Much moreover of what he holds to be untrue does not seem so to any but to the highly educated. In spite therefore of his able reply, I abide in my opinion that he is unreasonably endeavouring to erect what is essentially a piece of doubtful biography and difficult literary criticism into first-rate religious importance.
I shall however try to pick up a few details which seem, as much as any, to deserve credit, concerning the pretensions, doctrine and conduct of Jesus.
_First_, I believe that he habitually spoke of himself by the t.i.tle "_Son of Man_"--a fact which pervades all the accounts, and was likely to rivet itself on his hearers. n.o.body but he himself ever calls him Son of Man.
_Secondly_ I believe that in a.s.suming this t.i.tle he tacitly alluded to the viith chapter of Daniel, and claimed for himself the throne of judgment over all mankind.--I know no reason to doubt that he actually delivered (in substance) the discourse in Matth. xxv. "When the Son of Man shall come in his glory,... before him shall be gathered all nations,... and he shall separate them, &c. &c.": and I believe that by _the Son of Man_ and _the King_ he meant himself. Compare Luke xii.
40, ix. 56.
_Thirdly_, I believe that he habitually a.s.sumed the authoritative dogmatic tone of one who was a universal Teacher in moral and spiritual matters, and enunciated as a primary duty of men to learn submissively of his wisdom and acknowledge his supremacy. This element in his character, _the preaching of himself_ is enormously expanded in the fourth gospel, but it distinctly exists in Matthew. Thus in Matth.
xxiii 8: "Be not ye called Rabbi [_teacher_], for one is your Teacher, even Christ; and all ye are brethren"... Matth. x. 32: "Whosoever shall confess ME before men, him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven... He that loveth father or mother more than ME is not _worthy of_ ME, &c."... Matth. xi. 27: "All things are delivered unto ME of my Father; and _no man knoweth the Son but the Father_; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son; and he to whomsoever _the Son will reveal him._ Come unto ME, all ye that labour,... and _I_ will give you rest. Take MY yoke upon you, &c."
My friend, I find, rejects Jesus as an authoritative teacher, distinctly denies that the acceptance of Jesus in this character is any condition of salvation and of the divine favour, and treats of my "demand of an oracular Christ," as inconsistent with my own principles. But this is mere misconception of what I have said. I find _Jesus himself_ to set up oracular claims. I find an a.s.sumption of pre-eminence and unapproachable moral wisdom to pervade every discourse from end to end of the gospels. If I may not believe that Jesus a.s.sumed an oracular manner, I do not know what moral peculiarity in him I am permitted to believe. I do not _demand_ (as my friend seems to think) that _he shall be_ oracular, but in common with all Christendom, I open my eyes and see that _he is_; and until I had read my friend"s review of my book, I never understood (I suppose through my own prepossessions) that he holds Jesus _not_ to have a.s.sumed the oracular style.
If I cut out from the four gospels this peculiarity, I must cut out, not only the claim of Messiahship, which my friend admits to have been made, but nearly every moral discourse and every controversy: and _why_? except in order to make good a predetermined belief that Jesus was morally perfect. What reason can be given me for not believing that Jesus declared: "If any one deny ME before men, _him will I deny_ before my Father and his angels?" or any of the other texts which couple the favour of G.o.d with a submission to such pretensions of Jesus? I can find no reason whatever for doubting that he preached HIMSELF to his disciples, though in the three first gospels he is rather timid of doing this to the Pharisees and to the nation at large. I find him uniformly to claim, sometimes in tone, sometimes in distinct words, that we will sit at his feet as little children and learn of him. I find him ready to answer off-hand, all difficult questions, critical and lawyer-like, as well as moral. True, it is no tenet of mine that intellectual and literary attainment is essential in an individual person to high spiritual eminence. True, in another book I have elaborately maintained the contrary. Yet in that book I have described men"s spiritual progress as often arrested at a certain stage by a want of intellectual development; which surely would indicate that I believed even intellectual blunders and an infinitely perfect exhaustive morality to be incompatible. But our question here (or at least _my_ question) is not, whether Jesus might misinterpret prophecy, and yet be morally perfect; but whether, _after a.s.suming to be an oracular teacher_, he can teach some fanatical precepts, and advance dogmatically weak and foolish arguments, without impairing our sense of his absolute moral perfection.
I do not think it useless here to repeat (though not for my friend) concise reasons which I gave in my first edition against admitting dictatorial claims for Jesus. _First_, it is an unplausible opinion that G.o.d would deviate from his ordinary course, in order to give us anything so undesirable as an authoritative Oracle would be;--which would paralyze our moral powers, exactly as an infallible church does, in the very proportion in which we succeeded in eliciting responses from it. It is not needful here to repeat what has been said to that effect in p. 138. _Secondly_, there is no imaginable criterion, by which we can establish that the wisdom of a teacher _is_ absolute and illimitable. All that we can possibly discover, is the relative fact, that another is _wiser than we_: and even this is liable to be overturned on special points, as soon as differences of judgment arise. _Thirdly_, while it is by no means clear what are the new truths, for which we are to lean upon the decisions of Jesus, it is certain that we have no genuine and trustworthy account of his teaching. If G.o.d had intended us to receive the authoritative _dicta_ of Jesus, he would have furnished us with an unblemished record of those dicta. To allow that we have not this, and that we must disentangle for ourselves (by a most difficult and uncertain process) the "true" sayings of Jesus, is surely self-refuting. _Fourthly_, if I _must_ sit in judgment on the claims of Jesus to be the true Messiah and Son of G.o.d, how can I concentrate all my free thought into that one act, and thenceforth abandon free thought? This appears a moral suicide, whether Messiah or the Pope is the object whom we _first_ criticize, in order to instal him over us, and _then_, for ever after, refuse to criticize. In short, _we cannot build up a system of Oracles on a basis of Free Criticism_. If we are to submit our judgment to the dictation of some other,--whether a church or an individual,--we must be first subjected to that other by some event from without, as by birth; and not by a process of that very judgment which is henceforth to be sacrificed. But from this I proceed to consider more in detail, some points in the teaching and conduct of Jesus, which do not appear to me consistent with absolute perfection.
The argument of Jesus concerning the tribute to Caesar is so dramatic, as to strike the imagination and rest on the memory; and I know no reason for doubting that it has been correctly reported. The book of Deuteronomy (xvii. 15) distinctly forbids Israel to set over himself as king any who is not a native Israelite; which appeared to be a religious condemnation of submission to Caesar. Accordingly, since Jesus a.s.sumed the tone of unlimited wisdom, some of Herod"s party asked him, whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar. Jesus replied: "Why tempt ye me, hypocrites? Show me the tribute money."
When one of the coins was handed to him, he asked: "Whose image and superscription is this?" When they replied: "Caesar"s," he gave his authoritative decision: "Render _therefore_ to Caesar _the things that are Caesar"s_."
In this reply not only the poor and uneducated, but many likewise of the rich and educated, recognize "majesty and sanct.i.ty:" yet I find it hard to think that my strong-minded friend will defend the justness, wisdom and honesty of it. To imagine that because a coin bears Caesar"s head, _therefore_ it is Caesar"s property, and that he may demand to have as many of such coins as he chooses paid over to him, is puerile, and notoriously false. The circulation of foreign coin of every kind was as common in the Mediterranean then as now; and everybody knew that the coin was the property of the _holder_, not of him whose head it bore. Thus the reply of Jesus, which pretended to be a moral decision, was unsound and absurd: yet it is uttered in a tone of dictatorial wisdom, and ushered in by a grave rebuke, "Why tempt ye me, hypocrites?" He is generally understood to mean, "Why do you try to implicate me in a political charge?" and it is supposed that he prudently _evaded_ the question. I have indeed heard this interpretation from high Trinitarians; which indicates to me how dead is their moral sense in everything which concerns the conduct of Jesus. No reason appears why he should not have replied, that Moses forbade Israel _voluntarily_ to place himself under a foreign king, but did not inculcate fanatical and useless rebellion against overwhelming power. But such a reply, which would have satisfied a more commonplace mind, has in it nothing brilliant and striking. I cannot but think that Jesus shows a vain conceit in the cleverness of his answer: I do not think it so likely to have been a conscious evasion. But neither does his rebuke of the questioners at all commend itself to me. How can any man a.s.sume to be an authoritative teacher, and then claim that men shall not put his wisdom to the proof? Was it not their _duty_ to do so? And when, in result, the trial has proved the defect of his wisdom, did they not perform a useful public service? In truth, I cannot see the Model Man in his rebuke.--Let not my friend say that the error was merely intellectual: blundering self-sufficiency is a moral weakness.
I might go into detail concerning other discourses, where error and arrogance appear to me combined. But, not to be tedious,--in general I must complain that Jesus purposely adopted an enigmatical and pretentious style of teaching, unintelligible to his hearers, and needing explanation in private. That this was his systematic procedure, I believe, because, in spite of the great contrast of the fourth gospel to the others, it has this peculiarity in common with them. Christian divines are used to tell us that this mode was _peculiarly instructive_ to the vulgar of Judaea; and they insist on the great wisdom displayed in his choice of the lucid parabolical style. But in Matth. xiii. 10-15, Jesus is made confidentially to avow precisely the opposite reason, viz. that he desires the vulgar _not_ to understand him, but only the select few to whom he gives private explanations. I confess I believe the Evangelist rather than the modern Divine. I cannot conceive how so strange a notion could ever have possessed the companions of Jesus, if it had not been true. If really this parabolical method had been peculiarly intelligible, what could make them imagine the contrary? Unless they found it very obscure themselves, whence came the idea that it was obscure to the mult.i.tude? As a fact, it _is_ very obscure, to this day. There is much that I most imperfectly understand, owing to unexplained metaphor: as: "Agree with thine adversary quickly, &c. &c.:" "Whoso calls his brother[2] a fool, is in danger of h.e.l.l fire:" "Every one must be salted with fire, and every sacrifice salted with salt. Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another." Now every man of original and singular genius has his own forms of thought; in so far as they are natural, we must not complain, if to us they are obscure.
But the moment _affectation_ comes in, they no longer are reconcilable with the perfect character: they indicate vanity, and incipient sacerdotalism. The distinct notice that Jesus avoided to expound his parables to the mult.i.tude, and made this a boon to the privileged few; and that without a parable he spake not to the mult.i.tude; and the pious explanation, that this was a fulfilment of Prophecy, "I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter dark sayings on the harp,"
persuade me that the impression of the disciples was a deep reality.
And it is in entire keeping with the general narrative, which shows in him so much of mystical a.s.sumption. Strip the parables of the imagery, and you find that sometimes one thought has been dished up four or five times, and generally, that an idea is dressed into sacred grandeur. This mystical method made a little wisdom go a great way with the mult.i.tude; and to such a mode of economizing resources the instinct of the uneducated man betakes itself, when he is claiming to act a part for which he is imperfectly prepared.
It is common with orthodox Christians to take for granted, that unbelief of Jesus was a sin, and belief a merit, at a time when no rational grounds of belief were as yet public. Certainly, whoever asks questions with a view to _prove_ Jesus, is spoken of vituperatingly in the gospels; and it does appear to me that the prevalent Christian belief is a true echo of Jesus"s own feeling. He disliked being put to the proof. Instead of rejoicing in it, as a true and upright man ought,--instead of blaming those who accept his pretensions on too slight grounds,--instead of encouraging full inquiry and giving frank explanations, he resents doubt, shuns everything that will test him, is very obscure as to his own pretensions, (so as to need probing and positive questions, whether he _does_ or _does not_ profess to be Messiah,) and yet is delighted at all easy belief. When asked for miracles, he sighs and groans at the unreasonableness of it; yet does not honestly and plainly renounce pretension to miracle, as Mr.
Martineau would, but leaves room for credit to himself for as many miracles as the credulous are willing to impute to him. It is possible that here the narrative is unjust to his memory. So far from being the picture of perfection, it sometimes seems to me the picture of a conscious and wilful impostor. His general character is too high for _this_; and I therefore make deductions from the account. Still, I do not see how the present narrative could have grown up, if he had been really simple and straight-forward, and not perverted by his essentially false position. Enigma and mist seem to be his element; and when I find his high satisfaction at all personal recognition and bowing before his individuality, I almost doubt whether, if one wished to draw the character of a vain and vacillating pretender, it would be possible to draw anything more to the purpose than this. His general rule (before a certain date) is, to be cautious in public, but bold in private to the favoured few. I cannot think that such a character, appearing now, would seem to my friend a perfect model of a man.
No precept bears on its face clearer marks of coming from the genuine Jesus, than that of _selling all and following him_. This was his original call to his disciples. It was enunciated authoritatively on various occasions. It is incorporated with precepts of perpetual obligation, in such a way, that we cannot without the greatest violence pretend that he did not intend it as a precept[3] to _all_ his disciples. In Luke xii. 22-40, he addresses the disciples collectively against Avarice; and a part of the discourse is: "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father"s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. _Sell that ye have, and give alms_: provide yourselves bags that wax not old; a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, &c.... Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning," &c.
To say that he was not intending to teach a universal morality,[4]
is to admit that his precepts are a trap; for they then mix up and confound mere contingent duties with universal sacred obligations, enunciating all in the same breath, and with the same solemnity. I cannot think that Jesus intended any separation. In fact, when a rich young man asked of him what he should do, that he might inherit eternal life, and pleaded that he had kept the ten commandments, but felt that to be insufficient, Jesus said unto him: "_If thou wilt be perfect_, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven:" so that the duty was not contingent upon the peculiarity of a man possessing apostolic gifts, but was with Jesus the normal path for all who desired perfection. When the young man went away sorrowing, Jesus moralized on it, saying: "How hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven:" which again shows, that an abrupt renunciation of wealth was to be the general and ordinary method of entering the kingdom. Hereupon, when the disciples asked: "Lo! we _have_ forsaken all, and followed thee: what shall we have _therefore_?" Jesus, instead of rebuking their self-righteousness, promised them as a reward, that they should sit upon twelve[5] thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. A precept thus systematically enforced, is ill.u.s.trated by the practice, not only of the twelve, but apparently of the seventy, and what is stronger still, by the practice of the five thousand disciples after the celebrated days of the first Pentecost. There was no longer a Jesus on earth to itinerate with, yet the disciples in the fervour of first love obeyed his precept: the rich sold their possessions, and laid the price at the apostles" feet.
The mischiefs inherent in such a precept rapidly showed themselves, and good sense corrected the error. But this very fact proves most emphatically that the precept was pre-apostolic, and came from the genuine Jesus; otherwise it could never have found its way into the gospels. It is undeniable, that the first disciples, by whose tradition alone we have any record of what Jesus taught, understood him to deliver this precept to _all_ who desired to enter into the kingdom of heaven,--all who desired to be perfect: why then are we to refuse belief, and remould the precepts of Jesus till they please our own morality? This is not the way to learn historical fact.
That to inculcate religious beggary as the _only_ form and mode of spiritual perfection, is fanatical and mischievous, even the church of Rome will admit. Protestants universally reject it as a deplorable absurdity;--not merely wealthy bishops, squires and merchants, but the poorest curate also. A man could not preach such doctrine in a Protestant pulpit without incurring deep reprobation and contempt; but when preached by Jesus, it is extolled as divine wisdom,--and disobeyed.
Now I cannot look on this as a pure intellectual error, consistent with moral perfection. A deep mistake as to the nature of such perfection seems to me inherent in the precept itself; a mistake which indicates a moral unsoundness. The conduct of Jesus to the rich young man appears to me a melancholy exhibition of perverse doctrine, under an ostentation of superior wisdom. The young man asked for bread and Jesus gave him a stone. Justly he went away sorrowful, at receiving a reply which his conscience rejected as false and foolish. But this is not all Jesus was necessarily on trial, when any one, however sincere, came to ask questions so deeply probing the quality of his wisdom as this: "How may I be perfect?" and to be on trial was always disagreeable to him. He first gave the reply, "Keep the commandments;"
and if the young man had been satisfied, and had gone away, it appears that Jesus would have been glad to be rid of him: for his tone is magisterial, decisive and final. This, I confess, suggests to me, that the aim of Jesus was not so much to _enlighten_ the young man, as to stop his mouth, and keep up his own ostentation of omniscience. Had he desired to enlighten him, surely no mere dry dogmatic command was needed, but an intelligent guidance of a willing and trusting soul.
I do not pretend to certain knowledge in these matters. Even when we hear the tones of voice and watch the features, we often mistake.
We have no such means here of checking the narrative. But the best general result which I can draw from the imperfect materials, is what I have said.
After the merit of "selling all and following Jesus," a second merit, not small, was, to receive those whom he sent. In Matt. x., we read that he sends out his twelve disciples, (also seventy in Luke,) men at that time in a very low state of religions development,--men who did not themselves know what the Kingdom of Heaven meant,--to deliver in every village and town a mere formula of words: "Repent ye: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." They were ordered to go without money, scrip or cloak, but to live on religious alms; and it is added,--that if any house or city does not receive them, _it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment_ than for it.
He adds, v. 40: "He that receiveth _you_, receiveth _me_, and he that receiveth _me_, receiveth HIM that sent me."--I quite admit, that in all probability it was (on the whole) the more pious part of Israel which was likely to receive these ignorant missionaries; but inasmuch as they had no claims whatever, intrinsic or extrinsic, to reverence, it appears to me a very extravagant and fanatical sentiment thus emphatically to couple the favour or wrath of G.o.d with their reception or rejection.
A third, yet greater merit in the eyes of Jesus, was, to acknowledge him as the Messiah predicted by the prophets, which he was not, according to my friend. According to Matthew (xvi. 13), Jesus put leading questions to the disciples in order to elicit a confession of his Messiahship, and emphatically blessed Simon for making the avowal which he desired; but instantly forbade them to tell the great secret to any one. Unless this is to be discarded as fiction, Jesus, although to his disciples in secret he confidently a.s.sumed Messianic pretensions, had a just inward misgiving, which accounts both for his elation at Simon"s avowal, and for his prohibition to publish it.
In admitting that Jesus was not the Messiah of the prophets, my friend says, that if Jesus were _less_ than Messiah, we can reverence him no longer; but that he was _more_ than Messiah. This is to me unintelligible. The Messiah whom he claimed to be, was not only the son of David, celebrated in the prophets, but emphatically the Son of Man of Daniel vii., who shall come in the clouds of heaven, to take dominion, glory and kingdom, that all people, nations and languages shall serve him,--an everlasting kingdom which shall not pa.s.s away.
How Jesus himself interprets his supremacy, as Son of Man, in Matt.
x., xi., xxiii., xxv., and elsewhere, I have already observed. To claim such a character, seems to me like plunging from a pinnacle of the temple. If miraculous power holds him up and makes good his daring, he is more than man; but if otherwise, to have failed will break all his bones. I can no longer give the same human reverence as before to one who has been seduced into vanity so egregious; and I feel a.s.sured _a priori_ that such presumption _must have_ entangled him into evasions and insincerities, which _naturally_ end in crookedness of conscience and real imposture, however n.o.ble a man"s commencement, and however unshrinking his sacrifices of goods and ease and life.
The time arrived at last, when Jesus felt that he must publicly a.s.sert Messiahship; and this was certain to bring things to an issue. I suppose him to have hoped that he was Messiah, until hope and the encouragement given him by Peter and others grew into a persuasion strong enough to act upon, but not always strong enough to still misgivings. I say, I suppose this; but I build nothing on my supposition. I however see, that when he had resolved to claim Messiahship publicly, one of two results was inevitable, _if_ that claim was ill-founded:--viz., either he must have become an impostor, in order to screen his weakness; or, he must have retracted his pretensions amid much humiliation, and have retired into privacy to learn sober wisdom. From these alternatives _there was escape only by death_, and upon death Jesus purposely rushed.
All Christendom has always believed that the death of Jesus was _voluntarily_ incurred; and unless no man ever became a wilful martyr, I cannot conceive why we are to doubt the fact concerning Jesus. When he resolved to go up to Jerusalem, he was warned by his disciples of the danger; but so far was he from being blind to it, that he distinctly announced to them that he knew he should suffer in Jerusalem the shameful death of a malefactor. On his arrival in the suburbs, his first act was, ostentatiously to ride into the city on an a.s.s"s colt in the midst of the acclamations of the mult.i.tude, in order to exhibit himself as having a just right to the throne of David. Thus he gave a handle to imputations of intended treason.--He next entered the temple courts, where doves and lambs were sold for sacrifice, and--(I must say it to my friend"s amus.e.m.e.nt, and in defiance of his kind but keen ridicule,) committed a breach of the peace by flogging with a whip those who trafficked in the area. By such conduct he undoubtedly made himself liable to legal punishment, and probably might have been publicly scourged for it, had the rulers chosen to moderate their vengeance. But he "meant to be prosecuted for treason, not for felony," to use the words of a modern offender. He therefore commenced the most exasperating attacks on all the powerful, calling them hypocrites and whited sepulchres and vipers" brood; and denouncing upon them the "condemnation of h.e.l.l." He was successful. He had both enraged the rulers up to the point of thirsting for his life, and given colour to the charge of political rebellion. He resolved to die; and he died. Had his enemies contemptuously let him live, he would have been forced to act the part of Jewish Messiah, or renounce Messiahship.
If any one holds Jesus to be not amenable to the laws of human morality, I am not now reasoning with such a one. But if any one claims for him a human perfection, then I say that his conduct on this occasion was neither laudable nor justifiable; far otherwise. There are cases in which life may be thrown away for a great cause; as when a leader in battle rushes upon certain death, in order to animate his own men; but the case before us has no similarity to that. If our accounts are not wholly false, Jesus knowingly and purposely exasperated the rulers into a great crime,--the crime of taking his life from personal resentment. His inflammatory addresses to the mult.i.tude have been defended as follows:
"The prophetic Spirit is sometimes oblivious of the rules of the drawing-room; and inspired Conscience, like the inspiring G.o.d, seeing a hypocrite, will take the liberty to say so, and act accordingly. Are the superficial amenities, the soothing fictions, the smotherings of the burning heart,... really paramount in this world, and never to give way? and when a soul of _power, unable to refrain_, rubs off, though it be with rasping words, all the varnish from rottenness and lies, is he to be tried in our courts of compliment for a misdemeanor?
Is there never a higher duty than that of either pitying or converting guilty men,--the duty of publicly exposing them? of awakening the popular conscience, and sweeping away the conventional timidities, for a severe return to truth and reality? No rule of morals can be recognized as just, which prohibits conformity of human speech to fact; and insists on terms of civility being kept with all manner of iniquity."
I certainly have not appealed to any conventional morality of drawing-room compliment, but to the highest and purest principles which I know; and I lament to find my judgment so extremely in opposition. To me it seems that _inability to refrain_ shows weakness, not _power_, of soul, and that nothing is easier than to give vent to violent invective against bad rulers. The last sentence quoted, seems to say, that the speaking of Truth is never to be condemned: but I cannot agree to this. When Truth will only exasperate, and cannot do good, silence is imperative. A man who reproaches an armed tyrant in words too plain, does but excite him to murder; and the shocking thing is, that this seems to have been the express object of Jesus. No good result could be reasonably expected. Publicly to call men in authority by names of intense insult, the writer of the above distinctly sees will never convert them; but he thinks it was adapted to awaken the popular conscience. Alas! it needs no divine prophet to inflame a mult.i.tude against the avarice, hypocrisy, and oppression of rulers, nor any deep inspiration of conscience in the mult.i.tude to be wide awake on that point themselves A Publius Clodius or a Cleon will do that work as efficiently as a Jesus; nor does it appear that the poor are made better by hearing invectives against the rich and powerful.
If Jesus had been aiming, in a good cause, to excite rebellion, the mode of address which he a.s.sumed seems highly appropriate; and in such a calamitous necessity, to risk exciting murderous enmity would be the act of a hero: but as the account stands, it seems to me the deed of a fanatic. And it is to me manifest that he overdid his attack, and failed to commend it to the conscience of his hearers. For up to this point the mult.i.tude was in his favour. He was notoriously so acceptable to the many, as to alarm the rulers; indeed the belief of his popularity had shielded him from prosecution. But after this fierce address he has no more popular support. At his public trial the vast majority judge him to deserve punishment, and prefer to ask free forgiveness for Barabbas, a bandit who was in prison for murder. We moderns, nursed in an arbitrary belief concerning these events, drink in with our first milk the a.s.sumption that Jesus alone was guiltless, and all the other actors in this sad affair inexcusably guilty. Let no one imagine that I defend for a moment the cruel punishment which raw resentment inflicted on him. But though the rulers felt the rage of Vengeance, the people, who had suffered no personal wrong, were moved only by ill-measured Indignation. The mult.i.tude love to hear the powerful exposed and reproached up to a certain limit; but if reproach go clearly beyond all that they feel to be deserved, a violent sentiment reacts on the head of the reviler: and though popular indignation (even when free from the element of selfishness) ill fixes the due _measure_ of Punishment, I have a strong belief that it is righteous, when it p.r.o.nounces the verdict Guilty.
Does my friend deny that the death of Jesus was wilfully incurred? The "orthodox" not merely admit, but maintain it. Their creed justifies it by the doctrine, that his death was a "sacrifice" so pleasing to G.o.d, as to expiate the sins of the world. This honestly meets the objections to self-destruction; for how better could life be used, than by laying it down for such a prize? But besides all other difficulties in the very idea of atonement, the orthodox creed startles us by the incredible conception, that a voluntary sacrifice of life should be unacceptable to G.o.d, unless offered by ferocious and impious hands. If Jesus had "authority from the Father to lay down his life," was he unable to stab himself in the desert, or on the sacred altar of the Temple, without involving guilt to any human being?
Did He, who is at once "High Priest" and Victim, when "offering up himself" and "presenting his own blood unto G.o.d," need any justification for using the sacrificial knife? The orthodox view more clearly and unshrinkingly avows, that Jesus deliberately goaded the wicked rulers into the deeper wickedness of murdering him; but on my friend"s view, that Jesus was _no_ sacrifice, but only a Model man, his death is an unrelieved calamity. Nothing but a long and complete life could possibly test the fact of his perfection; and the longer he lived, the better for the world.
In entire consistency with his previous determination to die, Jesus, when arraigned, refused to rebut accusation, and behaved as one pleading Guilty. He was accused of saying that if they destroyed the temple, he would rebuild it in three days; but how this was to the purpose, the evangelists who name it do not make clear. The fourth however (without intending so to do) explains it; and I therefore am disposed to believe his statement, though I put no faith in his long discourses. It appears (John ii. 18-20) that Jesus after scourging the people out of the temple-court, was asked for a sign to justify his a.s.suming so very unusual authority: on which he replied: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Such a reply was regarded as a manifest evasion; since he was sure that they would not pull the temple down in order to try whether he could raise it up miraculously. Now if Jesus really meant what the fourth gospel says he meant;--if he "spoke of _the temple of his body_;"--how was any one to guess that? It cannot be denied, that such a reply, _prima facie_, suggested, that he was a wilful impostor: was it not then his obvious duty, when this accusation was brought against him, to explain that his words had been mystical and had been misunderstood? The form of the imputation in Mark xiv. 58, would make it possible to imagine,--if the _three days_ were left out, and if his words were _not_ said in reply to the demand of a sign,--that Jesus had merely avowed that though the outward Jewish temple were to be destroyed, he would erect a church of worshippers as a spiritual temple. If so, "John" has grossly misrepresented him, and then obtruded a very far-fetched explanation. But whatever was the meaning of Jesus, if it was honest, I think he was bound to explain it; and not leave a suspicion of imposture to rankle in men"s minds.[6] Finally, if the whole were fiction, and he never uttered such words, then it was his duty to deny them, and not remain dumb like a sheep before its shearers.
After he had confirmed by his silence the belief that he had used a dishonest evasion indicative of consciousness that he was no real Messiah, he suddenly burst out with a full reply to the High Priest"s question; and avowed that he _was_ the Messiah, the Son of G.o.d; and that they should hereafter see him sitting on the right-hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven,--of course to enter into judgment on them all. I am the less surprized that this precipitated his condemnation, since he himself seems to have designed precisely that result. The exasperation which he had succeeded in kindling led to his cruel death; and when men"s minds had cooled, natural horror possessed them for such a retribution on such a man. His _words_ had been met with _deeds_: the provocation he had given was unfelt to those beyond the limits of Jerusalem; and to the Jews who a.s.sembled from distant parts at the feast of Pentecost he was nothing but the image of a sainted martyr.
I have given more than enough indications of points in which the conduct of Jesus does not seem to me to have been that of a perfect man: how any one can think him a Universal Model, is to me still less intelligible. I might say much more on this subject. But I will merely add, that when my friend gives the weight of his n.o.ble testimony to the Perfection of Jesus, I think it is due to himself and to us that he should make clear what he means by this word "Jesus." He ought to publish--(I say it in deep seriousness, not sarcastically)--an expurgated gospel; for in truth I do not know how much of what I have now adduced from the gospel as _fact_, he will admit to be fact. I neglect, he tells me, "a higher moral criticism," which, if I rightly understand, would explode, as evidently unworthy of Jesus, many of the representations pervading the gospels: as, that Jesus claimed to be an oracular teacher, and attached spiritual life or death to belief or disbelief in this claim. My friend says, it is beyond all serious question _what_ Jesus _was_: but his disbelief of the narrative seems to be so much wider than mine, as to leave me more uncertain than ever about it. If he will strike out of the gospels all that he disbelieves, and so enable me to understand _what_ is the Jesus whom he reveres, I have so deep a sense of his moral and critical powers, that I am fully prepared to expect that he may remove many of my prejudices and relieve my objections: but I cannot honestly say that I see the least probability of his altering my conviction, that in _consistency_ of goodness Jesus fell far below vast numbers of his unhonoured disciples.
[Footnote 1: I have by accident just taken up the "British Quarterly," and alighted upon the following sentence concerning Madame Roland:--"_To say that she was without fault, would be to say that she was not human_." This so entirely expresses and concludes all that I have to say, that I feel surprise at my needing at all to write such a chapter as the present.]
[Footnote 2: I am acquainted with the interpretation, that the word More is not here Greek, _i.e., fool_, but is Hebrew, and means _rebel_, which is stronger than Raca, _silly fellow_. This gives partial, but only partial relief.]
[Footnote 3: Indeed we have in Luke vi. 20-24, a version of the Beat.i.tudes so much in harmony with this lower doctrine, as to make it an open question, whether the version in Matth. v. is not an improvement upon Jesus, introduced by the purer sense of the collective church. In Luke, he does not bless the poor _in spirit_, and those who hunger _after righteousness_, but absolutely the "poor"
and the "hungry," and all who honour _Him_; and in contrast, curses _the rich_ and those who are full.]
[Footnote 4: At the close, is the parable about the absent master of a house; and Peter asks, "Lord? (Sir?) speakest thou this parable unto _us_, or also unto _all_?" Who would not have hoped an ingenuous reply, "To you only," or, "To everybody"? Instead of which, so inveterate is his tendency to m.u.f.fle up the simplest things in mystery, he replies, "Who then is that faithful and wise steward,"
&c., &c., and entirely evades reply to the very natural question.]
[Footnote 5: This implied that Judas, as one of the twelve, had earned the heavenly throne by the price of earthly goods.]
[Footnote 6: If the account in John is not wholly false, I think the reply in every case discreditable. If literal, it all but indicates wilful imposture. If mystical, it is disingenuously evasive; and it tended, not to instruct, but to irritate, and to move suspicion and contempt. Is this the course for a religious teacher?--to speak darkly, so as to mislead and prejudice; and this, when he represents it as a matter of spiritual life and death to accept his teaching and his supremacy?]
CHAPTER VIII.
ON BIGOTRY AND PROGRESS.
If any Christian reader has been patient enough to follow me thus far, I now claim that he will judge my argument and me, as before the bar of G.o.d, and not by the conventional standards of the Christian churches.