SOME MODERN OPINIONS ABOUT JESUS.
_Christianity "dwells with noxious exaggeration about the person of
Jesus."_--Emerson.
Christmas is the season in the year when pulpit and press dwell, with
what Emerson calls "noxious exaggeration," about the work and life, as
well as the person of Jesus. We have, lying before us, the Christmas
sermon of so progressive a teacher as the Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones.
[Footnote: Unitarian-Independent preacher of All Souls Church,
Chicago.] Here is his text: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among
us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the
Father."--John 1:14. How our educated neighbor can find food for sober
reflection in so mystical and metaphysical an effusion, is more than
we can tell. Who is the _Word_ that became flesh? And when did the
event take place? What does it mean to be the "only begotten from
the Father?" We know what it means in the orthodox sense, but what
does it mean from the Unitarian standpoint of Mr. Jones? But the text
faithfully reflects the discourse which follows. It is replete with
unlimited compliments to this _Word_ which became flesh and assumed
the name of Jesus. The following is a fair sample:
"I am compelled to think of Jesus of Nazareth as an epoch-making soul,
an era-forming spirit, a character in whom the light of an illustrious
race and a holy ancestry was focalized, a personality from which
radiated that subtle, creative power of the spirit which defies all
analysis, which baffles definition, which overflows all words."
Goodness! this is strong rhetoric, and we regret that the evidence
justifying so sweeping an appreciation has been withheld from us.
Although the doctor says that Jesus "defies all analysis, baffles
definition and overflows all words," he nevertheless proceeds to
devote fifteen pages to the impossible task. "I am compelled to think
of him as one who won the right of preeminence in the world's
history," continues Mr. Jones, as if he had not said enough.
That is a definite claim, and personally, we would be glad to see it
made good. But truth compels us to state that the claim is unjust.
Without entering into the question of the authenticity of the gospels,
a question which we have discussed at some length in our pamphlet on
the "Worship of Jesus," we beg to submit that there is nothing in the
gospels,--the only records which speak of him,--to entitle him to the
"right of preeminence in the world's history." No one knows better
than Mr. Jones that the sayings attributed to Jesus--the finest of
them--are to be found in the writings of Jewish and Pagan teachers
antedating the birth of Jesus by many centuries.
Was it, then, for his "works," if not for his "words," that Jesus "won
the right of preeminence in the world's history"? What did he do that
was not done by his predecessors? Was he the only one who worked
miracles? Had the dead never been raised before? Had the blind, and
the lame, and the deaf, remained altogether neglected before Jesus
took compassion upon them? Moreover, what credit is there in opening
the eyes of the blind or in raising the dead by miracle? Did it cost
Jesus any effort to perform miracles? Did it imply a sacrifice on his
part to utilize a small measure of his _infinite_ power for the
good of man? Who, if he could by miracle feed the hungry, clothe the
naked and give light and sound to the blind and deaf, would be selfish
enough not to do so? If Mr. Jones does not believe in miracles, then
Jesus contributed even less than many a doctor contributes today to
the welfare of the world. More poor and diseased people are visited
and medicined gratuitously by a modern physician in one month, than
Jesus cured miraculously in the two or three years of his career.
Jesus, if he was "the only begotten of God," as Mr. Jones' text
states, was not in any danger of contracting disease himself, which is
not the case with the doctors and nurses who extend their services to
people afflicted with contagious and abhorrent diseases. Moreover,
Jesus' power must have come to him divinely, while we have to study,
labor, and conquer with the sweat of our brow any power for good that
we may possess. If Jesus as a God opened the eyes of the blind, would
it not have been kinder if he had prevented blindness altogether? If
Jesus can open the eyes of the blind, then, why is there blindness in
the world? How many of the world's multitude of sufferers did Jesus
help? Which of us, if he had the divine power, would not have extended
it unto every suffering child of man? Of what benefit is it to open
the eyes of a few blind people, two thousand years ago, in one
country, when he could, by his unique divinity, have done so much
more? Mr. Jones falls into the orthodox habit of not applying to Jesus
the same canons of criticism by which _human_ beings are judged.
But perhaps the "preeminence of Jesus" lay in his willingness to give
his life for us. Noble is every soul who prefers truth and duty to
life. But was Jesus the only one, or even the first to offer himself
as a sacrifice upon the altar of humanity? If Jesus died for us, how
many thousands have died for him--and by infinitely more cruel deaths?
It is easier for an "only begotten" of God, himself a God--who knows
death can have no power over him--who sees a throne prepared for him
in heaven--who is sure of rising from the dead on the third day--to
face death, than for an ordinary mortal. Yet Jesus showed less
courage, if his reporters are reliable, than almost any martyr whose
name shines upon memory's golden page.
The European churches are full of pictures showing Jesus suffering
indescribable agonies as the critical hour draws nigh. We saw, in
Paris, a painting called "The Holy Face," _La Sainte Face_, which
was, truly, too horrible to look upon; big tears of blood trickling
down his cheeks, his head almost drooping over his chest, an
expression of excruciating pain upon his features, his eyes fairly
imploring for help,--he is really breaking down under the weight of
his cross. Compare this picture with the serenity of Socrates drinking
the hemlock in prison!
Nor would it do to say that this is only the Catholic way of
representing Jesus in his passion. The picture is in the gospels, it
may be seen in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross with all its
realism. Far be it from us to withhold from Jesus, if he really
suffered as the gospels report, one iota of the love and sympathy he
deserves, but why convert the whole world into a black canvas upon
which to throw the sole figure of Jesus? Which of us, poor, weak,
sinful though we are, would not be glad to give his life, if thereby
he could save a world? Do you think we would mourn and groan and weep
tears of blood, or collapse, just when we should be the bravest, if we
thought that by our death we would become the divine Savior of all
mankind? Would we stammer, "Let this cup pass from me, if it be
possible," or tear our hearts with a cry of despair: "My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me," if we knew that the eternal welfare of the
human race depended upon our death? If the Russian or Japanese soldier
can take his home and wife and children,--his hopes and loves, his
life,--his all,--and throw them into the mouth of the cannon, dying
with a shout upon his lips,--who would hesitate to do the same, when
not the salvation of one country alone, but of the whole world,
depended upon it? There are examples of heroism in the annals of man
which would bring the blush to the cheeks of Jesus, if his biographers
have not abused his memory.
Wherein, then, was the "preeminence" of Jesus? Upon what grounds does
Mr. Jones claim, with "unlimited rhetoric," to use his own expression,
for Jesus "the right of preeminence in the world's history?"
While there is neither a commendable saying nor an act attributed to
Jesus in our gospels which teachers older than himself had not already
said or done, there are some things in which his seniors clearly
outshine him. King Asoka, for instance, the Buddhist sovereign of
India, 250 years before Jesus, in one of his edicts chiseled on the
rocks of India, declared against human slavery and offered the sweet
gift of liberty to all in captivity. Jesus used the word slave in one
of his parables (improperly translated servant), without expressing
himself on the subject, except to intimate that when a slave does all
his duty faithfully, even then he is only an "unprofitable slave,"
unworthy of the thanks of his master. There was slavery of the worst
kind in the world of Jesus, and yet he never opened his mouth to
denounce the awful curse. It is claimed that Jesus' doctrine of love
was indirectly a condemnation of slavery. Even then, inasmuch as other
and earlier teachers did more than strike only indirectly at the
ancient evil,--for they not only taught the brotherhood of man, too,
but expressed themselves, besides, positively on the subject of
slavery,--they have a prior claim to the "right of preeminence" in the
world's history, if they cared anything about ranks and titles.
The doctrine of humanity to animals, our dumb neighbors, is a positive
tenet in Buddhism; is it in Christianity?
Two and a half centuries before Jesus, under the influence of Buddha's
teaching, King Asoka convened a religious Parliament, offering to each
and every representative of other religions, absolute religious
liberty. Is there any trace of such tolerance in any of the sayings of
Jesus? On the contrary, the claim of Jesus that he is the light, the
way, the truth, and that no man can come to the father except through
him, leaves no room for the greatest of all boons--liberty, without
which every promise of religion is only a mockery and a cheat. Not
even heaven and eternal life can be accepted as a consideration for
the loss of liberty. The liberty of teaching is alien to a teacher who
claims, as Jesus did, that he alone is infallible, and that all who
came before him were "thieves and robbers."
Of course, Mr. Jones will deny that Jesus ever said any of the things
ascribed to him which spoil his ideal picture of him. But he finds his
ideal Jesus, whose personality "defies analysis, baffles definition
and overflows all words," in the gospels; if these are not reliable,
what becomes of his argument? If the writers of our gospels bear false
witness against Jesus when they represent him as "cursing the fig
tree," as calling his enemies liars and devils, as calling the
Gentiles dogs, as claiming equality with God, as menacing with
damnation all who disagree with him,--what security have we that they
speak truthfully when they put the beatitudes in his mouth? We have no
more reliable authority for attributing to Jesus the beatitudes than
we have for holding him responsible for the curses attributed to him
in the gospels.
To return to our comparison between Jesus and his illustrious
colleagues. It is with cheerful praise and generous pleasure that we
express our admiration for many of the sayings, parables, and precepts
attributed to Jesus. The fact that they are much older than Jesus,
more universal than Christianity, only enhances their value and
reflects glory upon the human race, a glory of which Jesus, too, as a
brother, if he ever existed, has his share. We love and admire every
teacher who has a message for humanity; we feel our indebtedness to
them and would deem ourselves fortunate if we could contribute to the
advancement of their noble influence; but we have no idols, and in our
pantheon, truth is above all. We have no hesitation to sacrifice even
Jesus to the Truth. If we were in India, and some Hindoo preacher
spoke of Buddha, as Mr. Jones does of Jesus, as a "personality defying
all analysis, baffling definition and overflowing all words"--one who
has "won the right to preeminence in the world's history,"--we would
protest against it, in the interest of Jesus and other teachers, as we
now protest against Mr. Jones' Jesus, in the interest of truth. We
have a suspicion, however, that if Mr. Jones, or preachers of his
style, were Hindoos, they would speak of Buddha, as they now, being
Christians, speak of Jesus--echoing in both instances the
_popular_ opinion.
The best way to illustrate Mr. Jones' style of reasoning is to quote a
few examples from his sermon:
"The story of the Good Samaritan has had a power beyond the story of
the senseless blighting of the fig tree; the ages have loved to think
of Jesus talking with the woman at the well more than they have loved
to think of him as manufacturing wine at Cana. No man is so orthodox
but that he reads more often the Sermon on the Mount than he does the
story of the drowning of the pigs."
But if he did not "drown the pigs," the reporter who says he did might
have also collected from ancient sources the texts in the Sermon on
the Mount and put them in Jesus' mouth.
Again:
"The dauntless crusaders who now in physical armament and again in the
more invulnerable armament of the spirit, went forth, reckless of
danger, regardless of cost, to rescue the world from heathen hands or
to gather souls into the fold of Christ."
We can hardly believe Mr. Jones speaking of "rescuing the world from
_heathen_ hands," etc. Who were the heathen? And think of
countenancing the craze of the crusades, which cost a million lives to
possess the empty sepulchre of a mythical Savior! Is it one of the
merits of Christianity that it calls other people "heathen," or that
it kills them and lays waste their lands for an empty grave?
Once more:
"Jesus had tremendous expectations....He believed mightily in the
future, not as some glory-rimmed heaven after death, but as a
conquering kingdom of love and justice. Jesus took large stock in
tomorrow; he laughed at the prudence that never dares, the mock
righteousness of the ledger that presumes to balance the books and pay
all accounts up to date. He knew that the prudence of commerce, the
thrift of trade, the exclusive pride of the synagogue, must be broken
through with a larger hope and a diviner enterprise. He believed there
was to be a day after today and recognized his obligation to it; he
acknowledged the debt which can never be paid to the past and which is
paid only by enlarging the resources of the future. Life, to Jesus,
was an open account; he was a forward looker; he was honest enough to
recognize his obligations to the unborn. Perhaps this adventurous
spirit in the realms of morals, even more than his heart of love, has
made him the superlative leader of men."
We sincerely wish all this were true, and would be glad to have Mr.
Jones furnish us with the texts or evidences which have led him to his
conclusions. Would not his adjectives be equally appropriate in
describing any other teacher he admires? "Jesus had tremendous
expectations." Well, though this is somewhat vague as a tribute to
Jesus, we presume the preacher means that Jesus was an optimist. The
reports, unfortunately, flatly contradict Mr. Jones. Jesus was a "man
of sorrows." He expressly declared that this earth belonged to the
devil, that the road which led to destruction was crowded, while few
would enter the narrow gates of life. He said: "Many are called but
few are chosen;" he told his disciples to confine their good work to
the lost sheep of the House of Israel, and intimated that it were not
wise to take the bread of children (his people) and give it to the
dogs (other people). The "Go ye into all the world" is a post-
resurrection interpolation, and Mr. Jones does not believe in the
miracle of the resurrection. Jesus looked forward to the speedy ending
and destruction of the world, "when the sun and moon would turn black,
and the stars would fall;" and he doubted whether he would find any
faith in the world when "the son of man cometh"; and it was Jesus who
expected to say to the people on his left, "depart from me, ye cursed,
into _everlasting_ punishment." This is the teacher, whose pessimism
is generally admitted, of whom Mr. Jones says that, he had "tremendous
expectations."
"He believed there was to be a day after today, and recognized his
obligation to it," writes Mr. Jones in his indiscriminate laudation of
Jesus. Is that why he said "Take no thought of the morrow," and
predicted the speedy destruction of the world? "He acknowledged the
debt which can never be paid to the past." A sentence like this has
all the ear-marks of a glittering generality. Did Jesus show gratitude
to the past when he denounced all who had preceded him in the field of
love and labor as "thieves and robbers?" Equally uncertain is the
following: "He was honest enough to recognize his obligations to the
unborn." How does our clerical neighbor arrive at such a conclusion?
From what teaching or saying of Jesus does he infer his respect for
the rights of posterity? Indeed, how could a teacher who said, "He
that believeth not shall be damned," he described as recognizing the
rights of future generations? To menace with damnation the future
inquirer or doubter is to seek to enslave as well as to insult the
generations yet to be born, instead of "recognizing his obligations"
to them. The Jesus Mr. Jones is writing about is not in the gospels.
"Do you ask me if I am a 'Christian'?" writes Mr. Jones, and he
answers the question thus: "I do not know. Are you? If anyone is
inclined to give me that high name, with the spiritual and ethical
connotation in mind, I am complimented and will try to merit it." As
our excellent neighbor is still in the dark, and does not know whether
or not, or in what sense he is a Christian--unless he is allowed to
define the word himself,--and as he also intimates that he would like
to be a _Jesus_ Christian, but not a Church Christian, we humbly
beg to express this opinion: The American churches of today,
notwithstanding all their shortcomings, are, on every question of
ethics and science, of charity and the humanities, far in advance of
Jesus, and that in these churches there are men and women who in
breadth of mind and nobility of spirit are as good, and even better
than Jesus.
Does our neighbor grasp our meaning? Charging all the bad in a
religion to the account of man, and attributing all the good to God,
or to a demi-god, is, after all, only a dodge. Had not the disciples
of Jesus been braver than their master, his religion would not have
come down to us. And had the Christian church lived up to the letter
of this Semitic teacher, Europe would never have embraced
Christianity. By modernizing Jesus, by selecting his more essential
teachings, and relegating his eccentricities to the background, by
making his name synonymous with the best aspirations of humanity, by
idealizing his character and enclosing it with a human halo, the
churches have saved Jesus from oblivion. Jesus was a tribal teacher,
the church universalized him; Jesus had no gospel for women, the
church has after much hesitation and wavering converted him to the
European attitude toward women; Jesus was silent on the question of
slavery, the churches have urged him with success to champion the
cause of the bondsman; Jesus denounced liberty of conscience when he
threatened with hell-fire the unbeliever; but the churches have won
him over to the modern secular principle of religious tolerance; Jesus
believed only in the salvation of the elect, but the church to a
certain extent has succeeded in reconciling him to the larger hope;
Jesus was an ascetic, preferring the single life to the joys of the
home, and fasting and praying to the duty and privilege of labor, but
the church in America and Protestant Europe at least has made Jesus a
lover and a seeker of wealth and knowledge, the two great forces of
civilization. No longer does Jesus say, "hate your father and mother;"
no longer does he cry in our great thoroughfares, "blessed are the
poor;" no longer is his voice heard denouncing this world as belonging
to the devil. The modern church, modernized by science, has in turn
modernized the gospels. And yet Mr. Jones prefers to be a Christian
such as Jesus was. He is repeating one of those phrases which
apologists use when they give God all the praise and man all the
blame.
In conclusion: Mr. Jones admits that Christianity is not unique, that
Buddha conquered greater tyrannies than Christ; that "humility and
self-sacrifice...have world-wide foundations;" but he draws no
conclusions from these important facts, but returns in a hurry to say
that Jesus is the "finest and dearest stream swelling the mighty tide
of history." The only objection we have to Mr. Jones' Jesus is that he
is not real.
ANOTHER RHETORICAL JESUS
The Rev. W. H. H. Boyle, of St. Paul, improves even on Mr. Jones'
superlative tribute to Jesus. He says:
"Can you imagine such a thing as a black sun, or the reversal of
creation or the annihilation of primal light? Then, give rest to
imagination and soberly think what it would mean to have the spiritual
processes of two millenniums reversed, to have the light of life in
the unique personally of Jesus forever eclipsed."
Here is an idolator, indeed. To make an idol of his Jesus he takes a
sponge, and without a twinge of conscience, wipes out all the beauty
and grandeur of the ancient world. Has this gentleman never heard of
Greece? During a short existence, in only two centuries and a half,
that little land of Greece achieved triumphs in the life of the mind
so unparalleled as to bring all the subsequent centuries upon their
knees before it. In philosophy, in poetry,--lyrical, epical,
dramatic,--in sculpture, in statesmanship, in ethics, in literature,
in civilization,--where is there another Greece?
Oh, land of Sophocles! whose poetry is the most perfect flower the
earth has ever borne,--of Phidias and Praxiteles! whose immortal
children time cannot destroy, though the gods are dead--whose
masterpieces the earth wears as the best gem upon her brow,--of
Aristotle! the intellect of the world,--of Socrates! the _parens
philosophiae_, and its first martyr!--of Aristides! the Just--of
Phocion and Epaminondas!--of Chillon and Anarcharchis! whose devotion
to duty and beauty have perfumed the centuries! O, Athens, the bloom
of the world! Hear this sectarian clergyman, in his black Sunday
robes, closing his eyes upon all thine immortal contributions, pulling
down like a vandal, as did the early Christians, the libraries and
temples, the culture and civilization of the ancient world--the
monuments of thy unfading glory--to build therewith a pedestal for his
mythical Christ!
I can imagine the reverend advocate saying: "But there was slavery in
Greece, and immorality, too,"--of course, and is the Christian world
free from them? Has Christ after two thousand years abolished war?
Indeed, he came to bring, as he says, "not peace, but a sword!" Has
Jesus healed the world of the maladies for which we blame the Pagan
world? Has he made humanity free? Has he saved the world from the fear
of hell? Has he redeemed man from the blight of ignorance? Has he
broken the yoke of superstition and priest-craft? Has he even
succeeded in uniting into one loving fold his own disciples? How,
then, can this clergyman, with any conscience for truth, compare a
world deprived of the god of his sect, to a tomb--to a blind man
groping under a blackened sun? Must a man rob the long past in order
to provide clothing for his idol? Must he close his eyes upon all
history before he can behold the beauty of his own cult?
But let us quote again:
"To efface from the statute books of Christendom every law which has
its basal principle in Christian ethics; to abolish every institution
which ministers to human need and misfortune in the name of Him whose
sympathy is the heart of the divine; to lower every sense of moral
obligation between man and man to the old level of Paganism to silence
the great oratorios which have made music the echo of the divine; to
take down from the galleries of the world the sacred canvases with
which genius has sanctified them; to obliterate from memorial
symbolism the cross of sublime renunciation which has been the rebuke
of human selfishness; to disband every organization which makes
prayer, through the merit of one great name, the hand of man upon the
arm of God--you may be able to think of an ocean without a harbor, of
a sky without a sun, of a garden without a flower, of a face without a
smile, of a home without a mother; but, can you think of a world with
holiness and happiness in it and Jesus gone out of it? You cannot,
'Then, come, let us adore him,'" etc., etc.
Observe how this special pleader avoids breathing so much as a word
about any of the many evils which may be laid at the door of his
religion with as much show of reason as the benefits he enumerates.
What about the dark ages which held all Europe for the space of a
thousand years in the clutches of an ignorance the like of which no
other religion in the world had known?
What about the atrocious inquisition to which no other religion in the
world had ever been able to give the swing that Christianity did?
What about the persecution and burning of helpless women as witches?
Is there anything as infamous as that in any religion outside of ours?
What about the wholesale massacres in the name of the true faith?
What about the centuries of religious wars, the most imbecile as well
as the most bloody, from the effects of which Germany, France, Italy
and England are still suffering today?
And need we also call attention to that obstinate resistance to
science and progress, which rewarded every discoverer of a new power
for man, with the halter or the stake, which filled the dungeons with
the _elite_ of Europe,--which even dug open graves to punish the
bones of the dead savants and illuminators of man?
The Pagans, in their gladitorial games, sacrificed the lives of
slaves: Christianity made a holocaust of the noblest intellects of
Europe.
And shall we speak of the bigotry, the fanaticism, the bitter
sectarian prejudices which to this day embitter the life of the world?
Are not these, too, the fruits of Christianity?
We know the answer which the reverend gentleman would make to this:
"All the evils you speak of are chargeable, not to Christianity, but
to its abuse." But we have already shown that that argument won't do.
We might as well say that all the evil of Paganism was due to its
abuse. The mere fact that Christianity lent itself to such fearful
distortions, and was capable of arousing the worst passions in man on
such a fearful scale, is condemnation enough. It shows that there was
in it a potentiality for evil beyond compare. Moreover, wherein does a
"divine" religion differ from a man-made cult, if it is equally
powerless to protect itself against perversion? In what sense is Jesus
a god, while all his rivals were "mere men," if he is as helpless to
prevent the abuse of his teachings as they were? But it would not be
difficult to show that the characteristic crimes we have scheduled are
the direct inspiration of a religion claiming exclusiveness and
infallibility. Such texts as, "there is no other named given under
heaven by which men can be saved;" "Let such an one (the man who will
not be converted) be like a heathen and a publican to you;" John's
advice to refrain from saying "God speed" to the alien in faith; the
bible command not to "suffer a witch to live;" and many of the dogmas
which might be cited,--corrupted the sympathies, perverted the
judgment of the noblest, while at the same time they stung the evil-
minded into something like madness. The world knew nothing of the
tyranny of dogma, or religious oppression and persecution,
comparatively speaking, until the advent of the Jewish-Christian
Church.
"Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of
Sodom and of Gomorrah, in the day of judgment, than for that city,"
said Jesus, speaking of the people who might not accept his teachings.
How can Christianity be a religion of love, and how can it believe in
tolerance, when it threatens the unbeliever with a fate worse than
that of Sodom and Gomorrah?
The benefits which the Rev. Boyle parades as the direct fruit of his
cult, did not appear until after the Renaissance, that is to say,--the
return to Pagan culture and ideals. The art and science and the
humanities which he praises, followed upon the gradual decline of the
Jewish-Christian religion which had already destroyed two
civilizations.
But Greece and Rome triumphed. To this day, if we need models in
poetry, in art, in philosophy, in literature, in politics, in
patriotism, in service to the public, in heroism and devotion to
ideals--we must go to the Greeks and the Romans. Not that these
nations were by any means perfect, but because they have not been
surpassed. In our colleges and schools, when we wish to bring up our
children in the ways of wisdom and beauty, we do not give them the
Christian fathers to read, we give them the Pagan classics.
We ask this St. Paul clergyman to read Gibbons' tribute to Pagan Rome:
"If a man was called upon to fix a period in the history of the world
during which the condition of the human race was most happy and
prosperous, he would without hesitation name that which elapsed from
the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus." This period
included such men and rulers as Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, Antoninus Pius,
and above all, the greatest of them all--the greatest ruler our earth
has ever owned--Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Let the Rev. W. H. H. Boyle
look over the names of the kings of Israel and of Christian France,
Spain, Italy and England, and find among them any one that can come up
to the stature of these Pagan monarchs.
"WE OWE EVERYTHING TO JESUS"
But, behold! another clergyman with the claim that the modern world
owes all its joy and cheer, during the Christmas season, "to the babe
in Bethlehem." "What was it that brought about such a condition that
crowds the stores, that overflows the mails, and loads the express
with packages of every description? The little babe in Bethlehem set
all this in motion,--the wreath, the holly, are all from him."
When we read the above and more to the same effect, we wrote to the
Rev. W. A. Bartlett, [Footnote: Pastor First Congregational Church,
Chicago.] the author of the words quoted, asking him if he was
correctly reported. We reproduce herewith a copy of our letter:
DEC, 20, 1904.
_Rev. W. A. Bartlett,
Washington Boul. and Ann St., Chicago_
DEAR MR. BARTLETT: In the report of your sermon of last Sunday you are
represented as claiming that it is to the "babe in Bethlehem" we owe
the Christmas festival, the giving of presents, etc., etc. I write to
ascertain whether this report has stated your position correctly? I am
sure you know that Christmas is only a recomposition of an old Pagan
festival, and that "giving presents" at this season is a much older
practice than Christianity. Of course, you do not believe that
Christmas is celebrated in December and on the 25th of the month
because Jesus was born on that day. You know as well as I do of the
Pagan festivals celebrated in the month of December throughout the
Roman Empire--celebrations which were accompanied with the giving and
receiving of presents. Moreover, you know also, as every student does,
that in the Latin countries of Europe it is not on Christmas day, but
on New Year's day, that presents are exchanged. Surely you would not
claim that for New Year's day, too, the world is indebted to the
Bethlehem babe. You must also have known that the use of the evergreen
and the holy was in vogue among the Druids of Pagan times. Be kind
enough, therefore, to give me, if I am not asking too much, the facts
which led you to make the statement to which I have called your
attention, and believe me, with great respect, etc.
To this neighborly letter the reverend gentleman did not condescend to
send an acknowledgment. We knocked at his door, as it were, and he, a
minister of the Gospel, declined to open it unto us. Clergymen, as a
rule, say that they are happy when people will let them preach the
gospel to them. In our case, we saved the clergyman from calling upon
us, we called upon him--that is to say, we wrote and gave him an
opportunity to enlighten us, to bring his influence to bear upon us,
to open our eyes to the error of our ways,--and he would have nothing
to do with us. Was not our soul worth saving? Did the Rev. W. A.
Bartlett consider us beyond hope? We ask this clergyman to place his
hand upon his conscience and ask himself whether he did the brotherly
thing in not returning a friendly and kindly answer to our honest
inquiry for truth. But he did not answer us, because he had no real
faith in his gospel. It was not good enough for an inquirer.
But the clergyman, according to reports, made an attempt on the Sunday
following the receipt of our letter, before his congregation, to
answer indirectly our question. He denied that "Christmas was a
recomposition of an old Pagan festival," and said that the early
Christians "fasted and wept" because of these Pagan festivals, and
that as early as the second century, the birth of Jesus was
commemorated. In short, he pronounced it "a distortion of history" to
assign to the Christmas festival a Pagan origin. In his great work on
the _History of Civilization,_ Buckle says this, to which we call
Dr. Bartlett's attention: "As soon as eminent men grown unwilling to
enter any profession, the luster of that profession will be tarnished;
first its reputation will be lessened, then its power abridged." We
fear this is true of Mr. Bartlett's profession.
How can Christian ministers hope to engage the interest of the reading
public if they themselves abstain from reading? Ask a secular
newspaper about the origin of the Christmas celebration, and _it_
will tell you the truth. On the very Sunday that Dr. Bartlett was
denouncing, in his church, our claim that the Pagans gave us the
December season of joy and merry-making, as "a distortion of history,"
and editorial in the _Chicago Tribune_ said this:
But the festive character of the celebration, the giving of presents,
the feasting and merriment, the use of evergreen and holly and
mistletoe, are all remnants of Pagan rites.
Continuing, the same editorial called attention to the antiquity of
the institution:
Long before the shepherds on the Judean plains saw the star rise in
the east and heard the tidings of "Peace on earth, good will to man,"
the Roman populace surged through the streets at the feast of Saturn,
giving themselves up to wild license and boisterous merry making. They
exchanged presents, they decorated their dwellings and temples with
green boughs; slaves were given special privileges, and the spirit of
good will was abroad among men. This Roman Saturnalia came at the
winter solstice, the same as does our Christmas day, while the birth
of Christ is widely believed to have taken place at some other season
of the year.
But Dr. Bartlett may have had in mind the quotation from Anastasius:
"Our Lord, Jesus Christ, was born of the Holy Virgin, Mary, in
Bethlehem, at one o'clock in the afternoon of December 25th,"--appearing
to quote from some old manuscript which, unfortunately, is not to be
found anywhere. But Clement of Alexandria, in the year 210 A. D.,
dismisses all guesses as to when Jesus was born,--the 18th of April,
19th of May, etc.,--as products of reckless speculation. March 28th
is given as Jesus' birthday in _De Pascha Computius_, in the year 243.
Jan. 5th is the date defended by Epiphanius. Baradaens, Bishop of
Odessa, says: "No one knows exactly the day of the nativity of our
Lord: this only is certain from what Luke writes, that he was born in
the night." Poor Dr. Bartlett, his December 25th does not receive
support from the Fathers.
For our clerical brother's sake, we quote some more from the
_Tribune_ editorial:
Primeval man looked upon the sun as the revelation of divinity. When
the shortest day of the year was passed, when the sun began his march
northward, the primitive man rejoiced in the thought of the coming
seedtime and summer, and he made feasts and revelry the mode of
expressing the gladness of his heart. Among the sun worshipers of
Persia, among the Druids of the far north, among the Phoenicians,
among the Romans, and among the ancient Goths and Saxons the winter
solstice was the occasion of festivities. Many of them were rude and
barbarous, but they were all distinguished by hearty and profuse
hospitality.
And yet our neighbor calls it "distortion of history" to connect
Christmas with the Pagan festival, celebrated about this time. We
quote once more from the Secular press:
The Christian church did not abolish these heathen ceremonies, but
grafted upon them a deeper spiritual meaning. For this reason
Christmas is an institution which memorializes the best there was in
Pagan man. Its good cheer, its charity, its sports, its feasting, and
the features which most endear it to children are all the heritage of
our Pagan ancestors.
How refreshing this, compared with the clergyman's silence, or cry of
"distortion." But in one thing the doctor is correct. The early
Christians did bewail the Pagan festivals, as they did everything else
that was Pagan. But it did not help them at all; they were compelled
to acquiesce. The Christians have "fasted and prayed" also against
science, progress, and modern thought, but what good has it done? They
asked God to hook Theodore Parker's tongue; to overthrow Darwin, and
to confound the wisdom of this world, but the prayer remains
unanswered. Yes, the doctor is right, the church has "fasted and
prayed" against religious tolerance, against the use of Sunday as a
day of recreation,--the opening of galleries and libraries on that
day, the advancement of women, the emancipation of the negro, the
secularization of education, the revision of old creeds, and a
thousand other things. But their opposition has only damaged their own
cause. They did try to suppress the Pagan festival, which we call
Christmas, and the Puritans in this country, until recently, abstained
from all recognition of the day, and called it "Popery," and
"Paganism," but their efforts bore no fruit. Dr. Bartlett, if he will
read, will learn that for many years, in England and in this country,
the observance of Christmas was forbidden by law under severe
penalties. As to our being indebted for the cheer and merriment of the
December festival to the "Bethlehem babe," the doctor must inform
himself of those acts of Parliament which, under the Puritan regime,
compelled people to mourn on Christmas day and to abstain from
merrymaking. In Christian Connecticut, for a man to have a sprig of
holly in his house on Christmas day was a finable crime. In
Massachusetts, any Christian detected celebrating Christmas was fined
five shillings and costs. But, see, having failed to suppress these
good institutions, they now turn about and claim that they have always
believed in them, and that, in fact, we would not now be enjoying any
one of these benefits but for the Christian Church.
In conclusion, we have one other word to say to the three clerical
teachers from whose writings we have quoted. Against them we are
constrained to bring the charge of looseness in thought. They seem to
have little conscience for evidence. Mr. Jones says, for instance:
"In short, I am compelled to think that this Light of Souls, this
saving and redeeming spirit, was the loved and loving child of Joseph,
the carpenter, and the loyal wife Mary. I believe this,
notwithstanding the stories of immaculate conceptions, star-guided
magi, choiring angels and adoring shepards that gathered around the
birth-night."
Which is another way of saying that he is "compelled to believe"
against the evidence, merely because it is his pleasure or interest to
do so. This is not very edifying, to be sure. Mr. Jones takes all his
information about Joseph and Mary and Jesus from the gospels, and yet
the gospels clearly contradict his conclusions. Mary, the mother of
Jesus, gives her word of honor that Joseph was not the father of her
child, and Joseph himself testifies that he is not Jesus' father, but
Mr. Jones pays no attention to their testimony; he wishes Joseph to be
the father of Jesus, and that ought to be sufficient evidence, he
thinks. We quote from the gospel:
"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When his mother Mary
had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found
with child of the Holy Ghost. And Joseph, her husband, being a
righteous man, and not willing to make her a public example, was
minded to put her away privily. But when he thought on these things,
behold, an angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying,
Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife;
for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost."
Now, if Joseph admits he was not Jesus' father, and Mary corroborates
his testimony (See Luke, 1st chapter), Jesus was, if he ever lived,
and the records which give Mr. Jones his ideal Jesus are reliable, the
son of a man who has succeeded in concealing his identity, unless, of
course, we believe in the virgin birth. If the real father of Jesus
had come forth and owned his son, and Mary had acknowledged that he
was the father of her child, what would have become of Christianity?
We hope these clergymen who have dwelt, as Emerson says, "with noxious
exaggeration about the person of Jesus," will reflect upon this, and
while doing so, will they not also remember this other saying of the
Concord philosopher: "The vice of our theology is seen in the
claim...that Jesus was something different from a man."
We take our leave of the three clergymen, assuring them that in what
we have said we have not been actuated, in the least, by any personal
motive whatever, and that we have only done to them what we would have
them do to us.
[Illustration: Head of a God with Horns. Museum of St. Germain.]
A LIBERAL JEW ON JESUS
FELIX ADLER, PRAISES JESUS
That it is very easy for scholars to follow the people instead of
leading them, and to side with the view that commands the majority,
receives fresh confirmation from the recent utterances of the founder
of the Ethical Culture Society in New York. Professor Adler, the son
of a rabbi, and at one time a freethinker, has slowly drifted into
orthodox waters, after having tried for a period of years the open
seas, and has become a more enthusiastic champion of the god of the
Christians than many a Christian scholar whom we could name. The
pendulum in the Adler case has swung clear to the opposite side. We do
not find fault with a man because he changes his views, we only ask
for reasons for the change. It will be seen by the following extracts
from Adler's printed lectures that he has made absolutely no critical
study of the sources of the Jesus story, but has merely, and hurriedly
at that, accepted the conventional estimate of Jesus and enlarged upon
it. Jesus is entitled to all the praise which is due him, but it must
first be shown that in praising him we are not sacrificing the truth.
Praising any man at such a cost is merely flattering the masses and
bowing to the fashion of the day.
Let us hear what Professor Adler has to say about Jesus. He writes:
It has been said that if Christ came to New York or Chicago, they
would stone him in the very churches. It is not so! If Christ came to
New York or Chicago, the publicans and sinners would sit at his feet!
For they would know that he cared for them better than they in their
darkness knew how to care for themselves, and they would love him as
they loved him in the days of yore.
This would sound pious in the mouth of a Moody or a Torrey, but, we
confess, it sounds like affectation in the mouth of the free thinking
son of a rabbi. That Prof. Adler enters here into a field for which
his early Jewish training has not fitted him, is apparent from the
hasty way in which he has put his sentences together. "It has been
said," he writes, "that if Christ came to New York or Chicago, they
would stone him in the very churches. It is not so." Why is it not so?
And he answers: "If Christ came to New York or Chicago, the publicans
and sinners would sit at his feet." But what has the reception which
publicans and sinners might give Jesus to do with how _the churches_
would receive him? He proves that Jesus would not be stoned in the
churches of New York and Chicago by saying that the "publicans and
sinners would sit at his feet." Does he mean that "New York and
Chicago churches" and "publicans and sinners" are the same thing?
"Publicans and sinners" might welcome him, and still the churches
might stone him, which in fact, according to Adler's own admission,
was the case in Jerusalem, where the synagogues conspired against
Jesus, while Mary Magdalene sat at his feet. Nor are his words about
"the publicans and sinners loving Jesus as they loved him in the
days of yore" edifying. Who does he mean by the "publicans and
sinners," and how many of them loved Jesus in the days of yore, and
why should this class of people have felt a special love for him?
On the question of the resurrection of Jesus, Prof. Adler says this:
"It is sometimes insinuated that the entire Christian doctrine depends
on the accounts contained in the New Testament, purporting that Jesus
actually rose on the third day and was seen by his followers; and that
if these reports are found to be contradictory, unsupported by
sufficient evidence, and in themselves incredible, then the bottom
falls out of the belief in immortality as represented by
Christianity."
It was the Apostle Paul himself who said that "if Jesus has not risen
from the dead, then is our faith in vain,--and we are, of all men,
most miserable." So, you see, friend Adler, it is not "sometimes
insinuated," as you say, but it is openly, and to our thinking,
logically asserted, that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, the
whole fabric of Christian eschatology falls to the ground. But we must
remember that Prof. Adler has not been brought up a Christian. He has
acquired his Christian predilections only recently, so to speak, hence
his unfamiliarity with its Scriptures. Continuing, the Professor says:
"But similar reports have arisen in the world time and again,
apparitions of the dead have been seen and have been taken for real;
and yet such stories, after being current for a time, invariably have
passed into oblivion. Why did this particular story persist, despite
the paucity and the insufficiency of the evidence? Why did it get
itself believed and take root?"
What shall we think of such reasoning from the platform of a
presumable rationalist movement? Does not the Professor know that the
story of the resurrection of Jesus is not original, but a repetition
of older stories of the kind? Had the world never heard of such after-
death apparitions before Jesus' day, it would never have invented the
story of his resurrection. And how does the Professor know that the
story of Jesus' resurrection is not going to meet the same fate which
has overtaken all other similar stories? Is it not already passing
into the shade of neglect? Are not the intelligent among the
Christians themselves beginning to explain the resurrection of Jesus
allegorically, denying altogether that he rose from the dead in a
literal sense? Moreover, the pre-Christian stories of similar
resurrections lived to an old age,--two or three thousand years--before
they died, and the story of Jesus' resurrection has yet to prove its
ability to live longer. All miraculous beliefs are disappearing, and
the story of the Christian resurrection will not be an exception. But
Prof. Adler's motive in believing that the story of the resurrection
of Jesus shall live, is to offer it as an argument for immortality,
and in so doing he strains the English language in lauding Jesus. He
says:
"In my opinion, people believed in the resurrection of Jesus because
of the precedent conviction in the minds of the disciples that such a
man as Jesus could not die, because of the conviction that a
personality of such superlative excellence, so radiant, so
incomparably lofty in mien and port and speech and intercourse with
others, could not pass away like a forgotten wind, that such a star
could not be quenched."
We regret to say that there are as many assumptions in the above
sentence as there are lines in it. Of course, if we are for
emotionalism and not for exact and accurate conclusions, Adler's
estimate of Jesus is as rhetorical as that of Jones or Boyle, but if
we have any love for historical truth, there is not even the shadow of
evidence, for instance, that the disciples could not believe "that
such a man as Jesus could die." On the contrary, the disciples left
him at the cross and fled, and believed him dead, until it was
reported to them that he had been seen alive, and even then "some
doubted," and one wished to feel the flesh with his fingers before he
would credit his eyes. Jesus had to eat and drink with them, he had to
"open their eyes," and perform various miracles before they would
believe that he was not dead. The text which says that the apostles
hesitated to believe in the resurrection because "as yet they knew not
the scripture, that he would rise from the dead," shows conclusively
how imaginary is the idea that there was a "precedent conviction" in
the minds of the disciples that such a man as Jesus could not die.
Apparently it was all a matter of prophecy, not of moral character at
all. Yet in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, Prof. Adler
tells his Carnegie Hall audience, who unfortunately are even less
informed in Christian doctrine than their leader, that "there was a
precedent conviction in the minds of the disciples that such a man as
Jesus could not die." And what gave the disciples this supposed
"precedent conviction?" "That a personality of such superlative
excellence, so radiant, so incomparably lofty in mien and port and
speech and intercourse with others, could not pass away like a
forgotten wind, that such a star could not be quenched." We are simply
astonished, and grieved as well, to see the use which so enlightened a
man as Prof. Adler makes of his gifts. Will this Jewish admirer of the
god of Christendom kindly tell us wherein Jesus was superlatively
excellent, or incomparably lofty in mien and port and speech and
intercourse with others? Was there a weakness found in men like
Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, etc., from which Jesus was free? That
Jesus created no such ideal impression upon his disciples, is shown by
the fact that they represented him as a sectarian and an egotist who
denounced all who had preceded him as unworthy of respect and to be
despised. And how could a man whose public life did not cover more
than two or three years of time, and who lived as a celibate and a
monk, returning every night to his cave in the Mount of Olives, taking
no active part in the business life--supporting no family or parents,
assuming no civil or social duties--how can such a man, we ask, be
held up as a model for the men and women of today? Jesus, according to
his biographers, believed he could raise the dead, and announced
himself the equal of God. "I and my father are one," he is reported to
have said; and one of his apostles writes: "He (Jesus) thought it no
robbery to be equal to God." Either this report is true, or it is not.
If it is, what shall we think of a man who thought he was a god and
could raise the dead? If the report is not true, what reliance can we
place in his biographers when the things which they affirm with the
greatest confidence are to be rejected?
Yet Prof. Adler, swept off his feet by the popular and conventional
enthusiasm about Jesus, describes him as "a personality of such
superlative excellence, so radiant, so incomparably lofty in mien and
port and speech and intercourse with others," that his followers could
not believe he was a mere mortal. But where is the Jesus to correspond
to this rhetorical language? He is not in the anonymous gospels. There
we find only a fragmentary character patched or pieced together, as it
were, by various contributors--a character made up of the most
contradictory elements, as we have tried to show in the preceding
pages. The Jesus of Adler is not in history, he is not even in
mythology. There is no one of that name and answering that description
in the four gospels.
That a loose way of speaking grows upon one if one is not careful, and
that sounding phrases and honest historical criticism are not the same
thing, will be seen by Prof. Adler's lavish praise of John Calvin. He
speaks of him in terms almost as glowing as he does of Jesus. He calls
Calvin "that mighty and noble man."
That Calvin ruled Geneva like a Russian autocrat; that he was "mighty"
in a community in which Jacques Gruet was beheaded because he had
"danced," and also because he had committed the grave offense of
saying that "Moses was only a man and no one knows what God said to
him," and in which Michael Servetus was burned alive for holding
opinions contrary to those which the Genevan pope was interested
in,--is readily conceded. But was Calvin "mighty" in a beneficent
sense? Did his power save people from the Protestant inquisition?
Was not the Geneva of his day called _the Protestant Rome?_ And if
he did not use his powerful influence to further religious tolerance
and intellectual honesty; if he did not use his position to save men
from the grip of superstition and the fear of hell, how can Prof. Adler
refer to him as "that mighty and noble man--John Calvin?"
It is not our purpose to grudge Calvin any compliments which Felix
Adler wishes to pay him. What we grieve to see is, that he should,
indirectly at least, recommend to the admiration of his readers a man
who, if he existed today and acted as he did in the Geneva of the
sixteenth century, would be regarded by every morally and
intellectually awakened man, as a criminal. Has not Felix Adler
examined the evidence which incriminates Calvin and proves him beyond
doubt as the murderer of Servetus? "If he (Servetus) comes to Geneva,
I shall see that he does not escape alive," wrote John Calvin to
Theodore Beza. And he carried out his fearful menace; Servetus was put
to death by the most horrible punishment ever invented--he was burned
alive in a smoking fire. What did this mighty and noble man do to save
a stranger and a scholar from so atrocious a fate? Let his eulogist,
Prof. Adler, answer. It will not do to say that those were different
times. A thousand voices were raised against the wanton and cruel
murder of Servetus, but Calvin's was not among them. In fact, when
Calvin himself was a fugitive and a wanderer, he had written in favor
of religious tolerance, but no sooner did he become the Protestant
pope of Geneva, than he developed into an exterminator of heresy by
fire. Such is the "mighty and noble man" held up for our admiration.
"Mighty" he was, but we ask again, was he mighty in a noble sense?
Had Calvin been considered a "mighty and noble man" by the reformers
who preceded Prof. Adler, there would have been no Ethical Culture
societies in America today. Prof. Adler is indebted for the liberties
which he enjoys in New York to the Voltaires and the Condorcets, who
regarded Calvin and his "isms" as pernicious to the intellectual life
of Europe, and did all they could to lead the people away from them.
Think of the leader of the Ethical Societies exalting a persecutor, to
say nothing of his abominable theology, or of his five _aliases,_
as "that mighty and noble man;--John Calvin!" We feel grateful to
Prof. Adler for organizing the Ethical Societies in American, but we
would be pleased to have him explain in what sense a man of Calvin's
small sympathies and terrible deeds could be called both "noble and
mighty." [Footnote: See "The Kingdom of God in Geneva Under Calvin."--M.
M. Mangasarian.]
It was predicted some years ago that the founder of the Ethical
Societies will before long return to the Jewish faith of his fathers.
However this may be, we have seen, in his estimate of Jesus and John
Calvin, evidences of his estrangement from rationalism, of which in
his younger days he was so able a champion. In his criticism of the
Russian scientist, Metchnikoff, of the Pasteur Institute in Paris,
Prof. Adler, endorsing the popular estimate of Jesus, accepts also the
popular attitude toward science. He appears to prefer the doctrine of
special creation to the theory of evolution. We would not have
believed this of Felix Adler if we did not have the evidence before
us. We speak of this to show the relation between an exaggerated
praise of a popular idol, and a denial of the conclusions of modern
science. It is the popular view which Prof. Adler champions in both
instances. In his criticism of Metchnikoff's able book, _The Nature
of Man,_ Prof. Adler writes:
And to account for the reason in man, this divine spark that has been
set ablaze in him, it is not sufficient to point to an ape as our
ancestor. If we are descended from an anthropoid ape on the physical
side, we are not descended from him in any strict sense of the word on
our rational side; for as life is born of life, so reason is born of
reason, and if the anthropoid ape does not possess reason as we
possess it, it cannot be said that on our rational side we are his
progeny.
If the above had been written fifty years ago, when the doctrine of
evolution was a heresy, or by an orthodox clergyman of today, we would
have taken no note of it. But coming as it does from the worthy
founder of the Ethical Movement in America, it deserves attention.
"If," says Dr. Adler, "we are descended from an anthropoid ape on the
physical side, we are not descended from him in any strict sense of
the word on our rational side." He is not sure, evidently, that even
physically man is the successor of the anthropoid ape, but he is sure
that "we are not descended from him...on our rational side." Is Dr.
Adler, then, a dualist? Does he believe that there are two eternal
sources, from one of which we get our bodies, and from the other our
"rational side?" And why cannot Dr. Adler be a monist? He answers,
"for as life is born of life, so reason is born of reason, and if the
anthropoid ape does not possess reason as we possess it, it cannot be
said that on our rational side we are his progeny." Not so, good
doctor! There is no life without reason. Do we mean to say that the
jelly-fish, the creeping worm, or the bud on the tree has reason? Yes;
not as much reason as a horse or a dog, and certainly not as much as a
Metchnikoff or an Adler, but these lower forms of life could not have
survived but for the element of rationality in them. We may call this
instinct, sensation, promptings of nature, but what's in a name? The
difference between a pump and a watch is only a difference of
mechanism. The stone and the soul represent different stages of
progression, not different substances. If a charcoal can be
transformed into a diamond, why may not nature, with the resources of
infinity at her command, refine a stone into a soul? Let us not marvel
at this; it is not less thinkable than the proposition of two
independent sources of life, the one physical, the other rational. If
"life is born of life," where did the first life come from? Let us
have an answer to that question. And if, as the professor says,
"reason is born of reason," how did the first reason come? Is it not
very much simpler to think in monistic terms, than to separate life
from reason, and mind from matter, as Prof. Adler does in the words
quoted above? Why cannot mind be a state of matter? What objection is
there to thinking that matter, refined, elevated, ripened, cultured,
becomes both sentient and rational? If matter can feel, can see, can
hear, can it not also think? Does not the horse see, hear and think?
There is no lowering of the dignity of man to say that he tastes with
his palate, sees with his eyes, hears with his ears, and thinks with
the gray matter in his brain. Remove his optic nerve and he becomes
blind, destroy the ganglia in his brain, and he becomes mindless. Gold
is as much matter as the dust, but it is very much more precious; so
is mind infinitely more precious than the matter which can only feel,
see, taste or hear. "If the anthropoid ape does not possess reason as
we possess it, it cannot be said that on our rational side we are his
progeny," says Dr. Adler: But, suppose we were to say that if our
remote African or Australian savage ancestors did not possess reason
as we possess it, "it cannot be said that on our rational side we are
their progeny," The child in the cradle does not possess reason "as we
do," any more than does the anthropoid ape, but the beginnings of
reason are in both. Let the worm climb and he will overtake man. This
is a most hopeful, a most beautiful gospel. Its spirit is not one of
isolation and exclusiveness from the rest of nature, but one of
fellowship and sympathy. We are all--plants, trees, birds, bugs,
animals--all members of one family, children at various ages and
stages of growth of the same great mother,--Nature. We quote again:
"When I ask him (Metchnikoff) whence do I come, he points to the
simian stage which we have left behind; but I would look beyond that
stage to some ultimate fount of being, to which all that is highest in
me and in the world around me can be traced, a source of things equal
to the best that I can conceive."
But if there is "some ultimate fount of being," to which our "highest"
nature "can be traced," whence did our lower nature come? Is Prof.
Adler trying to say God? We do not object to the word, we only ask
that he give the word a more intelligible meaning than has yet been
given. If God is the "ultimate fount of being to which all that is
highest in us can be traced," who or what is the ultimate fount to
which all that is lowest in us can be traced? Let us have the names of
the two ultimate founts of being, and also to what still more ultimate
founts _these_ founts may be traced.
In our opinion Dr. Adler has failed to do justice to Prof.
Metchnikoff. It is no answer to the Darwinian Theory, which the
Russian scientist accepts in earnest, and in all its fullness,--not
fractionally, as Adler seems to do--to say that it does not explain
everything. No one claims that it does. Not all the mystery of life
has been cleared. Evolution has offered us only a new key, so to
speak, with which to attempt the doors which have not yielded to
metaphysics. And if the key has not opened all the doors, it has
opened many. Prof. Adler seems to think that the doctrine of evolution
explains only the physical descent of man; for the genesis of the
spiritual man, he looks for some supernatural "fount" in the skies.
Well, that is not science; that is theology, and Adler's estimate of
Jesus is just as theological as his criticism of evolution.
APPENDIX
The argument in this volume will be better understood if we give to
our readers the comments and criticisms which our little pamphlet,
_Jesus a Myth,_ and _The Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate on the Historicity
of Jesus, _[Footnote: Price, 25c. Independent Religious Society,
Orchestra Hall, Chicago.] called forth from orthodox and liberal
clergymen. We shall present these together with our reply as they
appeared on the Sunday Programs of the Independent Religious Society.
Criticism is welcome. If the criticism is just, it prevents us from
making the same mistake twice; if it is unjust, it gives us an
opportunity to correct the error our critic has fallen into. No one's
knowledge is perfect. But the question is, does a teacher suppress the
facts? Does he insist on remaining ignorant of the facts?
FROM THE SUNDAY PROGRAMS
I
Now that the debate on one of the most vital questions of modern
religious thought--The Historicity of Jesus--is in print, a few
further reflections on some minor points in Dr. Crapsey's argument may
add to the value of the published copy.
REV. DR. CRAPSEY: "Now, I say this is the great law of religious
variation, that in almost every instance, indeed, I think, in every
single instance in history, all such movements begin with a _single_
personality." (P. 5, _Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate._)
ANSWER: The only way this question can be settled is by appealing to
history. Mithraism is a variant religion, which at one time spread
over the Roman Empire and came near outclassing Christianity. Yet,
Mithra, represented as a young man, and worshiped as a god, is a myth.
How, then, did Mithraism arise?
Religions, as well as their variations, appear as new branches do upon
an old tree. The new branch is quite as much the product of the soil
and climate as the parent tree. Like Brahmanism, Judaism, Shinto and
the Babylonian and Egyptian Cults, which had no _single_ founders,
Christianity is a _deposit_ to which Hellenic, Judaic and Latin
tendencies have each contributed its quota.
But the popular imagination craves a Maker for the Universe, a founder
for Rome, a first man for the human race, and a great chief as the
starter of the tribe. In the same way it fancies a divine, or semi-
divine being as the author of its _credo._
Because Mohammed is historical, it does not follow that Moses is also
historical. That argument would prove too much.
REV. DR. CRAPSEY: "We would be in the same position that the
astronomers were when they discovered the great planet Uranus--from
their knowledge of the movements of these bodies they were convinced
that these perturbations could be occasioned by nothing less than a
great planet lying outside of the then view of mankind."(P. 6,
_Ibid._)
ANSWER: But the astronomers did not rest until they converted the
_probability_ of a near-by planet into _demonstration._ Jesus is still
a probability.
REV. DR. CRAPSEY: "We have of Jesus a very distinctly outlined
history. There is nothing vague about him." (P. 12, _Ibid_.)
ANSWER: But in the same sentence the doctor takes all this back by
adding: "There are a great many things in his history that are not
historical." If so, then we do not possess "a very distinctly outlined
history," but at best a mixture of fact and fiction.
REV. DR. CRAPSEY: "We can follow Jesus' history from the time that he
entered upon his public career until the time that career closed, just
as easily as we can follow Caesar, etc." (P. 12, _Ibid_.)
ANSWER: How long was "the time from the opening of Jesus' public
career until the time that it closed?"--One year!--according to the
three gospels. It sounds quite a period to speak of "following his
public career" from beginning to end, especially when compared with
Caesar's, until it is remembered that the entire public career of
Jesus covers the space of only one year. This is a most decisive
argument against the historicity of Jesus. With the exception of one
year, his whole life is hid in impenetrable darkness. We know nothing
of his childhood, nothing of his old age, if he lived to be old, and
of his youth, we know just enough to fill up a year. Under the
circumstances, there is no comparison between the public career of a
Caesar or a Socrates covering from fifty to seventy years of time, and
that of a Jesus of whose life only one brief year is thrown upon the
canvas.
An historical Jesus who lived only a year!
REV. DR. CRAPSEY: The Christ I admit to be purely mythological....the
word Christ, you know, means the anointed one....they (the Hebrews)
expected the coming of that Christ....But that is purely a mythical
title. (_The Debate_--P. 35.)
ANSWER: Did the Hebrews then expect the coming of a _title?_ Were
they looking forward to seeing the ancient throne of David restored by
a _title?_ By Messiah or Christ the Jews did not mean a _name,_ but a
man--a real flesh and bone savior, anointed or appointed by heaven.
But if the 'Christ' which the Hebrews expected was "purely mythical,"
what makes the same 'Christ' in the supposed Tacitus passage
historical? The New Testament Jesus is Jesus Christ, and the apostle
John speaks of those "who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the
flesh"--mark his words--not Christ, but _Jesus Christ._ The apostle
does not separate the two names. There were those, then, in the early
church who denied the historicity, not of a _title_,--for what meaning
would there be in denying that a _title_ "is come in the flesh,"--but
of a person, known as _Jesus Christ._
And what could the doctor mean when he speaks of a _title_ being
"mythological?" There are no mythological titles. Titles are words,
and we do not speak of the historicity or the non-historicity of
words. We cannot say of words as we do of men, that some are
historical and others are mythical. William Tell is a myth--not the
name, but the man the name stands for. _William_ is the name of
many real people, and so is _Tell._ There were many anointed kings,
who are historical, and the question is, Is Jesus Christ--or
Jesus the Anointed--also historical? To answer that Jesus is
historical, but The Anointed is not, is to evade the question.
When Mosheim declares that "The prevalent opinion among early
Christians was that Christ existed in appearance only," he could not
have meant by 'Christ' only a title. There is no meaning in saying
that a man's title "existed in appearance only?"
We do not speak of a title being born, or crucified; and when some
early Christians denied that Jesus Christ was ever born or ever
crucified, they had in mind not a _title_ but a _person._
In conclusion: If the 'Christ' by whom the Hebrews meant, not a mere
name, but a man, was "purely mythological," as the reverend debater
plainly admits (see pages 35, 36 of _The Debate_)--that is, if when
the Hebrews said: "Christ _is_ coming," they were under the influence
of an illusion,--why may not the Christians when they say that
'Christ' _has_ come, be also under the influence of an illusion? The
Hebrew illusion said, Christ was coming; the Christian illusion says,
Christ has come. The Hebrews had no evidence that 'Christ' was coming,
although that expectation was a great factor in their religion; and
the Christians have no more evidence for saying 'Christ' has come,
although that belief is a great factor in _their_ religion.
II
The minister of the South Congregational Church, who heard the debate,
has publicly called your lecturer an "unscrupulous sophist," who
"practices imposition upon a popular audience" and who "put forth
sentence after sentence which every scholar present knew to be a
perversion of the facts so outrageous as to be laughable."
As one of the leading morning papers said, the above "is not a reply
to arguments made by Mr. Mangasarian."
Invited by several people to prove these charges, the Reverend
replies: "In the absence of any full report of what he (M. M.
Mangasarian) said, or of any notes taken at the time, I am unable to
furnish you with quotations." When the Reverend gentleman was
addressing the public his memory was strong enough to enable him to
say, "sentence after sentence was put forth by Mr. Mangasarian which
every scholar present knew to be a perversion of the facts." But when
called upon to mention a few of them, his memory forsakes him. Our
critic is not careful to make his statements agree with the fact.
One instance, however, he is able to remember which "when it fell upon
my ears," he writes, "it struck me with such amazement, that it
completely drove from my mind a series of most astonishing statements
of various sorts which had just preceded it."
We refrain from commenting on the excuse given to explain so
significant a failure of memory. The instance referred to was about
the denial of some in apostolic times that "Jesus Christ is come in
the flesh." But as Mr. Mangasarian had hardly spoken more than twenty
minutes when he touched upon this point, it is not likely that it
could have been "preceded by a series of most astonishing statements
of various sorts."
And what was the statement which, while it crippled his memory, it did
not moderate his zeal? We will let him present it himself; "I refer to
the use he made of one or two passages in the New Testament,
mentioning some who deny 'that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.' 'So
that,' he went on to say, 'there were those even among the early
Christians themselves who denied that Jesus had come in the flesh. Of
course, they were cast out as heretics.' _Here came an impressive
pause,_ and then without further explanation or qualification, he
proceeded to something else."
This is his most serious complaint. Does it justify hasty language?
St. John writes of those who "confessed not that Jesus Christ is come
in the flesh." The natural meaning of the words is that even in
apostolic times some denied the flesh and bone Jesus, and regarded him
as an idea or an apparition--something like the Holy Ghost. All church
historians admit the existence of sects that denied the New Testament
Jesus--the Gnostics, the Essenes, the Ebionites, the Marcionites, the
Cerinthians, etc.
As the debate is now in print, further comment on this would not be
necessary.
Incidents like the above, however, should change every lukewarm
rationalist into a devoted soldier of truth and honor.
To us, more important than anything presented on this subject, is this
evidence of the existence of a very early dispute among the first
disciples of Jesus on the question of whether he was real or merely an
apparition. The Apostle John, in his epistle, clearly states that even
among the faithful there were those _who confess not that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh._ This is very important. As early as John's
time, if he is the writer of the epistle, Jesus' historicity was
questioned.
The gospel of John also hints at the existence in the primitive church
of Christians who did not accept the reality of Jesus. When doubting
Thomas is told of the resurrection, he answers that he must feel the
prints of the nails with his fingers before he will believe, and Jesus
not only grants the wishes of this skeptical apostle, but he also eats
in the presence of them all, which story is told evidently to silence
the critics who maintained that Jesus was only a spirit, "the Wisdom
of God," an emanation, a light, and not real flesh and bones.
III
The same clergyman, to whom a copy of the _Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate_
was sent, has written a five page criticism of it.
The strength of a given criticism is determined by asking: Does it in
any way impair the soundness of the argument against which it is
directed? Critics have discovered mistakes in Darwin and Haeckel, but
are these mistakes of such a nature as to prove fatal to the theory of
evolution?
To be effective, criticism must be aimed at the _heart_ of an
argument. A man's life is not in his hat, which could be knocked off,
or in his clothes--which could be torn in places by his assailant
without in the least weakening his opponent's position. It is the blow
that disables which counts.
To charge that we have said 'Gospel,' where we should have said
'Epistle,' or 'Trullum' instead of 'Trullo'; that it was not Barnabas,
but Nicholas who denied the Gospel Jesus, and that there were
variations of this denial, does not at all disprove the fact that,
according to the Christian scriptures themselves, among the apostolic
followers there were those to whom Jesus Christ was only a phantom.
Milman, the Christian historian, states that the belief about Jesus
Christ "adopted by almost all the Gnostic sects," was that Jesus
Christ _was but an apparent human being, an impassive phantom,_
(_History of Christianity._ Vol. 2, P. 61). Was ever such a view
entertained of Caesar, Socrates or of any other historical character?
On page 28 of _The Debate_ we say: "The Apostle John complains of
those....who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." To
this the clergyman replies:
"The Apostle John never made any such complaint. Critical scholarship
is pretty well agreed that he did not write the epistles ascribed to
him."
We have a lecture on "How the Bible was Invented," and this
clergyman's admission that at least parts of the bible _are_
invented is very gratifying.
In a former communication, this same clergyman tried to prove that the
Apostle John's complaint does not at all imply a denial of the
historical Jesus. In his recent letter he denies that the apostle ever
made such a complaint.
John did not write the epistles, then, which the Christian church for
two thousand years, and at a cost of millions of dollars, and at the
greater sacrifice of truth and progress has been proclaiming to the
world as the work of the inspired John!
The strenuous efforts to get around this terrible text in the "Holy
Bible," show what a decisive argument it is. Every exertion to meet it
only tightens the text, like a rope, around the neck of the belief in
the historical Jesus. Our desire, in engaging in this argument, is to
turn the thought and love of the world from a mythical being, to
humanity, which is both real and present.
On page 22 of _The Debate,_ we say: "St. Paul tells us that he lived
in Jerusalem at a time when Jesus must have been holding the attention
of the city; yet he never met him." To this the clergyman replies:
"Paul tells us nothing of the kind. In a speech which is put into the
mouth of Paul"--_put into the mouth of Paul!_ Is this another instance
of forgery? John did not write the epistles, and Paul's speech in the
Book of Acts was put into his mouth! Will the clergyman tell us which
parts of the bible are _not_ invented?
Let us make a remark: The church people blame us for not believing in
the trustworthiness of the bible; but when we reply that if the bible
is trustworthy, then Paul must have been in Jerusalem with Jesus, and
John admits that some denied the historical Jesus, we are blamed for
not knowing better than to prove anything by quoting Paul and John as
if everything they said was trustworthy.
In other words, only those passages in the bible are authentic which
the clergy quote; those which the rationalists quote are spurious. In
the meantime, the authentic as well as the spurious passages together
compose the churches' _Word of God_.
IV
In a letter of protest to Mr. Mangasarian, Rabbi Hirsch, of this city,
asks: "Was it right for you to assume that I was correctly reported by
the _News?"_ After stating what he had said in his interview with
the reporter, the Rabbi continues: "But said I to the reporter all
these possible allusions do not prove that Jesus existed....You see
in reality I agreed with you. I personally believe Jesus lived. But I
have no proof for this beyond my feeling that the movement with which
the name is associated could even for Paul not have taken its
nomenclature without a personal substratum. But, and this I told the
reporter also, this does not prove that the Jesus of the Gospels is
historical." Rabbi Hirsch writes in this same letter that he did not
say Jesus was mentioned in the Rabbinical Books. The News reports the
Rabbi as saying, "But we know through the Rabbinical Books that Jesus
lived."
A committee from our Society waited on the editor of the _Daily News_
for an explanation. The editor promised to locate the responsibility
for the contradiction.
As the report in the _News_ was allowed to stand for four days without
correction, and as Rabbi Hirsch did not even privately, by letter or
by phone, disclaim responsibility for the article, to Mr. Mangasarian,
the latter claims he was justified in assuming that the published
report was reliable. But it is with pleasure that the Independent
Religious Society gives Rabbi Hirsch this opportunity to explain his
position. We hope he will also let us know whether he said to the
reporter: "I do not believe in Mr. Mangasarian's argument that
Christianity has inspired massacres, wars and inquisitions. It is a
stock argument and not to the point." This is extraordinary; and as
the Rabbi does not question the statement, we infer that it is a
correct report of what he said. Though we have room for only one
quotation from the Jewish-Christian Scriptures, it will be enough to
show the relation of religion to persecution:
"And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord, thy God, shall
deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them."
Why were women put to death as witches? Why were Quakers hanged? For
what "economic and political reasons," which the Rabbi thinks are
responsible for persecution, was the blind Derby girl who doubted the
Real Presence, burned alive at the age of twenty-two?
V
The Rev. W. E. Barton, of Oak Park, is one of the ablest
Congregational ministers in the West. He has recently expressed
himself on the Mangasarian-Crapsey Debate. Let us hear what he has to
say on the historicity of Jesus.
The Reverend gentleman begins by an uncompromising denial of our
statements, and ends by virtually admitting all that we contend for.
This morning we will write of his denials; next Sunday, of his
admissions.
"Mr. Mangasarian," says Dr. Barton, "has not given evidence of his
skill as a logician or of his accuracy in the use of history." Then he
proceeds to apologize, in a way, for the character of his reply to our
argument, by saying that "Mr. Mangasarian's arguments, fortunately, do
not require to be taken very seriously, for they are not in themselves
serious."
Notwithstanding this protest, Dr. Barton proceeds to do his best to
reply to our position.
In _The Debate_ we call attention to the fact that according to the
New Testament, Paul was in Jerusalem when Jesus was teaching and
performing his miracles there. Yet Paul never seems to have met Jesus,
or to have heard of his teachings or miracles. To this Dr. Barton
replies: "We cannot know and are not bound to explain where Paul was
on the few occasions when Jesus publicly visited Jerusalem."
The above reply, we are compelled to say, much to our regret, is not
even honest. Without actually telling any untruths, it suggests
indirectly two falsehoods: First, that Jesus was not much in
Jerusalem--that he was there only on a few occasions; and that,
therefore, it is not strange that Paul did not see him or hear of his
preaching or miracles; and second, that Paul was absent from the city
when Jesus was there. The question is not how often Jesus visited
Jerusalem, but how conspicuous was the part he played there. He may
have visited Jerusalem only once in all his life, yet if he preached
there daily in the synagogues; if he performed great miracles there;
if he marched through the streets followed by the palm-waving
multitude shouting _Hosanna,_ etc.; if he attacked the high-priest and
the pharisees there, to which latter class Paul belonged; and if he
was arrested, tried and publicly executed there; and if his teaching
stirred the city from center to circumference,--it would not be honest
to intimate that the "few" times Jesus visited Jerusalem, Paul was
engaged elsewhere.
The Reverend debater attempts to belittle the Jerusalem career of
Jesus, by suggesting that he was not there much, when according to the
Gospels, it was in that city that his ministry began and culminated.
Again, to our argument that Paul never refers to any of the teachings
of Jesus, the Reverend replies: "Nor is it of consequence that Paul
_seldom_ quotes the words of Jesus." _"Seldom"_---would imply that
Paul quotes Jesus sometimes. We say Paul gives not a single quotation
to prove that he knew of a teaching Jesus. He had heard of a
crucified, risen, Christ--one who had also instituted a bread and wine
supper, but of Jesus as a _teacher_ and of his _teaching,_ Paul is
absolutely ignorant.
But by saying "Paul _seldom_ quotes Jesus," Dr. Barton tries to
produce the impression that Paul quotes Jesus, though not very often,
which is not true. There is not a single miracle, parable or moral
teaching attributed to Jesus in the Gospels of which Paul seems to
possess any knowledge whatever.
Nor is it true that it is of no consequence that "Paul seldom quotes
the words of Jesus." For it proves that the Gospel Jesus was unknown
to Paul, and that he was created at a later date.
Once more; we say that the only Jesus Paul knew was the one he met in
a trance on his way to Damascus. To this the pastor of the First
Congregational Church of Oak Park replies in the same we-do-not-care-
to-explain style. He says: "Nor is it of consequence that Paul values
comparatively lightly, having known him in the flesh."
The words "Paul valued comparatively lightly" are as misleading as the
words "Paul _seldom_ quotes Jesus." Paul _never_ quotes Jesus'
teachings, and he _never_ met Jesus in the flesh. The clergyman's
words, however, convey the impression that Paul knew Jesus in the
flesh, but he valued that, knowledge "comparatively lightly," that is
to say, he did not think much of it. And Dr. Barton is one of the
foremost divines of the country.
And now about his admissions:
VI
I. "The Gospels, by whomever written," says the clergyman, "are
reliable." By _whomever_ written! After two thousand years, it is
still uncertain to whom we are indebted for the story of Jesus. What,
in Dr. Barton's opinion, could have influenced the framers of the life
of Jesus to suppress their identity? And why does not the church
instead of printing the words, "The Gospel according to Matthew or
John," which is _not true,_--print, "The Gospel by _whomever_
written"?
II. "At the very least, four of Paul's epistles are genuine," says the
same clergyman. Only four? Paul has thirteen epistles in the bible,
and of only four of them is Dr. Barton certain. What are the remaining
nine doing in the Holy Bible? And which 'four' does the clergyman
accept as doubtlessly "genuine?" Only yesterday all thirteen of Paul's
letters were infallible, and they are so still wherever no questions
are asked about them. It is only where there is intelligence and
inquiry that "four of them" at least are reliable. As honesty and
culture increase, the number of inspired epistles decreases. What the
Americans are too enlightened to accept, the church sends to the
_heathen_.
III. "It is true that early a sect grew up which....held that Jesus
could not have had a body of carnal flesh; but they did not question
that he had really lived." According to Dr. Barton, these early
Christians did not deny that Jesus had really lived,--they only denied
that _Jesus could have had a body of carnal flesh_. We wonder how many
kinds of flesh there are according to Dr. Barton. Moreover, does not
the bible teach that Jesus was tempted in all things, and was a man of
like passions, as ourselves? The good man controls his appetites and
passions, but his flesh is not any different from anybody else's. If
Jesus did not have a body like ours, then he did not exist as a human
being. Our point is, that if the New Testament is reliable, in the
time of the apostles themselves, the Gnostics, an influential body of
Christians, denied that Jesus was any more than an imaginary
existence. "But," pleads the clergyman, "these sects believed that
Jesus was real, though not carnal flesh." What kind of flesh was he
then? If by _carnal_ the Gnostics meant 'sensual,' then, the apostles
in denouncing them for rejecting a carnal Jesus, must have held that
Jesus was carnal or sensual. How does the Reverend Barton like the
conclusion to which his own reasoning leads him?
IV. "It is true that there were literary fictions in the age following
the apostles." This admission is in answer to the charge that even in
the first centuries the Christians were compelled to resort to forgery
to prove the historicity of Jesus. The doctor admits the charge,
except that he calls it by another name. The difference between
fiction and forgery is this: the former is, what it claims to be; the
latter is a lie parading as a truth. Fiction is honest because it does
not try to deceive. Forgery is dishonest because its object is to
deceive. If the Gospel was a novel, no one would object to its
mythology, but pretending to be historical, it must square its claims
with the facts, or be branded as a forgery.
V. "We may not have the precise words Jesus uttered; the portrait may
be colored;....tradition may have had its influence; but Jesus was
real." A most remarkable admission from a clerical! It concedes all
that higher criticism contends for. We are not sure either of Jesus'
words or of his character, intimates the Reverend preacher. Precisely.
In commenting on our remark that in the eighth century "Pope Hadrian
called upon the Christian world to think of Jesus as a man," Dr.
Barton replies with considerable temper: "To date people's right to
think of Jesus as a man from that decree is not to be characterized by
any polite term." Our neighbor, in the first place, misquotes us in
his haste. We never presumed to deny anyone the right to think of
Jesus what he pleased, before or after the eighth century. (_The
Debate,_ p. 28.) We were calling attention to Pope Hadrian's order
to replace the lamb on the cross by the figure of a man. But by what
_polite_ language is the conduct of the Christian church--which to
this day prints in its bibles "Translated from the Original Greek,"
when no _original_ manuscripts are in existence--to be characterized?
Dr. Barton's efforts to save his creed remind us of the Japanese
proverb: "It is no use mending the lid, if the pot be broken."
VII
The most remarkable clerical effort thus far, which _The Mangasarian-
Crapsey Debate_ has called forth, is that of the Rev. E. V. Shayler,
rector of Grace Episcopal Church of Oak Park.
"In answer to your query, which I received, I beg to give the
following statement. Facts, not theories. The date of your own letter
1908 tells what? 1908 years after what? The looking forward of the
world to Him."
Rev. Shayler has an original way of proving the historicity of Jesus.
Every time we date our letters, suggests the clergyman, we prove that
Jesus lived. The ancient Greeks reckoned time by the Olympiads, which
fact, according to this interesting clergyman, ought to prove that the
Olympic games were instituted by the God Heracles or Hercules, son of
Zeus; the Roman Chronology began with the building of Rome by Romulus,
which by the same reasoning would prove that Romulus and Remus, born
of Mars, and nursed by a she-wolf, are historical.
Rev. Shayler has forgotten that the Christian era was not introduced
into Europe until the sixth century, and Dionysius, the monkish author
of the era, did not compute time from the birth of Jesus, but from the
day on which the Virgin Mary met an angel from heaven. This date
prevailed in many countries until 1745. Would the date on a letter
prove that an angel appeared to Mary and hailed her as the future
Mother of God? According to this clergyman, scientists, instead of
studying the crust of the earth and making geological investigations
to ascertain the probable age of the earth, ought to look at the date
in the margin of the bible which tells exactly the world's age.
Rev. Shayler continues: "The places where he was born, labored and
died are still extant, and have no value apart from such testimony."
While this is amusing, we are going to deny ourselves the pleasure of
laughing at it; we will do our best to give it a serious answer. If
the existence of such a country as Palestine proves that Jesus is
real, the existence of Switzerland must prove that William Tell is
historical; and the existence of an Athens must prove that Athene and
Apollo really lived; and from the fact that there is an England, Rev.
Shayler would prove that Robin Hood and his band really lived in 1160.
The Reverend knows of another 'fact' which he thinks proves Jesus
without a doubt:
"A line of apostles and bishops coming right down from him by his
appointment to Anderson of Chicago," shows that Jesus is historical.
It does, but only to Episcopalians. The Catholics and the other sects
do not believe that Anderson is a descendant of Jesus. Did the priests
of Baal or Moloch prove that these beings existed?
The Reverend has another argument:
"The Christian Church--when, why and how did it begin?" Which
Christian church, brother? Your own church began with Henry the Eighth
in 1534, with persecution and murder, when the king, his hands wet
with the blood of his own wives and ministers, made himself the
supreme head of the church in England. The Methodist church began with
John Wesley not much over a hundred years ago; the Presbyterian church
began with John Calvin who burned his guest on a slow fire in Geneva
about three hundred years ago; and the Lutheran church began with
Martin Luther in the sixteenth century, the man who said over his own
signature: "It was I, Martin Luther, who slew all the peasants in the
Peasants War, for I commanded them to be slaughtered....But I throw
the responsibility on our Lord God who instructed me to give this
order;" and the Roman Catholic church, the parent of the smaller
churches--all chips from the same block--began its real career with
the first Christian Emperor, Constantine, who hanged his father-in-
law, strangled his brother-in-law, murdered his nephew, beheaded his
eldest son, and killed his wife. Gibbon writes of Constantine that
"the same year of his reign in which he convened the council of Nice
was polluted by the execution, or rather murder, of his eldest son."
But our clerical neighbor from Oak Park has one more argument: "Why is
Sunday observed instead of Saturday?" Well, why? Sun-day is the day of
the Sun, whose glorious existence in the lovely heavens over our heads
has never been doubted; it was the day which the Pagans dedicated to
the Sun. _Sunday_ existed before the Jesus story was known,--the
anniversary of whose supposed resurrection falls in March one year,
and in April another. If Jesus rose at all, he rose on a certain day,
and the apostles must have known the date. Why then is there a
different date every year?
Rev. Shayler concludes: "Haven't time to go deeper now," and he
intimates that to deny his 'facts' is either to be a fool or a "liar."
We will not comment on this. We are interested in arguments, not in
epithets.
VIII
One of our Sunday programs, the other day, found its way into a
church. It went farther; it made its appearance in the pulpit.
"In my hand I hold the notice of a publication bearing the title _Is
Jesus a Myth?"_ said Dr. Boyle. "This, too, just as though Paul never
bore testimony."
This gave the clergyman a splendid opportunity to present in clear and
convincing form the evidence for the reality of Jesus. But one thing
prevented him:--the lack of evidence.
Therefore, after announcing the subject, he dismissed it, by remarking
that Paul's testimony was enough.
The Rev. Morton Culver Hartzell, in a letter, offers the same
argument. "Let Mr. Mangasarian first disprove Paul," he writes. The
argument in a nutshell is this: Jesus is historical because he is
guaranteed by Paul.
But _who_ guarantees Paul?
Aside from the fact that the Jesus of Paul is essentially a different
Jesus from the gospel Jesus there still remains the question, Who is
Paul? Let us see how much the church scholars themselves know about
Paul:
"The place and manner and occasion of his death are not _less
uncertain_ than the facts of his later life...The chronology of
the rest of his life is as uncertain...We have no means of knowing
when he was born, or how long he lived, or at what dates the several
events of his life took place."
Referring to the epistles of Paul, the same authority says: "The chief
of these preliminary questions is the genuineness of the epistles
bearing Paul's name, which _if they be his_"--yes, IF--
The Christian scholar whose article on Paul is printed in the
_Britannica_, and from which we are now quoting, gives further
expression to this uncertainty by adding that certain of Paul's
epistles "have given rise to disputes which cannot easily be settled
in the absence of collateral evidence...The pastoral epistles...have
given rise to still graver questions, and are probably even _less_
defensible."
Let the reader remember that the above is not from a rationalist, but
from the Rev. Edwin Hatch, D. D., Vice-Principal, St. Mary Hall,
Oxford, England.
Were we disposed to quote rationalist authorities, the argument
against Paul would be far more decisive. But we are satisfied to rest
the case on orthodox admissions alone.
The strongest argument then of clergymen who have attempted an answer
to our position is something like this:
Jesus is historical because a man by the name of Paul says so, though
we do not know much about Paul.
It is just such evidence as the above that led Prof. Goldwin Smith to
exclaim: "Jesus has flown. I believe the legend of Jesus was made by
many minds working under a great religious impulse--one man adding a
parable, another an exhortation, another a miracle story;"--and George
Eliot to write: "The materials for a real life of Christ do not
exist."
In the effort to untie the Jesus-knot by Paul, the church has
increased the number of knots to two. In other words, the church has
proceeded on the theory that two uncertainties make a certainty.
We promised to square also with the facts of history our statement
that the chief concern of the church, Jewish, Christian, or
Mohammedan, is not righteousness, but orthodoxy.
IX
Speaking in this city, Rev. W. H. Wray Boyle of Lake Forest, declared
that unbelief was responsible for the worst crimes in history. He
mentioned the placing.
--"of a nude woman on a pedestal in the city of Paris.
--"the assassination of William McKinley.
--"The same unbelief sent a murderer down the isle of a church in
Denver to pluck the symbol of the sacrament from the hands of a priest
and slay him at the altar."
The story of a "nude woman," etc., is pure fiction, and that the two
murders were caused by unbelief is mere assumption. To help his creed,
the preacher resorts to fable. We shall prove our position by quoting
_facts_:
I. HYPATIA [Footnote: See Author's, The Martyrdom of Hypatia.] was
dragged into a Christian church by monks in Alexandria, and before the
altar she was stripped of her clothing and cut in pieces with oyster
shells, and murdered. Her innocent blood stained the hands of the
clergy, who also handle the Holy Sacraments. She was murdered not by a
crazed individual but by the orders of the bishop of Alexandria. How
does the true story of Hypatia compare with the fable of "a nude woman
placed on a pedestal in the city of Paris?" The Reverend must answer,
or never tell an untruth again.
Hypatia was murdered in church, and by the clergy, because she was not
orthodox.
II. POLTROT, the Protestant, in the 16th century assassinated
Francois, the Catholic duke of Guise, in France, and the leaders of
the church, instead of disclaiming responsibility for the act,
publicly praised the assassin, and Theodore Beza, the colleague of
Calvin, promised him a crown in heaven. (_De l'etat etc, P. 82._
Quoted by Jules Simon.)
III. JAMES CLEMENT, a Catholic, assassinated Henry III. For this act
the clergy placed his portrait on the altar in the churches between
two great lighted candle-sticks. Because he had killed a heretic
prince, the Catholics presented the assassin's mother with a purse.
(_Esprit de la Ligue I. III. P. 14._)
If it was unbelief that inspired the murder of McKinley, what inspired
the assassins of Hypatia and Henry III?
We read in the Bible that Gen. Sisera, a heathen, having lost a
battle, begged for shelter at the tent of Jael, a friendly woman, but
of the Bible faith. Jael assured the unfortunate stranger that he was
safe in her tent. The tired warrior fell asleep from great weariness.
Then Jael picked a tent-peg and with a hammer in her hand "walked
softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it
into the ground...So he died."
The BIBLE calls this assassin "blessed above women." (_Judge IV. 18,
etc._) She had killed a heretic.
In each of the instances given above, the assassin is honored because
he committed murder in the interest of the faith. We ask this
clergyman and his colleagues who are only too anxious to charge every
act of violence to unbelief in their creeds--What about the crimes of
_believers_?