time must run out, but that a train of historical events and
changes must occur which have the coming of Christ for their
proper sequence. Of the nature of these antecedents in the
previous course of history he speaks when he has occasion to
discuss the relation of the Mosaic dispensation to the
Christian, and to point out the aims of Providence in regard to
the Gentile nations. It was formerly a mistake of both orthodox
and rationalist to look upon Christianity too exclusively as a
system of doctrine addressed to the understanding. Revelation
has been thought of as a communication written on high and let
down from the skies—delivered to men as the Sibylline books
were said to have been conveyed to Tarquin. Or it has been
considered, like the philosophical system of Plato, a creation
of the human intellect, busying itself with the problems of
human life and destiny; the tacit assumption in either case
being that Christianity is merely a body of doctrine. The truth
is that revelation is at the core historical. It is embraced in
a series of transactions in which men act and participate, but
which are referable manifestly to an extraordinary agency of
God, who thus discloses or reveals himself. The supernatural
element does not exclude the natural; miracle is not magic.
Over and above teaching there are laws, institutions,
providential guidance, deliverance, and judgment. Here is the
groundwork of revelation. For the interpretation of this
extraordinary and exceptional line of historical phenomena
prophets and apostles are raised up—men inspired to lift the
veil and explain the dealings of Heaven with men. Here is the
doctrinal or theoretical side of revelation. These individuals
behold with an open eye the significance of the events of which
they are witnesses or participants. The facts of secular
history require to be illuminated by philosophy. Analogous to
this office is the authoritative exposition and comment which
we find in the Scripture along with the historical record. The
doctrinal element is not a thing independent, purely theoretic,
disconnected from the realities of life and history. These lie
at the foundation; on them everything of a didactic nature is
based. This fact will be impressively obvious to one who will
compare the Bible, as to plan and structure, with the Koran.
“The character of revelation is less likely to be misconceived
when the design of revelation is kept in view. The end is not
to satisfy the curiosity of those who ‘seek after wisdom,’ by
the solution of metaphysical problems. The good offered is not
science, but salvation. The final cause of revelation is the
recovery of men to communion with God—that is, to true
religion. Whatever knowledge is communicated is tributary to
this end.
“Hence the grand aim, under the Old Dispensation and the New,
was not the production of a book, but the training of a people.
To raise up and train up a nation that should become a fit
instrument for the moral regeneration of mankind was the aim of
the old system.... Under the new or Christian system the object
was not less the training of a people; not, however, with any
limitations of race. The fount of the system was to be a
community of men who should be ‘the light of the world,’ and
‘the salt of the earth....’
“The grand idea of the kingdom of God is the connecting thread
that runs through the entire course of divine revelation. We
behold a kingdom planted in the remote past, and carried
forward to its ripe development, by a series of transactions in
which the agency of God mingles in an altogether peculiar way
in the current of human affairs. There is a manifestation of
God in act and deed. Verbal teaching is the commentary attached
to the historic fact, ensuring to the latter its true meaning.”
This is sound and Christian philosophy, admirably expressed and
containing many fruitful germs of thought. What we have quoted may
suffice to show that the historical nature of Christianity is the
fundamental idea of Dr. Fisher’s argument in the work under review.
He recognizes also a law of historical and continuous development
through all time in Christianity as resulting from its vital force,
which differs from the previous historical stage in this: that “in the
giving of revelation, at each successive stage, and especially at the
consummation, there was an increment of its contents,” whereas “this is
not true of Christianity since the apostolic age.” The touchstone and
test of normal development, in the sense to which the signification of
the term is restricted when it is used of the post-apostolic age, is
that “it springs out of the primitive seed”—namely, the deposit of
revealed truth contained in the teaching of Christ and the apostles in
its state of ultimate completeness.
The historical method of determining the real origin and nature of
Christianity is contrasted with the method which is purely _à priori_
and exclusively metaphysical in the following passage:
“The historical basis of Christianity marks the distinction
between Christian theology and metaphysical philosophy. The
starting-point of the philosopher is the intuitions of the
mind; on them as a foundation, with the aid of logic, he builds
up his system. His only postulates are the data of
consciousness. In Christian theology, on the contrary, we begin
with facts recorded in history, and explore, with the aid of
inspired authors, their _rationale_. To reverse this course,
and seek to evolve the Christian religion out of consciousness,
to transmute its contents into a speculative system, after the
manner of the pantheistic thinkers in Germany, is not less
futile than would be the pretence to construct American history
with no reference to the Puritan emigration, the Revolutionary
war, or the Southern Rebellion. The distinctive essence of
Christianity evaporates in an effort, like that undertaken by
Schelling in his earlier system, and by Hegel, to identify it
with a process of thought.”[93]
Farther on in his argument Dr. Fisher shows how this perverse
employment of the _à priori_ method has produced the sceptical theories
of the Tübingen school of criticism:
“As regards the credibility of the Gospel history, it ought to
be clearly understood that the modern attack by Baur, Strauss,
Zeller, and others is founded upon an _à priori_ assumption. It
is taken for granted beforehand that whatever is supernatural
is unhistorical. The testimony into which a miracle enters is
stamped at once as incredible. Christianity, it was assumed,
was an evolution of thought upon the natural plane. At a later
day Strauss fell into a materialistic way of thinking, which
rendered him, if possible, more deaf to all the evidence which,
if admitted, implies the supernatural. From the point of view
taken in the sceptical school, therefore, the New Testament
histories, so far as they relate to the wonderful works of
Christ, and his resurrection and manifestation to his disciples
after his death, must be discredited. But their principle, or
prejudice, carries the negative critics farther. It must affect
their judgment as to the authorship of the narratives which
record the miracles. It is rendered difficult to believe, if
not quite improbable, that these histories emanate from
apostles, eye-witnesses of the life of Jesus. The myths, or the
consciously-invented stories, the product of a theological
‘tendency’ in the primitive church, cannot well be ascribed to
the immediate followers of Christ. The fact that the New
Testament histories contain accounts of miracles also tends to
weaken and vitiate their general authority, in the estimation
of the sceptical school. That is to say, the credulity of the
Gospel writers, or their willingness to deceive, as evinced in
the supernatural elements embraced in their books, makes them
less entitled to trust in their record of ordinary events into
which the miracle does not enter....
“Connected with the unscientific assumption first noticed,
other assumptions were adopted by the Tübingen school which are
equally unsound. It was assumed that Christianity is an
evolution of thought according to the scheme of the Hegelian
logic, where it is held as a law that a doctrine in an
undeveloped form must divaricate into two opposites, to be
recombined afterwards in a higher unity. Thus, it was assumed
that Paulinism, and the sharply-defined Judaizing system
attributed to Peter, were the antagonistic types of opinion
which sprang out of the seed of doctrine planted by Christ, and
which were reunited in the old Catholic theology, the
evangelical legalism of the fathers of the second century.”[94]
This statement is supplemented by another succinct and pregnant passage
containing the elements of an argument of great comprehension and
irrefragable conclusiveness. After affirming that “the mythical theory
is wrecked upon a variety of difficulties which it cannot evade or
surmount”—a statement which has much more force, taken in connection
with the entire context of thorough critical reasoning, than it can
show as a mere isolated quotation—the learned professor proceeds:
“What is the rationalistic theory of the origin of the
Christian religion? It is that Jesus, a carpenter of Nazareth,
with no prestige derived from birth or social standing, taught
in Galilee for about a year—for to this period the class of
whom we speak would limit his public work. From these brief
labors, made up wholly of verbal instruction, came that
profound impression of his superhuman dignity which was made
indelibly upon his disciples, and which his crucifixion as a
criminal did not weaken, and that transforming power which went
forth upon them, and, in ever-increasing measure, upon all
subsequent generations. The Apostolic Church, the conversion of
Paul, and his Epistles, the narratives of the four Gospels,
with all that they contain, and Christianity, as it appears in
the history of mankind, all spring from that one year of mere
teaching! The effect is utterly disproportionate to the cause
assigned.”[95]
We must take notice that the author, with a competent knowledge of the
theories and arguments of the German Biblical critics, has carefully
refuted them, and presented solid proofs of the genuineness and
authenticity of the historical books of the New Testament, before
arriving at this part of his argument. He is summing up his plea after
an examination and discussion of evidence. His reasoning is not,
therefore, based on mere hypothesis, but is the conclusion of a
well-sustained thesis, with all the weight derived from his precedent
proofs. And he is therefore logically entitled to make the demand that
Christianity shall be estimated by the historical measure, according to
the full value of its miraculous facts and supernatural qualities, to
the exclusion of any hypothesis which pretends to be rational but is
really only fantastic, and therefore unphilosophical as well as
unchristian.
“It is much more consistent with a sound philosophy, instead of
taking refuge in an unreasonable denial of facts historically
established, to seek to comprehend them. At the outset the
notion should be banished that miracles are repugnant to
nature; that the supernatural is anti-natural. There is one
system; and supernatural agency, however it may modify the
course of nature, does no violence to the universal order. For
there is no such unbending rigidity in the course of nature
that it cannot be modified by the interposition of voluntary
agency. A steamship, cutting its way through the billows in the
teeth of wind and tide, moves by the force of machinery which
is contrived and directed by the human will.[96] The volitions
of man produce an effect which nature, independently of this
spiritual force, could never occasion. Now, of the limits of
the possible control of matter by the power of spirit, any more
than of the essence and origin of matter itself, we cannot
speak. It is a presumptuous affirmation that there is no being
in the universe who can infinitely outdo the power of man, vast
as it is, in this direction.”[97]
In this brief and sententious manner, with a few heavy and
well-directed strokes of sound reason, the author effectually
demolishes all the brittle ware of transcendental nonsense which calls
itself rationalism. We are reminded of a sentence we once heard uttered
by that singular genius, Henry Giles, in a railway carriage, respecting
a matter quite different: “Such theories are shattered like rotten
glass by a single thump of common sense.”
We find no reason for quoting anything from Dr. Fisher’s exposition of
the historical preparation for Christianity in the propædeutic system
of Judaism. For the present we will only refer to the notice which he
takes of the dispersion of the Hebrews over the world at the epoch of
the birth of Christ, adopting the language of Mommsen, which designates
Judaism as “an effective leaven of cosmopolitanism” working in the same
direction with the imperial Roman polity toward a blending of
nationalities in the more general solidarity “the nationality of which
was really nothing but humanity.” Of the providential office of Greece
and Rome in connection with that of Judea he thus speaks:
“These were three nations of antiquity, each of which was
entrusted with a grand providential office in reference to
Christianity. The Greeks, whatever they may have learned from
Babylon, Egypt, and Tyre, excelled all other races in a
self-expanding power of intellect—in ‘the power of lighting
their own fire.’ They are the masters in science, literature,
and art. Plato, speaking of his own countrymen, made ‘the love
of knowledge’ the special characteristic of ‘our part of the
world,’ as the love of money was attributed with equal truth to
the Phœnicians and Egyptians. The robust character of the
Romans, and their sense of right, qualified them to rule, and
to originate and transmit their great system of law and their
method of political organization. Virgil lets Anchises define
the function of the Roman people in his address to Æneas, a
visitor to the abodes of the dead:
“‘Others, I know, more tenderly may beat the breathing brass,
And better from the marble block bring living looks to pass;
Others may better plead the cause, may compass heaven’s face,
And mark it out, and tell the stars their rising and their place;
But thou, O Roman! look to it the folks of earth to sway;
For this shall be thine handicraft: peace on the world to lay,
To spare the weak, to mar the proud by constant weight of war.’
“Greece and Rome had each its own place to fill; but true
religion—the spirit in which man should live—comes from the
Hebrews.”[98]
Dr. Fisher places the relation of sympathy or affinity between the
mythological religion and Christianity in three things: first, in the
stimulus and scope given to subjective religious sentiments; second, in
the impulse towards “a goal hidden from sight,” the object of “an
unfulfilled demand in the religious nature” of men seeking after God,
whom they, in the language of St. Paul on Mars’ Hill, at Athens,
“ignorantly worshipped”; third, in a growing “monotheistic
tendency.”[99]
The topic of the relation of Greek philosophy to Christianity is
handled by the learned author in a very judicious and discriminating
manner, although we are disposed to take a considerably different view
of the philosophy of Aristotle as compared with Platonism. We are
pleased to observe his high estimate of the writings of Cicero. The
chapter on this topic is thus introduced:
“The Greek philosophy was a preparation for Christianity in
three ways: it dissipated, or tended to dissipate, the
superstitions of polytheism; it awakened a sense of need which
philosophy of itself failed to meet; and it so educated the
intellect and conscience as to render the Gospel apprehensible
and, in many cases, congenial to the mind. It did more than
remove obstacles out of the way; its work was positive as well
as negative: it originated ideas and habits of thought which
had more or less direct affinity with the religion of the
Gospel, and which found in this religion their proper
counterpart. The prophetic element of the Greek philosophy lay
in the glimpses of truth which it could not fully discern, and
in the obscure and unconscious pursuit of a good which it could
not definitely grasp.”[100]
In treating of “the close relation of the Roman Empire to Christianity”
Prof. Fisher notices the extension of Roman citizenship, the
cosmopolitan polity of Cæsar, the unifying influence of Roman
jurisprudence, the assimilation of mankind in language and culture by
the spread of the Romano-Hellenic civilization and the Greek and Latin
languages, travel and intercourse, commerce and a general mingling of
mankind from various causes, the mingling of religions, and the
resuscitation of the idea of a common humanity. Without overlooking the
external agency of Rome in paving the way for Christianity, the author
more distinctly accentuates another kind of influence:
“The effect of the consolidation of so large a part of mankind
in one political body, in breaking up local and tribal
narrowness, and in awakening what may be termed a cosmopolitan
feeling, is in the highest degree interesting. The Roman
dominion was the means of a mental and moral preparation for
the Gospel; and this incidental effect is worthy of special
note. The kingdom of Christ proposed the unification of mankind
through a spiritual bond. Whatever tended to melt down the
prejudices of nation, and clan, and creed, and instil in the
room of them more liberal sentiments, opened a path for the
Gospel. Now, we find that under the political system
established by Rome a variety of agencies co-operated to effect
such a result. Powerful forces were at work whose effect was
not limited to the creation of outward advantages for the
dissemination of the religion of Christ, but tended to produce
a more or less genial soil for its reception. We have, then, to
embrace in one view the influence of the Roman Empire in both
of these relations, in shaping outward circumstances, and in
favoring a mental habit, which were propitious to the
introduction of the new faith.”[101]
What the author proposes in the last clause of this quotation he
fulfils in a very satisfactory manner in one of the most splendid
chapters of his work.
The outline of the historical basis of Christianity having been drawn,
and the principles of the sound historical construction of a true and
logical theory or philosophy of the Christian religion established, the
outline of the actual foundations, and the first course of the great
structure itself, determining its plan of architecture, next demands
our consideration. In plainer language, the actual “beginnings of
Christianity” in the apostolic age, the earliest history of the
religion of Christ, in respect to all its constitutive principles,
presents itself for examination. What is Christianity in its essence,
nature, integrity of organic constitution, its proper attributes; with
a due distinction of its substance from its accidents, of its genuine
and normal germs of future development from everything of a parasitic
nature or in any way abnormal? This is the great question to be studied
in the authentic records of the antiquities of Christianity, with all
the light and aid which can be obtained from every source accessible to
research.
The long-continued, widely-extended preparations of divine Providence
for the great event of the coming of the Messias of the Jews and
Gentiles, the immensity of the ground prepared to be the theatre of the
future Christian history, the vast and mighty instrumentalities made
ready to serve the fulfilment of the plan of Jesus and of the apostolic
mission, all point toward something proportionate in grandeur to the
grandeur of the inchoate order which preceded. The anticipation of
Christ in history demands a corresponding realization of his actual
presence and operation in the “fulness of time,” the age of the
completion and consummation of human destinies on the earth. Moreover,
the stupendous miracles, especially the crowning one of the
Resurrection, which are among the first facts and events of historical
Christianity, logically and rationally require that an ideal of
Christianity shall be presented which justifies such an outlay of
supernatural power, and the position of causes containing such infinite
potential force. The end of all previous human history being found in
the beginning of Christianity, the new beginning of all human history
must be likewise found there. If the normal, legitimate development in
later ages is tested by its origination from the primitive seed planted
in the apostolic age, the nature and qualities of that seed must be
correctly ascertained. If we would recognize the true genius of
Christianity in its real manifestations from the days of the apostles
to our own, and discriminate it from simulated apparitions, we must
know what this genius really is, or the original error will falsify all
subsequent processes of judgment and reasoning, like an ambiguous
middle in a syllogism.
But we have proceeded as far as our limits will permit in the present
article, and must postpone the consideration of what was actual
Christianity in the apostolic age, and of the learned author’s theory
on the subject, to a future opportunity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO THE WITCH-HAZEL.
“Last of their floral sisterhood,
The hazel’s yellow blossoms shine,
The tawny gold of Afric’s mind!”
J. G. WHITTIER.
I.
No mocking dream art thou of summer sun,
No fading shadow of the autumn’s gold;
Thy sunset stars their yellow light unfold
As some pale planet, when the day is done,
Giveth unfailing promise of the night
With its blessed hours of rest, its sparkling fields—
The glittering harvest that the darkness yields
Of unknown worlds far reaching out of sight.
In the year’s twilight thy pale blossoms shine
With faithful promise of the winter’s night—
The broad, white fields with nameless stars a-light,
The crystal glitter far outshining thine.
In the late daylight that about thee lies,
How soft thy radiance to sun-weary eyes!
II.
The brave arbutus fair foretold the spring
With gleam auroral of the coming slow
Of perfect summer’s full life’s noon-day glow,
With undimmed sunshine, earth illumining.
Thy stars, wan hazel, break amid the blaze
Of gold and scarlet wherewith burn the hills—
As when the pomp of royal burial fills
The clouded skies that mourn the dying days.
The gold grows spent, ashen the scarlet fires,
The night too near for any song of bird;
‘Mid voice of streams and rustling leaves, foot-stirred,
The grieving summer’s last earth-prayer expires.
Brighter thy glow as golden pomp grows sere,
O pale-hued Hesper of the westering year!
III.
No dreary harbinger art thou of woe,
Of barren days, and warm life lost in death:
On heav’n-kissed peaks is born the icy breath
Whose touch unfolds the flowers of the snow.
Spring’s buds, close-folded, lie along the bare
And shivering boughs where calls the wild-voiced wind,
And fine the leafless tracery is lined
On blue undimmed as summer heavens wear.
Hearts glow the warmer for the bitter wind,
Stars are but brighter for the frosty night,
Of earth despoiled love climbeth holy height,
New, blossoming paths her feet, untiring, find.
Thought of thy promise shining in dim skies
Fills darkest hour with lights of Paradise.
IV.
Among thy boughs almost the sound I hear
Of Christmas bells breaking on wintry gloom;
Foretelling so, the glimmer of thy bloom
The kindliest feast of all the saint-crowned year.
O happy year! that for its twilight crown
Wears the dim radiance of thy peaceful stars,
Hears song of angels, where no harsh note jars,
Filling the woods whence latest bird hath flown.
O wailing bloom! bud forth thy prophecies,
Thine earnest of a life fore’er renewed,
Thy light in darkness, with fair hope imbued,
Thy golden gift of love’s amenities.
O conjurer’s wand! thy jewelled staff bend low,
Show the bright waters living ‘neath the snow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE WOLF-TOWER.
A BRETON CHRISTMAS LEGEND.
I.
Long ago in Brittany, under the government of St. Gildas the Wise,
seventh abbot of Ruiz, there lived a young tenant of the abbey who was
blind in the right eye and lame in the left leg. His name was Sylvestre
Ker, and his mother, Josserande Ker, was the widow of Martin Ker, in
his lifetime the keeper of the great door of the Convent of Ruiz.
The mother and son lived in a tower, the ruins of which are still seen
at the foot of Mont Saint-Michel de la Trinité, in the grove of
chestnut-trees that belongs to Jean Maréchal, the mayor’s nephew. These
ruins are now called the Wolf-Tower, and the Breton peasants shudder as
they pass through the chestnut-grove; for at midnight around the
Wolf-Tower, and close to the first circle of great stones erected by
the Druids at Carnac, are seen the phantoms of a young man and a young
girl—Pol Bihan and Matheline du Coat-Dor.
The young girl is of graceful figure, with long, floating hair, but
without a face; and the young man is tall and robust, but the sleeves
of his coat hang limp and empty, for he is without arms. Round and
round the circle they pass in opposite directions, and, strange to
tell, as the legend adds, they never meet, nor do they ever speak to
each other.
Once a year, on Christmas night, instead of walking they run; and all
the Christians who cross the heath to go to the midnight Mass hear from
afar the young girl cry: “Wolf Sylvestre Ker, give me back my beauty!”
and the deep voice of the young man adds: “Wolf Sylvestre Ker, give me
back my strength!”
II.