Were we disposed to quote rationalist authorities, the argument against Paul would be far more decisive. But we are satisfied to rest the case on orthodox admissions alone.
The strongest argument then of clergymen who have attempted an answer to our position is something like this:
Jesus is historical because a man by the name of Paul says so, though we do not know much about Paul.
It is just such evidence as the above that led Prof. Goldwin Smith to exclaim: "Jesus has flown. I believe the legend of Jesus was made by many minds working under a great religious impulse--one man adding a parable, another an exhortation, another a miracle story;"--and George Eliot to write: "The materials for a real life of Christ do not exist."
In the effort to untie the Jesus-knot by Paul, the church has increased the number of knots to two. In other words, the church has proceeded on the theory that two uncertainties make a certainty.
We promised to square also with the facts of history our statement that the chief concern of the church, Jewish, Christian, or Mohammedan, is not righteousness, but orthodoxy.
IX
Speaking in this city, Rev. W. H. Wray Boyle of Lake Forest, declared that unbelief was responsible for the worst crimes in history. He mentioned the placing.
--"of a nude woman on a pedestal in the city of Paris.
--"the a.s.sa.s.sination of William McKinley.
--"The same unbelief sent a murderer down the isle of a church in Denver to pluck the symbol of the sacrament from the hands of a priest and slay him at the altar."
The story of a "nude woman," etc., is pure fiction, and that the two murders were caused by unbelief is mere a.s.sumption. To help his creed, the preacher resorts to fable. We shall prove our position by quoting _facts_:
I. HYPATIA [Footnote: See Author"s, The Martyrdom of Hypatia.] was dragged into a Christian church by monks in Alexandria, and before the altar she was stripped of her clothing and cut in pieces with oyster sh.e.l.ls, and murdered. Her innocent blood stained the hands of the clergy, who also handle the Holy Sacraments. She was murdered not by a crazed individual but by the orders of the bishop of Alexandria. How does the true story of Hypatia compare with the fable of "a nude woman placed on a pedestal in the city of Paris?" The Reverend must answer, or never tell an untruth again.
Hypatia was murdered in church, and by the clergy, because she was not orthodox.
II. POLTROT, the Protestant, in the 16th century a.s.sa.s.sinated Francois, the Catholic duke of Guise, in France, and the leaders of the church, instead of disclaiming responsibility for the act, publicly praised the a.s.sa.s.sin, and Theodore Beza, the colleague of Calvin, promised him a crown in heaven. (_De l"etat etc, P. 82._ Quoted by Jules Simon.)
III. JAMES CLEMENT, a Catholic, a.s.sa.s.sinated Henry III. For this act the clergy placed his portrait on the altar in the churches between two great lighted candle-sticks. Because he had killed a heretic prince, the Catholics presented the a.s.sa.s.sin"s mother with a purse.
(_Esprit de la Ligue I. III. P. 14._)
If it was unbelief that inspired the murder of McKinley, what inspired the a.s.sa.s.sins of Hypatia and Henry III?
We read in the Bible that Gen. Sisera, a heathen, having lost a battle, begged for shelter at the tent of Jael, a friendly woman, but of the Bible faith. Jael a.s.sured the unfortunate stranger that he was safe in her tent. The tired warrior fell asleep from great weariness.
Then Jael picked a tent-peg and with a hammer in her hand "walked softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground...So he died."
The BIBLE calls this a.s.sa.s.sin "blessed above women." (_Judge IV. 18, etc._) She had killed a heretic.
In each of the instances given above, the a.s.sa.s.sin is honored because he committed murder in the interest of the faith. We ask this clergyman and his colleagues who are only too anxious to charge every act of violence to unbelief in their creeds--What about the crimes of _believers_?