LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 GIFT OF 
 MRS. BRUCE C. HOPPER
 
 Crucifixion as it really existed and as descril>ed by the Fathers of the Church, 
 and not as exaggerated and falsified by the mere fancy of Artists and Poets of 
 modern times.
 
 A RATIONAL VIEW 
 
 OF 
 
 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 EMBRACING AN EXAMINATION OF THE ORIGIN AND RATIONALE OF 
 
 RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND OF THE CLAIMS OF SUPERNATURALISM AND 
 
 REVF.ALED RELIGIONS ; AND A SOLUTION OF THE MYSTERIES 
 
 ENSHROUDING THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, AND THE BIRTH, 
 
 LIFE, CHARACTER, AND SUPPOSED MIRACLES 
 
 AND RESURRECTION OF ITS FOUNDER. 
 
 BY 
 
 E. W. McCOMAS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 JOHN WURTELE LOVELL, 
 
 No* 24 BOND STREET. 
 1880.
 
 Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1879, by 
 
 E. W. McCOMAS, 
 in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IN the following pages I have attempted to give an 
 exposition of the views at which I have arrived, (after 
 many experiences and much thought,) upon the origin 
 and significance of men's religious -beliefs, and especial- 
 ly with regard to the mysteries surrounding the origin, 
 faith and founder of that phase of religious development 
 known as Christianity. 
 
 The work has no pretentions to erudition or literary 
 merit. If it has merit of any kind, it consists in its 
 direct, rational and candid methods and its unbiased and 
 truthful conclusions in its giving the essential truth 
 and true reasons in a frank and fearless manner. This 
 seemed to the author to be what was most needed : and 
 this he has endeavored to supply. The object has been, 
 not to give the reader religious information, since that 
 is abundantly supplied, but to aid him to an insight into 
 the " true inwardness " of facts already accessible. The 
 author does not flatter himself that success, even in his 
 aims, will render the work popular or interesting, inas- 
 much as the real, unvarnished truth on subjects upon 
 which men's bias, partisanship and prejudice are so ex-
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 treme as in matters of religion, is rarely palatable or 
 charitably judged. Men are rarely so interested in right 
 thinking as in agreeable thinking, or in correcting their 
 opinions as in defending them, or in the prolonged state- 
 ments and reasonings necessary to insure correct con- 
 clusions as in new facts and fine writing. For these 
 difficulties, however, the author has no remedy consistent 
 with his success in reaching his true object. The very 
 purpose is to oppose prepossessions and to supply that 
 candid and unbiased thinking which, if it were agreeable 
 and popular, would long since have been supplied ; and, 
 had the author the power to add attractive adornments 
 to his plain expositions and reasonings, they would only 
 divide the attention of the reader and gain credit for 
 the author at the expense of his purpose : results that 
 are by no means desirable. The object has been, not to 
 write a fine book or to persuade people into particular 
 religious notions, but to furnish correct thought and 
 true conceptions and reasons for those who are desirous 
 of such aid. The spancels, indeed, which an anxious 
 and extreme desire to avoid all possible error and even 
 doubtful truths place upon the mind, are antagonistic to 
 fine writing. To row against the current requires force, 
 and not fancy. Most persons are concerned, not to 
 ascertain the truth in relation to religion, but to 
 successfully maintain the religion they inherit or pre- 
 fer ; and they feel and act as if their faith or belief 
 as to the facts could affect the facts themselves. To 
 those who really prefer to thus blind themselves to the 
 real facts of nature, I must frankly say " Let the book 
 alone : it will not aid you in such a purpose : it is not 
 safe for you." Those, however, who are desirous or
 
 PREFACE. 7 
 
 willing to know the real truth for the sake of being 
 right, will hardly fail to find substantial aid in attaining 
 their desires if they can command the patience to indulge 
 in a careful and appreciative examination of the views 
 and reasoning advanced, a patience especially demanded 
 by the condensed statements of the first chapter. With 
 this hope, I remain their obedient servant, 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGB. 
 
 I. Origin and Development of Religious Beliefs 9 
 
 Part 2. Relations between God and Man. . 44 
 
 Part 3. Saviour-idea Revelations, &c 63 
 
 Part 4. Miracles, Hells, &c 88 
 
 II. The Tap-root or Basic Fact of Christianity 119 
 
 III. The Obstructions to a fair Discussion of the Main 
 
 Issue 130 
 
 IV. The Promulgators of the Evidence 141 
 
 V. The Written Gospels, their Authors and their Value. . 176 
 
 VI. An Epoch of Myths and Miracles 202 
 
 VII. The effect of the Resurrection of Jesus upon the Wit- 
 nesses and their Testimony 213 
 
 VIII. Examples of the Unhistoric and Mythic in the 
 
 Gospels 223 
 
 IX. The same Continued ... 263 
 
 X. Jesus and his Miracles 300 
 
 XI. The same Continued 341 
 
 XII. The same Continued 399 
 
 XIII. Characteristics, Methods and Motives of Jesus. ..... 429 
 
 XIV. The Men who prosecuted, tried and executed Jesus. . 479 
 
 XV. The Arrest 486
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PACK. 
 
 XVI. The Trial 506 
 
 XVII. The Crucifixion 521 
 
 XVIII. Was he Dead? 543 
 
 XIX. Theory of Continued Life 588 
 
 XX. The Revival 609 
 
 XXI. The Escape 627 
 
 XXII. The Black Curtain Falls 668 
 
 XXIII. The Conclusion 690
 
 A RATIONAL VIEW 
 
 OF 
 
 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 
 
 MEN'S religious beliefs are measured by their de- 
 velopment and education, chiefly by their capacity to 
 comprehend the nature and source of causation and the 
 various potencies and manifestations in Nature and their 
 connection with the origin, life and destiny of man. 
 Such beliefs have their source *and controlling support 
 in man's imperishable love of life and his aspirations for 
 a higher, a harmonious, and an assured individiial ex- 
 istence. This fundamental, personal life-aspiration is 
 persistent and controlling in all phases of human 
 development, and constitutes the primal fountain of all 
 human motives and the mainspring of all human endeavor 
 and progress, as Mr. Hebert Spencer has so fully and 
 ably shown. No amount cf education can eradicate it. 
 No belief which attempts to either oppose or ignore it 
 can either be general or of long duration. The develop-
 
 IO JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 ment of human intelligence itself is, directly or remotely, 
 the result of this same love of continued and progressive 
 personal life and personal identity, and all beliefs must 
 ultimately conform to it. 
 
 The beliefs in an immortal soul and in a God are so 
 connected and so largely interdependent, that a belief 
 in our own immortality immeasurably strengthens our 
 belief in a God ; so that the belief in Deity is, also, by 
 this connection with the Soul-idea, strongly and per- 
 sistently buttressed and supported by this fundamen- 
 tal life-aspiration. Man cannot, and ought not, to give 
 give up. his belief in either. Under the influence of this 
 fundamental and controlling aspiration and with such 
 light as has been possible to him, he has, through all 
 ages, continued to stretch forth his arms towards an 
 unknown future and an Unknown Power. When old 
 beliefs have become indefensible and untenable under 
 the assaults of Reason and Development, the Few may 
 have rushed out into the night and darkness of Negation, 
 but the 'mass of mankind have ever refused to yield the 
 shelter of their old faiths until supplied with new ones. 
 Their notions of God and immortality may be changed, 
 but the belief in their existence cannot be given up. The 
 human soul cannot live upon negation. Its natural life- 
 food is affirmative belief. Materialism and Atheism are 
 the starvation of the Soul. Reason is first destructive, 
 before it is reconstructive. Skepticism finds its legiti- 
 mate but limited office in making manifest our miscon-
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. II 
 
 ceptions and the necessity of a reconstruction of our 
 beliefs : an office merely negative and destructive, yet 
 necessary to progress. It undermines existing creeds : 
 it cannot destroy either the facts or the resistless desire 
 to know them-. It destroys only to be asked " If not 
 this, what then ? " 
 
 Man has not erred in his fundamental aspirations and 
 aims, since they are higher than his intelligence and 
 stronger than his volition are the fountains of both of 
 them. God and Immortality are secure beyond all 
 human error or control. The general belief in them 
 will always be impregnable ; while the real fact of their 
 existence is unaffected by human notions and creeds. 
 Our present error lies, not in recognizing their existence, 
 but in fostering and forcing notions of God and of 
 the soul and of future states which we have inherited 
 from by-gone ages of ignorance and superstition 
 notions antagonistic to our advanced intelligence and 
 unworthy of our high civilization ; and also in basing 
 our faith upon evidences which can no longer command 
 the respect, much less the support, of our own reason. 
 We err in clinging to the methods and thoughts of an 
 ignorant and infantile Past which are no longer really 
 credible and realizable to us, and still more in endeavor- 
 ing to force its crude notions upon the plastic and 
 credulous minds of our children, and thus closing them 
 to all rational doubt, the only road to further investiga- 
 tion and higher light. We so fear to loose our hold upon
 
 12 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 these great truths, that we act as if our notions of them 
 had some effect upon the fact of their existence ; and we 
 would bar all doubt and question of them, lest they 
 should be proved not to exist at all, and thus escape us 
 forever. We had rather blindly believe than risk the 
 chance of doubt. This very fear is not only a. barrier 
 to all progress, but is proof of our own conscious weak- 
 ness and craven, but smothered, fears. If we had a 
 rational and assured faith we should court and defy 
 investigation. Our timid fears and coward hopes are 
 the strongest barriers to their own relief and to the 
 securing of those higher conceptions which an exhaust- 
 ive and rational investigation must inevitably bring. 
 We yet need to realize the simple truths that facts are 
 not controlled by our opinions and that the primordial 
 and persistent tendencies of Nature are never mistakes, 
 however we may mistake them. Religion is imperish- 
 able, since it is based upon the ultimate facts, purposes 
 and end of all evolution ; but creeds and notions ought 
 to, and must, vary with the progressively changing alti- 
 tude and range of man's mental vision. 
 
 Progressive peoples those to whom God has en- 
 trusted the vanguard and standards of the advancing 
 columns of Humanity, are not permitted to enjoy the 
 repose of inherited beliefs. Rest comes not until they 
 can repose in the absolute conviction of the ultimate 
 truth. Their very progress consists in the acquisition 
 of a higher knowledge and truer morality. And how-
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 13 
 
 ever unpleasant it may be to drift from our present 
 moorings and provisional havens, and to battle with the 
 storms of Doubt upon the open sea of Speculation, or to 
 tempt the dangers of untried deeps, we have no alterna- 
 tive when the very foundations of our old anchor-beds 
 are swept away by the mighty currents of Progress. 
 Let us never fear, however, that either God or the Soul 
 will cease to exist because we have approached them 
 through a false channel. The Continent to which the 
 facts of Nature pointed Columbus did not cease to exist 
 because his own labors ended in the island of St. 
 Domingo. 
 
 In reviewing and estimating the religious or theo- 
 logical notions of Humanity under the new lights of 
 Evolution, we should be unhampered by the invariable, 
 but ever varied and conflicting, claims of existing Faiths 
 to special and exclusive infallibility by reason of their 
 several pretended divine revelations. For, independent 
 of the utter irrationality and impossibility of such reve- 
 lations, a true conception of the nature and origin of 
 such beliefs, must at once relegate the whole to the 
 ordinary grade of mere human conceptions. ' An impar- 
 tial and rational review of the evidences in this regard 
 can leave no true reason to doubt that all existing beliefs 
 have a common origin in human nature itself, and are 
 the necessary outgrowths of man's primal and childish 
 ignorance and his subsequent progressive enlightenment.
 
 14 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Fortunately, Nature has furnished ample evidence of 
 her methods and progressive steps in this religious 
 development of man. Firstly : we are furnished with 
 the ascending gradation of intelligence among existing 
 races and peoples, with the appropriate phases of 
 religious belief for each grade. Secondly : we are fur- 
 nished the progressive gradation in Time, exhibited by 
 the histories of enlightened races and peoples, showing 
 the progressive, intellectual and religious phases through 
 which they have passed. Each of these gradations 
 shows the fact that each phase of intelligence and pro- 
 gress has its corresponding and appropriate phase of 
 religious beliefs, and also the fact that there is a real 
 and substantial correspondence in the religious concep- 
 tions and notions of all peoples in the same stage of 
 development, and that such conceptions and notions are, 
 in fact, natural resultants of the given phase of develop- 
 ment, with proper allowance for differences of race and 
 conditions. Thirdly : we have another exhibition of the 
 character, order and course of intellectual development 
 and of the resultant and accompanying phases of reli- 
 gious conceptions, in the mental history of enlightened in- 
 dividuals, during their progress from infancy to manhood. 
 Fourthly : we have the necessary order and mode of 
 acquiring human knowledge and conceptions, consequent 
 upon their very nature and origin and the nature and 
 unity of. the soul. The human Soul being a personal 
 unit, can only be conscious and efficient as a unit can 
 only think and act upon one thing at a time, and there- 
 fore must acquire its entire knowledge by serial and 
 successive impressions and thoughts. Its entire knowl- 
 edge of objective existence and of the facts, laws and
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 1$ 
 
 relations of Being must originate in separate individual 
 experiences. It commences its career, both in the 
 individual and in the race, in absolute ignorance of all 
 things save itself ; and is compelled to win its way to 
 knowledge, and to even the power to know, by separate, 
 serial individual experiences and activities. From the 
 very nature of the relative and experimental knowledge 
 thus derived, it is consecutive and dependent and can only 
 be acquired and comprehended in a certain serial and 
 consecutive order, that is to say, in the order from unity 
 to multiplicity, from simplicity to complexity, from the 
 concrete to the abstract, from the simple to the general. 
 The human mind is compelled to commence with the a. 
 b. c. of everything, and to win its way up by a progres- 
 sive course of consecutive, serial accretions, abstractions 
 and generalizations in which each progressive achieve- 
 ment is the product of prior acquisitions. It cannot 
 comprehend two, without first comprehending one. It 
 can form no conception without first comprehending the 
 elements and relations involved in, or constituting, that 
 conception. Naturally it does, and, unaided, it must, 
 in all cases, " crawl before it can walk." It is not only 
 a fact, therefore, but a necessity, that man should have 
 primarily acquired his conceptions of causation and his 
 generalizations of natural sequences in an approximately 
 definite and consecutive order ; since in a certain order 
 alone was it possible for him to have comprehended 
 them. And, although certain facilities may be added by 
 development and instruction, the same general order of 
 evolution of ideas and of mental progress must still con- 
 tinue to be followed by every individual infant born even 
 among enlightened peoples. Consequently, we must
 
 16 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 rationally expect, and shall actually find, that there are 
 certain phases of belief touching causation and unseen 
 powers and agencies, which are natural to certain cor- 
 responding stages of intellectual development, and that 
 there is a certain corresponding order as well as family 
 likeness in the successive phases of religious beliefs 
 both among individuals and races. The stage of 
 development governs, and therefore assimilates, their 
 ideas. And we find, not only that men are best satisfied 
 and subserved by the phase of religious beliefs and prac- 
 tices peculiar to their own stage of development, but 
 that they are really capable of comprehending and 
 appreciating no higher ones. We may nominally convert 
 Savage races to a higher religion, but their real, funda- 
 mental conceptions will, at best, prove to be only newly- 
 named and slightly-modified types of their old ones, and 
 must still take their measure from their own intellectual 
 and moral status, and be superimposed upon their old 
 substratum of superstitious notions. The Christ and 
 Triune God of the converted Feegee are not identical 
 conceptions with those of Dean Stanley or Dr. McCosh. 
 Their conceptions, though nominally the same, differ as 
 widely as do their developments. And we -find Voudou- 
 ism and sorcery still holding sway over the nominal 
 Colored Christians in the rice fields of South Carolina as 
 it does over their Mohammedan brethren in Central 
 Africa and over their original fetichistic brethren on the 
 Congo. 
 
 The rational conclusion from the evidence derived 
 from each and all of these sources is uniform and con- 
 clusive, each pointing to the same general order of
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. I/ 
 
 intellectual and religious progression and to the same 
 natural succession of phases of belief. The child's 
 thoughts and the boy's thoughts, after making the neces- 
 sary allowances for race-development, education and 
 special influences, are the same in grade and^similar in 
 character in all times and in all lands ;" and the Savage 
 Wild-man, to-day, thinks the thoughts and dreams the 
 dreams that floated through the brains of the ancestors 
 of the men of the Stone Age. Then, as now, the primi- 
 tive Wild-man was, morally and intellectually, the simple 
 Child-man. The nature of man's knowledge, the pro- 
 gressive steps of his individual and race progress, the 
 ascending scale of race-developments in the existing 
 phases of human societies or peoples, and the historical 
 scale of progression of all races in their natural ascent 
 from savageism, all show that men's religious beliefs are 
 a natural and law-governed product of their mental 
 development and condition, and necessarily change with 
 the progressive phases of their intellectual and moral 
 growth. And as each phase of religious belief is an out- 
 growth of its corresponding phase or stage of develop- 
 ment, it cannot be irrational, incongruous, or detrimental 
 to the very intelligence from which it grew, but must, of 
 necessity, fit it, and be conformed to it, like the bark of 
 a tree or the shell of a mollusk. The incongruities and 
 absurdities in primitive and lower beliefs which are 
 patent to us, are hidden from those who entertain them ; 
 while equally gross irrationalities existing in our own 
 popular or personal beliefs now go unchallenged by our- 
 selves. only to be smiled at in the future. 
 
 What men will treat and worship as their God is 
 2
 
 1 8 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 determined by what, as they conceive, causes and con- 
 trols their own being and destiny and is the author of 
 those acts and influences in nature which affect their 
 lives and happiness. How they will treat and worship 
 their Gods, will depend upon their notions of the sup- 
 posed nature, powers and character of the objects or 
 beings worshipped and of their relations with, and 
 inclinations towards, themselves, and these will depend 
 upon their stage of development. The primary purpose 
 of worship was the propitiation or control of the causal 
 or controlling beings, and the mode and means of propi- 
 tiation or control were those which were supposed to be 
 most suitable and efficient for the purpose of controlling 
 or influencing a being of the conceived nature and 
 character of the being or object thus worshipped or pro- 
 pitiated. Time, locality and race have had no marked 
 substantial influence upon the nature and order of such 
 religious beliefs and methods. Through many minor 
 variations substantially the same progressive phases and 
 order of beliefs have always and everywhere been mani- 
 fested ; and this law-governed order and character of 
 religious progress is often strikingly manifested by the 
 specific similitudes in the religious notions, rites, customs 
 and symbols of people widely separated in time, space 
 and race. 
 
 Nature unfolds all things by a law-governed process 
 of self-evolution. Mental progress, including mojal and 
 religious development, furnishes no exception to this
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. IQ 
 
 necessary and universal method. The Present is ever a 
 transformation of a continuously transformed Past. The 
 entire Past is but a practical demonstration of the Pres- 
 ent is the Present in embryo. In her physical evolu- 
 tions, Nature's materials are fixed in amount, and she 
 forever knits, unravels, and re-knits the same materials 
 into ever brighter and more complex patterns. In her 
 evolution of intelligence, on the contrary, her material 
 or means is ever improving and her progress cumula- 
 tive ; and she is ever, not only transforming the Old, but 
 superimposing and improving the New. The tree of 
 knowledge and of intellectual life is ever germinating 
 new buds, and the old and changing form is ever com- 
 mingling with, and merging into, new and growing 
 germs : the whole having a common primordial tap-root 
 and vital support. New Religions may present new con- 
 ceptions of morals and duty and of modes and objects 
 of worship, or may give higher assurances to human 
 aspirations, but they are ever the legitimate offspring 
 of older religions, and are rarely ever more than mere 
 reconstructions and modifications of older and borrowed 
 forms and beliefs. The dogmas, rites and ceremonies, 
 as well as the marvels, myths and legends by which they 
 are supported, which now swell the great on-flowing 
 current of religious thought and life, have been gathered 
 in, through the successive ages, from the countless riv- 
 ulets of the by-gone thoughts and life-modes of the 
 generations. Many of these primitive notions, forms, 
 symbols and legends, although now fused into our com- 
 posite beliefs and customs, are still recognizable, like the 
 grains of quartz and feldspar in a mass of granite ; 
 while others, crystallized by time, still float on uncrushed,
 
 2O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 like stray ice-floes upon an ocean current. The youths 
 of Great Britain, even now, annually perform rites once 
 sacred to Baal, and indulge in scores of customs and in- 
 cantations inherited from the Druids and from the wor- 
 shippers of Balder and Odin. There was scarcely a Jewish 
 notion from that of a belief in witchcraft and devil-pos- 
 session not a rite from Circumcision to blood-offerings 
 nor a symbol, from the breast-plate of the High-Priest 
 to the winged cherubim or symbolic beast upon the ark 
 of the covenant, which was not borrowed or imitated 
 fr:m those of their masters of Egypt, Persia or Chaldea 
 or from other conquering or neighboring peoples. There 
 is scarcely a single Christian belief from that in a divine 
 incarnation to the belief in a queen of Heaven and a 
 triple God not a rite from baptism to sacrificial feasts 
 not a legend from that of the Golden *Age in Eden to 
 that of a universal deluge, nor a moral precept or prin- 
 ciple, which had not already been substantially believed 
 in or practiced long before the advent of Christianity. 
 It could not, indeed, have been otherwise. Even if these 
 facts were not historically demonstrable, it is impossible 
 to rationally believe that a people, like the Jews, who had 
 been for so many centuries in personal as well as political 
 bondage to peoples of superior knowledge and civiliza- 
 tion' a people whose laws^ rites and ceremonies had 
 been first established by one who had been educated by 
 the Egyptian priests, and whose religious ideas and be- 
 liefs took shape and mould under the pressure of such 
 controlling influences, could fail to have a borrowed and 
 composite religion. That the moral and religious ideas 
 and doctrines promulgated in the New Testament were 
 well understood and taught, in many lands, as well as in
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 21 
 
 Judea, long before the reign of Herod the Great, is be- 
 yond rational doubt. That Jesus of Nazareth himself 
 was singularly indifferent to all forms, ceremonies and 
 rituals is still more certain. And the fact that he was 
 so, furnished an ample reason why his followers should 
 have accommodated their doctrines to the popular forms 
 and customs of those whom they desired to proselyte, 
 and should have modified and appropriated these accus- 
 tomed rituals and symbols of the people to the use of 
 their new Church. Jesus was not only indifferent to 
 forms, but expressly accepted the established Jewish re- 
 ligion, and endeavored to infuse his own ideas and 
 spirit into its existing laws. He professed to re-interpret 
 and supplement rather than to overthrow. His success- 
 ors followed his example, and wisely won their way by 
 being " all things to all men," and by cheerfully accom- 
 modating their new spirit to the accustomed rites, cer- 
 emonies and symbols of both Jew and Pagan, ryielding 
 form for the sake of substance. Those features and 
 doctrines which distinguished the Christian religion 
 from the religion from whose bosom it sprung and from 
 the surrounding religions and philosophies of the Roman 
 Empire, were chiefly Buddhistic in their character and 
 perhaps in their origin. Its spirit and morality was 
 essentially Buddhistic. So that, in a broad sense, it may 
 be characterized as the infusion of the Spirit and ideas 
 of Buddhism into the modified body and forms of the 
 religions and philosophies of the Roman Empire, the 
 whole engrafted on a tap-root of Judaism. Like all 
 other religions it was an evolution a new progressive 
 outgrowth from existing beliefs and customs ; and 
 whether its theological notions and its mystic rights and
 
 22 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 characteristic moralities were borrowed from one source 
 or another, it is certain they were, in the main, not pure 
 inventions, but grew up, and took their nutriment from 
 those older beliefs, symbols and customs which had 
 grown, like wild flowers, fresh from the growing aspira- 
 tions, desires, sympathies and intelligence of successive 
 generations. Even the legends and myths concerning 
 Jesus personally, are largely moulded from borrowed 
 materials. Combine, modify and reform as it may, or 
 might, its ancestral flesh-marks remain, and the odor of 
 the soil from which it sprung still clings about it. The 
 magic effects produced by the mere name "Jesus," by the 
 chips of the true cross, by sacred shrines and consecrated 
 bells, by the bones of pious anchorites, by the blood- 
 stained garments of martyrs, and by the toe-nails and 
 other relics of Saints, as well as its witch'craft and devil- 
 possession, give forth even odors of Fetichism which it 
 is impossible to rationally misconceive, and which point 
 to an origin in the grimmest and remotest past. To 
 that past let us turn for their true origin and significance. 
 
 ORIGIN OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 
 
 Man's earliest and lowest mental condition cannot 
 be directly known, since all existing races of men have 
 already made some progress in mental development ;
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 23 
 
 and neither their ancestors, nor those of the more civ- 
 ilized races, either did leave, or could have left, any record 
 or evidences of their beliefs ; since they were wholly 
 without arts. Still we may, as we have seen, rationally 
 approach the primordial mental condition of our Race 
 by means of our knowledge of the nature of our intel- 
 ligence and its necessary origin and order of acquisition, 
 aided by the analogies furnished by the mental manifes- 
 tations and progress of individual childhood. The low- 
 est existing races, however, furnish us examples of men- 
 tal conditions and development sufficiently primitive for 
 our present purposes, and, indeed, too low for our clear 
 realization. There still exist races of men who, having 
 the passions and instincts of the brute, are nearly in- 
 fantile in their mental development and attainments. 
 We still find men (such as the wild Dyaks of Borneo) 
 who have attained no conception of modesty or of the 
 family relations; whose children are begotten, nurtured 
 and abandoned like those of animals ; who rave and 
 prowl through the forest and jungle singly, like beasts 
 of prey ; who subsist like brutes, and, like brutes, die 
 alone and unburied ; who could scarcely command a 
 score of words for their entire vocabulary, or add two 
 to three, or comprehend the simplest moral principles ; 
 and who have no religious rites or ceremonies. 
 
 The mental condition of even these existing wild- 
 men is scarcely conceivable to us. Outside of their 
 animal appetites and the indiscriminate propagation of 
 their species, their minds are absorbed in their efforts to 
 secure food and to avoid danger. Their one prevailing 
 and ever-haunting emotion is fear. Ignorant of the
 
 24 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 agencies and laws of Nature, all things either are, or 
 may become, dangerous to them. The Unknown, with 
 its swarms of mysterious spirits and menacing shadows, 
 fills the air, the streams, the forest, with enemies which 
 meet him at every turn, and dog his footsteps through 
 life. His real and natural enemies are supplemented by 
 a host of others made so by his ignorance and stupidity ; 
 while even this number is inconceivably multiplied by 
 his conception of causation. In direct analogy to his 
 own action he conceives all motions and effects what- 
 ever to be personal and voluntary, and regards all ob- 
 jects in nature as having an invisible, conscious self like 
 his own mental self. In every untried object, therefore, 
 there may lurk a foe to be feared, hated and avoided. 
 A wild and restless fear of both visible and invisible 
 foes and of evil spirits pervades his life, and colors all 
 his serious thoughts and conduct. The Unknown is 
 ever an object of dread and hate to him, since it not 
 only may be dangerous to him, in known or unknown 
 ways, but his ignorance of it will probably make it so ; 
 while the very fact of its being unknown makes the 
 danger immeasurable, uncertain, and dreadful. 
 
 The question here presented is, whether this wild, 
 haunted savage of the primtive or lowest races, can be 
 said to have a religion. Can we find in this brutal na- 
 ture and almost brute-intelligence the true germs of the 
 later and higher religions the seeds even of that reli- 
 gion whose incense once floated over the blood-stained 
 altar at Jerusalem, and of that of its offspring whose
 
 . ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 2g 
 
 " Te Deum laudimus " still thunders through the aisles 
 of St. Peter's ? There has been much doubt as to the 
 proper answer to this question. The later and better 
 evidences and authorities, however, would seem to settle 
 the propriety of an affirmative answer. While we have 
 had much incompetent and biased testimony as to the 
 capacity of Savages in this regard, the true difficulty 
 would seem to be one of definition rather than fact. 
 That there are men who have no notion of a God, of 
 Creation, of a First Cause, or of religious obligations of 
 any kind, and who pay no worship to good Spirits, is be- 
 yond rational question. And yet it is equally true, that 
 Religion germinates, and has its root deep down, in this 
 lowest and most childish Savageism. As the seed in the 
 dark earth-mould contains the germ and potency of the 
 lordly forest-tree, even so, in this grim night of human 
 ignorance, we find that fear and hate of the Unknown 
 of the uncomprehended agencies of nature, which, 
 through the long ages of human development, grew and 
 changed until it ripened into a religion of hope and ador- 
 ation. As man's ignorance has been gradually trans- 
 formed into knowledge, his ideas of causation have ex- 
 panded and his fear of the unknown sources or agencies 
 of natural manifestations has been transformed into con- 
 fidence and love. That the germs of our religions should 
 be different from, and even opposite to, their developed 
 and final characters, is a result which is natural to Evo- 
 lution ; and however the common, primordial germ may 
 become modified by varying conditions and influences or 
 may be metamorphosed by development, it is as much a 
 part of the common growth and history as the root is a 
 part of the tree.
 
 26 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Passing from the imperfectly understood mental 
 status and condition of the Wild-man to that of the 
 Savage we find that man has here taken a distinct step 
 in social, intellectual and religious development. We 
 find him already on the threshold of the Social State, 
 having some notions of the family relations, also loose 
 political associations governed by patriarchs or chiefs, 
 and some crude notions of morality. Corresponding 
 with this social and intellectual advance we find a reli- 
 gious progression introducing us to the phase of religion 
 known as Fetichism. In this stage of development men 
 still regard all causation as personal and voluntary, and 
 continue to consider it as generally direct and immediate, 
 if not wholly so. Their religion is still a religion of fear. 
 In treating of it, Sir John Lubbock says " We regard 
 the Deity as good ; they look upon him as evil ; we 
 submit ourselves to him ; they endeavor to obtain con- 
 trol over him ; we feel the necessity of accounting for 
 the blessings by which. we are surrounded; they think, 
 that the blessings come of themselves, and attribute all 
 evil to the influence of malignant beings. These charac- 
 teristics are not exceptional and rare. On the contrary, 
 I shall attempt to show (continues Lubbock,) that, 
 though the religions of lower races have received different 
 names, they agree in their general characteristics, and 
 are but phases of one sequence, having the same origin 
 and oassing through similar, if not identical stages." 
 
 It is almost impossible for us to comprehend the 
 childish notions of the Fetichist to comprehend how 
 adult men can believe in the existence and hidden power 
 and malignity of the Spirits of what we know to be in-
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 2J 
 
 animate objects, and that all motions and effects are due 
 to direct conscious or voluntary powers residing within 
 the thing apparently initiating them men who have no 
 conception whatever of natural causation, and but little, 
 if any, of secondary causation. To such men anything 
 may become a fetich or controlling potency. Any 
 chance notion derived from a single coincidence the 
 merest casual concomitance or an apparent relation be- 
 tween an object and an effect is sufficient to suggest 
 one, or it may be adopted on trial and be childishly ac- 
 cepted or rejected as chance or success or failure may 
 determine. It may represent a human being, or be a 
 stone or a pebble, some seed or herb, the part of an ani- 
 mal, or any " villanous compound " of animal or vege- 
 table matter. Not only elemental phenomena, but 
 disease, death and personal disasters and good luck are 
 regarded as under the control of these fetichistic agen- 
 cies, even the affections, capacities and conduct of 
 individuals. There is also a singular notion of the effi- 
 ciency of representation accompanying and influencing 
 their notions of Causation. They conceive that parts of 
 a being or thing, or even .its name or image represents 
 the whole : for example, that parts of a courageous 
 animal will give courage to the person using it, or that, 
 by having an image or a bit of the clothing, the hair, or 
 the spittle of a person, they have the means of charming 
 or bewitching them as effectually as if they were person- 
 ally present. In fact, fetichism is nothing more than 
 primitive and unadulterated sorcery and Witchcraft a 
 belief that inanimate objects not only have potency for 
 good and evil, but that such potency is due to a hidden 
 spirit within them, in analogy to the conscious Ego in
 
 28 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 man. It is not to be identified with Idolatry or the wor- 
 ship of divine images, nor with Nature-worship. Feti- 
 chism is not real worship or adoration of a good being at 
 all ; but, on the contrary, it is devoted to the circumven- 
 tion or control of malevolent or inimical beings, or to 
 securing their neutrality, favor or aid. 
 
 What it further and mainly behooves us to note in 
 this first step in man's religious development is, that it 
 is the product of, and corresponds with, an equivalent 
 phase of intellectual progress a phase embracing some 
 vague conceptions of general powers in nature of a per- 
 sonal or conscious character, including some of an indif- 
 ferent or even friendly nature, and also the experiences 
 and ideas inducing the first rude attempts to aggregate 
 into social and political unions as families and septs ; 
 that it is the inimical powers or spirits, alone, which are 
 propitiated, through fear of the consequences of their 
 enmity the friendly ones being supposed to be right 
 already ; that their gods, if they can be called such, are 
 beings with like natures, needs, appetites and passions as 
 themselves and are to be influenced and controlled by 
 like means and methods as would be efficient with human 
 enemies ; and that the bribes or propitiatory offerings, 
 consequently, which are presented to them, are such as 
 would be acceptable to themselves or a human enemy, 
 mainly meats, fruits, rice and other foods, whose hidden 
 spirit they suppose to be as palatable and neccessary to 
 their unseen spiritual enemies as the visible portions 
 are to themselves : a notion exhibited by our ancestors 
 when they sought the houses of, and left food and water 
 for, the fairies, and which is still retained and exemplified
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 2 9 
 
 by our Indian tribes, who continue to place food, weapons, 
 &c., in the graves, or near the bodies, of their dead for 
 use after death, well knowing that the visible part of 
 these articles remain unused and undisturbed. In short, 
 to keep his fetich and invisible enemies in a good 
 humor, and to influence them, the Fetichist feeds and 
 flatters, and even scolds, threatens and abuses them ac- 
 cording to his notions of their nature : a favorite mode 
 being to frighten them. Here, we find the germ and 
 origin of religious sacrifices or propitiatory offerings to 
 the Gods. In the rain-doctors, witch-doctors, sorcerers 
 and medicine-men who are called forth by this phase of 
 beliefs, we also have the legitimate progenitors of our 
 priests and physicians. In the primitive belief in the 
 substantial reality of dreams and visions and in the 
 superhuman and sacred character of the hallucinations 
 and illusory visions of the morbid and insane, born in 
 this childish age of literalism and appearances, we find, 
 also, the fountains of all future beliefs in prophecy and 
 inspiration. 
 
 A still more advanced phase of Religion is known as 
 Shamanism. Here we find, not only a still further gen- 
 eralization of the potencies of Nature, but a vague con- 
 ception of beings of a different nature from that of mortal 
 men-beings of a divine essence and nature. The Gods 
 of the Shamanite are no longer the enemies of man, but 
 neither are they his friends and guardians. They live
 
 3O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 remote and apart from humanity and are indifferent to 
 their conduct or affairs. They are unapproachable by 
 ordinary mortals, and can only be communicated with 
 through the medium of a Shaman a kind of priestly 
 " Convulsionair " or inspired Dervish, who is sometimes, 
 when the fit is on, permitted to have intercourse with 
 them, and to even visit them in their distant abodes. 
 Accompanying this progress in religion and intelligence, 
 we find, also, the corresponding advance in social 
 progress and political generalizations. Shamanism is 
 found flourishing among such vast, barbaric hordes as 
 roam over the undefined countries of central Asia and 
 give an equally undefined allegiance to some distant and 
 unapproachable emperor or khan. 
 
 Advancing another step we find Anthropomorphism. 
 In this phase of progress men worship men-shaped Gods 
 deified Ancestors, Heroes and Benefactors and the 
 personified powers of Nature. Even their highest Gods 
 are still a part of Nature are its offspring, not its crea- 
 tors. Although endowed with divine and imperishable 
 natures, they have' man-like forms, intelligence, frailties, 
 passions and appetites, and human capacities for want 
 and suffering ; although these characteristics are vari- 
 ously modified from those of men. It has been plausibly 
 contended, indeed, that the very conception of such Gods 
 arose from the deification of men. 
 
 It is in this phase or stage that idolatry begins to
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 3! 
 
 play its important part in man's psychical development. 
 By adopting representative images as aids to the sen- 
 suous realization of unknown and invisible deities, Reli- 
 gion gave a new and mighty stimulant to intellectual de- 
 velopment, by calling forth the genius, and inspiring the 
 energies, of the poet, the sculptor, the painter and the 
 architect in the idealization and representation of imagi- 
 nary Gods, angels, deified heroes and their achievements, 
 and in the erection of altars and temples for their resi- 
 dence and worship. Idolatry may be said to have been 
 the* mother of the fine arts. 
 
 It is in this anthropomorphic phase, also, that we find 
 the tendency to generalize and grade personal causation 
 most signally manifested, and witness the process of ul- 
 timating secondary causation and natural sequences in 
 First Cause and Creator of all things and a creation by 
 fiat. In examining natural phenomena and observing the 
 order and sequences of these natural manifestations, men 
 could not fail to ultimately observe, that there was a 
 more or less regular gradation in the importance of nat- 
 ural objects and causes, and a more or less" consecutive 
 subordination and dependence of natural agencies and 
 powers, and that the multiplied manifestations in nature 
 tended to mount up towards common and ever fewer 
 sources. They could not rank the Naiad of the fountain 
 with the Goddess of the Sea, nor Aurora with the God of 
 day. 
 
 This tendency towards a final generalization, indeed, 
 must have gradually reached some kind of culmination 
 even under the more distinctly fetichistic conception of
 
 32 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 causation, when, as yet, men regarded all objects as self- 
 efficient and all causes alike voluntary and internal. 
 From this standpoint, an observation of the visible phe- 
 nomena of the Universe would naturally lead men 
 to place the Sun and Earth at the head of the hierarchy 
 of natural powers the one as masculine, the other 
 feminine. Such a generalization, however, would not 
 be reached without there having arisen some vague 
 suggestions and questionings as to the origin and 
 primal source of all things some conjectures and 
 vague conceptions of a First Cause or Unknown Power 
 existing prior to all visible bodies, or at least dominating 
 them. Thus there was formed the primary strata or 
 plain, as it were, of religious beliefs. 
 
 When the more developed minds ceased to believe in 
 the self -efficiency of inanimate objects, or that all things 
 were animate, they necessarily assigned their actions 
 and government to other efficiencies ; and as they had 
 no conception of any causation but that which was vol- 
 untary, they attributed such actions and control to imag- 
 inary, invisible beings, or to personal Gods. This change 
 in the conception or notion of the sources of causation, 
 however, did not materially affect the previous gradation 
 of powers or Gods, further than to more specially define 
 and co-ordinate them ; but merely substituted separate 
 personal movers and controllers for the old hidden spirits 
 of the objects themselves and the vague idea of some 
 unknown original Power : causing a worship of the in- 
 visible personal Rulers or Gods of natural phenomena 
 instead of the phenomena themselves. Thus, Apollo 
 and Diana were substituted for Sol and Luna.
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 33 
 
 As this advanced step, however, would be originally 
 attained by the more advanced minds, it would not 
 destroy the previous popular notions or worship, but 
 would be superimposed upon them ; and there would be 
 and was, two co-existing and approximately-correspond- 
 ing hierarchies of Gods ; the one being that of the 
 phenomenal objects and manifestations themselves, the 
 other that of their supposed invisible Rulers. This 
 would seem to have been both the natural and actua 
 order of intellectual and religious development. 
 
 The first tendency and result of this gradation of 
 natural objects and powers was, not to finally unify all 
 causation, but to subordinate and rank the powers of 
 Nature ; giving a hierarchy of Gods, with a chief or 
 supreme head a God-of-Gods ; and thus bringing man 
 to the very threshold of Monotheism. From the belief 
 in a Supreme or chief God in nature, the ascent to a 
 belief in a Sole anthropomorphic Creator and Ruler of 
 the Universe may require time and perhaps favoring 
 conditions, but such a result was inevitable unless 
 human development had been wholly arrested. When- 
 ever the human mind departed from its primitive con- 
 ception of the imminence and directness of causation., 
 or of self-causation, and accepted the notions of outside 
 causation and secondary or remote causation, by substi- 
 tuting imaginary personal agencies for inherent powers, 
 and taking incitement or inducement and sequence for 
 cause and causation, there could be no final and legiti- 
 mate pause until a personal First Cause was reached. 
 Anthropomorphic Monotheism seems to have been more 
 definitely and early attained by the Semitic peoples 
 than any other, and it is with its origin among the 
 
 3
 
 34 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Abrahamic branch of that race that we feel the deepest 
 interest, and with which it will be sufficient to here 
 concern ourselves. 
 
 ISRAELITISH MONOTHEISM. 
 
 We find in the Jewish book of Genesis the early 
 conceptions of the Jews in relation to the general crea- 
 tion, to the nature and character of the Divine Powers 
 and of their relations to man, to the origin of Evil, and 
 to the primal creation and condition or state of man and 
 the causes and order of his earlier steps in knowledge 
 and mental progress ; all embraced in a supposed his- 
 tory of these early facts and relations, and expressed in 
 that concrete, narrative and figurative form which is 
 alone possible to peoples who are as yet incapable of 
 speaking or even thinking in the abstract. This exposi- 
 tion furnishes us, not only the appropriate and expected 
 phase of beliefs appertaining to the then existing stage 
 of their mental development, but an unusually sagacious 
 notion of the true primitive state of man and of the 
 order and mode of his subsequent progress towards 
 enlightenment. From Genesis we learn, that prior to
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 3$ 
 
 Abraham his people were Polytheists, with the taint 
 of Fetichism still strong upon them. We find, that 
 Abraham's father worshipped other Gods besides Je- 
 hovah-Elohim the Lord God ; and that, even in the 
 time of Jacob, the father of Rebecca had his little house- 
 hold Gods or fetiches, and that his daughter Rebecca 
 greatly outraged him, when leaving the paternal home, 
 by stealing them and hiding them in her " camel 
 furniture." 
 
 Prior to the time of Moses they evidently nad not 
 reached a conception of Ultimate Being, but, at best, 
 only an anthropomorphic conception of Supreme or 
 dominant power, represented by the chief of the Elohim 
 the Lord of the Heavenly Host. It was Moses who 
 introduced to them the Egyptian conception of ultimate 
 Essential Existence itself the " I Am," who " is, was, 
 and is to be." This conception is a conception of one- 
 ness an ultimate conception lying back of all imper- 
 sonations of mere powers or attributes, and formed the 
 true basis of Monotheism. And it is this Egyptian 
 conception, by its mystic and unspeakable name of 
 "Jehovah," that Moses proposed to the Israelites as the 
 one true and ultimate God, and which he induced them 
 to accept as the " God of their fathers," although he 
 expressly told them that, as Jehovah, he was not known 
 by their fathers, that is, by His name indicating 
 Ultimate Existence or self-existent Being.
 
 36 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 The first account in Genesis of the cosmical creation 
 was written by an author who uses the plural word Elo- 
 him or Gods to express the Creative Powers, and who 
 was evidently unacquainted with even the name, Jehovah. 
 The recorder or transcriber of. the second account, being 
 that of the formation of man and of his subsequent condi- 
 tion and history, (abruptly commencing with the 4th verse 
 of the second chapter,) could not have lived earlier than 
 the Mosaic Age, since he was acquainted with the name, 
 Jehovah, and prefixes it to the original Elohim to identify 
 him with the old Polytheistic conception of the Supreme 
 Power the patriarchal Lord of the Heavens. The 
 whole language of the narrative, however, shows that the 
 idea of a plurality of Gods was in the mind of the 
 original author. Not only is the plural Elohim used to 
 express the personal creating powers, but the Gods are 
 represented as consulting together concerning the crea- 
 tion, and as using language only applicable to a plurality 
 of Gods such as " now let us make man in our own 
 image," * * "and ye shall be as Gods," * * * 
 " Behold, the man has become as one of its," and the 
 like expressions of plurality. These palpably plural 
 expressions cannot be explained as referring to a single 
 " Truine God," since such language is never used by, or 
 about, Jehovah in the writings of subsequent Monotheists, 
 nor was the idea of a trinity ever entertained bv any of 
 the Abrahamic peoples. 
 
 Such language as was used by the Israelites to 
 Shihon shows that, even at that late period, they recog- 
 nized the actual existence of other Gods, namely, 
 "Wilt thou possess that which thy God
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 3/ 
 
 thee ? So, whomsoever the Lord (Jehovah) out God 
 shall drive out before us, them will we possess " (Judges 
 xxiv. n). Here then is a distinct recognition of two 
 distinct Gods, each having equal and actual existence 
 and active efficiency. The very fact, indeed, that the 
 Israelites were so constantly prone to fall back upon the 
 worship of the old Gods, is conclusive of the fact of 
 their recent or imperfect conversion from Polytheism 
 and of their inability to appreciate the higher conception 
 and worship of Jehovah, and of their consequent ten- 
 dency to revert to their old notions and practices. Even 
 Moses seems to respect their hereditary notions in the 
 Decalogue itself. It does not assert, or imply, that 
 there is no other God but Jehovah, but demands that the 
 Israelites shall worship Him, and "have no other Gods 
 before Him : " Seeming to imply, rather than deny, the 
 existence of such other Gods. Of a like import is the 
 command, " Thou shalt not revile the Gods" (Exodus 
 xxii. 28.) 
 
 The facts would seem to be, that Abraham had 
 been reared in the Chaldean faith in, and worship of, 
 the Heavenly Powers, chief among whom was Baal, 
 the Sun-God the Lord of the Heavens ; that, being 
 inspired by the idea of becoming the father and founder 
 of a separate People, he " moved West " into Caanan ; 
 that, in pursuance of the common custom, he selected
 
 38 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 a patron Deity as his special object of worship, inspired 
 by the hope that he should thus secure His special pro- 
 tection and patronage for himself and his descendants ; 
 and with a magnanimity worthy of his high aspirations 
 he selected the chief of his ancestral Gods, and vowed 
 that he and his descendants would worship Him, and 
 Him alone, in consideration of His special favor and pro- 
 tection ; and that, in pursuance of this supposed covenant, 
 when meeting with Melchisedec in Caanan, and finding 
 him to be a priest of this same " most high God" he paid 
 tithes to him as the representative of his own chosen 
 God. Thus-, it would seem that, while Abraham wor- 
 shipped but one God, he did not disbelieve in the exist- 
 ence of others, nor conceive that his patron God was 
 Ultimate Existence itself, but the all-powerful Heavenly 
 Ruler. 
 
 Having once entered into this perpetual covenant for 
 practical Monotheism, the real Monotheistic idea would 
 be the more readily developed. Perpetually covenanted, 
 and exclusively devoted, to one God, and under the sole 
 and potent influence of Moses and of a powerful and 
 vitally-interested hereditary priesthood, who were jeal- 
 ously devoted to the worship of this sole God and were 
 living upon the sacrifices and offerings at His altars, the 
 conception and final triumph of Monotheism could not 
 be doubtful. Once under such potent and exclusive 
 guidance, and fighting for their lives and most sacred 
 interests, through ages of cruel and exterminating wars,
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 39 
 
 under the sole banner and protection of Jehovah, and 
 against nations worshipping and fighting under other 
 and opposing Gods, the Israelites naturally came to 
 finally regard all other Gods than their own Jehovah as 
 antagonistic and inimical powers as objects of dread 
 and hatred, and, for these very reasons, as also evil and 
 wicked beings. Thus, the hated Gods of their enemies 
 degenerated into evil beings or devils : the God Baal- 
 zebub or Beelzebub becoming the chief of devils. Thus, 
 the solely-worshipped Jehovah finally came to stand con- 
 fronting, not " other Gods," but a hierarchy of devils. 
 
 With all the potent Monotheistic influences operating 
 upon them, however, the priests could not prevent the 
 Israelites from exhibiting the strongest .proclivity to 
 revert to their old polytheistic notions and practices. It 
 was only when dangers and misfortunes menaced or over- 
 whelmed them, that their fears and enmities fully over- 
 come their old polytheistic proclivities, to which they 
 again and again yielded. 
 
 IMPROVED CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 This progress towards the unification and ultimation 
 of causation was accompanied by a marked progress in
 
 4<D JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 their conceptions of the nature and character of their 
 Deity. The difference between the God of the Patri- 
 archs and that of Hilel, Gamaliel and Josephus is even 
 more marked than between that of the latter and the 
 advanced Christians of our time. Beyond the name' 
 there was little in common between the earliest and 
 latest Jewish Monotheists. The old, infantile and crude 
 conception has grown out of all realization, if not out of 
 all recognition. We scarcely repress a smile, indeed, 
 when we read the na'fve accounts of God's nature, feel- 
 ings and actions in the earlier Jewish records: when, for 
 example, we are told that God walked about with men 
 and conversed familiarly with them ; that after God had 
 made all things and pronounced the whole to be very 
 good, the creatures that He had made, so upset his plans, 
 that He was greatly vexed, and sorely repented that He 
 had made man at all. How very primitive and childlike 
 this is ! Or this, again, of Jacob actually wrestling hip- 
 and-thigh with God, and holding God in spite of Him- 
 self, after God had broken Jacob's thigh in the tussle ! 
 With what unconscious simplicity, again, is it related 
 how Abraham chatted with the Lord about his affairs, 
 and laughed at His promise that Sarah, who was then 
 90 years of age, should bear a son, "until the old man 
 was so convulsed with his sense of the ridiculousness of 
 the idea, that he fell prostrate on the earth ; how the 
 Lord visited Abraham at his tent, sat at his door and 
 washed his feet, ate dinner with the patriarch, and again 
 amused Sarah with the same promise of a son, until she 
 laughed until she was scolded for it by the Lord, and 
 then denied it ; how at parting w*ith Abraham, God in- 
 formed him that He was then on his way to Sodom and
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 4! 
 
 Gomorrah to see whether matters at those places were 
 altogether as the " cry had come up to Him." God is 
 not only represented as being under the necessity of 
 washing his feet, of eating food, and of travelling round 
 the country to see whether matters have been rightly 
 reported to him, but as being quite as companionable as 
 He had already proved himself to be handy and useful 
 in the Sartorial line, by making " skin coats " for Adam 
 and Eve ! 
 
 Moses himself, with his Egyptian learning, was 
 clearly in advance of all such crude notions. True, he is 
 represented as a man who talked with God " as a man 
 talketh to his friend." It is also said of him that he 
 desired God to exhibit Himself to him, and that God, a 
 little more exclusive then than in the days of Adam and 
 Abraham, informed him that " no man could look upon 
 His face and live," but that he would put Moses in the 
 " cleft of rock " and there cover him with His hand, 
 while He passed by, and that He would take off his 
 hand in passing, and permit Moses to see his " back 
 parts." If Moses ever countenanced such reports, it 
 was doubtlessly with a view to their effect in securing 
 his influence with the superstitious multitude. The 
 progressive exclusiveness here shown was still further 
 developed by the time of St. John, who says that " no 
 man has seen God at any time" either back parts or 
 front parts. Even long after Moses, however, notions 
 of God's occupation and powers are expressed which are 
 quite a-s anthropomorphic as these. We are informed
 
 42 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 (in Judges) that the Lord was aiding Joshua in his mil- 
 itary operations, and that He was enabled to drive out 
 the inhabitants of the hill country, " but could not drive 
 out the inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots 
 of iron ; " the iron chariots proving an overmatch for 
 the combined efforts of God, Joshua and the " chosen 
 people." All this is quite consistent with the then exist- 
 ing stage of intelligence and development. 
 
 Equally crude and childish notions prevailed with re- 
 gard to the character and morals of their God. These 
 progressively varied with the age and with the individual, 
 always corresponding to the stage of intellectual de- 
 velopment and the influences and education of the time 
 and person. Men who looked upon God as an image of 
 themselves, or rather as the original of which they 
 were the image, would, of necessity, regard Him as sub- 
 ject to the desires, feelings and motives of men. His 
 characteristics would necessarily be moulded and limited 
 by the conceptive powers and desires of His worshippers. 
 In the moral character of the God of the early Israel- 
 ites, as well as in that of other people's Gods, we find a 
 reflex of the worshipper, more or less improved or ideal- 
 ized. The God of the Jews was, and must have been, 
 in every age, what the Jew then considered a " pattern 
 man " with extraordinary or supreme capacities. In the 
 earlier and more savage ages, we find him little above a 
 human Prince with the cruelty, vindictiveness, favor-
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 43 
 
 itism, vanity, self-laudation, capriciousness, and love of 
 adulation found in barbaric kings and rulers. He was 
 an unscrupulous ally and hot friend, and a remorseless 
 and cruel foe. His motto was "an eye for an eye" and 
 "blood for blood;" the doctrine at the bottom of the 
 " blood-feuds " of all barbarians. His worshippers 
 called and considered Him just, and even merciful ; but 
 in their view to be merciful was to be helpful and for- 
 giving to the Jew : to be just was to annihilate the en- 
 emies of the Jew, was to rob other people of their 
 lands, property, homes and lives for the benefit of His 
 favorites, was to exact "the uttermost farthing," to 
 " reap where He had not sown," and to punish the inno- 
 cent children for the sins of the father, to the tenth 
 generation. Amidst the smoke of incense and the hal- 
 lelujahs of the multitude we see the gleam of the sacri- 
 ficial knife at the throat of thousands of innocent victims ; 
 we hear the incessant gurgling of the hot blood-stream 
 from the altar, and witness the desolated homes, and the 
 rotting carcasses qf the innocent cattle, wives and children 
 of the fathers and brothers who died defending them 
 and their homes from the aggressive and remorseless 
 favorites of Jehovah. Mighty and merciful art thou, O 
 Jehovah, God of Sabaoth ! - Why not ? To them, He 
 seemed both good and just. It was their own acts they 
 were lauding supposed to have been inspired and aided 
 by their God. Thus it has been with all peoples. The 
 ancient Jewish conception of God is even less offensive 
 to us than that of most other peoples in the same stage 
 of development. As they had but one God to represent 
 that which was represented by many Gods to the Poly- 
 theist, we must compare him to the whole of the Poly-
 
 44 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 theistic host in making our estimate ; and, in doing so, 
 we shall find the Jewish conception compares most favor- 
 ably with that of others. The best of their Gods were 
 very human and imperfect. The God of the Jew has, 
 through Christianity, become largely cosmopolitan, and 
 has continued to improve with the advance of the 
 mental and moral development of His worshippers, and 
 has been largely divested of his partiality and favoritism. 
 There are still many conceptions in relation to Jehovah, 
 however, which are very shocking and savor of their 
 barbaric origin. That these crude, anthropomorphic 
 conceptions of God were formed in analogy to human 
 nature, and confirmed, if not originated, by the deifica- 
 tion of human beings is sufficiently clear. How far the 
 latter custom influenced such notions it may be difficult 
 to determine, and is by no means necessary to our 
 purpose. 
 
 RELATIONS BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 
 
 Turning from the Biblical conceptions of the Deity, 
 to the Biblical conception of the relations between God 
 and man, we shall find the following statement of them 
 fairly orthodox, and sufficiently explicit for our present 
 purposes, namely :
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 45 
 
 1. That God made man out of the " dust of the 
 earth," and blew breath into his nostrils ; that, thus 
 fashioned and vitalized, he was " a little lower than the 
 angels " and in a state of perfect innocence and happi- 
 ness, enjoying every blessing, without pain, labor or care, 
 and obligated and restrained by only a single duty or 
 command. 
 
 2. That man, seduced by the " Serpent," disobeyed 
 this command, and by that disobedience incurred the 
 wrath and curses of his offended Creator, and the penalty 
 of the loss of his innocence and happiness and of his 
 Paradisial home, and entailed the curse of pain and death 
 upon all animated beings, as well as of toil, hereditary 
 guilt, depravity and condemnation on all his own poster- 
 ity, without power of self-redemption. 
 
 3. That this divine penalty was so far modified as 
 to allow man to escape some of its exactions by rigid 
 obedience to the divine laws and by continued sacrifices 
 and blood-offerings to God in discharge of the penalties 
 due for their transgressions : and, as Christians affirm, 
 was further modified by the promise of a future divine 
 blood-offering in final discharge of the debts of Humanity. 
 
 That these beliefs, crude as they may now appear, 
 had their origin in the nature and needs of man that 
 they were a legitimate product, as well as means and 
 process, of his mental and moral development, is not to
 
 46 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 be questioned. To future enlightened peoples, the 
 record of them will still be valuable as perhaps the most 
 complete and consecutive historical presentation of the 
 progressive phases of religious development now remain- 
 ing. The historical narrative of customs, facts and 
 beliefs in the Bible, in this connection, as well as the 
 figuratively-expressed legend of the genesis of Nature 
 and of the early condition, habits and career of man, 
 give us invaluable information as to primitive beliefs in 
 these regards, and valuable hints as to the actual and 
 probable order, causes and significance of the successive 
 steps in religious evolution : facts which we are still 
 concerned to know. We cannot be otherwise than 
 anxious to know how, and why, those ancient notions 
 were formed and the nature and measure of their true 
 human value to know how men arrived at the belief 
 that they had fallen from a state of primitive purity and 
 of bodily immortality and happiness ; how men, even 
 now, obtain their notion that their primal ancestor was, 
 not only innocent, deathless and happy, but was the 
 semi-divine and perfect lord of the Earth and an ideally- 
 perfect denizen of an ideally-perfect paradise. How 
 did men arrive at the idea of their hopeless indebt- 
 edness to God ? How came they to conceive that 
 God could be paid and satisfied by blood, and by 
 blood alone? In short, Why this Shylock attitude 
 of an omnipotent and uncontrolled Creator to his suffer- 
 ing, pur-blind, perishable and wholly dependent crea- 
 tures ? Certainly such relations can find no apology in 
 the facts as viewed from the standpoint of. an enlight- 
 ened reason and morality. It is only in the light of 
 evolution that such notions become either possible or
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 4/ 
 
 pardonable. An origin of extreme ignorance and pro- 
 gressive growth can alone make them comprehensible 
 and tolerable. Irrational as they may appear, such 
 notions are the natural outgrowth of the conditions and 
 previous beliefs from which they sprung. The errors 
 from which they arose were 'rather those of ignorance 
 and misconception than of false reasoning. The men 
 who formed them, constructed them from the then 
 accredited state of facts and the traditional accounts and 
 beliefs of their time, influenced by such notions of causa- 
 tion and natural phenomena as were then possible to 
 them, and by such feelings, needs and aspirations as were 
 natural to such men. 
 
 Remembering all this, Let us endeavor to recover 
 and realize the intellectual status and the constructive 
 mental materials of the men who successively moulded and 
 modified these early religious beliefs, now supposed to 
 be sacred and inspired ; and to recall the course and 
 causes of their actual reasonings and conclusions. Re- 
 curring to their own individual experiences and obser- 
 vations of human nature, they found it overflowing with 
 animal desires and impulses, tending, almost resistlessly, 
 to selfishness, violence, and all manner of excess and 
 debauchery ; and that these errors led to depravity, per- 
 sonal degeneracy, disease, misery and death found that, 
 by nature, man was as prone to sin as " the sparks are to 
 fly upwards," They found life filled with disappoint- 
 ments, discontent and suffering, and ever-recurring want 
 everywhere demanding renewed toil : a life where every 
 joy has its correlative sorrow, and which, at best, was 
 but of " few days and full of trouble." They did not
 
 48 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 perceive the absolute necessity of labor, suffering and 
 death to the divine purposes and to man's physical devel- 
 opment and ultimate happiness. The question ever 
 recurred to them Why were these dread and inevitable 
 penalties attached to the " fever called living ? " They 
 reflected too upon the distribution of happiness and con- 
 tentment among men, upon the indolent, careless con- 
 tent of the naked Savage and the ignorant innocence 
 and joys of the child, and compared them with the 
 anxious toils, sufferings and disappointments of the aged 
 and the intelligent ; only to find that, everywhere, con- 
 tentment seemed to exist in the inverse ratio of knowl- 
 edge, and to be driven to conclude that " where ignor- 
 ance is bliss 'tis foily to be wise." The young Savage, 
 educated to civilization, longed to return to the condi- 
 tion and habits of his old Savage state. The children of 
 the Civilized, when bred among savages, equally refused 
 to accept civilized life. The Savage State, then, had the 
 preference. Sin or conscious wrong, as well as misery 
 and discontent, appeared everywhere to increase with 
 the increase of knowledge. The condition of innocence 
 and happiness was that of ignorance, indolent plenty, 
 and thoughtless, careless freedom. What more natural 
 and inevitable than that' they should have concluded that 
 sin, sorrow, toil and death were (speaking in their figura- 
 tive style) the results of eating the fruit of the tree of 
 knowledge of that knowledge which brings conviction 
 of wrong-doing and the consciousness of guilt, and which 
 opens up new objects of desire, and presents new rea- 
 sons for discontent and for new labors, disappointments 
 and sufferings, as well as for covetousness, temptation 
 and sin ? When they turned to human history and tra-
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 49 
 
 dition they found further confirmation of their views. 
 They remembered their childhood as their own " golden 
 age." By reason of their decaying powers of apprecia- 
 tion and enjoyment they could no longer see objects and 
 life through the magnifying powers of infancy and the 
 prismatic hues of hope : the world seemed degenerating. 
 What seemed to be thus affirmed by their own experi- 
 ence, they remembered to have heard as the burden of 
 the complaints of their fathers and grandfathers also. 
 Clearly the " good old times " were in the past, and the 
 all-golden-time must have been in the very beginning. 
 In further confirmation of this ideal reversal of the course 
 of progress, came traditional lore and the mementoes 
 and relics of earlier times, affirming that men grew more 
 indolent, rude and ignorant as they were traced back 
 into the past. Facts, fancy and tradition, therefore, 
 pointed back to a primitive age of simple ignorance and 
 of careless indolence, ease and content, and' of that inno- 
 cence which is born of ignorance an innocence which 
 " knows no wrong " pointed back to an age when the 
 primal man, as happy and untoiling and as unconscious 
 of good and evil as the child, roamed at will among the 
 forest-fruits and flowers as naked as his own ignorance 
 and innocence. This was their conception of man's 
 primitive state, and a very shrewd one it was. It is not 
 the paradisial state of an ideally-perfect man which has 
 been since modelled by our race-pride, but it is the true 
 one, and the one actually described in the book of Gene- 
 sis. The book of Genesis depicts the primal condition 
 of man, not as being a " little below " that of angels, but 
 as being barely above that of the brutes. It places man 
 where the Scientific theory of evolution places him, 
 
 4
 
 5<D JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 assigning to him an undeveloped and ignorant nature 
 and an animal condition. It makes him a wild-man a 
 naked savage, without a single art or implement, and 
 without social, marital or family relations. Adam is in- 
 troduced to us in the lowest state and condition that 
 could be recognized as human. He is without a lan- 
 guage, and utterly ignorant of good and evil. He is 
 stark-naked, unwashed, soapless, unshorn, uncombed, 
 unsheltered, rambling alone through the uncultivated 
 forest of Eden among the other animals, and, like them, 
 living without fire and feeding upon the wild fruits 
 which Nature furnished! 
 
 - The first step in advance is represented as being that 
 of entering into sexual relations the male, and female 
 man mate. Adam's wife, however, is still as naked and 
 as shameless and unkempt as himself, and each follows 
 the dictates and promptings of Nature, unconscious of 
 nakedness, and incapable of immodesty or shame. The 
 next step in progress alters this. Very naturally, the 
 woman is made the first to become conscious of her 
 nudity and of its impropriety, and is represented as set- 
 ting to work to improve her condition by sewing her 
 apron of leaves, and as persuading Adam into following 
 her example. This sense of impropriety and shame was 
 the first human knowledge or conception of right and 
 wrong, and also the first incentive to invention and labor 
 
 the first fruits of the "tree of knowledge of good and 
 evil." Thus were initiated man's ever-increasing wants 
 and labors, both of body and brain, to meet the demands 
 of his ever-heightening conceptions and ever-growing 
 intelligence.
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 51 
 
 We soon find man dissatisfied with his fig-leaf cloth- 
 ing and his wild vegetable food ; find him clothed in 
 skins ; indicating that he had passed from th wild stage 
 to the hunter stage. We also find him represented as 
 emerging from the wild forest of Eden, entering upon 
 agricultural pursuits, and winning his bread by the sweat 
 of his brow. We very properly find his developed pride 
 and his sense of shame and disgust at his old, naked, 
 animal life represented as standing, like a " flaming 
 sword " between him and his old forest haunts, guarding 
 against his return to the old, indolent, wild life. 
 
 Making proper allowance for the fact that the authors 
 of Genesis, like all men of like development, believed 
 that all their new thoughts, visions and dreams were in- 
 spired or communicated by Gods or Spirits, and that 
 they habitually represented such supposed communi- 
 cations as commands or actual declarations by such 
 spiritual beings, and that their modes of thought were 
 confined to the Concrete, and were represented symbol- 
 ically and figuratively, making these allowances, we 
 find the conception of the authors of Genesis, formed 
 from the facts as they were then known and understood, 
 to correspond substantially and in a striking manner with 
 the conclusions of modern thought, namely, that Man 
 progressively emerged from a wild, ignorant and savage 
 state, and that he was driven towards civilized life and 
 into the wants, cares, labors and dissatisfaction which 
 such progress required and involved, by a sense of the 
 imperfection of his condition and an increasing knowl- 
 edge of " good and evil." That their views should havte 
 been presented in an allegorical, tropical or concrete
 
 52 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 form was to have been expected, not only from their 
 known habits, but as a necessity of their stage of devel- 
 opment. Swch was the natural mode of thought and 
 expression of the men of their race and time. What 
 was supposed to have been suggested to, or put into, 
 their minds by spiritual agencies, they represented as 
 being shown or said to them by the supposed inspirers 
 of their thoughts, dreams or visions. Thus we have 
 God, the Creator, and the subtle Serpent talking freely 
 with man ; wisdom being here expressed by its usual 
 and well-known symbol of the serpent ; while the knowl- 
 edge of good and evil figuratively assumes the form of 
 the "fruit of the' tree of knowledge of good and evil." 
 
 But, Why did men subsequently come to construe this 
 old expression of by-gone thought in a manner so ad- 
 verse to its real meaning, and even to its letter, and in a 
 manner which reflected so unfavorably upon the veracity 
 and common sense of its authors ? How came they to 
 convert these very creditable speculations upon the 
 primitive history of man and the origin of good and 
 evil, labor and suffering, sin and death, into an ideal ab- 
 surdity, unsupported by a single reason or fact ? Sev- 
 eral causes have conspired to producp this perversion. 
 In the first place, as we have seen, there is a natural 
 tendency to magnify and idealize the Past. To the 
 causes already assigned for this may be added that of 
 pride of race and ancestry. This feeling has largely
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. $3 
 
 aided in coloring nay, of controlling our renderings of 
 the Scriptural account of the genesis of the Race. 
 Secondly : piety and reverence for the Creator have im- 
 pelled men to assume the perfections of His creations, 
 and successive generations have moulded the primitive 
 account, as far as possible, to suit their own growing ideal 
 conceptions of perfection, and not those of the authors of 
 Genesis. Thirdly : time, reverence for the venerable, 
 and the peculiar modes of thought and expression of the 
 narrative itself, have rendered the book sacred, and en- 
 gendered a belief in its inspiration, a belief which its 
 authors never entertained further than their belief in 
 the inspiration of all men's new thoughts and dreams. 
 This sacredness of the account or narrative has aided in 
 securing it both a partially literal interpretation and an 
 exemption from rational criticism. Fourthly : more ad- 
 vanced generations have neither comprehended the style, 
 nor the symbols, of the authors, and have taken the Ser- 
 pent and the tree of knowledge and its fruit as actual 
 entities, and the supposed talking of God and the Ser- 
 pent as actual, visible and audible intercourse. From 
 these and other causes, men have grown into most sin- 
 gular beliefs in reference to the state of Adam and Eve 
 beliefs compounded of their own ideals and the literal 
 renderings of Genesis, yet wholly unlike either. 
 
 The real difference between those ancient Thinkers 
 and our present ones is not so much in the substantial 
 conclusions they reached as to the primitive condition
 
 54 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 of man, or even as to the cause and order of his progress, 
 as it is in their notions as to what constitutes the highest 
 and most desirable state of human existence, and as to 
 the nature and character of God and his relations to 
 man, and as to origin of suffering, evil and mortality. 
 What those early Thinkers treat as a fa!!, modern ones 
 would regard as a progress. What they regarded as evil, 
 we regard as the highest earthly good. Their ideal state 
 that of absolute nakedness and ignorance constitutes 
 the very sum of our pity and disgust. We think that to 
 fall to a lower state, was to reach that of the brute. 
 They regarded moral knowledge and modesty as an 
 enemy to human happiness and innocence, as things pro- 
 scribed and forbidden by God, and as the one source of sin, 
 evil and death ; we regard them as our most desirable 
 distinctions. They regarded labor, pain and death as due 
 to man's moral conduct and as a curse. We, on the 
 contrary, regard them as the necessary consequences of 
 our original nature and the conditions of existence, and 
 as the necessary means of human development. These 
 direct and complete mental antagonisms have produced 
 other singular, but not wholly incongruous results. In 
 assigning to the good and evil powers their respective 
 roles in the drama of the " fall," they have given them 
 the precise reverse ones to those which we should now 
 assign them. God is represented as the enemy of man's 
 progress and the foe of human knowledge of that 
 knowledge which not only we, but both God and the 
 Serpent, regard as the most godlike quality. The Ser- 
 pent advises man to acquire that godlike quality, or 
 power, and assures him, truly, that he shall not die the 
 day he eats of the forbidden fruit, but would know good
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 55 
 
 from evil like the Gods ; while God is represented as 
 falsely declaring that on the day he should eat thereof he 
 should surely die. The facts turn out as the Serpent had 
 declared, and God, forgetting or disregarding his own 
 position and declarations, is made to confirm the Serpent 
 by saying, " Behold the man is become as one of us, to 
 know good from evil," as well as by making him skin 
 garments as an improvement on his fig leaves, and per- 
 mitting him to continue to live near a thousand years 
 thereafter and people the Earth, and by driving him forth 
 into conditions and modes of life which would necessa- 
 rily compel him to still higher knowledge. Such notions 
 of God and knowledge were certainly very crude at 
 least very unlike those we should now form. God would 
 hardly be represented now as the enemy of human 
 knowledge and progress, nor" as the friend of ignorance 
 and savageism, nor as fearing that man would become 
 godlike. Upon these very views, however, are based 
 the conception of man's " fall " and degradation, with 
 all its attendant doctrines conceptions and doctrines 
 which have profoundly influenced the development and 
 destiny of Humanity. And, while it is easy to compre- 
 hend how such notions have arisen, it is still easier to 
 demonstrate, that they are the precise reverse of the 
 actual facts ; that man's history exhibits a progress and 
 not a "fall" (unless it were a fall upwards since to fall 
 lower was to cease to be human) ; and that knowledge 
 and moral insight are desirable, not detestable, achieve- 
 ments. What they call a fall, is a progress and a blessing. 
 And yet, without this fall and degradation of man, What 
 is left of Christianity ? It underlies the entire system 
 its plan of redemption and everything.
 
 56 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 The doctrine of man's 'indebtedness to God for 
 penalties for broken laws, is iipw inextricably woven 
 into the web of faith based upon the doctrine of 
 his fall and degradation ; although it would seem to 
 be of later growth. Certainly, savages have no notion 
 of such an indebtedness, nor of any relation between 
 God and man from which it could arise. What we 
 denominate their " worship " is not a proceeding for 
 paying off debts or discharging obligations to their 
 fetiches or Gods, but an act of bribery or concilia- 
 tion an effort to placate inimical spirits or win the 
 favor of bad ones by agreeable offerings or presents. 
 The addition of a sense of obligation to the Deities and 
 of sacrificial offerings in payment or discharge of our 
 indebtedness for broken obligations, only occurs after 
 the establishment of civil governments and their exac- 
 tion of tributes and penalties. It is in analogy to the 
 relation between subject and ruler and to the uniform 
 custom of rulers in converting crimes and offences 
 against their laws and sovereignty into fines and pecu- 
 niary penalties, that the religious idea and custom arises. 
 The needs and greed of princes have made them early 
 adopt this mode of punishment and exaction, and the 
 necessities and inclinations of priests have not rendered 
 them slow to follow their example. So soon as pretended 
 divine laws were resorted to, and a regular priesthood 
 was established, these exactions of tributes and penal- 
 ties from subject worshippers, for the support of the 
 priests, of the temple and of the altar, became inevitable; 
 and the idea of obligation and indebtedness would ne- 
 cessarily be superimposed upon the old idea of placatory 
 and prohibitory free-offerings and bribes to the Gods.
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 57 
 
 This process has been greatly facilitated, if not initiated, 
 by the apotheosis of great rulers and law-givers. When 
 such rulers were deified by their ignorant subjects, to 
 make the latter believe in a continuance of their ob- 
 ligations to their adored ruler and induce them to pay 
 tribute or taxes and penalties to his earthly temple or 
 altar was an easy matter. And subsequent rulers and 
 priests were alike interested in permanently establishing 
 these divine relations, laws and obligations for the pur- 
 poses of restraint, power and profit. Thus grew up the 
 conception of God being a heavenly or divine potentate 
 or King, and of man's obligations to Him, and of his in- 
 debtedness to Him for penalties for broken laws the 
 idea of debtor and creditor, and of the necessity of pay- 
 ment to the " last farthing " to prevent a vindictive phys- 
 ical or personal punishment. To tell why sensible 
 people still continue to base their religious beliefs and 
 practices upon this earth-born and grossly anthropomor- 
 phic conception of God one so childishly inappropriate 
 and so derogatory to His nature and character would 
 be to repeat a story as old as man, and one wjiich, to 
 those who know man's nature and history, or who under- 
 stand the methods 9f natural evolution, needs no rep- 
 etition or explanation. A notion or custom, once es- 
 tablished, has an indefinite lease of life. However ab- 
 surd or however modified and re-appropriated, it may 
 continue to float on through the Ages long after its 
 origin and primary significance has been forgotten, and 
 after it has ceased to find a place in the reason of its 
 acceptors.
 
 58 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 But now comes the further question Why should 
 God exact the payment of man's penalties and debts in 
 blood 1 ? Why should this senseless, cruel, Shylock cur- 
 rency have been regarded as the only equivalent for 
 what man is supposed to owe to Heaven's exchequer ? 
 Why are we told that, " without the shedding of blood 
 there is no remission of sin ? " Why should the good 
 Father of Life desire, or be gratified with, the blood and 
 vitals of His poor, suffering creatures ? Why should the 
 bloo'd of one, innocent creature, be received in satisfaction 
 of the penalties due from another, guilty creature, or in 
 any manner atone for its guilt or crimes ? Why was the 
 innocent and unstained sacrifice of Cain, wholly rejected 
 while the reeking blood-offering from the innocent, 
 slaughtered lamb of Abel was accepted ? How could, 
 or Why should, this life-blood of innocence have any 
 possible tendency to gratify or compensate the Infinite 
 God, or to punish Abel, or to atone for his sins ? Why 
 is it, that the sacrifice was, not only of the blood of one 
 innocent creature for the offences or debts of another, 
 but that the sacrificed creature must be both innocent 
 and perfect without " spot or blemish ? " This divine 
 craving for blood and the sacrifice of the innocent for the 
 deeds and debts of the guilty, is ever the most revolting 
 and incomprehensible of mysteries. The idea of even a 
 human Despot demanding blood for the sake of blood 
 as a compensation, in itself, for his claims against the 
 guilty and not as a punishment inflicted on the guilty, 
 but expressly required to be drawn from the pure and in- 
 nocent, would be too monstrous for belief. Such an idea 
 could never have originated with our present conceptions 
 of Deity. With our views, a being who would demand
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 59 
 
 that his altars should be kept streaming, from age to age, 
 with the hot life-blood of innocent and agonized men, 
 women, children and dumb brutes to pay the debts of 
 their guilty slayers, would not be a conceivable being, 
 much less a God. 
 
 Such notions, however, have had a legitimate origin 
 and normal growth, however repugnant they may now ap- 
 pear to the more enlightened and developed intelligence 
 of our times. And when we trace that origin and growth, 
 and view them as a continuous development or meta- 
 morphosis of old beliefs, our astonishment at their exist- 
 ence ceases. We shall find the origin and the first step 
 in the explanation of these notions in the early fetich- 
 istic ages. There we have already seen man endeavoring 
 to conciliate or propitiate the dreaded invisible spirits by 
 presents or offerings of vegetable food food consisting of 
 the supposed hidden life in the grain, fruits and esculents 
 thus offered them. We find in Genesis an allegorical 
 account of the fact of the transition from these vegetable 
 sacrifices or offerings to the offerings of blood. We find 
 the elder brother, Cain, still offering, like a true fetichist, 
 the products of the soil ; only, however, to be rejected ; 
 while the younger brother, Abel, having adopted the in- 
 coming notion, offers the acceptable sacrifice. As usual, 
 we find the new innovation opposed, and the first re- 
 former slain. Men of the old fetichistic phase of devel- 
 opment had grown into certain new beliefs and discarded 
 their old ones by the time they had reached the stage rep- 
 resented by Abel. They had formed more exalted 
 notions of divine and Spiritual beings .-had come to re- 
 gard them as having superior and immortal natures, and
 
 6O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 had discarded the old childish notion that all things 
 possessed a hidden conscious life or spirit, and had come 
 to confine the possession of a spirit to the animal king- 
 dom. That they still believed that all animals possessed 
 them is shown in the book of Ecclesiasticus by the query 
 " Who knoweth the soul of man that it goeth up or 
 the soul of the beast that it goeth down ? " 
 
 But, while the Abelites had risen to a conception 
 of Gods of an immortal nature, their conception did not 
 rise to the height of freeing their Gods from the desire of 
 eating and drinking or from requiring the old humoring 
 and propitiation. They still required presents and sup- 
 plications to them. But How could they offer to a spirit 
 visible food which they no longer believed to contain 
 the invisible food of Gods or Spirits ? They knew they 
 did not eat the visible parts of their offerings, for no 
 part of that ever disappeared ; and the invisible vital or 
 spiritual part they no longer regarded vegetables as pos- 
 sessing. To offer vegetables to a God, therefore, became 
 a mockery. The abandonment of the old fetichistic no- 
 tion of the existence of a hidden spirit in all things and 
 confining such existences to animals, necessarily confined 
 divine offerings, as food, to the animal kingdom, although 
 the senses of their Gods might still be regaled by the 
 real but invisible odors from sweet-savored herbs or 
 spices, and by the smoke of burning sacrifices and the 
 sight of flowers. But these changes were not all that 
 had occurred. Men had come to believe that the life, 
 anima or soul of the animal resides in the blood, or at 
 most in the blood and vitals. This transition and be- 
 lief has been general at a certain stage of development,
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 6l 
 
 as clearly appears both from history and scripture. In 
 the ninth chapter of Genesis we are told, that God ex- 
 pressly forbids man to eat blood, because, it is the life of 
 the animal (which was exclusively appropriated by God). 
 This belief, coupled with the foregoing beliefs, rendered 
 animal and human sacrifices inevitable. And, accord- 
 ingly, we find they everywhere prevailed at the appropriate 
 stage of beliefs : the Greek, the Roman, the Aztec and 
 the Jew, alike, making their altars crimson with blood 
 and odorous with spices and burning vitals, in order to 
 feast and regale their Gods ; never doubting that these 
 were palatable viands to their Gods and a " sweet savor " 
 in their nostrils. Speaking of these divine offerings, 
 Sir John Lubbock says : " They are, indeed, a stage 
 through which, in any natural process of development, 
 religion must pass. At first it is supposed that the 
 spirits actually eat the food offered them. Soon, however, 
 it would be observed that animals sacrificed didnot dis- 
 appear ; and the natural explanation would be that the 
 spirit ate the spiritual part of the victim, leaving the 
 grosser portion for his devout worshipper." 
 
 All this at once lays bare the secret of blood- offerings, 
 and explains the apparently inexplicable mystery of the 
 myth of Cain and Abel. And as the Abelites in aban- 
 doning the old fetichistic mode of feeding their Gods, 
 still retained the fetichistic idea of feeding them, so sub- 
 sequent worshippers, who had abandoned the idea of 
 feeding them altogether, did not abandon or cease to 
 pursue the old forms and methods of propitiating God by 
 sacrifices and blood -offerings, but conformed their new 
 notion of their indebtedness to God for broken laws, to
 
 62 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the old method of feeding and propitiating him, and thus 
 literally paid off God's claims in innocent blood. We 
 can understand the crude, but obsolete notions of the 
 Fetichists or Cainites and of the still less fetichistic 
 Abelites, from their respective standpoints, and can 
 understand why the Abelites should have offered as food 
 to their God the most perfect and innocent of their ani- 
 mals. It was perfectly natural and appropriate, with 
 their views and purposes. It was proper to regale his 
 God on the most perfect and pure food and of a kind 
 which was suitable to His nature. It is only after the 
 old custom and rite is continued for a wholly different 
 purpose, and with wholly different views, that the incon- 
 gruity, cruelty and irrationality of the conception and 
 procedure becomes manifest. The simple fact is, that 
 they have retained, under the pressure of a supposed 
 divine command, these ancient rites and customs and 
 adapted them to their own subsequent notions, long after 
 they had ceased to comprehend the real reasons for their 
 original adoption. Such gross incongruities and absur- 
 dities must always occur where progressive peoples are 
 compelled to endeavor to conform their new and growing 
 ideas and aspirations to ancient sacred laws and rites 
 founded upon already abandoned and forgotten notions.
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 63 
 
 SAVIOUR-IDEA. 
 
 , 'fa.\ 
 
 When men have come to regard themselves as the 
 subjects of a Divine Ruler or King to whom they are in- 
 debted for the penalties due for inherited guilt and for 
 broken laws and obligations, and to regard themselves 
 as degenerate and hopelessly insolvent and degenerating, 
 and as under the ban of divine wrath for their short- 
 comings and misdoings, they naturally turn, in their im- 
 potence, to the idea of a Saviour. The growing necessi- 
 ties of their development, and their germinating ideals 
 compel them to adopt and recognize divine laws and 
 obligations whose rigorous penalties and exactions will 
 coerce their low and ungovernable natures into subjection 
 and restraint : the rigor of the restraints and penalties 
 being determined by the requirements of their own bru- 
 tality and obstinacy. They find that, in practice, these 
 rigorous obligations cannot be met, and that their delin- 
 quencies are ever accumulating on them. The contem- 
 plation of their supposed degeneracy and impotent re- 
 trogression and the sickening contrast between what 
 they might be and ought to be and what they are be- 
 tween ideal life and real life compels them to chafe and 
 brood over their hopeless frailty, depravity and impotence, 
 and the burden of their supposed debts for transgressions 
 becomes intolerable. Their most sanguine and earnest 
 efforts to redeem themselves or others are rewarded 
 with the most disheartening results. They seem scarcely 
 to retard man's growing degeneracy, much less elevate 
 him to their ideal standard. Redden their altars as they 
 might with offerings of blood, their moral bankruptcy 
 appeared to become ever more hopelessly irretrievable.
 
 64 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Do what they might, the Race seemed to be hopelessly 
 fallen and lost, while their own lives were hurrying on, 
 like fleeting phantoms, towards death and night ! An 
 endless longing for the Better and Higher was accom- 
 panied by a despairing sense of impotence. They 
 yearned for an ideal immortality, and were met by the 
 hateful, rotting grave, and by a voiceless and rayless 
 Beyond. The aid of their priestly agents and earthly 
 intercessors was as impotent to save or redeem them as 
 their own efforts, prayers and sacrifices. Like the sick 
 and enfeebled Caesar, succumbing to the waves of the 
 Tiber, they were ready to cry " Help, Cassius, or I 
 sink," " Save, or I perish ! " 
 
 The manifestations of Nature furnished the sugges- 
 tions and analogies which gave direction and shape to 
 those human hopes and beliefs which were so necessary 
 to relieve man from the intolerable burden of his sense 
 of obligation and indebtedness and of personal imper- 
 fection and impotence so necessary to prevent indiffer- 
 ence and despair and reinspire hope and effort. The 
 life-giving and life-restoring powers of Nature were ob- 
 served to be primarily dependent upon the light and heat 
 emanating from the Sun. These appeared to descend 
 upon the earth and impregnate it, and to annually regen- 
 erate it and clothe it with new life. At the Sun's 
 annual departure the Earth put on sack cloth and ashes, 
 or draped herself in mourning : at its return she again 
 decked herself as a bride, and beneath the bright smiles
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 65 
 
 t -ji 
 
 and warm embraces of her returning Lord she again 
 teemed with joyous life. It is to the various sun-myths 
 of the different races, based upon the phenomena of 
 light, heat and the returning seasons and earthly resto- 
 rations, that we must look for the suggestion and expla- 
 nation of this Saviour-idea. The mental differences be- 
 tween the authors of the various myths and their influence 
 upon each other, coupled with other causes, produced 
 corresponding differences and combinations in the con- 
 ceptions and mythic representations of the various ages 
 and races ; but everywhere, from Old Mexico to older 
 India, men have founded their ideas and hopes of a divine 
 Saviour, or an Intermediary between Earth and Heaven, 
 upon the analogies furnished by the Sun and its revivi- 
 fying and restorative agencies and influences. Whether 
 the myths personifying these powers and agencies and 
 embodying the hopes and beliefs they inspired, would be 
 complete or fragmentary whether they would refer 
 generally to the Sun and its emanations and influences 
 or would specifically distinguish them or confound and 
 confuse them, would depend upon many considerations ; 
 but they all had their source in the same human needs 
 and aspirations and took their general features from the 
 same natural objects and analogies, whether the chief 
 hero and hope was called Apollo or Bachus, Balder or 
 Hercules, Quetzalcoatt or Chrishna. The burden of the 
 story is always the triumph of the life-giving and regen- 
 erating over the life-destroying and degrading, influences 
 of Nature, through means of the Sun or Supreme Lord 
 of Heaven or some divine Son, Logos, or emanations 
 from him. As the decaying life of the vegetable world 
 was renewed by the presence of the vernal sun and the 
 
 5
 
 66 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 on-falling of its emanations of light and heat, so many, 
 or most, men hoped and reasoned that the Divine Spirit 
 of God would egender, in some of Earth's daughters, a 
 son and saviour who should be the light and life of Hu- 
 manity, and should overcome death and the grave as 
 the Sun did its wintry death, and become the Redeemer 
 of the Race and its Intercessor with God. 
 
 These divine benefactors or Saviours are represented 
 as having brought, or as expected to bring, light, healing, 
 and blessings to man, here or hereafter. They are rep- 
 resented as the medium of man's creation and preser- 
 vation, as toiling or suffering for him, as bearing his 
 burdens and sorrows, as overcoming death and the de- 
 structive forces of Nature, and sometimes as being the 
 seed or source of life and the offspring of an earthly vir- 
 gin under the fructifying influence of the divine efful- 
 gence ; thus personifying and representing the return of 
 the life-giving Sun from its winter solstice and its re- 
 entry inttf the zodiacal sign of the Virgin, and its engen- 
 dering new life in the virgin earth, and its passing 
 through its preappointed course and labors of vitalizing 
 and regenerating the vegetable world, and its final pas- 
 sage into the death of winter, only to return again with 
 new power and glory.
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 6/ 
 
 From such developing ideals and aspirations, such 
 sense of obligation and indebtedness to God, and such 
 convictions of the degeneracy and impotence of man, 
 have men derived their belief in the need of a divine In- 
 termediator and Redeemer ; and from such analogies in 
 natural phenomena have they won the conception and 
 hope of such a divine salvation. Such beliefs are the 
 natural outgrowths of a dawning, original civilization. 
 No Savage can conceive them. No Rationalist needs 
 them. The Evolutionist already perceives that the phe- 
 nomena originating this idea of man's fall and degen- 
 eracy and of the necessity of a Saviour, are, themselves, 
 but a part of the very means and processes by which 
 man is already being self-developed, elevated and saved 
 without supernatural intervention or other causes than 
 the inherent and developing powers and proclivities of 
 his own nature acting under the pressure and induce- 
 ments furnished by the conditions of his existence ; that, 
 instead of man's needing to be saved from the knowledge 
 of evil and from labor, dissatisfaction, suffering and 
 death, these supposed curses are his blessings, and con- 
 stitute the necessary means and method of saving, purify- 
 ing and elevating him here and hereafter ; that, instead of 
 man being a bankrupt debtor to his Creator, the Divine 
 All-Father is forever exercising His beneficence and 
 discharging His own obligation to His helpless children 
 by providing for their progressive physical and psychical 
 development and their continued growth in intelligence 
 and virtue, including that ever higher knowledge of 
 good and evil which will still further assimilate them to 
 divine beings, both here and hereafter. They perceive 
 that man's mortal career is not one of ordeal and expia-
 
 68 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 tion, but one of coercive and persuasive growth and de- 
 velopment, physical and psychical. The ideas of man's 
 fall, degeneracy, and legal and moral insolvency and of 
 the existence and necessity of a divine mediator and of 
 vicarious expiation and atonement have been appropri- 
 ate, and doubtlessly necessary, means of human develop- 
 ment, but they have been provisional, and not final and 
 ultimate, conclusions. They are man's self-evolved 
 motives and stimulants to endeavor, hope and progress, 
 and when theyhave filled the measure of their usefulness 
 they will give place to higher and truer conceptions. 
 
 REVELATIONS. 
 
 Our inherited faith in divine revelations and in the 
 sanctity and infallibility of ancient religious writings is 
 another relic of an undeveloped and superstitious Past, 
 which needs explanation to our generation. Why did 
 the Jew, in common with the Parsee, Brahmin, and other 
 ancient peoples, bestow such sanctity and unreasoning 
 faith upon their primitive writings ? Why were the 
 simple precepts and crude conceptions and narratives of 
 ancient writings treated as of divine origin and of infal- 
 lible authority, to the exclusion of later and more rational 
 writings ? We answer, first, that it was by reason of
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 69 
 
 that universal habit, already noticed, of reversing the 
 order of human wisdom, knowledge and excellence, and 
 of projecting the age, venerableness and perfection of 
 the world back into its ignorant and undeveloped in- 
 fancy : and secondly, by reason of the impression of the 
 friendly intimacy of the early fathers with spirits and. 
 divine beings, derived from their own naive recitals and 
 accounts of their familiar intercourse with such divine 
 or superhuman beings. As we have said, men, who 
 are only capable of concrete thought and expression, 
 habitually and neccessarily speak and write in this 
 manner without their at all attributing special validity 
 or verity to their own utterances, or .meaning to convey 
 the idea of special and exceptional intercourse with 
 Divine or spiritual beings in the ' sense attributed to 
 them by their descendeiits. They habitually presented 
 their concrete ideas in concrete, sensuous forms in 
 parables, fables, legends, myths, allegories and other 
 figurative and narrative forms. When dreams, ideas and 
 visions were presented to their minds, they were treated 
 as actual communications from the spiritual beings from 
 whom they were supposed to emanate, whether God, 
 spirit or demon ; and were detailed as the sayings or con- 
 versations of such beings. They naively tell us of their 
 Gods talking and arguing with them, and of the honor 
 they did them by becoming the fathers of demi-Gods by 
 their wives and daughters, and of the sons of God 
 marrying the daughters of men and raising up " giants 
 of men in those days ; " probably referring to the ques- 
 tionable honor done them by some chief or king whom 
 they afterwards deified, and to the marriage of descend- 
 ants of royal or superior races with their inferiors.
 
 /O JESUS AND RELIGION 
 
 Naturally disposed to venerate and exalt, and even to 
 deify, their ancestors and their ancient and renowned 
 rulers and Priests who wrote these "sacred books," 
 men not only ignorantly misconceive the true meaning 
 of these early recitals, but strongly incline to construe 
 them favorably to the marvellous character and capacities 
 of these venerable and idealized progenitors. The 
 sacred, the supernatural and the miraculous always loom 
 up in proportion to distance and time, and in the inverse 
 ratio of rationality and intelligence. Millions of Chris- 
 tians, to-day, bow at the shrines of early saints, the 
 stories of whose lives and miracles, if told as occurring 
 now, would be laughed at in our nurseries ; while it is 
 rationally certain that, if Jesus or St. Peter were now to 
 enter one of our fashionable churches with their accus- 
 tomed dress and manner, they would be invited to back 
 seats or the gallery ; and were they to stroll through 
 the country preaching in the fields and streets against 
 the doctrines and the preachers and deacons of the 
 churches as they once did against those of popular 
 Judaism, they might deem themselves fortunate if they 
 were not arrested for vagrancy, nuisance or disturbing 
 the peace. The fathers of the later Jews had stoned the 
 very prophets which their descendants honored, while 
 they themselves stoned or maltreated those who would 
 be venerated by subsequent generations ; and certainly 
 Christians would now be even less tolerant than were 
 the Jews of new and miraculous pretensions of ignorant 
 or unlearned men, or of any miraculous pretensions 
 whatever.
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. /I 
 
 Alleged inspirations, since those attributed to the 
 early patriarchs, have several different sources. There 
 have been the designed deceptions of Priests and rulers, 
 the better to deceive or intimidate their enemies, or to 
 inspire or control their own people, as well as of the 
 well-meaning reformer, to secure the ear of the super- 
 stitious masses ; and also of charlatans and impostors to 
 dupe their victims. But there is, still further, the honest, 
 but misconstrued, visions and rhapsodies of the poet, and, 
 underlying all these, there are those arising from ignor- 
 ance and false conceptions from unintentional self-impo- 
 sition and delusion, which constitute the chief source and 
 support of the idea of inspiration. These latter, alone, 
 need seriously to engage our attention, as they constitute 
 the basis of the whole. 
 
 The men who lived thousands of years before Esqui- 
 rol was born, and from whom we derived our notions of 
 deity, spirituality and spiritual communications and rela- 
 tions, had no idea of natural diseases and derangements 
 of the brain and their control over the action of the 
 mind. Nor, indeed, had they any conception of natural 
 diseases or of natural causation of any kind, in our sense 
 of those terms. It is late before man reaches such con- 
 ceptions, still later before he recognizes the law-governed 
 character of all physical causation, and still later when 
 he applies the law of causation to mental phenomena. 
 Prior to these conceptions, men attribute all causation to 
 voluntary personal agencies. If they were sick, they 
 were being punished by God, injured by some demon, or 
 bewitched by an enemy. To such men the men, angels, 
 monstrous forms, demons and supposed Gods who visited
 
 72 . . JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 and conversed with them in dreams and visions, as well 
 as their own imaginary flights and ramblings through 
 space, paradise or pandemonium, were, all, most porten- 
 tious realities and the subjects of most anxious interpre- 
 tations. Upon them often depended the rise and fall of 
 kingdoms, dynasties and religions, as well as the fate of 
 individuals and battles. The defence of Jesus by Pilate 
 was greatly stimulated by his wife's dreams. 
 
 While men thus believed in direct, personal causation 
 by Gods, spirits, witches and demons, as well as in the 
 reality and profound significance of dreams, visions and 
 hallucinations, they also spoke and wrote of them in the 
 same sense, and as if such mental manifestations were 
 actual sensuous facts and occurrences. They had no idea 
 of purely cerebral sensations. The celebrated traveller, 
 Sir Samuel Baker, tells us, in speaking of the mental 
 modes and habits of the present Arabic descendants of 
 Abraham, that, " Should the present history of the coun- 
 try be written by an Arab scribe, the style of the de- 
 scription would.be purely that of the Old Testament, and 
 the various calamities or good fortunes that have in the 
 course of nature befallen both the tribes and individuals, 
 would be recounted either as special visitations of- Divine 
 wrath, or blessings for good deeds performed. If in a 
 dream a particular course of action is suggested, the 
 Arab believes that God has spoken and directed him. 
 The Arab scribe would describe the event as the " voice 
 of the Lord " having spoken unto the person, or that 
 " God appeared to him in a dream and said, etc." Pre- 
 cisely such language as this is used in the Jewish Scrip- 
 tures, and was written with precisely the same concep-
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 73 
 
 tions and modes of thought and expression ; and yet, 
 men who have long outgrown such mental modes, now, 
 under pressure of their superstitious reverence for 
 " The Book," accept such recitals as the inspired record 
 of literal facts. 
 
 But more potent, because more incomprehensible 
 and mysterious, than dreams, was the abnormal or disor- 
 dered waking-activities of the brain. The mental phe- 
 nomena of insanity which are now known to be the re- 
 sults of physical disease have, everywhere among ignorant 
 peoples, been treated as possessing a mysterious and awe- 
 inspiring significance and sacredness ; and an immature 
 and uninformed Reason has given to the distorted and 
 monstrous visions and the incongruous ravings of Mania 
 a credence which has been refused to the profoundest 
 Philosophy. Man not only believes* but desires to be- 
 lieve, in such mysterious utterances. He is feverish to 
 get a glimpse of the " Spirit-world " and of the Hereafter, 
 and with a perfect passion he loves mystery for the sake 
 of its mystery. His reason is too immature and his 
 knowledge too imperfect to lift the veil from the face of 
 Nature or to grasp her designs from her manifestations 
 and processes, but his desires and imaginations, leaping 
 all barriers, act as temporary substitutes for knowledge ; 
 and all doors fly wide before the " open sesame " of 
 dreams and visions, and Somnia and Mania walk hand- 
 in-hand through the Infinite, alike defying the limita- 
 tions of Time, Space and Reason. This is what man
 
 74 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 longs to do in reality, and for the knowledge and facts 
 he would thus acquire, he greedily accepts any and every 
 attainable substitute, however wildly extravagant or 
 absurdly impossible. Reason having failed to satisfy his 
 longings, he not only ignores, but overrides it. Men who 
 believe in special inspirations find the professed or sup- 
 posed explorers and revealers of the " Unknown," to be 
 exceptional men, who, in exceptional states and in an 
 exceptional manner, give descriptions and utterances 
 which are equally exceptional, and which are often wildly 
 incoherent, absurdly incongruous, or Dephically obscure. 
 They gradually observe, that invisible beings do not seek, 
 as their medium of communication, natural, common- 
 sense, practical people, but habitually avoid them in 
 favor of the opposite and exceptional classes ; and that 
 natural, common-sense people never think, speak or act 
 like these mysterious mediums and prophets. They 
 learn that it is only when the man is " not himself " or 
 " not at himself " that these mysterious dramas are per- 
 formed in his brain, only when he is maundering in a 
 trance, convulsed with excitement, or pouring forth the 
 wild visions engendered by the rigors of asceticism, 
 only when his friends can no longer recognize in his 
 words and acts his old or accustomed Self, only when 
 some new and strange spirit seemed to possess him and 
 to have usurped control over his mental action and iden- 
 tity, in short, only when he seems to be either " posses- 
 sed of a devil " or filled or occupied by some holier ghost 
 or Spirit. Believing, as they do, in the universal and 
 exclusively voluntary causation, such men naturally con- 
 clude that, when an entirely or manifestly different spirit 
 is exhibited by a person, there must be another spirit
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. /5 
 
 actually possessing his body and acting in place of his 
 own. They never thought of looking for the cause of 
 his strange and altered mental action in his own 
 bodily disorders and changes. It was, of course, some 
 other good or evil spirit which had " entered into " and 
 " possessed him," and acted through his organs. 
 
 Here, then, in this belief in the supernatural origin 
 of the dreams' and the feverish visions and hallucinations 
 of the morbid mind, we perceive clearly the cause and 
 origin of -the whole doctrine and belief of " devil pos- 
 session " and " special revelations." The thoughts of 
 the " possessed " or " inspired " person were expressed 
 through his body, but they emanated from, and were con- 
 trolled by, Gods or Spirits from the " other world ; " and, 
 of course, spirits from the " other world," knew all 
 about that other world and the future. When they 
 spoke through a human medium, the only question to be 
 determined by the hearer was, whether the author of the 
 thought and language was a good or an evil spirit 
 whether they came from a heavenly and truthful spirit 
 or from a demoniac and deceptive one. Upon the 
 decision of this question would depend the conclusion as 
 to whether the man was " devil possessed " or " divinely 
 inspired " a truthful prophet and revelator or an unreli- 
 able one. These morbid mental manifestations had 
 become, no longer the results of ideas put into men's 
 minds by God, and which were common to all men, 
 but were the direct action of the divine or diabolical 
 spirits who had taken control of their bodies and organs. 
 The more incomprehensible, unnatural and unmanlike 
 they were, the more certain they were to have come
 
 76 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 from superhuman sources. The more mysterious they 
 were, the more ominous they became, and the more 
 appropriate to the invisible and mysterious beings of the 
 unknown realms of mystery. Mystery and occult mean- 
 ing were then regarded as evidences of divinely aided 
 wisdom, and their highest intellectual achievements were 
 expressed in riddles, even where the mental manifesta- 
 tions were normal. To get their ideas couched in sym- 
 bols so obscure as to puzzle the minds of the most acute 
 interpreters, was an achievement only excelled by 
 the utterly uninterpretable utterances and visions of the 
 insane,- (that is, of the Spirits " possessing " them). 
 Even those prophets by profession, who were not insane, 
 generally affected the mysterious and bizarre forms and 
 visions of the " possessed." It would not do for proph- 
 ets to talk like ordinary mortals. That their mystic 
 utterances could never be interpreted, or that none 
 could ever know whether they were rightly interpreted 
 or not, instead of consigning them to the limbo of Non- 
 sense, added the highest guaranty of their superhuman 
 origin and value. Their utility was even heightened by 
 the fact of their inexplicability ; since every man could 
 interpret them to suit himself, and they thus become 
 exhaustless sources of hope and comfort to successive 
 generations, however widely differing in their several in- 
 terpretations. Not only was this mystic obscurity 
 acknowledged and admired, but it was claimed, even by 
 the Apostles, that they were not of " private interpreta- 
 tion," but required an inspired interpreter whose powers 
 were a gift of the Holy Ghost. So that, those for whom 
 these divine communications were intended could, not 
 only not know what they meant, but could neither know
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. // 
 
 whether their utterers were inspired prophets or design, 
 ing impostors, nor determine whether their professedly, 
 inspired interpreters were really inspired and truly inter- 
 preted them or not. Thus even Ignorance is self-helpful, 
 and draws the most wonderful comfort from conclusions 
 still more wonderful. But what a boundless and open 
 field for imposture, fraud and charlatanism ! 
 
 All the great religions have had their supernatural 
 origin, their divine books, and their inspired teachers, 
 authors and prophets, and each has claimed that those 
 of all the others are mere impositions, and that it, alone, 
 was the sole depository of the divine word and sole me- 
 dium of the divine favor. About the claims ot each other, 
 they reason right well, considering ; but about their own 
 pretensions their - reason is silent. Each appeals to a 
 long record of undoubted miracles to establish its pre- 
 tensions, and yet denounces an equal list of similar 
 miracles, similarly proved, that are vouched by each of 
 the others. Thus each is proved to be an imposture by 
 all the others, and each overthrows its own pretensions 
 by its assaults upon the similar, and similarly-proved, 
 pretensions of all the rest ! If the assertion of ancient 
 records and traditions are infallible, then each has a 
 firm basis ; if not, then neither has. 
 
 The inestimable virtue and most striking peculiarity 
 of all sacred and inspired books consists in the wholly 
 exceptional fact, that they prove themselves, and are thus
 
 78 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 self-sustaining and labor-saving. By a process outside 
 the domain of Reason they prove their sacred infalli- 
 bility by their inspiration, and when asked for proof of 
 their inspiration, they offer their own sacred and infalli- 
 ble assertion. The circle is as short as it is complete 
 and convenient. 
 
 The peculiar theological value of most prophecy 
 consists in its bein'g incapable of refutation from its 
 very incomprehensibility, as well as in its capability of 
 confirming or refuting any theory by its indefiniteness, 
 obscurity and flexibility. It is an india-rubber cloak that 
 will fit any form from that of a Hottentot to a High- 
 lander, with either end up or either side out. Christians 
 in the first century were tremblingly awaiting the proph- 
 esied end of the world : they are waiting still charming 
 perspicuity ! 
 
 The total absurdity of specifically foretelling the 
 future, of reversing the law of causation and the nat- 
 ural modes of Being, or of giving absolute sanctity and 
 infallibility to anything ever written by human hands 
 or in human language, would seem sufficiently palpable 
 to drive all such conceptions from the rank of intelligent 
 beliefs. The future never exists. Being exists in the 
 ever-evolving, transforming, and becoming Present. 
 What particular forms it may assume or evolve, and what 
 special modes or forms of motion it may inaugurate or 
 change, in the endless succession of momentarily-becom- 
 ing presents, must depend, at every change, upon the 
 existing facts and efficiencies. To predict a non-existent 
 fact, therefore, it is necessary to know all the present and
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 79 
 
 intervening causes, conditions, modes, laws and processes 
 to be involved in its production. In the absence of the 
 actual facts and realities to be known and of the neces- 
 sary knowledge to rationally deduce them, man could, by 
 no possibility, know them. The highest evidence -which 
 he could ever claim to have, would be some effect or 
 effects produced in his own mind, which purported to be, 
 or which he supposed to be, representative or indicative 
 of the coming fact. There would be no existing fact or 
 reality to which his mind could representatively respond. 
 The entire facts concerned would consist of his own 
 internally-originated and exclusively subjective mental' 
 impressions and manifestations. At most, the whole 
 matter would consist of the man's own visions or dreams 
 the actions of his own mind. But what is the value 
 of his own dreams and mental visions, even to himself, 
 much more to others ? And, Who is to determine that 
 value ? and, How are they to determine it ? These are 
 the questions. Men may dream dreams, eat themselves 
 into nightmares, starve themselves into visions, or have 
 morbid illusions ; but what of it ? After all, they 'are, 
 and can be, nothing but one man's dreams, visions, 
 illusions and nightmares. But why should any such 
 mental manifestations of any one man be regarded as 
 anything more than what they are ? Why give any 
 dream or vision a significance beyond the fact that it is 
 a dream or vision, or give one man's dream or vision a 
 greater significance, sacredness or credence than an- 
 other's ? 
 
 When men believed that their inclinations and every 
 new or strange idea they had were communicated to
 
 8O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 their minds by some God or spirit, and were controlled 
 and changed by such unseen agencies at their pleasure, 
 or when they believed that such invisible spirits entered 
 into persons and there usurped and performed the offices 
 of their own spirits or minds, we can understand how 
 such men could believe in either the spiritual or divine 
 origin or inspiration of men's ideas and visions. We 
 can understand, also, that after a people have ceased to 
 believe in the divine or spiritual origin of the generality 
 of man's ideas and inclinations, they might continue to 
 believe in such an origin under peculiar conditions or in 
 special cases. We can see how men believing in such 
 spiritual influences, and knowing nothing of natural in- 
 sanity, would very naturally conclude that such influences 
 were in actual operation where the mental action was 
 especially singular and strange, or where it was clearly 
 unlike the original and known mental modes and actions 
 of the persons affected, and would imagine them " pos- 
 sessed " by a foreign spirit. What else could\\\vy_ believe ? 
 
 But How men who know the natural physical causes 
 of these exceptional mental manifestations, and who 
 know that the men who promulgated the doctrines of 
 prophecy and inspiration had no such knowledge, can 
 still maintain the sacredness and infallibility of their 
 writings and declarations, is not so rationally compre- 
 hensible. The very same phenomena which were treated 
 as witchcraft, or as spiritual or devil "possession" or 
 " inspiration " or as inspired dreams, visions or proph- 
 esies, would not now be considered as such, were they 
 to occur in our day. Why then do we solemnly recog- 
 nize them as such, simply because they were so treated
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 8 1 
 
 by early and ignorant men who knew no better who 
 were ignorant of the facts and laws which make us view 
 the same facts and occurrences as natural and law- 
 governed phenomena ? With their childish knowledge 
 and beliefs, their conclusions were natural and legitimate. 
 With ours, they are childish and impossible. With a 
 primitive world of Scientists such a thing as witchcraft, 
 inspiration, prophecy or " devil possession " would never 
 have been heard of. 
 
 If we did not know, indeed, the almost resistless 
 potency and vitality of hereditary beliefs, and the super- 
 stitious, reverence and fears they impose upon the human 
 mind, we should be at a loss to conceive, independent of 
 scientific refutation, how men entertaining the concep- 
 tions of God and his attributes, as we now do, could give 
 a moment's credit to the idea of a special divine revela- 
 tion of any kind. If it were not impossible, from the 
 very nature of our intelligence and mental action, that 
 they could be produced in any but the natural methods, 
 it would only be because even contradictions and im- 
 possibilities are possible to God and consistent with 
 His nature and methods. If, therefore, God could ac- 
 tually will the action of man's mind, and put ideas into 
 His head by a mere act of volition of his own mind, it 
 could only be because nothing whatever is impossible to 
 Him ; and, in that case, He could as easily will one man 
 to know the truth as another, or to will all men to know 
 it as to will one to know it. What conceivable reason, 
 then, can be assigned for His not doing so for His 
 communicating to a few, what was intended and necessary 
 for all ? Why did he communicate His will to one man 
 
 6
 
 82 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 in one country and of one language and one race, when the 
 matter involved the eternal happiness or misery of all men 
 everywhere ; and thereby make the salvation or damna- 
 tion of the whole Human Race depend, not only upon the 
 dreams and visions of one man or a few men, but upon 
 the "say so" of such selected individuals as to both the 
 fact and nature of their dreams, or upon the varied and 
 conflicting interpretations of them by other people ? 
 Why not, in like manner, reveal to each man what He 
 desired him to know ? For another man to tell us that 
 God had revealed His purposes to him, is no revelation 
 to us. At most it is but his assertion and interpretation 
 of his own mental manifestations. Why communicate 
 his will, even to the few, in dreams and visions, when 
 the experience and reason of mankind would ultimately 
 be compelled to discard all dreams and visions as not 
 only insecure, but worthless evidence for any purpose, 
 save as to the state of the dreamer's own health, or 
 bodily or mental condition ? Why should God, not only 
 select methods of communication which are of all others 
 the most obscure and worthless, but also shape these into 
 symbols or riddles which utterly defy all assured inter- 
 pretation ? Why give us evidence which Reason re- 
 jects as worthless, and give even that worthless evidence 
 in a form which required another inspired man to inter- 
 pret it, and thus compel us to trust both the mere " say 
 so" of the interpreter and the " say so " of the dreamer 
 about evidence which an informed reason necessarily re- 
 jects as worthless even when directly communicated ? 
 Why, again, give evidence so liable to misconstruction, 
 to misconceptions, to misinterpretations, falsehoods, 
 frauds and impostures, and which is worthless in its very
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 83 
 
 nature, to unknown men, in unknown lands, in the misty 
 ages of ignorance and superstition, for the purpose of 
 convincing and informing men living in remote coun- 
 tries and in the remote future, instead of giving it direct 
 to the men themselves ? Why cause mysterious dreams 
 and visions to float through the brain of a Jew on the 
 banks of the Jordan for the purpose of informing men 
 living on the Ohio or Amazon amidst the wilds of a 
 continent which was to remain undiscovered for three 
 thousand years, instead of making the Indian dream for 
 himself ? Nay, worse still, Why did He also cause the 
 Indian to dream like dreams .and see like visions and 
 make like prophesies, which he also believed as the Jew 
 believed his, and for the same reasons, and then damn 
 the Indian for not believing the dreams and stories of 
 the unknown Jew, (after they had come down to him 
 through so many dark ages of superstition and so many 
 different languages and conflicting translations and in- 
 terpretations,) instead of believing his own ? Why did 
 God give to man no power save his own reason, to test 
 and determine truth and thus protect himself from 
 error, fraud and imposition, and then make his eternal 
 happiness or eternal punishment depend upon evidences 
 the truth of which he not only had no power of ration- 
 ally testing and determining, but which his reason 
 must inevitably reject with a certainty and vigor exactly 
 proportioned to his growth, freedom and enlightenment ? 
 
 Or, again, if dreams and visions ever come from God, 
 Why not all dreams and visions come from Him ? If 
 they do not all come from Him, How are we to deter- 
 mine, even among our own dreams which are from God
 
 84 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 and which are not ? Or, if one man's dreams and vis- 
 ions are better than another's, How are we to determine 
 which is the true and which the false ? Shall we deter- 
 mine by the character of the dream, or that of the 
 dreamer ? And who, in either case, is to guaranty the 
 infallibility of our own judgments ? If we are to judge by 
 the character of the dream, we have no criterion to judge 
 by, and shall find them determined and characterized by 
 the dreamer's own health, state and condition. If we 
 attempt to judge by the character of the dreamer or Seer 
 himself, we find ourselves without either the requisite 
 proof or the requisite capacity to do it, and without 
 the slightest means of knowing the requisite qualifica- 
 tions for a safe dreamer ; unless, indeed, we accept the 
 old notion that a man is divinely inspired when he is 
 especially incomprehensible and unhuman, and is in- 
 sanely wild and obscure. If we are to credit the belief 
 or assertion of the prophet or dreamer himself, we are at 
 the mercy of every self-deluded enthusiast, lunatic or 
 impostor who approaches us, and must accept the absurd 
 and conflicting utterances and pretensions of the whole. 
 For impostors and lunatics alike claim inspiration. If 
 we attempt to determine any of these matters by reason, 
 we appeal to an arbiter which inflexibly rejects the 
 whole. Men, led in blind and trembling subjection to 
 their hereditary notions, dare not ask themselves whether 
 a beneficent and just God, who had the power to make 
 every man know the truth for himself, would make all 
 men, of all time, depend for their salvation or damnation 
 upon their belief in, and obedience to, information based 
 upon evidence of such a character, alleged to have been 
 given to unknown men of unknown times, in remote
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 85 
 
 lands, and transmitted in an alleged record abounding 
 in manifest ignorance, errors, alterations, forgeries, self- 
 contradictions, pretended miracles, witchcrafts and other 
 discarded superstitions a record which itself declares 
 its essential doctrine a " stumbling block " to the very 
 people to whom the divine communication was sent, and 
 to be " foolishness " to the wisest of the then living 
 peoples, and to have been designedly hidden- from the 
 " wise and prudent " by God Himself, and to have been 
 " revealed unto babes,"" and promulgated by ignorant 
 men by the " foolishne'ss of preaching ; " and which its 
 believers, in all ages, have admitted to be based upon 
 mysteries which are not only incomprehensible and in 
 absolute conflict with, human reason, but which utterly 
 defy human conception a record which has engendered 
 about a thousand distinct and conflicting sects, and an 
 incalculable number of conflicting individual intrepreta- 
 tions ; whose existing copies of the New Testament, 
 alone, are acknowledged to present some 25000 differ- 
 ences, about 2000 of which are acknowledgly of moment 
 a record which both itself and its believers admit that 
 no man can have the faith it requires unless it be GIVEN 
 to him by an act of God, and that its prophecies require 
 an inspired interpreter a record which has not, after 
 the lapse of nineteen centuries, reached one-half of the 
 human race, which has not been efficiently embraced by 
 one-twentieth of them, and which has never been under- 
 stood by one ! Dare we really think, and yet believe that 
 this is the method which the Divine Father and good 
 God would take to communicate His will to His igno- 
 rant children, and then damn them if they did not or 
 could not believe them, or for not knowing them at all
 
 86 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 for being among the nations that forgot God ? If 
 God had racked -His infinite wisdom through eons of 
 ages in examining the methods and ways calculated to 
 convince and assure human reason, could He have found 
 a better way " how not to do it ? " Is it not a blasphemy 
 to charge it upon God ? Are we to make the absurd 
 excuse, that " God's ways are not like man's ways ? " If 
 God's ways differ from man's, they can only differ in 
 their superior rationality and perfection, not in their inef- 
 ficiency, irrationality, incongruity, inconsistency and 
 absurdity. What God really purposed has been actually 
 accomplished, and, for those ends, the means have been 
 efficient, rational and perfect. To produce the desired 
 results in man, such as he has been, the exactly right 
 and necessary means and methods have been used. 
 Those means and their results, thus far, are open to in- 
 vestigation ; but the ultimate end and purpose they in- 
 volve must be won from reason and the whole course of 
 the facts themselves, and not from the temporary and 
 specific desires and dreams of undeveloped and ignorant 
 men. The whole facts indicate, that the divine end and 
 purpose was the physical and psychical development of 
 man by the inherent powers and proclivities of his own 
 nature, acting under the influence of the conditions of 
 his existence ; in short, by natural self-evolution. This 
 has been accomplished, and by means rationally and 
 actually calculated to produce the purposed end. The 
 fact is. that the purpose, whatever it was, had reference 
 to man and to his mind and action, and the ways and 
 means had to be such, not as would apply to God or 
 some other being " whose ways are past finding out," 
 but such as would produce the desired effects upon ig-
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 8/ 
 
 norant and feeble man, by his own ways. Men have 
 erred in assuming God's purposes, or gathering them 
 from their own, or other's, dreams and desires, and then 
 attempting to reconcile them with their own false or 
 imperfect notions of the facts, instead of first ascertain- 
 ing the facts as produced by God's actual means and 
 methods, and then determining His purposes by the pro- 
 gressive course, order and results of His operations. 
 The truth is, that if God's purposes were those assigned 
 to Him by our popular religion, His means and methods 
 have not only been irrational failures, but were neces- 
 sarily doomed to be such by the facts of Nature. No 
 reliable information can be communicated, to all peoples 
 of all generations, in human language, whether written 
 or spoken. The diversity of human languages, their 
 vagueness and uncertainty and their incompetency from 
 incompleteness, as well as their constant changes from 
 generation to generation, and the impossibility of perfect 
 translations from one language into another, would ren- 
 der the propagation and continuance of clear and definite 
 communications impossible, even if they were such to 
 the minds of the inspired medium. This objection, 
 alone, is fatal to such methods. 
 
 A very fair illustration of the perspicuity and 'practical 
 value of inspiration and prophecy may be seen by the 
 absurd general results of the whole scriptural prophecies 
 concerning the end of the World, already alluded to, 
 and concerning the Christ, as exhibited by the beliefs
 
 88 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 and histories of the Jews and Christians. The Jew has 
 waited, through thousands of years of suffering and 
 slavery, for the coming of their prophesied Messiah, and 
 still wait on. The Christian, basing his creed upon the 
 same Messiah and the same prophecies, stakes his hopes 
 of salvation and of escape from hell upon the fact that 
 this same prophesied Christ came into the world and 
 saved it near 2000 years ago, and have, from age to age, 
 ever since, been anxiously looking for his prophesied 
 " second coming " and the end of the world. The Jews 
 actually saw and knew the man the Christians now 
 worship as the promised Jewish Messiah and Saviour, 
 and denounced him as an impostor and traitor; and, 
 finally, had him ignominiously executed as a criminal in 
 the midst of thieves : the Christians worship him as 
 Christ and God. And yet, each clings to the infallibility 
 of the inspired word and the truth of the prophecies 
 upon which they both depend. What a safe and reliable 
 light to guide Humanity ! What an infallible assurance 
 for the salvation of the Race and for the hopes of the 
 world ! What God-like precision, perspicuity and prac- 
 tical efficiency ! 
 
 MIRACLES. 
 
 Of a piece with the old notions of the reality of reve- 
 lations and dreams, and woven from the same materials 
 as witchcraft and devil-possession, is the belief in mir- 
 acles ; and like them, also, it has ceased to be realizable 
 to the modern mind, and is fast fading out of the list of 
 possible credibilities. If the present belief were at all 
 the product of modern reason, or was in any manner
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 89 
 
 dependent upon it, the very idea of miracles would long 
 since have been discarded. There is the same Scrip- 
 tural authority, and equal reason, for the truth of the dis. 
 carded and despised beliefs in dreams, sorcery, charms 
 and devil-possession as there is for inspiration and mir- 
 acles ; and yet these have fallen into utter contempt, 
 while the latter beliefs still maintain a certain hold upon 
 the popular mind. The Protestant World carry their 
 inconsistency still further, and credit the miracles ante- 
 rior to the close of the Apostolic Age, and there end the 
 " age of miracles " rejecting modern miracles even of 
 Christian origin. Why is it that Protestants, then, cling 
 to these beliefs while discarding equally rational and 
 Scriptural ones of the same brood ? Or, still stronger, 
 why do they discard all miracles and prophecies, save 
 the ancient ones ? If miracles could exist in one age, 
 they could exist in all ages, and there is certainly as 
 much proof and reason to sustain the discarded miracles 
 as the retained ones ; and there is greater need of proof 
 of Christian divinity than ever before. The Scripture 
 makes no intimation of such a distinction, but assures us 
 that the power to perform these various wonders should 
 continue to follow the Church and verify its divine origin 
 and support be in fact the test and passport of true 
 believers. The evidence supporting many modern Cath- 
 olic and even Morman miracles is much more legitimate 
 and plausible than that upon which the Scriptural mir- 
 acles rest. Nothing but the assumed infallibility of the 
 assertions and recitals of the New Testament gives its 
 miracles their asserted superiority. But the same sanc- 
 tity and infallibility is also thrown around witchcraft, 
 devil-possession and other kindred errors, while witch-
 
 9O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 craft has also the support of hundreds of thousands of 
 judicial decisions rendered upon sworn testimony, among 
 them those of our own New England tribunals. There 
 must be some potent cause for this palpable inconsist- 
 ency a cause which it is by no means difficult to com- 
 prehend. 
 
 Men who have acquired a clear conception of natural, 
 law-governed causation, would never form the idea of 
 miracles ; nor would the more modern mind have accepted 
 it, had it not been an inheritance from our ancestors 
 transmitted under the almost resistless executorship of 
 the Church, aided by the coercive terrors of both tem- 
 poral and eternal punishment and by the force of ven- 
 eration, education and custom, and also fostered by the 
 hopes and promises of future happiness and by man's 
 aspirations for immortal life. This whole class of beliefs 
 is alien to the rational thought of our Time is in conflict 
 with our intelligence. They can only be accepted by a 
 blind faitJi, under the pressure of motives, and in defiance 
 of reason. And as they do not originate with, or rest 
 upon, our reason, they are not at all dependent upon it 
 for their support, and therefore cannot be directly over- 
 thrown by it. To even an enlightened Christian, of our 
 day, the suspension or reversal of the natural laws and 
 efficiencies of the Universe and the very fact of either 
 arbitrary and lawless volition or lawless causation, any- 
 where, are incomprehensible. He can only accept them 
 as mysteries transcending his powers of conception and 
 contradicting his rational convictions. The motives for 
 their acceptance are so strong as to make him accept 
 them, although he cannot see how it is possible for them
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 9! 
 
 to exist. Science and Reason have shown him their im- 
 possibility, but both have failed to go further and also 
 furnish him the desired substitute for the cherished 
 theory which propounds and rests upon these assailed be- 
 liefs. They have rationally undermined the basis of his 
 hopes, but they leave unsatisfied the fundamental and 
 resistless life-aspiration of the Soul, which Christianity 
 lamely fosters and feeds. They have demonstrated the 
 insecurity of the Christian haven, but they have neither 
 furnished a new anchor, nor pointed to a new port. 
 They have offered the soul only negation and doubt ; 
 a food upon which it cannot live. For the masses, any 
 hope is better than none, even if it be a delusive one. 
 It is only the exceptional Soul that can continue to live 
 in the vacuum of Negation. It is not wonderful, there- 
 fore, that the conquests of Reason and Science have 
 failed to be commensurate with their intellectual tri- 
 umphs. It was natural that men should have jealously 
 resisted every attack threatening the authority which 
 had signed and sealed their own title-deeds to immortal- 
 ity, and had given them their coveted assurance of a 
 Divine Redeemer and a protecting God. Their title- 
 deeds may be illegitimate, but they constitute the only 
 title offered. It was only inch by inch that they yielded 
 their outposts such as dreams, devil-possession, witch- 
 craft, and modern prophecy and miracles. They felt 
 that every scriptural belief they yielded weakened the 
 sanctity and authority of their title-deed. Under the 
 full pressure of rational and scientific demonstrations, 
 they have gradually abandoned such of their irrational 
 beliefs as were not deemed absolutely necessary to their 
 faith. But to abandon, the inspiration and the miracu-
 
 92 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 lous gifts of the very founders of their faith, was to yield 
 the very foundations of their entire pretensions. It is 
 for this reason that these beliefs have survived all their 
 kindred. It is here, then, on the "ragged edge" of Ne- 
 cessity, that Protestantism has taken its last and unten- 
 able stand : a position more advanced, but less logical 
 and consistent, than that of the Catholic. They have 
 yielded too much not to yield more. A blind faith in 
 an infallible authority once abandoned, there is no per- 
 manent foot-hold or rest for an irrational creed. 
 
 No enlightened Protestant can disguise to himself 
 the fact that, not only these old bible-beliefs have been 
 abandoned or become untenable, but that the very basis 
 and fundamental beliefs upon which our popular Faith 
 rests, such as the " creation byjiat;" the doctrines of 
 " original sin and condemnation ; " of man's primitive 
 purity and his fall and degradation from his " high es- 
 tate ; " of his utter depravity and hopeless indebtedness 
 to God for penalties incurred, and the- necessity for a 
 divine blood-offering as a vicarious atonement, or pay- 
 ment and discharge of the debts and penalties due from 
 Humanity ; of salvation by the mere act of having a 
 blind faith in that which is in itself rationally incredible 
 and impossible of belief save by a divine " enabling 
 act ; " and the doctrine of a hell and endless punishment, 
 are all growing, or have already grown, too palpably 
 erroneous and unrealizable for continued belief. The 
 consciousness of this fact is being manifested, almost
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 93 
 
 every day, in the higher Protestant writings and teach- 
 ings. It has become next to impossible for an honest 
 and informed mind to resist or evade the proofs that 
 man has developed from a savage state instead of having 
 fallen from a semi-angelic one that he has, in fact, pro- 
 gressed instead of retrograded. And yet, if this old doc- 
 trine of " the fall " be a mistake, the infallibility of the 
 sacred record and the whole fabric of Christian theology 
 vanishes at once. For the reasons already given, and for 
 those alone, is the doctrine of miracles now supported in 
 any form ; and that support would cease, at least so far 
 as Protestants are concerned, the moment Rationalism 
 can furnish a rational hope of a God and immortality. 
 
 It is easy to understand how " Moses and the proph- 
 ets," as well as the Apostles, could believe in miracles. 
 With their conceptions of causation and of God, it was 
 not only rationally possible, but quite natural and con- 
 sistent, for them to entertain such beliefs. There was 
 no such mental inconsistency involved in their beliefs 
 no such conflict with their reason as there is in the case 
 of men who comprehend natural law and natural causa- 
 tion. A miracle to them was not at all what it is to us. 
 It was neither a suspension, nor reversal of the " laws of 
 Nature," nor a disregard of natural causation ; since 
 they had no knowledge of the existence of either. The 
 very idea which constitutes a miracle to us, was impos- 
 sible to them. To them, it was not an incomprehensible
 
 94 JESUS 'AND RELIGION. 
 
 or unnatural procedure. It neither required nor intro- 
 duced any new kind of agency or power ; nor any new, 
 or even unusual, mode of causation ; nor was it even 
 confined to an exercise of divine power. They believed, 
 as has been said, that there was but one kind of causa- 
 tion, and that was the one which we now regard miracu- 
 lous, namely : personal and voluntary causation. They 
 regarded even the ordinary course of Nature as the 
 result of the Divine Will. The Earth and all things had 
 been willed into being by God's 'volition, and still existed 
 and acted by His will. He held them as in the "hollow 
 of his hand," and could change the capricious will by 
 which they had always moved and existed, to suit his 
 mere pleasure and arbitrary purpose ; and often did so 
 at the solicitation of his favorites. They could hear or 
 read without surprise that God had expressly raised up 
 Pharaoh and hardened his heart to act as he did, to show 
 the direct and complete divine agency and rule of God 
 in, and over, all things, even over kings and over the 
 very minds, dispositions and specific feelings, thoughts 
 and actions of men. The only thing worthy of note, to 
 them, in God's stopping the Sun to please Joshua and to 
 give him ampler time to slaughter his adversaries, was 
 not in the fact or nature of the act, but in the extent of 
 the divine favor and condescension thus shown to His 
 Jewish favorite. Beyond this, it had no special signifi- 
 cance. God could as easily and as consistently stop the 
 Sun as to keep it going : it was but a mere act of chang- 
 ing a capricious will. They did not confine this power 
 over natural objects to their Creator, but believed that 
 other spirits, good and bad, had a like power, subject to 
 the overruling power of the Omnipotent, to control
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 95 
 
 nature and even to change the original or accustomed 
 order established and maintained by God's will, and to 
 thus thwart the divine purposes. They supposed that 
 these divine and spiritual beings could either take pos- 
 session, and act through, mortal bodies, or could delegate 
 their powers over nature to human beings, and imagined 
 that the persons so favored by gods or demons could 
 exert these superhuman powers in the name and by the 
 authority of their principals. The devil and his imps, 
 and the magicians who worked by their power and ap- 
 pointment, could perform rs unquestionable miracles as 
 those of God's favorites. The feats claimed to be mir- 
 acles were supposed to be merely superhuman, not 
 supernatural ; and men who could perform feats of 
 thaumaturgy or of hidden knowledge or skill which were 
 beyond the comprehension or skill of the observers, were 
 supposed to work by the power of some divine or demo- 
 niac spirit : that is, by miraculous or invisible agencies. 
 Miracle-working was the exertion of spiritual power 
 through human agency. The only question of doubt or 
 difficulty was as to the source and extent of the power ; 
 chiefly, whether it were from Heaven or from Hell. 
 The rod of the Egyptian priests worked miracles, only 
 Aaron's rod worked greater. The early Christians no 
 more doubted the miracles of Simon Magus than they 
 did those of Simon Peter ; and Jesus himself acknowl- 
 edged the presence and power of devils as freely as he 
 claimed the power from a still higher spiritual source to 
 " cast them out " of the devil-possessed, and to o'ermaster 
 them ; while the Jews, without caring to deny or ques- 
 tion his powers; charged him with being possessed of a 
 devil himself and with working by the power of Beelze-
 
 96 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 bub the prince of devils. Beyond the possible utility 
 of a supposed miracle, such as that of healing, the value 
 of miracles consisted in their supposed proof of their 
 worker's mission or claims of his speaking and acting 
 for a higher power. The special wonder and honor at- 
 tending even the " works " of Jesus were not on account 
 of the miraculousness of the power exercised, but on 
 account of its supposed and asserted divine origin. The 
 world was then full of conceded miracle-workers, but 
 Jesus, for a while, excited special attention by his pecu- 
 liar acts and claims, and crowds flocked around him, 
 the sick to be healed, the Jew to inspect the person, and 
 test the pretensions of their pretended Messiah. 
 
 It is clear, from the facts stated, that the men of 
 those early times did not so much err from their failure 
 to reason, or from their false reasoning, as they did from 
 their false conceptions and lack of knowledge concern- 
 ing all causation. From their own false premises they 
 reasoned well enough, and were consistent enough. 
 Men of our day, however, can claim no such consistency 
 and rationality in accepting their conclusions while re- 
 jecting their premises. The utter falsity of the notions 
 concerning causation upon which those early men 
 founded their belief in miracles is now conceded ; and 
 logic and consistency required that we should have 
 abandoned their conclusions when we discarded their 
 premises. It has certainly become manifest to all un- 
 biased, competent minds, that the causative power or
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 97 
 
 evolutive energy of the Universe is indestructible and 
 persistent, and that, under every set of circumstances 
 and conditions, it is definite and unalterable in character 
 and amount, and must, of necessity, prove adequate to 
 produce equivalent and definite results in certain law- 
 governed modes ; in short, that the Universe is a unique, 
 interdependent whole, evolving and moving by persistent 
 and definite energies or natural causes or efficiencies, 
 and in obedience to natural, universal and unchangeable 
 laws. These new unquestionable facts render miracles 
 an impossibility. To my own mind it is equally apparent 
 and conclusive, from the known facts, that the tenden- 
 cies and energies or efficiencies by which all known 
 Being is moved and guided, are inherent in itself ; that 
 the Universe is self-efficient, self-supporting, self-intelli- 
 gent, self-evolving and self-guiding ; and that no Being 
 is, or can be, moved by either a foreign or outside will 
 or energy, or be governed by the inclinations, prefer- 
 ences, laws, or modes of existence or action of another 
 Being. 
 
 But there are still other considerations which are 
 fatal to miracles. If God had really created the Universe, 
 and willed and controlled all its movements, as is con- 
 tended by the real believers in miracles, still, God, hav- 
 ing the attributes they now claim for Him, neither could, 
 nor would, think, will, or act capriciously or changeably ; 
 nor could, or would, He create anything that could do so, 
 or that could act counter to His own will, desire and 
 purpose. God would necessarily have some natural 
 mode of being, thinking and acting and some definite 
 nature and proclivities of His own, and these would 
 necessarily be persistent and perfect in themselves and 
 
 7
 
 98 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 definite in their character, laws and modes of manifes- 
 tation under every contingency, and not double, 
 doubtful or variable. This much would be an a priori 
 necessity to all self-existent Being, but more manifestly 
 so to an absolute and perfect God. It is also manifest 
 that there could be but one best and perfect mode of 
 thinking, concluding and acting. To alter or change, is 
 to prove either that the original, or that the altered, 
 thought,' purpose or action was wrong or imperfect 
 Being different, they cannot both be perfect and best. 
 Whatever, therefore, is perfect and best, a perfect Creator 
 and Ruler would, in the first place, provide for and insure. 
 Whatever was otherwise than perfect and best would be 
 impossible to Him, under all circumstances, as well as 
 to all things emanating from Him. Such a Being could 
 not think, will, or act arbitrarily or capriciously, of its 
 own nature or volition ; nor could it be induced to do 
 wrong ; nor would it need inducement to do what is 
 right. Nor could or would God create anything of 
 whose movements and destiny He was not prescient 
 and assured ; and as the contemplated results would 
 necessarily be both designed and absolutely right, there 
 could neither be need, nor possibility of change, since 
 every possible change of His modes or purposes would 
 be for the worst. To charge God with such alterations 
 of inclination, methods or purpose, or with the creation 
 of anything which could or would necessitate or require 
 an alteration of His original design and purpose in its 
 creation, is to derogate from His perfections and God- 
 hood. And again : as the Universe is an interdependent 
 whole, to change the efficiencies, laws and modes of ac- 
 tion of any one part, would necessitate an incalculable
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 99 
 
 amount of corresponding and counter changes to readjust 
 the general course of Nature, and every such change 
 would have to be effected by a suitable change of the 
 original and natural energies, laws and proclivities of 
 every particle of matter concerned, which would require 
 a change of the very nature of the Materials upon which 
 they depend. Such frequent "special providences" and 
 solicited changes, awarded to mere human desires and 
 prayers, would necessitate endless and inconceivable al- 
 terations and disturbances in the character and evolu- 
 tions of matter, and would render a consistent, orderly 
 and law-governed course of Nature impossible. 
 
 And again : the causation and changes in such a 
 Universe as ours, could not possibly be effected by acts 
 of personal volition. Personality implies individuality or 
 oneness, and involves, not only unity of being or organ- 
 ization, but unity of consciousness ; and this individuality 
 and unity of consciousness involves a unity of conscious 
 thought, volition and mental action, with the necessary 
 result of their seriality or singly successive order. 
 From the very nature of personality, no individual or 
 person can perform more than one act of volition at a 
 time. The infinity of personal, simultaneous acts of 
 attention and volition which a capricious, or even any 
 voluntary, government and control of the Universe would 
 require, would be impossible to any one person, however 
 infinite or potent, would, indeed, require a special and 
 several consciousness and Will for the government of 
 every one of the severally-acting atoms of the Universe. 
 It is true, also, that personal consciousness and volition 
 are, by their very nature, a state and action of the indi-
 
 IOO JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 vidual mind or being itself, and are therefore confined to 
 itself. Mental states and actions are wholly internal and 
 subjective. No being can be conscious of anything out- 
 side of itself, nor can any being think or act outside of 
 itself or where it is not present. Nor is Will an attribute 
 of a completed and perfect being. It implies mental 
 stimulant and exertion, and a conflict between tendencies 
 to different actions or between action and non-action : 
 a state of things which is not possible with an absolute, 
 perfect, self-active Intelligence. Will can only be an 
 attribute of a related, influenced and incomplete being 
 with unsatisfied desires and imperfectly co-ordinated and 
 adjusted powers and action. An absolute, satisfied and 
 perfect being would necessarily act by the untrammelled 
 and harmonious energies, modes and laws of its own 
 being, and would, therefore, exist, think and act without 
 conflict, doubt, hesitancy or delay, or the necessity of 
 voluntary determination or exertion. Its thoughts, 
 desires and energies would continuously unfold, and flow 
 into action as intuitively and definitely as its own self- 
 conscious life-action, requiring as little volition or effort 
 as self-consciousness itself. 
 
 Doubtlessly there are intelligent men who still think 
 they believe that miracles once existed, but only under 
 the blinding influences of desire and motive of policy, 
 interest, inherited and trained feelings and proclivities,
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. IOI 
 
 education, associations, public opinion and other motives 
 and aspirations touching their future life and condition 
 already alluded to. Their reason is either silenced, or 
 suborned and subsidized, by other influences than reason 
 and evidence. How miracles could have ever existed, or 
 why they once existed and then ceased to exist, are 
 mysteries which they can only accept, not comprehend. 
 Were their reason allowed to play its legitimate part, 
 they could not fail to perceive that, if miracles were ever 
 possible, or ever necessary to man's faith in the claims 
 of Jesus, they are still equally possible and still more 
 necessary to the present than to the Apostolic Age. To 
 have the assertion of unknown men as to the existence 
 of ancient miracles, or as to certain " wonderful works " 
 performed before ignorant people 2,000 years ago 
 before people who regarded what we would deem super- 
 natural agencies and methods as the only and natural 
 ones, and miracles as simply a superhuman or spiritual 
 exercise of the only kind of causation before people 
 who were utterly ignorant of our very ideas of natural 
 law and natural causation, and who regarded all physical 
 and mental action and changes as the results of some 
 arbitrary and capricious personal volition before people 
 who believed that both man and nature were constantly 
 subject to such spiritual caprices and changes, and that 
 they were surrounded by witches and by persons filled 
 and "possessed" by- any number of living, speaking 
 devils, from one to thousands, to have the assertion of 
 all this by some unknown man having like intelligence 
 and beliefs, we say, is literally no proof of miracles to us, 
 at all. Who would now think of trusting the testimony 
 or accounts of the ignorant Catholics of Portugal or
 
 IO2 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Brazil as to the miracles of their professed Saints of our 
 own time, or of the Mormons as to those of their inspired 
 leaders Smith and Young, or of the modern Spiritualists 
 to the " materialization " of ghosts, or of a Fetichist of 
 Congo to the miraculous performances of his fetisch, 
 although they might even personally know the witnesses 
 and believe them honest, and hear their recitals directly 
 from their own lips ? The same kind of miracles as 
 those recorded in the New Testament, even to the 
 " resurrection from the dead," are still claimed to be per- 
 formed .now, and are still believed in, and testified to, by 
 the same class of people who believed in, and testified to, 
 those of the Apostolic Age ; and they always will be 
 performed so long as people can be found who are 
 capable of believing in them. But the moment men 
 have developed beyond the point of believing them, they 
 cease to exist. A miracle or miracle-worker can neither 
 be engendered, nor survive, in the transparent atmo- 
 sphere of Rationalism. Persons having minds capable 
 of believing in them, are incapable of being competent 
 witnesses to verify their existence, or to furnish to others 
 the necessary facts and details to determine the fact of 
 their existence for themselves, no matter how honest 
 they are. Their own faith is not only undoubting, but 
 unquestioning, and they neither know, nor apply, 
 the necessary precautions and tests, nor secure the 
 necessary safeguards against errors and imposition. 
 ]\tere appearances which are incomprehensible or mar- 
 vellous to them, is at once set down as miraculous, and 
 they would be amazed, if not indignant, if their un- 
 guarded and " off-hand " observations and inferences 
 were not accepted as conclusive. The very facts and
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 1 03 
 
 omissions which would arrest the attention of a Ration- 
 alist, would probably never attract their attention, or, 
 even if noticed, would be deemed unworthy of repetition. 
 They take for granted, consciously or unconsciously, the 
 very fact which is to be proved ; and this fact alone ren- 
 ders them incompetent judges, and therefore incompetent 
 witnesses and reporters. They are mere credulous on- 
 lookers, not investigators. They tell the appearances 
 which arrested their senses, or their own inferences from 
 them, with reference to their own views or without any 
 reference at all to their significance or value ; and their 
 hearer or reader's best hope of comprehending the true 
 nature of the performance lies in their mere chance 
 notice of the details and conditions. They may stumble 
 into reporting a significant fact. Almost any evidence, 
 even common report or rumor, was sufficient to prove to 
 such men the fact of what they considered a miracle. 
 To them, the matter was a mere question of veracity. 
 To us who regard a miracle in a wholly different light 
 and as a different thing from what they did, the matter 
 of veracity itself sinks into insignificance in comparison 
 with the very question which they take for granted, 
 namely, the very fact or possibility of miracles. A 
 body of Scientists would doubtlessly regard the Gospel 
 record as unauthentic or at least as unverified, and 
 would certainly regard its recitals, even if authentic 
 and admissible, as wholly incompetent and inconclusive 
 proof of miracles ; but such questions would never be 
 reached by such a tribunal. The evidence of a host of 
 Bayards and Solomons would be insufficient to prove a 
 miracle to such men. In their sense and to their minds, 
 a miracle is impossible ; and phenomena, however in-
 
 IO4 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 comprehensible or marvellous to them, even if witnessed 
 by themselves, would have no tendency to convince 
 them of supernatural agency or capricious and law- 
 less causation. The conception of natural law and 
 causation was not more impossible to the superstitious 
 believers in witches and devil-possession of Capernaum, 
 than is that of miracles to a modern Scientist ; and it 
 would be more difficult for the latter to believe in capri- 
 cious or voluntary Spiritual interference with the laws 
 and order of nature, than for the former to doubt it. 
 Such beliefs are perfectly natural and legitimate from the 
 stand-point and fundamental notions of the one ; while 
 they are utterly inconsistent with the knowledge and 
 convictions of the other. It is no more possible for 
 such men as Tyndall, Huxley, Helmholtz and Du Bois- 
 Raymond to realize or credit a genuine miracle, than it 
 is for them to believe in the old notion of the daily 
 revolution of the Sun round the Earth, which the earlier 
 believers in miracles made it heresy to deny. 
 
 Doubtlessly, in the age of Jesus, there were men 
 among the Jews sufficiently enlightened and sufficiently 
 skeptical to have detected ordinary imposture and to 
 have transmitted to us more satisfactory accounts of the 
 performances of Jesus ; but they neither witnessed them^ 
 nor were permitted to witness them, although solicitous 
 to do so. Jesus only performed before certain persons
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 10$ 
 
 and classes, with restrictions determined by the special 
 nature of each performance. The fishermen and other 
 rabble or " multitudes " along the shores of the Galilean 
 Sea were permitted to witness some of them ; others 
 were reserved for the eyes of his special and chosen 
 followers and witnesses ; while still others were con- 
 fided exclusively to the observation and testimony of the 
 favorite trio among the apostles Peter, James and John. 
 Before Kings, Rulers, Priests and the educated classes 
 he flatly and insultingly refused to perform at all ; and 
 even the ignorant rabble, save his special and chosen 
 witnesses, finally discredited his miraculous pretensions 
 and deserted him. 
 
 If, therefore, the Messiahship and divinity of Jesus re- 
 quired to be evidenced by miracles to an age so credulous 
 of such pretensions and powers, and still failed to secure 
 the general belief, how much more should we expect the 
 same or even far higher evidences in subsequent critical 
 and rationalistic ages ? Why should a few men of the 
 first age, alone, have these necessary proofs to secure 
 their adhesion and salvation, while all after generations 
 were compelled to depend upon doubtful records of mere 
 assertions and rumors of transactions, among an ancient 
 and superstitious people, which failed to satisfy a great 
 majority of eye-witnesses ? Is it the act of a good God 
 to decrease already insufficient evidence, just in propor- 
 tion to the need of such evidence and the difficulty of be- 
 lieving it, and especially when there is no possible reason
 
 IO6 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 for such discontinuance, and there are scriptural induce- 
 ments for anticipating the reverse ? If it is desirable 
 for men to believe in the Christ of Galilee, is it also de- 
 sirable to make it as difficult as possible to believe, and 
 for it to become more impossible with every step in 
 their progressive intelligence ? Was it not enough, that 
 God should have made the salvation of his creatures de- 
 pend upon evidence which was, confessedly and at the 
 best, incredible to the " wise and prudent " and fit only 
 for the credulity of " babes," without wilfully withdraw- 
 ing even such evidence, and leaving it to a disputed and 
 garbled record of the sayings, beliefs and hearsays of 
 those early and specially selected " babes ? " Surely this 
 is incredible. Why, then, we repeat, have Protestants 
 rejected all modern miracles and abandoned all notion 
 of their ever occurring again ? Must there not be a 
 cause outside of reason for this ? Is it not clear that 
 Protestants are rapidly developing beyond the point 
 where a belief in miracles is possible ? Is it not clear 
 that they now only blindly accept them as a dernier resort 
 under the pressure of the motives already considered, 
 and not with the "living faith" and approving reason of 
 the fishermen of Galilee ? Is it not clear that the same 
 causes which rendered the scriptural doctrines of witch- 
 craft and devil-possession, as well as modern inspiration, 
 prophecy and miracles unbelievable, must also render 
 the equally irrational scriptural miracles and inspirations 
 equally incredible to all intelligent minds, and compel 
 such minds to relegate them to the old lumber-room of 
 worn-out beliefs and superstitions, to there dry-rot 
 among other once-useful and natural, but now cast-off, 
 fancies of human infancy ?
 
 ORIGIN AND DELEVOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. IO/ 
 
 HADES. 
 
 .Q 
 
 Another of our orthodox beliefs is, the existence of a 
 Hell a specific place into which the unbelieving, the 
 unredeemed, together with the " nations that forget 
 God," are cast, as a place of eternal torment and pun- 
 ishment of the most fiery and inconceivable severity. 
 Let us examine the source and value of this notion, also. 
 
 We have already seen how men come to believe in 
 the primal fall and subsequent degeneracy of their race 
 and in their obligation and indebtedness to God as a Di- 
 vine Sovereign or King. We have seen, also, how men 
 developed ever-growing ideals of life, duty and conduct, 
 and how these jdeals necessarily engendered dissatisfac- 
 tion and disgust with their existing lives and cond.uct, as 
 well as a profound conviction of the personal frailty and 
 wickedness of themselves and fellows. Nature's induce- 
 ments and incitements of man are like those resorted to 
 by man himself are such as are capable of affecting 
 man's nature and conduct, and consist of persuasives 
 and deterrents, operating by way of rewards and punish- 
 ments, and also by the hopes and fears thereof. She is, 
 not only necessitated to use these persuasive and deter- 
 rent methods in all conscious development, but is com- 
 pelled to use man's own imperfect nature and ideas as 
 her instruments, especially in her development of his 
 moral nature. To secure the continuance of the species 
 and its physical development, she had been compelled to 
 highly develop the selfish nature and proclivities of the 
 individuals composing it. Out of this absorbing selfish- 
 ness she was then compelled to evolve the means of
 
 IO8 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 elevating man to the higher plane of the Unselfish. 
 The Selfish she finds to'be a useful means for urging to 
 those associations and relations which will engender the 
 sympathies underlying the unselfish and moral nature. 
 But she also finds that this selfish nature is, primarily, 
 largely antagonistic to the moral nature she would de- 
 velop, and that she is compelled to use stringent cor- 
 rectives and restraints to check and control it. Con- 
 sequently we find the conscience, the sense of responsi- 
 bility and duty, the burning aspirations and growing 
 ideals engendered by, and during, the processes of moral 
 development, not only operating as potent stimulants to 
 moral progress, but impelling men to use all the coercive 
 and punitive means in their own power to deter them- 
 selves from moral derelictions. But it early became ap- 
 parent to developing people, of ungovernable natures, 
 that the indolence, rapacity, violence and fraud flowing 
 from Selfishness should be, and deserved to be, put 
 down by the utmost fear and punishment. These pun- 
 ishments were, at first, purely physical and temporary. 
 But the experiences of many races soon demonstrated 
 that the hopes of escaping detection and of avoiding 
 either conviction or the effects of conviction, so far 
 weakened the fears inspired by human laws and penal- 
 ties as to render them insufficient motives to restrain 
 men's brutal, passionate and selfish natures. Tempta- 
 tion was potent and present, the punishment was remote 
 and problematical ; and rude and unreflecting minds 
 gave way under the more powerful and immediate pres- 
 sure. Nor were early men capable of appreciating, much 
 less of carrying out, such maxims as that " Honesty is 
 the best policy," and " Virtue is its own reward;" nor
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 
 
 were they satisfied with the known rewards achieved in 
 those days by the more gentle, peaceful and sympathetic 
 of their race. Clearly, something else was necessary to 
 curb such undeveloped natures some fear of a punish- 
 ment which was as sure as it was tertible. This desired 
 deterrent was found in a belief in a divine King and 
 Judge and divine laws with endless punishments in 
 divine judgments which were inexorable and a divine 
 Ruler and Judge whose all-seeing eye penetrated the 
 very secrets of all hearts, and permitted no possible 
 avoidance of detection, whose infinite wisdom and ex- 
 acting justice permitted no chance of escaping convic- 
 tion, and whose omnipotent arm forbid all hope of 
 escaping the eternal penalty decreed. This spiritual 
 remedy served to powerfully supplement the restraints 
 of earthly penalties by enlisting man's ignorance and 
 superstition in aid of his own moral development, and 
 thus overawing his brutality and selfishness by his fears 
 of the Unknown and by horrors only limited by the 
 failure of the powers of his own imagination. 
 
 A confirmation of this view will be found in the fact, 
 that there is a striking correspondence between both 
 the temporal and spiritual codes of various peoples and 
 between both codes and their own characters and the re- 
 straint their natures call for, as well as between their 
 own degrees of severity at different times and for differ- 
 ent offences. It is the wicked and frail who feel the 
 need of the severest restraints and who concoct the-
 
 HO JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 most stringent and cruel remedies. The codes of bar- 
 baric peoples are proverbially cruel and bloody, while 
 the pirate and bandit knows no remedy but instant death. 
 We find, also, that the criminal codes of peoples become 
 mollified as they become law-abiding and tractable. 
 There has been a growing tendency in the Anglo-Saxon 
 race to abolish the death penalty, even for the last and 
 most abhorrent of crimes, while scarcely more than a 
 century ago there were over a hundred crimes punish- 
 able with death in England. And yet these brutal pen- 
 alties were enacted and supported by the people them- 
 selves. The spiritual codes of peoples exhibit the same 
 confirmatory correspondence, at least where they are 
 original. The unseen penalties of such codes are found 
 to bear a direct relation to the visible ones and to the 
 character of the people to be influenced. They are a 
 reflex of the moral nature of the people who invented 
 and support them. Partially developed peoples who 
 have mild and tractable natures never originate beliefs 
 in endless torments. It is only the more fiery, obstinate 
 and ungovernable races who need, and therefore resort 
 to, these terrible penalties and appalling fears. This 
 correspondence is further exemplified in the progressive 
 amelioration or " toning down " of these fiery spiritual 
 codes as peoples become moral and humane. With the 
 progress of civilization and development the more cruel 
 features of such codes are gradually ignored and become 
 "dead letters" on the statute book become rather re- 
 membered and undisputed dogmas than realized beliefs. 
 As men rise entirely above the plane of Superstition, 
 such beliefs become impossible to them become absurd, 
 in every point of view, as facts, whatever may have been
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. Ill 
 
 their utility as beliefs. They learn to regard the Uni- 
 verse as a unique, law-governed whole, and God as the 
 all-embracing All-Father, and cease to look upon the 
 Divine Personality either as a dreaded King or as an 
 inexorable Judge and Executioner. Such minds are 
 compelled, not only to discard all notion of such a 
 place as Hell, but all idea of future punishment and, in- 
 deed, of any divine punishment of a retributive kind, as 
 well as the whole idea of man's fall and retrogression, 
 and his penal indebtedness to God and all the crude no- 
 tions based upon it. They cannot but perceive, that 
 such conceptions are purely of human origin, and savor 
 of their crude paternity ; that this whole chain of con- 
 ceptions is at once incompatible with a law-governed 
 Universe, a libel upon the beneficent All-Father, and a 
 purposeless cruelty and vindictiveness to the condemned 
 spirit, alike useless to it or to God, and a bar to the 
 happiness and enjoyment of the redeemed friends and 
 relatives of the lost soul. They can recognize the util- 
 ity of the belief in a hell, and the fears it inspires, to 
 rude races who can entertain such crude beliefs ; while 
 they perceive that the fact of endless torments would 
 be at once useless, impossible and diabolical. They 
 perceive that the originators of such beliefs have been 
 inspired by the needs of mans nature in this life, rather 
 than by any rational and appreciative conception of God 
 and of his relations to his creatures, or of the condition 
 of man in a future life. Doubtlessly there were many 
 things observed in natural evolution which, viewed from 
 an ignorant and human stand-point, tended to give early 
 men low and mistaken notions of God's justice and ben- 
 eficence, which shaped their notions of his designs and
 
 112 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 methods. Such was their conception of Heavenly jus- 
 tice that it required the invention and the intervention of 
 a divine equity or Heavenly Chancery to supplement and 
 mollify its decrees God's mercy suspending and revers- 
 ing the laws and decrees of his own justice : as if God's 
 attributes could conflict, or as if his justice could be 
 less than exactly right, or his mercy more than, or dif- 
 ferent from, what was exactly right ! No doubt the 
 hereditary effects of sin or of breaches of natural law, 
 entailing misery on innocent offspring " to the tenth 
 generation," the inexorability of natural law and the 
 apparent inadequacy and unfairness of the earthly 
 punishments for immoralities and of the distribution of 
 the rewards for virtue, aided in engendering the idea of 
 future rewards and punishments. 
 
 The fact is, that men's hells, like their heavens, are 
 but reflexes of their own natures. They are born of 
 their own aspirations and needs, and are continually 
 modified to suit them. They are self-adjusted stimulants 
 to their progress. Man's persistent desires and needs 
 will always compel some suitable satisfaction and re- 
 sponse in his own beliefs. If those desires and needs 
 demand aid or assurances from the Invisible World, 
 such demand ever brings a supply, by means of dreams, 
 visions and revelations. And so long as the assurances 
 received correspond with the needs and desires calling 
 them forth, neither their irrationality nor unreliability 
 will deter the mass of mankind from entertaining and
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 113 
 
 cherishing them. Man cannot live and act without be- 
 liefs, and must form such as are adequate and possible 
 to his nature and condition. Nature is necessarily com- 
 pelled to be wholly self-efficient and self-evolving, and 
 the peoples of primitive ages could have had no kind 
 missionaries or patient and enlightened instructors to 
 enlighten, aid and stimulate them, but were compelled 
 to blindly stumble forward by their own lights and en- 
 ergies, correcting one imperfection by means of others 
 and jostling themselves and their conduct into shape 
 and guidance by such motive-impulses and desires as 
 they possessed, and with such constructions of Nature, 
 such notions of causation and God, and such compro- 
 mises of opinions and desires as were then possible to 
 them. Truth, for its own sake, was a matter of indiffer- 
 ence. That their notions should have been, not only 
 selfish, but provisional and erroneous, and have consti- 
 tuted a reflex, not of the facts, but of the imperfect 
 minds and the necessities which demanded and inspired 
 them, was a necessity founded in the very nature of pro- 
 gressive development, since progressive improvement 
 implies previous imperfection or error. 
 
 No better proof and exemplification of this self- 
 adaptive law of human nature could be required than 
 the existence and the various phases of this same belief 
 in a hell and future punishment. For, independent of 
 all other inconsistencies and absurdities which the belief 
 involves, the true scriptural idea of torturing an immor- 
 tal soul an indestructible and unconsumable " spiritual 
 body " by fire, is absurdly impossible ; since the pain 
 caused by fire is a result of the change or disorganization
 
 114 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 effected by the heat. An indestructible body is neces- 
 sarily impervious to pain, because it cannot suffer that 
 disintegration or derangement of parts which is the 
 source of pain and which all pain implies. Besides, were 
 it possible to predicate pain of such a body, a perpetual 
 state and condition that were even once painful, would 
 gradually become less and less so until it ultimately 
 became the accustomed life-mode of such being. Pain is 
 not only confined, by its very origin and nature, to the 
 disorganizable and mortal, but is also temporary in its 
 duration. The very state which is painful, if not fatal, 
 must some time cease to be felt as painful. Nor is this 
 doctrine less absurd in making the Devil the willing 
 instrument in torturing his own followers, and in depict- 
 ing him as desirous of inveigling men into eternal 
 suffering for their very loyalty and obedience to himself 
 and for the sole end of carrying out the decrees and 
 purposes of that God against whom he has rebelled and 
 wages eternal and spiteful war ! Were not these child- 
 ish notions the make-shifts of childish races ? Is not 
 such a being and such a state of things unrealizable to 
 the developed mind ? As human nature ceases to need 
 the restraints of such superstitious fears, and human in- 
 telligence supplies higher inducements and incentives to 
 devotion and morality, must not the entire belief in a 
 Hell gradually fade out of the minds of all men ?
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 11$ 
 
 We have now briefly considered the origin, progress 
 and value of our more important popular religious beliefs. 
 In doing this, we have found that man's religious notions 
 are at once a product and a means of his development, 
 and that, although born of his needs and aspirations, 
 they gradually conform themselves to his psychical 
 development and his conceptions of causation so far as 
 may be consistent or compatible with his fundamental 
 aspirations for immortality and happiness. We shall 
 find, in the end, that all conflict between this imperish- 
 able aspiration of man and his developed reason must 
 end in a union, in which the aspiration will .rest satis- 
 fied in the assurances and conviction furnished by 
 Reason. We have seen that, prior to this ultimate con- 
 viction and satisfaction, the course and order of religious 
 development have been those of a law-governed process 
 of evolution, and that they have been substantially the 
 same among all naturally developed peoples, only 
 exhibiting -the necessary differences incident to differ- 
 ences of character and conditions and of their intellec- 
 tual, moral, political, social and commercial developments 
 and relations. We have also seen how Reason has been 
 warped by inclination, and compelled to pay homage to 
 Need and Desire, and how its progress has been- retarded 
 by men's veneration for the Old, by their ascription of 
 sanctity and infallibility to ancient writings, and by the 
 superstitious hopes and fears such writings have 
 inspired ; and how Reason and Science are alike impo- 
 tent as antagonists to the fundamental beliefs in the 
 existence of a God and of the existence and immortality 
 of the soul. We have seen how Reason and Fact have 
 progressively triumphed over the errors and supersti-
 
 Il6 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 tions of the past, until they stand before. the last of the 
 old and feeble ramparts which have been thrown around 
 these invincible beliefs invincible because resting di- 
 rectly upon the fundamental and true. We have seen 
 that it has become apparent that their further triumph 
 must be won, not by ignoring religion or the true signif- 
 icance of the fundamental life-aspiration which under- 
 lies all development, but by wresting them from the 
 grasp of Superstition by rationally satisfying them. 
 Until this is done, it matters not how irrational and 
 feeble may be their old supports, men will still cling to 
 them, or invent new ones, even though they floated, for 
 their sole support, upon an abyss of inanity. But once 
 render man's supernatural supports no longer necessary 
 to him, by giving him natural and rational ones, and 
 they will sink forever into the inane void upon which 
 they have ever rested, and Rational Religion will right- 
 fully succeed to. the dominion which Supernaturalism 
 has so long provisionally held. Supernaturalism was 
 born of Fetichism, and its sole rational basis has ever 
 been the childish, fetichistic reason from which it sprung. 
 This puerile and flimsy base has long been honeycombed 
 by Time and riddled by the shots of Rationalism, until it 
 remains ' but an unsightly thing of shreds and tags. 
 Supernaturalism no longer really supports either Religion 
 or itself, but clings pendent to the imperishable aspira- 
 tion which supports them both : clouding the fair face 
 of Religion like the dead, but unshed, skin of the 
 serpent.
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 
 
 When men, instead of being taught that the very 
 Substance of the Universe is base and evil, and that 
 Nature is perverted and at war with God and itself, 
 shall be shown that the essential Being ccrmposing the 
 Universe is the one intelligent and self-sufficient Exist- 
 ence,- which is, in itself, altogether ineffable and tran- 
 scendental ; and that the known Universe, which is so 
 maligned and derided, is the sole manifestation of the 
 divine All-Father that it constitutes a unique and 
 eternally-self-evolving whole, whose every form and pro- 
 duct is divine in origin and purpose, whose every pro- 
 cess is infinitely wise and absolutely necessary for the 
 ends designed, and whose real and ultimate purposes 
 and ends are divinely perfect and beneficent, in short, 
 that the Absolute is to be found in the one Reality which 
 is, and that the absolute Good is to be found in Nature's 
 actual processes and ends, the absolutely Necessary in 
 her means, and the absolutely Wise in her processes 
 and methods, and not in their own short-sighted, 
 ever-changing and delusive conceptions of the Divine, 
 True and Good, which are born of their own relative and 
 mortal feelings ideas and desires : when they are shown 
 (as we aver they rationally can be), that all evil is rela- 
 tive and temporary, and constitutes a necessary part of 
 the agencies and processes of Absolute Beneficence in 
 securing the primal evolution, the development, and the 
 final and progressive beatitude and intellectual progress 
 of immortal Souls when these things shall be made 
 rationally manifest, we say (as we repeat they can be,) 
 then Supernaturalism, in all its forms, will perish from 
 sheer inanition.
 
 Il8 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Thus, we have found our moral and religious facul- 
 ties and our moral and religious ideas and beliefs to be 
 natural progressive developments, having a course and 
 progress running substantially parallel and pari passu 
 with those of man's intellectual, political and social 
 development, each being a legitimate part of human 
 evolution, reciprocally aiding and correcting each other, 
 and each born of, and borne up by, the same great fun- 
 damental life-aspiration underlying all conscious develop- 
 ment, and constituting the tap-root and trunk of the 
 great, wide-branching motive-tree of life. It remains to 
 be seen whether this same aspiration for ever-continued, 
 and higher, life has developed further fruit on this same 
 branch of Supernaturalism whether, indeed, it does not 
 constitute the very tap-root and basic fact or vital sup- 
 port of Christianity itself, as it has been shown to be of 
 older religions.
 
 THE TAP-ROOT OR BASIC FACT OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE TAP-ROOT OR BASIC FACT OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 WHAT was the essential idea which distinguished 
 Christianity from other religious developments existing 
 at its advent, and which secured its propagation and 
 popular reception ? It could not have been its moral 
 doctrines, since it propounded none which had not 
 already engaged the attention of mankind long before 
 the birth of Jesus. Nor could any mere reformatory 
 code of morals or set of moral ideas have inspired the 
 enthusiasm and devotion, or secured the zeal, self-sacri- 
 fice and persistence, exhibited in the history of Christian- 
 ity. In fact the periods of her greatest zeal and success 
 have been signalized by anything but high moral notions 
 or conduct. Nor could it have been the introduction of 
 new theological dogmas or theories, for it avowedly 
 claims to be only an extension of Jewish Theology and a 
 fulfilment of Jewish prophecies, and it accepts, entire, 
 the Jewish Scriptures ; and we know that early Chris- 
 tians claimed to be in harmony in their theological 
 beliefs with their Jewish brethren, save as to Jesus. 
 Nor could it have been new forms or rituals, for neither 
 Jesus nor his apostles ordained or established any.
 
 I2O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Nor could it have been the mere doctrine of a future 
 life or a belief in its rewards and punishments, since the 
 hope and fear of these had long- influenced men ; and 
 were then controlling doctrines' and beliefs among the 
 Pharisees. Certainly there were a number of ancillary 
 and subordinate motives and stimulants that gave vital- 
 ity and vigor to the primitive Church, as well as many 
 existing conditions favoring its development. But in 
 this great revolutionary movement, as in all others, there 
 must have been some consideration which was essential 
 and fundamental something which constituted the 
 back-bone of the movement and without which it could 
 not have existed. What was this essentiality? Let us 
 venture to assert that it was not a new idea or even a 
 new emotion at all, which gave vitality to Christianity. 
 It was an accredited fact, and not an idea or emotion, 
 which inspired the founders of Christianity a fact sup- 
 posed to give practical and firm assurance to an old idea 
 and a long cherished hope : no less an idea and hope, 
 in fact, than that of eternal life and happiness, born of 
 the fundamental life-aspiration of the Soul. Christianity 
 did not add even a new feature or phase to these ideas, 
 nor was such an addition the " need of the time." What 
 she really offered constituted the fundamental spiritual 
 need of her Converts, namely : a new and higher as- 
 surance a practical proof of a future life, and a sure 
 mode for their escaping the consequences of their earthly 
 sins and securing endless beatitude. Men already be- 
 lieved in a future life and in their power to make it a 
 happy one by obedience to divine law, and there had 
 been many professed restorations of human bodies to 
 life after their apparent death, priorto the restoration
 
 THE TAP-ROOT OR BASIC FACT OF CHRISTIANITY. 121 
 
 of Jesus ; but all these were, or might have been, natural 
 restorations from seeming death, or might have been ef- 
 fected through the intervention of human agencies, and 
 not by the spiritual power of the dead themselves or by 
 the direct intervention of God in a manifest case of ac- 
 tual and real death. A body might be restored from 
 seeming death by the agency of the physician or ma- 
 gician, but so could a dog or dead fly, things which had 
 no souls. What was needed was a case of unquestioned 
 actual death, and an exhibition of the voluntary return 
 of the soul to the body a self-resurrection, or the return 
 of a witness from the dead by the power of God, who 
 should bear witness to the desired truths under the 
 surety and sanction of this direct divine endorsement. 
 
 This, then, was what was needed and demanded by 
 the fundamental aspiration of the souls of men as they 
 stood developed in the days of Jesus ; and this was the 
 prime fact which the founders and propagators of Chris- 
 tianity offered. The essential and basic fact of Chris- 
 tianity was the asserted resurrection of Jesus from the 
 dead. Christianity was born, not when Jesus exclaimed 
 on the cross, " It is finished," but when he emerged alive 
 from the sepulchre of Joseph of Aramathea. In this 
 instance of restored vitality it was assumed there could 
 have been neither doubt of actual death, nor the exercise 
 of human power or skill. It must, then, have been a 
 divine act either by himself or by God. If performed 
 by himself as was believed it proved, not only that
 
 122 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the Soul, which had returned to the body on the third 
 day after death, had continued to exist during this interim 
 of death, but also verified his claim to a divine nature, 
 power and mission. If his return to mortal life were 
 by the direct power of God, it did not the less show that 
 the soul had survived the body, and to give a divine 
 sanction to the testimony of Jesus as to the immortality 
 of the Soul. Thus it was assumed that, in any event, 
 the resurrection of Jesus gave an assurance of immor- 
 tality and of his own divine endorsement by God him- 
 self. That he was executed, Did not all Jerusalem bear 
 witness ? That he was seen alive in the flesh on the 
 third day thereafter, and on numerous other occasions, 
 Could not the Apostles, and, as Paul declares, five hun- 
 dred other witnesses, bear testimony ? Was not here 
 the proof, then, of what man had so long hoped for and 
 believed, and had so earnestly yearned to know, as well 
 as that hoped-for Saviour and promised Messiah who 
 was to become the Solicitor of Humanity to secure their 
 bankrupt discharge in the Courts of Heaven, or better 
 still, a receipt in full by actual payment in "divine 
 blood " from the sacrificial offering on the Cross ? 
 
 That this supposed resurrection from the dead by 
 Jesus was the pivot upon which the whole Christian 
 movement rested and turned is not a matter of doubt. 
 We are left in no uncertainty as to the fact that the fol- 
 lowers of Jesus had no previous conception of the re- 
 ligious movement which was set afoot shortly after the 
 alleged resurrection, but had, up to the last, expected to
 
 THE TAP-ROOT OR BASIC FACT OF CHRISTIANITY. 123 
 
 become official partakers in the Messianic reign of him 
 whom they had hailed and heralded into Jerusalem as 
 " King of the Jews." They were wholly unexpectant of 
 his reappearance after the crucifixion, and were utterly 
 surprised by, and incredulous of, his actual return ; some 
 of them doubting his identity even to the last. Without 
 this return of Jesus, it is certain that his followers would 
 have quietly returned to their ordinary pursuits as soon as 
 their fear of the Jews permitted them to leave their place 
 of concealment. The controlling nature of this fact is not 
 left to inference either by the narrative of the events or 
 the declarations of the Apostles. St. Paul, in writing 
 to the Corinthians (i Cor. xv., v. 14-20) says : " And 
 if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and 
 your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false 
 witnesses of God ; because we have testified of God 
 that he raised up Christ : whom he raised not up, if so 
 be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then 
 is not Christ raised : And if Christ be not raised, your 
 faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also 
 which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in 
 this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men 
 most miserable." Here it will be seen that this intel- 
 lectual Chief of the Apostles, and real founder of the 
 Church, expressly and explicitly confirms the view we 
 have taken. He here explicitly declares that all their 
 preaching and all their faith were alike vain if Jesus did 
 not arise from the dead by the power of God, and he in- 
 sists that the existence of the departed dead and the 
 general resurrection of mankind are dependent upon 
 that of Jesus that they are mutually dependent and 
 imply each other : if the man Jesus did resurrect, then
 
 124 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 there is a resurrection for man ; if he did not resurrect 
 then there is no resurrection for man ; we assert that 
 he did resurrect, and therefore affirm the resurrection 
 and future life of man, and are the most miserable of 
 men if we are deceived in this. Such was the reason- 
 ing. Paul claimed no new idea or new morality as the 
 basis of his faith and preaching,- but bases Christianity, 
 and stakes its pretensions, upon a single fundamental 
 fact. If this fact was true, it was of priceless moment ; 
 if untrue, their religion or gospel was worthless, nay, de- 
 leterious. Here, then, we have the highest possible as- 
 surance that the same aspiration which we have found 
 to have underlain all previous religious developments, 
 also inspired the inauguration of Christianity, and that 
 the essential offering of the new sect to Humanity was 
 the evidence of an asserted fact, constituting a reliable 
 assurance to the primal and persistent aspiration of 
 man ; and that upon the truth of this fact depended its 
 entire value. And while the matter was indubitably 
 clear without Paul's authority, it is gratifying to have 
 this positive endorsement from the man who knew most 
 of, and did most for, Christianity. Paul goes so far, 
 indeed, (in Rom. i. vs. 3, 4,) as to directly declare 
 that, although J esus was the son of David according to 
 the flesh, he was " declared to be the Son of God, with 
 power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrec- 
 tion from the dead." That is to say, that, owing to his 
 resurrection, he was regarded, in a moral sense and in 
 point of power, as a son of God as divine. Thus 
 clearly making the conception and declaration of his 
 divinity to have arisen solely out of the fact of his res- 
 urrection from the dead.
 
 THE TAP-ROOT OR BASIC ROOT OF C11R1STIANITV. 12$ 
 
 The essential question touching the claims of Chris- 
 tianity, by its own showing, then, is as to the truth of 
 the asserted fact of the actual resurrection of Jesus 
 from the dead. If the testimony, therefore, should prove 
 adverse to this fact, or even inconclusive of its truth, 
 upon a full, rational and candid consideration of it, such 
 a result would be wholly fatal to the claims of Chris- 
 tianity. It may have a thousand vulnerable points, but 
 a wound here is acknowledgedly fatal. But why desire 
 to re-open the question, or seek to shake the popular her- 
 editary belief in this cherished fact, and especially when 
 the Author is as profoundly convinced of the fact of our 
 psychical immortality as were Paul or Jesus ? Were the 
 result to cast a doubt upon this fundamental truth or upon 
 the general morality inculcated by either Jesus or Paul 
 much of which is so admirable there certainly would in- 
 deed be little motive beyond the mere love of truth, while 
 there would be many dissuading motives. But this is 
 not the sole motive, nor are those the proposed results. 
 The fact of man's immortality is happily beyond human 
 control ; nor will man cease to aspire to, and believe in 
 it, whatever may be the fate of any or all of the forms of 
 religion which now affirm it. The ideas, methods and 
 processes, however, which are engendered and used in 
 the progress of man's efforts to obtain information, and 
 to secure assurances in this matter, not only progres- 
 sively differ, but are such as become noxious and ob- 
 structive to man's further development. And while St. 
 Paul very clearly discerned the true fundamental as- 
 piration which underlay his own movement, as well as 
 the essential nature of the basic fact of Christianity, he 
 did not perceive the most important questions involved
 
 126 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 in the assertion of that fact, nor the falsity and future 
 mischief of the erroneous ideas and methods which 
 Christianity then used and sanctified to future gener- 
 ations. Had Paul lived now, he would have been a Ra- 
 tionalist. For although Christianity gave a new im- 
 pulse to Humanity in the right direction, she not only 
 entertained and used the old primitive ideas, methods 
 and evidences, but used them in the old loose and im- 
 perfect manner, and sanctified them by her authority. 
 Never was a Religion more exclusively emotional or less 
 indebted to, and even defiant of, reason, then was Chris- 
 tianity. Hugging to her bosom, near 2000 years ago, 
 the crude ideas, traditions, superstitious and supernatural 
 methods born of a then already remote and ignorant 
 past, but still popular with the masses, her founders 
 boldly proclaimed a new divine dispensation based upon 
 a fact which they themselves had credited without in- 
 vestigation and without sufficient rational or judicial 
 warrant ; and audaciously staked the salvation of man- 
 kind upon their unconditional, individual credence of it 
 Not only did they retain all the puerile ideas and beliefs 
 of their time and the misconstrued myths, legends and 
 theology of their remote and still more ignorant ages, 
 but they based their beliefs .and labors upon them, and 
 attempted to irrevocably fix and fasten them on the 
 minds of the future as divinely sanctioned facts, prin- 
 ciples and doctrines, and to thus consummate and fore- 
 close human progress and estop all doubt and investiga- 
 tion, under the pains and penalties of eternal hell-fire ! 
 What was old, Time and Superstition had already 
 sanctified. What was* added had been received from 
 the God, Jesus ; and was both ultimate and all-sufficient.
 
 THE TAP-ROOT OR BASIC FACT OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 All future change would be sacrilege, and all new knowl- 
 edge superfluous. Their views of progress and the 
 catalogue of useful knowledge were thus epitomized 
 and graphically expressed by St. Paul : " I desire to 
 know notfiing save Jesus and him crucified." Reason 
 and human wisdom were especially and systematically 
 derided and denounced by Jesus himself. There was 
 but " one thing needful," Martha had chosen that " good 
 part," by consigning to her industrious and provident 
 sister the entire household cares and the rebukes of 
 Jesus, and by devoting herself to the love and care of 
 the person of the " Son of man." Man was to " take no 
 heed of to-morrow :" the "lilies of the field do not toil, 
 neither do they spin." Why should man ? The entire 
 movement was based upon men's emotions and/rtzY/z, and 
 to these alone it appealed. Faith was not only subro- 
 gated to the place and offices of reason, but was forced 
 to boldly antagonize and repudiate it. Earthly knowl- 
 edge and endeavor were not only useless, but obstructive 
 and inimical. The " Kingdom of Heaven," alone, was 
 worth seeking ; and this was alone to be won by a God- 
 given faith, and at the expense of a renunciation of the 
 " world " and of the " things of this life." Those who 
 fail to perceive that such doctrines are directly and ex- 
 pressly antagonistic to all earthly progress, are obsti- 
 nately imperceptive. Whatever controversies the history 
 of the Church may have engendered as to the part ft 
 has played in human progress, the simplest unbiased 
 mind cannot fail to perceive that, if the Church or its 
 religious orders have, at any epoch, aided in the advance- 
 ment of human knowledge or in the physical, intellec- 
 tual, political or economic improvement of the Race, they
 
 128 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 have done so, not in obedience to the doctrines or to the 
 founders of Christianity, or to the notions of its early 
 saints, but in defiance of them all. The founders of 
 Christianity had been taught to believe that 'the human 
 race were lost and undone that they had become ruined 
 and degraded by the participation of Adam in the fruits 
 of the " tree of knowledge : "that same " tree of 
 knowledge " was their b$te noir still. It was the ruinous 
 results flowing from this " tree of knowledge," which 
 faith in " Jesus and Him crucified " was to overcome. 
 They wished to save man by the "foolishness of preach- 
 ing," and to "know nothing save Jesus and Him 
 crucified." 
 
 Now, while we have no war with Christians as to 
 their aspiration for, and belief in, immortal life and hap- 
 piness, nor for the efforts of their founders to secure 
 satisfactory evidences and assurances of their beliefs and 
 hopes, by such conceptions and methods as were then 
 possible to them, still we humbly submit that we have 
 a right to protest against being denied the same privi- 
 lege against being foreclosed or estopped from either 
 perceiving or rejecting past errors in any and every age, 
 or from forming such ideas and beliefs, from the 
 advanced stand-point and under the higher lights fur- 
 nished by modern knowledge, reason and development, 
 as will conform to our own mental status and furnish 
 such assurances as is now possible, to satisfy our own 
 fundamental aspirations.
 
 THE TAP-ROOT OR BASIC FACT OF CHRISTIANITY. 129 
 
 Believing that the founders of Christianity, not only 
 saddled the errors and superstitions of their age and 
 country upon Humanity, but erred in their fundamental 
 or basic fact itself, wq have heretofore pointed out their 
 errors, together with their origin and causes, and shall 
 now endeavor to show that they erred in the very funda- 
 mental fact upon which their movement turned that 
 they accepted it without investigation and without 
 rational and legitimate warrant that even the recitals 
 in the gospels do not justify their conclusion that Jesus 
 was actually raised from the dead or was reanimated 
 after complete and absolute death ; while the whole facts 
 clearly show that he was not 
 
 9
 
 I3O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE OBSTRUCTIONS TO A FAIR DECISION OF THE 
 MAIN ISSUE. 
 
 THE very fact of the fundamental nature of both the 
 fact proposed to be discussed and the aspiration which 
 underlies and is supposed to be supported by it, make 
 the proposed investigation a difficult one when under- 
 taken in the presence of millions of earnest people who 
 have staked their hopes of immortality and happiness 
 upon its truth. There are many other facts which 
 heighten this difficulty. The proposed effort will not 
 only be regarded by Christians as gratuitous and un- 
 friendly, but the popular audience will be obstinately 
 prejudiced and bitterly antagonistic. Man's habitual 
 mental activity has been emotional and sensuous, and 
 not rational or critical, especially so during those early 
 stages of. his development which fixed our present men- 
 tal proclivities and popular beliefs. Such early beliefs 
 and proclivities, transmitted to us by tradition and 
 inheritance, becomes so engrafted into our very natures, 
 and so interwoven with our habits and lives, that we 
 rarely, and always reluctantly, investigate them ; and we 
 are really quite incapable of subjecting them to the full
 
 OBSTRUCTIONS TO A FAIR DECISION. 131 
 
 and fair tests of reason, even if we attempted to do so. 
 They so identify themselves with the ordinary operations 
 of our minds and with the habitual currents of our 
 thoughts, emotions and desires and our human inter- 
 ests and associations, that they are too near the estab- 
 lished focus of our mental vision for either a clear 
 insight or critical observation. By their coordination 
 with, and adjustment to, our habitual life-thoughts, hopes 
 and actions, they both color and control our mental 
 action ; and every attempt to eradicate or change them 
 tends to produce a painful mental hiatus or to introduce 
 uncoordinated, discordant and deranging elements into 
 our habitual thoughts and life-modes. We do not feel 
 willing to concede this controlling bias in our mental 
 action upon our own hereditary religious beliefs, but it 
 should become manifest to us when we find that we so 
 readily perceive the bigotry and peurility of other relig- 
 ionists whos'e pretensions differ from our own only in the 
 fact that they are their pretensions and not ours. We 
 can judge others with a spirit of unsparing criticism. 
 We can subject their evidence, methods and conclusions 
 to all, and even more than all, the rigors of logic and the 
 inexorable conclusions of science. We seem to compen- 
 sate for our blindness to just such evidences, methods 
 and beliefs existing in our own sacred creeds and records, 
 by the fierceness and zeal with which we demolish 
 them in those of other people. We are inoculated 
 with our religious beliefs in our infancy, and have them 
 constantly instilled into us, during the earlier and more 
 plastic period of our lives, from the sacred lips of 
 priest and mother and with the uncloubting assent of all 
 around us ; and they are so fostered and nursed, under
 
 132 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 this hot-house culture, that they are gradually organ- 
 ized into the very warp and woof of our lives, and finally 
 harden into an undoubting, unreasoning and bigoted 
 Faith, 
 
 To men thus warped and set, the grossest irration- 
 alities, incongruities, contradictions, errors and even 
 absurdities in their accepted faiths, cease to be regarded 
 as such, or' even to arrest their attention. To those 
 born and bred within the clatter of machinery or the 
 roar of a water-fall, their noise ceases to be even a sub- 
 ject of attention ; while their interruption or cessation 
 would result in a painful sense of loss. Inbred errors 
 glide through the well-worn mental grooves without a 
 foot-fall being intercepted in consciousness. Even our 
 reason has been so long forced to become the advocate 
 and defender of our hereditary creeds, that it has become 
 callous to their irrationalities, and falls into its routine 
 of assigned duties with the indifference of a drilled 
 attorney, who has only to convince himself and an over- 
 willing jury. And should it dare .question or revolt, its 
 treason is at once stifled by dire penalties here, and by 
 the fear of still more frightful penalties hereafter. Let 
 any two of the many great opposing religions of the 
 world, whose supernaturalisms and asserted divine en- 
 dorsements are substantially the same, meet in contro- 
 versy, and we should at once see the extent to which rea- 
 son is suborned and enslaved. In such a controversy each 
 would turn with astonishment and indignation from the
 
 OBSTRUCTIONS TO A FAIR DECISION. 133 
 
 presumptuous and preposterous pretensions of the other, 
 and would bemoan each other's obstinate and purblind 
 credulity ; and yet each will have the profound, but un- 
 conscious, audacity to claim the indubitable rationality 
 and infallibility of its own claims and doctrines. 
 
 Such mental conditions and influences are utterly 
 obstructive of a rational investigation of any fundamental 
 religious dogma, and the true investigator is to be 
 deemed fortunate who can command .a hearing at all, 
 and secure even tolerable charity for his motives. To 
 complain of this, however, is to complain of Nature her- 
 self. Religious jealousy and bigotry are everywhere, 
 and increase with the progressive growth of Religion 
 until it reaches its rationalistic stage. The traveller 
 who comes to the windward of a fetich or has trodden 
 on the toe of an idol or peeped in upon the secret orgies 
 of their worshippers, finds himself suddenly surrounded 
 by infuriated savages, who menace him with imminent 
 death. The Brahmin ranks high as a Thinker, yet the 
 shabbiest beggar of the Caste would consider himself 
 defiled to be even touched by a Marcus Aurelian or St. 
 Peter, or by eating food cooked by his English Empress, 
 Victoria. The most enlightened nation of antiquity 
 .sacrificed their Socrates for sacrilege or infidelity to their 
 trumpery and immoral Gods. Imagine, also, if you can, 
 the illimitable fury which would be aroused in the black- 
 browed Imams and white-bearded Soufis of Islam, were 
 some Christian to penetrate to the presence of the 
 " sacred stone " of Mecca and there dare to question its 
 descent from Heaven, or to question the divine mission 
 of the Prophet, or to assert the equality of the Son of
 
 134 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Mary with Allah himself ! Would the " Latter-day- 
 Saints " be less infuriated were a truculent Gentile to 
 malign and denounce as a fraud their prophet Joseph ? 
 Or the burly priests at Rome at having the immaculate 
 
 conception of Mary or the divinity of Jesus questioned ? 
 
 / 
 
 The truth is that man's superstitions and super- 
 natural creeds everywhere spurn the abitrament of 
 reason, and their believers, both openly and secretly, 
 despise investigation, and persecute the free and fearless 
 investigator. The Theology of Supernaturalism is 
 everywhere sleeplessly jealous, intolerant and vindic- 
 tive. Men may consent to be contradicted or even to be 
 convinced of their ignorance or errors regarding mat- 
 ters which they can know, but they become spitefully 
 deaf when you would expose the errors of their crude 
 notions of the unknown or unknowable. They may 
 listen to you upon the most important earthly affairs, 
 but dare to touch their absurdest and most impossible 
 dreams of the Invisible World and they will cling to 
 them with a blind obstinacy proportioned to their irra- 
 tionality. Your reason becomes the antagonist of their 
 desires, of which their notions are a reflex. The very 
 indefensibility of their crude conceptions makes them 
 spiteful as hornets. Scores of heaven-born, but antago- 
 nistic and conflicting, creeds are thus obstinately held as 
 sacred and inviolable by the Human Race. Men require 
 strict legal proof of the slightest claim to property, and 
 demand proof " beyond all rational doubt" to establish a 
 theft or a burglary, while absolutely rejecting all unsworn 
 and all hearsay testimony ; and yet they will believe 
 in the suspension and reversal of those laws of nature
 
 OBSTRUCTIONS TO A FAIR DECISION. 135 
 
 upon whose stability and inflexible reliability all truth 
 and confidence must rest, or in the birth of the Infinite 
 God from a mere woman in the ordinary course of embry- 
 onic development or gestation, upon the bare assertions 
 of ancient, unverified, conflicting and disputed writings, 
 either invented or compiled from hearsays and traditions 
 floating among ignorant and superstitious people; and 
 will promptly stake their salvation upon unauthenticated 
 and unverified evidence, which, if fully authenticated as 
 genuine, they would as promptly reject as worthless in a 
 trial for a debt of five dollars. Men not only lock in 
 their superstitions and sacred creeds, but would forever 
 bury the key ; and he who would venture to inspect the 
 mouldy contents of these sealed vaults consecrated to 
 Superstition, is treated as a blasphemer and a desecrator 
 of holy things. 
 
 When a people have their faith embodied in " sacred 
 books," the task of exposing religious errors becomes 
 greatly more difficult. Christianity has felt the force of 
 this difficulty. Outside of the Roman Empire in which 
 it originated, it has never been enabled to convert a peo- 
 ple having such sacred records. Such religionists, like 
 the Christians, refer every questioner to their own sacred 
 books as final and infallible. Once bastioned with these 
 infallible and bomb-proof supernatural records, Super- 
 stition may "laugh a seige to scorn." Everything is 
 proven by " The Book," and the book proves itself in 
 itself implies verity !
 
 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 No religion, save the faith of Islam, places so 
 supreme a value upon faith sheer unreasoning faith 
 as does Christianity ; and none hurls such frightful hell- 
 penalties at the head of even the honest doubter and 
 skeptic. Each of these Semitic religions offers, also, 
 the most divine rewards for absolute, childish trust and 
 credence. And yet, each regards this demand for un- 
 questioning faith by the other as a piece of most 
 intolerable audacity and consummate presumption, and 
 denounces it as the bold effrontery of imposture. Each 
 is more intolerant of the presumption and superstitious 
 credulity of the other, than is the skeptic. The only 
 just apologist of each to the other is the common dis- 
 believer of the supernatural pretensions of both. 
 
 How few of- us, indeed, are willing or even capable 
 of applying the same rules of evidence and the same 
 measure of justice to our own religious creeds which we 
 apply to those of all others ? Even those who suppose 
 that they have thrown off the yoke of Supernaturalism 
 are often unconsciously controlled by its dogmas and 
 influences ; while there are, perhaps, none who do not 
 still retain old notions which are unsupported by evi- 
 dence or reason, and which are out of harmony with, 
 and unadjusted to, their reformed rationalistic views. 
 Our last errors to receive correction are those pertaining 
 to Theology. And yet, Why should we refuse or hesi- 
 tate to investigate and reform our religious, any more 
 than scientific or historic, beliefs ? Can any subject be 
 more worthy of our utmost rational endeavors ? Why 
 are we, or at least Why need we be, so timid about this 
 matter ? Surely, the facts themselves cannot be altered
 
 OBSTRUCTIONS TO A FAIR DECISION. 137 
 
 by our mental conclusions about them ; nor could God 
 require more than our best and highest endeavors by 
 that reason which is, not only our highest, but sole 
 arbiter of truth. Our irrational assumption of the facts 
 or our belief in them cannot make them exist. Fact and 
 Truth reign in eternal accord with true Reason, without 
 regard to human faith or belief. Our duty manifestly is, 
 not to endeavor to supply the facts or to substitute our 
 beliefs or desires for them, but to conform our beliefs to 
 the real and existing facts by the highest means and 
 methods possible to us. If our data are insufficient or 
 imperfect, increase or improve them. If our reason is 
 inadequate, cultivate and develop it. If our desires are 
 adverse and obstructive, subordinate them to, and co- 
 ordinate them with, the divine facts and purposes of 
 Being, as they are manifested in its universal evolutions. 
 The fact that scenes and events occurred in the remote 
 past and lie buried amid the undistinguishable rubbish 
 of decayed centuries may put them beyond the pale of 
 knowledge, but not outside the jurisdiction of Reason. 
 Ought the very facts and considerations which make 
 them rationally incredible or unreclaimable, to also 
 secure their sanctity and infallibility ? Ought not the 
 illy-comprehended theological assumptions and religious 
 notions of the early, myth-forming ages and the zealous 
 and interested assertions of priests and propagandists, to 
 be treated at least as scrutinizingly as all others ? Does 
 not all human history and experience painfully demon- 
 strate the absolute necessity of treating such evidences 
 with extraordinary precautions against fraud, error and 
 imposition rather than with blind credulity ? If these 
 alleged " divine truths " are real divine truths, intended
 
 138 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 by God for man's belief, Ought they not to stand any 
 amount of investigation ? nay, more, Should they not 
 court all tests and defy all scrutiny f Would God put 
 the salvation or damnation of the whole Human Race, 
 for all eternity, upon evidence wholly incomprehensible 
 or inconclusive, or less rationally satisfying than that 
 required to prove the most ordinary facts ? Would He 
 offer salvation or damnation upon the alternative of a 
 belief requiring a credulity which would leave us at the 
 mercy of every cunning impostor and compel us to 
 accept every antideluvian notion and superstition ? If 
 God really holds us responsible for our beliefs Would 
 he not rather hold us guilty for a hasty, inconsiderate 
 acceptance of unproved aid irrational beliefs for not 
 earnestly using the reason and means that he has given 
 us, than for errors in rejecting that which our highest 
 intelligence forbade us to believe ? Men tremble at the 
 bare idea of denying that a young carpenter, who was 
 executed some 2000 years ago, was God ; Do they ever 
 pause to think of the very Belshazzar-trembling that may 
 seize upon them when (in their own language) they 
 " face the Infinite God," and are asked how they have 
 dared to place a mere man upon the throne of the 
 Infinite and identify him with God ! If they think that 
 God damns men for blasphemy and false opinions, 
 May it not be as well to hear God's side, also, before 
 awarding His very being and throne to a mere human 
 claimant (if he ever did claim it) ? Is there not, from 
 their own stand-point of responsibility, another and very 
 appalling side to this question ?
 
 OBSTRUCTIONS TO A FAIR DECISION. 139 
 
 If what has been said shall tend, in any degree, to 
 render the views to be taken less startling by reason of 
 their conflict with our hereditary notions, and to induce 
 the reader to at least endeavor to actually use his every- 
 day-reason and common sense about the witnesses, evi- 
 dences, methods and conclusions touching his own 
 religion and its records, in the same manner he would 
 about those of other religions or as if the alleged events 
 and sayings were now happening or being narrated under 
 similar and equivalent conditions, then our chief object 
 and highest hope has been achieved. And let it be 
 remembered, that the very first step towards divesting 
 ourselves of irrational partialities in this matter, is to 
 fully realize and appreciate the fact that we must no 
 longer indulge in that old, childish method of " reason- 
 ing in a circle " that method to which we have been so 
 long accustomed to listen with approval, or at least with- 
 out objection that method by which Christianity and 
 its Bible are accepted as divinely endorsed, and are per- 
 mitted to prove their infallibility by their divine origin 
 or inspiration, and then prove their divine origin and 
 inspiration by their own already-established and infallible 
 authority The sayings and narratives in the Bible must 
 be accepted for what they are worth as human testi- 
 mony, and not for a penny-worth more, in all discussions 
 where its infallibility is not conceded. Our being 
 taught to regard il as inspired has not the slightest tend- 
 ency to make it so. Nor are the assertions of the Jews 
 that they are the special and favored people of God of 
 any more value than the self-asserted superiority of the 
 Brahmin or of the pig-tailed citizen of the " Celestial 
 Empire ; " nor are their notions of, or claims to, divine
 
 I4O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 inspiration, deserving of higher consideration than those 
 of Islam or other religions. In a rational point of view, 
 Christianity presents its claims for acceptance or rejec- 
 tion now, as it did in the beginning ; and must legiti- 
 mately and affirmatively establish the facts it asserts and 
 its entire claims to divine authority by the full amounts, 
 kinds and rules of evidence demanded by human reason 
 and experience. In thus divesting ourselves of the 
 assumptions and infallibility of the Church and its Bible, 
 indeed, we are but divesting ancient writings of a sanc- 
 tity and infallible authority conferred on them solely by 
 subsequent ages ; for none of the books we shall rely 
 upon, and, with slight exceptions, none others, make any 
 claim to having been written by special divine inspira- 
 tion ; nor were the books composing the_ New Testament 
 regarded as part of the " Sacred Scriptures " either by 
 their own authors or by the men of their time. But, 
 while demanding the benefit of these truths and insist- 
 ing that the burden of proof is upon the Church which 
 asserts the facts in issue, it will be found, that we do not 
 practically avail ourselves of these advantages, but really 
 take the burden of negativing the Scriptural conclusions 
 discussed, by the facts as substantially narrated in the 
 Gospels.
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 
 
 IT would be with little propriety that we could 
 approach the discussion of such a subject as the resurrec- 
 tion of Jesus without first endeavoring to comprehend 
 the nature and value of the materials with which we 
 shall be compelled to deal. Characters, opinions and 
 actions so remote from us in time, space, race, develop- 
 ment, conditions and intelligence, cannot be correctly 
 judged from our own status and stand-point. We must 
 endeavor, therefore, however imperfectly, to recover and 
 realize both the personal and impersonal facts influenc- 
 ing the main fact to be investigated and the evidence 
 upon which its decision depends. Let us endeavor to 
 at least approximately comprehend the characters and 
 the mental and social status of the chief actors and wit- 
 nesses and the motives influencing them, as well as the 
 authenticity and value of the written testimony concern- 
 ing them, and the public conditions and persons who 
 influenced the final event. In short, Let us endeavor to 
 bring ourselves into rapport with those early times and 
 actors that we may appreciate their views, actions and 
 testimony. And first, Let us endeavor to form some
 
 142 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 notion of the value of the record of the evidence and 
 some conception of the persons who furnished that 
 evidence. 
 
 Accustomed to witness the imperial power and splen- 
 dor of the triumphant Christian Church, it is wellnigh 
 impossible to realize the true status and condition of its 
 founders to realize the rude appearance and habits and 
 the lowly simplicity and profound ignorance of the little 
 crowd of men and women who followed Jesus and bore 
 witness to his works and sayings. They are no longer, 
 to us, what Fact or even the Scripture makes them, but 
 are beings wholly idealized by Time and Art. Whether 
 any of the original Twelve could write is uncertain. If 
 any it was Matthew, the Publican. The occupation and 
 condition of the others would, in that age and country, 
 forbid us to credit them with an accomplishment then so 
 unusual, even had their ignorance and illiteracy not been 
 used to verify their pretensions to supernatural aid, in the 
 Scriptures themselves. But Jesus and his disciples were 
 said to be wholly illiterate, as we find in the Gospels. 
 With the exception of Matthew, who held the odious 
 position of Publican, they all seem to have been simple 
 fishermen neither above or below the average of their 
 class, save perhaps in morality, and certainly in credulity : 
 a class noted, the world over, for simple ignorance and 
 unbounded credulity and superstition. 
 
 The young carpenter of Nazareth seems to have
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 143 
 
 confined his selections, with the exception of Judas, to 
 the Tetrarchy of Galilee, and almost exclusively to the 
 simple fisherman-class. In no instance did he select or 
 endeavor to procure one of education and standing in 
 society, nor any one from the mercantile or agricultural 
 classes, or even from his own mechanic class 
 
 Mr. Beecher, in his Life of Christ, says : " It is 
 impossible, from the materials at our command, to ascer- 
 tain upon what principles of selection the disciples were 
 gathered. But few of them asserted any such individ- 
 uality as to bring their names into view during the 
 ministry of Jesus. * * They were all selected from 
 the common walks of life. None of them gave evidence 
 of peculiar depth of religious feeling. None of them 
 except John ever exhibited any traits. That they were 
 subject to the common faults of humanity abundantly 
 appears in their disputes among themselves, in their 
 worldly ambitions, in their plotting to supersede each 
 other, in their rash and revengeful imprecations of judg- 
 ments upon the villagers who had treated Jesus with 
 disrespect, and in their utter lack of courage when the 
 final catastrophe was approaching. They believed in an 
 earthly kingdom for the Messiah, and, with the rest of 
 their people, anticipated a carnal triumph of Jesus over 
 all his enemies. They could not be made believe that 
 their master was to be put to death ; and when he was 
 arrested, they ' all forsook him and fled.' They hovered 
 in bewilderment around the solemn tragedy, but one of 
 them, John, had the courage to be present and near at 
 the crucifixion of their Teacher. Looking externally 
 upon these men, contrasting them with such as Nico-
 
 144 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 demus and Joseph of Arimathea, the question arises, 
 whether among all the more highly cultivated Jews, 
 among Pharisees and Doctors, there might not have been 
 found sincere men, of deeply religious natures, of edu- 
 cated intelligence, who, under the same amount of per- 
 sonal instruction, would have been far more capable of 
 carrying forward the work of the New Kingdom. All 
 that can be known is, that Jesus chose his disciples from 
 Galilee, far away from the Temple influence and in a 
 province much affected with the 'foreign spirit ; that he 
 selected them, not from the specifically religious class, 
 but from the working people. None are mentioned as 
 from agricultural pursuits, and all whose occupations are 
 mentioned were more or less concerned with commerce. 
 That there were reasons in his own mind for the selec- 
 tion none can doubt, and none can ever know what the 
 reasons were." 
 
 Mr. Beecher is right : none can ever know what his 
 reasons were, but it is equally impossible for the rational 
 and unbiased mind to fail to perceive that there is a violent 
 presumption as to the nature of his reasons and motives 
 for selecting such men as Mr. Beecher describes for the 
 purposes for which he actually used them. Mr. Beecher 
 not only leads us directly up to the qualities for which 
 they were actually chosen, but renders the true con- 
 clusion resistless by negativing all others. The chosen 
 disciples, even according to Mr. Beecher, had neither 
 the conduct, nor the courage to fight. They had neither 
 wealth, position nor influence to offer to the cause. 
 They had not sufficient education or intelligence to con- 
 vince the Wise, or to sway the public. They had not
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 145 
 
 the capacity even to imitate the " marvellous works " of 
 their master, to any valuable extent. In the presence of 
 Jesus they said little, and did less. They made but few 
 efforts even in his absence, but with the most discourag- 
 ing results. The great majority of them are never 
 brought into notice, at all, during his public career, and 
 were left to sink into oblivion after it ; being mere 
 dummies before the resurrection and equally so after it. 
 He selected twelve, not because that special number 
 were required for witnesses, but as representatives of 
 the " twelve tribes : " he really used and trusted but 
 three. None of them ever performed a valuable service 
 or met with a single success during his ministry or trial, 
 nor gave the slightest evidence of capacity for aiding 
 such an enterprise. He in fact rebuked even the slight- 
 est indications of their possessing independent opinions. 
 Absolute faith, devotion and obedience was what was 
 demanded of them, and these .they accorded him. They 
 had, Mr. Beecher tells us, nothing to specially commend 
 them either in their moral, or religious natures or 
 conduct. None, -he says, ever exhibited a trait of genius 
 save John ; and we confess that we have not been 
 enabled to see the justice of the exception or the pro- 
 priety of, in any manner, connecting the exalted w.ord, 
 genius, with the name of John. But, Mr. Beecher is 
 right : there must have been some motive governing their 
 selection : What was it ? Mr. Beecher says " none can 
 ever know." Now, what he himself shows to be his real 
 difficulty is, not that there are no sufficient means of 
 knowing, but that, from his own view of Jesus and his 
 mission, it is impossible for him to conceive the motive 
 for such a selection. He is evidently impressed with 
 
 10
 
 146 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the idea that the selections could have been improved in 
 the mode he suggests an exactly opposite mode to the 
 one actually adopted. If it had been Mahomet who had 
 so acted instead of Jesus, Mr. Beecher would have found 
 no difficulty in assigning the true inducement and 
 motive for the selection. He fails to find in the men 
 selected a single special qualification required by his 
 own view of the purposes for which they were selected, 
 because they had none ; while they clearly seem to him 
 to have had many and glaring disqualifications. The 
 only qualities which specially distinguished them, and 
 were also peculiar to all of them, point with unerring 
 certainty to the real motive a motive which Mr. Beecher 
 dare not know, and could even hint of his divine Master. 
 Had Mr. Beecher, however, found Mahomet or any other 
 aspirant for the honor of founding a new kingdom or a 
 new Religion, by the means of thaumaturgic or mirac- 
 ulous exhibitions to secure a belief in his divine mission 
 by the ignorant and superstitious multitude, choosing 
 for his constant personal followers and assistants men 
 from the humblest, most ignorant and most superstitious 
 and credulous class, who exhibited no special traits or 
 capacity, save an exceptional credulity even among their 
 exceptionally credulous class an unfailing aptitude for 
 believing without doubt or criticism whatever they were 
 desired to believe, as well as for doing whatever they 
 were told to do, and roundly testifying to, and freely 
 publishing their own superstitious and credulous beliefs 
 and conclusions as actual facts, and who could be spurred 
 on inimitably by their childish vanity and desire to be 
 set in high places and on the " right hand of power," 
 and who had no other qualifications either useful or or-
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 147 
 
 namental ; and had he also found that their Master knew 
 of this lack of higher qualifications and still retained them 
 as his exclusive assistants, and used them for the special 
 qualities they did possess, Would Mr. Beecher have 
 had any hesitation in saying " Mahomet evidently chose 
 these men expressly for assistants and witnesses in his 
 miracle-working, and for that purpose chose with sa- 
 gacity : their ignorance, superstition, credulity and im- 
 plicit trust and obedience admirably qualified them for 
 ' scene shifters ' and witnesses to aid and give currency 
 to the thaumaturgic feats of their master?" This 
 would be his first and inevitable conclusion. But when 
 we strike out the name, Mahomet, and insert that of 
 Jesus, the mind of Mr. Beecher flies as wild as a mag- 
 netic needle when a loadstone is waved over it. He is be- 
 wildered. He looks dazedly around in search of a motive 
 for such a course in Jesus in Jesus the God : no, there 
 is no conceivable motive possible to a God anywhere to be 
 found. " There must have been some principle of selec- 
 tion, but it can never be known," sighs the venerable 
 servant at the altar of Jesus : he dare not even think of 
 the motive which would be glaringly palpable in the case 
 of another, in connection with his Divine Master ! Mr. 
 Beecher cannot review the facts, however, without being 
 impelled to query whether a higher and more suitable 
 selection might not have been made whether such men 
 as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea would not have 
 done better. Here, as before, if the Koran instead of 
 the Bible had furnished us the facts, Mr. Beecher would 
 have had no difficulty : he would have perceived that 
 Jesus positively avoided having the intelligent classes as 
 his personal followers and as witnesses of his wonder-
 
 148 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 working, and that it was quite impossible for such men 
 to have followed, served and testified for him as did the 
 ignorant and credulous fishermen of Galilee ; however 
 much they might have sympathized with his humane 
 and democratic principles, and his ardent hopes for the 
 speedy " redemption of Israel." 
 
 Jesus did not fail in his essential purpose in the 
 choice of his personal followers, Judas excepted. He 
 was, indeed, specially sagacious in reading both the 
 characters and intentions of men. He chose his attend- 
 ant disciples for witnesses to his "wonderful works," 
 and as " chosen witnesses " they proved themselves ad- 
 mirable and unfailing in their unquestioning faith and 
 in the positive and unqualified nature of their testimony. 
 When their master and expected king seemed utterly 
 abandoned by all others their faith, their credulity, their 
 willing obedience, and their hopes of being his highest 
 officials and kingly favorites, when his miracles should 
 have won him a throne, never deserted them for a mo- 
 ment until their hopes and confidence were alike blasted 
 by his final arrest. If they failed in all things which 
 required intelligence or skill, it was because the neces- 
 sary qualities which fitted them for miracle-proving 
 rendered them unfit for higher duties. Jesus unavailingly 
 tried to use them for other purposes, but yielded at once 
 and with scarce a murmur when they failed ; as if he 
 were conscious that they ought not have been expected 
 to succeed by qualities directly opposite to those for 
 which they were chosen. They at least demonstrated
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 149 
 
 by their whole conduct both the motive for their selec- 
 tion and the sagacity of the choice. They followed him 
 with ready credulity upon his very first offer, or sum- 
 mons, and continued to follow him with an all-accepting 
 faith and hopeful devotion to the last. This was the 
 kind of followers Jesus loved and demanded. For while 
 he was especially fond of cross-questioning and con- 
 founding others, he brooked no question of his own 
 claims, and became harshly vituperative to opponents 
 and doubters, when his own powers or performances 
 were questioned. 
 
 Besides this chosen band of attendant witnesses, there 
 would seem to have been a number of women who fre- 
 quently, if not ordinarily, followed them in their per- 
 egrinations. Perhaps there are only two of these women 
 upon whose character the Gospels throw any light. We 
 find the mother of James and John an active participant 
 in the contentions for the anticipated positions and 
 offices under King Jesus, among the chosen twelve, and 
 demanding of Jesus that the two highest places those on 
 the right and left hand of his throne should be given to 
 her sons. The other Mary Magdalen is claimed to 
 have been a woman of "easy virtue," out of whom seven 
 devils had been cast. Her personal attachment and de- 
 votion seems to have been very decided: It is not diffi- 
 cult to conceive such women, or to comprehend the kind 
 of women who would constitute such a following. They 
 would not probably be less credulous, superstitious, 
 ignorant or interested, nor less efficient in spreading 
 accounts of the miracles of their master, than were their 
 male companions.
 
 I5O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Such were the chosen witnesses and other immediate 
 followers upon whose testimony, at the best, we are com- 
 pelled to depend for our belief in numberless miraculous 
 suspensions of the laws of Nature, and for our Knowledge 
 of the salvation of the World. It was they who gave 
 testimony and currency to the facts and stories which, 
 in more or less mutilated and modified forms, entered 
 into, and constituted the frame-work of, the gospel nar- 
 ratives and the early Christian legends and traditions. 
 If we are not wholly untrue to ourselves if we do not 
 wholly suppress our reason and common sense, we shall 
 be at little loss in estimating the value of such testimony, 
 especially as to the suspension of the Laws of Nature, 
 of whose very existence they had never even dreamed. 
 
 That Jesus took the very best possible modes and 
 instruments to have his miracles attested 2d\& circulated, 
 is not to be contested. That he also took, however, the 
 very worst ones to have them believed by rational and in- 
 telligent minds, is not only manifest to such rational 
 minds, but is proved by their actual and almost universal 
 rejection by the intelligent men who .knew both him and 
 his witnesses, and who were even feverishly anxious to 
 hail him as Messiah and King had he satisfied them of 
 his powers and pretensions. One grand imposing and 
 indubitable miracle, performed as an express test before 
 the assembled priests, the Sanhedrim and the multitude 
 in the Jewish Temple, would have done the work would 
 have opened the hearts and arms of every Jew from the 
 Thames to the Ganges.
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 15! 
 
 But we have not been permitted to have even the 
 guaranty of these original promulgators of the " Story 
 of Jesus." It is only the disturbed and distorted echoes 
 of their disjointed and discordant rumors which now 
 reach us through our present copies and translations of 
 the Gospels. Even as they now stand those Gospels 
 neither constitute, nor purport to be, a history of either 
 Jesus or of his teachings. We have only what purports 
 to be fragmentary and disjointed accounts of his acts and 
 sayings during brief periods of his life, written without 
 order or chronological sequence ; while even these frag- 
 ments of his conversations and doings are not only of 
 unknown and contested authorship, but have unquestion- 
 ably suffered from interpolations, alterations, miscopy- 
 ings and mistranslations. 
 
 It was not upon the New Testament writings that 
 the Church was founded, for they were written for 
 the already existing churches, or individual Christians, 
 long after they were established ; while the New Testa- 
 ment canon was not established until centuries after the 
 crucifixion. Christ never left a syllable in writing, nor 
 did he ever instruct others to write. His own efforts 
 were verbal, and his sole instructions were to "preach 
 his gospel." It was upon the verbal statements of the 
 Apostles, and those whom they instructed, that the 
 churches were founded ; and for more than a century 
 the Church was governed by oral declarations and tradi- 
 tions almost exclusively.
 
 152 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 The multitude of absurd, childish and conflicting 
 stories which spring from, or were attached to, the name 
 of Jesus after his supposed resurrection, would scarcely 
 be credible, in our day, to those who are unfamiliar with 
 the history of similar religions and with the myth and 
 legend-making proclivities of peopleSj especially during 
 the earlier phases of their development. We find that 
 they spontaneously, as it were, sprung up, like wild 
 weeds, around the name of Jesus, or were adopted and 
 attached to it from older myths and legends ; and quite 
 as freely as in the case of all other founders of religions or 
 other famous wonder-workers. During the plastic period 
 of the first ages of Christianity her legend-factories and 
 myth-furnaces were kept, if possible, more busy than 
 those of the Mahometans and Buddhists, and with no less 
 prolific and grotesque results. 
 
 Before the end of the second century vast numbers 
 of these disjointed, marvellous and childish narratives 
 grew into something like continuous myths, legends and 
 stories, and were then partially reduced to writing under 
 various pretences, and became known under distinct 
 names. Great numbers of Gospels, and still greater 
 numbers of epistles (most of which were claimed to 
 have been written by, and bore the name of, some of the 
 apostles or early disciples,) were set afloat upon the great 
 tide of popular beliefs. Whether an epistle or book was 
 genuine or a forgery was little inquired into, and its au- 
 thenticity and authority were asserted or denied rather 
 with reference to its effect upon the existing doctrines
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 153 
 
 and beliefs of the speaker than from any special knowl- 
 edge or care as to the real facts. Many of the Gospels 
 current in those early days were by no means so reticent 
 upon the early history of Jesus and his mother as are 
 those whose mutilated remains have come down to us. 
 The same ignorant and superstitious spirit which had 
 thrown the halo of the Marvellous and Divine about his 
 later life, did not fail to illuminate his infancy and boy- 
 hood with equally glaring stage-lights. They narrated, 
 with equal dogmatic simplicity, the miracles which 
 adorned those early years of his life as they did those of 
 his manhood. They gravely tell us that his very swad- 
 dling-clothes, or baby-linen, like some divine fetich, un- 
 consciously performed some most wonderful miracles ; 
 that the mud-birds which he formed when a boy at play 
 so far outstripped those of his play-fellows as to take to 
 wings and fly ; that while he was working at his trade 
 under his father, Joseph received an order from the King 
 of Jerusalem to make him a throne, and that after work- 
 ing upon it for two years, and setting it into its place, it 
 was found to be decidedly too small to fill the space it was 
 to occupy, greatly to the alarm of the old carpenter ; 
 but that Jesus bade him to be comforted, and to take 
 hold of one side of the throne and pull, while he himself 
 pulled at the other side ; and that, upon doing so, the 
 throne obeyed and was stretched to the proper dimen- 
 sions ; and, also, that Jesus had actually spoken in his 
 cradle and declared himself the " Son of God," and other 
 like wonderful things ; all of which are now kept care- 
 fully out of sight. There was also the " Gospel of Mary," 
 in which the mother figures almost as miraculously as 
 her son.
 
 154 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 In fact the number and extent of the forgeries, alter- 
 ations and interpolations, and of the sheer inventions, 
 myths and lies became so great during the first few cen- 
 turies of the Christian era that all definite conception of 
 the life and sayings of Jesus become impossible ; and 
 the Church was rent by many conflicting doctrines 
 and schisms. These various and variously mutilated 
 gospels and epistles were severally held by different 
 churches and individuals in Asia, Africa and Europe, 
 and were received with various degrees of credit or in- 
 credulity by those who possessed them or copies of 
 them ; each judging for themselves without ecclesi- 
 astical or conscientious restraint. 
 
 As there was neither paper nor printing in those 
 days the whole of these documents were in manuscript, 
 written upon "the fragile papyrus. Under the conditions 
 of travel and intercourse among the early churches it 
 took a long time for these successive productions to find 
 their way, in the form of copies, to all the churches, and 
 still longer for the churches to form and interchange 
 their various and conflicting opinions about their gen- 
 uineness and value. Nor was the necessity for a com- 
 mon understanding of them then deemed of so much 
 importance as it would now, since, among other reasons, 
 they still used and chiefly relied upon the oral traditions, 
 and were in constant expectation of the second coming 
 of Jesus himself, and had never been taught to expect- 
 any inspired or uninspired writings concerning him, nor 
 to have any special or exclusive reverence for such as 
 had been written. And when the oral traditions grew 
 more doubtful and controverted, the Church writings
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 155 
 
 were only used in common with, and in aid of, the tradi- 
 tions. 
 
 As the conflicts increased with regard to traditions 
 and doctrines, the favorite gospels and epistles gained a 
 more marked and exclusive ascendancy over the whole 
 or certain churches. But it is never to be overlooked 
 that, during those first ages, the only " sacred scriptures " 
 known or recognized among Christians was the old Jew- 
 ish Scriptures. No one, during the age of the Apostles, 
 dreamed of calling the pastoral or personal letters of 
 Paul, or a narrative by Matthew, by the sacred name, 
 "Scripture;" and certainly the Apostles and writers 
 themselves never claimed them to rank as such. Those 
 early writings, whether now considered canonical or un- 
 canonical, were generally called forth by special circum- 
 stances, and were most of them written for the special 
 Benefit of certain races, churches or individuals, or to 
 affect some opinions or controversies among them ; and 
 were, upon their face, generally directed to those for 
 whom they were intended. The special object of those 
 not so directed is very generally known and conceded. 
 The Gospel, so-called, of Matthew was written for the 
 special benefit of the Jews ; that of Mark more especially 
 for the Gentiles ; Luke's, expressly for one Theophilus, 
 with a view to enlighten him as to those things which 
 were "most surely believed" among the Christians*; 
 John's Gospel, for the purpose of affecting certain con- 
 troverted doctrines ; mainly, it would seem, to establish 
 the physical nature and sufferings of Jesus and his 
 eternal sonship and oneness with the Father ; while the 
 epistles themselves show to whom, and for what, they
 
 156 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 were written, being mere pastoral or friendly letters to 
 churches or individuals, and were neither considered nor 
 treated as specially inspired or infallible by the writers 
 or receivers. For centuries the books now received as 
 canonical stood side-by-side with those which are now 
 denounced as apocryphal, and indiscriminately shared 
 with them the confidence of the various churches ; all, 
 however, in different and varying degrees, according to 
 the inclinations and views of their readers. Some of the 
 apocryphal books were long credited and quoted, while 
 some of our canonical ones were equally long discred- 
 ited. Much, indeed, of our own supposed knowledge of 
 scriptural characters comes from those discarded books. 
 Where there were differences in the credit awarded to 
 those early writings, they were differences in degree and 
 not in kind. It was not because one was deemed in- 
 spired, and another not ; but only such differences in 
 confidence as Methodists might now have between the 
 conflicting opinions and writings of Mr. Wesley and 
 Lorenzo Dow, or Whitefield. 
 
 It was only in after centuries that it was thought 
 necessary to form a select and authoritative canon of the 
 New Testament, nor did the rejected books ever cease 
 to be regarded as valuable and trustworthy sources of 
 information by the great mother Church of Rome ; 
 while the founder of Protestantism went so far as to 
 reject some half dozen of the books now in our canon. 
 To accept the authorities respected by ancient Christians 
 would be deemed heretical by present Orthodoxy ; to 
 deny the inspiration of those rejected by Luther would 
 damn us as infidels.
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 157 
 
 To those who look upon this selected lot of books or 
 writings as the " Word of Life," and who would deem 
 an autograph of one of the apostles of incalculable value, 
 it would seem not a little strange that the early Chris- 
 tians made no effort to transmit to posterity the original, 
 or, at least, an indubitable copy of this priceless treasure. 
 Had their opinions and means been those of our ortho- 
 dox Christians they would doubtless have done so, or 
 were the writings of such divine origin and actual value 
 as they are deemed to be, they would undoubtedly have 
 been inspired to do so by the Divine Inspirer of the 
 books. There are several reasons for this singular ne- 
 glect. Firstly : there was the wholly inferior regard for 
 both the originals and their authors which the early 
 Christians possessed, as is shown even by the books 
 themselves. On this subject, Smith's Bible Dictionary 
 says, "The original copies soon perished. * * It is 
 certainly remarkable that in controversies, at the close 
 of the second century, which often turned upon disputed 
 readings of Scripture, no appeals were made to the apos- 
 tolic originals. * * The practice of verbal quotations 
 from the New Testament was not prevalent. * * 
 The evangelical citations in the Apostolic Fathers and 
 Justin Martin show that the oral tradition was still as 
 widely current as the written Gospels, and there is not 
 in those writers one express citation from the other Apos- 
 tolic books. * * On all accounts it seems reasonable 
 to conclude that the autographs perished during that 
 solemn pause whictf followed the Apostolic Age in which 
 the idea of a Christian canon parallel with and supple- 
 mentary to the Jewish canon was first distinctly realized" 
 This is a very manifest reason why, prior to this idea of
 
 158 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 supplementary canon, Christians were careless of pre- 
 serving those early writings. They were not then re- 
 garded inspired Scripture as they are now. 
 
 Secondly : The men who familiarly knew and heard 
 the Apostles themselves who were conversant with 
 their ideas, tempers and human frailties who saw them 
 differ, wrangle and angrily disagree, not only on personal 
 matters, but on church xloctrines who saw the "Apostle 
 of the Gentiles " flatly refusing to be accompanied by 
 the " Evangelist of the Gentiles," and, after an exciting 
 controversy, separating in high dudgeon from Barnabas 
 for insisting on his doing so who saw the same doughty 
 Apostle when he " withstood Peter to his face " such 
 men, we say, were not accustomed either to calling them 
 Saints or of regarding them as infallible or inspired. 
 Even Paul was constantly put upon his own defence, 
 both personally and apostolically, in the different 
 churches, as we see by his own epistles to them. The 
 hallowing mists of nineteen centuries had not then, as 
 now, illuminated their brows with the aureola of sanctity 
 and of inspired infallibility. 
 
 Thirdly : During those first ages the belief in the 
 imminent reappearance of Jesus in his glory, and of the 
 destruction of the World was universal, and all Chris- 
 tians stood in constant expectation of this " second ad- 
 vent" and final mundane catastrophy. This, Jesus 
 himself had expressly taught them to expect and believe. 
 It was no vague anticipation of the more visionary be- 
 lievers, based upon constructions of ancient, figurative 
 and mystic prophecies, but a universal, undoubting faith,
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 159 
 
 based upon the recent plain and unequivocal assurances 
 of Jesus himself. Jesus himself believed it. The Apos- 
 tles who heard it from his own lips never for a moment 
 doubted either his meaning or the certainty of the pre- 
 dicted and impending fact. Life had but two grand ob- 
 jects for them to spread the " Gospel of the Kingdom," 
 and to " keep their garments unspotted," and their " lights 
 trimmed and burning" for the coming "bridegroom." 
 They had been assured by their Master that these 
 stupendous events were approaching them "like a thief 
 in the night ; " that the world was tottering to its fall 
 like a whitening harvest field ; and that, at any moment, 
 but certainly within the lifetime of that generation, it 
 would give place to a " New Heaven and a new Earth." 
 So deeply rooted was the confidence in this express pre- 
 diction of Jesus that, after the utmost limit for the nat- 
 ural life of that generation had long been passed, the 
 faith refused to die with the fact, and the pious devotees 
 wove for themselves a gossamer legend about the mirac- 
 ulous prolongation of the life of St. John, who had been 
 the last survivor of the generation of Jesus. It was not 
 until the final triumph of the Church under Constantine 
 that the minds of Christians began to be diverted from 
 this belief, only, however, to suffer from spasmodic re- 
 vivals of millennial expectancy from age to age ever 
 since ; our gravest divines being, even now, in special 
 convention upon the question of the " second advent." 
 Why, then, should men in such hourly expectancy of the 
 end of the world and of the presence of Jesus himself be 
 expected to provide evidence about Jesus for future gen- 
 erations generations which could never exist, or exist 
 only in the presence of Jesus himself.
 
 I6O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 That Jesus himself was responsible, both for this be- 
 lief in the imminence of this general destruction of the 
 existing material universe, and for this Christian indif- 
 ference to specific written evidence and to its future 
 preservation, is certain certain as the language of the 
 New Testament can make it. He neither wrote a line, 
 nor instructed others to write ; but confined his instruc- 
 tions exclusively to verbal preaching. He instructed his 
 disciples to live in common, and to make no preparation 
 for the future ; to " let every day provide for itself." He 
 taught them to " do quickly," and be on constant guard, 
 as the Night and End approached. He taught them 
 that that generation was to see the last of the old world 
 that the destruction of Jerusalem was near at hand, 
 and that the end of the World would immediately follow. 
 Let any unbiased mind remember his general teaching, 
 and then interpret his assertions on this latter point, to 
 be found in the 24th chap, of Matthew and the 2ist 
 chap, of Luke, and he will find that it is impossible to 
 construe his clearly expressed meaning in any other 
 manner than it was understood by his apostles. If he 
 did not so mean, then his disciples were not inspired to 
 comprehend him, nor was he capable of making himself 
 comprehensible. It will be found that his disciples came 
 to him, when they had all retired from the city to the 
 Mount of Olives, and soon after had been predicting the 
 destruction of the Temple ; and asked him, privately, to 
 " tell them when these things should be." But this alone 
 would not satisfy them, since the fact of his teaching the 
 destruction of the Temple would suggest to the Jewish 
 mind the speedy consummation and end of all mundane 
 affairs ; and they, therefore, asked him further " and
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. l6l 
 
 what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the 
 World" There is no uncertainty and ambiguity about 
 this question. The two questions were separate, dis- 
 tinct and unmistakable. Jesus might have declined to 
 answer, but "he coulxl not misunderstand it. He, in fact, 
 neither affected to misunderstand them, nor declined to 
 answer both their full questions in their palpable mean- 
 ing as put. In doing this, it will be seen that he recites 
 the troubles which shall precede these events, the dan- 
 gers that shall menace themselves, the arising of pre- 
 tenders and false prophets, the fact of his gospel being 
 preached to all the world (as he had commanded them), 
 and then warns them that should be in Judea that, 
 when the " abomination of desolation " should " stand in 
 the Holy Place," to flee to the mountains. He then pre- 
 dicts the coming woes and final fall of Jerusalem. That 
 all this refers to the fall of Jerusalem and completes the 
 prophecy as to her, is rendered still more manifest, if that 
 were needed or possible, by the same declaration as it 
 appears in Luke, namely : that when they should " see 
 Jerusalem compassed about with armies, then know that 
 the desolation thereof "is nigh." After having given this 
 detailed and completed account of the destruction of 
 Jerusalem, he goes on further to answer the remainder of 
 their question as to his own second coming and the end of 
 the world, and says " immediately after the tribulation 
 of those days, shall the sun be darkened and the moon 
 shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from 
 Heaven, and the powers of the Heavens shall be shaken, 
 and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in Hea- 
 ven ; and then shall //the tribes of the Earth mourn, and 
 they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of 
 
 ii
 
 l62 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Heaven with Power and great glory. And he shall send 
 his angels with a great sound of trumpet, and they shall 
 gather together his elect from the four winds, from one 
 end of the Heavens to the other. Now learn a parable of 
 the fig tree : when his branch is yet tender and putteth 
 forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh : so likewise, 
 when ye shall see all these things know that it is nigh 
 even at the doors. Verily I say unto you this generation 
 shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled" He 
 then solemnly declares that Heaven and Earth might 
 pass away, but that these his words should not pass 
 away ; but admits that he himself does not know the 
 exact "day and hour" of their fulfilment. It was im- 
 possible for these Apostles to have put any other con- 
 struction upon this language than they did, for it will 
 bear no other indeed clearly excludes all other. It is 
 only after it has been so overwhelmingly demonstrated 
 that the Prophet was mistaken, that men perforce content 
 themselves to assume, in defiance of the resistless certain- 
 ty of the language and intent, that the prophecy cannot 
 mean what it says, because the Prophet could not have 
 been so mistaken. All unbiased minds, however, must 
 see, both from the plain terms of the prophecy and the 
 preceding and subsequent declarations and Lci.efs, that 
 Jesus meant, and his apostles understood him to mean, 
 that his own second advent and the destruction of the 
 world would happen during the lifetime of that generation 
 and immediately after the fall of Jerusalem, and they 
 were themselves to "see" and judge of the signs and 
 fulfilment of the prophecy. This view is confirmed, also, 
 by the reply of Jesus to Peter concerning the future end 
 of John : " If I will that he tarry till I come, what is
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 163 
 
 that to thee," which shows that he himself contemplated 
 a return in that generation ; nor did this suggestion of 
 John's living till he come excite the surprise or inquiry 
 upon the part of his disciples. 
 
 We have dwelt at some length upon these views of 
 Jesus and his Apostles, touching the end of the 
 World, by reason of their influence upon the nature of 
 the evidence which they actually transmitted to the 
 Future, as well as of their failure to transmit better evi- 
 dence. If Jesus were what he is claimed to have been, 
 he would have had the foresight and power to have 
 furnished incontestible evidence of his life, labors and 
 doctrines, and, as he made a belief in him a condition of 
 salvation, it was his plain duty to have so ordered it as 
 to have furnished to future generations the most reliable 
 and perfect evidence of that which they were required to 
 believe. And no, even human, founder of a religion 
 would have shown so total and fatal a disregard of these 
 things as did Jesus, unless he had also believed with 
 Jesus that there would be no future generations to need 
 them. No frank and fearless man will deny either that 
 our sources of evidence in relation to the life and sayings 
 of Jesus are lamentably defective, or will fail to perceive 
 that Jesus himself, by the character of his selections of 
 witnesses, and by his general conduct, instructions and 
 teachings, was primarily and chiefly responsible for this 
 deficiency and reliability of the proofs.
 
 164 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Having thus briefly considered the character of the 
 witnesses and personal followers which Jesus selected of 
 the men and women who were the primary and chief 
 promulgators of the facts and stories which formed the 
 basis of the narratives in our New Testament and which 
 engendered the myths and legends which were nurtured 
 by primitive Christianity, Let us now glance at the 
 origin, character, preservation and value of the 
 Canon of Scripture or 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 We have seen that, during the primitive ages of 
 Christianity, there was no New Testament Scriptures, 
 nor any writing recognized as inspired or as Holy 
 Scripture save the old Jewish Scriptures ; that none 
 were deemed necessary, and that the Apostles and 
 their immediate successors recognized nbne such, nor 
 ever suggested the adoption of any writings as such. 
 We have seen, -on the contrary, that whatever was 
 written, said or reported by any Christian was taken 
 into account as a common fund or source of informa- 
 tion, and were severally regarded and graded by each 
 Church and reader according to their own special
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 165 
 
 estimate of their genuineness and worth ; and that 
 the main dependence of the Church during a num- 
 ber of generations, was the oral teachings and tra- 
 ditions of the Church a practice still maintained 
 by the Mother Church of Rome. It was not until 
 the hourly and all-absorbing expectancy of the second 
 coming of Jesus and of the destruction of the World 
 had grown less confident and intense not until the 
 written narratives and epistles had degenerated into a 
 confused jumble, full of silly stories and conflicting 
 testimony, preserved in unauthenticated and unreliable 
 copies scattered through the Churches, and the oral 
 traditions had become obscure and conflicting not 
 until near a hundred conflicting sects had sprung up in 
 the bosom of the Church and were nurtured by food 
 drawn from this chaos of conflicting testimony not 
 until different Churches and individuals were in angry 
 feuds about both evidence and doctrines, and the warring 
 sectaries were rending the very bowels of the Church, 
 making the cities of the Empire scenes of carnage and 
 assassination, and producing a reign of violence and 
 crime which already threatened that demoralization and 
 disruption of society which paved the way for the over- 
 throw of ancient civilization and the initiation of the 
 "Dark Ages" not until the fanatical world-storming 
 was over and a Christian Emperor sat upon the throne 
 of the Caesars witnessing triumphant Christianity rend 
 itself, and deploring the disgraceful puerility of narra- 
 tives and the uncertainty and discord of the evidences 
 and doctrines of the Church which he had found it his 
 interest to adopt not until the fourth century after the 
 birth of Jesus and after all these things had come to
 
 166 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 pass, was it resolved, through political authority, to 
 secure some more definite announcement of church 
 doctrines ; nor was it until near the beginning of the 
 fifth century that the Canon of the New Testament was 
 decreed and established by a majority vote of the Coun- 
 cil of Carthage. 
 
 Even under the most favorable light this vote at the 
 Council of Carthage was a singular and questionable 
 affair. A strange scene to rational men that of several 
 hundred disputing and angry controversialists, belonging 
 to a superstitious, factious and corrupt age, meeting to- 
 gether amidst intrigue, excitement and even danger, to 
 decide by a majority vote which should be or was, and 
 what was not or should not be, the " Word of God," and 
 to give an authoritative and final religion to the Worldi to 
 fix the boundaries of human belief, to be guarded by perse- 
 cution here, and eternal torments hereafter! But when 
 we honestly and fearlessly reflect upon the character 
 and situation of the men who thus attempted to finally 
 decide these momentous questions, involving God and 
 man, time and eternity when we reflect, further, that 
 persons and incidents about whom, and whose evidence, 
 they were to decide had been in their graves for hun- 
 dreds of years, that no original evidence whatever had 
 ever reached them, nor perhaps even a copy-of-a-copy of 
 any one of the many conflicting narratives or epistles of 
 the First Age, that they knew that it had been boldly 
 charged and counter-charged that original writings, even
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. l6/ 
 
 such as there had been, had been grossly and intention- 
 ally tampered with, as well as often changed to compel 
 a greater correspondence between them or to suit the 
 peculiar views and doctrines 'of the warring Churches 
 and sectaries when we reflect, still further, how in- 
 competent, unworthy and even infamous were many of 
 the Councils of those early times, how impossible it was 
 for the Council of Carthage to secure the means of 
 correcting errors or of establishing the real truths and 
 facts which they decided upon when we reflect upon all 
 this, and more, we cannot but wonder at the audacity of 
 the men who dared to assume such authority and re- 
 sponsibility or rather should wonder, if we did not 
 know that nothing could be deemed audacious or pre- 
 sumptuous in the priesthood of a supernatural religion 
 when dealing with the superstitions of the people. 
 
 It is so important to understand the men who, by a 
 majority vote like a parliament or political caucus, de- 
 cided for us what was the Word of God, that I beg to 
 quote from Lecky's History of European Morals (com- 
 mencing page 206, vol. 2,) the following language " Ac- 
 cording to the popular belief, all who differed from the 
 teaching of the orthodox lived under the hatred of the 
 Almighty, and were destined after death for an eternity 
 of anguish. Very naturally, therefore, they were wholly 
 alienated from the true believers, and no moral or intel- 
 lectual excellence could atone for their crime in pro- 
 pagating error. The eighty or ninety sects into which 
 Christianity speedily divided, hated one another with 
 an intensity that extorted the wonder of Julian and the 
 ridicule of the Pagans of Alexandria, and the fierce riots
 
 168 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 and persecutions that hatred produced appear in every 
 page of Ecclesiastical history. There is, indeed, some- 
 thing at once grotesque and ghastly in the spectacle. 
 The Donatists, having separated from the Orthodox 
 simply on the question of the validity of the consecration 
 of a certain Bishop, declared that all who accepted the 
 Orthodox view must be damned, refused to perform their 
 rites in the orthodox churches which they had seized, 
 till they had burnt the altar and scraped the wood, beat 
 multitudes to death with clubs, blinded others by 
 anointing their eyes with lime, filled Africa, during 
 near two centuries, with war and desolation, and con- 
 tributed largely to its final ruin. The childish and 
 almost unintelligible quarrels between the Homoiousians 
 and the Homoousians, between those who maintained 
 that the nature of Christ was like that of the Father and 
 those who manintained that it was the same, filled the 
 world with riot and hatred. The Catholics tell how an 
 Arian Emperor caused eighty orthodox priests to be 
 drowned on a single occasion ; how three thousand per- 
 sons perished in the riots that convulsed Constantinople 
 when the Arian Bishop Macedonius superseded the 
 Athenasian Paul ; how George of Cappadocia, the Arian 
 Bishop of Alexandria caused the widows of the Athen- 
 asian party to be scourged on the soles of their feet, the 
 holy virgins to be stripped naked, to be flogged with 
 prickly branches of palm trees, or to be slowly scorched 
 over fires till they abjured their creed. 
 
 " The triumph of the Catholics in Egypt was acr 
 companied (if we may believe in the solemn assertions 
 of eighty Adrian Bishops) by every variety of plunder,
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 169 
 
 murder, sacrilege and outrage. Arius himself was 
 probably poisoned by Catholic hands. The followers of 
 St. Cyril of Alexandria, who were chiefly monks, filled 
 their city with riot and bloodshed, wounded the prefect 
 Orestes, dragged the pure and gifted Hypatia into one 
 of their churches, murdered her, tore the flesh from her 
 bones with sharp shells, and, having stripped her body 
 naked, plunged the mangled remains into the flames. In 
 Ephesus, during the contest between St. Cyril and the 
 Nestorians, the Cathedral itself was the theater of a 
 fierce and bloody conflict. Constantinople, on the occa- 
 sion of the deposition of St. Chrysostom, was for several 
 days in a condition of absolute anarchy. After the 
 Council of Chalcedon, Jerusalem and Alexandria were 
 again convulsed, and the bishop of the latter city was 
 murdered in his baptistry. About fifty years later, 
 when the Monophysite Controversy was at its height, 
 the palace of the Emperor at Constantinople was 
 blockaded, the churches were besieged, and the streets 
 commanded by furious bands of contending monks. 
 Repressed for a time, the riots broke out two years 
 after with an increased ferocity, and almost every lead- 
 ing city of the East was filled by the monks with blood- 
 shed and with riots. St. Augustine himself is accused 
 of having excited every kind of popular persecution 
 against the semi-Pelagians. The Councils, animated 
 by an almost frantic hatred, urged on by their anathemas 
 the rival sects. In the ' Robber Council ' of Ephesus, 
 Flavinus, the bishop of Constantinople, was kickdti and 
 beaten by the bishop of Alexandria, or at least by his 
 followers, and a few days later die"d from the effect of 
 the.blows. In the contested election that issued in the
 
 I7O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 election of St. Damascus as Pope of Rome, though no 
 theological question appears to have been at issue, the 
 riots were so fierce, that one hundred and thirty-seven 
 corpses were found in one of the churches. The prece- 
 dent of the Jewish persecutions of Idolatry having been 
 already adduced by St. Cyprian, in the third century, in 
 favor of excommunication, was urged by Optatus, in the 
 reign of Constantine, in favor of persecuting the Dona- 
 tists ; in the next reign we find a large body of Chris- 
 tians presenting to the Emperor a petition based upon 
 this precedent, imploring him to destroy by force the 
 Pagan worship. About fifteen years later, the whole 
 Christian Church was prepared, on the same grounds, 
 to support the persecuting policy of St. Ambrose, the 
 contending sects having found, in the duty of crushing 
 religious liberty, the solitary tenet in which they were 
 agreed. The most unaggressive and unobtrusive forms 
 of Paganism were persecuted with the same ferocity. 
 To offer a sacrifice was to commit a capital offence ; to 
 hang up a simple chaplet was to incur the forfeiture of 
 an estate. The noblest works of Asiatic architecture 
 and of Greek sculpture perished by the same iconoclasm 
 that shattered the humble temple at which the peasant 
 loved to pray, or the household gods which consecrated 
 his home. There were no varieties of belief too minute 
 for the new intolerance to embitter. The question of 
 the proper time of celebrating Easter was believed to in- 
 volve the issue of salvation or damnation ; and when, 
 long tifter, in the fourteenth century, the question of the 
 nature of light at the transfiguration was discussed at 
 Constantinople, those who refused to admit that that 
 light was uncreated, were deprived of the honors of
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 17! 
 
 Christian burial. Together with these legislative and 
 ecclesiastical measures, a literature arose surpassing in 
 its mendacious ferocity any other the world had ever 
 known. The polemical writers habitually painted as 
 demons those who diverged from Orthodox belief, 
 gloated with vindictive piety over the sufferings of the 
 heretic on earth, as upon a divine punishment, and 
 sometimes, with almost superhuman malice, passing in 
 imagination beyond the threshold of the grave, exulted 
 in no ambiguous terms on the tortures which they 
 believed to be reserved for him forever." Lecky con- 
 tinues in a citation from Julianus of Eclana by Dean 
 Milman as follows : " Nowhere is Christianity less 
 attractive than in her Councils of the Church. * * * 
 Intrigue, injustice, violence, decisions on atithority alone, 
 and that the authority of a turbulent majority. . . . de- 
 tract from the reverence and impugn the judgments of at 
 least the later Councils. The close is almost invariably a 
 terrible anathema, in which it is impossible not to discern 
 the tones of human hatred, of arrogant triumph, of re- 
 joicing at the damnation imprecated against the humil- 
 iated adversary." 
 
 This pen-picture of the men and times who determined 
 upon our Canon of the New Testament, and formulated 
 and authoritatively settled the creed and rites of Chris- 
 tianity, involving the eternal fate of Humanity, by a 
 majority vote and mere self-asserted authority, defies all 
 comment or amendment. It would be difficult to em-
 
 1/2 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 hellish it without descending to characteristics below the 
 human. One can only stand in dumb wonder and 
 humility when they remember that these were the ages 
 of the " Saints," and their action largely the work of 
 Saints themselves, and that the faith of all these long 
 succeeding ages together with the blood and torture of 
 untold millions of poor ignorant mortals and the faith in 
 God and in " God's Word" and the life and death hopes 
 of one third of the Human Race for nineteen centuries, 
 all have their source and authority in such a fountain ! 
 a fountain which was foul with all manner of ignorance, 
 impurity, selfishness, hate, vindictiveness, cruelty and 
 superstition, and which had already sapped the founda- 
 tions of ancient civilization and was fast sinking into 
 the depths of night and barbarism ! and that even yet 
 the enlightened descendants of those suffering, degraded 
 and degenerating generations still cling to the infalli- 
 bility of the " majority votes " of these councils, and rest 
 their hopes of salvation, and fears of damnation upon 
 their passionate, turbulent and ignorant decisions ! 
 
 The Canon of the New Testament once selected 
 from the curious and discordant mass of Gosples and 
 Epistles which had been accumulating and corrupting 
 through the earlier centuries and still floating in un- 
 verified and unreliable copies through the churches, and 
 once authoritatively determined by the majority of these 
 " holy men " and " Sainted fathers," it would be taken 
 for granted that those determining the matter, would at
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 173 
 
 least now save the posterity which they consigned to 
 damnation for any refusal to accept their decrees, from 
 the fatal causes of error and discord from which they 
 themselves had suffered and had met to heal ; that the 
 Councils would at least have attempted to secure an im- 
 perishable text of their newly established " Scripture," 
 under the guidance of their divinely inspired wisdom, 
 but in this all-important matter their divine inspiration 
 failed them, and posterity was again left to renewed un- 
 certainties. Multitudinous errors and mutilations, not 
 only continued to be retained, but to be further multi- 
 plied and propagated as before. Under the title " New 
 Testament " in Smith's Bible Dictionary, we are told 
 that : " Two chief causes contributed specially to cor- 
 rupt the texts of the Gospels, the attempts to harmonize 
 parallel narratives, and the influence of Tradition. * * 
 The former assumed a special importance from the Dia- 
 tressaron of Tation (A. D. 170) and the latter, which was 
 very great in the time of Justin Martyr, still lingered. 
 * * The tendenc at Alexandria, or Carthage was 
 in a certain direction, and neccessarily influenced the 
 character of the current text with accumulative force as 
 far as it was unchecked by other influences. This is a 
 general Jaw, and the history of the Apostolic books is 
 no exception to it. All experience shows that certain 
 types of variation propagate and perpetuate themselves, 
 and existing documents prove that it was so with the 
 copies of the New Testament." Yet, even these earlier 
 mutilated and interpolated copies have not reached our 
 time. The oldest manuscript copy of the New Testa- 
 ment now existing or known, is supposed to be the one 
 found at Mount Sinai in A. D. 1 859. Some have supposed
 
 174 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 that this document dates back to the fourth century 
 a fact, however, which, if true, could give no possible 
 assurance of its own reliability. Besides its many 
 other variations from our editions and other ancient 
 copies, it is found to contain two books which are un- 
 known to our received Bible. Not one of the old 
 manuscripts agrees with any other, and none of the 
 oldest copies contain the complete record of the books 
 as we have it. 
 
 With regard to the number and importance of the 
 variations in the ancient manuscripts, the same article 
 quoted, continues thus : " Having surveyed in outline 
 the. history of the transmission of the written text, and 
 the chief characteristics of the manuscripts in which it 
 is preserved, we are in a position to consider the extent 
 and nature of the variations which exist in different 
 copies. It is impossible to estimate the number of these 
 exactly, but they cannot be less' than 120,000 (!) in all, 
 though of these a very large proportion consist of differ- 
 ences of spelling and isolated abbreviations of scribes, 
 and of the remainder comparatively few alterations are 
 sufficiently well supported as to create reasonable doubt 
 as to the final judgment. Probably there are not more 
 than sixteen hundred to two thousand places in which 
 the true reading is a matter of uncertainty (!) Various 
 readings are due to different causes ; some arose from 
 accidental, others from intentional alterations of the 
 original text."
 
 THE PROMULGATORS OF THE EVIDENCE. 1/5 
 
 With no copy even claimed to be older than the 
 fourth century, when the dust of ages had covered the 
 remains of the eye-witnesses and mingled with the dust 
 of their perished manuscripts, after all the various and 
 repeated efforts to force the current and written accounts 
 of the original facts and narratives into some kind of 
 accord and consistency, and after all the admitted corrup- 
 tions and errors, intentional and unintentional, preced- 
 ing our oldest copies, with not a copy to refer to of a 
 date claimed to be older than the fourth century after 
 all this, to be told that the old manuscripts now remain- 
 ing, making a petty volume of the size of a common 
 spelling book with less than 8000 small verses, contain- 
 ing our " Word of Life " and only hope of salvation, 
 contain differences amounting to not less than 120,000 
 nearly one for evety word, and that there is only one dif- 
 ference for every four verses which is of serious moment 
 only 1600 to 2000 in all, must be indeed consoling to 
 those who can appreciate such divine care and provi- 
 dence and such inspired and infallible accuracy ! To 
 duller minds such facts are not assuring.
 
 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE WRITTEN GOSPELS, THEIR AUTHORS, AND THEIR 
 
 VALUE. 
 
 HAVING formed some estimate of the original pro- 
 mulgators of the "Gospel news" and of the men and 
 times that selected and decided upon the books compos- 
 ing our New Testament Canon, as well as the degree of 
 authenticity we should attach to it as a whole, it is 
 also important that we should form some ideas about 
 the authorship and reliability of the several accepted 
 Gospels. 
 
 In attempting this, it is well to understand at once, 
 that these Gospels, after having been subjected to all 
 the manipulations and changes already shown, were 
 selected, in their then form, in the fifth century after 
 Jesus, from the large number of other Gospels which 
 had, prior thereto, divided with them the confidence of 
 Christians. It was possible for the Council to have 
 adopted others, or to have rejected these. Let us under- 
 stand, furthermore, that the members of that Council 
 were unquestionably less critically informed upon the 
 facts decided and far less competent to decide correctly
 
 THE WRITTEN GOSPELS. 177 
 
 than modern scholars. They themselves lived hundreds 
 of years after the events narrated and really knew noth- 
 ing about the authorship of the Gospels they selected. 
 They had neither the critical capacity, nor adequate 
 means, for a correct decision, and really decided upon 
 their selection, not by reason of any real or supposed 
 knowledge of the authorship of the selected works, or of 
 their genuineness or correctness, but because the 
 selected narratives suited them best. They both adopted 
 Gospels written by unknown men, and, at best, purport- 
 ing to be " according " to men who were not even 
 Apostles, and rejected others which purported to be 
 according to, or by, some of the Apostles themselves. 
 We must also remember that the present titles of the 
 Gospels are not the slightest evidence in favor of their 
 having been written by the persons named in their 
 present titles. The prefixing of these titles is conceded 
 to have been done, not by their authors, but by subse- 
 quent and unauthorized parties who were by no means 
 better informed on the matter than ourselves. Nor do 
 these unauthorized titles pretend to show, even upon 
 their face, who were the authors, nor do the narratives 
 themselves purport to do so. Some persons, unknown, 
 have written four narratives, now purporting, by sub- 
 sequently prefixed titles, to be "according" to certain 
 persons, that is, according to the facts as held and re- 
 lated by them. If they had been written by these parties, 
 why not have directly said so, since there could be no 
 better evidence available than narratives directly written 
 by Matthew and John ? There could be no possible 
 motive for failing to do so, nor would the Apostles have 
 failed to have asserted their authorship in the works 
 
 12
 
 178 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 themselves, to give them currency, had they really been 
 their authors ; ^nd the very fact that they are only 
 claimed to be Gospels "according" to the persons 
 named, without saying who they were Written by, implies 
 that they were not written by them, and also that the 
 real authors were unknown. It is not even claimed, 
 now, that the author of either of the Gospels is known. 
 At best, then, our evidence consists of the unsworn and 
 unverified statements of unknown men, made long after 
 the events recorded. 
 
 THE FIRST GOSPEL. 
 
 We have no knowledge of the authorship of our 
 present Gospel styled " according to Matthew. " It is 
 not even probable that it was written by Matthew, 
 the Publican. Of Matthew himself, almost nothing is 
 known. After the crucifixion, his labors are assigned 
 by the different traditions, to almost every country then 
 known. There is no proof that he ever left Galilee, or 
 took any part as an Evangelist, and the numerous and 
 widely conflicting fields of labor assigned to him prove 
 that nothing was really known concerning his after life 
 by subsequent generations. During the whole period 
 covered by the Gospel narratives he never appears,
 
 THE WRITTEN GOSPELS. 
 
 either in action or speech. He is, to us, a name, and 
 nothing more. With the exception of Peter, James and 
 John, the original twelve seem to have been essentially 
 supernumeraries, both before and after the crucifixion, 
 and to have been retained chiefly as nominal and numer- 
 ical representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel. 
 
 It is not improbable, though by no means certain, 
 that Matthew could write ; and that he actually did write, 
 not a life or Gospel of Jesus, but certain discourses or 
 remarkable sayings of Jesus entitled " Memorables," 
 is probably true. It is reasonably certain that there was 
 such a work under the name of Matthew, which may 
 have been genuine ; but it was the only one, and quite a 
 different work from our first Gospel. The Galileans 
 and Ebeonites, consisting of the original Jewish and 
 Galilean disciples, including the family relations of 
 Jesus, seem to have had this book of " Memorables," and 
 to have claimed that they received it from Matthew him- 
 self. None of the early Fathers ever saw the original 
 manuscript of any work by Matthew, although some of 
 them confound our first Greek Gospel with this Hebrew 
 " Memorables." The first Gospel, so far as we can 
 learn, was originally written in the Greek language, and 
 is admitted to have many internal evidences that such 
 was the fact. The supposition that our Greek Gospel 
 is a translation of the Hebrew manuscript held by the 
 Galileans, is unsupported by the evidence. Strauss 
 says that, " the fact is, no specification of that Evan- 
 gelist (Matthew) can be found in the words of the 
 Apostolic Fathers."
 
 I8O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 As it is admitted that Matthew wrote his " Memor- 
 ables " in Hebrew, while he was in Palestine, it is highly 
 probable that the original Galilean disciples had, as they 
 always claimed, the true work of Matthew, and that our 
 first Greek Gospel was attributed to him, without 
 warrant, by subsequent generations unacquainted with 
 the facts. This view is clearly pointed to in the account 
 of this Gospel in Smith's Bible Directory; which signifi- 
 cantly drifts its observations towards such a conclusion, 
 and seriously queries whether the Ebeonite Matthew was 
 not the real " Memorables " or true work of that 
 Apostle. 
 
 It has been urgently contended that this Gospel is a 
 mere compilation ; the "two first chapters about the 
 infancy and genealogy of Jesus being added by the com- 
 piler. In confirmation of this view of the account -of 
 the " Nativity," it is asserted that the copies of at least a 
 large number of Jewish Christians were known not to 
 have these chapters at all. Christian authority suggests 
 that the unknown date of this Gospel was probably be- 
 tween the years A. D. 50 and 60. 
 
 There is one consideration which should not be 
 overlooked in this connection. The " Sermon on the 
 Mount" is recorded in this first Gospel a sermon 
 making over a hundred verses. Now Matthew, even by 
 the account of him in this very Gospel, was not called or 
 even mentioned until after this sermon was delivered, 
 nor is there the slightest indication or reason to believe 
 that he was present, nor is it within the range of belief 
 that a mere casual observer could have so specifically
 
 THE WRITTEN GOSPELS. l8l 
 
 remembered so long a discourse for a quarter of a cen- 
 tury after it was delivered. 
 
 To say the very least of this matter, then, we have 
 no reliable information as to who wrote our first Greek 
 Gospel, but have reason to believe that it was not 
 Matthew, the Apostle. 
 
 THE SECOND GOSPEL. 
 
 Our present narrative entitled " The Gospel accord- 
 ing to St. Mark" has been supposed to have been 
 written by that Marcus who was at one time with Paul, 
 but was most indignantly rejected by the old Apostle. 
 This, however, is a mere conjecture. And a still more 
 gratuitous conjecture is, that he might have been one of 
 the "Seventy:" possibly, since, as we have no knowl- 
 edge of who was, or was not, the author the range of 
 mere conjecture of the "might have been," is unre- 
 stricted. It has also been suggested that he was an 
 interpreter of Peter, but this is also without support ; 
 while Papias says, that John the Presbyter was the in- 
 terpreter of Peter, and Irenaeus says the book was
 
 1 82 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 written after the death of Peter. The truth is, that the 
 person who wrote it, the time and place it was written, 
 and the language in which it was written are alike un- 
 known. Christian authority suggests A. D. 63 to 70 as 
 its most probable date. Strauss says, that ihe Ecclesi- 
 astical writers supposed that certain allusions of Papias 
 referred to the author of the Second Gospel, but he avers 
 that, in fact, "the passage from Papias says nothing of 
 it nay it by no means agrees with that Gospel." 
 
 The fact that whole verses, whole narratives and 
 almost whole chapters of this Gospel agree literally 
 with those of other Gospels, proves that either it or 
 they are, in the main, compilations, and not original 
 authority, or that the extent of the alterations which 
 occurred in producing such forced accord between them, 
 was so great as to destroy the value of the whole as 
 evidence. We may also add that, had the work been 
 taken from the instructions of Peter or any other of the 
 Apostles, there was every reason to have said so, and 
 every reason, now, to presume that it would have been 
 so claimed in the work itself. It is evidently not the 
 work of any of the original eye-witnesses, nor directly 
 taken from them.
 
 THE WRITTEN GOSPELS. 183 
 
 THIRD GOSPEL. 
 
 The Gospel entitled " according to St. Luke " has 
 been supposed, but upon wholly insufficient evidence, to 
 have been written by one Lucus, a companion of Paul. 
 Of this Lucus, even, little is known. The date of its 
 composition is wholly uncertain, having been placed as 
 the latter part of the second century ; while its special 
 supporters place it about the year A. D. 60. It was late 
 before it was ranked with the other canonical books. 
 It purports to have been written for the instruction of 
 one Theophilus, as to the beliefs among Christians which 
 were then most surely credited. The work rests under 
 the general " pall of doubt hanging over all the Gospels, 
 and, in addition to this, it neither makes a pretence of 
 being based upon the evidence of those who knew any- 
 thing about the facts related, nor leaves any room for us 
 to assume or suppose anything about it; but expressly 
 claims to be an exposition of the more general belief as 
 to such facts, prevalent to the time it was written. It 
 therefore can be evidence of nothing more than the then 
 state of Christian beliefs ; and consequently could not 
 have been written from the verbal narratives of any of 
 the Apostles, as has been suggested. The author 
 doubtlessly never saw Jesus, and perhaps none of his 
 Apostles.
 
 184 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
 
 The narrative entitled " The Gospel according to 
 St. John," has been generally credited to the " Beloved 
 Disciple," and yet this has been strongly contested by 
 both Christians and Skeptics. The ancient sect of 
 Alogi, living only some two hundred years after Jesus, 
 rejected this Gospel as spurious ; while some others 
 claimed that it had been greatly tampered with, and 
 matter interpolated on purpose to confute their own 
 doctrines. Polycarp, who saw and knew John person- 
 ally, does not mention' him in connection with the au- 
 thorship of any Gospel. Francus, who was a disciple of 
 Polycarp, a voluminous writer and great controversial- 
 ist, never invokes the authority of John, although his po- 
 sition and labors directly imposed upon him the duty of 
 defending the authority of the Gospels. The first con- 
 ceded citation from this Gospel is found inTheophilus 
 of Antioch, written about the year A. D. 172. There 
 is no real knowledge as to who wrote it, or as to when it 
 was written or where it was written. Even the life of 
 John is wholly overlooked in the New Testament after 
 the final departure of Jesus. His master had requested 
 him to take care of his old Mother, and, so far as we 
 know, he may have remained in Galilee for that purpose. 
 Of course, Tradition tells us all about. him and about 
 everybody else, but this tradition is as full of absurdi- 
 ties as of lies, and modern Protestants concede its 
 worthlessness. If it proves anything, it proves far too 
 many things.
 
 THE WRITTEN GOSPELS. 185 
 
 We have now glanced at the sotirccs from which we 
 derive the facts or recitals upon which we are to decide. 
 We have seen the humble, ignorant and superstitious 
 men of an ignorant and superstitious class of an ancient 
 and subject race, as well as their not more attractive, 
 nor more credible female associates, who were the cho- 
 sen witnesses of Jesus and the chief agents in moulding, 
 and giving currency to the original stories which con- 
 stitutes the seed-bed from which sprung the oral and 
 written traditions, myths, legends and Gospels consti- 
 tuting the muniments of the Christian Faith during the 
 first ages, and from which were selected the New Tes- 
 tament narratives. We have seen that there was no 
 systematic endeavor either to write a life of Jesus or to 
 embody his doctrines for the benefit of the public or of 
 posterity, but that the writings of early Christianity 
 were either the fugitive responses called forth by special 
 conditions and needs or the eager productions of fanat- 
 ical propagandists or zealous controversialists, nowhere 
 assuming either the character or candor of history. We 
 have seen that none of these documents were consid- 
 ered, during those ages, as either " Scripture " or as in- 
 fallible, but were each accepted for what they were 
 deemed worth by the reader, those subsequently de- 
 creed to be canonical as well as those left as uncanoni- 
 cal ; and that, by reason of their reliance upon oral tra- 
 dition and the lex non scripta, and of their estimate of 
 the writers and their writings, and more especially in 
 view of their exclusively temporary utility on account of 
 their impending destruction in that of the World, the 
 founders and early disciples of Christianity took no 
 pains either to secure a history of Jesus or his church
 
 1 86 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 or to "preserve even such occasional writings as the tem- 
 porary emergencies elicited or even to transmit correct 
 copies of them. We have seen that these early writings 
 were numerous, and presented such a contradictory and 
 absurd mass of myths, legends and lies as to wholly 
 obscure the original facts, and render them a source of 
 contention and humiliation to the triumphant " Court 
 Church " of Constantine and his successors, and to com- 
 pel an attempt to select, from this crude and puerile 
 mass, the least childish and humiliating elements and 
 leave the residue to sink into comparative oblivion. 
 We have seen our utter lack of verification for our pres- 
 ent record and our absolute want of all real knowledge 
 as to the authorship of our received Gospels, and the 
 impenetrable cloud of doubt which hangs' over every- 
 thing pertaining to the actors and witnesses, and to their 
 testimony. We have seen the extinction of all the ear- 
 lier copies of our accepted books, and the altogether 
 astounding number of differences between those still ex- 
 isting, and the confession that these alterations have 
 been, not only the result of innocent carelessness and 
 mistakes, but have been systematically and intention- 
 ally produced and propagated to favor the concord and 
 consistency of the Christian records as well as to estab- 
 lish the peculiar views and doctrines of their mutilaters 
 and interpolaters ; and all this from the very latest and 
 highest Christian authority. We have also had a faith- 
 ful and vivid picture of the men and their times, who 
 took upon themselves to select for us, by a majoity vote, 
 what we should believe and what we should not believe, 
 under the pains of eternal damnation.
 
 THE WRITTEN GOSPELS. l8/ 
 
 This cursory review is not intended to enlighten the 
 learned, but to place before the minds of the ordinary 
 reader an epitome of the well-known facts, with a view 
 to enable him, if he dares, to form some general estimate 
 of the nature and value of the testimony with which we 
 are to deal, and to answer for himself the question 
 whether he can, in justice to his own manhood and com- 
 mon sense, accord divine sanctity and infallibility to 
 such testimony, so made, so selected, and so preserved ? 
 Whether he can, rationally and without all bias and 
 coercion, believe that the good God so formed and so 
 preserved the " words of eternal life," and decreed eter- 
 nal banishment and torture upon those who did not ac- 
 cept its infallibility ? 
 
 My purpose has been accomplished if this summary 
 review of the history of the evidence and what may still 
 further be said in that regard, shall even partially pre- 
 vail in slackening those iron bands by which superstition 
 and education have hooped, clamped and controlled the 
 reason, fears and hopes of mankind. The evidence fur- 
 nished by our gospels does not even purpott to be in- 
 spired, nor were those Gospels claimed to have been 
 inspired, either by those who wrote, or those who re- 
 ceived them ; and we have seen how it was, when it was, 
 and by whom it was that their inspiration was first de- 
 creed ; and now, if the reader can force himself to 
 realize that, at best, they are no more than what they 
 purport to be, and what they were considered to be by 
 those who wrote and those who received them, and will 
 cease, especially, to treat them as self-verified, when the 
 very facts of their authenticity and inspiration are in 
 question, the road to truth will, at least, once more be 
 open, even if it be but dim and uncertain.
 
 1 88 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Even if we waive, however, the unknown origin of 
 the Gospels and the certainty of their mutilations and 
 changes as well as the unfavorable significance of the 
 characters of their authors, selectors and manipulators, 
 it still becomes important to form some general estimate 
 or notion of the real and judicial value of such antique 
 reliques, even if they were conceded to be the authen- 
 tic writings of those whose names are prefixed to them. 
 
 From their want of internal connection, coherence 
 and congruity, from their simple aggregation of abrupt 
 and disconnected facts and fragments, without even an 
 attempt to string them together by any current thread 
 of sequences or in any chronological order, from their 
 more than suspicious verbal agreements throughout long 
 recitals at some points, and their palpable contradictions 
 at others, it would appear that at least more than one of 
 these Gospels must have been mere aggregated excerpts 
 from then existing writings, with some partial connect- 
 ing matter from oral traditions ; or that they have been 
 forced into such harmonies by fraudulent alterations. 
 They seem to have been but crude jottings, from the be- 
 ginning ; and now exhibit the successive travel-stains of 
 a long and rough journey. As they now stand they pre- 
 sent a growth watered, clipped and grafted by many 
 nurserymen ; and, could we now ingraft upon them the 
 innumerable and ever-changing modern phases of con- 
 struction which would, in earlier times, have found their 
 way into the text, the whole would present a very fair 
 view of the intellectual and moral growth of Christian 
 peoples. They are the self-expression of the agencies of 
 a religious revolution. The whole mass of these Chris-
 
 THE WRITTEN GOSPELS. 189 
 
 tian writings were but the product of the efforts of an 
 ignorant and superstitious, but developing people to 
 weave and construct the framework and covering for the 
 budding germs of a divine evolution planted by Jesus 
 efforts which were at the same time to transmit to future 
 ages the many-voiced echoes of the childish conceptions, 
 beliefs, ideals and aspirations of the workers in that neb- 
 ulous and fiery prelude to the triumph of Christianity. 
 They mainly consist of the mutilated remains of anony- 
 mous narratives of specific and chosen portions of the 
 life and sayings of Jesus sayings and doings such as, 
 after much confused wranglings and after many friendly 
 chattings and many mutual suggestions, reminders and 
 concessions, those early, zealous and credulous followers 
 of Jesus hoped, desired and finally imagined them to 
 have been, or such as they supposed ought to, and there- 
 fore must have been, to fulfil the supposed prophecies 
 about Christ ; which Christ, Jesus himself clearly was, 
 at least to them. 
 
 One secret underlies much of the evidence recorded 
 in the Gospels which it is very difficult for us to realize, 
 but also very necessary for us to understand. Men of 
 the Gospel Age and of the country and class to which 
 the Evangelists belonged, had no conception of the 
 sacredness of history, and but little, if any, for truth for 
 the mere sake of truth. In the East, men of that day 
 did not, any more than they do now, regard deception 
 for a desired end or for a friend, and especially for a good
 
 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 object and where it was not injurious to others, as being 
 a sin did not, and do not now, regard it at all as we re- 
 gard it. They wrote, indeed, to establish what they 
 deemed a great truth, but not the truth of historic 
 details, nor history in any sense. They wrote and 
 preached, not for the future, nor for the mere sake 
 of accurately recording events, but for the purpose of 
 securing the belief of the multitude in the divine mission 
 of Jesus, and to this righteous end all things were made 
 to bend. Actuated by the spirit of a court of Equity, 
 they considered those things as done which " ought to 
 have been done," and fearlessly asserted as true what 
 they supposed to have been true. Having once un- 
 doubtingly accepted Jesus as the Saviour of the World, 
 after he was supposed to have risen from the dead, they 
 did not hesitate to imagine and believe that whatsoever 
 was to happen to, or about, or to be done by, the proph- 
 esied Messiah, must of necessity have been fulfilled in 
 some form in Jesus ; for, Could the prophecies lie ? and 
 was not Jesus the very Christ, proven so to be by his 
 resurrection ? Whatever prophecies they could remem- 
 ber to have heard about the Christ, and which could, in 
 any form, be forced into the service of Jesus without 
 palpably contradicting the principal and known facts of 
 his life, will be found inserted into one or another of his 
 Gospels by either their authors or their interpolaters. 
 What is very significant of their blind and unscrupulous 
 zeal in this regard, is- the fact that in some instances they 
 have cited and fulfilled prophecies in Jesus, which he 
 himself not only never claimed, but had expressly urged 
 and argued that they did not apply to the Christ at all ; 
 while still other prophecies are gravely cited and fulfilled
 
 THE WRITTEN GOSPELS. 1 9 1 
 
 where uo such prophesies exist in the Scriptures, but were 
 mere citations from the popular volume of " Chimney 
 Corner law;" and still other prophecies are cited and 
 fulfilled so lamely and inappropriately as to be ludicrous ; 
 as for example a prophecy, whose fulfilment was to be a 
 sign to convince a king who had reigned some thousand 
 or more years before, and which was said have been ac- 
 tually fulfilled in the brief period assigned for its fulfil- 
 ment namely : a prophecy that a virgin should have a 
 son, and that his name should be called Emmanuel, was 
 somehow imagined to apply to the Messiah, and con- 
 sequently, in defiance of all the facts and the express 
 terms of the prophecy, they tell us that Jesus was 
 this little Emmanuel with a virgin mother both of 
 whom were dead long centuries before ; and that the 
 Lord had told Joseph in a dream, that his wife, Mary, 
 should bring forth a son and should call his name 
 "Jesus!" a name which was wholly unlike that of 
 " Emmanuel " and wholly different in signification- 
 And, in additional fulfilment of the prophecy, they found 
 out, some quarter or half a century after the crucifixion 
 of Jesus, that his mother, who was married to Joseph, 
 was still a virgin at his conception that the husband 
 and wife had not as yet " come together ! " a fact which 
 was clearly never known, or even hinted at, in the life- 
 time of Jesus by either the words or conduct of himself 
 or of his mother ! The fact that they had ever heard of 
 a prophecy, whether in the Scriptures or not, which they 
 supposed might apply to the Messiah was sufficient to 
 insure a belief that it must have been, and had been, 
 fulfilled in the Son of Mary ; for, Was it not impossible 
 for the prophecies to lie ? and had not Jesus actually
 
 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 arisen from the dead ? and Was he not therefore the 
 veritable, proven Christ ? How, then, could the fact be 
 otherwise than the prophecy of that fact ? And was it 
 not all-important to the conversion of the Jews that every 
 available prophecy which might, by possibility, have been 
 fulfilled in the life of Jesus should be seized upon and 
 appropriated, after his crucifixion, seeing that all the 
 long cherished Messianic hopes of his race and of his 
 own chosen disciples had been, so signally blasted by his 
 own unsuccessful efforts and humiliating execution as a 
 criminal ? A doubt as to the propriety of such efforts 
 and constructions never entered their minds, while a 
 scruple to assert as tmqualifiedly true what they believed 
 to be true, or imagined to be true, or that they judged 
 or supposed to be true, never troubled them for a mo- 
 ment. They never discriminated between the degrees 
 of certainty, nor qualified or graded their statements, 
 judgments, inferences, information, general rumor, sup- 
 posed prophetic necessities, a dream of Joseph in the land 
 of Egypt, happening half a century before, or the still 
 more remote dreams, or rather/0 int dream, of the famous 
 " Wise men of the East" persons whom they had never 
 seen, were all simply and plumply stated as facts, and in 
 the language and style in which they recited actually- 
 witnessed facts. The " ifs and ands," the provisos, the 
 probablys, the references to authorities, the qualifications 
 and the like, were all left to " other men and other 
 times." They themselves had never doubted or de- 
 manded proofs, Why should they think them necessary 
 for others ? Nor do they even pretend to have either 
 divine or human authority for such bold statements.
 
 THE WRITTEN GOSPELS. 193 
 
 The very fact was, as we have intimated, that they 
 did not write, nor bear witness with a special view to the 
 truth of the matters narrated, but narrated for the pur- 
 pose of a truth narrated to produce belief in a given fact 
 a fact they verily believed, and considered that a belief 
 in which would bring endless felicity and honor to the 
 believer and glory to the witnesses and agents through 
 whom he was convinced. Eternal beatitude awaited be- 
 lief, and immortal crowns and palms of glory were the 
 reward of the witnesses and laborers for Jesus, however 
 the belief and conversion of their hearers might be won. 
 The great truth for which they labored demanded a blind 
 faith and devotion, and for these it offered inducements 
 which sounded the very depths of human motives, 
 whether of hope or fear. Upon this belief depended all 
 that was worth hoping or fearing. For this sole and 
 supreme need, Could their zeal be too great on the eve 
 of that "great day" which was to decide the fate of all 
 men ? Was it not right to be " all things to all men," 
 that peradventure some might be saved, and to say with 
 St. Paul : " For if the truth of God hath more abounded 
 through my lie unto his glory, why yet am I judged a 
 sinner ? " Were history and facts to stand in the way of 
 one fact of the " one thing needful " in the way of 
 Goas truth ? Who dare condemn as a sin the lying 
 " unto the glory of God," or in order that the " truth of 
 God " might more abound ? Were not all things to bend 
 to this supreme purpose ? 
 
 13
 
 194 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 But Can such men be honest ? We reply, yes, 
 honest in purpose, and honest to their own convictions 
 and sense of right, and no man can be more. The prin- 
 ciple quoted from St. Paul, and the one upon which the 
 early disciples and Church acted, would not now receive 
 the highest approval, nor does it appear that Jesus him- 
 self sanctioned it, at least as a general principle. It is as 
 unwise, however, to judge those early men by our stand- 
 ards of intelligence and morals as it is to permit them 
 to force their own standards upon ourselves, or the dec- 
 larations made in pursuance of them. It is difficult for 
 us to judge, or even realize, such men and such times. 
 The first disciples were what men of their class and of 
 their times might be supposed to have been when they 
 were even more credulous than their qredulous class, and 
 when they were inspired by a burning conviction of a 
 " divine mission " and had a full belief that they were 
 working for the good of man and the " glory of God." 
 They were not responsible for being born in a phase of 
 development which engendered no conception, much 
 less regard, for the true sacredness of history or for lit- 
 erary honesty. These are things of later growth of 
 the latest and highest, indeed. If we visit, even now, 
 the scenes of their labors, What shall we find in the 
 minds of the Jews and Arabs of Palestine which re- 
 sponds to such ideas ? Such peoples and classes habit- 
 ually and naturally create their myths and legends, 
 mould and remodel their heroes and traditions, and in- 
 vent parables, and interpret their dreams with a view to 
 the embodiment and concrete expression of their growing 
 conceptions, their worship, their ideals, their sympathies, 
 their morals and spiritual aspirations, or, lastly, to pro-
 
 THE WRITTEN GOSPELS. 1 95 
 
 dtice some desired effect in others. They do not even 
 think in the abstract, and have no more concern in mod- 
 ifying actual characters and events to concretely express 
 their ideas or subserve their desires, than they have in 
 inventing myths, legends and parables for that purpose, 
 or than has a modern novelist in fictitiously embodying 
 his views. The teaching of Jesus by parables was the 
 type of all effective teaching to such minds. To speak 
 of great principles or abstract ideas to such men is to aim 
 above their capacity. To deprive them of thinking of, 
 and worshipping God as a divine man as a God with 
 " body and parts " and with a local habitation, was to 
 deprive them of thinking of God at all. People in this 
 phase of development, when desiring to thus concretely 
 express their ideals and spiritual longings, naturally 
 seize upon the first person, living or dead, who even 
 slightly responds to their psychical needs, and force his 
 person, life and character into some representative ex- 
 pression of their own ideas, morals, or spiritual life and 
 longings ; or, in lack of such, will manufacture a hero, a 
 God, or their lives and adventures, out of imaginary 
 materials altogether. Such has been the uniform men- 
 tal moods and habits of all primitive and developing 
 peoples. To judge people, thus endeavoring to con- 
 cretely embody and express their spiritual life and man- 
 ifestations or to instruct, persuade or control others in 
 conformity therewith, as we would judge the modern 
 historian, whose only object is the recording of the facts 
 of actual life for the sake of preserving them as facts, is 
 as unjust as it is delusive. Such men regard facts as 
 subservient to purpose, and while they do not change or 
 adulterate the facts without a purpose, they freely and
 
 196 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 unhesitatingly subordinate facts to their conceptions and 
 desires. That the facts used by them should, slower or 
 faster, assume the hues and mould of their desires and 
 beliefs, was inevitable. 
 
 This method of creating and adulterating facts has 
 existed among all peoples, and has obscured the entire 
 early history of the Race. The early history of all peo- 
 ples are legendary and mythic. Nor have the principles 
 or causes producing such results ceased to operate even 
 in our time. A candid and well-informed person will 
 not fail to find evidences of its operations in our own 
 accounts, both traditional and written, of our national 
 struggles and victories, as well as in our partially mythic 
 renderings of the acts and characters of our represen- 
 tative men, such as Washington, Crockett, Lincoln and 
 Joseph Smith the Mormon ; nor could he fail to find 
 its operations exemplified in every slander and rumor 
 which moulds the private and public character of the 
 citizen. Nothing is more difficult than to trace the 
 source, progress and responsibility of these creations 
 and remouldings of facts. Like all false rumors they 
 seem to grow with their circulation, as to .assume form 
 and color from their channels of circulation ; often 
 so gradually as to fix neither their exact date, nor 
 their responsibility. Myths, legends and historic per- 
 versions, especially religious ones, seem to be natural 
 growths, incident to all, but especially to the earlier 
 stages of human civilization.
 
 THE WRITTEN GOSPELS. 1 97 
 
 There are two facts in human nature which should 
 never be overlooked in estimating of the testimony and 
 conduct of the propagators of those religions which claim 
 to determine man's future destiny, namely: their gen- 
 eral and resistless tendency to inspire an unscrupulous 
 zeal and a blind partizanship ; and secondly, the control- 
 ling desire and tendency of men to accept and believe 
 the marvellous and mysterious, especially where the 
 matter concerns the question of the existence and nature 
 of the Spirit World. We need not much concern our- 
 selves with the reason of these proclivities, since all hu- 
 man history and experience prove the fact of their exist- 
 ence. That history shows that the propagation of such 
 religions notoriously elicit the fiercest, the blindest, the 
 cruellest and most unscrupulous elements in human na- 
 ture, is not to be doubted. It is in vain to hope for 
 judicial impartiality and historic accuracy from either 
 friendly or unfriendly ecclesiastical sources. The na- 
 ture cf the subject and the emotions it inspires are self- 
 blinding ; while man cannot practice our moderm maxim 
 that " ends do not justify the means." Even Men who 
 concede the doctrine cannot practically divest themselves 
 of the opposite notion, but habitually justify or shield 
 what they deem conducive to the " glory of God." Our 
 every-day experiences show that our churches will, not 
 only endeavor to hush-up, but will actually defend their 
 priests and preachers from charges of immorality, in the 
 face of evidence upon which they would unhesitatingly 
 condemn a skeptic or sinner, and all for the glory of 
 God and the honor of his church. Every church festi- 
 val for raising money, with its sexual allurements, its 
 lotteries, its post offices, and its other means of e^ctor-
 
 198 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 tion, presents scenes which would meet the censure of 
 the good people of the church were they practiced for 
 other purposes ; while the consciences of these good 
 people are wholly soothed by the success of the " good 
 cause," even by such means ; and yet would chuckle with 
 delight over a hundred-dollar-bill won -from some old 
 voluptuary by a kiss from the deacon's daughter or wife. 
 Their conscience sleeps under their self-gratulations for 
 pious motives and the success of divine means. 
 
 These proclivities and practices are more strikingly 
 manifested in the earlier and more fiery phases of relig- 
 ious propagandism. Each Sect, blind to its own mis- 
 taken or surreptitious methods, is indignantly alive to 
 the inexcusable means and modes resorted to by all the 
 others. Christianity has certainly proved no safeguard" 
 against these tendencies of the human nature, but has, 
 probably, through the excessive zeal of its devotees, been 
 exceptionably subject to them. Of this fact, we are not 
 only assured by history and experience, but we can have 
 the Protestant half of it proved for us by the Catholics, 
 and the Catholic half of it proven by^he Protestants. 
 It is not only indubitably true that holy fictions and pious 
 deceits, as well as frauds and forgeries, have been com- 
 mon instruments in the hands of churchmen from the 
 very days of the Apostles down to the Jesuitical priests 
 of our own time, but it is also true that, until a very re- 
 cent date, they were very generally justified by the 
 Church, and that they are still frequently justified, and 
 still oftener practiced. Even where the Church has not 
 dared to openly justify such means, she has been the 
 promptest to conceal, and the last to confess them : while 
 she "has not scrupled to receive the benefit of them so
 
 THE WRITTEN GOSPELS. 1 99 
 
 long as they could be made serviceable before the ig- 
 norant. Long before the advent of Christianity, Eze- 
 kiel the prophet, makes the Lord say : " If a prophet 
 be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord 
 have deceived that prophet" (xiv. 9): while in I 
 Kings (xxii. 20-23), we are told that God expressly 
 sent a heavenly messenger to put a " lying spirit " 
 into Ahab's prophets, that they might deceive him and 
 lure him to his own destruction. Such, the Bible 
 teaches us, were the means which even God used 
 to subserve his purposes. Jesus himself declares, 
 (Mark iv. 11-12) that he spake in obscure and delu- 
 sive parables to the Jews (which even his own disci- 
 ples could not understand, but which he privately ex- 
 plained to them,) for the express purpose of preventing 
 them from understanding them ; lest they should be 
 converted, and their sins should be forgiven ! In this in- 
 stance Jesus seems to have by no means risen above the 
 temper and spirit of his race and time, and to have set 
 an example which, but too many of his followers have 
 not been slow to follow. St. Paul boasts that, for the 
 purpose of winning different peoples, he had specially 
 accommodated himself or his teachings to each people, 
 and had been " all things to all men ; " and he ex- 
 pressly avows that he won his proselytes "by guile" 
 (2 Cor. xii. 1 6). He also boldly asserts (2 Thes. 
 ii. n, 12) that God sent strong delusion upon unbe- 
 lievers, that they might believe in a lie and be damned ! 
 In Romans (iii. 7), he stoutly defends himself for lying 
 for the glory of God, as we have already quoted. 
 Eusebius, the first great church historian, and the one 
 upon whom we chiefly depend for our knowledge of
 
 2OO JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the early Christian church, unhesitatingly avows that 
 he related whatever might redound to the glory of his 
 religion, and suppressed whatever might tend to its 
 disgrace (Gibbon, vol. ii. ch. 16). The object and limit 
 of our work will not justify further illustration on this 
 point. What has been already shown is sufficiently 
 conclusive that early Christians did and said whatever 
 would advance Christianity. 
 
 The second tendency to which attention has been 
 called, namely, the tendency to maintain and believe 
 in the miraculous or supernatural, will require still less 
 consideration. It is, indeed, scarcely possible for one, 
 even tolerably observant of the history and workings of 
 human nature, to fail to recognize the inappeasable 
 longings of most men's minds (and of all women's), to 
 get a glimpse into, or a word from, the realms of the 
 Unknown, and their almost resistless tendency to make 
 " the wish the father to the thought " to accept, and try 
 to believe what they desire. To be assured of this, one 
 has but to remember the mysterious attractions and suc- 
 cesses, in all ages and countries, of the fortune-teller, the 
 clairvoyant, the prophet, and the "spirit-mediums." 
 The high and low, alike, from the high official to the 
 school mistress and serving girl, even in our day, are to 
 be found secretly consulting the Pythic utterances of the 
 two former, while not contemptible Scientists defend, 
 and crowds of people witness and believe in, the powers 
 and utterances of the latter. Defeats do not dampen the
 
 THE WRITTEN GOSPELS. 2OI 
 
 audacity of the performers, because they know that ex- 
 posures do not shake the confidence of their dupes. A 
 single semblance of success, with them, will outweigh a 
 thousand failures. How could it be otherwise ? Their 
 faith, based upon an itching hope, is not the offspring of 
 reason, and therefore is not amenable to its laws. It is 
 born of a persistent aspiration, and is therefore per- 
 sistent itself, even in defiance of reason, save as reason 
 shall come to its aid. In the darkened rooms of the 
 " medium," with their very flesh creeping at the idea of 
 the presence of a ghost, most people are incapable of 
 detecting the most bare-faced impostures and cheapest 
 juggleries ; while every woman who has called for the 
 presence of some departed friend, would equally recognize 
 their friend in the one, same dim and misty face exhibited 
 by the thaumaturgist. 
 
 In view of these facts, then, we should be unfaithful to 
 truth and reason, were we to fail in taking into account 
 these two potent influences in estimating the evidence 
 furnished us by those ancient religious devotees touching 
 their own miracle-borned religion.
 
 2O2 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 AN EPOCH OF MYTHS AND MIRACLES. 
 
 To those who accept ready-made opinions with a 
 faith so blind as to enable them to read the history of 
 human actions and beliefs without ever seeing beyond 
 the glamour cast by their own inherited creeds, it may 
 become a question whether the wonderful Age which 
 gave birth to their own marvellous religion and Man- 
 God, could also warm into life other miraculous beings > 
 make other Men-Gods, and weave other legends, myths 
 and miracle-stories similar to their own. A very cursory 
 reading of history, however, will show that the period in- 
 cluding the early development and triumph of Chris- 
 tianity and a few centuries preceding the birth of Jesus, 
 was especially prolific in these regards. During no 
 other similar period, perhaps, should we find the 
 apotheosis of men so prevalent or the myth-forming and 
 miracle-producing tendency so active. It embraces the 
 time when the Roman power was rapidly approaching its 
 zenith and the earlier ages of its supreme triumph. At 
 the birth of Jesus the struggling peoples had already 
 ceased to dispute the supremacy of Rome, and for an 
 age there had been unexampled political repose the 
 universal peace of subjection. The entire political and
 
 AN EPOCH OF MYTHS AND MIRACLES 2O3 
 
 military power of the world centred around one impe- 
 rial figure at Rome. The recuperated energies of the 
 subject nations were deprived of their usual outlet in the 
 presence of the resistless legions of the Empire, and 
 were driven to find vent in the fields of mental, moral and 
 religious development. This enforced leisure had not 
 come too soon. Then, if ever, Humanity demanded a 
 new religious birth. Intelligent Thinkers had long since 
 smiled at the old popular myths and symbolizations of 
 the Egyptian, Greek and Roman Mythologies ; and the 
 old notions had gradually ceased to satisfy the average 
 intelligence and aspirations of the people. Men had 
 also outgrown the iron spirit of their old legal codes. 
 The world, in short, was ripe for a religious revolution, 
 as the growth and triumph of Christianity demonstrated. 
 
 The Polytheistic peoples needed, and were partially 
 prepared for, a more unified and Monotheistic con- 
 ception of the controlling powers of the Universe. That 
 they could leap, at a single bound, from the worship of a 
 whole hierarchy of Gods and divine beings, to the con- 
 ception of a sole, all-controlling God, was not to have 
 been expected. The new religion would have to, and 
 did, accommodate itself to their mental condition, and 
 bridge the way for them from Polytheism to Monotheism 
 The fanciful Greek must be aided to abandon his 
 Olympian hierarchy and his poetic world of inferior 
 deities, by offering him substitutes by offering, say, 
 three Gods in one, and a hierarchy consisting of " Sons of 
 God," Mother of God," Archangels, Angels and Saints.
 
 2O4 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 A new .God was not the need of the Jew. He was 
 already a Monotheist. He really needed, but was illy 
 prepared for, a God of more humane, equitable and 
 catholic nature and sympathies a beneficent God of 
 Humanity, and not a " God of the Jews." He was po- 
 litically enslaved, and his religion and civilization were 
 fast crystallizing into the immobility of Pharisaic For- 
 malism. His solitary hope of redemption from all this 
 was in the Messiah. The prophetic Messianic idea and 
 hope formed the true progressive and ideal element in 
 his religion. Through this, and not otherwise, could he 
 be reached. His people had early longed for, and anti- 
 cipated a regeneration of the World, but it was to be 
 achieved at Jerusalem, and by their own God, and 
 through the agency and premiership of their own race, 
 and must be heralded and accompanied by all the 
 " signs " and indicia predicted by their own prophets. 
 His ideal had already been* fixed for him by his God, 
 speaking through the mouths of his prophets. He could 
 not give up the Old, which had thus been fixed by his 
 God : the New must conform to, and exemplify it. This 
 prophesied Saviour constituted just that cloudy, un- 
 determinable and plastic element which could readily be 
 mythically moulded to suit the views and aspirations of 
 Gentile peoples who had no previous knowledge of the 
 Jewish prophecies, nor fixed traditional interpretations 
 of them. But to the Jew, who had all this, the proposed 
 Messiah would have to come with all the traditionally-es- 
 tablished " signs," or need not come at all. To him, the 
 Messianic Conception had long assumed a form too def- 
 inite and fixed to yield to the pressure and requirements 
 of the myth-world. These " signs " were not a subject
 
 AN EPOCH OF MATHS AND MIRACLES. 2O5 
 
 of doubt: they were to be exemplified in one of the 
 Hebrew " princes of the blood " by a " Son of David," 
 were to occur in their own midst, and be subject to the 
 intelligent decision of their own race, especially of the 
 priests of their God and the religious Rulers of the peo- 
 ple. When he did come, there could be no question as 
 to his identity. The sanctity of the supposed divine 
 prophecies of the Jews might be appropriated, and their 
 fragments be perverted for giving color to the claims of 
 a religious Saviour of the unadvised Gentiles, but the 
 Messiah of the Jews who had, for a thousand years, been 
 anticipated according to a fixed idea of Christ, must 
 actually fill the measure of the established conception. 
 They were willing to believe, but it must be upon open 
 and practical proof, not upon myths and rumors. Never, 
 indeed, had the Jews been so anxious to be enabled to 
 believe, nor so feverishly expectant of the coming of 
 their Christ as during the -Age including the career of 
 Jesus and up to the final fall of Jerusalem. All hearts 
 were praying and watching for the Prince who was to 
 re-establish them in more than their ancient glory, and 
 should transfer the seat of influence and universal 
 dominion from Rome to Jerusalem. Under the galling 
 yoke of the Gentiles and wrought into a state of spirit- 
 ual Exaltation and feverish expectancy, the multitude 
 were in the exact condition to force the prophecies and 
 foster Messianic pretenders ; while even the wisest were 
 anxious to believe where belief was possible. Jesus 
 himself recognized this state of things and anticipated 
 its production of many " false Christs." 
 
 Such feverish desires and anticipations were but
 
 2O6 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the natural forerunners of what occurred were, in fact, 
 a part both of the/ processes and agencies by which the 
 inevitable revolution was to be effected. Nature was 
 then in the act of closing one of her long periods of in- 
 cubation, and on the eve of hatching that religious off- 
 spring which, for centuries after, she continued to nurse 
 into life and vigor. This new heir of Progress could not 
 have been born without the accustomed preparations, 
 anticipations and symptoms without the fever and un- 
 rest attending all parturitions and revolutions. Never 
 had there been a greater birth, nor was there ever a birth 
 followed by more sleepless care and coddling, never were 
 the upturnings, clippings, patchings, remodellings, re- 
 trimings, re-adaptations and re-namings so numerous 
 and complete. 
 
 The robes of this new heir were neither of new 
 material, nor of a new pattern. The myths-moulds in 
 which the divine conception, the divine nature, and the 
 miraculous nativity, life and powers of Jesus were 
 moulded, after his supposed resurrection, were not new 
 to the world. In more or less modified forms they had 
 often appeared before. Among the many races who 
 furnished materials or types for Christian ideas, the Brah- 
 mins and Buddhists have, perhaps, furnished those for 
 the most important and fundamental" ones. In Chrishna 
 and in Vishu and his incarnations we find very full and 
 complete suggestions of the Christ idea of the Christians 
 and of the fundamental conceptions of Christian Theol- 
 ogy. In regard to some of the mythic features of the 
 Christ, however, more literally exact types were found 
 in the mythic growths of the people who were long the
 
 AN EPOCH OF MYTHS AND MIRACLES. 2O/ 
 
 masters of Judea and were still residing in Palestine in 
 large numbers, and were in daily intercourse with Chris- 
 tians everywhere, during those first ages. The idea of the 
 divine and immaculate conception of Jesus by a virgin 
 mother, had already been paralleled by the Greeks. 
 Plato had been claimed by them to have been the child 
 of the Sun-God, Apollo, by Perictone, a virgin mother. 
 Perictone was betrothed to Aristion, but because of the 
 appearance of Apollo to the betrothed husband in a 
 dream, and his announcement that Perictone was with 
 child by the God himself, she was kept pure from all 
 matrimonial intercourse with her husband, until her 
 accouchment. Any one who can read this account in 
 connection with the account of the affair between 
 Joseph, Mary and the Holy Ghost, described in the first 
 chapter of Matthew, and fail to perceive that they are 
 reading a "twice told tale," is indeed blind. 
 
 Pythagoras had a similar origin, and performed mira- , 
 cles equalling those of Jesus. But it was in his own Age 
 and in the adjoining country of Syria, that we find the tru- 
 est type, and more than rival, of Jesus as a thaumaturgist. 
 During their lives, the works and fame of Jesus bore no 
 comparison, in their notoriety and magnitude, to those 
 of the Syrian miracle-worker, Appolonius of Tyana. 
 The life and performances of this singular man were 
 very startling. Sir Edward'Bulwer gives a summary of 
 some of his performances in the mocking tone assumed 
 by all Christians when speaking of all other wonder- 
 workers save their own, and in the following language : 
 " All sorts of prodigies accompanied the birth of this 
 gentleman. Proteus, the Egyptian God, foretold to his
 
 2O8 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 mother yet pregnant, that it was he himself who was 
 about to re-appear in the World through her agency. 
 * * Appollonius knew the language of birds, read 
 men's thoughts in their bosoms, and walked about with 
 a familiar spirit. He was a devil of a fellow with a devil, 
 and induced a mob to stone a poor demon of a venerable 
 and mendicant appearance, who, after the lapidary 
 operation, changed into a huge dog. He raised the 
 dead. He passed a night with Achilles, and when 
 Domitian was murdered (at Rome) he called out aloud 
 (although at Ephesus at the moment), ' Strike the 
 tyrant ! ' The end of so honest and great a man was 
 worthy of his life. It would seem that he ascended into 
 Heaven" He certainly figured much more extensively 
 and openly than did Jesus, his neighbor of Nazareth, and 
 his audiences and witnesses were far more varied, 
 intelligent and disinterested. He discussed his theories 
 and performed his alleged miracles before the most in- 
 telligent bodies and classes in every country from the 
 Tiber to the Ganges and the Nile. His powers of heal- 
 ing were considered miraculous and divine, and priests 
 and people alike paid him divine honors. His wonder- 
 ful powers secured him the confidence of, and a control- 
 ling influence over, the Emperor Vespasian and his son 
 Titus, the conqueror of Jerusalem. At his death temples 
 were erected in his honor, and he was worshipped as a 
 God; while cities contended for the honor of having been 
 his birth-place, and the successful competitor was raised 
 to the dignity of a " sacred city." 
 
 We are also assured by one of the Christian Fathers, 
 that the Simon Magus of the New Testament a rival
 
 AN EPOCH OF MYTHS AND MIRACLES. 2OQ 
 
 of the Apostles in wonder-working, finally went to 
 Rome and was there worshipped as a God. And we 
 know that it was then the custom of the Roman Senate 
 to apotheosize their Emperors and decree them divine 
 honors and worship, sometimes even in their lifetimes ; 
 and all this during the miracle-working and myth-form- 
 ing ages of Christianity. And speedily following, we 
 find a like phase of development entered into by the 
 Arabs, and producing that still more striking and suc- 
 cessful parallel to Jesus, Mahomet. 
 
 But in the number, extravagance and grotesqueness 
 of her legends and her mythic formations, no people or 
 sect could'vie with the early Christians. Consisting, as 
 the early Church did, mainly of slaves and the lower 
 classes, she formed a rich mould for such luxurious 
 growths. From the beginning, the disciples claimed 
 special divine endowments and gifts, and cited them in 
 proof of the divine approbation of their assertions and 
 doctrines. They raved in "unknown tongues" till peo- 
 ple thought them drunk in languages which St. Paul, 
 however, assures us could not be understood by anybody 
 until it was explained by somebody having the divine 
 gift of "interpretation." They claimed to have the 
 power, also, of working miracles like Jesus. Besides 
 these general gifts of the " Faithful," there were in- 
 numerable cases of special endowments and sanctity 
 won by self-abnegation and abuse. For centuries, the 
 more fanatical of those early Christians flocked by tens- 
 of-thousands and even by hundreds-of-thousands to the 
 deserts of Syria and Africa, and there, abandoning the 
 world and all the duties of life, gave themselves up to 
 
 14
 
 2IO JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the most loathsome filth and most appalling and disgust- 
 ing asceticism, for the avowed purpose of crushing out 
 every earthly desire and hope and every mortal tie and 
 human sympathy in short, everything that made them 
 human. These grim, emaciated, and foully filthy mono- 
 maniacs and fanatics of the desert, formed the subjects 
 and neuclei around which grew up unnumbered legend- 
 ary and mythical stories, abounding in marvels and 
 miracles, most of them too absurd and childish for us 
 to conceive how sane men could ever have invented or 
 believed them. And yet these sad figures of the desert 
 answer to the roll-call of our Christian saints, and receive 
 a worship from millions of Christians, more devout than 
 was ever paid to JUQO or Vulcan. 
 
 Higher still than these or even than the eternal 
 angels themselves, have been placed the semi-apothe- 
 osized Apostles ; and higher even than the Archan- 
 gels sits the " Prince of the Apostles," controlling the 
 very keys of Heaven. Higher still, higher than all 
 beings below God himself, sits, radiant and crowned, 
 the " Queen of Heaven " and " Mother of God," 
 the once aged, meek and much-snubbed Nazarene 
 mother ; by far the most divinely-human creation of all 
 the galaxy. 
 
 &'M 'V.'ir 
 High over all these, however, and forever lost in the 
 
 very being and identity of God, has vanished the 
 old identity of Jesus the carpenter of Nazareth : 
 the ultimate product and supreme symbol of cen- 
 turies of conclusive and creative religious evolution! 
 Can any rational person cast a glance over this list of
 
 AN EPOCH OF MYTHS AND MIRACLES. 211 
 
 mythic creations and marvellous growths, and still hesi- 
 tate to believe in the plastic, myth-creating powers and 
 tendencies of the Apostolic and Saintly ages ? Need we 
 either fear or hesitate to affirm that this Christian de- 
 velopment and growth was but another and final step 
 in religious evolution and progressive concrete symbol- 
 ism : having its lowest forms and expressions, (such as 
 its use of the miraculous virtues of the shrines, bones, 
 clothes, teeth and toe-nails of saints,) still resting upon 
 the original fetichism from which it sprung, and this, its 
 last and highest concrete expression, bodily merged in 
 the Infinite God ? Can we doubt that it was a grand 
 stretch of human development, embodying within itself, 
 and actually constituting, a metamorphosed epitome of 
 all previous phases of religious evolution. 
 
 When, in view of all considerations mentioned, we 
 examine, as evidence, and judicially determine the value 
 of, the sayings, doings and beliefs of the religious 
 devotees, fanatics and interested partisans, handed down 
 to us in the careless, fraudulent and unmerciful manner 
 we have considered, by the traditions and the fugitive 
 and anonymous writings of that incandescent, plastic, 
 superstitious and revolutionary epoch, May we not 
 nay, must we not cast away the soul-paralyzing and 
 reason-defying awe and terror which an idea of their 
 divine sacredness, fostered by the decrees and exhorta- 
 tions of an interested priesthood and accepted and 
 instilled into us by an ignorant and superstitious an-
 
 212 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 cestry, has inspired us ? Is it not the plainest dictate 
 of common sense and common manhood to treat such 
 evidence as we would the tradition history of all early 
 ages and the similar stories and legends of all other 
 religions originating under like phases of development ?
 
 THE EFFECT OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 213 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE EFFECT OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS UPON 
 THE WITNESSES AND THEIR TESTIMONY. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the effect of the resurrection upon the 
 evidence of the disciples and followers of Jesus has been 
 noticed in a general way, that influence was so specific 
 and decisive as to make a clear comprehension of it 
 essential to a just appreciation of the value of the 
 evidence furnished by the Gospels. As has been con- 
 tended, Christianity, or the possibility of it, did not exist 
 until some thirty-six hours after Jesus was taken from 
 the cross. When he then re-appeared to his disciples, it 
 was inevitable. There is, as we have seen, not the 
 slightest difficulty upon this point. The Gospels have 
 left nothing to inference or construction in regard to it. 
 The public career of Jesus finally closed with his descent 
 from the cross. This put to flight the last possible hope 
 which his followers might have previously entertained 
 concerning his earthly prospects. They regarded him 
 as dead. And with his death, died their hopes. As his 
 aiders and abettors they themselves were in hiding for 
 their own safety. This fact, as well as the entire after 
 conduct and language both of Jesus and themselves, 
 shows that they neither had expected, nor been taught to
 
 214 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 expect, any post mortem manifestations, or the inaugur- 
 ation of any merely religious movement. 
 
 It is without the pale of rational belief, that Jesus 
 had taught his disciples that all their efforts would end 
 in his own ignominious failure and execution, but that 
 he would return to life on the third day as the head 
 of religious movement ; or, had such prediction been 
 made, it is not less incredible that, after one part of it 
 had been so tragically fulfilled, not one of all his dis- 
 ciples should have, even then, recalled it, and have an- 
 ticipated his resurrection. Nor is it credible that he 
 could have induced his disciples to follow him around 
 for years, aid him in his efforts to be accepted by the 
 Jews as their temporal prince, and to finally proclaim 
 and herald him as King at Jerusalem, as they did do, had 
 Jesus told them, and desired them to understand, that 
 their whole labor was to end in utter failure and public 
 ignominy, would prove, in fact, a mere costly and tragic 
 sham. Jesus could not fail to make them understand so 
 plain a fact, if he had tried to make them do so. Nor 
 would Jesus have so long labored lo win over the people 
 to his cause, have suffered himself to be proclaimed 
 king, and thereby subject both himself and his followers 
 to the penalties of treason, have abused the Jews for 
 not accepting him, and then stood above Jerusalem and 
 wept over her rejection of him, if he had all along known 
 that he was not to be accepted, but had voluntarily come 
 into the world expressly to be what he wept for having 
 become. The idea that Jesus either foreknew his fate or 
 tried to make his disciples foreknow it is rendered absurd 
 by the entire facts. It was wholly an afterthought, a
 
 THE EFFECT OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 215 
 
 lame effort to cure the palpable objection that, if Jesus 
 were a divine person, he must and would have known all 
 about it. 
 
 This whole matter, however, is put still further be- 
 yond doubt by the conduct and positive declarations of 
 both Jesus and his disciples after the resurrection. In 
 talking to Jesus himself, on the road to Emmaus, after 
 his re-appearance, his disciples, not recognizing him, 
 speak of him as follows : " Jesus of Nazareth, which 
 was a prophet mighty in deed and in word before the 
 Lord and all the people. And now the chief priests and 
 rulers delivered him to be condemned, and have crucified 
 him. But we trusted that it had been he which sJiould 
 have redeemed Israel ; and besides all this, to-day is the 
 third day since those things were done. Yea, and cer- 
 tain women of our company made us astonished, which 
 were early at the sepulchre : And when they found not 
 his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a 
 vision of angels which said he was alive. And certain 
 of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and 
 found it even so as the women had said : but him they 
 saw not. Then he (Jesus) said unto them, O fools and 
 slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have 
 spoken : Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, 
 and to enter into his glory ? And beginning at Moses 
 and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the 
 scripture concerning himself" (see Luke, xxiv. 19, et 
 seq.). Here we have the views of both parties. The 
 disciples, before his execution, had regarded him as a 
 prophet, and had trusted that he was the expected prince 
 who was to " redeem Israel," but were mistaken and dis-
 
 2l6 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 appointed, since he had actually been executed ; but that 
 strange stories had been started about his being alive, 
 etc. Jesus expresses no astonishment, in his turn, at 
 his disciples for forgetting what he had told them, nor 
 did he remind them of any such fact, or upbraid them 
 for want of faith in him or his declarations, but, to the 
 exclusion of all this, he rebukes them for not having 
 faith in the prophecies, which, he contended, had foretold 
 these results. All this would seem clear enough. In 
 fact, the Fourth Gospel declares in express terms, in ex- 
 planation of the ignorance of the disciples about the fact 
 of resurrection, that " as yet, they knew not the scripture 
 that he must arise again from the dead." Here, as with 
 Jesus' own language, there is no thought, hint or ques- 
 tion as to the fact of Jesus having ever told them 
 about it. 
 
 Being, therefore, unprepared for such an event, his 
 disciples were astonished and even appalled by his re- 
 appearance in the flesh. But, when once forced to real- 
 ize the fact, and induced to believe that it was in fulfil- 
 ment of the Messianic prophecies, the effects were 
 decisive there was no more lack of faith. It was no 
 longer Jesus the prophet, but the Christ, the Messiah, 
 who talked to them. Their " prophet " had been lost on 
 the Cross, to be re-embraced as a God after his resur- 
 rection. The cause which had gone down in shame and 
 defeat on Calvary, had been more than resurrected by 
 the divine re-animation of their Man-God. Henceforth 
 its scope was, not a Jewish triumph or a Jewish crown, 
 but the conquest of a World and a crown of immortal 
 glory !
 
 THE EFFECT OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 
 
 Had Jesus passed away as most other executed per- 
 sons, and as his disciples supposed he had, that little 
 band of women and fishermen would have slipped out of 
 their hiding place as soon as their safety would have 
 permitted, and have returned to Galilee, and would have 
 again been found at their old labors along the shores of 
 the Galilean Sea. As it turned out, however, they be- 
 came the witnesses of a new faith and the evangelists of 
 a new religion ! 
 
 One of the most marked and important effects of the 
 supposed resurrection of Jesus, was the new light which, 
 in the minds both of his first and subsequent disciples, 
 it threw back upon all his former life and sayings, and 
 the consequent additions, suppressions and modifications 
 which it produced in our accounts of them. The old 
 familiarity which permitted John to loll upon his breast 
 and Peter to rebuke him, was transmuted into an un- 
 questioning awe of the risen " Son of God." The divine 
 aureola which surrounded the brow of the new Deity 
 threw a new and weird light back upon the events, 
 scenes and discourses of their friend and prophet over 
 facts which, at the time, had only suggested the query of 
 whether he might not be " John the Baptist " or " Elias," 
 or " that prophet," and the propriety of declaring him 
 King, but had only suggested to the " wise and prudent " 
 the presence of a blasphemer, a seditious agitator, and a 
 dangerous monomaniac. Their imaginations, under this 
 disturbing and distorting light, gave the old facts a divine 
 coloring and new forms and significance, and created facts 
 to fill the outlines of their conception of a divine incarna- 
 tion. Thenceforth the fragments of Messianic prophe-
 
 2l8 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 cies and their conceptions of the appropriate acts and 
 accompaniments of a Son of God were injected into, and 
 dominated, the actual life of the son of Joseph and Mary. 
 With such persons, acting under such inducements and 
 conditions, such results were natural and inevitable. 
 Just such metamorphoses and mythic addenda and 
 adornments grew up around the birth, life and death of 
 Mahomet, Guatama and other founders of religions, as 
 grew up around those of Jesus. If these persons were 
 superhuman, there would have been,(and the desire was 
 that there should have been,) the accredited concomitants of 
 the Divine, in their characters and careers. If they were 
 the fulfilments of divine promises and prophecies, they 
 must have also been what such promises and prophecies 
 had said they should be. Such has been the course 
 of reasoning : and the traditions and accounts of such 
 men have been made to conform to such desires and be- 
 liefs. If we hold up our hands in holy horror at this, we 
 but horrify ourselves at the indubitable course of Nature 
 and the divine method of developing Humanity. This 
 tendency to form post factum predictions and opinions, 
 and to clothe our idols with the livery of our ideals, is, 
 indeed, one of the most common and indubitable traits 
 of the human character even in more common and 
 every-day affairs ; and more especially is it exhibited by 
 ignorant and superstitious people. 
 
 All truths must be consistent and congruous. In a 
 vague and unconscious way, all people perceive this, and 
 are almost as unconsciously impelled to endeavor to 
 coerce the facts upon which they base their beliefs into 
 some kind of accord and consistency with each other, as
 
 THE EFFECT OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 
 
 well as to compel them support the theories or beliefs 
 they are supposed to verify. Our vanity and self-com- 
 placency impel us, also, to reconcile our present beliefs 
 and the present facts with our past beliefs to perform 
 that very common operation of imagining that we always 
 believed and foresaw the facts as they have actually oc- 
 curred. In short, men habitually tend to force an agree- 
 ment between their beliefs at different periods, and also 
 between the facts and their beliefs, by either denying 
 their beliefs or remodelling the facts. They adapt the 
 music to instrument, as well as change instruments to 
 suit the music. The traveller who should converse 
 freely with his unknown companion, without perceiving 
 anything remarkable in him, would, upon being informed 
 that he had been conversing with a Bismarck or Napo- 
 leon, eagerly review the whole scene, and feel quite sure, 
 not only that there were Napoleonic or Bismarckian 
 traits cropping out everywhere, but that he had actually 
 felt there was something more than common about them, 
 at the time ; and were he to frequently narrate the scene 
 for twenty years, it would insensibly and unconsciously 
 grow more characteristic of those great men as the years 
 went by. The fact is, that men's minds, both con- 
 sciously and unconsciously, play sad tricks when dealing 
 with the marvellous or supernatural. They seem to 
 " swing loose " or " fly wild " like the needle in presence 
 of a magnet. 
 
 This new influence was as prompt as it was potent. 
 Under the very first impulse from its stimulant, Mary
 
 220 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Magdalen could not conceive the wonderful event of the 
 resurrection as being even communicated to her in an 
 ordinary way, but declared that she had seen a "vision 
 of angels " who told her that Jesus was alive. The dis- 
 ciples who conversed long with him. on the road to 
 Emmaus, with no hint as to his identity, had no sooner 
 discovered, by his manner of blessing the bread, who he 
 really was, than they forthwith discovered that both of 
 their hearts had actually " burned within them " while 
 he was with them by the way. The Gospel of Matthew 
 (so-called), not content with the Magdalen's " vision of 
 angels," and forgetting that the male disciples had re- 
 garded the whole thing as a mere idle tale of the women, 
 has deemed it appropriate to get another earthquake to 
 herald the fact, as it had for announcing his death on 
 the cross, and tells about angels with countenances "like 
 lightning." Thenceforth, all that pertained to Jesus was 
 made to conform, as far as might be, to the new "situa- 
 tion," and as rapidly as was compatible with the laws of 
 mental adaptations. Like the bed of Procrustes, the 
 supposed divinity and Messiahship of the resurrected 
 Jesus clipped or stretched all things to their own dimen- 
 sions. Being divine, he must have had the approved 
 indicia of a marvellous birth and a divine power. Being 
 the Messiah of the Jews, he must, of necessity, have ful- 
 filled the signs and had the indicia foretold by Jewish 
 prophecy, and his life must have responded, in some 
 form, to his supposed scriptural or historic types. Un- 
 less these indicia accompanied him, how could he be the 
 Messiah and incarnate God ? The person and the char- 
 acteristics and indicia mutually implied each other. But 
 Jesus had been divinely endorsed by the resurrection.
 
 THE EFFECT OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 221 
 
 Must not the characteristics and indicia have existed, 
 also, and of necessity ? Could any fact be more sacred 
 than this conclusion ? Must not all other facts bend 
 into conformity to it ? 
 
 The influence here insisted upon is sufficiently exem- 
 plified by the view taken by Luke of the inability of the 
 disciples to recognize Jesus after walking and conversing 
 with him on the road to Emmaus. Now, How does the 
 gospel account for this ? By the natural and only 
 possible way namely, that he was unrecognizable that 
 his appearance was changed ? Not at all. That would 
 hot correspond with his new and conceded character. 
 The Son of God nay, the incarnate God himself, could 
 not be a disguised and escaping convict ! What then 
 was left ? They had not, and, by sight, could not recog- 
 nize their well-known master when talking to him face- 
 to-face : What could they conclude ? Simply what they 
 did conclude, namely, that " their eyes were holden that 
 they should not know him ; " forgetting that neither 
 their eyes nor their ears were " holden " a few minutes 
 after when they did know him by his language and 
 manner at table. And yet the gospel naively recites this 
 miraculous and absurd excuse in the same direct and 
 positive manner in which it recites the crucifixion in a 
 manner which forbids us to doubt that the author actu- 
 ally believed \t ! Their eyes saw everything perfectly 
 naturally and were perfectly competent to see the man in 
 their usual manner, but they were " holden " from seeing 
 that it was Jesus ! Not a word of explanation. Their 
 eyes must have been " holden " or they would have 
 known him instantly, under any circumstances, and yet
 
 222 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 they had not even suspected his identity. Such men 
 were not only capable of all this, but of burning men at 
 the stake for doubting it. These few and immediate in- 
 stances of the effect of the resurrection and the supposed 
 nature of Jesus are given here merely to exemplify the 
 character and the astounding force of the influence 
 which we have been considering. Do they not strongly 
 confirm our knowledge of human nature and of human 
 history in this regard, and satisfy us that we must expect 
 to find many traces of the mythic and unhistoric in the 
 accounts of Jesus given by such men ?
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 223 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC IN THE 
 GOSPELS. 
 
 THAT we may not seem to cast discredit upon the 
 narratives in the Gospels solely upon general considera- 
 tions or on principles derived from human history and 
 experience, we shall present some of the more prominent 
 narratives and statements now appearing in our Gospels, 
 that are deemed mythic and unreliable. 
 
 Whether these unreliable elements were born of 
 the impulses and beliefs of the first disciples, or were 
 originated afterwards and gradually injected into the 
 traditions or record, is a question of small significance, 
 in determining their true nature and worth, since the 
 same general mental conditions and influences operated 
 on all the early generations of Christian devotees and 
 propagandists. If a century brought changes in the 
 Church, they consisted chiefly in an increase of intelli- 
 gence and decrease of honesty and of honest materials 
 for forming or correcting opinions. Every age brought 
 its modifications and adaptations. If the first generation 
 had better opportunities for ascertaining the facts, they 
 also had greater ignorance and superstition to misguide 
 them, being more exclusively of the ignorant classes.
 
 224 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 That the facts were actually warped and remoulded by 
 both the first and succeeding ages is certain, and it 
 matters little by whom. 
 
 We meet with unhistoric elements at the very thresh- 
 old of our Gospel records, in their accounts of the gen- 
 ealogy, conception, birth and infancy of Jesus. It is 
 scarcely questionable that the first and third Gospels, 
 in which these accounts appear, were written by persons 
 who were wholly ignorant of the alleged facts concern- 
 ing which they write, as well as ignorant of the narratives 
 of each other. Neither of them could have been written 
 by an Apostle, as they now stand. There was an 
 absolute reticence among Jesus and his friends, during 
 all his public career, concerning his infancy, relation- 
 ship and early life. Whatever hints we are given come 
 from charges made by his opponents charges which 
 Jesus met only with stern silence or total evasion. 
 
 We are, indeed, without any reliable knowledge on 
 these subjects, except, perhaps, as to his parents and 
 their children and family residence. After the resurrec- 
 tion there was a marked change in this singular reti-. 
 cence. Minutely detailed accounts of the alleged 
 marvels attending his birth and infancy grew and 
 multiplied exceedingly : all differing all absurdly incon- 
 sistent. None of these had any legitimate claims to 
 verity over the others, nor was any real investigation or 
 effort ever made to test their comparative historic merits
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 225 
 
 or to ascertain the true facts, while it was yet possible 
 to have ascertained and determined them. The only 
 test to which they were ever really subjected was their 
 supposed suitabilities to the views and purposes of those 
 who accepted them. Two of them have, in some form, 
 found their way into our Canon, and are to be found pre- 
 fixed to the first and third Gospels which for the sake 
 of habit and convenience we may still designate as those 
 of Matthew and Luke. 
 
 It would seem morally certain that, had these mar- 
 vellous evidences of the divine character and mission of 
 Jesus have really existed or have been believed in by the 
 actors in the first drama of Christianity, or even by the 
 recorders of their performances, every page and line of 
 the record would be glowing with proofs of, or references 
 to them. And yet neither Mark nor John even mention, 
 or hints, a word concerning these early and inestimable 
 marvels ; and were, evidently, either ignorant of the true 
 early history of Jesus, or regarded it as of no special or 
 favorable significance. Nor do the Gospels now con- 
 taining them, further refer to them, or show that they 
 were used in demonstration or aid of the claims of 
 Jesus ; nor are they elsewhere used in the New Testa- 
 ment. These facts could not have thus existed, if there 
 had been any maintainable or even probable grounds for 
 the assertion of these miraculous and overwhelming evi- 
 dences attainable by Jesus and his followers. The nar- 
 ratives of the " Nativity " seem to be wholly discon- 
 nected fragments prefixed or tacked to independent 
 accounts of the public career of Jesus, and, so far as any 
 connection or use is made of them, they might, barring 
 
 15
 
 226 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the names, have been added excerpts from the legends of 
 some other mythic personage. If we examine all the 
 Gospels, we shall find that they all, alike, commence 
 their gospel narratives with the appearance and preach- 
 ing of John the Baptist, and treat only of the after 
 career of Jesus, if we strike out these two disconnected 
 stories of his genealgy, infancy and childhood of Jesus-. 
 In both Matthew and Luke, we find that, after these 
 stories, there is an abrupt and long and disconnected 
 break ; and that, were we to detach this disconnected 
 and discordant affix from each, they would both begin 
 with the advent of John the Baptist, just as Mark and 
 John does. These are certainly very significant facts 
 in determining the character and value of these discon- 
 nected addenda. 
 
 If the fourth Gospel should be correctly attributed to 
 the apostle John, it is not rationally conceivable that 
 he could have been ignorant of such momentous facts, if 
 they had ever existed ; nor that he could, knowing them 
 to have existed, written such a Gospel without reciting 
 or referring to them, nor that he could have been con- 
 versant with the accounts in Matthew and Luke without 
 attempting to explain and reconcile their manifest con- 
 flicts and inconsistencies, or to redeem the life of his 
 Master from such error and uncertainty, by a true 
 statement of the facts. He had been the constant fol- 
 lower and the bosom friend and pet of his Master up to 
 his crucifixion, and had there accepted from him the care 
 and custodianship of his mother that mother who of all 
 persons living or dead knew most and best about the 
 paternity, birth and infancy of her son. That John
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 22/ 
 
 could have maintained these life-long family relations 
 with a mother and son of such wonderful destiny and 
 miraculous antecedents and still have remained ignorant 
 of those astounding occurrences connected with the 
 "Nativity," is a supposition at war with all human 
 reason and experience. That he could have written his 
 Alexandrian conception of the " Logos " in the obscure 
 and sententious manner he has done in his opening, 
 without ever referring to such marvellous exemplifica- 
 tions and proofs, is equally inconceivable. If he had 
 ever heard of these after-rumors he treated them as 
 Paul did these same "idle genealogies," that is, took 
 " no heed " of them. 
 
 Our present accounts of the ancestry, conception, 
 birth and infancy of Jesus seems to have been wholly 
 distinct and unrelated attempts, most probably by subse- 
 quent interpolators, to mythically realize, in the infant 
 Jesus, the popular conception of a divine birth (such as 
 we have seen to have been assigned to Plato), as well as 
 the Messianic dreams of the old Jewish Poets and 
 Prophets. When we analyze and compare these ac- 
 counts, and note the wholly different stand-points of 
 their authors, the difference in their aims and ideals, the 
 conflicts, and the total dissimilarity between the inci- 
 dents they relate, the different prophecies they rely 
 upon, and the total difference in the supernatural 
 machinery and methods which they summon to their aid, 
 we can scarcely fail to perceive th rnythic and unreliable 
 character of both these accounts. 
 
 The writer or inventor- of the account in the first
 
 228 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Gospel manifestly wrote it from a Jewish stand-point, 
 and mainly to convince Jews that Jesus was their proph- 
 esied Messiah and had fulfilled the Messianic prophecies. 
 So thoroughly is the writer absorbed with picturing this 
 prophetic fulfilment, that a real history is never thought 
 of or imitated ; and the whole matter is made to consist 
 of dry assertions of certain facts and of certain fragments 
 from the Old Testament scriptures and of their assumed 
 relations to each other : leaving the animus and motive 
 of his plastic labors undisguisedly conspicuous. We are 
 made to perceive, at every step, not only that the meagre 
 narrative is but an attempted reflex of supposed scrip- 
 tural types and prophecies, but he assures us that the 
 very facts themselves existed to fulfil the prophecies 
 that " all this was done that it might be fulfilled which 
 was spoken of the Lord by the prophet," etc. Thus 
 making the Lord set him the example of subordinating 
 the facts of nature to Jewish prophecy. This is the key- 
 note and secret of the whole affair. He takes certain 
 scraps of supposed Scripture as his points d'appui, and 
 boldly asserts some assumed fulfilment of them ; play- 
 ing, while doing so, most' childish tricks with the Scrip- 
 tures, and still more childish ones in his fulfilments of 
 them. 
 
 Naturally, the first of his efforts to meet Jewish re- 
 quirements, was to show that Jesus was the " Son of 
 David " or heir to their royal house ; since he was, of 
 course, limited to those popular notions of the Christ 
 which did not necessarily imply his earthly triumph. To 
 satisfy this prophecy, he introduces a genealogy of Jesus 
 or rather of Joseph, without indicating when, where, or
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 22Q 
 
 from whom he obtained it, or where or how its existence 
 or reality could be ascertained or verified. It consists of 
 the bare assertion of an anonymous work by an interested 
 author. So imbued was he, also, with the mystical 
 nature of his work and with the appropriateness of 
 giving it mystical surroundings, that he seizes upon the 
 old fetlchistic notion of the magical potency and signifi- 
 cance of certain numbers {a notion still common in his 
 day) and endeavors to cVeate the idea of a pre-arranged 
 and divinely ordered harmony resulting in a numerical 
 rhythm in the reproductive energies of all the ancestors 
 of Joseph from Abraham and Sarah on down through 
 over twenty-five generations ! He takes special care to 
 divide this long chain of descent into three parts of equal 
 numbers : namely : from Abraham to David, fourteen 
 generations : from David to the Babylonish captivity, 
 fourteen generations : and from " the captivity " down 
 to Jesus, fourteen generations. Thus taking the mystic 
 number, three, for his rhythmical periods, and double the 
 mystic and sacred number, seven, for the individuals in 
 each. So that the whole number is attained by multi- 
 plying the sacred number " three," by a multiple of the 
 sacred number "seven." Such^ habits were common 
 among ancient writers, and while this custom may ex- 
 plain and apologize for the instance before us, it must 
 also stamp it with the general character and credit of 
 such ancient writings, and will speak " volumes " to the 
 intelligent modern mind as to the origin and value of the 
 work. 
 
 But, what is still more conclusive of the forced, in- 
 considerate and unreliable character of this mystically
 
 23O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 arranged genealogy, is the fact that, if we take its own 
 numbers and list of names, we must include both Abra- 
 ham and David, the first and last names in the first list, 
 in order to make the required fourteen persons ; and so 
 we must include both Solomon and Jeconiah to get the 
 required number in the second period or list ; while even 
 by counting both this same Jeconiah and Jesus in the 
 third period, we fail to get our mystical number obtain- 
 ing only thirteen. But the indifference to facts, which 
 inspired this rhythm of mystical numbers, will readily 
 account for such minor carelessness and inaccuracy. 
 
 Both St. Jerome and Strauss concur in charging 
 the compiler of this genealogy with having designedly 
 skipped three names in the Old Testament genealogies 
 in order to get his mystical number of double-seven ; 
 and Strauss fully exhibits the facts and substatiates his 
 charge, in his Life of Jesus. 
 
 Let us now recall some of the differences between 
 the two accounts under consideration. Luke, who had 
 not hit upon this happy thought of a mystical numerical 
 rhythm, makes the number of generations from David to 
 Joseph forty-one : while Matthew covers the same ground 
 with only twenty-six. To any fair and free mind, it is 
 manifest, at once, that this enormous difference cannot 
 be reconciled with the reliability of the authors of the 
 differing genealogies. The only chance of reconciliation 
 would be in supposing them to be tracing a descent 
 through a different line of ancestors ; and yet, the
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 23! 
 
 existence of such an enormous difference in any two 
 lines of ancestry during the same period and among the 
 same people is most incredible, even if we had any evi- 
 dence that the lines attempted to be traced were dif- 
 ferent. 
 
 But this is by no means the most striking difference. 
 The object of these genealogies is the same, namely, 
 the actual physical descent of Jesus from David, in plain 
 fulfilment of the Jewish prophecies. Had there been, 
 therefore, any real genealogical record of an actual 
 descent of Joseph the carpenter from King David, the 
 Gospel copies from it would have agreed with each other 
 in all corresponding statements ; and, were they divinely 
 guided, would have agreed throughout. But, how stand 
 the facts in the record ? In the two long lines of 
 alleged ancestors in question, with the exception of two 
 conspicuous persons, all of the names are different! 
 Commence at which end of the series you choose, and 
 you will at once meet conflicting statements, and find 
 yourself following two lists of ancestors differing both in 
 number and persons. Both purport to give the genealogy 
 of Joseph the carpenter, one in an ascending, and the 
 other in a descending, form. Matthew tells us that 
 Joseph's father was Jacob : Luke tells us that it was Eli. 
 Matthew says that Joseph descended from David through 
 his son Solomon : Luke tells us that it was through his 
 son Nathan. The two series of names only twice unite, 
 once in Salathiel, and again in Zerubbabel. And, even 
 here they have manifestly only casually stumbled into 
 each other's embrace : since they have no sooner touched 
 than they recoil and sever again ; differing as to who
 
 232 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 was the father of Salathiel, and as to the son of Ze- 
 rubbabel. A singular divine inspiration, truly ! 
 
 All attempts to reconcile these conflicting genealogies 
 have proved as signal failures as they are themselves. 
 Nothing can reconcile them. It appears that, even dur- 
 ing the life of St. Paul, the churches or church members 
 were wrangling about genealogies, and Paul expressly 
 warns them to pay no heed to those long genealogies, 
 coupling them with fables (i Tim. i. 4). 
 
 But why this effort to force such a worthless pre- 
 tence of descent and heirship. from David as either of 
 these would be, even if true ? They both trace the 
 descent through Joseph ; and surely it could be of no 
 significance or value to Jesus to trace the descent of 
 Joseph from David or anybody else, since such a descent 
 could not possibly transmit either the blood or title 
 of David to Jesus, if the Christian doctrine be true. 
 For it is their fundamental doctrine, put forth in this 
 very first account by Matthew, and found side by side 
 with the genealogy, that Jesus was, not only the Son of 
 God begotten by the Holy Ghost, but the possibility of 
 his being the son of Joseph is specially excluded by the 
 announcement that his mother was yet a virgin when he 
 was born, never having had matrimonial association 
 with Joseph, certainly not until after the birth of Jesus; 
 This state of facts would, if true, give Jesus no possible 
 claim to either blood-relationship or heirship through 
 Joseph. And yet, to meet Jewish prophecy and expecta-
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 233 
 
 tions, he must have been a son of David according to 
 the flesh. Paul says he was " made of the seed of 
 David according to the flesh " (Rom. i. 3). And 
 singularly enough, after Jesus' own clear renunciation of 
 this claim, the last chapter of Revelations, said to have 
 been written by the " beloved disciple " who was himself 
 present at this renunciation, makes the deified Jesus say of 
 himself " I am the root and offspring of David." Even 
 if either of these genealogies were true, therefore, it 
 would not even tend to establish any descent of Jesus 
 from David, or any such relationship as the scriptures 
 contemplated and the prophecies demanded. Mr. Beecher 
 very correctly remarks that, " since Joseph was not his 
 father, it could only be through his mother that he could 
 trace his lineage to David." Having but this one human 
 parent, he could only be related to humanity through 
 her. And yet, it is nowhere pretended or hinted that 
 Mary was a descendant of David ; the only efforts to 
 establish his descent being these two lame and conflict- 
 ing attempts to establish it through a man who was in 
 nowise related by blood to himself ! 
 
 The character attempted to be set up for Jesus after 
 his resurrection was, in fact, double and incompatible. 
 If he was directly begotten by God without male human 
 agency, then he could not have the relationship to David 
 which the New Testament assigns to him. To make it 
 sure that he was the Son of God, they had carefully and 
 expressly excluded the possibility of the fathership of 
 Joseph ; but, in doing so, they excluded all possibility 
 of his descent from David save through his mother, and 
 rendered his alleged descent through Joseph utterly 
 nugatory and meaningless.
 
 234 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 But more striking evidences of the mythic character 
 of these narratives still remain to be noticed. The con- 
 duct as well as declarations of Jesus himself leave no 
 doubt of the light in which he viewed this whole subject 
 of a descent from David. During his entire career he 
 never once put forward any claim to a relationship with 
 David, nor made the slightest allusion to his birth, his 
 early life or his family relations or descent save to pub- 
 licly repudiate his relationship to even his mother and 
 brethren. He never hints or acknowledges the necessity 
 of a descent from David to the establishment of his Mes- 
 siahship, but seems to exult in repudiating all ancestral 
 relations by calling himself the " Son of Man." Nor did 
 he leave the matter to the violent negative presumption 
 which such a course implied when thus adopted in the 
 presence of a people whose first requisite for a Messiah 
 was a descent from David. On the contrary, we are as- 
 sured by the Gospels themselves, that Jesus expressly 
 and unanswerably argued to the Jews that they were 
 utterly mistaken in supposing that the Messiah was to 
 be a son of David at all, according to the Scriptures. 
 He utterly silenced them upon this matter, it is said, by 
 showing them from their own scriptures, not only that 
 the Christ need not be a son of David, but that he could 
 not be, consistently with the divine word. By referring 
 to the 22d chapter of Matthew, and commencing at the 
 41 st verse, we shall see, that Jesus voluntarily intro- 
 duced the subject and challenged the Jews as to their 
 erroneous notions about the matter. The scene is de- 
 scribed in the following language : " While the Pharisees 
 were gathered together Jesus asked them, saying, What 
 think ye of Christ ? Whose son is he ? They say unto
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 235 
 
 him the son of David. He saith unto them, how then 
 doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, the Lord 
 said unto my Lord sit thou on my right hand, till I 
 make thine enemies thy footstool ? If David called 
 him Lord, how is he his son ? And no man was able to 
 answer him a word, neither durst any man from that 
 day forth ask him any question." Now, taking this 
 Gospel account of this voluntary challenge of the Jews 
 as to their well-known belief as to the descent of the 
 Christ from David and his confessedly unanswerable 
 overthrow of that belief from the Scriptures them- 
 selves, Is it not just a little strange to find future 
 Christians still trying to prove that he was the Christ 
 by showing that he was a son or descendant of David 
 through a man who was not his own father or ancestor, 
 when Jesus himself had thus stoutly contended and un- 
 answerably proved that the Christ could not be a son of 
 David ! 
 
 Besides this express and public exposition of his 
 views to the assembled Pharisees, 'Jesus, by his whole 
 language and conduct, showed his utter indifference to 
 family relations and pretensions, and was entirely reti- 
 cent as to his birth, birth-place and parentage : never 
 speaking of, or visiting Bethlehem, although often 
 within an hour's walk of it, never speaking of Joseph at 
 all, and never even speaking to Mary as his " mother," 
 but addressing her by her broadest designation of 
 " woman." If ever a man utterly despised the preten- 
 sions of birth and fortune, that man was Jesus of Naza- 
 reth. He yearned for success, even to the point of 
 weeping for his failure to win Jerusalem to his cause, 
 but still, they must be won, if at all, in his own way and
 
 236 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 for his own purposes and ideals. He knew that the 
 Jews expected their Messiah to be born at Bethlehem 
 and of the House of David, and had he have possessed 
 those popular requisites, it would have been his highest 
 duty and his first care to establish that fact; but it was 
 as impossible for him to make good such royal preten- 
 sions as it was humiliating to attempt it. There was 
 but one alternative left : he boldly challenged the popu- 
 lar construction of scripture and contended that the 
 Christ could not be a son of David. So stubbornly did 
 he ignore all claims from birth that, when charged by 
 his opponents, to his face, with being a Samaritan and 
 " possessed of a devil," he only indignantly answered 
 the charge of being " possessed," without noticing that 
 most damning and fatal charge of being a Samaritan, 
 well knowing the necessary implication from his silence 
 under an adverse charge. But, What could he do ? He 
 could not, and dared not, claim to have the birth they 
 required, and, Would he make the matter any better by 
 claiming his descent from the humble carpenter of " de- 
 spised Nazareth ? " Were it not wiser to pass it by in 
 silence, and, if possible, let this matter sleep ? 
 
 Thus, under the highest and most pressing induce- 
 ments and demands, Jesus, both by his express declara- 
 tions and his significant silence as well as by the whole 
 tenor and implications of his conduct, not only repudi- 
 ated all claim to a birth at Bethlehem or a descent from 
 David, but boldly denied the necessity of such descent 
 to his Messianic claims. How is it then, we repeat, that 
 we find the future disciples of Jesus, long after he had 
 passed away, making up all manner of impossible and 
 contradictory genealogies to prove, not only that Jesus
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 
 
 was what he himself had so thoroughly repudiated and 
 publicly denounced as non-Messianic, but to prove his 
 descent from David through Joseph, a fact which they 
 themselves had precluded by expressly excluding Joseph 
 from all possible connection with his paternity or de- 
 scent ? Dare we pause as to which of the two we will 
 believe, under all these circumstances, Jesus, or the 
 unknown writers of these unverified, conflicting and use- 
 less genealogies of Joseph the carpenter ? If these Gos- 
 pel genealogies are right in saying that Jesus descended 
 (as St. Paul said " according to the flesh ") from 
 David through Joseph, then Joseph was his father 
 through the flesh, and he was not the Son of God. If 
 Joseph was not his father, which they positively assert, 
 then he was not a descendant of David, even if they had 
 proved Joseph to have been such. If, however, we over- 
 ride all absurdities and impossibilities, waive all errors 
 and contradictions, and concede to them that Jesus was 
 a son of David, then, according to the voluntary and 
 positive showing of Jesus himself, he could not be the 
 Christ. Such is the strange jumble in which these 
 " infallible records " have left these fundamental tenets 
 of Christianity ! Are not the impressions of the myth- 
 moulds on these genealogies and stories standing out 
 everywhere in bold relief ? 
 
 The next prophecy which was to be coined into fact 
 is quoted in the Gospel as follows : " A virgin shall be 
 with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call
 
 238 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God 
 with us" We refer again to this prophecy that we may 
 review consecutively all the prophecies alleged to have 
 been fulfilled by Jesus in these Gospel accounts of the 
 Nativity. In view of this prophecy, according to the 
 first Gospel, it was deemed necessary that Mary should 
 have no intercourse with her husband until after the 
 birth of Jesus ; and that, in imitation of other extraordi- 
 nary Jewish persons as well as of the original subject of 
 the prophecy, the child should be pre-named by an anti- 
 natal angelic announcement. This effort of the Evan- 
 gelist presents two singular and significant features. In 
 the first place there is not the slightest warrant, or even 
 shadow of apology, for applying this prophecy or sign, 
 in Isaiah, to the Messiah. The prophet gives not the 
 slightest intimation or reason to believe that he either 
 directly or typically referred to the Christ. It is appar- 
 ent, indeed, that no such thought ever occurred to him. 
 The whole prophecy grew out of, and began and ended 
 with, the embroilment of King Ahaz with his enemies 
 the kings of Israel and Syria. Ahaz was alarmed at his 
 situation, and inclined to make an alliance with the As- 
 syrians, The prophet opposed this view, and endeav- 
 ored to convince Ahaz that his enemies would speedily 
 come to grief. To assure Ahaz of this he urged him to 
 ask for a sign. Ahaz having declined to do this, the 
 prophet insisted upon having this test of his own views, 
 and named the sign himself namely : that a virgin 
 should conceive and bear a son whose name should be 
 Emmanuel. The Prophet then adds : " Butter and 
 honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil 
 and choose the good. For before the child shall know
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 239 
 
 to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land thou 
 abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her Kings." The 
 prophecy was simply given as a sign to encourage Ahaz, 
 and was to be fulfilled almost immediately. Can any 
 mortal comprehend how this was ever supposed to have 
 any connection with the Christ. The sign had been 
 given, and the little Emmanuel had come and eaten his 
 " butter and honey " to brighten him up on questions of 
 good and evil, and Ahaz and his enemies had slumbered 
 with their fathers, and the whole prophecy and its ful- 
 filment fully over and done with, many centuries be- 
 fore : What further significance could it have ? By 
 what right or reason was it supposed to have any refer- 
 ence to the Messiah, any more than any other future 
 prince or person ? Not the slightest reason or apology 
 for such a reference can be shown, or was attempted to 
 be shown. 
 
 In the second place, the prophecy was as lamely 
 fulfilled, as it was lamely applied by the Evangelist. He 
 not only as clearly forces the "sign " upon us as did the 
 prophet upon Ahaz, but he utterly fails to rival the 
 prophet in the success of his alleged fulfilment. His 
 reasoning is by no means a model of perspicuity. He 
 conceived that, because the child given as a sign to 
 Ahaz was to be called Emmanuel, which means one 
 certain thing, and was to thereby fulfil the prophecy, 
 therefore the child of Mary fulfilled the same prophecy 
 by being called Jesus, a name wholly different and of 
 wholly different signification from that used in the 
 prophecy! This is gravely said to be fulfilling the 
 prophecy, but just^ww it fulfils it, or what it had to do 
 with the prophecy, is nowhere made apparent. As to
 
 24O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the virginity of the mothers of the little "butter and 
 honey " eater and his asserted antitype, like in all other 
 such cases, it is a matter to be smiled at. What would 
 such stories and such attempts at prophetic fulfilments 
 be worth in our day ? and, are they any better for being 
 old ? As long as Jesus and his mother personally figure 
 before us we have no intimation of the virginity of his 
 mother or of her marvellous association with the Holy 
 Ghost, either by word or conduct. These stories all 
 grew up after the Resurrection, 
 
 The next prophecy which our author proposes to 
 fulfil, is that of Balaam concerning the " star " which 
 should arise out of Jacob. The attempt to apply this 
 prophecy to the Messiah, much more to Jesus, was, if 
 possible, more gratuitous and unwarranted than this 
 appropriation of the Emmanuel-prophecy. Let any free 
 mind read the 22d, 23d and 24th chapters of Numbers 
 and ask itself whether, if it were not aware that it had 
 been used in connection with the Christ, it would have 
 ever dreamed of giving it such an application. None can 
 fail to perceive that the " star " was intended to repre- 
 sent some descendant of Jacob whom the prophet dis- 
 tinguished as a star that is, in vulgar parlance, a "star 
 person," and not a heavenly orb or star. The prophecy 
 plainly and expressly refers to a future powerful and 
 successful Ruler of the Israelites, who should triumph 
 over Moab and the petty states around Judea. The 
 Reader will find the military exploits of this prophesied
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 24! 
 
 "Star" very fully detailed in Numbers xxiv. 17-24. 
 Can any such achievements as are there predicted 
 of the "Star" find any analogy in those of Jesus ? Or 
 is there any analogy between that " star " or person 
 and the wandering "star" in the Heavens, which is 
 claimed to have piloted the " three wise men from the 
 East" to the cradle of Jesus ? Can even a pretence be 
 shown for using the star of the prophecy as pointing to or 
 prefiguring a heavenly body or light ? How could such 
 a star arise out of Jacob ? 
 
 The nature of Matthew's star has vainly exhausted 
 speculation. It has been supposed to have been a con- 
 junction of planets, a comet, a meteor, and whatever else 
 cojLild be suggested by despairing ingenuity. This diffi- 
 culty arises, not from the prophecy, but from the Evan- 
 gelist's, or his interpolater's, construction and fulfilment 
 of it. Balaam is made to predict, in the figurative 
 language of the East, the coming of an able and power- 
 ful person among the descendants of Jacob, and the 
 writer of the account in Matthew probably had heard of 
 this* "star" of prophecy, and without ever having ex- 
 amined its true meaning, assumed it to be literally one 
 of the heavenly luminaries and to be connected with the 
 Christ. His utter ignorance of the real nature and 
 distance of the heavenly bodies permitted him to assign 
 to this star offices and capabilities which are now known 
 to be impossible to them. As well assert that our Earth 
 could go before a man and point out a hen's nest on the 
 planet Jupiter, as to say that one of the planetary worlds 
 or stars could point out the road to, and the dwelling 
 house of, the infant Jesus. Supposing the stars to be 
 
 16
 
 242 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 merely small lights in the blue vault just overhead 
 (instead of vast worlds many millions of miles distant,) 
 he tells us that the star of Jesus guided the "Wise 
 Men" to Bethlehem and then came and "stood over" 
 where the young child was, to point out his exact local- 
 ity a fact that might have been performed by a divinely 
 inspired Jack-o'-lantern, but surely not by any heavenly 
 body. 
 
 Mr. Beecher, conceding the impossibility of its 
 having been a star, planet or comet, adopts the Jack-o'- 
 lantern theory, and suggests the possibility of a special 
 globe of light, ordered for that purpose ; and, to avoid 
 the inevitable inference that Herod and other people 
 would also see it, he supposes the eyes of the " Wise 
 Men " to have been miraculously "prepared to receive 
 it." Well, this is clearly not at all what the Gospel 
 means, but it is useless to quarrel with Mr. Beecher for 
 suggesting a baby-solution of this childish affair, where 
 the only other alternatives are impossible ones. He 
 will suffer us, however, to put him in the line of safe 
 precedents, by suggesting that, instead of having his 
 men's eyes miraculously opened, he should have had 
 other people's eyes " holden, " after the style of the 
 disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus. But, 
 really and seriously, when men, so clever and cultured 
 as Mr. Beecher, can consent to accept a miracle which 
 is, even as a miracle, so palpably absurd and so alien to 
 the prophecy, by forcing such a construction of his own 
 upon it, Ought we to wonder at the credulity and con- 
 structions of the ignorant and superstitious men whose 
 writings we are considering ? Does Mr. Beecher also
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 243 
 
 believe that Balaam had reference to a ball of light or 
 some miraculous " bull's-eye lantern " when he spoke of 
 the star that should rise out of Jacob ? Or can he really 
 believe that either the Gospel or the " wise men " could 
 mean such a light as he suggests, when these "wise 
 men " are made to come from the East and say : 
 " Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? for we 
 have seen his star in the East?" 
 
 The next attempted adaptation in our narrative, was 
 an effort to get the benefit of a couple of supposed 
 prophecies and a scriptural prototype. We are told 
 that Herod the Great being alarmed by the announce- 
 ment of the " wise men " from the East and disappointed 
 by their failure to return by Jerusalem with the infor- 
 mation he desired concerning the young heir of David 
 and rival for his own throne, ordered all the infants 
 under two years of age in and around Bethlehem to be 
 slaughtered ; but that Joseph, being warned in a dream, 
 escaped with the mother and child into Egypt. It 
 would not do for this new redeemer of Israel to pass 
 through less dangers and marvellous escapes on account 
 of the terror his very existence inspired in the reigning 
 monarch, than did their first redeemer, Moses. By all 
 means he must be made an antitype of Moses, who had 
 been similarly threatened, and as marvellously preserved 
 from a like destruction of infants by Pharaoh. 
 
 One of the supposed prophecies here alleged to
 
 244 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 have been fulfilled, will be found in Jeremiah, xxxi. 15, 
 in the following words : " A voice was heard in 
 Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping : Rachel weep- 
 ing for her children because they were not." The other 
 is a partially quoted paragraph in the first verse of the 
 eleventh chapter of Hosea " Out of Egypt have I called 
 my son.'* These are not less astounding attempts to 
 transform mere casual statements and references in the 
 Scriptures into prophecies, nor are we given less 
 astonishing and forced fulfilments of them, than in those 
 already considered. The facts which are set up in ful- 
 filment of these Scriptures, override all the canons of be- 
 lief. That Herod might have been mentally morbid is very 
 possible, but it is certainly true that his sagacity and 
 conduct had won for him the appellation of Herod the 
 Great, and that, up to the last, he was both shrewd and 
 cunning. It is quite impossible to rationally suppose 
 him capable of the follies thus attributed to him, even 
 were he known to be capable of such barbarity. Nor 
 can we believe that Josephus, who enters into even the 
 royal dreams of that age, could have been either ignorant 
 or silent upon such an event as this "slaughter of the 
 innocents " with a view to the destruction of the Christ 
 of the Jews. We find it impossible to conceive him 
 overlooking so appalling a crime and one committed for 
 the purpose of destroying the long cherished and last 
 hope of himself and of his race. It would have needed 
 no such wholesale slaughter to have aroused the Jews in 
 this instance. Had there really been such a public and 
 star-inspired announcement in Jerusalem of the birth of 
 the Christ by the "wise men of the East," the bare 
 annunciation would have set all Judea ablaze in twenty-
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 245 
 
 four hours, and the merest threat or suspicion of ah 
 attempt to destroy that one infant, would have maddened 
 to desperation the entire race. And yet we are to be- 
 lieve that all this was actually done, that all Jerusalem 
 was " troubled " on account of this public announcement 
 of the Magi ; that all the children under two years of 
 age both in Bethlehem and throughout "all the coasts 
 thereof " were ruthlessly butchered in order to destroy 
 their infant Christ ; and that all this, not only brought 
 no resistance no protest even from the Jews or even 
 from the outraged parents of Bethlehem and its "coasts," 
 but that the whole matter passed into an utter, Lethean 
 oblivion with the dream and flight of Joseph ! Would 
 such an announcement of, and such an attempt to 
 destroy their Messiah have thus passed into oblivion ? 
 Were the " troubled " Jews of " all Jerusalem " either the 
 people, or in the temper and mood to submit to such 
 outrages ? Would Bethlehem and its " coasts " have 
 drawn no sword in defence of their little ones ? 
 
 Besides all this, under the conditions propounded 
 Herod could not have acted so unnecessarily brutal or 
 been so fatally foolish. With his knowledge and the re- 
 sources at his command Where was the need for such 
 brutality or for such an uncertain and dangerous remedy 
 and one taken, as it appears, without ever even inquiring 
 for,' or seeking the child? If there could be any diffi- 
 culty in finding such a child in the adjacent village of 
 Bethlehem, why not have followed the "star ;" or were 
 that invisible to ordinary mortals, as Mr. Beecher sug- 
 gests, why not put his spies on the track of the " wise 
 men," and had them watched in Bethlehem, where he
 
 246 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 knew they were going expressly to see this young 
 Christ ? There could have been no difficulty in follow- 
 ing, or in afterwards tracing the movements of these 
 venerable, star-gazing strangers, with their load of costly 
 presents for the Jewish Christ, especially through such 
 a small village as Bethlehem and within an hour's walk 
 of Jerusalem. Would the wily old Idumean Herod have 
 failed to perceive this simplest and plainest method, and 
 have trusted wholly to the men who had come to worship 
 this divine child and heir to Herod's usurped throne, for 
 information which they were sure to, and did refuse to 
 furnish ? Would he, after their failure to return, have 
 resorted to the uncertain and brutal remedy asserted, 
 without an effort to find the child or to follow the 
 necessarily slow flight of the " holy family " even 
 through his own dominions ? But, when we add, from 
 Luke's description, all the heavenly glories, and signs 
 that marked the birth and pointed out the place of the 
 child, the proclaiming it " abroad " by the shepherds, 
 the open and public dedication of the child to God, in the 
 temple, under the very beards of Herod and all his 
 officers, his recognition as Messiah by prophets and 
 priest amid the general rejoicings in the temple over his 
 advent, and his public annunciation as the Christ to all 
 those that " looked for redemption in Jerusalem," 
 when we add all this, we say, can we believe that Herod 
 was put to such silly, uncertain and brutal straits from 
 his inability to find this infant ? Do they not assure us 
 that he was proclaimed openly and miraculously in 
 heaven and on earth, in the temple and city, in villages 
 and fields, by angels, prophets, priests and peasants? 
 Was ever a child so heralded to Herod and to all the
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTOR1C AND MYTHIC. 247 
 
 people as was this one ? Was he not, of all children, the 
 easiest to be found ? Need we wonder, when we read 
 such exhibitions of divine congruity and consistency, 
 that this same inspired author was the very first to dis- 
 cover that the little far-inland, hill village of Bethlehem 
 was a seaport town, having " all the coasts thereof ? " 
 
 As to the supposed prophecy about the mourning in 
 Ramah (Jer. xxxi. 15), it may be safely affirmed that 
 they do not purport to be, and were never intended to 
 be, a prophecy at all. The paragraph in question is a 
 mere reference to a fact which had already happened 
 happened when the Assyrians had destroyed or made 
 captive the people of Ramah. That it furnishes the re- 
 motest hint that it refers, in any manner, to the Christ is 
 simply not true. The prophet had been discoursing, 
 hopefully, of the restoration of Israel from their Baby- 
 lonish captivity, and, after mentioning the past fact of 
 the lamentations in Ramah at the time of their subjuga- 
 tion, by way of prelude, he then commands them (v. 16 
 and 17), in the name of God, to "refrain thy (their) 
 voice from weeping and thine eyes from tears, for thy 
 work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and they shall 
 come again from the land of the enemy. And there is 
 hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall 
 come again to their own border" The losses and lamen- 
 tations in Ramah are here alluded to as past facts : the 
 prophetic part concerns the return of the Israelites from 
 Babylon to Judea, and that alone. How this recital of 
 the past woes of Ramah could be construed to predict 
 the asserted woes of Bethlehem happening many centuries 
 afterwards, is quite beyond all rational comprehension.
 
 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Another scriptural quotation seems to have lingered 
 in the mind of the author, concerning " my son," which 
 impressed him as available. The sentence was imper- 
 fectly and only partially remembered, and is quoted thus : 
 " Out of Egypt have I called my son." The words 
 thus imperfectly remembered are from Hosea (xi. i 
 and are as follows : " When Israel was a child, then 
 I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." When 
 the text is no longer mutilated, its meaning is no 
 longer pervertible. The words were not prophetic, nor 
 do they, or their connection, hint of a prophetic sig- 
 nificance, or permit such a construction. Hosea was 
 lecturing the Jews for ingratitude to Jehovah, after all 
 he had done for them, and commences the recital of his 
 favors to them by saying that, from the first, when Israel 
 was a child, as it were, God loved him, and had brought 
 him (his son Israel) out of Egypt. It was simply a 
 reminder of the fact that God had long ago brought the 
 Israelites out of Egypt, and nothing more ; and, when 
 read entire and in its proper connection, is incapable of 
 misconstruction. As partially and imperfectly remem- 
 bered and quoted by our author, it was seized upon as~ a 
 Messianic prophecy : it was then no longer " my son " 
 Israel that had come out of Egypt, but " my son " the 
 Christ, that should come out of Egypt ! Can any one 
 inform us by what right men thus garble and misquote, 
 and then wholly pervert the palpable meaning of Scrip- 
 ture ? Is it not clear that any statement of a past fact 
 about any body, in the Scriptures, can with equal pro- 
 priety be asserted to be prophecy or typification of the 
 Christ. With equal propriety and plausibility they might 
 have said that, according to Scripture, Adam came out
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 249 
 
 of the garden 'of Eden, and that, to fulfil this Scripture, 
 the Christ must come out of Eden also. 
 
 Having so lucidly and legitimately shown that the 
 Christ was to be brought out of Egypt, the question 
 naturally arose as to how he could be gotten out, until 
 he had been gotten in. It was deemed necessary to have 
 him born in Bethlehem, and it was no easy matter to 
 suggest a plausible reason for a poor man, in those days, 
 moving with his wife and infant child from Judea to 
 Egypt and then back again ; and, if the idea of having 
 him scared into a temporary flight by a dream of danger to 
 the child from Herod's jealousy should seem far-fetched 
 and irrational, we can make allowances for the diffi- 
 culties of the situation ; and when we find that Luke 
 finds no need for, and makes no mention of, the " star," 
 of the " wise men," of Herod's slaughter of the innocents, 
 of the flight into Egypt, or of bringing " my son " out of 
 Egypt, but clearly excludes their possibility by his own 
 conception of the necessities and proprieties of the 
 situation, we can still make allowances, considering both 
 the source and purpose, as well as the fact that the 
 author did not know what Luke was going to say about 
 the matter. Fortunately the troubles on this point go 
 no further, since, having gotten him into Egypt he could 
 readily be brought out again ; and, with the exception of 
 Joseph's dreams and the apocryphal miracles worked by 
 the swaddling clothes, etc., of Herod's infant rival, that 
 was all that come of it. The whole object was to get 
 him in, so as to get him out. But, as Matthew assumes 
 their residence to have been Bethlehem of Judea, it was 
 necessary to find some reason for their having gone to
 
 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Nazareth in Galilee, instead of back to Bethlehem. To 
 accomplish this, a new " scare " and a new " dream " are 
 resorted to. At the return, a son of Herod ruled in 
 Judea, and to avoid danger from him, they turned aside 
 and moved into Galilee ; the author being ignorant of, 
 or overlooking, the fact that the same man who after- 
 wards executed John the Baptist, then ruled in Galilee 
 and was also a son of Herod and a contestant with his 
 brother for the throne of Judea: forgetting, also, how 
 utterly ignorant of, and indifferent to, the pretensions of 
 Jesus, were the family of Herod, as shown by the whole 
 course of the examination, and of the contemptuous 
 acquittal of Jesus by this same son of Herod when he was 
 sent to him by Pilate upon a charge of having actually 
 and publicly proclaimed himself King of the Jews. This 
 trial by Herod Antipas and the fact that Jesus' chief 
 exhibitions and pretensions had been put forward in 
 Herod's own province, without Herod's molestation, will 
 give us some idea both of the pretended knowledge and of 
 the fears of old Herod and his sons of the infant Jesus, 
 and of the probability of the " slaughter of the innocents," 
 and the counter-fears and movements of the dreaming 
 Joseph. 
 
 The narrative woven to fulfil these odd and disjointed 
 scraps of alleged Scripture, lands us safe in Nazareth. 
 But we should fail to do justice to the creative powers of 
 the author if we supposed that he could part with this 
 masterpiece without a final and triumphant attempt to a
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 25! 
 
 fulfilled prophecy. The final home of Jesus must surely 
 have had some scriptural significance which would 
 furnish the author with a parting Parthian shot. We are 
 accordingly assured that Joseph, with Jesus and his 
 mother, came and dwelt in Nazareth, that it might be 
 fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets " he shall 
 be called a Nazarene." Here we have, certainly, a very 
 apt prophetic ending ; but, also, unfortunately, a very 
 characteristic one. Hitherto our author had contented 
 himself with a single prophet for each point, and with mis- 
 appropriating, misstating, misconstruing and misfulfilling 
 each in its turn, but, in this final climax of his plastic 
 labors, he attempts to aggregate and appropriate the pro- 
 phetical authority of all the prophets, at a single dash, 
 by fulfilling for us a prediction claimed to be made by 
 the " prophets " generally. This reference to the proph- 
 ets generally was certainly a judicious stroke, seeing 
 that no such prophecy, nor even the word " Nazarene," 
 is mentioned within the lids of the Old Testament ! 
 This aptly closes our prophetic assurances of the 
 Messiahship of Jesus. 
 
 Let us now compare the aceounts of the Nativity as 
 they are found in the first and third Gospels. Ac- 
 customed as we have been from our childhood to be told 
 that these stories relate to. the same child, and to regard 
 both accounts as the infallible " word of God," we never 
 notice their pajpabje and radical differences. We dare
 
 252 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 not suffer such suggestions to enter our minds. Yet 
 did we once dare to give our reason the freedom of its 
 own laws, we should readily discover that, had all the 
 proper names been left in blank, the identity of the sub- 
 jects of the two narratives could never have been 
 suspected. Both narratives have evidently been written 
 by men without mental grasp or acumen, or even the 
 culture of their times. They are both ignorant men, 
 writing for an ignorant sect. Both are credulous and 
 superstitious ; both write for specific readers and 
 specific purposes ; and both are equally indifferent to 
 the sacredness of history. But the persons they severally 
 intended to affect as well as the moulds and habits of 
 their own minds and thoughts are clearly different. The 
 writer of the account prefixed to the first Gospel was 
 evidently writing to convince those who looked to the 
 Jewish Scriptures for their tests of the Messiahship of 
 Jesus, and his narrative consists of a loose skeleton 
 formed of the alleged fulfilments of disjointed scraps of 
 misquoted and misapplied Scripture which we have re- 
 viewed, held together by meagre and marvellous shreds of 
 dreams and events concocted to connect the incidents 
 claimed to be fulfilments of such scraps of Scripture. 
 
 The account in the third Gospel, on the contrary, 
 would seem to have been written by one Gentile to 
 another, to satisfy him as to the fact that Jesus was the 
 divine Saviour of the World, and to give him the current 
 and most popular views in regard to him. His fancy, 
 consequently, has a different and freer range and his 
 mental products a different mould. To the Jew, Jesus 
 was nothing unless he could be shown to be the Jewish 
 Messiah ; while by the Greek and Roman he was toler-
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 253 
 
 ated as a Jew in consideration that he was also the 
 Saviour of Humanity. The Gentile writer, consequently, 
 while accepting certain general traditionary facts or fan- 
 cies which were supposed to identify him with the Jew- 
 ish Christ, does not dole out his meagre, but steady 
 string of scriptural scraps, like the writer for the Jews. 
 His mental conception of the birth of Jesus is that of the 
 advent of a Greek God, rather than the birth of a 
 prophet-hoped heir to the royal line of Judea. The con- 
 verted Polytheist abandons the unpoetic machinery of 
 " dreams " to the Jew, and calls to his aid the members 
 of a Triune Deity and of the Archangelic host, and 
 illuminates every phase of his narrative with the sheen 
 of angels' wings. To the Jew, the lamest pretence of a 
 " sign " was a matter to arrest instant attention ; while 
 to have a star-guided deputation from the wise, star- 
 reading Magi of their ancestral Chaldea, was of most 
 solemn moment. That the Magian astrologers could 
 read the stars, and that Joseph's dreams were from God 
 they could devoutly believe. Such machinery and evi- 
 dences, however, lost their charm when used with men 
 who had never heard or read a Jewish prophecy, nor 
 ever expected a " sign," and many of whom had never 
 heard of the Magi. To .a Gentile, a nativity heralded by 
 a gorgeous array of angels, a grand overture from the 
 Heavenly choir, an annunciation from the Premier of 
 the Heavenly host, the mysterious " overshadowing " of 
 the Virgin by the Holy Ghost, and the miraculous an- 
 nunciation of the mysterious union of the divine and 
 human natures in the resulting Man-God, were infinitely 
 more acceptable and effective; since all the "features 
 and flesh-marks of such a conception found appropriate
 
 254 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 prototypes or analogues in their own native myths and 
 legends. Mr. Beecher touches the true spirit which in- 
 spired this account, when he says that these " angelic 
 ministrations " would " greatly facilitate among the 
 Greeks the reception of Monotheism " furnishing these 
 Polytheistic people " an easy transition " from their old 
 religion to Christianity. Thus, we find our second 
 narrative of the Nativity formed in the Hellenic, rather 
 than in the Hebraic mould. 
 
 Let us note further and more specifically the dif- 
 ferences and conflicts between these two accounts of the 
 same series of events. The decisive importance of this 
 will be manifest when we remember that we are called 
 upon to believe and treat them as inspired and infal- 
 lible records of the actual 'facts. If they are such, they 
 should agree. If we find they do not agree, then we 
 shall understand the value of such inspiration and in- 
 fallibility nay, their value even as mere historic evi- 
 dence. 
 
 After the general differences mentioned, we are per- 
 haps first struck by the fact that Matthew, nowhere in 
 his. whole account, presents us with a real visible or auci- 
 ble angel, but supplies his limited demand for supernat- 
 ural intervention by the dreams of the " wise men " and 
 of the aged carpenter, Joseph. Dreams answer all his 
 purposes. Luke, on the other hand, flourishes an angel 
 as promptly and as often as Matthew enlists a dream or 
 forces a text of scripture ; and these different agencies 
 and methods are conflictingly 'used for identical inci- 
 dents and purposes. Luke's account also appears to be
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 255 
 
 more congruous and artistic than Matthew's, and shows 
 greater regard to the " proprieties." Matthew permits the 
 poor Virgin to become enciente without her knowledge, 
 and to stand dumb and defenceless before her betrothed 
 husband. She is simply " found with child." She is 
 nowhere represented as speaking, or as being spoken to, 
 during all that wonderful drama of the divine incarnation 
 and her own apparently humiliating condition. The first 
 and only announcement of her innocence and true con- 
 dition is made to Joseph in a dream, and from that on 
 the whole matter is carried on through Joseph and his 
 dreams, Mary being a " dummy " throughout. Luke, 
 on the contrary, makes Mary figure, almost exclusively, 
 from first to last ; while Joseph is permitted to take no 
 part save as a silent attendant is not even permitted to 
 dream once. Matthew having determined to get the 
 child into Egypt and adopted the method of driving 
 Joseph thither to conceal the child from Herod, was, of 
 course, unable to have the child taken to the Temple, 
 under the very nose of Herod, to have him dedicated to 
 the Lord as the law directed. He consequently hurries 
 Joseph into a precipitate flight by night into Egypt. 
 Luke, on the contrary, does not seem to have understood 
 that any prophecy required the Messiah to come out of 
 Egypt, and does not permit him to go there at all. And 
 knowing of no such demand for going into Egypt or for 
 avoiding Herod as Matthew tells us of, he never hears 
 (as being among " those things most surely believed " 
 among Christians) of the coming of the " wise men " or 
 of their wonderful doings or of the wonderful " star '' 
 never heard of Herod's council, his fears, his slaughter of 
 the innocents, etc. No, he had heard of no such occur-
 
 256 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 rences, dangers and fears preliminary to sending the 
 child into Egypt, and, consequently and in lieu of all 
 this, has the child proclaimed in the open Heavens, 
 heralded abroad by the Shepherds, has him duly circum- 
 cised on the seventh day, and on the fortieth day has 
 him taken to the Temple and publicly dedicated to the 
 Lord, amid much prophetic recognition of him as the 
 Christ, of rejoicings over him by the Faithful, and proc- 
 lamations of his advent to all that were waiting for the 
 coming of the Messiah. And, no sooner has he put him 
 through all these lawful as well as marvellous and public 
 processes, than he has him fortliwith started to Nazareth 
 (in an opposite direction from Egypt), where he is 
 silently permitted to remain until his fourteenth year. 
 
 But Matthew has his revenge for these slights and 
 contradictions. All those wonderful proceedings and 
 speeches between the angel Gabriel and Mary in Naza- 
 reth, the visit of Mary from Nazareth to the mother of 
 John the Baptist and the wonderful chantings and mira- 
 cles thereupon occurring, the Roman taxation, the trip 
 of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem and the consequent 
 birth in a manger under the heavenly displays of the 
 angels and the rejoicings of the shepherds, and the 
 whole scenes at the temple at the time of the dedication 
 are not only ignored by Matthew, but are in effect 
 denied and repudiated. Both Gospels place the birth at 
 Bethlehem, although under very different circumstances. 
 Matthew treats Bethlehem as the proper residence oi 
 Joseph and Mary, and gives a special reason for their 
 turning aside from their Judean home, on their return 
 from Egypt, and moving to Nazareth ; and he tells us
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 
 
 that this removal to Nazareth was also to fulfil a 
 prophecy that Jesus was to be called a "Nazarene." 
 Matthew had no need, therefore, for getting Joseph and 
 Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem from where they had 
 never lived to their ordinary home, or for supposing or 
 referring to occurrences at Nazareth or visits from Naz- 
 areth or the trip from Nazareth or the tax which caused 
 it or any of the miracles and wonders accompanying or 
 resulting from them, and therefore ignores and excludes 
 them. Luke, on the contrary, conceives them as re- 
 siding at Nazareth from the first, and returns them to 
 that place as soon as tbe temporary purposes are sub- 
 served by their trip to Bethlehem. The movement of 
 the two accounts are, indeed, as different as their agen- 
 cies and incidents. Matthew commences with them as 
 citizens of Bethlehem, and moves them first to Egypt, 
 and then Nazareth. Luke commences with them as 
 residents of Nazareth ; then, for special cause, takes 
 them to Bethlehem ; and then returns them direct to 
 Nazareth, without ever sending them to Egypt at all. 
 The reason assigned by Luke for their trip from Naza- 
 reth to Bethlehem, seems, in every way, to have been a 
 hasty and unfortunate one. He tells us that when 
 Cyrenius was governor of Syria, Caesar Augustus or- 
 dered a taxation of the whole world ; that all went to 
 their own cities to be taxed ; and that Joseph went from 
 Galilee to Bethlehem to be taxed " because he was of the 
 house and lineage of David." There is an inconsistency 
 in the cause here assigned even by his own showing, for 
 the fact that David had once lived at Bethlehem cer- 
 tainly did not make it the " own city " of his descendants 
 who lived elsewhere, throughout all time. 
 
 17
 
 258 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 But the first and most prominent difficulty is with 
 the tax itself. Josephus, who gives us a very minute 
 history of this period, tells us of Cyrenius being sent as 
 judge over Syria, including Judea, and of his being or- 
 dered to take an account of the substance of the people, 
 and of his coming into Judea for that purpose with his 
 subordinate officer Coponius as procurator of Judea. 
 But this was the only tax of the kind mentioned by him, 
 and this occurred ten years after the death of Herod the 
 Great (under whom Jesus was born) and after the ban- 
 ishment of his son Archelaus. This was, in fact, the 
 point of time at which Judea was first reduced to a 
 simple Roman province, and this Coponius was its first 
 Roman procurator. And this was, not only the first 
 known tax under Cyrenius, but this was also his first 
 appointment to this Syrian office : since, not only has 
 no account of any. previous appointment come down to 
 us, but Josephus takes care to mention his former posi- 
 tions and dignities, and would certainly not have omitted 
 so exalted a one as governor of Syria. But what renders 
 this matter morally certain is the fact, that this was the 
 first time the Roman Emperor was in a condition to tax 
 Judea. During the reign of Herod the Great, with which 
 we are alone concerned, since it was then that Jesus 
 was born, Judea was only a subject kingdom of Rome. 
 Herod collected his own taxes and expended them at his 
 pleasure, and he alone had the right to do so. He 
 merely made presents, or, at most, paid tribute, to the 
 Emperor of Rome. And, so soon as the country was 
 reduced to a mere province, we find the taxing power at 
 once assumed ; but never before that time. An attempt 
 to have directly taxed Herod's subjects would have been
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. . 
 
 equivalent to dethroning him to reducing him to the 
 rank and position of a Roman officer ; and no such at- 
 tempt could have been made without producing results 
 which would have found their way into history. Beyond 
 question Josephus would have mentioned so great a 
 change. Even after the kingdom was abolished and the 
 taxing power assumed, ten years after the death of 
 Herod, this taxing power was continually questioned 
 and opposed ; and never ceased to breed commotions 
 among the people until the nal fall of Jerusalem. It 
 was, indeed, one of the charges against Jesus, that he 
 opposed the tribute to Caesar. It appears manifest 
 then, that Rome neither had, nor attempted to exercise, 
 the right of taxing the people of Judea until it was re- 
 duced to a province ; and that Cyrenius was the first to 
 make an assessment for that purpose, some ten years 
 after the death of Herod and therefore long after the 
 birth of Jesus. It will, at once, be seen, therefore, how 
 unfortunate Luke was in selecting, or how misinformed 
 in adopting, this tax under Cyrenius as an excuse or 
 reason for Joseph's journey to Bethlehem, happening 
 many years before. But even this assumption of a 
 cause which was long subsequent to alleged effect, is 
 not the only defect in this conception. We are told 
 that the movement to Bethlehem was required because 
 Joseph was of the hot^e or lineage of David. This is 
 the express and sole cause assigned. There is no hint 
 of Mary being involved in this cause : such an inference 
 is excluded, indeed, by the mode of statement ; nor are 
 we at liberty to assume a cause when a cause is given. 
 Now, laying aside the fact, already mentioned, that this 
 necessity did not arise, even with Joseph, by the declared
 
 2(5O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 requirements of going to his " own city, " What was 
 there to require, or even to apologize for, the compelling 
 of that young and expectant mother to ride through 
 almost the entire length of Palestine when her accouch- 
 ment was so imminent ? Where was the necessity for 
 so cruel and dangerous an experiment ? Mary was in 
 no sense compelled to go, even if Joseph went, by Luke's 
 own showing. But might not Mary herself have had an 
 estate at Bethlehem ? While we are precluded from this 
 assumption by an expressed cause, and while mere 
 unfounded suggestions of possible but unsupported facts, 
 such as this, cannot be allowed consideration in the 
 original establishment of another fact, (however legiti- 
 mate in an attempted explanation of a known, but ob- 
 scure or mysterious one,) this particular suggestion 
 needs no such general exclusion ; since it is not only 
 without support, but is at war with the Gospel state- 
 ments and facts. We are not left to speculation for the 
 cause of the movement. It was not an estate of any 
 body, anywhere, that compelled it, but the " lineage " of 
 Joseph. This is the cause assigned by the Gospel, and 
 by this cause it must be judged. But even waiving this 
 direct refutation, will any Gospel reader believe that the 
 mother of Jesus was a landed heiress ? Or that, having 
 real estate in Bethlehem, she would have been driven to 
 a stable for her accouchment ? For all other purposes, 
 indeed, Is not the extreme poverty of the " Holy 
 Family " conceded by all, and proved by the entire tenor 
 of the Gospels ? But, even allowing that such a sugges- 
 tion were possible, would the fact have been even a 
 reason, much less produced a necessity, for Mary's going 
 in person to have it assessed ? Is not a man as compe-
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 26l 
 
 tent to do that, alone, as with his wife ? And, even if 
 Mary were compelled to personally attend to her own 
 taxation, was she not compelled by the terms of the 
 decree to do so in her " own city ? " Or will it be 
 denied that Luke makes her " own city " Nazareth ? 
 
 When we review all the considerations showing that 
 the taxation expressly referred to, and the only taxation 
 of the kind which could have occurred up to that time, 
 was not decreed until more than ten years after the 
 birth of Jesus, and those showing that even Joseph, 
 much less Mary, were not only under no possible com- 
 pulsion to go to Bethlehem, but that by the very re- 
 quirements of the decree, as stated by Luke himself, 
 their proper place of attendance for assessment was in 
 their " own city " of Nazareth, and not in some distant 
 city or village resided in by some remote ancestor of 
 one of them, when we review all these considerations, 
 we say, What but sheer blindness can prevent us from 
 perceiving that the traditions and beliefs which Luke 
 professes to give were unfounded in fact as to this 
 Roman taxation and consequent trip to Bethlehem ; and 
 that Matthew did well in disregarding and repudiating 
 the whole story with its dependant miracles and birth in 
 a manger ? For this story of the taxation and this trip 
 to Bethlehem is the back-bone upon which the entire 
 story of Luke is built, and, if it be stripped from it, the 
 entire fabric falls to the ground, with all its glittering 
 adornments; and Matthew stands justified in repudiating 
 the conceptions, or the rumors and traditions of which 
 it was built up by Luke.
 
 262 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Thus we find that our assertion as to the errors, the 
 inconsistencies and the mutual contradictions of these 
 Gospel accounts, has been made good upon this brief 
 review of the facts. And I cannot but think, that any 
 fair and free mind, upon a review of the whole facts con- 
 cerning the conflicting and useless genealogies we have 
 considered, and the two singularly defective and 
 markedly dissimilar and contradictory accounts of the 
 birth and infancy of Jesus which accompany them, must 
 come to the conclusion that both these marvellous 
 accounts are unhistoric ; that they are the natural out- 
 growths of all such supernatural religions the mythic 
 and legendary mouldings and adornments which embody 
 and express the prevalent ideals, conceptions and long- 
 ings of all developing peoples at their then stage of de- 
 velopment, as specialized and modified by the special and 
 actually existing influences, needs and conditions. Is 
 it not derogatory to our civilization and manhood to be 
 compelled to confess that we dare not accept them as 
 such, when we know so well that we would unhesita- 
 tingly denounce them as such were they found, letter 
 for letter and fact for fact, in any other sacred books 
 except our own ?
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 263 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC IN THE 
 GOSPELS CONTINUED. 
 
 HAVING briefly considered the more palpable errors, 
 inconsistencies and conflicts in the two narratives detail- 
 ing the early prophetic and miraculous evidences of the 
 claims set up for Jesus, let us, then, after first taking a 
 fair and rational view of his actual and true relations to 
 the Jewish prophecies, further consider these alleged 
 miraculous evidences, not in their recitals, but in their 
 effects. Let us inquire whether the effects which they 
 would naturally and even necessarily have produced on 
 the lives, conduct and declarations of the parties con- 
 cerned and conversant with such marvellous facts and 
 relations, actually did result and were manifested in this 
 instance. If they actually existed, the persons who 
 knew or were informed of them would have thought, 
 spoke and acted as z/"they had existed. And if the per- 
 sons who were so cognizant of these asserted facts did 
 not act in conformity with such a knowledge on their 
 part, it raises a violent presumption against the existence 
 of the facts themselves ; and if it should further appear, 
 that the recorded conduct, acts and declarations of all 
 the persons so concerned or conversant with the alleged
 
 264 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 facts, were inconsistent with, or in contradiction of such 
 knowledge and relations on their part, then such a state 
 of facts will be conclusive -proof of the non-existence of 
 such miraculous relations and evidences, and of their 
 subsequent fabrication ; unless, indeed, there could be 
 affirmatively shown sufficient reasons or motives oper- 
 ating upon each and all of them for such reticence and 
 contradictory conduct. None who are at all familiar 
 with the laws of human conduct and with the nature 
 and value of presumptive evidence, will question these 
 positions. 
 
 If the decision on either of these points be unfavor- 
 able, it is fatal to the asserted claims of Jesus, and will 
 show that Christianity was not the creation of the Jew- 
 ish Christ, but has itself been the creator of its own 
 Christ by its mythic remodellings of Jesus. In the first 
 place, it is undeniable that, if Jesus did not, in good faith, 
 really fulfil the Messianic prophecies, he was, to say the 
 least of it, a mistake. And if, in the second place, the 
 habitual life, actions, conversations and mutual relations 
 of all the actors in the drama of Jesus, contradict the di- 
 vine and Messianic nature and relations set up for Jesus 
 in the narratives of his conception, birth, infancy, etc., 
 then those accounts must be considered, not only as un- 
 historic, but as fatal to his claims. 
 
 We have seen the kind of attempts made in the Gos- 
 pels to get scriptural phrases which could, by any possi- 
 bility, be claimed as having found a fulfilment in the 
 person and life of Jesus. It must be specially noted in 
 this connection that these attempts were made long after
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 265 
 
 the public failure and execution of Jesus, and were there- 
 fore limited and controlled by those undoubted facts. 
 They were confined to such scriptures as were, at least, 
 not palpably inconsistent, as they supposed, with the 
 more prominent and notorious facts of his public life. 
 An attempt at so much consistency might be expected, 
 even from tradition-mongers. Jesus could not, after his 
 humiliating defeat and crucifixion, be claimed to have 
 been the triumphant Jewish Messiah and kingly suc- 
 cessor of David. His public life having been a known 
 failure, those who knew anything of him or the proph- 
 ecies were compelled to ignore all this in their efforts to 
 satisfy prophecy. Hence it is, that we find all the divine 
 glories and the miraculous triumphs .and attestations 
 which were witnessed by disinterested parties, clustering 
 around the unknown conception and infancy of Jesus, or 
 figuring in the dreams of venerable carpenters and astrol- 
 ogers, who, if they ever existed, had long since passed 
 beyond human reach ; while his entire youth and early 
 manhood, which could still have been verified by the 
 Nazarenes, is left an utter void, save by one single con- 
 temptuous reference to their knowledge of it ; and the 
 consequent rejection of his pretensions b^ his indignant 
 neighbors, and an account of a single visit to Jerusalem 
 at the age of fourteen. 
 
 The most striking evidence, however, of the effect of 
 these influences upon the minds of the writers of these 
 accounts, is to be found in the marked difference be- 
 tween the scraps of scripture, or pretended scripture, 
 and fulfilments which they were compelled to resort to 
 when the actual fulfilment of them was to be immediately
 
 266 JESUS AND RELIGION. . 
 
 pointed out in the past facts, and those scriptures and 
 fulfilments which, at the time of their second divine an- 
 nouncement, still existed in futuro and in promise. We 
 have seen how they avoided those portions of his life 
 which were the more ascertainable, and how they were 
 driven to petty garblings and perversions of scraps of 
 scripture when writing for the Jews, who knew some- 
 thing of the prophecies and of the residence and life of 
 Jesus. Let us now turn to Luke, who writes for the 
 Gentile mind a mind ignorant and out of reach of all 
 that appertained to Jesus personally, and also unfamiliar 
 with Jewish prophecy. We find Luke utterly ignoring 
 Matthew's fragments and fulfilments, and boldly dashing 
 off into facts and events in and around Jerusalem, which 
 no citizen of Jerusalem could be induced to credit. He 
 was not picking out scraps of scripture or fitting them 
 to facts before a critical audience : he was describing 
 the incarnation and birth of a God, and proclaiming the 
 advent of the Jewish Messiah ; and, in proclaiming what 
 that Messiah was and was to become, he forgot the 
 actual life of Jesus, and proclaimed the arrival of the 
 triumphant son of David, for whom the Jews were really 
 looking. He introduces the Archangel Gabriel to recite 
 the prologue, or programme, of the Messianic drama a 
 drama then still to be performed, and therefore unham- 
 pered by ugly facts or critical observers. Thus untram- 
 melled, Gabriel is made to give the free action of the 
 author's mind, and to announce the true Messiah of the 
 Jews, and not the actual Jesus is made to announce a 
 Messianic programme which would have satisfied the 
 strictest Scribe or Pharisee, but which found no pretence 
 of a fulfilment in the actual life of Jesus. Turn now to
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 
 
 the first chapter of the third Gospel, and hear Gabriel's 
 announcement : " Hail [Mary] thou that art highly 
 favored, the Lord is with thee : blessed art thou among 
 women. * * Fear not, Mary : for thou hast found favor 
 with God. And behold thou shalt conceive in thy 
 womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name 
 Jesus. He shall be great, and be called the Son of the 
 Highest : and the Lord God shall give unto him the 
 throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the 
 house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there shall 
 be no end." Here, beyond all power of misconstruction, 
 we have the true triumphant and "anointed" prince, 
 that is, "the Christ" of the house of David who was to 
 restore the royalty and dominion of his house and secure 
 the triumph of Israel, actually announced by Gabriel in 
 the person of Jesus. This expected or announced child 
 of Mary, according to Gabriel, was to be that triumphant 
 descendant and kingly successor of the royal David, 
 whom the same prophecies declare should, not only re- 
 deem and finally establish Israel, but should himself 
 receive the homage of the princes of the earth, and make 
 the City of Jerusalem the centre of earthly power, in- 
 telligence and beneficence. 
 
 How do we find the real facts as to the fulfilment by 
 Jesus of this Gabrielic and prophetic programme ? It 
 unfortunately appears, that Jesus did not ascend the 
 throne of David, but even denied that the Messiah was 
 to be a son of David. It appears that he did not reign 
 over the house of Jacob, nor was he "anointed" either 
 as priest or king ; and that he did not save the Jewish 
 people, either politically, morally or religiously ; nor did
 
 268 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 he make Jerusalem the centre of light and power, or 
 himself receive the homage of kings. To the exact con- 
 trary of all this he was regarded by the Jews as a 
 demoniac, an impostor, and pestilent agitator, and was 
 indignantly rejected, and finally condemned and executed 
 for blasphemy and treason ; while the city which he was 
 to so rule and glorify was, according to his own final pre- 
 diction, utterly destroyed within that generation, and the 
 people over whom he was to reign were scattered over 
 the world, and, from thenceforth, have still anxiously 
 awaited the coming of him who should really " redeem 
 Israel " and crown Jerusalem with the glory foretold by 
 her prophets. His public efforts met only with the sad- 
 dest failures, and the cities or villages in which they 
 were chiefly made he immeasurably denounced and con- 
 signed to a hell deeper than that of Sodom and Gomor- 
 rah for their rejection of him. Even the religion which 
 was afterwards based upon his supposed resurrection, be- 
 came the religion of the Gentiles never that of the Jews. 
 What he proclaimed as his exclusive mission has never 
 been fulfilled. The Jew has only known his religion to 
 persecute it and be persecuted by it ; and now Judaism 
 and Christianity stand side by side as " oil and water." 
 Was all this a fulfilment of the promises said to have 
 been made by the Angel Gabriel in announcing this same 
 Jesus ? Looking dispassionately and fearlessly at the 
 plain and unequivocal assurances of the prophets, at the 
 equally unequivocal assurances of Gabriel, and at the im- 
 memorial and never-doubted constructions and beliefs 
 of the Jews, can we even imagine a better or completer 
 way how not fulfil them than is presented by the person 
 and life of Jesus ? If God had deliberately designed to
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 269 
 
 deceive the Jews to hold the word of promise to their 
 ear while breaking it to their hope, could he have more 
 grossly and successfully performed it ? 
 
 Nor will it do to gratuitously assume and interpolate 
 a condition into the prophecies or in the promises of 
 Gabriel, and then inquire whose fault it was that the 
 prophecies and annunciations were not fulfilled. There 
 are no conditions in the prophecies : they are, and pur- 
 port to be, pre-statements of future facts to be pre- 
 written history, and not statements of conditioned or 
 contingent possibilities. If they were the latter they 
 would not be prophecies at all, and any subsequent 
 conversion of them into such contingent promises, 
 not only divests them of their character and only 
 valuable characteristic as prophecies, but is a liberty 
 on our part as puerile as it is unwarranted. If the 
 prophecies are from God, who gave us, or any other 
 mortal, the right to interpolate conditions in them 
 much less adopt something we think oitght to have ful- 
 filled them, and then, because it did not, destroy the 
 very prophecy itself by converting it into a condi- 
 tional promise which might have been fulfilled by our 
 " something " if some other person or thing had not 
 failed to do what was necessary to bring it about ? 
 We have no right to thus tamper with, or pervert, 
 the unconditional word of God to justify our peculiar 
 notions or shield our own errors. The prophets 
 and Gabriel did not say that the Jews might have a 
 Messiah, or that Jesus would be that Messiah, z/" they 
 would accept him ; but they announced the fact that a 
 Messiah should come, and had come in the person of
 
 2/O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Jesus, who should be, and was, the " son of David " 
 and the " Lord's anointed," and should in fact be " great " 
 receiving the homage of earthly potentates ; should in 
 fact sit upon the throne that his father David had 
 occupied, and temporally redeem and exalt Israel. What 
 a monstrosity is it for us to affirm that Jesus fulfilled 
 these prophecies and promises, by asserting that he 
 might have fulfilled them if the Jews had accepted him ; 
 when a/tfr/of the very prediction was, that he was to be 
 accepted by them, and to actually reign over them ? 
 And, How do we know, or how dare we affirm that, if 
 the Jews had actually accepted him and crowned him as 
 king when he entered Jerusalem, the Romans would not 
 have crushed both him and Jerusalem sooner than they 
 actually did ? Even his assumed conditional success is 
 but an unwarranted and incredible assumption. But a 
 still more singular inconsistency in this matter is, that 
 the worshippers of Jesus, in the face of these prophetic 
 assurances and these direct annunciations through the 
 Heavenly messenger of God, not only attempt to excuse 
 their non-fulfilment, and cast the blame upon the Jews, 
 but both they and their Master, after his failure, have en- 
 deavored to construe the Scriptures as meaning that the 
 Christ should fail and be crucified, and have based the 
 salvation of the World upon the fact that the Jews did 
 reject and crucify him. What a pity that God had not 
 given Gabriel a hint of this, instead of sending him forth 
 with his flaming annunciation of kingly and Jewish tri- 
 umphs ! What a deal of persecution, misery and dis- 
 appointment it would have saved his " chosen people " 
 if he had only suggested to the prophets that the Mes- 
 siah was to be crucified instead of crowned !
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 
 
 Having glanced at some of the more direct evidences 
 of the fact that the miraculous recognitions and pro- 
 phetic fulfilments asserted of Jesus were subsequent 
 mythic creations or adaptations, and not real facts in his 
 history, Let us continue to test 'this matter from an- 
 other point of view. Let us briefly consider" some of 
 the necessary presumptions arising from the natural 
 effect which the asserted facts and relations would have 
 on the after-life, sayings and conduct of the persons 
 concerned, and inquire whether the parties so concerned 
 did, or did not act as if they were conscious of the exist- 
 ence of such facts and relations. The decisive nature 
 of this test has already been suggested. 
 
 And first : How will the conduct and declarations 
 of Jesus himself bear this test ? Everything which 
 pointed to, or concerned the Christ of their hereditary 
 hopes, was a matter never to be forgotten by a Jew ; 
 and in no age was this interest more intense than in the 
 age of Jesus. Under the feeling then existing such 
 marvellous events and miraculous and public attestations 
 as are alleged to have occurred at the birth and dedica- 
 tion of Jesus, would have been borne, as on the wings 
 of the wind, to the Jews of all lands ; and would have 
 awakened a tremor of hope and joy from the Indus to 
 the Thames. The venerable Simon and Anna are ex- 
 pressive types of what millions of Jews must have been 
 under such an inspiration, and the results which would 
 have ensued would have reached posterity through many 
 channels. They were matters never to be forgotten by 
 those who witnessed or those who believed them. The 
 announcement of a divine incarnation, in the person of
 
 2/2 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the Jewish Christ, by an express messenger from God, 
 and its actual fulfilment within cannon-shot of Jeru- 
 salem, in the midst of such marvellous supernatural 
 manifestations and attestations, was not at all a" common 
 occurrence, or one likely to be forgotten by any mortal 
 who had ever been cognizant of its existence. That 
 this event must have been known to many thousands of 
 Jews, as well as to the court of Herod, and to the priests 
 of the Temple, is claimed by the Gospels. That there 
 were thousands of those who were thus conversant with 
 the facts, still living when Jesus appeared publicly, 
 thirty years afterwards, is a necessary inference. The 
 parties directly concerned, surely, could never forget 
 such facts. Jesus must have doubly known them ; first, 
 through his mother ; and secondly, through his own 
 divine intelligence. If he did not know them, they had 
 never existed. If he did know them, then his conduct 
 and declarations would have been consistent with such 
 knowledge and facts. 
 
 Two claims are set up for Jesus. The first of these 
 is that he was God incarnated in the form and person of 
 the Son of Mary for the purpose of redeeming such of 
 the human race as should believe in him, while consign- 
 ing to eternal torment those who failed to accredit and 
 accept him. With such an object it would have been 
 the highest duty of this Divine Saviour to have used 
 every power and every possible means within his com- 
 mand to insure belief in himself and his mission by every 
 human being. Nor is it possible to conceive of a God, 
 so beneficent and loving, as failing in this essential duty. 
 Nor is it possible to deny that Jesus exhibited the most 
 intense longing to succeed- in his efforts for immediate
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 273 
 
 acceptance by those who heard him, and manifested that 
 intensity of desire by the supreme delight with which 
 he received the faith of even the humblest, as well as by 
 the tears which he shed, and the curses which he 
 launched on account of his failures. 
 
 In the second place he is claimed to have been the 
 Jewish Messiah. To have himself accepted as this 
 Messiah seems to have been, his first and chief object, 
 and, indeed, his exclusive object until after his final 
 failure and execution. For he not only expressly con- 
 fined those early efforts of himself and his disciples to 
 the Israelites, hjit he expressly declared that his mission 
 was limited to that race. This being his sole or even 
 chief object, it was necessary to his success that the 
 Jews should believe in him. He knew what was neces- 
 sary to secure that belief. He knew that they not only 
 would, but did expect and demand of him all the ex- 
 pected " signs " or indicia of the Messiah of prophecy. 
 The prophecies which had promised the Christ, had 
 also promised the " signs " and indicia which should 
 herald him and point him out. It would be by them that 
 he could be known, or not at all. To demand these of 
 every pretender to the Messiahship was, therefore, a matter 
 not only of prudence, but of necessity ; since they had 
 not only been given as a means of evidencing and test- 
 ing the Christ, but the Jews neither had, nor was ex- 
 pected to have, any Falstaffian instinct for detecting the 
 "true prince." Nor had the Jews, be it remembered, a 
 single one of those miraculous attestations at his con- 
 ception and during his embryonic and infantile life or 
 even those at his baptism, temptation or transfiguration, 
 
 18
 
 274 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 which the Gospels now furnish for their believers. He 
 appeared in Judea as a stranger, purporting to have 
 been a young carpenter from a remote and most unfavor- 
 able locality. There was never a hint of his birth or 
 parentage or of his place of nativity, and instead of com- 
 ing from Bethlehem, as they expected, he came from 
 "despised Nazareth," from which the Jews thought no 
 good thing could come, and from semi-Gentile Galilee, 
 from out of which they alike thought no prophet could 
 arise. Everything was to the reverse of their expecta- 
 tions. He was found first exhibiting his powers of 
 healing and announcing the coming of " the Kingdom 
 of God," in Galilee, as John the Baptisthad been doing 
 in Judea ; and he was soon known to be exciting crowds 
 and selecting a following out of the lowest classes of 
 the Galileans. Will any mortal contend that the Jews 
 ought to have expected their Messiah to come from such 
 a source and in such a manner ? Will any mortal con- 
 tend, that Jesus coming thus, could expect, or had a 
 right to expect, that the Jews would accept such an un- 
 known pretender under such circumstances, without 
 clearly demonstrating to the proper judges of his claims 
 or to the intelligence of the nation that he possessed all 
 the "signs" and requisites of the Messiahship? Ought 
 he not to have both expected a demand of all this, and 
 to have conceded the right to demand it? Ought he 
 not to have known that, as the matter of his claims then 
 appeared to the Jews, the veriest impostor could not 
 have had less show of a claim ; and that to place his 
 pretension above those of the merest charlatan, he must 
 meet the prophetic tests required by the Jews ? The 
 Jews came to him promptly, even into Galilee, upon the
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 2/5 
 
 promulgation of his claims, and urged him to give them 
 these necessary assurances. How did he meet them ? 
 Was it in a manner to convince either them or us that 
 he desired to satisfy them and had the power and 
 means to do so ? The Gospels give us the answer. 
 From the very beginning he angrily refused to giv.e 
 them any "sign" by which they could judge of his 
 claims, roundly declaring that they should have none, 
 and denouncing them as a wicked and adulterous gener- 
 ation for asking it ! The asserted reference to the sign 
 of Jonah, even were it not an interpolation, could only 
 have been meant as a mockery. And from thenceforth 
 he never ceased to berate and abuse the officials, the 
 lawyers, the doc-tors, the scribes and all the intelligent 
 classes and sects who demanded evidences of his claims 
 and refused to believe in him without them. He not 
 only told them that he would give them no sign, but 
 kept his word. He would perform no miracles for them ; 
 give no evidences or references as to his birth ; refer 
 them to no instance of his many divine recognitions or 
 of his fulfilments of the prophecies ; nor assign any reason 
 for his not doing so. He only conversed with them to 
 controvert and belittle their views and to berate the 
 classes to which they belonged. One kind or conciliating 
 word he never said to them. One attempt to rationally 
 convince them he never made. When John the Baptist, 
 just before Herod had him executed, sent messengers to 
 him to inquire whether he was the real Christ, he 
 neither referred to all or any of the miraculous divine 
 recognitions of him at his conception and birth, which 
 John could . not but have known, nor to his divine 
 recognition in the presence of John himself and John's
 
 2/6 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 own solemn testimony that he was the " Son of God ; " 
 but simply referred John's messengers to his works and to 
 his preaching to the poor. The farthest he ever went 
 with the Jews on this subject of evidence, was to declare 
 that they would not believe him if he did give it, and to 
 say that two witnesses his father in heaven and himself 
 bore witness to himself, well knowing that such proof 
 could equally be asserted by any impostor or madman and 
 was only calculated to insult and disgust the Jews as it 
 did. Even the "wonderful works " to which he sometimes 
 referred them, but which he refused to perform for them, 
 were, as we shall see hereafter, performed under circum- 
 stances and conditions of the utmost suspicion, were 
 never witnessed by the intelligent classes, and were also 
 of a kind which the Jews, according to their notions, not 
 only could, but did believe to have been performed by 
 demoniac agency, 
 
 In view of all these facts, a question of immeasurable 
 significance arises, namely : Why did not Jesus call upon 
 the old witnesses, still living, who could prove the facts 
 evidencing his divine birth and nature (which his dis- 
 ciples so profusely published long after the witnesses 
 had passed away), and array before the Jews those evi- 
 dences of his descent from David which were so triumph- 
 antly displayed after his death ? Why did he not at 
 least kindly cite them to the sources of such informa- 
 tion, that they might inquire and satisfy themselves? 
 Let any honest and fair man also answer the following 
 questions, namely : What was all those divine annunci- 
 ations in Heaven and Earth and all those alleged ful- 
 filments of Scripture and all those allege^ miraculous 
 attestations of the claims of Jesus/<?r, or what were they
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 2// 
 
 worth, if they were not to be used and to operate as 
 signs or proofs to the people of his Messiahship and 
 divinity ? And, if they were so, why did Jesus himself 
 utterly ignore them when they were most sorely needed 
 and justly demanded ? Why drive from him, with bitter 
 vituperations, the proper men to judge his claims, and 
 secure his success because of their asking the necessary 
 and universally-expected evidences of his identity as the 
 Christ, and then alternately anathematize and weep over 
 them for rejecting him ; when, had he proved one-half of 
 what is now alleged of his conception or birth and, 
 really and in good faith, performed one single miracle, 
 such as that of the " loaves and fishes " or " raising of 
 Lazarus," in the presence of the Sanhedrim, the priests 
 and the multitude in the Temple, he would have been 
 hailed as the Messiah by every living Jew, and the men 
 who condemned him to death and ignominy would have 
 crawled on their knees to kiss the dust beneath his feet ? 
 Why did he not do it ? Reason can furnish but one 
 answer to such questions : he had not the power to 
 furnish such signs and evidences : the facts were wanting. 
 Hence his petulance with the classes who demanded 
 them. He, on his part, demanded to be accepted as the 
 Messiah, but to demand of him, in turn, the proofs or 
 the signs of his Messiahship, was at once to become 
 "wicked and adulterous." No other motive, within the 
 pale of common sense, can be given for his failure and 
 even flat refusal to furnish such evidences. If they 
 existed, his avowed object and manifest purpose as well 
 as his clear duty demanded that he should have 
 furnished them. He did perform works as " signs" 
 for his ignorant disciples, such a*s blasting a fig-tree for
 
 2/8 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 failing to produce fruit out of season ; Why then refuse 
 to take the slightest pains to convince men of intelligence ? 
 Why leave all the divine glories surrounding his birth 
 and the princely honors of his descent to " waste their 
 sweetness on the desert air ? " Why have his temptation 
 and transfiguration in secret ? There was, and could 
 have been, but one reason for all this : he could not 
 safely trust his miraculous powers before the intelligent 
 and critical classes, and the alleged marvels surround- 
 ing his conception, birth, infancy, dedication, temptation, 
 transfiguration and baptism were born far too late for his 
 personal use. There was one sign and test which was 
 the basis of all other Messianic signs, and which could 
 have been then, if ever, easily proven, namely, his 
 descent from David. His real birth and parentage were 
 real facts, and not after-creations. And this point he 
 accordingly meets, how, we have already seen, namely, 
 by denying that the Christ was to be a son of David. If 
 true, he might also have shown that he was born at 
 Bethlehem. Thus much of the conduct of Jesus to- 
 wards the Jews and of its consistency with the subse- 
 quently related evidences we have been discussing. His 
 language and conduct in other relations will be con- 
 sidered, with this same view as we proceed. 
 
 Let us now turn our attention to the conduct and 
 declarations of John the Baptist, and see how they cor- 
 respond with the supernatural manifestations in ques- 
 tion. If we are to trust Luke's account, Jesus and the
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 279 
 
 Baptist were near of kin. It was to the mother of John 
 that Mary first went for consultation and congratulation 
 when enciente with Jesus. Their family sympathy was 
 great : the sympathy of the two men as divine instru- 
 ments in a common purpose was still greater. John, 
 who was the special messenger of God to announce and 
 prepare for the coming of Jesus as the Christ, leaped in 
 responsive recognition of this unborn God when the 
 Virgin approached and while both were still in their 
 mothers' wombs. Such is Luke's account. None can 
 read it and consider the relations, personal and divine, 
 which are assigned to these two infants and doubt that 
 they must have known each other through both their re- 
 lationships, and must have often met, if not elsewhere, at 
 least at the great Jewish feasts at the Temple, where all 
 attended. Through the same relationships as well as 
 through information from their mothers, they must have 
 known of the pretensions of each other and of the 
 miracles attending their anti-natal meetings. And yet, 
 if those scenes and relations actually existed, How shall 
 we account for the alleged fact that these two cousins 
 afterwards met upon the Jordan as strangers ? For the 
 Baptist is made to expressly declare to the people that 
 he "knew him not" until he was miraculously pointed 
 out to him by the descent of the Spirit upon him (see 
 John's account). Can we believe that John had to have 
 either Jesus or his mission pointed out to him on the 
 Jordan if the previous relations and miraculous scenes 
 had actually existed ? Had they really existed, it is clear 
 that these men were playing preconcerted and fraudu- 
 lent parts before the people : a conclusion fatal to the 
 honesty of both and far more improbable than that their
 
 28O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 alleged previous relations were of after and mythic 
 growth. 
 
 This, however, was by no means the most striking 
 instance in which the Baptist's conduct and language 
 gave a flat contradiction, not only to their miraculous re- 
 lations and meeting before their birth", but also to this 
 same marvellous divine recognition and his own positive 
 attestation occurring on the Jordan. Long after all 
 these miraculous and divine endorsements of Jesus as 
 the Christ and Son of God, expressly for John's instruc- 
 tion, and long after John had recognized him from his 
 own mother's womb, and had borne positive and exultant 
 testimony that he was the Son of God, this same John 
 the Baptist sends a deputation to this same Jesus, to ask 
 him this question " Art thou he who was to come, or 
 look we for another ? " Can we believe this to be the 
 solemn deposition and question of that cousin and pro- 
 phetic annunciator of Jesus as the Christ who recognized 
 him while both were yet in their mothers' wombs ? Can 
 this be the man who saw the Spirit descend upon this 
 same Jesus expressly to assure him that he was the ex- 
 pected Christ, and who bore " record that this was the 
 Son of God ? " What was all these miracles worth, and 
 what was John's testimony or " record " worth, if the 
 very man who knew the miracles and for whose informa- 
 tion they were performed and who had borne solemn 
 testimony, from these divine attestations, that Jesus was 
 the Christ, could still send to Jesus to solemnly inquire 
 of him if he was the Christ ? If John could not trust 
 his own sight and his own inspirations and official an- 
 nouncements as the " Forerunner " of Jesus the Christ,
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 28 1 
 
 who could ? or who ought to? When we see the old 
 Prophet sending from the dungeons of Herod to inquire 
 of this new Agitator and Reformer whether he was the 
 expected Christ or whether they had still to wait for his 
 coming, are we not resistlessly compelled to discard those 
 former overwhelming proofs to, and declarations by, 
 John himself ; and to regard John as having now first 
 heard of the Messianic pretensions or wonder-workings 
 of Jesus, and as sending from his prison to ascertain 
 whether this new man was the one whose coming he had 
 expected and had proclaimed as so imminent ? Are not 
 those former miraculous and positive divine attestations 
 as well as those solemn recognitions and affirmations 
 of John absolutely incompatible with this subsequent 
 ignorance and investigation by John ? If all that is 
 alleged had actually passed concerning John and Jesus, 
 could John have sent such a deputation to Jesus, and 
 especially without the slightest explanation of his own 
 inconsistency or causes for doubt, or even an allusion to 
 their past relations ? And, is not the conduct of Jesus 
 himself as inconsistent with those former facts and 
 relations as that of John's ? He neither referred John 
 to them not even to his own affirmation of the divine 
 recognition of him as the Christ, nor does he express the 
 least surprise at John's ignorance or investigation, or in 
 any manner indicate that John had ever previously met 
 or known him. John sends to him as to a stranger, and 
 Jesus receives and answers his deputation as he would 
 have done one from any other unknown man of the 
 character of John. He refers John to no past evidences 
 of his claims whatever, but simply to his present works 
 and preaching. Looking at the conduct and language
 
 282 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 of these two men upon this occasion, and at the natural 
 and legitimate implications from them, we are again com- 
 pelled to conclude that the miraculous scenes asserted to 
 have existed at the meeting of their mothers, before 
 their birth, as well as those at their own meeting on the 
 Jordan, were utterly unknown to either of them were- 
 in fact, the sheer inventions or mythic growths of after 
 times, and that these men knew nothing of each other 
 beyond the probable fact that Jesus was among the 
 thousands who flocked to the Jordan to receive bap- 
 tism of John and hear him preach of the imminence 
 of the " Kingdom of God," and of the coming of the 
 Lord's anointed King the Christ of the Jews. 
 
 Having glanced at the conduct and declarations of 
 this " Forerunner" of the Christ in relation to Jesus, Let 
 us turn to those of the " Mother of God," with the like 
 view of testing their consistency with a knowledge on 
 her part of the asserted relations and divine attestations 
 of her son, Jesus. And right here we find our most 
 painful task a task, however, which shall be as fear- 
 lessly as it is faithfully performed. For, however un- 
 pleasant it may be to expose the faults or frailties of 
 those whose undeniable good qualities we revere, or to 
 expose those persons who have become objects of wor- 
 ship to others, it is all the more necessary to be loyal to 
 truth when such faults and frailties are sheltered by
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 283 
 
 Superstition to the detriment of human development 
 In such cases it becomes cowardly to be weak, and a 
 crime to be cowardly. 
 
 The non-existence of the alleged miracles and favor- 
 able evidences attending the conception and birth of 
 Jesus fully accounts, but can alone account, for his 
 silence in regard to them ; but it is by no means so easy 
 to account for, much less justify, his reticence and more 
 than indifference concerning his family relations. If the 
 Gospel narratives are true, the Jewish virgin whom God 
 (that is Jesus himself) had chosen to be the mother of 
 his own incarnate self, would have been entitled to be 
 treated as she was assured she would be, namely, as 
 the " highly favored of God " and " blessed among 
 women." Jesus should not only have had the customary 
 love and respect for his mother, but should have loved and 
 reverenced her in proportion to the lofty isolation of her 
 glory and divine favor. The correlative view of their 
 relations should have insured an unparalleled love and 
 reverence for, and faith in, her divine son, by the Virgin. 
 Knowing what they both did, their love and reverence 
 for each other should have been unfaltering and un- 
 bounded, and Mary's confidence in his divine nature 
 and mission should have been perfect and abiding. 
 Neither could ever forget what they were, or what they 
 were to each other. The most stupendous event of all 
 time connected them together in bonds never to be par- 
 alleled and never to be ignored and forgotten.
 
 284 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Upon the part of both, but especially upon the part 
 of Jesus, such expectations were destined to a complete 
 and sore reversal. On the part of Mary they were sin- 
 gularly and significantly reversed, so far as they depend- 
 ed upon any supposed supernatural relations. She was 
 simply a good human mother of a human son : no 
 more. It would be impossible to affirm even thus favor- 
 ably of Jesus. One kindly word of remembrance of the 
 good old carpenter who had so dreamed ior his safety, so 
 fled for his security, and so labored for his support, or of 
 his most blessed and divinely favored mother, or of those 
 brothers and sisters who had been the companions of 
 his youth ; or one. word of tender memory of home, or of 
 the past, he appears never to have uttered ; nor during 
 all his career does it appear that he ever sent one mes- 
 sage of kindness or remembrance to either of them no, 
 not even from the cross. He never either mentions their 
 names or directly recognizes their relationship. While 
 they had a home, he claimed to be homeless, and without 
 a " place to lay his head." He never visited them or 
 treated them as relatives. 
 
 Four times, and only four times, does this meek and 
 patient old Nazarene mother appear in the history of her 
 son, Jesus, after their alleged return to Nazareth. Once 
 when he is taken with her, at tvyelve years of age, to the 
 Temple. On this occasion Joseph and Mary, not finding 
 Jesus when they wished to depart, supposed him to have 
 gone on with other Galilean families who had already 
 departed, and took up their journey without him. They 
 found, however, that they were mistaken, and that Jesus 
 had naughtily escaped them and remained at Jerusalem.
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORJC AND MYTHIC. 285 
 
 They were compelled to return, and it was only after 
 three days of anxiety and trouble that they were enabled 
 to find him. No reasoning caji justify such conduct, nor 
 make it other than a naughty and cruel boyish freak. 
 He had wilfully deceived his parents and disregarded 
 their wishes, and had put them to great trouble and 
 anxiety. Nor will our estimate of this divine sample of 
 filial piety increase when we reflect upon the treatment 
 he gave his mother after all her trouble and anxiety in 
 finding him. Do we find the prompt contrition, the 
 tender pity for his suffering mother, and the anxious 
 atonement which might be expected from a thoughtless, 
 but generous boy ? Is the mother kissed and forgive- 
 ness asked ? The Gospel presents a very different 
 scene. Luke gives it to us in the following words (and 
 remember they are from a boy of fourteen) : " And when 
 they saw him they were amazed, and his mother said 
 unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us ? Be- 
 hold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And 
 he said unto them, How is it that you sought me ? Wist 
 ye not that I must be about my master s business ? And 
 they understood not the saying which he spoke to them." 
 Is this the answer we had a right to expect to this gentle 
 mother's appeal, from such a son to such a mother ? Even 
 if he had had "business" justifying his detention, could 
 he not have previously informed them of it and saved 
 them from seeking him for three days, " sorrowing ? " 
 His answer shows that he was neither afraid nor ashamed 
 to do so. But why was it that Joseph and Mary were so 
 alarmed about the disappearance of this lad ? Could he 
 get lost ? Had Joseph forgotten his dreams ! Had 
 Mary forgotten the angel Gabriel and all that wonder-
 
 286 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 ful past ? Had they both forgotten that this was a "son 
 of the Highest " an incarnate God ? How is it, also, 
 that he himself does not recall those facts to their at- 
 tention, but, on the contrary, hears himself called the 
 son of Joseph, as a matter of course, and speaks of God, 
 not as his father, but as his master? And, How is it that 
 we find it admitted that those partakers and principals 
 in the early scenes of his divine recognition and glory, 
 could not even understand him when he spoke about his 
 " master's business ? " Of what conceivable use were 
 those early divine annunciations, those heavenly displays, 
 those recognitions of the " wise men " and of the ven- 
 erable servants of God in the Temple, if Joseph, Mary 
 and Jesus had already forgotten them ? Let any free 
 mind ask itself whether such scenes and such language 
 could havs occurred between these parties if the divine 
 relations and miraculous facts previously recited had 
 ever really existed, 
 
 Mary's next appearance was not until her son had 
 entered upon his public career. They were both at the 
 wedding feast at Cana of Galilee, and the mother, per- 
 haps knowing, if the story is to be credited, of his being 
 possessed of some recipe for making an imitation of 
 wine (as thousands of gallons are now made) came to 
 him and remarked " They have no wine." This simple 
 announcement of a simple fact brought down upon the 
 mother a contemptuous rebuke, as unprovoked as it was 
 unaccountable at least upon any creditable state of facts. 
 To this simple remark of the mother the son replies 
 " Woman, what have / to do with thee f Mine hour has 
 not yet come." Let us analyze this second sample of
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 287 
 
 divine filial piety and affection this new instance of 
 tender regard and reverence for this "favored of God" 
 and " blessed among women." What manner of address 
 was this of " woman," for a mother and such a mother ? 
 Was it the customary style of address of the people 
 and time ? Far from it. Was there anything in the 
 mother's question causing or justifying it? Nothing. 
 Was it a personal peculiarity in his treatment of women ? 
 We answer doubly : first, that were it such, it was by no 
 means a commendable one, much less a divine one ; 
 secondly, that he had no such unpardonably rude habit 
 with any woman save his mother. On the contrary, he 
 was noted for his wholly exceptional tenderness and 
 gentleness to women, even the most guilty and aban- 
 doned of them. When Mary Magdalen, who had been 
 as much the residence and as great a favorite of devils 
 as his own mother had been of God, stood near him at 
 the sepulchre, without at all knowing him, he did not ad- 
 dress her as " woman," but addressed her as " Mary " 
 in so gentle a voice as to bring her instantly to his feet 
 with the exclamation, " My Lord and my Master ! " His 
 gentle forgiveness of the adulteress in the Temple has 
 won him many hearts. A number of other instances 
 could be cited, showing that he was, not only gentle and 
 tender with women,but was noticeably fond of their gentle 
 ministrations and personal attentions, without regard to 
 their character or public repute. His mother and sisters 
 seem to have been specially excluded from his uniform 
 kindness to women and children, especially the mother. 
 
 But again : What does he mean by saying to his 
 mother " What have I to do with thee ? " She had
 
 288 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 asked him to do nothing with or for her, or anybody else. 
 What could have been his object in making this rude 
 and uncalled-for answer, unless it were a gratuitous re- 
 nunciation of her, and a sullen putting her aside for 
 having spoken to him at all ? And again : What does 
 he mean by that favorite, ominous and oracular expres- 
 sion "mine hour has not yet come." What hour? Not, 
 surely, the hour for snubbing his mother, for that hour 
 had both come and gone. The natural inference would 
 be that his hour for doing what he supposed her to sug- 
 gest had not come. But we are at once met by the fact 
 that he straightway entered upon the operation of sup- 
 plying the very deficiency in wine for the suggestion of 
 which he had snubbed her. What then could he mean ? 
 Can any mortal tell, unless it was merely to snub his 
 mother, or a mere ponderous assumption of superiority 
 and mystery, as a prelude to his performance ? May we 
 not, at all events, again repeat the question Is this a 
 scene between an incarnate God and his mother ? 
 
 The next appearance of this " Blessed among 
 women " was still more illustrative of the views and 
 feelings of Jesus concerning his mother and family, as 
 well as of their feelings and opinions regarding him. In 
 the twelfth chapter of Matthew we are told, that 
 "While he yet talked to the people, behold his mother 
 and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak to him. 
 Then said one unto him, Behold thy mother and thy 
 brethren stand without and desire to speak with thee. 
 But he answered who is my mother ? and who are my 
 brethren ? And he stretched forth his hand towards 
 his disciples and said : Behold my mother and my
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 289 
 
 brethren ! For whosoever shall do the will of my 
 father which is in Heaven, is my brother and my sister 
 and my mother." To apologize for this public repudia- 
 tion of all family and social ties it has been said that he 
 was terribly excited by their attempts to get hold of him 
 for the particular reason assigned. This reason will be 
 found in Mark's recital of this same occurrence (iii. 
 20-23), in which it is said "And the multitude 
 cometh together again, so that they could not so much 
 as eat bread. And when his friends heard of it, they 
 went out to lay hold on him, for they said, He is beside 
 himself. And the scribes which came down from Jeru- 
 salem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of 
 devils casteth he out devils." His friends thought him 
 " beside himself," and the scribes who had come down 
 from Jerusalem to witness his performances, regarded 
 him as " devil-possessed " the ugliest form of insanity. 
 His friends that is, his own family, were trying to get 
 possession of him and save him from the consequences 
 which finally overtook him. This was the sorest of all 
 questions with him, and he declared it the one unpardon- 
 able sin to charge that he was " possessed " or what we 
 would now term insane. Whether he knew his mother's 
 object, at the time, is not certain; since he did not wait 
 to inquire, but refused even to see her, and publicly dis- 
 claimed having either mother, brothers or sisters save 
 his followers. Let any free mind, however grounded in 
 the Christian faith, if such a mind can be free, ask itself 
 whether this wildly excited young man who refuses to 
 see, and publicly repudiates his own mother and all his 
 family (even his sisters who were not present,) can 
 possibly be that " holy thing " which Gabriel said should 
 
 19
 
 2QO JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 be born of this same mother and be " called the Son of 
 God ; " or whether this anxious and suffering mother, 
 surrounded and supported by her other sons, and en- 
 deavoring to secure her eldest son Jesus as one " beside 
 himself " can possibly be that same woman who was 
 " overshadowed " by the Holy Ghost at the conception 
 of this same " Son of God ? " Did she now forget that 
 that divine son of her virginity that incarnate God 
 was the identical person whom she is now attempting to 
 " lay hands on " as one " beside himself," and that too 
 for proclaiming himself to be just what the messenger 
 of God had told her he was to be, and just what she 
 had exultantly proclaimed him to be to the mother of 
 the Baptist, and just what she of all beings save God 
 (if the Gospels be true) best knew him actually to be ? 
 Did she think the incarnate God the very Christ, could 
 go crazy ? Does she now feel that she herself is 
 " highly favored of God " and " blessed among 
 women ? " Why, in this strange and trying scene, did 
 neither this divine son nor his blessed mother ever 
 think of these things or remind each other of them ? 
 Do not these questions point to an inconsistency and 
 incompatibility between the asserted early life and rela- 
 tions of this mother and son and these later scenes and 
 relations, which no ingenuity can deny or evade ? 
 
 This poor, snubbed, repudiated, but still loving and 
 human mother is seen once more is a witness of that 
 final catastrophy to which she and his brothers had so 
 long feared he was rushing. Those disciples who had 
 been accepted in her stead when she had been repu- 
 diated, and who had enjoyed his smiles and triumphs,
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 2QI 
 
 had now fled, and were in hiding. The weary limbs of 
 this aged mother had mounted Calvary with him her 
 aching heart responding to every pang of her suffering 
 son : a patient, human mother still ! And now, if 
 never before, one hopes that, while dealing out forgive- 
 ness to his insulters and enemies and awarding the 
 joys of paradise to thieves as he sits on his cross, he 
 would say something to that patient and agonized mother, 
 and send some kind farewell words to his brothers and 
 sisters. He did not do it. His last and only words to 
 her were " woman, behold thy Son : " meaning thereby 
 to consign her to the care of the Apostle John as her 
 adopted son. This was all ! . 
 
 What was the cause of this utter abandonment and 
 express repudiation of his mother and of his brothers 
 and sisters ? The answer is not doubtful. Neither his 
 own family nor his old neighbors of Nazareth would 
 believe in him. When he set up his high pretensions or 
 proclaimed himself the Christ or Son of God, his old 
 neighbors were indignant and regarded him as a pre- 
 sumptuous impostor : his family, who had known him 
 longest and best, regarded him as " beside himself : " 
 while the Jews believed him not merely a maniac, but a 
 demoniac. This will account for why his mother never 
 returned nor replied to his rebukes : with her opinions, 
 she could not scold him : she could only pity, and be 
 silent. He was, as we have said, so sensitive on this 
 point of his insanity, that he could not tolerate even his 
 own family for honestly believing it and desiring to 
 restrain and take care of him ; while the charge of the 
 more odious form of insanity namely, " devil pos- 
 session," rendered him so furious as to make him de-
 
 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 clare it the "unpardonable sin" or "sin against the 
 Holy Ghost " that is, the sin of attributing his own 
 power and inspiration, which he claimed to be from the 
 Holy Ghost, to the Devil. He was morbidly sensitive 
 on this point, and also as to the slightest doubt or 
 distrust on the part of his friends ; and it is to these 
 morbid feelings and fears that we are to attribute his 
 unkind and unnatural treatment of his family. He 
 could tolerate no one who doubted him : he was furious 
 at all who suspected or questioned his sanity more 
 especially at his own family. 
 
 Both of the remaining supernatural recognitions of 
 Jesus as the Christ (outside of his own works) will be 
 found to have the same cause and basis for a mythical 
 origin and the same isolation from, and incongruity and 
 inconsistency with, the actual facts, as those already 
 considered. The first of these the forty days' fast and 
 temptation in the wilderness, has all the marks of the 
 myth-moulds. It was clearly an effort to further repre- 
 sent Jesus as an antitype of Moses, in his act of fasting 
 forty days in Mount Sinai ; and perhaps, also, of the Is- 
 raelites in their forty years' wanderings in the desert. 
 It is only mentioned in three of the Gospels. Luke, and 
 perhaps Matthew, would have us to believe that Jesus 
 wholly abstained from food for forty days, but Mark 
 would seem to have had the miraculous feeding of the 
 Israelites on manna in view, as a part of the type to be 
 fulfilled, and, instead of declaring that he fasted, he tells 
 us that " the angels ministered unto him." The scene
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 
 
 between Jesus and Satan is only mentioned in Matthew 
 and Luke, and the dialogue is given by them in language 
 too identical for separate independent recollections of it ; 
 and yet the copyist or concordist has made just enough 
 change to expose his animus, and yet in a manner to 
 confirm the real identity of their source. The asserted 
 dialogue is as precisely expressive of the conceptions 
 and mental stattts of the men who wrote and manipulated 
 the Gospels, as it is inappropriate to, and discordant 
 with, the mentality and relations of the incarnate God and 
 his great rival, yet subject Spirit. John, however, sets 
 the whole matter at rest, if he is to be credited. He 
 not only does not mention the matter at all, but his 
 narrative of the acts of Jesus during the identical same 
 period positively forbids the possibility of this sojourn 
 in the wilderness. All the other Gospels concur in 
 placing it directly after the scene between John the 
 Baptist and Jesus on the Jordan, and Mark expressly 
 states that he was immediately driven into the desert at 
 the close of that scene. John, on the contrary, not only 
 does not give the slightest hint of such an occurrence, 
 but expressly and specifically details the actions and 
 whereabouts of Jesus for many consecutive days after this 
 scene with the Baptist and while, according to the others, 
 he was already in the wilderness. And, instead of 
 taking him into the wilderness from the Jordan, John 
 follows him day by day into Galilee, and keeps him at 
 his work, during the express time when he is alleged to 
 have been in the wilderness. If, therefore, John's 
 record is true, it is impossible that this forty days' fast 
 and temptation in the wilderness could have occurred, 
 and the whole matter must be set down for what, even
 
 294 )ESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 on its face, it appears to be, namely, an after, and very 
 crude attempt to appropriate another Scriptural type. 
 This, like all the other subsequent and mythic growths 
 and adaptations, utterly disappears as soon as it has been 
 mentioned, and without leaving a ripple behind. No 
 such fact was ever afterwards either used or mentioned 
 during the life of Jesus. If it ever existed, it was of no 
 benefit to any one, unless as an experience to Jesus 
 personally. At best it was but an unknown and useless 
 miracle in the wilderness, which was never used, nor 
 mentioned afterwards. One may be permitted to re- 
 mark, also, that, if Jesus did fast forty days, it was not 
 only a great feat, but one much in conflict with both his 
 nature and habits, and one which he amply compensated 
 himself for afterwards : for it was among the gravest 
 objections to Jesus, that neither him nor his disciples 
 kept the usual fasts ; that they did not even wait to wash 
 their hands before eating their meals ; and that he him- 
 self was a glutton and wine-bibber ; while Jesus, in an- 
 swer to the charge of not fasting, claimed that he was a 
 " bridegroom," and that bridegroom style and habits 
 should be permitted while he was present. 
 
 The transfiguration on the mountain will hereafter be 
 considered in its possible relations to the actual life of 
 Jesus. If it be not wholly mythic, as it very likely is, 
 the account of it is the result of an attempt to mythically 
 remodel and adapt some circumstance in the life of 
 Jesus in such a manner as to secure another evidence of 
 the antitypal relation of Jesus to Moses by imitating the 
 transfiguration of Moses on Sinai. That, however, 
 which is wholly fatal to it as one of the divine recogni- 
 tions and proofs of the Messiahship of Jesus, without
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 2Q5 
 
 now going further, is the fact that it was not only never 
 used or mentioned for any purpose whatever, but was 
 expressly required by Jesus himself to be kept a profound 
 secret until after his death ! Was not such an intentional 
 attempt to keep from the knowledge of the Jews the 
 very signs and evidences which they required and had in 
 vain sought of him, both derogatory to him as a man, 
 and utterly inconsistent with his professed Messiahship 
 and his anxiety and efforts to convince these same Jews ? 
 Why intentionally conceal the actual signs of the Mes- 
 siah from the very people to whom that Messiah was 
 sent, and whom he was endeavoring to persuade to ac- 
 cept him ? And for whom were such signs given, if not 
 for those to whom he was sent ? The inconsistency is 
 manifest and complete. 
 
 In even hastily examining, then, the after relations, 
 conduct and declarations of the persons who were con- 
 cerned in, and cognizant of, the various miraculous ex- 
 hibitions and transactions connected with the concep- 
 tion, birth, infancy, dedication, baptism, fasting and 
 transfiguration of Jesus, now put forward as divine 
 recognitions of his Messiahship and divinity, we have 
 found that these subsequent manifestations and effects 
 show no traces of such prior causes or influences ; that 
 they not only exhibit none of that congruity and con- 
 secution which necessarily and always exists between 
 precedent and subsequent related or correlated facts and 
 between knowledge and motives and the resulting con-
 
 296 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 duct ; and that, in fact, the subsequent facts and results 
 happened, not as if their asserted antecedents had 
 actually existed, but exactly as if they had never existed 
 at all. We are, therefore, presented with a set of the 
 most wonderful causes and motives without any kind of 
 result or influence flowing from them. We find a record 
 filled with the most palpable exhibitions and proofs of 
 God's* recognition of Jesus as the Christ of the Jews, 
 commencing with his conception and extending through 
 all the more prominent points of his life. And yet we 
 find that no use or even mention of them was ever made 
 when Jesus came forward to press the very claims which 
 they are claimed to so fully establish, and which they 
 were intended to prove ; although every conceivable mo- 
 tive existed for his claiming their benefit. If they ever 
 existed, they were, not only never used, but all were 
 contradicted some expressly and by Jesus himself, and 
 all by the language and conduct of those concerned and 
 those cognizant of them. Another very significant fact 
 is forced upon us by the record of these miraculous 
 proofs. Those of them which pertain to the earlier and 
 wholly unknown period of the life of Jesus, where there 
 was no danger of direct afoproof, and where the tests of 
 their truth and the detection of their errors were far 
 more difficult to the uncritical minds they were addressed 
 to than were those of a subsequent period, we find to be 
 not only detailed with some freedom and particularity, 
 but represented as occurring openly and as having the 
 greatest notoriety, sometimes even in Jerusalem and in 
 the Temple itself. Not so with those which are asserted 
 of the period of his public life. Had the Holy Ghost 
 been permitted to visibly descend upon Jesus, and a
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 
 
 voice from heaven to proclaim him as the Son of God, 
 and the renowned Baptist been permitted to have pro- 
 claimed him as the Christ whose advent he had been an- 
 nouncing and all in the presence of the intelligent Jews ; 
 and Jesus had permitted the public to witness him starve 
 for forty days, and to have seen Satan carry him through 
 the air on to a mountain, or the pinnacle of the Temple, 
 and there tempt him ; and had then permitted them to 
 see his transfiguration in the presence of Moses and 
 Elias on Calvary, or the Mount of Olives, then he never 
 would have been asked for another " sign " by any living 
 Jew ; while his defeat and crucifixion would have been 
 an impossibility. This conclusion was too palpable to 
 be overlooked, and such open and indisputable inferences 
 and contradictions were to be avoided. Accordingly we 
 find the fasting and temptation represented as being in a 
 " wilderness " a wilderness which is not even named or 
 located. It does not appear that'any mortal knew of his 
 going, staying or coming. To have the transfiguration, 
 he takes his three most confidential followers, apart from 
 the rest, up into a high mountain, by themselves, and 
 after his performance he strictly charged them never to 
 speak of it to any mortal until after his death, which 
 they certainly never did. The scenes at the Jordan are 
 not represented as having been seen or known by any 
 person except Jesus and John. The second recognition 
 and declaration of John, recorded by Luke, was all that 
 was performed before others. Two of John's disciples 
 are said to have heard John recognize him as the " lamb 
 of God." And, What was the result of this single in- 
 stance of permitting such things to be known ? Upon 
 this single, simple, and by no means definite, verbal
 
 298 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 exclamation of " Behold the lamb of God," by John, both 
 his hearers forthwith acknowledged, and became dis- 
 ciples of Jesus, one of them being Andrew the Apostle. 
 Does not this very scene give us an insight into the 
 reason for all these later miraculous signs being kept en- 
 tirely secret and out of the public sight ? Now, can any 
 one tell a legitimate motive or reason why these later 
 divine recognitions and proofs, if they ever existed, 
 were hidden or kept secret at all ? and especially when 
 the early ones were so heralded and published ? Why 
 did they herald and publish the first ones at a time when 
 the people were not called upon to decide upon his 
 claims ; and afterwards when the hour came for the 
 people to actually decide, and to accept or reject him at 
 the risk of their eternal damnation, utterly suppress all 
 mention of those early and forgotten ones, and perform 
 the present ones in a manner that the people who were 
 to decide could neither know nor hear of them ? Surely 
 this is all very suggestive of the nature and origin of 
 these stories of the different divine recognitions of Jesus. 
 Had they ever really existed the whole course of conduct 
 would not only have been different, but would have 
 been reversed. The whole course of facts, outside of 
 the mere uncorroborated, bald and inconsistent state- 
 ments in the Gospels, disproves them. They had never 
 been even thought of up to the time when Jesus re- 
 appeared after the crucifixion. 
 
 If the matters attempted to be explained have been 
 presented to the Reader with even the smallest portion 
 of the clearness with which they are presented to the 
 mind of the author, he will scarcely fail to concur with 
 him in the belief that the supernatural evidences of the
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE UNHISTORIC AND MYTHIC. 299 
 
 divine nature and Messiahship of Jesus are mythic 
 growths of which he himself was wholly ignorant ; and 
 that sufficient has already been presented to show the 
 true nature and value of Gospel evidence, and to prove 
 that they are not only merely human evidence, but that 
 they are very human evidence.
 
 3<X> JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 
 
 HAVING briefly reviewed, and formed an estimate of 
 some of the more palpably mythic narratives in the Gos- 
 pels, consisting of divine and miraculous recognitions 
 of the claims of Jesus where the supernatural powers 
 were exercised by others, we may now examine his own 
 alleged miraculous performances. With a view to a 
 comprehension of these, as well as for the purpose of 
 comprehending his conduct at the closing scenes of his 
 career, we must here endeavor to form some conception 
 of Jesus himself, in order that we may read the mira- 
 cles in the light of their performer, and the performer 
 in the light of his miracles. 
 
 Many of those who have dared to follow us thus far 
 will be somewhat prepared to approach these subjects, 
 and even to investigate the personal character of Jesus, 
 without being utterly paralyzed by their superstitious 
 prejudices and fears. To avoid these trammels of our 
 birth and education, Let us endeavor, as far as may be, 
 to practically forget that there are any possible conse- 
 quences to our investigations or opinions, and to regard 
 the facts as applying to some other founder of a religion ; 
 reassuring ourselves with the consideration that, if the 
 claim of Jesus is not true, we ought not to believe it,
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 3OI 
 
 and that, if it is true, it will only become more manifest 
 by being subjected to all the tests of truth. In testing 
 the pretensions of any man to be considered God, cer- 
 tainly every law of evidence and credence demands that 
 we should at least commence by treating him as a mere 
 man, and proceed to subject every particle of his evi- 
 dence and reasonings to the most thorough scrutiny and 
 most exacting tests. That he dares to threaten us for a 
 course so palpably necessary and just, should only make 
 us the more suspicious, and the more resolute in apply- 
 ing the strictest tests. Reason, not threats, is the in- 
 strument of truth. 
 
 Instead of rinding the evidence we should naturally 
 expect had God really incarnated himself for the benefit 
 of Humanity and made that benefit dependent upon 
 men's belief in that incarnation, we find only the unau- 
 thenticated and mutilated patch-work flung together in 
 our Gospels, consisting of the unverified and uninvesti- 
 gated statements, traditions, inventions and undoubted 
 forgeries of ignorant, superstitious, fanatical and unknown 
 men of a remote time. Either a consistent, coherent or 
 consecutive account of either the life, ministry or teach- 
 ings of Jesus is nowhere furnished us. When we ex- 
 amine this bundle of interested, incompetent and incon- 
 sistent testimony, it would seem to forbid all attempt at 
 forming a conception of him. Every generation has 
 moulded out of these Gospels a Saviour to suit them- 
 selves : the first generations remodelling or changing the 
 traditions and the very Gospels themselves, while later 
 ones have effected their changes through ever-varying 
 constructions of them, and by writing a large and ever- 
 increasing library of lives of Christ, every one of which
 
 3O2 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 must depend for its facts upon this same petty record. 
 And yet, through all this Gospel conglomerate, we are 
 furnished with constant glimpses of the reality, and with 
 sufficient believable evidence to form, as I think, an 
 approximate conception of the actual Jesus, although by 
 no means a certain or complete one. The very fact, that 
 perhaps the larger proportion of the Gospels was de- 
 rived, directly or remotely, from the simple, undigested 
 and garrulous recitals of ignorant men and women, and 
 was written down in the same inartistic, credulous and 
 careless manner, has resulted in sending down to us, in 
 spite of all the crude subsequent attempts at amend- 
 ment, many fragmentary facts which incautiously furnish 
 to the modern mind considerable insight into those early 
 men and scenes. That there was controlling design in 
 the original testimony, and its subsequent manipulation, 
 is very apparent, first, to induce a belief in Jesus ; and 
 subsequently, to accommodate the testimony to special 
 beliefs in regard to him and his doctrines ; but these 
 motives concerned the men and the notions of the time. 
 Had either the witnesses or writers been intending to 
 affect remote generations, and had foreseen the triumph 
 of the doctrine of natural law, and the modern question- 
 ing of the very possibility of miracles, the Gospels would 
 have been far -more closely pruned with a view to rid 
 them of such unlucky admissions. Never supposing, 
 however, that any mortal could doubt the fact of mira- 
 cles, they have given their evidence without regard to 
 such a contingency. And to this fact we now owe the 
 fragmentary facts and casual admissions which furnish 
 to the modern mind the desired clue to the real state of 
 facts.
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 303 
 
 The task of forming a conception of the actual Jesus 
 from the materials furnished, however, is by no means an 
 easy or safe one, even if his character was a less excep- 
 tional one than it is. To discover and discard the ele- 
 ments which are purely mythic, and such others as have 
 been carelessly or surreptitiously added or changed, as 
 well as to enter into the spirit of the original witnesses 
 and realize their weaknesses, deficiencies and partialities, 
 and at the same time to detect their unconscious admis- 
 sions or adverse recitals and conflicts, require patience 
 and at least some habits of judicial investigation, some 
 knowledge and aptitude, and perfect mental freedom. 
 Erudition or scholastic learning or criticism has furnished 
 little or no aid to the investigations which we have made 
 on this subject. We have earnestly and faithfully ex- 
 amined the record and testimony as we would have ex- 
 amined it had it been presented to us for judicial inves- 
 tigation or determination. 
 
 In making this investigation we have been governed 
 by certain principles or rules which seem to be the plain 
 dictates of experience and common sense, and' to be spe- 
 cially applicable to the facts, and which may be found of 
 service to the Reader, not only in his own investigations, 
 but in exhibiting to him the spirit in which the pres- 
 ent one is made, and the rules which have guided it ; 
 namely : 
 
 i. We may suspect error, exaggeration and suppres- 
 sion when there is found a manifest motive for them.
 
 304 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 2. We may generally credit disinterested, uncontra- 
 dicted, consistent and reasonable statements. 
 
 3. We should suspect, and demand proof of all alle- 
 gations in proportion to their improbability. 
 
 4. We should suspect a mythic growth or subsequent 
 creation wherever a divine or miraculous recognition of 
 Jesus or a fulfilment of prophecy by him is proclaimed, 
 and we may be stire of one where such account is either 
 absurd, contradicted or inconsistent, or where no use or 
 recognition of it was ever made during the life of Jesus. 
 
 5. We should recognize and treat errors, inconsist- 
 encies and contradictions in the Gospels and in the con- 
 duct and language of Jesus exactly as we would treat 
 
 'them if found elsewhere, taking guarded care to assume 
 nothing in aid or apology of anything on account of the 
 assumed character of Jesus, or of the sanctity of the rec- 
 ord ; but rather to be alive to the probability of error 
 and imposition, well knowing the uniform habit of relig- 
 ious zealots and propagandists, and the potent motives 
 for both, in this instance, as well as the indisputable fact 
 of thefr actual presence. 
 
 6. We should examine and construe the language of 
 the narrators in reference, not to our desires, ideas, 
 knowledge and beliefs, but to their own ; remembering 
 that they 'were ignorant, superstitious, interested and 
 excited witnesses, and especially bearing in mind that, 
 to them, a miracle was neither an unnatural or improba- 
 ble occurrence, much less an impossible or doubtful one. 
 
 7. We should carefully distinguish between what is 
 said for a purpose or is directly calculated to subserve 
 the known purposes of the narrator, and what is garru- 
 lously or indifferently related without purpose, as well
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 305 
 
 as between those direct assertions, as facts, of what were 
 manifestly but matters of opinion, belief, or " hear-say," 
 on the one hand, and the more legitimate narrations of 
 personally-witnessed facts or occurrences, on the other 
 hand ; giving no more weight to such unqualified and 
 unwarranted assertions than the reports, rumors and no- 
 tions of such people are entitled to, everywhere. 
 
 8. We should reverse our accustomed habit, and con- 
 sent to suggest no " might-have-beens," or possible pos- 
 sibilities in aid of defective or irrational and incredible 
 assertions, nor anything whatever beyond the necessary 
 or natural implications and inferences from the accred- 
 ited facts : remembering that the burden of proof is on 
 those who assert the facts, and that assumed possibilities 
 can neither be legitimately used to prove actual facts, 
 nor to cover or gloss defective evidence or the indicia of 
 falsehood. In other words, we must not take upon our- 
 selves the illegitimate burden or office of proving, not 
 only that other people's assertions are not true, or not 
 proved, but that they could by no possibility-have been 
 true ; and then cut ourselves off from all chance of dis- 
 proof, by destroying the force of every indicia of error 
 by gratuitously assuming all possible possibilities to aid 
 or cover them. 
 
 9. In examining and estimating the evidence of a 
 supposed miracle, we should first consider whether, on 
 its face, the narrative purports to describe what we 
 would consider a miracle ; and if so, then we should 
 carefully and critically review the recitals of the same 
 occurrence, if such exist, in the other Gospels, with a 
 view to ascertain whether the agreed or uncontradicted 
 facts, as recited, necessarily amount to a real miracle, 
 
 20
 
 3O6 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 or whether, under the most favorable selection, construc- 
 tion and combination of the several recitals in each of 
 the Gospels, we may not fairly conclude or infer from 
 their own testimony, that the transaction or occurrence 
 happened in obedience or conformity to the methods 
 and laws- of natural causation. For it will not be denied, 
 that he who asserts a suspension or reversal of the laws 
 of Nature, must absolutely exclude the possibility of the 
 agency of natural causes or efficiency. Secondly : still 
 failing to detect error or deficiency in the statement, we 
 should turn our attention to the probability or even pos- 
 sibility of error in the recitals, whether resulting from 
 ignorance, inefficiency, mistake, false notions, over con- 
 fidence and faith, imperfect observation or recital, dis- 
 tortions from feelings or interests, or from subsequent 
 alterations of the testimony ; taking care to observe 
 that the Gospels habitually state in a uniform manner, 
 and with equal positiveness, not only matters of direct 
 knowledge or observation, but matters of judgment, in- 
 formation -or belief: and that we are by no means to 
 allow them the benefit of this crude and unreliable 
 habit. 
 
 10. If we shall ultimately find that a real miracle has 
 been fully, consistently, uncontradictedly and unequiv- 
 ocally recited, then we must first decide, whether any 
 statement of a miracle, however consistent and complete, 
 made by such a record as we have seen this to be a 
 record written by unknown men, upon unknown infor- 
 mation as to the interested and excited testimony of such 
 wholly exceptionable witnesses as were selected by Jesus, 
 could possibly satisfy us that an actual miracle had been 
 performed : and finally, whether any set of religionists,
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 3O/ 
 
 in any number, of liny age, can be credited to prove 
 a miracle in support of their supposed superhuman 
 founder, or for a moment satisfy us of the mutability of 
 the law of causation that law whose existence and ab- 
 solute inflexibility are at once verified by the most over- 
 whelming of all inductions as well as by the most resist- 
 less of a priori deduction, and upon whose absolute un- 
 changeability depends, as well the truths and predictions 
 necessary to human life, as those of Science itself. And 
 by the time we have put the " marvellous works " of 
 Jesus through this ordeal nay, before we are half 
 through we shall not seriously trouble ourselves about 
 the miracles of Jesus or any one else. 
 
 ii. Lastly, we should judge Jesus as a man as a 
 man of the time, country, religion and social class to 
 which he belonged as a man subject to the conditions, 
 influences, errors and frailties incident to his humanity ; 
 yet, of course, subject to such modifications as his 
 peculiar personality, aims, and circumstances may seem 
 to require. It is only by treating him thus, that either 
 he, or his life, or his character can be made at all com- 
 prehensible ; a proof that such is the proper and only 
 light in which to view him. By starting with the as- 
 sumption of his Godhood, we find inconsistencies and 
 mysteries accumulate without end ; a proof that this 
 assumption is gratuitous and unfounded. We know him 
 as a man, let us treat him as such. We do not know 
 him to be a God, let us not dare assume it, until he has 
 proved it proved it in a manner worthy of such a fact !
 
 3O8 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 The awe and glamour of sanctity which ages of 
 superstition have thrown around the " sacred word " and 
 the " divine man," and the ideal representations of the 
 actors and scenes narrated in the Gospels, have com- 
 pletely obliterated the reality, and have rendered it a 
 perilous and ungrateful task to unmask the rude and un- 
 attractive actualities. Art and poetry have wholly re- 
 created the facts, forms and characters of all that per- 
 tains to the Bible narratives. The facts, even as they 
 are represented in the Scriptures, are wholly disregarded, 
 save as they may serve for a nominal frame-work for the 
 ideals of their portrayers. Every element has been sub- 
 limated by human fancy, and illuminated by human 
 genius. The naked, unkempt and soapless savages of 
 Eden now stand out before our imaginations the one 
 an Apollo, and the other a Venus. Art presents us 
 the physically defective Egyptian priest Moses, with 
 the muscles of a Hercules and the head and front of an 
 Olympian Jupiter. The ragged, wild and filthy prophet 
 or saint of the desert are made, not unfit representatives 
 of the " Ancient of Days." The rude cross and ruder 
 crucifixion have melted into a myth a scene for a 
 spectacular theatre. The bare-footed and bare-headed 
 fishermen of Galilee stroll through the country or gaze 
 from their "model yacht" with a conspicuous rim of 
 supernatural light encircling their heads a phenomenon 
 which would have driven the panic-stricken multitude 
 into the wildest flight at their approach. The aged and 
 wrinkled wife of the poor carpenter of Nazareth blooms 
 in perpetual and ideal beauty. The young carpenter, 
 their son, appears habitually among men with the face 
 of an angel, with a divine aureola encircling his brows,
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 309 
 
 and with an invisible sun shining behind his head : in- 
 signia which would have made every Scribe and Pharisee 
 fall prostrate at his feet, if it had failed to throw them 
 into fits. Such are the images which have awed our 
 imaginations and moulded our conceptions from our 
 childhood. And yet these are neither truthful nor 
 scriptural representations. They are purely ideal, and 
 flow from the common fountain of all myths. Men have 
 been trying to make Jesus what they think he ought to 
 have been to clothe him with his assumed divine per- 
 sonality and character, and to satisfy their own growing 
 ideals and aspirations, in him. The same impulses and 
 purposes have found constant outlet and satisfaction in 
 more prosaic forms in remoulding the doctrines, char- 
 acter and life of Jesus. The ever-changing and ever 
 increasing demands intellectual, religious and moral 
 development, have found vent in some thousand new 
 sects, heresies and schisms, based upon new interpreta- 
 tions ; as well as in a constant series of new Lives of 
 Jesus or Lives of Christ. The more rapidly men have 
 developed, the more constant and imperious have been 
 the demands for these re-constructions of Jesus and his 
 doctrines ; until, of " lives " alone, we have between 
 fifteen hundred and two thousand, without apparent hope 
 of abatement in the supply or demand; while, were we 
 to add the pamphlet and pulpit variations, the number 
 would be incalculable. So rapid and signal have the re- 
 cent changes been, that the Jesus and Christianity of to- 
 day are not at all the Jesus and Christianity even of our 
 own youth. Still, men continue to stretch and warp and 
 cramp and mould into the desired shape that singular 
 conglomerate of Gospel materials. Jesus has become
 
 3IO JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the inherited symbol of men's religious ideals and hopes, 
 and must be made to continue to symbolize them, 
 through all changes, and to furnish soul-clothing for 
 each generation, until the cloth has become too thread- 
 bare to be re-stitched. That the truth should not have 
 been approximated until recently, it is not to be wondered 
 at ; since the object was not to ascertain who and what 
 Jesus was, but to establish the existence of the desired 
 Christ. Nor, as we have said, was there a possibility of 
 approaching a solution of that supposed mystery involved 
 in the Gospel narratives, which Mr. Beecher now con- 
 fesses to be insoluble, while they thus attempted to read 
 in them the life, character and teachings of a God. 
 Until we can divest ourselves of our ideal Jesus and of 
 his ideal followers, purposes and surroundings, and cease 
 this effort to force the conduct, character, ideas and life 
 of a man into the moulds of those of a God, the endless 
 riddle must remain unread.- Even freed from these fatal 
 obstructions, neither the record, nor Jesus is easily com- 
 prehended. The man was not understood by his own 
 personal followers, and, were he now living, he would be 
 equally incomprehensible to the same class of minds ; 
 while it would only be to the few, of any class, that he 
 would be at all understood, and then only by professional 
 skill or through psychical and pathological sympathies. 
 
 Recently, there certainly have been approximations 
 towards a true conception of Jesus and the Gospels. 
 Strauss has exposed the true nature of the origin and the 
 true character of the most striking parts of the Gospel 
 narratives. M. Renan has had the courage to strike the 
 key-note to the singularity and mystery in the character
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 311 
 
 of Jesus. Mr. Beecher has dared to think of him, in his 
 humanity, in a manner that is largely true, and still more 
 largely suggestive of the truth. That he failed to see 
 farther was clearly owing to the fact that, to see more 
 was to see too much. 
 
 HIS UNRECORDED LIFE. 
 
 The entire early history of Jesus is unknown, with 
 the exception, perhaps, of the characteristic scene of 
 his truancy at fourteen. That his family resided at 
 Nazareth is sufficiently certain. That they had ever 
 resided elsewhere was never hinted during his lifetime. 
 His neighbors of Nazareth treated him as one reared 
 among them. He was, as we have seen, tauntingly 
 questioned as to his being a Samaritan. Under this 
 charge, he not only remained suspiciously silent, but 
 there are a number of facts which could fairly be cited as 
 evidencing more than ordinary Jewish relations, on his 
 part, with that despised people. Taking the whole rec- 
 ord, we have, however, no sufficient warrant for con- 
 sidering him other than a Nazarene. 
 
 There are certain obscure hints and possible infer-
 
 312 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 ences to be drawn from the conduct and language both 
 of himself and others, which might suggest a query as to 
 his parentage, but reflection would only return us to 
 where we are alone authorized to start, namely : that 
 he was the legitimate offspring of Joseph and Mary. 
 His neighbors expressly claim that he was the son of 
 Joseph. His disciples, during his life, expressly called 
 him the son of Joseph. His mother expressly called 
 Joseph his father, while Jesus not only acquiesced by 
 his silent acceptance of it, but, in direct connection and 
 reply, speaks of God, not as his father, but as his 
 "master." Whatever suggestions may arise from the 
 Gospel narratives, we are only authorized to consider 
 Jesus as the offspring of Joseph and his wife, in due 
 course of law and nature. 
 
 Of the early life of Jesus, Mr. Beecher, in his Life of 
 Jesus the Christ, says "We are to remember that, 
 whatever view of the mystery be taken, there will be 
 difficulties which no ingenuity can solve." This is quite 
 true from Mr. Beecher's stand-point and method. Treat 
 Jesus for what he is claimed to be, and the difficulties 
 and mysteries which surround him are indeed insoluble. 
 Treat him, however, for what he was, and there is no 
 mystery to solve. Did Mr. Beecher fail to perceive the 
 fatal effect of his admission fail to perceive that such 
 difficulties in interpreting the facts upon the orthodox 
 hypothesis as to the nature and character of Jesus, either 
 argues a defective record or a defective hypothesis ? 
 Or, can Mr. Beecher conceive that God would have 
 placed man's eternal destiny at stake upon his belief in, 
 and acceptance of, a scheme of salvation based upon a
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 313 
 
 character and record which " no ingenuity " could com- 
 prehend ? Would he not have had both the desire and 
 the power to have made it comprehensible ? 
 
 Touching the youth of Jesus, Mr. Beecher continues 
 " There was nothing that we know of, to distinguish 
 this child from any other that ever was born. * * If 
 we had dwelt at Nazareth and daily seen the child Jesus, 
 we should have seen the cradle life of- other children. 
 This child was no prodigy. * * If this was a divine 
 person it was a divine child, and childhood meant latent 
 power, undeveloped faculty, unripe organs, a being with- 
 out habits, without character, without experience, a cluster 
 of germs, a branch full of unblossomed buds, a mere seed 
 of manhood. There are certain genuine experi- 
 
 ences which must have befallen Jesus, because they be-, 
 long to human life. He was a child. He was subject 
 to parental authority. He lived among citizens and 
 laws. He ate, drank, labored, was weary, refreshed him- 
 self with sleep. He mingled among men, transacted 
 affairs with them, and exchanged daily salutations. He 
 was pleased or displeased ; he was glad often and often 
 sorrowful. He was subject to the oscillations of mood 
 which belong to finely organized persons. There must 
 have been manifestations of filial love. [Mr. Beecher 
 dared not say the Gospels exhibited such.] * * There 
 is no evidence that he was thought remarkable by his 
 fellow-citizens. On the other hand, none were less pre- 
 pared to see him take a prominent part in public affairs 
 than the very people who had known him from his 
 infancy. * * He was the ' Son of man ' a real boy, 
 as afterwards a most manly man. He knew every step
 
 314 JESUS AND RELIGION 
 
 of growth ; 'he underwent the babe's experience of know- 
 ing nothing, the child's of knowing little, the universal 
 necessity of development. * * The common people 
 heard him gladly. He had sprung from among them. 
 He had been reared in their pursuits and habits. For 
 thirty years he was a man among men, a laboring man 
 among laboring men. * * Who imagines the boy 
 Jesus going or coming at command leaving home, with 
 his tools, for his daily work, lifting timber, laying the 
 line, subscribing the pattern, fitting and finishing the 
 job bargaining for work, demanding and receiving 
 his wages conversing with fellow-workmen, and min- 
 gling in their innocent amusements ? Yet must not all 
 these things have been ? We must carry along with us 
 that interpreting sentence which like a refrain should 
 come in with every strain : ' In all things it behooved 
 him to be made like unto his brethren.' " Thus much 
 of Mr. Beecher's conception : a very frank one for a 
 Christian. 
 
 From his whole language and teaching, as well as 
 from the total absence of the slightest indications of a 
 superior education, and the fact that he is spoken of in 
 the Scriptures as illiterate, we are driven to infer that his 
 general knowledge was limited to such as might well have 
 been acquired by any capable mechanic under conditions 
 and opportunities which may be readily and fairly sug- 
 gested and imagined of himself. Outside of his moral 
 and religious ideas, and, perhaps, a knowledge of certain
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 315 
 
 specific arts and facts, he seems to have merely had the 
 general ideas and knowledge of the class to which he 
 belonged, and those were certainly very crude, primitive 
 and limited. He gave us no new conceptions of this 
 World or of heaven or hell. He believed that the world 
 was swarming with personal devils, who often took pos- 
 session of the bodies of persons, and usurped control over 
 them ; and that he had the power to master and cast out 
 these devils, and regarded it as one of his choicest super- 
 natural gifts, and the source of a large portion of his 
 most telling miracles, sometimes ordering them out by 
 thousands from a single person. The Gospels nowhere 
 deny or question any of these old fetichistic notions, but 
 continue to accept the reality of magic and witchcraft 
 and the significance of dreams, as well as this notion of 
 devils and devil-possession. While, however, his general 
 ideas were those of his class, we must neither assume 
 that he was also their equal in capacity, nor forget that, 
 as a migratory craftsman, he may be supposed to have 
 had opportunities for gathering up almost any known 
 secrets or arts in his visits to Jerusalem and the cities of 
 Syria and Galilee, where he had opportunities for meet- 
 ing both Jews and Gentiles from almost all lands. 
 
 His religious notions, in their general frame-work, 
 corresponded with those of his time and country. On 
 the subjects of a special day of judgment, the existence 
 of a hell, devils and Satan, a future life, and the res- 
 urrection of the body, he seems to have accepted the
 
 316 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 popular notions of the Pharisees. He nominally ac- 
 cepted the Mosaic laws, but he paid little regard to their 
 mere literal or formal requirements, and seems never to 
 have permitted them to interfere either with his wishes 
 or purposes ; and, when attacked for breaches of them, 
 he managed them as his subsequent followers have his 
 own that is, interpreted them to suit himself. He 
 cared more for the spirit of right than for the forms of 
 law, and declared that to love God and your neighbor 
 embraced the whole law and the prophets. He regarded 
 the old law as good in its time, but as having allowed 
 many things to the people on account of the " hardness 
 of their hearts," and contended that the new state of 
 things demanded a higher moral standard and require- 
 ments that, while it was proper to give milk to babes, 
 it was necessary to give meat to men. It is not pro- 
 posed, however, to attempt an exposition of his theologi- 
 cal views, further than they may specially serve to 
 illustrate his character or conduct. 
 
 His moral notions and precepts were certainly admi- 
 rable, and in advance of those of the Jewish Scriptures. 
 But they were neither superhuman nor new ; for every 
 feature of them had been considered and discussed long 
 before he was born. Nor can it be justly claimed that 
 they were theoretically perfect, or that he was, person- 
 ally, a perfect exemplar of them. For, we shall find the 
 scripture quoted so approvingly by Mr. Beecher fully 
 exemplified by him. If it behooved him " in all things "
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 317 
 
 to be made "like unto his brethren," he must neces- 
 sarily have been subject to human errors and frailties, 
 which his life amply proves him to have been. The 
 subsequent declaration of his worshippers that, although 
 tempted in all things like ourselves, yet he was " with- 
 out sin," is clearly an after-adulation, which is not only 
 in direct conflict with this declaration of his complete 
 similitude, in all things, to his brethren, but is in 
 direct conflict with the express declaration of Jesus 
 himself, who, upon being addressed as "good master," 
 frankly and promptly rebuked the woman by replying 
 " Why callest thou me good ? There is none good but 
 God." Had his life and conduct, indeed, for thirty 
 years, been absolutely without sin or error absolutely 
 perfect, as was long afterwards claimed, it would have 
 been quite impossible for his own family and old neigh- 
 bors to have treated either him or his pretensions in the 
 manner they did. A thoroughly tempted, and yet abso- 
 lutely sinless man of thirty years of age, is a far greater 
 marvel and a far higher evidence of direct divine aid and 
 support than any miracle ever claimed to have been per- 
 formed by Jesus, and one which must, at once, have 
 been recognized by all as powerfully corroborating his 
 pretensions. It was the very lack of any such peculiar- 
 ities in his past history which rendered his old neighbors 
 so indignant at his subsequent extraordinary preten- 
 sions. We shall find quite sufficient evidence in the re- 
 corded life and conduct of Jesus to prove the truth of 
 his own declaration that it was not him, but God alone, 
 that was good or perfect.
 
 318 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 What concerns us much more than his religious 
 notions or his moral precepts, are his social and political 
 sympathies, notions and purposes. That he was pos- 
 sessed of a religious nature and of exalted religious aspi- 
 rations is quite true. That he was a Jew, seeking to 
 agitate and control Jews, under a claim of being their 
 Messiah, rendered it a matter of necessity, also, that he 
 should have advanced his purposes, if at all, by means 
 of the religious sentiments and aspirations of the people. 
 For, with the Jew, politics and religion were not only 
 inseparable, but were identified. His politics and social 
 philosophy were a part of his religion. The political 
 element in his religion, however, will be found to have 
 dominated and controlled the public life and efforts of 
 Jesus, and to furnish us the true explanation of his mo- 
 tives and course of conduct. The disastrous result of 
 his political efforts has driven his followers to ignore or 
 explain away the plain facts and purposes of his public 
 life and efforts, but they still stand indelibly stamped 
 upon the pages of the Gospels. The peculiarities which 
 distinguished and controlled Jesus and his destiny were 
 neither his religious nor his moral views, since they 
 were neither singular nor new ; but they were to be 
 found in his social and political views and purposes, and 
 in his own self-estimate and his mental conformation 
 and condition. The plain Gospel facts are : that Jesus 
 had been seduced into definite political aims, and bent 
 all his powers and energies to their attainment ; that he 
 had special and extreme radical notions on social and 
 economic questions, and both preached and practised 
 them; 'and that these aims and views were the main- 
 spring of his course and conduct, and can alone explain
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 319 
 
 them. We shall find that, from the time it entered into 
 his mind to claim the Messiahship, he used every effort 
 of which he was capable to become King of the Jews, as 
 the Messiah was expected to be ; and that he prosecuted 
 this design up to the point of his having himself publicly 
 proclaimed king, and of making a kind of royal and 
 triumphant entry into Jerusalem, for which he was con- 
 demned and executed : all of which we shall more clearly 
 perceive as we advance. It behooves us, then, to en- 
 deavor to comprehend his social and political views in 
 our effort to interpret the man and his motives and 
 conduct. 
 
 Jesus had been born to poverty and labor. Even 
 during his known manhood he lived upon the labor and 
 charity of others, and seemed to exult in proclaiming 
 himself utterly homeless and poverty-stricken. He had 
 personally felt, all his life, the privations, sufferings and 
 sorrows of the poor, as well as the insolences and op- 
 pressions of the wealthier and ruling classes. He had 
 witnessed the hypocritical self and Mammon-worshippers 
 grinding the faces of the poor, under their pharisaical 
 garb of righteousness, as they now do. And, amid 
 these associations and experiences of the poor, he not 
 only imbibed the ideas and prejudices of the poor, but he 
 lent to them the force of his higher capacities, and the 
 intensity of his more exquisite sensibilities. Pie lent to 
 them still more : the desire and purpose of redress and 
 retribution. With the mass of his fellow-sufferers, their 
 wrongs were only a subject of fretful or sullen discon- 
 tent. Not so with Jesus. He had the elements of the 
 Reformer and the Revolutionist too strongly developed
 
 32O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 in his nature to permit of patient submission to oppres- 
 sion and degradation. His spirit was not one of 'sub- 
 mission, but of resistance and domination. 
 
 The socialistic notions of Jesus were very pronounced 
 and fixed. They could not change without a change in 
 the man, since they were the outflow of his emotions 
 and sympathies, rather than the speculations of a Philos- 
 opher or the conclusions of a statesman. His desires 
 and repugnances were the measure of his hopes and 
 aspirations, and he had neither the philosophic insight 
 nor the practical experience to perceive their impracti- 
 cability. He did not reason : he felt. He was aflame 
 with sympathy for the down-trodden poor ; while he 
 burned with indignation and hatred of their oppressors. 
 Neither his sympathies nor his repugnances were of 
 closet growth, but were fiery realities, born and nur- 
 tured from his own experiences and observations. His 
 over-sensitive nature had been goaded, not only into a 
 spirit of resistance and reform, but into a spirit of dom- 
 ination and retribution. His sympathies had not been 
 enlisted for Lazarus, but he could, with exultation, send 
 Dives to Hell. No radical reformer has ever shown 
 himself more bitterly antipathetic and denunciatory of 
 the " upper classes " than Jesus. His bitterness never 
 ceased to flow upon them, like a river of wormwood and 
 gall. He hated self-righteousness and social distinc- 
 tions worse than political slavery. He 'repeatedly and 
 serially denounced every class of the. Jewish people, save 
 the simple and credulous poor who believed in him, and 
 to whom he awarded the inheritance of the earth and 
 the smiles of God. To the meek, humble and suffering
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 321 
 
 he distributed celestial joys with a free hand: for the 
 rich he had the assurance that it was as impossible for 
 them to get to Heaven as it was for- a camel to go 
 through the eye of a needle : an ordeal which his 
 present disciples seem even anxious to brave. He 
 neither proposed to level downwards nor upwards. On 
 the contrary, he uniformly proposed, not merely to 
 destroy distinctions, but to reverse conditions to exalt 
 and reward the poor and lowly, and to humiliate, subor- 
 dinate and punish the higher and wealthier classes. 
 But, while he was no " Leveller," as between the op- 
 pressing and oppressed classes, he both taught and car- 
 ried into practice a system of personal equality and 
 socialism among that humble class who were to " inherit 
 the Earth." Among his followers he practically adopted 
 his doctrine of personal fraternity and of a community 
 of goods : keeping all things in common, and having a 
 common purse. And to rebuke and impress his more 
 ambitious disciples, he declared that he who would be 
 first should be last, and he who would rule should serve, 
 and set them an example of humility by washing all of 
 his disciples' feet. The only wealthy man who openly 
 offered to follow Jesus was driven from his purpose by 
 this demand to distribute his property among the poor. 
 The Jewish and Galilean disciples of Jesus continued to 
 follow his precepts and example, after his resurrection, 
 and kept all things in common. And, so heinous was 
 deemed the offence of evading an entire surrender of 
 their property into the common fund, that it was re- 
 ported and believed that Ananias and Sapphira were 
 stricken dead- for secreting a part of their own estate. 
 That this was both the. doctrine and practice of Jesus 
 
 21
 
 322 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 and of his Jewish and Galilean followers is not to be 
 questioned. 
 
 Both his conduct and teachings gave evidence of still 
 more striking and visionary notions of property and 
 labor. He constantly endeavored to inspire a contempt 
 for property, and denounced the labor, care and provi- 
 dence which secured it. He urged his followers to have 
 no care for the things of this world, but to trust in prov- 
 idence and let every day provide for itself ; illustrating 
 his views by the birds of the air, which were provided for, 
 and by the lillies of the field, which were more gorgeous- 
 ly arrayed than Solomon, although they neither toiled 
 nor spun. When he sent his disciples abroad over Palestine 
 to arouse the people in his behalf, he instructed them to 
 take neither purse nor scrip, but to depend upon 
 providence and charity. He rebuked Martha of Bethany 
 for her anxious labor and care about her household 
 affairs, telling her to expend no care on such things, but 
 rather to choose the "good part" adopted by her sister 
 Mary : Mary being then engaged in idly anointing his 
 own feet with precious ointment, leaving her sister to do 
 all the work. John the Baptist had said " He that hath 
 two coats let him impart to him that hath none : " Jesus 
 went further, and declared that, if a man ask you for 
 your coat, you should " give him your cloak also." All 
 of this is now complacently ignored by his rich and self- 
 satisfied worshippers, but the doctrines of Jesus on the 
 subjects of property and labor cannot be misconstrued 
 without perversity or stupidity. For no facts are 
 more prominently or explicitly set forth in the New 
 Testament.
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 323 
 
 But, How could a divine or perfect being proclaim 
 such utterly impracticable doctrines ? That is a question 
 for his worshippers to answer a question, however, which 
 they will find it impossible to answer upon their assump- 
 tion of the divinity of Jesus. They dare not defend the 
 doctrines as they were plainly and unequivocally main- 
 tained and practised by him and his followers : What, 
 then, will they do ? Will they estimate the man by his 
 principles ai J his acts, or will they force the facts to fit 
 the mould of their assumed character ? Reason would 
 not hesitate a moment for an answer. But, Has Reason 
 anything to do with it ? Reason asserts that these and 
 the like facts are the means, and the only means, of 
 judging and testing his character and infallibility. 
 
 A naked and unexplained presentation of these views 
 would do injustice to the rationality of Jesus would 
 make the matter too visionary even for the extreme and 
 sanguine reformer of Nazareth. To award him the 
 proper justice we must take them in connection with his 
 other views which affected them. He had lived in an 
 age of great spiritual exaltation and expectancy. He 
 had witnessed, and felt the influence of the general and 
 passionate longing for, and feverish expectancy of, the 
 advent of that Messiah whose God-secured triumph was 
 to rend the shackles of the Jew and inaugurate the 
 "Kingdom of God." The stern prophet frpin the 
 desert had announced that its advent was imminent, and 
 had baptised and purified the people to receive it. Jesus
 
 324 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 was not only inspired by the spirit of the time, but 
 became wholly absorbed by it, and endeavored to realize 
 it in his own person. In him, the national craving and 
 delusion found their extremest and most practical ex- 
 pression. Like John, and perhaps inspired by him, he 
 commenced his ministry by proclaiming that the 
 " Kingdom of God " was at hand, and announcing the 
 religious and social doctrines and conditions which he 
 supposed would prevail under the new and divine regime, 
 His zeal and radicalism were more fiery and pronounced 
 than even those of the impassioned ascetic from the 
 desert. He regarded the old order of things as rotten 
 to the core, and imagined that they were on the eve of 
 giving way before the coming " Kingdom of God," in 
 which oppression would receive a righteous retribution, 
 and the suffering and oppressed would find rest and a 
 divine abundance. This new order of things was to be 
 momentarily expected : Why, then, labor and toil for 
 the future, or worry about the needs of the old regime? 
 No unbiased mind can carefully and fearlessly read the 
 Gospels, with this rendering of the facts in view, without 
 finally conceding that it is the true one. It is manifest, 
 then, that we must account for the otherwise absurdly 
 visionary doctrines of Jesus about labor, property and 
 worldly prudence, by these other and still more visionary 
 notions about the immediate coming of the " Kingdom 
 of God," when these economic labors and cares would no 
 longer be needed and God's favored ones would bloom 
 like the " lilies of the field." We are not, however, to 
 always expect even this much consistency in the notions 
 or conduct of this excitable and impassioned young re- 
 former. His views and conduct were progressively
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 325 
 
 developed and modified as he advanced, and were largely 
 controlled by his varying conditions and prospects and 
 still more by the varying state of his own mind, which 
 we shall see rapidly assuming even opposite moods and 
 exhibiting the most startling changes. 
 
 That, however, which more than all else separated 
 Jesus from his fellows and shaped both his ideas and 
 conduct, remains to be considered. Mr. Beecher tells 
 us that he was '-'subject to the oscillations of mood 
 which belong to finely organized persons." This is a 
 very mild way of hinting, or rather apologizing for the 
 real facts. This may have answered to characterize the 
 primitive mental habits and condition of Jesus, and, as 
 such, it would indicate a nature peculiarly subject to be 
 driven into his actual condition in after years ; but Mr. 
 Beecher certainly falls very far short of expressing that 
 over-wrought sensibility and morbid emotional state 
 which gave shape to the visionary hopes and ideas of 
 Jesus during his public career, and resulted in that 
 supreme self-consciousness and that hungering after 
 love and adulation which made him strive to make him- 
 self all-and-all to his followers, the fountain of life and 
 beneficence to those who would only believe in him, and 
 the Messiah of Israel. Nor does he express those ex- 
 treme and frequent oscillations, or rather reversals of 
 mood, often upon the most frivolous occasions, which his 
 known life so clearly exhibits. Mr. Beecher gives us
 
 326 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 merely the germs and predisposing nature leading to the 
 striking super-exaltation of nervous and emotional action 
 which was so plainly manifested in after scenes, and 
 which so promptly arrested his early triumphs and 
 operated so disastrously upon his after fortunes. 
 
 Already, at Cana of Galilee, we have witnessed a 
 moodiness of temper, a mysteriousness of speech and 
 manner, a causeless and abrupt rebuking of his mother, 
 and an uncomplaining forbearance on the part of the 
 mother, which, in connection with her after conduct, 
 leave no room to doubt that the mother was not then 
 taking her first lesson in forbearance, or having her first 
 experience of that morbid mental state which was so 
 soon to cause her to be openly repudiated, and to compel 
 her to endeavor to restrain her son as one "beside him- 
 self." This was probably only one among the many 
 premonitions of those sudden, and often unaccountable 
 fits of exaltation and depression to which he became 
 subject. The Gospels show, that his mental action, his 
 affections, his moods, his opinions and his actions were 
 all extreme, and that his transitions from one extreme 
 mood to another were frequent and striking. He loved 
 those who believed in him, and yet he domineered over 
 them in the rudest manner, often silencing them with 
 apparently uncalled-for rebuke. He often cursed and 
 sometimes wept over his failures, and consigned, with a 
 single curse, a whole catalogue of cities, in which he had 
 chiefly labored, to perdition for refusing to believe in 
 him. One moment he would invite followers by declar- 
 ing that his " yoke was easy and his burden light : " 
 at another he was declaring the utter privation and
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 327 
 
 humiliation of his own condition and that he was a man 
 of sorrow and acquainted with grief, or describing the 
 persecutions and sufferings which awaited his followers. 
 Now we hear him pronouncing blessings on the peace- 
 makers, and anon we hear him declaring that he himself 
 came, not to bring peace into the world, but a sword, 
 and to breed contentions and discord even between the 
 nearest relatives. With one breath he tells us to love 
 our enemies ; with another he is heaping curses, worm- 
 wood and gall upon the heads of his own enemies ; and 
 with still another, declaring that he had refused or 
 ceased to even prfiy for the world, and prayed only for 
 his immediate followers (John xvii. 9). These violent 
 extremes were oftenest aroused by fear, by opposition or 
 by public discussion. When excited by long speaking 
 his extremes knew no bounds. Under such excitements 
 he would declare, that God was in him, and he was in 
 his disciples, and that his disciples were, at the same time, 
 in him, while he himself was in God : that he was the 
 bread of life and the water or well of life, and that if any 
 one eat of him he should never hunger, and that whoso- 
 ever should believe on him " out of their bellies shall 
 flow rivers of living water," and that " except ye eat the 
 flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no 
 life in you." Such wild and incomprehensible speeches 
 astounded some and disgusted others. They drove from 
 him the ignorant multitudes in Galilee which had, at first, 
 flocked around and encouraged him. The strange story 
 about the ventral rivers and a few others scared off the 
 officer who had intended to arrest him and who declared 
 that he had never, heard such talk- that " no man ever 
 spake like this man."
 
 328 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 His extraordinary nervous and sympathetic organiza- 
 tion early exhibited itself in a form which, although 
 common to all ages, has been little understood in any, 
 and which more than anything else, perhaps, tended to 
 the self-delusion of Jesus himself. We allude to his 
 personal magnetism, whatever that may be. That he 
 possessed an extraordinary amount of the personal in- 
 fluence usually called personal or animal magnetism, 
 would seem very evident from the many facts casually 
 stated in the Gospels. His power of impressing the 
 masses ; his wonderful control over his followers ; the 
 picture of John snuggling on his breast like a maiden 
 lover, that of strange children swarming on him ; of one 
 woman following him even to a gentleman's table and 
 sitting at his feet bathing them with her tears ; of 
 another bathing his feet with precious ointment and 
 wiping them with the hair of her head ; all these while 
 he was in his loving and attractive mood ; while, in his 
 reversed mood or revulsion of feeling, we find his awe- 
 stricken questioners standing dumb under the light of 
 his eye and terror of his scathing rebukes or anathemas ; 
 his disciples quailing without a word before his sudden 
 and unaccountable rebukes, or following him in silence 
 and at a distance, or so impressed with his manner that 
 they durst not speak to him; all show his singular mag- 
 netic power. It is in his power of controlling nervous dis- 
 eases and soothing convulsive nervous or mental agita- 
 tions, however, that we shall witness its highest evidences 
 and most palpable manifestations. It was to this hidden 
 and apparently superhuman power of healing and sooth- 
 ing, that he owed the first popular suggestions 
 that he was an inspired person, possibly the Mes-
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 329 
 
 siah himself. And it is more than probable that his 
 consciousness of possessing this mysterious power 
 gave force and shape to his own extraordinary spiritual 
 aspirations and conceits ; and that, coupled with the 
 spirit and need of the times, and the adulations and 
 suggestions of others, it constituted the chief cause of 
 his extraordinary self-deceptions and of his misguided 
 energies. That it formed the principal agency and in- 
 fluence in his cura'i e and soothing performances, would 
 seem the most rational conclusion from all the evidence, 
 and thus it constituted the chief source of his supposed 
 miraculous powers. He had learned, also, the well- 
 established fact of the powerful influence of faith upon 
 men's actions, powers, diseases and senses. His con- 
 ception of its power and influence was, indeed, like most 
 of his other notions, extreme. But to this magnetic power, 
 to the absolute faith of the patient, and to a more than 
 ordinary insight into the nervous type of diseases then 
 so prevalent, we may rationally conclude he was chiefly 
 indebted for such actual successes as he attained as a 
 healer and devil-controller, and for his primary fame 
 among the masses as a wonder-worker (a fame which 
 was fairly dwarfed by that acquired by like powers and 
 performances in that same age, in the adjoining prov- 
 ince, by Apollonius of Tyana). But as we shall further 
 notice these natural causes of his successes we will 
 suspend further notice at present. 
 
 The highly and intensely active and sympathetic or- 
 ganization which gives this magnetic power, would be 
 likely, under such favoring conditions, to result in ex- 
 cessive and abnormal mental action and the derangement
 
 33O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 of the emotional life of its possessor. Such nervous 
 force and activity would naturally tend to produce an 
 emotional and mental activity which would constantly 
 tend to attract and centre the attention of the mind upon 
 its own activities, affections and mysterious psychical 
 .manifestations. With persons so organized and affected 
 the entire thoughts and affections tend to revolve around 
 their own central life. They tend to become introspect- 
 ive and intensely self-conscious and self-absorbed, a 
 condition most, unfavorable to mental health and balance. 
 Such 'would seem to have been the case with Jesus. He 
 more and more tended to centre everyfctiing in himself. 
 He could not allow his followers to be in God : they 
 must be in him, while he was in God. He would not 
 allow God to be in his disciples, but to be in him, while 
 he was in his disciples. He must be the medium and 
 centre for both God and man. He was intense in his 
 sympathies and loves, but the object of his sympathy 
 must have implicit faith in him, and the objects of his 
 love must accept their ideas from him, and derive from 
 him their very bread of life, and in him find the entire 
 satisfaction of their needs and aspirations. He de- 
 manded, in return for his love, an absolutely absorbing 
 devotion and blind faith. His sympathy with the heart- 
 joys and heart-sorrows of others might have been great, 
 yet high over the beating of all hearts were the wild throb- 
 bings of his own. He could neither silence nor mod- 
 ulate them, and others must beat in unison and subor- 
 dination, or produce angry discord in his soul. He could 
 neither brook a superior, nor share the adoration of the 
 multitude or the love of his friends. His friends were 
 welcome to both Earth 'and Heaven, were the boon but
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 331 
 
 received at his hands. He must be their " meat indeed, 
 and bread indeed " they in him and him in them 
 they eating his flesh and drinking his blood, as their 
 very bread and water of life, and then they should " in- 
 herit the earth," and revel in all the joys of Heaven, 
 "without money and without price." Even to such 
 startling extremes as these did his super-exalted and ab- 
 normally concentrated self-consciousness drive him, 
 under the stimulants of popular adulation, the adoration 
 of his followers, the success of his mysterious powers 
 and the excitements produced by the active surveillance 
 and opposition to his enemies. 
 
 Let us now endeavor to recall and realize the utter 
 uncertainty and often the utter impossibility of the 
 asserted facts which we are to confront, as well as 
 the causes w.hich we have already noticed for ques- 
 tioning, sifting and doubting, or rejecting, the Gos- 
 pel recitals of the marvellous traditions and stories 
 invented by after times or told by the superstitious, 
 interested, ignorant, incompetent and excited men and 
 women chosen by Jesus as his witnesses, aiders and 
 followers, let us keep these characteristics of our evi- 
 dence we say, distinctly before us, while we attempt 
 to rapidly follow the high-strung and strangely excited 
 young aspirant through his career of popular wonder- 
 working and on towards that ever-increasing spiritual 
 and emotional exaltation, which led him to the wildest 
 egotism, to his royal entry into Jerusalem, and to the
 
 332 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 cross. To be true to ourselves and to the God of truth, 
 in examining this evidence, we should at least feel an 
 equal obligation to that which we impose upon a grand- 
 juror in investigating an assault and battery that is, to 
 examine it "without fear, favor or affection " examine it 
 as we would if we were reading an account of just such 
 miraculous stories happening now, told by just such wit- 
 nesses, written by we know not who ; of performances 
 by some young wonder-worker in Arabia or Persia, or 
 by some young carpenter of Salt Lake, or by some 
 spiritual medium of Boston, or of our own neighborhood. 
 If we would reject the claims and miracles of the present 
 day, upon like evidence, we should perceive at once that 
 our hesitancy to do so in the case of Jesus, is the result 
 of education, of the awe and terror, inspired super- 
 stition and the threats of damnation, and of the glamour, 
 prestige and sanctity which Religion, Time and Triumph 
 have thrown around the person, life, labors and gospel of 
 the young Reformer of Galilee. If we had been reared 
 at Mecca or Benares we should have found no such 
 hesitancy 
 
 Jesus did not claim, nor, apparently, even imagine, that 
 he was the " Christ," until some time after the com- 
 mencement of his public career as Mr. Beecher con- 
 cedes. His first efforts were those of a healer, and, 
 secondly, those of an Adventist a preacher of the com- 
 ing of the " Kingdom of God." The suspicion that he 
 might be the Mess*iah seems to have culminated in him
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 333 
 
 gradually, the idea having been first suggested to him 
 by others. His mysterious magnetic powers, his con- 
 tinued excitement, his morbid emotions and self-concen- 
 tration, the public excitement and expectation, and his 
 own absorbing interest in the advent of the Messiah, 
 were admirably adapted to foster such a conception in 
 such a mind. But whatever mysterious whisperings 
 may have previously visited his dreams, or whatever ec- 
 centric habits or strange moods may have alarmed his 
 family, he clearly commenced to preach for some other 
 Christ than himself, and some other kingdom than his 
 own. At first he was simply a co-laborer with the Bap- 
 tist, without exhibiting the slightest intimation that he 
 had ever thought of the possibility of his being the Mes- 
 siah. Mr. Beecher, in speaking of this first half of his 
 ministry, most significantly remarks, that, " We shall be 
 struck with three things : the stimulating character in- 
 dicated, the remarkable partnership of word and deed, 
 and absence of all public claim to the Messiahship. No 
 where is there evidence that he proclaimed this truth in 
 his public discourses, and in the abstracts and fragments 
 which were preserved there is nothing of the kind. 
 Neither does there seem to have been that presentation 
 of himself as the source of spiritual life that is so wonder- 
 ful at a later stage of his teaching." No : Mr. Beecher 
 is right : his super-exalted self-consciousness had not 
 engendered the idea of his Messiahship, nor those " won- 
 derful " ones which made him think himself the " source 
 of spiritual life." As yet, although the causes were at 
 work, all things had not concentrated upon, been subor- 
 dinated to, and co-ordinated with, his own central life. 
 Up to the close of his sermon on the mount, and after
 
 334 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 he had won fame throughout " all Syria " as a wonderful 
 healer, he had never once hinted to his hearers his divine 
 nature or Messianic mission. Matthew sums up his labors 
 prior to that period in the following words : " And Jesus 
 went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and 
 preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, and healing all 
 manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the 
 people. And his fame went throughout all Syria : and 
 they brought unto him all sick people that were taken 
 with divers diseases and torments, and those which were 
 possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and 
 those that had the palsy: and he healed them." Here 
 we have not one word of a miracle, of a claim to the 
 Messiahship, or to divinity, or to being the " source of 
 spiritual life." But we have an allusion to the kind of 
 diseases which were treated by him, namely : palsy, 
 lunacy, devil-possession and divers diseases and tor- 
 ments. The terms, " divers diseases and torments," are 
 mere general expressions which are made specific by the 
 subsequent catalogue. Not a single disease is named 
 which is not of a nervous or mental character. It is 
 also- very clear, from the record, that such diseases were 
 astonishingly prevalent, and that it was an age calcu- 
 lated to produce them. And I believe it is agreed 
 among " the Faculty" that, where there is a prevailing 
 cause and type of disease, all other diseases tend to 
 assume, or become complicated with, that type, and may 
 be aided or cured by its appropriate remedies. We 
 have the fact, then, that the diseases treated by Jesus 
 were chiefly of the nervous order, and a probability that 
 most other diseases assumed something of the same 
 type ; and, therefore, may conclude that the magnetism
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 335 
 
 and faith which would be efficient in mental and nervous 
 diseases, would probably prove more or less efficacious 
 in most instances. That he had some power of healing 
 or temporarily relieving diseases, which appeared mys- 
 terious and marvellous to the ignorant multitude, may 
 be regarded as highly probable or certain, and certainly 
 may be conceded without derogating from the claims 
 of natural causation. Perhaps no age or country have 
 been without such men. 
 
 His increasing reputation as a preacher and healer 
 was not, however, destined to continue without other and 
 more striking results. The superstitious and credulous 
 multitude, on the tip-toe of expectancy for the coming 
 of the Christ, began to audibly speculate as to who this 
 man with these wonderful powers might be, and to sug- 
 gest, among other things, in the hearing of Jesus, 
 whether he might not be the " Son of David " the 
 Christ himself, for whom they were daily hoping and 
 looking. Jesus not only felt the full force of the public 
 adulation, but was immediately and astonishingly fired 
 by the suggestion of his being the very Messiah himself 
 whose advent and Kingdom he was preaching. So soon 
 as he got his disciples by themselves, he promptly in- 
 quired of them who the people thought him to be. 
 Upon being answered that they variously considered 
 him as John the Baptist, Elias, and " that prophet which 
 was for to come," he eagerly inquired as to who they 
 themselves took him to be, and Simon told him that he 
 believed him to be " the Christ the Son of God." Here 
 was more than a hint ! His exultation was instanta- 
 neous, and defied all bounds. He blessed Simon " on 
 the spot : " dubbed him " a rock : '' and declared that he
 
 33^ JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 would not only build his church on him, but would con- 
 fer on him the custodianship of the very Keys of 
 Heaven ! This scene compels us to perceive, not only 
 that Jesus had never hinted his divine nature or Mes- 
 siahship, even to his own disciples, previous to this, but 
 that he himself had never very distinctly thought of 
 himself in connection with it until that connection had 
 been suggested from the crowd the very suggestion 
 which had called forth these private inquiries of his dis- 
 ciples. Once suggested, however, the idea instantly 
 took root in a soil so prepared and so appropriate, and 
 branched and grew with tropical luxuriance. 
 
 Once launched upon this Messianic tide, his course 
 became ever more pronounced and self-endangering, his 
 ideas ever more bizarre and visionary, and his self-con- 
 sciousness and self-delusion ever more morbid and ex- 
 treme. Thenceforth, he could not select the men who 
 were to influence his destiny. He was examined and 
 watched by men who indeed looked for the " Son of 
 David," but who also had interests at stake and an in- 
 telligence to satisfy men who would prostrate them- 
 selves before him if he proved to be their expected 
 Messiah, but who would investigate his pretensions, and, 
 unless satisfied, would oppose him as a dangerous im- 
 postor and agitator. Up to that time he had had matters 
 pretty much his own way, because he had been in the 
 way of nobody else. Thenceforth we shall see him en- 
 countering enmity, opposition, espionage and personal
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 
 
 dangers. He will be found, under the excitement of 
 these dangers and adverse surroundings, growing in his 
 self-estimate and increasing in his spiritual intensity and 
 in his political activity and demands. He will be found 
 to concentrate his affections more exclusively upon his 
 faithful followers, and to care less for the mass of the 
 class he blessed in his Sermon on the Mount, and to 
 become more bitter against the opposing classes that 
 menaced his person and opposed his projects. He will 
 be found oscillating more wildly between the extremes 
 of affection and anger. The tone of the " beatitudes," 
 of the Sermon on the Mount, will become lost in the 
 echoes of the oft-repeated " woe be unto you." His 
 scathing denunciations of the entire'wealthy, intellectual 
 and influential classes, together with his insulting refusal 
 to give them any sign or evidence of his pretended Mes- 
 siahship, had thrown the upper and official classes into 
 a bitter opposition to him and his pretensions, and 
 thenceforth he could but reap what'he had sown. He 
 had, from the first, refused their overtures, defied and 
 denounced them, and they feared, hated, and finally de- 
 stroyed him, in their turn. 
 
 But the young and fiery reformer, with his absorbing 
 self-concentration, was not the man to yield without a 
 struggle. He chose the masses, and threw himself upon 
 them for support. His " warrior words," as Mr. Beecher 
 calls them, rung out clearly and defiantly. The very 
 curses which brought upon him the vengeance of the 
 Temple party, endeared him to the beggared and suffer- 
 ing populace of Galilee, and might any moment ignite 
 the inflammable masses of Jerusalem itself. Here lay 
 
 22
 
 338 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 his hope. He had cut himself from all chance of any 
 other, and he knew it. And, as dangers and difficulties 
 thickened around him, his defiance of his enemies grew 
 more fierce, and his efforts to win or recover the masses 
 grew more designing and intense. He no longer ap- 
 peared simply as the blesser and healer of the multi- 
 tudes. Miracles were rumored abroad thick and fast, 
 and of kinds ever more startling : these, and these alone, 
 could arouse the superstitious masses : other claims there 
 were none to offer. The burden of his speeches was no 
 longer " repent ye, for the Kingdom of God is at hand," 
 but " he that believeth on me shall have eternal life, and 
 he that believeth not shall be damned." 
 
 Having conceived his Messianic designs, he attempt- 
 ed to set on foot an organized agitation throughout the 
 entire Jewish population of Palestine. His chosen dis- 
 ciples were commissioned, instructed, and sent forth to 
 proclaim the advent of the Messiah. To enable these 
 disciples the better to convince the people, he conferred 
 upon them the "power and authority over all devils and 
 to cure diseases" Nothing could more clearly evince 
 the fact that he was totally ignorant of the nature of the 
 powers which he actually possessed. His uncompre- 
 hended personal powers had inspired him with a belief 
 that they were divine powers put at his disposal. His 
 solemn bestowal of " power and authority over all devils 
 and to cure diseases," consequently, ended as might 
 have been expected, but greatly to his disappointment. 
 His disciples could neither manage the devils nor the 
 diseases. He had failed in conferring the " power and 
 authority." Still, as a matter of course, he never sus-
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 339 
 
 pected the fault to lie in the nature of the powers them- 
 selves, or in his own power to confer them. The only 
 solution possible to him was, that the disciples them- 
 selves had lacked faitJi : something which they, of all 
 things, least lacked. Their uniform and unquestioning 
 obedience, and their present readiness to go forttuand 
 trudge over Palestine on foot, without money and with- 
 out scrip, with this solemnly conferred power over devils 
 and diseases as their sole commission and voucher, were 
 certainly supreme evidence of a supreme faith. His 
 mistake, however, was a very natural one : he misunder- 
 stood the power and his power to confer it. 
 
 This failure of his disciples left Jesus wholly depen- 
 dent on his own powers for maintaining his pretensions 
 even before the masses : a matter which became even 
 more necessary, not only to his hopes, but to his per- 
 sonal safety. His own mental labors, anxieties and ex- 
 citements increased with these ever-increasing demands 
 upon his already overwrought, overworked and over- 
 excited mentality. Events and dangers thickened upon 
 him. He was compelled to assail, to defend, to evade, 
 to elude, or to take to down-right flight, as the exigencies 
 of his wonderful destiny demanded. And, through it 
 all, there was but one hope : he must retain or recover 
 his hold upon the ignorant, fickle and wonder-loving 
 multitude which had first given shape to his aspirations, 
 and which had ever been the one possibility of his hopes 
 from the beginning. He approached, indeed, to that 
 point at which his very life was dependent upon his sup- 
 posed power to influence the multitude. The popular 
 favor, won by his healing and wonder-working, became
 
 34O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 his sole dependence for personal safety, as it had always 
 been his sole chance of success, even for heading a 
 Jewish rebellion. To his thaumaturgic efforts, there- 
 fore, was he finally reduced for his sole hope of success, 
 and even for personal safety. Judge him leniently 
 thenceforth ! 
 
 Before closing this chapter it may be proper to ex- 
 plain that, in speaking of animal magnetism, we do not 
 intend to endorse the doctrines of Mesmerists, Biologists, 
 Spiritualists or Clairvoyants, or the idea of any " spirit- 
 ual sphere " or odylic or other new or strange force, but 
 simply to assert that Jesus possessed, in an eminent 
 degree, that personal and physical influence over the 
 nerves and feelings of others which is a power we sup- 
 pose to be indisputable. With the personal qualities 
 which produce this influence, and the cause or mode of 
 its production, we are not essentially concerned. We 
 are concerned only to know that some such personal in- 
 fluence exists, and that Jesus and others believed that he 
 possessed it, and that it was a superhuman power resid- 
 ing in his person concerned only with the phenom- 
 ena, and not their source or cause.
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 341 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES CONTINUED. 
 
 WITH the insight already gained into the character 
 mental condition, beliefs, purposes and environing con- 
 ditions and circumstances of Jesus, let us serially ex- 
 amine the recitals of his so-called miracles, in the light 
 of common sense and upon the supposition of the pos- 
 sibility of miracles. 
 
 The first transaction recited by Matthew which is 
 claimed to have been a miracle, is that of healing a 
 leper (ch. 8). It is stated that Jesus, being applied 
 to, touched a leper with his hand and healed him, and 
 ordered him to go and report himself to the priests at 
 Jerusalem (for examination under the Mosaic law) 
 That which is at once fatal to this narrative is, that there 
 was no witness as to any part of the transaction save the 
 patient and physician ; and Jesus expressly enjoined it 
 upon his patient to " tell no man " what had occurred. 
 Whoever wrote the account, therefore, could have no 
 higher authority for his assertions than mere rumor or 
 hearsay. Nor are we even informed how, or why, it be- 
 came rumored abroad after this express requirement to 
 permit " no man " to know of it. We have, then, accord-
 
 342 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 ing to the record itself, not only nothing which can be 
 called evidence that any such occurrence took place, but 
 we find that such evidence as might have been had was 
 forbidden. But had the leper have written the account 
 himself, it would have been but the unsworn statement 
 of an unknown man. And, even from the statement as 
 it stands,-^have we any competent authority as to the 
 stage and condition of the disease ? To determine this 
 was a matter of skill, in which the priests were specially 
 instructed ; and it was for their decision as to the fact of 
 his cure, that he was ordered to present himself to them, 
 at Jerusalem. The man does not declare himself healed, 
 nor was he competent to determine that fact. Long 
 after Jesus had passed away, the unknown writer of this 
 narrative says that the man was healed, as he would have 
 said and believed of anybody whom Jesus had tried to 
 cure. But, How did he know that the man was healed ? 
 Or, How are we to know it ? It does not appear that the 
 priests so decided, nor that the man ever started or pre- 
 tended to go to Jerusalem. He may have died in an 
 hour afterwards, for all the evidence we have in the 
 Gospel. And yet this is what they call stating and 
 proving a miracle ! There is not a particle of evidence, 
 much less proof, of anything. 
 
 Second. The second miracle is in the same chapter. 
 We are told that a centurion desired his servant healed, 
 but only asked that Jesus should "speak the word," 
 without going to see the patient. Jesus replies " Go
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 343 
 
 thy way, as thou hast believed so be it unto thee." We 
 are then told by the writer, that in that " self-same hour " 
 the servant was healed. But, how are we, or how did 
 he, or even the disciples, know that fact ? For the fact 
 that the centurion even had a servant, or that he was 
 sick at all, we have only this asserted statement of an 
 unknown Roman soldier who, for aught we know, or they 
 knew, might have been quizzing the young Rabbi, when 
 no one was sick, just to see what he would do. The 
 very fact that he voluntarily requested Jesus not to visit 
 the patient, and his suspiciously-sublime faith and the 
 seemingly mock humility with which he recites his own 
 greatness and yet deprecates his unworthiness to have 
 Jesus come near him all to prevent his coming to see 
 his patient, would seem to give color to such an interpre- 
 tation of his object. Luke's account, not only plainly 
 conflicts with Matthew's, but further confirms this idea. 
 Luke says (ch. 7) that the centurion did not come to 
 Jesus at all, but " sent unto him elders of the Jews " to 
 beseech him to heal his servant, professing himself to be' 
 unworthy to come before Jesus ; and that Jesus actually 
 started to go, but when he approached the house, the 
 centurion " sent friends " to tell him not to trouble him- 
 self to come into his house as he was unworthy such an 
 honor. The centurion, with Eastern politeness, managed 
 to avoid either meeting Jesus or have him enter his 
 house. The matter looks singularly like a practical joke 
 or quiz. And, considering the parties and their then 
 positions, such a fact would not have been improbable, 
 nor s-trange. Of the fact of the cure we have nothing 
 but the supposition of the writer. For it does not 
 appear that any of them ever knew or were informed of
 
 344 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the result, at any time. Nor would the fact that the 
 man's fever left him, or that he got better from that time, 
 be the slightest evidence of a miracle or that the mere 
 wishes of Jesus had anything to do with it. Such coin- 
 cidences happen daily. 
 
 Third. We are next told (ch. 8) that the mother-in- 
 law of Peter lay sick of a fever, and that Jesus took her 
 hand and the " fever left her." But, How long did he 
 hold her hand, and how soon, and how completely, did the 
 fever leave her? Had the time arrived for an inter- 
 mission of the fever at that hour ? Did the fever return 
 again ? Will any one competent to investigate a miracle 
 deny the importance of the facts suggested by these 
 questions, to the decision of the question of a miraculous 
 cure ? And yet none of them are answered or met by 
 the narrative. As it stands, there is no assertion, even, 
 of a permanent cure, or of facts to assure us that the re- 
 lief came through Jesus. But, even conceding that 
 Jesus did relieve her or cure her by " putting on of 
 hands," is that a proof of divine power or a proof of 
 the very reverse of a physical or magnetic influence ? 
 Surely the answers to these questions cannot be doubt- 
 ful. The power or influence may have been unusual 
 and even extraordinary, but it is not supernatural ; and 
 the very fact that he habitually brings himself into 
 physical connection with his patients, shows that it was 
 a physical influence. With such faith in the patients, 
 and such physical connections with the healer, such cures
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 345 
 
 cannot be called even "marvellous:" the examples 
 have been too numerous to permit them to be regarded 
 as such. The fact that the influence proceeded from the 
 body of Jesus through means of contact and was aided 
 by the faith of the patient, was unquestionably recognized 
 by Jesus and doubtlessly by his followers, but, while this 
 would be fatal to his miraculous pretensions, with us, 
 such facts would not at all alter their miraculous char- 
 acter according to their ancient and very different 
 notions about miracles. To Jesus and his followers 
 they would still have been miracles. One thing is to be 
 observed in this connection. No estimate can be formed 
 of the real amount or duration of his personal contact or 
 manipulations from these accounts. In this very case 
 Matthew merely says " he touched her hand," while 
 Mark says, of the same case, " he came and took her by 
 the hand and lifted her up ; " and Luke says " he stood 
 over her and rebuked the fever'' 
 
 Fomth. We are next informed, in the same chapter, 
 that, while in the Lake Gennesaret in a storm, " he re- 
 buked the winds and there was a great calm." Mark 
 adds, that " the waves beat into the ship, so that it was 
 now full, and he was in the hinder part of the ship asleep 
 on a pillow." There is no statement, even, of a miracle 
 here. Just how they could have managed to continue 
 their voyage with a ship " full " of water, or how Jesus 
 could have slept on his " pillow " in a fishing-smack in 
 such a storm, and have to be waked up but of a ship
 
 340 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 already '-'full" of water, is by no means clear. That 
 they should not have aroused him, not only for their own 
 sake, but for his own safety (if he could miraculously 
 sleep under such circumstances), is quite incredible, un- 
 less the so-called storm was but a sudden squall of wind 
 which momentarily endangered them and caused them to 
 ship more water than was comfortable. Both their con- 
 duct and that of Jesus forbid any other conclusion. If 
 for no other cause than their own safety, they would 
 have appealed to " all hands," much more to their all- 
 powerful Master, so soon as real danger threatened 
 them ; and they actually did so. For, notwithstanding 
 the stereotyped addendiun of their " astonishment " 
 (after he had done what they asked him to do) we find 
 they did think he could save them ; for, when the peril 
 was on them, they came and woke him, saying, " Lord, 
 save us : we perish" or, as Mark has it, "Master, carest 
 thou not if we perish." The whole facts, as stated, 
 are incompatible with any danger, save from a sudden 
 " squall " of wind. But what then ? Why simply this, 
 that when the momentary squall had passed there would 
 be a " great calm " as such sudden squalls are ordinarily 
 both preceded and succeeded by such calms. They are 
 mere violent puffs of wind of a few moments' duration, 
 ordinarily occurring in sultry, calm weather. But, Did 
 not Jesus "rebuke the winds?" Ve y possibly: but 
 just how the winds felt about it, is not so clear. No 
 doubt it had the effect intended that is, to encourage 
 his panic-stricken disciples. Caesar effected the same 
 purpose, in a storm, when he called upon his boatmen to 
 remember that they carried Caesar and his fortunes.
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 347 
 
 Fifth. We have next, in the same chapter, the casting 
 out the devils from " Legion." Upon going into the 
 country of the Gergesenes, or, as others more properly 
 have it, of the Gadarenes, that is, into the city or town 
 of Gadara, Jesus and his disciples met two fierce madmen 
 who dwelt among the tombs of the city cemetery, and were 
 dangerous to persons passing. According to both Mark 
 and Luke there was but one, who was called " Legion." 
 The devils who possessed this " Legion " (let us follow 
 the majority) called out in that set, stereotyped style so 
 common to all the devils everywhere, " What have we 
 to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of God ? Art thou come 
 hither to torment us before the time ? " They then 
 beseech him to suffer them to enter into a herd of 
 swine which were some way off a herd which we else- 
 where learn, numbered 2000. Jesus was considerate, and 
 sent them into the swine. But the swine performed the 
 extraordinary feat of running into the sea and drowning 
 themselves ; for which the people respectfully invited 
 Jesus to leave their city. 
 
 Were it possible for any mind to give a second 
 thought to such a story as this, if told in our day, several 
 very pertinent questions would press for an answer, i. 
 Was not the "whole city " well justified in appealing to 
 Jesus, en masse, " to depart out of their coasts" for such 
 a wanton and wholesale destruction of their swine ? 2. 
 What sea were these ill-used hogs drowned in, and What 
 were the "coasts" of 'this "whole city?" Gadara was 
 an inland town, situated on the rocky and almost isolated 
 hill which forms the terminus of the mountains of Gilead 
 inhabited by Jsraelitish people. It was a mountain
 
 348 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 town, having neither coast, lake, nor sea near it. The 
 writer of the miraculous narrative supposes it a seaport 
 city with its "coasts " and its sea, to ingulf the vast herd 
 of swine. There was no water near it that would drown 
 a single pig. 3. Was not 2000 swine rather a large 
 lot to find herding in one body especially along the 
 barren and rocky slopes of Mount Gilead ? 4. Was 
 it not still more singular that they should have been so 
 fortunately at hand on that special occasion ? 5. Was it 
 not an incomparable marvel that such a drove of hogs 
 should be found herded around a Hebrew city whose 
 divine laws forbid the use of pork at all, and to whose 
 people it was an abomination ? For these Gadarenes 
 were a branch of the tribe of Manasseh. 6. Could all 
 Israel have exhibited so many swine, from the days of 
 Moses down ? 7. What right had Jesus to cause or per- 
 mit the perpetration of such cruelty upon these dumb 
 creatures, or the wanton destruction of such a vast 
 amount of other people's property merely to gratify 
 a host of demons ? If it was merely to show his power, 
 without caring for consequences, would it not have been 
 well to have somebody to see and be convinced ? And, 
 Would it not have proved more successful had he have 
 ordered back the hogs to life and to shore again ? 8. If 
 devils did control the beings they entered, as they were 
 supposed to do, Why did the devils drive them into the 
 sea and drown them, after they had begged for them, so 
 beseechingly, as a shelter for themselves ? 9. What be- 
 came of the devils ? Were they drowned also ? 10. Does 
 it not require a faith as all-engulphing as a maelstrom, 
 to reflect that each of these 2000 hogs must have had at 
 least one whole devil to inspire and direct it, and still
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 349 
 
 believe that the whole of these 2000 devils had their 
 abode, and found room for desirable quarters, in the one 
 human body of poor Legion ; and that the man could 
 still live while infested with this diabolical host ? How 
 large are these devils ? are they trachina ? 
 
 That this one poor Israelite could have constituted a 
 pandemonium for such a host of demons ; that there 
 should also happen to be just the 2000 hogs to accommo- 
 date them, feeding on the rocky slopes of this Israelitish 
 and pork-despising city ; that a special sea and coast 
 should be created for the sole purpose of drowning these 
 hogs ; that these 2000 microscopic devils should have in- 
 habited one man, and should know all about Jesus and the 
 approved mode of addressing him as the " Son of God," 
 and should have gotten permission to seek a home in 
 those, unoffending pigs and then, forthwith, have driven 
 them to destruction in that "unknown sea," and thus 
 deprive themselves of their anxiously-sought shelter and 
 these poor Hebrews of such a host of swine, that all 
 this should have actually happened is rather too much 
 miracle for a single dose. 
 
 Let us not pass, however, so suitable an opportunity 
 as this for noticing this statement and belief about 
 devils and devil-possession, which is so often repeated in 
 the Gospels. Every class of enlightened people now 
 fully understand that the ancient belief in dreams, 
 witchcraft, magic and devil-possession was a mistake, 
 notwithstanding all these beliefs are directly inculcated, 
 or recognized as true, by the Bible. We feel no surprise, 
 and make no complaints, that these beliefs were prevalent 
 in that early age, knowing that they constitute a nat-
 
 35O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 ural phase of beliefs in the progress of human develop- 
 ment, everywhere. But, when we are called upon to 
 base our religion and salvation upon miracles which con- 
 sist of casting out devils, and thus curing persons who 
 were actually devil-possessed, then these beliefs cease to 
 be mere matters of curious history, and concern us most 
 profoundly. We are called upon to either admit the ex- 
 istence of these devils or to discard the pretended mira- 
 cle ; and, in doing so, to confess the ignorance or char- 
 latanry of their professed worker. Can we believe that 
 such small demoniac beings exist in such hordes upon 
 the earth, and that they enter into men or animals, and 
 live in them like parasites, controlling their actions and 
 maliciously torturing them ; conversing with outside 
 persons in any and every human language ; having 
 knowledge of remote and hidden facts requiring a uni- 
 versal " clairvoyance," and even an insight into the hid- 
 den councils of God ? Does not every one kn'ow that 
 the phenomena which ancient and unenlightened people 
 attempted to account for by the presence and control of 
 devils, were but manifestations of insanity, and that under 
 this belief, the singular notions and conduct of Jesus 
 himself subjected him to the open charge of having a 
 devil-? And yet this sinless, perfect and inspired man 
 and incarnate God, Jesus, did unquestionably believe 
 in them did unquestionably pretend to talk to them 
 and to ^command and control them at his pleasure ! 
 and the Gospels show us, not only that this casting 
 out devils was his most frequent miracle, but was the 
 one upon which he himself specially relied to prove 
 that his own power was from God, and not from devils. 
 If Jesus did not believe in them, he was a charlatan from
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 351 
 
 the beginning a charge for which there is no sufficient 
 warrant in the facts. Yet to really believe in them was 
 in direct derogation of all his superhuman pretensions. 
 What solution, then, remains but that which is both the 
 consistent and true one, namely : that he did believe 
 in them, like all men of his time, that he was but 
 human, and was humanly mistaken. His casting out 
 devils, what there was of it, was the result of the influ- 
 ence and control which his magnetic, and other personal 
 powers exerted over the nervous functions and derange- 
 ments of others. Insanity, in its multiplied forms, was, 
 indeed, the finest field for the display of his chief and 
 most mysterious power. The supposed talk of the de- 
 mons to Jesus was, of course, through the lips of the de- 
 moniac, that is, it was the madman himself talking. 
 The wonderful knowledge which enabled them to know 
 Jesus and to proclaim him the " Son of God " in a style 
 of address so uniform and in such direct conformity, not 
 with what Jesus then preached, or with what any of his 
 followers then believed, but in conformity with what was 
 believed when the Gospels were written, shows their or- 
 igin clear enough. They were mythic mouldings of the 
 supposed scenes in their own language and in conform- 
 ity with, and in support of, their own subsequent notions 
 and purposes, by the Evangelists or others, long after 
 the resurrection had given a new phase to the preten- 
 sions ot Jesus, and a new direction to the aims and hopes 
 ot his followers. The men who wrote them knew no 
 more of the language actually used in those long-forgot* 
 ten dialogues than Josephus or Plutarch knew of the 
 long speeches which they recite verbatim, and yet, of 
 which they could know nothing.
 
 352 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Sixth. The next miracle (ch. 9) was the curing of 
 a man with the palsy a nervous prostration. This 
 case presents but one new feature. All the rest may be 
 accounted for in like manner as the relief of other ner- 
 vous affections have been accounted for. But Jesus 
 here varies his terms in addressing the patient, saying 
 " Thy sins be forgiven thee," instead of saying '' Arise, 
 and walk," or "Be thou whole or clean." This incensed 
 the Pharisees. But Jesus explained that it was as easy 
 to say the one thing as the other, and cited as a proof 
 that he had power to forgive sins, the fact that he could 
 heal the man's sickness. This seems a striking non-se- 
 quitor to those who are not familiar with the notions of 
 undeveloped peoples. In the days of Jesus the people 
 thought that all diseases were sent upon men on account 
 of their sins. They had no conception of natural causes 
 or afflictions, but regarded afflictions as a divine punish- 
 ment. Hence, Jesus thought that, as he had healing 
 powers, he must, of course, \&NQ. forgiving powers :- for, 
 was not curing the disease a remission of the penalty of 
 the sin ? This is another striking illustration of how 
 fully Jesus was imbued with the simple and primitive 
 ideas of his time and class. 
 
 Seventh. The next " marvellous work " is found in 
 the same chapter, and consists of the alleged cure of a 
 woman " diseased with an issue of blood twelve years," 
 by her touching his garments. Upon being thus touched, 
 Jesus turned and said " Daughter, be of good comfort,
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 353 
 
 thy faith hath made thee whole." The writer then tells 
 us that " the woman was made whole from that hour." 
 A moment's consideration must show that this assertion 
 of a cure must have been the mere inference or conclu- 
 sion of the writer or of his informants. And we are not 
 only furnished with no facts showing any opportunities 
 for forming an opinion about the matter, but the nature 
 of the facts and circumstances are violently presumptive 
 that even the disciples who might have been present had 
 no means of knowing the cure which was presumed and 
 reported. The woman approached and touched Jesus 
 as he passed on to see another patient. He turned and 
 spoke to her and passed on. The woman herself said 
 nothing about so delicate an infirmity or its cure, nor 
 was anything else said to her. No one could tell, on the 
 public road, what immediate effect was produced, not 
 even the woman herself ; while her future condition or 
 cure could only be determined by time. The whole case 
 shows, that here, as in other cases, the followers of Jesus 
 assumed the success of his powers and virtues from the 
 sole fact that he exerted them. There occurred in this 
 case, not a single fact from which a cure could be infer- 
 red, nor is there a hint that the woman spoke then of her 
 cure or that she was ever heard from afterwards ; while 
 the nature of the disease would forbid any discussion 
 or examination of the matter by the witnesses. Jesus 
 said, " thy faith hath made thee whole " and of course 
 the woman -was whole. Such were the modes of believ- 
 ing and of asserting, and such were the miracles which 
 were believed and asserted, by those simple and san. 
 guine believers in Jesus. The case proves but two 
 things the woman's hopes of relief, and the accepted 
 
 23
 
 354 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 notion as to the source from which his healing virtue 
 emanated, namely, from his body ; since the woman in- 
 tended to touch him secretly, believing that to be suffi- 
 cient without his knowing anything about it. His body 
 was regarded as being a kind of charm or fetich with 
 healing virtue in it, just as his name afterwards came to 
 be regarded as having cabalistic power, in itself. 
 
 Eighth. The next miracle is recited in the same 
 chapter, and consists of the alleged cure or resurrection 
 of the daughter of Jairus. The recitals of this occur- 
 rence are admirable examples of the characteristic care 
 and reliability of those who furnish us our gospel evi- 
 dence, and of the manner in which miracles were gotten 
 up and reported in those days. This is claimed as an 
 instance of his bringing the dead to life. According to 
 Matthew, the father, on coming to Jesus, said " my 
 daughter is even now dead." Mark has the same matter 
 thus " my little daughter lieth at the point of death" 
 This difference between being actually dead and being 
 at the point of death makes all the difference in the 
 world between the effects of these two accounts. It 
 changes the operation from a miracle to no miracle 
 from making one live who was dead, and making one 
 better who was still living. Mark, or some interpreter, 
 has improved his account by adding that they were told 
 on the way that she was dead. Jesus himself, however, 
 puts this whole matter at rest. Having, doubtlessly, 
 inquired of the father as to the symptoms or nature of
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 355 
 
 the disease, as they were on their way to see the girl, he 
 twice declared that it was not a case of death, but that 
 the girl only slept ; meaning, doubtlessly, that she was 
 in a state of lethargic or cataleptic sleep, or something 
 beyond ordinary repose. What are we to say then ? 
 Did Jesus plainly tell the truth ? or, Did he plainly tell a 
 direct and positive untruth ? Are we to presume that 
 Jesus lied, in order that we may prove one of his as- 
 serted miracles ? 
 
 But the singular features of these accounts do not end 
 here. Matthew says that, " When the people were put 
 forth, he (Jesus) went in and took her by the hand and 
 the maid arose." Mark says, that he took with him into 
 the girl's room three of his disciples and the girl's pa- 
 rents, which would seem to conflict with Matthew's ac- 
 count ; the latter clearly implying that the people were 
 turned out to allow the physician to see her alone. But, 
 What, according to Jesus' statement of her condition, 
 occurred ? Simply, that Jesus succeeded in awakening 
 this sleeping girl from her abnormal sleep. This was 
 all. What was the matter with her, or what became of 
 her is not even referred to. There is not miracle enough 
 here to detain us. 
 
 Ninth. The next miracle is found in the same chap- 
 ter. Two blind men, it is said, came to him and asked 
 to be healed. And, on being assured that they had faith 
 in Jesus, he touched their eyes and said, " according to 
 your faith be it unto you ;" and it is said their " eyes
 
 356 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 were opened " that is, their sight was restored. While 
 Jesus uses here his accustomed remedy of putting their 
 eyes in contact with his body, he evidently had not the 
 faith in its efficacy which he had in cases of more evi- 
 dently nervous origin. He used other physical remedies 
 in eye-diseases, as we find, and he here exhibits a cau- 
 tion not customary in strictly nervous diseases. He in- 
 terrogated these men, specially, as to whether they be- 
 lieved he could cure them, and took the precaution to 
 announce their cure conditionally. If they were not re- 
 lieved there would be no difficulty : it was their lack of 
 faith. He also took the precaution, as in the case -of 
 leprosy, to " straightly charge them " to " see that no 
 man know it." He evidently did not desire to get a 
 reputation for healing such diseases. 
 
 We have here, also, the same difficulties, so con- 
 stantly met with, as to the real condition of the men's 
 eyes both before and after the operation. The writer 
 says -they were blind, but so he had just represented 
 Jairus' daughter as dead, when Mark represents her, at 
 the same moment, as only on the " point of death," and 
 when Jesus positively averred that she was not dead. 
 The writer gives no fact by which it can be even in- 
 ferred that he either knew, was informed, or could rea- 
 sonably be supposed to be informed, as to their con- 
 dition or cure. There were no witnesses present, and 
 the men were "straightly enjoined " to tell it to "no 
 man." Surely we cannot rely upon such evidence to 
 prove a miracle. If these men' had been allowed to tell 
 of the matter, might we not have found that Jesus really 
 performed other physical operations upon their eyes, as 
 we know he did in other cases where the eye, ear or
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 357 
 
 tongue were concerned ? May not the desire to conceal 
 these ordinary operations, and his necessity of using 
 them, have been the chief motive for his injunction of 
 secrecy ? and may not they have been the very matter 
 which was to be so " straightly " guarded from leaking 
 out? Can any one suggest even a plausible motive 
 which is consistent with the assumed character and 
 mission of Jesus, why he should have desired to keep 
 these cures secret any more than that of Jairus' daugh- 
 ter or others which were publicly performed ? And 
 again : Is it not of profound significance that it is just 
 those classes of diseases which would be wholly unlikely 
 to be affected by magnetic and by mental influences, in 
 which we find Jesus taking the men aside and operating 
 without witnesses, and also operating with ordinary phys- 
 ical means, and also giving the strictest injunctions of 
 secrecy ; while he fearlessly and openly trusts the mental 
 influence of faith, and the bodily or magnetic influence 
 through contact, in " casting out devils " and other ner- 
 vous derangements ? We find in this case, that these 
 men followed Jesus on his departure from the house of 
 Jarius, where he had performed a feat whose fame, we 
 are informed, " went abroad into all that land ; " and 
 that as they followed him they were " crying, saying, 
 Thou son of David have mercy on us." All this Jesus 
 neither replies to, nor notices, a thing most contrary 
 to his usual habit. But as soon as they follow him into 
 the house, where he is alone and out of reach of public 
 observation, Jesus, without a word further on their part, 
 said to them " Believe ye that I am able to do this ? " 
 and proceeds with his remedies, whatever they were. 
 Are we mistaken in saying that there is something very
 
 358 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 significant in all this matter ? If there is not evidence 
 that there was a miracle performed here, Is there not a 
 link in a whole chain of evidence cropping out through 
 the Gospels, which will lead us towards an explanation 
 of both the miracles and the miracle-worker ? 
 
 It seems, also, that, after all this strict injunction of 
 secrecy from their benefactor, these men evidently did 
 not regard it as applying to the fact of the cure itself, 
 for we are told that, " when they were departed " they 
 " spread abroad his fame (not his processes) in all that 
 country." Is not this highly confirmatory of the view 
 we have taken concerning these strict injunctions of 
 secrecy ? Is it not clear that they were attempts to 
 conceal the remedies, and not the fact of cure ? 
 
 Tenth. The next is found, still in the same chapter. 
 Here is all of it : " They brought to him a dumb man 
 possessed with a devil. And when the devil was cast 
 out, the dumb spake," not another word of it. Here 
 we have one of those moody, silent victims of insanity 
 brought to Jesus. Whether the case was of long stand- 
 ing, was intermittent or remittent, or how it was, we are 
 not told. It does not appear that the man was born 
 dumb, but only that he had a " dumb devil ; " for so soon 
 as the devil was cast out, the man spoke. Right here 
 such powers as those of Jesus evidently would meet 
 with their natural success. Many men have had most 
 marvellous powers of influencing and controlling even 
 madmen, and the difference between men in this regard
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 359 
 
 is known to be very great. Jesus simply induced a 
 sullen madman to speak when those about him had 
 failed to do so : this was the miracle ! To men who 
 supposed that he had to cast out of the man a living devil 
 that controlled him and refused to let him speak, the 
 feat appeared to be a great marvel, as showing his power 
 over the very devils themselves. But, I doubt whether 
 such a control or influence over an insane person would 
 be regarded, by any commonly informed person of our 
 day, as being at all marvellous, much less miraculous. 
 
 Eleventh, The next miracle was the restoring of a 
 "withered hand" (chap. 12). We are told that, after 
 having offended the Pharisees by permitting his disciples 
 to pluck corn to eat on the Sabbath, Jesus went into the 
 Synagogue, where the Pharisees awaited him, hoping to 
 get occasion for accusing him on account of exercising 
 his healing profession on the Sabbath. There was a 
 man present who is said to have had a " withered hand ;" 
 and Jesus, not only claimed his right to heal on the Sab- 
 bath, but made this man stretch forth his hand, and it is 
 said that the hand " was restored whole, like as the 
 other." Whether Jesus did anything to it does not ap- 
 pear. The Pharisees seem to have recognized no miracle 
 or divine power in what occurred in their presence, as, 
 doubtlessly, we should not were we cognizant of the 
 whole facts. But the accounts of it, as a public exhibi- 
 tion of a miracle, are conspicuously brief, and have a 
 suspicious verbal identity in all three of the synoptical
 
 360 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Gospels in which it appears ; while the terms used by all 
 are such as might cloak deception. They all call it a 
 " withered hand," the command and the action touching 
 the stretching out of the hand are nearly identical, while 
 the cure is stated verbatim in all, save that Matthew, in- 
 stead of saying " as the other hand," says " like as the 
 other hand." There was no one examined the hand either 
 before or after it was stretched forth, nor was there any 
 examination of the other hand before the feat. Nor are 
 we told that the hand was ciyed, but each uses the same 
 terms, (with the insignificant exception mentioned,) and 
 tell us that it was restored whole " as the other." But, 
 How whole was the other? Why do all mention that it 
 was made whole as the other hand, instead of simply 
 saying it was cured or made whole ? Might it not have 
 been as whole as the other, before ? Who examined, or 
 knows ? There was no precaution taken against pre- 
 concert, nor have we any statement of the extent to 
 which the hand was withered or restored, save the com- 
 parative and rather suspicious one mentioned. And, 
 while the meagreness of the recitals and the similarity 
 of the extent and wording of them prevent us from get- 
 ting any certain clue to the facts, there is, also, no nega- 
 tiving of the facts which would destroy it as a miracle. 
 From the fact that this performance was in the presence 
 of his enemies, there is more reason for suspecting man- 
 agement and collusion here than in ordinary cases ; for 
 the Gospels inform us that he could perform no mighty 
 works among the Nazarenes, because of their unbelief, 
 could, in fact, do nothing but heal a few sick folks. 
 Perhaps a knowledge of this difficulty in the presence 
 of opponents may have suggested pre-arrangements.
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 361 
 
 There is no difficulty in the matter if we suppose collu- 
 sion, and the difficulty in, and disinclination to, suggest 
 collusion is much lessened by the fact that Jesus was 
 already in personal danger from the very men before 
 whom he performed, and was compelled to go into hiding 
 from fear of them, on account of this very transaction. 
 The resorting to this explanation, although perfectly 
 legitimate both on principle and from the facts, is not 
 deemed necessary here, as a natural explanation is not 
 negatived by the statement, much less by the evidence. 
 Of real, legitimate evidence we have not one particle on 
 the subject. 
 
 Twelfth, We have in the twelfth chapter still an- 
 other miracle. We are given neither the evidence nor 
 the recital of a miraculous performance, but merely the 
 assertion that there was " brought unto him one pos- 
 sessed with a devil, blind and dumb : and he healed him, 
 insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw." 
 This is all of it. The mode in which he cured him 
 is not referred to at all. Surely, to say that a doctor 
 or professed healer cured an afflicted man, is not 
 to assert that he performed a miracle on him. And 
 yet, this is simply all it does say. When nothing 
 but the mere fact of cure is mentioned, we certainly 
 have no right to assume the remedy, much less as- 
 sume it to have been a miraculous one. Had this not 
 been the case of a single individual, indeed, it would not 
 have been referred to, but have been classed with those
 
 362 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 general and wholesale declarations concerning the 
 " works " of Jesus, which call for, and permit of, no ex- 
 amination. 
 
 Thirteenth. In the fourteenth chapter we have the 
 first of the famous miracles of the "loaves and fishes." 
 Immediately after the execution of John the Baptist and 
 the" return of his own disciples from their tour of agitation 
 and of preaching the coming of the " Kingdom," Jesus 
 and his disciples entered into a vessel, proposing to go 
 to a " desert place," (that is, a retired, uninhabited place,) 
 belonging to Capernaum, called by one Gospel a 
 " mountain." Matthew differs from Mark in stating the 
 facts about the multitude's following him (Mark vi.). 
 Matthew says the people heard of his going, and followed 
 him. Mark says that " the people saw them departing, 
 and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all 
 cities, and out went them, and came together unto him. 
 And Jesus when he came out, [of the ship,] saw much 
 people," etc. So that, we are to understand the distance 
 was but short, that the people were informed of the par- 
 ticular place to which he was going, and, it would seem,- 
 were there to meet him when he came out of his vessel, 
 and that it was on his account that the people went out, 
 although he himself had left privately and by water. 
 We are told that this multitude who thus spontaneously 
 followed him, amounted to five thousand men, besides 
 the women and children. Making a fair estimate, under 
 the circumstances here, the number of the women and
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES, 363 
 
 children would be more likely to exceed than to fall 
 below that of the men. There would, therefore, have 
 been a crowd of some ten thousand or more persons, in 
 all. This multitude spent the day, in that unfrequented 
 spot, with Jesus and his disciples. When it "was 
 evening," and the " day was now far spent," his disciples 
 are said to have suggested the propriety of dismissing 
 the assembly to enable them to return to their homes 
 and the " villages " to get food. Jesus proposed to feed 
 them there ; and, upon being told that there were but 
 five loaves and two small fishes to be had, he ordered 
 the multitude to be seated on the ground : which was 
 accordingly done, as other Gospels tell us, in com- 
 panies of hundreds and fifties. He then takes the bread 
 and the fishes and breaks or divides them into separate 
 rations, both of fish and bread, for each person present, 
 and hands these rations to his disciples, who carry them 
 round and distribute them to the several persons com- 
 posing the multitude. We are then informed that the 
 people eat until they were " filled ; " and that, after they 
 had thus filled some ten thousand people, the disciples 
 went round and gathered up twelve baskets full of frag- 
 ments which the people had failed to eat. This was 
 the miracle. 
 
 Before considering the after occurrences of the day 
 or forming an opinion as to the probable actual object of 
 this gathering of the people, let us pause to consider the 
 consistency and credibility of the Gospel recitals up to 
 this point. 
 
 And first, Why did these able-bodied men take a
 
 364 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 " ship " to go so short a distance a distance that women 
 and even children walked ? The people were both told 
 of his going and saw him go. It could not have been to 
 prevent those who followed him from knowing his desti- 
 nation or from coming to meet him, for they were not 
 only apprised of the secret spot, but was there before 
 him. So it could not have been to gain time or elude 
 the people who thus favored him. Had this been so, in- 
 deed, he would not have left his vessel and remained all 
 day with the people, but would have continued his voyage 
 until he had found the seclusion he sought. His meet- 
 ing them there could not have been accidental on his 
 part, nor could such a crowd be gathered in so lonely a 
 spot, several miles from the city, without having previous 
 warning and some sufficient common motive. Nor can 
 the going in a ship for so short a distance be rationally ac- 
 counted for, unless there was some object in taking the 
 vessel, beyond the mere purpose of transporting them- 
 selves. For the distance was not only very short, but 
 their usual mode of travel was on foot, and Jesus actually 
 preferred to return by land, after all the fatigues of the 
 day. And yet, all that the ship appears to have done, was 
 to go and return with them. The inference is very strong, 
 then, that the ship was used to convey something which it 
 would have been inconvenient, or imprudent, to carry by 
 hand. The taking of the ship was clearly for an object 
 which has not been permitted to reach us, and this is 
 the only presumable object. 
 
 But, again : What was the object of this immense as- 
 sembly in this desert or retired spot ? A movement, en 
 masse, like this, to a definite out-of-the-way place, to
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 365 
 
 spend the day, does not take place without some com- 
 mon and well-understood purpose, or source of attraction. 
 The fact that a popular man or performer leaves such a 
 place as Capernaum by ship, " privately," to go to a pri- 
 vate and retired spot for a private purpose, cannot ac- 
 count for an immense crowd of men, women and children, 
 from the surrounding country, moving on foot to the 
 very same " desert " or lonely spot to which he had pri- 
 vately determined to sail by ship : no, not even if a few 
 citizens, or even many citizens, were to see and recog- 
 nize him as he sailed off. Jesus and his fishermen- 
 disciples had often sailed off from Capernaum in that 
 same way without finding any such multitude awaiting 
 them or meeting them at their destination to spend the 
 day. The attempt of subsequent writers to give an air 
 of spontaneity to this movement, and to produce the im- 
 pression that Jesus and his disciples had no idea of 
 meeting the people there, cannot command the slightest 
 rational credence. 
 
 The next question for consideration is, How could 
 there have been collected so vast a multitude ? Surely, 
 Capernaum would send out no such multitude. Matthew 
 says they followed him on foot "out of the cities /" while 
 Mark says that, as they were departing, " many knew 
 him and ran on foot thither out of all cities" ' But when 
 the disciples came to speak of dismissing the multitude, 
 they recognized no place near them as a city, but 
 designated the places within reach as " villages " in- 
 cluding Capernaum. Making all proper allowance for 
 ancient proclivities to exaggerate numbers, and especially 
 where the effect is to heighten a miracle or wonder, it is
 
 366 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 incredible that such a number of people, much less 
 such a number of believers in Jesus, would have been 
 collected in Capernaum and have gone on such an 
 excursion, without having been brought, largely, from 
 other cities or places for a common purpose. 
 
 What was this purpose ? The transactions of the 
 day ought to have exposed it. But upon this point the 
 Gospels are singularly reticent. Mark sums up the 
 performances preceding the miracle by saying " he 
 began to teach them many things" Matthew sums it 
 up thus : "and he healed their sick." Luke advances 
 so far as to say, that he spoke to the people of " the 
 Kingdom of God, and healed them that needed healing." 
 John says nothing about it. The only performances 
 which are intentionally disclosed, then, were those of 
 his every-day life in their midst. Why go out to this 
 " desert place " to perform these ? If he cured by 
 divine power he could have cured them anywhere and at 
 a word. If he preached about the expgcted "Kingdom" 
 only what he taught openly in the Synagogues, Why 
 make women and children walk some three miles to this 
 lonely spot to hear it? What was it he now first 
 " began " to teach them ? 
 
 In looking at the accounts of the miracle itself, still 
 further questions present themselves. Granting, for the 
 moment, that Jesus had power to multiply or magnify 
 the provisions, How is it possible for one man's hands 
 to go through the physical motions of dividing and hand- 
 ing to others this amount of provisions some forty 
 mule loads, within the time indicated, unless they were 
 oiled with lightning ? Where did he deliver out these
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 367 
 
 rations ? from the ship where their things were stored, 
 or from some place of deposit to which they had 
 brought them ? Did anybody, save the disciples, see 
 this frightful legerdemain in dividing and handling the 
 provisions, and this appalling swelling of the bread and 
 fish ? Could that superstitious multitude be kept quietly 
 seated and eating, in ranks of fifties and hundreds, while 
 witnessing this awful process ? Could they be induced 
 to touch, much less eat, the " uncannie mess " while 
 witnessing its unnatural production and distribution ? 
 To see one man break bread and divide fish and hand 
 them out for distribution at the rate of about four or five 
 pieces per second, to the amount of forty mule loads, 
 and all coming from five loaves of bread and two little 
 fishes, was a sight which would have produced a general 
 " stampede " of all those who had not already fainted ! 
 For this, be it remembered, is not alone a question of 
 the spiritual power of Jesus, but one involving the 
 physical possibilities of his human body and the effects 
 of his actions upon the minds of offers. And again : 
 How could those men, during the brief time indicated, 
 have counted, ranked and located that number of un- 
 disciplined men, women and children into fifties and hun- 
 dreds, then personally supply each with rations of both 
 fish and bread, and then go round and pick up all the 
 fragments ? For all this had to be done from the time 
 it was already " evening " and when the " day was far 
 spent " and the time when the crowd was dismissed to 
 go home or to the surrounding villages and while they 
 were sitting waiting for their food. Is it not manifest 
 that it would be a brilliant full day's work for a dozen 
 men, even if they could perform it all in that time?
 
 368 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 And again : Why were the fragments of food which 
 were left on the ground picked up and saved ? What 
 was done with them? There could be no object in 
 picking them from the ground but to save them. If 
 Jesus could create fish and bread at this rate, however, 
 Why save these scraps, scattered on the ground, which 
 none but the poorest people would use ? The motive 
 of economy will not consist with such miraculous re- 
 sources. And no other motive can be assigned, of an 
 honest character, for this act of economy. 
 
 But still again : Why were those twelve baskets there 
 at all? For what purpose did a dozen men, who took 
 but five loaves and two little fishes for their lunch, take 
 with them twelve empty baskets, just one for each 
 disciple who carried provisions, and none for Jesus who 
 did not ? Can any man conceive that a dozen men 
 would bring a dozen baskets, under the alleged circum- 
 stances, without pre-arrangement and a specific purpose ? 
 Why do we never hear of these baskets happening to 
 be on hand except at these miraculous fish-feasts, and 
 yet always find them then and there ? and why do these 
 baskets never bring anything, but just happen to be on 
 hand, on both those two occasions, just in time to carry 
 something a^vay; and that, too, something which, accord- 
 ing to the accounts, nobody anticipated would be there to 
 &? carried back ? A true solution of the facts concerning 
 those fish-feasts should furnish an explanation of so 
 marked and characteristic a feature of the occasion as the 
 presence of these dozen provision baskets. Their pres- 
 ence had a purpose in connection with the contemplated 
 proceedings of the day : What was it ? The contemplated
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 369 
 
 proceedings, according to the Gospel accounts, not only 
 furnish no excuse for bringing them, but shows that 
 there could have been none. They do not even tell us 
 how the baskets came there. But, surely, they did not 
 spontaneously walk there " on foot," like the multitude ! 
 nor did Jesus create them ! 
 
 And again : Why was fish and bread, and fish and 
 bread alone, furnished the people? This was just the 
 same kind of food that the disciples themselves had for 
 their own use. If there was real divine power used to 
 create the food, it did not require the few loaves and 
 fishes to work upon. He could just as easily have 
 furnished food from a stick or from nothing, or have 
 converted their lunch of fish and bread into the most 
 wholesome and delightful viands and beverages, and 
 have had tables appear spread with them, as to do what 
 he is said to have done. Why, then, this meagre bill of 
 fare of cold fish and bread, to be served in baskets, to be 
 eaten from bare hands, and to be partaken on the bare 
 ground? Why have we fish and bread (at both these 
 fish miracles) without vegetables, fruits, beverages or 
 any other kind of meats ? Let any mortal attempt to 
 answer these questions and they will find but one 
 rational one, namely that they were not able to furnish 
 any other. This was simple fishermen' s-fare, and this 
 they could furnish, poor as they were. 
 
 Let us now examine some of the recitals following 
 24
 
 3/O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 those of the miracle. As to the proceedings after the 
 collection of the fragments John's narrative essentially 
 differs from the others. These variations will be found, 
 also, to be very suggestive and significant. After 
 stating the miracle Matthew tells us, that "Jesus con- 
 strained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go be- 
 fore him unto the other side, while he sent the multitude 
 away, and when he had sent the multitude away, he 
 went up into a mountain apart to pray." John gives us 
 quite a different story, and assigns a comprehensible 
 reason for the course pursued. He says " then those 
 men when they had seen the miracle which Jesus did, 
 said, this of a truth is that prophet that should come into 
 the World. When Jesus therefore perceived that they 
 would come and take him by force and make him a king, 
 he departed again into the mountain himself alone. 
 And when even was now come his disciples went down 
 into the sea and entered into a ship," etc. 
 
 This statement of John gives the first hint for the 
 solution of so many unusual and unaccountable things. 
 This hint is found in the result of the meeting, namely : 
 an enthusiastic desire to proclaim Jesus, king, on the 
 spot. This chief and, in fact, only result is never 
 hinted by either of the other Gospels. With this clue, 
 let us endeavor to solve the mystery of this singular 
 gathering a solution, as I think, not even difficult. 
 
 As this was the first of those large .secret meetings
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 371 
 
 which most conspicuously mark the signal change which 
 actually occurred in the proceedings of Jesus, we natur- 
 ally expect to find unusual causes and conditions 
 preceding it, which will account for the unusual size 
 and composition of the assembly, as well as for its 
 privacy and for its evident pre-arrangement, etc. For 
 no assigned or apparent purpose, sufficient fragments of 
 the actual facts are disconnectedly stated to enable us to 
 recover the chief facts and purposes controlling the 
 movement. Jesus had been in the midst of his most 
 hopeful schemes and greatest activity for securing the 
 popular support to his own accession to the throne of 
 the Messianic Kingdom which he and the Baptist had 
 been preaching. Although he had not, as yet, clearly 
 and publicly proclaimed himself as the Messiah, the 
 purpose to do so had been formed and had been shaping 
 all his recent plans and actions. His political aspira- 
 tions and plans had been assuming definite shape and 
 his " warrior words " as Mr. Beecher calls them had 
 begun to ring out with firmer tone. He had sent out 
 his twelve disciples to canvass and arouse all Palestine, 
 and to prepare the people for the advent of the Messiah, 
 which he assured them would happen before they had 
 finished their tour of preparation ; telling them that 
 he had not come to send peace on Earth, but a sword 
 (Matt. x. 23, 34). His disciples had gone forth on 
 their mission and had just returned to Capernaum to 
 report to their master. These returned disciples had 
 also reported to Jesus the fact that Herod had just 
 executed John the Baptist the first great agitator of 
 this politico-religious excitement and expectancy about 
 the Christ. It is at this point, also, that he was first
 
 3/2 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 informed that Herod's suspicions were aroused against 
 himself, and that he was making inquiries concerning 
 him. Our accounts show that there were present, at 
 the "desert place," delegations or persons from "all 
 cities," that is, from the various cities of Palestine, who 
 had been in Capernaum, and had followed on foot as 
 Jesus had left by water. This was a gathering which 
 was wholly unusual in such a place as Capernaum, and 
 was a fact to be kept from exciting the attention or 
 suspicion of the officials of Herod and the enemies of 
 Jesus. Such were the chief facts influencing and inter- 
 preting the events in question. 
 
 The first question which presents itself is, Why 
 did all those people from the cities of Palestine meet at 
 Capernaum where Jesus was, and go out to spend the 
 day with him and hear him preach and see him perform 
 at that retired spot, several miles from the town, on that 
 special occasion ? Why so unprecedented an arrival of 
 strangers from "all cities" just at the time of the 
 arrival or return of the twelve disciples from their 
 missionary labors through those cities, about the re- 
 sults of which the Gospels are so profoundly reticent ? 
 Is it not incredible that, in the then inflammable and ex- 
 pectant state of the Jewish mind, those twelve men 
 could have visited any Jewish city, with their enthusi- 
 astic proclamations of the miraculous works and preach- 
 ing of Jesus, without exciting such an interest in the 
 minds of some of the highly expectant disciples of the 
 Baptist or in other sanguine persons, in this new and 
 wonderful man, as would create a desire to see and hear 
 him for themselves? When, therefore, we find such men
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 373 
 
 from the various cities actually assembled in the. city 
 where Jesus had remained, and find them going out to a 
 specific private place to spend the day with him, just 
 after the return of his emissaries, and find no assigned or 
 conceivable cause for such an extended ingathering of 
 people from " all cities " save that which they actually 
 united in exhibiting, and find all of them informed of 
 the fact and place of meeting, when we see all these 
 concurring indicia Are we not irresistibly led to 
 associate their presence with the labors and return of 
 the disciples, and to connect their motives with the 
 presence and performances of Jesus ? Are we not con- 
 firmed in our conclusions, also, when we find that their 
 presence and conduct (otherwise so inexplicable and so 
 incongruous with the impression which the after record 
 of them would convey) become completely rational and 
 comprehensible by assuming the interpretation of them 
 to which all the facts so directly point ? Does not the 
 whole mystery vanish when we' suppose these men to 
 have been instigated by these emissaries of Jesus to meet 
 them at Capernaum and see and hear Jesus for them- 
 selves, and that they were there, under the direction and 
 management of the disciples, for that special purpose ? 
 Is not this conclusion, at once, legitimate and rational, 
 and the only one that is consistent with, and explana- 
 tory of, all the facts ? 
 
 But Why this retirement to a private and lonely spot 
 several miles out of town ? This unusual place for 
 preaching is also accounted for by our rendering of the 
 facts and motives. This was a politico-religious meeting, 
 gotten up and managed by Jesus and his disciples for
 
 374 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the purpose of advancing his claims to the Messianic 
 throne of Israel the throne of David. This movement 
 was then in its greatest activity and promise. Jesus had 
 long since attracted the attention and won the ill-will of 
 the official and intelligent classes of the Jews, and now 
 his activity and boldness before the masses and the 
 efforts of his followers to arouse the whole country had 
 awakened the suspicions of Herod (his own immediate 
 ruler), who had just executed the predecessor of Jesus 
 in this Messianic agitation. Both these facts, as we 
 learn, became known to Jesus through his disciples, just 
 after their return and immediately before this meeting 
 in the " desert place " was determined upon. These 
 new facts rendered it both impolitic and dangerous to 
 assemble these strangers within sight of the public and 
 there discuss the Messianic claims of Jesus his claim 
 to rule even over Herod himself, and to have men clam- 
 oring to have him proclaimed King at once. And while 
 it would not do to let these strangers go away without 
 an endeavor to satisfy and secure them, it became neces- 
 sary to do so with prudence and privacy. To this end 
 a lonely spot or " desert place " along the lake shore 
 (which we learn, from the distance mentioned in the ac- 
 count of the return by water, was several miles from Ca- 
 pernaum), was selected for this important meeting. 
 Having determined this, the disciples and their families 
 made the necessary preparations to secure the success of 
 the meeting, perhaps with aid from unmentioned friends. 
 As the people would go on foot and remain during the 
 day, a chief part of their preparations would consist in 
 cooking and furnishing food for the hungry, to keep 
 them in a favorable humor ; for while the substantial
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 375 
 
 friends in Capernaum ' could be notified to provide for 
 themselves, many others, and especially the strangers, 
 could not be expected to do so. As the secret convey- 
 ance of these provisions to the ship and the waiting on 
 the multitude and witnessing the operation of supplying 
 food could only be trusted to his faithful coadjutors, 
 there would be required just one basket to each of the 
 twelve disciples. Both the baskets, and such provisions 
 as the baskets would not contain, would be stowed away 
 in the vessel, out of sight. To have carried these pro- 
 visions by land was too troublesome and too public. 
 Their fishing-smack was the very thing both for con- 
 venience, for secrecy and for suggesting and aiding the 
 miracle. Of course these poor fishermen could furnish 
 only such provisions as their trade furnished and as 
 they used themselves, and such as could be cooked by 
 their families, namely, cold bread and fish. This was 
 fishermen's fare, and this was what was furnished. 
 
 We can now understand the strange fact of twelve 
 baskets (and exactly twelve) appearing, all at once, in 
 that " desert place." There were thirteen men, but Jesus 
 did not need a basket for his part. We can also under- 
 stand why these thirteen stout and habitual walkers 
 should take a ship to go where women and children 
 walked. We can also understand exactly why they had 
 their ordinary fish and bread always " loaves and 
 fishes " for their miraculous dinners. We can under- 
 stand, also, why these poor fishermen acted, not as if 
 they had a miraculous larder always on hand with unlim- 
 ited resources, but as if they were willing, like other 
 poor people, to save all the fragments they could fcr 
 their families at home. The chief scene, also, like all
 
 3/6 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 thaumaturgic displays when once comprehended, be- 
 comes supremely simple in this common-sense light. 
 Let us endeavor to grasp the outlines of the scene of 
 the miracle. The fish and bread provided for the occa- 
 sion is either still remaining below hatches on their ves- 
 sel, where one man can stand and hand out baskets full 
 of rations, and refill the baskets when their contents 
 were distributed : the stock of food being invisible to 
 those who were not looking down the hatches or below 
 the boat deck. Or, if you choose, those fishermen have 
 selected some small cave or concealed angle or each/ on 
 the shore (with every inch of which they were so famil- 
 iar) as a place for the stowa land concealment of their 
 provisions a natural convenience which has probably 
 determined the selection of that particular spot for their 
 meeting. Here, as at the vessel, the provisions could 
 only be seen as they were handed out by the distributor, 
 by those who were seated, or even standing, at a little 
 distance from them. The people are not allowed to 
 stroll round and pry into the operations "behind the 
 curtain." All this has been taken care of. Before the 
 operations commenced, the people were all seated on the 
 ground at a place and distance selected by the performers. 
 They were probably indefinitely divided off, by the eye, 
 into twelve squads ; one to be waited on by each disci- 
 ple, for the sake of preventing confusion ; the squads 
 numbering between fifty and a hundred, and making an 
 assembly of nearer one, than five, thousand people. No 
 one can see the operation called miraculous, nor was 
 any one invited to inspect it, nor was there any proceed- 
 ing which was not under the direction and control of 
 the performers. The people were ordered to be seated
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 377 
 
 in such manner as suited the managers, and they there 
 eat what was brought to them and believed what was 
 told them. Beyond this, so far as the accounts them- 
 selves show, they neither did, nor saw anything. The 
 only marvel to them was how so much provision came 
 there. It was unexpected. They were allowed to hear 
 a brief dialogue between the performers about there 
 being but " five loaves and two little fishes " and to wit- 
 ness the stereotyped " astonishment " of the assistants 
 at the wonderful proposal of their master, by way of re- 
 minder and example of the real astonishment they them- 
 selves ought to feel at the results. In other words, they 
 were indirectly told that there were but two fishes and 
 five loaves of bread present, through means of this confi- 
 dential cha't among the actors ; and they never thought 
 of questioning and examining as to the truth of the mat- 
 ter. Such a crowd of ignorant, undeveloped and hungry 
 people listen, and gape, and wonder, and believe, and 
 eat : they do not question, criticize or investigate. 
 Even now, when a mere juggler steps upon the stage 
 (as I have witnessed), and says he holds a pack of cards 
 in his hands, no one stops to suspect that they are not 
 an ordinary pack of cards. And, when he allows them 
 to select any card from the pack and then tells them 
 that it is the " five of clubs," they wonder how he pos- 
 sibly could know it. But their- astonishment is still 
 greater, at their own stupidity, when the performer, who 
 has agreed to expose his own tricks, shows them the 
 cards, and they find that they are not an ordinary pack 
 of cards, but are all " fives of clubs." The gaping crowd 
 rarely think about the matter other than they are told, 
 and when they try to do so they always think too late or
 
 378 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 at the wrong place. They usually allow the real source 
 of the deception to pass before they are aroused to think 
 at all. 
 
 This miracle has been thus noticed at some length, 
 not only on account of its apparent magnitude and the 
 numbers present, but chiefly on account of the light 
 which it throws upon the political schemes and move- 
 ments of Jesus. These must now be gathered, indeed, 
 from the Gospels ; but they must be gathered in defi- 
 ance, as it were, of the purposes of their authors. After 
 the utter and contemptible failure of the efforts of Jesus 
 to become " King of the Jew's," and after they had 
 brought him to an ignominious crucifixion for attempt- 
 ing it, there was no longer a possibility of defending his 
 pretensions to be the Messiah the triumphant succes- 
 sor of the royal David, whom the Jews were expecting. 
 To speak of these efforts and pretensions was to bring 
 up a picture of humiliating failure, ridicule and disgrace 
 a failure over which Jesus had, himself, wept. The 
 only hope left, rested on his supposed resurrection. 
 The new assurance "of immortality which this was sup- 
 posed to furnish, and his moral, religious and popular 
 social doctrines were the elements upon which the sub- 
 sequent church and faith were built. It became neces- 
 sary, thenceforth, to ignore, suppress or modify all his 
 political aspirations, purposes and movements, as far as 
 it was possible for them to do so ; and to remould his 
 life, character, designs and actions on the new model cf 
 a " Divine Saviour" as a substitute for the original one
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 3/9 
 
 of an aspirant for the Messianic throne of Israel, and 
 one who had openly disclaimed having a mission to any 
 people save the Israelites. Hence it is that his early 
 boyish life and manhood are wholly ignored, and that we 
 have no connected account of his public life and pur- 
 poses, but only disjointed fragments of them, mainly 
 such as were deemed necessary or proper to the intro- 
 duction of his teachings and miracles and to show his 
 known and final fate. Thus the whole latter part of a 
 public career which was devoted to the attainment of 
 the throne of Judea, and which culminated in his tri- 
 umphal entry into Jerusalem as " King of the Jews " and 
 his crucifixion for this very act of treason against the 
 Roman government, upon his own confession, is only 
 known to us as it can be gathered from such fragments 
 as it was deemed necessary to relate for other purposes 
 and such facts or incidents as it was found difficult, or 
 deemed unnecessary, to suppress or change. Hence it 
 is, that his emissaries, twelve at one time and seventy 
 at another, traversed all Palestine to arouse and prepare 
 the people to accept and support his claims to the Mes- 
 siahship, and yet we hear nothing of their manoeuvres 
 or successes have only silence. Hence it is, that we 
 learn of his having secret friends among the ruling and 
 political classes, but have no mention of their names, 
 their purposes or their actions, save the incidental and 
 necessary mention of Nicodemus and Joseph of Ari- 
 mathea in the trial and crucifixion scenes : the revolu- 
 tionists who had anything to lose, having kept behind 
 the curtain. Hence it is, that we have no regular expo- 
 sition or discussion of his plans and movements, but 
 only unexplained and disconnected transactions. To have
 
 3&O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 given such, would necessarily have exposed what it had 
 become all-important to ignore and conceal namely, his 
 politico-religious aspirations, efforts and failures. Hence 
 it is, also, that, in mentioning such scenes as this politico- 
 religious meeting for the sake of getting the benefit of 
 the miracle, their accounts are so meagre and unexplan- 
 story, and that they attempt to put a face upon the 
 matter which is so incongruous and unnatural which is 
 so evidently a mere mask. They were really unable to 
 appropriate the transaction and mould or weave the real 
 facts and conditions to fit their new theory of Jesus and 
 his character and designs ; and, in attempting to do so, 
 have only succeeded in throwing together an inconsist- 
 ent and incongruous story which equally fails to satisfy 
 us or to cover the true skeleton of the facts and purposes 
 which they expose. That we have sufficient left us to 
 recover the clue to the main purposes, causes, conditions 
 and acts, is owing, not alone to the inherent difficulty of 
 adapting old and real facts to a new and false set of 
 characters, motives and purposes, but also to a want of 
 skill and capacity in the writers themselves, as well as 
 to their own inability to perceive their inconsistencies 
 and exposures, and to a carelessness arising from their 
 knowledge of the credulous and uncritical classes for 
 whom they then wrote, and of the utter unlikelihood of 
 their either questioning or investigating their statements 
 or conclusions. From the stand-point they would im- 
 pose upon the reader, their accounts are wholly incon- 
 gruous and incomprehensible and often inconsistent and 
 contradictory. 
 
 Fourteenth. As the disciples returned from this 
 same meeting by water, night and storm overtook them ;
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 38! 
 
 and they were compelled to row lustily against the surf 
 as they approached their accustomed landing. Here 
 Jesus, who had returned by land, awaited their approach. 
 We are apt to be deceived by the mode of stating the facts 
 in this case, unless we take the pains to analyze them. 
 John says that " they saw Jesus walking on the sea." It 
 is said, again, that " when they had rowed about five and 
 twenty, or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the 
 sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship." We could infer 
 by this language that they saw him out that distance in 
 the lake and where none could approach them save by 
 water. Matthew tells us, also, that Peter attempted to 
 walk on the water to where Jesus was standing, but was 
 only rescued from sinking by the hand of Jesus. Mark 
 impresses us with a different conception. He says that 
 " the ship was in the 'midst of the sea, and Jesus alone 
 upon the land. And he saw them toiling in rowing : for 
 the wind was contrary unto them : and about the fourth 
 watch of the night he cometh unto them walking upon 
 the sea, and would have passed them. But when they 
 saw him walking on the sea, they supposed it had been a 
 spirit and cried out : For they all saw him and were 
 troubled. Be of good cheer : it is I ; be not afraid. 
 And he went up unto them in the ship : and the wind 
 ceased. And they were sore amazed in themselves be- 
 yond measure and wondered. For they considered not 
 the miracle of the loaves, for their hearts were hardened" 
 None mention Peter's mishap except Matthew, while 
 Luke ignores the whole matter as unworthy of notice. 
 As the matter would now stand, we should be at a loss, 
 not only to account for the alleged miracle, but to form 
 any conception of where the boat was. Mark has it in
 
 382 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the " midst of the sea," while Jesus saw them from the 
 land. Now, at the " fourth watch " of so stormy a night 
 as this, they must have been almost at the very shore to 
 have enabled a person on land to see them, and especially 
 when they could talk back and forth. But we are 
 again relieved by John. After using the general terms 
 quoted, he tells us that when Jesus came aboard " imme- 
 diately the ship was at the land whither they went" 
 The obscurity clears up as we read this last sentence 
 and take it in connection with Mark's account. The 
 words of John are positive and unequivocal that, " im- 
 mediately" upon Jesus jumping aboard, they were, not 
 only at land, but at their own landing. What an in- 
 sight does this give us into this ancient miracle-making 
 and into the reliability of the Gospel accounts of them ! 
 Here were these ignorant and superstitious fishermen 
 . battling with the storm, the waves, and the grim night, 
 while the darkness shrouds the land towards which they 
 struggle, and which they at last almost touch. They are 
 so near that, even in that tempestuous night, they can see 
 their master on the shore, his form rising above the 
 waves and towards the dim upper light, while the beach 
 or shore on which he stands, as well as his feet or low- 
 er extremities, are invisible are perhaps even below the 
 line of waves and spray, and even his upper form is too 
 dim and ghostly to be recognized. He is standing or 
 walking out on to their usual landing, a fact which they 
 seem not to have perceived, as yet. He probably came 
 out on the mole or jetty at the landing, with the waves 
 lashing his feet. But, as the boat was nearing the shore 
 (and whether he were standing or walking) it might well 
 seem, in the darkness, that he was approaching them,
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 383 
 
 while, in fact, it was the boat that was approaching him. 
 This dim and spray-surrounded form looks so ghostlyas 
 to frighten them : until he speaks to them and re-assures 
 them. Peter, imagining him to be walking on the water, 
 concludes to try it himself, but Jesus is compelled to 
 ' reach out and drag him from the water. Peter, however, 
 found no further difficulty when he was once dragged up 
 to where Jesus was standing, nor in getting aboard again 
 from that point, as the boat approached still nearer. 
 Immediately after Jesus and Peter jumped aboard, the 
 boat struck the landing. Under such circumstances it 
 is not at all improbable that Jesus appeared to his dis- 
 ciples to be walking on the water, nor is it wonderful, 
 that, believing as they did, they actually thought he was 
 doing so. For, although we are told by the narrator 
 that they were astounded at his performance notwith- 
 standing they were just returning from the stupendous 
 creation of "loaves and fishes " their hearts being hard- 
 ened on that subject, still these men could not divest 
 themselves of their daily belief in his supernatural pow- 
 ers. And that they did not do so here is shown by the 
 instant faith of Peter that he could do it himself through 
 the power of Jesus. With their faith in Jesus, the de- 
 lusive appearances would at once be set down as real, 
 and as due to his miraculous power. That he should 
 have so appealed to them, in the storm, darkness, con- 
 fusion and fright, or even without confusion and fright, 
 is neither unnatural nor singular. So that we are 
 driven to account for this phenomenon by natural causes, 
 and, perhaps, by the effect upon their story about it of 
 that singularly oblivious process, so frequent with these 
 disciples, of having their " hearts hardened."
 
 3^4 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Fifteenth. We next have (ch. xv.) the alleged heal- 
 ing of the daughter of the woman of Canaan, on the 
 cpasts of Tyre and Sidon. While passing through this 
 country, on his way home, this woman pertinaciously 
 followed him, beseeching him to heal her daughter, 
 whom she declared to be " vexed with a devil." He de- 
 clined to listen to her appeal, and said that he was " not 
 sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." To 
 her further appeal he replied : " It is not meet to take 
 the children's bread and cast it to the dogs." Her per- 
 tinacity, humility and faith, however, finally won from 
 him the expression " Be it unto thee as thou wilt ; " 
 and then he straightway "departed from thence, and 
 came nigh unto the sea of Galilee." The writer, how- 
 ever, adds that the daughter " was made whole from that 
 very hour." But this is, palpably, but a mere conclusion 
 or inference drawn from the fact that Jesus intimated a 
 purpose to satisfy the mother, for the girl was not pres- 
 ent, nor did they go back to see her ; nor, so far as the 
 account tends to show, did they ever hear from her 
 again, but continued "straightway" on to their own 
 country. Such cases are too puerile for comment. 
 
 This scene, however, called forth an important ex- 
 pression of the feelings of Jesus towards the Gentiles 
 and his opinion of the extent of his own mission : views 
 and feelings which are amply corroborated elsewhere, but 
 nowhere more directly and pungently expressed. We 
 here learn that Jesus did not regard himself as sent to 
 any but the Israelites, or as having anything to do with 
 the Gentile " dogs," who now worship him as a God.
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES.. 385 
 
 Sixteenth. In the fifteenth chapter we are treated, 
 also, to a new, but strikingly similar story about " loaves 
 and fishes." The people are said to have come out into 
 a mountain to meet Jesus, and he performed on their 
 sick. After having remained there three days without 
 food, it is said that Jesus had "compassion " on them, 
 and would not send them away fasting, "lest they faint 
 on the way." t We find the same little prologue per- 
 formed by and between Jesus and his assistants, as we 
 did in the former miracle, about there being only a few 
 loaves and fishes. We find the hearts of the disciples 
 again so " hardened," that they forgot the recent feeding 
 of the multitude and the daily miracles they witnessed, 
 and promptly expressed their usual profound " astonish- 
 ment " at the proposal of their master, although there 
 was more food and fewer people than before. And yet 
 they are there ready to seat, arrange and wait upon the 
 people as before; and after they were again "filled," 
 they are ready with their baskets, as of yore, to save the 
 fragments. 
 
 This meeting and feeding the people in secret is a 
 part of the same programme we considered when review- 
 ing the other and larger meeting. It differed, perhaps, 
 in being more of a neighborhood affair, with fewer 
 strangers from " all cities." We cannot suppose that we 
 have anything like a correct statement of the real pur- 
 poses and proceedings. If Jesus could cure diseases by 
 divine power by merely willing them cured, it would 
 be assuming a gratuitous cruelty in him to suppose that 
 
 25
 
 386 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 he would keep many thousand men, women and children 
 (a large proportion of whom were invalids) out in the 
 mountains for three days, waiting for a cure. It is still 
 more monstrous to talk of his "compassion" for the 
 people, after he had kept them three days without food, 
 and only gave it, then, lest they should " faint " on their 
 way home, and when his bare word would have healed 
 the whole lot, and filled every stomach with appropriate 
 food just as easy as he could create one ounce of bread- 
 There must be some mistake in the account : Jesus 
 could not have been guilty of such cruelty certainly 
 not to those who trusted him. Nor is it possible to be- 
 lieve that such a crowd could be induced to remain out 
 in the mountain three days without shelter or food, as is 
 here stated. The whole thing is incredible. 
 
 Nor can one read this puerile narrative without receiv- 
 ing some very suggestive hints. For example : the delay 
 or time required in effecting his cures suggests, at once, 
 that they required some special process, however simple, 
 to produce them. Had the power been a divine one 
 and his object a display of that power, it would evidently 
 have been both more appropriate and more effective if 
 he had healed the whole multitude by a wave of the 
 hand. We are again struck by that most significant 
 fact, that the divine power of Jesus to create food was 
 limited to two kinds fish and bread; and that this sim- 
 ple diet of fish and bread was just the kind of food that 
 his disciples and their families could furnish in quantity, 
 and the only kinds. On this occasion, after a three days' 
 fast, especially by feeble invalids, one is tempted to re- 
 gret that the starving multitude could not have had a
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 387 
 
 warmer and more tempting fare than cold fish and bread. 
 And again we are struck with the economy of saving 
 cold fish fragments from off the ground by fishermen 
 whose master could, not only miraculously multiply 
 fishes indefinitely, but could give them a miraculous 
 "draft" of them from the sea at pleasure; and are 
 equally struck with the opportune presence of those 
 wonderful baskets, which always follow them, whether 
 by sea or land, to these fish-lunchings, and always appear 
 just at scrap-time, when there was no other possible use 
 for them, and when even this use was a wholly unex- 
 pected and surprising event to their owners. Here, 
 also, we observe that the people are all seated, and ar- 
 ranged to suit the operators, before, and during, and at 
 the time of the operations, and that they are neither in- 
 vited to see, nor are said to have seen, the miraculous 
 part of the performance ; nor do we find the people de- 
 siring to see it, or uniting in the astonishment which 
 was so freshly and freely exhibited by those young tyroes 
 the disciples ; but, on the contrary, we find them sit 
 down as ordered, and pay attention to eating their cold 
 fish and bread just as if they had been cooked by 
 the families of the disciples and been brought up by 
 the disciples themselves in those mysterious, but con- 
 venient baskets ; and, when they are done eating, we 
 find them going right off as they were directed, with- 
 out offering to make the least inspection or investi- 
 gation and as if nothing unusual had happened. The 
 disciples seem to have had a monopoly of all the miracle, 
 seeing and all the " amazement." I had rather have the 
 confidential opinion 'of "Peter's mother-in-law" upon 
 these two fish-dinners than any one's I can now think of.
 
 388 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Seventeenth. In the seventeenth chapter we have 
 the Transfiguration. This purports to be rather a mir- 
 acle about, than by, Jesus. As there are some reasons 
 to believe that it is a mythic legend based upon an 
 actual secret meeting of Jesus, and as it is characteristic 
 of his methods and proceedings, it may be proper to 
 pay some attention to it. The narrative may be entirely 
 mythic, emanating from an endeavor to appropriate the 
 Mosaic type of the transfiguration on Mount Sinai and 
 to fulfil the prophecy about the coming of Elias and 
 "that prophet." The meeting with two friends and 
 coadjutors at night, in profound secrecy and by appoint- 
 ment, constitutes its real, and perhaps only basis in 
 fact, if it had any. John, who was the only one of the 
 Evangelists who could know anything about it, does not 
 even mention it. Luke, who knew nothing about it> 
 gives us the most suggestive account of it : we cannot 
 say the clearest, for there is nothing clear about either 
 account. He says, that Jesus "took Peter and John 
 and James and went up into a mountain to pray, and, as 
 he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered 
 and his raiment was white and glistening. And behold, 
 there talked with him two men, which were Moses and 
 Elias : who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease 
 which should be accomplished at Jerusalem. But Peter 
 and they that were with him were heavy with sleep : 
 and when they were awake, they saw his glory, and the 
 two men that stood with him." From this account it 
 would seem that Jesus selected his three favorite and 
 most trusted disciples to accompany him ; that the 
 place of meeting was on a mountain ; that it occurred in 
 the night time; that the three disciples were not
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES 389 
 
 present at, or intended to be trusted with, the conference 
 that occurred, although within sight of the parties. It 
 appears that they were all asleep when the meeting 
 took place, and neither saw the two men come, nor 
 heard the conference ; and that, " when they awoke," so 
 far as they tell us of their own knowledge, " they saw 
 his glory and the two men that were with him." 
 This was all they saw. As 'to who the men were, 
 how they came or where they went or what their pur- 
 pose was or what they said, they had no knowledge. 
 How could they tell that it was Moses and Elias ? 
 Neither Jesus,. nor the men themselves said so; and, if 
 they had, it would be no proof of the fact. The whole 
 of the matter, except, perhaps, the meeting and their 
 waking up and seeing the men in conference with Jesus, 
 is probably a subsequent mythic adaptation. 
 
 It is not impossible that the parties had lit a small 
 fire while the disciples slept, and that its smoke settled 
 above and around them and its light fell upon Jesus in 
 a "glistening" manner which surprised the disciples on 
 waking out of sleep. It is not wholly impossible, also, 
 that Jesus or his friends may have spoke some words 
 calculated to mislead the superstitious minds of the dis- 
 ciples : for it is clear that Jesus and these men were, to 
 the last degree, desirous of keeping their meeting a pro- 
 found secret, and to keep even these "chosen three" 
 from knowing either the men or their purposes. Some 
 such facts would account for what Luke afterwards 
 says, namely : " There was a cloud and it overshadowed 
 them, and they feared as they entered into the cloud, 
 and there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, this
 
 39O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 is my beloved son : hear him." This language is too 
 indentical with other mythic annunciations to allow us 
 much doubt of its subsequent origin, and is, with all the 
 balance (save the meeting and possibly the fire) of 
 after and mythic concoction. 
 
 As to the secrecy required, we have seen that Jesus 
 only took his three favorites and went to this lonely 
 spot at night, without intimating the coming meeting 
 even to those he took with him, but left them by 
 themselves to sleep a sleep from which he did not 
 wake them. And Matthew tells us, that "Jesus charged 
 them, saying, tell the vision to no man, until the son of 
 man be risen again from the dead ; " while Luke adds, 
 that " they kept it .close and told no man in those days 
 any of the things which they had seen." 
 
 Can any rational person perceive the consistency of 
 these facts, as told, with the ideas now entertained of 
 Jesus and of his designs and purposes ? If Jesus was 
 what he is claimed to be, Why did Moses and Elias meet 
 him at such a place and hour ? If it was to fulfil a 
 prophecy or type, Who were they doing it for ? and, 
 How was it to be known ? That even the three disciples 
 woke up in time to see them at all, was not owing to 
 any act or purpose on their part. And, even after they 
 had gotten a glimpse of them, Jesus tried to make them 
 believe it was a vision, and enjoined the strictest 
 secrecy upon them during his life. For whose benefit, 
 we repeat, Was this profoundly-kept-secret ? Who 
 profited by that voice from the cloud ? The three dis- 
 ciples already believed in Jesus, and " heard " him every
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 39! 
 
 day with blind faith, and believed everything he said, as 
 they did here. Why not have had this meeting with 
 Moses and Elias and this voice of God from the cloud 
 and all this "glistening" and transfiguration on Mount 
 Moriah in the presence of the Sanhedrim and the 
 assembled priests and people, instead of at night on this 
 lonely mountain of Galilee ? Why seal the matter from 
 all human beings until after his death ? If they were 
 signs and recognitions of his Messiahship ought they 
 not to have been known to those to whom the Messiah 
 was to be sent ? Of what use was the whole affair ? Is 
 this the conduct of Moses and Elias, of the Son of God, 
 and of God himself, in endeavoring to make known a 
 Divine Saviour of the World and the Messiah of the 
 Jews ? Or, is it the secret and preconcerted meeting of 
 men engaged in some common purpose whose exposure 
 was to the last degree dangerous ? If Jesus met these 
 men, must it not have been for the same purpose that 
 he had met the multitude in private and in secret places 
 the desert and the mountain ? Were not these two of 
 his powerful but secret friends (say, Nicodemus and 
 Joseph of Arimathea,) come from Jerusalem to secretly 
 consult with him upon his future plans and movements, 
 and to whom it would be ruin to be found engaged in 
 such conferences with him ? For John says that Nico- 
 demus did come and meet Jesus at night, and as it 
 would be clearly inferred, the meeting was in Galilee 
 (ch. iii.). If the meeting took place at all, is not this 
 the most rational solution, if not the only rational one ? 
 As long as Jesus was alive and could be a pretender to 
 the throne of Israel, the divulging of such a meeting 
 would be dangerous to these influential confederates ;
 
 392 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 and hence the necessity for secrecy until after the death 
 of Jesus. Looking upon it as a secret revolutionary 
 meeting involving the ruin of the parties concerned, we 
 can understand, not only the injunction of secrecy and 
 its limitation, but can understand any little efforts 
 deemed neccessary to delude the ignorant disciples as 
 to the true persons and purposes. As a divine recog- 
 nition of Jesus the whole matter would not only be 
 absurdly useless and uselessly absurd, but would smack 
 of divine fraud and bad faith. 
 
 Eighteenth. In the seventeenth chapter we have an 
 account of his healing a lunatic and rebuking the devil, 
 a case which his disciples were unable to manage. 
 This is one of those cases which are so generally stated 
 as to give nothing but the general facts of lunacy and 
 cure, and which, therefore, furnish no means of judging 
 what was, or what was not, done ; and can need no 
 further comment than has been given in like cases. 
 The peculiarity about the case is found in the fact of 
 the failure of his disciples to relieve the patient, and 
 m's attributing their failure to their own lack of faith, 
 and in his declaration that even mountains could be re- 
 moved by faith, and his assertion that demoniac cases of 
 this kind "goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.'"' 
 That is, that the nervous or magnetic power must be 
 exerted with an energy of will only compatible with a 
 sanguine faith, and, in certain cases, requires to be ex- 
 alted by prayer and abstinence.
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 393 
 
 Nineteenth. In the seventeenth chapter we also 
 have the miracle of the tribute money. The payment 
 of the Roman tax was a sore humiliation to the Jews, 
 and Jesus was charged with opposing its. payment. In 
 this instance the tax collector applied to Peter to know 
 if they paid tribute money ; and, upon Peter's replying in 
 the affirmative, Jesus "prevented" him, and contested 
 the right of the Romsrig to tax him ', but then concluded 
 as follows: " Notwithst (H) ^ug, lest we should offend 
 them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up 
 the fish that first cometh up ; and when thou hast opened 
 its mouth, thou shall find a piece of money: that take 
 and give unto them for me and thee." Whether Jesus 
 really meant to pay the tribute, and, in this figurative 
 style told his fisherman-follower to go and catch a fish 
 and, with the money that it would bring when sold, pay 
 their mite of tribute, or whether he spoke ironically or 
 jestingly as if he were to say (after denying their 
 . right), " rather than offend these worthies, however, you 
 can give them the money you find in the mouth of the 
 first fish you catch," it is difficult to say. Nor is it 
 probable that we have the actual words of Jesus : nor, 
 had we them, is it at all important to construe them ; 
 since we have not the slightest intimation given us that 
 Peter ever either found the money or caught the fish or 
 went to catch it or ever seriously thought of going on 
 such a preposterous errand. It is bad enough for us to 
 accept the unsupported and credulous conclusions of the 
 Evangelists that a miracle was actually performed be- 
 cause Jesus ordered it, without assuming them ourselves 
 when even the Evangelists do not. And yet, so strong 
 is this tendency, even now, that there is not one out of
 
 394 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 every million of Christians, that would ever even notice 
 the fact that there is not a word about the performance of 
 a miracle in this entire account. They take the entire 
 miraculous performance for granted. Would they do so 
 in the -ease of a story about Mahomet ? If Jesus had 
 been sued for the tribute money or any other debt, and 
 had replied that he had told Peter to go and catch a fish 
 and get the money that- wa? in ^ mouth and pay it, 
 Would they allow that at> ^ __f of payment, without a 
 word of evidence that Peter ever went, or even intended 
 to go a fishing at all ? 
 
 Twentieth. This is an account of a case of lunacy 
 and fits. As the case is more specifically reported in 
 Mark we may, at once, use his account here. A boy 
 was subject to fits in which he fell down foaming. 
 Jesus was present when he was in one of these fits, and 
 commanded the devil to come out of him. But the 
 devil didn't come ! and the fit continued to work its 
 course, until it was exhausted and the boy lay exhausted 
 and as if dead, in spite of Jesus ! When the fit had 
 thus run its course and left the boy lay prostrate, Jesus 
 took him by the hand and raised him up. This was all. 
 It is not even intimated that Jesus cured him or that he 
 was actually cured. For aught that appears, the boy 
 may have continued to have fits every day until he died 
 of them. 
 
 This is hardly miraculous enough to detain us, unless 
 we can find some traces of the miraculous in this un-
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 395 
 
 paralleled slip in exposing an actual failure of Jesus to 
 cast out a devil and arrest a fit. 
 
 Twenty-first. In the twentieth chapter we find an 
 alleged cure of two blind men by their faith and the 
 touching of their eyes. It is impossible, from the 
 meagre statements given, to know what were the men's 
 real diseases or what was done to them. The record does 
 not exclude either collusion or the facts which would 
 make a natural explanation possible, nor does it give 
 sufficient details to either verify the fact of a miracle or 
 to suggest a true rendering of the facts of the case. 
 And our experiences of these brief statements have al- 
 ready amply warned us that their silence as to adverse 
 or explanatory facts is no evidence of their non-existence, 
 as we constantly find such facts slipping into one Gos- 
 pel and explaining their otherwise inexplicable state- 
 ments, while in others they are omitted. 
 
 Twenty-second. In the twenty-first chapter we find 
 the miracle of the blasting of the fig tree. 
 
 Like the miracles of the " devils and the swine " 
 and that of the " seven loaves and a few little fishes " 
 this alleged blasting of the fig tree exhibits elements 
 of feeling and character which do not speak well for the 
 mental and moral condition of Jesus, if viewed from the
 
 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 present stand-point of his followers. Like them, it pre- 
 sents a spirit of wantonness, injustice and cruelty. 
 
 It is stated that Jesus, after having spent the night 
 at Bethany (the home of his ardent friends Simon the 
 leper, Lazarus, Martha and Mary) about two miles 
 from Jerusalem, was returning to the city in the morn- 
 ing and, of course, after having had his breakfast among 
 his old entertainers. And yet, to make some show of 
 an excuse for his singular conduct, we are gravely told 
 that, during that walk of a few minutes, just after break- 
 fast, he " hungered ; " and that he went to a fig tree to 
 get figs to eat. Now, Mark distinctly tells us that figs 
 were not in season ; his words being " for the time of 
 figs was not yet" We commence with the fact, then, 
 that Jesus got so hungry just after breakfast that he 
 went to a fig tree for figs, when he and everybody knew 
 that it was not the season or time for figs ; and yet, be- 
 cause he did not find what he could not, and ought not 
 to have expected, he cursed the senseless tree for not 
 having fruit when the " time of figs was not yet," so 
 that on the next morning the tree was found withered 
 and blasted ! 
 
 We have here a transaction which, were it as now 
 represented, is painfully uncommendable. They would 
 have us believe that the Son of God nay, more, the in- 
 carnate God himself, " by whom all things were made," 
 who fed thousands at his mere will, and who had volun- 
 tarily fasted forty days, who could make every citron, 
 olive and fig tree in the land groan under its weight of 
 ripe fruit by his mere volition and could command 
 " forty legions of angels. '' to his assistance, they would
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 397 
 
 have us believe, we say, that such a Divine Being flew 
 into a 'rage and cursed a senseless tree for not bearing 
 fruit o nt of season for being what he had made it ! 
 There may be millions of people who can recognize their 
 God in such a transaction, but they would do well to 
 judge charitably of those who fail to recognize these evi- 
 dences of divinity, or even the evidences of the agency 
 of a sane and undesigning man. 
 
 But may there not have been some hidden reason 
 that " us poor mortals " cannot understand ? There cer- 
 tainly were secret reasons of which we are not informed, 
 but there can be none which would convert this into an 
 act of God, nor heighten our opinion of the man. If we 
 are to concede that Jesus did this thing in the manner 
 and for the reasons stated, and not as another mere 
 thaumaturgic effort to advance his political schemes and 
 purposes, then there is no rational alternative but to con- 
 clude that the super-exalted psychical states and emo- 
 tional conditions, with which we are already familiar, 
 had already advanced another step in an unfortunate 
 direction. We should never recognize, in this anathe- 
 matizer of a fig tree, for such a cause, the young Rabbi 
 who preached the " Sermon on the Mount." 
 
 As to the extent and mode of its destruction we are 
 left in the usual uncertainty. The curse had no imme- 
 diate effect on the tree. For Matthew's indefinite, 
 "presently," cannot control Mark's specific, "in the 
 morning," that is, the morning following. None of 
 them saw the tree wither, nor saw the means used to 
 make it wither. If it ever was withered and " dried up
 
 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 from the roots " we may rest assured there was a natural 
 cause for its doing so, and we may feel some confidence 
 that his friend, Lazarus, knew exactly what that cause 
 was. A little fire and straw would have been quite effi- 
 cient and could have been promptly applied " as per 
 order ; " and we shall have another occasion, very 
 shortly, to find how handy and reliable this Lazarus 
 could make himself. 
 
 This closes the miracles mentioned in Matthew, 
 occurring prior to the closing scenes of the drama. 
 There are a few others which appear to be peculiar to 
 other Gospels and which it will be proper to consider.
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 399 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES CONTINUED. 
 
 THE first miracle which we find in Mark, and which 
 we do not readily recognize as an acquaintance, is found 
 in the seventh chapter, and consists of the alleged cure 
 of a man who was deaf and had an impediment in his 
 speech. The remedy of the Nazarene physician in this 
 case is as singular as it was simple and significant. It 
 is stated thus : " Jesus took him aside from the multitude, 
 and put liis fingers in his ears and he spit and touched his 
 tongtie." This is the remedy as put by Mark, except 
 that he adds that, " looking up into Heaven he' sighed 
 and saith unto him ephata, that is, Be opened." 
 
 It can hardly be necessary to discuss the miracle 
 here, where the taint of the " earth earthy " is so 
 grossly manifest. Just what was done we cannot tell. 
 Yet enough is told to show that the performer did 
 not rely upon miraculous power. For it will scarcely 
 be contended that one endowed with divine power 
 would heal a man by taking him out by himself and 
 poking his fingers in his ears and rubbing his spittle in 
 the man's mouth ! This was one of those cases which 
 he was unwilling to treat before witnesses, and he there- 
 fore took the man aside and operated on him privately,
 
 4OO JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 and then strictly enjoined it upon him to keep the 
 matter secret, as he had done, for similar reasons, in 
 other cases. But this man, unlike the others, did not 
 stop at sounding his fame, but disclosed his remedies, 
 also. The " looking up into Heaven " and the " sigh- 
 ing " and the " ephata " might be set down as acts of 
 faith on the part of Jesus, but they would be strikingly 
 odorous of charlatanism in our day. His anxiety to 
 keep such remdies secret is very comprehensible, as 
 they were certainly very crude and very repulsive ; and 
 would greatly tend to destroy men's confidence in his 
 divine powers. And had the men obeyed his injunc- 
 tion of secrecy, we should have had only one of those 
 bald announcements of a deaf and dumb man healed by 
 the "ephata" alone, and been deprived of this very 
 striking hint as to the extent and nature of the miracu- 
 lous cures of Jesus. Miraculous power can require no 
 such aids or remedies as were used here, and when the 
 healer resorts to them it is conclusive proof that he is 
 conscious of needing them. For no man would use such 
 repulsive remedies, or any remedies, if he knew he had 
 the power of healing them by a mere act of volition : 
 much less would he do so where there was a powerful 
 motive for convincing others that he healed by divine 
 power. To use mere physical remedies, or to seek to 
 hide his acts or remedies, was fatal to such pretensions 
 as those of Jesus.
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 4OI 
 
 MIRACLES PECULIAR TO LUKE. 
 
 The first new miracle we notice in Luke, is the 
 alleged raising from the the dead of th son of the 
 widow of Nain (ch. vii.). This is one of the most 
 imperfect and suspicious stories in the Gospels. It 
 appears from the account that, on the evening of the day 
 on which the centurion's servant was healed at Caper- 
 naum, Jesus was still at the house of Peter, in that place. 
 And yet Luke expressly says that, on the " next day," 
 Jesus, accompanied by " many of his disciples " and 
 "muck people" were entering Nain in time to witness a 
 funeral. These people, therefore, had walked from 
 Capernaum to Nain on that day, and arrived in time to 
 meet a funeral procession. Now, the former place was 
 situated on the north-east shore of the Tiberian Sea, 
 while Nain was on the south-western side of the same 
 sea, a number of miles inland, at the foot of Little Her- 
 man mountains. This crowd, therefore, had marched, on 
 foot, some thirty or forty miles to this remote village in 
 this unprecedentedly short time. This might well be 
 called a " forced march." But there are other matters 
 still more worthy of notice. There are few facts more 
 unaccountable than this of Jesus and his disciples and 
 " much people," suddenly and without any assigned, ap- 
 parent or conceivable reason, save that shown by their 
 acts, making this extraordinary march to this remote 
 town. It is still more singular that they should have 
 happened \.Q get there at the time of this funeral and 
 accidentally witness this miraculous resurrection and 
 then turn round and go back again without having even 
 entered the town, so far as we are informed. For it is 
 
 26
 
 4O2 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 said that they met the procession or corpse as they ap- 
 proached the gate of the city ; and when the corpse was 
 revivified, the whole crowd and the whole matter are 
 left right there. The next he tells us of Jesus, was his 
 receiving the messengers of John the Baptist. Can. 
 such a strange, disconnected and unaccountable state- 
 ment as this, be entitled to be considered proof of so 
 stupendous a miracle as is here pretended ? What 
 would we say of such an account of Catholic miracle in 
 Portugal to-day ? 
 
 There is, however, something more than mere 
 strangeness, insufficiency and improbability about this 
 affair. If Matthew is to be believed, Luke has been 
 deluded about this matter a matter which he personally 
 knew nothing about. Matthew gives an unusually 
 detailed account of the proceedings of Jesus at this 
 particular period. Starting at the same healing of the 
 Centurion's servant at Capernaum, Matthew does not 
 say a word about this extraordinary trip to Nain and its 
 miraculous results on the next day, but gives us a con- 
 tinuous account of his movements in a different direction 
 from that to Nain, and of such a character as to exclude 
 the possibility of this extraordinary march upon that 
 place. He first takes Jesus back to Peter's, and, on that 
 same evening, he has him surrounded with a crowd of 
 sick ; and has him, on account of these " multitudes," 
 give commandment, on that same evening, " to depart 
 to the other side," that is, on the other side of the lake. 
 He then tells us, after some talking, that, when they 
 entered the ship (to go to the " other side ") they met 
 with a great storm which Jesus quelled, and that " when
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 403 
 
 he was come to the other side into the country of the 
 Gergesenes [that is, the region about Gadara], there 
 met him two possessed of devils, etc." Now this country 
 lies entirely in a different direction to that to Nain- 
 After performing a miracle here, he has him return to 
 his own side by ship, and perform many miracles, dis- 
 course frequently, send out his disciples over the coun- 
 try, etc., and then has him meet John's messengers, 
 without ever having been nearer Nain than he was at 
 Capernaum. And yet, Luke fills up this whole gap be- 
 tween his going to Peter's house and his meeting John's 
 messengers with this single strange and eccentric move- 
 ment to Nain in an entirely different region and different 
 direction ! Luke knew nothing about it, and professes 
 to write only the current beliefs existing long afterwards, 
 while John and Matthew were present with him : none 
 mention it but Luke, and Matthew renders Luke's 
 account impossible : What shall we conclude ? Is not 
 the mere silence of all the others on so wonderful an 
 affair a most potent, if not resistless, presumption against 
 a mere subsequent rumor or belief, without any state- 
 ment of the origin of, or authority for, such belief ? 
 
 It is possible that it is an interpolation, but, as Luke 
 only professes to write of beliefs (derived from hearsay 
 or tradition), it may, also, have been one of that swarm 
 of disconnected and worthless fictions which sprung up 
 after the resurrection and formed much of the material of 
 the apocryphal writings and of the traditional beliefs of 
 early Christians ; and Luke, in merely recording the 
 current beliefs, inserted this as one of them, at such 
 point in his narratives as suited his own convenience.
 
 404 JESUS AND RELIGION 
 
 However this may be, it cannot command rational belief, 
 independent of its miraculous feature. And few com- 
 petent judges, I think, will fail to conclude that, if there 
 was ever such an apparent " raising of the dead," it was 
 only an apparent one ; and that, if such a crowd ever 
 went with Jesus to Nain and saw that boy raised up 
 from the bier, they were invited there for that purpose 
 and the matter was pre-arranged for their special benefit. 
 Jesus and his disciples and that crowd did not make that 
 trip withotit a motive, nay, without some common motive 
 or object of attraction : What was it ? We have no 
 right to assume a motive which is neither alleged, nor 
 suggested by the facts, especially have we no right 
 to make such assumptions in favor of religious miracles 
 told by religionists in support of their creeds. Nor will 
 any object but a common one account for this singular 
 and common movement. The only conceivable object 
 which Jesus and this crowd could have in common 
 would be one appertaining to his own performances and 
 pretensions. This is, not only the one conceivable 
 object or purpose, but this is the only one that was 
 attained or attempted. The legitimate and overwhelming 
 inference, therefore, is, that they went to do and see 
 what they did do and see, if they went at all. And yet, 
 the moment we concede this, the presumption of col- 
 lusion and pre-arrangement is resistless. Taking the 
 whole facts, the story is worthless, even if it were un- 
 contradicted.
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 405 
 
 Luke also tells us (ch. v.) about a large haul of fish 
 which his disciples caught by following the advice of 
 Jesus. This may have been so. It is neither a miracle 
 to see or observe a school of fish before others do, or to 
 see them when others cannot or do not see them. 
 
 Luke again gives us new matter in his seventeenth 
 chapter, about the alleged cure of ten lepers. 
 
 He says that ten lepers stood afar off and cried for 
 help to Jesus as he passed, and that " he said unto them, 
 Go show yourselves unto the priests." This is all he 
 said or did. Luke, who knew nothing about it, adds this 
 further " And it came to pass, that, as they went, they 
 were cleansed," and one of the men, who was a Samaritan, 
 came to Jesus and thanked him. Jesus merely told them 
 to go and show themselves to the priests, whose duty it 
 was to examine and determine upon the condition of the 
 leprous, and who alone were competent to do so. The 
 man who was a Samaritan did not even say that he was 
 healed. Not having the privilege, as a Samaritan, to go 
 to the Jewish Temple for such a purpose, and having a 
 knowledge of Jesus' benefactions to the afflicted, and 
 grateful for his kindly recognition of an outcast leper, 
 he did not follow the advice of Jesus to go to Jerusalem, 
 but came and expressed his gratitude to him. Such 
 would seem to be the probable facts, if he ever came to 
 him at all. There is not a word about his cure save 
 Luke's mere assertion that they were cured on their way,
 
 406 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 and it would seem very clear that this one never started. 
 Of the other nine we never hear again. Whether they 
 were ever cured, or ever even started for Jerusalem, 
 could only be known, even to Jesus and his disciples, by 
 rumor or hearsay. Jesus, certainly, did not know what 
 became of them ; for, when the Samaritan came to him, 
 he expressly inquired " but where are the nine ? " To 
 which there was no answer. The fact that Luke states 
 it as one of the stories believed in his day that they were 
 healed on their way, when they had no evidence to sup- 
 port such a belief, is hardly sufficient to prove a miracle 
 to us, since such facts are proof of nothing but their 
 own existence. The singular features in this case are 
 that, if Jesus either meant or tried to heal them, he 
 should not have indicated it in some of his usual modes ; 
 and the fact that none of the men were healed at the 
 time. How long does it take for divine power to 
 operate as a medicine or cure ? 
 
 MIRACLES EXCLUSIVELY NOTICED BY JOHN. 
 
 " In the second chapter of John we have a narrative 
 of the turning of water into wine, by Jesus ; a matter 
 not deemed worthy of mention by others, although it
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 4O/ 
 
 must have been known, if true, to all the disciples, who 
 were also present. John states that, at the close of a 
 Jewish marriage feast, which usually lasted seven days, 
 the wine run out ; and that the mother of Jesus came to 
 him about it. Jesus, after a harsh rebuke to his mother, 
 ordered the servants to fill up six water pots with water, 
 and it was this water which he is said to have converted 
 into wine. The quantity held by these pots (said to 
 contain between two and three firkins each) has been 
 estimated by Christian authors as high as 136 gallons. 
 Mr. Beecher's estimate is 126 gallons: nearly four 
 barrels of wine, for a " heel-tap " to a village feast ! 
 When this miraculous beverage was taken to the 
 " Governor " of the feast, he complimented it highly, 
 and declared that it was customary to reserve the 
 poorest wine to the last of the feast when men were 
 " well drunk," but that in that instance the best wine 
 was saved until the close of the feast. 
 
 Several matters suggest themselves in this case. 
 For what purpose was such a monstrous quantity of 
 wine supplied at or near the close of the feast, when the 
 guests had already drank beyond the calculation of their 
 host? Did the already saturated guests at a village 
 wedding require wine enough to supply an army ? Is 
 not this manifestly boastful and reckless exaggeration, 
 in derogation of the verity of .the story ? If ever such a 
 scene occurred, this amount or quantity is, clearly, a gross 
 exaggeration. And again : What was the true nature of 
 this beverage ? We are to suppose that it had the ap- 
 pearance of wine, and we are informed that the " Gover- 
 nor " or chairman of the feast praised it. But, Has not
 
 4O3 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 this leader of this marriage revel, utterly destroyed his 
 own testimony and stultified himself by admitting that it 
 was brought in at the very stage of affairs when men 
 usually brought in bad wines because the men were so 
 " well drunk " that they were incapable of telling bad 
 wine from good ? If bad wine had been brought in, as 
 usual, Could he, according to his own confession, have 
 detected it ? Besides, Are not millions of men, far 
 soberer than this complaisant " Governor," daily served 
 with wine which they think good, and still oftener com- 
 pliment, and which is yet innocent of the slightest con- 
 nection with the grape ? Jesus did not say he meant to 
 make wine, nor that he had made it ; but, without saying 
 a word about it, ordered the servants to take what he had 
 prepared to the revellers ; nor did he or his mother, by 
 word or act, intimate that the process was a miraculous 
 one. If it was intended to exhibit his supernatural or 
 divine power, Why did he not invite the whole company 
 to see it, instead of performing it secretly ? Why did he 
 put the servants to the labor of supplying such a quantity 
 of water to convert into wine, unless the water was 
 necessary to his process ? Why not have ordered the 
 jars to be full of wine at once ? Would not that have 
 been far more direct, least troublesome, and least 
 suspicious ? Why require the same amount of water 
 as there was wine made ? These questions find no 
 answer upon the supposition of a divine miracle, but 
 are readily enough answered upon the supposition that 
 he was acquainted with some recipe for forming a 
 simulated wine and had to have water for its basis. He 
 had ample opportunity to perform such an operation un- 
 observed, and, if he did so, we can understand why he
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 409 
 
 did it in private, and was silent as to his methods. The 
 conduct of his mother gives support to the supposition 
 that he possessed such knowledge, and that she was 
 aware of it. The mother, Be it remembered, did not 
 believe a word of his divine or miraculous power. And 
 yet, we find her going to him and pointing out the oc- 
 casion for the exercise of his real power or art, and, al- 
 though grossly rebuked as if an intermeddler, she knew 
 his moods and his fondness for such things too well to 
 doubt that he would avail himself of so favorable an op- 
 portunity for mystery and display, notwithstanding his 
 rude rebuff of herself. But, Let us observe the woman's 
 conduct, with a view to see what she really did come to 
 him about the matter for, and to ascertain whether she 
 really had any knowledge as to what kind of performance 
 was to take place. If she had no idea of his method or 
 requirements no idea that something would be required, 
 beyond his mere volition, to create the wine, Would she 
 have ever thought of giving command to the servants to 
 do for him whatever he required to be done ? Do not 
 the very facts of her coming to him about the matter, 
 when she did not believe in his miraculous powers, and 
 telling the servants to do what he required, show that 
 she knew her son had some wwmiraclous method and 
 means of making a simulated wine which would require 
 other means and facilities which the servants could 
 supply ? And, Remember that, in trying to interpret 
 these recitals so as not to make them sheer fabrications, 
 we are compelled to rely upon the chosen statements of 
 a single unknown writer, who is anxious to impress upon 
 us the idea of a miracle. Remembering this, Does it 
 not become clear, that there is, not only no proof of a
 
 4IO JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 miracle here, but much stronger evidence of a natural 
 transaction ? 
 
 We have, in chapter fifth, the alleged cure of a man 
 who is said to have been troubled with an " infirmity " 
 for thirty-eight years. The nature or extent of the in- 
 firmity does not appear, save as they may be inferred 
 from the other facts or recitals. It did not prevent 
 him from going to the pool mentioned, and remaining 
 there alone. He does not complain that he could not 
 walk down to the pool when the water was troubled, but 
 that others were more active and arrived before him ; 
 although, while waiting, he had some kind of a pallet to 
 rest on, which is called a " bed." The "infirmity " could 
 not have been very great, since he had withstood it for 
 thirty-eight years, and was still hopeful. John asserts, 
 as actual facts* the following, namely: that an angel 
 actually went down into the pool of Bethesda and 
 "troubled" its waters once a year, and that whoever 
 could step into it first after this troubling, was made 
 whole of " whatsoever disease he had ; " and that a " great 
 multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, were 
 at hand waiting for this troubling of the waters." The 
 old man in question, had hopefully waited through many 
 years and struggled for this forlorn hope, but this divine 
 cure was limited to one person, and that one the most 
 vigorous or wealthy, that is, the most successful. 
 Jesus had some talk with this old man about his situa- 
 tion and inspired him with faith to believe that he could
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 411 
 
 cure him, and finally bade him rise up, take his bed and 
 go. That an infirm man, under the inspiration and 
 stimulant of such assurance and faith, should have felt a 
 new temporary vigor, and have walked home with more 
 elasticity and spring than he had used in going there, is 
 not miraculous. What else, if anything, was done to 
 him we are not informed, but this, as we know, is no 
 evidence that other influences or remedies were not used. 
 
 The singular fact here is, that there was a multitude 
 of suffering people sufferers whom we are to believe 
 that Jesus could have healed at word and yet he makes 
 no effort to heal them, but selects out this old, credulous, 
 and perhaps hypoed, man as his single subject. Was 
 this the act of an all-powerful and beneficent being, or of 
 a Divine Saviour making himself known to the World, or 
 was it an act of human sagacity ? Why select this par- 
 ticular man, who was merely " infirm," among all that 
 multitude of blind and halt ? Why perform on him 
 alone and without witnesses or observers of his per- 
 formances ? It is impossible to answer these questions 
 favorably to the divine pretensions of Jesus. 
 
 And Are we to believe, not only that this was a mir- 
 aculous cure, but that an angel actually came down once 
 a year to trouble this pool in the " sheep market," for 
 the purpose of curing only one man and one, not the 
 most afflicted or most deserving, but the veriest villain 
 or murderer if he were most active in getting to it first ? 
 And yet, the Evangelist asserts all this as a fact and 
 just as positively as he does the healing of the infirm 
 man. Were he in court, would he not meet the maxim 
 "falsum in uno,falsum in omnibus"
 
 412 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 In the ninth chapter John gives us the case of an al- 
 leged healing of a .man who had been blind from birth. 
 The case is one to be specially noted. The case was, 
 manifestly, not one of nervous origin, and one which 
 would, therefore, require other operations or influences 
 than mere faith and magnetic power. Probably it was a 
 film or false membrane over the pupil of the eye, if 
 there was real relief given. This, in the absence of 
 miraculous power, would require physical action and 
 agencies to remove it. This fact or necessity was 
 readily perceived and acted upon. The remedy adopted 
 was somewhat rude and original, but may well have been 
 successful, if skilfully applied, and was certainly a " move 
 in the right direction." He took the patient and " spat on 
 the ground and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed 
 the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said, Go 
 wash in the pool of Siloam." And " He went his way, 
 therefore, and washed, and came back seeing." Here we 
 have no " sighing," nor " ephata," nor other pretence of 
 superhuman agency, but a single and palpable physical 
 operation, and an operation to which was due whatever 
 cure was effected. The case, therefore, is one which 
 shows that Jesus did not, and could not, rely upon his 
 ordinary remedies, or any mere spiritual power at his 
 command. Nor does the evidence and inferences it 
 furnishes stop at disproving this miracle. It shows that 
 Jesus himself had learned that his mysterious and oft- 
 repeated remedies of faith and personal magnetism, 
 which had served him in mental and nervous disorders, 
 had no effect in such cases as this and many others ; 
 and that, when he met such cases, he either added such 
 new remedies as his knowledge and experience could
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 413 
 
 suggest or wholly disregarded his old mysterious reme- 
 dies, and relied solely on palpably physical agencies, as 
 in this case. The idea here, evidently, was to scour off 
 the film or false membrane. If it succeeded it was, at 
 the best, a case of rude, but successful surgery. It is 
 simply said, that the man came back, " seeing." How 
 far his sight was restored does not appear. 
 
 While the very exposure of such an utterly wwmiracu- 
 lous remedy, and a certain semi-professional sagacity in its 
 conception,. gives us reason to believe that such an opera- 
 tion took place, and possibly with partial benefit, yet 
 there is a promptness and yet a cautious and cunning 
 simplicity about the replies of the man and his parents 
 which strongly suggests the idea of collusion. It so im- 
 pressed the Jews who examined them. They would not 
 believe them as to his being born blind, after fully ex- 
 amining the man and his parents, but .charged them with 
 being the disciples of Jesus. And, if the account means 
 what it plainly says and implies namely, that he came 
 back " seeing," and by means and direction of his own 
 sight, then such suspicions would receive further war- 
 rant. For it is clear that a man who had been born 
 blind and been cured by such a process, could not so 
 soon endure the light necessary for such a purpose ; 
 while, if born blind, he could not have recognized, and 
 adapted his movements to, either roads, streets, or- ob- 
 jects. But however the facts may be in this matter, it 
 cannot affect the plain and conclusive fact, that, what- 
 ever cure was effected, was effected by the only remedy 
 which was pretended to be applied, namely, the purely 
 physical one described. The case is one that is fatal 
 to the pretensions of Jesus as divine healer.
 
 4H JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 The last miracle exclusively mentioned in John's 
 Gospel (so-called), is the resurrection of Lazarus 
 (ch. xi.). As a matter of justice to its performer, as well 
 as in explanation of the transactionitself, Let us en- 
 deavor to grasp the outlines of the situation. And as 
 one very clear hint of this, Let us turn to the seventh 
 chapter of John, and read those five first and most sig- 
 nificant verses, which are in the words following : 
 " After these things Jesus walked in Galilee : for he 
 would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to 
 kill him. Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at 
 hand. His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart 
 hence and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may see 
 the works thou doest. For there is no man that doeth 
 anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known 
 openly. If thou doeth these things, show thyself to the 
 world. For neither did his brethren believe in him'' 
 
 In this plain, common-sense home-thrust from his 
 own brothers, who had known him from boyhood and 
 were familiar with his conduct and career and who 
 wholly discredited his divine powers, we catch a glimpse 
 of the condition of affairs and of the stimulants which 
 urged Jesus on to more reckless endeavors and final dis- 
 aster. He had already fled from Judea to save his life, 
 and, for a considerable time, had not dared to return. 
 There had been a time of dread, irresolution and inac- 
 tion. His fortunes had become more desperate, and his 
 person was no longer safe. The intelligent, wealthy 
 and official classes whom he had reviled, had become 
 more actively indignant and vindictive. The masses, 
 upon whom his hopes rested, were ignorant and fickle.
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 415 
 
 Of knowledge or reason they had little. From their 
 galling national slavery to the colossal empire of Rome 
 their sole hope of redemption lay in the coming of their 
 all-conquering Christ. This Christ-idea was not a mat- 
 ter to be reasoned about. He would come because 
 God had promised that he should. He would come as 
 the prophets had foretold : but they were not experts in 
 prophecy. The mysterious powers and socialistic doc- 
 trines of Jesus had attracted them, but an unpalatable 
 doctrine or expression would produce indifference or de- 
 fection ; and, unless highly stimulated, they were worth- 
 less in the presence of danger. To his enemies they 
 were only, dangerous as an excited mob : to him they 
 were dangerous by their fickleness and treachery. They 
 were his sole reliance, and yet, to secure or retain them 
 he was compelled to pander more and more to their love 
 of the miraculous. Without miracles he would have 
 sunk at once into the humble carpenter of Nazareth, and 
 became an object of ridicule or pity. He. had neither 
 blood, family, class, nor wealth to back him, but was 
 menaced by the powerful, and was censured and pitied 
 by his own household. As dangers thickened around 
 him, he had administered ever higher doses of his only 
 medicine. His enemies were only kept in check by 
 their fears that his arrest might breed riots among the 
 rabble. A humiliating flight had been his usual and 
 latest safeguard. Since his flight he had neither dared 
 to openly prosecute his purposes nor to return to Jeru- 
 salem. To go now, under the taunts of his brothers, 
 was to march into a nest of hornets. Without some 
 new and powerful menace to the Temple party his ad- 
 vent in Jerusalem would be the signal for his arrest. It
 
 41 6 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 was not, alone, his aspirations that were at stake, but 
 his life. He had long passed the Rubicon : and the 
 Temple party had been driven by his incessant attacks 
 and bold agitations to accept the conflict which had be- 
 come inevitable, and had " thrown away the scabbard." 
 Spies were on his track watching for occasions to accuse 
 him. His brothers were taunting him with the contrast 
 between his pretensions and his performances, and with 
 his avoidance of publicity. 
 
 What could he do, thus conditioned ? Was it not 
 possible, after the great crowd had already assembled for 
 the feast, to pass through Judea and enter Jerusalem 
 " as it were secretly ? " Could he not, with the aid of 
 his devoted friends and disciples at Bethany and his 
 secret ones at Jerusalem, once more sound a note on the 
 old string which would, even yet, awaken a response in 
 the popular heart ? Could he not set the multitude 
 ablaze with a new and greater miracle a resurrection 
 of the dead, almost under the walls of Jerusalem ; and 
 under the awe and excitement inspired by such an evi- 
 dence of divine sanction, march triumphantly into Jeru- 
 salem as " King of the Jews " as the Messiah, and trust to 
 the effect upon the inflammable mass of Jews assembled 
 within its walls ? Was not this the one chance left the 
 one alternative between that and a final abandonment of 
 his efforts and a life of insignificance and ridicule, if not 
 that of a hunted criminal ? Such, from the situation 
 and conduct of Jesus, would seem to have been the views 
 which impressed him, and to have determined him to dare 
 the " cast of the die." And with this determination, 
 he departed from Galilee alone and entered Judea "as
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 417 
 
 it were secretly," as John tells us, and no doubt 
 smarting under the telling rebuke of his brothers. 
 
 His proceedings during this period, however, con- 
 tinue to be as disjointedly and obscurely told as they 
 have all along been since his public pretensions to the 
 kingly honors of the Messiahship. John's account is, 
 perhaps, the completest. He describes his teachings, 
 the attempt of the Jews " again to take him," and how he 
 " escaped out of their hands, and went away again beyond 
 Jordan into the place where John first baptized and there 
 abode/' at least until we are introduced to the affair of 
 Lazarus, which was the prelude to his final effort, 
 namely, his formal march from Bethany (the scene of 
 this preparatory effort) into Jerusalem and the Temple, 
 amid the hosannas of his followers as King of the Jews. 
 Such is a brief statement of the matters likely to have 
 influenced this affair of Lazarus, as well as most calcu- 
 lated to elucidate it. 
 
 Trie situation and strong necessities pressing upon 
 Jesus at the time of this affair and the place and person 
 selected for the miracle, render it peculiarly important 
 that this narrative should be examined with unusual 
 care and suspicion. The very fact, that the most start- 
 ling and telling miracle of Jesus a miracle which con- 
 sisted in raising from the dead one of his most devoted 
 and beloved disciples and whose house was a rendezvous 
 for him and his followers, in the presence of many, evi- 
 dently invited, witnesses from Jerusalem a miracle the 
 most deliberate of all his performances, and the one fol- 
 lowed by the most important and decisive step of his 
 life a step which he knew to be decisive of his fate, 
 
 27
 
 41 8 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the fact, we say, that such a performance could have 
 happened under such circumstances, and yet have been 
 utterly overlooked by all three of the synoptical Gospels, 
 is not only incomprehensible, but wellnigh inconceiva- 
 ble, and certainly has the force of a " negative preg- 
 nant " against its existence. The recitals furnish the 
 grounds for but a single' comprehensible reason for 
 avoiding mentioning it. There were present at this oc- 
 currence witnesses who neither blindly accepted nor sub- 
 serviently reported, but who saw the whole transaction 
 and went back and reported to the Pharisees, in Jerusa- 
 lem, that there was a mere pretence, and not a miracle, 
 in the resurrection of Lazarus. We have but the mere 
 fact of their disbelief and report. But, if these men 
 were sent (as it is almost certain they were) on purpose 
 to report the facts to the authorities and chief men, 
 Would not such a report, with all the particulars of their 
 exposure of the proceeding, have given an odor to this 
 transaction with the Jewish public which would have 
 made the disciples anxious to have the affair forgotten 
 as soon as possible ? While the true facts were so no- 
 torious and were well remembered by the public, they 
 would scarcely dare to write a completely garbled and 
 perverted account of a matter so publicly discredited ; 
 but, as John's Gospel is claimed to have been the last 
 one written, and to have been written at a time when 
 this matter had ceased to be remembered by the indif- 
 ferent public, John may have concluded to record the 
 transaction, with his own version of it. However this 
 may be, the whole facts in this case, not only justify, but 
 demand, a sharp scrutiny under the full and free play of 
 an aroused skepticism.
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 419 
 
 As the narrative concerning this miracle is of un- 
 usual length, I will quote it only as it is needed, request- 
 ing the reader to have the eleventh chapter of John be- 
 fore him. 
 
 We notice, in the first place, that Jesus was on the 
 Jordan where John baptized, and that, from this point, 
 it was an easy matter to intercommunicate, back and 
 forth, with Lazarus at Bethany, any day or night. We 
 are to bear in mind, also, that Jesus " loved Martha and 
 her sister and Lazarus," and that his followers also loved 
 them, that their house at Bethany was one of their 
 favorite resorts, and that the whole household were 
 devoted to Jesus and his cause. We must keep in view, 
 also, the imperious necessity for some striking miracle 
 to the safety of Jesus and his followers, who had been 
 again driven beyond the Jordan, and how absolutely nec- 
 essary, also, it was to that decisive effort of entering 
 Jerusalem as King, which was in anticipation. We can 
 scarcely avoid also noting that, for a faithful and prudent 
 management of a simulated miracle, he could have se- 
 lected no family to compare to this of Bethany. There 
 appears to have been but the three, adult persons all 
 prudent and devoted. Nor can we fail to note that there 
 was at hand such an admirable substitute for a grave 
 namely : a '* cave " in which one could live almost any 
 length of time, with food and water ; and therefore 
 admirably adapted for a live dead man. 
 
 When we consider all these facilities and advantages, 
 Does it not appear somewhat singular that, of all 
 men on earth, this same Lazarus should happen to die 
 at this extraordinary juncture in the fortunes of his 
 Master---at this luckiest of all moments, and should have
 
 42O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 been put away in this closed " cave," under the direction 
 of that Mary and her sister who had anointed Jesus' feet 
 with precious ointment from a box of alabaster ? and 
 that he should have had no indiscreet children or ser- 
 vants (for Martha did her own housework) to dis- 
 turb his dying hours or tattle about the death scene and" 
 burial ? But let us not fail also to remark that, had this 
 been a genuine miracle, it would, on account of these 
 very facts and facilities indicating design and collusion, 
 have been far better for Jesus to have resurrected any- 
 body else in Judea, at this critical juncture, than Laza- 
 rus ; far better, also, to have had a less suspicious grave 
 than the " cave " at Bethany, and far better to have had 
 the whole matter under any other management than 
 these devoted female disciples, and to have had the 
 corpse examined, and the miraculous operation occur 
 openly and under the special inspection of his most in- 
 telligent opponents. Nor can we fail to perceive that 
 the facts as presented, do in fact exhibit an almost mir- 
 aculous concurrence of events and conditions (if they 
 were not preconcerted) presenting the best possible 
 conditions and the strongest possible motives for arrang- 
 ing and executing, without detection, a simulated mira- 
 cle ; and, for that very reason, the worst possible ones 
 for securing its acceptance as a genuine miracle by any 
 intelligent person. These, surely, are undeniable truths. 
 
 If we credit the story at all, the essential question here 
 is, Was Lazarus dead ? It is due to Jesus to first con-
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 421 
 
 sider what was his own private opinion about that mat- 
 ter an opinion which, fortunately, we are enabled still 
 to read ; for the intermeddlers with the Gospels have 
 made a fatal mistake in their " doctoring " of this narra- 
 tive, by attempting to " amend " instead of to " strike 
 out." Jesus, in important and confidential matters, had 
 rarely, if ever, trusted any of his disciples save the fa- 
 vorite three, Peter, James and John. A powerful mo- 
 tive (and perhaps a knowledge that it might be impossi- 
 ble to blind them as to the facts), induced him to extend 
 an unusual confidence to all his disciples, in this matter. 
 He knew it would send a genuine and deathly sorrow 
 into the hearts of his devoted followers to announce to 
 them the death of, or any real danger to, their beloved 
 friend Lazarus. Had there been any real fears of his 
 dying they would have, with one voice, besought Jesus 
 to fly to his relief. And, had he neglected to do so, 
 their confidence in him would have been forever shaken. 
 Jesus, being well advised of their feelings, as well -as of 
 the real nature of what was to occur, determined to be 
 frank with them. When, therefore, the message came 
 to him " he whom thou lovest is sick," Jesus told his 
 disciples that " This sickness is not tmto death, but for 
 the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified 
 thereby" Here, then, is a voluntary and positive dec- 
 laration that Lazarus would not die. There is no word 
 here which it is possible to make either obscure or equiv- 
 ocal, and, if Lazarus did die, he did that which Jesus 
 had positively asserted he would not do. His assertion 
 is not only unmistakable, but he proceeds to show that 
 he meant what he said, by assuring them that the sick- 
 ness of Lazarus was for a special object, and by frankly
 
 422 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 declaring what the real object was, namely, " that the 
 Son of God might be glorified thereby." But, Whom 
 did he mean to designate by the terms, " Son of God ? " 
 None will hesitate to answer, " Jesus himself." It was 
 for the purpose, then, of " glorifying " himself. But, 
 What exaltation did he refer to, or expect to secure by 
 its aid ? Was it not, plainly and manifestly, the glory of 
 acquiring the Messianic throne which he entered into 
 Jerusalem to establish just after this miracle, amid the 
 hosannas of his followers to him as " King of Israel ? " 
 Did he not take up his march from the house of this 
 very Lazarus and while crowds of people were still 
 flocking there to see Lazarus on account of this mira- 
 cle ? Jesus does not express himself in the style in 
 which we should express it, but he expresses himself in 
 his usual phraseology, and with as definite a meaning as 
 if he had said " you need not fear for Lazarus ; he will 
 not die ; his sickness is only to aid our cause." 
 
 His positive declarations to his disciples is as posi- 
 tively confirmed by his conduct. For, after he was in- 
 formed of the sickness of him " who he so loved," he 
 utterly disregarded the appeal, and manifested no con- 
 cern for the death agonies of his friend or the anguish 
 of his sisters, but quietly remained in perfect unconcern, 
 for three or four days, and then told his disciples that 
 he was " glad " for their sakes that he was not with Laz- 
 arus. It was only after Lazarus was dead (?) that he 
 went to Bethany, and he himself is made to announce 
 that he was dead, and also his purpose of going to raise 
 Lazarus, or " wake him out of sleep," although he had 
 received no message with regard to him save that he 
 was sick several days before. It was only necessary
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 423 
 
 to let him know that Lazarus was sick, that he might 
 know the time the operations or performances were to 
 commence. How the remainder of the programme 
 would be carried out he already knew. How did he 
 know these facts, unless they had been pre-arranged ? 
 That he had no supernatural knowledge is shown by the 
 fact that he had to be informed of the sickness of Laza- 
 rus. How, then, did he come to tell his disciples how 
 the affair would end, and to announce, and act upon the 
 fact of death (?) without any further information than 
 that Lazarus was merely sick. As the time approached 
 for him to enter upon the stage and perform his part of 
 the programme, he said to his disciples " our friend Laz- 
 arus sleepeth, but I go that I may wake him out of 
 sleep." His disciples replied " Lord, if he sleepeth, he 
 shall do well." Here, after the so-called death of Laz- 
 arus, he fully confirms what he had previously told them 
 of the object and result of this sickness. He speaks of 
 Lazarus as still alive, and his disciples clearly so under- 
 stand him. Thus far, the matter is consistent and une- 
 quivocal. But, in what follows, it is almost impossible 
 not to recognize the over-zealous, but not over-wise, in- 
 terference of some subsequent intermeddler or inter- 
 polater, and quite impossible not to recognize the results 
 of after-thought, by whoever written. The narrative, 
 after stating the announcement by Jesus and the grat- 
 ification expressed by his disciples, abruptly says, " How- 
 beit Jesus spake of his death ; but they thought that he 
 had spoken of taking of rest in sleep." Here we have, 
 abruptly inserted, a commentary upon the meaning of 
 Jesus, and the thoiights of his disciples. After thus tell- 
 ing us what Jesus meant, it is then abruptly said that
 
 424 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 "Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is 
 dead." A patch rarely fits well : and this double patch- 
 ing produces double incongruity. Why should Jesus 
 have first told them that Lazarus slept, only to have to 
 plainly tell them that he was dead ? Why use words 
 which meant that he was not dead, and which he knew 
 they so understood, if he did not mean it ? If he knew, 
 and meant to say, that he was dead, why did he not 
 " plainly " say so at first ? especially as he had already 
 assured them, in direct terms, that he would not die ? 
 Why this useless, quibbling and equivocation, only to 
 immediately tell them the fact " plainly ? " Was it the 
 right thing to thus palter with an affair so solemn as 
 this, or to trifle with the feelings of his followers on 
 so harrowing a matter? Unfortunately, however, the 
 patch, even such as it is, does not cover the whole rent. 
 The interpolater, perceiving the fatal effect of this denial 
 of the death of Lazarus by Jesus himself, has attempted 
 to remedy the matter, in the first place, by making a 
 puerile play upon the word " sleep," and by charging the 
 fault on the disciples for taking the real, instead of the 
 figurative meaning of the word. But even this will not 
 satisfy him, or, perhaps, failed to satisfy some later 
 transcriber and amender. It was apparent, upon reflec- 
 tion, that the mere assertion of the author or writer as 
 to what Jesus meant, could not control the plain lan- 
 guage of Jesus and the interpretation put upon it by all 
 who heard it, and which he knew they put upon it, with- 
 out correcting them. It was necessary, therefore, to 
 have Jesus himself tell them that he did not mean what 
 he said, but that Lazarus was really dead. But the 
 author, in his anxiety to get rid of the word " sleep,"
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 425 
 
 never paused to think of the utter inconsistency of 
 Jesus' conduct with this figurative interpretation, nor to 
 perceive that his explanation did not cover the former 
 express declaration of Jesus that Lazarus' sickness was 
 not unto death, but was for the express purpose of aiding 
 Jesus himself. There can be no quibbling about words 
 here : the word, " sleep," not being used at all. These 
 intermeddlings, therefore, have only resulted in expos- 
 ing the purpose of their introduction, and in making 
 Jesus an unfeeling and ungrateful friend to Lazarus and 
 his sisters and a deliberate deceiver of his trusting fol- 
 lowers, without affecting the validity of his first, most 
 unequivocal and fatal declaration. These vain attempts 
 to save the miracle has only slandered the performer. 
 
 Enough can be gathered from the narrative to judge 
 the probable nature of the transaction. Whatever oc- 
 curred had clearly been pre-arranged between Jesus and 
 these devoted disciples at Bethany. The message an- 
 nouncing to Jesus the sickness of Lazarus was to furnish 
 no unexpected news to Jesus, but only to advise him of 
 the time of the commencement of the performance, with 
 a view to guide his own entrance upon the stage. His 
 own language and conduct proves this. He expressed 
 neither surprise nor grief at the announcement. Nor did 
 he make any move towards going to his relief. Instead of 
 paltering with his disciples, as is afterwards represented, 
 their intense grief and alarm at the message of danger, 
 not only appealed to his feelings, but placed his own in- 
 difference and apathy in such an incomprehensible and 
 discreditable contrast, that, he was impelled to be frank 
 with them. He could only deceive them in this matter 
 at the risk of losing their confidence and affection. He
 
 426 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 therefore explained to them that Lazarus was not going 
 to die that his sickness was for the purpose of aiding 
 the common cause was for the purpose of glorifying 
 him, Jesus. He received no message of Lazarus' death, 
 but, after waiting two or three days, announced the 
 denouement of the matter to his disciples, before he had 
 ever heard it himself ; and expressed his own gladness 
 at the opportunity it furnished him, and his purpose of 
 departing for Bethany. While expressing this gladness 
 and showing this utter unconcern to those in whom he 
 had confided, we find him " groaning " and " weeping," 
 when he gets to Bethany (where strange eyes are 
 watching him) in a manner which greatly impressed the 
 witnesses. This inconsistency was very consistent. 
 There was cause for being glad, and he might well ex- 
 press that gladness before his confidential co-workers. 
 The case was reversed, however, when he had to act as 
 if he really believed that Lazarus was actually dead. 
 
 Up to the time of the resurrection scene there had 
 been no person, so far as appears from the narrative, 
 who had seen Lazarus either while sick or when dead, 
 save his two sisters. For aught that appears, also, none 
 had ever seen him placed in that " cave," or seen him 
 after he was there. Nor did any of those present go in 
 to see him at the time, nor were any invited to look upon 
 the body or to witness its return to life, although many 
 witnesses were present even from Jerusalem. The 
 " cave " was inclosed with a stone, and as Jesus removed 
 it he bade Lazarus come forth, without even himself 
 going in ; and Lazarus came out, still bound in his 
 grave clothes " hand and foot." An astonishing feat,
 
 JESUS AND HIS MIRACLES. 42 / 
 
 one would think, that of walking out before the crowd 
 when thus bound " hand and foot ! " During all this 
 process, so stupendous and divine (if true) there is not 
 a word or exclamation or embrace by Lazarus, nor by 
 his sisters or any of those present. There was neither 
 surprise nor joy expressed by any one, believer or dis- 
 believer. After narrating the fact of Lazarus' reap- 
 pearance, we are merely told that many of those who 
 " came to Mary," believed ; and that others disbelieved, 
 and " went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them 
 what things Jesus had done." We have no information 
 at all as to th&fact of death, save through the after-talk 
 of the sisters. There is no statement of his disease or 
 burial ; nor have we any assurance that he had been in 
 that " cave " one hour before the arrival of Jesus, or, if 
 he had been placed there several days before, there is 
 literally nothing to assure us that he had remained there, 
 or that he may not have come out every night, or may 
 have even secretly visited Jesus on the Jordan during 
 his supposed stay in the cave. Nor is there the slightest 
 evidence that he was not nightly supplied with food and 
 water, if he remained in the cave. We know, also, of 
 other faithful disciples living at Bethany, to help, if help 
 was needed. Notwithstanding the wholly inconclusive 
 nature of the public performances and the manifest 
 opportunities for collusion and pre-arrangement and the 
 many manifest causes for suspecting them (such as 
 we have mentioned) and notwithstanding there were 
 many skeptical witnesses present, there was no pretence 
 of offering an opportunity for testing the real nature 
 or verity of the alleged facts or for the slightest 
 guaranty against imposition. The whole affair looks
 
 428 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 exactly as it would if it had been gotten up expressly 
 for the purpose of glorifying Jesus, just as he said 
 it was ; and without any intention or expectation of 
 having it tested or believed by the intelligent classes, 
 but only for the purpose of reaching that great class 
 which believes by mere report, and accepts without 
 investigation. For that class it will still serve. But 
 were the narrative found reported by the followers of 
 any other founder of a supernatural religion, under the 
 same circumstances and in the same words, no intelligent 
 Christian would hesitate to condemn it as an imposture. 
 And, however we conclude, here, we must not forget 
 that whatever was done at this last effort to sustain his 
 desperate fortune and save his own life, Jesus had 
 excuses for it, which would not have failed to have con- 
 trolling weight with most men, and would certainly not 
 have failed with those men who have most signally con- 
 trolled and benefited mankind. Successful men have 
 been those who have not scrupled to deal with men ac- 
 cording to their capacity, and to use the means necessary 
 to the end; and this includes all the founders of re- 
 ligions.
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 429 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS, METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 
 
 IT will have been seen that we contend, -firstly : 
 that all Being, beings and things necessarily have inher- 
 ent, definite, determinate, arid inevitable proclivities and 
 modes of being and acting in each and every possible 
 state, condition and relation ; that this law-governed 
 character of the Universe is established by an a priori 
 deduction which is resistless and conclusive : being 
 true if there is no God, and a fortiori true if there be a 
 God ; that this a priori conclusion is confirmed by in- 
 ductive proof commensurate with that upon which all 
 human knowledge and prescience rests ; and that a 
 matter thus established is incapable of disproof by mere 
 ordinary sensuous observation, and therefore forbids 
 all proof of miracles, certainly all proof of them by the 
 testimony of other human beings. 
 
 Secondly: That, were the absolute impossibility of 
 miracles waived, still, a fact so improbable as the ex- 
 ercise of supernatural power by a human being, or as 
 the exertion of any mere will-power over outside, discon- 
 nected and unconscious matter, could only be rationally 
 established by complete and absolutely indubitable evi-
 
 43O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 dence of all the facts required to fully and clearly exhibit 
 the miracle, and to also completely negative the pos- 
 sibility of the presence and operation of natural causes. 
 It is contended further, that this completely conclusive, 
 indubitable and exclusive evidence cannot be furnished 
 through the testimony of others, on account of the in- 
 herent weakness of such human testimony of the 
 ignorance, imperfections and incompetence of the wit- 
 nesses as observers and their incapacity and bias as 
 narrators : that all human experience and reason show, 
 that even the sworn testimony of any number of even 
 honest and intelligent witnesses is more likely to be erro- 
 neous than that such overwhelming negative presumptions 
 should be at fault : a truth which, though affirmed by 
 all human experience, is amply sustained and exemplified 
 by the evidence in cases of witchcraft alone, where we 
 find, through thousands of years, the ever accumulating 
 sworn-testimony of hundreds of thousands of such wit- 
 nesses, backed by innumerable solemn judicial and 
 ecclesiastical judgments, positively affirming this fact 
 of witchcraft ; a fact which a million of witnesses could 
 not now make us believe. 
 
 Thirdly : That, consequently, by the legitimate prin- 
 ciples and laws of evidence, he who denies a miracle is 
 neither bound to prove, or to disprove anything, nor to 
 furnish or show a natural explanation or cause for any 
 phenomenon asserted to be miraculous ; but that the 
 burden of proof rests upon those who assert the miracle, 
 not merely to show an unaccountable transaction, but to 
 show all the facts which could, by possibility, have 
 naturally affected or influenced it, and make it manifest
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 43 1 
 
 that no such natural facts or causes could possibly have 
 effected the actual results ; unless, indeed, they furnish, 
 to the party to be convinced, the freest and fullest 
 invitation, opportunities and facilities for examining and 
 testing every precedent and concurrent fact which could 
 influence the processes or results ; and that less proof 
 than this ought not to entitle any such pretensions to 
 even serious consideration, if even a respectful hearing. 
 
 Fourthly : That written history furnishes but a par- 
 tial, feeble and distorted representation of the past facts 
 relative to the life, motives and acts of Humanity ; that 
 these defects in human histories are gross and monstrous 
 in the proportion in which they have been influenced by 
 the partisanship and partialities of their authors ; and 
 that, throughout all human experience, that partisanship 
 and partiality which has proven the blindest, most un- 
 scrupulous and most fatal to truth, has been that inspired 
 by religious zeal and fanaticism ; that ecclesiastical 
 ..histories and religious writings of all kinds have, every- 
 where, proved to be prejudiced and unreliable evidence 
 wherever the faith or founders of religions or churches 
 have been concerned, and especially among early and 
 superstitious peoples. We have seen, also, that our 
 Gospel narratives are singularly -apt and striking ex- 
 amples of this universal experience of the unreliability 
 of early religious records. 
 
 Were these several considerations allowed their due 
 weight, the miracles of Jesus, as those of every other 
 founder of a supernatural religion, would never have re-
 
 43 2 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 quired a serial and special examination. But, in deference 
 to the traditional notions of our fathers and the credit 
 still awarded them by worthy people, we have temporarily 
 waived these advantages, and have endeavored to ascer- 
 tain the probable facts .and natural explanations of the 
 supposed miracles recited in the Gospels, under the sup- 
 position of the possibility of miracles, and with an 
 endeavor to avoid assigning falsehood or unfavorable 
 motives, when possible. 
 
 Mr. Beecher, in his Life of Jesus the Christ, as 
 clearly distinguished two periods and phases in the pub- 
 lic career of Jesus. And it is certainly very difficult to 
 perceive how any intelligent mind that is familiar with 
 the Gospels could fail to perceive this distinction. For, 
 while the mind and views of Jesus gradually developed 
 and changed as he encountered the experiences of his 
 life, like those of other men, his public career certainly 
 divides itself into an earlier and a later phase which 
 stand not only distinguishable, but in quite marked con- 
 trast, both in opinions, purposes and conduct. These 
 phases cannot now be definitely divided by time, although 
 we may closely approximate the period of the change ; 
 but the division is readily enough marked by ideas and 
 purposes. The change was concurrent with his deter- 
 mination to announce himself as the Jewish Messiah a 
 determination arrived at about the middle of his public 
 career.
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 433 
 
 The later or Messianic phase of his career exhibits 
 him both in a more intense light and in a different light. 
 He is presented to us with a new and higher self-estimate 
 and with new and higher personal aims, as well as under- 
 new and more exacting and exciting conditions and in- 
 fluences. Such garbled fragments of his life, purposes 
 and works as the Gospels furnish us during this period, 
 require, also, more care and insight for their interpreta- 
 tion. They have been both written and changed under 
 necessary limitations and for subsequent and altered 
 purposes, which have greatly distorted and mutilated 
 them, and added much to their incomprehensibility and 
 unreliability. Without a comprehension, indeed, of this 
 change in the character, conditions and purposes of 
 Jesus and a due allowance for the subsequent motives 
 and necessity for concealing the true nature of this 
 change and for adapting the conduct, purposes and 
 language of Jesus to unreal, different, and subsequently- 
 necessitated conceptions and objects, on the part of the 
 subsequent writers and re-moulders of our narratives, all 
 -true comprehension of the actual facts, aims and motives 
 of this period becomes impossible. We have been com- 
 pelled, therefore, to distinguish these phases in the life 
 and labors of Jesus, as Mr. Beecher has done, and to in- 
 terpret them from his own stand-point in each, and not 
 from the altered stand-point of his successors. 
 
 There has been some difference of opinion as to 
 whether the Gospel miracles were to receive a mythic ~r 
 a natural explanation. While I have read little of the 
 
 28
 
 434 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 views of others on this question, the facts in that regard 
 have seemed to present no serious difficulty. The pre- 
 tended, contradictory and useless genealogies of Joseph, 
 and those miraculous announcements and recognitions 
 of Jesus, and those miracles concerning him, which could 
 neither be verified nor disproved at the time they were 
 written, and which were neither subsequently mentioned 
 nor used during the life of Jesus, nor subserved his plans 
 or purposes, nor influenced the opinions or conduct 
 of himself or of others who must have known them, 
 together with all the feeble and manifestly gratuitous 
 attempts to force him into the fulfilments of Scripture, 
 are so manifestly mythic after-growths, that natural ex- 
 planations are not called for, even if they were possible. 
 And, while it is possible to attribute many of these alleged 
 miraculous phenomena to misconceived or exaggerated 
 conceptions or reports of natural phenomena, they 
 neither suggest such natural explanations, nor can such 
 explanations always escape the charge of being strained 
 and far-fetched. Being purely mythic they could furnish 
 no such consistent and rational basis of real facts ; and 
 such attempts at natural explanations, even if plausible, 
 are delusive. 
 
 There can be no reasonable doubt that the accounts 
 which we have of the miraculous performances of Jesus 
 himself and of his life and character are, not only partial, 
 exaggerated and distorted, but have received, in some 
 cases, the clear impress of the myth-moulds ; and, in a 
 few cases, have probably been sheer inventions. But, to 
 deny that Jesus existed, and was condemned and cruci- 
 fied for conspiring for the Messianic throne of Israel or
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 435 
 
 kingship of the Jews, or to believe, in other words, that 
 Jesus himself was a myth, requires a credulity akin to 
 that which accredits the infallibility of the Gospels and 
 the divinity of Jesus. No adequate cause can be assigned 
 for the known results which ensued, if these facts be 
 denied. And yet, if these facts are conceded, it is 
 rationally certain that Jesus must have had some support 
 and following in his efforts, as well as some grounds or 
 pretensions by which he won such following -and support. 
 But, as he himself neither had, nor claimed to have, the 
 mythic pretensions or rights which have since been set 
 up for him, but depended upon God, himself, and his 
 own " marvellous works," and expressly or by direct im- 
 plication denied or repudiated all others, and as the 
 actual results and fame which followed confirmed all 
 this, and speciaHy pointed to his supposed miraculous 
 powers and performances as the source of his pre- 
 tensions and successes, the conclusion is a legitimate 
 one, that he was actually engaged in exhibiting some 
 such performances. And, as these "marvellous works " 
 -almost uniformly present or suggest either a natural ex- 
 planation or rational solution consistent with the actual 
 person* and characters and their existing purposes, 
 means and circumstances, and often actually interpret 
 and exemplify them, as well as conform to their various 
 changes (according to the true rendering of them), we 
 may safely conclude that most of the alleged perform- 
 ances of Jesus had some real basis of facts : facts 
 which, if fully known and understood, would furnish 
 their own explanation and vindicate their own natural- 
 ness and human origin in every case and beyond cavil or 
 dispute.
 
 436 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 We have found that, over and above all the general 
 defects of the record and of the "hear-say" evidence 
 and unauthenticated statements it contains, there are 
 many defects and discrediting features, both in the 
 methods and performances of Jesus and in our present 
 accounts of them, which are fatal to them, not only as 
 divine performances and records, but as trustworthy 
 evidence and reliable history. 
 
 We have found such a lack of chronological sequence 
 in the events recited, and such want of consecution and 
 coherence in the circumstances and details, as to cast a 
 cloud of obscurity over a very large portion of the career 
 of Jesus. And even where we have special events 
 recited or explained, the recitals are too meagre and im- 
 perfect to satisfy the rational rnind. We find a uniform 
 habit of bare, meagre and positive statement by the 
 author, which furnishes the reader no means of dis- 
 tinguishing between the personal knowledge, opinions 
 and beliefs of the author or between matters spoken on 
 his own authority or on the authority of information, 
 tradition or rumor. The number of devils in a patient, 
 and what they knew, felt and thought, the cure of a 
 patient which has never been seen, the thoughts' and 
 dreams of absent, unknown and dead people, a supersti- 
 tion about a miraculous pool, and all other matters of 
 belief, however absurd or however impossible to have 
 been known to the writer, are stated with the same, posi- 
 tiveness as the crucifixion or any personally known fact.
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 437 
 
 The miraculous facts and transactions recited, we 
 find, also, to be of a character which generally requires 
 the observation, investigation and attestation of persons 
 of a wholly different order of mind and intelligence from 
 that possessed by either the observers or the writers who 
 have given currency to the works of Jesus. We are, at 
 best, compelled to depend for the proof of a miracle upon 
 the observations, opinions and credibility of unknown 
 men and women who never had heard of natural causa- 
 tion or natural law, and who never questioned even the 
 probability of miracles of men and women who, not 
 only believed implicity in miracles and had an insatiable 
 desire to witness and report them, but who had an 
 undoubting faith that Jesus could perform them, and 
 who required neither investigation, precaution, test or 
 proof to convince themselves, and who were profoundly 
 and personally interested in asserting and proving them. 
 No evidence could possibly be weaker. The evidence of 
 millions of such witnesses in favor of a miracle, is 
 literally worth nothing. Oceans of such evidence has 
 been poured fourth, ad libitttm, for Spritualism, Mormon- 
 ism, Catholicism, Mahometanism, Buddhism, ancr every 
 other supernatural pretension which has deluded man- 
 kind. For the fact, nature and stage of diseases, as well 
 as for the fact, extent and permanency of the relief 
 given, and for the remedies used, we are compelled to 
 rely upon the bare assertion of the subsequent and un- 
 known author, whose very best information could only 
 have come from extremely ignorant and superstitious 
 people who knew little or nothing of either diseases, 
 remedies or cures, and who believed all diseases were the 
 penalties of sin and the results of supernatural agencies
 
 438 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 people who could neither decide nor report upon such 
 facts intelligently, who had been selected expressly for 
 this miracle-proving, and who were biased in their reports 
 by a blind faith and controlling interest. 
 
 We find, further, that these narratives were written 
 many years after Jesus had humiliatingly failed in his 
 Messianic attempts and had been ignominiously executed 
 for his open endeavors to become King of the Jews at 
 a time, in fact, when it was impossible to look upon his 
 public efforts as other than most humiliating failures, 
 and when his supposed resurrection had not only given 
 a new life and impulse to the movements of his followers, 
 but also had given a wholly new phase to his preten- 
 sions : in short, when he had come to be treated and 
 worshipped as a God and a Divine Saviour of mankind 
 and a vicarious sacrifice for the sins of Humanity, instead 
 of an active aspirant for the temporal Messiahship of 
 Israel; as he had been exclusively and universally con- 
 sidered up to his failure and crucifixion. A new Gentile 
 religion was being unexpectedly developed, of which the 
 crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus were to be basic 
 facts, and not his " anointment " as King and his 
 triumph as the Jewish Messiah ; and its godmothers 
 and propagators were compelled to find in his actual and 
 known life some pretence for these new pretensions 
 inaugurated by his resurrection. The man who had 
 failed in his exclusively Jewish efforts, and who had even 
 regarded it as a wrongful throwing of the " children's
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 439 
 
 bread to the dogs " to heal the sick child of a Gentile 
 mother, had to be made appear as an all-loving, benef- 
 icent and self-immolating sacrifice for even these Gen- 
 tile " dogs." In attempting to make this metamorphosis 
 in the life, character and purposes of Jesus, they were 
 driven to dwarf, modify or suppress many things that 
 were most important to an elucidation of his real motives 
 and conduct, on account of their manifest demonstration 
 of the purely Jewish, political and temporal nature of 
 his schemes and efforts. From a like motive they were 
 impelled to aid the facts by additions and suggestions 
 and by putting a new face and interpretation upon 
 the actual motives and endeavors of Jesus. It was 
 neccesary to force the reality into conformity with this 
 new and wholly religious conception of his life and mis- 
 sion ; and the disjointed and incoherent fragments 
 of his life, character, sayings and aims which they have 
 used as a skeleton for their remodelled Jesus, have been 
 clipped, plastered and re-shaped by their Procrustean 
 processes, until they are neither complete, concordant, 
 consecutive, consistent, nor rational, but compel us 
 to mine and explore these metamorphosed fragments 
 for a possible and rational conception of their original 
 nature and connections. We are compelled, also, to do 
 this, not with the aid of the authors of this metamorphosed 
 conglomerate, but in defiance of them ; the intent and 
 rationale which they give us, leading to no rational 
 solution at all, but only to inconceivability, contradiction 
 and mystery. Such are the real causes, indeed, of the 
 insoluble mysteries which the record presents even to 
 the mind of Mr. Beecher. The difficulty and mystery 
 did not exist in the actual life and purposes of Jesus,
 
 44O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the son of Joseph and Mary, but in the life and purposes 
 of the re-created and remodelled Jesus, the Son of God. 
 It is difficult to create a character and life, and still 
 more difficult to adapt a real life and character to a 
 false mask. They are achievements which even Genius 
 can only approximate : and the Evangelists were not 
 geniuses. To their lameness and incompetence in 
 this regard, Mr. Beecher and his Christian brethren 
 chiefly owe their insoluble mysteries, the Skeptic his 
 derisive weapons, and the Rationalists their means of a 
 true solution of the actual facts. 
 
 We have found, that the performances usually deemed 
 miraculous are not even asserted to be miracles in their 
 narration, and that they furnish no pretence, at least to 
 the modern mind, for calling them such. Certainly, 
 none of the miracles were ever proved or verified, in any 
 form ; and it may be asserted, with almost equal posi- 
 tiveness, that nothing is ever stated from which a 
 miracle could, prima facie, be inferred. For the nar- 
 ratives are not only insufficient in affirmative recitals, 
 but are utterly neglectful of negativing either deception, 
 delusion, collusion or the possibility of a natural explana- 
 tion. Whether we have suggested the true explanations 
 of the various performances of Jesus is for the Reader to 
 judge. That we have reached the approximately "true 
 renderings of the facts we have no hesitation in believing. 
 Nor would our failure to do so in any particular case, 
 argue the impossibility of such an explanation, even
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 44! 
 
 upon the meagre material furnished by the Gospels ; 
 since other natural explanations are possible, and there 
 are always the explanations of. delusion, collusion and 
 pre-arrangement, which have, in rfo instance, been pre- 
 cluded or provided against. That such meagre and 
 biased recitals should have furnished the means for so 
 many and so plausible natural explanations as have been 
 given, is sufficiently conclusive as to the nature of the 
 real facts 
 
 Without any effort to examine and expose the con- 
 flicting and inconsistent statements of the Gospels, we 
 have casually met with sufficient proofs of them to show 
 the real nature and unreliability of this written testi- 
 mony; while their neglect of important facts is con- 
 stantly being exhibited by the supply which one Gospel 
 furnishes for the neglect of others. We not only never 
 know when we have the real facts, but we may be 
 always sure that we never have the full facts. Their 
 mere silence constitutes not the slightest presumption 
 against the existence of any adverse fact. 
 
 We have also been impressed with the unmistakably 
 and purely human and fallible character of both Jesus 
 and the Gospels, as well as of the absurd impossibility 
 of his most effective miracles, by reason of the belief 
 maintained by both Jesus and the Evangelists in the 
 existence of innumerable minute and invisible devils
 
 442 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 who seek to inhabit, "possess" and torture both men 
 and animals, and who have superhuman knowledge and 
 prescience, and can understand and converse about 
 most, if not all the affairs of God and men ; and also by 
 their belief that human diseases were divine punish- 
 ments inflicted for men's sins of all knds, and that the 
 forgiving of their sins and the curing of their bodily 
 infirmities were equivalent, if not identical acts, and 
 similar superstitious beliefs beliefs which are not only 
 not Godlike and infallible, but absurd and fetichistic. 
 And yet the infallibility of the Gospels and the intel- 
 lectual status and infallibility of Jesus and the truth of 
 his most numerous and most effective miracles are 
 irrevocably staked upon the truth of these crude and 
 long discarded beliefs ! That both Jesus and his Apostles 
 did have such beliefs and acted upon them, are facts 
 which are so often and so indubitably proved in the 
 Scriptures as to defy all possible misconstruction. 
 
 We have not failed to observe, also, the striking fact 
 of the utter absence, in every case of healing, of any 
 allusion to the after condition of the patients who were 
 operated upon, such as would enable the reader to 
 know or judge whether the relief asserted to have been 
 given was brief and perhaps imaginary or was complete 
 and permanent. The usual habit of Jesus was to tell 
 the patient he was well, and to direct him at once to take 
 up his bed and walk or go, unless he himself were
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 443 
 
 absent or was immediately going elsewhere. In no 
 instance does there appear to have been any examination 
 of the patient, then or afterwards, nor does it appear 
 that they remained with them Idng enough to know 
 anything about the permanent effects of the remedies 
 used. These, at least, were their habitual methods. 
 That they are unsatisfactory and delusive is shown by 
 all experience. There has been a well known exemplifi- 
 cation of the real and apparent successes of such a 
 course, as well as its still more real delusions, in our 
 own day. A man (whose name I have forgotten) un- 
 dertook to heal the afflicted in precise imitation of the 
 ordinary manner of Jesus. He performed in public 
 halls, before thousands, in our various cities. The poor 
 were treated publicly and without costs. The wealthy 
 were treated privately and for pay. In his public per- 
 formances the afflicted came to him successively, and 
 were almost momentarily treated after the style of 
 Jesus and ordered to pass on. The wildest stories were 
 'circulated as to his successes. To a few it seemed to 
 -have been of real service. Few failed to feel, or 
 imagine that they felt, some kind of relief under the 
 excitements of the moment ; and many of their cases 
 were reported as marvellous cures. But when the 
 excitement had passed and the results were inquired 
 into, it was found that the relief, in almost every case, 
 had been extremely brief, if not wholly imaginary. 
 Such subsequent inquiries never appear in the Gospel 
 performances. Had they been made and given us, 
 there can be little doubt that a new face would be put 
 upon even the best cures pf Jesus. Without them, we 
 must also remain without proof or assurance.
 
 444 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 It is noteworthy, also, that Jesus required the 
 implicit faith of the patient as a condition of his cure ; 
 that he habitually brought them under the additional 
 influence of tactual relations with his o'wn body, and 
 required a certain time, however short, to effect his 
 cures. We have found, further, that, in cases not 
 nervous, he used various purely physical remedies, and 
 acknowledged that, even in certain nervous cases, the 
 operator must not only exert the influence of his own 
 confidence or faith, but must have his powers exalted by 
 fasting and prayer. Except in cases of "possession" 
 his disciples healed by anointing with oil (Mark vi. 13). 
 Besides resorting to these natural remedies and in- 
 fluences, it would seem that in no single instance in 
 which he proposed to heal the absent (who could not 
 be subjected to such natural influences) is there 
 evidence showing that the person was healed, or that 
 any information as to their recovery was ever either 
 received or sought for by Jesus or his followers. These 
 facts, showing the requirement of time and the use of 
 natural remedies, we have been compelled to regard as 
 plainly and absolutely conclusive of the purely human 
 character of the powers of Jesus. No Divine Being, 
 having voluntary powers of causation and control, would 
 resort to such distressing delays and such natural and 
 even repulsive agencies as we have seen Jesus resorting 
 to ; especially as the chief object was to exhibit to others 
 the very fact of his divine power or voluntary contro 1 
 over Nature.
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 445 
 
 We have been impressed, also, with the fact that, out 
 of the vast number whom Jesus is said to have healed, 
 we have, in about a score of reported cases, the choicest 
 selection the creme tie la creme of his successes; which 
 is proved, even were it not manifest, by the fact, that 
 all the Gospels substantially concur in the selection of 
 these same cases as the proofs of his divine power. We 
 are, then, treated to the best to the hits and successes, 
 to the exclusion of the misses and failures ; although we 
 are accidentally treated to one failure to exercise a devil 
 that was giving a boy fits, and to a general confession 
 of his incapacity to do any great work before his in- 
 credulous neighbors of Nazareth. We are, however, 
 neither told that he did not fail, nor that he- could not 
 fail in other cases. It was simply no part of their object 
 to record his failures. Nor would failures have shaken 
 the confidence of his followers, or perhaps of Jesus 
 himself, since they would not have been attributed to 
 lack of miraculous power in Jesus, but to the lack of 
 faith in the patient. If a patient was not healed, or 
 " relapsed, the answer was always ready, L he had lacked, 
 or had lost, faith. The patient or somebody else was 
 always at fault in all cases where he failed. 
 
 But it is in the character of his performances them- 
 selves, and in the times, places and manner in which 
 they were performed and the circumstances and needs 
 which evidence the peculiar purpose of their perform- 
 ance, and in the estimate placed upon them by those
 
 44^ JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 who knew his purposes, methods and performances, that 
 we shall find the most overwhelming mass of evidence 
 against his miraculous powers. We find only one class 
 of his performances continued, more or less openly, 
 throughout his career namely, his healings ; chiefly 
 of a nervous type. These he evidently performed with 
 more confidence and with less preparation and pre- 
 cautions than any others. It was by his healings that 
 he had first won his fame, and to them he had exclusively 
 devoted himself until he determined to struggle fof the 
 Messiahship. When we examine his subsequent at- 
 tempts to impress the people with a conception of his 
 divine powers, other than those of healing, we find them 
 confined to raising the dead, killing a fig tree, making 
 imitated-wine, magnifying fish and bread, and to such 
 incidental occasions as were offered for impressing his 
 immediate followers with his power over the aerial and 
 watery elements. In every instance in which he selected 
 his qwn performance, and expected others to be present, 
 he selected just such performances as were not only 
 immeasurably less incomprehensible than every-day 
 Hindoo feats and susceptible of being readily performed 
 by natural mean, but by just such means as could be 
 readily supplied by his own followers. In no instance 
 does he attempt to perform feats, before others, which 
 were beyond ordinary human agency or which might 
 not readily be performed through the exclusive assist- 
 ance of his own disciples. Nay, more, the few feats of 
 this kind which -he did perform, with the exception of 
 the wine feat, were, as we have seen, of a character to 
 point directly to the aid and connivance of his most 
 devoted disciples. With millions of miracles always
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 447 
 
 open to him, which would be above all suspicion of 
 every kind, he never attempted to soar above the region 
 of the most ordinary human agency and the cheapest col- 
 lusion, and even of these, he performed the very feats in 
 which collusion would most naturally be suspected. He 
 said he had power to do things which would really have 
 been miraculous, but he took care not to attempt them. 
 
 The times, also, at which he performed his chief mir- 
 acles are very significant. All of them were performed 
 after he entered upon his political career, and were 
 performed at times when the exigencies of his political 
 or personal fortunes clearly point to their special use 
 and purpose. Had he desired to throw suspicion on 
 these performances, the times of their performance could 
 not have been better chosen. 
 
 The places, also, at which he took care to perform 
 fiis miracles are even more significant. His perform- 
 ances were chiefly in Galilee instead of Judea : a course 
 greatly calculated to prejudice the Jews. The greater 
 number of them, also, were performed away from the 
 towns and cities and from the observation of the 
 intelligent. None of his great miracles were performed 
 in the larger towns or cities. In Galilee he kept clear 
 of the Capitol, and confined himself to the fishing towns 
 and villages and to the fishing smack and unfrequented 
 places. Only two performances are reported in Jeru- 
 salem, and- both of these were cases of private healing, 
 and were of a character, as we have seen, most suspicious
 
 448 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 and most miraculous. No candid man will deny, that 
 the places selected for his displays of power were such 
 as were least likely to satisfy the intelligent or to con- 
 ciliate the Jews. 
 
 The entire manner of his performances was most un- 
 fortunate for their credit and influence. His method was 
 that which was least of all calculated to either conciliate 
 or convince, and precisely that which was most likely to 
 excite suspicion and prejudice. He habitually used 
 means to accomplish his ends, and those means were 
 natural ones, and always such as would be readily recog- 
 nized as those which were easiest for him to procure in 
 his then peculiar situation. For example, we never hear 
 of his feeding anybody on any miraculous food except 
 bread and fish, and never hear of his feeding them on 
 bread and fish in Judea, or anywhere else except in the 
 immediate vicinity 'of Capernaum : the only place his 
 disciples could supply them. He undertook to prove 
 his miracles by witnesses, instead of exhibiting them to 
 the world to have them reported to the intelligent pub- 
 lic, instead of letting that intelligent public see and judge 
 for themselves. Instead of courting and defying skep- 
 ticism and investigation, he shunned both. This method 
 in itself, was fatal to all confidence and to all hope of as- 
 surance. No method could have been weaker or more 
 suspicious. But the mode of his proposed proof was, if 
 possible, still more suspicious. He selected for his per-
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 449 
 
 sonal followers; assistants and witnesses the most credu- 
 lous, devoted and subservient men, from the lowest and 
 most superstitious classes. These selected and devoted 
 witnesses and servants expected to be exalted through 
 their master's success, and expected that success to be 
 won by the very miracles they themselves proved. 
 They believed that every miracle they circulated was a 
 means of bringing them one step further towards the 
 high positions which they expected in the coming king- 
 dom, either from, or through the influence of Jesus ; 
 and they were already wrangling over their expected 
 spoils before the" victory was won. By these selected, 
 trained and wholly subservient Galilean servants he 
 proposed to prove his miracles and divine power to the 
 Jewish world, and thus pave his way to the Jewish Mes- 
 siahship ; when it was far easier to have gone into Jeru- 
 salem and into the Temple itself and there challenge 
 the utmost scrutiny of the highest and best of the Jewish 
 people, and to have performed miracles which, in num- 
 ber and kind, would be resistless. Nor did the folly stop 
 Here. It is manifest that he did not fully trust even all of 
 his own trained witnesses. Of the twelve we scarcely 
 ever hear the names mentioned, except those of the 
 favored and trusted trio. He selected three confidential 
 assistants as an " inner circle ; " namely, Simon, whom 
 he dubbed " The Rock," and the two brothers James 
 and John whom he dubbed " Sons of Thunder." The 
 " Rock " was to have supreme power to " loose and bind " 
 on Earth, and to be keeper of the Keys of Heaven. 
 The " Sons of Thunder " were modestly content to sit 
 on the right and left hand of the throne of Jesus the 
 two chief dignities. Such were his more confidential 
 
 29
 
 45O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 assistants and witnesses. The rest me'rety believed, and 
 did what they were told, and acted the part of super- 
 numeraries. Upon the wild, morbidly-extravagant, and 
 often wholly incomprehensible declarations of Jesus 
 himself, and the testimony of these three subservient 
 and interested co-workers of Jesus, were the Jews com- 
 pelled to almost exclusively depend for their evidence of 
 his miracles and pretensions. With these coadjutors 
 and his nine dummies he sailed about the Sea of Galilee 
 in their fishing smack, and rambled on foot over the 
 country, from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon to Jericho, 
 performing such "works " as opportunities made possible 
 and their interests demanded ; yet always keeping their 
 methods from the public, and following their original 
 plan of proving their miracles by themselves and their 
 friends. Their "headquarters" was at Capernaum, 
 within a few hours' walk of their capital city, and yet we 
 never hear of a single " wonderful work " in Tiberias. 
 Several times he visited Jerusalem, and talked and dis- 
 puted much, and habitually indulged in insulting and 
 berating the better class of Jews and in outraging their 
 notions of piety and propriety ; but in all these visits, 
 with daily opportunities for healing and miracle-working, 
 we have the narratives of but two " works " of two 
 patients privately healed ; and both of these on the Sab- 
 bath day, when he knew that the religious and intelligent 
 Jews were not abroad to witness his proceedings and 
 would be greatly shocked by his selecting the Sabbath 
 day for his performances. He ranged the coasts of 
 Tyre and Sidon, yet his sole reported work was an ex- 
 torted reply to the importunities of a way-side woman. 
 He was several times in Samaria, yet his one reported
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 451 
 
 performance consisted of a long private talk at the well 
 with an adulteress. He was at Gadara, yet his single 
 reported performance was one with a crazy man out 
 among the tombs, and the destruction of some hogs, for 
 which he was unanimously invited to leave the country. 
 
 The Gospels clearly show that Jesus habitually avoided 
 the cities and towns, as well as the intelligent public and 
 incredtdous observers of all classes, in his miracle-working. 
 Those manifestations of his personal influence which 
 were real and natural, but were of a character to be in- 
 comprehensible and mysterious to even the intelligent 
 Jews, he was less cautious in exhibiting ; and, in a few 
 instances of his healings, there may have been intelligent 
 persons present. But, if so, they were neither furnished 
 the opportunity for testing and judging the real merit of 
 his performances ; nor did what they did see at all con- 
 vince them of his divine powers. The great body of his 
 reported miracles, however, were performed privately or 
 before his select witnesses ; and then rumored abroad 
 by them in their own style. Even in diseases where he 
 distrusted his ordinary remedies, he took his patients 
 aside or treated them in private, and with strict injunc- 
 tions of secrecy, after using the grossly physical reme- 
 dies which we have commented on. In no case that I 
 remember did he ever perform in the presence of law- 
 yers, scribes or doctors, or in that of either the Jewish or 
 Gentile officials. Even solicitations from the intelligent 
 classes,- to witness his performances, were met with re- 
 buke or silent refusal. Nor would he perform before a 
 Pharisee, except in one or two cases of healing, perhaps. 
 He turned out the people when he awoke the prostrate
 
 452 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 daughter of Jairus. He performed his wine feat at Cana 
 unbeknown to the guests, and without witnesses. He 
 went off into -the mountain and to a desert place to per- 
 form at his two fish- feasts. There were no witnesses at 
 all, save the patient, in near half his miracles. Most of 
 the remainder had only his disciples, and, in the most 
 difficult of them, only his three confidential servants and 
 co-operators. There were none but his disciples present 
 when the fig tree was cursed ; nor when he walked upon 
 the water ; nor when he stilled the tempest ; nor when 
 he sent some 2000 devils into as many Jewish hogs ; 
 nor when his three favorites woke up and found the 
 "transfiguration" going on; nor when the matter of 
 the " tribute money " was going on ; nor, as we contend, 
 when he was performing the delusive part of furnishing 
 food for the multitudes. 
 
 In no instance did he invite inspection or investiga- 
 tion of his performances, or the examination of his 
 patients, either before or after his operations ; nor did he 
 ever give notice of his intention to perform any partic- 
 ular miracle, so that others might have had an oppor- 
 tunity of watching his movements or preparations, but 
 habitually allowed his works to take the by-standers by 
 surprise ; nor was there ever, in a single instance, even 
 an attempt made, by anybody, to investigate, inspect, or 
 test any of his performances. He required to have 
 everything his own way, at his own time and place, under 
 his own conditions, and with his own chosen assistants, 
 and, if necessary, an exclusively credulous and friendly 
 audience or even the exclusive presence of his chosen 
 witnesses or of his three favorite coadjutors. What
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 453 
 
 would we think of such miracles, so worked, and so 
 proved now ! 
 
 There is nothing, perhaps, which more strikingly 
 illustrates and exposes the true character of the powers 
 and performances of Jesus than his utter disinclination, 
 and more especially his singular inability, to perform 
 before either critical observers or even before common 
 people who were incredulous. In few cases did he ever 
 venture to perform before skeptical persons, of whatever 
 grade of intelligence ; and in none did he succeed, save, 
 possibly, in a few cases of healing. The matter of Laz- 
 arus we here ignore as being either a fiction or a clear 
 case of collusion. And even in that case he failed to 
 convince the spectators. At the summit of his fame he 
 went back to Nazareth, the home of his mother and 
 her family, and of his own youth, and attempted to 
 preach and perform before his old neighbors who had 
 known him from infancy. But the Gospels naively tell 
 us that he could perform no great work there, and throw 
 tire blame of the failure on the people instead of the 
 performer. They gravely tell us that he could not do 
 his mighty works on account of their unbelief : making 
 Divine power impotent because the people who were 
 present did not believe in the possession of such power 
 by the performer ! Does not such a fact and such an 
 admission probe to the very marrow, and lay bare the 
 naked human skeleton of this pretended God ? His 
 divine power having become powerless before his old 
 incredulous acquaintances, he left Nazareth, never to 
 return. It was a bad place for Divine Power to be at. 
 But his old natural and human powers were not so
 
 454 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 abashed or overcome by the incredulity of a few ignorant 
 villagers, but stood their ground sufficiently to enable 
 him to heal a " few sick folk." Do not such facts speak 
 volumes ? And remember, these are Gospel facts and 
 Gospel reasons, not mine. 
 
 These manifest weaknesses and defects in the powers, 
 methods and performances of Jesus were not then, as 
 they are now, plastered over by nineteen centuries of 
 construction, nor shielded by the impenetrable aegis of 
 infallibility or the obscuring and dazzling halo of divine 
 sanctity. The intelligent public heard of them and 
 estimated them then, as we should estimate them were 
 they being performed or exhibited by some unlearned 
 and 'lowly village carpenter with such astounding pre- 
 tensions, now, only far less skeptically and critically. 
 Intelligent men, even in those credulous and miracle- 
 believing times, turned from them with disgust. His 
 old neighbors were so indignant at his pretensions and 
 his attempted performances among them, that they were 
 ready to mob him as an impostor. His contemporaries 
 generally regarded him as insane or " possessed." His 
 own mother and his brothers had no faith in his preten- 
 sions, but regarded him as " beside himself." His fam- 
 ily not only tried to get control of his person, and re- 
 strain him on this account, but his brothers, at a later 
 period, gave him some very grave advice, which is of 
 record. From that advice, brief as the record is, we can
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 455 
 
 catch the key-note to the common-sense public opinion 
 of the Time in regard to his course of action. Their 
 advice implies also a charge and a rebuke. They told 
 him, directly or inferentially, that, while he was seeking 
 public recognition as the Messiah of the Jews, he kept 
 himself in Galilee, and performed'his works there ; that 
 while he sought to be known "openly" or by the public, 
 he performed his works in secret ; and that his objects 
 and pretensions called upon him for corresponding evi- 
 dences and conduct on his part demanded, in fact, that 
 he should go to Judea and Jerusalem, and there, at that 
 head-quarters and centre of Jewish life and intelligence, 
 to show himself to the world, and let them see Who he 
 was and What he was. This is the clear intent and sig- 
 nificance of the conversation recorded in the seventh 
 chapter of John. Such council was plainly right, and 
 plainly needed. Jesus, indeed, confesses the justice of 
 this charge of secrecy, by his instructions to his disciples, 
 in which he says " What I tell you in darkness, that 
 speak ye in light, and what you hear in the ear, that 
 preach ye upon the house-tops." 
 
 Looking back, in the most general way, over the sin- 
 gularly defective and unreliable accounts of these spe- 
 cially selected performances, we are compelled to say 
 that, instead of their establishing the divine nature and 
 power of Jesus, they produce upon the rational mind the 
 most profound conviction that they were not miracles, nor
 
 456 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the works of one havin-g superhuman power. Besides the 
 fact of the selection of his performances by himself, and 
 the fact that he selected such as were, at best, inconclu- 
 sive, while countless others were always at hand which 
 were conclusive in their nature by being clearly beyond 
 all human agency, as well as all the various other objec- 
 tions we have urged, the rational mind is driven to utterly 
 repudiate both the mode of his performing and his mode 
 of establishing his performances. A miracle-worker who 
 proposes to prove his private miracles by his own chosen 
 assistants and witnesses, at once destroys all claim to a 
 considerate hearing. When, furthermore, he chooses 
 these assistants and witnesses from the most credulous, 
 ignorant and superstitious class, and for their special in- 
 dividual faith and subserviency, and they become his 
 habitual and trained personal servants and followers, and 
 perform their office of witness-bearing under the full 
 belief that every miracle they prove shoves their master 
 one step nearer to a throne and themselves another step 
 towards the most exalted dignities and honors, and that 
 his fortunes and their own are dependent upon the suc- 
 cessful establishment of these very miracles, then the 
 whole matter becomes, not only unreliable, but immeas- 
 urably suspicious. When, furthermore, he requires to 
 have everything his own way and in his own hands, and 
 performs his feats in the precise places, times and man- 
 ner not to convince the intelligent public, but to excite 
 their suspicion and distrust performs them, also, with- 
 out offering to any one the opportunity to inspect, in- 
 vestigate or test his proceedings, and always uses natural 
 means in aid of his alleged divine power, then the matter 
 sinks below the plain of rational investigation. The fact
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 457 
 
 that the accounts of most of these selected performances 
 do not amount to even a prima facie statement of a mir- 
 acle, and the fact that they uniformly fail to exclude a 
 natural explanation or collusion, and generally furnish a 
 plain, or a highly probable natural explanation, consti- 
 tutes a further reason for rejecting their miraculous 
 origin. That intelligent men of the time, and the gen- 
 eral public, as well as his own family and old neighbors 
 who were most familiar with the man and the facts, 
 treated him and his miracles and his miraculous powers 
 with utter contempt, anger or pity, in an age when mir- 
 acles were so readily credited and accepted, is, certainly, 
 highly confirmatory of our adverse decision. If the 
 Virgin Mary and her other children did not believe that 
 her oldest son was the Son of God, begotten by the 
 Holy Ghost, or in any of his high pretensions, one may 
 at least be pardoned, now, for adopting their views. His 
 divine power was impotent to impress even the super- 
 stitious and credulous people of his own day with a be- 
 lief in his miraculous powers and divine mission. If the 
 power of Jesus was a divine power, therefore, it was also 
 a divine failure a failure over which he himself both 
 wept and cursed. Failure is not a special evidence of 
 divine power.
 
 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 THE MAN. 
 
 TURNING from the miracles to the man, we find our 
 selves less sure of our conclusions in some respects. 
 For, while there was nothing superhuman in any of the 
 aspects of the life, conduct or teachings of Jesus, they 
 exhibited singularities, changes and contradictions which 
 forbid us to measure him altogether by our every-day 
 experiences of men ; and the history we have of him is 
 so garbled and incomplete as to add obscurity to our 
 other difficulties in comprehending him. These diffi- 
 culties, however, are by no means so insurmountable as 
 to prevent our forming a tolerably accurate general con- 
 ception of his character, opinions and aims. His 
 fundamental peculiarities were neither numerous, nor 
 unparalleled ; alhough they colored the ideas, motives 
 and impulses which shaped his conduct, and which mis- 
 directed and clouded the closing or culminating period 
 of his public career. Always a disturbing, they grew to 
 be an ever more controlling, element of his life. 
 
 We think there can be little doubt as to the nature 
 of the mysterious influence which Jesus actually exerted 
 over the deranged and afflicted. The nature of this 
 power has been already pointed out. It was his sole 
 extraordinary power ; and it was to it that he owed his 
 early fame ; and during that earlier period we find, from 
 the enumeration in Matthew, that his successes were 
 confined to the types of disease which might fairly be 
 presumed to be influenced by faith and personal magnet- 
 ism. In other cases, both he and his disciples used 
 other physical remedies. These special influences,
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 459 
 
 though perfectly natural, were unusual, impalpable and 
 incomprehensible ; and were well calculated to impress 
 both Jesus and the observers of his healings with the idea 
 that he was possessed of superhuman powers, and that 
 there was a divine charm in his very person and touch. 
 This power, in various modified degrees, is common 
 everywhere ; and even in the striking degree in which it 
 was manifested by Jesus, it has furnished many ex- 
 amples, in both ancient and modern times. It is a well- 
 known and recognized power, whatever may be its 
 source or modes of influence. The view taken of it in 
 a case of modern occurrence is aptly, but quaintly, ex- 
 pressed in the report of a Committee of the British Parlia- 
 ment appointed to investigate the facts concerning one 
 Dr. Greatlake, who was astonishing the people by his 
 healings through this same influence. After investiga- 
 ting the facts, the committee reported as their conclusion, 
 that a "sanitary contagion existed in Dr. Greatlake's 
 body that had an antipathy to some particular diseases 
 and not others" Could anything be more aptly de- 
 scriptive of the real healing powers of Jesus as exhib- 
 ited by the Gospels ? Such a power he undoubtedly 
 possessed, reside where or in what it might, and had 
 long known and exercised it before he commenced 
 preaching the " Kingdom of God : " a power known, 
 however, only to be misconceived both by himself and 
 others, according to the ignorant supernaturalism of 
 the time. It induced him to consider himself a source of 
 the very principle of life nay, of life itself : a mistake 
 sufficiently natural to have led modern magnetizers to 
 denominate their pretended science, Biology. This 
 mysterious and misconceived bodily influence, operating
 
 460 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 upon the extraordinary nervous organization from which 
 it emanated, coupled with the peculiar subject and excite- 
 ments of his passionate preaching, and stimulated by the 
 wild aspirations* and feverish expectations of the time 
 and by outside adulations and suggestions, was the 
 shuttle that wove the " uncanny " thread into the web 
 of the thoughts and life of Jesus. 
 
 In the then existing state of belief upon such sub- 
 jects, he would naturally, if not inevitably, have con- 
 cluded, that his mysterious power emanated from God. 
 For there was no other thought than that it must have 
 emanated from either God or devil, and he felt that he 
 was certainly not a servant of the devil. The peculiar 
 nature of the power would give strong conformation to 
 its divine origin. It was not only beneficent in its in- 
 fluence, and adverse to the supposed devils who 
 possessed and tormented men, but, as all diseases were 
 then regarded as punishments fqr sin and as an evidence 
 of the Divine anger, he would naturally conclude, and 
 did conclude, that, as his power to heal was a remission 
 of the penalty of sin, it was equivalent to a power to 
 forgive the sin itself, which was clearly a divine pre- 
 rogative. Such conclusions were not unnatural in his 
 age, nor illogical from his stand-point. That they power- 
 fully, and finally abnormally, affected his beliefs and the 
 whole tenor of his life, would seem to be a conclusion 
 pointed to by the entire facts. This divine power of 
 healing the afflicted, of controlling the little devils who 
 entered into and took possession of their bodies and 
 tortured them, and of forgiving sins, seemed not only to 
 be at his command, but to appertain to, and reside in, his 
 own person. He conceived himself, and seemed to others,
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 461 
 
 to be a mysterious health-restoring and life-giving foun- 
 tain, whose very touch imparted restoring and re- 
 vivifying influences. The possession of such powers, 
 as thus construed, operating upon the super-exalted 
 nervous organization of a religious enthusiast, would 
 naturally lead, as they actually did lead, to unhealthy 
 and extravagant results results which would continue, 
 under exciting influences, to grow ever more extrava- 
 gant and ever less coherent and rational. Such exciting 
 causes and influences, operating upon such a nature, 
 under ever more exacting and exciting conditions, might 
 readily and naturally drive it to wild extremes, and force 
 it into wild conclusions and aims. None of these pre- 
 disposing causes and encouraging influences and con- 
 ditions were lacking in the case of Jesus. His fiery 
 aspirations, visionary social ideas and religious enthu- 
 siasm had forced him upon the rostrum as a religious 
 and social reformer, and had driven him into the ranks 
 and the wild dreams of the Adventists,- and to become the 
 co-worker with the Baptist in preaching and preparing for 
 the imminent coming of the Messiah and the "Kingdom 
 of God"," and, with them, the utter overthrow of the 
 existing order of things and all who supported them. 
 His preachings (as all such preachings do) grew more 
 and more impassioned and threw him into constant ex- 
 citements, often intensified and embittered by opposition 
 and hostility. His increasing popularity (for a while) 
 and his widening notoriety as a healer brought his- 
 powers into greater requisition and added to his alter- 
 nate excitements and exhaustions. His belief in the 
 divine, yet personal nature of his powers, had prepared 
 him for a belief in his possession of an extraordinary
 
 462 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 and exceptional nature, and to dream of art equally 
 exalted mission and destiny. These were the subjects 
 which absorbed his mind in connection with the advent 
 of the Messiah and his Kingdom which he preached. 
 Their association in his mind was so constant and inti- 
 mate as to result in a connection, and his undefined 
 longings and indefinite conceptions and aims began to 
 shape themselves under this new connection. The 
 association of these ideas in his over-excited and morbid 
 mind had engendered strange and startling whisperings 
 in his soul ; pointing to a possible solution of the mystery 
 of his exceptional nature and divine powers. Might not 
 he himself \>z\ha.\. priest after the "order of Melchizedec" 
 the very Messiah whom he and John were preaching, 
 and whom thousands had been hourly looking for? 
 That seed, once set germinating in the hot mould of 
 such a mind, would grow rankly as rankly as Jonah's 
 gourd. 
 
 These thoughts were not reached in the early stage of 
 his preaching. They were never hinted by him until 
 long after his sermon on the mount, nor, as It would 
 appear, until the matter was suggested by others. And 
 it is not impossible, that the first connection of himself 
 with the Messiahship, even in his own mind, was due to 
 the suggestion of some excited admirer or enthusiastic 
 patient among the crowd. Such a suggestion would flash 
 and flame through such a mind like a magazine touched by 
 a spark of fire. Even after the idea had been suggested 
 and had taken root in his mind, and he had consulted 
 with his disciples, privately, as to whom the people 
 thought he was, and had exulted over the fact, that the
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 463 
 
 chief of his own followers had already caught the same 
 idea (or else had caught the cue from his master), he 
 expressly enjoined it upon them " that they should tell 
 no man that he was Jesus the Christ." This was said after 
 he had sent out his apostles to preach the coming of the 
 " Kingdom," and had said to them " ye shall not have 
 gone over the cities of Israel, till the son of man be 
 come." He had, thus far, then, not even expressly pro- 
 claimed himself as the Messiah to his own followers, 
 although they had probably seen and well understood 
 his tendencies, while he was still anxious to keep this 
 dangerous pretension from reaching the public. He 
 seems to have announced his identity with the Christ to 
 the public, gradually and somewhat cautiously and 
 obscurely. His incessant cogitations and morbid dream- 
 ings about his divine nature and powers had drifted him 
 into such exalted, but confused notions of himself and 
 of his relations with God and with his followers, that 
 they were inexplicable to others and obscure to himself. 
 To proclaim his own view of himself to the public was 
 sure not to meet their Messianic views. He had no 
 real Messianic pretensions to advance, and the annuncia- 
 tion of the wild dreams which had formed the basis of 
 his own delusion, only brought down upon him public 
 indignation for his blasphemy. It was only when 
 morbidly excited that he attempted to expose the ex- 
 treme belief into which he had been driven. He had 
 concluded that his powers were divine powers and had 
 emanated, from God, and yet that they were inherent in 
 his own person. They were God's powers, and yet he 
 himself possessed, exerted and controlled them. Was 
 not he himself, then, from God and of God ? Was he
 
 4t>4 * JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 not the medium through which, the divine life-giving 
 and life-restoring and sin-pardoning influences were 
 poured out upon the world? Having the power of 
 forgiving sins Was he not, therefore, a physician 
 and saviour of sinful souls, also ? Was he not the 
 medium and direct source of moral as well as of 
 physical life and health ? Was he not, indeed, a very 
 fountain of life, immortality and moral salvation ? and, 
 Did not these vitalizing, pardoning and sanctifying 
 influences flow from his very person upon the believing 
 recipient ? Did not this very essence, as it were, of his 
 own being, reside in the being of God, and yet also flow 
 from himself into the believer ? Was he not, then, in a 
 striking and yet strange sense, both in God and in. the 
 believer ? and, Was not the recipient believer, in a like 
 sense, in Jesus, and through him, in God also ? Such, 
 it would seem, was the progressive course of his morbid 
 thoughts and conclusions as he advanced in his morbid 
 mental career. And when under high excitement or 
 driven beyond his guard, he would disjointedly pour 
 them forth with strange vehemence strangely mixing 
 himself up with God, and declaring that he was the very 
 bread and water of life, and inviting the people to eat 
 his flesh and drink his blood that they might never 
 'thirst and never die. He seems to have known that the 
 intelligent classes would not credit these pretensions, or 
 accept them as appertaining to the Messiah, but they 
 also drove even the ignorant masses from him, and 
 excited general indignation against him as a blasphemer.
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 465 
 
 Looking back at the matter under the light which 
 we have attempted to throw upon it, we are no longer so 
 amazed at finding the deliverer of that radical, but 
 charmingly beautiful sermon on the mount, bursting 
 forth, under excitement, into his morbid vein of ego- 
 tism with such astounding declarations of his' being 
 the source and fountain of salvation and of physical and 
 moral life as to drive from him almost the entire mass 
 of those whom his real powers and virtues had won for 
 him. Nor are we surprised to find that, in his cooler 
 moments, he endeavored, privately, to mollify and ex- 
 plain some of his more extravagant declarations to his 
 twelve followers, and condescended to explain his claim 
 to be the Son of God in a sense less offensive to the 
 Jews and compatible with his mere humanity (John x. 
 33-37). Nor are we surprised that not a living soul 
 could ever understand him as to Who and What he really 
 claimed to be, or upon what he really based his claim to 
 the Messiahship, no, not even his own disciples. Nor 
 are we surprised to find, that he offered his moral salva- 
 tion and renewed life upon the condition, and through 
 means of, faith in himself ; since we have seen that this 
 faith in himself and in his power to heal and save had 
 been an efficient element, from the first, in his healing 
 or sin-pardoning and life-giving processes, and had not 
 only been considered by him as a necessary part of 
 them, but had been demanded as a condition of their 
 application or of their virtue and success. He had early 
 learned the astonishing effects of faith in healing, or, as 
 he considered, in saving from the penalties or condem- 
 nation of sin ; and this prerequisite faith in the patient he 
 continued to regard as a necessary adjunct to his own 
 
 30
 
 466 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 virtues, moral as well as physical. It was faith in him- 
 self, therefore, and not piety or virtue which was the 
 condition of his salvation or moral healing. 
 
 The qualifications for the Messiahship which Jesus 
 presented to the ignorant masses of Galilee, or were ex- 
 torted from him by the Jews, were not at all those at- 
 tributed by prophecy or expected by the Jews. Had he 
 been all he claimed, it would have given him no preten- 
 sions to the Messiahship of prophecy, however much it 
 might hav entitled him to their obedience and worship. 
 The Messiah was to be neither God, nor a divine son of 
 God, nor the divine source of life and moral regeneration 
 to those who believed in him, nor was he to give men 
 his flesh to eat or his blood to drink, nor to raise the 
 dead, make miraculous fish and bread, or to cure fits. 
 No such thought of him had ever been entertained by 
 either people or prophet. It may sound strange to be- 
 lievers, but it is nevertheless true, that not a single qual- 
 ification or reason advanced by Jesus himself had any 
 application whatever to the Messiah of the Jews, or to 
 the programme said to have been announced at his birth 
 by Gabriel ; while, of the real indicia and qualifications 
 of that predicted prince, he not only never pretended to 
 have a single one, but openly contested and repudiated 
 the very first and most essential of them. He knew that 
 the Messiahship was to be a Jewish affair, and the 
 " kingdom " which he first preached, and afterwards as-
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 467 
 
 pired to, was a Jewish kingdom. He expressly confined 
 his mission to the Israelites, and in his commission to 
 his disciples he expressly says : " Go not in the way of 
 the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter 
 not" Neither he, nor they, were to have any concern 
 with Samaritans or Gentiles. And, if at the last he 
 made any change in this regard, it was only when, and 
 only because, he had discovered that his Jewish scheme 
 was a hopeless failure. It was only under great pressure 
 that he could be induced to exercise even his healing 
 power on the suffering Gentiles, and then only in a few 
 cases where he was humored and flattered. When he 
 had been finally seduced into a conception that he him 
 self was the Messiah, the conclusion had been reached 
 through the subjective processes and experiences we 
 have already indicated, aided by the adulations and sug- 
 gestions of the crowd, and not from his possession of 
 the indicia and qualifications of the expected Messiah. 
 Not one of these did he ever possess or ever claim. The 
 grounds of his own belief were subjective and personal, 
 without reference to Scripture or extraneous relations or 
 signs, and they had been engendered by the mysterious 
 character of his personal nature and powers and nour- 
 ished by the adulations of a Galilean rabble who were 
 ignorant of the specialties of Jewish prophecy. Once 
 morbidly fixed in his mind, the idea needed no reason ; 
 and would yield to none. It was nourished by the rich 
 mould of the delusion of which it was born. His belief 
 in the divine character of his own nature and powers 
 "had been the sole ground of his own belief that he was 
 the Messiah, but this ground had produced, in himself, 
 an immovable conviction that he was the real Christ.
 
 468 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 This, also, was all he had to offer to others. As in all 
 such cases of morbid convictions the demands for a rea- 
 son only irritated him, and incredulity and opposition 
 angered him. He could not offer what he had* not, nor 
 coud he prove his own divine nature or powers, save by 
 his own assertions, and by works of a divine nature. He 
 knew it, and God knew it, and his own divine works 
 proved it : What more could they ask? If the Jews 
 could not see it, so much the worse for the Jews. None 
 but a wicked and adulterous generation would ask more. 
 It was not a matter of " signs " and reasons, but of faith ; 
 and he thanked God that He had hidden it from the 
 "wise and prudent, and revealed it unto babes." The 
 " wise and prudent " thought that God had given his 
 evidence long ago, through the prophets, and had not 
 been heard from since. To this testimony of God they 
 thought Jesus ought to conform ; but Jesus, although 
 contending that the Scriptures spoke of him generally, 
 (that is, of the Messiah, whom he himself was), would 
 make no kind of endeavor or attempt to show in what 
 particulars or respects he fulfilled the Messianic proph- 
 ecies. The only qualification of the Messiah which he 
 would discuss with them was that of his being a " son 
 of David," and this he denied. Although other qualifi- 
 cations were mentioned, and his fulfilment of them de- 
 nied, in his presence, such as that he should be born in 
 Bethlehem, he would take no notice of them whatever. 
 The only evidence which he really offered the intelligent 
 Jewish public was his own incomprehensible assertions 
 as to his own nature and pretensions, and " works " 
 which he refused to perform before them, and which 
 they could only hear of through the sources we have
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 469 
 
 already characterized. He knew that his own "assertion 
 was not proof, and, although he quibbled about the law 
 requiring but two witnesses, and his having the two re- 
 quired witnesses, namely, God and himself, he knew 
 that he really had nothing but his " works " to depend 
 upon before others, and he finally said to the Jews " If 
 I do not the works of my Father, believe me not'' Here 
 lay the whole matter in a nut-shell, and without equivo- 
 cation. True, Jesus knew that the Jews would not ac- 
 cept "mere miraculous power as proof that he was the 
 Messiah, since they not only did not expect such powers 
 and performances from their Messiah, but they required 
 the prophetic indicia of his identity and claim, "and con- 
 sidered mere miracles as performances common to Gods, 
 angels, men and devils, and no proofs even of a divine 
 mission, much less of a specific claim to the Messiah- 
 ship. But, besides having no proof of his possessing 
 miraculous power, the Jews had no conception of the 
 real meaning of Jesus in this proposed proof. To them, 
 it sounded like mockery ; but to the morbid mind of 
 Jesus the proof was conclusive. It was the evidence 
 which he had himself, and which had convinced himself. 
 He did not mean simply, that, if he did not perform mir- 
 acles, then to believe him not. He meant that, if he did 
 not perform the works of God that is, works which he 
 supposed no other man had ever performed, and which 
 were the peculiar and exclusive prerogative of God, 
 namely : the exercise of the divine power of healing, 
 pardoning, revivifying and regenerating men. Could 
 man or devil do that ! If not, why not recognize his 
 divine nature and his mission at once, and accept his 
 own declaration that he was the Christ ? If they could
 
 47 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 not do this, then it had not been "given " to them to be- 
 lieve, and their lack of faith in him had lost them the 
 benefit of his proffered salvation, and they stood con- 
 demned. This was his view of the matter ; and they 
 might look to themselves. 
 
 Had it been in the power of Jesus to prove that he 
 had, in any sense, fulfilled the scriptural requirements 
 concerning the Messiah, such, for example, as those of 
 his birth at Bethlehem, and his descent from the royal 
 line of David, no fair mind will deny, that he would 
 gladly have done so, or that it was his ditty to have done 
 so. Nor will any fair mind deny that, if there were any 
 such miraculous evidences of his divine recognition at 
 his conception, birth and various periods of his life, as is 
 now contended for, it would have been a joy as well as 
 duty to have taken every pains to establish them before 
 the proper and competent parties to judge them. Nor 
 can it be denied that, had he possessed the divine 
 power now claimed for him, or that claimed by himself, 
 he Could, and would, have gone at once to Jerusalem, 
 during the great feasts, and have demonstrated that 
 power, to the entire satisfaction of all men. That he 
 did none of these things is conclusive proof, under the 
 circumstances, that he could not ; and that he was com- 
 pelled to rely upon that which he did rely upon, 
 namely, that which we have just shown and endeavored 
 to explain.
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 
 
 No doubt many persons, swayed by an education based 
 upon the results of a century of moulding and forming the 
 Gospel-] esus and upon eighteen centuries of amendments 
 and superimposed plasterings and interpretations, under 
 the post-resurrection conception of him, will be astonished 
 at our declaration that Jesus was endeavoring to reach 
 the Messianic throne of Israel. And yet, to deny it, is in 
 plain contravention of the whole current of Gospel facts 
 is to render his life, not only the mystery which Mr. 
 Beecher confesses it to be, but is to render it a tissue of 
 unmeaning endeavors and absurd contradictions. To 
 say that his political doctrines, aspirations and aims were 
 a part of his religious ones, is but to say that he was a 
 Jew; but it is nevertheless impossible to eradicate or 
 rationally ignore their existence ; while it is equally im- 
 possible to suppose, that they were entertained and pros- 
 ecuted with a pre-knowledge and purpose that they 
 should end in failure and in his own crucifixion. Let 
 those who can read the Gospels and still doubt this, se- 
 riously answer to their own consciences the following 
 questions. If Jesus was not aiming for the temporal 
 Messianic throne of Israel, for what object were all his 
 own personal exertions and the organized efforts of his 
 followers ? Did he really desire the Jewish people to 
 accept him as their Messiah or did he desire them to 
 reject him ? If he desired them to accept him, Did he 
 make no real efforts to secure that acceptance ? If he 
 did desire and strive for that end, What did he suppose 
 the result of such a recognition would be ? Did he not 
 know, that there could be but one result, namely : that 
 they would anoint him as Christ and crown him ,as King ? 
 Did he labor, and make his disciples labor, for years, for
 
 4/2 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 a recognition which he knew to be impossible and 
 wished to avoid ? or, Did he do all this on purpose to 
 fail and be crucified ? If his object was to get crucified 
 for the sins of all men, or of believers, why did he con- 
 fine his projects and efforts to the Israelites, to the ex- 
 clusion of all others ? Why send out large bands of his 
 followers to arouse the Jewish people, and none others, 
 for the immediate reception of the " Kingdom of God," 
 if that kingdom was to be a kingdom of ghosts, of all 
 kinds of people, in the other world? Why did he finally 
 have himself proclaimed king, and ride into Jerusalem 
 in triumphant procession, amid shouts of " Hosanna to 
 the Son of David," and upon an ass, that he might avail 
 himself of a prophecy, saying " Behold thy king com- 
 eth sitting on an ass ? " If he neither was, nor intended 
 to be, their king, How could he fulfil a prophecy which 
 required that he should be king ? If Jesus did not de- 
 sire and hope that the Jews would accept him as their 
 Messiah, Why did he alternately weep and curse over 
 his failures and rejection ? and Why did he exclaim " O 
 Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! how often would I have gath- 
 ered you together as a hen gathereth her brood under 
 her wings, but ye would not ? " or Was it in the other 
 world that he would have gathered them and that they 
 refused ? Why did he confess on his trial that he was 
 King of the Jews, and refuse to retract it, knowing that 
 his confession must consign him to a punishment the 
 very thought of which had made him sweat blood, if he 
 did not know that he had gone so far that all denial was 
 useless ? His disciples who had followed his footsteps 
 for three-years, who had heard all he said and all his ex- 
 planations and all his plans and instructions, and who
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 4/3 
 
 had entered into and aided all his schemes, believed, up 
 to the last, that he was aiming for a temporal throne. 
 Until after the resurrection, not one of them ever sus- 
 pected that there was any other purpose ; while all sup- 
 posed that his crucifixion was the end of the whole mat- 
 ter. Could these twelve men have been so utterly stupid, 
 that Jesus could never awaken, in one of them, a single 
 suspicion of his true purpose in all this time ? Or was 
 he wilfully deceiving them, knowing what they thought 
 and expected ? If these men, and all men who knew 
 him, understood him to be aiming to become king, and 
 he had spoken and acted in a manner to make every- 
 body believe it, and had had himself publicly proclaimed 
 as king, and had been tried for it, and confessed his 
 guilt, and was executed for it with the title of " King of 
 the Jews " above his head, Could all this about being 
 king have been a pre-intended delusion and a lie, known 
 only by Jesus, and wilfully and delusively encouraged 
 and concealed by him ? Further suggestions would be 
 useless. Those who can read and reflect upon those 
 already made, in connection with what has heretofore 
 been said on this subject, and still believe that Jesus 
 neither sought, nor expected, temporal recognition and 
 power, are hopelessly "joined to their idols." 
 
 We have found Jesus having given evidence of the 
 possession of an extraordinary physical organization, 
 one endowed with wonderful magnetic power and a 
 highly exalted, sympathetic and excitable nervous sys- 
 tem ; and have seen him exhibit a self-concentration and 
 self-consciousness which were so constant and extreme 
 as to be unfavorable to psychical health and equilibrium. 
 We have found him intensely emotional and often mor-
 
 4/4 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 bidly so ; easily and wildly excitable ; impatient under 
 opposition, contradiction or disbelief; and subject to 
 rapid and extreme mental changes and to sudden and 
 extreme fits of exaltation and depression. And we may 
 add others which are both inferable from his nature and 
 exemplified in his conduct. He was, evidently, morbidly 
 sensitive, suffered keenly, and intensely dreaded both 
 suffering and death ; although capable of obstinately 
 facing the inevitable. He was morally and mentally 
 brave, but physically timid : often venturing to the 
 point of courting danger, and then fleeing with sudden 
 agility when it menaced him, and remaining in hiding 
 until it had passed. Like all moral and social theorists, 
 his conceptions were more beautiful than practical, more 
 ideal than real ; and were better preached than practiced, 
 even by himself. His affections were, at times, gushing ; 
 but they were confined to his own class and to believers 
 in himself. He preached that we should love our neighbor 
 as ourselves, and yet his conception of a neighbor was 
 exemplified by the " Good Samaritan," whom none could 
 help loving. He was in favor of dividing everything 
 with the poor, and yet by this general distribution he 
 was always the receiver and never the giver ; since he 
 neither possessed anything, nor worked that he might 
 -earn it. He offered his own peculiar gift freely, but its 
 bestowal was his only means, hope and dependence for 
 winning a throne ; and it was easy to say " thy sins are 
 forgiven thee." He tells us to love our enemies, and 
 yet no man ever showered more continued and bitter 
 curses upon his own. He instructs others to forgive 
 their offending brother seventy-seven times, and yet, 
 through all the years that we know him, he implacably
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 4/5 
 
 repudiated his own mother, brothers and sisters, simply 
 because they could not believe in his wild notions and 
 pretensions. He tells us to pray for those who despite- 
 fully use us, and yet he constantly insulted and abused 
 those who even questioned or disputed his own divine 
 claims, and expressly declared that he himself did not 
 pray for any one save his own disciples (John xvii. 9). 
 He tells us, when we are smitten on one cheek to offer 
 the other cheek to be smitten also, and yet we never find 
 him waiting to be smitten even on the one cheek if fleet 
 running could save him ; nor, when he was actually 
 smitten, do we find him inviting a repetition of the 
 operation on the other cheek, or failing to rebuke his 
 smiter. He denounces all self-exaltation, and was in- 
 dignant at the Pharisees for their pretentiousness and 
 their ostentatious piety and charity, and yet no man has 
 ever put forward more appalling pretensions, or more 
 immeasurably exalted and lauded himself than Jesus. 
 He exhorted us to despise the things of " this world " and 
 " of the flesh," and yet he confesses that he had won the 
 reputation of a glutton and a wine-bibber, and declined 
 to require the usual fasts to be kept while he, the bride- 
 groom, was present ; and, if ever he refused to eat or 
 drink the best that could be had, whether with gentle- 
 men, publicans or sinners, we have no record of it. He 
 said " render to Caesar the things that belong to Caesar ; " 
 and yet, he contested the right of Caesar when tribute 
 was demanded of himself, and ^6nly consented to pay 
 it to avoid the consequences. He said " Blessed are 
 the peace-makers," and yet he declared that he himself 
 had come, not to bring peace, but a sword, and to excite 
 even family feuds and contentions. He ordered Peter to
 
 476 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 put up his sword in Gethsemane, and sententiously 
 declared, that those who drew the sword should perish 
 by the sword, when Peter had struck, like a man, in the 
 common defence : and yet, that very sword had been 
 brought there for the very purpose of defending him 
 against that very arrest, by the express orders of Jesus 
 himself, given only a few hours before, when he had 
 commanded his disciples to arm themselves, and, if they 
 had no arms, to go and sell their very garments and buy 
 them. He commands us to visit widows, orphans and 
 those in prison : but When in all his life did he visit or 
 minister to either ? We might, indeed, show many 
 instances of such inconsistences in his teachings and 
 such conflicts between his precepts and practices, were 
 such elaboration deemed necessary. And certainly we 
 may say, that he neither propounded a new idea of this 
 life, of God, or of a future life. He left mankind as 
 ignorant as he found them. 
 
 Such would seem to be some of the more characteristic 
 traits of Jesus, and such as will more especially concern 
 us in our examination of the closing scenes of his career, 
 which we now approach. Our past investigations, 
 doubtlessly, will enable us to enter upon the examina- 
 tion of those scenes with at least an assured conviction 
 that they must be interpreted as the results of the ideas 
 and conduct of a mere man. If we cannot, then that in- 
 vestigation will serve to still further enlighten us upon 
 that point.
 
 METHODS AND MOTIVES OF JESUS. 477 
 
 Before parting with the subject under consideration, 
 we beg to offer a precautionary suggestion. The assertion 
 that Jesus and his disciples used unjustifiable means to 
 secure their ends, will receive less credit than it is 
 entitled to, from those who still shrink from imputing 
 such conduct to persons who have been deemed so 
 infallible and sacred ; while the proof of the assertion is 
 calculated to unduly prejudice them in the mind of the 
 skeptic. Both of these errors may be avoided by 
 judging these men -according to the moral standard and 
 beliefs of their age and class, as well as the habits and 
 frailties common to such people, so situated. Jesus and 
 his disciples were neither faultless nor infallible ; nor 
 comparatively speaking, were they bad men. It would 
 be as unjust to characterize them as impostors, as it 
 is impossible to deny that, in their modes of effecting 
 their ends, they were sometimes guilty of disingenuous- 
 ness and imposition. Jesus was honestly misguided by 
 his own peculiar nature and powers. He had an earnest 
 and religious nature, and his aspirations and ultimate 
 aims he supposed to be in accordance with the divine 
 will ; while his moral precepts were, as a whole, ex- 
 ceptionally good. His disciples, also, had genuine faith 
 in his extraordinary virtues, views and promises. Under 
 such circumstances, then, What had we a right to expect 
 of these men ? Should we look for conduct in con- 
 formity with our own ideal standards of right" and wrong, 
 or even of their own ideal standards ? or should we not 
 rather look for conduct in conformity with the ordinary 
 course of human action in like cases ? Judging them, 
 then, by this practical, legitimate, and ordinary stand- 
 ard, What had we a right to expect ? Has not all,
 
 478 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 human experience shown, that even good men, in our 
 time and in all times, who are struggling to advance 
 a cause which they deemed good, and especially a cause 
 which they deemed divine, and still more especially 
 when sustaining supernaturalism, will resort, and have 
 resorted, to disingenuous means to effect their ends ? Is 
 there a priest or preacher on earth wholly free from such 
 a charge, even now ?
 
 THE MEN WHO EXECUTED JESUS. 479 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE MEN WHO PROSECUTED, TRIED AND EXECUTED 
 
 JESUS. 
 
 WE cannot understandingly review the closing 
 scenes of the career of Jesus without having freshly 
 before our minds the character, situation and relations 
 of the men who controlled the course of those events. 
 
 Of course, the central figure in this matter was the 
 Roman Procurator. No character in history, save that 
 of Judas Iscariot, has been so damned as that of Pontius 
 Pilate ; and, without doubt, none has been so causelessly 
 maligned by the Christian World. That his name 
 should have been thus consigned to infamy by the 
 worshippers of Jesus is a signal instance of the triumph 
 of blind Fanaticism over Reason. In the conduct for 
 which he stands thus accursed, he was not only without 
 a stain of cruelty or injustice, but was entitled to the 
 lasting gratitude of the lovers of Jesus. The Christian 
 record itself leaves no possible doubt either as to his 
 public conduct and motives, nor as to his earnest, 
 sagacious and exhaustive efforts to outwit the Jews and 
 save Jesus. 
 
 The character of Pilate, as we gather it from the
 
 480 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Gospels and Josephus, would seem to have been that of 
 a man who was obstinately persistent and fairly just 5 
 but secret, politic, cunning and superstitious. His 
 position as Governor of the Jews had been a thorny 
 one ; and he had learned to hate as well as fear the men 
 he ruled, and to know that his hate was returned, with 
 usury, by the conquered, but dissatisfied and inappeasable 
 Jews. He had had the, perhaps inevitable, misfortune 
 to fall into a deadly feud with that very Official Judea or 
 Temple Party, who were the prosecutors of Jesus, and 
 who were finally and fatally his own prosecutors. We 
 say fatally, for they finally hounded Pilate to banishment, 
 as they did Jesus to the cross. The hate was mutual 
 and of long standing, and each party understood that 
 they had nothing to expect from the other. The trial 
 of Jesus was but one more encounter of strength and 
 cunning another " round " in the " mill " between 
 these powerful competitors. Pilate knew that to save 
 Jesus was to run a stiletto into the heart, of their com- 
 mon enemy. He could " stoop to conquer," and he did 
 not fail to treat the accusers of Jesus with politeness and 
 consideration. But his animus and purpose was un- 
 mistakably manifested. So long as he hoped to avoid a 
 condemnation of Jesus, he used every possible means of 
 conciliation ; but when he was outwitted, or rather when 
 he was forced into a dilemma by the obstinate and mor- 
 bid perversity of Jesus, he gave unmistakable evidence 
 of the gall that was rankling in his heart, and succeeded 
 in insulting the Jews in the very act to which they had 
 forced him. 
 
 The means by which the Jews coerced Pilate is
 
 THE MEN WHO EXECUTED JESUS. 481 
 
 neither difficult of comprehension, nor left to inference. 
 The magic words which finally cowed him into open and 
 seeming acquiescence with the desire of his enemies 
 point directly to Pilate's true and only cause of alarm. 
 Tiberius, the Roman Emperor, was a most suspicious 
 and dangerous tyrant. To incur his suspicion of lack of 
 fidelity, was to incur the extremity of danger. This was 
 well understood by both Pilate and his enemies, and 
 right here lay the source of the Jewish power over 
 Pilate in this transaction. Loyalty to Tiberius Caesar 
 might be alleged as an excuse for injury to the Jews, but 
 to refuse the demand of the Jews for the punishment of 
 .a traitor to Caesar, was to prove his own disloyalty was 
 to put a weapon in the hands of his enemies which he 
 well knew would be fatal to himself. Whatever could be 
 done to save Jesus, either by stratagem or power, with- 
 out endangering himself, he was anxious to do, and did 
 do. He knew that Jesus was impotent to injure the 
 Roman power, and that he was really undeserving of 
 .death for his mere mockery of an attempt to become 
 King of the Jews ; and that any disturbance which he 
 might create in favor of Jewish emancipation, would 
 only give him, Pilate, the desired opportunity of punish- 
 ing them, and of taking away the power they still pos- 
 sessed of opposing and annoying him. That his wife, 
 Claudia Procula, was an earnest advocate for the ac- 
 quittal of Jesus the record clearly shows. In the house 
 of Herod, also, to whom he was sent for trial, he had not 
 only a friend, but a devoted follower in Chusa, the wife 
 of Herod's steward. 
 
 We know further that Jesus had a number of secret
 
 482 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 aiders and abettors in the ranks of his enemies. Two 
 of his friends are known to us by name, Nicodemus 
 and Joseph of Arimathea : both of them men of in- 
 fluence, both being members of the Sanhedrim, and one, 
 and perhaps both, being wealthy. These secret coad- 
 jutors of Jesus soon found, that it was of no avail to 
 offer a defence for Jesus before the Sanhedrim, since the 
 evidence for his conviction was too plain for denial, and 
 no other consideration could arrest either the enmity or 
 policy which demanded his conviction ; while the very 
 first suggestion of a defence was met by a charge of 
 complicity in his designs. But their prudence did not 
 amount to pusillanimity. They stood by him to the last,, 
 secretly where they could, but openly where they must. 
 They were discreet and secret, but still sagacious and 
 powerful friends : belonging to that patriotic class, 
 doubtlessly, who were anxious to encourage agitation for 
 the liberty of their country, but who had too much to 
 lose to venture upon an open advocacy of an immature 
 movement. 
 
 Thus we find Jesus warmly and actively (even if 
 secretly) represented both in the households of Pilate 
 and Herod and also among the powerful members of the 
 Jewish government. And, while our knowledge is but 
 fragmentary, we cannot fail to perceive that, at every 
 point of hope or danger, Jesus had friends, or at least 
 aiders, to both warn, aid and, if possible, save him ; and 
 that Pilate and his wife were not only his active and 
 earnest advocates, but that the trial and its whole man^ 
 agement and the whole management of his crucifixion 
 and the entire custody and control of his person were
 
 THE MEN WHO EXECUTED JESUS. 483 
 
 in the hands of Pilate and of those over whom he had 
 absolute control. Pilate, in fact, acted as executive officer, 
 judge, and counsel for the prisoner. His power, like his 
 inclination, had no limit save his dread of his own im- 
 perial and tyrant master. Nor are we to suppose that his 
 commands or counsels fell on unwilling ears in this mat- 
 ter. For it is not to be presumed that the confidential 
 subordinates and faithful soldiers of Pilate would fail to 
 sympathize with their Chief in his controversies and 
 purposes, or that they could witness the hatred of the 
 Jews against themselves and their government, as well as 
 their conscious air of superiority to the Gentiles, without 
 feeling some of that hatred with which the Jews were so 
 generally regarded in that day. We shall, therefore, find 
 Jesus, from the time of his appearance before Pilate, hotly 
 supported, as well as wholly in the hands of those who 
 were anxious and determined to save him, and still more 
 anxious and determined to thwart his enemies. The 
 twelfth verse of the nineteenth chapter of John briefly,- 
 but sufficiently, shows the position of Pilate " And 
 from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him ; but the 
 Jews cried out saying, If thou let this man go, thou art 
 not Ccesars friend : whosoever maketh himself a king 
 speaketh against Casar" 
 
 The Jewish Rulers were sagacious, cautious and de- 
 termined, and thoroughly understood the situation. 
 They knew that Pilate was aware of the kingly preten- 
 sions of Jesus, but also knew that he could but regard
 
 484 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 them harmless as against the power of Rome. They 
 knew, also, that, while impotent against the Roman 
 power, Jesus might excite a sufficient riot, in his efforts 
 before the rabble, to furnish Pilate an opportunity for 
 suppressing it by arms, and of charging the Jews with 
 rebellion ; and thereby secure a recall of whatever 
 powers, privileges and religious autonomy had been re- 
 served to them. The young and intractable Galilean 
 agitator and aspirant was a standing menace, not to 
 Rome, but to themselves. There was neither hope of 
 redemption through him, nor of conciliating him. His 
 hatred and denunciations were pointed directly at them- 
 selves, and all their attempts to approach him had only 
 resulted in rendering Jesus more obstinate and insulting, 
 and in making themselves more incensed at the 
 blasphemy of his religious and moral pretensions and 
 more hopelessly alarmed at his political ones. It was 
 from this point of view that his arrest and destruction 
 was determined upon. They reasoned that " If we let 
 him thus alone, all men will believe on him ; and the 
 Romans shall come and take away both our place and 
 nation " (John xi. 48) ; and the High Priest declared 
 that it was best to destroy him for the sake of the people 
 better one man die than ruin the nation. 
 
 Thus the lowly agitator, whom both parties would 
 have otherwise despised, became, as it were, a prize or 
 battle-ground over which Pilate and the Jewish rulers 
 fought : the one to save Jesus and sacrifice the Jews, 
 and the other to sacrifice Jesus and save the Jews. 
 The Jewish Rulers had the semi-autonomy of their coun- 
 try and " our places " at stake on the issue : Pilate had
 
 THE MEN WHO EXECUTED JESUS. 485 
 
 
 
 his own position, pride and political personal safety in- 
 volved : Jesus had his all. Such were the actors, con- 
 ditions, motives and influences concerned in the trial 
 and execution of Jesus.
 
 486 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE ARREST. 
 
 THERE are scenes and incidents related in the 
 Gospels in connection with the arrest of Jesus on 
 that " night of sorrow " in Gethsemane, which bear so 
 directly upon the great issue which we are to determine 
 as to require of us careful investigation. 
 
 The Jewish officials had been attempting to have 
 Jesus arrested for some time previous to his actual ar- 
 rest, but Jesus had been agile and cunning enough to 
 elude them. He had repeatedly fled when menaced 
 with real danger of arrest. He knew that, during the 
 great feasts, they feared to arrest him for fear of an 
 " uproar among the people," and that they were seeking 
 an opportunity to arrest him privately. To avoid this, 
 Jesus had entered Judea secretly ; and, when at Jeru- 
 salem, he took the precaution of sleeping outside the 
 city among his trusted followers, either at Bethany with 
 his disciples there, or on Mount Olivet, in the groves 
 and gardens ; and was thus enabled to continue to elude 
 his enemies. His places of retreat were known only to 
 his disciples, and these disciples were too numerous to 
 be overcome by a few servants or civic officers of the
 
 THE ARREST. 487 
 
 High Priest ; while to march the armed Temple guard, 
 in search of them, would have bee'n useless. All diffi- 
 culty was finally overcome by the treachery of one of his 
 own followers. 
 
 Nothing could more clearly show the secret but re- 
 liable connections which Jesus possessed in the Sanhe- 
 drim, than the early and correct information he received 
 of the purposes of the Jewish rulers and of their tamper- 
 ing with Judas. Nor can anything be clearer than that 
 Jesus contemplated a forcible, and, if need were, a 
 bloody resistance to his arrest, if it were attempted 
 without a Roman force. We find (Luke xxii. 35 et 
 seq.) that his disciples had contemplated such a con- 
 tingency, and had already procured a few weapons, but 
 that, without knowing this, Jesus had excitedly ordered 
 them to procure arms for defence, even if they had to 
 sell their garments to buy them. And, upon being in- 
 formed that they had two swords, he declared they 
 would be sufficient ;- meaning, of course, as against the 
 unarmed civic servants of the High Priest. And this 
 is the reason we find Peter having and using a sword 
 in Gethsemane. 
 
 We now approach that extraordinary scene of an- 
 guish and alarm in the garden, which would seem, of all 
 his works and acts, most unlike man's, however little 
 like a God's ; although even the most singular feature of 
 his affections there, was not unparalleled in a number of 
 recorded cases. As we have said, this young " King of 
 the Jews " was as nervously apprehensive and timorous 
 as he was mentally and morally brave. He had, during 
 his stay at Jerusalem, been constantly excited and con-
 
 488 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 tinually on the alert during the day, and had passed his 
 nights in hiding and in security. His trepidation had 
 been clearly manifested, upon hearing of his intended 
 betrayal, by his excited manner, and his commands to 
 his disciples to prepare for fighting. His command 
 to them to take both money and arms with them, 
 spoke both of flight and defence ; and the whole scene 
 told of sudden, confused and wild alarm. After he had 
 reached the favored-hiding place, and night and darkness 
 was around him, he begged his disciples to keep watch 
 with him for the approach of danger, and piteously up- 
 braided them for not keeping awake for merely that one 
 night. While his disciples could not force themselves 
 to keep awake during those midnight hours, it was im- 
 possible for Jesus either to sleep or rest. He could only 
 pray pray again and again, with wild and passionate 
 fervor. What to do, he knew not. Escape might even 
 then be impossible, and its attempt might but land him 
 in the arms of his enemies ; while, at best, another flight 
 could but close his career, not only in failure, but in 
 ridicule and contempt. To remain, with the traitor 
 Judas on his track, was so imminently perilous as to 
 make him tremble at every sound and rustle that was 
 borne in through the darkness. Between such dire al- 
 ternatives his unstrung mind was incapable of decision ; 
 his excited nerves were beyond control. He was in a 
 tempest of agonizing doubt, uncertainty and fear, which 
 were overwhelming and almost suffocating. Death and 
 Degradation stared at him from out the darkness. His 
 very soul and his whole nature was convulsed with an 
 agony of fright. He prayed again and again that the bit- 
 ter "cup " might pass from his lips the cup which he had
 
 THE ARREST. 489 
 
 so dreaded, the death which he had so often fled from. 
 The muffled tread of the armed soldiers was probably 
 borne fitfully in upon his exalted senses, through the 
 stillness of the night, while he yet prayed ; and his con- 
 vulsed nature recorded his agony of doubt and dread in 
 great sweat-like drops of blood upon his livid face. This 
 was indeed a marvellous and appalling scene a scene 
 supremely mortal and profoundly pitiful. There have 
 been occasional instances of this " bloody sweat " in 
 like cases of overwhelming fright and terror, but they 
 have been extremely rare. Such agonizing and demoral- 
 izing fear, however humiliating, is a result of organiza- 
 tion or of organic derangement, and is a subject for pity 
 only. 
 
 By a reaction almost as peculiar to Jesus as this sud- 
 den terror or "blood-sweat," we find him, within a few 
 minutes of his extremest fright and agony, and while the 
 soldiers were known to be at hand and the dreaded arrest 
 had become a certainty, speaking and acting with the 
 coolness and considerateness of a philosopher and the 
 sudden confidence of renewed hope. There was a mar- 
 vellous and almost instant revulsion from fright and 
 despair to confidence and hope. By whom, and by what 
 means, was that change effected, and the mortal terror 
 of that " cup " dissipated ?
 
 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 With the general course of events upon that memor- 
 able night we wish to concern ourselves only so far as 
 they are explanatory of certain facts which bear upon 
 our main issue. There are four facts mentioned in the 
 history of that night, which have special significance in 
 connection with our interpretation or theory of facts 
 concerning the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus : 
 facts which find in that theory natural and rational 
 causes and explanations, but which can find them in no 
 other. As these facts stand recorded in the Gospels and 
 in our Christian beliefs, they are alien, unappropriated, 
 mysterious and adverse facts ; while, upon our theory or 
 hypothesis, they are susceptible of a rational and natural 
 connection with each other, as well as with all the other 
 facts, and directly suggest, and point to, such connections 
 and to their consistency with the characters, motives 
 and conditions concerned. They are not only consistent 
 with our conception of the facts, but highly and espe- 
 cially explanatory of facts which are otherwise un ex- 
 plainable. 
 
 The incidents or facts which we refer to, are, first : 
 the demoralization and terror of Jesus. .Second : the ap- 
 pearance of the supposed angel. Third: the sudden 
 change and "comfort" this angel's message to Jesus 
 effected. Fourth : the seizure of some unknown youth, 
 by one of the guard, who was following Jesus as they 
 were departing from Gethsemane and before they 
 had entered the wall of the city, and who, without 
 speaking a word, tore away from them, leaving his 
 only rag of covering in their hands, and fled away, 
 '* naked," into the darkness. We will suspend the con-
 
 THE ARREST. 49! 
 
 sideration of these facts for the purpose of making a 
 few suggestions as to the value of such evidence and as 
 to the proper mode of determining the true nature of 
 the transactions we are to examine, and also for the pur- 
 pose of briefly stating our own conception or theory of 
 the matter ; in order that the Reader may more cor- 
 rectly estimate the value of the evidence to be referred 
 to and relied upon, and to perceive its relation to our 
 special theory as to the facts, as we introduce them. 
 
 The course of human thoughts and actions, like the 
 movements of unconscious nature, necessarily have some 
 coherence, consistency and order of consecution, how- 
 ever hidden and incomprehensible the links or connec- 
 tions in the chain of causation may be. Men's course 
 of conduct may be inconsistent with our notions and 
 motives, in many ways, but they never can be incon- 
 sistent with those of the actors. Even the acts of a 
 lunatic are consistent with lunacy. Whatsoever has 
 happened must have happened in the way it did, since 
 the very fact of its so happening is proof that all the 
 conditions, causes and influences which would necessa- 
 rily have produced the actual results, were brought to 
 bear upon them in the mode requisite to produce them. 
 Our investigations of the hidden or obscure acts of 
 others are wholly dependent upon this correlation be- 
 tween causes and effects, motives and actions upon the 
 coherences, consistencies and congruities in Nature. 
 Knowing motives, we infer, or .interpret, conduct.
 
 492 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Knowing conduct, we infer or interpret motives and 
 language. The process of investigating human conduct 
 and motives is one of inference and construction. In 
 the absence of a knowledge of the actual facts we infer 
 them from the known character and general situation 
 and purposes of the actors, and the conditions, induce- 
 ments and influences tinder which they acted. In the 
 absence of a knowledge of the individual and his pur- 
 poses, we are compelled to interpret his motives by his 
 conduct and by the standard common to humanity, when 
 acting under such circumstances. When we know the 
 character, motives and purposes of the actors, we must 
 expect them to act in pursuance of them, and must con- 
 strue their actions and language by, and in conformity 
 with them. We can neither investigate nature, nor 
 human actions, without some theory of them. When we 
 would reproduce or reconstruct and explain some past 
 human transaction from partial, obscure or fragmentary 
 facts, we are compelled to provisionally assume some 
 theory or hypothesis as to the true character of it (the 
 one deemed most plausible,) and then test its conformity 
 with the known facts and its capacity for rationally ap- 
 propriating and explaining them ; and thus continue to 
 try and test- various hypotheses or supposititious states 
 of fact until one is found that completely fits and explains 
 the entire evidence or known facts. 
 
 Manifestly, the value of the several known facts in 
 pointing out the unknown ones will be exactly com- 
 mensurate with their singularity. A large portion of 
 the facts, in most cases, can be made to exhibit a real or 
 apparent conformity with almost any plausible theory.
 
 THE ARREST. 493 
 
 They are not sufficiently characteristic and exclusive to 
 be significant. There are other classes of facts which 
 have a far greater indicative capacity, on account of 
 their rarity or peculiarity. Where these are found in 
 the evidence, they constitute a kind of crucial test, as it 
 were; and any theory which can appropriate and ex- 
 plain them in connection and consistency with all the 
 other facts, is entitled to belief ; while those that fail to 
 do so are fatally defective. Facts are often disclosed by 
 the evidence which are not only rare or singular, but 
 are even wholly exceptional ; and such facts constitute, 
 of themselves, a test of the whole hypothesis. It is, 
 often, just such seemingly insignificant, and, as it were, 
 idiosyncratic waifs which stray loose among the facts, or 
 cling to odd angles of the evidence, that are the readiest 
 and surest guides to the true theory of the facts and the 
 surest tests and proofs of its correctness when it is 
 found. Human mysteries, like human bodies, are most 
 readily identified or exposed by their warts, moles and 
 deformities. A true hypothesis will explain and appro- 
 priate all such facts, readily and naturally ; while it is- 
 the only one which will, especially where there are sev- 
 eral of such crucial facts. The magnitude of such facts 
 does not determine their importance : it is their singu- 
 larity. The facts which we have already referred to, as 
 well as others which will accumulate as we advance, 
 possess more or less of this character of singularity and 
 exclusiveness, and point with wonderful directness to 
 our solution or rendering of the conduct and fate of Jesus.
 
 494 JESUS AND RELIGION. f 
 
 The theory by which we purpose to explain the facts 
 and solve the mystery of the closing scenes in the re- 
 corded career of Jesus, is simply 'this, namely : that 
 Jesus did not die on the cross ; but that, when supposed 
 to be dead, simply because he was crucified and pro- 
 nounced dead, he was in fact living ; although in a con- 
 dition resembling death. And it will be contended, that 
 his entire treatment and punishment tended and was 
 calculated to produce that result and not death ; and 
 that those who had control of him and his punishment, 
 not only contemplated, but connived at and aided the re- 
 sult indicated : this latter fact, however, being unneces- 
 sary to the truth of our theory. 
 
 If the .entire facts, from beginning to end, can be 
 shown to be in conformity with this view, we shall have 
 reduced the whole transaction to a basis which is at 
 once rational and comprehensible, and shall have solved 
 the one mystery which has been the very mother of 
 mysteries. And we undertake to say, that the entire 
 real facts can, not only be fully accounted for upon this 
 supposition, but can be so accounted for upon no other 
 theory with even a show of reason and consistency. 
 Nay, more, I affirm with confidence that few conclusions 
 can be rendered more conclusive either from fact or 
 reason ; and that, if the Gospel accounts of the reappear- 
 ance of Jesus after his crucifixion is to be credited, the 
 conclusion is absolutely resistless. Let no reader fail to 
 give the matter a fair and candid examination on ac- 
 count of its novelty or of its conflict with all their pre- 
 conceived notions, but rather give it the more earnest 
 and hopeful investigation ; seeing that whatever theory
 
 THE ARREST. 495 
 
 can solve the supposed mystery, must be novel ; all old 
 ones having ended only in irrationalities and inanities. 
 Only consent to give the facts and reasons the same 
 weight which you would were they applicable to any 
 other mortal that ever lived, instead of Jesus, and the 
 difficulties and mysteries alike vanish. 
 
 From this episode, Let us return to the four facts on 
 the night of the arrest, already noted. And first, to that 
 of the agonizing fright and blood-sweating of Jesus. 
 These phenomena, together with the wild desire and 
 passionate prayer of the victim of them for his escape 
 from the suffering and death which menaced him, would 
 seem wholly conclusive of the fallacy of the pretensions 
 to Divinity and voluntary self-sacrifice now claimed for 
 this frightened and suppliant sufferer; and, if so, are 
 equally conclusive of the mistake as to his resurrection. 
 The resurrection has been considered the essential and 
 conclusive proof of his divinity, and had he not been 
 supposed to have resurrected by his own divine power, 
 no thought of his resurrection from real death would 
 have been entertained. It was deemed at once a result 
 and a proof of his divine nature and power. Both Chris- 
 tianity and Jesus stand irrevocably committed to the 
 fact that Jesus voluntarily suffered and voluntarily " rose 
 from the dead." Jesus is represented as using language 
 which puts the matter beyond question. In the Gos- 
 pel of John (x. 17, 1 8) he says "Therefore doth my 
 Father love me, because I lay down my life that I
 
 496 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I 
 lay it down myself. I have power to lay it down, and I 
 have power to take it again." No declaration could be 
 more complete or more explicit. It forbids either con- 
 struction or evasion. And yet, How stands the case 
 when we look upon that ghastly scene of terror and sup- 
 plication in Gethsemane ? Was this terror-stricken and 
 hiding man, who was sweating very blood at the thought 
 of his being lawfully arrested for his conduct and at the 
 anticipation of the death that menaced him, and was 
 praying his followers to help him watch and avoid the 
 danger, and praying God that this fearful " cup " which 
 was being pressed to his lips, might pass from him Was 
 this man, we say, a God ? Was he even a man ^villingly 
 offering up his life that life which he had so often fled to 
 save, and which he now hid, and watched and prayed to 
 save, and sweat blood at the bare thought of losing ? 
 Were these either proofs of his Godhood, of his King- 
 hood, or of his Manhood ? ^Were they even evidence of 
 his descent from that lion-hearted lad who confronted 
 Goliath with his shepherd-sling ? These facts were too 
 naked and palpable to permit of rational evasion. They 
 are only avoidable by that blind superstition which will 
 accept any pretence, however absurd, and any quib- 
 bling, however gross, in defence of J-esus ; and that is 
 utterly impervious to both fact and reason when his pre- 
 tensions are questioned. The mental and physical con- 
 dition of J'esus on that night will also furnish the most, 
 if not the only, rational explanation of the blood and 
 water which is said to have flowed from his side on the 
 next day ; if, indeed, that allegation be not purely mythic, 
 as we believe it to be. .1-
 
 THE ARREST. 497 
 
 We have next to consider the fact that some person 
 who was robed in white (since he w^.s seen by the dis- 
 ciples at the distance of a " stone's throw," at night, and 
 was supposed by them to be an angel ; which, of neces- 
 sity, must have been in white) came to Jesus just im- 
 mediately before the arrival of the Roman guard and 
 when Jesus was in the very height of his agonizing 
 doubt and terror. What communication this person 
 made to Jesus we are not informed, but we are told that 
 the purpose of the visit was to " comfort " him : and 
 we find that his conduct confirms this statement, and 
 gave striking proof of the success of this mission of 
 comforting. For we find him immediately returning to 
 his disciples, and informing them, in the most self- 
 possessed manner, that the watch which he had so 
 anxiously besought them to keep was no longer needful, 
 and that Judas and his backers were already at hand. 
 
 If we assume the unknown persons in . human 
 drama to be supernatural beings in human form, and 
 account for all uncomprehended facts and actions by 
 supernatural agencies, and thus place ourselves outside 
 of reason and natural law, we may irrationally account 
 for any possible state of things upon any and every pos- 
 sible hypothesis, and can call it an explanation ; but, by 
 no rational method can we account for this midnight 
 visit of comfort or its marvellous success, or for the real 
 need of such comfort by Jesus, from the orthodox stand- 
 point. Nor can any mortal conceive why an angel 
 should have to be sent with a message of any kind to an 
 Incarnate God, or what any angel could tell him about 
 his own affairs about affairs which he himself had pre- 
 32
 
 49 8 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 determined "before the World was," and was now going 
 through with according to his predetermination. Nor 
 can any grounds of comfort or the need of them, in such 
 a case, enter into the understanding of man ; since he 
 was not only going through with exactly what he de- 
 sired and had determined to go through, and tmtst go 
 through, upon the orthodox view of the matter, but he 
 was certainly informed that the very arrest which he 
 dreaded, and from which he was hiding, was certainly 
 and immediately to take place, and he was actually tried, 
 condemned and crucified. Not a single pang, therefore, 
 which he had dreaded, could be avoided or was in fact 
 avoided, but all took place as he had pre-known and de- 
 sired it should. What then was, or could have been, 
 the message of comfort conveyed by that angel, which 
 so suddenly calmed and re-inspired the despairing and 
 frightened Jesus ? Is not the whole scene an inexplic- 
 able mystery and absurd contradiction, upon the Chris- 
 tian theory ? It will not answer to say that all this 
 applied to the mere man Jesus. For the Gospels neither 
 intimate, nor countenance such a distinction ; nor is 
 such a distinction consistent with the assumed nature 
 and mission of Jesus. The two natures, if there were 
 two, were inseparably united, and the efficient suffering 
 and sacrifice which was to atone for man's sins, was not 
 the death, of the young carpenter of Galilee in his human 
 capacity, but the suffering and death of the incarnate 
 Son of God who voluntarily gave himself to surfer and 
 die as an atonement for the sins of humanity. It was 
 divine suffering that paid the penalty. Nor is it inti- 
 mated in the scriptures that the Jesus who suffered in 
 the garden was then any different, or any differently
 
 THE ARREST. 499 
 
 related to God or the Divine Son, from what he was 
 at all times. 
 
 Who, then, was this midnight white-robed visitor and 
 comforter ? and What was the nature of his message ? 
 The message must have concerned the subject about 
 which Jesus himself was so concerned and alarmed, and 
 must have been of a nature to relieve his fears and re- 
 inspire him with hope on that subject, since this was 
 the antidote or comfort he required to allay his peculiar 
 sufferings ; and the result proved the fact of an actual 
 application of an antidote to his excessive fear. From 
 whence, then, could come such a message of encourage- 
 ment and hope in regard to his dreaded trial ? Is it not 
 manifest that this was a messenger sent by his confiden- 
 tial friends, or secret coadjutors behind the scenes, who 
 had already notified him of the secret tampering with 
 Judas ? With such active friends as we know him to have 
 possessed in the very council of his enemies, it is hardly 
 credible that they would have failed to have consulted 
 with him and arranged to notify him of the move- 
 ments against him. And it is not improbable that 
 the fear of their abandoning him in the hour of his dan- 
 ger and trial had added to his apprehension and alarm. 
 The occurrence, then, was not only a reasonable and 
 natural one, but a presumable one. The Roman author- 
 ities could not have been ignorant of the public preten- 
 sions and movements of Jesus and of the troubles of the 
 Jews concerning him, nor is it probable that the leading 
 secret coadjutors of Jesus would fail to ascertain the 
 views of Pilate in regard to him, as soon as the betrayal 
 of Jesus rendered his arrest probable. When the pro-
 
 5OO JESUS AND RELIGION'. 
 
 gramme of the arrest, therefore, was agreed upon in the 
 council that night, it is presumable, and in the natural 
 course of events, that his secret and powerful coadjutors 
 in the Sanhedrim, who were apprised of the decision 
 and arrangements, would at once despatch a messenger 
 to inform Jesus both of the coming of the Roman guard 
 and of their own continued fidelity to him, as well as of 
 the determination to bring him before Pilate for trial, 
 and of Pilate's inclination to defend and acquit him : so 
 that Jesus might not be driven to despair, if escape were 
 impossible. These assurances were sent, doubtlessly, 
 by a son or confidential servant of the sender ; and, 
 were he discovered, it would expose the complicity of 
 this secret coadjutor with the movements of Jesus and 
 bring him into discredit, trouble and danger. The course 
 to be finally pursued was probably not agreed upon by 
 the Jewish rulers until after midnight, and the move- 
 ments were probably so unexpectedly prompt, that the 
 messenger, when suddenly aroused from sleep and dis- 
 patched with his message, was instructed to fly with 
 speed and without preparation, or he would be followed 
 almost immediately by the guard of arrest. All this, 
 and still more that we shall yet notice, is highly probable 
 under the circumstances and the relations of the parties, 
 and at once explains the visit of the white-robed angel, 
 as well as the general nature of his message and the 
 reason that it so suddenly allayed the extreme terror of 
 Jesus and reinspired him with hope. It was a human 
 comforter bearing tidings of human help and hope.
 
 THE ARREST. 5OI 
 
 The remaining fact referred to, is still more singular 
 and significant. So strange did it seem, that it continued 
 to be remembered for a quarter of a century or more, 
 and forced its way into the Gospels ; although no at- 
 tempt is made to explain it or to connect it with the pro- 
 ceedings of the night, in any way. It appears that, after 
 the messenger had delivered~his message to Jesus and 
 doubtlessly informed him of the immediate approach of 
 the guard, Jesus immediately went and informed his dis- 
 ciples of the approach of the guard, and was then im- 
 mediately arrested ; and, in a few moments, was on his 
 way to the city, in their custody. After all his disciples 
 had fled or left him, and when Jesus and his guard had 
 left the garden and were on their way to the city, we are 
 told by Mark, that " there folio wed him (Jesus) a certain 
 young man, having a linen clotk about his naked body, 
 and the young men laid hold on him : and he left the 
 linen cloth and fled from them naked'' As it stands, 
 this singular fact would seem to have no significance, 
 and, upon the orthodox theory, can have none. And yet, 
 it was so singular and so evidently connected with Jesus 
 and his arrest, that it has floated down to us side by side 
 with the crucifixion and the bloody sweat. Were not 
 the disciples right ? Was it not a fact to be noted, even if 
 inexplicable, that this lone young man a stranger to the 
 followers of Jesus should be found following Jesus just 
 after he had left his secret retreat, between midnight 
 and day, with no clothing but a " linen cloth ? " Was it 
 not still more singular and significant that, when he was 
 discovered and seized, he never protested, never ex- 
 plained, nor opened his lips, but tore away from them, 
 leaving his sole covering in their hands, and fled voice-
 
 5O2 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 less ana stark-naked into the night a night, too, which 
 was so cold that they had to have 2ifire inside the house 
 of the High Priest even for the servants ? How came 
 this young man, whom none of the disciples knew, to be 
 thus following Jesus from his secret' hiding place to the 
 city, when his own followers had left him ? How came he 
 to be following Jesus from that garden, unless he had been 
 with him in the garden, visiting him about that very ar- 
 rest ? Why such terror at the prospect of being discov- 
 ered and identified by those men of the Temple Party ? 
 Why in such a hasty covering on so cold a night ? Must 
 there not have been both a powerful motive and a sudden 
 emergency to have brought him there at such a time, 
 in such weather, and in such a garb, a powerful motive 
 also to tempt him to abandon even that single covering 
 in such weather and at such a time and place ? 
 
 The motive of his being there can scarcely be con- 
 ceived to be other than to serve Jesus in some form, and 
 even in some form connected with that night's proceed- 
 ings. He was not a disciple of Jesus, nor known to his 
 followers. He did not belong to the party of arrest. 
 The place, time, his following Jesus and his fear of dis- 
 covery, all manifestly tend to show, that he was there on 
 account of Jesus. His motive for so dreading exposure 
 is quite clear, upon our supposition as to him and his 
 purpose. He knew that, if he was detained, he would 
 be known by the men who seized hint, and that his recog- 
 nition would expose his purpose, and subject those who 
 sent him to the charge of treachery to the Sanhedrim 
 and of complicity with Jesus in his treasonable schemes. 
 Hence he risked all, rather than be discovered. The
 
 THE ARREST. 503 
 
 whole facts clearly show that this young man was return- 
 ing from the hiding place of Jesus to the city, and that 
 he had been connected with the night's work, in some 
 secret and dangerous way, in favor of Jesus. And yet 
 the object and motive of that connection was unknown 
 to the disciples, and is wholly inconceivable to us upon 
 the orthodox theory. It is a fact for which that theory 
 finds no place or explanation. On the other hand our 
 theory anticipates such a movement and hails it as one 
 of its proofs. Before we have reached this mysterious 
 occurrence other mysterious facts had prepared us for 
 an explanation of this one ; and this, in its turn, throws 
 back its explanatory light upon the former one. They 
 are parts of the same transaction. It becomes manifest 
 that the same "angel" who brought the comforting 
 message to Jesus in the garden, had secretly witnessed 
 his arrest and cautiously followed him and the guard as 
 they passed out of the garden and proceeded to the city, 
 whither he himself also proposed to return, still wrapped 
 in his ghostly sheet or linen cloth. But when they had 
 gotten out of the darker garden into the more open 
 ground, he was discovered and, being under such sus- 
 picious circumstances, was suspicioned and seized. 
 Rather than be identified he left his only covering in 
 their hands and fled, naked. Had he been a stranger to 
 the parties who arrested him, or had he been innocent 
 of any connection with their movements or designs, and 
 had been following them from idle curiosity or accident, 
 he could have had no cause for fearing those men or for 
 fearing to be recognized by them ; and he certainly 
 would not have abandoned his covering and exposed 
 himself, on such a night and in such a place, in the
 
 504 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 manner he did, rather than speak a word of explanation. 
 That he should have been in such a peculiar undress, 
 even, is readily explicable upon our supposition ; while 
 it would be difficult to suggest any pretence of a reason 
 for it on any other. The uncertainty as to the course 
 and the time of action of the enemies of Jesus, the late- 
 ness of the hour at night when immediate action was 
 actually determined upon, the promptness of the action, 
 etc., rendered it necessary to arouse a messenger from 
 sleep to send to Jesus, and in such haste as to allow him 
 only time to throw his sddin or linen cloth, under which 
 he slept, around him. For the people of Palestine, 
 neither then, nor, I believe, now, clothed themselves on 
 going to bed in night clothing, as we do ; but completely 
 undressed, and then threw their sadin a kind of " wrap- 
 per of fine linen " around them. That a person aroused 
 from sleep to be sent on an instant message of life and 
 death, should have thrown this linen wrapper around 
 him and departed without other clothing, is very natural 
 and probable, or, at least, quite comprehensible and 
 credible. It is also probable, that the messenger was 
 compelled to rely upon the opening of the city gates for 
 the guard, for his own opportunity of getting out of, and 
 returning to, the city at that late hour of the night ; and 
 if so, we will have, in that fact, an additional explanation 
 of the hurry of the messenger and also of his following 
 the guard so closely on its return. 
 
 Thus we see that, by eliminating the supernatural 
 element from these mysterious transactions, they all 
 point to a probable solution or state of facts which, 
 when assumed, corresponds with the whole facts and
 
 THE ARREST. 505 
 
 situation, as well as with the characters, objects and 
 relations of the parties concerned ; and connects them 
 in a single transaction, which was at once rational and 
 almost predictable, and which conforms to, and explains 
 the general situation and transactions of the night, and 
 leaves no fact unappropriated or shrouded in mystery. 
 Can the Christian theory do this ? or any other theory ? 
 Or, Could Christians agree upon any one theory of the 
 facts, among themselves ? 
 
 We must be pardoned for the pains we have taken 
 to insure a correct conception of the facts of this 
 momentous night. They are the prologue to the more 
 momentous drama of the following day, and tend to 
 point out the roles and cues (almost) of the actors in that 
 drama, and the secret scenes which followed it. In 
 entering upon the trial of Jesus we shall be prepared, if 
 our solution is the right one, to expect other evidences 
 of the relations, purposes and intentions which these 
 singular facts have suggested and evidenced, and must 
 take care to note their occurrence, progress and results.
 
 506 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE TRIAL. 
 
 THE first examination of Jesus occurred before the 
 Jewish authorities very early on the morning after his 
 arrest. Upon his own confession the Sanhedrim " con- 
 demned him to be guilty of death " for the crime of 
 blasphemy. But the ecclesiastical tribunal had no power 
 to order an execution of the death-penalty, nor could they 
 try him upon the principal charge of sedition or treason. 
 For these purposes it was necessary to send him to the 
 Roman or civic power. This they accordingly did, and 
 went before Pilate, in a body, to make their accusation 
 against Jesus and demand his conviction and execution. 
 So rude were the methods of government then existing, 
 that there were neither sworn witnesses, nor written ac- 
 cusation, nor any record of proceedings and judgment 
 even in this capital case, but the prisoner was arraigned, 
 tried and convicted after the manner of an American 
 mob or Vigilance Committee : Pilate acting in all the 
 parts of judge, counsel, governor, military commander 
 and high sheriff.
 
 THE TRIAL. 507 
 
 Before Pilate we find a judicial trial, in many re- 
 spects, without a parallel. We find the Jews hounding- 
 on the Roman procurator to destroy one of their own 
 people for attempting to overthrow the Roman power 
 in Judea, and set up a Jewish one ; while we find 
 the Roman procurator exercising his utmost sagacity 
 and cunning to save this avowed and openly proclaimed 
 " King of the Jews " from the penalties of treason 
 against his own government. The secret of this 
 anomalous state of affairs we have already considered. 
 Besides these considerations, however, it is clear, that 
 both Pilate and Herod considered Jesus too insignificant 
 to be looked upon in the light of a political competitor, 
 or to be regarded as in any way dangerous to their 
 power. Herod, evidently, was aware that he was re- 
 garded as " possessed " or insane, and supposed him to 
 be a magician ; and was desirous, indeed, of witness- 
 ing some of his performances. Pilate would seem to 
 have regarded him as a singular, but by no means 
 dangerous or bad man : and became even superstitiously 
 excited in his behalf when he heard of his wife's dreams 
 about him, and of his claim to be a Son of God. 
 
 The "judgment seat" of Pilate was on the pave- 
 ment outside the body or walls of his palace. The 
 Jewish accusers of Jesus neither went, nor had the 
 strict right to go, within the palace itself ; and we* are 
 expressly told, that they did not enter it upon this 
 occasion, lest their entrance into this Gentile palace
 
 508 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 might so defile them as to unfit them for partaking 
 of the approaching feast of the Passover. The ex- 
 aminations of Jesus and the consultations with him were 
 within the palace and beyond the observation and hear- 
 ing of all save its Roman inmates and such as Pilate 
 chose to admit or invite. Whatever personal punish- 
 ments or indignities Jesus may have received, also 
 occurred in the palace. Whatsoever was known or 
 reported outside of the palace with regard to what 
 occurred within it, was reported as Pilate desired it, and 
 in the way he desired it. The accusation, confession, 
 pleading, controversies and judgment were public, but 
 the entire intercourse of Pilate with Jesus and the pre- 
 tended scourging and indignities which are alleged to 
 have occurred, were in private. Of these private scenes 
 we have, in the main, what Pilate was desirous or willing 
 to be known, and in the form in which he desired them to 
 be believed. 
 
 It would appear, by John's account, that, when 
 the prisoner was brought for the purpose of trial and 
 condemnation, Pilate came out unto them, and said : 
 " What accusation bring you against this man ? " and 
 that the Jews, thinking their own examination ought to 
 have been sufficient, replied that, if he had not been 
 a malefactor, they would not have brought him before 
 Pilate. The Procurator then told them to take him and 
 try and punish him according to their own laws, but they 
 declined, as Pilate expected they would, on account of 
 their want of power to " put any man to death." Then 
 " Pilate entered into the judgment hall again and called 
 Jesus unto him." That is, he came out and heard the
 
 THE TRIAL. 509 
 
 Jews, and then returned into his palace and sent for 
 Jesus. Thus we find him alternately coming out and 
 talking with the accusers, and again returning into the 
 palace to talk with Jesus and those inside, throughout 
 the whole proceeding. 
 
 The Jews laid many things to his charge, among 
 others, that he was a blasphemer ; that he perverted the 
 nation; refused to pay tribute to Caesar; and pro- 
 claimed himself " Christ a King " that is, the " an- 
 ointed King" of the Jews. To every charge made 
 against him Jesus remained obstinately silent to his ac- 
 cusers. Pilate was evidently taken by surprise at the 
 extent of the charges, and asked Jesus, in public, as to 
 what answer he had to make to the charge of proclaim- 
 ing himself King. Jesus simply confessed the charge 
 and remained silent. Pilate, who saw danger brewing, 
 took him apart and examined him privately on this 
 matter. Jesus, without retracting his confession, is said 
 to have made some explanation of his mysterious notions 
 about the nature of his kingdom, which Pilate accepted 
 as satisfactory. But the difficulty did not lay with 
 Pilate, who was already pre-determined to save him, and 
 disappoint their common enemies, but it lay in satisfying 
 the Jews, who were determined to convict him as a 
 matter of expediency and safety. And, before these 
 latter, Jesus refused to make either reply or explanation. 
 If he ever made any explanation before Pilate, he cer-
 
 5IO JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 tainly refused to let the public know it. He boldly 
 claimed to be " King of the Jews," and refused to make 
 either retraction, explanation or concession to conciliate 
 his accusers or to relieve Pilate from the terrible 
 dilemma in which he had placed him by his own con- 
 fession of guilt upon the political charge. He seems to 
 have fallen into one of his moody fits, and would yield 
 nothing before his Jewish enemies, but relied solely upon 
 his powerful friends and the Romans for his safety. He 
 was, perhaps, so ignorant of the character of Tiberius 
 Caesar as to be unaware of the fatal dilemma into which 
 he was driving his advocate and judge. He may not 
 have clearly seen, that to ignore such a palpable and 
 confessed breach of law and indignity to the sovereignty 
 of the Roman Emperor, in the face of such powerful 
 Jewish opposition, was more than even Pilate dared do. 
 
 In spite of this conduct of Jesus, however, Pilate re- 
 turned to the Jews with the verdict " I find no fault 
 in this man." Upon this the Jews grew furious and im- 
 portunate. But, in reiterating and specializing their 
 charges, it leaked out that Jesus was a Galilean. The 
 adroit advocate and wily judge at once seized and 
 acted upon the hint this fact suggested. If Jesus was a 
 Galilean he was a subject of Herod, and Herod happened 
 to be then in Jerusalem, and had nothing to fear from 
 the people of Judea. Pilate could, therefore, send this 
 Galilean to be tried before the Ruler of Galilee. 
 
 In pursuance of this new hope, the cause, the pris- 
 oner, and his accusers were sent to Herod for his 
 examination and decision. This apparently friendly
 
 THE TRIAL. 511 
 
 compliment and defference to Herod, with such messages 
 as Pilate would naturally send to him, doubtlessly stimu- 
 lated the favorable inclinations of Herod. At all events 
 Herod declined to sentence Jesus, although he had 
 remained even more obstinately silent before him than 
 he had, publicly, before Pilate. 
 
 When Jesus was returned to Pilate by Herod, Pilate 
 again called the Jewish Rulers, and announced this 
 second acquittal of the prisoner : and again proposed his 
 final discharge. And, to make the matter more pala- 
 table to his excited accusers, he proposed to first chastise 
 and humiliate him, and then discharge him. But this 
 offer failed to placate the Jews. They did not care to 
 have him suffer, merely, but desired to get rid of him. 
 
 But Pilate's resources had not failed, nor did his 
 courage or efforts slacken. Remembering that it was 
 customary, at the feast of the Passover, to grant a pardon 
 to some Jewish convict or prisoner, on the petition of the 
 people, Pilate proposed that, in obedience to this custom 
 he would release unto them Jesus, and thus justify 
 their accusation of him and compel him to owe his life 
 and freedom to their clemency. This overture, also, was 
 rejected, amid the wildest excitement. 
 
 In the very teeth of a riot Pilate still presented a de- 
 termined front, and exhibited a spirit even more un- 
 yielding and subtle, if less excitable, than that of the
 
 512 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Jews. His zeal was stimulated, also, more than once, 
 during the course of the trial. His wife's appeal to him 
 was calculated to arouse both his sympathies and his 
 superstition. Even on the judgment seat her message 
 reached him " have nothing to do with the blood of 
 that just man : for I have suffered many things this day 
 in a dream because of him." Then again it transpired 
 that Jesus claimed to be a son of God, setting Pilate in 
 a real tremor -of dread as to the possibilities, and sending 
 him promptly into the palace for another private con- 
 ference, and to concoct new schemes. It was not until 
 Pilate had made some dozen different efforts to publicly 
 save Jesus, that he was finally driven to the necessity of 
 publicly acknowledging his public defeat. 
 
 The final effort of Pilate to produce a reaction in 
 favor of Jesus was worthy of his versatile and politic na- 
 ture. He had not, and could not have had, any doubt 
 as to the dangerous position in which he was placed from 
 the moment the charge of treason against the Emperor 
 was distinctly urged and openly confessed. The open 
 and notorious pretensions and acts of Jesus, also, had, 
 beyond question, rendered him liable to the penalties of 
 treason. It was impossible to avoid either the prior 
 evidences or his persistent present confession. Pilate 
 cared nothing for the opinion of the Jews, but he knew 
 in what light his acquittal of Jesus under such a charge, 
 and with such proofs, could be represented to the Em- 
 peror. In this point of view he had struggled, in every 
 conceivable mode, to placate .and mollify the prosecutors. 
 Unfortunately, the wily Jews understood his purposes 
 and the hold they had upon him as well as he did ; and, 
 when utterly tired out by Pilate's delays, manoeuvres
 
 THE TRIAL. 513 
 
 and private consultation, in the palace, they made their 
 knowledge and power unmistakably known and felt in 
 their final play in the game. Their trump card came in 
 this form : " If thou let this man go, thou art no friend 
 of Ccesat's:" an accusation which Pilate well knew 
 would meet a ready and ruthless endorsement from his 
 tyrant master. He might not finally succumb to this 
 menace he might evade it secretly, but he dared not 
 defy it openly. And yet, he endeavored, with consum- 
 mate cunning, to reverse his defeat in the very act of 
 finally conceding it. Knowing the wonderfully impres- 
 sible and emotional nature of the Jews, this consummate 
 advocate and actor assumed the most thrilling tragic 
 vein in the final scene. In the midst of the turbulent 
 cries of the passionate multitude he ordered water to be 
 brought out to his judgment seat, and there, in the pres- 
 ence of the whole multitude, he solemnly washed his 
 hands, exclaiming " I am innocent of the blood of this 
 righteous man : see ye to it." 
 
 This last attempt to produce a revulsion of feeling in 
 favor of Jesus having failed, nothing could now save him 
 from the cross. Up to that point, at least, the Jews had 
 won; and Pilate stood publicly bullied, defeated and 
 humiliated. He had tried in vain to publicly persuade, or 
 elude them. If he could yet succeed, he would be com- 
 pelled to secretly hood-wink and delude them. Would 
 he, and Could he, do it ? This was the question. 
 
 33
 
 514 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 We have now seen something of the character of 
 Pilate, something of his relations with the Jewish pros- 
 ecutors of Jesus, something of the feelings, motives and 
 purposes with regard to Jesus and his cause : the ques- 
 tion now arises Will this man Pilate finally yield the 
 life for which he has so earnestly and gallantly fought, 
 to the demands of their common enemies, without a fur- 
 ther struggle ? Will his own public defeat and humilia- 
 tion cow this politic and flexible, but obstinate advocate, 
 or will it gall and inspire him ? Would an advocate of 
 such fertility of resource abandon his client on the first 
 conviction without an effort to delay, avoid, or reverse 
 the fatal result, if not by an appeal, still by some other 
 method ? Would such an advocate and judge, burning 
 with indignation at the cruelty and injustice of the fate 
 of his client and with the undeserved humiliation of a 
 defeat which had been openly and nakedly forced upon 
 him by the threats of his hated, but dreaded enemies, 
 tamely yield while there still remained power and re- 
 sources in his hands to right these wrongs, and while he 
 had his own wife and the powerful friends of Jesus to 
 urge him to the extremity of effort ? If the life of Jesus 
 could still be saved, surely every motive which could 
 stimulate Pilate, whether as judge, advocate, executive, 
 husband or man, urged him to continue his efforts to 
 the last, to avoid, as far as possible, this cruel and. forced 
 sentence. That such efforts were made and were suc- 
 cessful, is evidenced at almost every step of the subse- 
 quent proceedings, although in a manner to avoid expos- 
 ure and responsibility. That the effort to evade so 
 cruel a sentence and one forced upon the Judge in defi- 
 ance of his own convictions by the personal intimi-
 
 THE TRIAL. 515 
 
 dations of the prosecutors and mob, was thoroughly 
 justifiable and right, none will question. 
 
 Had Pilate, aided by his soldiers, agents and ser- 
 vants, as well as by the powerful Jewish friends of Jesus, 
 the/0ztwand opportunity to save the life of this con- 
 demned man ; while submitting to a partial execution of 
 the sentence ? Of this there is as little doubt as that 
 he would attempt it. We have already seen, that the 
 exclusive control of everything was in his hands. As 
 he had only one check to his power on the trial, so he 
 had but one check to his power in executing or avoid- 
 ing the sentence, namely : the necessity for guarding 
 against furnishing the Jewish rulers with proofs of his 
 own personal complicity in the escape of the prisoner. 
 Could he but avoid this, his power, as well as his inclina- 
 tion, to save the prisoner was unlimited. We shall find 
 that, at every stage of the proceedings, and during every 
 moment of time from the condemnation of Jesus until 
 his re-appearance from the tomb of Joseph after the cru- 
 cifixion, he was in the hands and under the exclusive 
 management and control of his ardent supporters or 
 friends. We also know that, during the trial, as well 
 as after it, the Roman authorities had ample opportuni- 
 ties for secret consultations and arrangements among 
 themselves and with the Jewish friends of Jesus, and of 
 bringing to bear their entire joint cunning and resources 
 to save the prisoner ; and that, with their joint power 
 and resources, they could command all the skill and 
 means for the accomplishment of their purposes which 
 the time and city afforded. Every medical aid was 
 within their reach, and every officer and soldier did but 
 reflect the secret will and desire of Pijate. It was these
 
 5l6 JESUS AND" RELIGION. 
 
 friends or aiders of Jesus, who determined the place of 
 execution, the character of the cross and of the imple- 
 ments to be used and of the time and manner of using 
 them and the treatment of the prisoner and the final 
 fact of death. They determined, also, what drinks 
 should be administered while he was on the cross, and 
 administered them in their own way and time. They 
 formed the military cordon around the place of execu- 
 tion, and determined who should be permitted to come 
 within it, and how near the public were to be allowed to 
 approach. They decided when the punishment was 
 complete, and when he should be taken from the cross, 
 and whether his limbs should, or should not, be broken, 
 as vyas the custom. They decided as to the custody of 
 him after he was taken from the cross, and as to his dis- 
 posal and treatment afterwards. To these facilities we 
 shall find ourselves enabled to add a rare concurrence of 
 circumstances favoring the chance and encouraging the 
 . purpose of saving the life of the prisoner. The fact of the 
 trial and execution having occurred on the " preparation 
 day " for the sabbath of the Passover, which " sabbath 
 day was a high day," was a most fortunate coincidence. 
 The Jews had been compelled, on this account, to re- 
 main entirely outside of the palace, and thus to give the 
 amplest opportunity to the friends of the prisoner for 
 unobstructed conferences and for pre-arrangements for 
 concerted action. The requisite preparations for this 
 great religious feast would, and did, compel the Jews to 
 retire early fr,om the place of execution, as they all had 
 to be finished by sundown ; that being the commence- 
 ment of the sabbath day in question, after which nothing 
 could be done. By law, also, the body of Jesus was com-
 
 THE TRIAL. 5 I/ 
 
 pelled to be taken from the cross and disposed of before 
 sunset on the day of his execution. These concurring 
 facts were fortunate in the extreme. So that we enter 
 upon a consideration of the evidence with an assurance 
 of the presence of the desire/ the means, the power, and 
 the purpose to save, and also with an assurance of the 
 existence of the rarest opportunities and of the most 
 propitious concurrence of favorable conditions opening 
 the way for success and stimulating and encouraging 
 endeavor. We not only have these powerful persuasives 
 to believe and expect that the man will be saved, but 
 we have the overwhelming fact that he was actually alive 
 afterwards, and was secretly bivouacing and eating fisk 
 on the shores of his old Galilean sea, a month or more 
 afterwards ! 
 
 , Although the facts of the crucifixion, as detailed to us 
 in the Gospels, are perfectly compatible with the natural 
 survival and recovery of Jesus, nay, are almost absolute- 
 ly incompatible with any other results, there are so many 
 indications and evidences of a design and effort to save 
 him, that it is deemed proper to treat the matter from 
 that point of view. The facts, however caused, will be 
 found utterly incompatible with any other hypothesis 
 than that of continued life on the cross and afterwards. 
 But, as acts are always best comprehended in connection 
 with the real motives and purposes of the actors, and as 
 the yery fact that consistent and characteristic motives 
 can be shown, to explain a long and varied series of
 
 5l8 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 facts and transactions in accordance with a hypothesis 
 based upon design and intention, is almost conclusive of 
 the truth of such hypothesis, we shall do well to examine 
 the facts with a theory of design ; assured that, if we 
 fail as to the conclusiveness of our evidences of design, 
 we have still the theory of natural preservation and the 
 omnipotent fact of preservation to fallback upon. We 
 must not, of course, expect to find a purpose to save 
 Jesus openly expressed or glaringly manifested through 
 the scenes of the execution, as we have through the 
 scenes of the trial ; since we know that all such purposes 
 were attempted to be concealed. But, while the purposes 
 and influences which shaped and controlled the facts 
 lay concealed beneath them, they were not so deeply 
 buried as to fail to make an intelligible line of ripples 
 on the surface of the current of facts, by which we are 
 enabled to detect and judge them. 
 
 After the sentence . had been irrevocably passed, 
 under the coercion of the Jews, one of Pilate's cen- 
 turions was entrusted with its execution, and, with a 
 sufficient guard of soldiers, proceeded to Calvary with 
 the prisoner. We have accounts of indignities having 
 been offered to Jesus during the trial, which were of no 
 moment; since, with the exception of scourging (at 
 least a report or pretence of which must have been gone 
 through with as a necessary part of the punishment of 
 crucifixion) the indignities consisted of mere mockeries 
 of his royalty, and were really done, or reported to have 
 been done, to appease and placate the Jews. If these 
 things were actually done, they were done under Pilate's 
 eye and direction, and we can estimate about how much
 
 THE TRIAL. 519 
 
 Jesus would be really injured by them, by Pilate's con- 
 duct before his conviction and by the wholly exceptional 
 kindness with which he caused Jesus to be treated after 
 his conviction. For whatever was not exceptionally kind 
 and considerate occurred before he was finally ordered 
 to execution, and we can comprehend the weight of 
 Pilate's blows on this "just man" in whom he "found 
 no fault," and for whose acquittal he had so ardently 
 struggled. We find an exhibition of the real feeling of 
 Pilate and of his subordinates towards Jesus, at the very 
 outset of the execution. It was customary for the 
 prisoners to bear their own crosses. But, no sooner 
 had they left the hall of justice than the centurion, with- 
 out deigning to assign or feign an excuse, seized upon 
 the first sturdy fellow he found, and compelled him to 
 carry the cross of Jesus to Calvary (Matt, xxvii.-xxxii. 
 Luke xxiii.-xxvi. Mark xv.-xxi). This was not only a 
 partiality shown him, but a matter of policy to conserve 
 his strength for the brief but exhausting ordeal through 
 which, in any event, he had to pass. It may be suggested 
 that Jesus was feeble, but no such suggestion can be 
 maintained. No such explanation is hinted in the 
 Gospels ; and it comes with bad grace from those who 
 claim that he is the final and supreme type of that sacri- 
 fice which was to be perfect of its kind " without spot 
 or blemish." Besides, from the whole tenor of his life 
 and habits, we learn that he was a hearty and free liver 
 was active, agile and healthy, with a free, open-air life, 
 and without a single hour's sickness during all of his 
 recorded life. This is a matter which we must also 
 carefully remember when we come to consider how 
 much punishment he was capable of withstanding.
 
 52O- JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION. 
 
 ON the march out of the city and up the little knoll 
 or hill of Calvary nothing of moment occurred save the 
 refusal of Jesus to partake of the "wine and myrrh" 
 which was tendered him by some friendly hand. This 
 cup of wine mixed with myrrh was called the "mercy 
 cup," and was usually offered by sympathizers or friends, 
 to persons who were going on the cross, for the purpose 
 of enabling them to bear their sufferings, by deadening 
 their sensibilities to pain and stimulating them to bear 
 them. Although it was a customary kindness to the 
 crucified it was not offered in this instance by the 
 Romans, and was promptly rejected by Jesus. His 
 bearing during the march was collected and confident, 
 and, together with his refusal of the " mercy cup," shows 
 that he was not only not exhausted, but was determined to 
 have his senses unimpaired while on the cross, even at 
 the expense of greater pain. He had been so favored that, 
 on arriving at the place of execution, he was evidently 
 neither seriously exhausted, nor debilitated in body or 
 mind ; although perhaps nervously irritated and a little 
 faint from fasting : all of which are facts which it con- 
 cerns us to remember.
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION. 521 
 
 While the military cordon is being formed around 
 the summit of Calvary to keep off the by-standers, and 
 the preparations are being made to place the prisoner 
 on the cross, we may pause to examine this cross and 
 form some correct notion of its construction, as well as 
 of the punishment it inflicts : a knowledge which is 
 not only absolutely necessary to any kind of compre- 
 hension of the subjects to be considered, but which we 
 are sadly deficient in. We must, therefore, ask the 
 Reader, not only to carefully consider the descriptions 
 which will be given, but to resolutely displace from his 
 mind the false images and notions of crosses and cruci- 
 fixions which have been placed there by ignorant or 
 designing priests, authors and artists, and to substitute 
 the true ones. 
 
 Doctor Stroud, a learned Christian physician, has 
 written a work entitled " Physical causes of the death 
 of Christ," from which we have largely drawn our facts 
 in regard to crosses and crucifixions, and from which, 
 also, we shall quote freely, italicizing as we shall deem 
 necessary. This learned Doctor tells us, that the cross 
 and crucifixion " has often been erroneously represented 
 by painters, poets and devotional writers." And, after 
 stating that Salmatius and Lipsius had macle exhaustive 
 researches into the matter, and that he relied upon their 
 labors, he concludes that, " From these and similar 
 authorities it is clearly ascertained, that the punishment 
 of crucifixion was peculiarly painful, lingering and
 
 $22 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 ignominious. The cross consisted of a strong upright 
 post, sharpened at the lower end by which it was fixed 
 in -the ground, having a short bar or stake projecting 
 from its middle, and a longer transverse beam joined 
 near the top. As the middle bar, although an impor- 
 tant appendage, has been almost universally overlooked 
 by modern authors, it will be proper here to insert the 
 account given of it by some of the early Fathers of the 
 Church and founded on personal observation. ' The 
 structure of the cross,' says Iraeneus, ' has jive ends or 
 summits, two in length, two in breadth, and one in the 
 middle on which the crucified rested' Justin Martyr, in 
 like manner, speaks of ' that end projecting from the 
 middle [of the upright post] like a horn on which the 
 crucified persons were seated ; ' and the language of 
 Tertullian, who wrote a little later, exactly corresponds 
 ' a part, and indeed a principle part of the cross, is any 
 post which is affixed in an upright position ; but to us 
 the entire cross is imputed, including the transverse 
 beam, and the projecting bar which serves as a seat? " 
 
 Thus, we plainly learn from the early Fathers of the 
 Church, that we have been grossly deluded in relation to 
 the character of the cross and the punishment of cruci- 
 fixion. We have been taught to believe that the sufferer 
 hung his almost entire weight upon large nails driven 
 through the body of his hands and into a cross-bar above 
 his head ; while a single spike was driven through both 
 of his feet and into the upright post, these nails through 
 the hands and feet being his only support. This whole 
 conception we find to be radically false and grossly de- 
 lusive as to the nature and degree of the suffering in-
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION. 523 
 
 flicted. The facts are, that the body was not sup- 
 ported, to any extent, by either the fastenings of the 
 hands or feet. The hands and arms were stretched out 
 horizontally along the cross-bar and fastened to it, to 
 prevent the sufferer from struggling to release himself, 
 and to keep him in his seat. There are strong reasons 
 for believing that the whole story about the use of nails 
 is a subsequent fabrication ; for it certainly was not a 
 necessary requisite of crucifixion. Nor is it consistent 
 with the beliefs and conduct of the Romans with refer- 
 ence to Jesus, who in everything else so favored him, 
 that they should have put themselves to the inconve- 
 nience of adding this unnecessary cruelty to his punish- 
 ment. Nor is the fact of nailing of the feet mentioned j 
 even in the Gospels. Nor is the nailing of the hands 
 mentioned in either of the Gospel accounts of the cruci- 
 fixion : the place .where it ought to have been mentioned, 
 had it occurred. Nor does either of the Gospels ever 
 mention or refer to such a fact, except the fourth 
 Gospel. That Gospel appears to refer, inferentially, to 
 the nailing of the hands, in describing Jesus' mode of 
 making himself known to his disciples upon his re- 
 appearance among them after the crucifixion. It says 
 that Jesus " shewed them his hands and his side." 
 Neither of the other Gospels mentions such an occur- 
 rence. On the contrary, Luke mentions this exhibition 
 of his person, but in an entirely different way. Luke 
 has it, that the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost, and 
 that to convince them that he was still in the flesh, 
 Jesus said to them " Behold my hands and feet, that it 
 is myself : handle me and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh 
 and bones r as ye see me have ; " and he then showed
 
 524 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 them his hands and feet. Here we /have nothing about 
 the " side," or about holes in the hands or side, but 
 a simple and natural invitation to convince themselves 
 of his bodily presence by examining his hands and feet, 
 the parts of his flesh which were not covered by his 
 clothing. The fourth Gospel also tells us, that Thomas 
 being incredulous, Jesus afterwards invited him to thrust 
 his hand into his side, etc. This whole matter about 
 Thomas, and the spear thrust, and the hole in the side 
 (big enough to thrust a man's hand in it, and yet made by 
 the point of a spear ! ), and the pleasant idea of having 
 a man thrust his hand into such a wound, when three 
 days old, is confined to the fourth Gospel, and is directly 
 discredited by Luke's account. There were controversial 
 reasons for inserting these statements in the fourth Gos- 
 pel, which furnish a sufficient motive for the attempt to 
 show, that Jesus was actual flesh and blood, and had been 
 a real bodily sufferer. For, although the subsequent dis- 
 ciples of Jesus did not believe him to have been a ghost, 
 there early grew up a belief, among many, that he was 
 not a real flesh-and-blood-human, but a mere simulachre 
 or divine semblance of a man, who neither did, nor could 
 surfer. To forestall this heretical notion, it was deemed 
 necessary, in this supplementary Gospel, to exhibit 
 some striking evidences of the actual humanity and 
 human suffering of Jesus, as well as of his actual divinity, 
 upon which that Gospel takes so high a pitch ; the 
 difficulty to be met being twofold : one set of believers 
 contending that Jesus was a mere man, and another set 
 believing him a mere God, and consequently incapable of 
 real death or suffering a doctrine fatal to that of atone- 
 ment. While, therefore, we discredit this whole sug-
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION. 525 
 
 gestion about the nailing the hands of Jesus to the 
 cross, it does not conflict with our theory or materially 
 affect it. For, as there was no weight bearing on the 
 hands or nails, the mere fact of a wrought nail being 
 driven through the skin or flesh of the hand to keep it in 
 place would not materially hasten death, and certainly 
 would not materially affect the result as to life or death 
 during the brief time that Jesus remained- upon the 
 cross ; although it would have inflicted additional pain. 
 If, however, we would estimate the facts at their real 
 worth, we will not go beyond the Gospel accounts of the 
 cricifixion itself, but regard Jesus as having been seated 
 on the cross in the usual way, with his hands or arms 
 tied .to the arms of the cross-bar. As to the spike 
 through his feet, it is a pure invention of after times, 
 to enhance the agony of Jesus and excite the pity of the 
 beholder. It is not only a sheer invention, but an im- 
 possible suggestion. It would be impossible to nail one 
 foot, much less both, with a single nail, to the upright 
 post of a cross, against which the feet would rest at 
 a right angle, with the heel to the post ; unless, indeed, 
 the knees were drawn up at a right angle. 
 
 The object in inflicting crucifixion was not to violently 
 destroy life, or hasten death, by wounds or by direct and 
 overpowering inflictions, but the very reverse of this was 
 the object, namely: to prolong the suffering as much as 
 possible, and to destroy life by the most lingering torture
 
 526 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 and exhaustion. The victims of it were not killed, but 
 were allowed to perish, through want and suffering. 
 This was the peculiarity and horror of the punishment. 
 To be killed was a boon always prayed for, and some- 
 times granted as a special favor. The prisoner was 
 set astride of the wooden horn or saddle which projected 
 out from the middle of the upright post, with his back to 
 the post. On this he sat, and on this he rested the 
 the whole weight of his body, as if he were sitting 
 astride the limb of a tree, with his back to the tree, and 
 his feet about twenty-four inches from the ground. To 
 secure him in that one, exhausting position, his arms 
 were stretched out horizon tally along the two arms of the 
 cross-bar, and fastened to them. The prisoner was dis- 
 robed. And thus, confined and naked, under the burn- 
 ing sun or freezing cold, through the weary and agonizing 
 days and the still more weary and desolate nights, and 
 through storm and tempest, the doomed sufferer sat in 
 his cramped and unchangeable position, and wore his life 
 away through hunger, thirst, want and suffering, and 
 through alternate sinkings and rallyings of his oppressed 
 nature and often through many and prolonged fain tings 
 and revivals and many weary hours of insensibility, 
 such as are incident to all prolonged torture. As a 
 special favor to the sufferer or his friends this prolonged 
 torture was sometimes ended by a violent death, after 
 the prisoner had suffered it for two or three days and 
 nights. 
 
 As to the character of this punishment, Dr. Stroud 
 says : " The bodily sufferings attending this punishment 
 were doubtless great, but either through ignorance 01
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION. 527 
 
 design, have been much exaggerated." He declares that 
 the crucified die chiefly by a " slow process of nervous 
 irritation and exhaustion," and that " this would, of 
 course, be liable to variety, depending upon differences 
 of age, sex and constitution, and other circumstances ; 
 but for persons to live two or more days on the cross was 
 a common occurrence, and there were even instances of 
 some who having been taken down, recovered and re- 
 vived?' This learned physician has been at the pains of 
 collecting a large number of instances of crucifixion. A 
 reference to a few of these cases will prepare us to under- 
 stand that of Jesus'. The apostle Andrew continued 
 preaching from the cross for two days before he expired. 
 Bishop Victor who was crucified with his head down- 
 wards survived two days. Calliopus, a handsome youth, 
 lived twenty-four hours on the cross "after suffering 
 most cruel tortures by being scourged, broken on a wheel, 
 and partially burnt ! " Captain Clapperton was told, in 
 Soudan, that " wretches on the cross generally linger 
 three days" Chaban, a captain of banditti and about 
 the age of Jesus, who was executed at Salonica in A. D. 
 1830, exemplified what a healthy man of that age can 
 endure in such matters. The Doctor tells us that, " As 
 a preparatory exercise, he was suspended by his arms for 
 twelve hours. * The following day a hook was 
 
 thrust into his side, by which he was suspended to a 
 tree, and there hung, enduring the agony of thirst till the 
 third evening'' Hassan Corso, at the age of thirty-eight 
 years, was executed at Algiers in A. D. 1556. Having 
 been cast from a considerable height onto the chingan or 
 hook," he remained in that torture three whole days and 
 two nights with the hook through his right side ribs."
 
 528 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 These few examples suffice to show, that ordinary 
 crucifixion did not usually destroy life for at least two or 
 three days, and that young and healthy men like Jesus 
 could withstand vastly more appalling tortures for that 
 length of time. The most delicate or feeble could not be 
 expected to expire under twenty-four hours ; while the 
 more extreme cases of endurance under crucifixion show, 
 that men have survived on the cross for four, five, six 
 and sometimes seven days and nights. And, if we are 
 to credit church histories, there was an instance of still 
 more prolonged endurance. In the persecution under 
 Diocletian (we are told), one Timotheus and Maura his 
 wife, " after enduring many horrible tortures with in- 
 conceivable constancy " were " crucified together : and 
 having hung alive on the cross for nine days and nights, 
 mutually exhorting and comforting each other, expired 
 on the tenth day" It may fairly be claimed, then, that a 
 person of the age and condition of Jesus, and subject to 
 no more rigorous treatment than he received, would live 
 on the cross rather beyond than under three days and 
 nights 
 
 Having acquired some truthful conception of the 
 cross, and of the nature of the suffering and death it in- 
 flicted and of the probable duration of life under its in- 
 flictions, it becomes important to inquire as to the hour 
 or time of day at which Jesus was placed upon the 
 cross. On this subject the Gospels are in irreconcilable 
 conflict. Two of them are indefinite as to it. The
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION. 529 
 
 author of the first Gospel (taking the popular Christian 
 assumption as to the authorship of the several Gospels) 
 was in the city, but was in hiding with the other apostles, 
 and was not present at the crucifixion. The only, and 
 very uncertain clue which he gives us as to the time, is 
 to be found in the following words : "Now from the sixth 
 hour there was darkness over all the land to the ninth 
 hour." This darkness is evidently intended by the 
 author to cover some part of the proceedings, and is 
 put forward as an evidence of Nature's mourning for 
 man's final rejection, condemnation and punishment of 
 the Son of God. To make this sympathy complete, its 
 manifestation should commence with his final sentence, 
 or at least from the commencement of his punishment, 
 namely, his scourging at the palace preparatory to his 
 march to Calvary. It would seem difficult to find any 
 other distinct point entitled to decisive preference, since 
 the actual humiliation and scourging, which was a legit- 
 imate and necessary part of the punishment, commenced 
 before Jesus left the palace, and the sentence was partly 
 executed there, and was still being executed while walk- 
 ing to Calvary and vicariously performing the required 
 bearing of his cross, and while being disrobed and 
 fastened to the cross. It is, however, capable of being 
 referred to the commencement of his punishment on the 
 cross, after all things were complete. If Matthew meant to 
 apply it to the real commencement of the punishment 
 at the palace, then it will not only conform more nearly to 
 the possibilities of the case, but will correspond with, and 
 be confirmed by, John's account, which places the final con- 
 demnation and delivery for execution at the sixth hour 
 the hour when Matthew says the darkness commenced. 
 
 34
 
 53O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Luke's account is not definite, but places the com- 
 mencement of the crucifixion proper, at not later than 
 the sixth hour. To Luke the matter was all mere hear- 
 say. Mark, who like Luke writes from hearsay, tells us, 
 that it commenced at the " third hour." John, who was 
 the only eye-witness, says that, when Pilate brought Jesus 
 forth from his palace to deliver him up for execution, 
 and exclaimed "Behold your King," it was then, already, 
 the " sixth hour." By the method of computing time in 
 the Gospels the day commenced at sunset, and the hours 
 during daylight were numbered from sunrise, and on 
 serially through twelve consecutive hours. As it was 
 then near the vernal equinox the sun rose at about six 
 o'clock of our time, which would correspond with their 
 first hour of the day. So that Mark's "third hour" cor- 
 responded with our "nine o'clock;" while their "sixth 
 hour " corresponded with our " twelve o'clock," and 
 their " ninth hour " with our "three o'clock p. m." If 
 the Christian pretensions as to the authorship of the 
 Gospels be correct, the canons of evidence will not 
 permit us to hesitate in adopting the clear and positive 
 declaration of the eye-witness John, in preference to 
 idefinite statements of others, or to those where the ac- 
 count was based on the general belief or mere hearsay 
 evidence. The statement of John that it was about the 
 sixth hour or midday when Pilate brought Jesus out to 
 his judgment seat, and before he ordered him to execu- 
 tion, is also more than corroborated by the general facts. 
 It is scarcely possible, indeed, to believe that Jesus 
 was even finally sentenced as early as twelve o'clock, as 
 Joha alleges. When we remember the events which 
 had happened since daylight on that same day, we are
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION. 531 
 
 almost startled at the suggestion of their having happened 
 in some six hours. Luke says, that " as soon as it was 
 day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and 
 the scribes came together, and led him into their 
 council," and that they there examined, tried and con- 
 demned him; and that then, "the whole multitude of 
 them arose, and led him unto Pilate." The assembling 
 of this large body of men, their leading Jesus into their 
 council chamber, their examinations and consultations, 
 and their decisions and final action, all occurred after 
 daylight. They then marched in a body to the palace of 
 Pilate. Then we must imagine the necessary delays 
 in getting communications to and from Pilate, into whose 
 palace they could not enter, and in securing his attend- 
 ance ; and estimate the probable time 'of day at which a 
 great ruler could be expected or induced to enter upon 
 the trial of such a cause. Those who can conceive all 
 this to have been done even by nine o'clock must have 
 little acquaintance with the necessary time required for 
 such proceedings. To accomplish such results, now, by 
 noon, would be considered an achievement by those who 
 are familiar with the proceedings of large deliberative 
 bodies and with official intercourse and action. Besides 
 these proceedings, we have the first arraignment and trial 
 before Pilate, and all the arguments and the manoeuvres 
 and counter-manoeuvres between Pilate and the Jews, and 
 the various comings-in and goings-out of Pilate, and his 
 private examinations of Jesus, and finally his transfer of 
 the prisoner to Herod. Then we have the whole 
 Sanhedrim going in a body to another part of the city 
 with the prisoner, and Herod has to be seen, and a new 
 process of charging, examining and trying the prisoner
 
 532 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 has to be gone through with, and all the time taken 
 up in the mockeries and royal-robing of Jesus has to 
 elapse, and another march back again, after his acquittal, 
 before the matter is again brought before Pilate : all of 
 which must have required a very considerable time. We 
 have then a repetition of the scenes on the former trial, 
 and all the manoeuvres of Pilate to save Jesus, which we 
 have already considered, before Pilate was colnpelled to 
 yield. Is it possible that all these proceedings only lasted 
 until noon, the time asserted by John ? Does not this 
 eye-witness stand more than corroborated by the facts ? 
 Can any mortal give the preference to " hear-says " 
 placing it at an earlier date ? 
 
 We have then the pretended scourging and other 
 delays before starting, including Pilate's sending for 
 water, and washing his hands of the blood of Jesus, the 
 procurement of the cross, and of a guard. We have 
 then the slow march on foot through the city and out to 
 the adjacent height of Calvary, then the setting of the 
 crosses in the ground, the preparing and affixing the 
 sign-board on the cross of Jesus, the disrobing of him 
 for execution, etc., before we reach the point of actual 
 crucifixion. From the time of the sentence up to the 
 time of fastening the prisoner on the cross, the inter- 
 vening events, making no allowance for slight accidental 
 delays, can by no means be estimated as requiring less 
 than about two hours. Indeed two hours seems entirely 
 too short a time. From John's account, then, backed 
 by the resistless force of the facts, we cannot, in all fair- 
 ness, place the actual crucifixion at an earlier hour than 
 two o clock in the afternoon. It is necessary to remark,
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION. 533 
 
 at once, .that our theory, although aided and made a for- 
 tiori true by John's account, is by no means dependent 
 upon it, since, even if Mark's absurd mistake were true, 
 it would still apply with full force. 
 
 All the Gospels claim that Jesus expired at the 
 " ninth hour : " Chat is, at three o'clock in the afternoon. 
 This would leave but about one hour -in which he lived 
 and suffered on the cross. If too much time has been 
 allowed for the occurrences subsequent to midday, when 
 he was sentenced, the excess, of course, must be added 
 to this hour of life and suffering. The time at which he 
 was taken down from the cross is nowhere stated, but is 
 left to inference from the facts given. Dr. Stroud, in 
 view of all the facts, says that, " Between the time of his 
 death and that when he was pierced by the soldier, the 
 longest interval which can with any probability be as- 
 signed is two hours" He continues to say that " It 
 was probably between four and five in the afternoon 
 when the Roman soldier came and broke the legs of the 
 two malefactors who were crucified with Jesus." This 
 would fix the time during which Jesus remained on the 
 cross after he was supposed to have expired, at some- 
 thing over an hour ; thus making his entire stay on the 
 cross something over two hours ; certainly not over three 
 hours in all ; which, as we shall find, was the actual 
 time asserted by one of the early Fathers of the Church. 
 And when we reflect, that the three men executed had 
 to be taken down and disposed of ; that Jesus was actu- 
 ally taken down and conveyed to the sepulchre of Joseph 
 of Arimathea, and his body prepared and dressed for 
 burial, and all before sunset or six o'clock, we cannot
 
 534 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 think that Dr. Stroud has over-estimated the time re- 
 quired for those purposes. Before commenting on all 
 this, Let us see how these three hours were spent by 
 those who participated in the proceedings. 
 
 The occurrences recorded of the crucifixion exhibit, 
 so far as they could be expected to exhibit, evidences of 
 the truth of our theory ; and are as numerous, also, as 
 could be expected from the Gospels. We may pass by 
 the few asserted remarks made by Jesus in answer to 
 the persiflage of the on-lookers, as but little concerning 
 the question under consideration. They were but few, 
 and are of more than questionable reliability. If Jesus 
 expressed pity for the ignorance of his Jewish persecu- 
 tors, or prayed for them, it was highly commendable, but 
 it was also the first time in his life that he had ever given 
 them such an exhibition, and it was certainly in direct 
 contradiction of his entire conduct towards them. There 
 has probably been some subsequent embellishing of the 
 record at this point. That there has been such an em- 
 bellishment in the only other reply of Jesus, his worship- 
 pers should be the first to believe. For his assurance to 
 the "penitent thief," that he should sup with him in Par- 
 adise that very nigJit was certainly a grave mistake, if 
 we are to credit Christian creeds and his own direct 
 confession. For the scriptures and creeds tell us that 
 he first "descended into hell;" and when he reappeared 
 to his disciples on the third day after his declaration to
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION. 535 
 
 the thief on the cross, he himself expressly declared, that 
 he had not ascended to his Father, up to that time ; while 
 the question still was, not one of " supping in Paradise," 
 but of far less ambrosial feasting ; for among his first 
 questions to his disciples was " Have ye here any 
 meat ? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and 
 of an honeycomb." And even many weeks after that he 
 was found cooking his own fish on the shore of the Sea 
 of Galilee. So that there must have, been a mistake 
 about this matter, somewhere. The thief might have 
 supped in Paradise alone, but not with Jesus. 
 
 Pilate himself, it seems, wrote the inscription for the 
 top of the cross " This is the King of the Jews." This 
 was felt to be a galling insult by the Jews, and the chief 
 priests besought him to alter it so as to read " he said he 
 was King of the Jews ; " but Pilate refused to withdraw 
 his barbed arrow, and sullenly replied " What I have 
 written I have written." They might tell that to Caesar, 
 if they liked: Pilate was still galled and determined, and 
 the hour for conciliating his enemies had passed. 
 
 It appears that the military cordon was of such 
 dimensions as to forbid any very near approach by the 
 by-standers, as we find that even his mother and female 
 friends were compelled to stand " afar off." For it is 
 impossible to believe that his mother, Mary Magdalen, 
 or John would fail to approach and stand by him, in this 
 hour of suffering, as closely as they were permitted. 
 That they, alone, should have stood " afar off " is not
 
 536 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 credible. They were near enough, as others were, for 
 the voice of Jesus to reach them. Probably some forty 
 or fifty feet might approximate the limit of approach. 
 
 The young Galilean appears to have borne his suffer- 
 ings for about an hour with calmness and fortitude, and 
 to have maintained the utmost outward gravity and com- 
 posure. As three o'clock approached, however, the con- 
 tinuance in the one painful and unrelieved position be- 
 gan to tell severely upon his powerful and elastic, but 
 exquisitely sensitive nervous organization. That such a 
 nature suffers more than others that are less sensitive, 
 under like conditions, is evident ; and, as our physician 
 has already assured us, the great and fatal strain of 
 this punishment was upon the nervous system. The 
 scene in Gethsemane gives us evidence of how readily 
 and how extremely Jesus could surfer, and with what 
 elasticity he could recover. His sensitive organiza- 
 tion was strung to its highest pitch to bear the per- 
 sistent and accumulating torture. His position, com- 
 paratively painless at first, grew continually more tor- 
 turing. His will was put into ever higher requisition 
 to control and sustain his physical nature under the 
 fiery trial which was driving his nerves into ever higher 
 restlessness, wilder agitation and threatened revolt : 
 an enforced control which both foreboded and pro- 
 duced the suddenness of the disaster, when .it could 
 no longer be maintained. Nature, so determinedly held 
 in a defiant resistance to an onslaught which but grew 
 in intensity with the length of the resistance, would,
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION. 537 
 
 necessarily, finally compensate itself in utter demoraliza- 
 tion. Such a nervous organization as that of Jesus suf- 
 fers so keenly that, when held by the will-power with an 
 exhaustive persistence, its recoil is very great and its 
 prostration profound' and prolonged ; but certainly not 
 fatal upon the first surrender. That the very first yield- 
 ing of any nervous organization, much less such an 
 elastic, youthful and vigorous organization as that of 
 Jesus, to the gradual torture of mere nervous irritation, 
 should be fatal to life, is wholly incredible. 
 
 It would seem that the forced stoicism of Jesus, and 
 his effort to keep his mind clear and his nerves steady, 
 had borne Jesus up until near three in the afternoon, 
 and that nature then began to grow sick under its pro- 
 longed effort and its ever-increasing and torturing irrita- 
 tion, and to give evident signs of flowing back upon 
 itself and fainting under its unrelieved burden. His 
 nature, like all highly sensitive ones, had much of the 
 woman in it. It took wild fright at the approach of 
 danger, while it was courageous under actual suffering. 
 It would inevitably suffer exquisitely, and faint early 
 and long and often, under prolonged torture. He might 
 survive the sturdy rogues who were punished with him, 
 but the successive effects of the torture upon him and 
 them, respectively, would be markedly different. His 
 more highly wrought sensitive and psychical organiza- 
 tion could assume a stoicism which would temporarily 
 rival the results of the comparative insensibility of their 
 coarser natures, but it would only be assumed; and his 
 more exquisite suffering would force an earlier and more 
 complete temporary surrender. On the other hand, his
 
 $38 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 flexible and elastic nature would retain its recuperative 
 powers under more profound and prolonged prostrations. 
 Jesus felt, thus early, that his nervous irritation and pro- 
 gressive torture was hurrying him on to that faintness 
 and sickness which his will could have no power to con- 
 trol, and he called Out that he " thirsted." Thus far he 
 had kept clear-minded and self-possessed : he felt that 
 he could do so but a few moments longer. He had re- 
 fused the "mercy cup" from his sympathizers ; he now 
 appealed to his Roman guard. The required and pre- 
 pared drink was at hand, and was instantly given and re- 
 ceived without question : a drink other than the usual 
 " mercy cup," and one which seems not to have been al- 
 lowed to the other sufferers, and which was ostensibly 
 given to relieve the sufferings of the prisoner, at his own 
 request, after his punishment had commenced ; a thing 
 most unusual, if not wholly without warrant. Certainly 
 the friends of the prisoner would not, in ordinary cases, 
 be allowed to thus alleviate the very intended punish- 
 ment of the condemned, even if allowed to approach them 
 at all. Possibly, if not probably, the person who in- 
 stantly " ran and filled a sponge with vinegar," was Joseph 
 of Arimathea ; being within the lines by special permis- 
 sion, and for just such purposes. Whoever it was, they 
 were prepared to run to his relief upon the instant, and 
 had provided themselves with both the special drink and 
 with a sponge and a reed or rod to administer it. They 
 understood and were prepared for the occasion. The 
 bystanders supposed, or were led to believe, that this 
 unnamed person gave him "vinegar" to drink. But, 
 if so, What had been put in the vinegar ? Nothing ? 
 Possibly. But it would have been in singular conformity
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION. 539 
 
 with the facts, and with the manifested purposes of those 
 under whose control he then was, that something besides 
 vinegar should have been provided for him. Very cer- 
 tainly they might have done it : and the results were 
 very confirmatory of the suggestion that such a provision 
 was made. By whose order had this drink (even of vin- 
 egar) been prepared and brought there ? We are told in 
 Smith's Bible Dictionary, that death by crucifixion " was 
 at last the result of gradual benumbing and starvation ; " 
 and that "before the nailing or binding took place, a 
 medicated cup was given, out of kindness, to confuse the 
 senses and deaden the pangs of the sufferer, usually of 
 wine and myrrh, because myrrh was sporific. Our Lord 
 refused it that his senses migh't be clear" But Who, we 
 repeat, ordered the unusual drink which was furnished 
 him after he was on the cross, and at his own demand ? 
 It could not have been prepared or brought or adminis- 
 tered by the Centurion or guard without express orders, 
 nor could it have been allowed by them to be administered 
 by others ; since the very object of the guard's remaining 
 ,with the sufferer was to prevent his rescue or his relief 
 from the want and hunger which constituted the very 
 severity of the punishment Even as simple vinegar, 
 the supply was both unusual and unlawful. It is worthy 
 of special notice, also, that Jesus should have refused the 
 legitimate " mercy cup," and then have called for aid to 
 which he had no right ; and that he evidently and con- 
 fessedly refused the " mercy-cup " to keep his mind clear 
 as long as possible. It would be well to note, also, 
 whether the drink given had the refreshing and reviving 
 effect natural to vinegar, or whether it had the precise 
 opposite effect.
 
 54O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 The time intervening between the administering of 
 the drink and his supposed death cannot be made pre- 
 cisely definite, but the Gospel accounts leave no doubt 
 that he almost immediately within at most but a few 
 minutes, fell into that state which was claimed to be 
 death. He was already in that almost suffocating and 
 deathly sickness which announces the approach of syn- 
 cope, or fainting from torture that point at which man's 
 conquered nature recoils, and the heart and other vital 
 organs seem to cease to struggle, leaving the body a 
 pallid and ghastly semblance of death. As Jesus felt 
 this deathly sickness and faintness approaching, he cried 
 with a loud and agonized voice " My God, my God, why 
 hast thou forsaken me ? " ' And John tells us that, after 
 receiving the drink, he said" it is finished," and that 
 he then " bowed his head and gave up the ghost ; " 
 showing that, instead of being relieved and revived by 
 the supposed vinegar, he soon drooped into insensibility 
 under its influence ; and that he himself did not expect 
 it to revive him, since he declared the object was accom- 
 plished so soon as he took it, and bowed his head. 
 
 At this point the scene became harrowing rather 
 than interesting to the Jews. The ghastly and silent 
 spectacle of that ashen face and drooping head was not 
 an attractive sight to those who had forced them there. 
 Besides, the last hours of the " preparation day " were 
 rapidly passing away, and the necessities, as well as the 
 inclination, of the multitude led them to return to the 
 city. Accordingly, Luke tells us that, at this point, 
 " all the people that came together to see that sight, behold- 
 ing the things which were done, smote their breasts,
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION. 54! 
 
 and returned" (xxiii. 48). From three o'clock in the 
 afternoon, when Jesus first gave way and was supposed 
 to have expired, the Centurion, with his little squad of 
 Roman soldiers, and the immediate friends of Jesus, 
 were left alone on that solitary mount, outside the city, 
 with no unfriendly observers and no prying scrutinizers 
 to inspect or criticise their course or conduct. From 
 the very time of the supposed death, the favorers and 
 friends of Jesus had untrammelled and tmobserved sway 
 over everything, and did and said what they pleased. 
 The only persons who can be inferred to have remained, 
 were Joseph of Arimathea, who was concerned in the 
 matter to the last, and the little clump of Galilean 
 friends who "stood afar off" John, Mary Magdalen, 
 the mother of Jesus, etc. 
 
 The time which Jesus would appear to have remained 
 in this state has already been shown to have been about 
 an hour and a half, possibly a little more or a little 
 less, but by no reasonable supposition beyond two hours. 
 During this period his friend Joseph of Arimathea had 
 gone '< boldly unto Pilate and craved* the body of Jesus, 
 and Pilate marvelled if he were already dead ; and call- 
 ing unto him the Centurion, he asked him whether he 
 had been any while dead. And when he knew of the 
 Centurion, he gave the body to Joseph'* This account, 
 taken from Mark, is substantially that of the other sy- 
 noptical Gospels, and ends the account of that day's pro- 
 ceedings, save the statement of the fact of the deposit- 
 ing of Jesus in a large new sepulchre of Joseph, hewn in 
 the side of a rock. Whatever else we find touching the 
 crucifixion or his treatment on the cross, we find in 
 John alone. And, although there are satisfactory evi-
 
 542 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 dences that these special statements of John were after- 
 thoughts, inserted for mythic and doctrinal purposes, we 
 are under no necessity to discard them ; since they are 
 by no means dangerous facts, but in fact, rather serve 
 than injure our theory ; although they prolong and 
 complicate the investigation. 
 
 John tells us that, to get the whole matter over be- 
 fore six o'clock in the evening when the' sabbath com- 
 menced, they despatched the two thieves by breaking 
 their legs ; for, up to this time even, the sturdy rogues 
 had neither fainted nor complained ; although they had 
 received neither relief nor attention. -But John says 
 that, " when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was 
 dead already, they broke not his legs ; but one of the 
 soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith 
 came there out blood and water." After this he was 
 delivered into the hands of his wealthy friend Joseph, to 
 be deposited in his newly-hewn sepulchre, and he was 
 no more seen by the public, nor by his disciples, until he 
 secretly appeared to his followers on the morning after 
 the sabbath. To prevent long repetitions of the events 
 or narrations which will claim our attention subsequent 
 to his removal from the cross, they will be considered 
 as they are referred to in the investigations and argu- 
 ments in the next chapter.
 
 WAS HE DEAD.' 543 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 WAS HE DEAD ? 
 
 WE have followed Jesus through his arrest, trial and 
 punishment, and into the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. 
 And, although there are subsequent evidences which bear 
 upon the main question with overwhelming force, we 
 have reached a point at which it is proper to put, and to 
 partially argue, the main question, namely : Was Jesus 
 dead beyond the possibility of recovery by natural means 
 and agencies when he was taken from the cross ? From 
 this point we may properly look back upon the entire 
 course of facts, and ask ourselves the question 
 Have we reason to expect that this man will revive, or 
 can be revived, from the evidences touching the question 
 occurring prior to, and during, his punishment on the 
 cross ? If we shall have found such evidences, it will 
 then remain for us to examine and determine whether 
 there are evidences of his actually having so revived by 
 natural means, to be found in the subsequent facts and 
 in the conduct and language of the persons concerned.
 
 544 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Antecedent evidence of such a fact as the one we are 
 investigating, is necessarily composed of facts showing 
 adequate motives and an intention to save the accused 
 party ; of facts showing that the parties concerned had 
 sufficient opportunities, means and power to effectuate 
 their purposes under the actual circumstances of the 
 case ; and the facts tending to prove that they were 
 actually proceeding in a manner calculated to effect their 
 purpose of saving the accused, and that what they actually 
 did was calculated to result in continued life, and not in . 
 death. If these evidences of an intention and determina- 
 tion to save, and of adequate opportunities, means and 
 power to save, and of adequate acts to hav,e resulted in 
 actually saving the accused and condemned party be 
 satisfactory, then the presumption is direct and violent 
 that he was saved ; and, when followed by proof of his 
 being known to have been living afterwards, this proof 
 becomes conclusive. The consistency of all the real 
 facts with this presumption will make it almost resistless, 
 even without this latter fact, and all the more resistless 
 as those concurring facts are singular or exceptional in 
 their nature, and could, with no probability, be supposed 
 to unite in congruity and conformity with the theory 
 upon which the presumption is based unless that theory 
 and presumption were true. It is manifest, also, that 
 the difficulty or impossibility of our reconciling the 
 whole or any part of the facts with any other supposi- 
 tion and conclusion than our own will greatly add to 
 the strength of our own.
 
 WAS HE DEAD ? 545 
 
 Looking back over the ground we have past, Have we 
 not already shown sufficient proofs and reasons to sustain 
 or establish the presumption against actual and final 
 death ? We have seen that Jesus was not only as human 
 in the face of this last danger as he had ever been, but 
 that he proved himself more singularly frail than we had 
 hitherto found him, and demonstrated, throughout, the 
 possession of an organization and nature admirably 
 capable of performing the role assigned to him by our 
 theory. We find a succession of rare and singular facts 
 occurring in connection with his betrayal, hiding and 
 arrest, which are unaccounted for and inexplicable by 
 the Christian theory, but which at once explain each 
 other and naturally and consistently unite and interlink 
 themselves into a single and consecutive chain of events 
 which are in conformity with our conception of the 
 motives, characters and conduct of the parties concerned, 
 and which point to, and, at the same time, are appro- 
 priated and explained by, our theory of the whole facts. 
 We have had the clearest evidence that Jesus had 
 efficient friends or advocates about tj^e centres of power 
 in Jerusalem, and friendly coadjutors in the Sanhedrim 
 itself. We have seen that, through means of these 
 friends, sympathizers and coadjutors, he was promptly, 
 though secretly, advised of the intentions and movements 
 of his enemies of both his intended betrayal and of his 
 actual betrayal and approaching arrest ; and was com. 
 forted and encouraged, manifestly, by their assurances of 
 powerful and faithful support. We have seen that the 
 personal situations, interests and safety of the most 
 powerful coadjutors and advocates of Jesus, both Jewish 
 and Roman, controlled or influenced the times and 
 
 35
 
 54-6 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 modes of their advocacy and assistance of him, but we 
 find, also, that these considerations neither deterred them 
 from their purpose nor slackened their energies' or action 
 in furtherance of it. For we find both the open and 
 the unsuspected evidences of their presence, purpose and 
 efficiency, from first to last. We find that, from the 
 situation of the parties, much of what they did would 
 necessarily be kept strictly secret from the public, but 
 that they had every opportunity for secret conferences and 
 co-operations, and that they had the will, the means and 
 the facilities for executing their purposes. We have 
 seen the evidences of their open support before the 
 Sanhedrim, and upon his trial, and in the various 
 special, significant, and evidently pre-determined favors 
 to Jesus in the process of executing his sentence and in 
 disposing of his body. We constantly find the evidences 
 of pre-concerted arrangements and preparations and of 
 concert of action between these Roman and Jewish 
 aiders of Jesus. We find that a special drink, together 
 with singular but apt means of administering it, were 
 provided especially for Jesus, to be given to him after his 
 punishment had commenced and had proceeded to the 
 production of certain results, and that it was then 
 administered to him, with such marked alacrity as to 
 indicate both favor and design. We find evidence that 
 Jesus was apprised of these designs and efforts, for 
 he not only refused the relief from the legitimate "mercy 
 cup " which was tendered him, in dVder to retain his 
 reason and self-control, but he gave a warning cry for 
 help, as he approached the fainting point, when he had. 
 no legitimate right to expect such help or relief ; and> 
 without a word, partook of the drink prepared for him.
 
 WAS HE DEAD ? 547 
 
 We find that the centurion who had immediate control 
 of the proceedings, subject to the orders of Pilate, was 
 evidently advised of the purpose to save the prisoner, as 
 appears from the whole course of proceedings and his 
 treatment of Jesus, as well as from the fact that he left 
 his post and went with Joseph of Arimathea to announce 
 the condition of Jesus and secure his delivery to Joseph : 
 for the account in Mark clearly shows that he was pres- 
 ent or at hand when Pilate called him, and had not to be 
 sent for to Calvary. The facts, even thus far, are conclu- 
 sive as to the desire and willingness both to serve and save 
 him as far as possible, and are violently presumptive of 
 the pre-concert, determination and concerted effort to save 
 him by the powerful Jewish and Roman friends already 
 indicated. It was a high duty, indeed, under the then 
 existing state of things, not only that his few powerful, 
 but secret encouragers and coadjutors in the Jewish 
 government should do their utmost to save him from the 
 penalties of acts which they had secretly encouraged, 
 but that Pilate should use every artifice and power he 
 was master of to defeat a humiliating and coerced 
 judgment which he would never have rendered, or would 
 have openly defied, if he had not been compelled and 
 restrained by an unjust personal advantage held over 
 him by the common enemy. 
 
 We have seen, also, that Pilate's power to save was 
 only limited by the necessity of such secrecy as would 
 prevent a successful charge of complicity in his escape. 
 And we have seen, not only that a most propitious con- 
 currence of circumstances aided in saving the accused, 
 and encouraged the hope and effort to save him, but also
 
 54-8 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 furnished the most admirable opportunities for secrecy 
 when secrecy was most needed; since the necessary 
 opportunities were thereby furnished for consultation and 
 pre-arrangement, and, when the hour came for despatch- 
 ing the prisoners, caused none to be present to watch or 
 criticise their movements or to observe the evidences as 
 to the condition of Jesus when taken from the cross. 
 From the very time Jesus gave way they had had neither 
 obstruction nor observation to fear, and unless Jesus 
 actually died at three o'clock, there was really nothing to 
 fear for his safety. 
 
 With such an array of concurring facts and probabil- 
 ities before us, without a single adverse fact, we must be 
 prepared to find, that Jesus was not dead when taken 
 from the cross, unless the crucifixion itself actually killed 
 him by the " ninth hour " in spite of them ; and thus 
 defeated the hopes and purposes of his friends and sup- 
 porters. 
 
 We havef'then, to inquire whether the facts of the 
 crucifixion, as a whole, occurring before or at the " ninth 
 hour," justified others then, or can now justify us, in af- 
 firming the death of Jesus at that hour. In determining 
 that question, we may first consider whether there was 
 anything peculiar in the case of Jesus which would take 
 it out of the ordinary routine in such cases. To this 
 there must certainly be an affirmative reply. But it is 
 also equally certain that such exceptional or unusual
 
 WAS HE DEAD ? 549 
 
 facts and influences were all opposed to the supposition 
 of his death. We have seen that Jesus was in good 
 bodily health and in good mental and bodily condition 
 when he went upon the cross, and that the treatment 
 which he had had directly tended to insure that condition. 
 He was, naturally, a supple, vigorous and healthy man, 
 reared to a healthy trade, and had led a life calculated to 
 insure physical health and vigor. He was about thirty- 
 three years of age in the very prime of his powers of 
 endurance and vitality. So far as we know, or have 
 reason to believe, there was nothing fo give the slightest 
 countenance to the belief that he would not resist death 
 on the cross as long as the best ; although, as we have 
 seen, there were reasons for expecting that he would 
 temporarily give way under the torture earlier and per- 
 haps oftener than more phlegmatic natures, but only to 
 recover oftener and from more extreme prostrations. It 
 would scarcely be too much to say, that no man ever went 
 upon the cross with a greater prospect of resisting death 
 than did Jesus, with his youth, health and abundant 
 vitality, and it is certainly not too much to say, that no 
 man was ever more favored by his executioners, either 
 before or after he went upon the cross. Whatever al- 
 lowance is to be made, therefore, for age, vigor, health, 
 condition and treatment, must all be made in favor of a 
 prolonged endurance of his punishment. 
 
 Nor are we to presume anything in favor of death at 
 the " ninth hour " from the fact that the Roman Cen- 
 turion gave currency to that idea, even by pretending 
 to think he had died miraculously as the Son of God. 
 Because, firstly, if we are right as to Pilate's purposes, it
 
 55O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 was precisely the idea which it was their purpose to 
 originate and encourage. That he should have gone to 
 report the matter to Pilate, does not at all conflict with 
 this view ; as it was a mere precaution taken by Pilate 
 to avoid the suspicion which would or might attach to 
 his order to deliver the body to his friends, at their re- 
 quest, after a punishment so unprecedentedly short, and 
 without further evidence of his death or ordering him to 
 be despatched to make the matter sure. Knowing all 
 this, the Centurion was but carrying out his master's 
 views and instructions and the wishes of Joseph of Ari- 
 mathea, in officially confirming the fact of death at the 
 " ninth hour." Secondly, the Centurion was not com- 
 petent to decide upon the difference between the actual 
 condition of Jesus and that of death, unless he knew his 
 condition to be a designed one or not that of death. He 
 was incompetent to determine from the appearances. 
 For, be it remembered, that there is neither evidence 
 nor hint that the Centurion or any other person ever 
 even felt whether his pulse or heart continued to beat or 
 whether there might not still have been even slight 
 breathing. So far as the record goes, no person either 
 sought, or offered to seek, for any evidence of his death 
 further than such as could be acquired by merely look- 
 ing at him. And, from such evidence, no one could de- 
 termine it, not even a physician. -The whole course of 
 the Centurion shows that there was no desire or inten- 
 tion to have the matter tested. Had he seen even clear 
 evidence of his being alive, seen him breathe or move, 
 he would have ignored it. And he might have actually 
 seen many such evidences which were imperceptible to 
 those " afar off."
 
 WAS HE DEAD ? 551 
 
 Still less are we to infer anything in favor of death 
 because the people left after the scene at the " ninth 
 hour," nor because they might have actually supposed 
 that he had died. For it was not only a matter of no mo- 
 ment, even to his persecutors, as they supposed that he 
 certainly would be despatched or die in some form before 
 the matter was through with, but the people had far less 
 opportunity for judging of the fact of death than the 
 Centurion and quite as little capacity for it. Indeed, the 
 people neither had, nor sought, the opportunity of test- 
 ing or the means of judging the fact of death. We 
 know not even what they actually thought as to what 
 had really occurred at the time in question. We only 
 know, that they left after witnessing this first round in 
 the conflict with Agony, and that they had sufficient 
 reason for going, even if they had not supposed him to 
 be dead. Nor would their supposition of his death be 
 the slightest evidence of that fact, under the circum- 
 stances. To tell the difference between a fainting from 
 torture which is fatal, and one which is not fatal, is a 
 matter of professional skill, and one which requires the 
 minutest examinations and the most careful and saga- 
 cious methods and tests : and, even then, the most ex- 
 perienced physicians may be unable to detect the pres- 
 ence of vitality where it actually exists. The difficulty 
 of determining the fact of death is recognized by all 
 physicians, even in our day, when physiological knowl- 
 edge and medical skill have reached a far higher point of 
 perfection than in the days of Jesus. There are condi- 
 tions of the human body produced by a number of 
 causes, which so resemble death that the most intelligent 
 physicians are mistaken or disagree upon the question
 
 552 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 of death, after very careful examinations and tests. That 
 ordinary observers should be mistaken as to the presence 
 of death is neither singular nor of rare occurrence ; but, 
 on the contrary, is of alarmingly frequent occurrence. 
 The number of persons who have been even buried alive 
 and who revived afterwards is much greater than is gen- 
 erally supposed. Besides the number who revive before 
 burial after being supposed dead, and the fewer and more 
 fortunate cases in which persons have been accidentally 
 saved from vaults and tombs, it has been found by those 
 engaged in removing grave-yards, that the number of 
 bodies and skeletons which furnished proofs of survival 
 after burial is quite appalling. The number who sur- 
 vive after being left for dead on the battle-field, is quite 
 considerable. Cases of survival where persons have 
 been legally executed, would, of course, present the 
 strongest considerations for concealment, since an ex- 
 posure would only re-endanger the life of the unfortu- 
 nate, and bring trouble upon the officers and " resurrec- 
 tionists." Our sheriffs have ceased to trust to their own 
 skill in determining death by hanging, and call upon ex- 
 perts to decide for them ; recognizing their own incapa- 
 city to determine so difficult a question. Notwithstand- 
 ing the reasons for concealment, however, it is known 
 that many persons have survived legal executions. Cru- 
 cifixion, as Dr. Stroud informs us^ has furnished its ex- 
 amples of revival after the persons have been supposed 
 to be dead, and taken from the cross. It is manifest 
 that the chances of such survivals are far greater in 
 cases of the supposed death of vigorous and healthy 
 persons, such as soldiers and convicts, whose vital capa- 
 cities have been overcome by the punishment rather
 
 WAS HE DEAD? 553 
 
 than worn out by previous inflammatory or chronic dis- 
 eases. In cases of death by execution or on the battle- 
 field, also, the burials are far more hasty and reckless 
 than in ordinary cases, and the chances of knowing the 
 numbers who revive after supposed death, therefore, is 
 much lessened in such cases. Both from reason and 
 experience it may be asserted that, in no case, perhaps, 
 is ordinary observation so likely to mislead unprofes- 
 sional witnesses as in those where healthy persons are 
 subjected to tortures which overcome nature and directly 
 tend to produce fainting or swooning. The results which 
 are witnessed in such scenes are greatly calculated to 
 mislead all ordinary observers, and defy the judgment 
 and determination of all ordinary observation. The un- 
 supported assertions or notions of such witnesses, under 
 such circumstances, are comparatively, if not wholly, 
 worthless. 
 
 It is but fairly reasonable to say, then, that, at the 
 time Jesus first gave way under his torture, and at which 
 he is asserted to have died, there is no evidence, worth 
 mentioning, that he actually did die, except the pre- 
 sumption to be derived from the mere amount and char- 
 acter of the punishment he had received. There having 
 been nothing tending to show death in the manifesta- 
 tions themselves, and the conduct and notions of the 
 officers and by-standers furnishing no valid evidence, 
 under the circumstances, those who sustain the Gospel 
 assertions that he died at that time, have no other ra- 
 tional evidence than the presumption arising from the 
 natural effect of the punishment received, to sustain their 
 belief. Let us, then, consider the value of this evidence.
 
 554 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 As the entire field of conjecture has been occupied 
 in attempting to account for the unaccountable (because 
 unreal} death of Jesus on the cross, it is important that 
 we should briefly review them all, and estimate their 
 several values. In doing this, we will commence with 
 the most natural suggestion, and the one asserted and 
 relied upon in the New Testament, namely : that he died 
 by the pains and exhaustion of crucifixion that he was 
 punished to death. 
 
 That multitudinous class of people who accept their 
 opinions " ready-made," and pass through life without 
 ever attempting to investigate the basis of their inher- 
 ited faiths, will be startled by the bare questioning of 
 this long-assumed and gospel conclusion. But they will 
 be still more startled when they are told that their belief 
 is wholly incompatible with the facts as narrated in the 
 Gospels themselves, and, also, that the most learned and 
 sagacious Christian fathers, ancient and modern, have 
 been driven; in the very teeth of the apostolic assertions, 
 to admit that Jesus did not die from the sufferings of 
 crucifixion, and to seek, at random, over the field of con- 
 jecture for other possible causes of death. Let us again 
 turn to the pages of the learned Christian physician, Dr. 
 Stroud, for his own opinion and those of the learned and 
 pious authors from whom he so industriously quotes. 
 
 Dr. Stroud says that, " Although the matter has 
 never yet been thoroughly investigated, it is interesting 
 to observe that the principal commentators on Scripture, 
 both ancient and modern, have either openly or tacitly 
 adopted the negative conclusion here taken [namely : that
 
 WAS HE DEAD ? 555 
 
 Jesus did not die by crucifixion], and that many of them 
 have even suggested additional causes, by which, in con- 
 junction with crucifixion, the Saviour's death might, in 
 their opinion, have been induced. These causes have 
 been proposed under various modifications which are all 
 reducible to three, namely : supernatural agency, the 
 wound inflicted by the soldier's spear, or an unusual 
 degree of weakness original or acquired. It will be 
 the object of the following remarks to show that neither 
 of these explanations is admissible, all of them being at 
 variance with well known facts, and that another is 
 therefore absolutely requisite. In the early times of 
 Christianity, not long after its apostolic period, and 
 when pretensions to miraculous power were still made 
 and credited, it is by no means wonderful that the death 
 of Christ should have been ascribed to supernatural in- 
 fluences, and this is, accordingly, the solution adopted by 
 almost all the ancient Christian writers who have con- 
 sidered the subject. The opinion of Turtullian is thus 
 briefly stated : ' [Christ] when crucified spontaneously 
 dismissed his spirit with a word, thus preventing the office 
 of the executioner? That of Origen is more full. ' Since,' 
 says he, *4hose crucified persons who were not stabbed 
 surfer greater torment, and survive in great pain, some- 
 times the whole of the following night and even the 
 next day ; and since Jesus was not stabbed, and his ene- 
 mies hoped that by his hanging long on the cross he 
 would suffer the greater torment, he prayed the Father 
 and was heard, and as soon as he had called was taken 
 to the Father ; or else/ as one having power to lay down 
 his life, he laid it down when he chose. This prodigy 
 astonished the Centurion, who said, ' Truly this man was
 
 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the Son of God.' For it was a miracle that he who 
 should otherwise perhaps have survived two days on the 
 cross according to the custom of those who are crucified 
 but not stabbed, should have been taken up after tJiree 
 hours, so that his death seems to have happened by the 
 favor of God, and rather through the merit of his own 
 prayer than through the violence of the cross.' Jerome 
 remarks ' In the first place it must be declared that, 
 for Jesus to lay down his life where he chose, and to 
 take it up again, was an act of divine power.' * * * 
 Cyprian follows in the same track ' That the Jewish 
 rulers would deliver Christ to Pontius Pilate to be cruci- 
 fied, he had himself predicted, and the testimony of all 
 the prophets had also previously declared that it was 
 necessary for him to suffer, not that he mighty^/, but 
 conquer death, and after he had suffered, to return to 
 Heaven, that he might display the power of his divine 
 majesty. The course of events correspond to this expec- 
 tation ; for when he was crucified he dismissed his spirit 
 of his own accord, preventing the office of the executioner, 
 and also of his own accord rose from the dead on the 
 third day.' The opinion of Theophylact is cited to the 
 same effect. John Calvin is also quoted as follows : 
 ' The circumstance that after breaking the legs of the 
 two malefactors the soldier found Christ dead, and there- 
 fore did not assail his body, shows an extraordinary oper- 
 ation of divine providence. Profane persons may indeed 
 say, that it is natural for one man to die sooner than 
 another ; but whoever examines the whole series of the 
 narrative will be compelled to ascribe the exemption of 
 Christ from the breaking of the legs, by a death beyond all 
 exceptions rapid, to the secret councils of God? Lightfoot
 
 WAS HE DEAD ? 557 
 
 also advances the doctrine that the death of Jesus was 
 not the result of punishment, but a voluntary surrender 
 of life. Bishop Taylor, also, claims that ' he laid down 
 his life voluntarily.' Doctor Adam Clark, following in 
 the same strain, says : ' He himself willingly gave up 
 that life which it was impossible for man to take away' " 
 Other grave authorities are quoted by Dr. Stroud, but 
 their reproduction is deemed a work of supererogation. 
 The Doctor himself continues to say : " From the con- 
 currence of so many learned authors in ascribing the 
 death of Jesus to supernatural agency, one advantage 
 however results, namely, the acknowledgment thereby 
 made, that in their opinion this solemn event cannot be 
 satisfactorily explained by any other cause, neither by 
 the principal, nor by the accessory sufferings of cruci- 
 fixion, nor by any extraordinary degree of weakness, 
 original or acquired, nor by the wound inflicted by the 
 soldier's spear, etc." 
 
 The learned and pious physician does not confine us 
 to the opinions of theologians, but gives us the opinions 
 of other learned physicians who, like himself, had given 
 their attention to this subject. Sir James Y. Simpson, 
 one of the ablest physicians of modern times, in a letter 
 reproduced in Dr. Stroud's work, gives his views of the 
 matter in the following terms : " His death was not the 
 result of crucifixion ; for, i. The period was too short ; a 
 person in the prime of life, as Christ was, not dying 
 from this mode of punishment in six /wurs as he did, but 
 usually surviving till the second or third day, or even 
 longer. 2. The attendant phenomena, at the time of 
 actual deatlj, were different from those of crucifixion.
 
 558 JESUS AND RELGION. 
 
 The crucified died, as is well known, under a lingering 
 process of gradual exhaustion, weakness andfaintness. 
 On the contrary, Christ cried with a loud voice and spoke 
 once and again, all apparently within a few minutes of 
 his dissolution. 
 
 " II. No known injury, resion, or disease of the brain, 
 lungs,, or other vital organs could, I believe, account u>r 
 such a sudden termination of his sufferings in death, ex- 
 cept (i) arrestment of the action of the heart \>y fatal 
 fainting or Syncope ; or (2) rupture of the walls of the 
 heart, or large vessels issuing from it." This opinion, from 
 such unquestionably high authority, would seem to be 
 almost conclusive as to what Jesus could, or could not, 
 have died from ; provided always, that he did actually die 
 at the time to which he alludes. Of course, this point 
 the doctor dared not question ; but, accepting as a fact 
 that he was actually dead, he gives us the only two 
 sources from which he thinks such a death could possibly 
 have occurred, namely : fatal fainting and rupture of the 
 heart or its immediate connections. That is to say, that, 
 if Jesus did die at all, we are reduced to two possible 
 causes for that death, namely : heart-rupture, which is a 
 result not at all peculiar to this mode of punishment, and 
 is also exclusively the result of exertions or emotions 
 which in fact did not exist in this case ; and secondly, to 
 fainting, which is an ordinary and natural result of cru- 
 cifixion, which may be, but rarely w, fatal. When we 
 reach the proper stage of our examinations, we will re- 
 member these two sole possibilities, and take occasion to 
 compare their probabilities in this case, and shall also 
 endeavor to show, not only that the overwhelming prc-
 
 WAS HE DEAD ? 559 
 
 sumption is in favor of fainting, but that there is an 
 equally potent presumption that the fainting was not 
 JataL Sir James' objections to fainting neither apply, 
 nor were intended to apply, to fainting which is not 
 fatal. A number of physicians agree upon the main 
 point, namely : that he did not die from the sufferings of 
 crucifixion ; but they differ both as to the time and 
 mode of his death. The learned Griiners, father and 
 son, among others, contend that he did not die from 
 crucifixion, and, moreover, that he clearly was not dead 
 when the soldier pierced him with his spear just before 
 he was taken from the cross, but that he was in a faint 
 and languid condition which allowed the heart to act 
 feebly. In their opinion the spear was thrust into a 
 living man, and that this thrust killed him, as they sup- 
 pose he must have been killed somehow. So that we 
 have this additional, but more direct support to the idea 
 that Jesus merely fainted at the ninth hour. If, there- 
 fore, this spear thrust should be a mistake or an after- 
 thought, or was of a kind not to produce death, or to 
 produce such a death as must have occurred, if at all, 
 from the actual manifestations, that is, instant death 
 without a struggle or a sigh, then we have the assurances 
 of these high medical authorities for the fact that Jesus 
 was delivered alive into the hands of his friend Joseph 
 of Arimathea. 
 
 The idea that such a man as the evidence shows 
 Jesus to have been, could have been actually killed
 
 560 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 simply by being confined as he was, and sitting astride of 
 a wooden shaft or projection, such as has been described, 
 for the short time he was on the cross, is so thoroughly 
 and plainly incredible, that no hypothesis or supposition 
 has been left untried to account for his death in some 
 other manner : none ever daring or even thinking to 
 inquire, either then or since, whether he was dead at all ! 
 The causes of death suggested in lieu of the ordinary and 
 gospel notion of death by crucifixion have been the 
 following : 1. That he died by reason of extraordinary 
 physical weakness. 2. That he did not die by reason of 
 any physical weakness, but from the spear wound, at the 
 very last moment. 3. That he did not die from. either 
 of these causes, but from rupture of the heart from ex- 
 cessive mental emotions that the malediction of God, 
 for man's sins, burst his heart open! 4. That he died 
 from none of these causes, nor from any physical cause 
 whatever, but from his own divine will or the special in- 
 tervention of God. 
 
 The first thing which strikes us on reading these 
 various hypotheses is, that they agree in but two things, 
 namely : in utterly rejecting the Gospel notion of death 
 by crucifixion, and in their successful demolishing of 
 all other theories of death save their own. 
 
 The theory of extraordinary physical debility, from 
 whatever cause, has not a scintilla of evidence to 
 support it is, in fact, in direct conflict with the entire 
 body of the evidence, and had but one thing to recom- 
 mend it, namely : it was the first and simplest sugges- 
 tion. If the actual punishment on the cross could have
 
 WAS HE DEAD ? 561 
 
 effected only a very small part of the killing of a vig- 
 orous man thirty-three years of age, it was assumed that 
 he must have been already so nearly dead that it only 
 required that little to kill him. This was the only way 
 of sustaining what the Scriptures said. We have seen, 
 however, that the whole evidence is in favor of the con- 
 clusion that Jesus went upon the cross in the prime of 
 his manhood, with a vigorous body, excellent health, was 
 exceptionally favored, and in a calm and resolute spirit. 
 We have seen, also, that it does not become Christians 
 to make this excuse; since it is clear that Jesus as the 
 antitype of the paschal lamb the lamb of God sacrificed 
 'for the sins of the world, must have been a pattern man 
 "without spot or blemish." And the Gospels well 
 bear out this idea of him. From the age of fourteen, 
 we are told that he " grew and waxed strong in spirit ; '' 
 and they furnish ample reasons for believing that he 
 grew to a healthy and vigorous manhood, and that he 
 fully maintained it till the very moment he mounted the 
 cross with the self-possession of a Stoic. Jesus had, 
 doubtlessly, a somewhat extraordinary physical, or 
 rather nervous, organization, but it was a powerful one, 
 and one endowed with large vitality and unfailing vigor. 
 We have seen, too, that the whole bearing of Jesus 
 through the entire scenes after his arrest, and in his 
 loud cries even up to the last moment, give a direct 
 contradiction to this suggestion of physical debility. 
 The evidence does not leave the matter to doubt and 
 conjecture. Not a single word or act of Jesus can be 
 tortured into an evidence of either weakness or excessive 
 prostration. Nor was he at any time of his public life 
 more calm and self-possessed. The mere fact of his 
 
 36
 
 562 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 fainting earlier than the two thieves who suffered with 
 him, is accounted for by reasons already given, and gives 
 no support to the idea of his physical debility. A 
 woman might survive crucifixion as long as a man, and' 
 yet faint much oftener. It is not even necessary to add 
 the further plain explanation that Jesus, having refused 
 the "mercy cup" to deaden his sensibilities, became the 
 more liable to faint under the unmitigated torture. 
 Fatal fainting, indeed, was utterly at war with the facts ; 
 but fainting, indefinitely prolonged, was a natural and 
 ordinary result of all such tortures, as well as specially 
 probable with an organization such as that of Jesus. 
 And again : it would be difficult to assume any state of 
 prostration .which would have allowed Jesus even to 
 walk to Calvary ; which would account for so unex- 
 ampled a death as is alleged. A young man who was 
 not prostrated beyond this point, would still be expected 
 to certainly survive over twenty-four hours ; while the 
 time he actually suffered would have been insufficient to 
 kill an infant or a valetudinarian. There are thousands 
 of men in the United States now who would be glad to 
 suffer that amount of punishment for a hundred dollars, 
 and not a few of them who would suffer it for ten ; and 
 perhaps not one out of a hundred of them would even 
 faint under the operation, any more than did the "two 
 thieves," who were worse treated. 
 
 We may now approach the second hypothesis : that 
 ne perished by the spear wound in his side. This theory
 
 WAS HE DEAD ? 563 
 
 was also advanced because its advocates found it impos- 
 sible to believe in death by so insignificant a punishment 
 by crucifixion, or to perceive the slightest foundation for 
 the suggestion of any extraordinary debility or prostra- 
 tion upon the part of Jesus. To them, the only loop- 
 hole for escape seemed to be this spear thrust by the 
 soldier at the time he was taken from the cross ; a cause 
 which was never dreamed of by even the Evangelist who 
 mentions it. This theory is rather the suggestion of a 
 physician than a theologian, since, besides contradicting 
 all other theories, it flatly contradicts the entire teaching 
 of the New Testament ; all the Gospels declaring that 
 his death had occurred before at about the ninth hour. 
 This objection is fatal to it from a Christian or Gospel 
 stand-point. But the evidence is equally fatal to it from 
 a rational stand-point. At the time the alleged spear 
 thrust was given, the prisoner seems to have given no 
 responsive motion or sign of life whatever. And to kill 
 a man, even when in a faint, by stabbing him, without 
 his ever drawing a subsequent breath, making one gasp, 
 or exhibiting one convulsion or contraction of the 
 muscles, we deny to be possible. Such a death would 
 be as instantaneous as that from a lightning stroke, and 
 could only be partially approximated with a spear, and 
 then only by a vigorous thrust through the very heart. 
 And even in such a case there would be one or more 
 convulsive spasms or gasps ensuing. But the advocates 
 of this theory seem to have forgotten one matter which 
 is absolutely fatal to it. Had Jesus received a heart- 
 thrust so instantly fatal to life, it would have been im- 
 possible for him to revive, or to live after he had 
 revived. That which had so instantly prevented him
 
 564 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 from living, would have continued to prevent his living. 
 For we have the identical authority for saying that 
 Jesus reappeared in the exact condition in which he had 
 been taken from the cross, nail-wounds, spear-wound 
 and all, as we have for saying that he was speared at all. 
 There had been no miracle performed on his wounds 
 while in the tomb, but they were still open and ready 
 for the finger and hand of Thomas to be thrust into 
 them. This objection is utterly fatal to both this, 
 theory and that of heart-rupture. 
 
 But, even if we are to credit this spear thrust, there 
 is neither assertion, nor evidence in the Gospels, that it 
 was of a character to be injurious to life ; but, on the con- 
 trary, the fair conclusion from the whole evidence is 
 that it was an insignificant affair, so far as life was con- 
 cerned, and was so regarded by John at the time. At 
 the time the Centurion gave the command to break the 
 limbs of the other sufferers, he had already personally 
 reported the actual death of Jesus to Pilate. Knowing 
 the almost impossibility of such a thing, Pilate pretended 
 to be amazed at the result, and, to clear his own skirts, 
 had demanded to have the report directly from the 
 officer himself. The Centurion had then been ordered 
 to deliver the body, at once, and as it was, to Joseph of 
 Arimathea. From that moment the Ccnturidh and his 
 soldiers had but one power and one duty with regard to 
 Jesus, and that was, to immediately deliver it to Joseph. 
 He would not have dared to have lacerated the body 
 in that wanton manner or to have permitted it to be 
 done. Such an act would not only have been a brutal 
 one, even on a dead body, and especially in the sight
 
 WAS HE DEAD ? 565 
 
 of his broken-hearted mother and sorrowing friends, 
 but it would have been an unwarranted breach of duty, 
 and an act in conflict with their whole spirit and con- 
 duct towards Jesus throughout this sad affair. It could 
 not have been to kill him, for he was assumed to be 
 already dead. That a private soldier should have dared 
 to do such a thing in the presence of his officer and 
 without his authority, either on the dead or living body, 
 is simply incredible. It would have been exactly his 
 life's-worth to have done it. And certainly such an act, 
 under the circumstances, could not have passed without 
 an indignant protest, at least, upon the part of Joseph, 
 to whom the body then of right belonged. Dr. Stroud 
 very justly remarks in this connection " Besides, the 
 soldiers were not at liberty thus to interfere with the 
 execution at their pleasure, and had any of them pre- 
 sumed to do so, it would have been at the risk of their 
 life." 
 
 If ever that spear wound was given at all, it was 
 given by, or with the consent of the Centurion, and 
 with the approbation or consent of Joseph of Ari- 
 inathea ; and was done to favor Jesus or his sup- 
 porters. They all knew, as well as Pilate, that a 
 death by crucifixion in so short a time was too " mar- 
 vellous " not to be suspicious, and it is possible that, 
 fearing after possibilities, they had agreed, when with 
 Pilate or in returning, that some pretence of spearing 
 him should be gone through with either for a claim that 
 they had despatched him, or, more probably, as evidence 
 that they had taken this precaution to assure themselves 
 of his death. Such a course might have been of after
 
 566 JESUS A^D RELIGION. 
 
 service to his friends, and certainly might and would 
 have been executed in a manner that would prove 
 beneficial to Jesus also. For a slight puncture in the 
 side with a spear would have been a rude, but efficient 
 substitute for the lancet of the doctor, and such a 
 venesection would evidently tend to slowly re-start the 
 circulation of the blood and revive the action of .the 
 heart. If the point of the spear reached the cavity of 
 the body at all, it most probably entered the lower part 
 of the plural cavity near the central part of the body. 
 In profound and prolonged fainting, such as the friends 
 of this theory contend for, such a puncture would 
 evidently tend to restore, instead of destroy, vitality. 
 The fact that this puncture was not intended to be in- 
 jurious to life, if it" was ever given, is made clear .by 
 several considerations. In the first place, if the Cen- 
 turion was not conniving at the escape of Jesus, and 
 actually believed him dead, he could not have thought 
 of killing him a second time, and it would have been 
 sheer wanton brutality to have mutilated the dead body, 
 unless the officer thought it a matter of duty to .go 
 through all the- routine of the punishment as impartially 
 as he did with the other two sufferers; in which event, 
 kowever, he would have broken his limbs as he did those 
 of the others. But he did not consider it his duty to 
 despatch Jesus, in any form, since that operation was 
 only to hasten death, and he had officially announced 
 the actual death of Jesus, and the body had been ordered 
 to be given up to his friend ; and whether he really be- 
 lieved, or did not believe, that he was dead, he was act- 
 ing upon the positive assumption that he was dead, and 
 therefore could have done nothing with a view either to
 
 WAS HE DEAD? 567 
 
 destroyer injure life or to mutilate the dead remains over 
 which he had no further right. It is again manifest, also, 
 that, as Jesus reappeared, and was with his disciples many 
 times with this very spear thrust still open and unhealed, 
 and could go about without inconvenience or complaint 
 of suffering, the wound must have been, not only not 
 mortal, but comparatively insignificant. It is very 
 apparent, also, that the very object of the early applica- 
 tion for the body of Jesus and the official report of \he 
 officer was to prevent his being treated like the other 
 prisoners, and to thus prevent either his actual death or 
 his mutilation after death. That this object, concurred 
 in by the Centurion as well as Joseph, should have been 
 directly frustrated, either with or without the consent 
 of the Centurion, is quite unbelievable. 
 
 While, however, this whole matter of the spear thrust 
 has all the flesh-marks of a fabrication, and the theory 
 that Jesus was killed by it is utterly unscriptural and 
 unsupported by the evidence, its learned advocates lend 
 us their authority for concluding from the entire evidence, 
 that Jesus was only in a fainting or swooning condition 
 when he was given up for dead, and that he was still 
 alive up to the time of this asserted spear wound. Now, 
 if they are right in this conclusion, as they certainly are, 
 we see that there is every reason to believe that he was 
 still alive when carried away into secrecy, even if the 
 spear puncture was actually made. In fact, if blood 
 ever flowed "forthwith'"' -out of that wound, as John 
 says it did, then that fact, in itself, proves that he was 
 not dead. For blood will not flow from a puncture in 
 the flesh of a man who has been dead an hour or more,
 
 568 JESUS AND RELIGION 
 
 unless some considerable vein or artery be opened by it ; 
 and then, at most, there would only one or two drops 
 ooze slowly out by mere force of gravity : a fact of 
 which John was evidently ignorant, for he claims that 
 Jesus had been dead since the " ninth hour." If John's 
 spear puncture proves anything, therefore, it proves that 
 Jesus was still alive. 
 
 FOURTH HYPOTHESIS : Having examined all the pos- 
 sible perceptible causes for the incredible fact of the death 
 of Jesus, we have still to meet another supposititious, 
 hidden physical cause, namely : rupture of the heart 
 from emotional causes. This fact is, not only occult in 
 its nature, but also in its only decisive indicia or symp- 
 toms. That such cases sometimes occur is true, but it 
 is equally true that they are of rare occurrence, and that, 
 to the extent of their rarity, are they improbable and re- 
 quire the clearer proof a proof, only possible by examin- 
 ing the heart itself. 
 
 The statements of Sir James Y. Simpson, in the letter 
 already quoted, are worthy of the highest consideration 
 on this point, however we may differ with him in his 
 adaptation of the facts in this case to his professional 
 rules. He declares that " no medical jurist would, in a 
 court of law, venture to assert from mere symptoms pre- 
 ceding death, that a person had certainly died of rupture 
 of the heart. To obtain positive proof, that rupture of 
 the heart was the cause of death, a post-mortem exam- 
 ination of the chest would be necessary." With this 
 theory, then, we have to begin with a certainty of ending 
 in an uncertainty. At best, it would be impossible for
 
 WAS HE DEAD ?' 569 
 
 us to have more than mere persuasive evidence of its 
 probability. And, as it utterly denies and excludes all 
 other possible causes of death on the cross, it would, at 
 best, forever leave us in utterly irremediable uncertainty 
 of a fact upon which they claim human salvation to be 
 based ; a state of things which it is impious to predicate 
 of God. 
 
 It is contended by the advocates of this theory, that 
 the external symptoms of heart-rupture were present in 
 this case; and, by the 'most bald and unscrupulous 'as- 
 sumptions, they endeavor, not only to convert the re- 
 corded facts into such symptoms, but "to get the benefit 
 of a kind of post-mortem examination through means of 
 the single alleged spear thrust. They have been driven 
 to resort to this occult cause and this extreme course of 
 assumption and distortion of facts because they must 
 account for actual death in some way, and they have 
 found all the other causes assigned to be wholly incred- 
 ible. Dr. Stroud tells us that it is the only possible way 
 of accounting for the death of Jesus. And, as we are 
 satisfied that he was not dead at all, we are quite satisfied 
 that so far as those other theories are concerned, he is, 
 and must be, right. 
 
 Let us examine, then, what basis there has oeen 
 found for this new suggestion. And first, as to whether 
 the conditions, causes and symptoms attending heart- 
 rupture were present in the case of Jesus. Dr. Stroud, 
 the champion of this new theory, quotes Dr. Coapland 
 for the causes of this rare phenomenon as follows : 
 " Violent mental emotions, especially anger, fright, terror,
 
 5/O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 unexpected disappointments, distressing intelligence 
 abruptly communicated, anxiety, etc., sudden and violent 
 muscular efforts and laborious or prolonged physical ex- 
 ertions of any kind, particularly in strained conditions." 
 These are their full selection of causes. And there cer- 
 tainly can be no motive for questioning them, for it may 
 be unhesitatingly asserted, that not a- single one of them 
 existed in the case of Jesus as it is disclosed by the Gos- 
 pels. Jesus had no " violent mental emotions," of any 
 kind, on the cross ; nor had he had since he left the 
 garden of Gethsemane. His conduct, temper, and whole 
 bearing from the time of his arrest had been continuously 
 and unusually calm and stoical, and utterly devoid of 
 even ordinary animation ; exhibiting, at times, even 
 sullenness and indifference. And this continued to 
 be the case up to the very moment he went upon the 
 cross. While on the cross his calmness and self-pos- 
 session was uninterrupted up to the last few moments. 
 There was no new, unexpected or unusual cause of ex- 
 citement or emotion, nor the slightest chance of bodily 
 strain or exertion, throughout the entire proceedings ; 
 nor did the sufferer, by word or act, indicate, for a single 
 moment, the existence or presence of such. He had 
 nerved himself to endure what he knew he had to en- 
 dure, and sat in his constrained and painful position 
 without a word or a murmur, save in response to others, 
 and then only with admirable temper and calmness. 
 There was, not only no such causes for any sudden or 
 over strain of the heart, but the very reverse was true, 
 and eminently true and manifest. 
 
 But there has been one preliminary which has been 
 overlooked in this matter. Were any, or even several,
 
 WAS HE DEAD ? 5/1 
 
 of the immediate causes of heart-rupture shown to be 
 present in this case, it would be of no avail unless it were 
 also shown that Jesus had a defective or diseased heart. 
 For the causesa ssigned for heart-rupture, or rather the 
 occasions of it, may, andr do happen every day to " the 
 million " without the slightest danger of heart break. 
 The real source of heart-rupture is in the heart itself. 
 Of this there is, and can be, no question. Where then 
 shall we find the evidence that Jesus had either an im- 
 perfect or diseased heart ? If it stood the strain in 
 Gethsemane, when under emotion so violent as to send 
 the blood out through every pore of his skin, was it 
 likely to burst while he was calmly sitting on the cross ? 
 for such mere bodily pain as he suffered is not one of 
 the causes of heart-rupture, nor claimed to be. In 
 answering the suggestion of the extraordinary debility 
 of Jesus, Dr. Stroud protests against the supposition of 
 any defect in this lamb of God or sin offering. But 
 must he not show just such a defect or weakness in his 
 very centre of life, to maintain his own theory ? 
 
 As to the symptoms of heart-rupture, Sir James Y. 
 Simpson quotes for authority Dr. Walshe, Professor of 
 Medicine in University College, London, as follows : 
 " The hand is suddenly carried to the front of the chest, 
 a piercing shriek is uttered, etc." These two are all the 
 symptoms which he quotes, and, of course, he can rely 
 upon only one of these, and, unfortunately for his cause, 
 upon but that one of them which is the least character-
 
 572 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 istic and indicative. The sudden raising of the hand to 
 the region of the heart locates the cause of the shriek, 
 and tends to limit and point out its otherwise ivliolly 
 indefinite significance. Without this location, as indi- 
 cated by the hand, such a shriek would no more indicate 
 heart-rupture, than any other sudden and unexpected 
 pang, even that from a coal of fire, or from a wasp's 
 sting. And yet, in this case, the hands were confined, 
 and they are compelled to rely upon finding an indefinite 
 "shriek" for their sole external symptom. They are 
 therefore reduced to a single external symptom, and that 
 a symptom which exists in heart-rupture in common 
 with many other pangs. But, Why dwell on the total 
 uncertainty of this symptom, especially when thus unlo- 
 cated by the hand, when no such symptom actually oc- 
 curred ? There was no such " piercing shriek " as 
 occurs in heart-rupture in this case. Such a shriek does 
 not consist of a verbal exclamation, prayer, or appeal 
 or other verbal outburst, but manifestly consists of an 
 inarticulate shriek or sudden cry, from the anguish of a 
 sudden and fierce pang. Webster defines the word, 
 shriek, as signifying " A sharp, shrill outcry or scream, 
 such as is produced by sudden terror or extreme 
 anguish." When, therefore, we use the word, " shriek," 
 and qualify it by the word, " piercing," and then use 
 them to characterize the verbal exclamations of Jesus 
 when he exclaimed " My God, my God, Why hast thou 
 forsaken me ! " or " Father, into thy hands I commend 
 my spirit," or " It is finished," we are certainly grossly 
 misapplying language and misconceiving the nature of 
 the outcry from heart-rupture. These verbal appeals 
 and prayers of Jesus have nothing in common with the
 
 WAS HE DEAD? 573 
 
 involuntary and inarticulate shriek which is forced out 
 by the sudden and unexpected pang of heart-rupture 
 save that they both emanate from bodily suffering ; and 
 it is trespassing upon good nature to attempt to identify 
 them. The exclamations and appeals of Jesus were not 
 the result of a sudden and unexpected pang, but of 
 persistent and unendurable torture. It was the exclama- 
 tion and prayer for mercy which the child or slave 
 makes when they can no longer bear their whipping, or 
 the exclamation of the patient under the hand of the sur- 
 geon in a prolonged and overpowering surgical operation, 
 or the cry to God of the martyr on the rack. It was 
 nature's outcry for help, or of surrender, when it could 
 no longer continue the conflict with suffering. It was 
 the cry of " enough ! " from whipped nerves and over- 
 mastered will. The victims of the Inquisition, whose 
 hearts did not break, could tell us the full significance 
 of every tone of that half-complaining, half -appealing, 
 and wholly despairing cry of " My God ! my God ! 
 Why hast thou forsaken me ! " Suffice it then to say, 
 that even the " piercing shriek," indifferently attending 
 heart-rupture and many other pangs, did not occur in 
 the case of Jesus at all, but only the usual natural and 
 repeated exclamations wrung from him, not by a sudden 
 pang, but by prolonged and overmastering suffering, and 
 that even this sole and indecisive symptom, therefore, 
 was relied upon in defiance of the plain facts. 
 
 We have seen, then, that neither the predisposition 
 or condition for heart-rupture, nor its occasions or
 
 5/4 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 causes, nor its symptoms were presented in the case of 
 Jesus. It remains, therefore, only to consider the value 
 to be attached to the evidence furnished by what they 
 have termed a " rough post-mortem " that is, by a single 
 spear puncture ! Acute to observe the assumptions and 
 perversions of others, none have been so recklessly pro- 
 lific of them as Dr. Stroud himself. Matter doubtful, 
 indifferent or unknown he at once assumes to be of the 
 character which is most favorable to his own theory. 
 Not only has he perverted the facts to secure some pre- 
 tence for a symptom of heart-rupture, and assumed a 
 hidden occasion or inducing cause for heart-rupture in 
 this case, but he assumes and moulds the facts ad libitum, 
 to secure material from the spear wound to establish 
 that flimsy hypothesis ; forgetting that, as a hidden, 
 rare, and wholly ungospel assumption, it, of all others, re- 
 quires the clearest affirmative proof . There are a whole 
 series of facts, each one of which constitutes a necessary 
 link in the chain of facts from which he attempts to 
 construct an argument in favor of his proposition, and 
 each one of which he gratuitously assumes to have ex- 
 isted in a form favorable to his purposes. It is, of 
 course, necessary to his very first step, that the spear 
 thrust should have been actually given ; a fact whicji is 
 more than questionable. Secondly, it is necessary that 
 the thrust should have been made from below and with 
 a specific angle of elevation, and that it should have 
 penetrated the. body at a specific point ; since he con- 
 tends that the spear reached the heart and detached the 
 clotted blood around it or within the cordiac sac, and 
 that this red clot or crassamentum and the serum 
 expressed from it constituted the blood and water which
 
 WAS HE DEAD? 575 
 
 run down and exuded from the side. Thirdly, it was 
 necessary that the thrust should have been on the left 
 side. Fourthly, that the thrust should have been vig- 
 orous enough to have penetrated to the heart. Fifthly, 
 that the blood and water were separate, or unmixed. 
 Sixthly, that the blood and water were not blood and 
 water, but crassamentum and serum. If even one of 
 these facts should fail to be ' true, the whole argument 
 falls into ruins. And yet each and every one of them 
 are sheer assumptions, without even a hint in the evi- 
 dence to support them. To secure even a single reason 
 in favor of the theory, every one of these facts must be 
 true, to commence with ; and yet, they are not only 
 generally discredited by the evidence, but there is not 
 one of them which is not as likely to be false as true, 
 and the opposite of which might not have been assumed 
 with equal plausibility. What evidence, for example, 
 have we as to the precise direction and point of entrance 
 of the spear ? . What proof have we that the wound was 
 on the left, instead of right side ? Not a particle. And 
 yet, if it were not on that side, the whole argument fails. 
 If the right side had been more favorable, it would have 
 been as boldly assumed and with exactly the same plaus- 
 ibility. What evidence have we that the soldier thrust 
 him to the heart ? There is not a word of direct proof 
 either way, and we have seen how completely the circum- 
 stances lead to a different conclusion as to the character 
 of the thrust, if it were ever given. And it is, moreover, 
 clear that to have given the precise thrust required, 
 must have been a mere accident, since it would have re- 
 quired the exact knowledge of an anatomist and the 
 skill of a Spanish taxidor to have made it designedly.
 
 5/6 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 And again, What proof have we that the " blood and 
 water " was red clot and serum ? By what right does 
 he assume that they were something different from what 
 the only evidence on the subject says they were ? There 
 is no impossibility in the evidence, as it .stands, to justify 
 or excuse such a perversion ; but, on the contrary, a far 
 more possible and probable explanation ean be found for 
 it than that furnished for this assumed substitute for it. 
 
 Besides these unjustifiable assumptions, there are 
 other considerations which are wholly destructive of the 
 claims based upon this post-mortem evidence. They 
 contend that the heart of Jesus had been ruptured at the 
 ninth hour ; that the blood at once flowed out, after the 
 thrust or puncture, and had been separated into red clot 
 and serum before the spear thrust was given ; and that 
 upon being punctured with the spear, these separated 
 elements of the blood run out through the aperture 
 made by the spear. Granting all the unjustifiable as- 
 sumptions upon which these premises are based, and 
 accepting them as they are assumed, we deny the 
 possibility, much more the probability or certainty, 
 of the results claimed ; fo: the following, among other 
 reasons. When blood coagulates, the red particles 
 invariably adhere to some adjacent surface, in a gelatin- 
 ous and cohesive mass. In most cases of rupture of the 
 heart the red clot forms around the external walls of the 
 heart itself, and adheres to them like a gelatinous coat- 
 ing or partial envelope ; while the serum of the blood,
 
 WAS HE DEAD? 577 
 
 when expressed from the mass, settles in a liquid form 
 into the surrounding cardiac sac. Sometimes, again, 
 this coagulated and cohering mass of red clot adheres to, 
 and coats, the inner walls of the cardiac sac. We con- 
 tend, in the first place, that, under either of these ^con- 
 ditions, the sharp-pointed spear of the soldier would not 
 have so ruptured and broken up this cohesive and ad- 
 hering mass of jelly as to have detached it from the walls 
 of the heart or those of its enclosing sac, and caused it 
 to have fallen or slid out of the slit made in the cardiac 
 sac. The result of the penetration of the sharp point 
 of a spear into such a dead mass, so conditioned, would 
 have been, that this cohesive and elastic matter would 
 have parted and yielded before the smooth point of the 
 metallic blade of the spear, and then simply reclosedvt\\vc\. 
 that sharp point was withdrawn. In such case there 
 would be no detachment or separation of clots or small 
 masses from the general mass ; nor would the slit remain 
 open ; nor would there be any tendency to disunite the 
 red clot eithep from the heart to which it hung or from 
 the sac on which it rested and to which it adhered ; but 
 simply a gradual lateral yielding as the progressively 
 enlarging point entered, and a recovery of its former 
 position, and thus a reclosing of the slight slit when the 
 lance was withdrawn. If, however, we concede for the 
 moment, that such a mass would be broken up and 
 detached by such a cause, and that it would escape 
 through the slit in the cardiac sac, Would these blood 
 clots or masses find their way out through the slit in the 
 side of the outer wall of the bodv ? We contend that it 
 
 J 
 
 was impossible T The heart is located in the thoracic 
 cavity, slightly to the left of the central line of the breast 
 
 37
 
 5/8 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 bone, with its lower and conical point resting about an 
 inch and a half inside, or to the right of the left nipple. 
 It nowhere touches the side-walls of the chest. Between 
 it and the ribs on the left side, where the puncture is sup- 
 posed to have been made, the left lobe of the lungs in- 
 tervenes and separates them, and covers, not only the 
 entire left side of the heart, but extends some distance 
 below it ; thus forming a complete barrier between the 
 heart and the adjacent walls of the body and for some 
 distance below. With an elevation of the spear point 
 only from one and a half to two feet (or even three feet), 
 above the level of the hand, as would be the case in this 
 instance, it would seem impossible for it to reach the 
 heart without passing through this intervening lobe of 
 the lungs ; and if so, it is clear that the spongy and 
 elastic substance of the lung would so immediately re- 
 close the aperture made by the lance point as to render 
 it impossible for the clotted blood to pass out through 
 it, even if it would tend at all to do so. But, even were 
 the wall of the body punctured below the lung (and 
 much more above or opposite it), still the clotted blood 
 would not issue from any wound which would be made 
 by a spear wound in the walls of the body. In the first 
 place, such an incision in a body so recently dead would 
 reclose sufficiently to prevent clots of blood from pass- 
 ing. And secondly, there would be no force or tendency 
 to drive them in that direction. For it will be remem- 
 bered, that the body was in an upright position, and as- 
 sumed to have been dead. There would be no power 
 from the heart or circulation, and no force operating but 
 the force of gravity ; and that would cause both the clot 
 and serum to fall directly downwards through the thor-
 
 WAS HE DEAD? 579 
 
 acic cavity, subject only to such deflections as obstruct- 
 ing objects might give it. Unless some such deflection 
 occurred they would both settle into the bottom of the 
 thoracic cavity. But there was nothing to cause such 
 deflection. The matter issuing from the cardiac sac 
 would fall directly downwards, near the centre of the 
 body, without any lateral tendency, and would never reach 
 the puncture in the wall of the left side at all. But even 
 if it were to reach it, it would slide down the smooth 
 inner side of the wall until it reached the bottom of the 
 cavity, and the slit made by the spear in that wall would 
 not obstruct it, and would certainly have no tendency to 
 deflect its downward course into its own small and almost 
 lateral channel, if, indeed, that aperture were not so 
 closed as to prevent its passage. So that, by the very 
 position, condition, nature and construction of the body 
 and by the law of gravity, it was impossible for the mat- 
 ter issuing from the cardiac sac to naturally run out at 
 that lateral wound. 
 
 It is important, also, to note the peculiar phraseology 
 of the description of this issuing of the blood and water. 
 It will be observed that the witness uses" the strongest 
 possible word to express their instantaneous outflow . 
 when the spear was withdrawn. He declares that they 
 came out " forthwith." Now, were it possible to suppose 
 that the clotted blood within the cardiac sac could be 
 broken up and detached by the penetration of a spear 
 point, and could we suppose it issuing from the slit in 
 that sac and passing downwards until it reached the 
 slit in the wall of the body and then passing nearly lat- 
 erally out of that slit, still, all experience shows that the
 
 580 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 operation would take such a time as could not be reason- 
 ably described by the term " forthwith." Persons who 
 are familiar with the movements of clotted blood in 
 slaughtered animals, and especially through slits or aper- 
 tures made by sharp-pointed instrumencs, are aware of 
 the sluggish nature of its movements and of the great 
 difficulty of getting it to run out all, unless a direct down- 
 ward and quite open passage is furnished for it, and its 
 exit is aided by successive joltings to start its move- 
 ments. Persons having had such experiences will find 
 themselves incapable of believing that the clotted blood 
 could fall or slide out, without help, in this case, in a 
 manner to elicit a declaration that it appeared " forth- 
 with," even were it possible for it to run out at all. 
 
 There is still another and wholly fatal objection to 
 this theory. It assumes a wound, both by the rupture of 
 the heart and the thrust of the spear, which would neces- 
 sarily be fatal to the living person. And yet, Jesus, as 
 we have seen, reappeared in apparent comfort, except 
 being hungry, just in the bodily condition he was in 
 when taken from the cross, spear wound and all, save 
 that he had revived. And certainly the same rupture 
 of the heart and spear thrust to the heart which would 
 have killed him, would have prevented him from living, 
 and uncomplainingly walking about the country and 
 eating, just as when in health. It is impossible to escape 
 this objection even by the supposition of a miracle ; for 
 the same author who gives us the spear thrust, upon 
 which they are compelled to depend, also assures us that 
 Jesus reappeared with his wounds just as they had been 
 given.
 
 WAS HE DEAD ? 581 
 
 We may now turn our attention to the supernatural 
 theory. Having failed to find a credible natural cause 
 or mode of death for Jesus, the shrewder theologians of 
 both ancient and modern times, turned to their never- 
 failing mode of accounting for the irrationalities and ab- 
 surdities of their faith. When reason and common sense 
 revolted, they never thought a moment of questioning 
 their creed. Their faith never wavered. That was " an- 
 chored within the vale." It was irrational and absurd to 
 say that Jesus died from natural causes. Such a con- 
 clusion was utterly irreconcilable with the facts. What 
 was left, then, but to go outside of the realm of Nature 
 and Reason for a cause ? Was there anything left to 
 men who had never dreamed of doubting the death 
 itself, but to say, that he voluntarily extinguished his 
 life by an act of his own will as one of the Trinity, or 
 that another member of that Trinity had extinguished it 
 fpr him, in defiance of Nature and her laws ? To this 
 final make-shift, as we have seen, the wisest and best of 
 them have been driven. To a blind faith this seemed 
 to offer at least a hope of mental repose and a certain 
 kind of security from discomfiture, however unenviable. 
 But however difficult it 'may be to positively prove that 
 a death did not occur by divine interference, it is by no 
 means so difficult to prove that the man did not die at 
 all, since the fact of death is positively rebutted by the 
 fact of subsequent life. 
 
 Let us, however, briefly consider what pretence can
 
 582 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 be set up for asserting a miraculous death by divine 
 volition in this case. From the time that he was ar- 
 rested until he was taken from the cross the Gospels 
 give no hint of either supernatural power being exercised 
 in behalf of Jesus, in any form, or of an attempt to exer- 
 cise such power by Jesus himself. Angels ceased their 
 visits after the hand of the Law was laid upon him, the 
 last of them having barely escaped the clutches of its 
 minions. They, as usual, exhibited their coyness in day- 
 light, and in the presence of the intelligent officials. 
 Jesus admitted that the hour for the triumph of the 
 powers of darkness had come. He was invited to ex- 
 hibit his power, but declined the invitation. On the 
 cross he was taunted with his professions of supernat- 
 ural power, and defied to show it ; and yet he remained 
 dumb. His very last appeal was a confession that God 
 \\.z& forsaken him. All the facts which occurred after 
 Jesus came under the inspection and control of the 
 Jewish and Roman officials, lost not only all pretence of 
 coming from supernatural interference, but were so na- 
 kedly human and natural that even his miracle-loving 
 followers were deterred from claiming such interposi- 
 tions. All the facts concerning Jesus during this period 
 find ready and legitimate explanations in natural causes. 
 Nor do the Gospels resort to any other sources of 
 explanation, or give the slightest encouragement for 
 others to do so. For everything which occurred to 
 Jesus, they give or furnish a natural cause. This the- 
 ory of death by divine interposition is, indeed, not only 
 without support from the evidence, and therefore wholly 
 gratuitous, but it is maintained in the very teeth of the 
 doctrines and declarations of the Evangelists and Apos-
 
 WAS HE DEAD ? $83 
 
 ties. If God or Jesus arrested, or, as they say, " pre- 
 vented," the punishment of crucifixion, and released his 
 soul to prevent further suffering and death by that 
 means, then Jesus might have been a lamb slain before 
 the foundation of the world, but he certainly was not 
 slain afterwards. If he was required to be slain as an 
 offering in discharge of man's indebtedness to God for 
 the penalties of broken laws, then such a payment was a 
 sham one was voluntarily suspended, almost as soon 
 as commenced, by either the assumed payer or by the 
 divine Creditor himself. If the sacrifice was necessary 
 to pay the debt, then the debt was not paid, if this theory 
 be true. The Evangelists and Apostles were, at least, 
 not so illogical as to sanction such an illogical conclu- 
 sion as this ; and did not. The conception is adverse 
 to their whole notions of the atonement and their dec- 
 larations concerning the mode of it. Their views and 
 declarations in regard to both are unequivocal and inca- 
 pable of rational misinterpretation. The Gospels all de- 
 clare that he " gave up the ghost," but this was but an 
 ordinary mode of saying that he died. Elsewhere in the 
 New Testament we are shown exactly what they meant. 
 Paul says, " He became obedient unto death, even the 
 death of the cross' 1 St. Stephen, in his defence before 
 the Sanhedrim, charges the Jews with having been the 
 betrayers and " murderers " of Jesus, which they could 
 not have been, if he were not murdered, but was ex- 
 empted from their murderous attempts by a special di- 
 vine interposition. Peter replies to them in language 
 still more specific on this point. He says to them 
 " The God of our" fathers raised from the dead Jesus 
 whom ye slew by crucifixion" On the day of Pentecost
 
 584 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 he also speaks of Jesus as one whom they " took and by 
 the hands of wicked men crucified and slew!' These as 
 well as many other declarations and the whole tenor of 
 their doctrines and teachings are conclusive as to the 
 fact that they believed and held that Jesus died from the 
 sufferings of crucifixion, and that his death was a nat- 
 ural murder at the hands of men. As this theory, there- 
 fore, can neither draw support from natural laws, causes 
 or reasons, all of which it expressly transcends and de- 
 nes, nor from its sole possible support, namely : the dec- 
 larations of the men upon whose supposed inspiration 
 their entire faith rests, it stands without support of any 
 kind a mere gratuitous assumption, seized upon as a 
 dernier resort when all conceivable natural and rational 
 modes of accounting for the fact that Jesus actually died 
 on the cross had been tried and discarded as incredible. 
 The very necessity of being driven to such a resort, to 
 account for the fact of the death of Jesus, in the very 
 teeth of the scriptures, and in defiance of natural law 
 and reason, is overwhelming evidence that the fact itself 
 did not exist, where they had all the facts specifically 
 narrated which tended to establish the fact of death, 
 fully before them. The very fact of its assumption 
 under such circumstances is a fatal admission. 
 
 We cannot fail to perceive, then, that the entire 
 range of conjecture has been traversed for some plausi- 
 ble or even possible mode of accounting for the fact that 
 Jesus died on the cross. The Apostles tell us that he 
 died from crucifixion, which all the others agree to have 
 been quite impossible. Others contend that natural or 
 acquired weakness hastened his death. Others, that
 
 WAS HE DEAD? $8$ 
 
 the spear thrust finished him. Others, that the maledic- 
 tion of God for man's sins was too strong for him and 
 burst his heart open. Others, that God came to the 
 rescue. Others, that he concluded he had suffered 
 enough, and voluntarily dismissed his own spirit. 
 Others, that But What other possible supposition is 
 left ? If we have come to the end, Is it not because the 
 region of supposed possibilities has been fully explored ? 
 Seeing these exhaustive and utterly fruitless attempts 
 of the brightest intellects^ of the Christian World, 
 through nineteen centuries, to find a cause for the death 
 of Jesus in the events which occurred on Calvary, with 
 a full and detailed account of those occurrences before 
 them, Is it not quite time we should begin to inquire 
 whether the man really did die whether this effect 
 without a cause really existed ? something which was 
 the first thing to have been inquired into and deter- 
 mined, but which was in fact never even questioned 
 then, nor dared to be questioned since ? Nay, more, if 
 exhaustive effort fails to find in the facts any adequate 
 cause of death, Is not the presumption almost, if not 
 quite resistless, that he did not die ? For he certainly 
 could not have died without an adequate cause. And, 
 unless the occurrences after he was taken from the cross 
 show that he actually had died, the presumption against 
 death would be complete. Even if he had been buried 
 immediately after he was taken from the cross, the cir- 
 cumstances would justify a violent presumption of his 
 having been buried alive. 
 
 It is a matter of significance, also, that such a host 
 of the champions of the infallibility of the Apostles
 
 586 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 should have been driven to disregard their plainly ex- 
 pressed doctrines on this fundamental matter. However 
 widely they may differ as to the substitutes they offer, 
 there is one thing upon which they have been compelled 
 to unite, namely : that the Apostles erred in supposing 
 that Jesus died from the punishment of crucifixion. 
 That, at least, was deemed too contrary to all reason and 
 human experience to attempt to sustain it. Nor are 
 they less fortunate in demolishing the various theories 
 propounded by each other as substitutes for that of the 
 Apostles. Their theories are mutually exclusive and 
 thoroughly destructive of each other. Each repudiates, 
 as wholly untenable, every theory but his own ; so 
 that, upon authority, each theory stands supported in 
 the ratio of one to all, and stands refuted or discredited 
 in the ratio of all to one. And really there is not a 
 shadow of doubt, that the opposition majority have, in 
 every instance, as great a triumph in reason as in num- 
 bers. Their success in demolishing the theories of each 
 other is only equalled by their impotent zeal in main- 
 taining their own. They not only clear the ground from 
 the obstructions of all other theories, but severally fur- 
 nish their quota of facts and arguments for the estab- 
 lishment of our own theory. The Apostles are our au- 
 thority for saying that, if Jesus died on Calvary, he did 
 not die from either supernatural causes or any of the 
 natural causes which have been assigned, save that of 
 crucifixion. The whole phalanx of distinguished au- 
 thors and fathers of the church whom we have named, 
 are our authority for saying that he did not die by the 
 pains of crucifixion. Those who contend that he died 
 by the spear wound sustain us in saying that up to his
 
 WAS HE DEAD? 587 
 
 last moments on the cross he was in a faint, but vital 
 condition; while the suggestion that he died by the 
 spear wound was never thought of by the Apostles, and 
 is stoutly denied by all the supporters of other theories. 
 Thus we have ample authority and proofs furnished by 
 the defenders of his death, to prove that he did not die 
 at all, but went into the hands of Joseph of Arimathea 
 alive. Let us not content ourselves, however, without a 
 summary review of the evidence in the case, preceding 
 his reappearance, from our own stand-point of continued 
 life.
 
 588 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THEORY OF CONTINUED LIFE. 
 
 HAVING contested the theory of death, let us ex- 
 amine that of life. The theory of continued life, in this 
 case, has nothing to prove. Such presumption of death 
 as would arise from the bare fact of a capital judgment 
 and pretended execution, ceases to be operative where the 
 very facts of the execution are known and under discus- 
 sion. That presumption also arises only by reason of the 
 supposition that the executive officers would be disposed 
 to faithfully execute the sentence. Any such inference is 
 excluded here by the plain fact that the executive officer 
 was violently opposed to the sentence, and, under the 
 circumstances, must have regarded it his true duty to 
 evade, rather than fatally execute it. Besides all this, 
 the amount of punishment was, not only by Christian 
 authority and fact, but by the confession of the chief 
 executive officer himself, admitted and shown to be pre- 
 sumptive of continued life and not death. For Pilate 
 regarded death under such circumstances as a "marvel- 
 lous " matter, and therefore a very z^wpresumable one. 
 But, as this presumption does not arise, and, if it did, is 
 at once set aside, we must necessarily revert to the 
 original presumption that, having been in full life and
 
 THEORY OF CONTINUED LIFE. 589 
 
 vigor, he continued in life, and would so continue, until 
 his actual death were proved, or a cause were shown 
 which would necessarily result in death. 
 
 Besides this antecedent presumption of continued life, 
 there is another retroactive presumption of continued life 
 which is absolutely irrebuttable and conclusive. The man 
 was alive and vigorous when he went upon the cross. 
 There is nothing to rebut or overthrow the presumption 
 that he entered the sepulchre alive that evening, with- 
 out resorting to the powerful array of affirmative evi- 
 dence in support of that conclusion. But then comes 
 the overwhelming and resistless fact that he was actually 
 in full life on the second morning afterwards. Is not 
 this fact, in itself, conclusive proof that the man had not 
 been dead, even if the evidences of death had been a 
 thousand-fold stronger than they are claimed to have 
 been ? Dare we admit appearances of any kind or the 
 ^opinions of any number of men to prove that a man who 
 is in full life to-day, was absolutely dead yesterday ? Or, 
 that a man who is actually dead can, while dead, exert a 
 power over his own dead and extinguished life, in con- 
 travention of the fundamental nature and laws of human 
 life ? When it is asserted on the one hand that a man 
 died, and on the other hand that he was living after- 
 wards, the issue is direct and the contradiction complete. 
 Both cannot be true. Where the fact of the subsequent 
 living is not clearly asserted on the trial of such an is- 
 sue, then it is competent for us to still consider the 
 evidences of death by way of impugning the credibility 
 of the testimony in favor of the fact of subsequent life. 
 But when it is proved -beyond doubt, that the man was
 
 59O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 actually alive subsequently to his alleged death, then all 
 proof of real death becomes impossible, and all evidences 
 of apparent death, however backed by opinions or au- 
 thority, become useless. In the absence, then, of all 
 evidences favorable to a continuance of life and of all 
 other proofs of the weakness or insufficiency of the evi- 
 dences of the fact of death, it is precisely as certain that 
 Jesus did not die on the cross as it is that he was seen 
 alive afterwards. The latter fact irrebuttably implies 
 the former. And just to the extent that we make it cer- 
 tain that he was alive afterwards, do we enhance the cer- 
 tainty that he was not dead before. To prove, therefore, 
 that he was not dead, it is only necessary to prove that 
 he was alive afterwards. This proof the simplest Chris- 
 tian alive would consider ample to hang even his own 
 brother were his guilt dependent upon it. Nor. would 
 any rational being ever even question the survival and 
 continued life of any other man who ever lived, with 
 positive proof of only this single fact of his being actu- 
 ally alive after his supposed death. 
 
 Why should we then hesitate to affirm and believe in 
 this case, as we should in every other case, that this single 
 fact of after-life, alone, is conclusive proof that the sup- 
 position that Jesus had died previously was a mistake ? 
 Certainly there can be no cause to make even a Chris- 
 tian hesitate, save such as have arisen out of a belief in 
 his divinity. Thoroughly divest any rational Christian 
 of that notion and the notions dependent on it, and he 
 would not hesitate a moment in his conclusion upon 
 such evidence. But, Have they any logical right to 
 make this assumption in favor of this fact while testing
 
 THEORY OF CONTINUED LIFE. 59! 
 
 the very existence of the fact of his divinity itself ? Are 
 they not assuming his divinity to establish or defend the 
 very fact upon which his divinity depends ? If Jesus was 
 not dead, then he did not arise from the dead ; and, as 
 Paul said, 11 their preaching " is vain." Nothing is more 
 certain than that the belief in his divinity arose from, and 
 was dependent upon, the supposed fact of his resurrec- 
 tion ; which, in its turn, was dependent upon the fact of 
 his having been actually dead. The supposed miracles 
 which he had worked may have operated on his dis- 
 ciples as evidence of his being the Messiah, and, subse- 
 quently, as confirmation of his divinity, but the belief in 
 his divinity neither could, nor did, arise out of those per- 
 formances. For the power to work miracles was not re- 
 garded as any evidence of a divine nature, or even of a 
 good one. Nor was it ever supposed that the Jewish 
 Messiah was to be God. Nor is there the slightest 
 doubt of the fact that the Apostles did not entertain 
 the slighest idea that Jesus was God, incarnate or other- 
 wise, until after his resurrection, and then only by rea- 
 son of that very fact, as we have already seen, and 
 shall still further see as we advance. They themselves 
 declare to Jesus himself that they had regarded him 
 only as a " prophet," and that, until he was arrested 
 and crucified, they had " hoped " that it was he that 
 should have redeemed Israel that is, they had hoped 
 that Jesus was to be the temporal Messiah until his 
 death had put an end to their hopes. It is clear, there- 
 fore, that in allowing the divine or supernatural preten- 
 sions of Jesus to make us assume his otherwise improb- 
 able and, indeed, disproved death, we are reasoning in a 
 vicious circle assuming a man to be a God, for the
 
 592 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 purpose of proving the essential facts which originated 
 and supported his pretensions to be a God. Even the 
 obtusest mind must perceive that such a mode of reason- 
 ing is fatal to truth, even if we had not already shown 
 the utter hollowness of his pretensions to even miracu- 
 lous power, and much more to divinity. Are rational 
 men prepared to thus irrationally blind themselves to 
 the truth for the mere sake of the gratifications furnished 
 by the delusion ? If we are not, How stands our affirma- 
 tion of the continued life of Jesus on the cross and in 
 the sepulchre ? Does it not stand proved, from the 
 very beginning, by evidence which is exactly as con- 
 clusive as the evidence of the supposed resurrection or 
 the fact that he was afterwards alive, nay, more, upon 
 the identical evidence ? And as that evidence has been 
 regarded ample for the support of so incredible a fact as 
 the resurrection, may it not, a fortiori, prove the natural, 
 and by no means wonderful, fact of his natural survival, 
 which avoids the necessity of either discrediting the wit- 
 nesses or of conceding so impossible a fact as self-res- 
 urrection from actual death ? Can we be mistaken in 
 saying that, were not this old mistake so fossilized by 
 time, so hallowed by education, so venerated by use 
 and association, so endeared by the hopes of its be- 
 lievers, and so guarded by the terrors of the cerberus of 
 Superstition, it would melt away before this single proof 
 like frost before the sun ? Ignorance accepted the as- 
 sumption of the impossible fact : the assumed fact apoth- 
 eosized Jesus : and now the apotheosis and the terrors 
 of hell guard the impossible fact ! The world is full of 
 such errors, thus sanctified and guarded. Future and 
 disenthralled generations will look back upon them with
 
 THEORY OF CONTINUED LIFE. 593 
 
 the amazed pity with which we now look back upon 
 astrology, alchemy, witchcraft, lycanthropy and devil- 
 possession. 
 
 Not suffering ourselves, however, to rest upon this 
 resistless proof, we have taken the pains to review the 
 entire transaction, and to show that the entire evidence 
 preceding and accompanying the crucifixion, not only 
 conforms to, and confirms the fact which this resistless 
 proof establishes, but, of itself, presumptively proves the 
 same fact, as clearly as it could be proved in the absence 
 of this last and conclusive fact. And when we shall 
 have digested these proofs from our own stand-point, we 
 shall further show that all the subsequent facts, over 
 and above the mere fact of his reappearance, point even 
 more directly and conclusively to our conclusion, than 
 even those we have already considered. 
 
 Webster defines death as that state " in which there 
 is a total cessation of all the vital functions, when the 
 organs have not only ceased to act, but have lost the sus- 
 ceptibility of renewed action'' That is to say, that the 
 peculiar and essential characteristic of death is not 
 merely the suspension or cessation of the vital functions 
 from temporary paralysis or derangement of the phys- 
 ical organism or any defect in the supply of the vital 
 forces or conditions, but is that state of things that ren- 
 ders it impossible to restore vital action by natural 
 means. To be dead, a man must be in a condition in- 
 
 38
 
 594 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 compatible with life, and one which no natural condi- 
 tions or agencies can restore or remedy. No fact is 
 more difficult to verify than that of death. Even now, 
 in this nineteenth century, there is a standing reward 
 offered for the discovery of an infallible test. Life is only 
 manifested to the observer by its sensuous manifesta- 
 tions, and when these cease or become imperceptible, 
 there is apparent death; a state which may be, or may 
 not be, real death. The decision of this fact often de- 
 fies the skill, even of experts, for a considerable time. 
 Various vital conditions so completely resemble that of 
 death, that physicians alone are capable of distinguish- 
 ing them. Even they sometimes fail or err ; while the 
 ordinary observer is quite incompetent to give any re- 
 liable decision upon the question. Such cases are con- 
 stantly coming to the notice of the public. Such states 
 of assimilated or apparent death not only result from 
 natural causes unaided by man, but are capable of being 
 produced by bodily conditions resulting from drugs or 
 inflictions administered by man. The East has imme- 
 morially produced drugs with this powerful and peculiar 
 property. No cause is more prolific of such results 
 than various forms of bodily torture. As we have seen, 
 it is an ordinary and natural result of prolonged torture 
 such as results from crucifixion. It is known, also, that 
 such results are more likely to occur to such highly 
 nervous organizations as that of Jesus, and to occur in 
 more singular, striking and prolonged modes. We 
 know, alsOj that, although no definite limit can be as- 
 signed to the duration of such states of apparent 
 death, it is by no means singular that an organization 
 such as that of Jesus, after swooning from the effects of
 
 THEORY OF CONTINUED LIFE. 595 
 
 continued torture, should remain in that state of insen- 
 sibility for several hours should remain, in fact, for a 
 much longer time than Jesus remained on the cross after 
 the ninth hour. It is. apparent, also, that drugs might 
 not only have been administered to Jesus which would, 
 of themselves, have subdued the vital action and pro- 
 duced a semblance of death, but they might have been 
 given when the sufferer was on the point of swooning, 
 with the view, and with the effect, of aiding the state of 
 insensibility produced by the anticipated swooning, and 
 thus assure the continuance of the state of insensibility. 
 In attempting to show, then, that Jesus continued in life 
 when he was reported to be dead, or even when he was 
 actually supposed to be dead, we are attempting to show 
 no improbable or incredible fact, but one which has often 
 proved true under evidences of death immeasurably 
 more cogent and reliable than they were in this case. 
 We affirm, therefore, that the state of Jesus on the 
 cross after the ninth hour, which no mortal has been 
 able to even plausibly explain and account for as that of 
 death, and which was afterwards positively shown to be 
 not that of death, was, in truth, but a prolonged swoon 
 induced by the torture of his punishment, and perhaps 
 aided by drugs supplied in the so-called drink of vinegar. 
 But this latter suggestion, we beg leave to say, was 
 neither originated by our fancy, nor urged by its neces- 
 sity to our view of the case ; since it is by no means im- 
 portant to our conclusions. It would not have been 
 mentioned, indeed, had we not desired to present the 
 case as it is made probable from the evidence. That 
 evidence, we think, points, with sufficient certainty for 
 notice, to the fact that some preparation was made
 
 596 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 especially for his benefit, and was actually administered 
 at the critical moment with a view to his ultimate pres- 
 ervation. 
 
 It is very clear, that the entire evidence from the ar- 
 rest of Jesus until his delivery to Joseph of Arimathea, 
 when taken from the cross, has been shown to be very 
 incompatible with the supposition of his actual death on 
 the cross ; and it is equally clear that it furnishes most 
 potent and cumulative evidences that Jesus would and 
 did survive his punishment. And the general tenor of 
 the facts show, that this result was both designed and 
 aided by those who held control over him and his pun- 
 ishment. We have seen from the evidence, that there 
 were many and powerful motives for saving the life of 
 Jesus, on the part of the Roman officials who had control 
 over his person and destiny, and that equal, if not iden- 
 tical motives urged the assistance and co-operation of 
 secret friends or coadjutors of Jesus among the official 
 and wealthy Jews. We have seen, that these friends 
 within the circles of Jewish and Roman power had kept 
 him advised of the movements against him, and had 
 evidently notified him of his intended betrayal. We 
 find striking evidences of their having communicated 
 with him in Gethsemane. We find them making ex- 
 haustive efforts to save him on his trial. And after 
 Pilate was humiliatingly driven to consent to his con- 
 demnation, while still solemnly and publicly denouncing 
 the iniquity of his own coerced sentence, and publicly
 
 THEORY OF CONTINUED LIFE. 597 
 
 washing his hands of the injustice of it, we find his 
 friends, both Jewish and Roman, still following him up 
 with many evidences of the same persistent and predeter- 
 mined purpose to do their utmost to serve and save him 
 after the sentence, which they had exhibited on his 
 trial. We have seen, that they could not but regard it 
 as a solemn duty to save him if possible. We have seen, 
 that they had the entire control of his person and destiny 
 from first to last ; and that their power to save him was 
 equal to their inclination, subject only to a single fear; 
 and that, although this fear had compelled his sentence 
 to the cross, and compelled them to act with sufficient 
 secrecy to prevent proof of their complicity in his escape, 
 still this fact neither lessened their duty, their zeal, 
 nor their power to save him from actual death, but only 
 spurred them to more determined efforts. 
 
 We have seen, also, that circumstances marvellously 
 aided them ; that it was next to impossible for him to 
 expire on the cross before the time he would be required 
 to be despatched on account of the approaching sabbath, 
 and that, if they could but avoid this necessity of de- 
 spatching him by a reported and seeming death, and by 
 then getting him out of sight of the public finally, their 
 end would be accomplished. To this end we have seen 
 every act of those who controlled or were concerned in 
 the proceedings unmistakably tended, from first to last, 
 as far as was consistent with the necessary forms of his 
 punishment, whether they were intended so to operate 
 or not. We have seen extraordinary pains taken to 
 keep him free from over prostration before his punish- 
 ment, and that he himself co-operated in this apparent
 
 598 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 pre-arrangement and purpose by refusing to drink the 
 " mercy cup," by which he would at once keep his mind 
 clear to act his part, and render himself liable to swoon 
 far earlier than were he to deaden his sensibilities by 
 that soporific drink. This refusal of relief from suffer- 
 ing, and courting anguish, by one who had so often ex- 
 hibited his dread of danger and his fearful dread of suf- 
 fering and death, was especially remarkable, and can 
 find no rational and consistent explanation save in con- 
 nection with his own ultimate preservation. We have 
 seen, also, a further and very striking evidence of some 
 unusual design and of the concurrence- of Jesus in that 
 design, in the fact that they had had prepared and ready 
 for use some unusual drink for the especial benefit of 
 Jesus, and were ready with all the facilities for adminis- 
 tering it, to give it to him the instant he gave the warn- 
 ing call, and actually " run " to him with it. The fact 
 that all this should have been pre-arranged and provided 
 for, that Jesus should so evidently have understood it 
 and called for it, while having no legal right to expect 
 such a favor, and the extreme promptitude with which it 
 was served, are as significant as they were unusual. 
 What did that drink consist of ? For what purpose, and 
 by whose authority, was it prepared and administered ? 
 These were secrets which few could know and which 
 have long since perished. They can only be inferen- 
 tially judged of now. That they were prepared with a 
 view to serve Jesus is beyond reasonable question. 
 How they were to serve him can only be inferred from 
 the general purpose and end indicated by the whole evi- 
 dence and by the apparent results or effects of the drink 
 itself. If it had been vinegar or any drink which would
 
 THEORY OF CONTINUED LIFE 
 
 have relieved the thirst of which Jesus complained, it 
 would have operated to refresh and revive him. Instead 
 of doing this, however, Jesus said, directly after drink- 
 ing it " It is finished " or accomplished ; and very soon 
 dropped into that state of insensibility in which he con- 
 tinued while on the cross, and which served as the basis 
 of the announcement that he was dead. The effects 
 which followed, therefore, were indicative of anything 
 but a reviving drink. To the very reverse of this, the 
 whole facts about the providing and administering this 
 drink and the effects which followed it, are certainly in- 
 dicative of its having been given to produce the condition 
 which followed, or to aid in producing or in prolonging 
 and assuring it, and not at all with a view to revive him. 
 
 The state of insensibility of Jesus may have been pro- 
 duced by artificial means, and the strong determination 
 -to save him evinced by those concerned in his punish- 
 ment and the fact, time, and mode of administering this 
 prepared drink, together with the speedy effects which 
 ensued, will warrant the conclusion that those results 
 were produced by that prepared drink, in the absence of 
 stronger evidence that a similar state of insensibility was 
 produced chiefly by his condition and suffering, aided, 
 prolonged and assured, probably, by this artificial means. 
 That he was not killed by the punishment is made mor- 
 ally certain by the facts that occurred, and is rendered 
 absolutely certain by the fact that he was alive after- 
 wards. The amount of punishment had been wholly 
 inadequate to menace the life of any one who was not 
 already at the point of death. For we have shown that 
 it could not have lasted even two hours. Sir James Y.
 
 6OO JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Simpson, as we have seen, considered it impossible that 
 he could have died from crucifixion, assuming it to have 
 lasted six hours ; and that death, in a subject like Jesus, 
 was not to be expected under two or three days. One 
 of the wisest of the early Christian fathers declared that 
 death in such a case within three hours was to be re- 
 garded as a " miracle." John Calvin, as we have seen, 
 thought that it was only "profane persons" who could 
 think that a death so " beyond all exception rapid" could 
 have happened without divine intervention. The very 
 truth is, that life was not at all endangered by the amount 
 of suffering inflicted on Jesus by the cross. All the 
 theories of death have been shown to be irrational and 
 incredible make-shifts to account for an impossible fact. 
 There is nothing left, then, but to regard Jesus as either 
 having swooned at the ninth hour, or as having fallen 
 into a state of insensibility from the drink which had 
 been prepared for him. Without waiving the probability 
 of the latter explanation, there is certainly sufficient 
 probability of the former ; while, if he swooned from the 
 torture, the administering of the drink may have been 
 given for the purpose of aiding or assuring the desired 
 end. The nature of Jesus was one which would evi- 
 dently swoon or faint early under torture, and there were 
 other reasons which tended to facilitate that result. 
 While Jesus was unimpaired in physical vigor, he had 
 undergone a severe strain on his nerves in Gethsemane. 
 And, although his nervous system had returned to a state 
 of repose and became subject to the Will during the sub- 
 sequent proceedings, yet those proceedings were not 
 calculated to encourage that repose. The fair inference 
 is, that the naturally sensitive nervous organization of
 
 THEORY OF CONTINUED LIFE. 6oi 
 
 Jesus was in a condition, when he went on the cross, to 
 be irritated more readily than usual by torture. Not 
 that his nerves were permanently weakened, but in a 
 more irritable state. It was true, also, that Jesus had 
 not slept during the preceding night, and it would seem 
 that he had eaten nothing during that day. All these 
 causes would tend to make him faint earlier under his 
 torture. The fact, also, that he voluntarily refused the 
 usual means for so deadening his sensibilities to suffer- 
 ing as to prevent its most overpowering results, directly 
 tended to bring on early swooning ; so strongly, indeed, 
 that it indicated a design to bring about that very result. 
 It is clear, then, that the facts, as well as the manifested 
 purpose and design, tended to bring about, not death, 
 but a state of insensibility which resembled death under 
 ordinary observation. 
 
 In this -state of insensibility he remained, so far as 
 we either are, -or were likely to have been informed. 
 For, of course, no fact indicating continued life would 
 have been allowed to reach the ears of outsiders since 
 it would have destroyed all pretence of a defence for 
 refusing to despatch Jesus with the rest. When he had 
 remained in this state about an hour and a half, the ap- 
 proach of the sabbath compelled them to stop the cru- 
 cifixion and despatch the prisoners by violence. This 
 they accordingly did in the case of each of the other 
 prisoners, neither of whom had shown any signs of giv- 
 ing way. But here again we meet with a chain of facts
 
 6O2 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 which, if it were needed, renders the evidence of the in- 
 tention and effort to save Jesus conclusive, in connec- 
 tion with the other proofs. When he had swooned or 
 became insensible, the Centurion assumed that he was 
 dead, and, we are told, publicly declared to the super- 
 stitious multitude, in view of so miraculous a death, that 
 Jesus must have indeed been the Son of God. The 
 people then left, and the Roman guard and a few Gali- 
 lean friends of Jesus (who stood " afar off,") remained 
 to witness what occurred afterwards, and one other. 
 It would seem clear from all the facts, that Joseph of 
 Arimathea was still present during all, or the greater 
 part of the proceedings. For he must have been there 
 and consulted with the Centurion when they both 
 started to go to Pilate and report the death of Jesus, 
 and to have an order for his delivery to Joseph, and 
 'thus avoid the necessity of despatching him with the 
 others. This acute and wealthy Jewish friend or coad- 
 jutor of Jesus seems to have continued to watch over 
 and direct the results to the last, and to have acted in 
 secret concert with his Roman friends. Joseph and the 
 Centurion must have returned to the. city to "report 
 progress " to Pilate very soon after the people left. 
 Joseph is said to have gone " boldly," that is, with 
 confidence, to Pilate to request the delivery of Jesus 
 into his hands. Why such boldness and confidence 
 in making so unprecedented a request ? And, Why 
 the unprecedented success of that request, unless the 
 two were acting in concert ? Had there been no such 
 concert of action between them and no intention to 
 save Jesus, this effort would never have been made ; or, 
 if made, could never have been made with confidence,
 
 THEORY OF CONTINUED LIFE. 603 
 
 or have proved successful. His body would have been 
 claimed in such case, as in all other cases, after his full 
 execution was completed ; and the executioner would 
 not have interfered in the matter. And Pilate would 
 not have consented to waive the legal course on account 
 of a pretended death which was so " marvellous " as he 
 himself claimed this to have been. For no sufficient 
 reason or motive could be assigned for such a course. 
 Whether he were dead or alive the regular course could 
 not injure him beyond what his sentence required. To 
 break his limbs when dead, wantonly,, would be a brutal 
 act ; but to break them in the due course of legal execu- 
 tion, even if he happened to be dead, could neither be 
 wrong, nor cause suffering to Jesus. No : there could 
 have been but one adequate cause for this confident 
 application and this wholly unusual delivery of the pris- 
 oner to his friend without despatching him in the usual 
 form. That cause was not a belief that he was dead, 
 but a knowledge that he was alive ; and the object was 
 to keep him alive, by neglecting to despatch him under 
 the pretence that he was dead. It was to save himself 
 from this violent presumption, that Pilate felt it neces- 
 sary to shield himself by the official report of death from 
 the Centurion. With this, as the best excuse to be 
 had, he dared to venture the consequences. So aston- 
 ishing did this conduct of the Roman officials, in refus- 
 ing to despatch Jesus like the rest, appear to John Cal- 
 vin, that he declares it an " extraordinary operation of 
 divine providence" and says that ". whosoever examines 
 the whole series of the narrative will be compelled to 
 ascribe the exemption of Christ from the breaking of 
 the legs, by a death beyond all exception rapid, to the
 
 604 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 secret councils of God." From his own stand-point Mr. 
 Calvin reasoned correctly. \ Regarding the officers as 
 intending, in good faith, to execute the sentence against 
 Jesus, he could find every reason why they should have 
 treated Jesus like the others, but could find no reason 
 why they should have made this astounding exemption 
 in his favor on account of an alleged death so beyond 
 " all exception rapid." Finding this mysterious and un- 
 accountable course, he could only conceive that it had 
 occurred through the inscrutable intervention of God. 
 There was, very manifestly, some secret work and 
 " secret councils " at the bottom of all this, which did 
 not appear to the public then, and which only inferen- 
 tially appear from the Gospels now. Had Mr. Calvin 
 changed his stand-point to that which is so clearly the 
 true one from all the evidence had he, instead of con- 
 ceiving Jesus to have been dead, conceived him to have 
 continued in life, and had he, instead of supposing that 
 the Roman officials were bent on destroying the life of 
 Jesus, supposed that they well knew that he had not 
 really died, and were determined that he should not die, 
 then he would have had no difficulty in discovering that 
 they had the most palpable reason for not despatching 
 him like the others, whom they really intended to kill ; 
 nor would he have had to resort, for causes of this un- 
 precedented favoritism, to the secret and incomprehen- 
 sible councils of God ; but he would have found very 
 comprehensible causes, operating very efficiently through 
 the secret councils of men. Mystery and the mysterious 
 special interferences of God with the actions and affairs 
 of men always vanish before the light of the full facts 
 and the real truth. Whenever a fact constituting a part
 
 THEORY OF CONTINUED LIFE. 605 
 
 of an actual transaction is found to be utterly inexplic- 
 able or mysterious upon received notions or theories of 
 the transaction, when the apparent facts and the con- 
 duct of the actors are known, then the accepted the- 
 ories and notions should at once be suspected ; and it is 
 right at these mysterious and inexplicable facts, that we 
 should pause with the highest hope of a successful so- 
 lution and of a true theory of the facts. By inquiring 
 of ourselves what facts, conduct or motives could ration- 
 ally account for these particular facts, the answers to 
 these inquiries will most likely furnish or suggest an 
 explanation which will embrace, and apply to, the whole 
 facts. We find here, as we have found throughout these 
 entire proceedings, that those facts which are singular, 
 unaccountable, or mysterious on the received theories 
 of the facts, and which those theories have left unex- 
 plained, or have been compelled to resort to "angel's 
 visits " or the " secret councils of God " to explain, 
 with a view to patch out their defective theories and 
 natural agencies, have found in our theory of the facts 
 the natural a*nd consistent appropriation and explana- 
 tion which every true theory must furnish for every 
 known and established fact. To sustain the existing 
 notions about the arrest, trial, punishment, death and 
 resurrection of Jesus, the facts in regard to them have 
 been greatly misrepresented and perverted. This is the 
 natural requirement and tendency of a false theory. If 
 the theory will not conform to the facts, the facts must 
 be warped into conformity with the theory. We have 
 seen that, instead of requiring the facts to be warped to 
 suit it, our theory has required them to be again un- 
 warped ; and that to the extent that they have been so
 
 6o6 .;; JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 recovered, to that same extent do they increase the sup- 
 ports of our theory. There is, indeed, no even highly 
 probable fact, from the beginning to the end of this 
 affair, which cannot be clearly and naturally accounted 
 for upon our theory ; and no other theory can even 
 approach so complete a solution. Our theory neither 
 claims, nor acknowledges any mystery or supernatural 
 agencies in any part of the transaction. Whatever mys- 
 teries have hovered about this affair, have been the re- 
 sults of ignorance or misapprehension of the true state 
 of the facts and of the motives, purposes and conduct 
 of the .persons who reallv directed and controlled the 
 course of events. 
 
 Before finally leaving the cross, we desire to add 
 but a few words in relation to the puncture of the body 
 of Jesus with a spear. The proof of that allegation is 
 wholly insufficient. It is asserted but by a single writer. 
 The three first Gospels mention no such fact, an 
 omission which can scarcely be accounted for if such 
 a fact had existed. We have seen that there were doc- 
 trinal reasons for the insertion of this visible exhibition 
 of the real flesh-and-blood nature of Jesus. We find 
 that the fact is asserted in a controversial spirit, as if 
 there were in the mind -of the writer a great desire to 
 produce belief of the fact, and also an expectation that 
 it would meet with opposition and denial. The writer 
 asserts the fact as usual, but, not satisfied with this, he 
 adds, " And he that saw it bare record, and his record is
 
 THEORY OF CONTINUED LIFE. 6o/ 
 
 true : and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might 
 believe. For these things were done, that the Scripture 
 should be fulfilled, a bone of him shall not be broken. 
 And again another scripture saith, They shall look on 
 him whom they pierced?* 1 No such mode of controver- 
 sial assertion and reiteration is used anywhere else in 
 the Gospels. It amounts to a confession that the fact 
 was new to the Church, and would be discredited ; and 
 openly confesses that one object in asserting it was to 
 secure a belief in this newly asserted fact. The object 
 of asserting it was two-fold, and the second object is 
 exposed with the nakedest simplicity : it was done to 
 fulfil a scripture, about looking upon some one who had 
 been pierced. We have seen how often these attempts 
 to appropriate and fulfil scriptural types and phrases in 
 the old Scriptures have been made in the Gospels, and 
 how uniformly and without exception they have been 
 shown to have been mere after-creations. Whenever 
 we find a recital in the Gospels accompanied by the 
 declaration that the matter recited occurred to fulfil a 
 scripture, then, in the language of seamen, we may 
 "look out for foul weather : " the sign never fails. We 
 have seen, also, how utterly out of place such an act 
 would have been, under the circumstances, and how con- 
 trary it would have been both to the duty and to the 
 manifested inclinations of those who are asserted to 
 have done it. We have seen, also, that it was in conflict 
 with the assertion of the previous death of Jesus by 
 that same Gospel. If Jesus had died at the ninth hour, 
 and had been dead for an hour and a half in that cool 
 weather, it is certain that blood would not flow from his 
 side, " forthwith," upon being punctured with a lance.
 
 608 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 The chances were a thousand fold that there would not, 
 in such a case, have been even a " show of blood." The 
 possibility was, that, if a vein of any size was severed 
 near the surface of the body, a drop or two of blood 
 might have sluggishly drained or oozed out by the force 
 of gravity. Without rupturing such a vein no blood 
 would have flowed. The writer evidently did not know 
 or think of this fact when he asserted that blood flowed 
 " forthwith " out of a fresh puncture made in the side of 
 a body which he had declared to have been dead an hour 
 and a half before, and which had remained quiescent in 
 the cool, open air ever since. Had he perceived the 
 force of the evidence which he thus furnished that the 
 man was still alive .and his blood still warm and still 
 circulating (even if feebly), he would scarcely have ven- 
 tured to have asserted this fact, even to "fulfil a scrip- 
 ture," or have been so anxious for fear of its being dis- 
 believed. While, therefore, this fact may aid, and cer- 
 tainly does not weaken, our theory, we can but say, that 
 we believe the whole matter to be a controversial and 
 mythic after-thought. None of the other gospels even 
 mention the fact that John was present at the cruci- 
 fixion at all, although they all name a number of his dis- 
 ciples as being in the city. All the other apostles were 
 in hiding. John alone claims to have been present. The 
 others seem to have never known that fact, and it seems 
 not to have entered into the traditions or beliefs of the 
 church even in the time of Luke. Such facts could not 
 have been thus unknown and unrecorded. 
 
 Further proofs of this fact of continued life will 
 accumulate at every step of our advance.
 
 THE REVIVAL. 609 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE REVIVAL. 
 
 THE accounts which we have of the occurrences 
 between the time of the delivery of Jesus to his friend 
 Joseph and his re-appearance to his followers are very 
 meagre and unreliable, necessarily so, indeed. For 
 even the men who were the chief witnesses of former 
 Gospel facts were then in hiding, and personally knew 
 nothing of the occurrences themselves ; but were com- 
 pelled to rely upon after reports or rumors and on their 
 own conjectures as to what actually occurred. Such 
 evidence, of course, is entitled to little credit ; and all 
 the more so, that those chiefly concerned in those trans- 
 actions were compelled to conceal the true facts, and 
 were deeply interested in giving special direction and 
 character to the current rumors and reports. Fortu- 
 nately, this is of little consequence ; since none who be- 
 lieve that Jesus entered that sepulchre alive and came 
 out of it living, will ever suppose that he had died in the 
 mean time in the sepulchre ; while all the facts which 
 are necessary to a correct conclusion are so plainly in- 
 ferable from the precedent and subsequent facts and 
 from the character, motives and situation of the actors, 
 as to be beyond all rational doubt. 
 
 39
 
 6lO JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 We are told that, when Joseph received Pilate's order 
 for the possession of Jesus, he procured a linen cloth to 
 wrap his naked person in ; and that he and Nicodemus 
 took him, thus wrapped, to a new sepulchre, hewn out of 
 the face of a rock, and which had never been used, be- 
 longing to Joseph himself. This sepulchre was " nigh 
 at hand," and consisted of an excavation or small room 
 in the rock large enough to permit several people, at a 
 time, to enter it. A few minutes after Jesus was taken 
 from the cross, he was within this secret and secure 
 shelter. Here his friends could have unquestioned con- 
 trol, and could use what restorative means and processes 
 they chose, without the possibility of outside observa- 
 tion. No place could possibly have been more fortu- 
 nate in its location and character for the successful ex- 
 ecution of the purposes and plans of those who conveyed 
 him thither, namely : his secret restoration and the 
 preparations for his escape. That the place for his 
 crucifixion should have been selected so near a sepulchre 
 which was so singularly adapted to their purposes, and 
 one belonging to the most active manager of the scheme, 
 is, in itself, so singular as to suggest the idea of its hav- 
 ing been selected after a conference between Joseph and 
 Pilate, and with an express view to this very convenience. 
 
 The time was as fortunate and favorable as the place. 
 Night and the sabbath were just at hand when he was 
 taken there, and there were a dozen hours of darkness in 
 which to work, to supply and to prepare. The morning 
 and the succeeding hours of daylight would still be the 
 sabbath, during which this lonely sepulchre would be as 
 free from interruption and observation as at night. Then
 
 THE REVIVAL. 6ll 
 
 came another night : and then, before that night fully 
 closed, he was out of the sepulchre, and clothed and pre- 
 pared for his escape. Thus the time which he remained 
 at the sepulchre was about thirty-six hours, or a day and 
 a half, but, by the Jewish division of time, it embraced 
 parts of three days one whole sabbath and small frag- 
 ments of the preceding and subsequent days. Had 
 these thirty-six hours been three consecutive nights 
 they could scarcely have been more favorable for their 
 purposes. 
 
 If Joseph and Nicodemus had, or gave out that they 
 had, procured a hundred pounds of myrrh and; aloes for 
 his burial, they were but acting in accordance with their 
 necessary plan of concealing the real facts by acting in 
 conformity with the supposed facts. The commonest 
 prudence would have dictated to them to make a show, 
 at least, of acting as if he was dead. As no one, how- 
 ever, would open the bundle or sack claimed to contain 
 100 Ibs. of myrrh and aloes, or have had any right to do 
 so, or any thought of questioning its contents, it would 
 also prove an admirable method for at once introducing 
 a little bedding say a couple of comforts or so for 
 their prostrated friend, with other appliances for his res- 
 toration and reinvigoration. Nothing could be more 
 easy or more natural. However this may be, it is cer- 
 tain that, if they ostensibly acted in conformity with the 
 assumed fact of death, so as not to arouse suspicion or 
 call attention by any unusual conduct, their opportunity 
 of both doing and furnishing everything needed would
 
 6l2 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 be complete. And the previous foresight, providence 
 and fidelity of these loyal Jewish friends are sufficient 
 proofs that they did so, even if subsequent events were 
 not also conclusive of that fact. Even on that first 
 night they could have used whatever means were neces- 
 sary, if any, to stimulate and encourage his revival, sup- 
 ply him with clothing and the means of disguise, also 
 with sufficient food and water to last him through the 
 sabbath, and agree to come and release him on the night 
 following ; and thus avoid the chance of being out of 
 place or being seen about the sepulchre on the sabbath. 
 With a comprehension of the facts as they are gath- 
 ered from the Gospels themselves, none can doubt that 
 all these things could easily have been done in one night, 
 and almost before that night commenced ; and that he 
 was in the hands of the very men to do it. 
 
 There is a story in the first Gospel about a Roman 
 guard having been placed around the sepulchre on the 
 day following the crucifixion, and about their being 
 bribed, etc., which may demand notice, although it would 
 deserve none were it supported only by its own merits. 
 For, without excepting even the puerile and mythic fan- 
 cies which created a nativity and infancy for Jesus, it is 
 the most naked interpolation or after-thought and the 
 most imbecile concoction in the whole Gospels. It is in 
 the following words : " JMow the next day that followed 
 the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Phar- 
 isees came together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remem-
 
 THE REVIVAL. 
 
 her that this deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After 
 three days I will arise again. Command therefore that 
 the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his 
 disciples ci>me by night and steal him away, and say unto 
 the people, He is risen from the dead : So the last error 
 shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Ye 
 have a watch : go your way, make it as sure as ye can. 
 So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the 
 stone and setting a watch. * * And behold, there 
 was a great earthquake : for the angel of the Lord de- 
 scended from heaven, and came and rolled away the 
 stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance 
 was like lightning, and his raiment like snow : And for 
 fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead 
 men. * * * Now when they [the two Marys] were 
 going [to the sepulchre], behold, some of the watch came 
 into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the 
 .things that were done. And when they were assembled 
 with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large 
 money unto the soldiers, saying, Say ye, His disciples 
 came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And 
 if this come to the governor's ears, we will persuade 
 him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did 
 as they were taught : and this saying is commonly re- 
 ported, among the Jews to this day." This is all that 
 relates to the matter. Permit us to briefly examine its 
 credibility, as well as its effect upon our theory of the 
 facts, if it were even true. 
 
 As in nearly all such interpolations or injections of 
 subsequently conceived explanations or occurrences, this 
 story bears on its face the evidences of its origin and
 
 614 JESUS AC-D RELIGION. 
 
 the purpose for which it was invented. The story is 
 mentioned by this gospel alone ; a fact which, in so 
 striking, important and public a transaction as this, is 
 almost or quite conclusive of the fact that it is not true. 
 The need and purpose which called it into being, also, 
 appears upon its face. The Christians, long afterwards, 
 asserted that the body of Jesus had not only disappeared 
 from the tomb, but had reappeared alive. The Jews 
 would not believe this, but answered the story of his 
 disappearance, by saying that his disciples had come and 
 stole it. This had come to be the common answer, as 
 it would seem, in the days of the writer. And the writer 
 clearly shows that it was to meet and rebut this charge 
 that the story was told. 
 
 It appears upon its face, also, that the story was 
 evidently written in some after age or generation. For 
 it alleges that the story of stealing the body was " com- 
 monly reported among the Jews until this day'' Such 
 an expression clearly indicates that the occurrence itself 
 must have happened in a former age or generation. For 
 we do not say of a report that originated in our own 
 time, that it continued to be reported " until this day ; " 
 but use this expression to indicate a traditional report or 
 one perpetuated from a former age or from former gener- 
 ations. These three facts alone : that . it was written 
 long afterwards, and almost certainly in a subsequent 
 age ; that it was written to meet an existing and special 
 need ; and that it is never even referred to by any of the 
 other Gospels, are quite sufficient to destroy its weight as 
 evidence.
 
 THE REVIVAL. 615 
 
 It will be seen, also, that the story tells us, not only 
 of the meetings, movements and consultations of the 
 high Jewish and Roman officials, but their very lan- 
 guage, their private knowledge, and the secret acts, 
 purposes and language of persons who could only have 
 given them publicity at their own highest peril. Such 
 knowledge could never have been possessed by the 
 Galilean fishermen who were then in hiding for their 
 own lives. Such detailed knowledge of thoughts, lan- 
 guage and events of such a character, could only have 
 been, all, known to God, and it will appear, pretty cer- 
 tainly, that God was not the author of this story before 
 we have done with it. 
 
 Let us glance at the probabilities, or rather improb- 
 abilities, of this story. The very first assertion in it 
 shows, that it emanated from a person ignorant of the 
 customs of the Jews, or who availed himself of such 
 ignorance in those whom he specially addressed. The 
 day on which the " chief priests and Pharisees " are 
 said to have assembled and determined upon this request 
 for a guard, and then went in a body to Pilate to make 
 the request, and then proceeded to station and set the 
 guard and seal the sepulchre, was the Passover SabbatJi, 
 the most sacred day in the Jewish calendar. To suppose 
 that the " chief priests and Pharisees " those ex- 
 emplars of Jewish piety who were enraged at Jesus for 
 even healing the sick on the sabbath, would devote 
 their time to all this on this "high" sabbath day, was
 
 6l6 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 supposing the unsupposable the morally impossible. 
 Had they have desired to make such a request on 
 that day, they would unquestionably have sent a mes- 
 senger with a request for Pilate himself to have it done. 
 For we have seen, not only how sacred these men re- 
 garded and kept the sabbath, but we have seen that 
 they regarded this special day so sacred that they dared 
 not enter the Roman governor's palace even the day 
 before, at the trial of Jesus, lest it might defile them so 
 as to disqualify them for their sacred privileges and 
 duties on this very day, when they are said, not only to 
 have visited Pilate, but to have engaged thus largely in 
 temporal affairs. 
 
 And again : This was evidently done, at the earliest, 
 on sabbath morning the morning after the crucifixion. 
 Now, if the disciples were likely to steal the body, could 
 they not steal it the first night as well as afterwards, 
 and were they not as likely to do so ? And had not the 
 body been delivered, from the very first and uncondition- 
 ally, into possession and control of two disciples of 
 Jesus, to do what they pleased with it ? If the high 
 priests and Pharisees did not know them to be actual or 
 open disciples of Jesus, they suspected it, and sub- 
 stantially charged it on one of them, and knew that they 
 had opposed his conviction and had been his most active 
 friends throughout. They had all left before he was 
 taken from the cross, and could not be supposed to 
 have known where he was taken to. For none seems 
 to have followed and watched where they took him 
 except the two Marys. But if they were informed about 
 the matter at all, they must have known that he had
 
 THE REVIVAL. 6 1 / 
 
 been at once delivered over to his friends when taken 
 from the cross, and deposited in the private tomb of 
 Joseph ; and that Pilate, nor nobody else, had any right 
 to further interfere, in any way, with that tomb or with 
 the body or the disposal of it. Is it possible, then, to 
 believe, that these men, knowing that Jesus had fore- 
 told his resurrection and being desirous to test its truth, 
 should have never said a word about it while the body 
 was under legal control and Pilate had a right to 
 grant their request, but have permitted the execution to 
 close and the body to pass unconditionally out of all 
 legal control, into the hands of its private friends, and 
 to have remained under the control of those friends long 
 enough to have conveyed it to Jericho or beyond the 
 Jordan, and then, for the first time, solemnly assemble 
 and consult about asking Pilate to do what neither he 
 nor they had the slightest right to do, even if it were 
 not too late for any practical use ? The idea is in- 
 credible. Both they and Pilate would have known, that 
 he had neither the right nor the inclination to grant 
 their request And had they made so irrational and 
 useless a request, Pilate would have delighted to refuse 
 it, if he had thought it would in the least humor them, 
 or favor their purposes in this matter, as he did their 
 request concerning his insulting superscription on the 
 cross. 
 
 But again : How came these priests to remember 
 that Jesus had said, that " After three days I shall arise 
 again ? " Jesus had, really, never said any such thing 
 to anybody, but certainly not to those priests. He 
 had said in the Temple that, if they would tear down
 
 6l8 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 that Temple, he would build it again in three days, 
 but no allusion was made, in any form, to his own 
 death or the prospect of it ; nor could or did any one 
 who heard it suppose for a moment, that his remark 
 had any allusion to his own death or resurrection, or 
 that it had any secret meaning beyond the plain import 
 of the words used. Nor did Jesus ever say that they 
 had any such occult meaning, even to his disciples. 
 After he had reappeared on the third day, then some of 
 the writers of the Gospels or their subsequent aiders 
 took it upon themselves to .explain it by gratuitously 
 telling us that, in speaking of rearing the Temple in 
 three days, he meant the temple of his own body. How 
 then, we repeat, could these priests have remembered 
 and been so anxious about, what they had never heard ? 
 At this very time, the Apostles themselves had no 
 thought of his resurrection, and declared that they had 
 never even heard of any scripture that he was to rise 
 from the dead, and regarded the report of two of their 
 own women, who had seen the empty sepulchre and 
 had actually seen and talked to Jesus himself after 
 he had left the sepulchre, as mere "idle tales; "and 
 had actually prepared spices for his burial on that 
 very third day. And yet, at that very time (we 
 are long afterwards told), the Jewish priests remem- 
 bered all about his going to rise, and were breaking the 
 sabbath to get Pilate to do what he had no right to 
 do, in order to prevent any pretence of Jesus having 
 fulfilled his prediction, by keeping him from getting into 
 the hands of his friends, when he had been delivered 
 into their hands from the moment he had left the 
 cross !
 
 THE REVIVAL. 
 
 And again : Had all these " chief priests and Phar- 
 isees " have known of such a prediction, and have pub- 
 licly gone to Pilate about it, and have publicly gone 
 with a guard to the sepulchre and set a seal on it, to 
 prevent any chance of imposition in the matter, and 
 done all this on the sabbath of the Passover, when the 
 city was crowded with strangers and Jerusalem was 
 ringing with the trial and crucifixion of its pretended 
 King and Christ, What would have been the result 
 upon the people ? Such singular and public proceedings 
 would have spread the news of their object "like wild 
 fire" through the assembled thousands. The rumor of 
 such a declaration on the part of Jesus, and the fact 
 that the rulers of the people were taking up the matter 
 seriously, and the possibility of so stupendous an event 
 would have created such a fever of curiosity and such 
 a contagion of excitement that thousands would have 
 -rushed to Calvary to witness the result. There would 
 have been a guard of tens of thousands of people instead 
 of half a dozen soldiers. 
 
 But again : The reported conduct of the Jewish rulers 
 and of the guards who reported to them is, if possible, 
 more incredible than anything in the whole story. That 
 a guard of Roman soldiers on special duty should have 
 seen an angel come clown from heaven, with " raiment as 
 white as snow " and a " countenance like lightning," in 
 the midst of a " great earthquake," and open the very 
 tomb they were guarding, is a matter, one would say, 
 that is somewhat incredible. That no one else in the 
 city should have been disturbed by so great an earth- 
 quake, and that these soldiers should have left their post
 
 62O ESUS AND RELIGION. % 
 
 without orders or without at once reporting to their 
 superior officers is also quite incredible quite unlike all 
 otner earthquakes, and quite unlike the iron fidelity and 
 discipline of the Roman soldier. That a few of these 
 guards should go and tell " all these things that were 
 done " to the chief priests ; that the Sanhedrim should 
 be assembled ; that under the very nose of Pilate and 
 almost certainly in the presence of secret sympathizers 
 with Jesus, these Jewish rulers should have dared to 
 offer a bribe to a number of Pilate's soldiers to report a 
 lie, and should have been so silly and so lavish of money 
 as to give them " large money " to smother the fact of a 
 " great earthquake " and other divine manifestations, and 
 to report that most stupid, dangerous and improbable of 
 all lies, namely, that " his disciples came by night and 
 stole him away while we slept" is certainly very incred- 
 ible, when told of all this intelligent and pious body of 
 Jews. These facts are rendered still more incredible 
 when we reflect upon the probabilities of the immediate 
 exposure of their infamous conduct, and still more when 
 we reflect upon its utter uselessness ; since they knew 
 that they were bribing but a part of the guard, and that 
 the other soldiers of the guard who had gone to their 
 quarters or elsewhere, would not be influenced by this 
 bribe to their fellows, but were probably, at that 
 moment, telling to their officers or comrades this whole 
 marvellous story they were thus trying to suppress by 
 the most shameful means. It is bad enough to charge 
 the whole body of the Jewish priests and elders with 
 being unscrupulous villains, without charging them with 
 being idiots as well. That these soldiers, also, should 
 have dared the palpable risk, nay, the moral certainty,
 
 THE REVIVAL. 621 
 
 of immediate exposure and certain execution, by taking 
 this degrading bribe : that they should all, moreove^ 
 consent to degrade themselves as men, to stultify and 
 dishonor themselves as soldiers, and by their own re- 
 port charge themselves with the capital and unpardon- 
 able offence of " sleeping at their posts," and that, too, 
 upon the less than worthless promise of the men who 
 bribed them, that they would persuade Pilate to forgive 
 them for this unpardonable military crime that they, 
 whose very advocacy would but seal their doom with 
 Pilate, would persuade him to save them ! that these 
 soldiers should have so acted, we say, is immeasurably 
 incredible. Taking the whole story together we remem- 
 ber no similar bundle of palpable improbabilities and 
 absurdities, in so short a compass, which has ever re- 
 ceived the credence of intelligent people. 
 
 Even as the story stands, however, it might have 
 claimed forbearance from our theory ; since its truth 
 would have insured rather than hindered the operations 
 that theory supposes to have taken place. We have 
 seen that Jesus was delivered to his most powerful and 
 active friends, about an hour and a half before sundown 
 on the day preceding this demand on Pilate for a guard ; 
 and that there was ample time and opportunity for any 
 kind of assistance to have been furnished before that de- 
 mand was even determined upon. Indeed there was 
 ample time and opportunity to furnish them and apply 
 restoratives that same evening. And had anything been
 
 622 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 left incomplete, we know that both Joseph and Nico- 
 demus were members of that body which met and de- 
 termined upon asking for a guard, and would have 
 known of the purpose to procure it, from the very first 
 movement in the matter ; and could have been able t'o 
 furnish whatever else might have been needed, and to 
 have notified Jesus, long before the proceedings required 
 to procure and set such a guard could, have been gone 
 through with. But this is said upon the supposition that 
 such a guard would have been antagonistic to the pur- 
 poses of the friends of Jesus. Precisely the reverse, 
 however, as we have said, would have been the fact. 
 The guard, if it existed, consisted of -part of the Temple 
 guard, and were the most .trusted troops of Pilate. It 
 would most probably have been intrusted to tb very 
 centurions who managed the crucifixion. These men 
 were Romans Pilate's favorite guard and household 
 troops the men that held the Temple itself, and were 
 but the agents of his will, and, as the very story admits, 
 were accountable to him alone for their conduct. Such 
 a guard would have been the identical thing to secure 
 absolute immunity from special and unsuspected facili- 
 ties and all chance of disturbance. We have seen just 
 how much cause Joseph and Nicodemus had to dread 
 Pilate and his soldiers in this matter. Not only could 
 they have had free access to the body under such a 
 guard, but they could have made the officer of the guard, 
 by a mere word from Pilate, their own instruments in 
 everything. But, had the guard, actually prevented in- 
 gress into the sepulchre, we have seen that no ingress 
 was necessary after the guard was set. Nor could the 
 guard have hindered any necessary operation, until the
 
 THE REVIVAL. 623 
 
 time came for the escape of Jesus. And the story itself 
 tells us that the guard had actually left in time for Jesus 
 to actually escape before it was fully daylight. If it were 
 not a benefit, it was certainly set too late and left too 
 early to be an in j ury. If, indeed, such a guard were ever 
 set, the true source and purpose of its employment can 
 scarcely permit of a doubt. Pilate had no right, as he 
 most certainly had no inclination, to interfere further in 
 the matter, unless he did so at the instance and for the 
 purpose of favoring Joseph and Nicodemus in their 
 friendly purposes. Seeing that they had been followed 
 and watched by that indefatigable devotee, Mary Magda- 
 len, and her associate, it may well have been that Joseph 
 and Nicodemus feared that the disciples of Jesus, hear- 
 ing of his being placed in this sepulchre from these fe- 
 male disciples, might attempt to visit and look upon the 
 body, and might even attempt to take possession of it 
 with a view of burying it themselves. They may even 
 have known of the burial preparations that those hum- 
 bler and more open followers of Jesus had been actually 
 making ; for they actually had been making such prep- 
 arations and intended to bury him themselves, on the 
 very day he reappearc d. And it was known that Jesus 
 had taught his disciples that it was lawful to do any 
 " good work" on the sabbath, and that there was danger 
 that they might come and take the body at night or on 
 the sabbath. Such an attempt, or even a visiting of the 
 body to look upon it, would have greatly endangered the 
 chances of both secrecy and escape. The secrecy and 
 discretion of this ignorant body of men, and much less 
 of the ignorant women who accompanied them, were by 
 no means to be depended upon in so dangerous and mo-
 
 624 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 mentous an affair. And we find, by what occurred after- 
 wards, that the matter never was intended to have been 
 divulged to the disciples beyond what was unavoidable. 
 These two men were the Jewish rulers, then, if any, who 
 instigated this setting of a guard. They, alone, had 
 either sufficient motive or power to procure it. It is 
 possible that, to prevent suspicion of any kind, they pro- 
 cured the concurrence of the chief men of the Sanhe- 
 drim, of which they were members, by suggesting that, 
 if the disciples came and took the body and gave it a 
 public burial, the reaction which might arise from the 
 sympathy this might excite, would bring odium on those 
 who caused the death. Other than motives of this kind, 
 indeed, the Jewish rulers had no concern in the matter. 
 They had been inexorable in their purpose, but the mo- 
 tive of that purpose was not vindictiveness, although 
 they were incensed at Jesus. The motive was clearly 
 declared, and pertained to the public good. It was " ex- 
 pedient " that he should die for the security of the Jew- 
 ish .people and their privileges. Had he denied his 
 kingly pretensions on his trial, or given satisfactory as- 
 surances that he would abandon them, the matter would 
 never have been pressed to extremities at all. After his 
 sentence and crucifixion the fears which had stimulated 
 the Jewish rulers, no longer existed. Jesus could never 
 re-appear openly, since his condemnation and sentence 
 would still stand in force until executed ; and his re- 
 appearance would be at once proof that it had not been 
 executed, and leave him subject to their power at any 
 moment, and to re-crucifixion on his o3d sentence. 
 Having this power and knowing that he was thenceforth 
 powerless as a political or religious agitator of the Jews,
 
 THE REVIVAL 625 
 
 they would probably have ignored, or even been gratified 
 at his secret escape, so far as he himself was concerned. 
 The real danger, even to Jesus, did not lie here. But 
 his re-appearance or discovery would bring down all 
 their power and vengeance upon the members of their 
 own body who had been secretly untrue to them, and 
 had aided in his escape, as well as upon Pilate, who had 
 fought them from the beginning, and had thus finally 
 and secretly outwitted them. To secure the proof of 
 their complicity in his escape, and their vengeance upon 
 them for it, they would have certainly seized Jesus, at 
 whatever cost, if an opportunity had offered. And, if 
 ever these priests were told of any earthquakes, angels, 
 etc., it was told them to deter them from inquiring as 
 to the real facts concerning his burial. 
 
 However these possibilities may have been, we are 
 really concerned only to know that Jesus having entered 
 that sepulchre or room in a live condition, there was 
 ample and especially favorable opportunities for his re- 
 vival, as well as for aiding his revival and for preparing 
 for his escape, and that all this actually ojccurred, and 
 by natural means and in natural ways ; that he actually 
 did recover from his swoon and prostration, and was 
 not only left free to come out before day on the morning 
 after the sabbath, but that he did come out, clothed and 
 prepared for escape ; and that, as there were two per- 
 sons who put him there, so there were two persons there 
 before day on that morning, to help and aid him ; and 
 
 40
 
 626 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 that in this simple and natural revival from a swoon, 
 within this secret recess, under the supervision of these 
 two indefatigable Jews, we have the simple reality of the 
 basic fact of the most potent of human religions, and one 
 which, for nineteen centuries, has inspired the lives and 
 consoled the death-beds of unnumbered millions of 
 Earth's bravest and best. Mysterious and altogether 
 wonderful are thy methods, O God !
 
 THE ESCAPE. 627 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 WE have considered some of the concurrent and an- 
 tecedent facts bearing upon the vital condition of Jesus 
 during his punishment upon the cross and during his 
 stay in his rock retreat. It remains still for us to re- 
 view the events connected with his reappearance and 
 escape, and to determine their bearing upon the question 
 at issue. For it will be perceived at once, that these 
 events are of the greatest value in interpreting the pre- 
 vious condition, conduct and motives of the parties con- 
 cerned ; since they are largely correlated to them as 
 their direct effects. And it is by this class of presump- 
 tive evidence that this question is to be determined. 
 The mere fact of the reappearance of Jesus in bodily 
 life is a matter depending upon more direct testimony. 
 This fact was, as we have seen, untruly and illogically 
 assumed, by his ignorant followers, to be proof that he 
 had been raised from the dead, when they should, to the 
 contrary, have accepted it as conclusive proof that he 
 had not been dead at all. The fact of a resurrection 
 from death and the mode of that resurrection, however, 
 are asserted without any direct proof or a pretence of 
 direct proof of it. It was a mere assumption, made not
 
 628 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 only without support, but in defiance of a conclusive 
 presumption of its untruth, and one which was sustained 
 not only by the resistless fact of subsequent life, but by 
 the entire body of the facts. No one saw Jesus rise 
 from the dead. If it ever occurred it was far more hid- 
 den than that of Lazarus. It occurred at the most secret 
 hour of the night, within a closed and lonely rock sepul- 
 chre, out of sight of, and unknown to, all mortals. Jesus 
 did not even say that he had risen from the dead or that 
 God had raised him from the dead. His declaration to 
 his disciples who had refused to believe that their women 
 had actually seen him, was in these words : " Ought not 
 Christ to have suffered these tilings, and to enter into his 
 glory." There is neither an affirmation of his death, nor 
 of his resurrection, but his peculiar expression, " suffered 
 these things" would be more likely to be used to express 
 his sufferings under our theory than in saying that it 
 was necessary that he should have died and have risen 
 from the dead ; but sounds more like an evasion than 
 either. The complete indefiniteness of the expression 
 would seem to indicate that he avoided actually affirming 
 either that he was dead or had been resurrected, but al- 
 lowed them to infer it. This, at least, is what we must 
 do, if we believe it at all. The sole evidence of his 
 resurrection (not his mere reappearance) is an infer- 
 ence from facts on the cross which, as we have seen, 
 could not have even endangered life. If there are other 
 reasons to believe in the resurrection, they must be found 
 in the after occurrences. In both the antecedent and 
 subsequent evidence, the supporters of all these Gospel 
 miracles find little save " broken reeds " that yield and 
 pierce them. For it is here that these old mistakes and
 
 THE ESCAPE. 629 
 
 fabrications exhibit their greatest weakness and leave 
 the surest evidences of their true character. Their au- 
 thors themselves were neither critical nor logical, and 
 they had not reached that point of mental progress which 
 enabled them to clearly, if at all, perceive the. correlation 
 between events and their natural causes and consequents. 
 It is here that they are most unguarded and exposed 
 
 In reviewing this after-evidence we have before us 
 two opposite theories as to the essential or controlling 
 facts, first : the natural and rational theory : that the 
 evidence furnished no perceivable or adequate natural 
 cause why Jesus shottld have died on the cross, or any 
 evidence that he did die there, but shows, to the reverse 
 t)f this, that, from what occurred there, he ought to have 
 survived, and that he did survive, and was afterwards re- 
 vived in his rock retreat and escaped, with or without 
 the aid of others. Second : the supernatural theory, 
 that Jesus was an Incarnate God, at once the Messiah of 
 the Jews and the conditional Redeemer of mankind ; 
 that he actually and willingly gave up his life or suffered 
 death on the cross as a vicarious sacrifice and atonement 
 for the sins of all true believers ; that, while actually 
 and completely dead, he rose from the dead by divine 
 power, in contravention of the laws of Nature.
 
 630 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Now it is manifest that, if Jesus was a Divine Re- 
 deemer who came among men to die for their sins and 
 to arise again from death for their justification, upon the 
 condition of their believing in the truth of these facts, 
 his conduct will, in all things, conform to his divine 
 character and mission and to the ends proposed ; while 
 it is equally manifest that, if he were a mere condemned 
 man who was fortunate or favored enough to have sur- 
 vived his punishment, and was compelled to use the 
 necessary means to escape from the dread penalty which 
 would still have hung over him, then we may expect to 
 find him act according to the dictates of human nature 
 when inspired by the motives and necessities which such 
 a situation involved. And perhaps there is no better 
 way to prepare our minds to determine the true signifi- 
 cance of this after-conduct, than by endeavoring to 
 realize the course of action he would be likely to pursue, 
 or such as would be fairly predicable of him, upon these 
 several adverse hypotheses as to his character, situation 
 and purposes ; and see how they severally correspond 
 with the real facts. 
 
 Men, by the extreme self-abnegation and mental 
 slavery to which they have been reduced by their super- 
 stitious fears and religious training in all things which 
 pertain to this assumed Deity, are content to forego 
 their simplest rights of reason and manhood when es- 
 timating his character and conduct, and to satisfy them- 
 selves by the supposition that they have neither the capa- 
 city to judge, nor the right to question or reason about 
 them that in some incomprehensible way he must have 
 acted consistently with his divine nature and purpose,
 
 THE ESCAPE 63 I 
 
 since he was divine. But we must again repeat that it is 
 reasoning in a vicious circle to assume his divinity in 
 order to sustain the very facts without which he would 
 never have been thought of as a God. Besides, it 
 is neither reverential nor complimentary to God to 
 suppose that his acts are ungodlike, inconsequent and 
 inefficient. We may indeed fail to comprehend the 
 real purposes or methods of God, but when an alleged 
 purpose of a supposed God, incarnated in the flesh, 
 is plainly told us, and the means he used to accom- 
 plish that purpose are precisely such as would neces- 
 sarily defeat the proposed end, we are untrue to the 
 real God and to ourselves if we fail to exercise our 
 reason in regard to it. The worshippers of Jesus, 
 since his alleged resurrection and consequent apoth- 
 eosis, have endeavored to maintain that he was both 
 the prophesied Messiah of the Jews and a divine sac- 
 rifice or sin-offering for whosoever would believe on 
 him. The real fact, however, is, that these pretensions 
 are utterly incompatible with each other and were not 
 amalgamated or contemporaneously maintained by him- 
 self. Before his rejection by the Jews, he had both 
 hoped and endeavored to acquire the temporal Messiah- 
 ship of the Jews, and had expressly limited his mission 
 and efforts to that peculiar race ; and neither friend nor 
 foe ever suspected a purpose involving his vicarious sac- 
 rifice for the sins of the world. It was only after his 
 punishment and supposed resurrection that that punish- 
 ment was appropriated as a pre-determined offering for 
 the sins of believers. This new notion was born of the 
 supposed facts upon which it was based, and only after 
 the hopeless failure of his exclusively Jewish project.
 
 632 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 After his rejection and crucifixion by the Jews, his Mes- 
 sianic pretensions were at an end, unless he could do 
 something which would produce a total reversion of his 
 rejection, by a revolution in the opinion of the Jewish 
 rulers and people. For all subsequent pretences about 
 his future or spiritual Messiahship are but the merest 
 makeshifts or subterfuges to cover a palpable failure. 
 It was therefore possible to him, if a God, to take such 
 steps as would not leave his entire pretensions during 
 his public career a mere abortion ; and, failing this, or 
 concurrently with it, to use such means as would most 
 efficiently demonstrate his divinity and insure such a 
 belief in himself as would secure the moral salvation of 
 both Jews and Gentiles. These embrace the essential 
 objects of his presence upon Earth. To these, there- 
 fore, would his conduct and efforts have been directed, 
 and with all the wisdom and efficiency of a God. This 
 much we have a right to expect, if he were a God or 
 at all what he is claimed to have been. God's ways may 
 differ from ours, but that difference is not marked by 
 their inconsequentiality, inefficiency and absurdity. 
 
 In anticipating the character of his subsequent con- 
 duct from such purposes and from the supernatural 
 stand-point, we must observe that absolute power was at 
 his disposal, and was only limited by his desires and 
 purposes. We perceive, also, that the means calculated 
 to insure all men's belief in his divinity, would be such 
 as were calculated, at the same time, to insure the un-
 
 THE ESCAPE. 633 
 
 questioning acceptance by the Jews in any character 
 which he had chosen to dictate. All prophecies would 
 have been made to yield to Jehovah himself. What, 
 then, would we have a right to expect of a beneficent 
 Deity, under such circumstances, who was desirous of 
 securing either the recognition of his Messiahship by 
 the Jews (for whatever end), or the recognition by all 
 men of his Godhood and of his resurrection from the 
 dead ? Undoubtedly we have a right to expect that he 
 would have had, at least, his actual death publicly and 
 incontestably proven beyond all power of questioning or 
 cavilling ; that he would perform his resurrection from 
 the dead publicly and in a manner to render the fact ab- 
 solutely unquestionable ; and that he would perform the 
 whole with such evidences of his divine nature and power 
 as would demonstrate his divinity beyond the possibility 
 of rational doubt. To suppo'se that the Creator of the 
 human race had predetermined, before their creation, 
 that he would, in the form claimed, redeem them to 
 eternal happiness, upon the condition of their belief in 
 his incarnation, death and resurrection, and to damn 
 them to eternity if they did not believe in them ; and 
 yet suppose that he would do less than we have indicated 
 to insure this necessary belief for their salvation, is sup- 
 posing that that Creator is not only less than a God, but 
 more unjust and less beneficent than any human being 
 would be under like circumstances and with like power. 
 Nay, more, it is supposing a cruel and malignant spirit 
 in the Creator ; since he could, without cost or trouble, 
 have furnished the most resistless proofs, by a mere 
 act of volition. Is it possible, therefore, to suppose that 
 a beneficent Creator who was willing to ignominiously
 
 634 ' JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 die to redeem his creatures, could allow those creatures 
 to lose this redemption and be condemned to endless 
 torment, by countless millions, by his refusing to exhibit 
 evidence which would only cost him an act of volition ? 
 The bare supposition is blasphemous ! 
 
 "(f i?:/ -.;:.->>_, ;A 'il {'; V!.;; ;, f^ji-JV/f -.;: ,': .j ;:.;, u; Vjfc 
 
 But what proofs or exhibitions should we expect ? 
 The specific proofs would have been a matter of indiffer- 
 ence, provided they were such as were calculated to in- 
 sure the requisite belief of those who were to be benefited. 
 The whole matter occurred and was intended for the 
 benefit of man upon condition of his belief in it, and the 
 proofs, therefore, were to affect the minds of men, and 
 if they were from God, they would have been such as to 
 most efficiently convince the human mind. There were 
 thousands of ways of doing it, and God would have 
 known the most efficient way. One method might be 
 briefly suggested, in an off-hand way, however, which 
 might serve for a comparison with the reality which we 
 are considering. Let us suppose, for example, that, 
 when Jesus was taunted on the cross, by his rejecters, 
 with his lack of the divine power which he had professed, 
 he had calmly and kindly explained to them, that it was 
 necessary for their salvation, and to the salvation of all 
 men, that he should die on the cross, and that they were 
 but the necessary instruments of the sacrifice which he 
 was offering for those of the human race who would be- 
 lieve in and accept it ; but, at the same time, assure 
 them that he would publicly arise from the dead at mid- 
 day on the day after the approaching sabbath ; and that, 
 as faith in his divinity and in the merits of his atone- 
 ment were a condition of the salvation for which he
 
 THE ESCAPE. 635 
 
 died, it was necessary to that end, that they should be 
 unquestionably verified at his resurrection ; and re- 
 quest them to bring out the entire city, with all its offi- 
 cials, and its visitors of all nationalities, to witness the 
 proofs of his divinity ; and that, to prevent their treat- 
 ing his request lightly, he would cause a " great earth- 
 quake " to warn them at sunrise, at noon, and at sunset 
 on the sabbath, and that, on the morning of the day of 
 his resurrection, an angel should appear above the Tem- 
 ple, with " garments as white as snow," and a " coun- 
 tenance like lightning " if you will, and summons the 
 people to come and behold the resurrection of God and 
 the salvation of man. To insure the certainty of his 
 death, we will suppose him to direct that, instead of 
 sparing him the breaking of his limbs, they should sever 
 both his limbs and his head from his body, and deposit 
 the whole in the sepulchre. 
 
 Let us now suppose all these things to have been 
 actually done, and the peoples and magnates to have as- 
 sembled, at the appointed midday hour, to witness the 
 resurrection. Behold ! Adam and Eve, Abel and Noah, 
 Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Ra- 
 chel, Moses and Elias, Solomon and David descend from 
 the heavens, as they are respectively announced by a 
 voice from Heaven, and range themselves in mid air 
 above the sepulchre, to witness the " seed of the woman 
 bruise the serpent's head." . The vast rock of the sepul- 
 chre now becomes more transparent than crystal, an4 
 the mutilated remains of the body of God are clearly 
 visible to all eyes. The " forty legions of angels " which 
 Jesus said he could command, actually appear, and fill 
 the circle of the heavens with their resplendent glories,
 
 636 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 and with the music which " makes glad the city of the 
 living God." An ineffable splendor bathes the entire 
 heavens and illuminates all things with a divine glory. 
 The Temple becomes as transparent as glass, and the 
 " shekina " is seen in unwonted glory hovering over the 
 mercy seat in the " holy of holies." The transparent 
 rock of the sepulchre evaporates, and vanishes in the 
 ambient air. The mutilated remains of Jesus lay naked 
 and exposed in the universal luminosity. In the full 
 sight of the assembled thousands the dissevered head and 
 limbs of the corpse, as if spontaneously, reunite with the 
 body. The color and breath of life return to it : and 
 Jesus rises in all the perfection of his restored manhood 
 and the majesty of his divinity, and of his vindicated 
 Godhood, and is borne aloft unto the heavens between 
 Adam and Eve, amid the " Te Deum laudimus " of the 
 Heavenly Host ; while upon the vault of the heavens, in 
 letters of fire, and in all languages, are written the words 
 " Man is redeemed." There then arises, upon the site 
 of the sepulchre, from out the earth, a vast pyramid of 
 impenetrable diamond, indestructible by man, upon 
 which is recorded these divine events, in all languages, 
 and in letters of diamond light, for the. benefit of future 
 generations. 
 
 How immeasurably more effective than this the 
 whole matter might have been done by the miracle- 
 working God of the Christians, we need not pause to 
 inquire. We can but think, however, that even this
 
 THE ESCAPE. 637 
 
 crude off-hand conception would -have presented a far 
 more appropriate, credible and Godlike course, than to 
 have furnished a pretended death which had, literally, 
 neither test nor proof of its reality, and which was so 
 absolutely incredible, from a natural stand-point, as to 
 compel its wisest believers to cover its impossibility by 
 the confession that it was miraculous ; and, after this 
 asserted, but wholly incredible death, to have performed 
 his pretended resurrection at the last and most secret 
 hour of the night, in a lonely sepulchre, without wit- 
 nesses, and while all men slept, and then to have fled in 
 disguise from the face of all men, save when meeting his 
 trusted followers in the profoundest secrecy, like any 
 other condemned man escaping and fleeing from the 
 death penalty. Thus, at least, it would appear to the 
 merely human and rational mind unilluminated by 
 grace : the minds most needing the proper proofs. 
 ~Could the Jews or others have spurned such proofs of 
 the divinity of Jesus, had he furnished them ? And if 
 these or far higher proofs had been necessary to secure 
 the faith of his creatures in the existence of a fact so 
 inherently incredible, and so apparently impossible as 
 that an infinite God could be domiciled in the compass 
 of a human body, and be born of a woman, and would 
 lead the life of a common mechanic among the people, 
 Would not a God who loved his creatures well enough 
 to thus humiliate himself for them, and finally to die for 
 them, be more than willing to furnish such proofs for 
 their benefit, when their eternal salvation or damnation, 
 and the success of his own predetermined and death- 
 bought ransom of them were so dependent on them ? 
 There can be assigned no even plausible reason or excuse
 
 638 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 for his failure to furnish them. With an asserted power 
 which could have furnished any kind of divine manifes- 
 tation and proof proof which would bring every priest, 
 infidel and Pharisee in Jude'a to his feet, at any time he 
 chose to exert it, he had hitherto exhibited only such 
 evidences as had actually brought upon him the impu- 
 tation of insanity and the general disbelief and con- 
 demnation of the almost entire people whom he had 
 come more especially to benefit. Here, then, in his own 
 past experiences, was an infallible, because actual, test 
 of the efficiency of his methods, and the positive proof 
 of the insufficiency of the kind of evidence already fur- 
 nished, to secure the belief and acceptance which it was 
 his express purpose to secure. Why did he not furnish 
 it afterwards ? The Christian God could have furnished 
 it without cost or trouble, and with far less expenditure 
 of time than was consumed by Jesus in fleeing from, in- 
 stead of meeting, the Jews. It may be contended, with 
 however bad a grace by the followers of Jesus, that be- 
 fore the crucifixion it was necessary that the Jewish 
 rulers should disbelieve in him, in order that they might 
 cause his crucifixion and thereby secure the necessary 
 vicarious atonement for Humanity, which is now claimed 
 to have been the essential object of his incarnation. 
 But whatever semblance of an apology or explanation 
 this may furnish to the minds of the worshippers of 
 Jesus, the reason and apology wholly failed after his 
 death was fully provided for or accomplished. There 
 could then remain no possible reason why this benefi- 
 cent incarnated God should either fear or flee from the 
 Jewish power or should refuse or neglect to furnish 
 those incontestible and efficient proofs of his divinity
 
 THE ESCAPE. 639 
 
 which he had hitherto failed to furnish ; but, on the 
 contrary, every duty and every inclinatiqn of so loving 
 and beneficent a Deity, and such an eternal and forgiv- 
 ing lover of his frail and sinful creatures, would alike 
 impel him to do it, and to do it efficiently. For, if even 
 the Jewish rulers had erred in rejecting Jesus as the 
 Christ, they had erred through ignorance, as Peter, in 
 his sermon to the Jews, expressly admits (Acts iii. 1 7), 
 and also Paul (II. Cor. ii. 7 and 8). But, were it possi- 
 ble to offer a reason why Jesus failed to demonstrate his 
 divinity by such further exhibitions of divine power, of 
 the character suggested, Can any conceivable reason or 
 apology be given, upon the Christian theory, why Jesus 
 continued to refuse to permit the public or any of the 
 Jews to have visible or personal evidence of the facts 
 which actually did occur why he not only performed 
 his pretended resurrection out of all human knowledge, 
 sight or anticipation, and in a way forbidding all possi- 
 ble knowledge or verification of it, but concealed from 
 the public and from the Jews his person and all chance 
 of direct personal evidence of even the fact of his re- 
 appearing alive ? For St. Peter expressly declares that 
 he was not shown to the public after the resurrection, 
 but only " unto witnesses chosen before God, even to tts, 
 who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the 
 dead" (Acts x. 40, 41). Why was not a single citizen 
 of Judea permitted to recognize him and know he was 
 alive ? Why must the Jews have been compelled, again, 
 to rely for proof of this final act of divine power upon 
 the say-so of these chosen witnesses and trained Gali- 
 lean followers of their own professed Jewish Messiah ? 
 Having seen the weight due to the subsequent con-
 
 640 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 duct of Jesus in determining the reality of his resurrec- 
 tion and divinity, and attempted to suggest the general 
 character of a course of conduct consistent with the 
 truth of those facts and with the alleged divine purposes 
 of Jesus, we may now perform a like service from the 
 natural and purely human stand-point and in conformity 
 with the interpretation of the facts for which we have 
 contended. Treating Jesus as a mere man, we are to 
 infer that he would have exhibited that correlation and 
 consistency between his conduct and his objects and 
 motives which is a trait of human action that he would 
 have acted as a mere man would be likely to act under 
 the entire conditions and circumstances under which he 
 acted, and under the necessities, objects and motives in- 
 volved, subject to the appropriate modifications result- 
 ing from any peculiarity in his own character, rela- 
 tions, etc. 
 
 What, then, were the conditions existing at the time 
 of his supposed resurrection ? We have a conception of 
 them already. He had been sentenced to death, and 
 had survived the partial execution of his sentence, with 
 the secret knowledge and connivance of Pilate and his 
 Jewish coadjutors- Joseph and Nicodemus. He had 
 been immediately delivered, in his swooning condition, 
 but without despatchment, into the hands of these two 
 astute and faithful, but secret Jewish disciples, and had 
 remained under their exclusive control and in a place 
 admirably adapted to all their purposes and to the pro- 
 foundest privacy, as has been shown. The sentence of 
 death upon Jesus still remained unexecuted and in full 
 force, and to have openly re-appeared would have been
 
 THE ESCAPE. 64! 
 
 to give the signal for his own re-arrest and execution, 
 besides proving the ruin of his friends Nicodemus and 
 Joseph, and probably of Pilate himself. For it would 
 not only have been legitimately assumed as positive 
 proof of the insufficiency of his punishment and as pre- 
 sumptive evidence of the connivance of those concerned, 
 but it would have recalled the many additional proofs of 
 their intention to save him which we have already re- 
 ferred to, and have awakened inquiry into other and 
 more secret evidences of their purpose. 
 
 It was to the last degree important, therefore, both 
 to Jesus and his aiders and benefactors, that the fact of 
 his revival should not become known to the Jews. Any 
 mere subsequent rumor of his having miraculously risen 
 from the dead would, of course, be met with incredulity 
 and endeavors to suppress it ; but an accredited assertion 
 of his being actually alive and at large would have awa- 
 kened all the powers and vengeance of the Jewish rulers. 
 A secret flight and continued banishment, in cognito, 
 became, then, at once the necessity and paramount object 
 of both Jesus and his secret aiders. The immediate 
 necessity and object was to get his disciples out of 
 Judea, and for him himself to first escape into their old 
 haunts in Galilee, where he could remain in hiding until 
 matters had quieted down, preparatory to his final exit 
 from Palestine. 
 
 His escape on the first night was probably impossible 
 on account of his prostration, and possibly the want of 
 suitable means of disguise, and would certainly be dan- 
 gerous on account of the ignorance of his disciples of
 
 642 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the true facts. The same causes might have operated 
 on the Sabbath, even if their movements and his travel- 
 ling on the Sabbath would not have been calculated to 
 attract attention. It became necessary, however, to 
 effect their purpose on the succeeding night ; since it 
 was morally certain that his disciples would be looking 
 after his body early on the following morning. The 
 practical difficulty, in fact, arose from his own devoted 
 followers. These were expecting and had prepared to 
 bury him on that day ; and it was certain that no excuse 
 could be invented to put off his disciples if they came 
 for the body and failed to procure or see it. It was 
 necessary, therefore, to complete their operations before 
 daylight, and give his disciples to understand, not the 
 true facts, with which they dare not trust to the discre- 
 tion of such a crowd of men and women, but that he had 
 miraculously risen from the dead and had directed them 
 to go and meet him in Galilee, and thus get them out of 
 Jerusalem. But, Would they believe this from any but 
 his own lips ? To avoid this manifest danger, it was 
 evidently important to delay the matter to the last mo- 
 ment, and, if necessary, that Jesus himself should see 
 some of them and give them the necessary assurances 
 and directions. Evidently such was the situation from 
 our stand-point. In the very fidelity of these Galilean 
 followers lay the chief cause of delay and danger. 
 
 Such being the situation and purposes we might ex- 
 pect to find that every preparation had been completed 
 and that Jesus was re-clothed and thoroughly disguised
 
 THE ESCAPE. 643 
 
 and out of the sepulchre, ready for flight, before it was 
 fairly daylight on the morning in question even " while 
 it was yet dark" (John xx. i). We should expect, how- 
 ever, that he would still remain at hand on account 
 of his followers, anticipating their early appearance and 
 possible disbelief of his friends. We -should expect to 
 find exactly " two men " (Luke xxiv. 4) there with him 
 to the last, to aid and help him. And whether Mary 
 Magdalene, or others after her, chose to speak of these 
 men as angels, we should feel none the less sure that 
 these two men who were his guardian angels at the last, 
 were the same Joseph and Nicodemus who had been his 
 guardian angels from the first, and who had a deep per- 
 sonal interest in his successful escape and secret flight. 
 
 We should expect that restless devotee, Mary Mag- 
 dalene, and her companion, who saw where he was placed, 
 would be at the sepulchre by the time they could see 
 their way, with the spices to prepare the body for burial ; 
 and that they would find the sepulchre already open 
 and the body gone (Mark xvi. 1-4. Luke xxiv. 1-3. 
 John xx. i). If we were afterwards told that Mary 
 Magdalene actually peeped into the sepulchre and " saw 
 a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long 
 white' garment " (Mark xvi., 5), we should only conclude, 
 if we believed the story, that she had come a little earlier 
 than she was expected, and that Jesus had not yet cast 
 off his long white grave-cloth ; although we should be 
 inclined to set the whole story down as a false report, as 
 it is in conflict with three of the Gospels. We should 
 expect these women to be told by Joseph or Nicodemus, 
 that Jesus had arisen, and instruct them to tell his disci-
 
 644 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 pies that he would meet them in Galilee (Matt, xxviii. 7) ; 
 and that, to make matters sure, they would direct Jesus 
 to follow them and confirm it. And, having finally fin- 
 ished their part of the work, we should expect that they 
 would leave, and we should hear no more of them ; nor 
 even think more- of them, unless it were to still wonder 
 whether they really were the " Moses and Elias " who 
 secretly met Jesus at night in Galilee, when he was in the 
 midst of his hopeful schemes for the temporal Messiah- 
 ship. 
 
 We should expect, also, that when this report was 
 taken to the disciples, the men would regard the affair 
 as mere idle tales of these women ; but that, to make 
 sure of it, we might expect some of them, perhaps Peter 
 and John, to go to the sepulchre to see for themselves. 
 We should expect them, also, to find the sepulchre open 
 and empty, but to find no one near it. Upon looking in, 
 they would, of course, see his grave-clothes lying there 
 still, but they probably would not find them lying in the 
 form they would be if a God had spontaneously risen out 
 of them, but as if the head-cloth or napkin had been 
 taken off and rolled up and thrown aside in one place, 
 and the linen wrapper taken off and thrown in another 
 place, very much after the natural manner of a man 
 (John xx. 6, 7). 
 
 We should, not only be sure that Jesus would not be 
 allowed to escape in his grave-clothes, nor in clothes at 
 all similar to those he habitually wore, but should feel 
 sure that his secret aiders would furnish him such cloth- 
 ing as would, without attracting attention, most effectu- 
 ally disguise him, and that they would otherwise complete
 
 THE ESCAPE. 645 
 
 his disguise by altering his hair and beard, staining his 
 skin, or the like, so that even his own disciples could not 
 recognize him from his appearance. 
 
 Having made himself known to those women and 
 sent word to his disciples, we should expect that he 
 would aim to leave the city and its environs before the 
 people were astir, and then seek some place of conceal- 
 ment near the road, until night approached, with the in- 
 tent to travel the* next night to Galilee ; but that, in 
 leaving the city, he would not follow any of his accus- 
 tomed routes (not knowing what might happen), but 
 would go westward towards Emmaus in the opposite 
 direction. And should he see two of his disciples (one 
 of whom was Simon Peter) walking to Emmaus, we 
 should expect that his anxiety to know the effect of his 
 message and why they were still at Jerusalem, would in- 
 duce him to join them with a view to ascertain. And 
 we should be no whit surprised to find that he entered 
 into a long conversation with them, as they walked, in 
 which they informed him of his own crucifixion and the 
 report that he had left the sepulchre and was alive, or 
 that they should invite him to eat with them in the vil- 
 lage, and that he gladly accepted the invitation ; or that 
 through all this long conversation, these disciples never 
 once penetrated his disguise, nor ever once suspected 
 that it was their master until they discovered it by his 
 peculiar mode of blessing the food ; or that Jesus, upon 
 perceiving that they had recognized him, should be panic- 
 stricken and flee, lest their exclamations or demonstra- 
 tions should betray him ; since we know these sudden 
 and panic flights were characteristic of him.
 
 646 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 We should expect that the effect of this rencontre 
 and conversation would be that Jesus would perceive 
 the necessity of seeing his disciples and finally settling 
 their doubts, so that they might leave before mischief 
 were done ; and that for that purpose, and as darkness 
 was approaching, he would follow these disciples to their 
 retreat in the city, and there meet his disciples at night 
 and then finally leave for Galilee that same night. And, 
 as he had been fasting all day and had fled from the 
 table without eating, that evening, we should expect 
 that, after his disciples had failed to recognize him, and 
 he had finally induced most of them to believe in his 
 identity, the very first thing would be to ask his disci- 
 ples for something to eat a matter very Jiuman, but 
 also very natural and necessary to a human : and that 
 they would likely give him his favorite " broiled fish," 
 with perhaps " an honeycomb " in addition (Luke 
 xxiv. 41-44). But why continue in this strain further. 
 For, of course, it has been perceived from the first, that 
 we have simply adopted the gospel recitals of the actual 
 facts, of subsequent occurrence, for our suppositions or 
 inferred prediction of them ; or, in other words, we have 
 inferred that Jesus, as a mere man, would, under his cir- 
 cumstances, have been most likely to do the very things 
 which he did do. But, Has not this course of treatment 
 clearly shown, that what was really done by all parties 
 was not only compatible with the actual human nature, 
 objects and motives as contended for by us, but was 
 what was especially likely to have been done ? Was 
 there a single natural and credible fact that occurred 
 which does not correspond with and confirm our theory 
 of the facts as to the crucifixion and of his continued
 
 THE ESCAPE. 647 
 
 life and revival, or one which does not find its natural 
 and full explanation in the fact that Jesus was a mere 
 man, secretly escaping from a partially executed, but 
 still pending sentence of death, under the special cir- 
 cumstances contended for ? Have we found, in it all, 
 one act indicative of a divine nature or a divine pur- 
 pose ? Was not the whole matter, indeed, palpably and 
 pitiably human! 
 
 There is one fact, however, of such controlling 
 weight as to deserve separate and special consideration, 
 namely : that he was thoroughly and intentionally dis- 
 guised. This fact, in itself, is of a definitive and conclu- 
 sive nature in reference both to the character and mo- 
 tives of Jesus. And, although it seems to have been 
 utterly overlooked because of its absolute incompatibility 
 with the received notions of Jesus and his resurrection, 
 we aver, that no fact could be more plainly and incon- 
 testably pointed out by the evidence : that it is, in fact, 
 beyond rational doubt. We are told in John's account, 
 that when Jesus came to Mary Magdalene, she "saw 
 Jesus standing and knew not that it was Jesus ; " that 
 she thought it was a. gardener, and addressed him as such 
 in reference to his own body ; but that Jesus responded 
 by simply addressing her by her name by saying the 
 single word, Mary, and that this devoted woman knew 
 him instantly and without another word. Here we find 
 a woman who would probably recognize him even sooner 
 than his own mother, and who actually recognized him 
 by his voice in the annunciation of a single accustomed 
 word, speaking face to face with Jesus about his own 
 body without ever suspecting his identity with her mas-
 
 648 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 ter ; and -that, too, when it must have been fair daylight, 
 for it was after Peter and John had visited the sepul- 
 chre. Now, What is the necessary inference from this ? 
 No unbiased mind can fail to perceive that Jesus must 
 have been disguised most thoroughly more thoroughly 
 than any mere change of clothes would disguise him, to 
 have deceived this woman under such circumstances. 
 His very face, hair, beard, etc., must have been changed. 
 
 On the evening of the same day, he appeared to two 
 of his disciples, in daylight, and walked and talked with 
 * them a long time and sat down to eat with them. Un- 
 less disguised these men would have recognized him 
 even at a great distance, or among many thousands. 
 But, although they had heard that he was out and alive, 
 they talked to him about his own pretensions, of their 
 hopes of his having been the Messiah, of his crucifixion 
 and the report of his resurrection, inquired of him if he 
 was a stranger in Jerusalem and invited him to eat with 
 them, etc., without ever once suspecting who he was. 
 We then witness a similar phenomenon and proof to 
 that which occurred with the Magdalene. When they 
 saw and heard his peculiar manner of blessing the bread, 
 they instantly recognized him ; and when he saw that 
 they had recognized him, he as instantly fled, before a 
 word could be uttered ; evidently to prevent the possi- 
 bility of his exposure to others in the house (Luke 
 xxiv. 13-32). Could it be possible that these disciples 
 would have failed to even suspect who he really was and 
 to regard him as a stranger, under all these circum- 
 stances, unless his disguise was most thorough and com- 
 plete, when they knew him so intimately that they in-
 
 THE ESCAPE. 649 
 
 stantly recognized him by his accustomed mode of doing 
 a single private act ? In both the instances cited the 
 same significant and convincing fajpts occurred. In both 
 instances he was actually and instantly recognized by a 
 single fact, but in each case, also, that recognition and 
 fact occurred through his voice or action, and not by his 
 personal appearance. So far as his personal appearance 
 was concerned he was a perfect stranger to them, and 
 might have remained so. By mere sight he was never 
 once recognized by a single one of his disciples at any 
 time after his re-appearance. The Evangelist perceived 
 that this failure to recognize their master by sight was a 
 marvellous affair, and with a view, evidently, to avoid 
 any question as to whether it actually was Jesus, he un- 
 dertakes to account for it ; but does so in a manner so 
 very Luke-ish as to excite a smile. He regards it as 
 having been a miracle, and says that " their eyes were 
 Rolden that they should not know him ! " * What a con- 
 fession ! And what a silly one ! If there were reason 
 enough to miraculously hold their eyes to prevent them 
 from recognizing him by his visible appearance, Why 
 were they allowed, at the very first time there was any 
 chance of danger from their recognition, to actually rec- 
 ognize him by other senses or other means than his 
 personal appearance ? Luke was, however, well justified 
 in one thing, at least from his stand-point : it did re- 
 quire a miracle to account for their not recognizing him, ' 
 if he were not disguised, a fact which Luke, of course, 
 would never have thought of suspecting of his God. 
 Mark was less cautious, however, for, in speaking of this 
 same meeting, he expressly says, not that the disciples' 
 "eyes were holden," but that Jesus himself "appeared 
 in another form ! " (Mark xvi. 12).
 
 650 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 That Jesus knew he was unrecognizable and that he 
 not only anxiously avoided all chances of exposure, but 
 even avoided and delated disclosing himself, beyond the 
 sheerest necessity, to his devoted disciples, until they 
 could meet in greater safety in Galilee, is here fully 
 shown. He not only suffered these disciples to take him 
 for a stranger, but he was parting from them, leaving 
 them still under that impression, when their invitation 
 to eat with them arrested his departure. And his pre- 
 cipitate and panic flight when he found himself sud- 
 denly recognized in a place where he could not explain, 
 and where even such an exclamation as that given by 
 the Magdalene, on discovering him, would endanger him, 
 shows, conclusively, the terror with which a mere 
 chance of exposure inspired him and the timid and cau- 
 tious care with which he guarded against it. And yet, 
 these men from whom he was concealing his identity, 
 even in private, were not only devoted followers and 
 bosom friends, but one of them was his chief Apostle 
 and worshipper, Simon Peter ; as we subsequently learn 
 (Luke xxiv. 34, 35). 
 
 After fleeing from these disciples Jesus followed 
 them in the night into Jerusalem, and entered their 
 secret retreat immediately after them. And here, where 
 more necessary, we have another scene which proves 
 his disguisement. He here came upon the residue of 
 his apostles, and not one of them recognized him not 
 one of those men who had been his daily and nightly
 
 THE ESCAPE. 65 I 
 
 companions for three years and up to the last three 
 days, knew him by his appearance, although they knew 
 he had left the sepulchre, and had that moment been 
 informed by their two companion's that they had seen 
 him. 
 
 Matthew tells us that, according to appointment, 
 Jesus afterwards met his disciples in a mountain in 
 Galilee. And here we are told that some of his disciples 
 " worshipped him : but some doubted" So unnatural 
 did he seem to them, that they found it almost impos- 
 sible to realize that it was him. No doubt Jesus was 
 prepared, also, to change the degree or character of the 
 disguises or alterations in his person. 
 
 Turning now to the twenty-first chapter of John, we 
 find the last detailed account of the meeting of Jesus 
 with his disciples. Here we find, that the disciples 
 were in their fishing smack in the sea of Galilee and 
 about 200 cubits from the shore, from whence Jesus 
 hailed and talked to them. And yet none of them sus- 
 pected who it was, even at that short distance ; although 
 they would, perhaps every man of them, under ordinary 
 conditions, have readily recognized him at more than 
 ten times that distance. The first to suspicion his iden- 
 tity with their master was John, but only on account of
 
 652 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 his successful direction to them in their fishing. The dis- 
 ciples went ashore and had a fish-dinner with him ; but 
 we are told that " none of his disciples durst ask him, 
 Who art thou, knowing it was the Lord." Here we find 
 that even at this late hour the disciples not only failed 
 to recognize Jesus by his appearance, but that they had 
 learned that his identity was a subject which was not to 
 be mooted or mentioned, except by himself and in his 
 own time and way. It was a ' matter which they might 
 know, but of which, as yet, they must not whisper, even. 
 
 To an unbiased mind these scenes are conclusive 
 proof, that Jesus was both completely and intentionally 
 disguised, and that he was anxiously and timidly con- 
 cealing himself from every chance of exposure and re- 
 arrest. Every word and act of his from the moment he 
 left that sepulchre,, was simply and purely that of a dis- 
 guised fugitive. The only hope of even the semblance 
 of an explanation of his non-recognition by his disciples, 
 namely, the difficulty of their believing so marvellous 
 a fact as his resurrection, is completely negatived by the 
 whole testimony. The evidence shows, that Jesus did 
 not object to his disciples knowing of his escape, pro- 
 vided that they learned it at the proper time and place, 
 and with the proper explanations to at once prevent 
 them from conceiving the real nature of the occurrence, 
 and from prematurely and improperly exposing the fact 
 of his escape, with the view of preventing the exposure 
 of the complicity of his benefactors, as well as all chances 
 of his own arrest. At night, and in assured secrecy, he 
 was not afraid to meet them and let them know who he 
 was. He dared not confess the real means and mode of
 
 THE ESCAPE. 653 
 
 his recovery and escape, firstly : because even if he 
 himself had been willing to trust that dangerous secret 
 to so many persons, his benefactors would have forbid- 
 den any idea of such a thing ; and secondly : his own 
 past teachings, pretensions, and relations to these men 
 rendered it almost impossible to confess his final humil- 
 iating and mere human failure. Nor did these disciples 
 stick at the mere marvellousness of any power which 
 Jesus might have been supposed to have exercised : it 
 was not their habit. It was nothing of that kind which 
 prevented them from recognizing his person. The Mag- 
 dalene and the two disciples both recognized and believed 
 in his vital presence, instantly and without explanation 
 or assurance, from mere voice and manner. It was not 
 that they did not or could not recognize him and believe 
 in his identical bodily life and presence, but that they 
 could not recognize him by his personal appearance at 
 ail ; while they did recognize him by a single word or 
 habit. Their eyes, only, were " holden," and those only 
 in the matter of personal appearance. This was the sole 
 difficulty. And this, also, is conclusive proof that his 
 personal appearance was thoroughly altered and dis- 
 guised. Was he a disguised and fugitive God, or a dis- 
 guised and fugitive man ? 
 
 There is another fact which bears upon the question 
 of the resurrection and divinity of Jesus, that deserves a 
 brief, but serious consideration. Since the failure of the
 
 654 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 palpably temporal and openly avowed schemes of Jesus 
 to become " King of the Jews," and his consequent pros- 
 ecution and punishment, it has been claimed that he 
 fully contemplated these results from the beginning ; 
 and that he had frequently and plainly told his disciples 
 that he was to be crucified, but that, on the third day 
 after, he would arise from the dead. How far is this 
 claim justified by the facts ? In those characteristic and 
 extreme fits of depression and despondency those fits 
 in which he became so "exceeding sorrowful," and to 
 which he became more and more subject, and at times 
 when he felt most keenly the toils of his enemies closing 
 round him, and his mind was despondingly contemplat- 
 ing the natural results of a failure of his politico-religious 
 schemes, it is quite conceivable that even his forebodings 
 of coming failure and death may have found expression 
 in a general way, in the presence of his disciples. But, 
 that he originally expected, or habitually contemplated, 
 or endeavored to make his disciples believe, that he 
 would die on the cross and rise again on the third day, 
 was never claimed or pretended by himself, and is in 
 irreconcilable conflict with the entire facts as they are 
 reported in the gospels themselves. The supposition is 
 not only in conflict with the entire pretensions and 
 efforts of both Jesus and his disciples before the cruci- 
 fixion, but with both their conduct and declarations af- 
 terwards. The idea of inserting these pre-declarations 
 of his earthly fate into his previous life was clearly an 
 after-thought, and was the result of the endeavor to re- 
 mould the primary purposes, language and public con- 
 duct of Jesus into conformity with the subsequent facts, 
 and with the remodelled conception of Jesus and his
 
 THE ESCAPE. 655 
 
 mission which they necessitated. Their subsequent 
 theory, that Jesus was a self-ordained sacrifice for hu- 
 man sins, through his death on the cross, compelled 
 them to present*him as having foreknown and intended 
 the results which actually occurred. To do this, they 
 had to represent him as pre-declaring them, and exhibit- 
 ing his knowledge of what he had to go through. This, 
 as we have seen, the makers and manipulators of the 
 gospels would not hesitate to do, nay, would consider 
 it a service which it would be commendable to perform. 
 
 But, How stand the facts in this matter ? Have we 
 not shown, that the habitual purpose and hope of both 
 Jesus and his apostles, during the whole latter half of 
 his public career, were, that Jesus should temporarily 
 triumph and reign as Messianic king over the Jews ? It 
 is absurd, indeed, to suppose that Jesus and his disciples 
 made the efforts they did to secure his acceptance by 
 the Jewish people alone, and to make him their king, 
 and were so sorrowful and indignant at failures and op- 
 position, when Jesus all the time contemplated and 
 knew, and frequently and plainly told his disciples, that 
 he should be rejected by the Jews, and suffer crucifixion 
 for those very pretensions and efforts. If Jesus had as 
 specifically and unequivocally told his disciples that 
 their joint efforts were to end in his crucifixion, as it is 
 now claimed that he did, it would have been quite im- 
 possible for all of those men to have either misunder- 
 stood or forgotten such a matter. The fact that he was 
 to be crucified was one never to have been forgotten by 
 those devoted servants, and was one which it was impos- 
 sible for any one to have misunderstood ; and so also
 
 656 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 with the fact that he was to rise again from the dead on 
 the third day. Nor would his disciples have continued 
 to labor with him in a cause which they knew, or which 
 he seriously informed them, would brin"g them, not only 
 failure and trouble as its result, but also the crucifixion 
 of their beloved leader. 
 
 But how stood matters at, and after, these events 
 were supposed to have occurred ? Do we find the dis- 
 ciples expecting these pre-announced results, or even 
 reminded of their pre-announcement by their successive 
 occurrence ? Does either their conduct or declarations 
 prove consistent with the fact of their having been pre- 
 assured of their coming to pass ? Does the language of 
 Jesus himself to his disciples when he again met them, 
 justify any such conclusion ? No. To the contrary we 
 find his disciples utterly astounded at the unsuccessful 
 and fatal termination of his past pretensions and 
 schemes. Instead of finding them anticipating his res- 
 urrection on the third day, we find them buying spices 
 and preparing to bury him that very day, without a 
 thought or hope of ever seeing him again. We find 
 that, even after they were repeatedly told that he was 
 out and alive by those who had conversed with him, 
 they could not make up their minds to believe it. The 
 fact was so unexpected that, on hearing it, they regarded 
 it as an idle tale. - And even to the last, when he met 
 them in Galilee by appointment, " Some doubted." Is 
 it possible that all these men could have- so acted, if 
 their master had repeatedly and plainly told them that 
 these identical things were to happen ? Are we to sup- 
 pose that all these men were stark idiots ?
 
 THE ESCAPE. 657 
 
 But again : What were the declarations of these men 
 themselves ? The two disciples who walked and con- 
 versed with Jesus about himself, without knowing him, 
 informed him that Jesus was a mighty " prophet," whom 
 the Jewish rulers had caused to be condemned and cru- 
 cified. The disciple then continues to say " But we 
 trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed 
 Israel : and besides all this, to-day is the third day since 
 these things were done. Yea, and certain women also 
 of our company made us astonished, which were early at 
 the sepulchre : And when they found not the body, 
 they came, saying, that they had seen a vision of angels, 
 which said he was alive." 
 
 Here we have just what the disciples thought of 
 Jesus and of his real purposes prior to his crucifixion, 
 and before they had been re-indoctrinated at all. They 
 regarded him as a mere man a mighty prophet, and Jtad 
 trusted, until his death had destroyed all hope, that he 
 was the one who " should have" redeemed, not sinners 
 or the world generally, but Israel. There was no thought 
 of his having been anything else than a redeemer of 
 Israel no thought of his being a God or a divine vica- 
 rious sacrifice for human sins, or of there being any fur- 
 ther hope after he was crucified. The only effect which 
 the report of his being alive had upon them, was to 
 make them " astonished." Are these facts at all con- 
 sistent with the fact that these men had been repeatedly 
 and plainly pre-informed of the fact and manner of his 
 death, and of his resurrection on the third day, and of 
 the consequent impossibility of his being what they 
 
 " had trusted " he was to be, up to the last ? 
 
 42
 
 658 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 What is John's explanation of the matter ? He and 
 Peter, disbelieving the women's story, went to the sep- 
 ulchre to see for themselves ; and when they found mat- 
 ters as we have stated, we are told that John believed, and 
 it is then added " For as yet they knew not the scripture, 
 that he must arise from the dead." Here is proof that 
 even the " beloved disciple " and the " chief of the apos- 
 tles," required ocular proof to convince them that he was 
 not still in the sepulchre. And here, also, is the positive 
 declaration, that they never had heard of any scripture 
 that the Messiah was to rise from the dead ; as well 
 as the implied declaration or admission that they had 
 never heard of any such thing from Jesus himself ; since 
 the very fact that their ignorance and incredulity is ac- 
 counted for by the excuse, that " as yet " they had not 
 learned that the scripture foretold the resurrection, shows 
 that the scriptures were the only source from which 
 there could be any pretence of their having learned it 
 shows, indeed, that the idea of their having been directly 
 or verbally informed of it, had never been thought of. 
 
 Mr. Beecher says of the disciples at this time, that 
 " They believed in an earthly kingdom for the Messiah, 
 and, with the rest of their people, anticipated a carnal 
 triumph of the Jews over all their enemies. They could 
 not be made to understand that their master was to be 
 put to death ; and when he was arrested they all forsook 
 him and fled. They hovered in bewilderment around 
 the solemn tragedy, etc." Can it be, that such a man 
 as Mr. Beecher can believe this of the apostles, and yet 
 believe that they had been told of such unmistakable 
 facts as the death and resurrection of a man, and as often
 
 THE ESCAPE. 659 
 
 and as unmistakably told as they are asserted to have 
 been in the gospels as plainly and unmistakably, for 
 example, as the following language would show : " While 
 they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, the Son of 
 man shall be betrayed into the hands of* man : And they 
 shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. 
 And they were exceeding sorry " (Matt. xvii. 22, 23) ? 
 How could anybody, outside of an idiot asylum, mistake 
 such language ? And How could they be " exceeding 
 sorry " if they did not understand him ? No : it will not 
 do to attempt to shield the gospels and Jesus and the 
 Christian theory by making the apostles idiots ; for 
 here is language which any ordinary idiot would under- 
 stand, and which the gospel confesses they did under- 
 stand and sorrowed over. The fact is, that the dis- 
 ciples had never been told any such thing ; nor was any 
 such thing known by Jesus, as the language and con- 
 duct of the whole of them clearly prove. 
 
 It is true, that Jesus spoke rebukingly to his dis- 
 ciples for their lack of faith, as was his custom when- 
 ever they failed to do or think as he wished ; but he 
 had not the hardihood to charge them with lack of faith 
 in anything that he had said, but only with lack of faith 
 in what the scriptures had said. He speaks of the mat- 
 ter twice. The first time was when he was going to 
 Emmaus, when he said, " O fools, and slow of heart to 
 believe all that the prophets have spoken : ought not 
 Christ to have siiffered these things, and to have entered 
 into his glory." And he then went on to expound the 
 scriptures to them. When he first met all his disciples 
 together, Luke reports him as saying, " These are the 
 words which J spake unto you, while I was with you,
 
 66O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in 
 the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the 
 psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their under- 
 standing, that they might understand the scriptures''' 
 Here, and here only, he is reported as referring to what 
 he had formerly told them ; and here he not only does 
 not intimate that he had told them of the facts, but 
 raises a conclusive presumption that he had not. What 
 was it he professes to have told them ? that he was to 
 be crucified or to resurrect ? No. He simply reminds 
 them that he had told them, generally, that all the 
 things, of every kind, which the law, the prophets and 
 the psalms had said about him as the Christ would 
 be fulfilled ; and he then went on to specifically show 
 them what these scriptures said and meant as to the 
 death and resurrection of the Christ, without ever in- 
 timating that he had ever before told them what even 
 the scriptures had said on these special matters, much 
 less claiming that he himself had pre-announced to them 
 the very facts themselves. And yet, Can there be a 
 doubt that, if he had really and specifically told them in 
 the language quoted from Matthew, and they were still 
 incredulous, he would have then referred to what he had 
 formerly told them, and to the very times and places 
 that he had said it ? 
 
 When the whole facts are fully and fairly analyzed, 
 compared and understood, the conclusion is resistless, 
 that neither Jesus nor his disciples anticipated any such 
 results to their schemes and labors. It was only after 
 his rejection, failure, punishment and re-appearance, 
 only, also, when he dared not tell his disciples the real
 
 THE ESCAPE. 66 1 
 
 facts as to his recovery from his punishment, that we 
 find him driven, in lieu of explaining Why and How he 
 was still alive, to go into long disquisitions on matters 
 recited in the " law of Moses, and in the prophets, and 
 in the psalms," to convince these ignorant, illiterate and 
 confiding men, that the whole thing was scriptural, and 
 " ought " to have happened to the Christ ; and to sat- 
 isfy their hopes by assuring them of his almost imme- 
 diate and triumphant second coming ! Here, in the 
 sheer necessities of the situation, commenced that re- 
 construction of the conception of the Jewish Messiah, 
 and that entire change of the idea of the nature of Jesus 
 and of his mission and purpose, which converted his un- 
 successful efforts for a Jewish throne and his partial, 
 crucifixion for treason and his natural recovery from his 
 punishment and his secret escape, into a divinely or- 
 dained and prophetically foretold process of slaying the 
 <r lamb of God " for the " sins of the world : " a change 
 which remodelled the Jewish Jehovah into a tri-personal 
 God, and injected this condemned Nazarene carpenter, 
 body and soul, into this triple Godhead ! 
 
 " Great God on what a slender thread 
 Hang everlasting things 1 '' 
 
 Having divested this so-called resurrection of the 
 factitious support furnished by its pretended prophetic 
 annunciations by Jesus himself, we will consider, a little
 
 662 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 more closely, a special series of apparently side-perform- 
 ances, whose actors, although unobtrusive, unannounced 
 and unapplauded, seem to emerge from the side-wings 
 of the stage at every act of the drama, and noiselessly 
 shift the scenes and manage the entire machinery of the 
 play. These facts are as conclusive in their nature as 
 the facts of his disguise and flight, and, like those facts, 
 have that singularity and apparent unaccountableness 
 which can find their only explanation in the true theory 
 of the facts. 
 
 While the disciples were preparing to bury Jesus, 
 without the slightest belief in his divinity or in his res- 
 urrection or reappearance, there were two men, at least, 
 who not only believed, but knew that he would reap- 
 pear, and whose conduct throughout is conclusive proof, 
 not only that he would reappear alive, but that he had 
 never been dead. When Jesus was crucified, his clothes 
 were taken ; and when he was placed in the sepulchre 
 he had no clothing save the linen cloth and napkin 
 which were wrapped round his body and head, respec- 
 tively. By one account it would seem that the Magda- 
 lene discovered him while he was yet in his grave- 
 clothes. This was just before daylight. When he was 
 first recognized, a few minutes later, he had put on 
 strange clothing, suitable for a gardener. The great 
 stone had been moved from the door of the sepulchre 
 when they first visited it. There were two men there 
 besides Jesus. These men not only knew that he was
 
 THE ESCAPE. 663 
 
 alive, but announced that fact to his friends before day- 
 light, and delivered to them the message and commands 
 of Jesus to his disciples, and showed themselves to be 
 conversant with the whole facts and with the wishes ana 
 purposes of Jesus, and to be his agents and mouth- 
 pieces in the whole affair. Let any person, still amen- 
 able to reason, candidly ask and answer to themselves 
 the following questions, in the presence of the whole 
 facts connecting these two men with this entire drama, 
 namely : 
 
 i. Who were those two men, who were thus cogniz- 
 ant of, and thus controlling, these secret, mysterious and 
 night-shrouded events ? Were they the same two men 
 whom Jesus had induced the disciples to believe to have 
 been Moses and Elias, when they came to Galilee and 
 secretly met him at night on a mountain ? Were these 
 the secret coadjutors of Jesus and members of the San- 
 hedrim who furnished him with information of the 
 secret purposes and movements of the Jewish rulers and 
 of the intended treachery of Judas, and who sent him 
 the consoling messenger in Gethsemane ? Were these 
 the men who stood his friends at his trial before the 
 Sanhedrim, and before his crucifixion, and while on the 
 cross, and when taken to the sepulchre of one of them ? 
 Are these the same two men, always true but always 
 secret, now continuing to secure and manage his escape 
 and flight ? It appears that the two women despaired of 
 being able to roll the stone from the door of the sepul- 
 chre, and perhaps even one man could not ; and it is 
 conceded by the Gospels that Jesus, instead of rising 
 through the very rock itself or rolling away the stone by 
 a word, like a God, had to wait until the rock was re-
 
 664 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 moved for him : What two men, then, removed that 
 rock ? Who dared intermeddle with that sepulchre, save 
 Joseph of Arimathea, to whom both it and the body be- 
 longed seeing that the disciples had neither intermed- 
 dled with, nor approached it ? J t?:- 
 
 2. Whoever these two men might have been, the 
 question again is Why were they at the tomb of Jesus, 
 outside of the city gates, just before day and "when it 
 was yet dark," and on that particular night of all other 
 nights ? Can any conceivable motive or reason be as- 
 signed for their opportune presence at such an hour and 
 such a place, on that special night, upon the supposition 
 that Jesus was a genuine corpse, and already prepared 
 and ready for burial, and when he was to be buried by 
 his old disciples ? 
 
 3. Were they there to furnish the clothes and the 
 means of that disguise which we have seen Jesus after- 
 wards exhibit, and of enabling him to get out of the 
 sepulchre and reappear in that " other form " which 
 Mark tells us about ? 
 
 4. Can any possible hypothesis account for their 
 presence there 'at such a time and under such circum- 
 stances, and for their having such secret knowledge of 
 the secret purposes of Jesus, and their acting as his 
 spokesmen to his own disciples, which does not also in- 
 volve the facts that they were designedly there as the 
 trusted friends and helpers of Jesus, and that they knew 
 that he was alive before they came, and came because 
 they knew it ? Otherwise, What right or What motive
 
 THE ESCAPE. 665 
 
 could they have had to come there at all,- 5 much more 
 at such an hour and on this special occasion ? Or Why 
 take out, at night, a live mans clothing to a corpse that 
 was already clothed for burial ? Why did they assume 
 to act for Jesus, and without telling the disciples who 
 they were, or giving them a word of explanation as to 
 how or when they came there, or why they were there 
 at all, or why they; were concerned in the matter at all ? 
 Can this state of facts be even forced into consistency 
 with any possible theory, save one based on their pre- 
 vious knowledge that he was alive and of their being 
 there to aid him in his escape ? Jesus was helped out 
 of the sepulchre, was furnished new clothes and the 
 means of disguisement, and whoever did it must have 
 known that he was alive, and haye come prepared and 
 on puroose to -ender him these services. 
 
 5. If these men must have known, and did know, 
 that he was alive before they came that night, How and 
 When did they learn it ? They would not go, without 
 any motive, and open a private sepulchre containing a 
 corpse, and much less on the sabbath day ; and had 
 they done so and found him alive, it would have been 
 equally fatal to the Christian theory ; since he was to 
 remain dead until the third day, according to that 
 theory. They must, therefore, have known it prior to 
 the sabbath, and that would place their knowledge of 
 the fact to a period before sundown on the day he was 
 executed. And this would conclusively show both the 
 fact of continued life, and that these men must have 
 been Joseph and Nicodemus : just what we have con- 
 tended for. It would seem utterly impossible for any
 
 666 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 fair mind to reflect upon the entire series of facts and 
 considerations mentioned, and view them in relation 
 with the whole facts, and yet fail to perceive that Jesus 
 was not only assisted, secretly and at night, by secret 
 and trusted friends, but that his exit from the sepul- 
 chre that night had been pre-arranged and provided for 
 by the two men who were actually helping him and act- 
 ing for him when his disciples first came ; and that 
 these men were Joseph and Nicodemus, who had had 
 control of both him and the sepulchre, and who knew 
 that he was alive even when he was first placed there. 
 These men were undoubtedly the only men of distinc- 
 tion who had been concerned in the Messianic schemes 
 of Jesus, and they, only in the most guarded and secret 
 way. They proved sagacious and loyal friends to Jesus 
 until they secured his final escape. That once accom- 
 plished, they disappear from the New Testament his- 
 tory. Through all the excitement about his resurrection, 
 even in the Pentecostal times, they seem not to have 
 been at all impressed by the fiery annunciations of the 
 divine resurrection of their friend. By the gospel ac- 
 counts we would be led to suppose, that Joseph and 
 Nicodemus took him to Joseph's sepulchre and there 
 left him, without ever again going to see, or even ever 
 inquiring, what had become of him, or ever paying the 
 slightest attention to all the flaming stories about his 
 resurrection. Such a sudden and continued silence and 
 such a strange abandonment of the body under their 
 charge, are utterly incomprehensible on the Christian 
 theory. Our theory, however, throws their whole con- 
 duct and motives into one continuous congruity, and 
 shows us very plainly why these secret friends of Jesus,
 
 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 who were behind the curtain, were unmoved by all the 
 fiery annunciations of the divine resurrection and God- 
 hood of Jesus. They had no need to be informed about 
 what occurred' in or about that sepulchre by Peter and 
 Stephen, who were not there, and did not know. They 
 were quite satisfied for others to believe them. They 
 evidently had some private theory of their own about 
 the matter which was satisfactory to themselves, and, 
 seeing that the whole affair was drifting in quite a safe 
 and desirable direction, they silently let it drift ; glad to 
 have thus escaped. 

 
 668 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 v .'?" 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE BLACK CURTAIN FALLS. 
 
 HAVING considered the evidence touching the re- 
 covery, disguise, escape, after-conduct, after-explanations 
 and flight of Jesus, and the opinion which his disciples 
 entertained of him and of his pretensions and purposes, 
 prior to their being re-indoctrinated after his supposed 
 resurrection from death, we may now direct our attention 
 to the closing scene of this gospel drama, and determine 
 whether there was an exit to heaven of the chief actor, 
 or whether the curtain fell while he was still upon the 
 stage of mundane life. 
 
 And here, if nowhere else, we have a right to expect 
 to be furnished with unequivocal evidence and clear de- 
 tails, as well as concordant accounts in all the gospels. 
 Before their separation from Jesus, the great body of his 
 disciples had been thoroughly drilled into the belief of 
 his actual resurrection from death, and were prepared to 
 recognize his divine nature as its legitimate consequence, 
 and, consequently, felt bound to implicitly credit his exe- 
 getical representations of the Scriptural Christ. They 
 would have looked to, and have known that other be- 
 lievers would look to, the final exit of this now accred-
 
 THE BLACK CURTAIN FALLS. 669 
 
 ited God with the profoundest interest. And, as they 
 would all probably witness it, there would be every rea- 
 son to expect a graphic and concordant description of 
 the wonderful event. 
 
 We have a right, also, to expect, that here, if no 
 where else, Jesus would have manifested his divinity by 
 the most unmistakable proofs, and in the manner most 
 calculated to justify the faith of his followers and to se- 
 cure the faith of others. If it could be said of the time 
 of his resurrection, that then, if never before, there was 
 every and unrestrained motive for the most public, de- 
 cisive and efficient demonstration of his Godhood, how 
 much more indisputably it might be said of the time of 
 his final ascension or departure from Earth ? Surely 
 this unrestrained and final earthly act and proof of his 
 Godhood would be made public, resistless, and indeli- 
 ble. If the mere place and publicity of an already in- 
 tended act or even the costless display of power would 
 justify his faithful followers before the world, would save 
 the life of the devoted Stephen and the lives of count- 
 less other martyrs, and save the incredulity and conse- 
 quent damnation of countless millions of those he had 
 come to save, surely he would not finally disregard these 
 potent and palpable considerations. If he had already 
 determined to bodily ascend up into the sky, should 
 we not expect, at least, that he would have consented 
 to perform that act publicly, and in a convincing and 
 beneficent manner that he would, for example, have as- 
 cended in broad daylight, in the full sight of all Jeru- 
 salem, from the summit of the Temple, under the con- 
 voy of his " forty legions of angels," and have caused the
 
 6/O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 old Jewish altar of sacrifice, which had reeked for so many 
 centuries with the blood of innocent victims, to crumble 
 into dust as the new and accepted divine sacrifice as- 
 cended to Heaven to lay his offering before the throne 
 of his Divine Father ? Here, at least, in his final ascen- 
 sion, he would certainly exempt the Jews and all other 
 men from being compelled to depend for their salvation 
 upon their belief in facts solely depending upon the 
 "say-so" of his own blindly obedient followers, and 
 credulous and trained witnesses ; and would forever si- 
 lence the possibility of a suspicion of mistake, incom- 
 petence or collusion in the witnesses, or of trickery or 
 deception by himself. With these natural and legiti- 
 mate expectations as to this Divine Saviour of the 
 World, let us proceed to review the realities. 
 
 It is manifest to every unbiased and informed mind, 
 that mere vague or conflicting reports of Jesus having 
 bodily ascended into Heaven, which might have been 
 found circulating among the credulous early Christians 
 many years after the supposed event, would be entitled to 
 no credit. After he was once apotheosized, such a mythic 
 conclusion was certain. to be reached, sooner or later. 
 It is still more certain that, had any such event actually 
 occurred, it would have been remembered, in its minut- 
 est details, by all who saw it, to the last day of their 
 lives, and the day would have been held sacred through 
 all generations. Such a stupendous exhibition of divine 
 power would necessarily have formed a part of every
 
 THE BLACK CURTAIN FALLS. 
 
 sermon, and have found the foremost place, among so 
 many other petty details, in all the gospels, and be re- 
 cited with all the minuteness its importance would 
 demand. If, on the contrary, the story were not a real- 
 ity, but a legend, of after and mythic growth, we should 
 expect it to be more vague and general, less natural and 
 coherent, most probably told by only a part of the gos- 
 pels, and told differently by those that did record it. 
 We should probably find more or less conflict as to de- 
 tails, and especially those as to time and place, there 
 being no actual facts to determine and control these de- 
 tails. We should expect to find evidences of progres- 
 sive mythic growth, if the accounts were written at 
 different times, a growth from the vague and general 
 to the more definite and particular. 
 
 Now, when we examine the gospels on this momen- 
 tous point, we find exactly what we did not expect, and 
 nothing which we had a right to expect find precisely 
 that state of facts which we ought not, and could not, 
 have found if Jesus were a Divine Saviour and did 
 actually ascend to Heaven, and precisely what might 
 have been expected if the story were a myth and Jesus 
 were a mere escaping and fugitive man. The ascension 
 is mentioned in but two of the gospels. This, in itself, 
 is wholly incompatible with a belief in the actual exist- 
 ence of such a fact. For such a fact could neither be 
 forgotten nor ignored. The two accounts which are 
 given are so conflicting as to be mutually destructive, 
 and constitute, in themselves, proof that no such event 
 actually occurred the time and place even being differ- 
 ent. And the first of these accounts does not state or
 
 6/2 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 imply, or intend to imply, a visible bodily ascension, 
 even if we consider the first as doing so. The two 
 other gospels not only do not even mention this most 
 Godlike manifestation of power of all his pretended 
 miracles, but they positively prove that it never existed. 
 And, taking the orthodox view of the authorship of the 
 gospels, we at once perceive, to begin with, that, if we 
 even concede its assertion by Mark and Luke, we have 
 their mutual contradictions, their total personal igno- 
 rance of the facts, the complete indicia of falsehood 
 which their own recitals furnish, and the entire weight 
 of the testimony of the two eye-witnesses., Matthew and 
 John, and much more even, to rebut and overthrow their 
 statements. And to all this may be added the moral 
 impossibility of such an ascension as is suggested, hav- 
 ing been made by a divine person with the professed 
 objects of Jesus. 
 
 We first find the ascension mentioned in Mark, who 
 was probably the first, also, to mention it. After recit- 
 ing the secret meeting of Jesus with the " Eleven " on 
 the first night after his reappearance, Mark says that, 
 before he parted from his disciples, he spoke to them of 
 their future course and instructed them what to do, etc., 
 and then adds, " So then, after the Lord had spoken to 
 them, he was received up into Heaven and sat on the 
 right hand of God." Thus he ends the earthly career of 
 Jesus with this first meeting with his apostles and with- 
 in less than twenty-four hours after he arose, and^ makes
 
 THE BLACK CURTAIN FALLS. 6/3 
 
 him ascend to Heaven from Jerusalem, at night, and 
 just after finishing his instructions to the disciples. 
 
 It was not even intended by Mark that this should 
 be taken as a recital of observed facts. He merely states 
 his own supposition or general conclusion as to what he 
 supposed must have been the fact, in the dogmatic man- 
 ner common to the gospels. Had he been preaching 
 the funeral sermon of St. Stephen, he would have used 
 substantially the same language. Any Evangelist then, 
 or preacher now, would say " Our beloved brother fin- 
 ished his earthly labors on last Monday night, and was 
 received up into Heaven, where he now sitteth on the 
 right hand of God," of any pious Christian who had 
 died in the faith. But neither here, nor in the case of 
 Mark, would it be intended to intimate that the person 
 was seen ascending to Heaven. And in this case it 
 would have been impossible for the disciples to have 
 seen him ascend even into the sky, for they were hid- 
 den in a house, with closed doors, and he could not have 
 been seen going up further than the ceiling. Mark 
 means this going up to Heaven, and asserts it, just as' 
 he means and asserts that, when he got to Heaven, he 
 seated himself on the right hand of God ; and yet he 
 certainly never meant to intimate that the disciples saw 
 Heaven, or saw Jesus sitting on the right hand of God. 
 He merely states the whole as a matter of faith and be- 
 lief. Knowing nothing further of Jesus, Mark simply 
 concluded that, of course, he had gone back to Heaven, 
 since he had no further business on Earth ; and that, 
 equally of course, he would have the post of honor in 
 Heaven the right of the throne. Had there been a 
 visible ascension he would have described it, and have 
 
 43
 
 6/4 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 told that they saw it, and how he went up ; and not 
 merely have said, generally, that he was received up into 
 Heaven. In fact, Mark's statement, instead of confirm- 
 ing the fact of a visible and observed bodily ascension, 
 is conclusive of the fact that he himself had never heard 
 of any such ascension. 
 
 This general suggestion of his having ascended 
 bodily into Heaven was certain to have arisen. None 
 of the apostles, unless it were Paul, knew what had 
 finally become of Jesus after his supposed resurrection. 
 Without dying again, he finally parted from them, and 
 disappeared ; and they may very naturally have con- 
 cluded that he had gone back to Heaven. Bat such a 
 suggestion, once started, would inevitably tend to assert 
 itself as an observed fact, and to ultimately define itself 
 as to time, place and circumstances. In other words, 
 the myth would grow. And accordingly we find the 
 story clearly grows under the kindly hands of Luke 
 the especial evangelist of myths. He not only ventures 
 to hint a visible ascension in his gospel, but has almost 
 watered and nurtured it into life by the time he wrote 
 the Acts of the Apostles. The only pretence for claim- 
 ing an observed ascension, indeed, rests solely upon the 
 recitals of Luke, and even they do not fairly and clearly 
 assert it. In his gospel he agrees with Mark that Jesus 
 ended his earthly career on the night following his res- 
 urrection, and that, during the darkness of that night, 
 he ascended to Heaven. Here, however, the agreement 
 ends and the conflict begins. Instead of having Jesus 
 ascend from the secret retreat of the disciples, in Jeru- 
 salem, after he had finished his instructions, as Mark
 
 THE BLACK CURTAIN FALLS. 675 
 
 has him, he says that Jesus went to Bethany that same 
 night, and took his disciples with him. He then tells 
 us that, having reached Bethany (with every nook and 
 corner of which he was familiar), he lifted up his hands 
 to bless his disciples ; and that " it came to pass, while 
 he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried 
 up into Heaven." These words constitute the sole 
 basis for the assumption that the gospels assert a visible 
 and witnessed bodily ascension. But, Will these words 
 support any such assumption ? Luke does not intimate 
 that any one saw him ascend, but the fair inference is 
 to the contrary, whatever Luke may have hoped that 
 inference would be. Had they seen him ascend, that 
 fact would certainly have been stated ; but it is not. 
 He merely says that he was " parted " from them 
 " while " he was in the act of blessing them, and then 
 asserts that he was " carried " up into Heaven. He 
 does not say how he was parted from them or how he 
 was carried to Heaven, or that any one saw either his 
 parting or carrying up. The time that was selected for 
 separating from them was that precise moment when 
 the disciples were solemnly absorbed with the " bless- 
 ing," and when they would be least likely to have seen 
 so sudden a disappearance ; and Luke does not make 
 the separation consist of his being taken up to Heaven, 
 but asserts the separation, and then asserts the taking 
 up as a separate fact. And the very fact that Luke 
 does not state the act of separation, but merely states 
 \hefact that he " was separated," shows that they did not 
 know in what manner he had disappeared, but simply 
 the fact that he had disappeared, and disappeared while 
 the disciples were least expecting it and were absorbed
 
 6/6 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 by other thoughts and surrounded by the solemn dark- 
 ness of the night. Can this be called even a statement, 
 much less any evidence, of a bodily ascension of Jesus, 
 seen by his apostles ? If Jesus, for any purpose, had 
 desired to part with his disciples in this sudden and un- 
 observed manner, he could have selected no better 
 method than to take them to this familiar spot, in the 
 night, and, while he had them unsuspectingly and rever- 
 ently looking up, or with their eyes reverently closed to 
 receive his blessing, to have suddenly slipped behind 
 some concealing object and noiselessly glided off in the 
 night. Such an event would meet Luke's statement 
 fully, except the subsequent conclusion that, as he never 
 appeared again on Earth he must have been taken up to 
 Heaven. Such an occurrence, however, would have 
 been told just in this style by Luke, the final conclu- 
 sion and all. 
 
 By the time Luke wrote the Acts of the Apostles, 
 two things had happened : the germ of this myth had 
 began to grow in the mind of Luke, but, unfortunately, 
 he had also learned the fact that Jesus could not possibly 
 have ascended on that night at all. He had learned that 
 Jesus had been meeting with his disciples long after the 
 time he had asserted in his Gospel that he ascended into 
 Heaven. Behold the result, and take a lesson in Chris- 
 tian adaptation and myth-moulding ! Does Luke confess 
 and abandon his error, when he found the asserted fact 
 to have been impossible ? Or, Does he ignore these new 
 and delightful evidences of the fact of the " resttrrection" 
 because of their incompatibility with his equally delight- 
 ful and growing myth of the "ascension ?" Not at all.
 
 THE BLACK CURTAIN FALLS. 677 
 
 On the contrary, he magnifies both. He now tells us, 
 in his first chapter, that, instead of Jesus leaving the 
 Earth' the first night after his resurrection, he remained 
 and was seen by his disciples for " forty days " after he 
 arose. He then tells us an enlarged and altered st!bry 
 of the ascension. But, lest the juxtaposition, in the same 
 book, of two such contradictory statements should expose 
 and destroy both, he leaves out the time and place of the 
 ascension altogether, so that, for all that appears, it might 
 have been on the noon or the night of the fortieth day, and 
 have occurred at Jericho or Beersheba. No rational mind 
 can be imposed upon by such palpable myth-making and 
 trickery as this. And, did the t matter require it, it could 
 be very clearly shown that, even in this last statement, 
 Luke does not directly affirm that any one saw him rise 
 into Heaven, or say anything which necessarily implies 
 it. He evidently still hesitated to directly affirm what 
 he was willing or desirous for others to infer. Luke 
 knew nothing of the matters about which he wrote, and 
 was clearly misinformed as to the whole course of the 
 occurrences after the resurrection. For he never takes 
 either Jesus or the disciples into Galilee #t all, after that 
 event ; nor does he mention the fact that Jesus sent 
 them word or orders to meet him there ; but, to the con- 
 trary of all this, he says that Jesus instructed them to 
 remain in Jerusalem and that they did so remain. 
 
 John and Matthew, who were personally present 
 through it all, set this whole account of Luke aside,
 
 6/8 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 the ascension and all. They tell us that Jesus appointed 
 to meet them in Galilee, on the first morning he reap- 
 peared, and that both he and they actually went to Gal- 
 ilee ; and that he met the disciples there and instructed 
 them, while Luke had them still kept in Jerusalem by 
 express command, and long after he had sent Jesus to 
 Heaven. Unless both these men grossly lied, then, 
 Luke must have been misinformed as to all these facts, 
 including that of the ascension. Neither of these men, 
 who saw him latest, pretend that he either died again 
 after his resurrection or that he left the Earth in any 
 manner. The last they knew or recorded of him, he was 
 in full life, and as likely to live out his " threescore and 
 ten years " as the best of them ; although he was com- 
 pelled to spend them unknown and in another land. 
 The last meeting they each record was in Galilee, and 
 there they both leave him, in full life and vigor. The 
 divinity of Jesus and his pretended resurrection, then, 
 can borrow neither light nor aid from this gross but 
 feeble attempt of Luke to produce the belief that he 
 bodily and visibly ascended into Heaven on the night 
 after his alleged resurrection. Such a scene, indeed, as 
 Luke would have us believe, would be morally impossible 
 to an Incarnate God that was ascending to Heaven after 
 having finished such a mission as is claimed for Jesus. 
 Such a tricky sneaking from the Earth and even from 
 his own disciples, under cover of night, and while he was 
 pretending to bless them, would be physically impossible 
 to man and morally impossible to God : man couldnt 
 ascend, and God wouldn't ascend in such a w(iy.
 
 THE BLACK CURTAIN FALLS. 679 
 
 There having been no heavenly exit of the hero of 
 the Gospel drama, Was there an exit at all ? No. The 
 black curtain falls upon the closing drama and hides the 
 chief actor from our sight, almost while he is yet speak- 
 ing. We are not, indeed, wholly without evidence sug- 
 gestive of his having reappeared, in a new character and 
 guise, in the " after-piece." The scriptural record of 
 Paul, when thoughtfully examined in connection with 
 the real facts, leaves a suspicion, if no more, that he was 
 secretly connected with Jesus after his final flight from 
 Palestine. Paul claimed to have seen a brilliant light 
 shine about him and to have heard a voice, in going, 
 with others, to Damascus. The story is told several 
 times, but never twice alike, even by Paul himself. But 
 upon one point the evidence is positive and concordant, 
 namely : that Paul did not see Jesus or the person who 
 spoke, at that time. His only information as to its being 
 Jesus was derived through the voice a voice which he 
 himself admits, not one of those who were with him ever 
 heard at all (Acts xxii. 9). If he ever saw Jesus, 
 therefore, it was after this event. It is said, that a dis- 
 ciple of Jesus, named Ananias, was directed by the Lord 
 to go to Paul ; and in the twenty-second chapter of Acts, 
 Paul tells us that this messenger of the Lord said to him 
 " The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou 
 shouldst know his will, and'see the Just One, and shouldst 
 hear the voice of his mouth. For thou shalt be his wit- 
 ness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard" 
 The plain and unequivocal meaning and import of this 
 communication was, that Paul should see and converse 
 with Jesus personally, that he might be an eye and ear- 
 witness to the fact of his resurrection and to the Gospel
 
 68O JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 with which Jesus would entrust him. The language is 
 so specific as to clearly indicate a purpose to exclude 
 any miraculous voice or communication. And again: 
 in 'first Corinthians (ix. i) Paul says: "Am I not an 
 Apostle ? Am I not free ? Have I not seen Jesus!' 
 And again : he says (Gal. i., ii.), that he had been chosen 
 by God to preach Jesus to the heathen ; and he vig- 
 orously asserts, that he had been dependent upon no 
 man for his Gospel or his instructions. He says that, 
 after his conversion, instead of going up to the old dis- 
 ciples at Jerusalem, from Damascus, he went into Ara- 
 bia, and from there returned to Damascus, and that he 
 then remained three years before he returned to Jeru- 
 salem and first saw the old Apostles. He openly claims 
 to have been independently commissioned to preach a 
 special Gospel to the Gentiles, as Peter had been to 
 preach the other Gospel to the Jews ; and he stoutly 
 contends for the originality, independence and equality 
 of both his own apostleship and his own gospel ; and as 
 stoutly denies that he had either owed anything or 
 yielded anything to the old apostles. Now, as Paul had 
 an original and independent Gospel, specially adapted to 
 the Gentiles, and had not received that gospel, or his 
 commission, or his instructions, or his knowledge of the 
 life and doctrines of Jesus from the apostles, from whom 
 did he receive them ? Must he not indeed have seen 
 and conferred with Jesus in the flesh, before he left the 
 Earth ? He says he saw Jesus, and yet he says he did 
 not see him on his way to Damascus. When and Where, 
 then, did Paul see Jesus and hear from his own "mouth" 
 the gospel, facts and doctrines to which he was to bear 
 witness, and which he preached ? Why did he, instead
 
 THE BLACK CURTAIN FALLS. 68 1 
 
 of going back to Jerusalem, take that unexplained wild- 
 goose flight into Arabia, and never go near one of the 
 apostles for years ? Query ? Did Jesus go, temporarily, 
 to Damascus on leaving Galilee, under an assumed name, 
 and there meet Paul ; manage to convert him ; take him 
 with him to his final destination among the Arabs the 
 half-brothers of his race : and, while thus with him, in- 
 doctrinate him, and specially commission him to the 
 Gentiles with a modified gospel ? Whatever were the 
 true facts underlying this Pauline mystery, let us leave 
 it with this query. 
 
 We have now made as clear an exposition as we have 
 been able to make of the essential features in the life, 
 character, pretensions and fortunes of the son of Joseph 
 and Mary, from the singularly imperfect, garbled and 
 unreliable accounts of them now found in our four Gos- 
 pels. And, with all due self-distrustfulness, we can but 
 think, that we have aided in solving the mystery which 
 the idealizing and mythic tendencies of past ages and 
 the ignorance, devotion and superstition of his followers 
 and worshippers have thrown around them. We surely 
 must have convinced every rational reader that Jesus was 
 a mere man, and one distinguished rather for his demo- 
 cratic sympathies, his unhappy fate, his singular escape, 
 and his strange, stupendous and beneficent influence upon 
 Humanity, than for any unparalleled qualities of his
 
 682 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 nature, or for any extraordinary intelligence, morality or 
 perfection of conduct. We think we have clearly shown, 
 that whatever peculiar qualities and powers he actually 
 possessed were natural to him as a man, and were by no 
 means exceptional or unknown. We think we have ra- 
 tionally and satisfactorily shown, that his egotism and his 
 unhappy delusion as to his being the Jewish Messiah 
 and the fountain and source of physical and moral life 
 and of divine pardon and regeneration, had their primary 
 source in his ignorance and misconception of these nat- 
 ural qualities and powers and of the cause of diseases, 
 and were successively fostered into life and vigor by the 
 peculiar notions and excitements of his time and by his 
 own peculiar nature, habits and circumstances. We 
 think we have shown that he had not the slightest real 
 grounds for supposing himself either a God, the son of a 
 God, a miracle- worker, a Jewish Christ, 3 sin-offering, or 
 a saviour of men in the sense claimed. We think we 
 have shown conclusively, that his entire active public 
 career, after he proclaimed himself the Christ, was di- 
 rectly, and up to his final rejection, directed to the attain- 
 ment of the Messianic throne of Israel ; that he neither 
 originally contemplated the failure of his Jewish efforts, 
 nor the extension of those efforts to the eternal salvation 
 of mankind, or beyond the Israelitish people and Messiah- 
 ship, nor caused his disciples or any one else to suppose 
 that he did so. We have shown that he failed in every 
 thing he undertook, and both cursed and wept over his 
 failures ; and that his final triumphal entry into Jerusa- 
 lem as the King of the Jews and its pitiful failure brought 
 him to the cross. We have shown that his pretended 
 execution on the cross was neither sufficient to endanger
 
 THE BLACK CURTAIN FALLS. 683 
 
 life, nor intended to be so, but that be was aided to 
 escape death on the cross, to recover in the sepul- 
 chre, and to escape alive from the sepulchre and flee 
 the country in disguise. We have shown the neces- 
 sity which impelled him to delude his disciples as to 
 these facts, and to suffer them to believe that he actually 
 arose from the dead, and to then convince them that it 
 was a necessary and scripturally-predicted incident in 
 the career of the prophesied Christ. We have shown 
 how he succeeded in still convincing and controlling his 
 disciples by reason of their belief in his actual resurrec- 
 tion from the dead and their consequent conviction that 
 he was a God ; and in making them believe that his 
 death was a pre-determined and voluntary sacrifice for the 
 sins of his disciples, or those who had faith in him ; and 
 that his resurrection from death was for their justifica- 
 tion and for their assurance of immortality and eternal 
 salvation ; and how he induced them to believe that his 
 Messianic reign was still certain and imminent, and that 
 during that very generation he would again come in all 
 his divine power and glory : in short, how he convinced 
 them, that his past failures were but the necessary and 
 foretold prelude to his future triumph, and instructed 
 them to go forth and preach these things to the world. 
 We have shown, also, that the apotheosis which was won 
 by his supposed resurrection, and the hopes which he 
 inspired by his promises promises which stood guaran- 
 teed by that resurrection and divinity, have induced his 
 followers, throughout subsequent ages, to worship him as 
 a God, and to idealize and mythically remould his lineage, 
 his paternity, his nature, his conception, his birth, his 
 life, his character, his motives, conduct and designs,
 
 684 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 upon the models of a perfect man, of a Son of God and 
 Divine Saviour who had voluntarily sacrificed himself 
 for the sins of believers, as well as upon that, also, of 
 the prophesied, but spiritual Christ and Redeemer of 
 the Jews ; and that, in doing this, they have, in utter 
 disregard of the real facts, adorned and divinely glorified 
 his conception, embryonic life, birth, dedication, bap- 
 tism, temptation, transfiguration, agony, punishment, 
 resurrection, etc., with a series of mythic miracles and 
 indicia which are as puerile and absurd as they were 
 false and unreal ; and have endeavored to reconstruct 
 the facts and records concerning him in such a way as 
 to justify and sustain these new or post-resurrection dog- 
 mas and beliefs and the myths which they have engen- 
 dered. And we think, finally, that we have sufficiently 
 exposed the last feeble attempt to close his mythic, as 
 well as his earthly career by a pretended bodily ascen- 
 sion into Heaven. 
 
 If, in reviewing these subjects, the constant and gross 
 perversions and perversities which we have been com- 
 pelled to deal with, have driven us, at any time, into a se- 
 verity of either judgment or expression which has been 
 unwarranted or uncalled-for, none could regret such an 
 error more than ourself, or could more truthfully say that 
 it has been unintentionally committed. The persistent 
 endeavor has been to grasp the reality the very truth 
 of matters, and to judge all sides and parties with sym- 
 pathetic justice and equity, and without prejudice, but
 
 THE BLACK CURTAIN FALLS. 685 
 
 also without shrinking from a free and fearless vindica- 
 tion of the truth and right. For we not only regard 
 Jesus as having been the initial point and nucleus of one 
 of Earth's greatest and most beneficent movements, but 
 have a most kindly sympathy for Jesus personally, as 
 well as entertain many sympathies and repugnances in 
 common with him. And we should be indeed sorry, if 
 we had unfitted either our readers or ourself from now 
 proceeding to part with him, in the last recorded scene 
 in his known career, with all proper reverence for his 
 real virtues, and with all due sympathy for his untoward 
 fortunes, and all kindly hopes and wishes, projected back 
 upon that unrecorded earthly career which still lay be- 
 fore him when he parted from his devoted followers. 
 
 Let us endeavor to mentally outline and gaze upon 
 that last scene recorded in the last chapter of the last 
 of the gospels. Time : early in the morning. Scene : 
 a fishing smack lying some 200 cubits from a lonely bit 
 of shore on the Galilean sea. On the shore is a fire, 
 and on its coals are seen fish broiling, and bread lying 
 near. We gaze upon the scene. We have no difficulty 
 in recognizing the men in the fishing smack, being old 
 acquaintances. The faces of Peter, and John, and 
 James, and Thomas, and Nathaniel are clearly recog- 
 nizable from the shore. They have been fishing. 
 Through the night they had been unlucky, but are pre-
 
 686 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 paring to cast their net again. The chief fisherman, as 
 also chief apostle, is in command, and seems specially 
 prepared for business ; the " Prince of the Apostles " is 
 naked ; a fact readily comprehensible then, although 
 now, it has become somewhat difficult to realize the fact 
 of the predecessor of a Hildebrand, a Leo Tenth, or a 
 Pio Nino, fishing naked before his cardinals or suffragan 
 bishops ! 
 
 Yes, we recognize these men and this nude prede- 
 cessor of the Popes. But Who is this lone man sitting 
 by his bivouac fire in this lonely spot on the shore, and 
 broiling his fish for breakfast, like some wandering and 
 fleeing outcast ? Can this be the Incarnate God who 
 divinely rose from the dead some few weeks ago on 
 Mount Calvary ? No ; this strange man has no recog- 
 nizable personal resemblance to that person. Nor is it 
 credible that, under the circumstances, he who had mi- 
 raculously provided cooked-fish for thousands by his 
 mere volition, would now seek this lonely spot, and 
 catch, clean and cook fish for his own sustenance. Be- 
 sides, What business could that divine person possibly 
 have in bivouacing here and now, in disguise, in this 
 lonely and secret spot, long after his divine mission and 
 labors had been closed ? And, Did not that Incarnate 
 God close his earthly career and ascend to Heaven, the 
 very next night after he arose, at Jerusalem ? nay, we 
 mistake, at Bethany ? Nay, we must amend the 
 whole, Did he not meet his disciples, by appointment, 
 in a mountain in Galilee, and there finally instruct and 
 part from them, neither of the parties expecting to 
 ever meet again ? No, this cannot be that Incarnate
 
 THE BLACK CURTAIN FALLS. 687 
 
 God whose earthly mission had thus been closed, who 
 thus continues to purposely linger around the sea of 
 Galilee, evidently avoiding the face and habitations of 
 men, sleeping out at nights, and secretly fishing and 
 cooking for his own sustenance no no, this is quite 
 impossible. 
 
 But pause ! May not this still be a wanderer whom 
 we know ? May it not be, that we have here that alto- 
 gether human and unfortunate aspirant for the throne of 
 Israel whom we have seen condemned and punished for 
 conspiring to become " King of the Jews," he who 
 did not rise from the dead and did not ascend into 
 Heaven, but who escaped both death and Jerusalem, and 
 fled in disguise into Galilee, and who secretly met with, 
 and finally parted from, his disciples on some adjacent 
 Galilean mount, in continued life and unabated vigor ? 
 May not this be an accidental meeting ? May he not 
 have lingered another night, or even a day and night, 
 around the shores of that sea which had witnessed so 
 many of his early sucsesses and then hopeful endeavors, 
 ere he parted from it forever ? Nothing would seem 
 more probable : but we will await developments. One 
 sign is hopeful. He evidently recognizes and is inter- 
 ested in these fishermen, and directs them where to cast 
 their net. They do not recognize him. But this argues 
 nothing, since they are not disguised, and he is. The net 
 is cast, under this man's directions, and with wonderful 
 success. And by some association of ideas, doubtlessly 
 with certain former and similar successful directions, 
 the truth flashes upon the mind of John it is his mas- 
 ter ! Yes, it is Jesus ; still hiding and fleeing. And
 
 688 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 now the impulsive Peter throws on his fishing garment, 
 and, plunging into the water, swims ashore ; while the 
 others follow in the small boat. They all meet and con- 
 verse around the bivouac fire of their master, and pre- 
 pare and eat their last meal of " fish and bread " to- 
 gether. But there is a strange constraint and reticence 
 upon the part of all, and especially upon the most nat- 
 ural subjects of conversation. Knowing his desire for 
 concealment, and his excessive dread of exposure, the 
 disciples " durst not ask him " concerning himself, nor 
 did Jesus refer to himself or to his own plans, past or 
 future. They converse about the future of the disciples ; 
 and Peter puts the last question. And with his master's 
 answer to this question, the record of the career of Jesus 
 finally closes ; -and the black curtain falls, leaving him 
 with this answer still upon his lips, himself well filled 
 with " fish and bread," and in the prime of his life, 
 health and vigor. 
 
 But while the record thus drops the curtain, May not 
 the imagination, guided by almost necessary inferences, 
 prolong at least this one scene to its close ? May we 
 not imagine that silent, but last and profoundly sorrow- 
 ful parting ; the ship sailing off on its return to Caper- 
 naum ; that lone wanderer standing on the shore gazing 
 on its lessening and dimming sails ? Can we not im- 
 agine the anguish with which those devoted fishermen 
 would turn and look back to that receding shore ? And, 
 as the lonely and dimming figure faded out in the dis-
 
 THE BLACK CURTAIN FALLS. 689 
 
 tance, May we not imagine Peter and John voicelessly 
 gazing from the stern of their vessel, while convulsive 
 sobs were swelling the bosom of the " beloved disciples," 
 and tears were furrowing the weather-beaten face of 
 the sturdy fisherman who had just been left to "feed his 
 sheep ? " But Who may say what were the thoughts of 
 the lonely fugitive who was thus fading from their view, 
 or whither he directed his steps when they, too, faded 
 away in the distance ? That he had never died, never 
 risen from the dead, never ascended into Heaven, and 
 that we finally part from him in his fullest prospect for 
 continued life, and while using every precaution to es- 
 cape death, without a hint from either him or his disci- 
 ples of his anticipating an early departure from mortal 
 life or any other departure save that by time and natural 
 death, we already know ; and thus knowing, we must 
 anticipate for him many years of natural life. But what 
 that future life would be, and in what land it would be 
 spent, were matters necessarily to be kept in profound 
 secrecy even from his disciples. His future career 
 after he left Galilee, therefore, must ever remain buried 
 in that silent domain of the Unrecorded, which has 
 shrouded in oblivion the great mass of human actions 
 and human destinies. May the sod rest lightly above 
 his remains wherever they may lie. 
 
 44
 
 690 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 MAN early forms the conception of divine beings, 
 and still earlier forms the conception of an inner Self or 
 Soul. It is long, however, before he even approximates 
 a true conception of either. It is the unalterable ten- 
 dency of man to believe in both, after he has attained a 
 capacity for conceiving them. If there be a time in 
 man's early history when he does not believe in either, 
 it is a time so early that he is incapable of forming ideas 
 upon such subjects. He is driven into the belief of them 
 by the mental influences which compel their conception. 
 Doubt and disbelief of them are of later growth, and are 
 the offspring of Reason and Investigation. But this 
 doubt and disbelief, although normal processes of mental 
 progress, are not normal states in which man can rest. 
 They are but the first steps in forcing a reconstruction 
 of our immature conceptions ; and the same (and per- 
 haps additional causes) that compelled our immature 
 conceptions will compel a reconstruction of them. For 
 these inseparable ideas of God and Soul are not only 
 suggested and proved by the facts of Nature, but are 
 nourished by the fundamental aspirations of the soul. 
 The difficulty in this matter does not lay in the lack of 
 belief in souls and Deities, but in man's incapacity,
 
 CONCLUSION. 691 
 
 hitherto, to form true or rational, or indeed any clear 
 conception of them. As might have been expected, the 
 God-ideas and religious creeds of the more developed 
 races present a progressive formation, constructed by 
 means of successive additions, patchings and remodel- 
 lings. As the developing soul has found new needs and 
 acquired deeper insight, rendering its old creeds too in- 
 fantile and cramped for its accommodation, it has been 
 driven into efforts at improvement until temporary ac- 
 commodation was attained ; rather remodelling, how- 
 ever, than attempting to build anew. Thus far, Religion 
 has made no determined and prolonged effort to recon- 
 struct itself upon a rational basis, freed from the dogmas 
 and influences born of super-naturalism. And, conse- 
 quently, its achievements hitherto have been provisional 
 and temporary a successive series of modifications and 
 changes, without rational hope of permanence. The 
 entire framework of even our Christian Theology stands 
 utterly condemned by Science and Reason, as the im- 
 mature production of early ignorance and superstition. 
 The doctrines of a creation by fiat, of man's fall and de- 
 generacy, of written divine laws, of divinely-inspired 
 men, prophecies and writings, of proving facts by mira- 
 cles, of an incarnation of God, of a divine vicarious sac- 
 rifice for human sins, of eternal punishment, personal 
 devils, and a local hell, of a local Heaven or " City of 
 God," with its enthroned King, -could never have been 
 born of modern thought, and can find no support in 
 modern knowledge or enlightened reason. The germs 
 of truth which these false notions obscure rather than 
 elucidate, are the real existence of God, the soul, and 
 immortality.
 
 692 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 But it may be asked " Could an uninspired gospel 
 and an uninspired Church have won such triumphs as 
 Christianity has won ? Has not the Church proved its 
 pretensions by its successes ? Certainly no success ever 
 won by Christianity or its founder can even form an 
 evidence, much less proof, of its supernatural origin. 
 There is not a single influence it ever exerted, which 
 may not be plainly traced to adequate natural causes, 
 where the real facts are known. 
 
 Its influence upon the emotions, beliefs and conduct 
 of individuals is certainly very marked in certain in- 
 stances, but such influences are not more marked than 
 their causes are simple and palpable. " Let us merely 
 glance at the nature and cause of some of its most strik- 
 ing personal effects. What occurs, for example, in the 
 process of converting a sinner at one of our religious 
 revivals ? The first process of the revivalist is to get 
 lip a general state of emotional and sympathetic excite- 
 ment which will utterly subordinate everything to the 
 purpose in hand and sway and control the congregation. 
 Secondly : he endeavors to produce " conviction," or an 
 overwhelming sense of guilt and fear a conviction of 
 being utterly lost and undone, without divine aid and 
 pardon. Thirdly : when the victim of this terrible con- 
 viction has exhausted himself in supplications for mercy, 
 and approaches the point of despair, the light of hope is 
 thrown full upon him ; he is promised an immediate, 
 free and full pardon and salvation the moment that he 
 will have faith in Jesus, and in the promised pardon ; 
 and he is passionately exhorted to have absolute faith, to 
 " give himself up " and trust all to God, who stands with
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 693 
 
 outstretched arms to receive him the moment he has en- 
 tire faith in the promised salvation. The exhausted and 
 despairing reprobate finally lets all holds go, and drops 
 helplessly, but with an absolute faith in the divine as- 
 surances. Now, if this leap of Faith" had been from a 
 fourth story window, the pavement would have shaken 
 it in an astonishing manner. But, as the whole matter 
 is purely mental is purely emotional and imaginative, 
 the fact of pardon and salvation can never be tested 'or 
 known, and can only be evidenced by the man's own 
 mental feelings. Here, however, the facts are unequiv- 
 ocal. Having absolute faith that he would be pardoned, 
 and was pardoned, he feels and acts exactly as he would 
 were the whole matter the divinest reality. He feels all 
 the relief from guilt and fear, and all the blessedness of 
 a sense of salvation and of divine favor and reconcilia- 
 tion. His feelings, beliefs and conduct will correspond 
 with his undoubting belief or faith as to the facts. 
 Whether the facts are true or false is a matter of no dif- 
 ference, and can never be either proved or disproved. 
 His absolute faith in their truth, however, makes them 
 true to his own mind, even if they were false ; and his 
 feelings, beliefs and conduct will respond exactly in pro- 
 portion to his faith. In its effects upon the believer 
 himself, absolute faith in an unknowable fact is always 
 identical with its reality. And this fact, in itself, very 
 clearly accounts for the feelings and conduct of converts 
 and for all the " internal evidences " of the religion of 
 Jesus. The same religious excitement, ecstasies, convul- 
 sions and other physical or mental effects, and the same 
 internal convictions of the truth of their religion, and the 
 same willingness to surfer martyrdom for it which are
 
 694 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 found among Christians, are also found among the vo- 
 taries of other religions. There is no effect produced 
 by Christianity, which cannot be paralleled or duplicated 
 from' other religions. Neither the supposed internal 
 evidences of the "truth of Christianity, nor its effects 
 upon the feelings, belief or conduct, therefore, can fur- 
 nish the slightest evidence of its supernatural origin or 
 of the truth of its theology, even were they all that they 
 are claimed to be. 
 
 The expansion and the acquisition of power and do- 
 minion by Christianity can, in like manner, have no 
 tendency whatever to prove its special divine origin or 
 truth. The extent of religious influences and move- 
 ments are always incalculable, but always dependent upon 
 natural causes and conditions. The man who can sup- 
 ply the special need, or furnish the necessary inspiration, 
 required by the masses of mankind at any given stage 
 of their development who can shake the tree when the 
 pear is ripe and ready to fall, is sure of success of a 
 success commensurate, not with his own worth or ability, 
 but with the need or demand which he supplies. Gua- 
 tama was a mendicant preacher like Jesus, and yet his 
 success was far greater. Mahomet was a mere private 
 and undistinguished citizen suffering from religious 
 mania and mental hallucinations, and yet his religion 
 supplanted that of Jesus in the entire region of its birth 
 and early triumphs, and long threatened its utter extinc- 
 tion. The influence of the entire body of the statesmen
 
 CONCLUSION. 695 
 
 and warriors of our century will probably prove far less 
 profound and prolonged than those of Mr. Wesley or 
 Joseph Smith. The wholly z^divine nature of such tri- 
 umphs is also shown by the fact of the utter failure of 
 Christianity to convert the Jews, its prime object and 
 effort. If success with the Gentiles could be regarded 
 as at all presumptive of its divine origin, What shall we 
 say of this persistent and signal defeat, this defeat, not 
 only of Jesus before the Jews, but of Peter and his gos- 
 pel to the Jews ? What, indeed, shall we say of its utter 
 failure to convert any people already possessed of an in- 
 spired religion and written divine laws, outside the Ro- 
 man Empire where it had finally triumphed by the sword 
 of Constantine ? 
 
 In the highest sense, all the agencies by which man 
 is developed and the progress of Humanity is secured, 
 are divine. In this universal sense, and in no other, is 
 the Christian Church and its records of divine origin. 
 That it has "been an inestimable comfort and blessing to 
 millions of the human race is certain. That most of the 
 races adopting it have made progress under, and often 
 by, its influence, is not to be doubted ; a progress often 
 even exceptionally great. That it was a fit instrument, 
 nay, that it was the fittest and necessary instrument, 
 for producing the special progress and results it has ac- 
 tually achieved, and which, in the divine economy and 
 order of Nature, it was to achieve, is indubitably proved 
 by the fact of its selection and success.
 
 696 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 Like all other instruments of natural progress, Jesus 
 and his followers were a success precisely because, and 
 precisely to the extent, they were the right men, in the 
 right times and places. But the precise same language 
 may be properly used of Guatama, Mahomet, Luther or 
 Wesley. There have been many religious successes be- 
 sides those of Christianity, and will be others still. 
 Each phase of religious growth must have its own form 
 of manifestation and expression, and when the state and 
 conditions demanding such advance and change arrives, 
 the divine agencies of Nature for effecting them have 
 already germinated ; and in due time and order will 
 consummate them to the pre-involved and determined 
 extent. The Christian claim in this regard is based 
 upon considerations substantially common to ail success- 
 ful religions from Fetichism to Mormonism. The mere 
 fact of any agency having been actually used in the 
 course of Evolution, is not the slightest evidence that it 
 is founded on truth, or is good, in a human sense ; while 
 all are good in an absolute or irrelative and divine sense. 
 The merest mistakes and sheerest lies of men are often 
 the means of immeasurable good. Even the wickedness 
 of men, the "good book" tells us, is made to "praise 
 God." The very fact of continued development and 
 progress implies continued error and incompleteness. 
 Nature's means and processes are always exactly ade- 
 quate to her ends, and, therefore, are complete and per- 
 fect as means and processes. Her products and results 
 are always approximating nearer to her final aims, and 
 are therefore never complete and perfect, save as means 
 and processes to further products and results, or until 
 some ultimate aim is reached. Man is quite unable to
 
 CONCLUSION. 697 
 
 determine either the completeness, perfection or good- 
 ness of Nature's "works." He only judges them rela- 
 tively to himself and his own aspirations, desires and en- 
 joyments. While Christianity, therefore, may be wholly 
 divine and good as an instrument of natural evolution, 
 and in an absolute sense, it by no means follows, that it 
 has these gifts as special qualities or characteristics, or 
 to the exclusion of other religions, or that it is divine or 
 good in its own sense of divine and good. Christianity, 
 indeed, triumphed as much because it was not final and 
 true, and by its own imperfections, as by its suggestion 
 of a higher range or degree of perfectness, and the sup- 
 ply of more pungent and efficient moral motives and 
 higher assurances of immortality ; but not at all by the 
 truth of its conceptions, assertions or pretensions. The 
 truth would neither have been comprehended or efficient 
 in .the days of Jesus would not now, with the great 
 mass of our own people. 
 
 Had Jesus, as we have elsewhere suggested, written 
 a truthful autobiography, as well as a complete and 
 clearly comprehensible moral and doctrinal code, in 
 which his real life, motives and opinions were truly re- 
 flected, and had accompanied them with an exact por- 
 trait of himself and his old Nazarene mother, where 
 would Christianity have been now ? Is it not evident, 
 that the book and the very memory of its author would 
 have perished ? It is the very indefiniteness, uncer- 
 tainty, mystery and suggestiveness which surround and
 
 698 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 characterize both him, his life and his doctrines, and the 
 unbounded promises and immeasurable hopes and fears 
 with which they were burdened, that gave them that 
 vigor and that elasticity and placidity which constituted 
 their adaptability to human needs, and fitted them for a 
 prolonged course of usefulness and success. They have 
 been, and still are, " all things to all men." Each per- 
 son of sufficient individuality to form opinions of his 
 own, has continued to mould these shadowy and hetero- 
 geneous elements to suit his own mind and satisfy his 
 own spiritual needs. The wonderful conglomerate fur- 
 nished by the Christian traditions and writings furnished 
 a new quarry for the formation of new ideals, and for 
 remoulding and embodying old myths. Out of this 
 many-hued and plastic mass of material individuals, 
 sects and successive generations, to use a homely 
 simile, have moulded and smoked their own pipes. 
 The scenes, characters and events, mythic and real, in 
 the New Testament and apocryphal Christian writings 
 have furnished an almost exhaustless store of materials 
 for the plastic labors of Art, and given loose rein to the 
 creative faculties of the painter, the sculptor and the 
 poet. There is scarce a hint to hamper their unbridled 
 fancies in the whole writings. Each can improve upon 
 the ideals and conceptions of his predecessors without 
 restraint from the records. The whole affair has the 
 rare attractiveness which belongs to the suggestive, the 
 mysterious and unknowable. 
 
 Morally and doctrinally it was almost equally plastic. 
 Diligence and a willing mind could discover some frag- 
 ments or dubieties from which almost every one could
 
 CONCLUSION. 699 
 
 mould or warp into doctrines or creeds in conformity 
 with their own notions or desires into some shell or 
 shelter for that hermit crab the chrysalis Soul. There 
 have arisen some thousand or more distinct schisms 
 and sects in the Christian Church ; a number vastly 
 excelling that of the sects of all other religions. To 
 this we may add an almost countless variety of individ- 
 ual beliefs and interpretations. This conflict or diver- 
 sity of opinion in regard to almost every important fact, 
 doctrine and notion mentioned in the New Testament, 
 has been deemed quite conclusive against the claims of 
 Christianity. And, if it is simply deemed adverse to its 
 claims to an exclusive divine origin and support, the 
 conclusion is correct ; if it is claimed, however, as a 
 proof of the unfitness of Christianity as a divine instru- 
 ment of Evolution, it is the very reverse of correct. 
 This adaptability of Christianity and its continuous mod- 
 ification and change, from age to age, has been the true 
 source of its prolonged success, and constitutes its surest 
 voucher for its divine origin. 
 
 Besides possessing these general qualifications for an 
 instrument of Evolution, there were many concurring 
 causes and conditions favoring the success of Christian- 
 ity too many to be even mentioned here. Prior to the 
 crucifixion, as we have seen, the disciples of Jesus had 
 regarded him as a prophet, and hoped he might prove 
 the temporal ruler and redeemer of Israel. When, how- 
 ever, these hopes were blasted by his failure and execu- 
 tion, they were overwhelmed with disappointment. His 
 unexpected reappearance and supposed resurrection put 
 a new face upon things, and there was a general over- 
 hauling and reconstruction of notions, opinions and
 
 7OO JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 plans, under the limitations and necessities imposed by 
 the new state of facts. There was little difficulty in in- 
 ducing the credulous disciples to believe, that they, to- 
 gether with the balance of their race, had been mistaken 
 as to the character and mission of the Christ of proph- 
 ecy. Their old habits of implicit faith and obedience to 
 their master was now supplemented by the new belief 
 that he was a God ; and his declarations and interpre- 
 tations of scripture were thenceforth considered as di- 
 vine and authoritative ; requiring the aid of neither fact 
 nor reason. The new scheme of the speedy second com- 
 ing of Jesus in all his divine power and glory, and the 
 prospects of their own exaltation under his divine reign, 
 set their souls ablaze with love, hope and faith. Could 
 world-storming and Heaven- scaling be difficult for such 
 men when backed by the power and promises of the 
 Father and the intercessions of the Son, and when " filled 
 W'th the Holy Ghost ? " Were they not ignorant and 
 suffering men appealing to ignorant and suffering men in 
 behalf of their own salvation ? and could they not kindle 
 a fire upon the " altar of their hearts," from the red-hot 
 coals upon their own ? Were they not brim full of cour- 
 age and faith ? and Did they not carry their own arsenals 
 and forges with them to furnish or mend their shafts to 
 penetrate all armors ? Were they not ready to be " all 
 things to all men" for their very salvation's sake ? Was 
 there not triumph in the very outlook ? Did not an 
 open ocean of Superstition spread out before them, upon 
 which they could sail at pleasure with all their sails set ? 
 Were there not vast harbors of Credulity where they 
 could defythe storms of Reason ? Were there not great 
 seas of Slavery, suffering, poverty, want and woe upon
 
 CONCLUSION. 7OI 
 
 which to sail, and a perfect universe of longing and dis- 
 content, to swell their sails ? Were not they themselves 
 from that multitudinous sub-stratum of Society where 
 the wants of Humanity are nakedest and her hopes 
 most immeasurable, and Could they not reach the heart 
 of that Humanity to its very nethermost depths ? Had 
 they not both authority and example for sending Lazarus 
 to Heaven and Dives to Hell, and for making the first 
 last and the down-trodden millions first ? Had they not 
 all men bribed, in advance, by immeasurable hopes and. 
 fears, as well as nine-tenths of them by the addition of 
 their prejudices against the rich and prosperous ? And 
 Were not the walls and defences of the old domain of 
 Polytheism in such advanced decay as to invite their 
 entry and possession ? If philosophic books or men stood 
 in their way, Might not the one be sent to the flames 
 and the other to hell, in the name of Jesus ! If perse- 
 cution or even death menaced them, Was there not a 
 glorious resurrection and a martyr's crown to be hourly 
 expected with the " second coming ? " If their preach- 
 ing was foolish, Was it not to be gloried in as the fool- 
 ishness of God and salvation ? Were not the4iusks and 
 shards of old beliefs already dried and parched into a 
 magazine of combustibles? and Was not this new-lit, 
 fiery cross,. reeking with divine blood and heralding im- 
 mortal hopes and hell-hot fears, the very torch to set the 
 old dry-rotted World aflame ? Was not there cause to 
 hearken and tremble ? Was not the final arbiter of 
 men's eternal bliss or eternal torment, that Jesus who 
 had risen from the dead, even then stealing upon the 
 world " like a thief in the night ? " Were not the very 
 generations to whom they bore his message doomed to
 
 /O2 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 see the sun darkened, the moon turned to blood, the 
 stars of heaven fall, the Earth consumed by unimagin- 
 able fire, and the heavens rolled up like a parch-scroll, as 
 this terrible arbiter of all men's fate should come " in 
 clouds and great glory " to separate the redeemed believ- 
 ers from the lost and damned unbelievers ? Dared a 
 world of Superstition stand unmoved in the presence of 
 such stupendous responsibilities and consequences ? 
 Had not the time come when Paul might well say that 
 God had " chosen the foolish things of the world to con- 
 found the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things cf 
 the world to "confound the things of the mighty : and 
 base things of the world and things which are despised, 
 hath God chosen, yea and things which are not to bring 
 to naught things that are ? " Had not the time come 
 when the " mud sills " should be lifted up, and the poor 
 have the gospel preached, and immortality and crowns 
 of glory awarded them " without money and without 
 price ? " Were it not also worth while to believe ? 
 
 Had all the philosophers of the Roman Empire con- 
 spired to found a new religion, they would have produced 
 less effect upon mankind than the single labors of that 
 indomitable sail-maker of Tarsus with his divine message 
 to the Gentiles. The religion of the one would have ap- 
 pealed to the reason of the intelligent few who were 
 capable of forming or of judging opinions for themselves, 
 and would have resulted in endless debate which would 
 never have reached more than a tenth of the people.
 
 CONCLUSION. 703 
 
 The religion of the other came as a direct message from 
 God, that permitted no question of its propriety or truth, 
 but demanded acceptance and belief by its divine sanc- 
 tion and by every hope of reward and every fear of pun- 
 ishment which a sympathizing nature and fervid imagi- 
 nation could conceive for influencing the superstitious 
 and down-trodden laborers, women and slaves to whom 
 it was preached. It appealed to the emotions alone 
 those truj motors of the soul. It planted itself in the 
 fundamental life-aspiration of the human soul, and rooted 
 itself in the perennial needs, hopes and desires of the 
 masses of mankind the very sub-soil from which all 
 great evolutive agencies draw their nourishment and 
 vigor. Paul and Nature were in accord in their imme- 
 diate aims and means, but were widely divergent in their 
 secondary or ulterior purposes. Each proposed to secure 
 a belief in Christianity by the most efficient means : 
 Paul, with a view to secure the eternal salvation, in 
 Heaven, of the believer : Nature, with a view to secure 
 the proper inspirations and restraints to insure man's 
 further progress on Earth, as the only means of -securing 
 him endless psychical progress in intelligence and beat 
 itude in the Hereafter. The temporary partnership of 
 Paul and Nature proved a success : as was most likely. 
 They furnished the exact religion needed for the tempo- 
 rary purposes designed and actually subserved, and it 
 of necessity triumphed. 
 
 As Evolution was the nurse, so will it be the sexton, 
 of Christianity. The decay of this religion among the
 
 704 JESUS AND RELIGION. 
 
 intelligent classes and among the laboring masses from 
 which it sprung, is as certain, if not as rapid, as its rise. 
 This decadence is as resistless as it is final. It has been 
 of incalculable service to mankind, and still is, and may 
 long continue to be, an inspiration and blessing to mil- 
 lions ; but the hand of the Inevitable is upon it. Being 
 a product and phase of Evolution it will merge into a 
 higher phase. Its plasticity and adaptability have been 
 indeed marvellous, but they have been stretched to their 
 utmost. Every re-stretching is at the expense of its 
 vigor and vitality as a supernatural religion, and can 
 only result in an ever more transparent tenuity and in 
 final rupture. Without the aid of supernaturalism it is 
 but an empty shell " sound and fury signifying noth- 
 ing : " and the reign of Supernaturalism is closing. 
 Christianity is dying at both top and root among the 
 bodily toilers and the brain toilers, and its hollow trunk 
 has been invaded by Phariseeism and Mammon. This 
 was inevitable was a necessary result of its triumph. 
 There is no warfare against it, and need be none. It 
 still has numbers, power, and that wealth to which it 
 panders. The terrors, and hopes and consolations it has 
 supplied may long be required by the ignorant and un- 
 developed, and may furnish a basis for mystic ideals to 
 even higher intelligences ; while it will still continue to 
 be a useful instrument of political parties and of the 
 Plutocracy in educating, influencing and controlling the 
 people ; and it may still glory in its dominion ; but 
 neither it, nor aught else earthly, can avoid that fatal 
 decay from inanition and corruption which even Triumph 
 itself brings, and which sooner or later comes to all 
 instruments of progressive evolution, nor repress that
 
 CONCLUSION. 7O5 
 
 strange and expansive power of new growths which 
 rends the very rocks with its fibrous touch. All forms 
 of Supernaturalism are doomed are provisional only. 
 Men grew into Christianity, and they will grow out of 
 it. The old shell of the young Chrysalis already feels 
 the birth-throes from the coming of the new life within 
 it ; and, in its instinctive dread of dissolution, it fever- 
 ishly puts forth unwonted efforts in this brief " Indian 
 summer" of its waning life. The sun of the new day 
 has not fully risen, but the morning sky is red with its 
 coming ! 
 
 To the true Theistic Evolutionist, in his philosophic 
 moods, the final feverish efforts of the two poles of 
 Christianity Catholicism and Protestantism to main- 
 tain the ascendancy of Supernaturalism and the Church, 
 are subjects at once of mournful interest and of exultant 
 hope. Like the sympathetic watcher of the " old year 
 out and the new year in," he can but whisper his ideas 
 to the waning Cycle of Evolution with a sense of mys- 
 terious awe as he witnesses the feverish death-spasms 
 and struggles for life of this last and mightiest of the 
 past agencies of human progress, ere he turns to embrace 
 the new heir of Hope and child God. Believing in the 
 divinity of all Nature's methods, even in that of the 
 grim death which gives possession to the new heirs of 
 both men and Progress, he sympathizes with all, and 
 touches every foot-print of the Divine Creative Intelli- 
 gence with an unstinted and loving reverence. To him 
 
 45
 
 7O6 JESUS AND RELIGION 
 
 the material or human and perishing forms it assumes 
 and the agencies it evolves and adopts, in its inarch 
 from Chaos towards Light and God, are of interest only 
 as inestimable mementoes and evidences of that divine 
 process of evolution of which all human life and history 
 form a part, and which is ever bearing the soul up to- 
 wards God.* 
 
 * The true conceptions of God and of the soul and its destiny, we have endeavored to 
 establish in a work entitled the " Divine Problem : " to which the Reader is respect- 
 fully referred.
 
 BT 
 
 303 
 
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