THE RELIGION OF THE LETTER RENOUNCED.
It has been stated that I had already begun to discern that it was
impossible with perfect honesty to defend every tittle contained in
the Bible. Most of the points which give moral offence in the book of
Genesis I had been used to explain away by the doctrine of Progress;
yet every now and then it became hard to deny that God is represented
as giving an actual _sanction_ to that which we now call sinful.
Indeed, up and down the Scriptures very numerous texts are scattered,
which are notorious difficulties with commentators. These I had
habitually _overruled_ one by one: but again of late, since I had been
forced to act and talk less and think more, they began to encompass
me. But I was for a while too full of other inquiries to follow up
coherently any of my doubts or perceptions, until my mind became at
length nailed down to the definite study of one well-known passage.
This passage may be judged of extremely secondary importance in
itself, yet by its remoteness from all properly spiritual and profound
questions, it seemed to afford to me the safest of arguments. The
_genealogy_ with which the gospel of Matthew opens, I had long known
to be a stumbling-block to divines, and I had never been satisfied
with their explanations. On reading it afresh, after long
intermission, and comparing it for myself with the Old Testament, I
was struck with observing that the corruption of the two names Ahaziah
and Uzziah into the same sound (Oziah) has been the cause of
merging four generations into one; as the similarity of Jehoiakim to
Jehoiachin also led to blending them both in the name Jeconiah. In
consequence, there ought to be 18 generations where Matthew has given
as only 14: yet we cannot call this on error of a transcriber; for it
is distinctly remarked, that the genealogy consists of 14 three times
repeated. Thus there were but 14 names inserted by Matthew: yet it
ought to have been 18: and he was under manifest mistake. This surely
belongs to a class of knowledge, of which man has cognizance: it would
not be piety, but grovelling superstition, to avow before God that I
distrust my powers of counting, and, in obedience to the written word,
I believe that 18 is 14 and 14 is 18. Thus it is impossible to deny,
that there is cognizable error in the first chapter of Matthew.
Consequently, that gospel is not all dictated by the Spirit of God,
and (unless we can get rid of the first chapter as no part of the
Bible) the doctrine of the verbal infallibility of the whole Bible, or
indeed of the New Testament, is demonstrably false.
After I had turned the matter over often, and had become accustomed
to the thought, this single instance at length had great force to give
boldness to my mind within a very narrow range. I asked whether,
if the chapter were now proved to be spurious, that would save the
infallibility of the Bible. The reply was: not of the Bible as it is;
but only of the Bible when cleared of that _and of all other_ spurious
additions. If by independent methods, such as an examination of
manuscripts, the spuriousness of the chapter could now be shown, _this
would verify the faculty of criticism_ which has already objected to
its contents: thus it would justly urge us to apply similar criticism
to other passages.
I farther remembered, and now brought together under a single point of
view, other undeniable mistakes. The genealogy of the nominal father
of Jesus in Luke is inconsistent with that in Matthew, in spite of the
flagrant dishonesty with which divines seek to deny this; and neither
evangelist gives the genealogy of Mary, which alone is wanted.--In
Acts vii. 16, the land which _Jacob_ bought of the children of
Hamor,[1] is confounded with that which _Abraham_ bought of Ephron the
Hittite. In Acts v. 36, 37, Gamaliel is made to say that Theudas was
earlier in time than Judas of Galilee. Yet in fact, Judas of Galilee
preceded Theudas; and the revolt of Theudas had not yet taken place
when Gamaliel spoke, so the error is not Gamaliel's, but Luke's. Of
both the insurgents we have a dear and unimpeached historical account
in Josephus.--The slaughter of the infants by Herod, if true, must, I
thought, needs have been recorded by the same historian,--So again, in
regard to the allusion made by Jesus to Zacharias, son of Barachias,
as _last of the martyrs_, it was difficult for me to shake off the
suspicion, that a gross error had been committed, and that the person
intended is the "Zacharias son of Baruchus," who, as we know from
Josephus, was martyred _within the courts of the temple_ during the
siege of Jerusalem by Titus, about 40 years after the crucifixion. The
well-known prophet Zechariah was indeed son of Berechiah; but he was
not last of the martyrs,[2] if indeed he was martyred at all. On the
whole, the persuasion stuck to me, that words had been put into
the mouth of Jesus, which he could not possibly have used.--The
impossibility of settling the names of the twelve apostles struck me
as a notable fact.--I farther remembered the numerous difficulties of
harmonizing the four gospels; how, when a boy at school, I had tried
to incorporate all four into one history, and the dismay with which
I had found the insoluble character of the problem,--the endless
discrepancies and perpetual uncertainties. These now began to seem to
me inherent in the materials, and not to be ascribable to our want of
intelligence.
I had also discerned in the opening of Genesis things which could
not be literally received. The geography of the rivers in Paradise is
inexplicable, though it assumes the tone of explanation. The curse
on the serpent, who is to go on his belly--(how else did he go
before?)--and eat dust, is a capricious punishment on a race of
brutes, one of whom the Devil chose to use as his instrument. That
the painfulness of childbirth is caused, not by Eve's sin, but by
artificial habits and a weakened nervous system, seems to be proved
by the twofold fact, that savage women and wild animals suffer but
little, and tame cattle often suffer as much as human females.--About
this time also, I had perceived (what I afterwards learned the Germans
to have more fully investigated) that the two different accounts of
the Creation are distinguished by the appellations given to the divine
Creator. I did not see how to resist the inference that the book
is made up of heterogeneous documents, and was not put forth by the
direct dictation of the Spirit to Moses.
A new stimulus was after this given to my mind by two short
conversations with the late excellent Dr. Arnold at Rugby. I had
become aware of the difficulties encountered by physiologists in
believing the whole human race to have proceeded in about 6000 years
from a single Adam and Eve; and that the longevity (not
miraculous, but ordinary) attributed to the patriarchs was another
stumbling-block. The geological difficulties of the Mosaic cosmogony
were also at that time exciting attention. It was a novelty to me,
that Arnold treated these questions as matters of indifference to
religion; and did not hesitate to say, that the account of Noah's
deluge was evidently mythical, and the history of Joseph "a beautiful
poem." I was staggered at this. If all were not descended from Adam,
what became of St. Paul's parallel between the first and second Adam,
and the doctrine of Headship and Atonement founded on it? If the world
was not made in six days, how could we defend the Fourth Commandment
as true, though said to have been written in stone by the very finger
of God? If Noah's deluge was a legend, we should at least have to
admit that Peter did not know this: what too would be said of Christ's
allusion to it? I was unable to admit Dr. Arnold's views; but to see a
vigorous mind, deeply imbued with Christian devoutness, so convinced,
both reassured me that I need not fear moral mischiefs from free
inquiry, and indeed laid that inquiry upon me as a duty.
Here, however, was a new point started. Does the question of the
derivation of the human race from two parents belong to things
cognizable by the human intellect, or to things about which we must
learn submissively? Plainly to the former. It would be monstrous to
deny that such inquiries legitimately belong to physiology, or to
proscribe a free study of this science. If so, there was an _à
priori_ possibility, that what is in the strictest sense called
"religious doctrine" might come into direct collision, not merely with
my ill-trained conscience, but with legitimate science; and that this
would call on me to ask: "Which of the two certainties is stronger?
that the religious parts of the Scripture are infallible, or that the
science is trustworthy?" and I then first saw, that while science had
(within however limited a range of thought) demonstration or severe
verifications, it was impossible to pretend to anything so cogent in
favour of the infallibility of any or some part of the Scriptures;
a doctrine which I was accustomed to believe, and felt to be a
legitimate presumption; yet one of which it grew harder and harder
to assign any proof, the more closely I analyzed it. Nevertheless, I
still held it fast, and resolved not to let it go until I was forced.
A fresh strain fell on the Scriptural infallibility, in contemplating
the origin of Death. Geologists assured us, that death went on in
the animal creation many ages before the existence of man. The rocks
formed of the shells of animals testify that death is a phenomenon
thousands of thousand years old: to refer the death of animals to
the sin of Adam and Eve is evidently impossible. Yet, if not, the
analogies of the human to the brute form make it scarcely credible
that man's body can ever have been intended for immortality. Nay, when
we consider the conditions of birth and growth to which it is subject,
the wear and tear essential to life, the new generations intended to
succeed and supplant the old,--so soon as the question is proposed as
one of physiology, the reply is inevitable that death is no accident
introduced by the perverse will of our first parents, nor any way
connected with man's sinfulness; but is purely a result of the
conditions of animal life. On the contrary, St. Paul rests most
important conclusions on the fact, that one man Adam by personal sin
brought death upon all his posterity. If this was a fundamental error,
religious doctrine also is shaken.
In various attempts at compromise,--such as conceding the Scriptural
fallibility in human science, but maintaining its spiritual
perfection,--I always found the division impracticable. At last it
pressed on me, that if I admitted morals to rest on an independent
basis, it was dishonest to shut my eyes to any apparent collisions of
morality with the Scriptures. A very notorious and decisive instance
is that of Jael.--Sisera, when beaten in battle, fled to the tent of
his friend Heber, and was there warmly welcomed by Jael, Heber's wife.
After she had refreshed him with food, and lulled him to sleep, she
killed him by driving a nail into his temples; and for this deed,
(which now-a-days would be called a perfidious murder,) the prophetess
Deborah, in an inspired psalm, pronounces Jael to be "blessed above
women," and glorifies her act by an elaborate description of its
atrocity. As soon as I felt that I was bound to pass a moral judgment
on this, I saw that as regards the Old Testament the battle was
already lost. Many other things, indeed, instantly rose in full power
upon me, especially the command to Abraham to slay his son. Paul and
James agree in extolling Abraham as the pattern of faith; James and
the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews specify the sacrifice of
Isaac as a firstrate fruit of faith: yet if the voice of morality is
allowed to be heard, Abraham was (in heart and intention) not less
guilty than those who sacrificed their children to Molech.
Thus at length it appeared, that I must choose between two courses. I
must EITHER blind my moral sentiment, my powers of criticism, and
my scientific knowledge, (such as they were,) in order to accept the
Scripture entire; OR I must encounter the problem, however arduous,
of adjusting the relative claims of human knowledge and divine
revelation. As to the former method, to name it was to condemn it; for
it would put every system of Paganism on a par with Christianity. If
one system of religion may claim that we blind our hearts and eyes in
its favour, so may another; and there is precisely the same reason
for becoming a Hindoo in religion as a Christian. We cannot be both;
therefore the principle is _demonstrably_ absurd. It is also, of
course, morally horrible, and opposed to countless passages of the
Scriptures themselves. Nor can the argument be evaded by talking of
external evidences; for these also are confessedly moral evidences, to
be judged of by our moral faculties. Nay, according to all Christian
advocates, they are God's test of our moral temper. To allege,
therefore, that our moral faculties are not to judge, is to annihilate
the evidences for Christianity.--Thus, finally, I was lodged in three
inevitable conclusions:
1. The moral and intellectual powers of man must be acknowledged as
having a right and duty to criticize the contents of the Scripture:
2. When so exerted, they condemn portions of the Scripture as
erroneous and immoral:
3. The assumed infallibility of the _entire_ Scripture is a proved
falsity, not merely as to physiology, and other scientific matters,
but also as to morals: and it remains for farther inquiry how to
discriminate the trustworthy from the untrustworthy within the limits
of the Bible itself.
* * * * *
When distinctly conscious, after long efforts to evade it, that
this was and must henceforth be my position, I ruminated on the many
auguries which had been made concerning me by frightened friends. "You
will become a Socinian," had been said of me even at Oxford: "You will
become an infidel," had since been added. My present results, I was
aware, would seem a sadly triumphant confirmation to the clearsighted
instinct of orthodoxy. But the animus of such prophecies had always
made me indignant, and I could not admit that there was any merit in
such clearsightedness. What! (used I to say,) will you shrink from
truth, lest it lead to error? If following truth must bring us to
Socinianism, let us by all means become Socinians, or anything else.
Surely we do not love our doctrines more than the truth, but because
they are the truth. Are we not exhorted to "prove all things, and hold
fast that which is good?"--But to my discomfort, I generally found
that this (to me so convincing) argument for feeling no alarm, only
caused more and more alarm, and gloomier omens concerning me. On
considering all this in leisurely retrospect, I began painfully to
doubt, whether after all there is much love of truth even among those
who have an undeniable strength of religious feeling. I questioned
with myself, whether love of truth is not a virtue demanding a robust
mental cultivation; whether mathematical or other abstract studies may
not be practically needed for it. But no: for how then could it exist
in some feminine natures? how in rude and unphilosophical times? On
the whole, I rather concluded, that there is in nearly all English
education a positive repressing of a young person's truthfulness; for
I could distinctly see, that in my own case there was always need of
defying authority and public opinion,--not to speak of more serious
sacrifices,--if I was to follow truth. All society seemed so to
hate novelties of thought, as to prefer the chances of error in the
old.--Of course! why, how could it be otherwise, while Test Articles
were maintained?
Yet surely if God is truth, none sincerely aspire to him, who dread to
lose their present opinions in exchange for others truer.--I had not
then read a sentence of Coleridge, which is to this effect: "If any
one begins by loving Christianity more than the truth, he will proceed
to love his Church more than Christianity, and will end by loving his
own opinions better than either." A dim conception of this was in my
mind; and I saw that the genuine love of God was essentially connected
with loving truth as truth, and not truth as our own accustomed
thought, truth as our old prejudice; and that the real saint can never
be afraid to let God teach him one lesson more, or unteach him one
more error. Then I rejoiced to feel how right and sound had been our
principle, that no creed can possibly be used as the touchstone
of spirituality: for man morally excels man, as far as creeds are
concerned, not by assenting to true propositions, but by loving them
because they are discerned to be true, and by possessing a faculty
of discernment sharpened by the love of truth. Such are God's true
apostles, differing enormously in attainment and elevation, but all
born to ascend. For these to quarrel between themselves because they
do not agree in opinions, is monstrous. _Sentiment_, surely, not
_opinion_, is the bond of the Spirit; and as the love of God, so the
love of truth is a high and sacred sentiment, in comparison to which
our creeds are mean.
Well, I had been misjudged; I had been absurdly measured by other
men's creed: but might I not have similarly misjudged others, since
I had from early youth been under similar influences? How many of
my seniors at Oxford I had virtually despised because they were not
evangelical! Had I had opportunity of testing their spirituality?
or had I the faculty of so doing? Had I not really condemned them as
unspiritual, barely because of their creed? On trying to reproduce the
past to my imagination, I could not condemn myself quite as sweepingly
as I wished; but my heart smote me on account of one. I had a brother,
with whose name all England was resounding for praise or blame: from
his sympathies, through pure hatred of Popery, I had long since turned
away. What was this but to judge him by his creed? True, his whole
theory was nothing but Romanism transferred to England: but what
then? I had studied with the deepest interest Mrs. Schimmelpenninck's
account of the Portroyalists, and though I was aware that she exhibits
only the bright side of her subject, yet the absolute excellencies of
her nuns and priests showed that Romanism _as such_ was not fatal to
spirituality. They were persecuted: this did them good perhaps, or
certainly exhibited their brightness. So too my brother surely was
struggling after truth, fighting for freedom to his own heart and
mind, against church articles and stagnancy of thought. For this he
deserved both sympathy and love: but I, alas! had not known and seen
his excellence. But now God had taught me more largeness by bitter
sorrow working the peaceable fruit of righteousness; at last then
I might admire my brother. I therefore wrote to him a letter of
contrition. Some change, either in his mind or in his view of my
position, had taken place; and I was happy to find him once more able,
not only to feel fraternally, as he had always done, but to act
also fraternally. Nevertheless, to this day it is to me a painfully
unsolved mystery, how a mind can claim its freedom in order to
establish bondage.
For the _peculiarities_ of Romanism I feel nothing, and I can pretend
nothing, but contempt, hatred, disgust, or horror. But this system of
falsehood, fraud, unscrupulous and unrelenting ambition, will never
be destroyed, while Protestants keep up their insane anathemas against
opinion. These are the outworks of the Romish citadel: until they are
razed to the ground, the citadel will defy attack. If we are to blind
our eyes, in order to accept an article of King Edward VI., or an
argument of St. Paul's, why not blind them so far as to accept the
Council of Trent? If we are to pronounce that a man "without
doubt shall perish everlastingly," unless he believes the
self-contradictions of the pseudo-Athanasian Creed, why should
we shrink from a similar anathema on those who reject the
self-contradictions of Transsubstantiation? If one man is cast out
of God's favour for eliciting error while earnestly searching after
truth, and another remains in favour by passively receiving the word
of a Church, of a Priest, or of an Apostle, then to search for truth
is dangerous; apathy is safer; then the soul does not come directly
into contact with God and learn of him, but has to learn from, and
unconvincedly submit to, some external authority. This is the germ of
Romanism: its legitimate development makes us Pagans outright.
* * * * *
But in what position was I now, towards the apostles? Could I
admit their inspiration, when I no longer thought them infallible?
Undoubtedly. What could be clearer on every hypothesis, than that they
were inspired on and after the day of Pentecost, and _yet_ remained
ignorant and liable to mistake about the relation of the Gentiles to
the Jews? The moderns have introduced into the idea of inspiration
that of infallibility, to which either _omniscience_ or _dictation_
is essential. That there was no dictation, (said I,) is proved by
the variety of style in the Scriptural writers; that they were not
omniscient, is manifest. In truth, if human minds had not been left
to them, how could they have argued persuasively? was not the superior
success of their preaching to that of Christ, perhaps due to their
sharing in the prejudices of their contemporaries? An orator is most
persuasive, when he is lifted above his hearers on those points
only on which he is to reform their notions. The apostles were not
omniscient: granted: but it cannot hence be inferred that they did not
know the message given them by God. Their knowledge however perfect,
must yet in a human mind have coexisted with ignorance; and nothing
(argued I) but a perpetual miracle could prevent ignorance from now
and then exhibiting itself in some error. But hence to infer that
they are not inspired, and are not messengers from God, is quite
gratuitous. Who indeed imagines that John or Paul understood astronomy
so well as Sir William Herschel? Those who believe that the apostles
might err in human science, need not the less revere their moral and
spiritual wisdom.
At the same time it became a matter of duty to me, if possible,
to discriminate the authoritative from the unauthoritative in the
Scripture, or at any rate avoid to accept and propagate as true
that which is false, even if it be false only as science and not as
religion. I unawares,--more perhaps from old habit than from distinct
conviction,--started from the assumption that my fixed point of
knowledge was to be found in the sensible or scientific, not in the
moral. I still retained from my old Calvinistic doctrine a way of
proceeding, as if purely moral judgment were my weak side, at least
in criticizing the Scripture: so that I preferred never to appeal
to direct moral and spiritual considerations, except in the most
glaringly necessary cases. Thus, while I could not accept the
panegyric on Jael, and on Abraham's intended sacrifice of his son,
I did not venture unceremoniously to censure the extirpation of
the Canaanites by Joshua: of which I barely said to myself, that it
"certainly needed very strong proof" of the divine command to justify
it. I still went so far in timidity as to hesitate to reject on
internal evidence the account of heroes or giants begotten by
angels, who, enticed by the love of women, left heaven for earth. The
narrative in Gen. vi. had long appeared to me undoubtedly to bear this
sense; and to have been so understood by Jude and Peter (2 Pet. ii.),
as, I believe, it also was by the Jews and early Fathers. I did at
length set it aside as incredible; not however from moral repugnance
to it, (for I feared to trust the soundness of my instinct,) but
because I had slid into a new rule of interpretation,--that _I must
not obtrude miracles on the Scripture narrative_. The writers tell
their story without showing any consciousness that it involves
physiological difficulties. To invent a miracle in order to defend
this, began to seem to me unwarrantable.
It had become notorious to the public, that Geologists rejected the
idea of a universal deluge as physically impossible. Whence could
the water come, to cover the highest mountains? Two replies were
attempted: 1. The flood of Noah is not described as universal: 2. The
flood was indeed universal, but the water was added and removed
by miracle.--Neither reply however seemed to me valid. First, the
language respecting the universality of the flood is as strong as any
that could be written: moreover it is stated that the tops of the
high hills _were all covered_, and after the water subsides, the ark
settles on the mountains of Armenia. Now in Armenia, of necessity
numerous peaks would be seen, unless the water covered them, and
especially Ararat. But a flood that covered Ararat would overspread
all the continents, and leave only a few summits above. If then
the account in Genesis is to be received, the flood was universal.
Secondly: the narrator represents the surplus water to have come from
the clouds and perhaps from the sea, and again to drain back into the
sea. Of a miraculous _creation and destruction_ of water, he evidently
does not dream.
Other impossibilities came forward: the insufficient dimensions of
the ark to take in all the creatures; the unsuitability of the
same climate to arctic and tropical animals for a full year; the
impossibility of feeding them and avoiding pestilence; and especially,
the total disagreement of the modern facts of the dispersion of
animals, with the idea that they spread anew from Armenia as their
centre. We have no right to call in a series of miracles to solve
difficulties, of which the writer was unconscious. The ark itself was
expressly devised to economize miracle, by making a fresh creation of
animals needless.
Different in kind was the objection which I felt to the story, which
is told twice concerning Abraham and once concerning Isaac, of passing
off a wife as a sister. Allowing that such a thing was barely not
impossible, the improbability was so intense, as to demand the
strictest and most cogent proof: yet when we asked, Who testifies it?
no proof appeared that it was Moses; or, supposing it to be he, what
his sources of knowledge were. And this led to the far wider remark,
that nowhere in the book of Genesis is there a line to indicate who is
the writer, or a sentence to imply that the writer believes himself to
write by special information from God. Indeed, it is well known that
were are numerous small phrases which denote a later hand than that
of Moses. The kings of Israel are once alluded to historically, Gen.
xxxvi. 31.
Why then was anything improbable to be believed on the writer's word?
as, for instance, the story of Babel and the confusion of tongues? One
reply only seemed possible; namely, that we believe the Old Testament
in obedience to the authority of the New: and this threw me again
to consider the references to the Old Testament in the Christian
Scriptures.
* * * * *
But here, the difficulties soon became manifestly more and more
formidable. In opening Matthew, we meet with quotations from the Old
Testament applied in the most startling way. First is the prophecy
about the child Immanuel; which in Isaiah no unbiassed interpreter
would have dreamed could apply to Jesus. Next; the words of Hosea,
"Out of Egypt have I called my son," which do but record the history
of Israel, are imagined by Matthew to be prophetic of the return of
Jesus from Egypt. This instance moved me much; because I thought, that
if the text were "spiritualized," so as to make Israel mean _Jesus_,
Egypt also ought to be spiritualized and mean _the world_, not retain
its geographical sense, which seemed to be carnal and absurd in such a
connection: for Egypt is no more to Messiah than Syria or Greece.--One
of the most decisive testimonies to the Old Testament which the New
contains, is in John x., 35, where I hardly knew how to allow myself
to characterize the reasoning. The case stands thus. The 82nd Psalm
rebukes _unjust_ governors; and at length says to them: "I have said,
Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the most high: but ye
shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." In other
words:--"though we are apt _to think_ of rulers _as if_ they were
superhuman, yet they shall meet the lot of common men." Well: how is
this applied in John?--Jesus has been accused of blasphemy, for saying
that "He and his Father are one;" and in reply, he quotes the verse,
"I have said, Ye are gods," as his sufficient justification for
calling himself Son of God; for "the Scripture cannot be broken." I
dreaded to precipitate myself into shocking unbelief, if I followed
out the thoughts that this suggested; and (I know not how) for a long
time yet put it off.
The quotations from the Old Testament in St. Paul had always been a
mystery to me. The more I now examined them, the clearer it appeared
that they were based on untenable Rabbinical principles. Nor are those
in the Acts and in the Gospels any better. If we take free leave to
canvass them, it may appear that not one quotation in ten is sensible
and appropriate. And shall we then accept the decision of the New
Testament writers as final, concerning the value and credibility of
the Old Testament, when it is so manifest that they most imperfectly
understood that book?
In fact the appeal to them proved too much. For Jude quotes the book
of Enoch as an inspired prophecy, and yet, since Archbishop Laurence
has translated it from the Ethiopian, we know that book to be a fable
undeserving of regard, and undoubtedly not written by "Enoch, the
seventh from Adam." Besides, it does not appear that any peculiar
divine revelation taught them that the Old Testament is perfect
truth. In point of fact, they only reproduce the ideas on that subject
current in their age. So far as Paul deviates from the common Jewish
view, it is in the direction of disparaging the Law as essentially
imperfect. May it not seem that his remaining attachment to it was
still exaggerated by old sentiment and patriotism?
I farther found that not only do the Evangelists give us no hint that
they thought themselves divinely inspired, or that they had any other
than human sources of knowledge, but Luke most explicitly shows the
contrary. He opens by stating to Theophilus, that since many persons
have committed to writing the things handed down from eye-witnesses,
it seemed good to him also to do the same, since he had "accurately
attended to every thing from its sources ([Greek: anothen])." He could
not possibly have written thus, if he had been conscious of superhuman
aids. How absurd then of us, to pretend that we know more than Luke
knew of his own inspiration!
In truth, the arguments of theologians to prove the inspiration
(i.e. infallibility) of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are sometimes almost
ludicrous. My lamented friend, John Sterling, has thus summed up
Dr. Henderson's arguments about Mark. "Mark was probably inspired,
_because he was an acquaintance of Peter_; and because Dr. Henderson
would be reviled by other Dissenters, if he doubted it."
* * * * *
About this time, the great phenomenon of these gospels,--the casting
out of devils,--pressed forcibly on my attention. I now dared to
look full into the facts, and saw that the disorders described were
perfectly similar to epilepsy, mania, catalepsy, and other known
maladies. Nay, the deaf, the dumb, the hunchbacked, are spoken of as
devil-ridden. I farther knew that such diseases are still ascribed to
evil genii in Mussulman countries: even a vicious horse is believed by
the Arabs to be _majnun_, possessed by a Jin or Genie. Devils also
are cast out in Abyssinia to this day. Having fallen in with Farmer's
treatise on the Demoniacs, I carefully studied it; and found it
to prove unanswerably, that a belief in demoniacal possession is a
superstition not more respectable than that of witchcraft. But Farmer
did not at all convince me, that the three Evangelists do not share
the vulgar error. Indeed, the instant we believe that the imagined
possessions were only various forms of disease, we are forced to draw
conclusions of the utmost moment, most damaging to the credit of the
narrators.[3]
Clearly, they are then convicted of misstating facts, under the
influence of superstitious credulity. They represent demoniacs as
having a supernatural acquaintance with Jesus, which, it now becomes
manifest, they cannot have had. The devils cast out of two demoniacs
(or one) are said to have entered into a herd of swine. This must have
been a credulous fiction. Indeed, the casting out of devils is so very
prominent a part of the miraculous agency ascribed to Jesus, as at
first sight to impair our faith in his miracles altogether.
I however took refuge in the consideration, that when Jesus wrought
one great miracle, popular credulity would inevitably magnify it into
ten; hence the discovery of foolish exaggerations is no disproof of a
real miraculous agency: nay, perhaps the contrary. Are they not a sort
of false halo round a disc of glory,--a halo so congenial to human
nature, that the absence of it might be even wielded as an objection?
Moreover, John tells of no demoniacs: does not this show his freedom
from popular excitement? Observe the great miracles narrated by
John,--the blind man,--and Lazarus--how different in kind from those
on demoniacs! how incapable of having been mistaken! how convincing!
His statements cannot be explained away: their whole tone, moreover,
is peculiar. On the contrary, the three first gospels contain much
that (after we see the writers to be credulous) must be judged
legendary.
The two first chapters of Matthew abound in dreams. Dreams? Was indeed
the "immaculate conception" merely told to Joseph in a _dream_? a
dream which not he only was to believe, but we also, when reported
to us by a person wholly unknown, who wrote 70 or 80 years after the
fact, and gives us no clue to his sources of information! Shall I
reply that he received his information by miracle? But why more than
Luke? and Luke evidently was conscious only of human information.
Besides, inspiration has not saved Matthew from error about demons;
and why then about Joseph's dream and its highly important contents?
In former days, I had never dared to let my thoughts dwell
inquisitively on the _star_, which the wise men saw in the East, and
which accompanied them, and pointed out the house where the young
child was. I now thought of it, only to see that it was a legend
fit for credulous ages; and that it must be rejected in common with
Herod's massacre of the children,--an atrocity unknown to Josephus.
How difficult it was to reconcile the flight into Egypt with the
narrative of Luke, I had known from early days: I now saw that it was
waste time to try to reconcile them.
But perhaps I might say:--"That the writers should make errors about
the _infancy_ of Jesus was natural; they were distant from the time:
but that will not justly impair the credit of events, to which they
may possibly have been contemporaries or even eye-witnesses."--How
then would this apply to the Temptation, at which certainly none of
them were present? Is it accident, that the same three, who abound
in the demoniacs, tell also the scene of the Devil and Jesuit on a
pinnacle of the temple; while the same John who omits the demoniacs,
omits also this singular story? It being granted that the writers are
elsewhere mistaken, to criticize the tale was to reject it.
In near connexion with this followed the discovery, that many other
miracles of the Bible are wholly deficient in that moral dignity,
which is supposed to place so great a chasm between them and
ecclesiastical writings. Why should I look with more respect on
the napkins taken from Paul's body (Acts xix. 12), than on
pocket-handkerchiefs dipped in the blood of martyrs? How could I
believe, on this same writer's hearsay, that "the Spirit of the Lord
caught away Philip" (viii. 39), transporting him through the air; as
oriental genii are supposed to do? Or what moral dignity was there in
the curse on the barren fig-tree,--about which, moreover, we are so
perplexingly told, that it was _not_ the time for figs? What was to be
said of a cure, wrought by touching the hem of Jesus' garment, which
drew physical _virtue_ from him without his will? And how could I
distinguish the genius of the miracle of tribute-money in the fish's
mouth, from those of the apocryphal gospels? What was I to say
of useless miracles, like that of Peter and Jesus walking on the
water,--or that of many saints coming out of the graves to show
themselves, or of a poetical sympathy of the elements, such as the
earthquake and rending of the temple-veil when Jesus died? Altogether,
I began to feel that Christian advocates commit the flagrant sophism
of treating every objection as an isolated "cavil," and overrule each
as obviously insufficient, with the same confidence as if it were the
only one. Yet, in fact, the objections collectively are very
powerful, and cannot be set aside by supercilious airs and by calling
unbelievers "superficial," any more than by harsh denunciations.
Pursuing the same thought to the Old Testament, I discerned there also
no small sprinkling of grotesque or unmoral miracles. A dead man is
raised to life, when his body by accident touches the bones of Elisha:
as though Elisha had been a Romish saint, and his bones a sacred
relic. Uzzah, when the ark is in danger of falling, puts out his hand
to save it, and is struck dead for his impiety! Was this the judgment
of the Father of mercies and God of all comfort? What was I to make
of God's anger with Abimelech (Gen. xx.), whose sole offence was, the
having believed Abraham's lie? for which a miraculous barrenness was
sent on all the females of Abimelech's tribe, and was bought off
only by splendid presents to the favoured deceiver.--Or was it at
all credible that the lying and fraudulent Jacob should have been so
specially loved by God, more than the rude animal Esau?--Or could I
any longer overlook the gross imagination of antiquity, which made
Abraham and Jehovah dine on the same carnal food, like Tantalus with
the gods;--which fed Elijah by ravens, and set angels to bake cakes
for him? Such is a specimen of the flood of difficulties which poured
in, through the great breach which the demoniacs had made in the
credit of Biblical marvels.
While I was in this stage of progress, I had a second time the
advantage of meeting Dr. Arnold, and had satisfaction in finding that
he rested the main strength of Christianity on the gospel of John. The
great similarity of the other three seemed to him enough to mark that
they flowed from sources very similar, and that the first gospel had
no pretensions to be regarded as the actual writing of Matthew. This
indeed had been for some time clear to me, though I now cared little
about the author's name, when he was proved to be credulous.--Arnold
regarded John's gospel as abounding with smaller touches which marked
the eye-witness, and, altogether, to be the vivid and simple picture
of a divine reality, undeformed by credulous legend. In this view I
was gratified to repose, in spite of a few partial misgivings, and
returned to investigations concerning the Old Testament.
For some time back I had paid special attention to the book of
Genesis; and I had got aid in the analysis of it from a German volume.
That it was based on _at least_ two different documents, technically
called the Elohistic and Jehovistic, soon became clear to me: and
an orthodox friend who acknowledged the fact, regarded it as a high
recommendation of the book, that it was conscientiously made out of
pre-existing materials, and was not a fancy that came from the brain
of Moses. My good friend's argument was not a happy one: no written
record could exist of things and times which preceded the invention
of writing. After analysing this book with great minuteness, I now
proceeded to Exodus and Numbers; and was soon assured, that these had
not, any more than Genesis, come forth from one primitive witness
of the facts. In all these books is found the striking phenomenon of
_duplicate_ or even _triplicate narratives_. The creation of man
is three times told. The account of the Flood is made up out of two
discrepant originals, marked by the names Elohim and Jehovah; of which
one makes Noah take into the ark _seven_ pairs of clean, and _single_
(or double?) pairs of unclean, beasts; while the other gives him
two and two of all kinds, without distinguishing the clean. The two
documents may indeed in this narrative be almost re-discovered by
mechanical separation. The triple statement of Abraham and Isaac
passing off a wife for a sister was next in interest; and here
also the two which concern Abraham are contrasted as Jehovistic
and Elohistic. A similar double account is given of the origin of
circumcision, of the names Isaac, Israel, Bethel, Beersheba. Still
more was I struck by the positive declaration in Exodus (vi. 3)
that _God was_ NOT _known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by the name
Jehovah_; while the book of Genesis abounds with the contrary fact.
This alone convinced me beyond all dispute, that these books did not
come from one and the same hand, but are conglomerates formed out of
older materials, unartistically and mechanically joined.
Indeed a fuller examination showed in Exodus and Numbers a twofold
miracle of the quails, of which the latter is so told as to indicate
entire unacquaintance with the former. There is a double description
of the manna, a needless second appointment of Elders of the
congregation: water is twice brought out of the rock by the rod of
Moses, whose faith is perfect the first time and fails the second
time. The name of Meribah is twice bestowed. There is a double promise
of a guardian angel, a double consecration of Aaron and his sons:
indeed, I seemed to find a double or even threefold[4] copy of the
Decalogue. Comprising Deuteronomy within my view, I met two utterly
incompatible accounts of Aaron's death; for Deuteronomy makes him
die _before_ reaching Meribah Kadesh, where, according to Numbers, he
sinned and incurred the penalty of death (Num. xx. 24, Deut x. 6: cf
Num. xxxiii. 31, 38).
That there was error on a great scale in all this, was undeniable;
and I began to see at least one _source_ of the error. The celebrated
miracle of "the sun standing still" has long been felt as too violent
a derangement of the whole globe to be used by the most High as a
means of discomfiting an army: and I had acquiesced in the idea that
the miracle was _ocular_ only. But in reading the passage, (Josh. x.
12-14,) I for the first time observed that the narrative rests on the
authority of a poetical book which bears the name of Jasher.[5] He who
composed--"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the
valley of Ajalon!"--like other poets, called on the Sun and Moon to
stand and look on Joshua's deeds; but he could not anticipate that
his words would be hardened into fact by a prosaic interpreter, and
appealed to in proof of a stupendous miracle. The commentator
could not tell what _the Moon_ had to do with it; yet he has quoted
honestly.--This presently led me to observe other marks that the
narrative has been made up, at least in part, out of old poetry.
Of these the most important are in Exodus xv. and Num. xxi., in the
latter of which three different poetical fragments are quoted, and
one of them is expressly said to be from "the book of the wars of
Jehovah," apparently a poem descriptive of the conquest of Canaan by
the Israelites. As for Exodus xv. it appeared to me (in that stage,
and after so abundant proof of error,) almost certain that Moses' song
is the primitive authority, out of which the prose narrative of the
passage of the Red Sea has been worked up. Especially since, after the
song, the writer adds: v. 19. "For the horse of Pharaoh went in with
his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea, and the Lord brought
again the waters of the sea upon them: but the children of Israel went
on dry land in the midst of the sea." This comment scarcely could
have been added, if the detailed account of ch. xiv. had been written
previously. The song of Moses _implies no miracle at all_: it is
merely high poetry. A later prosaic age took the hyperbolic phrases
of v. 8 literally, and so generated the comment of v. 19, and a still
later time expanded this into the elaborate 14th chapter.
Other proofs crowded upon me, that cannot here be enlarged upon.
Granting then (for argument) that the four first books of the
Pentateuch are a compilation, made long after the event, I tried for a
while to support the very arbitrary opinion, that Deuteronomy (all but
its last chapter) which seemed to be a more homogeneous composition,
was alone and really the production of Moses. This however needed some
definite proof: for if tradition was not sufficient to guarantee the
whole Pentateuch, it could not guarantee to me Deuteronomy alone. I
proceeded to investigate the external history of the Pentateuch, and
in so doing, came to the story, how the book of the Law was _found_
in the reign of the young king Josiah, nearly at the end of the Jewish
monarchy. As I considered the narrative, my eyes were opened. If
the book had previously been the received sacred law, it could not
possibly have been so lost, that its contents were unknown, and the
fact of its loss forgotten: it was therefore evidently _then first
compiled_, or at least then first produced and made authoritative to
the nation.[6] And with this the general course of the history best
agrees, and all the phenomena of the books themselves.
Many of the Scriptural facts were old to me: to the importance of
the history of Josiah I had perhaps even become dim-sighted by
familiarity. Why had I not long ago seen that my conclusions ought to
have been different from those of prevalent orthodoxy?--I found that
I had been cajoled by the primitive assumptions, which though not
clearly _stated_, are unceremoniously _used_. Dean Graves, for
instance, always takes for granted, that, _until the contrary shall be
demonstrated_, it is to be firmly believed that the Pentateuch is
from the pen of Moses. He proceeds to set aside, _one by one_, as not
demonstrative, the indications that it is of later origin: and when
other means fail, he says that the particular verses remarked on
were added by a later hand! I considered that if we were debating
the antiquity of an Irish book, and in one page of it were found an
allusion to the Parliamentary Union with England, we should at once
regard the whole book, _until the contrary should be proved_, as the
work of this century; and not endure the reasoner, who, in order
to uphold a theory that it is five centuries old, pronounced that
sentence "evidently to be from a later hand." Yet in this arbitrary
way Dean Graves and all his coadjutors set aside, one by one, the
texts which point at the date of the Pentateuch. I was possessed with
indignation. Oh sham science! Oh false-named Theology!
O mihi tam longæ maneat pars ultima vitæ,
Spiritus et, quantum sat erit tua dicere facta!
Yet I waited some eight years longer, lest I should on so grave
a subject write anything premature. Especially I felt that it was
necessary to learn more of what the erudition of Germany had done
on these subjects. Michaelis on the New Testament had fallen into my
hands several years before, and I had found the greatest advantage
from his learning and candour. About this time I also had begun to
get more or less aid from four or five living German divines; but
none produced any strong impression on me but De Wette. The two
grand lessons which I learned from him, were, the greater recency
of Deuteronomy, and the very untrustworthy character of the book of
Chronicles; with which discovery, the true origin of the Pentateuch
becomes still clearer.[7] After this, I heard of Hengstenberg as the
most learned writer on the opposite side, and furnished myself with
his work in defence of the antiquity of the Pentateuch: but it only
showed me how hopeless a cause he had undertaken.
* * * * *
In this period I came to a totally new view of many parts of the
Bible; and not to be tedious, it will suffice here to sum up the
results.
The first books which I looked at as doubtful, were the Apocalypse and
the Epistle to the Hebrews. From the Greek style I felt assured that
the former was not by John,[8] nor the latter by Paul. In Michaelis
I first learnt the interesting fact of Luther having vehemently
repudiated the Apocalypse, so that he not only declared its
spuriousness in the Preface of his Bible, but solemnly charged his
successors not to print his translation of the Apocalypse without
annexing this avowal:--a charge which they presently disobeyed. Such
is the habitual unfairness of ecclesiastical corporations. I was
afterwards confirmed by Neander in the belief that the Apocalypse is
a false prophecy. The only chapter of it which is interpreted,--the
17th,--appears to be a political speculation suggested by the civil
war of Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian; and erroneously opines that
the eighth emperor of Rome is to be the last, and is to be one of the
preceding emperors restored,--probably Nero, who was believed to have
escaped to the kings of the East.--As for the Epistle to the Hebrews,
(which I was disposed to believe Luther had well guessed to be the
production of Apollos,) I now saw quite a different genius in it from
that of Paul, as more artificial and savouring of rhetorical culture.
As to this, the learned Germans are probably unanimous.
Next to these, the Song of Solomon fell away. I had been accustomed to
receive this as a sacred representation of the loves of Christ and the
Church: but after I was experimentally acquainted with the playful and
extravagant genius of man's love for woman, I saw the Song of Solomon
with new eyes, and became entirely convinced that it consists of
fragments of love-songs, some of them rather voluptuous.
After this, it followed that the so-called _Canon_ of the Jews could
not guarantee to us the value of the writings. Consequently, such
books as Ruth and Esther, (the latter indeed not containing
one religious sentiment,) stood forth at once in their natural
insignificance. Ecclesiastes also seemed to me a meagre and shallow
production. Chronicles I now learned to be not credulous only, but
unfair, perhaps so far as to be actually dishonest. Not one of the
historical books of the Old Testament could approve itself to me as
of any high antiquity or of any spiritual authority; and in the New
Testament I found the first three books and the Acts to contain many
doubtful and some untrue accounts, and many incredible miracles.
Many persons, after reading thus much concerning me, will be apt to
say: "Of course then you gave up Christianity?"--Far from it. I gave
up all that was clearly untenable, and clung the firmer to all that
still appeared sound. I had found out that the Bible was not to be
my religion, nor its perfection any tenet of mine: but what then! Did
Paul go about preaching the Bible? nay, but he preached Christ. The
New Testament did not as yet exist: to the Jews he necessarily argued
from the Old Testament; but that "faith in the book" was no part of
Paul's gospel, is manifest from his giving no list of sacred books
to his Gentile converts. Twice indeed in his epistles to Timothy, he
recommends the Scriptures of the Old Testament; but even in the more
striking passage, (on which such exaggerated stress has been laid,)
the spirit of his remark is essentially apologetic. "Despise not,
oh Timothy," (is virtually his exhortation) "the Scriptures that you
learned as a child. Although now you have the Spirit to teach you,
yet that does not make the older writers useless: for "_every divinely
inspired writing is also profitable for instruction &c._" In Paul's
religion, respect for the Scriptures was a means, not an end. The
Bible was made for man, not man for the Bible.
Thus the question with me was: "May I still receive Christ as a
Saviour from sin, a Teacher and Lord sent from heaven, and can I find
an adequate account of what he came to do or teach?" And my reply was,
Yes. The gospel of John alone gave an adequate account of him: the
other three, though often erroneous, had clear marks of simplicity,
and in so far confirmed the general belief in the supernatural
character and works of Jesus. Then the conversion of Paul was a
powerful argument. I had Peter's testimony to the resurrection, and to
the transfiguration. Many of the prophecies were eminently remarkable,
and seemed unaccountable except as miraculous. The origin of Judaism
and spread of Christianity appeared to be beyond common experience,
and were perhaps fairly to be called supernatural. Broad views such as
these did not seem to be affected by the special conclusions at which
I had arrived concerning the books of the Bible. I conceived myself
to be resting under an Indian Figtree, which is supported by certain
grand stems, but also lets down to the earth many small branches,
which seem to the eye to prop the tree, but in fact are supported
by it. If they were cut away, the tree would not be less strong.
So neither was the tree of Christianity weakened by the loss of its
apparent props. I might still enjoy its shade, and eat of its fruits,
and bless the hand that planted it.
In the course of this period I likewise learnt how inadequate
allowance I had once made for the repulsion produced by my own
dogmatic tendency on the sympathies of the unevangelical. I now
often met persons of Evangelical opinion, but could seldom have any
interchange of religious sentiment with them, because every word they
uttered warned me that I could escape controversy only while I kept
them at a distance: moreover, if any little difference of opinion led
us into amicable argument, they uniformly reasoned by quoting texts.
This was now inadmissible with me, but I could only have done mischief
by going farther than a dry disclaimer; after which indeed I saw I was
generally looked on as "an infidel." No doubt the parties who so came
into collision with me, approached me often with an earnest desire
and hope to find some spiritual good in me, but withdrew disappointed,
finding me either cold and defensive, or (perhaps they thought) warm
and disputatious. Thus, as long as artificial tests of spirituality
are allowed to exist, their erroneousness is not easily exposed by
the mere wear and tear of life. When the collision of opinion is
very strong, two good men may meet, and only be confirmed in their
prejudices against one another: for in order that one may elicit
the spiritual sympathies of the other, a certain liberality is
prerequisite. Without this, each prepares to shield himself from
attack, or even holds out weapons of offence. Thus "articles of
Communion" are essentially articles of Disunion.--On the other hand,
if all tests of opinion in a church were heartily and truly done away,
then the principles of spiritual affinity and repulsion would
act quite undisturbed. Surely therefore this was the only right
method?--Nevertheless, I saw the necessity of _one_ test, "Jesus
is the Son of God," and felt unpleasantly that one article tends
infallibly to draw another after it. But I had too much, just then to
think of in other quarters, to care much about Church Systems.
[Footnote 1: See Gen. xxxiii. 19, and xlix. 29-32, xxiii.]
[Footnote 2: Some say, that Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, named in the
Chronicles, is meant; that he is _confounded_ with the prophet, the
son of Berechiah, and was _supposed_ to be the last of the martyrs,
because the Chronicles are placed last in the Hebrew Bible. This is a
plausible view; but it saves the Scripture only by imputing error to
Jesus.]
[Footnote 3: My Eclectic Reviewer says (p. 276): "Thus because the
evangelists held an erroneous _medical_ theory, Mr. Newman suffered
a breach to be made in the credit of the Bible." No; but as the next
sentence states, "because they are convicted of _misstating facts_,"
under the influence of this erroneous medical theory. Even this
reviewer--candid for an orthodox critic, and not over-orthodox
either--cannot help garbling me.]
[Footnote 4: I have explained this in my "Hebrew Monarchy."]
[Footnote 5: This poet celebrated also the deeds of David (2 Sam. i.
18) according to our translation: if so, he was many centuries later
than Joshua; however, the sense of the Hebrew is little obscure.]
[Footnote 6: I have fully discussed this in my "Hebrew Monarchy."]
[Footnote 7: The English reader may consult Theodore Parker's
translation of De Wette's Introduction to the Canon of Scripture. I
have also amply exhibited the vanity of the _Chronicles_ in my "Hebrew
Monarchy." De Wette has a separate treatise on the Chronicles,]
[Footnote 8: If the date of the Apocalypse is twenty years earlier
than that of the fourth Gospel, I now feel no such difficulty in their
being the composition of the same writer.]