THE PROOFS
OF
CHRIST’S RESURRECTION;
FROM A LAWYER’S STANDPOINT.
BY
CHARLES R. MORRISON.
[Illustration]
ANDOVER:
WARREN F. DRAPER.
1882.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882,
BY WARREN F. DRAPER,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
_All Rights Reserved._
PREFACE.
The present treatise is intended to give what the author has often felt
the need of—a compact and thoroughly reliable statement of the principal
historical facts to the authenticity and integrity of the New Testament
writings concerning our Lord, and the presumptions from them which
establish his claims as our Divine Redeemer and Saviour.
The question of his Resurrection from the dead is selected as the pivot,
because everything hinges upon it. This question, whichever way it is
determined, is decisive. It is a question which greatly concerns every
one. It is a question of evidence, and as such is especially deserving
of careful inquiry by members of the legal profession. For, as Prof.
Greenleaf observed in his work hereafter cited,—“If a close examination
of the evidences of Christianity may be expected of one class of men more
than another, it would seem incumbent on us, who make the law of evidence
one of our peculiar studies.”
As the question of Christ’s Resurrection is the objective point of our
inquiries, all other questions are subordinated to it, and examined so
far only as deemed material to the main question.
The author has availed himself of a lawyer’s privilege, and made use
of the researches, arguments, and conclusions of others who may justly
be regarded as authority, and to whom he has given credit as far as
practicable, but has endeavored to form an independent judgment in view
of all accessible sources of information.
The work is, in the main, as published in a series of articles in the
_New Hampshire Journal_, and also in the _Vermont Chronicle_, from March
5, 1881, to April 1, 1882, which will explain the use of the common
version in the earlier chapters and the New Revision in the later ones.
While the proofs have been marshalled around the principal fact, those
to establish the subsidiary question of our Four Gospels and the Book
of Acts have been largely centered upon the “Memoirs” mentioned in the
confessedly genuine writings of Justin Martyr. Justin, in his First
Apology, so called, written before the year one hundred and fifty of our
era, and probably ten years earlier, has given a graphic account of the
usages in the churches generally. In this account he says that, on the
“day called Sunday,” Memoirs of Christ were read with the Prophets, in
all their assemblies. Hence, when it is ascertained that these Memoirs
were our Canonical Gospels, we make a long stride toward the conclusion
of their undoubted authenticity and genuineness.
To all questions of evidence which arise, the author applies legal
principles and presumptions derived from experience and constantly acted
upon in courts of justice. He asks of the reader a patient perusal to
the end, for he confidently believes that the vital fact of Christ’s
Resurrection, with all the grand consequences which necessarily follow
it, is as susceptible of proof, from undoubted historical facts and solid
argument, as any other event in history.
The work is written for busy men in all the walks of life, and the writer
has endeavored to make himself understood.
CHARLES R. MORRISON.
MANCHESTER, N. H., August, 1882.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. SOURCES OF EVIDENCE 7
II. ADMISSIONS AND PRESUMPTIONS 12
III. PAPIAS AND JUSTIN MARTYR 14
IV. THE MEMOIRS INTENDED BY JUSTIN MARTYR 18
V. QUOTATIONS AND CITATIONS 23
VI. JUSTIN’S USE OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL 30
VII. NO OTHERS PROVED 34
VIII. PRESUMPTION OF PERMANENCY 43
IX. THE MEMOIRS OF THE YEAR ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY 45
X. ASCENDING THE STREAM 50
XI. STILL ASCENDING THE STREAM 57
XII. IN THEIR PROPER REPOSITORIES 63
XIII. INTEGRITY OF THE GOSPELS 67
XIV. THE CREDIBILITY OF THE EVANGELISTS 74
XV. THE APOCALYPSE AND THE FOUR EPISTLES 81
XVI. HIS PREDICTIONS CONCERNING HIMSELF 89
XVII. ORDER OF EVENTS 101
XVIII. SUFFICIENCY OF THE PROOFS 110
(_False Assumptions._)
XIX. SUFFICIENCY OF THE PROOFS 120
(_Affirmative Evidence._)
XX. LOGICAL RESULTS 134
INDEX 143
THE PROOFS OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION.
CHAPTER I.
SOURCES OF EVIDENCE.
It is a characteristic of all who deny this and all other miracles,
that they beg the whole question to begin with. They assume as an axiom
that a miracle is impossible, or impossible to be proved by human
testimony. Or, to put it more mildly, in the language of one of their
number (Renan[1]), “neither men of the people nor men of the world are
competent to prove it. Great precaution and a long habit of scientific
research are requisite.” If these are sound axioms, it should be a matter
of indifference who were the witnesses, or what their credibility or
means of knowledge, since at the best they were but human, and it is not
claimed that they were experts or _savans_ after the modern skeptical
school, although they might be expected to know whether one who walked
with them, and to whose instructions they listened, and from whom they
received their commission, were dead or alive.
It is also a comfortable assumption on their part that no one is a
scholar who does not agree with their opinion, and many young men who
would not be thought to be behind the times are misled by their confident
boasting. “No modern theologian,” says Strauss,[2] “who is also a
scholar, now considers any of the four Gospels to be the work of its
pretended author, or in fact to be by an Apostle or colleague of an
Apostle.” The logic of this is, that if any one does so consider them,
he is not a scholar. The same kind of scholarship and habit of thinking
that induced this wise conclusion brought him at last to the denial of
the existence of a personal God or a future life. His experience is
instructive, and shows the inevitable tendency of all reasoning that
denies the possibility of a miracle or a divine revelation. Mill’s hard
logic cannot well be resisted. “Once admit a God, and the production, by
his direct volition, of an effect which in any case owed its origin to
his creative will, is no more a purely arbitrary hypothesis to account
for the past, but must be reckoned with as a serious possibility.” If,
then, a miracle may occur, it may be proved[A] by human testimony, for
the very motive or reason for its occurrence, or, at least the principal
reason, must be its value as an attestation.
And the immense labor which the Tübingen school and every class of
skeptics have bestowed in attempts to disprove the authorship of the
Four Gospels, shows that they have not much confidence in their axioms
after all. Why so anxious as to the witnesses, if it is immaterial who
they are, or what they testify to? If a miracle cannot be proved by
_any_ evidence, why have they multiplied books to prove or disprove the
authorship of the gospels?
THE BEST EVIDENCE.
The best evidence of which the subject admits, is all that is required
in courts; and it is sufficient in matters of the highest concern, even
in cases of life and death, that a fact be proved beyond a reasonable
doubt. The best evidence to Christ’s disciples of his resurrection, was
that of their own senses. This evidence we cannot have. We are in the
position, in some respects, of jurors, who must decide not from their
own knowledge, but upon the testimony of others. We have not, however,
the witnesses upon the stand, but only what may be regarded as their
depositions, and it is made a question whether the writings produced are
their depositions.
The question, then, in this stage is, who were the writers of the Four
Gospels and the book of Acts? As to the latter, the writer claims to
have written a former treatise, and it seems to be taken by both parties
to the controversy, that the same person (whoever he was) wrote both
books, so that any evidence of Luke’s authorship of the third Gospel, is
evidence of his authorship of Acts, and _vice versa_. And the same is
true in respect to the Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle of John.
The best evidence as to the authorship of any of these books which
the nature of the subject admits of, is from history and tradition,
including in these terms quotations, citations, harmonies, commentaries,
translations, and manuscripts.
There are two modes of presenting this evidence. One is to begin with
their present acknowledged acceptance, and ascend the stream; the
other is to strike tributaries, as near their source as we are able,
and descend to the river. The latter will be adopted here in the first
instance, and ultimately both modes of proof.
LOST TRIBUTARIES.
One hundred years from the crucifixion, churches had been established
in all the cities and in many of the villages of the Roman Empire, from
Cappadocia and Pontus on the east, to Gaul on the west, and Christians
were very numerous. Tacitus describes those at Rome at the time of Nero’s
barbarity, as “a great multitude,” and Pliny, in his letter to Trajan,
_cir._ A.D. 110, affirms that the heathen temples were almost deserted,
so that the sacred victims scarcely found any purchasers, and that the
“superstition,” as he termed it, not only infected the cities, but had
even spread into the villages, of Pontus and Bithynia (Gibbon, p. 576).
Hence persons unacquainted with the subject might suppose that it would
be easy to adduce abundant proof from writers of the first century, as to
what memoirs of our Lord, if any, were in the churches at the time Pliny
wrote his celebrated letter. Such, however, is not the fact.
There is no _direct_ historical testimony known to be earlier than the
first apology[3] of Justin Martyr to the Roman Emperor, _cir._ A.D. 139.
There are certain fragments written by Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis,
which may be of an earlier date, but this is uncertain. There are also
quotations apparently from the third and fourth Gospels, by Basilides,[4]
the Gnostic heretic who flourished at Alexandria as early as A.D. 125.
There is an epistle to the Philippian church, attributed to Polycarp
which Dean Stanley thinks dates about A.D. 130. Its genuineness is not
universally admitted. There is an epistle, conceded to be genuine, from
the church at Rome to the church at Corinth, of the probable date of
A.D. 95. There are epistles attributed by some to Ignatius, who suffered
martyrdom, _cir._ A.D. 107, but their genuineness is controverted. There
are in addition three other writings known as the Epistle of Barnabas,
the Letter to Diognetus, and the Pastor Hermas. They are by unknown
authors, and of uncertain date, but were probably written in the latter
part of the first or the first part of the second century.
And these are all that have come down to us in any form from the first
one hundred years after the crucifixion. That we have no more is
easily explained. This period was one of intense activity and violent
persecutions. Five (as some reckon them) of the ten general persecutions
were within[5] this period. The first was under Nero, A.D. 64, the second
under Domitian, A.D. 95, the third under Trajan, A.D. 100, the fourth
under Antoninus the Philosopher, and the fifth under Severus, A.D. 127;
and, as some of these continued several years, there was scarcely an
intermission for three-quarters of a century. The horrible tortures and
cruel deaths under Nero are well-known, and, under Domitian, forty
thousand were supposed to have suffered martyrdom.
It is no matter of surprise, therefore, that so little has reached us
from this early period. Christians were making history, not writing
it, and of their writings the most perished. There were hundreds and
thousands who well knew what memoirs of our Lord were accepted by the
churches in this period, from whose lips no voice comes except in the
volume of universal tradition.
[1] Renan’s Life of Jesus, p. 43.
[2] The Old Faith and the New (1874), p. 45.
[A] See also _post_, c. 18.
[3] A.D. 138 or 139 is the date most usually assigned to this most
important work, although some place it as late as A.D. 150. If his
statement in it that “Christ was born 150 years ago” were to be taken
strictly, it would make its date A.D. 146 or A.D. 144, according as
we allow four or six years as the error for the beginning of the true
Christian era; but he may have used the number in a general way. His
martyrdom is variously stated at A.D. 165 and A.D. 167.
[4] That the quotations were by Basilides himself Matthew Arnold’s
reasoning seems entirely satisfactory, and “no one” he says, “who had
not a theory to serve would ever dream of doubting it.” Perhaps it may
be permitted to regard Matthew Arnold as a “scholar;” and see Abbot’s
“Fourth Gospel,” Boston (1880), p. 86. See also _post_, c. 5.
[5] Buck’s Theological Dictionary, and Vol. VII of M’Clintock and
Strong’s Cyclopedia, p. 966.