must have been effected. It is, say my opponents, very uncertain
whether the historic Jesus ever attempted to perform a miracle. But
according to the conceptions of the times, His followers thought that
the Messiah ought to have performed them. To supply the defect, they
invented a mass of miraculous stories, and in their fond credulity
thought that Jesus had actually performed them, and thus the delusion
of His miraculous wonder-working was propagated in the Church. But all
experience proves that mythic and legendary miracles are grotesque. Yet
those in the Gospels are all sober ones, and stamped with a high moral
tone. They must therefore have undergone a succession of developments
before they could have assumed their present form. Still a Jewish
Messiah has yet to be transformed into the Jesus of the Evangelists.
After a while a happy thought occurs to these uninstructed Jews. They
determine to invest the Teacher with whom they had habitually conversed
with a character at once divine and human. The mythic faculty is
again invoked, and the human Jesus, by the aid of development after
development, gradually assumes the aspect of the divine Christ. In
a similar manner they feel that the moral aspect of the Messiah of
their fondest expectations must undergo a change, and in due time the
triumphant King becomes the meek and the lowly Jesus, and the morality
of Pharisaism becomes that of the New Testament.
Few persons are at all aware of the enormous difficulties which would
have beset any persons who, whether consciously or unconsciously, set
themselves to metamorphise a Jew of the year 30 into the Christ of
the Gospels. Familiarity with the character induces numbers to think
that poets or fabulists, inventors of myths and legends, might easily
have created it. To form a correct estimate of the difficulty, it is
necessary to transport ourselves out of the nineteenth century into the
Jewish atmosphere of thought and feeling of the century which preceded
the Advent. A starting-point it must have had. There could have been no
other than it.
Let it be observed that before the elaboration of the Jesus of the
Gospels, those who fabricated the conception were wholly without
a model to guide them. All ancient fact or fable fails to furnish
anything at all analogous to this great character. Such models as they
had would have guided its inventors wrong. The only ones which they
possessed were the popular Messianic conceptions of the period, and
the prevailing Jewish ideas of religion and morality. Besides these,
they might have fallen back on the general ideas contained in the Old
Testament Scriptures and the apocryphal books. The ideal of a Jewish
hero would certainly not have helped them in forming the conception
of the Evangelical Jesus. One apocryphal book has been frequently
referred to as affording considerable aid--the Book of Enoch. I have
fully discussed this subject elsewhere,[109] and the conclusion to
which I have arrived is, I think, incontrovertible, that even if we
grant that its Messianic portions were composed prior to the Christian
era (a concession which I am by no means prepared to make), the aid
which it would have afforded the mythologists who invented the Christ
of the Gospels would have been inconsiderable. To avoid a lengthened
controversy as to its date, I am quite willing that these schools of
thought should make all the use they can of them.
Let me point out a few of the difficulties which must have beset the
path of the inventors of the great portraiture of the Gospels.
Every reader at once recognizes that the character who is there
depicted is a superhuman one; or rather, to speak more accurately,
it is exhibited as uniting the human and the divine. This is a plain
matter of fact, and is quite independent of the question whether
the Evangelists were right in so representing it. Nor is my argument
at all affected by any supposed difficulty in defining, in the terms
of an abstract creed, the precise measure of the divine which they
have ascribed to it. All that I contend for is that the Jesus of the
Evangelists is dramatized as uniting a divine and human consciousness,
and that it is exhibited with a faultless propriety.
Now the moment the mythologists made a movement in this direction, a
hundred problems of a most difficult character must have demanded their
solution before they could advance a single step. I can only adduce one
or two examples. How was the human to be represented as acting in union
with the divine, and the divine with the human? In what proportions
were they to be combined? How was the one to be prevented from
swallowing up the other? Let it be observed that there was no model to
guide them. The attempt to exhibit the divine and human in a single
personality had never been attempted before.
The difficulty will be at once seen from a reference to the Old
Testament. The nearest approach which it exhibits to uniting the human
and the divine is in the act of prophetic inspiration. But in this the
two factors are invariably distinct. The Old Testament prophet, when
under the influence of the prophetical illapse, invariably prefaces
his utterances with "Thus saith the Lord." These words are never once
placed in the mouth of Jesus throughout the entire Gospels. Instead of
them, His most solemn utterances are introduced with the words, "I say
unto you." The prophet is generally vehemently excited. The Jesus of
the Evangelists is invariably calm.
You must never forget that the position of those against whose theories
I am reasoning compels them to assume that the contents of the Gospels
have been elaborated by the action of a multitude of minds. Be it so.
It follows that these problems must have received as many different
solutions as there were minds engaged in the attempt. Instead of the
character which resulted therefrom presenting a unity of aspect, it
would have been a mass of hopeless confusion.
My limits will only allow me to draw your attention to one or two of
these difficulties out of the vast multitude. The historical Jesus was
unquestionably crucified. How was a crucified man to be represented as
divine? He died in agony. How was an artist to dramatize the divine
in suffering? If my hearers are not aware of the difficulties which
would have attended the solution of these and kindred questions, I
advise them to study the creation of the great Grecian dramatist, the
Prometheus Vinctus of Æschylus, and compare it with the Jesus of the
Gospels. I am sure that correct taste will pronounce that the creation
of the fishermen of Galilee utterly transcends that of the genius of
the great tragedian.
Nothing is more difficult, even in works of fiction, than to combine
the attributes of holiness and benevolence as harmoniously acting
in the same person. In living men they almost invariably jar. They
possess them imperfectly, and one generally counteracts the action of
the other. The difficulty of combining them is greatly increased if
the being uniting them is to be represented as both human and divine.
Holiness and benevolence are in fact opposite sides of character, and
no more difficult problem can be presented to the imagination than to
exhibit them as acting harmoniously in the same character. No question
in theology is more embarrassing than the mode in which they coexist in
God.
It follows that if the contents of the Gospels were due to a multitude
of minds, they must have exhibited as many aspects of the character
of a Christ as there were fabulists engaged in its creation. But the
character of the Jesus of the Gospels, in its combination of holiness
with benevolence, presents us with a complete unity. Not only is the
unity complete, but the perfection of the picture is inimitable. Where
can we find, either in fact or fiction, anything like the perfection
of the holiness and benevolence of the Jesus of the Evangelists? Yet
we are asked to believe that it has been a gradual growth created by
successions of credulous mythologists.
The moral and religious teaching of the Gospels forms a subject by
itself of large dimensions, and it is impossible for me within the
limits of a lecture to do more than glance at it.[110] It consists of
two perfectly distinct portions: first, the subject of morality and
religion as it is exhibited in the person of Jesus Christ; secondly,
as He taught them for the use of ordinary men. Most unbelievers will
admit that the portraiture of Jesus Christ, as it is exhibited in the
Gospels, is one of the most spotless moral beauty, and the greatest
elevation. I am quite aware that a few exceptions have been made to
it; but some of them are obviously founded on misapprehension, and
others are evidently incorrect. At any rate it cannot be denied that
the entire moral aspect of the person of Christ is unique in human
literature.
No less remarkable is His moral teaching for the use of ordinary men.
It is pure, elevated, beneficent, grand. It bears the unquestionable
marks of having been the elaboration of a single mind. The parts are
adapted to each other and to the whole.
But our Lord's moral character, and His moral teaching as they are
exhibited in the Gospels, consist of a number of detached portions,
which together make up a complicated whole. Their solution involves
such a multiplicity of questions, as to render it difficult to count
them. They are questions which the profoundest thinkers have solved in
the most varied manner. Yet in the Gospels the mode of their solution
is a complete unity. They coalesce with an inimitable beauty. Let
unbelievers cavil as they may, an overwhelming majority of the holiest
and the best of men have bowed before the character of the Jesus of
the Evangelists in humble adoration, and felt that it was immeasurably
above them. Numbers of these subjects were inquired into by ancient
philosophers with the keenest interest, but they found no adequate
solution. My opponents assert that this great character, around which
the entire morality of Christianity centres, is not an historical one.
How did it then originate? The answer is, that it is founded on the
traditional reminiscences of the teaching of a Jewish peasant who died
in early manhood; and that the numerous parts of which the character
and His teaching consist were unconsciously elaborated in the course of
many years by a multitude of credulous, enthusiastic mythologists.
I must now advance to another stage of my argument. As my opponents
assert that the development of the Gospels, and of the portraiture of
the Christ which they contain, were entirely due to natural causes, it
is evident that they must have been effected in conformity with the
laws which regulate the developments of the human mind. Let us test
this principle.
Taking the atmosphere of Jewish thought and feeling as it existed in
the year 30 as the starting-point, it is evident to every one at all
acquainted with the subject, that the interval which separates its
conceptions from those of the Gospels is far greater than that which
separates any two types of human thought. To take a single example.
The interval between the free spirit of morality as it is exhibited
in the New Testament, and the casuistic and ritualistic tendencies of
moral thought which ultimately developed themselves into Rabbinism,
is profound. If, therefore, Christianity grew out of Judaism by a
succession of natural causes, the interval between them must have been
bridged over by a succession of developments. So, again, with respect
to Messianic conceptions. A profound interval separates that of Christ
from that of Barchocebas, to which Jewish Messianism was then tending.
That of Barchocebas was a natural growth out of the popular Messianic
conceptions of the year 30, and separated from them by no great
interval. But their development occupied no less than a century. But if
the Jesus of the Evangelists grew out of the popular idea of the year
30, it is evident that the succession of developments must have been
very numerous, and have required long intervals of time, before it was
possible to create the portraiture of Christ.
Let me take another example, which those against whom I am reasoning
cannot refuse to accept. The interval which separates the state
of religious and moral thought involved in the primitive Mosaic
institutions from that of the year 30 is considerable, though far
less than that which separates the latter from that contained in the
Gospels. In adducing this example, I use one most favourable to my
opponents. Christians maintain that this development was accelerated
by supernatural causes. The proper subject of comparison would have
been one which both sides are agreed to have been effected by causes
purely natural. I need not however fear making the concession, for it
will more than bear the weight of my argument. We will suppose that
the entire history of Judaism, as those with whom I am reasoning say,
contained in it nothing supernatural. I ask you therefore to observe
that the development in question was completed only after an interval
of more than a thousand years from its commencement. Yet we are invited
to believe that the Christianity of the Synoptics, and of the larger
portion of the Epistles, was evolved in a period of seventy years, and
the Christian Church erected on them, as its foundation, and that of
the fourth Gospel in 130 years.
Let us take another mode of measurement of my opponents' own choosing.
The Synoptic Gospels, as they say, are separated from that of St.
John by an interval of sixty years. Is it possible to bridge over the
interval which separates the Synoptics from the Jewish atmosphere of
thought and feeling of the year 30, in seventy years, if it required
sixty years to effect the development in question?
Against one convenient assumption I must present a most respectful
protest. Whenever it suits their purpose, the human Jesus is
represented as a very great man, who towered high above the ordinary
conditions of humanity. Again, when it is convenient He is represented
to have been a very little man, the prey of all the superstitions of
His age. I am prepared to reason on either side of this alternative,
but not on both. These Schools postulate greatness whenever they want
to make a prodigious leap in religion and morality; littleness when
they want to account for the miraculous element in Christianity. But
while I am ready to assume as the basis of the argument that the
human Jesus was a great man, let it be understood that He could have
been great only in the sense in which all other great men have been
great. Those who deny the possibility of physical miracles must not,
when it suits their purpose, assume the existence of moral ones. His
greatness must have been limited by the conditions imposed on it by
the environment of a Jew of the year 30 who was born a peasant, and
perished at thirty-five years of age.
Observe again, the miracles of the Gospels have to be invented somehow.
I am ready to concede that miraculous stories of a certain type have
been invented in rich abundance. But the whole class of fictitious
miracles invented in credulous ages are stamped with a peculiar trait
from which those of the Gospels are free. The one are monstrous,
undignified, and grotesque. The others are sober, dignified, and I
think that my opponents will allow, if miracles are possible, worthy of
God. The preservation of the apocryphal Gospels enables us to know what
sort of miracles the mythic spirit commencing with the next century
attributed to Jesus Christ. I have examined the subject elsewhere. The
following passage sums up the result:--
"The case stands thus: our Gospels present us with the picture of a
glorious Christ; the mythic Gospels with that of a contemptible one.
Our Gospels have invested Him with the highest conceivable form of
moral greatness; the mythic ones have not ascribed to Him one action
which is elevated. In our Gospels He exhibits a superhuman wisdom; in
the mythic ones a nearly equal superhuman absurdity. In our Gospels
He is arrayed in all the beauty of holiness; in the mythic ones,
this aspect is entirely wanting. In our Gospels, not one stain of
selfishness defiles His character; in the mythic ones, the Lord Jesus
is both pettish and malicious. Our Gospels exhibit to us a sublime
morality; not a ray of it shines in those of the mythologists. The
miracles of the one and the other are contrasted in every point. A
similar opposition of character runs through the whole current of
thought, feeling, morality, and religion."[111]
I ask my opponents to account for this difference, and specially to
say why in the second century the mythic spirit began to create a
ridiculous Christ, and in the first it produced a glorious one; and
through how many stages of development the creation passed until it
culminated in what we read in the Gospels, and the interval of time to
be assigned to each.
But according to the theories I am combating, the Messianic aspects
of the character of the Jesus of the Evangelists must have passed
through a succession of developments before they could have attained
their present form. Different parties had to invent different aspects
of it. Next, these had to procure acceptance in the various Churches.
Each party would cling to its own views. The formation of hostile
sects in the Church was a certain consequence. If they gradually wore
themselves out, all experience of sectarian warfare proves that the
interval must have been long. We know as fact that nothing is more
difficult than to effect compromises between contending religious
factions; and that they are only, if at all, possible after long
and bitter experience. I ask you to compute for yourselves how many
developments and compromises must have been required, and the interval
of time each must have occupied?
Far more difficult and more numerous must have been the developments by
which the moral aspects of the Gospels and of their divine Christ must
have been elaborated out of the Judaism of the year 30, and the popular
conceptions of its Messiah. I shall select for illustration only two
examples out of a vast multitude. One of the most marked distinctions
between Gospel and ancient moral teaching is this: the whole aspect of
ancient moral teaching assigned the highest place to the heroic and
political virtues, and a subordinate one to the mild, meek, benevolent,
and humbler ones. This is precisely reversed in the morality of the
New Testament. Again: the aspect of a Jewish saint and hero, as it is
depicted in the Old Testament, forms a singular contrast to that which
the New Testament has assigned to Jesus Christ. I have proved that
moral developments in the direction of improvement are very slow. I
propose, therefore, the following problem for my opponents to solve.
Through how many stages must these have passed before the creation of
the Gospels became a possibility, and how many years must they have
occupied?
But all the while that the Christian Church was creating a mythology,
and struggling with developments and contentions and external
opposition, it is an historical fact that it succeeded in extending
itself over a wide geographical area. This greatly aggravates the
difficulty of developing an improved Christ out of her pregnant womb.
The wider the geographical area over which she gradually extended
herself, the more difficult would have become the interchange of ideas
necessary for developments and compromises. It by no means follows that
one little society would immediately swallow the mythic creation of
another.
I must observe that this portion of the argument is cumulative, and
admits of being pressed to an indefinite extent.
It now remains for those against whose theories I have been reasoning
to count the number of these developments, and to assign a reasonable
interval for each. If they will do so, they will then find that these
theories are hopelessly untenable.
I have hitherto argued, on the chosen position of my opponents, that
the Synoptic Gospels were written about the year 100, and the fourth
about 160. Such dates are entirely fallacious, and against all
evidence. But as far as my reasoning is concerned, it matters little
when the Gospels were composed. If I can prove that the portraiture of
Christ and the general aspect of the Gospels were familiarly known in
the Church at a much earlier period, it is not the smallest difference
for my argument whether they existed in an oral or a written form. The
concession of seventy years for the creation of the Synoptic Gospels,
and one hundred and thirty for that of St. John, has now to be entirely
revoked.
The most extreme of the School that I am opposing concede that the four
most important epistles of St. Paul are unquestionably genuine, and
written by him within less than thirty years after the resurrection.
The genuineness of at least four others is conceded by the most eminent
unbelievers. We have, then, before us genuine historical documents of
Christianity, composed by its most active missionary at about the same
distance of time from the resurrection as that which separates us from
the repeal of the Corn Law Act.
Now by the aid of these epistles it is possible to prove by a multitude
of incidental allusions that all the great features of the portraiture
of Jesus Christ were fully developed when St. Paul wrote them. Nay,
what is more, the manner in which the allusions are made prove that
this portraiture was not a new one, but that it had been long known in
the Christian Society. To exhibit this proof would require a lecture of
equal length to the present. As I have given it already elsewhere,[112]
and it has not been assailed, I shall assume that my position is
incontestable.
The period of time during which the human Jesus must have been
developed into the divine Christ of the Gospels, if the portraiture
be a fictitious creation, must be reduced to one of less than ten
years. But whether it be ten, seventy, or one hundred and thirty, it
contradicts the laws by which all human developments are regulated. Its
creation involves a moral miracle of the most stupendous character.
My opponents postulate a number of conditions which history and
philosophy refuse to concede. They require a long interval of
time; history will only grant them a short one. They require that
developments should be rapid; they are always slow, especially moral
ones. They require the creation of elevated moral sentiment; their
only instruments with which to work are credulous mythologists. They
require that developments should be always progressive towards higher
perfection; history declares that they are frequently retrograde ones.
They postulate party spirit, but it produces endless division. They
require compromises, but they must be made by credulous enthusiasts.
They require unity of result; they postulate a multitude of agents.
They ask for credulity, and are confronted by sobriety. They ask for
seventy years; historical fact will concede them less than ten. They
deny physical miracles, and ask us to believe in moral ones.
Such is the position of the school of thought against whom I have been
reasoning. They are called by a sad misnomer rationalistic. I ask, are
these theories rational, probable, or possible? Defenders of revelation
have no grounds for dreading an appeal to reason. If the Gospels, and
the glorious Christ therein delineated, have been evolved in accordance
with the various theories against which I have been contending, it
involves a greater miracle than all the miracles of the New Testament
united together.[181]
THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF ST. PAUL'S
EPISTLES.
BY THE
REV. STANLEY LEATHES, M.A.,
PROFESSOR OF HEBREW, KING'S COLLEGE.
THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES.