As men of the world, with some experience in sifting and weighing
evidence, what can we say about the evidence for the Resurrection?
In the first place, there is no acceptable evidence outside the New
Testament, and the New Testament is the authority of the Christian
Church.
In the second place, there is nothing to show that the Gospels were
written by eye-witnesses of the alleged fact.
In the third place, the Apostle Paul was not an eye-witness of the
alleged fact.
In the fourth place, although there is some evidence that some Gospels
were known in the first century, there is no evidence that the Gospels
as we know them were then in existence.
In the fifth place, even supposing that the existing Gospels and the
Epistles of Paul were originally composed by men who knew Christ, and
that these men were entirely honest and capable witnesses, there is no
certainty that what they wrote has come down to us unaltered.
The only serious evidence of the Resurrection being in the books of the
New Testament, we are bound to scrutinise those books closely, as on
their testimony the case for Christianity entirely depends.
Who, then, are the witnesses? They are the authors of the Gospels, the
Acts, and the Epistles of Peter and of Paul.
Who were these authors? Matthew and John are "supposed" to have been
disciples of Christ; but were they? I should say Matthew certainly
was not contemporary with Jesus, for in the last chapter of the Gospel
according to Matthew we read as follows:
Now while they were going behold some of the guard came into
the city, and told unto the chief priests all the things that
were come to pass. And when they were assembled with the elders,
and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers,
saying, Say yet his disciples came by night and stole him away
while we slept. And if this come to the governor's ears, we
will persuade him, and rid you of care. So they took the money,
and did as they were taught: and this saying was spread abroad
among the Jews, and continueth until this day.
Matthew tells us that the saying "continueth until this day." Which day?
The day on which Matthew is writing or speaking. Now, a man does not say
of a report or belief that it "continueth until this day" unless that
report or belief originated a long time ago, and the use of such a
phrase suggests that Matthew told or repeated the story after a lapse of
many years.
That apart, there is no genuine historical evidence, outside the New
Testament, that such men as Paul, Peter, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
ever existed.
Neither can it be claimed that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John actually
wrote the Gospels which bear their names. These Gospels are called
the Gospel "according to Matthew," the Gospel "according to Mark," the
Gospel "according to Luke," and the Gospel "according to John." They
were, then, Gospels condensed, paraphrased, or copied from some older
Gospels, or they were Gospels taken down from dictation, or composed
from the verbal statements of the men to whom they were attributed.
Thus it appears that the Gospels are merely reports or copies of some
verbal or written statements made by four men of whom there is no
historic record whatever. How are we to know that these men ever lived?
How are we to know that they were correctly reported, if they ever spoke
or wrote? How can we rely upon such evidence after nineteen hundred
years, and upon a statement of facts so important and so marvellous?
The same objection applies to the evidence of Peter and of Paul. Many
critics and scholars deny the existence of Peter and Paul. There is no
trustworthy evidence to oppose to that conclusion.
That by the way. Let us now examine the evidence given in these men's
names. The earliest witness is Paul. Paul does not corroborate the
Gospel writers' statements as to the life or the teachings of Christ;
but he does vehemently assert that Christ rose from the dead.
What is Paul's evidence worth? He did not see Christ crucified. He did
not see His dead body. He did not see Him quit the tomb. He did not see
Him in the flesh after He had quitted the tomb. He was not present when
He ascended into Heaven. Therefore Paul is not an eye-witness of the
acts of Christ, nor of the death of Christ, nor of the Resurrection of
Christ, nor of the Ascension of Christ.
If Paul ever lived, which none can prove and many deny, his evidence for
the Resurrection was only hearsay evidence.
Paul, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, says that after His
Resurrection Christ was "seen of about five hundred persons; of whom the
great part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep."
But none of the Gospels mentions this five hundred, nor does Paul give
the name of any one of them, nor is the testimony of any one of them
preserved, in the Testament or elsewhere.
Now, let us remember how difficult it was to disprove the statements of
the claimant in the Tichborne Case, although the trial took place in the
lifetime of the claimant, and although most of the witnesses knew
the real Roger Tichborne well; and let us also bear in mind that many
critics and scholars dispute the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, as
to which strong contemporary evidence is forthcoming, and then let
us ask ourselves whether we shall be justified in believing such a
marvellous story as this of the Resurrection upon the evidence of men
whose existence cannot be proved, and in support of whose statements
there is not a scrap of historical evidence of any kind.
Nor is this all. The stories of the Resurrection as told in the
Gospels are full of discrepancies, and are rendered incredible by the
interpolation of miraculous incidents.
Let us begin with Matthew. Did Matthew see Christ crucified? Did Matthew
see Christ's dead body? Did Matthew see Christ quit the tomb? Did
Matthew see Christ in the flesh and alive after His Resurrection? Did
Matthew see Christ ascend into Heaven? Matthew nowhere says so. Nor is
it stated by any other writer in the Testament that Matthew saw any of
these things. No: Matthew nowhere gives evidence in his own name. Only,
in the Gospel "according to Matthew" it is stated that such things did
happen.
Matthew's account of the Resurrection and the incidents connected
therewith differs from the accounts in the other Gospels.
The story quoted above from Matthew as to the bribing of Roman soldiers
by the priests to circulate the falsehood about the stealing of Christ's
body by His disciples is not alluded to by Mark, Luke, or John.
Matthew, in his account of the fact of the Resurrection, says that there
was an earthquake when the angel rolled away the stone. In the other
Gospels there is no word of this earthquake.
But not in any of the Gospels is it asserted that any man or woman saw
Jesus leave the tomb.
The story of His actual rising from the dead was first told by some
woman, or women, who said they had seen an angel, or angels, who had
declared that Jesus was risen.
There is not an atom of evidence that these young men who told the story
were angels. There is not an atom of evidence that they were not men,
nor that they had not helped to revive or to remove the swooned or dead
Jesus.
Stress has been laid upon the presence of the Roman guard. The presence
of such a guard is improbable. But if the guard was really there, it
might have been as easily bribed to allow the body to be removed, as
Matthew suggests that it was easily bribed to say that the body had been
stolen.
Matthew says that after the Resurrection the disciples were ordered to
go to Galilee. Mark says the same. Luke says they were commanded not to
leave Jerusalem. John says they did go to Galilee.
So, again, with regard to the Ascension. Luke and Mark say that Christ
went up to Heaven. Matthew and John do not so much as mention the
Ascension. And it is curious, as Mr. Foote points out, that the two
apostles who were supposed to have been disciples of Christ and might
be supposed to have seen the Ascension, if it took place, do not mention
it. The story of the Ascension comes to us from Luke and Mark, who were
not present.
Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. Yet Luke makes Him say to the
thief on the cross: "Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with
me in Paradise." Matthew, Mark, and John do not repeat this blunder.
There are many other differences and contradictions in the Gospel
versions of the Resurrection and Ascension; but as I do not regard those
differences as important, I shall pass them by.
Whether or not the evidence of these witnesses be contradictory, the
facts remain that no one of them states that he knows anything about the
matter of his own knowledge; that no one of them claims to have himself
heard the story of the woman, or the women, or the angels; that no one
of them states that the women saw, or said they saw, Christ leave the
tomb.
As for the alleged appearances of Christ to the disciples, those
appearances may be explained in several ways. We may say that Christ
really had risen from the dead, and was miraculously present; we may say
that the accounts of His miraculous appearance are legends; or we may
say that His reappearance was not miraculous at all, for He had never
died, but only swooned.
As Huxley remarked, when we are asked to consider an alleged case of
resurrection, the first essential fact to make sure of is the fact of
death. Before we argue as to whether a dead man came to life, let us
have evidence that he _was_ dead.
Considering the story of the crucifixion as historical, it cannot be
said that the evidence of Christ's death is conclusive.
Death by crucifixion was generally a slow death. Men often lingered on
the cross for days before they died. Now, Christ was only on the cross
for a few hours; and Pilate is reported as expressing surprise when told
that he was dead.
To make sure that the other prisoners were dead, the soldiers broke
their legs. But they did not break Christ's legs.
To be sure, the Apostle John reports that a soldier pierced Christ's
side with a spear. But the authors of the three synoptic Gospels do
not mention this wounding with the spear. Neither do they allude to
the other story told by John, as to the scepticism of Thomas, and his
putting his hand into the wound made by the spear. It is curious that
John is the only one to tell both stories: so curious that both stories
look like interpellations.
But even if we accept the story of the spear thrust, it affords no
proof of death, for John adds that there issued from the wound blood and
water: and blood does not flow from wounds inflicted after death.
Then, when the body of Christ was taken down from the cross, it was not
examined by any doctor, but was taken away by friends, and laid in a
cool sepulchre.
What evidence is forthcoming that Christ did not recover from a swoon,
and that His friends did not take Him away in the night? Remember, we
are dealing with probabilities in the absence of any exact knowledge of
the facts, and consider which is more probable--that a man had swooned
and recovered; or that a man, after lying for three days dead, should
come to life again, and walk away?
Apologists will say that the probabilities in the case of a man do not
hold in the case of a God. But there is no evidence at all that
Christ was God. Prove that Christ was God, and therefore that He was
omnipotent, and there is nothing impossible in the Resurrection, however
improbable His death may seem.
Even assuming that the Gospels are historical documents, the evidence
for Christ's death is unsatisfactory, and that for His Resurrection
quite inadequate. But is there any reason to regard the Gospel stories
of the death, Resurrection, and Ascension on of Christ as historical?
I say that we have no surety that these stories have come down to us as
they were originally compiled, and we have strong reasons for concluding
that these stories are mythical.
Some two or three years ago the Rev. R. Horton said: "Either Christ
was the Son of God, and one with God, or He was a bad man, or a madman.
There is no fourth alternative possible." That is a strange statement
to make, but it is an example of the shifts to which apologists are
frequently reduced. No fourth alternative possible! Indeed there is; and
a fifth!
If a man came forward to-day, and said he was the Son of God, and one
with God, we should conclude that he was an impostor or a lunatic.
But if a man told us that another man had said he was a god, we should
have what Mr. Horton calls a "fourth alternative" open to us. For
we might say that the person who reported his speech to us had
misunderstood him, which would be a "fourth alternative"; or that
the person had wilfully misrepresented him, which would be a fifth
alternative.
So in the Gospels. Nowhere have we a single word of Christ's own
writing. His sayings come to us through several hands, and through more
than one translation. It is folly, then, to assert that Christ was God,
or that He was mad, or an impostor.
So in the case of the Gospel stories of the Crucifixion, the
Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ. Many worthy people may suppose
that in denying the facts stated in the Gospels we are accusing St.
Matthew and St. John of falsehood.
But there is no certainty who St. Matthew and the others were. There is
no certainty that they wrote these stories. Even if they did write them,
they probably accepted them at second or third hand. With the best faith
in the world, they may not have been competent judges of evidence. And
after they had done their best their testimony may have been added to or
perverted by editors and translators.
Looking at the Gospels, then, as we should look at any other ancient
documents, what internal evidence do they afford in support of the
suspicion that they are mythical?
In the first place, the whole Gospel story teems with miracles. Now, as
Matthew Arnold said, miracles never happen. Science has made the belief
in miracles impossible. When we speak of the antagonism between religion
and science, it is this fact which we have in our mind: that science has
killed the belief in miracles, and, as all religions are built up upon
the miraculous, science and religion cannot be made to harmonise.
As Huxley said:
The magistrate who listens with devout attention to the precept,
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," on Sunday, on Monday
dismisses, as intrinsically absurd, a charge of bewitching a
cow brought against some old woman; the superintendent of a
lunatic asylum who substituted exorcism for rational modes of
treatment, would have but a short tenure of office; even parish
clerks doubt the utility of prayers for rain, so long as the
wind is in the east; and an outbreak of pestilence sends men,
not to the churches, but to the drains. In spite of prayers for
the success of our arms, and _Te Deums_ for victory, our real
faith is in big battalions and keeping our powder dry; in
knowledge of the science of warfare; in energy, courage, and
discipline. In these, as in all other practical affairs, we
act on the aphorism, _Laborare est orare_; we admit that
intelligent work is the only acceptable worship, and that,
whether there be a Supernature or not, our business is with Nature.
We have ceased to believe in miracles. When we come upon a miracle in
any historical document we feel not only that the miracle is untrue, but
also that its presence reduces the value of the document in which it is
contained. Thus Matthew Arnold, in _Literature and Dogma_, after saying
that we shall "find ourselves inevitably led, sooner or later," to
extend one rule to all miraculous stories, and that "the considerations
which apply in other cases apply, we shall most surely discover, with
even greater force in the case of Bible miracles," goes on to declare
that "this being so, there is nothing one would more desire for a
person or document one greatly values than to make them independent of
miracles."
Very well. The Gospels teem with miracles. If we make the accounts
of the death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ "independent
of miracles," we destroy those accounts completely. To make the
Resurrection "independent of miracles" is to disprove the Resurrection,
which is a miracle or nothing.
We must believe in miracles, or disbelieve in the Resurrection; and
"miracles never happen."
We must believe miracles, or disbelieve them. If we disbelieve them, we
shall lose confidence in the verity of any document in proportion to the
element of the miraculous which that document contains. The fact that
the Gospels teem with miracles destroys the claim of the Gospels to
serious consideration as historic evidence.
Take, for example, the account of the Crucifixion in the Gospel
according to Matthew. While Christ is on the cross "from the sixth hour
there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour," and when He
dies, "behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to
the bottom; and the earth did quake; and the rocks were rent; and the
tombs were opened; and many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep
were raised; and coming forth out of the tombs after His Resurrection,
they entered into the holy city, and appeared unto many."
Mark mentions the rending of the veil of the temple, but omits the
darkness, the earthquake, and the rising of the dead saints from the
tombs. Luke tells of the same phenomena as Mark; John says nothing about
any of these things.
What conclusion can we come to, then, as to the story in the first
Gospel? Here is an earthquake and the rising of dead saints, who quit
their graves and enter the city, and three out of the four Gospel
writers do not mention it. Neither do we hear another word from Matthew
on the subject. The dead get up and walk into the city, and "are seen of
many," and we are left to wonder what happened to the risen saints, and
what effect their astounding apparition had upon the citizens who saw
them. Did these dead saints go back to their tombs? Did the citizens
receive them into their midst without fear, or horror, or doubt? Had
this stupendous miracle no effect upon the Jewish priests who had
crucified Christ as an impostor? The Gospels are silent.
History is as silent as the Gospels. From the fifteenth chapter of the
first volume of Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ I take
the following passage:
But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan
and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented
by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their
senses? During the age of Christ, of His Apostles, and of
their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was
confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the
blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, demons
were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended
for the benefit of the Church. But the sages of Greece and
Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and pursuing the
ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious
of any alterations in the moral or physical government of the
world. Under the reign of Tiberius the whole earth, or at least
a celebrated province of the Roman Empire, was involved in a
preternatural darkness of three hours. Even this miraculous
event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity,
and the devotion of all mankind, passed without notice in an
age of science and history. It happened during the lifetime
of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the
immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence of
the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious work,
has recorded all the great phenomena of Nature, earthquakes,
meteors, comets, and eclipses, which his indefatigable
curiosity could collect. But the one and the other have
omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which mortal
eye has been witness since the creation of the globe. A
distinct chapter of Pliny is designed for eclipses of an
extraordinary nature and unusual duration; but he contents
himself with describing the singular defect of light which
followed the murder of Caesar, when, during the greatest
part of the year, the orb of the sun appeared pale and without
splendour. This season of obscurity, which surely cannot be
compared with the preternatural darkness of the Passion, had
been already celebrated by most of the poets and historians
of that memorable age.
No Greek nor Roman historian nor scientist mentioned that strange
eclipse. No Jewish historian nor scientist mentioned the rending of the
veil of the temple, nor the rising of the saints from the dead. Nor do
the Jewish priests appear to have been alarmed or converted by these
marvels.
Confronted by this silence of all contemporary historians, and by the
silence of Mark, Luke, and John, what are we to think of the testimony
of Matthew on these points? Surely we can only endorse the opinion of
Matthew Arnold:
And the more the miraculousness of the story deepens, as after
the death of Jesus, the more does the texture of the incidents
become loose and floating, the more does the very air and aspect
of things seem to tell us we are in wonderland. Jesus after his
resurrection not known by Mary Magdalene, taken by her for the
gardener; appearing _in another form_, and not known by the
two disciples going with him to Emmaus and at supper with him
there; not known by His most intimate apostles on the borders
of the Sea of Galilee; and presently, out of these vague
beginnings, the recognitions getting asserted, then the ocular
demonstrations, the final commissions, the ascension; one
hardly knows which of the two to call the most evident here,
the perfect simplicity and good faith of the narrators, or
the plainness with which they themselves really say to us
_Behold a legend growing under your eyes!_
Behold a legend growing under your eyes! Now, when we have to consider
a miracle-story or a legend, it behoves us to look, if that be possible,
into the times in which that legend is placed. What was the "time
spirit" in the day when this legend arose? What was the attitude of
the general mind towards the miraculous? To what stage of knowledge and
science had those who created or accepted the myth attained? These are
points that will help us signally in any attempt to understand such a
story as the Gospel story of the Resurrection.