[Footnote 14: Namely, in the Armenian, Syrian, and Greek churches, and in the Romish church in exact proportion as Germanic and poetical influences have been repressed; that is, in proportion as the hereditary Christian doctrine has been kept pure from modern innovations.]
[Footnote 15: In a tract republished from theNorthampton MercuryLongman, 1853.]
[Footnote 16: The Romans practised fornication at pleasure, and held it ridiculous to blame them. If Paul had claimed authority to hinder them, they might have been greatly exasperated; but they had not the least objection to his denouncing fornication as immoral to Christians. Why not slavery also?]
[Footnote 17: I fear it cannot be denied that the zeal for Christianity which began to arise in our upper classes sixty years ago, was largely prompted by a feeling that its precepts repress all speculations concerning the rights of man. A similar cause now influences despots all over Europe. TheOldTestament contains the elements which they dread, and those gave a political creed to our Puritans.]
[Footnote 18: More than one critic flatly denies the fact. It is sufficient for me here to say, that such is the obvious interpretation, and suchhistorically has beenthe interpretation of various texts,—for instance, 2 Thess. i. 7: "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed… in flaming fire, taking vengeance on themthat know not God, and that obey not the Gospel; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction," &c. Such again is the sense which all popular minds receive and must receive from Heb, x. 25-31.—I am willing to changeteachesintohas always been understood to teach, if my critics think anything is gained by it.]
[Footnote 19: The four monarchies in chapters ii. and vii, are, probably, the Babylonian, the Median, the Persian, the Macedonian. Interpreters however blend the Medes and Persians into one, and then pretend that the Roman empire isstill in existence.]
[Footnote 20: The first apparent reference is by Micah (vi. 5) a contemporary of Hezekiah; which proves that an account contained in our Book of Numbers was already familiar.]
[Footnote 21: I have had occasion to discuss most of the leading prophecies of the Old Testament in my "Hebrew Monarchy."]
[Footnote 22: A critic is pleased to call this a meresuspicionof my own; in so writing, people simply evade my argument. I do not ask them to adopt my conviction; I merely communicate it as mine, and wish them to admit that it ismy dutyto follow my own conviction. It is with me no mere "suspicion," but a certainty. When they cannot possibly give, or pretend, anyproofthat the long discourses of the fourth gospel have been accurately reported, they ought to be less supercilious in their claims of unlimited belief. If it is right for them to follow their judgment on a purely literary question, let them not carp at me for following mine.]
[Footnote 23: I am told that this defence of John is fanciful. It satisfies me provisionally; but I do not hold myself bound to satisfy others, or to explain John's delusiveness.]
[Footnote 24: Phil. ii. 5-8; Rom. xv. 3. The last suggests it was from the Psalms (viz from Ps. lxix. 9) that Paul learned thefactthat Christ pleased not himself.]
[Footnote 25: Here, again, I have been erroneously understood to say that there cannot beanyinternal revelation ofanything. Internal truth may be internally communicated, though even so it does not become authoritative, or justify the receiver in saying to other men, "Believe,forI guarantee it." But a man who, on the strength of aninternalrevelation believes anexternal event, (past, present, or future,) is not a valid witness of it. Not Paley only, nor Priestley, but James Martineau also, would disown his pretence to authority; and the more so, the more imperious his claim that we believe on his word.]
[Footnote 26: This appears in v. 2, "by which ye are saved,—unless ye have believed in vain" &c. So v. 17-19.]
[Footnote 27: 1 Cor. xv. "He rose again the third dayaccording to the Scriptures." This must apparently be a reference to Hosea vi. 2, to which the margin of the Bible refers. There is no other place in the existing Old Testament from which we can imagine him to have elicited the risingon the third day. Some refer to the type of Jonah. Either of the two suggests how marvellously weak a proof satiated him.]
[Footnote 28: Such is the most legitimate translation. That in the received version is barely a possible meaning. There is no such distinction of prepositions asinandbyin this passage.]
After renouncing any "Canon of Scripture" or Sacred Letter at the end of my fourth period, I had been forced to abandon all "Second-hand Faith" by the end of my fifth. If askedwhyI believed this or that, I could no longer say, "BecausePeter, or Paul, or John believed, and I may thoroughly trust that they cannot mistake." The question now pressed hard, whether this was equivalent to renouncing Christianity.
Undoubtedly, my positive belief in its miracles had evaporated; but I had not arrived at a positive _dis_belief. I still felt the actual benefits and comparative excellencies of this religion too remarkable a phenomenon to be scored for defect of proof. In Morals likewise it happens, that the ablest practical expounders of truth may make strange blunders as to the foundations and ground of belief: why was this impossible as to the apostles? Meanwhile, it did begin to appear to myself remarkable, that I continued to love and have pleasure in so much that I certainly disbelieved. I perused a chapter of Paul or of Luke, or some verses of a hymn, and although they appeared to me to abound with error, I found satisfaction and profit in them. Why was this? was it all fond prejudice,—an absurd clinging to old associations?
A little self-examination enabled me to reply, that it was no ill-grounded feeling or ghost of past opinions; but that my religion always had been, and still was, astate of sentimenttoward God, far less dependent on articles of a creed, than once I had unhesitatingly believed. The Bible is pervaded by a sentiment,[1] which is implied everywhere,—viz.the intimate sympathy of the Pure and Perfect God with the heart of each faithful worshipper. This is that which is wanting in Greek philosophers, English Deists, German Pantheists, and all formalists. This is that which so often edifies me in Christian writers and speakers, when I ever so much disbelieve the letter of their sentences. Accordingly, though I saw more and more of moral and spiritual imperfection in the Bible, I by no means ceased to regard it as a quarry whence I might dig precious metal, though the ore needed a refining analysis: and I regarded this as the truest essence and most vital point in Christianity,—to sympathize with the great souls from whom its spiritual eminence has flowed;—to love, to hope, to rejoice, to trust with them;—andnot, to form the same interpretations of an ancient book and to take the same views of critical argument.
My historical conception of Jesus had so gradually melted into dimness, that he had receded out of my practical religion, I knew not exactly when I believe that I must have disused any distinct prayers to him, from a growing opinion that he ought not to be theobjectof worship, but only thewayby whom we approach to the Father; and as in fact we need no such "way" at all, this was (in the result) a change from practical Ditheism to pure Theism. His "mediation" was to me always a mere name, and, as I believe, would otherwise have been mischievous.[2]—Simultaneously a great uncertainty had grown on me, how much of the discourses put into the mouth of Jesus was really uttered by him; so that I had in no small measure to form him anew to my imagination.
But if religion is addressed to, and must be judged by, our moral faculties, how could I believe in that painful and gratuitous personality,—The Devil?—He also had become a waning phantom to me, perhaps from the time that I saw the demoniacal miracles to be fictions, and still more when proofs of manifold mistake in the New Testament rose on me. This however took a solid form of positive _dis_belief, when I investigated the history of the doctrine,—I forget exactly in what stage. For it is manifest, that the old Hebrews believed only in evil spirits sentby Godto dohis bidding, and had no idea of a rebellious Spirit that rivalled God. That idea was first imbibed in the Babylonish captivity, and apparently therefore must have been adopted from the Persian Ahriman, or from the "Melek Taous," the "Sheitan" still honoured by the Yezidi with mysterious fear. Thatthe serpentin the early part of Genesis denoted the same Satan, is probable enough; but this only goes to show, that that narrative is a legend imported from farther East; since it is certain that the subsequent Hebrew literature has no trace of such an Ahriman. The Book of Tobit and its demon show how wise in these matters the exiles in Nineveh were beginning to be. The Book of Daniel manifests, that by the time of Antiochus Epiphanes the Jews had learned each nation to have its guardian spirit, good or evil; and that the fates of nations depend on the invisible conflict of these tutelary powers. In Paul the same idea is strongly brought out. Satan is the prince of the power of the air; with principalities and powers beneath him; over all of whom Christ won the victory on his cross. In the Apocalypse we read the Oriental doctrine of the "seven angelswho stand before God." As the Christian tenet thus rose among the Jews from their contact with Eastern superstition, and was propagated and expanded while prophecy was mute, it cannot be ascribed to "divine supernatural revelation" as the source. The ground of it is dearly seen in infant speculations on the cause of moral evil and of national calamities.
Thus Christ and the Devil, the two poles of Christendom, had faded away out of my spiritual vision; there were left the more vividly, God and Man. Yet I had not finally renounced thepossibility, that Jesus might have had a divine mission to stimulate all our spiritual faculties, and to guarantee to us a future state of existence. The abstract arguments for the immortality of the soul had always appeared to me vain trifling; and I was deeply convinced that nothing couldassureus of a future state but a divine communication. In what mode this might be made, I could not sayà priori: might not this really be the great purport of Messiahship? was not this, if any, a worthy ground for a divine interference? On the contrary, to heal the sick did not seem at all an adequate motive for a miracle; else, why not the sick of our own day? Credulity had exaggerated, and had represented Jesus to have wrought miracles: but that did not wholly _dis_prove the miracle of resurrection (whether bodily or of whatever kind), said to have been wrought by Goduponhim, and of which so very intense a belief so remarkably propagated itself. Paul indeed believed it[3] from prophecy; and, as we see this to be a delusion, resting on Rabbinical interpretations, we may perhapsaccountthus for the belief of the early church, without in any way admitting the fact.—Here, however, I found I had the clue to my only remaining discussion, the primitive Jewish controversy. Let us step back to an earlier stage than John's or Paul's or Peter's doctrine. We cannot doubt that Jesus claimed to be Messiah: what then was Messiah to be? and, did Jesus (though misrepresented by his disciples) truly fulfil his own claims?
The really Messianic prophecies appeared to me to be far fewer than is commonly supposed. I found such in the 9th and 11th of Isaiah, the 5th of Micah, the 9th of Zechariah, in the 72nd Psalm, in the 37th of Ezekiel, and, as I supposed, in the 50th and 53rd of Isaiah. To these nothing of moment could be certainly added; for the passage in Dan. ix. is ill-translated in the English version, and I had already concluded that the Book of Daniel is a spurious fabrication. From Micah and Ezekiel it appeared, that Messiah was to come from Bethlehem and either be David himself, or a spiritual David: from Isaiah it is shown that he is a rod out of the stem of Jesse.—It is true, I found no proof that Jesus did come from Bethlehem or from the stock of David; for the tales in Matthew and Luke refute one another, and have clearly been generated by a desire to verify the prophecy. But genealogies for or against Messiahship seemed to me a mean argument; and the fact of the prophets demanding a carnal descent in Messiah struck me as a worse objection than that Jesus had not got it,—if this could be ever proved. The Messiah of Micah, however, was not Jesus; for he was to deliver Israel fromthe Assyrians, and his whole description is literally warlike. Micah, writing when the name of Sennacherib was terrible, conceived of a powerful monarch on the throne of David who was to subdue him: but as this prophecy was not verified, the imaginary object of it was looked for as "Messiah," even after the disappearance of the formidable Assyrian power. This undeniable vanity of Micah's prophecy extends itself also to that in the 9th chapter of his contemporary Isaiah,—if indeed that splendid passage did not really point at the child Hezekiah. Waiving this doubt, it is at any rate clear that the marvellous child on the throne of David was to break the yoke of the oppressive Assyrian; and none of the circumstantials are at all appropriate to the historical Jesus.
In the 37th of Ezekiel the (new) David is to gather Judah and Israel "from the heathen whither they be gone" and to "make them one nationin the land, on the mountains of Israel:" and Jehovah adds, that they shall "dwell in the landwhich I gave unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers dwelt: and they shall dwell therein, they and their children and their children's children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever." It is trifling to pretend thatthe land promised to Jacob, and in which the old Jews dwelt, was a spiritual, and not the literal Palestine; and therefore it is impossible to make out that Jesus has fulfilled any part of this representation. The description however that follows (Ezekiel xl. &c.) of the new city and temple, with the sacrifices offered by "the priests the Levites, of the seed of Zadok," and the gate of the sanctuary for the prince (xliv. 3), and his elaborate account of the borders of the land (xlviii. 13-23), place the earnestness of Ezekiel's literalism in still clearer light.
The 72nd Psalm, by the splendour of its predictions concerning the grandeur of some future king of Judah, earns the title of Messianic,becauseit was never fulfilled by any historical king. But it is equally certain, that it has had no appreciable fulfilment in Jesus.
But what of the 11th of Isaiah? Its portraiture is not so much that of a king, as of a prophet endowed with superhuman power. "He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked." A Paradisiacal state is to follow.—This general descriptionmaybe verified by Jesushereafter; but we have no manifestation, which enables us to call the fulfilment a fact. Indeed, the latter part of the prophecy is out of place for a time so late as the reign of Augustus; which forcibly denotes that Isaiah was predicting only that which was his immediate political aspiration: for in this great day of Messiah, Jehovah is to gather back his dispersed people from Assyria, Egypt, and other parts; he isto reconcile Judah and Ephraim, (who had been perfectly reconciled centuries before Jesus was born,) and as a result of this Messianic glory, the people of Israel "shall fly upon the shoulders of thePhilistinestowards the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand onEdomandMoab, and the children ofAmmonshall obey them." But Philistines, Moab and Ammon, were distinctions entirely lost before the Christian era.—Finally, the Red Sea is to be once more passed miraculously by the Israelites, returning (as would seem) to their fathers' soil. Take all these particulars together, and the prophecy is neither fulfilled in the past nor possible to be fulfilled in the future.
The prophecy which we know as Zechariah ix.-xi. is believed to be really from a prophet of uncertain name, contemporaneous with Isaiah. It was written while Ephraim was still a people, i.e. before the capture of Samaria by Shalmanezer; and xi. 1-3 appears to howl over the recent devastations of Tiglathpilezer. The prophecy is throughout full of the politics of that day. No part of it has the most remote or imaginable[4] similarity to the historical life of Jesus, except that he once rode into Jerusalem on an ass; a deed which cannot have been peculiar to him, and which Jesus moreover appears to have planned with the express[5] purpose of assimilating himself to the lowly king here described. Yet such an isolated act is surely a carnal and beggarly fulfilment. To ride on an ass is no mark of humility in those who must ordinarily go on foot. The prophet clearly means that the righteous king is not to ride on a warhorse and trust in cavalry, as Solomon and the Egyptians, (see Ps. xx. 7. Is. xxxi. 1-3, xxx. 16,) but is to imitate the lowliness of David and the old judges, who rode on young asses; and is to be a lover of peace.
Chapters 50 and 53 of the pseudo-Isaiah remained; which contain many phrases so aptly descriptive of the sufferings of Christ, and so closely knit up with our earliest devotional associations, that they were the very last link of my chain that snapt. Still, I could not conceal from myself, that no exactness in this prophecy, however singular, could avail to make out that Jesus was the Messiah of Hezekiah's prophets. There must besomeexplanation; and if I did not see it, that must probably arise from prejudice and habit.—In order therefore to gain freshness, I resolved to peruse the entire prophecy of the pseudo-Isaiah in Lowth's version, from ch. xl. onward, at a single sitting.
This prophet writes from Babylon, and has his vision full of the approaching restoration of his people by Cyrus, whom he addresses by name. In ch. xliii. he introduces to us an eminent and "chosen servant of God," whom he invests with all the evangelical virtues, and declares that he is to be a light to the Gentiles. In ch. xliv. (v. 1—also v. 21) he is named as "Jacobmy servant, andIsraelwhom I have chosen." The appellations recur in xlv. 4: and in a far more striking passage, xlix. 1-12, which is eminently Messianic to the Christian ear,exceptthat in v. 3, the speaker distinctly declares himself to be (not Messiah, but) Israel. The same speaker continues in ch. l., which is equally Messianic in sound. In ch. lii. the prophet speaksofhim, (vv. 13-15) but the subject of the chapter isrestoration from Babylon; and from this he runs on into the celebrated ch. liii.
It is essential to understand thesame"elect servant" all along. He is many times called Israel, and is often addressed in a tone quite inapplicable to Messiah, viz. as one needing salvation himself; so in ch. xliii. Yet in ch. xlix. this elect Israel is distinguished from Jacob and Israel at large: thus there is an entanglement. Who can be called on to risk his eternal hopes on his skilful unknotting of it? It appeared however to me most probable, that as our high Churchmen distinguish "mother Church" from the individuals who compose the Church, so the "Israel" of this prophecy is the idealizing of the Jewish Church; which I understood to be a current Jewish interpretation. The figure perhaps embarrasses us, only because of the male sex attributed to the ideal servant of God; for when "Zion" is spoken of by the same prophet in the same way, no one finds difficulty, or imagines that a female person of superhuman birth and qualities must be intended.
It still remained strange that in Isaiah liii. and Pss. xxii. and lxix. there should becoincidencesso close with the sufferings of Jesus: but I reflected, that I had no proof that the narrative had not been strained by credulity,[6] to bring it into artificial agreement with these imagined predictions of his death. And herewith my last argument in favour of views for which I once would have laid down my life, seemed to be spent.
Nor only so: but I now reflected that the falsity of the prophecy in Dan. vii. (where the coming of "a Son of Man" to sit in universal judgment follows immediately upon the break-up of the Syrian monarchy,)—to say nothing of the general proof of the spuriousness of the whole Book of Daniel,—ought perhaps long ago to have been seen by me as of more cardinal importance. For if we believe anything at all about the discourses of Christ, we cannot doubt that he selected "Son of Man" as his favourite title; which admits no interpretation so satisfactory, as, that he tacitly refers to the seventh chapter of Daniel, and virtually bases his pretensions upon it. On the whole, it was no longer defect of proof Which presented itself, but positive disproof of the primitive and fundamental claim.
I could not for a moment allow weight to the topic, that "it is dangerous to _dis_believe wrongly;" for I felt, and had always felt, that it gave a premium to the most boastful and tyrannizing superstition:—as if it were not equally dangerous tobelievewrongly! Nevertheless, I tried to plead for farther delay, by asking: Is not the subject too vast for me to decide upon?—Think how many wise and good men have fully examined, and have come to a contrary conclusion. What a grasp of knowledge and experience of the human mind it requires! Perhaps too I have unawares been carried away by a love of novelty, which I have mistaken for a love of truth.
But the argument recoiled upon me. Have I not been 25 years a reader of the Bible? have I not full 18 years been a student of Theology? have I not employed 7 of the best years of my life, with ample leisure, in this very investigation;—without any intelligible earthly bribe to carry me to my present conclusion, against all my interests, all my prejudices and all my education? There are many far more learned men than I,—many men of greater power of mind; but there are also a hundred times as many who are my inferiors; and if I have been seven years labouring in vain to solve this vast literary problem, it is an extreme absurdity to imagine that the solving of it is imposed by God on the whole human race. Let me renounce my little learning; let me be as the poor and simple: what then follows? Why, then,still the same thing follows, that difficult literary problems concerning distant history cannot afford any essential part of my religion.
It is with hundreds or thousands a favourite idea, that "they have an inward witness of the truth of (the historical and outward facts of) Christianity." Perhaps the statement would bring its own refutation to them, if they would express it clearly. Suppose a biographer of Sir Isaac Newton, after narrating his sublime discoveries and ably stating some of his most remarkable doctrines, to add, that Sir Isaac was a great magician, and had been used to raise spirits by his arts, and finally was himself carried up to heaven one night, while he was gazing at the moon; and that this event had been foretold by Merlin:—it would surely be the height of absurdity to dilate on the truth of the Newtonian theory as "the moral evidence" of the truth of the miracles and prophecy. Yet this is what those do, who adduce the excellence of the precepts and spirituality of the general doctrine of the New Testament, as the "moral evidence" of its miracles and of its fulfilling the Messianic prophecies. But for the ambiguity of the worddoctrine, probably such confusion of thought would have been impossible. "Doctrines" are either spiritual truths, or are statements of external history. Of the former we may have an inward witness;—that is their proper evidence;—but the latter must depend upon adequate testimony and various kinds of criticism.
How quickly might I have come to my conclusion,—how much weary thought and useless labour might I have spared,—if at an earlier time this simple truth had been pressed upon me, that since the religious faculties of the poor and half-educated cannot investigate Historical and Literary questions,thereforethese questions cannot constitute an essential part of Religion.—But perhaps I could not have gained this result by any abstract act of thought, from want of freedom to think: and there are advantages also in expanding slowly under great pressure, if onecanexpand, and is not crushed by it.
I felt no convulsion of mind, no emptiness of soul, no inward practical change: but I knew that it would be said, this was only because the force of the old influence was as yet unspent, and that a gradual declension in the vitality of my religion must ensue. More than eight years have since past, and I feel I have now a right to contradict that statement. To any "Evangelical" I have a right to say, that while he has asingle, I have adoubleexperience; and I know, that the spiritual fruits which he values, have no connection whatever with the complicated and elaborate creed, which his school imagines, and I once imagined, to be the roots out of which they are fed. That they depend directly onthe heart's belief in the sympathy of God with individual man,[7] I am well assured: but that doctrine does not rest upon the Bible or upon Christianity; for it is a postulate, from which every Christian advocate is forced to start. If it be denied, he cannot take a step forward in his argument. He talks to men about Sin and Judgment to come, and the need of Salvation, and so proceeds to the Saviour. But his very first step,—the idea of Sin,—assumesthat God concerns himself with our actions, words, thoughts;assumestherefore that sympathy of God with every man, which (it seems) can only be known by an infallible Bible.
I know that many Evangelicals will reply, that I never can have had "the true" faith; else I could never have lost it: and as for my not being conscious of spiritual change, they will accept this as confirming their assertion. Undoubtedly I cannot prove that I ever felt as they now feel: perhaps they love their present opinionsmore thantruth, and are careless to examine and verify them; with that I claim no fellowship. But there are Christians, and Evangelical Christians, of another stamp, who love their creed,onlybecause they believe it to be true, but love truth, as such, and truthfulness, more than any creed: with these I claim fellowship. Their love to God and man, their allegiance to righteousness and true holiness, will not be in suspense and liable to be overturned by new discoveries in geology and in ancient inscriptions, or by improved criticism of texts and of history, nor have they any imaginable interest in thwarting the advance of scholarship. It is strange indeed to undervaluethatFaith, which alone is purely moral and spiritual, alone rests on a basis that cannot be shaken, alone lifts the possessor above the conflicts of erudition, and makes it impossible for him to fear the increase of knowledge.
I fully expected that reviewers and opponents from the evangelical school would laboriously insinuate or assert, that Inever wasa Christian and do not understand anything about Christianity spiritually. My expectations have been more than fulfilled; and the course which my assailants have taken leads me to add some topics to the last paragraph. I say then, that if I had been slain at the age of twenty-seven, when I was chased[8] by a mob of infuriated Mussulmans for selling New Testaments, they would have trumpeted me as an eminent saint and martyr. I add, that many circumstances within easy possibility might have led to my being engaged as an official teacher of a congregation at the usual age, which would in all probability have arrested my intellectual development, and have stereotyped my creed for many a long year; and then also they would have acknowledged me as a Christian. A little more stupidity, a little more worldliness, a little more mental dishonesty in me, or perhaps a little more kindness and management in others, would have kept me in my old state, which was acknowledged and would still be acknowledged as Christian. To try to disown me now, is an impotent superciliousness.
At the same time, I confess to several moral changes, as the result of this change in my creed, the principal of which are the following.
1. I have found that my old belief narrowed my affections. It taught me to bestow peculiar love on "the people of God," and it assigned an intellectual creed as one essential mark of this people. That creed may be made more or less stringent; but when driven to its minimum, it includes a recognition of the historical proposition, that "the Jewish teacher Jesus fulfilled the conditions requisite to constitute him the Messiah of the ancient Hebrew prophets." This proposition has been rejected by very many thoughtful and sincere men in England, and by tens of thousands in France, Germany, Italy, Spain. To judge rightly about it, is necessarily a problem of literary criticism; which has both to interpret the Old Scriptures and to establish how much of the biography of Jesus in the New is credible. To judge wrongly about it, may prove one to be a bad critic but not a less good and less pious man. Yet my old creed enacted an affirmative result of this historical inquiry, as a test of one's spiritual state, and ordered me to think harshly of men like Marcus Aurelius and Lessing, because they did not adopt the conclusion which the professedly uncritical have established. It possessed me with a general gloom concerning Mohammedans and Pagans, and involved the whole course of history and prospects of futurity in a painful darkness from which I am relieved.
2. Its theory was one of selfishness. That is, it inculcated that my first business must be, to save my soul from future punishment, and to attain future happiness; and it bade me to chide myself, when I thought of nothing but about doing present duty and blessing God for present enjoyment.
In point of fact, I never did look much to futurity, nor even in prospect of death could attain to any vivid anticipations or desires, much less was troubled with fears. The evil which I suffered from my theory, was not (I believe) that it really made me selfish—other influences of it were too powerful:—but it taught me to blame myself for unbelief, because I was not sufficiently absorbed in the contemplation of my vast personal expectations. I certainly here feel myself delivered from the danger of factitious sin.
The selfish and self-righteous texts come principally from the three first gospels, and are greatly counteracted by the deeper spirituality of the apostolic epistles. I therefore by no means charge this tendency indiscriminately on the New Testament.
3. It laid down that "the time is short; THE LORD IS AT HAND: the things of this world pass away, and deserve not our affections: the only thing worth spending one's energies on, is, the forwarding of men's salvation." It bade me "watch perpetually, not knowing whether my Lord would return at cockcrowing or at midday."
While I believed this, (which, however disagreeable to modern Christians, is the clear doctrine of the New Testament,) I acted an eccentric and unprofitable part. From it I was saved against my will, and forced into a course in which the doctrine, having been laid to sleep, awoke only now and then to reproach and harass me for my unfaithfulness to it. This doctrine it is, which makes so many spiritual persons lend active or passive aid to uphold abuses and perpetuate mischief in every department of human life. Those who stick closest to the Scripture do not shrink from saying, that "it is not worth while trying to mend the world," and stigmatize as "political and worldly" such as pursue an opposite course. Undoubtedly, if we are to expect our Master at cockcrowing, we shall not study the permanent improvement of this transitory scene. To teach the certain speedy destruction of earthly things,as the New Testament does, is to cut the sinews of all earthly progress; to declare war against Intellect and Imagination, against Industrial and Social advancement.
There was a time when I was distressed at being unable to avoid exultation in the worldly greatness of England. My heart would, in spite, of me, swell with something of pride, when a Turk or Arab asked what was my country: I then used to confess to God this pride as a sin. I still see that that was a legitimate deduction from the Scripture. "The glory of this world passeth away," and I had professed to be "dead with Christ" to it. The difference is this. I am now as "dead" as then to all of it which my conscience discerns to be sinful, but I have not to torment myself in a (fundamentally ascetic) struggle against innocent and healthy impulses. I now, with deliberate approval, "love the world and the things of the world." I can feel patriotism, and take the deepest interest in the future prospects of nations, and no longer reproach myself. Yet this is quite consistent with feeling the spiritual interests of men to be of all incomparably the highest.
Modern religionists profess to be disciples of Christ, and talk high of the perfect morality of the New Testament, when they certainly do not submit their understanding to it, and are no more like to the first disciples than bishops are like the pennyless apostles. One critic tells me thatI knowthat the above isnotthe true interpretation of the apostolic doctrine. Assuredly I am aware that we may rebuke "the world" and "worldliness," in a legitimate and modified sense, as being the system ofselfishness: true,—and I have avowed this in another work; but it does not follow that Jesus and the apostles did not go farther: and manifestly they did. The true disciple, who would be perfect as his Master, was indeed ordered to sell all, give to the poor and follow him; and when that severity was relaxed by good sense, it was still taught that things which lasted to the other side of the grave alone deserved our affection or our exertion. If any person thinks me ignorant of the Scriptures for being of this judgment, let him so think; but to deny that I am sincere in my avowal, is a very needless insolence.
4. I am sensible how heavy a clog on the exercise of my judgment has been taken off from me, since I unlearned that Bibliolatry, which I am disposed to call the greatest religious evil of England.
Authority has a place in religious teaching, as in education, but it is provisional and transitory. Its chief use is to guideaction, and assist the formation of habits, before the judgment is ripe. As applied to mereopinion, its sole function is to guide inquiry. So long as an opinion is received on authority only, it works no inward process upon us: yet the promulgation of it by authority, is not therefore always useless, since the prominence thus given to it may be a most important stimulus to thought. While the mind is inactive or weak, it will not wish to throw off the yoke of authority: but as soon as it begins to discern error in the standard proposed to it, we have the mark of incipient original thought, which is the thing so valuable and so difficult to elicit; and which authority is apt to crush. An intelligent pupil seldom or never givestoo littleweight to the opinion of his teacher: a wise teacher will never repress the free action of his pupils' minds, even when they begin to question his results. "Forbidding to think" is a still more fatal tyranny than "forbidding to marry:" it paralyzes all the moral powers.
In former days, if any moral question came before me, I was always apt to turn it into the mere lawyerlike exercise of searching and interpreting my written code. Thus, in reading how Henry the Eighth treated his first queen, I thought over Scripture texts in order to judge whether he was right, and if I could so get a solution, I left my own moral powers unexercised. All Protestants see, how mischievous it is to a Romanist lady to have a directing priest, whom she every day consults about everything; so as to lay her own judgment to sleep. We readily understand, that in the extreme case such women may gradually lose all perception of right and wrong, and become a mere machine in the hands of her director. But the Protestant principle of accepting the Bible as the absolute law, acts towards the same end; and only fails of doing the same amount of mischief, because a book can never so completely answer all the questions asked of it, as a living priest can. The Protestantism which pities those as "without chart and compass" who acknowledge no infallible written code, can mean nothing else, than that "the less occasion we have to trust our moral powers, the better;" that is, it represents it as of all things most desirable to be able to benumb conscience by disuse, under the guidance of a mind from without. Those who teach this need not marvel to see their pupils become Romanists.
But Bibliolatry not only paralyzes the moral sense; it also corrupts the intellect, and introduces a crooked logic, by setting men to the duty of extracting absolute harmony out of discordant materials. All are familiar with the subtlety of lawyers, whose task it is to elicit a single sense out of a heap of contradictory statutes. In their case such subtlety may indeed excite in us impatience or contempt; but we forbear to condemn them, when it is pleaded that practical convenience, not truth, is their avowed end. In the case of theological ingenuity, where truth is the professed and sacred object, a graver judgment is called for. When the Biblical interpreter struggles to reconcile contradictions, or to prove that wrong is right, merely because he is bound to maintain the perfection of the Bible; when to this end he condescends to sophistry and pettifogging evasions; it is difficult to avoid feeling disgust as well as grief. Some good people are secretly conscious that the Bible is not an infallible book; but they dread the consequences of proclaiming this "to the vulgar." Alas! and have they measured the evils which the fostering of this lie is producing in the minds, not of the educated only, but emphatically of the ministers of religion?
Many who call themselves Christian preachers busily undermine moral sentiment, by telling their hearers, that if they do not believe the Bible (or the Church), they can have no firm religion or morality, and will have no reason to give against following brutal appetite. This doctrine it is, that so often makes men atheists in Spain, and profligates in England, as soon as they unlearn the national creed: and the school which have done the mischief, moralize over the wickedness of human nature when it comes to pass instead of blaming the falsehood which they have themselves inculcated.
[Footnote 1: A critic presses me with the question, how I can doubt that doctrine so holycomes from God. He professes to review my book on the Soul; yet, apparently became he himself _dis_believes the doctrine of the Holy Spirit taught alike in the Psalms and Prophets and in the New Testament,—he cannot help forgetting that I profess to believe it. He is not singular in his dulness. That the sentiment above is necessarily independent of Biblicalauthority, see p. 133.]
[Footnote 2: I do not here enlarge on this, as it is discussed in my treatise on The Soul 2nd edition, p. 76, or 3rd edition, p. 52.]
[Footnote 3: 1 Cor. xv. 3. Compare Acts xii. 33, 34, 35 also Acts ii. 27, 34.]
[Footnote 4: I need not except thepotterand the thirty pieces of silver (Zech. xi. 13), for thepotteris a mere absurd error of text or translation. The Septuagint has thefoundry, De Wette has thetreasury, with whom Hitzig and Ewald agree. So Winer (Simoni's Lexicon).]
[Footnote 5: Some of my critics are very angry with me for saying this; but Matthew himself (xxi. 4) almost says it:—"All this was done, that it might be fulfilled," &c. Do my critics mean to tell me that Jesuswas not awareof the prophecy? or if Jesus did know of the prophecy, will they tell methat he was not designingto fulfil it? I feel such carping to be little short of hypocrisy.]
[Footnote 6: Apparently on these words of mine, a reviewer builds up the inference that I regard "the Evangelical narrative as a mythical fancy-piece imitated from David and Isaiah." I feel this to be a great caricature. My words are carefully limited to a few petty details of one part of the narrative.] [Footnote 7: I did not calculate that any assailant would be so absurd as to lecture me on the topic, that God has no sympathywith our sins and follies. Of course what I mean is, that he has complacency in our moral perfection. See p. 125 above.]
[Footnote 8: This was at Aintab, in the north of Syria. One of my companions was caught by the mob and beaten (as they probably thought) to death. But he recovered very similarly to Paul, in Acts xiv. 20, after long lying senseless.]
Let no reader peruse this chapter, who is not willing to enter into a discussion, as free and unshrinking, concerning the personal excellencies and conduct of Jesus, as that of Mr. Grote concerning Socrates. I have hitherto met with most absurd rebuffs for my scrupulosity. One critic names me as a principal leader in a school which extols and glorifies the character of Jesus; after which he proceeds to reproach me with inconsistency, and to insinuate dishonesty. Another expresses himself as deeply wounded that, in renouncing the belief that Jesus is more than man, I suggest to compare him to a clergyman whom I mentioned as eminently holy and perfect in the picture of a partial biographer; such a comparison is resented with vivid indignation, as a blurting out of something "unspeakably painful." Many have murmured that I donotcome forward to extol the excellencies of Jesus, but appear to prefer Paul. More than one taunt me with an inability to justify my insinuations that Jesus, after all, was not really perfect; one is "extremely disappointed" that I have not attacked him; in short, it is manifest that many would much rather have me say out my whole heart, than withhold anything. I therefore give fair warning to all, not to read any farther, or else to blame themselves if I inflict on them "unspeakable pain," by differing from their judgment of a historical or unhistorical character. As for those who confound my tenderness with hypocrisy and conscious weakness, if they trust themselves to read to the end, I think they will abandon that fancy.
But how am I brought into this topic? It is because, after my mind had reached the stage narrated in the last chapter, I fell in with a new doctrine among the Unitarians,—that the evidence of Christianity is essentially popular and spiritual, consisting inthe Life of Christ, who is a perfect man and the absolute moral image of God,—therefore fitly called "God manifest in the flesh," and, as such, Moral Head of the human race. Since this view was held in conjunction with those at which I had arrived myself concerning miracles, prophecy, the untrustworthiness of Scripture as to details, and the essential unreasonableness of imposing dogmatic propositions as a creed, I had to consider why I could not adopt such a modification, or (as it appeared to me) reconstruction, of Christianity; and I gave reasons in the first edition of this book, which, avoiding direct treatment of the character of Jesus, seemed to me adequate on the opposite side.
My argument was reviewed by a friend, who presently published the review with his name, replying to my remarks on this scheme. I thus find myself in public and avowed controversy with one who is endowed with talents, accomplishments, and genius, to which I have no pretensions. The challenge has certainly come from myself. Trusting to the goodness of my cause, I have ventured it into an unequal combat; and from a consciousness of my admired friend's high superiority, I do feel a little abashed at being brought face to face against him. But possibly the less said to the public on these personal matters, the better.
I have to give reasons why I cannot adopt that modified scheme of Christianity which is defended and adorned by James Martineau; according to which it is maintained that though the Gospel Narratives are not to be trusted in detail, there can yet be no reasonable doubtwhatJesuswas; for this is elicited by a "higher moral criticism," which (it is remarked) I neglect. In this theory, Jesus is avowed to be a man born like other men; to be liable to error, and (at least in some important respects) mistaken. Perhaps no general proposition is to be acceptedmerelyon the word of Jesus; in particular, he misinterpreted the Hebrew prophecies. "He was notlessthan the Hebrew Messiah, butmore." No moral charge is established against him, until it is shown, that in applying the old prophecies to himself, he wasconsciousthat they did not fit. His error was one of mere fallibility in matters of intellectual and literary estimate. On the other hand, Jesus had an infallible moral perception, which reveals itself to the true-hearted reader, and is testified by the common consciousness of Christendom. It has pleased the Creator to give us one sun in the heavens, and one Divine soul in history, in order to correct the aberrations of our individuality, and unite all mankind into one family of God. Jesus is to be presumed to be perfect until he is shown to be imperfect. Faith in Jesus, is not reception of propositions, but reverence for a person; yet this isnotthe condition of salvation or essential to the Divine favour.
Such is the scheme, abridged from the ample discussion of my eloquent friend. In reasoning against it, my arguments will, to a certain extent, be those of an orthodox Trinitarian;[1] since we might both maintain that the belief in the absolute divine morality of Jesus is not tenable, when the belief inevery otherdivine and superhuman quality is denied. Should I have any "orthodox" reader, my arguments may shock his feelings less, if he keeps this in view. In fact, the same action or word in Jesus may be consistent or inconsistent with moral perfection, according to the previous assumptions concerning his person.
I. My friend has attributed to me a "prosaic and embittered view of human nature," apparently because I have a very intense belief of Man's essential imperfection. To me, I confess, it is almost a first principle of thought, that as all sorts of perfection coexist in God, so is no sort of perfection possible to man. I do not know how for a moment to imagine an Omniscient Being who is not Almighty, or an Almighty who is not All-Righteous. So neither do I know how to conceive of Perfect Holiness anywhere but in the Blessed and only Potentate.
Man is finite and crippled on all sides; and frailty in one kind causes frailty in another. Deficient power causes deficient knowledge, deficient knowledge betrays him into false opinion, and entangles him into false positions. It may be a defect of my imagination, but I do not feel that it implies any bitterness, that even in the case of one who abides in primitive lowliness, to attain even negatively an absolutely pure goodness seems to me impossible; and much more, to exhaust all goodness, and become a single Model-Man, unparalleled, incomparable, a standard for all other moral excellence. Especially I cannot conceive of any human person rising out of obscurity, and influencing the history of the world, unless there be in him forces of great intensity, the harmonizing of which is a vast and painful problem. Every man has to subdue himself first, before he preaches to his fellows; and he encounters many a fall and many a wound in winning his own victory. And as talents are various, so do moral natures vary, each having its own weak and strong side; and that one man should grasp into his single self the highest perfection of every moral kind, is to me at least as incredible as that one should preoccupy and exhaust all intellectual greatness. I feel the prodigy to be so peculiar, that I must necessarily wait until it is overwhelmingly proved, before I admit it. No one can without unreason urge me to believe, on any but the most irrefutable arguments, that a man, finite in every other respect, is infinite in moral perfection.
My friend is "at a loss to conceive in what way a superhuman physical nature could tend in the least degree to render moral perfection more credible." But I think he will see, that it would entirely obviate the argument just stated, which, from the known frailty of human nature in general, deduced the indubitable imperfection of an individual. The reply is then obvious and decisive: "This individual isnota mere man; his origin is wholly exceptional; therefore his moral perfection may be exceptional; your experience ofman'sweakness goes for nothing in his case." If I were already convinced that this person was a great Unique, separated from all other men by an impassable chasm in regard to his physical origin, I (for one) should be much readier to believe that he was Unique and Unapproachable in other respects: for all God's works have an internal harmony. It could not be for nothing that this exceptional personage was sent into the world. That he was intended as head of the human race, in one or more senses, would be a plausible opinion; nor should I feel any incredulous repugnance against believing his morality to be if not divinely perfect, yet separated from that of common men so far, that he might be a God to us, just as every parent is to a young child.
This view seems to my friend a weakness; be it so. I need not press it. What I do press, is,—whatevermightor mightnotbe conceded concerning one in human form, but of superhuman origin,—at any rate, one who is conceded to be, out and out, of the same nature as ourselves, is to be judged of by our experience of that nature, and is therefore to beassumedto be variously imperfect, however eminent and admirable in some respects. And no one is to be called an imaginer of deformity, because he takes for granted that one who is Man has imperfections which were not known to those who compiled memorials of him. To impute to a person, without specific evidence, some definite frailty or fault, barely because he is human, would be a want of good sense; but not so, to have a firm belief that every human being is finite in moral as well as in intellectual greatness.
We have a very imperfect history of the apostle James; and I do not know that I could adduce any fact specifically recorded concerning him in disproof of his absolute moral perfection, if any of his Jerusalem disciples had chosen to set up this as a dogma of religion. Yet no one would blame me, as morose, or indisposed to acknowledge genius and greatness, if I insisted on believing James to be frail and imperfect, while admitting that I knew almost nothing about him. And why?—Singly and surely, because we know him to bea man: that suffices. To set up James or John or Daniel as my Model, and my Lord; to be swallowed up in him and press him upon others for a Universal Standard, would be despised as a self-degrading idolatry and resented as an obtrusive favouritism. Now why does not the same equally apply, if the name Jesus is substituted for these? Why, in defect of all other knowledge than the bare fact of his manhood, are we not unhesitatingly to take for granted that he doesnotexhaust all perfection, and is at best only one among many brethren and equals?
II. My friend, I gather, will reply, "because so many thousands of minds in all Christendom attest the infinite and unapproachable goodness of Jesus." It therefore follows to consider, what is the weight of this attestation. Manifestly it depends, first of all, on the independence of the witnesses: secondly, on the grounds of their belief. If all those, who confess the moral perfection of Jesus, confess it as the result of unbiassed examination of his character; and if of those acquainted with the narrative, none espouse the opposite side; this would be a striking testimony, not to be despised. But in fact, few indeed of the "witnesses" add any weight at all to the argument. No Trinitarian can doubt that Jesus is morally perfect, without doubting fundamentally every part of his religion. He believes it,becausethe entire system demands it, andbecausevarious texts of Scripture avow it: and this very fact makes it morally impossible for him to enter upon an unbiassed inquiry, whether that character which is drawn for Jesus in the four gospels, is, or is not, one of absolute perfection, deserving to be made an exclusive model for all times and countries. My friend never was a Trinitarian, and seems not to know how this operates; but I can testify, that when I believed in the immaculateness of Christ's character, it was not from an unbiassed criticism, but from the pressure of authority, (the authority oftexts,) and from the necessity of the doctrine to the scheme of Redemption. Not merely strict Trinitarians, but all who believe in the Atonement, however modified,—all who believe that Jesus will be the future Judge,—mustbelieve in his absolute perfection: hence the fact of their belief is no indication whatever that they believe on the ground which my friend assumes,—viz. an intelligent and unbiassed study of the character itself, as exhibited in the four narratives.
I think we may go farther. We have no reason for thinking thatthiswas the sort of evidence which convinced the apostles themselves, and first teachers of the gospel;—if indeed in the very first years the doctrine was at all conceived of. It cannot be shown that any one believed in the moral perfection of Jesus, who had not already adopted the belief that he was Messiah, andthereforeJudge of the human race. My friend makes the pure immaculateness of Jesus (discernible by him in the gospels) his foundation, and deducesfromthis the quasi-Messiahship: but the opposite order of deduction appears to have been the only one possible in the first age. Take Paul as a specimen. He believed the doctrine in question; but not from reading the four gospels,—for they did not exist. Did he then believe it by hearing Ananias (Acts ix. 17) enter into details concerning the deeds and words of Jesus? I cannot imagine that any wise or thoughtful person would so judge, which after all would be a gratuitous invention. The Acts of the Apostles give us many speeches which set forth the grounds of accepting Jesus as Messiah; but they never press his absolute moral perfection as a fact and a fundamental fact. "He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil," is the utmost that is advanced on this side: prophecy is urged, and his resurrection is asserted, and the inference is drawn that "Jesus is the Christ." Out of this flowed the farther inferences that he was Supreme Judge,—and moreover, was Paschal Lamb, and Sacrifice, and High Priest, and Mediator; and since every one of these characters demanded a belief in his moral perfections, that doctrine also necessarily followed, and was received before our present gospels existed. My friend therefore cannot abash me by theargumentum ad verecundiam; (which to me seems highly out of place in this connexion;) for the opinion, which is, as to this single point, held by him in common with the first Christians, was held by them on transcendental reasons which he totally discards; and all after generations have been confirmed in the doctrine by Authority,i.e.by the weight of texts or church decisions: both of which he also discards. If I could receive the doctrine, merely because I dared not to differ from the whole Christian world, I might aid to swell odium against rejectors, but I should not strengthen the cause at the bar of reason. I feel therefore that my friend must not claim Catholicity as on his side. Trinitarians and Arians are alike useless to his argument: nay, nor can he claim more than a small fraction of Unitarians; for as many of the them believe that Jesus is to be the Judge of living and dead (as the late Dr. Lant Carpenter did) must asnecessarilybelieve his immaculate perfection as if they were Trinitarians.
The New Testament does not distinctly explain on what grounds this doctrine was believed; but we may observe that in 1 Peter i. 19 and 2 Cor. v. 21, it is coupled with the Atonement, and in 1 Peter ii. 21, Romans xv. 3, it seems to be inferred from prophecy. But let us turn to the original Eleven, who were eye and ear witnesses of Jesus, and consider on what grounds they can have believed (if we assume that they did all believe) the absolute moral perfection of Jesus. It is too ridiculous to imagine then studying the writings of Matthew in order to obtain conviction,—if any of that school, whom alone I now address, could admit that written documents were thought of before the Church outstept the limits of Judea. If the Eleven believed the doctrine for some transcendental reason,—as by a Supernatural Revelation, or on account of Prophecy, and to complete the Messiah's character,—then their attestation is useless to my friend's argument: will it then gain anything, if we suppose that theybelievedJesus to be perfect, because theysawhim to be perfect? To me this would seem no attestation worth having, but rather a piece of impertinent ignorance. If I attest that a person whom I have known was an eminently good man, I command a certain amount of respect to my opinion, and I do him honour. If I celebrate his good deeds and report his wise words, I extend his honour still farther. But if I proceed to assure people,on the evidence of my personal observation of him, that he was immaculate and absolutely perfect, was the pure Moral Image of God, that he deserves to be made the Exclusive Model of imitation, and is the standard by which every other man's morality is to be corrected,—I make myself ridiculous; my panegyrics lose all weight, and I produce far less conviction than when I praised within human limitations. I do not know how my friend will look on this point, (for his judgment on the whole question perplexes me, and the views which I callsoberhe namesprosaic,) but I cannot resist the conviction that universal common-sense would have rejected the teaching of the Eleven with contempt, if they had presented, as the basis of the gospel theirpersonal testimonyto the godlike and unapproachable moral absolutism of Jesus. But even if such a basis was possible to the Eleven, it was impossible to Paul and Silvanus and Timothy and Barnabas and Apollos, and the other successful preachers to the Gentiles. High moral goodness, within human limitations, was undoubtedly announced as a fact of the life of Jesus; but upon this followed the supernatural claims, and the argument of prophecy;withoutwhich my friend desires to build up his view,—I have thus developed why I think he has no right to claim Catholicity for his judgment. I have risked to be tedious, because I find that when I speak concisely, I am enormously misapprehended. I close this topic by observing, that, the great animosity with which my very mild intimations against the popular view have been met from numerous quarters, show me that Christians do not allow this subject to be calmly debated, end have not come to their own conclusion as the result of a calm debate. And this is amply corroborated by my own consciousness of the past I never dared, nor could have dared, to criticize coolly and simply the pretensions of Jesus to be an absolute model of morality, until I had been delivered from the weight of authority and miracle, oppressing my critical powers.
III. I have been asserting, that he who believes Jesus to be mere man, ought at once to believe his moral excellence finite and comparable to that of other men; and, that our judgment to this effect cannot be reasonably overborne by the "universal consent" of Christendom.—Thus far we are dealingà priori, which here fully satisfies me: in such an argument I need noà posteriorievidence to arrive at my own conclusion. Nevertheless, I am met by taunts and clamour, which are not meant to be indecent, but which to my feeling are such. My critics point triumphantly to the four gospels, and demand that I will make a personal attack on a character which they revere, even when they know that I cannot do so without giving great offence. Now if any one were to call my old schoolmaster, or my old parish priest, a perfect and universal Model, and were to claim that I would entitle him Lord, and think of him as the only true revelation of God; should I not be at liberty to say, without disrespect, that "I most emphatically deprecate such extravagant claims for him"? Would this justify an outcry, that I will publicly avowwhatI judge to be his defects of character, and willproveto all his admirers that he was a sinner like other men? Such a demand would be thought, I believe, highly unbecoming and extremely unreasonable. May not my modesty, or my regard for his memory, or my unwillingness to pain his family, be accepted as sufficient reasons for silence? or would any one scoffingly attribute my reluctance to attack him, to my conscious inability to make good my case against his being "God manifest in the flesh"? Now what, if one of his admirers had written panegyrical memorials of him; and his character, therein described, was so faultless, that a stranger to him was not able to descry any moral defeat whatever in it? Is such a stranger bound to believe him to be the Divine Standard of morals, unless he can put his finger on certain passages of the book which imply weaknesses and faults? And is it insulting a man, to refuse to worship him? I utterly protest against every such pretence. As I have an infinitely stronger conviction that Shakespeare was not inintellectDivinely and Unapproachably perfect, than that I can certainly point out in him some definite intellectual defect; as, moreover, I am vastly more sure that Socrates wasmorallyimperfect, than that I am able to censure him rightly; so also, a disputant who concedes to me that Jesus is a mere man, has no right to claim that I will point out some moral flaw in him, or else acknowledge him to be a Unique Unparalleled Divine Soul. It is true, I do see defects, and very serious ones, in the character of Jesus, as drawn by his disciples; but I cannot admit that my right to disown the pretensions made for him turns on my ability to define his frailties. As long as (in common with my friend) I regard Jesus as a man, so long I hold withdogmaticandintense convictionthe inference that he was morally imperfect, and ought not to be held up as unapproachable in goodness; but I have, in comparison, onlya modestbelief that I am able to show his points of weakness.
While therefore in obedience to this call, which has risen from many quarters, I think it right not to refuse the odious task pressed upon me,—I yet protest that my conclusion does not depend upon it. I might censure Socrates unjustly, or at least without convincing my readers, if I attempted that task; but my failure would not throw a feather's weight into the argument that Socrates was a Divine Unique and universal Model. If I write note what is painful to readers, I beg them to remember that I write with much reluctance, and that it is their own fault if they read.
In approaching this subject, the first difficulty is, to know how much of the four gospels to accept asfact. If we could believe the whole, it would be easier to argue; but my friend Martineau (with me) rejects belief of many parts: for instance, he has but a very feeble conviction that Jesus ever spoke the discourses attributed to him in John's gospel. If therefore I were to found upon these some imputation of moral weakness, he would reply, that we are agreed in setting these aside, as untrustworthy. Yet he perseveres in asserting that it is beyond all reasonable questionwhatJesuswas; as though proven inaccuracies in all the narratives did not make the results uncertain. He says that even the poor and uneducated are fully impressed with "the majesty and sanctity" of Christ's mind; as ifthiswere what I am fundamentally denying; and not, only so far as would transcend the known limits of human nature: surely "majesty and sanctity" are not inconsistent with many weaknesses. But our judgment concerning a man's motives, his temper, and his full conquest over self, vanity and impulsive passion, depends on the accurate knowledge of a vast variety of minor points; even the curl of the lip, or the discord of eye and mouth, may change our moral judgment of a man; while, alike to my friend and me it is certain that much of what is stated is untrue. Much moreover of what he holds to be untrue does not seem so to any but to the highly educated. In spite therefore of his able reply, I abide in my opinion that he is unreasonably endeavouring to erect what is essentially a piece of doubtful biography and difficult literary criticism into first-rate religious importance.
I shall however try to pick up a few details which seem, as much as any, to deserve credit, concerning the pretensions, doctrine and conduct of Jesus.
First, I believe that he habitually spoke of himself by the title "Son of Man"—a fact which pervades all the accounts, and was likely to rivet itself on his hearers. Nobody but he himself ever calls him Son of Man.
SecondlyI believe that in assuming this title he tacitly alluded to the viith chapter of Daniel, and claimed for himself the throne of judgment over all mankind.—I know no reason to doubt that he actually delivered (in substance) the discourse in Matth. xxv. "When the Son of Man shall come in his glory,… before him shall be gathered all nations,… and he shall separate them, &c. &c.": and I believe that bythe Son of Manandthe Kinghe meant himself. Compare Luke xii. 40, ix. 56.
Thirdly, I believe that he habitually assumed the authoritative dogmatic tone of one who was a universal Teacher in moral and spiritual matters, and enunciated as a primary duty of men to learn submissively of his wisdom and acknowledge his supremacy. This element in his character,the preaching of himselfis enormously expanded in the fourth gospel, but it distinctly exists in Matthew. Thus in Matth. xxiii 8: "Be not ye called Rabbi [teacher], for one is your Teacher, even Christ; and all ye are brethren"… Matth. x. 32: "Whosoever shall confess ME before men, him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven… He that loveth father or mother more than ME is notworthy ofME, &c."… Matth. xi. 27: "All things are delivered unto ME of my Father; andno man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son; and he to whomsoeverthe Son will reveal him.Come unto ME, all ye that labour,… andIwill give you rest. Take MY yoke upon you, &c."
My friend, I find, rejects Jesus as an authoritative teacher, distinctly denies that the acceptance of Jesus in this character is any condition of salvation and of the divine favour, and treats of my "demand of an oracular Christ," as inconsistent with my own principles. But this is mere misconception of what I have said. I findJesus himselfto set up oracular claims. I find an assumption of pre-eminence and unapproachable moral wisdom to pervade every discourse from end to end of the gospels. If I may not believe that Jesus assumed an oracular manner, I do not know what moral peculiarity in him I am permitted to believe. I do notdemand(as my friend seems to think) thathe shall beoracular, but in common with all Christendom, I open my eyes and see thathe is; and until I had read my friend's review of my book, I never understood (I suppose through my own prepossessions) that he holds Jesusnotto have assumed the oracular style.
If I cut out from the four gospels this peculiarity, I must cut out, not only the claim of Messiahship, which my friend admits to have been made, but nearly every moral discourse and every controversy: andwhy? except in order to make good a predetermined belief that Jesus was morally perfect. What reason can be given me for not believing that Jesus declared: "If any one deny ME before men,him will I denybefore my Father and his angels?" or any of the other texts which couple the favour of God with a submission to such pretensions of Jesus? I can find no reason whatever for doubting that he preached HIMSELF to his disciples, though in the three first gospels he is rather timid of doing this to the Pharisees and to the nation at large. I find him uniformly to claim, sometimes in tone, sometimes in distinct words, that we will sit at his feet as little children and learn of him. I find him ready to answer off-hand, all difficult questions, critical and lawyer-like, as well as moral. True, it is no tenet of mine that intellectual and literary attainment is essential in an individual person to high spiritual eminence. True, in another book I have elaborately maintained the contrary. Yet in that book I have described men's spiritual progress as often arrested at a certain stage by a want of intellectual development; which surely would indicate that I believed even intellectual blunders and an infinitely perfect exhaustive morality to be incompatible. But our question here (or at leastmyquestion) is not, whether Jesus might misinterpret prophecy, and yet be morally perfect; but whether,after assuming to be an oracular teacher, he can teach some fanatical precepts, and advance dogmatically weak and foolish arguments, without impairing our sense of his absolute moral perfection.
I do not think it useless here to repeat (though not for my friend) concise reasons which I gave in my first edition against admitting dictatorial claims for Jesus.First, it is an unplausible opinion that God would deviate from his ordinary course, in order to give us anything so undesirable as an authoritative Oracle would be;—which would paralyze our moral powers, exactly as an infallible church does, in the very proportion in which we succeeded in eliciting responses from it. It is not needful here to repeat what has been said to that effect in p. 138.Secondly, there is no imaginable criterion, by which we can establish that the wisdom of a teacherisabsolute and illimitable. All that we can possibly discover, is the relative fact, that another iswiser than we: and even this is liable to be overturned on special points, as soon as differences of judgment arise.Thirdly, while it is by no means clear what are the new truths, for which we are to lean upon the decisions of Jesus, it is certain that we have no genuine and trustworthy account of his teaching. If God had intended us to receive the authoritativedictaof Jesus, he would have furnished us with an unblemished record of those dicta. To allow that we have not this, and that we must disentangle for ourselves (by a most difficult and uncertain process) the "true" sayings of Jesus, is surely self-refuting.Fourthly, if Imustsit in judgment on the claims of Jesus to be the true Messiah and Son of God, how can I concentrate all my free thought into that one act, and thenceforth abandon free thought? This appears a moral suicide, whether Messiah or the Pope is the object whom wefirstcriticize, in order to instal him over us, andthen, for ever after, refuse to criticize. In short,we cannot build up a system of Oracles on a basis of Free Criticism. If we are to submit our judgment to the dictation of some other,—whether a church or an individual,—we must be first subjected to that other by some event from without, as by birth; and not by a process of that very judgment which is henceforth to be sacrificed. But from this I proceed to consider more in detail, some points in the teaching and conduct of Jesus, which do not appear to me consistent with absolute perfection.
The argument of Jesus concerning the tribute to Cæsar is so dramatic, as to strike the imagination and rest on the memory; and I know no reason for doubting that it has been correctly reported. The book of Deuteronomy (xvii. 15) distinctly forbids Israel to set over himself as king any who is not a native Israelite; which appeared to be a religious condemnation of submission to Cæsar. Accordingly, since Jesus assumed the tone of unlimited wisdom, some of Herod's party asked him, whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Cæsar. Jesus replied: "Why tempt ye me, hypocrites? Show me the tribute money." When one of the coins was handed to him, he asked: "Whose image and superscription is this?" When they replied: "Cæsar's," he gave his authoritative decision: "Renderthereforeto Cæsarthe things that are Cæsar's."
In this reply not only the poor and uneducated, but many likewise of the rich and educated, recognize "majesty and sanctity:" yet I find it hard to think that my strong-minded friend will defend the justness, wisdom and honesty of it. To imagine that because a coin bears Cæsar's head,thereforeit is Cæsar's property, and that he may demand to have as many of such coins as he chooses paid over to him, is puerile, and notoriously false. The circulation of foreign coin of every kind was as common in the Mediterranean then as now; and everybody knew that the coin was the property of theholder, not of him whose head it bore. Thus the reply of Jesus, which pretended to be a moral decision, was unsound and absurd: yet it is uttered in a tone of dictatorial wisdom, and ushered in by a grave rebuke, "Why tempt ye me, hypocrites?" He is generally understood to mean, "Why do you try to implicate me in a political charge?" and it is supposed that he prudentlyevadedthe question. I have indeed heard this interpretation from high Trinitarians; which indicates to me how dead is their moral sense in everything which concerns the conduct of Jesus. No reason appears why he should not have replied, that Moses forbade Israelvoluntarilyto place himself under a foreign king, but did not inculcate fanatical and useless rebellion against overwhelming power. But such a reply, which would have satisfied a more commonplace mind, has in it nothing brilliant and striking. I cannot but think that Jesus shows a vain conceit in the cleverness of his answer: I do not think it so likely to have been a conscious evasion. But neither does his rebuke of the questioners at all commend itself to me. How can any man assume to be an authoritative teacher, and then claim that men shall not put his wisdom to the proof? Was it not theirdutyto do so? And when, in result, the trial has proved the defect of his wisdom, did they not perform a useful public service? In truth, I cannot see the Model Man in his rebuke.—Let not my friend say that the error was merely intellectual: blundering self-sufficiency is a moral weakness.