Why should we contemptuously reject the tradition which arose in the mouths of the people? Should we be worse Christians if it were clearly and plainly demonstrated that we only possess popular traditions, out of which we must ourselves form a conception of the career and teaching of Christ? Is it not good for us,[pg 199]that we are free in many points to decide for ourselves what Jesus was and what he taught?And in a world in which everything develops, everything grows and changes, why should religion alone be an exception? Do we not all freely confess that certain precepts which are ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels are no longer adapted to our times and to our circumstances? Does any Christian turn his left cheek when he has been struck upon the right? Do we give our cloak when our coat has been taken from us? Do we hold everything that we possess in common as the first Christians did? Do we sell all that we have and give it to the poor (Matthew xix. 21)?It is quite true that under this method a certain personal freedom in the interpretation of the Gospels is unavoidable, but is not this freedom at the same time accompanied by a very important feeling of personal responsibility, which is of the utmost significance for every religious conviction? It cannot be denied, that this open and honest acknowledgment of the undeniable influence of popular tradition has far-reaching consequences, and will take from us much to which we are accustomed, and that has become near and dear, even sacred, to us. But it has this advantage, that we feel we are candid and honest in our faith, to which we may add that we are never forced in dealing with human hypotheses to give our assent blindly, but may follow our own judgment. We may adopt or reject the view that in the development[pg 200]of the gospel story much must be ascribed to popular tradition, and I can readily believe that many who do not know, either through the study of legends or their own experience, the transforming influence which school and family traditions exercise on the form of historical narratives, find it incredible that such a carbonising process could have taken place also in the evangelical tradition as related by the men of the next generation. They must then content themselves with the alternative, that the laws of nature, which they themselves ascribe to the Deity, must have been abrogated by their own founder in order that the truth of the teaching of Christ might gain a certain probability in the eyes of the people by so-called miracles.Let us take an example in order to see what we shall gain on the one side and lose on the other. The original meaning of making the blind see, Jesus has himself told us (John ix. 39),“For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.”This refers to spiritual, not physical blindness, and which is the more difficult to heal, the spiritual or the physical? But when Jesus was repeatedly said to have healed this spiritual blindness, to have opened the eyes of the blind and unbelieving, how was it possible that the masses, especially the children, should not misunderstand such cures, and interpret and repeat them as cures of physical blindness? Certainly such an[pg 201]idea carries us a long way. We must then, for instance, explain such an expression as that placed in the mouths of the Pharisees (John x. 21),“Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?”as a further extension of a popular notion already in the field. Nor can it be denied that cures of the physically blind have this in their favour, that so exceptional a personality as Jesus may also have possessed an exceptional healing power. It then depends only on the character of the blindness, whether it was curable or incurable, and the solution of this question we may be content to leave to the medical man. I only remark, that if the medical man should deny such a possibility, a true Christian would lose nothing in consequence, for under all circumstances a spiritual healing power in Christ would stand higher with all of us than one merely physical.This may be called shallow rationalism, but surely the humanratioor reason cannot be entirely rejected. Many know of their own experience that a man of high moral energy can even now drive out devils and base thoughts. Why not also believe that through his appearance and words Jesus made such an impression upon those possessed, for instance, upon the man or the two men who herded swine in the country of the Gadarenes or Gergesenes, that they came to themselves and began to lead new lives? That on such a conversion the swine-herds should forget their swine which rushed headlong into the lake, is easily understood, and when these two incidents[pg 202]came to the ears of the people, what was more natural than the story which we find in Matthew (viii. 28), Mark (v. 1), and Luke (viii. 26), but not in John? We need not now enter into the discrepancies between these three narratives, striking as they would be in a divinely inspired book. Of course it will be said again, that this is a shallow, rationalistic explanation, as if the word“rationalist”contained within itself something condemnatory. At all events, no one can now demonstrate that Jesus did not bewitch the unclean spirits out of the two demoniacs into the two thousand swine; but I confess that the shallow rationalistic explanation seems to me far better calculated to bring clearly to light the influence which Jesus could exercise over the most abandoned men.One more instance. How often does Jesus say that he is the bread that really satisfies man, and the water that quenches all thirst (vi. 48):“I am the bread of life. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”Would any one, even the woman of Samaria, take these words literally? Does not Jesus himself help us to a correct understanding of them when he says (vi. 35),“I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst,”and again, (vii. 37),“If any man thirst let him come unto me, and drink.”[pg 203]And in order to shield his words against any misunderstanding he himself says (vi. 63),“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.”And are we resolved in spite of all this not to understand the deep meaning of his words, to remain blind and deaf; and do we, like the Pharisees, prefer the story of how Jesus by magic means fed thousands with five or seven loaves and two fishes (vi. 9), so that in the end twelve baskets of bread remained after all were satisfied? We can readily comprehend how in the mouths of the people the great miracles of Jesus, the realmirawrought by his life and teaching, became smallmiracula. But if we surrender these smallmiracula, is not something far better left us, namely, that Jesus, who so often called himself the bread and the wine, who even at the Last Supper, as he broke bread with his disciples, commanded them to eat the bread which was his body, and drink the wine which was his blood,—that this teacher could by his teaching satisfy, content, and convert thousands, who came to him and believed in him! It is true that the story of the feeding of thousands with five loaves of bread is more intelligible to women and children, and makes a stronger impression than the metaphorical words of Christ; but nothing is more easy to understand than the transformation of a tale of the conversion or spiritual satisfying of thousands, into a parable of the feeding of thousands with five loaves. But have not the truly devout and conscientious[pg 204]thinkers rights of their own in the community? Must they really hold themselves aloof from the church, because they have too deep a reverence for the true teaching of Christ? Grand and beautiful as are St. Peter's in Rome, St. Mark's in Venice, or the Cathedral at Milan, it is heartbreaking to observe the so-called divine service in these buildings. Let us not be deceived by the sayings, that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children, or that a childlike faith is best. That is quite true, but it has absolutely nothing to do with our question. Of course in every generation millions of children are born, and milk must be provided for these as well; but this milk is not for men, and these should not permit themselves to be frightened by mere words, such as shallow enlightenment, rationalism, unbelief, etc. The worst of it is that we have permitted ourministrito become our masters instead of our servants, and that the weak among them far outnumber the strong. In history, however, the minority is always victorious. Popular legend has certainly at times grievously obscured the gospel of Christ, but not so much as to prevent those who are familiar with its nature and effect from discovering the grains of gold in the sand, the rays of truth behind the clouds. At all events, popular legend refuses to be ruled out. A knowledge of it and its influence on historical events in other nations, and especially a familiarity with the modes of expression in Oriental languages, are of the greatest use in all these investigations.[pg 205]Only let no one confound legend and metaphor with mythology. When Jesus says that he is the water, and that whoever drinks of this water shall never thirst again, every one readily perceives that he speaks metaphorically. And likewise when he says that he is the vine or the good shepherd. But here the transition from parable to reality very soon begins. Among so many pictures of the good shepherd it need occasion no surprise that it is commonly imagined that Jesus actually was a shepherd and carried a lamb on his shoulders. What occurs now was of course equally possible in the earliest times. When the common people saw daily, in old mosaic pictures, a sword coming forth from the mouth of God, they formed a representation of God corresponding to these pictures (Rev. i. 20). And thus many readers of the Gospel suppose that Jesus was really carried up into the air by the devil and placed on the summit of the temple or of a high mountain, that he might show him all the kingdoms of the earth, and tempt him to establish an earthly realm. Is it reverent to imagine Christ borne through the air by the devil, instead of simply learning that Christ himself, as we read, was not a stranger to inward trials, and that he freely confessed them to his disciples? Many parables are represented in the Gospels, as though they had really occurred at the time. Thus, in the parables of the kingdom of heaven, the phrase always runs that it is like seed which a man sowed, and while he slept an enemy came and sowed tares.[pg 206]Or the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, or like a treasure found by a man in a field, or like a merchant seeking goodly pearls, etc. In listening to these parables or looking at pictorial representations of them, there develops almost unconsciously, especially among the young, a belief in their reality, in their actual occurrence at the time of Christ. In many cases this belief is widely spread, as, for example, in the story of the good Samaritan, Now it is quite possible that some such incident as Jesus related had occurred in his time, or shortly before it; but it is just as likely to have been a parable invented for a specific purpose. And why should not this be true of other things, which the Gospels ascribe to Jesus himself?Is it necessary to believe, that Jesus saw the Pharisees casting their gifts into the treasury with his own eyes (Luke xxi. 1), and the poor widow who threw in two mites, or is it possible to consider this, too, as a parable, without insisting that Jesus really sat opposite the sacred chest, and counted the alms, and knew that the widow had put in two mites, and had really nothing left? Of many things, as of the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, or between Jesus and the woman of Samaria, no one could have had any knowledge except those who took part in it. We must therefore assume that Jesus communicated these conversations to his disciples, and that these have reported[pg 207]to us theipsissima verba. In this manner we are constantly involving ourselves in fresh difficulties of our own making, which we may indeed leave out of consideration, but which would never exist at all if we would only consider the circumstances under which the Gospels arose. I have previously expounded this view of the popular origin of the evangelic narratives in my Gifford lectures before an audience, certainly very orthodox; and although a small number of theologians were much incensed against me,—it was their duty,—the majority, even of the clergy, were decidedly with me. The things themselves and their lessons remain undiminished in value; we merely acknowledge a fact, quite natural from an historical standpoint, viz. that the accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus have not come to us direct from Christ, nor from the apostles, but from men who, as they themselves tell us, received the report from others by tradition. Their narratives, consequently, are not perhaps fictitious, or prepared with a certain object; but they do show traces of the influence that was unavoidable in oral transmission, especially at a time of great spiritual excitement. This is a problem which in itself has nothing whatever to do with religion. We have the Gospels as they are. It remains with the historian alone to pass judgment upon the origin, the transmission, and the authenticity of these texts, just as the reconstruction of the text lies solely with the philologist. For this he need not even be a Christian,[pg 208]merely an historian. Whatever may be the judgment of the historical inquirer, we must learn to be content with what they leave us. In this, too, the half is often better than the whole. Quite sufficient remains, even when the critical historian assures us that the Gospels as we possess them were neither written by Christ nor the apostles, but contain the traditions of the oldest Christian communities, and that the manuscripts in which they have reached us were not written till the fifth or at the earliest the fourth century. We may deal with these materials as with all other historical materials from that period; and we do so rather as independent historians than as Christians.The view that the four Gospels were miraculously revealed to their authors, miraculously written, miraculously copied and finally printed, is a view no doubt deserving of respect, but it leaves the contents of the Gospels untouched. The difference between the historical and the conventional interpretation of the Gospels comes out most clearly in the doctrine of eternal life. What Jesus understands by the eternal life that he has brought to mankind, is as clear as the sun. He repeats it again and again. Eternal life consists in knowing that men have their Father and their true being in the only true God, and that as sons of this same Father, they are of like nature with God and Christ (John xvii. 3).This is the fundamental truth of Christianity, and it holds good not only for the contemporaries of[pg 209]Jesus, but for all times. Those who see in this view an overestimate of human nature, need only ask themselves what man could be, if he were not a partaker of the divine nature. This excludes the difference between human and divine nature as little as the difference between the physical father and the physical son. Even in this case we speak figuratively, for how could we speak otherwise of what is supersensual? The repetition of stories among the people, narrating how Jesus raised one or another to life, to eternal life, very soon led among women and children to the misunderstanding that this referred only to a resurrection from bodily death. Nay, this raising passed with them, as it still does with many, for a stronger proof of the divine nature and power of Christ than the resurrection from that spiritual death, which holds in captivity all who have not recognised their own divine sonship and have not understood the glad tidings which Jesus brought to all mankind. Such misunderstandings we find everywhere, as when, for instance, even a man like Nicodemus fails to comprehend the new birth of which Jesus speaks, and asks if a man can enter his mother's womb a second time. If this was possible in a Scribe, how much more so with the uneducated people. In the same way the Jews misunderstand the saying of Jesus, that the truth will make them free, and answer that they are the seed of Abraham, and free men, so that Jesus had to repeat that whosoever commits sin is not free, but a slave of sin (John viii. 33). Such misunderstandings[pg 210]meet us everywhere, and their influence extends much farther than we at first suppose. Naturally the tradition also puts words into Jesus' mouth that could only have issued out of the notions of the people, and almost entirely conceal the depth of his own words. While the revelation of the true divine sonship of man immediately bestows eternal life on him who comprehends or believes in it, heals his blindness, and raises him from spiritual death, Jesus is presented as not purposing to raise the dead until the last day (John vi. 40). Martha makes the same mistake, when to the words of Jesus,“Thy brother shall rise again,”she answers,“I know that he shall rise at the last day”(John xi. 24). Even some of the works which are ascribed to Jesus are plainly derived from the same source. A spiritual resurrection is not sufficient, it even passes for less than a bodily, and this is the very reason for the numerous stories of the raising of the dead. These are matters from which, even to this day, devout Christians are loath to part, especially where the details are given so minutely as in the raising of Lazarus. Now there is absolutely no objection to this, if we are resolved to cling to the historical reality of the raising of Lazarus. Only in that case the terms employed should be exactly defined. If we give the name death to the condition which excludes any return to life, especially when, as with Lazarus, decay had already set in, the condition from which Lazarus returned to life cannot be called death[pg 211]without a contradiction. Jesus even says that his sickness was not fatal (John xi. 4), and that he is not dead, but merely sleeps (John xi. 11). Was he mistaken? Such words should at least not be entirely disregarded, even though the other words follow immediately after,“Lazarus is dead”(John xi. 14). That a highly gifted nature, like that of Jesus, may have possessed wonderful healing powers, cannot be denied, however difficult it may be to determine the boundary between what is and is not possible here. On the other hand, it is firmly established that when once such an idea as the raising from physical death becomes rooted in the popular mind, the details, especially such as can serve as evidence, are provided spontaneously. The nucleus of the story of the raising of Lazarus lies of course in the words (John xi. 25, 26),“I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”Here we have the true teaching of Christ, in his own apparently contradictory language. The saying,“Whoever believes in me shall never die,”does not necessarily mean that his body will never die; and so the words,“Though he were dead, yet shall he live,”certainly do not signify that his dead and decayed body shall receive new life. But the people wanted something else. For the true miracles, for the spiritual resurrection, they had no comprehension, they wanted sensuous miracles, they wanted the resurrection of a body already decayed, and this is[pg 212]described in the Gospels in detail. Such is the regular privilege of popular tradition, and it happens without deliberate intention, except that of bringing vividly before us the common interpretation of the fact. Popular tradition is not intentional deception, it is only an unavoidable fusion of facts with conventional ideas, whereby God becomes a laborer wearied by six days' work; his seat becomes Olympus or a golden throne in some corner of the blue sky; the Son of God sinks to the level of a prince of the house of David, the Saviour to a miracle doctor, and his message of salvation to a promise of resurrection from physical death. There are many good men and women fulfilling in their daily walk the commands of Christ, to whom the true historical conception of the gospel story would be a terrible disillusion. Well, such Christians are at liberty to remain in their own views. Our own interpretation of many of the details in the traditional representation of the Gospels, though details certainly of very great significance, makes no claim to papal authority. It gladly concedes the possibility of error, and only claims to give an interpretation of the evangelic writings, founded on nature and history. It should answer, and at the same time appease, the very numerous and, at bottom, honest men, who, like the Horseherd, declare the gospel narratives, as ordinarily understood, full of falsehood and fraud or even pure fancy, and who have consequently broken with the Christian revelation from conscientious scruples. Their number is[pg 213]greater than is generally supposed, and it must on no account be supposed that they are necessarily wicked or even immoral men. When they declare the Christian revelation to be an absurdity, it is because they do not know it in its historical origin and its divine truth. To assume that every word, every letter,—for it has been carried even so far,—that every parable, every figure, was whispered to the authors of the Gospels, is certainly an absurdity, and rests only on human and often only on priestly authority. But the true revelation, the real truth, as it was already anticipated by the Greek philosophers, slowly accepted by Jews like Philo and the contemporaries of Jesus, taught by men like Clement and Origen in the ancient Greek church, and, in fine, realised in the life of Jesus and sealed by his death, is no absurdity; it is for every thinking Christian the eternal life or the kingdom of God on earth, which Jesus wished to establish, and in part did establish. To become a citizen of this kingdom is the highest that man can attain, but it is not attained merely through baptism and confirmation; it must be gained in earnest spiritual conflict.In nearly all religions God remains far from man. I say in nearly all religions; for in Brahmanism the unity, not the union, of the human soul with Brahman is recognised as the highest aim. This unity with Deity, together with phenomenal difference, Jesus expressed in part through the Logos, in part through the Son. There is nothing so closely allied as thought[pg 214]and word, Father and Son. They can be distinguished, but never separated, for they exist only through each other. In this manner the Greek philosophers considered all creation as the thought or the word of God, and the thought“man”became naturally the highest Logos, realised in millions of men, and raised to the highest perfection in Jesus. As the thought exists only through the word, and the word only through the thought, so also the Father exists only through the Son, and the Son through the Father, and in this sense Jesus feels and declares himself the Son of God, and all men who believe in him his brethren. This revelation or inspiration came to mankind through Jesus. No one knew the Father except the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and those to whom the Son willeth to reveal him. This is the Christian revelation in the true sense of the word. It has long been attempted to make an essential difference between Jesus, the only begotten Son, and his brethren, through an exaggerated feeling of affected reverence. But if this is carried too far, the temple which Jesus himself erected for mankind is destroyed. It is true that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus, and that Jesus is the only begotten Son, for he is in the Father and the Father in him (John xiv. 10), nay, he and the Father are one (John x. 30). The distinction is therefore there, but the unity as well, for Jesus himself says that he is in his disciples as the Father is in him, that they all may be one, as he is one with God, and God[pg 215]with him (John xvii. 21). To many there may be no sense in this, because their ideas of God and of the Son of God are altogether materialistic, but to those who have learned to feel the divine, not only without but also within, these words are the light of the world. In this sense we need not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, and can be prepared to look all the Horseherds of the world in the face as intellectually free, yet at the same time as true Christians, in the way Jesus himself would have desired; often in error, like the disciples of old, but still loyal and honest followers of the Son of God.The main issue in all these questions is honesty, honesty toward ourselves even more than toward others. We know how easily we may all be deceived, how easily we are put off with words, especially when they are words of ancient use. It was the sincere tone of the Horseherd that prompted me to public discussion of his doubts, for doubts are generally anticipations of truth, and to be true to oneself is better than to possess all truth. It gave me pleasure to learn recently that he is still among the living, although for an interval he was beyond the range of the usual postal facilities, so that my letters did not reach him. Whether he thinks me as honest as himself, we must wait to know. I did not seek either to persuade or to convince him. Such things depend too much on circumstances and environment. I merely wished to show him that others, who do[pg 216]not agree with him, or with whom he does not agree, are honest, and may honestly hold entirely different views. To learn to understand each other is the great art of life, and to“agree to differ”is the best lesson of the comparative science of religion.
Why should we contemptuously reject the tradition which arose in the mouths of the people? Should we be worse Christians if it were clearly and plainly demonstrated that we only possess popular traditions, out of which we must ourselves form a conception of the career and teaching of Christ? Is it not good for us,[pg 199]that we are free in many points to decide for ourselves what Jesus was and what he taught?And in a world in which everything develops, everything grows and changes, why should religion alone be an exception? Do we not all freely confess that certain precepts which are ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels are no longer adapted to our times and to our circumstances? Does any Christian turn his left cheek when he has been struck upon the right? Do we give our cloak when our coat has been taken from us? Do we hold everything that we possess in common as the first Christians did? Do we sell all that we have and give it to the poor (Matthew xix. 21)?It is quite true that under this method a certain personal freedom in the interpretation of the Gospels is unavoidable, but is not this freedom at the same time accompanied by a very important feeling of personal responsibility, which is of the utmost significance for every religious conviction? It cannot be denied, that this open and honest acknowledgment of the undeniable influence of popular tradition has far-reaching consequences, and will take from us much to which we are accustomed, and that has become near and dear, even sacred, to us. But it has this advantage, that we feel we are candid and honest in our faith, to which we may add that we are never forced in dealing with human hypotheses to give our assent blindly, but may follow our own judgment. We may adopt or reject the view that in the development[pg 200]of the gospel story much must be ascribed to popular tradition, and I can readily believe that many who do not know, either through the study of legends or their own experience, the transforming influence which school and family traditions exercise on the form of historical narratives, find it incredible that such a carbonising process could have taken place also in the evangelical tradition as related by the men of the next generation. They must then content themselves with the alternative, that the laws of nature, which they themselves ascribe to the Deity, must have been abrogated by their own founder in order that the truth of the teaching of Christ might gain a certain probability in the eyes of the people by so-called miracles.Let us take an example in order to see what we shall gain on the one side and lose on the other. The original meaning of making the blind see, Jesus has himself told us (John ix. 39),“For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.”This refers to spiritual, not physical blindness, and which is the more difficult to heal, the spiritual or the physical? But when Jesus was repeatedly said to have healed this spiritual blindness, to have opened the eyes of the blind and unbelieving, how was it possible that the masses, especially the children, should not misunderstand such cures, and interpret and repeat them as cures of physical blindness? Certainly such an[pg 201]idea carries us a long way. We must then, for instance, explain such an expression as that placed in the mouths of the Pharisees (John x. 21),“Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?”as a further extension of a popular notion already in the field. Nor can it be denied that cures of the physically blind have this in their favour, that so exceptional a personality as Jesus may also have possessed an exceptional healing power. It then depends only on the character of the blindness, whether it was curable or incurable, and the solution of this question we may be content to leave to the medical man. I only remark, that if the medical man should deny such a possibility, a true Christian would lose nothing in consequence, for under all circumstances a spiritual healing power in Christ would stand higher with all of us than one merely physical.This may be called shallow rationalism, but surely the humanratioor reason cannot be entirely rejected. Many know of their own experience that a man of high moral energy can even now drive out devils and base thoughts. Why not also believe that through his appearance and words Jesus made such an impression upon those possessed, for instance, upon the man or the two men who herded swine in the country of the Gadarenes or Gergesenes, that they came to themselves and began to lead new lives? That on such a conversion the swine-herds should forget their swine which rushed headlong into the lake, is easily understood, and when these two incidents[pg 202]came to the ears of the people, what was more natural than the story which we find in Matthew (viii. 28), Mark (v. 1), and Luke (viii. 26), but not in John? We need not now enter into the discrepancies between these three narratives, striking as they would be in a divinely inspired book. Of course it will be said again, that this is a shallow, rationalistic explanation, as if the word“rationalist”contained within itself something condemnatory. At all events, no one can now demonstrate that Jesus did not bewitch the unclean spirits out of the two demoniacs into the two thousand swine; but I confess that the shallow rationalistic explanation seems to me far better calculated to bring clearly to light the influence which Jesus could exercise over the most abandoned men.One more instance. How often does Jesus say that he is the bread that really satisfies man, and the water that quenches all thirst (vi. 48):“I am the bread of life. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”Would any one, even the woman of Samaria, take these words literally? Does not Jesus himself help us to a correct understanding of them when he says (vi. 35),“I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst,”and again, (vii. 37),“If any man thirst let him come unto me, and drink.”[pg 203]And in order to shield his words against any misunderstanding he himself says (vi. 63),“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.”And are we resolved in spite of all this not to understand the deep meaning of his words, to remain blind and deaf; and do we, like the Pharisees, prefer the story of how Jesus by magic means fed thousands with five or seven loaves and two fishes (vi. 9), so that in the end twelve baskets of bread remained after all were satisfied? We can readily comprehend how in the mouths of the people the great miracles of Jesus, the realmirawrought by his life and teaching, became smallmiracula. But if we surrender these smallmiracula, is not something far better left us, namely, that Jesus, who so often called himself the bread and the wine, who even at the Last Supper, as he broke bread with his disciples, commanded them to eat the bread which was his body, and drink the wine which was his blood,—that this teacher could by his teaching satisfy, content, and convert thousands, who came to him and believed in him! It is true that the story of the feeding of thousands with five loaves of bread is more intelligible to women and children, and makes a stronger impression than the metaphorical words of Christ; but nothing is more easy to understand than the transformation of a tale of the conversion or spiritual satisfying of thousands, into a parable of the feeding of thousands with five loaves. But have not the truly devout and conscientious[pg 204]thinkers rights of their own in the community? Must they really hold themselves aloof from the church, because they have too deep a reverence for the true teaching of Christ? Grand and beautiful as are St. Peter's in Rome, St. Mark's in Venice, or the Cathedral at Milan, it is heartbreaking to observe the so-called divine service in these buildings. Let us not be deceived by the sayings, that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children, or that a childlike faith is best. That is quite true, but it has absolutely nothing to do with our question. Of course in every generation millions of children are born, and milk must be provided for these as well; but this milk is not for men, and these should not permit themselves to be frightened by mere words, such as shallow enlightenment, rationalism, unbelief, etc. The worst of it is that we have permitted ourministrito become our masters instead of our servants, and that the weak among them far outnumber the strong. In history, however, the minority is always victorious. Popular legend has certainly at times grievously obscured the gospel of Christ, but not so much as to prevent those who are familiar with its nature and effect from discovering the grains of gold in the sand, the rays of truth behind the clouds. At all events, popular legend refuses to be ruled out. A knowledge of it and its influence on historical events in other nations, and especially a familiarity with the modes of expression in Oriental languages, are of the greatest use in all these investigations.[pg 205]Only let no one confound legend and metaphor with mythology. When Jesus says that he is the water, and that whoever drinks of this water shall never thirst again, every one readily perceives that he speaks metaphorically. And likewise when he says that he is the vine or the good shepherd. But here the transition from parable to reality very soon begins. Among so many pictures of the good shepherd it need occasion no surprise that it is commonly imagined that Jesus actually was a shepherd and carried a lamb on his shoulders. What occurs now was of course equally possible in the earliest times. When the common people saw daily, in old mosaic pictures, a sword coming forth from the mouth of God, they formed a representation of God corresponding to these pictures (Rev. i. 20). And thus many readers of the Gospel suppose that Jesus was really carried up into the air by the devil and placed on the summit of the temple or of a high mountain, that he might show him all the kingdoms of the earth, and tempt him to establish an earthly realm. Is it reverent to imagine Christ borne through the air by the devil, instead of simply learning that Christ himself, as we read, was not a stranger to inward trials, and that he freely confessed them to his disciples? Many parables are represented in the Gospels, as though they had really occurred at the time. Thus, in the parables of the kingdom of heaven, the phrase always runs that it is like seed which a man sowed, and while he slept an enemy came and sowed tares.[pg 206]Or the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, or like a treasure found by a man in a field, or like a merchant seeking goodly pearls, etc. In listening to these parables or looking at pictorial representations of them, there develops almost unconsciously, especially among the young, a belief in their reality, in their actual occurrence at the time of Christ. In many cases this belief is widely spread, as, for example, in the story of the good Samaritan, Now it is quite possible that some such incident as Jesus related had occurred in his time, or shortly before it; but it is just as likely to have been a parable invented for a specific purpose. And why should not this be true of other things, which the Gospels ascribe to Jesus himself?Is it necessary to believe, that Jesus saw the Pharisees casting their gifts into the treasury with his own eyes (Luke xxi. 1), and the poor widow who threw in two mites, or is it possible to consider this, too, as a parable, without insisting that Jesus really sat opposite the sacred chest, and counted the alms, and knew that the widow had put in two mites, and had really nothing left? Of many things, as of the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, or between Jesus and the woman of Samaria, no one could have had any knowledge except those who took part in it. We must therefore assume that Jesus communicated these conversations to his disciples, and that these have reported[pg 207]to us theipsissima verba. In this manner we are constantly involving ourselves in fresh difficulties of our own making, which we may indeed leave out of consideration, but which would never exist at all if we would only consider the circumstances under which the Gospels arose. I have previously expounded this view of the popular origin of the evangelic narratives in my Gifford lectures before an audience, certainly very orthodox; and although a small number of theologians were much incensed against me,—it was their duty,—the majority, even of the clergy, were decidedly with me. The things themselves and their lessons remain undiminished in value; we merely acknowledge a fact, quite natural from an historical standpoint, viz. that the accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus have not come to us direct from Christ, nor from the apostles, but from men who, as they themselves tell us, received the report from others by tradition. Their narratives, consequently, are not perhaps fictitious, or prepared with a certain object; but they do show traces of the influence that was unavoidable in oral transmission, especially at a time of great spiritual excitement. This is a problem which in itself has nothing whatever to do with religion. We have the Gospels as they are. It remains with the historian alone to pass judgment upon the origin, the transmission, and the authenticity of these texts, just as the reconstruction of the text lies solely with the philologist. For this he need not even be a Christian,[pg 208]merely an historian. Whatever may be the judgment of the historical inquirer, we must learn to be content with what they leave us. In this, too, the half is often better than the whole. Quite sufficient remains, even when the critical historian assures us that the Gospels as we possess them were neither written by Christ nor the apostles, but contain the traditions of the oldest Christian communities, and that the manuscripts in which they have reached us were not written till the fifth or at the earliest the fourth century. We may deal with these materials as with all other historical materials from that period; and we do so rather as independent historians than as Christians.The view that the four Gospels were miraculously revealed to their authors, miraculously written, miraculously copied and finally printed, is a view no doubt deserving of respect, but it leaves the contents of the Gospels untouched. The difference between the historical and the conventional interpretation of the Gospels comes out most clearly in the doctrine of eternal life. What Jesus understands by the eternal life that he has brought to mankind, is as clear as the sun. He repeats it again and again. Eternal life consists in knowing that men have their Father and their true being in the only true God, and that as sons of this same Father, they are of like nature with God and Christ (John xvii. 3).This is the fundamental truth of Christianity, and it holds good not only for the contemporaries of[pg 209]Jesus, but for all times. Those who see in this view an overestimate of human nature, need only ask themselves what man could be, if he were not a partaker of the divine nature. This excludes the difference between human and divine nature as little as the difference between the physical father and the physical son. Even in this case we speak figuratively, for how could we speak otherwise of what is supersensual? The repetition of stories among the people, narrating how Jesus raised one or another to life, to eternal life, very soon led among women and children to the misunderstanding that this referred only to a resurrection from bodily death. Nay, this raising passed with them, as it still does with many, for a stronger proof of the divine nature and power of Christ than the resurrection from that spiritual death, which holds in captivity all who have not recognised their own divine sonship and have not understood the glad tidings which Jesus brought to all mankind. Such misunderstandings we find everywhere, as when, for instance, even a man like Nicodemus fails to comprehend the new birth of which Jesus speaks, and asks if a man can enter his mother's womb a second time. If this was possible in a Scribe, how much more so with the uneducated people. In the same way the Jews misunderstand the saying of Jesus, that the truth will make them free, and answer that they are the seed of Abraham, and free men, so that Jesus had to repeat that whosoever commits sin is not free, but a slave of sin (John viii. 33). Such misunderstandings[pg 210]meet us everywhere, and their influence extends much farther than we at first suppose. Naturally the tradition also puts words into Jesus' mouth that could only have issued out of the notions of the people, and almost entirely conceal the depth of his own words. While the revelation of the true divine sonship of man immediately bestows eternal life on him who comprehends or believes in it, heals his blindness, and raises him from spiritual death, Jesus is presented as not purposing to raise the dead until the last day (John vi. 40). Martha makes the same mistake, when to the words of Jesus,“Thy brother shall rise again,”she answers,“I know that he shall rise at the last day”(John xi. 24). Even some of the works which are ascribed to Jesus are plainly derived from the same source. A spiritual resurrection is not sufficient, it even passes for less than a bodily, and this is the very reason for the numerous stories of the raising of the dead. These are matters from which, even to this day, devout Christians are loath to part, especially where the details are given so minutely as in the raising of Lazarus. Now there is absolutely no objection to this, if we are resolved to cling to the historical reality of the raising of Lazarus. Only in that case the terms employed should be exactly defined. If we give the name death to the condition which excludes any return to life, especially when, as with Lazarus, decay had already set in, the condition from which Lazarus returned to life cannot be called death[pg 211]without a contradiction. Jesus even says that his sickness was not fatal (John xi. 4), and that he is not dead, but merely sleeps (John xi. 11). Was he mistaken? Such words should at least not be entirely disregarded, even though the other words follow immediately after,“Lazarus is dead”(John xi. 14). That a highly gifted nature, like that of Jesus, may have possessed wonderful healing powers, cannot be denied, however difficult it may be to determine the boundary between what is and is not possible here. On the other hand, it is firmly established that when once such an idea as the raising from physical death becomes rooted in the popular mind, the details, especially such as can serve as evidence, are provided spontaneously. The nucleus of the story of the raising of Lazarus lies of course in the words (John xi. 25, 26),“I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”Here we have the true teaching of Christ, in his own apparently contradictory language. The saying,“Whoever believes in me shall never die,”does not necessarily mean that his body will never die; and so the words,“Though he were dead, yet shall he live,”certainly do not signify that his dead and decayed body shall receive new life. But the people wanted something else. For the true miracles, for the spiritual resurrection, they had no comprehension, they wanted sensuous miracles, they wanted the resurrection of a body already decayed, and this is[pg 212]described in the Gospels in detail. Such is the regular privilege of popular tradition, and it happens without deliberate intention, except that of bringing vividly before us the common interpretation of the fact. Popular tradition is not intentional deception, it is only an unavoidable fusion of facts with conventional ideas, whereby God becomes a laborer wearied by six days' work; his seat becomes Olympus or a golden throne in some corner of the blue sky; the Son of God sinks to the level of a prince of the house of David, the Saviour to a miracle doctor, and his message of salvation to a promise of resurrection from physical death. There are many good men and women fulfilling in their daily walk the commands of Christ, to whom the true historical conception of the gospel story would be a terrible disillusion. Well, such Christians are at liberty to remain in their own views. Our own interpretation of many of the details in the traditional representation of the Gospels, though details certainly of very great significance, makes no claim to papal authority. It gladly concedes the possibility of error, and only claims to give an interpretation of the evangelic writings, founded on nature and history. It should answer, and at the same time appease, the very numerous and, at bottom, honest men, who, like the Horseherd, declare the gospel narratives, as ordinarily understood, full of falsehood and fraud or even pure fancy, and who have consequently broken with the Christian revelation from conscientious scruples. Their number is[pg 213]greater than is generally supposed, and it must on no account be supposed that they are necessarily wicked or even immoral men. When they declare the Christian revelation to be an absurdity, it is because they do not know it in its historical origin and its divine truth. To assume that every word, every letter,—for it has been carried even so far,—that every parable, every figure, was whispered to the authors of the Gospels, is certainly an absurdity, and rests only on human and often only on priestly authority. But the true revelation, the real truth, as it was already anticipated by the Greek philosophers, slowly accepted by Jews like Philo and the contemporaries of Jesus, taught by men like Clement and Origen in the ancient Greek church, and, in fine, realised in the life of Jesus and sealed by his death, is no absurdity; it is for every thinking Christian the eternal life or the kingdom of God on earth, which Jesus wished to establish, and in part did establish. To become a citizen of this kingdom is the highest that man can attain, but it is not attained merely through baptism and confirmation; it must be gained in earnest spiritual conflict.In nearly all religions God remains far from man. I say in nearly all religions; for in Brahmanism the unity, not the union, of the human soul with Brahman is recognised as the highest aim. This unity with Deity, together with phenomenal difference, Jesus expressed in part through the Logos, in part through the Son. There is nothing so closely allied as thought[pg 214]and word, Father and Son. They can be distinguished, but never separated, for they exist only through each other. In this manner the Greek philosophers considered all creation as the thought or the word of God, and the thought“man”became naturally the highest Logos, realised in millions of men, and raised to the highest perfection in Jesus. As the thought exists only through the word, and the word only through the thought, so also the Father exists only through the Son, and the Son through the Father, and in this sense Jesus feels and declares himself the Son of God, and all men who believe in him his brethren. This revelation or inspiration came to mankind through Jesus. No one knew the Father except the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and those to whom the Son willeth to reveal him. This is the Christian revelation in the true sense of the word. It has long been attempted to make an essential difference between Jesus, the only begotten Son, and his brethren, through an exaggerated feeling of affected reverence. But if this is carried too far, the temple which Jesus himself erected for mankind is destroyed. It is true that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus, and that Jesus is the only begotten Son, for he is in the Father and the Father in him (John xiv. 10), nay, he and the Father are one (John x. 30). The distinction is therefore there, but the unity as well, for Jesus himself says that he is in his disciples as the Father is in him, that they all may be one, as he is one with God, and God[pg 215]with him (John xvii. 21). To many there may be no sense in this, because their ideas of God and of the Son of God are altogether materialistic, but to those who have learned to feel the divine, not only without but also within, these words are the light of the world. In this sense we need not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, and can be prepared to look all the Horseherds of the world in the face as intellectually free, yet at the same time as true Christians, in the way Jesus himself would have desired; often in error, like the disciples of old, but still loyal and honest followers of the Son of God.The main issue in all these questions is honesty, honesty toward ourselves even more than toward others. We know how easily we may all be deceived, how easily we are put off with words, especially when they are words of ancient use. It was the sincere tone of the Horseherd that prompted me to public discussion of his doubts, for doubts are generally anticipations of truth, and to be true to oneself is better than to possess all truth. It gave me pleasure to learn recently that he is still among the living, although for an interval he was beyond the range of the usual postal facilities, so that my letters did not reach him. Whether he thinks me as honest as himself, we must wait to know. I did not seek either to persuade or to convince him. Such things depend too much on circumstances and environment. I merely wished to show him that others, who do[pg 216]not agree with him, or with whom he does not agree, are honest, and may honestly hold entirely different views. To learn to understand each other is the great art of life, and to“agree to differ”is the best lesson of the comparative science of religion.
Why should we contemptuously reject the tradition which arose in the mouths of the people? Should we be worse Christians if it were clearly and plainly demonstrated that we only possess popular traditions, out of which we must ourselves form a conception of the career and teaching of Christ? Is it not good for us,[pg 199]that we are free in many points to decide for ourselves what Jesus was and what he taught?And in a world in which everything develops, everything grows and changes, why should religion alone be an exception? Do we not all freely confess that certain precepts which are ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels are no longer adapted to our times and to our circumstances? Does any Christian turn his left cheek when he has been struck upon the right? Do we give our cloak when our coat has been taken from us? Do we hold everything that we possess in common as the first Christians did? Do we sell all that we have and give it to the poor (Matthew xix. 21)?It is quite true that under this method a certain personal freedom in the interpretation of the Gospels is unavoidable, but is not this freedom at the same time accompanied by a very important feeling of personal responsibility, which is of the utmost significance for every religious conviction? It cannot be denied, that this open and honest acknowledgment of the undeniable influence of popular tradition has far-reaching consequences, and will take from us much to which we are accustomed, and that has become near and dear, even sacred, to us. But it has this advantage, that we feel we are candid and honest in our faith, to which we may add that we are never forced in dealing with human hypotheses to give our assent blindly, but may follow our own judgment. We may adopt or reject the view that in the development[pg 200]of the gospel story much must be ascribed to popular tradition, and I can readily believe that many who do not know, either through the study of legends or their own experience, the transforming influence which school and family traditions exercise on the form of historical narratives, find it incredible that such a carbonising process could have taken place also in the evangelical tradition as related by the men of the next generation. They must then content themselves with the alternative, that the laws of nature, which they themselves ascribe to the Deity, must have been abrogated by their own founder in order that the truth of the teaching of Christ might gain a certain probability in the eyes of the people by so-called miracles.Let us take an example in order to see what we shall gain on the one side and lose on the other. The original meaning of making the blind see, Jesus has himself told us (John ix. 39),“For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.”This refers to spiritual, not physical blindness, and which is the more difficult to heal, the spiritual or the physical? But when Jesus was repeatedly said to have healed this spiritual blindness, to have opened the eyes of the blind and unbelieving, how was it possible that the masses, especially the children, should not misunderstand such cures, and interpret and repeat them as cures of physical blindness? Certainly such an[pg 201]idea carries us a long way. We must then, for instance, explain such an expression as that placed in the mouths of the Pharisees (John x. 21),“Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?”as a further extension of a popular notion already in the field. Nor can it be denied that cures of the physically blind have this in their favour, that so exceptional a personality as Jesus may also have possessed an exceptional healing power. It then depends only on the character of the blindness, whether it was curable or incurable, and the solution of this question we may be content to leave to the medical man. I only remark, that if the medical man should deny such a possibility, a true Christian would lose nothing in consequence, for under all circumstances a spiritual healing power in Christ would stand higher with all of us than one merely physical.This may be called shallow rationalism, but surely the humanratioor reason cannot be entirely rejected. Many know of their own experience that a man of high moral energy can even now drive out devils and base thoughts. Why not also believe that through his appearance and words Jesus made such an impression upon those possessed, for instance, upon the man or the two men who herded swine in the country of the Gadarenes or Gergesenes, that they came to themselves and began to lead new lives? That on such a conversion the swine-herds should forget their swine which rushed headlong into the lake, is easily understood, and when these two incidents[pg 202]came to the ears of the people, what was more natural than the story which we find in Matthew (viii. 28), Mark (v. 1), and Luke (viii. 26), but not in John? We need not now enter into the discrepancies between these three narratives, striking as they would be in a divinely inspired book. Of course it will be said again, that this is a shallow, rationalistic explanation, as if the word“rationalist”contained within itself something condemnatory. At all events, no one can now demonstrate that Jesus did not bewitch the unclean spirits out of the two demoniacs into the two thousand swine; but I confess that the shallow rationalistic explanation seems to me far better calculated to bring clearly to light the influence which Jesus could exercise over the most abandoned men.One more instance. How often does Jesus say that he is the bread that really satisfies man, and the water that quenches all thirst (vi. 48):“I am the bread of life. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”Would any one, even the woman of Samaria, take these words literally? Does not Jesus himself help us to a correct understanding of them when he says (vi. 35),“I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst,”and again, (vii. 37),“If any man thirst let him come unto me, and drink.”[pg 203]And in order to shield his words against any misunderstanding he himself says (vi. 63),“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.”And are we resolved in spite of all this not to understand the deep meaning of his words, to remain blind and deaf; and do we, like the Pharisees, prefer the story of how Jesus by magic means fed thousands with five or seven loaves and two fishes (vi. 9), so that in the end twelve baskets of bread remained after all were satisfied? We can readily comprehend how in the mouths of the people the great miracles of Jesus, the realmirawrought by his life and teaching, became smallmiracula. But if we surrender these smallmiracula, is not something far better left us, namely, that Jesus, who so often called himself the bread and the wine, who even at the Last Supper, as he broke bread with his disciples, commanded them to eat the bread which was his body, and drink the wine which was his blood,—that this teacher could by his teaching satisfy, content, and convert thousands, who came to him and believed in him! It is true that the story of the feeding of thousands with five loaves of bread is more intelligible to women and children, and makes a stronger impression than the metaphorical words of Christ; but nothing is more easy to understand than the transformation of a tale of the conversion or spiritual satisfying of thousands, into a parable of the feeding of thousands with five loaves. But have not the truly devout and conscientious[pg 204]thinkers rights of their own in the community? Must they really hold themselves aloof from the church, because they have too deep a reverence for the true teaching of Christ? Grand and beautiful as are St. Peter's in Rome, St. Mark's in Venice, or the Cathedral at Milan, it is heartbreaking to observe the so-called divine service in these buildings. Let us not be deceived by the sayings, that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children, or that a childlike faith is best. That is quite true, but it has absolutely nothing to do with our question. Of course in every generation millions of children are born, and milk must be provided for these as well; but this milk is not for men, and these should not permit themselves to be frightened by mere words, such as shallow enlightenment, rationalism, unbelief, etc. The worst of it is that we have permitted ourministrito become our masters instead of our servants, and that the weak among them far outnumber the strong. In history, however, the minority is always victorious. Popular legend has certainly at times grievously obscured the gospel of Christ, but not so much as to prevent those who are familiar with its nature and effect from discovering the grains of gold in the sand, the rays of truth behind the clouds. At all events, popular legend refuses to be ruled out. A knowledge of it and its influence on historical events in other nations, and especially a familiarity with the modes of expression in Oriental languages, are of the greatest use in all these investigations.[pg 205]Only let no one confound legend and metaphor with mythology. When Jesus says that he is the water, and that whoever drinks of this water shall never thirst again, every one readily perceives that he speaks metaphorically. And likewise when he says that he is the vine or the good shepherd. But here the transition from parable to reality very soon begins. Among so many pictures of the good shepherd it need occasion no surprise that it is commonly imagined that Jesus actually was a shepherd and carried a lamb on his shoulders. What occurs now was of course equally possible in the earliest times. When the common people saw daily, in old mosaic pictures, a sword coming forth from the mouth of God, they formed a representation of God corresponding to these pictures (Rev. i. 20). And thus many readers of the Gospel suppose that Jesus was really carried up into the air by the devil and placed on the summit of the temple or of a high mountain, that he might show him all the kingdoms of the earth, and tempt him to establish an earthly realm. Is it reverent to imagine Christ borne through the air by the devil, instead of simply learning that Christ himself, as we read, was not a stranger to inward trials, and that he freely confessed them to his disciples? Many parables are represented in the Gospels, as though they had really occurred at the time. Thus, in the parables of the kingdom of heaven, the phrase always runs that it is like seed which a man sowed, and while he slept an enemy came and sowed tares.[pg 206]Or the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, or like a treasure found by a man in a field, or like a merchant seeking goodly pearls, etc. In listening to these parables or looking at pictorial representations of them, there develops almost unconsciously, especially among the young, a belief in their reality, in their actual occurrence at the time of Christ. In many cases this belief is widely spread, as, for example, in the story of the good Samaritan, Now it is quite possible that some such incident as Jesus related had occurred in his time, or shortly before it; but it is just as likely to have been a parable invented for a specific purpose. And why should not this be true of other things, which the Gospels ascribe to Jesus himself?Is it necessary to believe, that Jesus saw the Pharisees casting their gifts into the treasury with his own eyes (Luke xxi. 1), and the poor widow who threw in two mites, or is it possible to consider this, too, as a parable, without insisting that Jesus really sat opposite the sacred chest, and counted the alms, and knew that the widow had put in two mites, and had really nothing left? Of many things, as of the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, or between Jesus and the woman of Samaria, no one could have had any knowledge except those who took part in it. We must therefore assume that Jesus communicated these conversations to his disciples, and that these have reported[pg 207]to us theipsissima verba. In this manner we are constantly involving ourselves in fresh difficulties of our own making, which we may indeed leave out of consideration, but which would never exist at all if we would only consider the circumstances under which the Gospels arose. I have previously expounded this view of the popular origin of the evangelic narratives in my Gifford lectures before an audience, certainly very orthodox; and although a small number of theologians were much incensed against me,—it was their duty,—the majority, even of the clergy, were decidedly with me. The things themselves and their lessons remain undiminished in value; we merely acknowledge a fact, quite natural from an historical standpoint, viz. that the accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus have not come to us direct from Christ, nor from the apostles, but from men who, as they themselves tell us, received the report from others by tradition. Their narratives, consequently, are not perhaps fictitious, or prepared with a certain object; but they do show traces of the influence that was unavoidable in oral transmission, especially at a time of great spiritual excitement. This is a problem which in itself has nothing whatever to do with religion. We have the Gospels as they are. It remains with the historian alone to pass judgment upon the origin, the transmission, and the authenticity of these texts, just as the reconstruction of the text lies solely with the philologist. For this he need not even be a Christian,[pg 208]merely an historian. Whatever may be the judgment of the historical inquirer, we must learn to be content with what they leave us. In this, too, the half is often better than the whole. Quite sufficient remains, even when the critical historian assures us that the Gospels as we possess them were neither written by Christ nor the apostles, but contain the traditions of the oldest Christian communities, and that the manuscripts in which they have reached us were not written till the fifth or at the earliest the fourth century. We may deal with these materials as with all other historical materials from that period; and we do so rather as independent historians than as Christians.The view that the four Gospels were miraculously revealed to their authors, miraculously written, miraculously copied and finally printed, is a view no doubt deserving of respect, but it leaves the contents of the Gospels untouched. The difference between the historical and the conventional interpretation of the Gospels comes out most clearly in the doctrine of eternal life. What Jesus understands by the eternal life that he has brought to mankind, is as clear as the sun. He repeats it again and again. Eternal life consists in knowing that men have their Father and their true being in the only true God, and that as sons of this same Father, they are of like nature with God and Christ (John xvii. 3).This is the fundamental truth of Christianity, and it holds good not only for the contemporaries of[pg 209]Jesus, but for all times. Those who see in this view an overestimate of human nature, need only ask themselves what man could be, if he were not a partaker of the divine nature. This excludes the difference between human and divine nature as little as the difference between the physical father and the physical son. Even in this case we speak figuratively, for how could we speak otherwise of what is supersensual? The repetition of stories among the people, narrating how Jesus raised one or another to life, to eternal life, very soon led among women and children to the misunderstanding that this referred only to a resurrection from bodily death. Nay, this raising passed with them, as it still does with many, for a stronger proof of the divine nature and power of Christ than the resurrection from that spiritual death, which holds in captivity all who have not recognised their own divine sonship and have not understood the glad tidings which Jesus brought to all mankind. Such misunderstandings we find everywhere, as when, for instance, even a man like Nicodemus fails to comprehend the new birth of which Jesus speaks, and asks if a man can enter his mother's womb a second time. If this was possible in a Scribe, how much more so with the uneducated people. In the same way the Jews misunderstand the saying of Jesus, that the truth will make them free, and answer that they are the seed of Abraham, and free men, so that Jesus had to repeat that whosoever commits sin is not free, but a slave of sin (John viii. 33). Such misunderstandings[pg 210]meet us everywhere, and their influence extends much farther than we at first suppose. Naturally the tradition also puts words into Jesus' mouth that could only have issued out of the notions of the people, and almost entirely conceal the depth of his own words. While the revelation of the true divine sonship of man immediately bestows eternal life on him who comprehends or believes in it, heals his blindness, and raises him from spiritual death, Jesus is presented as not purposing to raise the dead until the last day (John vi. 40). Martha makes the same mistake, when to the words of Jesus,“Thy brother shall rise again,”she answers,“I know that he shall rise at the last day”(John xi. 24). Even some of the works which are ascribed to Jesus are plainly derived from the same source. A spiritual resurrection is not sufficient, it even passes for less than a bodily, and this is the very reason for the numerous stories of the raising of the dead. These are matters from which, even to this day, devout Christians are loath to part, especially where the details are given so minutely as in the raising of Lazarus. Now there is absolutely no objection to this, if we are resolved to cling to the historical reality of the raising of Lazarus. Only in that case the terms employed should be exactly defined. If we give the name death to the condition which excludes any return to life, especially when, as with Lazarus, decay had already set in, the condition from which Lazarus returned to life cannot be called death[pg 211]without a contradiction. Jesus even says that his sickness was not fatal (John xi. 4), and that he is not dead, but merely sleeps (John xi. 11). Was he mistaken? Such words should at least not be entirely disregarded, even though the other words follow immediately after,“Lazarus is dead”(John xi. 14). That a highly gifted nature, like that of Jesus, may have possessed wonderful healing powers, cannot be denied, however difficult it may be to determine the boundary between what is and is not possible here. On the other hand, it is firmly established that when once such an idea as the raising from physical death becomes rooted in the popular mind, the details, especially such as can serve as evidence, are provided spontaneously. The nucleus of the story of the raising of Lazarus lies of course in the words (John xi. 25, 26),“I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”Here we have the true teaching of Christ, in his own apparently contradictory language. The saying,“Whoever believes in me shall never die,”does not necessarily mean that his body will never die; and so the words,“Though he were dead, yet shall he live,”certainly do not signify that his dead and decayed body shall receive new life. But the people wanted something else. For the true miracles, for the spiritual resurrection, they had no comprehension, they wanted sensuous miracles, they wanted the resurrection of a body already decayed, and this is[pg 212]described in the Gospels in detail. Such is the regular privilege of popular tradition, and it happens without deliberate intention, except that of bringing vividly before us the common interpretation of the fact. Popular tradition is not intentional deception, it is only an unavoidable fusion of facts with conventional ideas, whereby God becomes a laborer wearied by six days' work; his seat becomes Olympus or a golden throne in some corner of the blue sky; the Son of God sinks to the level of a prince of the house of David, the Saviour to a miracle doctor, and his message of salvation to a promise of resurrection from physical death. There are many good men and women fulfilling in their daily walk the commands of Christ, to whom the true historical conception of the gospel story would be a terrible disillusion. Well, such Christians are at liberty to remain in their own views. Our own interpretation of many of the details in the traditional representation of the Gospels, though details certainly of very great significance, makes no claim to papal authority. It gladly concedes the possibility of error, and only claims to give an interpretation of the evangelic writings, founded on nature and history. It should answer, and at the same time appease, the very numerous and, at bottom, honest men, who, like the Horseherd, declare the gospel narratives, as ordinarily understood, full of falsehood and fraud or even pure fancy, and who have consequently broken with the Christian revelation from conscientious scruples. Their number is[pg 213]greater than is generally supposed, and it must on no account be supposed that they are necessarily wicked or even immoral men. When they declare the Christian revelation to be an absurdity, it is because they do not know it in its historical origin and its divine truth. To assume that every word, every letter,—for it has been carried even so far,—that every parable, every figure, was whispered to the authors of the Gospels, is certainly an absurdity, and rests only on human and often only on priestly authority. But the true revelation, the real truth, as it was already anticipated by the Greek philosophers, slowly accepted by Jews like Philo and the contemporaries of Jesus, taught by men like Clement and Origen in the ancient Greek church, and, in fine, realised in the life of Jesus and sealed by his death, is no absurdity; it is for every thinking Christian the eternal life or the kingdom of God on earth, which Jesus wished to establish, and in part did establish. To become a citizen of this kingdom is the highest that man can attain, but it is not attained merely through baptism and confirmation; it must be gained in earnest spiritual conflict.In nearly all religions God remains far from man. I say in nearly all religions; for in Brahmanism the unity, not the union, of the human soul with Brahman is recognised as the highest aim. This unity with Deity, together with phenomenal difference, Jesus expressed in part through the Logos, in part through the Son. There is nothing so closely allied as thought[pg 214]and word, Father and Son. They can be distinguished, but never separated, for they exist only through each other. In this manner the Greek philosophers considered all creation as the thought or the word of God, and the thought“man”became naturally the highest Logos, realised in millions of men, and raised to the highest perfection in Jesus. As the thought exists only through the word, and the word only through the thought, so also the Father exists only through the Son, and the Son through the Father, and in this sense Jesus feels and declares himself the Son of God, and all men who believe in him his brethren. This revelation or inspiration came to mankind through Jesus. No one knew the Father except the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and those to whom the Son willeth to reveal him. This is the Christian revelation in the true sense of the word. It has long been attempted to make an essential difference between Jesus, the only begotten Son, and his brethren, through an exaggerated feeling of affected reverence. But if this is carried too far, the temple which Jesus himself erected for mankind is destroyed. It is true that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus, and that Jesus is the only begotten Son, for he is in the Father and the Father in him (John xiv. 10), nay, he and the Father are one (John x. 30). The distinction is therefore there, but the unity as well, for Jesus himself says that he is in his disciples as the Father is in him, that they all may be one, as he is one with God, and God[pg 215]with him (John xvii. 21). To many there may be no sense in this, because their ideas of God and of the Son of God are altogether materialistic, but to those who have learned to feel the divine, not only without but also within, these words are the light of the world. In this sense we need not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, and can be prepared to look all the Horseherds of the world in the face as intellectually free, yet at the same time as true Christians, in the way Jesus himself would have desired; often in error, like the disciples of old, but still loyal and honest followers of the Son of God.The main issue in all these questions is honesty, honesty toward ourselves even more than toward others. We know how easily we may all be deceived, how easily we are put off with words, especially when they are words of ancient use. It was the sincere tone of the Horseherd that prompted me to public discussion of his doubts, for doubts are generally anticipations of truth, and to be true to oneself is better than to possess all truth. It gave me pleasure to learn recently that he is still among the living, although for an interval he was beyond the range of the usual postal facilities, so that my letters did not reach him. Whether he thinks me as honest as himself, we must wait to know. I did not seek either to persuade or to convince him. Such things depend too much on circumstances and environment. I merely wished to show him that others, who do[pg 216]not agree with him, or with whom he does not agree, are honest, and may honestly hold entirely different views. To learn to understand each other is the great art of life, and to“agree to differ”is the best lesson of the comparative science of religion.
Why should we contemptuously reject the tradition which arose in the mouths of the people? Should we be worse Christians if it were clearly and plainly demonstrated that we only possess popular traditions, out of which we must ourselves form a conception of the career and teaching of Christ? Is it not good for us,[pg 199]that we are free in many points to decide for ourselves what Jesus was and what he taught?
And in a world in which everything develops, everything grows and changes, why should religion alone be an exception? Do we not all freely confess that certain precepts which are ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels are no longer adapted to our times and to our circumstances? Does any Christian turn his left cheek when he has been struck upon the right? Do we give our cloak when our coat has been taken from us? Do we hold everything that we possess in common as the first Christians did? Do we sell all that we have and give it to the poor (Matthew xix. 21)?
It is quite true that under this method a certain personal freedom in the interpretation of the Gospels is unavoidable, but is not this freedom at the same time accompanied by a very important feeling of personal responsibility, which is of the utmost significance for every religious conviction? It cannot be denied, that this open and honest acknowledgment of the undeniable influence of popular tradition has far-reaching consequences, and will take from us much to which we are accustomed, and that has become near and dear, even sacred, to us. But it has this advantage, that we feel we are candid and honest in our faith, to which we may add that we are never forced in dealing with human hypotheses to give our assent blindly, but may follow our own judgment. We may adopt or reject the view that in the development[pg 200]of the gospel story much must be ascribed to popular tradition, and I can readily believe that many who do not know, either through the study of legends or their own experience, the transforming influence which school and family traditions exercise on the form of historical narratives, find it incredible that such a carbonising process could have taken place also in the evangelical tradition as related by the men of the next generation. They must then content themselves with the alternative, that the laws of nature, which they themselves ascribe to the Deity, must have been abrogated by their own founder in order that the truth of the teaching of Christ might gain a certain probability in the eyes of the people by so-called miracles.
Let us take an example in order to see what we shall gain on the one side and lose on the other. The original meaning of making the blind see, Jesus has himself told us (John ix. 39),“For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.”This refers to spiritual, not physical blindness, and which is the more difficult to heal, the spiritual or the physical? But when Jesus was repeatedly said to have healed this spiritual blindness, to have opened the eyes of the blind and unbelieving, how was it possible that the masses, especially the children, should not misunderstand such cures, and interpret and repeat them as cures of physical blindness? Certainly such an[pg 201]idea carries us a long way. We must then, for instance, explain such an expression as that placed in the mouths of the Pharisees (John x. 21),“Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?”as a further extension of a popular notion already in the field. Nor can it be denied that cures of the physically blind have this in their favour, that so exceptional a personality as Jesus may also have possessed an exceptional healing power. It then depends only on the character of the blindness, whether it was curable or incurable, and the solution of this question we may be content to leave to the medical man. I only remark, that if the medical man should deny such a possibility, a true Christian would lose nothing in consequence, for under all circumstances a spiritual healing power in Christ would stand higher with all of us than one merely physical.
This may be called shallow rationalism, but surely the humanratioor reason cannot be entirely rejected. Many know of their own experience that a man of high moral energy can even now drive out devils and base thoughts. Why not also believe that through his appearance and words Jesus made such an impression upon those possessed, for instance, upon the man or the two men who herded swine in the country of the Gadarenes or Gergesenes, that they came to themselves and began to lead new lives? That on such a conversion the swine-herds should forget their swine which rushed headlong into the lake, is easily understood, and when these two incidents[pg 202]came to the ears of the people, what was more natural than the story which we find in Matthew (viii. 28), Mark (v. 1), and Luke (viii. 26), but not in John? We need not now enter into the discrepancies between these three narratives, striking as they would be in a divinely inspired book. Of course it will be said again, that this is a shallow, rationalistic explanation, as if the word“rationalist”contained within itself something condemnatory. At all events, no one can now demonstrate that Jesus did not bewitch the unclean spirits out of the two demoniacs into the two thousand swine; but I confess that the shallow rationalistic explanation seems to me far better calculated to bring clearly to light the influence which Jesus could exercise over the most abandoned men.
One more instance. How often does Jesus say that he is the bread that really satisfies man, and the water that quenches all thirst (vi. 48):“I am the bread of life. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”Would any one, even the woman of Samaria, take these words literally? Does not Jesus himself help us to a correct understanding of them when he says (vi. 35),“I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst,”and again, (vii. 37),“If any man thirst let him come unto me, and drink.”[pg 203]And in order to shield his words against any misunderstanding he himself says (vi. 63),“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.”And are we resolved in spite of all this not to understand the deep meaning of his words, to remain blind and deaf; and do we, like the Pharisees, prefer the story of how Jesus by magic means fed thousands with five or seven loaves and two fishes (vi. 9), so that in the end twelve baskets of bread remained after all were satisfied? We can readily comprehend how in the mouths of the people the great miracles of Jesus, the realmirawrought by his life and teaching, became smallmiracula. But if we surrender these smallmiracula, is not something far better left us, namely, that Jesus, who so often called himself the bread and the wine, who even at the Last Supper, as he broke bread with his disciples, commanded them to eat the bread which was his body, and drink the wine which was his blood,—that this teacher could by his teaching satisfy, content, and convert thousands, who came to him and believed in him! It is true that the story of the feeding of thousands with five loaves of bread is more intelligible to women and children, and makes a stronger impression than the metaphorical words of Christ; but nothing is more easy to understand than the transformation of a tale of the conversion or spiritual satisfying of thousands, into a parable of the feeding of thousands with five loaves. But have not the truly devout and conscientious[pg 204]thinkers rights of their own in the community? Must they really hold themselves aloof from the church, because they have too deep a reverence for the true teaching of Christ? Grand and beautiful as are St. Peter's in Rome, St. Mark's in Venice, or the Cathedral at Milan, it is heartbreaking to observe the so-called divine service in these buildings. Let us not be deceived by the sayings, that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children, or that a childlike faith is best. That is quite true, but it has absolutely nothing to do with our question. Of course in every generation millions of children are born, and milk must be provided for these as well; but this milk is not for men, and these should not permit themselves to be frightened by mere words, such as shallow enlightenment, rationalism, unbelief, etc. The worst of it is that we have permitted ourministrito become our masters instead of our servants, and that the weak among them far outnumber the strong. In history, however, the minority is always victorious. Popular legend has certainly at times grievously obscured the gospel of Christ, but not so much as to prevent those who are familiar with its nature and effect from discovering the grains of gold in the sand, the rays of truth behind the clouds. At all events, popular legend refuses to be ruled out. A knowledge of it and its influence on historical events in other nations, and especially a familiarity with the modes of expression in Oriental languages, are of the greatest use in all these investigations.[pg 205]Only let no one confound legend and metaphor with mythology. When Jesus says that he is the water, and that whoever drinks of this water shall never thirst again, every one readily perceives that he speaks metaphorically. And likewise when he says that he is the vine or the good shepherd. But here the transition from parable to reality very soon begins. Among so many pictures of the good shepherd it need occasion no surprise that it is commonly imagined that Jesus actually was a shepherd and carried a lamb on his shoulders. What occurs now was of course equally possible in the earliest times. When the common people saw daily, in old mosaic pictures, a sword coming forth from the mouth of God, they formed a representation of God corresponding to these pictures (Rev. i. 20). And thus many readers of the Gospel suppose that Jesus was really carried up into the air by the devil and placed on the summit of the temple or of a high mountain, that he might show him all the kingdoms of the earth, and tempt him to establish an earthly realm. Is it reverent to imagine Christ borne through the air by the devil, instead of simply learning that Christ himself, as we read, was not a stranger to inward trials, and that he freely confessed them to his disciples? Many parables are represented in the Gospels, as though they had really occurred at the time. Thus, in the parables of the kingdom of heaven, the phrase always runs that it is like seed which a man sowed, and while he slept an enemy came and sowed tares.[pg 206]Or the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, or like a treasure found by a man in a field, or like a merchant seeking goodly pearls, etc. In listening to these parables or looking at pictorial representations of them, there develops almost unconsciously, especially among the young, a belief in their reality, in their actual occurrence at the time of Christ. In many cases this belief is widely spread, as, for example, in the story of the good Samaritan, Now it is quite possible that some such incident as Jesus related had occurred in his time, or shortly before it; but it is just as likely to have been a parable invented for a specific purpose. And why should not this be true of other things, which the Gospels ascribe to Jesus himself?
Is it necessary to believe, that Jesus saw the Pharisees casting their gifts into the treasury with his own eyes (Luke xxi. 1), and the poor widow who threw in two mites, or is it possible to consider this, too, as a parable, without insisting that Jesus really sat opposite the sacred chest, and counted the alms, and knew that the widow had put in two mites, and had really nothing left? Of many things, as of the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, or between Jesus and the woman of Samaria, no one could have had any knowledge except those who took part in it. We must therefore assume that Jesus communicated these conversations to his disciples, and that these have reported[pg 207]to us theipsissima verba. In this manner we are constantly involving ourselves in fresh difficulties of our own making, which we may indeed leave out of consideration, but which would never exist at all if we would only consider the circumstances under which the Gospels arose. I have previously expounded this view of the popular origin of the evangelic narratives in my Gifford lectures before an audience, certainly very orthodox; and although a small number of theologians were much incensed against me,—it was their duty,—the majority, even of the clergy, were decidedly with me. The things themselves and their lessons remain undiminished in value; we merely acknowledge a fact, quite natural from an historical standpoint, viz. that the accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus have not come to us direct from Christ, nor from the apostles, but from men who, as they themselves tell us, received the report from others by tradition. Their narratives, consequently, are not perhaps fictitious, or prepared with a certain object; but they do show traces of the influence that was unavoidable in oral transmission, especially at a time of great spiritual excitement. This is a problem which in itself has nothing whatever to do with religion. We have the Gospels as they are. It remains with the historian alone to pass judgment upon the origin, the transmission, and the authenticity of these texts, just as the reconstruction of the text lies solely with the philologist. For this he need not even be a Christian,[pg 208]merely an historian. Whatever may be the judgment of the historical inquirer, we must learn to be content with what they leave us. In this, too, the half is often better than the whole. Quite sufficient remains, even when the critical historian assures us that the Gospels as we possess them were neither written by Christ nor the apostles, but contain the traditions of the oldest Christian communities, and that the manuscripts in which they have reached us were not written till the fifth or at the earliest the fourth century. We may deal with these materials as with all other historical materials from that period; and we do so rather as independent historians than as Christians.
The view that the four Gospels were miraculously revealed to their authors, miraculously written, miraculously copied and finally printed, is a view no doubt deserving of respect, but it leaves the contents of the Gospels untouched. The difference between the historical and the conventional interpretation of the Gospels comes out most clearly in the doctrine of eternal life. What Jesus understands by the eternal life that he has brought to mankind, is as clear as the sun. He repeats it again and again. Eternal life consists in knowing that men have their Father and their true being in the only true God, and that as sons of this same Father, they are of like nature with God and Christ (John xvii. 3).
This is the fundamental truth of Christianity, and it holds good not only for the contemporaries of[pg 209]Jesus, but for all times. Those who see in this view an overestimate of human nature, need only ask themselves what man could be, if he were not a partaker of the divine nature. This excludes the difference between human and divine nature as little as the difference between the physical father and the physical son. Even in this case we speak figuratively, for how could we speak otherwise of what is supersensual? The repetition of stories among the people, narrating how Jesus raised one or another to life, to eternal life, very soon led among women and children to the misunderstanding that this referred only to a resurrection from bodily death. Nay, this raising passed with them, as it still does with many, for a stronger proof of the divine nature and power of Christ than the resurrection from that spiritual death, which holds in captivity all who have not recognised their own divine sonship and have not understood the glad tidings which Jesus brought to all mankind. Such misunderstandings we find everywhere, as when, for instance, even a man like Nicodemus fails to comprehend the new birth of which Jesus speaks, and asks if a man can enter his mother's womb a second time. If this was possible in a Scribe, how much more so with the uneducated people. In the same way the Jews misunderstand the saying of Jesus, that the truth will make them free, and answer that they are the seed of Abraham, and free men, so that Jesus had to repeat that whosoever commits sin is not free, but a slave of sin (John viii. 33). Such misunderstandings[pg 210]meet us everywhere, and their influence extends much farther than we at first suppose. Naturally the tradition also puts words into Jesus' mouth that could only have issued out of the notions of the people, and almost entirely conceal the depth of his own words. While the revelation of the true divine sonship of man immediately bestows eternal life on him who comprehends or believes in it, heals his blindness, and raises him from spiritual death, Jesus is presented as not purposing to raise the dead until the last day (John vi. 40). Martha makes the same mistake, when to the words of Jesus,“Thy brother shall rise again,”she answers,“I know that he shall rise at the last day”(John xi. 24). Even some of the works which are ascribed to Jesus are plainly derived from the same source. A spiritual resurrection is not sufficient, it even passes for less than a bodily, and this is the very reason for the numerous stories of the raising of the dead. These are matters from which, even to this day, devout Christians are loath to part, especially where the details are given so minutely as in the raising of Lazarus. Now there is absolutely no objection to this, if we are resolved to cling to the historical reality of the raising of Lazarus. Only in that case the terms employed should be exactly defined. If we give the name death to the condition which excludes any return to life, especially when, as with Lazarus, decay had already set in, the condition from which Lazarus returned to life cannot be called death[pg 211]without a contradiction. Jesus even says that his sickness was not fatal (John xi. 4), and that he is not dead, but merely sleeps (John xi. 11). Was he mistaken? Such words should at least not be entirely disregarded, even though the other words follow immediately after,“Lazarus is dead”(John xi. 14). That a highly gifted nature, like that of Jesus, may have possessed wonderful healing powers, cannot be denied, however difficult it may be to determine the boundary between what is and is not possible here. On the other hand, it is firmly established that when once such an idea as the raising from physical death becomes rooted in the popular mind, the details, especially such as can serve as evidence, are provided spontaneously. The nucleus of the story of the raising of Lazarus lies of course in the words (John xi. 25, 26),“I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”Here we have the true teaching of Christ, in his own apparently contradictory language. The saying,“Whoever believes in me shall never die,”does not necessarily mean that his body will never die; and so the words,“Though he were dead, yet shall he live,”certainly do not signify that his dead and decayed body shall receive new life. But the people wanted something else. For the true miracles, for the spiritual resurrection, they had no comprehension, they wanted sensuous miracles, they wanted the resurrection of a body already decayed, and this is[pg 212]described in the Gospels in detail. Such is the regular privilege of popular tradition, and it happens without deliberate intention, except that of bringing vividly before us the common interpretation of the fact. Popular tradition is not intentional deception, it is only an unavoidable fusion of facts with conventional ideas, whereby God becomes a laborer wearied by six days' work; his seat becomes Olympus or a golden throne in some corner of the blue sky; the Son of God sinks to the level of a prince of the house of David, the Saviour to a miracle doctor, and his message of salvation to a promise of resurrection from physical death. There are many good men and women fulfilling in their daily walk the commands of Christ, to whom the true historical conception of the gospel story would be a terrible disillusion. Well, such Christians are at liberty to remain in their own views. Our own interpretation of many of the details in the traditional representation of the Gospels, though details certainly of very great significance, makes no claim to papal authority. It gladly concedes the possibility of error, and only claims to give an interpretation of the evangelic writings, founded on nature and history. It should answer, and at the same time appease, the very numerous and, at bottom, honest men, who, like the Horseherd, declare the gospel narratives, as ordinarily understood, full of falsehood and fraud or even pure fancy, and who have consequently broken with the Christian revelation from conscientious scruples. Their number is[pg 213]greater than is generally supposed, and it must on no account be supposed that they are necessarily wicked or even immoral men. When they declare the Christian revelation to be an absurdity, it is because they do not know it in its historical origin and its divine truth. To assume that every word, every letter,—for it has been carried even so far,—that every parable, every figure, was whispered to the authors of the Gospels, is certainly an absurdity, and rests only on human and often only on priestly authority. But the true revelation, the real truth, as it was already anticipated by the Greek philosophers, slowly accepted by Jews like Philo and the contemporaries of Jesus, taught by men like Clement and Origen in the ancient Greek church, and, in fine, realised in the life of Jesus and sealed by his death, is no absurdity; it is for every thinking Christian the eternal life or the kingdom of God on earth, which Jesus wished to establish, and in part did establish. To become a citizen of this kingdom is the highest that man can attain, but it is not attained merely through baptism and confirmation; it must be gained in earnest spiritual conflict.
In nearly all religions God remains far from man. I say in nearly all religions; for in Brahmanism the unity, not the union, of the human soul with Brahman is recognised as the highest aim. This unity with Deity, together with phenomenal difference, Jesus expressed in part through the Logos, in part through the Son. There is nothing so closely allied as thought[pg 214]and word, Father and Son. They can be distinguished, but never separated, for they exist only through each other. In this manner the Greek philosophers considered all creation as the thought or the word of God, and the thought“man”became naturally the highest Logos, realised in millions of men, and raised to the highest perfection in Jesus. As the thought exists only through the word, and the word only through the thought, so also the Father exists only through the Son, and the Son through the Father, and in this sense Jesus feels and declares himself the Son of God, and all men who believe in him his brethren. This revelation or inspiration came to mankind through Jesus. No one knew the Father except the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and those to whom the Son willeth to reveal him. This is the Christian revelation in the true sense of the word. It has long been attempted to make an essential difference between Jesus, the only begotten Son, and his brethren, through an exaggerated feeling of affected reverence. But if this is carried too far, the temple which Jesus himself erected for mankind is destroyed. It is true that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus, and that Jesus is the only begotten Son, for he is in the Father and the Father in him (John xiv. 10), nay, he and the Father are one (John x. 30). The distinction is therefore there, but the unity as well, for Jesus himself says that he is in his disciples as the Father is in him, that they all may be one, as he is one with God, and God[pg 215]with him (John xvii. 21). To many there may be no sense in this, because their ideas of God and of the Son of God are altogether materialistic, but to those who have learned to feel the divine, not only without but also within, these words are the light of the world. In this sense we need not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, and can be prepared to look all the Horseherds of the world in the face as intellectually free, yet at the same time as true Christians, in the way Jesus himself would have desired; often in error, like the disciples of old, but still loyal and honest followers of the Son of God.
The main issue in all these questions is honesty, honesty toward ourselves even more than toward others. We know how easily we may all be deceived, how easily we are put off with words, especially when they are words of ancient use. It was the sincere tone of the Horseherd that prompted me to public discussion of his doubts, for doubts are generally anticipations of truth, and to be true to oneself is better than to possess all truth. It gave me pleasure to learn recently that he is still among the living, although for an interval he was beyond the range of the usual postal facilities, so that my letters did not reach him. Whether he thinks me as honest as himself, we must wait to know. I did not seek either to persuade or to convince him. Such things depend too much on circumstances and environment. I merely wished to show him that others, who do[pg 216]not agree with him, or with whom he does not agree, are honest, and may honestly hold entirely different views. To learn to understand each other is the great art of life, and to“agree to differ”is the best lesson of the comparative science of religion.