CHAPTER V.

The Reasonableness Of Religion

The most difficult and at all events the thorniest problem that was

presented to me by the Horseherd still remains unanswered, and I have long

doubted whether I should attempt to answer it in so popular a periodical

as the _Deutsche Rundschau_.

There are so many things that have been so long settled among scholars

that they are scarcely mentioned, while to a great majority of even

well-informed people they are still enveloped in a misty gloom. To this

class belong especially the so-called articles of faith. We must not

forget that with many, even with most men, faith is not faith, but

acquired habit. Why otherwise should the son of a Jew be a Jew, the son of

a Parsi a Parsi? Moreover, no one likes to be disturbed in his old habits.

There are questions, too, on which mankind as it is now constituted will

never reach a common understanding, because they lie outside the realm of

science or the knowable. Concerning such questions it is well to waste no

more words. But it is on just such a question, namely, the true nature of

revelation, that the Horseherd and his companions particularly wish to

know my views. The current theory of revelation is their greatest

stumbling block, and they continually direct their principal attack

against this ancient stronghold. On the other hand there is nothing so

convenient as this theory, and many who have no other support cling fast

to this anchor. The Bible is divine revelation, say they, therefore it is

infallible and unassailable, and that settles everything.

Now we must, above all things, come to an understanding as to what is

meant by revelation before we attribute revelation to the Bible. There are

not many now who really believe that an angel in bodily form descended

from heaven and whispered into the ear of the apostles, in rather bad

Greek, every verse, every word, even every letter of our Gospels. When

Peter in his second Epistle (i. 18) assures us that he heard a voice from

heaven, that is a fact that can only be confirmed, or invalidated, by

witnesses. But when he immediately after says (i. 21) that “holy men of

God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit,” he presents to us a view

of inspiration that is easily intelligible, the possibility or truth of

which must yet be first determined by psychologists. If it be conceded,

however, that holy men may partake of such an inspiration, even then it is

plain that it requires a much higher inspiration to declare others to be

divinely inspired than to make such a claim for oneself alone. This

theory, that the Gospels are inspired by God, and therefore are infallible

and unassailable, has gained more and more currency since the time of the

Reformation. The Bible was to be the only authority in future for the

Christian faith. Pope and ecclesiastical tradition were cast aside, and a

greater stress was consequently laid on the _litera scripta_ of the New

Testament. This naturally led to a very laborious and detailed criticism

of these records, which year by year assumed a wider scope, and was

finally absorbed in so many special investigations that its original

purpose of establishing the authority of the Scriptures of the New

Testament seems to have quite passed out of sight. These critical

investigations concerning the manuscripts of the New Testament, Codex

Sinaiticus, Alexandrimus, and Vaticanus, down to Number 269, Bentley’s Q,

are probably of less interest to the Horseherd; they are known to those

who make a special study of this subject, and are of no interest outside.

If, as might have happened, without any miracle, the original autograph of

the Gospels, as they were written by the apostles or some one else with

their own hands, had been carefully preserved in the archives of the first

popes, our professors would have been spared much labour. But we nowhere

read that these successors and heirs of Peter showed any special

solicitude for this prime duty of their office, the preservation of this

precious jewel of their treasure, the New Testament. What they neglected,

had therefore to be recovered by our philologists. Just as those who

wished to study the Peloponnesian war resorted to the manuscripts of

Thucydides, the Christian scholars, to become acquainted with the origins

of Christianity, betook themselves to the manuscripts of the New

Testament. And as the manuscripts of Thucydides vary widely from one

another and in certain passages leave us quite helpless, so do the

manuscripts of the New Testament. Bentley speaks of thirty thousand _variæ

lectiones_ in the New Testament; but since his time their number must have

increased fourfold. The manuscripts of the New Testament are more numerous

than those of any classic. Two thousand are known and have been described,

and more yet may lie buried in libraries. Now while this large number of

manuscripts and various readings have given the philologists of the New

Testament greater difficulties than the classical philologist encounters,

still on the other hand the New Testament has the advantage over all

classical texts, in that some of its manuscripts are much older than those

of the majority of classical writers. We have, for instance, no complete

manuscripts of Homer earlier than the thirteenth century, while the oldest

manuscripts of the New Testament descend from the fourth and fifth

centuries. It is frequently said that all these things are of no

importance for the understanding of the New Testament, and that

theologians need not trouble themselves about them. But this is saying too

much. There are _variæ lectiones_, which are certainly not without

importance for the facts and the doctrines of Christianity, and in which

the last word belongs not to the theologian, but to the philologist. No

one would say that it makes no difference if Mark xvi. 9-20 is omitted or

not; no one would declare that the authenticity or spuriousness of the

section on the adulteress (John vii. 53-viii. 11) was entirely

indifferent. When we consider what contention there has been over the

seventh verse of the fifth chapter of the first Epistle of John, and how

the entire doctrine of the Trinity has been based on that (“For there are

three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost:

and these three are one”), it will hardly be maintained that the

manuscripts are of no importance for Christian dogma. Whether in the first

Epistle to Timothy iii. 16, we read ΟΣ for ΘΣ, that is, θεός, is also not

quite immaterial. Still I admit that in comparison to the problems

presented to me by the Horseherd and his comrades, these _variæ lectiones_

will not rack our brains nearly so badly. I have been reproached for still

owing my friends an answer to the attacks which they directed exclusively

against Christian religion. It was, however, impossible to deal thoroughly

with these matters, without first taking into consideration their

objections against all religion.

I therefore first endeavoured to make clear to my unknown friends two

things, which constitute the foundation of all religion: first, that the

world is rational, that it is the result of thought, and that in this

sense only is it the creation of a being which possesses reason, or is

reason itself (the Logos); and secondly, that mind or thought cannot be

the outcome of matter, but on the contrary is the _prius_ of all things.

To this end a statement of the results of the philosophy of language was

absolutely necessary, partly to establish more clearly the relation of

thought to speech, partly to comprehend the true meaning of the Logos or

the Word in the New Testament, and understand in how easily intelligible

and perfectly reasonable a sense the term “Word” (Logos) can be applied to

the Son of God.

I am not one of those who pretend to find no difficulties in all these

questions. On the contrary, I have wrestled with them for years, and

remember well the joy I felt when first the true historical meaning of the

opening of the Fourth Gospel, “In the beginning was the word,” became

clear to me. It is true that I turned no somersaults like the Horseherd,

but I was well satisfied. I do not therefore consider the objections

raised by him as unfounded or without justification; on the contrary, it

were better if others would speak with the same freedom as he has done,

although a calmer tone in such matters would be more effective than the

fortissimo of the Horseherd.

What aided me most in the solution of these religious or theological

difficulties, was a comparative study of the religions of mankind. In

spite of their differences, they are all afflicted with the same ailments,

and when we find that we encounter the same difficulties in other

religions as those with which we are ourselves contending, it is safe to

consider them as deeply rooted in human nature, and in this same nature,

be it weak or strong, to seek their solution. As comparative philology has

proved that many of the irregular nouns and verbs are really the most

regular and ancient, so it is with the irregular, that is, the miraculous

occurrences in the history of religion. Indeed, we may now say that it

would be a miracle if there were anywhere any religion without miracles,

or if the Scriptures on which any religion is based were not presented by

the priests and accepted by the believers as of superhuman, even divine

origin, and therefore infallible. In all these matters we must seek for

the reasons, and in this manner endeavour to understand their truth as

well as error.

Whether or not I have succeeded in proving that the world is rational, and

that mind is the _prius_ of matter, I must leave to the decision of the

Horseherd and his friends. Fortunately these questions are of that nature

that we may entertain different opinions upon them without accusing each

other of heresy. Many Darwinians, for instance, Romanes, and even Huxley,

have always considered themselves good Christians, although they believed

the doctrine of Darwin to be the only way of salvation. If, however, we

take up such questions as were propounded to me by the Horseherd, and

which have more to do with Christian theology than Christian religion,

there is an immediate change of tone, and unfortunately the difference of

view becomes at once a difference of aim. The moral element enters

immediately, and those who _believe_ otherwise are designated unbelievers,

though we do not at once stamp those who _think_ otherwise as incapable of

thought. Here lies the great difficulty in considering and treating calmly

religious, or rather, theological questions. There is little hope of

reaching a mutual understanding when the first attack is characterised by

such vigour as was shown by the Horseherd and many of his comrades. He

speaks at once of tales of fraud and deceit, and of the fantasies of the

Christian religion. He says that he is full of bloodthirstiness against

the Jewish idea of God, and believes that since the writings of Hume and

Schopenhauer, positive Christianity has become a sheer impossibility, and

more of the same import. This is certainly “fortissimo,” but not therefore

by any means “verissimo.”

Other correspondents, such as Agnosticus, declare all revelation a

chimera; in short, there has been no lack of expressions subversive of

Christianity, and, in fact, of all revealed religion.

At this point a glance at the development of the religion of the Hindus

may be of great service to us. Nowhere is the idea of revelation worked

out so carefully as in their literature. They have a voluminous

literature, treating of religion and philosophy, and they draw a very

sharp distinction between revealed and unrevealed works (_S_ruti and

Sm_ri_ti). Here much depends upon the name. Revealed meant originally

nothing more than plain and clear, and when we speak of a revelation, in

ordinary life, this is not much more than a communication. But erelong

“reveal” was used in the special sense of a communication from a

superhuman to a human being. The question of the possibility of such a

communication raised little difficulty. But this possibility depends

naturally on the prior conception of superhuman beings and of their

relationship to human beings. So long as it was imagined that they

occasionally assumed human form, and could mingle in very human affairs, a

communication from a Not-man, I will not say a monster, presents no great

difficulties. The Greeks went so far as to ascribe to men of earlier times

a closer intercourse with the gods. But even with them the idea that man

should not enter too closely into the presence of the gods breaks forth

here and there, and Semele, who wished to be embraced by Zeus in all his

glory, found her destruction in this ecstasy. As soon as the Deity was

conceived in less human fashion, as in the Old Testament, intercourse

between God and man became more and more difficult. In Genesis this

intercourse is still represented very simply and familiarly, as when God

walks about in the Garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve are ashamed of their

nakedness before Him. Soon, however, a higher conception of God enters, so

that Moses, for example (Exodus xxxiii. 23), may not see the face of

Jehovah, but still ventures at least to look upon His back. The writer of

the Fourth Gospel goes still farther and declares (i. 18), “No man hath

seen God at any time, the only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the

Father, he hath declared Him.” Here we clearly see that the possibility of

intercourse between man and God, and a revelation of God to man, depends

chiefly or exclusively on the conception which man has previously formed

of God and man. In all theological researches we must carefully bear in

mind that the idea of God is _our_ idea, which we have formed in part

through tradition, and in part by our own thinking; and we must not forget

that existence formed an essential attribute of this idea, whatever

opposition may have been raised against the ontological proof in later

times. After what we have seen of the true relationship between thought

and speech, it follows that the name, and with it the idea of a divine

being, can only proceed from man. God is and remains _our_ God. We can

have a knowledge of Him only through our inner consciousness, not through

our senses. God Himself has no more imparted His name to mankind than the

fixed stars and planets to which we have given names, although we only

see, but do not hear or touch them. This must be absolutely clear to us

before we dare speak of the possibility or impossibility of a revelation.

Now it is very useful, before we treat of our own idea of a revelation

emanating from God, to look round among other nations and see how they

reached the idea of a revelation. We see in India that a number of hymns

in an ancient dialect and in fixed metres were preserved by oral

tradition—the method was wonderful, but is authenticated by history—before

there could have been a thought of reducing them to writing. These hymns

contain very little that would appear to be too high or too deep for an

ordinary human poet. They are of great interest to us because they make

known, as clearly as possible, the sound of the oldest Aryan language, and

the nature of the oldest Aryan gods. As Professor Deussen, in his valuable

History of Philosophy says, (I, 83), the Vedic religion, which he at the

same time calls the oldest philosophy, is richer in disclosures than any

other in the world. In this sense he very properly calls the study of the

Rigveda the high school of the science of religion, so that as he says no

one can discuss these matters without a knowledge of it. This unique

distinction rests, as he truly remarks, on the fact, “That the process on

which originally all gods depend, the personification of the phenomena of

nature, while it is more or less obscured by all other religions, in the

Rigveda still takes place, so to speak, before our eyes visibly and

palpably.” I have long preached this in vain. All who have studied the

Rigveda say this, and all who have not studied it say just the contrary,

and lay especial stress upon the fact that these hymns contain ideas that

once and for all they declare as modern. But no one has ever contended

that this is not so. What is historically the oldest, may from a higher

point of view be quite modern, and there are scholars who even look upon

Adam as a reformer of mankind. Those who best know the Rigveda have often

shown that it stands at a tolerably advanced stage, and here and there

casts a distant glance into its own past. I myself have often said that I

would give much if I could escape from my own proofs of the age of this

collection of hymns, and could clearly show that at least some of these

Vedic hymns had been added later.

These hymns, therefore, just because, judging from their language and

metre, they are older than everything else in India, or even in the entire

Aryan world, and because they are mainly concerned with the ancient gods

of nature, appeared to the Hindus themselves as _apaurusheya_, that is,

not wrought by man. They were called _S_ruti, (that which was heard), in

distinction from other literature, which was designated as Sm_ri_ti, or

recollection.

All this is easily intelligible. There followed a period, however, during

which the true understanding of the hymns became considerably obscured,

and a new series of works, the so-called Brâhma_n_as, arose. These were

very different from the hymns. They are composed in a younger language and

in prose. They treat of the sacrifice, so full of significance in India,

at which the hymns were employed, and which seems to me to have been

originally designed for measuring time, and thus served to mark the

progress of civilisation. They explain the meaning of the hymns, often

quite erroneously; but they contain some interesting information upon the

condition of India, long after the period when the hymns first appeared,

and yet before the rise of Buddhism in the sixth century before Christ. It

has been supposed that, as the Brâhma_n_as were composed in prose, they

were originally written, according to the hypothesis of Wolf, that prose

everywhere presupposes the knowledge of writing. I cannot admit this in

the case of India; at any rate, there is no trace of any acquaintance with

writing in the whole of this extensive mass of literature. It was

throughout a mnemonic literature, and just because the art of writing was

unknown, the memory was cultivated in a manner of which we have no idea.

At all events, the Brahmans themselves knew nothing of the Brâhma_n_as in

written form, and included them with the hymns under the names Veda and

_S_ruti; that is, they regarded them, in our phraseology, as revealed, and

not the work of men.

The remarkable thing, however, is that they did not assume, like the

Romans in the case of Numa and Egeria, a communication from the Vedic gods

of nature to ordinary men, but contented themselves with declaring that

the Veda had been seen by the Rishis, whose name Rishi they explained

etymologically as “seer.”

It is clear, therefore, that what the Brahmans understood under _S_ruti

was nothing more than literature composed in an ancient language (for the

Brâhma_n_as are also composed in an ancient language, though not as

ancient as that of the hymns), and treating of matters on which apparently

man alone can establish no authority. For how could ordinary man take on

himself to speak about the gods or to give directions for the sacrifice,

to make promises for the reward of pious works, or even to decide what is

morally right or wrong? More than human authority was necessary for this,

and so the Brâhma_n_as, as well as the hymns, were declared to be

_apaurusheya_, that is, not human, though by no means divine, in the sense

of having been imparted by one of the Devas.

We see, therefore, that the idea of the _S_ruti, while approaching to our

idea of revelation as _apaurusheya_, that is, not human, does not quite

coincide with it. What was ancient and incomprehensible, was called

superhuman, and soon became infallible and beyond assault. If we look at

other religions, we find that Buddhism denied the Veda every authority,

and in conformity with its own character especially excluded every idea of

superhuman revelation. In China, too, we look in vain for revelation. In

Palestine, however, we find the idea that the Lord Himself spoke with

Moses, who delivered His commands to Israel, and the tables of the

commandments were even written by God’s own fingers on both sides. But

this must not be confounded with written literature. The idea that the

entire Old Testament was written or revealed by Jehovah is absolutely not

of ancient Jewish origin, whatever respect may have been shown to the holy

books as recognised in the Synagogue.

As for Islam, the Koran is looked upon as communicated to Mohammed by the

angel Gabriel, even as Zoroaster in the Avesta claims to have received

certain communications in conversation with Ahuramazda.

In Christianity, in whose history the theory of revelation has played so

great a part, there is in fact—and this is frequently overlooked—no

declaration on the subject by Christ or the apostles themselves. That the

Gospels, as they have come down to us, have been revealed, is nowhere

stated in them, nor can it be gathered from the Acts of the Apostles or

the Epistles. No one has ever maintained that any New Testament Scripture

was known to Christ or even to the apostles.(51) On the contrary, if we

take the titles of the Gospels in their natural meaning, they do not

purport to have been written down by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John

themselves: they are simply the sacred history as it was recorded by

others according to each of these men. Attempts have indeed been made to

reason away the meaning of κατά, “according to,” and interpret it as “by,”

but it is more natural to take it in its ordinary sense. When Paul, in his

second Epistle to Timothy (iii. 16), says, “Every scripture inspired of

God is also profitable for teaching,” this is the usual mode of expression

applied to the Scriptures of the Old, not of the New Testament (John v.

39), and would merely signify inspired, breathed in, not revealed in each

word and letter.

In any case we learn this much from a comparative study of religions, that

the majority of them have their holy books, which are usually the oldest

remains of literature, oral or written, that they possess. They look upon

the authors of these Scriptures as extraordinary, even superhuman beings;

and the later theologians in order to remove from the minds of the people

every doubt as to their truth, devised the most ingenious theories, to

show how these books were not produced by men, but were merely seen by

them, and how in the end even the words and letters of the original text

were dictated to certain individuals. It is imagined, therefore, that the

Deity condescended to speak Hebrew or Greek in the dialect of that period,

and that therefore no letter or accent may be disturbed.

This would, of course, make the matter very easy, and this is no doubt the

reason why the theory has found so many adherents. It is only strange that

no founder of any religion ever appears to have felt the necessity of

leaving anything in his own writing either to his contemporaries or to

posterity. No one has ever attempted to prove that Moses wrote books, nor

has it ever been said of Christ that he composed a book (John vii. 15).

The same is true of Buddha, in spite of the legend of the alphabets; and

of Mohammed we know from himself that he could neither read nor write.

What we possess, therefore, in the way of holy Scriptures is always the

product of a later generation, and subject to all the hazards involved in

oral tradition. This was not to be avoided, and ought not to surprise us.

If we attempt ourselves to write down without the aid of books or

memoranda, occurrences or conversations of which we were witnesses fifty

years ago, we shall see how difficult it is, and how untrustworthy is our

memory. We may be entirely veracious, but it by no means follows that we

are also true and trustworthy. Let any one try to describe the incidents

of the Austro-Prussian War without referring to books, and he will see

how, with the best intentions, names and dates will waver and reel. When

did the German National Assembly elect the German Emperor? Who were the

members of the regency? Who was Henry Simon, and were there one or more

Simons, like the nine Simons in the New Testament? Who can answer these

questions now without newspapers, and yet these are matters only fifty

years old, and at the time were well known to all of us. Was it different

with the Christians in the year 50 A.D.? It was therefore very natural

that a certain inspiration or preëminent endowment should be demanded for

the authors of the Gospels; if some do so still, it is on their own

responsibility, just as if we demanded for the mother of Mary the same

immaculate birth as for Mary herself, _et sic ad infinitum_. These are for

the most part merely excuses for human unbelief. Nothing proves the

veracity of the authors of the Gospels so clearly as the natural, often

derogatory words which they use of themselves, or even more of the

apostles. These did not understand, as they say, the simplest parables or

teachings; they were jealous of one another; Peter even denied the Lord;

in short, the authors of the Gospels cannot be credited with sinlessness

and infallibility, supposing that they were really the apostles.

If they were not, then all these difficulties of our own making disappear.

We then find in the Gospels just what we might expect: no ingeniously

prepared statements without inconsistencies and without contradictions,

but simple, natural accounts, such as were current from the first to the

third generations in certain circles or localities, and even according to

the attachment of certain families to the personal narrations of one or

another of the apostles. We must not forget that in the first generation

the necessity for a record was not even felt. Children were still brought

up as Jews, for Christianity did not seek to destroy, only to fulfil; and

as all the Scriptures, that is the Old Testament, were derived from God

and were good for instruction, they continued in use for teaching without

further question. But in the second and third generations the breach

between Jews and Christians became wider and wider, and the number of

those who had known Christ and the apostles, less and less; the need of

books especially for the instruction of children consequently became more

urgent, and the four Gospels thus arose by a natural process in answer to

a natural and even irresistible want. The difficulties involved even in

the smallest contradiction between the Gospels on a theory of inspiration

thus disappear of themselves; nay, their discrepancies become welcome,

because they entirely exclude every idea of intentional deviation, and

simply exhibit what the historical conditions would lead us to expect. Of

what harm is it, for instance, that Matthew (viii. 28), in relating the

expulsion of the devils in the land of the Gergesenes, speaks of two

possessed men, while Mark (v. 2) knows only of one among the Gadarenes?

Mark also speaks only of unclean spirits, while Matthew speaks of devils.

Mark and Luke know the name of the sufferer, Legion; Matthew does not

mention the Roman name. These are matters of small import in human

traditions and records; in divine revelations they would be difficult to

explain.

But it becomes still more difficult when we come to expressions which are

really significant and essential for Christianity, for even in these we

find inconsistencies. What can be more important than the passage in which

Christ asks his disciples, “But whom say ye that I am,” and Peter answers,

“Thou art the Messiah” (Mark viii. 29). That was a purely Jewish-Christian

answer, and Jesus accepts it as the perfect truth, which, however, should

still remain secret. In (Matthew xvi. 16) Peter says not only, “Thou art

the Messiah,” but adds, “Son of the living God.” This makes a great

difference, and the remarkable thing is, that later on Jesus only commands

his disciples to keep secret that he, Jesus, was the Messiah, and says

nothing of himself as the Son of God. So much has been written about other

discrepancies in this passage, particularly of the promise of the building

of the church upon this rock (Peter), which is only found in (Matthew xvi.

18), that we have nothing further to say about it, unless it be that in

Mark in this very passage Jesus rebukes Peter because he thinks more of

the world than of God, like so many of his later successors.

Let us bear in mind further that neither revelation nor divine inspiration

was really necessary for recording most of the things related in the

Gospels. The less, the better; for either the witnesses knew that Pilate

was at the time governor in Palestine, that Caiaphas was high priest, and

that Jairus was ruler of a synagogue, or they did not know it, and in that

case we cannot assume that these things were revealed to them by God

without irreverence. If, however, it is impossible that God should have

inspired or sanctioned the historical part of the Gospels, why then the

other part, which contains the teachings of Christ? Is it not much better,

much more honest and trustworthy for the writers to have communicated them

to us, as they knew and understood them (and that they occasionally

misunderstood them they themselves quite honestly admit), than to have

been supernaturally inspired for the purpose, and even to have received a

revelation in the form of a theophany? Through such weak human ideas we

merely drag the Real, the truly Divine, into the dust, and from whom do

these ideas of a divine inspiration or revelation come, if not from men as

they were everywhere, whether in India or Judea? Everywhere the natural is

divine, the supernatural or miraculous is human.

Even for the Apostles and the authors of the Gospels there was only one

revelation: that was the revelation through Christ; and this has an

entirely different meaning. To understand this, however, we must glance at

what we know of the intellectual movements of that time. The Jewish nation

cherished two great expectations. The one was ancient and purely Jewish,

the expectation of the Messiah, the anointed (Christ), who should be the

political and spiritual liberator of the chosen but enslaved people of

Israel. The other was also Jewish, but transfused with Greek philosophy,

the recognition of the word (Logos) as the Son of God, who should

reconcile or unite humanity with God. The first declares itself most

clearly, though not exclusively, in the three so-called Synoptic Gospels,

the second in the so-called Gospel of John. But it is worthy of note how

often these apparently remote ideas are found combined in the Gospels. The

idea that a man can be the Son of God was blasphemy in a strict Jewish

view, and it was for this reason that the last question of the high priest

was, “I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be

the Christ, the Son of God” (Matthew xxvi. 63). The Jewish Messiah could

never be the Son of God, the Word, in the Christian sense of the term, but

only in the sense in which many nations have called God the Father of men.

In this sense, also, the Jews say (John viii. 4), “We have one father,

even God,” while they start back affrighted at the idea of a divine

sonship of man. The Messiah, according to Jewish doctrine, was to be the

son of David (Matthew xxii. 42), as the people appear to have called Jesus

(Mark x. 47, xv. 39), and in order to counteract this view Christ himself

said, in a passage of great historical import: “How then doth David in

spirit call the Messiah Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou

on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If then David

called him Lord, how is he his son?” With these words the true Messiah

publicly renounced his royal descent from David, whilst he immediately

laid claim to a much higher one. Of what use is it, then, that the author

of the Gospel takes such pains in the first chapter to trace Joseph’s

descent genealogically from David, in spite of the fact that he does not

represent Joseph himself as the natural father of Jesus?

These contradictions are quite conceivable in an age strongly influenced

by different intellectual currents, but they would be intolerable in a

revealed or divinely inspired book. All becomes intelligible, clear, and

free from contradiction, if we see in the Synoptic Gospels that which they

profess to be—narratives of what had long been told and believed in

certain circles about the teaching and person of Christ. I say, what they

themselves profess to be; for can we believe, that if the authors had

really witnessed a miraculous vision, if every word and every letter had

been whispered to them, they would have made no mention of it? They relate

so many wonders, why not this one, the greatest of all? But it is not

enough that they do not claim any miraculous communication for themselves

or their works. Luke states in plain words the character of his gospel,

“For as much as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning

those matters which have been fulfilled among us, even as they delivered

them unto us, which from the beginning were eye-witnesses, and ministers

of the word (Logos); it seemed good to me also, having traced the course

of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order, most

excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the

things wherein thou wast instructed.”

What can be clearer? Theophilus had evidently received a not very

systematic Christian training, such as was possible under the conditions

of that time. As Luke says, there were even then several works on the

matters of common belief among Christians. In order, however, that

Theophilus may have a trustworthy knowledge of them, his friend (whether

Luke or any one else) determines to communicate them to him in regular

order, as they had been imparted to him, without asserting that he had

himself been from the beginning an eye-witness of them, or a minister of

the Word. It is apparent, therefore, that the writer rests upon a

tradition derived from eye-witnesses, and that he had even investigated

everything with care. Is it credible that he would not have made mention

of a revelation or a theophany, had either fallen to his lot? He also lays

stress upon his orderly arrangement, which probably implies that even at

that time there were the same discrepancies in the sequence of events that

we observe in the four Gospels, to say nothing about the numerous

apocryphal Gospels. This is just what we as historians expected, in fact

it could scarcely be otherwise. Christ’s message had first to pass through

the colloquial process, the leavening process of oral transmission; then

followed the reduction to written form, and it is this that we have, apart

from the corruptions of copyists. It is difficult to conceive how it could

have been otherwise, and still we are not content with these facts, and

imagine that we could have done it much better ourselves.

When we take the Synoptic Gospels one by one, we find in Luke the most

complete and probably the latest sequence of all the important events; in

Mark, the shortest and probably most original narrative, which only

contains that which seemed to him undisputed or of the greatest

importance; while Matthew, on the contrary, clearly presents the tradition

formed and established among the Jewish Christians and believers in the

Messiah.

If we may speak of communities at this early time, the community for which

the first Gospel was intended manifestly consisted of converted Jews, who

had recognised in Jesus their long-expected Messiah or Christ, and were,

therefore, convinced that everything which had been expected of the

Messiah came true in this Jesus. They went still farther. When they were

once convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, many traditions arose which

ascribed to him what he, if he were the Messiah, must have done. This is

the pervading feature of the first Gospel, as every one who reads it

carefully may easily be convinced. This alone explains the frequent and

frank expression that this and that occurred “for thus it was written, and

thus it was spoken by the prophet.” Every idea of intentional invention of

Messianic fulfilments, which has so often been asserted, disappears of

itself in our interpretation of the origin of the Gospel. It must be so,

people thought, and they soon told themselves and their children that it

had been so, and all in good faith, for otherwise Jesus could not have

been the expected Messiah.

If we examine the gospel of Matthew from this historical standpoint in

detail, we find that it begins with an entirely unnecessary genealogy of

Joseph, the ostensible father of Jesus. Then follows the birth, and this

is confirmed in i. 22, “For all this was done, that it might be fulfilled

which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet,” namely, Isaiah (vii.

14), “Behold a maiden is with child and shall bear a son, and shall call

his name Immanuel.” This means simply that it will be the first-born son,

and that he will be called “God is with us,” and, therefore, certainly

nothing supernatural.

The next story that the birth took place in Bethlehem, and that the wise

men from the East saw the star over Bethlehem, is again founded on the

prophet’s word that the ruler of Israel would come from Bethlehem.

When the flight of Joseph and Mary to Egypt with the Christ child is told,

it is again set forth in ii. 15, that what the prophet said might be

fulfilled, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

The massacre of the children in Bethlehem, with all its difficulties in

the eyes of the historian, finds a sufficient reason in verse 17 on the

words which were spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, “A voice was heard in

Rama, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she

would not be comforted, because they are not.”

Later, when Joseph returns with the child and journeys to Nazareth, this

too is explained by the words of the prophet, who said, “He shall be

called a Nazarene.”

On the false idea of the words of the prophet, that a Nazarene is an

inhabitant of Nazareth, I shall say nothing here. Everything, even such

popular errors, is quite intelligible from this point of view, and only

shows how convinced the people were that Jesus was the Messiah, and

therefore must have fulfilled everything which was expected of the

Messiah. To us these fulfilments of the prophecy may not sound very

convincing. But as a presentation of the ideas which then held sway over

the people, and as proof of the grasp of the colloquial process, they are

of great value to the historian.

The appearance of John the Baptist, too, is immediately explained by

reference to prophetic words (iii. 3). And when Jesus, after the

imprisonment of John, left his abode and removed to Capernaum, as was

quite natural, this, likewise must have occurred (iv. 14-16) that certain

words of Isaiah should be fulfilled.

There follows in the fifth to the seventh chapters the real kernel of

Christian teaching in the sermon on the mount, and the announcement of the

coming kingdom of God upon earth. Here we ask nothing more than a true

statement, such as an apostle or his disciples were fully in a position to

give us. No miraculous inspiration is needed for it; on the contrary, it

would only injure for us the trustworthiness of the reporter. In the next

chapters we read of the works done by Jesus, which were soon construed by

the people as miracles, while in another place the evangelist sets the

forgiveness of sins higher than all miracles, than all healing of the

sick, and even declares this to be a power which God had given to men (ix.

8). Jesus himself often makes his healing power depend on the faith of the

person to be healed, and of miraculous arts he says not a word (ix. 28).

Next follow the appointment and despatch of the disciples, and soon after

those words, which are so significant for this Gospel (xi. 27), “All

things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son, but

the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to

whomsoever the son willeth to reveal _him_.” Here we have in a few words

the true spirit, the true inspiration of the teaching which Christ

proclaimed, that he was not only the Messiah or the son of David, but the

true son of God, the Logos, which God willed when he willed man, the

highest thought of God, the highest revelation of God, which was imparted

in Jesus to blind humanity. We cannot judge of this so correctly as those

who saw and knew Jesus in his corporeal existence, and found in him all

those perfections, particularly in his life and conduct, of which human

nature is capable. We must here rely on the evidence of his contemporaries

who had no motive to discover in him, the son of a carpenter, the

realisation on earth of the divine ideal of man, if this ideal had not

stood realised in him, before their eyes, in the flesh. What is true

Christianity if it be not the belief in the divine sonship of man, as the

Greek philosophers had rightly surmised, but had never seen realised on

earth? Here is the point, where the two great intellectual currents of the

Aryan and Semitic worlds flow together, in that the long-expected Messiah

of the Jews was recognised as the Logos, the true son of God, and that he

opened or revealed to every man the possibility to become what he had

always been, but had never before apprehended, the highest thought, the

Word, the Logos, the Son of God. Knowing here means being. A man may be a

prince, the son of a king, but if he does not know it, he is not so. Even

so from all eternity man was the son of God, but until he really knew it,

he was not so. The reporters in the Synoptic Gospels only occasionally

recognise the divine sonship of man with real clearness, for in their view

the practical element in Christianity was predominant, but in the end

everything practical must be based upon theory or faith. Our duties toward

God and man, our love for God and for man, are as nothing, without the

firm foundation which is formed only by our faith in God, as the Thinker

and Ruler of the world, the Father of the Son, who was revealed through

him as the Father of all sons, of all men. Such sayings are especially

significant in the Synoptic Evangelists, because it might appear as though

they had not recognised the deepest mystery of the revelation of Christ,

but were satisfied with the purely practical parts of his teachings.

Shortly after, when Jesus again proves his healing powers among the

people, and the Pharisees persecute him because the people were more and

more inclined to recognise in him the son of David, the Evangelist again

declares (xii. 17) that all this occurred that the words of the prophet

Isaiah might be fulfilled, “Behold my servant, whom I have chosen, my

beloved in whom my soul is well pleased; I will put my spirit upon him,

and he shall declare judgment unto the Gentiles.”

Then follow many of the profoundest and most beautiful parables which

contain the secrets of Christ’s teaching, and of which some, as we read,

and not by any means the most obscure, remained unintelligible even to the

disciples. Even at that time his fame had become so great, that on

returning to his own birthplace, the people would scarcely believe that he

was the same as the son of the carpenter, that his mother was named Mary,

and his brothers, Jacob, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, who like his sisters

were all still living. Yet among his own people he could accomplish but

few works. The Gospel then goes on to relate that as Herod had caused John

to be beheaded, Jesus again withdrew to a lonely place, probably to escape

the persecutions of Herod. Then follow the really important chapters, full

of teachings and of parables, intended to illumine these teachings and to

bring them home to the people. Here we naturally do not expect any appeal

to the prophets; on the contrary we often find a very bold advance beyond

the ancient law or a higher interpretation of the ancient Jewish

teachings. As soon, however, as we return to facts like the last journey

to Jerusalem, and the arrest of Jesus through the treachery of Judas, the

words immediately recur that all this came to pass that the Scriptures

should be fulfilled (xxvi. 54). Even Jesus himself, when he commands his

disciples to make no resistance, must have added the words, “But how then

shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be,” which clearly

refers to the famous prophecy of Isaiah in the fifty-third chapter. Even

the thirty pieces of silver which were paid Judas for his betrayal, are

considered necessary, that a prophesy of Jeremiah’s may be fulfilled. But

it seems that this prophesy is not to be found in Jeremiah, and must be

sought in Zechariah (xi. 12, 13). Such a confusion might easily occur

among the people, imperfectly acquainted with the text of the prophets. In

this case, therefore, it is quite harmless; but how could it possibly

occur in a revealed gospel? At the crucifixion of Jesus the garments are

divided, and another passage is immediately recalled, this time in a Psalm

(xxii. 19), in which the poet says of himself that his enemies divided his

garments between them, but there is no mention of the Messiah. Such an

application of the words of the Psalm to Jesus is perfectly intelligible

in the contemporary feeling of the Jewish people. Once convinced that

Jesus was the Messiah or Christ, all the incidents of his life and death

must necessarily remind them of the prophecies which had been current for

years, and kept alive among them the hope of their deliverer. Such details

were probably employed to deepen the conviction in themselves and others

that Jesus was really the Messiah. This is all quite natural and

comprehensible; but if we look at it with the idea that the writer was

called and inspired by God, what must we say? First, in some cases there

are plain errors which would be impossible in an infallible witness.

Secondly, must we believe that such events as the birth of Christ in

Bethlehem and his betrayal by Judas took place merely in order that

certain prophecies might be fulfilled? This would reduce the life of

Christ to a mere phantasm and rob it of its entire historical

significance. Or shall we assume (as some critics have done) that all

these events were simply invented to prove the Messiahship of Jesus?

From all these difficulties we escape when we recognise in the Gospels a

record or deposit of what was developed in the first century in the

consciousness of the Christians, and concerning the Gospel of Matthew in

particular, Christians who were converts from Judaism. In this view

everything that borders on intentional deceit drops away of itself. The

facts remain as before, as the people had explained and arranged them.

According to Matthew and his successors, Christianity originated as is

described in the Gospel according to Matthew. Many facts may in the minds

and mouths of the people have assumed a more popular or legendary form;

that was not to be avoided. We know how much this popular influence, or

what I call the colloquial process, has infected the traditions of other

nations, and it is very helpful to know this, in order to do justice to

the Gospels. For how should this influence have been wanting just in the

first and second centuries in Palestine? Everything becomes clear when we

accept the historical view, supported by many parallel cases, of the

origin of the Gospels in the mouths of the people. The tradition was just

such as we should expect under the existing conditions. Of intentional

deceit there is no further question. We cannot expect anything other or

better than what we have, _i.e._ what the people, or the young Christian

community, related about the life of the founder of the new religion,

unless it were a record from the hand of the founder of our religion

himself; for even the apostles are only depicted as men, and their

comprehension is represented as purely human and often very fallible. When

we speak of revelation, the term can only refer to the true revelation of

the eternal truths through Jesus himself, as we find them in the Gospels,

and the verity of which, even where it is somewhat veiled by the

tradition, confers on it the character of revelation. For it is a fact

which we should never forget, that even the best attested revelation, as

it can only reach us in human setting and by human means, does not make

truth, but it is truth, deeply felt truth, which makes revelation. Truth

constitutes revelation, not revelation truth. We therefore lose nothing by

this view, but gain immensely, and are at once relieved from all the

little difficulties which a laborious criticism thinks it discovers by a

comparison of the Gospels with one another. The only difficulty that seems

to remain is this, that the Synoptic Gospels are so often content to put

the Jewish conception of Jesus as the Messiah, as the son of David and

Abraham, and finally as the bodily son of God, in the foreground, and only

hint at the leading and fundamental truth of Christ’s teaching. We must

never forget that the apostles were no philosophers, and the Logos idea in

its full significance and historical development demands, for its correct

understanding, a considerable philosophical training.

Here we are helped by the Fourth Gospel, which must decidedly be ascribed

to Christians with more of Greek culture. That Greek ideas had penetrated

into Palestine is best seen in the works of Philo Judæus, the contemporary

of Jesus. We cannot suppose that he stood alone, and other Jewish thinkers

must like him have accepted the Logos idea as a solution of the riddle of

the universe. Out of soil like this, permeated and fructified with such

ideas, grew the Fourth Gospel. If we ever make it plain to ourselves that

Jews who, like Philo, had adopted the Logos idea with all its

consequences, necessarily recognised in the Logos the Son of God, the

chosen of God (Luke xxiii. 35), the realised image of God, and then in the

actual Jesus the incarnation or realisation, or rather the universalising

of this image, the Fourth Gospel ascribed to John will become much clearer

to us. Here lies the nucleus of true Christianity, in so far as it deals

with the personality of Christ, and the relation of God to humanity. It is

no longer said that God has made and created the world, but that God has

thought and uttered the world. All existences are thoughts, or

collectively the thought (Logos) of God, and this thought has found its

most perfect expression, its truest word, in a man in Jesus. In this sense

and in no other was Jesus the Son of God and the Word, as the Jews of

Greek culture believed, and as the author of the Fourth Gospel believed,

and as still later the young Athanasius and his contemporaries believed,

and as we must believe if we really wish to be Christians. There is no

other really Christian explanation of the world than that God thought and

uttered it, and that man follows in life and thought the thoughts of God.

We must not forget that all our knowledge and hold of the world are again

nothing but thoughts, which we transform under the law of causality into

objective realities. It was this unswerving dependence on God in thought

and life that made Jesus what he was, and what we should be if we only

tried, viz., children of God. This light or this revelation shines through

here and there even in the Synoptic Gospels, though so often obscured by

the Jewish Messianic ideas.

In the Fourth Gospel the influence of these ideas and their employment by

Jesus and his disciples cannot be mistaken. And why should not Jesus have

adopted and fulfilled the Logos ideas of the Greek world as well as the

Messianic ideas of the Jewish people? Do the Jews as thinkers rank so much

higher than the Greeks? How does the first verse read, which might well

have been said by a Neo-platonic philosopher, “In the beginning was the

Word”? This Word is the Logos, and this Greek word is in itself quite

enough to indicate the Greek origin of the idea. Word (Logos), however,

signified at the same time thought. This creative Word was with God, nay,

God himself was this Word. And all things were made by this Word, that is

to say, in this Word and in all Words God thought the world. Whoever

cannot or will not understand this, will never enter into the deepest

depths of the teaching of Christ, good Christian as he may otherwise be,

and the Fourth Gospel in its deepest meaning does not exist for him. That

there was life in these words or things shining forth from God, we know,

and this life, be it what it may, was a light to man, the light of the

world, even though man had long been blind and imprisoned in darkness, and

did not understand the life, the light, the Word.

Now, in passing to the gospel story, the evangelist says that Jesus

brought or himself was the true light, while John’s duty was merely to

announce his coming beforehand. This is certainly a great step—it is the

Christian recognition of the Word or of the Son of God in the historical

Jesus, whose historical character is confirmed by the character of John

the Baptist. The people believed in John, and John believed in Jesus. Of

course we must not assume that the philosophical significance of the Word,

or of the Logos, was ever clearly and completely present to the people in

the form worked out by the Neo-platonists. That was impossible at the

time, and it is so even now with the great mass of Christians. On the

other hand, the many subtleties and oddities which have made the later

Neo-platonism so repulsive to us, hardly existed for the consciousness of

the masses, which could only adopt the fundamental ideas of the Logos

system with a great effort. Religion is not philosophy; but there has

never been a religion, and there never can be, which is not based on

philosophy, and does not presuppose the philosophical notions of the

people. The highest aim, toward which all philosophy strives, is and will

always remain the idea of God, and it was this idea which Christianity

grasped in the Platonic sense, and presented to us most clearly in its

highest form, in the Fourth Gospel. To John, if for brevity we may so call

the author of the Fourth Gospel, God was no longer the Jewish Jehovah, who

had created the world in six days, formed Adam out of the dust, and every

living creature out of the ground; for him God had acquired a higher

significance, his nature was a spiritual nature, his creation was a

spiritual creation, and as for man the Word comprehends everything,

represents everything, realises everything that exists for him; so God was

conceived as being in the beginning, and then expressing Himself in the

Word, or as one with the Word. To God the Word, that is the

all-comprehensive Word, was the utterance, the actualising or

communicating of His subjective divine ideas, which were in Him, and

through the Word passed out of Him into human perception, and thereby into

objective reality. This second reality, inseparable from the first, was

the second Logos, inseparable as cause and effect are inseparable in

essence. As the highest of all Logoi was man, the most perfect man was

recognised as the son of God, the Logos become flesh, the highest thought

and will of God. In this there is nothing miraculous. Everything is

consistently thought out, and in this sense Jesus could have been nothing

else than the Word or the Son of God. All this sounds very strange to us

at first, because we have forgotten the full meaning of the utterance or

the Word, and are not able to transfer the creation of the Word and the

Thought, even though only in the form of a similitude, to that which was

in the beginning. A similitude it is and must remain, like everything that

we say of God; but it is a higher and more spiritual similitude than any

that have been or can be applied to God in the various religions and

philosophies of the world. God has thought the world, and in the act of

thinking has uttered or expressed it; and these thoughts which were in

Him, and were thought and uttered by Him in rational sequence, are the

Logoi, or species, or kinds, which we recognise again by reflection in the

objective world, as rationally developing one from another. Here we have

the true “Origin of Species” long before Darwin’s book.

To the philosophers this is all perfectly intelligible. The step taken by

Christ and his disciples (those, namely, who speak to us in the Fourth

Gospel) was this, that they believed they recognised in the historical

Jesus, the son of the carpenter of Nazareth, the highest Logos “Man” in

his complete realisation. It was entirely natural, but it can only have

occurred after overpowering experiences, for it must have signified more

than we understand under the “ideal of a man,” although originally both

expressions are derived from the same source. Nor was the designation of

the Saviour as the Word, or, in more human fashion, the Son of God,

intended so much for him conceived purely spiritually, but rather for his

personality as inspired by the highest ideas.

In all these matters we must think of the ever changing medium, in which

these expressions moved. Word and Son in the mouths of the people might

coalesce or be kept quite apart; Son of David, Son of Abraham, might at

times take the place of Son of God, and all these phrases might appear in

popular intercourse to express only what others called the Messiah or

Christ. In any case, all these were the highest expressions which could be

applied to man or to the son of man. To the ordinary understanding, still

permeated with heathen ideas, it was certainly monstrous to elevate a man

to Olympus, to transform him into a son of God. But what was there for man

higher than man? Intermediate beings, such as demons, heroes, or angels,

had never been seen, nor did they answer the purpose. One step, however

small, above the human, could only lead to the divine, or bring into

consciousness the divine in man. What seemed blasphemy to the Jewish

consciousness was just that truth which Christ proclaimed, the truth for

which he laid down his human life. If we enter into this thought, we shall

understand not only the occasional expressions of the Synoptics, but the

Fourth Gospel especially in all its depth. How it was possible to make

this last Gospel intelligible without these ideas, is almost

incomprehensible.

What, then, did the readers think of the Word, that was in the beginning,

that was with God, that even was God, of the Word, by which all things

were made? And what was understood when Jesus was called the Word, that

was in the world, without the world knowing him, while those who

recognised and acknowledged him as the Word, thereby became like him sons

of God? We must ascribe some meaning to these words, and what can we

ascribe if we do not take the philosophic term “Logos” in its historic

sense? One need only attempt to translate the beginning of the Fourth

Gospel into a non-Christian language, and we shall realise that without

its heathen antecedents the words remain absolutely unintelligible. We

find translations that mean simply, “In the beginning was the

substantive.” That may seem incredible to us; but what better idea has a

poor old peasant woman in reading the first chapter of the Fourth Gospel,

and what better idea can the village preacher give her if she asks for an

explanation?

For us the greatest difficulty remains in verse 14, “The Word became

flesh, and dwelt among us.” But what grounds have we for setting our

opinion against the unhesitating acceptance of contemporaries, and later

even of the Alexandrian philosophers? They must have felt the same

difficulties as ourselves, but they overcame them in consideration of what

they had seen in Jesus, or even only heard of him. They could not

comprehend him in his moral elevation and holiness, except as the Logos,

the Word, the Son of God. If we follow them, we are safe; if not, we can

no doubt say much in excuse, but we place ourselves in the strongest

opposition to history. We may say that men have never seen any divine

idea, any divine word, any divine thought of any kind realised on earth;

nay, that man can never have the right to pass such a deifying judgment,

of his own sovereign power, on anything lying within his actual

experience. We so easily forget that if God is once brought near to

humanity, and no longer regarded as only transcendent, humanity must, at

the same time, be thought and brought nearer to the divine. We may

acknowledge this and still maintain that others, like the apostles and the

philosophers of Alexandria after them, must have felt the same difficulty,

perhaps even more strongly than we, who never were eye-witnesses nor

Platonic philosophers. Yet they still insisted that Jesus in his life,

conduct, and death demonstrated that human nature could rise no higher

than in him, and that he _was_ all and _fulfilled_ all that God had

comprised in the Logos “man.” Jesus himself declares, when Peter first

called him the son of God, that flesh and blood had not revealed it unto

him, but his Father which is in heaven (Matthew xvi. 17). And this was

perfect truth and applies to us also.

We may go through the whole Fourth Gospel, and we shall find that it

remains incomprehensible, except from the standpoint that we ascribe to

the author. When we read (i. 18), “No man hath seen God at any time; the

only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared

him,” shall we then think only of the son of the carpenter, the bodily

Jesus, and not rather of the Word that was in him, and that was as near to

the Father as He to himself; that was in the bosom of the Father, and that

declared to us the Father, who was in the beginning? Has not Jesus himself

stated (iii. 13) that no man hath ascended up to heaven except him who

came down from heaven, that is from God, and that no one has seen the

Father, save he which is of God, that is the Son (vi. 46)? These are, of

course, figurative expressions, but their meaning cannot be doubtful. When

Nathanael called Jesus, Rabbi, King of Israel, and Son of God, his ideas

may still have been very immature, but in time the true meaning of the Son

of God breaks through more and more clearly.

The declaration of Jesus to Nicodemus, “Ye must be born anew,” is a

remarkable one—remarkable, because the Brahmans from the earliest times

make use of the same expression, and call themselves the reborn, the twice

born (Dvija), and both no doubt attributed the same meaning to the second

birth, namely, the recognition of the true nature of man, the Brahmans as

one with Brahman, that is, the Word; the Christians as one with the Word,

or the Son of God. And why should this belief in the Son give everlasting

life (ii. 16)? Because Jesus has through his own sonship in God declared

to us ours also. This knowledge gives us eternal life through the

conviction that we too have something divine and eternal within us,

namely, the word of God, the Son, whom He hath sent (v. 38). Jesus

himself, however, is the only begotten Son, the light of the world. He

first fulfilled and illumined the divine idea which lies darkly in all men

(see John viii. 12, xii. 35, 46), and made it possible for all men to

become actually what they have always been potentially—sons of God.

Further reading in the Fourth Gospel will of course show us many things

that are only indirectly connected with this, which I believe to be the

supreme truth of Christianity. To the woman of Samaria Jesus only declares

that God is a spirit, and that he must be worshipped in spirit, bound

neither to Jerusalem nor to Samaria. She knows only that the Messiah will

come, she was scarcely ready for the idea of a son of God, but like the

Pharisees (v. 18) would have considered this only as blasphemy (x. 33).

But again and again the keynote of the new teaching breaks through. When

Jesus speaks of his works, he calls them the works of his Father (v. 19);

even the resurrection from the dead is explained by him, as clearly as

possible, to be an awakening through the Word, “He that heareth my word,

and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life” (v. 14), which

means that he is immortal. He, however, who did not recognise the Word and

his divine nature, as Jesus taught it, does not yet possess that eternal

life, for which he is destined, but which must first be gained through

insight, or belief in Jesus. Can anything be clearer than the words (John

xvii. 3), “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only

true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”? Of course many of these

expressions were not understood by the masses, or were even misunderstood.

The words were repeated, and when necessary, especially in the

questionings of children, they had to be explained somehow, often by a

parable or story, which the mother invents at the moment, to quiet them.

All this is inevitable; it has happened everywhere, and happens still.

Whoever wishes to learn how tradition or common report treats historical

facts, should compare the Günther or Etzel of the Nibelungen with the

Gundicarius or Attila of history, or Charles the Great crowned by the Pope

with the Charlemagne who besieged Jerusalem, or Hruodlandus with Roland,

or Arturus with Arthur. Or, to come to later days, we need only recall the

wonderful tales of the French journals during the last Franco-German War,

and we shall be astonished at the manner in which, quite unintentionally,

the people adapt all tidings to their own views. Nineteen hundred years

ago there were no newspapers. Why should it have been different then?

What the children had heard and believed, they remembered when they had

grown older, or themselves had become parents. It was convenient and

natural to tell their children again what they had heard in their own

childhood, and like a rolling stone, with each repetition the tradition

constantly took up new miraculous elements. There is scarcely a miracle in

the New Testament that did not account for itself spontaneously in this

way, and that did not in its original form reveal to us a far higher truth

than the mere miracle itself. And when the time came for a record, was it

not quite natural that everything available should be gathered together,

according to the tales told and believed from house to house, or village

to village? In this process, moreover, the appeal to a voucher, if

possible to a contemporary or eye-witness, was not at all surprising,

especially if there was a still living tradition, that this or that had

been heard from one of the apostles, and could be traced back to him from

son to father. Why should we put aside, nay, indignantly reject, this

simple, natural theory, suggested by all the circumstances, and capable of

at once removing all difficulties, in order to prefer another, which has

the advantage, it is true, of having been generally accepted for

centuries, but nevertheless was originally nothing more than a human

appeal to a superhuman attestation? It must not be forgotten that if a

voice were really heard from heaven, it lies with man to understand it,

or, on his own authority, to declare it the voice of God or an angel. With

one-half of Christendom the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the four

Gospels never became an article of faith. It was first made so among the

Protestants to provide something incontestable in place of the councils

and the Pope. But this only drove Protestants from Scylla into Charybdis,

and landed them in inextricable difficulties, because they withdrew the

Gospels from the historical soil out of which they sprang. But we do not

escape Charybdis by steering again into Scylla, but by endeavouring to

rise above Charybdis, ay, even above the Gospels. In our human

shortsightedness we may believe that it would have been better for us had

Jesus or the apostles themselves left us something in writing. But as this

did not happen, why should we not be content with what we have? The ruins

of the true Christianity still remain; why should we not endeavour with

their help to restore the ancient temple?

Why should we contemptuously reject the tradition which arose in the

mouths of the people? Should we be worse Christians if it were clearly and

plainly demonstrated that we only possess popular traditions, out of which

we must ourselves form a conception of the career and teaching of Christ?

Is it not good for us, that we are free in many points to decide for

ourselves what Jesus was and what he taught?

And in a world in which everything develops, everything grows and changes,

why should religion alone be an exception? Do we not all freely confess

that certain precepts which are ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels are no

longer adapted to our times and to our circumstances? Does any Christian

turn his left cheek when he has been struck upon the right? Do we give our

cloak when our coat has been taken from us? Do we hold everything that we

possess in common as the first Christians did? Do we sell all that we have

and give it to the poor (Matthew xix. 21)?

It is quite true that under this method a certain personal freedom in the

interpretation of the Gospels is unavoidable, but is not this freedom at

the same time accompanied by a very important feeling of personal

responsibility, which is of the utmost significance for every religious

conviction? It cannot be denied, that this open and honest acknowledgment

of the undeniable influence of popular tradition has far-reaching

consequences, and will take from us much to which we are accustomed, and

that has become near and dear, even sacred, to us. But it has this

advantage, that we feel we are candid and honest in our faith, to which we

may add that we are never forced in dealing with human hypotheses to give

our assent blindly, but may follow our own judgment. We may adopt or

reject the view that in the development of the gospel story much must be

ascribed to popular tradition, and I can readily believe that many who do

not know, either through the study of legends or their own experience, the

transforming influence which school and family traditions exercise on the

form of historical narratives, find it incredible that such a carbonising

process could have taken place also in the evangelical tradition as

related by the men of the next generation. They must then content

themselves with the alternative, that the laws of nature, which they

themselves ascribe to the Deity, must have been abrogated by their own

founder in order that the truth of the teaching of Christ might gain a

certain probability in the eyes of the people by so-called miracles.

Let us take an example in order to see what we shall gain on the one side

and lose on the other. The original meaning of making the blind see, Jesus

has himself told us (John ix. 39), “For judgment I am come into this

world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be

made blind.” This refers to spiritual, not physical blindness, and which

is the more difficult to heal, the spiritual or the physical? But when

Jesus was repeatedly said to have healed this spiritual blindness, to have

opened the eyes of the blind and unbelieving, how was it possible that the

masses, especially the children, should not misunderstand such cures, and

interpret and repeat them as cures of physical blindness? Certainly such

an idea carries us a long way. We must then, for instance, explain such an

expression as that placed in the mouths of the Pharisees (John x. 21),

“Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?” as a further extension of a

popular notion already in the field. Nor can it be denied that cures of

the physically blind have this in their favour, that so exceptional a

personality as Jesus may also have possessed an exceptional healing power.

It then depends only on the character of the blindness, whether it was

curable or incurable, and the solution of this question we may be content

to leave to the medical man. I only remark, that if the medical man should

deny such a possibility, a true Christian would lose nothing in

consequence, for under all circumstances a spiritual healing power in

Christ would stand higher with all of us than one merely physical.

This may be called shallow rationalism, but surely the human _ratio_ or

reason cannot be entirely rejected. Many know of their own experience that

a man of high moral energy can even now drive out devils and base

thoughts. Why not also believe that through his appearance and words Jesus

made such an impression upon those possessed, for instance, upon the man

or the two men who herded swine in the country of the Gadarenes or

Gergesenes, that they came to themselves and began to lead new lives? That

on such a conversion the swine-herds should forget their swine which

rushed headlong into the lake, is easily understood, and when these two

incidents came to the ears of the people, what was more natural than the

story which we find in Matthew (viii. 28), Mark (v. 1), and Luke (viii.

26), but not in John? We need not now enter into the discrepancies between

these three narratives, striking as they would be in a divinely inspired

book. Of course it will be said again, that this is a shallow,

rationalistic explanation, as if the word “rationalist” contained within

itself something condemnatory. At all events, no one can now demonstrate

that Jesus did not bewitch the unclean spirits out of the two demoniacs

into the two thousand swine; but I confess that the shallow rationalistic

explanation seems to me far better calculated to bring clearly to light

the influence which Jesus could exercise over the most abandoned men.

One more instance. How often does Jesus say that he is the bread that

really satisfies man, and the water that quenches all thirst (vi. 48): “I

am the bread of life. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven,

that a man may eat thereof and not die. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh

my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Would any one, even the woman of Samaria, take these words literally? Does

not Jesus himself help us to a correct understanding of them when he says

(vi. 35), “I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never

hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst,” and again, (vii.

37), “If any man thirst let him come unto me, and drink.” And in order to

shield his words against any misunderstanding he himself says (vi. 63),

“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words

that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” And are we

resolved in spite of all this not to understand the deep meaning of his

words, to remain blind and deaf; and do we, like the Pharisees, prefer the

story of how Jesus by magic means fed thousands with five or seven loaves

and two fishes (vi. 9), so that in the end twelve baskets of bread

remained after all were satisfied? We can readily comprehend how in the

mouths of the people the great miracles of Jesus, the real _mira_ wrought

by his life and teaching, became small _miracula_. But if we surrender

these small _miracula_, is not something far better left us, namely, that

Jesus, who so often called himself the bread and the wine, who even at the

Last Supper, as he broke bread with his disciples, commanded them to eat

the bread which was his body, and drink the wine which was his blood,—that

this teacher could by his teaching satisfy, content, and convert

thousands, who came to him and believed in him! It is true that the story

of the feeding of thousands with five loaves of bread is more intelligible

to women and children, and makes a stronger impression than the

metaphorical words of Christ; but nothing is more easy to understand than

the transformation of a tale of the conversion or spiritual satisfying of

thousands, into a parable of the feeding of thousands with five loaves.

But have not the truly devout and conscientious thinkers rights of their

own in the community? Must they really hold themselves aloof from the

church, because they have too deep a reverence for the true teaching of

Christ? Grand and beautiful as are St. Peter’s in Rome, St. Mark’s in

Venice, or the Cathedral at Milan, it is heartbreaking to observe the

so-called divine service in these buildings. Let us not be deceived by the

sayings, that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children, or that a

childlike faith is best. That is quite true, but it has absolutely nothing

to do with our question. Of course in every generation millions of

children are born, and milk must be provided for these as well; but this

milk is not for men, and these should not permit themselves to be

frightened by mere words, such as shallow enlightenment, rationalism,

unbelief, etc. The worst of it is that we have permitted our _ministri_ to

become our masters instead of our servants, and that the weak among them

far outnumber the strong. In history, however, the minority is always

victorious. Popular legend has certainly at times grievously obscured the

gospel of Christ, but not so much as to prevent those who are familiar

with its nature and effect from discovering the grains of gold in the

sand, the rays of truth behind the clouds. At all events, popular legend

refuses to be ruled out. A knowledge of it and its influence on historical

events in other nations, and especially a familiarity with the modes of

expression in Oriental languages, are of the greatest use in all these

investigations. Only let no one confound legend and metaphor with

mythology. When Jesus says that he is the water, and that whoever drinks

of this water shall never thirst again, every one readily perceives that

he speaks metaphorically. And likewise when he says that he is the vine or

the good shepherd. But here the transition from parable to reality very

soon begins. Among so many pictures of the good shepherd it need occasion

no surprise that it is commonly imagined that Jesus actually was a

shepherd and carried a lamb on his shoulders. What occurs now was of

course equally possible in the earliest times. When the common people saw

daily, in old mosaic pictures, a sword coming forth from the mouth of God,

they formed a representation of God corresponding to these pictures (Rev.

i. 20). And thus many readers of the Gospel suppose that Jesus was really

carried up into the air by the devil and placed on the summit of the

temple or of a high mountain, that he might show him all the kingdoms of

the earth, and tempt him to establish an earthly realm. Is it reverent to

imagine Christ borne through the air by the devil, instead of simply

learning that Christ himself, as we read, was not a stranger to inward

trials, and that he freely confessed them to his disciples? Many parables

are represented in the Gospels, as though they had really occurred at the

time. Thus, in the parables of the kingdom of heaven, the phrase always

runs that it is like seed which a man sowed, and while he slept an enemy

came and sowed tares. Or the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a

woman took and hid in three measures of meal, or like a treasure found by

a man in a field, or like a merchant seeking goodly pearls, etc. In

listening to these parables or looking at pictorial representations of

them, there develops almost unconsciously, especially among the young, a

belief in their reality, in their actual occurrence at the time of Christ.

In many cases this belief is widely spread, as, for example, in the story

of the good Samaritan, Now it is quite possible that some such incident as

Jesus related had occurred in his time, or shortly before it; but it is

just as likely to have been a parable invented for a specific purpose. And

why should not this be true of other things, which the Gospels ascribe to

Jesus himself?

Is it necessary to believe, that Jesus saw the Pharisees casting their

gifts into the treasury with his own eyes (Luke xxi. 1), and the poor

widow who threw in two mites, or is it possible to consider this, too, as

a parable, without insisting that Jesus really sat opposite the sacred

chest, and counted the alms, and knew that the widow had put in two mites,

and had really nothing left? Of many things, as of the conversation

between Jesus and Nicodemus, or between Jesus and the woman of Samaria, no

one could have had any knowledge except those who took part in it. We must

therefore assume that Jesus communicated these conversations to his

disciples, and that these have reported to us the _ipsissima verba_. In

this manner we are constantly involving ourselves in fresh difficulties of

our own making, which we may indeed leave out of consideration, but which

would never exist at all if we would only consider the circumstances under

which the Gospels arose. I have previously expounded this view of the

popular origin of the evangelic narratives in my Gifford lectures before

an audience, certainly very orthodox; and although a small number of

theologians were much incensed against me,—it was their duty,—the

majority, even of the clergy, were decidedly with me. The things

themselves and their lessons remain undiminished in value; we merely

acknowledge a fact, quite natural from an historical standpoint, viz. that

the accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus have not come to us direct

from Christ, nor from the apostles, but from men who, as they themselves

tell us, received the report from others by tradition. Their narratives,

consequently, are not perhaps fictitious, or prepared with a certain

object; but they do show traces of the influence that was unavoidable in

oral transmission, especially at a time of great spiritual excitement.

This is a problem which in itself has nothing whatever to do with

religion. We have the Gospels as they are. It remains with the historian

alone to pass judgment upon the origin, the transmission, and the

authenticity of these texts, just as the reconstruction of the text lies

solely with the philologist. For this he need not even be a Christian,

merely an historian. Whatever may be the judgment of the historical

inquirer, we must learn to be content with what they leave us. In this,

too, the half is often better than the whole. Quite sufficient remains,

even when the critical historian assures us that the Gospels as we possess

them were neither written by Christ nor the apostles, but contain the

traditions of the oldest Christian communities, and that the manuscripts

in which they have reached us were not written till the fifth or at the

earliest the fourth century. We may deal with these materials as with all

other historical materials from that period; and we do so rather as

independent historians than as Christians.

The view that the four Gospels were miraculously revealed to their

authors, miraculously written, miraculously copied and finally printed, is

a view no doubt deserving of respect, but it leaves the contents of the

Gospels untouched. The difference between the historical and the

conventional interpretation of the Gospels comes out most clearly in the

doctrine of eternal life. What Jesus understands by the eternal life that

he has brought to mankind, is as clear as the sun. He repeats it again and

again. Eternal life consists in knowing that men have their Father and

their true being in the only true God, and that as sons of this same

Father, they are of like nature with God and Christ (John xvii. 3).

This is the fundamental truth of Christianity, and it holds good not only

for the contemporaries of Jesus, but for all times. Those who see in this

view an overestimate of human nature, need only ask themselves what man

could be, if he were not a partaker of the divine nature. This excludes

the difference between human and divine nature as little as the difference

between the physical father and the physical son. Even in this case we

speak figuratively, for how could we speak otherwise of what is

supersensual? The repetition of stories among the people, narrating how

Jesus raised one or another to life, to eternal life, very soon led among

women and children to the misunderstanding that this referred only to a

resurrection from bodily death. Nay, this raising passed with them, as it

still does with many, for a stronger proof of the divine nature and power

of Christ than the resurrection from that spiritual death, which holds in

captivity all who have not recognised their own divine sonship and have

not understood the glad tidings which Jesus brought to all mankind. Such

misunderstandings we find everywhere, as when, for instance, even a man

like Nicodemus fails to comprehend the new birth of which Jesus speaks,

and asks if a man can enter his mother’s womb a second time. If this was

possible in a Scribe, how much more so with the uneducated people. In the

same way the Jews misunderstand the saying of Jesus, that the truth will

make them free, and answer that they are the seed of Abraham, and free

men, so that Jesus had to repeat that whosoever commits sin is not free,

but a slave of sin (John viii. 33). Such misunderstandings meet us

everywhere, and their influence extends much farther than we at first

suppose. Naturally the tradition also puts words into Jesus’ mouth that

could only have issued out of the notions of the people, and almost

entirely conceal the depth of his own words. While the revelation of the

true divine sonship of man immediately bestows eternal life on him who

comprehends or believes in it, heals his blindness, and raises him from

spiritual death, Jesus is presented as not purposing to raise the dead

until the last day (John vi. 40). Martha makes the same mistake, when to

the words of Jesus, “Thy brother shall rise again,” she answers, “I know

that he shall rise at the last day” (John xi. 24). Even some of the works

which are ascribed to Jesus are plainly derived from the same source. A

spiritual resurrection is not sufficient, it even passes for less than a

bodily, and this is the very reason for the numerous stories of the

raising of the dead. These are matters from which, even to this day,

devout Christians are loath to part, especially where the details are

given so minutely as in the raising of Lazarus. Now there is absolutely no

objection to this, if we are resolved to cling to the historical reality

of the raising of Lazarus. Only in that case the terms employed should be

exactly defined. If we give the name death to the condition which excludes

any return to life, especially when, as with Lazarus, decay had already

set in, the condition from which Lazarus returned to life cannot be called

death without a contradiction. Jesus even says that his sickness was not

fatal (John xi. 4), and that he is not dead, but merely sleeps (John xi.

11). Was he mistaken? Such words should at least not be entirely

disregarded, even though the other words follow immediately after,

“Lazarus is dead” (John xi. 14). That a highly gifted nature, like that of

Jesus, may have possessed wonderful healing powers, cannot be denied,

however difficult it may be to determine the boundary between what is and

is not possible here. On the other hand, it is firmly established that

when once such an idea as the raising from physical death becomes rooted

in the popular mind, the details, especially such as can serve as

evidence, are provided spontaneously. The nucleus of the story of the

raising of Lazarus lies of course in the words (John xi. 25, 26), “_I am

the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me though he were

dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall

never die._” Here we have the true teaching of Christ, in his own

apparently contradictory language. The saying, “Whoever believes in me

shall never die,” does not necessarily mean that his body will never die;

and so the words, “Though he were dead, yet shall he live,” certainly do

not signify that his dead and decayed body shall receive new life. But the

people wanted something else. For the true miracles, for the spiritual

resurrection, they had no comprehension, they wanted sensuous miracles,

they wanted the resurrection of a body already decayed, and this is

described in the Gospels in detail. Such is the regular privilege of

popular tradition, and it happens without deliberate intention, except

that of bringing vividly before us the common interpretation of the fact.

Popular tradition is not intentional deception, it is only an unavoidable

fusion of facts with conventional ideas, whereby God becomes a laborer

wearied by six days’ work; his seat becomes Olympus or a golden throne in

some corner of the blue sky; the Son of God sinks to the level of a prince

of the house of David, the Saviour to a miracle doctor, and his message of

salvation to a promise of resurrection from physical death. There are many

good men and women fulfilling in their daily walk the commands of Christ,

to whom the true historical conception of the gospel story would be a

terrible disillusion. Well, such Christians are at liberty to remain in

their own views. Our own interpretation of many of the details in the

traditional representation of the Gospels, though details certainly of

very great significance, makes no claim to papal authority. It gladly

concedes the possibility of error, and only claims to give an

interpretation of the evangelic writings, founded on nature and history.

It should answer, and at the same time appease, the very numerous and, at

bottom, honest men, who, like the Horseherd, declare the gospel

narratives, as ordinarily understood, full of falsehood and fraud or even

pure fancy, and who have consequently broken with the Christian revelation

from conscientious scruples. Their number is greater than is generally

supposed, and it must on no account be supposed that they are necessarily

wicked or even immoral men. When they declare the Christian revelation to

be an absurdity, it is because they do not know it in its historical

origin and its divine truth. To assume that every word, every letter,—for

it has been carried even so far,—that every parable, every figure, was

whispered to the authors of the Gospels, is certainly an absurdity, and

rests only on human and often only on priestly authority. But the true

revelation, the real truth, as it was already anticipated by the Greek

philosophers, slowly accepted by Jews like Philo and the contemporaries of

Jesus, taught by men like Clement and Origen in the ancient Greek church,

and, in fine, realised in the life of Jesus and sealed by his death, is no

absurdity; it is for every thinking Christian the eternal life or the

kingdom of God on earth, which Jesus wished to establish, and in part did

establish. To become a citizen of this kingdom is the highest that man can

attain, but it is not attained merely through baptism and confirmation; it

must be gained in earnest spiritual conflict.

In nearly all religions God remains far from man. I say in nearly all

religions; for in Brahmanism the unity, not the union, of the human soul

with Brahman is recognised as the highest aim. This unity with Deity,

together with phenomenal difference, Jesus expressed in part through the

Logos, in part through the Son. There is nothing so closely allied as

thought and word, Father and Son. They can be distinguished, but never

separated, for they exist only through each other. In this manner the

Greek philosophers considered all creation as the thought or the word of

God, and the thought “man” became naturally the highest Logos, realised in

millions of men, and raised to the highest perfection in Jesus. As the

thought exists only through the word, and the word only through the

thought, so also the Father exists only through the Son, and the Son

through the Father, and in this sense Jesus feels and declares himself the

Son of God, and all men who believe in him his brethren. This revelation

or inspiration came to mankind through Jesus. No one knew the Father

except the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and those to whom the

Son willeth to reveal him. This is the Christian revelation in the true

sense of the word. It has long been attempted to make an essential

difference between Jesus, the only begotten Son, and his brethren, through

an exaggerated feeling of affected reverence. But if this is carried too

far, the temple which Jesus himself erected for mankind is destroyed. It

is true that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus, and that

Jesus is the only begotten Son, for he is in the Father and the Father in

him (John xiv. 10), nay, he and the Father are one (John x. 30). The

distinction is therefore there, but the unity as well, for Jesus himself

says that he is in his disciples as the Father is in him, that they all

may be one, as he is one with God, and God with him (John xvii. 21). To

many there may be no sense in this, because their ideas of God and of the

Son of God are altogether materialistic, but to those who have learned to

feel the divine, not only without but also within, these words are the

light of the world. In this sense we need not be ashamed of the gospel of

Christ, and can be prepared to look all the Horseherds of the world in the

face as intellectually free, yet at the same time as true Christians, in

the way Jesus himself would have desired; often in error, like the

disciples of old, but still loyal and honest followers of the Son of God.

The main issue in all these questions is honesty, honesty toward ourselves

even more than toward others. We know how easily we may all be deceived,

how easily we are put off with words, especially when they are words of

ancient use. It was the sincere tone of the Horseherd that prompted me to

public discussion of his doubts, for doubts are generally anticipations of

truth, and to be true to oneself is better than to possess all truth. It

gave me pleasure to learn recently that he is still among the living,

although for an interval he was beyond the range of the usual postal

facilities, so that my letters did not reach him. Whether he thinks me as

honest as himself, we must wait to know. I did not seek either to persuade

or to convince him. Such things depend too much on circumstances and

environment. I merely wished to show him that others, who do not agree

with him, or with whom he does not agree, are honest, and may honestly

hold entirely different views. To learn to understand each other is the

great art of life, and to “agree to differ” is the best lesson of the

comparative science of religion.