IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE?
"For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we
had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols, to serve
the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven,
whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us
from the wrath to come."--1 Thess. i. 9, 10.
In the last chapter we ascertained that the Gospels and Epistles were
not forgeries of some nameless monks of the third century--that the
shopkeepers, silversmiths, tent-makers, coppersmiths, tanners,
physicians, senators, town councilors, officers of customs, city
treasurers, and nobles of Cæsar's household, in Rome, Antioch, Ephesus,
Corinth, Athens, and Alexandria, could no more be imposed upon in the
matter of documents, attested by the well-known signatures of their
beloved ministers, than you could by forged letters or sermons
purporting to come from your own pastor--and that the documents which
they believed to contain the directory of their lives, and the charter
of that salvation which they valued more than their lives, which they
read in their churches, recited at their tables, quoted in their
writings, appealed to in their controversies, translated into many
languages, and dispersed into every part of the known world, they
neither would, nor could, corrupt or falsify.
The genuineness of the copies of the New Testament, which we now
possess, is abundantly proved by the comparison of over two thousand
manuscripts, from all parts of the world; scrutinized during a period of
nearly a hundred years, by the most critical scholars, so accurately
that the variations of such things as would correspond to the crossing
of a t, or the dotting of an i, in English, have been carefully
enumerated; yet the result of the whole of this searching scrutiny has
been merely the suggestion of a score of unimportant alterations in the
received text of the seven thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine verses
of the New Testament. This is a fact utterly unexampled in the history
of manuscripts. There are but six manuscripts of the Comedies of
Terence, and these have not been copied once for every thousand times
the New Testament has been transcribed, yet there are thirty thousand
variations found in these six manuscripts, or an average of five
thousand for each, and many of them seriously affect the sense. The
average number of variations in the manuscripts of the New Testament
examined, is not quite thirty for each, including all the trivialities
already noticed.
We are, then, by the special providence of God, now as undoubtedly in
possession of genuine copies of the Gospels and Epistles, written by the
companions of Jesus, as we are of genuine copies of the Constitution of
the United States, and of the Declaration of Independence. These are
historic documents, of well-established genuineness and antiquity, which
we now proceed to examine as to their truthfulness.
There is no history so trustworthy as that prepared by contemporary
writers, especially by those who have themselves been actively engaged
in the events which they relate. Such history never loses its interest,
nor does the lapse of ages, in the least degree, impair its credibility.
While the documents can be preserved, Xenophon's Retreat of the Ten
Thousand, Cæsar's Gallic War, and the Dispatches of the Duke of
Wellington, will be as trustworthy as on the day they were written. Yet
some suspicion may arise in our minds, that these commanders and
historians might have kept back some important events which would have
dimmed their reputation with posterity, or might have colored those they
have related, so as to add to their fame. Of the great facts related in
memoirs addressed to their companions in arms, able at a glance to
detect a falsehood, we never entertain the least suspicion.
If, to this be added, the correspondence of monuments, architecture,
painting, statuary, coins, heraldry, and a thousand changes in the
manners and customs of a people, we become as absolutely convinced of
the truth of the narrative thus confirmed by these silent witnesses as
if we had seen the events described. No man who visits the disinterred
city of Pompeii, and sees the pavements marked by the wheel ruts, has
any doubt that the Romans used wheeled carriages. When he sees the
court-yards adorned with mosaic figures, and the walls with paintings of
the gods, and of the manners of the people who worshiped them, he is
profoundly impressed with the conviction that they excelled in the fine
arts, and in the coarse vices of heathenism. When he visits the
Coliseum, that vast ruin declares that the wealth of an empire, once
devoted to the gratification of the most savage passions, has been
diverted into some other channel. When he visits the catacombs, and
reads long lines of heathen epitaphs, with their despairing symbols of
broken columns, extinguished torches, and their heart-breaking
"Farewell! an eternal farewell!" and then turns to the monuments of only
two centuries later, and reads, "He sleeps in the Lord," "He waits the
resurrection to life eternal," recording the hopes of whole generations
of survivors, he can not doubt the truth of the written records of the
conversion of the Roman Empire.
There is, moreover, another kind of contemporary history not so
connected and regular as the formal diary or journal, which does not
even propose to relate history at all, but is for that very reason
entirely removed from the suspicion of giving a coloring to it; which,
at the cost of a little patience and industry, gives us the most
convincing confirmations of the truth, or exposures of the mistakes of
historians, by the undesigned and incidental way in which the use of a
name, a date, a proverb, a jest, an expletive, a quotation, an allusion,
flashes conviction upon the reader's mind. I mean contemporary
correspondence. If we have the private letters of celebrated men laid
before us, we are enabled to look right into them, and see their true
character. Thus Macaulay exhibits to the world the proud, lying, stupid
tyrant, James, displayed in his own letters. Thus Voltaire records
himself an adulterer, and begs his friend, D'Alembert, to lie for him;
his friend replies that he has done so. Thus the correspondence of the
great American herald of the Age of Reason exhibits him drinking a quart
of brandy daily at his friend's expense, and refusing to pay his bill
for boarding. In the unguarded freedom of confidential correspondence
the vail is taken from the heart. We see men as they are. The true man
stands out in his native dignity, and the gilding is rubbed off the
hypocrite. Give the world their letters, and let the grave silence the
plaudits and the clamors which deafened the generation among whom they
lived, and no man will hesitate whether or not to pronounce Hume a
sensualist, or Washington the noblest work of God--an honest man.
If we add another test of truthfulness, by increasing the number of the
witnesses, comparing a number of letters referring to the same events,
written by persons of various degrees of education, and of different
occupations and ranks of life, resident in different countries, acting
independently of each other, and find them all agree in their allusions
to, or direct mention of, some central facts concerning which they are
all interested, no one can rightfully doubt that this undesigned
agreement declares the truth. But if, in addition to all these
undesigned coincidences, we happen upon the correspondence of persons
whose interests and passions were diametrically opposed to those of our
correspondents, and find that, when they have occasion to refer to them,
they also confirm the great facts already ascertained, then our belief
becomes conviction which can not be overturned by any sophistry, that
these things did occur. If Whig and Tory agree in relating the facts of
James' flight, and William's accession, if the letters of his Jacobite
friends and those of the French ambassador confirm the statements of the
English historian, and if we are put in possession of the letters which
James himself wrote from France and Ireland to his friends in England,
does any man in his common sense doubt that the Revolution of 1688 did
actually occur?
When, in addition to all this concentration and convergence of
testimony, one finds that the matters related, being of public concern,
and the changes effected for the public weal, the people have ever since
observed, and do to this day celebrate, by religious worship and public
rejoicings, the anniversaries of the principal events of that
Revolution, and that he himself has been present, and has heard the
thanksgivings, and witnessed the rejoicings on those anniversaries, the
facts of the history come out from the domains of learned curiosity, and
take their stand on the market-place of the busy world's engagements. We
become at once conscious that this is a practical question--a great fact
which concerns us--that the whole of the law and government of a vast
empire has felt its impress--that our ancestors and ourselves have been
molded under its influence, and that the religion of Europe and America,
under whose guardianship we have grown to a prominent place among the
people of earth, and may arrive at a better prominence among the nations
of the saved, has been secured by that Revolution. We could scarcely
know whether most to pity or contemn the man who should labor to
persuade us that such a Revolution had never occurred, or that the
facts had been essentially misrepresented.
Now it is precisely on this kind of evidence that we believe the great
facts of the Christian Revolution. We have contemporary histories,
formal and informal; letters, public and private, from the principal
agents in it, and opposers of it, dispersed from Babylon to Rome, and
addressed to Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Asiatics, written by physicians,
fishermen, proconsuls, emperors, and apostles. We have miles of
monuments, paintings, statuary, cabinets of coins, and all the heraldry
of Christendom. And these great facts stand out more prominently on the
theater of the world's business as effecting changes on our laws and
lives, and their introduction as authenticated by public commemorations,
more solemn and more numerous than those resulting from the English or
the American Revolution. Our main difficulty lies in selecting, from the
vast mass of materials, a portion sufficiently distinct and manageable
to be handled in a single essay.
We shall be guided by the motto already announced as the rule of
inductive research. One thing at a time; and the nearest first. The
Epistles, being nearer our own times than the Gospels, claim our first
notice, and first among these, those which stand latest on the page of
sacred history, the letters of John; two from Peter to the Christians of
Asia; and those which Paul, in chains for the gospel, dictated from
imperial Rome.
From the abundant notices of the early Christians by historians and
philosophers, satirists and comedians, martyrs and magistrates, Jewish,
Christian, and heathen, I shall select only two for comparison with the
Epistles and of the apostles; and both those heathen--the celebrated
letter of Pliny to Trajan, and the well-established history of Tacitus;
both utterly undeniable, and admitted by the most skeptical to be above
suspicion. Not that I suppose that the testimony of men who do not take
the trouble of making any inquiry into the reality of the facts of the
Christian religion is more accurate than that of those whose lives were
devoted to its study; or that we have any just reason to attach as much
weight to the assertions of persons, who, by their own showing, tortured
and murdered men and women convicted of no crime but that of bearing the
name of Christ, as to those of these martyrs, whose characters they
acknowledged to be blameless, and who sealed their testimony with the
last and highest attestation of sincerity--their blood. Considered
merely as a historian, whether, as regards means of knowledge, or tests
of truthfulness, by every unprejudiced mind, Peter will always be
preferred to Pliny. But because the world will ever love its own, and
hate the disciples of the Lord, there will always be a large class to
whom the history of Tacitus will seem more veritable than that of Luke,
and the letters of Pliny more reliable than those of Peter. For their
sakes we avail ourselves of that most convincing of all
attestations--the testimony of an enemy. What friends and foes unite in
attesting must be accepted as true.
The facts which we shall thus establish are not, in the first instance,
those called miraculous. We are now ascertaining the general character
for truthfulness of our letter writers and historians. If we find that
their general historic narrative is contradicted by that of other
credible historians, then we suspect their story. But if we find that,
in all essential matters of public notoriety, they are supported by the
concurred testimony of their foes, and that the narrative of the
miracles they relate bears the seals of thousands who from foes became
friends, from conviction of its truth, then we receive their witness as
true. Even in Paul's day, heathen Greek writers bore testimony to the
apostles, what manner of entering in they had unto the converts of
Thessalonica; and how they turned to God from idols, to serve the
living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised
from the dead--even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come.
Pliny wrote forty years later.
Pliny, the younger, was born A. D. 61, was prætor under Domitian, consul
in the third year of Trajan, A. D. 100, was exceedingly desirous to add
to his other honors that of the priesthood; was accordingly consecrated
an augur, and built temples, bought images, and consecrated them on his
estates; was, in A. D. 106, appointed Governor of the Roman Provinces of
Pontus and Bithynia[73]--a vast tract of Asia Minor, lying along the
shores of the Black Sea and the Propontis; and including the province
anciently called Mysia, in which were situated Pergamos and Thyatira,
and in the immediate vicinity of Sardis and Philadelphia. Pliny reached
his province by the usual route, the port of Ephesus; where John had
lived for many years, and indited his letters, A. D. 96, scarcely ten
years before. The letters of Peter to the strangers scattered through
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, bring us to the same
mountainous region, eight hundred miles distant from Judea; whence, in
earlier days, our savage ancestors received those Phoenician priests
of Baal, whose round towers mark the coasts of Ireland nearest to the
setting sun; and whence, about the period under consideration, came the
heralds of the Sun of Righteousness, who brought the "_Leabhar
Eoin_"[74] which tells their children of him in whom is the life and the
light of men. Natives of these countries had been in Jerusalem during
the crucifixion of Jesus, and, though only strangers, had witnessed the
darkness, and the earthquake, and had heard the rumors of what had come
to pass in those days; and on the day of Pentecost had mingled with the
curious crowd around the apostles, and heard them speak, in their own
mother tongues, of the wonderful works of God. The remainder of the
story of their conversion we gather from the letters of Peter, John, and
Pliny.
"Pliny, to the Emperor Trajan, wisheth health and
happiness:[75]
"It is my constant custom, Sire, to refer myself to you in all
matters concerning which I have any doubt. For who can better
direct me when I hesitate, or instruct me when I am ignorant?
"I have never been present at any trials of Christians, so
that I know not well what is the subject matter of punishment,
or of inquiry, or what strictures ought to be used in either.
Nor have I been a little perplexed to determine whether any
difference ought to be made upon account of age, or whether
the young and tender, and the full grown and robust, ought to
be treated all alike; whether repentance should entitle to
pardon, or whether all who have once been Christians ought to
be punished, though they are now no longer so; whether the
name itself, although no crimes be detected, or crimes only
belonging to the name ought to be punished.
"In the meantime, I have taken this course with all who have
been brought before me, and have been accused as Christians. I
have put the question to them, whether they were Christians.
Upon their confessing to me that they were, I repeated the
question a second and a third time, threatening also to punish
them with death. Such as still persisted, I ordered away to be
punished; for it was no doubt with me, whatever might be the
nature of their opinion, that contumacy and inflexible
obstinacy ought to be punished. There were others of the same
infatuation, whom, because they are Roman citizens, I have
noted down to be sent to the city.
"In a short time the crime spreading itself, even whilst under
persecution, as is usual in such cases, divers sorts of people
came in my way. An information was presented to me, without
mentioning the author, containing the names of many persons,
who, upon examination, denied that they were Christians, or
had even been so; who repeated after me an invocation of the
gods, and with wine and frankincense made supplication to your
image, which, for that purpose, I have caused to be brought
and set before them, together with the statues of the deities.
Moreover, they reviled the name of Christ. None of which
things, as is said, they who are really Christians can by any
means be compelled to do. These, therefore, I thought proper
to discharge.
"Others were named by an informer, who at first confessed
themselves Christians, and afterward denied it. The rest said
they had been Christians, but had left them; some three years
ago, some longer, and one or more above twenty years. They all
worshiped your image, and the statues of the gods; these also
reviled Christ. They affirmed that the whole of their fault or
error lay in this: that they were wont to meet together, on a
stated day, before it was light, and sing among themselves
alternately, a hymn to Christ as a God, and bind themselves by
a sacrament, not to the commission of any wickedness, but not
to be guilty of theft, or robbery, or adultery; never to
falsify their word, nor to deny a pledge committed to them,
when called upon to return it. When these things were
performed, it was their custom to separate, and then to come
together again to a meal, which they ate in common, without
any disorder; but this they had forborne since the publication
of my edict, by which, according to your command, I prohibited
assemblies. After receiving this account, I judged it the more
necessary to examine two maid servants, which were called
ministers, by torture. But I have discovered nothing besides a
bad and excessive superstition.
"Suspending, therefore, all judicial proceedings, I have
recourse to you for advice; for it has appeared to me a matter
highly deserving consideration, especially upon account of the
great number of persons who are in danger of suffering. For
many of all ages, and every rank, of both sexes likewise, are
accused, and will be accused. Nor has the contagion of this
superstition seized cities only, but the lesser towns also,
and the open country. Nevertheless, it seems to me that it may
be restrained and arrested. It is certain that the temples,
which were almost forsaken, begin to be frequented. And the
sacred solemnities, after a long intermission, are revived.
Victims, likewise, are everywhere brought up, whereas, for
some time, there were few purchasers. Whence, it is easy to
imagine, what numbers of men might be reclaimed, if pardon
were granted to those who shall repent."
* * * * *
"Trajan to Pliny, wisheth health and happiness:[76]
"You have taken the right course, my Pliny, in your
proceedings with those who have been brought before you as
Christians; for it is impossible to establish any one rule
that shall hold universally. They are not to be sought after.
If any are brought before you, and are convicted, they ought
to be punished. However, he that denies his being a Christian,
and makes it evident in fact, that is, by supplicating to our
gods, though he be suspected to have been so formerly, let him
be pardoned upon repentance. But in no case, of any crime
whatever, may a bill of information be received without being
signed by him who presents it, for that would be a dangerous
precedent, and unworthy of my government."
I must request my reader now to procure a New Testament, and read, at
one reading, the First General Epistle of Peter, the First General
Epistle of John, and the Seven Epistles to the Churches in Ephesus,
Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea--only
about as much matter as four pages of _Harper's Magazine_, or half a
page of the _Commercial_--that he may be able to do the same justice to
the apostles as to the governor. He will thus be able to see the force
of the various allusions to the numbers, doctrines, morals,
persecutions, and perseverance of the Christians, contained in those
letters; the object which I have in view being, to establish their
authenticity by proving the truthfulness of their allusions to these
things. If you think this too much trouble, please lay down the book,
and dismiss the consideration of religion from your thoughts. If the
letters of the apostles are not worth a careful reading, it is of no
consequence whether they are true or false.
1. These letters take for granted, that the fact of the existence of
large numbers of Christians, organized into churches, and meeting
regularly for religious worship, at the close of the first century, is a
matter of public notoriety to the world. Here, in countries eight
hundred miles distant from its birthplace, in the lifetime of those who
had seen its founder crucified, we find Christians scattered over
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia--churches in seven
provincial cities, the sect well known to Pliny, before he left Italy,
as a proscribed and persecuted religion, the professors of which were
customarily brought before courts for trial and punishment--though he
had not himself been present at such trials--and now so numerous in his
provinces, that a great number of persons, of both sexes, young and old,
of all ranks, natives and Roman citizens, professed Christianity.
Others, influenced by their example and instruction, renounced idolatry;
victims were not led to sacrifice; the sacred rites of the gods were
suspended, and their temples forsaken. The existence, then, of churches
of Christ, consisting of vast numbers of converted heathens, at the
close of the first century, is in no wise mythological or dubious. It is
an established historical fact. The Epistles of the apostles stand
confirmed by the Epistles of the governor and the emperor.
2. The second great fact presented in the Epistles, and confirmed by the
letters of the governor and the emperor, is, that the worship of the
Christian Church then was essentially the same which it is now. We find
these Christians of the first century commemorating the death and
resurrection of Christ, and rendering divine honors to him; the "stated
day" on which they assembled for worship, and the "common meal," are as
plain a description of the "disciples coming together upon the first day
of the week, to break bread," as a heathen could give in few words.
Their terms of communion too, to which they pledged their members by a
sacrament, "not to be guilty of theft, robbery, or adultery; never to
falsify their word, or deny a pledge committed to them," find their
counterpart in every well-regulated church at this day.
The articles of the Christian faith, then, are not the "gradual
accretions of centuries," nor is the "redemptive idea, as attaching to
Christ, a dogma of the post-Augustine period." The churches of the
first century commemorated the death and resurrection of Jesus, as that
of a divine person, "singing the hymn to him as a God," which their
descendants sing at this day around his table:
"Forever and forever is, O God, thy throne of might,
The scepter of thy kingdom is a scepter that is right,
Thou lovest right, and hatest ill; for God, thy God, Most High,
Above thy fellows hath with th' oil of joy anointed thee."
And the question will force itself upon our minds, and can not be
evaded, How did these apostles persuade such multitudes of heathens to
believe their repeated assertions of the death, resurrection, and glory
of Jesus? In the space of three octavo pages, Peter refers to these
facts eighteen times. John, in like manner, repeatedly affirms them. The
Christian religion consists in the belief of these facts, and a life
corresponding to them. Now, how did the apostles persuade such
multitudes of heathens to believe a report so wonderful, profess a
religion so novel, renounce the gods they had worshiped from their
childhood, and all the ceremonies of an attractive, sensual religion;
"temples of splendid architecture, statues of exquisite sculpture,
priests and victims superbly adorned, attendant beauteous youth of both
sexes, performing all the sacred rites with gracefulness; religious
dances, illuminations, concerts of the sweetest music, perfumes of the
rarest fragrance," and other more licentious enjoyments, inseparable
from heathen worship. How did they persuade them to exchange all this
for the assembly before daybreak, the frugal common meal, the psalm to
Christ, and the commemoration of the death of a crucified malefactor? If
we add, that they commemorated his resurrection, by observing the Lord's
day, the question comes up, How did they come to believe that he was
risen from the dead? Could a few despised strangers, or a few citizens
if you will, persuade such a community, purely by natural means, to
believe such a report, to care whether the Syrian Jew died or rose, or
to commemorate weekly, by a solemn religious service, either his death
or resurrection? It is evident they believed what they commemorated. How
did they come to do so?
But whether we can answer the question or not, the fact stands out as
indisputable, that not merely the writers of the Epistles and Gospels,
and a few enthusiasts, but an immense multitude of all ages, of both
sexes, and of every rank--the whole membership of the primitive
churches--did believe in the death, resurrection, and glory of the Lord
Jesus, and did render to him divine worship. The second great fact,
affirmed in the Epistles, stands confirmed by the testimony of the
heathen governor, and of the Roman emperor.
3. A mere theory of a new religion, unconnected with practice, may be
easily received by those who care little about any, so long as it brings
no suffering or inconvenience. But the religion of these Christians was,
as you see, a practical religion. If their new worship required a great
departure from the worship of their childhood, their Christian morals
required a still greater departure from their former mode of life. I
need not remind you of the moral codes of Socrates, Plato, and
Aristides, who taught that lying, thieving, adultery, and murder were
lawful; nor how much worse than the theory of the best of the heathen
were the lives of the worst; nor how unpopular to persons so educated
would be such teaching as this--"Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered
for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind: for he that
hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin: that he no longer
should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but
to the will of God. For the time past of our life may suffice us to have
wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness,
lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable
idolatries; wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to
the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: who shall give account to
him that is ready to judge the living and the dead." "Lay aside all
malice, and guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings."
"Whosoever abideth in Christ sinneth not. Whosoever sinneth hath not
seen him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive you. He
that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that
committeth sin is of the devil." So sharp, and stern, and strictly
virtuous is apostolic religion, as displayed in these letters. Is it
possible then that these converted heathens did really even approach
this standard of morality? Did this gospel of Christ actually produce
any such reformation of their lives?
You have the testimony of apostates, eager to save their lives by giving
such information as they knew would be acceptable to the persecutor; you
have the testimony of the two aged deaconesses, under torture; you have
the unwilling, but yet express, testimony of their torturer and
murderer, that all his cruel ingenuity could discover nothing worse than
an excessive superstition and culpable obstinacy. What, then, does this
philosophic inspector of entrails, and adorer of idols, call an
excessive superstition and culpable obstinacy? Why, they bound
themselves by the most solemn religious services, not to be guilty of
theft, robbery, or adultery; not to falsify their word, nor deny a
pledge committed to them; and when some senseless blocks of brass were
carried on men's shoulders, into the court-house, to represent a mortal
man, they would not adore them, nor pray to them; no, not though this
philosopher compiled the liturgy, and set the example. For this refusal,
and this alone, he ordered them away to death. Doubtless they heard, in
their hearts, the well-known words, "Let none of you suffer as a
murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil-doer, or as a busybody in other
men's matters. But if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be
ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf."
The morality of the Epistles, then, was not a merely a fine theory, but
an actual rule of life. The moral codes of the apostles were received as
actually binding on the members of the churches of the first century. In
this all-important matter of the rule of a good life--the fruits by
which the tree is known--the integrity, authority, and success of the
apostles, in turning licentious heathens into moral Christians, is
authenticated by the unwilling testimony of their persecutors. The
Epistles of the apostles stand confirmed, as to their ethics, by the
letters of Trajan and Pliny.
4. The only other fact to which I call your attention, from among the
multitude alluded to in these letters, is the cost at which these
converts from heathenism embraced this new religion. Every one who
renounced heathenism, and professed the name of Christ, knew very well
that he must suffer for it. "Beloved, think it not strange concerning
the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing
happened unto you, but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's
sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad with
exceeding joy;" this was the welcome of the Bithynian convert into the
Church of Christ. Persecution by fire and sword was then the common lot
of the Church. "I have never been present at any trials of the
Christians," says the governor. Such trials were well known to him it
seems. He was not sure whether he should murder all who ever had borne
the name of Christ, or only those who proved themselves to be really his
disciples, by refusing to revile him, and return to idolatry; and the
merciful emperor commands him to spare the apostates. Above twenty years
before--in A. D. 86--there were apostates from the persecuted religion.
In A. D. 90, John had written, "they went out from us, that it might be
made manifest they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they
would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out that it might
be made manifest that they were not all of us." So it seems Pliny
thought: "They all worshiped your image, and other statues of the gods;
these also reviled Christ. None of which things, as is said, they who
are really Christians can by any means be compelled to do." What these
means were he tells us: "I put the question to them, whether they were
Christians. Upon their confessing to me that they were, I repeated the
question a second and a third time, threatening, also, to punish them
with death. Such as still persisted, I ordered away to be punished."
What is very remarkable, it was, it seems, "usual in such cases, for the
crime to spread itself, even whilst under persecution." In the face of
such dangers, these heathen would still profess faith in Christ, and
when they might have saved their lives by reviling him, refused to do
so. From the published rescript of the emperor, approving of Pliny's
course, and condemning to death all who were convicted of being really
Christians; from the public circulars of the apostles, warning them of
"fiery trials," "Satan casting some of them into prison," and exhorting
them to "be faithful unto death;" and from such comments on these as the
torture and public execution of aged women as well as men--the terms of
discipleship were well known to the whole world. Yet we see that in the
face of all this, "great numbers of persons, of both sexes, and of all
ages, and of every rank," in Pliny's opinion, were so steadfast in their
faith, that "they were in great danger of suffering."
Here, then, is another well-attested fact, in which the testimony of the
apostles stands confirmed by the signatures of the Bithynian governor,
and the Roman emperor--a fact which stands forth clear, prominent, most
undoubted, without the smallest trace of anything mythological or misty
about it--that, in A. D. 106, great numbers of converted heathens did
suffer exile, torture, and death itself, rather than renounce Christ;
and that it was well known that the Christian faith enabled its
professor to overcome the world.
These four great facts of the later Epistles, being thus established
beyond dispute, in pursuance of our plan, we ascend the stream of
history some forty years, to the time of the earlier Epistles, when Paul
lay in the Prætorian prison, and his faithful companion, Luke, wrote the
continuation of his narrative of the things most surely believed among
the Christians; when "apostles were made as the filth of the world, and
the offscouring of all things;" and Christians "were made a gazing stock
both by reproaches and afflictions;" "were brought before kings and
rulers, and hated of all nations for Christ's name sake;" "endured a
great fight of afflictions;" were "for his sake killed all the day long,
and accounted as sheep for the slaughter;" "were made a spectacle to the
world, to angels, and to men." We remove the field of our investigation
from a remote province of Asia, to one equally remote from Judea, and
far more unfavorable for the growth of the religion of a crucified Jew,
to the proud capital of the world, imperial Rome. The time shall be
shortly after the burning of the city, in A. D. 64, and during the
raging of the first of those systematic, imperial, and savage
persecutions through which the Church of Christ waded, in the bloody
footsteps of her Lord, to world-wide influence, and undying fame. Our
historian shall be the well-known Tacitus; and the single extract from
his history, one of which the infidel Gibbon says:[77] "The most
skeptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of this important
fact, and the integrity of this celebrated passage of Tacitus." I shall
not insert quotations from Paul or Luke; that were merely to transcribe
large portions of the Epistles and Gospels, which whoever will not
carefully peruse, disqualifies himself for forming a judgment of their
veracity. The confirmation of the four facts already established, of
the existence, worship, morals, and sufferings of the disciples of
Christ; and these facts as well known within thirty years after his
death, will sufficiently appear by the perusal of the following
testimony of Tacitus.[78]
After relating the burning of the city, and Nero's attempt to transfer
the odium of it to the sect "commonly known by the name of Christians,"
he says:
"The author of that name was Christ, who, in the reign of
Tiberius, was put to death as a criminal, under the
procurator, Pontius Pilate. But this pestilent superstition,
checked for a while, broke out afresh, and spread not only
over Judea, where the evil originated, but also in Rome, where
all that is evil on the earth finds its way, and is practiced.
At first, those only were apprehended who confessed themselves
of that sect; afterward, _a vast multitude_ discovered by
them; all of whom were condemned, not so much for the crime of
burning the city, as for their enmity to mankind. Their
executions were so contrived, as to expose them to derision
and contempt. Some were covered over with the skins of wild
beasts, that they might be torn to pieces by dogs; some were
crucified; while others, having been daubed over with
combustible materials, were set up for lights in the night
time, and thus burned to death. For these spectacles Nero gave
his own gardens, and, at the same time, exhibited there the
diversions of the circus; sometimes standing in the crowd as a
spectator, in the habit of a charioteer; and, at other times,
driving a chariot himself; until at length these men, though
really criminal, and deserving of exemplary punishment, began
to be commiserated, as people who were destroyed, not out of
regard to the public welfare, but only to gratify the cruelty
of one man."
We add no comment on this remarkable passage. Take up your New Testament
and read the contemporary history--Acts xxii. to the end of the
book--and the letters of Paul from Rome, to Philemon, Titus, the
Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and the Second to Timothy, written
when the aged prisoner was ready to be offered, and the time of his
departure, amidst such scenes and sufferings, was at hand. Then form
your own opinion as to the origin and nature of that faith in Jesus
which enabled him to say: "None of these things move me, neither count I
my life dear unto me, that I may finish my course with joy, and the
testimony which I have received of the Lord Jesus." "I know in whom I
have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I
have committed to him against that day."
Whatever may be your opinion of the apostle's hope for the future, you
must acknowledge that we have ascertained, beyond contradiction, these
four facts of the past:
1. That without the power of force, or the help of governments, and in
spite of them, the apostles did convert vast multitudes of idolaters
from a senseless worship of stocks and stones, to the worship of the one
living and true God; a thing never done by the preachers of any other
religion before or since.
2. That without the help of power or civil law, and solely by moral and
spiritual means, they did persuade multitudes of licentious heathens to
give up their vices, and obey the pure precepts of the morality
contained in their Epistles; a thing never done by the preachers of any
other religion before or since.
3. That these converts were so firmly persuaded of the truth of their
new religion, that, with the choice of life and worldly honor, or a
death of infamy and torture before them, multitudes deliberately chose
to suffer torture and death rather than renounce the belief in one God,
obedience to his laws, and the hope of eternal life through Jesus
Christ, which they had learned from the sermons and letters of these
apostles; a thing never done by the professors of any other religion
before or since.[79]
4. The faith which produced such an illumination of their minds; which
caused such a blessed change in their lives; which filled them with joy
and hope, and enabled them even to despise torture and death, was
briefly this: "That Christ died for our sins, according to the
Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third
day, according to the Scriptures; that he ascended up into heaven, and
will come again to judge the world, and reward every man according to
his works; and that whosoever believes these things in his heart, and
confesses them with his mouth, shall be saved; and he that believeth
them not shall be damned."
It is a fact, then, indisputably proven by history, that the New
Testament does teach a religion which can enlighten men's minds, reform
their lives, give peace to their consciences, and enable them to meet
death with a joyful hope of life eternal. It has done these things in
times past, and is doing them now. These are its undoubted fruits.
Reader, this faith may be yours. It will work the same results in you as
it has done in others. Like causes ever produce like effects. Jesus
waits to deliver you from your sins, to fill you with joy and peace in
believing, and make you abound in hope, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
He has promised, if you will ask it, "I will give them a heart to know
me, that I am the Lord."
FOOTNOTES:
[73] Lardner VII. page 18, _et seq._
[74] Pronounced Laar Owen--John's Book.
[75] Lib. X. Ep. 97, Lardner VII. 22.
[76] Lib. X. Ep. 98, Lardner VII. 24.
[77] Decline and Fall, Vol. II. page 407.
[78] Lib. XV. chap. 44.
[79] The sufferings of the Jews, under Antiochus, are no exception. They
suffered for their faith in the true God, the Messiah to come, and a
resurrection to life eternal.