More Disingenuousness
[Here, perhaps, will be the fittest place for introducing a letter to my
brother from a gentleman who is well known to the public, but who does
not authorise me to give his name. I found this letter among my
brother’s papers, endorsed with the words “this must be attended to,” but
with nothing more. I imagine that my brother would have incorporated the
substance of his correspondent’s letter into this or the preceding
chapter, but not venturing to do so myself, I have thought it best to
give the letter and extract in full, and thus to let them speak for
themselves.—W. B. O.]
June 15, 1868.
My dear Owen,
Your brother has told me what you are doing, and the general line of your
argument. I am sorry that you should be doing it, for I need not tell
you that I do not and cannot sympathise with the great and unexpected
change in your opinions. You are the last man in the world from whom I
should have expected such a change: but, as you well know, you are also
the last man in the world whose sincerity in making it I should be
inclined to question. May you find peace and happiness in whatever
opinions you adopt, and let me trust also that you will never forget the
lessons of toleration which you learnt as the disciple of what you will
perhaps hardly pardon me for calling a freer and happier school of
thought than the one to which you now believe yourself to belong.
Your brother tells me that you are ill; I need not say that I am sorry,
and that I should not trouble you with any personal matter—I write solely
in reference to the work which I hear that you have undertaken, and which
I am given to understand consists mainly in the endeavour to conquer
unbelief, by really entering into the difficulties felt by unbelievers.
The scheme is a good one _if thoroughly carried out_. We imagine that we
stand in no danger from any such course as this, and should heartily
welcome any book which tried to grapple with us, even though it were to
compel us to admit a great deal more than I at present think it likely
that even you can extort from us. Much more should we welcome a work
which made people understand us better than they do; this would indeed
confer a lasting benefit both upon them and us.
However, I know you wish to do your work thoroughly; I want, therefore,
to make a trifling suggestion which you will take _pro tanto_: it is
this:—Paley, in his third book, professes to give “a brief consideration
of some popular objections,” and begins Chap. I. with “The discrepancies
between the several Gospels.”
Now, I know you have a Paley, but I know also that you are ill, and that
people who are ill like being saved from small exertions. I have,
therefore, bought a second-hand Paley for a shilling, and have cut out
the chapter to which I especially want to call your attention. Will you
kindly read it through from beginning to end?
Is it fair? Is the statement of our objections anything like what we
should put forward ourselves? And can you believe that Paley with his
profoundly critical instinct, and really great knowledge of the New
Testament, should not have been perfectly well aware that he was
misrepresenting and ignoring the objections which he professed to be
removing?
He must have known very well that the principle of confirmation by
discrepancy is one of very limited application, and that it will not
cover anything approaching to such wide divergencies as those which are
presented to us in the Gospels. Besides, how _can_ he talk about
Matthew’s object as he does, and yet omit all allusion to the wide and
important differences between his account of the Resurrection, and those
of Mark, Luke, and John? Very few know what those differences really
are, in spite of their having the Bible always open to them. I suppose
that Paley felt pretty sure that his readers would be aware of no
difficulty unless he chose to put them up to it, and wisely declined to
do so. Very prudent, but very (as it seems to me) wicked. Now don’t do
this yourself. If you are going to meet us, meet us fairly, and let us
have our say. Don’t pretend to let us have our say while taking good
care that we get no chance of saying it. I know you won’t.
However, will you point out Paley’s unfairness in heading this part of
his work “A brief consideration of some popular objections,” and then
proceeding to give a chapter on “the discrepancies between the several
Gospels,” without going into the details of any of those important
discrepancies which can have been known to none better than himself?
This is the only place, so far as I remember, in his whole book, where he
even touches upon the discrepancies in the Gospels. Does he do so as a
man who felt that they were unimportant and could be approached with
safety, or as one who is determined to carry the reader’s attention away
from them, and fix it upon something else by a _coup de main_?
This chapter alone has always convinced me that Paley did not believe in
his own book. No one could have rested satisfied with it for moment, if
he felt that he was on really strong ground. Besides, how insufficient
for their purpose are his examples of discrepancies which do not impair
the credibility of the main fact recorded!
How would it have been if Lord Clarendon and three other historians had
each told us that the Marquis of Argyll _came to life again after being
beheaded_, and then set to work to contradict each other hopelessly as to
the manner of his reappearance? How if Burnet, Woodrow, and Heath had
given an account which was not at all incompatible with a natural
explanation of the whole matter, while Clarendon gave a circumstantial
story in flat contradiction to all the others, and carefully excluded any
but a supernatural explanation? Ought we to, or should we, allow the
discrepancies to pass unchallenged? Not for an hour—if indeed we did not
rather order the whole story out of court at once, as too wildly
improbable to deserve a hearing.
You will, I know, see all this, and a great deal more, and will point it
better than I can. Let me as an old friend entreat you not to pass this
over, but to allow me to continue to think of you as I always have
thought of you hitherto, namely, as the most impartial disputant in the
world.—Yours, &c.
* * * * *
(_Extract from Paley’s_ “_Evidences_.”—_Part III._, _Chapter 1_. “_The
Discrepancies between the Gospels_.”)
“I know not a more rash or unphilosophical conduct of the understanding,
than to reject the substance of a story, by reason of some diversity in
the circumstances with which it is related. The usual character of human
testimony is substantial truth under circumstantial variety. This is
what the daily experience of courts of justice teaches. When accounts of
a transaction come from the mouths of different witnesses, it is seldom
that it is not possible to pick out apparent or real inconsistencies
between them. These inconsistencies are studiously displayed by an
adverse pleader, but oftentimes with little impression upon the minds of
the judges. On the contrary, close and minute agreement induces the
suspicion of confederacy and fraud. When written histories touch upon
the same scenes of action, the comparison almost always affords ground
for a like reflection. Numerous and sometimes important variations
present themselves; not seldom, also, absolute and final contradictions;
yet neither one nor the other are deemed sufficient to shake the
credibility of the main fact. The embassy of the Jews to deprecate the
execution of Claudian’s order to place his statue in their temple Philo
places in harvest, Josephus in seed-time, both contemporary writers. No
reader is led by this inconsistency to doubt whether such an embassy was
sent, or whether such an order was given. Our own history supplies
examples of the same kind. In the account of the Marquis of Argyll’s
death in the reign of Charles II., we have a very remarkable
contradiction. Lord Clarendon relates that he was condemned to be
hanged, which was performed the same day; on the contrary, Burnet,
Woodrow, Heath, Echard, concur in stating that he was condemned upon the
Saturday, and executed upon a Monday. {158a} Was any reader of English
history ever sceptic enough to raise from hence a question, whether the
Marquis of Argyll was executed or not? Yet this ought to be left in
uncertainty, according to the principles upon which the Christian
religion has sometimes been attacked. Dr. Middleton contended that the
different hours of the day assigned to the Crucifixion of Christ by John
and the other Evangelists, did not admit of the reconcilement which
learned men had proposed; and then concludes the discussion with this
hard remark: ‘We must be forced, with several of the critics, to leave
the difficulty just as we found it, chargeable with all the consequences
of manifest inconsistency.’ {158b} But what are these consequences? By
no means the discrediting of the history as to the principal fact, by a
repugnancy (even supposing that repugnancy not to be resolvable into
different modes of computation) in the time of the day in which it is
said to have taken place.
“A great deal of the discrepancy observable in the Gospels arises from
_omission_; from a fact or a passage of Christ’s life being noticed by
one writer, which is unnoticed by another. Now, omission is at all times
a very uncertain ground of objection. We perceive it not only in the
comparison of different writers, but even in the same writer, when
compared with himself. There are a great many particulars, and some of
them of importance, mentioned by Josephus in his Antiquities, which as we
should have supposed, ought to have been put down by him in their place
in the Jewish Wars. {159a} Suetonius, Tacitus, Dion Cassius have all
three written of the reign of Tiberius. Each has mentioned many things
omitted by the rest, {159b} yet no objection is from thence taken to the
respective credit of their histories. We have in our own times, if there
were not something indecorous in the comparison, the life of an eminent
person, written by three of his friends, in which there is very great
variety in the incidents selected by them, some apparent, and perhaps
some real, contradictions: yet without any impeachment of the substantial
truth of their accounts, of the authenticity of the books, of the
competent information or general fidelity of the writers.
“But these discrepancies will be still more numerous, when men do not
write histories, but _memoirs_; which is perhaps the true name and proper
description of our Gospels; that is, when they do not undertake, or ever
meant to deliver, in order of time, a regular and complete account of
_all_ the things of importance which the person who is the subject of
their history did or said; but only, out of many similar ones, to give
such passages, or such actions and discourses, as offered themselves more
immediately to their attention, came in the way of their enquiries,
occurred to their recollection, or were suggested by their _particular
design_ at the time of writing.
“This particular design may appear sometimes, but not always, nor often.
Thus I think that the particular design which St. Matthew had in view
whilst he was writing the history of the Resurrection, was to attest the
faithful performance of Christ’s promise to his disciples to go before
them into Galilee; because he alone, except Mark, who seems to have taken
it from him, has recorded this promise, and he alone has confined his
narrative to that single appearance to the disciples which fulfilled it.
It was the preconcerted, the great and most public manifestation of our
Lord’s person. It was the thing which dwelt upon St. Matthew’s mind, and
he adapted his narrative to it. But, that there is nothing in St.
Matthew’s language which negatives other appearances, or which imports
that this his appearance to his disciples in Galilee, in pursuance of his
promise, was his first or only appearance, is made pretty evident by St.
Mark’s Gospel, which uses the same terms concerning the appearance in
Galilee as St. Matthew uses, yet itself records two other appearances
prior to this: ‘Go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth
before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you’
(xvi., 7). We might be apt to infer from these words, that this was the
_first_ time they were to see him: at least, we might infer it with as
much reason as we draw the inference from the same words in Matthew; yet
the historian himself did not perceive that he was leading his readers to
any such conclusion, for in the twelfth and two following verses of this
chapter, he informs us of two appearances, which, by comparing the order
of events, are shown to have been prior to the appearance in Galilee.
‘He appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went
into the country: and they went and told it unto the residue: neither
believed they them. Afterward He appeared unto the eleven as they sat at
meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief, because they believed not
them which had seen Him after He was risen.’ Probably the same
observation, concerning the _particular design_ which guided the
historian, may be of use in comparing many other passages of the
Gospels.”
* * * * *
[My brother’s work, which has been interrupted by the letter and extract
just given, will now be continued. What follows should be considered as
coming immediately after the preceding chapter.—W. B. O.]
* * * * *
BUT there is a much worse set of notes than those on the twenty-eighth
chapter of St. Matthew, and so important is it that we should put an end
to such a style of argument, and get into a manner which shall commend
itself to sincere and able adversaries, that I shall not apologise for
giving them in full here. They refer to the spear wound recorded in St.
John’s Gospel as having been inflicted upon the body of our Lord.
The passage in St. John’s Gospel stands thus (John xix., 32–37)—“Then
came the soldiers and brake the legs of the first and of the other which
was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was
dead already they brake not His legs: but one of the soldiers with a
spear pierced His side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.
And he that saw it bare record, and we know that his record is true, and
he knoweth that he saith true that ye might believe. For these things
were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, ‘A bone of Him shall
not be broken’ and again another Scripture saith, ‘They shall look on Him
whom they pierced.’”
In his note upon the thirty-fourth verse Dean Alford writes—“The lance
must have penetrated deep, for the object was to _ensure_ death.” Now
what warrant is there for either of these assertions? We are told that
the soldiers saw that our Lord was dead already, and that for this reason
they did not break his legs: if there had been any doubt about His being
dead can we believe that they would have hesitated? There is ample proof
of the completeness of the death in the fact that those whose business it
was to assure themselves of its having taken place were so satisfied that
they would be at no further trouble; what need to kill a dead man? If
there had been any question as to the possibility of life remaining, it
would not have been resolved by the thrust of the spear, but in a way
which we must shudder to think of. It is most painful to have had to
write the foregoing lines, but are they not called for when we see a man
so well intentioned and so widely read as the late Dean Alford
condescending to argument which must only weaken the strength of his
cause in the eyes of those who have not yet been brought to know the
blessings and comfort of Christianity? From the words of St. John no one
can say whether the wound was a deep one, or why it was given—yet the
Dean continues, “and see John xx., 27,” thereby implying that the wound
must have been large enough for Thomas to get his hand into it, because
our Lord says, “reach hither thine hand and thrust it into my side.”
This is simply shocking. Words cannot be pressed in this way. Dean
Alford then says that the spear was thrust “probably into the _left_ side
on account of the position of the soldier” (no one can arrive at the
position of the soldier, and no one would attempt to do so, unless
actuated by a nervous anxiety to direct the spear into the heart of the
Redeemer), “and of what followed” (the Dean here implies that the water
must have come from the pericardium; yet in his next note we are led to
infer that he rejects this supposition, inasmuch as the quantity of water
would have been “so small as to have scarcely been observed”). Is this
fair and manly argument, and can it have any other effect than to
increase the scepticism of those who doubt?
Here this note ends. The next begins upon the words “blood and water.”
“The spear,” says the Dean, “perhaps pierced the pericardium or envelope
of the heart” (but why introduce a “perhaps” when there is ample proof of
the death without it?), “in which case a liquid answering to the
description of water may have” (_may_ have) “flowed with the blood, but
the quantity would have been so small as scarcely to have been observed”
(yet in the preceding note he has led us to suppose that he thinks the
water “probably” came from near the heart). “It is scarcely possible
that the separation of the blood into placenta and serum should have
taken place so soon, or that if it had, it should have been described by
an observe as blood and water. It is more probable that the fact here so
strongly testified was a consequence of the extreme exhaustion of the
body of the Redeemer.” (Now if this is the case, the spear-wound does
not prove the death of Him on whom it was inflicted, and Dean Alford has
weakened a strong case for nothing.) “The medical opinions on the
subject are very various and by no means satisfactory.” Satisfactory!
What does Dean Alford mean by satisfactory? If the evidence does not go
to prove that the spear-wound must have been necessarily fatal why not
have said so at once, and have let the whole matter rest in the obscurity
from which no human being can remove it. The wound may have been severe
or may not have been severe, it may have been given in mere wanton
mockery of the dead King of the Jews, for the indignity’s sake: or it may
have been the savage thrust of an implacable foe, who would rejoice at
the mutilation of the dead body of his enemy: none can say of what nature
it was, nor why it was given; but the object of its having been recorded
is no mystery, for we are expressly told that it was in order to shew
_that prophecy was thus fulfilled_: the Evangelist tells us so in the
plainest language: he even goes farther, for he says that these things
were _done_ for this end (not only that they were _recorded_)—so that the
primary motive of the Almighty in causing the soldier to be inspired with
a desire to inflict the wound is thus graciously vouchsafed to us, and we
have no reason to harrow our feelings by supposing that a deeper thrust
was given than would suffice for the fulfilment of the prophecy. May we
not then well rest thankful with the knowledge which the Holy Spirit has
seen fit to impart to us, without causing the weak brother to offend by
our special pleading?
The reader has now seen the two first of Dean Alford’s notes upon this
subject, and I trust he will feel that I have used no greater plainness,
and spoken with no greater severity than the case not only justifies but
demands. We can hardly suppose that the Dean himself is not firmly
convinced that our Lord died upon the Cross, but there are millions who
are not convinced, and whose conviction should be the nearest wish of
every Christian heart. How deeply, therefore, should we not grieve at
meeting with a style of argument from the pen of one of our foremost
champions, which can have no effect but that of making the sceptic
suspect that the evidences for the death of our Lord are felt, even by
Christians, to be insufficient. For this is what it comes to.
Let us, however, go on to the note on John xix., 35, that is to say on
St. John’s emphatic assertion of the truth of what he is recording. The
note stands thus, “This emphatic assertion of the fact seems rather to
regard the whole incident than the mere outflowing of the blood and
water. It was the object of John to shew that the Lord’s body was a
_real body_ and _underwent real death_.” (This is not John’s own
account—supposing that John is the writer of the fourth Gospel—either of
his own object in recording, or yet of the object of the wound’s having
been inflicted; his words, as we have seen above, run thus:—“and he that
saw it bare record, and we know that his record is true; and he knoweth
that he saith true that ye might believe. _For these things were done
that the Scripture should be fulfilled_ which saith ‘a bone of him shall
not be broken,’ and, again, another Scripture saith, ‘they shall look
upon’ him whom they pierced.’” Who shall dare to say that St. John had
any other object than to show that the event which he relates had been
long foreseen, and foretold by the words of the Almighty?) And both
these were shewn by what took place, _not so much by the phenomenon of
the water and blood_” (then here we have it admitted that so much
disingenuousness has been resorted to for no advantage, inasmuch as the
fact of the water and blood having flowed is not _per se_ proof of a
necessarily fatal wound) “as by the infliction of such a wound” (Such a
wound! What can be the meaning of this? What has Dean Alford made clear
about the wound? We know absolutely nothing about the severity or
intention of the wound, and it is mere baseless conjecture and assumption
to say that we do; neither do we know anything concerning its effect
unless it be shewn that the issuing of the blood and water _prove_ that
death must have ensued, and this Dean Alford has just virtually admitted
to be not shewn), after which, _even if death had not taken place before_
(this is intolerable), _there could not by any possibility be life
remaining_.” (The italics on this page are mine.)
With this climax of presumptuous assertion these disgraceful notes are
ended. They have shewn clearly that the wound does not in itself prove
the death: they shew no less clearly that the Dean does not consider that
the death is proved beyond possibility of doubt _without_ the wound; what
therefore should be the legitimate conclusion? Surely that we have no
proof of the completeness of Christ’s death upon the Cross—or in other
words no proof of His having died at all! Couple this with the notes
upon the Resurrection considered above, and we feel rather as though we
were in the hands of some Jesuitical unbeliever, who was trying to
undermine our faith in our most precious convictions under the guise of
defending them, than in those of one whom it is almost impossible to
suspect of such any design. What should we say if we had found Newton,
Adam Smith or Darwin, arguing for their opinions thus? What should we
think concerning any scientific cause which we found thus defended? We
should exceedingly well know that it was lost. And yet our leading
theologians are to be applauded and set in high places for condescending
to such sharp practice as would be despised even by a disreputable
attorney, as too transparently shallow to be of the smallest use to him.
After all that has been said either by Dean Alford or any one else, we
know nothing more than what we are told by the Apostle, namely, that
immediately before being taken down from the Cross our Lord’s body was
wounded more severely, or less severely, as the case may be, with the
point of a spear, that from this wound there flowed something which to
the eyes of the writer resembled blood and water, and that the whole was
done in order that a well-known prophecy might be fulfilled. Yet his
sentences in reference to this fact being ended, without his having added
one iota to our knowledge upon the subject, the Dean gravely winds up by
throwing a doubt upon the certainty of our Lord’s death which was not
felt by a single one of those upon the spot, and resting his clenching
proof of its having taken place upon a wound, which he has just virtually
admitted to have not been necessarily fatal. Nothing can be more
deplorable either as morality or policy.
Yet the Dean is justified by the event. One would have thought he could
have been guilty of nothing short of infatuation in hoping that the above
notes would pass muster with any ordinarily intelligent person, but he
knew that he might safely trust to the force of habit and prejudice in
the minds of his readers, and his confidence has not been misplaced. Of
all those engaged in the training of our young men for Holy Orders, of
all our Bishops and clergy and tutors at colleges, whose very profession
it is to be lovers of truth and candour, who are paid for being so, and
who are mere shams and wolves in sheep’s clothing if they are not ever on
the look-out for falsehood, to make war upon it as the enemy of our
souls—not one, _no_, _not a single one_, so far as I know, has raised his
voice in protest. If a man has not lost his power of weeping let him
weep for this; if there is any who realises the crime of self-deception,
as perhaps the most subtle and hideous of all forms of sin, let him lift
up his voice and proclaim it now; for the times are not of peace, but of
a sowing of wind for the reaping of whirlwinds, and of the calm that is
the centre of the hurricane.
Either Christianity is the truth of truths—the one which should in this
world overmaster all others in the thoughts of all men, and compared with
which all other truths are insignificant except as grouping themselves
around it—or it is at the best a mistake which should be set right as
soon as possible. There is no middle course. Either Jesus Christ was
the Son of God, or He was not. If He was, His great Father forbid that
we should juggle in order to prove Him so—that we should higgle for an
inch of wound more, or an inch less, and haggle for the root νυy in the
Greek word ενυξε. Better admit that the death of Christ must be ever a
matter of doubt, should so great a sacrifice be demanded of us, than go
near to the handling of a lie in order to make assurance doubly sure. No
truthful mind can doubt that the cause of Christ is far better served by
exposing an insufficient argument than by silently passing it over, or
else that the cause of Christ is one to be attacked and not defended.