that, after he had been dead and buried, Jesus "was seen" [------] by
certain persons. The explanation which we offer, and which has long been
adopted in various forms by able critics,1 is, that doubtless Jesus
was seen, but the vision was not real ^and objective, but illusory
and subjective; that is to say: Jesus was not himself seen, but only
a representation of Jesus within the minds of the beholders. This
explanation not only does not impeach the veracity of those who
affirmed that they had seen Jesus, but, accepting to a certain extent
a subjective truth as the basis of the belief, explains upon well-known
and natural principles the erroneous inference deduced from the
subjective vision. It seems to us that the points to be determined
are simple and obvious: Is it possible for a man to mistake subjective
impressions for objective occurrences? Is it possible that any
considerable number of persons can at the same time receive similar
subjective impressions and mistake them for objective facts? If these
questions can be answered affirmatively,
{527}
and it can be shown that the circumstances, the characters, the
constitution of those who believed in the first instance, favoured the
reception of such subjective impressions, and the deduction of erroneous
inferences, it must be admitted that a satisfactory explanation can thus
be given of the apostolic belief, on other grounds than the reality of a
miracle opposed to universal experience.
No sooner is the first question formulated than it becomes obvious
to every one who is acquainted with psychological and physiological
researches, or who has even the most elementary knowledge of the
influence of the mind upon the body, that it must at once be answered in
the affirmative. Indeed the affirmation that subjective impressions, in
connection with every sense, can be mistaken for, and believed to be,
actual objective effects, is so trite that it seems almost superfluous
to make it. Every reader must be well acquainted with illustrations of
the fact. The only difficulty is to deal authoritatively with such a
point within moderate compass. We must limit ourselves to the sense
of sight "There are abundant proofs," says Sir Benjamin Brodie, "that
impressions may be made in the brain by other causes simulating those
which are made on it by external objects through the medium of the
organs of sense, thus producing false perceptions, which may, in the
first instance, and before we have had time to reflect on the subject,
be mistaken for realities."(1) The limitation here introduced: "before
we have had time to reflect on the subject," is of course valid in
the case of those whose reason is capable of rejecting the false
perceptions, whether on the ground of natural
{528}
law or of probability; but, in anyone ignorant of natural law, familiar
with the idea of supernatural agency and the occurrence of miraculous
events, it is obvious, reflection, if reflection of a sceptical kind
can even be assumed, would have little chance of arriving at any true
discrimination of phenomena. Speaking of the nervous system and its
functions, and more immediately of the relation of the Cerebrum to the
Sensorium and the production of spectral illusions, Dr. Carpenter says,
in his work on the "Principles of Mental Physiology," which is well
worth the study of those interested in the question we are discussing:
"Still stronger evidence of the same associated action of the Cerebrum
and Sensorium, is furnished by the study of the phenomena designated as
Spectral Illusions. These are clearly sensorial states not excited by
external objects; and it is also clear that they frequently originate
in cerebral changes, since they represent creations of the mind, and
are not mere reproductions of past sensations." Dr. Carpenter refers
in illustration to a curious illusion to which Sir John Herschel
was subject, "in the shape of the involuntary occurrence of Visual
impressions, into which Geometrical regularity of form enters as the
leading character. These were not of the nature of those ocular Spectra
which may be attributed with probability to retinal changes."(1) Dr.
Carpenter then continues: "We have here not a reproduction of sensorial
impressions formerly received; but a construction of new forms, by a
process which, if it had been carried on consciously, we should have
called imagination. And it is difficult to see
{529}
how it is to be accounted for in any other way, than by an unconscious
action of the cerebrum; the products of which impress themselves on
the sensorial consciousness, just as, in other cases, they express
themselves through the motor apparatus."(1) The illusions described by
Sir John Herschel who, as he himself says, was "as little visionary as
most people" should be referred to.
Of the production of sensations by ideas there can be no possible
doubt(2) and, consequently, as little of the realisation by the person
in whom they are produced of subjective impressions exactly as though
they were objective. With regard to false perceptions, Dr. Carpenter
says: "It has been shown that the action of ideational states upon
the Sensorium can modify or even produce sensations. But the action of
pre-existing states of Mind is still more frequently shown in modifying
the interpretation which we put upon our sense-impressions. For since
almost every such interpretation is an act of judgment based upon
experience, that judgment will vary according to our mental condition at
the time it is delivered; and will be greatly affected by any dominant
idea or feeling, so as even to occasion a complete mis-interpretation of
the objective source of the sense-impression, as often occurs in what is
termed 'absence of mind.' The following case, mentioned by Dr. Tuke(3)
as occurring within his own knowledge, affords a good example of this
fallacy:--'A lady was walking one day from Penryn to Falmouth, and
her mind being at that time, or recently, occupied by the subject of
drinking-fountains, thought she saw
{530}
in the road a newly-erected fountain, and even distinguished an
inscription upon it, namely--"_If any man thirst let him come unto me
and drink_." Some time afterwards, she mentioned the fact with pleasure
to the daughters of a gentleman who was supposed to have erected it.
They expressed their surprise at her statement, and assured her that
she must be quite mistaken. Perplexed with the contradiction between the
testimony of her senses and of those who would have been aware of the
fact had it been true, and feeling that she could not have been deceived
(" for seeing is believing "), she repaired to the spot, and found to
her astonishment that no drinking-fountain was in existence--only a
few scattered stones, which had formed the foundation upon which the
suggestion of an expectant imagination had built the superstructure.
The subject having previously occupied her attention, these sufficed to
form, not only a definite erection, but one inscribed by an appropriate
motto corresponding to the leading idea.'"(1)
We may give as another illustration an illusion which presented itself
to Sir Walter Scott(2) He had been reading, shortly after the death of
Lord Byron, an account in a publication professing to detail the habits
and opinions of the poet. As Scott had been intimate with Lord Byron
he was deeply interested in the publication, which contained some
particulars relative to himself and other friends. "Their sitting-room
opened into an entrance hall, rather fantastically fitted up with
articles of armour, skins of wild animals, and the like. It was when
laying down his book,
{531}
and passing into this hall, through which the moon was beginning to
shine, that the individual of whom I speak saw, right before him, and
in a standing posture, the exact representation of his departed friend
whose recollection had been so strongly brought to his imagination. He
stopped for a single moment, so as to notice the wonderful accuracy with
which fancy had impressed upon the bodily eye the peculiarities of dress
and posture of the illustrious poet. Sensible, however, of the delusion,
he felt no sentiment save that of wonder at the extraordinary accuracy
of the resemblance, and stepped onward towards the figure, which
resolved itself, as he approached, into the various materials of which
it was composed. These were merely a screen, occupied by great-coats,
shawls, plaids and such other articles as usually are found in a country
entrance-hall. The spectator returned to the spot from which he had seen
the illusion, and endeavoured, with all his power, to recall the image
which had been so singularly vivid. But this was beyond his capacity,"
&C.1 Although Sir Walter Scott might be sensible of the delusion, it may
be more than doubted whether, in the first century of our era, such an
apparition proceeding from or connected with religious agitation of mind
would have been considered so.
Dr. Abercrombie(2) mentions many instances of spectral illusions, "some
of the most authentic facts" relating to which he classes under the head
of "intense mental conceptions so strongly impressed upon the mind as,
for the moment, to be believed to have a real existence."
{532}
We cannot, however, venture to quote illustrations.(1) Dr. Hibbert, in
whose work on Apparitions many interesting instances are to be found,
thus concludes his consideration of the conditions which lead to such
illusions: "I have at length concluded my observations on what may
be considered as the leading mental laws which are connected with the
origin of spectral impressions. The general inference to be drawn from
them is,--that _Apparitions are nothing more than morbid symptoms, which
are indicative of an intense excitement of the renovated feelings of the
mind_."(2) Subjective visions, believed to have had objective reality,
abound in the history of the world. They are familiar to all who have
read the lives of the Saints, and they have accompanied the progress
of Christianity in various forms from the trances of Montanism to the
vision of the "Immaculate Conception" in the Grotto of Lourdes.
If we turn to the inquiry whether a similar subjective impression can
be received by many persons at one time and be mistaken by them for
an objective reality, an equally certain reply in the affirmative must
unhesitatingly be given. The contagiousness of emotion is well known,(3)
and the rapidity with which panic, for instance, spreads from a
single individual to the mass is remarked every day. The most trifling
incident, unseen by more than a few and, therefore, more pliant in the
imagination
1 Every one remembers the case of Luther and his visions of
the Devil.
{533}
of the many, has instantaneously convinced multitudes of the most
erroneous inferences. We need not refer, moreover, to the numerous
religious and other mental epidemics which have swept over the face of
the world, infecting society with the wildest delusions. From Montanism
to camp meetings and revivals in our own day, it has been demonstrated
that religious excitement and dominant ideas have spread with
astonishing rapidity and power amongst the circles in which they have
arisen. In certain states of nervous expectation, false impressions are
instantaneously transmitted from one to another in a religious assembly.
Dr. Carpenter says: "Moreover, if not only a single individual, but
several persons should be 'possessed' by one and the same idea or
feeling, the same misinterpretation may be made by all of them; and in
such a case the concurrence of their testimony does not add the least
strength to it.--Of this we have a good example in the following
occurrence cited by Dr. Tuke, as showing the influence of a 'dominant
idea' in falsifying the perceptions of a number of persons at
once:--'During the conflagration at the Crystal Palace in the winter
of 1866-67, when the animals were destroyed by the fire, it was supposed
that the Chimpanzee had succeeded in escaping from his cage. Attracted
to the roof, with this expectation in full force, men saw the unhappy
animal holding on to it, and writhing in agony to get astride one of the
iron ribs. It need not be said that its struggles were watched by those
below with breathless suspense, and as the newspapers informed us 'with
sickening dread.' But there was no animal whatever there; and all this
feeling was thrown away upon a tattered piece of blind, so torn as to
resemble to the eye of fancy, the body, arms, and legs of an ape!' (Op.
cit., p. 44.) Another
{534}
example of a like influence affecting several individuals simultaneously
in a similar manner is mentioned by Dr. Hibbert in his well-known
Treatise on Apparitions:--'A whole ship's company was thrown into the
utmost consternation by the apparition of a cook who had died a few
days before. He was distinctly seen walking a-head of the ship, with a
peculiar gait by which he was distinguished when alive, through having
one of his legs shorter than the other. On steering the ship towards
the object, it was found to be a piece of floating wreck.' Many similar
cases might be referred to, in which the imagination has worked up into
'apparitions' some common-place objects, which it has invested with
attributes derived from the previous Mental state of the observer; and
the belief in such an apparition as a reality, which usually exists in
such cases, unless antagonized by an effort of the reason, constitutes a
_delusion_."(1)
We must maintain indeed that a number of persons assembled under the
influence of strong similar ideas, and excited by the same active
religious emotion are more likely to be affected by similar subjective
impressions to the extent of believing them to be objective than one or
two would be. The excitement of each acts upon the whole body, and is
itself increased by reaction from the aggregate emotion. Each receives
impressions from the other, which are vividly felt even without being
verified by personal experience. The most nervous temperament in the
assembly gives the final impetus to the excited imagination of the
rest. In moments of supreme expectation and doubt, enthusiasm overcomes
reason. If one man see, if one man hear, the mental impression is
credited with an objective cause, even when unfelt by others, and then a
{535}
similar impression is soon carried from the brain to the sensorium
of all. This does not involve the supposition of a diseased mind in
ordinary cases, and in the instances which we have in view the false
perceptions were, obviously, determined and encouraged by foregone
conclusions of a nature rarely possible and, when existing, rarely
resisted. "There are many persons," adds Dr. Carpenter, "quite sane upon
ordinary matters, and even (it may be) distinguished by some special
form of ability, who are yet affected with what the writer once heard
Mr. Carlyle term a 'diluted insanity;' allowing their minds to become so
completely 'possessed' by 'dominant ideas,' that their testimony as
to what they declare themselves to have witnessed--even when several
individuals concur in giving exactly the same account of it--must be
regarded as utterly untrustworthy."(1)
That subjective impressions can, in the opinion of eminent apologists,
be recorded by an Evangelist as objective reality, we have already
pointed out in connection with the statement of the first Synoptist,
that "Many bodies of the saints were raised; and they came out of the
sepulchres after his resurrection and appeared unto many." (xxvii. 52
f.) Dean Milman and Canon Farrar explain this by the supposition that
the earthquake "seemed to have filled the air with ghostly visitants,
who after Christ had risen appeared to linger in the Holy City."(2) It
follows as a logical consequence that, as this subjective impression
felt by many at once is described in the Gospel as objective, these
writers not only admit the possibility of such a mistake on the part
{536}
of the observers, but that the Gospel, in adopting that mistake, may be
suspected of a similar course in recording the appearances of Jesus.
We have thus replied to the question whether the "vision hypothesis"
could explain the belief of five hundred, or even of eleven persons who
supposed they had seen Jesus at once, and we do not think that any one
who seriously considers the Age, and the circumstances under which the
phenomenon is alleged to have occurred, can doubt that such belief could
very easily have resulted from merely subjective impressions. Before
going further into the discussion of the matter, however, we must again,
with a little more minuteness, call attention to the date of the actual
statements upon which the whole argument turns. The Apostle Paul writes
about a quarter of a century after the time when it is said that Jesus
"was seen" by those whom he names. Whatever opinion may be formed as to
the amount of information obtained by Paul during the visit he paid to
Jerusalem for the purpose of making the acquaintance of Peter, it is
undeniable that some years had elapsed between the time when Jesus is
supposed to have been seen and the time when Paul could have received
information regarding these appearances from any of the Apostles. If we
date the death of Jesus in the year 33, almost the latest date assigned
to it by any eminent critic, and the conversion of Paul about a.d.
38-40,(1) it will be remembered that the
{537}
Apostle himself states that he did not go to Jerusalem till three years
after, which brings us to a.d. 41-43 as the earliest time when Paul
first came in personal contact with Peter and James. He did not go up to
Jerusalem again for fourteen years after that, and we have no reason
for believing that he met any of the Apostles in the interval, but the
contrary, from his own account of that second visit, Gal. ii. 2. He
could not, therefore, have heard anything of the appearances of Jesus
even from Peter and James till some eight to ten years after they had
taken place. From the other Apostles, in all probability, he cannot have
heard anything till nearly twenty years had elapsed since they supposed
they, had seen Jesus.
Where did he get his information regarding the 500 brethren at once?
From whom did he get it? If the supposed appearance took place, as so
many suppose, in Galilee, the date of his information is still more
uncertain. If, on the other hand, it occurred in Jerusalem, whilst so
many of the numbers were visitors only, it is obvious that the greater
part must subsequently have left the Holy City and become scattered to
their respective homes. The difficulty of obtaining information from
more than a few of the 500 becomes obvious. In any case, from no
authority which we are entitled to assume could Paul have been minutely
informed of these appearances less than eight to ten years after they
occurred, and then of the vision of the Eleven, only from one of the
number to whom the first vision occurred. Now, no one who considers
the operation of memory, even in persons of more than usual sobriety of
imagination, dealing with circumstances not likely to be exaggerated
or distorted by feeling in the course of time, can doubt that, in ten
years,
{538}
all the circumstances of such occasions, amidst which much excitement
certainly prevailed, must have assumed a very different aspect from what
they originally bore. We may be permitted to quote a few words on this
subject: "Though we are accustomed to speak of memory as if it consisted
in an exact reproduction of past states of Consciousness, yet experience
is continually showing us that this reproduction is very often inexact,
through the modification which the 'trace' has undergone in the
interval. Sometimes the trace has been partially obliterated; and what
remains may serve to give a very erroneous (because imperfect) view of
the occurrence..... And where it is one in which our own Feelings are
interested, we are extremely apt to lose sight of what goes against
them, so that the representation given by Memory is altogether
one-sided. This is continually demonstrated by the entire dissimilarity
of the accounts of the same occurrence or conversation, which shall be
given by two or more parties concerned in it, even when the matter is
fresh in their minds, and they are honestly desirous of telling the
truth. And this diversity will usually become still more pronounced
with the lapse of time: the trace becoming gradually but unconsciously
modified by the habitual course of thought and feeling; so that when it
is so acted on after a lengthened interval as to bring up a reminiscence
of the original occurrence, that reminiscence really represents, not the
actual occurrence, but the modified trace of it."(1) This is specially
likely to occur where, as in our case, there were Old Testament
prophecies supposed to describe minutely the sufferings, death, and
resurrection of the Messiah, to furnish lines which the transformation
of memory must
{539}
insensibly follow. Unconsciously, we may be certain, the misty outlines
of the original transaction would acquire consistency and take form
according to the tenor of so infallible an index. It would require
a memory of iron and of more than stubborn doggedness to resist the
unobtrusive influence of supposed prophecies. Be it clearly understood
that we speak of an unconscious process, which is perfectly consistent
with complete belief that the transformed trace exactly represents what
originally took place.
But adhering more closely to the point before us, can we suppose that
the account which Paul received of these appearances, after that lapse
of time, was a perfectly sober and unwarped description of what actually
took place? We think not. Is it possible that the vision of the 500,
for instance, had escaped the maturing influence of time? or that of the
Eleven? We believe that it is not possible. However, Paul does not
give a single detail, and consequently this argument mainly affects the
abstract value of all such evidence whether at first or second hand, but
it likewise makes more vague the original transaction, so indefinitely
sketched for us, which we have to explain. What was it the 500 really
saw? "Jesus," says the report matured by time; and modern divines taking
the statement in its most objective sense, demand an explanation of the
unknown phenomenon which led 500 to believe that they actually saw the
risen. Master. Did the 500 originally think anything of the kind? What
impression did the individuals receive? Did any two receive precisely
the same impressions? There is not the slightest evidence that they did.
Although Paul gives the most meagre report of these appearances that
could well be conceived, it must be remembered that the
{540}
impression made upon his own mind was not by the events themselves, but
by the narrative of the events recounted at least eight or ten years
afterwards. There can be po doubt that, earlier, Paul the persecutor
must also frequently have heard of the Resurrection, and of alleged
occasions when Jesus had been seen after his death and burial, from
persecuted members of the Christian community, but beyond the undefined
certainty of this we are not entitled to go. That what he heard must
have received warmth of colouring from the fire of persecution is
most probable. Of this, however, we shall speak presently. It is not
necessary further to enlarge upon the superstition of the age of which
we write. We have elsewhere quoted the opinion of an orthodox divine and
Hebrew scholar on the character of the Jewish people about that period.
"Not to be more tedious, therefore, in this matter," he says, "let two
things only be observed: i. That the nation under the second Temple, was
given to magical arts beyond measure; and ii. That it was given to an
easiness of believing all manner of delusions beyond measure."(1) And
again: "It is a disputable case whether the Jewish nation were more
mad with superstition in matters of religion, or with superstition in
curious arts."(2) Even supposing the Twelve to have been men of superior
intelligence to most of their fellow countrymen of the period, it cannot
reasonably be questioned that they were "men of like passions" and
failings with the rest, and that, as were the most eminent men of all
countries for centuries after, they were ignorant of the true order of
nature, full of superstitious ideas regarding cosmical phenomena, and
ready at all times to
{541}
believe in miracles and supernatural interference with the affairs of
life. As Jews, moreover, they had inherited belief in angelic agency,
and divine apparitions. The Old Testament is full of narratives in which
Jehovah appears to the Patriarchs and Lawgivers of Israel. Celestial
visions had been familiar to every Jew from his infancy, and the
constant personal communications of the Almighty with his peculiar
people were still the most sacred traditions of the nation.
Nursed in the prevalent superstition of the time, educated by the Law
and the Prophets to familiarity with the supernatural, and prepared by
the fervid imagination of their race to recognize wonders in heaven and
earth,(1) the disciples were naturally prepared for the great Christian
Miracle. The special circumstances in which they were placed at the
death of Jesus conduced in the highest degree to excite that expectant
attention which, in their state of profound agitation, rendered them
readily susceptible of extraordinary impressions. The disciples had
for a long period followed Jesus and felt the influence of his elevated
character. It may be doubted how far they had entered into the spirit
of his sublime teaching, or understood the spiritual wisdom which lay
beneath the noble simplicity of his language, but it cannot be doubted
that his personal greatness must have produced a profound effect upon
their minds. When they came at last to understand, if in a material and
imperfect way, his views as to his Messianic character, they can have
had little difficulty in believing, in spite of the mysterious lowliness
and humility of his aspect, although probably in a sense widely
different from his own, that
{542}
the hope of Israel had at last come, and that the hour of her redemption
was at hand. It is probable that, as the enmity of the priests and
rulers increased, and the danger of his position became more apparent,
whilst he disdained unworthily to shrink from his public work, he must
have felt all the peril before him, and observed the anxiety of his
followers. It may be conceived that, under such circumstances, his
teachings may have assumed even a higher spirituality than before and,
rising above the clouds of the present, soared out into that calmer
future when the religion he founded would be accepted by men, and
become a light to the Gentiles and the glory of his people Israel. It
is probable that he may have spoken of his death in spiritual terms as a
sacrifice for them and for the world, which would secure the triumph of
his work and regenerate mankind. Comforting those who had left all and
followed him, but from whom he might so soon be parted, and knowing
their doubts and fears, he must have re-assured their minds by
inspiriting views of the inseparable nature of his union with those who
loved him and did his commandments; his spirit dwelling within them
and leading them safely through the world, in the peace and security
of souls raised by the truth beyond the reach of its corruption and its
wrong.
That they must have felt the strongest conviction of his Messianic
character, we think cannot be doubted, however confused may have been
their ideas of the exact nature of his office and of the manner in
which his coming was to secure the triumph of Israel The shock to their
expectations and the utter dissipation of their hopes which must have
been felt in the first moment of his arrest, hurried trial, and cruel
{543}
condemnation can well be imagined. It is probable that in that first
moment of terror and bewilderment the disciples indeed all forsook him
and fled. No one who had consorted with the Great Teacher, however, and
felt the influence of his mind, could long have resisted the reaction to
nobler thoughts of him. In all the bitterness of sorrow for the loss of
their master and friend, in horror at his agonizing and shameful death,
and in doubt, consternation, and almost despair, they must have gathered
together again and spoken of these strange events. Believing Jesus to
have been the Messiah, how could they interpret his death on the cross?
If he was the Messiah could he thus die?(1) If Enoch and Elijah, if
Moses, precursors of the Messiah, had not seen death, how could that
prophet like unto Moses whom Jehovah had raised up end his career by a
shameful death on the cross?
Throughout that time of fiery trial and supreme mental agitation, they
must have perpetually sought in their own minds some explanation of the
terrible events then occurring and seeming to blast all their hopes,
and doubtless mystic utterances of Jesus must have assumed new meanings,
meanings probably different from his own. In the accounts of the coming
Messiah in the prophets, they must have searched for some light by which
to solve the inexplicable problem. Is it not conceivable that, in that
last time of danger and darkness, when he saw the persecution against
him become more vehement, and felt that the path which he had chosen
led him through danger and distress perhaps to death, Jesus may, in the
bitter contemplation of that fanatical opposition of bigotry and
{544}
superstition have applied to himself the description of the suffering
servant of Jehovah, suffering--as all noble souls have done who are
in advance of their age, and preach great truths which condemn either
directly or by implication the vices and follies of their time,--"the
oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely," and, worse still, the
ignoble insults of popular ignorance and fickleness? Here might seem to
them the solution of the enigma; and returning from that first flight of
terror and bewilderment, feeling all the intense reaction of affection
and grief and faith in the Master quickened by shame at their
abandonment of him in his moment of supreme danger and affliction,
still believing that he must be the Messiah, and in mute longing and
expectation of the next events which were to confirm or confound their
hopes, the disciples must have been in the climax of nervous agitation
and excitement, and ready to receive any impression which might be
suggested in their embarrassment.(1)
According to Paul it was Peter who first saw the risen Jesus. According
to the first and fourth Gospels, the first appearance was to the women,
and notably, in the latter, to Mary Magdalene out of whom had been cast
"seven devils," and whose temperament probably rendered her unusually
susceptible of all such impressions. Did Paul intentionally omit all
mention of the appearances to the women, or did he not know of them?
In the latter case, we have an instructive light thrown on the Gospel
tradition; in the former, the first suggestion
1 Ewald points out that, according to the belief of the
period, the souls of the dead hovered for a time between
heaven and earth, and he considers that the belief
undeniably played an important part in this sphere of
visions of the Christ Gesch. d. V. Isr., vi. p. 72 a.
{545}
of the Resurrection becomes even more clearly intelligible. It will be
observed that in all this explanation we are left chiefly to conjecture,
for the statements in the Gospels cannot, upon any point, be used with
the slightest confidence. On the other hand, all that is demanded is
that a probable or possible explanation of the origin of the belief in
the Resurrection should be given; and in the total absence of historical
data we are entitled to draw inferences as to the course of events at
the time. It may well be that a mistake as to the sepulchre, rendered
not improbable if any hint of the truth be conveyed in the conflicting
traditions of the Gospel, or one of many other suggestions which might
be advanced, might lead the women or Peter to believe that the sepulchre
was empty. Or some other even trifling circumstance, which we no longer
can indicate with precision, might convey to the women or to Peter, in
their state of nervous excitement, the last impulse wanting to cause
that rapid revulsion from extreme depression, which is so suitable to
the state which we may perhaps be allowed to call creative subjectivity.
If we are to accept the indications scattered about the New Testament,
the impetuous ardent temperament of Peter was eminently one to bound
into sudden ecstatic enthusiasm, and in all probability some commonplace
or trifling incident may have been the spark which kindled into flame
the materials already at glowing heat. The strong subjective impression
that Jesus had risen would create a vision of him which, at once
confirming previous conclusions, resolving perplexing doubts and
satisfying feverish expectations, would be accepted by each mind with
little or no question as an objective reality. If Peter, or even the
{546}
women, brought to the disciples the assurance that they had seen the
Lord, we cannot doubt that, in the unparalleled position in which they
were then placed, under all the circumstances of intense feeling and
religious excitement at the moment, such emotions would be suddenly
called into action as would give to these men the impression that they
had seen the Master whom they had lost. These subjective impressions
would be strengthened daily and unconsciously into ever more objective
consistency, and being confirmed by supposed prophecy would be affirmed
with a confidence insensibly inspired by dogmatic considerations.1 That
the news would fly from believer to believer, meeting everywhere excited
attention and satisfying eager expectancy, is certain; and that these
devout souls, swayed by every emotion of glad and exultant enthusiasm,
would constantly mistake the suggestions of their own thoughts for
objective realities is probable. Jesus died, was buried, and rose again
"according to the Scriptures." This would harden every timid supposition
into assurance; and as time went on, what was doubtful would become
certain, what was mysterious, clear; and those who had seen nothing
would take up and strengthen the tradition of those who had seen the
Lord.
It is argued that there was not time for the preparation of the
disciples to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus between his
crucifixion and "the third day," when that event is alleged to have
occurred, and, consequently, no probability of subjective impressions of
so unexpected a nature being received. To those
{547}
apologists who adopt this argument we might point to many passages in
the Gospels, which affirm that the resurrection on the third day was
predicted. These, however, we assign of course to a later date. The
argument assumes that there was no preparation in the teaching of Jesus,
which, as we have endeavoured to suggest, is not the case. If there had
been no other, the mere assurance that he was the Messiah must have led
to reflections, which demanded some other sequel to his career than the
death of a slave. The mere suggestion of such a problem as must have
proposed itself to the minds of the disciples: If all is to end
here, Jesus was not the Messiah: if he was the Messiah, what will now
happen?--must have led to expectant attention. But there was much
more than this. In such moments as those of the Passion, thought works
feverishly and fast. It is not to be supposed that Peter and the rest
did not foresee the end, when Jesus was led away prisoner in the hands
of his enemies. It is still less to be imagined that their minds
were not ceaselessly revolving that problem, on the solution of which
depended their fondest hopes and highest aspirations.1 It is most
probable, indeed, that no time could have found the disciples in a state
so ripe for strong impressions as that immediately succeeding the death
of their Master. There are, however, other aspects in which this point
may be placed. What evidence is there that Jesus was seen, or supposed
to have been seen, on the third day? Absolutely none worthy of the name.
Paul does not say that he was, and as for the Gospels their
{548}
statement is of no value, and the tradition which they record may be
set down as a foregone dogmatic con-elusion. Paul very distinctly shows
this. He says: "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also
received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and
that he was buried, and that he has been raised the third day, according
to the Scriptures."(1) The repetition of the phrase "according to the
Scriptures" is very marked, and points to the fact that the purpose for
which Jesus died--"for our sins"--and the date of his resurrection--"the
third day"--are statements directly based upon Scripture. We have
mentioned that the Scriptures supposed to indicate the third day, do
not really apply to the Messiah at all, but this does not affect the
question before us. Now believing this epoch to be defined in prophecy,
this is precisely one of those points upon which memory would, in the
lapse of time, be most likely to adjust itself to the prophecy. We will
assume that Jesus was not "seen" before the third day. It is obvious
that if he was seen forty days after, it might be affirmed that he had
been actually raised long before, on the third day. The vision occurring
on the third day itself, even, could not prove that he had not "risen"
before. There is, in fact, no way that we can see of fixing the third
day except the statement ol "Scripture," and, the moment we accept that,
we must recognize the force of dogmatic influence.(2) The fact that the
third day has from early
2 We do not go into any argument based on the order given in
the first two Synoptics to go into Galilee--a three
days' journey at least--where the disciples were to see
Jesus. Nor need we touch upon other similar points which
arise out of the narratives of the Gospels.
{549}
times been set apart as the Christian Sabbath, does not prove anything.
If the third day was believed to be the day indicated by "Scripture" for
the Resurrection, of course that day would be selected as the time at
which it must have occurred, and on which it should be commemorated. So
far as the vision hypothesis is concerned, the day is of no consequence
whatever, and the objection upon this point has no force.
There is another consideration which we must mention, which is not
only important in connection with an estimate of the evidence for
the Resurrection, but the inferences from which clearly support the
explanation we are proposing. Before stating it we may, in passing,
again refer to the fact that it is nowhere affirmed that anyone was an
eye-witness of the actual Resurrection. It is supposed to be proved by
the circumstance that Jesus was subsequently "seen." Observe, however,
that the part of this miracle which could not well have been ascribed to
subjective impressions--the actual resurrection--is, naturally enough,
not seen by anyone, but that which comes precisely within the scope of
such subjective action is said to have been seen by many. To come at
once to our point, however, neither Paul, nor the Gospels, nor Christian
tradition in any form, pretends that Jesus was seen by any one but his
disciples and those who believed in him. In fact, Jesus only appeared to
those who were prepared by faith and expectant attention to see him in
the manner we assert. We are at present merely speaking of the earlier
appearances, and reserving Paul for separate discussion. Why, we may
inquire, did Jesus not appear to his
{550}
enemies as well as to his friends?(1) Nothing of course could have been
more intelligible than his desire to comfort and reassure those who
believed in and mourned for him, but to do this by no means excluded
a wider manifestation of himself, supposing him to have actually risen
from the dead. On the hypothesis that he only rose again and was seen
through the yearning and enthusiastic faith of his followers, the reason
why he was not seen by others is not hard to find. Yet it might be
thought that the object of at once establishing beyond doubt his
supernatural mission, and convincing his enemies of their crime, and the
Jews of their blindness and folly, was important enough. Had he shown
himself to the Chief Priests and elders, and confounded the Pharisees
with the vision of him whom they had so cruelly nailed to the accursed
tree, how might not the future of his followers have been smoothed, and
the faith of many made strong! Or if he had stood again in the Courts of
the Roman Procurator, no longer a prisoner buffeted and spat upon, but
the glorious Messiah, beyond the reach of Jewish malignity or Roman
injustice. But no, he was seen by none but those devoted to him. We
shall of course be told by apologists that this also was "for the trial
of our faith;" though to anyone who earnestly reflects, it must seem
childish to ask men to believe what is beyond their reason, yet conceal
the evidence by which reason is supposed to be guided. The reply,
however, is clear: for the trial of our faith or for any other reason,
it is nevertheless certain that this evidence does not exist.
{551}
When the argument which we are now discussing was first advanced long
ago by Celsus, Origen had no better refutation than, after admitting the
fact that Jesus was not after his resurrection seen as before publicly
and by all men, to take refuge in the belief that the passage of
Paul regarding his appearances contains wonderful mysteries which, if
understood, would explain why Jesus did not show himself after that
event as he had done before it.(1)
We must now proceed to show that the vision of Paul is satisfactorily
explained by the same hypothesis.(2) We have already proved that there
is no evidence of any value that Paul's conversion was due to his
having seen Jesus in a manner which he believed to be objective and
supernatural. To represent the arch persecutor Paul transformed in
a moment, by a miraculous vision of Jesus, into the Apostle of the
Gentiles was highly characteristic of the author of
1 Contra Cels., ii. 63. It is curious that, in an earlier
chapter, Origen, discussing the question of Celsus,--whether
any one who had been actually dead had ever risen with a
real body, says that if Celsus had been a Jew who believed
that Elijah and Elisha had raised little children he could
not have advanced this objection. Origen adds that he thinks
the reason why Jesus appeared to no other nation but the
Jews was, that they had become accustomed to miracles, and
could, by comparing the works of Jesus and what was told of
him with what had been done before, recognize that he was
greater than all who had preceded him. ii. 57.
{552}
Acts, who further represents Paul as immediately preaching publicly in
Damascus and confounding the Jews. Widely different is the statement of
Paul. He distinctly affirms that he did not communicate with flesh and
blood, nor went he up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before
him, but that he immediately went away into Arabia. The Fathers
delighted in representing this journey to Arabia as an instance of
Paul's fervour and eagerness to preach the Gospel in lands over which
its sound had not yet gone forth. There can be no doubt, however, we
think, that Paul's journey to Arabia and his sojourn there were for
the purpose of reflection.(1) It is only in legends that instantaneous
spiritual revolutions take place. In sober history the process is more
slow and progressive. We repeat that there is no evidence which can at
all be accepted that Paul's conversion was effected by a vision, and
that it is infinitely more probable that it was, so to say, merely
completed and crowned by seeing Jesus; but, at the same time, even if
the view be held that this vision was the decisive circumstance which
induced Paul at once to resign his course of persecution and embrace
Christianity, our argument is not materially affected. In any case, much
silent, deep, and almost unconscious preparation for the change must
long before have proceeded in the mind of Paul, which was finally
matured in the Arabian waste. Upon no view that is taken can this be
excluded; upon every ground of common sense, experience, and necessary
inference, it must be admitted.
{553}
Indifference is the only great gulf which separates opinions. There was
no stolid barrier of apathy between Saul of Tarsus and belief in the
Messiah-ship of Jesus. In persecuting Christianity, Paul proved two
things: the earnestness and energy of his convictions, and the fact
that his attention was keenly directed to the new sect. Both points
contributed to the result we are discussing. Paul's Judaism was no mere
formalism. It was the adoption, heart and soul, of the religion of
his people; which was to him no dead principle, but a living faith
stimulating that eager impetuous character to defend its integrity with
"fire and sword." He did not, like so many of his countrymen, turn away
with scorn from the followers of the despised Nazarene and leave them
to their delusion; but turned to them, on the contrary, with the fierce
attraction of the zealot whose own belief is outraged by the misbelief
of others. The earnest Jew came into sharp collision with the earnest
Christian. The earnestness of each was an element of mutual respect. The
endurance and firmness of the one might not melt the bigoted resolution
of the other, but it arrested his attention and commanded his
unconscious sympathy. Just so would the persecutor have endured and
resisted persecution; so, subsequently, he actually did meet it. And
what was the main difference between the persecutor and the persecuted?
It consisted in that which constituted the burden of the apostolic
preaching: the belief that "this was the Christ." The creed of the new
sect at least was not complicated. It was little more at that time
than a question of identity, until Paul himself developed it into an
elaborate system of theology.
{554}
In this question of identity, however, there was comprised a vast change
of national ideas. To the devout Jew,--looking for the hope of Israel,
yearning and praying for the advent of that Son of David who was to
sit upon the throne of his fathers, restore the fortunes of the people,
drive out the heathen and subdue the nations again to the yoke of
Israel, establishing the worship of Jehovah in its purity and turning
the Gentiles to the service of the God of Gods,--it was an abhorrent
thought that the lowly peasant who had died a shameful death on Golgotha
should be represented as the Messiah, the promised King of the Jews.
Still there was something sufficiently startling in the idea to excite
reflection. A political aspirant, who pretended to play the part, and
after some feeble attempt at armed insurrection had been crushed by the
heel of the Roman, could not have attracted attention. In that, there
would have been no originality to astonish, and no singularity to
require explanation. This man, on the contrary, who was said to be the
Messiah, assumed no earthly dignity; claimed no kingdom in this world;
had not even a place to lay his head; but ended a short and unambitious
career as the teacher of a simple but profound system of morality by
death on a cross. There was no vulgar imitation here. This was the
reverse of the Messiah of the Jews. In spite of so much dissimilarity,
however, there was in the two parties a fundamental agreement of belief.
The Jew expected the Messiah; the Christian believed he had now come.
The Messiah expected by the Jew was certainly a very different Saviour
from the despised and rejected Jesus of Nazareth, but at the root of the
{555}
Christian faith lay belief in a Messiah. It was a thoroughly Jewish
belief, springing out of the covenant with the fathers, and based upon
the Law and the Prophets. The difference was not one of principle but
one of details. Their interpretation of the promises was strangely
dissimilar, but the trust of both was in the God of Israel. To pass from
one to the other did not involve the adoption of a new religion, but
merely a modification of the views of the old. Once convinced that
the Messiah was not a political ruler but a spiritual guide, not a
victorious leader, but a suffering servant of Jehovah, the transition
from judaic hopes to recognition of Jesus was almost accomplished.
It is clear that Paul in his capacity of Persecutor must have become
well acquainted with the views of the Christians, and probably must
have heard them repeatedly expounded by his captives before the Jewish
Sanhedrin.1 He must have heard the victims of his blind religious zeal
affirming their faith with all that ecstatic assurance which springs out
of persecution. The vision of Peter contributed to the vision of
Paul. There can be no doubt that Paul must have become aware of the
application to Jesus of Old Testament prophecies, and of the new
conception thence derived of a suffering Messiah. The political horizon
was certainly not suggestive of the coming of the Lord's Anointed. Never
had the fortunes of Israel been at a lower ebb. The hope of a Prince of
the house of David to restore dominion to the fallen race was hard to
entertain. The suggestion of an alternative theory based upon a new
interpretation of the prophets, if startling, was not untimely, when the
old confidence
{556}
was becoming faint in many minds, and the hope of his coming seemed so
distant and unsure. If we do not misjudge the character of Paul, however
shocked he may have been at first by the substitution of a crucified
Nazarene for the triumphant Messiah of his earlier visions, there must
have been something profoundly pleasing to his mind in the conception of
a spiritual Messiah. As he became familiar with the idea, it is probable
that flashes of doubt must have crossed his mind as to the correctness
of his more material views. If the belief were true, which Christians
professed, that this Jesus, despised and rejected of men, was actually
the suffering servant of Jehovah, and this servant of Jehovah the
Messiah! If the claim of this Jesus who had been esteemed smitten of God
and afflicted, had been verified by his rising again from the dead and
ascending to the right hand of God! This aspect of the Messianic idea
had a mystery and significance congenial to the soul of Paul. The
supernatural elements could have presented no difficulties to him.
Belief in the Resurrection was part of his creed as a Pharisee. That the
risen Messiah should have been seen by many, the fundamental idea once
admitted, could not surprise the visionary Jew. We can well imagine
the conflict which went on in the ardent mind of Paul when doubts first
entered it; his resistance and struggle for the faith of his youth;
the pursuance as duty of the course he had begun, whilst the former
conviction no longer strengthened the feverish energy; the excitement of
religious zeal in the mad course of persecution, not to be arrested in
a moment, but become, by growing doubt, bitterness and pain to him; the
suffering
{557}
inflicted sending its pang into his own flesh. There was ample
preparation in such a situation for the vision of Paul.
The constitution and temperament of the Apostle were eminently
calculated to receive impressions of the strongest description.(1) We
have mentioned the conjecture of many able men that his "stake in the
flesh" was a form of epilepsy. It is, of course, but a conjecture,
though one which has great probability,(2) and we must not treat it
otherwise; but, if it could be proved correct, much light would be
thrown upon Paul's visions. We have discussed the Apostle's statements
regarding the supernatural Charismata in the Church, and have seen his
extreme readiness to believe in the lavish bestowal of miraculous gifts
where others could recognise but ordinary qualities. That Paul should
be able to claim the power of speaking with tongues more than all the
Corinthians, whose exercise of that spiritual gift he so unceremoniously
restrains, is in perfect keeping with all that we elsewhere learn about
him. Everywhere we find the keenly impressionable nature so apt to
fall into the ecstatic state when brought under the influence of active
religious emotion. "I must glory," he exclaims with irresistible impulse
on coming to a theme so congenial to him, "I must glory; it is not
indeed expedient, but I will come to visions and revelations of the
Lord."(3) Even when he speaks of the stake in his flesh, which he does
in such suggestive connection with his visions, he describes it as sent
lest he should "be exalted above measure by the
{558}
excess of the revelations."(1) We have so repeatedly had to refer to
Paul's claim to have received his Gospel by special revelation that we
need not again speak of it here. If we could quote Acts as a genuine
representation of Christian tradition regarding Paul, we might point out
the visions and revelations therein so freely ascribed to him, but
his own writings are amply sufficient for our purpose. Even his second
journey to Jerusalem is attributed to the direction of revelation.(2)
The only vision regarding which the Apostle gives any particulars is
that referred to, 2 Cor. xii. 2: "I know a man in Christ above fourteen
years ago (whether in the body I know not, whether out of the body
I know not, God knoweth), such an one caught up even unto the third
heaven. 3. And I know such a man (whether in the body or out of the body
I know not, God knoweth), 4. that he was caught up into paradise and
heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter. 5.
For such an one will I boast," etc.(3) It has been argued from this
passage and the repetition of the expression "whether in the body or
out of the body I know not," that Paul himself could clearly distinguish
objective facts from subjective impressions.(4) No interpretation could
well be more erroneous. It is evident that Paul has no doubt whatever of
his having been in the third heaven and in Paradise, and as little of
{559}
his having heard the unspeakable words. That is quite objectively real
to him. His only doubt is whether the body was caught up with his
soul upon this occasion.(1) No one who has carefully considered such
phenomena and examined the statements here made can have any doubt as to
the nature of this vision. The conception of being caught up into "the
third heaven," "into Paradise," and there hearing these "unspeakable
words which it is not lawful for a man to utter," betrays in no doubtful
manner the source of the subjective impressions. Of course, divines who
are prepared to see in this passage the account of an actual objective
event will not consider it evidence that Paul had subjective visions
which he believed to have been objective facts; but to those who, more
rightly and reasonably, we think, recognize the subjective character of
the vision, it must at once definitely settle the point that Paul could
mistake subjective impressions for objective realities, and consequently
the argument for the similar subjectivity of the vision of Jesus becomes
complete. The possibility of such a mistake is precisely what apologists
question. Here is an instance in which the mistake has clearly been made
by Paul.
The Apostle's own statements show him to have been superlatively
visionary and impressionable, with restless nervous energy it is true,
but, at the same time, with keen physical and mental susceptibility.
Liable to be uplifted by "the excess of revelations," glorying in
"visions and revelations of the Lord," possessing ecstatic
{560}
powers more than all others, subjecting his very movements, his visits
to Jerusalem, to the direction of impulses which he supposed to be
revelations: there has never been a case in which both temperament
and religious belief more thoroughly combined to ascribe, with perfect
conviction, objective reality to subjective impressions connected with
divine things then occupying his mind.
Paul moreover lived in a time when the Messianic longing of the Jews
led them to be profoundly interested students of the later apocalyptic
writings, which certainly made a deep impression upon the Apostle, and
in which he must have been struck by the image of the promised Messiah,
like the Son of Man, coming on the clouds of heaven (Dan. vii. 13, cf.
1 Cor. xv. 47).(1) At no time was such a vision more likely to present
itself to him, than when his mind was fixed upon the Messianic idea with
all the intensity of one who had been persecuting those who asserted
that the Messiah had already come. Here was reason for all that
concentration of thought upon the subject which produces such visions:
and when doubt and hesitation entered into that eager intense spirit,
the conflict must have been sharp and the nerves highly strung. The
Jesus whom he saw with his mind's eye was the climax of conviction
in such a nature; and the vision vividly brought to him his own
self-reproachful thoughts for cruelly mistaken zeal, and the remorse of
noble souls which bounds to reparation. He devoted himself as eagerly
to Christianity, as he had previously done to Judaism. He changed the
contents but not the form of his mind.(2) Paul the
{561}
Christian was the same man as Paul the Jew; and in abandoning the
conception of a Messiah "according to the flesh," and placing his
whole faith in one "according to the spirit," he displayed the same
characteristics as before. The revolution in his mind, of which so much
is said, was merely one affecting the Messianic idea. He did not at
a bound become the complete Apostle of the Gentiles, but accepting at
first nothing more than belief in a Messiah according to the spirit, his
comprehensive and peculiar system of theology was, "of course, only the
result of subsequent reflection. That his conviction should have been
completed by a subjective vision is no more strange than that he should
believe in supernatural Charismata, miraculous speaking with tongues,
and being actually caught up into the third heaven, into Paradise, and
hearing there unutterable words which it is not lawful for a man to
utter. Paul evidently never questioned the source of his visions. They
were simply accepted as divine revelations, and they excited all the
less of misgiving in his soul from the fact that, without doubt, they
expressed the expected solution of problems which intensely occupied his
mind, and reflected conclusions already practically formed by his own
thoughts.(1)
There remain two points to be briefly considered.
{562}
The first of these is the assertion, constantly made in various shapes,
that the cardinal miracles of the Resurrection and Ascension were
proclaimed as unquestionable facts, without contradiction, at a time
when such an assertion might have been easily refuted. The production of
the body, the still occupied sepulchre, it is said, would have set such
pretensions at rest It is unnecessary to say that the proclamation
of the Resurrection and Ascension as facts proved nothing beyond
the belief, perhaps, of those who asserted them. So far as Paul is
concerned, we may seek in vain for any assertion of a bodily Ascension.
But there is not the slightest evidence to show when the Resurrection
and Ascension were first publicly proclaimed as unquestionable facts.
Even the Gospels do not state that they were mentioned beyond the
circle of disciples. The second Synoptist, who does not state that Jesus
himself was seen by any one, makes the curious affirmation at the
close of his Gospel as we have it, that the women, on receiving the
announcement of the Resurrection from the angels, and the command for
the disciples and Peter to go into Galilee, "went out and fled from the
sepulchre; for trembling and astonishment seized them, and they said
nothing to any one; for they were afraid."(1) In the fourth Gospel,
although the "beloved disciple" went into the sepulchre, "and he saw and
believed," it is related of him and Peter: "So the disciples went away
again unto their own home."(2) The Eleven, in fact, who all forsook
their Master and fled--who are represented as meeting with closed doors
"for fear of the Jews"--with closed doors after eight days, it is
again said, although, a week before, ten of them are said to have seen
Jesus--were not likely to expose
{563}
themselves to the fate of Jesus by rushing into the highways and
asserting the Resurrection. Beyond the statement of the Gospels, the
value of which we have seen, and a statement accompanied by so many
confused circumstances, there is no evidence whatever that the sepulchre
was found empty. There is no evidence that the sepulchre was really
known to the disciples, none of whom, probably, was present at the
crucifixion; and it might well be inferred that the women, who are
represented as ignorant that the body had already been embalmed, yet
who are the chief supposed witnesses for the empty sepulchre and the
informants of the disciples, were equally ignorant of the sepulchre in
which the body was laid. We might ask whether the 500 brethren who are
said to have seen Jesus at the same time came from Galilee, or wherever
they were, and examined the state of the sepulchre? We have already
said, however, that if the sepulchre had been shown to be empty, the
very last thing which could be proved by that circumstance would be the
correctness of the assertion that it had become so in consequence of a
stupendous miracle. On the other hand, if it had been shown that it was
occupied by a body, it is exceedingly doubtful whether the fact would
have convinced any one not previously sure that Jesus could not have
risen from the dead, and he would not have required such evidence. When
the Resurrection was publicly proclaimed as a fact, the body could
no longer have been recognizable, and the idea that any of those in
authority could have thought such demonstration necessary to refute a
story whispered about amongst an obscure sect in Jerusalem, or even
more courageously asserted, is a product of later times. When Jesus of
Nazareth, the head of the nascent sect, was suppressed
{564}
by a shameful death, his humble and timid followers were obviously for
a time despised; and there is little reason to suppose that the chief
priests and rulers of the Jews would have condescended to any public
contradiction of their affirmations, if they had even felt indifference
to the defilement of exposing for such a purpose a decaying body to
the gaze of Jerusalem. This kind of refutation is possible only in the
imagination of divines. Besides, what evidence is there that even a
single indifferent person found the sepulchre empty? There is not an
iota of proof.
On the contrary, there is the very strongest evidence that when the
assertion of the Resurrection and Ascension as "unquestionable facts"
was made, it was contradicted in the only practical and practicable way
conceivable: (1.) by all but universal disbelief in Jerusalem; (2.)
by actual persecution of those who asserted it. It is a perfectly
undeniable fact that the great mass of the Jews totally denied the
truth of the statement by disbelieving it, and that the converts to
Christianity who soon swelled the numbers of the Church and spread its
influence amongst the nations were not the citizens of Jerusalem, who
were capable of refuting such assertions, but strangers and Gentiles.
The number of the community of Jerusalem after the forty days seems to
be stated by the author of Acts as "about 120," and although the numbers
added to the Church, according to this document, are evidently fabulous,
the converts at Pentecost are apparently chiefly from amongst the devout
men of every nation upon earth congregated at Jerusalem. To this
hour the Jews have retained as their inheritance the denial by their
forefathers of the asserted facts. The assertion, secondly, was
emphatically denied by the persecution, as soon as it
{565}
became worth any one's while to persecute, of those who made it. It
was in this way denied by Paul himself, at a time when verification was
infinitely more possible than when he came to join in the assertion. Are
we to suppose that the Apostle took no trouble to convince himself of
the facts before he began to persecute? He was in the confidence of the
high priests it seems, can he ever have heard the slightest doubt from
them on the subject? Is it not palpable that Paul and his party, by
their very pursuit of those who maintained such allegations, stigmatized
them as falsehoods, and perhaps as imposture? If it be said that Paul
became convinced of his mistake, it is perfectly obvious that his
conversion was not due to local and circumstantial evidence, but to
dogmatic considerations and his supposed vision of Jesus. He disbelieved
when the alleged occurrences were recent and, as it is said, capable of
refutation; he believed when the time for such refutation had passed.
The second point to which we have referred is the vague and final
objection of apologists that, if the vision of Jesus was merely
subjective, the fabric of the Church and even of Christianity is based
upon unreality and self-deception. Is this possible? they ask. Is it
possible that for eighteen centuries the Resurrection and Ascension
have been proclaimed and believed by millions, with no other original
foundation than self-delusion? The vagueness and apparent vastness of
this objection, perhaps, make it a formidable _argumentum ad hominem_,
but it vanishes into very small proportions as we approach it. Must
we then understand that the dogmas of all religions which have been
established must have been objective truths? and that this is a
necessary inference from their wide adoption? If so, then all
{566}
historical religions before Christianity, and after it, must take rank
as substantially true. In that case the religion of the Veda, of Buddha,
of Zoroaster, of Mahomet, for instance, can as little be based on
unreality and self-deception as Christianity. They have secured wide
acceptance from mankind. Millions have for centuries devoutly held their
tenets, and to this day the followers of Sakya Muni are as numerous as
the believers in the religion of Paul. If not, the objection at once
falls to the ground as an argument, and the problem becomes a simple
matter of evidence, which has been fully discussed and disposed of.
When we analyse the fact, it becomes apparent that, ultimately, belief
in the Resurrection and Ascension resolves itself into the belief of a
few or of one. It requires very little reflection to perceive that the
Christian Church is founded much more upon belief in the Resurrection
than on the fact itself.(1) Nothing is more undeniable than the
circumstance that not more than a very small number of men are even
alleged to have seen the risen Jesus. The mass of those who have
believed in the Resurrection have done so because of the assurance of
these few men, and perhaps because they may have been led to think that
the event was predicted in Scripture. Up to this day, converts to the
dogma are made, if made at all, upon the assurance of Paul and the
Gospels. The vast question at last dwindles down to the inquiry: Can a
few men, can one man, draw erroneous inferences and be honestly deceived
by something supposed to have been seen? We presume that there can be no
hesitation in giving an affirmative reply. The rest follows as a matter
of
{567}
course. Others simply believe the report of those who have believed
before them. In course of time, so many believe that it is considered
almost outrageous to disbelieve or demand evidence. The number of those
who have believed is viewed at last as an overwhelming proof of the
truth of the creed.
It is a most striking and extraordinary fact that the life and teaching
of Jesus have scarcely a place in the system of Paul. Had we been
dependent upon him we should have had no idea of the Great Master who
preached the Sermon on the Mount, and embodied pure truths in parables
of such luminous simplicity. His noble morality would have remained
unknown, and his lessons of rare spiritual excellence have been lost to
the world. Paul sees no significance in that life, but concentrates all
interest in the death and resurrection of his Messiah. In the sepulchre
hewn out of the rock are deposited the teaching and example of Jesus,
and from it there rises a mystic Christ lost in a halo of theology.
The ecclesiastical Christianity which was mainly Paul's work has almost
effaced the true work of Jesus. Too little can now be traced of that
teaching, and few are the genuine records of his work which have
survived the pious enthusiasm evoked by his character. Theology has done
its worst with the life; and that death, which will ever be the
darkest blot upon history, has been represented as the climax of divine
beneficence. The Resurrection and Ascension have deified Jesus of
Nazareth; but they have done so at the expense of all that was most
truly sublime in his work.
{568}
The world will gain when it recognises the real character and source of
such dogmas, and resigns this inheritance from the Age of Miracles. For,
although we lose a faith which has long been our guide in the past, we
need not now fear to walk boldly with Truth in the future, and turning
away from fancied benefits to be derived from the virtue of his death,
we may find real help and guidance from more earnest contemplation of
the life and teaching of Jesus.
{569}
CONCLUSIONS.
We have seen that Divine Revelation could only be necessary or
conceivable for the purpose of communicating to us something which we
could not otherwise discover, and that the truth of communications which
are essentially beyond and undiscoverable by reason cannot be attested
in any other way than by miraculous signs distinguishing them as divine.
It is admitted that no other testimony could justify our believing the
specific Revelation which we are considering, the very substance of
which is supernatural and beyond the criticism of reason, and that its
doctrines, if not proved to be miraculous truths, must inevitably be
pronounced "the wildest delusions." "By no rational being could a
just and benevolent life be accepted as proof of such astonishing
announcements."
On examining the alleged miraculous evidence for Christianity as Divine
Revelation, however, we find that even if the actual occurrence of the
supposed miracles could be substantiated, their value as evidence would
be destroyed by the necessary admission that miracles are not limited
to one source and are not exclusively associated with truth, but are
performed by various spiritual Beings, Satanic as well as Divine, and
are not always evidential, but are sometimes to be regarded as delusive
and for the trial of faith. As the doctrines supposed to be revealed
{570}
are beyond Reason, and cannot in any sense be intelligently approved
by the human intellect, no evidence which is of so doubtful and
inconclusive a nature could sufficiently attest them. This alone would
disqualify the Christian miracles for the duty which miracles alone are
capable of performing.
The supposed miraculous evidence for the Divine Revelation, moreover,
is not only without any special divine character, being avowedly common
also to Satanic agency, but it is not original either in conception or
details. Similar miracles are reported long antecedently to the
first promulgation of Christianity, and continued to be performed for
centuries after it. A stream of miraculous pretension, in fact, has
flowed through all human history, deep and broad as it has passed
through the darker ages, but dwindling down to a thread as it has
entered days of enlightenment. The evidence was too hackneyed and
commonplace to make any impression upon those before whom the Christian
miracles are said to have been performed, and it altogether failed to
convince the people to whom the Revelation was primarily addressed.
The selection of such evidence for such a purpose is much more
characteristic of human weakness than of divine power.
The true character of miracles is at once betrayed by the fact that
their supposed occurrence has thus been confined to ages of ignorance
and superstition, and that they are absolutely unknown in any time or
place where science has provided witnesses fitted to appreciate and
ascertain the nature of such exhibitions of supernatural power. There is
not the slightest evidence that any attempt was made to investigate the
supposed miraculous occurrences, or to justify the inferences so freely
drawn from them, nor is there any reason to
{571}
believe that the witnesses possessed, in any considerable degree, the
fulness of knowledge and sobriety of judgment requisite for the purpose.
No miracle has yet established its claim to the rank even of apparent
reality, and all such phenomena must remain in the dim region of
imagination. The test applied to the largest class of miracles,
connected with demoniacal possession, discloses the falsity of all
miraculous pretension.
There is no uncertainty as to the origin of belief in supernatural
interference with nature. The assertion that spurious miracles have
sprung up round a few instances of genuine miraculous power has not a
single valid argument to support it. History clearly demonstrates
that, wherever ignorance and superstition have prevailed, every obscure
occurrence has been attributed to supernatural agency, and it is freely
acknowledged that, under their influence, inexplicable and miraculous
are convertible terms. On the other hand, in proportion as knowledge of
natural laws has increased, the theory of supernatural interference with
the order of nature has been dispelled, and miracles have ceased. The
effect of science, however, is not limited to the present and future,
but its action is equally retrospective, and phenomena which were once
ignorantly isolated from the sequence of natural cause and effect,
are now restored to their place in the unbroken order. Ignorance and
superstition created miracles; knowledge has for ever annihilated them.
To justify miracles, two assumptions are made: first, an Infinite
Personal God; and second, a Divine design of Revelation, the execution
of which necessarily involves supernatural action. Miracles, it is
argued, are not contrary to nature, or effects produced without adequate
{572}
causes, but on the contrary are caused by the intervention of this
Infinite Personal God for the purpose of attesting and carrying out the
Divine design. Neither of the assumptions, however, can be reasonably
maintained. The assumption of an Infinite Personal God: a Being at once
limited and unlimited, is a use of language to which no mode of human
thought can possibly attach itself. Moreover, the assumption of a God
working miracles is emphatically excluded by universal experience of the
order of nature. The allegation of a specific Divine cause of miracles
is further inadequate from the fact that the power of working miracles
is avowedly not limited to a Personal God, but is also ascribed to other
spiritual Beings, and it must, consequently, always be impossible to
prove that the supposed miraculous phenomena originate with one and not
with another. On the other hand, the assumption of a Divine design of
Revelation is not suggested by antecedent probability, but is derived
from the very Revelation which it is intended to justify, as is likewise
the assumption of a Personal God, and both are equally vicious as
arguments. The circumstances which are supposed to require this Divine
design, and the details of the scheme, are absolutely incredible, and
opposed to all the results of science. Nature does not countenance any
theory of the original perfection and subsequent degradation of the
human race, and the supposition of a frustrated original plan of
creation, and of later impotent endeavours to correct it, is as
inconsistent with Divine omnipotence and wisdom as the proposed
punishment of the human race and the mode devised to save some of them
are opposed to justice and morality. Such assumptions are essentially
inadmissible, and totally fail to explain and justify miracles.
{573}
Whatever definition be given of miracles, such exceptional phenomena
must at least be antecedently incredible. In the absence of absolute
knowledge, human belief must be guided by the balance of evidence,
and it is obvious that the evidence for the uniformity of the order of
nature, which is derived from universal experience, must be enormously
greater than can be the testimony for my alleged exception to it. On the
other hand, universal experience prepares us to consider mistakes of
the senses, imperfect observation and erroneous inference as not
only possible, but eminently probable on the part of the witnesses of
phenomena, even when they are perfectly honest and truthful, and more
especially so when such disturbing causes as religious excitement and
superstition are present. When the report of the original witnesses
only reaches us indirectly and through the medium of tradition, the
probability of error is further increased. Thus the allegation of
miracles is discredited, both positively by the invariability of the
order of nature, and negatively by the fallibility of human observation
and testimony. The history of miraculous pretension in the world, and
the circumstances attending the special exhibition of it which we are
examining, suggest natural explanations of the reported facts which
wholly remove them from the region of the supernatural.
When we proceed to examine the direct witnesses for the Christian
miracles, we do not discover any exceptional circumstances neutralizing
the preceding considerations. On the contrary, we find that the case
turns not upon miracles substantially before us, but upon the mere
narratives of miracles said to have occurred over eighteen hundred years
ago. It is obvious that, for such narratives to possess any real force
and validity, it is essential that
{574}
their character and authorship should be placed beyond all doubt. They
must proceed from eye-witnesses capable of estimating aright the nature
of the phenomena. Our four Gospels, however, are strictly anonymous
works. The superscriptions which now distinguish them are undeniably
of later origin than the works themselves, and do not proceed from the
composers of the Gospels. Of the writers to whom these narratives are
traditionally ascribed only two are even said to have been apostles, the
alleged authors of the second and third Synoptics neither having
been personal followers of Jesus, nor eyewitnesses of the events they
describe. Under these circumstances, we are wholly dependent upon
external evidence for information regarding the authorship and
trustworthiness of the four canonical Gospels.
In examining this evidence, we proceeded upon clear and definite
principles. Without forming or adopting any theory whatever as to the
date or origin of our Gospels, we simply searched the writings of the
Fathers, during a century and a half after the events in question, for
information regarding the composition and character of these works, and
even for any certain traces of their use, although, if discovered, these
could prove little beyond the mere existence of the Gospels used at
the date of the writer. In the latter and minor investigation, we were
guided by canons of criticism previously laid down, and which are based
upon the simplest laws of evidence. We found that the writings of the
Fathers, during a century and a half after the death of Jesus, are a
complete blank so far as any evidence regarding the composition and
character of our Gospels is concerned, unless we except the tradition
preserved by Papias, after the middle of the second century, the details
of which fully justify
{575}
the conclusion that our first and second Synoptics, in their present
form, cannot be the works said to have been composed by Matthew and
Mark. There is thus no evidence whatever directly connecting any of
the canonical Gospels with the writers to whom they are popularly
attributed, and later tradition, of little or no value in itself, is
separated by a long interval of profound silence from the epoch at which
they are supposed to have been composed. With one exception, moreover,
we found that, during the same century and a half, there is no certain
and unmistakable trace even of the anonymous use of any of our Gospels
in the early Church. This fact, of course, does not justify the
conclusion that none of these Gospels was actually in existence during
any part of that time, nor have we anywhere suggested such an inference,
but strict examination of the evidence shows that there is no positive
proof that they were. The exception to which we refer is Marcion's
Gospel, which was, we think, based upon our third Synoptic, and
consequently must be accepted as evidence of the existence of that work.
Marcion, however, does not give the slightest information as to the
authorship of the Gospel, and his charges against it of adulteration
cannot be considered very favourable testimony as to its infallible
character. The canonical Gospels continue to the end anonymous documents
of no evidential value for miracles. They do not themselves pretend to
be inspired histories, and they cannot escape from the ordinary rules
of criticism. Internal evidence does not modify the inferences from
external testimony. Apart from continual minor contradictions
throughout the first three Gospels, it is impossible to reconcile the
representations of the Synoptics with those of the fourth Gospel. They
mutually destroy each other as evidence. They must
{576}
be pronounced mere narratives compiled long after the events recorded,
by unknown persons who were neither eye-witnesses of the alleged
miraculous occurrences, nor hearers of the statements they profess to
report. They cannot be accepted as adequate testimony for miracles and
the reality of Divine Revelation.
Applying similar tests to the Acts of the Apostles, we arrived at
similar results. Acknowledged to be composed by the same author who
produced the third Synoptic, that author's identity is not thereby made
more clear. There is no evidence of the slightest value regarding its
character, but, on the other hand, the work itself teems to such an
extent with miraculous incidents and supernatural agency, that the
credibility of the narrative requires an extraordinary amount of
attestation to secure for it any serious consideration. When the
statements of the author are compared with the emphatic declarations of
the Apostle Paul, and with authentic accounts of the development of
the early Christian Church, it becomes evident that the Acts of the
Apostles, as might have been supposed, is a legendary composition of a
later day, which cannot be regarded as sober and credible history, and
rather discredits than tends to establish the reality of the miracles
with which its pages so suspiciously abound.
The remaining books of the New Testament Canon required no separate
examination, because, even if genuine, they contain no additional
testimony to the reality of Divine Revelation, beyond the implied
belief in such doctrines as the Incarnation and Resurrection. It is
unquestionable, we suppose, that in some form or other the Apostles
believed in these miracles, and the assumption that they did so,
supersedes the necessity for
{577}
examining the authenticity of the Catholic Epistles and Apocalypse. In
like manner, the recognition as genuine of four Epistles of Paul, which
contain his testimony to miracles, renders it superfluous to discuss the
authenticity of the other letters attributed to him.
The general belief in miraculous power and its possession by the Church
is brought to a practical test in the case of the Apostle Paul. After
elaborate consideration of his letters, we came to the unhesitating
conclusion that, instead of establishing the reality of miracles, the
unconscious testimony of Paul clearly demonstrates the facility with
which erroneous inferences convert the most natural phenomena into
supernatural occurrences.
As a final test, we carefully examined the whole of the evidence for
the cardinal dogmas of Christianity, the Resurrection and Ascension of
Jesus. First taking the four Gospels, we found that their accounts of
these events are not only full of legendary matter, but that they even
contradict and exclude each other, and so far from establishing the
reality of such stupendous miracles, they show that no reliance is to
be placed on the statements of the unknown authors. Taking next the
testimony of Paul, which is more important as at least authentic and
proceeding from an Apostle of whom we know more than of any other of the
early missionaries of Christianity, we saw that it was indefinite and
utterly insufficient. His so-called "circumstantial account of the
testimony upon which the belief in the Resurrection rested" consists
merely of vague and undetailed hearsay, differing, so far as it can
be compared, from the statements in the Gospels, and without other
attestation than the bare fact that it is repeated by Paul, who
doubtless believed it, although he had not himself been a witness
{578}
of any of the supposed appearances of the risen Jesus which he so
briefly catalogues. Paul's own personal testimony to the Resurrection
is limited to a vision of Jesus, of which we have no authentic details,
seen many years after the alleged miracle. Considering the peculiar
and highly nervous temperament of Paul, of which he himself supplies
abundant evidence, there can be no hesitation in deciding that this
vision was purely subjective, as were likewise, in all probability, the
appearances to the excited disciples of Jesus. The testimony of Paul
himself, before his imagination was stimulated to ecstatic fervour by
the beauty of a spiritualized religion, was an earnest denial of the
great Christian dogma emphasized by the active persecution of those who
affirmed it, and a vision, especially in the case of one so constituted,
supposed to be seen many years after the fact of the Resurrection had
ceased to be capable of verification, is not an argument of convincing
force. We were compelled to pronounce the evidence for the Resurrection
and Ascension absolutely and hopelessly inadequate to prove the reality
of such stupendous miracles, which must consequently be unhesitatingly
rejected. There is no reason given, or even conceivable, why allegations
such as these, and dogmas affecting the religion and even the salvation
of the human race, should be accepted upon evidence which would be
declared totally insufficient in the case of any common question of
property or title before a legal tribunal On the contrary, the more
momentous the point to be established, the more complete must be the
proof required.
If we test the results at which we have arrived by general
considerations, we find them everywhere confirmed and established. There
is nothing original in the
{579}
claim of Christianity to be regarded as Divine Revelation, and nothing
new either in the doctrines said to have been revealed, or in the
miracles by which it is alleged to have been distinguished. There has
not been a single historical religion largely held amongst men which has
not pretended to be divinely revealed, and the written books of which
have not been represented as directly inspired. There is not a doctrine,
sacrament or rite of Christianity which has not substantially formed
part of earlier religions; and not a single phase of the supernatural
history of the Christ, from his miraculous conception, birth and
incarnation to his death, resurrection and ascension, which has not
had its counterpart in earlier mythologies. Heaven and hell, with
characteristic variation of details, have held an important place in the
eschatology of many creeds and races. The same may be said even of the
moral teaching of Christianity, the elevated precepts of which, although
in a less perfect and connected form, had already suggested themselves
to many noble minds and been promulgated by ancient sages and
philosophers. That this Inquiry into the reality of Divine Revelation
has been limited to the claim of Christianity has arisen solely from a
desire to condense it within reasonable bounds, and confine it to the
only Religion in connection with which it could practically interest us
now.
There is nothing in the history and achievements of Christianity which
can be considered characteristic of a Religion divinely revealed for
the salvation of mankind. Originally said to have been communicated to a
single nation, specially selected as the peculiar people of God, and for
whom distinguished privileges were said to be reserved, it was almost
unanimously rejected by that
{580}
nation at the time, and it has continued to be repudiated by its
descendants with singular unanimity to the present day. After more than
eighteen centuries, this Divine scheme of salvation has not obtained
even the nominal adhesion of more than a third of the human race,(1) and
if, in a census of Christendom, distinction could now be made of
those who no longer seriously believe in it as Supernatural Religion,
Christianity would take a much lower numerical position. Sakya Muni,
a teacher only second in nobility of character to Jesus, and who, like
him, proclaimed a system of elevated morality, has even now almost twice
the number of followers, although his missionaries never sought converts
in the West. Considered as a scheme Divinely devised as the best, if
not only, mode of redeeming the human race, and saving them from eternal
damnation, promulgated by God himself incarnate in human form, and
completed by his own actual death upon the cross for the sins of the
world, such results as these can only be regarded as practical
{581}
failure, although they may not be disproportionate for a system of
elevated morality.
We shall probably never be able to determine how far the great Teacher
may through his own speculations or misunderstood spiritual utterances
have suggested the supernatural doctrines subsequently attributed to
him, and by which his whole history and system soon became transformed;
but no one who attentively studies the subject can fail to be struck by
the absence of such dogmas from the earlier records of his teaching. It
is to the excited veneration of the followers of Jesus, however, that we
owe most of the supernatural elements so characteristic of the age
and people. We may look in vain even in the synoptic Gospels for the
doctrines elaborated in the Pauline Epistles and the Gospel of Ephesus.
The great transformation of Christianity was effected by men who had
never seen Jesus, and who were only acquainted with his teaching after
it had become transmuted by tradition. The fervid imagination of the
East constructed Christian theology. It is not difficult to follow
the development of the creeds of the Church, and it is certainly most
instructive to observe the progressive boldness with which its dogmas
were expanded by pious enthusiasm. The New Testament alone represents
several stages of dogmatic evolution. Before his first followers had
passed away the process of transformation had commenced. The disciples,
who had so often misunderstood the teaching of Jesus during his life,
piously distorted it after his death. His simple lessons of meekness and
humility were soon forgotten. With lamentable rapidity, the elaborate
structure of ecclesiastical Christianity, following stereotyped lines of
human superstition, and deeply coloured by Alexandrian
{582}
philosophy, displaced the sublime morality of Jesus. Doctrinal
controversy, which commenced amongst the very Apostles, has ever since
divided the unity of the Christian body. The perverted ingenuity
of successive generations of churchmen has filled the world with
theological quibbles, which have naturally enough culminated of late in
doctrines of Immaculate Conception, and Papal Infallibility.
It is sometimes affirmed, however, that those who proclaim such
conclusions not only wantonly destroy the dearest hopes of humanity, but
remove the only solid basis of morality; and it is alleged that, before
existing belief is disturbed, the iconoclast is bound to provide a
substitute for the shattered idol. To this we may reply that speech or
silence does not alter the reality of things. The recognition of
Truth cannot be made dependent on consequences, or be trammelled by
considerations of spurious expediency. Its declaration in a serious
and suitable manner to those who are capable of judging can never
be premature. Its suppression cannot be effectual, and is only a
humiliating compromise with conscious imposture. In so far as morality
is concerned, belief in a system of future rewards and punishments,
although of an intensely degraded character, may, to a certain extent,
have promoted observance of the letter of the law in darker ages and
even in our own, but it may, we think, be shown that education and
civilization have done infinitely more to enforce its spirit. How far
Christianity has promoted education and civilization, we shall not here
venture adequately to discuss. We may emphatically assert, however, that
whatever beneficial effect Christianity has produced has been due,
not to its supernatural dogmas, but to its simple morality. Dogmatic
Theology,
{583}
on the contrary, has retarded education and impeded science. Wherever it
has been dominant civilization has stood still. Science has been judged
and suppressed by the light of a text or a chapter of Genesis. Almost
every great advance which has been made towards enlightenment has
been achieved in spite of the protest or the anathema of the Church.
Submissive ignorance, absolute or comparative, has been tacitly fostered
as the most desirable condition of the popular mind. "Except ye be
converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the
kingdom of heaven," has been the favourite text of Doctors of Divinity
with a stock of incredible dogmas difficult of assimilation by the
virile mind. Even now, the fiction of theological resistance is a
constant waste of intellectual power. The early enunciation of so pure
a system of morality, and one so intelligible to the simple as well as
profound to the wise, was of great value to the world, but experience
being once systematized and codified, if higher principles do not
constrain us, society may safely be left to see morals sufficiently
observed. It is true that, notwithstanding its fluctuating rules,
morality has hitherto assumed the character of a Divine institution, but
its sway has not, in consequence, been more real than it must be as the
simple result of human wisdom, and the outcome of social experience.
The choice of a noble life is no longer a theological question, and
ecclesiastical patents of truth and uprightness have finally expired.
Morality, which has ever changed its complexion and modified its
injunctions according to social requirements, will necessarily be
enforced as part of human evolution, and is not dependent on religious
terrorism or superstitious persuasion. If we are disposed to say:
{584}
_Cui bono?_ and only practise morality, or be ruled by right principles, to
gain a heaven or escape a hell, there is nothing lost, for such grudging
and calculated morality is merely a spurious imitation which can as
well be produced by social compulsion. But if we have ever been really
penetrated by the pure spirit of morality, if we have in any degree
attained that elevation of mind which instinctively turns to the true
and noble and shrinks from the baser level of thought and action,
we shall feel no need of the stimulus of a system of rewards and
punishments in a future state which has for so long been represented as
essential to Christianity.
As to the other reproach, let us ask what has actually been destroyed
by such an inquiry pressed to its logical conclusion. Can Truth by
any means be made less true? Can reality be melted into thin air? The
Revelation not being a reality, that which has been destroyed is only an
illusion, and that which is left is the Truth. Losing belief in it
and its contents, we have lost absolutely nothing but that which the
traveller loses when the mirage, which has displayed cool waters
and green shades before him, melts swiftly away. There were no cool
fountains really there to allay his thirst, no flowery meadows for his
wearied limbs; his pleasure was delusion, and the wilderness is blank.
Rather the mirage with its pleasant illusion, is the human cry, than the
desert with its barrenness. Not so, is the friendly warning; seek not
vainly in the desert that which is not there, but turn rather to
other horizons, and to surer hopes. Do not waste life clinging to
ecclesiastical dogmas which represent no eternal verities, but search
elsewhere for truth which may haply be found. What should we think of
the man who persistently repulsed
{585}
the persuasion that two and two make four from the ardent desire to
believe that two and two make five? Whose fault is it that two and two
do make four and not five? Whose folly is it that it should be more
agreeable to think that two and two make five than to know that they
only make four? This folly is theirs who represent the value of life
as dependent on the reality of special illusions, which they have
religiously adopted. To discover that a former belief is unfounded is to
change nothing of the realities of existence. The sun will descend as it
passes the meridian whether we believe it to be noon or not. It is idle
and foolish, if human, to repine because the truth is not precisely what
we thought it, and at least we shall not change reality by childishly
clinging to a dream.
The argument so often employed by theologians that Divine Revelation is
necessary for man, and that certain views contained in that Revelation
are required by our moral consciousness, is purely imaginary and
derived from the Revelation which it seeks to maintain. The only thing
absolutely necessary for man is Truth; and to that, and that alone, must
our moral consciousness adapt itself. Reason and experience forbid the
expectation that we can acquire any knowledge otherwise than through
natural channels. We might as well expect to be supernaturally nourished
as supernaturally informed. To complain that we do not know all that
we desire to know is foolish and unreasonable. It is tantamount to
complaining that the mind of man is not differently constituted. To
attain the full altitude of the Knowable, whatever that may be, should
be our earnest aim, and more than this is not for humanity. We may be
certain that information which is beyond the ultimate
{586}
reach of Reason is as unnecessary as it is inaccessible. Man may know
all that man requires to know.
We gain more than we lose by awaking to find that our Theology is human
invention and our eschatology an unhealthy dream. We are freed from
the incubus of base Hebrew mythology, and from doctrines of Divine
government which outrage morality and set cruelty and injustice in
the place of holiness. If we have to abandon cherished anthropomorphic
visions of future Blessedness, the details of which are either of
unseizable dimness or of questionable joy, we are at least delivered
from quibbling discussions of the meaning of [------], and our eternal
hope is unclouded by the doubt whether mankind is to be tortured in hell
for ever and a day, or for a day without the ever. At the end of life
there may be no definite vista of a Heaven glowing with the light of
apocalyptic imagination, but neither will there be the unutterable
horror of a Purgatory or a Hell lurid with flames for the helpless
victims of an unjust but omnipotent Creator. To entertain such libellous
representations at all as part of the contents of "Divine Revelation,"
it was necessary to assert that man was incompetent to judge of the
ways of the God of Revelation, and must not suppose him endowed with the
perfection of human conceptions of justice and mercy, but submit to call
wrong right and right wrong at the foot of an almighty Despot. But now
the reproach of such reasoning is shaken from our shoulders, and returns
to the Jewish superstition from which it sprang.
As myths lose their might and their influence when discovered to be
baseless, the power of supernatural Christianity will doubtless pass
away, but the effect of the revolution must not be exaggerated, although
it
{587}
cannot here be fully discussed. If the pictures which have filled for so
long the horizon of the Future must vanish, no hideous blank can rightly
be maintained in their place. We should clearly distinguish between what
we know and know not, but as carefully abstain from characterising that
which we know not as if it were really known to us. That mysterious
Unknown or Unknowable is no cruel darkness, but simply an impenetrable
distance into which we are impotent to glance, but which excludes no
legitimate speculation and forbids no reasonable hope.