Gibeonites of 'hanging up' the seven persons
'before Jehovah' as an 'atonement;' that he willingly surrendered them
for that atrocity; that he evidently expected from that act a cessation
of the famine; and that this calamity is reported to have really
disappeared in consequence of the offering" (Ibid, p. 392). Kalisch, in
his anxiety to diminish as far as possible the evidence that human
sacrifices were enjoined by the law, urges that the passage in Leviticus
(xxvii. 29) merely implies that "everything so devoted shall be
destroyed. The extirpation of the men, as a rule heathen enemies in
Canaan, or Hebrew idolaters, is indeed referred to a command of Jehovah,
but it is not intended as a _sacrifice_ to him" (Ibid, p. 409). Surely
this verges on quibbling, and is not even then borne out by the context.
Leviticus xxvii. deals entirely with private "singular vows," and the
"devoting" (_Cherem_) of "man and beast and of the field of his
possession," is not the judicial devoting to destruction of an
idolatrous city or individual, but a special voluntary offering from a
pious worshipper. Besides, even if such judicial duties were "the rule,"
what of the exceptions? There are several indications of the practice of
human sacrifice to Jehovah beyond the two related by Kalisch (the
command to sacrifice Isaac is in itself a consecration by God of the
abomination); the curious account of Aaron's death--whose garments are
taken off and put on his son, and who thereupon dies at the top of the
mount, having walked up there for that purpose, clearly indicates that
he did not die a natural death (Numbers xx. 23-28). Many think that "the
fire from the Lord" which devoured Nadab and Abihu (Lev. x. 1-5) denotes
the sacrifice "before the Lord" of the offending priests. Kalisch demurs
to these latter charges, and to some other additional ones, but says:
"It is, therefore, undoubted that human sacrifices were offered by the
Hebrews from the earliest times up to the Babylonian period, both in
honour of Jehovah and of heathen deities, not only by depraved
idolaters, but sometimes even by pious servants of God; they probably
ceased to be presented to Jehovah not much before they ceased to be
presented at all" (Leviticus, part i., p. 396). We cannot here omit to
notice the command of God in Exodus xxii. 29, 30: "The first-born of thy
sons shalt thou give to me. Likewise thou shalt do with thine oxen and
with thy sheep," etc. As against this we read a command in chap. xiii.
13, "All the first-born of man among thy children thou shalt redeem."
Here, as in many other instances, we get contradictory commands, best
explained by the fact that the Pentateuch is the work of many hands.
Kalisch says: "It is impossible to deny that the first-born sons were
frequently sacrificed, not only by idolatrous Israelites, in honour of
foreign gods, as Moloch and Baal, but by pious men in honour of Jehovah;
but the Pentateuch, the embodiment of the more enlightened and advanced
creed of the Hebrews, distinctly commanded the redemption of the
first-born" (Ibid, p. 404). Kalisch--we may point out--considers the
Pentateuch in its present form as post Babylonian, and regards it as a
reforming agent in the Jewish community.
In Numbers v. 12-31 we find the command to practise the brutal and
superstitious custom of the ordeal, the endorsement of the whole ordeal
system of the Middle Ages. Deuteronomy xiii. is entirely devoted to
commands of murder, and is the indulgence given beforehand to every
persecuting priest. The prophet whom God uses to prove his people, is to
be put to death for being God's instrument; anyone who tries to turn
people aside from God is to be stoned, and the hand of the nearest and
dearest is to be "first upon him to put him to death;" any city which
becomes idolatrous is to be destroyed, the inhabitants and the cattle
are to be slain, and everything else is to be burnt. Deuteronomy xvii.
2-7 is to the same effect. These commands have also borne abundant
fruit. Who can reckon the millions of human lives that have been spilt
in obedience to them? The slaughter of the Midianites, of the people of
Jericho, Ai, Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, and of many another city,
marking with blood each step of the people of God, who smote "all the
souls that were" in each, and "let none remain"--all these are but as
the first-fruits of the great harvest of human slaughter, reaped for the
glory of God. Right through the "sacred volume" runs the scarlet river,
staining every page; when its record closes, the Church takes it up, and
the river rolls on down the centuries; let the Inquisition tell over its
victims; let Spain reckon her murdered ones, 31,912 burnt alive in that
one land alone; let the Netherlands speak of their slain sons and
daughters; let France and Italy swell the tale; nor let England and
Scotland be forgotten, nor the blood-roll of Ireland be missed; Catholic
murdering Arian; Arian slaying Catholic; Romanist burning Protestant;
Protestant hanging Romanist. The names of those who obey God's command
may be changed, but they all do the same accursed work, spreading
religion everywhere with fire and sword; nor does the harm confine
itself to Jews and Christians only, for Mahomet, the prophet of Arabia,
catches up the teaching of Moses and re-echoes it, and the Moslem
follows on the inspired path, and stains it once again with human blood.
A God, a Bible, a priesthood--how have they ruined the world; how fair
and bright might earth have been had there been no teachers of religion!
"How powerless were the mightiest monarch's arm,
Vain his loud threat and impotent his frown!
How ludicrous the priest's dogmatic roar!
The weight of his exterminating curse
How light! and his affected charity,
To suit the pressure of the changing times,
What palpable deceit! but for thy aid,
Religion! but for thee, prolific fiend,
Who peoplest earth with demons, hell with men,
And heaven with slaves!
Thou taintest all thou look'st upon......."
--("Queen Mab," by P.B. Shelley; can. 6. Collected works, p. 12, edition
1839.)
Deuteronomy xxi. 10-14 instructs the Hebrew that if, after victory, he
sees a beautiful woman and desires her, he may take her, and if later,
"thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she
will," to starvation, to misery, what matter, after God's chosen is
satisfied. Deut. xxiii. 2 punishes a man for that which is no fault of
his, his illegitimate birth. We have omitted many absurd precepts found
in this Mosaic code, and have only chosen those which are grossly
immoral, and can be defended by no kind of reasoning as to "defective,"
or "imperfect" morality, "suited to a nation in a low stage of
civilisation."
These laws not only fall short of a perfect morality, but they are
distinctly and foully immoral, and tend directly to the brutalisation of
the nation which should live under them. It is true that there is much
pure morality in this code, and some refined feeling here and there.
These jewels are curiously out of place in their surroundings. Imagine a
people so savage as to need laws permitting all the abominations
referred to above, and yet so cultivated as to be capable of
appreciating the beauty of: "If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee
lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him; thou shalt
surely help him" (Exodus xxiii. 5). It is time that it should be
publicly acknowledged that the so-called Mosaic code is literally a
mosaic of scattered fragments of legislation, of various ages, and
various stages of civilisation, put together a few hundred years before
Christ. At present, the whole code lies on the shoulders of
Christianity, and is fairly pleaded against it by the Freethinker.
It is not necessary to speak here against the practical morality of Old
Testament saints; the very names of Lot, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses,
Joshua, Samuel, David, etc., bring before the mind's eye a list of
crimes so foul, so cowardly, so bloody, that no enumeration of them can
be needed. Of them, we may fairly say with Virgil:--
"Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa."
Turning to the New Testament morality, we may attack it in various ways:
we may argue that the better part of it is not new, and therefore cannot
be regarded as especially inspired, or that it leaves out of account
many virtues necessary to the well-being of families and states; or we
may contend that much of it is harmful, and much of it impracticable.
The better part is that which is NON-ORIGINAL. All that is fair and
beautiful in Christian morality had been taught in the world ages before
Christ was born. Buddha, Confucius, Lao-Tsze, Mencius, Zoroaster, Manu,
taught the noble human morality found in some of the teaching ascribed
to Christ (throughout this Section the morality put into Christ's mouth
in the New Testament will be treated as his).
Christ taught the duty of returning good for evil. Buddha said: "A man
who foolishly does me wrong I will return to him the protection of my
ungrudging love; the more evil comes from him, the more good shall go
from me" ("Anthology," by Moncure D. Conway, page 240). In the Buddhist
Dhammapada we read: "Let a man overcome anger by love; let him overcome
evil by good; let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by
truth" (Ibid, p. 307). Again: "Hatred does not cease by hatred at any
time; hatred ceases by love; this is an old rule" (Ibid, p. 131).
Lao-Tsze says: "The good I would meet with goodness. The not good I
would meet with goodness also. The faithful I would meet with faith. The
not faithful I would meet with faith also. Virtue is faithful.
Recompense injury with kindness" (Ibid, p. 365). Confucius struck a yet
higher and truer note: "Some one said, 'What do you say concerning the
principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness?' The Sage
replied, 'With what, then, will you recompense kindness? Recompense
kindness with kindness, and injury with justice'" (Ibid, p. 6). Manu
places "returning good for evil" in his tenfold system of duties; in his
code also we find: "By forgiveness of injuries the learned are purified"
(Ibid, p. 311). The "golden rule" is as old as the generous and just
heart. The Saboean Book of the Law taught: "Let none of you treat his
brother in a way which he himself would dislike" (Ibid, p. 7).
"Tsze-Kung asked, 'Is there one word which may serve as a rule for one's
whole life?' Confucius answered, 'Is not reciprocity such a word? What
you do not wish done to yourself, do not to others. When you are
labouring for others let it be with the same zeal as if it were for
yourself'" (Ibid, pp. 6, 7).
If Christ taught humility, we read from Lao-Tsze: "I have three precious
things which I hold fast and prize--Compassion, Economy, Humility. Being
compassionate, I can therefore be brave. Being economical, I can
therefore be liberal. Not daring to take precedence of the world, I can
therefore become chief among the perfect ones. In the present day men
give up compassion, and cultivate only courage. They give up economy and
aim only at liberality. They give up the last place, and seek only the
first. It is their death" (Ibid, p. 216). Lao-Tsze says again: "By
undivided attention to the passion-nature and tenderness it is possible
to be a little child. By putting away impurity from the hidden eye of
the heart, it is possible to be without spot. There is a purity and
quietude by which we may rule the whole world. To keep tenderness, I
pronounce strength.... The fact that the weak can conquer the strong and
the tender the hard, is known to all the world; yet none carry it out in
practice. The reason of heaven does not strive, yet conquers well; does
not call, yet things come of their own accord; is slack, yet plans well"
(Ibid, pp. 323, 324). Again: "The sage ... puts himself last, and yet is
first; abandons himself, and yet is preserved. Is not this through
having no selfishness? Hereby he preserves self-interest intact. He is
not self-displaying, and therefore he shines. He is not self-approving,
and therefore he is distinguished. He is not self-praising, and
therefore he has merit. He is not self-exalting, and therefore he stands
high; and inasmuch as he does not strive, no one in all the world
strives with him. That ancient saying, 'He that humbles himself shall be
preserved entire'--oh, it is no vain utterance" (Ibid, pp. 327, 328).
Jesus is said to be pre-eminent as a moral teacher because he directed
his teaching to the improvement of the heart, knowing that from a good
heart a good life would flow; in Manu's code we read: "Action, either
mental, verbal, or corporeal, bears good or evil fruit as itself is good
or evil ... of that threefold action be it known in the world that the
heart is the instigator" (Ibid, p. 4). Buddha said: "It is the heart of
love and faith accompanying good actions which spreads, as it were, a
beneficent shade from the world of men to the world of angels" (Ibid, p.
234). Jesus reminded the people that the ceremonial duties of religion
were small compared with "the weightier matters of the law, justice,
mercy, and truth;" Manu wrote: "To a man contaminated by sensuality,
neither the Vedas, nor liberality, nor sacrifices, nor observances, nor
pious austerities will procure felicity. A wise man must faithfully
discharge his moral duties, even though he dares not constantly perform
the ceremonies of religion. He will fall very low if he performs
ceremonial acts only, and fails to discharge his moral duties" (Ibid, p.
3). Exactly parallel to a saying of Jesus is one in the Saboean Book of
the Law: "Adhere so firmly to the truth that your yea shall be yea, and
your nay, nay" (Ibid, p. 7).
In urging that all great moral duties were taught by pre-Christian
thinkers, we do not mean that Christ took his moral sayings from the
books of these great Eastern teachers; there was no necessity that he
should go so far in search of them, for in the teachings of the Rabbis
of his nation he found all of which he stood in need. Many of these
teachings have been preserved in the more modern Talmud, grains of wheat
amid much chaff, the moral thoughts of some of the purest Jewish minds.
"Take the Talmud and study it, and then judge from what uninspired
source Jesus drew much of his highest teaching. 'Whoso looketh on the
wife of another with a lustful eye, is considered as if he had committed
adultery'--(Kalah). 'With what measure we mete, we shall be measured
again'--(Johanan). 'What thou wouldst not like to be done to thyself, do
not to others; this is the fundamental law'--(Hillel). 'If he be
admonished to take the splinter out of his eye, he would answer, Take
the beam out of thine own'--(Tarphon). 'Imitate God in his goodness. Be
towards thy fellow-creatures as he is towards the whole creation. Clothe
the naked; heal the sick; comfort the afflicted; be a brother to the
children of thy Father.' The whole parable of the houses built on the
rock and on the sand is taken out of the Talmud, and such instances of
quotation might be indefinitely multiplied" ("On Inspiration;" by Annie
Besant; Scott Series, p. 20). From these founts Jesus drew his morality,
and spoke as Jew to Jews, out of the Jewish teachings. To point out
these facts is by no means to disparage the nobler part of Christian
morality. It is rather to elevate Humanity by showing that pure thoughts
and gracious words are human, not divine; that the so-called
"inspiration" is in all races cultivated to a certain point, and not in
one alone; that morality is a fair blossom of earth, not a
heaven-transplanted exotic, and grows naturally out of the rich soil of
the loving human heart and the noble human brain.
What nobler or grander moral teachings can be found anywhere than
breathe through the following passages, taken from the "bibles of all
nations" so ably collected for us by Mr. Corway in the "Sacred
Anthology" quoted from above? "Let a man continually take pleasure in
truth, in justice, in laudable practices and in purity; let him keep in
subjection his speech, his arm, and his appetites. Wealth and pleasures
repugnant to law, let him shun; and even lawful acts which may cause
pain, or be offensive to mankind. Let him not have nimble hands,
restless feet, or voluble eyes; let him not be flippant in his speech,
nor intelligent in doing mischief. Let him walk in the path of good men"
(Manu, p. 7). "He who neglecteth the duties of this life is unfit for
this, much less for any higher world" ("Bhagavat Gita," p. 26). "Charity
is the free gift of anything not injurious. If no benefit is intended,
or the gift is harmful, it is not charity. There must also be the desire
to assist, or to show gratitude. It is not charity when gifts are given
from other considerations, as when animals are fed that they may be
used, or presents given by lovers to bind affection, or to slaves to
stimulate labour. It is found where man, seeking to diffuse happiness
among all men--those he loves, and those he loves not--digs canals and
pools, makes roads, bridges, and seats, and plants trees for shade. It
is found where, from compassion for the miserable and the poor, who have
none to help them, a man erects resting-places for wanderers, and
drinking-fountains, or provides food, raiment, medicine for the needy,
not selecting one more than another. This is true charity, and bears
much fruit" ("Katha Chari," pp. 219, 220). "Never will I seek, nor
receive, private individual salvation--never enter into final peace
alone; but for ever, and everywhere, will I live and strive for the
universal redemption of every creature throughout the world" (Kwan-yin,
p. 233). "All men have in themselves the feelings of mercy and pity, of
shame and hatred of vice. It is for each one by culture to let these
feelings grow, or to let them wither. They are part of the organisation
of men, as much as the limbs or senses, and may be trained as well. The
mountain Nicon-chau naturally brings forth beautiful trees. Even when
the trunks are cut down, young shoots will constantly rise up. If cattle
are allowed to feed there, the mountain looks bare. Shall we say, then,
that bareness is natural to the mountain? So the lower passions are let
loose to eat down the nobler growths of reverence and love in the heart
of man; shall we, therefore, say that there are no such feelings in his
heart at all? Under the quiet peaceful airs of morning and evening the
shoots tend to grow again. Humanity is the heart of man; justice is the
path of man. To know heaven is to develop the principle of our higher
nature" (Mencius, pp. 275, 276). "The first requisite in the pursuit of
virtue is, that the learner think of his own improvement, and do not act
from a regard to (the admiration of) others" ("The She-King," p. 286).
"Benevolence, justice, fidelity, and truth, and to delight in virtue
without weariness, constitute divine nobility" (Mencius, p. 339).
"Virtue is a service man owes himself; and though there were no heaven,
nor any God to rule the world, it were not less the binding law of life.
It is man's privilege to know the right and follow it. Betray and
prosecute me, brother men! Pour out your rage on me, O malignant devils!
Smile, or watch my agony with cold disdain, ye blissful gods! Earth,
hell, heaven, combine your might to crush me--I will still hold fast by
this inheritance! My strength is nothing--time can shake and cripple it;
my youth is transient--already grief has withered up my days; my
heart--alas! it seems well nigh broken now! Anguish may crush it
utterly, and life may fail; but even so my soul, that has not tripped,
shall triumph, and dying, give the lie to soulless destiny, that dares
to boast itself man's master" ("Ramayana," pp. 340, 341). What Christian
apostle left behind him the records of such words as those of Confucius,
boldly spoken to a king: "Ke K'ang, distressed about the number of
thieves in his kingdom, inquired of Confucius how he might do away with
them? The sage said, 'If you, sir, were not covetous, the people would
not steal, though you should pay them for it.' Ke K'ang asked, 'What do
you say about killing the unprincipled for the good of the principled?'
Confucius said, 'In carrying out your government, why use killing at
all? Let the rulers desire what is good, and the people will be good.
The grass must bend when the wind blows across it.' How can men who
cannot rectify themselves, rectify others?" ("Analects of Confucius," p.
358).
In "The Wheel of the Law," by Henry Alabaster, we find some most
interesting information on the moral teaching of Buddhism, and the
following quotation is taken from one of the Sutras: "On a certain
occasion the Lord Buddha led a number of his disciples to a village of
the Kalamachou, where his wisdom and merit and holiness were known. And
the Kalamachou assembled, and did homage to him and said, 'Many priests
and Brahmins have at different times visited us, and explained their
religious tenets, declaring them to be excellent, but each abused the
tenets of every one else, whereupon we are in doubt as to whose religion
is right and whose wrong; but we have heard that the Lord Buddha teaches
an excellent religion, and we beg that we may be freed from doubt, and
learn the truth.' And the Lord Buddha answered, 'You were right to
doubt, for it was a doubtful matter. I say unto all of you, Do not
believe in what ye have heard; that is, when you have heard anyone say
this is especially good or extremely bad; do not reason with yourselves
that if it had not been true, it would not have been asserted, and so
believe in its truth. Neither have faith in traditions, because they
have been handed down for many generations and in many places. Do not
believe in anything because it is rumoured and spoken of by many; do not
think that it is a proof of its truth. Do not believe merely because the
written statement of some old sage is produced; do not be sure that the
writing has ever been revised by the said sage, or can be relied on. Do
not believe in what you have fancied, thinking that because an idea is
extraordinary it must have been implanted by a Dewa, or some wonderful
being. Do not believe in guesses, that is, assuming some thing at
haphazard as a starting-point, draw your conclusions from it; reckoning
your two and your three and your four before you have fixed your number
one. Do not believe because you think there is analogy, that is, a
suitability in things and occurrences, such as believing that there must
be walls of the world, because you see water in a basin, or that Mount
Meru must exist because you have seen the reflection of trees: or that
there must be a creating God because houses and towns have builders....
Do not believe merely on the authority of your teachers and masters, or
believe and practise merely because they believe and practise. I tell
you all, you must of your own selves know that 'this is evil this is
punishable, this is censured by wise men, belief in this will bring no
advantage to one, but will cause sorrow.' And when you know this, then
eschew it. I say to all you dwellers in this village, answer me this.
Lopho, that is covetousness, Thoso, that is anger and savageness, and
Moho, that is ignorance and folly--when any or all of these arise in the
hearts of men, is the result beneficial or the reverse?' And they
answered, 'It is not beneficial, O Lord!' Then the Lord continued,
'Covetous, passionate, and ignorant men destroy life and steal, and
commit adultery, and tell lies, and incite others to follow their
example, is it not so?' And they answered, 'It is as the Lord says.' And
he continued, 'Covetousness, passion, ignorance, the destruction of
life, theft, adultery, and lying, are these good or bad, right or wrong?
Do wise men praise or blame them? Are they not unprofitable, and causes
of sorrow?' And they replied, 'It is as the Lord has spoken.' And the
Lord said, 'For this I said to you, do not believe merely because you
have heard, but when of your own consciousness you know a thing to be
evil, abstain from it.' And then the Lord taught of that which is good,
saying, 'If any of you know of yourselves that anything is good and not
evil, praised by wise men, advantageous, and productive of happiness,
then act abundantly according to your belief. Now I ask you, Alopho,
absence of covetousness, Athoso, absence of passion, Amoho, absence of
folly, are these profitable or not?' And they answered, 'Profitable.'
The Lord continued, 'Men who are not covetous, or passionate, or
foolish, will not destroy life, nor steal, nor commit adultery, nor tell
lies; is it not so?' And they answered, 'It is as the Lord says.' Then
the Lord asked, 'Is freedom from covetousness, passion, and folly, from
destruction of life, theft, adultery, and lying, good or bad, right or
wrong, praised or blamed by wise men, profitable, and tending to
happiness or not?' And they replied, 'It is good, right, praised by the
wise, profitable, and tending to happiness.' And the Lord said, 'For
this I taught you, not to believe merely because you have heard, but
when you believed of your own consciousness, then to act accordingly and
abundantly'" (pp. 35-38). In this wise fashion did Buddha found his
morality, basing it on utility, the true measure of right and wrong.
Buddhism has its Five Commandments, certainly equal in value to the Ten
Commandments of Jews and Christians:--
"First. Thou shall abstain from destroying or causing the destruction of
any living thing.
"Second. Thou shalt abstain from acquiring or keeping, by fraud or
violence, the property of another.
"Third. Thou shalt abstain from those who are not proper objects for thy
lust.
"Fourth. Thou shalt abstain from deceiving others either by word or
deed.
"Fifth. Thou shalt abstain from intoxication" (Ibid, p. 57).
From Dr. Muir's translations of "religious and moral sentiments,"
already quoted from, we might fill page after page with purest morality.
"Let a man be virtuous even while yet a youth; for life is transitory.
If duty is performed, a good name will be obtained, as well as
happiness, here and after death" ("Mahabharata," xii., 6538, p. 22).
"Deluded by avarice, anger, fear, a man does not understand himself. He
plumes himself upon his high birth, contemning those who are not
well-born; and overcome by the pride of wealth, he reviles the poor. He
calls others fools, and does not look to himself. He blames the faults
of others, but does not govern himself. When the wise and the foolish,
the rich and the poor, the noble and the ignoble, the proud and the
humble, have departed to the cemetery and all sleep there, their
troubles are at an end, and their bodies are stripped of flesh, little
else than bones, united by tendons--other men then perceive no
difference between them, whereby they could recognise a distinction of
birth or of form. Seeing that all sleep, deposited together in the
earth, why do men foolishly seek to treat each other injuriously? He
who, after bearing this admonition, acts in conformity therewith from
his birth onwards, shall attain the highest blessedness" (Ibid, xi. 116,
p. 23).
Such are a few of the moral teachings current in the East before the
time of Christ. Since that period, these non-Christian nations have gone
on in their paths, and many a gem of pure morality might be culled from
their later writings, but we have only here presented teachings that
were pre-Christian, so as to prove how little need there was for a God
to become incarnate to teach morality to the world. "Revealed morality"
has nothing grander to say than this earth-born morality, nothing
sublimer comes from Judæa than comes from Hindustan and from China. Just
as the symbolism of Christianity comes from nature, and is common to
many creeds, so does the morality of Christianity flow from nature, and
is common to many faiths; when nations attain to a certain stage of
civilisation, and inherit a certain amount of culture, they also develop
a morality proportionate to the point they have reached, because
morality is necessary to the stability of States, and utility formulates
the code of moral laws. Christianity can no longer stand on a pinnacle
as the sole possessor of a pure and high morality. The pedestal she has
occupied is built out of the bricks of ignorance, and her apostles and
her master must take rank among their brethren of every age and clime.
It is a serious fault in Christian morality that it has so many
OMISSIONS in it. It is full of exhortations to bear, to suffer, to be
patient; it sorely lacks appeals to patriotism, to courage, to
self-respect. "The heroes of Paganism exemplified the heroism of
enterprise. Patriotism, chivalrous deeds of valour, high-souled
aspirations after glory, stern justice taking its course in their hands,
while natural feeling was held in abeyance--this was the line in which
they shone. Our blessed Lord illustrated all virtues indeed, but most
especially the passive ones. His heroism took its colouring from
endurance. Women, though inferior to men in enterprise, usually come out
better than men in suffering; and it is always to be remembered that our
blessed Lord held his humanity, not of the stronger, but of the weaker
sex" ("Thoughts on Personal Religion," by Dean Goulburn, vol. ii., p.
99; ed. 1866). What is this but to say, in polite language, that Jesus
was very effeminate? The Christian religion has all the vices of
slavery, and encourages submission to evil instead of resistance to it;
it has in it the pathetic beauty of the meekness of the bruised and
beaten wife still loving the injurer, of the slave forgiving the
slave-driver, but it is a beauty which perpetuates the wrong of which it
is born. Better, far better, both for oppressor and for oppressed, is
resistance to cruelty than submission to it; submission encourages the
wrong-doer where resistance would check him, and Christianity fails in
that it omits to value strong men and true patriots, rebels against
authority which is unjust. Rome taught its citizens to reverence
themselves, to love their country, to maintain freedom: the Roman would
die gladly for his mother-country, and deemed his duty as a citizen the
foremost of his obligations. The love of country, and the sense of
service owed to the State, is the grandest and sublimest virtue of the
Pagan world. All felt it, from the highest to the lowest: at Thermopylae
the Spartans died gladly for the land they covered with their bodies,
faithful unto death to the duty entrusted to them by their country; men
and women equally felt the paramount claim of the State, and mothers
gave their sons to death rather than that they should fail in duty
there. The Roman was taught to value the Republic above its officers; to
resist the highest if he grasped at unfair supremacy; to maintain
inviolate the rights and the liberties of the people. Christianity
undermined all these manly virtues; it preached obedience to "the powers
that be," whether they were good or bad; it upheld the authority of a
Nero as "ordained of God," and pronounced damnation on those who
resisted him; and so it paved the way for the despotism of the Middle
Ages, by crushing out the manhood of the nations, and fashioning them
into Oriental slaves. Little wonder that kings embraced Christianity,
and forced it on their subjects, for it placed the nations bound at
their footstools, and endorsed the tyranny of man with the authority of
God. Throughout the New Testament what word is there of patriotism? The
citizenship is in heaven. What incitement to heroism? Resist not the
power. What appeal to self-reverence? In my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. What cry against injustice and oppression? Honour the king, and
give obedience to the froward. Christianity makes a paradise for tyrants
and a hell for the oppressed.
Intertwined with the evil of omissions of duty is the direct injury of
commanding NON-RESISTANCE, and of enforcing INDIFFERENCE TO EARTHLY
CARES. "I say unto you that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall
smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any
man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy
cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him
twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of
thee turn not thou away" (Matt. v. 39-42). The surface meaning of these
words is undeniable; they are the amplification of the command, "resist
not evil." What effect would obedience to these injunctions have upon a
State? None committing an assault would be punished; every unjust suit
would succeed; every forced concession would be endorsed; every beggar
would live in luxury; every borrower would spend at will. Nay more;
those who did wrong would be rewarded, and would be thus encouraged to
go on in their evil ways. Meanwhile, the man who was insulted would be
again struck; the poor man who had lost one thing would lose two; the
hard-working, frugal labourer would have to support the beggar and the
borrower out of the fruits of his toil. Such is Christ's code of civil
laws: he is deliberately abrogating the Mosaic code, "an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth," and is replacing it by his own. If the Mosaic
law is to be taken literally--as it was--that which is to replace it
must also be taken literally, or else one code would be abolished, and
there would be none to succeed it, so that the State would be left in a
condition of lawlessness. Suppose, however, that we allow that the
passage is to be taken metaphorically, what then? A metaphor must mean
_something_: what does this metaphor mean? It can scarcely signify the
exact opposite of what it intimates, and yet the exact opposite is true
morality. Only a system of taking Christ's words "contrariwise" can make
them useful as civil rules, and even "oriental exaggeration" can
scarcely be credited with saying the diametrically contrary of its real
meaning. But it is urged that, if all men were Christians, then this
teaching would be right, and Christ was bound to give a perfect
morality. That is to say, if people were different to what they are,
this teaching of Christ would not be injurious because--it would be
unneeded! If there were no robbers, and no assaulters, and no borrowers,
then the morality of the Sermon on the Mount would be most harmless.
High praise, truly, for a legislator that his laws would not be
injurious when they were no longer needed. Christ should have remembered
that the "law is made for sinners," and that such a law as he gives here
is a direct encouragement to sin.
We can scarcely wonder that, inculcating a course of conduct which must
inevitably lead to poverty, Christ should hold up a state of poverty as
desirable. We read in Matthew v. 3, "Blessed are the poor _in spirit_"
and it is contended that it is poverty only of spirit which Christ
blesses; if so, he blesses the source of much wretchedness, for
poor-spirited people get trampled down, and are a misery to themselves
and a burden to those about them. If, however, we turn to Luke vi. 20,
we find the declaration: "Blessed are ye poor," addressed directly to
his Apostles, who were anything but poor in spirit (Luke ix. 46, and
xxii. 24); and we find it, further, joined with the announcement,
"blessed are ye that hunger now," and followed by the curses: "Woe unto
you that are rich ... woe unto you that are full." If "hunger" means
"hunger after righteousness," the antithesis "full" must also mean "full
of righteousness," a state on which Christ would surely not pronounce a
woe. Mr. Bradlaugh well draws out the various thoughts in these most
unfortunate sayings: "Is poverty of spirit the chief amongst virtues,
that Jesus gives it the prime place in his teaching? Is poverty of
spirit a virtue at all? Surely not. Manliness of spirit, honesty of
spirit, fulness of rightful purpose, these are virtues; but poverty of
spirit is a crime. When men are poor in spirit, then do the proud and
haughty in spirit oppress and trample upon them, but when men are true
in spirit and determined (as true men should be) to resist and prevent
evil, wrong, and injustice whenever they can, then is there greater
opportunity for happiness here, and no lesser fitness for the enjoyment
of future happiness, in some may be heaven, hereafter. Are you poor in
spirit, and are you smitten; in such case what did Jesus teach? 'Unto
him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other' (Luke vi.
29). It were better far to teach that 'he who courts oppression shares
the crime.' Rather say, if smitten once, take careful measures to
prevent a future smiting. I have heard men preach passive resistance,
but this teaches actual invitation of injury, a course degrading in the
extreme ... the poverty of spirit principle is enforced to the fullest
conceivable extent--'Him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take
thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee, and of him that
taketh away thy goods ask them not again' (Luke vi. 29, 30). Poverty of
person is the only possible sequence to this extraordinary manifestation
of poverty of spirit. Poverty of person is attended with many
unpleasantnesses; and if Jesus knew that poverty of goods would result
from his teaching, we might expect some notice of this. And so there
is--as if he wished to keep the poor content through their lives with
poverty, he says, 'Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God'
(Luke vi. 20) ... Poor in spirit and poor in pocket. With no courage to
work for food, or money to purchase it, we might well expect to find the
man who held these doctrines with empty stomach also; and what does
Jesus teach? 'Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled'
... Craven in spirit, with an empty purse and hungry mouth--what next?
The man who has not manliness enough to prevent wrong, will probably
bemoan his hard fate, and cry bitterly that so sore are the misfortunes
he endures. And what does Jesus teach? 'Blessed are ye that weep now,
for ye shall laugh' (Luke vi. 21) ... Jesus teaches that the poor, the
hungry, and the wretched shall be blessed. This is not so. The blessing
only comes when they have ceased to be poor, hungry, and wretched.
Contentment under poverty, hunger, and misery is high treason, not to
yourself alone but to your fellows. These three, like foul diseases,
spread quickly wherever humanity is stagnant and content with wrong"
("What Did Jesus Teach?" pp. 1-3).
But Jesus did more than panegyrise poverty; he gave still more exact
directions to his disciples as to how poverty should be attained. Matt.
vi. 25-34 is as mischievous a passage as has been penned by any
moralist. "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye
shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on." It is said
that "take no thought" means, "be not over anxious;" if this be so, why
does Christ emphasise it by quoting birds and lilies as examples,
things, which, literally, take _no_ thought? the argument is: birds do
not store food in barns, yet God feeds them. You are more valuable than
the birds. God will take equal care of you if you follow the birds'
example. The lilies spin no raiment, yet God clothes them. So shall he
clothe you, if you follow their example. The passage has no meaning, the
illustrations no appositeness, unless Christ means that _no_ thought is
to be taken for the future. He makes the argument still stronger: "the
Gentiles seek" meat, drink, and clothing. But God, your Father, knows
your need for all these things. Therefore, "seek ye first the kingdom of
God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take
thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof." If Christ only meant the common-place advice, "do not be
over-anxious," he then lays the most absurd stress on it, and speaks in
the most exaggerated way. Sensible Gentiles do not worry themselves by
over-anxiety, after they have taken for the morrow's needs all the care
they can; but they do not act like birds or like lilies, for they know
that many a bird starves in a hard winter because it is not capable of
gathering and storing food into barns, and that many a garbless lily is
shrivelled up by the cold east wind. They notice that though men and
women are "much better than" birds and lilies, yet God does not always
feed and clothe them; that, on the contrary, many a poor creature dies
of starvation and of winter's bitter cold; when our daily papers record
no inquests on those who die from want, because none but God takes
thought for them, then it will be time enough for us to cease from
preparing for the morrow, and to trust that "heavenly Father" who at
present "knoweth that" we "have need of these things," and, knowing,
lets so many of his children starve for lack of them.
The true meaning of Christ is plainly shown by his injunctions to the
twelve apostles and to the seventy when he sent them on a journey: "Take
nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, nor
money; neither have two coats apiece" (Luke ix. 3); and: "Carry neither
purse, nor scrip, nor shoes ... in the same house remain, eating and
drinking such things as they give" (Ibid, x. 4, 7). The same spirit
breathes in his injunction to the young man: "Go and sell that thou
hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and
come and follow me" (Matt. xix. 21). The fact is that Jesus held the
ascetic doctrine, that poverty was, in itself, meritorious; and, in
common with many sects, he regarded the highest life as the life of the
mendicant teacher. His doctrine of poverty passed on into the Church
that bears his name, and one of the three vows taken by those who aspire
to lead "the angelic life" is the vow of poverty. The mendicant friars
of the Middle Ages, the "sturdy beggars," are the lineal descendants of
the Eastern mendicants, and are the fruits of the morality taught by
Christ. On this point, as on many others, the morality of the Epistles
is far higher than that of the Gospels, and the common-sense and
righteous law, "that if any would not work neither should he eat" is,
however, incompatible with Christ's admiration for mendicancy, a far
more wholesome and salutary kind of moral teaching than that which we
have been considering.
The dogma of rewards and punishments as taught by Christ is fatal to all
reality of virtue. To do right from hope of heaven: to avoid wrong for
fear of hell: such virtue is only skin-deep, and will not stand rough
usage. True virtue does right because it _is_ right, and therefore
beneficial, and not from hope of a personal reward, or from dread of a
personal punishment, hereafter. Christianity is the apotheosis of
selfishness, gilded over with piety; self is the pivot on which all
turns: "What shall it _profit_ a man if he gain the whole world, and
lose _his own_ soul?" (Mark viii. 36). "He that receiveth a prophet in
the name of a prophet _shall receive a prophet's reward_; and he that
receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man _shall receive
a righteous man's reward_. And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of
these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple,
verily I say unto you, he _shall in nowise lose his reward_" (Matt. x.
41, 42). "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, _him will I
confess also_ before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall
deny me before men, _him will I also deny_ before my Father which is in
heaven" (Ibid, 32, 33). "Pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy
Father, which seeth in secret, _shall reward thee_ openly" (Ibid, vi.
6). "We have forsaken all and followed thee: _what shall we have
therefore_?... When the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory,
_ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones_" (Matt. xix. 27, 28). The
passages might be multiplied; but these are sufficient to show the
thorough selfishness inculcated. All is done with an eye to personal
gain in the future; even the cold water is to be given, not because the
"little one" is thirsty and needs it, but for the reward promised
therefore to the giver. Pure, generous love is excluded: there is a
taint of selfishness in every gift.
The thought of Heaven is also injurious to human welfare, because men
learn to disregard earth for the sake of "the glory to be revealed."
People whose "citizenship is in heaven," make but sorry citizens of
earth, for they regard this world as "no continuing city," while they
"seek one to come." Hence, as all history shows us, they are apt to
despise this world while dreaming about another, to trouble little about
earth's wrongs while thinking of the mansions in the skies; to acquiesce
in any assertion that "the whole world lieth in wickedness," and to
trouble themselves but little as to the means of improving it. From this
line of thought follows the long list of monasteries and nunneries,
wherein people "separate" themselves from this world in order to
"prepare" for another. All this evil flows directly from the Christian
morality which teaches that all hopes, efforts, and aims should be
turned towards laying up treasures in heaven, where also the heart
should be. One need scarcely add a word of reprobation as to the
horrible doctrine of eternal torture, although that, too, is part of the
teaching of Christ. The whole conscience of civilised mankind is so
turning against that shameful and cruel dogma, that it is only now
believed among the illiterate and uncultured of the Christians, and soon
will be too savage even for them. It has, however, hardened the hearts
of many in days gone by, and has made the burning of heretics seem an
appropriate act of faith, since men only began on earth the roasting
which God was to continue to all eternity.
The morality of Christ is also faulty because it shares in the
persecuting spirit of the Mosaic code. The disciples are told:
"Whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart
out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily, I
say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and
Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city" (Matt. x. 14, 15).
Christ proclaims openly: "Think not that I am come to send peace on
earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man
at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be
they of his own household" (Ibid, 34-36). To a man whom he calls to
follow him, and who asks to be allowed first to bury his father, Christ
gives the brutal reply: "Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and
preach the kingdom of God" (Luke x. 60). Another time he says: "If any
man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and
children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he
cannot be my disciple" (Ibid, xiv. 26). A religion that destroys the
home, that introduces discord into the family, that bids its votaries
hate all else save Christ, acts as a disintegrating force in human life,
and cannot be too strongly opposed.
Neither must we forget the teaching of Christ regarding marriage. He
deliberately places virginity above marriage, and counsels
self-mutilation to those capable of making the sacrifice. "All men
cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given ... there be
eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's
sake. _He that is able to receive it, let him receive it_" (Matt. xix.
11, 12). Following this, 1 Cor. vii. teaches the superiority of an
unmarried state, and threatens "trouble in the flesh" to those who
marry. And in Rev. xiv. 1-4, we find, following the Lamb, with special
privileges, 144,000 who "were not defiled with women; for they are
virgins." This coarse and insulting way of regarding women, as though
they existed merely to be the safety-valves of men's passions, and that
the best men were above the temptation of loving them, has been the
source of unnumbered evils. To this saying of Christ are due the
self-mutilations of many, such as Origen, and the destruction of myriads
of human lives in celibacy; monks and nuns innumerable owe to this evil
teaching their shrivelled lives and withered hearts. For centuries the
leaders of Christian thought spoke of women as of a necessary evil, and
the greatest saints of the Church are those who despised women the most.
The subjection of women in Western lands is wholly due to Christianity.
Among the Teutons women were honoured, and held a noble and dignified
place in the tribe; Christianity brought with it the evil Eastern habit
of regarding women as intended for the toys and drudges of man, and
intensified it with a special spite against them, as the daughters of
Eve, who was first "deceived." Strangely different to the *general
Eastern feeling and showing a truer and nobler view of life, is the
precept of Manu: "Where women are honoured, there the deities are
pleased; but where they are dishonoured, there all religious acts become
fruitless" ("Anthology," p. 310).
Evil also is the teaching that repentance is higher than purity: "joy
shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenth, _more than_ over ninety
and nine just persons which need no repentance" (Luke xv. 7, 10). The
fatted calf is slain for the prodigal son, who returns home after he has
wasted all his substance; and to the laborious elder son, during the
many years of his service, the father never gave even a kid that he
might make merry with his friends (Ibid, 29). What is all this but
putting a premium upon immorality, and instructing people that the more
they sin, the more joyous will be their welcome whenever they may choose
to reform, and, like the prodigal, think to mend their broken fortunes
by repentance?
Thoroughly immoral is the teaching contained in the two parables in Luke
xvi. In the one, a steward who has wasted his master's goods, is
commended because he went and bribed his employer's debtors to assist
him, by suggesting to them that they should cheat his master by altering
the amount of the bills they owed him. In the other, the parable of the
rich man and Lazarus, the evil moral is taught that riches are in
themselves deserving of punishment, and poverty of reward. The rich man
is in hell simply because he was rich, and the poor man in Abraham's
bosom simply because he was poor; it can scarcely add, one may remark,
to the pleasure of heaven for the Lazaruses all to look at the Diveses,
and be unable to reach them, even to give them a single drop of water.
Thus whether we see that the nobler part of the Christian morality is
pre-Christian, and is neither Christian, nor Jewish, nor Hindu, nor
Buddhist, but is simply human, and belongs to the race and not to one
creed. Whether we note the omissions in its code, making it insufficient
for human guidance; whether we mark its errors, mistakes, and injurious
teachings; whichever point of view we take from which to consider it, we
find in it nothing to distinguish it above other moral codes, or to
prevent it from being classed among other moralities, as being a mixture
of good and bad, and, therefore, not to be taken as an, unerring guide,
being like them, all FALLIBLE.
* * * * *
INDEX TO SECTION III. OF PART II.
* * * * *
INDEX OF BOOKS USED.
Bhagavat Gita, in Anthology...406
Bradlaugh, The Bible: what it is...397
" What Did Jesus Teach?...414
Buddha, in Anthology...403, 405
" Wheel of the Law...408
Cahen, Lévitique...398
Colenso, Pentateuch and Book of Joshua...396
Confucius, in Anthology...403, 404, 408
Dante, Inferno...403
Dhammapada, in Anthology...403
Gouldburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion...411
Kalisch, Leviticus...399, 400, 401
Katha-Chari, in Anthology...407
Kwan-yin, in Anthology...407
Lao-Tsze, in Anthology...403, 404
Mahabharata, in Muir...410
Manu, in Anthology...404, 405, 406, 419
Mencius, in Anthology...407
Prayer Book, Art. vi. vii....395
Ramayana, in Anthology...407
Sabaean Book of the Law, in Anthology...404, 405
Shelley, Queen Mab...402
She-King, in Anthology...407
Statutes, 9 and 10 William III. cap. 32...395
Talmud, quoted by Besant...405
* * * * *
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Christian morality, compared with others...403
" degrading to women...419
" immoral towards sin...419
" non-original...403
" non-resistant...412
" omissions in...411
" paved way for despotism...412
" persecuting in spirit...418
" sanctions mendicancy...416
" selfish...417
" what included in...395
Heaven and Hell, harm done by belief in...417
Heroism of Paganism...412
Human sacrifice, sanctioned by God...398
" among Jews...398
Marriage, teaching of Christ concerning...419
Morality of great Pagan teachers...406
" compared with that of Christ...403
Murder of blasphemer, sanctioned by God...397
" heretics...401
Ordeal, sanctioned by God...401
Poverty inculcated by Christ...414
Prostitution, sanctioned by God...402
Religion, evil of...402
Sale of daughter sanctioned by God...396
" thief...396
Slaves, beaten to death...396
Slavery, sanctioned by God...396, 397
Unthrift taught by Christ...415
Utility the test of morality...411
" religion according to Buddha...408
Value of Christianity to tyrants...412
Witches, number of killed...397
Witch-murder, sanctioned by God...397
SECTION IV.--ITS HISTORY.
This section does not pretend, within the short limits of some fifty
pages, to give even a complete summary of Christian history. It proposes
only to draw up an impeachment against Christianity from the facts of
its history which occurred in the day of its power, from the time of
Constantine, up to the time of the Reformation. If it be urged that
Christianity was corrupt during this period, and ought not therefore to
be judged by it, we can only reply that, corrupt or not, it is the only
Christianity there was, and if only bad fruit is brought forth, it is
fair to conclude that the tree which bears nothing else is also bad. If
the bishops, and clergy, and missionaries were ignorant, sensual,
tyrannical, and superstitious, they are none the less the
representatives of Christianity, and if these are not true Christians,
_where are the true Christians_ from A.D. 324 to A.D. 1,500?
We propose, in this section, to practically condense the dark side of
Mosheim's "Ecclesiastical History," as translated from the Latin by Dr.
A. Maclaine (ed. 1847), only adding, here and there, extracts from other
writers; all extracts, therefore, except where otherwise specified, will
be taken from this valuable history, a history which, perhaps from its
size and dryness, is not nearly so much studied by Freethinkers as it
should be; its special worth for our object is that Dr. Mosheim is a
sincere Christian, and cannot, therefore, be supposed to strain any
point unduly against the religion to which he himself belongs.
During the second and third centuries the Christians appear to have
grown in power and influence, and their faith, made up out of many older
creeds and forming a kind of eclectic religion, gradually spread
throughout the Roman empire, and became a factor in political problems.
In the struggles between the opposing Roman emperors, A.D. 310-324, the
weight of the Christian influence was thrown on the side of Constantine,
his rivals being strongly opposed to Christianity; Maximin Galerius was
a bitter persecutor, and his successor, Maximin, trod in his steps in
A.D. 312, and 313, Maxentius was defeated by Constantine, and Maximin by
Licinius, and in A.D. 312 Constantine and Licinius granted liberty of
worship to the Christians; in the following year, according to Mosheim,
or in A.D. 314 according to Eusebius, a second edict was issued from
Milan, by the two emperors, which granted "to the Christians and to all,
the free choice to follow that mode of worship which they may wish ...
that no freedom at all shall be refused to Christians, to follow or to
keep their observances or worship; but that to each one power be granted
to devote his mind to that worship which he may think adapted to
himself" (Eusebius, "Eccles. Hist." p. 431). Licinius, however, renewed
the war against Constantine, who immediately embraced Christianity, thus
securing to himself the sympathy and assistance of the faith which now
for the first time saw its votary on the imperial throne of the world,
and Licinius, by allying himself with Paganism, and persecuting the
Christians, drove them entirely over to Constantine, and was finally
defeated and dethroned, A.D. 324. From that date Christianity was
supreme, and became the established religion of the State. Dr. Draper
regards the conversion of Constantine from the point of view taken
above. He says: "It had now become evident that the Christians
constituted a powerful party in the State, animated with indignation at
the atrocities they had suffered, and determined to endure them no
longer. After the abdication of Diocletian (A.D. 305), Constantine, one
of the competitors for the purple, perceiving the advantages that would
accrue to him from such a policy, put himself forth as the head of the
Christian party. This gave him, in every part of the empire, men and
women ready to encounter fire and sword in his behalf; it gave him
unwavering adherents in every legion of the armies. In a decisive
battle, near the Milvian bridge, victory crowned his schemes. The death
of Maximin, and subsequently that of Licinius, removed all obstacles. He
ascended the throne of the Cæsars--the first Christian emperor. Place,
profit, power--these were in view of whoever now joined the conquering
sect. Crowds of worldly persons, who cared nothing about its religious
ideas, became its warmest supporters. Pagans at heart, their influence
was soon manifested in the Paganisation of Christianity that forthwith
ensued. The emperor, no better than they, did nothing to check their
proceedings. But he did not personally conform to the ceremonial
requirements of the Church until the close of his evil life, A.D. 337"
("History of the Conflict between Religion and Science," p. 39; ed.
1875). Constantine, in fact, was not baptised until a few days before
his death.
The character of the first Christian emperor is not one which strikes us
with admiration. As emperor he sank into "a cruel and dissolute monarch,
corrupted by his fortune, or raised by conquest above the necessity of
dissimulation ... the old age of Constantine was disgraced by the
opposite yet reconcilable vices of rapaciousness and prodigality"
(Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. ii., p. 347). He was as effeminate as
he was vicious. "He is represented with false hair of various colours,
laboriously arranged by the skilful artists of the time; a diadem of a
new and more expensive fashion; a profusion of gems and pearls, of
collars and bracelets, and a variegated flowing robe of silk, most
curiously embroidered with flowers of gold." To his other vices he added
most bloodthirsty cruelty. He strangled Licinius, after defeating him;
murdered his own son Crispus, his nephew Licinius, and his wife Fausta,
together with a number of others. It must indeed have needed an
efficacious baptism to wash away his crimes; and "future tyrants were
encouraged to believe that the innocent blood which they might shed in a
long reign would instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration"
(Ibid, pp. 471, 472).
The wealth of the Christian churches was considerable during the third
century, and the bishops and clergy lived in much pomp and luxury.
"Though several [bishops] yet continued to exhibit to the world
illustrious examples of primitive piety and Christian virtue, yet many
were sunk in luxury and voluptuousness, puffed up with vanity,
arrogance, and ambition, possessed with a spirit of contention and
discord, and addicted to many other vices that cast an undeserved
reproach upon the holy religion of which they were the unworthy
professors and ministers. This is testified in such an ample manner by
the repeated complaints of many of the most respectable writers of this
age, that truth will not permit us to spread the veil which we should
otherwise be desirous to cast over such enormities among an order so
sacred.... The example of the bishops was ambitiously imitated by the
presbyters, who, neglecting the sacred duties of their station,
abandoned themselves to the indolence and delicacy of an effeminate and
luxurious life. The deacons, beholding the presbyters deserting thus
their functions, boldly usurped their rights and privileges; and the
effects of a corrupt ambition were spread through every rank of the
sacred order" (p. 73). During this century also we find much scandal
caused by the pretended celibacy of the clergy, for the
people--regarding celibacy as purer than marriage, and considering that
"they, who took wives, were of all others the most subject to the
influence of malignant demons"--urged their clergy to remain celibate,
"and many of the sacred order, especially in Africa, consented to
satisfy the desires of the people, and endeavoured to do this in such a
manner as not to offer an entire violence to their own inclinations. For
this purpose, they formed connections with those women who had made vows
of perpetual chastity; and it was an ordinary thing for an ecclesiastic
to admit one of these fair saints to the participation of his bed, but
still under the most solemn declarations, that nothing passed in this
commerce that was contrary to the rules of chastity and virtue" (p. 73).
Such was the morality of the clergy as early as the third century!
The doctrine of the Church in these primitive times was as confused as
its morality was impure. In the first century (during which we really
know nothing of the Christian Church), Dr. Mosheim, in dealing with
"divisions and heresies," points to the false teachers mentioned in the
New Testament, and the rise of the Gnostic heresy. Gnosticism (from
[Greek: gnosis] knowledge), a system compounded of Christianity and
Oriental philosophy, long divided the Church with the doctrines known as
orthodox. The Gnostics believed in the existence of the two opposing
principles of good and evil, the latter being by many considered as the
creator of the world. They held that from the Supreme God emanated a
number of Æons--generally put at thirty; (see throughout "Irenæus
Against Heresies")--and some maintained that one of these, Christ,
descended on the man Jesus at his baptism, and left him again just
before his passion; others that Jesus had not a real, but only an
apparent, body of flesh. The Gnostic philosophy had many forms and many
interdivisions; but most of the "heresies" of the first centuries were
branches of this one tree: it rose into prominence, it is said, about
the time of Adrian, and among its early leaders were Marcion, Basilides,
and Valentinus. In addition to the various Gnostic theories, there was a
deep mark of division between the Jewish and the Gentile Christians; the
former developed into the sects, of Nazarenes and Ebionites, but were
naturally never very powerful in the Church. In the second century, as
the Christians become more visible, their dissensions are also more
clearly marked; and it is important to observe that there is no period
in the history of Christianity wherein those who laid claim to the name
"Christian" were agreed amongst themselves as to what Christianity was.
Gnosticism we see now divided into two main branches, Asiatic and
Egyptian. The Asiatic believed that, in addition to the two principles
of good and evil, there was a third being, a mixture of both, the
Demiurgus, the creator, whose son Jesus was; they maintained that the
body of Jesus was only apparent; they enforced the severest discipline
against the body, which was evil, in that it was material; and marriage,
flesh, and wine were forbidden. The Elcesaites were a judaising branch
of this Asiatic Gnosticism; Saturninus of Antioch, Ardo of Syria, and
Marcion of Pontus headed the movement, and after them Lucan, Severus,
Blastes, Apelles, and Bardesanes formed new sects. Tatian (see ante, pp.
259, 260) had many followers called Tatianists, and in connection with
him and his doctrines we hear of the Eucratites, Hydroparastates (the
water-drinkers), and Apotactites. The Eucratites appear to have been in
existence before Tatian professed Gnosticism, but he so increased their
influence as to be sometimes regarded as their founder. The Egyptian
Gnostics were less ascetic, and mostly favoured the idea that Jesus had
a real body on which the Æon descended and joined himself thereunto.
They regarded him as born naturally of Joseph and Mary. Basilides, and
Valentinus headed the Egyptians, and then we have as sub-divisions the
Carpocratians, Ptolemaites, Secundians, Heracleonites, Marcosians,
Adamites, Cainites, Sethites, Florinians, Ophites, Artemonites, and
Hermogenists; in addition to these we have the Monarchians or
Patripassians, who maintained that there was but one God, and that the
Father suffered (whence this name) in the person of Christ. This long
list may be closed with the Montanists, a sect joined by Tertullian (see
his account of the orthodox after he became a Montanist, ante, p. 225);
they held that Montanes, their founder, was the Paraclete promised by
Christ, missioned to complete the Christian code; he forbade second
marriages, the reception into the Church of those who had been
excommunicated for grievous sin, and inculcated the sternest asceticism.
He opposed all learning as anti-Christian, a doctrine which was rapidly
spreading among Christians, and which seems, indeed, to have been an
integral part of the religion from its very beginning (Matt. xi. 25, 1
Cor. i. 26, 27). In the third century the heretic camp received a new
light in the person of Manes, or Manichæus, a Persian magus; he appears
to have been a man of great learning, a physician, an astronomer, a
philosopher. He taught the old Persian creed tinctured with
Christianity, Christ being identical with Mithras (see ante, p. 362),
and having come upon earth in an apparent body only to deliver mankind.
Manes was the paraclete sent to complete his teaching; the body was
evil, and only by long struggle and mortification could man be delivered
from it, and reach final blessedness. Those who desired to lead the
highest life, _the elect_, abstained from flesh, eggs, milk, fish, wine,
and all intoxicating drink, and remained in the strictest celibacy; they
were to live on bread, herbs, pulse, and melons, and deny themselves
every comfort and every gratification (see pp. 80-82). The Hieracites in
Egypt were closely allied with the Manichæans. The Novatians differed
from the orthodox only in their refusal to receive again into the Church
any who had committed grievous crimes, or who had lapsed during
persecution. The Arabians denied the immortality of the soul,
maintaining that it died with the body, and that body and soul together
would be revivified by God. The controversies on the persons of the
Godhead now increased in intensity. Noctus of Smyrna maintained the
doctrine of the Patripassians, that God was one and indivisible, and
suffered to redeem mankind; Sabellius also taught that God was one, but
that Jesus was a man, to whom was united a "certain energy only,
proceeding from the Supreme Parent" (p. 83). He also denied the separate
personality of the Holy Ghost. Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch,
taught a cognate doctrine, and founded the sect of the Paulians or
Paulianists, and was consequently degraded from his office. Thus we see
that the history of the Church, before it came to power, is a mass of
quarrels and divisions, varied by ignorance and licentiousness. If we
exclude Origen, whose writings contain much that is valuable, the works
produced by Christian writers in these centuries might be thrown into
the sea, and the world would be none the poorer for the loss.
CENTURY IV.
Constantine attained undisputed and sole authority A.D. 324, and in the
year 325 he summoned the first general council, that of Nicea, or Nice,
which condemned the errors of Arius, and declared Christ to be of the
same substance as the Father. This council has given its name to the
"Nicene Creed," although that creed, as now recited, differs somewhat
from the creed issued at Nice, and received its present form at the
Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381. During the reign of Constantine,
the Church grew swiftly in power and influence, a growth much aided by
the penal laws passed against Paganism. The moment Christianity was able
to seize the sword, it wielded it remorselessly, and cut its way to
supremacy in the Roman world. Bribes and penalties shared together in
the work of conversion. "The hopes of wealth and honours, the example of
an emperor, his exhortations, his irresistible smiles, diffused
conviction among the venal and obsequious crowds which usually fill the
apartments of a palace. The cities, which signalised a forward zeal by
the voluntary destruction of their temples, were distinguished by
municipal privileges and rewarded with popular donatives; and the new
capital of the East gloried in the singular advantage that
Constantinople was never profaned by the worship of idols. As the lower
ranks of society are governed by imitation, the conversion of those who
possessed any eminence of birth, of power, or of riches, was soon
followed by dependent multitudes. The salvation of the common people was
purchased at an easy rate, if it be true, that, in one year, twelve
thousand men were baptised at Rome, besides a proportionable number of
women and children; and that a white garment, with twenty pieces of
gold, had been promised by the emperor to every convert" (Gibbon's
"Decline and Fall," vol. ii. pp. 472, 473). With Constantine began the
ruinous system of dowering the Church with State funds. The emperor
directed the treasurers of the province of Carthage to pay over to the
bishop of that district £18,000 sterling, and to honour his further
drafts. Constantine also gave his subjects permission to bequeath their
fortunes to the Church, and scattered public money among the bishops
with a lavish hand. The three sons of Constantine followed in his steps,
"continuing to abrogate and efface the ancient superstitions of the
Romans, and other idolatrous nations, and to accelerate the progress of
the Christian religion throughout the empire. This zeal was no doubt,
laudable; its end was excellent; but, in the means used to accomplish
it, there were many things worthy of blame" (p. 88). Julian succeded to
part of the empire in A.D. 360, and to sole authority in A.D. 361. He
was educated as a Christian, but reverted to philosophic Paganism, and
during his short reign he revoked the special privileges granted to
Christianity, and placed all creeds on the most perfect civil equality.
Julian's dislike of Christianity, and his philosophic writings directed
against it, have gained for him, from Christian writers, the title of
"the Apostate." The emperors who succeeded were, however, all Christian,
and used their best endeavours to destroy Paganism. Christianity spread
apace; "multitudes were drawn into the profession of Christianity, not
by the power of conviction and argument, but by the prospect of gain,
and the fear of punishment" (p. 102). "The zeal and diligence with which
Constantine and his successors exerted themselves in the cause of
Christianity, and in extending the limits of the Church, prevent our
surprise at the number of barbarous and uncivilised nations, which
received the Gospel" (p. 90); and Dr. Mosheim admits that: "There is no
doubt but that the victories of Constantine the Great, the fear of
punishment, and the desire of pleasing this mighty conqueror and his
imperial successors, were the weighty arguments that moved whole
nations, as well as particular persons, to embrace Christianity" (p.
91). Fraud, as well as force and favour, lent its aid to the progress of
"the Gospel." We hear of the "imprudent methods employed to allure the
different nations to embrace the Gospel" (p. 98): "disgraceful" would be
a fitter term whereby to designate them, for Dr. Mosheim speaks of "the
endless frauds of those odious impostors, who were so far destitute of
all principles, as to enrich themselves by the ignorance and errors of
the people. Rumours were artfully spread abroad of prodigies and
miracles to be seen in certain places (a trick often practised by the
heathen priests), and the design of these reports was to draw the
populace, in multitudes, to these places, and to impose upon their
credulity ... Nor was this all; certain tombs were falsely given out for
the sepulchres of saints and confessors. The list of the saints was
augmented by fictitious names, and even robbers were converted into
martyrs. Some buried the bones of dead men in certain retired places,
and then affirmed that they were divinely admonished, by a dream, that
the body of some friend of God lay there. Many, especially of the monks,
travelled through the different provinces; and not only sold, with most
frontless impudence, their fictitious relics, but also deceived the eyes
of the multitude with ludicrous combats with evil spirits or genii. A
whole volume would be requisite to contain an enumeration of the various
frauds which artful knaves practised, with success, to delude the
ignorant, when true religion was almost entirely superseded by horrid
superstition" (p. 98). When to all these weapons we add the forgeries
everywhere circulated (see ante, pp. 240-243), we can understand how
rapidly Christianity spread, and how "the faithful" were rendered
pliable to those whose interests lay in deceiving them. During this
century flourished some of the greatest fathers of the Church,
pre-eminent among whom we note Ambrose, of Milan, Augustine, of Hippo,
and the great ecclesiastical doctor, Jerome. Already, in this century,
we find clear traces of the supremacy of the bishop of Rome, and "when a
new pontiff was to be elected by the suffrages of the presbyters and the
people, the city of Rome was generally agitated with dissensions,
tumults, and cabals, whose consequences were often deplorable and fatal"
(p. 94). By a decree of the Council of Constantinople, the bishop of
that city was given precedence next after the Roman prelate, and the
jealousy which arose between the bishops of the two imperial cities
fomented the disputes which ended, finally, in the separation of the
Eastern and Western Churches. Of the officers of the Church in this
century we read that: "The bishops, on the one hand, contended with each
other, in the most scandalous manner, concerning the extent of their
respective jurisdictions, while, on the other, they trampled upon the
rights of the people, violated the privileges of the inferior ministers,
and imitated, in their conduct, and in their manner of living, the
arrogance, voluptuousness, and luxury of magistrates and princes" (pp.
95, 96).
In this century is the first instance of the burning alive of a heretic,
and it was Spain who lighted that first pile. Theodosius, of all the
emperors of this age, was the bitterest persecutor of the heretic sects.
"The orthodox emperor considered every heretic as a rebel against the
supreme powers of heaven and of earth; and each of those powers might
exercise their peculiar jurisdiction over the soul and body of the
guilty.... In the space of fifteen years [A.D. 380-394], he promulgated
at least fifteen severe edicts against the heretics; more especially
against those who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity; and to deprive
them of every hope of escape, he sternly enacted, that if any laws or
rescripts should be alleged in their favour, the judges should consider
them as the illegal productions either of fraud or forgery.... The
heretical teachers ... were exposed to the heavy penalties of exile and
confiscation, if they presumed to preach the doctrine, or to practise
the rites of their _accursed_ sects.... Their religious meetings,
whether public or secret, by day or by night, in cities or in the
country, were equally proscribed by the edicts of Theodosius: and the
building or ground, which had been used for that illegal purpose, was
forfeited to the imperial domain. It was supposed, that the error of the
heretics could proceed only from the obstinate temper of their minds;
and that such a temper was a fit object of censure and punishment....
The sectaries were gradually disqualified for the possession of
honourable or lucrative employments; and Theodosius was satisfied with
his own justice, when he decreed, that as the Eunonians distinguished
the nature of the Son from that of the Father, they should be incapable
of making their wills, or of receiving any advantages from testamentary
donations" (Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. iii. pp. 412, 413).
One important event of this century must not be omitted, the dispersion
of the great Alexandrine library, collected by the Ptolemies. In the
siege of Alexandria by Julius Cæsar, the Philadelphian library in the
museum, containing some 400,000 volumes, had been burned; but there
still remained the "daughter library" in the Serapion, containing about
300,000 books. During the episcopate of Theophilus, predecessor of
Cyril, a riot took place between the Christians and the Pagans, and the
latter "held the Serapion as their head-quarters. Such were the disorder
and bloodshed that the emperor had to interfere. He despatched a
rescript to Alexandria, enjoining the bishop, Theophilus, to destroy the
Serapion; and the great library, which had been collected by the
Ptolemies, and had escaped the fire of Julius Cæsar, was by that fanatic
dispersed" ("Conflict of Religion and Science," p. 54), A.D. 389. To
Christian bigotry it is that we owe the loss of these rich treasures of
antiquity.
Heresies grew and strengthened during this fourth century. Chief leader
in the heretic camp was Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria; he asserted
that the Son, although begotten of the Father before the creation of
aught else, was not "of the same substance" as the Father, but only "of
like substance;" a vast number of the Christians embraced his
definition, and thus began the long struggle between the Arians and the
Catholics. Arius also "took the ground that there was a time when, from
the very nature of sonship, the Son did not exist, and a time at which
he commenced to be, asserting that it is the necessary condition of the
filial relation that a father must be older than his son. But this
assertion evidently denied the co-eternity of the three persons of the
Trinity; it suggested a subordination or inequality among them, and
indeed implied a time when the Trinity did not exist. Hereupon the
bishop, who had been the successful competitor against Arius [for the
episcopate], displayed his rhetorical powers in public debates on the
question, and, the strife spreading, the Jews and Pagans, who formed a
very large portion of the population of Alexandria, amused themselves
with theatrical representations of the contest on the stage--the point
of their burlesques being the equality of age of the Father and his Son"
(Ibid, p. 53). Gibbon quotes an amusing passage to show how widely
spread was the interest in the subject debated between the rival
parties: "This city is full of mechanics and slaves, who are all of them
profound theologians, and preach in the shops and in the streets. If you
desire a man to change a piece of silver, he informs you wherein the Son
differs from the Father; if you ask the price of a loaf, you are told,
by way of reply, that the Son is inferior to the Father; and if you
inquire whether the bath is ready, the answer is, that the Son was made
out of nothing" (Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. iii. p. 402). Arius
maintained that "the _Logos_ was a dependent and spontaneous production,
created from nothing by the will of the Father. The Son, by whom all
things were made, had been begotten before all worlds, and the longest
of the astronomical periods could be compared only as a fleeting moment
to the extent of his duration; yet this duration was not infinite, and
there _had_ been a time which preceded the ineffable generation of the
_Logos_.... He governed the universe in obedience to the will of his
Father and Monarch" (Ibid, pp. 18,19). The "Nicene creed" of the
Prayer-book consists of the creed promulgated by the Council of Nice,
with the anathema at the end omitted, and with the addition of some
phrases joined to it at the Council at Constantinople, and the insertion
of the Filioque. At the Council of Nice, Arius was condemned and
banished, to the triumph of his great opponent, Athanasius; but he was
recalled in A.D. 330, obtained the banishment of Athanasius in A.D. 335,
and died suddenly, under very suspicious circumstances, in A.D. 336.
Throughout this century the struggle proceeded furiously, each party in
turn getting the upper hand, as the emperor of the time inclined towards
Catholicism or towards Arianism, and each persecuting the adherents of
the other. Among Arian subdivisions we find Semi-Arians, Eusebians,
Aetians, Eunomians, Acasians, Psathyrians, etc. Then we have the
Apollinarians, who maintained that Christ had no human soul, the
divinity supplying its place; the Marcellians, who taught that a divine
emanation descended on Christ. Allied to the Manichæan heresy were the
Priscillians, the Saccophori, the Solitaries, and many others; and, in
addition, the Messalians or Euchites, the Luciferians, the Origenists,
the Antidicomarianites, and the Collyridians. A quarrel about the
consecration of a bishop gave rise to fierce struggles not connected
with the doctrine, so much as with the discipline of the Church. The
Bishops of Numidia were angered by not having been called to the
consecration of Cæcilianus Bishop of Carthage, and, assembling together,
they elected and consecrated a rival bishop to that see, and declared
Cæcilianus incompetent for the episcopal office. Donatus, Bishop of Casa
Nigra, was the foremost of these Numidian malcontents, and from him the
sect of Donatists took its name; they denied the orders of those
ordained by Cæcilianus, and hence the validity of the Sacraments
administered by them. Excommunicated themselves, "they boldly
excommunicated the rest of mankind who had embraced the impious party of
Cæcilianus, and of the traditors, from whom he derived his pretended
ordination. They asserted with confidence, and almost with exultation,
that the apostolical succession was interrupted, that _all_ the bishops
of Europe and Asia were infected by the contagion of guilt and schism,
and that the prerogatives of the Catholic Church were confined to the
chosen portion of the African believers, who alone had preserved
inviolate the integrity of their faith and discipline. This rigid theory
was supported by the most uncharitable conduct. Whenever they acquired a
proselyte, even from the distant provinces of the east, they carefully
repeated the sacred rites of baptism and ordination; as they rejected
the validity of those which he had already received from the hands of
heretics or of schismatics" (Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. iii. pp.
5, 6). A number of Donatists, known as Circumcelliones, "maintained
their cause by the force of arms, and overrunning all Africa, filled
that province with slaughter and rapine, and committed the most enormous
acts of perfidy and cruelty against the followers of Caecilianus" (p.
109). To complete the darkly terrible picture of the Church in the
fourth century, we need only note the various orders of fanatical monks,
filthy in their habits, densely ignorant, hopelessly superstitious,
amongst whom may be numbered the travelling mendicants called
Sarabaites. "Many of the Coenobites were chargeable with vicious and
scandalous practices. This order, however, was not so universally
corrupt as that of the Sarabaites, who were, for the most part,
profligates of the most abandoned kind" (p. 102). The pen wearies over
the list of scandals of these early Christian ages; we can but sketch
the outline here; let the student fill the picture in, and he will find
even blacker shades needed to darken it enough.
CENTURY V.
This century sees the destruction of the Roman Empire of the West, and
the rise into importance of the great Gothic monarchies. The Christian
emperors of the East put down paganism with a strong hand, conferring
state offices on Christians only, and forbidding pagan ceremonies
[unless under Christian names]. The sons of Constantine had pronounced
the penalty of death and confiscation against any who sacrificed to the
old gods; and Theodosius, in A.D. 390, had forbidden, under heavy
penalties, all pagan rites. This work of repression was rigorously
carried on. Clovis, king of the Franks, embraced Christianity, finding
its profession "of great use to him, both in confirming and enlarging
his empire" (p. 117); and many of the barbarous tribes were "converted
to the faith" by means of pretended miracles, "pious frauds ... very
commonly practised in Gaul and in Spain at this time, in order to
captivate, with more facility, the minds of a rude and barbarous people,
who were scarcely susceptible of a rational conviction" (pp. 117, 118).
The supremacy of the see of Rome advanced with rapid strides during this
century. The people depending, in their superstitious ignorance, on the
clergy, and the clergy on the bishops, it became the interest of the
savage kings to be on friendly terms with the latter, and to increase
their influence; and as the bishops, in their turn, leant upon the
central authority of Rome, the power of the pontiff rapidly increased.
This power was still further augmented by the struggles for supremacy
among the Eastern bishops, for by favouring sometimes one and sometimes
another, he fostered the habit of looking to Rome for aid. In the East,
five "patriarchs" were raised over the rest of the bishops, the
Patriarch of Constantinople standing at their head. Thus, East and West
drifted ever more apart. Mosheim speaks of "the ambitious quarrels and
the bitter animosities that rose among the patriarchs themselves, and
which produced the most bloody wars, and the most detestable and horrid
crimes. The Patriarch of Constantinople distinguished himself in these
odious contests. Elated with the favour and proximity of the Imperial
Court, he cast a haughty eye on all sides, where any objects were to be
found on which he might exercise his lordly ambition. On the one hand,
he reduced under his jurisdiction the Patriarchs of Alexandria and
Antioch, as prelates only of the second order; and on the other, he
invaded the diocese of the Roman Pontiff, and spoiled him of several
provinces. The two former prelates, though they struggled with vehemence
and raised considerable tumults by their opposition, yet they struggled
ineffectually, both for want of strength, and likewise on account of a
variety of unfavourable circumstances. But the Roman Pontiff, far
superior to them in wealth and power, contended also with more vigour
and obstinacy; and, in his turn, gave a deadly wound to the usurped
supremacy of the Byzantine Patriarch. The attentive inquirer into the
affairs of the Church, from this period, will find, in the events now
mentioned, the principal source of those most scandalous and deplorable
dissensions which divided first the Eastern Church into various sects,
and afterwards separated it entirely from that of the West. He will find
that these ignominious schisms flowed chiefly from the unchristian
contentions for dominion and supremacy which reigned among those who set
themselves up for the fathers and defenders of the Church" (p. 123).
Learning during this century fell lower and lower, in spite of the
schools established and fostered by the emperors, and while knowledge
diminished, vice increased. "The vices of the clergy were now carried to
the most enormous lengths; and all the writers of this century, whose
probity and virtue render them worthy of credit, are unanimous in their
accounts of the luxury, arrogance, avarice, and voluptuousness of the
sacerdotal orders. The bishops, particularly those of the first rank,
created various delegates or ministers, who managed for them the affairs
of their dioceses, and a sort of courts were gradually formed, where
these pompous ecclesiastics gave audience, and received the homage of a
cringing multitude" (p. 123). Superstition performed its maddest freak
in the Stylites, men "who stood motionless on the tops of pillars;" the
original maniac being one Simon, a Syrian, who actually spent
thirty-seven years of his life on pillars, the last of which was forty
cubits high. Another of the same class spent sixty-eight years in this
useful manner (see pp. 128, 129, and _note_). The Agapae were abolished,
and auricular confession was established, during this century.
Among the bishops of this century, one name deserves an immortality of
infamy. It is that of Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria. Under his rule took
place the terrible murder of Hypatia, that pure and beautiful Platonic
teacher, who was dragged by a fanatic mob, headed by Peter the Reader,
into the great church of Alexandria, and tortured to death on the steps
of the high altar. Cyril's "hold upon the audiences of the giddy city
[Alexandria] was, however, much weakened by Hypatia, the daughter of
Theon, the mathematician, who not only distinguished herself by her
expositions of the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, but also by her
comments on the writings of Apollonius and other geometers. Each day,
before her academy, stood a long train of chariots; her lecture-room was
crowded with the wealth and fashion of Alexandria.... Hypatia and Cyril!
Philosophy and bigotry. They cannot exist together. So Cyril felt, and
on that feeling he acted. As Hypatia repaired to her academy, she was
assaulted by Cyril's mob--a mob of many monks. Stripped naked in the
street, she was dragged into a church, and there killed by the club of
Peter the Reader [A.D. 415]. The corpse was cut to pieces, the flesh was
scraped from the bones with shells, and the remnants cast into a fire.
For this frightful crime Cyril was never called to account. It seemed to
be admitted that the end sanctified the means" (Draper's "Conflict
between Religion and Science," p. 55).
The heresies of the last century were continued in this, and various new
ones arose. Chief among these was the heresy of Nestorius, a Bishop of
Constantinople, who distinguished so strongly between the two natures in
Christ as to make a double personality, and he regarded the Virgin Mary
as mother of _Christ_, but not mother of _God_. The Council of Ephesus
(A.D. 431) was called to decide the point, and was presided over by the
great antagonist of Nestorius, Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria. The matter
was settled very quickly. Church Councils vote on disputed points, and
the vote of the majority constitutes orthodoxy. The Council was held
before the arrival of the bishops who sympathised with Nestorius, and
thus, by the simple expedient of getting everything over before the
opponents arrived, it was settled for evermore that Christ is one person
with two natures. A heresy of the very opposite character was that of
Eutyches, abbot of the monastery in Constantinople. He maintained that
in Christ there was only one nature, "that of the incarnate word," and
his opinion was endorsed by a council called at Ephesus, A.D. 449; but
this decree was annulled by the Council of Chalcedon (reckoned the
fourth OEcumenical), A.D. 451, wherein it was again declared that Christ
had two natures in one person. It was at the Council of Ephesus, in A.D.
449, that Flavianus, Bishop of Constantinople, was so beaten by the
other bishops that he died of his wounds, and the bishops who held with
him hid themselves under benches to get out of the way of their
infuriate brothers in Christ (see notes on pp. 136, 137). The
Theopaschites were a branch of the Eutychian heresy, and the
Monophysites were a cognate sect; from these arose the Acephali,
Anthropomorphites, Barsanuphites, and Esaianists. Not less important
than the heresy of Eutyches was that of Pelagius, a British monk, who
taught that man did not inherit original sin on account of Adam's fall,
but that each was born unspotted into the world, and was capable of
rising to the height of virtue by the exercise of his natural faculties.
The semi-Pelagians held that man could turn to God by his own strength,
but that divine grace was necessary to enable him to persevere.
One heretic of this period deserves a special word of record.
Vigilantius was a Gallic priest, remarkable for his eloquence and
learning, and he devoted himself to an effort to reform the Church in
Spain. "Among other things, he denied that the tombs and the bones of
the martyrs were to be honoured with any sort of homage or worship; and
therefore censured pilgrimages that were made to places that were
reputed holy. He turned into derision the prodigies which were said to
be wrought in the temples consecrated to martyrs, and condemned the
custom of performing vigils in them. He asserted, and indeed with
reason, that the custom of burning tapers at the tombs of the martyrs in
broad day, was imprudently borrowed from the ancient superstition of the
Pagans. He maintained, moreover, that prayers addressed to departed
saints were void of all efficacy; and treated with contempt fastings and
mortifications, the celibacy of the clergy, and the various austerities
of the monastic life. And finally he affirmed that the conduct of those
who, distributing their substance among the indigent, submitted to the
hardships of a voluntary poverty, or sent a part of their treasures to
Jerusalem for devout purposes, had nothing in it acceptable to the
Deity" (p. 129). Under these circumstances we can scarcely wonder that
Vigilantius was scouted as a heretic by all orthodox, lucre-loving
clerics. He is the forerunner of a long line of protesters against the
ever-growing strength and superstition of the Church.
CENTURY VI.
The darkness deepens as we proceed. Christianity spread among the
barbarous tribes of the East and West, but "it must, however, be
acknowledged, that of these conversions, the greatest part were owing to
the liberality of the Christian princes, or to the fear of punishment,
rather than to the force of argument or to the love of truth. In Gaul,
the Jews were compelled by Childeric to receive the ordinance of
baptism; and the same despotic method of converting was practised in
Spain" (p. 141). "They required nothing of these barbarous people that
was difficult to be performed, or that laid any remarkable restraint
upon their appetites and passions. The principal injunctions they
imposed upon these rude proselytes were that they should get by heart
certain summaries of doctrine, and to pay the images of Christ and the
saints the same religious services which they had formerly offered to
the statues of the gods" (p. 142). Libraries were formed in many of the
monasteries, and schools were opened, but apparently only for those who
intended to enter the monastic life; these, however, did not flourish,
for many bishops showed "bitter aversion" towards "every sort of
learning and erudition, which they considered as pernicious to the
progress of piety" (p. 144). "Greek literature was almost everywhere
neglected.... Philosophy fared still worse than literature; for it was
entirely banished from all the seminaries which were under the
inspection and government of the ecclesiastical order" (Ibid). The
wealth of the Church grew apace. "The arts of a rapacious priesthood
were practised upon the ignorant devotion of the simple; and even the
remorse of the wicked was made an instrument of increasing the
ecclesiastical treasure. For an opinion was propagated with industry
among the people, that the remission of their sins was to be purchased
by their liberalities to the churches and monks" (p. 146). "The monastic
orders, in general, abounded with fanatics and profligates; the _latter_
were more numerous than the _former_ in the Western convents, while in
those of the East the fanatics were predominant" (ibid). It was in this
century (A.D. 529) that the great Benedictine rule was composed by
Benedict of Nursia. The Council of Constantinople, A.D. 553, is reckoned
as the fifth general Council. It is said to have condemned the doctrines
of Origen, thus summarised by Mosheim:--"1. That in the Trinity the
_Father_ is greater than the _Son_, and the _Son_ than the _Holy Ghost_.
2. The _pre-existence_ of souls, which Origen considered as sent into
mortal bodies for the punishment of sins committed in a former state of
being. 3. That the _soul_ of Christ was united to the _word_ before the
incarnation. 4. That the sun, moon, and stars, etc., were animated and
endowed with rational souls. 5. That after the resurrection all bodies
will be of a round figure. 6. That the torments of the damned will have
an end; and that as Christ had been crucified in this world to save
mankind, he is to be crucified in the next to save the devils" (p. 151,
note). Among the various notabilities of this age none are specially
worthy attention, save Brethius, Cassiodorus, Gregory the Great,
Benedict of Nursia, Gregory of Tours, and Isidore of Seville. The
heresies of former centuries continued during this, and several
unimportant additional sects sprang up. The Monophysites gained in
strength under Jacob, Bishop of Edessa, and became known as Jacobites,
and exist to this day in Abyssinia and America. Six small sects grew up
among the Monophysites and died away again, which held varying opinions
about the nature of the body of Christ We find also the Corrupticolæ,
Agnoetæ, Tritheists, Philoponists, Cononites, and Damianists, the four
last of which differed as to the nature of the Trinity. Thus was rent
into innumerable factions the supposed-to-be-indivisible Christianity,
and the most bloody persecutions disgraced the uppermost party of the
moment.
CENTURY VII.
Many are the missionary enterprises of this century, and we find the
missionaries grasping at temporal power, and exercising a "princely
authority over the countries where their ministry had been successful"
(p. 157). Learning had almost vanished; "they, who distinguished
themselves most by their taste and genius, carried their studies little
farther than the works of Augustine and Gregory the Great; and it is of
scraps collected out of these two writers, and patched together without
much uniformity, that the best productions of this century are entirely
composed.... The schools which had been committed to the care and
inspection of the bishops, whose ignorance and indolence were now become
enormous, began to decline apace, and were in many places, fallen into
ruin. The bishops in general were so illiterate, that few of that body
were capable of composing the discourses which they delivered to the
people. Such of them as were not totally destitute of genius, composed
out of the writings of Augustine and Gregory a certain number of insipid
homilies, which they divided between themselves, and their stupid
colleagues, that they might not be obliged through incapacity to
discontinue preaching the doctrines of Christianity to their people" (p.
159). "The progress of vice among the subordinate rulers and ministers
of the Church was, at this time, truly deplorable.... In those very
places, that were consecrated to the advancement of piety and the
service of God, there was little else to be seen than ghostly ambition,
insatiable avarice, pious frauds, intolerable pride, and a supercilious
contempt of the natural rights of the people, with many other vices
still more enormous" (p. 161). The wealth of the Church increased
rapidly; it grew fat on the wages of sin. "Abandoned profligates, who
had passed their days in the most enormous pursuits, and whose guilty
consciences filled them with terror and remorse, were comforted with the
delusive hopes of obtaining pardon, and making atonement for their
crimes by leaving the greatest part of their fortune to some monastic
society. Multitudes, impelled by the unnatural dictates of a gloomy
superstition, deprived their children of fertile lands and rich
patrimonies in favour of the monks, by whose prayers they hoped to
render the Deity propitious" (p. 161). The only new sect of any
importance in this century is that of the Monothelites, later known as
Maronites; they taught that Christ had but one will, but the doctrine is
wrapped up in so many subtleties as to be almost incomprehensible. They
were condemned, in the sixth General Council, held at Constantinople,
A.D. 680. It was during this century that "Boniface V. enacted that
infamous law, by which the churches became places of refuge to all who
fled thither for protection; a law which procured a sort of impunity to
the most enormous crimes, and gave a loose rein to the licentiousness of
the most abandoned profligates" (p. 164). The effect of this law was
that the monasteries became the refuge of bandits and murderers, who
issued from them to plunder and to destroy, and paid for the security of
their persons by bestowing on their hosts a portion of the spoil they
had collected during their raids. Such were the civilizing and purifying
effects of Christianity.
CENTURY VIII.
Winfred, better known as Boniface, "the Apostle of Germany," is,
perhaps, the chief ecclesiastical figure of this century. He taught
Christianity right through Germany; was consecrated bishop in A.D. 723,
created archbishop in A.D. 738, and Primate of Germany and Belgium in
A.D. 746; in A.D. 755 he was murdered in Friesland, with fifty other
ecclesiastics. Much stress is laid upon his martyrdom by Christian
writers, but Boniface, after all, only received from the Frieslanders
the measure he had meted out to their brethren, and there seems no good
reason why Christian missionaries should claim a monopoly of the right
to kill. Mosheim allows that he "often employed violence and terror, and
sometimes artifice and fraud" (p. 169) in order to gain converts, and he
was supported by Charles Martel, the enemy of Friesland, and appeared
among the Germans as the friend and agent of their foes. A few years
later, Charlemagne spread Christianity among the Saxons with great
vigour. For "a war broke out, at this time, between Charlemagne and the
Saxons, which contributed much to the propagation of Christianity,
though not by the force of a rational persuasion. The Saxons were, at
this time, a numerous and formidable people, who inhabited a
considerable part of Germany, and were engaged in perpetual quarrels
with the Franks concerning their boundaries, and other matters of
complaint. Hence Charlemagne turned his armies against this powerful
nation, A.D. 772, with a design not only to subdue that spirit of revolt
with which they had so often troubled the empire, but also to abolish
their idolatrous worship, and engage them to embrace the Christian
religion. He hoped, by their conversion, to vanquish their obstinacy,
imagining that the divine precepts of the Gospel would assuage their
impetuous and restless passions, mitigate their ferocity, and induce
them to submit more tamely to the government of the Franks. These
projects were great in idea, but difficult in execution; accordingly,
the first attempt to convert the Saxons, after having subdued them, was
unsuccessful, because it was made without the aid of violence, or
threats, by the bishops and monks, whom the victor had left among that
conquered people, whose obstinate attachment to idolatry no arguments
nor exhortations could overcome. [Mark the _naïveté_ of this
confession.] More forcible means were afterwards used to draw them into
the pale of the Church, in the wars which Charlemagne carried on in the
years 775, 776, and 780, against that valiant people, whose love of
liberty was excessive, and whose aversion to the restraints of
sacerdotal authority was inexpressible. During these wars their
attachment to the superstition of their ancestors was so warmly combated
by the allurements of reward, by the terror of punishment, and by the
imperious language of victory, that they suffered themselves to be
baptised, though with inward reluctance, by the missionaries, which the
emperor sent among them for that purpose" (p. 170). Rebellion broke out
once more, headed by the two most powerful Saxon chiefs, but they were
won over by Charlemagne, who persuaded them "to make a public and solemn
profession of Christianity, in the year 785, and to promise an adherence
to that divine religion for the rest of their days. To prevent, however,
the Saxons from renouncing a religion which they had embraced with
reluctance, several bishops were appointed to reside among them, schools
also were erected, and monasteries founded, that the means of
instruction might not be wanting. The same precautions were employed
among the Huns in Pannonia, to maintain in the profession of
Christianity that fierce people whom Charlemagne had converted to the
faith, when, exhausted and dejected by various defeats, they were no
longer able to make head against his victorious arms, and chose rather
to be Christians than slaves" (p. 170). The grateful Church canonized
Charlemagne, the brutal soldier who had so enlarged her borders; "not to
enter into a particular detail of his vices, whose number
counter-balanced that of his virtues, it is undeniably evident that his
ardent and ill-conducted zeal for the conversion of the Huns,
Frieslanders, and Saxons, was more animated by the suggestions of
ambition, than by a principle of true piety; and that his main view in
these religious exploits was to subdue the converted nations under his
dominion, and to tame them to his yoke, which they supported with
impatience, and shook off by frequent revolts. It is, moreover, well
known, that this boasted saint made no scruple of seeking the alliance
of the infidel Saracens, that he might be more effectually enabled to
crush the Greeks, notwithstanding their profession of the Christian
religion" (p. 171). Thus was Christianity spread by fire and sword, and
where-ever the cross passed it left its track in blood. While the
soldiers thus converted the heathen, "the clergy abandoned themselves to
their passions without moderation or restraint; they were distinguished
by their luxury, their gluttony, and their lust" (p. 173). To these
evils was added that of gross deception, for a bad clergy used bad
weapons; false miracles abounded in every direction; "the corrupt
discipline that then prevailed admitted of those fallacious stratagems,
which are very improperly called _pious_ frauds; nor did the heralds of
the gospel think it at all unlawful to terrify or to allure to the
profession of Christianity, by fictitious prodigies, those obdurate
hearts which they could not subdue by reason and argument" (p. 171). The
wealth of the Church increased year by year. "An opinion prevailed
universally at this time, though its authors are not known, that the
punishment which the righteous judge of the world has reserved for the
transgressions of the wicked, was to be prevented and annulled by
liberal donations to God, to the saints, to the churches and clergy. In
consequence of this notion, the great and opulent--who were, generally
speaking, the most remarkable for their flagitious and abominable
lives--offered, out of the abundance which they had received by
inheritance or acquired by rapine, rich donations to departed saints,
their ministers upon earth, and the keepers of the temples that were
erected in their honour, in order to avoid the sufferings and penalties
annexed by the priests to transgression in this life, and to escape the
misery denounced against the wicked in a future state. This new and
commodious method of making atonement for iniquity was the principal
source of those immense treasures which, from this period, began to flow
in upon the clergy, the churches, and monasteries, and continued to
enrich them through succeeding ages down to the present time" (p. 174).
Another source of wealth is to be found in the desire of the kings of
the various warring tribes to attach to themselves the bishop and clergy
in their dominions; by bestowing on these lands and dignities they
secured to themselves the aid which the Church officials had it in their
power to render, for not only could bishops bring to the support of
their suzerain the physical succour of armies, but they could also
launch against his enemies that terrible bolt of mediaeval times,
excommunication, which, "rendered formidable by ignorance, struck terror
into the boldest and most resolute hearts" (p. 174). In these latter
gifts we see the origin of the temporalities and titles attached to
episcopal sees and to cathedral chapters. During this century the power
of the Roman Pontiff swelled to an enormous degree, and his sway
extended into civil and political affairs: so supreme an authority had
he become that, in A.D. 751, the Frankish states of the realm--convoked
by Pepin to sanction his design of seizing on the French throne, then
occupied by Childeric III.--directed that an embassy should be sent to
the Pope Zachary, to ask whether it was not right that a weak monarch
should be dethroned; and on the answer of the Pope in the affirmative
being received, Childeric was dethroned without opposition, and Pepin
was crowned in his stead.
In the East, the Church was torn with dissensions, while the imperial
throne was rocking under the repeated attacks of the Turks--a tribe
descended from the Tartars--who entered Armenia, struggled with the
Saracens for dominion, subdued them partially, and then turned their
arms against the Greek empire. The great controversy of this century is
that on the worship of images, between the Iconoduli or Iconolatrae
(image worshippers), and the Iconomachi or Iconoclastae (image
breakers). The Emperor Bardanes, a supporter of the Monothelite heresy,
ordered that a picture representing the sixth general council should be
removed from the Church of St. Sophia, because that council had
condemned the Monothelites. Not content with doing this (A.D. 712),
Bardanes sent an order to Rome that all pictures and images of the same
nature should be removed from places of worship. Constantine, the Pope,
immediately set up six pictures, representing the six general councils,
in the porch of St. Peter's, and called a council at Rome, which
denounced the Emperor as an apostate. Bardanes was dethroned by a
revolution, but his successor, Leo, soon took up the quarrel. In A.D.
726, he issued an imperial edict commanding the removal of all images
from the churches and forbidding all image worship, save only those
representing the crucifixion of Christ. Pope Gregory I. excommunicated
the Emperor, and insurrections broke out all over the empire in
consequence; the Emperor retorted by calling a council at
Constantinople, which deposed the bishop of that city for his leanings
towards image worship, and put a supporter of the Emperor in his place.
The contest was carried on by Constantine, who succeeded his father,
Leo, in A.D. 741, and who, in A.D. 754, called a council, at
Constantinople--recognised by the Greek Church as the seventh general
council--which condemned the use and worship of images. Leo IV. (A.D.
775) issued penal laws against image worshippers, but he was poisoned by
Irene, his wife, in A.D. 780, and she entered into an alliance with Pope
Adrian, so that the Iconoduli became triumphant in their turn. While
this controversy raged, a second arose as to the procession of the Holy
Ghost. The creed of Constantinople (see ante, p. 434) ran--"I believe in
the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the
Father;" to this phrase the words, "and the Son," had been added in the
West, originally by some Spanish bishops; the Greeks protested against
an unauthorised addition being inserted into a creed promulgated by a
general council, and received by the universal Church as the symbol of
faith. Thus arose the celebrated controversy on the "Filioque," which
was one of the chief causes of the great schism between the Eastern and
Western Churches in the ninth century.
The Arian, Manichæan, Marcionite, and Monothelite heresies spread,
during this century, through the Greek Church, and, where the Arabians
ruled, the Nestorians and Monophysites also flourished. In the Latin
Church a phase of the Nestorian heresy made its way, under the name of
Adoptianism, a name given because its adherents regarded Christ, so far
as his manhood was concerned, as the Son of God by adoption only.
CENTURY IX.
Christendom, during this century, as during the preceding one, was
threatened and harassed by the inroads of Mahommedan powers, and the
first gleams of returning light began to penetrate its thick
darkness--light proceeding from the Arabians and the Saracens, the
restorers of knowledge and of science. It is not here our duty to trace
that marvellous work of the revival of thought--thought which
Christianity had slain, but which, revived by Mahommedanism, was
destined to issue in the new birth of heretic philosophy. While this
work was proceeding among the Saracens, the Arabians, and the Moors,
Christendom went on its way, degraded, vicious, and superstitious; only
here and there an effort at learning was made, and some few went to the
Arabian schools, and returned with some tincture of knowledge. John
Scotus Erigena, a subtle and acute thinker, left behind him works which
have made some regard him as the founder of the _Realist_ school of the
middle ages, the school which followed Aristotle, in opposition to the
_Nominalists_, who held with Zeno and the Stoics. Erigena taught that
the soul would be re-absorbed into the divine spirit, from which it had
originally emanated; from God all things had come--to Him would they
ultimately return; God alone was eternal, and in the end nothing but God
would exist. Some of Erigena's works naturally fell under the
displeasure of the Church, and were duly burned: he was a philosopher,
and therefore dangerous.
While this slight effort at thought was thus frowned upon, vice made its
way unchecked and unrebuked by the authorities. "The impiety and
licentiousness of the greater part of the clergy arose, at this time, to
an enormous height, and stand upon record in the unanimous complaints of
the most candid and impartial writers of this century. In the East,
tumult, discord, conspiracies, and treason reigned uncontrolled, and all
things were carried by violence and force. These abuses appeared in many
things, but particularly in the election of the Patriarchs of
Constantinople.... In the western provinces, the bishops were become
voluptuous and effeminate to a very high degree. They passed their lives
amidst the splendour of courts, and the pleasures of a luxurious
indolence, which corrupted their taste, extinguished their zeal, and
rendered them incapable of performing the solemn duties of their
function; while the inferior clergy were sunk in licentiousness, minded
nothing but sensual gratifications, and infected with the most heinous
vices the flock whom it was the very business of their ministry to
preserve, or to deliver from the contagion of iniquity. Besides, the
ignorance of the sacred order was, in many places, so deplorable that
few of them could either read or write, and still fewer were capable of
expressing their wretched notions with any degree of method or
perspicuity" (p. 193). "Many other causes also contributed to dishonour
the Church, by introducing into it a corrupt ministry. A nobleman who,
through want of talents, activity, or courage, was rendered incapable of
appearing with dignity in the cabinet, or with honour in the field,
immediately turned his views towards the Church, aimed at a
distinguished place among its chiefs and rulers, and became, in
consequence, a contagious example of stupidity and vice to the inferior
clergy. The patrons of churches, in whom resided the right of election,
unwilling to submit their disorderly conduct to the keen censure of
zealous and upright pastors, industriously looked for the most abject,
ignorant, and worthless ecclesiastics, to whom they committed the cure
of souls" (p. 193). Of the Roman pontiffs, Mosheim says: "The greatest
part of them are only known by the flagitious actions that have
transmitted their names with infamy to our times" (p. 194). And "the
enormous vices that must have covered so many pontiffs with infamy in
the judgment of the wise, formed not the least obstacle to their
ambition in these memorable times, nor hindered them from extending
their influence and augmenting their authority both in church and state"
(p. 195). Among the vast mass of forgeries which gradually built up the
supremacy of the Roman see, the famous Isidorian Decretals deserve a
word of notice. They were issued about A.D. 845, and consisted of "about
one hundred pretended decrees of the early Popes, together with certain
spurious writings of other church dignitaries and acts of synods. This
forgery produced an immense extension of the papal power. It displaced
the old system of church government, divesting it of the republican
attributes it had possessed, and transforming it into an absolute
monarchy. It brought the bishops into subjection to Rome, and made the
pontiff the supreme judge of the clergy of the whole Christian world. It
prepared the way for the great attempt, subsequently made by Hildebrand,
to convert the states of Europe into a theocratic priest kingdom, with
the Pope at its head" (Draper's "Conflict of Religion and Science," p.
271). We note during this century a remarkable growth of saints.
Everyone wanted a saint through whom to approach God, and the supply
kept pace with the demand. "This preposterous multiplication of saints
was a new source of abuses and frauds. It was thought necessary to write
the lives of these celestial patrons, in order to procure for them the
veneration and confidence of a deluded multitude; and here lying wonders
were invented, and all the resources of forgery and fable exhausted to
celebrate exploits which had never been performed, and to perpetuate the
memory of holy persons who had never existed" (p. 200). The contest on
images still raged furiously, success being now on the one side, now on
the other; various councils were called by either party, until, in A.D.
879, a council at Constantinople, reckoned by the Greeks as the eighth
general council, sanctioned the worship of images, which thereafter
triumphed in the East. In the West, the opposition to image-worship
gradually died away. The _Filioque_ contest also continued hotly and
widened the breach between East and West yet more. The final separation
was not long delayed. The ever-increasing jealousy between Rome and
Constantinople had at last reached a height which made even nominal
union impossible, and the smouldering fire burst into sudden flame. In
A.D. 858 Photius was made Patriarch of Constantinople, by the Emperor
Michael, in the room of Ignatius, deprived and banished by that prince.
A council, held at Constantinople in A.D. 861, endorsed the appointment
of the emperor; but Ignatius appealed to Rome, and Pope Nicholas I.
readily took up his quarrel. A council was held at Rome, in A.D. 862, in
which the pontiff excommunicated Photius and his adherents. It was
answered by one at Constantinople, in A.D. 866, wherein Nicholas was
pronounced unworthy of his office and outside the pale of Christian
communion. Yet another council of Constantinople, A.D. 869, approved the
action of Basilius, the new emperor, who recalled Ignatius, and
imprisoned Photius. When Ignatius died, Photius was reinstated (A.D.
878), and he was acknowledged by the Roman pontiff, John VIII., at
another council of Constantinople, A.D. 879, on the understanding that
the jurisdiction over Bulgaria, claimed both by Pope and Patriarch,
should be definitely yielded to Rome. This, however, was not done; and
the Pope sent a legate to Constantinople, recalling his declaration in
favour of Photius. The legate, Marinus, was cast into prison; and when
he was later raised to the pontificate, he remembered the outrage, and
anew excommunicated Photius. A.D. 886 saw the fall and imprisonment of
Photius, and union might have been maintained but for the extravagant
demands of the Roman pontiff, who required the degradation of all
priests and bishops ordained by Photius. The Greeks indignantly refused,
and at last the great schism took place, which severed from each other
entirely the Eastern and the Western Churches.
The ancient heresy of the Paulicians had not yet died out, spite of
having suffered much persecution at Catholic hands, and under the
Emperors Michael and Leo, a fierce attack upon these unfortunate beings
took place. They were hunted down and executed without mercy, and at
last they turned upon their persecutors, and revenged themselves by
murdering the bishop, magistrates, and judges in Armenia, after which
they fled to the countries under Saracen rule. After a while, they
gradually returned to the Greek empire; but when the Empress Theodora
was regent, during her son's minority, she issued a stern decree against
them. "The decree was severe, but the cruelty with which it was put in
execution, by those who were sent into Armenia for that purpose, was
horrible beyond expression; for these ministers of wrath, after
confiscating the goods of above a hundred thousand of that miserable
people, put their possessors to death in the most barbarous manner, and
made them expire slowly in a variety of the most exquisite tortures" (p.
212).
In addition to the heresies inherited from the previous centuries, three
new ones, important in their issues, arose to divide yet more the
divided indivisible Church. A monk, named Pascasius Radbert, wrote a
treatise (A.D. 831 and 845), in which he maintained that, at the
Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine became changed, by
consecration, into the body and blood of Christ, and that this body "was
the same body that was born of the Virgin, that suffered upon the cross,
and was raised from the dead" (p. 205). Charles the Bald bade Erigena
and Ratramn (or Bertramn) draw up the true doctrine of the Church, and
the long controversy began which is continued even in the present day.
The second great dispute arose on the question of predestination and
divine grace. Godeschalcus, an eminent Saxon monk, returning from Rome
in A.D. 847, resided for a space in Verona, where he spoke much on
predestination, affirming that God had, from all eternity, predestined
some to heaven and others to hell. He was condemned at a council held in
Mayence, A.D. 848, and in the following year, at another council, he was
again condemned, and was flogged until he burned, with his own hand, the
apology for his opinions he had presented at Mayence. The third great
controversy regarded the manner of Christ's birth, and monks furiously
disputed whether or no Christ was born after the fashion of other
infants. The details of this dispute need not here be entered into.
CENTURY X.
"The deplorable state of Christianity in this century, arising partly
from that astonishing ignorance that gave a loose rein both to
superstition and immorality, and partly from an unhappy concurrence of
causes of another kind, is unanimously lamented by the various writers
who have transmitted to us the history of these miserable times" (p.
213). Yet "the gospel" spread. The Normans embraced "a religion of which
they were totally ignorant" (p. 214), A.D. 912, because Charles the
Simple of France offered Count Rollo a large territory on condition that
he would marry his daughter and embrace Christianity: Rollo gladly
accepted the territory and its encumbrances. Poland came next into the
fold of the Church, for the Duke of Poland, Micislaus, was persuaded by
his wife to profess Christianity, A.D. 965, and Pope John III. promptly
sent a bishop and a train of priests to convert the duke's subjects.
"But the exhortations and endeavours of these devout missionaries, who
were unacquainted with the language of the people they came to instruct
[how effective must have been their arguments!] would have been entirely
without effect, had they not been accompanied with the edicts and penal
laws, the promises and threats of Micislaus, which dejected the courage
and conquered the obstinacy of the reluctant Poles" (p. 214). "The
Christian religion was established in Russia by means every way similar
to those that had occasioned its propagation in Poland" (p. 215); the
Greek wife of the Russian duke persuaded him to adopt her creed, and he
was baptized A.D. 987. Mosheim assumes that the Russian people followed
their princes of their own accord, since "we have, at least, no account
of any compulsion or violence being employed in their conversion" (p.
215); if the Russians adopted Christianity without compulsion or
violence, all we can say is, that their conversion is unique. The Danes
were converted in A.D. 949, Otto the Great having defeated them, and
having made it an imperative condition of peace, that they should
profess Christianity. The Norwegians accepted the religion of Jesus on
the same terms. Thus the greater part of Europe became Christian, and we
even hear a cry raised by Pope Sylvester II. for the deliverance of
Palestine from the Mahommedans--for a holy war. Christianity having now
become so strong, learning had become proportionately weak; it had been
sinking lower and lower during each succeeding epoch, and in this tenth
century it reached its deepest stage of degradation. "The deplorable
ignorance of this barbarous age, in which the drooping arts were
entirely neglected, and the sciences seemed to be upon the point of
expiring for want of encouragement, is unanimously confessed and
lamented by all the writers who have transmitted to us any accounts of
this period of time" (p. 218). In vain a more enlightened emperor in the
East strove to revive learning and encourage study: "many of the most
celebrated authors of antiquity were lost, at this time, through the
sloth and negligence of the Greeks" (p. 219). "Nor did the cause of
philosophy fare better than that of literature. Philosophers, indeed,
there were; and, among them, some that were not destitute of genius and
abilities; but none who rendered their names immortal by productions
that were worthy of being transmitted to posterity" (p. 219). So low,
under the influence of Christianity, had sunk the literature of
Greece--Greece Pagan, which once brought forth Pythagoras, Socrates,
Plato, Euclid, Zenophon, and many another mighty one, whose fame rolls
down the ages--that Greece had become Greece Christian, and the vitality
of her motherhood had been drained from her, and left her without
strength to conceive men. In the West things were yet worse--instead of
Rome Pagan, that had spread light and civilization--the Rome of Cicero,
of Virgil, of Lucretius--we have Rome Christian, spreader of darkness
and of degradation, the Rome of the Popes and the monks. The Latins
"were, almost without exception, sunk in the most brutish and barbarous
ignorance, so that, according to the unanimous accounts of the most
credible writers, nothing could be more melancholy and deplorable than
the darkness that reigned in the western world during this century....
In the seminaries of learning, such as they were, the seven liberal
sciences were taught in the most unskilful and miserable manner, and
that by the monks, who esteemed the arts and sciences no further than as
they were subservient to the interests of religion, or, to speak more
properly, to the views of superstition" (p. 219). But the light from
Arabia was struggling to penetrate Christendom. Gerbert, a native of
France, travelled into Spain, and studied in the Arabian schools of
Cordova and Seville, under Arabian doctors; he developed mathematical
ability, and returned into Christendom with some amount of learning:
raised to the papal throne, under the name of Sylvester II., he tried to
restore the study of science and philosophy, and found that his
geometrical figures "were regarded by the monks as magical operations,"
and he himself "as a magician and a disciple of Satan" (p. 220).
The vice of the clergy was something terrible. "These corruptions were
mounted to the most enormous height in that dismal period of the Church
which we have now before us. Both in the eastern and western provinces,
the clergy were, for the most part, composed of a most worthless set of
men, shamefully illiterate and stupid, ignorant, more especially in
religious matters, equally enslaved to sensuality and superstition, and
capable of the most abominable and flagitious deeds. This dismal
degeneracy of the sacred order was, according to the most credible
accounts, principally owing to the pretended chiefs and rulers of the
universal Church, who indulged themselves in the commission of the most
odious crimes, and abandoned themselves to the lawless impulse of the
most licentious passions without reluctance or remorse--who confounded,
in short, all difference between just and unjust, to satisfy their
impious ambition, and whose spiritual empire was such a diversified
scene of iniquity and violence as never was exhibited under any of those
temporal tyrants who have been the scourges of mankind" (p. 221). Such
is the verdict passed on Christian rule by a Christian historian. In the
East we see such men as Theophylact; "this _exemplary_ prelate, who sold
every ecclesiastical benefice as soon as it became vacant, had in his
stable above 2000 hunting horses, which he fed with pignuts, pistachios,
dates, dried grapes, figs steeped in the most exquisite wines, to all
which he added the richest perfumes. One Holy Thursday, as he was
celebrating high-mass, his groom brought him the joyful news that one of
his favourite mares had foaled; upon which he threw down the Liturgy,
left the church, and ran in raptures to the stable, where, having
expressed his joy at that grand event, he returned to the altar to
finish the divine service, which he had left interrupted during his
absence" (p. 221, note). We shall see, in a moment, how the masses of
the people were housed and fed while such insane luxury surrounded
horses. In the west, the weary tale of the Roman pontiffs cannot all be
narrated here. Take the picture as drawn by Hallam: "This dreary
interval is filled up, in the annals of the papacy, by a series of
revolutions and crimes. Six popes were deposed, two murdered, one
mutilated. Frequently two, or even three, competitors, among whom it is
not always possible by any genuine criticism to distinguish the true
shepherd, drove each other alternately from the city. A few respectable
names appear thinly scattered through this darkness; and sometimes,
perhaps, a pope who had acquired estimation by his private virtues may
be distinguished by some encroachment on the rights of princes, or the
privileges of national churches. But, in general, the pontiffs of that
age had neither leisure nor capacity to perfect the great system of
temporal supremacy, and looked rather to a vile profit from the sale of
episcopal confirmations, or of exemptions to monasteries. The corruption
of the head extended naturally to all other members of the Church. All
writers concur in stigmatizing the dissoluteness and neglect of decency
that prevailed among the clergy. Though several codes of ecclesiastical
discipline had been compiled by particular prelates, yet neither these
nor the ancient canons were much regarded. The bishops, indeed, who were
to enforce them, had most occasion to dread their severity. They were
obtruded upon their sees, as the supreme pontiffs were upon that of
Rome, by force or corruption. A child of five years old was made
Archbishop of Rheims. The see of Narbonne was purchased for another at
the age of ten" ("Europe during the Middle Ages," p. 353, ed. 1869).
John X. made pope at the solicitation of his mistress Theodora, the
mother-in-law of the sovereign, and murdered at the instance of
Theodora's daughter, Marozia; John XI., illegitimate son of the same
Marozia, and of the celibate pontiff, Sergius III.; Boniface VII.
expelled, banished, returning and murdering the reigning pope: what
avails it to chronicle these monsters? Below the popes, a clergy as
vicious as their rulers, squandering money, plundered from the people in
dissoluteness and luxury. And the people, what of them?
As late as A.D. 1430 the houses of the peasantry were "constructed of
stones put together without mortar; the roofs were of turf--a stiffened
bull's-hide served for a door. The food consisted of coarse vegetable
products, such as peas, and even the bark of trees. In some places they
were unacquainted with bread. Cabins of reeds plastered with mud, houses
of wattled stakes, chimneyless peat fires, from which there was scarcely
an escape for the smoke, dens of physical and moral pollution swarming
with vermin, wisps of straw twisted round the limbs to keep off the
cold, the ague-stricken peasant with no help except shrine-cure," i.e.,
cure by the touching bone of saint, or image of virgin (Draper's
"Conflict between Religion and Science," p. 265). Even among the
wealthy, the life was coarse and rough; carpets were unknown; drainage
never thought of. The Anglo-Saxon "'nobles, devoted to gluttony and
voluptuousness, never visited the church, but the matins and the mass
were read over to them by a hurrying priest in their bed-chambers,
before they rose, themselves not listening. The common people were a
prey to the more powerful; their property was seized, their bodies
dragged away to distant countries; their maidens were either thrown into
a brothel or sold for slaves. Drinking, day and night, was the general
pursuit: vices, the companions of inebriety, followed, effeminating the
manly mind.' The baronial castles were dens of robbers. The Saxon
chronicler [William of Malmesbury, from whom the quotation above]
records how men and women were caught and dragged into those
strongholds, hung up by their thumbs or feet, fire applied to them,
knotted strings twisted round their heads, and many other torments
inflicted to extort ransom" (Ibid, p. 266). When the barons had nearly
finished their evil lives, the church stepped in, claiming her share of
the plunder and the wealth thus amassed, and opening the gates of
paradise to the dying thief. The cities were as wretched as their
inhabitants: no paving, no cleaning, no lighting. In the country the old
Roman roads were unmended, unkept; Europe was slipping backwards into
uttermost barbarism. Meanwhile things were very different where the
blighting power of Christianity was not in the ascendant. "Europe at the
present day does not offer more taste, more refinement, more elegance,
than might have been seen, at the epoch of which we are speaking, in the
capitals of the Spanish Arabs. Their streets were lighted and solidly
paved. The houses were frescoed and carpeted; they were warmed in winter
by furnaces, and cooled in summer with perfumed air brought by
underground pipes from flower-beds. They had baths, and libraries, and
dining-halls, fountains of quicksilver and water. City and country were
full of conviviality, and of dancing to the lute and mandolin. Instead
of the drunken and gluttonous wassail orgies of their northern
neighbours, the feasts of the Saracens were marked by sobriety. Wine was
prohibited.... In the tenth century, the Khalif Hakem II. had made
beautiful Andalusia the paradise of the world. Christians, Mussulmans,
Jews, mixed together without restraint.... All learned men, no matter
from what country they came, or what their religious views, were
welcomed. The khalif had in his palace a manufactory of books, and
copyists, binders, illuminators. He kept book-buyers in all the great
cities of Asia and Africa. His library contained 400,000 volumes,
superbly bound and illuminated" (Ibid, pp. 141, 142). When the
Christians in the fifteenth century seized "beautiful Andalusia," they
erected the Inquisition, burned the books, burned the people, banished
the Jews and the Moors, and founded the miserable land known as modern
Spain.
There was but little heresy during this melancholy century; people did
not think enough even to think badly. The Paulicians spread through
Bulgaria, and established themselves there under a patriarch of their
own. Some Arians still existed. Some Anthropomorphites gave some
trouble, maintaining that God sat on a golden throne, and was served by
angels with wings: their "heresy" is, however, directly supported by the
Scriptures. A.D. 999, a man named Lentard began to speak against the
worship of images, and the payment of tithes to priests, and asserted
that in the Old Testament prophecies truth and falsehood are mingled.
His disciples seem to have merged into the Albigenses in the next
century.
The year A.D. 1000 deserves a special word of notice. Christians fancied
that the world was to last for but one thousand years after the birth of
Christ, and that it would therefore come to an end in A.D. 1000. "Many
charters begin with these words: 'As the world is now drawing to its
close.' An army marching under the emperor Otho I. was so terrified by
an eclipse of the sun, which it conceived to announce this consummation,
as to disperse hastily on all sides" ("Europe during the Middle Ages,"
Hallam, P. 599) "Prodigious numbers of people abandoned all their civil
connections, and their parental relations, and giving over to the
churches or monasteries all their lands, treasures, and worldly effects,
repaired with the utmost precipitation to Palestine, where they imagined
that Christ would descend to judge the world. Others devoted themselves
by a solemn and voluntary oath to the service of the churches, convents,
and priesthood, whose slaves, they became in the most rigorous sense of
that word, performing daily their heavy tasks; and all this from a
notion that the Supreme Judge would diminish the severity of their
sentence, and look upon them with a more favourable and propitious eye,
on account of their having made themselves the slaves of his ministers.
When an eclipse of the sun or moon happened to be visible, the cities
were deserted, and their miserable inhabitants fled for refuge to hollow
caverns, and hid themselves among the craggy rocks, and under the
bending summits of steep mountains. The opulent attempted to bribe the
Deity and the saintly tribe, by rich donations conferred upon the
sacerdotal and monastic orders, who were looked upon as the immediate
vicegerents of heaven" (p. 226). Thus the Church still reaped wealth out
of the fear of the people she deluded, and while fields lay unsown, and
houses stood unrepaired, and the foundations of famine were laid, Mother
Church gathered lands and money into her capacious lap, and troubled
little about the starving children, provided she herself could wax fat
on the good things of the world which she professed to have renounced.
CENTURY XI.
The Prussians, during this century, were driven into the fold of the
Church. A Christian missionary, Adalbert, bishop of Prague, had been
murdered by the "fierce and savage Prussians," and in order to show the
civilising results of the gentle Christian creed, Boleslaus, king of
Poland, entered "into a bloody war with the Prussians, and he obtained,
by the force of penal laws and of a victorious, army, what Adalbert
could not effect by exhortation and argument. He dragooned this savage
people into the Christian Church" (p. 230). Some of his followers tried
a gentler method of conversion, and were murdered by the Prussians, who
clearly saw no reason why Christians should do all the killing. We have
already seen that Sylvester II. called upon the Christian princes to
commence a "holy war" against "the infidels" who held the holy places of
Christianity. Gregory VII. strove to stir them up in like fashion, and
had gathered together an army of upwards of 50,000 men, whom he proposed
to lead in person into Palestine. The Pope, however, quarrelled with
Henry IV., emperor of Germany, and his project fell through. At the
close of this century, the long-talked of effort was made. Peter the
Hermit, who had travelled through Palestine, came into Europe and
related in all directions tales of the sufferings of the Christians
under the rule of the "barbarous" Saracens. He appealed to Urban II.,
the then Pope, and Urban, who at first discouraged him, seeing that
Peter had succeeded in rousing the most warlike nations of Christian
Europe into enthusiasm, called a council at Placentia, A.D. 1095, and
appealed to the Christian princes to take up the cause of the Cross. The
council was not successful, and Urban summoned another at Clermont, and
himself addressed the assembly. "It is the will of God" was the shout
that answered him, and the people flew to arms. "Every means was used to
excite an epidemical frenzy, the remission of penance, the dispensation
from those practices of self-denial which superstition imposed or
suspended at pleasure, the absolution of all sins, and the assurance of
eternal felicity. None doubted that such as persisted in the war
received immediately the reward of martyrdom. False miracles and
fanatical prophecies, which were never so frequent, wrought up the
enthusiasm to a still higher pitch. [Mosheim states, p. 231, that Peter
the Hermit carried about with him a letter from heaven, calling on all
true Christians to deliver their brethren from the infidel yoke.] And
these devotional feelings, which are usually thwarted and balanced by
other passions, fell in with every motive that could influence the men
of that time, with curiosity, restlessness, the love of licence, thirst
for war, emulation, ambition. Of the princes who assumed the cross,
some, probably from the beginning, speculated upon forming independent
establishments in the East. In later periods, the temporal benefits of
undertaking a crusade undoubtedly blended themselves with less selfish
considerations. Men resorted to Palestine, as in modern times they have
done to the colonies, in order to redeem their time, or repair their
fortune. Thus Gui de Lusignan, after flying from France for murder, was
ultimately raised to the throne of Jerusalem. To the more vulgar class
were held out inducements which, though absorbed in the more overruling
fanaticism of the first crusade, might be exceedingly efficacious when
it began rather to flag. During the time that a crusader bore the cross,
he was free from suit for his debts, and the interest of them was
entirely abolished; he was exempted, in some instances, at least, from
taxes, and placed under the protection of the Church, so that he could
not be impleaded in any civil court, except on criminal charges, or
disputes relating to land" ("Europe during the Middle Ages," Hallam, pp.
29, 30). Thus fanaticism and earthly pleasures and benefits all pushed
men in the same direction, and Europe flung itself upon Palestine. Men,
women, and children, poured eastwards in that first crusade, and this
mixed vanguard of the coming army of warriors was led by Peter the
Hermit and Gaultier Sans-Avoir. This vanguard was "a motley assemblage
of monks, prostitutes, artists, labourers, lazy tradesmen, merchants,
boys, girls, slaves, malefactors, and profligate debauchees;" "it was
principally composed of the lowest dregs of the multitude, who were
animated solely by the prospect of spoil and plunder, and hoped to make
their fortunes by this holy campaign" (p. 232). "This first division, in
their march through Hungary and Thrace, committed the most flagitious
crimes, which so incensed the inhabitants of the countries through which
they passed, particularly those of Hungary and Turcomania, that they
rose up in arms and massacred the greatest part of them" (Ibid). "Father
Maimbourg, notwithstanding his immoderate zeal for the holy war, and
that fabulous turn which enables him to represent it in the most
favourable points of view, acknowledges frankly that the first division
of this prodigious army committed the most abominable enormities in the
countries through which they passed, and that there was no kind of
insolence, in justice, impurity, barbarity, and violence, of which they
were not guilty. Nothing, perhaps, in the annals of history can equal
the flagitious deeds of this infernal rabble" (Ibid, note). Few of these
unhappy wretches reached the Holy Land. "To engage in the crusade and to
perish in it, were almost synonymous" (Hallam, p. 30), even for those
who entered Palestine. The loss of life was something terrible. "We
should be warranted by contemporary writers in stating the loss of the
Christians alone during this period at nearly a million; but at the
least computation, it must have exceeded half that number" (Ibid). The
real army, under Godfrey de Bouillon, consisted of some 80,000
well-appointed horse and foot. But at Nice the crowd of crusaders
numbered 700,000, after the great slaughter in Hungary. Jerusalem was
taken, A.D. 1099, and it was there "where their triumph was consummated,
that it was stained with the most atrocious massacre; not limited to the
hour of resistance, but renewed deliberately even after that famous
penitential procession to the holy sepulchre, which might have calmed
their ferocious dispositions if, through the misguided enthusiasm of the
enterprise, it had not been rather calculated to excite them" (Ibid, p.
31). The last crusade occurred A.D. 1270, and between the first in 1096
and the last in 1270, human lives were extinguished in numbers it is
impossible to reckon, increasing ever the awful sum total of the misery
lying at the foot of the blood-red cross of Christendom.
A collateral advantage accrued to the clergy through the crusades;
"their wealth, continually accumulated, enabled them to become the
regular purchasers of landed estates, especially in the time of the
crusades, when the fiefs of the nobility were constantly in the market
for sale or mortgage" (Ibid, p. 333).
The last vestiges of nominal paganism were erased in this century, and
it remained only under Christian names. Capital punishment was
proclaimed against all who worshipped the old deities under their old
titles, and "this dreadful severity contributed much more towards the
extirpation of paganism, than the exhortations and instructions of
ignorant missionaries, who were unacquainted with the true nature of the
gospel, and dishonoured its pure and holy doctrines by their licentious
lives and their superstitious practices" (p. 236). Learning began to
revive, as men, educated in the Arabian schools, gradually spread over
Europe; thus: "the school of Salernum, in the kingdom of Naples, was
renowned above all others for the study of physic in this century, and
vast numbers crowded thither from all the provinces of Europe to receive
instruction in the art of healing; but the medical precepts which
rendered the doctors of Salernum so famous were all derived from the
writings of the Arabians, or from the schools of the Saracens in Spain
and Africa" (p. 237). "About the year 1050, the face of philosophy began
to change, and the science of logic assumed a new aspect. This
revolution began in France, where several of the books of Aristotle had
been brought from the schools of the Saracens in Spain, and it was
effected by a set of men highly renowned for their abilities and genius,
such as Berenger, Roscellinus, Hildebert, and after them by Gilbert de
la Porre, the famous Abelard and others" (p. 238). Thus we see that in
science, in philosophy, in logic, we alike owe to Arabia the revival of
thought in Christendom. Progress, however, was very slow, and the
thought was not yet strong enough to arouse the fears of the Church, so
it spread for a while in peace.
Hallam sums up for us the state of learning, or rather of ignorance,
during the eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, and his account
may well find its place here. "When Latin had thus ceased to be a living
language, the whole treasury of knowledge was locked up from the eyes of
the people. The few who might have imbibed a taste for literature, if
books had been accessible to them, were reduced to abandon pursuits that
could only be cultivated through a kind of education not easily within
their reach. Schools confined to cathedrals and monasteries, and
exclusively designed for the purposes of religion, afforded no
encouragement or opportunities to the laity. The worst effect was that,
as the newly-formed languages were hardly made use of in writing, Latin
being still preserved in all legal instruments and public
correspondence, the very use of letters, as well as of books, was
forgotten. For many centuries, to sum up the account of ignorance in a
word, it was rare for a layman, of whatever rank, to know how to sign
his name. Their charters, till the use of seals became general, were
subscribed with the mark of the cross. Still more extraordinary it was
to find one who had any tincture of learning. Even admitting every
indistinct commendation of a monkish biographer (with whom a knowledge
of church music would pass for literature), we could make out a very
short list of scholars. None certainly were more distinguished as such
than Charlemagne and Alfred. But the former, unless we reject a very
plain testimony, was incapable of writing; and Alfred found difficulty
in making a translation from the pastoral instruction of St. Gregory, on
account of his imperfect knowledge of Latin. Whatever mention,
therefore, we find of learning and the learned, during these dark ages,
must be understood to relate only to such as were within the pale of
clergy, which indeed was pretty extensive, and comprehended many who did
not exercise the offices of religious ministry. But even the clergy
were, for a long period, not very materially superior, as a body, to the
uninstructed laity. An inconceivable cloud of ignorance overspread the
whole face of the Church, hardly broken by a few glimmering lights, who
owe almost the whole of their distinction to the surrounding
darkness.... Of this prevailing ignorance it is easy to produce abundant
testimony. Contracts were made verbally, for want of notaries capable of
drawing up charters; and these, when written, were frequently barbarous
and ungrammatical to an incredible degree. For some considerable
intervals, scarcely any monument of literature has been preserved,
except a few jejune chronicles, the vilest legends of saints, or verses
equally destitute of spirit and metre. In almost every council the
ignorance of the clergy forms a subject for reproach. It is asserted by
one held in 992, that scarcely a single person was to be found in Rome
itself who knew the first element of letters. Not one priest of a
thousand in Spain, about the age of Charlemagne, could address a common
letter of salutation to another. In England, Alfred declares that he
could not recollect a single priest south of the Thames (the most
civilised part of England) at the time of his accession who understood
the ordinary prayers, or could translate Latin into his mother-tongue.
Nor was this better in the time of Dunstan, when it is said, none of the
clergy knew how to write or translate a Latin letter. The homilies which
they preached were compiled for their use by some bishops, from former
works of the same kind, or the writings of the Christian fathers.... If
we would listen to some literary historians, we should believe that the
darkest ages contained many individuals, not only distinguished among
their contemporaries, but positively eminent for abilities and
knowledge. A proneness to extol every monk of whose productions a few
letters or a devotional treatise survives, every bishop of whom it is
related that he composed homilies, runs through the laborious work of
the Benedictines of St. Maur, the 'Literary History of France,' and, in
a less degree, is observable even in Tiraboschi, and in most books of
this class. Bede, Alcuin, Hincmar, Raban, and a number of inferior
names, become real giants of learning in their uncritical panegyrics.
But one might justly say, that ignorance is the smallest defect of the
writers of these dark ages. Several of these were tolerably acquainted
with books; but that wherein they are uniformly deficient is original
argument or expression. Almost every one is a compiler of scraps from
the fathers, or from such semi-classical authors as Boethius,
Cassiodorus, or Martinus Capella. Indeed, I am not aware that there
appeared more than two really considerable men in the republic of
letters from the sixth to the middle of the eleventh century--John,
surnamed Scotus, or Erigena, a native of Ireland, and Gerbert, who
became pope by the name of Sylvester II.: the first endowed with a bold
and acute metaphysical genius, the second excellent, for the time when
he lived, in mathematical science and useful mechanical invention"
("Europe during the Middle Ages," Hallam, pp. 595-598).
If we look at the ministers of the Church, the old story of tyranny and
vice is told over again during this century. Among its popes is numbered
Benedict IX., deposed for his profligacy, restored and again deposed,
restored by force of arms, and selling the pontificate, so that three
popes at once claimed the tiara, and were all three declared unworthy,
and a fourth placed on the throne. Fresh disturbances followed, and new
usurpers, until in A.D. 1059 the election of the pope was taken out of
the hands of the people and transferred to the college of cardinals, a
change which was much struggled against, but which was ultimately
adopted. In A.D. 1073 Hildebrand was elected pope under the title of
Gregory VII.; this man, perhaps, more than any other, augmented the
temporal power of the papacy. It was he who moulded the church into the
form of an absolute monarchy, and fought against all local privileges
and national freedom of the churches in each land; it was he who claimed
rule over all kings and princes, and treated them as vassals of the
Roman see; it was he who, in 1074, calling a council at Rome, caused it
to decree the celibacy of the clergy, so that priests having no home,
and no family ties, might feel their only home in the Church, and their
only tie to Rome; it was he who struggled against Germany, and who kept
the excommunicated emperor standing barefoot and almost naked in the
snow for three days, in the courtyard of his castle. A bold bad man was
this Hildebrand, but a man of genius and a master-mind, who conceived
the mighty idea of a universal Church, wherein all princes should be
vassals, and the head of the Church absolute monarch of the world.
It was at the annual council of Rome, A.D. 1076, that Pope Gregory VII.
recited and proclaimed "all the ancient maxims, all the doubtful
traditions, all the excessive pretensions, by which he could support his
supremacy. It was, in a manner, the abridged code of his domination--the
laws of servitude that he proposed to the world at large. Here are the
terms of this charter of theocracy: 'The Roman Church is founded by God
alone. The Roman pontiff alone can legitimately take the title of
universal ... There shall be no intercourse whatever held with persons
excommunicated by the Pope, and none may dwell in the same house with
them.... He alone may wear the imperial insignia. All the princes of the
earth shall kiss the feet of the Pope, but of none other.... He has the
right of deposing emperors.... The sentence of the Pope can be revoked
by none, and he alone can revoke the sentences passed by others. He can
be judged by none. None may dare to pronounce sentence on one who
appeals to the See Apostolic. To it shall be referred all major causes
by the whole Church. The Church of Rome never has erred, and never can
err, as Scripture warrants. A Roman pontiff, canonically ordained, at
once becomes, by the merit of Saint Peter, indubitably holy. By his
order and with his permission it is lawful for subjects to accuse
princes.... The Pope can loose subjects from the oath of fealty.' Such
are the fundamental articles promulgated by Gregory VII. in the Council
of Rome, which the official historian of the Church reproduced in the
commencement of the seventeenth century as being authentic and
legitimate, and Rome has never disavowed it. Borrowed in part from the
false Decretals, resting, most of them, on the fabulous donation of
Constantine, and on the successive impostures and usurpations of the
first barbarous ages, they received from the hand of Gregory VII. a new
character of force and unity. That pontiff stamped them with the
sanction of his own genius. Such authority had never before been
created: it made every other power useless and subaltern" ("Life of
Gregory VII.," by Villemain, trans. by Brockley, vol. ii., pp. 53-55).
Thus the struggle became inevitable between the temporal and the
spiritual powers. "In every country there was a dual government:--1.
That of a local kind, represented by a temporal sovereign. 2. That of a
foreign kind, acknowledging the authority of the Pope. This Roman
influence was, in the nature of things, superior to the local; it
expressed the sovereign will of one man over all the nations of the
continent conjointly, and gathered overwhelming power from its
compactness and unity. The local influence was necessarily of a feeble
nature, since it was commonly weakened by the rivalries of conterminous
states and the dissensions dexterously provoked by its competitor. On
not a single occasion could the various European states form a coalition
against their common antagonist. Whenever a question arose, they were
skilfully taken in detail, and commonly mastered. The ostensible object
of papal intrusion was to secure for the different peoples, moral
well-being; the real object was to obtain large revenues and give
support to large bodies of ecclesiastics. The revenues thus abstracted
were not unfrequently many times greater than those passing into the
treasury of the local power. Thus, on the occasion of Innocent IV.
demanding provision to be made for three hundred additional Italian
clergy by the Church of England, and that one of his nephews, a mere
boy, should have a stall in Lincoln Cathedral, it was found that the sum
already annually abstracted by foreign ecclesiastics from England was
thrice that which went into the coffers of the king. While thus the
higher clergy secured every political appointment worth having, and
abbots vied with counts in the herds of slaves they possessed--some, it
is said, owned not fewer than twenty thousand--begging friars pervaded
society in all directions, picking up a share of what still remained to
the poor. There was a vast body of non-producers, living in idleness and
owning a foreign allegiance, who were subsisting on the fruits of the
toil of the labourers" ("Conflict between Religion and Science," Draper,
pp. 266, 267).
The struggle between the Greek and Latin Churches, hushed for awhile,
broke out again fiercely A.D. 1053, and in 1054 Rome excommunicated
Constantinople, and Constantinople excommunicated Rome. The disputes as
to transubstantiation continued, and shook the Roman Church with their
violence. Outside orthodoxy, some of the old heresies lingered on. The
Paulicians wandered throughout Europe, and became known in Italy as the
Paterini and the Cathari, in France as the Albigenses, Bulgarians, or
Publicans. The Council of Orleans condemned them to be burned alive, and
many perished.
CENTURY XII.
The wars which spread Christianity were not yet entirely over, but we
only hear of them now on the outskirts, so to speak, of Europe, except
where some tribes apostatized now and then, and were brought back to the
true faith by the sword. The struggles between the popes and the more
stiff-necked princes as to their relative rights and privileges
continued, and we sometimes see the curious spectacle of a pontiff on
the side of the people, or rather of the barons, against the king:
whenever this is so, we find that the king is struggling against Roman
supremacy, and that the pope uses the power of the nation to subdue the
rebellious monarch. We do not find Rome interfering to save the people
from oppression when the oppressor is a faithful and obedient son of
Holy Church.
Fresh heresies spread during this century, and we everywhere met with
one corrective--death. Most of them appear to have grown out of the old
Manichæan heresy, and taught much of the old asceticism. The Cathari
were hunted down and put to death throughout Italy. Arnold of Brescia,
who loudly protested against the possessions of the Church, and
maintained that church revenues should be handed over to the State,
proved himself so extremely distasteful to the clergy that they arrested
him, crucified him and burned his dead body (A.D. 1155). Peter de Bruys,
who objected to infant baptism, and may be called the ancestor of the
Baptists, was burnt A.D. 1130. Many other reformers shared the same
fate, and one large sect must here be noted. Peter Waldus, its founder,
was a merchant of Lyons, who (A.D. 1160) employed a priest to translate
the Gospels for him, together with other portions of the Bible. Studying
these, he resolved to abandon his business and distribute his wealth
among the poor, and, in A.D. 1180, he became a public preacher, and
formed an association to teach the doctrines of the Gospel, as he
conceived them, against the doctrines of the Church. The sect first
assumed only the simple name of "the poor men of Lyons," but soon became
known as the Waldenses, one of the most powerful and most widely spread
sects of the Middle Ages. They were, in fact, the precursors of the
Reformation, and are notable as heretics protesting against the authorty
of Rome because that authority did not commend itself to their reason;
thus they asserted the right of private judgment, and for that assertion
they deserve a niche in the great temple of heretic thought.
CENTURY XIII.
In the far west of Europe paganism still struggled against Christianity,
and from A.D. 1230 to 1280 a long, fierce war was waged against the
Prussians, to confirm them in the Christian faith; the Teutonic knights
of St. Mary succeeded finally in their apostolic efforts, and at last
"established Christianity and fixed their own dominion in Prussia" (p.
309), whence they made forays into the neighbouring countries, and
"pillaged, burned, massacred, and ruined all before them." In Spain,
Christianity had a yet sadder triumph, for there the civilized Moors
were falling under the brutal Christians, and the "garden of the world"
was being invaded by the hordes of the Roman Church. The end, however,
had not yet come. In France, we see the erection of THE INQUISITION, the
most hateful and fiendish tribunal ever set up by religion. The
heretical sects were spreading rapidly in southern provinces of France,
and Innocent III., about the commencement of this century, sent legates
extraordinary into the southern provinces of France to do what the
bishops had left undone, and to extirpate heresy, in all its various
forms and modifications, without being at all scrupulous in using such
methods as might be necessary to effect this salutary purpose. The
persons charged with this ghostly commission were Rainier, a Cistercian
monk, Pierre de Castelnau, archdeacon of Maguelonne, who became also
afterwards a Cistercian friar. These eminent missionaries were followed
by several others, among whom was the famous Spaniard, Dominic, founder
of the order of preachers, who, returning from Rome in the year 1206,
fell in with these delegates, embarked in their cause, and laboured both
by his exhortations and actions in the extirpation of heresy. These
spiritual champions, who engaged in this expedition upon the sole
authority of the pope, without either asking the advice, or demanding
the succours of the bishops, and who inflicted capital punishment upon
such of the heretics as they could not convert by reason and argument,
were distinguished in common discourse by the title of _inquisitors_,
and from them the formidable and odious tribunal called the
_Inquisition_ derived its origin (pp. 343, 344). In A.D. 1229, a
council of Toulouse "erected in every city a _council of inquisitors
consisting of one priest and two laymen_" (Ibid). In A.D. 1233, Gregory
IX. superseded this tribunal by appointing the Dominican monks as
inquisitors, and the pope's legate in France thereupon went from city to
city, wherever these monks had a monastery, and there appointed some of
their number "inquisitors of heretical pravity." The princes of Europe
were then persuaded to lend the aid of the State to the work of blood,
and to commit to the flames those who were handed over as heretics to
the civil power by the inquisitors. The plan of working was most
methodical.
The rules of torture were carefully drawn out: the prisoner was stripped
naked, the hair cut off, and the body then laid on the rack and bound
down; the right, then the left, foot tightly bound and strained by
cords; the right and left arm stretched; the fleshy part of the arm
compressed with fine cords; all the cords tightened together by one
turn; a second and third turn of the same kind: beyond this, with the
rack, women were not to be tortured; with men a fourth turn was
employed. These directions were written in a Manual, used by the Grand
Inquisitor of Seville as late as A.D. 1820. An analysis is given by Dr.
Rule, in his "History of the Inquisition," Appendix to vol. i., pp.
339-359, ed. 1874. Then we hear, elsewhere, of torture by roasting the
feet, by pulleys, by red-hot pincers--in short, by every abominable
instrument of cruelty which men, inspired by religion, could conceive.
Let the student take Llorente and Dr. Rule alone, and he will learn
enough of the Inquisition horrors to make him shudder at the sight of a
cross--at the name of Christianity.
Llorente gives the most revolting details of the torture of Jean de
Salas, at Valladolid, A.D. 1527, and this one case may serve as a
specimen of Inquisition work during these bloodstained centuries.
Stripped to his shirt, he was placed on the _chevalet_ (a narrow frame,
wherein the body was laid, with no support save a pole across the
middle), and his feet were raised higher than his head; tightly twisted
cords cut through his flesh, and were twisted yet tighter and tighter as
the torture proceeded; fine linen, thrust into his mouth and throat,
added to the unnatural position, made breathing well nigh impossible,
and on the linen water slowly fell, drop by drop, from a suspended
vessel over his head, till every struggling breath stained the cloth
with blood (see "Histoire critique de l'Inquisition d'Espagne," t. II.,
pp. 20-23, ed. 1818). This Spanish Inquisition, during its existence,
punished heretics as follows:--
Burnt alive ....................... 31,912
Burnt in effigy.................... 17,659
Heavily punished................... 291,450
-------
Total 341,021
(Ibid, t. IV. p. 271). Add to this list the ruined families, some of
whose members fell victims to the Inquisition, and then--remembering
that Spain was but one of the countries which it desolated--let the
student judge of the huge total of human agony caused by this awful
institution. Nor must it be forgotten that its dungeons did not gape
only for those who opposed the pretensions of Rome; men of science,
philosophers, thinkers, all these were its foes; Llorente gives a list
of no less than 119 learned and eminent scientific men who, in Spain
alone, fell under the scourge of the Inquisition (see t. II. pp.
417-483).
One special crime of the Church in this age must not be forgotten: her
treatment of Roger Bacon. Roger Bacon was a Franciscan monk, who not
only studied Greek, Hebrew, and Oriental languages, but who devoted
himself to natural science, and made many discoveries in astronomy,
chemistry, optics, and mathematics. He is said to have discovered
gunpowder, and he proposed a reform of the calendar similar to that
introduced by Gregory XIII., 300 years later. His reward was to be
hooted at as a magician, and to be confined in a dungeon for many years.
The heretics spread and increased in this century, spite of the terrible
weapon brought to bear against them. The "Brethren and Sisters of the
Free Spirit," known also as Beghards, Beguttes, Bicorni, Beghins, and
Turlupins, were the chief additional body. They believed that all things
had emanated from God, and that to Him they would return; and to this
Eastern philosophy they added practical fanaticism, rushing wildly
about, shouting, yelling, begging. The Waldenses and Albigenses
multiplied, and diversity of opinion spread in every direction.
CENTURY XIV.
This fourteenth century is one of the epochs that sorely test the
ingenuity of believers in papal infallibility; for the cardinals, having
elected one pope in A.D. 1378, rapidly took a dislike to him, and
elected a second. The first choice, Urban VI., remained at Rome; the
second, Clement VII., betook himself to Avignon. They duly
excommunicated each other, and the Latin Church was rent in twain. "The
distress and calamity of these times is beyond all power of description;
for not to insist upon the perpetual contentions and wars between the
factions of the several popes, by which multitudes lost their fortunes
and lives, all sense of religion was extinguished in most places, and
profligacy arose to a most scandalous excess. The clergy, while they
vehemently contended which of the reigning popes was the true successor
of Christ, were so excessively corrupt as to be no longer studious to
keep up even an appearance of religion or decency" ("Europe During the
Middle Ages," Hallam, p. 359).
Meanwhile, the struggle between Rome and the heretics went on with
ever-increasing fury. In England, Dr. John Wickcliff, rector of
Lutterworth, became famous by his attack on the mendicant orders in A.D.
1360, and from that time he raised his voice louder and louder, till he
spoke against the pope himself. He translated the Bible into English,
attacked many of the prevailing superstitions, and although condemned as
holding heretical opinions, he yet died in peace, A.D. 1387. Rome
revenged itself by digging up his bones and burning them, about thirteen
years later. Rebellion spread even among the monks of the Church, and a
vast number of some nonconformist Franciscan monks, termed Spirituals,
were burned for their refusal to obey the pope on matters of discipline.
The intense hatred between the Franciscan and Dominican orders made the
latter the willing instrument of the papacy; and, in their character as
inquisitors, they hunted down their unfortunate rivals as heretics. The
Flagellants, a sect who wandered about flogging themselves to the glory
of God, fell also under the merciless hands of the inquisitors, as did
also the Knights Templars in France. A new body, known as the Dancers,
started up in A.D. 1373, and spread through Flanders; but the priests
prayed them away by exorcising the dancing devils that, they said,
inhabited the members of this curious sect. Among the sufferers of this
century one name must not be forgotten: it is that of Ceccus Asculanus.
This man was an Aristotelian philosopher, an astrologer, a
mathematician, and a physician. "This unhappy man, having performed some
experiments in mechanics that seemed miraculous to the vulgar, and
having also offended many, and among the rest his master [the Duke of
Calabria], by giving out some predictions which were said to have been
fulfilled, was universally supposed to deal with infernal spirits, and
burned for it by the inquisitors, at Florence, in the year 1337" (p.
355). There seems no green spot on which to rest the eye in this weary
stretch of blood and fire.
CENTURY XV.
In this fifteenth century the knell of the Church rang out; it is
memorable evermore in history for the discovery of the New World, and
the consequent practical demonstration of the falsehood of the whole
theory of the patristic and ecclesiastical theology. In the flood only
"Noah and his three sons, with their wives, were saved in an ark. Of
these sons, Sham remained in Asia and repeopled it. Ham peopled Africa;
Japhet, Europe. As the fathers were not acquainted with the existence of
America, they did not provide an ancestor for its people" ("Conflict
between Religion and Science," Dr. Draper, p. 63). Lactantius, indeed,
inveighed against the folly of those who believed in the existence of
the antipodes, and Augustine maintained that it was impossible there
should be people living on the other side of the earth. Besides, "in the
day of judgment, men on the other side of a globe could not see the Lord
descending through the air" (Ibid, p. 64). Clearly there was no other
side, theologically; only Columbus sailed there. Another fatal blow was
struck at the Church by the invention of the printing press, about A.D.
1440, an invention which made knowledge possible for the many, and by
diffusion of knowledge made heresy likewise certain. It is not for me,
however, to trace here the progress of heretic thought; that brighter
task is for another pen; mine only to turn over the bloodstained and
black pages of the Church. One name stands out in the list of the
pontiffs of this century, which is almost unparalleled in its infamy; it
is that of Roderic Borgia, Pope Alexander VI. Foully vicious, cruel, and
bloodthirsty, he is startlingly bad, even for a pope. Among his children
are found the names of Cæsar and Lucretia Borgia, names whose very
mention recalls a list of horrible crimes. Alexander died A.D. 1503,
from swallowing, by mistake, a poison which he and his son Cæsar had
prepared for others. Turning to the heretics, we see great lives cut
short by the terrible blows of the inquisition:--Savanarola, the brave
Italian preacher, the reformer monk, tortured and burned A.D. 1498; John
Huss, the enemy of the papacy, burned A.D. 1415, in direct violation of
the safe conduct granted him; Jerome, of Prague, the friend and
companion of Huss, burned A.D. 1416. Myriads of their unhappy followers
shared their fate in every European land. But to Spain belongs the
terrible pre-eminence of cruelty in this last century before the
Reformation. In the year 1478 a bull of Pope Sixtus IV. established the
Inquisition in Spain. "In the first year of the operation of the
Inquisition, 1481, two thousand victims were burnt in Andalusia; besides
these, many thousands were dug up from their graves and burnt; seventeen
thousand were fined or imprisoned for life. Whoever of the persecuted
race could flee, escaped for his life. Torquemada, now appointed
Inquisitor-General for Castile and Leon, illustrated his office by his
ferocity. Anonymous accusations were received, the accused was not
confronted by witnesses, torture was relied upon for conviction; it was
inflicted in vaults where no one could hear the cries of the tormented.
As, in pretended mercy, it was forbidden to inflict torture a second
time, with horrible duplicity it was affirmed that the torment had not
been completed at first, but had only been suspended out of charity
until the following day! The families of the convicted were plunged into
irretrievable ruin.... This frantic priest destroyed Hebrew Bibles
wherever he could find them, and burnt six thousand volumes of Oriental
literature at Salamanca, under an imputation that they inculcated
Judaism" (Draper's "Conflict of Science and Religion," p. 146).
Torquemada was, indeed, a worthy successor of Moses. During his eighteen
years of power, his list of victims is as follows:--
Burnt at the stake alive................... 10,220
Burnt in effigy, the persons having died
in prison or fled the country............ 6,860
Punished with infamy, confiscation, perpetual
imprisonment, or loss of civil
rights .................................. 97,321
-------
Total .....................................114,401
--("History of the Inquisition," by Dr. W.H. Rule, vol. i., p. 150. Full
details of numbers are given in the "Histoire critique de l'Inquisition
d'Espagne," Llorente, t. I., pp. 272-281).
Cardinal Ximenes was not quite so successful as Torquemada, but still
his roll is long:
Burnt at the stake alive ................... 3,564
Burnt in effigy ............................ 1,232
Punished heavily .......................... 48,059
------
--(Ibid, p. 186). Total ................... 52,855
In A.D. 1481, in the bishoprics of Seville and Cadiz, "two thousand
Judaizers were burnt in person, and very many in effigy, of whom the
number is not known, besides seventeen thousand subject to cruel
penance" (Ibid, p. 133). In A.D. 1485, no less than 950 persons were
burned at Villa Real, now Ciudad Real.
Spite of all this awful suffering, heretics and Jews remained
antagonistic to the church, and in March, A.D. 1492, the edict of the
expulsion of the Jews was signed. "All unbaptized Jews, of whatever age,
sex, or condition, were ordered to leave the realm by the end of the
following July. If they revisited it, they should suffer death. They
might sell their effects, and take the proceeds in merchandise or bills
of exchange, but not in gold or silver. Exiled thus, suddenly from the
land of their birth, the land of their ancestors for hundreds of years,
they could not in the glutted market that arose sell what they
possessed. Nobody would purchase what could be got for nothing after
July. The Spanish clergy occupied themselves by preaching in the public
squares sermons filled with denunciations against their victims, who,
when the time for expatriation came, swarmed in the roads, and filled
the air with their cries of despair. Even the Spanish onlookers wept at
the scene of agony. Torquemada, however, enforced the ordinance that no
one should afford them any help.... Thousands, especially mothers with
nursing children, infants, and old people, died by the way--many of them
in the agonies of thirst" (Ibid, p. 147). Thus was a peaceable,
industrious, thoughtful population, driven out of Spain by the Church.
Nor did her hand stay even here. Ferdinand, alas! had completed the
conquest of the Moors; true, Granada had only yielded under pledge of
liberty of worship, but of what value is the pledge of the Christian to
the heretic? The Inquisition harried the land, until, in February 1502,
word went out that all unbaptized Moors must leave Spain by the end of
April. "They might sell their property, but not take away any gold or
silver; they were forbidden to emigrate to the Mahommedan dominions; the
penalty of disobedience was death. Their condition was thus worse than
that of the Jews, who had been permitted to go where they chose" (Ibid,
p. 148). And so the Moors were driven out, and Spain was left to
Christianity, to sink down to what she is to-day. 3,000,000 persons are
said to have been expelled as Jews, Moors and Moriscoes. The Moors
departed,--they who had made the name of Spain glorious, and had spread
science and thought through Europe from that focus of light,--they who
had welcomed to their cities all who thought, no matter what their
creed, and had covered with an equal protection Mahommedan, Christian,
and Jew.
Nor let the Protestant Christian imagine that these deeds of blood are
Roman, not Christian. The same crimes attach to every Church, and Rome's
black list is only longer because her power is greater. Let us glance at
Protestant communions. In Hungary, Giska, the Hussite, massacred and
bruised the Beghards. In Germany, Luther cried, "Why, if men hang the
thief upon the gallows, or if they put the rogue to death, why should
not we, with all our strength, attack these popes and cardinals, these
dregs of the Roman Sodom? Why not wash our hands in their blood?" ("The
Spanish Inquisition," Le Maistre, p. 67, ed. 1838). Sandys, Bishop of
London, wrote in defence of persecution. Archbishop Usher, in an address
signed by eleven other bishops, said: "Any toleration to the papists is
a grievous sin." Knox said, "The people are bound in conscience to put
to death the queen, along with all her priests." The English Parliament
said, "Persecution was necessary to advance the glory of God." The
Scotch Parliament decreed death against Catholics as idolaters, saying
"it was a religious obligation to execute them" (Ibid, pp. 67, 68).
Cranmer, A.D. 1550, condemned six anabaptists to death, one of whom, a
woman, was burned alive, and in the following year another was committed
to the flames; this primate held a commission with "some others, to
examine and search after all anabaptists, heretics, or contemners of the
book of Common Prayer" ("Students' History of England," D. Hume, p. 291,
ed. 1868).
In Switzerland, Calvin burned Servetus. In America, the Puritans carried
on the same hateful tradition, and whipped the harmless Quakers from
town to town. Wherever the cross has gone, whether held by Roman
Catholic, by Lutheran, by Calvinist, by Episcopalian, by Presbyterian,
by Protestant dissenter, it has been dipped in human blood, and has
broken human hearts. Its effect on Europe was destructive, barbarising,
deadly, until the dawning light of science scattered the thick black
clouds which issued from the cross. One indisputable fact, pregnant with
instruction, is the extremely low rate of increase of the population of
Europe during the centuries when Christianity was supreme. "What, then,
does this stationary condition of the population mean? It means, food
obtained with hardship, insufficient clothing, personal uncleanness,
cabins that could not keep out the weather, the destructive effects of
cold and heat, miasm, want of sanitary provisions, absence of
physicians, uselessness of shrine cure, the deceptiveness of miracles,
in which society was putting its trust; or, to sum up a long catalogue
of sorrows, wants and sufferings in one term--it means a high
death-rate. But, more, it means deficient births. And what does that
point out? Marriage postponed, licentious life, private wickedness,
demoralized society" (Draper's "Conflict of Religion and Science," p.
263). "The surface of the Continent was for the most part covered with
pathless forests; here and there it was dotted with monasteries and
towns. In the lowlands and along the river courses were fens, sometimes
hundreds of miles in extent, exhaling their pestiferous miasms, and
spreading agues far and wide." In towns there was "no attempt made at
drainage, but the putrefying garbage and rubbish were simply thrown out
of the door. Men, women, and children slept in the same apartment; not
unfrequently domestic animals were their companions; in such a confusion
of the family it was impossible that modesty and morality could be
maintained. The bed was usually a bag of straw; a wooden log served as a
pillow. Personal cleanliness was utterly unknown; great officers of
state, even dignitaries so high as the Archbishop of Canterbury, swarmed
with vermin; such, it is related, was the condition of Thomas à Becket,
the antagonist of an English king. To conceal personal impurity,
perfumes were necessarily and profusely used. The citizen clothed
himself in leather, a garment which, with its ever-accumulating
impurity, might last for many years. He was considered to be in
circumstances of ease, if he could procure fresh meat once a week for
his dinner. The streets had no sewers; they were without pavement or
lamps. After night-fall, the chamber-shutters were thrown open, and
slops unceremoniously emptied down, to the discomforture of the wayfarer
tracking his path through the narrow streets, with his dismal lantern in
his hand" (Ibid, p. 265). Little wonder indeed, that plagues swept
through the cities, destroying their inhabitants wholesale. The Church
could only pray against them, or offer shrines where votive offerings
might win deliverance; "not without a bitter resistance on the part of
the clergy, men began to think that pestilences are not punishments
inflicted by God on society for its religious shortcomings, but the
physical consequences of filth and wretchedness; that the proper mode of
avoiding them is not by praying to the saints, but by ensuring personal
and municipal cleanliness. In the twelfth century it was found necessary
to pave the streets of Paris, the stench in them was so dreadful. At
once dysenteries and spotted fever diminished; a sanitary condition,
approaching that of the Moorish cities of Spain, which had been paved
for centuries, was attained" (Ibid, p. 314). The death-rate was still
further diminished by the importation of the physician's skill from the
Arabs and the Moors; the Christians had depended on the shrine of the
saint, and the bone of the martyr, and the priest was the doctor of body
as well as of soul. "On all the roads pilgrims were wending their way to
the shrines of saints, renowned for the cures they had wrought. It had
always been the policy of the Church to discourage the physician and his
art; he interfered too much with the gifts and profits of the
shrines.... For patients too sick to move or be moved, there were no
remedies except those of a ghostly kind--the Paternoster and the Ave"
(Ibid, p. 269). Thus Christianity set itself against all popular
advancement, against all civil and social progress, against all
improvement in the condition of the masses. It viewed every change with
distrust, it met every innovation with opposition. While it reigned
supreme, Europe lay in chains, and even into the new world it carried
the fetters of the old. Only as Christianity has grown feebler has
civilization strengthened, and progress has been made more and more
rapidly as a failing creed has lost the power to oppose. And now, day by
day, that progress becomes swifter; now, day by day, the opposition
becomes fainter, and soon, passing over the ruins of a shattered
religion, Free Thought shall plant the white banner of Liberty in the
midst of the temple of Humanity; that temple which, long desecrated by
priests and overshadowed by gods, shall then be consecrated for evermore
to the service of its rightful owner, and shall be filled with the glory
of man, the only god, and shall have its air melodious with the voice of
the prayer which is work.
* * * * *
INDEX TO SECTION IV. OF PART II.
* * * * *
INDEX OF BOOKS USED.
Draper, Conflict of Religion and Science...425, 433, 437, 449, 455,
456, 464, 465, 471, 472, 475, 476
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History...424
Gibbon, Decline and Fall...425, 429, 432, 433, 435
Hallam, Europe during the Middle Ages...454, 457, 458, 459, 460, 461,
462, 463, 470, 471
Hume, Student's History of England...474
Le Maistre, Spanish Inquisition...474
Llorente, Histoire critique de l'Inquisition d'Espagne...468, 469, 472, 473
Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History...Used throughout
Rule, History of the Inquisition...468, 472
Villemain, Life of Gregory VII...464
* * * * *
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Advent of Christ expected...456, 457
Alexandrine Library, destruction of...432
Arius...433, 434
Boniface, Apostle of Germany...442
Century 2nd and 3rd...423, 429
Century 4th...429, 435
Century 5th...435, 439
Century 6th...439, 441
Century 7th...441, 442
Century 8th...442, 447
Century 9th...447, 451
Century 10th...451, 457
Century 11th...457, 465
Century 12th...466, 467
Century 13th...467, 469
Century 14th...469, 470
Century 15th...471, 474
Charlemagne...442, 444
Christianity, general effect of...474, 476
Church, wealth of...425, 440, 441, 444, 457, 460
Church, doctrine of...426, 450
Church, refuge for evil doers...442
Clergy, frauds of...431, 444, 448, 449
Clergy, vice of...426, 431, 435, 437, 441, 447, 448, 451, 453, 454, 469
Constantine...424, 425
Conversions...429, 430, 435, 439, 443, 451, 457, 467
Crusades...452, 458
Eastern and Western Churches, separation of...449, 450
Endowment of Church, first...429
Filioque...446, 449
Heresies...426-428, 433-435, 438, 440, 442, 446, 450, 456,
465, 466, 470, 471, 472, 473
Heretic, first burnt alive...431
" number burned in Spain...469, 472
Hildebrand...463, 464
Hypatia, murder of...437
Iconoclastic controversy...445, 446
Ignorance of bishops...441
Inquisition...467-469, 472-474
Isidorian decretals...448
Jews, expulsion of, from Spain...473, 474
Learning, lack of...437, 439, 451, 452, 453, 461, 462, 463
" revival of...460, 461
Moors, learning of...447, 453, 456
" expulsion of, from Spain...473, 474
Patristic geography...471
People, misery of...455, 475, 476
Protestant persecution...474, 475
Rome, supremacy of...436, 445, 448, 464, 465
" badness of Popes of...454, 463, 464, 469, 471
Stylites...437
Torquemada...472, 473
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II.
by Annie Besant
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