One of our Sunday programs, the other day, found its way into a church. It went farther; it made its appearance in the pulpit.
"In my hand I hold the notice of a publication bearing the titleIs Jesus a Myth?"said Dr. Boyle. "This, too, just as though Paul never bore testimony."
This gave the clergyman a splendid opportunity to present in clear and convincing form the evidence for the reality of Jesus. But one thing prevented him:—the lack of evidence.
Therefore, after announcing the subject, he dismissed it, by remarking that Paul's testimony was enough.
The Rev. Morton Culver Hartzell, in a letter, offers the same argument. "Let Mr. Mangasarian first disprove Paul," he writes. The argument in a nutshell is this: Jesus is historical because he is guaranteed by Paul.
Butwhoguarantees Paul?
Aside from the fact that the Jesus of Paul is essentially a different Jesus from the gospel Jesus there still remains the question, Who is Paul? Let us see how much the church scholars themselves know about Paul:
"The place and manner and occasion of his death are notless uncertainthan the facts of his later life...The chronology of the rest of his life is as uncertain...We have no means of knowing when he was born, or how long he lived, or at what dates the several events of his life took place."
Referring to the epistles of Paul, the same authority says: "The chief of these preliminary questions is the genuineness of the epistles bearing Paul's name, whichif they be his"—yes, IF—
The Christian scholar whose article on Paul is printed in theBritannica, and from which we are now quoting, gives further expression to this uncertainty by adding that certain of Paul's epistles "have given rise to disputes which cannot easily be settled in the absence of collateral evidence...The pastoral epistles...have given rise to still graver questions, and are probably evenlessdefensible."
Let the reader remember that the above is not from a rationalist, but from the Rev. Edwin Hatch, D. D., Vice-Principal, St. Mary Hall, Oxford, England.
Were we disposed to quote rationalist authorities, the argument against Paul would be far more decisive. But we are satisfied to rest the case on orthodox admissions alone.
The strongest argument then of clergymen who have attempted an answer to our position is something like this:
Jesus is historical because a man by the name of Paul says so, though we do not know much about Paul.
It is just such evidence as the above that led Prof. Goldwin Smith to exclaim: "Jesus has flown. I believe the legend of Jesus was made by many minds working under a great religious impulse—one man adding a parable, another an exhortation, another a miracle story;"—and George Eliot to write: "The materials for a real life of Christ do not exist."
In the effort to untie the Jesus-knot by Paul, the church has increased the number of knots to two. In other words, the church has proceeded on the theory that two uncertainties make a certainty.
We promised to square also with the facts of history our statement that the chief concern of the church, Jewish, Christian, or Mohammedan, is not righteousness, but orthodoxy.
Speaking in this city, Rev. W. H. Wray Boyle of Lake Forest, declared that unbelief was responsible for the worst crimes in history. He mentioned the placing.
—"of a nude woman on a pedestal in the city of Paris.
—"the assassination of William McKinley.
—"The same unbelief sent a murderer down the isle of a church in Denver to pluck the symbol of the sacrament from the hands of a priest and slay him at the altar."
The story of a "nude woman," etc., is pure fiction, and that the two murders were caused by unbelief is mere assumption. To help his creed, the preacher resorts to fable. We shall prove our position by quotingfacts:
I. HYPATIA * was dragged into a Christian church by monks in Alexandria, and before the altar she was stripped of her clothing and cut in pieces with oyster shells, and murdered. Her innocent blood stained the hands of the clergy, who also handle the Holy Sacraments. She was murdered not by a crazed individual but by the orders of the bishop of Alexandria. How does the true story of Hypatia compare with the fable of "a nude woman placed on a pedestal in the city of Paris?" The Reverend must answer, or never tell an untruth again.
* See Author's, The Martyrdom of Hypatia.
Hypatia was murdered in church, and by the clergy, because she was not orthodox.
II. POLTROT, the Protestant, in the 16th century assassinated Francois, the Catholic duke of Guise, in France, and the leaders of the church, instead of disclaiming responsibility for the act, publicly praised the assassin, and Theodore Beza, the colleague of Calvin, promised him a crown in heaven. (De l'etat etc, p. 82.Quoted by Jules Simon.)
III. JAMES CLEMENT, a Catholic, assassinated Henry III. For this act the clergy placed his portrait on the altar in the churches between two great lighted candle-sticks. Because he had killed a heretic prince, the Catholics presented the assassin's mother with a purse. (Esprit de la Ligue I. III. p. 14.)
If it was unbelief that inspired the murder of McKinley, what inspired the assassins of Hypatia and Henry III?
We read in the Bible that Gen. Sisera, a heathen, having lost a battle, begged for shelter at the tent of Jael, a friendly woman, but of the Bible faith. Jael assured the unfortunate stranger that he was safe in her tent. The tired warrior fell asleep from great weariness. Then Jael picked up a tent-peg and with a hammer in her hand "walked softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground... So he died."
The BIBLE calls this assassin "blessed above women." (Judge IV. 18, etc.) She had killed a heretic.
In each of the instances given above, the assassin is honored because he committed murder in the interest of the faith. We ask this clergyman and his colleagues who are only too anxious to charge every act of violence to unbelief in their creeds—What about the crimes ofbelievers?