f"* OF THE I --T Ire ologieal Seminary, PRINCETON, N.J. i BL 2775 .S67 1872a Somerset, Edward Adolphus Seymour , 1804-1885 . Christian theology and modern skepticism CHRISTIAN THEOIOCtY AND MODERN SKEPTICISM. CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY A^nj MODERN SKEPTICISM, BY ^ y/V- THE DUKE OF SOMEESET, K. G. " Recte enim Veritas filia temporis dicitur non auctoritatis." Nov. Org. lib. 1. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 549 & 551 BROADWAY. 1872. PEEFAOE. For many years past, religious questions Lave incessantly interfered witli the social and educational improvement of the community. Instead of gradually diminishing in their ef- fects, these causes of disturbances seem to be increasing. A politician would gladly avoid touching these thorny subjects, but he observes that the religious teachers never cease from intermed- dling with politics. The Church of Rome, as in olden times, pours imprecations on our heads ; and the Roman Catholic clergy, in the United King- dom, administer the same balm in a more in- convenient form. The Established Church distracts us with so many doctrinal disputes and perplexing VI PEEFACE. doubts, tliat we almost wish slie would slum- ber again, as she did during the greater part of the last century. The IsTon-conformists appear to be exas- perated, and threaten to upset every thing, from the village-school to the cabinet, unless they are allowed to have their own way. All these convulsive movements are symp- toms of mental disquietude, which forebodes a religious change. Meanwhile, every Protestant may exercise his private judgment ; and, since inquiry can- not easily make matters worse, let us again examine into the fountain-head of all these differences, and see whether there is any pos- sible solution at least of the Protestant diffi- culties. "We live in an age of free thinking and plain speaking, "rara temporum felicitate, ubi sentire quse velis, et, qu[e sentias dicere, licet." BuLSTRODE, November J 1871. CONTENTS PAGB Introduction 9 Chapter I. First Difficulty .... 17 II. The Only Yisible Solution . 27 III. The Star, etc 29 lY. Hebrew Poetry . 33 Y. The Yirgin Mary .... 35 YI. The Gloom darkens .... . 43 YII. The Open Bible .... 46 YIII. Historical Truth .... . 61 IX. The Search for Doctrines 55 X. The Septuagint . . ; . . 60 XI. The Theology of the Apocrypha . 65 XII. The Synagogues .... . 69 xni. The First Christian Controversy . 73 XIY. The Horae Paulinse .... . 77 XY. The Epistles contradict the Acts . 79 XYI. More Difficulties .... . 81 XYII. St. Paul's Last Journey to Jerusalem . 83 XYIII. St. Paul at Rome .... . 86 Vlll CONTENTS. Chap. XIX. Gamaliel XX. Stephen . XXI. Legendary History XXII. A Ray of Liglit . XXIII. The Pauline Theology . XXIV. The Pauline Philosophy XXV. Rival Creeds XXVI. Modern Conclusions . XXVII. St. Paul's Style of Writing XXVIII. The Pauline AUegories XXIX. Predestination XXX. The Sacrifice . XXXI. Faith .... XXXII. St. Paul's Place in History XXXIII. The Growth of Theology XXXIV. Heresy XXXV. Recapitulation XXXVI. Colorless Christianity XXXVII. Modern Education XXXVIII. Two Opposite Developments of Chris tianity XXXIX. A Glimpse of Better Days . PAGE 90 92 98 100 103 105 108 111 115 120 128 131 13T 152 154 160 164 169 1*73 111 179 lE'TEODUOTIOI^ It is humiliating to be obliged to confess that, after eighteen hundred years of Christian teaching, man has made no advance in cer- tainty of religious knowledge. So far from any approach to certainty, the opinions of educated society upon the most important questions which can occupy the human mind, appear at the present time to be more unsettled than at any previous period of European history. In every other branch of knowledge as- siduous study and persevering industry have been rewarded with at least partial success. Some progress has been made, and some re- sults obtained, which, while they have con- 10 INTRODUCTION. tribnted to the convenience or to the happi- ness of mankind, have encouraged fresh ex- ertions and opened a prospect of future ac- quisitions. In the study of revealed religion this pro- cess seems to have been reversed. The labor of successive generations, the services of men especially set apart for this teaching, thfe accumulated learning of former ages, the voluminous and still increasing literature of the present day, all alike fail in establishing any generally-acknowledged definite convic- tions. On the contrary, in all free communi- ties the greatest diversity of religious opinion prevails ; doubts and controversies range over a wider area in proportion to the advance- ment of learning, until the differences of Christian sects lose their significance in comparison with far deeper questions, which are attracting the notice of educated society. A reference to former years will show the change in religious thought which has gradu- ally forced its way through the cultivated classes of the community. INTRODUCTIOX. H At the beginning of tlie last century tlie boundaiy-line between religious and skeptical literature was distinct and definite. The skep- tical writers were then the open enemies of the clergy, and the avowed opponents of Christian- ity. The clergy retorted on their adversaries with great bitterness and ability, branded them with the name of Atheists, and made no allowance for the mildest suggestion of doubt. Philosophy, science, and literature, were then the firm friends and defenders of re- vealed religion. Locke paraphrased the Pau- line epistles. Sir Isaac N^ewton expounded prophecy. Addison cited with complacent confidence the letter of King Agbarus to Christ, as a record of great authority, and an evidence of Christian truth. In the present day philosophy and science stand aloof in unfriendly attitudes, while lit- erature gives currency to a thousand specula- tive opinions unfavorable to the old estab- lished beliefs. This change is the result of various influ- 12 INTRODUCTIOX. ences. The progress of physical science, the critical examination of ancient history in con- nection with kindred researches, and, above all, the continued study of the Scriptures, have concurred to modify the religious beliefs of the Protestant world. The whole system of modern education tends toward the same result. Men who have been carefully trained to distrust au- thority, and to rely for the acquisition of knowledge upon experiment, analysis, and patient research, cannot subsequently divest themselves of a habit of mind which has be- come a part of their nature. They must either suppress and relinquish all religious thought, or they must apply to the records of revealed religion the same s})irit of inves- tigation, which has already reopened the sources of history, and extended the domain of science. With the diffusion of education these in- fluences will be more widely felt. It is now manifest that theological and secular instruc- tion run in two opposite currents of thought. INTRODUCTION. I3 The divergence may occasionally be glossed over by dazzling eloquence, or concealed under a liaze of metaphysical learning, but the enchantment is soon disjDelled, and the two antagonists arise again, striving for mas- tery over the human mind. More than two centuries have elapsed since Selden declared that the words " scrutamini scripturas " had undone the world. The in- terval has tended, in one sense at least, to confirm his prediction. The search of the Scriptures has impaired the authority of Scripture, and the learned endeavors to re- move obscurity have increased doubt. Hence skepticism has been naturalized in modern society, and will not be repressed by denunciations against infidelity, or by the lamentations of sentimental piety. The efforts of thoughtful and earnest minds to arrive at religious truth have in all ages produced some form of skepticism. A dissatisfaction with the prevalent beliefs of their countrymen is visible in the sublime thoughts of the Hebrew prophets, who re- 14 INTRODUCTION. jected with scorn the precepts of the cere- monial law. An analogous feeling gave birth to the moral skepticism of the book of Job, and to the intellectual doubts of the book of Ecclesiastes. A somewhat similar mental disturbance is observable in every period of mental activity. It is not therefore surprising that in the pres- ent day there should be many varieties of skepticism, each of which has its own special and appropriate literature. The philosophical skeptic examines into the original source of religious belief in the human mind, plunges his reader into a maze of metaphysics, and represents every religion to be merely a phase of thought. The scientific skeptic reasons from the known to the unknown, rejects the miracu- lous, and regards revelation as an untenable theory. The antiquarian skeptic explores records of undated antiquity, pursues the shadowy forms of Mithra or Zoroaster, and gropes amono- Oriental relics until he half believes INTRODUCTION. 15 that lie can descry the cradle of Christianity hidden amid the myths and cosmogonies of the remote East. Different minds are fascinated by these different pursuits, and each may perhaps have its use in stimulating the instruction of man- kind. Meanwhile, under these various impulses, the progress of religious education is impeded, and the wisdom of Parliament is perplexed. While our statesmen and public speakers are proclaiming the indispensable necessity of a Christian education ; while our clergy are insisting on dogmatic theology, skepticism pervades the whole atmosphere of thought, leads the most learned societies, colors the religious literature of the day, and even mounts into the pulpits of the Church. It would, however, be a grave mistake to assume that skepticism is in its nature irre- ligious or immoral. Some minds in their eager search for truth, while recoiling from dogmatic theology, have indeed wandered beyond the confines of Christianity. But the 16 IXTKODUCTIOX. mass, of society is anxiously seekiug a belief wliicli shall not be at issne with tlie moral sense of educated men. For this purpose theologians, biblical crit- ics, and other learned men, have toiled inces- santly, and it is now obvious that the the- ology of former ages cannot be permanently maintained. To enter fully into these elaborate in- quiries would occupy too large a space, but the following pages contain a condensed out- line of the reasoning upon Christian history and Christian doctrine, which is thought to justify the opinion here expressed. The several points at issue are compressed into short chapters, so as not tediously to re- peat objections, which are abeady familiar to many readers, who will thus be enabled, from a comprehensive survey of the subject, to per- ceive the process of religious change, which is gradually permeating the Protestant world. CHAPTER I. THE FIRST DIFFICrLTY. So LONG as Christians believed in the per- sonification of evil, in demoniacal possession, in the frequent intervention of the devil, and in a vast scheme of Satanic agency visibly disturbinor the order of Katnre, manv mar- vellons incidents related in the Gospels were in nnison with popular belief. These narra- tives, so far from presenting any difficulty to Christians, Tvere regarded as evidence, and adduced in proof, of the truth of the Gospels. Satan appeared to be a reluctant, but ir- refutable, witness on behalf of the Chi'istian revelation. He had, as the Gospels stated, openly recognized Jesus, admitting his divine power, but deprecating its exercise. From the commencement of the Christian era until comparatively modem times the 18 THE riKST DIFFICULTY. existence of evil spirits was appealed to in vindication of the Gospel history. During many centuries the fear of the devil, and the dread of falling under his do- minion, were strong inducements to the out- ward observances of religion, and even some- times to the practice of moral \drtue. The authority of the clergy was moreover enhanced by their supposed ability to counteract this fearful adversary. Thus Satan, while he was the terror of the multitude, was also the efficient ally of the priest. In some cases he became the guardian angel of the Church, strengthening her empire, and enabling her to repress the lawless violence of men, whom no human authority could con- trol. It cannot, however, be denied that this be- lief was attended with many evils. History re- cords the fearful persecutions which supersti- tious ignorance inflicted on persons who were supposed to be in league with the devil. These acts of cruelty were often countenanced and sometimes instigated by Christian teachers. THE FIRST DIFFICULTY. 19 The Reformation, wliicli dissipated some venerable illusions, seems to have increased the popular belief in the active intervention of evil spirits. The Protestant clergy of all denominations insisted on the verbal accuracy of the Scriptures — what the clergy taught, the law confirmed ; the reality of demoniacal possession, with all its cruel and mischievous consequences, was universally acknowledged ; and the Scripture furnished the devil with his credentials. The first symptoms of disbelief in the mar- vellous stories of Satanic agency were repre- hended by the clergy, and repressed by the religious feelings of society. It was deemed presumptuous freethinking to question modern instances of diabolic possession. This opinion checked inquiry, and silenced the expression of doubt. The sermons of our most distinguished divines will prove to how late a period the belief in the intervention of the devil was regarded as an important bulwark of the Christian faith. 20 THE FIRST DIFFICULTY. Open, for instance, tlie sermons of Barrow, and his works are selected, not only because he was a man distinguished for vigor of mind and compass of knowledge, but more especially because he was a man of science, the preceptor of Newton, and foremost among the founders of the Eojal Society. Barrow, in one of his sermons on the Creed, speaks of apparitions, visions, intercourse, and confederacy with bad spirits: "All these things," he adds, "any man who shall affirm them to be mere fiction and delusion, must thereby with exceeding immodesty charge the world with vanity and malignity, worthy historians with inconsider- ateness and fraud, lawgivers with silliness or rashness, and a vast number of witnesses with the greatest malice or madness, — all which have concurred to assert these matters of fact." Barrow then applies his argument : " The truth and reality of these things, if admitted, contribute much to the belief of that divinity which our discourse studies to maintain." In a similar strain. Bull (Bishop of St. Da- vid's) ventures, while defending Scripture, to TUE FIRST DIFFICULTY. 21 assert, " In our own age we have bad some unquestionable instances of persons possessed by evil spirits." Any person w^ho at that time bad presumed to question tbese matters of fact, would bave incurred tbe imputation of infidelity or of atbeism, wbile devout believers would bave cited in justification of tbeir opinion tbe au- tbority of tbe scientific Barrow, and of tbe learned Bisbop Bull. Yet now tbe wortby historians, tbe wise lawgivers, tbe vast concourse of witnesses, are all equally unavailing; tbe spell is broken, tbe evil spirits bave vanished, and these phan- toms of discredited tradition will not again revisit a more experienced and incredulous world. If the reality of these things, according to the argument of Barrow, contributed to tbe belief of that system of divinity which he labored to maintain, it must equally follow that tbe unreality of these things, if admitted, will lead to the opposite conclusion. This result has occurred. The evil spirits of tbe 22 THE FIRST DIFFICULTY. Gospels liave shared the fate of their legitimate descendants ; they also were the creations of a popular delusion, which, having been erro- neously accredited by the Evangelists, took forcible possession of the Christian mind. The language of the fathers, the prayers of the saints, the exorcisms of the Church, .con- firmed instead of invalidating their base ten- ure, until they were finally cast out and ex- pelled by the unanimous disbelief of a more instructed society. Here, then, is the first divergence of modern society from the Gospel history. The educated Protestant no longer believes what the Evan- gelists believed and affirmed. This altered condition of belief constitutes a serious difficulty, because it constrains every thoughtful man to consider how far the Gos- pel narratives can be implicitly accepted as of Divine authority, or even as historical truth. The ministers of religion, in treating of these marvellous incidents, usually suggest that Jesus perhaps condescended to use the THE FIRST DIFFICULTY. 23 popular language of Ms age and country. He acquiesced, tliey say, in erroneous beliefs, which could only be corrected by the future advancement of human knowledge. This explanation is evasive, and moreover involves the admission of a serious misstate- ment on the part of the Evangelists, who cite the evil spirits as witnesses to the divine power of Jesus. These narratives, if they are accepted as true, give a solemn sanction to the belief in Satanic possession, and did practically establish it for many centuries. A careful examination of the 'New Testa- ment justifies the obvious solution that these Gospels are not exempt from human imperfec- tion. The first three Evangelists record these marvels, while the fourth gospel altogether omits these demoniacs. Was this silence a tacit repudiation of idle tales, which the writer of that gospel did not wish openly to contradict ? The author of the Acts mentions similar marvels. One most remarkable instance is 24 THE FIRST DIFFICULTY. said to liave occurred at Epliesus. According to the traditions of the Church, St. John is supposed to have resided afterward at Ephe- sus, yet he did not confirm any such narra- tives, or adduce them as x^roofs of the divine nature of Jesus. St. Paul, again, although repeatedly al- luding to a spiritual power of evil, did not in any of his epistles proclaim such a material and visible agency of Satan. Hence it may be concluded that the first three Evangelists shared the superstitious no- tions of their countrymen, and felt no hesita- tion in recording traditions which were cur- rent among their contemporaries. They, in common with other Jews, be- lieved that an evil spirit could enter into the bodies of men, use human organs as passive instruments, and exhibit supernatural knowl- edge through the agency of the human voice. According to the belief of these Evange- lists, this was the order of !N^ature, and the miraculous power of Jesus was displayed in superseding that order, and in compelling THE FIRST DIFFICULTY. 25 tlie evil spirits to relinquish their inifortunato victims. The rejection of these narratives is founded on the attentive study of Scripture. The class of miracles in relation to demoniacs can only be accepted by first accepting the order of Nature indispensable to the exercise of this miraculous power. The argument for or against miracles does not here enter into the question at issue. These narratives belong to Jewish traditions, and are rejected as traditional. This view, if adopted, undoubtedly impairs the authority of the Gospel history. On this subject change of opinion is inevitable. There are, it has been said, many other illusions which will be gradually cast out of the Prot- estant mind, although they may rend their victim as they come out of him, and leave him half dead at their departure. The whole subject of Satanic agency has occupied the attention of learned men in its two phases, namely, as a popular delusion, and as a fanciful philosophic theory. Both 26 THE FIRST DIFFICULTY. these forms of belief are found in the Apocry- phal books, while in the 'Nesv Testament the first is described in the Gospels, and the last in the Epistles of St. Paul. To these last it will be convenient to re- vert hereafter. CHAPTEE II. THE ONLY VISIBLE SOLUTION. "When once human error has been ac- cepted as the solution of Scriptural difficulties, many portions of the Gospel history will be readily subjected to the same mode of expla- nation. The manifestations connected with the nativity and baptism of Jesus had in early times been withdrawn from the province of legitimate history. The angelic visions of Zacharias and of the Yirgin ; the alternate hymns sung by Elizabeth and Mary ; the choir of angels chanting to the shepherds ; the visit of the Eastern sages under the guidance of a star, and their homage to the King of the Jews — are all incidents presented in the po- etical form of earlier Hebrew records. 28 THE OXLY VISIBLE SOLUTIOX. So, again, at the baptism, tlie opening of the heavens, the miraculous voice, the divine nature descending in the bodily form of a dove, were regarded, it is said even by Luther and by Calvin, as unhistorical though sacred recitals, typical of divine truth. CHAPTEK III. THE STAR. Stella facein ducens multa cum luce cucurrit. MoDEKJN" society has discarded astrology as a fictitious science. When, however, St. Au- gustine found it necessary to denounce this study, and in later centuries, when the Church excommunicated astrologers, the marvellous luminary, which was recognized by Eastern sages to be the special star belonging to the King of the Jews, seemed to establish the truth of this science, and thus to contravene the preaching of the saint and the censures of the Church. The astronomers of a former age, not ven- turing to doubt the verbal accuracy of the Scriptures, sought some stellar phenomenon to confirm what they held to be revealed truth. 30 THE STAR. Thus Kepler entered into elaborate calcula- tions to explain this strange star by planetary perturbations. Modern expounders of Scripture now admit that the star belongs to the poetical imagery of a nascent creed. It has, indeed, a curious family likeness to the star described by Yirgil, and even recalls the astrological associations commemorated by Horace. Poets are often plagiarists, and fiction repeats itself in different minds. The Protestant, therefore, feels him- self justified in discarding this j)ortion of the Gospel from the category of authentic history. In a typical or figm'ative sense the narra- tive contains a truth. The East did bestow her gifts on the new religion, although the European world has not willingly acknowledged the contribution. "Wisdom and wealth have bowed down in humble submission to the superior power of a faith which, in its original purity, must for- ever hold the human mind in subjection. The voice from heaven at the baptism of Jesus is necessarily associated with suuilar THE STAR. 31 incidents related in other chapters of the Kew Testament. A "belief in these heavenly voices was a common superstition of the Jews. The epistle ascribed to St. Peter so far disparages these voices that it refers to the word of prophecy as a more sure proof of divine truth. Sherlock, in his Discourse on the Prophecies, observes : " Is it possible that St. Peter, or any man in his senses, could make such a comparison ? " Sherlock reasoned according to the opinion of his own day ; but, when that epistle was wTitten, the frequency of these " airy tongues that syllable men's names " was so generally recognized that familiarity had weakened their effect. A modern Protestant cannot be expected to be more Catholic than St. Peter, or to attach high authority to a phenomenon which an Apostle had depreciated. The dove was an accepted type of heaven- ly wisdom, as may be seen in the writings of Philo. The dove had been an object of popu- lar veneration in Palestine, and it is not to be supposed that a special miracle was per- 32 THE STAR. formed for tlie purpose of consecrating an old Syrian superstition. These symbols have the stamp of Jewish legends, and it is now needless to discuss them further. '' volitat crebras intacta per urbes Alba PalK}stino sancta cokimba Svro." CHAPTER lY. HEBREW P O E T E Y. " Utiiiam tarn facile vera invenire posslm quam falsa con- vincere." If tlie early cliapters of tlie Gospel history can no longer be received as a record of actual events, this conclusion has been arrived at from the study of Scripture itself. Hymns recalling scenes and associations of the Hebrew race may have fascinated the first disciples, by a shadowy promise of the over- throw of their heathen conquerors, and the establishment of a Jewish kingdom under a national sovereign. But we may reasonably suppose that the language was typical, and capable only of a metaphorical fulfilment. The chief interest of these chapters now consists in the light which they throw upon 34: HEBREW POETRY. tlie date when sucli lijmns could have been written, or at least orally repeated. They bear the distinctive features of Judaism, and must have been circulated among the first Jewish converts. Such poems could hardly have originated among a subsequent generation, when the whole character of Christianity was already changed. This chronological testi- mony aj^pears to refute the theories which ascribe the Gospels to a later period. The hymns and types of the Gospels may still please imaginative minds, but they do not satisfy the religious wants of the present age. The exigencies of modern thought require more distinct and definite convictions. Serious men will say : " If these books are so deeply colored by the popular traditions and poetical imagery of the Hebrew race, where does re- liable history begin ? If the nativity of Jesus is thus surrounded by legends, is the Yirgin herself historical ? " CHAPTEK Y. THE VIRGIN MARY. "Caput inter nubilacondit." It lias been frequently observed that, in studying the early records of a nation, tbe attempt to separate actual history from legen- dary tradition becomes a hopeless task. The same obscurity unfortunately overclouds the dawn of Christianity. The biblical student, in his honest endeavor to obtain historical truth, finds himself bewildered in a maze of ]3oetry which intercepts his course. If, in his efforts to escape from this enchanted ground, he turns to the writings of St. Paul, the Apostle only increases his doubts. Paul al- ludes more than once to the lineage of Jesus, but he never mentions the Yirgin Mary. This omission is the more remarkable, because the 36 THE VIRGIX MARY. Apostle is unusuallj precise in relating the lineage of Jesns. Panl emphatically states : "Jesus was of the seed of David according to the flesh, and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead." Paul omits the angelic annunciation, the miraculous birth, and the heavenly acknowl- edgment at the baptism. He moreover as- serts that the resurrection from the dead was the act by which the divine nature of Jesus was established, St. Paul assuredly gave no heed to the endless genealogies which have perplexed modern commentators, but it is not easy to explain his total silence on the birth of Jesus, while the Epistles vindicate the divine nature of Jesus. An irrepressible suspicion arises that, either the miraculous nativity was a later tradition, or that Paul did not accept the narrative which was subsequently incor- porated in two of the Gospels. Zealous devotion delights in magnifying the object of its affectionate enthusiasm, and THE VIRGLV MARY. 37 legendary beliefs grow up rapidly under the unconscious action of sympathizing minds. In all traditions popular belief usually selects the one which appears most marvellous, and consequently the tenet, that Jesus was of the seed of David according to the flesh, was will- ingly set aside, and a birth contrary to the flesh became the prevalent doctrine. By disjoining the words of Isaiah from the context to which they belong, and affixing a precise meaning to an expression of doubtful signification, a prophecy was made applicable to the occasion. This belief was further as- sisted by an Eastern notion of special purity, which was associated with birth from a vir- gin. St. Paul had discountenanced this notion when he wrote : " I am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean of itself." As time advanced, the superstitious doctrine of purity increasing in intensity led later wor- shippers to declare that Mary after the birth of Jesus must always have continued to be a virgin. In this they contradicted the admoni- 38 THE VIRGIN MARY. tion of the angel as related by Matthew, but the same zeal which set aside the language of an Apostle, could easily disregard the asser- tions of an Evangelist. Paul had indeed mentioned the Lord's brother, and there was scriptural evidence of brothers and sisters. These statements were all discarded as a disx^aragement tp Mary. These brothers, it was said, were cousins, or Joseph was a widower, and even ninety years old, when he married Mary, while these brothers were his children by a former wife. This glorification of Mary became grad- ually insufficient for the increasing devotion of the faithful, and new honors were invented. " The master of superstition," says Bacon, *' is the people, and in all superstitions wise men follow fools." The Church, whether leading or following, consecrated every suc- cessive legend. It was affirmed that Mary's mother was a saint, and the birth of Mary herself must have been free from the sinful taint of the flesh. THE VIRGIN MARY. 39 In succeeding centuries the imagination of pious men took a still Mglier flight, and another elevation of Mary was announced. A special blessing had been promised to the pure in heart, and this privilege must in Mary have received a literal accomplishment. Mary must have ascended in the body to heaven. Thus the beatified Yirgin was exalted above all the saints of heaven, and in every church a chapel or an altar was dedicated to the mother of God. In many Christian churches her painted and jewelled e^gj may still be seen, draped in a celestial robe, with a radiant glory on her head, receiving the adoration or the offerings of her suppliant votaries. Between the significant silence of the Pauline epistles and the last pontifical cli- max of extravagant adulation, there were several gradations or developments of doc- trine. Every successive generation paid some tribute to the shrine of Mary. The first age was certainly not deficient in imaginative piety, and the contemporaries of St. Paul 40 THE YIRGIX MARY. were not more careful of historical truth than Christians in subsequent centuries. The doctrine of the bodily assumption of the Yirgin seems to conflict with another Catholic tradition, according to which the Yirgin Mary was buried at Ephesus. In that city, at all events, the tomb of the Yirgin was shown. There also the first cathe- dral was dedicated to her, and divine honors paid to her. This veneration or worship was in the first instance censured by the Church, but it was afterward permitted and eventual- ly encouraged. — {See on this point Tillemont, Hist. Eccles.) Thus, it may be observed, at Ephesus one virgin displaced another — Mary superseded Diana, and the mother of God received the incense which, had been previously ofi*ered to the many-bosomed mother of K"ature. The Ephesians, therefore, still retained their tute- lary goddess, but the new idolatry was cleansed from all sensual accompaniments, the altar was no longer defiled with blood. The worship of the Yirgin has generally THE VIHGIN MARY. 41 exercised a baneful influence on the character of tlie people among whom it has prevailed. The notion that supplicants, by propitiating the mother of God, could secure a friend at the court of heaven, tended to vitiate religion. Her fabled interference, even in this life, was countenanced bj the priesthood, who gave currency to a thousand idle tales, whereby the laws of [N'ature and of morality were alike vio- lated. Hence, throughout a large portion of the Christian world, the Yirgin has become the favorite object of popular devotion, while the moral Kuler of the universe is forgot- ten. This serious evil is inadequately compen- sated by the more refined feeling for artistic beauty which the worship of the Madonna may have evoked. Among Protestants the Yirgin Mary may, it is said, be harmlessly venerated as the idealized impersonation of purity, the deified conception of heavenly love, the hallowed type of divine condescension ; 42 THE VIRGIN MARY. " Still to the lowly soul He dotii Himself impart, And for His cradle and His throne Chooses the pure in heart." Yeneration, however, is closely allied to worship, and worship brought in its train ro- saries, salutations, and an endless variety of superstitions usages, debasing man and dis- honoring God. On a calm survey of the history relating to the mysterious union of the divine with the human nature, there appear to have been in the primitive Church three diiferent beliefs : The belief of St. Paul that the resurrec- tion of Jesus was the first declaration of his divine nature. The belief that the descent of the Holy Spirit at the baptism was the miracle wherein the union was accomplished. The belief in a material union before the birth. This doctrine eventually prevailed, and all other ideas were denounced and sup- pressed as heretical. CHAPTER YI. THE GLOOM DARKENS. Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna Est iter in silvis. The difficulties in the Gospel history do not diminish with the i)rogress of the narra- tives. The reader finds himself bewildered by deeper perplexities and more alarming doubts. The moral questions which necessarily arise from the study of Scripture remain to this day unanswered. A firm belief in a beneficent and merciful Deity is the primary and most cherished prin- ciple of Christianity : " If this fail, The pillared firmament is rottenness, And earth's base built on stubble." 4-1. THE GLOOM DARKENS. A divine command had, according to Scrix3ture, been given to the Jews enjoining tliem to put to death any person, although he were a prophet or even a worker of miracles, who should turn them away from the God of their fathers, and invite them to a new reli- gion. This command was clear, peremptory , and inexorahle. In what position were the Jews in regard to the teaching of Jesus? They beheld a man, who (if the Gospels are accurate) reprobated usages handed down from the time of the patriarchs, frequent- ly violated their sabbaths, and desired to establish a new religion. The Jewish law and the prophets were on this point equally decided. Jehovah had said, " I am the Lord, and beside me there is no Sav- iour." Yet these Jews now saw a man whose parentage was known, who had dwelt for thirty years in a provincial town, whence he had lately come forth as the teacher of a new religion. If, then, the Jewish law was divine, the Jews must either have associated and THE GLOOM DARKENS. 45 identified Jesus witli Jeliovali, or have treated him as a blasphemer. Are not the terrible words of Ezekiel ap- plicable to this unfortunate nation : " I gave them statutes that were not good, and judg- ments whereby they should not live." The foreknowledge which selected Judas as an Apostle suggests other moral difficulties which it is painful to reflect upon. In these instances the conduct ascribed to the divine Being appears to be irreconcilable with the eternal principles of justice and of benevolence. There is a discord between re- ligion and morality. Some error has disar- ranged the harmony, which should prevail in the moral as well as in the material world. Who can doubt that, whenever Christianity is more fully understood, these difficulties will be removed ? A deeper search, or a more en- larged view of religious truth, will furnish a solution, even if it should necessitate the re- jection of statements supposed to be divinely inspired. CHAPTEE YII. THE OPEN BIBLE. A STUDENT, who relies on the reiterated assertion that Christianity fears no inquiry, and that the open Bible is the inheritance of Protestants, naturally directs his attention to the elaborate works on the Gospel history which the literature of the present century has so abundantly supplied. With an earnest desire to arrive at some satisfactory result, he examines histories of Christianity, introduc- tions to the ISTew Testament, harmonies of the Gospels, Christian evidences, lives of Jesus, treatises on the nature and personality of Christ, and other works calculated to ex- plain this mysterious subject. Even the cold dissecting-knife of German criticism causes no shudder in the inquisitive THE OPEN BIBLE. 4^ but unimpassioned student. He calmly notes coincidences, and balances conflicting state- ments, in order fairly to weigh their value, and to observe how far they tend to confirm or to invalidate the theories propounded. After all his labor, he perceives that the history becomes less and less distinct, as the investigation is more searching and precise. Every new publication proves that its author deems former explanations to be faulty or insuflScient, and his refutation of previous solutions is usually the most conclusive por- tion of his work. The student is reluctantly compelled to admit that the materials for a trustworthy life of Jesus, and for a truthful history of those momentous events, do not exist, while conjectural histories compiled in om* own days are idle dreams. These commentaries and critical disserta- tions have not, however, been tmprofitable. The skepticism of a former age has been re- futed by the criticism of a later period. The imputation of forgery and fraud made 48 THE OPEN BIBLE. against the Evangelists by writers in the last century has been dispelled by a more careful study of the Gospels. One remarkable characteristic of these books is the simple truthfulness with which the Evangelists record the traditions therein collected, even when those traditions are un- favorable to their own conclusions. Thus they relate that Jesus met wdth little belief or estimation among his own kin, and in his own country. Such an avowal seems hardly reconcilable with the miracles said to have accompanied his birth and baptism. If these supernatural occurrences did not convince his own kin, the subsequent recital of them could not be expected to satisfy a distant posterity. So, again, the Evangelists admit that the multitude believed John the Baptist to be a prophet, while they hesitated to acknowledge Jesus. This admission disposes of the reason- ing of Paley and other writers, who argue that miracles were indispensable as the credentials of a divine mission. THE OPEN BIBLE. 49 The Evangelists candidly confess that the Apostles whom Jesns had selected did not implicitly believe in him ; they did not under- stand his doctrines, they doubted his power, and they deserted him on the first approach of danger. Yet these Apostles belonged to a race which had oftentimes astonished the world by its courage in facing torture and death under the impulse of religious faith. Even in relating the great miracle of the resurrection of Jesus, the two earliest Gospels close their narratives with expressions of doubt and unbelief. Such language could only have been adopt- ed by writers conscientiously anxious to re- late the traditions exactly as they had become current among the first disciples. In this respect the truthfulness of the Evangelists ofi*ers a striking contrast to the conduct of subsequent ecclesiastical historians. Christianity, in so far as it is connected with events which occurred upon the earth, is an historical religion, and must rest on 50 THE OPEN BIBLE. human testimony. Experience teaclies ns tliat tlie human memory, unassisted by a contem- poraneous written record, soon corrupts the impressions of past events ; and this observa- tion is especially applicable to recollections associated with religious feeling. The doctrine that the Evangelists were miraculously exempted from the effects of human infirmity can no longer be maintained by theologians, who also explain some dis- crepancies in the Gospels by the admission of such infirmity. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, and it is so deeply impressed with the imperfections of the earth, that the restoration of the actual history is now a hopeless task. CHAPTEE YIII. HISTORICAL TRUTH. The conditions of belief, and the evidences which are deemed sufficient to establish credi- bility, have varied in different states of civili- zation, and cannot be measured by any known criterion. It has been frequently observed that the arguments, vs^hich are accepted by one generation as conclusive, are set aside in a subsequent age as feeble and unsatisfactory. The forms of unbelief also change, and old difficulties require new solutions. When, however, we pass on from the first mysterious history, and survey the great re- sults, we see the divine and beneficent in- fluence of Christianity impressed in indelible characters on the annals of the world. The words said to have been spoken by 52 HISTORICAL TRUTH. Jesus on the shores of the lake, on the slope of the mountain, or in his journejings through Palestine, fermented in the human heart, stir- ring the deepest feelings and kindling the aspirations of mankind. These words were addressed to ignorant men, by whom their meaning was often misunderstood and im- perfectly recorded. The words were spoken, however, as never man spake, and they were sufficient for the purpose predicted. They did undoubtedly convulse the world, and change the whole fabric of human society, supplying a new basis for civilization, a new framework for human thought, and a new motive for human actions. The history of all succeeding centuries tes- tifies to these marvellous results. The over- throw of antecedent religions was the first step to a new creation, and, amid the decay of ancient creeds and the decline of heathen communities, the dawn of a brighter era red- dened the horizon. During the darkest period of European history, the organization of the Church held HISTORICAL TEUTH. 53 men together when all other bonds of society were loosened, and in every subsequent age Christianity, though corrupted by human er- ror and distorted by human passions, has, nevertheless, afforded the only solid security for the permanence of European civilization, and the only hope for man after the close of his ephemeral existence. Thoughts thus crowded into a few sen- tences necessarily convey a very inadequate notion of the blessings derived from Chris- tianity. If a person tries to imagine the condition of this country under the supposi- tion that the Christian religion had never been bestowed upon mankind, he will find it almost impossible to realize in his mind the altered circumstances by which he would be surrounded. The character of the nation, the laws, the institutions, the whole mind of the people would have been more changed than the wildest fancy can conceive. The early history of Christianity may be in many respects inaccurate, exaggerated by 54 HISTORICAL TRUTH. credulous devotion, and even falsified by le- gendary traditions ; but some divine and in- defeasible truths must be contained within its doctrines. These could not have lived through so many centuries, and spread through such various forms of civilization, if they had not their undying roots in the heart of man. CHAPTER IX. THE SEARCH FOR DOCTRINES. When, however, it is asked, "What were the doctrines which produced these inestimable benefits ? the reply would probably vary according to the chui'ch or sect which under- took to answer the question. Two prominent and generally-acknowledged tenets of Chris- tianity are, faith in God and charity between men. Beyond these two, there is scarcely another tenet which is not matter of contro- versy. The history of Christianity is a history of heresies and schisms. From the day when the disciples left that upper chamber in Jeru- salem to the present hour, Christians have never been of one accord. A student, who seeks patiently to ascertain 0 56 THE SEARCH FOR DOCTRINES. from the first Christian teachers the precise doctrines of Christianity, directs liis attention to St. Paul, as the first theologian, the first human instructor of the new religion. Here, it is often repeated, we meet a man of like passions with ourselves ; we leave the enchanted ground of the Gospel narratives, and tread again upon the accustomed earth. At the outset of this inquiry, the question presents itself, Are these epistles the genuine writings of St. Paul? Into this examination it is not proposed to enter. The Pauline theology rests upon the Pauline Epistles. The most captious critics have admitted that the four chief epistles are genuine. These would suffice to establish the principles of the Pauline doctrine. The only epistle which is rejected by a concurrence of opinions is the Epistle to the Hebrews. In an impartial investigation of St. Paul's doctrines, it is desirable to rely on the general character and spirit of his writings, rather than on any single passage or selected text. • Another difficulty arises from our igno- THE SEARCH FOR DOCTRINES. 57 ranee of tlie order in which the Pauline Epis- tles were written. It has been often observed that this knowledge would be of great value, and assist in removing obscurities which are as yet impenetrable. St. Paul did not apparently write for the purpose of instructing future generations. His epistles were evidently intended to meet temporary difficulties, and to correct errors of doctrine or of conduct in the congregations to whom they were addressed. The Apostle looked forward to the second coming of Christ, if not within his own life- time, at least before many years would pass away. The boundless prospect of future Christianity was never opened to his sight, and he did not contemplate a distant pos- terity seeking religious instruction from let- ters addressed to Jewish proselytes. For the sake of judging these epistles fairly and comprehending their purport, it would be desirable, so far as possible, to read them by the light in which they were written, and also to know something of the intellectual 58 THE SEARCH FOR DOCTRINES. condition of the persons to wliom tliey were addressed. Thronghont these writings Paul appears as the Jewish scribe, bringing forth from his treasure things new and old. His education and modes of thought were Jewish or Eastern. His acquaintance with Greek literature seems limited to such citations and proverbial phrases as may have been current in the maritime cities of Asia. His epistles exhibit no famil- iarity with Greek philosophy, or with the style and culture of the Greek mind. Whatever may have been the previous education of St. Paul, it is manifest that the persons to whom he addressed his epistles must have been trained under a similar sys- tem of instruction. They must have belonged to the same school of thought ; otherwise they would not have appreciated his peculiar style of reasoning, his fanciful philosophy, and his allegorical interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures. During the interval of more than four hundred years which elapsed between the Old THE SEARCH FOR DOCTRINES. 59 and tlie 'New Testaments, important changes had occurred in the religious condition of the Hebrew race. This long period, although productive of effects which have modified the history of mankind, is not commemorated by any inspired writers whom Protestants ac- knowledge, and is too often, therefore, lost in the oblivion of ages. In the course of these forgotten centuries numerous communities of Jews had spread themselves throughout the chief cities of the Eoman Empire. New forms of religious thought were more readily accepted by men who had been long separated and estranged from their holy city, and from their ancestral language. Among many causes which tended to modify the religion of the Greek Jews, the three following deserve to be specially noticed : The Septuagint version of the Scriptures. The Apocryphal books of the Old Testa- ment. The influence of the synagogues. CHAPTEE X. THE SEP TUAGINT. The influence of language upon religion, and the extent to which words have indirectly modified human beliefs, have been frequently noticed. The translation of Hebrew expressions into Greek could not be made without in some de- gree altering the full meaning of the original language. The Hebrew text was regarded by the Jews as possessing a sanctity and divine vigor un- approachable in a Greek version. This superi- ority is acknowledged in the prologue to the book of Ecclesiasticus, as well as in the works of Josephus. The tradition connected with the orgin of the Septuagint proves the veneration it had THE SEPTUAGINT. gl obtained among the Greek Jews, and persons who believed in this legend would have deemed it impions to question the accnracy of a version composed under such supernatural guidance. Critics free from this superstitious restraint observe in the Septuagint many indications of an endeavor to adapt the narratives of Script- ure to a later form of religious thought. Thus the interposition of angels is substituted for the immediate intervention of the Deity, who recedes from that familiarity with man which appears in the Hebrew text. On this account it has been said that the Septuagint rational- izes. The importance of this version is greatly enhanced by the frequent use made of it in the Jt^ew Testament, and it is not imreasonable to infer that the Evangelists had a closer con- nection with the Greek Jews than with their Hebrew countrymen. Christianity seems soon after its birth to have become a Greek religion ; its records were almost entirely written in Greek ; and, while the employment of a foreign language may 62 THE SEPTUAGINT. have alienated the inhabitants of Judaea, it must have conciliated the favor of Jews and proselytes in the Greek cities of Asia and of Europe. A severance from the language of their ancestral religion facilitated further change. An analogous effect resulted from the transla- tion of the Scripture in modern Europe. " It is a most significant circumstance," said Ma- caulay, " that no large society, of which the tongue is not Teutonic, has ever turned Prot- estant, and that, wherever a language derived from that of ancient Home is spoken, the religion of modern Home to this day pre- vails." The form and force of expressions, even the gender of nouns, have qualified the beliefs of mankind. The word spirit, for instance, in its passage from Jerusalem to Home, changed its gender more than once. Feminine in He- brew, it became neuter in Greek, and again masculine in Latin. It may be reasonably doubted whether, if the Latin term had been female, the three persons of the Trinity would THE SEPTUAGINT. gg have occupied their present positions in the religions thought of Christians. The word person has also acquired a more definite entity and inflexible meaning than its Greek equivalent, and, though this may not have modified our creeds, it has certainly influenced popular notions of the Divine nature. If it is admitted that the transition from Greek to Latin, and again from Latin to the Teutonic languages, have tended impercepti- bly to qualify theological doctrines, a some- what similar result may be suspected to have occurred under the influence of the Septua- gint. Eastern ideas altered their nature when they weai'e clothed in a Greek garb. There is, however, great difficulty in attaining accurate knowledge on this subject, because the translation of a word often fails to convey the meaning of the original term. For ex- ample, the words baptism, regeneration, son of man, son of God, did not originate witli Christianity ; nevertheless, these words, when appropriated by Christians, assumed a mean- g4 THE SEPTUAGINT. ing differing in many respects from their pre- vious Jewish signification. It is almost im- possible to measure exactly the shades of dif- ference, but we must not hastily assume that, where the same terms were used, the same ideas were intended to be expressed. CHAPTEE XI. THE THEOLOGY OF THE APOCRYPHA. A Peotestaitt, who lias been taught that the Apocryphal books of the Old Testament are of little value, is surprised to find that these books contain the first distinct indica- tions of the legendary beliefs, and of the re- ligious philosophy, which were subsequently incorporated in Christian theology. Whoever wishes to study the history of religious thought, must devote his attention to these interesting writings, which, beyond their intrinsic merit, are of great importance, inasmuch as they mark a movement of the human mind from Judaism toward Chris- tianity. For instance, the immortality of man is announced in this rejected Apocrypha more QQ THE THEOLOGY OF THE APOCRYPHA. clearly tlian in any book of the Old Testa- ment. Here also the antagonism between matter and spirit, the impurity of the whole material world, and the evil influence of the corrupt- ible body upon the human soul, are pro- claimed as unquestionable truths. The evil spirit, who scarcely appears in the Old Testament, or is only mentioned as a subordinate agent of the Deity employed to test the virtue of the righteous, occupies in the Apocrypha a prominent position — at one time as the subject of a popular legend, and at another as the subtle enemy of man, whose death is attributed to the envy of the devil. A still more astonishing revelation is made in the Apocrypha respecting the impersona- tion of wisdom. This mysterious personification is alluded to in other books, but in the Book of Wisdom an ideal heavenly being is delineated in terms, which inspired writers did not hesitate to bor- row, and to apply to Christ. Great perplexity has been caused by the THE THEOLOGY OF THE APOCRYPHA. 67 language of this Apocryphal author, of whom nothing is known. The book assumes to have been written by Solomon — a fiction which, if ever believed, has long' since been discarded. It was at one time suspected of having been fraudulently composed during the Christian era ; this opin- ion is now no longer maintained. In this mysterious book, Wisdom is called the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of His goodness. This wisdom enters into the righteous man, who is then called the Son of God. Furthermore, it is stated that the righteous man is derided, ex- amined with .despitefulness and tortui-e, and condemned to a shameful death, while the ungodly say. Let us see if his words be true ; if the just man be the Son of God, He will help him and deliver him from the hands of his enemies. These sentences contain a pre- sentiment of Christian history more lucidly pronounced than can be found in the Hebrew prophets. 68 THE THEOLOGY OF THE APOCRYPHA. Other Apocryplial books tend to prove that, durino: the four liimdred vears which in- tervened between Malachi and Matthew, the Jewish mind had not been stationary, but had qualified ancient Scriptures by new in- terpretations. This process had been greatly accelerated by intercourse with the Greek race. Several of the Apocryphal books seem to have been first written in Greek, and, al- though their style may be criticised as too rhetorical, yet in vigor and devotional elo- quence they compare advantageously with the Pauline Epistles. CHAPTEK XII. THE SYl^AGOGUES. The Greek synagogues niiist have exer- cised considerable influence in modifying the old Hebrew doctrines. Jews scattered throughout the chief cities of the Roman Empire could not comply with the religion of Moses. They could neither con- form to the law nor understand the language in which it was written. For them, the syna- gogue had become a substitute for the Temple, and the scribe had superseded the priest. Every synagogue, moreover, was under the control of chosen elders — masters in Israel. Different teachers, or expounders of Script- ure, unconsciously or designedly, introduced di- versity of doctrine. Pharisees and Sadducees, though opposed to each other on questions of 70 THE SYNAGOGUES. fundamental importance, were alike admitted to high offices in the Temple ; it may therefore be reasonably conjectured that there was a similar latitude of opinion in the synagogues of Alexandria and of Rome. Some ingenious writers have endeavored to trace the source of Christianity to the schools and sjmagogues of Alexandria. They would even interpret the prophecy, " Out of Egypt have I called my son," in a mystic sense. Such fanciful notions must be discarded ; but the forms of religious thought which were current among the Jews of Alexandria were probably not unknown to their countrymen in Antioch and in Eome. A departure from the old creed of their fathers, an increasing propensity toward allegorical interpretations of Scriptm-e, and an inclination to amalgamate Eastern beliefs with Greek philosophy, tended to generate a vague and mystic latitude of thought on the nature of the Deity. Such liberty of religious opinion must have prevailed among the Jews who concurred in THE SYNAGOGUES. 71 sending Philo to Rome as tlie representative of his countrymen on a question connected with the Jewish religion. This diversity of doctrines probably fa- cilitated the entrance of St. Paul's theology. He found the harvest ripe for the sickle ; and the Greek synagogues were the fields wherein he was specially qualified to win over converts to Christianity. His attachment to the tradi- tions, his frequent reference to Jewish Script- nres, his system of typical interpretations, and his style of reasoning, could only have been efiective among men who had been pre- viously accustomed to hear their Scriptures allegorized, and who heard from Paul an ex- position of doctrines not unknown in their schools. We cannot now asrcertain what were the predominant doctrines in the synagogues of the dispersion, but there are grounds for sus- pecting that the space travelled over, from the Temple to the Greek synagogue, was nearly as wide as from the synagogue to the Chui'ch. 72 THE SYNAGOGUES. The three subjects here so concisely no- ticed are deserving of far more attention than has been usually accorded to them in the in- troductions to the Pauline theology. In the midst of more pressing questions, it would be here impossible to discuss them satisfactorily. CHAPTER XIII. THE rmST CHRISTIAN CONTEOVEESY. " After tlie way wliicli they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers," said St. Paul. Paul was the first heresiarch, the bold in- novator, the fierce controversialist. He boast- ed of his contest with the chief Apostles, to whom he would not give way, no, not for an hour. They seemed, he says, to be pillars, or seemed to be somewhat, but it made no mat- ter to him. These chief Apostles offered him a com- promise, suggesting that they should teach the Jews, and that Paul should teach his Christianity to the Gentiles. Subsequently, however, when Peter came to Antioch, an open rupture occurred between these two ^4: TEE FIRST CHPJSTIAX CONTROVERSY. Apostles. Paul withstood Peter to liis face, blaming him before the assembled congrega- tion. So violent was this dissension, and so bitter the animosity which it engendered, that after the lapse of many years Paul adverts to it with unabated rancor, and fixes on Peter, for all futurity, the grave charge of dissimula- tion. Are we to infer from the statement of St. Paul that the chief Apostles and their dis- ciples at Jerusalem had been teaching and practising, during some twenty years, an im- perfect Christianity, piecing out, it has been said, Aaron's old garment with the new cloth ? The men who should have been pillars of Christ's Church were, it seems, still strict Jews, diligently attending the sacrifices in the Temple, and adhering to the laws and customs of Moses. The hostility to St. Paul arose, not from hi« acceptance of Christianity, but from his repudiation of Judaism. While the older Apostles were living undisturbed at Jerusa- lem, combining a belief in Christ with a daily THE FIRST CHRISTIAN CONTROVERSY. 75 observance of the Jewish law, Paul had broken loose from the law, and openly pro- claimed that its obligations even for the Hebrew race were now at an end, that the law itself was a miserable bondage, burden- some in this life, and useless in the life to come. This conflict lasted apparently throughout the residue of St. Paul's life. His Epistles prove the hatred of his adversaries, and the success of their efforts. They impugned his apostleship, they disparaged his doctrine, and vilified his character. They sent missionaries to counteract his teaching. They rejoiced over his imprisonment, and added affliction to his bonds. Thus he lived to see the defection of the churches which he had planted, and the re- lapse to a Jewish Christianity of the adhe- rents whom he had instructed. "All they which are in Asia," he complains, " be turned away from me." This apostasy from his doctrine appears to have been prevalent toward the close of 76 THE FIRST CHRISTIAN CONTROVERSY. Lis life, wlien, as he says, " tlie time of my departure is at hand." There are, moreover, many indications that, after the Apostle's earthly career was closed, rival Christians reviled his memory, and held up his doctrine to scorn and reproba- tion. This controversy in the early Church ne- cessarily qualifies our belief in apostolic in- spiration. Those persons, who maintain that the Apostles were miraculously endowed with all knowledge essential to the promulgation of Christianity, must equally deny history and controvert Scripture. The Apostles were, it is said, men of like passions with ourselves ; it must also be admitted that they were men of like limited knowledge. We see in their vehemence the tongues of fire, but we look in vain for the holy inspiration. CHAPTER XIY. THE HOEJE PAULm^. Among tlie numerous works written by tlie clergy, treating of tlie life and of tlie doc- trines of St. Paul, it is difficult to name one wliicli candidly admits the striking discrep- ancies between tlie Pauline Epistles and tlie Acts. ' The Horse Paulinse of Paley will serve to prove the justice of this observation ; and, as this book is an argumentative treatise ad- dressed to the calm reason of the Protestant reader, it is fairly open to the criticism which it invites. Paley assumes, for the purpose of his ar- gument, that the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul were accidentally dis- covered in an old Spanish library, and he 7'8 THE HOR^ PAULINJ3 then proceeds to examine and compare them, with the view of ascertaining how far many insignificant and undesigned coincidences in each work prove these books to be founded on facts, or to be, as he says, in the main true. Of course, Paley arrives at the sound ortho- dox conclusion which is expected from an English divine. If, however, later critics, pursuing a simi- lar system of inquiry, have arrived" at a some- what different conclusion, they cannot fairly be blamed and stigmatized as rationalists. The question at issue is, Which view receives the strongest oonfirmation from the docu- ments themselves ? In examining these portions of Scripture with the same freedom which Paley assumes, it seems reasonable to give priority to the Epistles, inasmuch as the letters of a trust- worthy man are better evidence of his ac- tions and opinions than the recollections of a biographer. CHAPTER Xy. THE EriSTLES CONTRADICT THE ACTS. St. Paul attaclied, apparently, great im- portance to the assertion that he did not re- ceive his Gospel from man, but by revelation of Jesus Christ. In support of this assertion, he emphatically states that he conferred not v/ith flesh and blood, nor went to Jerusalem to the Apostles, but went into Arabia. After three years, he says, he went to Jerusalem, and abode with Peter, as he care- fully adds, for fifteen days. During this pe- riod he only saw Peter and James. This special reference to dates awakens a suspicion that Paul's Christian doctrine had been ascribed to human intervention, and that St. Paul was intent on refuting this assertion. ITow, this assertion is distinctly made by 80 THE EPISTLES COXTRADICT THE ACTS. the author of the Acts, who states that Paul, after his conversion, received his baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost from Ananias, at Damascus. This book further adds that Paul, being compelled to fly from Damascus, came to Jerusalem, and assayed to join himself to the disciples, but they -were afraid of him. Barnabas, however, brought Paul to the Apostles, and " he was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem." In order to connect Paul still more closely with the Apostles, this book states that " Paul showed first unto them of Damascus and Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judgea, and then to the Gentiles." St. Paul explicitly denies this, and declares before God that, after the fifteen days at Jerusalem, he came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judasa. According to Paul's Epistles, seventeen years had elapsed after his conversion before he had any intercourse with the church at Jerusalem. CHAPTER XYI. MOKE DIFFICULTIES. As tlie history proceeds, tlie inconsisten- cies and contradictions between the statements in the Epistles and in the Acts become more marked. The vision seen by Peter, the de- cree of the Church at Jerusalem, and the sub- sequent conduct of Peter at Antioch, have perplexed the harmonists of these conflicting narratives. "When Peter came to Antioch, he had been preaching the Gospel for a period of eighteen or twenty years. "What GosxdcI had he preached ? Jesus had, it is said, command- ed his disciples to go and teach all nations. For this purpose the abolition of national dis- tinctions, of ceremonial observances, of clean and unclean meats, had been repeatedly en- forced in his discourses, and copiously illus- 82 3iORE DIFFICULTIES. trated in liis parables. Moreover, this teach- ing is said to have been miraculously recalled to the memory of the Apostles. Locke tried to explain these discrepancies, and Paley, after admitting that Locke's ex- planation was unsatisfactory, suggested anoth- er which is even more objectionable. Peter must have forgotten the teaching of his Divine Master, the doctrine inculcated in his own vision, and the decree of the Church said to have been inspired by the Holy Ghost. Paul also must have been ignorant of the precepts of Jesus, which would have sustained and justified the Pauline Gospel more effect- ually than the labored arguments in his Epis- tles. The difficulties of such suppositions can only be removed by assuming that these books are not free from human error. CHAPTEE XYII. Paul's last joueney to Jerusalem. AccoEDiNG to the Pauline Epistles, St. Paul had written elaborate letters, in order to prove that by the deeds of the law no man could be justified, that henceforth there was no difference between Jew and Gentile, and that the law was altogether superseded and abrogated by faith in Christ. This is fairly admitted by Paley to have been the doctrine or gospel taught by St. Paul. According to the Acts, Paul, on his arrival at Jerusalem, in compliance with the sugges- tion of James and of the elders, consented to exhibit himself as a strict Jew. It is stated that he joined himself to cer- tain Jews who had taken vows, and that Paul took, or pretended to have taken, a similar 84 PAUL'S LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM. VOW, attended the services, joined in tlie sacri- fices of the Temple, and purified himself un- der the Jewish law. Are we, then, to believe that Paul was a second time an apostate ? Could he thus have belied his own gospel, and the teaching of his whole apostolic life ? Paul had reprimanded Peter and Barnabas for their dissimulation ; was he now himself a dissembler ? It must be admitted that a public act, performed with the design of conveying false notions of his religion, had morally the same guilt as a falsehood spoken for the purpose of deception. Could Paul thus have returned to the beggarly elements which he had so scorn- fully repudiated ? The reader is shocked at the conduct here ascribed in the Acts to St. Paul. If he turns to the Horse Paulinae, he is shocked at the defence suggested by Paley. This apologist for St. Paul admits that this incident in the history is perplexing. He cannot deny that the Apostle had proclaimed the abrogation of the law even for Jews themselves, but he PAUL'S LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM. 85 ventures to hint that Paul complied upon this occasion with the Jewish law from a love of tranquillity, or an unwillingness to give offence ! The life and labors of the Apostle might have exempted him from such an imputation. Paul had declared : " If I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ." Paul had struggled through perils and privations, undeterred by the persecution of the Jews, and the still more envenomed hatred of rival Christians ; and yet, after this life of suffering, he is supposed to have repudiated the distinc- tive principles of his Gospel, fi.*om an unwill- ingness to give offence. An English clergyman, in the enjoyment of a lucrative benefice, with a pleasing pros- pect of promotion, may be pardoned if he yields some of his opinions for the sake of tranquillity — but he should not measure St. Paul by his own standard. CHAPTEE XYIII. ST. PAUL AT KOME. Biblical critics have exercised great inge- nuity in their endeavors to reconcile Paul's visit to Pome, as related in the Acts, with the language of the Pauline Epistles, without, however, referring to other difficulties; the prominent objection to the narrative in the Acts consists in its incompatibility with the moral character and truthfulness of St. Paul. When the Apostle visited Pome, he had taught his doctrines during many years in Asia and in Europe. There is no reason for supposing that his oral teaching differed from his written instructions. On the con- trary, there are good grounds for believing that all his sufferings had been caused by his conscientious sincerity. ST. PAUL AT ROME. g'? Paul, as is manifest from his Epistles, had declared that the law of Moses afforded no means of salvation, that its obligations had ceased even for Jews, and that the old reli- gion had been superseded by the new faith. He had even said of the Jewish nation, " They please not God and are contrary to all men." N'evertheless, if we are to beheve the Acts, Paul on his arrival at Rome calls the chief Jews together, and commences his address by saying that " he had committed nothing against the people or the customs of their fathers." It is impossible to believe that the writer of the Pauline Epistles could have made that statement. Paul's doctrine was incompatible with the customs of their fathers, and was directed to the subversion of the Jewish religion. The conduct ascribed to St. Paul is indeed not only unworthy of an Apostle, but it is ac- companied by details incomprehensible, when considered in connection with his whole pre- vious life. 88 ST. PAUL AT ROME. These Jews, it is said, knew nothing of Paul, and had never heard of Christianity, except as of a religion " everywhere spoken against." l^evertheless, they listened to Paul patiently while he was expounding the king- dom of God from morning until evening. At the conclusion of his discourse some, it is re- lated, believed, and some believed not. This incomplete success so far offended Paul that he denounced his auditory in vehement invec- tives borrowed from the Hebrew prophets. Did these Jews deserve such reprehen- sion ? The man w^ho addressed them was a culprit, awaiting his trial as a turbulent of- fender against the peace of Judsea. The doc- trines which he taught had been condemned by those who sat in Moses' seat. All legit- imate presumptions were therefore against Paul. On the other hand, he offered them no credentials of his apostolic authority ; no manifestations of that glorious kingdom, which they, in common with their country- men, expected to inaugurate the coming of the Son of David. ST. PAUL AT EOME. 89 Were tliese Jews culpable because they preferred to abide by tlie decision of tlie supreme council at Jerusalem? In such cir- cumstances some hesitation was pardonable, and of all living men Paul was the last who should thus have condemned his countrymen. Did no painful reminiscence of Stephen's fate and of his own obduracy recm^ to Paul's memory, and suggest some forbearance tow- ard men whom no heavenly voice had in- structed, and whom no celestial vision had enlightened ? Could Paul thus have accused his kinsmen of blindness, without recalling the time when the scales had not yet fallen from his own eyes, and when he himself was a blasphemer and a persecutor ? Assuredly the book of the Acts bears false witness against a Christian Apostle. CHAPTEE XIX. GAIklALIEL. The moral difficulty arising from tlie ac- ceptance of tlie Acts as an accurate history suggests other suspicions. In the Acts, Paul is represented saying that he was brought up in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel. In the Epistles, Paul boasts of his connection with the Pharisees, but does not mention Gamaliel. According to the Acts, Gamaliel, a man learned in the Jewish law, addressed the su- preme tribunal on a question of law wdiich was then of momentous import. The law of Moses allowed no toleration of teachers who spoke to turn the people from the Lord their God. No worker of wonders, no prophet, although his words might come to GAMALIEL. 91 pass, could be exempted from tlio puiiisliment due to this offence. The law was of divine obligation, it was peremptory, the penalty was death. The ob- vious question was, whether the Apostles had incurred this penalty? Gamaliel, however, altogether evaded this question, and, in lieu of expounding the law, he offered to the council arguments which contravened the law. His reasoning afforded a defence for any heretical teacher, and recalls the advice found in Herodotus : " o rt Set fyevecrOai e/c rov Oeov afjLTj'X^avov aTrorpe-^ai avOpcoTrco.''^ If such was the doctrine of Gamaliel, it must be admitted that Paul had not profited in this part of his instructions. As a Jewish zealot, and as a Christian Apostle, Paul was equally intolerant of any doctrine contrary to his own belief. He did not even exhibit the qualified leniency which Josephus ascribes to the sect of the Pharisees. CHAPTEE XX. STEPHEN. The speech of Gamaliel is perplexing, as coming from a man learned in the Jewish laWj but the speech of Stephen is full of in- comprehensible anomalies. Stephen, it is said, was a man practised in argumentative discussion, and unrivalled among the disputants of the synagogues. He had the opportunity of addressing the supreme council in defence of Christianity. The mo- ment was peculiarly favorable for such an appeal. Jerusalem, it is stated, was crowded with converts and adherents of the new faith ; not only the uneducated people, but a great company of the priests, were obedient to the faith. An eminent member of the council had lately advised moderation toward STEPHEN. 93 this new sect. Stephen could not deny the jurisdiction of men who sat in JMoses'- seat ; and the reader of the open Bible feels confi- dent that, before such a tribunal, the vindica- tion of Christianity will be complete. In all subsequent ages, from the end of the first century to the present hour, the advo- cates of Christianity have appealed to the miracles performed, and to the witnesses who testified to these divine manifestations. Wlien Stephen addressed the council, these witnesses were around him. Many who were then sitting in judgment must have seen the portentous signs attending the cruci- fixion; the darkened sun and the trembling earth; the bodies of the saints which arose from their graves, and appeared in the streets of Jerusalem ; the veil of the Temple miracu- lously rent in twain ; the supernatural events more recently offered for their conviction; the bursting of the prison-doors and the re- lease of the Apostles. These were, however, insignificant proofs of divine power compared with the conclusive miracle. 94: STEPHEN. Five liundred bretliren could now have testified tliat they had themselves seen Jesus risen from the dead : a fact too well attested to admit of any doubt, and too decisive to ad- mit of any refutation. These topics, which have for eighteen hundred years furnished arguments in de- fence of Christianity, were neglected while the witnesses were yet living. Stephen did not even explain the Gospel, which it is said he had expounded in the syna- gogues with such irresistible force. Instead of addressing himself to the ques- tions which had convulsed Jewish society, and were soon to turn the world upside down, he rambles over the migration of Abraham, and the familiar histories of Joseph and Moses. When it might have been ex- pected that he would show the connection between ancient dispensations and recent events, he breaks off in bitter invectives, ac- cuses the council of transgressing the law, and of resisting the Holy Ghost. Upon the not unnatural remonstrance of STEPHEN. 95 the council, his ecstasy commences, and he declares that the divine nature of Christ was miraculously revealed to him. The disciples, according to the statement of the Evangelists, had a promise of special assistance whenever they should be summoned before human tribunals. In Stephen's case, no such aid seems to have been afforded. The able disputant of the synagogues neither justified his doctrine by the law, nor did he venture to assert that the law had been super- seded by a more glorious revelation. In ad- dressing the Sanhedrim, his citations from Scripture should have been derived from the Hebrew text, whereas they seem to have been obtained from some paraphrase or imperfect Targum. The council sat in Moses' seat, and they were acting according to a law which they believed to be divine, and which Stephen acknowledged. His anger was unjustifiable, and his vindication of Christianity lamentably feeble. This speech has, however, the character of authenticity. 96 STEPHEN. The author of the Acts, if he had not ad- hered to traditions, conld undoubtedly have composed a more effective speech in defence of Christianity. "Writing with the acquired knowledge of a later age, he could have described Stex^hen overwhelming the Sanhedrim with ancient prophecies and recent miracles. This speech, moreover, in its concluding words, indicates that the first martyr was in advance of the Apostles. Stephen was put to death, probably in a tumultuous outbreak; many disciples fled, but the Apostles, it is said, remained at Je- rusalem, frequenting the Temple daily, and probably joining in the sacrifices. The undisturbed residence of the Apostles at Jerusalem, after the death of Stephen, seems to countenance an opinion, suggested by some learned critics, that the Apostles did not altogether adopt Stephen's view of Christi- anity. The fragments of history which we pos- sess indicate that the Primitive Church at Jeru- salem remained under the bondage of the law. STEPHEN. 9Y The transition from Judaism to Chris- tianity was a more gradual development of religious thought than is commonly supposed. Stephen's vision was a prophetic anticipa- tion of future Christianity. It was the germ of a new faith ; the immature embryo of a belief which was destined to subdue the civil- ized world. 5 CHAPTER XXI. LEGENDARY HISTOEY. St. Paul's description of tlie gift of tongues directly refutes the statement in the Acts. This contradiction produces an irresistible impression that the Epistles record the actual occurrence, while the Acts commemorate the legendary tradition. This discrepancy casts additional doubt upon other portions of the book. Paley observes that, in the Epistles, Paul expresses the affectionate feelings, the limited knowledge, and the restricted power belong- ing to man; he regrets the illness of one friend whom he is obliged to leave sick in the midst of a journey, and he gratefully rejoices over the recovery of another, the issue of whose illness he could not foresee. LEGENDARY HISTORY. 99 In order to reconcile this language with the marvellous cures recorded in the Acts, Paley intimates that the Apostles had not at all times the power of working miracles, nor even the means of obtaining that power. Paley is forced into this suj^position by his desire to uphold a legendary history ; but, if the book of the Acts is to be believed, a handkerchief or an apron sent from Paul would at once have healed Epaphroditus, and restored him both to his duties and to his friend. These legends furnished a scriptural sanc- tion for the relics and miraculous amulets of subsequent centuries. The careful study of the Pauline Epistles leads to the rejection of these fanciful or exaggerated narratives. CHAPTEE XXIL A EAY OF LIGHT. Chkistianity was preaclied and promul- gated by men struggling, amid poverty and affliction, against contempt and persecution. Bj their self-devotion, their untiring zeal, their patience, and their faith, they con- strained an unwilling world at first to listen, and at last to believe. Their mission was not a march of tri- umph, where astonished and obsequious mul- titudes thronged around them to share their marvellous gifts, and to witness their super- natural powers. In the Acts these legendary wonders may be seen, but the Epistles of St. Paul present a less miraculous though more truthful picture. His ministry appears as a continued martyr- A RAY OF LIGHT. IQl dom. He refers to sufferings and imprison- ments, wliicli no miracles had intervened to mitigate. 'No prison-gates fly open to release liim ; no jailer falls as a supplicant at liis feet ; no magistrates humbly beseech him to depart. For him ]N"ature did not suspend her course. Roman governors did not tremble at his "presence. The days of Ambrose and of Hildebrand had not yet arrived. In weariness and in painfulness Paul pur- sues his way, sustained only by the unfalter- ing faith which animated his whole existence : " The Lord," he says, " stood by me, and strengthened me." The book of the Acts cannot be received as an accurate history of the events which it records. When Paley argues that it appears to be " in the main " true, the question may be answered accordino; to the meaning* at- tached to these words. There is abundant evidence that the au- thor or compiler of the Acts had collected many traditions relating to St. Paul. These traditions were fluctuating and uncertain ; if 102 ^ P^^Y O^F LIGHT. we may judge from tlic three narratives of the Apostle's conversion — since these are all found to differ in some details. Learned critics have suggested that the object of this book was to effect a compro- mise between the two divergent doctrines, and to reconcile the followers of Paul with the Judaizing Christians. With such a view, the author would omit the dissension between these Apostles, and he would endeavor to assimilate their doctrines and their powers, representing one Apostle as the counterpart of the other. There are several objections to the adop- tion of this solution, which need not here be discussed. The reader, who has carefully considered the contradictions between the statements in the Acts and the language in the Epistles, is irresistibly impressed with a suspicion that, if we now possessed a similar authentic cri- terion, by which to test the narratives in the Gospels, our opinion of those books would be qualified, while our knowledge would be more complete. CHAPTEE XXIII. THE PAULINE THEOLOGY. " Ex diviuorum et liumanorum male sana admixtione non solum educitur pliilosopliia pha'ntastica, sed etiam religio liceretica." Locke observes in tlie preface to Ms para- phrase of the Pauline Epistles, "We may still see in this day how every man's philoso- phy regulates his interpretation of the word of God." In the Jewish mind religion and philoso- phy were indissolubly blended. The Hebrew Scriptures were supposed to contain a vast scheme of recondite philosophy, which could be unfolded by learned men under the assist- ance of Divine favor. This philosophy colors the apocryphal books of the Old Testament, and had apparently imbued the traditions of 104: T^E PAULINE THEOLOGY. tlie Jewish schools. On this subject the state- ments of Josephns must be received with cau- tion, inasmuch as he wished to give to Jewish beliefs the complexion of Greek philosophy. St. Paul had, as he states, profited in the religion of the Jews ; his frafne of mind was moulded in the schools of the Pharisees, and he was zealous of the traditions. A man can never entirely divest himself of the forms of thought and of feeling which belong to his age and country. Paul's Chris- tianity did not release him from his Jewish pre- possessions; and his philosophy is so inter- mixed with his religious doctrine, that it is almost impossible to accept his theology with- out also accepting his philosophy as divine. CHAPTEE XXIY. THE PAULINE PHILOSOPHY. The Eastern pliilosopliy wliicli liacl, during some centuries preceding tlie Christian era, insinuated itself into the Jewish mind, pre- tended to solve problems left in obscurity by the earlier Hebrew Scriptures. Among these the origin of evil was pro- pounded as the basis of a philosophical reli- gion. Matter, which included the whole ter- restrial and animal world, was from its nature evil, and was opposed to spirit, which was beneficient, pure, and celestial. These two antagonist principles were thought to explain the anomalies of the visible world, and to un- riddle the perplexities of human existence. St. Paul was not careful in his use of words, as will be shown more fully hereafter. 106 THE PAULINE rillLOSOPHY. and this indistinctness confuses his philoso- phy, but it seems that he had adopted the doc- trine of the Apocryphal Scripture as an un- deniable truth. He taught that the material world animate and inanimate was alike im- pure, and under the dominion of an evil prin- ciple. The whole creation, he said, groaneth and travaileth in pain ; it is subject to Satan, who is the god of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the enemy of man, and the adversary of Christ. In immediate connection with this scheme of religious philosophy, Paul had also adopted a theory concerning the nature of man. The English language has no equivalent words to express the subdivision of man's nature as represented in the Pauline Epistles. The Greek language might have furnished the means of expressing these qualities, but Paul does not carefully attend to the distinction which he indicates. The system is necessarily rendered more obscure by this want of pre- cision. Man's nature is said to consist of— THE PAULINE PHILOSOPHY. I07 The body or the flesh, acofia. The animating principle of earthly life, The intellect or nnclerstanding, vov^. The spirit or divine principle, irvevfia. According to this philosophy, the body and the animating principle of the body were altogether evil, sensual, and subject to the devil. On the other hand, the spirit is not invari- ably pure and holy ; because there are unclean and wicked spirits. The same word is used for the heavenly and for the devilish spirit. This system of philosophy constitutes the basis of the Pauline theology. On this is founded the displeasure of the Deity, the ne- cessity of redemption, and the mystery of the atonement. It becomes daily more difficult to admit that, while the basis is composed of human materials, the superstructure is altogether di- vine. *' ITe decipiamur per inanem philosopliiain." CHAPTEE XXY. EIYAL CEEEDS. This system of i^liilosopliy was Dot war- ranted by tlie religion of Moses. It was ob- viously incompatible with tlie doctrine of temporal rewards and punishments. A creed which assigned earthly happiness as the rec- ompense of piety, could not also teach that earthly felicities were altogether impure. The Deity could not be divided against Himself, or bestow upon the righteous those rewards which were the chief ingredients of sin. We may reasonably doubt whether Jesus taught his disciples that this Eastern philoso- phy was a divine truth. He did not appar- ently say of little children, the unbaptized infants, that they were inherently vicious, and unfit for heaven. Again, the beautiful prayer RIVAL CEEEDS. 109 wbicli is associated with liis name says, in simple words, "Lead us not into temptation;" thus leaving no place for the evil spirit, and depriving the tempter of his traditional em- ployment. St. Paul could not escape from the end- less inconsistencies arising from a theological philosophy, which controverted the Hebrew Scriptm-es. Thus, while at one time he de- scribes the devil as the god of this world, he elsewhere asserts that the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof. So he writes to the Ephesians, " God is above you all, and through you all, and in you all ; " while he tells the Eomans, "In the flesh dwelleth no good thing." Here the Apostle seems to have felt the contradiction, and therefore adds, "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit." This qualification creates a new confusion, since Paul elsewhere speaks of himself as abiding in the flesh, meaning thereby, living on the earth, without including the secondary sisrnification of the word flesh. The whole religious instruction, and even IIQ RIVAL CilEEDS. the moral precepts of St. Paul, were distorted by the incongruous combination of tlie Mosaic law with Eastern philosophy. He promises, for instance, that women who continue in faith and charity shall be saved in child-bearing; since, however, he rep- resents this world as a prison, from which it is better to depart, the promise appears to be an unsatisfactory recompense. Again, when the Apostle censures the con- duct of evil-doers at Corinth, and adds, " For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep," this language refers to the Jewish law, the beggarly elements, from which he could not liberate his mind. CHAPTER XXYL MODEKN" CONCLUSIONS. The pliilosopliy of St. Paul, resx^ecting tlie inlierent wickedness of the material world, and tlie associated belief in the impersona- tion of evil, have now passed away, together with the popular legends of diabolic posses- sion. The devil and his works have been re- nounced in a more peremptory manner than even the Catechism requires. The most orthodox divine would not now propose to put Satan into the Christian creed ; yet, a belief in the personal existence and continued agency of Satan is the necessary preliminary for theological doctrines. In modern literature, the personification of evil is a figurative mode of speech, equally 112 MODERN CONCLUSIONS. applicable to other metaphorical existences, as, for instance, to love, or wisdom, or death. Ancient nations gave to these and other personifications a vivid reality, which, to our minds, is almost incomprehensible. Examples of such beliefs, in classical authors, will occur to every scholar. Christian writers, indeed, often taunted the pagans with such supersti- tions : " Desine, si pudor est, Gentilis ineptia, tandem Ees incorporeas simulatis fingere membris." These writers did not perceive the beam which obscured their own eyesight, while they were pointing with scorn at the deified abstractions of heathen idolatry. It must be admitted that neither the Gospel legends nor the Pauline philosophy afford any assistance in solving the difficulty of reconciling the existence of evil with a beneficent and all-powerful Deity. There is, on this subject, a passage cited, it is said, from the works of Athanasius, which deserves attention : MODERN CONCLUSIONS. 113 "It is an heresy to attribute a real nature and essence to evil ; for tliose wlio hold this doctrine must either believe that God is the maker and cause of evil, or else they must suppose that evil hath a nature and entity of itself independent of God. Whereas it is equally untrue that any thing exists of which God is not the cause, and also that He, who is the essence of all goodness, should be the creator of evil." This opinion, again, although it is said to originate from a saint, might lead to a 'dan- gerous heresy : since the assertion that evil hath no real nature and essence might induce a belief that there is no such thing as evil ; a theory which undermines the foundation of all morality. This theory was maintained by Soame Jenyns, and ably criticised by Dr. Johnson, in an essay, which will repay the peru- sal. After wandering through this maze of legend, of philosophy, of history, and of criti- cism, relating to the source of evil, to the 114 MODERN COXCLUSIOXS. devil and his works — tlie conclusion is, that all these doctrines belong to the imaginations of men, and cannot be ascribed to the word of God. Yade, Satana. CHAPTER XXYII. ST. Paul's style of writing. Precision of speech is essential to accurate reasoning : it becomes far more important when a sentence has the authority of law, but its value is immeasurably enhanced when the expression claims to be received as the word of God. The doctrines announced by St. Paul are unfortunately obscured and confused by the indistinctness of his language. The Apostle employs the same word in a variety of senses, so that his meaning can only be conjectured from the context. Thus, the words life, death, body, flesh, spirit, heaven, law, faith, charity, and many others, have no fixed sis^nification attached 116 ST. PAUL'S STYLE OF WRITING. to tliem. The Apostle, nevertheless, Imrries along in his argument, without noticing that the word has acquired a new meaning, and is no longer an equivalent for the previous thought. There is scarcely a single passage in the Pauline Epistles, or a single doctrine in the Pauline theology, which is not darkened or embroiled by the ambiguity of the expres- sions. Let the reader reflect for a moment on the word '^ body : " what scenes of mental and physical torture does that word recall ! Modern society turns away with feelings of humiliation and disgust from the perusal of cruelties which Catholics and Protestants did not hesitate to inflict on one another, for a supposed misunderstanding of that equivocal word. The echo of the old controversy may in- deed still be heard in the same Gothic aisles where it resounded long ago, while brave old Latimer was lighting that candle which, with God's help, will never be put out. ST. PAUL'S STYLE OF WRITING. II7 St. Paul could not have foreseen tlie liu- man suffering which has resulted from his careless use of that deadly word ; and it is difficult to believe that any divine or merciful influence guided his pen. Tlie Apostle had a difficulty to contend with for which, if he were a mere human teacher, great allowance should be made. The Greek language, though unequalled in power and pliability of phrase, had not as yet been adapted to convey the mystic tenets of the Pauline theology. A new science re- quires a new vocabulary, and during this period of infancy the Christian creed could only stutter in the language of a heathen race. Many examples of this imperfection could be cited. The word charity may suffice. This Christian virtue is rendered in Greek by two different words, but neither of the two can fully express the comprehensive meaning- attached by Christians to the word charity. The notion of charity had not yet been nat- uralized in human language. 118 ST. PAUL'S STYLE OF WRITI^s'G. The carelessness with which St. Paul in- troduces citations from the Jewish Scriptures increases the perplexity of his writings. This inaccuracy is the more inexplicable, because he occasionally rests his argument on the let- ter of the text cited. The Pauline Epistles introduce passages of Scripture so heedlessly intermixed that the learned Lightfoot could only explain the Apostle's citations by saying : " It is no rare thing but the common usage of the Holy Ghost to vary from the original in the recital of passages well enough known be- fore." To modern readers, Lightfoot's explana- tion appears irreverent, and they would rather ascribe such inaccuracies to human infirmity than to divine usage. Every Christian sect is still embarrassed by the confusion arising from St. Paul's style. Our creeds and formularies are based, indeed, the whole scheme of Christian theology rests, on the belief that a holy effluence not only modulated the tone of the Apostle's mind, but guarded his pen from error, and tempered ST. PAUL'S STYLE OF WRITING. ng every word to be the exact dictation of in- spired truth. This doctrine can no longer be maintained by any educated Protestant, and it becomes daily more difficult to uphold a structure of which the foundations have been undermined. CHAPTER XXYIII. THE PAULINE ALLEGOEIES. " Qui talia legit, Quid didicit tandem, quid scit, nisi somnia, nugas?" It is not necessary to enter into the gen- eral subject of allegory as a vehicle for reli- gions thought. The several gradations from tj^pical actions to figurative expressions, and to metaphorical language, may be traced in many parts of Scripture. Inward emotions can only find utterance in metaphorical phrases, and the words employed to glorify the attributes of the Deity were necessarily typical. Many allegorical interpretations of the older creed are found in the Septuagint ver- sion. The Apocryphal books also furnish ex- amples of the mode in which the Divine THE PAULINE ALLEGORIES. 121 Word, like the manna of tlie wilderness, could thus content every man's delight, and temper itself to every man's liking. This system of interpretation had become a special study in the Jewish schools. The verbal sanctity of the holy volume was here- by preserved, while its texture was made to reflect a thousand lights, according to the in- genuity of the teacher or the requirements of the age. The extent to which some, at least, of the Jewish synagogues had departed from tlie literal meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures may be conjectured from the writings of Philo. This author retained the confidence and respect of his countrymen, although he treated their sacred history as a collection of typical narratives, valuable only in illustrat- ing allegorical views of religious truth. The synagogues, to whom Paul addressed his Epistles, must have been imbued with similar notions, otherwise Paul's fantastic transformations would have shocked their de- votional feelings. 122 THE PAULINE ALLEGORIES. Abraham, Paul writes, had two sons — the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewom- an ; he who was of a bondswoman was born of the flesh, but he of the freewoman was by promise : which things, Paul adds, are an alle- gory (or are allegorized), for these are the two covenants ; the one from Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage — which is Agar, for this Agar is Mount Sinai, in Arabia, and an- swereth to Jerusalem which now is. It seems needless to cite further from this allegory where a woman typifies a mountain, and the mountain typifies a town, and the town typifies a divine covenant. After all this con- fusion of types, the allegory fails, as commen- tators remark, in the very point which it was adduced to illustrate ; since, according to Scripture, the son of the bondswoman and his posterity were free from the law, whereas Isaac's descendants — the children of promise — ^became the slaves of the law. Philo, it has been observed, indulges in an allegory very similar to St. Paul's. He repre- sents Hagar, the bondmaid, as the type of THE PAULINE ALLEGORIES. 12S worldl}^ wisdom, whom the Patriarch aban- dons for Sarah, the emblem of heavenly knowledge. The fancifnl allusions of Philo may be re- jected as Jewish fables. Are Protestants ex- pected to receive Paul's allegories as tlie word of God? Again, in writing to convince the Church of Corinth that pastors are entitled to support from their congregations, Paul cites from the law, " Thou shalt not muzzle the ox," and then asks, " Doth God care for oxen ? " Here the Apostle discards the literal sense as unworthy of the Deity, and by parity of rea- soning (if reason can be applied to such writ- ings) he overthrows a large portion of the Mosaic law.'-^ The Scriptural prohibition against plough- ing with an ox and an ass together, was probably in the recollection of Paul when he * Cicero, in Ms book De natura Deoi-um, argues in a simi- lar manner that God could not have made the world except for man : Cujusnam causa tantarum rerum molitio facta sit : arbo- rum et herbarum? at id quidem absurdum est. An bestia- rum ? nihilo probabilius, deos mutarum et nihil intelligentium causa tantum laborasse. 124 THE PAULINE ALLEGORIES. wrote, "Be ye not uneqijallj yoked together with unbelievers." These typical interpretations of Scripture must suggest to every thoughtful reader the change which had come over the Jewish mind in regard to their holy volume. Could Paul have held the Scripture to be, according to the modern meaning, the Word of God, while he thus distorted its obvious sense ? These questions awaken consideration. Another and far more momentous question presents itself, when we perceive that Paul did not hesitate to apply these allegories to Christ himself Even in this early age of the Church, wild notions were broached respecting the earthly life of Jesus, his corporeal reality, and the resurrection. Heretics moved curious ques- tions, or, as Bacon says, made strange anato- mies of the nature and person of Christ. At such a time, therefore, careful precision of thought, and studied propriety of language, might have been expected from an Apostle. Paul must have been anxious to conjBrm the THE PAULINE ALLEGORIES. 125 new converts in tlieir beliefs, and to check the propagation of error. Nevertheless, his Epistle to the Corinthians tells them, " Our fathers did all eat the same s]3iritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ." All commentators admit that there was a rabbinical legend of the rock, which had been struck by Moses, following the Israel- ites, and thus affording them a perennial supply of water in their passage through the desert. To blend and confuse the holy name of Christ with a fable tended necessarily to de- stroy all certainty of his existence, unless some further explanation was annexed. The allusion was indeed j)erilous, when it is remembered that there was an ideal logos, a metaphysical abstraction, which Paul thus rashly identified with the Lord Jesus. This allegory becomes again more incom- prehensible when it is observed that the doc- 126 THE PAULINE ALLEGORIES. trine of the preexistence of Jesus was thus announced to the Corinthians, in connection with a fabled phantom of the desert. It appears as if the Apostle had been fas- cinated by the typical resemblance between an old Jewish legend and the vivid conception of Christ, ever present to his mind. The moving rock seemed to him equally true with the recent history of Jesus. The ideal and the real were not distinguishable; both were spectral forms vividly impressed on his imagi- nation. They were accepted as spiritual or internal truths, outweighing all the visible and material realities around him. A modern reader cannot comprehend a mental condition in wliich two notions so entirely different could be identified as one and the same. Eeligious thought assumes different forms in various -minds, and changes its shape as seen through the atmosphere of an enthusiastic imagination. Meanwhile, Protestants, searching for defi- nite doctrines and liistorical facts, cannot allow these legends of the Jewish schools, and THE TAULINE ALLEGORIES. 127 fictions of rabbinical tradition, to usurp tlie position and tlie authority of the oracles of God. " Insomnia vana valete." CHAPTEE XXIX. PEEDESTDTATION. St. Paul boasts of liis connection with the sect of the Pharisees. He could not have heard the traditions of the Divine censure of this sect, or he would have qualified this self- laudation and the pride of liis educational trainino-. The Pharisees, according to Josephus, be- lieved in fate or predestination ; but not so entirely as to preclude free-will in men, or to nullify the use of prayer for Divine interven- tion. This statement proves that the Pharisees did not know w^hat to believe on this inex- plicable subject. St. Paul, so far as we can judge from his Epistles, had not more knowledge in this PREDESTINATION. 129 matter than otlier Pharisees. He, however, reproduces their philosophy and gives to their inconsistent theories his apostolic sanction. Thus at one time he cites the metaphorical illustration of the potter and his clay, justifies a capricious selection, and says that he him- self was chosen from his birth for his ap- pointed task. At another time he proclaims, " glory, honor, and peace, to every man that worketh good, for there is no respect of per- sons with God." The traditions of Jewish history favored the belief in a capricious selection. The Jews were proud of being the chosen people, and from Abraham downward, selection, even in some cases before birth, had been the sup- posed system of Divine government. The spirit and principles of Christianity lead to an opposite conclusion. The language of Jesus seems also to have refuted the pre- tensions of the Jews, and depreciated their boasted descent from Abraham. The doctrine of election, however, flatters spiritual pride, and enables a certain class of 130 PREDESTINATION. Cliristians to look down on tlieir brethren with contemptuous commiseration ; on this accomit the doctrine is mnch cherished. The moral influence of belief in predes- tination would be pernicions, if speculative beliefs always governed human conduct ; but experience warrants us in saying that men who profess a belief in predestination are nei- ther better nor worse than their neighbors. CHAPTER XXX. THE SACEIFICE. " Keceptum ferme ubique ut humano sanguine Dii placarentur." — Grotius de relig. " It is blood wliicli maketli an atonement for the soul." "Without shedding of blood there is no remission." Thus Leviticus had pronounced, and the Epistle to the Hebrews echoed the sanguinary sentence. St. Paul sanctioned the same doctrine, connecting it with the crucifixion. Yet it would seem that a more beneficent doctrine had been proclaimed by a higher authority. Obedience had been preferred to sacrifice ; and Jesus was reported to have 132 THE SACRIFICE. said, " Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice." Are we to believe that these words were spoken at a time when the most appalling sacrifice was immediately required ? Is this the doctrine of the Cross ? How can it be said that the fl.esh profits nothing, when we are equally taught that the flesh profited every thing ? This mysterious subject awakens deej) re- flection. Man is the creature of the past, and he cannot release himself from the in- herited conditions of his nature. Every word in human language has its pedigree ; every thought in the human mind has its parentage. When man's religious feelings are excited, his imagination unconsciously reverts to an- tecedent impressions of superstitious terror. Forms of belief that had died away rise up again in shadowy similitude, and haunt his mind with visions of an angry God demand- ing, from the feeble, half-reasoning beings whom He has created, an atonement for their imperfections. THE SACRIFICE. I33 Is tliis doctrine a Divine mystery ? May it not be a relic of idolatry, raked out of tlie embers of an extingnished creed, and igno- rantly raised on high in the sanctuary of the Christian God ? According to the Pauline theology, man, by his descent from Adam, had incurred the penalty of eternal death ; but, by the sacrifice of Jesus, man was released from this penalty, on condition of his believing in Jesus. At the period when Paul proclaimed this doctrine, many disciples were still living who had accompanied Jesus in his wanderings, following him day by day to listen to his holy words, to imbibe, if possible, something of his divine thoughts, to watch the sublime devo- tion of his life, to weep over his -agonizing death. "Wliat must these disciples have felt when they beheld Paul, the Pharisee, re- joicing over that death, expressing no con- trition for the share which the Pharisees had in the crucifixion, and shedding no tear on the page which recorded the sufferings of Jesus ? 13J: THE SACRIFICE. • From his Epistles it appears that St. Paul was a man of warm feelings and of affection- ate disposition ; but liis whole nature was so absorbed in the heavenly Christ, that he had lost all recollection of the earthly Jesus. Paul seems to admit this when he writes : " Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth know we him no more." It is manifest from passages already cited that the real Jesus had in Paul's mind been identified with the ideal conception of Philo's school ; or perhaps Paul and Philo both de- rived their doctrines from antecedent writers, of whose philosophy some samples have been preserved in the Apocryphal books. As St. Paul speaks of the two Adams, so Philo writes : " The generation of man is twofold, one celestial the other terrestrial. The terrestrial man consists of particles of matter called earth ; the celestial man-is made in the likeness of God, and is free from all earthly and corruptible nature." Here the Apostle found the doctrine of the Jewish schools accomplished in the person THE SACRIFICE. I35 of Christ. The terrestrial man had perished on the cross in a merciful sacrifice ; while, by resurrection from the dead, Christ, the first celestial man, was now acknowledged as the Son of God. Thus Paul perceived that the instruction of his early years was reconciled with tlie creed of his maturer age. The real and the ideal beings were identified. An avenue now opened to the Apostle's sight, leading to im- mortality. The union of the Divine with the human nature had in Eastern religions been fre- quently typified as a marriage. The whole community of Christians constituted the bride with whom Christ would be now joined, and they would be united in immortality. This, the Apostle adds, is the great mystery. It is impossible here to separate ancient beliefs from the mysterious doctrines of a later theology, or to declare with confidence how far the religious teaching of St. Paul had been biassed by Eastern philosophies. He was the Jewish scribe bringing forth from his l^Q THE SACrJFICE. treasure things new and old, and regarded the old and the new as equally divine. All these things, it is said, should be re- ceived in faith ; and to faith, therefore, we must now turn. CHAPTER XXXI. FATTH. " Primus est Deorum cultus Deos credere."— Seneoa. Faith is the elementary principle of all religions. In tliis general sense faith has been defined a vivid impression of the supernatu- ral, or an unhesitating reliance founded on implicit belief in some Divine power. The definition of faith in the Epistle to the Hebrews, " the evidence of things not seen," is frequently cited as a Divine explanation of faith. This definition is not, however, of apostolic origin, since it is also found in Phi- lo's life of Moses, where it is mentioned as an old Hebrew saying. Such an interpretation of the word faith has therefore no special claim to our acceptance, and its vagueness 138 FAITH. would obviously allow a large margin for liuman credulity. Faith, although it is the eternal source of all religious feeling, has not any necessary connection with moral virtue. Fanatic assas- sins and sensual idolaters have displayed a faith unsurpassed by Christian saints. An equally vehement faith oftentimes inflamed the persecutor with zeal, and armed the mar- tjr with endurance. Saul the Hebrew zealot, breathing forth threatenings and slaughter, was impressed with a faith as strong as Paul the Apostle. He would have suffered for the law and the traditions all that he afterward suffered for the sake of Christ. It is perplexing to find that the Jews are censured in the Gospels for want of faith. Yf hatever may have been their defects of char- acter, their history, during the two centuries preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, exhib- its their fidelity and attachment to their an- cestral religion. They believed in the sanctity of their law, FAITH. 139 in the literal predictions of their prophets, in the future advent of a Messiah, and in the glorious destiny of their race. Their intense belief occasioned the calamitous revolts and fatal wars in which they were often engaged. Hence followed the ruin of their holy city, and the final extinction of their nationality. The Jewish nation perished a martyr to its inflexible faith. Yet these men are accused of want of faith ! The various explanations offered on this sub- ject are unsatisfactory. Martyrdom is usu- ally accepted as a test of faith, and the He- brew race offered up their lives for their religion. Moreover, the disbelief of the Jews in Jesus was indispensable to the scheme of the atonement. This observation suggests end- less difficulties, but they lead far away from the more immediate subject of inquiry. These forms of faith, heathen and Jewish, do not represent the Christian faith insisted upon in the Pauline Epistles. St. Paul's lan- guage is, as usual, deficient in precision, and 140 FAITH. the example which he adduces does not assist in elucidating his meaning. Sometimes he uses faith in the simple sense of belief. Sometimes faith means obe- dience to the Divine will. Sometimes the word signifies the Christian religion in the sense which he attached to Christianity. Again, faith is a Divine grace, given only to Christians ; while, in other passages, faith has a more mysterious sense, and must be interpreted to mean a spiritual union with Christ. Faith, in the Pauline theology, is the centre round which the whole system re- volves, and by which it is held together. The Protestant, therefore, endeavors to find some comprehensive signification of this mys- terious word, which will contain the various meanings alluded to in the Epistles of St. Paul. St. Paul cites, as an example of faith, the conduct of Abraham when a son was promised to him in his old age. Our version of Script- ure represents Abraham as irreverently laugh- FAITH. 141 ing, and openly expressing his distrust of Al- mighty power. The history is, however, altogether inco- herent, becanse at a later period Abraham marries another wife, Keturah, by whom, withont Divine intervention, he has six sons. In that age, Jewish writers, as may be seen in the works of the venerated Philo, paid little attention to actual history. They regarded the patriarchs as types or emblems of religions feelings, rather than as real his- torical fathers of the Hebrew race. The history of Abraham contains striking instances of faith, in the sense of implicit reliance on Divine power ; but the instance selected by St. Paul is not conducive to a clear apprehension of his meaning. The Pauline representations of faith seem to have perplexed other Apostles, and the moral consequences of his doctrine evidently alarmed St. James so seriously, that he en- deavored in his own Epistle to counteract its effect. If the Apostles themselves differed on the 142 FAITH. subject of faith, and found in St. Paul's writ- ings tilings liard to be understood, it is not surprising tliat modern authors should have likewise failed in their endeavors to explain this Christian virtue. . A passage on faith, from a recent work, entitled " Ecce Homo, ' will serve to show the inconsistencies into which able men may be betrayed when they try to accommodate religious doctrine to modern notions : " He who, when goodness is impressively put before him, exhibits an instinctive loyalty to it, starts forward to take its side, trusts himself to it : such a man has faith, and the root of the matter is in such a man. He may have habits of vice, but the loyal and faithful instinct in him will place him above many that practise virtue. He may be rude in thought and character, but he will uncon- sciously gravitate toward what is right. Other virtues can scarcely exist without a fine nat- ural organization and a happy training. But the most neglected and ungifted of men may make a beginning with faith. Other virtues FAITH. 143 want civilization, a certain amount of knowl- edge, a few books ; bnt in half-brutal coun- tenances faith will light up a glimmer of nobleness. The savage, who can do nothing else, can wonder and worship, and enthusi- astically obey." This description of faith has been much admired ; nevertheless, the author and his eulogist appear to be equally at fault. Two varieties of faith are here described : the first is moral goodness, which has, un- fortunately, in uneducated men, seldom been connected with faith. The second variety of faith, exemplified in the savage, who wonders and worships, contains indeed an ingredient of faith, but will probably lack the instinct of goodness. Such faith has incited men to the most cruel actions, while their enthusi- astic obedience renders them the pliant tools of any crafty impostor. Surely this is a picture of credulity dressed up by rhetoric in the garb of faith, and dis- guised as an angel of light. The Protestant student passes on from 144: FAITH. sucL. eloquent illusions with feelings of disap- pointment. The word faith, in the Pauline Epistles, comprises three separate significations, con- nected with three separate faculties in the complex nature of man : First, belief, which belongs to the under- standing or intellectual nature. Second, reliance or trust, which belongs to the moral nature. Third, union, or identification with Christ — this belongs to the spiritual nature. It is manifest that this last perfection of faith would absorb, and therefore supersede, the feebler and more incomplete forms of faith. Paul's faith was an intense conscious- ness, in which the whole sentient mind of the Apostle was impressed with the conviction of a union with Christ. It is equally evident that the contrast between faith and works could never have occurred, if this highest signification of faith had found entrance into the mind of St. James. FAITH. 145 How far earnest believers liave attained, or believed that they have attained, this trans- cendental faith, cannot be known. It is al- most impossible for men, whose habits of thouo-ht and of feelins: have been trained bv modern education, and tempered by inter- course with existing society, to comprehend the mental condition which prevailed in former centuries imder an entirely different state of civilization. The faith of a devout Christian, in the earliest age of Christianity, subjugated his whole nature, and was identi- fied with his personal existence. He lived in an ecstasy of hope, "awaiting the speedy ad- vent of Christ, by whom and with whom he would be caught up into the clouds of heaven. In James's Epistle, faith seems synony- mous with belief. Luther, in his enthusiastic admiration of St. Paul, called the Epistle of James an epistle of straw. "We, in this later age, wathoiit aspiring to the elevated doctrine of St. Paul, should be satisfied with a faith which could combine the conviction of the in- tellect with the obedience of the heart. liQ FAITH. "Witliout attempting furtlier to explain that spiritual faith whicli is a Divine grace, we must descend to the intellectual and moral faith, which commands only a precarious al- legiance in this distracted and inquisitive world. Instead of the absolute supremacy and unquestioned dominion which faith formerly exercised over the human mind, her jurisdic- tion is now limited ; she resembles a constitu- tional sovereign, and must be careful not to strain her prerogative. The progress of civilization has not been favorable to faith. All other Christian virtues — justice, benevo- lence, temj)erance, patience, self-denial — are strengthened by education, and the advance- ment of religion is here in harmony with the moral improvement of society. "W"hy, then, is one Christian virtue an exception ? "Why is faith weakened and impaired by the cul- ture under which other Christian virtues thrive? Is faith left as the heritage of the nneducated ? An ignorant generation reposed in a para- FAITH. 147 dise of illusions, while its more learned and thonglitful progeny is excruciated with doubt. In vain preachers now exhort to faith, and in vain they denounce infidelity ; some stronger law overrules mankind, and everywhere, as experience advances, faith recedes. The first element of faith is belief. Is belief, then, in itself a virtue ? Philosophers, historians, scientific teachers, all our modern instructors warn us against facility of belief, which they declare to be the chief obstruction to knowledge, the bane of science, and the source of innumerable calamities. Adam Smith, one of the oracles of modern society, declared : " The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be ; the natural disposition of man inclines him to believe, experience alone teaches incredulity, and seldom teaches it sufficiently." It may be confidently affirmed that, if be- lief is in itself a virtue, the whole course of modern education is a grave mistake. A system of instruction which teaches men to examine for themselves, to be cautious in ac- 14:8 FAITH. cepting the opinions of otlier persons, to dis- trust authority, and to sift evidence, neces- sarily counteracts that disposition to believe which, Adam Smith says, is natural to man- kind. There are many indications of the success in this direction at least, which modern edu- cation has attained. The Protestant often- times takes np his open Bible, he wishes to believe, he tries to believe, he thinks at all events it is safest to believe, he feels ashamed of disbelief, he even debases his moral truth- fulness by pretending to believe; all these efforts avail him nothing, and he is at last obliged in his own conscience silently to con- fess— that he has been born some centuries too late. "In all matters where faith is concerned," says Locke, " the first thing necessary is to -^x the boundary between faith and reason, for I find that all sects, where reason will help them, make use of it gladly, but when it fails, they cry out : ' This is matter of faith, and above reason.' " FAITH. 149 The frontier between faith find reason is still undefined ; but it is now generally ad- mitted that faith borders more closely on the feelings than on the reason. The chief reli- gious leaders of mankind have been men who readily believed whatever vividly impressed their imagination. Such men hold that they have an internal witness, and can therefore dispense with all other evidence. This con- viction can only be communicated to other sympathizing natures. In proportion to the success of modern education, the more regular and disciplined exercise of the human faculties w^ill tend to repress these . impulses, and to subject the feelings to the understanding. The innumerable influences of our existing civilization operating through the channels of science, of literature, and of social intercourse both at home and abroad, alter our precon- ceived notions, and Faith is gradually losing her empire over the mind ; w^hole provinces have been wrested from her dominion, and her authority is becoming daily less secure. 150 FAITH. There is, however, one unassailable for- tress to which she may retire — faith in God. In this unapproachable sanctuary she will reign supreme. This faith does not depend on the collation of manuscripts, or on the reconciliation of conflicting texts. The believer need not seek a foundation for his faith in a Vatican or Alexandrian Codex. He need not contend for the grammatical accuracy of a disputed pas- sage, or strain his faculties in vain attempts to solve a metaphysical problem. He may leave to theological disputants the questions on which for so many centuries they have exercised their ingenuity. Here, at last, the natural and supernatural will be merged in one harmonious universe, under one Su- preme intelligence. In affliction and in sickness the thought- ful man will find here his safest support. Even in that dread hour when the shadows of death are gathering around him, when the visible world fades from his sight, and the human faculties fail, wdien the reason is en- FAITH. 151 feebled, and the memory relaxes its grasp, Faith, the consoler, still remains, soothing the last moments, and pointing to a ray of light beyond the mystery of the grave. Is faith in God the faith which Jesns taught ? or is Christian faith more complex in its manifold requirements ? To this question various are the replies, but every man must at last seek the solution in his ovrn mind or his own heart. Theology cannot aid him — for, while faith would rely on Scripture, Scripture itself can only rely on faith. CHAPTEE XXXII. ST. Paul's place in histoky. The preceding observations on the Paul- ine Epistles suffice to prove that the Apostle's doctrines were for the most part of human origin. There are abundant materials for a more elaborate inquiry, but deeper research will only confirm this conclusion. St. Paul was the human instrument for effecting a great change, whereby Christianity was raised from a local sect of Judaism to be the religion of the civilized world. A careful scrutiny of his writings, in con- nection with the history of that age, compels the student to admit that this change was accomplished by a man of strong feelings, of limited knowledge, and of untiring zeal. Paul was impressed with an unhesitating con- ST. PAUL'S PLACE IN HISTORY. 153 viction tliat lie was spiritually united witli Jesus. To the recipient of sncli divine grace the internal consciousness may be a sufficient proof; but the reader looks in vain for any evidence to justify the Apostle's belief. Even in that trance or enraptured flight to which Paul alludes, he cannot throw off the prepossessions of the Jewish scribe, but repeats the Eabbinical tradition of the third heaven. The Pauline Epistles present to us a most interesting phase in the progress of religious thought, they assist to elucidate an important movement in the history of Christianity ; but, when we are solemnly asked to call these epistles the word of God, a feeling of religions reverence forces us to withhold our assent. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE GROWTH OF THEOLOGY. The history of the Church from St. Paul to St. Augustine comprises the growth and development of Christian theology. This period includes, moreover, the rudimentary forms of almost every subsequent religious opinion. Mankind have been at all times more attracted by the mysteries of religion than by its moral precepts. "Toutes les fins de la religion se trouvent mieux dans les objets qu'on ne comprend point, on s'en fait une idee plus sublime, et meme plus consolante, ils inspi- rent plus d'admiration, plus de respect, plus de crainte, plus de confiance." The justice of this observation is striking- ly exemplified in the annals of the Church. THE GROWTH OF THEOLOGY. 155 During the first centuries of Cliristianity, speculative dogmas, and verbal subtleties, constituted the chief matter of religious thought. Tlie Fathers of the Church seem to have emulated the old philosophers of Greece in their lov6 of disputation ; and no sooner had these controversialists folded up an incom- prehensible dogma in unintelligible words, than the ignorant multitudes of Alexandria, of Constantinople, and of Milan, adopted it as the holy symbol of Christianity. Intense feelings of fanaticism were engendered, and populous cities were excited to tumult and bloodshed by conflicts upon questions which no man living could understand. The translation of Greek expressions into the more rigid terms of the Latin tongue imparted a new shade of meaning, or perhaps of mystery, to the cherished tenets. The Eastern and the Western Empires were alike involved in these fierce controversies. Christian charity was forgotten, and devout men felt justified in killing one another, because they could not agree upon the nature of God. 156 THE GROWTH OF THEOLOGY. The Englisli translators of tlie Bible wisely admonisli us that " to determine of such things as the Spirit of God hath left questionable can be no less than presumption." To this serious charge the Fathers of the Church are justly liable. Ancient usage and a mechanical habit of inattentive repetition have blunted om- feelings, otherwise we should be unable to endure the ecclesiastical terms which describe the mysteries of the Godhead. "When we now look back to the controver- sies of those early times, we are surprised and shocked at the profane audacity of these churchmen. If any theologians ia the present century had constructed creeds subdividing the Deity into persons, and then deciding upon their relationship, equality, and consub- stantiality, the presumption and impro]3ri- ety of such vain conceits would have offended the whole Protestant world. Yet, these early Fathers were no better qualified than the clergy of the present day to discuss such mysteries. The lapse of ages has cast a halo of glory around the ancient names THE GROWTH OF THEOLOGY. I57 of men whom tlie Catliolic Cliiircli lias sanc- tified, and we forget how frequently onr or- thodox tenets were ratified and established by the intrigues of a council, or by the decision of an emperor. The Scripture had left many matters ques- tionable, but on these points theologians delighted to dogmatize. Rationalists, said Bacon, are like to spiders, they spin every thing out of their own bowels. In this sense Bacon imputed rationalism to the Greek phi- losophers, whose theories were constructed out of their own imaginations. The term is equally applicable to the Greek and Latin Fathers, who spun fanciful definitions of the Divine nature out of their own mystically entangled brains. Sabellius, Arius, Athanasius, the heretical and the orthodox teachers, were all alike rationalists. Our creeds, formularies, and ar- ticles of religion, have been irremediably taint- ed with the rationalism of the first Christian centuries. In the heat of controversy, religious men 158 THE GROWTH OF THEOLOGY. became enthusiastic partisans, and are more eager for victory than for truth. Sectarian animosities render men unscrupulous, and tliej persuade themselves that thej are con- tending for the glory of God, while they are only striving for their own preeminence. On this point the three witnesses do in- deed bear record, although not in behalf of the cause for which they were suborned. They stand there, eternal witnesses, to prove that neither the prescriptive sanctity of Holy Writ, nor the solemn words of the beloved disciple, nor even the awful mystery of the Godhead, could secure the text of Scripture against the interpolations of controversial zeal. The writings of the Fathers have lost their influence in the Protestant world. The ef- forts made within the memory of living men to awaken an interest in these ancient au- thors, produced a result which was not fore- seen. The analogy which was pointed out between the ecclesiastical and evangelical miracles, instead of establishing the ecclesias- THE GROWTH OF THEOLOGY. 159 tical, impaired the credit of the evangelical miracles. So also the style of reasoning adopted by the ecclesiastical writers induced men to examine in the same light the Epistles of St. Paul. CKAPTEE XXXIY. HEKESY. So long as the Church had unlimited power over the minds of men, any opinion which was deemed to conflict with its doc- trines was denounced as heresy. During more than a thousand years the charge of heresy was the most terrible accusation which any man could incur. It is painful to reflect upon the sufferings which were inflicted for heresy — not without the hearty approval of civilized society. Educated and merciful men believed that they were doing what was agreeable to God, when they delivered over a heretic to the fire, and thus gave him a foretaste of that penalty which, according to their belief,, awaited him for all eternity. The Eeformation brought no immediate HERESY. 161 relief to suffering humanity. The Eeformers affixed the charge of heresy to any opinion which differed from their own interpretation of Scripture. Under this definition of heresy, the fires of martyrdom were piled np afresh, and men who had denounced the assumption of infallibility by the Church of Eome, now pronounced judgments as if they were them- selves infallible. The severe sentences recorded in the Old Testament, and also the language of St. Paul, were held to sanction these cruel practices. This Apostle, though he had separated him- self from the religion of his fathers, and again from tlie Church at Jerusalem, nevertheless denounced as accursed, and delivered over to Satan, those persons who taught a doctrine different from his own. When Locke wrote that he considered toleration to be the characteristic mark of the true Church, he must have had on his mind some ideal Church. On this principle, he would have regarded Gamaliel as a better Christian than St. Paul. 1G2 HERESY. The seed of lieresj seems to be indigenous in the human mind, and whenever the reli- gious thoughts and feelings of men are deeply stirred, heresy, as if it was the natural prod- uct of the soil, springs up on every side. To heresy we are indebted for a large por- tion of our civil and religious liberty. Even the wild fanaticism and coarse plebeian pro- geny— " Of petulant capricious sects, The maggots of corrupted texts "— all contributed to the attainment of the liberty which modern society enjoys. Sovereigns and states found it necessary to connive at heresy, connivance led to tolera- tion, and toleration has been gradually devel- oped into full liberty of thought. Thus, heresy, which had during many centuries been execrated and persecuted as a sin against God, and a crime against man, came forth at last from the dungeon and the flames to be acknowledged and honored as the parent of intellectual freedom. It has been often observed that, amid the HERESY. 163 complex dispensations under wliicli society lias worked ont its progress to a higher state of civilization, heresy has performed an impor- tant part. We pray indeed for unity of faith, but the variety of our beliefs supplied the best security for our mental freedom, and perhaps also for our religious advancement. The modes of error are innumerable, but one error counteracts or neutralizes another, while doubt tempers the mind to humility. "Where infallibility is not claimed, here- sy cannot be reasonably imputed. Thus, in Protestant communities, under the combined influence of milder manners and of modern thought, the vrord heresy has become obso- lete ; it has been altogether banished from civilized society, and placed in the index of prohibited expressions. CHAPTEE XXXY. RECAPITULATION^. A EEADEK conversant with the biblical lit- erature and theological disquisitions of mod- ern times will perceive that the preceding chapters are for the most part the logical sequence of these publications. In a merely historical aspect these numer- ous works lead to the following general con- clusion : Christianity, from the time when it was intrusted to the human mind, imbibed the imperfections of humanity. Among the local Hebrew race, the first Christians appear as a Jewish sect, clinging to the Temple, and adhering tenaciously to the Mosaic law. St. Paul, although he released Christianity EECAPITULATIOX. 1^5 from the bondage of tlie law, bound it np and blended it with the traditions of the Jewish schools. In his mind Christianity became a compound of inconsistent doctrines, which perplexed subsequent theologians. The early Fathers of the Church, educated in the later literature of Greece, and perhaps tainted with Gnostic notions, constructed a scheme of theogony, which constituted the chief part of their Christian theology. Aid- ed by the secular authority, they enforced this scheme, as divine truth, upon a genera- tion which had been nurtured in idolatrous usages. The Church of Rome, less concerned for dogma than for power, applied Christianity to the purposes of empire, and gradually established an absolute and unprecedented dominion over the civilized world. When, after centuries of abject servitude, the Teutonic race revolted, the leaders of the Eeformation fixed their attention on the doc- trines which had been the main instruments for the subjugation of mankind. IQQ RECAPITULATIOX. The two doctrines, Purgatory and tlie Eeal Presence, were the chief supports of the arro- gant authority of the priesthood. The first was at once discarded ; the second could not, for many reasons, be so easily rejected/ Yiewed by itself, this doctrine would prob- ably have been allowed to repose with other dogmas in the Protestant conscience. It was not worth while, as an historian observes, to set all Europe in flames for the sake of the difference between transubstantiation and consubstantiation, or even for the equally unintelligible compromise sanctioned by the English Church. Human reason might have bowed down before this mystery, as it had already bowed before other Christian mysteries, and accept- ed this doo-ma in devout humilitv. O tJ " Quod non sentis, quod non vides, Animosa firmat fides." But behind the dogma was the priest, who claimed the high authority associated with such supernatural power. This doctrine RECAPITULATION. 107 became, therefore, tlie cardinal point of tlie controversy ; and, while the Scriptures were diligently searched for weapons with which to combat the Church of Rome, the aid of hu- man reason was also invoked in support of the Protestant cause. Human Reason was a powerful but a dan- gerous ally ; when once admitted as the con- federate of Protestantism, he arrogated to himself the chief command, and became tur- bulent and inquisitive. Luther lived to see the difficulties arising around, and prognos- ticated future perils. In vain he tried to restrict the presumptuous restlessness of Hu- man Reason : in vain he exclaimed, " Orando melius quam dispntando Deus qugeritur et invenitur." The movement could not be checked, innumerable opinions were propa- gated, and Protestants were soon divided into an endless variety of sects and schisms. Ev- ery sect seized the Bible, and declared that they alone understood it : " Hie liber est, in quo sua quaarit dogmata quisque, Invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua." 168 KECAPITULATION. While Protestant clmrclies and sects have been occupied in justifying their several denominational differences, the persistent examination of the Scriptures has opened a question of such magnitude that in compari- son with it the controversies of rival sects appear diminutive or worthless. If the Gospels and the Epistles are discol- ored by human error, whether that error be legendary tradition or Eastern philosophy, the whole character of religious thought and of religious discussion must be changed. The weapons of controversy break in our hands ; the basis of dogmatic theology crumbles to pieces under our feet. We have been wran- gling over the transient notions of men, while we thought that we were vindicating our sev- eral interpretations of divine truth. " Opinionum commenta delet dies ; " and Time is now rapidly performing his appointed task. CHAPTEK XXXVI. COLORLESS CHEISTIANIT Y. " Quicquid recipitur, recipiturad modum recipientis." The old prescriptive basis of the Protes- tant faith, namely, the recognition of the New Testament as the undoubted word of God, has been gradually weakened, and is now irrepar- ably impaired. This has been the inevitable result of the study of Scripture. The orthodox phrase is retained, but its signification is no longer the same ; conscientious men have been so deeply impressed with this difficulty, that they deemed it right to explain the phrase as signifying that the Scripture contained the Word of God, instead of being actually the Word of God. The only straightforward and defensible course consists in admitting that from the moment 170 COLORLESS CHRISTIANITY. when Christianity entered into the mind of man, it acquired the taint of humanity. Our Church formally acknowledges that Councils have erred, and that Churches have erred ; it must be also acknowledged that Evangelists have erred, and that Apostles have erred. The position of the Christian Scriptures is jiecessarily changed by this admission. Chris- tianity, however, made rapid and extensive conquests before it possessed any canonical Scriptures, and before many of its dogmas had been constructed. Protestants may confident- ly rely on its spiritual life, although in the modern world skepticism has become, as it were, an indispensable ingredient of religious faith. The Christian Scriptures picture in vivid colors the form which Christianity assumed at an early period in the minds of Evangelists and of Apostles ; these Scriptures repeat, more- over, the broken echo of the holiest truths, but they present also in almost every page an im- press of contemporary errors, and sometimes of mischievous superstitions. COLORLESS CHRISTIANITY. 171 Such notions, it will be said, lead to a vague, indefinite, colorless Cliristianitj, and leave tlie Protestant without a creed. All creeds are of human origin, and the endeavor to construct a precise creed on mat- ters which are beyond the scope of the hnman intellect has been the stumbling-block of Christians from the first century to the pres- ent day. In the earliest age devout men conscien- tiously differed as to the mystery which seemed to them to be the elementary principle of Christian belief; and Athanasius himself con- fessed that, the more he meditated upon it, the less he understood it. The disproportion between the human and the Divine nature did not in ancient times appear so immeasurable as it now appears to the educated Protestant. History, philosophy, and poetry, in that age, tended to promote a belief in the union of the Divine with the human nature, or at least in the approach of the human to the Divine mind. 172 COLORLESS CHRISTIANITY. If we turn to the modern world, we per- ceive an entirely different tone of thought and feeling ; the horizon is enlarged, but the view is less distinct. This is the inevitable conse- quence of increased knowledge ; and definite creeds embodied in artificial phrases will no longer be accepted as positive truth. Men harassed by these difficulties have re- course to various modes of allaying insidious doubts. Some take refuge in mysticism, some seek a remedy in philosophy, and some again in physical science. CHAPTER XXXYII. MODERN EDUCATION. Doubts wliicli have arisen from tlie exami- nation of Scripture are increased and appear to be justified by the modern course of study in history, science, and philosophy. The study of physical science elevates our notion of the Deity, and renders us conscious of an invisible intelligence and power far sur- passing the sublimest visions which the He- brew prophets ever beheld. This study, how- ever, qualifies the ancient notions of man's position in the universe. In past ages the earth was thought to be the centre of the celestial system, and man the principal being for whose benefit the heavenly bodies were illumined. When sci- ence had reduced the earth to a comparatively 174 MODERX EDUCATIOX. insignificant unit amid the countless spheres of creation, man was simultaneously lowered in his position, and knowledge for the second time brought about his fall. Our modern scientific teachers appear to perceive nothing but an indissoluble chain of cause and effect, or at least of unvarying sequence, operating with a regularity which requires no adjustment, and admits of no in- tervention. "Where nothing has to be further provided, Providence is an erroneous term, or must receive another meaning from its usual acceptation in the nomenclature of the unsci- entific world. An exclusive attention to physical science may perhaps disqualify the mind for the more enlarged contemplation which a nobler philos- ophy requires. On this subject there are some remarks by Y. Cousin deserving of attention : " Les rapports qui unissent la creation et le createur composent un probleme obscur et delicat, dont les deux solutions extremes sont egalement fausses et perilleuses ; ici un Dieu MODERN EDUCATION. 175 tellement passe dans le monde, qu'il a Tair d'y ctreabsorbe; laimDieu tellement separe du monde, que le monde a I'air de marcher sans lui ; des deux cotes, egal exces, ^gal danger, egale erreur." It becomes obvious that our scientific teachers have led us to speculate on questions which are unsusceptible of solution. A similar observation may justly be ap- plied to the doctrines of many modern phi- losophers. In the present imperfect state of human knowledge, the endeavor to construct a positive philosophy is obviously premature. A genuine philosophy of the mind may event- ually disclose a system as sublime and enno- bling as the discoveries revealed by science in the visible universe. For these results, however, we must wait, remembering that Truth is the daughter of Time, and not of Authority. The theories of scientific men, and the reveries of philoso- phers, are valuable as incitements to further investigation, but do not satisfy the require- ments of civilized society, which is earnestly 176 MODERN EDUCATIOX. desirous of moral, of intellectual, and of re- ligious advancement. These are tlie inestimable benefits wliich men expect from Christianity, and, since re- ligion may be judged by its fruits, that form of Christianity which develops the highest qualities of human nature, and furthers the continued improvement of society, may be safely accepted as the nearest approach to religious truth. CHAPTER XXXYIII. TWO OPrOSITE DEVELOPMENTS OF CHPJSTIANITY. The history of the Romish Church ex- hibits a certain progress, or succession of developments, which have been by some writers carefully traced back through many centuries. It may be doubted, hovv- ever, whether the faith of the Catholic community has increased in proportion to tlie additional dogmas im- posed on the Catholic conscience. The Prot- estant religion is developing itself in ' an opposite direction. The tendency of the Protestant mind is to release itself from dogmas ; and, although in all matters of re- ligion men move with justifiable timidity, yet the evidences of such movemeiit are un- deniable. 178 TWO OPPOSITE DEVELOPMENTS. Is tlie Established Chiircli then to remain petrified in the system accepted at the Eef- ormation ? "What ground is there for assum- ing that the Church attained the perfection of doctrinal truth three hundred years ago ? A certain pattern of doctrine was then ap- proved, signed, and sealed, officially regis- tered, and stamped with the royal arms. From this pattern no deviation is allowed. The statesmen of that day had, however, no special gift qualifying them to fix for all future time the religion of the English Church. The Protestant Church is not bound by a " non possumus." Change is the indispen- sable condition of all earthly life, and a re- liction which blends and identifies itself with the inmost thoughts and feelings of man cannot be exempt from human mutability. A restlessness is visible in the clergy as well as in the laity ; and if the clergy had not been restricted from guiding us, they might still have remained the enlightened leaders of educated societv. CHAPTEE XXXIX. A GLIMPSE OF BETTER DAYS. " Auspiciura melioris sevi." The foregoing pages contain an epitome of the causes wliich have produced the deep biblical skepticism of the present day, and are thought to justify its existence. Those per- sons who are eager to refute this skepticism have here an ample field for their exertions. The questions at issue are, however, of a nature which controversial warfare cannot de- cide. They must be left to the judgment of another generation. It is impossible to predict what will be the Protestantism of the future ; but there are many indications that none of the existing de- nominations will resist the mental wear and tear of the next fifty yeai^. 180 ^ GLIMPSE OF BETTER DAYS. A large portion of tlie people will, it may be hoped, be better educated. Their opinions will then apx)roximate to the views now prev- alent among the cultivated classes of societ}^ This progress will not be favorable to secta- rian distinctions. The universities are now open to all reli- gious persuasions, and will soon offer their emoluments to the ablest men in every class of life. The Churchman and the Non-con- formist will be trained alike in history, phi- losophy, and kindred studies. A new school of thought will gradually predominate, and the wall of partition be- tween Churchman and ISTon-conformist will be broken down. The community will be influenced by the current of thousrht flowino; from the universi- ties ; religious teachers of more enlarged views will then be required. We may hope also that, by the continued progress of learning and of liberty, Chris- tianity, as Butler long ago predicted, will be better understood. The ministers of religion A GLIMPSE OF BETTER DAYS. 181 will again become the teachers of the people, and the open Bible will irresistibly lead to the open church. Religious and secular instruction will then be in unison, the distinctions of Protestant sects will be obliterated and forgotten, and the Church would, without any violent con- vulsion, become the Church of the whole Prot- estant people. Such a course of enlightened policy would be far preferable to the continued mainte- nance of the existing denominations, which are becoming every day less and less suited to satisfy the moral and intellectual demands arising from expanded knowledge, and from the freer discussions of religious thought. These speculations, however, lead us far away from the world in which we live. For the present disputes must still divide and irritate the Protestant community. Vigor- ous but narrow-minded men usually exercise most influence over the least educated classes of society ; and public opinion can only be brouglit by slow degrees to entertain a view 182 A GLIMPSE OF BETTER DAYS. of Christianity unencumbered with the pre- scriptive phrases belonging to another state of civilization. The leaven is still fermenting in the human mind, and education must ac- celerate the process ; " Sumunt boni, sumunt mali, Sorte tamen insequali." THE END.