MASTER NEGATIVE NO. 93-81524- MICROFILMED 1993 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or other reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.'* If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. A UTHOR: CRANBROOK, JAMES TITLE: THE FOUNDERS OF CHRISTIANITY: ... PLACE: LONDON DATE: 1868 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT Master Negative # BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record Restrictions on Use: FILM SIZE:___3_5*j:>A:y\ IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA (TiA DATE FILMED- ^^^ FILMED BY: TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO: Z_^_V INITIALS r- C^ c Association for Information and Image Management 1100 Wayne Avenue. Suite 1100 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter lili 1 lili nil 2 IlllllllU 3456789 10 11 III ilii ilii 11 iiliiii ml III iiiiliiii iiiiliiiiliii liii iiiiliiii iiiiliii Tl nT" TnT ui ii|ii ii|ii iifi|i |ijii ii|i ii|ii |ii|ii|ii^ "IT 1 1 1 1 Tjl n\ 12 13 14 15 mm MM llllll Inches 1.0 I.I 1.25 Mm ■ 6^3 2.8 3.2 m i 4.0 BiUU 1.4 2.5 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.6 MflNUFflCTURED TO flllM STflNDflRDS BY fiPPLIED IMAGE, INC. THE FOUNDERS OF CHEISTMNITY: OR DISCOIJRSES -.1 i UPON THE OKIGm OF THE CHEISTIAN EELIGIOK BY THE EEY. JAMES CEANBKOOK, EDINBURGH. LONDON : N. TRUBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1868. lAll rights reMerved.] / : JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PBINTEB8. PEEFACE. "When I first resolved to publish the following lectures, I intended to crowd the pages with foot- notes containing quotations to justify every asser- tion I have made. I soon found, however, this would defeat the purpose I have in view. Por, it would more than double the size of the volume ; and that, together with the expense of setting up some of the type it would be necessary to employ, would so increase the price of the book, that it jp. would put it beyond the reach of many into whose i hands I hope it will fall. I, therefore, publish the lectures nearly verbatim as they were deliver- x^ ed, and merely add a note here and there by way ■^^^'^'M^f explanation. l^s^ In doing so, I know the extent to which I lay myself open to the assaults of those who occupy a position antagonistical to my own. They can contradict and deny at will, and even impugn every one of the facts upon which my reasonings are built, as pure fabrications. But I shall await the issue, and should any serious attack be made upon my position, wiU reply in another form at the proper time. And I have reconciled myself to this course the more easily, because it is the truly logical one for an opponent of Christianity to pursue. The onus 21693 1? PREFACE. probandi rests upon its advocates. They assert that it is a supernaturally revealed religion. It belongs to them to prove the assertion. This the men of this generation, within the British isles, so far as I know, have not even attempted to do. They quote from Paley, Lardner, and the great English divines of the last century ; they reproduce the assumptions of Tholuck, Neander, and other Ger- man evangelicals ; they offer suggestions here and suggestions there, intended to remove difficulties and contradictions in their sacred book and its evidence ; and they criticise acutely the mistakes the anti-Christian writers frequently make in their supererogatory work of accounting for each of the tales in the Christian mythology. But, direct, real, adequate proof of the authenticity of their alleged historical records, and of their supernatural claims, they never, so far as I know, venture to offer. Paley, Lardner, &c., have been answered over and over again. It is, therefore, quite suffi- cient for me, and for all who take my side of the question, to give the simple denial to their asser- tions, and then to stand by and wait until some more substantial evidence than that which exists is brought forward. There is, indeed, one kind of evidence, although not altogether novel, yet characteristic of the pre- sent generation of Christian apologists. It is that which consists of appeals to the moral and reli- gious sympathies awakened by the sacred book, and especially by the spiritual character given to Jesus Christ. What of argument there is in it beyond these appeals is based upon the fancies of the transcendental philosophy just now so fashion- ? ^ PREFACE. V able amongst divines, and which Coleridge did so much to recommend to their regard. All I need say here respecting this kind of evidence is, sym- pathy with the sentiments of a book is no evidence of its authenticity and genuineness; and con- clusions derived from philosophical assumptions are not to be identified with historical facts. The question is not, what effect do these books, or the characters contained in these books, produce upon my feelings ? but, who wrote the books ? Are they historically true? These questions — or I may say, this question — ^resolves itself into one of the higher criticism, and can only be decided by its canons. All those effusive compositions, there- fore, respecting the * divine beauty of Christ,* the * adaptability of the Christian ideas to the wants of the soul,' the ' love of God displayed in the sacrifice of the cross being the divine remedy for human selfishness;' all this, and the rest of it, may be swept away as totally irrelative to the points at issue between those who affirm and those who deny, that God caused such a series of miraculous facts as those set forth in the New Testament to take place in the first century of the Christian sera. !N"or am I at all prepared to admit that the Jesus of the Gospels is the sublime, exalted, spirit- ual character which these apologists affirm. Our own idealizations have invested him with a halo of spiritual glory, that by the intensity of its bright- ness conceals from us the real figure presented in the Gospels. "We see him, not as he is described, but as the ideally perfect man our own fancies have conceived. But, let any one sit down and VI PREFACE. Critically analyze the sayings and doings ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels — ^let him divest his mind of the superstitious fear of irreverence, and then ask himself whether all those sayings and doings are in harmony with the highest wisdom speaking for all ages and races of mankind, and with the conceptions of an absolutely perfect human nature, aud I am mistaken if he will not find a very great deal he will be forced to condemn. I, therefore, not only dispute the validity of the logical process by which this school of apolo- gists attempts to prove the divine origin of Chris- tianity ; but I demur to the assumed facts upon which its reasoning rests. It has yet to prove that Jesus Christ was what its theories suppose. I deny that it can prove it from the represent- ations given of him in the Gospels. In thus throwing the onus prohandi upon the apologists for Christianity, I know that I am act- ing in direct violation of the rule laid down by Archbishop Whateley, and some other authorities. In his ' Rhetoric ' (Part I. chap. iii. § 2) he says : * There was a presumption against the gospel in its first announcement. A Jewish peasant claimed to be the promised deliverer, in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. The burden of proof lay with Him * * * I^ow, the case is reversed. Christianity exists; and those who deny the divine origin attributed to it are bound to show some reasons for assigning to it a human origin : not indeed to prove that it did originate in this or that way, without supernatural aid ; but to point out some conceivable way in which it might have so arisen. It is, indeed, highly expe- f PREFACE. VU dient to bring forward evidences to establish the divine origin of Christianity ; but it ought to be more carefully kept in mind than is done by most writers, that all this is an argument " ex abun- danti," as the phrase is,— over and above what can fairly be called for, till some hypothesis should be framed to account for the origin of Christianity by human means. The burden of proof, noiv, lies plainly on him who rejects the gospel ; which, if it were not established by miracles, demands an explanation of the greater miracle,— its having been established in defiance of all opposition, by human contrivance.' That is, in other words, the great logician calls upon his adversaries to prove a negative— the folly of attempting which he himself has, in other places, clearly shown. The whole paragraph pro- ceeds upon the assumption (previously stated dis- tinctly) that existing institutions and beliefs are to be received with faith unless reasons can be shown for the contrary. But the assumption can- not for one moment be allowed. The credulity of people in the past ages ; the pretensions which were set up, and submitted to, without the pre- text of a reason ; the wholly baseless theories upon even the common matters of life that found a ready, universal response; have all been so thoroughly exposed that no one now is disposed to regard with the least respect any institution or belief merely because it has been established for ages. Whatever claims authority in this age must show that it has some substantial grounds for its claims. And this is especially true with regard to a system of beliefs like that of Chris- Tin PREFACE. tianitj. Por in its claims to the miraculous, it comes into direct collision with the spirit of the age, and does violence to some of our strongest tendencies and convictions. It is surely, there- fore, an absurdity to say that until we can account for the origin of Christianity by some other means, seeing it is established, we are bound to accept it as true, and its advocates are not bound to ad- duce any positive evidence in its support. I ven- ture to lay it down as a canon of both Logic and Rhetoric, in opposition to the authority of Arch- bishop Whateley, that, every one who makes a positive affirmation is bound to furnish the reasons for such an affirmation before he demand the be- lief of others. The case which the Archbishop has quoted as illustrative of the principle for which he contends seems to me to tell directly against him. He says, * The burden of proof, again, lay on the authors of the Eeformation : they were bound to show cause for every change they advocated ; and they admitted the fairness of this requisition, and accepted the challenge.' I respectfully assert they did nothing of the kind. The Archbishop does not distinguish between what they did as public preachers, having to enlist the convictions, or pas- sions, of the populace on their side, and what they did as controversialists. As preachers, they attack- ed the evils and abuses of the Eoman Catholic system existing around them, assigning those evils as the ground of their separation. As contro- versialists they examined the pretensions of the Church, and showed the insufficiency of the rea- soning by which its friends defended them. Nor PEEFACl. IX 1 did the Eoman Catholic Church deem it prudent to stand upon the ground of its prestige without making more rational eiforts to defend its cause. It put forth most elaborate arguments to prove Its divme authority ; which the entire controver- sial efforts of the Eeformers were spent in con- luting. The whole history of the times proves the Archbishop to be unquestionably wron^ in his statement of fact. I think, then, I may safely maintain my posi- tion notwithstanding the high authority of Arch- bishop Whateley to the contrary, and maintain that It IS sufficient for those who hold my opinions on Christianity to show the untrustworthiness and fallaciousness of the arguments brought for- ward by its advocates. It is not ours to prove that It IS not a supernatural religion, but theirs to prove that it is. Notwithstanding this, however, I have done what I was able to accomplish within the short space I could allow myself, to meet the Arch- bishop's demand. I have endeavoured to point out ' some conceivable way in which the religion mi^ht have arisen ' without supernatural influences. I hare done more— I have endeavoured to show the way in which it did arise. Whether my read- ers will think my exposition satisfactory I cannot tell ; but of this I feel quite sure, the facts I have stated will be owned by all who have a com- petent knowledge of the times. The only points lor dispute will be, the use I have made of and the inferences I have drawn from them. Of that use and of those inferences every cultivated reader can judge for himself. ■ - «■ X PREFACE. It would be unpardonable if I did not acknow- ledge here the debt I owe to Strauss, Baur, and the great school of the Tiibingen critics generally. Their influence, I presume, upon all who are de- voted to such studies is incalculable. Yet I must own, I have learned even more, in some respects, from orthodox and even English divines. Their unconscious admissions are far more instructive than the direct expositions of the consciously heterodox. Finally, I must add, it is with no pleasure, ex- cepting what comes from the consciousness of doing right, that I thus have placed myself in antagonism to the opinions of the majority of those around me. It has cost me the loss of many dear friends, and of much else for which men live. But I could not do otherwise. The convictions here expressed are the result of five and twenty years' assiduous study. I believe they are true ; and, therefore, are of God. To refrain from telling my fellow-men what I believe to be true in such matters I should deem a shameful sin. ( COSTESIS. vP LECTURE I. ON THE SOURCES OE INEORMATION LECTURE IL ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION, CON- TINUED PAGE 1 31 LECTURE IIL ON THE SUPERNATURAL— THE MIRACLES . . 60 / LECTURE IV. THE RELIGIOUS STATE OF THE JEWS LECTURE V. THE HISTORICAL JESUS LECTURE YL THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN MYTHO- LOGY 89 119 .. 147 I « xu CONTENTS. LECTUEE VII. THE MYTHOLOGICAL JESUS PAGE . . 174 LECTURE VIII. THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOL OF ALEXANDKIA 206 LECTURE IX. PAUL THE APOSTLE 234 LECTURE X. THE AUTHOR OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL . . 264 LECTURE XL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 294 'd .1 €'lir Mu uni CirrEinstnnas iliai (Drigmatrlli A -t__rt > 1 ; I INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. ' ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATIOX. In entering upon a course of inquiry like that which I propose in this and the following lectures, it seems incumbent upon me to be- speak your candid and patient attention. I do not, indeed, profess to have much to say which will be novel to those who have already made the subject their serious study ; but, unfor- tunately, there are but few who have done so, and the majority of persons are in complete ignorance concerning the origin and early history of the religion in which they devoutly believe. My aim is to present the results which modern critics have arrived at before THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTA^-CES such persons in a clear and simple light, so that they may be informed of the real, historical facts concerning the origin of their faith. In domg so, I shall have to say many things which will startle and, perhaps, horrify them. Eut, of course, the great concern with us all in such a matter is to know what is the. truth. It would be a sad thing to go on clinging to a fliith which has no basis of fact, and which, therefore, must have all the pernicious influence over one's mind of a superstition. And not less sad would it be to reject what is true merely for the sake of some novelty of specidation, or in following the intellectual fashion of the day. I exhort you, therefore, most earnestly, neither to accept what I say without seriously examin- ing into the evidence and reasoning for your- selves ; nor to reject what I say, because^ it is opposed to all that you may have been tauc^ht Remember the importance of the subject,"the influence your conclusions will exert over your whole life, and the blessedness to be found only m the knowledge of the truth. Let no con- THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 6 sideration upon earth hinder you from honestly searching out, and faithfuUy adhering to, the truth ; and, then, whatever the particular con- clusions to which you come upon this subject, the result cannot but be beneficial and en- nobling to your nature. For myself, I feel perfect confidence in laying before you the conclusions to which I have come. They are the results of my life's study and investigation. It is true, I might have felt abashed at finding myself contradicting the opinions of nearly all the wise and good for centuries past; but I do not stand alone. Many whom I regard as the foremost scholars of this age have arrived at the same conclusions. Even those who are fighting for the orthodox side of the question are obliged to make such concessions as seem to me logically to involve all my own convictions. And, then, I remem- ber that it is only of recent years that the sub- ject has been examined upon anything like scientific, critical principles, and that upon other points of historical inquiry, as well as THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES upon this, the majority has hardly yet come to embrace enlightened views. I, therefore, feel that I am not chargeable with presumption when I come forward and declare to you that the current notions respecting the founders of Christianity have no historical basis, and the faiths founded upon them are aU a delusion. I am only declaring what some of the greatest minds in Europe have believed; and what, I have not the least doubt, nearly aU the educated people of this country wiU believe before the century has closed. I must also still farther detain you from our proper subject whUst I say a word or two re- specting those who, upon this question, take the opposite side to my own. I refer especiaUy to the ministers of the various Churches. I re- gard the majority of them as cxceUent, pious men, zealously devoted to the cause they have espoused. I have no doubt that they devoutly believe in the truth of what they teach, and in the great danger there is to the soul in reject ing it. Some fe^ of them have studied' this THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. question about tlie early Hstoiy of Cliristianity and its literature, and have honestly concluded upon the side of orthodoxy ; but I do not think (certainly so far as my own observation extends) that the majority have troubled them- selves about it. I account for the erroneous conclusions of those who have studied it by the influence exerted over their minds through the prejudices created by pious feeling ; by the peculiar relations in which they are placed to the Churches, and the duties they have to perform ; but most of all, by that want of scientific culture of the judgment, which is the great defect, and the shame, of both school and college education. Eespecting, however, as I do, the men, I have no warfare with them. I merely seek to root up their false opinions, and to prevent the mischief they are doing amongst the people. And now, with these observations which I have felt it desirable to make preliminarily, let us address ourselves to the subject itself. I want to set before you the true history of the THE MEN AXD CIRCUMSTANCES early days of Christianity. I want to show you who the real founders of it were, and how it came to spread and become the religion of the Western world. Of course, in such an inquiry the name of Christ at once thrusts itself upon our attention, and we shall have to devote more than one evening to the critical study of his life and teaching in order to judge of the results. But previous to this, there are questions which we must decide if we would take a single step securely. We must ascertain the sources of information respecting him and the other found- ers of the religion ; we must determine how much or how Httle we wiU allow to the super- natural, or miraculous ; and it will be necessary to know what was the state of the Jewish world at the time this religion arose in its midst. To-night, therefore, I address myself to the first of these questions, viz. the sources of our information. *WeU,' the majority of people in this coimtry will at once remark, * there can be no great difficulty about this question; for we THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. have the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles, which give us a full and com- plete history of Christ and the rise and progress of the Christian religion.' But when I ask them how they know that these books contain an authentic history, they have no reply to give, excepting that it would be downright infidelity to doubt it, the destruction of all their hopes, and the overthrow of all they have been taught. A child, however, may see the invalidity of such reasons as these for the belief of histori- cal facts ; and yet, when we come presently to examine the proofs offered by the critics upon the same side, I doubt whether we shall find them one whit better. Be it observed, then, these books of the New Testament are the only sources of information tendered us by the advocates of Christianity themselves, for the first seventy or a hundred years of its existence. There is a passage in the writings of Josephus which makes mention of Christ. But the critics are nearly unanimous in rejecting it as spurious ; and even if genuine, 8 THE MEX AKD CIRCUMSTAXCES THAT ORIGIXATED CHRISTIANITY. 9 \ it would be of no avail to our purpose. It would merely express some hearsay picked up by the writer respecting the teacher of ]N[aza- reth, and used in a manner to subserve the design of his book, i. e. to exalt the Jewish nation in the estimation of the Romans. Pliny, also, has a short reference to the Christians and their usages in the early part of the second cen- turj^ but it is altogether irrelative to the subject before us ; so that, as I said, we are shut up to the testimony of the books of the New Testa- ment for the first seventy or hundred years. In repeating this I am not forgetting that there are extant certain writings ascribed to the apostolic Fathers, i. e. men who had been friends and disciples of apostles. And if we could be sure that these writings were by the authors to whom they are ascribed, as they do not, in my opinion, quote our Gospels, what they say respecting Christ and the apostles might be taken as additional and independent evidence. But of these writings there is only one the epistle of Clemens, that I coidd suppose, from its internal evidence, to be genuine, and concern- ing that I have only inferential evidence.* The rest are too full of references to opinions and usages of a later period for us to suppose for one moment that they belong to apostolic times. We shall have, however, to refer to these writ- ings again. We return, then, to the four Gospels as the only source of information concerning Jesus Christ, which can have any claim to belong to the century in which he lived and died, and we inquire how far this claim is valid. Were these Gospels written in the first century ? Were they written by those to whom they are ascrib- ed? May we depend upon their testimony? Now, in answering these questions, it will be helpful at once to separate the Gospel of John from the other three. It is entirely difierent in its whole character. The Christ depicted in it, differs from the Christ depicted in the other three, in the entire phase and order * I am not sure, even, tliat Clemens was ever Bishop of Kome. 10 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES l:|i of liis thouglits, in the spirit and genius of his theology, in his views of the Palestinian Jews and their religion, in the phraseology and gram- matical construction of the language he employs, and in the feelings or emotions of which he is habitually the subject. If the Gospel of John, therefore, give a tme representation of the first founder of the Christian religion, the synop- tical Gospels give a false representation. It is impossible that it and they should alike be true. No man could by any combination of laws of thought and feeling, or by any versatility of genius, be so entirely diverse and contradictory as the Jesus of John and the Jesus of the synop- tics are. Accordingly, the foremost scholars on the Christian side acknowledge this, and for the most part cling to the Gospel of John as furnishing the true accouut of the Christ— Schleiermacher, Xeander, Bunsen, and nearly all the leaders of the Broad Church party amongst the critics. A few, however, prefer the simpler and more natural Christ of the synoptics. IS^ne but the old-school,— unscien- THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. II tific critics, would, now-a-days, stand up for the whole four. We ^ill take, then, first of all, the case of the synoptics, or first three Gospels. AVe look into them, and what do we find ? No title ; no clue to the writers ; no assertion respecting the date of the writings ; nothing serving us as an indication of the place, or places, where they were written; but simply three distinct, though in some respects similar, nar- ratives of the life of Jesus, who afterwards was called the Christ. Two of them begin their account with his birth and boyhood, in which they seriously contradict each other; the third begins with his discipleship to John the Baptist. Now, seeing the books themselves are silent about their authors and the times when, and places where, they were written, how shall we ascertain these points so necessary to a rational judgment of their value and their trustworthi- ness ? Evidently, we must go out of the books and ask the testimony of history. And what 12 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES if i4 III says history respecting their authorship and the other circumstances connected with their origin? History is perfectly dumb. It speaks not one single word respecting them. It says neither good nor bad. They may have dropped from the skies, or been picked up as waifs of the sea, for all it knows or cares. Where, then, shaU we turn for the knowledge we are seeking? The Church has found In answer which suffices her. TYhat the books themselves and history refuse to tell, tradition will disclose— tradition, and tradition alone, furnishes us with an account of the authorship of these books. IN'ow, we all know what tradition is ; it is the most lying and untrustworthy beldam in existence. It is worse than rumour. Eumour is bold enough in its lying ; but still it is always held in some check by the possibility of contradiction. But tradition has no such fear ; the parties who could contradict are dead, and so it goes on with its repetitions at wHl. Tra- dition, too, is rumour grown old ; and old age i THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 13 is apt to mingle its fancies with facts ; so that, to the lying of rumour tradition adds on the falsehoods of fancy; so that no one would trust the reports of tradition unsustained by other and better evidence. And yet tradition alone is the source of our information respect- ing the origin of these anonymous books we call the three synoptical Gospels. But there are degrees in even the worth, or worthlessness, of tradition. If an honest, truth- ful man, your friend, tell you that his father told him that he saw such and such an event happen attended with such and such circum- stances, you will believe that it so happened, exceptmfj so far as aUoicance has to he made for your friend's imperfection of memorj^, the natural play of his fancy and feelings, colour- ing the circumstances when he first heard it from his father, and his incorrectness in stating in words what he remembers — also ex- cepting the allowance which has to be made for the possible imperfection of his father's memory when he narrated the tale to your 14 THE MEX AND CIRCUMSTAXCES friend — and still more for the possible inac- curacy of the father's observation at the time the event was happening. I^ow, notwithstand- ing these limitations to your belief, this is one of the simplest cases of tradition which could be ; and one which, if the event itself were not very marvelloiiSy would cost you least trouble. But now, suppose that instead of this simple case, the tradition were fifty, a hundred, or a hundred and fifty years old; and suppose it were about something very marvellous and out of the common way ; and suppose it were told you by a gossiping, weak-minded old man : its value would be very diflferent, and you would scarcely care to give the least heed to it ; so that, as I said, the value of tradition may greatly vary. I^ow, I shall not use a single epithet to denote the value of the tradition respecting the author- ship of the three anonymous Gospels we are speaking about ; but I simply tell you, that the very first account which .we have of them was given by an old man named Irenaeus, who THAT ORIGIXATED CHRISTIANITY. 15 became preacher and minister to a congregation of Christians in the town of Lyons, in the Eoman province of Gaul, about the year 170 — that is, about 140 years after the death of Christ. AYhilst 'there he wrote several books, and, amongst others, a work against heretics. In this work, the only one extant, we for the first time hear about the authorship of the four Gospels. Here are some of his words. 'For after that our Lord arose from the dead, and they (the apostles) were endowed from above with the power of the Holy Ghost coming down upon them, they received a perfect knowledge of all things. They then went forth to all the ends * of the earth, declaring to men the blessing of heavenly peace, having all of them and every one alike * the gospel of God. Matthew, then among the Jews, wrote a Gospel in their own. language, while Peter and Paul were j)reaching the gospel at Rome, and founding a Church there; and after their exit, Mark also, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, delivered to ♦ Not true. 16 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES US in writing the things that had been preached by Peter ; and Luke, the companion of Paul, put down in a book the Gospel preached by him (Paul). Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon his breast, like- wise published a Gospel whilst he dwelt at Ephesus, in Asia/ Now, this testimony is un- questionably clear and distinct. It shows that the minister of the Christians at Lyons, towards the end of the second century, believed that the three synoptical Gospels were respectively writ- ten by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, under the circumstances described. Quite at the close of this century, too, a little later than Irena)us, we find the same tradition appearing in the writings of Clemens, a preacher and pastor at Alexandria, and of Tertullian at Carthasre ; from which period downwards the testimony multiplies, and there can be no doubt the books were received under these names in the Church universally. But, then, how did Irenocus and those others who believed this tradition know that it is true ? THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 17 Had they investigated it thoroughly and with critical skill ? What reason have we to believe in their beliefs on this matter ? EecoUect, it is more than a himdred years since the apostles died ; it must be upwards of fifty years since any of their immediate disciples were heard in the Church ; all depends, therefore, upon the critical skill of the leaders of popidar Christian opinion as to the value of the tradition. Now, you can judge of the critical skill of Irena)us from this little circumstance — he not only gives the tradition respecting the authorship of the four Gospels, but he also gives us the divine reasons why there are four Gospels, and only four. And what are these, think you ? The gospel is the pillar of the Church, the Church is spread over the whole world, the world has four quarters; therefore it is meet that there should be four gospels ! Again, the gospel is the divine breath or wind of life, there are on earth four chief winds ; therefore there are also four gospels ! Once more, the creative Word is enthroned upon the cherubim, the cherubim lu 18 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 19 have four faces ; therefore the Word has given us four gospels. There is critical skiU ! that is the judgment upon which you have to depend for discriminating the value of this tradition ! Who could depend upon it ? JSTone possessing but the smallest measure of the inquiring, analyzing, testing spirit of the present day. So that as yet we have no evidence as to who wrote these three Gospels, or as to when they were written. Eut I shall be reminded that this tradition represents not only the opinion of Irenjeus, but also of his congregation, and, probably, of the greater part of the Christian world at the time, and so that it ought to have greater weight attached to it. That is not quite clear, how- ever ; but supposing it to be true that the tra- dition had become general, what then ? We are still perfectly in the dark as to the source whence it arose, and have no criterion by which we may judge of the weight to be attached to it. All sorts of wild opinions and reports arise, nobody knows how, or where, and spread with amazing rapidity over large circles of society. In every such case such opinions and reports need other evidence for their sup- port besides their mere existence, before any rational man will believe them. And what makes one more cautious in trust- ing this tradition is, that many other works containing an account of the life and teachings of Christ sprang up in the latter part of the first, and in the second, century, which were ascribed to apostle or to their companions and disciples, with apparently the same authority and in the spirit same with which these three synoptical Gospels were ascribed to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Many of these were com- posed with the laudable desire of preserving the memory of Christ's sayings and doings before time had completely obliterated them. The author of the third Gospel refers to such in his introduction when he says, * Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us, even as they li 20 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES M deHvered them unto us, which from the begin- ning were eye-witnesses, and ministers of the word ; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order.' Here, you see, the writer speaks of many who had already written narratives of Christ's life and teaching— gospels, as we now call them. And we know that they went on increasing in num- ber for some time. Some of these gospels at once assumed apostolic names for their authorship ; others of them appeared anonymously, and were subsequently assigned to special authors by tradition. If any of these numerous works were written by the apostles, time has either destroyed them or has left us no means of discriminating them from others. We can hardly suppose, however, that none of the im- mediate disciples should give themselves to so important a work. Accordingly, a tradition recorded by Papias, who Hved in the beginning of the second cen- tury, is preserved by Eusebius, the historian, to THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 21 the effect that Matthew, the apostle, did write a work giving an account of the speeches of Jesus. Eusebius says he copied it from the works of Papias, and I suppose we may venture in so simple a case to accept the passage as genuine. AYhat Papias says is, * Matthew noted down in the Hebrew language the speeches (of Christ), and every one interpreted them as well as he could.' This, then, must have been a book containing the parables, dis- courses, and remarkable sayings of Jesus. By every one interpreting them as well as he could, of course is meant every one translated it into Greek as well as he could. The book and the translations from it, however, appear to have been subsequently quite lost ; for the Gospel of Matthew in the Hebrew language, afterwards in use amongst that party of Christians which resisted the Pauline innovations and adhered to the Jewish law, did not answer the descrip- tion of this book of speeches at all, but much more nearly resembled our own Gospel of Mat- thew, containing an account of the life and 22 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES miracles as well as the speeches of Christ. Papias in the same passage (as quoted by Eusebius, recollect, for the works of Papias have perished) also refers to a work said to have been written by Mark, the interpreter of Peter, who, after the death of the apostle, wrote down what he could rceollect from his speeches or discourses concerning Christ. But the expressions Papias uses in describing this work leave it very un- certain whether our Gospel of Mark could possibly be the same ; and consequently leave us in doubt respecting the fate of the work to which he refers. Some critics pronounce with certainty that the work could not be the same as our Gospel, and consequently have no doubt that it has perished. Another work of the same kind must have been that which is frequently quoted by Justin Mart}T as Memorabilia of the Apostles. Justin was born in Flavia Neapolis, a city of Sa- maria, about the year 89. He was converted to Christianity A. D. 133, and flourished chiefly from A.D. 140 to a.d. 164, or 167, when he \ I THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 23 suffered martyrdom — according to tradition. Of his many works, there only remain his two Apologies for Christianity and his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. In these the quotations from the Memorabilia of the Apostles occur. The quotations in their general character agree with corresponding passages in our three Gospels ; but they also so widely and regularly differ upon special points, that they irresistibly prove, either that Justin had our three Gospels and. also some fourth Gospel not now extant, or that the whole of his quotations were taken from one book, called the Memorabilia. Strauss seems to hold the former opinion. I am much more inclined to the latter. This work may have been founded upon our Gospels, which, I have no doubt, were then already ex- isting ; and hence the agreement of Justin's quotations with them. But it also sought to correct, harmonize, and supplement them ; and hence the many points of disagreement in the quotations. But whichever be the con- clusion we come to, evidently Justin uses a 24 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES book from wliicli lie quotes as an autliority which does not now exist. The case, then, stands thus : towards the end of the first and during the second century many books were written which contained an account of the Hfe or of the speeches and dis- courses of Christ ; these books in some in- stances at once assumed the names of apostles, or of their well-known disciples, as their au- thors ; and in other instances the names were given to them by tradition ; that in some cases we know with certainty these names were forged ; and that in no case have we any evidence to prove that they are genuine. Now the tradition of Irenscus, that our three anonym- ous Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, comes under the same category as the rest, is wholly untrustworthy, and leaves us, therefore, still in the dark with respect to their authorship and date. They are three books belonging to a nimierous class appearing about the same time, with the same pretensions, about which tradition says similar things, and with THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 25 about the same amount of truth. We set aside, therefore, the tradition ; disbelieve in the pretensions set up for them, and judge of the value of the contents as best we can. But, now, strildng off for ourselves a path independent of tradition, are there any cir- cumstances by which we may form an opinion concerning the origin and composition of these Gospels, and so, of the maimer in which we should treat their contents ? I think that pass- age already quoted from Luke's introduction gives us the clue we seek. In that passage he tells us, first, that many had written accounts of Jesus, his sayings and doings; secondly, that their writings were based upon what the companions of Jesus had narrated ; thirdly, that he, the writer, had made inquiry into the same matters, and had a thorough knowledge of them ; and, therefore, fourthly, he wrote this Gospel. Now, in these statements you will observe^ first, there was no gospel then written by an apostle, so far as this author knew ; for he speaks only of gospels written by persons / 26 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES who derived their knowledge from what the eye- witnesses and teachers of Christianity had said. Secondly, he does not even say their informa- tion had been derived from the eye-witnesses directly or at first hand ; only that the writers had set forth in order an account of the things which were surely believed, even an account corresponding with that originally delivered by the eye-witnesses and ministers of the word. How he had ascertained that the account given in these numerous gospels corresponded with what the eye-witnesses had delivered he does not say. Indeed, by his undertaking another gospel, we may infer that he thought them de- fective, and that they did not correspond. Thirdly, he does not pretend to have received his own account from an eye-witness, but only to have inquired into all these things accurately from the beginning. How he had carried on his inquiries does not appear. He may have travelled into the neighbourhood of the various scenes of Christ's life and picked up all the traditions he could meet with; he may have THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 27 questioned every Christian who had come into contact with Jesus or an apostle ; or he may have contented himself with a comparison of all those many gospels already written, and have constructed a better narrative out of the whole. Fourthly, the work was evidently not written in the apostolic age. The eye-witnesses were of the past. That which they had de- livered was a thing completed, not in the course of completion. Time had lapsed for many narratives to spring up, and for these to be examined and compared. The introduction carries us at least into the generation after the apostles, if not beyond— that is, we are brought to at least the last twenty years of the first century. And then, too, we have clear insight into the way in which the Gospel is composed. An intelligent man inquires diligently into all the accounts given about Jesus Christ, he examines all reports, all traditions, all docu- ments, compares them, decides upon what he thinks to be true, and writes them down in his book. Tlie value of his booli depends upon the 28 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES principles hij which he has been guided, and the critical skill which he has exercised in carrying on his investigations. Of these things we, in ac- cepting the book, become the judges. Now, this being the case with Luke, we may venture to say the same was the case with the other two. And there is not wanting internal evidence to prove this. Thus, e.g. Matthew tells the same stories twice over j such as the feeding thousands of the people miraculously, the demand for a sign from heaven, and the reproach of driving out the devils by Beelze- bub. Now, you can only explain this repetition by supposing he had different documents before him in which these things appeared in a differ- ent order and with slight variations, and that he therefore mistook them for different trans- actions. In like manner Mark most unques- tionably had either the two Gospels of Matthew and Luke before him when he wrote, or the Gospel from which they have drawn their accounts. His language is their language, amended by a prosaic writer. His narratives THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 29 i are their narratives, corrected with a definite purpose. He is the conciliator of the rival parties in the Christian Church, the evangel- ist of both the Jewish and Gentile factions. Accordingly, he leaves out whatever he fancies will give to either offence. And that in itself shows a late date. Here for the present, however, we must rest^ "VYe have seen what the sources of information respecting the first founder of Christianity offered us by the Church, so far as the synoj^tieal Gospels are concerned, are worth. These Gospels are anonymous. They were not written until after the death of the companions of Christ ; , we may see hereafter how much later. They were derived from hearsay and from various non-apostolic documents. For their accuracy they are entirely dependent upon the critical skill, the judgment, of their unknown authors. Of this we must judge from our own stand- point. Coming before us as anonjTiious works, they can carry no authority in their narratives but what our own reason concedes. We judge 30 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES, ETC. of the probability of what they relate by the same principles that we judge of the probabiKty of all other events. They are not documents commanding our faith ; they are entirely subject to our criticism. 31 I' LECTURE II. ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION, CONTINUED. In last Sunday's discourse, you will recollect, I postponed the consideration of the authen- ticity of the Gospel of John until we had decided upon that of the synoptical Gospels ;. and I did so upon the ground that the Jesus of John is so altogther unlike that of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that if the one be a real repre- sentation of him who taught in Palestine and gave his name to the Christian religion, the other must be entirely false. Having ex- amined the claims to authenticity of the first three Gospels and come to the conclusion that there is no evidence that the books were written by the men to whom they are ascribed, but that, on the contrary, they bear traces of a 32 THE MEX AND CIRCUMSTAKCES later date, by at least one generation, we are now left free to enter upon the consideration of the authenticity of the Gospel of John. I have reminded you that it was because of the entire dissimilarity and incompatibility of the Christ of John and that of the other three Gospels that I separated the consideration of the books. I said, if the one be a genuine picture, the other must be false. Now, of course, this conclusion is based upon the psy- chological laVs of humanity. It supposes nature does not create monsters intellectually and morally, and then make them the leaders of a great reformation. It assumes the con- stancy of her laws. And that assumption ex- cludes the supernatural. The ready reply given to the obser^-ation that if Christ thought, felt, and spoke as John describes, he could not' without violating all the laws of thought, feol mg, and language, have spoken as the others describe, is that he was not merely man, and was therefore not subject to the laws of nature THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 33 But a little attention will show you that it is illogical to urge such an argument as that. We are inquiring into who and what Christ wasj and are seeking out the sources of inform- ation respecting him. To assume, therefore, his Divinity before the documents are authen- ticated, and by that to authenticate the docu- ments, whilst you can only prove his Divinity by the assumption of the authenticity of the documents, is as gross a piece of paralogism, of reasoning in a circle, as one could be guilty of. We want to know all we can about Jesus Christ. Here are certain books said to be written by his immediate disciples. In order to ascertain whether they were so written we are bound to subject them to the ordinary tests of criticism. And if they be so subjected, the laws of mind will compel us to affirm, that no one man could possess the characteristics given to the Christ of John and, at the same time, the characteristics given to the Christ of the s^Tioptics. The assimiption of the supernatural, 3 34 THE MEN AND aRCUMSTANCES in order to account for it, is altogether gra- tuitous, and, in the present stage of our in- quiries, unwarranted. Well, then, we regard the synoptics and the Gospel of John as entirely distinct and anta- gonistical works ; and having seen the anonjTn- ous character of the former, are prepared to give the more attention to the claims of the latter. And the first thing arresting our notice is that the Gospel of John seemingly, at the first glance, does not offer itself in the same anonymous character as the other Gospels do. They come before us without offering the slightest clue to their authors — altogether with- out name or date. It comes before us with the assertion that its author was John, the apostle. In the twenty-first chapter, having spoken of John, it adds in the twenty-fourth verse, * This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things : and we know that his testimony is true.' IS'ow, this piece of testimony added on to the Gospel by another hand would be conclusive, if we did THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 35 but know who wrote it, and that he had sufficient authority for what he said ; but, unfortunately, that is not the case. It may have been some one at the end of the second century, w^ho had only heard, or who guessed, that the book was written by John ; so that, as a fact, we have nothing more than an anonymous testimony to the authorshij) of an otherwise perfectly anonymous work. In this respect, therefore, the Gospel of John is in no better condition than the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke — they all alike come before us anonymously ; we have to search out their authors from other sources. And, as respects the outward testimony, the Gospel of John is in no condition superior to the others. IrenoDus is the first who mentions it, towards the close of the second century, in the passage quoted in the last lecture. Papias, who tells us that Matthew and Mark wrote a book of the discourses of Christ, never mentions it at all ; and that is the more noteworthy, as he is said to have been the friend of Polycarp, a 36 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES disciple of John, and could not have failed to have known of the work if such a one had existed in his day. Justin Martyr, too, who has many quotations from the Memorabilia of the Apostles which are very similar to corresponding pass- ages in the sjmoptics, has but very few pass- ages, from any source, which correspond with John. And this tells the more forcibly against the supposition of the Gfospers being then in existence and recognized as the apostle's, because Justin's theology was of the same school as that of the Gospel. You will recollect he had adopted the Jewish religion before that of Christianity, and belonged to the Alex- andrine school of Philo. He regards, there- fore, Christ as a divine emanation from the Absolute One, superior and antecedent to all other creatures, just as the Gospel does; calls him by the names 'Logos,' or Word, 'Wisdom,' * Only Begotten,' the SSon of God,' ' the Light,' the ' Truth/ &c., and ascribes to him similar relations to God, the world, the Church. Yet he does not altogether coincide THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 37 with the Gospel. He has learned all these conceptions and words from Philo, not from John. He uses them more closely in the sense of the former than of the latter. And he makes one confusion he never could have done for a moment if he had had the Gospel of John in his hands and had taken his faith from it — i.e. he makes the divine Logos, or Word, dwelling in Jesus, one and the same I being as the Holy Spirit, observing no distinc- tion between them; whereas it is the pecu- liarity of John's Gospel that it brings out pro- minently the doctrine of the separate existence of the Paraclete, and sharply defines its re- lations to the Logos. Either, then, Justin must have been ignorant of the existence of such a Gospel as that ascribed to John, or he must have regarded it as of no authority. The fact is, as we shall see more clearly in the subsequent part of these lectures, the Alex- andrine doctrines and phraseology had already begun to exercise a powerful influence upon the thought and language of the Pauline section of 38 THE MEN A^'D CIRCUMSTANCES the Christians, at the beginning of the second century. The terms * Logos/ or Word, * Wis- dom,' *the Only Begotten,' and such like, ap- plied to the Divine nature in Christ ; * regen- eration,' *new life,' * spiritual Kfe,' * grace,' 'dwelling in God,' and such like, applied to the spiritual life of man ; and other terms found in Philo, and which subsequently became common to all sections of the Alexandrine school, were already baptized, as it were, by Christian usage. Every disciple of the Pauline section became familiar with them, and their existence in the writings of different authors no more shows that they all copied them from one book than does the existence in various works of modern days of such terms as * Progress,' * Man's Mis- sion,' 'Woman's Mission,' 'Individualism,' &c., show that all who use them have read the same book. In every period of social life pe- culiar conceptions expressed in special words become almost universally diffused, and are found in every one's mouth and in every f THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 39 author^s works. That was the case in the second century amongst both Jews of Asia Minor and Christians with regard to the con- ceptions and phrases originated by the Alex- andrine school of Philo, and explains quite sufficiently the similarity of the phrases in Justin and in John, without the necessity of supposing the first copied from the second. It would not affect the conclusion if we conceded that Justin had the Gospel before him ; for we may safely conjecture that it came into exist- ence about, if not somewhat before, Justin's time. But, in such inquiries, one wishes to reconcile discordant facts ; and the way sug- gested seems to me the only way of reconciling the discordant facts that, whilst Justin has in all his works about thirty passages that are somewhat similar to corresponding passages in John, yet none of them are completely similar, and in all of them he uses words and phrases with a meaning varying from that in John. I conclude, then, that there is no evidence from 40 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES the works of Justin Martyr that lie had ever seen or heard of such a book as the so-called Gospel of John. But it is sometimes argued, that IrenoDus unquestionably recognizes it as the work of John, and that, as in his youth he had seen and heard Polycarp, a disciple of John, his testimony is of considerable weight. To this, however, I must altogether demur. He does not even say that he had ever heard anything « about the book from Polycarp. And if he had, it would have been to me far from conclusive ; for the writers of that period were continually asserting that they had heard from disciples of apostles this thing and the other, which are perfectly incredible, and, therefore, destroy every particle of confidence in such testimony. I will give you one instance taken from IrenaDus, which is also sustained by the testi- mony of Papias. In his work against heretics, IrenoDus says ; • The men of old who saw John, the disciple of the Lord, remember to have heard from him, how in those times the Lord THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 41 taught and said, Days will come when vines shall grow each with 10,000 shoots, and to every shoot 10,000 branches, and to every branch 10,000 tendrils, and to every tendril 10,000 bunches, and to every bunch 10,000 berries, and every berry shall yield when pressed 25 measures (i. e. about 6 puncheons) of wine. And if one of the saints shall grasp at such a bunch, another will cry, I am a better bunch, take me, and through me praise the Lord. In like manner shall every grain of wheat produce 10,000 ears, and every ear 10,000 grains, and every grain 10,000 pounds of pure white meal ; and the other fruits, seeds, and vegetables in like manner.' ']N'ow,' says Strauss, after quoting this passage, * sup- posing we had in favour of the claims of John to the authorship of the fourth Gospel testi- mony of Irenseus referring as definitely as this does to personal friends of the apostle, it would be called the most malignant scepticism to refuse credit to this testimony ; but never- theless to this evidence, decisive as it is, iu 42 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES favour of the speech of Jesus about the giant grapes of Paradise, no human being gives credit, not even Eusebius, but, on account of this and similar stories, calls Papias a man of ver}^ weak understanding.' But how comes it to pass that Eusebius rejects it, although told by those who say they heard it from John, whilst IrenaDus receives it ? Is it because Eusebius had more critical skill and a more cautious understanding than Irenaeus? Not in the least. But Irenaous received it because it agreed with his doctrinal notions about the coming kingdom of Christ upon earth ; Eusebius rejected it, because the Church in his days had given up those notions, and so the story no longer harmonized with its beliefs. For that was the great critical test of facts with those men, Did the alleged fact harmonize with and support their doctrinal beliefs? if so, it was received at once as true ; if not, it was rejected as false. And hence this very Euse- bius, who rejects this story of Christ's pro- phecy concerning the vines in the time of the ■ THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 43 millennium, and caUs Papias a man of very weak understanding, because he believed it and told it as coming from John, when he meets with anything in Papias that suits his notions, records it at once as of decisive authority. Thus upon the simple authority of this * weak-minded' Papias he asserts that Matthew and Mark each wrote an account of the speeches of Christ (as I mentioned in the last lecture); although there is no more evidence or reason for believing him in the one case than in the other, independently of dogmatic grounds ; so that, I think, you will see these men, with their quotations of this authority and the other, are not to be trusted. They are altogether destitute of critical skill. They accept of statements without questioning, if they agree with their beliefs ; they reject them, if they disagree. If we would judge rationally and soberly, we must seek some other guide. The external evidence breaks down entirely. Seeing, then, there is no external evidence ] 44 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES of any kind as to who wrote the Gospel of John, we must return once more to the book itself and ascertain if any information can be gathered from its contents. And the first thing which strikes us is the style. Although not pure, it is written in the best Greek of any book in the New Testament. And that seems strange, if the author were John, a poor, uneducated fisherman of Galilee. For, although Greek was then the commercial language of the Eoman world, and enabled one to travel into all parts, as French very much does now, and con- sequently was learned by all Jews residing in foreign towns, and probably by most educated Palestinian Jews, we can hardly suppose that it entered into the education of the poor in the remote and rude province of Galilee. And still less can we suppose that one brought up as John was would write better Greek than Paul, brought up in the most celebrated Jewish school of the day, and familiar with Greek compositions. But besides this, there is another fact which, THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 45 if accepted, renders it psychologically im- possible that John should have written the Gospel. The critics tell us that the Book of Hevelation is the best authenticated book in the Hew Testament, and there can be no question that its author was John. I am not so very confident as they are; but most cer- tainly the internal evidence is as complete as could be. Its whole structure, thought, illus- trations, and visions, its spirit, anticipations, denunciations, and language are Jewish. It is exactly such a work as one might suppose a Jewish peasant, with a strong intellect fed with the traditions of his coimtry, studied in the Books of Ezekiel and Daniel, and quickened into extraordinary vigour by the influence of Jesus Christ, exposed, withal, to fierce persecu- tions, would write. Its date, too, seems to be fixed by itself ; for in the seventeenth chapter, from the ninth to the eleventh verse, it speaks of five kings who had reigned, of the sixth then reigning, and of the return of the fifth to succeed the sixth. Now, the five kings are 46 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 47 HI evidently the five Roman emperors from Au- gustus to Nero ; the sixth is Galba ; and the return of the fifth refers to an impression that was very prevalent amongst the Eomans after the death of Nero, viz., that he was not truly dead (Eev. xiii. 3), but was concealed, and would, after a time, return to reign again. Consequently, as Galba only reigned from June, A. D. 68, to January, a. d. 69, it is evident the Book of Revelation must have been written within that time.* Now, in that year John would be of an advanced age ; the argument, therefore, is this : If you suppose John to be the author of the Gospel as well as of the Book of Revelation, you must admit as facts that a GaKlean peasant, who some years after the death of Christ was recognized as an unlearned and ignorant man (Acts iv. 13), speedily ac- quired the thoughts, habits of mind, and philo- sophical cultui-e belonging to another country, and wrote a Gospel in the best Greek language of the New Testament ; and then, after more * See Strauss, vol. i. p. 95. years had passed, wrote another book in which all the culture of the day is ignored, the con- ceptions are entirely Jewish, and the language is the worst Greek of the New Testament. That would be a psychological miracle as great as any physical miracle recorded in the Gospels. No one who knows anything of man's nature, and not blinded by prejudice, could for one moment believe it. Besides this, there is another consideration which renders it improbable that John was the author. Although the Gospel shows a con- siderable knowledge of Jewish usages, &c., such as might be learned from books, it is yet fall of mistakes respecting usages, names of places, and such like things as imply a personal acquaintance with the localities and events. Now, of course, a Galilean peasant might be ignorant of many things about his own country, as a Highland peasant is now ; but it would be incredible that John should be so ignorant in these matters as the writer of this Gospel is, especially if he possessed the genius to write 48 THE MEN AXD CIRCUMSTANCES the book. These errors point to one who, whilst learned and intelligent, lived at a dis- tance, and wrote only from what he had learned from books, or imagined. But all this is as nothing when compared with the difficulties which arise when we come to examine the character of the thought, spirit, and purpose of the book. Confessedly, it is written in the deepest spirit of the Alexan- drine philosophy. I shall have occasion, in a subsequent lecture, to fully explain the charac- ter of that philosophy, and therefore shall not enter upon that subject now. There were two great schools there in the first and second centuries— the Grecian and the Jewish. Philo was the most eminent philosopher of the latter school up to that time. The Gospel of John shows a great development of theological ideas beyond those of Philo ; so much so that some writers have contended it could not have been written before the last quarter of the second century. I do not think that, however. Philo taught in Alexandria up to, and his principal THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 49 works were written by, the middle of the first century. In times of intellectual life the de- velopment of ideas takes place rapidly. And that was a period of great intellectual life, especially amongst Christianized Jews. At all events, this Gospel of John unquestionably emanates from the school of Philo, and is greatly in advance of that school, in the clear- ness and definiteness of its ideas and the con- sistency of its speculations. One of its great characteristics is, that it sets before us a Christ after, not the Jewish, but the Alexandrine type ; one not born of the flesh by miraculous agency, but who is an emanation from Deity, and who merely assumes the outward garment of the flesh for a temporary purpose. "Now, if it rested here, it would not show any thought beyond the power of genius in a Gali- lean peasant to conceive when placed in cir- cumstances favourable to the necessary mental culture. But it does not rest here. In work- ing out this idea of an Alexandrine Christ, the writer has deemed it necessary to place him 50 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES and the Jews in direct antagonism. Mark ! I say tlie Jews, i. e. the body of the people. That is not done in the synoptical Gospels. There it is the priests, the rulers, the scribes and Pharisees who are his opponents. *The common people hear him gladly.' But here, in John, it is not the scribes, &c., merely who stand np against him, but the Jews — the whole race. His nature and theirs are put in direct anti- thesis. He is the Logos, they are ' of their father the devil.' He is the Light, they are 'blind and walk in darkness.' Their whole system of religious thought and usage is repudiated throughout, and religion is remored altoo-ether from the Jewish into another sphere. He has become incarnate purposely to destroy the Jewish religion. Now, all this would have been impossible to one like the John of the New Testament, and especially to one who, at an advanced age, was the writer of the Book of Eevelation. I think, therefore, the internal evidence derived from the book itself is en- THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 51 tirely against the supposition of John's author- ship. But is there any clue to its origin at all ? Not of a very definite character. This, how- ever, a critical study of the contents enables one to affirm pretty confidently : the writer was not a Palestinian Jew. If of Jewish descent at all, he must have belonged to one of those numerous families scattered over all parts of the civilized world, and whose con- nection with Judsea was of the slightest kind. Yet it is probable he belonged to one of the cities of Asia Minor or to Alexandria ; and in either case most likely studied in the latter place. His thorough acquaintance with the Alexandrine philosophy establishes both of these probabilities. And we cannot suppose the book was written before the second century. The characteristics of the doctrine, the thought, and the whole spirit of the book show this. As to the subject matter, the basis of biogra- phical facts was supplied from the current 52 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES traditions and the numerous Gospels already existing. The superstructure of dialogue, for the sake of which the basis was laid, was entirely constructed by the genius of the author. He merely wrought out his con- ceptions of what a spiritual redeemer of the world must have been. I do not suppose that he intended the world should mistake the dialogues for a literal report of what had ac- tually been said. For books were not unfre- quently then written in the same style, with the design of establishing certain opinions, without any intention of deception as to the historical truth. I cannot refrain from quot- ing another instance of this kind which occurred towards the end of the second cent- ury, and which shows how easily books in- tended simply for instruction in doctrine, but composed in the form of narrative, became, through the want of critical discernment, con- foimded with real history. I refer to the work called the Clementina. I shall quote the case from Dean Milman, as given in his History of THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 53 Latin Christianity, because he is an orthodox clergyman of the Church of England, and no one will suppose what he says is intended to subserve the conclusion for which I quote it. * There can be slight doubt that the author of that singular work commonly called the Cle- mentina was a Eoman, or rather a Greek domiciled in Eome. Its origin is almost proved by the choice of the hero in this ear- liest of religious romances. Clement, who sets forth as a heathen philosopher in search of truth, becomes the companion of St Peter in the East, the witness of his long and stubborn strife with his great adversary, Simon the magician ; and, if the letter prefixed to the work be a genuine part of it, becomes the suc- cessor of St Peter in the See of Rome. It bears in its front and throughout the character of a romance ; it can hardly be considered as mythic history. Its groundwork is that so common in the latest Greek and in the Latia comedy, and in the Greek novels ; adventures of persons cast away at sea, and sold into 54 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES slavery ; lost children by strange accident re- stored to their parents, husbands to their wives ; amusing scenes in what we may term the middle or mercantile life of the times. It might seem borrowed in its incidents from a play of Plautus or Terence, or from their originals * * * The religious interest is still more remarkable, and no doubt faithfully re- presents the views and tenets of a certain sect or class of Christians. It is the work of a Juda- izing Christian, according to a very peculiar form of Ebionitism. The scene is chiefly laid in Palestine and its neighbourhood ; its original language is Greek * * So far is it from ascrib- ing any primacy to St Peter, though St Peter is throughout the leading personage, that James, Bishop of Jerusalem, is the acknowledged head of Christendom, the arbiter of Christian doc- trine, the bishop of bishops, to whom Peter himself bows with submissive reverence * * Clement encounters the apostle in Palestine ; in Palestine or the East is carried on the whole strife with Simon Magus. Yet Peter is the THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 65 Apostle of the Gentiles, to Peter the heathens owe their Christianity. More than this, there is a* bitter hatred to St Paul, which betrays itself in brief, covert, sarcastic allusion, not to be mistaken in its object or aim. The whole purpose of the work is to assert a Petrine, a Judaizing, anti-Pauline Christianity * * Here, then, is the representative of what can scarcely be supposed an insignificant party in Rome (the various forms, reconstructions, and ver- sions in which the Clementina appear, whole or in fragments, attest their wide-spread popu- larity), icho does not scruple to coiqjie fiction with the most sacred names* In this last sentence you have the drift of this quotation, 80 far as it concerns us. As Dean Milman says, this work of the Clementina was widely circu- lated ; it was held in high esteem by a large section of the Christians in Rome ; its narratives have been taken up into the traditions of the Catholic Church and accepted as true; and yet the work icas a pure romance. And this makes it evident to us that writers had not in 56 THE MEX AND CIRCUMSTANCES w those days the same scruple that we should have in composing fictions, narratives, or dis- courses for persons of the most sacred charac- ter ; and it shows how such compositions came to be mistaken by the public for real histories. It is by such facts as these, then, that I am able to find its true position amongst early Christian literature, for the Gospel of John. There is no external evidence to guide us to its authorship, to its date, or to its claims upon our belief. The book itself shows that it was written for the purpose of expound- ing and giving currency to certain theological dogmas. Its discourses are the creations of the author's genius. As a representation of one phase of Christian thought at the begin- ning or towards the middle of the second century, and as the instnmient which has had most powerful influence in moulding Christian thought in subsequent ages, its value is beyond all price. But its historical authority for what was actually done and said bv Jesus THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 57 Christ is lower than that of any other book in the New Testament. I have thus endeavoured to present you with the conclusions to which, with some slight modifications of my own, numerous scholars in Europe have come respecting these books of- fered by the orthodox Churches as the only genuine and authentic sources of information re- specting the founders and origin of the Christian religion. You have seen that these conclusions are — that the books are anonjTuous ; their date uncertain, but certainly later than that ascribed to them by the Churches ; that their authority is wholly dependant upon a late tra- dition ; and that that tradition is perfectly worthless. Whatever use we make of them, therefore, it will certainly not be that of his- torical documents. But although we reject them as authority, we are obliged to retain them for what they are worth, as containing the notions and remem- brances of a later generation about Christ. 58 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 69 The tales and reports which were circulated about him, through one or two generations after him, have got stereotyped here. False as tradition is, sometimes it bears in its bosom fragments of truth. By diKgent study, it is now and then possible to pick out these fragments from its falsehoods. And we are the more stimulated to this study by the fact that the synoptics are the only books from which we stand any chance of gaining any of the inform- ation we seek. There were, indeed, as Luke and other writers of the century tell us, other gospels ha\4ng similar pretensions, and in greater or less circulation amongst the Christians of the time ; but nearly all of them have perished, and with the few which remain, even if genuine, we need give ourselves no trouble. Nobody pretends that they are authentic, and as an embodiment of myths and traditions they are mostly more extravagant than the orthodox Gospels. When I come to speak of the myth- ical Christ I may refer to them again. But in the mean while they will pass from our notice. The labour, then, which lies before us is immense— to pick out of a mass of confused tradition of some 70 or more years' growth sufficiently probable facts to form an image of him who originated that wonderful movement which ultimately embodied itself in the system of Christianity. But the work will repay us if we can at all succeed. The image has been for ages buried beneath superstitions of the grossest kind. Lessons of profound instruction will be found, if we can resuscitate it. But before we make such an attempt it will be necessary to get clear views with regard to the influence of the supernatural, as the docu- ments we have to use abound with miracles. This, therefore, will constitute the subject of the next lecture. 60 l!> LECTUEE III. ON THE SUPEKNATUKAL— THE MIRACLES. In calling your attention this evening to the subject of the supernatural in general, in order that we may the better investigate the evidence for the miracles of the Christian dispensation. I shall have to tax your patience, candour, and powers of reflection to the utmost. But the importance of the issue will, I am sure, secure aU of these quaUties that you can command. But I feel that whilst the subject is in some respects more difficult than that which occupied the last two Sunday evenings, it is in other respects more easy. That required a certain amount of knowledge of literary histoiy and criticism in order fully to understand it. It required researches into old books in order to ON THE SUPERNATURAL. 61 ascertain the facts; and for the majority of facts upon which the conclusions rested you had to depend upon my, Strauss' s, or Baur's statements. This subject requires, indeed, a most impartial and patient exercise of the understanding ; but the facts upon which your conclusions must rest lie open to all, every day and every moment of your lives. You have only to be attentive enough, and you may determine the question as well as the pro- foundest philosopher. The question, then, which I propose to discuss is this. Have we any ground to believe that the established order of nature ever is, or ever has been, interfered with? and if yea, may we credit the miracles of the Christian dispensation ? Now, in order to answer these questions, it will be necessary in the first place to inquire into the origin and authority of our belief in the established order of nature. That such a belief very generally exists is quite evident — or rather, I should say, that it exists in a 62 THE MEX AND CIRCUMSTANCES general form. All the actions of our common, every-day life rest upon it. We make con- tracts for years to come, and risk our lives almost daily upon the faith. That the sun, which has ever continued daily to rise and set ; the food, which has generally been found to be wholesome; the drug, which has been found to be poisonous; the materials which have been found to possess certain mechanical properties, and to serve for building, embank- ing, and road-making, engineering, or other purposes ; that the seed, which has been found to produce certain plants and fruits; that animals, which have been found to possess cer- tain characteristics, — that all these and such like things will in the future continue to possess the same qualities, produce the same results, or, in other words, follow the same order of nature, we are so assured of, that we stake our money and our lives freely upon tlie assurance. But how did we get our assur- ance? Kow, there are some who tell us that it is THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 63 innate, that it is one of the necessary laws of the mind, and that we cannot believe other- wise than that nature will prove constant to her laws^ from the very constitution of our being. I cannot, however, avail myself of this very easy and very seemingly satisfactory explanation, and that, simply, because it does not agree with facts. For, in the first place, I find barbarous people have not this con- fidence in the order of nature, excepting in a very limited degree ; and, secondly, it is as yet by no means universal even amongst the most civilized nations. In this country, e. g. there is a very great number of people who believe that in matters concerning the weather, the crops, animal life, and human thought, feeling, and will, nature is not constant to her order and laws, but that these are suspended, counteracted, and otherwise directed by a power, or will, outside of nature. And these facts show that the belief in the constancy of the order of nature which some people have is not the gift of an instinct ; because instincts 64 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES are, first, universal to the race, and, secondly, necessary, i. e. they act in spite of one, which this alleged instinct does not. But, now, if it be not an instinct^ it must come to us through experience, i. e. it must have grown up within us through our acquired knowledge of nature. And this you will find conforms with the facts. For if it come to us through experience, it cannot come all at once and as a whole ; it must come piece-meal, as individual facts impress themselves upon our attention. Accordingly, as I just reminded you, barbarians have but a very limited belief in the constancy of nature. With them it merely embraces the few facts of their daily life— the rising of the sun, moon, and stars, the springing and fall of the leaf, the effects of food, of exercise, of a few medicinal and poisonous juices of plants, &c. The clouds, the storms, the wind, pestilence, and all such things, come and go by the will of the great spirit, or the genii, demons, or ghouls they worship. But as observation, and, conse- THAT OKIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 65 quently, knowledge of facts extend, larger fields are brought within the sphere of the belief, until in time it is made to comprehend all the physical facts which do not include the phenomena of life. To include these is the very last step which observation and know- ledge force upon us, because they are the most complicated of all phenomena, and, therefore, their relations of sequence are the most diffi- cult to discern. The experience of the individual is similar to that of the race. At first, the general con- stancy and order of nature are notions utterly beyond us. But we very early begin to acquire a knowledge of the regularity of certain indi- vidual facts — at least, in civilized life we do. Dr Chalmers's illustration of the child, less than a year old, knocking a table repeatedly with a spoon, is much to the purpose. I have not the conviction the good Doctor had, that after the first blow is struck the child repeats it with the purpose of trying the effect again ; I rather think the successive blows come from the I 66 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES spontaneous action of the cliild's superabund- ant nervous life, stimulated, it may be, by the pleasure of the sensations caused by the blow ; but, no doubt, in every stroke it is learning the necessary connection between certain facts, and is acquiring and strengthening a belief in the order and constancy of those particular facts of nature. And after a few years have passed, and observation and judgment have somewhat ripened, the knowledge of facts observed to be in constant succession enlarges very rapidly ; until, at last, in the case of men of science, everything which comes under in- vestigation is found to possess the same pro- perty, and the belief in her never-deviating order is extended to all the phenomena of na- ture. So that this belief in the universal order of nature is a matter purely of culture. In our childhood we have no such knowledge. It is formed by the observation of facts, is widened, or embraces more phenomena, and more classes of phenomena, as our observation widens and embraces more, until we have come THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 67 to that point where we have found it to em- brace everything we have examined, and make the leap also to include everything we have not examined. But now that we see that this belief in the constancy of nature is made up of a knowledge of a constancy in the order of individual or separate phenomena, we are the better able to discern of what it really consists. A great deal of mysticism has been thrown over it by philosophers ; and there will be no end to the mysticism thrown over it still, so long as it is studied through the writings of Plato and Aristotle, schoolmen, and metaphysicians. But when we lay aside all such confused and con- fusing guides, and ask ourselves plainly what it is we see in the facts, the answer comes so directly and plainly that any one, knowing no- thing of the jargon of (so-called) philosophy, may understand. Look, then, upon any class of phenomena in the world, and what do you see ? You see certain phenomena, always followed, under the 6S THE MEN AXD CIRCUMSTANCES same circumstances or conditions, by certain other phenomena without the least variation. You see the same facts, in the same circum- stances or conditions, always followed by the same certain-other-facts. This constancy of following — of sequence — is called a law; and when the constancy of following embraces a great number of phenomena possessing very different characteristics, it is called a general law. But, all we know is, and all we mean is, when we speak of the constant order of nature^ that all these facts or phenomena we have examined are always found following the same order of succession. That is all we see and all we affirm. But it is said, that in this constancy of suc- cession between the same phenomena under the same conditions we also discern a cause, or force. But I entreat you to look and see if we do. You put an alkali to an acid, and what do you see ? a cause ? a force ? 'No ; you simply see the two things changing their THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 69 character and assuming the properties of a neutral salt. And so of everything else in the world, you see change taking place in a con- stant order when phenomena are brought under their proper conditions, and never any- thing else. But, it is said, we get the notion of cause or force from the action of our own wills, and properly transfer it to the outward world. Ask yourselves, however, what it is you ex- perience when you will to do anything — say, remove a heavy weight out of your way. First of all, there is the desire to do it, which ripening into a purpose, i. e. a very strong de- sire, is followed by a certain motion of your arms, which anatomists show to be produced by the contraction of the muscles. The hands being then applied to the heavy weight, the muscles begin to straighten, so as to push the weight out of the way. The weight, however, in virtue of the law of inertia, does not move ; the muscles cannot straighten ; and that is fol- 70 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES lowed by a feeling in the arm, which is called the feeling of resistance. Here is the whole phenomena of wiU ! It is that muscular sens- ation of resistance which gives rise to the idea of force, and nothing more ; and I challenge the whole world of metaphysicians to show any ground of fact for transferring that feeling to the external world. I contend, then, that in neither the external world, nor the internal, can we find any other idea of cause in the order of nature than that of constancy of suc- cession. The same antecedents are always followed, under the same conditions, by the same consequents. But here we are met with what some ac- count a much more formidable objection, and which has lately been urged with great force by Mr Mozley in the Bampton lecture for 1865. It may be expressed thus, 'What right have you to infer that because certain phenomena have always followed each other, they will continue for all time to come to follow each THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. n other ? Your experience only tells you of the past up to the present moment, what authority have you for believing the future will continue in the same order ? ' Now, I believe that the answer generally given is that a law or tend- ency of our minds compels us so to believe in the continuance of the order, and that the be- lief is necessary to our very existence. But that is not my answer. I am shy of multi- plying original, necessary laws of mind, i. e. necessary successions of thought or feeling not originated by experience. My answer is this, we only knoic the phenomena of nature as fol- lowing a certain, definite order. It is one of their properties which never fails me. It is part of their existence as their existence is hnoim to me. I have no authoritijy therefore, to think of them otherwise. To believe they wiU, or can, follow another order would be pure super- stition ; it would be exalting a fancy to the level of a known fact. I must deny my own knowledge of them to cherish the belief. For 72 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES a metaphysician to say to us, * But supi^ose the phenomena to follow a different order/ would be the same thing as for us to say to him, Take away from matter the qualities of exten- sion, length, breadth, and solidity, and what have you left ? Toothing. And, as essentially a part of our idea of phenomena is the order of succession I have found in them, I know them only as possessing this order. But it will be said, If this justify our belief with regard to those phenomena which are known by us, it will not justify its transference to phenomena unknown. And that, strictly speaking, is true. But our belief in the uni- versality of the order of nature is founded upon a hypothesis. Whatever I have examined is found subjected to undeviating order. By a play of my imagination, therefore, I construct a hypothesis that all things follow the same law. I am daily reducing the sphere of the application of my hypothesis by acquiring a knowledge of new phenomena. Every such acquisition, whilst it makes the facts less nu- THAT omGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 4 merous to which the hypothesis is applied, verifies the hypothesis and gives me fresh confidence in its application.* As nature is thus, therefore, only known to me as constant and undeviating in her order, I require a counter experience as firmly rooted, as constant, as undeviating as that in which I have acquired the knowledge, before I should be justified in believing her order has ever been or is ever transgressed. In other words, the knowledge built up and confirmed through the whole of one's life would have to * The following beautiful passage from Professor Tyn- (lall's lectures ' On Sound ' so entirely coincides with the doctrine I have maintained, that I cannot forbear quoting it. 'Thus, by a series of reasonings and experiments totally different from those formerly employed, we arrive at the self-same laws. In science different lines of rea- soning often abut upon the same truth ; and if we only follow them faithfully, we are sure to reach that truth at last. We may emerge, and often do emerge, from our reasoning with a contradiction in our hands, but on re- tracing our steps we infallibly find the cause of the con- tradiction to be due not to any lack of constancy in nature, but of accuracy in man. li is the millions of ex- periences of this kind tchich science furnishes that give our present faith in the stability of nature.^ P. 116. 74 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES be subverted and cast on one side in order to make room for a contradictory knowledge that could have no higher, or, indeed^ no other authority than the knowledge it supplanted had. Such a thing would be impossible ; and, therefore, a belief in the possibility of nature's deviating from her order and established laws is impossible. II. But it is said. Cannot he who created nature and established her laws alter, vary, or suspend them if he choose to do so for purposes of his own? I reply, this is introducing an idea of God in his relations to nature alto- gether foreign to that which is learned from the study of nature herself, an idea apparently derived from the crude, anthropomorphical notions of the Jews and other ancient people, and which, therefore, can have no influence allowed to it in the present day. Whatever ground we base our belief in the Divine existence upon, the belief can have no more authority and be no surer than the knowledge derived from our experience. This knowledge THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 75 is as sui-e as our faculties can possibly make it. If, therefore, you call into question its validity, or set up some counter knowledge or belief in antagonism to it, it can only be upon the plea of the failure of our faculties— a plea which, with the destruction of the knowledge derived from experience, involves also that which you set up in antagonism to it, and leaves us in a state of utter, absolute, and universal scepticism. Now, that Jewish notion of God is directly opposed to, out of consistency and harmony with, our knowledge of nature, and, therefore, must be rejected. And this is the more imperative, because it requires us to enter upon regions of specula- tion, in order to receive it, which lie far be- yond the reach of our faculties. It requires us to determine what God is in himself, and to infer what he can and what he cannot do from our own fanciful conceptions of him. Now, we know nothing whatsoever of God excepting from what he does. His nature, mode of existence, and inherent qualities or attributes, are wholly 76 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES hidden from us. "We simply see his works. But his works which we see constitute this nature which we know as following a constant and undeviating order in her operations. To say, therefore, that God can, if he choose, suspend or vary this order, is simply to assert a fancy in the face of a fact ; to import an idea derived conjcctvvalhj into the midst of concep- tions formed hy hiowlcdge for the sake of sub- verting that knowledge ; to contradict what is known about God by what is merely fancied about him. The plain and simple answer, therefore, to those who urge that God can, if he choose, alter the order of nature is, we know nothing of what God can or cannot do, but we know the order of nature never is altered. III. A seemingly more specious argument has of late frequently been urged for super- natural action in miracles and providence somewhat in this form : * We, by the action of our wills, modify, divert, and direct the order of nature, without changing or violating her THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 77 laws ; why, therefore, may not God do the same by the action of his will ? We turn a stream of water, e. g. out of its course to accomplish a given purpose ; why cannot God turn the direction of the wind or put out the fire of a fever ? ' It requires but a very little pains to see the absurdity of the argument. There is no violation of the order of nature when we act in order to accomplish a given result, be- cause we cannot accomplish that result but by the most submissive compliance with the order of nature. And the action of our wills is not the coming into the midst of nature of a note or foreign power. Our wills are a part of nature, and act in subserviency to her laws as much as every other power does. But it is altogether different when you suppose super- natural interference ; for then you have a new power introduced which does interfere with the order of nature, i. e. which prevents the same phenomena, under the same conditions, being followed by the phenomena they are otherwise invariably followed by. The phe- 78 THE me:^ and circumstances THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 79 nomena are the same, the conditions are the same, but the result is different. In the case of man^s interference you have a variation of the conditions induced through processes ac- cording to the course of nature ; in the case of supernatural interference you have no varia- tion of the conditions. In the one case, there- fore, the order of nature is violated, in the other it is preserved. The argument, there- fore, for supernatural agency must on this ground be pronounced altogether irrelative. lY. But now let us recede from this higher ground which we have taken, and meet our opponents on their own. Let us, for the sake of the argument, concede their notion of God and of his relation to the universe, and then see what they can make of the evidence for miracles. God is all-powerful, then ; he can alter, vary, suspend the laws of nature at will. If to establish the Divine mission of his Son he see fit to violate nature's order, no one may question his right. WeU, then, conceding all this, it resolves itself into a question of evi- dence. Have we proof that he has ever done so ? Now, when we have allowed so much for the sake of the argument, we must, in return, ask our opponents to admit that facts of this kind, miracles, require the clearest and most satisfactory evidence that can be had. At least, it must be granted that the order of nature is so constant, that none but the most unquestionable evidence can be admitted in a case intended to set it on one side. And what renders this the more necessary is, that all re- ligions pretend to miracles alike, and that one section of the Church in later times has set up the same claims which yet by another section are admitted to be most certainly false. It does not follow, indeed, that because some alleged miracles have been false, all must have been false ; but it does follow that, since the asser- tion of miracles is so very common a thing, and in the majority of cases utterly false, we ought in every case to listen to such assertion 80 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES with extreme caution, and in no case admit the claim until it is proved by the most un- questionable evidence. Now, what sort of e\idence ought we to re- quire in proof of a miracle, in other words, to prove that the order of nature has not been followed, but that something altogether out of, and opposed to, that order has taken place ? Of course, every one will say, we must have the evidence of eye-witnesses, persons present upon the spot, and who saw and know all about it. But still we should not be disposed to accept everybody's testimony upon the sub- ject, although an eye-witness ; but should re- quire other qualifications to constitute compe- tency to report. Somewhere about the months of July and August last some scenes occurred in Paris which may help us to understand more clearly the kind of evidence we should require. You may remember that it was then reported by some of the newspaper correspond- ents, and especially by a gentleman connected with the Birmingham Journal, that there was THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 81 in Paris a Zouave, named Jacob, who was creating a world of excitement by the cures he was effecting upon nervous and apparently paralysed patients. The patients were brought into a room, were seated on a bench in rows, had their crutches and supports taken from them, and there awaited the operations of the Zouave. When all was ready, he advanced, with folded arms walked up and down the rows, looked into the face of each, declared his or her disease, and whether he could or could not cure it ; and then, after a pause, uttered the formula, ' Rise and walk.' The patients rose, and without support of any kind, those who had been cripples for years walked straight and steadily out of the room to their homes. Now, this the correspondent of the Birming- ham Journal tells us he himself witnessed. The Spectator, which is the organ of the religious party of which Mr Maurice may be considered the head, presumes the gentleman had been imposed upon, but says the story suggests the old query, ' What amount of e\ddence would 6 82 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 83 I justify an inteUigent human being in believing tbe facts related of the Zouave ? ' And that is the reason on account of which I have quoted it to you ; I ask, What amount of evidence would persuade you to believe those asserted facts ? The Spectator seems to say that if the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, Mr Maurice, Lord Stanley, Mr Lewes, Professor Huxley, and Sir Henry Thompson bore testimony to them, no one would be justified in unbelief, unless he also rejected all the statements of science ; and then, by way of challenge, asks, * Is there no amount of testimony which would prove to a demonstration that the mere will of a Zouave named Jacob could enable a paralysed person to walk Kke a healthy man ? * I will state what I should consider necessary to prove such a case if I thought it necessary to investigate it, and I think you will agree with me. In the first place, I should at once reject from my body of witnesses the first three gentlemen named by the Spectator. The Archbishop of Canterbury is a pious and learned man; Mr Maurice is a pious man, a metaphysician and a theologian ; and Lord Stanley is one of the most promising statesmen we have. But none of these qualities necessarily imply a training in the scientific observation of facts ; and, as it is testimony to facts we need, their excellencies by no means guarantee their competency to bear the testimony. If we are to have six witnesses, then, I should ask, first, for two lawyers renowned for their skill in examining witnesses and sifting evidence ; two physicians thoroughly skilled in the phases of disease; and two men of science of acute observational powers. I should require the lawyers to find out the antecedents of the patients, and guaran- tee that there was no collusion with the Zouave; I should require the physicians to ascertain the real nature of the disease, and to watch the results of the cure, not merely whilst the patients were going out of the room, but for weeks and months after; and I should require the men of science to observe and describe the whole process of the cure. And 84 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 85 if six sucli witnesses as tliese deliberately tes- tified that patients were cured in the way described, I shoidd most certainly receive their testimony and believe the facts. But what then? Should I believe that miracles were wrought by the Zouave ? Nothing of the kind. The six witnesses would not have proved that; they vrould only have proved that certain extraordinary facts had taken l^lace. I should then have to set about seek- ing an explanation of the facts. I should not even have the proof that the will of the Zouave had anything to do with the cure. The Spec- tator seems to supj)ose that if we admit the facts, we must admit that the Zouave's will effected the cure. But that is far from beino^ the case, and is a beautiful instance of the paralogism of theologians. I should rather expect to find the explanation in the nervous condition of the patients. We all know what powerful and extraordinary effects excited nerves sometimes produce upon the muscles. And we also know the extraordinary power \ the imagination and the feelings have over the nerves, and through them over other parts of the body. There are numerous well-authen- ticated cases of this kind. I knew of a case in point, where a young lady had been for two years incapable of rising from her bed or walk- ing across the room, but who, being roused from sleep one night by fire, got up, gave the alarm to the house, and continued to walk perfectly well ever after. I may mention that neither she nor her friends noticed at the time that she was doing anything extraordinary. She had .been walking about for some time when the recollection of her formerly crippled state all at once flashed upon one of her friends. Now, knowing numerous facts of this kind, I should naturally look for the explanation of the cure of the Zouave's patients in the same direction. I should expect to find that some- thing in the personal presence of the Zouave wrought upon their imagination, that their ima- gination wrought upon their feelings, which, at his word of command, swelled to the utmost, 86 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 87 1 and so produced tlie cure. But if upon careful examination I found that facts of this kind did not explain the case, what should I do ? Conclude the Zouave wrought miracles ? Not an educated person in this country, I appre- hend, would conclude so. I should simply put the facts on one side as amono-st the nmnber o of those I do not understand, and for whose explanation I must await the fuller develop- ment of science. I^ow, if we should require all this exact evidence to prove marvellous facts in this day, why should we accept facts as marvellous or more, of ancient times with- out the same exactness of evidence ? What reason can possibly be given for precision in the one case that does not apply to the other ? !None whatsoever. And^ therefore, I refuse to accept the miracles of the Xew Testament imless they be supported by evidence as valid as that we all should demand in the case of the Zouave. But is there sucH evidence for these miracles ? You saw last week that there is not. You saw that we have not the testimony of an eye-witness of any sort. You saw that the books which give an account of them were written seventy or a hundred years after the events they record. And, even sup- posing the books were authentic, and two of them were, therefore, by eye-witnesses, were they the sort of witnesses we have re- quired in the case of the Zouave ? Were they accustomed to examine, test, scrutinize, sus- pect, and doubt until the proof came ? No- thing of the kind. They were simple-minded, credulous men, such as marvels would easily impose upon. Here, then, the case stands thus: on the one hand, we have not the evidence which would be sufficient to prove a miracle even if we admitted the miracle to be possible ; on the other hand, we could not admit it to be possi- ble, however seemingly good the evidence. If there were evidence for the Christian mira- cles such as I have required in the case of the Zouave, we should regard them as a series of facts we could not understand, but which 88 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES, ETC. science might hereafter explain. Such evi- dence there is not, however. But there is one thing we know with ahsolute certainty. We know nature working in her everlasting pro- cesses with an order and a constancy which never undergo the shadow of a change. 89 1 J . v.^ \ LECTURE lY. THE RELIGIOUS STATE OF THE JEWS. N The investigations which have occupied us in the previous discourses having led to the elimination of the supernatural from Chris- tianity and to placing it upon a purely histor- ical basis, it is necessary that we should en- deavour to understand all those elements which were at work in society when it arose ; for, of course, those elements must have had an im- mense influence in forming the characters of its founders, and determining the particular conditions of the first years of its existence. However original its founders were in their thought or their character, they would not escape from the moulding power of the cir- cumstances in which they were born and i-_* 90 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES brought up. Their originality itself would be determined in the direction it took, by the thoughts, feelings, usages, and customs around them. If, therefore, we would understand them, we must first obtain a knowledge of the state of society in the midst of which they lived. Now, it may seem almost like arrogance and presumption to say — nevertheless it is true — that^ almost from the beginning, the Christian, or, at all events, the Western, Church has been in entire ignorance of the real state of the Jews in the time of Christ, and it is only a few years since that more searching and impartial scholarship has given us glimpses of the truth. Our principal know- ledge has been derived from the statements of the Fathers, i.e. the ancient writers of the Church, from Justin or Irenaeus downwards. And with very few exceptions these Fathers knew nothing of Hebrew, and depended for their statements upon vague traditions. Con- sequently their writings are most false and THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 91 misleading. What other knowledge we have is derived from the Bible itself. Thus, e. g. Home, in his introduction to the Critical Study of the Holy Scriptures,' has by a most diligent and laborious process produced a copious account of the laws, customs, usages, and opinions of the Jews by bringing together and comparing all the texts in the Bible which can be supposed to throw any Hght upon them, only referring to the works of modern travellers for iUustrations of the geography. But none of these writers con- descended, until a very recent period, to con- sult the ancient Jewish writings— the Talmud, the Targums, the works of the Rabbis. Now, this would have been all very weU so far as it went, if the writings of the Bible gave us a complete account. But they do not. The last book of the Old Testament was writ- ten at least two or three hundred years before the birth of Christ ; the Gospels and the Acts were written some seventy years or more after his death. Great changes would take place 92 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTAXCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 93 within that time. Great changes did take place after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70. The writers did not write from the stand-point of those moving and acting in the scenes. And, then, there is another fact generally forgotten. The account given of the Jews, especiaHy of the leading sects, is given in the Kew Testament, by parties in controversial antagonism to them. A century's polemical opposition had led to all the misrepresentation and prejudice to which controversy leads now. Who woidd take his idea of the High or the Broad Church party from the pages of the* Becord? AYho would look into conserva- tive journals for the character of radicals, or into radical papers for the character of con- servatives ? And 'yet we Ksten to the descrip- tions of the writers of the JSTew Testament for the characters of Sadducees and Pharisees! "Were the writers of those days more impartial, more charitable, more true, than the party writers of these days ? Do not believe it. HI: Men saw their opponents as they see them now, through a haze of prejudice. Accordingly, in the course of my description to-night, you will see some positive mistakes the writers of the New Testament have made in these mat- ters. I shall, therefore, not place my chief reliance on these writers for the character of the Jews. I shall avail myself of that better information, recently brought to light from Hebrew sources. One source of additional in- formation, indeed, we have had in our hands from our childhood, I mean Josephus. The Jews of Josephus are different beings from the Jews of the New Testament. But Josephus is not wholly to be trusted. His great aim was to glorify his race in the estimation of the Eomans. Hence, he represents all the schools of Grecian philosoi)hy as existing amongst the sects of the Jews. The repre- sentation is entirely false. The Western philo- sophy only found remote resemblances and analogies in the Oriental theology of the Jews. With this correction, however, Josephus affords II 94 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 95 t I great instruction. But much higlier in value I esteem Philo, who, though an Alexandrine, was most intimately acquainted with all Pa- lestinian modes of thought and life. The study of his works is essential, not only to a knowledge of the tendencies of Hebrew thought, but also to an understanding of Christianity itself. With these preliminary observations I address myself to the subject of the present discourse, and shall begin at once with the religious parties in Palestine, as they are our chief concern, and will fully occupy our time. To understand the state of religion in Pales- tine in the time of Christ we must travel back a few centuries. Whatever was the state of the Hebrews, political, social, and religious, during the pre-historic times which extend dowTi to the Babylonian captivity, evidently that event produced amongst them a complete change. According to the policy in the East in those days, the chief of the people had been transported bodily to Babylon. Only a rem- nant had returned. This remnant consisted of but few families of any note or affluence. They existed for a long period in but a pre- carious and miserable condition. They had lost the purity of their ancient language, and spoke a dialect compounded of Hebrew and Chaldaic. They could not read their^ sacred books. AU memory of their ancient institu- tions was gone, excepting amongst a few old men who had been amongst the original cap- tives some 70 years before. Traditions of the old Hebrew ideas existed amongst them ; but they were modified by the ideas they had learned from their infancy in Babylon, that wondrous city of mingled empires and nations —Assyrians, Chaldeans, Modes, and Persians. A large portion of the people— some of the rich- est and most intelligent of them-remained behind, in comfort and ease, holding on, in- deed, to the great principles of Judaism, but moidding them by the newly-acquired Aryan ideas with which they came into contact ; and in time forming the great synagogue or school 96 THE MEX AND CIRCOISTANCES of Babylon, of which by-and-by we shall hear again. The state being gradually consolidated under the protection of the Persian government, the people of Judaoa once more began to thrive. The commercial enterprise of the Jews burst forth with virgin, or, as some say, with re- newed vigour. The population, on a fertile soil, rapidly increased. Prosperity seemed everj^^here to bless the land. During the 200 years that the Jews (as they would say) suffered under the Persian yoke, or (as an impartial historian would say) were protected by the beneficial dominion of the Persian sceptre, the intercourse with Babylon was constant and close. This was promoted not less by their commercial and political relations to the imperial city than by their social and religious relations to the portion of their race they had left behind. The in- fluence of this intercourse upon their intellect and their religious ideas was most important. They had been allowed to reconstruct the state THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 97 very much upon their own notions. The ancient royal family had disappeared, or was not permitted to return with the rest. They, therefore, endeavoured to form, under the Persian satrap or governor, a hierarchical con- stitution upon the basis of the, so-called, law of Moses. The national worship was conducted in the temple ; but synagogues were estab- lished in the principal towns, for the purpose of reading the law and administering justice. In consequence of the loss of the knowledge of the ancient language, it was necessary to have an interpreter when the Scriptures were read. This interpreter generally gave a free trans- lation, often adding comments, illustrations, and remarks of his own. These comments, illustrations, and remarks were impregnated with Persian and other Oriental ideas learned through the intercourse with Babylon. The Jewish theology changed from that of the old Hebrew prophets into a Persico-Hebraistic compound full of daring speculations, wild im- aginings, ridiculous fables, and tinged, withal, 98 THE MEN AXD CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 99 with a profound Pantheism. The doctrine of evil spirits, e. g. was wholly due to this source. The Hebrews knew nothing of it before the captivity. The Persian empire fell before the Mace- donian power under Alexander the Great, and Judaea passed to the possession of the Ptole- mies, who, upon his death, became the sove- reigns of Egypt. Alexander had during his short career laid the foundations of the city of Alexandria, and had tempted by the offer of great privileges a large colony of the Jews to settle in it. Upon the accession of the Ptole- mies it became the capital of that portion of the empire which fell to their lot and the centre of the intercourse between Europe and Asia. Thither resorted philosophers from Greece, theosophists from India, Magians from Persia, and theologians from Judaea — thither they resorted, compared, discussed, and modified each other's ideas. The intercourse between Judoea and Egypt had always been intimate; Alexandria and Jerusalem now seemed to join hands. They approached yet closer under the Asmonacan princes and the Eomans; and at the birth of Jesus no Jew seemed to think his learning complete unless he had studied in the great school of Alex- andria, or, at least, under one of its alumni. Here again, then, was a new source of ideas which diffused' their influence over Jewish thought in the first century of the Christian era. In the mean while, three sects had sprung up, which divided amongst them the homage and adhesion of the great masses of the people. Their origin is lost in the obscurity of tradition, and promises to continue a matter of discussion amongst scholars as long as interest in He- brew history may last. This much only we know% two of them had existed at the begin- ning of the first century for many genera- tions ; and it is not improbable that their first elements may be traced from the return of the Babylonian captives. To the third, tradition assigns even a longer existence. This you 100 THE WEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES will better understand when I have described them. The first, not in influence, but in position, and probably also in order of time, is the Sadducees, or, more properly, the Zadokim, by some supposed to be so called from Zadok, their presumptive founder, and by others, from a Hebrew word signifying the Eighteous. What- ever their origin, the Sadducees were consti- tuted chiefly of the aristocratic and conserva- tive priestly party, and made it their great aim to preserve what they regarded as the ancient laws and usages intact and in their purity. Some writers have stated that they rejected all the books of the Old Testament excepting the Pentateuch. But that is entirely untrue, and has arisen from confounding them with the Samaritans, with whom they had nothing in common, ^r is it true that they altogether rejected tradition. They only rejected such of it as came into collision with their own prin- ciples and with what they deemed the literal interpretation of the law of Moses. Their ^ THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 101 great characteristic was their conservatism in matters of religion. They adhered strictly to the old doctrines and principles ; they refused to modify anything either to the prejudices or the wants of the times. They were led to this partly by their aristocratic connections and partly by their ecclesiastical position. As I before reminded you, when the Jews returned from the captivity they endeavoured to estab- lish a hierarchy according to the principles of the law of Moses. This threw all the power and influence of the nation into the hands of the priests, and they became, under the Persians, the absolute political and ecclesiastical rulers. As the nation, however, progressed in pros- perity, an opposite tendency sprung up among the people. They became impatient of the strict, priestly rule, and the spirit of democracy began to manifest itself. It was then that those in power began to maintain those prin- ciples of conservatism which afterwards became embodied in Sadducean doctrines. The aris- tocratical, priestly party drew itself closer !■ 102 THE MEN AND CIPXUMSTANCES togetlier to maintain its power and position and to resist all change. Against the inno- vators it quoted texts of Scripture and refused the glosses and interpretations by which the opposite party endeavoui-ed to tone down and accommodate to their own requirements the impracticable parts of the law. At the first glance, the political policy of the party might seem inconsistent with these prin- ciples. It was to employ the arts of diplomacy (as we should say) with foreign powers and by skill and manoDuvre to secure its ends. But the adoption of such a policy is partly explained by the dependance of an aristocracy in a con- quered country upon the support of the rulers of the sovereign state against the multitude ; and partly by their doctrine that a man's des- tinies are put into his o^vn hands, and depend upon his wisdom, prudence, and foresight. At all events, the Sadducees always connected themselves with, and depended mainly for their support upon, the reigning power, and en- deavoured to lead the nation into a system of THAT OKIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 103 temporizing. Hence you sometimes hear them called in the New Testament Herodians, the Herods being at that time the ruling power. And when Jerusalem was destroyed and the whole country was completely reduced by Titus, the Sadducees speedily disappeared from the scene of history — their influence and power were gone for ever. After this account, you will naturally expect that the doctrines of the Sadducees were more closely conformed with those of the pre- Babylonian times than were those of the Pha- risees who constituted the popular party and yielded to the influences of the times. Ac- cordingly such was actually the case. The most important point was that which related to the future state. They denied the resurrec- tion of the body, because it was not taught in the law. The Pharisees, having learned it from the Persians, endeavoured to maintain it by inferences from textual expressions, like that put into the mouth of Christ when he argued from God's being called the God of Abraham, 104 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 105 Isaac, and Jacob, that since he is not the God of the dead, these men were living. The Sad- ducees denied the validity of such inferences. Whether they denied the existence of the soul after death is not quite clear. Josephus inti- mates that they did, but he is striving in the . passage to show their resemblance to the Stoics, and may have purposely mystified that point. On the other hand, their doctrine that men receive their rewards and punishments in the present life through the temporal prosperity or adversity which attends their doings, would seem altogether to dispense with the necessity of a future state in any sense, and is perfectly in accordance with the doctrines of the older books of the Sciiptures. It seems, however, quite false that they denied the existence of angel or spirit, as Acts xxiii. 8 says that they did. Not only Josephus, but the Talmud never accuses them of this, and yet the Tahnud was written entirely under Pharisaic influences, and is most minute upon every point of their heresies. And what renders it stiU more certain I is, that they implicitly received the Old Testa- ment, where the existence of angels is un- doubtedly recognized. What the Sadducees did deny was *the incarnation and manifest- ation of demoniac powers and angelic beings in later days, as believed and described in the Jewish writings and in the New Testa- ment.' * Their strict adherence to the law also led to many differences on moral or social subjects ; with regard to which Jesus Christ is generally made in the New Testament to decide, with the popular and Pharisaic party, against them. Thus, by that question respecting the seven brothers who married successively the one woman, the Sadducees considered they entirely refuted the Pharisaic interpretation of the law. The Sadducees, following the literal expression of the law, contended that it only applied to a brother's betrothed bride, i. e. where the in- tended husband died between the betrothal and * Kitto's Cjclopgedia of Bib; Lit., Art. SSadducee.' New ed. 106 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES the marriage, and that if marriage had taken place, the brother was under no necessity of marrying the widow. For otherwise, said they, supposing upon your principles a resurrection, whose wife should she be, seeing they all mar- ried her ? Upon the Sadducean principle there could be no difficulty, since she would be the wife of the one to whom she was actually mar- ried. Jesus Christ solves the difficulty for the Pharisees by sapng, In the resurrection they are neither married nor given in marriage. Again, the Sadducees insisted that the law of retaliation should be literally carried out, * an eye for an eye,' * a tooth for a tooth,' &c. The Pharisees maintained that a pecuniary com- pensation would be sufficient. Jesus Christ goes farther than the Pharisees in accordance with Essenene doctrine, and says. You should not prosecute the injurer at all. In the same way the Sadducees differed from the popular doctrines and usages in a vast number of points ; but we cannot dwell upon these now. Their influence in the time of Christ was greatly on THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 107 the wane, and entirely ceased before the end of the century. Tlie Pharisees derived their name from a Hebrew word signifying Separatists, which seems first to have been given them by their opponents, the Sadducees ; they called them- selves by a term signifying * Sages,' or, some- times, ' The disciples of the sages.' As I said, their origin is uncertain; but, as with the Sadducees, may be traced back to the circum- stances which arose during the time of the Persian dominion. They constituted the popu- lar party, and, by the assertion that all the nation of the Jews constituted a kingdom of priests, they endeavoured in every way to pro- mote the spread of democracy. It was thus they became the strenuous supporters of oral tradition. The changing circumstances of the times constantly made a relaxation of the stringent injunctions of the law necessary. These relaxations grew into a usage. The Pharisees adopted them as expressions of oral traditions handed down from ancient times, 108 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT OKIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 109 and even sanctioned orally by Moses Umself. Nearly all these oral traditions were in favour of the people, and tended to make life freer and more comfortable. Even those minute observances of a ceremonial kind the Pharisees insisted upon seem to have been devised by the same spirit; for they were intended to give a sanctity to the life of the common people equal to that assumed by the priests, and so to raise them to the same level. Thus e. g. the priestly party contended that as they fed upon the sacrifices of the temple, they could not con- tract defilement by their eating; the Pharisees enjoined the careful washing of hands, and vessels, and such like things, that the meals of the people might be equally pure and undefil- ing. It was not for the ceremonial for its own sake they cared, but for giving the people a holy character, which should raise them to an equality with the aristocratic priests. As one would naturally expect, men often lost sight of the principle, and let the usages degenerate mto the most absurd trifling ; and the people were apt to attend solely to tlie usage, and altogether disregard the noble purposes for which it was designed. But that, at all events, tells no more against the character of the Pharisees as a body than do the like circum- stances, when occurring in our own days, against the leaders of a party. That the Pharisees were not the foolish, self-righteous, unspiritual people they are generally repre- sented to have been, a passage quoted from the Talmud in Kitto's Cyclopajdia will suffice to show. It says, * There are seven kinds of Pharisees: 1. The Shechemite Pharisee, who simply keeps the law for what he can profit thereby, just as Shechem submitted to circum- cision that he might thereby obtain Dinah the daughter of Jacob ; 2. The Tumbling Pharisee^ who, in order to appear humble before men, always hangs down his head, and scarcely lifts up his feet when he walks, so that he con- stantly tumbles ; 3. The Bleeding Pharisee, who, in order not to look at a woman, walks about with his eyes closed, and hence injures his no THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES head frequently, so that he has bleeding wounds ; 4. The Mortar Pharisee, who wears a cap in the form of a mortar to cover his eyes, that he may not see any impurities and inde- cencies; 5. The What-am-I-yet-fO'do Pharisee, who, not knowing much about the law, as soon as he has done one thing, asks, What is my duty now ? and I will do it ; 6. The Pharisee from Fear J who keeps the law because he is afraid of a future judgment ; and 7. The Phari- see from Love, who obeys the Lord, because he loves him with all his heart.' Now, you must say that there is no passage in the JSTew Testament more sarcastically severe upon Pha- risaism in the bad sense than is this, which was written by one of themselves ; and that Jesus Christ scarcely did more than enlarge upon what this writer represents as Pharisaism in the good sense, when he told the young man that in order to inherit eternal life he must love the Lord with all his heart and soul and strength. I can only add that Pharisaism was the system of the masses of the people. THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. Ill and in the first century had obtained almost complete ascendancy over its rival. I must hasten on to notice the third sect, which at this period exerted a great influence upon the Jewish mind. I mean the Essens, or Essenes, or Essaeans. They were divided into two great divisions : those who lived a -lower form of Kfe, married and mingled in society, and those who lived the higher life, and lived in community. According to the Talmud and other Jewish writings they maintained the eight following degrees of purity to which a member might successively attain. * 1 . The state of outward or bodily purity by baptism. 2. From bodily purity he progressed to that stage which imposed abstinence from connubial intercourse. 3. From this stage, again, he at- tained to that of inward or spiritual purity. 4. From this, again, he advanced to that which .required the banishing of all anger and malice, and the cultivation of a meek and lowly spirit. 5. Thence he advanced to the stage of holiness. 6. Thence, again, he advanced to that wherein 112 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES he was at to he the temple oftheHohj Spirit and to prophesy. 7. Thence, again, he advaneed to that state when he could perform miraculous cures, and raise the dead; and 8. Attained foiaUy to the position of Elias, the forerunner of the lAIessiah.' * The manner of life of these Essens was most pure and simple. As I said the strict ones lived in communities, partook of their meals at a common table, rejected aU flesh meat, drank only water, devoted their labour pnncipally to husbandry, to the education of eWdren and to the art of healing diseases. They seldom or never went to the temple, but .ome of them sent their sacrifices regularly at the stated occasions enjoined by the law; whilst others seem to have abstained from sacrifice altogether, regarding piety and virtue the only sacrifices acceptable to God. Philo speaks of another division of these Essens, called Therapeut., and the women Therapeutides, irom their profession of medicine. They seem to have been hennits, Hving, as he says, out- * Kitto's Cyclo., Art. 'Essens.' ^ THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 113 side the walls of cities and in lone country ha- bitations, in different parts of the world. The greatest number of them, however, was found on the borders of Lake Maria, as he calls it (the Mareotis of Ptolemy), near to Alexandria. They lived in separate huts, and held no inter- course even with each other, excepting when they assembled on the Sabbath, which they, as did all the Essens, kept most strictly. They prayed night and morning, and spent the interval in divine study and contemplation. * For exercising themselves in the most Holy Scriptures, they philosophize upon them after their country's manner, expounding them allegorically. For they suppose, that the words are only notes and marks of some things of mystical nature, which are to be explained figurativety,' * They had also a number of ancient books, and certain mysteries handed down from their predecessors, which they were sworn not to communicate to strangers, but fully to explain and deliver to the initiated. * Philo de vita contemplativa. 8 114 THE MEN AXD CIRCUMSTAXCES ! n As I have intimated, they, aU alike, were most virtuous iu their practice. They forbad aU oaths, all resistance, oppression, and injury, all going to law before unbelievers, and such caring for the morrow as would lead to lay- ing up of property and the accumulation of wealth. They enjoined the community of goods amongst themselves, the exercise of hospitality to all strangers, and love, benevo- lenee, and good will to aU men. Before a person could be received into their com- munity he must undergo a year's probation ; if found worthy, he was then baptized, and received the insignia of membership. But he was received into the lower degree only, and had to undergo farther probation before he was received into fuU communion. If a mem- ber committed a fault he was reproved by the elders privately; if he did not repent, he was then reproved before the whole community ; if he then still remained hardened, he was separated from the community, and became to them as a heathen man or a publican. i| THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 115 You will thus see that although these Essens are nowhere referred to by name in the 'New Testament, and they are only directly referred to once or twice in it, yet that their doctrines, usages, and spirit are everywhere ap- pearing both in the gospels and epistles. They had immense influence over Jewish thought. They were held in the highest estimation. And hence, whilst both Josephus and Philo compare them with the noblest sects of Greek philosophers, the Talmud strives to make them appear as nothing more than the best class of the Pharisees. I think I cannot do bet- ter than conclude this brief notice of them by quoting the words of Pliny, who, after describing them as Kving without marriage and without money, says, 'They are daily recruited by the resort of new comers to them in a number equal to those they lose, many flocking to them, whom the surges of ill- fortune, having made weary of the world, drive to them to take shelter in their institu- tion and manner of life. And thus for several ■ ' I ■ LU I 116 THE MEX AXD CIRCUMSTAXCES n I thousands of years (it is incredible to be said) this people is perpetually propagated without any being born among them, so fruitful and prolific unto them is the repentance of others, as to their past lives.' * ^ Such, then, is a summary view of those re- ligious influences which pervaded the land of Palestine during the first half of the first cen- turj' of the Christian era, and to which every one born in the land would be more or less subject. To these we must look as the powers which had principally to do with forming the thought and character of the founders o'f the Christian religion. They alone explain to us Its doctrines, precepts, and usages. We have already seen enougli to show us it was only a slight modification of systems already exist- ing— a modification determined by the com- bined action and concentration of all the divergent lines of thought and feeling. Only •Plinius, lib V. cap. 17, quoted from 'Prideaux's Connection of the Old and New Testaments,' Part 11 THAT ORIGIXATED CHRISTIANITY. 117 ignorance can look upon it as a sometliing so original, so unique^ po different from all that was, or ever had been, that nothing but the supposition of supernatural interference could explain it. Christianity is accounted for by the tendencies of thought in the age in which it was born. * * ' This period is one in whicli Cliristiauity arose ; and it may be as well to touch here upon the relation between Christianity and the Talmud. Were not the whole of our several views on the difference between Judaism and Christianity greatly confused, people would certainly not be so very mucli surprised at the striking parallels of dogma and parable, of allegory and proverb exhibited by the gospel and the Talmudical writings. The New Testa- ment, written, as Lightfoot has it, " among Jews, by Jews, and for Jews," cannot but speak the language of the time, both as to form, and, broadly speaking, as to contents. There are many more vital points of contact between the New Testament and the Talmud than divines yet seem fully to realize ; for such terms as Redemption, Baptism, Grace, Eaith, Salvation, Kegeneration, Son of Man, Son of God, Kingdom of Heaven, were not, as we are apt to think,^ invented by Christianity, but were household words of Talmudical" Judaism, to which Christianity gave a higher and purer meaning::. No less loud and bitter in the Talmud are the protests against "lip- serving," against "making the law a burden to the people," against <* laws that hang on hairs," against " Priests and Pharisees." The funda- mental mysteries of the new Paith are matters totally 118 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES, ETC. ilnticaf "'tI: ^"''?i.\^''"' "«- » their broad outline 1 u rK } ^i:*"^ **"""•"' "^° "°'° oth<"-s as thou wou dst be done by," is quoted by HiUel, the president new.but asan old and well-known dietun,, "that comprised the whole Law" • * The faith of the heart-the dol J prom.nent ly dwelt upon by Paul-was a thing which stood much h,gher with the Pharisees than the Outward W It was a thmg, they said, not to be commanded by an^ ordinance, yet was greater than all. "Everything," was 2 or Heaven, —quarterli, Rsmew, Oct., ]867. 119 LECTURE Y. THE HISTORICAL JESUS. If we may suppose an ancient Briton on his way to Jerusalem, for some purpose or tlie other, about the beginning of the Christian era, landing at Ptolemais, his road would lie through the whole of that extensive district called by Josephus Upper and Lower Galilee. The Upper Galilee, termed also Galilee of the Gentiles (either because it adjoined Gentile ter- ritory, or because it was populated by a mixed race of Syrians and Hebrews), was a district formed of hills branching off from Libanus, of elevated table-lands, and wooded heights sloping down on the south to rich and varied plains and pasture lands. Lower Galilee, on the other hand, was a country of careful husbandry, ),' 120 THK MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES corn-fields, and numerous towns and villages. Its vaUeys are said to have been exceedingly rich and fertile, abounding with wild flowers of remarkable variety and beauty. The people themselves are presented in somewhat diflerent aspects by different writers. By some they are represented as an uncouth, turbulent set, of a rude dialect, and ruder morals. By others as industrious, liberal, freer from prejudice than any other portion of the Jewish people. *The villages,^ it is said, *were fiHed with industrious peasants ; the towns were crowded with a manufacturing population ; and the sea swaimed with fishermen.^ But this latter view of the case entirely depends upon the representations of Josephus, who also says that it was the most densely-populated part of Palestine, containing 200 towns and villages, the smaUest of them having not less than a population of 15,000 inhabitants. This is most evidently a falsehood, inspired by his desire to glorify before the Eomans the province he had attempted to defend against them, and which THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 121' Titus had overrun and subdued in one cam- paign. So far as I can judge, the Galileans were very much to Judoeans what the Swiss are to the French or Germans — free, bold, liberal, but also rude, unpolished, and given to much superstition. The people of hill- countries are generally so. In some of the larger towns, as, for example, Tiberias, where Herod Antipas fixed his seat of government, there would be more of civilization and cul- ture. In passing through this district it is not likely that our British traveUer would turn aside to visit the little village of Nazareth ; for the road skirted round the hills which formed the basin in which Nazareth lay, and there was nothing in itself, or in its fame, to attract his attention. Up to this date it had never been mentioned by Western or Eastern geo- grapher, historian, or traveller, so poor and insignificant it was. And yet Nazareth, if we may depend upon modern travellers, was in a lovely situation ; and if our traveller happened 122 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES to arrive there in the spring of the third or fourth year before the commencement of the Christian era, an event had occurred which was to influence the history of the world—I refer, of course, to the birth of Jesus, generaUy called the Christ, or Messiah, sometimes Jesus of Nazareth, and sometimes Jesus of Galilee. In ^xing upon JN-azareth rather than Beth- lehem as the place of his birth, I am influ- enced by the fact of his having received his designation from the former place ; by the fact that it is acknowledged on all hands that he and his parents lived there aU the early part of his life; by the inconsistency, contra- diction, and worthlessness of the tradition which mentions Eethlehem as his birth-place; and by the unhistorical character of the fact by which the presence of his parents in Beth- lehem is explained, since there was no such enrohnent at the time to which the tradition refers. But the conclusion does not aflect us much, as aU the influences bearing on his THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 123 nurture and education, every one must admit, came from Nazareth. His parents seem to have been poor, but industrious and virtuous people, of whom very little is known. His father was a carpenter, which, however, is no indication of his position in society, since all the Jews, even the chief Eabbis, worked at some trade. His mother is said to have belonged to the house of David ; that, however, is a mere conjecture at the most, as all the genealogies were destroyed at the time of the Babylonish captivity; nor would it signify anything if true, for the royalty of the house of David had for centuries been only a name. Until he was seven years old the boy was consigned entirely to the care of his mother, who, no doubt, with the usual solicitude of mothers, performed her duties towards him. The elementary portion of his education de- volved upon her; but it consisted, for the most part, in telling him the traditional his- 124 THE MEN- A.VD CIRCUMSTASCES tory of his nation, teaching him to repeat its sacred poetr^^ and inculcating those lessons of virtue and of moral etiquette which the Jews regarded with such punctiliousness. One pic tures them wandering over that beautiful little valley in which their village home was, and ascending the hills which surrounded it, now for the sake of the prospect that stretched out beyond, and now for the cool shelter to be found m the ravines and gorges of the lime- stone rocks, in loving and serious converse; ^e listening with rapt interest whilst she told him of 'Enoch, who walked with God, and was not, because God took him;' of 'Abra iam, God's friend ; ' of 'Jacob, the crafty supplanter;' of 'Esau, who sold his birth- right;' of Joseph, the martyr of virtue and the interpreter of dreams ; of ' Elijah, who went up to heaven in a chariot of fire ; ' and above all, of Moses, the Exodus, and the wan- demgs in the desert. One laments that more la not known of that mother. She is said to have been a thoughtful, meditative woman-a THAT OHIGIXATED CHRISTIANITY. 125 thing likely enougli ; for the mothers of great men generally are such. But that is all we dare venture even to guess, so besmothered are the facts by fables. At seven years of age he passed from the sole instruction of his mother to that of his father, and began the course of his education in earnest. It was considered the duty of every father to instruct his son, and the Jews, as a rule, faithfully performed the duty. The education amongst the better classes embraced a wide field — Hebrew, Greek, and sometimes Latin, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, and botany, and, above all, the Law both in its written and its oral forms. Schools, conducted for the most part by learned Levites, were established in most large towns to assist the fathers in the work; and he who failed to give his son the best education in his power was thought almost as much disgraced as he who failed to teach him a trade. In a rude, sequestered spot like Nazareth, however, shut out by its hills even from the rude people of I 126 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES the province to which it belonged, the educa- tion would be much less extensive than that I have indicated. It would mainly consist of precepts of the law of Moses, its institutions and usages; the expositions of doctrine and morality furnished by the Targums ; and, pos- sibly, an initiation into some of the profounder speculations derived from Babylon and Alex- andria. It is not likely that there would be any school in so small a place as Nazareth to assist in these instructions ; but, at the same time, it is not likely that the boy was not taught to read, as the New Testament says for every Hebrew child, wc are told, was taught to do that. At twelve years of age, according to the Jewish custom, he accompanied his parents in their annual journey to Jerusalem, to be pre- sented in the temple, and have his name en- rolled in the national registers. An incident IS related concerning him at this time which may or may not be true. He is said to have been missed by his parents, and afterwards THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 127 foTind in one of the courts of the temple, set apart for the use of the schools, in the midst of an assembly, asking questions and replying to questions asked of him. This was the usual form of giving instruction. The Eabbis did not deliver lectures or discourses in a set manner ; but each pupil asked what question he chose, to which a reply was given, and oftentimes a question was asked in return, which the pupils had to solve. What is re- lated of Jesus, therefore, was nothing extraor- dinary, and the most one can make out of it is that, by deserting the company of his parents and companions for the sake of being present in the school, he showed more than a common thirst for knowledge. One would like to know, however, whether that reply put into his mouth when his mother expressed the anxiety she and his father had felt when they missed him, was actually uttered by him, * Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's busi- ness?' For if it were, it would indicate an imaginative, enthusiastic nature, abeady 128 THE MEN AND CIKOTMSTANCES ■V wrought upon considerably by religious ideas, and would render it more easy to give credence to the assertions that he afterwards claimed to work miracles, and to be the Messiah, than otherwise wc find it. However, the design of the wi-itor who relates the incident is evidratly to throw a mist of wonder over the child's early life, and is, therefore, not to be trusted. All men who become notorious share, in that re- spect, the same fate. "When they are dead and gone, the world finds out that they were pro- digies even in their cradle, and invents, or exaggerates, all sorts of wonderful tales about their early sayings and doings. Whereas, really great men are seldom prodigies in their youth. Great talents are of slow growth and development ; and the masters of the world often sit in the dunce's place at school. After this journey, he returned home, and we hear no more of him for several years. We have, therefore, to fill up the interval by our fancy. He would still pursue the study of the law, which, indeed, a Jew never thouo-ht ttl THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 129 completed ; he learned the trade of his father, and would doubtlessly sometimes share in the recreations of the boys of ]S"azareth. But he was probably always given more to solitary rambles amongst the wilds of the hills than to youthful sports ; and as years increased, he be- came more contemplative and retiring. And his home, as I have said, was well calculated to nurse such musings as an incipient religious reformer would be sure to indulge in. The hill at the base of which the village was built was but 400 feet high. From its summit one commanded a view of the whole plain of Esdraelon, the Jezreel of the Old Testament, and the Armageddon of the Apocalypse. This plain was associated with some of the most stirring scenes of the ancient traditions, and could not fail to move deeply every Hebrew heart with emotional thoughts of the past. The gloom of the deep ravines, which were numerous in all these hills about mzareth, would also foster the grave and serious thoughts which rose in his mind ; whilst the luxuriance 9 130 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. ^131 h III of tlie enclosed valley and its abounding wild flowers of the most gorgeous kinds, would nurture his mind with a sense of the beauties of nature and the goodness of God. What was, however, the precise character of his thoughts and pursuits we can only infer from the experience of those who, in later times, have followed in his steps. Tradition, so prolific in its tales of marvels, has told us nothing of the growth of his mind and the awakening of his religious life. This, however, is certain : as he advanced towards manhood he gave himself up more and more fully to religious influences; he had thought out for himself many of the great questions which were then agitating the religious schools, and especially in connection with those practical matters daily contact with Gentiles forced upon them ; he deeply felt the large amount of insincerity and heartlessness scarcely veiled under the common professions of orthodoxy and piety; and he mourned over the condition of the masses of the people, whose life was a life of toil, of ignorance, and separation from God. It does not appear, however, that he made any eflbrts to communicate to others the thouorhts stirring within him until he was about 30 years old. Whether, in the mean time, he re- mained in I^azareth the whole of this period, or whether he travelled, as many Jews did, from place to place, gathering information, acquainting himself with the thoughts and usages of many people, and supporting himself by his trade, is quite unknown. There may be some truth in the tradition that he was once in Egypt, and if so, may have learned there those doctrines of the Therapeutic Essens and their arts of healing miraculously diseases of the nervous kind, to which I referred in the last lecture. But still, we cannot tell; and, ,for my part, it seems more probable that he was indebted to his own thoughts and charac- ter for what he became rather than to any other source. At the age of 30 a great event occurred in his history which henceforth changed the ii 132 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES whole aspect of his Hfe. About this time there was a great deal of religious and politico-re- ligious excitement throughout Palestine, and many leaders arose who for a time obtained considerable popularity. Pirst and foremost amongst these was one named John, called also, for distinction, the Baptist, or, as the word seems to have meant, the Purifier. This John assumed the habits and the garb of some of the old prophets; Uved a wild, austere life; fed on the spontaneous fruits of the earth ; and was altogether one of those abnormal natures which when excited by a religion, fiU the mul- titude with deep reverence and awe. Some have said, he belonged to the sect of the Essens ; but however much he may have been indebted to them, that hardly seems to be cor- rect, as some of his tenets differ essentially from theirs. Whether he had any early relations to Jesus is a matter of doubt ; but there can be but little question that Jesus became one of his disciples, and, according to a common usage in IM THAT ORIGIXATED CHRISTIANITY. 133 those days, was publicly recognized as sucli by baptism. John's teaching was purely of an ethical character. He denounced the vices and hypocrisies of the times, and called upon men to reform their lives if they would escape the certain judgment of God. His manner seems to have partaken of all the sternness of his nature ; and intense was the excitement he produced throughout the land. Crowds flocked to hear him— most of those who heard trembled, confessed their sins, and were baptized. With the matter of the Baptist's exhorta- tions Jesus would heartily sympathize ; from the manner he would feel averse. He was of a gentle and loving nature, and was more dis- posed to weep over men's follies than to threaten them with the vengeance of God. How long he continued a disciple of John does not appear. It may have been until John got imprisoned for reproving Herod. But from the first, there were elements leadino- him to diverge. The difference in character already referred to led to difference in moral lJl«t*w^ 134 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES I conceptions. Jesus was for enjoying the bless- ings God's bounty gives ; the Baptist was for denying the flesh, and leading an austere life. John sought the wilderness and an escape from the abodes of men ; Jesus, fond as he was of retirement, found his work in the towns and in the congregations of the people. Besides, discipleship did not then mean all that we have put into the word since. A disciple might question, discuss, and dispute with his master, and ultimately set up a school of his own. One important influence, however, John seems to have had upon the mind of Jesus. He so deepened his religious con\dctions, that Jesus determined to devote himself to the work of reforming his countrjTnen with greater boldness than he had ever yet displayed. From that time he began openly to express his thoughts, and to insist upon a preparation for the coming kingdom of God. There is a tradition, that after his connection with John, he retired for a time from all intercourse with THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 135 men, and gave himself up to meditation in the wilderness. Such practices were not uncom- mon with the religious of those days. It was something like the custom of the Boman Catholics going into "retreat," as they call it. Yet I receive the tradition with hesitation, because it has come down to us in a form in which it is rendered absurd. His more early efforts at teaching and re- formation were doubtlessly put forth in the synagogue of !N^azareth. He would begin, in the usual way, by asking questions ; the ques- tions would lead to discussion, discussion to the exposition of his own thoughts and feel- ingf^. Such a course once begun, could not stop. It was found that the young man, Jesus, had a power to touch the conscience and the heart. All Nazareth got moved by what he said, and by his way of saying it. By-and- by the people who lived beyond the hills heard of it. Some came to hear him for them- selves. They invited him to return with them, and arouse the hearts of the people of their 136 THE MEX AND CIRCUMSTANCES own synagogues. He listened to their invita- tion, and went. Emmaus, Sepphoris, Tiberias, Bethsaida, Chorazin, Capernaum, and all the region round about, became the scenes of his labours. There was nothing very uncommon in such a procedure; its parallel might be found in some sects still. The power of speak- ing to the heart always makes a man sought after, all the world over; it is seldom those who possess it refuse its exercise. At first his exhortations were based upon the recognized truths, and were only earnest appeals to Kve consistently with the principles they professed. If the elder teachers and Eabbis.felt any secret pangs of jealousy at the rising popularity of the young Nazarene, they could not but openly join in the universal commendation. As, however, he grew more earnest, and his work pressed more heavily on his soul, these teachers and Eabbis themselves became the objects of his strictures. They were the leaders of the people ; the shepherds of the poor, unfed, perishing sheep, the guides THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 137 of these blind and ignorant men and women, he longed to raise and redeem from their low and selfish lives. Yet what sort of lives were these guides, these shepherds living ? AVhat conformity was there between their own pro- fessions and their doings? What were the teachings they gave the people from week to week ? Alas ! they were * blind leaders of the blind ; ' they were * dumb dogs, which could not bark ; ' they were ' but hireling shepherds, and the sheep knew not their voice, and would not follow them.' Must he not, therefore, speak out plainly concerning them as concern- ins: the rest ? Must he not tell the watchmen of their sloth and the blood upon their souls ? Was he not raised up of God for the very pur- pose — the * servant anointed with inward grace to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord to all captive souls?* In his inmost being he felt that he was, and that, therefore, he must speak. Speak accordingly he did; and so seems to have begun his hostility with the scribes, rulers, and teachers of the synagogues. 138 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES We are not to suppose that whilst he was pursuing this course of teaching, exhortation, evangelical labours and controversy, he lived upon the contributions of the people. Few, or none, of even the most learned Eabbis did that, at that time. They supported themselves by their work or business. So did he. Even in the accounts given in the s}Tioptical gospels of his labours there is ample room for this fact. Draw out a list of all the separate discourses and events there recorded, and you will see they could occupy but a very small part of three years. The rest of the time must have been employed in his trade. In the mean time, his popularity amongst the common people increased, whilst his contro- versies with the priests and rulers, or heads of the synagogues, grew hotter and hotter. It is certainly difficidt to discern what could have been the ground of the violence of that contro- versy, excepting upon an admission one feels reluctant to make. There was nothing in his teaching to call forth their opposition. It was THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 139 purely ethical and practical, and the doctrines, precepts, and admonitions were perfectly in accordance with the doctrines, precepts, and admonitions of the Pharisees, Essens, and the Talmud. There was nothing new either in the substance or the manner of his discourses, so far as we can discern. Even those passages given in the synoptics in which the relation of man universally to God is the most distinctly affirmed, can be matched by corresponding passages in the Talmud, and contain nothing which an enlightened Pharisee of those days would not have owned. It is true that men in authority, and especially ecclesiastics in au- thority, are apt to grow very bitter when their doings, character, and doctrines, or teachings, are attacked by some one much beneath them, and that they are not always very scrupulous in the means by which they put down the officious criticizer. But that hardly seems suf- ficient to account for the death to which in this case the opposition led. I am, therefore, as I said, reluctantly led to 140 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES the supposition that eventually Jesus was in- duced to accept for himself the Messiahship his admiring and loving disciples were eager to thrust upon him. He had touched the deepest chords of their heart ; he had probed their conscience as it had never been probed before; he had aroused them to a new and purer Hfe ; he had awakened them to a sense of their nearness to God, and his intimate relations with their soul. Was not this the true kingdom of God ? Must he not be the true Messiah that could do all this ? ' Come, see a man who told me all things which ever I did. Is not this the Messiah?' are the words the fictitious Gospel of John puts into the mouth of a woman thus affected ; and the words indicate truly the working of the peo- ple's mind under such influences. As the Messiah they therefore hailed him, honoured him, ran after him from town to town, from village to village. The excitement grew un- controllably ; all the people seemed to believe ; how could Jesus himself at last escape the THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 141 belief? He did not escape. He at last learned to claim what all the common people amongst the Galileans were glad to own. Ah ! these founders of new religions — these reformers of people's morals and faiths — these agitators and renovators of the conscience and feelings, how great they are and how little ! how heroic and how easily led ! how wonder- ful in their generous, noble, truthful, loving natures, and how amazing in their fanaticisms ! how they surpass us in their grand ideals, in their lofty aspirations, in their grasp of spirit- ual truths, and how they make us ashamed for them by their vain fancies ! One thinks of Luther throwing his inkstand at the devil ; of Edward Irving, that grandest prophetic spirit of these modern days, led blindfold and with the meekness of a saint, by the fanatics that ruined his life and his cause; and of nearly aU who have belonged to the same class. We may regret that Jesus of ^Nazareth had to pay the same penalty for the power of his reforming, spiritualizing spiiit ; but no one 142 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES wlio understands liiiman nature will be sur- prised. "When once he had become possessed of the idea of his Messiahship it naturally influenced and, in a measure, changed his whole course. Then he felt inspired in a sense in which he had never done before. Then he * spake with an authority ' as well as in those loving, pene- trating, persuasive tones which had won all hearts to himself. Henceforth, to question his words, not to yield to his influences, or not to be enrolled as his disciple, was to resist, not only him, but the God who sent him. Woe, there- fore, to the scribes and rulers, to Sadducees and Pharisees, and to all parties and sects who opposed his pretensions ! Those pretensions the people of Galilee were by no means disposed to oppose. Always turbulent, always ready to get up a revolt against the established government, and yet, touched to the depths of their rude nature by the purity and spiritual grandeur of Jesus, they gladly rallied around his person, and THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 143 were equally prepared to pull down the sjTia- o-oo-ues of the sneering scribes, and to march too *-' upon Jerusalem and proclaim war against Rome. In such a district his pretensions could not but increase the number of his fol- lowers. At length his popularity had arrived at its utmost pitch, and seemed to justify a trial of his powers in the capital itself. A journey thither, at the next feast of the passover, was resolved upon and performed. A large num- ber of his followers accompanied him, or went in separate bands and met him on his entry. His journey thither was one continued tri- umph. Samaria sent forth the populations of its towns and villages to meet him. The in- habitants of Judah were moved, and admired. The whole city of Jerusalem was stirred at his coming. But there the veil of history falls, and through its thick folds all that we can see is, angry scribes and rulers moving hither and thither,— Jesus upbraiding them for the hy- pocrisies and immoralities of the times, — the I) it w 144 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES turbulent Galileans getting exasperated at his reception, and raising a tumult in tlie temple by driving out the exchangers of money and the dealers in cattle, — then, a band of soldiers seizing the leader, — a trial, the sentence of "which is extorted by a Jerusalem, mob — a bloody cross, — a body buried where criminals always were temporally buried, — disciples re- turning with flowing tears and disappointed hopes to their mountain-homes in Galilee. That is all we see, and even a great part of that, perhaps, is due to our dreams, so dense is the covering tradition has thrown over the facts. To give an estimate of his character with such imperfect materials to form it from is only to present an image of which conjecture . must constitute the principal part. "We know he must have been no common man, from the way in which he lived in the memory of his disciples. His power seems to have been chiefly founded on his goodness conjoined with a persuasiveness of utterance which led his THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 145 foes to say, or to be reported as saying, ' Never man spake like this man.' He seems to have been as gentle and as tender as a woman ; and yet capable of a sternness and a severity of invective which exasperated his opponents to the utmost degree. Of the purity of his character his foes raised many doubts; but the doubts must have been known as malicious slanders by his friends, or his hold over the public mind could never have attained the strength it did. Of his opinions we know but little. The teaching handed down by tradi- tion does not difler, as I have already said, so far as its doctrines and ethics are concerned, from that common to the higher class of the Pharisees or of the Essens. Wliether he as- serted in broader terms than they would have used the universal Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man, does not appear. Cer- tainly, the gospels would lead us to conclude the reverse. That he was deeply moved by the condition of the people, and devoted his life to their moral and spiritual renovation, there 10 II. 146 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES, ETC. can be no doubt. And wberever a large-minded, generous, noble, loving, tender soul, with elo- quent demeanour and persuasive lips, devotes himself to such a work, he will make an im- pression which will win thousands to his cause and perpetuate his memory in the hearts of his disciples long after his death. But for all that history tells of him, had not other causes been at work and had no other great men risen to take his place, Christianity would have died out amidst the hills of Galilee with the generation in which it was born ; or have been now remembered as only one of the nu- merous Jewish sects which lived and perished in a day. r t 147 LECTUEE YI. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN MYTHOLOGY. I ENDEAVOURED in the last lecture to give a representation of Jesus Christ, according to the facts we can gather from history. I told you, however, the representation was infer- ential, and that it was with hesitation I made any assertion concerning him. Fiction began so early to overlay the facts with its creations that it is almost impossible now to discern the least trace of the latter. I have this evening to explain the process by which fiction thus became substituted for fact. The early history of all religions and of all people is crowded with marvellous, miraculous stories, to which no rational men in their advanced stage can give the smallest particle 148 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES of faith. The mythologies of the Hindoos, Greeks, Romans, and Scandinavians, are now so generally well known, and are illustrations so much in point, that I need not do more than mention their names, x^ow, how shall we explain the origin of these stories and the devout faith people once placed in them? Did the originators deliberately invent the tales, and then consciously lie, by narrating them as facts to the people ? or, may they be explained by some principle of human nature which saves the virtue of the originators at the expense of their understanding? Most are now agreed in accepting the latter solu- tion. In the more early ages of the human race men understood nothing of the world in which they lived, or of the events going on around them. Everything filled them with a vague wonder and awe, and assumed the character of the marvellous. I had begun in this last sentence to write the word miraculous instead of marvellous ; but that would have been in- f i> THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 149 correct. Nothing assumed to them the cha- racter of the miraculous, because miracle is a contradiction of law, and of law they had not the faintest notion. But, to their ignorance, all was marvellous, wonderful, full of awe and mystery. Now, in such a state as that men were not less curious about the explanation of facts and events than they are when in the most advanced stage. They were just as anxious to know how everything happened, how this took place, and why that event fol- lowed, as we are. But, then, having no know- ledge of nature and no proper method to guide their inquiries, they could only resort to their fancies for the answer. They conjectured all sorts of explanations in keeping with those feel- ings of the marvellous everything excited with- in them ; and these conjectured explanations were at once accepted as true. There was no knowledge to contradict them; no scepticism to question them. It was not the age of scep- ticism ; it was the age of marvel and of faith. And this fanciful method of explanation was 150 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES applied to past events — tlie history of the tribe, the nation, the rise of states, towns, villages ; their ancestors and their ancestors' doings, as well as to the wonders of nature going on around them— the events of yesterday, of past ages, as well as of to-day. But this is not all. The ages which created the mythologies were also the ages of what we call the supernatural. I say of what we call the supernatural ; for to them there was no distinction between the supernatural and the natural. It was all natural. Their fancies w^ere of the same authority as their senses; the creations of the first were just as real as the objects of the second. Those gods, demi- gods, heroes descended from gods, and their marvellous doings, were as much matters of fact to them, as the men and their doings of their own day and town. It made no differ- ence that the former were presented and known only by their fancies, and the latter were presented and known by their senses. They had no criterion, no organon, to dis- ir THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 151 criminate between them, and show the trust- worthy character of the one and the deceptive character of the other ; they were both alike trusted, and the objects they presented equally true. And so it naturally came to pass, that the gods, demi-gods, and heroes played a large part in the explanations men fancied for the facts and events connected with their history. The same principle is also seen in the theogony and history of these gods themselves. Men would naturally wish to know all they could respecting such superior beings. Their fancies supplied them with the knowledge. By-and-by, a great genius arose amongst them, a Hesiod, a Homer, the splendour of whose creative fancy eclipsed that of all other men. Then his creations supplanted all those minor representations which had been floating about in society, and became the standard truth. Besides, how came this great genius with such soul-stirring songs about the gods, demi-gods, and heroes? how was he able to tell, in such much more moving strains, these 152 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES wonderful stories? Clearly tlie gods them- selves aided liiin. The spirit of tlie gods breathed in him; he was inspired. That is the evident explanation, and, therefore, to doubt what he says is now to doubt the im- mortal gods themselves. Such was the pro- cess which created the ancient mythologies. Now, if you have any difficulty in under- standing any part of this process, I can refer you to the self- same principles at work in modem times, showing, under modified cir- cmnstances, precisely the same tendencies. For example ; take the last part of the process first, the attribution of inspiration to such poems as those of Hesiod or Homer. The in- spiration was attributed, remember, because the hearers of the wonderful poem felt themselves 80 deeply moved by it — it was their explanation of its power. Now, precisely in the same way the orthodox argue in the present day for the divine and supernatural origin of the words of Christ. Finding the shaky and unhistorical character of the Christian evidences, their THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 153 i appeal is almost solely to the spiritual effects produced in their souls by listening to what Christ said and in contemplating what he was. ' As we contemplate and listen,' they say, ' we find ourselves deeply moved ; our whole spirit- ual nature is quickened ; we rise to devout com- munion with God. We cannot doubt that he who moves us thus is from God and is divine.' Precisely so. That is just the process which created the mythologies, and gave the pro- found belief in the tales of Homer. There is in both cases, first, the fact — the moving of the soul by the composition, the narrative ; there is, secondly, the explanation of it supplied by the fancy — the divine inspiration of him who speaks the moving words; there is, thirdly, the conversion of this fanciful explanation into the historical fact — the supposed inspired man is regarded as the actually inspired man. No criterion is given, or supposed necessary, to distinguish between the products of fancy and historical facts, A short logical (or unlogical) process answers aU the requirements of such a 154 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES state of mind : ' Tlie divine inspiration of tlie author would account for the moving power of the words of Christ, or Homer ; therefore, the author was inspired * ! In the same way, we find the same activity of fancy amongst unscientific people in modern times creating all sorts of alleged historical facts, which get devoutly believed. Only call to mind, e. g. the fabulous tales that passed current in this country during the time of the Indian mutiny and the Crimean war ; and those which are told of the Queen, of the sovereigns of Europe, and other weU-known persons, and you will see how the principle is still at work. And it still concerns itself with events as well as with persons. Almost ever since Sir Isaac I^ewton's time, e.g. it has been the common belief that it was seeing an apple fall which suggested to him the law of imiversal gravitation ; and yet the story is purely mji:hical. Somebody's fancy must have originated it; but everybody's credulity ac- cepted it, without inquiry or evidence. Can THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 155 we wonder, then, that in those earlier ages of the Avorld, when the laws of nature were en- tirely unknown, and all was marvel and mystery, they should have done the same ? It is true, that the supernatural or miracu- lous does not enter generally into modem fancies, and so into modern beliefs. But that simply arises from the difference of our culture and modes of thought. This is an age of scien- tific inquiry; and the spirit of science in- fluences, in a measure, even those who know nothing of its processes, and who live on the utmost boundaries of our civilization. And the universal tendency of science is to elimin- ate the miraculous from our thoughts, and to lead us to look for our explanations in the ordinary laws of nature. The explanations and facts respecting persons and things we fancy, and which when fancied pass readily into cur- rent belief, are therefore confined, for the most part, to the marvels of nature and the wonder- ful possibilities effected by the combination of her laws. But the ancients lived in a differ- 156 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES ent state of mind. To them, as I said, tlie supernatural was natural, and the miraculous was as familiar as the common course of nature. The supposition of the direct action of a god was as easy and as probable as the supposition of the direct action of man. The difference in our modes of thought thus accounts for the difference in the myths we invent and receive. This difference had already begun to appear at the opening of the Christian era amongst some of the more cultivated Greeks and Ro- mans. The scientific spirit had been actively at work ever since the days of Aristotle, and had shaken the ancient beliefs in the super- natural. Numbers rejected altogether the ancient theogonies as pure fables; others re- garded them as symbols of deeper truths. Only the multitudes devoutly believed in them. In the East, the same spirit of scepticism mani- fested, itself here and there ; but the difference of the conception of God rendered it less power- ful and aggressive. The monotheism of the ■ THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 157 East, and especially the Hebrew conception of God as an infinite, omnipotent spirit, acting by the energy of his will upon the world, involved nothing that was incompatible with the science of that day. Whilst, therefore, the scientific spirit crushed and ultimately destroyed the mythology of the West, it allied itself to the supernaturalism of the East, and afterwards became for centuries its obedient slave. And then, too, we must recollect, that even amongst the Greeks and Romans it was only with the more enlightened and cultivated that scepticism assumed a decided character. The great masses continued for generations after firm believers in their ancient faiths. That the spirit of scepticism and of scientific inquiry should have reached those who originated the Christian mythology is, therefore, altogether out of the question. Along the shores of the Galilean lake, amidst the villages of the Gali- lean hills, on the plains of Syria, and amidst the poor of the towns of Asia Minor, all those 158 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 159 tendencies or principles which created the more ancient mythologies were at work as actively as ever. Now, after these explanations of the origin and growth of the myth in general, I do not suppose it will be difficult for any of you to account for the development of the Christian mythology in particular. It has nothing ex- traordinary about it, or which marks it off as different in kind from that of the mythology of other nations. AVhat of difference you find is readily accounted for by the spirit, the cha- racteristics, beliefs, and tendencies of the peo- ple amongst whom it originated. It is dis- tinguished in its morality from the sensualism of the Greek mythology, because the Hebrews were the more ethical and the Greeks the more sensuous people. It is distinguished in the sobriety of its representations of God from the vagaries of the Hindoo divine manifestations, because the Hebrews were monotheists and the Hindoos were pantheists. And so you may compare it with any or all of the other myth- 1 ologies, and discover different characteristics depending upon the different characteristics of the originators ; but the essential principle which created them all is the same, and con- sists in the creation, by the fancy, of super- natural narratives, to explain, or adorn, his- torical persons and events. It is to this principle, then, I resort to account for the accretions which speedily col- lected around the simple image of the historical Jesus presented to you in the last lecture. No sooner had death put an end to his earthly career, and removed him from the actual sight of his disciples, than their fancies began to work upon the loving remembrances of his person, his words, and his deeds. We all know how difficult it is to recall to our me- mories those who have gone from us. And, as time advances, it becomes more difficult still. After years have passed it is seldom that the real image remains. All that is left to us is an ideal image, the creation of our fancies inspired by our feelings, not the simple 160 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 161 production of our memory. And witli those Galilean disciples the fancy was more actively at work than it is with us; for, as we have seen, in that age it was less cultured and re- strained. They would never be at a loss to describe the Master they loved; for what memory failed to recall, fancy, with a clear conscience, could easily supply. And you must recollect, very few of those disciples knew him intimately. They had seen him in the synagogue, on the hill-side, on the shore, in a crowd ; but they only knew of his private life from report. Although he only lived, it is said, three years as an avowed teacher, there were, doubtlessly, many strange tales floating about concerning him during his life. Think of those about your great popular preachers in recent times, and you will understand this — as, e. g. of Whitfield, Wesley^ Eowland Hill, the Erskines, Dr Chalmers, Spurgeon. After his death the tales would multiply apace. And then there was so much about him to excite their fancies; it was such a great and holy work he had done ; he had made men's lives better, and filled them with the sense of God ; he was so good, gentle, and loving*; and it seemed so mysterious that he should be so soon overpowered by the Jerusalemites and put to such a shameful death ! All the elements for the mythical spirit to feed upon were there, and could not fail to be used. And they were used abundantly Every year the tale about him became more wonder- ful and more marvellous. Little incidents grew into important facts. Short, epigram- matic sentences were elaborated into long sermons. Acts of kindness, charity, perhaps of healing, got converted, first, into marvels, then, by easy transition, into miracles. All their notions, all their instincts, all their tend- encies, urged their fancies and beliefs towards the miraculous in his history ; and the mira- culous accordingly appeared. Nor would it seem to them that they added one iota or jot 11 V 162 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES to the original facts ; the facts of themselves spontaneously grew in the hallowed fancies of their memory. Some seventy years or more had passed after his death when those first narratives of him which remain to us were written. A whole generation had come upon the stage and gone. That generation had received from its prede- cessor the account it had to give of him. It handed it down to the one that wrote the books. TVTiat have we ? Fragments of facts wrought up into shape by the mythological spirit and tendencies of three generations ! And the result ? The result is what we should expect — three volumes setting before us the miraculous life and death of a God-begotten man. You will see there was ample time for the development of the simple history into the mythological form in which it appears in the New Testament. The storv, from the moment of its birth, would begin to grow ; and, from the necessary tendencies of the Hebraic, Gali- THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 163 i; lean mind, would grow in the direction of the miraculous. Scarcely any one relates a story as he received it. He forgets a part, and sup- plies what is forgotten out of his fancy. It is astonishing in how very short an interval the stoiy becomes transformed in this way. In illustration of this, the next time you find yourself in company you need only propose a simple experiment, which will be at least as amusing and as innocent as many of those proceedings which usually fill up an evening's entertainment. Write down on a piece of paper some short narrative of any event which has recently happened to yourself, or which your fancy may create for the occasion. Head it privately to the person in the company next to you. Let him tell it, not write or read it, privately to the person next to him, and that one to the next, and so on, until it has been told privately to every one in the company. The last person told must write it down as he has received it, and then your original docu- ment is to be compared with what is written. 164 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES If there be a considerable number of persons in the room, you will probably be astonished to find how the two documents entirely differ from each other ; and how, in manj^ cases, the last will entirely reverse the statements of the first. And yet there will not be half an hour's difference of existence between them. And then remember that, with this certainty of modification in a narrative whilst passing from one person to another, the modification is sure to be made under the influence of, and to take the form impressed by, the peculiar mental tendencies or prevalent sentiments of each narrator ; so that in a state of society where there is a universal expectation of, and an earnest desire after, the miraculous and super- natural, the miraculous and supernatural are sure immediately to appear. Each person will add his quota, and the whole will speedily swell into a compact and grand history of marvellous, divine events. To me, therefore, it seems surprising, not that the simple history of Jesus should have assumed within the time THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 165 the mythological character it bears in the synoptical Gospels, but that we have not even greater wonders recorded by the wonder-loving writers who were their authors. No fact could prove to me more distinctly the predominantly ethical spirit of the Hebrew people. "We must not, however, forget that the synoptical Gospels are only three volumes out of the many that had appeared before, and that came after them. Of those already in exist- ence, some being of a more early date and nearer the scenes, may have been much simpler and have contained less of the miraculous ; others may have contained even greater won- ders. Of those which appeared after, we know that there was a great number. The myth- creating spirit continued in active operation throughout the whole of the second century, and gave rise to numerous additional Gospels. Some of them still remain ; of others we read in the early Fathers, or in the writings of the so-called heretics of the Church. Those which remain correspond exactly with what we should 166 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES have expected. As they recede from the time of the events the fabulous element becomes more predominant and more extravagant. The form of Jesus becomes wrapped in a denser cloud of mystery and wonder, and the actions which are related of him degenerate into the most childish kind of the miraculous. Yet these later writings are as genuine as the synoptics, and the tales they relate are the creation of the same tendencies. In depicting the mythical Jesus as contrasted with the his- torical, they are of equal service as the older writings ; nor should we be true to the spirit of the first two centuries of Christianity if we neglected the narratives they give. For a time they had an authoiity amongst the Christians equal to that of the synoptics. Some two or three of them contested their right to be heard for many generations ; and it was only the ultimate triumph of the so-called Catholic Church over the heretics that ultimately se- cured the triumph of the synoptics over their rivals. «> THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 167 The principle upon which the Catholic Church made its selection requires to be noticed. The Catholic Church was formed by compromises, and from the beginning steered a middle course between the extremes pressing it on either side. Christianity had awakened active thought and violent controversies. At first, came the question concerning the Levit- ical principles and their authority over Chris- tian consciences — the contention between Law and Spirit, Form and Life. It lasted through the first century into the second, and the dregs of it appear in the third. To it suc- ceeded the controversy between the Oriental and Occidental philosophy — Babylonianism and Alexandrianism— taking up into itself the questions of Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism. And then came the controversies to which the subtle minds of the Greeks gave rise, Arian- ism, Pelagianism, and the rest. Now, through all these controversies there was a moderate party, which endeavoured to select the good and truth to be found on both sides, and to 168 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 169 M> avoid the extravagancies of eacli. And this party gradually became the most nmnerous, and grew up into what is called the Catholic Church. It is nearly always so. The moder- ate party draws to itself aU the waverers and undecided, all those afraid of bold mea- sures, all those ready for any compromise which will secure peace. Besides these, there are always strong minds which discern the truth and errors on both sides, and endeavour by a cautions eclecticism to form a catholic doctrine. They are never the greatest minds ; bat they are strong, and, with the help of accidents, generally prevail. Now, this moderate party was true to itself in the selec- tion of the Gospels, as in other things. It shrank from criticism in the strict sense of the word ; but it naturally recoiled from the extreme mythological follies. Besides, there was another point which influenced it more. The synoptical Gospels were in a degree written in its own moderate tone of com- promise in relation to pending controversies. ^ 1 I Tlie Gospel of Matthew, indeed, leans heavily on the side of the Levitical tendencies, and the Gospel of Luke leans as heavily on the side of the Pauline tendencies. But each seeks, not to exaggerate too much against the other side, and contains passages its adversaries would count as great admissions. On the other hand, the later compositions became more decidedly pronounced, and seem in some cases to have been expressly written in the interests of a party. The CathoKc Church,, therefore, being true to itself, could scarcely do otherwise than reject the one and accept the other. But, observe, in neither case had the genuine critical spirit the least to do with the decision. Whether my explanation be received as cor- rect or not, it was moral and doctrinal reasons which decided the authority of the one set of books and the worthlessness of the other; history and criticism were never consulted, and were allowed no voice in the matter. When the prevalency of the Catholic Church over the heretics was once secured, the here- 170 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES tical, or disowned, Gospels speedily disappeared. A much swifter and more efficient instrument than reason was employed to root them out. Norton, in his * Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels,' quotes in the most simple and innocent manner, and without the least per- ception of how it tells against the cause he advocates, a fact which throws all the light we need upon this subject. He says, *In the latter part of the second century, a history of Christ was compiled by Tatian, professedly, as is commonly believed (but without proof), from the four Gospels. Tatian was a heretic, and his work never obtained much reputation or currency * * At the present day no copy of it is known to exist. Yet of this obscure work, Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus in the fifth century, says that he found 200 copies in use among Christian Churches, which he removed, and supplied their place hy copies of the Gospels,^ Now, note these facts ; so late as the fifth cen- tury there were in one single diocese 200 copies of one of the heretical, second-century THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 171 Gospels ; these 200 copies were destroyed and replaced by the orthodox Gospels by the au- thority of the bishop. Can we wonder, then, that no other accounts have come down to us about the history of Jesus but those we can gather from the orthodox books, and that so few of the rejected Gospels remain ? The wonder is that any fragments escaped the zeal of those orthodox Fathers. The selection of the synoptical Gospels, together with that of John, was made gradu- ally, and may be said to have grown into a fact rather than to have been decided by any deli- berate corporate act. The selection was al- ready made by the predominating party, when a council of the Church first sanctioned it by a vote. It was the influence of the leading minds on the Catholic side, exerted individu- ally, which determined the choice. The selection thus made gradually stopped the acti\'ity of the mythical tendencies. As men, by degrees, came to recognize one stand- ard narrative, or, rather, one set of standard 172 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES narratives, further creations of fancied nar- ratives and explanations were limited by tlie necessity of conformity with the standard. Fancy thus became hampered in its energy, and necessarily grew self-critical. Criticism Ts 'ifs icesffmiim. ki^mUmJi^ \V« 'gim^x o/x the Christian mythology was arrested by the end of the second century, and, henceforth, the evidence of its existence is only to be found in a few extravagant tales scattered over the pages of the Fathers. In making this statement, however, I have to exclude from the term Christian mythology not only the ideas about the Trinity, which were purely of a doctrinal origin, but also the conceptions concerning the Yirgin Mary and other media) val fables. But I justify the ex- clusion by the consideration, that a consider- able portion of these had no direct relation to Christ, and were of purely Teutonic origin. At all events, my aim has been, not to de- velope the whole course of Christian thought and fancy, but only so much of it as is neces- THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 173 sary, in order to understand the so-called histories of Christ during the first two cen- turies. We have now seen how the myths concern- in"" him grew out of the natural tendencies of ^h^ fe¥,isL mind,, and haye_ exiDlained the rapidity of their development. In the next lecture we shall contemplate the picture of the Christ they have presented to our view, and be able to compare it with the Jesus of history. • i 174 THE MYTHOLOGICAL JESUS. 175 LECTUEE YII. THE MYTHOLOGICAL JESUS. In the last discourse I endeavoured to ex- plain the principle underlpng the genesis and development of the myth in general, and of the Christian myth in particular. I proceed this evening to present for your contemplation the product of that genesis and development. As I intimated last week, I shall not confine myself to the records of the "New Testament, but wherever I find anything which will serve to illustrate the mythological creations of the first two centuries of the Christian era, I shall freely use it ; the apostolic Fathers, the Memorabilia of Justin, the Gospels accord- ing to Nicodemus, and the Infancy, in short, any book which presents us with a picture of the thought and feelings of that time in re- lation to Jesus of I^azareth. One other w^ord I must premise, having respect to the style which I adopt for the pur- pose before me. I concur with Dr Arnold's idea concerning the mythological history of Rome. He says in the preface or introduction, that as the whole thing is a pure romance, or, at all events, so fabulous that it is in vain to attempt to separate the true from the false, the tale should be told in suitable language. Accordingly, he adopts the romantic style for the whole of that part of his ' History of Rome ' which treats of the mythological period. I purpose to follow his example in setting before you the Jesus of the Christian mythology. It is overladen with fable. What of truth can be, with immense labour, sifted from the fable we have already seen — and have seen how small it is, how dim and uncertain its inti- mations are. To-night, therefore, we have nothing to do with that little portion of truth ; 176 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES we are simply to look at the mytlis as a wliole. In the latter part of the lecture I hope to have time to select one or two of them for critical examination, as specimens of the rest. But now we turn to the mythical history alone. I shall present it in our own modern English, but the facts will be purely the transcripts of the early Christian narratives. In the days of Augustus Caesar there lived in the obscure village of Nazareth, amongst the Galilean hills of the province of Syria, a Jewish maid of uncommon piety and purity, descended from the ancient royal house of David. Concerning her parents little is re- lated which would interest now; but as the girl was destined for a wonderful office, it is said that she was born out of the common course of nature, through the direct power and interference of the Almighty God. AYhen this girl had attained to the age of thirteen or fourteen years, she was one day, according to her wont,* busily engaged in her devotions, * According to the Protevangelion the vision occurred THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 177 all worldly thoughts and hopes forgotten, her soul wrapt in contemplation of the God of her fathers, when suddenly a bright light filled the room. Too devout to be alarmed, she turned calmly to ascertain the cause, and there before her, in all the radiance of his heavenly glory, stood in profoundest reverence and re- spect Gabriel, one of the archangels from be- fore the throne of God. A great tremor then came over her, and, although she had often been visited by angels before, she could not but dread some awful message from this, one of the highest of created beings. The angel at once, however, addressed her in re-assuring words : * Hail, thou that art highly favoured,' said he, * the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women.' He then announced that the purpose of his mission was to inform her that she was destined to become, through the embraces of God, the mother of the Mes- siah. With a devout faith and simplicity she first at a well, whither she had gone to draw water, and was concluded in the house. 12 178 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES received the heavenly message, and said, ' Be- hold the handmaid of the Lord ; be it unto me according to thy word/ And the angel departed from her. In the course of time the promise was fulfilled, and just as Zeus visited lo or Leda,* so the God of the Hebrew people visited the holy maid of Nazareth, and raised her to a glory which had never been conferred on Hebrew maid before. But, in the mean time, a serious trouble came upon her. In a marvellous way, I will not stay to relate, she had before the visit of the angel been betrothed to an old man of the name of Joseph. Now, amongst the Jews, ♦ I hesitated long before I wrote these words. I have hesitated longer whilst correcting the manuscript for the press, before I could determine to let them remain. I know the revulsion of feeling they will excite in orthodox minds. I am pained at the thought of exciting it. But faithfulness to the mythological narrative has prevailed over every other consideration. Luke says what I have suggested as distinctly as any one could say it. The idea is horrible and disgusting ; but the horror and disgust are due to the Gospel, not to my reproduction of it. I must add that the comparison I have employed was first thrust upon me whilst studying Coreggio's wonderful picture of Jupiter and lo, iu the lloyal Museum, Berlin. THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 179 1^ betrothal was as binding as marriage ; and a woman unfaithful to her betrothed was con- sidered as guilty as though marriage had actually taken place. Joseph, when the evi- dence of her condition appeared, was, therefore, exceedingly troubled in mind and at a loss to know what duty required him to do. The law demanded that she should be put to death. But the old man's heart yearned over his in- tended bride, and he was loth to expose her to shame. Perplexed, wearied with his internal conflicts, sad and sorrowful at heart, one night he lay himself doTVTi to rest. In the dark silence of that night a happy dream came over his soul. For, lo ! he dreamed that an angel of God stood before him, and explained the divine mystery. Eefreshed, rejoiced, and light of heart, he sprang from his couch, and scarcely had the first beams of the sun risen above the Galilean hills, than he hastened to the humble abode of Mary, and informed her of the "angelical revelation. He proposed, in order that she might escape the observation of 180 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES their neighbours, an instant flight from Na- zareth. She gladly concurred ; and for a time they wandered about in divers places, some- times in sequestered villages, and sometimes in the wilderness ; until at last the hour of her deli very ]drew nigh. Now, it had come to pass that, just about this time,. Augustus Ca)sar had issued an order, that all the people throughout his empire should be enrolled ; and as Joseph as well as Mary claimed to be of the royal House of David, he determined to go to Beth- lehem, the place where David was born, for the enrollment. No sooner had he arrived there, however, than the sorrows of Mary came on, and finding no house where they could obtain shelter, they took refuge in a cave. There, without human aid, and not by the ordinary course of nature, the God-begot- ten child was born ; there, in that cold, damp, dark place, the son of him whom the universe adores, was first nurtured by his mother, the ever-virgin, bride of God. Oh, mystery of mysteries, how the birth of Isaac, of Samson, 8 THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 181 of Samuel, of Plato,* and of Grecian heroes, pales before thy wonders ! How thy mira- culous glories surpass them all ! Worthy art thou of him whose advent thou dost adorn ! The time would fail me to tell of all the wonders that accompanied the child's early history. You know how, on the night of his birth, a choir of angels appeared on some earthly plains where shepherds kept their flocks, and with their spiritual lips sang in material words a heavenly song.t You know * ' So great a name could not escape becoming the nucleus of many fables, and we find the later historians gravely repeating various miraculous events connected with him. He was said to be the child of Apollo, his mother a virgin. Ariston, though betrothed to Perictione, delayed his marriage, because Apollo appeared to him in a dream, and told him that she was with chiid:— Lewes' s Hist, ofPhilos., Article 'Plato,' vol. i. p. 96, 3rd ed. t * Spiritual lips/ ' material words * ! I know not how otherwise to express the curious notion of angels, who are always represented as purely spiritual beings, i. e. beings having none of the properties of, and no relations to, mat- ter, producing sounds which are caused by pulsations of the air. As to the fact itself, of course there is no diffi- culty. A miracle affords the simple solution ! And here, 182 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES how a new star was created for tlie occasion, as on other similar instances in those days; and when some Magi living out in the East had heen inspired by its appearance to visit him, how it came down from its celestial altitude near enough to the earth, not merely to indicate the road they must pursue, but also to mark the particular cave in which the in- fant lay. You know how these Magi were, in a wonderful way, hastened along the road with feet as swift as would rival a railway train, and presented before the child their offerings of gold, of frankincense, and myrrh. You know how Joseph, dreaming, saw an angel who bade him take the young child and his mother, and flee from the jealous wrath of Herod, for refuge into Egypt. one may as well at once protest, in the name of orthodoxy, against the foolish, sceptical Horatian dictum : Nee Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus Incident. None but a fellow who had imbibed the wicked doctrines of Epicurus would lay down such a canon as that 1 THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 183 , In Egypt, that old land of mysteries, many marvels occurred. An idol fell down in the temple which was near the inn in which Jesus and his parents dwelt. A boy was delivered from the devils which possessed him, by merely putting the infant's swaddling-clothes around his head. Hobbers fled in consternation at liis approach, and left their spoils and prisoners to become free. And other wonders and signs were done wherever he was carried. The chief particulars of the return to Na- zareth you also know. But you may not know how the Divine power shown in his infancy continued during the whole period of his boy- hood — how he adjusted by miraculous power the clumsy work of the old man Joseph, and made, by touching them, tables, chairs, and couches to square to rule, which Joseph had made all awry — how he created birds out of inanimate clay and made them fly — and how he punished with dire disease or death the boy-companions who had angered or wronged him. All these and such like things, bow- 184 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES ever, which the amazed and believing dis- ciples of those days could tell, we must now hasten by. When he had arrived at about 30 years of age, there was a great stir made by his cousin John, w^hose soul being * that of the ancient prophet EKas, was filled with the spirit of prophecy, and announced the immediate coming of Mes- siah. All who became disciples to this belief were, according to custom and to divine ap- pointment, immediately baptized. Jesus, know- ing that the hour was come for the commence- ment of his own Divine work, went to John and requested baptism. John having seen from his infancy what Jesus was, at first, in deepest humility, refused; but, upon the ex- planation of his motives by Jesus, subsequently complied. Immediately a scene of wonders appeared. A supernatural fire was kindled; a bird was seen descending from heaven, which, as it drew near, was thought to be a ♦ According to the doctrine of the metempsychosis, then much in fashion amongst the Jews, THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 185 dove (the self-same dove perhaps that Noah had sent out of the ark), but which, when the flutter of its wings had ceased, and it had settled on the head or shoulders of Jesus, was recognized as the Holy Ghost ; and then, lastly, there broke from the celestial arch a sound as loud as ten thousand thunders, rever- berating along the banks of Jordan, which, however, was no thunder, but a voice declaring in the ears of all, ' This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' Ah ! the hearts of those stubborn Jews, how came it to pass that they did not all fall down and worship ? Like their fathers in the desert, they were filled with mibelief ; and so each one returned to his own home ! But now, a still stranger scene happened than any yet I have told. Immediately after his baptism and aU these prodigies, the chief or prince of the devils came, seized upon him with a power he could not resist, and hurried him away from the abodes of men, into a dreary, lonely wilderness. There he kept him 186 THE MEN AXD CIRCUMSTANCES forty days without food, that, liis strength being reduced, he might the more easily per- suade him to yield to his temptations. When the devil thought he had kept him long enough, he began to taunt him by saying, * If thou be the Son of God, command that this stone be made bread.' But Jesus replied to him by quoting a passage of Holy Writ, which every Jew in those days knew the devil could not bear — just as now you can silence him, our Catholic brethren will tell us, by sprinkling on yourself some holy water. Finding this would iiot do, the devil thought he might conquer by appealing to his piety; so forthwith he took him up and carried him, apparently through the air, to the top of one of the pinnacles of the temple, and urged him to prove his trust in God by throwing himself down. Again Jesus vanquished him by the same means as before. ^N^ot yet quite despairing of ultimate success, the devil then carried him away to the top of an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 187 ' the glory of them in a moment of time. Why the devil should have carried him there would, perhaps, reveal a curious psychological law of his mind, could we ascertain the answer ; for there is no reason that we can possibly imagine. Certainly all the kingdoms of the world cannot be seen from any mountain on the face of the earth ; and, therefore, it was necessary, under any circumstances, that the devil should work a miracle in order to shoAV them to Jesus. Why the miracle was not wrought in the wilderness on the top of the pinnacle, without the trouble of going up the mountain, does not appear. However, the miracle was wrought, and wrought in vain; for once more, and finally, Jesus vanquished by a weapon out of the same annoury, and the devil forthwith left him. Returning with re-invigorated power to Galilee, he at once began his divine course of preaching and miracles. Sickness, disease, death, fled at his approach. The blind were restored to sight, the deaf to hearing, the 188 THR MEN AyD CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 189 paralysed to the use of their limbs, the dumb to the use of their voice, and the dead to life. One scene is so stupendous that we must select it out of the rest to tell. In the little village of Bethany lived a family that Jesus specially loved. It consisted of a brother and two sisters — Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. One of the sisters had been but a questionable character, but had been completely restored to ^artue and health by the grace of Jesus.* The brother was taken sick and died. A message^ before his death had been sent to Jesus, asking his help. He knowing, however, by supernatural vision all that was going on, delayed to answer it, and only arrived at Bethany four days after the man's death. Repairing to the grave, with the sisters and their visitors, he commanded them to remove the covering stone. At first they paused and protested. In a hot climate like that of Judaea decomposition takes place * What I mean here is, that upon the principle of the Harmonists, Mary is identified with Mary Magdalene. rapidly. Within four days putrefaction would have begun. But he persisted, and at last they obeyed. He paused to adore his father. The god replied in an audible voice, again de- daring him to be his son. All the Jews, how^ ever, did not hear the voice, but thought the noise was merely thunder. Others concluded it was an angel speaking to him. Then he cried aloud, * Lazarus, come forth.' And forthwith the putrid flesh became whole, the smiken eyes refilled their sockets, the worms retired from their prey, the soul returned from heaven and again animated the body, and he that was dead crawled forth from his prison house, though bound in his grave-clothes. Jesus said, * Loose him, and let him go.' Yet the Jews did not believe, but went and told the chief priests, who forthwith consulted how they might put him to death. All these wonders were wrought purely in the interests of humanity. Now and then, indeed, he put forth his power in cases we cannot exactly understand. You know the \A 190 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES story about tlie herd of swine. The whole affair is unlike his usual proceedings. Equdly puz- zling, but from another point of view, is his treatment of the Canaanitish woman, who sought his help for her daughter. But usually goodness, compassion, and tenderness charac- terize all he did. I have mentioned the wonderful prodigy of restoring Lazarus to life. Perhaps another story equals it in the marvellous : I mean the feeding of five thousand people with five small loaves. You know the particulars ; but did your fancy ever picture to you the facts ? Five small loaves are broken up in his hands ; as he breaks them the particles grow and grow ; a crumb enlarges itself into a loaf. Whence the materials out of which it is made ? Is it the particles of the air which are transformed into bread ? How is the transubstantiation effected ? We cannot tell. Out of nothing something comes. It is a greater work than, according to modem critics, is described in Genesis. There, the materials had been prepared for formation. THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 191 Here, the materials themselves are originated. The god-begotten son outdoes the omnipotent father ! AVith these miraculous works he combined numerous discourses, in order to bring over the Jews to his kingdom. Most of them were, both in matter and manner, formed upon the style of those of the Jewish teachers. But he added the peculiarity of long addresses, which the Eabbis seldom indulged in. l^ow and then, in these discourses, he grew very vehe- ment, and denounced, in terms it would not become any one but the son of a god to use, the follies and wrong-doings of his opponents. He also used the privilege of his supernatural birth to go farther than this ; for, seeing how strong the opposition grew upon the part of the Phari- sees, scribes, and priests, and indeed of the people at large, who were mostly Pharisees, he did not condescend to speak to them in plain language ; he used terms and expressions they could not understand, or were sure to misinter- pret ; and thus, by exasperating them through i . M 192 THE MEX AND CIRCUMSTANCES their misunderstanding more and more, lie punished them for their opposition "by an in- crease of their guilt. On the other hand, he dealt with his dis- ciples in the most gentle form ; he prescribed for them a perfectly passive and unresisting line of conduct ; enjoined a cessation from all thought about money, dress, or food; and promised the certain supply of all their wants and the protection of their persons by his father's care. But his disciples, from that day to this, have unfortunately never been able so to subdue the laws of their nature as to lead the lives he required, and so the promises have never been fulfilled. Being the son of a god, he was born to ride over all the earth ; and he occasionally referred to the ultimate, universal subjection of the nations to his rule. But his first and principal concern was with the nation of the Jews. He felt that until they were brought to pwn his authority, and lead moral and pious lives, no- thinjr could be done with the Gentiles. lie THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 193 therefore confined his own efibrts and, during his life, those of his followers to the Hebrew nation alone. But now the time drew nigh when his earthly course would end. He had long fore- seen the approaching crisis. Indeed, he had been born only that he might die. The ' Eternal Word,' the first emanation from God, had united itself with his divine soul, not only in order to manifest the glory of God in his life, but to lead him as a sacrifice to death. He did not shrink from the issue, until it actually came upon him. Then, that dread fear, so common to all weaker minds, even took possession of his divinely- originated soul, and in the garden of Gethsemane he agonized under the fear of death, like a common man. Soon, however, the conflict ended ; angels, that had constantly attended him before, and with whom he had daily converse, came and served him with ambrosial food ; he was com- forted, and went forth to meet his fate like a man. 13 194 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 195 » I will not dwell on tlie concluding scenes — how he was falsely accused, tried-, and con- demned — ^how he was mocked and derided by the soldiers and mob, on account of his claims to be the Messiah and Son of God — ^how he was crucified and died. You know it all. And you know what followed in the shape of portents in heaven and earth — how a preter- natural darkness came over all the earth for the space of three hours — how the sacred tapestry which veiled off the Holy of Holies in the Temple was torn in half without mortal hands being near — ^how, wonderful to be seen ! the graves yawned open of their own accord, and the dead saints, revived, came out, walked about the city, and visited their old friends. You know, too, the story of the resurrection — how Jesus came alive again on the third day — ^how he showed himself first to one disciple and then another — how, too, he changed from time to time the form in which he appeared— and at last, in the presence of nimierous disciples, sur- rounded by angels and attendant spirits, he went up from a mountain in Galilee, floating away in the air and through the clouds, entered into heaven, and was allotted hence- forth a seat on the right-hand side of the throne of his father-god. I feel what injustice time has compelled me to do this extraordinary story. I have only been able to seize a few salient points. I have even passed over some of the greatest marvels which were received by the devout disciples of the second century. But enough in one sense has been told. Strip the tales of the language in which they are usually expressed, derived from a book held to be inspired, and put them into our ordinary words, and of themselves, without criticism or art upon our part, they reveal their purely legendary or mythical, I may say, their absurd and grossly-superstitious character. But very little space is left me for criticism upon the individual myths of this history. I must, however, briefly notice one, and, if pos- sible, two of them. The first and most note- 196 TIIE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES worthv is that of the Nativity. The story of the miraculous conception (as told by Luke) and of the circumstances attending his birth, is not purely Hebraistic. It is of a mixed character, and shows how foreign elements had by that time entered into Jewish life. No- where in the Old Testament is there the shadow of the notion of a child born through the paternity of God. It is a notion far too gross for even the patriarchal ideas represented in the Book of Genesis. The strict monotheism of the Semitic race removed God at too great a distance from his creatures for such notions to be entertained. But, as I explained in the fourth lecture, foreign influences had long been moulding Jewish ideas and modifying Jewish theology, when the Christian era began. Conceptions from the Aryan pantheism and from Grecian culture had greatly afiected them, and had rendered possible the myth of the Nativity. According to strictly Hebraistic ideas, when a great man had to be born into the world, whilst it required special divine THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 19: interposition, the divine interposition took effect through the constituted powers of nature, as in the case of Isaac, of Samuel, and others. But the influence of the Grecian mythology had led the Galilean Jews not to be content with this. It seemed a greater, grander thing to be born by the direct paternity of a god than from human parents, although enjoying a special, divine blessing. And, therefore, when they sought an explanation of the greatness of Jesus, their minds naturally turned to such a divine paternity. But still the old Hebraistical, ethical spirit had too great a hold of them to allow them fully to indulge in the grossly sen- sual fancies which characterized the ancient Grecian myths, and compelled the story to be told, although in language we blush to refer to, yet with a reticence that makes it strongly contrast with similar stories in other mytholo- gies. On the other hand, the legends con- nected with his birth are of a purely Oriental type. The taxing or enrollment is historically false. Commentators, with their usual dis- 198 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 199 ingenuousness, liave endeavoured to get rid of the difficulty by various explanations. The text says, there went out a decree that all the world should be enrolled. History says such a decree did not go forth ; but that, many years later, there was an enrollment in Syria, of which JudoDa was then a part, which fact evidently led to the mistake of Luke. So that Joseph and Mary are got into Bethlehem under false pretences, in order to fulfil what was understood to be a prophecy about the Messiah. The story of the angels appearing to the shepherds is quite Hebraistic, and would be the natural product of the inhabitants of the lower Galilee, whose wealth very much consisted in sheep. That of the appearance of the new star is purely Babylonian. Ever since the Cap- tivity, astronomy had become a favourite study with the Jews ; and, after the manner of the Babylonians, upon it they had engrafted as- trology. It was one of the essential conditions of a man's election to the Sanhedrim that he should understand astrology. Even so far back as the Book of Job, you will recollect, the * sweet ' or benign * influences of the Pleiades ' are spoken of, i. e. their influences upon a man's fate. With the notions of astrology widely prevalent, you will understand how natural it was to suppose that a new star would appear upon the birth of a child who, for the first time in Jewish history, could claim God for his father. But what we cannot understand is, how even such people could sup- pose that a star could become a guide to any particular house.* If it were only half a mile above the village it would require instruments more accurate than we possess to tell over what spot it was exactly perpendicular. And, then, what size could it have been when it came near enough to the earth to thus guide the Magi, and yet did not appear so large as to attract universal attention ? But that is almost always the characteristic of the myth, to have the most incongruous elements mixed up to- * * The Gospel of the Infancy ' gives an explanation. It says that it was an angel in the form of a star. 200 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES gether, and yet not to force their incongruity upon the attention of the simple minds which invented or received them. None of these things I have mentioned would constitute any difficulty for the Galilean Jews. Their fancies ft) worked up whatever elements tended to ag- grandize Jesus in their estimation. Intent upon this, the inconsistencies would elude observation. If your critical attention were active enough, you may have noticed that I found a diffi- culty in working in the doctrine of John's Gospel upon this subject of the incarnation, when I was speaking of the approaching death of Jesus. As you will see more fully when I come in a future lecture to speak of the author of that Gospel, it is entirely opposed to the descriptions of Matthew, Luke, and the apocryphal Gospels. It abhors the idea of the miraculous conception, and believes only in the incarnation in a spiritual sense. The tend- ency of mind it thus exhibits is of a character THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 201 entirely different from that of the synoptical Gospels, and what myths it creates, or adopts^ are presented under very different forms. I have hardly left myself time to speak of the resurrection ; and yet I must just say one or two words. This is the most difficult point of all for us in these days to understand ; and yet when looked into, it seems explainable upon principles obvious enough. I conjecture the myth of the resurrection arose out of the ex- cited feelings of the original Galilean disciples. They were always thinking about the master they had loved and lost. What more natural than that they should often see him in their dreams ? Now, dreams were not to them what they are to us — they were revelations. You have an instance of this in the myth of Joseph, when he dreamed that an angel appeared and told him all about the condition of Mary ; and although it is only a myth, it yet shows what the notions of the people were about dreams. Well, then, they dreamed they saw Jesus; f 202 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 203 they therefore concluded lie had actually ap- peared to them. The story of his appearance having been once set a-going, you know how, as it rolled on, it would accumulate and assume innumerable forms. The forms in which it is presented in our Gospels, recollect, are only selections made by these particular writers from many others. And that this is the pro- bable explanation, seems confirmed by what Paul says upon the subject in reference to him- self. In 1 Cor. XV. he says, ' Jesus was seen after his resurrection by several brethren, then by five hundred, and last of all by himself.' Now, how was he seen by himself? Simply in a vision. And yet he makes no difierence in his statement between the revelation made to himself and the others. I do not mean by this that Paul did not think they saw him with the bodily eye ; concerning Paul's notion in that respect I know nothing ; but I mean that he thought the appearance to himself in a vision was just as real an appearance as had beeij made to them. In this way, then, at- tributing the same reality to an appearance in a dream as to ^an appearance to the eye, the report spread that certain disciples had seen Jesus after his crucifixion. As the report spread, it changed its form and colouring. We have the result in X^q Gospel narratives. The incidents of time and place were readily, and with good faith, filled in by the holy, loving fancies of the disciples after the process described in the last lecture. In the account which I have thus en- deavoured to give you of the Jesus of the Christian mythology, I fear I may have wounded the devout sensibilities of some, and have appeared to others to touch such sacred subjects without sufficient reverence. But, in truth, I must confess I can summon up no reverence in connection with them ; and I think it is full time people's superstitions should be a little shocked. Divested of the air of sanctity thrown around them by ignor- ance and blind faith, these tales about Jesus, his birth, miracles, and resurrection, are as 204 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CRHISTIANITY. 205 ridiculous and as childish as those of any other mythology. I feel ashamed that ever I had so little sense as to believe them. I cannot now think or speak of them excepting in the spirit and tone in which I would speak of the incarnations of Bramah and the exploits of Zeus. They are to me superstitions of the past, from which I feel myself wholly removed. My religious faith, aspiration, and reverence are connected with wholly different sources. To speak, therefore, of these things in the tones of reverence would be as insincere as though I professed to believe in Puck's throw- ing a girdle around the earth in forty minutes. And, then, please to remember that I have not consciously added to, or changed the colouring of, a single myth to which I have referred. If it have seemed to you to have been put in a ridiculous light, it is only because I have taken it out of the lano:uao:e of the Bible and put it into the language of our common life ; the ridiculousness arises, not from my way of putting it, but from the very absurdity of the myth itself. But I am glad to have finished to-night with all this nonsense. Henceforth, the course of our inquiries will be much pleasanter. H 206 LECTIJEE YIII. THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA. I HAVE had occasion in tlie course of these lectures several times to refer to the philo- sophical school of Alexandria and the influence it exerted upon the Jewish mind at the com- mencement of the Christian era. It is now necessary for us to examine the character of the philosophy of this school more closely than we have hitherto done, since we are about to enter upon the second scene of the Christian history, where we shall find the two principal actors more or less imbued with its spirit, and owing their great success to their complete sjTnpathy with the tendencies of thought and feeling it expressed. In order to understand this, however, we must, first of all, cast our THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA. 207 eye over a much wider field than that of the school of Alexandria. For upwards of 600 years the choicest in- tellects of Greece had pondered upon the great problems of existence — God, the Origin of the Universe, the Test of Truth. From Thales to Socrates, from Socrates to Aristotle, from Aris- totle to Carneades, system after system, school after school, had arisen with its special solution, and for a time had attracted to itself crowds of anxiously inquiring scholars; but system after system, school after school, was unable to withstand the criticism of its opponents, and had utterly failed to satisfy the wants of the human spirit. At the commencement of the Christian era this long course of speculation had embodied itself in four principal sects, or schools, spread over the Eoman empire ; those, viz. of the Sceptics, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the New Academicians. These schools expressed the final answer Greece had to give to the great and important questions I have named. And what was the answer? Yir- ; I. 208 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES tually, the same in tlie four schools, although differently expressed; and that one answer was to the effect that truth lies beyond our reach — there is no criterion or 'test by which it can be ascertained — God is unknown and unknowable — man's one concern is in the prac- tical matters of life. The Sceptics put forward these conclusions as their distinguishing doc- trines, and, by adducing the contradictions of philosophers, and showing the incompetency of human reason to deal with such questions, endeavoured to establish a system of universal doubt. The Stoics, unable to confute the Scep- tics, appealed to the common sense of man- kind ; but the appeal (like that of their Scotch successors, Eeid and Hamilton, in their defences against the scepticism of Hume) implicitly admitted the impotency of human reason and the futility of the philosophy they sought to defend. Epicurus, directly declaring that all attempts at the solution of the higher problems had proved futile, defined philosophy as the Ai't of Life, and reason as the Power or Force THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 209 which was given to lead man into the paths of happiness. The New Academicians were equally sceptical. They accepted Plato's doc- trine, that no proof can be given that our sense-perceptions correspond with things as they exist ; and also Aristotle's, that the ideal theory of Plato is a mere delusion. All, there- fore, was left in uncertainty and doubt. The regulation of life became the one concern of a rational man.* As I said, the four schools prevailed amongst thinking men over the whole Roman empire ; but it was the Stoical that seemed principally to attract the Romans themselves. Its stern and severe virtue, its contempt for human weakness and luxuries, its bold defiance of all suffering and pain, and its heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, seemed well to harmonize with what remained of those characteristics which had constituted the glory and won the tri- umphs of the Republic, and secured for it the advocacy of all who shared in the virtues of a * See Mr Lewis's Hist, of PliHosopliy. Yol. i. Epocli viii. 14 W 210 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES Cato or a Brutus. On the other hand, the gentler and more lenient sway of Epicureanism and the New Academy, met the necessities of those disposed to a gayer or more luxurious Hfe and who found the expression of their thoughts and feelings in the odes of Horace rather than in the letters of Seneca. It would he a gross mistake, however, if we supposed that the sensual could find in the doctrines of Epicurus himself any justification of their vices. This philosophy, which has too often been esteemed by the ignorant* as a * 'Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts, Keep his brain fuming ; epicurean cooks. Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite. Shakespeare's Antony ani Cleopatra, Act u. sc. 1. . The cynical sneers, the epicurean sophistry, which had driven honour and virtue from one part of the ehara te , extended their infiuenee over every other.'-ilf«.«»% > Critical and Hist. Essays. . , , ,, r 11 ;„„ . Compare with the use of these epithets f Mow mg ^ ' By this you will find, why I conceive tha the virtues a^eSn-nataral with ahappy We, and that 't is .mpos.b^ to separate a happy life from them. All other things as beinc frail or mortal are transitory, separable from t ue ^'constant pleasure ; virtue alone, being a perpetual THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 211 synonyme with the lowest form of utilitarian- ism in its bad sense, and as the abettor of all that is swinish and effeminate, was as truly ethical as that of the Porch ; whilst its author lived, and enjoined upon his followers, a life as abstemious and as pure as that of a saint. The truth is, that the whole tendency of thought and feeling during the last epoch of the Grecian philosophy was to the culture and development of the Ethical, and no system which did not follow this tendency could have obtained the least hold over the public mind. Scepticism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and the doctrines of the New Academy, all obtained the powerful influence they exerted, simply because they fully embodied this tendency. The era of ethics, in contradistinction to that of philosophy, was inaugurated by So- crates. Contradistinction is not, perhaps, ex- actly the right word ; for, doubtlessly, Socrates pursued a philosophical method, and had his and immortal good, is inseparable from it.' — Epicurus^ quoted by Diogenes Laertius. 212 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES pHlosopMcal dogmas ; but lie avowedly did not pursue philosophy for its own sake. The sceptical Sophists had proved that philosophical speculation had up to their time utterly failed. * Granted/ said Socrates, ' but do not, there- fore, let us despair of truth ; let us study rather how to attain the true end of life, i. e. how to be good. The speculations of Socrates were subordinated to ethics. Plato, in this respect, followed in his wake. His works, those who have studied them more than I have tell us, abound in philosophical contradictions. But amidst all the contradictions one purpose is kept steadily in view, the development and the exaltation of the Good— the Good as con- taining within itself the Beautiful and the True. Aristotle, without so directly aiming at it, by his overthrow of the idealistic theory of Plato, aided the same cause. And so all thought moved on in this one direction, untU we come to the methodical embodiment of it by the supremacy of the four schools I have already named. Of course it took a long time THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 213 for the full development of this tendency. Epicurus was born b. c. 342, and Zeno not very much later. But it was not until imme- diately before the Christian era that their systems, together with those of the Sceptics and the New Academicians, obtained the mas- tery of their rivals. But obtain the mastery they did; and when Jesus of Nazareth was born in Galilee the whole Western world was crying out for a philosophy which should find a solid and unquestionable basis for ethical science. That philosophy it found through the school of Alexandria. I have already in the fourth lecture re- minded you of the circumstances under which the Alexandrine school arose. Established by the Ptolemies, it early became the resort of the philosophers and scholars of Greece. There they met with the philosophers and scholars of the East, whose modes of thought and feeling presented phases altogether dif- ferent from their own. They had seemed to have exhausted every method of philosophiz- ii. |i 214 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES incr, to tave tried every organon of know- leL with the fruitless results we have seen. Here they found a new method, an organon which had been for ages in use, and that apparently with results they had sighed for in vain. They inquired, they discussed, they were overwhelmed with conviction; whilst, in return, they somewhat modified the forms of the Oriental thought, and lent it the language of the West. Out of the combination grew the school of Alexandria. Amongst the representatives of Eastern thought the Jews held by far the most con- spicu^ous place. The vicissitudes of their his- tory, not less than the situation of their coun- try, had brought them early into contact with the most civilized and speculative nations of the world -Egypt on the one hand, India, Assyria, Chaldaea, Persia, and the many peo- ples concentrated in Babylon, on the other. The contact had awakened or quickened their own speculative spirit in an intense degree. The writings of the Old Testament but imper- THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 215 fectly express the intensity of that spirit. They are more practical than speculative, political pamphlets rather than philosophical treatises. But abundant indications are given of it in the Talmud, and, partially, in the books of the Apocrj-pha. There we may trace the gradual development of the spirit, which at last finds a distinct utterance in the writings of Philo and the so-called Gospel of John. Of all the philosophers whom the Jewish section of the Alexandrine school produced, none obtained so great, or so deserved, a re- putation as Philo. A Jew by descent, he was born, nurtured, educated, and spent nearly the whole of his life in Alexandria. Circum- stances thus combined in his culture the ele- ments of both the Eastern and'Western worlds. Eeceiving with devout faith the sacred books of the nation to which he belonged, he found in them, through an allegorical or spiritual interpretation, all the profound speculations and mysteries of the Oriental schools, but re- deemed from their wildest fancies by the strict 216 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES monotheism of his race. These speculations he rendered, as far as might be, in the lan- guage and formula of Plato, and thus, in his voluminous writings, laid open to Western minds the treasures of Eastern thought as they had never been laid open before. The influ- ence which he obtained over both the Jewish and Grecian sections of the Alexandrine schools seems to have been immense. It brought them into close sympathy, and laid the found- ations of that eclecticism which, in the next century, found an exponent in the works of Plotinus. The fundamental doctrine of the Oriental philosophy was the absolute unity, impassi- bility, and irrelativity of the Divine essence. In himself God, they said, has neither thought nor feeling, attribute, nor quality of any kind ; for all such things imply conditions, and God is absolutely unconditioned. It is easy, how- ever, to see that such a being could not create or govern the universe ; for such acts would destroy his impassibility, and bring him into THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 217 relations with the finite. Instead, therefore, of creation, he caused to emanate from himself one or more beings (aeons) who, partaking of his own divine existence and being one with him, yet became capable of those relations and acts which creation implies. Emanation, you must observe, is entirely diflerent from cre- ation—it is the issuing forth of an energy which becomes embodied without losing its original nature or essence -as the emanation of a ray of light from the sun, of a spark from the fire, or a stream from its fountain. These emanations from God were, therefore, truly di\ane ; in their essence infinite, in their rela- tions finite ; one with God and in God ; yet revealed under the multitudinous forms of finite phenomenal existence. As this doctrine was propounded by the races of India, it was purely pantheistic. Such also seems to have been the case with the Chalda^an and Persian forms of it. The Hebrews did their best to render it in a form consistent with their own notions about the oneness of God. 218 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 219 The first of these emanations was Sophia, or Wisdom (n-22!^) or, according to the later form in which it is presented by the Kabbalah, the Crown, Glory, or inscrutable Height or Sur- roundino-s hr:?) From this emanated the next in glory, i.e. the active Intellect (nra) or Lo^os of the Greeks; and so on, until the whole Sephiroth, Pleroma, or fullness of the divine existence, was complete. Each of these Sephiroth had a distinct character and function ascribed to it ; and the whole constituted the divine existence as it is known to us. God in himself, i. e. in his own divine essence or unity, is absolutely imknown. But now, how could these high and mysteri- ous facts be learned by the finite mind of man? Most certainly, he has no power or faculty by which he could climb the dizzy height and gaze upon the inscrutable things of God. The Orientals never dreamed of so exalting the discursive reason as to suppose that it could *find out the Almighty to perfection.' But^ God reveals himself to the devout soul. The Sophia, Wisdom, enters into communion with it, anoints its eyes, opens them upon the heavenly splendours, and in moments of ecstasy gives it glimpses of the Inscrutable, the Unknowable, the Unconditioned. But how can this be ? How, under any conditions, can the finite see, or comprehend, anything of the Infinite ? Most assuredly not under any, excepting by itself partaking of the Infinite. But there k the mystery; in these moments of ecstasy, the divine Wisdom enters into absolute unity with the soul, so that it loses its finiteness, and itself becomes infinite — the absolute and the conditioned, as the Germans would say, become identified. Being equals the No-being. I have said, it is in the moments of ecstasy these revelations are made. The soul arrives at this state through a long process of virtue, purification, and faith, in which she gradually subdues aU the activity of the sensuous feel- ings and the finite intellect, and becomes passively subjected to the spiritual action of the Divine Wisdom. Subservient to the spiritual Ml P. 220 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES f preparation are the fastings, self-denials, and mortifications of the flesh, which, under all forms of the system, have always constituted the characteristics bv which it has been known to the world. When, through these processes, the soul arrives at this ecstasy, the enjoyment of it can only be momentary. The frail tenement of the body would give way, reason hercelf would be destroyed, under the prolonged con- templation of the divine glory. Not until death delivers the soul from the bondage of the flesh will it be prepared for the fulness and perpetuity of the vision. Then, becoming one with the divine "Wisdom, it will lose for ever its finite nature, and live in the absolute existence of God. Such, then, is a brief outline of that theo- sophy which, with various modifications, had at the beginning of the Christian era swayed the religious and philosophical thinking of the Orientals for centuries ; and which Philo in- troduced to the Western world. I must warn you, however, that in the study of it, it is THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 221 extremely difficult to separate the more ancient doctrines from their subsequent developments. Most certainly in the Vedas we have evidence of its complete elaboration at least amongst the sages of one race, long before the Chris- tian era. In the Zendavesta we, perhaps, have another. Yet Philo writes with such vague- ness and numerous contradictions as imply a non-completed system ; and Plotinus does not always succeed in enabling us to distinguish between his original contributions and the more ancient dogmas. Possibly, however, the explanation may be found in the facts, that PhUo not only vacillates between his reverence for the Hebrew Scriptures and his behef in the Oriental speculations, but also is hampered by his desire to present the system as much as possible in a Grecian, if not a Platonic form ; and that Plotinus, in his earnest eclecticism,' hardly cared to inquire what were the sources whence his thoughts arose.* ^e this, however, » I bave mentioned Plotinus rather than Ammonius Oaeeas, who was in truth the founder of the eclectic >!«' Ii a pupil of Gamaliel wlien lie occupied a con- spicuous position. Now, it liappencd that during this period of Paul's collegiate course — i. e. recollect, some- where between a. d. 30 and a. d. 50— a great controversy and rivalry were growing hotter and hotter, and more and more bitter, between the Sadducees and Pharisees on one side, and the Galilean followers of Jesus on the other ; for, some little time after Jesus had been put to death his followers recovered heart, de- chircd that he had appeared to several of them at different times alive, had then reiterated his claims to the Messiahship, announced his in- tention of coming again upon earth before very long to assume his kingdom, and had required them in the mean time to go everyrv^here teaching the doctrines and precepts they had learned of him. The promises with which these instructions were enforced were of a kind to fire such minds as those of the Gali- leans with the utmost enthusiasm. When he came again, he would conquer the world ; his THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 241 devoted followers would share his glory ; crowns and thrones awaited all who were faith- ful to death. For even those who died before he came would suffer no loss; they would appear again with him, miraculously raised to an eternal life. Of course, we know that all this was the creation of their own dreaming fancy. But that did not signify ; to them it was reality. It fired their utmost zeal. They went over all Galilee, all Samaria, all Judeea, proclaiming the ]N"azarene doctrines and pre- cepts, and enforcing them by the tidings that the crucified Jesus was about to return again on earth to reism. Now, we can easily understand how ob- noxious this course of the Nazarenes (as at that time they were called) wotdd be to the lead- ing men of both the Sadducees and Phansees. For, in the first place, the fanatical excitement about the speedy return of Jesus to assume the kingdom of Messiah, might, amongst such people, lead at any moment to a collision with the Roman authorities, and so compromise J6 \n 242 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES I !. ♦ these leaders. In the second place, it directly reflected upon, and condemned their conduct in putting Jesus to death ; and, if we may at all trust the mythical traditions in Acts, this was, at first, the principal offence. And then, to this would be added, in the case of the Sad- ducees, the direct contradiction of their doc- trinal sentiments. This third cause of offence does not apply, so far as I know, at this period, to the Pharisees. As I before have shown, the teaching of Jesus was purely Pharisaic, with, perhaps, a little touch more of mysticism than they would have sanctioned, derived pos- sibly from the Essenes. But until the broad catholicity of his spirit and teaching was put more prominently forward at a subsequent period, I do not find that the Pharisees could, or did, object to his doctrine. However, neither Pharisees nor Sadducees could endure these IS'azarenes; and they de- termined, by fair means or by foul, to put them down. I do not know exactly what means they used ; but they seem to have ac- THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 243 cused them of violating the laws, to have im- prisoned them, and possibly in some cases, or in one, to have put them to death. Into this persecution Paul entered heartily. He tells us that ' beyond measure he persecuted God's congregation (meaning the Christians), and wasted it.' His earnest, vehement temper rose indignantly before the accusations the Christians urged against his party; he de- nounced the whole movement as an ignorant, fanatical, and lawless rising against learning, piety, and order, and became most conspicuous amongst those determined to crush it. And, in the legendary tales of the Acts, we are told, that he even received a special commission from the authorities to carry on the persecu- tion in distant parts of the country. TVTiilst, however, he was actually engaged in this course, a change came over his spirit which entirely diverted the current of his life, and created a new era in the history of Chris- tianity, He passed over to the sect of the Christians, and became the most zealous and fit 244 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES Mi 1 I i! m m the most distmguislied of those who ' preached the faith he once attempted to destroy/ How this change was effected we can only infer from very uncertain premises. "We have no authen- tic information concerning it. In the Epistle to the Galatians, of which he was probably the author, he refers to his conversion, but in the most vague terms. Having stated how zealous he had been in what he calls the ' Jews' religion,' he says, 'But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me, by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him in the midst of the nations; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.' You will observe that the terms here employed leave entirely undeter- mined the question, whether the calling by God's grace and the inward revelation of God's Son, were effected by natural or super- natural means ; although at the same time they give no more authority to refer these events to the supernatural than we have to refer his birth to it, which is here directlv THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTLiNITY. 245 ascribed to the act of God. In no other part of his authentic writings does he allude to his conversion, unless we are to take 2. Cor. xii. 1—5 as so doing. In that passage, he speaks of having once attained to such a state of ecstasy and enjoyed such a vision of God and spiritual things, that he could not tell whether, whilst it lasted, his soul had left the body or not. And some think this ecstasy took place at the time of, and was the means of effecting, his conversion. I do not see, how- ever, any evidence of that ; and it seems to me worse than useless to introduce conjectures where we have no evidence. But the state- ment of the fact serves our purpose in another way. It confirms an inference we should be disposed to draw from other statements, that he was a man given to visions, ecstasies, and other excitements of the fancy and feelings ; and so furnishes a sort of basis of conceivable fact for the mythological account given of his conversion in the Acts of the Apostles. It could not but have happened that one so open- 246 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES J ! • UL 1? :1 . hearted, large-minded, liberal in his spirit and tendencies, and so full of tender, loving, and humane sjTnpathies as Paul was, should have been at times, even during the days of his violence, moved by the pure, devout, and loyal faith and the impassioned zeal of the perse- cuted Xazarenes. With their general doctrines and precepts he would fully coincide, and would have been more than prepared for their catho- lic extension of Messianic privileges to the world, in the limited sense in which they advocated it, not less by the teaching of his master, Gamaliel, than by the generosity of his own nature. Under these circumstances we can readily imagine that misgivings and doubts concerning the course he was pursuing would often arise within him ; that question- ings would spring up, whether, after all, the Nazarenes might not be right; whether the Messiah might not have submitted to death in the way they said, to fulfil ancient prophecy ; whether this Jesus, whom all owned to have been a great and wonderful man, might not be THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 247 the Messiah, and be about to return to earth again to assert his claims. Once let such questionings and doubts arise in such a mind, and we know how restlessly they would work, how earnestly they would set the thoughts into motion. By day and by night they would become his one anxiety and concern. And, then, as we have seen, his was a tem- perament given to dreams, visions, and ec- stasies. Nothing, therefore, could be more natural than that he should dream and have visions about the Jesus who so filled his thoughts. One such vision of a very distinct and impressive kind would be sufficient to settle the controversy in his mind. We have learned how those who appeared in dreams were counted, in those days, to have actually and really appeared ; and how the visions of the fancy were deemed as valid as the visions of the eye. By such means, then, it is not im- probable the conversion of Paul may have been efiected, and a ground of fact afforded upon which the mythological spirit of the age built !fl ill I , ( 248 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES up the narrative in the ninth chapter of the Acts. But as to the unhistorical character of that narrative as a whole there cannot be the shadow of a doubt. It is repeated three times over in the book, once as forming a part of the writer's narrative, and twice in the speeches put into the mouth of Paul. Every time it is repeated it is given with important variations, which the efforts of the critics are unable to explain. Besides, the conversion is put too near the death of Jesus. His crucifixion is assigned at the earliest to the year 30. By some it is dated three, or even six years later. But it was only in that year, 30, that Gamaliel re- ceived his appointment as president of the Jeru- salem college. Therefore, even supposing Paul to have commenced his studies in the first year of Gamaliers office, it cannot be allowed that he had finished his course, and had acquired the position to be intrusted with the Damascus commission, within the short space allowed by the narrative in the Acts. But, even without ■ 1 ^ 1 fis^j^m THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 249 insisting upon this point, the mythical and unhistorical character of the whole narrative is so evident, that we cannot place the least reliance upon it. All we know, therefore, about Paul's conversion is, that from beino- a violent persecutor he became a most zealous advocate of the Kazarene sect. Such conver- sions are by no means rare in the history of religious parties. Had we known less of him than we do we should have been under no necessity to resort to the supernatural to ac- count for it ; but as it is, we discern all the elements of a possible, sudden conversion in the constitution of his nature and the circum- stances by which he was surrounded. Immediately after this event he retired to Arabia, and there, probably in solitude and meditation, aided by visions and ecstasies, consolidated his thoughts and developed the dogmatical system which, a few years later, received, in consequence, I presume, of the position assigned in it to Jesus as the Messiah, the appellation of Christian. Eeturning to li 1 1 II m 250 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES Damascus, and having paid a rapid visit to Jerusalem, he commenced in earnest his great missionary work. He travelled over Asia Minor, and visited most of its numerous cities ; he went westward, planted a Church in Corinth, and preached in many other of the cities of Greece; he is said to have gone as far as Rome, and there to have met with his death at the hands of Nero. Whether the tradition be true or not I cannot affirm ; but there seems nothing improbable in the fact itself. In these missionary efforts it was his custom, first to visit the Jewish sjmagogues of each town, and there expound his system. From amongst them he won numerous converts. But his labours extended beyond the synagogue, and many Gentiles were induced to join the sect. We know this, not only from the refer- ences to the Gentile converts in his letters, but also from the history and development of the Church. I apprehend, however, these converts were not so numerous as is sometimes made to appear ; and that until the end of the century THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 251 the largest proportion of the Christian Church consisted of the Jewish race. The principal exceptions to this fact were found, not in Greece or in Italy, but in Asia Minor ; where the Jews had long before made numerous con- verts from the Gentiles, and most of whom would naturally and at once give in their ad- hesion to the broader and more liberal system of Christianity. In Eome, we have already seen, that a large proportion of the Christian Church consisted of the Jewish race towards the end of the second century. There are, however, but few documents upon which we can rely, and those few are full of contradic- tions. Especially untrustworthy and misleading is the Acts of the Apostles. It is made up of legends, myths, fictions, and traditions, with or without a regard to facts, as might serve the purpose of its author. Who the author was, and when he wrote, we know not. The orthodox do not venture to quote their favour- ite, Papias, on his behalf. Papias never men- 252 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 253 I! tions, or even seems to quote from, tlie Acts. 'Not does Clement, or any other of the so-called Apostolic Fathers. JN'or does Justin Martyr. The first writer any critic now ventiu-es to adduce is IrenaDus. And, then, besides this want of external evidence, the unauthentic character of the book is overwhelmingly shown by its contents. I wdll only trouble you with one illustration. In the 28th chapter Paul is represented as arriving at Rome, and as having sent for the chief of the Jews to meet him, in order to arrange a conference. The Jews readily expressed their assent, because, said they, 'we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest : for as concerning this sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against.' Ac- cordingly, the conference was held, and re- sulted in 'some of them believing the things which were spoken, and some believing not.' Seeing this, Paul declared he would turn to the Gentiles. 'And when he had said these words the Jews departed, and had great reason- ing among themselves. And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and re- ceived all who came unto him.' IS'ow, most evidently, all this implies that there was, at the time Paul arrived at Rome, no Church there, or none of any size or importance. The Jews of Rome were ignorant of what the Christians believed,— they wished to learn; Paul never recognizes the existence of a Church— he holds meetings in his own hired house. But now, what was the fact? At this very period there not only was a Church in Rome, but a most flourishing Church, to which Paul had written one of his few extant epistles, and to which he says, ' I thank my God, through Jesus Christ, for you all, that your faith is spohn of throughout the tvhole icorld!' A child may see how contradictory this is, and that, if the Epistle to the Romans be genuine, the Acts of the Apostles cannot be history. Failing to find any real historical facts to rest upon beyond what I gather from the four authentic Epistles of Paul, Romans, Galatians, ! t E ' If m li) (Hij 1 1/ 254 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES and the two to tlie Corintliians, I deem it perfectly useless to attempt to construct liis biography upon a traditional basis. I must leave his journeyings and labours in the ob- scurity beneath which time has buried them. But those four epistles, fortunately, furnish us with what is of infinitely more importance than an account of his wanderings and the in- cidents of his life would have been— they give us an insight into the doctrinal system he elaborated, and which has since formed the predominant element of Christianity. Upon impartially considering that system, we find all the essentials of the Pharisaism in which he had been brought up, only modified, first, by his conceptions of the life and character of Jesus ; and, secondly, by the anti-sacrificial, or anti-ecclesiastical, position into which his notion of the catholicity of the Messianic kingdom had forced him. That I am right in maintain- ing that he never abandoned, but only repro- duced, the essential principles of the higher Pharisaism, even the orthodox must own ; for THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 255 we are expressly told in the 23rd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, and the 6th verse, that when Paul perceived that the one part of the council before which he had been brought was composed of Sadducees, and the other of Pharisees, he cried out in the council, 'Men and brethren, / cmi a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee ; of the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am called in question.' JS'ow, this would have been a direct lie, if he had not stHl held all the essential and distinguishing tenets of Pharisaism ; and as the orthodox would not admit that Paul could be guilty of a lie even to save his Hfe, they must concur with me in. admitting that PauFs Christianity contained in it, and was merely a modification of, all the essential tenets of Pharisaism. I assert this, however, not upon the faith of this text in the Acts, but upon the ground of a comparison of Pharisaism as it is described in the Talmud, Josephus, andPhilo, with the sentiments of the four authentic epistles. This doctrine was distinctly modified, first. V*a \m ; i m m 256 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES by his conceptions of the life and character of Jesus. No doubt, before his conversion he had learned all the facts and all the myths (so far as they had then grown) the ^N'azarenes had to tell respecting his master's life and death. And at the feet of Gamaliel he had learned how to treat these according to the principles and spirit of the Alexandrine philo- sophy. Accordingly, in that long season of soli- tude he spent in Arabia, his thoughts, doubt- lessly, evolved the doctrine of the Son of God, as it crops up here and there in his writings. He was a more thorough Hebrew than Philo was, more restrained, therefore, in his specula- tions; but still he was necessitated to philo- sophize deeper than the theosophy of the He- brew Scriptures led. We have no intimation that he held the whole doctrine of emanations, as described in the last lecture ; but, evidently, under the term, Son of God, we have the doc- trine of the Logos; and in the tenn. Holy Ghost, we have an emanation yet beyond it. Now, that this divine emanation, aeon, or THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 257 manifestation of God, the Logos should have become incarnated in, and should become one with the man, Jesus, was, in its conception, both Hebraistic and Alexandrine. And you will expressly note, that Paul nowhere recog- nizes the gross idea of the supernatural con- ception presented in the Gospel of Luke. The only passage bearing the remotest approach to that idea is in Gal. iv. 4. But that passage, when taken in its whole connection, does not necessarily, or naturally, countenance the idea, but simply asserts the Incarnation. On the contrary, in Eom. i. 3, 4, he distinctly marks off the purely human origin of the Christ's human nature from the divine origin of his di^dne nature, when he says, * He was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh (the body or human nature), and declared to be the Son of God with'power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead,' 1. e. the resurrection from the dead, of which Paul had such proof in his own vision, declared clearly and definitely, that he was the Son of 17 258 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES m li I God, in his divine nature. So far as we can ascertain, this doctrine, then, of an incarnation of the Son of God, or Logos, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, was due to Paul ; and we see at once, how it raised the whole system of Christianity to a dignity it never could have attained under the Galilaean mythologies and remembrances, and gave an authority to the dogmatical and ethical principles Christianity insisted on, mere Pharisaism never could have possessed. Closely connected, too, with this dogma, and logically arising out of it, was the second modification Christianity, in the hands of Paul, made in the Pharisaic system — I mean the full development of the spiritual character of the Messianic kingdom, its entire comprehension of devout Gentiles, and the consequent an- tagonism to the Judaic laws of sacrifice and priesthood. For, it was altogether incon- sistent with the dignity and moral qualities of the Logos, or Son of God, in those days, to con- fine his grace to one nation or race exclusively. THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 259 His relations to the universe, as taught in all the schools, necessitated the equality of all men before him— at least up to certain points. The kingdom which he was about to establish on earth would, therefore, necessarily embrace all nations ; and all the devout would share alike in his favours, subject merely to the limitation expressed in the oft-repeated phrase, ' to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.' But a world- wide religion could scarcely be sacrificial. The whole conception of the Jewish sacrifice was that of a local, national institute, for local, national purposes. It was only applicable to the stranger when the * stranger dwelt within the gate.' The abolition of the national ex- clusiveness, therefore, necessarily involved the abolition of the sacrifice, together with the abolition of the priesthood and all other things pertaining thereto. Nor do I apprehend that, such a complete revolution as this appears to us, brought up with our notions about Jewish types and other absurdities, would involve much struggle in the mind of Paul. The Jews even ^^ ^^ !( 260 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES in their worst period never held the irreligious ideas about sacrifice countenanced by modem orthodoxy. The old Hebrew prophets vehe- mently proclaimed that the only sacrifice ac- ceptable to God was a contrite spirit, and a just, merciful, and devout life. The Talmud repeatedly asserts the same thing. Josephus recognizes it over and over again. It is the direct doctrine of Philo and a large number of the Essenes. Paul, therefore, in setting it forth was only moving in the same direction as the whole of the best minds of the age were moving in. It was not until, pushing the principle to its full logical consequences, he declared that the whole Mosaic law was abol- ished, that he comjnitted any great violence against Pharisaism, or any other very deeply- rooted Jewish principle. But even in doing that he was merely returning to the true, old Hebraistic doctrines. Be that, however, conceded or not, this is quite evident — ^by developing these ideas and proclaiming them to the world, Paul bridged THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 261 over the gulf which had hitherto separated the Gentile world from the rich field of ethical lore extended over the whole Hebraistic writings. He * broke down the middle wall of partition,' as a writer in the, so-called. Epistle to the Ephesians expresses it, ' which had separ- ated between Jews and Gentiles, and so made peace between them,' enabling them to ap- proach each other, and take whatever was good, either in philosophy or ethics, from each other's systems. It was the first step ever taken in the history of the world towards a universal faith and a universal rule of life. Persia, Macedonia, Eome, had each in succession attempted to form a universal empire which should comprehend the bodies of men. Paul dares the thought of a system of Faith and Ethics which should comprehend their souls. It failed, as all such attempts, perhaps, neces- sarily must. But the conception was sublime. It gave to Christianity for centuries its mighty power over Greeks, Romans, Goths, Germans, Scandinavians, Celts, and all other races of the II 262 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES Western world. It still exercises a strong sway over many noble minds ; and even yet upholds a tottering throne amidst the social earthquakes of the seven hills. Nor was it the mere uni- versality of the system which he propounded that imparted to it its mighty power. His conceptions of the divine nature of the Logos, or Son of God, gave to the notions of his in- carnation, humble, devout, and benevolent life, and, above all, to his death, an inward and divinely spiritual force. For, the death of such a being, whatever the outward circumstances, could not be otherwise than voluntary. The purpose might be divined through the results. It brought to an end the exclusive privileges of the Jews, and brought all believers upon one common level as members of his new spirit- ual kingdom. It was an act, therefore, which issued from the divine, redeeming love and o-race of the Loffos towards all mankind. So the cross became the symbol of self-sacrifice and devotion ; a rall^ ing centre for all noble human affections, and thus a power to renovate THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 263 the soul. To great acts of self-sacrifice the heart of the world always responds. When the self-sacrifice is performed by a God there are no bounds to the enthusiasm it inspires. And thus it was, when Paul conceived the doctrine of the Logos, or Son of God, sacrificing him- self for the good of the world, he had elabor- ated a doctrine that age could not resist, and which constituted him, not Jesus, the real founder of the Christian religion. 4 ^ 264 LECTUEE X. THE AUTHOR OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. I FEEL that I have hardly done justice to the character and labours of the Apostle Paul in the last lecture. It required a volume in- stead of a few pages to set forth the change he effected in Christianity as a system of dogma and ethics, and in its relations to the Gentile world. As I expressed it, he bridged over the gulf separating the Hebrew race from the Gentiles, and fused the Oriental and Occident- al philosophies into one grand system of theo- logical and ethical thought and feeling. But this system did not exist in his mind as a phi- losophy. It was a religion, which absorbed all the powers of his reason, his fancy, his emotion, in its service, and subordinated his life entirely THE AUTHOR OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 265 to its interests. Its certainty was guaranteed to him, not by the cold speculations of the in- tellect, but by the ecstasies of faith, in the midst of which God himself became his imme- diate teacher. It took possession of his whole soul ; it fired his zeal to the utmost ; in the boundless enthusiasm it called forth, no labours, no trials, no sufferings were too great to be endured. His whole life was spent in extend- ing its influence in the world. And, the influence of a system so adapted to the wants of the age, propagated with such a zeal, could not fail to be greatly extended. The Acts of the Apostles, by its trimming and compromises, hides from us the real success. The Jewish race residing in Asia Minor and Europe, long liberalized by their contact with the Gentiles, gave in their adhesion in great numbers. By so doing, they, at first, renounced neither their nationality nor their ancient re- ligion. It was only subsequent circumstances, principally arising out of the opposition of the Palestinian Jews, and the great influx of Gen- n I I 266 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES tile converts, wHcli compelled them to assume a distinct position. In the time of Paul there were doubtlessly many converts made from the non-Hebraic races. The Jewish proselytes would mostly embrace the Christian faith. Others, entirely outside the pale of the Jewish Church, would be won by the ethical philosophy, or *by the grand enthusiasm of the apostle. But, as we have seen, these Gentile converts would bear a much less proportion to the He- brews than is generally represented. It was later on, in the second century, that Christian- ity began to tell upon the outer world, and its disciples were multiplied amongst the heathen races. As soon as Christianity, however, came thus into contact with Greeks, Romans, and other Gentiles, its leaders and advocates could not but become conscious of a great defect. It was a defect Paul had not, and from that constitu- tion of his mind upon which his greatness rested probably could not, have supplied. I am referring to the want of a philosophical THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 267 literature. At the beginning of the second century it had numerous mythological biogra- phies of Jesus of Nazareth in circulation. But they were all written from the Jewish point of view, and were more apt to repel than attract the subtle, philosophical mind of the West. There were three or four letters of Paul extant ; but these had been written mostly for practical purposes ; their arguments, illustrations, and method were Hebraistic, with the Alexandrine modifications ; and in their doctrinal parts they are more like the impassioned lyrics of the mystical improvisateur than the careful treatise of the philosopher. Gradually, other similar documents appeared, some claiming to be writ- ten by this person and others by that ; but all were of the same character and of no authority. And this defect especially told in relation to the Logos, incarnated in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Paul had made his doctrine and ethical system to centre in him. Doubtlessly he had fully expounded this doctrine in his oral teaching ; but he had left no written trea- I 268 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES tise setting fortli his views. You get glimpses of wliat he taught upon the subject in his Epis- tles ; but they are such mere glimpses that you can only understand them when you have learned the whole system from other sources. One could no more learn what Paul taught from the mere study of his letters than one could learn the whole system of Aristotle from the study of his eight books on physics. The Pauline doctrine was, therefore, in danger of becoming lost in the midst of the explanations and expositions of those who endeavoured to remember and repeat what he had taught. In the mean while, every one would be left very much to his own speculative tendencies; and there seemed nothing to present to the inquir- ing, philosophical mind which could represent the real doctrine around which the Christian system revolved. Had the defect, therefore, remained unremedied, Christianity would have speedily degenerated into one of the forms of the many Gnostic sects which sprang up in the second century, or, at the most, have existed a THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 269 century or two more as a school of theology. It could never have determined the philosophy and religion of the Western world. But, fortunately, during the more early part of the second century the defect was supplied by the appearance of a work which was, before long, accepted by the moderate party in the Church as an exponent of its philosophical ideas. It appeared without a name. Who its author was, to what nation he belonged, what were his antecedents and his fate, who were his teachers, what prompted him to write, are entirely unknown. All we know is, there is the book. Some think it existed as early as Justin Martyr. It seems to have been known by many of different sects during the latter half of the second century; and from the time of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clemens of Alex- andria to have been regarded by the Catholic Church as the production of the Apostle John. In the second lecture I have already shown that the book is anonymous, that its facts are purely mythological or fictitious, and that it is 270 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES to be regarded as a pure work of fiction, written for a philosophical or theological purpose. The author could no more have supposed that he was giving a real narrative of what Jesus actually said, when he wrote those long chapters setting forth his controversies with the Jews and his discourses to his disciples, than did Thucydides and Livy when composing the speeches in their histories. What all three aimed at was to set forth the spirit, principles, and motives of those they described ; but they did this by putting into their mouths dis- courses composed entirely in the same style as that in which the rest of the books was written. They did it, however, in all good faith ; and if critics and commentators have subsequently mistaken the fictitious creations for speeches actually made by the heroes of the books, not the authors, but the critics and commentators are to blame. I have also already shown that the author of the so-called Gospel of John could not have been a Palestinian jJew. He may have been THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 271 an Alexandrine, or a member of one of those nimierous Jewish families that had been resid- ent for generations in the principal cities of Asia Minor ; or, what is more likely still, he may have been one of those proselytes to Ju- daism from the Gentile races to whom I have already referred, and most of whom readily embraced the Christian faith. That he was more probably this than a convert from either pure Judaism or pure heathenism is shoT^Ti, on the one hand, by his entire freedom from Jewish prejudices, and his severe opposition to the whole Jewish people and their customs; and, on the other hand, by a knowledge of those customs, by a familiarity with Jewish thought too accurate and extensive, and by a participation in the Hebraistic ethical spirit too profound, for one coming into contact with Judaism for the first time through the Chris- tian sect. Be that, however, as it may, there can be no doubt that he was thoroughly versed in the Alexandrine philosophy of a more advanced type than that known by Philo ; that 272 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES ml he possessed more of tlie philosopliical spirit and genius than Paul ; and that he entered more deeply and intimately into the inner, spiritual life of man than any other writer of the age. A lengthened and earnest study of the book has convinced me that its primary end or purpose— its final cause— was not to give a narrative, historical or fictitious, of the life, death, and discourses of Jesus Christ ; but to set forth the relations of the Logos, or divijie Son of God, to the soul. The author's concep- tions of the Logos had an immense quickening power upon his own spiritual life. He had seemed to himself to rise into the closest com- munion with God. He had had fellowship with the Logos, felt his grace pervading his whole spirit and making him one with the Father. The heavenly glory of a present eternal life had opened to his ecstatic gaze, and filled him with the peace and joy of which the world could not dream. His whole life had been renovated, and he had passed into a THAT OKIGIXATED CHRISTIANITY. 273 new state of existence. He would fain tell of Ms experience, and let aU the world partake of Bis bliss. But, now, this quickening of his soul had taken place under the influence of the PauHne doctrine of the Logos incarnate in the per- son of Jesus. It was by being drawn into the great Christian movement of thought he had become awakened. He could not himself, therefore, separate his new life from the Christ! It was the Logos, the Son of God, who had regenerated him ; but that Logos had dwelt in the highest, fuUest, most perfect degree in Jesus. Jesus knew this; must have expounded It to his disciples ; mmi have told them of the nch stores of blessedness the Logos, dwelling m himself, had also for them. But they were dull, sensuous, narrow-minded Jews, like those stiU opposing Christianity. They could not understand him. therefore. They forgot what te said, or misrepresented it, as in the synop- tical Gospels. Paul, who had clearer notions had not written them down fully. There was 18 274 THK MEX AND CIRCUMSTANCES nothing to represent the real facts and let the wld know what the Logos, the Son of God, is to the soul. He therefore determined to write a book and let the world know. But, now, what form should the hook take? Not certainly that of an autobiography, giving his own experience-the world would not heed that. What better form could it take than that of a representation of what the Christ mmt truly have been-a man fiUed with the Logos, speaking divine things under his inspir- ation, acting by the power of his impulse, criticizing and condemning the wickedness of the Jews and the Jewish institutions, radiating forth his glory in every act and word ? Yes ; that would be the thing-take a few of the best facts told respecting the life and death of Jesus, and make them the basis of a treatise which shaU show what the Logos was to Jesus, and so, what he is to every faithful, devout soul of man. Such, I conceive, were the motive thoughts which led to the composition of the fourth Gospel. THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 275 Accordingly, having in a few brief sentences given the philosophical conception of the Logos as he exists in himself; and having declared his inhabitation of, or tabernacling in, the man Jesus — thus constituting him the Logos-inspired man we call the Christ — he hastens on to show the manifestation of the Logos in his life and discourses. To do this, he first gives the testimony of John, of which no other Gospel knows anything. Then the outburst of his holy indignation against the defilers of the temple, and the first miracle, wrought at the marriage-feast of Galilee, ' showing forth his glory,' i. e. revealing the Logos dwelling intimately in his soul. — Then comes the discourse with Nicodemus upon the new birth of devout souls, effected by the Holy Ghost, that second aeon, issuing from the Father and the Logos, and which, with the Logos, is the only emanation recognized in this Gospel. I am not clearly assured, whether what follows concerning the Logos as the Saviour of men and as the inward light, whose 276 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES reception or rejection is the touclistone and test of tlie souVs illuminated condition, is intended to represent a part of tlie Christ's discourse or not; it seems, rather, a supple- ment added on, after his manner, in the writer's own name.— The fourth chapter begins with the manifestation of his divine glory to the Samaritans, and is the opening out, as it were, of that spirit of antagonism to the Jewish race and institutions which now goes on intensify- ino- until the end of the book.— The fifth chapter, after blimdering through a narrative respecting the healing of a man at the pool of Bethesda, enters upon the great mystery the Gospel is intended to unfold. The new birth and inner illumination were lightly touched upon in the third chapter, but here we have the Logos, one with the Father, and doing his works, raising and quickening the soul out of a state of spiritual death, and giving it a blessed life in God, of which the bodily resur- rection is to be regarded as but the conse- quence and the symbol. — In the sixth chapter, THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 277 having set forth as the basis of his discourse the narrative of feeding the multitude with five barley loaves, he proceeds to describe the Logos as the mystical manna of the sold — the bread which sustains, and the blood which constitutes, its life. And you will not fail to note here a peculiarity of this writer, characterizing nearly the whole book ; viz. whilst a miracle, as the outward s}Tn- bol of the divine power, furnishes the starting- point and determines the form of the discourse, it is the opposition and questioning of the wicked, unbelieving Jews which call forth the utterance of some of the profoundest truths. The darkness manifests the light, no less than the light manifests the darkness. The divine glory of the Logos, radiating on the devout, is most conspicuous when in antagonism to the sin and degradation of wicked men. — The seventh chapter especially brings out this antagonism, and asserts the efficiency of the divine, inner Kght the soul possesses through the Logos against the reasonings, rites, and 278 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES institutions of Judaism.— Expanding tMs idea under another form, the eightli chapter glorifies the freedom of the soul effected by the indwell- ing Logos as the only real freedom, and, combining this thought with the history of the past, shows how the Logos was the source of life and joy to their boasted ancestor Abraham. — The ninth chapter sets him forth as the giver of Hght and vision to the soul, alone enabling it to discern good and evil.— Then foUows the tenth chapter, with its confused figures, in which the Logos appears as the Shepherd of the sheep, and the door of the sheepfold, i. e. the only possible way of life to the soul, and, at the same time, its guardian power. The discourse concludes with a con- troversy in which the Christ asserts the nature of his union with the Father, and the Jews get exasperated into an effort to lay violent h'ands upon him.— The eleventh chapter is occupied with setting forth the fact that he is the author of life in aU its forms, by giving an account of the raising of Lazarus.-The twelfth sets forth THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 279 the eating of his last supper, apparently for the sake of contradicting the prevalent idea, which was embodied in the synoptical Gospels, that Jesus partook of the passover before he died, and substituted the Lord's supper for it. The rest of the chapter and the thirteenth set forth events necessary to give the tale a con- nection and lead on to the catastrophe. — But then come the wonderful thirteenth, four- teenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters, con- taining those addresses to the disciples, in which the deepest truths of the inner life are unfolded in their relation to the Logos, and in which is shown^ from the experience of Christ, how the Logos dwelling in the soul is the bond of its union with God, the root of its vitality, its teacher, its peace, its strength, its comfort, its joy, its eternal and blessed life. The whole is appropriately concluded with the prayer of the seventeenth chapter, in which the princi- ples are summed up and reiterated with a yet deeper solemnity. All the doctrines of the profoundest mysticism are implicated in these 280 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES five chapters. Tlie very essence of the most recondite and spiritual conceptions of the Alexandrine philosophy is condensed in them. And yet, the purest ethical spirit pervades the Avhole ; whilst the relations of the Logos to the Father are characterized by a simpKcity which belongs to a child. Let not this simplicity, however, nor the familiarity we have had from the days of our childhood with the words, deceive any one into the belief that he com- prehends the meaning, unless he has otherwise obtained a competent knowledge of the philo- sophy. A sort of meaning lies upon the surface which may suffice a popular preacher ; but the meaning of the writer can only be grasped by those who have made the learning and speculations of that age their own. The rest of the Gospel is taken up with an account of the crucifixion and the subsequent resurrection. We need not follow it farther than to observe, there are most marked dis- crepancies between it and the synoptical Gospels ; and the subordination of the narra- THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 281 tive to the leading purpose of the Gospel is quite evident to a careful student. The last chapter seems to be no part of the original. That concludes with the words, 'These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (i. e. the Logos), and that believing ye might have life through his name ' — this having life through his name being thus assigned as the final end which led to the writing of the book. "Now, from even this slight sketch of the contents of the book, it wiU be evident how fully it was adapted to meet the one great want which must have been felt in the Church at the period about which it appeared. Its ethics are of the purest character to which that age ^had attained ; and they predominate over the whole spirit of the composition. The highest attainments and the most ecstatic "sdsions of God are made dependent upon keeping the Christian commandments of love, purity, and truthfulness. But, then, this exalted virtue leads to, and prepares for, the 282 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES \.k • compreheiisioii of the higher and mysterious knowledge. It prepares for faith, or that condition which gives a Hving union with the Logos, in and hy whom the inmost secrets of God are revealed to the soul. And, fortun- ately for its influence, the book does not enter upon the full revelation of those secrets, but only dimly hints at them. The full descrip- tion, satisfying curiosity, would soon have led to discussion, dissent, and contradiction; the dim intimation only stimulates curiosity, and leaves room for the speculative, discursive spirit to have its full play in the form of exposition and development. It was not, however, the skill of the writer which gave to the book this form ; but the^subjective, spiritual end he had in view. As we have seen, his design was not to expound the philosophy of the Logos, or to describe his nature, for its own sake; but to show his relations to the soul, and, so, how eternal life came through his name. Only, therefore, in the introduction and in the ninth chapter have we anything THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 283 like a formal exposition of the doctrine of the Logos ; and there it is so brief and sententious, that it is only after having acquired a previ- ous knowledge of the systems then prevalent, the words can be fully understood. And yet the book is so full of hints and references to the doctrine, and of the phrases borrowed from those systems, that it is still, and in that age would be yet more, provocative of the most inquisitive thought, and the most earnest speculation. Its mysticism and spiritual tone would touch the hearts of the multitude ; but the profound questions it raised made it the appropriate hand-book of the Christian philo- sopher. I scarcely think Justin Martyr had met with it, for the reasons already given; but it was the very book to meet the wants of such men and secure their faith. No longer would a Christian have occasion to blush if a heathen philosopher asked him for a treatise on his faith. The whole school of Alexandria, in that day, had produced nothing which surpassed this Gospel, whether in the material 284 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES of thought or in the character of style. Indeed, I do not know any work of that age in the same department, which could at all be compared with it. Plotinus belongs to the end of the century, or, perhaps, to the be- ginning of the third. But perhaps the greatest service of all that it rendered to the Christian cause was by spiritualizing the Christ and redeeming him from those grosser, sensuous forms in which the fancies of his Galilean disciples had pre- sented him. Had no other conception of him been set forth in writing than that which is presented in the synoptical Gospels, Chris- tianity could never have emerged out of its Jewish sectarianism, and the controversies of the Nazarenes, Ebionites, and Gnostics would probably have furnished the last chapters of its history. The Jesus of the synoptics does not rise in the least degree higher than a Therapeutic Essenene; and the narrative of the immaculate conception would have doomed him to an exclusion from the more cultivated THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 285 circles of society. But the exalted, spiritual, philosophized Christ of the fourth Gospel gave an entirely dilSerent character to the Christian system, and enabled it to bear the dead weight of the story of the miraculous conception. While philosophers laughed at the amours of Jupiter, the grandeur of the incarnation as presented by the fourth Gospel overawed their spirits and prompted them to find a plea or a gloss for the Jehovah of Luke. Accordingly, it is with the Christ as comprehended in the fourth Gospel that you find all the great minds of the Church occupied in the following four centuries. Only when the Latin influence began to preponderate did the doctrine of the supernatural conception rise to any great significance. I think, too, the attitude the Gospel assumes towards the Jews must have had considerable influence upon the spread of Christianity amongst the Gentiles. The Jews were never liked by the nations amongst whom they were dispersed. Their exclusiveness, their impertin- 286 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES ffi ent dogmatism, their intolerant bigotry, gave offence— and a just offence— to all with whom they came into contact. Even those who had become liberalized and naturalized by the re- sidence of their families through several gener- ations in Gentile cities, were cut off from free intercourse with their fellow-citizens by such of the Jewish rites as they retained. There was no chance, therefore, excepting in a few rare cases, for the spirit of feUowship to spring up amongst them. I have no doubt that this fact militated against the progress of Chris- tianity amongst the Gentiles through the greater part of the first century. And espe- cially as during this period a considerable number, if not nearly the whole, of the Chris- tians continued to observe many of the Jewish institutions. The free life of Paul did much to counteract this evil ; but even he could not altogether escape from the old influence. The Gentile convert, no less than the Gentile inquirer, would naturally resent the everlast- ingly-recurring formula, * To the Jew first, and THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 287 also to the Gentile.' Why to the Jew first ? What claim had he upon God's love more than the Gentile ? Was he more moral ? Was his faith stronger ? Had not the Christ, by Paul's own showing, abolished all distinctions, and made Jew and Gentile one ? It was inconsist- ent and an offence. And, besides, Paul was a Jew, and, notwithstanding the breadth of his philosophy, spoke and wrote as one. His thoughts, fancies, illustrations, arguments, turns of phrases, were all borrowed from the Jewish Scriptures. It required a knowledge of these to follow his discourses and writings so as to understand all he meant. And no Gentile possessed such knowledge. The fourth Gospel, on the other hand, is not only written in purer Greek, but its whole spirit is anti- Jewish. Not only are the Jews not put first in the enjoyment of privileges ; they are put last. The 'light came to them,' and they ' comprehended it not.' They are thrust for- ward as the great enemies of the Christ. They take much about the same place as the devil in si'i 288 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES If the miracle plays, and tlie tice in the mysteries, of the ante-Shakespearian times, and constitute the evil power the Logos has always to contend against and overcome. Nor do the Jewish institutions fare much better than the Jews themselves. The only true sacrifice the Go- spel commends is the Lamb of God who taketh away, not the punishments, but the sins of the world. The story about the manna in the wilderness is declared to be untrue. The idea of God's resting on the Sabbath is boldly pro- claimed to be a fiction, and the institution of the Sabbath- rest, which was built upon it, is peremptorily set on one side. The whole spirit of the book is anti- Judaical. And yet it retains, as I have already reiter- ated, the purest ethics of the purest Hebraistic times, and shrinks with the reverence of the ancient prophets from the comparatively more wild and daring speculations concerning the divine essence in which even a Philo seems to have indulged. And all this must haA^e greatly tended to render the book acceptable to the THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 289 more thoughtful amongst the Gentiles, and to smooth the progress of Christianity in the world. I do not know that the author contributed anything else to the Christian literature. The First Epistle of John, which is usually ascribed to him, certainly belongs to his school. Its style is formed upon the same, or a similar, model as that of the Gospel ; and many of its turns of thought and expression, and much of its spirit, are the same. Yet a thorough study reveals considerable differences, and it is far inferior to the Gospel in power and depth of thought, and in the energy of the expressed spiritual life. I should be more inclined to think it the work of a companion, or a scholar, than of the author of the Gospel himself. But still, it may have been the production of a dif- ferent period of his life, or when his powers had lost their freshness. JNTo man is at all times equal to his highest self How the Gospel made its way into circula- tion we do not know. But how it came to be 19 290 THE MEX AND CIRCUMSTANCES ascribed to Jolin it is not difficult to con- jecture. Its anonymous character left the fancy free ; and the exigencies of the popular Christian theories required for John a work commensurate with the position given him in the accepted legends. No higher or nobler work could be given than that of the com- position of a book which was the proudest product of Christian thought and life. Fancy, therefore, freely gave him what the theories re- quired he should have. But it concerns us more to observe that its influence soon began to tell upon the development of Christian speculative thought AVe find it in the writings of both the or- thodox and heterodox alike. If it did not lay the foundations of the Alexandrine Chris- tian Didascalia, it entirely determined the form of its development and supplied the sub- ject-matter of its studies. That school inspired the ruling minds of the Church for several generations. There Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, and, above all, Origen acquired the THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 291 philosophy which they used with such power in defence of the Christian cause. There the subtle Greeks learned to recognize the mani- festation of Plato's Logos in the Christian Christ. There the Christian theologians en- countered and triumphed over the last efforts of heathen philosophy (embodied in the person of Proclus), to give Hfe to the ancient forms of thought. And from there issued those doc- trines respecting the modes of the divine existence which ever since have constituted the faith of the Christain world. And, whether for good or for evil, the strength, the power, the triumph of the Alexandrine Christian Didascalia were principally due, I believe, to the so-called Gospel of John. And what, in some respects, is more remark- able still is, now that the original forces of Christianity have spent themselves, that the facts upon which its faith has rested so many ages are declared to be myths, that its doc- trines no longer satisfy the human understand- ing, and that all hearts are longing after a 292 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES ■f- purer and higher form of religion, those who, with any degree of culture, or with any free- dom of spirit, still attempt to cling to Chris- tianity, and do the work for it which Proclus tried to do for heathenism, turn, not to Mat- thew, Mark, or Luke, not to Peter or Paul, but to the conceptions of this fourth Gospel and its profound mysticism, as the surest means of renovating the religion of the w^orld. We have been crushed, they say, under the Augustinian interpretations of St Paul and the legalizing Jewish spirit in the synoptics. Let us recur to the divine idea of a Son of God dwelling in our souls, our redeemer, our teacher, our life, our blessedness, and there w^ill spring forth a renovated power of faith that otherwise we shall seek in vain. Strange but noble infatuation ! Their deep spiritual sym- pathies mislead them. They forget that, great and wonderful as the fourth Gospel is for the age in which it was written, and powerful as its influence was over even the noblest minds of that age, the world has drifted down the THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 293 stream of time since then some seventeen hun- dred years, and that it would therefore be a reversal of all the laws of human progress if we could now find faith or rest in its forms of thought. But the circumstance proves that the author of the fourth Gospel was not the most insignificant of the three founders of the Chris- tian religion. 294 LECTURE XI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. Before bringing this course of lectures to a close, it will be well for us bere to pause and briefly review tbe ground over whicb we bave travelled. I sball not proceed, bowever, step by step, in tbe same line of tbougbt as tbe necessities of tbe case compelled us to proceed along during tbe course, but ratber sball en- deavour to gatber up tbe various points into one focus and get a concentrated view of tbe wbole. Tbe position, tben, from wbicb we started was tbis : we bad been brougbt up and edu- cated in tbe Cbristian religion. Tbe ministers of tbat religion bad told us tbat we must con- tinue to believe in its facts and doctrines, or SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 295 perisb everlastingly. But we bad dared to question tbeir assertion, and ask tbem for proof tbat tbe religion is true. Tbe course of inquiry we have pursued bas been an examination into tbe answer tbey gave. JN'ow, tbe wbole authority and worth of tbe Cbristian religion depend upon tbe genuineness and authenticity of tbe four books called tbe Gospels. Even the Eoman Catbolic Churcb is obKged to rest ultimately upon these. So that, in an examination into this authority and wortb, our first inquiry of the Cbristian ad- vocates is, How do you know tbat these books are genuine and authentic? They answer, ^Because we can trace them down to tbe present time in the writings of tbe Christians, wbere tbey are owned as the works of tbe autbors to whom tbey are ascribed and as of divine authority.' We tben ask them to sbow us what Cbristian writings of tbe first and second century tbey bave bearing out this assertion. And, first of all, they put into our bands cer- tain letters wbicb tbey say were written by 296 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES men who lived in tlie next generation to the writers of the Gospels, who had seen some of the apostles, and whom they therefore call apostolic Fathers. Well, we look through these letters, and do not find one word about the authors of the Gospels. ' Oh no/ say the ad- vocates, * they do not mention them by name ; but see, here are passages they quote from the Gospels.' We look at the passages ; there are very few of them ; and, I think, not one in the words of the Gospels. They are similar, but not the same passages. * That is because the Fathers quoted from memory,' say the ad- vocates. What a bad memory, then, they must have had, for scarcely once do they quote a short passage right. But that assertion is a mere conjecture ; how do they know that these authors were not quoting accurately from some other book ? or how do they know they were not quoting from sayings current in the ordin- ary gossip circulating around them? The Christian advocates are silent, for they have no answer to give. w THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 297 m Nor is that all ; for out of the midst of these advocates comes a certain class of critics, say- ing, * Never mind about these apostolic Fathers, for their writings certainly abound with spurious passages, and it is very doubtful whether any of them are authentic. Nay, it is almost certain that there never was such a man as one of them, Clement, Bishop of Eome. The probability is that the letters belong to the latter part of the second century. Since, then, the letters themselves are not proved to be authentic, they cannot authenticate the Gospels. We, therefore, break off the first link in the chain of evidence the Christian advocates offer us, and throw it away as worth- less. What, then, is the second ? Here they brighten up. * Why,' say they, ' we have the express testimony of a man who in his youth had seen the Apostle John, who was the friend of Polycarp, John's disciple ; he declares that the Gospels were written by the authors to whom they are ascribed; and he lived only about eighty or ninety years after 298 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES Christ's death.' Will you be kind enough, we ask, to show us his book ? * Oh, that has unfor- tunately perished ; but Eusebius, the historian, quotes the passage/ Will you tell us, then, how Eusebius knew the book he quotes was written by this man ? That they cannot do ; so that we are to take the gossiping Eusebius' s word for it. But let that pass. How far was this man, Papias, trustworthy ? May we in all cases take his word ? * Oh no ; not in all cases ; he sometimes tells most absurd tales about John and Christ ; and Eusebius himself as much as calls him an old fool.' Indeed, then how shall we tell that in this case we may trust him ? Echo answers. How ! Besides this ; when we come to examine what Papias is represented as actually saying, we find it does not bear the testimony the advocates have asserted it does ; but, as Strauss has shown, it rather militates against the authenticity of the Gospels as they at present exist. So that the second link in the chain of evidence is broken off as worthless. THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 299 There is now only left the forlorn hope, Justin Martyr, who wrote more than a hundred years after the death of Christ. He quotes a book he calls the Memorabilia of the Apostles. His quotations are not numerous; but some of them are very much like verses found in the Gospels, and some of them very unlike. But, as the book is called by another name, and as nothing is more likely than that many books might contain similar things when giving an account of a particular man's sayings and doings, Justin Martyr affords no testimony to the Gospels. And thus, the third link is broken off their chain of evidence as worthless. We will not insult the understanding of the adyocates by supposing that they would con- sider the testimony of Irenaeus alone as worth anything. So that, the external evidence to the authenticity of the four Gospels entirely breaks down, and the books have to stand upon their own intrinsic worth alone. We turn, then, to an examination of the internal character of the books, and what do we find ? •ii 300 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTA.NCES We find a series of the most marvellous tales, relating events and deeds which are perfectly miraculous. Now, a miracle in itself is, to us, perfectly incredible. For, it is a departure from^ and a violation of, the order, constancy, and undeviating sequences of nature ; and nature is only known to us as never departing from and violating her order, constancy, and undeviating sequences. It is an entire and absolute contradiction, therefore, to our expe- rience; and to believe it we must upturn all the grounds of our belief. Nay, as we could only believe it upon the ground of what our experience has told us respecting the worth of testimony, since the behef of a miracle supposes the untrustworthiness of our experi- ence, the testimony itself is without a ground to rest upon, and the belief built up upon it falls for the want of a base. Nor is that aU. We admit that there are many events which occur that are very marvellous, i. e. not contrary to but very unlike, our former experiences. For such events we always require very minute THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 301 and conclusive evidence. And the more marvellous they are, the clearer and the more complete we require the evidence to be. But these marvellous tales of the Gospels — so marvellous as to rise into the miraculous — are, as we have seen, altogether without such evidence. Even if the writers were eye- witnesses of what they relate, they would not be considered competent witnesses to a tale of similar marvels in the present day. Why, then, should we be less stringent in our requirements for tales concocted centuries ago, and that at a period when nearly everybody believed without questioning in marvels and miracles ? But it is a work of supererogation to press this argument, for we have seen that there is no evidence that one of them was an eye-witness. The advocates of Christianity have nothing to show that they were but the fact, that a few passages found in the un- authenticated apostolic Epistles may be sup- posed to be bad quotations from the Gospels — that an old man, fond of telling idle tales, is m - — V 302 THE MEN AND CIRCI3MSTA^X'ES said to have said, that lie had heard some books were written by the men these Gospels are said to have been written by— and that Justin Martyr has quoted from a book bearing a different title, a few passages, some of which are like, and some are unlike, to what can be found in the Gospels ! But is this the sort of evidence upon which to abandon the universal testimony of our experience ? to contradict our deepest and strongest convictions ? and to scep- tically question the certainty of bur know- ledge? Not until our reason has fled to brutish beasts/ and we have in despair aban- doned ourselves to absolute doubt. Nor is there the least occasion to give heed to such foolish tales in order to account for what is good in Christianity, and for the influence it obtained for many centuries over the world. Christianity was not a new re- ligion ; and only gross ignorance, disgraceful at the present day in its teachers, can suppose that it was. It was a natural development out of the old, and the result of numerous tenden- THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 303 cies, which political and other events caused to concentrate and combine to constitute its ele- ments and its life. It signifies little to us now, whether the speeches put into the mouth of Jesus by the synoptical Gospels were actually spoken by him or not. For, in either case, they show that the first phase of the Christian doctrine and ethics was that of the purest Pharisaism. That the writers of the Gospel make Jesus condemn Pharisaism, is nothing to contradict this. They wrote in a subsequent period, when the Pharisees and the Christians had become hostile. It was natural for them to conclude that they had ever been hostile, and that their Master had condemned out and out the religion of his foes. Indeed, it is only by this supposition that you can account for the phenomenon these Gospels present — in the name of the condemnor of Pharisaism, the Pharisaical doctrines and ethics are taught — unconsciously they give the highest exaltation to what they denounce. I; 304 THE MEN AND CIRCUMStANCES And Pharisaism, recollect, in those days represented all those influences which had been working on the Jewish mind oyer since the time of the Babylonian captivity— influ- ences derived from all those countries subdued by Persia, reconquered by Alexander the Great, and finally brought into the closest intercourse by the Romans. It was no more 3Iosaism, or Hebrewism, or Leviticusism, than it was Chaldaism. It was a combination of all, in various proportions ; deriving its ritual from Eg}T)t, its philosophy and speculative theoloo-y from India, Persia, Chaldaoa, and other countries which found a voice in the Babylonian school ; whilst its ethics alone seem to be due to the original Hebrew race. This Pharisaism, then, in its higher and purer forms, Jesus of Nazareth, it may be presumed, embodied in his life, and taught with popular power — always leaning towards its most catholic principles, as opposed to Jewish exclusiveness ; and towards its highest spirituality as opposed to the lower formalism. THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 305 The hold he thus obtained over the people of Galilee was immense; which, combined with his claims to the Messiahship, led them to have visions of him when dead, to expect his speedy coming to earth again to reign, and to zealously teach and assert his doctrines and his claims. But this Pharisaism was confined to Judcea and the immediate provinces. It was neither speculative enough nor broad enough for the Hellenistic or foreign Jews. And whilst Christianity merely presented the Pharisaic t3-pe combined with the special Christology of Galilee, its conquests were mostly confined to Palestine. But after some years had passed, a new era arose. PauFs home-bred s^Tnpa- thies were entirely Pharisaic. But his mind had been liberalized by the teaching of Ga- maliel, and by the adoption, at least to an extent, of the philosophy of Philo and the school of Alexandria. By one of those curious revolutions, not uncommon to such minds, he embraced the notion of the Messiahship of 20 II 306 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES I* < Jesus. He wrought it up with his Pharisaism. He wrought it up with his Alexandrianism. The result was a new form of liberalized Christianity, especially adapted to the, so- called, Hellenistic Jews and their proselytes from heathenism. The new form speedily spread over Asia Minor, through some of the cities of Greece, and obtained a firm hold in Kome. Under its new guise, it attracted the attention of the outer world. Men who would have despised Judaism, lent it an ear; and numbers became converted to the faith. But when Paul had passed away, the movement he had initiated threatened to degenerate into a confused sectarianism, for the want of a de. finite expression of its thought on the highest doctrines — and that so much the more, on account of its intense earnestness of thought, and its impassioned devotion. At the right moment, therefore, the fourth Gospel appeared ; full of lofty conceptions concerning God, the Logos, the Spirit, man's spiritual life ori- ginated by a divine operation in the soul, his THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 307 oneness with God, and his eternal destiny. It gathered up into itself all the noblest and best the age had produced. It expressed all its purest tendencies and holiest desires. It im- plicated the philosophy which was becoming ascendant in the Western as well as the East- ern world. It breathed a religion which in- spired the most devout. Its ethics were of the highest known type. It had food for the intellect and the fancy, was a guide for the sober-minded, and the visionary, and ecstatic — the grandest, noblest, purest book that age produced. It took possession of all the best minds of the Christian party. It influenced greatly those who remained without the Chris- tian pale. It determined the destiny of Chris- tianity, and ultimately made it the mistress of the Western world. Hemember, however, it was only one of many causes working in the same direction. It could never have been written if the liberal- ized disciple of the great Gamaliel had not besn won over to a belief in the Messiahship of . 308 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES ! Jesus, and had not elaborated, out of the spe- culations of Philo, a doctrine which connected tlie Alexandrine Logos with the life of the Galilean Jesus. It could never have been written had not the Oriental speculative theo- logy come into contact at Alexandria with the exhausted Grecian philosophy, and awakened within it a new spirit, and given to it a new method and form. It could never have been written had not Jesus lived a pure, devout, and inspired life, and by it, combined with a power of wondrous utterance, moved to their inmost depths the hearts of the strange peoj)le of Galilee. The fourth Gospel was the last tributary to the mighty river made up of many streams, which had no sooner received it than, rushing, rolling on in irresistible volumes towards the ocean of eternity, it be - came the wonder, the glory, and the greatest motive-power of the world. Nor must we forget, how the possibility of these results intimately depended upon poli- tical conditions. We may trace their concur- THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 309 rence from the conquests of Alexander the Great. The Macedonian aimy formed, or strengthened, Grecian colonies all over the East. Especially it gave new Kfe and power to the colonies planted long before in Asia Minor — a life and a power which were re- vealed, not less in the activity of philosophic thought, than in the spirit of commercial enterprise. The conquest of the Eomans completed the work Alexander had begun. The farthest East and the remotest West had lines of communication opened up between them. The whole known civilized world became one great empire, the centre of which for commerce and thought was Alexandria. This unification of the peoples, superinduced from without, and artificial though it was, had an inamense influence upon the moulding of their thought and feeling. It was the con- dition that made the universality of Chris- tianity possible. !N"ever before in the history of the world had a system, which was at once a philosophy and a religion, been bom under I 310 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT OUIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 311 such auspicious circumstances for diffusion and conquest. Lines of explosive thought and feeling radiated from Alexandria into every direction of the Eoman empire. Christianity broke forth with its intense heat and light in the very centre, and, lo ! the world was in a flame. In this respect, then, the early history of Christianity differs in nothing from the early history of all other wide-spread religions. It was the same with Mahomedanism ; the same with Protestantism ; not to mention less known instances. In all these cases the tendencies of thought and feeling had long been working in one direction over the whole of the populations amongst whom the religions subsequently spread. At the right moment and place, the right men appeared to give these tendencies an embodiment, an expression, and a living force. The appearance of the right men at once de- termined the existence, conquests, and destiny of the religions. Nay, it is not only so with regard to reli- gions, but with all great systems of thought. Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and the rest of the great philosophies were not the entire constructions of the great men whose names they bear. Philosophical thought in many minds had previously been mo^dng in the same direction, until at last it became con- centrated in the focus of their great genius, and gave forth the intense Kght which has constituted their fame. Perhaps the familiar case of the positive philosophy will afford the best illustration we could have. It was not the creation of Lord Bacon, much less is it the work of any later hand. Eoger Bacon had re- cognized its principles. Every great worker in science had acted upon them. Many had stammered out its fundamental thoughts, here and there. But at last all these hints, these imperfectly uttered principles, these active tend- encies, crvstallized into a definite form in the mind of Bacon, and immortalized his name. What he did was to gather up the vague, un- defined conceptions of the true method of 312 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT OllIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 313 scientific or philosophical inquiry everywhere floating about, which experience had forced upon men's convictions, and give to them a logical shape and form. These conductions, however, even as expressed by Bacon, were necessarily crude and imperfect. For ex- perience in his day had but a limited range. Science, which created them, was yet in its in- fancy. Two, three centuries of scientific work followed, directed and inspired by the philoso- phy of Eacon. His method was developed, elaborated, and rendered more complete by the wider and more accurate experience arising out of the processes of modern sciences. A new logical expression of the more perfectly elaborated method was needed for the nine- teenth century. It was supplied by the Phi- losophie Positive of A. Comte. But Comte no more originated the positive philosophy than did Bacon — than has John Stuart Mill (who for some English minds is a yet better expositor than Comte). They all alike were merely the gifted systematizers and exponents of tend- 1 encies, conceptions, and recognized principles, everywhere active around them, but which in their minds shone with more distinct and clearer light than in others. Doubtlessly great men create eras in thought ; but it is the con- centration of the tendencies of the thought in many minds which creates the great men. And thus Christianity, which is both a method of philosophy and a religion, did not difier in its genesis from the other philosophies and religions I have named. It slowly and gradually arose out of the tendencies of thought and feeling I have described in this course of lectures. Its great men express the stages of development at which it gradually arrived. We are frequently in danger of losing sight of this graduaKty and slowness of growth. When events recede far back from us, their lines in the perspective seem to converge, and at last their separate points coalesce and become as one object. We discern the interval between Bacon and Comte, because the latter has lived in our own day, and the scientific facts which 314 THE MEN AXD CIRCUMSTANCES fill up the interval between tliem are all dis- tinctly visible in our memories. But it is more difficult to realize that a century of activ® thought separated Jerome and Huss of Bohe- mia from Luther, and two centuries lav between him and Wickliffe of England. Still more diffi- cult is it to realize the fact, that a whole cen- tury passed after Jesus of Nazareth before the fourth Gospel appeared ; and that fully fifty years must have separated this last from the writings and labours of Paul. The intervening space of time between the epochs is perfectly devoid of authenticated facts, and as we gaze in the distance from one to the other, it seems as though they were in juxtaposition. The received traditions, too, render the intervals still more confused. But if we would truly comprehend the genesis of Christianity, it is necessary to give its full value to this lapse of time between the successive stages of its growth marked by the advent of Jesus, of Paul, and the fourth Gospel, and to the development of thought which took place between them. It f it THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 315 is only by so doing we can arrive at either a vivid realization of the facts or a scientific comprehension of their relations. If we do so, no one can fail to see that the history of Chris- tianity resembles that of all other philosophies and religions, in the gradual and slow develop- ment of its special forms of thought and feel- ing out of the concentrating tendencies of the age to which it belongs, and in the successive and more or less separated appearances of the great men who were the embodiments of its life. I know that there are some who would con- struct an argument for the supernatural origin of Christianity out of these very facts upon which I have just been dwelling. Because all the lines of the past history of the world con- verged into one point, and made the existence of Christianity a necessity, they contend that God must have specially prepared for its super- natural creation. I wish not to deny the action of God. I have no negation to give to the assertion that the whole universe is super- 316 THE MEN AND CIKCUMSTAXCES THAT OllIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 317 natural, not only in the fact of its total exist- ence, but in every movement of its single atoms. God ? The supernatural ? Ah, yes ; my deepest emotions are aroused by the words. But, when I have said this, what then ? I will not allow myself to be hoodwinked by the jug- gle of words which connote nothing but mystery and the Unknowable. These phenomena of Christianity resemble the phenomena of life I see everywhere around me. In the formation of a single plant there is a wonderful prepara- tion—a converging of forces, and a collecting of materials from every direction. Light and heat from the sun, electricity from the earth, water from the ocean, minerals from primse- val rocks, alkalies from the debris of older vegetations, acids from the atmosphere; the North, the South, the East, and West, bring their tributaries to constitute its life. This is still more true of the constitution of animal life, and is truer still of the life- thought of any individual thinker. The great crises of history are all the consequents of ^ the forces which have been collecting, not in one straight line, but in lines concentrating from different and even conflicting points of human thought and action. Look back over all the past ages, and you will see how won- derfully human history has been, not indeed a continuous linear progress, but one mysterious movement in concentric circles ever evolvinsr some higher and more advanced condition of the race, Christianity does not stand alone in being the result of causes remote in time, place, and characteristics from the events which constitute the beginning of its era. Every great event that has conspicuously affected the destiny of the race has had a similar history, and can trace the germs of its existence to cen- turies and places remote from itself. I will not quarrel with you, then, if it please you to say, that because of these connected ante- cedents, the genesis of Christianity reveals the action of the supernatural; but then you must allow me to add, it is a supernatural which lies hidden under, or (if you prefer it) is 318 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES revealed by tlie natural laws of society evolved ill the operations of human thought and feel- ing, and must also be predicated of the genesis of all other great philosophies and religions which have influenced the world. No, I will not quarrel with you over the word, super- natural ; for to me, indeed, the history of the Christian religion is full of mystery and won- der. And it is not the less so because I think I can connect its great events with antecedent states of human thought and feeling, and thus explain it by, what we term, natural causes. But all history is to me equally mysterious and equally wonderful. When I contemplate it, the same feelings come over me as when, a child, I used to stand and gaze upon the ocean stretching out to, and lost in, the clouds be- yond, but only known by the waves which majestically rolled in upon the shore, and were spent in foam at my feet. How I wondered then ! And how I wonder now, as I realize the oneness of humanity in its history, and ask myself, shall I call that Fate, or Force, or Mind, THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 319 or God, which, hidden and unknowable, works the powers that bring the future out of the past by processes according to certain, unde- viating, and natural laws ! Oh yes ; indeed, I wonder ; and my soul is filled with reverence, awe, and adoration, for that Unknown. To those not familiar with historical criti- cism and research, probably the least satis- factory part of these lectures has been that in which I have dealt with the Christian mytho- logy. It may seem to them incredible that such tales about miraculous doings and events should spring up at all ; and especially within the short period of seventy or a hundred years. I am not concerned to repeat upon this subject what I have already said. I merely again ask such persons to think of the very common occurrence of the creation of myths respecting distinguished men, and women, and great events in the present day — to recall to memory the universal belief in the power of working miracles as attainable by aU good men, preva- lent in that day — to realize to themselves S20 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES the excitable and fanatical character all his- tory ascribes to the Galileans — and then, I think, they will not find it so difficult to un- derstand the growth amongst such a people of the Christian myths. Especially is it im- portant to remember that fact I just alluded to, I mean the universal belief in the power of a good man to work miracles. You will re- collect that in describing the Essenes I men- tioned it as the result of the seventh state of piety to which they all aspired. The Pha- risees also held similar notions. To work a miracle might be dependent upon a special endowment from God; but that endowment was within the reach of all who became devout enough to receive it. Very many made pre- tensions to the possession, without setting themselves up as anything more than men who had entered into the closest communion with God. If Jesus made the pretensions, there would be nothing in the fact to surprise any one acquainted with the history of his times. That the pretensions would have been dissi- THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 321 pated by his failure to realize them in fact, will only be supposed by those ignorant of the strange and marvellous states of excited, ecstatic feeling and imagination, the glamour of the divinely visionary life, in which those existed who became the great saints of the day. Be all this, however, as it may — think that I have given you a sufficient explanation or not— this must be distinctly borne in mind: it is not incumbent upon us to account for Christianity by natural causes before we venture to reject its claims as a religion miraculously sent from God. Christianity comes before us with certain high pretensions which entirely and wholly rest upon alleged historical and literary facts. We look into the evidence of these facts. We find it totally insufficient to prove their reality. We there- fore reject the pretensions. The Christian advocates turn round upon us, and say, ' But if you reject the supernatural pretensions, how can you account for the existence and diffusion 322 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ORIGINATED CHRISTIANITY. 323 of the religion ? ' We offer our explanations. They reject them with scorn. But then we rejoin, be it so that we cannot explain what occurred eighteen hundred years ago ; it does not follow that, in spite of the utter absence of evidence, we are to accept your assertions about the supernatural. The thing merely remains hidden in the darkness which often enshrouds the past. Brahmaism lays claims to the supernatural. It has no evidence to rest upon. But I cannot explain its origin, for it, too, is lost in the obscurity of the past. Must I therefore accept of its supernatural claims ? The orthodox laugh in denial. But why so? For, change the name for Chris- tianity, and you have the case of the Christian religion. Yet its advocates assert, if we can- not account for its natural genesis to their satisfaction, we ought to believe in its super- natural claims ! But that now can never be. ^e live in the nineteenth century. Men demand a sub- stantial basis of reason for their faiths. What ^ h will not bear the strictest scrutiny must pass away. To part with the old^ dear supersti- tions may cost us many a struggle of the heart ; but it must be done — the Light which maketh manifest has dawned. The Christian religion has had a glorious course in the world. It has satisfied the intellect, fired the emotions, comforted the hearts of scores of generations. It has seen great empires rise and fall. It has nurtured barbarous races into civilization, and taught them the wisdom of science and the beauty of art. It has calmed men's fiercest passions, softened the ferocities of war, enfranchised the serf and the slave, and fostered, if it did not create, the idea of human brotherhood. It has inspired the holiness of saints, and con- verted death itself into a triimiph of life. But its power has become a thing of the past. Men have moved away from the conceptions of the universe upon which it was founded. . Its legends and myths have become impossible of belief in a scientific age. Its philosophy, its 324 THE MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES, ETC. theology, its ethics, are no longer tenable by the cultivated mind. Its glory has grown dim in the midst of the greater light itself has helped to create. But think not that the living energies which gave rise to it have also decayed. It is but a form in which circumstances led human thought and feeling to manifest themselves for a time. Other forms had lived and expired before it. Other forms will live and expire after it is gone. The wonderful life-power of Humanity has still the force to create the religions which it needs. Although Chris- tianity, with aU other forms of religion, must die. Humanity lives on for ever. THE END. JOHN CHILD8 AND SON, PRINTERS. i COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 0032145 ty