Chapter 4

If Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did not write those books which bear their names, then are they false in fact? and if so, what did the authors die for? The sufferings of primitive Christians were great; the persecutions which they endured were outrageous, cruel and inhuman in their character. Such is the universal verdict of ancient history. Of the persecution under Nero, Tacitus, a celebrated Roman historian, who was born in the year 56, just twenty-three years after Pentecost, writes, that Nero "laid upon the Christians the charge of that terrible conflagration at Rome of which he himself was the cause." He says, "A vast multitude were apprehended. And many were disguised in the skins of wild beasts and worried to death by dogs, some were crucified, and others were wrapped in pitched shirts and set on fire when the day closed, that they might serve as lights to illuminate the night. Nero lent his own garden for these executions, and celebrated at the same time a public entertainment in the circus, being a spectator of the whole in the dress of a charioteer, sometimes mingling with the crowd on foot, and sometimes viewing the spectacle from his car." (Annals of Tacitus, 15: 44.)

Juvenal, the coarse and bitter satirist of the same time, writes of the martyred Christians as "those who stand burning in their own flame and smoke, their head being held up by a stake fixed to their chin, till they make a long stream of blood and sulphur on the ground." (Juv. Sat., 1: 155.)

Seneca also refers to their fearful sufferings: "Imagine here a prison, crosses and racks and the hook, and a stake thrust through the body and coming out at the mouth, and the limbs torn by chariots pulling adverse ways, and the coat besmeared and interwoven with inflammable materials, nutriment for fire, and whatever else beside _these_ cruelty has invented." (Seneca's Epistles, 14.)

One of Diocletian's coins commemorates the blotting out of the very name of Christian: "Nomine Christianorum deleto." But the age of martyrdoms ended with the accession of Constantine to the Roman empire, and to-day there are more Christians in the world than ever before. Skeptic, take one long look at the unbelieving, bloody, persecuting hosts, and choose your future associates.

Strauss says: "No man knows who wrote the Gospels." Can he mean that they are anonymous books? Does he mean that they are not biographies--books containing, in their historic matter, an account of the authors _themselves_? Who does not know that those books are and have been called the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? And who has, in all the past centuries, produced evidence showing that those are the wrong names. No one. Insane men might say such a thing. Infidels don't like to say that; they just say you can't prove your religion, nor show that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote those books. Will any sensible man affirm that they are the wrong names? How do we judge and believe respecting the authorship of other ancient books? Why do we believe that Cæsar wrote the Commentaries on the Gallic War? And why do we believe that Virgil wrote the Æneid? No sane man ever doubted the authorship of those writings. Preoccupancy during the ages past is considered by infidels themselves a sufficient ground for belief. The fact that those books exist has certainly been known from the age of the apostles to the present time, for men quoted extensively from them in the second century. The names they bear were in the possessive case then, and it is but fair to consider them the true owners.

Why are skeptics and infidels so partial among ancient books? They doubt the authorship of no ancient books unless they are written in favor of the religion of Christ. Will some wise one tell us why this strange inconsistency? O, it is an evidence of a wicked heart--that's all! all!!--ALL THERE IS OF IT!!!

Here are the dates of the books of the New Testaments, along with contemporary landmarks:

| | BOOKS. | AFTER | CONTEMPORARY LANDMARKS. | PENTECOST. | -------------+------------+---------------------------------------------- 1 Peter | 16 | Claudius Cæsar ruled from A.D. 41 to 54. Galatians | 18 | 1 Thess | 19 | Romans settled in England between 41 and 54. 2 Thess | 20 | 1 Cor | 24 | Nero ruled from 54 to 68. 2 Cor | 25 | 1 Timothy | 25 | Paul and Peter were martyred at Rome in or Romans | 25 | about the year 63; 30 years after Pentecost. James | 28 | Matthew | 28 | Persecution continues under Nero until the Mark | 28 | year 68. The satirist Juvenal, who lived Philemon | 29 | under Nero, and his brother satirist Martial, Collosians | 29 | both allude to the burnings of the Christians Ephesians | 29 | in pitched shirts. Philippians | 29 | Luke | 30 | Suetoneus, writing of what took place under Acts | 30 | Emperor Claudius, in 53, makes mention of Hebrews | 30 | Christ. 2 Peter | 34 | 2 Timothy | 34 | Galba, Otho and Vitelleus rule from 68 to 69. Titus, about | 34 | Jude, about | 34 | Christians have peace from 68 to 95. Epistles | | of St. John | | 1, 2, 3 | 40 | Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70. Revelations | | of Jesus | | Christ | | to John | 64 | Vespasian rules from 69 to 79. -------------------------------------------------------------------------

CARLYLE'S ESTIMATE OF THE BOOK OF JOB, IN HIS OWN WORDS.

"I call the book of Job, apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest books ever written with a pen. One feels, indeed, as if it were not Hebrew--such a noble universality, different from noble patriotism or sectarianism, reigns in it. A noble book! All men's book! It is our first, oldest statement of the never-ending problem of man's destiny and God's ways with him here on this earth, and all in such free, flowing outlines, grand in its simplicity and its epic melody and repose of reconcilement! There is the seeing eye, the mildly understanding heart. So true every way; true eye-sight and vision for all things--material things no less than spiritual; the horse--'thou hast clothed his neck with thunder;' 'he laughs at the shaking of the spear!' Such living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow! Sublime reconciliation! Oldest choral melody, as of the heart of mankind! So soft and great, as the summer midnight, as the world with its seas and stars! There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit." (Dr. Cotton's Scrap-Book.)

WHAT I LIVE FOR.

"I live to hold communion With all that is divine, To feel there is a union Between God's will and mine; For the cause that lacks assistance, For the future, in the distance, For what'er is good and true, For all human hearts that bind me, For the task by God assigned me, And the good that I can do."

THE MOLECULE GOD.

AIR--_The Fine Old English Gentleman._

[To be sung at all gatherings of advanced "siolists" and "scientists."]

We will sing you a grand new song evolved from a 'cute young pate, Of a fine old Atom-Molecule of prehistoric date; In size infinitesimal, in potencies though great, And self-formed for developing at a prodigious rate-- Like a fine old Atom-Molecule, Of the young world's proto-prime!

In it slept all the forces in our cosmos that run rife, To stir creation's giants or its microscopic life; Harmonious in discord and co-operant in strife, To this small cell committed the world lived with his wife-- In this fine old Atom-Molecule, Of the young world's proto-prime!

In this autoplastic archetype of protean protein clay All the human's space has room for, for whom time makes a day, From the sage whose words of wisdom prince or parliament obey, To the parrots who but prattle, and the asses who but bray-- So full was this Atom-Molecule, Of the young world's proto-prime!

All brute life, from lamb to lion, from the serpent to the dove, All that pains the sense or pleasure, all the heart can loathe or love; All instincts that drag downwards, all desires that upwards move Were caged, a "happy family," cheek-by-jowl, and hand-in-glove, In this fine old Atom-Molecule, Of the young world's proto-prime!

In it order grew from chaos, light out of darkness shined, Design sprang by accident, law's rule from hazard blind; The soul-less soul evolving--against, not after kind, As the life-less life developed, and the mind-less ripened mind, In this fine old Atom-Molecule, Of the young world's proto-prime!

Then bow down mind to matter; from brain fiber, will, withdraw; Fall man's heart to cell ascidian, sink man's hand to monkey's paw; And bend the knee to Protoplast in philosophic awe-- Both Creator and created, at once work and source of law. And our Lord be the Atom-Molecule, Of the young world's proto-prime!

PUNCH.

Transcriber's Note

The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully preserved. Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected.