{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_38380/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_38380","id":"gutenberg_38380","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38380","summary":null,"tags":["Apologetics","Category: History - Religious","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE TWO TESTS:\n\nTHE SUPERNATURAL CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY TRIED BY TWO OF ITS OWN RULES.\n\nBy Lionel Lisle\n\n\"The axe is laid unto the root of the tree.\"\n\n1877\n\nWILLIAMS AND NORGATE,\n\n14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON;\n\nAND\n\n20 SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.\n\nTO THE READER.\n\n\"The following treatise was not originally written for publication;\nbut as it faithfully represents the process by which the minds of some,\nbrought up in reverence and affection for the Christian faith, were\nrelieved from the vague state of doubt that resulted on their cherished\nbeliefs being overthrown or shaken by the course of modern thought, it\nhas been suggested that it may, perhaps, be useful to others in the same\nposition. Although their hold on the reason and intellect may have been\nlost or weakened, still the supernatural authority, the hopes, and the\nterrors of the gospel continue to cling to the heart and conscience,\nuntil they are effectually dislodged by considerations of mightier\nmastery over the heart and conscience. 'The strong man armed keepeth his\npalace' until the stronger appears. Then the whole faculties, mental\nand moral, are set free, and brought into accord in the cause of\nTruth.\"--Preface to the First Issue.\n\nSome of the _principles_ of inquiry into the truth or falsehood of\nthe Christian evidences laid down by the ablest divines of the last\ngeneration are wholly admirable in themselves, viewed apart from the\n_application_ of them by these divines. Dr. Chalmers, for instance,\nwhose single-mindedness in devotion to truth and right was on a level\nwith his mighty intellect and strong and clear perceptions, held: \"There\nis a class of men who may feel disposed to overrate its evidences,\nbecause they are anxious to give every support and stability to a system\nwhich they conceive to be most intimately connected with the dearest\nhopes and wishes of humanity; because their imagination is carried\naway by the sublimity of its doctrines, or their heart engaged by that\namiable morality which is so much calculated to improve and adorn the\nface of society. Now, we are ready to admit, that as the object of\nthe inquiry is not the character but the truth of Christianity, the\nphilosopher should be careful to protect his mind from the delusion of\nits charms. He should separate the exercises of the understanding from\nthe tendencies of the fancy or of the heart. He should be prepared to\nfollow the light of evidence, though it may lead him to conclusions\nthe most painful and melancholy. He should train his mind to all the\nhardihood of abstract and unfeeling intelligence. He should give up\neverything to the supremacy of argument, and be able to renounce,\nwithout a sigh, all the tenderest prepossessions of infancy, the moment\nthat truth demands of him the sacrifice.\" Dr. Chalmers would evidently\nsee no beauty in moral precepts apart from the truth of the testimony to\nthe authority on which they rest.\n\nAgain he wrote: \"With them\" (his own class of Christians) \"the argument\nis adduced to a narrower compass. Is the testimony of the apostles and\nfirst Christians sufficient to establish the credibility of the facts\nwhich are recorded in the New Testament? The question is made to rest\nexclusively on the character of this testimony, and the circumstances\nattending it, and no antecedent theory of their own is suffered\nto mingle with the investigation. If the historical evidence of\nChristianity is found to be conclusive they conceive the investigation\nto be at an end, and that nothing remains on their part but an act of\nunconditional submission to all its doctrines.... We profess ourselves\nto belong to the latter description of Christians. We hold by the\ninsufficiency of Nature to pronounce upon the intrinsic merits of any\nrevelation, and think that the authority of every revelation rests\nmainly upon its historical and experimental evidences, and upon such\nmarks of honesty in the composition itself as would apply to any human\nperformance.\" And in another portion of the same work: \"We are\nnot competent to judge of the conduct of the Almighty in given\ncircumstances. Here we are precluded by the nature of the subject from\nthe benefit of observation. There is no antecedent experience to guide\nor to enlighten us. It is not for man to assume what is right or proper\nor natural for the Almighty to do. It is not in the mere spirit of\npiety that we say so: it is in the spirit of the soundest experimental\nphilosophy.\" Elsewhere he prefers the atheist, or what would now be\ncalled the agnostic, to the deist, who, rejecting revelation, professes\nbelief in a God fashioned according to the constitution of his own mind.\n\nThe question may, with clearness perhaps, be thus stated: Religion, in\nits true and highest sense, is the endeavour of man to place himself in\na right position to the Power and to the laws of the Universe. If that\nPower has spoken audibly to man, in man's language, and revealed what\nthat right position is, we must take the message as it has been given,\nand implicitly submit to and be guided by it. Dr. Chalmers, on the\nsoundest truth-seeking principles, but, as I venture to think, with\nimperfect knowledge, and contrary to what his conclusions would have\nbeen had he lived now, decided that there was evidence that the Power of\nthe Universe had spoken audibly to man, by a special messenger from\non high--the very Son of God. The effect, therefore, on him was, as he\nstates, \"unconditional submission.\" But if the Power of the Universe\nhas not spoken audibly to man, in man's language, then, on the same\nprinciples, there is no other position towards that Power, possible to\nman, than simply one of Agnosticism. _What_ that Power is no one can\ntell. The theological method--that of authority resting on revelation\nand supernatural power--is gone; but the laws of the Universe\nremain,--the laws of God, whatever God may be. Man's knowledge of and\nright position towards these laws will then depend solely on political,\nsocial, and scientific methods of research. In this case the truly\nreligious man will be he who rejects authority and theological methods\nand doctrine, and follows with \"unconditional submission\" the teachings\nof the widest experience.\n\nIn marked, and in my view unfavourable, contrast with the principles of\nDr. Chalmers, the recent address of Dean Stanley to the students of St.\nAndrews urges: \"There is a well-known saying of St. Augustine, in one of\nhis happiest moods, which expressed this sense of proportion long ago:\n'_We believe the miracles for the sake of the Gospels, not the Gospels\nfor the sake of the miracles_' Fill your minds with this saying, view it\nin all its consequences, observe how many maxims both of the Bible and\nof philosophy conform to it, and you will find yourselves in a position\nwhich will enable you to treat with equanimity half the perplexities\nof this subject.\" Here \"equanimity,\" quite apart from their truth or\nfalsehood, is commended towards marvels, _vouched as eye-witnessed\nfacts_, for the sake of the Gospels. (See my remarks, pp. 86, 87, par.\ncommencing Paul 1.)\n\nAnother instance, in a quite different profession, of a mind guided by\na principle similar to that of Dr. Chalmers is presented by the\nillustrious philosopher, Mr. Faraday. One of a small body of Christians\nknit together in bands of love and peace, and himself the very\nembodiment of that high morality and love of kind, so much preached\nabout however practised, no question appears to have crossed his mind as\nto the validity of the evidences on which the gospel claims rest; but,\nhating pretence and ever loyal to truth, he saw, with habitual clearness\nof judgment, that a revelation, dealing with what man cannot himself\ndiscover, must be taken, if true, implicitly as delivered. In his\nlecture on Mental Education before Prince Albert, in the year 1854, he\nsaid: \"High as man is placed above the creatures around him, there is a\nhigher and far more exalted position within his view; and the ways are\ninfinite in which he occupies his thoughts about the fears, or hopes, or\nexpectations of a future life. I believe that the truth of that future\ncannot be brought to his knowledge by any exertion of his mental powers,\nhowever exalted they may be; that it is made known to him by other\nteaching than his own, and is received through simple belief of the\ntestimony given. Let no one suppose for a moment that the self-education\nI am about to commend in respect of the things of this life, extends\nto any considerations of the hope set before us, as if man by reasoning\ncould find out God. It would be improper here to enter into this subject\nfurther than to claim an absolute distinction between religious and\nordinary belief. I shall be reproached with the weakness of refusing\nto apply those mental operations, which I think good in respect of high\nthings, to the very highest. I am content to bear the reproach. Yet,\neven in earthly matters, I believe that the invisible things of Him\nfrom the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by\nthe things that are made, even his eternal Power and Godhead; and I have\nnever seen anything incompatible between those things of man which can\nbe known by the spirit of man which is within him, and those higher\nthings concerning his future which he cannot know by that spirit.\"\n\nSo that of himself, apart from revelation, Mr. Faraday's position was\nagnostic. Had he seen reason to reject revelation he would not have been\na deist, any more than\n\nDr. Chalmers. There is an Eternal Power, but _what it is_ man cannot\ndivine. Of God or of a future state man himself can tell nothing. And\nthe reproach from the votaries of most popular religions, which Mr.\nFaraday refers to, will apply equally to the agnostic who submits to\nrevelation with his \"simple belief,\" and to the agnostic who sees reason\nto reject it. Nothing would have been more utterly abhorrent to Mr.\nFaraday than to have his name paraded and referred to, as a Christian,\nin the sense in which it is alluded to in such books as the _Unseen\nUniverse_, or, since his death, by many of the clergy in their sermons.\n\nAny communications, from those interested in the subject of this\ntreatise, addressed to me, care of the Publishers, will be gladly\nreceived and attended to.\n\nL. L.\n\n1st July, 1877.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n1. The belief, concerning the position of mankind in this world and\nthe next, held by the various Christians, who cling to the Old and New\nTestaments as the one inspired and infallible revelation of the mind and\npurpose of an Almighty, may be briefly summed up thus:--That the whole\nhuman race, because of the disobedience of Adam, is fallen from its\noriginal righteousness, and is under condemnation for transgression of\nthe law or will of God; whether as Jews, to whom the law was given in\ncertain forms of words or as Gentiles, who have the law, the knowledge\nof right and wrong, written on their consciences: that the eternal\njustice of God requires the eternal punishment of sin: that thus no\nescape being possible from the consequences of guilt, the result of\nAdam's disobedience and their own depravity, the whole human race must\nhave perished, had it not been that God in love, and in order that he\nmight place himself in a position to pardon sin in a way that would be\nconsistent with eternal justice, sent his Son--the sole-begotten--into\nthe world, who became incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth:\nthat Jesus fulfilled the will of God in his life: that his death by\ncrucifixion has been accounted by God a full atonement for the sins of\nall who believe on him and his fulfilment of the law as if it had been\ntheir fulfilment: that by his atonement and righteousness they are thus\nrestored to the divine favour: that Jesus rose from the dead on the\nthird day: that he ascended into heaven: that he is now there waiting\nuntil all who are ordained unto eternal life shall, in course of time,\nbe born, when he will return to earth in the glory and power of heaven:\nthat then those who have believed in him will be raised from the dead,\nor, if not dead, will receive an incorruptible body and a purified mind:\nthat the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness,\nshall then be inaugurated: that risen mankind, who have believed on\nJesus, will thenceforth enjoy eternal bliss in direct communion with\nGod: that those of mankind who have not believed in Jesus will also be\nraised from the dead, but, their sins being unatoned for, they will be\npunished with everlasting banishment from the presence of God: that the\ndoom in each case will be irrevocable, everlasting.\n\n2. The conception of the Almighty, in relation to fallen man, formed\nin the minds of many believers, is that of a king dealing with rebel\nsubjects who are equally guilty, and whose lives are equally forfeit. He\nshows mercy to whom he will--those who are thus favoured having no right\nto this grace; and whom he will he leaves to deserved death--those thus\nleft having no right to complain of the pardon of the others, as their\nown doom would have been the same whether the others were spared or not.\n\nOther believers, again, rather conceive the Almighty to be in the\nposition of a gracious benefactor, offering pardon through the merits\nof Jesus to any one who chooses to accept of it, the pardon not to take\neffect unless the sinner accepts it by acquiescing in the divine plan of\nsalvation. And among the numerous sects into which believers are divided\nthrough opposing interpretations of various passages of the Bible, other\nconceptions of the Almighty and modifications of the foregoing statement\nof belief will be found. But all, or almost all, agree in dividing\nmankind into the believing and the unbelieving, the elect and the\nnon-elect, the sheep and the goats, the saved and the lost.\n\nMany Christians maintain that the atonement was universal; but it is\ndoubtful if any maintain that the salvation will be universal, as belief\nis held to be a necessary condition or a sign of salvation.\n\nBeyond such ideas as these there are two momentous considerations:--(1.)\nWhether an Almighty Maker of the universe could be such an one as,\nwere he to carry out a scheme of salvation for a condemned race of his\ncreatures, would do so in a way to have but a partial effect, or to be\ndependent on the belief or unbelief of those for whom it was devised.\n(2.) Whether vicarious sacrifice can in any way satisfy justice, divine\nor human. For what is vicarious sacrifice?--the substitution of the\ninnocent for the guilty, whether an innocent lamb or an innocent child,\nor the innocent Son of the Eternal made flesh. However exalted the\nvictim the principle is the same,--that of satisfying justice by\ncommitting so gross an injustice as enjoining or permitting the innocent\nto take the place of the guilty. Would any earthly tribunal be accounted\nrighteous which allowed a self-sacrificing mother to substitute herself\nfor a son, a son for a father? And does not the Christian doctrine\nrepresent its deity as the author of a proceeding so utterly unjust?\n\n3. Christian believers, however, consider themselves as, or as having\nbeen, sinners under divine condemnation, but maintain that God can,\nconsistently with justice, on account of the merits and death of Jesus,\nfreely pardon their sin; and, in the hope that saving faith has been\ngiven them, they rest content in this belief, seek to live in this\nworld in subjection to Christ's commandments, and await, after death,\nan entrance into bliss unspeakable, and, on Christ's Second coming, a\njoyful resurrection. Such, at least, is the profession; the practice\ndoes not always correspond. Christians are not unknown to history, nor\npossibly to the present age, whose conduct is widely at variance with\ntheir profession. But this is true of others besides believers in\nChristianity. They who rest content in the belief and hope just\nmentioned, are seldom disturbed by misgivings as to the soundness of\nthe foundations of the Christian faith. They have no more doubt that\nthe miraculous birth, the miracles, and the resurrection of Jesus were\nactual witnessed events, than they have of the assassination of Julius\nCaesar, or of the landing of William the Conqueror in England. And this\nbelief seems to them to account for much. That stumbling-block to many in\nthe way of owning that a wise and beneficent deity could be the author\nof such a world as this, of \"a whole creation groaning and travailing in\npain,\" disappears, in their minds, in view of the curse of God against\nsin, under which the earth and all it contains is, as they believe,\nlabouring, and of the love of God in providing a way by which he\ncould be just and yet pardon sin. It gives them, moreover, a definite,\nsettling belief, and a hope for the future, that there is something\nbetter and different in store than life in this world. Regarding the\nearth and all upon it as under a curse, they profess to set their hearts\non their home in heaven, on the glorious future revealed. Alas, then,\nif the grounds on which the prospect of this glorious future rests\nare worthless; if the hope is delusive; if its evil effect is, and has\ncontinually been, to divert men from applying themselves strenuously\nto make the best of this earth on which they live, and from heartily\nco-operating with their fellows to do the same; to build up brazen\nbarriers of spiritual pride and self-complacency that sunder man from\nman; to foster vain-glory, strife, acrimony, and intolerance through\npretence, as between opposing sects and schools, of a superior, or a\nmore accurate, or a better defined knowledge of the mind of God.\n\n4. The foundations of the Christian faith are the supernatural\ntestimonies, as recorded in the New Testament, given from on high to the\nsupernatural attributes claimed for Jesus. Many there are who profess,\nor by their mode of teaching imply, disbelief in these supernatural\ntestimonies or attributes, or ignore them altogether, yet who for the\nsake of their position, clerical or otherwise, or to be in unison\nwith prevailing fashion, extol Christianity as a system of high moral\ngovernment and elevating tendency. All such, however, will appear to\nthe honest and truth-loving mind but deserving of unmeasured scorn.\nExcepting the Jesus of the New Testament, is there any other Jesus? If\nthe supernatural attributes there claimed for him are a pretence, he was\neither self-deluded or he was an impostor, or the compilers of the four\ngospels have borne false witness, or are recorders of inflated hearsay,\nor the inventors of fiction, all the while asserting that they were\neye-witnesses, or narrators of the testimony of eye-witnesses. And what\nis to be said of a system founded either on self-delusion or imposition?\nAre not noble and pure doctrines put to the basest use when they are\nmade supports of pretence and falsehood, and should they not be rescued\nfrom such contamination? Besides, Jesus scarcely claims to be the\noriginator of new laws. His claim is far more. He is held to be the same\nperson who gave the commandments to Moses on Sinai; and his spiritual\napplication and extension of these laws are to be found also in the\nbooks of the Psalms and the Prophets, alleged to have been written under\nhis own inspiration. Whether or not they are to be found elsewhere, in\nso-called heathen writings, is a consideration beyond the scope of this\ninquiry. The exhortation \"to take heed and beware of covetousness, for a\nman's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth,\"\nmight probably be found taught and practised under other than Christian\nsanction,--might perhaps be discovered not to have been the guiding\nprinciple of all Christian professors. As a system, then, of moral\ngovernment, or of high spiritual life, the Christianity of the New\nTestament professes no more than to confirm and verify, explain, fulfil,\nand develop the Jewish Scriptures. But its supernatural claims on behalf\nof Christ himself, by which it pretends to lay bare the truth as to the\nposition of mankind in this world and the next, and to give them\nthe hope of a new life beyond the grave, rest on the supernatural\noccurrences recorded. If these are true, Jesus is all he claimed to be.\nHe is now alive, he has the destinies of the whole human race in his\nhands, and is to be worshipped as God. If they are not true, he was\neither a mere man, deluding or self-deluded, or the history of his life\nis a myth, however originated or developed. Truth and sincerity demand\nthat there be no compromise between these two positions. The time has\nsurely gone by when sound morality and brotherly kindness require the\nsupport of supernatural pretence; when religion, in the words of an\nancient writer, is to be praised as an imposture devised by wise men\nfor restraining the evil passions of the multitude. Let every true\nman repudiate the libel on his race implied by the most unworthy, most\npernicious and despairing idea, which has for so long influenced human\nthought, that for the support of high morality and love of kind it\nis necessary to disregard or to trifle with the highest of all\nmorality--Truth.\n\n5. Ordinary scientific research is of little avail here. Science of\nitself is unable either to affirm or to deny if any power beyond and\nsupreme over Nature exists. Whether Nature works spontaneously, and\nthere is nothing besides matter and its inherent organising powers; or\nwhether her various operations are carried on in fixed modes, and\nby determinate forces, created and sustained by an Omnipotent and\nOmniscient Being, the observation of cause and effect, and the induction\nof general laws from ascertained facts is the same. But in the latter\ncase, the Almighty One, if he willed, might suspend or break through, or\nalter the regular course of Nature's working; and the question here is,\nwhether there is any valid evidence to show that the manifestations, as\nrecorded in the New Testament, of a nature-controlling power actually\nhappened. If such an one, almighty, all-seeing, all-knowing, all-just,\nall-loving, all-merciful (such as Exodus xxxiv. 6, 7) exists, a special\nrevelation from him to men, different from his working in the visible\nuniverse, is not a thing impossible: moreover, assuming the Christian\ndoctrine to be true, that by sending his son Jesus into the world he\nmeant to save only a portion of the human race, the revelation might\ntake place in a mode suited to the knowledge and capacities of those for\nwhom it was intended; and merely because the mode may appear absurd and\nunworthy of a deity (though this consideration may not be lost sight\nof), or because it did not take place in the way which the learned and\nphilosophers--hitherto a small minority of mankind--might have selected,\nit is not to be disbelieved if the evidence is good. And it may fairly\nbe argued that there would be no simpler way by which an Almighty could\nreveal his own existence, or attest the divine mission of his chosen\nmessenger, than by instances of nature-controlling power. Again and\nagain, then, this one consideration presses, \"Is there any good evidence\nto show that these occurrences did really happen, that this man Jesus,\nclaiming to be the Son of God, received certain credentials from a Power\nbeyond and supreme over Nature?\"\n\n6. The supernatural attributes of Jesus, claimed by himself, or by his\ndisciples for him, and held to constitute saving faith, are--\n\na. That he was alive from all eternity, the sole-begotten Son of God,\nbefore he appeared in this world.\n\nb. That his birth was the result of the \"overshadowing\" of his\nvirgin-mother by the \"power of the Highest.\"\n\nc. That while he sojourned on earth he was a union of God and man, a\nmortal human body with the mind and power of the Eternal.\n\nd. That his career on earth and its results were the fulfilment of the\nJewish law and prophets.\n\ne. That he rose from the dead on the third day from his crucifixion,\nascended from earth to heaven, and is now there, ever-living God and man\nunited, with all power in heaven and in earth.\n\nf. That he is to return in the power of the Almighty to raise the dead,\nand to inaugurate with his chosen an everlasting kingdom, and to banish\nhis enemies for ever from his presence.\n\nThe supernatural events recorded in the gospels as testimonies to these\nsupernatural attributes are--\n\n(1.) Those connected with his birth, viz.:--The appearance of the angel\nGabriel to Zacharias to announce the birth of the forerunner John, and\nto Mary to announce her conception of Jesus; the three appearances of\nthe angel of the Lord to Joseph in dreams; the visit of the wise men of\nthe East; and the appearance of the angels and of the heavenly host to\nthe shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem. (2.) The heavenly testimonies,\nviz.:--The voice at the baptism. The transfiguration and the voice\nthereat. The voice from heaven (John xii. 28-31). To which may be\nadded--\n\nThe testimony of the devils.\n\nThe temptation by Satan, and the subsequent ministration of angels. The\nearthquake and rending of the veil of the temple at the crucifixion.\n(3.) The miracles performed, which, if true, proved that Jesus and the\nfirst apostles had power over diseases and the course of nature.\n\n(4.) The fulfilment of prophecy.\n\n(5.) The resurrection from the dead, the appearances after that event,\nthe ascension to heaven, the gifts of the apostles, and the subsequent\nmanifestations to Paul on his way to Damascus.\n\n7. For the purposes of this inquiry there are two simple, and what\nappear to be conclusive, tests ready to hand; one, a rule of evidence\nheld sacred by Jews and Christians alike, and the other arising out of\nthe nature of the claims made for Jesus.\n\n(a.) Moses, or, as Christians affirm, the deity speaking by Moses, has\nlaid down this rule of evidence in cases of guilt: \"One witness shall\nnot rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin\nthat he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three\nwitnesses shall the matter be established.\" This rule is commended in\nthe New Testament in the case of offences (Matt, xviii. 16). What then\ncan be more fair to Christianity than to examine its claims by a rule\nof evidence held righteous by itself? For, to put it on the very lowest\ngrounds, the evidence necessary to establish events otherwise incredible\nmust surely be at least equally conclusive with that necessary to\nconvict a criminal. These are not ordinary historical statements, to be\ncredited or not as reasonable probability, fair conjecture, or prejudice\nmay determine, without any penal consequences-whatever, either in this\nworld or the world to come. If a man disbelieves that King Arthur, or\nRomulus, or even Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar ever existed,\ndoes it affect his welfare now or hereafter? But the gospels set forth\nextraordinary occurrences, disbelief of which by any one is said to\nrender him liable to be left to perish in his sins, to endure the\ntorments of hell evermore; and will it for a moment be asserted that a\ndeity would expect belief involving so dire a consequence, on evidence\nhe is said to consider insufficient for the punishment of common guilt?\nIf, then, judged by this Mosaic rule of evidence, disbelief of the\nalleged supernatural testimonies to the claims of Jesus should be the\nrighteous, and belief the unrighteous result, on whose side would a God\nof truth be? Would he be on the side of those who are swayed by emotion\nand not evidence--who imagine that their feelings are in unison with\nfacts they have taken no pains to verify--who profess to believe because\nit is fashionable, or because they have been so taught from youth--who\ncredit statements which they assert affect their relation to the\nAlmighty and their eternal interests, on grounds on which they would not\ncredit statements affecting their most trifling temporal interest? Would\na God of truth be on their side? Surely not.\n\n(b.) The New Testament record and doctrine are said to be a development\nand fulfilment of the Old. The deity of the one is the deity of the\nother, under a different dispensation. \"The law was given by Moses, but\ngrace and truth came by Jesus Christ.\" If, then, the New Testament is\nshown conclusively to be a development and fulfilment of the Old, this\nclaim will be sustained. If, on the other hand, there are twisted and\nuntenable interpretations of Old Testament texts, to make them fit in\nwith New Testament facts; or if there are practices or doctrines or\naught else upheld in the New Testament, as of God, which are hateful\nor foreign to the deity of the Old, such would argue deception (whether\nintentional or not) in the writers of the New Testament, and show that,\nif the deity of the Old Testament is the true God, the deity of the\nNew is not. Christianity thus maintaining that the God of the Jewish\nScriptures is the Eternal, would fall by its own supports.\n\n8. Christian authorities, for the most part, hold that the books of\nthe Old Testament were composed by the different writers from Moses to\nMalachi, during the 1100 years from B.C. 1490 to B.C. 390, and the books\nof the New Testament, during the first century, a.d., by the companions\nof Jesus, or by those who received their information from his\ncompanions. Much learning and critical research have been expended on\nthe one hand in maintaining this position, and on the other hand in\nimpugning it, by stigmatising the whole of some books, and portions of\nothers, as interpolations or compositions of later times. Into so nice\na question as this, it is not proposed to enter here. A\nconscience-satisfying belief for earnest men can in no wise rest on the\ndoubtful and disputed conclusions and arguments of verbal critics. The\nobject of this inquiry, then, is to consider the evidence of the alleged\nsupernatural credentials to the claims of Jesus, so far as possible in\nthe most favourable light in which they can be presented, and therefore\nit will be assumed that the books of the Old and New Testaments were\nwritten at the time generally understood, and by the persons whose names\nthey bear; and as by most believers in Christianity these books are held\nto be the one infallible authority, the endeavour will be not to travel\nbeyond them. The alleged fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy by New\nTestament events will be fully considered under its own head; and on\nthe divine inspiration claimed for the writers of the New Testament\nnarratives, one word will suffice. To relate facts seen, or facts told\nto the narrator by others, requires no inspiration. If any one holds\nthat the gospels record, either in whole or in part, facts which the\nwriters did not see, or were not told of, but which were specially\nrevealed to their spirit by a God of truth, as having occurred, he\nclaims more for them than they do for themselves. See Luke i. 1-4; xxiv.\n48; John i. 14; xx. 30, 31; xxi. 24, 25; Acts i. 1, 3; 1 Cor. xv. 1-9; 2\nPeter i. 16-18; 1 John i. 1-3. The burden of these passages is summed\nup in the last one--\"That which we have seen and heard declare we\nunto you.\" The truth or otherwise of the supernatural events recorded\nprofesses thus to rest on the testimony of human eyes and human ears,\nhowever divinely guided and enlightened.\n\n9. Assuming, then, that the books of the New Testament were written\nby those whose names they bear, what is known of the narrators? Their\ncharacter for honesty and trustworthiness among their neighbours and\ncontemporaries there is no voucher for. Yet, while no one who knew\nthem has left aught on record to their credit, there is nothing to the\ncontrary. True, they themselves confess that neither the miraculous\npretensions of Jesus himself, nor their own testimony with reference to\nthe supernatural events of his life, met with any credit from by far\nthe greater part of those living at the time, who had the means of\nsatisfying themselves of their truth or falsehood--means which no one at\nthe present day possesses. The people of Capernaum, consigned by Jesus\nto hell for unbelief, or his own brothers and sisters, may, for all\nthat any one now can tell, have been as competent and truthful, in every\nrespect, as the publican Matthew, or the fishermen Peter and John. The\nRoman governors, the Jewish high-priests, Gamaliel and the other rabbis,\nwhy are they to be accounted less trustworthy, less able to discern\ntruth from pretence, than Paul and Luke? The following particulars, with\nreference to its writers, are to be gleaned from the New Testament:--\n\n(1.) Matthew, whose name the first Gospel bears, was a tax-gatherer,\nsitting at the receipt of custom (Matt. ix. 9), in the thirty-first year\nof Jesus' life, when he became a follower of Jesus. Whether they\nknew each other previously is not mentioned. He was alive after the\ncrucifixion, but no separate mention is made of him subsequent to Acts\ni. 13.\n\n(2.) Mark, the writer of the second Gospel, is not mentioned before Acts\nxii. 12 (ordinary chronology, a.d. 43 to 47), and then it is as the son\nof one Mary, to whose house Peter went after his miraculous liberation\nfrom prison. He accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their first mission to\nthe Gentiles, but soon left them. A quarrel afterwards occurred between\nthe two apostles on his account. Paul was hurt at the way in which he\nhad turned back at the outset, and objected to take him on their second\nmission. Barnabas insisted that he should go. But if he is the same\nMark mentioned in Colossians iv. 10, 2 Tim. iv. 11, and Philemon 24, a\nreconciliation with Paul had taken place, and he was alive and in Rome\nin a.d. 66. Again, Peter in his first epistle thus refers to him, \"The\nchurch that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you, and\nso doth Marcus my son.\" It cannot be gathered from the New Testament\nthat Mark (even if he had been the young man with the linen garment\nabout his naked body [Mark xiv. 51, 52], as some fondly conjecture) knew\nanything of Jesus personally; but his own and his mother's connection\nwith Peter is shown to have been an intimate one. From the passage in\nPhilemon, also, it appears that he was at Rome, along with Luke, in\nattendance on Paul.\n\n(3.) Of Luke, the writer of the third Gospel and of the Acts, the first\nmention is in Acts xvi. 10 (ordinary chronology, A.D. 53), where the\n\"we\" first appears in the narrative. Thereafter he was the almost\nconstant companion of Paul in his journeys. He is also mentioned (2\nTim. iv. 11) as being alive in a.d. 66, in attendance on Paul in Rome.\nAlthough he claims (Luke i. 1-4) \"a perfect understanding of all things\nfrom the very first,\" he places himself among those who received their\ninformation from the \"eye-witnesses and ministers of the word;\" so that\nhe himself knew nothing of Jesus or of the events of his life. He opens\nhis Gospel thus: \"Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in\norder a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among\nus.\" In his time, then, there were many different narratives of the\nlife of Jesus. It is not clear whether Luke considered these erroneous,\nand requiring correction by the \"perfect understanding\" possessed by\nhimself, or whether he was merely following the example of others in\nsetting forth in order the events as he himself understood them.\n\n(4.) John, whose name the fourth Gospel bears, and who is held to be the\nauthor also of three epistles and the Revelation, became a follower of\nJesus in the thirty-first year of Jesus' life (Matt, iv. 18, 22; Mark i.\n16-20; Luke v. 1-11). He does not claim, nor is there any mention, that\nthey were acquainted before, unless he was one of the two mentioned\nin John i. 37. He is said to have lived till a.d. 96. Jesus at the\ncrucifixion (John xix. 25-27) left his mother Mary in charge of John,\nwho had thus the very best opportunity of informing himself of all the\ncircumstances within her knowledge.\n\n(5.) Peter, if the first three Gospels are to be followed, became a\nfollower of Jesus at the Sea of Galilee, at the same time as the apostle\nJohn, that is, after the imprisonment of John the Baptist (Matt. iv.\n18-22; Mark i. 16-20; Luke v. 1-11). But in the fourth Gospel (John\ni. 40-42) both Jesus and Peter are mentioned together as following the\npreaching of John the Baptist. Peter is said to have died about a.d. 66.\n\n(6.) Paul's first connection with Christianity was after his persecuting\njourney to Damascus (Acts ix.; ordinary chronology, a.d. 35), and it is\nbelieved that he suffered death at Rome, a.d. 68. With the exception of\nthe miraculous appearance of Jesus while Paul was on the way to execute\nhis persecuting mission at Damascus, and it may be the trance referred\nto in 2 Cor. xii. 1-4, it is not claimed for him that he possessed any\nknowledge of the events in the life of Jesus beyond what he learned from\nothers.\n\nOf the six writers in the New Testament, then, who record facts\nin connection with the life of Jesus, three--Matthew, John, and\nPeter--claim to have been his companions, and three--Mark, Luke,\nand Paul--with the exception just mentioned in the case of the last,\nreceived their information from others.\n\n10. The foregoing considerations will serve to show that this inquiry\ninto the evidence on which rest the supernatural credentials said to\nhave been given to the claims of Jesus to the worship of mankind,\nwill be proceeded with on the most favourable view possible for these\nclaims--\n\n(1.) By adopting what is held by Christians to be a divine and righteous\nrule of evidence,--\"That at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth\nof three witnesses, shall the matter be established.\"\n\n(2.) By examining the claim of the New Testament to be a development and\nfulfilment of the Old.\n\n(3.) By assuming that the books of the Old and New Testaments were\nwritten by those whose names they bear, and at the times generally\nbelieved by Christians.\n\n(4.) By examining these books one with another, and travelling beyond\nthem only so far as the strict requirements of the subject necessitate.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TWO TESTS.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. THE BIRTH OF JESUS, AND THE SUPERNATURAL EVENTS CONNECTED\nTHEREWITH\n\nLuke i., ii.; Matt i., ii.\n\na. The appearances of the angel Gabriel to Zacharias and Mary. b. The\nappearances of the angel of the Lord to Joseph in dreams.\n\nc. The visit of the wise men of the East.\n\nd. The appearance of the angel and the heavenly host to the shepherds on\nthe plains of Bethlehem.\n\nFIRST TEST.--\"In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be\nestablished.\"\n\nMark and John pass by the birth and upbringing of Jesus in silence.\nJohn, who knew Mary, and to whose care Mary was consigned by the\nexpiring Jesus, would have been the most competent of all to record _her\nversion_ of the wondrous experiences of her cousin, herself, and her\nhusband, in connection with the births of John the Baptist and of Jesus,\nyet he has not one word concerning them. Matthew, who may have known\nMary and Joseph, has only meagre statements, very unlike what would be\nderived directly from either of the parents. But there is nothing to\nshow from whom Matthew obtained his information. The detailed narration\nof the angelic appearances is made by Luke, who, so far as is known, was\nnever at Jerusalem at all, far less ever came into contact with Mary.\nWhat, then, have we here?\n\n_John_, the companion and best loved disciple of Jesus, the custodian\nof Mary, the most competent of all to narrate occurrences within her\nknowledge,--Silent.\n\n_Mark_, the son of a woman known to Peter and the other companions of\nJesus, and himself a companion of Peter, who would have been aware of\nthese occurrences, if they had been believed among the very earliest\nChristian circle,--Silent.\n\n_Matthew_, the companion of Jesus, who may have known Mary and\nJoseph,--Records three angel-visits to Joseph in dreams, and the visit\nof the wise men of the East, but is silent as to-all the marvels of\nLuke.--Is silent as to Matthew's marvels, but sets forth, in detail,\nangel-visits to Zacharias and Mary, and the appearance to the shepherds\nat Bethlehem.\n\nLuke, who narrates the testimony of others, and does not name his\ninformants, merely stating that they were eyewitnesses and ministers of\nthe word, and who writes at least fifty years after the events referred\nto.\n\nIn the mouth of two, or in the mouth of three witnesses, nay, even in\nthe mouth of one witness, is any one of these incidents established?\n\n'But let them be examined separately in detail:---\n\n(a.) Luke states that while the Jewish priest Zacharias, in the order\nof his course, was burning incense in the temple, the angel of the Lord\nappeared, standing on the right side of the altar. The old priest was\nstartled. The angel told him that his wife Elizabeth should bear a son,\nwho should be great in the sight of the Lord, who should turn many of\nthe children of Israel to the Lord their God, and make ready a people\nprepared for the Lord. Zacharias had a misgiving that the event\npredicted could not well happen, as he himself was an old man, and his\nwife \"well stricken in years.\" Whereupon the angel announced himself\nto be Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and forthwith he\ninflicted dumbness on Zacharias, to last until the child was born, as\na punishment for his very reasonable doubt. Hark! the clanking clog\nof priestcraft the harsh ring of intolerance! Punishment because of\nreasonable doubt of a supernatural event not verified! Are the angels,\nthen, on the side of the persecutors? Are they so sensitive of their\n\"_ipse dixit?_\" Thomas the disciple, it is mentioned, dis-believed in\nthe risen Jesus, but Jesus appeared again to satisfy his doubts. Sarah,\nthe wife of Abraham, laughed heartily when she heard the Lord announcing\nto her husband that she should bear a son when her child-bearing\ncondition was past, and was kindly rebuked. Jesus in John, and the Lord\nin Genesis, had a tenderness to human doubt of a reasonable character;\nbut Luke's peremptory angel was not for one moment to be gainsaid. Is\nthis disposition angelic or earthly? Has such a temper of mind never\nbeen known among men? But to return to the narrative. Zacharias himself\nwas the only one who saw the angel. Aged at the date of John's birth,\nneither he nor his wife could have been alive when Luke wrote. Who,\nthen, came between Zacharias and Luke? Whose report has Luke credited?\nThis is not a question of the credibility of Zacharias or the\ncredibility of Luke, but of some unknown go-between, one or more. And\ncan such unknown go-between be credited in view of the silence of John\nand Matthew; in view of the silence of Mark, the companion of Peter, who\nwas (John i 41) a follower of John the Baptist? Surely the hesitating\nZachariases, the doubting Thomases, and the mocking Sarahs of modern\ntimes are to be dealt with tenderly.\n\nLuke goes on to narrate that, in the sixth month afterwards, the same\nangel Gabriel appeared to a virgin named Mary, betrothed to Joseph, a\ndescendant of King David. The angel hailed her as the divinely favoured\namong women. She was very startled, wondering what he could mean by this\nstyle of address. He proceeded to tell her that she was to be the mother\nof a son, to be called the Son of the Highest, who was to reign for\never. She (naturally enough, were it not that she was about to be\nmarried) asked how that could be, in view of her virgin condition. More\ngracious to the hesitation of the timid maiden than to that of the aged\npriest, he replied, \"The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power\nof the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore, also, that holy thing\nwhich shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.\" He then\ntold her that her Cousin Elizabeth, hitherto barren, was in her sixth\nmonth, and asserted that with God \"nothing shall be impossible.\" She\nmade a sweetly-submissive speech in reply, and the angel went away.\nHere, again, is the same lack of connecting evidence. Mary alone saw the\nangel. Who were the go-betweens, the transmitters of the tale to Luke?\nWhy the silence of Matthew, Mark, and John, especially John, Mary's\ncustodian? Matthew mentions that Mary was found with child by the Holy\nGhost; that this was revealed to Joseph in a dream; but he has not one\nword of the angel-visit to Mary. Moreover, in the next chapter, Luke\nrelates a circumstance quite inconsistent with this angel-visit. The\naged Simeon made some striking statements with reference to the destiny\nof the child, whom he met in the temple; and Luke adds, \"Joseph and his\nmother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.\" But Simeon's\nstatements were far less strong than the angel's. Can Mary, then, have\nforgotten the angel's visit? Did she not tell Joseph of it? Can she\nhave forgotten her memorable visit to Cousin Elizabeth, when they\ncongratulated each other on their respective conditions, and when even\nJohn the Baptist, before he saw the light, leaped for joy at Mary's\nsalutation of his mother? If not, where was there room for marvel at\nSimeon's vaticination?\n\n(6.) Matthew's account commences with Joseph's discovery of the\ncondition of his betrothed. \"Before they came together she was found\nwith child of the Holy Ghost,\" He does not mention how this discovery\nwas made; if it was when Mary's condition could be no longer hid, or\nif Mary informed him as soon as she found herself pregnant, and then\nmentioned whatever grounds she had for asserting that this was the\nresult of a supernatural \"overshadowing.\" In any case, Matthew's account\nimplies that at first Joseph doubted her, and thought that she had been\nunfaithful to him; but as he was a quiet man, averse to unnecessary\nscandal, he resolved to conceal her in some way. Yet, if Luke's\nangel-visit to Mary ever occurred, why was not Joseph informed of it at\nthe time, for then there would have been no doubt on his mind that\nher conception was supernatural? Why was he not informed of the\ncongratulatory visit to Cousin Elizabeth, of her speech and John the\nBaptist's joyous bound? Cousin Elizabeth, according to Luke, had no\ndoubt that Mary was the \"mother of my Lord.\" Joseph, her betrothed,\naccording to Matthew, thought something quite different. While Joseph\nwas considering the best mode of concealing Mary, the angel of the Lord\nappeared to him \"in a dream,\" and directed him not to fear to take Mary\nto wife, for \"that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost\"\nAnd he obeyed; but he \"knew her not till she had brought forth her\nfirst-born.\"\n\nLuke's angel appeared to Zacharias and Mary in some visible shape, in\nbroad day, or, at all events, when they were fully awake; but Matthew's\nangel made himself known to Joseph in dreams--why the difference!--the\nobject being to induce Joseph to become the reputed father of a child\n_not his own_, and thus to conceal from the Jewish nation what is\nalleged to be the fulfilment of the prophecy that a \"virgin shall\nbe with child, and bring forth a son, and they shall call his name\nEmmanuel,\" &c. Are mystery and misrepresentation, then, of divine\nauthority? Are unbelieving Jews and Gentiles to be eternally reprobate\nfor not allowing that a man was other than the son of his reputed\nparents? An Almighty maker of the universe is here represented as\nbegetting a child by a virgin untouched by man, and so far from\ndisposing that this should be done in a way that would be clearly\nverified and apparent, either to the world at large or to any select\nportion of it, he--eternal God--is said to have proceeded in the\nclandestine way of directing, by means of an angel who manifested\nhimself in dreams, that Joseph should take this virgin to wife, and pass\noff the divine offspring as his own son, that thus the wondrous birth on\nwhich so much depended might be concealed.\n\nMatthew further mentions two subsequent appearances of the angel of the\nLord to Joseph in dreams, the first directing him to take the child to\nEgypt to be out of the way of Herod's massacre, and then, when Herod\nwas dead, directing him to return to Judea. Luke, on the other hand,\npractically ignores Joseph in the whole transaction of the birth of\nJesus. He makes no mention of the way in which Mary informed her lover;\nof the condition she was in, and merely brings him in when the birth\nis about to take place, as proceeding from Nazareth to Bethlehem, along\nwith Mary, to be taxed. While Matthew avers that he was desirous of\nsaving Mary's good name, there is nothing in Luke to show that Joseph\never knew of Mary being with child before he married her; and for all\nthat is there stated, he may have believed that Jesus was his own son;\nLuke's only later reference to Joseph in connection with Jesus, is in\nhis account of the visit to the temple, when the boy was twelve years\nold. Discovering that he was not among the homeward-bound company,\nJoseph and Mary returned to Jerusalem, and found him in the temple\nposing the doctors, when his mother said, \"Son, why hast thou thus dealt\nwith us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.\" The\nreply was, \"How is it ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about\nmy Father's business?\" and Luke adds, \"They understood not the saying\nwhich he spake unto them.\" How, then, can the angel-visit to Mary be\ntrue, or the three angel-visits to the slumbering Joseph? For if these\nbe not false, Joseph and Mary were the two human beings at the time who\ndid understand fully who this wondrous child was.\n\n(c and d.) The two further supernatural incidents in connection with\nthe birth of Jesus (the wise men of the East and the appearance to the\nBethlehem shepherds) remain to be considered. The details of the one are\nquite irreconcilable with those of the other.\n\n(c) Matthew states that on the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, in the reign\nof King Herod, certain wise men from the East came to Jerusalem. They\nannounced that the object of their visit was to worship the new-born\nKing of the Jews, whose natal star they had seen in the East. On hearing\nthis Herod was much troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Herod sent for\nthe priests to inquire of them where Christ, the anointed one, was to\nbe born. On the authority of the prophecy, Micah v. 2, they informed him\nthat the Ruler of Israel was to come out of Bethlehem. Herod then had\na private conference with the wise men, eagerly asked when the star\nappeared, charged them to proceed to Bethlehem and search for the child,\nand when they had found him to bring him word again that he himself\nmight go and worship him. On leaving Herod, the very star they had seen\nin the East made its appearance again, and went: before them until it\nbecame stationary above the house where Jesus was. They entered the\nhouse, found Mary and her infant boy, fell down and worshipped him, and\noffered him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Then being warned of\nGod in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they went back by\nanother route to their own country. After this, and again in a dream,\nJoseph was warned to take Jesus to Egypt, to avoid a massacre which\nHerod ordered, \"when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men,\" of all\nthe children in Bethlehem two years old and under, \"according to the\ntime which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.\" After Herod's\ndeath, Joseph was directed, in another dream, to return to Judea;\nbut when he learned that Herod's son was reigning there he settled in\nNazareth of Galilee.\n\nLuke's account is that Joseph and Mary dwelt in Nazareth before the\nangel-visit to Mary; that he and Mary went up from there to Bethlehem to\nbe taxed; that Jesus was born while they were at. Bethlehem;\nthat he was circumcised on the eighth day; that when Mary's\npurification--thirty-three days--was at an end they took the babe to\nJerusalem to present him to the Lord in the temple; and that when they\nhad performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned\nto Galilee, \"_to their own city Nazareth_.\"\n\nThe glaring contradiction here between Luke and Matthew need scarce\nbe dwelt on. Luke states that Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem from\nNazareth: Matthew's account implies that they were not in Nazareth until\nthe return from Egypt, and that going to Nazareth at all was because\nof a warning from God in a dream. Matthew states that they fled from\nBethlehem to Egypt to avoid the wrath of Herod: Luke, that they brought\nthe child to Jerusalem, where Herod, according to Matthew, was, and that\nhe was openly acknowledged in the temple by Simeon and Anna. Matthew\nstates that, at Herod's death, they went from Egypt to Nazareth,\navoiding Judea; Luke, that they went straight from Jerusalem to Nazareth\nin a very short time after the birth of Jesus.\n\nMatthew places the birth of Jesus in the reign of King Herod; Luke,\nduring the taxing made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria, which,\nfollowing Josephus, was not till after the death of Archelaus, Herod's\nsuccessor. This discrepancy has given much anxious concern to the\n\"reconcilers\" and critics, the latest solution being a conjecture,\nstated to rest \"on good grounds,\" that Cyrenius was _twice_ governor of\nSyria, first towards the close of Herod's life, afterwards on the death\nof Archelaus. For the present purpose, it is assumed that Matthew and\nLuke refer to the same period.\n\nThe tale of the wise men suggests many questions. What came of them\nafterwards? How many were there? Where did they come from? How, when\nthey saw the star in the East, did they know that it indicated the birth\nof a King of the Jews? What special _Jewish_ appearance did it present?\nand what end was their heaven-directed visit to serve? Not to proclaim\nJesus to the Jews as their king and ruler; not to accredit them as\nwitnesses to proclaim his divinity far and wide; not, so far as is\nstated, to bring their own minds to the saving belief that he was the\nSaviour of the world; not even to confirm Mary and Joseph's faith--for\nif the angel-visits are true that would have been unnecessary; but to\noffer to him, the professed Lord of heaven and earth, such trumpery\ngifts as were laid upon the altars of the old gods, or presented to baby\nprinces of this world.\n\n(d.) Luke narrates that, at the birth of Jesus, a company of\nshepherds--how many is not mentioned--were watching their flocks at\nnight in the fields, when \"lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and\nthe glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.\nAnd the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold I bring you good\ntidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born\nthis day in the city of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord. And this\nshall be a sign unto you: ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling\nclothes lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a\nmultitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, Glory to God\nin the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men.\" The shepherds\nforthwith hastened to Bethlehem, and discovered Mary, Joseph, and the\ninfant boy lying in a manger. Finding the vision they had seen thus\nexactly realised, they spread abroad, among their wondering countrymen,\n\"the saying that was told them concerning this child.\" \"But Mary kept\nall these things, and pondered them in her heart.\"\n\nThe question here again arises: between the shepherds, the eye-witnesses\nof this event, and Luke, who wrote at least fifty years after, who were\nthe go-betweens? Or if the information came from Mary, why are Matthew,\nMark, and, above all, John silent? And what became of the shepherds?\nWhen Jesus began his public ministry, where were they? Where those they\ninformed? Joseph and Mary, by Luke's account, had come from Nazareth to\nBethlehem to be taxed, and returned. Thus they would have been known\nin Bethlehem as belonging to Nazareth, and of the house and lineage\nof David. There would not then have been difficulty in keeping them in\nview. And would men who had seen so remarkable an appearance, to whom\nthe angel of the Lord had spoken, who had heard the heavenly host\nsinging, manifestations more glorious than before or since have been\nvouchsafed to any one, have lost sight of the wondrous child, or would\nthose whom they informed have lost sight of him? Yet, during the three\nyears' public appearance of Jesus, not one of them, so far as can be\ngathered, is to be found among his followers.\n\n(e and d.) That the visit of the wise men of the East, and the\nappearance to the shepherds, can both be true, is impossible. Luke\nis very precise as to the length of the stay of Joseph and Mary in\nBethlehem after the birth of Jesus. It extended to the eighth day\nfor circumcision, and to the thirty-third day after this for Mary's\npurification. Then they left Bethlehem for Jerusalem, there \"performed\nall things according to the law of the Lord,\" and returned straight\nto Galilee. During the forty or forty-one days of the stay at\nBethlehem--five miles from Jerusalem--the shepherds were spreading\nabroad \"the saying that was told them concerning this child.\" That he\nwas a \"Saviour, born in the city of David, Christ the Lord.\" The visit\nof the wise men must have occurred in the course of these forty-one\ndays. Their inquiry put all Jerusalem in a ferment, roused Herod's\njealousy, set him inquiring where Christ should be born, induced the\nmost eager desire to find the new-born babe, that he might remove such\nan obstacle from his path, _all the while that the shepherds in the\nneighboring district were publishing the glad tidings of his birth_.\nThe wise men were guided by a star to the house where Joseph and Mary\nstayed, saw and worshipped the wondrous child, and were warned of God\nin a dream to depart to their own country privately; _but no such\nadmonition to keep silence restrained the outspoken shepherds in the\nclose vicinity of Herod_. To avoid Herod's wrath, Joseph \"took the young\nchild and his mother by night and departed into Egypt,\" _just at the\ntime \"when the days of her purification, according to the law of Moses,\nwere accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the\nLord,\" Herod being at Jerusalem, and having had his jealousy roused\nby the tale of the wise men_. Can aught more utterly irreconcilable\nbe imagined? As, then, the falsehood of the accusers of Susanna in the\nApocrypha was detected, when they were examined apart by Daniel, on the\none affirming that her crime was committed \"under a mastic tree\" and the\nother \"under a holm tree,\" so such contradiction as that between Matthew\nand Luke wholly destroys the credit of both narratives. What is there\nfor a conscience-satisfying belief to rest upon?\n\nSECOND TEST.--_The claim of the New Testament to represent the Jewish\nJehovah._\n\n1.. The deity begetting a mortal child by a mortal woman, was this a\nJewish or a Gentile idea? That it was not a Jewish idea will be shown\nwhen the alleged fulfilment of Isaiah vii. 14,--\"Behold a virgin shall\nconceive\" &c., is considered. That it was a common Gentile idea is most\nmanifest. A glowing account of Jupiter's commerce with the fair ones of\nthe earth is to be found in his amorous address to his sister-wife\nJuno (_Iliad_, Book xiv. 280-353). The other gods and goddesses in like\nmanner bestowed their favours on mortals, and begat mortal children.\nPlato was said to be the child of a virgin by Apollo. Apollo appeared\nto her betrothed in a dream, and told him his bride was with child, on\nwhich he delayed his marriage. What is this but the tale of Mary and\nJoseph in another form? Which is the original? Plutarch also mentions\nthat a similar notion was held by the Egyptians, but of male gods only.\n\"The Egyptians, indeed, make a distinction in this case, which they\nthink not an absurd one, that it is not impossible for a woman to be\nimpregnated by the approach of some divine spirit, but that a man\ncan have no corporeal intercourse with a goddess.\" This is an exactly\nsimilar notion to Luke's \"overshadowing\" of Mary. \"Out of Egypt have I\ncalled my son,\" is perfectly true in a sense. Confucius also, in one of\nthe sacred books of the Chinese, refers to the great Holy One, who would\nappear in the latter days, born of a virgin, whose name shall be the\nPrince of Peace.\n\nSimilar, too, are the legends of the fabled founders of some, to whom so\nmany of the civil and religious institutions of the city were ascribed.\nRomulus and Remus were sons of the war-god Mars. Their mother Rhea took\nrefuge in a cave: the meeting of the god and the mortal was attended\nby prodigies: the heaven was darkened, the sun eclipsed: her celestial\nlover announced to Rhea that she should bear twin-sons, to be renowned\nin arms, and then ascended in a cloud from the earth. Servius Tullius,\nalso, had a like origin. His mother, a slave in the household of\nTarquin, beheld a divine appearance on the hearth, and afterwards was\n\"found with child\" by the god. The child, when born, was named\nServius, from his mother's condition. During its sleep she saw its head\nsurrounded by flames, which were extinguished when she awakened it. The\nfounder, likewise, of the Sabine town of Cures was a son of Mars. His\nmother, a virgin of noble family, seized with divine favour, while\ndancing in the temple, entered the shrine, and became pregnant by the\ngod. Her son, she is told, would be of superhuman beauty, matchless in\ndeeds of arms. So that a Roman on his conversion had merely to transfer\nto Jesus a like belief to those in which he had been nurtured with\nreference to the births of the fabled founders and ancient kings of his\nown city, up to whom the political and religious practices which he had\nbeen taught to regard as sacred were traced. To him there would have\nbeen nothing incredible in the story of Mary's conception. The claim\nof the church _of Rome_ to be the true church of Christ may thus, in a\ncertain sense, be cordially acquiesced in.\n\n2. The Son of God, by a mortal woman, brought up as the child of that\nwoman and her husband,--Is that a proceeding proper to the deity of the\nOld Testament? The writings and the spirit of Moses and the prophets\nemphatically answer, No.\n\nBut it exactly corresponds with the Grecian legends of the \"father of\ngods and men.\" The suffering hero Hercules, son of Jupiter and Alcmena,\nbrought up by her and her husband Amphitryon, is a memorable pagan tale\nof a kindred character.\n\n3. The birth of an illustrious personage made manifest by a star,--Is\nthat consistent with the attributes of the Jewish Jehovah? The stars in\nthe Old Testament are ever referred to as witnesses to the might of the\nEternal, and those who sought to divine earthly events by their courses,\nconjunctions, or appearances, were treated with derision. \"Let now the\nastrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators stand up\nand save thee from these things that shall come upon thee.\" This is\naddressed by Isaiah, xlvii. 13, to the daughter of the Chaldeans,\nBabylon. Matthew's stargazing wise men would thus have been \"spued out\nof the mouth\" of the Jewish Jehovah.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. THE SUPERNATURAL TESTIMONIES DURING THE LIFETIME OF JESUS\n\n(a.) The descent of the Holy Spirit, like a dove, and the voice from\nheaven, at his baptism. (b.) The transfiguration, and the voice then\nheard; also the voice from heaven, mentioned in John xii 28-31. (c.) The\ntestimony of the devils. (d.) The forty days' fast, the temptation by\nSatan, and the subsequent ministration of angels. (e) The earthquake and\nrending of the veil of the temple at the crucifixion.\n\n(a.) _The occurrences at the baptism_ (Matt. iii.; Mark i. 1-11; Luke\niii. 21, 22; John i. 29-34).\n\nFIRST TEST.--\"_In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word\nbe established_.\"\n\nIn the fourth gospel the account given is expressly stated to be the\nrecord of John the Baptist. It does not appear from whom the particulars\nin the other three gospels were derived.\n\nWith the exception of the angel-visit to Zacharias, at his birth,\nand the dove and voice at the baptism of Jesus, there is nothing\nsupernatural in connection with John. He is represented as a\nplain-spoken, downright enthusiast, held in esteem by king and people,\nand as appropriating to himself the prophecy of Isaiah--\"A voice of one\ncrying in the wilderness, preparing the way of the Lord, making straight\nin the desert a highway for our God.\" He lived a rude life in the\ndesert, practised fasting and purifying, and baptized his followers. By\nhis outspokenness he incurred the enmity of Herodias, the wife of Herod,\nwho obtained his head as a reward for the pleasure given to her husband\nby her daughter's dancing. In comparing then his record, as found in\nJohn, with the statements of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, one most marked\ndivergence appears. The latter assert that, on Jesus coming to be\nbaptized, the Baptist objected, saying, \"I have need to be baptized of\nthee, comest thou to me:\" thus implying a knowledge on John's part that\nJesus was the Christ. Whereas the former pointedly states, on John's\nown authority that _he did not know_ Jesus as the Messiah until the\nsupernatural appearance of the dove occurred. \"_I knew him not_, but he\nthat sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me,\" &c.. If the\naccount in the fourth gospel then is true, Matthew's account on this\npoint must be false, and the angel-appearance to Zacharias, and John's\ngladsome leap in his mother's womb on Mary's salutation of Elizabeth,\nare discredited. Cousin Elizabeth addressed Mary as \"the mother of my\nLord;\" and had this been so, would not John have been brought up in the\nbelief that Jesus was \"the Lord,\" whose advent he was to prepare? Again,\nthe \"record\" of John the Baptist in the fourth gospel does not confirm\nor corroborate the \"voice from heaven, This is my beloved Son, in whom\nI am well pleased,\" at the baptism, mentioned in the other gospels. John\nwould surely have heard these wondrous words, and could not well have\nforgotten them.\n\nSECOND TEST.---_The claim of the New Testament to represent the Jewish\nJehovah_.\n\n1. A point to be specially noticed is John's declaration, that he who\nsent him to baptize with water had charged him that the Messiah would be\nmade manifest by the spirit of God descending from heaven like a dove,\nand alighting and remaining on him. John affirms that he bare record\nthat Jesus was the Son of God, because in his case this condition was\nfulfilled. Now, who sent John to baptize with water? Is there anything\nin the Old Testament scriptures to give baptism with water place as an\nordinance of the being therein upheld as divine, and whom both John the\nBaptist and Jesus claimed to represent? Not one word! Who, then, sent\nJohn to baptize with water? Did he receive his directions from angels\nin dreams or otherwise? Some of the lustrations in connection with the\nheathen temples were, however, very similar to the ordinance of baptism\nsince practised among Christians.\n\n2. The spirit of the Eternal in a bodily shape like a dove! is that an\nOld Testament prediction, an Old Testament belief? Let the following\npassages reply:--Isaiah xl. 25, \"To whom then will ye liken me, or shall\nI be equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold\nwho hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number,\"\n&c. Deut. iv. 15-17,--\"Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for\nye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you\nin Horeb out of the midst of the fire: lest ye corrupt yourselves, and\nmake you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness\nof male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the\nlikeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air,\" &c. Here then, at\nthe very outset, are John the Baptist and Jesus represented as connected\nwith a marvellous event, utterly abhorrent to the Old Testament deity,\nwhose will and purpose they claimed to be fulfilling!\n\nBut though the conception of the deity appearing in the shape of any\nbird or beast was wholly foreign to the Old Testament writers, it was\none quite familiar to the heathen world. In the _Iliad_, for instance,\nthe god Sleep, like the shrill bird of night, alighting, perched on\nthe loftiest fir on Mount Ida, to aid the amorous design of Juno on\nmightiest Jove; Apollo and Pallas were seated on a lofty beech, like\ntwo vultures, to watch the duel between Ajax and Hector. The Egyptian\ndeities had each their appropriate symbol-beast, bird, or reptile. A\ndove, as an emblem of meekness and peace, was no doubt deemed by the\ngospel compilers the most fitting of what they wished to convey as the\nmission of Jesus; but the conception being heathen, and not Jewish,\nit discredits the claim of Christianity, that the New Testament is a\ncontinuation and fulfilment of the Old.\n\n(h) The transfiguration, &c. (Matt. xvii. 1-13; Mark ix, 243; Luke ix.\n28-36). Jesus took Peter and James and John along with him into a high\nmountain apart to pray. While praying he was transfigured before them;\nhis face shone as the sun; his raiment glistened; Moses and Elias\nappeared in glory talking with him, and spoke of the decease which he\nshould accomplish at Jerusalem; Peter and the others were heavy with\nsleep, but when awake they saw his glory and the two that were with him;\nPeter, in bewilderment, suggested that three tabernacles be made, one\nfor Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elias; a bright cloud overshadowed\nthem, and a voice out of the cloud said, \"This is my beloved Son, in\nwhom I am well pleased.\" On this the disciples fell on their faces in\nfear, and when they revived they saw no one except Jesus himself. He\ncharged them to conceal what they had seen until after his resurrection.\n\n_John_ makes no mention of the transfiguration; but in chapter xii\n28-30, when Jesus is at Jerusalem \"exhorting the people, and praying,\nFather, glorify thy name; then came there a voice from heaven, saying,\nI have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people,\nthere-tore, that stood by and heard it said that it thundered, others\nsaid, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came\nnot because of me, but for your sakes.\"\n\nPeter, 2nd epistle i. 17,--\"For he received from God the Father honour\nand glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory,\nThis is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice, which\ncame from heaven, we heard when we were with him in the holy mount.\"\n\nThe idea is an old one that because light of intense brilliancy dazzles\nthe human eye it is therefore the dwelling-place and the raiment of the\ninhabitants of heaven, pictured thus as a refulgent abode with refulgent\nbeings. \"Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment\" (Psalm civ.\n2); \"At length do thou come, we pray, with a cloud thy shining shoulders\nveiled, O Augur Apollo!\" (Horace i. 2, 31,) are instances. Glory and\ndazzling light meant the same thing. Now, light is known to be one of\nthe forms in which force manifests itself, convertible into the other\nforce-forms, and the other force-forms, convertible into it. Still, the\naccount of the transfiguration, if the evidence on which it rests\nwere at all trustworthy, would be a very important credential to the\nsupernatural pretensions of Jesus, under the claim that such special\nmanifestations of a Power beyond and supreme over Nature were made so as\nbest to suit the comprehension of those for whom they were intended, and\nas showing that Jesus could so command the force-forms of Nature as to\nirradiate his person at will. What, then, is the evidence? The persons\nwho witnessed the occurrence were Peter, James, and John, and while\nit lasted they were in a state of bewilderment, and part of the time\nasleep. Jesus commanded them to conceal what they had seen until after\nhis resurrection. Matthew, therefore, could not have heard of it at\nthe time it happened, and he does not state from whom he received the\nparticulars he narrates. Perhaps from the forward Peter, who, in his\nepistle quoted above, confirms the account. For, strange to say, John,\nthe other eye-witness, has not one word in support of the supernatural\nappearance on the mount of transfiguration. Of three eyewitnesses there\nis only the testimony of one, Peter; and although John, one of the\nothers, has written an account of the life of Jesus, he passes by this\nstriking event in silence. So the evidence fails. Can it, then, have\nbeen a dream of Peter, when with Jesus, James, and John in some lonely\nmountain in Galilee?\n\nBut though John does not mention the marvellous transfiguration, and\nthe voice from heaven then heard, he does narrate a somewhat similar\noccurrence, in broad day, at Jerusalem. But Matthew, who would have been\npresent, does not confirm John's statement. What, then, is to be said?\nWhat faith can righteously rest on such testimony?\n\n(c.) _The testimonies of the devils_ (Matt. viii. 29; xxxi. 32; Mark i.\n24; i. 34; iii 11, 12; v. 7; Luke iv. 34; iv. 41; viii. 28).\n\n(1.) Devils, who came out of many, cried out that Jesus was Christ, the\nSon of God; but he rebuked them and suffered them not to speak, because\nthey knew him. (2.) Some expressed fear of his power thus, \"Let us\nalone, what have we to do with thee, Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to\ndestroy us? to torment us before the time? I know thee who thou art, the\nHoly One of God.\" (3.) The following remarkable event is recorded: A man\nwith an unclean spirit, untamable, who had burst asunder his chains and\nfetters, and was always, night and day, in the mountains and among the\ntombs, crying and cutting himself with stones, saw Jesus afar off, ran\nand worshipped him, exclaiming, \"What have I to do with thee, Jesus,\nthe Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God that thou torment me\nnot.\" Jesus asked him, \"What is thy name?\" and he replied, \"My name is\nLegion, for we are many.\" Jesus cast out the legion, and, at their own\nrequest, gave c them permission to enter a herd of two thousand swine\nfeeding close by, with the result that they all ran violently down a\nsteep place into the sea, and were choked. What became of the devils is\nnot mentioned.\n\nPaul (1 Cor. x. 20) states, \"The things which the Gentiles sacrifice,\nthey sacrifice to devils, and not to God,\" devils here being synonymous\nwith the idols or gods of the Gentiles. In the following four passages\nin which devils are mentioned in the Old Testament (Lev. xvii. 7; Deut.\nxxxii. 17; 2 Chron. xi. 15; Psalm cvi. 37), the word is used in exactly\nthe same sense as by Paul. \"Devils,\" then, as indwelling unclean\nspirits, madly swaying their victims, or producing lunacy, blindness,\ndumbness, or other infirmities, are beings or influences quite unknown\nto the Old Testament writers. Moreover, in the Old Testament the heathen\ngods, though called devils, are derided as powerless. (See Elijah's\nmockery of Baal, and such passages as Psalm cxxxv. 15, 18.) In the\nfourth Gospel, too, there is scarcely any confirmation of the unclean\nspirits. The Jews, indeed, tell Jesus that he hath a devil, and is mad,\nshowing a belief on their part of possession in some form; but John\ndoes not corroborate one single instance of the devil-manifestations and\nexorcisms so prominently set forth in the other Gospels. If, then, in\nJesus' time there was a notion current among the Jews that madness and\nnatural diseases and defects were manifestations of the so-called evil\nprinciple, or were evil spirits or influences, whence was this most\nerroneous doctrine derived? Certainly not from their own Old Testament\nwritings. So far, therefore, the Old Testament discredits the accounts\nin Matthew, Mark, and Luke of the devils and their influences. It does\nnot recognise beings or powers acting in the way described. And John's\nsilence constitutes a fatal defect in the evidence in support of these\nmanifestations.\n\nIn the Old Testament (in such passages as Lev. xix. 31; xx. 27; Deut.\nxviii. 9, 12; Isa. viii. 19) reference is made to wizards, witches,\nand familiar spirits. Although the more ignorant and idol-affecting\nIsraelites, and the Godforsaken Saul were attracted by such pretences,\nit does not appear that Moses or the prophets believed that they were\nreal powers. Isaiah viii. 19 implies the contrary. Moses calls them\nthe \"abominations of those nations\" whom the Lord was to drive out of\nPalestine from before the children of Israel. The gift they assumed was\nblasphemy against Jehovah, usurpation of the prerogative of him who\n\"alone doeth wondrous things;\" and this being so, they were to be cut\noff from among his people. But the possession of a familiar spirit with\na gift of divination, or the power of witchcraft, or the evil spirit\nwhich put dissension between Abimelech and the Shechemites, or the\nevil spirit from the Lord manifested in Saul's jealousy of David, and\noccasionally succumbing to the charm of David's harp, or the lying\nspirit put by the Lord in the mouths of the prophets of Ahab, differ\ngreatly from such evil spirits,--_personal, separate from their victims,\nentering in, and coming out of them_, as the \"legion\" mentioned above,\nor the demon-torn youth (Luke ix. 37, 42), or the devil that was dumb\n(Luke xi. 14).*\n\n     * The Assyrians and Babylonians, however, among whom the\n     captive Jews were afterwards placed, believed that the world\n     teemed with malignant spirits, who were the authors of the\n     various diseases to which mankind are subject. The Jews of\n     the Talmud were imbued with the same idea.\n\nIn the Apocryphal book of Tobit, also, the evil spirit Asmodeus, who\nkilled the seven husbands of Raguel's daughter as they approached her,\nand who was at last driven forth by the smoke of the \"ashes of the\nperfumes and of the heart and liver of a fish,\" so that he \"fled into\nthe utmost parts of Egypt, and the angel bound him,\" differs from\nthe New Testament evil spirits in that he is represented rather as\n\"attendant\" on the maiden, than as \"indwelling,\" but has this similarity\nto them that he is mentioned as a distinct person, exercising a\nmalignant influence.\n\nIn a stela found at Thebes it is recorded that Barneses XII., while on\nhis way through Mesopotamia to collect tribute, was so enraptured with\nthe charms of a chieftain's daughter that he married her. Her father\nafterwards came to Thebes, to beg of the king the services of a\nphysician to effect the cure of a younger daughter possessed by an evil\nspirit. The physician sent, like Jesus' disciples (Luke ix. 40), could\nnot cast him out, and eleven years later the father went again to Thebes\nto sue the gods of Egypt for more effectual aid. The king then gave him\nthe use of the ark of the god Chons, which on arriving in Mesopotamia,\nafter a journey of eighteen months, immediately drove forth the evil\nspirit from out his victim. On this the Mesopotamian chieftain was\nunwilling to part with the ark; but after retaining it three years and\nnine months, being warned in a dream in which he saw the deity fly back\nto Egypt in the shape of a golden hawk, he returned the ark to Egypt, in\nthe thirty-third year of Rameses.\n\nThe Zoroastrian conception of the prince of the \"devils,\" Ahriman,\nand his attendant powers, reminds forcibly of the taunt of the Jews\nto Jesus, \"He casteth out devils through Beelzebub, the chief of the\ndevils.\" But how unlike this conception is to that of the impotent god\nof Ekron Beelzebub, referred to in 2 Kings i.\n\nThese instances abundantly suffice to show that the belief held by the\nJews in the time of Jesus, as to possession by evil or unclean spirits,\nor demons, or devils, was a belief gathered from the nations among whom\nthey were scattered after the first captivity, and that it would have\nbeen held by Moses as an \"abomination of those nations.\" What, then,\nbecomes of the testimony of the devils to the claim of Jesus? Moses and\nthe prophets would have held it in derision.\n\n(d.) _The temptation in the wilderness_ (Matt. iv. 1-11; Mark i. 12, 13;\nLuke iv. 1, 13).\n\nJesus, after his baptism, was led by the spirit into the wilderness to\nbe tempted of the devil. (1.) He fasted forty days and nights, and was\nthen hungered, when the tempter came to him requiring that, if he were\nthe son of God, he would turn the stones into bread. Jesus replied by\na verse from Deuteronomy,--\"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by\nevery word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.\" (2, Luke makes this\n3.) Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and setting him on a pinnacle\nof the temple, said \"If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for\nit is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee and, in\ntheir hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot\nagainst a stone.\" Jesus again replied by a verse from Deuteronomy, \"Thou\nshalt not tempt the Lord thy God.\" (3, Luke makes this 2.) The devil\nthen took him up to the summit of a very high mountain, showed him all\nthe kingdoms of the world and their glory, and said, \"All these things\nwill I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me,\" Jesus the\nthird time, after a \"Get thee hence Satan,\" replied by a verse from\nDeuteronomy, \"Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt\nthou serve.\" On this the devil left him, and angels came and ministered\nto him.\n\nThe two persons here concerned were Jesus and Satan. The testimony of\nthe latter illustrious personage is out of the question, partly because\nhe is not famed as a truthteller, partly because any intercourse between\nhim and the writers of the New Testament is not to be thought of. If,\nthen, Jesus gave the particulars to Matthew, why did the best-loved\ndisciple John not know of them? The details of the earlier life of\nJesus, prior to the Baptist's imprisonment, are more ample in his Gospel\nthan in the others; but so far from there being any mention of the\ntemptation, it would require much ingenuity to find a place for it in\nthe series of events he relates.\n\nThe most admirable lesson, however, which the tale conveys, or which may\nbe gathered from it, that neither for daily bread nor for vain-glory,\nnor for the sake of power and riches is truth in aught to be compromised\nor swerved from, may help to sustain those who go along with the present\ninquiry to persevere with it to the uttermost, whatever the consequences\nor whatever the conclusions it may lead to, think as they may of the\nforty days' fast, the wilderness and the wild beasts, Satan and the\nangels.\n\nIt will be proper here to contrast the conception of \"Satan\" in the New\nTestament with that in the Old.\n\nThe Satan of the temptation was a being capable of transporting Jesus\nfrom the wilderness to the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem, and\nagain to a mountain summit, where, in a moment of time, he showed him\nall the kingdoms of the world and their glory, the disposal of whose\ndominion he arrogated to himself. Again--Matt. xii. 22, 30--Jesus refers\nto Satan as the king of a demon kingdom opposed to the kingdom of God;\nMark iv. 15, as preventing the words of life from taking root in men's\nhearts; Luke x. 18, as one he himself had seen fall from heaven like\nlightning; Luke xiii. 16, as one who had bound a woman with infirmity\neighteen years; Luke xxii. 31, as desirous to sift Simon Peter as wheat;\nMatt. xiii. 39, as the enemy who sowed the tares among the wheat; Matt\nxxv. 41, as the being for whom and for whose angels everlasting fire has\nbeen prepared; John viii. 44, as the parent of the unbelieving Jews, a\nmurderer, and the father of lies. In Luke xxii. 3, John xiii. 27, Satan\nis referred to as entering into Judas Iscariot to tempt him to betray\nJesus.\n\nIn the apostolic writings he is mentioned--Acts v. 3--as filling the\nheart of Ananias to lie to the Holy Ghost; Acts xxvi. 18, as a power\nover men's minds opposed to the power of God; 1 Tim. i. 20, and 1 Cor.\nv. 5, as one to whom backsliders were to be delivered over; 2 Cor. ii.\n11, Eph. vi. 11, 1 Tim. iii. 7, as a wily adversary; 2 Cor. xi. 14, as\ntransformed into an angel of light; 1 Thess. ii. 18, as thwarting Paul's\nintentions; 2 Thess. ii 9, as one whose working is \"with all power, and\nsigns, and lying wonders;\" 1 Tim. v. 15, as one to whom backsliders turn\naside; 2 Tim. ii. 26, as an ensnarer of men; Heb. ii. 14, as \"him that\nhath the power of death;\" 1 Peter v. 8, as \"your adversary the devil,\"\nwho, \"as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour;\" 1 John\niii 8, as \"him who sinneth from the beginning;\" Rev. ii. 9, 10,\n13-24, iii. 9, as possessing a seat, a synagogue, and casting the true\nprofessors into prison; Rev. xii. 9, as \"the great dragon who was cast\nout (from heaven), that old serpent called the devil and Satan, who\ndeceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his\nangels were cast out with him;\" Rev. xii. 10, as \"the constant accuser\nof the brethren;\" Rev. xx. 2, as being bound a thousand years.\n\nOf this mighty and malignant being, is there any trace in the Old\nTestament? Is the existence of such a person, such a power, continuously\nand successfully working against God, consonant with Old Testament\nbelief? Isaiah (xlv. 5-7) boldly and decisively replies in the negative:\n\"I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me.... I\nform the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil; I the\nLord do all these things.\" Who or what, then, is the Satan of the Old\nTestament?\n\nThe translation of the Authorised Version, as it renders the same Hebrew\nword \"Satan\" in one place and \"adversary\" in others, tends to mislead.\nBut the following portions of Psalm cix. will show how the word was\nemployed:--\n\nVerse 6--\"Set thou a wicked man over him, and let Satan (an adversary)\nstand at his right hand.\" Verse 20--\"Let this be the reward of my\nadversaries (my Satans).\" Verse 29--\"Let mine adversaries (my Satans)\nbe clothed with shame.\"\n\nThe Old Testament Satan, therefore, is _not a particular person at all,\nbut a character which would apply to any one acting in opposition to\nanother_. Let this view be tested by the following instances:--\n\nNumbers xxii. 22--\"And God's anger was kindled because he (Balaam) went,\nand the angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary (a Satan)\nagainst him.\" _Here the Satan is the angel of the Lord_. 2 Sam. xxiv.\n1--\"And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and\nhe provoked David to number Israel.\" 1 Chron. xxi. 1--\"And Satan\n(an adversary) stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number\nIsrael.\"\n\nThese two passages, on comparison, _show that Jehovah himself was the\nSatan_ of David in this instance.\n\nJob i. 6-12; ii. 1-8.--On the day when the sons of God came to present\nthemselves before the Lord, Satan (the adversary) came also among them.\nThe Lord asked whence he came. Satan (the adversary) replied, \"From\ngoing to and fro on the earth.\" Then followed a discussion with\nreference to Job's piety. Satan (the adversary) suggested that Job's\nservice of God was not for nought; that if the Lord took away his wealth\nhe would curse. The Lord replied, \"Behold, all that he hath is in thy\npower; only on himself put not forth thine hand.\" Soon Job lost his\ncattle, his servants, his children. He resignedly said, \"The Lord gave\nand the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.\" On a second\nsimilar occasion Satan (the adversary) suggested that if Job's person\nwere touched he would \"curse thee (the Lord) to thy face.\" The Lord\nsaid, \"Behold, he is in thy hand, but spare his life.\" Satan (the\nadversary) smote Job with sore boils from head to foot. But he said,\n\"Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive\nevil?\"\n\nHere Job's adversary came into the presence of the Lord, among the\nsons of God, and discussed Job's case with Jehovah himself. Is the\nconception, then, that he was a messenger of the Lord, walking up\nand down through the earth, contemplating its inhabitants; that his\nobservation had shown him--if men then were like what they are now--that\ncalamities were not borne with patience, that penury and complaints,\nlosses and curses, went together; so that, when asked his opinion about\nthe well-to-do Job, he would not give him credit for being different to\nhis fellows? In this way he became his Satan or adversary. This appears\nto be what the writer would convey. But how unlike the \"roaring lion\" of\nthe New Testament.\n\nIt will be noticed how strictly the power of Job's adversary is limited\nto what Jehovah specifically permitted. So much so, that when the\ncalamities actually fell on Job he described them as from the Lord.\nIn no way whatever does the Satan here mentioned act in opposition to\nJehovah.\n\nZech. iii. 1, 2--\"And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing\nbefore the angel of the Lord, and Satan (the adversary) standing at his\nright hand to resist him. And the Lord said unto Satan (the adversary),\nThe Lord rebuke thee, O Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem,\nrebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Now Joshua was\nclothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel.\"\n\nThe conception here may be this: Joshua, with the filthy garments\n(figurative of the sins of Judah borne by the high priest, their\nrepresentative), standing before the angel of the Lord, was resisted by\n\"the adversary,\" or angel of divine justice. But the latter had to give\nway before the restoration of the divine favour. Or, more probably, \"the\nadversary\" may have been one of those who opposed the work of rebuilding\nJerusalem, as mentioned in the Book of Ezra.\n\nAll these considerations show conclusively that in the Old Testament\nconception of the Almighty there is _no room for_ such a being as the\narch-fiend of the New.\n\n(e) _The supernatural appearances at the crucifixion_ (Matt, xxvii.\n51-53; Mark xv. 38; Luke xxiii. 44, 45).\n\n(1.) The veil of the temple rent in twain from the top to the bottom.\n\n(2.) The earthquake and rending of the rocks.\n\n(3.) Darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour. (4.) The opening of\nthe graves and the rising of the bodies of the saints after his\nresurrection, who went into the holy city, and appeared to many.\n\n_John_ makes no mention of these marvels, but (xix. 25-27)states that he\nhimself was present at the crucifixion of Jesus, along with Mary, Jesus'\nmother, and three other women, close to the cross (not afar off, as\nMatthew, Mark, and Luke assert of the women), and yet he fails to\nconfirm the other Gospels as to the earthquake and darkening of the sun.\nThe rending of the veil of the temple, the opening of the graves, and\nthe appearance of the risen saints would all have been known to him\nalso, if they had occurred.\n\nSuch prodigies as these are not confined to the Gospels,--\"In the most\nhigh and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,\nThe graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber\nin the Roman streets,\" &c.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. THE MIRACLES\n\n1. The miracles ascribed to Jesus are,--\n\n[Illustration: table 055]\n\n[Illustration: table 056]\n\nThe healing power claimed for Jesus in the passages marked (a) embraces\nall manner of sickness, disease, and derangement. Cures were effected by\nhis word or his touch, or upon the patient laying hold even of the hem\nof his garment. The contemporaneous unbelief (Matt. xi. 20-24.) of his\npretensions, with such instances of superhuman power openly manifested\nfar and wide (Matt. iv. 23-25, and ix. 35) among the cities and villages\nof Galilee, is the crowning marvel of all.\n\nThe special instances of his wonder-working and disease-curing power,\nmarked (6), (c), (d), and (e), comprise all that are recorded in the\nfour Gospels. The agreement between Matthew, Mark, and Luke, both as to\nthe incidents and the manner of narration, is most marked. The raising\nof the son of the widow of Nain, the miraculous draught of fishes at the\ncalling of Peter, James, and John, a cure of dropsy and one of infirmity\nare given by Luke alone. On the other hand, Luke has not the walking on\nthe sea, the feeding of the four thousand, the cursing of the fig-tree,\nor the curing of the Canaanite's demon-possessed daughter, found in\nMatthew and Mark. And Matthew alone narrates the catching of the fish\nwith the tribute money. But in the other instances the agreement between\nthem is almost complete--so complete as to suggest many questions as\nto the real truth with reference to the compilation of the first three\nGospels, questions which probably will never be solved. What, however,\nconcerns the present purpose is that of the three the only eye-witness\nis Matthew, The source from which Mark and Luke derived their\ninformation is unknown, and ever will remain so. If not from Matthew\n(always assuming him to be the writer of the first Gospel), or from\nthe same source as Matthew, it would be remarkable that their mode of\nnarrating these details was so similar to his. How far then, does John,\nthe other eye-witness, bear out Matthew, Mark, and Luke? Strange to\nrelate, he has not one word of the casting out of devils, or of the\ncures of bodily distresses mentioned by the other three. Nor does he\nconfirm the raising of Jairus' daughter, although he himself and James\nand Peter were the only three said to have been admitted by Jesus to\nwitness this event, nor the resuscitation of the son of the widow\nof Nain, nor the calming of the storm, nor the feeding of the four\nthousand, nor the cursing of the fig-tree, nor the fish with the tribute\nmoney, nor the miraculous haul of fishes at his own calling to be a\ndisciple. The miracles he does mention are _seven in all, and of these\nfive are net in the other gospels_, although of the most striking\ncharacter. They are,\n\n1. The raising of Lazarus, four days dead.\n\n2. Turning water into wine.\n\n3. Curing a nobleman's son, at a distance, of fever.\n\n4. Curing a man blind from his birth.\n\n5. Curing a man, at the pool of Bethesda, with an infirmity of\nthirty-eight years' standing.\n\nOf the twenty-four miracles recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John,\nsaid to have been the eye-witness of all, confirms only two--viz., the\nfeeding of the five thousand, and the walking on the sea.\n\nThese two miracles are thus a chronological break, in all the Gospel\nnarratives, of the movements of Jesus, by which a clear comparison can\nbe made, thus:--\n\n[Illustration: table 058]\n\n[Illustration: table 059]\n\nAs to the subsequent events, from the entrance into Jerusalem to the\ncrucifixion, the four gospels agree in the main, though they differ in\nseveral important particulars. But from the entrance into Jerusalem\nback to the feeding of the five thousand, how utter the divergence! And,\nagain, from the feeding of the five thousand back to John's baptism,\nhow irreconcilable the accounts of the two professed eyewitnesses\nrepresented as fellow-travellers over the greater part of the\njourneyings mentioned! The first three gospels place all Jesus' ministry\nand miracles, and the calling of his disciples, as to time, after John's\nimprisonment, as to place, in Galilee and its neighbourhood, until he\nwent up once for all to Jerusalem, from which he never returned. John,\non the contrary, makes his ministry commence before the Baptist's\nimprisonment, places the calling of two of the same disciples, Andrew\nand Peter, while Jesus was a follower of the Baptist, and mentions three\nor four visits to Jerusalem before the final entry on the back of an\nass. Moreover, the discourses recorded in John are very unlike the\ndiscourses in the other three narratives, and, what strikes as very\nremarkable, there are no parables in the fourth Gospel.\n\nHere, then, are two witnesses, followers of Jesus, giving different\nand irreconcilable accounts of his ministry, his wanderings, his public\nutterances, his miracles; agreeing, indeed, thus far, that they both\nrecord two of the last, but even with these two (see the two paragraphs\nmarked 9 and i above) at variance with each other in several details.\nOf two ordinarily intelligent eye-witnesses can it be that one would\nrepresent Jesus as \"sending the multitude away,\" and the other as\n\"departing from them,\" and the multitude next day being in the same\nplace? or would one assert that he \"constrained his disciples to take\nship\" and the other that he left his disciples, and that they took ship\nafterwards of their own accord? And yet this is what two, not ordinarily\nintelligent--for as to that nothing is known--but divinely inspired and\ndivinely guided eye-witnesses affirm.\n\nThe miracles recorded in the four gospels are all of a benevolent\ncharacter, except the cursing of the fig-tree and the permission given\nto the devils to go into the herd of swine. But notwithstanding\n\"the good-will to men\" thus displayed, the Gospels avow that Jesus'\nwonder-working failed to convince or to captivate by far the greater\npart of his contemporaries. Chorazin, Bethsaida, Tyre, Sidon, and\nCapernaum are all denounced, and assigned a doom more terrible than\nthat of Sodom and Gomorrah, because of their unbelief. And against this\ngeneral contemporaneous unbelief what is there to place? The single\ntestimony of Matthew the publican for a score of miracles which he is\nsaid to have witnessed, confirmed by the hearsay testimony of Mark\nand Luke, but quite unsupported by the testimony of John the Galilean\nfisherman, who is also said to have witnessed them. Again, the single\ntestimony of John, unsupported by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, for five most\nmarvellous events, including the raising from the dead of a man who had\nbeen some time buried. The united testimony, weakened by divergence in\ndetail, of Matthew and John, for only two of the alleged miracles, and\nthe hearsay account of Luke for the raising from the dead of the son of\nthe widow of Nain, quite unsupported by either Matthew or John. And then\nrecurs the question: Would an Almighty maker of the universe, wishing to\nshow compassion to his creatures, and to accredit, not only to the men\nliving at the time of his appearance, but to all subsequent ages, by\nundoubted testimonies, a messenger from himself (the son of his own\nright hand), and to accredit him, moreover, by such testimonies as were\nmost suited to the comprehension of men, have allowed the record of\nthese credentials, on belief or unbelief on which the eternal doom of\neach individual man henceforth would depend, to rest on evidence so\nworthless--taken at its very best--as this?\n\n2. The following miraculous events are ascribed to the apostles:--\n\n  Acts ii. 1-13. The gift of tongues.\n   \"  ii. 43. Wonders and signs generally.\n   \"  iii. 1-11. Cure of lame man by Peter and John.\n   \"  v. 1-11. The yielding up the ghost by Ananias and Sapphira\n                at the word of Peter.\n   \"  v. 15, 16. Cures at the least shadow of Peter.\n   \"  v. 17-20. Opening of the prison for Peter and John by the angel\n                 of the Lord.\n   \"  vi. 8. Stephen's wonders and miracles.\n   \"  viii. 5-8. Cures by Philip of unclean spirits, and of the palsied\n                  and lame.\n   \"  ix. 13-22. Ananias cures Saul of blindness.\n   \"  ix. 32-35. Cure by Peter of one sick of the palsy.\n   \"  ix. 36-43. Peter restores Dorcas to life.\n  Acts x. 1-48. Angel-appearance to Cornelius; trance of Peter.\n   \"  xii. 7-10.  Opening of the prison for Peter by an angel of the Lord.\n   \"  xiii. 8-11. Blinding of Elymas by Paul.\n   \"  xiv. 3. Signs and wonders generally by Paul and Barnabas.\n   \"  xiv. 8-10. Cure of a cripple by Paul.\n   \"  xvi. 16-18. Curing a damsel possessed by a spirit of divination.\n   \"  xvi. 25-27. Earthquake while Paul and Silas were singing praises\n                   to God in the stocks at Philippi.\n   \"  xix. 6. Disciples at Ephesus speaking with tongues when Paul\n               laid his hands on them.\n   \"  xix. 11, 12.  Diseases and evil spirits expelled  by aprons and\n                     handkerchiefs taken from  Paul's body.\n   \"  xix. 15. Testimony of the evil spirit to Jesus and Paul.\n   \" xx. 9-12. Restoration of Eutychus by Paul.\n   \" xxviii. 4.   Viper   shaken off Paul's hand without hurting him.\n   \" xxviii. 8. Bloody flux and other diseases cured.\n\nThese wondrous occurrences rest on the record of Luke alone. The earlier\nportion, if not the whole of them, had taken place before the Gospels\nwere written. The gift of tongues would have been vividly present to\nthe minds of Matthew and John, who were among the recipients of this\nmarvellous endowment. Mark (Acts xii. 12) would certainly have\nbeen aware of the grave events connected with the death-dooming,\nlife-restoring, prison-opening Peter. A single chapter at the end of the\ngospel of either Matthew, John, or Mark would have been sufficient to\ncontain the confirmation of the more important of these wonders, and\nsurely so much might have been expected from the \"divinely-chosen\"\nwitnesses, those whose mission it was to declare the whole counsel of\nGod, to testify to each divine confirmation within their knowledge of\nthe truth of the Gospel. What, then, can be said of their silence? Who\nwas Luke that they should have left so important a duty to him?\n\nPrevious to Acts xvi. 10 (where the \"we\" in the narrative commences),\nLuke was not, so far as can be gathered, an eye-witness of any of the\nevents he relates, and his informant is unknown. Nor does he profess\nto have been an eye-witness of the Ephesian disciples speaking with\ntongues, the cures, and the testimony of the evil spirit mentioned in\nActs xix. 6, 15. He was present at the restoration of Eutychus, but it\nis not altogether clear whether he means to describe this as a miracle.\nThe only others of which he was an eye-witness are the casting out of\nthe spirit of divination (Acts xvi. 16-18), and what are mentioned in\nchap, xxviii. His reference to the \"spirit of divination\" as a real\npower shows that he was imbued with the common superstition, that he\nrecognised the \"abominations of those nations\" denounced by Moses. In\nchap, xxviii. the innocuous viper can scarcely be regarded as a miracle,\nand possibly the bloody flux and other diseases may have given way\nto other treatment over and above the praying and laying on of Paul's\nhands. The general contradiction between Luke in the Acts and Paul in\nhis Epistles with reference to Paul's movements, will be fully detailed\nin considering the testimonies to the resurrection of Jesus.\n\nAt the very best, therefore, scarcely any one of the apostolic miracles\ncan be said to rest on the testimony of a single eye-witness. They are\ndiscredited by the silence of the actual eye-witnesses, Matthew and\nJohn, whose records, it is here assumed, exist; and Luke's credibility\nis, moreover, greatly affected by the serious conflict of testimony\nbetween himself and Paul. (See Chap. V.)\n\nThe healing power claimed for the apostles quite rivals that of Jesus.\nCures were effected by the least shadow of Peter, and by \"handkerchiefs\nand aprons from Paul's body.\" Two of the miracles, however, differ from\nthose of Jesus in that they are of a vindictive nature. These are\nthe doom of Ananias and Sapphira, and the blinding of Elymas. A more\neffective weapon for priestly domination and exaction than the sudden\ndeath of Ananias and Sapphira--no time for repentance allowed--because\nthey deceived the apostles as to the price their property fetched, could\nnot have been devised. Peter's question, \"Sold ye the land for so much,\"\nshows the inquisitorial tendency, so wonderfully developed under the\nChristian name among all sects and creeds in later times. So far as can\nbe gathered from the Gospels, the fare on which Jesus and his disciples\nlived was a poor one. Bread and fish are mentioned; wine only once, at\nthe last supper; but this is not confirmed by John. And how their food\nwas come by is left doubtful. Luke states that certain women followed\nJesus, who ministered to him of their substance. And John relates that\nas soon as the raising of Lazarus from the dead became known, the chief\npriests sought to arrest Jesus, when he went away to the city Ephraim,\nnear to the wilderness, and there continued with his disciples. Here was\na remarkable shrinking from the chief priests of one who had power to\nrestore life to the dead. Six days before the Passover he came again to\nBethany, where he had supper with the raised Lazarus and his sisters,\nMartha and Mary. Martha served; Mary anointed his feet with costly\nointment, and wiped his feet with her hair. Judas Iscariot grumbled at\nthe waste: \"Why,\" he said, \"was not this ointment sold for three hundred\npence and given to the poor?\" Jesus replied that she had done it against\nthe day of his burying. The narrator--John, as we assume, a companion of\nJesus--adds, \"This he said not that he cared for the poor, but because\nhe was _a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein_.\" Most\nmarvellous! for what do such expressions as to the vocation of Judas\nimply? Was he but a type of those who, under the authority of the name\nand supernatural pretensions of his master, under various lofty titles,\nfrom \"holy\" to \"reverend,\" with intensifying adjectives prefixed, have\nsince imposed upon mankind, controlled rulers and deluded nations,\nopposed freedom and denounced enlightenment, for the sake of their\norder, their influence, their position, their emoluments?\n\nBut, in whatever way they maintained themselves, their life was a poor\none. \"The Son of man had not where to lay his head.\" When, therefore,\nthe apostles found that their testimony to the resurrection of Jesus\nbrought about such a result as is described Acts iv. 32-35, the change\nmust have been a most agreeable one to them. \"And the multitude of them\nthat believed were of one heart and of one soul; neither said any of\nthem that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; and they\nhad all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of\nthe resurrection of the Lord Jesus; and great grace was upon them\nall. Neither was there any among them that lacked; for as many as were\npossessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the\nthings that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet; and\ndistribution was made unto every man according as he had need.\"\n\nHere were they (assuming Luke's account to be true) leaders of a\ncommunistic society, where all were well cared for, instead of earning\na hard livelihood as fishermen, or wandering about Galilee and Judea\nas mendicants or otherwise; and even with the persecution it is said to\nhave brought from the Jewish rulers, the change must have been in every\nway preferable. What more favourable opportunity than this could have\nbeen found, \"while they were giving themselves continually to prayer and\nthe ministry of the word,\" too busy even to attend to the distribution\nof charity, to settle the accounts they were to propagate of Jesus' life\nand teaching, his miraculous deeds, his resurrection and ascension,\nand to mould them, so far as possible, in accordance with the Jewish\nprophecies of the Messiah? But whether the wonders of the four gospels\noriginated thus or otherwise, Truth, ever triumphant in the end,\nconfounds the devices of designing, as well as the illusions of\nweak-minded men, and reveals to her worshippers the flaws and the\nhollowness that invariably characterise evidence in support of\nsuperhuman pretence, intended to exercise sway over the consciences of\nmen.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. THE FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY\n\nIf it be assumed that the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments\nwere written by those whose names they bear, and that they have been\nhanded down intact, prophecies uttered from Moses to Malachi, b.c. 1500\nto B.C. 400, fulfilled in the person of Jesus in so complete a manner as\nto show that they could refer in their entirety to no one else, would\nbe not only a most trustworthy credential to Jesus himself, but also a\nconclusive proof of the divine inspiration of those who uttered them,\nthe power of foretelling the remote future--all the more of foretelling\nthe supernatural--being clearly an attribute of an Almighty alone. Peter\nrefers to the \"more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well to take\nheed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place,\" and he states that\n\"holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.\" If, on the\nother hand, the prophecies arrogated to Jesus are properly applicable to\nevents altogether unconnected with his life and alleged mission, and\nif there are strained and untenable appropriations of Old Testament\npassages by the writers of the New Testament, the claim of the New\nTestament to be a development and fulfilment of the Old will be\naltogether destroyed, and the candour of its writers discredited. This\nportion of the inquiry, therefore, is of very great importance.\n\nIn the writings of the Christian clergy, almost every incident\nrecorded in the Old Testament is explained by some method, more or less\ningenious, as typical of the Messiah as represented by Jesus. But the\npresent inquiry, with two or three exceptions, will be confined to the\ninstances claimed by the writers of the New Testament as fulfilments\nof Jewish prophecy. It is clear that if these cannot' be maintained,\nneither can any subsequent interpretations.\n\n(a.) _Prophecies claimed for John the Baptist_\n\n_First_.--Malachi iii. 1; Luke vii. 27.\n\nIn the passage in Malachi there are three designations:--\n\n1. \"My messenger,\" i.e., the angel of the Lord.\n\n2. \"The Lord whom ye seek.\"\n\n3. \"The messenger (angel) of the covenant whom ye de-light in.\"\n\nAnd the words \"He shall come\" indicate that all these titles are meant\nfor the same person.\n\nNow, in Exodus there are various allusions to the angel of the Lord\npreceding his people Israel. Chap. xiv. 19,--\"And the angel of God,\nwhich went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them.\"\nChap, xxiii. 20,--\"Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee in\nthe way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware\nof him... for my name is in him.\" Similar passages are Exodus xxxii. 34;\nxxxiii. 2-14; Numbers xx. 16.\n\nThe manifestation, therefore, expected by Malachi was of the dread\nangel of the covenant so revered in the Mosaic writings. Most Christians\nbelieve that this angel was Jesus the Messiah himself. But Luke,\naltering the quotation from \"me\" to \"thee,\" affirms that Jesus himself\napplied it to John the Baptist. If the quotation in Luke is not from\nMalachi, but part of Exodus xxiii. 20 just referred to, \"thee\" is\ncorrect, but it still implies that John the Baptist and the angel of\nthe Exodus were one. Who has made the mistake? Jesus in ascribing this\nquotation to John, or Luke in making Jesus so ascribe it?\n\n_Second_.--Malachi iv. 5; Luke i. 16, 17; Matthew xi. 14; xvii. 11-13;\nMark ix. 11-13.\n\nThe Elijah of Malachi was to come \"to you\" (Israel), (1.) Before the\ngreat and terrible day of the Lord; (2.) to turn the heart of the\nfathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers;\n(3.) lest I (the Lord) come and smite the earth with a curse.\n\nLuke's authoritative angel predicted that John was, (1.) To go before\nhim (Jesus) in the spirit and power of Elias; (2.) to turn the hearts\nof the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the\njust; (3.) to make ready a people prepared-for the Lord.\n\nJesus states of John, (1.) If ye will receive it, this is Elias which\nwas for to come; (2.) \"Elias truly shall first come and restore all\nthings. But I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew\nhim not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed,\" Mark adds, \"as\nit is written of him.\"\n\nIt is certainly nowhere written (in the Old Testament) that the people\nElijah is to be sent among are to do _to him_ whatsoever _they_ list.\nThe Elijah of Malachi is _to turn them_, and this, by the account of the\nNew Testament writers, John the Baptist did not accomplish.\n\n_Third_.--Isa.mh. xl. 3; Matt. iii. 3; Mark i. 2, 3; Luke iii. 4-6; John\ni. 23.\n\nIf Isaiah's doctrine implies that before the majesty of the eternal, the\ninfinite, universe, the distinctions of brief-lived mortals disappear,\nand that its glory and its operations are open to all flesh alike to\nbehold and to investigate; that though we shall perish, it, in one or\nother of its various forms, will evermore endure,--then the \"voice of\none crying in the wilderness\" may still refresh and cheer the human\nheart, whether it be the voice of Isaiah, John the Baptist, or any other\nseer or man. What it proclaims is the heritage of all.\n\n(b.) _Claim of Jesus to be the seed of the woman who bruised the\nserpent's head_.\n\nGenesis iii. 15; Matt. iii. 17; xiii. 38; xxiii. 33; John viii. 44;\n1 John iii. 8; Heb. ii. 14, 15; Kev. xii. 9; xx. 2. By believers that\nJesus is the Christ the passage in Genesis is held to be a prophecy that\nreceived its fulfilment in him. He was the seed of the woman who bruised\nthe head of the serpent, by restoring that portion of the human race\nwho believe in him to the divine favour lost through the wiles of the\nserpent. The serpent is Satan, his seed mankind in their natural state;\nthey bruised the heel (not a deadly part) of the seed of the woman by\ncrucifying Christ. Jesus, who merely laid down his life that he might\ntake it again, and thus expiated the sins of his people, in turn\nbruised the head (a deadly part) of the serpent. Such is the meaning\nof Genesis iii. 15, indicated by the writers of the New Testament four\nthousand years after the words are said to have been uttered by God.\n\nWill the passage then bear any such interpretation?\n\nThe serpent tempted Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge\nof good and evil; she induced her husband to do the same. For this the\nthree were sentenced thus:--\n\n1. __The man, that he should eat bread by the sweat of his brow through\nculture of the ground, cursed for his sake, until his return to the dust\nfrom whence he came.\n\nThis is perfectly clear: it admits of no double interpretation.\n\n2. _The woman_, that she should bring forth in pain, and be in\nsubjection to her husband.\n\nThis is also quite plain, and in accordance with natural fact, whether\nthe cause be the eating of the forbidden fruit or not.\n\n3. _The serpent_, that he should go upon his belly, that he should eat\ndust, that he should hate mankind, that mankind should hate him, that\nmen should bruise his head, that he should bruise men's heel.\n\nIs there anything here beyond natural fact more than in the case of the\nman or woman? Men trample on serpents, serpents bite men from heel to\nknee; they cannot as a rule strike higher.\n\nWhat else, then, can be said of all these passages, than that they are\nexact descriptions of the lot on earth of men, women, and serpents,\nwhether or not caused by eating the forbidden fruit?\n\nWhat is certain, however, is that this lot has not been reversed, or\neven alleviated by the coming of Jesus. Men live on the fruits of the\nground brought forth by culture, until they decay and die; women bear\nchildren in pain; serpents crawl along the ground as before. If these\nare the works of the devil, why has Jesus not destroyed them? Why\nsince his advent do they exist as before? He has expiated guilt, he has\nascended into heaven, all power is his in heaven and in earth. Why then\ndoes the devil still triumph on earth? Why do the so-called curses,\nwhich the serpent's temptation of Eve brought, continue.\n\nJesus, it is said, is to destroy the works of the devil, but only in\nthose who believe in him, and even in their case not in this world. When\nhe comes again in glory he is to raise their bodies, he is to give them\na new heaven and a new earth, those now existing being destroyed. The\nbodies of those who do not believe are also to be raised, but are to be\ngiven over to everlasting fire.\n\nThe devil, then, so far as death, toil, and suffering are concerned, is\nto triumph on earth over all mankind till the end of time; and to all\neternity he is to triumph over the greater part, or a very great part of\nthe human race, who through his means are to suffer the anguish of the\nbottomless pit. How then can it be said that Christ was manifested that\nhe might destroy the works of the eternally triumphant devil. How has\nthe seed of the woman bruised the head of the serpent, if Jesus was the\nseed and the devil the serpent? It is clear, if Christian doctrine be\ntrue, that the devil, by the curses he has brought on men--death, toil,\nchild-bearing pangs--is to reign victorious on earth over the whole\nhuman race, and is also in eternity to reign victorious over a great part\nof the human race doomed to everlasting anguish. So the dominion of the\nevil One is to be eternal, Jesus and what he has done notwithstanding.\n\nIt may here, perhaps, without impropriety, be pointed out that probably\nthere is no more striking illustration of what has been regarded as the\nperfection of the art of fiction-framing than the Mosaic account of the\nfall of man. Aristotle (_Poet_, chap, xiv.) ascribes this art to Homer\nin the highest degree,--that he taught others how _to feign in a proper\nmanner_, by making a true consequent follow a false antecedent; so that\nthe mind, knowing the consequent to be true, is led to believe that the\nantecedent is true as well. In the present case, see how the natural\nfacts of decay and death, necessary labour, child-bearing pain, and\nserpent-crawling and venomousness, are made to follow as results of\nthe forbidden fruit, the serpent's vindictiveness, and Eve and Adam's\nsurrender; so that men, knowing the natural facts to be true, have been\ncaptivated into believing that the assigned causes are also true.\n\n(c.) _Claim of Jesus to be the seed of Abraham, in whom all nations\nshould be blessed_ (Genesis xii. 3; xviii. 18; xxii. 18; Acts iii. 25;\nGalatians iii. 8).\n\nThe promise said to have been made by God to Abraham, that in his seed\nall nations of the earth should be blessed, is claimed for Jesus and for\nthose who believe in him. His redeemed are to come out of every nation,\nkindred, people, and tongue, and through his mercy and merits they are\nto inherit the mansions of bliss evermore. He is thus the seed in whom\nall nations (i.e., the believing portion of all nations) of the earth\n(i.e., not on the earth but in heaven) shall be blessed.\n\n\"By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this\nthing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son; that in blessing\nI will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the\nstars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore, and thy\nseed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all\nnations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.\"\n\nThese lofty phrases were the expression of the high aspiration and fond\nbelief of the Jewish people, either under the sway of their lawgiver\nMoses (always on the assumption that he was the writer of Genesis),\nleading them triumphantly on to the conquest of Canaan, the home of\ntheir traditional ancestor, or when they were settled as a nation in\nPalestine. \"In thy seed all nations of the earth shall be blessed\" is,\nfurther, an expectation of the coming subjection of the human race to\nthe law and revelation of Moses. The Gibeons presented themselves thus:\n\"From a very far country thy servants are come because of the name of\nthe Lord thy God;\" and the following passage is brimful of the same\nhope: \"And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of\nthe Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and\nshall be established above the hills, and all nations shall flow into\nit. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the\nmountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will\nteach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion\nshall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.\"\n\nThe expectation that Palestine will again be restored to the Jews, that\ntheir temple service at Jerusalem will be re-established in all its\nglory, and that the other nations of the earth will flock thither for\nenlightenment, and be guided by the precepts of the Jewish lawgivers,\nhas certainly so far not been realised on earth. The Jewish race, to\nthe present day, live in hope of its fulfilment. Christians explain\nits fulfilment figuratively by the power and attributes they ascribe\nto Jesus. But sober fact shows that it is a fond and, as it has proved,\nfutile patriotic aspiration.\n\nAre the qualities of the Jewish race such as to warrant their high\nclaim to be leaders of men--the nation which, first in divine favour and\nknowledge, should stand, as it were, between the Almighty and the other\nnations of the earth? The utmost tenacity of purpose, unfailing faith in\ntheir destiny, triumphant endurance of reverses, skill and aptitude,\nnot only for ordinary worldly intercourse and dealing, but for the\narts which charm the soul and elevate life; exalted conception of the\nomnipotence of the deity, in so far as to view with intense abhorrence\nthat he should be likened to any visible creature, and, although tainted\nby giving a mind to the Almighty like their own (for the deity of the\nPentateuch, in many respects, is but an almighty Israelite, bloodthirsty\nand unsparing to aliens in race and creed), still an exalted conception\nas compared to the gods of other nations,--all these qualities are\ntheirs. Wherein do they fail? What is their defect? The defect of the\ncoward--want of moral courage. Deceit and stratagem rather than open\nconduct are their characteristics. Abraham, for fear of his life\n(Genesis x. 12-20), lied and risked his wife's dishonour. Isaac (xxvi.\n6-11) did the same. Jacob by vile deceit obtained his father's blessing\n(xxvii. 1-29), and supplanted his brother. Jacob's sons (xxxvii. 18-26),\nto rid themselves of their brother Joseph, of whom they were jealous,\nsold him as a slave, and by a stratagem led their father to think that\nhe was killed by a wild beast. Joseph xliv. 1-13 detained his brothers\nby a trick. In the Exodus xi 1-3; xii. 35, 36 the Israelites, by\ndirection _of the Lord to Moses_, under pretence of borrowing, _spoiled_\nthe Egyptians of their jewels of gold and silver. The warrior Joab (2\nSam. iii. 27) treacherously slew the valiant Abner. David (2 Sam. xi.\n2-17) directed that Uriah the Hittite, a self-denying soldier, should be\nplaced in the forefront of the battle, where death was certain, in order\nthat, the husband being removed, the king might marry the wife he had\nalready seduced. David too, on his deathbed (1 Kings ii. 1-10), charged\nhis son Solomon to violate the oath he himself had sworn by the Lord to\nspare Shimei the Benjamite; and also charged him not to let the hoar\nhead of his own general, Joab, go down to the grave in peace; and\nSolomon, finding specious pretexts, sent his butcher, Benaiah (1\nKings ii. 12-46), to fall on these two old men, and on his own brother\nAdonijah. The subsequent history of the Jews, whether as a nation or as\na dispersed people, exhibits the same striking qualities, with the same\nfatal defect. Far be it from the nations of the earth ever to submit\nto such leadership. May not this remarkable people rather serve as a\nwarning of what the highest qualities, unaccompanied with courage and\nopen conduct, produce.\n\n(d.) _Claim of Jesus to be the \"Shiloh\" of Genesis_ (Genesis xlix. 10).\n\n\"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between\nhis feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the\npeople be.\"\n\nThis prophecy, put by Moses into the mouth of the dying Jacob in the\nyear b.c. 1689, is not claimed for Jesus by the writers of the New\nTestament, but is usually referred to by Christians of the present day,\nas one of the most conclusive instances of the fulfilment of prophecy by\nthe advent of Jesus. Jacob's vaticination is,--\n\n1. That neither the sceptre nor a lawgiver shall depart from Judah.\n\nThis implies that at the time of the prophecy Judah had a sceptre and a\nlawgiver, which was not the case. But it will be affirmed that Jacob's\nassertion was prophetical, that he foresaw the time when Judah would\nhave the kingly power among his brethren, which did not occur till the\ntime of David.\n\n2. Until Shiloh (he whose it is) come.\n\n3. And unto him shall the gathering of the people be, i.e., at the\ncoming of Shiloh, the kingship, and lawgiving, and the people's\nallegiance shall be transferred from Judah to him.\n\nJereboam, under whom all Israel, excepting Judah and Benjamin, revolted\nfrom the house of David, has probably the best claim to be the \"Shiloh\"\nof Genesis; but the consideration of this point, involving, as it does,\ninquiry into the actual date of the augury and the purpose for which it\nwas promulgated, is quite outside the present purpose.\n\nChristians, in maintaining that Jesus is the \"Shiloh,\" explain that the\ntribe of Judah did not lose self-government until Archelaus was banished\nby Augustus in a.d. 6, and Judea then annexed to the province of\nSyria. The sceptre and the lawgiver then departed from Judah: it was\ntransferred to the wondrous child, and \"the people gathered unto him\"\nrefers not to the Jewish nation, but to believers in Jesus throughout\nthe world.\n\nLet, then, the assertion that the sceptre and a lawgiver did not depart\nfrom Judah until the time of Jesus be compared with the utterances of\nthe prophet Jeremiah on the Babylonish captivity (Lam. i. 6; il 9; v.\n11-16)--\"Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no\nmore\" is the burden of these passages. It must surely be admitted that\nJeremiah was a more competent authority for determining when the sceptre\nand a lawgiver departed from Judah, than Christians of the present day.\nClearly, then, the Shiloh of Jacob (whomever or whatever Shiloh may\nrefer to) must have come before the Babylonish captivity, or Jacob's\nprophecy has been falsified.\n\nAs Genesis xlix. 10, however, is not claimed by the New Testament\nwriters for Jesus, the discrepancy in this instance between Jeremiah's\nviews and those of modern Christians does not affect their position.\n\n(e.) _Claim of Jesus to be the successor of Moses_ (Deut. xviii. 15-22;\nActs iii. 22, 23).\n\n\"I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto\nthee,\" &c.\n\nMoses in this passage so clearly refers to Joshua (see Joshua i. 1-9),\nwho was to take his place as leader of the Israelites, that any other\nconstruction is entirely shut out. The assertion that Jesus of Nazareth,\ndespised by his countrymen, homeless, and poor (even if he had been\nthe son of the Eternal in disguise), in any way resembled Moses the\nsuccessful warrior and lawgiver, was well put into the mouth of the\nrash-spoken Peter.\n\n(f1.) _Claim of Jesus to be the \"Son of David\"_ To establish the descent\nof Jesus from David, two different detailed genealogies are given by\nMatthew and Luke.\n\n1. Matthew (i. 1-17) traces the descent of Joseph, the reputed father\nof Jesus, from Abraham, through David and Solomon, down to Salathiel and\nZorobabel, and from them to Joseph, and states that there were fourteen\ngenerations from Abraham to David, the same number from David to the\ncaptivity, and the same number from the captivity to Jesus. The fourteen\nnames given, from Abraham to David inclusive, agree with the Hebrew\nChronicles; but to reduce to fourteen the names from Solomon to\nJechonias, king of the first captivity, inclusive, no fewer than four\npersons, to wit, Ahaziah; Joash, and Amaziah, the sixth, seventh, and\neighth from Solomon, and Jehoiakim, the father of Jechonias, are omitted,\n(1 Chron. iii.) See, for the utterly puerile fancy of breaking up\nChrist's descent into three equal periods of fourteen generations, how\nthe compiler scruples not to mutilate a genealogy, the whole of which\nmust have been before him; for it cannot be supposed that he was\nunacquainted with the books of Kings and Chronicles in the Old\nTestament! The fourteen names from Jechonias to Jesus there is no means\nof ascertaining from whom Matthew received. Joseph, being of the house\nand lineage of David, may have had a record of his descent, and Matthew\nmay have received it either from Joseph or from one of the brothers of\nJesus, or the mutilator of the second set of fourteen may readily have\nfound the third.\n\n2. The genealogy given by Luke (iii. 23-38) contains so striking a\ndivergence from that of Matthew, that many professed believers in\nthe plenary inspiration and word-infallibility of the New\nTestament scriptures have endeavoured to explain it away by various\nconsiderations, none of which, however, to any truth-loving mind would\nappear satisfactory. Luke traces the descent from Joseph backwards to\nZorobabel and Salathiel through _eighteen_ persons, not one of whose\nnames agrees with any of the _nine_ in Matthew who cover the same\nperiod, unless it be that of the grandfather of Joseph, who is called\nin the one list Matthan and in the other Matthat. It has been suggested\nthat the one list contains Joseph's own ancestors, the other his\nancestors in right of his wife--i.e., Mary's ancestors. But this\nexplanation fails in view of the further divergence of tracing\nSalathiel's descent back, not to Solomon through the kingly line, as\nMatthew does, but to Nathan, another son of David. Luke or Luke's,\ninformant is here also at variance with the Old Testament Chronicles,\nwhich trace Salathiel's descent to Solomon, and the names he inserts\nbetween Salathiel and Nathan are not found in any other record.\n\nOn the question of Jesus' genealogy there remains this further\nconsideration: If Joseph was not his real father, Joseph's descent would\nnot make Jesus of \"the seed of David according to the flesh.\" Whence\nthen sprung his mother Mary? The gospels are silent Cousin Elizabeth was\nof the daughters of Aaron, but was Mary of the daughters of Aaron or of\nthe daughters of David?\n\n(f2.) _Claim of Jesus to be the Son of David_ (Psalm ex. 1; Matt. xxii.\n41-46).\n\n\"The Lord said unto my lord,\" &c. Jesus asked the Pharisees. If then\nDavid in spirit called Christ Lord, how is he his son? \"And no man was\nable to answer him a word,\" &c.\n\nThe Pharisees must have been very ignorant of their own scriptures, if\nthey were unable to answer the question of Jesus. \"My lord,\" in the Old\nTestament, is frequently applied to superiors. Hannah called the high\npriest Eli \"my lord.\" The same designation was given by David to Saul,\nby Abigail to David, by Abner to David. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, is\nspecially commended in the New Testament for the respect she showed\nto her husband in calling him \"lord.\" Joseph applied the same title to\nhimself, \"God hath made me lord of all Egypt.\" And Potiphar is called\nJoseph's \"master,\" the same word translated elsewhere \"lord.\" Psalm ex.\nis thus a flattering effusion to David, whom the singer designates \"my\nlord,\" describing his favour with _the_ Lord (Jehovah), his ruling in\nthe midst of his enemies, his similarity to the priest-king Melchisedek,\nand his success in war.\n\n(g.) _Claim of Jesus to be \"Immanuel\"_ (Isaiah vii. 10-16; viii. 1-8;\nMatt. i. 21-23).\n\nThe prophecy in Isaiah refers to a sign to be given to Ahaz, King of\nJudea, to encourage him under the invasion, or threatened invasion, of\nhis country by the kings of Syria and Israel. The sign was to be,--1.\nThe conception by a virgin of a son; 2. that she should call his name\n\"Immanuel,\" translated \"God with us;\" 3. the removal of the kings of\nSyria and Israel before the child emerged from infancy.\n\nFollowing on this, and in continuation of the same subject, Isaiah\nnarrates,--1. That he went unto the prophetess, the result being\nthat she bore a son; 2. that the Lord told him to call his name\n\"Maber-shalal-hash-baz,\" translated \"making speed to the spoil he\nhasteneth the prey;\" 3. the removal by the superior force of the\nAssyrian monarch of the riches of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria,\nbefore the child could cry \"father\" or \"mother.\"\n\nThe plain meaning, then, of all this is that the sign was to be given\nto Ahaz,--if realised, it must necessarily have been realised in his\nlifetime; also that the overthrow of Syria and Israel was to take place\nduring the infancy of the child. To affirm, as Matthew does, that it is\na prophecy _fulfilled_ by a birth that occurred seven centuries after\nthe events it refers to, surely requires an unbounded credulity.\n\nDoes the prophet refer to two children, \"Immanuel\" and\n\"Maher-shalal-hash-baz\"? Or was the prophetess \"the virgin,\" and these\ntwo names bestowed on her child? The condition applying equally to both\nnames, that Syria and Israel were to be overrun during the infancy of\nthe child, is almost conclusive in favour of the latter construction.\nIsaiah had thus taken immediate steps to ensure the fulfilment of his\nprophecy. The word translated \"virgin\" is not the same as is used in\nsuch passages as Gen. xxiv. 16, Lev.xxi. 3, and may have been applicable\nto any modest and chaste married woman.\n\nThe mother in calling the child Immanual, followed the common Hebrew\ncustom of forming names by combining an appropriate phrase with the word\n\"El,\" God. Thus Hagar was directed by the angel in the wilderness to\ncall her son \"Ishmael,\" \"God who hears.\" Hannah too named the son she\nhad longed and prayed for \"Samuel,\" \"asked of God\". The sign to Ahaz was\nthus, in the extremity he was relieved from, most appropriately named\n\"Immanuel,\" \"God with us,\" or \"God on our side;\" and the same name in\nthe next chapter (Isaiah viii. 8) is applied to the deity himself, \"the\nbreadth of thy land, O Immanuel,\" i.e., \"God on our side.\"\n\nIn any reading of Isaiah's prophecy it cannot be inferred that the\nconception of the virgin was to be by supernatural power. Nor from one\nend of the Jewish scriptures to the other is there the slightest support\nto such a notion as the deity begetting a mortal child by a mortal\nwoman.\n\n(h.) _Claim of Jesus to be the \"Great Light\" seen by the dwellers\nin Zebidon and Naphtali, and the \"Wonderful,\" the \"Counsellor,\" the\n\"Establisher of the throne of David\" &c._ (Isaiah ix. 1-7; Matt. iv.\n12-16; Luke i. 32, 33; Psalm xvi. 10; Acts ii. 29-31; xiii. 35-37.)\n\nZebulon and Naphtali were the two most northerly tribes of Israel.\nTheir territories extended from the borders of the kingdom of Syria\nsouthwards, on the west of Jordan, to rather below the point where that\nriver issues from the Lake of Galilee. In warlike expeditions they were\ngenerally associated: \"Zebulon and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded\ntheir lives unto the death in the high places of the field\" (Judges v.\n18). Thus situated, their country was always the first to be overrun in\nan invasion from the north. Isaiah ix. 1 refers to two such invasions,\nthe second more severe than the first. Then (ix. 2-5) he glorifies\nJehovah (\"thou\" will be held to apply to Jehovah) for a deliverance from\nan oppression of Judah in some degree similar, though not so severe as\nthe second affliction of Zebulon and Naphtali. This deliverance refers\neither to the retreat of the kings of Syria and Israel from before\nJerusalem (Isaiah vii. 1), or more probably relief from the overflowing\nof the king of Assyria (Isaiah viii. 7, 8). The entire prophecy of\nIsaiah, it must be kept in view, had reference to Judah and Jerusalem\n(Isaiah i. 1). It will be noticed that Isaiah in all this is referring\nto past events.\n\nThen (chap. ix. 7, 8) he refers to the birth of a child which had\nalready taken place, who is to be called \"Wonderful,\" \"Counsellor,\" \"the\nMighty God,\" \"the Everlasting Father,\" \"the Prince of Peace,\" &c. In two\nof these expressions he follows the Hebrew custom already mentioned,\nof forming names by combining an adjective or other phrase with the\ndesignation of the Almighty.\n\nHe goes on to affirm that this child shall rule in Judah on the throne\nof David; that there shall be no end of his government and peace; that\nhe will order and establish the kingdom with judgment and justice for\nevermore.\n\nWhat child is the prophet referring to?--\"Immanuel\" of the seventh\nchapter, or \"Maher-shalal-hash-baz\" of the eighth chapter? Clearly not;\nfor if they are two names of the same child, he was the son of Isaiah\nand the prophetess, whereas the child of the ninth chapter is to sit on\nthe throne of David.\n\nWas the reference then to Hezekiah, written in his youth, when\nindications of the zeal for the law and ritual of Moses, which\ndistinguished his reign, may have appeared? Most likely; but whether\nor not, it is clear that the \"child\" referred to _was born_ when Isaiah\nwrote, and had not yet begun to reign.\n\nThe phrases \"no end\" and \"henceforth even for ever,\" may be compared\nwith Psalm lxxxix. 3, 4,--\"I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have\nsworn unto David my servant, thy seed will I establish for ever, and\nbuild up thy throne to all generations.\" These lofty anticipations have\nnot been realised. Where is the throne of David?\n\nThe two first verses of the ninth chapter of Isaiah are claimed for\nJesus by Matthew. In quoting them he leaves out the portion referring\nto the invasion of Zebulon and Naphtali. Galilee of the nations, or\npopulous Galilee, is called Galilee of the Gentiles, and is referred to\nas the same as Zebulon and Naphtali; whereas Isaiah makes a distinction,\nGalilee in his view probably being the southern part of Zebulon westward\nto the sea, including Asher.\n\nMatthew, however, boldly affirms that the visit of Jesus to Capernaum\nwas the fulfilment of Isaiah ix. 1, 2,--the fulfilment, that is, of what\nIsaiah, when he wrote, considered already past. But if the citizens of\nCapernaum in Jesus' time were the \"people that walked in darkness,\" and\nJesus was the \"great light\" which they saw shining upon them \"in the\nland of the shadow of death\" (the contrast between the passage in\nIsaiah and this puerile so-called fulfilment of it is too absurd to\nbe discussed seriously), they nowise appreciated their good fortune.\nShortly Jesus denounced the city thus,--\"And thou, Capernaum, which art\nexalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty\nworks, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would\nhave remained unto this day.\" Certainly there had been no deliverance\nfor Capernaum.\n\nThe passage in Luke i. 32, 33, implies, and it is held by Christians\ngenerally, that the promises of Jehovah by the mouth of his prophets to\nDavid, with reference to the stability of his kingdom, were fulfilled in\nJesus. These promises occur in the Old Testament in many forms, thus:--\n\n1. That after David's death his seed should succeed to his throne,\ngeneration after generation, without end (2 Sam. vii. 12-16; Psalm\nlxxxix. 20-37). He was God's holy one, who should not see corruption;\nhis soul would not be left in hell (the grave). To David's line would\nbe applicable evermore what is said of the king of our own country, \"who\nnever dies,\" \"The king is dead: long live the king.\"\n\n2. That if his descendants should break the divine laws, they would be\nchastened, but not \"put away from\" the kingdom, as in the case of Saul\n(2 Sam. vii. 14, 45; Psalm lxxxix. 30-37).\n\nNow, as undoubted matter of fact, the Babylonish captivity was the\nfalsification of all such vaticinations, more particularly of that which\naffirmed that the descendants of David should not be treated as Saul\nwas. If they sinned they were to be chastened, not deposed. In the\nreturn from Babylon, Zerubbabel is the only descendant of David\nmentioned as in authority, and after him there is nothing to show that\neven one of the royal line, far less any succession of the royal\nline, exercised sway over the Jews. The government passed to the \"high\npriests.\" Jehovah had _not_ \"sworn in truth unto David.\"\n\nBut leaping over the indubitable falsification of the prediction by the\noverthrow of the \"throne of David\" in Nebuchadnezzar's invasion, and the\nfact that from the time of Zerubbabel the \"line\" of David had sunk into\nobscurity, it is claimed for Jesus that he was the \"real\" son of David\nreferred to, that he has risen from the dead and has ascended into\nheaven. He saw no corruption; he reigns now in the hearts of his people.\nHe will be their king for evermore, when he returns to earth \"to take to\nhim his great power and reign.\"\n\nIs this grand hope of the Christian, then, to prove as misleading as\nthe Jewish anticipation of the everlasting throne of David? or has Jesus\nactually risen from the dead? The consideration of the evidence of the\nresurrection will form Chap. V. of this inquiry.\n\n(i.) _Prophecies claimed in connection with the birth of Jesus_, 1.\nMicah v. 2; Matt. ii. 4-6. Compare Micah with Psalm cxxxii., where David\nvows, \"I will not give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids, until\nI find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of\nJacob. Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah, we found it in the fields of\nthe wood.... Arise, O Lord, into thy rest, thou, and the ark of thy\nstrength.\" \"The mighty God of Jacob\" corresponds to the ruler of Israel,\n\"whose goings forth have been of old from everlasting.\" Micah may be\nreferring to the deity in some connection, not now at all clear,\nwith his habitation heard of at Ephratah, whence his laws, or other\nmanifestations of his power, were to proceed.\n\nThe passage in Matthew is in connection with the incredible story of\nthe wise men of the East; and it represents the Jewish priests assuring\nHerod that the Ruler of Israel, whose goings forth were of old from\neverlasting, was _to be born_ in Bethlehem, not, as the prophecy states,\nthat he was to come forth from there to be ruler. The twisting of the\npassage is very disingenuous.\n\n2. Hosea ii. 15; xi. 1; Matt. ii. 14. Hosea clearly refers to the\nexodus under Moses: his expressions are in the past tense. Matthew's\napplication of them to Jesus requires no comment.\n\n3. Jeremiah xxxi. 15; Matt. ii. 17, 18. Ramah was in the country of\nBenjamin, whose descendants are called the children of Rachel, his\nmother. Jeremiah's prophecy clearly refers to their captivity in Babylon\nand their expected return. What can be said of Matthew's application\nof it to an alleged massacre at Bethlehem in the country of Judah, six\ncenturies after the captivity? In no sense were the descendants of\nJudah the children of Rachel. Rachel died, and was buried at or near\nBethlehem; but surely no one, not even the most credulous Christian,\nwill assert that this makes her the mother of the line of Judah,\nafterwards settled there. Moreover, Jeremiah's reference is to Ramah,\nand cannot apply to Bethlehem.\n\n4. Matt. ii. 23. Because Jesus was taken as a child to Nazareth, and\nbrought up there, it is asserted that he fulfilled what was spoken\nby the prophets, \"He shall be called a Nazarene.\" Nowhere in the Old\nTestament can this be found. If a Nazarite is meant--one unshaven, and\nan abstainer from wine and strong drink--the character does not apply\nto Jesus, who \"came eating and drinking.\" But a Nazarite was the\ndesignation of an order, not a name for the dweller in any particular\nlocality. Nazarene was the earlier designation of the disciples of\nJesus. They were called Christians first at Antioch (Acts xi. 26).\n\n(j.) _The temple-purging_ (Psalm lxix. 9; John ii. 17).\n\nThe circumstance referred to in the passage from John is that Jesus at\npassover-time, before the Baptist's imprisonment, went up to Jerusalem,\nentered into the temple, and let loose his indignation by driving out\nthe money-changers, the cattle-dealers, and dove-sellers with a scourge\nof small cords, upsetting their tables, and pouring out their money.\n\"Take these things hence,\" he said, \"make not my Father's house a house\nof merchandise.\"\n\nMatthew xxi. 12, 13; Mark xi. 15-17; and Luke xix. 45, 46, differ\nfrom John, in so far that they place this temple-purging at the time of\nJesus' final entry into Jerusalem. Could such an extraordinary breach of\nthe peace have occurred in any country under a Roman governor, without\nsummary justice on the offender? Upsetting money-dealers' tables,\npouring out their money, overturning the seats of the sellers of doves,\nand driving them from their stands, for which most probably they paid\ncustom, if not to the state, to the temple-priests, and the disturber\nallowed to go away scot-free in any orderly community! Utterly\nincredible. And such conduct ascribed to one for whom the power and\nattributes of the Almighty are claimed!\n\n(k.)_The entrance into Jerusalem on the back of an ass_ (Zech. ix. 9;\nMatt. xxi. 4-6). The meekness of Jesus on this occasion is scarcely\nborne out by the scene referred to in last paragraph (j.) which,\naccording to Matthew, followed immediately on his entrance into the\ncity.\n\nThe prophecy of Zechariah was during the building of the second temple,\nand most probably referred to the lowly appearance made by Zerubbabel,\nthe prince of Judah, as compared to that of his royal ancestors.\n\n(1.) _The scene in the synagogue of Nazareth_ (Isaiah lxi; 1; Luke iv.\n16-21). Isaiah's high-sounding prophecy is said to have been fulfilled\nthus--\n\n1. Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought tip, and as his\ncustom was he entered the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up\nto read. The book of the prophet Esaias being delivered to him, he read\npart of this passage. Then he closed the book, gave it again to the\nminister, and sat down.\n\n2. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he\nbegan to declare, \"This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.\"\nWondering at these gracious words, they inquired, \"Is not this Joseph's\nson?\"\n\n3. He retorted that no prophet is accepted in his own country, and cited\ncases from the Old Testament where, in times of extremity, no more than\none favoured individual was relieved by the timely arrival of a prophet\nsent from God. (Contrast this with the prophecy, \"to comfort all that\nmourn.\")\n\n4. Roused to wrath by this intimation, they sought to cast him headlong\nfrom the rock on which their city was built; \"but he passing through the\nmidst of them, went his way.\"\n\nWords have no meaning, if such a scene as this can be called the\nfulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy.\n\n(m.) _The bruised reed and the smoking flax_ (Isaiah xlii. 1; Matt. xii.\n14-21). How could the \"servant upheld by Jehovah\" fulfil the prophecy by\nshrinking from the Pharisees in the way Jesus is reported by Matthew to\nhave done?\n\n(n.) \"_Eyes to see, and see not; ears to hear, and hear not_\" (Isa. vi.\n9-12; xxix. 10; Jer. v. 21; Ezek. xii. 2; Matt. xiii. 10-17; John xii.\n39-41; Acts xxviii. 24-28; Rom. xi. 8-10). The prophets prophesied to a\nheedless people. Jesus and his followers are reported to have done the\nsame. So have many others at various times. The appropriation to\nJesus of the language in which the Jewish prophets expressed their\ndisappointment is no proof that that language was meant to apply to him\nrather than to themselves.\n\nHab. i. 5, 6; Acts xiii. 40, 41. Habakkuk and the bitter and hasty\nChaldeans contrast strangely with Paul and his warning to the Jews not\nto disbelieve his assertions with reference to Jesus.\n\n(o.) \"_I will open my mouth in parables_\" (Psalm lxxviii. 2; Matt.\nxiii. 34, 35). This is a very flagrant instance of misquotation and\nmisapplication. The Psalmist says that he will utter dark sayings of\nold, \"_which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us_.\"\nJesus is described by Matthew as fulfilling a prophecy to the effect\nthat he would utter things \"_which have been kept secret from the\nfoundation of the world_.\"\n\n(p.) \"_The stone rejected by the builders_\" (Psalm cxviii.;22; Matt.\nxxi. 42, 43; Mark xii. 10; Luke xx. 17; Acts iv. 11). Psalm cxviii.\nis written by one who was praising the Lord for some triumph he had\nobtained over danger and difficulty; who had secured his end against his\nenemies, who had attained the head of the corner, though rejected by\nthe builders. The application in Matthew is that Jesus, rejected by the\nJews, should be accepted by the Gentiles, or by another nation than the\nJews. This has come to pass. His own countrymen, even his own brethren,\nwho were in a position to judge of the truth of his supernatural claims,\nrejected him. The nations of Europe, who were not in a position so to\njudge, have, under various forms, called themselves by his name, and\nadored him as their God. But this in no way shows that Psalm cxviii. was\nwritten with reference to any other than the person who composed it.\n\n(q.) _The betrayal by Judas Iscariot_ (Zech. xi. 11-13; Psalm lxix. 25;\ncix. 8; Matt, xxvii. 9, 10; Acts i. 16-20). Peter thus narrates the\nfate of Judas: \"Now this man purchased a field with the reward of his\niniquity (the thirty pieces of silver), and falling headlong he burst\nasunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And it was known to\nall the dwellers in Jerusalem, insomuch as that field is called in their\nproper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, the field of blood.\"\n\nCompare this with Matthew, who states that Judas, repenting of his\nconduct, took back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests;\nsaid he had betrayed innocent blood; they answered, \"What is that to\nus? see thou to that.\" On this he cast down the money in the temple, and\nwent and hanged himself. The chief priests would not put the money in\nthe treasury, because it was the price of blood, but laid it out in\npurchasing the potter's field to bury strangers in.\n\nMatthew and Peter are thus quite irreconcilable. Both were companions\nof Jesus and Judas; both were present at and cognisant of the whole\ncircumstances of the betrayal; Matthew was present during Peter's speech\nrecorded in the Acts; and yet the discrepancy between them is such as\nentirely to discredit both their statements.\n\nThe circumstances alluded to in Zechariah are unknown. The passages from\nthe Psalms are applicable to Saul, or some other of David's enemies;\nindeed, they may be used by any one against a traitor or enemy.\n\n(r.) _The passion_ (Zech. xiii. 7; Matt. xxvi. 31). Zechariah is writing\nduring the troubled times, when Jerusalem was rebuilt. The particular\nevent he alluded to is unknown. No construction of the passage can make\nit applicable to the desertion of the disciples when Jesus was arrested.\n\nDeut. xxi. 23; Gal. iii. 13. Hanging on a tree is not crucifixion, which\nwas a Roman, not a Jewish practice.\n\nExodus xii. 46; Psalms xxxiv. 20; John xix. 36. The passage in Exodus\ncertainly refers to the Paschal lamb; the passage in the Psalms to the\ncare the Almighty is said to take of the righteous, so that \"preserving\nhis bones whole\" is equivalent to the other expression, \"There shall\nno evil befall thee.\" The incident recorded by John is not confirmed\nby Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who make no mention of the disciples at\nthe crucifixion, and say that the women beheld afar off. John, on the\ncontrary, says that he, along with the women, was by the cross, so near\nthat Jesus spoke to himself and Mary. This incident, so pointedly\ngiven as an eye-witnessed fact, seems to have been devised to give the\ncrucifixion some resemblance to the lamb of the Passover. But the\nmodes of death surely were very different. If any such resemblance was\nnecessary, should it not have been complete?\n\nZech. xii. 9; John xix. 37. The spirit of grace and supplication poured\nout on the inhabitants of Jerusalem during the crucifixion of Jesus,\nwhen they cried, \"Not this man, but the robber Barabbas,\" is a wondrous\ncontradiction.\n\nPsalm xxij. 18; Matt, xxvii. 35; Mark xv. 24; Luke xxiii. 34; John xix.\n23. The practice of casting lots for the clothes of the crucified may\nhave been a common one among the Roman soldiers at the time, and it\ncorresponds admirably to one of David's expressions when he was in\nadversity and trouble.\n\n(s.) _Daniel's seventy weeks_ (Daniel ix. 21-27). The only allusion in\nthe New Testament to this prophecy is in Matt. xxiv. 14, 15; Mark xv.\n13, 14, where Jesus directs his disciples to flee to the mountains when\nthey see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet,\nstand on the holy place. Between Nebuchadnezzar and Titus, however,\nthere were two, if not more, \"abominations of desolation,\" equally\nanswering to Daniel's description.\n\nSo far as it relates to the Messiah, the Prince, or the Anointed Prince,\nit is not claimed for Jesus by any of the New Testament writers. But\nby modern Christians it is held to be a prophecy of the exact time that\nelapsed between the edict to restore Jerusalem and the death of Christ.\nEach week is said to be a week of years: thus seventy weeks are 490\nyears, and from the letter of Artaxerxes granted to Ezra (Ezra vii.),\nb.c. 457, to the death of Jesus, a.d. 33, there are exactly 490 years.\nWhat is this but a mere reckoning back of 490 years from a.d. 33, so\nthat the chronology has been fixed by the prophecy, not the truth of the\nprophecy proved by the chronology?\n\nBut the letter of Artaxerxes to Ezra was not a commandment to rebuild\nJerusalem: it was given to him to further him on his way from Babylon\nto Jerusalem, _already rebuilt_. The commandment to restore and rebuild\nJerusalem was that of the first of Cyrus alone (ordinary Christian\nchronology, b.c. 536); the prophecy asserts that it went forth at the\nbeginning of Daniel's supplication, and the subsequent decrees were only\nconfirmations of the original one, (Ezra vi.)\n\nThe statement of Gabriel is in answer to Daniel's supplication for mercy\nand favour to be shown to Jerusalem, and, commencing with a commandment\nto rebuild, ends in doleful desolation. But as the Messiah, the anointed\none referred to, is not asserted by New Testament writers to be Jesus,\nit is sufficient here to point out the untenable ground on which modern\nChristians make this claim on his behalf.\n\n(t.) _The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah_. This chapter may most fairly\nbe interpreted as having reference to Hezekiah in the various troubles\nof his reign and life, described 2 Kings xix. and xx.; 2 Chron. xxx. and\nxxxii., and Isaiah xxxvi., xxxvii., and xxxviii. Isaiah was the seer of\nthe time. Hezekiah \"cut off out of the land of the living\" refers to the\nsentence of death, afterwards postponed, against him for his people's\nbacksliding, though he himself wrought that which was \"good, and right,\nand truth before the Lord his God.\" His \"pouring out his soul unto\ndeath\" agrees with the expression, \"In those days Hezekiah was sick unto\ndeath.\" \"And he was numbered with the transgressors, and bare the sin\nof many, and made intercession for the transgressors,\" also agree with,\n\"And the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people;\" and with,\n\"Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart,\nboth he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord\ncame not upon them in the days of Hezekiah.\" If the exact circumstances\nin which Isaiah liii. was written were fully known, all the seer's\nallusions would be very intelligible; as it is, their application to\nHezekiah and his times--always assuming that Isaiah was the writer--is\nthe most probable.\n\nThe portions of this chapter claimed for Jesus in the New Testament are\nthe following:--\n\nMatthew viii. 16, 17. Here \"his bearing our griefs\" is applied by\nMatthew to Jesus' disease-curing wonders. But this differs from the\nview of modern Christians. They hold that it applies to his death on the\ncross as an expiation for sin.\n\nJohn xii. 37, 38. \"Who hath believed our report\" may be used by any one\nwhose pretensions are treated with incredulity. What reason is there for\nimagining that Esaias meant any other than his own report?\n\nMark xv. 27, 28; Luke xxii. 37. The \"numbering among the transgressors\"\nis equally true of any one who suffers penally for his belief, or who,\ninnocent or little to blame himself, shares the fate of an offending\ncommunity. The applicability of the passage to Hezekiah in the latter\nsense has just been noticed.\n\n(u.) _The gospel message_ (Luke xxiv. 44-48). Here a statement, utterly\nuntrue, is put by Luke into the mouth of the risen Jesus. Nowhere in\nMoses, the prophets, or the Psalms is it written that the anointed one\nis to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day.\n\n(v.) _The gift of tongues_ (Joel ii. 28-30; Acts ii. 1-4). Joel's\nprophecy is said to have been fulfilled on the day of Pentecost\nfollowing the resurrection, when the apostles were all \"with one accord\nin one place.\"\n\n1. A sound came from heaven as of a mighty rushing wind, and filled the\nhouse where they were sitting.\n\n2. Cloven tongues, like tongues of fire, sat on each of them.\n\n3. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with\ntongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.\n\nJoel, the son of Pethuel, would probably be surprised at Peter's\nappropriation of his prophecy. No doubt it is applicable to any general\nreligious awakening or excitement in any land or at any time. But Joel\nis referring to some invasion, or threatened invasion, of Judea, and to\na deliverance accompanied with a religious revival and thanksgiving. The\nexact circumstances in which he wrote, if known, would make his obscure\nallusions clear. The incidents, however, of the mighty rushing wind and\nthe cloven fiery tongues receive no support from his prophecy.\n\n(w.) _The calling of the Gentiles_ (Amos ix. 11, 12; Acts xv. 13-16).\nAmos' prophecy has been falsified by the event. The Jews, who were no\nmore to be pulled out of the land the Lord had given them, were pulled\nout of it eighteen centuries ago, and so remain. The disingenuous way in\nwhich James applies to the conversion of the Gentiles what is clearly a\nreference to a return from captivity is very striking.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. THE RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION OF JESUS\n\n1. The resurrection of Jesus is the keystone of Christian faith, the\ncentral stay on which the structure rests. \"If thou shalt confess with\nthy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God raised\nhim from the dead, thou shalt be saved.\" What a glorious hope for all\nmankind would lie in such a fact as that one, a fellow-man, had been\nkilled because of his supernatural claims; had lain for a time in the\ngrave, and on the third day, as predicted by himself, had risen from the\ndead! So marvellous an instance of nature-controlling power might well\nbe held to establish, in the most conclusive manner, the validity of the\nclaims of the person resuscitated; it would show that God was with him\nin an especial manner, that his words were true, that his promises would\nnot fail.\n\n2. What, then, are the evidences of this so glorious an event?\n\n(a.) The four gospels agree in narrating that, while Jesus hung lifeless\non the cross, a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea, himself a disciple of\nJesus, went to Pilate and obtained permission to take charge of the\nbody; that he laid it in his own new tomb, hewn out of a rock; that\ncertain women saw where the body was laid, and that a great stone was\nrolled to the door of the tomb.\n\n(b.) Matthew alone avers that, with Pilate's consent, the chief priests\nand Pharisees had the stone sealed, and a watch (of Roman soldiers) set.\n\n(c.) Thus the tomb remained from the evening of the day of the\ncrucifixion over the next day, the Jewish sabbath.\n\n(d.) But early on the morning of the following day, the first day of the\nweek, Jesus arose from the dead. Of this event--so entirely the reverse\nof all human experience, but of the last importance to each mortal man\nif it happened--the witnesses, of whose personal character among their\nneighbours for veracity and general trustworthiness nothing is known,\nthus present themselves:--\n\nMatthew and John, eye-witnesses of the risen Jesus:\n\nMark, companion of Peter, an eye-witness:\n\nLuke, companion of Paul, who had intercourse with eyewitnesses, and who\nhimself professes to narrate the testimony of eye-witnesses (Luke i. 2):\n\nAnd what they aver is analysed and compared in the following\nparagraphs:--\n\n3. _The empty tomb_.--All four agree that in the morning (at dawn, at\nsun rising, very early, when it was yet dark) of the first day of the\nweek the tomb was found empty by those who went to visit it.\n\n4. _Visitors to the tomb_.--Matthew mentions \"Mary Magdalene and the\nother Mary;\" Mark, \"Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and\nSalome;\" Luke, \"Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and\nother Galilean women,\" and afterwards, on the report of the women,\nPeter; John, \"Mary Magdalene\" only, and afterwards, on her report,\nhimself (John) and Simon Peter, Mary Magdalene returning after them.\n\n5. _Appearances at the tomb_.--(a.) The great earthquake and the awful\nappearance of the angel to the watch--\"countenance like lightning,\nraiment white as snow;\" and the effect on the startled soldiers, who\nswooned away \"as dead men,\" as also the subsequent report of the watch\nand their acceptance of a bribe (large money) from the chief priests to\npublish a falsehood and confess that they--Roman soldiers--had slept at\ntheir post, are mentioned by Matthew alone. Matthew does not name his\ninformant, whether it was a chief priest or one of the soldiers who\nbetrayed his own and his comrades' infamy.\n\n(b.) The stone securing the tomb was rolled away. So all four affirm.\nThis was one object of the angel's visit. Jesus rose from the dead, but\nthe angel's assistance was necessary to open the tomb.\n\n(c.) Matthew asserts that the angel sat on the stone, outside the tomb.\nMark, that he appeared as a young man sitting within the tomb, on the\nright side, clothed in a long, white garment. Luke has \"two men\" in\nglittering garments, who made themselves manifest as the perplexed women\nwere gazing at the empty tomb. John states that Mary Magdalene, on her\n_second_ visit, saw two angels, one sitting at the head the other at the\nfeet, where the body of Jesus had lain. When, according to Luke, Peter\nvisited the tomb, or according to John, when Mary Magdalene in the first\ninstance, and then Peter and John, on hearing her report, went there, no\nsuch marvellous angelic being was manifest. The appearance was to\nperplexed and timid women. Wherein did they differ from other weak\nwomen, that their testimony received at second hand should be held\ntrustworthy? Supposing, for instance, that it had been the young man\nwith the linen garment about his naked body (Mark xiv. 51, 52), seated\nwithin the tomb, would not their excited imaginations have transformed\nhim into a messenger from heaven?\n\n6. _Announcements of the angels at the tomb_.--(a.) Matthew's dread\nangel announced to the women that Jesus had risen from the dead,\ndirected them to go at once and inform his disciples that \"he goeth\nbefore you into Galilee, there shall ye see him.\" Trembling and joyful\nthey ran away at once to bring \"his disciples word.\"\n\n(6.) Mark's white-clad young man made the same announcement of Jesus\npreceding his disciples to Galilee; but instead of obeying the angel's\ndirection as to informing the disciples, \"they went out quickly and fled\nfrom the sepulchre, for they trembled and were amazed, neither said they\nanything to any man, for they were afraid.\"\n\n(c.) Luke's two bright-clad men announced that Jesus was risen, as he\nhad told them while yet in Galilee. \"They remembered his words, and\nreturned from the sepulchre, and told all these things to the eleven\nand to all the rest.\" There is no mention here of Jesus going before his\ndisciples into Galilee.\n\n(d.) John's two angels asked Mary Magdalene, \"Woman, why weepest thou?\"\nShe replied, \"Because they have taken away my lord, and I know not where\nthey have laid him.\" Here, _wholly ignorant that he was alive_, stood\nbeside the tomb one of the very women to whom Matthew, Mark, and Luke's\nangels announced that Jesus was risen from the dead. If Matthew's\naccount be true, both he and John were present when the women told the\ndisciples that Jesus was risen, and gave them the direction to go to\nGalilee; and yet John narrates this circumstance, one quite at variance\nwith Matthew's angel's announcement to the women.\n\n7. _Effect on the disciples of the first announcement of the\nresurrection_.--(a.) Matthew states that \"then\" (on the report of the\nwomen) \"the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain\nwhere Jesus had appointed them.\"\n\n(b.) Mark xvi. 1-8, and xvi. 9-20, seem to contain two different\naccounts of the resurrection. It is difficult to reconcile them. Verses\n9-20, not being found in the most ancient manuscripts, are held by many\nto be spurious. But their general agreement with Luke's narrative is in\nfavour of these verses being of the same age, or emanating from the\nsame set of believers. Let verses 1-8, then, for the present purpose,\nbe distinguished as Mark's first narrative, and verses 9-20 as Mark's\nsecond narrative.\n\nMark's first narrative, as already shown, agrees with Matthew as to\nthe terms of the angel's announcement, but seems to imply that\nthe terror-struck women did not deliver the angel's message to the\ndisciples.\n\nMark's second narrative states that Jesus first appeared to Mary\nMagdalene, who went and told the disciples; \"and they, when they had\nheard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.\" No\ndeparture for Galilee is mentioned.\n\n(c.) Luke affirms that the announcement to the disciples was by the\nwhole of the women; \"and their words seemed to them as idle tales, and\nthey believed them not.\" Peter alone was moved to run to the sepulchre,\nwhere he found the empty tomb and the cast-off grave-clothes, and\n\"departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.\" The\nwhole of Luke's statement is quite inconsistent with Matthew's assertion\nthat the disciples went away to Galilee to find Jesus there.\n\n(d.) John states that when Mary Magdalene first reported that the tomb\nwas empty, Peter and himself ran to the sepulchre, that he outran Peter,\nthat he looked in and saw the linen clothes lying, that Peter when he\ncame up went in, that then he (John) went in also, and that when he saw\nthe cast-off grave-clothes he saw and believed: \"for as yet they knew\nnot the Scripture that he must rise from the dead.\" If so then Matthew\nxvi. 21; xvii. 22, 23; Mark viii. 31; ix. 31; Luke ix. 22, must all be\nerroneous. The burden of these passages is, that while in Galilee Jesus\ninformed his disciples that he would be killed, and rise again on the\nthird day. The very chief priests, too, in setting the watch (Matthew\nxxvii. 63), did so because of this well-known assertion of Jesus.\n\nWhen, on her second visit to the tomb, Mary Magdalene saw and conversed\nwith Jesus himself, she \"came and told the disciples that she had seen\nthe Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.\" The effect is\nnot mentioned. But the whole of John's statement is inconsistent with\nMatthew's \"departure of the eleven for Galilee,\" and this departure\nagain as inconsistent with John's statement.\n\n8. _Appearances of the risen Jesus_.--(a.) Matthew xxviii. 9, 10. While\nMary Magdalene and the other Mary were running to deliver the angel's\nmessage to the disciples, they were met by Jesus himself, who greeted\nthem with an \"all hail.\" They held him by the feet and worshipped him.\nHe confirmed the angel's message to his disciples, and directed them to\ngo to Galilee: \"there shall they see me.\"\n\nMark xvi. 9-11. Jesus, when he had risen early the first day of the\nweek, appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven\ndevils. She informed his mourning disciples, who did not believe her.\nLuke has no incident at all corresponding to this.\n\nJohn xx. 14-18. Mary Magdalene remained weeping at the tomb, after Peter\nand John had left, when Jesus made himself known to her. Recognising\nhim, she turned and called him, \"Master.\" He said, \"Touch me not, for\nI am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren, and say unto\nthem, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your\nGod. Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the\nLord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.\"\n\nHere there are several grave contradictions between Matthew and John.\n\n1. Matthew makes the first appearance of Jesus to _the two_ Maries,\nwhile they are hastening _from the tomb_ to carry to his disciples the\nglad news of his resurrection, which they had learned from the angel;\nJohn, while Mary Magdalene is _by herself at the tomb and is unaware_ of\nhis resurrection.\n\n2. Matthew mentions that the two Maries _held him by the feet_ and\nworshipped him; John, that Mary Magdalene was commanded by Jesus _not to\ntouch him_.\n\n3. Matthew states that Jesus directed his disciples to go to\n\nGalilee, where they would find him; John, that he announced to Mary, \"I\nascend to my Father,\" &c. Not one word of a journey to Galilee.\n\n(6.) Matthew xxviii. 16-20. \"Then the eleven disciples went away into\nGalilee into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they\nsaw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake\nunto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,\"\n&c.\n\nMatthew here narrates that on receiving the direction of the women, the\neleven went away to a mountain in Galilee fixed on before Jesus' death.\n(Matthew xxvi. 32, he had said, \"After I am risen again, I will go\nbefore you into Galilee.\") How or in what form they saw him there is\nleft untold. Most of them adored, but some doubted. The appearance,\ntherefore, could not have been a close one, such as was vouchsafed to\nThomas (John xx. 27), for then no one could have doubted. Belief in such\ncases is not matter of choice. How Jesus vanished after his appearance\non the Galilean mount is not mentioned. Matthew was a witness of the\nascension of Jesus, if Mark and Luke's accounts be true, but he passes\nby this most striking event in silence. Mark's second narrative, too, in\nno way confirms the journey to Galilee. On the contrary, it states that\nthe parting charge of Jesus and his ascension took place after he\nhad appeared and spoken to the eleven as they sat at meat. Where this\noccurred, and on what day, is somewhat ambiguous; but the inference\nis that it was at Jerusalem, and on the day of the resurrection. Luke,\nhowever, is quite explicit on this point. According to him on the very\nday (Luke xxiv. 13, 33, 36, 50, 51) of the resurrection Jesus appeared\nto the eleven at Jerusalem, gave them his parting charge, led them out\nto Bethany, and was there parted from them and carried into heaven.\nSo far from there being any journey to Galilee, they were expressly\ncommanded (chap. xxiv. 49) to tarry at Jerusalem. Here Luke, the\nrecorder of the reports of eye-witnesses, states that the disciples\nwere ordered to tarry in Jerusalem on the very day when, according to\nMatthew, an eye-witness, they were ordered to proceed to Galilee. And\nJohn, the other eyewitness, one of the eleven, makes no mention of a\njourney to Galilee immediately following the first announcement of the\nresurrection, or of the appearance of Jesus on the mountain there,\nbut, on the contrary, affirms that Jesus appeared to his disciples at\nJerusalem on the evening of the day of the resurrection, and also on\nthat day week.\n\n(c.) Mark xvi. 12, 13. He appeared in another form to two of them in a\ncountry walk: they told the rest, who were still incredulous.\n\nLuke xxiv. 13-35. Jesus that same day, i.e., the day of the\nresurrection, joined two of them on their way to the village of Emmaus,\nnear Jerusalem; at first they did not know him, but on breaking bread\nthey recognised him. On this he vanished.\n\nJohn does not confirm these appearances, and they are inconsistent with\nMatthew's journey of the eleven to Galilee.\n\n(d.) Mark xvi. 14-20. Then he appeared to the eleven as they sat at\nmeat, reproached them with their unbelief, gave them the charge to\npreach the gospel; and then, after he had spoken, he was received into\nheaven, and sat on the right hand of God.\n\nLuke xxiv. 36-53. _The same hour_ in which the two, who had recognised\nJesus in breaking of bread at Emmaus, returned to Jerusalem, and while\nthey were informing the \"eleven and the rest\" of what had happened,\nJesus himself stood in the midst of them, and said, \"Peace be unto you.\"\nThey were terrified at his appearance. He showed them his hands and his\nfeet, told them to handle him, and ate before them; directed them to\ntarry at Jerusalem till they were endued with power from on high.\n\"And he led them out as far as Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and\nblessed them. And it came to pass while he blessed them, he was parted\nfrom them, and carried up into heaven.\"\n\nJohn xx. 19-23. The same day (i.e., the resurrection day), at even, when\nthe doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the\nJews, Jesus appeared, saying, \"Peace be unto you.\" He showed them his\nhands and his side. They were glad of his appearance.\n\nHere there is a certain amount of agreement between Mark, Luke, and\nJohn, as to an appearance to the eleven at Jerusalem on the day of the\nresurrection. But this occurrence conflicts with Matthew. If, as he\nstates, Jesus \"went before\" his disciples to Galilee, or if they set out\nfor Galilee on the direction delivered by the women, neither the one nor\nthe others could have been in Jerusalem.\n\nThe most remarkable point here, however, is that neither Matthew nor\nJohn confirm, in any form, the \"ascension\" mentioned by Mark and Luke.\nEye-witnesses as they were, special missionaries to testify to men that\nJesus was alive, so wondrous an event they pass by in silence.\n\n(e.) John xx. 24-29. On the eighth day after the previous occurrence,\nhe appeared among his disciples, the doors being shut as before, and was\nacknowledged by Thomas, who was not present on the first occasion, as\nhis \"Lord and his God.\" This is quite at variance with Mark and Luke's\nstatement that Jesus ascended to heaven on the day of the resurrection,\nand it is unnecessary again to allude to its inconsistency with\nMatthew's account.\n\n(f.) John xxi. 1-25. Jesus' _third appearance_ to his disciples was at\nthe sea of Tiberias while they were fishing. Peter, Thomas, Nathanael,\nJames and John, and two other disciples were present. He directed Peter\nhow to cast his net, and ensured a large haul: he then dined with them,\nand afterwards gave Peter a charge to feed his lambs and his sheep, and\nreturned a dubious answer about the length of John's life.\n\nThis also rests merely on John's narrative. Mark, even, the companion\nof Peter, who was specially conspicuous on this occasion, in no way\nconfirms it. On the contrary, his second narrative implies that Jesus\nascended to heaven on the day of the resurrection.\n\n(g.) Luke in Acts i. 1-11. Jesus showed himself alive after his passion\nby many infallible proofs: was seen by his disciples forty days, and\nspoke to them of things pertaining to the kingdom of God. He commanded\nthem not to depart from Jerusalem, but to await there the gift of the\nHoly Ghost. Then, on Mount Olivet, when he had given the last charge,\nwhile they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of\ntheir sight. As they were gazing upwards, two men in white apparel\nappeared, who said, \"Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into\nheaven? This same Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven shall so\ncome in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.\"\n\nMatthew and John, the two eye-witnesses, are silent as to the ascension\nto heaven. They, whose special, divinely-conferred mission it was\nto testify to the resurrection of Jesus and the following glory, to\nmaintain that he was alive for evermore, to declare the whole counsel\nof God, make no mention of this crowning wonder. Such comparatively\ntrifling matters as the women holding him by the feet (Matt, xxviii. 9),\nor Simon's naked condition (John xxi. 7), or the fire of coals, and fish\nlaid thereon and bread (John xxi. 9), were deemed worthy of record, but\nthe ascension to heaven they altogether ignore.\n\nMark and Luke, who write what they heard from others, mention the\nascension in their Gospels, and their narrative most clearly implies\nthat it took place on the day of the resurrection. Mark expressly states\nthat he was received into heaven, \"then after he had spoken\" to the\neleven as they sat at meat. And could any one imagine that between Luke\nxxiv. 49 and xxi v. 50 there was an interval of forty days, as asserted\nby the same writer in the Acts? Would the omission of all mention of\nsuch an interval be consistent with the \"perfect understanding of all\nthings from the very first\" professed by Luke? Clearly there had been\nan amplification of detail during the time that elapsed between the\ncompilation of the gospel by Luke and the compilation of the Acts.\n\nJesus, the writer in the Acts affirms, was seen by his disciples forty\ndays, and spoke to them of things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Why,\nthen, are none of his sayings preserved, if the short announcements (one\nof which--Luke xxiv. 44-48--has already been shown to be false) at the\nend of the gospels be excepted? Were the discourses of the risen Jesus\nnot more important, were they less impressive than those uttered in his\nlifetime?\n\n(h.) Acts ix. 1-9. As Paul was on the way to Damascus, with authority\nfrom the high priests to the synagogues there, to arrest and to bring to\nJerusalem all who professed to believe on Jesus, a brilliant light shone\naround him, whereupon he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying,\n\"Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?\" Paul replied, \"Who art thou,\nLord?\" The voice answered, \"I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest: it\nis hard for thee to kick against the pricks.\" \"And he, trembling and\nastonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said\nunto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what\nthou must do.\" On getting up he found himself blind, and was led by\nthe hand to Damascus. The men who were with him stood speechless. _They\nheard a voice_, but they saw no man.\n\nActs xxii. 6-21. This passage contains an address said to have been\ndelivered by Paul himself, in which the foregoing wondrous event is\nrelated, but with one important contradiction,--\"They that were with me\nsaw indeed the light, and were afraid, but they heard not the voice of\nhim that spake to me.\"\n\nActs xxvi. 15-18. Paul here asserted that the voice from heaven uttered\nthe following:--\"I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. But rise and stand\nupon thy feet, for I have appeared to thee for this purpose, to make\nthee a minister and a witness,\" &c. This is very different from Acts\nix., where he is directed to go into the city, and that there it\nwould be told him what he should do. Paul (Acts xxvi. 19-20) added,\n\"Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly\nvision; but showed first unto them at Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and\nthroughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles,\" &c.\n\nThese are Luke's statements, in the Acts, with reference to the\nappearance of Jesus to Paul. The subsequent movements of the apostle, on\nthe same authority, were,--\n\n(Luke, 1.) After being cured of his blindness by the laying on of the\nhands of Ananias, he preached in Damascus that Jesus was Christ.\n\n(Luke, 2.) The Jews being desirous of killing him, he fled to Jerusalem.\nThe disciples at first were chary of their quondam persecutor, but,\nassured by Barnabas, who took-him and brought him to the apostles, they\nreceived him into their fellowship.\n\n(Luke, 3.) He disputed against the Grecians (Hellenised Jews?), who went\nabout to-slay him. On this he was taken by the brethren to Caesarea, and\nthence sent on to Tarsus.\n\n(Luke, 4.) Persecution forced many Christian Jews to leave Judea and to\nsettle at Antioch. Barnabas was sent by the Church at Jerusalem to visit\nthem. He rejoiced at their liveliness in the faith, and then went to\nTarsus to find Paul, whom he brought back to Antioch. They were there\ntogether a whole year. The disciples were called Christians first in\nAntioch.\n\n(Luke, 5.) Paul and Barnabas conveyed a contribution from the brethren\nat Antioch to those at Jerusalem. Returning from Jerusalem they took\nwith them John, whose surname was Mark.\n\n(Luke, 6.) During their ministry at Antioch the Holy Ghost said,\n\"Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called\nthem.\" They then started on their mission to the Gentiles.\n\nNow, Luke was Paul's companion, his attendant on his travels, his\nfaithful friend in trouble (2 Tim. iv. 11), surely, then, his statements\nwith reference to Paul will be found to tally exactly with this\napostle's allusions to his own life and ministry; it cannot be but\nthat the Acts and the Epistles of Paul are in perfect harmony. Not so,\nhowever; they are quite irreconcilable.\n\n(Paul, 1.) In 2 Cor. xi. and xii. Paul brings forward the various\nclaims he possessed to be regarded as \"no whit behind the very chiefest\napostles.\" He alludes to his arduous labours, journeys, and sufferings\nfor the gospel's sake. And then he comes \"to visions and revelations of\nthe Lord.\" Does he mention the wondrous incident on the way to Damascus?\nNo! not one word, either here or elsewhere. What he does mention is a\nman in Christ (evidently himself), who, about fourteen years previously,\nwas caught up into the third heaven--whether in the body or out of\nthe body, God only knew--caught up into paradise, and there heard\nunspeakable words, unutterable by man. Now, here, in discoursing of\nhis very claim to apostleship, he is silent on what in the Acts is\nso strongly put forth as his miraculous calling to that office. The\nincident in which the risen Jesus announced, \"I have appeared to thee\nfor this purpose to make thee a minister and witness,\" &c., is quite\nignored by Paul himself in particularising his claims to be that\nminister and witness. The necessary conclusion is, that when the Second\nEpistle to the Corinthians was written, the marvel related in Acts ix.,\nxxii., and xxvi. had not been thought of. By comparison with Paul's\nepistles this undoubted instance of invention or appropriation can be\nbrought home to the writer of the Acts. It shows what the compilers\nof the New Testament were capable of, when a supernatural event was\nrequired to give sanction and support to any doctrine, or practice, or\nclaim which they advocated. The object, in the present instance, was to\nplace Paul, as an apostle, on an equal footing in every respect with\nthe apostles who were companions of Jesus himself, and who had seen him\nalive after his resurrection. If the New Testament is read in the light\nwhich this incident affords, its various narratives become abundantly\nclear. It is seen that its authoritative claims and its doctrines,\nwith reference to the destiny of man, so far from being based on the\nsupernatural events recorded, are merely what these events were devised\nto establish and enforce.\n\n(Paul, 2.) In Galatians he states that, \"when it pleased God, who\nseparated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to\nreveal his son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles\"--(This\nstyle of writing seems quite inconsistent with such an appearance of\nJesus himself as is mentioned in the Acts: Paul here uses language\ndescriptive of ordinary conversion, radically different from the\neffect of a vision of the risen Son of God with power-conferring\ncommands),--\"immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither\nwent I up to Jerusalem to them who were apostles before me (Luke, par.\n2 above, expressly affirms that he did go to Jerusalem), but I went into\nArabia, and returned again to Damascus\" (quite irreconcilable with Luke,\npars. 1, 2, 3, and 4, above). \"Then, after three years, I went up to\nJerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of\nthe apostles saw I none, save James, the Lord's brother. Now, the things\nwhich I write unto you, behold, before God I lie not.\" (If he does\nnot lie, what can be said of Barnabas [Luke, par. 2 above] taking and\nbringing him to the apostles, or of the journey [Luke, par. 5 above] of\nPaul and Barnabas to convey relief to the famine-threatened brethren\nwho dwelt in Judea.) \"Afterwards I went into the regions of Syria and\nCilicia, and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judea which were\nin Christ; but they had heard only that he who persecuted us in times\npast now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed. And they glorified\nGod in me.\" Compare this with Acts ix. 28--Luke, par. 2 above--\"And\nhe was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem;\" with the\nfamine-relief embassy of himself and Barnabas; and, more startling\nstill, with the declaration in the Acts before king Agrippa,--\"O king\nAgrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision, but showed\nfirst to them at Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the\ncoasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles\" &c.\n\nIt is quite beyond the scope of this inquiry to enter into conjectures\nas to the cause of such serious discrepancies between the two\nfellow-travellers, the apostle and his faithful follower. And, indeed,\nall such conjectures would be \"vain and unprofitable,\" for there are no\nmeans now of determining the question. What stands forth clear, however,\nis, that no conscience-satisfying belief, or even ordinary historical\nprobability, can rest where such conflict of testimony appears.\n\n(i.) In 1 Cor. xv. 4-8, Paul thus gives in detail the appearances of\nJesus after his resurrection as these had been reported to him:--\n\n(1.) That he was seen of Cephas. Where? Luke mentions an appearance to\nPeter (chap. xxiv. 34), but gives no particulars. Mark and John agree\nthat the first appearance was to Mary Magdalene. No separate appearance\nto Peter is mentioned by them or by Matthew.\n\n(2. ) Then of the twelve. Where? In, the Galilean mount, according to\nMatthew, or at Jerusalem, according to Luke and John?\n\n(3.) After that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once;\nof whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen\nasleep.\n\nIt is most remarkable that Matthew and John make no mention of this. Nor\nMark nor Luke either.\n\n(4.) After that he was seen of James. No one but Paul says so.\nDoubtless, however, as Peter claimed a special visit of the risen Jesus\nfor himself, so did James, and Paul followed their example; for,\n\n(5.) After mentioning that Jesus was next seen of all the apostles,--he\ndoes not mention where or when--he states,\n\n(6.) \"Last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due\ntime.\" Also 1 Cor. ix. 1, \"Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?\" How\nor where he saw him he leaves untold. Comparing this, however, with 2\nCor. xii, it is probable that he refers to the time when he was caught\nup into paradise and heard unspeakable words, unutterable by man. It has\nalready been shown that the appearance on the way to Damascus had not\nbeen thought of when the second epistle was written, and during this\nappearance Paul _did not see_ Jesus. He heard a voice, and saw a\nbrilliant light. But there is nothing in Paul's writings to indicate\nthat he ever laid claim to so dread an event in connection with himself.\n\n9. Can the mind, then, eagerly straining to find in these accounts of\nthe resurrection of Jesus grounds for a sincere belief that \"one has\nrisen from the dead;\" raising no question as to the authenticity of\nthe gospels, but taking them as they are, and putting the fairest\nconstruction on the words and narrative; most desirous not to abandon a\nhope cherished from the lessons of youth, a hope twined with the fondest\nreflections of manhood,--can the mind once aroused to doubt and inquiry,\nso straining, descry aught on which to rest? Far otherwise; for how\nrapidly these tales of the resurrection, and the other supernatural\noccurrences claimed for Jesus, crumble away, like a long-buried corpse\nexposed to light, before the touch of the simplest tests of evidence!\n\n10. It remains to consider the resurrection of Jesus in connection with\nOld Testament ideas, and with those of the surrounding Gentile nations.\n\n11. In Genesis Adam was doomed to \"return unto the ground, for out of it\nwast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.\" He\ndied when he had lived so many years, is the brief record of his death,\nand of that of all the other primeval patriarchs, with the single\nexception of Enoch, who \"walked with God, and he was not, for God took\nhim.\" The writer of the Hebrews states that he was translated that he\nshould not see death. He is thus represented as escaping the curse of\nAdam, and as made immortal, contrary to the common doom. The statement\nin Genesis is so loose, however, that the exact meaning of the writer\nwill ever remain uncertain. The deaths of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are\nreferred to thus: \"that they gave up the ghost, full of years, and were\ngathered unto their people.\" They returned to the dust from whence they\ncame, as their fathers before them. And when Joseph died, \"being 110\nyears old,\" he is not \"gathered unto his people,\" but \"embalmed and put\nin a coffin in Egypt.\"\n\n12. In Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the books that\nimmediately concern Moses, there is no mention of any future state of\nexistence. The precepts, the ritual, the rewards, and the punishments\nall have reference to the present life. Beyond the grave is nothingness:\nno hope, no fear. What a startling fact this is, and how intimately it\nconcerns the subject now under consideration, appears when contrasted\nwith the prevailing contemporary Egyptian belief. Moses led the\nIsraelites out of Egypt. They had been there upwards of two centuries.\nHe himself was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He had been\nbrought up as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Now, the most prominent\nbelief of the Egyptian religion, as shown by the monuments and ritual,\nwas the immortality of the soul and a state of existence beyond the\ngrave, and it must have been vividly before the Israelites during their\nsojourn in Egypt. The god Osiris became incarnate on earth, worked all\nmanner of good for mankind; was slain through the malignity of the evil\none, the serpent Typhon, but rose again from the dead, and was made the\n'judge of souls; the disembodied spirits were weighed in his balances;\nthe just, after expiating their venial sins by many severe trials, in\nwhich they were accompanied and sustained by Osiris, who had himself\npassed through the same ordeal--\"been tempted in all points like as\nthey were\"--shared the bliss of the god; the reprobate were condemned\nto lengthened torments, came back to earth as evil spirits, dwelt in\nthe bodies of unclean animals, and were ultimately to be annihilated. In\naddition, also, to the symbolic idolatrous religion, by which the\ndeity was represented to the people in numerous phases, all probably\nconceptions of natural phenomena, however incongruous most of the\nmanifestations now appear, there was the hidden religion of the priests\nand of the initiated; and the main conception of this hidden religion\nwas of the one living, independent, uncreated god--_Nuk pu Nuk_, \"I am\nthat I am.\" A hereditary priesthood, animal sacrifices, circumcision,\nand abstinence from swine's flesh, were likewise Egyptian institutions.\nSo was the seventh-day rest. These and minor practices were continued\namong the Israelites, and the Egyptian _Nuk pa Nuk_ became the Jewish\nJehovah; but the symbolical idolatrous worship, likening the Creator\nto the creature, and the belief in the immortality of the soul, were\nrejected by Moses. They have no place in his system. The former he\ndenounced, the latter he ignored. His conception of the unity and\nomnipotence of God was intense, and he indelibly stamped this belief on\nthe mind of his nation, shunning the example of the priests of Egypt,\nwho encouraged the people in idolatrous polytheistic rites, while\nthe purer faith remained concealed among themselves. Contrary to the\npractice of all priestcraft, ancient and modern, he did not keep\nhis followers in ignorance, that he himself might, by a superior\nunderstanding, retain an exalted position in their sight, but he sought\nto bring them up to the level of his own knowledge and belief. How far\nmany of the Egyptian practices retained by the Israelites, and some of\nthe more unworthy conceptions of the deity--such, for instance, as the\never-living omnipotent God _working_ six days in creating the world,\nand _resting_ the seventh; or his ordering the enemies of Israel to be\nmassacred, man, woman, and child; or his exacting animal sacrifices, as\nif he, the source of life, could be appeased by the destruction of the\nvery life he had brought into being--were forced by the nation upon\nMoses, rather than by Moses upon the nation, cannot now be ascertained.\nJer. vii. 22, 23, seem to indicate that the animal sacrifices, at least,\nwere not of Mosaic origin. But his stern prohibition of idolatry,\nand his ignoring a future life, constituted the principal differences\nbetween the Mosaic and the Egyptian systems. They were, indeed, radical\ndifferences. Had not Moses seen in Egypt how the pretended immortality\nof the soul, and the several connected doctrines and practices, in the\nhands of a polished priesthood, had been used so as to keep that very\nsoul in this world in a state of vague fear and abject superstition:\nhow the terrors or expectation of the life to come had led to misery and\nmisdirection of the life on earth: how the dead had been cared for\nto the neglect of the living? And was there any good ground for this\nexpectation of a future life? On the contrary, was not man, in his view,\ndoomed to return to the dust whence he came? Was not the pretence of\nthe soul being immortal an assumption of an attribute of the eternal\nJehovah? And so he taught \"that the Lord he is God, in heaven above, and\nin the earth beneath; there is none else. Thou shalt therefore keep his\nstatutes and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it\nmay go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou\nmayest prolong thy days upon the earth which the Lord thy God giveth\nthee, for ever\" (Deut. iv. 39, 40). The rules of conduct were\nthose which, in the judgment of Moses, led to long life and earthly\nprosperity; their neglect would inevitably bring disaster and woe; there\nwas no other reward, no other dread. And in Psalm xc, described as \"a\nprayer of Moses, the man of God,\" when he mentions that the days of our\nyears are threescore and ten, or if, perchance, by reason of strength,\nfourscore, yet \"that strength labour and sorrow,\" so far is he from\narriving at Paul's conclusion--\"What advantageth it me if the dead\nrise not? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die\"--that he makes the\nbrevity of man's life the ground of the petition, \"So-teach us to number\nour days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.\" Let us be up and\ndoing, for our own and our brethren's sakes; there is no time to be\nlost; let us strive and ponder how to pass our brief life on earth\nwisely and well. The dead, moreover, were buried out of sight, and any\nbodily disfigurement (Lev. xix. 28; Deut. xiv. 1) or offerings (Deut.\nxxvi. 14) for them were prohibited.\n\n13. Now, if the Jewish Jehovah thus represented by Moses be one and the\nsame being with \"the God of Peace, that brought again from the dead\nour Lord Jesus,\" whose kingdom was not of this world, whose reward was\neternal life, whose followers were of all men the most miserable if\nin this life only they had hope in Christ, then the Almighty in one\ndispensation left his chosen people to ignore the possession of an\nimmortal soul and the hope of eternal life--doctrines fully known and\nrecognised by the Egyptians and other nations surrounding them--but\nin the other revealed, little modified, as his own, these prevailing\nbeliefs of the heathen nations, thus making Christianity practically\nlittle else than the Mosaic religion without the sacrifices, joined\nto the Egyptian belief in the soul's immortality and a state of future\nrewards and punishments, which Moses rejected; in one dispensation he\nplaced his service in the following of those rules of life which lead to\nmaking the best of the good earth on which men live, without any other\nreward; in the other, \"he that hateth his life in this world shall keep\nit unto life eternal,\" and those are denounced \"who mind earthly things,\nfor our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for our\nSaviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.\" A wondrous contradictory Almighty!\n\n14. In the historical books of the Old Testament, from Joshua to Esther,\nthere is nothing to indicate that a belief in a future life was held by\nany of the representatives of Jehovah, whether judge, king, prophet, or\npriest, (a.) The aged Joshua (Josh. xxiii. 14) and the dying David\n(1 Kings ii. 2) affirm that they are about \"to go the way of all the\nearth.\" They express neither hope of heaven nor fear of hell. The writer\nin Judges (ii 10) states, \"all that generation was gathered unto their\nfathers.\" The kings of Israel and Judah all \"slept with their fathers.\"\n(b.) The Godforsaken Saul (1 Sam. xxviii. 7-25) went to inquire of the\nwitch of Endor, and asked her to bring up Samuel, who appeared (visible,\nas the narrative implies, only to the witch) as an old man covered with\na mantle--that is to say, his shade had the appearance of himself in old\nage, _dress and all_--and said, \"Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me\nup.\" Saul told his extremity. Samuel's wraith affirmed that the kingdom\nwas transferred to David, that Saul's army would be defeated by the\nPhilistines, and that \"to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me.\"\nThe God-favoured Samuel and the God-forsaken Saul _would be together_.\nHere is certainly a belief in a future life, and in the power of a witch\nto bring up to earth a soul _at rest_--not in bliss or in misery, if\nSamuel's \"why hast thou thus disquieted me\" may be so construed; but\nthat it was not an orthodox Jewish belief is made clear by 1 Chron. x.\n13: \"So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the\nLord, even against the word of the Lord, which he kept not, and also for\nasking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to inquire of it, and\ninquired not of the Lord: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom\nto David, the son of Jesse.\" (c.) The wise woman of Tekoah, whom Joab\nsent disguised to king David, expressed the recognised belief when she\nsaid, \"for we must needs die, and are as water spilled on the ground,\nwhich cannot be gathered up again.\" (d.) Elijah (1 Kings xvii. 21, 22)\nraised from the dead the son of the widow of Zarephath, and Elisha (2\nKings iv. 32-35) the son of the Shunammite. \"Elisha went up and lay\nupon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his\neyes, and his hands upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon the\nchild, and the flesh of the child waxed warm.\" Elijah, too, stretched\nhimself on the child three times, and he prayed, \"O Lord my God, let\nthis child's soul (or life, same word as Genesis i. 30) come into him\nagain; and the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul (or life)\nof the child came into him again, and he revived.\" It would be hard from\nthese statements to determine whether Elijah and Elisha considered the\nchild's soul or life as merely the action of an organism, or as so much\nvital force existing only _as force_ outside the body, or as a separate\nconscious soul sent back to earth at their request. Most probably\nneither they nor the narrator of their wonder-working had any definite\nopinion on the subject. Elisha's bones, also, had such virtue that when\na dead man let down into his sepulchre (2 Kings xiii. 21) had touched\nthem, he revived and stood up on his feet. It is strange that the bones\ncould not do so much for themselves. Neither this man, however, nor the\nresuscitated children, appear to have been made immortal on earth, any\nmore than the son of the widow of Nain, or the raised Lazarus of the New\nTestament. So, wretched ones, they had to suffer death twice; and when\nthey were brought back to life, what did they tell their wondering\nfriends of the condition of the disembodied soul? The world has been\nnone the wiser of their revisit, (e.) The marvellous departure of Elijah\n(2 Kings ii. 11) was probably told to prevent any sort of worship at his\ntomb, concealed, in all likelihood, as that of Moses, doubtless at his\nown desire, was.\n\n15. The authorised version gives rise to considerable misapprehension by\ntranslating the Hebrew word \"sheol\" as \"hell\" in some places, and \"the\ngrave\" in others, (a.) The passage (Genesis xxxvii. 35) before referred\nto, where Jacob says, \"I will go down into the grave (sheol) unto my\nson mourning,\" if translated, \"I will go down into hell,\" &c, would have\nconveyed to the mind of a modern Christian that Joseph was in the place\nof torment. It was quite necessary here, therefore, to render the word\n\"the grave.\" Genesis xlii. 38 is, similarly treated, (b) Proverbs xxiii.\n13, 14, is an example of the other rendering of the same word: \"Withhold\nnot correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he\nshall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his\nsoul from hell\" (from sheol). Here nothing more is meant than that by\ncoercing a youth to follow the lessons of experience, he would be saved\nfrom an early grave; but by translating sheol \"hell,\" the notion that\n\"eternal woe\" is to be averted by the unsparing use of the rod is\nerroneously implied, (c.) The Hebrew word _kibr_ is usually employed to\ndesignate a specific burying-place (a grave, as distinguished from _the_\ngrave), as in Genesis xxiii. 42; xxxv. 20, but is sometimes also used in\nthe same sense as sheol, as Psalm vi. 5, \"In the grave (sheol) who shall\ngive thee thanks:\" Psalm lxxxviii. 10, \"Shall thy loving-kindness be\ndeclared in the grave\" (kibr)? Sheol, however, almost invariably means\nmore than a mere burial place: sometimes it is used in the sense of the\n\"power of death\" (Isaiah xiv. 9), sometimes of the unfathomable abyss\nof darkness, erroneously believed in those days to be under the earth\n(Psalm cxxxix. 8; Amos ix. 2); but usually it implies _the state\nthat follows death_; and that this state was held to be one of ended\nexistence, non-existence, or nothingness, is as clear a conclusion as\nwords can convey. The reprieved Hezekiah (Isaiah xxxviii. 18) says, \"For\nthe grave (sheol) cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee:\nthey that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the\nliving, he shall praise thee, as I do this day.\" So Psalm cxv. 17, \"The\ndead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence;\" and\nEccles. ix. 5, \"For the living know that they shall die, but the dead\nknow not anything;\" also ix. 10, \"for there is no work, nor device, nor\nknowledge, nor wisdom in the grave (sheol), whither thou goest.\" Job,\ntoo (vii. 9), \"As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that\ngoeth down to the grave (sheol) shall come up no more.\" Psalm xlix. 12,\n\"Nevertheless, man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts\nthat perish.\" Thus also Eccles. iii. 19, \"For that which befalleth the\nsons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one\ndieth, so dieth the other: yea, they have all one breath\" (i.e, same\nword as translated \"spirit\" in verse 21, and chap. xii. 7); \"so that a\nman hath no pre-eminence above a beast: for all is vanity. (20) All go\nunto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. (21)\nWho knoweth the spirit (or breath) of man that goeth upward, and the\nspirit (or breath) of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?\" Is\nthis last verse an answer to any objection taken to what is stated\nin verse 19, that man and beast have all one spirit (breath)? Again,\nEccles. xii 7, \"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was,\nand the spirit shall return to God who gave it.\" This passage is quite\nconclusive against a separate conscious existence of the soul in any one\nplace set apart for its reception, or of one soul going to one place\nand another to another. Man is dissolved into dust and spirit: the dust\nmingles again with the earth; the spirit in like manner, as spirit,\nreturns to God: in other words, the life as life returns to its\nsource. Such seems the idea. Again, the mercy of Jehovah is shown in\nconsideration of the brief span of man's life, as Psalm lxxviii. 39,\n\"For he remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away\nand cometh not again:\" ciii. 14, \"He knoweth our frame, he remembereth\nthat we are dust;\" and Psalm lxxxvii. 5 mentions the \"slain that lie in\nthe grave (kibr), whom thou (Jehovah) rememberest no more.\" How utterly\nopposed are all these clear statements to the paradise of unspeakable\nbliss, and the hell of unutterable woe, and the immortal soul and the\nbodily resurrection of the New Testament.\n\n16. Yet there are a few verses of the Old Testament, the principal Job\nxix. 25-27; Isaiah xxvi. 19; Ezek. xxxvii. 12, 13; Daniel xii. 2, that,\nas translated in the authorised version, seem to express the hope of\na bodily resurrection. All these passages are of a highly poetical\ncharacter (that of Daniel is in connection with the great Jewish prince\nMichael), and if read in the light of the explicit declarations just\nquoted, it will be felt that they must be open to other constructions,\nand probably to other renderings than those in the present translation.\nBut it is no part of the present purpose to reconcile discrepancies,\napparent or real; and in any case, it is clear that even these\nlast-named passages do not countenance such conceptions as the heaven\nand hell of the New Testament. The Christian clergy, fully alive to the\nimportance, for upholding the divine origin which they claim for their\ncreed, of making New Testament ideas a development and fulfilment of\nthe Old, and of showing that the deities, Mosaic and Christian, are\nthe same, and not contradictory, have displayed much ingenuity in\nreconciling incongruities and in discovering resemblances in ways and by\nreasonings that would not have occurred to ordinary truth-seeking men;\nbut no unbiassed inquirer can fail to perceive the utter divergence\nbetween the Old and New Testament doctrine and practice, as regards a\nfuture life, and how impossible it is that both sets of ideas can have\nemanated from the same mind or spirit, mortal or immortal. There are\nthus only three possible conclusions: (1.) The Mosaic deity is the true\nGod, not the Christian; (2.) the Christian deity is the true God, not\nthe Mosaic; but this contradicts the Christian deity himself, who says\nthe Mosaic deity was himself; or, (3.) neither is God, in which case\nthere has been no revelation, and all that is left for men is either\nto assume the existence and attributes of a God who has never revealed\nhimself, or to disbelieve in such existence; or to acknowledge that the\nquestion of the existence of a God is one beyond the reach of the human\nfaculties to determine.\n\n17. If then the resurrection of Jesus and the New Testament declarations\nas to a future life, are thus wholly opposed to Old Testament ideas, do\nthey present any resemblance to the belief of heathendom?\n\n(a.) The faith and practice of the Egyptians, in connection with their\ngod Osiris, have already been referred to in preceding paragraph 12.\nIt has been well said that the ancient Egyptians, in their vivid\nanticipations of the life to come, lived rather in the next world than\non the banks of the Nile. The bodily resurrection also had a place in\ntheir system. The belief in the deathlessness of souls has been a marked\ncharacteristic of all the Turanian races, whether represented, as\nmany hold, by the Egyptians, Etruscans, and Lydians of aid, or by the\nChinese, Mongols, and Finns of the present day. The Etruscan sepulchral\npaintings represent the disembodied souls on their way to the land of\nspirits. Some are calm and resigned, with rods in their hands: some\nfull of horror and dismay: attendant spirits, good and evil, contend for\ntheir possession; the good spirits are coloured red, the evil spirits\nblack; the heads of the latter are wreathed with serpents, and they bear\nin their hands a hammer or mallet, which is sometimes raised as in the\nact of striking the woe-begone soul on the knee vainly imploring mercy,\n(b.) In the Zend-a-Vesta,--the ancient Persian Scriptures,--a narrow\npassage, called \"the bridge of the gatherer,\" is said to be extended\nover the middle of hell, where the souls of the dead are assembled on\nthe day after the third night from their decease. The wicked fall into\nthe gulf beneath, the gloomy kingdom of Ahriman, and are doomed to feed\nupon poisoned food. The good, sustained by benign angels and spirits and\nthe prayers of surviving friends, cross over in safety, and are greeted\non the other side by the archangel, as having passed from mortality to\nimmortality. Thence they rise to paradise, where Ormuzd and his six holy\nones sit on golden thrones, and at once join in the conflict against\nAhriman and the powers of darkness. At the last day they will share the\nglory of the triumph of Ormuzd, when Ahriman and his angels, finally\nrouted and overcome, will be driven into their native darkness, and\nvirtue, harmony, and bliss will evermore prevail in the universe. The\nresurrection of the body is also contained in the Zend-a-Vesta, and it\nlikewise forms part of the creed of the Magi. (c.) Of the sects into\nwhich the Jews were divided after the return from the captivity in\nBabylon, the writer of the Acts states: \"For the Sadducees say that\nthere is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees\nconfess both:\" and Josephus writes concerning the latter, \"They believe\nthat souls have an immortal vigour in them, and that under the earth\nthere will be rewards or punishments, according as they have lived\nvirtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained\nin an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to\nrevive, and live again.\" Elsewhere he shows that these beliefs were\ntraditional merely: \"What I would now explain is this, that the\nPharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by\nsuccession from their fathers, which are not written in the law of\nMoses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them, and say\nthat we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory, which are\nin the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the\ntraditions of our fore-fathers.\"\n\n18. The belief of classical antiquity as to the condition of souls after\ndeath, is beautifully summed up by Horace in the Ode (i. 10) to Mercury,\ndate about b.c. 24; \"Grateful alike to the gods supernal and infernal,\nit is thine to place pious souls in blissful abodes, and to coerce\nthe airy crowd with thy golden wand.\" Homer, indeed, whose poems are\ncertainly prior to the eighth century b.c., has no Elysian fields in the\nland of spirits; all is indeterminate, gloomy, uncomfortable. The shade\nof Achilles says:\n\n     \"Talk not of ruling in this dolorous gloom,\n     Nor think vain words (he cried) can ease my doom;\n     Rather I'd choose laboriously to bear\n     A weight of woes and breathe the vital air,\n     A slave to some poor hind that toils for bread,\n     Than reign the sceptred monarch of the dead.\"\n\nBut, whether from contact with the East and Egypt or otherwise, more\ndefinite conceptions of the abode of disembodied spirits were afterwards\nformed, which have found best expression in Virgil's AEneid, written\nabout B.C. 20. There\n\n     \"The gates of hell are open night and day,\n     Smooth the descent, and easy is the way;\"\n\njust as in the sermon on the mount,--\"Wide is the gate, and broad is\nthe way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in\nthereat.\"\n\nAt a certain point hell is thus divided:\n\n     \"The right to Pluto's golden palace guides;\n     The left to that unhappy region tends\n     Which to the depths of Tartarus descends.\"\n\nSo in the New Testament, the sheep (the saved) are on the right, the\ngoats (the lost) on the left hand of the Son of man sitting on the\nthrone of his glory.\n\nThe region to the left is thus described:\n\n     \"These are the realms of unrelenting fate,\n     And awful Rhadamanthus rules the state;\n     He hears and judges each committed crime,\n     Inquires into the manner, place, and time:\n     The conscious wretch must all his acts reveal\n     (Loth to confess, unable to conceal)\n     From the first moment of his vital breath\n     To his last hour of unrepenting death.\n     Straight o'er the guilty wretch the Fury shakes\n     The sounding whip, and brandishes her snakes,\n     And the pale sinner, with her sisters, takes.\n     All these within the dungeon's depth remain,\n     Despairing pardon, and expecting pain.\"\n\nFar other the region to the right:\n\n     \"These holy rites performed, they took their way\n     Where long-extended fields of pleasure lay;\n     The verdant fields with those of heaven may vie,\n     With ether vested and a purple sky,\n     The blissful seats of happy souls below,\n     Stars of their own, and their own suns they know.\"\n\n19. Plutarch (about a.d. 90), referring to the tradition of the\nmysterious disappearance of Romulus and the suspicions of regicide\naroused against the patricians, wrote,--\"While things were in this\ndisorder, a senator, we are told, of great distinction, and famed for\nsanctity of manners, Julius Proculus by name, who came from Alba with\nRomulus, and had been his faithful friend, went into the Forum, and\ndeclared, upon the most solemn oaths, before all the people, that as\nhe was travelling on the road, Romulus met him in a form more noble and\naugust than ever, and clad in bright and dazzling armour. Astonished at\nthe sight, he said to him, 'For what misbehaviour of ours, O king, or by\nwhat accident, have you so untimely left us to labour under the heaviest\ncalumnies, and the whole city to sink under inexpressible sorrow?'\nTo which he answered, 'It pleased the gods, my good Proculus, that we\nshould dwell with men for a time; and after having founded a city which\nwill be the most powerful and glorious in the world, _return to heaven,\nfrom whence we came_. Farewell, then, and go, tell the Romans that by\nthe exercise of temperance and fortitude they shall attain the highest\npitch of human greatness; and I, the god Quirinus, will ever be\npropitious to you.' This, by the character and oath of the relater,\ngained credit with the Romans, who were caught with the enthusiasm, as\nif they had been actually inspired; and far from contradicting what they\nhad heard, bade adieu to all their suspicions of the nobility, united in\nthe deifying of Quirinus, and addressed their devotions to him. This is\nvery like the Grecian fables concerning Aristeas, the Proconnesian, and\nCleoraedes, the Astypalesian. For Aristeas, as they tell us, expired\nin a fuller's shop; and when his friends came to take away the body, it\ncould not be found. Soon after, some persons coming in from a journey,\nsaid they met Aristeas travelling towards Croton. As for Cleomedes,\ntheir account of him is that he was a man of gigantic size and strength;\nbut behaving in a foolish and frantic manner, he was guilty of many acts\nof violence. At last he went into a school, where he struck the pillar\nthat supported the roof with his fist, and broke it asunder, so that\nthe roof fell in and destroyed the children. Pursued for this, he took\nrefuge in a great chest, and having shut the lid upon him, he held it\ndown so fast that many men together could not force it open; when they\nhad cut the chest in pieces, they could not find him either dead or\nalive. Struck with this strange affair, they sent to consult the oracle\nat Delphi, and had from the priestess this answer:--\n\n\"'The race of heroes ends in Cleomedes.' It is likewise said, that the\nbody of Alcmena was lost as they were carrying it to the grave, and\na stone was seen lying on the bier in its stead. Many such improbable\ntales are told by writers who wanted to deify beings naturally mortal.\"\n\n20. Dio Cassius relates that Livia, about a.d. 14, gave a large reward\nto Numericus Atticus, a senator, who affirmed that he had seen her\nhusband, the Emperor Augustus, ascending to heaven in the same manner as\nRomulus had been seen by Proeulus.\n\n21. It is thus clearly manifest that the beliefs of the Gentile nations\nof antiquity with reference to a future life, are similar to the New\nTestament ideas; in fact, the same beliefs under different guises.\nSo, also, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, his subsequent\nappearances, and his ascension to heaven, are not without parallels in\npreceding and contemporary fame. The alleged appearances of Jesus to\nMary Magdalene, Peter, James, Paul, and the others, rest on no evidence\nintrinsically stronger than the appearance of Romulus to Julius\nProeulus, or of Augustus to Numericus Atticus. The fact of Livia paying\nmoney to one who reported that he had seen Augustus ascend to heaven\nshows how deeply this idea was rooted in Roman belief. All, therefore,\nwho were swayed by the current Roman traditions would have seen nothing\nincredible in Jesus and his claims. These exactly corresponded to what\nthey had been taught from childhood. They had merely to transfer to\nJesus marvels similar to those which had formed their early faith. The\nrise of Christianity to be the dominant-religion of the Roman empire\nis often referred to as a proof of its divine origin and guidance; but\nuniting, as it did, the discipline, organisation, earnestness,\nmoral authoritative-ness, and exclusive claim to the favour of God\n(transferring to believers of every race, but to believers alone, that\ndivine favour which was previously the peculiar possession of the seed\nof Abraham),--all derived from the synagogue,--uniting these with the\nancient fundamental beliefs, under another name, of the various Gentile\nnations, it is not difficult to discern the causes of its triumph, in an\nage unaccustomed to weigh evidence, and at a time when _ancient forms_\nwere losing their hold on the faith and allegiance of the masses. Even\nin modern religious revivals, the most common manifestations are of\nconvictions which had lost their hold on the mind, or which had become\npractically powerless to stir under regular ministrations, springing\nup into renewed vigour and intensity in some novel guise, or through a\ndescription of preaching or service out of the common.\n\n22. And this belief in a life beyond the grave, and pretended knowledge\nof its conditions--under one form or other one of the most ancient and\nwidespread conceptions of the human race--what has it led to? Inhumanity\nin time past, inhumanity now; bloodshed and misery, dark delusion,\ndegrading superstition, priestly pretence, persecution and intolerance,\ncreed exclusiveness and bigoted zeal, misdirected fervour and visionary\nhopes--all the offspring of this conviction--fill the records of\nmankind.\n\n23. Among barbarous races the vivid realisation of the spiritual\nworld has led to such sad misguidance of the life on earth as the\nfollowing;--(a.) The custom, prevalent both in ancient and modern times,\nof sacrificing wives, friends, and slaves at funerals to supply the\nwants of the deceased in the land of spirits, or to accompany him\nthither, (b.) Men killing their relations \"out of love,\" as soon as they\nshowed signs of decrepitude, under the belief that in the next world the\nspirits will be vigorous or otherwise, corresponding to the state of\nthe body at time of death, (c.) Incitement to bloodshed and war by the\nbelief that the enemies a man killed in this world, or those of whose\nskulls or scalps he obtained possession, would serve him as slaves in\nthe next; or by the more manly conviction that a warring life on earth\nand a glorious death in battle were the best preparations for the future\nstate, (d.) The practice, still carried on to a frightful extent among\nsome of the African races, of killing men to serve as messengers to\ntheir departed kindred in the other world, (e.) The various gloomy\nand degrading delusions through the arts of spirit-mediums, sorcerers,\nwitches, or other pretenders to intercourse with or control over the\nspirit-world.\n\n24. Among nations more advanced, the union of assurance of a blissful\nor woeful immortality, with adherence or non-adherence to any particular\nbanner, sect, or creed, has led--(a.) To bloody religious wars, such as\nthose waged for the spread of Islam, the Mohammedan believing that if he\nfell in battle he would immediately possess a paradise of every sensual\ndelight; or such as the Crusades, where the red cross was held to be the\nsymbol of sure salvation. (6.) To those inhuman persecutions where\nmen, in the name of religion and in the interest of their own souls,\ncondemned their fellow-men to the dungeon, the stake, the gibbet, and\nthe sword, butchers and butchered both believing that they were doing\n\"God service.\" Where the sufferers in such cases were sacrificed solely\nto the intolerance of their adversaries, and themselves wished for\nno more than freedom of thought--sad their lot! But impartial inquiry\nreveals that, in most instances, the persecuted would have dealt the\nsame measure to their persecutors, if the conditions of power had been\nreversed, all alike holding that those whose belief was, in their eyes\nheretical had no right to share either the chequered happiness of this\nlife or the bliss of the world to come. Heirs of salvation on one side,\nheirs of damnation on the other.\n\n25. The belief that the immortal soul, while on earth, is enchained or\nimprisoned in a corrupt body, and that the more the body is attenuated\nand exhausted the purer, the soul will be, and the more fitted for\nthe contemplation of divine things, has led men and women to separate\nthemselves from their kind, to pass unnatural lives in penitential\nexercises and mortifications, either in solitude or among communities\napart from the world. Abstinence from marriage has been a condition\ncommon to almost all these devotees, so that for the sake of the soul,\nfondly believed to be immortal, they forbear the enjoyment of the only\nmeans for the continuance of human life--viz., that of living over again\nin children and descendants. Myriads of lives have been utterly wasted\nand perverted by this form of the delusion, their folly receiving,\nfor the most part, the countenance, support, and reverence of blinded\ncontemporaries.\n\n26. The ideas handed down from past ages, and still widely prevalent,\nthat there are certain orders of men who have the keys of heaven and\nhell, who possess such favour or influence with the invisible powers as\nto be able to ensure a happy or a wretched immortality, or even to\nalter the condition of the soul after death; or, in other quarters,\nthat certain orders of men are the divinely appointed teachers of that\ndoctrine or belief, on the correct acceptance or appreciation of which\nthe state of the future life depends; or, among others, that apart from\nany particular clerical order there is a saving doctrine or belief, and\nthat on its correct reception or understanding, or otherwise, eternal\nbliss or woe will result;--to what do such ideas tend? They are not new\nor peculiar to Christianity. The worshippers under the ancient Persian\nreligion are thus exhorted:--\"To obtain the acceptation of this guide\nto salvation (the priest), you must faithfully pay him tithes of all you\npossess, of your goods, of your lands, and of your money. If the priest\nbe satisfied your soul will escape hell tortures; you will secure\npraise in this world and happiness in the next. For the priests are the\nteachers of religion; they know all things and deliver all men.\" This\nis explicit and straightforward, and contrasts favourably with the more\nguarded phrase in which modern clergy advocate similar claims, or claims\nfounded on the same idea, _that their ministration, in one way or other,\nis connected with the future lot of their hearers_. The \"remedy of the\nsoul\" under one form of Christianity, the \"advancement of the cause of\nChrist,\" who will repay deeds done in his service with the riches\nof \"grace and glory\", under another, are and have been the two ruling\nmotives by which the offerings of the faithful flow into the coffers of\nthe clergy, for the establishment, whether by states or individuals, of\norders of men claiming titles of reverence from, moral control over, and\ndirection and limitation of the knowledge and professed belief of their\nfellows, all under the prevailing idea \"of a life to come,\" to happiness\nin which their ministrations and counsel are believed to be safe\nguides. Thus, unsparing generosity, steadfast devotion, self-sacrificing\nenthusiasm, intellectual power, love of kind, and others of the highest\nand best human traits, instead of being turned towards remedying the\nevils and inequalities of the life on earth, and of improving it to\nthe utmost, have been utterly perverted and wasted on orders of men and\necclesiastical establishments, and observances and doctrines, all\nmore or less connected with a future state, the fond hope of misguided\nmortals.\n\n27. Such and so great, then, in brief, are among the more prominent\nevils that have arisen out of the ancient and widespread belief in a\n\"life to come,\" of which the resurrection of Jesus, and the connected\ndoctrines and practices, constitute one important development; to\nwhich the religion of Moses was antagonistic, not, as Christians claim,\nantecedent, but which, under one form or other, has exercised a powerful\nsway under almost all, if not all, the other ancient religions.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. CONCLUSION\n\n1. The results, then, of this inquiry are:--\n\n(a.) It has been shown that none of the supernatural occurrences\nmentioned in the New Testament, as testimonies to the supernatural\nclaims of Jesus, rest on the accordant testimony of two or three\nwitnesses; that there is also the most serious variance between the\naccounts of the different writers,--not that variance resulting in\nsubstantial agreement which often characterises the statements of two\nindependent eye-witnesses relating different impressions of the same\nevent, but that variance which characterises illusion and man-deifying\nfable. Thus, a condition of ordinary proof, required by the deity of\nthe Mosaic as well as by the deity of the Christian system, is not\nfulfilled. Far less does the evidence satisfy that most righteous demand\never put forward by each earnest man, for proof of the highest and\nstrictest kind, before he yields a conscience-approved assent to\noccurrences and to claims professing to be specially representative of\na being held to be beyond and supreme over Nature. How else but by the\ndemand for strictest proof could special manifestations of a true\nGod (if any such had occurred or were to occur) be distinguished from\npretence and imposture? Each religious system judges the pretensions\nof all others by severe tests of evidence and rightful incredulity,\nbut refuses to apply these to its own. And what sort of being can they\nconceive an Almighty to be who affirm that he not only commands and\napproves belief in supernatural events, on such evidence and on such\ngrounds as are put forth by the New Testament compilers, or on the\nimpassioned utterances of preachers or other emotional influences,\nbut also that he has left those to perish in their sins who do not\nso believe. He, an Almighty maker of the universe, approve credulity,\ndisapprove rightful incredulity and keen inquiry, ordain belief without\nconscience-satisfying evidence, less regardful of truth, less righteous\nthan man!\n\n(b) It has also been made clear that the New Testament deity is\naltogether different from the Mosaic, and that the various conceptions\nwith reference to the supernatural claims of Jesus are of heathen\n(i.e., non-Mosaic) origin. A woman conceiving a child through direct\nintercourse with the deity, that child brought up as the reputed son\nof her husband, the tale of the star-gazing wise men of the East, the\nspirit of the Eternal appearing in a bodily shape like a dove, the\nordinance of baptism, the arch-fiend Satan and his subject demons, the\nheaven and hell of the New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus, his\nsubsequent appearances, his ascension, the doctrine of a future life,\nall, it has been found, corresponded to the prominent religious beliefs\nof the various Gentile nations, and were wholly opposed to or ignored\nby Mosaic teaching. The claim of Christianity, therefore, to be the\nrepresentative of the Mosaic deity is thus destroyed, and the alleged\nfulfilment of Jewish prophecy in the events of the life of Jesus is also\nseen, on careful examination of the details, to be altogether without\nfoundation. There is thus no ground for that conscience-satisfying\nbelief which might otherwise have rested on valid evidence of the power,\nand wonder-working, and special revelations, and faithfully fulfilled\npredictions of _one and the same being_ continued down through many\ngenerations of men.\n\n2. What, then, is left to those who had cherished these beliefs, and\nrested on them, when their fond faith and hope are overthrown by fairly\nprosecuted inquiry? What, rather, is _not_ left? Their own life on\nearth; their fellow-men in their various relations; the good earth on\nwhich man holds the highest position and subdues to his own use; the\nknowledge and understanding of the material and moral laws of the\nuniverse and its harmony and order; the application of these laws, so\nfar as they affect the well-being of man, to the alleviation of misery,\nto the diffusion of comfort, and to general progress, physical,\nmoral, and intellectual,--all these remain,--sources of rejoicing and\nthankfulness, objects of affection, of solicitude, of admiration--ample\nscope for the exercise of every useful and loving and noble quality of\nthe race. So, then, may we be taught to number the days of our brief\nlife \"that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.\"","title":"The Two Tests: The Supernatural Claims of Christianity Tried by Two of Its Own Rules","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":40133}