I have sought to gather from the Gospels the scattered facts that
constitute the life of Jesus. I have searched for them in his
acts, his precepts, his words: in his different relations in
life. I have added nothing, exaggerated nothing; on the contrary,
the life of Jesus is infinitely grander and more sublime than I
have made it; his words are infinitely more profound and admiral
than I have described them. And I have said nothing of the seal
affixed to _his work_ and _his mission_ by his Passion;
nor have I shown Jesus at Gethsemane and upon the Cross.
{291}
According to the Bible, God is without parallel--ever the same.
Jesus is also so according to the Gospel. The most perfect, the
most constant unity reigns in Him: in his life as in his soul; in
his language as in his acts. His action is progressive, and
proportionate to the circumstances which call it forth and in the
midst of which He lives; but his progress never entails any
change of character or purpose. As He appears at the age of
twelve, in the Temple, already full of the sentiment of his
divine nature, in his reply to his mother who was searching for
Him with disquietude, "Knowest thou not that I must be about my
Father's business?" the same He remains and manifests himself in
the whole course of his active mission--in Galilee and at
Jerusalem, with his apostles and with the people, amongst the
Pharisees and the Publicans, whether they be men, or women, or
children who approach Him; alike before Caiaphas and Pilate, and
under the eyes of the crowd pressing around to listen to Him.
{292}
Everywhere and in every circumstance, the same spirit animates
Him; He diffuses the same light, proclaims the same law. Perfect
and immutable, always at once Son of God and Son of Man, He
pursues and consummates amidst all the trials and all the sorrows
of human existence his divine work for the salvation of mankind.
What need to add more? How speak in detail of Jesus himself when
one believes in Him, when one sees in Him God made man, acting as
God alone can act, and suffering all that man can suffer to
ransom mankind from sin, and save it by bringing it back to God?
How sound closely the mysteries of such a person and such a
purpose? What passed in that divine soul during that human
existence? Who shall explain those cries of agony of Jesus in the
bosom of the most absolute faith in God his father and in
himself, and those moments of horror at the approach of the
sacrifice without the slightest hesitation in the sacrifice,
without the smallest doubt as to its efficaciousness?
{293}
This sublime fact, this intimate and continual intermixture of
the divine and human finds no competent, no adequate expression
in human speech, and the more we consider it the more difficult
we find it to speak of it.
Those who have no faith in Jesus, who admit not the supernatural
character of his person, of his life, and of his work, do not
feel this difficulty. Having beforehand done away with God and
with miracles, the history of Jesus is for them nothing more than
an ordinary history, which they narrate and explain like any
other biography of man. But such historians fall into a far
different difficulty, and wreck themselves on a far different
rock. The supernatural being and power of Jesus may be disputed,
but the perfection, the sublimity of his actions and of his
precepts, of his life and of his moral law, are incontestable.
{294}
And in effect, not only are they not contested, but they are
admired and celebrated enthusiastically, and complacently, too;
it would seem as if it were desired to restore to Jesus as man,
and man alone, the superiority of which men deprive Him in
refusing to see in Him the Godhead. But then, what incoherence,
what contradictions, what falsehood, what moral impossibility in
his history, such as they make it; what a series of suppositions,
irreconcilable with fact, nevertheless admitted! The man they
make so perfect, so sublime, becomes by turns a dreamer or a
charlatan; at once dupe and deceiver: dupe of his own mystical
enthusiasm in believing in his own miracles; deceiver in
tampering with evidence in order to accredit himself. The history
of Jesus Christ is thus but a tissue of fables and falsehood. And
nevertheless the hero of this history remains perfect, sublime,
incomparable; the greatest genius, the noblest heart that the
world ever saw; the type of virtue and moral beauty, the supreme
and rightful chief of mankind.
{295}
And his disciples, in their turn justly admirable, have braved
everything, suffered everything, in order to abide faithful to
Him and to accomplish his work. And, in effect, the work has been
accomplished: the pagan world has become Christian, and the whole
world has nothing better to do than to follow the example.
What a contradictory and insolvable problem they present to us
instead of the one they are so anxious to suppress!
History reposes upon two foundations--positive written evidence
as to facts and persons, and presumptive evidence resulting from
the connection of facts and the action of persons. These two
foundations are entirely lost sight of in the history of Jesus
such as it is recounted, or rather constructed, in these days; it
is, on the one hand, in evident and shocking contradiction with
the testimony of the men who saw Jesus, or of the men who lived
nearly in the time of those who had seen Him; on the other side,
with the natural laws presiding over the actions of men and the
course of events.
{296}
This does not deserve the name of historical criticism; it is a
philosophical system and a romantic narrative substituted for the
substantial proof and the circumstantial evidence; it is a Jesus
false and impossible, made by the hand of man pretending to
dethrone the real living Jesus--the Son of God.
The choice lies between the system and the mystery; between the
romance of man and the purpose of God. Even in revealing himself
God still interposes veils, but these veils are no falsehoods.
The Gospel history of Jesus shows us God acting in ways which are
not his ways of every day. This special action of God
characterises also many other facts in the history of the
universe; amongst others, the great fact of the actual creation,
where man, at his appearance upon earth, received the first
divine revelation. The supernatural does not merely date from
Jesus Christ; and if a man from this motive rejects the history
of Jesus, he will have to deny also a far different thing.
{297}
To escape this fatal necessity, men of learning have recently
striven to curtail indefinitely the proportion of the
supernatural in the history of Jesus, and to explain by natural
means, most of the acts and circumstances of his life. A puerile
attempt, which has altogether failed in the details, still
leaving untouched the substance of the problem. No better success
will attend the new attempt that has in these days been made, and
which consists in placing the Ideal in the place of the
Supernatural, and in elevating religious sentiment upon the ruins
of the Christian faith. This is doing either too much or too
little. The human soul is not satisfied with these leavings, nor
human pride with such refusals, When one is so hardy as to
pretend, in the name of the science of man in this finite world,
to determine the limits of the power of God, one must be still
more hardy and--dethrone God himself.
{298}
{299}
Note.
I said (p. 145) that I would indicate some instances of
grammatical faults to be met with in the Scriptures, to which the
character of divine inspiration cannot be assigned. Upon the
subject of the books of the Old Testament I have consulted my
learned confrère, M. Munk; his reply is in the precise words
which follow:
"The biblical authors," he writes to me, "whose style is most
incorrect, are Ezekiel and Jeremiah. These authors, and
particularly the first, err frequently against grammar and
orthography; they are not merely influenced by the Aramean
dialect, but they disclose grammatical faults capable of being
traced to no source in any of the Semitic dialects. This remark
has also been made by Hebrew grammarians of the middle ages,
and Isaac Abrabanel (towards the close of the 15th century), in
the preface to his commentary upon Ezekiel, does not hesitate
to declare that this prophet was but superficially acquainted
with Hebrew grammar and orthography.
{300}
Nevertheless, neither Jeremiah nor Ezekiel, of whom both are
distinguished by a certain originality of style, unlike that of
any of the other Hebrew writers, is wanting in elegance,
energy, and boldness in images, and they display in the highest
degree their proficiency in the art of composition. The
following are some instances of the grave faults against
grammar to be met with in their writings:--
_Examples of Incorrect Expressions in Ezekiel._
[Transcriber's note: Hebrew text is indicated by "HHHHHH".
Some Latin characters are not exact. See the html version
for the original text.]
HHHHHH (_mischta' hawithem_), "and they worshipped" (viii.
16), a barbarism for HHHHHH (_mischta'hawîm_).
HHHHHH (_we-néschaar ani_), "and I remained" (xi. 8), for
HHHHHH (_wa-ëschaër_) or HHHHHH (_we-nischarti_).
(There are here faults both of orthography and grammar.)
HHHHHH (_ischôth_), "women" (xxiii. 44), for HHHHHH
(_nesché_). HHHHHH (_schib'a_), "his seven burnt
offerings" (xl. 26), for HHHHHH (_scheba'_). In the number
seven the masculine is used instead of the feminine.
HHHHHH (_bi-benôthayikh_), "in that thou buildest" (xvi.
31), instead of HHHHHH (_bi-benotihékh_).
HHHHHH (_be-schoubéni_), "when I returned" (xlvi. 7),
instead of HHHHHH (_be-schoubi_).
HHHHHH (_gabehâ_), "his height was exalted" (xxxi. 5),
instead of HHHHHH (_gabehâ_). The last letter is
_aleph_, for _hé_.
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The Chaldean plural is used in several words, for instance:
HHHHHH (_'hittîn_), "wheat" (iv. 9), for HHHHHH
(_'hittîm_); HHHHHH (_ha-iyyîn_), "the isles," or "the
isles in the sea" (xxvi. 18), instead of HHHHHH
_(ha-iyyim_), an error in both orthography and grammar.
_Examples of Incorrect Expressions in Jeremiah._
HHHHHH (_ôbîdâ_), "I will destroy" (xlvi. 8), for HHHHHH
(_aabîdâ_).
HHHHHH (_nibbetha_), "hast thou prophesied" (xxvi. 9),
instead of HHHHHH (_nibbetha_). The syllable _bé_ has
a _yod_ instead of an _aleph_.
HHHHHH (_athanou_) "we come" (iii. 22), instead of HHHHHH
(_athinou_.).
HHHHHH (_att_), "thee" in the feminine (terminating with
_yod_ mute), for HHHHHH (_att_), a Syriasm very
frequent in Jeremiah, who often forms the second person of the
perfect fem. in HHHHHH (_t_ followed by _yod_)
instead of HHHHHH (_t_). HHHHHH (_lô_ written with
_waw_ quiescent), "not" very often for HHHHHH (_lô_
without the _waw_).
HHHHHH (_hoglath_), "shall be carried away captive" (xiii.
19), instead of HHHHHH (_hoglethâ_). The latter Chaldaism
we meet also in the Pentateuch (Leviticus xxv. 22), HHHHHH
(_we'asath_), her fruits (shall) come in." for HHHHHH
(_we'asetah_), and ibid xxvi. 34; HHHHHH
(_we-hirzath_), "she shall enjoy," for HHHHHH
(_we-hircethâ_).
{302}
With respect to the New Testament, I have required a similar
notice from my son William, who has made the Greek language in
general, and its deviations in the writings of the Gospel, the
object of particular and careful study. I insert, also, the note
which he has drawn up upon the subject:--
"On first approaching the text of the New Testament, after
having learnt the Greek language and grammar in the classical
writers, we are struck by numerous irregularities of
expression: amongst these, however, we must carefully
distinguish those which constitute merely particular and
singular modes of expression from those which are real faults.
The former are susceptible of explanation and justification by
different examples and different arguments; the latter are not
capable of being reconciled with the elementary and necessary
laws of language. Thus we may justify such or such a strange
form of conjugation or of declension, which would be accounted
a barbarism by a school boy, but which was nevertheless in
actual use in some one or other of the local dialects, written
and spoken by the Greeks.
{303}
Again, however it may have been the rule in Greek to set the
verb in the singular when used with a neuter substantive in the
plural, the rule has not been invariably observed even by the
purest classical writers, and we may justify by exceptions
collected here and there in their compositions, several
passages of the New Testament which, at first sight, might
appear amenable to a charge of solecism. Thus, in short, after
our attention having, at first sight, been arrested and our
minds disconcerted by other passages in which the sacred writer
has confounded the sense of two words which resemble each
other, as [Greek text], which signifies _summon a
witness_, and which St. Peter employs instead of [Greek
text] which means, _give testimony_,[Footnote 127] as
[Greek text], which signifies _to be incapable_, and which
St. Matthew and St. Mark employ in the sense of _being
impossible_, [Footnote 128]--as [Greek text], which
signifies the _meridian or zenith of a star_, and which,
on three occasions in the New Testament, is used in the sense
of _in the middle of the air_,--or, even when we meet
words, not merely strange to the ear, but formed without
attention to the rules and in contradiction to analogy, as
[Greek text] for [Greek text][Footnote 129]--we may again,
without any departure from logical rules, by judicious or
subtle distinctions, escape from the difficulties which the
passages suggest, and have a perfect right to do so. But after
having made allowances for the irregularities susceptible of
explanation in the language of the New Testament, there still
remain some which are real faults. The same word cannot be
written by the same hand, at an interval of but three pages,
both masculine and feminine, as the word [Greek text],
_rainbow_, in the _Apocalypse_. [Footnote 130] When
the substantive is feminine, the adjective cannot be masculine,
as [Greek text]. [Footnote 131]
[Footnote 127: 1 Peter i. 11.]
[Footnote 128: Matthew xvii. 20; Luke i. 37.]
[Footnote 129: 1 Corinthians ii 1.]
[Footnote 130: Compare iv. 3, and x. 1.]
[Footnote 131: Apocalypse xiv. 19.]
{304}
When the substantive is in the accusative, the adjective cannot
be in the nominative. In such an employment of words we are able
to trace in the sacred writings the hand of man, marks of human
imperfection and error; and we must not forget that these faults
become more numerous and grosser the greater the antiquity of the
MS. in which we find them, and the purer the Jewish origin of the
writer. Thus the Greek of the Apocalypse is singularly incorrect,
at the same time that the imaginative turn of the expression is
remarkably Hebraic. [Footnote 132] In the text, styled the
received text, and which was fixed in the 16th century, many of
these faults have disappeared, because it has borrowed from MSS.
of then recent date. But now that biblical philosophy has mounted
higher, we can discern how the copyists, one after the other,
actuated by pious scruples, or thinking only to correct some
error of their predecessors, have little by little effaced what
appeared to them too great a departure from rules to have been
written by an evangelist or an apostle. At the present day, these
admitted irregularities are an element indispensible to every
serious discussion respecting the nature and extent of the divine
inspiration to be met with in the sacred volume.
[Footnote 132: Apocalypse i. 16; iii. 12; iv. 7;
ix. 13 & 14; xiv. 12; xvi. 13; xx. 2, &c.]