greatly altered, lost sight of, violated, in the course of the
history of the Christian world. Human nature succumbs readily to
the temptations of victory and pleasure; when Christianity once
became powerful it was too often invaded and disfigured by
earthly interests and passions; ambition, cupidity, pride, the
arrogance of power, and the lies of cunning; every evil
inclination, every vice which the Christian faith rebukes and
combats, displayed themselves in this world which Christianity
had not conquered merely to hand it over to them, but from which,
nevertheless, it had not expelled them. The grand and salutary
doctrines of Christianity have been often themselves perverted
and profaned to the service of an egotism assuming every shape
and carried to every pitch. Still they never were lost, they
never perished in this impure mixture and this unworthy use; they
survived, they combated, sometimes in obscurity, sometimes in the
broad light of day; everywhere, at every epoch, Christian voices,
Christian lives, and Christian Reforms protested and struggled
against the passions and the corruptions of mankind. And in spite
of all these centuries, so sombre, so full of agitation, of
violence, and of oppression, so full of moral and material ill,
the decline of man and of human society did not ensue.
{205}
Greece and Rome, in their state of youthful growth, were glorious
and vigorous; and glorious, too, was the development in them of
human intelligence and dignity; but their career was short, and
these two brilliant forms of society did not find in their ideas,
traditions, or models, a sufficiency of moral force to enable
them to escape from, or even survive, the seductive and
corrupting influence of material grandeur and of human success.
Amidst all the sufferings, all the darkness, all the crimes which
agitate her long career, Christianity has proved infinitely
healthier and more sound; she has made herself an incessant
subject of study; she has shifted her place upon her couch of
sorrow; she has raised herself up, she has renewed, regenerated
herself; she has grown and prospered at the same time that she
has suffered; and in spite of the ills, vices, and perils against
which Christianity has had to defend herself, and against which
she will ever have to defend herself, she has before her, over
the whole face of the world, a future immense and full of
promise. This she owes to her origin--she was born in the manger
of Jesus.
{206}
There is at present a disposition amongst earnest and enlightened
men to recognise, it is true, the services which Christianity has
rendered to the world; but to attribute them only to the morality
of Christianity. They laud to the sky the moral character of
Jesus, and his moral precepts; but they repudiate, nay, deplore,
the dogmas with which, in the Christian faith, Christian morality
is combined and incorporated; they demand that the morality be
separated from it, and be presented to man without anything but
its intellectual beauty and practical excellence. Although not
disputing that there is somewhat of human in the origin and
empire of morality, I have established in this volume of
Meditations that it is necessarily allied to religious belief,
and that when separated from its divine source, and viewed apart
from that which gives it sanction, it is incomplete, illogical,
and powerless--a branch without root and without fruit.
{207}
I go farther now, and express my meaning fully. Not only is
Christian morality intimately connected with Christian faith, as
the Christian faith is itself connected with Christian dogmas,
but Christian morals, Christian faith, and Christian dogmas have
taken their origin, and derived their force, at a source still
higher, and in an authority still more decisive. Christianity did
not begin, it did not rise upon the world, as one body of
doctrines or code of precepts; from its first step it was a
truth, strange to the ordinary course of human affairs, and
superior to them; a fact divine, and an act divine; it was as
such, and by its character as such, that, sometimes all at once,
and sometimes gradually, it struck men as by a blow and
vanquished them, at first the rude and simple, then the great and
learned, publicans and emperors, the disciples of Plato, and the
fishermen of the sea of Gennesareth.
{208}
At different moments, and for different motives, all of them saw
in the cradle, and the rapid extent of infant Christianity, a
sublime and superhuman fact, a God present and acting in and by
Jesus. Some recognised and adored him at the very moment of his
appearing; others observed him with troubled and angry feelings;
but, in proportion as the truth developed itself, even those who
detested him doubted if they were right in doubting. The council
and all the senate of the children of Israel had caused Peter and
the other apostles to be placed in prison, and took counsel to
have them put to death. "Then stood there up one in the council,
a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in
reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the
apostles forth a little space; and said unto them: Ye men of
Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching
these men. For before these days rose up Theudas boasting himself
to be somebody, to whom a number of men, about four hundred,
joined themselves: who was slain, and all, as many as obeyed him,
were scattered and brought to nought.
{209}
After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the
taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished;
and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed. And now I
say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if
this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But
if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found
even to fight against God." [Footnote 48]
[Footnote 48: Acts v. 21, 33--39.]
The question which Gamaliel thus put with respect to Christianity
at its birth was not new; the high priest of Israel had already
made the same demand of Jesus himself: "I adjure thee by the
living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son
of God? Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said." [Footnote 49]
[Footnote 49: Matthew xxvi. 63, 64.]
{210}
The Jews replied to the affirmation of Jesus by crucifying him. A
short time afterwards, when they sought to treat the apostles as
their Master had been treated, Gamaliel counselled them to abide
the test of time, and in the meanwhile to leave "these people in
repose." They did not leave these people in repose, and the proof
was only on that account the more decisive: after three centuries
of persecutions and martyrdoms, the grand facts of
Christianity,--the Revelation, the Incarnation, the Redemption,
the Inspiration of the Scriptures,--became the grand dogmas of
Christianity, the basis of Christian faith, which faith in its
turn is the basis of Christian Life. Sixteen centuries elapsed
from this trial of Christianity in its cradle, and it was made to
undergo fresh and still ruder trials; in these trials earthly
interests and human errors and passions had a great part;
Christ's precepts were sometimes forgotten, and sometimes
converted into human instruments; no doctrine or idea was ever so
constantly in contact with, and at issue with, facts; never was
theory more rigorously reviewed, more subjected to the test of
practical application in every form and every shape.
{211}
The design which emanated from God traversed and surmounted all
these perils; it braved the faults of its adherents and the blows
of its enemies. It is engaged in our days in a new contest, and
is subjected to fresh trials; it has entered upon it with the
same arms, which, nineteen centuries ago, secured its triumph,
with the grand facts which form the basis of Christian faith, and
the great examples which furnish the rule of Christian living.
The History of Christianity is the strongest proof of its
Divinity, and the surest guarantee for its future. The
authenticity and authority of this history will be the subject of
the next and last series of my "Meditations."
{212}
{213}
Appendix.
Ecce Homo: such is the title of a work published anonymously, at
London and at Cambridge in 1866, which produced on its appearance
a great sensation in London, a sensation which still continues:
all the papers and reviews, whether religious, philosophical, or
simply literary, busied themselves with it, either to praise or
attack it; the distinguished chief of the Liberal Party himself,
perhaps soon to be the Prime Minister of England, Mr. Gladstone,
has just made it the subject of three articles, which are
remarkable alike for acuteness, elegance, and eloquence. They
appeared in one of the most widely circulated periodicals in his
country. [Footnote 50]
[Footnote 50: "Good Words," a Monthly Review, edited by
Norman Macleod, one of the Chaplains of her Majesty Queen
Victoria. The articles referred to appeared in the numbers of
January, February, and March, 1868.]
"No anonymous book," says he, "since the 'Vestiges of Creation'
(now more than twenty years old), indeed, it might almost be
said, no theological book, whether anonymous, or of certified
authorship--that has appeared within the same interval, has
attracted anything like the amount of notice and of criticism
which have been bestowed upon the remarkable volume, entitled
'Ecce Homo.'"
{214}
The anonymous author has expressed in a very short preface his
intention in writing this volume, as well as its fundamental
ideas. "Those who feel," says he, "dissatisfied with the current
conceptions of Christ, if they cannot rest content without a
definite opinion, may find it necessary to do what, to persons
not so dissatisfied, it seems audacious and perilous to do. They
may be obliged to reconsider the whole subject from the
beginning, and placing themselves, in imagination, at the time
when he whom we call Christ bore no such name, but was simply, as
St. Luke describes him, a young man of promise, popular with
those who knew him, and appearing to enjoy the Divine favour, to
trace his biography from point to point, and accept those
conclusions about him, not which Church doctors, or even apostles
have sealed with their authority, but which the facts themselves,
critically weighed, appear to warrant.
"This is what the present writer undertook to do for the
satisfaction of his own mind, and because, after reading a good
many books on Christ, he felt still constrained to confess that
there was no historical character whose motives, objects and
feelings remained so incomprehensible to him. The inquiry which
proved serviceable to himself may chance to be useful to others.
"What is now published is a fragment. No theological questions
whatever are here discussed. Christ as the Creator of modern
Theology and Religion will make the subject of another volume;
which, however, the author does not hope to publish for some time
to come. In the meanwhile, he has endeavoured to furnish an
answer to the question, 'What was Christ's object in founding the
Society which is called by his name, and how is it adapted to
attain that object?'"
{215}
On merely considering, even after a first perusal, the brief
words which I have here extracted, it is, I think, impossible not
to perceive how much there is that is artificial and embarrassed,
I had almost said how much there is that is false, not only in
the position in which the Author has placed himself at the very
outset, but in the special intentions which he avows. To study
the life and the aim of the life of Christ without considering
him "as the Creator of Modern Theology and Religion," to defer
all examination and conclusion upon this last subject; to aspire
to know the person and the mind of Christ after thus separating
him from his work; to inquire what he meant to accomplish when
living, without considering what he in effect accomplished in the
ages which followed his passage through the world; to treat him,
in short, and to examine him as we should treat and examine a
person unknown to us--a fossil man, so to say, of which the
features might be traceable in some contemporary document,
showing that he once existed, but who has left no other trace to
supply us with argument or proof of what he intended, or what he
performed;--this, undoubtedly, is a strange manner of proceeding,
one which holds out very little chance of an accurate and true
comprehension of the immense fact called Christianity, thus
mutilated in its very cradle, Christianity of which the writer
limits himself to a bare search after the germ in the nascent
thought of its owner, whereas it might have been observed, and
its nature verified in its positive and vast development.
{216}
This is a species of decomposition, of which the great facts of
history and morality do not admit. We are not here, like
anatomists, describing the autopsy of a corpse. To know and
comprehend such facts really, we must study them in their
different elements and in all the development of their life. They
form a drama in which we are actors, not a manuscript which we
are deciphering.
I can easily understand how the anonymous writer of the "Ecce
Homo" came to conceive the idea of his book, and to confine it
within the limits which he has himself assigned: I can also
understand his motives. Like all his contemporaries, he is placed
and lives in presence of the grave questions agitated in these
days respecting Christianity and its author. What was Christ?--a
man or very God, or God and man at once? How did the divine
nature and the human nature manifest themselves in him? Did he
really effect the miracles assigned to him? Can there be such
things as miracles? What are we to understand by the
supernatural? Is God a real being personal and free, existing and
accomplishing his works in a region beyond that which we style
Nature? Christianity and the life of its founder inevitably
suggest all these questions, which in our days occupy and
violently agitate men's minds. The anonymous author of the "Ecce
Homo" did not wish to enter upon them; nay, it was his aim to
study and comprehend Christ without touching them at all. Is it
because upon these grave problems he entertains himself no
positive and decided opinions? Or, because he wished, to a
certain extent, to accommodate himself to the state of opinion of
some of his contemporaries, and to treat Christ as those speak of
him who only see in him a man, who regard Christianity as a fact
not supernatural, owing its origin, like other natural facts, to
the sole and proper force of mankind?
{217}
Upon this I can form no opinion; I neither know the anonymous
author of the "Ecce Homo," nor the motives which actuate him:
what is certain is, that he is quite right in entitling his book
"Ecce Homo," for it is only the Man Christ that he has proposed
to study, and it is by studying the Man Christ that he has
proposed to explain Christianity.
I do not know if, after having written his book, he was aware of
the result to which it leads, but the result is in effect a
strange one,--it is condemnatory and destructive of the
fundamental idea of the book, it demonstrates by a sincere and
honest, although an incomplete and superficial study of the
facts, the impossibility of explaining either Christ by the human
nature alone, or the Christian Religion by any merely natural
operations of humanity.
The work is divided into two parts, and contains altogether
twenty-four chapters. The first part is devoted to the study of
Christ personally, his peculiar character, his manner of dealing
with men, the mission which he proposed to himself to accomplish,
the nature of the society which he sought to found, and the
authority which he counted upon exercising. In the second part,
the Christian society itself, its points of resemblance to the
systems of philosophy and its points of difference therefrom, its
fundamental principles and positive laws, and the habits and
sentiments which are developed by those laws, all become in turn
the objects of the author's observations and descriptions.
Observations often profound, descriptions often exact and
striking, although somewhat minute and lengthy; everywhere,
however, there breathes forth a sentiment unquestionably moral,
and full of the gentlest sympathy for humanity.
{218}
All this gives to the work a real attractiveness, in spite of the
vagueness of the ideas which reign there, and in spite of the
perceptible incertitude of the author's conclusions upon the
solemn questions which he approaches, but upon which he does not
enter.
I have no intention of saying more; I have not to render an
account in detail of this book or to discuss any of the author's
opinions or assertions upon which I may not agree with him; my
aim is only to determine the character of his work, and to show
plainly, first its tendency and then its insufficiency. There
precisely is his originality; in setting out, and dealing with
the subject of the purely human nature both of Christ and of
Christianity, he seems not far from participating the opinions of
Rationalistic criticism; but the more he advances, the farther he
departs from the goal at which the Rationalists arrive: he
appears predisposed in their favour; the process of his thought
seems often to conform to theirs; his conclusions are not clearly
contrary, but in effect, under the empire either of his instincts
or under the influence of his historical and moral studies, he is
more Christian than he appears, perhaps even more so than he
believes himself to be; and if the firm doctrines of Christianity
find in him no sure and declared defender, neither do they
encounter in him the consistent hostility of a severe logician or
the indifferentism of a mere sceptic.
{219}
There are several passages of this remarkable work which are
particularly distinguished by these characteristics. To these I
feel pleasure in referring the reader. They are in both parts of
the book; that is to say, in the first part, chapter fifth,
entitled _Christ's Credentials_, and chapter ninth,
[Footnote 51] entitled _Reflections on the Nature of Christ's
Society;_ in the second part, chapter tenth, entitled
_Christ's Legislation compared with Philosophic systems_,
and chapter the eleventh, _The Christian Republic_ [Footnote
52] A perusal of these passages will, if I do not deceive myself,
fully justify the impression which the work has made upon me, and
satisfy the reader that I am right in what I have said of the
author's inconsistency with respect to religion.
[Footnote 51: Ecce Homo, ed. 1866, pp. 41-51, 81--102.]
[Footnote 52: _Ibid_, pp. 108--119, 120--126.]
Without expressly referring to any other passages I simply
remark, that there are in this book ideas expressed and
particular assertions made, which suggest numerous questions and
call for many observations. I find in the entire volume a
singular mixture of plain and practical common sense with a
subtlety sometimes tinctured with piety, and sometimes with
philosophy. There reigns in it, upon the nature of man and of
human societies, an intellectual elevation, both moral and
religious, which embarrasses and obscures itself in a long and
painful process of refinements. It bears the impress of a
grandeur of thought and of sentiment, without presenting them,
however, in a form sufficiently simple and vivid. But I have no
idea of examining or discussing here in detail this remarkable
work; my aim is only to make the result clear to the reader, to
which I have already referred, and indeed it appears
incontestable. The author's aim has been to study and portray the
human part of Christ, the human part of his doctrine as well as
of his life. He has declared this to be his aim by entitling his
book "Ecce Homo," and by saying that he deferred to another
volume "every theological question, every study of Christ as the
Creator of Theology and of Modern Religion."
{220}
He has already done much more than he is aware; the striking
inference from his first volume being that there was in Christ
much more than man, and that if he had been but man, however
superior we may picture his nature to be to that of ordinary
humanity, the work of Christianity, such as it in fact was and
is, would have been to him a thing not only which he could not
have accomplished, but which he could not even have conceived.
The End.
Bradbury, Evans, And Co., Printers, Whitefriars.