the second gospel is the nearest extant representative of the oldest
tradition, {417} whether written or oral, how comes it that it contains
neither the "Sermon on the Mount" nor the "Lord's Prayer," those typical
embodiments, according to Dr. Wace, of the "essential belief and cardinal
teaching" of Jesus? Not only does "Mark's" gospel fail to contain the
"Sermon on the Mount," or anything but a very few of the sayings contained
in that collection; but, at the point of the history of Jesus where the
"Sermon" occurs in "Matthew," there is in "Mark" an apparently unbroken
narrative from the calling of James and John to the healing of Simon's
wife's mother. Thus the oldest tradition not only ignores the "Sermon on
the Mount," but, by implication, raises a probability against its being
delivered when and where the later "Matthew" inserts it in his compilation.
And still more weighty is the fact that the third gospel, the author of
which tells us that he wrote after "many" others had "taken in hand" the
same enterprise; who should therefore have known the first gospel (if it
existed), and was bound to pay to it the deference due to the work of an
apostolic eye-witness (if he had any reason for thinking it was so)--this
writer, who exhibits far more literary competence than the other two,
ignores any "Sermon on the Mount," such as that reported by "Matthew," just
as much as the oldest authority does. Yet "Luke" has a great many passages
identical, or parallel, with those in "Matthew's" "Sermon on the Mount,"
which are, for the most part, scattered about in a totally different
connection. {418}
Interposed, however, between the nomination of the Apostles and a visit to
Capernaum; occupying, therefore, a place which answers to that of the
"Sermon on the Mount" in the first gospel, there is, in the third gospel, a
discourse which is as closely similar to the "Sermon on the Mount," in some
particulars, as it is widely unlike it in others.
This discourse is said to have been delivered in a "plain" or "level place"
(Luke vi. 17), and by way of distinction we may call it the "Sermon on the
Plain."
I see no reason to doubt that the two Evangelists are dealing, to a
considerable extent, with the same traditional material; and a comparison
of the two "Sermons" suggests very strongly that "Luke's" version is the
earlier. The correspondences between the two forbid the notion that they
are independent. They both begin with a series of blessings, some of which
are almost verbally identical. In the middle of each (Luke vi. 27-38, Matt.
v. 43-48) there is a striking exposition of the ethical spirit of the
command given in Leviticus xix. 18. And each ends with a passage containing
the declaration that a tree is to be known by its fruit, and the parable of
the house built on the sand. But while there are only 29 verses in the
"Sermon on the Plain" there are 107 in the "Sermon on the Mount;" the
excess in length of the latter being chiefly due to the long
interpolations, one of 30 verses before and one of 34 verses after, the
middlemost parallelism with Luke. Under these circumstances it is quite
impossible to {419} admit that there is more probability that "Matthew's"
version of the Sermon is historically accurate than there is that Luke's
version is so; and they cannot both be accurate.
"Luke" either knew the collection of loosely-connected and aphoristic
utterances which appear under the name of the "Sermon on the Mount" in
"Matthew;" or he did not. If he did not, he must have been ignorant of the
existence of such a document as our canonical "Matthew," a fact which does
not make for the genuineness, or the authority, of that book. If he did, he
has shown that he does not care for its authority on a matter of fact of no
small importance; and that does not permit us to conceive that he believed
the first gospel to be the work of an authority to whom he ought to defer,
let alone that of an apostolic eye-witness.
The tradition of the Church about the second gospel, which I believe to be
quite worthless, but which is all the evidence there is for "Mark's"
authorship, would have us believe that "Mark" was little more than the
mouthpiece of the apostle Peter. Consequently, we are to suppose that Peter
either did not know, or did not care very much for, that account of the
"essential belief and cardinal teaching" of Jesus which is contained in the
Sermon on the Mount; and, certainly, he could not have shared Dr. Wace's
view of its importance.[111]
{420}
I thought that all fairly attentive and intelligent students of the
gospels, to say nothing of theologians of reputation, knew these things.
But how can any one who does know them have the conscience to ask whether
there is "any reasonable doubt" that the Sermon on the Mount was preached
by Jesus of Nazareth? If conjecture is permissible, where nothing else is
possible, the most probable conjecture seems to be that "Matthew," having a
_cento_ of sayings attributed--rightly or wrongly it is impossible to
say--to Jesus, among his materials, thought they were, or might be, records
of a continuous discourse, and put them in at the place he thought
likeliest. Ancient historians of the highest character saw no harm in
composing long speeches which never were spoken, and putting them into the
mouths of statesmen and warriors; and I presume that whoever is represented
by "Matthew" would have been grievously astonished to find that any one
objected to his following the example of the best models accessible to him.
So with the "Lord's Prayer." Absent in our representative of the oldest
tradition, it appears in both "Matthew" and "Luke." There is reason to
believe that every pious Jew, at the commencement of our era, prayed three
times a day, according to a formula which is embodied in the present
_Schmone-Esre_[112] of {421} the Jewish prayer-book. Jesus, who was
assuredly, in all respects, a pious Jew, whatever else he may have been,
doubtless did the same. Whether he modified the current formula, or whether
the so-called "Lord's Prayer" is the prayer substituted for the
_Schmone-Esre_ in the congregations of the Gentiles, is a question which
can hardly be answered.
In a subsequent passage of Dr. Wace's article (p. 356) he adds to the list
of the verities which he imagines to be unassailable, "The Story of the
Passion." I am not quite sure what he means by this. I am not aware that
any one (with the exception of certain ancient heretics) has propounded
doubts as to the reality of the crucifixion; and certainly I have no
inclination to argue about the precise accuracy of every detail of that
pathetic story of suffering and wrong. But, if Dr. Wace means, as I suppose
he does, that that which, according to the orthodox view, happened after
the crucifixion, and which is, in a dogmatic sense, the most important part
of the story, is founded on solid historical proofs, I must beg leave to
express a diametrically opposite conviction.
What do we find when the accounts of the events in question, contained in
the three Synoptic gospels, are compared together? In the oldest, there is
a simple, straightforward statement which, for anything that I have to urge
to the contrary, may be exactly true. In the other two, there is, round
this possible and probable nucleus, a mass of accretions of the most
questionable character. {422}
The cruelty of death by crucifixion depended very much upon its lingering
character. If there were a support for the weight of the body, as not
unfrequently was the practice, the pain during the first hours of the
infliction was not, necessarily, extreme; nor need any serious physical
symptoms, at once, arise from the wounds made by the nails in the hands and
feet, supposing they were nailed, which was not invariably the case. When
exhaustion set in, and hunger, thirst, and nervous irritation had done
their work, the agony of the sufferer must have been terrible; and the more
terrible that, in the absence of any effectual disturbance of the machinery
of physical life, it might be prolonged for many hours, or even days.
Temperate, strong men, such as were the ordinary Galilean peasants, might
live for several days on the cross. It is necessary to bear these facts in
mind when we read the account contained in the fifteenth chapter of the
second gospel.
Jesus was crucified at the third hour (xv. 25), and the narrative seems to
imply that he died immediately after the ninth hour (_v._ 34). In this
case, he would have been crucified only six hours; and the time spent on
the cross cannot have been much longer, because Joseph of Arimathaea must
have gone to Pilate, made his preparations, and deposited the body in the
rock-cut tomb before sunset, which, at that time of the year, was about the
twelfth hour. That any one should die after only six hours' crucifixion
could not have been at all in accordance with Pilate's large experience of
the effects of that method of {423} punishment. It, therefore, quite agrees
with what might be expected if Pilate "marvelled if he were already dead"
and required to be satisfied on this point by the testimony of the Roman
officer who was in command of the execution party. Those who have paid
attention to the extraordinarily difficult question, What are the
indisputable signs of death?--will be able to estimate the value of the
opinion of a rough soldier on such a subject; even if his report to the
Procurator were in no wise affected by the fact that the friend of Jesus,
who anxiously awaited his answer, was a man of influence and of wealth.
The inanimate body, wrapped in linen, was deposited in a spacious,[113]
cool rock chamber, the entrance of which was closed, not by a well-fitting
door, but by a stone rolled against the opening, which would of course
allow free passage of air. A little more than thirty-six hours afterwards
(Friday 6 P.M., to Sunday 6 A.M., or a little after) three women visit the
tomb and find it empty. And they are told by a young man "arrayed in a
white robe" that Jesus is gone to his native country of Galilee, and that
the disciples and Peter will find him there.
Thus it stands, plainly recorded, in the oldest tradition that, for any
evidence to the contrary, the sepulchre may have been vacated at any time
during the Friday or Saturday nights. If it is said that no Jew would have
violated the Sabbath by taking the former course, it is to be recollected
that Joseph of {424} Arimathaea might well be familiar with that wise and
liberal interpretation of the fourth commandment, which permitted works of
mercy to men--nay even the drawing of an ox or an ass out of a pit--on the
Sabbath. At any rate, the Saturday night was free to the most scrupulous of
observers of the Law.
These are the facts of the case as stated by the oldest extant narrative of
them. I do not see why any one should have a word to say against the
inherent probability of that narrative; and, for my part, I am quite ready
to accept it as an historical fact, that so much and no more is positively
known of the end of Jesus of Nazareth. On what grounds can a reasonable man
be asked to believe any more? So far as the narrative in the first gospel,
on the one hand, and those in the third gospel and the Acts, on the other,
go beyond what is stated in the second gospel, they are hopelessly
discrepant with one another. And this is the more significant because the
pregnant phrase "some doubted," in the first gospel, is ignored in the
third.
But it is said that we have the witness Paul speaking to us directly in the
Epistles. There is little doubt that we have, and a very singular witness
he is. According to his own showing, Paul, in the vigour of his manhood,
with every means of becoming acquainted, at first hand, with the evidence
of eyewitnesses, not merely refused to credit them, but "persecuted the
church of God and made havoc of it." The reasoning of Stephen fell dead
upon the acute intellect of this zealot for the traditions of {425} his
fathers: his eyes were blind to the ecstatic illumination of the martyr's
countenance "as it had been the face of an angel;" and when, at the words
"Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right
hand of God," the murderous mob rushed upon and stoned the rapt disciple of
Jesus, Paul ostentatiously made himself their official accomplice.
Yet this strange man, because he has a vision one day, at once, and with
equally headlong zeal, flies to the opposite pole of opinion. And he is
most careful to tell us that he abstained from any re-examination of the
facts.
Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood; neither went I up to
Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before me; but I went away into
Arabia. (Galatians i. 16, 17.)
I do not presume to quarrel with Paul's procedure. If it satisfied him,
that was his affair; and, if it satisfies any else, I am not called upon to
dispute the right of that person to be satisfied. But I certainly have the
right to say that it would not satisfy me, in like case; that I should be
very much ashamed to pretend that it could, or ought to, satisfy me; and
that I can entertain but a very low estimate of the value of the evidence
of people who are to be satisfied in this fashion, when questions of
objective fact, in which their faith is interested, are concerned. So that
when I am called upon to believe a great deal more than the oldest gospel
tells me about the final events of the history of Jesus on the authority of
Paul (1 Corinthians xv. 5-8) I must pause. Did he think it, {426} at any
subsequent time, worth while "to confer with flesh and blood," or, in
modern phrase, to re-examine the facts for himself? or was he ready to
accept anything that fitted in with his preconceived ideas? Does he mean,
when he speaks of all the appearances of Jesus after the crucifixion as if
they were of the same kind, that they were all visions, like the
manifestation to himself? And, finally, how is this account to be
reconciled with those in the first and third gospels--which, as we have
seen, disagree with one another?
Until these questions are satisfactorily answered, I am afraid that, so far
as I am concerned, Paul's testimony cannot be seriously regarded, except as
it may afford evidence of the state of traditional opinion at the time at
which he wrote, say between 55 and 60 A.D.; that is, more than twenty years
after the event; a period much more than sufficient for the development of
any amount of mythology about matters of which nothing was really known. A
few years later, among the contemporaries and neighbours of the Jews, and,
if the most probable interpretation of the Apocalypse can be trusted, among
the followers of Jesus also, it was fully believed, in spite of all the
evidence to the contrary, that the Emperor Nero was not really dead, but
that he was hidden away somewhere in the East, and would speedily come
again at the head of a great army, to be revenged upon his enemies.[114]
Thus, I conceive that I have shown cause for the {427} opinion that Dr.
Wace's challenge touching the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, and
the Passion was more valorous than discreet. After all this discussion, I
am still at the agnostic point. Tell me, first, what Jesus can be proved to
have been, said, and done, and I will say whether I believe him, or in
him,[115] or not. As Dr. Wace admits that I have dissipated his lingering
shade of unbelief about the bedevilment of the Gadarene pigs, he might have
done something to help mine. Instead of that, he manifests a total want of
conception of the nature of the obstacles which impede the conversion of
his "infidels."
The truth I believe to be, that the difficulties in the way of arriving at
a sure conclusion as to these matters, from the Sermon on the Mount, the
Lord's Prayer, or any other data offered by the Synoptic gospels (and _a
fortiori_ from the fourth gospel), are insuperable. Every one of these
records is coloured by the prepossessions of those among whom the primitive
traditions arose, and of those by whom they were collected and edited; and
the difficulty of making allowance for these prepossessions is enhanced by
our ignorance of the exact dates at which the documents were first put
together; of the extent to {428} which they have been subsequently worked
over and interpolated; and of the historical sense, or want of sense, and
the dogmatic tendencies of their compilers and editors. Let us see if there
is any other road which will take us into something better than negation.
There is a widespread notion that the "primitive Church," while under the
guidance of the Apostles and their immediate successors, was a sort of
dogmatic dovecot, pervaded by the most loving unity and doctrinal harmony.
Protestants, especially, are fond of attributing to themselves the merit of
being nearer "the Church of the Apostles" than their neighbours; and they
are the less to be excused for their strange delusion because they are
great readers of the documents which prove the exact contrary. The fact is
that, in the course of the first three centuries of its existence, the
Church rapidly underwent a process of evolution of the most remarkable
character, the final stage of which is far more different from the first
than Anglicanism is from Quakerism. The key to the comprehension of the
problem of the origin of that which is now called "Christianity," and its
relation to Jesus of Nazareth, lies here. Nor can we arrive at any sound
conclusion as to what it is probable that Jesus actually said and did
without being clear on this head. By far the most important and
subsequently influential steps in the evolution of Christianity took place
in the course of the century, more or less, which followed upon the
crucifixion. It is almost the darkest period of Church {429} history, but,
most fortunately, the beginning and the end of the period are brightly
illuminated by the contemporary evidence of two writers of whose historical
existence there is no doubt,[116] and against the genuineness of whose most
important works there is no widely-admitted objection. These are Justin,
the philosopher and martyr, and Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. I shall
call upon these witnesses only to testify to the condition of opinion among
those who called themselves disciples of Jesus in their time.
Justin, in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, which was written somewhere
about the middle of the second century, enumerates certain categories of
persons who, in his opinion, will, or will not, be saved.[117] These are:--
1. Orthodox Jews who refuse to believe that Jesus is the Christ. _Not
saved._
2. Jews who observe the Law; believe Jesus to be the Christ; but who insist
on the observance of the Law by Gentile converts. _Not saved._
3. Jews who observe the Law; believe Jesus to be the Christ, and hold that
Gentile converts need not observe the Law. _Saved_ (in Justin's opinion;
but some of his fellow-Christians think the contrary).
4. Gentile converts to the belief in Jesus as the Christ, who observe the
Law. _Saved_ (possibly).
5. Gentile believers in Jesus as the Christ, who do {430} not observe the
Law themselves (except so far as the refusal of idol sacrifices), but do
not consider those who do observe it heretics. _Saved_ (this is Justin's
own view).
6. Gentile believers who do not observe the Law, except in refusing idol
sacrifices, and hold those who do observe it to be heretics. _Saved._
7. Gentiles who believe Jesus to be the Christ and call themselves
Christians, but who eat meats sacrificed to idols. _Not saved._
8. Gentiles who disbelieve in Jesus as the Christ. _Not saved._
Justin does not consider Christians who believe in the natural birth of
Jesus, of whom he implies that there is a respectable minority, to be
heretics, though he himself strongly holds the preternatural birth of Jesus
and his pre-existence as the "Logos" or "Word." He conceives the Logos to
be a second God, inferior to the first, unknowable, God, with respect to
whom Justin, like Philo, is a complete agnostic. The Holy Spirit is not
regarded by Justin as a separate personality, and is often mixed up with
the "Logos." The doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul is, for
Justin, a heresy; and he is as firm a believer in the resurrection of the
body, as in the speedy Second Coming and establishment of the millennium.
This pillar of the Church in the middle of the second century--a
much-travelled native of Samaria--was certainly well acquainted with Rome,
probably with Alexandria, and it is likely that he knew {431} the state of
opinion throughout the length and breadth of the Christian world as well as
any man of his time. If the various categories above enumerated are
arranged in a series thus:--
_Justin's Christianity_
/--------^--------\
_Orthodox_ _Judaeo-Christianity_ _Idolothytic_
_Judaism_ /----^-----\ _Christianity_ _Paganism_
I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII.
it is obvious that they form a gradational series from orthodox Judaism, on
the extreme left, to Paganism, whether philosophic or popular, on the
extreme right; and it will further be observed that, while Justin's
conception of Christianity is very broad, he rigorously excludes two
classes of persons who, in his time, called themselves Christians; namely,
those who insist on circumcision and other observances of the Law on the
part of Gentile converts; that is to say, the strict Judaeo-Christians
(II.); and, on the other hand, those who assert the lawfulness of eating
meat offered to idols--whether they are Gnostic or not (VII.) These last I
have called "idolothytic" Christians, because I cannot devise a better
name, not because it is strictly defensible etymologically.
At the present moment, I do not suppose there is an English missionary in
any heathen land who would trouble himself whether the materials of his
dinner had been previously offered to idols or not. On the other hand, I
suppose there is no Protestant sect within the pale of orthodoxy, to say
nothing of the Roman and Greek Churches, which would hesitate to declare
the practice of circumcision and the {432} observance of the Jewish Sabbath
and dietary rules, shockingly heretical.
Modern Christianity has, in fact, not only shifted far to the right of
Justin's position, but it is of much narrower compass.
_Justin_
/---------^----------\
_Judaeo-Christianity_ _Modern Christianity_ _Paganism_
_Judaism_ /-------^-------\ /----------^---------\ |
I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII.
For, though it includes VII., and even, in saint and relic worship, cuts a
"monstrous cantle" out of paganism, it excludes, not only all
Judaeo-Christians, but all who doubt that such are heretics. Ever since the
thirteenth century, the Inquisition would have cheerfully burned, and in
Spain did abundantly burn, all persons who came under the categories II.,
III., IV., V. And the wolf would play the same havoc now, if it could only
get its blood-stained jaws free from the muzzle imposed by the secular arm.
Further, there is not a Protestant body except the Unitarian, which would
not declare Justin himself a heretic, on account of his doctrine of the
inferior godship of the Logos; while I am very much afraid that, in strict
logic, Dr. Wace would be under the necessity, so painful to him, of calling
him an "infidel," on the same and on other grounds.
Now let us turn to our other authority. If there is any result of critical
investigations of the sources of Christianity which is certain,[118] it is
that Paul of {433} Tarsus wrote the Epistle to the Galatians somewhere
between the years 55 and 60 A.D., that is to say, roughly, twenty, or
five-and-twenty years after the crucifixion. If this is so, the Epistle to
the Galatians is one of the oldest, if not the very oldest, of extant
documentary evidences of the state of the primitive Church. And, be it
observed, if it is Paul's writing, it unquestionably furnishes us with the
evidence of a participator in the transactions narrated. With the exception
of two or three of the other Pauline epistles, there is not one solitary
book in the New Testament of the authorship and authority of which we have
such good evidence.