Another argument which the author of "Supernatural Religion" uses to discredit miracles, is the superstition of the Jews, especially in our Lord's time, and their readiness to believe any miraculous story. He seems to suppose that this superstition reached its extreme point in the age in which Christ lived, which he calls "the age of miracles." He also assumes that it was an age of strong religious feeling and excitement. He says:—
"During the whole life of Christ, and the early propagation of the religion, it must be borne in mind that they took place in an age, and among a people, which superstition had made so familiar with what were supposed to be preternatural events, that wonders awakened no emotion, or were speedily superseded by some new demand on the ever ready belief." (Vol. i. p. 98.)
He proceeds to devote above twenty pages to instances of the superstition and credulity of the Jews about the time of Christ. The contents of these pages would be amusing if they did not reveal such deep mental degradation in a race which Christians regard as sacred, because of God's dealings with their fathers.
Most readers, however, of these pages on the Demonology and Angelology of the Jews will, I think, be affected by them in a totally different way, and will draw a very different inference, from what the writer intends. The thoughtful reader will ask, "How could the Evangelical narratives be the outcome of such a hotbed of superstition as the author describes that time to have been?" It is quite impossible, it is incredible that the same natural cause,i.e.the prevalence of superstition, should have produced about the same time the Book of Enoch and the Gospel according to St. Matthew. And this is the more remarkable from the fact that the Gospels are in no sense more Sadducean than the Book of Enoch. The being and agency of good and evil spirits is as fully recognized in the inspired writings as in the Apocryphal, but with what a difference! I append in a note a part of the author's reproduction of the Book of Enoch, that the reader may see how necessary it is, on all principles of common sense, to look for some very different explanation of the origin of the Evangelical narratives than that given by the author of "Supernatural Religion." [168:1]
In the Evangelical narratives I need hardly say the angels are simply messengers, as their name imports, and absolutely nothing more. When one describes himself it is in the words, "I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God, and am sent to speak unto thee and to show thee these glad tidings."
On the credulity of the Jews in our Lord's time, I repeat the author's remarks:—
"During the whole life of Christ, and the early propagation of the religion, it must be borne in mind that they took place in an age, and among a people, which superstition had made so familiar with what were supposed to be preternatural events, that wonders awakened no emotion, or were speedily superseded by some new demand on the ever-ready belief." (Vol. i. p. 98.)
Now, if the records of our Lord's life in the Gospels are not a tissue of falsehoods from beginning to end, this account of things is absolutely untrue. The miracles of Jesus awakened the greatest astonishment, betokening a time as unfamiliar with the actual performance of such things as our own.
For instance, after the first casting out of a devil recorded in St.Mark, it is said.—
"They were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority commandeth He even the unclean spirits, and they do obey Him." (Mark i. 29.)
In the next chapter, after the account of the healing of the sick of the palsy, it is said:—
"They were all amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw it onthis fashion." (ii. 12.)
Again (St. Luke v. 26), after the casting out of a devil: "They were all amazed." Again, Luke ix. 43 (also after the casting out of a devil), "They were all amazed at the mighty power of God." [170:1]
From the account in St. John, the miracle of the opening of the eyes of the man born blind seems to have excited unbounded astonishment:—
"Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind." "Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?" (John ix. 32, x. 21.)
But more than this. If there be any truth whatsoever in the Gospel narrative, the disciples themselves, instead of exhibiting anything approaching to the credulity with which the author of "Supernatural Religion" taxes the contemporaries of Christ, exhibited rather a spirit of unbelief. If they had transmitted to us "cunningly devised fables," they never would have recorded such instances of their own slowness of belief as is evinced by their conduct respecting the feeding of the four thousand following upon the feeding of the five thousand, when they ask the same question in the face of the same difficulty respecting the supply of food.
Above all, their slowness of belief in the Resurrection of Christ after their Master's direct assertion that He would rise again, is directly opposed to the idea suggested by the author of "Supernatural Religion," that they were ready to believe anything which seemed to favour His pretensions.
Now, it may be alleged that these instances of the slowness of belief on the part of our Lord's immediate followers, and the conduct of the multitudes who expressed such wonder at His miracles, are contrary to one another, but, they are not; for the astonishment of the multitudes did not arise from credulity in the least, but was the expression of that state of mind which must exist (no matter how carefully it is concealed), when some unlooked-for occurrence, totally inexplicable on any natural principles, presents itself. I cite it to show how utterly unfamiliar that age was with even the pretence of the exhibition of miraculous powers. If there be any substratum of truth whatsoever in the accounts of the slowness of belief on the part of the Apostles, it is a proof that our Lord's most familiar friends were anything but the superstitious persons which certain writers assume them to have been.
The question of Demoniacal Possession now demands a passing notice.
The author of "Supernatural Religion" ascribes all such phenomena to imposture or delusion; and, inasmuch as these supposed miracles of casting out of evil spirits are associated with other miracles of Christ in the same narrative, he uses the odium with which this class of miracles is in this day regarded, for the purpose of discrediting the miracles of healing and the Resurrection of Jesus.
I cannot help expressing my surprise at the difficulty which some writers, who desire fully and faithfully to uphold the supernatural, seem to have respecting Demoniacal Possession. The difficulty seems to me to be not in the action of evil spirits in this or in that way, but in their existence. And yet the whole analogy of nature, and the state of man in this world, would lead us to believe, not only in the objective existence of a world of spirits, but in the separation of their characters into good and evil.
Those who deny the fact of an actually existing spiritual world of angels, if they are Atheists, must believe that man is the highest rational existence in the universe; but this is absurd, for the intellect of man in plainly very circumscribed, and he is slowly discovering laws which account for the phenomena which he sees, which laws were operative for ages before he discovered them, and imply infinitely more intellect in their invention, so to speak, and imposition and nice adjustment with one another, than he shows in their mere discovery. A student, for instance, has a problem put before him, say upon the adjustments of the forces of the heavenly bodies. The solution, if it evinces intelligence in him, must evince more and older intelligence in the man who sets him the problem; but if the conditions of the problem truly represent the acts of certain forces and their compensations, can we possibly deny that there is an intellect infinitely above ours who calculated beforehand their compensations and adjustments. All the laws of the universe must be assumed to be, even if they are not believed to be, the work of a personal intellect absolutely infinite, whose operations cannot be confined to this world, for it gives laws to all bodies, no matter how distant. The same reasoning, then, which shows that there is an intelligent will, because it can solve a problem, necessitates an infinitely higher Intelligence which can order the motions of distant worlds by laws of which our highest calculative processes are perhaps very clumsy representations.
Those who, like the author of "Supernatural Religion," are good enough to admit (with limitations) the existence of a Supreme Being, and yet deny the existence of a spiritual world above ours, seem to me to act still more absurdly. For the whole analogy of the world of nature would lead as to infer that, as there is a descending scale of animated beings below man reaching down to the lowest forms of life, so there is an ascending scale above him, between him and God. The deniers of the existence of such beings as angels undertake to assert that there are no beings between ourselves and the Supreme Being, because nature (meaning by nature certain lower brute forces, such as gravitation and electricity), "knows nothing" of them.
The Scriptures, on the contrary, would lead us to believe that just as in the natural world there are gradations of beings between ourselves and the lowest forms of life, so in the spiritual world (and we belong to both worlds) there are gradations of beings between ourselves and God Who created all things.
The Scriptures would lead us to believe that these beings are intelligent free agents, and, as such, have had their time of probation—that some fell under their trial, and are now the enemies of God as wicked men are, and that others stood in the time of trial and continue the willing servants of God.
The Scriptures reveal that good angels act as good men do; they endeavour, as far as lies in their power, to confirm others in goodness and in the service of God; and that evil angels act as evil men act, they endeavour to seduce others and to involve them in their own condemnation.
The Scriptures say nothing to satisfy our curiosity about these beings, as Apocryphal books do. They simply describe the one as sent on errands of mercy, and the other as delighting in tempting men and inflicting pain. The mystery of the fall of some of these angels, and their consequent opposition to God, is no difficulty in itself. It is simply the oldest form of that which is to those who believe in the reality of the holiness and goodness of God the great problem of the universe—the origin and continuance of evil. It is simply the counterpart amongst a world of free agents above us of what takes place according to the [so-called] natural order of things amongst ourselves.
That evil angels can tempt the souls of men, and in some cases injure their bodies, is not a whit more difficult than that evil men can do the same under the government of a God who exerts so universal a providence as is described in the Bible, and allowed to some extent by the author of "Supernatural Religion."
I confess that I cannot understand the difficulty which some Christian writers evidently feel respecting the existence of such a thing as Demoniacalpossession, whilst they seem to feel, or at least theyexpressno difficulty, respecting Demoniacaltemptation. Demoniacal possession is the infliction of a physical evil for which the man is not accountable, but demoniacal temptation is an attempt to deprive a man of that for the keeping of which he is accountable, viz. his own innocence. Demoniacal possession is a temporal evil. The yielding to demoniacal temptation may cast a man for ever out of the favour of God. And yet demoniacal temptation is perfectly analogous to human temptation. A human seducer has it in his power, if his suggestions are received, to corrupt innocence, render life miserable, undermine faith in God and in Christ, and destroy the hopes of eternity—and a diabolical seducer can do no more.
Again, the Scriptures seem to teach us that these wicked spirits are the authors of certain temporal evils, and I do not see that there is anything unreasonable in the fact, if it be granted, that there are spirits who exist independent of bodily frames—that these spirits are free agents, and have different characters, and act according to their characters, and also that, according to the laws (i.e.within the limitations) of their nature, they have power to act upon those below them in the scale of being, just as we can act upon creatures below us according to the limitations,i.e.the laws, of our nature. We are in our way able to inflict evil or to ward off evil from our fellow creatures, under the limitations, or laws which a higher Power has set over us; and the Scriptures teach us that there are other beings in the great spiritual kingdom of God who are able to do us good or mischief under the conditions which the same Supreme Power has imposed on their action. So that the one thing which the Scriptures reveal to us is, that there is a far vaster spiritual kingdom of God than the human race.
With respect to demoniacal possession, our difficulties arise from two things—from our utter ignorance of the nature and real causes of mental diseases, and from our ignorance of the way in which purely spiritual beings can act upon beings such as ourselves, who ordinarily receive impressions only through our bodily organs. We know not, for instance, how God Himself acts upon our spirits, and yet, if He cannot, He has less power over us than we have over one another.
Respecting the fact of God permitting such a thing as possession, there is no more real difficulty than is involved in His permitting such a thing as madness. The symptoms of possession seem generally to have resembled mania, and ascribing certain sorts of mania to evil spirits is only assigning one cause rather than another to a disease of whose nature we are profoundly ignorant. [178:1]
Again, if we take into consideration the fact that in not a few cases madness is produced by moral causes, by yielding to certain temptations, as, for instance, to drunkenness, there will be still less difficulty in believing that madness, arising from the action of an evil being, may be the punishment of yielding to the seductions of that evil being.
The miraculous cure of demoniacal possession presents, I need hardly say, less physical difficulty than any other cure performed by our Lord. Assuming the presence of an evil spiritual existence in the possessed person coming face to face with the most exalted spiritual Power and Goodness, the natural result is that the one quails before the other.
But, in truth, all the difficulties respecting possession arise not so much from our ignorance, as from our dogmatism. We assert the dogma, or at least we quietly assume the dogma, that there are no spiritual or intellectual beings between ourselves and God; or, if we shrink from an assertion which so nearly implies our own omniscience, we lay down that these superior beings, of whose laws we know nothing, can only act upon us in ways precisely similar to those on which we act upon one another.
Another objection which the author of "Supernatural Religion" urges against the credibility of our Lord's miracles, is that they were not performed before what he considers competent witnesses.
"Their occurrence [he writes] is limited to ages which were totally ignorant of physical laws." (Vol. i. p. 201.)
Again, he speaks of the age as one
"in which not only the grossest superstition and credulity prevailed, but in which there was such total ignorance of natural laws that men were incapable of judging of that reality [i.e.of miracles]." (P. 204.)
Again:—
"The discussion of miracles, then, is not one regarding miracles actually performed within our own knowledge, but merely regarding miracles said to have been performed eighteen hundred years ago, the reality of which was not verified at the time by any scientific examination." (P. 208.)
From this we gather that the author of "Supernatural Religion" considers that the miracles of Christ should have been tested by scientific men; but we ask, By what scientific men? It is clear that if the testing was to have been satisfactory to those who think like the author of "Supernatural Religion," they must have been scientific men who approached the whole matter in a spirit of scepticism. Our Blessed Lord (I speak it with all reverence), if He cared to satisfy such men, should have delayed His coming to the present time, or should have called up out of the future, or created for this purpose, men who had doubts respecting the personality of God, who held Him to be fitly described as the Unknown and the Unknowable; who, to say the least, were in a state of suspense as to whether, if there be a Supreme Being, He can reveal Himself or make His will known. In fact, He must have called up, or created for the purpose, some individuals of a school of physicists which had no existence till 1,800 years after His time. For, if He had called into existence such witnesses as Sir Isaac Newton, or Sir Humphrey Davy, or Cuvier, or Faraday, they would have fallen down and worshipped.
But, in truth, such witnesses, whether believing or sceptical, would have found no place for their science, for the miracles of Christ were of such a kind that the most scientific doubter could have no more accounted for them than the most ignorant. The miracle of which, next to our Lord's own Resurrection, we have the fullest evidence, is that of the feeding of the 5,000; for it is recorded by each one of the four Evangelists. Now, if this miracle had been performed in the presence of the members of all the scientific societies now in existence, their knowledge of natural laws could have contributed nothing to its detection or explanation. They could have merely laid it down to trick or deception, just as any of the unscientific persons present could have done, and perhaps did. The miracle was performed in the open. Our Lord must have been on some elevated ground where His voice could have reached some considerable part of the multitude, and on which every act of His could be observed. More than a thousand loaves would have been necessary, requiring the assistance of, say a hundred men, to collect them and bring them from a distance. This, too, is not one of those miracles which can be explained by the convenient hypothesis of a "substratum of truth." It is either a direct exhibition of the creative power of God, or a fiction as unworthy of a moment's serious consideration as a story in the "Arabian Nights."
It is folly to imagine that such an act required scientific men to verify it. If the matter was either a reality, or presented that appearance of reality which the narrative implies, then the scientific person would have been stupefied, or in trembling and astonishment he would have fallen on his face like another opponent of the truth; or, may be, his very reason would have been shattered at the discovery that here before him was that very supernatural and divine Working in Whose existence he had been doing his best to persuade his fellow creatures to disbelieve.
The Scripture narratives, if they are not altogether devoid of truth, lead us to believe that our Lord performed His miracles in the face of three sects or parties of enemies, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians; each one rejecting His claims on grounds of its own. They were also performed in a populous city, of which all the rulers and the mass of the inhabitants were hostile to His pretensions. Such a place could never have been chosen as the scene of a miraculous event, known by those who promulgated it to have had no foundation in truth, and withal assumed to have been known throughout the city at the time, and to have been productive of a series of results, miraculous and ordinary, which were asserted to have commenced at the moment of its occurrence.
The writer of "Supernatural Religion" would disparage the accounts of our Lord's supernatural works and Resurrection, because such accounts are to be found only in the writings of "enthusiastic followers," not in those of indifferent persons; but the nature of the case almost excludes all other testimony: for the miracles of our Lord were wrought for an evidential purpose,—to convince the Jews especially that He was the Christ, the hope of their fathers, and, as such, was not only to be believed in, but to be obeyed and followed. The only sign of real true belief was that the man who professed to believe joined that society which was instituted for the purpose of propagating and keeping alive the truth of His Messiahship. If any one who professed to believe stopped short of joining this society, his testimony to miracles would have been valueless, for the miracles were wrought to convince him of the truth of a matter in which, if he believed, he was bound to profess his belief, and, if he did not, he laid himself open to the charge of not really believing the testimony.
Now, of course, the reader is aware that we have a signal proof of the validity of this argument in the well-known passage in Josephus which relates to our Lord. Josephus was the historian, and the only historian, of the period in which our Lord flourished. The eighteenth book of his "Antiquities of the Jews" covers the whole period of our Lord's life. If our Lord had merely attracted attention as a teacher of righteousness, which it is allowed on all hands that He did, it was likely that He would have been mentioned in this book along, with others whose teaching produced far less results. Mention appears to be made of Him in the following words:—
"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for He was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to Him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned Him to the cross, those that loved Him at the first did not forsake Him; for He appeared to them alive again the third day; as the Divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning Him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from Him, are not extinct at this day."
Now, on external grounds there seems little doubt of the genuineness of this passage. It is in all copies of the historian's work, and is quoted in full by Eusebius, though not alluded to by fathers previous to his day. [183:1] If it is an interpolation, it must have been by the hand of a Christian; and yet it is absolutely inconceivable that any Christian should have noticed the Christian Church in such words as "the tribe of Christians, so named from Him, are not extinct at this day." It would have been absurd beyond measure to have described the Christians, so early as Justin's time even, as "not extinct," when they were filling the world with their doctrine, and their increase was a source of great perplexity and trouble to the Roman Government. It is just what a Jew of Josephus' time would have written who really believed that Jesus wrought miracles, but expected that nothing permanent would result from them.
And yet there can be no doubt but that the passage is open to this insurmountable objection, that if Josephus had written it he would have professed himself a Christian, or a man of incredible inconsistency. Setting aside the difficulty connected with the acknowledgment of Jesus as the Christ, inasmuch as this name was frequently given to Him by those who did not believe in Him, yet how could Josephus state that His Resurrection was predicted by the prophets of his nation, and continue in appearance an unbeliever?
But, whether genuine or not, this passage is decisive as to the impossibility of what is styled an independent testimony to our Lord: "He that is not with Me is against Me." The facts of our Lord's chief miracles and Resurrection were such, that the nearer men lived to the time the more impossible it would have been for them to have suspended their judgment.
So that, instead of having the witness of men who, by their prudent suspension of judgment, betrayed their lurking unbelief, we have the testimony of men who, by their surrender of themselves, soul and body, evinced their undoubting faith in a matter in which there could be really no middle opinion.
One point remains—the time to which the testimony to our Lord's miracles reaches back. Can it be reasonably said to reach to within fifty years of His Death, or to within twenty, or even nearer?
The author of "Supernatural Religion" asserts that it was not contemporaneous or anything like it. In fact, one might infer from his book that the miracles of Christ were not heard of till say a century, or three quarters of a century, after His time, for he says, "they were never heard of out of Palestine until long after the events are said to have occurred." [185:1] (P. 192.)
In such a case, "long after" is very indefinite. It may be a century, or three quarters of a century, or perhaps half a century. It cannot be less, for every generation contains a considerable number of persons whose memories reach back for forty or fifty years. In a place of 3,000 inhabitants, in which I am now writing, there are above fifty persons who can perfectly remember all that took place in 1830. There are some whose memories reach to twenty years earlier. Now let the reader try and imagine, if he can, the possibility of ascribing a number of remarkable acts—we will not say miraculous ones—to some one who died in 1830, and assuming also that these events were the basis of a society which had commenced with his death, and was now making way, and that the chief design of the society was to make known or keep up the memory of these events, and that there had been a literature written between the present time and the time of the said man's death, every line of which had been written on the assumption that the events in question were true, and yet these events had never really taken place. We must also suppose that the person upon whom these acts are attempted to be fastened was regarded with intense dislike by the great majority of his contemporaries, who did all they could to ruin him when alive, and blacken his memory after he had died, and who looked with especial dislike on the idea that he was supposed to have done the acts in question. Let the reader, I say, try and imagine all this, and he will see that, in the case of our Lord, the author's "long after" must be sixty or seventy years at the least; more likely a hundred.
Let us now summon another witness to the supernatural, whose testimony we promised to consider, and this shall be Clement of Rome—the earliest author to whom it has suited the purpose of the author of "Supernatural Religion" to refer.
If we are to rely upon the almost universal consent of ancient authors rather than the mere conjectures of modern critics, he is the person alluded to by St. Paul in the words, "With Clement also, and with other my fellow labourers, whose names are written in the book of life." (Phil. iv. 3.)
Of this man Eusebius writes:—
"In the twelfth year of the same reign (Domitian's), after Anecletus had been bishop of Rome twelve years, he was succeeded by Clement, whom the Apostle, in his Epistle to the Philippians, shows had been his fellow-labourer in these words: 'With Clement also and the rest of my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life.' Of this Clement there is one Epistle extant, acknowledged as genuine, of considerable length and of great merit, which he wrote in the name of the Church at Rome, to that of Corinth, at the time when there was a dissension in the latter. This we know to have been publicly read for common benefit, in most of the Churches both in former times and in our own." (Eccles. Hist. B. III. xv. xvi.)
Origen confirms this. Clement of Alexandria reproduces several pages from his Epistle, calling him "The Apostle Clement," [187:1] and Irenaeus speaks of him as the companion of the Apostles:—
"This man, as he had seen the blessed Apostles and been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the Apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes." (Bk. III. ch. iii. 3)
Irenaeus, it is to be remembered, died at the end of the second century, and his birth is placed within the first quarter of it, so that, in all probability, he had known numbers of Christians who had conversed with Clement.
According to the author of "Supernatural Religion," the great mass of critics assign the Epistle of Clement to between the years A.D. 95-100.
In dealing with this Epistle I shall, for argument's sake, assume that Clement quoted from an earlier Gospel than any one of our present ones, and that the one he quoted might be the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and I shall ask the same question that I asked respecting Justin Martyr—What views of Christ's Person and work and doctrine did he derive from this Gospel of his?
The Epistle of Clement is one in which we should scarcely expect to find much reference to the Supernatural, for it is written throughout for the one practical purpose of healing the divisions in the Church of Corinth. These the writer ascribes to envy, and cites a number of Scripture examples of the evil effects of this disposition and the good effects of the contrary one. He adheres to this purpose throughout, and every word he writes bears more or less directly on his subject. Yet in this document, from which, by its design, the subject of the supernatural seems excluded, we have all the leading features of supernatural Christianity. We have the Father sending the Son (ch. xlii.); we have the Son coming of the seed of Jacob according to the Flesh (ch. xxxii.); we have the words, "Our Lord Jesus Christ, the sceptre of the Majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of pride and arrogance, although He might have done so, but in a lowly condition, as the Holy Spirit had declared regarding Him" (ch. xvi.); and at the end of the same we have:—
"If the Lord thus humbled Himself, what shall we do who have throughHim come under the yoke of His grace?"
Clement describes Him in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews asOne—
"Who, being the brightness of His [God's] Majesty, is by so much greater than the angels as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they." (Ch. xxxvi.)
We have Clement speaking continually of the Death of Jesus as taking place for the highest of supernatural purposes,—the reconciliation of all men to God. "Let us look," he writes, "steadfastly to the Blood of Christ, and see how precious that Blood is to God, which, having been shed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole world." (Ch. vii.) Again, "And thus they made it manifest that Redemption should flow through the Blood of the Lord to all them that believe and hope in God." (Ch. xii.) Again, "On account of the love He bore us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His Blood for us by the will of God, His Flesh for our flesh, and His Soul for our souls." (Ch. xlix.) His sufferings are apparently said by Clement to be the sufferings of God. (Ch. ii.) But, above all, the statement of the truth of our Lord's Resurrection, and of ours through His, is as explicit as possible:—
"Let us consider, beloved, how the Lord continually proves to us that there shall be a future resurrection, of which He has rendered the Lord Jesus the first fruits by raising Him from the dead." (Ch. xxiv.)
"[The Apostles] having therefore received their orders, and being fully assured by the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and established in the Word of God, with full assurance of the Holy Ghost, they went forth proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was at hand." (Ch. xlii.)
When we look to Clement's theology, we find it to have been what would now be called, in the truest and best sense of the word, "Evangelical," thus:—
"We too, being called by His Will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which from the beginning Almighty God has justified all men." (Ch. xxxii.)
Again:—
"All these the Great Creator and Lord of all has appointed to exist in peace and harmony; while He does good to all, but most abundantly to us who have fled for refuge to His compassion through Jesus Christ our Lord."
And he ends his Epistle with the following prayer:—
"May God, who seeth all things, and Who is the Ruler of all Spirits and the Lord of all Flesh—Who chose our Lord Jesus, and us through Him to be a peculiar people—grant to every soul that calleth upon His glorious and holy Name, faith, fear, peace, patience, long suffering, self-control, purity and sobriety, to the well pleasing of His Name through our High Priest and Protector Jesus Christ." (Ch. lviii.)
But with all this his Christianity seems to have been Ecclesiastical, in the technical sense of the word. He seems to have had a much clearer and firmer hold than Justin had of the truth that Christ instituted, not merely a philosophy or system of teaching, but a mystical body or visible Church, having its gradations of officers corresponding to the officers of the Jewish Ecclesiastical system, and its orderly arrangements of worship. (Ch. xl-xlii.)
Now this is the Christianity of a man who lived at least sixty or seventy years nearer to the fountain head of Christian truth than did Justin Martyr, whose witness to dogmatical or supernatural Christianity we have shown at some length.
It is also gathered out of a comparatively short book, not one sixth of the length of the writings of Justin, and composed solely for an undogmatic purpose.
His views of Christ and His work are precisely the same as those of Justin. By all rule of rationalistic analogy they ought to have been less "ecclesiastical," but in some respects they are more so.
Clement certainly seems to bring out more fully our Lord's Resurrection (taking into consideration, that is, the scope of his one remaining book and its brevity), and the Resurrection of Christ is the crowning miracle which stamps the whole dispensation as supernatural.
So far, then, as the Supernatural is concerned, it makes no difference whatsoever whether Clement used the Gospel according to St. Matthew or the Gospel according to the Hebrews. His Gospel, whatever it was, not only filled his heart with an intense and absorbing love of Christ, and a desire that all men should imitate Him, but it filled his mind with that view of the religion of Christ which we call supernatural and evangelical, but which the author of "Supernatural Religion" calls ecclesiastical.
The question now arises, not so much from whom, but when, did he receive this view of Christ and His system. I do not mean, of course, the more minute features, but the substance. To what period must his reminiscences as a Christian extend? What time must his experiences cover? Irenaeus, in the place I have quoted, speaks of him as the companion of Apostles, Clement of Alexandria as an Apostle, Eusebius and Origen as the fellow-labourer of St. Paul. Now, I will not at present insist upon the more than likelihood that such was the fact. I will, for argument's sake, assume that he was some other Clement; but, whoever he was, one thing respecting him is certain—that the knowledge of Christianity was not poured into him at the moment when he wrote his Epistle, nor did he receive it ten—twenty—thirty years before. St. Peter and St. Paul were martyred in A.D. 68; the rest of the Apostolic College were dispersed long before. This Epistle shows little or no trace of the peculiar Johannean teaching or tradition of the Apostle who survived all the others; so, unless he had received his Christian teaching some years before the Martyrdom of the two Apostles Peter and Paul, that is, some time before A.D. 68, probably many years, I do not see that there can have been the smallest ground even for the tradition of the very next generation after his own that he knew the Apostles. Such a tradition could not possibly have been connected with the name of a man who became a Christian late in the century.
Now, supposing that he was sixty-five years old when he wrote his Epistle, he was born about the time of our Lord's Death: he was consequently a contemporary of the generation that had witnessed the Death and Resurrection of Christ and the founding of the Church. If he had ever been in Jerusalem before its destruction, he must have fallen in with multitudes of surviving Christians of the 5,000 who were converted on and just after the day of Pentecost.
His Christian reminiscences, then, must have extended far into the age of the contemporaries of Christ. A man who was twenty-five years old at the time of the Resurrection of Christ would scarcely be reckoned an old man at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. Clement consequently might have spent twenty of the best years of his life in the company of persons who were old enough to have seen the Lord in the Flesh. [193:1]
So that his knowledge of the Death and Resurrection of Christ, and the founding of the Church, even if he had never seen St. Paul or any other Apostle, must have been derived from a generation of men, all the older members of which wore Christians of the Pentecostal period.
Now when we come to compare the Epistle of Clement with the only remaining Christian literature of the earliest period,i.e.the earlier Epistles of St. Paul, we find both the account of Christ and the Theology built upon that account, to be the same in the one and in the other.
The supernatural fact respecting Christ to which the earliest Epistles of St. Paul most prominently refer, was His Resurrection as the pledge of ours, and this is the fact respecting Christ which is put most prominently forward by Clement, and for the same purpose. The First Epistle to the Corinthians is referred to by Clement in the words:—
"Take up the Epistle of the Blessed Apostle Paul. What did he writeto you at the time when the Gospel first began to be preached?Truly, under the inspiration of the Spirit ([Greek: pneumatikôs]) hewrote to you concerning himself and Cephas and Apollos, because eventhen parties had been formed among you." (Ch. xlvii.)
The other reproductions of the language of St. Paul's Epistles are numerous, and I give them in a note. [194:1] The reader will see at a glance that the Theology or Christology of Clement was that of the earliest writings of the Church of which we have any remains, and to these he himself frequently and unmistakably refers.
The earlier Epistles of St. Paul, as those to the Thessalonians, Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans, are acknowledged on all hands, even by advanced German Rationalists, to be the genuine works of the Apostle Paul; indeed one might as well deny that such a man ever existed as question their authenticity. The First Epistle to the Corinthians, which is the longest and most dogmatic of the earlier ones, cannot have been written after the year 58. In a considerable number of chronological tables to which I have referred, the earliest date is the year 52, and the latest 58.
To the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, which is undoubtedly the earliest of all, the earliest date assigned is 47, and the latest 53.
Now it is ever to be remembered that in each of these—the First to the Thessalonians and the First to the Corinthians—we have enunciations of the great crowning supernatural event of Scripture—the Resurrection of Christ and our Resurrection as depending upon it, which are unsurpassed in the rest of Scripture.
So that in the first Christian writing which has come down to us, we have the great fact of Supernatural Religion, which carries with it all the rest.
The fullest enunciation of the evidences of the Resurrection is in a writing whose date cannot be later than 58, and runs thus:—
"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And that He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that [196:1] He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present [twenty-five years after the event] but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen of James, then of all the Apostles, and last of all He was seen of me also." (1 Cor. xv. 1.)
If the reader compares this with the accounts in any one of the Four, he will find that it gives the fullest list of our Lord's appearances which has come down to us, and this, be it remembered, forming part of the most categorical declaration of what the Gospel is, to be found in the New Testament. [196:1]
A man, then, writes in A.D. 57 or earlier, that another, Who had died in A.D. 32 had been seen by a number of persons, and among these, by 500 persons at once, of whom the greater part were alive when he wrote, and implying that the story had been believed ever since, and received by him (the writer) from those who had seen this Jesus, and that the fact was so essential to the religion that it was itself called "the Gospel," a name continually given to the whole system of Christianity, and moreover that he himself, when in company with others, had seen this Jesus at noon-day, and, the history asserts, had been blinded by the sight. Now let the reader recall to his mind any public man who died twenty-five years ago, that is, in 1850, and imagine this man appearing, not as a disembodied spirit, but in his resuscitated body to first one of his friends, then to eleven or twelve, then to another, then to five hundred persons at one time, and a flourishing and aggressive institution founded upon this his appearance, and numbers of persons giving up their property, and breaking with all their friends, and adopting a new religion, and a new course of life of great self-denial, and even encountering bitter persecution and death, simply because they believed this man to be alive from the dead, and moreover some professing to do miracles, and to confer the power of doing miracles in the name and by the power of this risen man.
Let the reader, I say, try to imagine all this, and then he will be able to judge of the credulity with which the author credits his readers when he writes:—
"All history shows how rapidly pious memory exaggerates and idealizes the traditions of the past, and simple actions might readily be transformed into miracles as the narrative circulated, in a period so prone to superstition, and so characterized by love of the marvellous." (Vol. ii. p. 209.)
"All history," the author says; but why does he not give us a few instances out of "all history," that we might compare them with this Gospel account, and see if there was anything like it?
Such a story, if false, is not a myth. A myth is the slow growth of falsehood through long ages, and this story of the Resurrection was written circumstantially within twenty years of its promulgation, by one who had been an unbeliever, and who had conferred with those who must have been the original promoters of the falsehood, if it be one.
To call such a story a myth, is simply to shirk the odium of calling it by its right name, or more probably to avoid having to meet the astounding historical difficulty of supposing that men endured what the Apostles endured for what they must have known to have been a falsehood, and the still more astounding difficulty that One Whom the author of "Supernatural Religion" allows to have been a Teacher Who "carried morality to the sublimest point attained or even attainable by humanity," and Whose "life, as far as we can estimate it, was uniformly noble and consistent with his lofty principles," should have impressed a character of such deep-rooted fraud and falsehood on His most intimate friends.
The author of "Supernatural Religion" has, however, added another to the many proofs of the truth of the Gospel. In his elaborate book of 1,000 pages of attack on the authenticity of the Evangelists he has shown, with a clearness which, I think, has never been before realized, the great fact that from the first there has been but one account of Jesus Christ. In the writings of heathens, of Jews, of heretics, [199:1] in lost gospels, in contemporary accounts, in the earliest traditions of the Church, there appears but one account, the account called by its first proclaimers the Gospel; and the only explanation of the existence of this Gospel is its truth.
[3:1] Papias, for instance, actually mentions St. Mark by name as writing a gospel under the influence of St. Peter. The author of "Supernatural Religion" devotes ten pages to an attempt to prove that this St. Mark's Gospel could not be ours. (Vol. i. pp. 448-459.)
[6:1] I need hardly say that I myself hold the genuineness of the Greek recension. The reader who desires to see the false reasonings and groundless assumptions of the author of "Supernatural Religion" respecting the Ignatian epistles thoroughly exposed should read Professor Lightfoot's article in the "Contemporary Review" of February, 1875. In pages 341-345 of this article there is an examination of the nature and trustworthiness of the learning displayed in the footnotes of this pretentious book, which is particularly valuable. I am glad to see that the professor has modified, in this article, the expression of his former opinion that the excerpta called the Curetonian recension is to be regarded as the only genuine one. "Elsewhere," the professor writes (referring to an essay in his commentary on the Philippians), "I had acquiesced in the earlier opinion of Lipsius, who ascribed them (i.e., the Greek or Vossian recension) to an interpolator writing about A.D. 140. Now, however, I am obliged to confess that I have grave and increasing doubts whether, after all, they are not the genuine utterances of Ignatius himself."
[10:1] [Greek: Ou gar monon en Hellêsi dia Sôkratous hypo logou êlenchthê tauta, alla kai en Barbarois hyp' autou tou Logou morphôthentos kai anthrôpou genomenou kai Iêsou Christou klêthentous.]
[10:2] Such is a perfectly allowable translation of [Greek: kai ton par' autou hyion elthonta kai didaxanta hêmas tauta, kai ton tôn allôn hepomenôn kai exomoioumenôn agathôn angelôn straton, pneuma te to prophêtikon sebometha kai proskynoumen.] As there is nothing approaching to angel worship in Justin, such a rendering seems absolutely necessary.
[15:1] "For the law promulgated in Horeb is now old, and belongs to you alone; but this is for all universally. Now law placed against law has abrogated that which is before it, and a covenant which comes after in like manner has put an end to the previous one; and an eternal and final law—namely, Christ—has been given to us." (Heb. viii. 6-13; Dial. ch. xi.)
[15:2] "For the true spiritual Israel and descendants of Judah, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham (who in uncircumcision was approved of and blessed by God on account of his faith, and called the father of many nations) are we who have been led to God through this crucified Christ, as shall be demonstrated while we proceed." (Phil. iii. 3, compared with Romans, iv. 12-18; Dial. ch. xi.)
[17:1] This, of course, was a Jewish adversary's view of the Christian doctrine of the Godhead of Christ, which Justin elsewhere modifies by showing the subordination of the Son to the Father in all things.
[19:1] [Greek: En gar tois apomnêmoneumasi, ha phêmi hypo tôn apostolôn autou kai tôn ekeinois parakolouthêsantôn syntetachthai, hoti hidrôs hôsei thromboi katecheito autou euchomenou.] (Dial. ch. ciii.)
[20:1] [Greek: Kai to eipein metônomakenai auton Petron hena tôn apostolôn, kai gegraphthai en tois apomnêmoneumasin autou gegenêmenon kai touto, k.t.l.]
On this question the author of "Supernatural Religion" remarks, "According to the usual language of Justin, and upon strictly critical grounds, the [Greek: autou] in this passage must be ascribed to Peter; and Justin therefore seems to ascribe the Memoirs to that Apostle, and to speak consequently of a Gospel of Peter." (Vol. i. p. 417.)
[28:1] That of our Lord being born in a cave.
[29:1] [Greek: Iôannou gar kathezomenou.]
[34:1] Justin has [Greek: hidrôs hôsei thromboi]; St. Luke, [Greek: ho hidrôs autou hôsei thromboi haimatos]. The author of "Supernatural Religion" lays great stress upon the omission of [Greek: haimatos], as indicating that Justin did not know anything about St. Luke; but we have to remember, first, that St. Luke alone mentionsanysweat of our Lord in His agony; secondly, that the account in Justin is said to be taken from "Memoirs drawn up by Apostles andthose who followed them,"St. Luke being only one of those who followed; thirdly, Justin and St. Luke both use a very scarce word, [Greek: thromboi]; fourthly, Justin and St. Luke both qualify this word by [Greek: hôsei]. If we add to this the fact that [Greek: thromboi] seems naturally associated with blood in several authors, the probability seems almost to reach certainty, that Justin had St. Luke's account in his mind. The single omission is far more easy to be accounted for than the four coincidences.
[37:1] And He said unto them, "These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me." (Luke xxiii. 44.)
[48:1] It is the reading of Codices B and C of the Codex Sinaiticus of the Syriac, and of a number of Fathers and Versions.
[51:1] [Greek: Hekastos gar tis apo merous tou spermatikou theiou logou to syngenes horôn kalôs ephthenxato.]
[63:1] For instance, in vol. ii. p. 42, &c., he speaks of one of Tischendorf's assertions as "a conclusion the audacity of which can scarcely be exceeded."—Then, "This is, however, almost surpassed by the treatment of Canon Westcott."—Then, "The unwarranted inference of Tischendorf."—"There is no ground for Tischendorf's assumption."—"Tischendorf, the self-constituted modern Defensor Fidei, asserts with an assurance which can scarcely be characterized otherwise than as an unpardonable calculation upon the ignorance of his readers."—"Canon Westcott says, with an assurance which, considering the nature of the evidence, is singular."—"Even Dr. Westcott states," &c.—For Tertullian his contempt seems unbounded: indeed we way say the same of all the Fathers. Numberless times does he speak of their "uncritical spirit." The only person for whom he seems to have a respect is the heretic Marcion. Even rationalists, such as Credner and Ewald, are handled severely when they differ from him. The above are culled from a few pages.
[69:1] [Greek: Hoti Theos hypemeine gennêthênai kai anthrôpos genesthai.]
[69:2] [Greek: Ex hôn diarrhêdên outous autos ho staurotheis hoti Theos kai anthrôpos, kai stauroumenos kai apothnêskôn kekêrygmenos apodeiknytai.]
[70:1] The reader must remember that Justin puts this expression, which seems to imply a duality of Godhead, into the mouth of an adversary. In other places, as I shall show, he very distinctly guards against such a notion, by asserting the true and proper Sonship of the Word and his perfect subordination to His Father. There is a passage precisely similar in ch. lv.
[71:1] "I continued: Moreover, I consider it necessary to repeat to you the words which narrate how He is both Angel and God and Lord, and Who appeared as a Man to Abraham." (Dial. ch. lviii.)
"Permit me, further, to show you from the Book of Exodus, how this sameOne, Who is both Angel, and God, and Lord, and Man." (Dial. ch. lix.)
"God begat before all creatures, a Beginning, a certain rational Power from Himself, Who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos." (Dial. ch. lxi.)
"The Word of Wisdom, Who is Himself this God, begotten of the Father of all things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and the Glory of the Begetter, will bear evidence to me," &c. (Dial. lxi.)
"Therefore these words testify explicitly that He is witnessed to by Him Who established these things [i.e.the Father] as deserving to be worshipped, as God and as Christ." (Dial. lxiii.)
The reader will find other declarations, most of which are equally explicit, in Dial. ch. lvi. (at the end), ch. lvii. (at the end), lxii. (middle), lxviii. (at middle and end), lxxiv. (middle), lxxv., lxxvi. (made Him known, being Christ, as God strong and to be worshipped), lxxxv. (twice called the Lord of Hosts), lxxxvii. (where Christ is declared to be pre-existent God), cxiii. (he [Joshua] was neither Christ, Who is God, nor the Son of God), cxv. (our Priest, Who is God, and Christ, the Son of God, the Father of all), cxxiv. (Now I have proved at length that Christ is called God), cxxv. (He ministered to the will of the Father, yet nevertheless is God), cxxvi. (thrice in this chapter), cxxvii., cxxviii., cxxix.
[73:1] I adopt this phrase because, it is used by Justin. His words are [Greek: arithmô onta heteron]. (Dial. ch. lxii.)
[74:1] [Greek: Hoti archên pro pantôn tôn ktismatôn ho Theos gegennêke dynamin tina ex heautou logikên, k.t.l.]
[77:1] Dr. Pusey translates this passage thus:—"For all that the philosophers and legislators at any time declared or discovered aright, they accomplished according to their portion of discovery and contemplation of the Word; but as they did not know all the properties of the Word which is Christ," &c.
[77:2] Translated by Dr. Pusey, "Seminal Divine Word."
[78:1] A few pages further on I shall show that the mode of reasoning adopted by the author of "Supernatural Religion," in drawing inferences from the ways in which Justin expresses the idea of St. John's [Greek: ho logos sarx egeneto] would, if we adopted it, lead us to some very startling conclusions.
[84:1] The following are some instances:—"God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world." "He Whom God sent."—John iii. 17, 23. "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me." "Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent." "As my Father sent me, so send I you," &c.
[85:1] This passage does not occur among the remarks upon Justin Martyr's quotations, but among those on the Clementine Homilies. However, it seems to be used to prove that the Gospel of St. John was published after the writing of the Clementines, which the author seems to think were themselves posterior to Justin.
[86:1] I say the "necessary" developments, because Holy Scripture is given to the Church to be expounded and applied, and in order to this its doctrine must be collected out of many scattered statements, and stated and guarded, and this is its being developed. The Persons, the attributes, and the works of the three Persons of the Godhead are so described in Holy Scripture as Divine, and They are so conjoined in the works of Creation, Providence, and Grace, that we cannot but contemplate Them as associated together, and cannot but draw an impassable gulf between Their existence and that of all creatures, and we cannot but adoringly contemplate Their relations one to another, and hence the necessary development of the Christian dogma as contained in the Creeds.
[91:1] [Greek: Ton di' hêmas tou anthrôpous kai dia tên hêmeteran sôtêrian katelthonta ek tôn ouranôn, kai sarkôthenta ek Pneumatos Hagiou kai Marias tês parthenou, kai enanthrôpêsanta, k.t.l.]
[94:1] Though of course not as regardstime, for all Catholics hold the Eternal Generation, that there never was a time in which the Father was not a Father; nor as regards power or extension, for whatever the Father does that the Son does also, and wherever the Father is there is the Son also.
[100:1] Eusebius, B. ii. ch. v.
[106:1] Apol. i. 14.
[107:1] The spirit of this verse, and its form of expression, are quite those of the Gospel of St. John; and it serves to form a link of union between the three Synoptic Gospels and the Fourth, and to point to the vast and weighty mass of discourses of the Lord which are not related except by St. John. Alford in loco.
[117:1] If the reader desires to see Logos doctrine expressed in philosophic terminology, he can find it in some of the extracts from Philo given in the notes of "Supernatural Religion" vol. ii. pp. 272-298. Can there be a greater contrast than that between St. John's terse, concise, simple, enunciations and the following: [Greek: Kai ou monon phôs, alla kai pantos heterou phôtos archetypon mallon de archetypou presbyteron kai anôteron, Logon echon paradeigmatos to men gar paradeigma ho plêrestatos ên autou Logos, k.t.l.]—De Somniis, i. 15, Mang. i. 634. There is no particularly advanced philosophic terminology here, and yet there is a profound difference between both the thought and wording of this sentence of Philo and St. John's four enunciations of the Logos. Again, [Greek: Dêlon de hoti kai hê archetypos sphragis, hon phamen einai kosmon noêton, autos an eiê to archetypon paradeigma, idea tôn ideôn, ho Theou Logos.]—De Mundi Opificio Mang. vol. i. p. 8. "It is manifest also that the archetypal seal, which we call that world which is perceptible only to the intellect, must itself be the archetypal model, the idea of ideas, the word of God." (Yonge's Translation.)
[126:1] "When He came into the world He was manifested as God and man. And it is easy to perceive the man in Him when He hungers and shows exhaustion, and is weary and athirst, and withdraws in fear, and is in prayer and in grief, and sleeps on a boat's pillow, and entreats the removal of the cup of suffering, and sweats in an agony, and is strengthened by an angel, and betrayed by a Judas, and mocked by Caiaphas, and set at naught by Herod, and scourged by Pilate, and derided by the soldiers, and nailed to the tree by the Jews, and with a cry commits His spirit to His Father, and drops His head and gives up the ghost, and has His side pierced by a spear, and is wrapped in linen and laid in a tomb, and is raised by the Father from the dead. And the Divine in Him, on the other hand, is equally manifest when He is worshipped by angels, and seen by shepherds, and waited for by Simeon, and testified of by Anna, and inquired after by wise men, and pointed out by a star, and at a marriage makes wine of water, and chides the sea when tossed by the violence of winds, and walks upon the deep, and makes one see who was blind from birth, and raises Lazarus when dead for four days, and works many wonders, and forgives sins, and grants power to His disciples."
[152:1] History affords multitudes of instances, but an example may be selected from one of the most critical periods of modern history. Let it be granted that Louis the Sixteenth of France and his Queen had all the defects attributed to them by the most hostile of serious historians; let all the excuses possible be made for his predecessor, Louis the Fifteenth, and also for Madame de Pompadour, can it be pretended that there are grounds for affirming that the vices of the two former so far exceeded those of the latter, that their respective fates were plainly and evidently just? That whilst the two former died in their beds, after a life of the most extreme luxury, the others merited to stand forth through coming time, as examples of the most appalling and calamitous tragedy. (Mivart's "Genesis of Species," ch. ix.)
[155:1] What sign showest Thou us? Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up: but He spake of the temple of His Body. (John ii. 19-21) An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the Prophet Jonas, for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matt. xii. 39, 40) God commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because He hath appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath chosen, whereof He hath given assurance unto all men in that He raised Him from the dead. (Acts xvii. 30.)
[158:1] This sentence seems extremely carelessly worded. The author cannot possibly mean that our ignorance is the anomaly, for throughout his whole work he assumes that ignorance is the rule in all matters, moral, physical, historical. The Fathers of the second century knew nothing of the Evangelists. St. John knows nothing of the writings of his brother Evangelists. They are all assumed to be ignorant of what they have not actually recorded. We know nothing of vital force, or physical force, or of a revelation. In fact, God Himself is the Unknowable.
[164:1] Perhaps 1 Tim. i. 20, iv. 14; 2 Tim i. 6, may refer to such gifts; but the contrast between such slight intimations and the full recognition in 1 Cor. xii. and xiv. is very great.
[168:1] "The author [of the book of Enoch] not only relates the fall of the angels through love for the daughters of men, but gives the names of twenty-one of them, and their leaders, of whom Jequn was he who seduced the Holy Angels, and Ashbeel it was who gave them evil counsel and corrupted them. A third, Gadreel, was he who seduced Eve. He also taught to the children of men the use and manufacture of all murderous weapons, of coats of mail, shields, swords, and of all the implements of war. Another evil angel, named Penemue, taught them many mysteries of wisdom. He instructed men in the art of writing, with paper and ink, by means of which, the author remarks, many fall into sin, even to the present day. Kaodejâ, another evil angel, taught the human race all the wicked practices of spirits and demons, and also magic and exorcism. The offspring of the fallen angels and of the daughters of men, were giants whose height was 3,000 ells, of these are the demons working evil upon earth. Azayel taught men various arts, the making of bracelets and ornaments, the use of cosmetics, the way to beautify the eyebrows, precious stones and all dye-stuffs and metals, &c. The stars are represented as animated beings. Enoch sees seven stars bound together in space like great mountains, and flaming with fire, and he enquires of the angel who leads him on account of what sin they are so bound. Uriel informs him that they are stars which have transgressed the commands of the Most High, and they are thus bound until ten thousand worlds, the number of the days of their transgression, shall be accomplished." So far for the "Angelology." As to the demons, "Their number is infinite … they are about as close as the earth thrown up out of a newly made grave. It is stated that each man has 10,000 demons at his right hand, and 1,000 on his left. The crush in the synagogue on the Sabbath arises from them, also the dresses of the Rabbins become so old and torn through their rubbing; in like manner also they cause the tottering of the feet. He who wishes to discover these spirits must take sifted ashes and strew them about his bed, and in the morning he will perceive their footprints upon them like a cock's tread. If any one wish to see them, he must take the after-birth of a black cat, which has been littered by a first-born black cat, and whose mother was also a first-birth, burn and reduce it to powder, and put some of it on his eyes, and he will see them." (Vol. i. pp. 104 and 111). And this is the stuff which the author would have us believe was the real origin of the supernatural in the life of Jesus!
[170:1] See also Mark v. 42 (healing of Jairus' daughter), "They were astonished with a great astonishment." Mark vii. 37 (healing of deaf man with impediment in his speech), "They were beyond measure astonished." Luke v. 9, "He was astonished at the draught of fishes;" viii. 56, "Her parents were astonished."
[178:1] There cannot be the slightest doubt but that certain cases of madness or mania present all the appearances of possession as it is described in Scripture. Another personality, generally intensely evil, has possession of the mind, speaks instead of the afflicted person, throws the patient into convulsions,—in fact, exhibits all the symptoms of the ancient demoniacs. I have now before me the record of five or six such cases attested by German physicians.
[183:1] The reader will find the references to it discussed in a dissertation at the end of Whiston's "Josephus." Lardner utterly denies its authenticity. Daubuz, however, has, I think, clearly proved its style and phraseology to be those of Josephus.
[185:1] Singular that he should say "out of Palestine," for if they were false they would be first heard of at a distance from the scene of their supposed occurrence. Jerusalem, so full of bitter enemies of Christ, was the last place in which His Resurrection was likely to be promulgated.
[187:1] Miscellanies, IV. ch. xvii.
[193:1] Let the reader remember that, if this be an assumption, the contrary assumption is infinitely the more unlikely. Our assumption is founded on the direct assertion of two writers of the second century, one of whom asserts that Clement was a close companion of Apostles, another that he was an Apostle: meaning, of course, such an one as Barnabas. A writer of the early part of the next century, Origen, asserts that he was the person mentioned in St. Paul's Epistle, and the principal Ecclesiastical Historian who lived within two hundred years of his time corroborates this.
[194:1] "Ye … were more willing to give than to receive" (ch. ii.). A reminiscence of St. Paul's quotation of Christ's words to be found in Acts xx. 35.
"Ready to every good work" (ch. ii). Titus iii. 1. "Every kind of honour and happiness was bestowed upon you (ch. iii). Reminiscence of I Corinth. iv. 8.
"Let us be imitators of them who in goat skins and sheep skins went about proclaiming the coming of Christ" (ch. xvii). Heb. xi. 37.
"To us who have fled for refuge to his compassions" (ch. xx.).Reminiscence of Heb. vii.
"Let us esteem those who have the rule over us." I Thess. v. 12, 13;Heb. xiii. 17.
"Not by preferring one to another." 1 Tim. v. 21.
"A future Resurrection, of which He has rendered the Lord Jesus the first fruits by raising Him from the dead" (ch. xxiv.). 1 Cor. xv. 20; Col. i. 18.
"Nothing is impossible with God except to lie" (ch. xxvii.). Tit. i. 2;Heb. vi. 18.
"From whom [Jacob] was descended our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh" (ch. xxxii.). Rom. ix. 5.
"For [Scripture] saith, 'eye hath not seen,'" &c. (ch. xxxiv.). Cor. ii. 9.
"Not only they that do them, but also those that take pleasure in them that do them" (ch. xxxv.). Rom. i. 32. Ch. xxxvi. contains distinct reference to Heb. i. I gave an extract above.
"Let us take our body for an example. The head is nothing without the feet … yea, the very smallest members of our body are necessary and useful" (ch. xxxvii.), 1 Corinth. xii. 12, &c.
"Let every one be subject to his neighbour according to the special gift bestowed upon him" ([Greek: kathôs kai etethê en tô charismati autou]) (ch. xxxviii.). Rom. xii. 1-4; Ephes. iv. 8-12.
"The blessed Moses, also, 'a faithful servant in all his house'" (ch. xliii.). Heb. iii. 5.
"Have we not all one God and one Christ? Is there not one Spirit of grace poured upon us? Have we not one calling in Christ?" (ch. xlvi.). Ephes. iv. 4-6.
"And have reached such a height of madness as to forget that we are members one of another" (ch. xlvi.). Rom. xii. 5.
"Love beareth all things … is long suffering in all things" (ch. xlix.). 1 Cor. xiii. 4.
[196:1] One is in amazement when one reads, in the work of a man who professes to have such a love of truth, the words, "The fact is, that we have absolutely no contemporaneous history at all as to what the first promulgators of Christianity actually asserted" (vol. i. p. 193). This writer, as far as I remember, gives us no reason to believe that he doubts the authenticity of St. Paul's earlier Epistles. Again, what is "contemporary history?" Surely, if a man was now to write the history of the Crimean war in 1854-5, it would be a contemporary history.
[199:1] Celsus, for instance, who had been some time dead when Origen refuted him, knew no other account than the one which he calumniated; Josephus the Jew knew no other, Trypho suggests no counter story. The wild exaggerations of the heretics refuted by Irenaeus all presupposed the one narrative, and can have had no other basis.