Dr. Farrar, as we have seen, holds that the Bible is not a revelation
in science. The inspired writers were, in such matters, left to their
natural knowledge. The Holy Spirit taught them that God made the world
and all which it inhabits; but _how_ it was made they only conjectured.
The truth, in _this_ respect, was left to the discovery of later ages.
This is a pretty and convenient theory, but it does not provide for
every difficulty in the relationship between science and the Bible.
There still remain the questions of miracles and witchcraft.
Dr. Farrar does not discuss these questions thoroughly. He only ventures
a few observations. In his opinion, the two miracles of the Creation and
the Incarnation "include the credibility of _all_ other miracles."
We agree with him. Admit creation out of nothing, and you need not be
astonished at the transformation of water into wine. Admit the birth
of a boy from a virgin mother, and you need not raise physiological
objections to the story of a man being safely entertained for three
days in a whale's intestines. It is absurd to strain at gnats after
swallowing camels. For this reason we are unable to understand Dr.
Farrar's fastidiousness. He is ready to believe that some miracles are
mistaken metaphors, that some were due to the action of unnoticed
or ill-understood natural causes, and that others were providential
occurrences instead of supernatural events. All this, however, is but a
concession to the sceptical spirit. It is throwing out the children to
the wolves. It may stop their pursuit for a little while, but they will
come on again, and flesh their jaws upon the parents.
A mixed criterion of true miracles is laid down by Dr. Farrar. They must
be (1) adequately attested, and (2) wrought for adequate ends, and (3)
in accordance with the revealed laws of God's immediate dealings with
man. The second and third conditions are too fanciful for discussion.
They are, in fact, entirely subjective. The first condition is the only
one which can be applied with decisive accuracy. The miracles must be
_adequately attested_. But was it not David Hume who declared that "in
all history" there is not a single miracle attested in this manner? And
did not Professor Huxley say that Hume's assertion was "least likely"
to be challenged by those who are used to weighing evidence and giving
their decision with a due sense of moral responsibility?
It is easy enough to sneer at Hume. It is just as easy to answer what he
never said. What the apologists of Christianity have to do is to take
a single miracle of their faith and show that it rests upon adequate
evidence. Anything short of this is intellectual thimble-rigging.
Dr. Farrar does not face this dreadful task. He treats us, instead, to
some personal observations on the Fall, the Tower of Babel, Balaam's
ass, Joshua's arrest of the sun and moon, and Jonah's submarine
excursion. Let us examine these observations.
No Christian, says Dr. Farrar, is called upon to believe in an actual
Garden of Eden and an actual talking serpent. Christians have believed
in these things by the million. But that was before the clergy invented
"the Higher Criticism" to disarm "infidelity." They know better now.
The story of the Fall is false as a narrative. It is true as a "vivid
pictorial representation of the origin and growth of sin in the human
heart." All the literature of the world has failed to set forth anything
"comparable to it in insight." Therefore it is "inspired."
How hollow this sounds when we recollect that the Hebrew story of the
Fall was borrowed from the Persian mythology! How much hollower when we
consider it as it stands, stripped of the veil of fancy and divested of
the glamor of association! The "insight" of the inspired writer could
only represent God as the landlord of an orchard, and man as a being
with a taste for forbidden apples. The "philosopheme," as Dr. Farrar
grandiosely styles it, is so absurd in its native nakedness that Rabbis
and other divines have suspected a carnal mystery behind the apples, in
order to give the "sin" of Adam and Eve a darker vein of sensuality.*
* We cannot elaborate this point in a publication which is
intended for general reading. Suffice it to say that one
famous commentator suggests that Eve was seduced by an ape.
Nor is this all. The very idea of a Fall is inconsistent with Evolution.
The true Garden of Eden lies not behind us, but before us. The true
Paradise is not the earth as God made it for man, but the earth as
man is making it for himself. The Bible teaches the _descent_ of man.
Science teaches the _ascent_ of man. And the two theories are the
antipodes of each other, not only in physical history, but in every
moral and spiritual implication.
With regard to the story of the tower of Babel, we must not regard it
as an inspired account of the origin of the diversity of human language.
That is what it appears to be upon the face of it. But philology has
exploded this childish legend, and a new meaning must be read into it.
According to Dr. Farrar, it is a "symbolic way of expressing the
truth that God breaks up into separate nationalities the tyrannous
organisation of cruel despotisms." Now we venture to say that there is
not a suggestion of this in the text. And the "truth" which Dr.
Farrar reads into it so arbitrarily is a phenomenon of modern times.
Nationality is a great force at present, but in ancient days the only
power that could bind tribes together in one polity was a military
despotism. From the point of view of evolution, both conquest and
slavery were inevitable steps in the progress of civilisation. It is
really nothing against the ancient Jews, for instance, that they fought
like devils and made slaves of their enemies. It was the fashion of the
time. The mischief comes in when we are told that their proceedings were
under the sanction and control of God.
Dr. Farrar next tackles the story of Balaam, which is "another theme for
ignorant ridicule." It is astonishing how sublime these Bible wonders
become in the light of the Higher Criticism. A talking ass sounds like
an echo of the Arabian Nights. But the author himself never intended
you to believe it. Dr. Farrar is quite sure of that. You must forget the
ass, and fix your attention on Balaam. Then you perceive that the story
is "rich in almost unrivalled elements of moral edification." That is to
say, you perceive it if you borrow Dr. Farrar's spectacles. But if you
look with your own naked eyes you see that ass in the foreground of
the picture, with outstretched neck and open jaws, holding forth to an
astonished universe.
With regard to Joshua's supreme miracle, Dr. Farrar avows his unbelief.
A battle ode got mistaken for actual history. "He who chooses," says Dr.
Farrar, "may believe that the most fundamental laws of the universe were
arrested to enable Joshua to slaughter a few more hundred fugitives; and
he who chooses may believe that nothing of the kind ever entered into
the mind of the narrator." You pay your money and take your choice.
Shape the old wax nose as you please. Believe what you like, and
disbelieve what you like--and swear the author disbelieved it too.
Nor must the story of Jonah be taken literally. Regard the moral, and
forget its fishy setting. Jesus Christ, indeed, referred to Jonah's
sojourn in the "whale's belly" as typical of his own sojourn in the
heart of the earth. But referring to a story is no proof of any belief
in its truth. Not in the Bible. Jesus Christ also said, "Remember Lot's
wife." But of course he did not believe the story literally. He used
it for his own purpose. For the rest, he did not wish to unsettle men's
minds by throwing doubt on such a time-honored narrative; besides, the
time had not arrived to explain the chemical composition of rock-salt.
Witchcraft is a more serious matter. The Bible plainly says, "Thou shalt
not suffer a witch to live." This text sealed the doom of millions of
old women. It is the bloodiest text in all literature. The Jews believed
in witchcraft, and the law against witches found its way into their
sacred Scriptures. Sir Matthew Hale, a great English judge and a good
man, sentenced witches to be burnt in 1665, and said that he made no
doubt at all that there were witches, for "the Scriptures had affirmed
so much." Wesley, a century later, said that to give up witchcraft was
to give up the Bible. Dr. Farrar sets down these facts honestly. He is
also eloquent in reprobation of the cruelty inflicted on millions
of "witches" in the Middle Ages. But he denies that the Bible is
responsible for those infamies. "Witches" in the Bible may not mean
witches, but "nefarious impostors." Good old wax nose again! Moreover,
that ancient Jewish law was not binding upon Christians, and to make
it so was "a gross misuse of the Bible." But how on earth could the
Christians use it in any other way? The time came when men outgrew the
superstition of witchcraft. Before that time they killed witches on
Bible authority. Dr. Farrar himself, had he lived then, would have
done the same. Living in a more enlightened age, he says that former
Christians acted wrongly, and in fact diabolically. But what of the book
which misled them? What of the book which, if it did not mislead them
by design, harmonised so completely with their ignorant prejudices, and
gave such a pious color to their unspeakable brutalities? Nor is this
by any means the last word upon the subject. The witchcraft of the Old
Testament has its counterpart in the demoniacal possession of the New
Testament. Both are aspects of one and the same superstition.
The Bible _is_ responsible for the cruel slaughter of millions of
alleged witches. It is also responsible for the prolonged treatment
of lunatics as possessed. The methods of science are now adopted in
civilised countries. Hysterical women are no longer tortured as witches.
Lunatics are no longer chained and beaten as persons inhabited by
devils. Kindness and common sense have taken the place of cruelty and
superstition. This change was brought about, not through the Bible, but
in spite of it.
Sir Matthew Hale and John Wesley were at least honest. They were too
sincere to deny the plain teaching of the Bible. Dr. Farrar represents
a more enlightened, but a more hypocritical, form of Christianity. He
sneers at "reconcilers" like Mr. Gladstone, who try to bolster up the
Creation story as a scientific revelation. But is he not a "reconciler"
himself in regard to miracles? And does he not play fast and loose
with truth and honesty in his attempt to clear the Bible of its guilty
responsibility in connection with that witch mania which is one of the
darkest episodes in Christian history?