I asked.
He tells us, for example, that the virtues, energy, and zeal of the
early Church was a main instrument of the success of Christianity;
whereas it is the very origination of the early Church, with all
these efficacious endowments, that we want to account for: it is
as though he had told me that we might account for the success
of Christianity from the fact that it had succeed to such an extent
as to render its further success very probable! As for the rest
of his secondary causes, they are difficulties in its way rather
than auxiliaries. He asks me to believe that the intolerance of
Christianity--by which it refused all alliance with other
religions, and insisted in reigning alone or not at all, by which
it spat contempt on the whole rabble of the Pantheon--was likely
to facilitate its reception among nations, whose pride and whose
pleasure alike it was to encourage civilities and compliments between
their Gods, each of whom was on gracious visiting terms with its
neighbors! He asks me, in effect, to believe that the austerity of
the Christians tended to give them favor in the eves of an
accommodating and jovial Heathenism; that the severity of manners by
which they reproved it, and which to their contemporaries must have
appeared (as we know from the Apologists it did) much as Puritan
grimace to the court of Charles II., was somehow attractive! That
the scruples with which they recoiled from all usages and customs
which could be associated with the elegant pomp of Pagan worship,
and the suspicion with which, as having been linked with idolatry,
they looked on every emanation of that spirit of beauty which reigned
over the exterior life of Paganism, would operate as a charm in their
favor! That their studied absence from all scenes social hilarity,
their grave looks on festal days, their garlanded heads, their
simple attire, their utter estrangement from the Graces, which in
truth were the legitimate Gods in Greece, and the true mothers of
whole family of Olympus, would be likely to conciliate towards the
Gospel the favorable dispositions classic antiquity! I have not so
read history, nor learnt human nature. Again, he asks me to believe that
the immortality which Christianity promised Heathen--such an immortality
--was another of things which tended to give it success;--on the one
hand, a menace of retribution, not for flagrant crimes only, which
Heathenism itself punished, nor for the lax manners which the easy
spirit of Paganism had made venial but for spiritual vices, of which
it took account, some of which it had even consecrated virtues; and,
on the other hand, an other of a which promised nothing but delights
of a spiritual order; a paradise which, whatever material or
imaginative adjuncts it might have, certainly disclosed none; which
presented no one thing to gratify the prurient curiosity of man's fancy,
or the eager passions of his sensual nature; which must, in fact,
have been about as inviting to the soul of a Heathen as the promise
of an eternal Lent to an epicure! Surely these were resistless
seductions. Yet it is to such things as auxiliaries that Gibbon refers
me for the success of Christianity. Verily it is not without reason
that he is called a master of irony!
My friend fairly acknowledged the difficulties of the subject, but
said he could not believe in the truth of Christianity.
I repaired to another infidel acquaintance. "It is a perplexing, a
very perplexing controversy, no doubts," was his reply; "but every
thing tends to show that Christianity resembles in its principal
features all those other religions which you admit to be false.
All have their prodigies and miracles,--their revelations and
Inspirations,--their fragments of truth and their masses of
nonsense. They are all to be rejected together."
I again puzzled for a long time over this aspect of the case. At
last I said to him,--This seems a curious way of disposing of the
evidence for Christianity; for if there be any true religion, it is
likely, as in all other cases, that the counterfeits will have some
features in common with it. It would follow, also, that there can
be no true philosophy; since, while there are scores of philosophies,
only one can be true. But I have another difficulty: on comparing
Christianity with other systems, I find vital differences, both as
regards theory and fact. As regards theory, I find an insuperable
difficulty, not merely in imagining how Jews, Greeks, or Romans,
any or all of them, should have been the originators of Christianity,
but how human nature should have been fool enough to originate it at all!
For I am asked to believe that man, such as I know him through all
history, such as he appears in so many forms of religion which have been
his undoubted and most worthy fabrication, did, whether fraudulently or
not, whether designedly or unconsciously, frame a religion which is in
striking contrast with all his ordinary handiwork of this sort! This
religion enjoins the austerest morality; human religions generally
enjoin a very lax one:--this demands the most refined purity, even of
the thoughts and desires; other religions usually attach to external
and ceremonial observances greater weight than to morality itself;--this
is singularly simple in its rites; they for the most part consist of
little else;--this exhibits a singular silence and abstinence in relation
to the future and invisible; they amply indulge the imagination and
fancy, and are full of delineations calculated to gratify man's most
natural curiosity;--this takes under its special patronage those
virtues which man is least likely to love or cultivate, and which men
in general regard as pusillanimous infirmities, if not vices; they
patronize the must energetic passions,--the passions which made the
demigods and heroes of antiquity. I am not saying which is the belief
in these respects; I am only saying that human nature appears more
true to itself in the last. And so notorious is all this, that the
corruptions of Christianity, as years rolled on, have ever been to
assimilate it to the other religions of the earth; to abate its
spirituality; to relax its austere code of morals; to commute its proper
claims for external observances; to encumber its ritual with an
infinity of ceremonies; and, above all, to uncover the future and
invisible, on which it left a veil, and add a purgatory into the
bargain! Thus, whether contrasted with other religions or with its
corrupted self, Christianity does not seem a religion which human
nature would be pleased to invent.
Again, is it like the other religious products of human nature, in
daring to aspire to universal dominion, and that too founded on moral
power alone? Never, till Christianity appeared, had such an imagination
ever entered the mind of man! Other religions were national affairs;
their gods never dreamed of such an enterprise as that of subduing all
nations. They were naturally contented with the country that gave them
birth, and the homage of the race that worshipped them. They were, when
not themselves assailed, very tolerant, and did the civil thing by
all other gods of all other nations, and were even content to expire
with great propriety (they usually did so) with the political
extinction of the race of their votaries! Christianity alone adopts
a different tone,--"Go ye, and preach the Gospel to all nations."--and
declares, not only that it will reign, but that none other shall. It
will not endure a rival; it will not consent to have a statue with
the mob of the Pantheon. Whether this ambition--call it pride and folly,
if you will, as you well may if the thing be merely human--was likely
to suggest itself to man, considering the local and national character
of other religions, and the apparent hopelessness of any such enterprise,
I have my doubts. Arrogance it may be; but it is not such arrogance as
is very natural to man.
These, I said, were amongst a few of the things in which I must say I
thought the theory of Christianity very unlike that of any religion
human nature was likely to invent.
If, I continued, I examine the past history and present position of
Christianity, with an impartial eye, I see that it presents in several
most important respects a contrast with other religions in point office.
I shall content myself with enumerating a few. Look, then, at the
perpetual spirit of aggression which characterizes this religion;
its undeniable power (in whatever it consists, and from whatever it
springs) to prompt those who hold it to render it victorious,--a spirit
which has more or less characterized its whole history: which still
lives, even in its most corrupt forms, and which has not been least
active in our own time. I do not see any thing like it in other religions.
Till I see Mollahs from Ispahan, Brahmins from Benares, Bonzes from
China, preaching their systems of religion in London, Paris, and Berlin,
supported year after year by an enormous expenditure on the part of
their zealous compatriots, and the nations who support them taking
the liveliest interest in their success or failure, till I see this
(call it fanatical if you will, the money thus expended wasted, the
men who give it fools), I shall not be able to pronounce Christianity
simply on a par with other religions.
Till the sacred books of other religions can boast of at least a
hundredth part of the same efforts to translate and diffuse them as
have been concentrated on the Bible; till we find them in at least
half as many languages; till they can render those who possess them
at least a tenth part as willing to make costly efforts to insure to
them a circulation coextensive with the family of man; till they
occupy an equal space in the literature of the world, and are equally
bound up with the philosophy, history, poetry, of the community of
civilized nations; till they have given an equal number of human
communities a written language, and may thus boast of having imparted
to large sections of the human family the germ of all art, science,
and civilization; till they can cite an equal amount of testimonies
to their beauty and sublimity from those who reject their divine
original,--I shall scarcely think Christianity can be put simply on a
par with other religions.
Till it can be said that the sacred books of other religions are
equally unique in relation to all the literature in which they are
imbedded; similar neither to what precedes nor what comes after them,
--their enemies themselves being judges; till they can be shown
to be as superior to all that is found in contemporaneous authors
as the New Testament is to the writings of Christian Fathers or the
Jewish Rabbis,--I cannot say that Christianity is just like any other
religion.
Till we can find a religion that has stood as many different assaults
from infidelity in the midst of it,--educated infidelity, infidelity
aided by learning, genius, philosophy, freely employing all the power
of argument and all the power of ridicule to disabuse its votaries;
till we can find a religion which can point to an equal array of
educated men, philosophic in spirit, in learning, and genius, deeply
skilled in the investigation of evidence, deliberately declaring that
its claims are well sustained.--we cannot say that Christianity is just
like any other religion.
Till it can be shown that another religion to an equal extent, has
propagated itself without force amongst totally different races, and
in the most distant countries, and has survived equal revolutions of
thought and opinion, manners and laws, amongst those who have embraced
it, it cannot be said that Christianity is simply like any other religion.
Till it can be shown that the sacred books of other religions have
contained predictions as definite and as unlikely to be fulfilled as the
success of early Christianity against all the opposition of prejudice
and persecution,--its voluntary reception amongst different races,
contrary to all the analogies of religious history,--and the continued
preservation of the Jews among all nations without forming a part of
any,--I cannot think that Christianity is precisely in the condition
of any other religion.
Such, gentlemen, were some few of the differences in fact which seemed
to me, not less than its theory, to discriminate Christianity from other
religions. Had I in those days of my youth, been favored with the views
of modern "spiritualism," I should have added, that till it is shown that
some other religion has possessed an equal power of moulding those
characters whom Mr. Newman points out as the best examples of "spiritual"
religion, and can point to oracles equally pervaded by that "sentiment"
which he declares is wanting in Greek philosophers, English Deists, and
German Pantheists, but which, he admits, pervades the Bible; till I see
the devout men whom he extols produced by other religions, or rather. I
ought to say, produced without them (where Christianity however is
unknown) by the unaided "spiritual faculty,"--I cannot but think
that the position of Christianity is somewhat discriminated both from
other religions and from "Naturalism."
Such, I said, to conclude, was an imperfect outline of some of my early
conflicts, and such the cruel mode in which my unbelieving friends
laughed at each other's hypotheses, and left me destitute of any.
Finding that they conclusively confuted one another, and perceiving
at last that the idea of the superhuman origin of Christianity did,
and, as Bishop Butler says, alone can resolve all the difficulties of
the subject, I was compelled to forego all the advantages of infidelity,
and condescended to "depress" my conscience to the "Biblical standard"!
Would to Heaven that it had never been depressed below it!
I am bound to say my auditors listened with courtesy. The conversation
was now carried on in little knots: I, who was glad of a rest, was
occupied in listening to a conversation between Harrington and his
Italian friend, who was urging him to take refuge from such a Babel
of discords as his company had uttered, in the only secure asylum.
Harrington told him, with the utmost gravity, that one great objection
to the Church of Rome was the unseemly liberty she allowed to the
right of private judgment; that he found in her communion distractions
the most perplexing, especially as between English and foreign Romanists!
____
After the party had broken up, and we were left alone, Mr. Fellows,
turning to me, said, "You lay great stress on the origination of
such a character as Christ. But can we make its reality a literary
problem? May it not have been imaginary? As Mr. Newman says, Human
nature is often portrayed in superhuman dignity; Why not in
superhuman goodness?
"That the origination;" said I, "of such a Moral Ideal, in so
peculiar a form, by such men as Galilean Jews, is unaccountable
enough, I fancy all will admit; but it is, you observe, only one of
the numberless points which are unaccountable; neither do I make
this one feature, or any of the other singular characteristics of
the New Testament, merely a literary problem. The whole, you see,
is a vast literary, moral, intellectual, spiritual, and historical
problem. But it is too much the way with you objectors to say, 'This
may, perhaps, be got over,' and 'That may be got over'; the question
is, as Bishop Butler says, whether all can be got over; for if all
the arguments for it be not false, Christianity is true.
"You charge us with the very conduct," retorted Fellowes, "which Mr.
Newman objects to Christians. They, says he, affirm that this objection
is of little weight, and that is of little weight; whereas altogether
they amount to considerable weight."
"I admit it," said I; "and those are very unfair who deny it. But
still, since there are these things of weight on both sides, the
argument returns, on which side does the balance on the sum-total of
evidence lie?"
"But," said Fellowes, "how few are competent to compute that!"
"You are really pleasant, Mr. Fellowes," I replied; "I thought the
question we were arguing was as to the truth or the falsehood of
Christianity, not whether the bulk of mankind are fully competent to
form an independent and profound judgment on its evidences: very
few are competent to do so either on this or any other complex subject;
certainly not (as our differences show) on the subject of your
'spiritualism.' But the incompetency of the great bulk of mankind to
deal with complicated evidence makes a thing neither true nor false;
perhaps on this, as on so many other subjects, the few must thoroughly
sift the matter for the many. If your present objection were of force,
what would become of truth in politics, law, medicine, in all which
the great majority must trust much to the conclusions of their wiser
fellow-creatures? Your observation is no confutation of the evidences
for Christianity: it is simply a satire upon God and the condition
of the human creatures he has made!"
"Well, let that pass," said Fellowes; "I was going to say further,
that it is not so clear to every one that Christ is so very wonderful
an ideal of humanity. Do you remember that Mr. Newman says in his
'Phases,' that, when he was a boy, he read Benson's Life of
Fletcher of Madely, and thought Fletcher a more perfect man than
Jesus Christ? and he also says that he imagines, if he were to read
the book again, he would think the same. Have you nothing to say
to that?"
"NOTHING," said I, "except to point you to the infinitely different
estimates of Christ formed by other men who yet think of historical
Christianity much as you do. How differently do such writers as
Mr. Greg and Mr. Parker speak! How do they almost exhaust the
resources of language to express their sentiments of this wonderful
character! As to Mr. Newman's impression, I do not think it worth
an answer. When a man so far forgets himself as to say what he can
hardly help knowing will be unspeakably painful to multitudes of his
fellow-creatures, on the strength of boyish impressions,--not even
thinking it worth while to verify those impressions, and see whether,
after thirty or forty years, he is not something more than a boy,--I
think it is scarcely worth while to reply. Christianity is willing to
consider the arguments of men, but not the impressions of boys."
"But we must not be too hard." said Harrington, "upon Mr. Newman; it
is evident, from his Hebrew Monarchy, that, as he takes a benevolent
pleasure in defending those whom nobody else will defend,--in petting
Ahab, whom he pronounces rather weak than wicked, and palliating Jezebel,
whose character was, it seems, grievously deteriorated by contact with
the 'prophets of Jehovah,'--so he has a chivalrous habit of depressing
those who have been particularly the objects of veneration. Elisha,
Samuel, and David are all brought down a great many degrees in the moral
scale. He has simply done the same with Christ."
"Well," said Fellowes, "I cannot help agreeing with Mr. Newman in
thinking that, when one hears men made the objects of extravagant eulogy,
it almost 'tempts one, even though a stranger to their very name,
to "pick holes," as the saying is.'"
"It may be so," said I; "but it is a tendency against which we should
guard. It would lead us, like him of Athens, to ostracize Aristides: we
should be weary of hearing him continually called 'The Just.'"
"However." rejoined Fellowes, "I am weary of hearing Christ so
perpetually called our example. As Mr. Newman says, he cannot, except
in a very modified sense, be such. 'His garments will not fit us.'"
"Did you ever hear," said I. "that fathers and mothers ought to set
an example to their children?"
"Certainly."
"Yet surely not in all things can they be such. Their garments surely
will not fit their children."
"No." said Harrington; "those of the father at all events will not,
if they are girls, nor of the mother, if they are boys. Fellowes, I
think you had better say nothing on this subject. If men of fifty
can, in all essential points, be beautiful examples to girls of
ten,--in gentleness, in patience, in humility, in kindness, and
so forth,--and all the more impressively for the wide interval between
them, why, I suppose Jesus Christ may be as much to his disciples."
"But, again," urged Fellowes to me, "you, like so many men, seem to
lay such stress on the superiority of the morality of the New Testament.
I cannot see it. I confess, with Mr. Foxton and many more, that it
seems to me that it has not such a very great advantage over that
of many heathen moralists who have said the same things,--Plato,
for example."
I replied, that, of course, it would be of no avail to affirm in
general (what I was yet convinced was true), that the New Testament
inculcated a system of ethics much more just and comprehensive than
any other volume in the world. I told him, however, that I thought
he would not deny that its manner of conveying ethical truth was unique;
that it not only contained more admirable and varied summaries of duty
than any other book whatever, but that we should seek in vain in any
other for such a profusion of just maxims and weighty sentiments,
expressed with such comprehensive brevity, or illustrated with so
much beauty and pathos. I remarked that, if he would be pleased to
do as I had once done,--compile a selection of the principal precepts
and maxims from the most admirable ethical works of antiquity (those
of Aristotle, for example), and compare them with two or three of the
summaries of similar precepts in the New Testament,--he would at once
feel how much more vivid, touching, animated, and even comprehensive,
was the Scriptural expression of the same truths. But I further observed,
that, even to obtain the means of such comparison, he must reject from
Plato or the Stagyrite twenty times the bulk of questionable
speculations, and dreary subtilties, which separate by long intervals
those gems of moral truth, which everywhere sparkle on the pages of
the New Testament.