The main question at issue, in a word, is one which
Professor Huxley has chosen to leave entirely on one
side--whether, namely, allowing for the utmost uncertainty
on other points of the criticism to which he appeals, there
is any reasonable doubt that the Lord's Prayer and the
Sermon on the Mount afford a true account of our Lord's
essential belief and cardinal teaching (p. 355.)
I certainly was not aware that I had evaded the questions here stated;
indeed I should say that I have indicated my reply to them pretty
clearly; but, as Dr. Wace wants a plainer answer, he shall certainly
be gratified. If, as Dr. Wace declares it is, his "whole case is
involved in" the argument as stated in the latter of these two
extracts, so much the worse for his whole case. For I am of opinion
that there is the gravest reason for doubting whether the "Sermon on
the Mount" was ever preached, and whether the so-called "Lord's
Prayer" was ever prayed, by Jesus of Nazareth. My reasons for this
opinion are, among others, these:--There is now no doubt that the
three Synoptic Gospels, so far from being the work of three
independent writers, are closely interdependent,[67] and that in one
of two ways. Either all three contain, as their foundation, versions,
to a large extent verbally identical, of one and the same tradition;
or two of them are thus closely dependent on the third; and the
opinion of the majority of the best critics has of late years more and
more converged towards the conviction that our canonical second gospel
(the so-called "Mark's" Gospel) is that which most closely represents
the primitive groundwork of the three.[68] That I take to be one of
the most valuable results of New Testament criticism, of immeasurably
greater importance than the discussion about dates and authorship.
But if, as I believe to be the case, beyond any rational doubt or
dispute, the second gospel is the nearest extant representative of the
oldest tradition, whether written or oral, how comes it that it
contains neither the "Sermon on the Mount" nor the "Lord's Prayer,"
those typical embodiments, according to Dr. Wace, of the "essential
belief and cardinal teaching" of Jesus? Not only does "Mark's" gospel
fail to contain the "Sermon on the Mount," or anything but a very few
of the sayings contained in that collection; but, at the point of the
history of Jesus where the "Sermon" occurs in "Matthew," there is in
"Mark" an apparently unbroken narrative from the calling of James and
John to the healing of Simon's wife's mother. Thus the oldest
tradition not only ignores the "Sermon on the Mount," but, by
implication, raises a probability against its being delivered when and
where the later "Matthew" inserts it in his compilation.
And still more weighty is the fact that the third gospel, the author
of which tells us that he wrote after "many" others had "taken in
hand" the same enterprise; who should therefore have known the first
gospel (if it existed), and was bound to pay to it the deference due
to the work of an apostolic eye-witness (if he had any reason for
thinking it was so)--this writer, who exhibits far more literary
competence than the other two, ignores any "Sermon on the Mount," such
as that reported by "Matthew," just as much as the oldest authority
does. Yet "Luke" has a great many passages identical, or parallel,
with those in "Matthew's" "Sermon on the Mount," which are, for the
most part, scattered about in a totally different connection.
Interposed, however, between the nomination of the Apostles and a
visit to Capernaum; occupying, therefore, a place which answers to
that of the "Sermon on the Mount," in the first gospel, there is in
the third gospel a discourse which is as closely similar to the
"Sermon on the Mount," in some particulars, as it is widely unlike it
in others.
This discourse is said to have been delivered in a "plain" or "level
place" (Luke vi. 17), and by way of distinction we may call it the
"Sermon on the Plain."
I see no reason to doubt that the two Evangelists are dealing, to a
considerable extent, with the same traditional material; and a
comparison of the two "Sermons" suggests very strongly that "Luke's"
version is the earlier. The correspondences between the two forbid the
notion that they are independent. They both begin with a series of
blessings, some of which are almost verbally identical. In the middle
of each (Luke vi. 27-38, Matt. v. 43-48) there is a striking
exposition of the ethical spirit of the command given in Leviticus
xix. 18. And each ends with a passage containing the declaration that
a tree is to be known by its fruit, and the parable of the house built
on the sand. But while there are only 29 verses in the "Sermon on the
Plain" there are 107 in the "Sermon on the Mount;" the excess in
length of the latter being chiefly due to the long interpolations,
one of 30 verses before and one of 34 verses after, the middlemost
parallelism with Luke. Under these circumstances it is quite
impossible to admit that there is more probability that "Matthew's"
version of the Sermon is historically accurate, than there is that
Luke's version is so; and they cannot both be accurate.
"Luke" either knew the collection of loosely-connected and aphoristic
utterances which appear under the name of the "Sermon on the Mount" in
"Matthew"; or he did not. If he did not, he must have been ignorant of
the existence of such a document as our canonical "Matthew," a fact
which does not make for the genuineness, or the authority, of that
book. If he did, he has shown that he does not care for its authority
on a matter of fact of no small importance; and that does not permit
us to conceive that he believed the first gospel to be the work of an
authority to whom he ought to defer, let alone that of an apostolic
eye-witness.
The tradition of the Church about the second gospel, which I believe
to be quite worthless, but which is all the evidence there is for
"Mark's" authorship, would have us believe that "Mark" was little more
than the mouthpiece of the apostle Peter. Consequently, we are to
suppose that Peter either did not know, or did not care very much for,
that account of the "essential belief and cardinal teaching" of Jesus
which is contained in the Sermon on the Mount; and, certainly, he
could not have shared Dr. Wace's view of its importance.[69]
I thought that all fairly attentive and intelligent students of the
gospels, to say nothing of theologians of reputation, knew these
things. But how can any one who does know them have the conscience to
ask whether there is "any reasonable doubt" that the Sermon on the
Mount was preached by Jesus of Nazareth? If conjecture is permissible,
where nothing else is possible, the most probable conjecture seems to
be that "Matthew," having a _cento_ of sayings attributed--rightly or
wrongly it is impossible to say--to Jesus among his materials, thought
they were, or might be, records of a continuous discourse, and put
them in at the place he thought likeliest. Ancient historians of the
highest character saw no harm in composing long speeches which never
were spoken, and putting them into the mouths of statesmen and
warriors; and I presume that whoever is represented by "Matthew" would
have been grievously astonished to find that any one objected to his
following the example of the best models accessible to him.
So with the "Lord's Prayer." Absent in our representative of the
oldest tradition, it appears in both "Matthew" and "Luke." There is
reason to believe that every pious Jew, at the commencement of our
era, prayed three times a day, according to a formula which is
embodied in the present "Schmone-Esre"[70] of the Jewish prayer-book.
Jesus, who was assuredly, in all respects, a pious Jew, whatever else
he may have been, doubtless did the same. Whether he modified the
current formula, or whether the so-called "Lord's Prayer" is the
prayer substituted for the "Schmone-Esre" in the congregations of the
Gentiles, is a question which can hardly be answered.
In a subsequent passage of Dr. Wace's article (p. 356) he adds to the
list of the verities which he imagines to be unassailable, "The Story
of the Passion." I am not quite sure what he means by this. I am not
aware that any one (with the exception of certain ancient heretics)
has propounded doubts as to the reality of the crucifixion; and
certainly I have no inclination to argue about the precise accuracy of
every detail of that pathetic story of suffering and wrong. But, if
Dr. Wace means, as I suppose he does, that that which, according to
the orthodox view, happened after the crucifixion, and which is, in a
dogmatic sense, the most important part of the story, is founded on
solid historical proofs, I must beg leave to express a diametrically
opposite conviction.
What do we find when the accounts of the events in question, contained
in the three Synoptic gospels, are compared together? In the oldest,
there is a simple, straightforward statement which, for anything that
I have to urge to the contrary, may be exactly true. In the other two,
there is, round this possible and probable nucleus, a mass of
accretions of the most questionable character.
The cruelty of death by crucifixion depended very much upon its
lingering character. If there were a support for the weight of the
body, as not unfrequently was the practice, the pain during the first
hours of the infliction was not, necessarily, extreme; nor need any
serious physical symptoms, at once, arise from the wounds made by the
nails in the hands and feet, supposing they were nailed, which was not
invariably the case. When exhaustion set in, and hunger, thirst, and
nervous irritation had done their work, the agony of the sufferer must
have been terrible; and the more terrible that, in the absence of any
effectual disturbance of the machinery of physical life, it might be
prolonged for many hours, or even days. Temperate, strong men, such as
were the ordinary Galilean peasants, might live for several days on
the cross. It is necessary to bear these facts in mind when we read
the account contained in the fifteenth chapter of the second gospel.
Jesus was crucified at the third hour (xv. 25), and the narrative
seems to imply that he died immediately after the ninth hour (_v_.
34). In this case, he would have been crucified only six hours; and
the time spent on the cross cannot have been much longer, because
Joseph of Arimathæa must have gone to Pilate, made his preparations,
and deposited the body in the rock-cut tomb before sunset, which, at
that time of the year, was about the twelfth hour. That any one should
die after only six hours' crucifixion could not have been at all in
accordance with Pilate's large experience of the effects of that
method of punishment. It, therefore, quite agrees with what might be
expected, that Pilate "marvelled if he were already dead" and required
to be satisfied on this point by the testimony of the Roman officer
who was in command of the execution party. Those who have paid
attention to the extraordinary difficult question, What are the
indisputable signs of death?--will be able to estimate the value of
the opinion of a rough soldier on such a subject; even if his report
to the Procurator were in no wise affected by the fact that the friend
of Jesus, who anxiously awaited his answer, was a man of influence and
of wealth.
The inanimate body, wrapped in linen, was deposited in a
spacious,[71] cool rock chamber, the entrance of which was closed, not
by a well-fitting door, but by a stone rolled against the opening,
which would of course allow free passage of air. A little more than
thirty-six hours afterwards (Friday 6 P.M., to Sunday 6 A.M., or a
little after) three women visit the tomb and find it empty. And they
are told by a young man "arrayed in a white robe" that Jesus is gone
to his native country of Galilee, and that the disciples and Peter
will find him there.
Thus it stands, plainly recorded, in the oldest tradition that, for
any evidence to the contrary, the sepulchre may have been emptied at
any time during the Friday or Saturday nights. If it is said that no
Jew would have violated the Sabbath by taking the former course, it is
to be recollected that Joseph of Arimathæa might well be familiar with
that wise and liberal interpretation of the fourth commandment, which
permitted works of mercy to men--nay, even the drawing of an ox or an
ass out of a pit--on the Sabbath. At any rate, the Saturday night was
free to the most scrupulous of observers of the Law.
These are the facts of the case as stated by the oldest extant
narrative of them. I do not see why any one should have a word to say
against the inherent probability of that narrative; and, for my part,
I am quite ready to accept it as an historical fact, that so much and
no more is positively known of the end of Jesus of Nazareth. On what
grounds can a reasonable man be asked to believe any more? So far as
the narrative in the first gospel, on the one hand, and those in the
third gospel and the Acts, on the other, go beyond what is stated in
the second gospel, they are hopelessly discrepant with one another.
And this is the more significant because the pregnant phrase "some
doubted," in the first gospel, is ignored in the third.
But it is said that we have the witness Paul speaking to us directly
in the Epistles. There is little doubt that we have, and a very
singular witness he is. According to his own showing, Paul, in the
vigour of his manhood, with every means of becoming acquainted, at
first hand, with the evidence of eye-witnesses, not merely refused to
credit them, but "persecuted the church of God and made havoc of it."
The reasoning of Stephen fell dead upon the acute intellect of this
zealot for the traditions of his fathers: his eyes were blind to the
ecstatic illumination of the martyr's countenance "as it had been the
face of an angel;" and when, at the words "Behold, I see the heavens
opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God," the
murderous mob rushed upon and stoned the rapt disciple of Jesus, Paul
ostentatiously made himself their official accomplice.
Yet this strange man, because he has a vision, one day, at once, and
with equally headlong zeal, flies to the opposite pole of opinion. And
he is most careful to tell us that he abstained from any
re-examination of the facts.
Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood; neither
went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before
me; but I went away into Arabia. (Galatians i. 16, 17.)
I do not presume to quarrel with Paul's procedure. If it satisfied
him, that was his affair; and, if it satisfies anyone else, I am not
called upon to dispute the right of that person to be satisfied. But I
certainly have the right to say that it would not satisfy me, in like
case; that I should be very much ashamed to pretend that it could, or
ought to, satisfy me; and that I can entertain but a very low estimate
of the value of the evidence of people who are to be satisfied in this
fashion, when questions of objective fact, in which their faith is
interested, are concerned. So that when I am called upon to believe a
great deal more than the oldest gospel tells me about the final events
of the history of Jesus on the authority of Paul (1 Corinthians xv.
5-8) I must pause. Did he think it, at any subsequent time, worth
while "to confer with flesh and blood," or, in modern phrase, to
re-examine the facts for himself? or was he ready to accept anything
that fitted in with his preconceived ideas? Does he mean, when he
speaks of all the appearances of Jesus after the crucifixion as if
they were of the same kind, that they were all visions, like the
manifestation to himself? And, finally, how is this account to be
reconciled with those in the first and third gospels--which, as we
have seen, disagree with one another?
Until these questions are satisfactorily answered, I am afraid that,
so far as I am concerned, Paul's testimony cannot be seriously
regarded, except as it may afford evidence of the state of traditional
opinion at the time at which he wrote, say between 55 and 60 A.D.;
that is, more than twenty years after the event; a period much more
than sufficient for the development of any amount of mythology about
matters of which nothing was really known. A few years later, among
the contemporaries and neighbours of the Jews, and, if the most
probable interpretation of the Apocalypse can he trusted, among the
followers of Jesus also, it was fully believed, in spite of all the
evidence to the contrary, that the Emperor Nero was not really dead,
but that he was hidden away somewhere in the East, and would speedily
come again at the head of a great army, to be revenged upon his
enemies.[72]
Thus, I conceive that I have shown cause for the opinion that Dr.
Wace's challenge touching the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer,
and the Passion was more valorous than discreet. After all this
discussion, I am still at the agnostic point. Tell me, first, what
Jesus can be proved to have been, said, and done, and I will say
whether I believe him, or in him,[73] or not. As Dr. Wace admits that
I have dissipated his lingering shade of unbelief about the
bedevilment of the Gadarene pigs, he might have done something to help
mine. Instead of that, he manifests a total want of conception of the
nature of the obstacles which impede the conversion of his "infidels."
The truth I believe to be, that the difficulties in the way of
arriving at a sure conclusion as to these matters, from the Sermon on
the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, or any other data offered by the
Synoptic gospels (and _a fortiori_ from the fourth gospel), are
insuperable. Every one of these records is coloured by the
prepossessions of those among whom the primitive traditions arose, and
of those by whom they were collected and edited: and the difficulty of
making allowance for these prepossessions is enhanced by our ignorance
of the exact dates at which the documents were first put together; of
the extent to which they have been subsequently worked over and
interpolated; and of the historical sense, or want of sense, and the
dogmatic tendencies of their compilers and editors. Let us see if
there is any other road which will take us into something better than
negation.
There is a widespread notion that the "primitive Church," while under
the guidance of the Apostles and their immediate successors, was a
sort of dogmatic dovecot, pervaded by the most loving unity and
doctrinal harmony. Protestants, especially, are fond of attributing to
themselves the merit of being nearer "the Church of the Apostles" than
their neighbours; and they are the less to be excused for their
strange delusion because they are great readers of the documents which
prove the exact contrary. The fact is that, in the course of the first
three centuries of its existence, the Church rapidly underwent a
process of evolution of the most remarkable character, the final stage
of which is far more different from the first than Anglicanism is from
Quakerism. The key to the comprehension of the problem of the origin
of that which is now called "Christianity," and its relation to Jesus
of Nazareth, lies here. Nor can we arrive at any sound conclusion as
to what it is probable that Jesus actually said and did, without being
clear on this head. By far the most important and subsequently
influential steps in the evolution of Christianity took place in the
course of the century, more or less, which followed upon the
crucifixion. It is almost the darkest period of Church history, but,
most fortunately, the beginning and the end of the period are brightly
illuminated by the contemporary evidence of two writers of whose
historical existence there is no doubt,[74] and against the
genuineness of whose most important works there is no widely-admitted
objection. These are Justin, the philosopher and martyr, and Paul, the
Apostle to the Gentiles. I shall call upon these witnesses only to
testify to the condition of opinion among those who called themselves
disciples of Jesus in their time.
Justin, in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, which was written
somewhere about the middle of the second century, enumerates certain
categories of persons who, in his opinion, will, or will not, be
saved,[75] These are:--
1. Orthodox Jews who refuse to believe that those who do observe it to
be heretics. _Saved_.
2. Jews who observe the Law; believe Jesus to be the Christ; but who
insist on the observance of the Law by Gentile converts. _Not Saved_.
3. Jews who observe the Law; believe Jesus to be the Christ, and hold
that Gentile converts need not observe the Law. _Saved_ (in Justin's
opinion; but some of his fellow-Christians think the contrary).
4. Gentile converts to the belief in Jesus as the Christ, who observe
the Law. _Saved_ (possibly).
5. Gentile believers in Jesus as the Christ, who do not observe the
Law themselves (except so far as the refusal of idol sacrifices), but
do not consider those who do observe it heretics. _Saved_ (this is
Justin's own view).
6. Gentile believers who do not observe the Law, except in refusing
idol sacrifices, and hold those who do observe it to be heretics.
_Saved_.
7. Gentiles who believe Jesus to be the Christ and call themselves
Christians, but who eat meats sacrificed to idols. _Not Saved_.