God and my Neighbour Part 18

As Huxley said:

The magistrate who listens with devout attention to the precept, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," on Sunday, on Monday dismisses, as intrinsically absurd, a charge of bewitching a cow brought against some old woman; the superintendent of a lunatic asylum who subst.i.tuted exorcism for rational modes of treatment, would have but a short tenure of office; even parish clerks doubt the utility of prayers for rain, so long as the wind is in the east; and an outbreak of pestilence sends men, not to the churches, but to the drains. In spite of prayers for the success of our arms, and _Te Deums_ for victory, our real faith is in big battalions and keeping our powder dry; in knowledge of the science of warfare; in energy, courage, and discipline. In these, as in all other practical affairs, we act on the aphorism, _Laborare est orare_; we admit that intelligent work is the only acceptable wors.h.i.+p, and that, whether there be a Supernature or not, our business is with Nature.

We have ceased to believe in miracles. When we come upon a miracle in any historical doc.u.ment we feel not only that the miracle is untrue, but also that its presence reduces the value of the doc.u.ment in which it is contained. Thus Matthew Arnold, in _Literature and Dogma_, after saying that we shall "find ourselves inevitably led, sooner or later," to extend one rule to all miraculous stories, and that "the considerations which apply in other cases apply, we shall most surely discover, with even greater force in the case of Bible miracles," goes on to declare that "this being so, there is nothing one would more desire for a person or doc.u.ment one greatly values than to make them independent of miracles."

Very well. The Gospels teem with miracles. If we make the accounts of the death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ "independent of miracles," we destroy those accounts completely. To make the Resurrection "independent of miracles" is to disprove the Resurrection, which is a miracle or nothing.

We must believe in miracles, or disbelieve in the Resurrection; and "miracles never happen."

We must believe miracles, or disbelieve them. If we disbelieve them, we shall lose confidence in the verity of any doc.u.ment in proportion to the element of the miraculous which that doc.u.ment contains. The fact that the Gospels teem with miracles destroys the claim of the Gospels to serious consideration as historic evidence.

Take, for example, the account of the Crucifixion in the Gospel according to Matthew. While Christ is on the cross "from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour," and when He dies, "behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake; and the rocks were rent; and the tombs were opened; and many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep were raised; and coming forth out of the tombs after His Resurrection, they entered into the holy city, and appeared unto many."

Mark mentions the rending of the veil of the temple, but omits the darkness, the earthquake, and the rising of the dead saints from the tombs. Luke tells of the same phenomena as Mark; John says nothing about any of these things.

What conclusion can we come to, then, as to the story in the first Gospel? Here is an earthquake and the rising of dead saints, who quit their graves and enter the city, and three out of the four Gospel writers do not mention it. Neither do we hear another word from Matthew on the subject. The dead get up and walk into the city, and "are seen of many," and we are left to wonder what happened to the risen saints, and what effect their astounding apparition had upon the citizens who saw them. Did these dead saints go back to their tombs? Did the citizens receive them into their midst without fear, or horror, or doubt? Had this stupendous miracle no effect upon the Jewish priests who had crucified Christ as an impostor? The Gospels are silent.

History is as silent as the Gospels. From the fifteenth chapter of the first volume of Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ I take the following pa.s.sage:

But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age of Christ, of His Apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, demons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the Church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral or physical government of the world. Under the reign of Tiberius the whole earth, or at least a celebrated province of the Roman Empire, was involved in a preternatural darkness of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of all mankind, pa.s.sed without notice in an age of science and history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. But the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe. A distinct chapter of Pliny is designed for eclipses of an extraordinary nature and unusual duration; but he contents himself with describing the singular defect of light which followed the murder of Caesar, when, during the greatest part of the year, the orb of the sun appeared pale and without splendour. This season of obscurity, which surely cannot be compared with the preternatural darkness of the Pa.s.sion, had been already celebrated by most of the poets and historians of that memorable age.

No Greek nor Roman historian nor scientist mentioned that strange eclipse. No Jewish historian nor scientist mentioned the rending of the veil of the temple, nor the rising of the saints from the dead. Nor do the Jewish priests appear to have been alarmed or converted by these marvels.

Confronted by this silence of all contemporary historians, and by the silence of Mark, Luke, and John, what are we to think of the testimony of Matthew on these points? Surely we can only endorse the opinion of Matthew Arnold:

And the more the miraculousness of the story deepens, as after the death of Jesus, the more does the texture of the incidents become loose and floating, the more does the very air and aspect of things seem to tell us we are in wonderland. Jesus after his resurrection not known by Mary Magdalene, taken by her for the gardener; appearing _in another form_, and not known by the two disciples going with him to Emmaus and at supper with him there; not known by His most intimate apostles on the borders of the Sea of Galilee; and presently, out of these vague beginnings, the recognitions getting a.s.serted, then the ocular demonstrations, the final commissions, the ascension; one hardly knows which of the two to call the most evident here, the perfect simplicity and good faith of the narrators, or the plainness with which they themselves really say to us _Behold a legend growing under your eyes!_

Behold a legend growing under your eyes! Now, when we have to consider a miracle-story or a legend, it behoves us to look, if that be possible, into the times in which that legend is placed. What was the "time spirit" in the day when this legend arose? What was the att.i.tude of the general mind towards the miraculous? To what stage of knowledge and science had those who created or accepted the myth attained? These are points that will help us signally in any attempt to understand such a story as the Gospel story of the Resurrection.

THE TIME SPIRIT IN THE FIRST CENTURY

A story emanating from a superst.i.tious and unscientific people would be received with more doubt than a story emanating from people possessing a knowledge of science, and not p.r.o.ne to accept stories of the marvellous without strict and full investigation.

A miracle story from an Arab of the Soudan would be received with a smile; a statement of some occult mystery made by a Huxley or a Darwin would be accorded a respectful hearing and a serious criticism.

Now, the accounts of the Resurrection in the Gospels belong to the less credible form of statement. They emanated from a credulous and superst.i.tious people in an unscientific age and country.

The Jews in the days of which the Gospels are supposed to tell, and the Jews of Old Testament times, were unscientific and superst.i.tious people, who believed in sorcery, in witches, in demons and angels, and in all manner of miracles and supernatural agents. We have only to read the Scriptures to see that it was so. But I shall quote here, in support of my a.s.sertion, the opinions taken by the author of _Supernatural Religion_ from the works of Dean Milman and Dr. Lightfoot. In his _History of Christianity_ Dean Milman speaks of the Jews as follows:

The Jews of that period not only believed that the Supreme Being had the power of controlling the course of Nature, but that the same influence was possessed by mult.i.tudes of subordinate spirits, both good and evil. Where the pious Christian of the present day would behold the direct Agency of the Almighty, the Jews would invariably have interposed an angel as the author or ministerial agent in the wonderful transaction. Where the Christian moralist would condemn the fierce pa.s.sion, the ungovernable l.u.s.t, or the inhuman temper, the Jew discerned the workings of diabolical possession. Scarcely a malady was endured, or crime committed, which was not traced to the operation of one of these myriad demons, who watched every opportunity of exercising their malice in the sufferings and the sins of men.

Read next the opinion of John Lightfoot, D.D., Master of Catherine Hall, Cambridge:

... Let two things only be observed: (1) That the nation under the Second Temple was given to magical arts beyond measure; and (2) that it was given to an easiness of believing all manner of delusions beyond measure... It is a disputable case whether the Jewish nation were more mad with superst.i.tion in matters of religion, or with superst.i.tion in curious arts: (1) There was not a people upon earth that studied or attributed more to dreams than they; (2) there was hardly any people in the whole world that more used, or were more fond of amulets, charms, mutterings, exorcisms, and all kinds of enchantments.

It is from this people, "mad with superst.i.tion" in religion and in sorcery, the most credulous people in the whole world, a people dest.i.tute of the very rudiments of science, as science is understood to-day--it is from this people that the unreasonable and impossible stories of the Resurrection, coloured and distorted on every page with miracles, come down to us.

We do not believe that miracles happen now. Are we, on the evidence of such a people, to believe that miracles happened two thousand years ago?

We in England to-day do not believe that miracles happen now. Some of us believe, or persuade ourselves that we believe, that miracles did happen a few thousand years ago.

But amongst some peoples the belief in miracles still persists, and wherever the belief in miracles is strongest we shall find that the people who believe are ignorant of physical science, are steeped in superst.i.tion, or are abjectly subservient to the authority of priests or fakirs. Scientific knowledge and freedom of thought and speech are fatal to superst.i.tion. It is only in those times, or amongst those people, where ignorance is rampant, or the priest is dominant, or both, that miracles are believed.

It will be urged that many educated Englishmen still believe the Gospel miracles. That is true; but it will be found in nearly all such cases that the believers have been mentally marred by the baneful authority of the Church. Let a person once admit into his system the poisonous principle of "faith," and his judgment in religious matters will be injured for years, and probably for life.

But let me here make clear what I mean by the poisonous principle of "faith." I mean, then, the deadly principle that we are to believe any statement, historical or doctrinal, without evidence.

Thus we are to believe that Christ rose from the dead because the Gospels say so. When we ask why we are to accept the Gospels as true, we are told because they are inspired by G.o.d. When we ask who says that the Gospels are inspired by G.o.d, we are told that the Church says so. When we ask how the Church knows, we are told that we must have faith. That is what I call a poisonous principle. That is the poison which saps the judgment and perverts the human kindness of men.

The late Dr. Carpenter wrote as follows:

It has been my business lately to inquire into the mental condition of some of the individuals who have reported the most remarkable occurrences. I cannot--it would not be fair-- say all I could with regard to that mental condition; but I can only say this, that it all fits in perfectly well with the result of my previous studies upon the subject, namely, that there is nothing too strange to be believed by those who have once surrendered their judgment to the extent of accepting as credible things which common sense tells us are entirely incredible.

It is unwise and immoral to accept any important statement without proof. HAVE THE DOc.u.mENTS BEEN TAMPERED WITH?

I come now to a phase of this question which I touch with regret. It always pains me to acknowledge that any man, even an adversary, has acted dishonourably. In this discussion I would, if I could, avoid the imputation of dishonesty to any person concerned in the foundation or adaptation of the Christian religion. But I am bound to point out the probability that the Gospels have been tampered with by unscrupulous or over-zealous men. That probability is very strong, and very important.

In the first place, it is too well known to make denial possible that many Gospels have been rejected by the Church as doubtful or as spurious. In the second place, some of the books in the accepted canon are regarded as of doubtful origin. In the third place, certain pa.s.sages of the Gospels have been relegated to the margin by the translators of the Revised Version of the New Testament. In the fourth place, certain historic Christian evidence--as the famous interpolation in Josephus, for instance--has been branded as forgeries by eminent Christian scholars.

Many of the Christian fathers were holy men; many priests have been, and are, honourable and sincere; but it is notorious that in every Church the world has ever known there has been a great deal of fraud and forgery and deceit. I do not say this with any bitterness, I do not wish to emphasise it; but I must go so far as to show that the conduct of some of the early Christians was of a character to justify us in believing that the Scriptures have been seriously tampered with.

Mosheim, writing on this subject, says:

A pernicious maxim which was current in the schools, not only of the Egyptians, the Platonists, and the Pythagoreans, but also of the Jews, was very early recognised by the Christians, and soon found among them numerous patrons--namely, that those who made it their business to deceive, with a view of promoting the cause of truth, were deserving rather of commendation than of censure.

And if we seek internal evidence in support of this charge we need go no further than St. Paul, who is reported (Rom. iii. 7) as saying: "For if the truth of G.o.d hath more abounded through my lie unto His Glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?" I do not for a moment suppose that Paul ever wrote those words. But they are given as his in the Epistle bearing his name. I daresay they may be interpreted in more than one way: my point is that they were interpreted in an evil way by many primitive Christians, who took them as a warranty that it was right to lie for the glory of G.o.d.

Mosheim, writing of the Church of the fifth century, alludes to the

Base audacity of those who did not blush to palm their own spurious productions on the great men of former times, and, even on _Christ_ Himself and His Apostles, so that they might be able, in the councils and in their books, to oppose names against names and authorities against authorities. The whole Christian Church was, in this century, overwhelmed with these disgraceful fictions.

Dr. Giles speaks still more strongly. He says:

But a graver accusation than that of inaccuracy or deficient authority lies against the writings which have come down to us from the second century. There can be no doubt that great numbers of books were then written with no other view than to deceive the simple-minded mult.i.tude who at that time formed the great bulk of the Christian community.

Dean Milman says:

It was admitted and avowed that to deceive into Christianity was so valuable a service as to hallow deceit itself.

Bishop Fell says:

In the first ages of the Church, so extensive was the licence of forging, so credulous were the people in believing, that the evidence of transactions was grievously obscured.