{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_49091/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_49091","id":"gutenberg_49091","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49091","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Jesus Christ -- Historicity","Jesus Christ -- Popular works"],"text":"THE MAN OF GALILEE\n\n  BY\n  ATTICUS G. HAYGOOD\n\n  Lord, to whom shall we go but unto thee? Thou hast the words of\n  eternal life.--_Simon Peter._\n\n  _NEW YORK: HUNT & EATON\n  CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & STOWE_\n  1889\n\n\n\n\n  Copyright, 1889, by\n  ATTICUS G. HAYGOOD,\n  NEW YORK.\n\n\n\n\n                        TO\n                 THE \u201cEMORY BOYS,\u201d\n  WHO WERE WITH ME IN THE OLD COLLEGE IN 1876-84,\n                THIS LITTLE BOOK IS\n                     Dedicated\n            BY ONE WHO LOVES THEM ALL.\n                                      THE AUTHOR.\n  DECATUR, GA., _April 9, 1889_.\n\n\n\n\nPREFATORY.\n\n\n                                      DECATUR, GA., _April 9, 1889_.\n\nMY DEAR LUNDY:\n\nYou and many others of my students at Emory of the years 1876-1884 have\noften asked me to put into permanent form the thoughts concerning \u201cThe\nMan of Galilee\u201d--\u201cJesus of Nazareth\u201d--I brought before you when we were\ntogether at the old college in Oxford. In this little book I have had\nthe boys in mind all the way through, as if they were before me in my\nlecture-room in \u201cSeney Hall.\u201d Many times the very faces of the boys\nseemed to be about me as I have written, and I could almost hear them\nask me questions as they used to do.\n\nScattered about the world now--not a few of them in distant mission\nfields--my heart follows them every one, and these pages, which would\nnever have appeared but for them, bear them the assurance of an\ninterest in them that can never die.\n\n                             Your friend,\n                                 ATTICUS G. HAYGOOD.\n\n  The REV. LUNDY H. HARRIS,\n    _Professor in Emory College, Oxford, Ga._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n  CHAPTER I.\n  Did the Evangelists Invent Jesus?                               9\n\n  CHAPTER II.\n  \u201cNo Dramatist Can Draw Taller Men than Himself\u201d                18\n\n  CHAPTER III.\n  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Neither Good nor Great Enough    24\n\n  CHAPTER IV.\n  Is Jesus an Ideal Jew of the Time of Tiberius?                 35\n\n  CHAPTER V.\n  Jesus and Myths                                                42\n\n  CHAPTER VI.\n  Jesus and Hebrew Human Nature                                  51\n\n  CHAPTER VII.\n  His Method of Thought Differences Him from Men                 60\n\n  CHAPTER VIII.\n  \u201cNever Man Spake Like this Man\u201d                                68\n\n  CHAPTER IX.\n  The Son of Man and Sin                                         80\n\n  CHAPTER X.\n  The Magnitude of the End He Proposed and Set About             92\n\n  CHAPTER XI.\n  Never Man Planned Like this Man                                97\n\n  CHAPTER XII.\n  Jesus Neither Theologian nor Ecclesiastic                     109\n\n  CHAPTER XIII.\n  \u201cJesus Christ Took the Way of Perishing\u201d                      116\n\n  CHAPTER XIV.\n  His Grasp upon Mankind                                        123\n\n  CHAPTER XV.\n  What Jesus Claims and Demands                                 133\n\n  CHAPTER XVI.\n  Jesus the One Universal Character                             141\n\n  CHAPTER XVII.\n  The Christ, the Son of the Living God                         148\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAN OF GALILEE.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nDID THE EVANGELISTS INVENT JESUS?\n\n\nWho and what was Jesus of Nazareth? In this question and its answer is\ninvolved the whole of what we mean by Christianity.\n\nIf it could be demonstrably proved that there never existed such a\nperson as Jesus, Christianity, as a living force, would cease from\nthe earth. There would indeed be a history, a literature that would\ninterest people according to their tastes; but there would be no\nheart-changing, world-up-lifting system of vital and vitalizing truths\nand corresponding duties, binding upon the conscience of every human\nbeing and inspiring hope in every breast.\n\nIn the discussions we are about to enter nothing will be assumed except\nwhat is too obvious to question. It will not be assumed that the little\nbooks called \u201cgospels\u201d were inspired at all. You will not be asked to\nconsider any miracle, said to have been performed by Jesus, as making\nproof of his divinity. Nor will I quote proof-texts to show that he is\ndivine.\n\nThe first question to ask is this: Did such a person as Jesus is\ndescribed to have been ever really exist? Did Jesus really live in\nNazareth and work in Joseph\u2019s shop? Did he, for some three years and\nsix months, go to and fro among men teaching them? Was there, in the\ndays of Herod and Pilate, a Jesus as surely as there was a C\u00e6sar?\n\nThis much is certain: we have in these four little books--compared\nwith what is every day written about common men how small they\nare!--attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, a most distinct\ncharacter, known to us and known to history as Jesus. Whether the men\nwhose names the little books bear, or some other men whose names are\nlost to us wrote them, matters not in the least. What books contain is\nmore important than the question of authorship. No matter who wrote\nthem, the character we know as Jesus is in the books; there can be no\ndispute about this; here it is, before our eyes. And this character is\nas surely in history, in literature, in men\u2019s thoughts, in all that we\nmean by Christian civilization, as it is in the writings of the four\nmen we call evangelists.\n\nNot only do we have the character, but we see clearly that it is\na character absolutely unique. It is unique in many respects, but\npre-eminently in this--it is the one perfect character that has\nappeared in the world that ever had a place in the history or the\nthought of men. It is said that the volatile Voltaire once compared\nJesus to Fletcher of Madeley, thinking him as good a man as the\nNazarene. But the light Frenchman understood neither the one nor the\nother. As one said of an unfit biographer of Fletcher\u2019s great friend,\nJohn Wesley: \u201cHe had nothing to draw with, and the well was deep.\u201d\n\nIs there one solitary defect, the very least, in this character that\nwe find in the evangelists? Is there one weak spot, or suggestion\nof fault, or intimation of infirmity, or suspicion of failure, the\nslightest, to do and to be what was right for him to do and to be?\n\nLook at him as he is set before us in these brief writings; look,\nreverently if you will, but with open and fearless eyes, to see all\nthat may be seen of him. What least flaw can be found in him? Is\nthere the least possible shadow of reason for reversing, or so much\nas questioning, Pilate\u2019s verdict, \u201cI find no fault in him?\u201d Is there\nin all history one other character of which you can say or believe as\nmuch? Is there any other you are willing to name second to him?\n\nIf you are making an estimate of any other character--whether of a\nreal person, as a sage, a statesman, or a philanthropist, or of some\nimaginary person, as the hero of a story--how would you judge him most\nseverely? You would compare him with Jesus. We must remember that it\nis to Jesus we owe those higher standards by which we judge men in our\ntimes. Christ-likeness expresses the highest ideal of character we are\ncapable of conceiving.\n\nSome writers, as you know, have denied that Jesus, the Jesus of the\nfour gospels, did at any time really live, a man among men. Of far\nmore importance than any mere denials in books is the failure of many\nthousands to realize in their inmost consciousness that the story of\nthe evangelists is the record of a life actually lived.\n\nWe will demand of those who deny or doubt that Jesus really lived to\naccount to us for the existence of the character. This they must do,\nfor the existence of the character they cannot deny; it is here before\nmen\u2019s eyes, as it is in men\u2019s thoughts and lives. This character is not\nin these little books only; it is in a hundred thousand books. It was\nnot only in the minds of four writers long ago; it is in the minds of\nmillions of men, women, and children to-day. If any deny or doubt the\nhistoric Jesus, let them explain to us how this character, flawless\nand perfect, ever got itself into the thoughts of men and is now in\nhistory, literature, art, law, custom, in human life itself.\n\nSome have tried to explain the existence of the character, while\ndenying that Jesus really lived among men, by telling us the\nevangelists invented the Jesus of these stories. They tell us Jesus is\nthe product of the dramatic genius of the four men whose names go with\nthe brief account we have of him, his words, and his deeds. It would\nnot alter the case to deny that these four wrote the books, and to say\nsome other writers whose names we do not know invented the character.\n\nLet us look carefully and fairly at this view of the subject. If it be\nreasonable it may be true; if it be true we need not fear to accept\nit. Nothing in Jesus calls on men to profess to believe what to them\nis not the truth; nothing can be more unlike him than to use words\nwithout convictions. We cannot do otherwise than \u201chold fast that which\nis true\u201d to us; indeed we cannot hold fast to any thing else, though it\nbe called truth by never so many voices of men.\n\nThe theory that Jesus is an invention is another way of saying that\nhe is the hero of a romance, a creation of constructive imagination.\nIt involves this: four Jews at about the same time, among a people\nnot given to making books of any kind--least of all books of the\nimagination--were seized with desire to write books, and thus it came\nabout that they have given to the world, as the product of dramatic\ngenius, this character of Jesus. As, for illustration, it may be said,\nin a sense, that Bulwer invented the \u201cMargrave\u201d of _A Strange Story_.\n\nLet us inquire into the antecedent probabilities that these men would\nnaturally attempt to construct and put into form such a work of the\nimagination; nay, more: whether they were likely to attempt any\ndramatic work at all.\n\nWe are not left to guesses in considering such questions. It is\nhistorically certain that the Hebrew mind in ancient days was not given\nto this sort of literary work. The Greek mind gave dramas to the world,\nmatchless of their kind; the Hebrew mind gave none. There is nothing\nin Hebrew literature of the period assigned to Jesus, of the period\nsucceeding him, or from the time of Moses, to indicate so much as a\ntendency to such creations of the imagination.\n\nWe have much to judge by, and there can be no mistake. We have the\nOld Testament Scriptures, the apocryphal books, the comments of the\nscribes--called Targums--upon their sacred writing, the little book\ncalled \u201cActs of the Apostles,\u201d the other New Testament writings, and\nthe works of Josephus as specimens, showing the trend and method of\nHebrew literature.\n\nThe Hebrew mind in ancient days was not given to art, but to morals.\nThe Jew did not develop art impulses till he had become cosmopolitan\nand Christianity had changed the world. In ancient Hebrew literature,\nwhether in plain prose--in history, statute laws, or proverbs; whether\nin psalms or other poetry; whether in the magnificent imagery of the\nprophets, we find that morals, not art, inspire the thought and form\nthe expression. There are neither paintings, nor statues, nor dramas.\nTheir architecture was borrowed from the Phenicians; they were original\nin their ideas of morals and in their laws and customs relating to\nrights and wrongs. Their literature is dominated by religion, and not\nby art, in any of its manifold developments.\n\nRead it all--all ancient Hebrew literature; we have history, laws,\nproverbs, poetry, prophecies, but we have no dramas.\n\nYou may cite me to the book of Job. This is more like a drama than any\nother. If this be allowed, it is the one exception. But it belongs to a\nperiod very remote from that of the evangelists, and if it be a drama\nit is, as may be shown, such a work as a Hebrew might have written. But\nthe story of Jesus is not such a drama as a Hebrew of his period might\nhave written, allowing, what is not true, that at some other period it\nmight have been imagined by a Hebrew, or any other writer of books. As\nto the book of Job, it is in harmony with Hebrew characteristics and\nwith the time and country in which its scenes are laid. The books of\nthe evangelists are not in harmony with them; they contradict them all\nand utterly.\n\nConsider well the four little books of the evangelists that we call\ngospels; study them just as you would any other ancient writings. See\nwhat is in them, that you may know what manner of men they were who\nwrote them. Reject them all, if there be reason, but look carefully\nto this one thing--whether these writers were given to dramatic\ncreations, or, indeed, had faculty for such work. There is evidence\nenough in their writings that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not\nof the literary and book-making classes. They were of the common\npeople; unlearned and unskilled in literature, laboring and business\nmen, trained as laymen. Their lives were very far removed from the\noccupations and influences that dominated the very feeble literary\ninstinct that belonged to that period of Hebrew literature.\n\nI conclude that it was antecedently as improbable that the evangelists\nwould have attempted the production of any drama whatever, as I will\nshow that it was impossible, had they made the attempt, for them to\nhave invented such a story as they tell us of \u201cThe Man of Galilee.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n\u201cNO DRAMATIST CAN DRAW TALLER MEN THAN HIMSELF.\u201d\n\n\nThe doctrine I set forward concerning Jesus is this: Such a person must\nhave actually lived, as the condition of conceiving such a character,\nfor the reason that the power of creating such a character was never in\nthe Hebrew mind, or any other.\n\nAt this point let me tell you how my thoughts were directed in the\nlines the argument takes in this discussion.\n\nIn the month of April, 1861, while a pastor in Sparta, Ga., I was\nreading one of Hugh Miller\u2019s books, _First Impressions of England and\nIts People_. The writer of this to me entertaining and instructive\nvolume was comparing, on the occasion of a visit to the grave of\nShakespeare, the great poet, Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens. Hugh\nMiller said (I believe the quotation is substantially correct; I have\nnot seen the book in a long time--it was loaned to some of you): \u201cNo\ndramatist, whatever he may attempt, can draw taller men than himself.\u201d\n\nI closed the book and said to myself: \u201cThen Matthew, Mark, Luke, and\nJohn did not invent Jesus.\u201d\n\nIt was not till February, 1864, that the thought, which I often\nbrooded, was brought into a discussion. While in camp as a missionary\nchaplain with Longstreet\u2019s corps of the Army of Virginia, near\nGreenville, East Tennessee, I sketched rudely enough, one snowy day,\nthe outlines of an argument, using it one night, soon after, in a\nsermon preached in the First Methodist Church, Atlanta, Ga. In the\ncourse of years it grew upon me into a series of lectures delivered to\nsenior classes in Emory College. It outgrew the limits of a sermon at\nMonticello, Ga., August, 1878. My old students and certain life-long\nfriends will pardon this much of personal reminiscence. For reasons\nconnected with them these personal statements are introduced.\n\n\u201cNo dramatist can draw taller men than himself.\u201d Hugh Miller did not\nmean that a writer may not describe greater men than himself, but that\nhe cannot invent a character greater than his own. It is as plain as\nthe axiom in physics that water cannot rise above its level. That which\nis created cannot be greater than that which creates.\n\nIt is very common for us to write of \u201ctaller men\u201d than ourselves; we\nall do this. When you were but a college-boy you did not, as you\nwill remember, shrink from writing essays upon Cromwell, Washington,\nGladstone, Bismarck, and the few such men who have lived. I have\nknown a young man to write fairly well of even Socrates. But he had\nthe cyclopedias. He was not creating--thinking out for himself and of\nhimself--the good and wise old sage.\n\nHugh Miller says, \u201cDickens knows his place.\u201d The gifted novelist did\nnot attempt great characters. Shakespeare did; he was greater than any\ncharacter he produced; \u201ctaller\u201d than any man he \u201cdrew.\u201d\n\nWhen you come to ask whether these four Jews, the evangelists, could\nhave invented the character we know as Jesus you must remember that\nthey had, first of all, in order to do it, to throw themselves outside\nthe sphere of Jewish thought and sentiment. If to them had been granted\nall personal qualifications the conditions under which they lived made\nthe invention of such a character impossible; they could not breathe\nthe intellectual, social, and moral air in which they lived and do it.\nFor this character, the Jesus of the evangelists, is not in harmony\nwith the essential characteristics of the Jewish race or with the\ndominant influences of that time; this character antagonizes these\ncharacteristics and influences at every point.\n\nGranting--and it is admitting an intellectual miracle that staggers\ncredulity--that these men did meet the first condition for the\ninvention of such a character, and overcame, as no other men ever\ndid in any nation or time, the controlling influences under which\nthey lived, let us ask whether, in view of what they reveal in these\nwritings of themselves, they were capable of such an intellectual and\nspiritual feat as inventing a drama that should give Jesus to the world.\n\nTo have achieved such a result they must have been in breadth, depth,\nand elevation of intellect capable of thinking out the mighty doctrines\nthat Jesus taught. And this, we may well believe, was the least part of\ntheir task.\n\nTo me it is incredible that these four men could have thought out the\nteachings of Jesus. For such thinking they lacked all things that\nhistory and philosophy show to be necessary for such thinking.\n\nWhy could not Socrates and Plato, great, learned, wise, and good, to\nwhom came more than glimpses of heavenly truths, think out what the\nSermon on the Mount contains?\n\nSocrates and Plato, if mere men could do such thinking, ought to have\nthought out the Sermon on the Mount; for they had every gift that\nnature could bestow and every opportunity cultured Athens could offer.\nAnd they did their best to think out the truths that bind man and God\ntogether. They failed; and Plato sighed for the coming of a divine man\nwho would make clear what to him was dark.\n\nIf Jesus never lived then the four evangelists, or men like them,\nthought out his wonderful doctrines. It is unthinkable.\n\nBut theirs was a far harder task than thinking out the truths\nattributed to Jesus in the gospels; they had also to think out a man\nwho lived up to them. It is easier to write a great speech than to set\nbefore the reader a man he knows to be capable of making it; but this\nis easier than to proclaim a lofty doctrine of morals and show a man\nas living up to it. Their problem, if they thought it all out, was\nimmeasurably more than the invention of the Sermon on the Mount and\nof the other discourses that move so easily on the same high plane of\nthought and spiritual life; it was to invent a life and reveal a life\nin absolute harmony with these matchless discourses. But Jesus lived\nthe Sermon on the Mount and all else that he ever taught. Not once, in\nthe least particular, in word or deed, does he fail; always he lives\nup to his teaching; he incarnated his doctrine. No other human being,\nbefore or since Jesus, ever lived up to the Sermon on the Mount; the\nbest men and women have only approximated it; and it is the best who\nhave most realized their failure. But Jesus lived his teachings so\nperfectly that it is only in his life that we truly read their meaning.\n\nHow shall we measure the capacity of these four, Matthew, Mark, Luke,\nand John, for creating this character of Jesus? By the revelations they\nmake in their writings of themselves: their capacity and character.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nMATTHEW, MARK, LUKE, AND JOHN NEITHER GOOD NOR GREAT ENOUGH.\n\n\nHow little the evangelists were capable of inventing such a character\nas the Jesus of the four gospels is made very plain by comparing Jesus\nand his doctrines with them and their notions.\n\nIt must be assumed here that you have, to some extent at least,\nconsidered what the character of Jesus is and what his teachings mean.\nAs to your conception of him and his teachings, this I am sure of: if\nyou continue to study him and his words your best ideas now will, by\nand by, seem to you to be very unworthy.\n\nMeasure the evangelists and their thoughts by Jesus and his thoughts.\nHow small, narrow, meager, and lean of soul they are! When they speak,\nwhen they act in these histories, they give us the gauge and the level\nof very common men. They misapprehend him till he is rent with grief at\ntheir dullness and hardness of heart. They misinterpret his simplest\nwords. They show in many ways what even to us seems to be amazing\nspiritual stupidity and spiritual incapacity.\n\nThis is a fair specimen of them and their thinking powers: Jesus said\nto them one day, \u201cBeware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the\nSadducees.\u201d \u201cAnd they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because\nwe have taken no bread,\u201d supposing that he meant they must not eat\nbread with these people.\n\nThis also gives us the drift and gauge of their thoughts: Jesus was\nconstantly and in many ways speaking to them of the \u201ckingdom of\nheaven,\u201d and they kept dreaming and talking of a \u201ckingdom of Israel,\u201d\nthe restoration of David\u2019s throne. This was the common thought and talk\nof their circle. One of the best of the women who followed Jesus and\nloved him, braving danger and contempt for his sake, Salome, preferred\nambitious requests for her two sons, James and John, who were in their\nmother\u2019s secret and sympathy, seeking high places for them in what they\nso longed for--the coming dispensation of national deliverance and\ndominion.\n\nSo far below his thoughts are their thoughts, so unlike him are they,\nthat no Christian child, who has but partially learned of Jesus what he\nmeans by the \u201ckingdom of God,\u201d can read what Salome and her sons say to\nJesus without recoiling from them.\n\nWere the evangelists good enough--did they have the moral elevation\nnecessary to the conception of such truths as Jesus taught? Of such a\nlife as Jesus lived? Of Jesus himself?\n\nIf you know what is in these gospels it is too plain to you to need\nargument that these men were very far below the sphere of Jesus as to\nmorals, rights and wrongs, and whatever relates to spiritual life.\nWhile he was proclaiming self-renunciation as the condition precedent\nto entering into life at all in common with his life, these men, while\nclaiming to be his disciples and best friends, were wont to \u201cdispute\u201d\nwith one another about seats of honor at dinings, as well as places of\nhonor in the earthly kingdom they were looking for.\n\nSome of them showed that they could fight upon occasion--their Galilean\nblood was equal to that; but they greatly lacked moral courage. They\nwere afraid not only of men\u2019s anger, but of their criticism. But it is\nimpossible to think of Jesus as hesitating, for one instant, from any\nsort of fear of men, fear of death or criticism, in uttering one truth\nor doing one right thing. We cannot think of Jesus as feeling the pulse\nof public sentiment in order to determine what he should say. We cannot\nthink of Jesus as, for one instant, looking about him to read in the\nfaces of his hearers, whether they were Galilean peasants or the chief\nestates of Jerusalem, the probable reception of his words. We cannot\nthink of him as veering the thickness of a line from the perfect truth\nas he saw it in order to win favor or avoid resentment. It is certain\nto us that such thoughts were never in his mind--that such feelings\nwere never in his heart. His \u201ceye was single,\u201d his \u201cwhole body full of\nlight.\u201d\n\nDo these men whose names go with the four gospels show right feeling,\nsentiment, for inventing such a character, granting, what we know they\ndid not have, all other qualifications? Seeing what they were, what\nthey show themselves to have been, is it possible to believe that, in\ntheir inmost souls, they were in sympathy with the character they have\ngiven us in the gospels? To invent a truly great, all-round character,\nthere must be not only adequate gifts of intellect and force of\nconscience; there must be also right sensibility. There must not only\nbe a large mind and a true conscience; there must be a good heart. The\nevangelists were not bad men, but they were unspiritual. If one cannot,\nas an original conception of the intellect, \u201cdraw a taller man than\nhimself,\u201d much less can he draw a better man than himself.\n\nTest their capacity for such a work as inventing the Jesus of the\ngospels in any direction. Compare these men with Jesus as to his\ndoctrine and practice as to toleration and human brotherhood. They\nshrink into nothingness.\n\nJesus goes to the house of the publican, Zaccheus, whom all Jericho\nhated. Jesus dines with the man who was unpopular, who was despised;\nhe preaches the full Gospel to him; he is kind to him; he loves him.\nThe disciples were in sympathy not with Jesus, but the crowd that\n\u201cmurmured.\u201d They were mortified, displeased, afraid, scandalized; Jesus\nhad done so imprudent a thing as to dine with a man who had no friends,\nbut many foes.\n\nYou know of Jesus from his words, above all from his life, that he was\nincapable of prejudice; that no wretched or mean man of any class or\nrace could appeal to him in vain. You know that Jesus was as free from\nall intolerance, from all caste feeling and race prejudice, as the\nvirgin snow is free from stain. But his disciples, these men who have\ntold us of him, were saturated and poisoned with these feelings; they\nlived on the low plane of their race and time, and not above it. In\nthe \u201cActs of the Apostles\u201d we see what that plane was; the Jew hated\nGentiles. Consider the history of Peter\u2019s visit to Cornelius, and you\nwill see how deep and inveterate is the feeling that opened a gulf\nbetween the Jews and other races. Consider what is meant by the sudden\noutburst of rage at the word \u201cGentile\u201d that day Paul spoke to the mob\nin the temple-court, as he stood on the castle stairs. All history\nillustrates this intense race prejudice. In this country, in the spring\nof 1888, a Jew celebrated the funeral of his daughter because she had\nmarried a Gentile.\n\nRead the story of the Syrophenician woman, the parable of the good\nSamaritan, his heavenly doctrines about loving our enemies, and then\nthink of these writers inventing Jesus and his doctrines.\n\nSee the false shame on their faces when they find Jesus talking with\nthe woman of Sychar by Jacob\u2019s well, and ask whether men like these\nlived in the same world with him!\n\nConsider the attitude of Jesus toward fallen women. See how he bore\nhimself with the woman who washed his feet with her tears in Simon\u2019s\nhouse; see his tender respect for Magdalene; see him, his cheeks aflame\nwith shame and confusion, his eyes dewy with pity, as he made marks on\nthe ground with his finger that day they brought a sinful girl to him\nand demanded judgment upon her.\n\nThese men who wrote of Jesus were as incapable of such sentiments and\nconduct as they were incapable of building worlds. God pity us! as\nincapable as we, his disciples of to-day, are, who, after all that\nhe has taught us and done for us, in our meanness and cowardice abide\nstill in heathenism, and scorn those whom Jesus did not scorn. We may\njudge these evangelists by ourselves; they were as we are. They were\nashamed of him when he spoke respectfully and kindly to fallen women;\nwe would be ashamed of him now if he were again among us in the flesh,\nbearing himself toward our outcasts as he did when he was in Galilee.\n\nIf possible, these evangelists were as incapable as we are of inventing\nthe character of Jesus.\n\nIn what has been said of the ability of these men to conceive such\na character as Jesus remember we are not speaking of copyists, but\ncreators; not of those who merely put together a story from materials\nfurnished by history, or from some life that has been lived, but of\nthose who invent, think out a character. The copyists, the historians,\nthe biographers, the novelists, easily enough write and talk of greater\nand better men than themselves. This sort of literary work, this sort\nof thinking, is done every day; it is as common as the \u201cmaking of\nbooks.\u201d If the materials are furnished us we may well enough write\nof those who are beyond and above us. We will naturally and often\nnecessarily do this in describing one who actually lived. Great and\ngood men and women have often had biographers immeasurably inferior to\nthem. A clever literary man may draw a fair picture of Julius C\u00e6sar.\nFroude did it. A man of hard and narrow spirit may so write of heroes\nas to make us feel their superiority. Carlyle did this for not a few. A\nsmall man may tell us of his master. Even Boswell could do this.\n\nBut in considering whether these four writers could have invented the\ncharacter of Jesus we are not speaking of the sort of work historians\nand biographers do, but of pure creative work; the thinking out of a\ncharacter never described by another and that never lived. For the\ntheory we are now considering is that Jesus never lived; that he is\nonly the product of the dramatic genius of these four writers, Matthew,\nMark, Luke, and John.\n\nNow, you will conclude when you have considered it, that very little,\nif any, of this sort of work is ever done. Perhaps we should hesitate\nto affirm that such creative work is impossible, but it may well be\ndoubted whether any character in any fiction or drama of any sort, by\nany writer in any age, is a pure invention. Is there not for every\ncharacter in fiction as well as in history a man somewhere, in some\nform? some facts in actual life that furnish the materials for the\nconception and delineation of that form of life that the writing\npresents to us? Is there in any writing any character that has not\nintellectual descent from some life actually lived, or in some way\nother than by creative processes brought into the writer\u2019s thoughts?\n\nConsider Shakespeare\u2019s plays. Life furnished the materials; his heroes\nand heroines have real men and women back of them. Take Milton\u2019s Satan.\nHe is very like Milton in force and sublimity; but the poet did not\ncreate the character. His Satan is a composite work from Bible hints\nand heathen mythology. This Satan had lived in the thoughts of men\nbefore that Milton took him in hand.\n\nOnly think how difficult, if not impossible, it must be to think out\na perfectly new type of character, a type that has nothing in life to\nstand for it. It would be like trying to conceive of a sixth sense.\nBack of legends the noblest and the ignoblest there is some form of\nlife or some form of fact. It may be that all ideas even not revealed\nhave their type or origin somewhere in nature or in life. Whether with\nhand or brain man works upon materials furnished him; man creates\nnothing; man is created.\n\nBut there was in no nation whatever--and these four men knew the\nJewish nation only with any fullness of knowledge--any character, any\nlife, any facts, that could have so much as suggested Jesus. They were\nshut up to Hebrew history, and that could furnish no materials to\nthe evangelists for the construction of such a character. It was not\nsuggested by the Hebrew prophets; for it is evident that the disciples\ndid not understand these prophecies as pointing to Jesus till after\nhe had lived his life, till his mission was ended. Nay, with all the\nbackward-shining light of his life no four men in the world to-day\ncould, without the actual story, construct the character and life of\nJesus out of what the prophets say.\n\nThere has been a good deal of fanciful writing concerning certain\ncharacters in the Old Testament history, considered as types of the\nMessiah. Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David--even magnificent and profligate\nSolomon and the coarse, dull Samson have been set forth as types of the\ntrue Son of man. Adam himself has been discussed and portrayed in this\nconnection. Some of these men were among the greatest and best of the\nhuman race. But whatever they were as types of the Teacher, Prince, and\nSaviour foretold by the prophets, there was nothing in these men that\ncould have suggested the invention of the Christ of the evangelists.\n\nSo far as the predictions in Hebrew prophecy may be urged as accounting\nfor the conception of Jesus by the evangelists, they not only did not\nunderstand them so as to make such use of them, they misunderstood\nthem, and, in common with their people, supposed that they foretold\nanother and altogether different character than that of the Jesus of\nthe gospels. Jesus had to live and die before they could understand the\nprophets as referring to him; it was he who unlocked their meaning.\nThe whole Christ is not in the prophets--could not be; words could not\nmanifest him; he had to live to be known.\n\nNon-Christian Hebrews are to this day looking for a different\ncharacter to appear and fulfill the prophets. The \u201cJews\u2019 Wailing\nPlace\u201d in Jerusalem tells travelers of our time how they cling to an\ninterpretation of the prophets that excludes the lowly Nazarene, of\nwhom the evangelists have told us.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nIS JESUS AN IDEAL JEW OF THE TIME OF TIBERIUS?\n\n\nWe will consider the notion that Jesus is the product of dramatic\ngenius from other stand-points. Have the evangelists given form and\nvoice to national ideals?\n\nJesus cannot be in those writings the crystallization of national\nlegends; there are no such legends. Had these writers constructed the\ncharacter out of national legends or national hopes Jesus would have\nbeen a national deliverer, not a personal Saviour, talking to men of\nsin and salvation. He was not at all, as these writings and as other\nHebrew writings make plain, the nation\u2019s ideal of a hero and deliverer.\nJesus was any thing but such an ideal; he utterly spoiled the national\nideal of the Shiloh who was to come; he disappointed every expectation\nthat rose to greet him.\n\nOnce, when the people and the priests thought they might use him as a\nnational leader, they tried to force a king\u2019s crown upon his head. He\nrefused their crown, and they crucified him.\n\nThere is another fatal objection to the notion that Jesus is only the\ninvention of four romance writers, suddenly springing up among a people\nwho did not write romances. If they invented him we should have four\nChrists, not one.\n\nThere are differences enough in their statements that we cannot explain\nin any honest way, but that would, I suppose, cease to be differences\nif only we knew all the facts to show that these writers were not in\ncollusion to tell a story that would hold together. We do not know all\nthe facts; St. John, you will remember, tells us that many things are\nnot recorded; perhaps we have only the smaller part of them.\n\nThese four men are not alike; no two men are. They differ in style and,\ntherefore, in temperament, gifts, training, and character. They are as\ndifferent as any four writers you know; for illustration, as Carlyle,\nEmerson, Macaulay, and Irving differ.\n\nTo make plainer the thought I wish you to consider, take Satan as a\ncharacter in literature. Compare the Satans of Milton, Goethe, Bailey,\nBrowning, and Byron. These writers show us five, not one chief of\ndevils. They are as unlike as their authors; and they are like their\nauthors.\n\nOnly a woman could have drawn the Satan of Mrs. Browning. Milton\u2019s\nSatan is a copy of the Miltonic intellect and character--grand,\nscholarly, metaphysical, austere; Puritan is the hero of the _Paradise\nLost_. Bailey\u2019s Satan grew in the atmosphere of Temple Court, and is a\nLondon lawyer of the first order with a diabolical nature. Byron\u2019s is\nlike Byron--brilliant, moody, desperate, and vain. Goethe\u2019s is German,\nand brought up in Weimar. He is like the high-priest and poet of\nmaterialism who gave us _Faust_; like Goethe, university bred, learned,\nscientific, literary, all-accomplished, gay and cynical by turns, a man\nof the world, gentlemanly even in diabolisms, one familiar with the\nbest society, cosmopolitan in his tastes, and nineteenth century in\ndress and manners as well as in his opinions and habits.\n\nBut these four men who wrote of Jesus, these men so different in their\ntraining and manner of life--Matthew, who had been a tax-collector\nunder the Roman Government; Mark, a mere child when Jesus was among\nmen, and brought up under a careful mother; Luke, a \u201cphysician\nbeloved;\u201d and John, a fisherman of Galilee--these have given us one\nJesus, not four. The differences are such as four photographs of one\nman show in different postures taken by the same artist in the same\nday. No matter by whose pen recorded, the words and deeds of Jesus in\nthe four gospels are the words and deeds of one man.\n\nBut there is another view of the notion that the evangelists invented\nthe character of Jesus.\n\nGranting that these men had the mental and spiritual capacity to have\ncreated such a character as that of Jesus; granting that, by some\nstrange chance, although without precedent or succession, and in utter\ncontradiction of all we know of the laws of the human mind, these\nwriters, in themselves and their circumstances so different, invented\nnot four, but one character, there is another thing to be considered,\nand it alone is conclusive: they were bound to have invented a\ndifferent Jesus from the Jesus of the gospels.\n\nIt is impossible but that these men were under the influences that\nnot only characterized their times but made them what they were. The\ngospels themselves show that these men were not only thoroughly Hebrew\nin their thoughts and dispositions, but Hebrews of that period. No\nwriter can any more escape the intellectual and moral atmosphere of\nhis time than he can escape the heredity that is in his blood. These\ninfluences will show themselves in any work of the imagination as\ncertainly as children will resemble their ancestors.\n\nNow Jesus, though a Jew, is not like his time or people. He is a Jew\nonly in blood; he is not a Jew in thought or character.\n\nThe Jew of that period, saying nothing of what was past or of\nwhat was to come to that most wonderful people, was narrow in his\nsympathies; Jesus was as broad as humanity. The Jew was exclusive;\nJesus made welcome all who came to him. The Jew had small toleration\nfor opinions that were not his own, and none for men of other races;\nno cosmopolitanism, or even Christian charity, has ever yet reached\nthe divine tolerance of Jesus. The Jew felt only contempt for the\nmongrel tribes of Samaria; Jesus makes a Samaritan teach us universal\nbrotherhood. The Jew felt that contact with other nations defiled him;\nthere is not in Jesus the faintest flavor of any sort of race or caste\nprejudice.\n\nThe master passion that dominated Jewish life in the days of Jesus\nwas a fierce patriotism that expended its fires in bitter and undying\nhatred of Rome; Jesus, while loving his people and weeping over their\nimpending calamities, said, \u201cLove your enemies.\u201d If these writers were\ninventing a character when they wrote the gospels their hero would have\nbeen in sympathy with his time and people. Such a Christ would have\nunfurled the lion-ensign of Judah, and every sword would have leaped\nfrom its scabbard from the mountains of Lebanon to the borders of Edom.\nBut Jesus paid tribute to C\u00e6sar and commanded his disciples to do it.\n\nOf Jesus we may well say what he said of himself: he is \u201cThe Son of\nman.\u201d He belongs to all; he is a universal character, and the only one\nin history. He is brother to every human being; he loves one as well as\nanother and each one perfectly. He means as much to us of to-day as to\nthose friends in Bethany whom he loved, or as he meant to that \u201cbeloved\ndisciple\u201d who leaned upon his breast at the Last Supper.\n\nThe necessary conclusion is, such a character could not have been\ncreated by dramatic genius, least of all by the four writers of that\nperiod who have given us the gospels. The Jesus of the gospels must\nhave lived, to have been conceived or described.\n\nThis conclusion agrees with the method these writers adopt in\npresenting this character to us. It is the method of perfect\nsimplicity. They nowhere try to tell us what he was or what he\nwas like. There are no comparisons, no analyses of qualities, no\ncharacter-sketching; there is no effort, not the least, to draw a\nportrait of him. They simply write down what they saw him do and what\nthey heard him say; and they make it plain that they understood neither\nhis deeds nor his words, and that least of all they understood him.\n\nThe loftiest genius could not have invented the character of Jesus.\nPlain men, like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, could write of a life\nthat was lived; they could write down the words they heard him speak;\nthey could record the story of the good works they saw him do, and so\nmake us to know Jesus, \u201cwho and what manner of man he was.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nJESUS AND MYTHS.\n\n\nSome learned men, in seeking a way to account for the Jesus of the New\nTestament without accepting the reality of his existence, have sought\nto set up a notion like this: It is true that the evangelists did not\ninvent this character, yet Jesus never really lived; he is only the\nmyth of Hebrew history.\n\nWe are to think of Jesus, they tell us, as we do of the Greek\nTheseus, of the Egyptian Isis and Osiris, of the Thor and Odin of\nthe Scandinavian legends, of the Hindustanee Vishnu, or of Buddha,\nand of scores of other myths that belong to the poetry, traditions,\nsuperstitions, and religions of other nations. Much scholarship has\nbeen mustered into the service of this notion. All this may appear more\nabsurd than serious to one whose education has made Jesus of Nazareth\nreal to his thoughts. It may indeed be so; but we must be fair even to\nthose who seem to us to advance absurd views. I cannot doubt that some\nable and sincere minds have accepted a theory of Jesus that makes him\nout only a Hebrew myth.\n\nLet us look at this theory in a common-sense way, without burdening\nthese pages with tiresome and confusing quotations. There are some\nthings which may be plain enough to those who are unlearned in the\nwritings and legends referred to--some things that the learned cannot\ndeny. Myths are growths, and whatever grows--whether a tree, a man, a\nthought, or a legend--grows under certain laws that cannot be violated.\nThere may be some laws under which myths develop unknown to me. But\nsome of these laws are unmistakable. I mention them, and you will see\nfor yourself that none of them are observed in the story of Jesus. The\nstory we find in the evangelists violates them all. If the conceptions\namong other nations that are called myths are myths then Jesus cannot\nbe counted among them.\n\n1. Myths originate and, as conceptions, are complete before written\nhistory. In all nations the earliest historians relate mythological\nstories that antedate all letters and all records. In some nations a\nfragmentary history went to a sort of record before there was a true\nwritten language. Rude pictures engraved on stone or painted, and what\nare called cuneiform characters, such as are found on the bricks\nor clay cylinders among the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, and such\nhieroglyphics as are found on ancient tombs in Egypt, in Mexico, and\nother countries--these tell us of national myths that belonged to a\nperiod ages before even these crude attempts at writing were made. The\nprinciple--it is invariable as a law--holds good in every nation that\nhas a myth or written history of any sort.\n\nBut the Jesus of the evangelists appeared, and the story of his life\nwas written, long after the most eventful and important history of the\nHebrew race was recorded.\n\n2. About all myths there is something grotesque if not monstrous. They\nare exaggerations of men or animals. Sometimes they are natural forces\nrepresented as becoming incarnate in some fantastic shape. If in human\nform the mythical characters are gigantic, strange, verging upon the\nunnatural and impossible. But Jesus appears as a man, simply; he has\nnot a personal peculiarity to set him apart from his neighbors and\ncompanions. Not a word in the story suggests any thing abnormal or even\nsingular. There is not a word to tell us of his personal appearance;\nthere is no suggestion of any thing un-human or extra-human in his form\nor manner as he appeared among men. The halo about his head you see in\npictures is the pretty conceit of the painters; there is not a hint of\nthis, or any thing like it, in the story of the evangelists. There is\nnot so much as a word concerning his complexion, his stature, the color\nof his hair or eyes, or the tones of his voice. He is just a man among\nmen--one who might have walked unnoticed in the streets of Jerusalem.\n\nRead what the old books tell you of Grecian, Roman, Egyptian, and other\nmyths. How strange they are, how different from men! Jesus appears as\na man, and the evangelists have not one word to indicate that he was\npeculiar in appearance in any respect.\n\n3. Myths reflect their time, place, and race. This statement is without\nexception. Theseus is of ancient Greece and is Greek in every sinew and\nlineament. Odin and Thor come to us out of the dark German forests,\nand are but exaggerations, in their virtues and vices, of the mighty\nbarbarians who dwelt in them. Isis and Osiris are as like Egypt as\nthe desert, the Nile, and its mysterious sources. Bel-Merodach is as\nlike Chaldea as the valley of the Euphrates and its lost civilization\ncould make him. Vishnu is as Hindustanee as the Ganges and its terrible\njungles and the fierce beasts that made men afraid. And so of them\nevery one, from the loftiest and noblest conceptions of godlike men\nthat ever inspired the Greek imagination with great ideals down to the\nmeanest and most devilish that ever filled the superstitions of African\nor Australian bushmen with terrors. But in Jesus there is not a trace\nof coloring from any scene or period in Hebrew history, from Abraham in\nUr of the Chaldees to the days of C\u00e6sar Augustus.\n\n4. In all nations myths defy chronology; they are without dates. In the\nimagination of their people they seem to have existed not only from\nthe beginnings of national life, but to have gone before it. Think of\nany of them--those that have come down to us from ancient nations,\nas well as those that still hold their place in the folk-lore of\nbarbarous peoples. They are all without dates. We do not read of Isis\nand Osiris appearing in the capital of Egypt in the days of Rameses\nII.; the Egyptian gods are older than any of their dynasties and lived\nbefore men kept genealogies. And so of all the gods of mythology;\nthey are without contemporaries known to any history. Myths precede\nthe invention of calendars; if time was counted at all the years were\nwithout dates. How utterly different is the story of Jesus, that some\nmen tell us is only a Hebrew myth!\n\nOf Jesus and the time of his appearing it is written:\n\n\u201cAnd it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from\nC\u00e6sar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. And this taxing was\nfirst made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.\u201d Augustus was emperor;\nCyrenius was governor in Syria; Herod was king in Judea.\n\n5. Myths defy topography as they do chronology; they are not only\nwithout dates, they are without definite localities. They appeared not\nonly some when that cannot be fixed in time, but somewhere that cannot\nbe found as a place. Their origin is shrouded in mystery. Some of the\ncontemporaries of Jesus made it a point against him, \u201cAs to this man we\nknow whence he is.\u201d\n\nIn the story of Jesus we are told of places with such exactness that\nthe statements of the evangelists are to this day the best guides to\nthe scholarly men who make explorations in order to find relics and\nfragments of lost history in Palestine. They do not tell us of Jesus\nas appearing somewhere in their country, as Galilee, Samaria, Judea.\nThey tell us of Nazareth, Bethlehem, Bethsaida, Capernaum, Bethphage,\nBethany, the Mount of Olives. They tell us of the \u201cbeautiful gate of\nthe temple\u201d which, he and his disciples looked upon, and of \u201cJacob\u2019s\nwell\u201d \u201cnear to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son\nJoseph\u201d--the very spot where Jesus sat to rest, while his disciples\nwent to Sychar to buy bread of the baker--the well from which a woman\nof the Samaritans drew water and gave him to drink.\n\n6. Myths are not completed at once. They require long time--ages--for\ntheir development. But the conception of the character of Jesus comes\ninto the thought of men with his manifestation and abides through the\ncenturies that have followed as it was first given to the world.\n\nThere is absolutely nothing like it in all Hebrew history that went\nbefore him, as there is nothing like it in the history that comes after\nhim. And the conception of Jesus that is given by the brief accounts\nof the evangelists is so finished, so complete, that the attempts of\nafter times to add to it in the stories of the so-called apocryphal\ngospels have utterly failed of their design. No marvelous stories,\nhanded down from one generation to another, have in the least added to\nor taken from the Jesus of the evangelists. What Jesus signified when\nthe gospels were written he has been through the centuries that have\nfollowed him. What he was then he is to-day.\n\n7. All myths belong to the infancy, never to the age of any nation.\nThey spring out of the morning mists; they never appear in the light of\nday. If the story of Jesus had been placed in Chaldea, before the call\nof Abraham, it also would have belonged to the infancy of a race. To\nharmonize with the laws that govern the development of myths the story\nof Jesus should have anticipated the first chapters in Hebrew history;\nit should have been placed in that uncertain period that includes the\ndispersion from Armenia, the second cradle of the human race.\n\nBut the story of Jesus is given to the world, fresh and complete, with\nnot one hint of it in all preceding history, in the last years, the\nclosing days of Hebrew national life in Judea.\n\nThe story antedates but a little while the destruction of Jerusalem\nby Vespasian and his Roman legions; when Jesus was born Augustus was\nemperor; when Jesus entered upon his ministry Tiberius C\u00e6sar was in the\nfifteenth year of his reign; his lieutenant, Pontius Pilate, governed\nJudea as a subject province, and his soldiers kept the peace in the\nholy city.\n\nConsider how impossible it is for myths to originate after written\nhistory, in the sun-glare of life in a full-grown nation. Even the\npretty stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table belong\nto that far-away period in England when there was no written history\nworth the name, when letters were almost unknown, when all was young\nand fresh and ignorant, and the fairies still ruled in the forests.\n\nThink of a myth starting up to-day in London under the shadow of St.\nPaul\u2019s and Parliament House. Think of the world in our time talking of\n\u201cChinese Gordon\u201d if there had lived no \u201cChinese Gordon.\u201d If the people\nwho have letters, and write histories, and \u201cturn the world upside-down\u201d\nwith the gospel story, should leave the poor savages of the Congo\nValley to themselves, thousands of years from our times Livingstone\nand Stanley will live in African traditions as godlike men; and so new\nmyths will be born, will grow and fix themselves in the legends of\nthese lands where they have done many wonderful works--but London and\nNew York will breed no myths concerning Livingstone and Stanley.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nJESUS AND HEBREW HUMAN NATURE.\n\n\nThere are writers who see clearly that the four evangelists could not\nhave invented the character of Jesus, and who know that the story of\nhis manifestation violates every known law that governs the birth and\ngrowth of myths; but they tell us Jesus was nevertheless only a man.\nThey say he did really live in Palestine in the days of Augustus,\nTiberius, Herod, and Pilate, and that he was only a man after all--a\nman of very great gifts and virtues, the best man and the greatest\nteacher that ever lived. This means that human nature was capable of\nproducing Jesus; it means that Hebrew human nature in that country\nand in that age was capable of producing Jesus, his doctrines and his\nlife. In other words, he was a most extraordinary but still a natural\nproduct of his race, country, and time; the normal product, though the\nconsummate flower, of Jewish life.\n\nIn considering that the evangelists, granting them ability of all sorts\nfor the invention of so perfect a character and such a character, must\nhave given us a different character, some of the difficulties of the\nnatural development theory were incidentally brought into view. But\nthere are other matters to be fairly considered in connection with this\nmethod of accounting for Jesus.\n\nJesus, in one of the simplest--yet it is one of the profoundest and\nmost comprehensive of philosophical principles--gave us the germ of our\ninductive philosophy and our modern scientific method. When he said,\n\u201cBy their fruits ye shall know them,\u201d he taught us that we are to make\nour theories conform to ascertained facts rather than explain our facts\nby our preconceived theories. It is by the fruit we are to know what\nthe quality of the tree is.\n\nWhat manner of fruit grew on this long-lived Hebrew tree? You can seek\nthe answer for yourself; all Hebrew history will tell you.\n\nBegin with the story of Abraham, in Genesis, and follow through\nthe centuries the thread of Hebrew history to the times of C\u00e6sar\nAugustus and of Jesus, if you will, till our own time. We find in\nthat history patriarchs, law-givers, priests, judges, soldiers,\nkings, statesmen, poets, reformers, and prophets. We have Abraham and\nthe other patriarchs; Moses, Aaron, and his successors; Joshua and\nhis compatriots; Samuel, last and best of a long line of judges;\nSaul, David--poet, as well as soldier and king; Solomon, genius and\nphilosopher, sage and profligate; Isaiah and the other prophets;\nNehemiah and other reformers; Daniel, the statesman, in the service of\nan alien prince, the conqueror of his people. In later times we have\nJudas Maccab\u00e6us, the heroic defender of his country, and the other\nmighty men who gave their lives in a hopeless struggle for the freedom\nof their nation. Still later we read of men like Annas and Caiaphas,\nthe wicked high-priests of an evil time. We have Gamaliel, learned in\nthe law, and his pupil, Saul of Tarsus. (But for Jesus there would have\nbeen no Paul.) We have the men brought to view as \u201cdisciples\u201d of Jesus.\nLater on appear such a man as Josephus and the brave men who fought the\nRomans and died for Jerusalem. Consider them all, the strong and the\nweak, the good and the bad, as they grew upon this Hebrew tree. These\nmen show the best as well as the worst it could do. We must judge this\ntree by its fruits.\n\nCan we place Jesus among them and count him as one of them--the best of\nthem? Could a tree which produces these others produce him? To ask the\nquestion is to answer it.\n\nI know what some writers have to say when they speak of finding types\nof Jesus among those who lived before him; what they say of Moses,\nJoshua, and others. Some of them were truly great and good men--among\nthe best the human race can show for itself. But we cannot place Jesus\namong them; they do not approach him, and they are not like him. He\nstands alone and apart. He is not only above them, he is unlike them.\nThe question is not simply whether the Hebrew tree, judging it by all\nits other fruits, was capable of producing this one perfect character\nin all the world, but also whether it could have produced this kind\nof character? Certainly it never did before him or after him. Search\nhistory for one shadow of proof that this race--wonderful and unique in\nall times and countries--from Abraham to Disraeli had in it any powers\nthat could, as a normal development, produce Jesus of Nazareth.\n\nIf you will you may give your inquiries wider range. Forget that Jesus\nwas a Jew by blood and birth and training. Try all history; search\nthe records of other nations. Tell me of the sages and reformers--the\ngreat and good men of other peoples and countries; of Zoroaster,\nConfucius, Socrates, Buddha, and the rest; of Moses or any other Jew\nyou could name along with them. Is Jesus only one of them? The best of\nthem perhaps--but only one of them? Read all you may of them as their\nbest friends tell their stories, and you would recoil if some maker of\ncyclopedias should talk of only adding the name of Jesus.\n\nIt is not simply that you have heard your mother pray to Jesus; it\nis not simply the prompting of your \u201ccradle faith.\u201d The reason lies\ndeeper; if to-day for the first time you were to read of the great and\nholy men of other nations and of Jesus you must think of him, without\nwaiting to reason why, in a place by himself, as a great star shines\nalone. No light is so splendid but the eye knows the sunlight for what\nit is.\n\nBut it is not, as you know, a question as to what the human race in\nsome age could do; it is, what could the Hebrew race do in the age of\nC\u00e6sar Augustus? For Jesus was of the Hebrew race and of that age.\n\nBut for the moment forget this limitation of our inquiry and ask, What\ncould that age do? It is like asking, What could the Roman race and\ncivilization do? For the glory of Egypt and Babylon had long departed,\nand the great Greeks were before the time of Jesus. Roman life then\ndominated the world, and Roman life did its utmost in producing\nJulius C\u00e6sar. But there was not in Roman life, tradition, thought,\nsentiment, one quality or influence of any sort whatsoever that could\nhave any relation to the production of a character like this that the\nevangelists have given us.\n\nBut at last we must ask simply this question: What could the Hebrew\nrace in that age do?\n\nOnly Jewish influences entered into the life of Jesus. There is not\nin any single thought or word of his so much as an echo of any thing\ncharacteristic of other peoples. There is not an undertone in his\nthoughts from the Greek or Roman masters. He had nothing from other\nteachers or thinkers. He was only a Jew, never out of Palestine, of a\npeasant family in Galilee. The Galilean was a narrow, suspicious, and\nrevengeful man; provincial to the last degree; holding fast old ideas\nand rejecting new ones with little regard to argument or evidence--the\n\u201cBourbon\u201d of his time. He was a man of bitterer prejudices than\ncharacterized even the men of Judea. But even Galilee had its best and\nits worse, and Jesus was brought up in a disreputable mountain town.\n\u201cCan there any good thing come out of Nazareth?\u201d was a common proverb,\ncarrying its own answer and indicating the estimate placed upon the\nlittle town by the better people of the country.\n\nJesus was untaught in the greater schools of his own people. \u201cHow\nknoweth this man letters, having never learned?\u201d implies more than\nthat his hearers knew his history well enough to know he was not\nschool-trained as their scribes were; it means that they knew he did\nnot speak as their scholars spoke. Jesus did not talk like a book;\nhe was not learned in books; his language indicates, so far as books\ncount, knowledge of the Scriptures only; he could read, but he was no\nscholar.\n\nCompare now the conditions under which this young carpenter of\nNazareth, working at his trade, and doing good work till he was thirty\nyears old, grew into manhood; consider what his people were at their\nbest; consider how little of what was best in Hebrew life entered\ninto his Galilean bringing up; consider the hard conditions and the\nnarrow limitations of his life, and tell me whether Jesus is a normal\ndevelopment of his race and time and place?\n\nWe will not now speak of his teachings; compare him with his natural\nconditions. There is nothing in all human history that makes it\npossible to believe that a mere Jew, brought up in that Nazareth, could\nhave become this flawless, perfect character. If it be otherwise there\nis nothing, absolutely nothing, in heredity or environment; then any\nsoil can produce any fruits. Better expect to find the kingly trees of\nthe Yosemite Valley growing with the stunted sage of Arizona.\n\nConsider the teachings of Jesus and tell me can this perfection of\ntruth come out of Nazareth? Consider what he teaches about God, the\nhuman soul, sin, reconciliation, salvation and immortality. Consider\nhow he teaches and illustrates in his life the brotherhood of the human\nrace. Consider his ethics--his doctrines of rights and wrongs. What\nhe teaches about rights and wrongs, in principle and practice, is so\nabsolutely full and perfect that good men--the best men in the world\nto-day, so long after his time--cannot so much as conceive of one\nsingle virtue he did not teach or of one single evil that he did not\ncondemn. Nay, the wisest and best are always trying to teach men the\ntruth Jesus taught; and his standard is so high that no sane and honest\nman has ever professed to have reached it.\n\nOne writer has ventured, in order to find one spot on this sun, to\nsay, Jesus did not teach patriotism! His whole life was devoted to\nhis people; his doctrines nourish and conserve patriotism. He did not\nteach the thing a mere partisan of a clan or tribe calls patriotism;\nthen he would have been only a Galilean zealot. He teaches the only\npatriotism a good man can respect--a love of country that believes in\nrighteousness and the golden rule that loves its own and another\u2019s\ntoo. If Jesus be only a man--a Galilean Jew, we must remember--he\ncontradicts in his flawless all-round character and perfect teaching\nthe conditions of his life. This perfection of character and teaching\non the one hand, and this Galilean Jew and Nazarene carpenter on the\nother, not only do not agree, they cannot exist together. It is by\nhis life that we realize how imperfect all others are; it is by his\nteachings that we test the rights and wrongs of all other teachings.\n\nThere is absolutely nothing in his race or age that accounts for Jesus.\nThat he was a normal product of his race and age contradicts every law\nof life we know. If it be not so all history goes for nothing and there\nis no law or reason in the nature of things.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nHIS METHOD OF THOUGHT DIFFERENCES HIM FROM MEN.\n\n\nIn studying the story of the evangelists let us try to come nearer to\nJesus. We need not fear; he would have us find out all about him that\nwe can; he would have us know what manner of man he is. If we love\nbeauty, goodness, and truth, we will approach him with reverence. No\ngood man, no man you can respect or trust, will speak of Jesus with\nflippant words. But we may go to him without hesitation; he who took\nlittle children in his arms and blessed and kissed them will not\nreceive the humblest student with coldness. Indeed, the more one needs\nhim the more welcome he is. It was he who said to the \u201cweary and heavy\nladen,\u201d \u201cCome unto me.\u201d\n\nLet us consider now, as best we may, what we must call his method of\nthought. It differences him utterly from all mere human teachers. We\ncan find many illustrations.\n\nIn the first place, Jesus does not seek the same end that the great\nthinkers, who have given the world its philosophy and its science,\nalways seek--the creation of an intellectual system of and for the\nuniverse. Humboldt, who was a very learned and gifted man, gives us a\ngreat work he calls _Cosmos_. It tells all he knew, or thought he knew,\nof the universe, and explains it all as best he could. He is one among\nmany; all the philosophers try to account for things, and the greater\nthey are the more they try.\n\nIn the human mind there is a resistless tendency to search into secret\nthings, and to construct a philosophy of them. Aristotle gave us his\n_Categories_; the moderns try their hand in the same line of things. It\nmeans only this: men who are philosophers and thinkers seek to classify\nall facts and to find out and express--\u201cformulate\u201d is the word--a\ncomplete, all-embracing, all-explaining law of them.\n\nWitty Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his _Poet at the Breakfast-Table_,\ngives us a pretty satire on this invincible disposition and always\ndisappointed and disappointing effort of thinkers. His \u201cPhilosopher\u201d\nwas ever just about to find expression for his great discovery--just\nabout to state the all-comprehensive law, the perfect formula, that\nleft out nothing and explained all.\n\nIt is essentially a man\u2019s way; in all departments we see the tendency\nand effort of men to explain the universe.\n\nThe chemist talks of \u201catoms\u201d because he wishes to get down to the basis\nof things--to know the ultimate fact, beyond which analysis cannot go.\nThe ontologist talks of \u201cgerms\u201d for a like reason; he is ever striving\nto find a something--a substance or a force--that will explain to him\nnot one but every life process. And the greater ones are seeking always\nto explain the origin of all things--to show how the universe was\nstarted or got itself going.\n\nThe philosopher who studies mind seeks the same sort of end--the\nconstruction of a mental science that embraces every fact and explains\nevery mystery of mental action. The theologian is in the same drift; he\nwants a philosophy of religion. He seeks to explain God, and, in not a\nfew instances, seems to labor more earnestly to show how God can save a\nsinner consistently with his own nature and government than to show the\nsinner how to be saved. The theologian labors to show what the origin\nof evil is, and to make his view a philosophy that will harmonize all\ndifferences and explain all mysteries.\n\nThe strength of this tendency in mere men--and it is strongest in the\ngreatest--to find a statement that may account for all things is shown\nin the absurd conclusions that some of them, entirely sane on other\nsubjects, accept for themselves and urge upon other minds. A great\nchemist concludes that the universe was \u201conce latent in a fiery cloud,\u201d\nand seems content with a form of pretty words. Another expounder of\nmysteries accounts for life in our world by telling us that \u201cgerms\u201d\nwere first brought from somewhere in space by \u201cfalling meteorites,\u201d\npays his worship to what he dreams is science, and is content to push\nhis problem further from him. The notion that the word \u201cprotoplasm\u201d is\nsupposed to stand for represents another effort to explain all things,\nalbeit by a theory harder to understand than the universe it would\nembrace and expound. These are only specimens; both ancient and modern\ntimes abound in them. Wiser, perhaps, and quite as scientific was\nthe desperation of that student of the mysteries of life and man who\nconcluded that the \u201cmissing link\u201d must be in the bottom of the Indian\nOcean; for no diver can prove what is not in water so deep as this\nfathomless sea.\n\nWhat we are now considering is a resistless tendency in thinking minds.\nIt is not peculiar to one class of men; it does not characterize one\nage. It is simply human nature to ask questions and seek explanations.\nConsider a few names now mentioned and see for yourself that the\ngreater the mere man the more he tries to explain the universe--to\nfind a formula large enough to contain it, to classify its facts and\ncorrelate its forces. Think of these men and the few whose names should\ngo with them--Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Origen, Augustine, Pelagius,\nAthanasius, Calvin, Edwards, Leibnitz, Bacon, Humboldt, Kant, Cuvier,\nand, perhaps, some new men. Philosophers, scientists, theologians, they\nare all alike in this--they are building a system, a philosophy of the\nuniverse.\n\nDo not mistake my purpose in these illustrations; the disposition which\nwe have been considering is a pure human instinct; it is resistless,\nand it is the condition of mental activity. The mind that does not\nask questions, that does not knock at the closed doors of knowledge,\nis stagnant and will perish. Progress and growth depend upon inquiry.\nWise men will cheer every earnest student, whether he is trying to find\nwhat an atom is or what the stars contain. It is a man\u2019s way to seek to\nexplain all things; the effort affords the drill and discipline that\nmake growth and progress possible to the race.\n\nBut in these respects, as in so many others, Jesus is utterly unlike\nthe philosophers and scientists and theologians. He does not in the\nleast seek the end that mere men seek. He makes us understand the\nuniverse--matter and mind, man and God--better than all of them put\ntogether. But he nowhere accounts for things. He has not a word about\nthe \u201ccosmos.\u201d He makes no inquiry, raises no question, offers no\nexplanation concerning the origin of things. In him there seems to be\nno consciousness of the mysteries of the universe, either as to its\norigin or nature.\n\nBut it may be said Jesus taught morals, religion, not science or\nphilosophy, and he had no occasion to construct a system of the\nuniverse. In morals and religion, more than anywhere else, do mere\nmen build systems when they think, explain things when they teach.\nBut Jesus, teaching morals and religion, was unlike all others, mere\nmen, teaching morals and religion. He said not one word--he, the only\nteacher who seemed to understand it--about the \u201corigin of evil,\u201d the\nsubject that has vexed not a little theology into lunacy; he, the only\none who has seemed capable of doing it, has given us no \u201ctheodicy,\u201d nor\nso much as seemed to think of it at all.\n\nHe did not, he who made claim to perfect knowledge of God, explain\nGod or philosophize about God; Jesus did not so much as give us\na philosophy of himself, his life, or his mission. It was John,\nthe disciple, not Jesus, the Master, who wrote of the Logos.\nJesus offers no philosophy of the plan of salvation; he does not\nphilosophize concerning faith, or prayer, or immortality.\n\nAs to evil, Jesus tells men what evil is, shows the ruin it brings upon\nthem, and points out to them the way of deliverance. He talks to men of\ntheir evil and the way to make an end of it.\n\nJesus never investigates. He never doubts his knowledge or questions\nfor one instant the grounds of it. We have no fit word for his method;\nintuition is perhaps as good as any. His thinking is not a process;\nit is like seeing, not learning, the truth; seeing not the outside of\nthings as men see them, but the inside of them as God sees them.\n\nJesus never uses those forms of logic that are absolutely necessary to\nall others. We are speaking of his \u201cmethod of thought;\u201d perhaps such\nwords do not apply to him at all. How did he find out what was true? He\ndid not seem to find it out at all; it seemed to be in him. He never\nseems to discover a truth. He does not, by reasoning from what is to\nwhat must be, find out what he did not know before.\n\nIn geometry we begin with what we call \u201caxioms,\u201d a few simple\nprinciples that need no proof. We call them \u201cself-evident,\u201d because we\nsee that they are true, that they must be true, the instant we know\nwhat the words mean that state them to us. Upon these we build our\ngeometry and all the science and art that rest upon it or grow out of\nit. When we prove one thing we did not know by something that, being\nself-evident, needs no proof, we put the two together and prove a\nthird, and so on as far as we can go. Jesus would have known the third,\nand the hundredth, and the last, as he knew the first--without this\nbuilding-up process. He would know all that the axioms contain as we\nknow the axioms.\n\nFor want of fitter words we have been speaking of his \u201cmethod of\nthought.\u201d As these words have significance to mere men, Jesus, it\nseems, had no method of thought; he did not, as men must do, think to\nknow; he knew things. Perhaps this is in part what he meant when he\nsaid to Pilate, \u201cI am the Truth.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\n\u201cNEVER MAN SPAKE LIKE THIS MAN.\u201d\n\n\nWe will consider the method of Jesus as a teacher, and the word is\nappropriate now. He did have a method in teaching men the truths that\nhe knew without reasoning about them, the truths that he did not\ndiscover by investigation, the truths he knew because they were in him.\n\nTo begin with, Jesus does not seek to prove things to his hearers;\nhe announces what is truth as God announces truth. He is a divine\ndogmatist; he offers no proof of what he sets forth as truth.\n\nNo other teacher ever taught as Jesus did. What we may call his\nlogic-form is pre-eminently the teacher\u2019s; but no teacher ever employed\nit as did he who came out of Nazareth. He reasons from the weaker to\nthe stronger reason. He does not reason to prove truth to others, as he\ndoes not reason to discover it for himself, but to teach it. This is\nthe form of reasoning we find in all his parables and illustrations.\nHis arguments are designed to help his learners understand what he\nmeant and to impress it upon their minds. He never seems concerned\nabout proving to men the truth of what he said, but only to make it\nplain and to enforce it. Many illustrations might be given; let a few\nsuffice.\n\nOne day Jesus was teaching his disciples the doctrine of God\u2019s\nprovidence. He makes no argument to prove that there is a providence;\nhe does not seek to convince them, but only to help them realize\nin their own thoughts the all-embracing, unfailing, and gracious\nprovidence that kept them. And he did this not to make them understand\nthe doctrine of providence, but to help them trust in it. He seeks to\nbring home to them the truth he does not seek to prove. How does he set\nabout it? What is his method? Not a mere man\u2019s method. It is indeed an\nabsolutely simple method; but no other teacher, who has not learned it\nof him, has used it so in discoursing of such truths.\n\nHe begins with what they knew: \u201cConsider the lilies of the field, how\nthey grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you\nthat even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.\u201d\nThey knew the lilies--that is, they were used to seeing them, the\nlittle flowers so common, so insignificant, yet so beautiful. Jesus\nconcludes: \u201cWherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which\nto-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more\nclothe you, O ye of little faith?\u201d\n\nIn the same way he reasons of sparrows and men. He would inspire his\ndisciples with the courage that has its root in faith in God\u2019s loving\nand unfailing providence. He says to them the great God not only feeds\nthe poor little birds, but cares for them, \u201cAre not two sparrows sold\nfor a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without\nyour Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye\nnot therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.\u201d\n\nHe would teach his disciples the folly of forgetting what is essential\nin brooding anxieties about small things: \u201cAnd which of you with taking\nthought [worrying] can add to his stature one cubit? If ye then be\nnot able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the\nrest?... Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what\nye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. The life is\nmore than meat, and the body is more than raiment.\u201d\n\nHe would make men see how perfectly simple and unmysterious is prayer\nand how absolutely certain it is that God will answer. Have we not\nlistened to mere men--preachers they called themselves, yet doing,\nit may be, the best they could--mystifying simple-minded people and\nlittle children--themselves most of all--with tortuous disquisitions\nconcerning the \u201csubjective\u201d and \u201cobjective\u201d results of their devotions!\nAnswering infidels, they suppose!\n\nJesus makes no argument about the nature of prayer; he has not a word\nto prove its reasonableness or to harmonize the doctrine with law. He\nsays: \u201cAsk, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock,\nand it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh, receiveth;\nand he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be\nopened.\u201d\n\nHow does he prove what he affirms? He does not prove it; he brings it\nhome to them: \u201cWhat man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread,\nwill he give him a stone? Or, if he ask a fish, will he give him a\nserpent?\u201d\n\nEvery hearer, whether parent or child, answered out of his heart,\n\u201cThere is not such a man among us.\u201d Jesus concludes: \u201cIf ye then, being\nevil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more\nshall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask\nhim?\u201d\n\nThe cold and cruel Pharisees, playing at religion and seeking their\nown, complained one day that Jesus healed a poor maimed man on the\nSabbath day. Jesus made no argument about the nature of the Sabbath.\nHe reminded them that they would lift a sheep out of the ditch on the\nSabbath day, and concludes with a question that brought the truth home\nto them: \u201cHow much then is a man better than a sheep?\u201d\n\nThese same people, contending about the forms of religion and\nforgetting God and man, complained that Jesus kept company with\n\u201cpublicans and sinners,\u201d and was kind to them. In answer he told them\nof the shepherd who, missing one sheep from his flock of a hundred,\ncould not be content with the ninety and nine, but went out into the\nwilderness seeking the lost one; he told them how glad the shepherd was\nwhen in his arms he had tenderly brought it home. He told them also\nof the woman who could not rest till, with broom and candle, she had\nsearched her house for the piece of money she had lost. He told them of\nher neighbors rejoicing with her when she had found it. Why he cared\nfor publicans and sinners he made plain when he added: \u201cI tell you\nthere is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that\nrepenteth.\u201d\n\nJesus would make these hard guardians of what they called the Church\nand despisers of their brother-men realize the Fatherhood of God. He\nmade no argument of the sort mere men would make.\n\nHe tells them of the two sons and how glad the old father was when\nhis poor prodigal got home. The conclusion no human heart can miss:\nthe infinite Father, infinitely better than any earthly father, is\ninfinitely glad when his prodigals return to him. The heart that once\ntakes in this story of the two sons can never again tremble and cower\nbefore that horribly heathen conception of God that makes him only an\ninfinite terror, seated on the throne of the universe, to be afraid of,\nfled from, and hated forever.\n\nJesus sought to encourage the most despondent and abject to trust\nin the divine justice as well as mercy. There is no lofty argument\nconcerning the righteousness of God. He tells of the widow and the\nunjust judge, who feared not God nor regarded man, the judge who made\na boast of heartlessness and apologized to himself for seeming to\ndo a good deed. He grants the widow\u2019s prayer because he was selfish\nand mean; he would not be \u201cwearied with her importunities.\u201d Jesus\nconcludes: \u201cAnd shall not God avenge his own darlings who cry day and\nnight unto him?\u201d\n\nHow clear Jesus made what mere human teachers make dark! What even some\npreachers of our times, too proud in their false learning to be simple\nin their methods and language, make so tiresome and so bewildering to\nhungry souls who ask for bread and get chaff!\n\nWe will not understand how unlike the methods of mere men is the method\nof Jesus till we have wearied ourselves with what they call reasonings;\ntill we have come to understand that no man can teach religion who\nrejects the methods of Jesus for what he thinks are the methods of what\nhe calls logic and philosophy, truly understanding neither.\n\nWhat we may call his manner, as distinguished from his method of\nteaching, differences Jesus from mere men. No great teacher, unless it\nbe some one who has learned of him the true secret of teaching--and how\nfar below the Teacher the best and wisest fall!--ever before or since\nhas the manner of Jesus.\n\nThere is a sort of fatality about men\u2019s teaching. Vanity or ignorance\nmakes them seek to appear profound when they are only obscure. What\nan unspeakable relief and blessing it would bring to all churches\nand schools if pastors and teachers would only study the method of\nJesus and seek to imitate the simplicity of Jesus! Teachers, not a\nfew of them, burden and bewilder their pupils with the dead lumber\nof learning that is not knowledge; preachers, not a few of them,\nmystify and mislead their hearers with reasonings, philosophies,\nand argumentations, mere war of words for the most part, that are\nnot gospel nor life. When Jesus talked of the deepest and highest\nquestions, of God and man, of rights and wrongs, of life and death, of\ntime and eternity, of heaven and hell, it is said, \u201cThe common people\nheard him gladly.\u201d This could never be said of even the good Socrates,\nor the great Plato; for the \u201ccommon people\u201d could not understand them.\n\nIt is indeed a rare thing that the \u201ccommon people\u201d hear \u201cgladly\u201d a\nteacher of science, philosophy, or religion whom the uncommon people\ncall great. As a rule, the greater one is, as men measure greatness,\nthe less do \u201ccommon people\u201d hear him \u201cgladly,\u201d and least of all when he\nspeaks or writes upon the very greatest of themes. Is it because such\nteachers are not themselves brothers to the common people? One reason\nis the great men do not truly understand what they teach. And herein is\na reason for patience.\n\nPerhaps, for the most part, the great ones do the best they can. It\nseems that, when a mere man seeks to think profoundly or to speak\nstrongly, he must fall into obscurity. This obscurity cannot be due to\nany inherent difficulty in the truth itself, but to those limitations,\nmental and spiritual, that belong to mere human teachers. But Jesus\ntaught the greatest truths in language as simple and clear as when he\nspoke of the most familiar duties of daily life. His manner is as easy\nand his words as plain when speaking of immortality as when telling men\nto be honest and to \u201clove one another.\u201d\n\nCompare the Sermon on the Mount and the writings of the greatest and\nbest of men who have discoursed upon these themes. How perfectly simple\nand transparent and easy the manner and style of Jesus! How complex and\ndark and difficult the manner and style of men! How it should shame\nmere men into meek simplicity when they read of Jesus, the divine\nTeacher, \u201cThe common people heard him gladly!\u201d\n\nAfter all, it may be that our method of thought is as unfitted for\nunderstanding the Gospel as our method of teaching is unfitted for\nexpounding it. It may be that if we worried ourselves less with what\nmen have written of his words--too often trying to read into his\nteachings thin philosophies; if we brooded more upon his words and less\nupon men\u2019s notions of his words, we would understand Jesus better. Then\nwe also could teach the people. Then, it may be, the \u201ccommon people\u201d\nwould hear us \u201cgladly.\u201d If we preached his \u201ctext\u201d more and books\nabout his \u201ctext\u201d less we would preach more truth that saves and less\nphilosophy that bewilders.\n\nIn speaking of the method and manner of Jesus there is another matter,\nnot easy to discuss, that should be mentioned; I refer to the effect\nupon himself of his thoughts and words.\n\nThere is a divine calmness in him never seen in mere men; that is\nimpossible to them. In this also he stands apart from men.\n\nHis greatest discourses are without intellectual heats. This is very\nwonderful to me. He shows himself to be the tenderest-hearted teacher\nwho ever sought to lead men out of darkness into light. We know that\nhe is not cold of heart; we know how deep is his compassion on men;\nhow infinite his concern for them. But he delivers the most tremendous\ntruths with the most perfect composure and balance of spirit. If a\nmere man were to see clearly for the first time what the Sermon on the\nMount, the third chapter of John, the parable of the Prodigal, and a\nscore of other discourses and revelations like them really signify;\nif a mere man were, so to speak, to come suddenly upon such thoughts,\nsuch conceptions, so vast, deep and high, it would unbalance him. His\nbrain would be on fire and his heart would break with holy excitement.\nBut Jesus speaks these truths with perfect calmness; they were not\nnew thoughts to him; there was no effort in order to grasp them or to\nexpress them. Yet Jesus was full of sympathy. He wept with the sisters\nat the grave of Lazarus and bewailed the fate of Jerusalem with sobs\nand tears.\n\nYou have read a story of Sir Isaac Newton, which, whether it be\nhistorically true or false, well illustrates, for it is very like a\nman, what is here brought to your attention, as showing how Jesus\ndiffers from a mere man. When Sir Isaac had nearly finished his deep\nand long-continued studies of the laws which govern the movement of the\nheavenly bodies, and was near enough the end of his great mathematical\ncalculations to foresee the result and to realize that it would justify\nhis sublime speculations concerning the controlling law of the material\nuniverse, he became so excited--cold philosopher and trained to\nself-control as he was--that he could not complete the simple processes\ninvolved in his formula. It was necessary to call in a friend to finish\nthe easy work for him; for the moment the great astronomer was out of\nbalance.\n\nSir Isaac\u2019s was exactly a mere man\u2019s way; great inventors have gone mad\nwhen they were within one step of triumph.\n\nBut Jesus was calm when speaking, in the simplest way, of the greatest\ntruths of life and the most stupendous events that await eternity for\ntheir unfolding.\n\nNo wonder those who, on one occasion, were sent to lay hands on him\nhad only this answer when they returned to their masters without him:\n\u201cNever man spake like this man.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE SON OF MAN AND SIN.\n\n\nWhen we compare the work Jesus proposed to do in the world with the\nschemes of earth\u2019s greatest ones we cannot classify him with mere men.\n\nWhat did he think he came into the world to do? What did he consider\nhis mission to be?\n\nWe cannot be in the least doubt for the answer; there was no confusion\nin his thought, no ambiguity in his words. If we ask what Jesus thought\nhis mission was we will easily find the answer--unparalleled by the\nthought of any, absolutely unique, stupendous, but as unmistakable in\nmeaning as simple in the form of expression.\n\nWe will answer in his own words: \u201cThe Son of man is come to seek and\nto save that which is lost.\u201d \u201cI came not to call the righteous, but\nsinners to repentance.\u201d \u201cGod sent not his Son into the world to condemn\nthe world, but that the world through him might be saved.\u201d \u201cI came not\nto judge the world, but to save the world.\u201d More forcibly, if possible,\nthan in his words, his conception of his mission is shown by his work,\nhis living, and his dying. St. Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, gives\nus in a simple statement the whole history; it is, in a line, the\nbiography of the God-man, \u201cHe went about doing good.\u201d\n\nThat Jesus should have seen in the world evil that needed to be\nremedied, that he should have tried to remedy the evil he saw, does\nnot, in itself, difference him from good and wise men who have observed\nthe facts of human life and have deplored human miseries. All the\ngreat teachers and reformers have recognized evil in the world, and\nmany of them have distinctly recognized this evil as moral evil. The\ndoctrine of Jesus is peculiar in this; all the evil that is in the\nworld is moral evil, and all moral evil is, at its root, sin, and sin,\nconsidered as a quality in man\u2019s character, is a state of being that is\nout of harmony with God; considered as a fact, it is life in violation\nof God\u2019s law. The bad man is, in his spirit, at enmity with God; in his\nlife he breaks God\u2019s law. He loves evil because evil is in him; his\nlife is wicked because his heart is bad.\n\nAnd Jesus comes to take away sin; to deliver men from it, its penalty,\nand its power. Said the angel to Mary: \u201cThou shalt call his name Jesus,\nfor he shall save his people from their sins.\u201d\n\nIn the view of Jesus sin is the one evil; deliverance from sin is\ndeliverance from all evil; it is salvation. He struck at sin as\nthe root of all possible evil; he recognized no evil that was in\nman\u2019s circumstances, as if his evil came out of fate or in some way\ninvincible by him; it is all of sin.\n\nWherefore Jesus does not set about bettering man\u2019s circumstances, by\ndirect effort improving the sanitary, economic, political, or social\nconditions of life; he works upon man himself. Whatever improves man\u2019s\ncondition is, in the doctrine of Jesus, to be desired; but it is not\nenough to make man comfortable; he must be made good. He teaches that\nall that is truly good and needful will come to men who are delivered\nfrom sin, and that no real good can come to him whose sin remains in\nhim. First, last, all the time, Jesus makes deliverance from sin the\none thing needful--the chief good.\n\nAs his manner was, he does not argue about it; he states his doctrine\npositively, \u201cwith authority,\u201d as one knowing the whole truth of the\ncase. There is no qualifying word to tone down his statements and to\nleave place for retreat from possible mistakes.\n\nHis doctrine he taught and illustrated in every possible way. It is in\nhis more formal discourses, his briefest comments on men and things,\nhis most occasional conversations and most incidental remarks. His\ndoctrine is in all his efforts to do men good, as it is in every\nwarning and every promise.\n\nAnd there is never a shadow of doubt, a suspicion of hesitation. From\nhis first word to the last, from the beatitudes to the prayer on the\ncross, it is always the same thing; man\u2019s trouble is all in his sin;\nhis only salvation is deliverance from sin.\n\nIt comes out in the most incidental way. When the penitent Magdalene\nwashed his feet with her tears, at Simon\u2019s table, he said not a word\nabout her lost social position or of its possible restoration. He said,\n\u201cThy sins are forgiven; thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.\u201d\n\nWhen the four kind and loving friends of Capernaum--whose names we\nwould like to know--had brought their palsied neighbor to Peter\u2019s\nhouse, and had at last, with much trouble, through the broken roof laid\nhim down at the feet of Jesus, the first words were not about palsy and\nhealing, but about sin and salvation: \u201cSon, thy sins be forgiven thee.\u201d\nThis is what the story of the penitent publican, crying out, \u201cGod be\nmerciful to me a sinner,\u201d means. It is what the story of the prodigal\nmeans; it is what the whole life and teaching of Jesus mean.\n\nWe must notice particularly that the mere conception of a divine\nincarnation is not peculiar to the story of Jesus. The notion\nof incarnation, the idea of the gods taking a form of flesh and\nmanifesting themselves to men, is in the traditions of almost every\nnation. It has been said, hastily, I believe, that there are some\nraces, at least some tribes, so low in development as to have no idea\nof God whatever. It is easy to be mistaken in such matters; it is\ndifficult for a cultivated man to find out what a savage really thinks\nabout any subject, least of all his religion. Perhaps the language\ndifficulty is the least bar to understanding in such a case; the\ndifferences between men are not measured by differences in speech only.\nIt is certain that the conception of God is, in some form, in most\nnations. I believe it is in all. And in every nation there is some sort\nof notion of divine manifestation.\n\nThe attempt to represent the gods in stone, in metal, in wood, or even\nin rude drawings and paintings, comes after a traditional belief has\nlong held its place in men\u2019s thoughts of their manifestation in some\nvisible and tangible form.\n\nIt is not always a human form; it is generally not a human form,\nexcept as it is part of the conception: as in the eagle-headed Belus\nof Babylon, as in the winged bulls, with the head of a man and the\nfeet of a lion, that Layard found in the ruins of Nineveh. These\ncomposite images represented ideas of the gods, not facts concerning\nthem. Thus the image found in the ruins of Nineveh represented\nstrength, swiftness, courage, intelligence. But the ideas expressed\nin these strange and grotesque forms grew out of traditions of divine\nmanifestation, of incarnation.\n\nAll the mythologies tell us of incarnations; but the idea of divine\nincarnation in the story of the evangelists differs, not in some\nincidents, but in all essentials from all others. One unique fact,\nas has heretofore, in a different connection, been pointed out, is\nthat Jesus was simply a man who, as to his appearance, had absolutely\nnothing that was peculiar. Neither stature, beauty, swiftness, nor\nstrength is attributed to Jesus.\n\nWe might speak of the limitations that go with other conceptions of\ngods incarnate. They are specialized by race and localized by country.\nThis thought has been illustrated elsewhere. It may answer now simply\nto remind you that Vishnu is Hindustanee, Isis and Osiris Egyptian,\nOdin and Thor Scandinavian. Not one of them has relations to the whole\nhuman race. But Jesus, who calls himself \u201cthe Son of man,\u201d is of all,\nand belongs to all.\n\nBut the most notable difference to be considered now, that which alone\nwould place Jesus apart from all others, whether men or legendary\ngods, is in the end he proposed to accomplish. The gods became\nincarnate and appeared to men, or dwelt among them, to do many and very\ndifferent things; Jesus to do just one thing, and to do what no other\never proposed to do, or so much as thought of doing. He, \u201cthe Son of\nman,\u201d was of all and for all, and he proposes an end that concerns all.\nThe evil he would remove from all is not a Hebrew trouble; it is in the\nhuman race.\n\nThis is plainer in comparison. Vishnu, the supreme god of Hindustanee\nmythology, has condescended, so the old stories tell us, to almost\ninnumerable incarnations. But for what end? Always to work some\nprodigies; to do some strange things on the plane of men\u2019s lives; to do\nthings affecting men\u2019s circumstances, not men\u2019s character. He comes to\ndo something in a limited sphere; something for his people, Hindustanee\npeople, not for the whole race of man. Vishnu, when he comes in mercy,\ncomes to remedy external conditions; he delivers from pestilence,\nfamine, wild beasts, poisonous serpents. When he comes in wrath it is\nto crush his enemies.\n\nIn mythology the very conception men had of the coming of the gods\ngrew out of their circumstances. Thus in India the conception of evil\nitself was determined by conditions peculiar to India. With them\nevil grew out of the jungles where pestilence was bred, serpents\nabounded, and fierce man-eating tigers hid themselves and waited for\ntheir prey. It was determined by those conditions of life peculiar to\ndense populations, subject to the scourges that followed war, and evil\nnatural conditions--plague and famine.\n\nThe evil Jesus considered was peculiar to no people and to no country;\nit did not grow out of natural conditions; it was in man himself, and\nit was sin.\n\nAmong warlike nations the gods came down to take part in mere national\nmatters; they fought the battles of their friends and punished their\nenemies. Your Homer tells you all this in the story of the siege of\nTroy. Virgil tells you the same thing; your classical authors are full\nof it. The poor Indians and negro tribes tell of such incarnations.\n\nIt was this very human conception of divine incarnation that filled\nthe national imagination and sustained the national hopes before Jesus\ncame. Such an incarnation they were longing for when they rejected him\nbecause they could not use him for their ends; it is a conception that\nto this day lingers in Hebrew thought and hope. They looked and prayed\nfor a divine warrior-king who would lead their armies, restore their\nnation, and give it dominion over the world.\n\nHow incredible the idea that the evangelists have only given us a\nreflection of popular sentiment, the outgrowth of national traditions!\nThese sentiments and traditions were utterly spoiled by the sort of\nincarnation the evangelists describe. The nation resented unto death\nthe conception Jesus had of his mission to men; before such a king as\nJesus they preferred the C\u00e6sar they hated; they put to death the man\nwho only sought to save them from their sins because he disappointed\nthem in their patriotic ambitions.\n\nSpeaking in a general way, the gods of the nations, when they become\nincarnate, come to do a man\u2019s sort of work. They work upon the outside\nof life; they seek to deliver man from external evils and to improve\nhis external conditions. The \u201ctwelve labors of Hercules\u201d tell us what\nmen thought they needed a divine man to do; the evangelists tell us\nwhat the divine Man thought men needed that he should do. When the gods\nof mythology become incarnate they work in the realm of circumstances;\nJesus speaks only of the man himself, his heart, his character, and\nseeks only to make him good.\n\nHere is, therefore, the essential difference: his conception of evil,\nand back of that, of course, his conception of man himself.\n\nAs we have seen, in the thought of Jesus the evil and the good, the\nwoes and the blessings of humanity are in man himself; they are not\nin externals, but internals; not in circumstances, but in character.\nJesus does not, therefore, dwell upon poverty or wealth, sickness or\nhealth, enemies or friends, contempt or favor, servitude or freedom,\nearly death or long life. He is not concerned about any circumstances\nwhatever that merely determine man\u2019s external life; he is concerned\nabout man himself. If there be any real good or any real evil the good\nand the evil are inside, not outside the man.\n\nLet us note, too, Jesus never places man\u2019s moral evil, which is the one\nevil he recognizes, in mere ignorance of truth, as if instruction and\nmerely changing man\u2019s opinions could remedy the evil; he always places\nit in that something that alienates man\u2019s love from God, that something\nthat Jesus calls sin, that something that is sin because it antagonizes\nthe pure will of God. And Jesus teaches that the very constitution of\nman\u2019s nature is such that no bettering of his external conditions can\nbring any real help whatsoever; that so long as man is out of harmony\nwith God there can be for him, neither in this world nor the next, any\nreal good. This he meant in the question that makes a man outweigh a\nworld: \u201cWhat shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and\nlose his own soul?\u201d\n\nJesus took very great pains to teach men that in themselves, and not in\ntheir circumstances, was their real evil and their real good. He used\nalmost every form of speech to teach them to think of a man as a man,\nand not as the sport of circumstances.\n\nFor poverty Jesus did not care; for wealth he had no respect. The\nstory of the barn-builder gives us his solemn judgment upon a man who\nachieved very great worldly success; who was what most men long and\nstrive to be--rich and great. But he was a man out of harmony with\nGod--rich in purse, bankrupt in soul. Jesus, in the face of all human\nopinion, plainly calls such a man \u201ca fool.\u201d\n\nThe drama of the rich man and Lazarus turns the light of both worlds\nupon the question of man\u2019s chief and only good, and emphasizes, by\nthe despair of the prince in hell, his verdict upon the case of the\nprosperous and self-satisfied barn-builder, in whose thoughts and plans\nneither his own soul nor the God who made him had any place.\n\nAlways--whether speaking of his own personal work or in instructing his\ndisciples as to their work--Jesus looks to bettering men, not their\nconditions. He did not care for conditions, except as they connected\nmen with influences that made them good or evil; he cared for men only.\nHence he always stressed character and nothing else.\n\nCharacter, in the teaching of Jesus, is all; it is both test and\nmeasure of what a man is, and there is no other test or measure for\nwhich man ought to care, for which God does care.\n\nThe amazement of comfortable and cultured Nicodemus shows us that these\nideas of Jesus were not borrowed from the men of his time and race.\n\nSumming up what is here presented as to the conception Jesus had of his\nmission to men, a conception as unique as his own character: only one\nthing he hated and sought to destroy--sin; only one thing he loved for\nman and sought to bestow--goodness.\n\nOnly one thing his true disciples hate--sin; only one thing is worth\nstriving, living and dying for--goodness: which is another name for\nChrist-likeness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nTHE MAGNITUDE OF THE END HE PROPOSED AND SET ABOUT.\n\n\nLet us now consider briefly the magnitude of the work Jesus proposed to\ndo as the end of his mission to men.\n\nIt is the baldest commonplace to say the work Jesus proposed to\naccomplish transcends all the dreams of the boldest imagination.\n\nIt is a deep offense that once, at St. Helena, Napoleon contrasted\nthe work Jesus proposed to do with the dreams that he and Alexander\nand Julius C\u00e6sar had indulged of world-changing conquests. It is no\ngreat thing that selfish, ambitious, and gifted men have dreamed of\nconquering what we call the world by force. C\u00e6sar, Alexander, Mohammed,\nNapoleon, even poor wild El Mahdi of the desert, may dream such dreams.\nBut what are such dreams when we think of Jesus and the work he\nproposed to do and set himself to do?\n\nWe do not like to think of the dreams of ambition, the loftiest that\never dared or planned a worldwide scheme of conquest, when we are\nlistening to Jesus concerning his mission to men. Jesus speaks of the\nconquest of all nations, not as they then were, but of all nations\nfor all times. It is nothing less and nothing else than the moral and\nspiritual re-creation of the human race, the absolute conquest of the\nlove of men\u2019s hearts for time and eternity.\n\nSay what men may of Jesus, it was worth dying, in shame and agony, upon\na Roman cross to have had such thoughts, even for one moment. No mere\nman ever had such thoughts, could originate such thoughts, or for long\nhold such thoughts in his grasp. The end Jesus proposed to himself is\nas far above the noblest thoughts of the noblest men as the splendors\nof the midnight heavens are above the cheap glitter of a toy-shop.\n\nThe thought of saving a race was as extra-human and superhuman as the\nthought of the universe; the saving of a race, the saving of one man,\nis as far beyond man\u2019s power as the creation itself.\n\nWe cannot grasp the conception Jesus had of the work he came to do; it\nmakes us dizzy when we contemplate it steadily; it is like trying to\nrealize the distances of the fixed stars. Its splendor blinds us; it is\nlike looking at the unclouded sun.\n\nNo one, whatever may be his opinion of Jesus or attitude toward him,\ncan question that he believed absolutely in the success of the work\nhe proposed to accomplish. His plans embrace the entire race of man\nand require eternity for their consummation, but he speaks of these\nstupendous things with the perfect assurance and simplicity of a little\nchild: \u201cAnd I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.\u201d\n\nIt was hard to say which is most unlike a mere man: the character of\nthe work he proposed to do, the magnitude of it, the unhasting zeal\nwith which he set about it, or his absolute confidence, calmness, and\nsimplicity of manner in telling men about it.\n\nIt is impossible to write worthily on such a theme. Let us, if only for\na moment, try to see how unlike a mere man it all is.\n\nJesus considers the sources of man\u2019s misery and the nature of his\nremedy. It is all open, clear, and certain to his thoughts. He has not\nthe least possible doubt that he has gone to the root of the subject\nand absolutely knows it all. What has confounded all human thinkers is\nin the sunlight to his vision. When the strongest and best of men tries\nto mine into the depths of man\u2019s nature and misery he labors heavily\nand breathes hard, like a diver in his coat of mail down in the deep\nsea. When a man attempts to tell what he thinks he sees in the shadows\nfrom which he cannot escape, while meditating these difficult and to\nhim impossible themes, he is in sore travail for words; utterance is\nheavy and confused. But Jesus makes no effort to grasp the truth; his\nthoughts are clear and complete to him; his language simple and clear\nto us. It is like this: \u201cOut of the heart proceed evil thoughts.\u201d\nTherefore, there must be, not reformation only, but change. \u201cYe must be\nborn again,\u201d is his first word to Nicodemus and to all who come to him.\n\nThere is another thought to be considered at this point in taking\nnote of characteristics which difference Jesus from men. A mere man\ndiscovering in his reflections the abysmal depths of man\u2019s spiritual\nmalady, a mere man clearly comprehending, as no man ever yet\ncomprehended, the evil of sin, would be crushed by despair. Many good\nmen, seeing but a little way into this darkness, have been made mad by\nwhat they saw. Where it is not morbid sentiment or philosophic play\nthis is the origin of pessimism.\n\nThere is nothing of this in Jesus. He saw it all; its uttermost deeps\nwere open to his eyes; but he faces the trouble with infinite calmness.\nHe announces a remedy adequate to the evil. He speaks to a weary and\nsin-stricken race: \u201cCome unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy\nladen, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of\nme; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your\nsouls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.\u201d\n\nAnd this is what he offers to a sinning and troubled world. He says he\nwill change men, make them new and good, make them well again.\n\nBut there are no lunatic airs, common to dreamers and enthusiasts.\nNo mere man could think such thoughts and earnestly say such things\nwithout lunacy. But there never was such perfect mental and spiritual\nequilibrium as we see plainly in Jesus. He speaks of the moral conquest\nof the entire race; he asks for the perfect love of men, that he may\nsave them from all evil by saving them from their sins; he speaks of\nhis work as comprehending time and eternity; he offers to the faithful\nimmortality and eternal life. And his calmness of spirit is absolute;\nhis simplicity of manner is perfect.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nNEVER MAN PLANNED LIKE THIS MAN.\n\n\nWhat are we to say of the means which Jesus proposes to use for the\naccomplishment of his vast and unheard-of ends?\n\nI say broadly, and with certain assurance, Jesus proposes none of the\nmeans which mere men would use; of the sort they have always used.\nHis plans and methods are utterly unlike the plans and methods of\nmen, except as they have learned most imperfectly from him in humble\nand earnest efforts to do his will. The methods that mere men trust\nin--always trust in--he will have none of.\n\nJesus utterly excludes mere force. His symbol is not a sword; it is a\ncross. He said, \u201cHe that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword.\u201d\n\nSome weak thinkers or insincere men have tried to fasten on\nChristianity the guilt of barbarous cruelties, and many wicked and\nhorrible deeds, perpetrated by ignorant or wicked men in the holy name\nof Christ. Bad men, in the darkness of ignorance and in the malignity\nof sin, have used his name to force their brothers to think their\nthoughts. The rack for Galileo was an evil thought and a wicked method\nof bad and ignorant men. But Jesus does not tolerate force in carrying\non his work, nor persecution of any sort whatsoever.\n\nOn one occasion two of his disciples, John and James, were offended\nbecause a Samaritan village did not offer hospitality to Jesus and his\nfriends. Then said the brothers, \u201cLord, wilt thou that we command fire\nto come down from heaven and consume them?\u201d They were men, and their\nmethod was pure human. What Jesus said to them he says to all: \u201cBut he\nturned and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye\nare of.\u201d\n\nTo charge upon Christianity the wicked deeds of those who have violated\nthe teachings of its founder is like charging upon medicine the death\nof men who, in the name of medicine, have been doctored to their death\nby impostors.\n\nForce could not do any of his work; it was man\u2019s love that he sought;\nand love cannot be forced by God or man. Love dies under force. The\nC\u00e6sars use force; it is a man\u2019s way. The God-man uses love.\n\nJesus does not trust in the purchasing power of wealth, or of money,\nits representative. He hardly spoke of money except to show the danger\nof it. The love of money he denounced. He taught that greed of money\nis debasing. Getting to heaven, for a rich man, is like a camel\u2019s\npassing through the eye of a needle--only \u201charder.\u201d The only rich man\nwho volunteered discipleship turned sorrowfully away when told to\nsell his estates and give the proceeds to the poor. Jesus warns his\ndisciples with gracious vehemence of the folly and danger of laying up\ntreasure upon earth. Personally he had no concern about wealth, except\nto warn his disciples of the terrible spiritual dangers that lurk in\nriches. He provides no treasure for carrying on his work. He taught\nthat the love of money is the source of more moral evils than any other\nthing in the world.\n\nIt is a man\u2019s way to bribe and buy favor and success. Satan believes in\nthe power of money absolutely. To Jesus himself the devil offered the\nsubmission of the world if he would only pay him allegiance.\n\nMen of our time will not believe what Jesus says upon these subjects,\nand their prompt rejection of his doctrine is evidence enough that in\nrejecting from his plans the power of money to buy influence he did\nnot plan like a man. For money, as money, Jesus felt only contempt. He\ntaught that wealth held for its own sake, or used only in selfishness,\nshows its possessor to be a \u201cfool;\u201d that it both degrades and damns. In\nhis view it can in one way only be even honorable to be rich--to use\nriches unselfishly and usefully. Even then it is dangerous.\n\nIn his day, as they do now, men of the world reviled his doctrine; \u201cthe\nPharisees, who were covetous, derided him.\u201d\n\nFor the teachings of Jesus concerning money and its right uses few,\neven of those who claim to be his disciples and friends, have perfect\nrespect. He seems to them to be \u201cvisionary\u201d in his views, and his words\nseem to be \u201cunbusinesslike.\u201d A man says to himself, \u201cJesus says money\nis dangerous to my soul; he tells me that I am only a steward holding\nmoney in trust, and that I must give it away to those who need. I\ncannot carry on business on his plan; I will risk my plan.\u201d\n\nSuch a man does not believe what Jesus teaches; unless one should so\nfar qualify the statement as to say--unless it be that gold has so\nblinded his eyes that he does not understand what the plain words of\nthe Master really mean.\n\nFrom his method Jesus excludes diplomacy, the art of playing one\nselfishness against another. \u201cLet your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay,\nnay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.\u201d His disciples\nmust, indeed, be \u201cwise as serpents and harmless as doves;\u201d but they\nmust live the truth. Deception is abhorrent to him. The Talleyrands\nunderstand and use diplomatic arts. The \u201cBerlin Conference\u201d is a modern\ninstance; it illustrates a man\u2019s method. Not necessarily a bad method,\nbut a man\u2019s.\n\nConsider a phrase we see every day in the papers, \u201cThe balance of\npower in Europe.\u201d See how the \u201cgreat powers\u201d and the small ones\ngive themselves to all manner of intrigues, using wily state-craft\nto circumvent, deceive, coerce, hold their own, or rob their weaker\nneighbors, or by combination reduce the stronger ones.\n\nMany well-founded complaints have been brought against \u201cpriest-craft,\u201d\nwhich is state craft in church circles. Its crimes, by the ill-informed\nand the evil-disposed, have been laid at the door of Christianity. No\ncharge can be more unjust; it is as unjust as to blame Jesus with the\ntreachery of Judas.\n\nPriest-craft is an invention of men; it has no more place in the plans\nof Jesus than state-craft; he considers neither, except as he may\noverrule them and force them against their nature into his service, so\nthat the cunning as well as the \u201cwrath of man shall praise him.\u201d\n\nWhat is called the \u201cChurch\u201d is not synonymous with \u201ckingdom of heaven.\u201d\nMen of worldly temper may within church circles do their own work; they\ndo not do Christ\u2019s work by diplomatic arts.\n\nJesus not only excludes appeal to all forms of selfishness, he\nantagonizes them to the death. His first and last word, his ultimatum,\nis, \u201cIf any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, and take\nup his cross daily and follow me.\u201d His first word is a challenge to\nsurrender the stronghold of self-will. Till surrender is complete\nthere can be no peace. A mere man would be counted insane--and justly\nenough--to talk of advancing any little scheme of improving things\nabout him in any such way--and because it is so utterly unlike a man\u2019s\nway.\n\nJesus offers no inducement to mere self-interest. He promises\nabsolutely nothing of the things the world is in sore travail and\nanxiety to secure. He does not promise pleasure, or honor, or fortune,\nor power, or health, or long life. He does say God will see to it that\ntrue Christians shall have what is good for them. But in many ways he\nmakes plain that \u201cwhat is good for them\u201d will often include what the\nworld calls evil.\n\nJesus nowhere so much as seems to think of what men of the world call\ngood; the things they strive for so, and give their time and strength\nand lives to gain.\n\nIt is an utter mistake to suppose that Jesus offers worldly prosperity\nas a reward for duty, a premium on piety. Those who try to read this\nmeaning into an apostle\u2019s writings misread him; it is against all his\nteaching. It is true, doubtless, as Paul says, \u201cGodliness is profitable\nunto all things, having the promise of the life that now is and of that\nwhich is to come.\u201d But \u201cthe promise of the life that now is\u201d cannot,\nin the kingdom of Jesus, mean worldly things; it means goodness, God\u2019s\npeace in man\u2019s soul, Christ-likeness in man\u2019s heart here and now.\nUndoubtedly religion makes this a better world, but not because it\nmakes man richer, but purer.\n\nIf we believe in Jesus and in his work in the world at all we may, if\nwe wish, find out what he meant by what has followed. It is true that\nthe religion that makes men good restrains them and protects them from\nthe follies and sins that waste energy and squander fortune; but it is\nutterly misleading and confusing to try to read into the words of Jesus\nthe idea that he appeals to any mere selfish interest by promising\nfortune to the good. It is like making worldly riches the reward of\nmeekness and long life the premium on obedience to parents.\n\nSome very rich people have been deeply religious, but in spite of their\nwealth. It is as Jesus said, \u201cAll things are possible with God.\u201d It was\nhe also who said, \u201cHow hardly shall they that have riches enter into\nthe kingdom of God.\u201d But Christ\u2019s best ones have not succeeded in this\nworld according to money or other such gauges.\n\nIf the work of Jesus--who excludes from his plans force and the\ncunning of diplomacy, who denounces all selfishness and ignores\nall self-interest, who demands absolute self-surrender at the very\noutset--is to abide in the world, is to succeed, then it must go\nagainst the tide, and not with it.\n\nAt one time Jesus seemed to think his hearers might possibly\nmisapprehend him, and he told them plainly that poverty, trouble,\nsorrow, persecutions in this world, awaited them if they followed him.\nAnd he told them plainly, also, that if they would have any part in him\nand with him they must flinch at nothing--that they must die if need\nbe. When they did understand him \u201cmany went back from following him.\u201d\nAnd many are joining their company to this day.\n\nWhat he said to the young ruler he said to all; nay, says to us all\nto-day: \u201cThe foxes have holes; and the birds of the air have nests,\nbut the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.\u201d And we do him the\ndeep dishonor of believing that he spoke the words of mere sentiment!\nHe could only mean by his words to the rich young man, \u201cCome with me\nand welcome; I will help you, I will save you; but for this world I can\npromise you nothing.\u201d He himself was always a poor man, and his poverty\nwas not an accident in his manner of life. There never was a man too\npoor to be a friend to Jesus, never a man so rich that he could find\nspecial favor in those eyes that were \u201csingle\u201d and \u201cfull of light.\u201d\n\nJesus could not have offered holiness to men as the chief good of\nman, with worldly blessings as a reason for being good; it would have\nspoiled the Gospel. He never promised that his disciples should be\nbetter off in this world than he was. He asked them one day, \u201cShall the\nservant be above his lord, the disciple above his Master?\u201d\n\nBut we explain all this away.\n\nJesus was not indulging sentiment when he taught his disciples that\nfollowing him meant a self-renunciation that would brave all things.\nHe distinctly told them to expect persecutions and tribulations. And\nsome persuade themselves that he was speaking only for those who were\nthen his disciples; that such ideas do not fit civilized times and\ncountries. An apostle, being a mere man, might well enough give his\n\u201cjudgment\u201d as to what best suited an existing condition of life and\nsociety; but Jesus, who belongs to all times, speaks no word of simply\nlocal and temporary significance and importance.\n\nIt was so certain that suffering and persecution of some sort would\nfollow fidelity that Jesus gave his disciples and all who should come\nafter them a test by which they might judge of their personal fidelity\nto him: \u201cWoe unto you when all men shall speak well of you.\u201d Can we\nimagine that Jesus did not mean such words for all men, of all times\nand countries?\n\nHe knew how his friends would need to stand firm, and how fearful the\npressure of temptation would be to deny him.\n\nHe told them they would \u201cfor his sake\u201d be \u201cbrought before kings,\u201d and\nthat \u201csome of them would be killed.\u201d But he told them not to be afraid;\nthey were to fear God and no other whatever.\n\nOne day Jesus was urging his disciples to be faithful and courageous in\nproclaiming his whole truth to the world, and thus he encouraged and\nexhorted them: \u201cAnd I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them\nthat kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But\nI will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath\nkilled hath power to cast into hell: yea, I say unto you, Fear him.\u201d\n\nInstead of trusting in any wise to self-interest Jesus demands its\ncrucifixion. When he says, \u201cIf any man will be my disciple, let him\ndeny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me;\u201d when he\ndemands self-renunciation absolute; when he says that no interest\npossible in this world--whether houses, lands, father, mother, brother,\nsister, child, or wife--must come between him and his disciples;\nwhen he raises a cross by his own upon which selfishness must die, he\nstands apart from all men. His method is not a man\u2019s. His plans are as\ndifferent from a man\u2019s as the end he proposed is above a man\u2019s thought\nand different from it.\n\nIf no man ever spoke like Jesus no man ever planned like him.\n\nIn considering further some things in the methods which Jesus adopted\nfor doing the work he proposed to himself we may mention, as different\nfrom a man\u2019s method, that Jesus excludes from his plans for discipling\nthe world reliance upon mere argument and force of intellect.\n\nJesus left no room, not the least, for the fanatical superstition\nthat his cause is to be advanced by ignorance. His doctrine furnishes\nevery inspiration for the very highest development of mind; and the\nbest educational work of the world is the outgrowth of Christian\ninstitutions.\n\nBut Jesus does teach his disciples that they must not, in extending\nhis kingdom, depend upon learning, upon mere force of intellect and\nargument. If they did this they would fail. So he taught them, and\nhistory makes it plain to us that his disciples have failed when they\nhave forgotten his teachings. Alas! that it is so easy to pervert great\ngifts. It seems to be almost as difficult not to trust in great gifts\nof genius as it is to possess great wealth without loving it.\n\nWith the end Jesus had in view he could not depend upon mere learning,\nmental gifts, and force of argument. For the essential trouble is not\nwith men\u2019s intellects, but their hearts. It is not that opinions are so\nwrong; it is that dispositions are so alienated from God. Man needs not\na new opinion, but a new love. The task of Jesus was a far harder one\nthan the correction of errors; it was the winning of hearts. Love is\nfree; men may be convinced against their will, but love consents.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nJESUS NEITHER THEOLOGIAN NOR ECCLESIASTIC.\n\n\nJesus did none of the things a man would do who proposed to establish\nand perpetuate any sort of kingdom, or school of beliefs, even in this\nworld.\n\nHe established no institutions with formal constitutions. He did\nnot draw up a code--not so much as a system of moral philosophy. He\nleft no \u201ctheological institutes,\u201d with precise definitions and exact\nlimitations. Some of his true friends have done their best at such\nwork; he did not. Theirs is a man\u2019s way; his was not.\n\nHe left no formal creed; he never mentioned such a thing; he did not\nseem to think of it at all. It is so much a man\u2019s way to do such things\nthat we are not yet familiar with the idea that Jesus did not. It comes\nto many with a sudden surprise when they discover that Jesus said not\na word about systematic theology, that to many is so precious. In all\nhis words are no \u201carticles of religion;\u201d not a hint of them. He did not\nso much as put into form a doctrine of his own nature and person. Very\noften and in many ways he spoke of himself and God, and of his relation\nto the eternal Father, but he made no definition. Often he spoke of\nhimself, of the Father and of the Holy Ghost, but he said not a word of\nthe \u201chypostatic union\u201d of three persons in one Godhead; not a word of\nthe \u201ceconomic relations\u201d of the Holy Trinity.\n\nSome good people, if they chance to read what is here put down, will be\nso certain in their own minds that Jesus did employ some of the methods\nof a mere man, in order to preserve his teachings in the world, that\nthey will suspect the writer of irreverence; at least of indifference,\nif not of something they think less of, in what is said concerning\n\u201ccreeds\u201d and \u201ctheologies.\u201d They will be in error, as is common with\nthem on such questions; the writer is only stating facts that no man\ncan deny as to what Jesus did and did not do. Some admirable and good\npeople have not yet learned the difference between arguing for their\nChurch and pleading for Christianity; between defending their own\nnotions and expounding the teachings of Jesus. And not a few confound\ntheir notions about God with the fact of his existence, as others\nmistake their theory of inspiration for the divine authority of the\nHoly Scriptures.\n\nOur way of teaching is a man\u2019s way. If it is the best we can do let us\nbe content; if not, let us amend our way. But let us not defend our way\nby pleading his example; let us follow our way because it is our way,\nif there be no better reason. Certain it is that the way Jesus took\nof teaching and perpetuating his doctrines was not a man\u2019s way in any\nrespect whatever.\n\nJesus wrote no book--not a line. He founded no school or other training\ninstitution; his three years\u2019 loving and painstaking companionship with\nhis disciples was indeed a training, but it was not an institution.\nThis does not mean that his friends should not do such things; it is\nthe only way they can do: but he did not do such things.\n\nHe did not so much as establish a Church; the Church grew out of his\nlife as well as out of his teachings; it was compacted by the sympathy\nof men, women, and little children of common beliefs and hopes; above\nall, by the sympathy born of a common love for him--this far more, then\nas now, than by what they understood or believed of his teachings. He\nleft for the government of the Church \u201cno rules of order,\u201d no book of\n\u201cdiscipline.\u201d He ordained no form of church government, \u201cwith checks\nand balances,\u201d whatever. All those things may be good, and order in\ngovernment is necessary; but he did not provide them. He left all such\nthings to the common sense and best judgment, guided by providence\nand the Holy Spirit, of his disciples. In Church as well as State the\nprinciple is this: God ordains the power; he does not prescribe the\nform; he ordains government, but leaves the form of it to the good\nsense and personal preferences of those who are to live under it.\n\nAll these things we have mentioned here belong to the works and ways\nof men; they are good or bad as they serve the ends of his kingdom.\nMoses, though an inspired lawgiver, yet a mere man, gave many forms and\nprescribed the order of doing many things; Jesus, the divine man, gave\nnone.\n\nIn nothing is Jesus more unlike men than in his utter disregard of\n\u201cforms\u201d in the doing of the duties he enjoined. He has no word about\nforms except the terrible words he used concerning the many forms\npunctiliously observed by certain Pharisees and hypocrites who were\nplaying at religion. His life was full of worship, but he left not a\nhint as to any forms or attitudes for devotion. That simplest and most\ncomprehensive of all prayers, \u201cOur Father, who art in heaven,\u201d is not a\nform; he said, \u201cAfter this manner pray ye.\u201d The prayer might take any\nform of words, or leave all words unsaid. And this prayer he gave his\ndisciples in response to a request for a form. Jesus had no forms; he\ncared for none.\n\nNor did Jesus care for the \u201cletter,\u201d except as to the danger that good\nmen might make a fetish of it. He said of the \u201cletter, it killeth;\u201d\n\u201cthe Spirit giveth life.\u201d The Spirit is every thing, the letter\nnothing. If we were to use of him the language that fits the case of a\nman we would feel like saying, Jesus looked upon punctilious eagerness\nabout \u201cforms\u201d and the \u201cletter\u201d as mere child\u2019s play, that he scorned\nsuch unspiritual folly.\n\nThis is certain: the only thing he denounced in a tone that was\nalmost anger was zealous adherence to the form and to the letter, and\nsanctimonious contentment with this poor substitute for religion when\nthe spirit of worship and service was dead. It will be the plainer to\nus that his was very far from being a man\u2019s way when we remember that,\nwith men, the less of spirit and reality an institution has the more\nanxious they are about mere form and letter. A spiritually dead man\nwill contend more zealously about the form of a duty than the duty\nitself. And this is not unnatural; when a Church is dead there is\nnothing left but form--a body ready for burial.\n\nWhat terrific words Jesus used in what he said of such things! Let us\nhear him and try to understand how much he means for us of to-day:\n\n\u201cWoe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of\nmint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of\nthe law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and\nnot to leave the other undone.\n\n\u201cYe blind guides, which strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel.\n\n\u201cWoe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean\nthe outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of\nextortion and excess.\n\n\u201cWoe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto\nwhited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are\nwithin full of dead men\u2019s bones, and of all uncleanness.\u201d\n\nHad Jesus been only a man, conceiving vast plans for propagating his\ndoctrines and perpetuating his kingdom, he would have done all the\nthings he did not do. He would have relied on force, money, diplomacy,\nargument. He would have considered what human selfishness is, and he\nwould have appealed to it. He would have provided institutions and\nhave founded schools. There would have been a \u201cpropaganda\u201d compassing\nthe world in its plans, and his agents would have been drilled in\nforms and methods after the manner of men. He would, to have been\nat all like a man in his plans, have left a system of \u201cethics\u201d or\n\u201ctheology.\u201d He would have formulated a \u201ccreed\u201d; he would have drawn up\na \u201cconstitution\u201d with \u201cbylaws\u201d for his Church, stating in terms every\nprinciple and providing, according to the foresight given him, for\nevery contingency, as did John Wesley with his Discipline and Legal\nHundred. (Can it be necessary to say this illustration is no reflection\nupon the great and good English reformer, who was a mere man?) He would\nhave set for rigid observance forms and ceremonies of which he had none\nand prescribed none, not so much as telling men how they were to do in\nthe matter of the sacraments--baptism and the memorial supper.\n\nMere men always do such things. Jesus did not adopt a man\u2019s way in any\nof his work or plans, unless we except those who have learned of him\nsomething of the divine art of doing good to the souls and bodies of\nmen.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\n\u201cJESUS CHRIST TOOK THE WAY OF PERISHING.\u201d\n\n\nIf Jesus was only a man there is another marvelous thing you must\nhave thought of before this time. He talked of a kingdom that was to\nendure forever, that was to conquer the world, and that was to bind the\nhuman race into a holy brotherhood; but he made no preparation for a\nsuccessor. He expected to die early, as he did; he told his disciples,\ntime and again, that he would not be with them long; but he provided\nfor no representative or visible headship when he was gone. The idea\nof such a representative did not occur in all his thoughts, as it was\nnot intimated in any of his words. Napoleon shows us a man\u2019s way in his\neager concern for a successor and in the cruel and wicked method he\ntook to secure his ends.\n\nWhat Jesus did not ordain and require men may use in his work, if their\nmethods be in themselves good, and consistent with the spirit of his\nkingdom. But what he did not require men must not demand of his free\nchildren.\n\nSo far as plans are concerned, of a sort recognizable by men as\nplans--of a sort they will admit who believe he was only a man--there\nwas just one thing he did and commanded. He called about him a few\nfishermen and other plain people--of what are called by some the \u201clower\nclasses\u201d--and said in effect: \u201cGo up and down through the earth and\ntell every body what you have seen me do and what you have heard me\nsay; tell the people of me; tell them to go on repeating the story;\ntell them to hand it down through the ages, telling it over and over.\u201d\n\nThese are the very words: \u201cAll power is given unto me in heaven and in\nearth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the\nname of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching\nthem to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I\nam with you alway, even unto the end of the world.\u201d\n\nMere men, undertaking great and perilous enterprises, conceal from\ntheir followers the hardships and perils that await them; they tell\nthem of victories and rewards. So did the Genoese, mustering a crew to\nhelp him find a new world. So all mere human leaders do. And no mere\nman in such a case ever yet clearly saw the difficulty and danger of\nthe undertaking; if men could see clearly the toils and tribulations\nbetween them and success they would never enter upon any great and\nhazardous enterprise. But Jesus saw all the antagonisms that were\nin his path and, unlike any other leader that ever lived, told his\ndisciples what awaited them. In words like these he spoke to his\ndisciples:\n\n\u201cBehold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye\ntherefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men:\nfor they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you\nin their synagogues; and ye shall be brought before governors and kings\nfor my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.... And ye\nshall be hated of all men for my name\u2019s sake: but he that endureth to\nthe end shall be saved.... The disciple is not above his master, nor\nthe servant above his lord. If they have called the master of the house\nBeelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?... He\nthat taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.\nHe that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for\nmy sake shall find it.\u201d\n\nLet us think of all this. Such an end to accomplish, such a plan, such\na claim, such a promise! If Jesus was only a man this was lunacy,\nunless we should impeach his sincerity.\n\nYet with perfect simplicity, perfect composure, perfect confidence,\nJesus relies upon such a plan as this. It is not a man\u2019s way at all; it\nis not only above and beyond a man\u2019s way, it is unlike it, foreign to\nit, and impossible to a mere man.\n\nHow do men plan? Read history; look about you. It is easy to find out\nfrom books; if you know how to read men it is easier to find out from\nobservation.\n\nAlexander, C\u00e6sar, Mohammed, among warriors and conquerors; Richelieu,\nMacchiavelli, Jefferson, Hamilton, Disraeli, Bismarck, among statesman\nand the men who know state-craft; the fathers and popes, Ignatius\nLoyola, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, among churchmen--these show us the\nmethods of men. Studying the lives of those mentioned here and of\nothers of their order we will find plans many and diverse--wise and\nfoolish, good and bad--but they show a man\u2019s way.\n\nIf you wish something more like a parallel consider the plans of\nthose who fastened what is called Buddhism, or Confucianism, upon\nhundreds of millions. Or consider Mohammedanism. In these systems we\nsee the handiwork of men. The authors of these systems recognize the\nordinary influences that determine men\u2019s conduct and use them with\nrare human skill. These employ agencies that Jesus repudiates; they\nappeal to motives that he ignored; offer inducements that he utterly\ndenied; these planned as men plan in all they did. What Pascal says,\nin effect, in comparing Christ and Mohammed, we may say of Christ\nand any other founder of a religion: \u201cIf Mohammed took the way of\nsucceeding, according to human calculations, Jesus Christ took the way\nof perishing, according to human calculations.\u201d\n\nNever did Jesus look to using the strongest drifts in human nature to\nsecure his ends; his ends required him to arrest and reverse these\ndrifts. He was not ignorant of the forces locked up in human nature;\nno man ever so deeply read the heart, so absolutely \u201cknew what was in\nman.\u201d As no other who ever taught men the truth Jesus knew the force\nof the torrent that bore down upon him--the Niagara his cause had to\nascend.\n\nIf Jesus was only a man how happened it that the methods he adopted are\nas unlike the methods of men as the end he sought is unlike the end\nthat any man ever yet proposed to himself? How happened it that in his\nplans he did every thing that a man would not do, and nothing--all\nhistory being witness--that a man would do?\n\nThese pages are not written for exhortation; but would it not be better\nevery way, for the cause they stand for, if his friends studied the\nplans of Jesus more and their own plans less?\n\nPlacing ourselves, in imagination, in the company of those few\nfaithful friends, men and women--who were of the humble and obscure\npeople--among those who received his command to \u201cdisciple all nations,\u201d\nlet us look about us and consider what are our prospects of success.\n\nWhat predominant influence in the world is friendly to the cause of\nour Lord and Master? The only people who believe in the Lord God have\ncrucified Jesus. The Romans are masters not only in the holy city but\nin all the world we know, and the Roman power has just sanctioned the\ndeath of Jesus. The Greeks still give philosophy and art to the world,\nbut there is not among the Greeks sympathy with the teachings and work\nof Jesus. No people befriend his cause; no hand is stretched out to his\ndisciples; the world is against his cause, and for his sake against us,\nhis disciples.\n\nLooking at it all as a man might, was there then a single human\nprobability that the cause represented by the crucified Galilean would\nhave the least place in history? That it would abide among men for a\nsingle generation? If Jesus was only a man could any thing conceivable\nby the human mind be more impossible than the realization of the dream\n(if he was only a man it was but a dream) of this man of Galilee,\ncrucified like a felon?\n\nNo wonder certain men, while Jesus was yet among them, \u201claughed him to\nscorn.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nHIS GRASP UPON MANKIND.\n\n\nSo far we have been studying the character and work of Jesus as he\nis presented in the evangelists, just as we might study any other\ncharacter of that period. We have not yet considered Jesus as he now\naffects the world--a presence and force of our own times.\n\nWhen the scientists proved the indestructibility of matter, when they\ndiscovered the doctrine of the conservation of energy, showing us how\nthe coal measures, that warm millions of homes and drive the machinery\nof land and sea, are but stored-up sunbeams of untold ages gone, they\nshowed us that through all her wonderful changes Nature loses none\nof her substance. In this splendid formulation of natural law the\nscientists have done a secondary but more important service; they have\ngiven us a symbol from things material, an illustration of a law of the\nhigher sphere. Nothing is ever lost in the spiritual world.\n\nA thought with life and truth in it, once set going, can no more\nbe lost than a drop of water falling on the fields can be lost.\nProfessor Harrison, of England, is right in his doctrine of posthumous\nimmortality, as far as it goes. He sees part of a truth and states it\nwell. Whatever force there may be in any human life abides in human\nlife. We may not be able to trace it, as we may not trace the identical\ndew-drop that glittered on the grass this morning and that, exhaled\nby the rising sun, has now disappeared from our view, but not from\nexistence.\n\nIt may well be that the influences that have conspired in shaping\nour lives--in making us what we are to-day--have in some way come to\nus from many thousands of lives. In a true sense Moses, David, Paul,\nSocrates, Plato, Augustine, Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Luther, Calvin,\nWesley, with many others--our parents and teachers above all--all\nthese, and, it may be, myriads more unnamable, live in us to-day. This\nis what Froude meant when he wrote of Martin Luther, \u201cNo man of our\ntimes is what he would have been but for Luther.\u201d This is true because\nLuther\u2019s life so enters into the influences of our times that no man\never brought into relations with him could escape that influence.\n\nAnd few have escaped it; none of the European nations, none of the\nnations that have been brought into any sort of relations with\nChristianity and the civilizations that have grown out of it; few,\nif any, of what we call heathen nations; for the influences of\nLuther\u2019s life and doctrines are in the missionary movement of our\ntimes, that now promises to do for these nations what the coming of\nChristianity did for Europe, Eastern Asia, and Northern Africa in the\nfirst centuries of our era--so changed them as to make a new epoch in\nhistory; we might say, a new world.\n\nWhat is true of such a man as Luther is true in a measure--less\nextensive it may be, less real it cannot be--of every life that has\ngone before us, and that has, in any way, entered into our own.\n\nIt would be easy to offer illustrations. Consider Francis\nBacon--perhaps Roger Bacon still more--in relation to the scientific\nmethods of our times. Think of Shakespeare, not in poetry only, but\nin all literature; or of Kant, Spinoza, Locke, in philosophy; Calvin,\nWesley, and the rest, in theology and moral reforms. Or think of the\nartists and inventors, the great soldiers and statesmen. You may easily\nmake out a very long list of names of human lives that, going before\nus, now live in us. The list will show names that stand for diverse and\nantagonistic elements; but all these enter into our lives, just as, to\nreturn to our illustration from the world of waters, the water pure\nfrom the clouds, sparkling in mountain springs, foul and reeking from\nswamps and all manner of ugly places, enters, it well may be, into the\nconstituent elements of the dew-drop that reflects the sun upon each\ngrass-blade in the fields.\n\nIt is nothing peculiar to the life of Jesus of Nazareth that his\ninfluence should abide in human history. Every human life, the humblest\nand unworthiest, so abides. But the influence of Jesus is different\nfrom that of other men. I am not now speaking of degree, but kind. As\nhis method of thinking, of teaching; as the work he proposed to do\nand as the plans he adopted difference him from mere men, so does the\nhistory of the influence that flowed out from him into life and so\nmade modern civilization, so does the character of his influence now\ndifference him from men.\n\nIt would carry us too far for the design of these discussions to enter\nnow into the subject of the relation of Jesus to the history of his\nera. Our calendar intimates the extent and power of that influence;\nwe count time from his birth; this is 1889, A. D. That influence has\nentered into whatever has made the world of our times. The history of\nthis influence is the history of the Christian era.\n\nWe will consider the influence of Jesus, as it may be a matter of\nobservation and consciousness.\n\nConsider the power of the teachings of Jesus upon the human conscience.\nThis is to me a growing wonder. Other men\u2019s words stimulate the\nconscience to a degree, but only when they echo his or approach harmony\nwith them. This is so strangely true that no words of any teacher stir\nthe conscience--except to protest--that antagonize and contradict\nJesus. There is no risk of exaggeration or dogmatism here; it is\nperfectly safe and perfectly fair to say no doctrine of God or man,\nof rights and wrongs, that repudiates or denies what Jesus teaches,\nhas any power over the human conscience. Other words and doctrines may\nquicken the intellect and dominate it; may excite the imagination and\nstir the emotions; but if they are contrary to his doctrines and his\nlife they have no grasp upon the moral side of man.\n\nIt is easy to make the experiment and to make it conclusively. Read\nbooks that contradict his doctrines--that seek to overthrow them. If\nyou read with candor I am not afraid for you to read what his fiercest\nenemies say. Take Voltaire, where he ridicules the Bible; Paine,\nin that very misnamed pamphlet, _The Age of Reason_; Hume, in his\nspeculations concerning providence, miracles, inspiration, and the\nwhole agnostic literature of our day. These writings do not take hold\nupon the conscience except as they may weaken or paralyze it; they do\nnot strengthen any purpose to do right, confirm any sense of personal\nobligation, invigorate any will for right doing. Make the experiment\nwith any words of men that contradict or repudiate Jesus, the lightest\nand weightiest, the silliest and subtlest; mere platform declamations\nor the sober scientific worship of materialism that knows no\nspirit--man, angel, or God. Do any of them stir our sense of obligation\nto high duty? Do any of them make our perception of duty clearer? Our\nlove of virtue stronger? Our hatred of evil intenser? All who have made\nthe experiment may answer for themselves.\n\nI do not say that only the words of Jesus take hold upon the\nconscience; this would not be true. There are passages in Seneca, in\nEpictetus, in Socrates, in Plato, in Confucius, in the words of many\nancient sages and modern teachers, that do stir the conscience. Your\nShakespeare will furnish many illustrations. So will George Eliot,\nHawthorne, and very many other writers. But these things I do say with\nperfect assurance:\n\n1. No words or teachings of any writer or teacher, of any age, that\nantagonize or repudiate the words of Jesus have power over the\nconscience.\n\n2. Those words and teachings of men who never knew Jesus--as Socrates,\nConfucius, and other such men--that most affect the conscience are\nthose words and teachings of theirs most in harmony with the doctrines\nand character of Jesus. All light is good, but that which is nearest\nsunlight is best.\n\n3. The words and teachings of those who do know Jesus, that most\npowerfully affect the conscience, are those that most perfectly echo\nhis words.\n\nFurthermore, this is true: The words and teachings of Jesus not only\nstir the conscience as no others do; they illuminate the conscience.\nOthers may affect the sensibility of conscience to a degree, but leave\nit in the shadows as to the very rights and wrongs of things. The\nwords of Jesus--once their meaning is understood--as they apply to any\nconcrete case of rights and wrongs, not only awaken the sensibility\nof conscience so that the feeling of obligation to do right and avoid\nwrong is most pronounced and unmistakable, but this also is true: the\nlight which his words pour on the question in consideration makes\ntransparent what the right thing is and what the wrong thing is.\n\nThere is something here that defies analysis, something that will not\nbe held in logic forms. Take any doctrine Jesus taught and exemplified.\nIt may be about truth, honesty, chastity, charity. Read it, see what\nit means, apply it to your case, and conscience says, \u201cAmen\u201d to it,\nand upon the instant. Conscience receives it as the reason receives\nan axiom. Given the facts, you need only to apply his tests, and that\ninstant you not only suppose, not only think, you know what is your\nright and your wrong in the case. If there were no other reason, herein\nthere is reason enough to follow the Man of Galilee wherever he leads.\n\nI urge upon you for your use in the tests that await you, as a method\nof finding out rights and wrongs and determining duty, what I have\ntried under many conditions of life and action; a most simple principle\nof action--one that has never for one moment failed me or left me\nin doubt. It is worth more than all reasonings, than all books of\ncasuistry, than all advices of friends; nay, it is better than mere\npraying as if for some new light or other revelation than that which\nhas come to enlighten every man that cometh into the world. It is to\nask, \u201cWhat does Jesus teach here? What would he say if he were to\nspeak? What would he do if this were his case?\u201d\n\nBlunders of judgment, many and grievous; failures in living up to\nthe light that the Master gives, more grievous than any blunders of\njudgment--these things I confess to sorrowfully and with bitter shame;\nbut for the truth\u2019s sake, my conscience\u2019 sake, and my Lord\u2019s sake,\nthis much I must say, and I cannot say less: never have I asked,\n\u201cWhat would he do?\u201d but that the light has shined resplendent and\nall-revealing, and the right and the wrong stood out clear, sharp, as\nwhen electric lights shine about us, and I knew what I ought or ought\nnot to do.\n\nAt this point we may recur a moment to what was, in part, considered\nheretofore: the fullness, the completeness of his teachings difference\nhim from all others.\n\nThere is not in any other teacher such statement of principles that\nyou cannot find outside their teachings one single ethical principle\nthat they have not taught. Other teachers give us many principles of\nethics; does any of them give all? Jesus does, though he wrote no book\nand elaborated no system; though we have but few of his words recorded.\nWhat I ask is this: Is there in any teacher of any nation one single\nprinciple of rights and wrongs that the suffrage of the race could\napprove, that Jesus does not teach? Is there one single principle of\nJesus as to rights and wrongs that the suffrage of good men can condemn\nas false? Men may, indeed, reject his teachings, and oppose them with\nbitterest hate, but which one of them--the least or the greatest--can\nthey show to be immoral, wrong?\n\nAs all colors are potentially contained in the pure white light, and\nas the composition of all colors produces the pure white light, so the\nteachings of Jesus contain in principle all the forms of ethical truth\nthat were ever in the minds of men. But here the analogy fails. All the\nethical truth that all others have taught when brought together fails\nto make the sum total of his teachings; some colors are lacking in\nthem; together they do not make the pure white light of the gospels.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nWHAT HE CLAIMS AND DEMANDS.\n\n\nThere is a fact, personal to Jesus, that not only enters vitally into\nthis argument, but more than any thing else explains the power of his\nwords on the conscience: what was considered in another relation in\nthe outset--the perfection of his own character; his sinlessness: his\nabsolute purity.\n\nA perfect doctrine will no doubt affect the conscience, but a perfect\ndoctrine uttered by one who lives a holy life has tenfold the power of\nthe mere statement of doctrine. And it is not simply that the hearer\nrecoils from a doctrine stated by an inconsistent or insincere man\nbecause he is inconsistent and insincere, but such a man cannot so much\nas utter the truth in its fullness; he cannot conceive the truth in its\ncompleteness.\n\nWhen Jesus utters a truth it lays hold upon the conscience and life\nnot simply because it is the truth, but because he is the \u201cTruth and\nthe Life.\u201d His conscience goes with the word and it enters into our\nconscience. It was this quality in him, more than aught else, that led\nhis hearers, when the Sermon on the Mount was ended, to \u201cwonder at his\ndoctrine, for he taught them as one having authority.\u201d It is living a\ntruth more than learning about a truth that gives the teacher authority.\n\nAn illustrative incident may help us here. The late Mr. Wray was a\nBaptist missionary in India. He was a man of known consistency of\nreligious character. A child who knew him well was asked the question:\n\u201cWhat is holiness?\u201d A man would have done as so many do with lamentable\nfailure, attempted a \u201cdefinition;\u201d the child answered: \u201cHoliness is the\nway Mr. Wray lives.\u201d The child was nearly, if not quite, at the bottom\nof the subject.\n\nThe learner in the school of Jesus may find here a truth of first\nimportance. It is twofold: 1. The best way to learn more truth is to\nlive the truth he does know. 2. The only way to rightly teach any truth\nin morals, in things spiritual, is to live it. Religion, like science,\nbelieves in experiment and teaches by facts. The incarnate truth is\nthe truth that has life in it. It is said with reverence, but with\nconfidence, Jesus teaches what spiritual life is more by living it than\nby his words. His life expounds his doctrine, and without his life we\ncould not understand his teachings.\n\nTry the principle by any test of him. For example, he teaches us that\nforgiveness is a duty and that revenge is a sin. What does he mean?\nWhat he did. You remember his last prayer: \u201cFather, forgive them; they\nknow not what they do.\u201d He teaches us to love our enemies. What does he\nmean? What he did; always blessing them when he could. He teaches that\nwe best serve God by doing good to men, and that the best proof and\nonly proof of loving God is in loving men. What does he mean? What he\ndid. He was always doing good. And so his life expounds his teachings,\nand is the one safe and true commentary upon his words.\n\nContemplate that life for a moment. Begin at Bethlehem and follow him\nto Bethany, where, it is said, he ascended to heaven. That life is\nblameless, flawless. He did not lack abuse, denunciation, defamation,\npersecutions. Men called him a drunkard and a glutton because he was\nnot an ascetic; they said he \u201chad a devil\u201d because they could not\nunderstand how any man would do a thing only because it was right. Some\ncalled him a lunatic; \u201che is beside himself,\u201d they said, because he was\nunworldly, was what they considered \u201cunbusinesslike,\u201d because they,\nwith their selfishness and pride, could not imagine themselves living\nas he did unless they had lost their reason. Many hated him then, as\nthey do now, because he was, as he is, in the way of their self-seeking\nand their sins. Bad men cannot be at rest where he is.\n\nNo wonder the perfect teaching of a blameless man has power upon the\nhuman conscience. To this hour good men indorse Pilate\u2019s verdict; bad\nmen can find no error in it.\n\nWhen we look more closely into his innermost character we will find\nqualities that difference him from mere men broadly and unmistakably.\nWe see in him no fault that we can name as attaching to his life; but\nwe do see in him two manifestations of all others most marvelous and\nout of the range of mere human life. 1. There does not appear in him\nany, the very least, consciousness of fault. 2. In his religion there\nis no effort.\n\nNow these things appear in no others who are sincere--who know what\nthey are and what goodness is. The best men and women are conscious of\nfaults, and the best are most conscious of them. If a man should say,\n\u201cI am faultless,\u201d we would question his sincerity, his sanity, or his\nknowledge of words, or his conception of goodness. And we would be\nright. No sane man, with any high ideal of goodness and knowing the\nmeaning of words, ever yet used of himself words that fit only Jesus.\n\nIt is like a true artist\u2019s ideal: the better artist he is the less\nhe satisfies his own conception in what he does; so in religion, the\nsaintliest most realize the distance between them and the Christ. An\nunbeliever has said that Mary at the sepulcher idealized him, and so\nmade Christianity possible! He supposed he had accounted for the most\nstupendous fact of all time. Why is it that only Jesus has become the\nhighest ideal that ever filled the human soul? That nineteen centuries\nhave added nothing to him--taken nothing from him?\n\nAs to men, religion is war with nature. Saint Paul so teaches us. It\nwas his experience; the holiest men best understand this and most\nfrankly confess it. Paul\u2019s writings are full of terms that illustrate\nreligion from agonistic struggles. When Jesus himself urges men to seek\nthe life of religion he says, \u201cStrive to enter in at the strait gate.\u201d\nThe word translated strive is the Greek form of our word of pain and\nconflict--agonize.\n\nBut the religion of Jesus was effortless; there was never in his heart\nantagonism to goodness. His religion shines like the sun because it is\nfull of light; it is a going forth from fountains that, in his inmost\nsoul, were in spontaneous and perpetual play. He did have conflicts,\nbut with the evil that was without him; there was none in him.\n\nThe story of his temptation does not at all militate against this\nstatement. The force of the attack from without he felt, for it is\nsaid, \u201cHe suffered, being tempted.\u201d But when we read the story we feel\nthat it was not only right for him to resist, but natural. We see so\nclearly that we never doubt; there is in him nothing in sympathy with\nthe evil to which he was solicited.\n\nWhat does Jesus say of himself as to these things? What does he claim\nfor himself? He says to Pilate, \u201cI am the truth;\u201d and it does not shock\nus to hear him say this. He says in one place, \u201cI do always the will of\nmy Father;\u201d and we believe him--not only that he thinks he does, but\nthat he does. In trying to give to his disciples the one true ideal\nof humanity he says, \u201cBe ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in\nheaven is perfect.\u201d Then he offers himself as an example to the human\nrace, and we are satisfied that he is what he says, for we can \u201cfind\nno fault in him.\u201d And with it all we recognize perfect sincerity,\nsimplicity, humility. If a mere man were to say such things to us we\nwould despise him; the scorn of the world would drive him from the\npresence of men. But he says such things and we feel that it is right;\nit is the truth; he is what he says.\n\nIn the same way we feel that he is entitled to make upon us the most\ntremendous claims for human service, devotion, and love ever put into\nwords. He says, \u201cIf any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself\nand take up his cross daily, and follow me.\u201d \u201cHe that loveth father or\nmother more than me is not worthy of me.\u201d All must be in abeyance to\nhis will. We are to forsake lands, homes, parents, children, wives, all\nfor him. Nothing in the universe must come between him and the loyal,\nall-sacrificing love of his disciples. He must be first in our hearts;\nwhatever comes between him and our love forfeits all claim upon him.\nIf a mere man made these demands the world would despise him, and the\nworld would be right.\n\nBut he sets up other claims of a sort no sincere and sane man, who is\nonly a man, can think of for a moment. He claims the right to forgive\nsins. His critics were right--assuming him to be only a man. \u201cWhy does\nthis man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only?\u201d\n\nHe not only claims, as no other prophet ever did, to represent the\neternal Father, but he claims a perfect knowledge of God that no mere\nman can claim. \u201cAll things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no\nman knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father\nsave the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.\u201d The\nnight before he died he said to his disciples: \u201cLet not your heart be\ntroubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.\u201d\n\nHe says in many ways and in many places that he is, in origin and\ncharacter, more than a man; that he is supernatural. He says, \u201cI and my\nFather are one.\u201d He says that he is divine--that he is God.\n\nIf Jesus was only a man such claims cannot be reconciled with\nhis sanity or his sincerity. Augustine was right when he reduced\nthis argument to its last analysis: \u201c_Christus, si non deus, non\nbonus_\u201d--Christ, if he be not God, is not good.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nJESUS THE ONE UNIVERSAL CHARACTER.\n\n\nIn considering Jesus as he is now in the world, not in the story of the\nevangelists and in books simply, but in human life, there are other\nviews to be taken. We can take views only; we cannot see all that they\nindicate.\n\nWe must consider more carefully now what we looked at for a moment in\nthe argument that compels us to believe that this character could not\nhave been invented, and that such a personality could not have been a\nnormal outgrowth of Hebrew life: Jesus is a universal character--the\none and only universal character that has ever appeared in history,\nthat has ever been described, that has ever had a place in human\nthought.\n\nThere are great differences in men. Some are so narrow and meager of\nsoul as scarcely to have a thought or sympathy beyond the little circle\nin which they are born, in which they live, and out of which they go\nutterly when they die. There are lives so localized that men out of\ntheir sphere they cannot understand, and that men out of their sphere\ncannot understand them. For every limited dialect in human speech\nthere are limited thoughts and lives back of it. What do we mean by\n\u201cprovincialism\u201d as applied to a man, or to the people of a State or\ncountry? It means limitation. Illustrations are every-where. Take a\nScotch Highlander, an Irishman of some seldom-visited farming region,\nor, in our own country, a New Englander born and bred, never from home;\nor a village Georgian, a thorough-going old time Southerner. These men\nare provincial. They may have admirable and indeed noble qualities, but\nthey are limited in their views, narrow in their sympathies, and by so\nmuch they are cut off from the sympathies of their fellow-men of other\nconditions in life. Savage people show us the extremes of provincialism.\n\nBut let us take now our illustration from the loftiest ranges of life.\nAmong the ancients take Plato--broad-minded as any. What is he? Grecian\nto the core. There was no greater Roman than Julius C\u00e6sar. But he was\nessentially Roman; he was localized by race and country; there was much\nin him that only a Roman could understand, and therefore much that\nlimited him in his knowledge of the men of other nations.\n\nCome to more modern times. Only a few years ago the Protestant world\ncelebrated the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of Martin\nLuther. There was enough in Luther to perpetuate his influence through\nmany generations. In every nation where the effect of the Lutheran\nreformation is felt there was real interest in the celebration of\nthe anniversary of the great German\u2019s birth. There was sympathy with\nLuther; moreover, more or less understanding of him. There was enough\nforceful life in Luther to overflow Germany and enrich other lands; yet\nhe was a German, and so not a universal, but a limited, character. And\nso it is that he means more to Germany than to England, or France, or\nAmerica. It is not simply that Germans are more interested in him as\na patriotic sentiment growing out of national pride in their greatest\nman; they understand him better than other people can. If he could come\nback to the world he would understand Germans better than he would\nother people.\n\nAmong great men in civil life take American Washington. Great man\nthough he was, and having in him qualities that all true men recognize\nand approve, he was yet essentially American. He was also essentially\nVirginian, and plantation-aristocratic Virginian of his time, and no\nother.\n\nTake English Gladstone, of living men. Broad-minded, well-informed,\nripe in wisdom, rich in learning, all-accomplished, he is, it may well\nbe supposed, second to no man of our times in greatness of heart and\nrange of sympathies. But he is English; there is much in him that no\nforeigner can fully understand, and there is much in any foreigner that\nGladstone cannot understand.\n\nTake one more illustration--the man we call \u201cmyriad-minded\u201d--the prince\nof poets, the king of dramatists, William Shakespeare. He could, I\nthink, put himself into the consciousness of a man of a different\nnation as fully as any man who ever wrote. He is as nearly as one can\nbe \u201cpoet of the human race.\u201d But it is a mere commonplace of literature\nto say that many of the best thoughts in his great dramas cannot bear\ntranslation into foreign tongues; just as the finest oranges that\ngrow, as travelers tell us, a variety grown in Brazil, cannot bear\ntransportation to other countries. If it be said this is a language\ndifficulty, this itself implies the limitation that goes with mere men.\nBut this does not explain the difficulty of translation altogether; it\nis in the limitations that characterize men. No foreigner can rightly\nunderstand Shakespeare, who was English.\n\nIt has been said by some writer: \u201cShakespeare dramatized the sixteenth\ncentury Englishman.\u201d He wrote of others; he dramatized the Englishman\nof his time. He knew him. He did not dramatize the sixteenth century\nman. There is no character who can be at home in every country; who can\nstand for the race. Still less did he dramatize the nineteenth century\nman; genius is not equal to such a forecast. For mere men are not only\nlocalized in thought, sympathy, and character, by place, they are, if\npossible, still more limited by time; the influences that went before\nthem and shut them in while they lived.\n\nBut what do we find when we consider Jesus of Nazareth in respect to\ntime and place, blood and country, education and language? This: we do\nnot at all think of him, though we use the words, as Jesus of Nazareth.\nWe do not think of him as a Jew--as an Asiatic even. The Galilean, the\nJew, the Asiatic is lost in the man. Circumstances left no such impress\nupon Jesus as to localize him--as to limit his sympathy--as to mar in\nthe least his all-round, harmonious, perfect humanity.\n\nIf translators have thorough language-knowledge the words of Jesus\nbear translation as no words of men bear it. I do not believe that his\nthoughts lose any thing, any flavor, any color, by being translated.\nWhere they are properly translated his thoughts mean to an American\nwhat they meant to the people who first heard him speak. They produce\nin men of different races and tongues the same thoughts, excite the\nsame convictions, stir the same sympathies, and lead to the same\nconclusions about rights, and wrongs, and duties, in every language\nthat has ever repeated them. When these words of Jesus are obeyed\nthey produce the same essential characteristics alike in men of every\nnation, the most enlightened and the most savage. It does not depend\non race, or heredity, or environment; the results in character of\nreceiving and living the Gospel are the same always and every-where.\nWhether Greek, or Roman, or Scythian, or Hebrew in the early days of\nChristianity; whether Caucasian, Asiatic, African to-day, the the man\nwho follows the Christ is transformed into his likeness. No soil, no\nclimate, no time changes the fruit of this tree.\n\nAbove all, and least like any mere man, not only do his words mean to\nus what they meant to his first disciples; he means as much to us. He\nis to a sinful and penitent woman of our times just what he was to\nthat Mary who kissed his feet in the house of the proud Pharisee. He\nis to any vile wretch who needs and wants him just what he was to the\nman full of leprosy, or to him of Gadara. To Marys and Marthas weeping\ntheir dead to-day he means just as much as to the sisters of Bethany.\nAll this agrees with what he said of himself as \u201cthe Son of man.\u201d Did\nany other ever have such a conception of himself, of the human race,\nand of his relation to it? Not one word, not one act of his is shut up\nto his time or race. Jesus is \u201cthe Son of man;\u201d the ideal and universal\nman, the representative man of the entire race, the brother of every\nman, woman, and child in the world; loving all and adoringly lovable by\nall.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nTHE CHRIST, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD.\n\n\nWhat has been set forth concerning the power of the teachings of\nJesus to stir and stimulate and enlighten the conscience; what has\nbeen said of his own character and life as incarnating, and thereby\nexpounding, making clear and enforcing, his doctrine; what has been\nsuggested concerning the absolute universality of his character, making\nhim brother to every human being and therefore as much to one as to\nanother, all this brings us to speak briefly of a wonderful but very\ncommon fact of daily observation and experience, a fact that cannot\nbe dissevered from the character, nature, and personality of Jesus\nhimself: the effect of his doctrines and of himself upon men.\n\nIt is not meant that all who are called Christians show these results;\nthat all who are Christians show all these results; that any man or\nwoman who ever was called Christian has shown all the results possible\nto humanity as the natural sequence of receiving fully the doctrine of\nJesus and living up to it. No more than I will plead for counterfeit\ncoins; no more than I would say that all coins that have pure gold in\nthem are of full weight and without alloy of baser metal. But this I\ndo say: we do find, and always find, in those who receive and obey\nthe teachings of Jesus the results he pointed out as following their\nreception; that the results follow in proportion to the thoroughness\nwith which these teachings are observed; that those who best keep them\nbecome most like him, the one blameless and perfect Man.\n\nWe will not enter into any theological discussions; we do not touch\nthe metaphysics of the subject; but this may be affirmed roundly and\nwithout qualification: those who believe and receive and obey his\nwords are not only changed in their manner of life, they are, so far\nas we can have any means of judging men, changed in their spirit of\nlife. So it does come to pass in those who keep his words; old things\nbecome new, not only in the sphere of action, but also in the sphere of\nthinking, feeling, willing.\n\nAs it seems to me, there can be nothing in this world harder to do\nthan to change, not men\u2019s external lives merely, but men themselves.\nChanging men\u2019s hearts is like making worlds.\n\nWho else who ever taught, lived, or died, does this? Does this while\namong men? Does this, being for nearly two thousand years gone out of\nthe sight and hearing of men? But Jesus works this miracle now, and\nin men of all races and conditions, civilized and savage, learned and\nunlearned. And their number is as the sands by the sea-shore and as the\nstars of heaven for multitude.\n\nCandid thinkers in accounting for Jesus--in characterizing and\nclassifying him--must take account of the effects produced in human\ncharacter, as well as in human lives, and in human lives because in\nhuman character.\n\nThe men of science tell us we must take account of facts in forming our\nconclusions; and they are right. It was Jesus who taught this principle\nlong before Bacon; \u201cBy their fruits ye shall know them.\u201d In studying\nJesus we must take account of those facts in human life which seem to\nbe connected with him.\n\nWe have spoken of the change in character--call it by any name or\nnone--that follows obedience to Jesus. In this connection there is\nanother most wonderful thing to be considered. What I am to mention now\nis, on the mere grounds of common sense and worldly reasoning, the most\nmarvelous and inexplicable of all facts observed among men in relation\nto any being not with them in visible, tangible form; I refer to the\nmatchless love his true disciples feel toward him, not as a teacher,\nbut as a person.\n\nNone can deny it. Who, if Jesus was only a man, can explain it?\n\nNo man who knows history, or the world to-day, will doubt for one\nmoment that millions on millions of human beings--men, women, and\nlittle children--have felt and shown for the person of Jesus the most\nabsorbing love; a love that drove out all fear and mastered every other\nlove. Some great teachers and leaders while they were yet in the flesh\nhave had followers and friends who loved them well enough to hazard\nlife for them and to die for them. We can understand the soldier who,\non one occasion, when a shell fell close by the first Napoleon, while\nit was just exploding flung himself between the fatal bomb and his\nloved chief, and throwing his arms about him died in his stead. But\nwhen Napoleon was an exile in St. Helena he complained one day that,\namong all those he had befriended in the days of his power, there were\nnone to draw sword for him when he was an exile. Who would die for\nNapoleon now?\n\nThere have been thinkers, poets, orators, philosophers, who have\nenthusiastic admirers who contend for them in the pretty war of\nwords. Shakespeare has as many such admirers as the foremost in all\nthe world. But who loves him--the man--in any such deep, absorbing\nfashion as untold millions have loved and do now love the Man--Jesus of\nNazareth? It surprises you to hear such a question. If Jesus was only a\nman the question should not surprise. How does it come about that such\nlove as the great army of martyrs and confessors have shown was never\nfelt for any except this Galilean peasant?\n\nThere is not now, there never was such love for Buddha or Mohammed.\nSuch love was never professed for the founders of Buddhism or\nMohammedanism. Such love was never felt for any person long gone from\nthe midst of men.\n\nThis love is not like the fanaticism that fights for one\u2019s own idea;\nit is the love of a person for a person. This love for Jesus has shown\nitself to be the master love that ever held sway in the human heart.\nFor this love all other loves have been given up--have been crucified.\n\nDo men and women, in their senses, give their strength and life-long\nservice for any other name? Die cheerfully for any other name? Die for\none long gone away from them--gone out of the world and, so far as\nsense and reason know, gone forever? But neither lapse of centuries,\ndistance by separating seas, distances unknown between this world and\nthe world men do not know, or separation by differences of race, cools\nthis love. What the martyrs did in Jerusalem they soon afterward did\nin Rome, in Alexandria, in every city and country of that age and that\npart of the world. They did the same thing--died with songs on their\nlips for this Man of Galilee--in after centuries. So did they in the\nMiddle Ages in every country of Europe. So they have done in our own\ntime in that great island, Madagascar, that has shown in the dark sons\nof the tropics, whose fathers were heathen idolaters, the overmastering\nlove of men, women, and children, for the Jesus they had never seen;\nwho lived on the other side of the world from them, and taught men how\nto be saved nearly two thousand years ago. They died in Madagascar as\nthey died in Rome, \u201cthe love of Christ constraining them.\u201d\n\nAnd the best people in the world to-day would so die for him in every\ncountry where his word has gone. And this love grows fuller and\nstronger; Jesus is more in the thoughts and love of men than he ever\nwas before.\n\nIf you would in some sense realize the wonder of which we are now\nspeaking, try to imagine such a passion coming into the hearts of\nmillions of men to-day as would impel them to die with rejoicings\nfor Socrates, or any other born of woman, save the Man who was once\na carpenter in Joseph\u2019s shop in Nazareth of Galilee. You cannot\nimagine such a thing. As to Jesus, and love for him, it is not left to\nimagination; we have history. And we know a great multitude who would\ngladly die for Jesus now if to them should come the martyr\u2019s test.\n\nWhen Jesus disappeared from the sight of men there was not a human\nprobability that his name would be other than a reproach, till, like\nany common felon--like the forgotten thieves between whom he died--his\nname and fate should drop out of the memory of men. Humanly speaking,\nit was certain that he would never have a solitary follower. No\nsane man, reckoning on the ordinary probabilities of human motives\nand action, could have conceived the possibility of a vast body of\ndisciples, ever growing, and pushing on his conquests round the world,\nholding together through passing centuries, enduring all manner of\nopposition and bitter persecution, and now, in this year 1889, the\nmaster-force of the world; a force that, beyond all cavil, is now the\nmost active, aggressive, and revolutionizing influence ever set going\namong men.\n\nIt could not have been conceived; every dominant power of the world was\narrayed against him; there was not a star shining for Jesus if he was\nonly a man.\n\nBut Jesus crucified lives on. Around his cross has been the\nbattle-ground of the ages. All that human skill and bitter hate could\ndo has been done to put out the light he kindled on Calvary. But he\nlives on--lives in men to-day; single-handed he goes on his conquering\nway. His servants, because they love him, are pushing his cause in\nevery nation under heaven. As in the old days, in the lands that\nbordered the Mediterranean, so now among the great pagan nations--in\nIndia, China, Japan, Africa, and in the islands of the sea, they are\ntelling the story he commanded them to repeat till he should come\nagain. And, telling it, they are now, as in the days of his first\napostles, \u201cturning the world upside down.\u201d\n\nIn every land his children are building up his kingdom. They die for\nhim, and others take their places; and so the work begun in Jerusalem\nnever ceases. History confirms his promise, \u201cI am with you alway, even\nunto the end of the world.\u201d\n\nSuch a character could not have been conceived had not such a life\nbeen lived; such a life could not have sprung out of Hebrew soil; no\nmere man ever knew the deepest truths without investigation or taught\nthem without proving them; no mere man ever conceived of such a work\nas Jesus proposed to himself, and no mere man would have adopted the\nmethods Jesus used; no mere man ever conceived so vast an undertaking\nas the moral conquest of the race; no mere man ever took such masterful\nhold upon the conscience, love, and will of mankind.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat Simon Peter said stands to-day as the faith of the Church: \u201cThou\nart the Christ, the Son of the living God.\u201d The great words of St. John\nstand firm as the teaching of Scripture and the verdict both of reason\nand history: \u201cThe Word was with God, and the Word was God.... And the\nWord was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the\nglory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.\u201d\n\nThe facts of his humanity and of his work and influence in the world\nforbid us to classify Jesus with men, and the recognition of his\ndivinity alone explains the facts of his humanity. Considered as\nGod-man all is in harmony; miracles take their proper place in the\nrecords of his history, and mind and nature, heaven and earth, God and\nman meet in Jesus, the Christ.\n\nBut--if he be only a man--he is such a man as were a thousand times\nworth dying for and following forever, through time and eternity.\n\n\n\n\nOTHER BOOKS BY ATTICUS G. HAYGOOD.\n\n\nOUR BROTHER IN BLACK: His Freedom and His Future.\n\n  _Price, post-paid,    $1._\n\nNew York: HUNT & EATON; Cincinnati: CRANSTON & STOWE; Nashville, Tenn.:\nSOUTHERN METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE.\n\nIt goes to the very kernel of affairs.--_Atlanta_ (Ga.) _Constitution._\n\nA most exhaustive and interesting study of the colored man, his present\ncondition and future prospects.--_New York Herald._\n\nA more powerful plea for the Negro than any Negro ever\nmade.--_Cincinnati Star-Times._\n\nWe recall no other work on the subject so entirely\nsatisfactory.--_Christian Intelligencer._\n\n---------:O:---------\n\n\nPLEAS FOR PROGRESS.\n\n  _Price, post-paid,     $1._\n\nNew York: HUNT & EATON: Cincinnati: CRANSTON & STOWE.\n\nDiscusses Negro citizenship and Negro education on all sides, the\nNeglected Classes, the Social Evil, Public Education, Prohibition, and\nkindred topics.\n\nA remarkable book, that should be in every public library, North and\nSouth.--_Chicago Advance._\n\nCovers almost every phase of the momentous race question.--_Zion\u2019s\nHerald._\n\nNo book of our day will serve the needs of information, North\nand South, as this volume. It discusses our civilization and its\nfuture.--_Richmond_ (Va.) _Christian Advocate._\n\nThis is the kernel of the Southern question.--_Des Moines_ (Iowa)\n_Christian Advocate._\n\n---------:O:---------\n\n\nSERMONS AND SPEECHES.\n\n  _Price, post-paid,      $1 25._\n\nNew York: HUNT & EATON.\n\nDiscusses the vital points of religion and daily duty. Most of these\nare discourses delivered to the young men of Emory College, Oxford, Ga.\n\n---------:O:---------\n\n\nOUR CHILDREN.\n\n  _Price, post-paid,      $1 25._\n\nNew York: HUNT & EATON.\n\nThere are single chapters worth more than the whole book.--_New York\nChristian Advocate._\n\nMost excellent, wholesome, and practical.--_Zion\u2019s Herald._\n\nThe best treatise of the kind of which we have any knowledge.--_Dr. T.\nO. Summers, in Christian Advocate._\n\nIt is a book for every household.--_Bishop J. H. Vincent._\n\nA book that will at once instruct and arouse.--_Western Methodist._\n\nPlaced in every family in the land, and carefully read, it would create\na perceptible moral uplifting.--_Holston Methodist._\n\nWill be helpful to all Christian parents and teachers.--_New York\nObserver._\n\n  SEND TO PUBLISHERS, OR TO\n                             A. G. HAYGOOD, Jr.,\n                                       Decatur, Ga.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Note:\n\n  Spelling and hyphenation have been retained as they appear in the\n  original publication except the following:\n\n  Page 66\n  he does not philosphize _changed to_\n  he does not philosophize\n\n  Page 94\n  It were hard to say which _changed to_\n  It was hard to say which\n\n  Page 106\n  in any wise to self interest _changed to_\n  in any wise to self-interest\n\n  Page 157\n  present conditiom and future _changed to_\n  present condition and future","title":"The Man of Galilee","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":32111}