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CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 924 074 477 112 
 
 ^. a Hh 
 
 mv^w, 
 
THE CHRIST OF PAUL; 
 
 ¥l(e l<iii^k-^ of dVi^ti^nity. 
 
 ST. JOHN NEVER IN ASIA MINOR. IREN^US 
 THE AUTHOR OF THE FOURTH GOS- 
 PEL. THE FRAUDS OF THE 
 CHURCHMEN OF THE 
 SECOND CENTURY 
 EXPOSED. 
 
 By GEORGE REBER. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 CHARLES P. SOMERBY, 1 39 EIGHTH STREET. 
 
 1876. 
 
oil ki 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 18TB, Ij} 
 
 CHAELBS P. SOMEEBY, 
 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FAGS 
 
 Death of Stephen. — Conversion of Paul. — His retirement to 
 
 Arabia and return to Damascus and Jerusalem 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Paul and Barnabas start west to preach the Gospel. — The 
 prevailing ideas on religion in Asia Minor. — Theology 
 of Plato and Philo. — The effect produced by the preach- 
 ing of Paul 17 
 
 . CHAPTER III. 
 
 Therapeutae of Philo, and Essenes of Josephus. — An account 
 of them. — Their disappearance from history, and vifhat 
 became of them 27 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The origin of the Church 39 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Review of the past. — What follows in the future 56 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 How the Four Gospels originated 62 
 
iy Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 rAGB 
 
 John, the son of Zebedee, never in Asia Minor.— John the 
 Presbyter substituted. — The work of Irenseus and Euse- 
 bius. — John the disciple has served to create an enigma 
 in histoiy. — John of Ephesus a myth 84 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Gnostics. — Irenaeus makes vi'ar on them. — His mode of 
 warfare. — The Apostolic succession and the object. 
 — No church in Rome to the time of Adrian. — Peter 
 never in Rome, nor Paul in Britain, Gaul, or Spain. 
 — Forgeries of Irenseus 107 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The claim of Irenasus, that Mark was the interpreter of 
 Peter, and Luke the author of the third Gospel, con- 
 sidered. — Luke and Mark both put to death with Paul 
 in Rome 136 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Acts of the Apostles. — Schemes to exalt Peter at the ex- 
 pense of Paul 147 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Matthew the author of the only genuine Gospel. — Rejected, 
 because it did not contain the first two chapters of the 
 present Greek version 168 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The character of Irenseus, and probable time of his birth. — 
 His partiality for traditions. — The claim of the Gnostics 
 that Christ did not suffer, the origin of the fourth Gos- 
 pel. — Irenseus the writer 1 74 
 
Contents. V 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Why Irenseus wrote the fourth Gospel in the name of John. 
 — He shows that the Gospels could not be less than four, 
 and proves the doctrine of the incarnation by the Old 
 Testament, and the Synoptics. — The author of the 
 Epistles attributed to St. John 184 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Fbur distinct eras in Christianity from Paul to the Council 
 of Nice.- — The Epistles of Paul and the works of the 
 Fathers changed to suit each era. — The dishonesty of 
 the times. 200 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Trinity, or fourth period of Christianity 218 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 The Catholic Epistles 226 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 No Christians in Rome from A.D. 66 to A.D. 117 238 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The office of Bishop foreign to churches established by Paul, 
 which were too poor and too few in number to support 
 the Order. — Third chapter of the second Epistle to 
 Timothy, and the one to Titus, forgeries. The writ- 
 ings of the Fathers corrupted 244 
 
vi Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 linus never Bishop of Rome. — Clement, third Bishop, and 
 his successors to the time of Anicetus, myths. — Chrono- 
 logy of Eusebius exposed ; also that of Irenaeus 257 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The prophetic period. — The fourteenth verse of the seventh 
 
 chapter of Isaiah explained 277 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Bethlehem the birthplace of Christ, as foretold by the pro- 
 phets. — Cyrus the deliverer and ruler referred to by 
 Mican the prophet. — The passage from the Lamenta- 
 tions of Jeremiah quoted by Matthew, chap. ii. verse 18, 
 refers to the Jews, and not to the massacre of the in- 
 fants by Herod 288 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 Christ and John the Baptist 299 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 The miracle of the Cloven Tongues. — Misapplication of a 
 
 prophecy of Joel 308 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Miracles 31 e 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews 328 
 
Contents. vii 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 The controversy between Ptolemaeus and Irenseua as to 
 the length of Christ's mipistry. — Christ was in Jeru- 
 salem but once after he began to preach, according to 
 the first three Gospels, but three times according to 
 John. — If the statements made in the first three are true, 
 everything stated in the fourth could only happen 
 after the death of Christ 338 
 
 CHAPTER XXVn. 
 
 The phase assumed by Christianity in the fourth Gospel de- 
 manded a new class of miracles from those given in the 
 first three. — A labored effort in this Gospel to sink the 
 humanity of Christ. — -His address to Mary. — The temp- 
 tation in the wilderness ignored, and the last supper 
 between him and his disciples suppressed. — Interview 
 between Christ and the women and men of Samaria. — 
 A labored effort to connect Christ with Moses exposed. 351 
 
 CHAPTER XXVin. 
 
 TV.! first two chapters of Matthew not in existence during 
 the time of Paul and ApoUos. — A compromise was 
 made between their followers at the council at Smyrna, 
 A.D. 107. — The creed of the Church as it existed at 
 that day determined, and how Christ was made mani- 
 fest. — Catholics of the second century repudiate this 
 creed and abuse Paul. — Further proof that Irenaeus 
 never saw Polycarp. — ^Injuries inflicted upon the world 
 by the fourth Gospel 369 
 
 Appendix 3^7 
 
THE CHRIST OF PAUL; 
 
 OK, 
 
 THE ENIGMAS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Death of Stephen. — Conversion of Paul. — His retirement 
 to Arabia and return to Damascus and Jerusalem. 
 
 Let the reader imagine that he is in Jeru- 
 salem, in Judea, about the year A.D. 34. 
 There is unusual tumult in the vicinity of the 
 Temple. A large crowd has gathered, and, 
 stirred up by some strong provocation, is 
 swayed like the billows in a storm. As we 
 approach, we see a young man, who is trying 
 to raise his voice above the din. There is 
 something very striking in his looks. He is 
 pale, but firm. Plis eyes gleam with an un- 
 earthly light. As the crowd surges and threat- 
 ens, he is calm. His thoughts and looks are 
 directed more to Heaven than Earth. 
 
 But in this crowd there is a young man of 
 I* 
 
lo The Christ of Paul, 
 
 an entirely different stamp. He is excited 
 and angry. His eyes are red with rage, and 
 he is seen moving among the crowd like an 
 incendiary. The crisis came, and poor Stephen 
 stood first on the list of Christian martyrs. 
 This little bleared-eyed, angry man is not yet 
 satisfied. Like the tiger that has tasted blood, 
 he thirsts for more. He goes about Jerusalem 
 like a madman. He fills the prisons with 
 men and women who believed with Stephen. 
 When he had done all the injury he could in 
 Jerusalem, he asked and received permission to 
 go to Damascus on a like mission. On his 
 way, while he is breathing out threatenings and 
 slaughter, he is struck down in his mad career. 
 He saw in it the hand of God. Everything is 
 changed in a moment. The fiery stream o\ 
 burning lava, which rushed in one direction, 
 now turned and ran with equal violence the 
 other way. 
 
 Philosophers may differ as to what befell Paul 
 on his way to Damascus ; but as for himself, he 
 never doubted. The Christ that he persecuted 
 had spoken to him. His faith in what he saw 
 in his vision he bore in his bosom, as he did 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 1 
 
 his heart ; and in a life of toil, suffering, and 
 sorrow, he clung to it to the end. 
 
 We can hardly tell what were the feelings of 
 Paul when he awoke to consciousness, because 
 we cannot judge him as we would other men. 
 He had raised his hand against the Son of God, 
 and now, after a severe reproof, he was appoint- 
 ed by him to be his special minister on earth. 
 Paul did just what we might suppose he 
 would. He withdrew from the world, avoided 
 Jerusalem, and, as he says, went into Arabia. 
 There, alone, he meditated over the wonderful 
 scenes through which he had passed. The 
 more he thought, the more he believed he had 
 talked with Christ, the Son of God, and the 
 more he believed he had been selected to spread 
 his Gospel throughout the earth. 
 
 Once convinced that his vision was a reality, 
 it was natural for him to make himself believe 
 that these visions were repeated ; and through 
 life, in all his acts and movements, he believed 
 he was under the guidance of the same hand 
 that smote him on the plains of Damascus. 
 He goes from place to place as a Spirit from 
 above directs him, and when he speaks he 
 
1 2 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 speaks not for himself, but for Him who sent 
 him. Positive and overbearing by nature, he 
 imagines himself to be the minister of the Son 
 of God, and becomes intolerant, vain and exact- 
 ing. All his ideas are crystallized, and will 
 not bend or yield. 
 
 As he was specially selected to preach, he 
 believed in the doctrine of election. When he 
 believed at all, he believed too much ; for it 
 was his nature to overrun. He had witnessed 
 Christ — others had not ; but, in the absence of 
 - proof, they must substitute faith. Works are 
 nothing — faith everything. What he saw and 
 believed, others must believe without seeing. 
 
 His theology, from his natural temperament 
 and the circumstances of his conversion, took 
 an austere cast, which made the relation be- 
 tween man and the Creator that of guardian 
 and ward. God himself, in the mind of Paul, 
 is almost hideous. Some are given over to 
 damnation before they are born ; while others 
 are destined to be saved before they have had 
 a chance to sin. 
 
 It is difficult to tell whether the religious faith 
 of Paul was fully fixed and determined before 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity'. 1 3 
 
 he left his retreat in Arabia and returned to Da- 
 mascus, or whether it was the growth of after 
 experience and reflection. At some period of 
 his Hfe, and early too, he had settled in his 
 mind the true relation which Christ bore to 
 humanity. He had the best of reasons for his 
 belief on that subject. He was in Jerusalem at 
 a time when it was not impossible that Mary 
 herself was living ; and if not, he saw Peter and 
 was with him fifteen days, when he had every 
 opportunity to inform himself about the early 
 history of Christ. Will any one say that Paul, 
 with a mind awake to everything that related to 
 Christ, would not inquire and find out all that 
 was known about Him who had spoken to him 
 from the clouds, when he was in Jerusalem, 
 and could question those who had been his 
 companions on this earth ? If there was any- 
 thing remarkable about his birth or death, Peter 
 would have told it, and Paul would have re- 
 peated it all along the shores of the Archipela- 
 go, or wherever he went. 
 
 But Paul, from first to last, preached that 
 Christ was born of woman, and was of the seed 
 of Abraham according to the flesh. Upon this 
 
14 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 point he yielded nothing, and stood to it to 
 the death. Paul was a man of learning, and 
 wrote with great power. Longinus classed him 
 among the great men of Greece. But in action 
 and in deeds is where he went beyond all other 
 men. Upon his shoulders, aS" he believed, was 
 left the conversion of the world ; and he had a 
 will and energy equal to the task. Beheving 
 that the Son of God stood at his side, as he 
 performed the mission which had been assigned 
 him, he neither feared nor trembled, but stood 
 up with a bold front in the presence of Festus 
 and King Agrippa. The unsparing cruelty of 
 Nero had no terrors for him. 
 
 After Paul had remained in Arabia long 
 enough to collect his thoughts, and determine 
 the course he should pursue, he went back to 
 Damascus. At last he made up his mind to go 
 to Jerusalem and see Peter. What must have 
 been his feelings as he approached the holy 
 city, and passed along the place where he as- 
 sisted, three years before, in the death of 
 Stephen 1 Paul never forgave himself for the 
 part he took in this murder 
 
 Can we imagine with what feelings he ap- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 5 
 
 proached Peter, or why he approached him at 
 all ? If he felt sad and grieved at the part 
 he took in the -death of Stephen, he did not 
 feel as if he met Peter as his superior, for he 
 conceded nothing to any of the Apostles. 
 There was no point upon which he was more 
 sensitive. Paul did not visit Peter to be taught 
 and instructed as to his duties, nor to learn 
 from him the great truths of Christianity ; for 
 he had learned all this from a higher source, and 
 felt himself more able to give instruction than 
 to receive it from others.. Speaking of his doc- 
 trines, he says : '■ For I neither received it of 
 man, neither was I taught it, but by the revela- 
 tion of Jesus Christ" (6^a/«//««.r i. 12). Doubt- 
 less he came to learn from Peter everything he 
 knew of the personal history of Christ. He 
 had many questions to ask about his habits — 
 mode of life — his employments — about Mary, 
 Joseph, and the whole family of Jesus. The 
 smallest incident in his early life would be dear 
 to Paul, and he would lock the remembrance of 
 it in his bosom, as a sacred treasure. 
 
 In this way fifteen days passed over, when 
 Paul again left Jerusalem, and afterwards went 
 
1 6 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 into Syria and Cilicia, where he was followed 
 by divine visions and revelations. He spent the 
 year A.D. 42 in Antioch, where he taught, as- 
 sisted by Barnabas. Here he took up a collec- 
 tion for the brethren of Judea, who were suffer- 
 ing from the effects of a famine which took place 
 during the reign of Claudius Caesar, and re- 
 turned with it to Jerusalem. Having discharg- 
 ed his trust, he went back to Antioch, accom- 
 panied by Barnabas and Mark. All we know 
 with certainty about Paul, from this time for- 
 ward, we must gather, for the most part, from 
 his Epistles to the churches ; for all other 
 sources of information are suspicious and doubt- 
 ful. An act, especially one of importance con- 
 nected with his labors as an Apostle, attributed 
 to him by others, and not spoken of at all by 
 himself, should be excluded from the pages of 
 authentic history. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 7 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Paul and Barnabas start west to preach the Gospel.— 
 The prevailing ideas on religion in Asia Minor. 
 — Theology of Plato and Philo. — The effect pro- 
 duced by the preaching of Paul. 
 
 Paul, in the year A.D. 45, with Barnabas 
 and Mark as his companions, set his face west 
 in the direction of Asia Minor. The people 
 who inhabited the country from Antioch in 
 Syria along the north coast of the Mediterra- 
 nean and the .^Egean, or the Archipelago, to 
 Thessalonica in Macedonia, were for the most 
 part descendants of the early colonists from 
 Greece. A large number of cities were scat- 
 tered along the shores, which had been enriched 
 by commerce, and were the seats of learning 
 and luxury. The Greek of Asia Minor, in the 
 latter part of the first century, was not the 
 Greek of the time of Pericles and Epaminondas. 
 
1 8 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 His levity and cunning had outlived his cour- 
 age, his love of country and stern endurance. 
 The college at Alexandria was the source of all 
 light and learning, and the doctrines of that 
 celebrated school, like a subtle fluid, pervaded 
 all classes of men. It was here that Plato took 
 lessons which led him to explore the mysterious 
 nature of the Deity, and expose to the eyes 
 of mortals the nature of the divine persons who 
 regulated the affairs of the universe. In his 
 imagination he populated Heaven, and divided 
 among the different deities the share of each in 
 the government of the world. According to 
 Plato there was one God who was superessen- 
 tial, and in him was blended or united all that 
 was powerful and good. This he called the 
 One, or the first principle of things. Proculus, 
 of the same school, says the One is the God 
 of all gods, the Unity of the unities, the Holy 
 among the holies. Plato compares him with 
 the sun. For as the sun by his light not only 
 confers the power of being seen on visible 
 objects, but is likewise the cause of their gener- 
 ation, nutriment, and increase, so the good of 
 the One, through superessential light, imparts 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 9 
 
 being and power. As a consequence, both 
 Plato and Pythagoras conclude that the imme- 
 diate issue of this ineffable Cause must be gods, 
 and each must partake of the same nature and 
 have a superessential existence. That " every- 
 thing in nature which is the result of progres- 
 sion exists in a mysterious unity and similitude 
 with its first cause. They are superessential, 
 and differ in no respect from the highest good. 
 From the supereminent Cause, as from an 
 exalted place of survey, we may contemplate 
 the divine unities, that is, the gods, flowing 
 in admirable and ineffable order, and at the 
 same time abiding in profound union with each 
 other, and with their Cause." 
 
 The first procession, from the first One, or 
 intelligible Cause, is the intelligible Triad, con- 
 sisting of Being, Life, and Intellect, which are?* 
 the three highest things after the first God. 
 Plato, in his Parmenid.es, calls the Author of 
 the Universe Intellect and Father, and repre- 
 sents him comn^anding the junior gods to 
 imitate the power which he employed in their 
 generation. It follows, that that which gener- 
 ated from the Father is offspring. Son or Logos, 
 
20 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 second in the Triad. The third power or 
 principle in the Triad is Intellect, or Spirit of 
 the Universe. Here we have the Father, the 
 Logos, and the Soul of the Universe in a mys- 
 terious union ; and as they all proceed from 
 the One, are one in unity. The author of 
 "Decline and Fall" thus defines the theology 
 of Plato: "The vain hope of extricating him- 
 self from these difficulties which must forever 
 oppress the feeble powers of the human mind, 
 might induce Plato to consider the divine na- 
 ture under the threefold modification of the 
 First Cause, the Reason or Logos and the Sotu 
 or Spirit of the Universe. His poetical imagi- 
 nation sometimes fixed and animated these me- 
 taphysical abstractions ; the three archial or 
 original principles were represented in the Pla- 
 tonic system as three gods, united with each 
 other by a mysterious and ineffable generation ; 
 and the Logos was particularly considered, 
 under the more accessible character of the Son 
 of an Eternal Father, and the Creator and Gov- 
 ernor of the world." (Vol. L, page 438.) 
 
 Such is an outline of the theology of Plato, as 
 we learn it from the " Explanatory translation " 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 2 1 
 
 of Taylor to the Cratylus and other works of 
 the great Hghtof Greece. The ideas of Plato, 
 under the teachings of the Alexandrian school, 
 underwent changes and modifications, but were 
 the source of all subsequent systems of theology, 
 and we can readily detect in each the genius 
 of the Athenian. Through the invitation of the 
 Ptolemies, large numbers of Jews settled in the 
 new capital of Egypt, who carried with them the 
 laws and institutions of Moses. It was not many 
 years before the religious ideas of the descend- 
 ants of the colonists were tinctured and in some 
 degree moulded after the doctrines taught at 
 the school of Alexandria. Under the lead of 
 Philo a new school arose, which was formed 
 from a union of " Mosaic faith and Grecian 
 philosophy," in which the distinctive features of 
 each are clearly preserved. 
 
 Philo Judaeus was an Alexandrian Jew, de- 
 scended from a noble and sacerdotal family, and 
 was distinguished in his day for his wisdom 
 and eloquence. He was born before Christ, 
 and survived him. He was the author of nu- 
 merous works, and esteemed one of the most 
 learned men of his day. A tumult arose in 
 
22 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Alexandria between the Jews and the Greeks, 
 and out of each party three were chosen as 
 embassadors to go to Rome and lay the case 
 before Caligula, who was then emperor. Philo 
 was chosen as one to represent his countrymen, 
 and undertook to act as chief spokesman in the 
 imperial presence. He was treated with inso- 
 lence — ordered to be silent — and the emperor 
 was so carried away by his passions that per- 
 sonal violence seemed imminent. The equa- 
 nimity of the philosopher was not disturbed, and 
 having discharged his duty, he quitted the palace 
 filled with the contempt for the tyrant which 
 has loaded his memory in all subsequent ages. 
 (Josephus, Antiq., lib. xviii. ch. 8, sec. I.) 
 
 The system taught by Philo dispensed with 
 the third person in the Godhead, which was com- 
 posed of the Father and the Logos, a divine 
 Duad, which did not exist in unity, like the 
 trinity of Plato : but the Logos with him, like 
 the Mediator of the Hebrews, was possessed of 
 mediatorial powers, and was an intercessor in 
 behalf of the fallen race of Adam. It is difficult 
 to define the relation of the Logos of Philo with 
 the Creator of the Universe, whether he is an 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 23 
 
 attribute which is made manifest in creative 
 power, or whether he has a separate existence. 
 He is the Son of God, and was with the Father 
 before the world was created. His powers em- 
 brace the mediatorial, and he stands between 
 God and man, and represents the Father in his 
 providences to our race. He is not an hypos- 
 tasis, and yet he was begotten. 
 
 Such are some of the ideas which prevailed 
 in Asia Minor, and other countries along the 
 shores of the Mediterranean, when Paul and 
 Barnabas entered the country, bringing with 
 them a new religion. It is as difficult to define 
 what Paul's real belief was of the relations which 
 Christ bore to the Creator, as it is to determine 
 the real belief of Philo on the same subject. 
 With Paul, Christ was the Son of God, but what 
 was the exact relation he did not pretend to 
 say. He says he is less than the angels — su- 
 perior to Moses {^Hebrews ii. and iii.) ; but he no- 
 where says he is equal to God. Paul seems to 
 have been less concerned about the nature of 
 Christ, and the place occupied by him in the 
 Godhead, than he was about his mediatorial 
 powers. Through the fall of Adam, all men 
 
24 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 were under .jcondemnation, and it was the 
 office of Christ, through his blood, to make 
 atonement, and once more restore man to the 
 favor of the Creator. With him Christ was not 
 the Creator, Hke the Logos of Philo, but was 
 the Saviour of the world. He did not exist 
 from the beginning, but, Hke all flesh, from his 
 natural birth. But still he yvas, as was the 
 Logos of Philo, the Son of God. 
 
 With such ideas, Paul made his way among 
 the Greeks. The Jews were the first to make 
 war upon him. But he stood his ground and 
 gained more. The small churches which he es- 
 tablished were like so many fortresses in an ene- 
 my's country. Wherever he went he started 
 discussion. The friction between the new and 
 the old ideas produced heat : and with heat 
 came light. 
 
 But, after all, Paul's converts, for the most 
 part, were from the less informed and the mid- 
 dle classes. The learned turned away from him, 
 because he had no tangible proof to satisfy 
 them that what he preached was true. The 
 story of his conversion was improbable, and 
 . could be ascribed to the effects of natural causes. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 25 
 
 The time for miracles had not yet come, and 
 Paul did not claim anything from them.* 
 
 Tacitus speaks of Christians as a race of men 
 detested for their evil practices, and classes their 
 doctrines among the pernicious things which 
 flowed into Rome as into a common sewer. 
 {Annals, lib. xv. sec 54.) Still the churches 
 estabHshed by Paul grew slowly, but seemed to 
 require the influence of his presence and per- 
 sonal efforts to keep them alive. As long as 
 the fight went on between Paul and the Jews, 
 and unconverted Gentiles, his lofty courage and 
 iron will were enough to hold him up. But he 
 soon had troubles of a different kind. He found 
 them in the churches themselves. It is not dif- 
 ficult to tell what would be the effect of Paul's 
 ideas when brought face to face with doctrines 
 of the Alexandrian school. It was like the meet- 
 ing of the acid and the alkali. The first sign of the 
 effervescence appears at Corinth, and two hun- 
 dred years passed before it ceased, if it ceased at 
 all. From the time the quarrel commenced at Co- 
 
 * Had it been true that an apron which came in contact with 
 Paul's person could cure diseases, all Asia would have been con- 
 verted while he was making a few hundred believers. 
 2 
 
26 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 rintli, between the followers of Paul, until the time 
 when the questions disappear altogether, mental 
 phenomena are exhibited unlike any other in 
 the history of man. Even the quarrels and dis- 
 putes of the ReaHsts and Nominalists of the 
 thirteenth century bear no comparison. The 
 contest between the different sects had all the 
 earnestness of a struggle between gladiators. 
 From being warm disputants, men became dis- 
 honest. Books were forged entire, others were 
 mutilated, and some suppressed and put out of 
 sight. It was an age of downright dishonesty 
 on all sides. But from these dark and discord- 
 ant elements arose the true Church. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 2 7 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Therapeutae of Philo — and Essenes of Josephus.— An 
 account of them. — Their disappearance from his- 
 tory, and what became of them. 
 
 In the beginning of the first century there 
 existed a sect or society which exercised great 
 influence over the fortune and affairs of the 
 world ; but, before the second had elapsed, was 
 insensibly lost in the commingling of creeds and 
 sects which sprang up in the mean time. Like 
 a billow on the sea, it rose high and spread far ; 
 but at last disappears, or is lost in the great 
 ocean. We refer to the Therapeutae of Philo 
 and the Essenes of Josephus. Their origin is 
 lost in the distant past ; nor is it proven who 
 was the founder of the sect. Although the The- 
 rapeutae were found in every part of the Roman 
 empire, Alexandria was the centre of their ope- 
 rations. Their learning and knowledge were 
 derived from the schools of Alexandria ; and to 
 the climate of Egypt, which, by some immuta- 
 
28 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 ble law of nature, disposed men to embrace a 
 gloomy asceticism, they are indebted for their 
 morose and cruel discipline. From this society 
 were furnished all the monks which populated 
 the deserts of Africa before the Christian era 
 began. 
 
 The Essenes were one of the three leading 
 sects among the Jews ; the Sadducees and Phari- 
 sees forming the other two. Josephus, who fully 
 describes them, in early life was a member, and 
 for three years took up his abode in the desert, 
 and suffered all the pains, and endured all the 
 hardships of monastic life. They were confined 
 to no locality, but were found in every city in 
 Europe and Asia. When travelling from place 
 to place, they were received and provided for 
 by members of their sect without charge, so 
 that when one of them made his appearance in 
 a strange city, he found there one already ap- 
 pointed for the special purpose of taking care of 
 strangers and providing for their wants. They 
 neither bought from nor sold to each other, but 
 each took what his wants required, as if it were 
 his own. 
 
 " And as for their piety towards God," says 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 29 
 
 Josephus, " it is very extraordinary ; for before 
 sun-rising 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. After this, 
 every one of them is sent away by their curators, 
 to exercise some of those arts wherein they are 
 skilled, in which they labor with great diligence 
 till the fifth hour, after which they assemble 
 themselves together in one place, and when 
 they have clothed themselves in white veils, 
 they then bathe their bodies in cold water, and, 
 after their purification is over, they every one 
 meet together in an apartment of their own, 
 into which it is not permitted to any of another 
 sect to enter ; while they go after a pure manner 
 into the dining-room, as into a certain holy tem- 
 ple, and quietly sit themselves down ; upon 
 which the baker lays their loaves in order ; the 
 cook also brings a single plate of one sort of 
 food and sets it before every one of them ; but 
 a priest says grace before meat ; and it is un- 
 lawful for any one to taste of the food before 
 grace be said. The same priest, when he has 
 dined, says grace again after meat ; and when 
 
30 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 they begin, and when they end, they praise 
 God, as he that bestows their food upon them ; 
 after which they lay aside their [white] gar- 
 ments, and betake themselves to their labors 
 again until the evening ; then they return home 
 to supper, after the same manner." (Josephus, 
 Wars, lib. ii. chap. 8, sec. 5.) 
 
 The time allowed for probation, before ad- 
 mission to the fraternity, was three years, and in 
 the meantime the temper and disposition of the 
 neophyte were put to the severest test, and not 
 until he had given ample proof of his sincerity 
 or ability to submit to the laws and ordinances 
 of the sect was he deemed fit for adniissiori ; 
 but before he is allowed to do so, he is required 
 to swear, " that, in the first place, he will exer- 
 cise piety towards God ; and then that he will 
 observe justice towards men ; and that he will 
 do no harm to any one, either of his own accord, 
 or by the command of others ; that he will al- 
 ways hate the wicked, and be assistant to the 
 righteous ; that he will ever show fidelity to all 
 men, and especially to those in authority, be- 
 cause no one obtains the government without 
 God's assistance ; and that if he be in authority, 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 3 ^ 
 
 he will at no time whatever abuse his authority, 
 nor endeavor to outshine his subjects, either in 
 his garments, or any other finery ; that he will 
 be perpetually a lover of truth, and propose to 
 himself to reprove those that tell lies ; and that 
 he will keep his hands clear from theft, and his 
 soul from unlawful gains ; and that he will 
 neither conceal anything from those of his own 
 sect, nor discover any of their doctrines to 
 others — no, not though any one should compel 
 him so to do, at the hazard of his life. More- 
 over, he swears to communicate their doctrines 
 to no one any otherwise than as he received them 
 himself; that he will abstain from robbery, and 
 will equally preserve their books belonging to 
 their sect, and the names of the angels [or mes- 
 sengers]. These are the oaths by which they se- 
 cure their proselytes to themselves." (Jos. , Wars, 
 lib. ii. ch. 8, sec. 6.) 
 
 The following is the account given by Philo 
 of this sect, preserved in the pages of Euse- 
 bius : — 
 
 " ' This kind of men is everywhere scattered 
 over the world, for the Greeks and barbarians 
 should share in so permanent a benefit. They 
 
3 2 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 abound, however, in Egypt, in each of its dis- 
 tricts, and particularly Alexandria. But the 
 principal men among them from every quarter 
 emigrate to a placff" situated on a moderate 
 elevation of land beyond the Lake Maria, very 
 advantageously located both for safety and 
 temperature of the air, as if it were the native 
 country of the Therapeuts.'" 
 
 "After describing what kind of habitations 
 they have, he says of the churches : ' In every 
 house there is a sacred apartment which they 
 call the Semneion or Monasterium, where, 
 retired from men, they perform the mysteries 
 of a pious life. Hither they bring nothing 
 with them, neither drink nor food, nor anything 
 else requisite to the necessities of the body ; 
 they only bring the law and the inspired decla- 
 rations of the prophets, and hymns, and such 
 things by which knowledge and piety may be 
 augmented and perfected.' After other matters 
 he adds : ' The whole time between the morning 
 and the evening is a constant exercise ; for as they 
 are engaged with the sacred Scriptures, they rea- 
 son and comment upon them, explaining the phi- 
 losophy oftheir country in an allegorical manner. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 33 
 
 For they consider the verbal interpretation as 
 signs indicative of a sacred sense communicated 
 in obscure intimations. They have also com- 
 mentaries of ancient men, who, as founders of 
 the sect, have left many monuments of their 
 doctrine in allegorical representations which 
 they use as certain models, imitating the man- 
 ner of the original institution.' 
 
 " These facts appear to have been stated by a 
 man who at least has paid attention to those 
 that have expounded the sacred writings. But 
 it is highly probable that the ancient commen- 
 taries which he says they have are the very 
 Gospels and writings of the Apostles, and 
 probably some expositions of the ancient pro- 
 phets, such as are contained in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, and many others of St. Paul's epistles. 
 Afterwards again, concerning the new psalms 
 which they composed, he thus writes : ' Thus 
 they not only pass their time in meditation, but 
 compose songs and hymns unto God, noting 
 them of necessity with measure uncommonly 
 serious through every variety of metres and 
 tunes.' Many other things concerning these 
 persons, he writes in the same book . . . 
 
34 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Why need we add to these an account of their meet 
 ings, 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, espe- 
 cially at the festival of our Saviour's passion, we 
 are accustomed to use in our fastings and 
 watchings, and in the study of the divine word. 
 All these the above-mentioned author has ac- 
 curately described and stated in his writings, 
 and they 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. He states that whilst one sings 
 gracefully with a certain measure, the others, 
 listening in silence, join in singing the final 
 clauses of the hymns ; also, that on the above- 
 mentioned days they lie on straw spread on 
 the ground, and to use his own words, ' They 
 abstain altogether from wine, and taste no flesh. 
 Water is their only drink, and the relish of their 
 bread, salt and hyssop.' Besides this, he de- 
 scribes the grades of dignity among those who 
 administer the ecclesiastical services committed 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 35 
 
 to them, those of the Deacons and the Presiden- 
 cies of the Episcopate as the highest. But, 
 whosoever desires to have a more accurate 
 knowledge of these things, may learn them from 
 the history already cited ; but that Philo, when 
 he wrote these statements, had in view the first 
 heralds of the gospel, and the original practices 
 handed down from the Apostles, must be obvi- 
 ous to all." (Euseb. Ecc. Hist., lib. ii. ch. 17.) 
 
 They had their churches, their Bishops 
 (called Presidencies of the Episcopate), Dea- 
 cons and monasteries. They used sacred wri- 
 tings, which they read in their churches with 
 comments, and which they believed were di- 
 vinely inspired. Commentaries were written 
 on these writings, as they are on the present 
 Gospels. Their mode of worship was much 
 the same as in our own day ; and they had 
 missionaries all over Asia, and in many parts of 
 Europe. The day observed by Christians after- 
 wards as the festival of our Saviour's passion 
 was observed by them as sacred, and which 
 they passed in fasting, watching, and the study 
 of the sacred writings. All this we are assured 
 is true, by the authority of Josephus, Philo, 
 
36 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 and Eusebius. So strong is the resemblance 
 in doctrines, and form of church government, 
 between these ancient Therapeutas, that Euse- 
 bius, because he could not deny the similitude, 
 undertook the task of proving that the Essenes 
 were Christians, and that their sacred writings 
 were the four Gospels. He says: "But it 
 is highly probable that the ancient writings 
 which he (Philo) says they have, are the very 
 Gospels and writings of the Apostles, and prob- 
 ably some expositions of the ancient prophets, 
 such as are contained in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, and many others of St. Paul's epis- 
 tles." (Eus., Ecc. Hist., lib. ii. ch. 17.) 
 
 Eusebius has not deceived himself — he only 
 hoped to deceive others. If the Essenes were 
 not Christians, then it is evident that much 
 which is claimed as original in Christianity was 
 copied from them. " Basnage has examined 
 with the most critical accuracy the curious 
 treatise of Philo, which describes the Thera- 
 peutffi. By proving that it was composed as 
 early as the time of Augustus, he has demon- 
 strated, in spite of Eusebius and a crowd of 
 modern Catholics, that the Therapeut^ were 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 3 7 
 
 neither Christians nor monks." [Decline and 
 Fall, Vol. I. page 283, chapter xv., note 
 162.) 
 
 " Much dispute has arisen among the learned 
 concerning this ' sect. Some have imagined 
 them to be Judaizing Gentiles ; but Philo sup- 
 poses them to be Jews, by speaking of them as 
 a branch of the sect of the Essenes, and espe- 
 cially classes them among the followers of Moses. 
 Others have maintained that the Therapeutae 
 were an Alexandrian sect of Jewish converts 
 to the Christian faith, who devoted themselves 
 to monastic life. But this is impossible, for 
 Philo, who wrote before Christianity appeared 
 in Egypt, speaks of this as an established fact." 
 (Buck's Theological Dictionary.) 
 
 And now, what has become of the Thera- 
 peutae ? — of their sacred writings ? Where are 
 their Elders, their Deacons and the Presidency 
 of the Episcopate, or Bishops ? All writers 
 agree that they soon disappeared after the in- 
 troduction of Christianity. " How long," con- 
 tinues Buck, "this sect continued, is uncertain, 
 but it is not improbable that after the appear- 
 ance of Christianity in Egypt, it soon became 
 
38 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 extinct." Gibbon, in speaking of the disap- 
 pearance of this sect from history, says : "It 
 still remains probable that they changed their 
 names, preserved their manners, and adopted 
 some new article of faith." (Vol. I. page 283, 
 n. 162.) 
 
 This sect did not mingle and lose itself in the 
 huge mass of Pagans, for between the two 
 there was no neutral ground on which they 
 might meet and agree. The antagonism be- 
 tween them had continued too long, and there 
 was traditional hatred on both sides. Paul 
 threw the doors of the church wide open, and, 
 as we shall see, the Therapeutae soon entered, 
 and by their numbers took possession, and 
 barred them against the founder and all his 
 followers. What did the Therapeutae do with 
 their sacred writings, which, Eusebius claims, 
 were nothing more than our present Gospels ? 
 To suppose that they abandoned and destroyed 
 them altogether is not possible, considering 
 their antiquity, and the veneration in which 
 they were held for generations. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 It is a question of great interest in history, if 
 notlxing more, when and where it was that the 
 Christian Church, in the form in which it has 
 come down to us, had its origin. 
 
 To be sure, there are many who are satisfied 
 with an orthodox beUef on the subject, because 
 they have never questioned their sources of 
 information. But the world has grown to that 
 age when traditional dogmas, or whatever they 
 may be called, must be subject to the test which 
 advancing knowledge imposes. Tried by this 
 test, what is true will appear brighter ; what is 
 false will be thrown off; and man, relieved of a 
 burden which only weighed him down, will 
 move on to an improved and better life. Man 
 is not doomed by the condition of his nature to 
 be eternally tugging at the stone of Sisyphus — 
 nor is it consistent with the laws of a wise and 
 
40 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 beneficent Creator that mankind, in order to be 
 prosperous and happy, should be compelled to 
 live under a perpetual delusion. Like the source 
 of some river, often traced to a mountain rill or 
 the oozing waters of a morass, so the begin- 
 ning of the church or churches of our own day 
 is to be looked for in some obscure corner of 
 history, covered by the deiris of ages. 
 
 Located on a narrow isthmus between the 
 iEgean and Ionian seas stood Corinth, one of 
 the principal cities of Greece. Situated where the 
 commerce from the East and the West meet in 
 transitu, it grew in opulence and wealth, and 
 was distinguished for the arts, and for the lux- 
 ury and Hcentiousness of its inhabitants. Here 
 Venus had a temple, presided over by a thou- 
 sand priestesses, whose attractions increased 
 the numbers who came from all parts of Greece 
 to assist in celebrating the Isthmian games. It 
 was at this place Paul planted a church, between 
 the years A.D. 51 and A.D. 53, and where 
 he remained eighteen months, working as no 
 one but himself could work to build up and 
 strengthen it. 
 
 Paul left Corinth for a time for other fields 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 4 1 
 
 of labor, because he belonged to no one place, 
 but his mission embraced the world. The com- 
 merce of Corinth attracted to the place people 
 from every part of the empire, east and west, 
 and with others a large number of Alexandrian 
 Jews. Among them were many of the Thera- 
 peutae, who brought with them into Greece 
 the doctrines of Philo. 
 
 During Paul's absence there came to Corinth 
 ApoUos of Alexandria. He was an eloquent 
 man and learned in the Scriptures. It is a subject 
 of regret that we do not know more of his his- 
 tory than we find in the Acts, and in the Epis- 
 tles of Paul. What were the doctrines he 
 taught when he first appeared in Ephesus, where 
 he spent some time before he went to Corinth, 
 we cannot tell, but he was fervent in spirit, 
 " and taught diligently the things of the Lord." 
 He had heard of John the Baptist, for he was a 
 historic character, and Josephus tells how he 
 baptized multitudes in the waters of the Jordan ; 
 but he seems to have known nothing about 
 Christ or the doctrines he taught. He spoke 
 in the synagogue, which proves that what he 
 taught did not give offence to the Jews. In 
 
42 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Ephesus he attracted the notice of Aquila and 
 Priscilla, Jewish Christians, who had been ex- 
 pelled from Rome by the Emperor Claudius on 
 account of some disturbance growing out of 
 quarrels between Jews and Christians.* Under 
 their instructions Apollos was made a convert 
 to Christianity. 
 
 The Jews, as has been shown, were divided 
 into three sects — Pharisees, Sadducees, and the 
 Essenes. Every Jew belonged to or connected 
 himself with the one or the other. Those who 
 went to Alexandria, in time took the name of 
 Therapeutse, which, it is claimed, was the same 
 as the Essenes. However this may be, Philo 
 describes them as a Jewish sect. That Apol- 
 los was one of them may be claimed with great 
 reason. A Jew, born in Alexandria, he could 
 scarcely escape being one. Raised under the 
 shadow of the college of Alexandria, of a fervent 
 spirit and a man of thought, he could not fail to 
 be impressed by the doctrines taught by that 
 celebrated school. They were the prevailing 
 and fashionable doctrines of the day. That he 
 
 * See Appendix A. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 43 
 
 brought with him to Ephesus the Logos idea 
 of Philo is clearly proven by what took place 
 after his arrival. It seems his conversion to the 
 Christian faith under the- instruction of Aquila 
 and Priscilla was easy, which- proves that the 
 difference which separated them in the first place 
 was not great. Like all Jews, he was looking 
 for some kind of Saviour or Deliverer, and they 
 convinced him that Christ was the one. He 
 now undertook to convince others. " For he 
 mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, 
 shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ." 
 {Acts xviii. 28.) But the Alexandrian notions 
 of the Logos or Son of God soon began to show 
 out in his discourses and make trouble. Some 
 began to cry, I am for Paul ; and others, I am 
 for Apollos (i Cor. iii. 4). 
 
 Paul's ideas on some points did not suit the 
 Alexandrian school. The birth of Christ from 
 human parents, in the speculative minds of this 
 people, stripped him of all mystery ; and with 
 them, on subjects like this, where there is no 
 mystery there is nothing real. There could 
 be no other difference between the followers 
 of Paul and Apollos, except as to the origin 
 
44 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 and nature of Christ, and his relations to the 
 Creator ; and there was none. The strife grew 
 to such dimensions that Paul is constrained to 
 write an epistle to the church, in which we 
 can see what was at the bottom of the trouble. 
 In his First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul 
 names four parties whose quarrels disturbed the 
 peace of the Church : the Paul party, who main- 
 tained the doctrines of Paul as to the human 
 origin of Christ ; the party of Apollos, who, 
 without doubt, taught the docrines of Philo ; 
 the party of Cephas, which held to the doc- 
 trines of circumcision ; and the Christ party. 
 We infer that the last was composed of negative 
 men, or those who occupied neutral ground — 
 the fence men of our day. It could not have 
 been of much importance, for we never hear of 
 it again. 
 
 It was neither the first, third, or fourth of 
 these parties that called out the letter to the 
 Corinthians. It was the wisdom of the Greek 
 school and Apollos' " excellency of speech " 
 that disturbed Paul, and continued to do so to 
 the end of his life. But see with what force he 
 opposes to the wisdom of the Greeks the reve- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 45 
 
 lations which came to him from God. This 
 letter displays all the characteristics of Paul. 
 " And my speech and my preaching was not 
 with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in 
 demonstration of the Spirit, and of power : that 
 your faith should not stand in the wisdom of 
 men, but in the power of God. But God hath 
 revealed them unto us by His Spirit ; for the 
 Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things 
 of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of 
 the world, but the Spirit which is of God ; that 
 we might know the things that are freely~given 
 to us of God. Which things also we speak, 
 not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, 
 but which the Holy Ghost teacheth ; comparing 
 spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural 
 man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
 God : for they are foolishness unto him : neithei 
 can he know them, because they are spiritually 
 discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all 
 things, yet he himself is judged of no man. 
 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that 
 he may instruct him ? But we have the vtind 
 of Christ." (i Cor. ch. ii.) Here it is not Paul 
 that denounces the wisdom of the Greek school, 
 but it is God himself. Such is Paul. 
 
46 The Christ of Paul', 
 
 It is not difficult to tell to which of the four 
 parties at Corinth this epistle was addressed. 
 That the difference between Paul and Apollos 
 grew out of opposing opinions as to the nature 
 of Christ admits of little doubt, and is ren- 
 dered certain by the first, second, and third 
 chapters of his First Epistle to the Corinthians. 
 He says : " For other foundation can no man 
 lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." 
 That is, I have taught to you Christ as he is, 
 and it is not for any other man to teach any- 
 thing different. He declares that "according 
 to the grace of God which is given unto me, as 
 a wise master-builder, I have laid the founda- 
 tion." "let every man take heed how 
 
 he buildeth thereon." Here is a plain intima- 
 tion that the Christ of Paul rested upon a diffe- 
 rent foundation from that of Apollos — the one 
 divine, the other human. "I have planted, 
 Apollos watered." That is, I have planted 
 the seed that will produce the true fruit, and 
 it is for others only to cultivate and nourish 
 what I have planted. 
 
 He tells the Corinthians that they were born 
 unto a knowledge of Christ through his gospel 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 47 
 
 — that is, through his preaching ; and that if they 
 had ten thousand instructors, of these there 
 would not be many who, as spiritual fathers, 
 could reveal to them the truth as he had. 
 "Wherefore, I beseech you, be ye followers of 
 me. For this cause have I sent unto you 
 Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful 
 in the Lord, who shall bring you into remem- 
 brance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach 
 everywhere in every church." (i Cor. iv. 16, 
 17.) What more conclusive evidence could be 
 asked that Apollos was preaching doctrines dif- 
 ferent from those of Paul as to the nature of 
 Christ, than that the latter sent Timothy to 
 counteract them ? and what other doctrines was 
 the former teaching than those of the Alexan- 
 drian school ? When Paul says all Asia had 
 turned against him, it could only be on the 
 questions which had sprung up between himself 
 and Apollos. It could not be on account of 
 circumcision, because on this point the Greeks 
 would agree with Paul. It was not on account 
 of different views on the subject of the resurrec- 
 tion, because that was retained and became the 
 foundation of the Christian faith. There was 
 
48 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 but a single point upon which those who pro- 
 fessed Christianity at that day could turn upon 
 Paul, and that is his " ways which be in Christ " 
 as he taught them in all the churches. The 
 quarrels of Paul with the Jews on the subject of 
 circumcision died away in the church not long 
 after his death, drowned out by the Greek and 
 Therapeutse element ; but the cause of the strife 
 between the followers of Paul and Apollos has 
 continued down, in some form, even to our own 
 times. 
 
 It could not be long after his letter to the 
 Corinthians that the doctrines preached by 
 Apollos spread through all the churches of Asia 
 Minor and became the established orthodox 
 faith. Paul, in the Second Epistle to Timothy, 
 says: "All Asia has turned against me." A 
 mere change of name — Therapeutae to Christian 
 — and the revolution was complete. It was made 
 so rapidly that the world scarcely noticed it. 
 The Therapeutae, who were spread over Europe, 
 Asia, and portions of Africa, disappeared so 
 suddenly that it has always been a problem in 
 history what became of them. But we can find 
 here and there, in the history of the times, evi- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 49 
 
 dences that the few friends of Paul did not give 
 up the contest with their powerful foe without 
 a struggle. These struggles come to the sur- 
 face of history like the bubbles from the mouth 
 of a drowning man. 
 
 But little change in doctrines was required to 
 justify the Therapeutae in taking upon them- 
 selves the name of Christians. Christ, with 
 Paul, was a Mediator, and so was the Logos of 
 Philo. "What intelligent person," says tlie 
 latter, " who views mankind engaged in unwor- 
 thy and wicked pursuits, but must be grieved to 
 the heart, and call upon that Saviour God, that 
 these crimes may be exterminated, and that by 
 a ransom and price of redemption being given 
 for his soul, it may again obtain its freedom. It 
 pleased God, therefore, to appoint his Logos to 
 be a Mediator. To his Word, the chief and 
 most ancient of all in heaven, the great Author 
 of the world gave this especial gift: that he 
 should stand as a medium (or intercessor) be- 
 tween the Creator and the created ; and he is 
 accordingly the Advocate of all mortals." {Ja- 
 cob Bryant, quoted in Clarke's Commentaries on 
 St. John's Gospel.) As the Therapeutae of 
 
50 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Philo were the descendants of a Jewish colony 
 who had settled in Egypt, and still retained in 
 some degree their Mosaic ideas and belief in the 
 Old Testament, under the light of the school of 
 Alexandria, where th« doctrines of Philo were 
 taught, they readily adopted the Alexandrian 
 ideas of the Logos. The belief in some inter- 
 mediate or mediatorial power between God and 
 man was common to the Jews as well as most 
 other people. Adam, by his disobedience, had 
 broken the law, and if he or his descendants are 
 ever to be restored to the favor of the Creator, 
 it is to be done through the office of a Medi- 
 ator. The notions of Philo on the nature of the 
 Logos suited the Therapeuta much better than 
 did those of Paul, and after a short struggle we 
 will discover the Alexandrian dogmas to be the 
 creed of the orthodox. Christ's appearance on 
 earth, his death and resurrection, are what Paul 
 preached, and what the Therapeutae, who were 
 converted by him, believed. These feattires 
 were retained in the church after the Philo ideas 
 of the Logos had displaced the Christ of Paul. 
 It was only Paul's doctrine of the descent of 
 Jesus from Mary and Joseph after the flesh 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 5 ^ 
 
 that was thrown aside by them. The interven- 
 tion of the Virgin, at a later period in the history 
 of the church, was the means by which the 
 Christ of Paul was made the Son of God in the 
 sense of the Alexandrian school. 
 
 The transition of the Therapeutse to Chris- 
 tianity was easy. Little or no change was made 
 in the form of the services in the church. Ac- 
 cording to Eusebius, they sang hymns. They 
 read sacred books and made comments on them 
 as well after as before the change. Like the 
 first Christian community, they held all their 
 property in common. They said grace at table 
 both before and after meals, according to Jose- 
 phus, which they continued to do after they took 
 the name of Christians. They made no change 
 in their fasts and festivals, and retained the mon- 
 asteries. The transfer of the form of the The- 
 rapeutse church government to the new church 
 was the work of time, and was not fully effected 
 until the second century. The influence of 
 Paul's name, with other causes, was too strong 
 during the first to permit the change. 
 
 A Bishop in a Christian church is the work of 
 the second century. Like every other new-fea- 
 
52 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 ture in its history, we find the first Bishop at 
 Alexandria. Gibbon says: "The extensive 
 commerce of Alexandria, and its proximity to 
 Palestine, gave an easy entrance to the new re- 
 ligion. It was at first embraced by great num- 
 bers of the Therapeutse, or Essenians of the lake 
 Mareotis, a Jewish sect which had abated much 
 of its reverence for the Mosaic ceremonies. The 
 austere life of the Essenians, their fasts and ex- 
 communications, 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 very lively image of the primi- 
 tive discipline. It was in the school of Alex- 
 andria that the Christian theology appears to 
 have assumed a regular and scientific form ; 
 and when Hadrian visited Egypt he found a 
 church, composed of Jews and of Greeks, suffi- 
 ciently important to attract the notice of that 
 inquisitive prince." (Ch. xv. (162) (163), vol. I. 
 p. 283.)* 
 
 * After the author had written out his views as above, he met 
 with the following passages from the writings of Michaelis, the 
 great German critic, quoted in Taylor's Diegesis. Of the The- 
 rapeutse, he says they are a " Jewish sect, which began to spread 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 53 
 
 It is safe to say that it was the Therapeutae 
 who caused the troubles in the churches in Paul's 
 time and afterwards, because no other sect or 
 society was so extended, and had the power to 
 make the disturbance so universal. Paul could 
 complain of no other, and it was this sect that 
 turned all Asia against him. There is no way 
 to account for the sudden and wonderful in- 
 crease of Christians in a few years before 
 Paul's death, unless we can refer the cause to 
 the sudden conversion of the Therapeutae to the 
 new religion. When they are suddenly lost to 
 
 itself at Ephesus, and to threaten great mischief to Christianity 
 in the time (or indeed previous to the time) of St. Paul, on which 
 account, in his epistles to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, and 
 to Timothy, he declares himself openly against them." (Die- 
 gesis, 58.) Again: "It is evident from the above-mentioned 
 epistles of Paul, that, to the great mortification of the apostle, 
 they insinuated themselves very early into the church." (60.) The 
 writer does not wish to be understood that the disturbances cre- 
 ated in the church were confined to Corinth, and that ApoUos 
 was the only one who taught during the life of Paul the doctrines 
 of the Alexandrian school. Wherever Paul had founded a church, 
 there the Therapeutee element was at work. ApoUos, by his 
 superior eloquence and learning, was distinguished from a host ol 
 agitators, and called forth the special notice of Paul. 
 
54 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 sight, the small churches of Paul have grown 
 great in numbers, and spread over Europe and 
 Asia in an incredibly short space of time. 
 
 Before going to press, the writer came into 
 the possession of the works of Michaelis, where we 
 find the following passage : " But even before 
 Apollos had received the instructions of Aquila 
 and Priscilla, he taught publicly in the syna- 
 gogue at Ephesus concerning the Messiah. 
 Hence it is not improbable that the Essenes in- 
 troduced themselves into the church at Ephesus 
 by means of Apollos, who came from Alexan- 
 dria, in the neighborhood of which city, accord- 
 ing to Philo, the Essenes were not only numer- 
 ous but were held in high estimation." (Vol. 
 iv. p. 85.) It would seem from this that Apol- 
 los only continued to do at Corinth what he 
 first began at Ephesus. 
 
 No man of any age suffered so much abuse, 
 nor was there ever one whose memory labored 
 under such a weight of obloquy as that of 
 Paul — first from the followers of Apollos ; 
 and afterwards from the Catholics of the 
 second century, when the mother of God 
 rose like a new star in the heavens. The 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 55 
 
 first half of the Acts was written, as will be 
 shown, expiressly to exalt Peter over him and 
 degrade him from the rank of an Apostle. The 
 Revelation ascribed to St. John is nothing but 
 a bitter tirade of denunciation against Paul and 
 his followers. He is called a liar, "the false 
 prophet," who with the beast was cast alive into 
 a lake of burning fire. He is the great red 
 dragon who stood before the woman ready to 
 devour the child Jesus as soon as he was born, 
 and who warred with Michael and the angels. 
 Paul is not only denounced, but Christ himself 
 is made to declare his status in the Godhead. 
 "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto 
 you these things in the churches." (xxii. 16.) 
 What the things were to which the angel was 
 to bear testimony, sufficiently appears in every 
 portion of the book of Revelation. Why was 
 Paul the subject of so much abuse ? There can 
 be but one answer. It was because of the way 
 in which he taught Christ in all the churches, 
 which he had learned from the Apostles in his 
 interviews with them at Jerusalem, and probably 
 from Joseph and Mary themselves, for they oc- 
 curred about the year A.D. 40. 
 
56 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Review of the past. — What follows in the future. 
 
 Let us assume a stand at the beginning of 
 Adrian's reign, A.D. 117, and make a survey of 
 the Christian world as it presents itself at that 
 day. A half-century has passed since the death 
 of Paul."" Since then, Rome has been without a 
 Christian population. Driven from the city 
 through the cruel butcheries of the tyrant, they 
 took refuge in the provinces, especially Asia 
 Minor, where they remained until the reign of 
 Adrian and his successor, the tolerant Antoni- 
 nus Pius. In the mean time, the Therapeutan 
 element of Christianity had been steadily on the 
 increase, while that of Paul had correspondingly 
 declined. The proclamation of Adrian, or rather 
 his letter to Fundanus, a governor of one of the 
 provinces, prohibiting the punishment of Chris- 
 tians on account of their religion, was the first 
 intimation from the capital of the empire that 
 
'or the Enigmas of Christianity. 57 
 
 they could return in safety. From this time 
 Christians began to return to Rome in a steady 
 stream, so that within the next twenty years they 
 had so increased in numbers that they once 
 more take a place in history, and are found 
 mixed up in the history of the imperial city. 
 
 But at this time Christians, in their contest 
 with the Pagans, found the evidence of Christi- 
 anity, as it then stood, not sufficient to contend 
 with the infidehty of the age. The old religion 
 of Rome was hallowed by time, supported by 
 the learned men of that day, and upheld by the 
 power of the State. The Gospels had not yet 
 appeared ; the world was without a miracle ; 
 Mary, the bride of Heaven, afterwards the cen- 
 tral figure in the Hierarchy of the orthodox, had 
 no place in history. Peter had not been in 
 Rome, or John in Asia. The personal influence 
 of Paul and his immediate followers had kept 
 alive the spirit of Christianity in Asia ; but now 
 Paul is no more, and the influence of his name 
 has nearly passed away. The proof that there 
 ever were such persons as Christ and his dis- 
 ciples had become faint. The dim light of tra- 
 dition, and what Paul, and his companion Bar- 
 s' 
 
58 The Christ cf Paul, 
 
 nabas, said of him in their epistles, comprised 
 about all the evidence at that day to sustain the 
 claims of Christianity. But Paul himself had 
 not seen Christ, except under such circumstan- 
 ces as might excite suspicion of either delusion 
 or fraud. He had seen Peter, and remained 
 with him, in the first place fifteen days ; and 
 afterwards went to Jerusalem, where he saw all of 
 the disciples who were then living. What Paul 
 learned from the disciples, with his vision near 
 Damascus, was sufficient to convince him of the 
 reality of Christ and the truth of the rehgion he 
 taught. But the proof all lay within himself. 
 The genuine epistles of Peter, as we will show, 
 were so corrupted by the men of the second 
 century, that we have no means of knowing how 
 much of the original remains or how much has 
 been added. The epistle of James, which is the 
 only writing by an Apostle, or any one else, 
 that has come down to us from the Apostolic 
 age without some evidence of fraud and corrup- 
 tion, only speaks of Christ as a just man, and 
 makes no mention of the prodigies and wonders 
 claimed to have taken place at the time of his 
 birth and death ; nor does he take notice of the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 59 
 
 miracles and wonderful things spoken of in the 
 Gospels. The proof, whatever it may have 
 been, that Christ ever existed, was too weak to 
 overcome or even contend against the skepti- 
 cism of the age. 
 
 So far we have said nothing of the Hebrew 
 Gospel of Matthew, because it was cast to one 
 side, for the reason that it was a standing argu- 
 ment against the Alexandrian ideas of the Lo- 
 gos — and was regarded as of no authority in the 
 church until it had been improved by impor- 
 tant additions made afterwards, and passed into 
 the present Greek version. With such proof as 
 existed at the time we write of, Christianity 
 could not hold its ground against the great 
 pressure brought to bear it down — much less 
 make headway against such powerful opposition. 
 The time to supply new proof of the reality of 
 Christ was favorable. All the scenes in his life 
 lay within the boundaries of Galilee, Samaria, 
 and Judea — the greater part in and about Jeru- 
 salem. Since his death the Legions of Rome 
 had been there, and left nothing standing except 
 a few towers, reserved for military defence. 
 The silence of death, for almost a half century, 
 
6o The Christ of Paul, 
 
 had reigned in the streets of Jerusalem. The 
 greater part of the Jewish people had been put 
 to death by the sword, or carried away into 
 captivity. All who lived during the time of 
 Christ, by age and the calamities of war had 
 gone to their graves. We shall soon see the 
 Synoptics appear in intervals such as circum- 
 stances demanded, each bearing the name of 
 an Apostle, or the name of some one who wrote 
 at their dictation. A little further down in the 
 century we will find men engaged in laying the 
 foundation of a church, whose claims to infalli- 
 bility and supremacy are based on "apostolic 
 succession." When we come to this period we 
 will find all ecclesiastical history to consist of 
 traditions, and a time in the world's life which 
 is populated by Bishops and high-church dig- 
 nitaries, who pass before us without speech or 
 action, like shadows on a wall. We shall find 
 Peter has been in Rome ; John at Ephesus ; 
 Paul in Gaul, Spain, and Britain. We will find 
 parties engaged in exalting Peter above all the 
 other Apostles — and the same influence at work 
 to put down Paul. Again we will see Paul re- 
 stored to favor, but his writings defaced by for- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 6 1 
 
 geries, to conform to the doctrines of the day. 
 We shall also see Christians enter into quarrels 
 among themselves, which continue through cen 
 turies. Books are forged, traditions manufac- 
 tured, and the works of the Fathers shamefully 
 altered and corrupted. Later in the century, 
 brought out by a pressure which made it ne- 
 cessary, the fourth Gospel will appear, and Chris- 
 tianity pass from the Alexandrian Logos to the 
 Incarnate God. By casting our eyes still further 
 down the centuries, we will see Christianity and 
 the philosophy of Plato strangely allied, which 
 brings us to the era of the Trinity. Let us first 
 inquire into the origin of the first three Gospels 
 
62 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOW THE FOUR GOSPELS ORIGINATED. 
 
 The origin of the Gospels has proved a Ser- 
 bonian bog, in which many writers who have 
 attempted an explanation have floundered with- 
 out finding solid ground. Scarcely two writers 
 agree. Why should there be any doubt in a 
 matter of so much importance, where the evi- 
 dence could so readily be obtained at the time 
 they were written, and so safely guarded and 
 preserved ? Truth, in a historic period like 
 that in which it is claimed the Gospels were 
 written, need not be left in the dark. The true 
 difficulty has grown out of the fact, that writers 
 who have undertaken to give the origin of the 
 Gospels have looked, as men do in most other 
 cases, to outside sources for information ; where- 
 as the explanation of the origin is to be found 
 within the Gospels themselves, and nowhere 
 else. By looking for hght where none is to be 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. ^2) 
 
 found, writers on this subject have had their 
 attention withdrawn from the direction where 
 the truth is to be discovered. If we bear in 
 mind that men eighteen hundred years ago 
 were much like men of to-day, that the emotion 
 or eiifect a given event or occurrence produces 
 in the minds of men of our own time would be 
 the same as upon those who hved in the first part 
 of the second century, we have a compass, such 
 as it is, to guide us through this Cimmerian 
 darkness. What would excite ridicule, or ap- 
 pear false and improbable to intelligent minds 
 of our own times, would appear equally so to 
 such minds as Pliny and Tacitus at their ages 
 of the world. 
 
 In imagination let us take a stand at the be- 
 ginning of the second century, and make our- 
 selves citizens of the Roman empire under the 
 reign of Adrian. We can well imagine how the 
 minds of thinking and intelligent people were 
 affected on the first appearance of the present 
 Greek version of Matthew's Gospel. It set forth 
 some of the niost astounding events in the his- 
 tory of the world, and which the world heard of 
 for the first time. When Christ was put to 
 
64 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 death, all the land, from the sixth to the ninth 
 hour, was covered with darkness ; the veil of 
 the temple was rent in twain from the top to the 
 bottom ; the earth did quake, and the rocks 
 were rent asunder ; the graves were opened, 
 and many bodies of saints which slept arose 
 and came out of their graves, and went into the 
 holy city and appeared unto many. Suppose 
 that some morning we should pick up our daily 
 paper, and find under the telegraph head an an- 
 nouncement of like events as having occurred in 
 London or Paris. At first we might be fear- 
 fully startled, but would soon feel satisfied that 
 it was all a hoax, after the style of Professor 
 Locke's story of the Moon. If the authors of 
 the story expected to accomplish anything by 
 such startling announcements, they failed by at- 
 tempting too much. Whether the earth was 
 covered with darkness, or was shaken by an 
 earthquake, or the dead got out of their graves 
 and went down into the city, were facts easily 
 inquired into, in that age of the world. 
 
 Matthew further states that a star went before 
 the wise men of the East, till it came and stood 
 over where the young child was. How could a 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 65 
 
 star a million of miles off lead any one on this 
 earth, and how could it at that distance be in a 
 position to indicate a spot on the earth where 
 the child was ? He also states, that when Herod 
 found he was mocked he was wroth, and sent 
 forth and slew all the children that were in 
 Bethlehem and all the coast thereof, from two 
 years old and under. We can readily imagine 
 the Pagans, who composed the learned and in- 
 telligent men of their day, at work in exposing the 
 story of Herod's cruelty, by showing that, con- 
 sidering the extent of territory embraced in the 
 order, and the population within it, the assumed 
 destruction of life stamped the story false and 
 ridiculous. A Governor of a Roman province 
 who dared make such an order would be so 
 speedily overtaken by the vengeance of the 
 Roman people, that his head would fall from 
 his body before the blood of his victims had time 
 to dry. Archelaus, his son, was deposed for 
 offences not to be spoken of when compared 
 with this massacre of the infants. 
 
 But that part of the first Gospel which re- 
 lated to the dream of Joseph and the concep- 
 tion of Mary was what most excited the criticism 
 
66 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 and ridicule of the people of that day. The 
 whole and sole foundation of the new religion 
 was a dream. The simplicity of Joseph, too, 
 provoked a smile, if nothing more. The story 
 at the sepulchre was overdrawn, and threw dis- 
 credit over all. " And behold, there was a 
 great earthquake : for the angel of the Lord 
 descended from heaven, and came and rolled 
 back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. 
 His countenance was like lightning, and his 
 raiment white as snow." {^Matthewx.'XNm.. 2, 3.) 
 Such aerial bodies are not given to the employ-- 
 ments assigned to the angel in this case. Roll- 
 ing stones, say the wise men, by spiritual es- 
 sences is ridiculous and absurd. Besides, who 
 knows anything of the great earthquake ? We 
 find no account of it, nor is it even mentioned 
 anywhere else. 
 
 So men reasoned eighteen hundred years ago 
 — and so they would to-day. It is evident that 
 the author of the first Gospel had overdone his 
 part, and injured the cause he meant to advance. 
 The blunders and mistakes of the first Gospel 
 made it necessary that there should be a second. 
 This gave rise to a second Gospel, not by the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 67 
 
 same hand, but by some other, who felt the 
 pressure that had been brought to bear on 
 Matthew. 
 
 As this second Gospel was written with a 
 special purpose, we must expect a great resem- 
 blance in it to the first, except where the former 
 makes statements which were the occasion of 
 so much criticism on the part of the philoso- 
 phers ; and in such cases, the best course to pur- 
 sue would be to say nothing. Naked contra- 
 diction would not answer. Mark has not a word 
 to say about the story of Joseph and the angel. 
 He omits the earthquake at the crucifixion, and 
 the resurrection of the dead, for these things 
 were susceptible of disproof; but tells of the 
 darkness, and the rent in the temple, because 
 the former was comparative, and may have been 
 a dark cloud in the heavens ; and as to the case 
 of the temple, no one could disprove the story, 
 for it was destroyed. The story of the angel 
 and stone is entirely omitted, but the stone is 
 removed from the mouth of the sepulchre when 
 the women appear, and a young man is found 
 in the inside, who is presumed to have done it. 
 Matthew says that Joseph of Arimathea deposit- 
 
68 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 ed the body of Christ in the sepulchre, and then 
 rolled a great stone to the door. Afterwards 
 the priest and Pharisees caused the entrance to 
 be made secure, for fear that the body would be 
 stolen, and the disciples then claim that he had 
 risen from the dead. If so, say the philoso- 
 phers, the work was not so poorly done that one 
 young man could roll the stone from the door, 
 as stated by Mark. It would be beyond his 
 strength. 
 
 Luke removes the objection ; when the wo- 
 men come to the sepulchre in the morning they 
 found the stone removed, and the body of Christ 
 was missing. There was no young man inside, 
 but two men were found standing on the outside, 
 who, no doubt, were competent to do the work. 
 The story of the star which led the wise 
 men, and the murder of the infants at Bethlehem, 
 is also omitted. We are justified in saying that 
 those who were engaged in getting up the first 
 Gospel, or those who succeeded them, were 
 driven to abandon some false and impossible 
 and improbable things stated in that Gospel, by 
 proof, in some cases, of their falsehood, and in 
 others by the force of argument and ridicule. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 69 
 
 Matthew had related the story of Joseph and the 
 angel, and that admitted of no change or modi- 
 fication. Mark says nothing about it, but 
 silence will not answer ; for the philosophers 
 still claim that all depends upon a dream, and' 
 the dreams of Joseph are no better than the 
 dreams of any other man. If the story could 
 not be modified, it might be corroborated. So, 
 when it came to Luke's turn to speak he adds 
 the story of Zacharias, and the interview be- 
 tween Mary and the angel Gabriel. All now 
 occurs in daylight, and dreams which had been 
 the subject of so much ridicule are dispensed 
 with. 
 
 When Zacharias went to the temple to burn 
 incense, he found on the outside a great multi- 
 tude of people. The crowd has no connection 
 with the story, except as these people are want- 
 ed for witness as to what happened in the sanc- 
 tuary. While Zacharias was offering incense 
 within, there appeared to him an angel standing 
 on the right side of the altar. The position of 
 the angel is defined with precision, that it might 
 not be claimed that what appeared to him was 
 a phantom. Zacharias saw him and was afraid. 
 
yo The Christ of Paul, 
 
 As further evidence that the angel was not some 
 optical illusion, Gabriel spoke, and gave Zacha- 
 rias such information about the future birth of 
 a son to him that he was disposed to doubt the 
 truth of it. As a punishment for his reasonable 
 doubts, he is struck dumb. The interview con- 
 tinued so long that the crowd on the outside 
 began to be uneasy, and when Zacharias did 
 come out he had lost the power of speech. 
 This convinced the multitude (but how, is not 
 stated) that he had seen a vision in the temple. 
 After this, Gabriel made a visit to Mary in open 
 day, and held a conversation, in which he an- 
 nounced to her the birth of a son through the 
 overshadowing influence of the Holy Ghost, 
 who would reign over the house of Jacob for- 
 ever. Then follows the scene between Mary 
 and her cousin Elisabeth. 
 
 In Luke's account of the announcement of 
 the birth of Christ by divine agency, the story 
 of Joseph is entirely omitted, and new witnesses 
 are introduced. His story was well studied ; 
 every precaution was taken to silence- cavil and 
 make such a case as would remove doubts. 
 The blunders of Matthew were not to be repeat- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. ']\ 
 
 ed. The birth of Christ and John, who was 
 afterwards called the Baptist, are ingeniously 
 associated in the announcement of the angel, to 
 give color to what is said of them in the Gos- 
 pels afterwards. 
 
 What objections were made by the philoso- 
 phers to the story of Luke at the time, we have 
 no means of knowing ; but if any were made, 
 there is no subsequent effort to improve it, and 
 so it remains to this day. 
 
 The question interests us to know when and 
 from whom did Luke get his information. If he 
 had it from any one who had the means of 
 knowing what he tells us, it must have been 
 from Paul, for we have no knowledge that he 
 had any acquaintance, or relations of any kind, 
 with either of the disciples. He was Paul's 
 companion : we find him with Paul at Troas, 
 A.D.50; thence he attended him to Jerusalem, 
 continued with him during his troubles in Judea, 
 and sailed in the same ship with him when he 
 was sent a prisoner to Rome, where he stayed 
 with him during his two years' confinement. He 
 was with him during his second imprisonment, 
 and, as we will show in the proper place, he died 
 
7 2 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 with Paul in Rome, and was one of the victims 
 of Nero's reign. If Paul knew what Luke states 
 as to the divine emanation of Christ, why does 
 he not make some allusion to it in his numerous 
 epistles ? — and how can we understand that he 
 could, with such knowledge, deny this divine 
 creation, and preach to the last that Christ was 
 born according to natural law ? 
 
 Luke, too, made mistakes, which John after- 
 wards corrected in the fourth Gospel. 
 
 We can best illustrate the claim that the three 
 last Gospels were written in the order they ap- 
 peared, as a necessity to meet the objections 
 and cavils of the philosophers, by taking some 
 leading subject which is mentioned by all. Take 
 the case of the resurrection. Matthew says : 
 " And when they saw him, they worshipped 
 him : but some doubted." (Matt, xxviii. 17.) 
 To leave the question where Matthew leaves it 
 would be fatal. In such a case there must be 
 no doubt. Mark makes Christ appear three 
 times under such circumstances as to render a 
 mistake next to impossible, and to silence the 
 most obstinate skepticism. He first appears to 
 Mary Magdalene, who was convinced that it 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. J^ 
 
 was Christ, because she went and told the dis- 
 ciples that he had risen, and that she had seen 
 him. They disbelieved, nor could they be con- 
 vinced until he appeared to them. They in 
 turn told it to the other disciples, who were also 
 skeptical ; and, that they might be convinced, 
 Christ also appeared to them as they sat at meat, 
 when he upbraided them for their unbelief. 
 
 This story is much improved in the hands of 
 Mark, but, in the anxiety to make a clear case, 
 it is overdone, as often happens when the object 
 is to remedy or correct an oversight or mistake 
 previously made. There was a large amount of 
 skepticism to be overcome, but the proof offered 
 was sufficient to do it, and remove all doubts 
 from the minds of the disciples. Considering 
 Christ had told the disciples he would rise, why 
 did they doubt at all ? Owing to some strange 
 oversight, neither Matthew nor Mark says in 
 what way Christ made his appearance — -whether 
 it was in the body or only in the spirit. If in 
 the latter, it would be fatal to the whole theory 
 of the resurrection. We conclude from what 
 followed, that the philosophers of that day, who 
 would concede nothing to the claims of Christi- 
 4 
 
74 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 anity, took advantage of this oversight, and de- 
 nied the resurrection of Christ in the body. It 
 was the business of Luke to put this disputed 
 question in its true light, and silence the ob- 
 jection. He says that when Christ appeared 
 and spoke to the disciples they were afraid. 
 " But they were terrified and affrighted, and 
 supposed that they had seen a spirit." {Luke 
 xxiv. 37.) Christ then showed the wounds in his 
 hands and feet. " And they gave him a piece of 
 a broiled fish, and of a honeycomb. And he took 
 it, and did eat before them." (Luke xxiv. 42, 43.) 
 Now who dare doubt? Why some doubted, 
 as Matthew says they did, is hard to explain. 
 The account of Luke should have satisfied the 
 philosophers that it was a body and not a spirit 
 that appeared to the disciples. But we can be- 
 lieve they were not, from what is afterwards 
 said on this subject. The story of the fish and 
 honeycomb was incredible and absurd. It was 
 a fish-story. If true, why did Matthew and 
 Mark fail to mention it ? 
 
 Luke had overdone the matter, and instead 
 of convincing the Pagans, he only excited their 
 ridicule. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 75 
 
 Now comes John's turn. He does not omit 
 entirely the story of Christ eating fish, for that 
 would not do, after there had been so much said 
 about it. He might leave it to be inferred that 
 Luke made a mistake, so he modifies the story 
 and omits the ridiculous part of it. The scene 
 is laid on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias. 
 Under the direction of Christ, Peter drew his 
 net to land full of fish. " Jesus saith unto them, 
 Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst 
 ask him, Who art thou ? knowing that it was 
 the Lord. Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, 
 and giveth them, andfishV[k&vi\%e.'' {John xxi. 
 12, 13.) It does not appear from this account 
 that Christ ate of the fish at all. He took the fish 
 and gave to the disciples ; the inference is, that 
 they were the ones that ate. In Luke the state- 
 ment is reversed ; — the disciples gave the fish 
 to Christ, and he ate. John has taken out of 
 the story that which was absurdj but he leaves 
 us to infer that Luke was near-sighted or careless 
 in his account of what took place. If you leave 
 out of Luke's account the part that relates to 
 the fish and honeycomb, he fails to prove what 
 it really was which appeared to the disciples. 
 
76 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Christ, he says, said, " Behold my hands and 
 my feet, that it is I myself." (Ch. xxiv. 39.) 
 "And while they yet believed not for joy, and 
 wondered, he said unto them. Have ye here any 
 meat?" (Ch. xxiv. 41.) It seems from this 
 that the disciples could not be convinced until 
 Christ had actually eaten something. Now if 
 you strike out the eating part, which John 
 does, and which no doubt the ridicule cast upon 
 it drove him to do, Luke leaves the question 
 open just where he found it. It was the busi- 
 ness of John to leave it clean, and put an end 
 to all cavil. 
 
 Jesus appeared to the disciples when they as- 
 sembled at Jerusalem. " And when he had so 
 said, he shewed unto them his hands and his 
 side." (jfohn xx. 20.) They were satisfied, 
 and no doubts were expressed. But Thomas 
 was not present, and when he was told that 
 Jesus had appeared to the disciples, he refused 
 to believe, nor would he, " Except I shall see in 
 his hands the print of the nails, and put my 
 finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my 
 hand into his side, I will not believe." {John 
 XX. 25.) Now if Thomas can be convinced with 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. yj 
 
 all his doubts, it would be foolish after that to 
 deny that Christ was not in the body when he 
 appeared to his disciples. 
 
 After eight days Christ again appears, with- 
 out any object that we can discover but to con- 
 vince _Thomas. Then said he to Thomas, 
 " Reach hither thy finger, and behold my 
 hands ; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it 
 into my side ; and be not faithless, but be- 
 lieving." {John XX. 27.) It is not stated whether 
 he did as he was directed ; but he was con- 
 vinced, and exclaimed, " My Lord and my 
 God." 
 
 What fault the Pagans found with this account 
 we have not the means of knowing ; but if they 
 still disbelieved, they were more skeptical than 
 Thomas himself. We should be at a loss to 
 understand why the writers of the first three 
 Gospels entirely omitted the story of Thomas, 
 if we were not aware that when John wrote the 
 state of the public mind was such, that proof of 
 the most unquestionable character was demand- 
 ed that Christ had risen in the body. John 
 selected a person who claimed he was hard to 
 convince, and if the evidence was such as to 
 
78 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 satisfy him, it ought to satisfy the balance of 
 the world. 
 
 John's services are again required to repair 
 the blunders and oversights of the writers of the 
 first three Gospels in relation to the body of 
 Christ after the crucifixion. Matthew states 
 that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went 
 on the first day of the week to see the sepul- 
 chre. No other purpose is expressed. Mark 
 says that early in the morning of the first day 
 of the week, Mary Magdalene and Mary the 
 mother of James and Salome brought spices 
 to anoint the body. According to Luke, after 
 the women who had followed Christ from Gali- 
 lee had seen the body deposited in the tomb, 
 they returned and prepared spices and oint- 
 ments, and rested the Sabbath day. The body 
 was deposited in the tomb some time on Friday, 
 and remained until Sunday morning, on the first 
 day of the Jewish week. Doubtless, in the cli- 
 mate of Syria, the body in the mean time must 
 have undergone such a change as to make it 
 difficult to either embalm or even anoint it. 
 The Pagans at that day could hardly fail to take 
 advantage of this mistake or blunder. But John 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 79 
 
 again comes to the rescue and sets the matter 
 right. According to him, Joseph of Arimathea 
 had permission to take the body, which he did, 
 and carried it away. " And there came also 
 Nicodemus (which at the first came to Jesus by 
 night) and brought a mixture of myrrh and 
 aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. Then 
 took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in 
 linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of 
 the Jews is to bury." {John -ki-x.. 39, 40.) 
 
 John now fully silenced the cavils of the enemy 
 and taken the proper steps to preserve the body 
 until the morning of the third day. 
 
 The subject might be further pursued, but 
 enough has been said to furnish a key to the 
 origin of the Gospels. Christians in their con- 
 tests with the Pagans resemble the course of a 
 retreating army, which falls back to take a 
 stronger position. Each time the position is 
 improved, until one at last is found which is 
 impregnable. We can readily see how it is 
 that the first three Gospels so closely resemble 
 each other, the exact language for whole pas- 
 sages being alike in all. Mark copies Matthew, 
 and Luke uses the words of both. It is only 
 
So The Christ of Paul, 
 
 when the last undertakes to improve or modify 
 something written by those who wrote pre- 
 viously, that the difference becomes obvious. 
 That the Christians in the beginning of the sec- 
 ond century had books of some kind before 
 the three first Gospels appeared in the present 
 shape is beyond all dispute. The sacred writ- 
 ings of the Therapeutse, as we have shown, 
 were full of the most sound morality, and con- 
 tained all the essential principles of Christianity. 
 These writings were ancient — had been regarded 
 as sacred for generations among them, and were 
 so much like the present Gospels that Eusebius 
 claimed them to be the same, and that the 
 Therapeutse were Christians. No doubt the 
 Hebrew Gospel of Matthew was extant, and if 
 it was rejected by the Christians of that day, 
 because it did not contain the two first chapters 
 of the Greek version, there was no reason why 
 they should reject the Sermon on the Mount, 
 and all the sublime and pure religion taught by 
 Christ. The sacred writings of the Therapeutae 
 — the Hebrew version of Matthew, the Epistle of 
 James and the first of Peter — furnished the prin- 
 ciples and doctrines which now form the life of 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 8 1 
 
 Christianity ; and the great want of the day — that 
 is, some proof of the actual existence of the 
 person of Christ, by those who had seen him and 
 were familiar with him before his death — was 
 supplied in the first three Gospels, by the testi- 
 mony of those who claimed to be his disciples, 
 or by those who, it is said, wrote at their dic- 
 tation. 
 
 In what quarter of the globe were the Synop- _ 
 tics written, and by whom ? All that can be 
 sard on this subject with certainty is, that the 
 Greek version of Matthew, the source of all, 
 was not written in Judea, or by one who knew 
 anything of the geography of the country, or 
 the history of the Jews. He was ignorant of 
 both. What excuse was there but ignorance 
 for making the order for the massacre of the 
 infants to include Bethlehem, and all the coast 
 thereof, which would take in at least the one- 
 half of all Judea, and involve in one common 
 slaughter, according to the calculations of learn- 
 ed men, several thousand innocent children ? 
 The Greek writer of Matthew evidently believed 
 that Bethlehem was an insignificant hamlet, 
 situated on the coast of the Mediterranean, 
 
82 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 whereas it .is as far in the interior as Jerusalem, 
 and not far from the centre of Judea. The 
 writer's ignorance of Jewish history will appear 
 still more conspicuous, when we speak of the 
 application which he makes of prophecy to the 
 person of Jesus. Whoever the writer may have 
 been, it is evident that he received his education 
 at the college at Alexandria, where Medicine 
 and Divinity were taught, and regarded as in- 
 separable. From the union of the two, recovery 
 from diseases was ascribed to supernatural 
 powers. A fever was a demon, which was not 
 to be expelled by virtue of any material remedy, 
 but by incantations, spells, and magic. It was 
 by such power Christ cleansed the leper — healed 
 the centurion's servant — touched the hand of 
 Peter's wife's mother and drove away the fever 
 — expelled the devils from two men into swine, 
 and performed many other cures. The whole 
 of the first Gospel has an Alexandrian look not 
 easily to be mistaken — if we except the miracle 
 of the loaves and fishes, walk of Christ on the 
 water, and other wonders of a like nature, 
 which is the work of some one later in the cen- 
 tury. The deserts in the neighborhood of 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 83 
 
 Alexandria abounded with monasteries from 
 the earhest accounts of the Therapeutae to the 
 conquest of Egypt by the Mahometan power, 
 which were filled with monks who were cele- 
 brated for their piety, their miracles, their 
 power to expel devils and heal diseases. The 
 pages of Sozomen and Socrates abound with 
 the names of monks who cured the palsy, ex- 
 pelled demons, and cured the sick. (Sozomen, 
 Ecc. Hist., lib. vi., ch. 28.) 
 
84 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Tohn the son of Zebedee never in Asia Minor. — ^John the 
 Presbyter substituted. — The work of Irenasus and 
 Eusebius. — ^John the disciple has served to create an 
 enigma in history. — John of Ephesus a myth. 
 
 Was John the son of Zebedee ever in Asia ? 
 To ask a question which implies a doubt on a 
 subject that has been agreed on for almost 
 twenty centuries, will probably startle many 
 even in this age of inquiry and progress. It 
 may be a question whether he who makes a 
 discovery in science or the arts which facilitates 
 the advance of mankind, or he who contributes 
 by his labors to remove a delusion which has 
 stood in the way of progress, is most entitled to 
 the gratitude of his fellow-men. A falsehood, 
 as long as it stands unquestioned, may and does 
 receive the respect which is due to the truth ; 
 but there is a time when, no matter how hoary 
 with age, it must pass away and give place to 
 the latter. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 85 
 
 John the son of Zebedee the fisherman, upon 
 careful inquiry, can never be successfully con- 
 founded with him of Ephesus. His character, as 
 developed in the Synoptics, is composed of nega- 
 tive qualities. We find him in Jerusalem when 
 he had got to be fifty years old, without any evi- 
 dence, up to that time, that he had been out of 
 sight of the walls of the city, and no proof that 
 he said or did anything worthy of notice. His 
 name is mentioned in connection with some of 
 the great scenes in the life of Christ, but he takes 
 no part, and, like the supernumeraries on the 
 stage, his presence is only needed to fill up a re- 
 quired number. To be sure, Paul speaks of him 
 ill connection with James and Peter as pillars of 
 the church — which has no significance, as the 
 nine other disciples were all moderate men, and 
 the church at the time few in number and easily 
 managed. John of the Synoptics is not only 
 lymphatic and of negative qualities, but, from his 
 condition in life and pursuits, must have had but 
 little learning of any kind. John of the Greeks 
 is a man of learning, and a scholar. He was 
 master of the Greek, and was familiar with the 
 abstruse and subtle philosophy of that specula- 
 
86 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 tive people. He was at home in all the different 
 and various doctrines of the Gnostics, and proved 
 himself the most able man of the age in his con- 
 tests with those numerous sects which embraced 
 the most learned men of the second century. 
 In fine, this John of Galilee, whose name is sel- 
 dom mentioned, or if so, not for anything he 
 said or did, who lives to be more than fifty with- 
 out the least notice being taken of him, or allu- 
 sion made — this phlegmatic John, after he has 
 passed the meridian of life, and his powers are 
 on the decline, has all at once become a teacher, 
 and the great light of Grecian theology, and 
 wields a pen with the fire and spirit of Demos- 
 thenes ! A change and complete transformation 
 like this is nowhere else to be found in the his- 
 tory of the world. The truth is, the John of 
 Galilee is not the John of Ephesus. The latter 
 is a phantom of some Greek's brain, which has 
 served to mislead men for ages. 
 
 If John the disciple had ever passed out of Sy- 
 ria into Asia Minor, so important a fact would 
 find a place in some authentic history ; and from 
 the time he put his foot in the countjy, his mean- 
 derings, like those of Paul, would be well known 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 87 
 
 and preserved. We leave him in Jerusalem in 
 
 A.D. 50, and the next time we hear of him he 
 
 is in Ephesus. When he left Judea, and when 
 
 he arrived in Asia Minor, no one pretends to 
 
 know. From the year forty-eight, and perhaps 
 
 much sooner, to the spring of sixty-five, Paul 
 
 spent nine-tenths of his time travelling up and 
 
 down the Archipelago, establishing and visiting 
 
 the churches. He made the circuit three times, 
 
 and it was his uniform practice, in closing his 
 
 epistles to the different churches, to mention 
 
 those of the brethren who were with him, even 
 
 if they were not of much importance ; and yet 
 
 in none of them does he mention the name of 
 
 John. Considering that John was an Apostle, 
 
 this silence of Paul can be accounted for only by 
 
 the fact that he did not hear of or see him in 
 
 Asia Minor, and was in Ephesus as late as the 
 
 year sixty-four, and still later, sixty-five, and up 
 
 to that time John had not been there, for Paul 
 
 makes no mention of him. 
 
 What historical proof is there that is worthy 
 of credit, that John was ever in Asia Minor ? 
 The whole story rests on the shoulders of Ire- 
 nseus. Here is what he says : " Then, again, 
 
88 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 the church in Ephesus, founded by Paul, and 
 having John remaining among them permanent- 
 ly until the times of Trajan, is a true witness of 
 the traditions." (Book III. sec. 3.) Irenaeus cites 
 no authority, and we have a right, in a matter 
 of so much importance, to demand of him 
 some evidence that what he states is true. In 
 this absence of any reference to written testimony 
 we have a right to infer that there was none, 
 and that there was no ground for the assertion 
 but tradition. This Irenseus is forced to admit. 
 The book on heresies was written, as we shall 
 show, about A.D. 181. According to authen- 
 tic history, Paul was in Ephesus in sixty-five, 
 the last time. If the statement of Iren^us is 
 founded on tradition, and there is no other, 
 then the tradition that Paul left John in Ephe- 
 sus is one hundred and sixteen years old. We 
 will see what a tradition so old, handed down 
 to future ages, is worth, coming from Irenseus. 
 A tradition over one hundred years old, when 
 first inserted into the pages of history by one of 
 the most dishonest historians of any age, is the 
 authority we have in our day for beheving a 
 most important fact in the history of the Chris- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 89 
 
 tian church. The caption to the section from 
 which the above passage was taken will explain 
 the reason why Irenaeus undertook to misrepre- 
 sent the truth of history: "A refutation of 
 the heretics, from the fact that, in the various 
 churches, a perpetual succession of Bishops was 
 kept up." He was engaged in furnishing an 
 apostle to the churches in Asia Minor and some 
 parts of Greece, for an " apostolic succession." 
 We will find him engaged in doing a great deal 
 of this kind of business before we are done with 
 him. The proof that John was not in Ephesus 
 is conclusive. The language of Irenaeus im- 
 plies that Paul placed John in charge of the 
 church when he left for Rome for he says John 
 remained. This is not so. When Paul left 
 Ephesus, in the year A. jd. 64 or 65, he left Tim- 
 othy there in charge of the church, and he re- 
 mained until Paul got into trouble in Rome, in 
 the fall of A. D. 65, when the latter sent for him. 
 Would Paul leave the church in the charge of 
 Timothy when one of the Apostles was there, 
 especially as he was so young that some ob- 
 jected to him on account of his age ? In writing 
 to Timothy to meet him in Rome, would Paul 
 
go The Christ of Paul, 
 
 fail to make some mention of the Apostle, if he 
 had been in Ephesus when he left ? — Not one 
 word to an Apostle who would naturally take 
 charge of the church, in the absence of himself 
 and Timothy ? 
 
 It is clear, then, that John had not been in 
 Ephesus up to the fall or summer of A. D. 65, 
 when Timothy left to go to Rome ; and the 
 question is, was he there after this ? and if so, 
 when? Polycarp presided over the church at 
 Smyrna, which was not far from Ephesus, and 
 between the two points there was constant inter- 
 course by land and water ; and if John had suc- 
 ceeded Timothy at the latter place, would not 
 he, Polycarp, take some notice of so important 
 a fact ? He speaks of Paul in his letter to the 
 Philippians, and why not mention John, who 
 was one of the twelve Apostles ? Polycarp 
 lived to the end of the century, and it is claimed 
 John also lived to about that time, and as they 
 both lived so long in such close proximity, how 
 natural it would be that the intercourse between 
 them should be most intimate, and that the for- 
 mer should mention those relations with an 
 Apostle in writing to the churches he addressed. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. g I 
 
 Irenseus felt the force of this, and undertakes 
 to show that Polycarp was the hearer and disci- 
 ple of John. He says : " These things are at- 
 tested by Papias, who was John's hearer and 
 the associate of Polycarp, an ancient writer, who 
 mentions them in the fourth book of his works." 
 (Quoted in Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., book iii., chap. 
 39.) It is meant that it should be understood 
 from this passage that both Papias and Polycarp 
 had seen and heard John the Apostle. Now 
 Papias never conversed with John, the son of 
 Zebedee the fisherman, and he says so, in a 
 fragment preserved in the writings of Eusebius. 
 After quoting the passage just cited from Ire- 
 naeus, Eusebius says : " But Papias himself, in 
 the preface to his discourses, by no means as- 
 serts that he was a hearer and an eye-witness of 
 the holy Apostles, but informs us that he re- 
 ceived the doctrines of idS.'Ca. frotn their intimate 
 friends, which he states in the following words : 
 ' But I shall not regret to subjoin to my interpre- 
 tations, also for your benefit, whatsoever I have 
 at any time accurately ascertained and treasured 
 up in my memory, as I have received it from 
 the elders, and have recorded it in order to give 
 
92 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 additional confirmation to the truth by my tes- 
 timony. For I never, like many, delighted to 
 hear those that tell many things, but those that 
 teach the truth ; neither those that record foreign 
 precepts, but those that are given from the Lord- 
 to our faith, and that came from the truth itself. 
 But if I met with any one who had been a fol- 
 lower 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, Mat- 
 thew, or any other of the disciples of our Lord ; 
 what was said by Aristion, and the Presbyter 
 John, disciples of the Lord ; for I do not think 
 that I derived so much benefit from books as 
 from the living voice of those that are still sur- 
 viving.' And the same Papias of whom we now 
 speak professes to have received the declarations 
 of the Apostles from those that were in company 
 with them., and says also that he was a hearer of 
 Aristion and the Presbyter John. For, as he 
 has often mentioned them by name, he also 
 gives their statements in his own works." (Eu- 
 sebius, Ecc. Hist., book iii. chap. 39.) 
 
 He says he never conversed with John, but 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 93 
 
 with the elders, and that he was a hearer of 
 Presbyter John, and so was Polycarp. When 
 Irenaeus says that Papias conversed with John, 
 without teUing which John, he knew that no one 
 would be thought of but the disciple ; and such 
 would have been the case, had not Eusebius 
 preserved this fragment from the writings of Pa- 
 pias. Polycarp and Papias both conversed with 
 the same John, who was John the Presbyter. 
 In another place Irenaeus says : " But Polycarp 
 also was only instructed by this Apostle, and 
 had conversed with many who had seen Christ." 
 (Book iii. chap. 3, sec. 3.) This is a palpable 
 falsehood, and so appears from the passage just 
 cited. He cites no authority, but lets facts of 
 so much importance in history depend on his 
 simple word. If what is stated be true, why 
 does not Polycarp himself say something about 
 the sources from which he derived his doctrines ? 
 Nothing would give so great weight to his 
 preaching as that he derived what he taught 
 from those who had listened to Christ and his 
 Apostles. Why speak of Paul, and what he 
 taught, and not of Jesus and his disciples, and 
 what they taught ? 
 
94 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 The world is indebted to Irenaeus for the story 
 of what took place between John and Cerinthus 
 at the bath-house in Ephesus. Speaking of Po- 
 lycarp, and how in all respects he was superior 
 to Valentinianus and Marcion, he says: " There 
 are also those who heard from him (Polycarp) 
 that John, the disciple of the Lofd, going to 
 bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus 
 within, rushed out of the bath-house without 
 bathing, exclaiming, ' Let us fly, lest even the 
 bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus is with- 
 in.'" (Book iii. chap. 3.) 
 
 Now it has been shown that John the disciple 
 of the Lord never saw Polycarp, and if anything 
 of the kind ever did take place, it was between 
 Polycarp and John the Presbyter. The latter 
 is a historic character, spoken of by Polycarp, 
 who lived about this time, and was a Presbyter 
 in the church ; and it is evident that Irenseus 
 seeks to confound the Apostle with him. It is 
 for this reason he describes him in the above 
 passage as " the disciple of the Lord," for 
 which there was no reason, unless he meant to 
 deceive. We have proved that he tried it once, 
 and when the first falsehood is uttered it is easy 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 95 
 
 to fabricate a second. This is the first blow that 
 was directed by Irenseus against Cerinthus, a 
 leader among the Gnostics ; but it is only initia- 
 tory to still heavier ones which are to follow. 
 
 Marcion was a distinguished character among 
 the Gnostics, and he too must receive some 
 damaging blows at the hands of Polycarp, the 
 disciple of John. And Polycarp himself replied 
 to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and 
 said, "Dost thou know me?" — "I do know 
 thee — the first-born of Satan." — "Such," con- 
 tinues the writer, "was the horror which the 
 Apostles and the disciples had against holding 
 even a verbal communication with any of the 
 corrupters of the truth." (Book iii. chap. 3.) 
 
 The Apostle in this case was John the Pres- 
 byter, if any one, and the disciple Polycarp the 
 martyr, who had, in fact, never seen any of the 
 Apostles. It is to be noted that no authority is 
 given by Irenseus for these stories, though they 
 are introduced as some things which somebody 
 had said. Such is history. 
 
 The .value of tradition from the authority of 
 Irenaeus may be judged of by the following 
 statement he makes, evidently intended to 
 
96 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 strengthen the assertion he made about the pres- 
 ence of St. John in Asia Minor. In all cases 
 where he wants it to appear that the Apostle 
 was there, he connects the principal subject with 
 other statements in a way as if the main fact 
 was incidentally mentioned. " Now Jesus was, 
 as it were, beginning to be thirty years old 
 when he came to receive baptism, and accord- 
 ing to those men he preached only one year, 
 reckoning from his baptism. On completing his 
 thirtieth year he suffered, being still a young 
 man, and who had by no means attained to ad- 
 vanced age. Now, that the first stage of early 
 hfe embraces thirty years, and that extends on- 
 wards to the fortieth year, every one will admit ; 
 but from the fortieth and fiftieth year a man be- 
 gins to decline towards old age, which our Lord 
 possessed, while he still fulfilled the office of 
 teacher, even as the gospel and all the elders 
 testify." " Those who were conversant in Asia 
 with John, the disciple of the Lord (affirming) 
 that John gave to them that information. And 
 he remained among them up to the time of Tra- 
 jan. Some of them, moreover, saw not only 
 John, but the other Apostles, and heard the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. gj 
 
 same account from them, and bear testimony as 
 to the validity of the statement. Which, then, 
 should we rather believe? — whether such as 
 these, or Ptolemseus, who never saw the Apos- 
 tles, and who never in his dreams attained to 
 the slightest trace of an Apostle ? " (Book ii. 
 chap. 22, sec. 5-) 
 
 It seems that Irenzeus had got into a dispute 
 with Ptolemseus, and attempts to silence him, as 
 he does all opponents, by the authority of the 
 disciples, and especially of John, who is the only 
 one he names. John, too, was in Asia at the 
 time. It is not said where the other Apostles 
 were. Ptolemseus claimed, as appears in the first 
 part of the same section, " that Christ preached 
 for one year only, and then suffered in the 
 twelfth month." The argument with Ptole- 
 mseus was, that Christ was too young, and 
 preached too short a time, to be regarded as a 
 teacher of much authority ; and in this way, as 
 Irenaeus says, " destroying his whole work, and 
 robbing him of that age which is both necessary 
 and more honorable than any other ; that more 
 advanced age, I mean, during which also, as a 
 
 teacher, he excelled all others." The objection 
 5 
 
98 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 is put down in a summary way, claiming that 
 the time of Christ's preaching extended over a 
 period of ten years. This is what the Apostles 
 stated, and what John said while he was in 
 Asia, and who remained there to the time of the 
 death of Trajan. 
 
 Ecclesiastical history claims three years only 
 as the period of Christ's ministry, but it can 
 be proven that the truth lies on the side of 
 Ptolemaeus. Did John, while he was in Asia, 
 and the other Apostles, no matter where, give 
 rise to such absurd and false traditions ? If 
 John was in Ephesus at the time Paul went to 
 Rome, in the year A. D. 65, and remained to the 
 time of Trajan, as stated by Irenaeus, he was in 
 Asia thirty-five years. During this time his 
 history must have been so interwoven with the 
 affairs of the church, holding the rank of an 
 Apostle, that nothing could be more easy than 
 to prove his presence in the country. There is 
 no difficulty in following the footsteps of Paul 
 for each year after he set out to preach the gos- 
 pel, whether in Europe or Asia ; and so with 
 any real character who has been conspicuous for 
 his talents, or from the position he held in his 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 99 
 
 day. But neither Irenaeus nor Eusebius have 
 been able to furnish the world with the least 
 evidence of a substantial character of the pre- 
 sence of John in Asia, although they have un- 
 dertaken it, and exhausted their ingenuity in 
 trying to do so. If no better proof can be given 
 of the presence of John in Asia, after a residence 
 of thirty-five years, than a grave, which may as 
 well be claimed to be that of Hannibal as that of 
 John, the world will be satisfied he never was 
 there. Eusebius has displayed his characteristic 
 ingenuity, and shown his usual disregard for truth 
 in an effort to prove that the grave of John was in 
 Ephesus, and that it was identified as late as the 
 latter part of the second or beginning of the 
 third century. He travels out of his way to do 
 it — manifests from the way he does it that he is 
 engaged in a fraud, and, between the fear of de- 
 tection and anxiety for success, he makes poor 
 work of it. He causes Polycrates, who was 
 Bishop of Ephesus, to write a letter to Victor, 
 Bishop of Rome, with the apparent purpose of 
 informing him that some mighty luminaries had 
 fallen asleep in Asia, but^ in fact, to give an op- 
 portunity to make mention of the grave of John 
 
lOO The Christ of Paul, 
 
 as being there in Ephesus. Who these lumi- 
 naries were who had fallen asleep, he does not 
 name ; but dismisses this part of the subject and 
 proceeds to say : " Moreover, John, that rested 
 on the bosom of our Lord, he also rests at 
 Ephesus." Some other matters are introduced 
 into the letter, which related to the burial of 
 Philip and his two daughters at Hierapolis ; but 
 this was only intended to conceal the real pur- 
 pose and design of the writer. 
 
 Victor was Bishop of Rome in the beginning 
 of the third century, after John, if we admit he 
 was in Asia, had been dead one hundred years. 
 In writing to Victor about persons who had 
 lately died, and without saying who they were, 
 why should Polycrates make mention of the 
 grave of John as located in Ephesus, which, if 
 true, would have been as well known to all 
 Asia as the tomb of Washington is known to 
 the enlightened world to be at Mount Vernon ? 
 
 That intelligent men of the second and third 
 centuries denied and disproved the presence of 
 John in Asia, is rendered certain by the strug- 
 gles and desperate efforts of their adversaries to 
 establish the affirmative. The indications are, 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. lOl 
 
 that the philosophers proved that the person 
 whom the Christians claimed to be the Apostle 
 John was some other John ; in all probability, 
 John the Presbyter. Upon this point the proof 
 seems to have been so conclusive that the Chris- 
 tians were driven to the necessity of proving that 
 there were two Johns — one besides the presbyter. 
 Eusebius takes this task upon himself. We quote 
 from the above letter of Polycrates to Victor : 
 " For in Asia also mighty luminaries have fall- 
 en asleep, which will rise again at the last day at 
 the appearance of the Lord, when he shall come 
 with glory from heaven, and shall gather again all 
 the saints. Philip, one of the twelve Apostles, 
 sleeps in Hierapolis, and his two aged virgin 
 daughters. Another of his daughters, who lived 
 in the Holy Spirit, rests at Ephesus. More- 
 over, John, that rested on the bosom of the 
 Lord, who was a priest that bore the sacerdotal 
 plate, and martyr, and teacher, he also rests at 
 Ephesus." (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., hook iii. ch. 
 31.) Owing either to a bad translation, or de- 
 sign on the part of the writer, two distinct char- 
 acters are so run together in the same sentence, 
 that we would suppose them to be one person 
 
I02 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 if we did not know that the person who leaned 
 on the bosom of the Lord could not be the one 
 who bore the sacerdotal plate, and was a mar- 
 tyr. 
 
 It would seem from this effort to make it ap- 
 pear that there were two Johns buried at Ephe- 
 sus, that the philosophers proved that the John 
 who bore the sacerdotal plate was the one the 
 Christians were attempting to impose on the 
 world as the real John, and that the proof was 
 such that they had to yield the point, and claim 
 that there were two graves — one the martyr's, 
 and the other the Apostle's. Eusebius felt con- 
 scious that it was not safe to rest his case here, 
 and we find him reaching out in every direction 
 for further proof, satisfied with anything that 
 will give color to the fact he labors to establish. 
 
 In another place he states : " Where it is also 
 proper to observe the name of John is twice men- 
 tioned. The former of which he (Papias) men- 
 tions with Peter and James and Matthew, and 
 the other apostles ; evidently meaning the evan- 
 gelist. But in a separate point of his discourse 
 he ranks the other John with the rest not in- 
 cluded in the number of apostles, placing Aris- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 103 
 
 tion before him. He distinguishes him plainly 
 by the name of Presbyter. So that it is here 
 proved that the statement of those is true who 
 assert there were two-ol the same name in Asia, 
 that there were also two tombs in Ephesus, and 
 that both are called John's even to this day ; 
 which it is particularly necessary to observe." 
 (Eusebius, ^cr. Hist., 'booVm.. chap, xxxix.) As 
 much as to say to the objecting philosophers, If 
 you have proved that one John in Asia was the 
 Presbyter John, we prove by Papias that there 
 were two, and that one of them was the 
 Apostle. If this is so, it is only by inference. 
 But it spoils the argument when it is shown that 
 when Papias speaks of the two Johns, he does 
 not say they were in Asia, or where they were. 
 He speaks at the same time of all the Apostles, 
 or nearly so, by name, but does not mention 
 them, or any of them, in connection with any 
 place. To subserve a particular purpose, Ire- 
 nseus had asserted that John had been in Ephe- 
 sus, where he remained a long time, without the 
 least authority to sustain him. It was a bare, 
 naked assertion without proof. 
 
 In the third and fourth centuries, during the 
 
I04 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 time of Eusebius, this assertion had grown to 
 great importance, by reason that, on the fact 
 that it was so, was founded the ApostoHc suc- 
 cession of nearly all the churches in Europe, and 
 most of Asia. To maintain the presence of John 
 in Asia was as important as it was to prove that 
 Peter had been in Rome. Understanding the 
 importance of this fact, the philosophers direct- 
 ed their attacks upon it, showing that the man 
 the Christians called the Apostle was somebody 
 else. It devolved upon Eusebius, the most 
 learned man of his day, to defend the position. 
 The task exceeded his ability, but not his in- 
 clination to deceive. If we except Irenseus, no 
 writer has so studiously put himself to work to 
 impose falsehoods on the world 'as Eusebius, 
 Bishop of Caesarea. His genius was employed 
 in various ways, and especially in perverting 
 chronology. Speaking of a class of men who 
 gave themselves up to such employments, the 
 author of the " Intellectual Development of Eu- 
 rope," page 147, says : " Among those who 
 have been guilty of this literary offence, the 
 name of the celebrated Eusebius, the Bishop of 
 Caesarea in the time of Constantine, should be 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 105 
 
 designated, since in his chronography and Syn- 
 chronal tables he purposely ' perverted chro- 
 nology for the sake of making synchronisms.' 
 {Bunsen.) It is true, as Niebuhr asserts, ' He 
 is a very dishonest writer.' To a great extent, 
 the superseding of the Egyptian annals was 
 brought about by his influence. It was forgot- 
 ten, however, that of all things chronology is the 
 least suited to be an object of inspiration, and 
 that, though men may be wholly indifferent to 
 truth for its own sake, and consider it not im- 
 proper. to wi est it unscrupulously to what they 
 may suppose a just purpose, yet^that it will vin- 
 dicate itself at last." His character for truth 
 stood no better among writers of the fifth cen- 
 tury, for Socrates fairly charges that in his life 
 of Constantine he had more regard for his own 
 advancement than he had for the truth of history. 
 (Book i. ch. I.) A whole volume is devoted to 
 display the virtues and exalt the character of a 
 man who had murdered his son Crispus — his 
 nephew Licinius — suffocated his wife Fausta in 
 a steam bath, and who, to revenge a pasquinade, 
 was with difficulty restrained from the massacre 
 of the entire population of Rome. 
 
lo6 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 In another part of this volume we will have 
 occasion to detect and expose the genius of this 
 Father, in his attempt to create a chronology 
 so as to give semblance to a list of men who 
 never existed, but who were required to fill an 
 important gap in the life of the church. No fit- 
 ter instrument could be found to help consum- 
 mate the fraud conceived by Irenseus to impose 
 a spurious John on the world than Eusebius of 
 Caesarea. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 107 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Gnostics. — Irenaeus makes war on them. — His mode 
 of warfare. — The Apostolic succession and the ob- 
 ject. — No church in Rome to the time of Adrian. — 
 Peter never in Rome — nor Paul in Britain, Gaul, or 
 Spain. — Forgeries of Irenaeus. 
 
 Before we approach the principal subject 
 treated of in this section, it will be proper to say 
 something of a sect or society which in its day 
 took a leading part in the affairs of the world, 
 but which has long since disappeared from his- 
 tory, and whose former existence is now only 
 known to the careful reader. We refer to the 
 Gnostics, who for the most part flourished in the 
 second century. They were divided among 
 themselves into more than fifty different sects. 
 " The principal among them were known under 
 the names of Basilidians, Valentinians, and Mar- 
 cionites. They abounded in Egypt, Asia, 
 Rome, and were found in considerable numbers 
 in the provinces of the West. Each of these 
 
io8 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 sects could boast of its Bishops and congrega- 
 tions, of its doctors and martyrs, and instead of 
 the four Gospels adopted by the church, they 
 produced a multitude of histories, in which the 
 actions and discourses of Christ and his apostles 
 were adapted to their respective tenets." — {De- 
 cline and Fall, chap. xv. vol. I. p. 257.) They 
 supported their opinions by various fictitious 
 and apocryphal writings of Adam, Abraham, 
 Zoroaster, Christ, and the Apostles. They were 
 for the most part composed of Gentiles who 
 denied the divine authority of the Old Testa- 
 ment, and rejected the Mosaic account of the 
 creation, of the origin and fall of man, and 
 claimed that a God was unworthy of adoration, 
 who for a trivial offence of Adam and Eve pro- 
 nounced sentence of condemnation on all their 
 descendants. They adored Christ as an ^on, 
 or divine emanation, who appeared on the earth 
 to reclaim man from the paths of error and 
 point out to him the ways of truth ; but with 
 these opinions they mingled many subhme and 
 obscure tenets derived from oriental philosophy. 
 This divine ^on or emanation they consid- 
 ered was the Son of God, but was inferior to 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 109 
 
 the Father, and they rejected his humanity on 
 the principle that everything corporeal is essen- 
 tially and intrinsically evil. They agreed wfith 
 the Christians in their abhorrence of polytheism 
 and idolatry, and both regarded the former as 
 a composition oi human fraud and error, and 
 demons as the authors and patrons of the 
 latter. 
 
 As we have stated, the Gnostics for the most 
 part sprang up in the second century and dis- 
 appeared in the fourth and fifth, suppressed by 
 a law of the Emperor Constantine. " The Em- 
 peror enacted a law by which they were forbid- 
 den to assemble in their own houses of prayer, 
 in private houses, or in public places, but were 
 
 compelled to enter the Catholic church 
 
 Hence the greater number of these sectarians 
 were led by fear of consequences to join them- 
 selves to the church. Those who adhered to 
 their original sentiments did not at their death 
 leave any disciples to propagate their heresies, 
 for, owing to the restrictions to which they were 
 subjected, they were prevented from preaching 
 their doctrines." — (Sozomen, Ecc. Hist., book 
 ii. ch. 32.) 
 
no The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Thus passed from history the Gnostics, "the 
 most polite , the most learned and most wealthy of 
 the Christian name." {Decline and Fall, chap. 
 XV. vol. I. p. 256.) "Such was the character of 
 the men who, brought into collision with the 
 orthodox Christians in the second century, be- 
 came involved in the most violent and bitter 
 struggles in which men were ever engaged. It 
 was to defeat and destroy these men that Ire- 
 nseus devoted the labor of a lifetime, that on 
 their ruin he might erect the Catholic church. 
 The undertaking was Herculean, but the means 
 employed were well chosen, vigorously and 
 tenaciously pursued, and its success is one of 
 the most remarkable and exceptional cases in 
 history of the triumph of cunning, falsehood, and 
 fraud. The grand idea was, that Christ, the 
 Son of God, was the founder of the church on 
 earth, and that, at his death, the power to estab- 
 lish others after him he conferred on the Apos- 
 tles, and upon no one else. As they might 
 confer this power on others as they had received 
 it from Christ, so these last could in turn do the 
 same to those who followed them, and in this 
 way continue the church through all time. This 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. Ill 
 
 is what Irenaeus calls the "Apostolic succes- 
 sion." A church which could not prove its 
 connection with Christ through this Apostolic 
 chain was no church at all, and it amounted to 
 impiety and vile heresy for such a pretended 
 church to undertake to explain or understand 
 his gospel. Such a church has no relation to 
 Christ, but with demons and evil spirits. 
 
 Irenaeus found it much less difficult to show 
 that there was no such succession in the Gnos- 
 tic churches than he did in proving that it ex- 
 isted in his own. To do this, as we will show 
 in another place, he was forced to introduce on 
 to the stage the names of at least nine persons 
 who, he claimed, had been Bishops of Rome, 
 most of whom were mere myths and never had 
 an existence, and those who had were never in 
 Rome at all. 
 
 Christ, at his death, he further maintains, not 
 only conferred on the Apostles the sole right to 
 establish churches, but also imparted to them 
 some divine knowledge or gifts which they on 
 their death intrusted to the church as a special 
 deposit for the benefit of all who yielded obedi- 
 ence to her authority. These precious gifts left 
 
112 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 with the church Irenseus compares to money or , 
 riches deposited in a bank by a rich man. But 
 we will let him speak for himself: "Since, 
 therefore, we have such proof, it is not neces- 
 sary to seek the truth among others, which is 
 easy to obtain from the church ; since the Apos- 
 tles, like a rich man depositing his money in a 
 bank, lodged, in her hands most copiously all 
 things pertaining to the truth ; so that every 
 man, whosoever, can (/raw from her the water of 
 eternal life. For she is the entrance to life, and 
 all others are thieves and robbers." (Book iii. 
 chap. 4, sec. i.) Having established the princi- 
 pal proposition by his mere assertion (which is 
 his way of making history of all kinds), Ire- 
 nseus next proceeds to show that the Gnostics 
 could not trace any connection with a church 
 founded by the Apostles. " For prior to Val- 
 entinianus (he says), those who follow Valentini- 
 anus had no existence : nor did those from 
 Marcion exist before Marcion ; nor, in short, 
 had any of those malignant-minded people, 
 whom I have above enumerated, any being pre- 
 vious to the initiators and inventors of their per- 
 versity." (Book iii. chap. 4, sec. 3.) 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 1 3 
 
 The ancient Father has, so far, established two 
 of his main propositions : first, that a church must 
 derive its origin through the Apostles, or some 
 one of them, to be genuine ; and second, that 
 there was no such connection in the churches of 
 the Gnostics ; and it only remains to show that 
 the church claiming to be orthodox had. He 
 declines to point out the order of succession in 
 all the churches, but consents to do it in the 
 case of Rome, which, he says, according to tra- 
 dition, derived from the Apostles, was founded 
 and organized at Rome by the two glorious 
 Apostles, Peter and Paul. (Book iii. chap. 3, 
 sec. 2.) The church at Rome, founded by such 
 great lights as Peter and Paul, Irenseus continues, 
 should be regarded of the highest authority in 
 the church, for, he says, "it is a matter of ne- 
 cessity that every church should agree with this 
 •church, on account of its pre-eminent authority, 
 that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the 
 apostolical tradition has been preserved contin- 
 uously by those faithful men who exist every- 
 where." (Sec. 2.) 
 
 As Peter was selected to be head of the 
 church, and Rome the capital of the Christian 
 
114 "^^^ Christ of Paul, 
 
 world, the scheme to establish a church on the 
 ground of an Apostolic succession must fail, 
 unless it can appear that Peter had not only been 
 there at some time, but that he was also the 
 founder of a church at the holy city. A letter 
 said to have been written by Clement, the third 
 Bishop of Rome, is selected as the medium by 
 which it is made to appear that Peter had been 
 in Rome ; and Irenseus took upon himself to 
 show what he was engaged in while there. At 
 the proper place we will show that this Clement 
 is a fiction, brought on the stage as a link in the 
 Apostolic chain forged- by the great criminal of 
 the second century. 
 
 Now follows a forgery so apparent on its face, 
 that it does not require the skill of an expert to 
 detect it. 
 
 "But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let 
 us come to those who, in these last days, have 
 wrestled manfully for the faith ; let us take the 
 noble examples of our own age. Through envy, 
 the faithful and most righteous pillars of the 
 church have been .persecuted even to the most 
 dreadful deaths. Let us place before your eyes 
 the good Apostles. Peter, by unjust envy, un- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 1 5 
 
 derwent not one or two, but many labors : and 
 thus having borne testimony unto death, he 
 went into the place of glory, which was due to 
 him. Through envy, Paul obtained the reward 
 of patience. Seven times he was in bonds ; he 
 was scourged ; was stoned. He preached both 
 in the East and in the West, leaving behind him 
 the glorious report of his faith. And thus hav- 
 ing taught the whole world of righteousness, 
 and reached the fullest extremity of the West, 
 he suffered martyrdom by the command of the 
 governors, and departed out of this world, and 
 went to the holy place, having become a most 
 exemplary pattern of patience." {Epistle I. of 
 Clement to Corinthians, sec. 5.) By the side of 
 this extract we will lay a passage of Irenaeus. 
 Speaking of the writers of the Gospels, he 
 says : " Matthew also issued a written Gospel 
 among the Hebrews, in their own dialect, while 
 Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and 
 laying the foundations of the church." (Book 
 iii. chap, i.) Now, we assert with confidence, 
 that the hand which penned the first passage 
 wrote them both. It is not said in so many words, 
 in Clement's letter, that Peter was in Rome, but 
 
1 1 6 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 it is to be inferred, as in the case of John at Eph- 
 esus. Irenseus seldom states anything which is 
 positively untrue in direct language, but makes 
 falsehood inferential. The passage we have 
 quoted does not contain a single truth, except 
 as it relates to Paul. Paul and Peter were never 
 engaged together in laying the foundation of a 
 church. They quarrelled in Damascus and 
 could never agree. The doctrine of circumci- 
 sion formed an impassable wall between them, 
 and, as we will show, was never given up by 
 Peter. Besides, it is not true that Peter had 
 anything to do in laying the foundation of 
 the church at Rome.. 
 
 Christians, during the reign of Claudius in 
 Rome, were too few in number and too poor to 
 form a church, especially such an one as would 
 require the office of a Bishop. Renan, in speak- 
 ing of the church in the time of Claudius, says 
 it was composed of a " little group — every one 
 smelt of garlic. These ancestors of Roman pre- 
 lates were poor proletaries, dirty, alike clown- 
 ish, clothed in filthy gabardines, having the bad 
 breath of people who live badly. Their retreats 
 breathed that odor of wretchedness exhaled by 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 117 
 
 persons meanly clothed and fed, and collected 
 in a small room." {Life of Paul, 96.) 
 
 We have no reason to believe that at any 
 time during the life of Peter was the church of 
 Rome, if there was any church there at all, 
 composed of different materials or greater in 
 numbers than at the time referred to. What 
 was there for a Bishop to do in such a crowd, 
 or what was there to keep him from starva- 
 tion ? Christians engaged in riots growing out 
 of the hostihty between them and the Jews, 
 were driven from Rome by an edict of the 
 Emperor Claudius, and did not return during 
 his reign, which ceased in a.d. 54, when that of 
 Nero commenced. In A.D. 58 they had not 
 rallied, and at that time Rome was without a 
 church. It was the practice in all cases with 
 Paul to address Christians through the churches, 
 where churches were established ; but his Epis- 
 tle, in A.D. 58, to the Romans, is addressed not 
 to a church, but " to all that be in Rome." In 
 his three years' imprisonment in that city, com- 
 mencing in the spring of A.D. 61, he makes no 
 mention of a church, nor does he during the 
 second, which lasted from the summer or fall 
 
1 1 8 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 of A.D. 6$ to the spring of A.D. ()6. There 
 is no proof that the historian can discover, 
 worthy of his notice, that there was a church 
 in Rome of any kind, even down to the time 
 of Adrian, A.D. 117, and even later. We are 
 overrun with traditions on this subject, the 
 creations of the second century, to which the 
 attention of the reader will be called when we 
 treat of the twelve traditional Bishops named 
 by Irenaeus. Adrian, in the seventeenth year of 
 his reign, knew so little about a Christian 
 church, that he supposed the office of a Bishop 
 belonged to the worship of the god Serapis. 
 In a letter written by him from Alexandria, A.D. 
 134, to his brother-in-law Servianus, he says : 
 " The worshippers of Serapis are Christians, and 
 those are devoted to the god Serapis, who, I 
 find, call themselves Bishop of Christ." 
 
 We will dismiss this part of the subject for 
 the present, with the promise to return to it 
 in a subsequent chapter, when it will be demon- 
 strated that there was no Christian church in 
 Rome until after the reign of Antoninus Pius.* 
 
 * See Appendix C. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. i ig 
 
 Were Peter and Paul together in Rome at 
 all? Paul went there in the spring of A.D. 6i, 
 for the first time, and remained until the spring 
 or summer of A.D. 63. During this time he 
 wrote four epistles, as follows : — to the Ephe- 
 sians, Philippians, Colossians, and to Philemon, 
 and, if we except the first, he closes them by 
 naming the persons who are with him. He 
 says nothing about Peter, nor does he mention 
 his name, so far as we know, during the three 
 years he was confined in Rome. That Paul 
 should omit to mention Peter, one of the Apos- 
 tles, in some of his letters, is the very best 
 proof that he was not in Rome at all. After 
 his release in the spring of A.D. 63, after mak- 
 ing a visit to the churches in Europe and Asia, 
 he returned to Rome again in the fall of A.D. 65. 
 He had with him a few friends who stood by him 
 to the last. They were Luke, Mark, Pudens, 
 Linus, and Claudia. There could not have been 
 many other Christians in Rome at the time be- 
 sides those named, because Paul, after naming 
 the above who sent salutations to Timothy, 
 adds, " and all the other brethren," which im- 
 plies that there were not many of them. Paul 
 
1 20 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 does not mention Peter, because he was not 
 there. Timothy, no doubt, was with Paul in 
 the winter of A.D. 65 and A.D. 66, and was put 
 to death in the spring of the latter year, with 
 his friend and fellow-laborer. We never hear 
 of him again. In the spring of A.D. 66, the 
 labors and sorrows of the great Apostle of the 
 Gentiles ceased. He had fought the good 
 fight — he had finished his work — he had kepi 
 the faith ; and now, by his death, bore testi- 
 mony to the doctrines he preached. He was 
 among the last of Nero's victims. Nothing that 
 belongs to history is surer than that Peter and 
 Paul never were in Rome together, laying the 
 foundation of a church, or anything else. 
 
 Having proved that one-half of what is stated 
 by Irenaeus in the passage which we have quo- 
 ted is false, according to the usual rule for test- 
 ing the truth of any statement, we might claim 
 that the remaining half is also untrue. But we 
 ask no such advantage in disproving any of the 
 statements made by this father. 
 
 When was Peter in Rome ? No writer in the 
 first or second century pretends to give the 
 time when he was in Rome, or when he died. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 121 
 
 renseus gives the names of twelve Bishops who 
 succeeded each other, commencing with Linus, 
 but does not give a single date, so that we can 
 tell when or how long any one of them held the 
 office. This want of dates, where it was easy 
 to give them — if what was stated was true — 
 was urged with so much force against what Ire- 
 naeus said, that Eusebius, in the fourth century, 
 undertook to fix the time when these traditional 
 Bishops succeeded to, and how long each held 
 the office. He fails to say when Peter first be- 
 came Bishop, or when he ceased to be the head 
 of the church, but commences giving dates from 
 the time of Linus, his successor. Without in- 
 tending, he has furnished the data to determine 
 when Peter died, if his dates are correct, which 
 is not even probable. He says : " After Vespa- 
 sian had. reigned about ten years, he was suc- 
 ceeded by his son Titus ; in the second year of 
 whose reign, Linus, Bishop of the church of 
 Rome, who held the office about twelve years, 
 transferred it to Anacletus." (Eusebius, .£"c^. 
 Hist., book iii. ch. 13.) As Linus succeeded 
 Peter, the latter must have died just before his 
 successor took the office. Titus became empe- 
 
122 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 ror June 24th, A. D. 79, and as Linus died two 
 years after this, after holding the office twelve 
 years, he became Bishop in A. D. 69 ; which 
 must have been the year of Peter's death. Nero 
 died in June A. D. 68, and at his death the per- 
 secution against Christians ceased altogether. 
 It is not claimed that Galba, Otho, Vitellius, 
 Vespasian, or Titus ever inflicted persecution of 
 any kind on Christians during the time they 
 held the government of the empire. Eusebius, 
 in attempting to fix a date when the second 
 Bishop took office, answers the objections made 
 to the vagueness of Irenaeus, but robs Peter of 
 the laurels of a martyr. 
 
 But it is claimed that Linus was installed Bi- 
 shop before the death of Peter, and Irenaeus 
 pretends to give the time. He says: "The 
 blessed Apostles then having founded and built 
 up the church, committed unto the hands of Li- 
 nus the office of the Episcopate." (Book iii. 
 ch. 2, sec. 3.) The blessed Apostles are Peter 
 and Paul. Now we have just shown that these 
 Apostles were never in Rome together, and that 
 there was no church to be committed to the 
 charge of Linus or anybody else. As it is an 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 123 
 
 important part of the story that Peter died a 
 martyr at Rome, this could only happen to him 
 between A. D. 64 and A. D. 68, for the persecu- 
 tion under Nero commenced during the former 
 year, and ended with his death in A. D. 68. 
 We have the most conclusive proof that Peter 
 was not in Rome in A. D. 64, when the persecu- 
 tions under Nero commenced, nor afterwards. 
 He was in Babylon — whether Babylon in Assy- 
 ria, Babylon in Mesopotamia or Egypt — he was 
 in Babylon more than two thousand miles away. 
 Peter was born about the time of Christ, and 
 was sixty-four years of age when the persecu- 
 tions under Nero began. He was married, and 
 when he wrote his first Epistle he was in Baby- 
 lon and had his family with him, for he mentions 
 the name of Marcus, and calls him his son. 
 " The church that is at Babylon, elected to- 
 gether with you, saluteth you ; and so doth 
 Marcus, my son." (i Peter v. 13.) 
 
 The date of this epistle is fixed by Dr. Lard- 
 ner and other critics at A. D. 64. Did Peter, 
 at the age of sixty-four, when he heard that 
 Nero was feeding the wild beasts of the Amphi- 
 theatre with the flesh and bones of Christians, 
 
1 24 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 " lured by the smell of blood," start for Rome ? 
 If Peter was in Babylon in A. D. 64, an "Apos- 
 tolic succession," so far as it depends on him, 
 must fail, and Rome must surrender the authorr 
 ity by which she has held the religious world in 
 subjection for the last seventeen centuries. 
 
 But this she will never do, as long as her au- 
 dacity and cuqning are left to hatch schemes to 
 escape from the dilemma. Inspired by despair, 
 she now claims that Peter means Rome when he 
 says Babylon, and that the Marcus spoken of 
 was not the son of Peter, but the nephew of 
 Barnabas and companion of Paul ! Just as well 
 claim anything else, and say Babylon means 
 Alexandria, and that Marcus was the stepson 
 of Nero. Here two impressions are made : one 
 that the letter was written at Babylon, and the 
 other that Peter was attended by, his son. Are 
 both false ? What did Peter, or anybody else, 
 expect to gain by giving false impressions ? By 
 an agreement between Peter and Paul, made, 
 early and observed strictly, the labors of the 
 former were limited to the circumcised, and he 
 found them in large numbers in cities watered 
 by the Euphrates. There and in Judea, among 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 125 
 
 the Jewish people, was the scene of Peter's la- 
 bors, and there he died. He had no business 
 in Rome. As there was no church in Rome in 
 A. D. 64, it is impossible, if Peter was there at 
 the time, for him to make the salutation he does 
 in his address to his countrymen. He could 
 say, "the church that is at Babylon," but not 
 " the church that is at Rome," for there was 
 none.* 
 
 Mark the son of Peter, and Mark the ne- 
 phew of Barnabas, are two different persons, 
 whom the genius of Irenaeus seeks to confound. 
 The epistle to Philemon was written in the latter 
 part of A. D. 63, which shows that Paul, Timo- 
 thy, and Mark were then in Rome. They left 
 in the following spring. During the winter of 
 A. D. 63, Paul wrote the Colossians that they 
 might expect Mark to visit them, and it would 
 seem that he had made arrangements with them 
 of some kind in regard to him, when he arrived 
 among them. " Marcus, sister's son to Barna- 
 bas {touching whom ye received commandments : 
 if he come unto you, receive him.") Col, iv. 10. 
 
 * See Appendix B. 
 
126 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Unless Mark changed his mind afterwards, he 
 went from Rome to Colosse in Phrygia. The 
 next reliable information we have of Paul after 
 the spring of A. D. 63, except at Nicopolis in 
 A. D. 64, he is back in Rome in the fall of A. D. 
 65, and in prison ; and the first knowledge we 
 have of Mark, he is in some part of Asia Minor. 
 Timothy and Mark were together, and Paul 
 writes to the former from his prison, to come to 
 Rome and to bring the latter with him, and to 
 get there before the winter sets in ; which re- 
 quest was complied with. To suppose that 
 Mark had been to Rome in the mean time 
 would be most unreasonable, and against all the 
 probabilities in the case. There was nothing to 
 take him there until Paul called him back. If 
 Peter was in Rome when he wrote his first 
 epistle, in A. D. 64, Mark the nephew of Barna- 
 bas was not with him. If Mark saw Peter at all 
 in A. D. 64, it was not in Rome. Nor did he 
 see him that year .in Babylon in Egypt, or Ba- 
 bylon in Mesopotamia or Chaldea. 
 
 The latter Babylon was long known for its 
 vices and wickedness, and was called a sink of 
 iniquity ; and as Rome had become corrupt and 
 
I/. •). V'U^. WAY; 
 
 or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 27 
 
 steeped in crime of all kinds, it is claimed that 
 Peter uses the word Babylon in a typical sense 
 when he was writing from Rome ! If this is so, 
 he did not write from Babylon in Egypt or Me- 
 sopotamia, as some have contended, for they 
 were each small and inconsiderable places of no 
 importance, and there could be no object in 
 using either as a type to represent the corrup- 
 tions of Rome. If Mark saw Peter in Babylon, 
 it was in Chaldea. Measured by degrees of 
 longitude, Rome and this Babylon are more 
 than two thousand miles apart. Why would 
 Mark make a visit to Peter involving a journey 
 of four thousand miles, or half that distance ? 
 He never did. He could not. He went among 
 the Colossians under some arrangement made 
 by Paul, and no doubt remained with them un- 
 til he was wanted at Rome. When Peter calls 
 Mark his son, he means just what he says. 
 Mark the companion of Paul, and Mark the 
 son of Peter, are two different men. 
 
 What should take Peter to Rome or keep him 
 there when burning and torturing Christians 
 was one of the amusements of Nero ? Had Pe- 
 ter's character for courage so much improved 
 
128 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 that he went there when all the ■ Christians had 
 gone, to defy Nero, and invite his destruction ? 
 There is something in the character of Peter 
 that makes it improbable, if not impossible, th^t 
 he should be in Rome in a time of danger. He 
 was a man of strong impulses, but a constitu- 
 tional coward. He followed Christ to the scene 
 of the crucifixion, "but he followed him afar 
 off." {Matt. xxvi. S8.) He had pride, and a 
 proper sense of manliness, and when he was be- 
 trayed through a want of courage into the com- 
 mission of a mean act, he had spirit and sense 
 enough to be ashamed of it. He denied Christ, 
 but it cost him bitter tears of repentance. Either 
 his cowardice or his jealousy stood in the way 
 of his coming to the aid of Paul, whenever iPaul 
 was in danger of his life. When the Jews were 
 about to tear him to pieces -in Jerusalem, and 
 he had to be rescued by the Roman soldiers, 
 Peter was nowhere about, and we do not even 
 hear of him. In his trials before the Roman 
 Governors, when he had no one to stand by 
 him but a few faithful companions, the presence 
 of Peter, at such a time, would have done much 
 to aid and console the great champion of a com- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 129 
 
 mon cause. But in all these places there was 
 danger, and where danger was was no place for 
 Peter. 
 
 He lacked moral, as he did physical courage. 
 At Damascus he did not hesitate to sit at the 
 same table with the uncircumcised, when there 
 was no one present to object ; but when those 
 came from Jerusalem who could not tolerate 
 the liberal ideas of Paul on circumcision, he 
 cowardly sneaked away. Paul took fire at the 
 appearance of so much meanness, and boldly 
 reproved him. Is this the kind of man who 
 would enter the lion's den, and brave the wrath 
 of Nero at a time when the tyrant was flooding 
 the streets of Rome with the blood of Chris- 
 tians ? 
 
 Justin Martyr was born about the year A. D. 
 
 100, and was a native of Neapolis in Syria. 
 
 [Apology, sec. i.) At the beginning of the 
 
 reign of Antoninus Pius he fixed his abode in 
 
 Rome, and afterwards wrote numerous works, 
 
 principally devoted to the defence of Christians. 
 
 (Cave's Life of Martyr, vol. 2, chap. 6.) No 
 
 one had better opportunities of knowing about 
 
 Peter, and the church at Rome, than he had, 
 6* 
 
1 30 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 and no one who wrote as much as he did which 
 concerned Christianity, would have been more 
 likely to mention him, if what Irenaeus says ot 
 him had been true. He is so oblivious of Peter 
 that he seems to have been unconscious of his 
 existence. No writer in the first years of the 
 second century, who is entitled to credit, speaks 
 of him, and he first begins to figure in the pages 
 of Irenseus when the disputes with the Gnostics 
 were at their height. ' The Clementines were 
 composed later in the century, when Pauline 
 Christianity was giving way to the new school, 
 and the dogma of an Apostolic succession 
 had taken possession of the church. Diony- 
 sius. Bishop of Corinth, who lived and wrote 
 during the reign of Marcus Antoninus and his 
 son Commodus, about A. D. i8o, according to 
 Eusebius, also states that Paul and Peter were 
 at Rome together engaged in laying the foun- 
 dation of a church. (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., lib. 
 ii. ch. 25.) But this writer has got out of the 
 Pauline period, and even goes beyond Irenaeus, 
 for he states, according to the same authority, 
 that Peter and Paul laid the foundation of the 
 church at Corinth. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 3 1 
 
 Theophilus of Antioch, Melito of Sardis, Apol- 
 linarius of Hierapolis, all writers about the same 
 time, A. D. 180, like Irenaeus, take sides against 
 the Gnostics, and show that they were commit- 
 ted to the new school. From this time Irenseus 
 is quoted as the authority for the fact that Peter 
 and Paul had founded the church at Rome, and 
 we are asked to give special weight to what he 
 says, as he was the companion of Polycarp, who 
 had seen and conversed with John. 
 
 Speaking of Paul, Clement is made to say, 
 " He preached both in the P^ast and in the West 
 — ^taught the 'whole world righteousness, and 
 reached the farthest extremity of the West, and 
 suffered martyrdom, by the command of the 
 Governors." This passage has long been a 
 stumbling-block among learned critics. It is 
 the only authority on which is founded the 
 story, that after Paul was discharged from pris- 
 on in A. D. 63, he went into Spain, Gaul, and 
 Britain. Caius, the Presbyter, in the beginning 
 of the third century, says : "Writings not in- 
 cluded in the canon of Scripture expressly 
 mention the journey from Rome into Spain." 
 Hippolytus, in the same century, says that 
 
132 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Paul went as far as Illyricum, preaching the gos- 
 pel. Athanasius, in the fourth century, says 
 that St. Paul did not hesitate to go to Rome 
 and Spain. Jerome, in the same century, says 
 that " St. Paul, after his release from his trial 
 before Nero, preached the Gospels in the West- 
 ern parts." (Quoted from Chevallier's Apostol- 
 ical Epistles, note, p. 487.) 
 
 There is no authority for Paul's travels in the 
 Western provinces, except the passage from 
 Clement, and as Irenaeus is the founder of the 
 story, it is not improved by the repetition of 
 subsequent writers. The whole is a transparent 
 falsehood. From the time of Paul's career, 
 commencing with his adventure near Damascus 
 to the time of his imprisonment in Rome, in the 
 spring of A. D. 61, we have an account of his 
 travels, and know where he was each year dur- 
 ing this time. He never in this time went west 
 of Rome. In the spring of A. D. 63, in com- 
 pany with Mark, Titus, Timothy and others, he 
 left Rome and went in all probability to Colosse, 
 where, in pursuance of some agreement he made 
 with the people of that place, he left Mark. 
 How long he remained is uncertain, but the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 133 
 
 next time we hear of him he is in Crete, where 
 no doubt he spent the winter of A. D. 63 and 
 A. D. 64, In the mean time he made some con- 
 verts, whom he left in charge of Titus, and in 
 the spring went west into Macedonia. Some 
 time in the summer or fall of A. D. 64 we find 
 him in Nicopolis, where he informed Titus he 
 meant to spend the winter. The following 
 spring or summer he went to Rome and was 
 soon imprisoned. If he was at Colosse or Crete 
 in A. D. 63, and Nicopolis in A. D. 64, he could 
 not have gone to Britain, Gaul, and Spain be- 
 tween the spring of A. D. 63 and the summer of 
 A. D. 65, for it would not be possible. 
 
 But it is conclusive that Paul did not go into 
 the provinces of the West after his release from 
 prison ; that there is no mention of his travels in 
 the West, except what is said in this passage 
 from the letter of Clement — a thing impossible, 
 when we consider that he never went anywhere 
 but he made his mark, and left his footprints 
 behind him. Even Paul himself, in his subse- 
 quent letters, makes no allusion to any such 
 travels, which is accountable upon no other hy- 
 pothesis than that he never made them. But 
 
134 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 what was gained in fabricating this pas- 
 sage ? 
 
 The idea of Irenaeus, that there could be no 
 church unless its origin could be traced to some 
 one of the Apostles, who were special bankers 
 of divine favors, never left him. He furnished 
 Rome with Peter, and Asia with John, and now 
 he is required to furnish one for the churches in 
 Gaul, Spain, and Britain. Here were churches 
 in these countries in his "day, and who had au- 
 thority to establish them ? It would not do to 
 claim that either of the Twelve had been in the 
 West, for even falsehood has its boundaries. 
 Paul will do. He is the great Apostle of the 
 Gentiles. Besides, according to the Acts, he 
 had submitted to ordination at the hands of the 
 Apostles. The explanation of the reasons which 
 dictated this spurious passage in Clement's let- 
 ter is consistent with the acts of Irenaeus, and 
 the whole current~-of his thoughts throughout 
 his life. Rut this story, invented by him, has 
 been repeated by others, until it settled down — • 
 as history ! It is clear from the proof here 
 shown, that Irenaeus has no claim to our belief 
 as a writer, and that the statements he makes in 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 135 
 
 regard to Peter in Rome and Paul in the West 
 are mere inventions of his own to assist him in 
 his disputes with the Gnostics, in which he was 
 engaged for the best part of his life. 
 
1 36 The Christ cf Paid, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The claim of Irenaeus that Mark was the interpreter of 
 Peter, and Luke the author of the third Gospel, con- 
 sidered. — Luke and Mark both put to death with 
 Paul in Rome. 
 
 Iretiffius, after stating that Peter and Paul 
 preached in Rome and laid the foundation of a 
 church at that place, continues: "After their 
 departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of 
 Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what 
 had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the 
 companion of Paul, recorded in a book the gos- 
 pel preached by him." (Book iii. sec. i.) 
 Again no time is given. The last time we know 
 anything of Mark and Luke that is certain, or at 
 all reliable, they were both with Paul in Rome. 
 In his second letter to Timothy he says : " Only 
 Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him 
 with thee : for he is profitable to me for the 
 ministry." (2 Timothy \v. 11.) That Timothy 
 obeyed this request and took Mark with him, 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 137 
 
 does not admit of doubt. Paul and Timothy- 
 were inseparable, and Mark was Paul's near 
 friend and companion. This must have been in 
 the fall of A. D. 65, when Paul was in prison, 
 with little or no hope to escape the second time 
 from the fangs of Nero. 
 
 At the time Timothy and Mark entered Rome, 
 the fury of Nero raged with all its sanguinary 
 cruelty. It was just about the time the conspira- 
 cy of Piso was brought to light. Made mad by 
 his fears, he struck in all, directions. Not con- 
 tent with the destruction of the conspirators, he 
 put to death all who offended his vanity or moved 
 his jealousy. Seneca, a man whose many vir- 
 tues added lustre to the Roman people, and who 
 was an honor to any age, was not suffered to live. 
 His very virtues gave offence to the tyrant. Lu- 
 can and others, distinguished for genius and 
 learning, were put to death. Tacitus says that at 
 this time "the city presented a scene of blood, 
 and funerals darkened all the streets." {Annals, 
 book XV. sec. 21.) Speaking of the events of 
 the year 66, when Paul was put to death, the 
 same writer says : "We have nothing before us 
 but tame serviHty, and a deluge of blood spilt 
 
138 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 by a tyrant in the hour of peace. The heart 
 recoils from the dismal story. But let it be 
 remembered by those who may hereafter think 
 these events worthy of their notice, that I have 
 discharged the duty of an historian, and if in re- 
 lating the fate of so many eminent citizens, who 
 resigned their lives to the will of one man, I 
 mingle tears with indignation, let me be allowed 
 to feel for the unhappy. The truth is, the wrath 
 of Heaven was bent against the Roman State. 
 The calamities that followed cannot, like the 
 slaughter of an army or the sacking of a city, 
 be painted forth in one general draught. Re- 
 peated murders must be given in succession." 
 {Annals, B. XVI. sec. XVI.) The author then 
 proceeds to give a long list of victims. At the 
 time Paul was in prison, and Mark and Luke his 
 companions were with him, the Roman legions, 
 under the command of Vespasian, were march- 
 ing to make war upon the Jews, if they had not 
 done so already. They had rebelled and defied 
 the power of Rome. At this time, no Jew could 
 be in Rome and live. Not only was the anger 
 of Nero aroused against them, but that of the 
 entire people of Rome — and this feeling did not 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 139 
 
 abate until after almost the entire nation was 
 destroyed. No doubt Timothy, Luke, Linus, 
 Paul, and all others who were with them, perish- 
 ed in the general calamity. Why put to death 
 Paul, and not his fellow-laborers ? Nero waged 
 war not against Christians, but against Christi- 
 anity. We trace all these parties inside the gates 
 of Rome, and then we lose their trail forever. 
 There is not one single item of reliable proof that 
 any one of them ever left the doomed city. The 
 footprints of Christians going into Rome at this 
 time were like the tracks going into the cave of 
 Polyphemus — many were seen going in, but none 
 coming out. 
 
 We learn from Eusebius and Jerome, that 
 Mark went to Egypt and founded a church at 
 Alexandria, and the latter states that he died 
 and was buried there in the eighth year of the 
 reign of Nero. This is impossible. As Nero 
 commenced his reign A.D. 54, this would make 
 him die in A.D. 62. Now we find him alive 
 with Paul in A.D. 65. Eusebius, in his loose 
 way, says : ' ' The same Mark, they say also, 
 being the first that was sent to Egypt, proclaimed 
 the gospel there which he had written, and first 
 
140 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 established churches in Alexandria." (Book I, 
 ch. 16.) This father had special reasons why 
 he wanted to get Mark to Alexandria. The 
 close resemblance between Christians and Thera- 
 peutse, as we have shown, was a reason with 
 him why he should insist that the latter were in 
 fact believers in Christ by a different name. 
 Mark is sent to be their teacher, and was 
 claimed to be the founder of this new sect of 
 Christians. Nothing is wider from the truth. 
 If ever Mark or Luke left Rome, there is no rea- 
 son why we should not hear something of them. 
 Situated as they were in their relations with the 
 founders of Christianity, had they survived the 
 slaughter at Rome, one or both would have left 
 behind them evidence, of some kind, of their 
 escape. What remained of Paul, Timothy, 
 Mark, Luke, Linus and others after they entered 
 Rome in the winter of A.D. 65 and A.D. 66, could 
 only be found after that time among the graves 
 of Nero's victims. Whatever Mark and Luke 
 wrote, in the nature of Gospels, was written be- 
 fore they entered the gates for the last time. 
 
 As this was in A. D. 65 or A. D. t6, and the 
 gospels ascribed to them were neither extant 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 141 
 
 nor known before the beginning of the second 
 century, we are forced to look to some other 
 quarter for those who wrote them. 
 
 But what proof is there that Mark and Peter 
 were on such intimate terms as is claimed by 
 Irenaeus ? None, except that which is afford- 
 ed in the first Epistle of Peter (i Peter v. 13), 
 wherein Mark is spoken of by Peter as his son. 
 What better evidence can we have of the stu- 
 died dishonesty of Irenjeus, than his attempt to 
 have it appear or believed that the Mark refer- 
 red to in the first of Peter, was the companion 
 of Paul and interpreter of Peter ? We have just 
 shown he was not — but an entirely different 
 person, and it sweeps away the whole founda- 
 tion upon which rests the claim that the Gospel 
 of Mark was written at the dictation of Peter. 
 While Mark was with Paul, either in Rome 
 or Asia Minor, Peter, with hfs son Mark, is 
 preaching among the Jews of Chaldea. 
 
 What Presbyter John says on this subject is 
 here worthy of notice. Eusebius, speaking of 
 the writings of Papias, says : " He also inserted 
 into his work other accounts of the above-men- 
 tioned Aristion respecting our Lord, as also the 
 
142 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 traditions of the Presbyter John, to which refer- 
 ring those that are desirous of learning them, 
 we shall now subjoin to the extracts from him 
 already given a tradition which he sets forth 
 concerning Mark, who wrote the Gospel, in the 
 following words : ' And John the Presbyter also 
 said this : Mark being the interpreter of Peter, 
 whatsoever he recorded he wrote with great 
 accuracy, but not in the order in which it was 
 spoken or done by our Lord, for he neither 
 heard nor followed 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. ' " (Eusebius, 
 Ecc. Hist., book iii. chap. 39.) Papias here 
 gives a tradition derived through Presbyter 
 John. Slender proof that Peter dictated the Gos- 
 pel of Mark ! To rank among canonical Gos- 
 pels, and as a corner-stone of Christianity, with 
 the authority of an inspired book, the proof falls 
 far below what we have a right to expect and 
 demand. On such a subject it is no proof at all. 
 It is difficult to tell what Mark did write, ac- 
 cording to Papias. What he did write was not 
 in the order in which the events in the life of 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 143 
 
 Christ occurred — nor in the order in which he 
 spoke or taught. Peter would not~allow him to 
 give the history of our Lord's discourses. If 
 that is so, then the Gospel to which Papias re- 
 fers is not our present Gospel of Mark. This 
 relates the acts of Christ in the order of time, 
 and gives his discourses in full. In this respect 
 the second Gospel does not differ from the first 
 and third. It is quite probable that Mark, in 
 his intercourse with the Apostles, may have 
 learned many things in relation to Christ which 
 he wrote out, but which, like the Hebrew Gos- 
 pel of Matthew, was condemned or cast one 
 side, as it did not help to strengthen the new 
 ideas in relation to Christ, which sprang up 
 some time before the death of Paul. But we 
 can never know what Mark wrote, as Papias 
 does not claim he ever saw it, nor do we know 
 of any one who did. 
 
 What is said by Clement of Alexandria and 
 all other writers on the origin of the second Gos- 
 pel is derived from the extract taken from the 
 works of Papias, and from what is said by Ire- 
 naeus : their statements do not better the case, 
 any more than a superstructure will give strength 
 
1 44 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 to the base on which it rests. If Mark ever 
 wrote anything, it would contain nothing that 
 did not accord with Paul, for he was not only 
 his fellow-traveller, but he was his fellow-laborer 
 in the spread of the doctrines of Christianity ; 
 and so near and dear were the relations between 
 them, that when Paul saw his end approach, he 
 wrote to Timothy to bring Mark with him, as 
 brother would for brother, for a parting inter- 
 view. What Paul taught, Mark believed — and 
 Paul dead or Paul in life would have made no 
 difference with Mark. 
 
 After reading the Gospel of Mark, who would 
 suppose that he had been the companion of 
 Paul and the interpreter of Peter ? We would 
 expect to find some thought or expression that 
 had in it the soul of Paul, as his very spirit pen- 
 etrated all his followers and made them a reflex 
 of himself. Paul drew from the depths of his 
 own consciousness, which he took for revela- 
 tions, the ideas which formed the basis of his 
 religion and made Christ what he believed him 
 to be. It was a holy faith with him, discon- 
 nected from all material laws. The second Gos- 
 pel is founded on works, and the divinity of 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 145 
 
 Christ proven by his power over the laws of the 
 universe. All nature bows down before h^m ; 
 even demons and evil spirits fly before his pres- 
 ence. Mark the interpreter of Peter ! ! Where 
 do we see Peter in the Gospel of Mark ? What, 
 all at once, has become of circumcision ? Did 
 he, after his quarrel with Paul, shake off his 
 Jewish prejudice and bigotry and rise to a 
 higher plane ? The proof is he did not. 
 
 Taul, Luke, and Mark were as companions 
 inseparable — they were fellow- laborers, held the 
 same doctrines, died for the same cause and at 
 the same time. 
 
 In another chapter we inquired from what 
 source Luke got his knowledge of the wonder- 
 ful statement he makes in relation to the visita- 
 tion of the angel to Mary and Zacharias, for he 
 did not get it from Paul, who never mentions 
 the name of Mary. We now ask, from 
 whom did Mark learn the story of John 
 the Baptist ? Paul knew nothing about him. 
 Who had a better opportunity than he to know 
 everything which related to him, if he had been 
 the person described by Mark ? What better 
 proof can be offered to show that neither Luke 
 
£ 46 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 nor Mark wrote the Gospels ascribed to them, 
 than that they are made to state matters which 
 lay at the bottom of Christianity in after-ages, 
 of which Paul, their teacher and co-laborer, 
 knew nothing ? To find the authors of these 
 Gospels we must look to the second century. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 147 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Acts of the Apostles. — Schemes to exalt Peter at the 
 expense of Paul. 
 
 The Acts of the Apostles dates between A. D. 
 140 or 150 and A. D. 170. The book, as we 
 now find it, was not in existence before Justin's 
 Apology, because before his time there were no 
 miracles, as will be shown ; while the Acts 
 abounds in those of the most extravagant cha- 
 racter. Between A. D. 140 or 150, and A. D. 
 180, is the time when the war among the dit 
 ferent sects raged with the greatest violence, 
 and frauds and forgeries were practised by all 
 parties without remorse or shame. It was dur- 
 ing this time that Lazarus was made to rise 
 superior to death, and assume his place among 
 men, after his body had become putrid and be- 
 gan to decay. There was nothing too false or 
 extravagant for parties to assert at this period 
 of the world, and the only wonder is, that the 
 absurd stories of the age have passed down to 
 
148 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 subsequent generations as truths of a revealed 
 religion. 
 
 The book of the Acts, in its present form, 
 came to light soon after the doctrine of the 
 Apostolic succession was conceived, for it is 
 very evident that the first half is devoted to give 
 prominence to Peter among the Apostles, who 
 was to be made the corner-stone of the Church. 
 As all other churches are made to bow to the 
 supremacy of Rome, so all the Apostles must 
 be subordinate to Peter. This is so obvious 
 that the work is overdone. On the day of Pen- 
 tecost he is put forward to explain the miracle 
 of the cloven tongue, and show that it was in 
 accordance with what the prophet Joel had fore- 
 told — which if Peter did say what he is made to 
 say, only proved his ignorance of what the pro- 
 phet meant. His miraculous powers are won- 
 derful. He cured a man forty years old, who 
 had been lame from his birth, so that he leaped 
 and walked. His power extends over death, 
 and he raises Dorcas from the grave. He is now 
 chief speaker. Ananias and his wife Sapphira 
 fall down dead before him. So extraordinary 
 is his power over diseases, " that they brought 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 149 
 
 forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on 
 beds and couches, that at the least the shadow 
 of Peter passing by might overshadow some of 
 them." {Acts v. 15.) 
 
 It is surprising that the increduHty of the Jews 
 did not give way before such wonderful works ; 
 but it seems it did not, and the only effect pro- 
 duced on their minds was to send Peter to 
 prison. Peter is twice committed to prison for 
 doing good, and the sole object in sending him 
 there is to give an opportunity to the Lord to 
 deliver him, and show that he is under the 
 special protection and guardianship of God. 
 "And behold, the angel of the Lord came 
 upon him, and a light shined in the prison ; and 
 he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, 
 saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell 
 off from his hands. And the angel said unto 
 him. Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals : and 
 so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy 
 garment about thee, and follow me." {Acts xii. 
 7, 8.) " And when Peter was come to himself, 
 he said. Now I know of a surety that the Lord 
 hath sent his angel, and hath dehvered me 
 out of the hand of Herod, and from all the 
 
1 50 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 expectation of the people of the Jews " (verse 
 II). 
 
 The person over whom the Lord had mani- 
 fested so much care, must certainly have been 
 set apart to act some great part in his provi- 
 dences towards our race. At the time we are 
 writing about, the struggle between the follow- 
 ers of Peter and Paul was raging"; the latter 
 claiming that the Apostle of the Gentiles was of 
 equal authority as to doctrine with Peter or any 
 of the Apostles ; while the former insisted that 
 Paul had a special commission — to convert the 
 Gentiles — and as he had performed his work, 
 his mission ceased, and he was no longer to be 
 regarded as an authority in the church. No less 
 a person than God himself can settle the dis- 
 pute, and the cunningly devised stories of Cor- 
 nelius, and Paul's conversion, are introduced 
 into the Acts in order to give the Lord an op- 
 portunity to decide between the two parties. 
 
 Cornelius, a devout man, is laboring under 
 what is called religious conviction, and is in 
 doubt what to do. He stands in need of a 
 spiritual adviser, and when in this condition of 
 mind, " He saw in a vision evidently about the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 5 1 
 
 ninth hour of the day, an angel of God coming 
 in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius. 
 And when he looked on him he was afraid, and 
 said. What is it. Lord ? And he said unto him. 
 Thy prayers and thy alms are come up for a 
 memorial before God. And now send men to 
 Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose gurname 
 is Peter." {Acts x. 3, 4, 5.) The centurion 
 was sent to Peter, because he was the deposi- 
 tary of divine light, and the dispenser of spiri- 
 tual gifts — an intimation from God to all the 
 world, for all ages, where men must look to, to 
 find the true interpreter and expounder of reli- 
 gious faith. Cornelius did as he was com- 
 manded. 
 
 But it was not enough that this was true of 
 Peter ; but it must be shown that Paul was but 
 a simple missionary, whose powers ended with 
 his death. To do this, the story of his conver- 
 sion in the Acts is told, notwithstanding it is in 
 direct conflict with what Paul says himself on 
 the subject. When Ananias was requested by 
 the Lord to call on Paul while he was still pros- 
 trate from tlje effects of the blow he received 
 near Damascus, he declined to do so — appar- 
 
152 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 ently in fear of Paul, on account' of his previous 
 treatment of Christians. This gave the Lord 
 an opportunity to tell Ananias, why he is anx- 
 ious to do as he was requested. " But the Lord 
 said unto him. Go thy way : for he is a chosen 
 vessel unto me, to bear my name before the 
 Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel : 
 for I will shew him how great things he must suf- 
 fer for my name's sake." {Acts ix. IS, 16.) 
 
 The Lord has now settled all disputes be- 
 tween the followers of Peter and Paul, and the 
 office of each is settled and defined. Under 
 such a judgment, pronounced by God himself, 
 no wonder the influence of Paul ceased to be 
 felt in the latter part of the second century, and 
 Peter proportionally increased in weight and 
 authority. This attempt to put up Peter and 
 put down Paul, determines the date of the Acts, 
 and fixes it somewhere between A.D. 150 and 
 A.D. 170, a period in the century proHfic of 
 spurious writings. It may be called the Petrine 
 age of Christianity. 
 
 When Paul made his defence before the Jews 
 at Jerusalem, and explained to them the mode 
 of his conversion, it would be dangerous, or at 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 53 
 
 least suspicious, to leave out the story of Corne- 
 lius ; but as it differed so much from the one he 
 gives in second Corinthians, it was necessary to 
 omit the one given in the epistle entirely. But 
 the fraud is easily detected. The account as 
 given in the Acts, to the sixth verse inclusive, is 
 as it was doubtless delivered by Paul ; but from 
 this point the story diverges from the one given 
 by himself, and is a sheer fabrication. "And 
 it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and 
 was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, 
 suddenly there shone from heaven a great light 
 round about me." {^Acts xxii. 6.) Then ac- 
 cording to Paul's account, given in his letter to 
 the Corinthians, he was caught up to the third 
 heaven, and there heard unspeakable words 
 which it was not lawful for man to utter. What 
 transpired between God and Paul, all took place 
 in heaven, where no man could bear witness. 
 The account in the Acts, which commences in 
 the seventh verse, says that after the light shone 
 from heaven, Paul fell to the ground, and did 
 not ascend to heaven, but was led by the same 
 light to Damascus. This version is to let in the 
 story of Ananias. He could not bear witness 
 7* 
 
154 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 to what passed between the Lord and^ Paul in 
 the third heaven, but he might if the scene was 
 laid on the earth. Besides, what passed be- 
 tween the Lord and Paul the latter does not 
 pretend to state, for the words he heard were 
 unspeakable and not lawful for man to utter. 
 There is nothing in the story in the Acts- that is 
 unspeakable or unlawful to be repeated, unless 
 it is to be regarded as a piece of blasphemy. 
 
 Had Paul told the story as given in the Acts 
 in his defence, there was nothing in it to arouse 
 the Jews to such a pitch of madness as to cause 
 them to insist that he should be put to death. 
 There was more in it to provoke a sneer than to 
 excite anger. The scene in Jerusalem, when 
 Paul was compelled to make his defence, was in 
 A.D. 58, and he could have appealed to Ana- 
 nias, who in the course of nature might still be 
 living, and others, if the story was true. It was 
 not the story in the Acts that incensed the Jews. 
 When Paul claimed he was taken up to heaven, 
 and there met the Lord and talked to him face 
 to face, he had reached, in the minds of his 
 hearers, a point in blasphemy that drove them 
 to frenzy, so that they exclaimed : " Away with 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 155 
 
 such a fellow from the earth : for it is not fit that 
 he should live." The Jews listened to Stephen 
 with patience until he exclaimed, "Behold, I 
 see the heavens opened, and the Son of man 
 standing at the right hand of God," when they 
 could stand it no longer, and ran upon him with 
 one accord and stoned him to death. It is clear 
 that Paul's defence, made before the Jews, of 
 his conversion, is omitted, and the story of An- 
 anias substituted, to aid the enemies of Paul in 
 placing Peter over him. 
 
 When we find the same story variously stated 
 by Paul, and in the Acts, there should be no 
 hesitation in choosing between the two. The 
 Acts, like the works of the early fathers, bears 
 so many marks of forgeries, to suit the emer- 
 gencies and wants of the day, that very little 
 contained in either is of any historic value. The 
 epistles of Paul had obtained a large circulation 
 before the time when the men of the second 
 century inaugurated an era of forgeries, and long 
 before the Acts were in existence ; so that the 
 forgers were compelled to exercise great caution 
 when they came to deal with the epistles, and 
 only ventured to insert passages into the genu- 
 
156 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 ine writings to give the sanction of his name to 
 the doctrines of the Alexandrian or Johannean 
 school, or some dogma of the day. Such pas- 
 sages are scattered all through the epistles, but 
 we can easily point them out, for they are doc- - 
 trinal and exceedingly pointed. 
 
 Peter disappears at the end of the twelfth 
 chapter ; but enough has been done to make 
 him chief among the Apostles, and claim for 
 him a spiritual supremacy in all matters which 
 relate to the church. John, afterwards the great 
 light of Asia, only plays the part of an esquire 
 to Peter, his lord and superior. They are often 
 together, but John is not suffered to speak. It 
 was designed that John, who was to take Asia 
 in charge, should stand next to Peter ; but the 
 writer, by imposing silence on him on all occa- 
 sions, took care that the supremacy of Peter was 
 not put in jeopardy. The preaching of Philip 
 in Samaria was a device to show that Peter and 
 John were superior to the rest of the Apostles 
 in their power to confer the Holy Ghost. Philip 
 made many converts, both men and women, and 
 he baptized them — but his baptism was not suffi- 
 cient. " Now when the Apostles which were 
 
of the Enigmas of Christianity. 157 
 
 , it Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received 
 the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and 
 John. They laid their hands on them, and they 
 received the Holy Ghost." — Acts viii. 14, 17 
 
 According to Paul, and this is made clear by 
 the quarrels between him and Peter, as related 
 in the epistles, the latter was tenacious to 
 the last for the Jewish rite of circumcision, 
 and we have no evidence, and no reason to be- 
 lieve, that he ever gave it up. A sectarian Jew 
 would never answer to be the head and founder 
 of a Catholic church. The sectarian character 
 of Peter must be got rid of, and we see studied 
 efforts in the Acts to do so. We have seen 
 that Peter, in the first words he addressed to 
 Cornelius, took the opportunity to declare that 
 he believed in the doctrine that God was no re- 
 specter of persons. But this was not enough, 
 in the opinion of the writer of the Acts, or at 
 least the first half, and to make Peter's emanci- 
 pation from his old Jewish opinions more con- 
 spicuous, and enable him to explain how it hap- 
 pened that the change was brought about, the vi- 
 sion of Peter on the house-top is produced. He 
 went up upon the house-top to pray, about the 
 
158 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 sixth hour, and became very hungry ; but while 
 they were preparing something for him to eat, 
 he had a trance, " And saw heaven opened, and 
 a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had 
 been' a great sheet knit at the four corners, and 
 let down to the earth : wherein were all manner 
 of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild 
 beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. 
 And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter ; 
 kill and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord ; 
 for I have never eaten anything that is common 
 or unclean. And the voice spake unto him 
 again the second time. What God hath cleansed, 
 that call not thou common. This was done 
 thrice : and the vessel was received up again 
 into heaven." 
 
 The command of the Lord to Peter to eat, 
 was a command to give up his Jewish views and 
 notions ; for that all flesh was alike, and equally 
 proper to be taken on an empty stomach. Peter 
 was at a loss to understand the vision, and while 
 he was revolving the subject in his mind, Corne- 
 lius and his party came to be instructed by him, 
 in accordance with the directiojis of the Lord. 
 When Cornelius, who was of the Gentiles, made 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 159 
 
 known the object of his visit, Peter at once un- 
 derstood the import of the vision, and exclaimed, 
 " Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter 
 of persons," and that the gospel of Christ is to 
 supply the spiritual wants of all nations, as the 
 beasts and fowls are to furnish food for the hun- 
 gry- 
 
 The conversion of Peter receives further im- 
 portance and prominence from the defence he 
 is compelled to make before the brethren, for his 
 disregard of the rite of circumcision in the bap- 
 tism of Cornelius. Peter makes a speech, in 
 which he declares that he was commanded by 
 God, not less than three times, to give up his 
 old Jewish notions ; and no sooner was the com- 
 mand given than Cornelius, a Gentile, who was 
 sent to him by God, made his appearance. The 
 command from God to Peter, and the arrival of 
 the centurion, who was instructed by the Lord 
 to come to him, left him no choice in the matter, 
 and that he baptized the Gentile, in obedience 
 to the commands of the Lord. The reason was 
 sufficient. "When they heard these things, 
 they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, 
 Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted re- 
 
1 60 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 pentance unto life." (Acts. xi. 18.) The wall 
 between Jew and Gentile is now broken down, 
 and Peter a fit subject for the head of a univer- 
 sal or catholic church. 
 
 It seems that the person who put the speech 
 into the mouth of Peter, renouncing circumci- 
 sion, was not satisfied with what he said at the 
 time. Something had been omitted or over- 
 looked. Peter had shed his Jewish skin, but 
 the Lord had not given him a commission to 
 preach the gospel to all nations, and this he 
 must have to be the head of a universal church. 
 At the council held at Jerusalem by the Apos- 
 tles to settle the question of circumcision, Peter, 
 according to the Acts, seizes the opportunity to 
 supply the omission: "And when there had 
 been much disputing, Peter rose up and said 
 unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how 
 that a good while ago, God made choice among 
 us, that the Gentiles, by my mouth, should hear 
 the word of the gospel, and believe." (Acts xv. 
 7.) Now there was no occasion for Peter to 
 make this claim or assertion, for it had nothing 
 to do with the subject before the council, and 
 was not true. The account which Paul gives 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. l6i 
 
 of what took place at the council is quite differ- 
 ent, contradictory, and no doubt true. He 
 says, when he stated before the council the 
 trouble and vexations which were occasioned 
 by this rite, and reasons why it should not be 
 forced on the Gentiles, that Peter, James, and 
 John agreed with him — ^gave him the right hand 
 of fellowship, and then entered into a compact 
 that he should go to the Gentiles, and they to 
 the circumcised. {Gal. ii.) 
 
 This agreement was never departed from ; 
 but not so with regard to circumcision. That 
 Peter, James, and all the disciples disregarded 
 the order of the Council in regard to that sub- 
 ject, is rendered clear by their subsequent con- 
 duct. After that, as much as two years, for 
 the Council was held in A.D. 49 or A.D. 50, 
 and the epistle to the Galatians was written in 
 A. D. 52, Peter went to Antioch, where he found 
 Paul. He ate with the uncircumcised until some 
 Jewish converts came from Jerusalem at the in- 
 stance of James, who found fault with his course. 
 Peter, it seems, then changed front and stood 
 up for circumcision. " I withstood him to the 
 face," says Paul, for he was wrong. A discus- 
 
1 62 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 sion springs up. Paul claimed that men were 
 not to be saved through old rites and ceremo- 
 nies, nor by works, but by faith. At this time, 
 neither James nor Peter had given up their 
 contracted notions on the Jewish rite. Nor had 
 Peter as late as A. D. 57, twenty-four years after 
 the death of Christ. Of the four parties which 
 disturbed the peace of the church at Corinth at 
 the time of Paul's first epistle to the Corinthi- 
 ans, which was written in A. D. 57, the party of 
 Cephas was one. Peter was at the head of a 
 party which held out for circumcision, seven 
 years after the council at Jerusalem ; and if he 
 had not given it up then, when he was fifty- 
 seven years old, there is no reason to believe 
 he did after that. Nothing gave the men in the 
 second century who undertook to put Peter at 
 the head of a universal church so much trou- 
 ble as this thing of circumcision, which we can 
 readily detect by the pains and labors they have 
 taken to free him from it. But the stain will 
 not wash out. 
 
 The story told in the Acts about the way in 
 which Peter was disenthralled from his narrow 
 Jewish notions, is wholly inconsistent with the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 63 
 
 subsequent history of the church at Jerusalem. 
 After the Lord had taken so much pains to 
 prove to the disciples that a new dispensation 
 had commenced, and the wall between the Jews 
 and Gentiles was broken down, there was no 
 reason why they should not all dispense with 
 ■ ■ the practice of circumcision. But they never did. 
 The fifteen first Bishops of Jerusalem, commenc- 
 ing with James and including Judas, were all cir- 
 cumcised Jews. (Eus. , Ex. //l , B. , iv. ch. v. Sul- 
 picius Severus, vol. 11-31.) With the twelve dis- 
 ciples, jealousy of Paul, who fought this Jewish 
 practice to the last, seemed to be the most active 
 feeling of their natures, and we seldom hear of 
 them unless they were dogging his footsteps, and 
 stirring up the Jews against him. It was through 
 their intrigues that the doors of the synagogue 
 were slammed in his face wherever he went. 
 
 The doctrine of ordination, through which that 
 deposit of divine riches which Irenseus says 
 Christ left with the Apostles is made to flow in 
 an uninterrupted current through all time, is 
 conspicuously presented in the Acts. When 
 Paul and Barnabas were at Antioch, and aboiit 
 to start for the West, on a mission to preach to 
 
1 64 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 the Gentiles, the Lord said, " Separate me 
 Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I 
 have called them. And when they had fasted and 
 prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent 
 them away." {Acts xiii. 2, 3.) Nothing could 
 impose so great a humiliation as this upon Paul. 
 The Lord again interferes and assigns him to a 
 special duty, and to make this humiliation com- 
 plete, he is ordered to receive his commission at 
 the hands of the Apostles. Who laid their hands 
 on Barnabas and Paul, is not stated, nor is it of 
 any importance, as the object of the statement 
 is to make it apparent that the latter, the great 
 light of the Gentiles, submitted to the rite of or- 
 dination by the imposition of hands, administer- 
 ed by some one of the Apostles. Will any one 
 believe this story to be true ? If he does, he 
 does not understand the character of Paul. 
 There is nothing he would resent with so much 
 feeling, as he would such an admission on his 
 part that he was less than an Apostle. When it 
 was claimed he was not, his soul took fire, and in 
 his address to the Galatians, in the first chap- 
 ter, he delivers himself in this defiant strain: 
 "Paul, an Apostle, {not of men, neither by 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 65 
 
 man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, 
 who raised him from the dead.) But when it 
 pleased God, who separated me from my moth- 
 er's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal 
 his Son in me, that I might preach him among 
 the heathen ; immediately I conferred not with 
 flesh and blood : Neither went I up to Jerusa- 
 lem to them which were Apostles before me." 
 (Gal. i. I, 15, 16, 17.) Is this the Paul who pa- 
 tiently submits to receive his commission from 
 an Apostle to preach the doctrines of Christ to 
 the nations of the earth at Antioch, when he is 
 about to commence his labors ? 
 
 It is not enough that Paul should submit to 
 receive the Holy Ghost at the hands of the 
 Apostle, and in this way be authorized to preach 
 the gospel ; but he gives the ordinance his full 
 sanction by conferring ordination on others. 
 " And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was 
 at Corinth, Paul having passed through the 
 upper coasts, came to Ephesus ; and finding 
 certain disciples, he said unto them, Have ye 
 received ' the Holy Ghost since ye believed ? 
 And they said unto him. We have not so 
 much as heard whether there be any Holy 
 
1 66 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Ghost. And when Paul had laid his hands 
 upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them ; 
 and they spake with tongues, and prophesied." 
 {Acts -iCysL. 1,2,6.) No stronger proof could be 
 given that the followers of Paul i«rere opposed 
 to the Episcopacy and the doctrine of succession 
 and ordination, and contended against a govern- 
 ment by Bishops with zeal to the last, than the la- 
 bored and frequent efforts that are made to show 
 that he himself gave his sanction to the order. 
 
 For Paul's persistence in claiming a human 
 origin for Christ, there was a studied effort in 
 the second century to destroy his claims as an 
 Apostle ; but after his epistles had undergone 
 alterations so as to make Christ the Son of God 
 in the sense of the Catholics of the second 
 century, he was restored to favor, and his pow- 
 ers wonderfully magnified. He is now able to 
 work miracles, and his power to heal diseases is 
 such, that whatever comes in contact with his 
 person, is so filled or imbued with holy energy, 
 that its curative properties are sufficient to put 
 death at defiance. 
 
 It is clear that the Acts of the Apostles is not 
 the work of one century, but of two. The real 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 167 
 
 itinerary of Paul commences in the thirteenth 
 chapter, and from this to the end of the Acts, we 
 can trace his footsteps in his various journeys 
 among the churches, until he finally enters the 
 gates of Rome, in the spring of A.D. 61. 
 
1 68 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Matthew the author of the only genuine Gospel. — Re- 
 jected, because it did not contain the first two chap- 
 ters of the present Greek version. 
 
 Matthew, sumamed Levi, was a native of 
 Galilee. Before his conversion to Christianity- 
 he was a publican, or tax-gatherer, under the 
 Romans, and collected the customs of all goods 
 exported or imported at Capernaum, a mari- 
 time town on the Sea of Galilee, and received 
 tribute paid by passengers who went by water. 
 From the position of Matthew, he must have 
 been a man of some learning and judgment, and 
 from what we know of the early lives of the 
 other Apostles, the only one among them, ex- 
 cept perhaps Peter and James, that was capa- 
 ble of writing out a correct account of what 
 was said and done by Christ. 
 
 As the first church at Jeirusalem increased 
 in number, and new converts were added to it, 
 there was a necessity that there should be some 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 69 
 
 written history given of what was said and 
 taught by Christ before his death ; and as 
 Matthew was in every way qualified, the task 
 was imposed on him. Matthew wrote this book 
 about A.D. 40, not much, if any, more than 
 seven years after the death of Christ. Every- 
 thing was fresh in his memory, and no doubt 
 he was particular to give to the new converts a 
 full and correct knowledge of all the doctrines 
 taught by Chrfst, and especially to place before 
 them his sermon on the mount, so full of divine 
 morality, which was to form the soul of the new 
 religion. 
 
 From all we know with certainty, this Gos- 
 pel of Matthew was the only account of Christ 
 in use among the members of the first Chris- 
 tian church, and their only means of informa- 
 tion, except what they learned direct from the 
 other Apostles. Everything, then, was just as 
 it fell from the lips of Christ, and had the odor 
 of fresh-gathered flowers. How the Christians 
 at Jerusalem clung to this Gospel of Matthew, 
 their sufferings and perseeutions through a pe- 
 riod of more than two centuries will bear wit- 
 ness. These Christians, afterwards called by 
 8 
 
1 70 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 way of aversion Ebionites, were charged with 
 the alteration of the Scriptures. This alteration, 
 according to Epiphanius, consisted in the omis- 
 sion of the first two chapters of Matthew, which 
 contain the account of the miraculous concep- 
 tion of Christ. The statements of Epiphanius 
 are verified by the fact, that at the time these 
 two chapters were added, by the men of the sec- 
 ond century, we can trace through the pages of 
 Ignatius, and other early fathers, numerous for- 
 geries and interpolations which are unmistaka- 
 ble, and were intended to sustain the new aspect 
 which Christianity took on in the early part of 
 the second century. The addition of the two 
 chapters, and the forgeries, belong to the period 
 when the religion of Paul had passed off into the 
 Philo-Alexandrian period of Christianity. Eu- 
 sebius informs us what were the crimes of the 
 Ebionites: " They are properly called Ebio- 
 nites by the ancients, as those who cherished a 
 low and mean opinion of Christ. For they 
 consider him 2iplam and common man, and jus- 
 tified in his advances in virtue, and that he was 
 born of the Virgin Mary by natural generation." 
 (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., book iii. chap. 27.) 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 7 ^ 
 
 The views held by the Ebionites of Christ 
 were derived from the Gospel of Matthew, and 
 what they learned direct from the Apostles. 
 Matthew had been a hearer of Christ — a com- 
 panion of the Apostles, and had seen and no 
 doubt conversed with Mary. When he wrote 
 his Gospel everything was fresh in his mind, and 
 there could be no object on his part, in writing 
 the life of Jesus, to state falsehoods or omit im- 
 portant truths in order to deceive his country- 
 men. If what is stated in the two first chapters 
 in regard to Christ is true, Matthew would have 
 known of them ; and, knowing them, why 
 should he omit them in giving an account of his 
 life ? It was impossible to pass from the first 
 to the second stage of Christianity, as long as 
 the Gospel of Matthew was recognized as au- 
 thority in the church. It stood as a mountain 
 in the way, and had to be torn down and made 
 way with. The history of the Ebionites, from 
 the time they are charged with altering the 
 Scriptures, to the time when they disappear 
 from history, is one of tyranny and bloody per- 
 secution. In the reign of Adrian, what was left 
 of them settled in the little town of Pilla, beyond 
 
172 The Christ of Paul, . 
 
 the Jordan, from whence they spread themselves 
 into villages adjacent to Damascus. Some 
 traces of them can be discovered as late as the 
 fourth century, when they " insensibly melted 
 away; either into the church or synagogue." 
 {Gibbon, ch. xv. vol. i. p. 255.) With them 
 perished the genuine Gospel of Matthew, the 
 only Gospel written by an Apostle. 
 
 Much useless labor has been bestowed on the 
 question, whether the genuine Gospel was writ- 
 ten in the Hebrew or Greek language. How 
 this may be is of little consequence, since the 
 genuine writing is no longer in existence. It 
 is just as certain that the present version of 
 Matthew was written in Greek, as that the 
 genuine one was published in the Hebrew 
 tongue. To the church of Rome the world is 
 indebted for the -destruction of the only genuine 
 Gospel, and with it the only authentic account 
 of Christ. No greater loss could befall the 
 world. It was written in the dawn of Christi- 
 anity, before corrupt and ambitious men sought 
 to make religion a way to power and distinction. 
 The truths contained in this Gospel stood in the 
 way of a gigantic scheme, conceived by corrupt 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. I TZ 
 
 and arrogant men, who saw in a church estab- 
 lished by the authority of God, the road to the 
 highest point of human power and grandeur. 
 They succeeded, but their success, — 
 
 " Brought death into the world and all our woe." 
 
 It was not necessary to reject all of Matthew's 
 Gospel, and it is very evident that much was 
 retained — such as the discourses of Christ and 
 some portions of history. 
 
174 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The character of Irenjeus and probable time of his birth. 
 — His partiahty for traditions. — The claim of the 
 Gnostics, that Christ did not surfer, the origin of 
 the fourth Gospel. — Irenaeus the writer. 
 
 The time when Irenaeus was born is variously 
 stated. In the introduction to his works against 
 heresies, translated by Alexander Roberts, 
 D.D., and the Rev. W. H. Rambaut, A. B., is 
 the following passage on this subject: "We 
 possess a very scanty account of the personal 
 history of Irenaeus. It has been generally sup- 
 posed he was a native of Smyrna, or some 
 neighboring city in Asia Minor. Harvey, how- 
 ever, thinks that he was probably born in Syria, 
 and removed in boyhood to Smyrna. He him- 
 self tells us (lib. iii. sec. 3, 4) that he was in 
 early youth acquainted with Polycarp, the illus^ 
 trious Bishop of that city. A sort of clue is 
 thus furnished as to the date of his birth. Dod- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 75 
 
 well supposes that he was born as early as A.D. 
 97, but this is clearly a mistake, and the general 
 date of his birth is somewhere between A.D. 
 120 and A.D. 140 (page 18). 
 
 Among the many strong and representative 
 men who have impressed their genius on the 
 Catholic Church, and given to it its distinctive 
 features, none have equalled Irenseus, the 
 Bishop of Lyons. It may in truth be said he 
 was the father of the church. He assisted at 
 its birth ; took charge of its infancy ; planted 
 within its bosom seeds which sprouted and bore 
 fruit which has been the source of its nourish- 
 ment and strength for seventeen hundred years 
 and more. It is enough to say of him, that he 
 placed in the heart of the church the seed which 
 bore the fruit of the Inquisition. 
 
 From the adoption of Trajan, in A.D. 98 to 
 the death of the Antonines, in 180, a period of 
 eighty-two years, has been selected by the 
 learned author of the "Decline and Fall" as 
 the most happy and prosperous period in the 
 annals of the human race. (Vol. I. page 47.) 
 Had he omitted the last of the Antonines, 
 under whose reign Justin Martyr and other 
 
1/6 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 good men were put to death, the learned 
 author would have come nearer the truth of 
 history. 
 
 It was the prospect of peace and protection 
 held out under this state of things that influ- 
 enced the Christians who had survived the cru- 
 elties of other reigns to once more return to 
 the imperial city. As soon as they were suffi- 
 ciently numerous it was natural to adopt some 
 form of government ; but what that form was, 
 we have no means of knowing, except by the 
 dangerous light of tradition. It must be always 
 fatal to tradition, where it claims to be import- 
 ant, that contemporaneous history says nothing 
 about it. It is certain that the uninterrupted 
 repose of the church to the time of Antoni- 
 nus Verrus, A.D. i6i, gave rise to disputes 
 among Christians ; for when they were relieved 
 from the fears of an outward enemy, they soon 
 found cause for quarrel among themselves. On 
 the introduction of the first three Gospels, which 
 happened during this time, as we shall prove, 
 the character of Christ, or rather his mysterious 
 birth from the Virgin, gave rise to numberless 
 controversies. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 177 
 
 Irenseus was born at the right time to be 
 thrust into the midst of them, and as soon as he 
 was able to comprehend anything, his ears were 
 filled ~with the disputes of the various contending 
 parties. He was born with a love of contention 
 planted in him, and had the best school ever de- 
 vised to cultivate and strengthen it. The char- 
 acter of his mind was bold and daring, and in 
 support of the cause he espoused, he had no 
 scruples or shame in resorting to falsehood and 
 forgery. If the end was good, in his sight, it 
 was all the same to him, whether it was reached 
 by truth or its opposite. Such, indeed, was the 
 prevailing morality of the age. Towards his 
 adversaries he was bitter and vindictive, apply- 
 ing to them low and vile language, such as 
 thieves and robbers. He claimed to look with 
 contempt upon those who differed from him, 
 and took pleasure in the repeated use of the 
 word heretic. Whether he ever saw Polycarp 
 or not, and it is no proof he did because he says 
 so, he claimed great advantage from it, because, 
 as he declares again and again, Polycarp was 
 the disciple of the Apostle John. He is only 
 
 one remove from an Apostle, and for what he 
 8* 
 
1 78 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 states he claimed the weight of Apostolic au- 
 thority. 
 
 We say again, it is very doubtful whether he 
 ever saw Polycarp ; and it is very certain the 
 latter never saw John. The studied dishonesty 
 of Irenseus, in attempting to palm off the Pres- 
 byter John for the Apostle, is as dark a piece 
 of knavery as is to be found in the history of 
 a church which has encouraged such practices 
 from the time it claimed to be the depository 
 of all the divine wealth left by the Apostles. 
 
 Driven to the wall by the sharp logic and su- 
 perior wisdom of that class of Christians who 
 were distinguished by the name of Gnostics, his 
 devious and ingenious mind undertook to cut 
 them off from all claims as members of a Chris- 
 tian church, by interposing the doctrine of the 
 Apostolic succession. This step once taken in- 
 volved the necessity of repeated forgeries and 
 frauds. Cowardly Peter is to be changed into 
 a hero,— sent to Rome, where death is certain, 
 and there die a Christian martyr. John, who 
 had not life and force enough in him to rise 
 above the masses, and no more knowledge than 
 is wanted to dip a net into the sea, is to be con- 
 
or the Enigmas of. Christianity. 1 79 
 
 verted into a fiery spirit, and put forth a book 
 which is to fall like a thunderbolt on the heads 
 of the heretics. If anything arises in the course 
 of the debates, which, to ordinary men, would 
 present difficulties, with Irenseus they were easily 
 disposed of by tradition. He had traditions for 
 all emergencies, and when his adversaries dared 
 dispute him, he stands ready to silence them by 
 abuse. He says : " But, again, when we refer 
 them to that tradition which originates from the 
 Apostles, (and) which is preserved by means of 
 the successions of Presbyters in the churches, 
 they object to tradition, saying that they them- 
 selves are wiser not merely than the Presbyters, 
 but even than the Apostles, because they have 
 discovered the unadulterated truth. It comes 
 to this, therefore, that these men do now con- 
 sent neither to Scripture nor to tradition. Such 
 are the adversaries with whom we have to deal, 
 my very dear friend, endeavoring like slippery 
 serpents to escape at all points." (Irenseus, Vol. 
 I. book iii. page 260.) 
 
 He brings often and repeated charges against 
 his enemies for forgeries, and at the same time 
 makes more himself than all of them put to- 
 
1 8o The Christ of Paul, 
 
 gether. In the disputes about the twofold 
 nature of Christ as he appears in the Synoptics, 
 and as will be fully explained hereafter, the 
 Gnostics had the advantage in the argument. 
 If Christ the God descended upon the man 
 Christ at the baptism in the Jordan, it left him 
 at the crucifixion. Then, say the Gnostics, 
 there is no atonement , for the Son of God did 
 not shed his blood. No other man, in that or 
 any other age, could meet the crisis but Irenseus ; 
 and the result is the fourth Gospel. 
 
 The time when this Gospel first appeared as a 
 historical fact, has been so thoroughly sifted by 
 late writers on that subject, that it will only be 
 necessary here to notice some of the prominent 
 reasons why its date is fixed after the middle 
 of the second century. All allusions, or pre- 
 tended allusions, found in the writings of the 
 fathers, on inspection will be found to be the 
 work of those who have attempted to poison 
 the fountains of history. Papias lived near the 
 age of John, and if John had written he must 
 have known and spoken about it, as he speaks 
 of Matthew and Mark ; but he says nothing 
 about John or Luke. He was Bishop of Helio- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 8 1 
 
 polis A. D. 165, and informs us that it was his 
 habit to inquire of those who were the followers 
 of the elders, what was said by them : what was 
 said by Andrew and Peter or Philip ; what by 
 Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any other of 
 the disciples of the Lord. (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist. , 
 book iii. chap. 39.) 
 
 The Apology of Justin to the emperor was 
 written some time between the years A. D. 130 
 and A. D. 160. The precise time is not known, 
 and there is some uncertainty about it. In his 
 Apology, Justin makes thirty-five distinct al- 
 lusions to Matthew, eighteen to Luke, and five 
 to Mark, and if he says anything which points 
 to John at all, on examination it will appear that 
 the allusions are found elsewhere, in writings 
 anterior to Justin. "For Christ said, 'Except 
 ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the 
 Kingdom of Heaven.' " This, it is claimed, is 
 taken from the fourth Gospel, which must have 
 been in existence when Justin wrote. The 
 language in the Gospel is, " Jesus answered and 
 said unto them. Except a man be born again, 
 he cannot see the kingdom of God." [John iii. 
 3.) This language, imputed to Christ, was 
 
1 82 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 drawn from a common source — from the Gos- 
 pel according to the Hebrews, as has been fully 
 proven, and so in every other instance where 
 the writer seems to allude to the Gospel of 
 John. 
 
 The new ideas concerning Christ found in this 
 Gospel had not yet dawned upon the world 
 when Justin wrote, for on that subject he had 
 not got beyond what was contained in the Sy- 
 noptics ; or, to speak with greater accuracy, his 
 Logos idea was that of Philo, which differed 
 from that of John. 
 
 An examination of this subject by the most 
 learned and careful writers, proves that there is 
 no reliable evidence that the fourth Gospel was 
 in existence before A. D. 17S, when a direct re- 
 ference is made to it in the Clementine homilies, 
 a production written in praise of Peter against 
 Marcion. The language quoted is unmistaka- 
 bly the language of John. Tatian, who wrote 
 between A. D. 160 and A. D. 185, quotes from 
 the fourth Gospel : " And this is what was said, 
 Darkness does not comprehend the light ; the 
 Logos is the light of God." In the nineteenth 
 chapter we read : ' ' All things were made by 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 183 
 
 him, and without him not a thing was made." 
 These were quotations from John without his 
 being named as the author ; but Theophilus of 
 Antioch, who wrote about A. D. 176, especially 
 ascribes the Gospel to him. " In the second 
 book of this treatise addressed to Antolycus, he 
 says : ' Whence the holy Scriptures teach us, 
 and all who carried in them a holy spirit, of 
 whom John says. In the beginning was the 
 Word, and the Word was God.' " It may be 
 claimed as an historic fact, that the fourth Gospel 
 was extant in A. D. 175, and that all efforts to 
 give it an early date spring from uncertain 
 data : obscure allusions and doubtful inferences 
 altogether too vague and unreliable to satisfy 
 the mind in pursuit of truth. 
 
1 84 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Why Irenaeus wrote the fourth Gospel in the name of 
 John. — He shows that the Gospels could not be less 
 than four, and proves the doctrine of the incarnation 
 by the Old Testament and the Synoptics. — The au- 
 thor of the epistles attributed to St. John. 
 
 The zeal of Irenseus against his adversaries 
 had carried him so far in support of the doctrine 
 of the incarnation that he ventured upon a new 
 Gospel, under the name and authority of an 
 Apostle. Without the authority of some one of 
 the Apostles to sustain him, of what conse- 
 quence would the opinion of one man be, on a 
 question which involved the substance and es- 
 sence of Christianity ? Nothing would be easier 
 than to publish a fourth Gospel in the name of 
 some one among the disciples. They were all 
 dead a hundred years or more, and the time 
 and place of their death no one knew. 
 
 But why did Irenaeus select the name of John ? 
 It was his policy to select from among the 
 twelve the one who had been the least conspic- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 185 
 
 uous during his life, so that what was said or 
 done by him in Judea at one time should not 
 conflict with something else claimed to have 
 been done at the same time somewhere else. 
 The one that said and did nothing in his own 
 country might be claimed to have said and done 
 a great deal in another. If the proof adduced 
 to prove that John, the son of Zebedee, was not 
 the John of Ephesus, and that Irenaeus was 
 engaged in making a false substitute, we have 
 gone a great way to show that he himself was 
 the author of the fourth Gospel. To be sure, 
 John's presence in Asia was required for the 
 Apostolic succession ; but the man who brought 
 him there for that purpose would be most likely 
 to use his name in all other cases when it might 
 prove useful. 
 
 The book against Heresies was written be- 
 tween A. D. 182 and A. D. 188, so that about 
 eight years elapsed between the appearance of 
 the Gospel and the one against the heretics. In 
 the mean time, no doubt the Gospel had been at- 
 tacked from more quarters than one, so that it 
 became necessary that the writer should come to 
 its defence. The book against Heresies is noth- 
 
1 86 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 ing more than a supplement to the Gospel, and 
 the writer had in view its defence as much, if 
 not more, than he had the heresies of the Gnos- 
 tics. 
 
 No better evidence could be given of the vio- 
 lence with which the fourth Gospel was attacked, 
 when it first appeared, than the character of the 
 defence made to sustain it. That it was some- 
 thing new in the time of Irensus is evident from 
 the fact that he is called upon and employed his 
 genius to defend it. He is not called upon to 
 defend either of the other Gospels, because 
 whatever doubts there may have been as to 
 them, the time for discussion had long passed 
 away. But the fourth Gospel was something 
 new ; it had not gone through that fermentation 
 in the minds of men which always follows the 
 introduction of some new idea or principle, but 
 was undergoing that process at the time Ire- 
 nseus wrote in its defence. If this Gospel had 
 been written by John, it would have been, at the 
 time Irensus wrote, nearly one hundred years 
 old, and its claims settled years before he was 
 born. The very arguments he brings to its 
 support are proofs that it is a fraud. He proves 
 
or the Emgmas of Ckristianiiy. 187 
 
 that it is genuine because it is a necessity — just 
 as pillars are necessary to the support of a por- 
 tico. In his mode of argument he proves that 
 a falsehood may be exposed by the poverty and 
 weakness of the arguments which are relied 
 upon for its support. 
 
 Irenseus proves not only that the appearance 
 of the fourth Gospel was something new, but 
 that the doctrines it contained were unheard of 
 before. He says : "It is not possible that the 
 Gospels can be either more or fewer in number 
 than they are ; for since there are four zones of 
 the -world in which we live, and four principal 
 winds, while the church ts scattered throughout 
 all the world, and the pillar and ground of the 
 church is the Gospel and the Spirit of life, it is 
 fitting that she should have four pillars, breath- 
 ing out immortality on every side, and vivifying 
 men afresh." (Book III. chap. 2, sec. 8.) On 
 this subject, after drawing many illustrations 
 from the Gospels in proof of his position, he 
 concludes as follows : " These things being so, 
 all who destroy the form of the Gospel are vain, 
 unlearned, and also audacious : those (I mean) 
 who represent the aspects of the Gospel as being 
 
1 88 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 more in number than as aforesaid, or, on the 
 other hand, fewer." (Book in. chap. 2, sec. 9.) 
 
 The fourth Gospel was written with no other 
 purpose than to prove the incarnation, and that 
 purpose is so persistently kept up in every line 
 and verse, from the beginning to the end, that 
 if we strike out this, and the miracles which are 
 mere supports of the main idea, there is nothing 
 left. And so with the third book against He- 
 resies — it has but one theme. The writer sets 
 out with the Logos idea of this Gospel, which is 
 never lost sight of He finds proof in the tra- 
 ditions of the church — in every page of the "Old 
 Testament — in the Synoptics, as well as in the 
 fourth Gospel; and as we read his misappli- 
 cation of words and sentences, we would con- 
 clude that he was a lunatic if we did not know he 
 was something else. He has no quarrel with the 
 first three Gospels, because he can see nothing 
 in them that does not furnish proof of what is 
 taught in the fourth ; and in the language which 
 makes most against his dogmas, he sees the clear- 
 est proof of their truth. 
 
 As an example of his mode of interpretation, 
 and turning the plain sense of words from their 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 1 8g 
 
 proper meaning to proofs that Christ was God 
 in the flesh, we will give his explanation of the 
 prophecy of Isaiah, which relates to his birth from 
 a virgin: "Therefore, the Lord himself shall 
 give you a sign : Behold, a virgin shall conceive 
 and bear a son; and ye shall call hisjiame Emman- 
 uel. Butter and honey shall he eat : before he 
 knows or chooses out things that are evil. He 
 shall exchange them for what is good ; for be- 
 fore the child knows good or evil, He shall not 
 consent to evil, that he may choose that which 
 is good." Here follow the comments : "Care- 
 fully, then, has the holy Ghost pointed out, by 
 what has been said — His birth from a virgin 
 and His essence, for he is God (for the name of 
 Emmanuel indicates this). And he shows that he 
 is a man when he says, ' Butter and honey shall 
 he eat ; ' and in that he terms him a child also, 
 in saying, ' before he knows good from evil ; ' 
 for these are all tokens of a human infant. But 
 that he ' will not consent to evil that he may 
 choose what is good,' this is proper to God ; 
 that by the fact, that He shall eat butter and 
 honey, we would understand that He is a mere 
 man only — nor on the other hand from the name 
 
1 90 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Emmanuel, should suspect him to be Christ 
 without flesh." (Book III. ch. 21, sec. 4.) That 
 is, Christ is in the flesh, because he is to eat 
 butter and honey ; and he is God, because he 
 knows how to distinguish between good and 
 evil; and as a consequence, the divine andjiu- 
 man nature are united in his person, and he is 
 the incarnate God. We have shown in another 
 part of this work that the prophecy of Isaiah 
 had nothing to do with a future Christ, but was 
 meant as a measure of time, governed by the 
 period of gestation. 
 
 Again : " ' The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit 
 Thou at my right hand, until I make thine ene- 
 mies Thy footstool.' Here (the Scripture) repre- 
 sents to us the Father addressing the Son ; He 
 who gave Him the inheritance of the heathen, 
 and subjected to Him all his enemies. Since, 
 therefore, the Father is truly Lord, and the Son 
 truly Lord, the Holy Spirit has fitly designated 
 them by the title of Lord. And again, referring 
 to the destruction of the Sodomites, the Scrip- 
 ture says, ' Then the Lord rained upon Sodom 
 and upon Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the 
 Lord out of heaven. ' For it here points out that 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 191 
 
 the Son, who had also been talking with Abra- 
 ham, had received power to judge the Sodo- 
 mites for their wickedness. And this (text fol- 
 lowing) does declare the same truth : ' Thy 
 ''throne, O God, is forever and ever ; the sceptre 
 of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou hast 
 loved righteousness, and hated iniquity : there- 
 fore God, thy God, hath anointed thee.' For the 
 Spirit designates both [of them] by the name of 
 God — both Him who is anointed as Son, and 
 Him who does anoint, that is, the Father. And 
 again : ' God stood in the congregation of the 
 gods. He judges among the gods.' He (here) 
 refers to the Father and the Son, and those who 
 have received the adoption ; but these are the 
 church. For she is the synagogue of God, which 
 God — that is, the Son Himself — has gathered by 
 Himself. Of whom He again speaks : ' The 
 God of gods, the Lord hath spoken, and hath 
 called the earth.' Who is meant by God ? He 
 of whom He has said, ' God shall come openly, 
 our God, and shall not keep silence ; ' that is, 
 the Son, who came manifested to men, who 
 said, ' I have openly appeared to those who 
 seek me not.'" (Book in. chap. 6, sec. i.) 
 
192 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 "And again, when the Son speaks to Moses, 
 He says, ' I am come down to deliver this peo- 
 ple.' For it is He who descended and ascendgd 
 for the salvation of men. Therefore God has 
 been declared through the Son, who is in the 
 Father, and has the Father in Himself — He 
 who is, the Father bearing witness to the Son, 
 and the Son announcing the Father." (Book 
 III. chap. 6, sec. 2.) 
 
 He quotes many passages from the Gospel of 
 Matthew to prove his doctrine. " But Mat- 
 thew says, that the Magi, coming from the East, 
 exclaimed, ' For we have seen his star in the 
 east, and are come to worship Him ;' and that, 
 having been led by the star into the house of 
 Jacob to Emmanuel, they showed, by those gifts 
 which they offered, who it was that was wor- 
 shipped : myrrh, because it was He who should 
 die and be buried for the mortal human race ; 
 gold, because He was a king, ' of whose king- 
 dom is no end ;' dXid frankincense , because He 
 was God, who also ' was made known in Judea,' 
 and was ' declared to those who sought Him 
 not.'" (Book III. chap. 9, sec. 2.) "And then, 
 (speaking of His) baptism, Matthew says : ' The 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. \ 93 
 
 heavens were opened, and He saw the Spirit of 
 God, as a dove, coming upon Him : and lo a 
 voice from heaven, saying. This is my beloved 
 Son, in whom I am well pleased.' For Christ 
 did not at that descend upon Jesus, neither was 
 Christ one and Jesus another : but the Word of 
 God — who is the Saviour of all, and the ruler of 
 heaven and earth, who is Jesus, as I have al- 
 ready pointed out, who did also take upon Him 
 flesh, and was anointed by the Spirit from the 
 Father — was made Jesus Christ." (Book III. 
 chap. 9, sec. 3.) 
 
 The following is proof derived from Luke. 
 " As Zacharias, also, recovering from the state 
 of dumbness which he had suffered on account 
 of unbelief, having been filled with a new spirit, 
 did bless God in a new manner. For all things 
 had entered upon a new phase, the Word arrang- 
 ing after a new manner the advent in the flesh, 
 that He might win back to God that human na- 
 ture {hominem) which had departed from God." 
 (Book III. chap. 10, sec. 2.) 
 
 Many citations of a like nature are taken from 
 Luke and Mark to prove the Logos doctrine of 
 John's Gospel. Irenaeus even brings John upon 
 9 
 
1 94 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 the stand to prove the doctrine of an incarnate 
 Christ ! which John himself was the first to com- 
 municate. "John, the disciple of the Lord, 
 preaches this faith, and seeks, by the proclama- 
 tion of the Gospel, to remove that error which 
 by Cerinthus had been disseminated among 
 men, and a long time previously by those 
 termed Nicolaitans, who are an offset of that 
 ' knowledge ' falsely so called, that he might 
 confound them, and persuade them that there is 
 but one God, who made all things by His Weird ; 
 and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, 
 but the Father of the Lord another ; and that 
 the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but 
 the Christ from above another." . . . . " The 
 disciple of the Lord, therefore, desiring to put 
 an end to all such doctrines, and to establish the 
 rule of truth in the church, that there is one- 
 Almighty God, who made all things by His 
 Word, both visible and invisible ■, showing at 
 the same time, that by the Word, through whom 
 God made the creation, He also bestowed 
 salvation on the men included in the crea- 
 tion : thus commenced His teaching in the Gos- 
 pel : ' In the beginning was the Word, and the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. xgc 
 
 Word was with God, and the Word was God.' " 
 (Book III. chap, ii, sec. i.) 
 
 He makes many references to John, and sums 
 up his complaints against the Gnostics in the 
 following words : " But according to the opinion 
 of no one of the heretics was the Word of God 
 made flesh. For if any one carefully examines 
 the systems of them all, he will find that the 
 Word of God is brought in by all of them as 
 not having become incarnate (sine came) and 
 impassible, as is also the Christ from above." 
 (Book III. chap, in, sec. 3.) The writer cites 
 many passages from the epistle of Peter, all 
 confirming the Logos doctrines of John. 
 
 The following is the heading of chap. xxii. 
 book III. : " Christ assumed actual flesh, con- 
 ceived and born of the Virgin.^' In this chapter 
 the doctrine of the incarnation is elaborately 
 argued, and proof supplied from many quarters ; 
 but as there is a great sameness in the argument 
 throughout, it would only tire the reader to pur- 
 sue the subject any further. 
 
 The third book against Heresies contains 
 twenty-five chapters, which are extended 
 through one hundred and seventeen pages, and 
 
1 96 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 throughout there is but one idea presented, and 
 the proof offered in its support ; and from the 
 first to the last, there is a studied effort to turn 
 the plain import of biblical passages from their 
 true meaning into the support of the doctrines 
 in the fourth Gospel. Thus this father of the 
 church, in about seven years after this Gospel 
 appeared, came to its defence, and for that pur- 
 pose wrote a book, which must have cost him 
 much time and study, for in its way it is a work 
 of great research, and required an intimate ac- 
 quaintance with the Old and New Testaments, 
 and the writings of the Gnostics, which were 
 numerous in his day. From the zeal which is 
 shown throughout, it is evident that the writer 
 had some personal interest in the subject, and. 
 that he was defending his own doctrines, and 
 not those of St. John or any one else. 
 
 We do not detect in the work against Here- 
 sies the lofty and sublime tone of the Gospel, 
 and, from the nature of the subject, it could not 
 be expected. He is engaged in an attempt to 
 impose on the world, and as what he declares 
 to be the work of an Apostle has no foundation 
 in truth, nor the doctrines it teaches, he strug- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 197 
 
 gles like a man in a morass, who is compelled to 
 seize upon anything to keep him from sinking. 
 No doubt he was pressed hard by his adver- 
 saries, and he seems in his defence of the fourth 
 Gospel like a gored bull with a pack at his front 
 and heels. We can detect the keen lance of his 
 adversary, piercing him to the quick, in the re- 
 peated cry of Antichrist, which is the favorite 
 weapon when hard pressed by his enemies. 
 
 As he fights all his battles in the name of St. 
 John, hear him exclaim, in the first and sec- 
 ond epistles, which he falsely ascribes to the 
 Apostle : " Little children, it is the last time : 
 and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, 
 even now are there many Antichrists ; whereby 
 we know that it is the last time. Who is a liar 
 but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ ? 
 He is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the 
 Son." (i John ii. 18, 22.) "Hereby know 
 ye the Spirit of God : Every spirit that confesseth 
 that Jesus Christ is come in "Hsiq. flesh, is of God : 
 and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus 
 Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God. And 
 this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have 
 heard that it should come ; and even now 
 
I gS The Christ of Paul, 
 
 already is it in the world." (i John iv. 2, 3.) 
 " For many deceivers are entered into the 
 world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is 
 come in the flesh. This is a deceiver, and an 
 Antichrist. Look- to yourselves, that we lose 
 not those things which we have wrought, but 
 that we receive a full reward. Whosoever 
 transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine 
 of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in 
 the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father 
 and the Son. If there come any unto you, and 
 bring not this doctrine, receive him not into 
 your house, neither bid him God speed : for he 
 that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his 
 evil deeds." (2 Joht 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.) 
 
 The spirit that dictated the foregoing denun- 
 ciations of those who disbelieved the dogma of 
 Christ incarnate, also gave birth to what fol- 
 lows : " But again, those who assert that he 
 was simply a mere man, begotten by Joseph, 
 remaining in the bondage of the old disobe- 
 dience, are in a state of death ; having been not 
 as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor 
 receiving liberty through the Son, as He does 
 himself declare : ' If the Son shall make you 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 199 
 
 free, ye shall be free indeed.' But, being igno- 
 rant of Him who from the Virgin is Emmanuel, 
 they are deprived of His gift, which is eternal 
 life ; and not receiving the incorruptible Word, 
 they remain in mortal flesh, and are debtors to 
 death, not obtaining the antidote of life. To 
 whom the Word says, mentioning His own gift of 
 grace : ' I said, ye are all the sons of the Highest, 
 and gods; but ye shall die like men.' He 
 speaks undoubtedly these words to those who 
 have not received the gift of adoption, but who 
 despise the incarnation of the pure generation 
 of the Word of God, defraud human nature of 
 promotion into God, and prove themselves un- 
 grateful to the Word of God, who became 7?^.?^ 
 for them." (Book iii. chap, 19, sec. I.) 
 
200 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Four distinct eras in Christianity from Paul to the Coun- 
 cil of Nice. — The epistles of Paul and the works of 
 the fathers changed to suit each era. — The dishon- 
 esty of the times. 
 
 From the time Paul commenced his labors, to 
 the latter part of the second century, we can 
 trace three eras or periods in the state and char- 
 acter of Christianity, as marked and distinct as 
 the various strata of the earth which indicate 
 the different ages of their formation. First, the 
 Pauline ; second, the Philo-Alexandrian, which 
 includes the time of the first three Gospels ; 
 third, the Incarnation, which includes the fourth 
 Gospel. As we approach the end of the third 
 century, we may include a fourth period — that 
 of the Trinity. 
 
 We have stated elsewhere, that the distin- 
 guishing feature between the Logos of Philo 
 and the Christ of Paul was, that the former was 
 coexistent in point of time with the Creator or 
 Father, while in case of the latter, there was a 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 20 1 
 
 time he did not exist. There was still another 
 difference : the Logos was begotten in heaven, 
 but Christ was born on the earth, of earthly pa- 
 rents. Through the influence of the Alexandrian 
 Jews, who had been converted to Christianity by 
 the preaching of Paul, the Christ of Paul was 
 made to give way, in time, to the Logos of Philo. 
 This change can be traced in the forgeries which 
 are found interlarded through the epistles of 
 Paul, and the writings of the early fathers. We 
 trace the gradual and stealthy departure from 
 the first to the second stages of Christianity 
 in the use of terms in Paul's epistles which 
 were employed among the Gnostics and others 
 in the early part of the second century. The 
 epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians have 
 been pronounced by able critics to be spurious, 
 because of some verses which have an Alexan- 
 drian look ; when it is easy to discover that these 
 verses are mere insertions into the original text. 
 The term pleroma, or fulness, was a favorite 
 phrase among the Gnostics, and now we find it 
 scattered here and there through the epistles : 
 " For it pleased the Father, that itt him should 
 
 all fulness dwell." {Col. i. 19.) "For in him 
 9* 
 
202 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." 
 (jCol. ii. 9.) "And hath put all things under 
 his feet, and gave him to be the head of all 
 things to the church, which is his body, the 
 fulness of him that filleth all in all." {Eph. i. 
 22, 23.) "And to know the love of Christ, 
 which passeth all knowledge, that ye might be 
 filled with all the fulness of God." {Eph. iii. 19.) 
 The preexistence of Christ, and his rank as 
 God, is now openly avowed. "For by him were 
 all things created, that are in heaven, and that 
 are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they 
 be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or 
 powers : all things were created by him, and for 
 him. And he is before all things, and by him 
 all things consist." {Col. i. 16, 17.) Here the 
 Christ of Paul disappears, like the great Apos- 
 tle himself. The works of the fathers are now 
 mutilated by the same ruthless hand, to main- 
 tain the new phase which Christianity is forced 
 to assume. "Ignatius, who is called Theo- 
 phorus to the church which is at Ephesus in 
 Asia, deservedly happy, being blessed through 
 the greatness 3.nd fulness of God the Father, and 
 predestinated before the world began, that it 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 203 
 
 should be always unto an enduring and un- 
 changeable glory ; being united and chosen, 
 through actual suffering, according to the will 
 of the Father and Jesus Christ our God, all hap- 
 piness by Jesus Christ and his undefiled grace." 
 {Epistle to Eptsiceris, sec. i. 17.) The balance 
 of this section, which will be cited in a subse- 
 quent page, was added in the third or fourth cen- 
 tury, when Christianity put on its fourth phase. 
 " For this cause they were persecuted also, 
 being inspired by his grace, fully to convince the 
 unbelievers that there is one God, who hath man- 
 ifested himself by Jesus Christ his Son, who is 
 his eternal Word, not coming forth from silence, 
 who in all things was well pleased in him that 
 sent him." * (Sec. 8.) 
 
 * The word silence is a word which grew in use among the 
 Gnostics long after the time of Ignatius, and affords unmistaka- 
 ble proof of the fraudulent interpolation. Valentinianus, a Gnos- 
 tic of the second century, held that there is a certain Dyad (two- 
 fold being), who is inexpressible by name, of whom one part 
 should be called Anhetus, unspeakable, and the other Silence. 
 The word, in the connection in which it is found in the passage 
 from Ignatius, speaking about what related to a later age, has 
 been the occasion of much discussion : some contending that it 
 has reference to the Silence of Valentinianus, which proves the 
 
204 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Such passages as we have cited, and others of 
 a like nature which might be cited, have led 
 critics to the conclusion that the writings which 
 contain them are forgeries ; but if examined in 
 con7iection with the texts, it will be found that 
 they are interpolations, forced into the places 
 they fill. As the writings of Paul now stand, 
 they present Christ in two distinct characters or 
 aspects : his own as the Son of Man, from which 
 he never wavered ; and the other that of Philo. 
 All through his epistles we find passages which 
 inculcate doctrines with which he combated dur- 
 ing his whole life. All that is essential to, or 
 that is embraced in, the writings of Philo, as to 
 the nature of the Logos, may be found in the 
 epistles of Paul. We will give a few examples 
 which we gather from the work of Jacob Bryant, 
 and found among the notes of Adam Clarke in 
 his Commentaries on St. John. 
 
 Philo. " First begotten of God." 
 
 COLOSSIANS i. 15. " Who is the image of the 
 invisible God, the first-born of every creature." 
 
 passage spurious ; others,- that it relates to the erroneous opinions 
 of heretics anterior to Valentinianus. What heretics ! (See 
 Chevalier's Apostolical Gospels, note 6.) 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 205 
 
 Hebrews i. 6. " And again, when he bring- 
 eth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, 
 And let all the angels of God worship him." 
 Philo. " By whom the world was created." 
 Hebrews i. 2. " Hath in these last days 
 spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath ap- 
 pointed heir of all things, by whom also he 
 made the worlds." 
 
 1 Corinthians viii. 6. " But to us there 
 is but one God, the Father, of whom are all 
 things, and we in him ; and one Lord Jesus 
 Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." 
 
 Philo. " The most ancient of God's works, 
 and before- all things." 
 
 2 Timothy i. 9. "Who hath saved us, and 
 called us with an holy calling, not according to 
 our works, but according to his own purpose 
 and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus 
 before the world began." 
 
 Philo. " Esteemed the sa7ne as God." 
 Philippians ii. 6. " Who,^ being in the form 
 
 of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with 
 
 God." 
 Philo. "He unites, supports, presertes, and 
 
 perfects the world." 
 
206 SThe Christ of Paul, 
 
 COLOSS. i. 17. " And he is before all things, 
 
 and by him all things consist." 
 
 Philo. " Free from all taint of sin, volun- 
 tary and involuntary ." 
 
 Hebrews vii. 26. " For such an high priest 
 became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, 
 separate from sinners, and made higher than 
 the heavens." 
 
 PllLO. " The Logos the foundation of wis- 
 dom." 
 
 I Corinthians i. 24. " But unto them which 
 are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the 
 power of God, and the wisdom of God." 
 
 COLOSS. ii. 3. " In whom are hid all the 
 treasures of wisdom and knowledge." 
 
 Philo. " Men being freed by the Logos from 
 all corriiption, shall be entitled to immortality ." 
 
 I Corinthians xv. 52, 53. " In a moment, 
 in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : 
 for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall 
 be raised incorruptible, and we shall be chang- 
 ed." "For this corruptible must put on in- 
 corruption, and this mortal must put on immor- 
 tality." 
 
 Inconsistency cannot be claimed to be one of 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 207 
 
 the faults of Paul ; but if we place these passa- 
 ges by the side of those in which he declares, in 
 unmistakable language, his belief in the nature 
 of Christ, we must either admit inconsistency 
 or fraud. The influence of Paul had lost much 
 of its force before, his death in A.D. 6S ; and 
 when Hadrian assumed the government of the 
 empire, A.D. 117, the Pauline era had nearly 
 ceased. Speaking of the great Apostle, Renan 
 says : " After his disappearance frorp the scene 
 of his apostolic struggles, we shall find him soon 
 forgotten. His death was probably regarded as 
 the death of an agitator. The second century 
 scarcely speaks of him, and apparently endea- 
 vors to systematically blot out his memory. 
 His epistles are then slightly read, and only re- 
 garded as authority by rather a slender group." 
 {Life of Paul, page 327.) 
 
 But the same author tells us, on the same 
 page, what history confirms, that Paul, in the 
 third century, wonderfully rises in the estima- 
 tion of the church, and resumes the place from 
 which he had been deposed. There is a good 
 and obvious reason for the change. During this 
 interval between the fall and rise of his influence, 
 
2o8 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 his epistles had been subjected to the most glar- 
 ing forgeries, in orrler to make them conform to 
 the Philo-Alexandrian ideas which in the mean 
 time prevailed. 
 
 It is to be remarked at this place, that the 
 Logos idea of Philo encountered difficulties, 
 when applied to the person of Jesus. It could 
 not be denied that he was the son of Mary ; 
 but it might be, that he was not the son of Jo- 
 seph. He is therefore born not of man. The 
 influence of a divine energy is substituted. No 
 sooner is this new feature introduced into the 
 second stage of Christianity, than new ideas 
 prevail, and are found scattered through the 
 works of the fathers. " And the princes of the 
 world know not the virginity of Mary, and him 
 who was born of her, and the death of the Lord : 
 three mysteries noised abroad, yet done by God 
 in silence." " Where is the wise and where is 
 the disputer ? Where is the boasting of those 
 who are called men of understanding ? For our 
 God, Jesus Christ, was born in the womb of 
 Mary, according to the dispensation of God." 
 {Ignatius to Eph. sees. i8, 19.) 
 
 The foregoing are mere specimens. Christ is 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 209 
 
 now the Son of God ; but for a time he is all 
 humanity. He grows from infancy to manhood, 
 and manifests in himself the appetites and in- 
 firmities which belong to the flesh. His mind 
 develops early ; but, as with other mortals, it 
 grew and expanded as he advanced in years. 
 But the time came when " the heavens were 
 -opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God 
 descending like a dove, and lighting upon him." 
 (Matt. iii. 16.) He was there proclaimed by a 
 voice from heaven, to be the Son of God. 
 Here is something Paul never heard of. The 
 new Logos of the gospel, like the Logos of 
 Philo, was without beginning, from everlasting ; 
 but from this point they diverge. 
 
 The Logos of the Alexandrian was not an hy- 
 postasis, or a person, but a divine emanation or 
 spirit ; of a nature unconceivable, which hovered 
 over the earth, but never touched it. The new 
 Christ descended from heaven as a spirit, took 
 up its mysterious abode in the human form, 
 where it dwelt until its ministry was complete, 
 when, with the body which contained it, it en- 
 countered death — went down into the grave — ■ 
 but on the third day broke the chains of death, 
 
2 lO The Christ of Paul, 
 
 and triumphantly ascended into heaven, from 
 whence it came. 
 
 The tendency of the minds of men at that day 
 towards the discussions of metaphysical and un- 
 intelligible subjects, soon led to endless disputes, 
 growing out of this new feature of the Christian 
 faith. How this mysterious union of God and 
 man could and did exist, and when and how 
 it was dissolved, were questions which caused 
 much angry feeling and acrimonious discussion 
 among Christians, which continued through the 
 second, and even to the fourth century, when, 
 according to the learned author of the " Decline 
 and Fall," they died out by " the prevalence of 
 more fashionable controversies, and by the su- 
 perior ascendant of the reigning power." {Gib- 
 bon, vol. I. p. 257.) 
 
 The idle and profitless disputes of the second 
 era of Christianity were forced, at a later day, 
 to give way to those of the third. Cerinthus, 
 and other Gnostics, maintained, that the Son of 
 God descended on the day of baptism in the 
 form of a dovfe, and remained in its human re- 
 ceptacle until the time of the crucifixion, when 
 it took its flight, leaving to the human form all 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 211 
 
 the agonies and sufferings of death. If this 
 were so, there is no atonement ; the Son of 
 God has not offered himself as a sacrifice. The 
 Gnostics had the advantage of consistency. If 
 Christ was a creature, hke other men, when the 
 Spirit descended upon him, and existed apart 
 from the flesh, then death could only reach the 
 body, and when that was put to death, or about 
 to be, and the Spirit lost its tabernacle or abi- 
 ding-place, it must again return to the celestial 
 abode. 
 
 The perplexities and interminable disputes, 
 caused by such unintelligible subjects, at last 
 led to the third period in the Christian religion : 
 the doctrine of the incarnation : ' ' The Word 
 was made flesh and dwelt among us, who was 
 not born of blood, nor of the will of man, but of 
 God." {John i. 13, 14.) God took upon him- 
 self the form of man, and was God in man. 
 The Logos of Philo has become an hypostasis, 
 and walks upon the cirth. The war with the 
 Gnostics has changed ground. The Son of God 
 did not come down and take up his abode in the 
 mortal form of Christ, but was Jesus -himself, 
 and when he came to suffer death there was no 
 
212 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 separation of divine and human natures, but the 
 real Son of God shed his blood, suffered, and 
 died on the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of our 
 race. 
 
 The paternal solicitude of Irenaeus in support 
 of this new phase of Christianity is conspicu- 
 ously displayed in the third book of his work 
 against Heresies. " But, according to these 
 men, neither was the Word made flesh, nor 
 Christ, nor the Saviour {Soter), who was pro- 
 duced from [the joint contributions of] all [the 
 .^ons]. For they will have it that the Word 
 and Christ never came into this world ; that 
 the Saviour, too, never became incarnate, nor 
 suffered, but that he descended like a dove 
 upon the dispensational Jesus ; and that, as 
 soon as He had declared the unknown Father, 
 He did again ascend into the Pleroma. . . . 
 Therefore the Lord's disciple, pointing them all 
 out as false witnesses, says : ' And the Word 
 was made flesh, and dwelt among us.' " (Chap, 
 xi. sec. 3.) "As it has been clearly demon- 
 strated that the Word, who existed in the be- 
 ginning with God, by whom all things were 
 made, who was also always present with man- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 213 
 
 kind, was in these last days, according to the 
 time appointed by the Father, united to His own 
 workmanship, inasmuch as He became a man 
 liable -to suffering, [it follows] that every objec- 
 tion is set aside of those who say, ' If our Lord 
 was born at that time, Christ had therefore no 
 previous existence.' For I have shown that 
 the Son of God did not then begin to exist, 
 being with the Father from the beginning ; but 
 when He became incarnate, and was made man, 
 He commenced afresh the long line of human 
 beings, and furnished us, in a brief, comprehen- 
 sive manner, with salvation ; so that what we 
 had lost in Adam — namely, to be according to 
 the image and likeness of God — that we might 
 recover in Christ Jesus. " (Chap, xviii. sec. i.) 
 The forgers are again at their work. The an- 
 cient fathers must be made to subscribe to the 
 new creed. " For some there are who are wont 
 to carry about the name of Christ in deceitful- 
 ness, but do things unworthy of God, whom you 
 must avoid as ye would wild beasts. For they 
 are raving dogs, which bite secretly, of whom 
 you must be aware, as men hardly to be cured. 
 There is one physician, both carnal and spirit- 
 
214 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 ual, create and increate, God manifest in the 
 flesh ; both of Mary and of God ; first capable 
 of suffering — then hable to suffer no more." 
 (Ignatius to Eph. sec. 7.) "For whosoever con- 
 fesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh 
 is Antichrist ; and whosoever confesseth not his 
 sufferings upon the cross is from the devil. And 
 whosoever perverts the oracles of God, he is the 
 first-born of Satan." [Polycarp to Philippians, 
 sec. 7.) 
 
 The above citations are a few of many others 
 of a like character scattered through the works 
 of the fathers, inserted long after their death, 
 and evidently intended to combat the idea of 
 Cerinthus and others, that Christ did not suffer 
 on the cross, and so it could not be claimed that 
 by his death he made an atonement for the sins 
 of man. Both of these fathers lived near the 
 time of Paul, and believed the doctrines he 
 preached : " Ye are the passage of those that 
 are killed for God ; who have been instructed in 
 the mysteries of the gospel with Paul, who was 
 sanctified and bore testimony even unto death, 
 and is deservedly most happy ; at whose feet I 
 would that I might be found when I shall have 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 2 1 5 
 
 attained unto God, who through all his epistles 
 makes mention of you in Christ." (Ignatius to 
 the Efhesians, see. 12.) "For neither can I, 
 nor any other such as I am, come up to the wis- 
 dom of the blessed and renowned Paul, who be- 
 ing amongst you, in the presence of those who 
 then lived, taught with exactness and soundness 
 the word of truth j who in his absence also 
 wrote an epistle to you, unto which, if you dili- 
 gently look, you may be able to be edified in the 
 faith delivered unto you, which is the mother of 
 us all." {Polycarp to the Philippians, sec. 3.) 
 
 Paul taught that Christ was born of woman, 
 under the law ; and Ignatius, that he was " truly 
 of the race of David, according to the flesh." 
 {Letter to the Eph., sec. i.) 
 
 The letters of Polycarp and Ignatius seemed 
 a kind of a free commons where forgeries might 
 be committed by all ; and they have been so 
 often used for this purpose, in order to secure 
 the authority of their names to the doctrines of 
 the day, that there is very little of the originals 
 left. All parties were engaged in the practice ; 
 and each charged his adversary with doing the 
 very thing that he was doing himself. 
 
2 1 6 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 As we read whole pages in Irenaeus, charging 
 his adversaries with forgeries and false interpo- 
 lations, we smile at the impudence and audacity 
 of the man, who has done more to pollute the 
 pages of history than any other, and whose 
 foot-prints we can follow through the whole cen- 
 tury, like the slime of a serpent. 
 
 Speaking of the forgeries of this century, 
 Casaubon says: "And in the last place, it 
 mightily affects me to see how many there were 
 in the earliest times of the church, who consid- 
 ered it a capital exploit to lend to heavenly 
 truth the help of their own inventions, in order 
 that the new doctrine might be more readily 
 allowed by the wise among the Gentiles. These 
 officious lies, they were wont to say, were de- 
 vised for a good end ; from which source, be- 
 yond question, sprang nearly innumerable 
 books, which that and the following age saw 
 published by those who were far from being 
 bad men (for we are not speaking of the books 
 of the heretics), under the name of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ and of the Apostles, and of other 
 saints." '{Casaubon, quoted by Lardner.) 
 Lardner is forced to admit ' ' that Christians of 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 217 
 
 all sorts were guilty of this fraud — indeed, we 
 may say it was one great fault of the times." 
 (Vol. IV. page 54.) 
 
 In an age where falsehood was esteemed a 
 merit, the truth cannot be expected. Before we 
 close what we have to say on the third period 
 of Christianity, we cannot fail to notice what a 
 wide gulf has grown up between the religious 
 faith of Paul and his followers, and those who 
 gave their assent to the doctrines of the fourth 
 Gospel. But, wide as is the gulf, those who call 
 themselves Christians can stand on the opposite 
 banks and clasp hands as believers in a common 
 faith. Why is this? Skilful artisans, in the 
 second century and subsequent ages, have been 
 busy in bridging over this vast abyss, by add- 
 ing to and taking away from what Paul taught, 
 until to cross over is neither difficult nor dan- 
 gerous. 
 10 
 
2l8 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Trinity, ox fourth period of Christianity. 
 
 If we may judge of the opposition made to 
 the doctrines of the fourth Gospel by the vehe- 
 mence and bad feehng with which they were de- 
 fended, we conclude that if they were not suc- 
 cessfully refuted, they did not escape just and 
 severe criticism. The sudden change from the 
 Logos of Philo to the hypostasis of John — from 
 Christ a spirit who had descended from Hea- 
 ven and taken up a temporary abode_ in the hu- 
 man form, and a Christ who was born a God, 
 lived and remained such through death and the 
 resurrection — was too great a change to be sud- 
 denly taken, without provoking the sneers and 
 animadversions of the enemies of the new faith, 
 who were on the lookout to expose its weak- 
 nesses, and ridicule its inconsistencies. What 
 gave force and point to their attacks was, that 
 the change from the Logos of the Synoptics to 
 that of the fourth Gospel was one of necessity, 
 
or the Enigmas of -Christianity. 2 19 
 
 forced upon Christians by the tactics of the 
 Gnostics, in order to maintain a principle which 
 lay at the foundation of their religion : that is, 
 the atonement. 
 
 In the war waged between them and their 
 enemies, Christians found it a source of great 
 relief and satisfaction, to learn that the doc- 
 trines of John's Gospel, which were announced 
 in the first verses of the first chapter, were in 
 harmony with the theology of Plato. Whatever 
 inconsistencies might be imputed to them on 
 account of the change of their ideas as to the 
 nature of Christ, their present views were the 
 same as those held by the great philosopher of 
 Greece, whose wisdom had entitled him to be 
 called Plato the Divine. The study of the works 
 of the Athenian by Christians of this period 
 was the natural result of this feeling, and we 
 discover a constant increase of this admiration 
 until his ascendency is complete, and the nature 
 of the Godhead determined by his genius. The 
 followers of Platd were no less gratified to find 
 that the doctrines of the fourth Gospel were in 
 harmony with the school of their great teacher ; 
 so much so that it removed the prejudice, and 
 
2 20 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 reduced the distance which formerly separated 
 them from the Christians.* 
 
 According to John, the Word existed with 
 the Father from the beginning — was equal to 
 the Father, and was the Creator of all things. 
 The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost were 
 co-equal and co-eternal. With Plato, the Fa- 
 ther, or First Cause, the Logos, and Spirit of 
 the Universe, existed from the beginning, and 
 were endowed with co-ordinate powers ; but, 
 according to him, all divine natures flow from 
 the One, or First Cause, as light flows from the 
 sun, and are bound in unity, and are one ; so 
 the three persons in the Godhead of Plato are 
 one, and constitute a triad in unity. 
 
 The theology of the fourth Gospel approached 
 so near to that of Plato, that it was natural that 
 one should insensibly run into the other, and 
 was what might have been expected. The 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are equal, as the 
 First Cause, the Logos, and the Spirit of the 
 
 * Some proofs of the respect which the Christians enter- 
 tained for the person and doctrines of Plato, may be found in 
 De la Mothe le Vager, tom. v. p. 135, and Basnage, torn. 
 IT. p. 29-79. Decline and Fall, vol. I. p. 440, note 29. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 2 21 
 
 Universe are equal. As the two proceed from 
 the One, or First Cause, with Plato, and are 
 united, so the two proceed from the Father, and 
 are one, and in both cases form a trinity in unity. 
 
 The circle is now complete. Paul was de- 
 throned by the Alexandrian Philo, and his 
 Christology in turn is overthrown by the mixed 
 theology of John and Plato. We can readily 
 detect the violence done the works of the fathers, 
 in order to give the authority of their names to 
 this new phase of Christianity. " Wherefore 
 come all ye together as to one temple of God — 
 as to one altar — as to one Jesus Christ — who 
 proceeds from One Father, and exists in one and 
 is returned to One." {Ignatius to Magnesians, 
 sec. 7.) This language expresses the Platonic 
 idea in all its completeness. It could hardly be 
 expected that Christianity could take upon itself 
 this new phase without opening the door for 
 new causes for dispute, as will always be the 
 case when men presume to reason on spiritual 
 generation, and from negative ideas attempt to 
 draw positive conclusions. 
 
 Sabellius, of Egypt, undertook to find a mid- 
 dle ground, and while he admitted the triad in 
 
2 22 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 unity, he claimed that there was but one person 
 in the Godhead, and that the Word and Spit it 
 are only virtues or emanations of the Deity. 
 But his doctrine conceded too much to the theo 
 logy of the Greek tq suit the followers of Arius, 
 and not enough to satisfy the orthodox ; and so, 
 after a vain struggle, Sabellius and his doctrine? 
 were swallowed up and lost sight of in the 
 strife created by the opposing views which sud- 
 denly sprang up in the church at Alexandria. 
 We give the origin of the dispute in the words 
 of Socrates, a writer of the fifth century. 
 
 " After Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, had suf- 
 fered martyrdom under Diocletian, Achilles 
 was installed in the Episcopal office, whom Alex- 
 ander succeeded, during the period of peace 
 above referred to. He, in the fearless exercise 
 of his functions for the instruction and govern- 
 ment of the church, attempted one day, in the 
 presence of the presbytery and the rest of his 
 clergy, to explain, with perhaps too philosophi- 
 cal minuteness, that great theological mystery, 
 the Unity of the Holy Trinity. A certain one 
 of the Presbyters under his jurisdiction, whose 
 name was Arius, possessed of no inconsiderable 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity, 223 
 
 logical acumen, imagining that the Bishop en- 
 tertained the same view of this subject as Sabel- 
 lius the Libyan, controverted his statements 
 with excessive pertinacity, advancing another 
 error which was directly opposed indeed to that 
 which he supposed himself called upon to refute. 
 ' If,' said he, ' the Father begat the Son, he 
 that was begotten had a beginning of existence : 
 and from this it is evident, that there was a 
 time when the Son was not in being. It there- 
 fore necessarily follows, that he had his exist- 
 ence from nothing.' " {Ecclesiastical History, 
 book i. chap. 5.) 
 
 From a little spark, continues the writer, a 
 large fire was kindled, which ran throughout all 
 Egypt, Libya, the upper Thebes, and finally 
 through Asia and Europe. After disturbing 
 the peace of the world for fourteen hundred 
 years, the dispute which commenced at Alex- 
 andria remains unsettled to this day. 
 
 We now approach a new era. Up to this 
 time the religion of a people had no connection 
 with the powers of the State. Constantine is 
 the first to set an example. Indebted to the 
 Christians for their assistance in the civil war 
 
224 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 between himself and Licinius, under the pretext 
 of preserving the peace of the church, he wrote 
 an epistle to Alexander and Arius, admonishing 
 them to forbear and cease to quarrel about 
 things they can neither explain or comprehend. 
 Thus commenced a connection between church 
 and State which has proved so ruinous to the 
 cause of true religion, and the peace of the 
 church ever since. This interference was con- 
 tinued by Constantine throughout his reign, and 
 at the time of his death the affairs of the church 
 and State were so interwoven that it became 
 difficult, at times, to distinguish between the of- 
 fice of a Bishop and the powers of the Emperor. 
 The spirit of faction in the church proved su- 
 perior to the authority of Constantine, and in 
 order to restore peace, he was forced to call an 
 assembly of Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons 
 from every part of the Christian world. What 
 was meant to restore harmony, only furnished 
 fresh subjects for dispute, so that the progress of 
 mankind has rather been retarded than assisted 
 by the piety and wisdom of the Nicene fathers. 
 The attempt to fix a standard of faith by the 
 decrees of councils has proven to be the great- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 225 
 
 est folly in which men were ever engaged, as 
 it has been the source of the greatest misery 
 and suffering ; and proves, by the evils which 
 flow from it, that all such . efforts are vain and 
 presumptuous. As well undertake to fix a 
 standard for the fine arts, and determine by a 
 decree the combination of colors, and how the 
 lights and shades shall be mingled in making a 
 picture to please the eye, and satisfy the taste 
 of all. 
 
 That which followed what was done at the 
 Council of Nice, shows of what little value are 
 the decrees of such bodies in establishing or in 
 assisting the cause of truth. Council followed 
 council, without arriving any nearer to the set- 
 tlement of the dispute. In the fourth century 
 alone, there were forty-five councils ; of these, 
 thirteen decided against Arius, fifteen in his 
 favor, and seventeen for the Semiarians. (Dra- 
 per's Intellectual Development, page 222.) The 
 divisions and quarrels among Christians sapped 
 the strength, and finally led to the disruption of 
 the Roman empire, and prepared the way for 
 the armies of Persia, and the conquest of Ma- 
 homet. 
 
 10* 
 
226 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Catholic Epistles. 
 
 The Catholic Epistles, as they are called, if 
 genuine, should be regarded as of the highest 
 authority in everything which relates to the 
 early age of Christianity. That some are the 
 real productions of an Apostle, some so in part, 
 and others wholly spurious, is susceptible of the 
 most satisfactory proof. The epistle of James, 
 and the first of Peter, if we except certain parts 
 of the latter, have strong claims to be treated as 
 the works of the writers whose names they bear ; 
 while the second of Peter, the first, second, and 
 third of John, and the one ascribed to Jude, carry 
 on their face unmistakable marks of forgery. 
 
 The writer of the first epistle of Peter was a 
 Jew, not a Greek, and it was addressed to 
 Jewish converts. His mind dwells on events in 
 Jewish history, for he speaks of Sarah, Abra- 
 ham, and Moses, and refers to the traditions ot 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 227 
 
 the Jewish rabbins and elders, (i Pet. i. 18.) 
 Although addressed to strangers, the epistle was 
 meant for Jews, who, through persecution in 
 Judea, fled into foreign countries ; for to Peter 
 was committed the ministry of the circumcision. 
 (Gal. ii. 9.) Besides, the persons to whom 
 Peter writes are styled " a chosen generation, a 
 royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar 
 people" (i Peter ii. 9), which can only apply to 
 the Jewish nation. " And ye shall be unto me 
 a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation." 
 [Exodus xix. 6.) 
 
 The letter shows that Peter was still a Jew, 
 and altogether proves that he had not changed 
 his views on circumcision. The vision on the 
 house-top had not yet taken place. But there 
 is a spirit of pure morality running through the 
 greater part of the epistle, which brings it near 
 the time of Christ, and makes it out of place in 
 a later period of Christianity. It is conclusive 
 proof of its canonical authority, that it is inserted 
 in the Syriac version of the New Testament, 
 executed at the close of the first or early in the 
 second century ; and it is equally conclusive 
 against the second of Peter, that it is not in- 
 
228 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 eluded in the same work. Hermas has not 
 fewer than seven allusions to the first epistle, 
 which is sufficient to prove its antiquity. 
 
 This epistle was also written before the order 
 of Bishops was recognized in the church, and 
 Christians had not departed from their first 
 simple ideas of ecclesiastical government. Peter 
 himself claimed to be nothing more than 
 elder. " The elders which are among you I 
 exhort, who am also an elder." (i Peter v. i.) 
 
 The place where the letter bears date cor- 
 responds with our ideas of the movements of 
 Peter, for his labors, whatever they may have 
 been, were confined to Asia, not far beyond 
 the confines of Judea. 
 
 But if the first of Peter is in the main genuine, 
 it did not escape corruption at the hands of the 
 poisoners of truth in the second century. "Who 
 verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of 
 the world, but was manifest in these last times 
 for you." (i Peter i. 20.) "Forasmuch then 
 as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm 
 yourselves likewise with the same mind : for he 
 that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from 
 sin." {i Peter w. I.) When these verses were 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 229 
 
 written, Christianity had passed into its third 
 period, for here is announced a Christ who was 
 co-eternal with the Father, and was incarnate. 
 
 Most of the first chapter, if not all, is un- 
 doubtedly spurious. The boastful spirit with 
 which it commences ; the doctrinal announce- 
 ments, and the tone in wnich they are delivered 
 are entirely different from that shown in the 
 following chapters. It is written as something 
 to be used against an adversary, and, like all 
 forgeries inserted into genuine writings for such 
 purposes, much is crowded into a small space. 
 
 In this chapter is declared the preexistence 
 of Christ, or the Alexandrian Logos ; the resur- 
 rection ; foreknowledge and election, and sancti- 
 fication — all disputed points in theology, which 
 required the authority of an Apostle to settle : 
 but neither of which had anything to do with 
 Christ or the religion he taught. It will be 
 noticed, that the crucifixion is mentioned twice : 
 once in connection with the twentiethVerse, 
 ■which asserts the eternity of the Logos, and the 
 other in close connection with the second verse, 
 which holds to the doctrine of election. As 
 the preexistence of Christ was no part of Chris- 
 
230 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 tiariity when Peter wrote, which was, according 
 to Lardner and others, in A.D. 64, but belongs 
 to a later period ; and as the subject mentioned 
 in the twentieth and twenty-first verses is the 
 same, and cannot be separated, it follows that 
 both are spurious. 
 
 So we would say of the mention of the re- 
 surrection in the third verse. It is connected 
 with a doctrinal point which had no existence 
 in Peter's time, and, if it had, was in dispute, 
 and was inserted into this chapter to give it 
 Apostolic authority. The mention of the re- 
 surrection in the twenty-first verse of the third 
 chapter, holds also a suspicious connection with 
 the doctrine of baptism. 
 
 The true commencement of this epistle will 
 be found in the first verse of the second chapter. 
 Here we discover quite a different spirit. Here 
 commence the plain, simple and pure doctrines 
 of the Christian faith, which in the end will se- 
 cure the victory. Peter and James are each 
 examples to prove that a mind wedded to a 
 single idea, which had for ages entered into 
 the religion of a people, may be contracted and 
 fettered by it, and yet be free to expand under 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 231 
 
 the influence of the true genius of Christianity, 
 and^become liberal on other subjects. Neither 
 Peter nor James could shake off the Jewish 
 notion of circumcision, for it began with the 
 father of that people by the command of God, 
 and was to be binding on his descendants to the 
 end of time. With them, like all the laws of 
 God, the laAY of circumcision was unchangeable. 
 But notwithstanding all this, they each had heart 
 enough to take in the great truths of Christiani- 
 ty as declared by the lips of its founder. These 
 men, who were slaves to one idea, who dogged 
 the footsteps of Paul because he taught the 
 doctrine of the uncircumcision, could yet teach 
 men the duty to " love thy neighbor as thy- 
 self." (James ii. 8.) 
 
 No two writings can be more unlike than the 
 two epistles ascribed to Peter. The second is 
 filled with the boasting and controversial bitter- 
 ness of the times of the Gnostics. In the primi- 
 tive churches the authenticity of this epistle was 
 a subject of doubt. It was not, as stated, includ- 
 ed in the Syriac version of the New Testament, 
 which cannot be accounted for, except that it 
 was not in existence when it was compiled, at 
 
232 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 the beginning of the second century. But the 
 internal evidence furnished by the epistle itself 
 is sufficient to prove that it never was written 
 by Peter. 
 
 The following contains the spirit of Irenasus 
 when he speaks of his intimacy with Polycarp : 
 "And this voice which came from heaven we 
 heard, when we were with him in the holy 
 mount." {2Peter\.\Z^ " But there were false 
 prophets also among the people, even as there 
 shall be false teachers among you, who privily 
 shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying 
 the Lord that bought them, and bring upon them- 
 selves swift destruction." {2 Peter \\. \ !) "And 
 through covetousness shall they with feigned 
 words make merchandise of you : whose judg- 
 ment now of a long time hngereth not, and their 
 damnation slumbereth not." (Chap. ii. 3.) 
 " But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be 
 taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things 
 that they understand not ; and shall utterly per- 
 ish in their own corruption. . . . Spots they are 
 and blemishes, sporting themselves with their 
 own deceivings while they feast with you." 
 (Chap. ii. 12, 13.) " For it had been better for 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 233 
 
 them not to have known the way of righteous- 
 ness, than, after they have known it, to turn 
 from the holy commandment delivered unto 
 them. But it is happened unto them according 
 to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his 
 own vomit again ; and, The sow that was washed 
 to her wallowing in the mire." (Chap. ii. 21, 
 22.) The letter is filled with all the venom and 
 bitterness of the Gnostic quarrels. 
 
 We have already said enough to prove the 
 two epistles of John spurious, and who it was 
 that wrote them. "That which was from the 
 beginning, which we have heard, which we 
 have seen with our eyes, which we have looked 
 upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word 
 of life ; for the life was manifested, and we 
 have seen it, and shew unto you that eternal 
 life which was with the Father, and was mani- 
 fested unto us." (i John i. i, 2.) Irenaeus, 
 in a letter to Florinus, says, in speaking of Poly- 
 carp : "Well, therefore, could I describe the 
 v^ry place in which the blessed Polycarp sat and 
 taught ; his going out and coming in ; the whole 
 tenor of his life ; his personal appearance ; the 
 discourses which he made to the people. How 
 
234 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 would he speak of the conversations which he 
 had held with John and others who had seen the 
 Lord. How did he make mention of their 
 words, and whatsoever he had heard from them 
 respecting the Lord." All this he can say with- 
 out a blush ; although Polycarp never saw John, 
 and in all his letters, which are numerous, he 
 never claims he did. He saw Paul, but not 
 John. The manner in which John is made to 
 speak of Christ is much the same as Irensus 
 makes mention of Polycarp. Effect is meant to 
 be giv.en to what was stated in both cases, by 
 dwelling on details. 
 
 After having qualified himself as witness in 
 this boastful spirit, he proceeds to deal out 
 blows on the heads of his adversaries: "He 
 that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his 
 commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not 
 in him." (i John ii. 4.) "Who is a Uar but 
 he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ ? He is 
 Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the 
 Son." (Chap. ii. 22.) "Every spirit that 
 confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in ^e. flesh, 
 is of God : and every spirit that confesseth 
 not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 235 
 
 of God." (Chap. iv. 2, 3.) Such is the spirit 
 throughout the two epistles ascribed to John. 
 The Apostle is forced on the stage to make war 
 on the Gnostics, and maintain the dogma of 
 the incarnation in the language of a blackguard. 
 
 The epistle of Jude is nothing but a bolt 
 hurled at the head of Paul, from the hand 
 of one who assumed the name of an apos- 
 tle. 
 
 What is said of the first epistle of Peter 
 may be said of that which is attributed to 
 James. It was written by a Jew, for he says : 
 "Was not Abraham our father justified by 
 works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon 
 the altar?" {James \\. 2.1.^ The text shows it 
 was written during the Pauline period of Chris- 
 tianity, and was the work of James, or some 
 one else, in reply to Paul, who claimed that 
 faith without works were sufficient for salva- 
 tion. It makes no allusion to the disputed 
 dogmas of the second century, and like the first 
 of Peter, breathes a spirit of Christianity which 
 approached near the time of Christ. The fre- 
 quent allusions to it by Hermas are in favor of 
 an early date : it is included in the Syriac ver- 
 
236 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 sion, which leaves its antiquity without ques- 
 tion. 
 
 We cannot fail to be struck with the fact, 
 that Peter and James, both Jews, who were the 
 disciples and companions of Christ, are free 
 from doctrinal dogmas, and preach doctrines 
 like those of their Great Teacher, full of char- 
 ity, kindness, and love. It is only when we 
 come to the writings and forgeries of the 
 Greek that we encounter subtle and unintelli- 
 gible dogmas, which involved men in endless 
 disputes, excited the most violent passions, and 
 terminated in wars and disturbances of all 
 kind. 
 
 What is remarkable, too, neither of these 
 Jewish writers makes any reference to the Gos- 
 pels, nor to the miracles or prodigies spoken of 
 in them ; nor does either make mention of the 
 miraculous conception and birth of Christ. All 
 these things sprang from the Greeks. To be 
 sure, Paul preached the resurrection ; but he 
 believed because he saw Christ after the cruci- 
 fixion, in a vision. James is silent on the 
 greatest event since the creation, of which, 
 if true, he was a witness. The hand of the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 237 
 
 spoiler failed to leave his mark on the pages of 
 James the son of Alpheus. Addressed to the 
 "Twelve tribes which are scattered abroad," 
 the epistle which bears his name had obtained 
 too wide a circulation, and was in the hands of 
 too many, before the age of forgery com- 
 menced, to be an easy subject for mutilation. 
 It was written in Judea, and addressed to the 
 whole Jewish people. It was for them alone, 
 and in their special custody, and if it comes 
 down to us without a spot or stain, as it came 
 from the pen of the writer, it is because it was 
 too well guarded and protected by its friends to 
 admit of corruption. Why did James with- 
 hold from the twelve tribes the great fact that 
 Christ had risen from the dead ? He speaks of 
 his cruel death ; why not mention the still more 
 important fact, that he rose superior to the 
 grave, and put death under his feet? "Ye 
 have condemned and killed the just ; and he 
 doth not resist you." {James v. 6.) 
 
238 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 No Christians in Rome from A. D. 66 to A. D. 117. 
 
 From the death of Paul in A. D. ^, as we 
 have before stated, to the reign of Adrian in A. D. 
 117, Rome was without a Christian population. 
 Such is history when properly rendered. The 
 course of Nero filled them with horror, and at 
 the time of his death Rome was deserted by 
 them. After he ceased to reign there followed 
 the civil wars, the most fearful in the annals of 
 Rome. Galba, after all obstacles in his way to 
 power had been removed by the sword, entered 
 the city through a scene of blood, and men ex- 
 pected nothing less than the renewal of all the 
 cruelties of Nero's reign." (Annals of Tacitus, 
 Appendix to book xvi.) Then commenced the 
 civil war between Vespasian and Vitellius, which 
 was the cause of untold misery to the Roman 
 people. The city of Rome was burned to the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 239 
 
 ground. "From the foundation of the city to 
 that hour, the Roman people had felt no cala- 
 mity so deplorable, no disgrace so humiliating." 
 {Tacitus, book iii. sec. 22.) 
 
 The condition of the times is truly depicted 
 in the concise and eloquent language of the au- 
 thor of the ;' Decline and Fall : " " During four- 
 score years (excepting only the short and doubt- 
 ful respite by Vespasian's reign) Rome groaned 
 beneath an unrelenting tyranny which extermi- 
 nated the ancient families of the Republic, and 
 was fatal to almost every virtue and every talent 
 that arose during that unhappy period." (Vol. 
 I. page 47.) 
 
 Obscene rites alleged to be practised by Chris- 
 tians ; their indifference towards all who differed 
 from them in their ideas on religion ; their iso- 
 lation from the rest of mankind, had excited the 
 hatred of the Pagan world ; so that in large cities, 
 where the population was lawless and difficult 
 to restrain, they were liable to be attacked and 
 torn to pieces without notice and without provo- 
 cation. All the evils which befell the empire 
 were referred to the Christians, and were re- 
 garded as proof that the Roman people had, by 
 
240 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 tolerating them, incurred the anger of heaven. 
 Their presence was considered a curse upon the 
 earth. TertulHan exclaims : "If the Tiber rises 
 against the walls of the city, or the Nile does 
 not overflow its banks; if there is a drought, 
 or earthquake, or famine, or pestilence, the cry 
 at once is, Take the Christians to the Lion." 
 (^Apology, chap, xl.) 
 
 It was this state of feeling that made it dan- 
 gerous, especially during the civil war, for Chris- 
 tians to remain in Rome. Domitian, the son of 
 Vespasian, commenced his reign in A. D. 81, 
 and was assassinated in A. D. 96. That we 
 have no account of any Christians being put to 
 death under his reign is proof that they had not 
 returned from the provinces. It is the fashion 
 with historians to allege great cruelty towards 
 Christians during this reign. We have searched 
 for the evidence, but have failed to find it. Su- 
 etonius lived during his reign ; had personal 
 knowledge of many things he describes ; gives 
 the names of numerous victims and their offen- 
 ces ; mentions the cruelties inflicted on the 
 Jews ; but does not even make use of the word 
 Christian, or give the name of any one who suf- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 24 1 
 
 fered on account of his religion. The cruelty of 
 Domitian spent itself on those who were guilty 
 of political offences ; but the interested and par- 
 tisan traditions of the second century delight to 
 make him a monster who took pleasure in shed- 
 ding Christian blood. He did not fail to perse- 
 cute Christians because he had no inclination to 
 do so — for he punished what he called impiety to 
 the gods with severity — but because there was 
 none in Rome during his reign to persecute.* 
 
 Trajan succeeded to the empire in A. D. 98. 
 During his reign, which continued to A. D. 117, 
 what proof there is on the subject tends to show 
 that Christians had not yet returned to the capi- 
 tal. So little did Trajan know about them, 
 that Pliny, in writing to him for advice as to how 
 he should deal with them, is compelled to de- 
 scribe to him their doctrines, practices and forms 
 of worship. Had there been any in Rome at 
 the time, there would have been no necessity for 
 this ; and besides, had there been any there, the 
 mode of treatment of them by the emperor 
 would afford a precedent for Pliny without call- 
 ing for special instructions. But we can affirm 
 
 ^ * See Appendix D. 
 
242 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 with confidence that no Christian dared live in 
 Rome during this reign, which continued for 
 nineteen years, for the reason that to be one 
 during this time was a crime punishable by death. 
 
 In answer to Pliny's letter, in speaking of 
 Christians, Trajan writes : " If they be brought 
 before you, and are convicted, let them be ca- 
 pitally punished, yet with this restriction, that 
 if any one will renounce Christianity and evince 
 his sincerity by supplicating our gods, however 
 suspected he may be in the past, he shall obtain 
 pardon for the future on his repentance." 
 
 It is not at all astonishing that Pliny, in writ- 
 ing Trajan about his mode of treating Christians, 
 had to tell him who they were, and describe the 
 way in which they conducted themselves. From 
 A.D. 64, when Tacitus speaks of them in con- 
 nection with the great fire, and their sufferings at 
 the time, no historian makes any mention of 
 them, as dwellers in Rome, to the end of the 
 century. The obscure allusion to them by Ju- 
 venal and Martial, in a satirical vein, relates 
 solely to their conduct under torture, inflicted 
 by Nero at the time Rome was burned. 
 
 Suetonius, who was secretary to the Enipe- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 243 
 
 ror Adrian, wrote the life and times of the Em- 
 perors from Augustus to Domitian ; and if we 
 except the doubtful allusion to them in the reign 
 of Claudius, he does not even make use of the 
 word Christian, or speak of anything in con- 
 nection with them. During the time of which 
 we have been speaking, lived and wrote Quin- 
 tilian, Juvenal, Statius, and Martial. 
 
244 T^^^ Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The office of Bishop foreign to churches estabUshed by 
 Paul, which were too poor and too few in number to 
 support the order. — Third chapter of the second 
 Epistle to Timothy, and the one to Titus, forgeries. 
 — The writings of the Fathers corrupted. 
 
 Elders or Seniors, in ancient Jewish polity, 
 were persons who were selected on account of 
 their age and experience, -to administer justice 
 among the people, — who also held the first rank 
 in the synagogue as presidents. The office of the 
 Elder, with the Jews, commenced with Moses, 
 and was continued until after the days of the 
 Apostles. They were selected with reference to 
 age and knowledge, without regard to anything 
 else. It is evident that the Apostles did not de- 
 part from the Jewish form of church government, 
 but adopted and continued it during their lives. 
 The epistle of James was written in A.D. 6i. 
 At that time the church was governed by El- 
 ders. " Is any sick among you? let him call 
 for the Elders of the church ; and let them 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 245 
 
 pray over him, anointing him with oil in the 
 name of the Lord." [James v. 14.) In A.D. 
 64, Peter was an Elder, for that is the date of 
 the first epistle which bears his name. "The 
 Elders which are among you I exhort, who am 
 also an Elder." (i Peter vi. i.) 
 
 We hear nothing of the office of Bishop un- 
 til we enter the second age of Christianity, 
 when the Therapeutse had taken possession of 
 the church, got the upper-hand of Paul and his 
 followers, and introduced their government of 
 the Episcopacy. Did Paul institute a govern- 
 ment for the churches established by him, dif- 
 ferent from that of Peter and James ? 
 
 Paul had no place for the office of Bishop in 
 the churches which he founded and organized. 
 In all cases except one he addresses his epistles 
 to the church, and those that are sanctified in 
 Christ. The letter to the Romans is addressed, 
 " To all that be in Rome, beloved of God." 
 The first to the Corinthians, " Unto the church 
 of God which is at Corinth ; " second Corinthi- 
 ans, " Unto the church of God which is at Co- 
 rinth, with all the saints which are in all 
 Achaia;" Galatians, "And all the brethren 
 
246 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 which are with me, unto the churches of Gala- 
 tia;" Ephesians, "To the saints which are at 
 Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus ; " 
 Thessalor\ians, " Unto the church of the Thes- 
 salonians, which is in God." Only in one in- 
 stance does Paul make any other or different 
 address. His epistle to the Philippians is ad- 
 dressed, " To all the saints in Christ Jesus 
 which are at Philippi, with the Bishops and 
 Deacons : " a simple spurious addition to the 
 forms of address in all other cases. 
 
 The letter to the Philippians was written in 
 A. D. 62 or A. D. 63, when Paul was in Rome. 
 The epistle to the Thessalonians was written in 
 A. D. 52, while he was in Corinth. For ten 
 years Paul had been writing letters to the dif- 
 ferent churches, and in his epistle to the Philip- 
 pians he uses the word Bishop for the first time. 
 In this epistle the name of the Bishop is not 
 given, which is significant. The contents of this 
 letter show that there was no Bishop at Philippi 
 at the time it was written. 
 
 When Paul was a prisoner in Rome the first 
 time, the church at that place sent Epaphrodi- 
 tus to visit him, with means to supply his wants. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 247 
 
 Thankful for the remembrance in which he was 
 held, he sent the letter spoken of,^and as some 
 return for their kindness, he promised to send 
 to them Timothy. " But I trust in the Lord 
 Jesus to send Timotheus shortly unto you, that 
 I also may be of good comfort, when I know 
 your state." {Phil. ii. 19.) " Him therefore I 
 hope to send presently, so soon as I shall see 
 how it will go with me." (Chap. ii. 23.) If 
 there was a Bishop in the church at Philippi, 
 why not mention his name ? or why send 
 Timothy to them at all to supply their spiritual 
 wants ? 
 
 How many members composed the church at 
 Philippi to require the services of a Bishop and 
 deacons ? Paul had been there once, and per- 
 haps the second time. He was called there for 
 the first time by a vision ; but he soon got into 
 trouble, and even into prison, and remained but 
 a short time. The author of the life of Paul 
 (Renan) claims that he went into Macedonia 
 the second time, and remained about six 
 months, from June to November (page 261). 
 The same writer says : "A country was re- 
 puted evangelized when the name of Jesus was 
 
248 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 pronounced there and half a score of persons 
 had been converted. A church frequently con- 
 tained no more than twelve or fifteen members. 
 Probably all the converts of St. Paul in Asia 
 Minor, Macedonia, and Greece did not exceed 
 one thousand." Of this number, in a note to 
 the twenty-second chapter, he assigns two 
 hundred to the churches in Macedonia. As 
 Paul had numerous churches in Macedonia, we 
 are safe to assign to the church at Philippi the 
 one-half of the whole number of his followers in 
 that country. The first converts to Christianity 
 were from the poorer class of people, and were 
 not able to even support Paul, so that he had to 
 maintain himself by manual labor as a tent- 
 maker. The question may well be asked, what 
 necessity was there for a Bishop and deacons at 
 Philippi, and how were they to be supported? 
 
 Lucian, in his dialogue entitled Philopatris, 
 while he no doubt exaggerates the poverty and 
 mean appearance of Paul's followers, he at the 
 same time throws much hght on their true con- 
 dition. He speaks of them as " a set of tatter- 
 demalions, almost naked, with fierce looks." 
 (Taylor's Diegesis, 376.) The truth is, all the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 249 
 
 churches which owe their origin to Paul were 
 so small and so poor, that their government was 
 of the most simple and economical kind. The 
 first epistle of Paul to Timothy is intended to 
 settle the position and claims of a Bishop in the 
 church, and give the authority of Paul to the 
 order. It is by such obvious forgeries as this, 
 and others we will produce, that we are able to 
 form any idea of the violence of the quarrels _ 
 among the early Christians, as to the rights or 
 standing of a Bishop in the church. 
 
 What arouses suspicion, and at last convinces 
 us, that the third chapter of the first epistle to 
 Timothy is a forgery, is that there is too much 
 on the subject of Bishops from Paul all at once. 
 If the episcopate form of government under- 
 laid or was at the bottom of Paul's mode of 
 government, it surely would have come to the 
 surface or made itself known before it suddenly 
 starts up in the first to Timothy ; for he had 
 been engaged in building up churches for at 
 least fifteen years before that. 
 
 It is characteristic of the forgeries of the 
 
 second century, when they are inserted into 
 
 genuine writings, to make their appearance in 
 II* 
 
250 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 the form of boulders, very much condensed, but 
 out of place. There is nothing diffusible about 
 them, and we never suspect their presence 
 until we stumble upon or over them. The way 
 the subject of Bishops is introduced, at once 
 creates suspicion. " This is a true saying. If 
 a man desire the office of a bishop, he desires a 
 good thing." It is intended to convey the idea 
 in the start, that the office had been long in 
 existence, and that the profits were such as to 
 excite the cupidity of men. The office of 
 Bishop, in the time of Paul, even if such an 
 office had any existence, was aot, as we have 
 shown, a good thing, but the opposite ; but in 
 the second century, when the forgery was per- 
 petrated, it was. "Good critics have pronounced 
 the- whole of the first of Timothy a forgery. 
 The weight of the evidence is in favor of this 
 belief. As to the third chapter, there can be no 
 question. 
 
 The effort to make it appear that Paul recog- 
 nized the episcopate form of church government 
 is repeated in the epistle to Titus. It is to be 
 remarked that this effort is only made in the 
 last epistles written by him. The first of Timothy 
 
or the Enigmas of Ckrisjianity. 2 5 1 
 
 was written in A. D. 64; that to Titus in A. D. 65. 
 All the epistles between A. D. 52 and A. D. 62, 
 have nothing to say on the subject of Bishops. 
 Those written between these two periods, at 
 Paul's death had obtained a wide circulation 
 among all the churches of Asia and Europe, 
 which made it impossible for those who were 
 engaged in corrupting his writings to make 
 changes that could be easily detected and ex- 
 posed. As long as he lived it could not be done. 
 But the reverse is true of those which were 
 written just before his death. Besides, the The- 
 rapeutae element did not begin to work until A. 
 D. 57, and had not grown bold and strong 
 enough to venture on the corruptions of Paul's 
 writings until some time after his death. 
 
 The inference that is meant to be drawn from 
 parts of his epistle is that Titus was a Bishop when 
 Paul left him in Crete. Compared with other coun- 
 tries where Paul had churches, Crete was com- 
 paratively insignificant, and if Paul's converts 
 in Europe and Asia did not exceed one thousand, 
 and we have no reason to think they did, what 
 portion of this number can we assign to the church 
 at Crete, if there was one there at all ? Renan 
 
252. The Christ of Paul, 
 
 says, "A church frequently contained no more 
 than twelve or fifteen members." {Life of 
 Christ, page 326.) Twelve or fifteen Christians 
 and not more, if that many, composed the 
 church at Crete. Did that number require the 
 presence of a Bishop and elders ? 
 
 The real truth of the matter is easily disco- 
 vered. Paul, in A. D. 64, made a visit to all the 
 churches in company with Titus and others, and 
 stopped at Crete, which was the first time he 
 was ever on the island, so far as we have any 
 proof on the subject. After making some few 
 converts, he left Titus to continue the work 
 {Titus i. S), while he proceeded west in the di- 
 rection of Macedonia. The epistle to Titus was 
 written from Nicopolis in the summer or fall of 
 A. D. 64, and says : " For this cause left I thee 
 in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the 
 things that are wanting, and ordain elders in 
 every city, as I had appointed thee." (Chap. i. 
 5.) That is, to organize churches and appoint 
 the elders. 
 
 Had this subject about church organization 
 ceased at this point, there would not be much to 
 complain of, although the word "ordain" had 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity, 253 
 
 no place in the vocabulary of Paul. He or- 
 dained no one, after any form or ceremony, nor 
 did he pretend to impart to his followers any 
 but his own spirit and power. 
 
 In the seventh verse he proceeds to address 
 Titus as Bishop, and to give him advice. Titus 
 was no Bishop when Paul left him in Crete, nor 
 did he hold any office, but was simply a fellow- 
 laborer, like Luke, Mark, and Timothy. The 
 men of the second century would have it under- 
 stood that Paul was surrounded by a galaxy of 
 Bishops. " For a bishop must be blameless, as 
 the steward of God ; not self-willed, not soon 
 angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given 
 to filthy lucre." {Titus i. 7.) Was it necessary 
 to give such advice to " Titus, mine own son 
 after the common faith ? " The forgery is a 
 clumsy one because it is out of place, and evi- 
 dently inserted for a purpose. Titus was di- 
 rected by Paul to leave Crete and meet him in 
 Nicopolis, where he meant to spend the winter. 
 
 As has been stated, the only means we have 
 of judging of the resistance made to the claims 
 of the Bishop is from the extravagance of these 
 demands, and the violence with which they are 
 
2 54 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 asserted. "Wherefore it becomes you to run 
 together, according to the will of your Bishop, 
 even as also ye do. For your renowned Pres- 
 byter, worthy of God, is fitted as ejsactly to the 
 Bishop as the strings are to the harp." {Igna- 
 tius to the Eph., sec. 4.) " Let no man deceive 
 himself: Except a man be within the altar he 
 is deprived of the bread of life." {lb., sec. 5.) 
 " I exhort you, that you study to do all things 
 in a divine concord, your Bishop presiding in 
 the place of God." {Ignatius to Magnesians, sec. 
 6.) "It is therefore necessary that you do 
 nothing without your Bishop, even as ye are 
 wont. In like manner, let all reverence the 
 Deacons as Jesus Christ, and the Bishops as 
 the Father ; without these there is no church. 
 Wherefore guard yourselves against such per- 
 sons : And that ye will do, if ye are not puffed 
 up, but continue inseparable from Jesus Christ 
 our God ; and from your Bishop and from the 
 commands of the Apostles. He that is within 
 the altar is pure. But he that is without, is 
 not pure. That is, he that doeth anything 
 without the Bishop and the Presbyters and Dea- 
 cons is not pure in conscience." {Ignatius to 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 255 
 
 Trallians, sees. 2, 3, 7.) "But the Spirit 
 spake, saying in this wise : Do nothing without 
 the Bishop ; But God forgives all that repent, if 
 they return to the unity of God and to the coun- 
 cil of the bishop." {Ignatius to Phil., sec. 8.) 
 " See that ye all follow your Bishop as Jesus 
 Christ the Father." {Ignatius to SmyrncBus, 
 sec. 8.) " It is good to have due regard both 
 to God and to the Bishop." (lb., sec. 9.) 
 
 These passages prove, that there was a party 
 in the church that was opposed to the order of 
 Bishops, introduced by the Therapeutse, and 
 that party no doubt were the followers of Paul. 
 To silence them, the Epistles of Paul and the 
 writings of the fathers were filled with forgeries 
 and alterations so extravagant and obvious that 
 they have defeated the object in view. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to ask the question, 
 M'here it was the Therapeutae form of govern- 
 ment, by Bishops, was first organized. Alex- 
 andria seems to have been the common mother 
 of all that is new in religion. It is here where 
 have sprung up, in all ages, those subtle ques- 
 tions which have led the minds of men from 
 sense and reason to pursue mischievous phan- 
 
256 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 toms. We infer from the writings of Eusebius, 
 and from other sources, that the Therapeutae 
 Christians in Alexandria were numerous at an 
 early date. The letter of Adrian from Alexan- 
 dria, in A. D. 134, is the first notice we have of a 
 church with a Bishop at its head. It was this 
 letter that led the author of the " Decline and 
 Fall," after a careful survey of the subject, with 
 a penetration that nothing escaped, and an in- 
 dustry which left no ground unexplored, to con- 
 clude that the first regular Christian church gov- 
 ernment was instituted at Alexandria. If Chris- 
 tian churches are not indebted to the Therapeu- 
 tje for their form of church government, from 
 what source do they derive it ? Not from the 
 Jews ; not from Paul ; not from the Apostles. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 257 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Linus never Bishop of Rome. — Clement, third Bishop, 
 and his successors to the time of Anicetus, myths. — 
 Chronology of Eusebius exposed, also that of Ire- 
 
 At what time was Linus, said to be the suc- 
 cessor of Peter, made Bishop of Rome ? The 
 last trace we have of him, he was with Paul, in 
 Rome, in the fall of A. D. 65. After this we 
 know nothing of him, except from vague and 
 more than doubtful tradition. According to 
 Irenseus, it was when Peter and Paul were in 
 Rome together, after they had laid the founda- 
 tion of the church at that place. Paul went to 
 Rome for the first time in A. D. 61, where he 
 remained to the spring of A. D. 63. We have 
 shown that during this time Peter was not there. 
 Paul remained absent until the summer or fall of 
 A. D. 65, and soon after his return was commit- 
 ted to prison. In A. D. 64, Peter was in Baby- 
 lon, two thousand miles away. As Irenseus is 
 
258 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 the founder of the story, and the only authority 
 in subsequent ages, when it was that Linus was 
 appointed over the church of Rome as the suc- 
 cessor of Peter, it devolves on those who pre- 
 tend to believe him to show when it was that 
 Peter and Paul were together in Rome, laying 
 the foundation of a church, or anything else. 
 This can never be done ; and if not, it destroys 
 the first link in the Apostolic chain, and what is 
 left is worthless. 
 
 The importance attached to Clement as the 
 third Bishop of Rome will be a sufficient excuse 
 for a critical examination, as to who he was, 
 when he lived, and the position he occupied. 
 The authority that Clement was Bishop of Rome 
 is the same we have in any other case for links 
 to keep up the Apostolic succession ; for Ire- 
 nseus not only supplies an Apostle from whom 
 to start, but also the intermediate hnks in the 
 chain, to the time of authentic history. In this 
 he finds great assistance in his ready invention 
 of traditions, which we are required to believe 
 without question, for fear of incurring the sin of 
 unbelief, and subject ourselves to being called 
 slippery eels, trying to evade the truth. The 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 259 
 
 following is his language : "The blessed Apos- 
 tles, then, having founded and built up the 
 church, committed into the hands of Linus the 
 office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul 
 makes mention in the epistles to Timothy. To 
 him succeeded Anacletus ; and after him, in 
 the third place from the Apostles, Clement was 
 allotted the bishopric. This man, as he had 
 seen the blessed Apostles, and had been conver- 
 sant with them, might be said to have the 
 preaching of the Apostles still echoing (in his 
 ears), and their traditions before his eyes." 
 {Irenceus, book iii. chap. 3, sec. 3.) 
 
 It may be affirmed with confidence, that we 
 know nothing of the person who is called Clem- 
 ent, and made third Bishop in the Church of 
 Rome. If he had held the office at the time it 
 is claimed he did — the latter part of the first 
 century — it would have been in the power of 
 Irenaeus to give us a full account of him : when 
 he took the office, and when he died ; for if he 
 had been a real character, there must have been 
 persons living, at the time Irenaeus flourished, 
 who had seen and known him, so that the histo- 
 rian had ample material to inform posterity of 
 
26o Th Christ of Paul, 
 
 everything which related to the life of the third 
 Bishop. But he gives no information — does not 
 give a date — or the source from which he de- 
 rives his authority, but has left the world to 
 grope in darkness ever since. We have his 
 word, and that is all. 
 
 It is impossible that a person should fill an 
 office of importance in the church in Rome, at 
 the end of the first century, without leaving 
 some tangible evidence that he had once an ex- 
 istence ; but Clement, like a shadow, passes 
 over the earth, without a single mark of any 
 kind to prove he ever lived. There is a dispute, 
 as to when and how he died. Some say he was 
 banished into the Crimea by Trajan, and there 
 suffered martyrdom by drowning. Others that 
 he died a peaceful death, A.D. lOO. There is 
 nothing known about him, and for that reason, 
 everything which concerns him is variously sta- 
 ted. This could not be, had he been a real 
 character in history. It is only fictions of the 
 brain that elude you, when you attempt to 
 grasp them. 
 
 We are not told when he first filled the ofRce 
 which it is claimed he did. Eusebius states, 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 261 
 
 that he succeeded Anacletus in the twelfth year 
 of Domitian's reign, A. D. 93. Cave, in his life 
 of Clement, from the best light he could get, 
 adopted the conclusion of Dodwell, that he 
 became bishop about A. D. 64 or A. D. 65. 
 The reason of this confusion is readily ex- 
 plained. The Clement referred to by Paul has 
 been made to fill the place of an imaginary 
 Clement at the end of the century — a person 
 who only existed in the brain of Irenaeus ; and 
 in trying to fix time and dates, the real and 
 imaginary Clement create confusion. Irenaeus 
 has purposely left the subject in darkness, as he 
 does the time when Peter went to Rome, and 
 John to Asia. Dates are always fatal to false- 
 hood and misrepresentations. The real Cle- 
 ment is referred to by Paul in the fourth chap- 
 ter and third verse of the epistle to the Philip- 
 pians, which was written from Rome in A. D. 
 63. . This is the only notice that is taken of 
 him, and he is made the third Bishop of Rome 
 by Irenaeus, simply because his name is found 
 among others in one of Paul's epistles, as it was 
 in the case of Linus, who was made first. 
 
 Who was it that wrote the letter to the Co- 
 
262 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 rinthians ascribed to Clement ? We cannot tell 
 ■who wrote all, but we can who did write a part. 
 The address of this letter by a person who, it is 
 claimed, was at the time a Bishop, to a church 
 outside the city, which, it was said, appealed to 
 him for advice, is the first bold attempt, on the 
 part of the See of Rome, to enforce an acknow- 
 ledgment of the supremacy of the Papal 
 authority. Can any reason be given why the 
 church at Corinth, during the first century, 
 should appeal to Rome for advice oh any sub- 
 ject? The church at Corinth was the oldest, 
 and after Paul's death knew of no higher author- 
 ity than itself. There are no signs of a church 
 to which an appeal could be made to the end of 
 the century, except those manufactured by the 
 aid of tradition, which do not deserve to be 
 mentioned when men mean to be serious. 
 
 This letter, like everything else sugpicious, 
 has no date. We can fix the date with almost 
 entire certainty to every letter written by Paul, 
 and there is no reason why a date should not be 
 given to the one to the Corinthians, except that 
 there is something wrong about it, and a date 
 would expose the fraud. Archbishop Wake 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 263 
 
 supposes it to have been written soon after the 
 termination of the persecution under Nero, be- 
 tween the years A. D. 64 and A. D. 70. Lard- 
 ner refers it to the year A. D. 96. {Chevallier 
 H. E. Introduction^ The writer of this epistle 
 was careful to leave no internal evidence by 
 which its date could be determined, and what 
 there is of that character is inserted apparently 
 to mislead or afford grounds for dispute. 
 
 We have a right to demand the letter of the 
 Corinthians to Clement, to which his is the 
 answer ; for it is more probable that a letter re- 
 ceived at Rome of so much importance would 
 be preserved, than one sent away into a distant 
 country. We not only have not the letter, but 
 we cannot learn what it was about. There 
 can be no doubt of the early date of the letter, 
 for it makes no allusion to the Gospels, and was 
 written during the lives of the first fathers of the 
 church, such as Polycarp and Ignatius. It has but 
 little of the odor of the second century about it. 
 
 From all the light we can collect on this per- 
 plexing question, we would say that the letter 
 itself was written by some of the early fathers, 
 and made afterwards, with some alterations, to 
 
264 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 conform to the purposes for which it was wanted— 
 that is, the entering wedge of Papal supremacy. 
 It is evident that Irenseus is attempting to 
 make the Clement of Paul take the place of a 
 creature of his own creation, and thus impose 
 upon the world, as he did in the case of John 
 and Mark. 
 
 In manipulating the letter he provided for 
 Peter in Rome and Paul in the Occident. In 
 naming the successors to Clement, Irenaeus says : 
 "To this Clement there succeeded Evaristus. 
 Alexander followed Evaristus ; then, sixth from 
 the Apostles, Sixtus was appointed ; after him 
 Telesphorus, who was gloriously martyred ; then 
 Hyginus ; after him, Pius ; then after him, 
 Anicetus. Soter having succeeded Anicetus, 
 Eleutherus does now, in the twelfth place from 
 the Apostles, hold the inheritance of the epis- 
 copate. In this order, and by this succession, 
 the ecclesiastical tradition from the Apostles, 
 and the preaching of the truth, have come down 
 to us. And this is most abundant proof that 
 there is one and the same vivifying faith, which 
 has been preserved in the church from the 
 Apostles until now, andTianded down in truth." 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity, 265 
 
 Including Linus and Anacletus, here are twelve 
 traditional bishops in succession. Why tradi- 
 tional ? For the reason that most of them, and 
 all, except the three last, are not real or his- 
 torical characters. Commencing with Nero, 
 about the time when the tradition commences, 
 and coming down to, and including Commodus, 
 cotemporary with Eleutherus, there are thirteen 
 emperors, one more than the number of Bishops 
 in the same time, and history gives the time 
 when each was born, when each became a ruler, 
 when each ceased to reign, the manner of his 
 death, and the qualities for which each was dis- 
 tinguished. It was an age of chronology, when 
 dates of important events were as carefully pre- 
 served as in our own day ; and yet Irenaeus has 
 failed to give a single date in connection with 
 his twelve traditional Bishops. We do not even 
 know there was such a tradition, except that 
 he says so, and we are very certain that there 
 was no church in Rome to preserve it, if there 
 was. 
 
 This vagueness and uncertainty — where cer- 
 tainty, if the statements were true, could be 
 easily attained, but easily exposed, if false — 
 
266 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 must have been used with great effect, by the 
 philosophers of the third century, against Chris- 
 tians, for it forced Eusebius to fix up dates for 
 each of these traditional bishops. He makes 
 each appear in order, like so many shadows, 
 and he reminds us, as he goes through the roll, 
 of the showman in a panorama, who explains 
 each figure as it takes its place on the canvas. 
 What Irenaeus dared not do in the second, 
 Eusebius dared do in the fourth century. On 
 such subjects, his whole history proves, he had 
 no scruples ; and he admits, indirectly, that he 
 has related whatever might redound to the 
 glory, and suppressed all that could tend to the 
 disgrace of religion. 
 
 It will be noticed that he gives no authority 
 for his dates, for the reason that he has none. 
 Irenasus could find none in the second century. 
 It is not probable Eusebius would be any better 
 suppHed in the fourth. It is evident he went 
 to work and divided the whole time in which it 
 is claimed the twelve Bishops lived, between 
 them, so as to make each appear at a given 
 time, marked by the accession of the emperors 
 who reigned during the traditional era. ^We 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity, 267 
 
 •will give his statements as he makes them him- 
 self:— 
 
 ' ' After Vespasian had reigned about ten years, 
 he was succeeded by his son Titus ; in the sec- 
 ond year of whose reign, Linus, Bishop of the 
 church at Rome, who had held the office about 
 twelve years, transferred it to Anacletus." 
 (Ecc. Hist . ,\>oo\i\\\. chap. 13.) "In the twelfth 
 year of the same reign,, after Anacletus had 
 been Bishop of Rome twelve years, he was suc- 
 ceeded by Clement." {lb., book iii. chap. 4.) 
 " In the third year of the above-mentioned 
 reign (Trajan's), Clement, Bishop of Rome, 
 committed the episcopal charge to Euaristus, 
 and departed this life, after superintending of 
 the divine word nine years." (lb., book iii. 
 chap. 34.) " About the twelfth year of the reign 
 of Trajan, Euaristus had completed the eighth 
 year as Bishop of Rome, and was succeeded in 
 his episcopal office by Alexander." {lb., book 
 iv. chap. I.) "In the third year of the same 
 reign (Adrian's), Alexander, Bishop of Rome, 
 died, having completed the tenth year of his 
 ministration. Xystus was his successor. " (lb,., 
 book iv. chap. 4.) "And Adrian being now in 
 
268 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 the twelfth year of his reign, Xystus, who had 
 now completed the tenth year of his episcopate, 
 was succeeded by Telesphorus." {lb., book iv. 
 chap. 5.) "The Emperor Adrian, having finished 
 his mortal career after the twenty- first year of his 
 reign, is succeeded by Antoninus, called Pius, 
 in the government of the Romans. In the first 
 year of this reign, and in the eleventh year of his 
 episcopate, Telesphorus departed this life, and 
 was succeeded in charge of the Roman church 
 byHyginus." (/^. , book iv. chap. 10.) " Hy- 
 ginus dying after the fourth year of his office, 
 Pius received the episcopate." (lb., book iv. 
 chap. II.) " Pius dying at Rome in the fifteenth 
 year of his episcopate, the church was governed 
 by Anicetus." (lb., book iv. chap. 11.) "It was 
 in the eighth year of the above-mentioned reign, 
 to wit, that of Verus, that Anicetus, who held 
 the episcopate of Rome for eleven years, was 
 succeeded by Soter." (lb., book iv. chap. 19.) 
 " Soter, Bishop of Rome, died after having held 
 the episcopate eight years. He was succeeded 
 by Eleutherus." (lb., book v. Introduction.) 
 " In the tenth year of the reign of Commodus, 
 Eleutherus, who had held the episcopate thir- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 
 
 269 
 
 teen years, was succeeded by Victor." 
 book V. chap. 22.) 
 
 We give a list of the emperors, and the time 
 of accession of each to the government of the 
 Empire, commencing with Vespasian, coming 
 down to the time of Commodus : 
 Vespasian began to reign July ist, A.D. 69 
 
 Titus 
 
 Domitian 
 
 Nerva 
 
 Trajan 
 
 Adrian 
 
 Antoninus Pius 
 
 Antoninus Verus 
 
 Commodus 
 
 June 24th, " 79 
 
 Sept. 13th, " 81 
 
 Sept. 1 8th, " 96 
 
 Jan. 27th, " 98 
 
 Aug. loth, " 117 
 
 July loth, " 138 
 
 March 7th, " 161 
 
 March 17th," 180 
 
 The following tabular statement shows the 
 year in which each Bishop took the office, ac- 
 cording to the statement of Eusebius, and the 
 number of years which each held it : — 
 Linus, A.D. 69, held office 12 years 
 
 Anacletus, 
 Clement, . 
 Euaristus, 
 Alexander, 
 Xystus, 
 
 81, 
 91, 
 
 lOI, 
 
 no, 
 120, 
 
 12 
 
 9 
 8 
 
 10 
 10 
 
270 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Telesphorus, 
 
 A.D. 129, 
 
 held office 
 
 II years 
 
 Hyginus, 
 
 " 138, 
 
 
 4 " 
 
 Pius, 
 
 " 142, 
 
 
 15 " 
 
 Anicetus, 
 
 " 157. 
 
 
 11 " 
 
 Soter, 
 
 " 169, 
 
 
 8 " 
 
 Eleutherius, 
 
 " 177,- 
 
 
 13 " 
 
 From A.D. 69, wheit Linus became Bishop, to 
 the tenth year of Commodus, when Victor suc- 
 ceeded Eleutherus, the true time is one hun- 
 dred and twenty-one years. The time, taking 
 the period assigned to each traditional Bishop, 
 is one hundred and twenty-three years. In 
 making a dead calculation under the circum- 
 stances, while we would not expect to find any 
 gross mistakes, we would expect to discover 
 enough to detect the true character of the work, 
 for truth can never be so skilfully counterfeit- 
 ed, but that we can readily distinguish it from 
 that which is false and spurious. The difference 
 between the skilful counterfeit and the genuine 
 bill is often slight, so much so that none but ex- 
 perts can detect it ; but it is this difference which 
 termines its character. 
 
 If the time occupied by the Bishops had fall- 
 en short two years, we might account for it on 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 271 
 
 the priociple of an interregnum ; but where the 
 time is in excess, it is proof of a blunder or mis- 
 take, on the part of some one who is engaged in 
 a dishonest employment. 
 
 Clement became Bishop in A.D. 91, and filled 
 the office for nine years. This leaves his suc- 
 cessor to take his place in A.D. lOO, whereas he 
 took it in A.D. loi, one year after the office was 
 vacant. Euaristus took the office in A.D. loi, 
 held it eight years, to A.D. 109; his successor 
 took his place in A.D. no, leaving a gap of one 
 year. Telesphorus became Bishop in A.D. 129, 
 and served eleven years, which would leave the 
 office vacant in A.D. 140; but his successor 
 takes it in A.D. 138, two years before the death 
 of his predecessor. Anicetus took the office in 
 A.D. 157, and served eleven years, to A.D. 168. 
 His successor, Soter, took the office in the 
 eighth year of Verus, which would be A.D. 
 169. Here is a clear gap of one year. 
 
 It was intended that the time assigned to the 
 Bishops should correspond with the true histo- 
 ric period, and be 121 instead of 123 years. 
 There are three years of vacancies, and a lap of 
 ^_ two years in the case of Telesphorus and Hy- 
 
2 72 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 ginus. If we deduct this lap, it will stand one 
 hundred and twenty-one, the true time. 
 
 Eusebius meant well and intended no offence 
 to chronology, but blundered, and in fixing 
 twelve dates only makes four mistakes. Dur- 
 ing a time when accuracy of dates is more im- 
 portant than at any other, there seems to have 
 been less care exercised than in the same space 
 of time in any period of history; and indeed, 
 since the foundation of JR.ome, over seven 
 hundred years before Christ, to the end of the 
 empire, there have not been so many mistakes 
 and contradictions as to dates which relate to 
 successive rulers, as during this period of one 
 hundred and twenty-one years. But such is 
 the difference between true and genuine, and 
 false and spurious history. 
 
 Of the twelve traditional Bishops of Irenseus, 
 Telesphorus is selected for the honors of mar- 
 tyrdom. No period in Roman history could 
 have been selected more unlikely and improba- 
 ble for the death of a Christian Bishop at Rome 
 on account of his religion, than the reign of 
 Antoninus Pius. Not one drop of Christian 
 blood was spilt in Rome during his reign of 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 273 
 
 twenty-three years. Not only was there no 
 blood spilt in Rome, but he forbade the per- 
 secution of Christians in the provinces by an 
 express edict. A modern writer, speaking ot 
 him, says : " Open to conviction, uncorrupted 
 by the vain and chimerical philosophy of the 
 times, he was desirous of doing justice to all 
 mankind. Asia propria was still the scene of 
 vital Christianity and cruel persecution. These 
 Christians applied to Antoninus, and complain- 
 ed of the many injuries they sustained from the 
 people of the country. Earthquakes, it seems, 
 had lately happened, and the pagans were much 
 terrified, and ascribed them to the vengeance 
 of Heaven against Christians." (Milner, C. H., 
 vol. I., page 100.) 
 
 Here follows the edict of the pious Emperor, 
 addressed to the enemies of the Christians : 
 " As to the earthquakes which have happened in 
 past times, or lately, is it not proper to remind 
 you of your own despondency when they hap- 
 pened, and to desire you to compare your 
 spirit with theirs, and observe how serenely they 
 confide in God ? You live in practical ignorance 
 of the Supreme God himself — you harass and 
 
274 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 persecute to death those who worship him. 
 Concerning these same men, some others of the 
 provincials wrote to our divine Hadrian, to 
 whom he returned answer, that they should 
 not be molested unless they appeared to attempt 
 something against the Roman government. 
 Many also have signified to me concerning 
 these men, to whom I have returned an an- 
 swer agreeable to the maxims of my fathers. 
 But if any person will still persist in accusing 
 the Christians merely as such, let the accused 
 be acquitted, though he appear to he a Chris- 
 tian, and let the accusor be punished." Set up 
 at Ephesus in the common assembly of Asia. 
 
 Is it possible that Telesphorus was put to 
 death in Rome under the mild and gentle reign 
 of such a man ? 
 
 If the persons who are named by Irenaeus as 
 Bishops were real and not fictitious, how is it 
 that there was not something done or said by 
 some or all of them, so as to connect them with 
 the events which transpired during their lives ? 
 They lived, if they lived at all, during the most 
 eventful period of Roman history. It was dur- 
 ing the period of the civil war, when Rome was 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 275 
 
 reduced to ashes — when the Jewish nation was 
 almost destroyed by the legions of Titus, Jeru- 
 salem rendered a desert place, and the victorious 
 armies of Trajan added Armenia, Mesopotamia, 
 and Assyria to the Empire. During a period 
 of seventy years, filled with the most exciting 
 scenes and mighty events the world has ever 
 known, we have at least nine Bishops in Rome, 
 whose presence is no more felt in the history of 
 the times, than so many men who were dead 
 and quietly resting in their graves. They do 
 not even cast their shadows on the earth. 
 
 The first person on the list of these traditional 
 Bishops who steps forth int6 the light, so that 
 we see something real and tangible, is Anicetus. 
 Hegisippus says, " After coming to Rome, I 
 made my stay with Anicetus, whose deacon was 
 Eleutherus." Taking the foregoing data as 
 correct, Anicetus held the office of Bishop about 
 A. D. 157. If the statement of Hegisippus is 
 true, which we are inclined to believe, not be- 
 cause he says so, but because it is probable, he 
 is the first person who had ever seen and talked 
 with any of the traditional Bishops of Irenseus, 
 and he is tenth in order of succession. But it is 
 
2 76 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 not until we come to Eleutherus that we have 
 a historic character, whose acts can be traced 
 and found in the history of the times. Herewe 
 part company with spectres and deal with real 
 life ; but as we leave an age populated by phan- 
 toms, we enter into another stained with for- 
 geries and fraud. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 277 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The prophetic period. — The fourteenth verse of the 
 seventh chapter of Isaiah explained. 
 
 The claims of Christ to be the Logos or Son 
 of God, in the Alexandrian sense, are made ma- 
 nifest by prophecy and miracles. The Jews, in- 
 fluenced by the prophets of their nation, be- 
 lieved that a deliverer would some day appear, 
 who would deliver them out of the hands of all 
 their enemies, and establish a temporal kingdom 
 on the earth. But up to the time when Christ 
 appeared, and even to the present day, no one 
 had shown himself who realized their idea of this 
 divine mission. The Christians at the time of 
 Christ believed that he was the one spoken of 
 by the old prophets, and that a spiritual de- 
 liverer, one who was to deliver men from the 
 power of Satan, had been mistaken for one who 
 with temporal power would rescue the Jewish 
 people from the hands of their foes. 
 
278 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Barnabas, the companion of Paul, firmly be- 
 lieved this to be so, and took pains to cite many 
 texts from the Old Testament to prove it. He 
 cites numerous passages from Daniel, and all 
 the prophets, and especially searched the pages 
 of Isaiah, where he claims to have found at least 
 sixteen different references made to Christ as 
 the coming Saviour. But in all his references 
 to the prophecies he makes none to the cele- 
 brated passage in the seventh chapter of Isaiah, 
 on which is founded the doctrine of the divine 
 conception of Christ from a Virgin. He makes 
 no allusion to the fourteenth verse of the chap- 
 ter at all, so that he was ignorant of the very 
 foundation on which the Christianity of the 
 second century was reared. Nor does Polycarp 
 or Ignatius, except where their writings have 
 been clearly defaced by the forgeries of men, 
 who wished to establish the new ideas of the 
 day by the authority of the fathers. 
 
 But when we come down to the second cen- 
 tury, as far as the times of Justin Martyr, we find 
 pages in the writings of the day filled with a new 
 class of citations from the Old Testament, all of 
 which foreshadow the appearance of Christ, his 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 2 79 
 
 birth from a virgin, and point him. out as the 
 one foretold by the prophets. In his Apology 
 to the emperor, Justin Martyr quotes numerous 
 passages from the Old and New Testaments to 
 prove the divine mission of Christ, and speaks 
 of his miraculous conception from the Virgin. 
 {Apology, sec. 43.) 
 
 We now enter a new era, filled with new ideas, 
 and passages of Scripture which before had been 
 overlooked, but which all at once were discov- 
 ered to contain a meaning which concerned the 
 eternal interests of mankind. The Synoptics are 
 now spread out before the world, and Christian- 
 ity, armed by the voice of the prophets of God, 
 is prepared to make a new start. One fact will 
 appear clear as we approach the end of this sub- 
 ject, that all the men who undertook to strength- 
 en the cause of Christianity by the application 
 of prophecy to the person of Christ were igno- 
 rant of Jewish history, and either wofully mis- 
 understood the language of the prophets, or 
 foolishly attempted to pervert it. 
 
 There are four prophecies cited in the Gospel 
 of Matthew from the Old Testament, which it is 
 claimed point out Christ as the one foretold by 
 
28o The Christ of Paul, 
 
 the ol_d Jewish prophets, ist. " Behold, a vir- 
 gin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a 
 son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, 
 which being interpreted is, God with us." 
 (Matt. i. 23.) It must be borne in mind, as has 
 been before stated, that when the new idea of 
 the Logos was started, it was found necessary in 
 some way to make Christ more than mortal. To 
 be the Son of God in the Alexandrian sense he 
 must have God for his father, and this could be 
 only brought about through a virgin oversha- 
 dowed by his divine presence. In the zeal of 
 these men, who undertook to prove it, they se- 
 lected a passage from Isaiah which had no ap- 
 plication to anything outside of the Jewish his- 
 tory of the day. 
 
 Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Is- 
 rael, united and made war on Ahaz, king of Ju- 
 dah, and marched upon Jerusalem. Ahaz be- 
 came alarmed at the combination, and feared the 
 capture of the holy city and the destruction of 
 his kingdom. The Lord took compassion on 
 him and his people, and sent Isaiah to him with 
 an order to meet him at the end of the conduit 
 of the upper pool, where he would inform him 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 281 
 
 what would be the fate of Judah and her ene- 
 mies. 
 
 "Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth 
 now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear -jashub thy 
 son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool 
 in the highway of the fuller's field ; and say unto 
 him, Take heed, and be quiet ; fear not, neither 
 be faint-hearted for the two tails of these smoking 
 firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Sy- 
 ria, and of the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, 
 Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken 
 evil counsel against thee, saying. Let us go up 
 against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a 
 breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst 
 of it, even the son of Tabeal. Thus saith the 
 Lord God, It shall not stand, neither shall it 
 come to pass. For the head of Syria is Damas- 
 cus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin : and 
 within threescore and five years shall Ephraim 
 be broken, that it be not a people. And the 
 head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of 
 Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not be- 
 lieve, surely ye shall not be established. More- 
 over, the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying. 
 Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God ; ask it 
 
282 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 either in the depth, or in the height above. But 
 Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt 
 the Lord. And he said, Hear ye now, O house 
 of David ; Is it a small thing for you to weary 
 men, but will ye weary my God also ? There- 
 fore the Lord himself shall give you a sign : be- 
 hold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, 
 and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and 
 honey shall he eat, that he, may know to refuse 
 the evil, and choose the good. For before the 
 child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose 
 the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be 
 forsaken of both her kings. The Lord shall 
 bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and 
 upon thy father's house, days that have not 
 come, from the day that Ephraim departed from 
 Judah ; even the king of Assyria." [Isaiah vii. 
 
 3-I7-) 
 
 The Lord told Ahaz not to fear or be faint- 
 hearted, and he undertook to tell him how long 
 it. would be before Rezin and Pekah would be 
 defeated and driven away. In fixing the time, 
 Isaiah indulges in a poetic license, and pur- 
 posely rendered it obscure. The language used 
 expresses this meaning : If a virgin should con- 
 
or the Enigmas of Cliristianity. 283 
 
 ceive from that time, the day when the Lord 
 spoke to Ahaz, the child would be born before 
 his enemies would be subdued or driven away ; 
 but not a great while before, for when they were 
 driven away, the child would still be so young 
 as not to know how to refuse the evil and 
 choose the good. If the Lord did not tell Ahaz 
 in some way when his enemies would be sub- 
 dued, then the object of the interview entirely 
 failed ; for that was just what Ahaz wanted to 
 know, and which the Lord promised to disclose 
 to him. Be not faint-hearted, neither be afraid, 
 for in such a time your deliverance shall come. 
 If the Lord wished to inform him that he would , 
 be delivered from Rezin and Pekah, after the 
 Messiah spoken of in the Scriptures should 
 come, which happened seven hundred years 
 later, he would know no more after, than he 
 did before he conversed with the Lord. The 
 Lord did not tell him the precise day, but fur- 
 nished Ahaz the data by which he -might make 
 his own calculations. 
 
 A very simple answer is purposely obscured 
 by connecting some things with it which have 
 a remote bearing on the subject, and others 
 
284 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 which have no connection with it at all. "But- 
 ter and honey shall he «at, that he may know to 
 refuse the evil and choose the good," is an ob- 
 scure allusion to the age of the child : and his 
 name shall be called Immanuel, is of no signifi- 
 cance, for he might as well be called by any 
 other name. When we first read the passage, 
 we see nothing distinct : all is in a kind of penum- 
 bra ; but after looking for a short time, as in a 
 curiously shaded picture, an image, an idea, 
 shows or appears on the ground-work, well 
 marked and defined. 
 
 The explanation we have given of the pas- 
 sage from Isaiah is justified and made apparent 
 by the language used in the first, second, and 
 third verses of the eighth chapter of this pro- 
 phet. It seems the Lord wished to prove to 
 Ahaz, by actual demonstration, that what he 
 promised should be fulfilled to the letter. The 
 prophet says, he took with him two faithful 
 witnesses and went in to the prophetess (who 
 was the virgin) and she conceived and bare a 
 son. Then when the son was born, the Lord 
 said to the prophet, that before the child could 
 pronounce the name oi father or mother, "the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 285 
 
 riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria 
 shall be taken away before the king of Assyria." 
 Tiglath Pileser, king of the Assyrians, did come 
 to the aid of Ahaz, and made war on the Sy- 
 rians — laid their country waste — took Damascus, 
 and slew Rezin. He afflicted the land of Israel, 
 and carried the people away captives. (Josephus, 
 Antiq., book ix. chap. 12, sec. 3.) All this too 
 within the time promised Ahaz, according to 
 Isaiah. 
 
 The mystical language used by Isaiah in the 
 fourteenth verse of the seventh chapter, which 
 has been the cause of so much speculation and 
 false interpretation, springs from the poetic ele- 
 ment of the Hebrew mind. Had Isaiah lived 
 in our day, his sublime genius would have pro- 
 duced a Paradise Lost ; but in his own country, 
 and in his own times, his imagination dwelt upon 
 ideas and thoughts which had their root in the 
 hearts of the Jewish people. The Hebrew 
 poets found subjects within the history of their 
 own nation best suited to arouse their genius, 
 and move the hearts of the people. The sor- 
 rows and afflictions brought on the nation by 
 her enemies, and her final dehverance by the 
 
286 ihe Christ of Paul, 
 
 hand of the Lord, are favorite themes, and in- 
 spire her poets with thoughts full of tenderness, 
 and with denunciations which are sublime, and 
 often terrific. The harp of Zion in the hands 
 of the daughters of Judah, as they weep by 
 the waters of Babylon, gives forth no sounds 
 but those of sorrow ; but the genius of her 
 prophets, inspired by a consciousness that a 
 time of deliverance will come, deals out thunder- 
 bolts on the heads of their oppressors. 
 
 What are called the prophecies of Isaiah are 
 nothing more, many of them, than so many 
 epic poems, like the Iliad of Homer, to cele- 
 brate scenes and real occurrences in Jewish his- 
 tory. The war upon Ahaz, king of Judah, by 
 Rezin and Pekah, kings of Israel and Syria, took 
 place during the hfe of Isaiah : and the poet 
 undertakes to commemorate the history of the 
 times, in the form of a Jewish epic. He speaks 
 of the past, and not of things to come. The 
 Jews were taught to believe that their nation 
 was the favorite people of God, and from the 
 time of Moses to the last of her prophets, her 
 poets did not hesitate to introduce the Lord, 
 and cause him to take part in a Jewish epic, any 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 287 
 
 more than Homer hesitated to introduce Jupiter 
 and all the heathen gods into the story of the 
 Iliad. The meeting of the Lord and Ahaz at 
 the " end of conduit of the upper field," and 
 what afterwards takes place, is the poetic license 
 of the poet, as he undertakes to narrate a por- 
 tion of the history of his own time. 
 
2S8 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Bethlehem the birthplace of Christ, as foretold by the 
 prophets.— Cyrus, the deliverer and ruler referred to 
 by Micah the prophet.— The Lamentations of Jere- 
 miah spoken of by Matthew (Chap. ii. i8), refers to 
 the Jews, and not to the massacre of the infants by 
 Herod. 
 
 When Herod inquired of the wise men 
 where Christ should be born, they said unto 
 him, "In Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is 
 written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, 
 in the land of Juda, art not the least among the 
 princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a 
 Governor, that shall rule my people Israel." 
 (Matt. ii. 5, 6.) 
 
 The passage is taken from the prophet Micah, 
 who was a cotemporary with Jeremiah, and 
 prophesied under the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, 
 and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. He hved during 
 the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the great enemy 
 of the Jewish nation, and witnessed a large 
 share of the miseries he inflicted upon that 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity, 289 
 
 people. We would infer from the first verse of 
 the fifth chapter, that his book was written at a 
 time when the armies of the king of Babylon 
 were encamped around the walls of Jerusa- 
 lem. 
 
 "Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter 
 of troops : he hath laid siege against us ; they 
 shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon 
 the cheek." Looking forward to the time when 
 the Jewish people will be delivered from the 
 power of Nebuchadnezzar and the Assyrian 
 nation, and of their conquest by some other 
 power, the prophet, aroused by a prophetic 
 spirit, announces that the time is coming when 
 Israel shall again be free: "But thou, Beth- 
 lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among 
 the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he 
 come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel ; 
 whose goings forth have been from of old, from 
 everlasting. Therefore will he give them up, 
 until the time that she which travaileth hath 
 brought forth : then the remnant of his brethren 
 shall return unto the children of Israel. And 
 he shall stand and feed in the strength of the 
 Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord 
 13 
 
290 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 his God ; and they shall abide ; for now shall 
 he be great unto the ends of the earth." [Micah 
 V. 2, 3, 4.) 
 
 In the tenth verse of the fourth chapter, the 
 captivity of the Jews, and their transportation 
 to Babylon, is distinctly announced, and they 
 are told that while in the hands of the Assyrians, 
 they shall be as a woman in travail ; but that, 
 like her, they should in .time be delivered from 
 suffering. The third verse of the fifth chapter 
 declares that God will not interfere in the mean 
 time, and that they must wait for deliverance, 
 and submit to their sufferings, as unavoidable 
 as in the case of the woman ; that at the ap- 
 pointed time a deliverer would come, who would 
 save and bring back a remnant of the people, 
 who shall grow powerful and " be great to the 
 ends of the earth." 
 
 Now it is deliverance from Assyrian captivity 
 that is referred to, and it is to violate the fitness 
 of time, place, history, and the state of the Jews 
 to apply it to anything else. Amidst the awful 
 fate impending over the Jewish people, they 
 wanted something to encourage and sustain 
 them ; and the prophet undertook to do so, by 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 29 1 
 
 a promise, that in time their captivity should 
 cease, and they be allowed to return to their 
 own country. 
 
 But deliverance is to come from Bethlehem 
 Ephratah — words which sufficiently indicate 
 from what quarter the deliverer was to come ; 
 and to give a false direction the word Ephratah is 
 omitted in the text in Matthew. Bethlehem in 
 Judea is surely not intended, but the country 
 watered by the river Euphrates. A little poetic 
 license to create obscurity — a pecuHarity of the 
 Jewish prophets — does not at all render the mean- 
 ing doubtful. Cyrus was king of all the coun- 
 try watered by the Euphrates ; and the Assy- 
 rian empire ceased to exist when he restored 
 the Jews to their own country. Cyrus was a 
 ruler in Israel. He took the direction of their 
 affairs, ordered the temple to be rebuilt, and 
 directed how the means were to be provided to 
 pay the expense. (Letter of Cyrus to Sisinnes 
 and Sathrabouzanes. Josephus, Antiq. , book xi. 
 chap. I, sec. 3.) Cyrus is the ruler alluded to, 
 and not Christ. The deliverer was to be at the 
 head of a very ancient people — the Medes and 
 Persians — who " have been from old — from 
 
292 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 everlasting." When did Christ rule over Is- 
 rael ? Never. 
 
 That Jesus lived at Nazareth until he grew to 
 be a young man could not be disputed, and no 
 doubt the fact was stated in the Hebrew Gospel 
 of Matthew. He might live there, but he must 
 be born in Bethlehem, and some excuse must be 
 had to get Mary there at the precise time when 
 his birth took place. The device of the tax to 
 take her there at the-time is weak and puerile, 
 and proves that those who got it up were neither 
 wise nor learned. Matthew barely alludes to 
 Bethlehem as the place of Christ's birth. " Now 
 when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in 
 the days of Herod the king, behold, there came 
 wise men from the east to Jerusalem." Luke 
 is more specific. " And it came to pass in those 
 days that there went out a decree from Caesar 
 Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." 
 {Luke ii. I.) " And all went to be taxed, every 
 one into his own city. And Joseph also went 
 up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into 
 Judea, into the city of David, which is called 
 Bethlehem (because he was of the house and 
 lineage of David), to be taxed with Mary his 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 293 
 
 espoused wife, being great with child." {Luke 
 
 ii. 3, 4, 5.) ■" 
 
 The Jews were taxed at the place where their 
 property, real or personal, was at the time of 
 taxing, and not where their ancestors happen^ 
 to be born. A law or decree of the kind men- 
 tioned would involve a movement of almost the 
 entire population of Judea, and for no reason, 
 unless it was to give the people a chance to de- 
 fraud the tax-gatherer by concealing their effects. 
 
 The Cyrenius mentioned was sent out by Cae- 
 sar " to be a judge o"f that nation (the Jews) and 
 take an account of their substance." (Josephus, 
 Antiq., book xviii. chap, i, sec. i.) It would not 
 be necessary for Joseph to go to Bethlehem, 
 seventy-five miles away, where he had nothing, 
 to give an account of his substance, when all he 
 had was in Nazareth. Besides, Judea was at 
 this time under the government of Rome, and if 
 there ever had been a law among the Jews re- 
 quiring each one of them to go to his native 
 city to be taxed, the Romans could not have 
 any object in enforcing it. Admit that Joseph 
 was required to go to Bethlehem because David 
 was born there several hundred years before, to 
 
294 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 be taxed : why was it necessary for Mary to go 
 with him ? He was to give to the Roman offi- 
 cer "an account of his substance : " and did this 
 require the presence of Mary ? 
 
 The writer of Luke fixes the time when this 
 tax was to be levied. It was when Cyrenius 
 was Governor of Syria. Now this Cyrenius, 
 according to Josephus, was a Roman senator, 
 who was sent to Judea " to take an account of 
 the substance of the people," as a basis of tax- 
 ation. This was after Archelaus, the son of 
 Herod, had been deposed, and ten years after 
 the death of Herod. Christ was ten years old 
 when Cyrenius was made Governor, so that the 
 journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem was 
 ten years before the decree to tax was made. 
 The following are the words of Josephus : "Now 
 Cyrenius, a Roman senator, and one who had 
 gone through other magistracies and had passed 
 through them till he had been Consul, and one 
 who, on other accounts, was of great dignity, 
 came at this time into Syria, with a few others 
 sent by Caesar, to be a judge of that nation, and 
 to take an account of their substattce." (Jose- 
 phus, Antiq., book xviii. chap, i, sec. i.) 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 295 
 
 Had the writer of Matthew known anything 
 of Jewish history, he never would have made so 
 gross a blunder, and saved the immense amount 
 of labor that it has taken to explain away the 
 effects of his ignorance. One explanation of 
 this mistake is, that there were two assessments 
 — one about the time Jesus was born, and the 
 other ten years after. The first has been proven 
 to be a forgery, and was never made. (Renan's 
 Life of Christ, chap. i. See note.) 
 
 " In Ramah was there a voice of lamentation 
 and weeping and great mourning. Rachel 
 weeping for her children and would not be com- 
 forted." This, it is claimed, referred to the 
 cruelties of Herod, to escape from which Joseph 
 and Christ were forced to fly into Egypt ; so 
 that his subsequent return to Nazareth would 
 answer to the prophecy, which says, "Behold, 
 from Egypt T have called m.y Son." In the first 
 place, the story of Herod's cruelties in the 
 case of the infants is an invention, without 
 the least claim to truth, and was a lame 
 excuse, as we have just stated, to get Christ into 
 Egypt. 
 
 "Then Herod, when he saw he was mocked 
 
296 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, -and sent 
 forth and slew all the children that were in 
 Bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof, from 
 two years old and under, according to the time 
 which he had diligently inquired of the wise 
 men." A very short time, not more than two 
 or three days, elapsed after the birth of Christ, 
 when Herod, not hearing from the wise men, 
 gave the command for the wholesale murder of 
 the infants. It was certainly giving Herod 
 more credit for cruelty than was necessary, even 
 on that occasion, for as Christ was only a few 
 days old when the order was given, it wj.s use- 
 less murder to include all under two years : 
 ninety-five per cent, of the infants might as 
 well have been spared as not. u 
 
 It is a matter of surprise that Josephus, the 
 Jewish historian, who suffers nothing deserving 
 notice to escape his pen, has made no mention 
 of a fact which, if true, would have filled Beth- 
 lehem and the country round about it with 
 mourning. He could afford to make mention 
 of the quarrels in Herod's family ; but not one 
 word to say about the wholesale slaughter of 
 the infants . The story is so absurd, so easily 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 297 
 
 exposed, and of no possible use, that it is omit- 
 ted in Mark, Luke, and John. 
 
 But if the story js true, what has it to do with 
 the troubles of Rachel ? The passage from 
 Jeremiah refers to a time in the history of the 
 Jews when Jerusalem was taken and held by 
 the Assyrians, and a great number of that peo- 
 ple had taken refuge in Egypt. The Jews were 
 undergoing great afflictions, and God, through 
 Jeremiah, undertakes to console and comfort 
 them. The Lord, in plain language, says : I 
 know that there is great suffering in Ramah — 
 much lamentation and bitter weeping. Israel 
 has lost many of her children, and she suffers 
 great sorrow and grief. " Thus saith the Lord : 
 Refrain thy voice from weeping, for thy work 
 shall be rewarded, saith the Lord ; and they 
 shall come again from the land of the enemy." 
 (Jeremiah xxxi. 15, 16.) What has this to do 
 with the cruelty of Herod ? 
 
 We have stated that the massacre of the infants 
 was an invention to form an excuse to get Jesus 
 into Egypt ; for his return from that country 
 would serve to prove that he was the one re- 
 ferred to when the Lord is made to say, " Out 
 
298 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 of Egypt I have called my son." Here, we 
 confess, we are at a loss to express our aston- 
 ishment. In the eleventh chapter of Hosea, 
 the Lord complains of the ingratitude of the 
 Jewish nation, and reminds them what he had 
 done for them in times past. He expresses the 
 love he had for them when the nation was 
 young, and required the power of his arm to 
 protect them. " When Israel was a child, then 
 I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.'" 
 {Hosea -id. i.) It need not be said, that this 
 refers to the deliverance of the Jews from the 
 hands of Pharaoh. Israel is the son spoken of 
 who had already passed out of Egypt. " And 
 he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, 
 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by 
 the prophets. He shall be called a Nazarene." 
 (Matthew ii. 23.) There is no such prophecy 
 to be found in the Old Testament. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 299 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Christ and John the Baptist 
 
 "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, 
 the Son of God ; As it is written in the pro- 
 phets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy 
 face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. 
 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Pre- 
 pare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths 
 straight." {Mark i. i, 2, 3.) As in Matthew, 
 at the very outset, the second Gospel starts out 
 to show that Christ is the one foretold by the 
 prophets, and that a direct reference is made to 
 him by Isaiah, as one who was to be preceded 
 by another who was to prepare the way for his 
 advent. Cotemporaneous history, and a critical 
 examination of the words of the prophet, will 
 dispel the delusion. 
 
 Hezekiah, king of Judea, was improvident 
 enough to show to the son of the king of Baby- 
 lon, then on a visit to him, all his treasures, and 
 
300 The Christ of> Paul, 
 
 riches of every description ; and " there was no- 
 thing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that 
 Hezekiah shewed him not." When Isaiah was 
 told by the king himself what he had done, the 
 prophet spoke and said : "Hear the word of 
 the Lord of hosts : Behold, the days come, that 
 all that is in thine house, and that which thy 
 fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall 
 be carried to Babylon : nothing shall be left, 
 saith the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue 
 from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take 
 away ; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace 
 of the king of Babylon. Then said Hezekiah to 
 Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which 
 thou hast spoken. He said moreover. For there 
 shall be peace and truth in my days." (Isaiah 
 xxxix. 5, 6, 7, 8.) The Babylonian captivity 
 is here referred to. 
 
 Isaiah then proceeds to declare that after 
 great suffering, in their servitude under the As- 
 syrians, the Lord would deliver the Jewish peo- 
 ple, and that they should again be a great and 
 prosperous nation. " Comfort ye, comfort ye 
 my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfor- 
 tably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 30 1 
 
 warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is 
 pardoned : for she hath received of the Lord's 
 hand double for all her sins. The voice of him 
 that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way 
 of the Lord, make straight in the desert a high- 
 way for our God. Every valley shall be ex- 
 alted, and every mountain and hill shall be made 
 low : and the crooked shall be made straight, 
 and the rough places plain." {Isaiah -xS.. 1,2, 
 
 3,4.) 
 
 With what tenderness the prophet speaks to 
 his countrymen, to assure them that their captiv- 
 ity will not last forever ! Divested of poetical 
 language and figures, the Lord says : In your 
 lost condition in slavery ("wilderness") you 
 shall hear the voice of the Lord to comfort you. 
 Be prepared, for he will provide the means 
 (" highway ") for your deliverance from captiv- 
 ity. The words wilderness, desert, and high- 
 way are symbolical terms, representing the lost 
 condition of the Jews and the promise made by 
 the Lord, that he would provide means for their 
 deHverance from their enemies. What follows, 
 holds forth to the Jews a glorious future. 
 " Every valley shall be exalted, and every moun- 
 
302 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 tain and hill shall be made low." That is, the 
 down-trodden and oppressed children of Israel 
 shall once more take the stand of an independ- 
 ent nation ; and the proud and lofty Assyrian 
 shall in his turn be humbled, and come under 
 the yoke of the conqueror. The idea which un- 
 derlies the language of the prophet is, that the 
 Jews will be ultimately restored to their own 
 country, and again become a prosperous people; 
 and as is characteristic of all these Jewish pro- 
 phecies, the expressions, " and the crooked shall 
 be made straight, and the rough places plain," 
 are mere expletives, to obscure the sense, and 
 increase the ambiguity. Like the oracles of 
 Greece, a simple idea is concealed beneath 
 figures and metaphors, and the mind distracted 
 by the introduction of thoughts that have no 
 meaning, and no connection with the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 Josephus, after giving a full account of this 
 prophecy from Isaiah says, it was subsequently 
 fulfilled in the captivity and restoration of the 
 Jews, and that when he wrote, the words of the 
 prophet had passed into history. {Antiq,, 
 book X. chap. 2, sec. 2.) The Lord, by the pro- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 3^3 
 
 phet, is addressing the Jews of that day about 
 matters which directly concerned them, and 
 what was said had no more to do with John the 
 Baptist preaching on the Jordan, in the neigh- 
 borhood of the Arabian desert, than it had 
 with the travels of Livingstone over the sands 
 of Africa. The John referred to in Mark is a 
 historic character, and all we know about him 
 we learn through Josephus. 
 
 In his day he was a reformer. Shocked at 
 the low condition of tlae Jews, who had reached 
 the lowest deep in crimes and vices of all kinds, 
 through the corruption of the priesthood, and 
 tyranny of their civil Governors, he undertook 
 to reform abuses, and elevate the moral standard 
 of the nation. Standing on the banks of the 
 Jordan, crowds from the surrounding country 
 came to hear him denounce the sins of the peo- 
 ple, and be baptized. He preached repentance, 
 and those who did repent he purified with the 
 mystic waters of the Jordan. 
 
 In the time of John, the Jewish people had 
 become restive, and chafed under the govern- 
 ment of Rome. The elements of rebellion were 
 then at work, which, a few years later, led to 
 
304 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 open revolt, and the total ruin of the nation. 
 While the Jews overran with discontent, the 
 Roman Governors were filled with suspicion. 
 Herod took alarm at the course of John, and 
 caused him to be seized and confined in the 
 castle of Macherus, situated on the borders of 
 the desert, where he was afterwards put to 
 death. All that is known of him is found in 
 the following extract from Josephus : 
 
 "Now, some of the Jews thought that the 
 destruction of Herod's army came from God, 
 and that very justly, as a punishment of what 
 he did against John, that was called the Bap- 
 tist ; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, 
 and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, 
 both as to righteousness towards one another, 
 and piety towards God, and so to come to bap- 
 tism ; for that washing [with water] would be 
 acceptable to him if they made use of it, not in 
 order to the putting away [or remission] of 
 some sins [only], but for the purification of the 
 body ; supposing still that the soul was tho- 
 roughly purified beforehand by righteousness. 
 Now, when [many] others came in crowds about 
 him, for they were greatly moved [or pleased] 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 305 
 
 by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest 
 the great influence John had over the people 
 might put it into his power and inclination to 
 raise a rebellion (for they seemed ready to do 
 anything he should advise), thought it best, by 
 putting him to death, to prevent any mischief 
 he might cause, and not bring himself into diffi- 
 culties, by sparing a man who might make him 
 repent of it when it should be too late. Ac- 
 cordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's 
 suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I 
 before mentioned, and was there' put to death. 
 Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruc- 
 tion of this army was sent as a punishment upon 
 Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure against 
 him." (Josephus, Antiq., book xviii. chap. S, 
 sec. 2.) 
 
 It was this passage, and the one from Isaiah, 
 " The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, 
 Prepare ye the way of the Lord," that suggested 
 the story of Christ coming from Galilee to the 
 Jordan to be baptized by John, and the scenes 
 that followed. As Josephus, in the passage just 
 quoted, speaks of what John was doing on the 
 Jordan, and what occurred there, it is strange 
 
3o6 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 he takes no notice of the wonderful things which 
 took place at the time Christ was baptized, as 
 described in Matthew. But, as we have shown, 
 the prophecy of Isaiah has nothing to do with 
 John the Baptist. 
 
 The story that the life of John was the price 
 paid for a jig danced before Herod, is not only 
 false and absurd, but in one sense impossible. 
 Herod was a Roman officer, and received his 
 appointment from Rome. As the Governor of 
 a province, he acted under, and was governed 
 by law. To take life without sufficient cause, 
 from mere wantonness or caprice, subjected 
 him to punishment and removal from office. 
 Herod might put John to death as a promoter 
 of sedition, but not to gratify the spite of a 
 woman who had been accused of incest. Pilate 
 dared not deliver over Christ to be crucified, 
 until after he was charged by the Jews with 
 conspiring against the government of Caesar. 
 His claim to be king of the Jews, which was 
 made a charge against him, was the warrant 
 which Pilate had to surrender him to a merci- 
 less mob, which would not be satisfied with 
 anything less than his blood. The author of 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. ^oy 
 
 Matthew, it is clear, was ignorant of the topo- 
 graphy of Judea, the history of the Jews, and 
 knew nothing of the fundamental principles of 
 the Roman law. 
 
3o8 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 The miracle of the cloven tongues. — Misapplication of 
 a prophecy of Joel. 
 
 In the Acts of the Apostles, a passage from 
 Joel the prophet is spoken of by Peter, as fore- 
 telling what is called the miracle of tongues. 
 At the end of forty days Christ appeared to his 
 disciples at Jerusalem, and being assembled to- 
 gether with them, they were commanded not to 
 depart from Jerusalem until certain things should 
 take place. Now the writer of the Acts forgot 
 what he said in his Gospel, if he wrote both, 
 for he there tells us that Christ ascended the 
 day of his resurrection, or at most, the day after. 
 Taking what we can glean from the four Gos- 
 pels, and taking the probabilities of the case 
 into the account, the disciples, a very short 
 time after the death of Jesus, returned to Gali- 
 lee. The public mind was greatly moved 
 against Jesus, which was more or less directed 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 309 
 
 against his followers, and as none of them were 
 remarkable for courage, it is hardly probable 
 that they would tarry in Jerusalem, especially 
 as there was nothing to keep them. But ac- 
 cording to the writer in Luke, at the end of 
 the forty days they were still in the city, and 
 were commanded not to leave until certain 
 things took place. 
 
 He next says, " And when the day of Pen- 
 tecost was fully come, they were all with one 
 accord in one place. And suddenly there came 
 a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty 
 wind, and it filled all the house where they 
 were sitting. And there appeared unto them 
 cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon 
 each of them. And they were filled with the 
 Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other 
 tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." 
 (Acts ii. I, 2, 3, 4.) 
 
 This is something truly wonderful, and we are 
 astonished that so strange and important an 
 event has found no place in history — especially 
 as a report of it must have been circulated far 
 and wide, for the writer says, that ' ' there were 
 dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews out of every nation 
 
3 lO The Christ of Paul, 
 
 under heaven," who came to see for them- 
 selves. The writer includes other people besides 
 Jews from every nation, and says : " Now when 
 this was noised abroad, the multitude came 
 together, and were confounded ; " and among 
 these were " Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and 
 the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and 
 Cappadocia" — people from "Phrygia, Pam- 
 phylia, Cretans and Arabians" — and all heard 
 spoken the language of their native countries. 
 
 Josephus lived not long after this time, and 
 if he did not reside in Jerusalem, he must have 
 been often in the Jewish capital, and if anything 
 so wonderful as this had taken place, he cer- 
 tainly must have heard of it, and it was not 
 possible for him to forget it when he came to 
 write his history, especially as things of no com- 
 parative importance are fully noted by him. 
 
 These things are so wonderful, that it is 
 necessary to explain them by the direct action 
 of the Deity, in fulfilment of prophecy. The 
 writer has Peter make a speech, and Peter tells 
 the crowd that they need not be surprised, for 
 what had just happened had all been foretold, 
 and was nothing more than the fulfilment of a 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 3 ^ 
 
 prophecy of Joel, who said: "And it shall 
 come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will 
 pour out my Spirit upon all flesh : and your 
 sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and 
 your young men shall see visions, and your old 
 men shall dream dreams. And on my servants 
 and on my handmaids I will pour out in those 
 days of my Spirit ; and they shall prophesy : 
 and I will shew wonders in heaven above, and 
 signs in the earth beneath ; blood, and fire, and 
 vapor of smoke : the sun shall be turned into 
 darkness, and the moon into blood, before that 
 great and notable day of the Lord come." 
 (Acts ii. 17, 18, 19, 20.) 
 
 All this has nothing more to do with, or has 
 no more reference to, the miracle of the cloven 
 tongues than it has to the assassination of Julius 
 Caesar in the Roman Senate. The Jews, at the 
 time referred to by Joel, were suffering under 
 great afflictions. There had been a most severe 
 drought, and the land had been devoured by 
 the locust, the canker-worms and caterpillar. 
 As all calamities which befell the Jewish people 
 were referred by them to the displeasure of God 
 on account of their sins, Joel exhorts them to 
 
312 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 repent, and promises, if they do, the Lord will 
 come to the rescue. " Then will the Lord be 
 zealous for his land and pity the people. He 
 will send down rain, and the floors shall be full 
 of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with wine 
 and oil. And I will restore to you the years 
 that the locust had eaten, the canker-worm and 
 caterpillar and palmer-worm, my great army 
 which I sent among you. And you shall eat in 
 plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of 
 the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously 
 with you. And ye shall know that I am in the 
 midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your 
 God, and none else : and my people shall never 
 be ashamed." 
 
 Now follows what Peter was made to say was 
 the prophecy which foretold the miracle of the 
 cloven tongues. "And it shall come to pass 
 afterwards that I will pour out my Spirit on all 
 flesh ; and your sons and your daughters shall 
 prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, 
 and your young men shall see visions." Which 
 means, I will pour out my blessings (" Spirit ") 
 on all flesh, including the servants and hand- 
 maids — they shall be universal, and not confined 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 3 1 3 
 
 to any class. Then all the young and the old 
 shall rejoice and be happy. Their happiness 
 shall be of the most exalted kind, unalloyed 
 with care, like delightful dreams and visions. 
 As the prophet had said in the beginning of this 
 chapter: "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and 
 sound an alarm in my holy mountain : let all 
 the inhabitants of the land tremble : for the day 
 of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand ; a 
 day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of 
 clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning 
 spread upon the mountains : a great people and 
 a strong ; there hath not been ever the like, 
 neither shall be any more after it, even to the 
 years of many generations." {Joel\\. 1,2.) 
 
 Referring to this terrible calamity which 
 was to come, that the fear of it might not 
 interrupt this general state of happiness which is 
 spoken of, the Lord tells the people that he will 
 give them timely notice, that they may be pre- 
 pared : " And I will shew wonders in the 
 heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and 
 pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into 
 darkness, and the moon into blood, before the 
 
 great and the terrible day of the Lord come." 
 
 14* 
 
314 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 {Joel ii. 30, 31.) There could not be a state of 
 universal joy among the people, such as is de- 
 scribed, as long as the "great and terrible day 
 of the Lord " might overtake them any mo- 
 ment. There could be no happiness where 
 there was constant fear. The Lord promised 
 that a timely warning shcuild be given. Now 
 what has this beautiful and sublime poem to do 
 with the miracle of the cloven tongues ? 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 315 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Miracles. 
 
 It is in vain to deny the truth of a miracle 
 on the ground that it is impossible, and contra- 
 venes the well-established laws of the universe. 
 The power to create, implies the power to sus- 
 pend ; and as the performance of a miracle is 
 the exercise of creative energy, it is just as 
 easy to exercise it in one case as another. All 
 efforts to demonstrate the impossibility of mira- 
 cles have failed. even in the hands of such men 
 as Hume, because men reason on such subjects 
 in a circle. Still it would be strange if there 
 was no way to expose a false miracle, especially 
 where the results claimed from it are calculated 
 to lead men into error. When some unusual 
 and extraordinary event which amounts to a 
 miracle is said to have occurred one hundred 
 years ago, at a time when intelligent and inqui- 
 sitive minds were around, and no notice is 
 taken of it by them in giving an account of their 
 
3 1 ^ The Christ of Paul, 
 
 own times, nor by any one else, it is safe to con- 
 clude that it never did take place, and that 
 those who assert it for the first time at the end 
 of the hundred years are engaged in an attempt 
 to impose some fraud on their fellow-men. 
 
 From the death of Christ, A.D. 33, to some 
 time near A.p. 140, we claim that no writer of 
 profane or church history makes mention or 
 speaks of the miracles described in the first 
 three Gospels, and not those of the fourth until 
 long afterwards. It is by negative testimony 
 alone that we can arrive at the truth. In the 
 first place, did the great Apostle of the Gen- 
 tiles perform the miracles that are ascribed to 
 him in the Acts ? It is stated that at Lystra he 
 cured a man who had been crippled from his 
 birth by his simple word ; he exorcised the 
 evil spirit that was in Lydia ; he raised Euty- 
 chus, who had fallen from a window ; cast 
 from his hand, unhurt, the deadly viper; and 
 such miraculous powers did he possess, "that 
 from his body were brought unto the sick 
 handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases de- 
 parted from them, and the evil spirits went out 
 of them." {Acts xix. 12.) 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 3 1 7 
 
 Paul, in his epistles, does not mention or 
 refer to any of these wonderful things, and 
 does any man suppose, if true, he would fail to 
 make some allusion to them ? He neither 
 mentions the miracles ascribed to himself, nor 
 those described in the four Gospels. Perhaps 
 he did not disbelieve in the possibility of mira- 
 cle's, for such belief was common to the age ; 
 but to believe them possible, and believe that 
 one has been performed, is another thing. 
 " Truly the signs of an Apostle were wrought 
 among you in all patience, in signs and won- 
 ders, and mighty deeds." (2 Cor. xii. 12.) The 
 signs and wonders here spoken of were made 
 to appear to the Corinthians alone, and have no 
 reference to miracles described in the New 
 Testament, nor do we know what they were, 
 for no notice of them is taken in the Acts. In 
 the 1 8th chapter and 9th verse, he says that 
 he had a vision which told him not to be 
 afraid to speak, and not hold his peace. 
 The " mighty deeds " refers to his works as 
 an Apostle, and the "signs and wonders" 
 rather to the fruits of his preaching than to 
 ^ny display of miraculous power. 
 
3 1 8 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Had Paul possessed the power attributed to 
 him in the Acts, it would have been easier for 
 him to have converted the world than to make 
 the few converts he made after the labor of a 
 life. There were those living who in the course 
 of naFure might have seen Lazarus, or heard of 
 his resurrection, and had it been in the power of 
 Paul to have cited his case, or any of the mira- 
 culous cures claimed for Christ or any of his dis- 
 ciples, the conversion of mankind would have 
 been as rapid as the movements of the earth. 
 Every pagan temple and altar would have been 
 deserted, and their priests have fallen prostrate 
 at the feet of Paul. A few pretended miracles 
 and revelations on the part of Mahomet estab- 
 lished his claim to be the prophet of God, 
 and were the means, backed by the scimi- 
 tar, of fixing the faith of millions. Paul is 
 silent on the subject of the miracles. Barna- 
 bas was a companion and fellow-preacher with 
 Paul. 
 
 No document extant to-day which relates to 
 the Apostolic age is entitled to more, if as much 
 confidence and credit, as the epistle which bears 
 his name. For some reason, it bears less evi- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 3 1 9 
 
 dence on its face of fraudulent manipulation than 
 any other writing of that time, and it is this evi- 
 dence of its purity which excludes it from the 
 list of canonical Gospels this day. It has been 
 referred to by a long list of fathers, commenc- 
 ing with Origen, and coming down to writers of 
 our day, as the genuine production of the com- 
 panion of the great Apostle. No one, not even 
 the Apostles themselves, had more faith in Christ 
 than he, and it seems to be the burden of his 
 epistle to prove that he was the Saviour who had 
 been foretold by the prophets, and whom the 
 Jews were anxiously expecting. Had Christ, in 
 his ministry among men, done or performed any 
 act out of the course of nature which proved him 
 superior to other men in his power over the laws 
 of nature — anything like command over diseases, 
 sickness, to say nothing of death — Barnabas 
 would not have failed to dwell upon everything 
 of the kind with energy and zeal, because such 
 powers would establish what he aimed to prove : 
 that is, that Christ was the one spoken of by the 
 prophets. But, while he makes the most labored 
 apphcation of the prophecies to Christ, he makes 
 no allusion to any wonderful work he performed 
 
320 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 while he was on the earth. He has not one 
 word to say on the subject of the miracles 
 ascribed to Christ in the Gospels. 
 
 Much may be inferred from the silence of 
 Apollos on the subject of miracles. The inter- 
 course between the Jews at Alexandria and Ju- 
 dea was constant. Nothing of importance could 
 occur in Jerusalem without its being known in a 
 short time on the banks of the Nile. The history 
 of John the Baptist, the works he did at the Jor- 
 dan, and the manner of his death, were all known 
 to Apollos from some source, before Josephus 
 wrote his history of the Jews ; but it seems he 
 had never heard of Christ or any of his wonder- 
 ful works. {Acts xviii.) After his conversion 
 he taught that Christ was the one expected by 
 the Jews, and he undertook to prove it by the 
 prophecies in the Old Testament. It would 
 have been far easier to establish this by the men- 
 tion of the one-half the miracles ascribed to 
 Christ in the Gospels than by arguments drawn 
 from prophecy, which were vague, obscure, and 
 doubtful. But he .had never heard of the resur- 
 rection of Lazarus, nor of the miracles of the 
 loaves and fishes, nor of the wonderful things 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 32 1 
 
 that happened to the swine in the country of the 
 Gadarenes. 
 
 There are now extant, writings which learned 
 men refer to the ApostoHc age, which have no 
 value except as they may throw some light on 
 the age in which they were written. We may 
 mention the epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans ; 
 the epistles of Paul to Seneca, with Seneca's to 
 Paul, and the Acts Paul and Thecla. In none 
 of these writings is any mention made of 
 the miracles of Paul, or those of the New 
 Testament, and the silence of such works is 
 only of consequence as it shows the universal 
 ignorance of antiquity, or the Apostolic age, on 
 the subject ; for it is not to be supposed that 
 those things which were standing themes for 
 discourses and books in the second century, 
 would be unnoticed in the first, if they did exist, 
 as well at one time as the other. How can we 
 account for the silence of the fathers of the 
 church on this subject ? Ignatius and Polycarp 
 were so near to the time of Paul and the disci- 
 ples, and even Christ, that nothing which con- 
 cerned any one of them was unknown, and if 
 
 the miracles ascribed to them had been real 
 14* 
 
322 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 occurrences, nothing could be more efifective in 
 the hands of these fathers for the spread of the 
 religion of Christianity. 
 
 But there is not only no mention by any one 
 of them of the miracles, but the Gospels have 
 not yet appeared. Up to the beginning of the 
 first century, there is no mention or reference 
 made in any writing, either to the Gospels, or 
 the miracles they describe. Allusions are made 
 in some cases to the Scriptures, in the most 
 general terms ; and as the Old Testament writ- 
 ings were called Scriptures, and there was the 
 Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, and the epistles of 
 Barnabas, James, Peter, and Paul, to which the 
 term Scripture might apply, the reference is of 
 no value in fixing the date of the Gospels. The 
 first distinct and unequivocal notice of the first 
 three Gospels is found in Justin Martyr's Apo- 
 logy ; and he, who speaks of them for the first 
 time, dilates on their contents, and refers to 
 Matthew, Mark, and Luke each by name : to 
 Matthew nineteen, to Mark fojir, and to Luke 
 fourteen times. From this time to the present 
 hour, every book abounds in references to these 
 Gospels. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 323 ' 
 
 As yet the Gospel of John had not appeared. 
 What is remarkable in the Gospels, referred to 
 by Justin, who makes a most elaborate disqui- 
 sition on the prophecies, citing many passages 
 to prove that Christ was a divine person, whose 
 advent had been predicted, he does not make 
 mention of any of his miracles, or of those of 
 any of his disciples. He speaks of Christ's birth 
 from the Virgin Mary, his miraculous concep- 
 tion, and all the leading acts of his life, as 
 described in Matthew and others, but seems 
 to have had no knowledge of the miraculous 
 works he performed. 
 
 The silence of Justin on the subject of mira- 
 cles, and his extended notice of the prophecies, 
 can only be explained by the fact that there was 
 nothing said about them in the Gospels, and 
 that they were inserted at a later day. As the 
 quarrels among Christians in the second century 
 intensified, and as the authority of the church 
 grew to be paramount as we approach the dark 
 ages, no doubt the Gospels underwent a revi- 
 sion, and the miracles were added as a means to 
 excite the awe and command the belief of the 
 Pagan world. The spirit for the creation of 
 
324 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 miracles commenced in the church before the 
 end of the second century — was encouraged by 
 it, and has been continued down to our own 
 times, and formed the most effective weapon for 
 the conversion of the hordes of the North, and 
 for the final overthrow of the followers of Arius. 
 Each age had its own miracles, in each of which 
 was apportioned the amount of divine energy 
 required to subdue the obstinacy and unbelief 
 to be overcome. 
 
 The silence of what are called profane writers 
 on the subject of the miracles is equally unac- 
 countable — if they are to be regarded as real 
 occurrences in history — and none as much so as 
 that of the Jewish historian, Josephus. Of sa- 
 cerdotal extraction, and of royal descent, Flavi- 
 us Josephus was born A.D. 37. He was alive 
 in A.D. 96, but the time and manner of his 
 death is unknown. His works comprise a com- 
 plete history of the Jews, and omit nothing that 
 was worthy of notice. He was a youth of great 
 ability and promise, and says of himself, "When 
 I was a child, and about fourteen years of age, 
 I was commended by all for the love I had for 
 learning, on which account the high priest and 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 3^5 
 
 principal men of the city came frequently to me 
 together, in order to know my opinion about 
 the accurate understanding of points of law." 
 (Life of Josephus, sec. i . ) 
 
 Here we have a historian of the right kind, 
 living so near the time that he must have seen 
 and conversed with those who had seen and 
 known Christ and his disciples. How are we 
 to regard his silence ? Had Christ been the 
 character which many suppose he was, a teach- 
 er endowed beyond all other men, with a divine 
 genius to declare the doctrines which are to 
 govern man in his relations towards the Creator 
 and towards each other, we can well understand 
 why, in A.D. 93, when Josephus wrote the his- 
 tory of the Jews, he failed to notice him. His 
 ministry extended through a period of only 
 one year, at a time when the Jewish people 
 were chafing under the yoke of the Romans, 
 and were preparing for a final struggle with the 
 conquerors. At such a time, the presence of 
 such a person as Christ, who taught men to for- 
 give their enemies, to love their neighbors as 
 themselves, and to cultivate feelings which dis- 
 pose mankind to peace and charity, would most 
 
326 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 likely pass unnoticed. If Christ was more than 
 a great teacher — if he were the second person 
 in the Godhead, who condescended to visit the 
 earth to instruct mankind, and while here per- 
 formed the wonderful works spoken of in the 
 Gospels, then there is no way in which we can 
 account for the silence of the Jewish historian. 
 We are forced to admit that the Son of God, 
 who took up his abode among men to convince 
 and instruct them, failed to make his presence 
 known and felt so as to attract the notice of him 
 who undertook to give a minute account of 
 what happened at the time, and in the country 
 where he preached and taught. 
 
 The attempt in the fourth century to force 
 into history, between the regular course of 
 events, a passage intended to break the force of 
 total unconsciousness on the part of Josephus 
 that there was such a person as Christ, to the 
 eye of the critic is infinitely more damaging 
 than complete silence. A quarrel, which led to 
 a sedition, sprang up in Jerusalem, about the use 
 made by Pilate of sacred money, to bring water 
 into the city. " About the same time, also, an- 
 other sad calamity happened, which put the Jews 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity, 327 
 
 into disorder." A Roman woman called Pau- 
 lina, through the connivance of some of the 
 gods of Isis, was seduced by a person of the 
 name of Mundus. {Antiq., book xviii. chap. 3.) 
 Between these two events, is wedged, or 
 -forced in, a paragraph which contains all the 
 great historian has to say of Christ, and the 
 events of his life. Twenty-nine lines are taken 
 to tell about the troubles growing out of the 
 misapplication of the sacred money ; one hun- 
 dred and thirty-one about Paulina and her mis- 
 fortunes, and sixteen are all that the historian 
 requires to inform us of all he knows about 
 Christ. Much better had he said nothing. 
 
 If Josephus makes no mention of Christ and 
 his miracles, where must we look ? It is in vain 
 to search among the writers of Greece and 
 Rome. Out of the nine reasons given by Dr. 
 Lardner for believing the passage from Jose- 
 phus in relation to Christ spurious, the first is 
 sufficient : it was never quoted, or referred 
 to, by any writer previous to Eusebius, who 
 wrote in the fourth century. 
 
328 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews. 
 
 This epistle has been the source of more con- 
 troversy than any other book of the New Tes- 
 tament. It has been the cause of much useless 
 labor and unprofitable research. In the first 
 place, was Paul the author ? Tertullian ascribes 
 it to Barnabas ; Grotius to St. Luke, and Lu- 
 ther the reformer thought it was written by 
 Apollos, mentioned in the Acts ; but the tes- 
 timony of ecclesiastical antiquity is all in favor 
 of Paul as the author. Allusions are made to 
 it in the epistles of Ignatius about A. D. 107. 
 It is also referred to by Polycarp, Bishop of 
 Smyrna in the year A. D. 108. 
 
 Internal evidence, supplied by the epistle itself, 
 is conclusive that Paul was the writer. No one 
 better than he understood the veneration in 
 which the Levitical law was held by the Jewish 
 people, and the tenacity with which they ad- 
 hered to it. As he believed that this law had 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 329 
 
 passed away, and that the Lord had made a 
 new covenant with the Jewish nation, it was 
 natural for him to labor to open the eyes of his 
 countrymen, and bring them under the light of the 
 new dispensation. It was for this reason, when 
 he entered into a place for the first time, that he 
 always began to teach in the synagogue. If 
 Paul wrote to the Hebrews at all, it would be 
 just such an epistle as the one ascribed to him, 
 except certain portions, which were clearly 
 written after the Pauline period of Christianity 
 Jiad passed away. 
 
 Again, it has been a question as to the lan- 
 guage in which this epistle was first written. 
 At the time of Paul, the original Hebrew was 
 understood by few, and had ceased to be the 
 language of the Jews. The original Hebrew 
 was broken in upon by several dialects — such 
 as the East Aramaean, or Chaldee, and the 
 West Aramaean, or Syriac. The universal lan- 
 guage of the day was Greek, and no doubt Paul 
 adopted it in writing to the Hebrews, who were 
 dispersed over Europe, Asia, and parts of Africa. 
 
 As the initiatory formula usual in the epistles 
 of Paul is wanting in this, it has been ques- 
 
330 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 tioned whether it was really an epistle, or only 
 a discourse intended for the general reader. The 
 want of the usual formula can be easily account- 
 ed for, when the mind becomes convinced that 
 the first chapter is not the production of Paul. 
 That it was written as it now stands by the for- 
 gers of the second century admits of no doubt. 
 The design of the writer is exposed in the 
 very first and second verses of the first chapter. 
 " God, who at sundry times and in divers man- 
 ners spake in time past unto the fathers by the 
 prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us 
 by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all 
 things, by whom also he made the worlds." 
 
 Here Christ is made the Creator by whom 
 the worlds were made. Again: "Who being 
 the brightness of his glory, and the express 
 image of his person, and upholding all things by 
 the word of his power, when he had by himself 
 purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of 
 the Majesty on high ; being made so much bet- 
 ter than the angels, as he hath by inheritance 
 obtained a more excellent name than they. For 
 unto which of the angels said he at any time. 
 Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten 
 
c: 
 
 .7 
 
 or the Enigmas of Christianity. 331 
 
 thee ? And again, I will be to him a Father, and 
 he shall be to me a Son ? And again, when he 
 bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he 
 saith. And let all the angels of God worship 
 him." {^Heb. i. 3-6.) 
 
 Here we find condensed into a few verses, 
 and declared in the most pointed language, the 
 Godship of Christ, first proclaimed by the men 
 of the second century, and which is in direct 
 conflict with the remainder of the Epistle, and 
 with what Paul taught during his whole life. 
 
 Commencing at the ninth verse of the second 
 chapter, Paul says : " But we see Jesus, who 
 was made a little lower than the angels for 
 the suffering of death, crowned with glory and 
 honor ; that he by the grace of God should taste 
 death for every man." " For verily he took not 
 on him the nature of angels ; but he took on 
 him the seed of Abraham." (Chap. ii. 16.) 
 "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the 
 heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High 
 Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus ; who was 
 faithful to him who appointed him, as also 
 Moses was faithful in all his house. For this 
 man was accounted worthy of more glory than 
 
332 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the 
 house hath more honor than the house. For 
 every house is builded by some man ; but he 
 that built all things is God." (Chap. iii. 
 
 1-5.) 
 
 On the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth verses 
 of the second chapter, Paul declares that to 
 angels " is given the government of the world to 
 come ; " and to man, who was made but little 
 lower than the angels, was consigned the gov- 
 ernment of the earth. All men, according to 
 Paul, like Jesus, were born but little lower than 
 the angels — and Christ by him is put on a level 
 with all humanity. It is evident that the first 
 chapter, as written by Paul, has been suppressed, 
 and the one which has descended to us is made 
 to take its place. It is not possible that Paul 
 wrote the first and second chapters as they now 
 stand. In the one case Christ is made more 
 than the angels ; and in the other case he is 
 made less. In the one case he is the Creator 
 of the world, " upholding all things by the 
 word of his power ;" in the other he is a High 
 Priest of the order of Melchisedec, and one of 
 the descendants of Abraham. In the first chap- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. -^Ty^t 
 
 ter he formed the world, and in the third chap- 
 ter it is said, " He who built all things is God." 
 The doctrines here declared are unreconcilable, 
 but it is not difficult to distinguish between 
 those of Paul and those of the men of the 
 second century. 
 
 Paul speaks of three orders of the priesthood : 
 that of Melchisedec, that under the Levitical 
 law, and that under the new covenant, with 
 Christ at the head. What was the character of 
 the priesthood of the order of Melchisedec, Paul 
 does not say — nor do we know where to look 
 for infonnation on the subject. He was " with- 
 out father, without mother, without descent, 
 having neither beginning of days, nor end of 
 life ; but made like unto the Son of God: abideth 
 a priest continually." (Chap. vii. 3.) When we 
 are infbrmed in the same chapter that Christ is 
 a priest after the order of Melchisedec, " who is 
 made, not after the law of a carnal command- 
 ment, but after the powei of an endless life " 
 (ver. 16), we detect the insidious and subtle 
 poison of the Johannian school. 
 
 Here we have a Logos, who was in the be- 
 ginning, and who would continue through all 
 
334 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 time, which could never be true of any of the 
 descendants of Abraham. The priesthood un- 
 der the Levitical law, Paul claimed, had 
 passed away, and was succeeded by a much 
 better one with Christ as its head. The last was 
 superior to the old because it would " continue 
 forever, an unchangeable priesthood." (Chap, 
 vii. 24.) In this new and better dispensation, 
 Christ is as superior to Moses and Aaron, as the 
 new covenant is superior to the old. Christ is 
 called a High Priest, " a minister of the sanctu- 
 ary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord 
 pitched, and not man." (Chap.' viii. 2.) 
 
 If Christ was the Son of God, born of a virgin, 
 when Paul was instructing his countrymen in 
 the mysteries of the new covenant, and was 
 pointing out to them the relation which Christ 
 bore to the same, as compared with Moses un- 
 der the old, how happened it that he fails to 
 make mention of this important fact altogether ? 
 How can we account for the silence of Paul at 
 such a time on a subject of such vital import- 
 ance ? He was a man of learning, and well 
 versed in all that was written by the Hebrew 
 prophets ; and if the fourteenth verse of the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 335 
 
 seventh chapter of Isaiah had any application to 
 Christ, or any other prophecy in the Old Testa- 
 ment, why did he not point them out to his 
 countrymen, and in this way prove that Christ 
 was not only superior to Moses, but to the 
 angels ? Why call him a High Priest, and ad- 
 mit his Jewish descent, from the father of the 
 Hebrew nation ? Who so well as Paul could 
 define the status of Christ under the new cove- 
 nant ? His numerous visits to Jerusalem, not 
 long after Christ's death, his intimacy with all the 
 disciples, gave him every and ample means for 
 information ; and the deep interest he took in 
 every particular which related to Christ stimu- 
 lated inquiry ; and whatever he found that was 
 important to be known as a part of the new 
 faith, he would not fail to proclaim in tones of 
 thunder, from the Euphrates to the Tiber. 
 
 We can well imagine his astonishment when 
 the doctrines of the Greek school first began to 
 make headway in his little churches. We can 
 form some idea of his feelings by reading the 
 eleventh and twelfth chapters in the second 
 epistle to the Corinthians : " Would to God ye 
 could bear with me a little in my folly : and 
 
33^ The Christ of Paul, 
 
 indeed bear with me. For I am jealous over 
 you with godly jealousy : for I have espoused 
 you to one husband, that I may present you as 
 a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by 
 any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through 
 his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted 
 from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he 
 that Cometh preacheth another Jesus whom, we 
 have not preached, or if ye received another 
 spirit, which ye have not received, or another 
 gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might 
 well bear with him." (2 Cor. xi. 1-4.) Ren- 
 dered into plain language, he says : Would to 
 God you would pardon my zeal and anxiety on 
 your account. Having instructed you in the 
 religion of Christ, I am jealous and over-anx- 
 ious that you should stand as examples of pure 
 Christianity, and not surrender your pure and 
 virgin faith in Christ, carried away by the sub- 
 tle doctrines of cunning men. If. any one 
 speaks of Christ, and claims that he is any- 
 thing different from what I have taught you — 
 or if any one has preached to you a different 
 religion or a different gospel, from that which 
 you learned of me, you show your forbearance 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 2)Z 7 
 
 if you do not visit your anger upon them, who 
 thus labor to mislead and deceive you. 
 
 Throughout these two chapters Paul shows 
 deep sorrow on account of the progress of the 
 new faith, and with his expressions of regret, 
 he mingles words of reproof. The troubles 
 growing out of it followed him through life. 
 They harassed him in his prison. He lived to 
 see all Asia turned away from him. With an 
 aching heart he makes one last request of Tim- 
 othy : "And the things that thou hast heard of 
 me among many witnesses, the same commit 
 thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach 
 others also." (2 Tim. ii. 2.) 
 
338 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 The controversy between Ptolemasus and Irenseus as to 
 the length of Christ's ministry. — Christ was in Jeru- 
 salem but once after he began to preach, according 
 to the first three Gospels, but three times according 
 to John. — If the statements made in the first three 
 are true, everything stated in the fourth could only 
 happen after the death of Christ. 
 
 It will be remembered that Ptolemseus as- 
 serted that the time of Christ's ministry did not 
 exceed the period of one year. This drove Ire- 
 nseus to claim that it continued for the space of 
 ten years, on the authority of a tradition derived 
 from John. The precise time when, and what, 
 Ptolemaeus wrote, we have no means in our day 
 of finding out; for his writings, like all those of 
 the Gnostics, doubtless perished under the de- 
 structive edict of the Emperor Constantine. 
 We are at liberty to conclude that he wrote 
 before the fourth Gospel appeared, as he limits 
 the time to one year, which agrees in that re- 
 spect with the Synoptics. Had he had any 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 339 
 
 knowledge of the fourth Gospel, he might, by 
 adopting the mode of reasoning on this subject 
 used by the orthodox, have made the time three 
 years instead of one. It will be noted that 
 Irenaeus, in his controversy with Ptolemaeus, 
 makes no mention of the fourth Gospel, but 
 falls back on a tradition. In a dispute with a 
 sharp-witted adversary, he found it safer to rely 
 on a tradition, as evasive as the mirage of the 
 desert, than the authority of the fourth book of 
 John. The reason for this preference will be 
 readily seen when the subject is understood. 
 According to Matthew, after the temptation in 
 the wilderness, Christ returned to Nazareth, in 
 Galilee. He left Nazareth and came and dwelt 
 in Capernaum, in the borders of Zabulon and 
 Nephthalim, as spoken by Esaias : "The land of 
 Zabulon and the land of Nephthalim, by the 
 way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the 
 Gentiles. The people which sat in darkness 
 saw great light ; and to them which sat in the 
 region and shadow of death light is sprung up. 
 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to 
 say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at 
 hand." (Chapter iv. 15, 16, 17.) 
 
340 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Here the place where Christ commenced to 
 preach is clearly defined ; and as the spot had 
 been pointed out by Isaiah seven hundred years 
 before, there could be no mistake, unless the 
 inspiration of the great Hebrew prophet was at 
 fault. Mark and Luke substantially agree with 
 Matthew; so, according to all three, Christ be- 
 gan his labors at Capernaum. The precise time 
 in the year we cannot tell, but it must have been 
 shortly after the fourteenth of March (Nisan), 
 when the celebration of the Passover com- 
 menced. At the following festival, as we will 
 show, Christ was put to death. In the mean- 
 time he had performed the greater part of his 
 work, which would require not much less than 
 a year. That Christ should go to Jerusaleiji to 
 celebrate the first Passover after he began to 
 preach is not only probable but almost certain. 
 Everything shows that he did. The laws of 
 Moses commanded every Jew to observe this 
 feast ; and although no place is specified, all 
 deemed it the highest religious duty to go to 
 Jerusalem for that purpose. On such occasions 
 " an innumerable multitude came hither out of 
 the country — many beyond its hmits," accord- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 341 
 
 ing to Josephus. Hence the great destruction 
 of the Jewish people, who had come up to the 
 holy city to celebrate, when it was destroyed 
 by Titus. Christ could hardly fail to be pres- 
 ent at the first celebration after he began to 
 preach, especially as he was accustomed to go 
 every year from childhood with his parents, 
 according to Luke. If Christ attended the 
 first festival after he began his work, his minis- 
 try continued for less than one year, for he went 
 there but once after he began to preach. The 
 early part of his career was solely passed in 
 Galilee, according to Matthew, Mark and Luke. 
 His labors were confined to his own country, 
 mostly in the neighborhood of the sea of Tibe- 
 rias. At length, as the time for the celebration 
 of the Passover approached, his thoughts were 
 directed toward the city of David. At Cses- 
 area Philippi he concluded at last to go to Jeru- 
 salem. "From that time forth began Jesus 
 to shew unto his disciples how that he must 
 go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of 
 the elders and chief priests and scribes, and 
 be killed, and be raised again the third day." 
 {Matt..Kvi. 21.) At length he "departed from 
 
342 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Galilee and came into the coasts of Judea be- 
 yond Jordan." (Chap. xix. i.) "And when 
 he was come into Jerusalem all the city was 
 moved, saying, Who is this?" (Chap. xxi. lo.) 
 Would that question have been asked if he had 
 been there the year before } That this was 
 Christ's first visit to Jerusalem, according to 
 the first three Gospels, will not admit of a 
 doubt. Here he taught and preached until 
 he was handed over bound into the hands 
 of Pilate. He never after this left the city 
 until his immortal spirit took its flight from Cal- 
 vary. The itinary of Christ, as we have it in 
 the first three Gospels, renders it impossible 
 that he made any visit to Jerusalem except the 
 one above mentioned. We can trace him, step 
 by step, from the beginning to the end of his 
 career. He began to preach' at Capernaum, 
 and from there he traveled all over Galilee. In 
 the meantime he delivered his divine Sermon 
 on the Mount. From the Mount he returned 
 to Capernaum. From here he entered a ship 
 and rebuked the sea. He next crossed over to 
 the country of the Gadarines. From there he 
 recrossed the sea and went into his own city. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 343 
 
 Once more he travels over Galilee, preaching, 
 and healing diseases. On the shores of Tibe- 
 rias he delivered the parable of the sower, and 
 again went back to his own country. While 
 there he. heard of the death of John the Bap- 
 tist ; when he crossed over the sea of Tiberias, 
 and on the east shore fed the multitude. After 
 events which are fully declared, he and his dis- 
 ciples crossed the sea and went to the land of 
 Gennesaret. From there he departed unto the 
 coast of Tyre and Sidon. He returned unto 
 the sea of Galilee, and went up into a mountain 
 and again fed the multitude. From here he 
 went unto the coast of Magdala, and from there 
 to Caesarea Philippi, when he made up his mind 
 at last to go to Jerusalem. In the meantime 
 it was not possible for him to have made a visit 
 to the Holy City. He had not even been in 
 Judea. According to John, Christ did not 
 manifest his divine power at Capernaum, but 
 at Cana. This was not a great while before 
 the feast of the Passover, for he went from 
 Cana to Capernaum, where he remained ^'not 
 many days" but went to Jerusalem to cele- 
 brate. As John and the writers of the first 
 
344 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 three Gospels have Christ attend the first fes- 
 tival after he began his ministry, it follows, 
 according to John, that Christ at that time 
 had just begun to teach ; while, if we believe 
 the other three writers, he had nearly per- 
 formed his work, and came to Jerusalem to 
 meet his death. The Gospel of John causes 
 Christ to make three distinct visits to Jerusa- 
 lem : first, soon after the miracle at Cana, the 
 same mentioned by Matthew, Mark and Luke ; 
 the second, when he attended a feast of the 
 Jews, which Dr. Robertson and other learned 
 writers claim was the Passover ; and a third, 
 when he went to witness the feast of the Tab- 
 ernacle. Now, if the first three Gospels are 
 true, then everything stated in the fourth as the 
 works of Christ must have been performed after 
 his death ! Every day, from the time he set 
 out from Capernaum to teach, to his first and 
 last entrance into Jerusalem, is accounted for 
 in the first three Gospels. This second visit 
 was not without a special significance. 
 
 So strong was the proof in the last half of 
 the second century that John had never been 
 to the western coast of the Mediterranean, 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 345 
 
 that Irenaeus and others of that century dare 
 not assert that the fourth Gospel was writ- 
 ten by him in Asia Minor. On this point the 
 great criminal is silent. But, in the Gospel 
 itself, there is an evident effort made to have 
 it appear that it was written before the fall 
 of Jerusalem. Even the learned Basnag.e and 
 Lampe were betrayed into this belief, and so 
 were others. Lardner fixes the date in the 
 year 68, Owen 69, and the learned Michaslis 
 in 70. That such men should have fallen into 
 this belief is truly wonderful, for its fallacy is 
 apparent at first view. This Gospel, as none 
 dispute, was written in reply to the Gnostics, 
 and as none of that sect, as will be shown, 
 was known to be in existence until the second 
 century, it at once disposes of the question. 
 Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Mills, Fabricius and 
 Bishop Tomline, with others, saw the dilemma, 
 and fixed the date of the Gospel at a later pe- 
 riod — some at 97, and others at 98. 
 
 That part of this Gospel by which Dr. Lard- 
 ner and others were misled is as follows : 
 "Now there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep- 
 market, a pool which is called in the Hebrew 
 
34^ The Christ of Paul, 
 
 tongue Bethesda, having five porches." From 
 the language here used, they conclude that 
 Jerusalem was standing when the Gospel was 
 written, as the present is used instead of the 
 past tense. Few things troubled the Catho- 
 lics of the second century more than to find 
 a convenient date for John's Gospel. If it was 
 written before the fall of Jerusalem, where 
 there was a sheep market having five porches 
 still standing, it was too early, by many years, 
 for Corinthus and other leading Gnostics. If its 
 date were fixed at the end of the century when 
 John was in Asia Minor, Catholics were met with 
 proof that John never was there. The story 
 of the angel, and the man who had an infirmity 
 for eight-and-thirty years, was a clumsy inven- 
 tion to make way for the deception as to the 
 early date of the Gospel. If there was in fact 
 such a pool as represented, whose medical 
 properties were dependent upon the visitation 
 of an angel, and which had properties to cure 
 all diseases, it was the only one of the kind, or 
 anything like it, ever known to man ; its fame 
 would have spread far and wide, and Jewish 
 historians, who delight to dwell upon anything 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 347 
 
 which belongs to their country, would have 
 emphasized a phenomenon like the pool of 
 Bethesda, as proof of divine favor shown to 
 their nation. It excites the anger of com- 
 mentators, and Doddridge among the rest, 
 that Josephus has failed to notice it ; and 
 among the extraordinary motives assigned 
 for his silence is a fear that he ''would disgust 
 his pagan readers" ! The same commenta- 
 tor says: "It is probable that the miracle was 
 not wrought for any length of time, and per- 
 haps ceased on this occasion. This may ac- 
 count for the surprising silence of Josephus 
 in a story which made so much for the honor 
 of his nation. He himself was not born when 
 it happened, and, though he might have heard 
 the report of it, he would, perhaps (in the mod- 
 ern way), oppose speculation and hypothesis to 
 facty Jenks, another commentator, says : " It 
 is true the Jewish historians, who are not spar- 
 ing in praise of Jerusalem, do none of them 
 mention this pool, for which, perhaps, this is the 
 reason : that it was taken as a presage of the 
 approach of the Messiah, and, therefore, they who 
 denied him to be come industriously concealed 
 
348 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 such an indication of his coming^ No one 
 has ever pretended to have found this pool, 
 although pious travelers have found every 
 other spot consecrated by the life and death 
 of Christ. Helena, the mother of Constan- 
 tine, as early as A. D. 326, made a pilgrimage 
 to the Holy City to discover the places made 
 sacred by scenes in the life of the Saviour ; 
 and when human energy and skill failed, she 
 called to her assistance the aid of the miracu- 
 lous. But the powers that enabled her to find 
 the true cross, after a waste in the earth of 
 over three hundred years, and detect the place 
 of the Lord's sepulcher, and other sacred spots 
 which Infidel hatred vainly attempted to oblit- 
 erate, failed to discover the place where the 
 angel of mercy found ground to rest her feet 
 when she descended from heaven, loaded with 
 blessings for the blind, halt and withered. 
 
 It is admitted by all writers, and especially 
 Michselis (vol. iii. part i, p. 280), that the Gos- 
 pel of John was written in answer to the Gnos- 
 tics, and especially Corinthus, who lived in the 
 last years of the first century. It was possible 
 to spin out the life of John to the end of the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 349 
 
 century, and thus bring him near the time 
 when Corinthus flourished ; but it is fatal to 
 the claim, set up by Irenseus and others, that 
 John was the author of the fourth Gospel, 
 that the quarrels which grew out of the writ- 
 ings of Corinthus failed to attract notice until 
 some time about the middle of the second cent- 
 ury. You may look in vain among all the 
 writings of the Fathers and others of the first 
 century to find the name of Corinthus or any 
 of his writings, although we can trace Gnosti- 
 cism, in its primitive stages, as early as the 
 first years in the second. Still, it assumed but 
 little importance in its contests with Christian- 
 ity until some time after the year A. D. 117. 
 Buck says that '^ Many persons were infected 
 with the Gnostic heresy in the first century; 
 though the sect did not render itself conspicu- 
 ous, either for numbers or reputation, before the 
 reign of Adrian, when some writers erroneously 
 date its rise." There was no call or demand 
 for the fourth Gospel until Christians and Gnos- 
 tics commenced their quarrels, which was long 
 after John's death, even admitting that he lived 
 to be a hundred years old. There was no help 
 
35° The Christ of Paul, 
 
 in the emergency which then arose, but to ante- 
 date the fourth Gospel, to confound the time 
 when Cerinthus wrote with the time when the 
 spread of his doctrines created discussion among 
 Christians. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 351 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 The phase assumed by Christianity in the fourth Gospel 
 demanded a new class of miracles from those given 
 in the first three. — A labored effort in this Gospel to 
 sink the humanity of Christ. — His address to Mary. 
 — The temptation in the wilderness ignored, and the 
 last supper between him and his disciples suppressed. 
 — Interview between Christ and the women and men 
 of Samaria.— A labored effort to connect Christ with 
 Moses exposed. 
 
 When the incarnation became a leading fea- 
 ture of Christianity, its whole spirit underwent 
 a change from what it was in the first three 
 Gospels. The miracles which they describe 
 are too tame for the new phase which Christ 
 is made to assume. None of the five, except 
 one, in the Gospel of John, are mentioned in 
 the first three, for the apparent reason that 
 those in the Synoptics all fall short of uphold- 
 ing the claims set up for Christ in the fourth. 
 The subsidence of the sea at Tiberias, at his 
 command, was some proof that he held con- 
 
352 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 trol of the wind and waves, but a lucky co- 
 incidence might account for part, and ocular 
 deception for the rest. But, in that case, the 
 constituents of the water were not changed. 
 Not so with the water at the feast at Cana. 
 The restoration of the widow's son at Nain, 
 and of the daughter of Jairus, might admit 
 of doubt, for the first had not shown signs of 
 decided death, and the latter may have been 
 a case of coma — " For the maid is not dead, 
 but sleepeth." {Matt. ix. 24.) But in the case 
 of Lazarus there could be no mistake. For 
 four days the seal of death sat upon his brow, 
 and flesh and blood were fast returning to their 
 native dust. Christ, in the first three Gospels, 
 heals diseases and cures the blind ; but how 
 much was to be referred to his power as a 
 god, and how much to the skill of a Thera- 
 peutce, might invite discussion. But in the cases 
 of the man who had an infirmity for eight-and- 
 thirtyyears, and the one born blind, there could 
 be no ground for dispute. The miracles select- 
 ed proved all that was claimed for Christ in 
 the first part of the Gospel. He was master 
 of the elements, death heard and obeyed his 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 353 
 
 voice, and he held the avenues which led from 
 iife to the grave. The miracle of the loaves 
 and fishes is the only one in the first three 
 Gospels repeated by John, because it proved 
 his power over nature ; for if he did not change 
 the elements, as he did at Cana, he multiplied 
 them. We see in this Gospel a studied effort 
 to avoid anything like a human parentage for 
 Christ, as stated in the first three Gospels. 
 The trip to Bethlehem, the birth in the man- 
 ger, the journey of the wise men from the East, 
 are all omitted. The name of Mary in this 
 Gospel is studiously kept in the background. 
 She is barely mentioned twice, once at the 
 feast of Cana : " And when they wanted wine, 
 the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have 
 no wine ; Jesus saith unto her. Woman, what 
 have T to do with thee?" The true answer 
 intended by the question was — nothi7tg. Christ 
 could not be entirely oblivious of earthly ties. 
 He had lived under the same roof with Mary. 
 He had received from her many acts of kind- 
 ness; and if nature was allowed her empire over 
 the heart, he must have felt for her the affec- 
 tion of a son. For him she had all the feelings 
 
354 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 of a mother. She followed and stood by him 
 at the cross. As she stood and wept in his 
 sight, the only words of consolation and en- 
 dearment he could give her were as cold and 
 heartless as a Lapland wind : " Woman, behold 
 thy son"! The word "woman" was ever on 
 his lips. When he recommends her, at the last 
 scene, to the care of the disciples, he is stud- 
 ied and guarded in his language : " Then saith 
 he to the disciple. Behold thy mother" The 
 scenes at the cross were too solemn to permit 
 the studied purpose of an artful bigot to muz- 
 zle the voice of nature. Truth turns away 
 from the story. 
 
 The design of this Gospel to keep out of 
 view the carnal nature of Christ, as it appears 
 in the iirst three Gospels, is marked with Jes- 
 uitical cunning. He who was born, not of 
 blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God, 
 must be so constituted as to be above the 
 weaknesses and frailties of those who are born 
 of earth. The temptations in the wilderness, 
 which supply the most remarkable scenes in 
 the life of Christ, and, as given in the first 
 three Gospels, proved the power of the Son of 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 355 
 
 God over the Powers of Darkness, are wholly 
 unnoticed in the Gospel of John. He who was 
 all God, without a link to connect him with 
 humanity, must be so superior to Satan as to 
 be above his arts of seduction. John will not 
 allow Christ to be tempted, because he was 
 above it ; but, in sinking his humanity to favor 
 a dogma, he keeps out of sight the most sub- 
 lime and god-like portion of his character — 
 the power to rise above the allurements of 
 wealth, power, and dominion. It was by such 
 things he proved himself a god. The design 
 of the fourth Gospel is overdone. In making 
 Christ all God, no chord of sympathy is left 
 between him and man. Even in the last sup- 
 per, dwelt upon with so much tenderness by 
 Matthew, Mark and Luke, we detect, by the 
 silence of John, the spirit of the Jesuit. He 
 makes no mention of it. Who can mistake 
 the reason of this silence 1 The tender scenes 
 of this last interview between Christ and his 
 disciples are sacrificed to make way for a 
 senseless and heartless dogma. In the last 
 supper, given in the Synoptics, the bread and 
 vine are mere symbols of the death and suffer- 
 
- 35^ The Christ of Paul, 
 
 ings of Christ. It was this symbolic charac- 
 ter of the sacrament that the writer of John 
 wished to avoid. As the Lord's supper is with 
 John a real sacrifice, each repetition is a fresh 
 atonement, and the bread and wine, by a mir- 
 aculous conversion, are made flesh and blood. 
 There could be no sacrifice of the body of 
 Christ until death, and, for that reason, the 
 last supper between him and his disciples be- 
 fore the crucifixion is omitted. This miracu- 
 lous conversion of the elements has been one 
 of the holy mysteries of the Church for ages 
 past. It has been the bigot's wand. Millions 
 have fallen down before the Host. It led the 
 crusades. The fair fields of Europe and Asia 
 have been whitened by the bones of its vic- 
 tims. In fine, it has been the armory in which 
 fanaticism has forged her most fatal and dan- 
 gerous weapons. With John, the body of 
 Christ is never dead — the grave cannot hold 
 it ; but it exists in a mysterious union with 
 the Church, so that every time the devout 
 believer eats of the bread, or touches the sacred 
 cup to his lips, he partakes of the flesh and 
 drinks the blood of the Son of God. Such is 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 357 
 
 the dogma which took its rise in the last half 
 of the second century, the offspring of a bit- 
 ter, heated controversy which demands that 
 reason be strangled to make room for faith. 
 It is the fate of this dogma, as it is of all 
 like it, to be associated with others equally 
 false and absurd. It can have no fellowship 
 with truth. Speaking of Christ, John says : 
 "The same was in the beginning with God. 
 All things were made by him, and without 
 him was not anything made that was made." 
 (Chap. i. 2, 3.) Christ says of himself: "For 
 I came down from heaven, not to do mine own 
 will, but the will of him that sent me." (Chap, 
 vi. 38.) He was on earth thirty-three years. 
 In what business was this creator of worlds 
 engaged for thirty years of this time .' If any- 
 thing, so far as we can know, it was the busi- 
 ness of a carpenter. Did he do his Heavenly 
 Father's business all this time .'' This is what he 
 says himself he was sent to do. The first proof 
 he gave of the power of a god, while here, was 
 at Cana. It was here that he first manifested 
 forth his glory, and inspired his disciples with 
 faith. The first three Gospels leave Christ 
 
358 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 to his humanity to the time the angels took 
 charge of him, and subject him, like other 
 mortals, to human employments. In John, a 
 god with power to create worlds is bound up 
 in the fate of mortals for thirty years, and only 
 escapes thralldom when the spell is broken at 
 the marriage feast. Would he, who was with 
 God in the beginning, whose word was suffi- 
 cient to create worlds, submit to a fate like 
 this >. 
 
 The interview between Christ and the woman 
 of Samaria affords abundant evidence of the 
 spurious character of the fourth Gospel, and 
 that the writer was some Greek who was igno- 
 rant of the religion of Moses and the Jews. 
 
 The temple of Jerusalem being destroyed by 
 Nebuchadnezzar, the Samaritans proposed to 
 join the Jews after their captivity in rebuilding 
 it ; but the Jews refused the coalition. {Ezra 
 iv. 1-3.) This gave rise to other causes of dis- 
 pute, until the most inveterate hatred grew up 
 between the two peoples. At length, by per- 
 mission of Alexander the Great, the Samaritans 
 erected a temple at Mount Gerizim, in opposi- 
 tion to the one at Jerusalem. The same wor- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 359 
 
 ship was observed in both cities, and both 
 people avoided the idolatry of surrounding na- 
 tions. All the followers of Moses in Judea 
 shared alike in the calamities which befell the 
 Jewish people ; so all shared a common belief 
 that God would at some time, by the hand of 
 a deliverer, restore to them all they had lost. 
 If by the hand of Cyrus the power of the As- 
 syrian empire had been torn down, the Temple 
 rebuilt, and the Jews and Samaritans placed 
 back in their homes in Judea ; so, if some like 
 calamity should befall them, the same hand 
 would again restore them to liberty and the 
 land of their inheritance. The Jews and Sa- 
 maritans, though divided on some things, were 
 alike the chosen people of God, and the prom- 
 ises made to one were made to both. At the 
 time Christ made his appearance in Samaria, 
 the people of that country had settled convic- 
 tions as to what they might expect from . the 
 promises made to them by Jehovah through 
 Moses, their great lawgiver and prophet. 
 These convictions, like the concretion of ages, 
 had solidified, and made up the Jewish and 
 Samaritan character. Whatever might befall 
 
360 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 them, they had no expectations of a spiritual 
 deliverer of any kind. They recognized no 
 spiritual bondage growing out of the sins of 
 the first parents, like the believers in Chris- 
 tianity, for Moses taught nothing of the kind. 
 A personal sacrifice, like that of Christ, to 
 save men from the condemnation of a broken 
 law, never entered into the mind of either Jew 
 or Samaritan. Neither was cosmopolitan, and 
 with them a deliverer was a deliverer to the 
 Jews and not the Gentiles. After Christ had 
 convinced the woman at the" well that he was 
 a prophet, by telling her past life, she is made 
 to say : " I know that Messiah cometh which 
 is called Christ ; when he is come he will tell 
 us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that 
 speak unto thee am he." It is said that the 
 woman believed_; if so, did she understand 
 him f With Christ, he was the Son of God, 
 equal with the Father ; was with him in the 
 beginning, and by him the universe was made — 
 he was the Creator. We ask again, did the 
 woman believe in such a Messiah, and did she 
 believe that he who spoke to her, and told her 
 how many husbands she had had, was that au- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 361 
 
 gust Being ? If there is room in the breast of 
 any people for a hope or expectation of such a 
 person as Christ claimed to be, not a shade of 
 either could be found in the hearts of the fol- 
 lowers of Moses. Let a belief in such a Being 
 have made its way into the Jewish mind, and 
 the whole structure, as it was reared by their 
 great leader, would fall like a baseless tower. 
 Strike out the Semitic idea which was thun- 
 dered from Sinai, and that very thing which 
 cost the Jews ages of persecution would with 
 it be thrown away. 
 
 The woman was convinced by the arts of a 
 fortune-teller, some of the Samaritans by what 
 befell the woman, and others, because of what 
 they saw and heard themselves, believed " that 
 Christ was the Saviour of the world!' Here 
 we reach a climax : did the Samaritans, in so 
 short a time, renounce Moses and the institu- 
 tions of their fathers .? Christ claimed before 
 the Jews that he lived before Abraham. This 
 they could not stand, but took up stones and 
 cast them at him, and, because he preached 
 the end of the Mosaic law, they crucified and 
 put him to death. 
 
362 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 There are still some of the descendants of 
 the Samaritans at Naplosa (the ancient Shech- 
 em), at Gaza, Damascus and Cairo, who still 
 retain the faith held by their fathers in the 
 time of Christ — a living protest against the 
 truth of the story of the women and men of 
 Samaria. Let him who wishes to be convinced 
 go among the remnant of this persecuted race, 
 witness their poverty, their sad and careworn 
 faces, the work of centuries of injustice and 
 oppression, and ask them if they believe the 
 story of the woman at the well. They will 
 point you to two thousand years of suffering 
 for their Mosaic faith, enough to "bring tears 
 down Pluto's wan cheeks," and ask you, with a 
 look of scorn, if the ancestors of such a people 
 could ever be apostles. 
 
 In talking to the Jews, Christ is made to say: 
 "For had ye believed Moses, ye would have 
 believed me : for he wrote of me. But if ye 
 believe not his writings, how shall ye believe 
 my words .-' " {John v. 46, 47.) Christ here un- 
 dertakes to make the Jews believe that he was 
 the one who had been foreseen and spoken of 
 in ages past, and especially by the great prophet 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 363 
 
 of the Hebrew people. Had any Jew in the 
 time of Moses set up the claim that at some 
 future day there would arise one among his 
 people who would be equal with God, but who 
 would suffer death at their hands, as a ransom 
 for the salvation not only of the Jews but of 
 the Gentiles, he would have ordered that such 
 a prophet be stoned to death. By him and 
 the Jews no such Saviour was expected or re- 
 quired. Adam and Eve were the first to break 
 the law, but God pronounced judgment upon 
 them before they left the Garden. The earth 
 was cursed with thorns and thistles, for Adam's 
 sake. By the sweat of his brow he was bound 
 to eat of its fruits in sorrow all his days. Upon 
 Eve were imposed the pains and sufferings of 
 childbirth, and the duty of obedience. All this 
 endured, both were, to return to the dust from 
 whence they came. This was all the punish- 
 ment and all the atonement God demanded. 
 He asked no more. With Moses, death was 
 the end of punishment. Those who commit- 
 ted the first sin made their own atonement, 
 and so have all their descendants, in the eyes 
 of Moses and the Jews. "Had ye believed 
 
364 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 in Moses, ye would have believed in me." Re- 
 verse this, and we have the exact truth : If 
 ye believe in Moses, it is impossible to believe 
 in me. How could they.' "Moses wrote of 
 me." What did he write } To connect Christ 
 with prophecy, language of the most indefinite 
 character is selected from all parts of the He- 
 brew scriptures. "The seed of the woman 
 shall bruise the serpent's head." Christ of the 
 fourth Gospel is not of the seed of the woman. 
 "The Word was made flesh" and "was not 
 born of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the 
 will of man, but of God:" "The scepter shall 
 not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from 
 between his feet, until Shiloh come." {Gen. xlix. 
 10). The Jews ceased to be an independent 
 people, and the scepter departed from Judah 
 at the time Pompey invaded the country, seized 
 upon the Temple, deposed Aristobulus, the 
 high priest, and put Hyrcanus in his place. 
 (Josephus, Wars, Book I. chap. vii. sec. 6.) He 
 deprived the Jews of all their conquests, re-' 
 stored the conquered, and placed Syria, to- 
 gether with Judea and the country as far as 
 Egypt and Euphrates, under the command of 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 365 
 
 Scaurus. {Ibid, sec. 7.) In view of these events, 
 Josephus bitterly laments the results, and says : 
 " We lost our liberty, and became subject to the 
 Romans, and were deprived of that country 
 which we had gained by our arms from the 
 Syrians, and were compelled to restore it to 
 the Syrians. Moreover, the Romans exacted 
 of us, in a little time, above ten .thousand tal- 
 ents." (Josephus, Antiquities, Book XIV. ch. 
 iv. sec. V.) When did the Jews, after the con- 
 quest of Pompey, shake off the yoke of the 
 Romans .'' Between his conquest and the birth 
 of Christ at least sixty-seven years had inter- 
 vened. In the meantime Caesar crossed the 
 Rubicon, was assassinated in the senate ; the 
 empire was distracted by civil wars ; Mark 
 Antony and Augustus tried the fortune of bat- 
 tle with Brutus and Cassius, on the field at 
 Philippi, and the first of the Roman emperors 
 had nearly completed a long reign of four- 
 and-forty years. When Christ was born, the 
 scepter had departed from Judea, and the Jews 
 were a nation of slaves. 
 
 Space will not allow us to pursue this sub- 
 ject farther. Throughout the Gospel of John 
 
366 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 we discover the most studied and labored effort 
 to connect Christ with the religion of Moses, 
 so that it may appear that in himself he is 
 only the response to the many prophesies con- 
 tained in the Hebrew scriptures. This Gospel 
 is full of instances where the Jews, upon Christ's 
 bare word — and sometimes not even that — 
 gave up everything, and followed him, even 
 to the cross. The day following the baptism, 
 as John stood by the side of the disciples, Jesus 
 walked by, when the Baptist exclaimed: ''Be- 
 hold the Lamb of God !" This was sufficient 
 to induce two of the disciples to follow Christ, 
 and one of them was so carried away that he 
 hunted up his brother, who was Peter, and 
 told him they had found the Messiah, who was 
 the Christ. On the next day, Christ went to 
 Galilee, and found Philip, whom he directed to 
 follow him ; and soon Philip found Nathaniel, 
 and told him, "We have found him of whom 
 Moses, in the law, and the prophets, did write'.' 
 They had found no such thing. The conver- 
 sion of Paul formed a new era in religious his- 
 tory. We may well say, that when he left Ju- 
 daism, he left the twelve disciples behind him, 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 367 
 
 for they could neither climb over or break down 
 the wall of circumcism which separated the Jews 
 from the Gentiles. Paul quarreled with and 
 then left them, but took along with him enough 
 of the Mosaic faith to keep up a connection 
 between the old and new religion, so that we 
 can trace the features of the child in those of 
 the parent. He carried with him Monotheism, 
 but it was qualified in the glare of his vision 
 at Damascus so that, in some sense, Christ 
 was the Son of God. Here was a clear depart- 
 ure from Moses, for which the Jews always de- 
 spised him. Then followed Paul's tug with the 
 Greeks. In spite of him, they established a dual 
 government in Heaven. The Son was equal 
 ■with the Father. At this point there should 
 have been an eternal separation between Jewry 
 and Christianity. For nearly two thousand 
 years, the Jews have protested against an alli- 
 ance, while, on the other side. Christians have 
 striven to maintain it. The two parties, in the 
 meantime, were kept separate by an ocean of 
 blood which flowed between. No bridge could 
 ever span it — no bridge ever can. 
 In conclusion of this branch of the subject, 
 
368 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 we repeat, that great efforts are made to have 
 it appear in this Gospel that Christ is in har- 
 mony with Moses and the prophets, whereas 
 there is scarce a word in it which declares his 
 equality with the Father (and it teaches little 
 else) not met with a denial from Sinai, amid 
 " thunders and lightnings " and " the voice of 
 the trumpet " : " Thou shalt have no other gods 
 before me!' Moses is sublime in threats and 
 denunciations against those who depart from 
 the true and only God. The men of the second 
 century knew nothing of the spirit of the 
 Mosaic faith, or they never would have stulti- 
 fied themselves by such a work as the fourth 
 Gospel. 
 
or the Enigmas of Chfistianity. 369 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 The first two chapters of Matthew not in existence dur- 
 ing the time of Paul and Apollos. — A compromise 
 was made between their followers at the council at 
 Smyrna, A. D. 107. — The creed of the Church as it 
 existed at that day determined, and how Christ was 
 made manifest. — Catholics of the second century re- 
 pudiate this creed and abuse Paul. — Further proof 
 that Irenasus never saw Polycarp. — Injuries inflicted 
 upon the world by the fourth Gospel. 
 
 We have shown in another' place that not 
 long after Apollos arrived at Corinth he came 
 in collision with Paul on some question which 
 related to Christ. Just what that difference 
 was, it is hard in this age of the world to 
 determine ; but it will be sufficient for our pur- 
 pose at this time to show what it was not. 
 Had it been claimed by Apollos and his fol- 
 lowers that Christ was born in the way in 
 which it is stated in Matthew's Gospel, Paul, 
 instead of wasting a whole lifetime in fighting 
 his enemies, would have gone straight to Jeru- 
 salem, and proved by living witnesses that 
 
370 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 there was not a word of truth in this Gospel 
 which related to the supernatural birth of 
 Christ. Paul's troubles with Apollos and his 
 school commenced as early as 57. At that 
 time there were thousands upon thousands who 
 were born about the time Christ was, and were 
 comparatively young men when he was put to 
 death. It was before the fall of Jerusalem, and 
 before any great calamity had befallen the 
 Jewish people. Many of the disciples may 
 have been still living. Peter we know was, for 
 in 64 we find him preaching in Chaldea. 
 Doubtlesr there were still living, in Nazareth, 
 women who grew up with Mary, and were ac- 
 quainted with her entire history. The Greeks 
 did not contend, as long as Paul lived, for any- 
 thing stated in the first two chapters of Mat- 
 thew on the subject of the birth of Christ ; for 
 that reason there is no mention of Mary by 
 Paul in any of his epistles. What, then, was 
 the trouble .' With Philo, the Logos was born 
 in Heaven, and from thence he descended to 
 earth. With Paul, Christ was born on the 
 earth, and in this respect did not differ from 
 other mortals. If the Logos was the Son of 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 37 1 
 
 God, and came down from heaven, by what in- 
 strumentalities did he reach the earth ? It was 
 for Apollos to show how this was brought 
 about. Nothing is more difficult in the history 
 of Christianity than to find out what was 
 Apollos' belief as to the way by which the 
 Logos is connected or identified with the man 
 Christ. The story of the descent of the Spirit 
 in the form of a dove, at the Jordan, was not 
 known until a long time after Paul's death. 
 Paul could not disprove it, for during his life no 
 one asserted it. To establish this connection, 
 we gather from Paul that the school of Apollos 
 had some subtle mode of reasoning, the distil- 
 lation of Greek wisdom and cunning. He 
 never says what it was, but compares it to the 
 subtle sophistry with which the serpent de- 
 ceived Eve, To the wisdom of the Greeks 
 Paul has nothing to oppose but direct revela- 
 tions from God. He sits in opposition to Hel- 
 lenic sophistry, his power and wisdom derived 
 from above. When he talks to the Jews, be- 
 fore they will believe what he tells them, they 
 demand that a sign shall be given unto them — 
 something tangible to the senses. But the 
 
372 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Greeks required no proof of this kind. Con- 
 viction with them as to Christ was wholly de- 
 pendent upon some device, doubtless an out- 
 growth of Platonic philosophy. From what is 
 said hereafter, we can venture the belief that 
 with Apollos the Logos was made Christ sim- 
 ply by the providence of God. How this 
 providence was exerted to bring about this 
 result, was a proper subject to employ the cun- 
 ning, the wisdom and sophistry of the Greek 
 school. After Paul's death, and after the fall 
 of Jerusalem, the change from the Logos from 
 on high to the Christ of the earth, simply by 
 the providence of God and the theory of 
 Apollos, was too indefinite, and the reasoning 
 of the Greeks too weak, to satisfy the minds of 
 men. In the second century, Christianity had 
 worked west, and the Latin element began to 
 make itself felt in the Church, and we shall 
 soon see the means employed by Providence to 
 bring the Logos into the world. We can 
 readily see why, in the disputes between Paul 
 and the Greeks, as they stood in his day, the 
 name of Mary is nowhere mentioned. There 
 was no necessity for it. Ignatius, one of the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 373 
 
 oldest Fathers of the Church, was Bishop of 
 Antioch in the year 70. When Trajan set out 
 on his expedition against the Parthians, he 
 stopped for a short time in this city. As he 
 had refused to sacrifice to the gods for the 
 safety of the Emperor, and was outspoken 
 against the pagans, even in the royal presence, 
 Ignatius was condemned, and ordered to be 
 sent to Rome to be devoured by the wild 
 beasts of the amphitheatre. This, as some 
 say, was in A.D. 107 ; but some writers, with 
 greater plausibility, fix the time as late as 115. 
 We will err on the right side, and adopt the 
 former period. On his way to Rome he stayed 
 some time at Smyrna, where he wrote letters 
 to the churches in Asia, as a kind of legacy, in 
 which he imparts to them a knowledge of the 
 doctrines of the Church, and the foundation on 
 which they were based. No man of his day 
 was better informed on such subjects than Ig- 
 natius, and the cruel fate that awaited him on 
 his arrival in Rome was an earnest that in what 
 he said he was sincere. In his letter to the 
 Ephesians he tells how, in the first place, Christ 
 came into the world. He was born in the 
 
374 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 womb of Mary according to the dispensation 
 of Providence, of the seed of David, yet by 
 the Holy Ghost. Here is a platform to which 
 Paul himself could, hardly object. That that 
 which Ignatius declares to be the way in which 
 Christ came into the world was the doctrine of 
 the Church in his .day, and for some time after, 
 cannot be questioned. On his way to Rome 
 he stopped at Smyrna, where Polycarp, who 
 was then Bishop at that place, lived, and it was 
 there that Ignatius wrote his letter to the 
 Ephesians. Polycarp stood at his side when 
 the letter was written, and knew its contents, 
 and probably took charge of it, for he himself 
 says : " The Epistles of Ignatius which he 
 wrote unto us and others, as many as we have 
 with us, we have sent unto you according to 
 your order, which are subjoined to thy epistle, 
 from which ye may be greatly profited ; for 
 they treat of faith and patience, and of all 
 things which portend to edification in our 
 Lord." {Epistle to Philippians). On his way to 
 Rome, Ignatius stopped at different places, and 
 everywhere the churches sent their bishops and 
 other messengers to visit and console the ven- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 375 
 
 erable Father on his way to the wild beasts ; 
 and everywhere he taught Christ as we find it 
 at this day in his letter to the Ephesians. 
 Here we have the doctrines or creed of the 
 Church in the beginning of the second century 
 as to the status of Christ, as it was declared by 
 Polycarp, Ignatius, and all the churches of Asia. 
 That Paul, at this time, was. held in great esti- 
 mation is evident from what Polycarp and oth- 
 ers say of him in writing to the churches. 
 Polycarp alone refers to his epistles twenty-six 
 times, and in speaking of him says : " For nei- 
 ther can I, nor any other such as I am, come 
 up to the wisdom of the blessed and renowned 
 Paul, who, being amongst you in the presence 
 of those who then lived, taught with exactness 
 and soundness the word of truth ; who in his 
 absence also wrote an epistle to you, unto 
 which, if you diligently look, you may be able 
 to be edified in the faith delivered unto you, 
 which is the mother of us all." {Polycarp to the 
 Philippians, sec. 3). Indeed, Polycarp's letter 
 to the Philippians is made up of quotations 
 from the letter of the great apostle. The bit- 
 ter feeling which existed between the follow- 
 
37^ The Christ of Paul, 
 
 ers of Paul and ApoUos had in a great meas- 
 ure died away at the close of the first century. 
 Whatever difference of opinion there may have 
 been between these two great leaders, it 
 seemed to be merged in the creed of the 
 Church in the days of Polycarp and other 
 teachers of his time. With Paul and these 
 men, Christ was born of woman and of the seed 
 of David ; but, with the latter, it was by the 
 Holy Ghost, through the providence of God. 
 As Paul has nowhere declared how and in what 
 way Christ was the son of God, but believed 
 him to be such from what he learned in his 
 vision at Damascus and other places, his fol- 
 lowers might readily accept the belief declared 
 by Ignatius and all the Fathers in his day. 
 Mutual concessions seem to have been made 
 in the latter part of the first century ; and 
 while the followers of ApoUos conceded the 
 descent of Christ from David, the friends of 
 Paul could readily admit that he was the Son 
 of God through the Holy Ghost by the dispen- 
 sation of God. The violent animosity against 
 Paul which sprang up afterward in the Church 
 was an outgrowth of the second century. Li 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. lyj 
 
 this century, Paul becomes a liar and a heretic. 
 To make Christ what the men of this century- 
 wished to have him appear in their quarrels 
 with the Gnostics and others, it was necessary 
 to assail the great apostle. To admit that 
 Christ was born in the womb of Mary, of the 
 seed of David, would not admit the claim that 
 he was conceived in the womb of Mary by the 
 Holy Ghost alone. It was upon this point 
 that Paul had thrown obstructions in the way 
 of men who were engaged in building up a 
 Church controlling exclusively the highway to 
 heaven, and which in time was to govern the 
 world. Here let me ask if the most acute in- 
 tellect can detect in the doctrines of the 
 Church, as declared by Polycarp and others at 
 the beginning of the second century, the faint- 
 est trace of the incarnation of the fourth Gos- 
 pel, or the Trinity. Both of these dogmas, 
 which have convulsed the world for eighteen 
 hundred years, were unborn when the Fathers 
 of all the churches of Asia, at Smyrna, de- 
 clared what was the faith of the Church. 
 
 We have selected this place to settle a ques- 
 tion of veracity between the writer and Ire- 
 
378 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 naeus. He says he saw Polycarp. We say he 
 never did. Since the introduction of the Gos- 
 pels, especially- the fourth, great importance 
 has been attached to the fact that Polycarp 
 was a disciple of John, and that Irenseus had 
 been instructed by the former. Speaking of 
 Irenseus, Horn, in his introduction, says : " His 
 testimony to the genuineness and authenticity 
 of the New Testament is the most important 
 and valuable, because he was a disciple of Poly- 
 carp, who was a disciple of John." (Vol. I. 83.) 
 Now Polycarp never mentions John, but speaks 
 of Paul. If he did see John, John never 
 taught him the doctrine of tlie incarnation as 
 declared in the fourth Gospel. Polycarp 
 never heard of the incarnation, and it follows as 
 a matter of course he never taught IrenjEus 
 anything of the kind. Had he taught the incar- 
 nation, he never would have indorsed Paul. 
 This attempt, on the part of the so-called 
 Bishop of Lyons, to trace the doctrines con- 
 ceived and written by himself to a disciple, is 
 a stupendous fraud, which has cost the world 
 more misery than all causes of suffering since 
 his day combined. This Gospel has been the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 379 
 
 means of defeating the mission of Christ on 
 earth — peace and good-will to all men. There 
 is not one word in it to encourage virtue or 
 reprove vice — not one for those who sorrow 
 or are afflicted ; no charity for any except the 
 woman caught in adultery. Love for one ano- 
 ther he entreated of his disciples, but none for 
 the world. The boundless love, the universal 
 charity, which shine forth in the Sermon on 
 the Mount, and warm the heart, so that there 
 flows from it all that is good in our natures — 
 as the beautiful flowers of the earth are made 
 to spring and bloom under the genial heat of 
 the sun — finds no place in the Gospel of John. 
 What is said and taught in this Gospel, when 
 compared with the teachings on the Mount, are 
 as hollow groans from the cavern of Avernus 
 compared with sweet sounds from the lyre of 
 Orpheus. It is belief — or damnation. " He 
 that believeth on Him is not condemned, but 
 he that believeth not is condemned already, 
 because he hath not believed in the name of 
 the only begotten Son of God." It was this 
 Gospel which gave birth to that bigotry and 
 fanaticism which has brought on the world all 
 
380 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 the sufferings and misery caused by the Inqui- 
 sition. It destroyed in the fourth century all 
 the grand and beautiful temples and works of 
 architecture of Asia and Europe. The Pan- 
 theon barely escaped. It applied the torch to 
 the library at Alexandria. It kindled the fires 
 of persecution in every age ; and as it came 
 down the centuries, like a blazing comet, it 
 carried with it " pestilence and war." It makes 
 Christ cold and selfish. He cures diseases to 
 exalt himself A man was deprived of his 
 sight from his birth, without any sin on his part, 
 that he may have an opportunity to make 
 known his power. He thanks God for answer- 
 ing his prayer for the death of Lazarus, that 
 he might show the world that he was master 
 of the grave. This Gospel makes Christ vain 
 and boastful. Again and again he asserts that 
 he is the Son of the Father ; that the Father 
 had sent him ; that he came to save the world, 
 and that the world was to be judged by him : 
 and yet, with all these pretensions, he could 
 find but few that believed him. A.11 impor- 
 tant events told of in this Gospel, are unnatu- 
 ral. Some who stood by and saw Lazarus 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 381 
 
 come forth from the tomb with the habiliments 
 of the grave still upon him, as if some great 
 crime had been committed, ran for the police — 
 for to inform the Pharisees was about the 
 same thing. When the Pharisees heard of 
 it. they called together the priests, and 
 held a council, to devise some plan to stop 
 that kind of proceeding. What was the ob- 
 jection to raising a dead man to life 1 It 
 would give offense to the Romans. Can any- 
 one give a reason why .'' For this act, which, 
 if true, would fill the heavens and the earth 
 with awe, Christ was compelled to fly to the 
 wilderness. If the scene at the grave of Laz- 
 arus, as related, was true, how different would 
 have been the conduct of those who witnessed 
 it. All would have been struck dumb and 
 fallen prostrate at the feet of him who held 
 the keys of life and death. The Pharisees 
 would shake and cower, for fear that at any 
 moment they might be struck dead by a bolt 
 from heaven. There would not have been a 
 dry eye in all Jerusalem. What intelligence 
 did Lazarus bring us from the spirit land 1 
 One word from the other world would be 
 
382 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 worth all this world of ours ; but the world has 
 gained nothing from the resurrection of Laza- 
 rus. This Gospel takes from God his omnipo- 
 tence. When the Lord of the universe con- 
 ceived a plan to prove to mankind that Christ 
 was his Son and their Saviour, we must believe 
 that he who made the heavens and the earth, 
 who regulates the stars in their courses, and 
 who said, " Let there be light, and there was 
 light," could not fail in his purpose. But the 
 resurrection of Lazarus was a failure. It ac- 
 complished nothing. The tomb of Lazarus 
 at Bethany was in sight from the cross on 
 Calvary. 
 
 We have stated that at Smyrna were 
 declared the doctrines of the Christian 
 Church in the year 107, as they were un- 
 derstood and taught by Polycarp, Ignatius, 
 and all the great lights of Asia. And 
 now we shall show what assurances these 
 Fathers gave to the world — why they knew 
 that Christ was truly the Son of God. This 
 is made manifest by signs in the heavens. Ig- 
 natius first declares the belief of the Church 
 on this subject, and proceeds to ask this ques- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 383 
 
 tion : " How was he made manifest to the 
 world?" "A star shone in heaven above all 
 other stars ; and its light was inexpressible, 
 and its novelty struck terror. All the rest of 
 the stars, with the sun and moon, were the 
 chorus to this star, that sent forth its light 
 above all. And there was trouble, whence 
 this novelty came so unlike all the others. 
 Hence all the power of magic was dissolved ; 
 and every bond of wickedness was destroyed ; 
 ignorance was taken away and the old king- 
 dom was abolished : God made manifest in the 
 form of man, for the renewal of eternal life. 
 Thence began what God prepared. From 
 thenceforth all things were disturbed, foras- 
 much as he designed to abolish death-" {Epis- 
 tle to Ephesians, sec. 19.) This was the way 
 in which Christ made himself manifest to the 
 world, as taught in all the churches in A.D. 107. 
 The story of the star which led the wise men 
 , to Bethlehem was an afterthought. At the 
 time Ignatius declared the doctrine of the 
 Church, as to the way by which Christ was 
 brought into the world and how he was made 
 manifest, the Gospel of Matthew had not yet 
 
384 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 appeared ; for, if it had, he would have given 
 the story of the star, and the wise men of the 
 East, rather than that of the sun, moon, and 
 all the stars, for the former was the most 
 probable and most sensible of the two. Why 
 should he give one story which was false and 
 impossible on its face, if he could give another 
 which, if false, was not manifestly absurd. It 
 is quite easy to tell why the story of the stars 
 and moon leaving their orbits to dance attend- 
 ance to a bright particular star was abandoned. 
 Such a commotion of the heavenly bodies 
 would have put the universe out of joint ; and 
 as the star projected its light above all the 
 other stars, and all the other stars and the 
 moon and sun sang chorus to it, the dis- 
 play would have been apparent to all the 
 world. In the year A.D. 107, some few 
 might have been alive who were living at the 
 time the phenomenon is said to have oc- 
 curred ; and if not, then the children of those 
 who lived at the time would have preserved 
 the tradition fresh in their minds, to say noth- 
 ing of history. But as no one living witnessed 
 the scene enacted in the heavens, and none of 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 385 
 
 their descendants had heard of it, and no his- 
 torian had recorded it, the men of the day 
 laughed it down. One single star might have 
 been seen by the wise men of the East, and no 
 one else ; and if the story was invented, as the 
 wise men were dead before it was told, there 
 was no danger of contradiction. If the Gos- 
 pel of Matthew was not extant A.D. 107, it is 
 fatal to all the prophecy in the New Testa- 
 ment as to the fall of Jerusalem. In the year 
 A.D. 70, Jerusalem fell. The Roman standards 
 waved over its ruins. The daughters of Israel 
 wept over the ashes of their homes. The holy 
 city was no more, and he who wrote the Gos- 
 pel of Matthew as it now stands wrote history. 
 How much is the Christianity of the Gospels 
 indebted to the prophecies which foretold the 
 fall of the Jewish capital .■• In every age and 
 in every country where Christianity found a 
 foothold, they were the corner-stone of the 
 Christian faith. In the hour of doubt and de- 
 spair, when the heavens looked black and the 
 earth seemed to be a house of mourning, the 
 Christian could draw consolation from the tears 
 shed by Christ as he wept over the fall of the 
 
386 The Christ of Paul. 
 
 holy city. But Truth is inexorable. Her tri- 
 umphant car moves on, though she leaves in 
 her wake the wreck of the brightest hopes, 
 the most cherished creeds, and the most ambi- 
 tious schemes. So she has done for ages. And 
 her pathway is marked by the overthrow of 
 dogmas by which man vainly undertook to 
 enslave the mind. To-day she is as mighty 
 and powerful as ever. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 38/ 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 (A.) 
 
 Few passages from history have given rise to 
 more discussion than the following from Sue- 
 tonius : " He," meaning the Emperor Claudius, 
 " banished all the Jews, who were continually 
 making disturbance, at the instigation of one 
 Crestus." {Life of Claudius, sec. 25.) The ori- 
 ginal is as follows : " Judaos, impulsore Chresto, 
 assidue tumultuantes , Roma expulit." Does this 
 order of banishment refer to the Christians ? Dr. 
 Lardner and others think not. All difficulties 
 vanish when we bear in mind, that the Chris- 
 tians then at Rome were Jewish converts from 
 Judea. The writer knew little about Christians, 
 and knowing them to be Jews, he says all Jews 
 were banished., which included the Jewish con- 
 
388 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 verts as well as those who opposed Christianity. 
 All engaged in the riot were included, and none 
 but Jews were. These Jews were constantly 
 making disturbance at the instigation of one 
 Crestus-: that is, they were quarrelling about 
 Crestus, which was a continual subject of quar- 
 rel among the converted and unconverted Jews 
 everywhere. The writer knew so little about 
 Christ that he failed to get the name correct, or 
 there may have been' a mistake on the part of 
 the transcribers. 
 
 (B.) 
 
 As a proof that the most learned scholars and 
 correct thinkers, when under the influence of an 
 early bias, are liable to the most gross mistakes 
 and delusions, the following writers have given 
 the authority of their names to the belief, that 
 Peter uses the name Babylon in a figurative 
 sense: Grotius, Macknight, Hale, Bishop Tom- 
 line, Whitby, and Lardner. But a large ma- 
 jority of writers hold to the literal meaning. 
 Bishop Pearson, Le Clerk, and Mills think that 
 Peter speaks of Babylon in Egypt. Beza, Eras- 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 389 
 
 mus, Drusius, Dr. Cave, Lightfoot, Basnage, 
 Beausobre, Dr. Benson, A. Clarke think that 
 Peter intended Babylon in Assyria ; Michaelis, 
 that Babylon in Mesopotamia was meant. The 
 frequent use of the word Babylon in the Reve- 
 lation attributed to St. John, which there 
 stands for Rome, is the principal argument used 
 by those who contend for a figurative sense. 
 This book is the most impious and malignant 
 production among all the forgeries of the second 
 century, and its design can be readily exposed, 
 if it was worth the time to do it. Christ, whose 
 last words were used in prayer for the forgive- 
 ness of his enemies, is made through St. John 
 to pour forth feelings full of hatred against those 
 who disagreed with the writer on matters of 
 doctrine, especially the followers of Paul. He 
 hurls his envenomed shaft at the heart of the 
 great Apostle. It was at Ephesus where the 
 war was warmest between Paul's friends and the 
 followers of the Alexandrian school. To the 
 church at that place, Christ is made to say : "I 
 know thy works, and thy labor, and thy pa- 
 tience, and how thou canst not bear them which 
 are evil : and thou hast tried them which say 
 
39° The Christ of Paul, 
 
 they are Apostles, and are not, and hast found 
 them liars." {Revelation ii. 2.) Who could 
 use such language but a malignant partisan ? 
 Christ, the Son of God, is made to use the lan- 
 guage of a bar-room bully. When will those 
 who profess to be Christians, learn that Christ 
 was all kindness, gentleness, and love. They 
 admit the authenticity and divine origin of wri- 
 tings that prove the Son of God was not even a 
 gentleman. 
 
 (C.) 
 
 The writings ascribed to the Fathers, espe- 
 cially Polycarp and Ignatius, are entitled to 
 little consideration ; for nothing is clearer than 
 that their names were used by the rnen of the 
 second century to supply proof when disputes 
 sprang up, or give authority to doctrines when 
 divisions arose. The introduction to the epistle 
 of Ignatius, addressed to the church at Rome, 
 is a bare-faced attempt to prove that there was 
 a church at Rome during the reign of Trajan, at 
 the beginning of the second century. It was 
 Avritten not only to prove that there was a 
 church at Rome at that time, but that it was the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 391 
 
 bank or depository of divine riches, "wholly 
 filled with the grace of God, and entirely cleansed 
 from any other doctrine." But we submit the 
 whole passage to the judgment of the reader. 
 " Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to 
 the Church which hath obtained mercy in the 
 majesty of the Most High Father, and his only 
 Son Jesus Christ, beloved and illuminated 
 through the will of him who willeth all things, 
 which are according to the love of Jesus Christ, 
 our God ; (to the church) which presides also 
 in the place of the region of the Romans, worthy 
 of God, and of all honor and blessing and praise ; 
 worthy to receive that which she wishes, chaste, 
 and pre-eminent in charity, bearing the name 
 of Christ and of the Father, which I salute in 
 the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father : 
 to those who are united both in flesh and spirit 
 to all his commands, and. wholly filled with the 
 grace of God, and entirely cleansed from the 
 stain of any other doctrine, be all undefiled joy 
 in Jesus Christ our God." 
 
 The forger overdid the work in which he was 
 engaged. This language, addressed to a church 
 illuminated with all things according to the will 
 
392 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 of Christ and God, and worthy to receive all 
 blessings and praise, proves that the passage 
 was written at a time when the dogma of the 
 Apostolic succession was in vogue, and Rome 
 was putting forth claims to spiritual supremacy.* 
 No time was more unpropitious to prove that 
 there was such a church at Rome, than that 
 
 * The strong probability is, that the letter of Ignatius is a 
 forgery throughout, and was gotten up for the sake of the intro- 
 duction. Condemned by Trajan, and ordered to be carried to 
 Rome to be devoured by wild beasts, for the amusement of the 
 people, it is claimed the letter was written on his way to that 
 city. Why he should write to the church at Rome while on his 
 way there, is something remarkable, since there is nothing in the 
 letter that was important to be known to the Christians, if there 
 were any there, before his arrival. Tlie epistle breathes a spirit 
 which is unnatural and repugnant to every feeling of humanity. 
 The following is a specimen of the whole. "May I enjoy the 
 wild beasts which are prepared for me ; and pray that they may 
 be found ready for me : which I will even encom-age to devour 
 me all at once, and not fear to touch me, as they have some 
 others. And if they refuse, and will not, I will compel them." 
 (See. 5.) Why would Ignatius write an epistle of this character 
 to the Romans while he was on the way to Rome himself? espe- 
 cially " as he was pressed by the soldiers to arrive at the great 
 city before the pul)lic spectacle, that he might be delivered to 
 the wild beasts." Why import a Christian Bishop from Antioeh 
 for the wild beasts of the Amphitheatre, if there was one to be 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 393 
 
 embraced in the reign of Trajan, when Chris- 
 tianity was a crime, which subjected the believer 
 to the penalty of death. There being no Chris- 
 tians in Rome from the death of Paul to the 
 time of Hadrian, it leaves the time to be taken 
 up by traditions, which was gladly seized upon 
 by Irenaeus, who populated it with Bishops and 
 others, the offspring of his own imagination. 
 
 (D.) 
 
 WRITERS' in the third and fourth centuries, for 
 reasons sufficiently obvious, take pleasure in 
 scandalizing the name of Domitian as the perse- 
 cutor of Christians, and the great enemy of the 
 Christian cause. It is claimed he put to death 
 many persons accused of Atheism, the common 
 charge against Christians, on account of their re- 
 fusal to offer incense or to worship the ancient 
 gods of Rome. Flavius Clemens, his cousin, is 
 given as an instance. Now hear what a co- 
 temporary historian has to say on the subject : 
 
 found in the mean time in Rome ? Where was Clement, the 
 third Bishop ? Our confidence is not increased in the genuine- 
 ness of this letter, that the first distinct reference is made to it by 
 IrenKus. 
 
394 The Christ of Paul, 
 
 " Flavius Clemens, his cousin-german, a man 
 contemptible for his indolence, whose sons, then 
 of tender age, he had avowedly destined for his 
 successor, and taking from them his former 
 names, had ordered one to be called Vespasian, 
 and the other Domitian, he suddenly put to 
 death upon some slight suspicion, almost before 
 the father was put outof his consulship." (Suet. , 
 Life of Domitian, sec. 15.) As the tyrant af- 
 fected great reverence for the gods, he would not 
 fail to visit the most severe punishment on those 
 whom he judged guilty of irreverence, and as 
 the Christians of that day were bold in the face 
 of the most imminent danger, they could not 
 escape the vengeance of the tyrant, had there 
 been any in Rome upon whom he could lay his 
 hands. With a disposition that was willing to 
 furnish any number of victims, Eusebius has 
 succeeded in giving the name of a single one. 
 He says, " At the same time, for professing 
 Christ, Flavius Domitilla, the niece of Flavius 
 Clemens, one of the consuls of Rome at that 
 time, was transported, with many others, to the 
 Isleof Pontia." (Eus., ^. ^., book iii. chap. 18.) 
 The truthful father has succeeded in giving the 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 395 
 
 name of one Christian who had suffered under 
 the reign of Domitian, and that was a case of 
 banishment. 
 
 As to the expression, " and many others," it 
 is only an easy way of conveying a falsehood 
 without incurring the risk of detection. The 
 story of John's banishment to the Isle of Pat- 
 mos, like everything else which relates to this 
 Apostle, is founded on a tradition of the third 
 century, and is unworthy of serious notice. The 
 story told by HegebippuS, of the treatment re- 
 ceived by the grandchildren of Jude, called the 
 brother of Jesus, at the hands of Domitian, if 
 entitled to any credit at all, only goes to refute 
 the charges made against him. As the story 
 runs, these children were brought before him 
 on the charge of being Christians. After hear- 
 ing what they had to say, " Domitian dismissed 
 them — made no reply — but treating them with 
 contempt as simpletons, commanded them to 
 be dismissed, and, by a decree, ordered the 
 persecution to cease. Thus delivered, they 
 ruled the churches, both as witnesses and rela- 
 tions of the Lord. Such is the statement of 
 Hegesippus," says Eusebius (bookiii. cffap. 20). 
 
39^ The Christ of Paul, 
 
 Here is a clear case for persecution ; but pro- 
 ceedings are dismissed, and those who were the 
 objects of it treated with contempt. 
 
 Suetonius makes special mention of the perse- 
 cution of the Jews under the reign of Domitian, 
 who was governed, in their case, by his love of 
 money rather than his regard for the cause of 
 religion. The vast amount of money expended 
 by him in the erection of palaces and public edi- 
 fices had ruined his finances, which he undertook 
 to relieve by the confiscation of the large es- 
 tates and wealth in the hands of this people. 
 To his rapacity there was no limit in such cases, 
 short of the ruin of his victims. It is in vain to 
 attempt to relieve the memory of the son of 
 Vespasian and brother of Titus from the igno- 
 miny of the most odious and detestable crimes. 
 From Augustus to Trajan, no one who bore the 
 name of emperor is more justly entitled to the 
 name of monster. He put to death his own 
 cousin, Flavius Sabinus, because, upon his being 
 chosen at the consular election to that office, the 
 public crier had, by a blunder, declared him to 
 the people — not consul, but emperor. Virtue 
 as well as vice stood in awe in his presence. 
 
or the Enigmas of Christianity. 397 
 
 The genius and learning of Tacitus and Pliny- 
 made it unsafe for them to remain in Rome, and 
 both avoided danger by seeking obscurity. But 
 to his other crimes are not to be added the mur- 
 der of Christians, who were wise and cautious 
 enough to avoid his presence. 
 
 The following dates are assigned to the epis- 
 tles of Paul by Dr. Lardner and others : — 
 
 EPISTLES. PLACES. A.D. 
 
 1 Thessalonians Corinth 52 
 
 2 Thessalonians Corinth 52 
 
 Galatians Corinth. .M^ the close of . . . . 52 
 
 ( or early in 53 
 
 I Corinthians Ephesus 57 
 
 Romans Corinth. . \ ^^°"* *^«"d of . . 57 
 
 or the beginning of 58 
 
 ■ ■ ( (perhaps from Philippi), \ ^ 
 
 Ephesians Rome 61 
 
 T),-,- ■ -D ( before the end of. .62 
 
 Phihppians Rome. . . | ^^ ^^^ beginning of 63 
 
 Colossians Rome 62 
 
 T,, ., T. ( about the end of. .62 
 
 Philemon Rome . .. \ „„,i„ ;„ ^:, 
 
 ( or early in 03 
 
 TT , ( Italy ) about the end of. . 62 
 e rews -j ^pgj-jjg^pg {xorsx Rome), \ or early in , • • .63 
 
 1 Timothy Macedonia 64 
 
 Titus Macedonia 64 
 
 2 Timothy Rome 65 
 
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