part v. of his work, Colenso mentions that Adonis was formerly

identified with Abram, "high father," Adonis being the personified sun.

Leaving incomprehensible problems in philology for the ordinary authorised version of our Bibles, we find that Abraham was the son of Terah. The Talmud[29] says that Abraham's mother was Amathlai, the daughter of Karnebo (Bava Bathra, fol. 1, col. 1.) The text does not expressly state where Abraham was born, and I cannot therefore describe his birth-place with that accuracy of detail which a true believer might desire, but he "dwelt in old time on the other side of the flood" (Joshua xxiv, 2 and 3). Abraham was born when Terah, his father, was seventy years of age; and, according to Genesis, Terah and his family came forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and went to Haran and dwelt there. We turn to the map to look for Ur of the Chaldees, anxious to discover it as possibly Abraham's place of nativity, but find that the translators of God's inspired word have taken a slight liberty with the text by substituting "Ur of the Chaldees" for "Aur Kasdim," the latter being, in plain English, _the light of the magi, or conjurors, or astrologers_ is stated by Kalisch to have been made the basis for many extraordinary legends, as to Abraham's rescue from the flames. In the Talmud P'sachim, fol. 118, col. 1, it is written that "At the time when Nimrod the wicked had cast our Father Abraham into the fiery furnace, Gabriel stood forth in the presence of the Holy one--blessed be He!--and said, 'Lord of the universe, let me, I pray thee, go down and cool the furnace, and deliver that righteous one from it.'"

[29] The quotations are taken from Hershon's Talmudical Miscellany.

Abraham, being born--according to Hebrew chronology, 2,083 years after the creation, and according to the Septuagint 3,549 years after that event--when his father was seventy, grew so slowly that when his father reached the good old age of 205 years, Abraham had only arrived at 75 years, having, apparently, lost no less than 60 years' growth during his father's fife-time. St. Augustine and St. Jerome gave this up as a difficulty inexplicable. Calmet endeavors to explain it, and makes it worse. It is surely impossible Abraham could have lived 135 years, and yet be only 75 years of age?

"The Lord" spoke to Abraham, and promised to make of him a great nation, to bless those who blessed Abraham, and to curse those who cursed him. I do not know precisely which Lord it was that spake unto Abraham, the Hebrew says it was Jeue, or, as our translators call it, Jehovah, but as God said (Exodus vi, 2) that by the name "Jehovah was I not known" to either Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, either the omniscient Deity had forgotten the matter, or a counterfeit Lord had assumed the name. The word Jehovah, which the book of Exodus says Abraham did not know, is nearly always the name by which Abraham addresses, or speaks of, the Jewish Deity.

Abraham having been promised protection by the God of Truth, initiated his public career with a diplomacy of statement worthy Talleyrand. He represented his wife Sarah as his sister, which, if true, is a sad reproach to the marriage. The Talmud, when Abram came into Egypt, asks: "Where was Sarah? He confined her in a chest, into which he locked her, lest anyone should gaze on her beauty. When he came to the receipt of custom, he was summoned to open the chest, but declined, and offered payment of the duty. The officers said: 'Thou carryest garments;' and he offered duty for garments. 'Nay, it is gold thou carriest;' and he offered the impost laid on gold. Then they said: 'It is costly silks, belike pearls, thou concealest;' and he offered the custom on such articles. At length the Egyptian officers insisted, and he opened the box. And when he did so, all the land of Egypt was illumined by her beauty" (Bereshith Rabba, chap. 40). The ruling Pharaoh, hearing the beauty of Sarah commended, took her into his house, she being at that time a fair Jewish dame, between 60 and 70 years of age, and he entreated Abraham well for her sake, and he had sheep and oxen, asses and servants, and camels. We do not read that Abraham objected in any way to the loss of his wife. The Lord, who is all-just, finding out that Pharaoh had done wrong, not only punished the king, but also punished the king's household, who could hardly have interfered with his misdoings. Abraham got his wife back, and went away much richer by the transaction. Whether the conduct of father Abraham in pocketing quietly the price of the insult--or honor--offered to his wife, is worthy modern imitation, is a question only within the competence of episcopal authority. After this Abraham was very rich in "silver and gold." So was the Duke of Marlborough after the Duke of York had taken his sister in similar manner into his house. In Gen. xii, 19, there is a curious mistranslation in our version. The text is: "It is for that I had taken her for my wife;" our version has: "I _might have taken_ her." The Douay so translates as to take a middle phrase, leaving it doubtful whether or not Pharaoh actually took Sarah as his wife. In any case, the Egyptian king acted far the better of the twain. Abraham plays the part of a timorous, contemptible hypocrite. Strong enough to have fought for his wife, he sold her. Yet Abraham is blessed, and his conduct is our pattern!

Despite his timorousness in the matter of his wife, Abraham was a man of wonderful courage and warlike ability. To rescue his relative, Lot--with whom he could not live on the same land without quarrelling, both being religious--he armed 318 servants, and fought with four powerful kings, defeating them and recovering the spoil. Abraham's victory was so decisive, that the King of Sodom, who fled and fell (xiv, 10) in a previous encounter, now met Abraham alive (see verse 17), to congratulate him on his victory. Abraham was also offered bread and wine by Melchisedek, King of Salem, priest of the Most High God. Where was Salem? Some identify it with Jerusalem, which it cannot be, as Jebus was not so named until after the time of the Judges (Judges xix, 10). How does this King of this unknown Salem, never heard of before or after, come to be priest of the Most High God? These are queries for divines--orthodox disciples believe without inquiring. Melchisedek was most unique as far as genealogy is concerned. He had no father. He was without mother also; he had no beginning of days or end of life, and must be therefore at the present time an extremely old gentleman, who would be an invaluable acquisition to any antiquarian Bible Evidence Association fortunate enough to cultivate his acquaintance. God having promised. Abraham a numerous family, and the promise not having been in any part fulfilled, the patriarch grew uneasy, and remonstrated with the Lord, who explained the matter thoroughly to Abraham when the latter was in a deep sleep, and a dense darkness prevailed. Religious explanations come with greater force under these or similar conditions. Natural or artificial light and clear-sightedness are always detrimental to spiritual manifestations.

Abraham's wife had a maid named Hagar, and she bore to Abraham a child named Ishmael; at the time Ishmael was born, Abraham was 86 years of age. Just before Ishmael's birth Hagar was so badly treated that she ran away. As she was only a slave, God persuaded Hagar to return and humble herself to her mistress. Thirteen years afterwards God appeared to Abraham, and instituted the rite of circumcision--which rite had been practised long before by other nations--and again renewed the promise. The rite of circumcision was not only practised by nations long anterior to that of the Jews, but appears in many cases not even to have been pretended as a religious rite (See Kalisch, Genesis, p. 386; Cahen, Genese, p. 43). After God had "left off talking with him, God went up from Abraham." As God is infinite, he did not, of course, go up; but still the Bible says God went up, and it is the duty of the people to believe that he did so, especially as the infinite Deity then and now resides habitually in "heaven" wherever that may be. Again the Lord appeared to Abraham, either as three men or angels or as one of the three, and Abraham, hospitably inclined, invited the three to wash their feet and to rest under the tree, and gave butter and milk and dressed calf, tender and good, to them, and they did eat; and after the enquiry as to where Sarah then was, the promise of a son is repeated. Sarah--then by her own admission an old woman, stricken in years--laughed when she heard this, and the Lord said: "Wherefore did Sarah laugh?" and Sarah denied it; but the Lord said: "Nay, but thou didst laugh." The three men then went toward Sodom, and Abraham with them as a guide; and the Lord explained to Abraham that some sad reports had reached him about Sodom and Gomorrah, and that he was then going to find out whether the report was reliable. God is omnipresent, and was always therefore at Sodom and Gomorrah, but had apparently been temporarily absent; he is omniscient, and therefore knew everything which was happening at Sodom and Gomorrah, but he did not know whether or not the people were as wicked they had been represented to him. God, Job tells us, "put no trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with folly." Between the rogues and the fools, therefore, the allwise and all-powerful God seems to be liable to be misled by the reports made to him. Two of the three men or angels went on to Sodom, and left the Lord with Abraham, who began to remonstrate with Deity on the wholesale destruction contemplated, and asked him to spare the city if fifty righteous should be found within it. God said: "If I find fifty righteous within the city, then will I spare the place for their sakes." God, being all-wise, knew there were not fifty in Sodom, and was deceiving Abraham. By dint of hard bargaining in thorough Hebrew fashion Abraham, whose faith seemed to be tempered by distrust, got the stipulated number reduced to ten, and then "the Lord went his way."

Jacob Ben Chajim, in his introduction to the Rabbinical Bible (p. 28), tells us that the Hebrew text used to read in verse 22: "And Jehovah still stood before Abraham;" but the scribes altered it, and made Abraham stand before the Lord, thinking the original text offensive to Deity.

Genesis xviii has given plenty of work to the divines. Augustine contended that God can take food, though he does not require it. Justin compared "the eating of God with the devouring power of the fire." Kalisch sorrows over the holy fathers "who have taxed all their ingenuity to make the act of eating compatible with the attributes of Deity."

In the Epistle to the Romans Abraham's faith is greatly praised. We are told (iv, 19 and 20) that: "Being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God." Yet, so far from Abraham giving God glory, Genesis xvii, 17, says that: "Abraham fell upon his face and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?" The Rev. Mr. Boutell says that "the declaration which caused Sarah to 'laugh' shows the wonderful familiarity which was then permitted to Abraham in his communications with God."

After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham journeyed south and sojourned in Gerar, and, either untaught or too well taught by his previous experience, again represented his wife as his sister, and Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. As before, we find neither remonstrance nor resistance recorded on the part of Abraham. This time God punished the women in Abimelech's house for an offence they did not commit, and Sarah was again restored to her husband, with sheep, oxen, men-servants, women-servants, and money. Infidels object that the Bible says Sarah "was old and well stricken in age;" that "it had ceased to be with her after the manner of women;" that she was more than 90 years of age; and that it is not likely King Abimelech would fall in love with an ugly old woman; but if Genesis be true, it is clear that Sarah had not ceased to be attractive, as God resorted to especial means to protect her from Abimelech. At length Isaac was born, and his mother Sarah urged Abraham to expel Hagar and her son, "and the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son;" the mother being only a bondwoman does not seem to have troubled him. God, however, approving Sarah's notion, Hagar was expelled, "and she departed and wandered in the wilderness, and the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs." She had apparently carried the child, who--being at least more than 14, and according to some calculations as much as 17 years of age--must have been a heavy child to carry in a warm climate.

The Talmud says: "On the day when Isaac was weaned Abraham made a great feast, to which he invited all the people of the land. Not all of those who came to enjoy the feast believed in the alleged occasion of its celebration, for some said contemptuously, 'This old couple have adopted a foundling, and provided a feast to persuade us to believe that the child is their own offspring.' What did Abraham do? He invited all the great men of the day, and Sarah invited their wives, who brought their infants, but not their nurses, along with them. On this occasion Sarah's breasts became like two fountains, for she supplied, of her own body, nourishment to all the children. Still some were unconvinced, and said, 'Shall a child be born to one that is a hundred years old, and shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear?' (Gen. xvii, 17). Whereupon, to silence this objection, Isaac's face was changed, so that it became the very picture of Abraham's; then one and all exclaimed, 'Abraham begat Isaac'" (Bara Metzia, fol. 87, col. 1).

God never did tempt any man at any time, but he "did tempt Abraham" to kill Isaac by offering him as a burnt offering. The doctrine of human sacrifice is one of the holy mysteries of Christianity, as taught in the Old and New Testament. Of course, judged from a religious or Biblical stand-point, it cannot be wrong, as, if it were, God would not have permitted Jephtha to sacrifice his daughter by offering her as a burnt offering, nor have tempted Abraham to sacrifice his son, nor have said in Leviticus, "None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death" (xxvii, 29), nor have in the New Testament worked out the monstrous sacrifice of his only son Jesus, at the same time son and begetting father.

Abraham did not seem to be entirely satisfied with his own conduct when about to kill Isaac, for he not only concealed from his servants his intent, but positively stated that which was not true, saying, "I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you." If he meant that he and Isaac would come again to them, then he knew that the sacrifice would not take place. Nay, Abraham even deceived his own son, who asked him where was the lamb for the burnt offering? But we learn from the New Testament that Abraham acted in this and other matters "by faith," so his falsehoods and evasions, being results and aids of faith, must be dealt with in an entirely different manner from transactions of every day life. Just as Abraham stretched forth his hand to slay his son, the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and prevented the murder, saying, "Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son." This conveys the impression that up to that moment the angel of the Lord was not quite certain upon the subject.

In Genesis xiii God says to Abraham, "Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward. For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. Arise, walk through the land, in the length of it, and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee." Yet, as is admitted by the Rev. Charles Boutell, in his "Bible Dictionary," "The only portion of territory in that land of promise, of which Abraham became possessed," was a graveyard, which he had bought and paid for. Although Abraham was too old to have children before the birth of Isaac, he had many children after Isaac [was] born. He lived to "a good old age" and died "full of years," but was yet younger than any of those who preceded him, and whose ages are given in the Bible history, except Nahor.

According to the Talmud, as Abraham was very pious so were his very camels, for they would not enter into a place where there were idols (Avoth d' Rabbi Nathan, chap. 8).

Abraham gave "all that he had to Isaac," but appears to have distributed the rest of the property amongst his other children, who were sent to enjoy it somewhere down East.

According to the New Testament, Abraham is now in Paradise, but Abraham in heaven is scarcely an improvement upon Abraham on earth. When he was entreated by an unfortunate in hell for a drop of water to cool his tongue, father Abraham replied: "Son, remember that in thy lifetime thou receivedst thy good things, and now thou art tormented," as if the reminiscence of past good would alleviate present and future continuity of evil.

Rabbi Levi says that Abraham sits at the gate of hell and does not permit any circumcised Israelite to enter (Yalkut Shimoni, fol. 33, col. 2, sec. 18).

The Talmud declares that "Abraham was a giant of giants; his height was as that of _seventy-four_ men put together. His food, his drink, and his strength were in the proportion of seventy-four men's to one man's. He built an iron city for the abode of his seventeen children by Keturah, the walls of which were so lofty that the sun never penetrated them; he gave them a bowl full of precious stones, the brilliancy of which supplied them with light in the absence of the sun." (Sophrim, chap. 21).

NEW LIFE OF JACOB

IT ought to be pleasant work to present sketches of God's chosen people. More especially should it be an agreeable task to recapitulate the interesting events occurring during the life of a man whom God has loved. Jacob was the son of Isaac; the grandson of Abraham. These three men were so free from fault, their lives so unobjectionable, that the God of the Bible delighted to be called the "God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." It is true that Abraham owned slaves, was not always exact to the truth, and, on one occasion, turned his wife and child out to the mercies of a sandy desert; that Isaac in some sort followed his father's example and disingenuous practices; and that Jacob was without manly feeling, a sordid, selfish, unfraternal cozener, a cowardly trickster, a cunning knave; but they must nevertheless have been good men, for God was "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." The name Jacob is not inappropriate. Kalisch says--"This appellation, if taken in its obvious etymological meaning, implies a deep ignominy: for the root from which it is derived signifies _to deceive, to defraud_, and in such a despicable meaning the same form of the word is indeed used elsewhere" (Jeremiah ix, 3.). Jacob would, therefore, be nothing else but the crafty _impostor_; in this sense Esau, in the heat of his animosity, in fact clearly explains the word, "justly is his name called Jacob (cheat) because he has cheated me twice." (Genesis xxvii, 36.) Pious Jews in the formula for blessing the new moon are taught in the Kabbalah "to meditate on the initials of the four divine epithets which form Jacob." According to the ordinary orthodox Bible chronology, Jacob was born about 1836 or 1837 B.C., that is, about 2168 years from "in the beginning," his father Isaac being then sixty years of age. There is a difficulty connected with Holy Scripture chronology which would be insuperable were it not that we have the advantage of spiritual aids in elucidation of the text. This difficulty arises from the fact that the chronology of the Bible, in this respect, like the major portion of Bible history, is utterly unreliable. But we do not look to the Old or New Testament for mere common-place, every-day facts--if we do, severe will be the disappointment of the truth-seeker--we look there for mysteries, miracles, paradoxes, and perplexities, and have no difficulty in [finding] the objects of our search. Jacob was born, together with his twin brother, Esau, in consequence of special entreaty addressed by Isaac to the Lord on behalf of Re-bekah, to whom he had been married about nineteen years, and who was yet childless. Infidel physiologists (and it is a not unaccountable fact, that all who are physiologists are also in so far infidel) assert that prayer would do little to repair the consequence of such disease, or such abnormal organic structure, as had compelled sterility. But our able clergy are agreed that the Bible was not intended to teach us science; or, at any rate, we have learned that its attempts in that direction are most miserable failures. Its mission is to teach the unteachable: to enable us to comprehend the incomprehensible. Before Jacob was born God decreed that he and his descendants should obtain the mastery over Esau and his descendants: "the elder shall serve the younger." (Gen. xxv, 23) The God of the Bible is a just God, but it is hard for weak flesh to discover the justice of this proemial decree, which so sentenced to servitude the children of Esau before their father's birth. Jacob came into the world holding by his brother's heel, like some cowardly knave in the battle of life, who, not daring to break a gap in the hedge of conventional prejudice, which bars his path, is yet ready enough to follow some bolder warrior, and to gather the fruits of his courage. "And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field: and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents." One day, Esau returned from his hunting, faint and wearied to the very point of death. He was hungry, and came to Jacob, his twin and only brother, saying, "Feed me, I pray thee" (Ibid., xxv, 30) "for I am exceedingly faint." (Douay Version) In a like case would not any man so entreated immediately offer to the other the best at his command, the more especially when that other is his only brother, born at the same time, from the same womb, suckled at the same breast, fed under the same roof? But Jacob was not merely a man and a brother, he was one of God's chosen people, and one who had been honored by God's prenatal selection. "If a man come unto me and hate not his brother, he cannot be my disciple." So taught Jesus the Jew, in after time, and in this earlier age Jacob the Jew, in practice, anticipated the later doctrine. It is one of the misfortunes of theology, if not its crime, that profession of love to God is often accompanied with bitter and active hate of man. Jacob was one of the founders of the Jewish race, and even in this their prehistoric age, the instinct for driving a hard bargain seems strongly developed. "Jacob said" to Esau, "Sell me this day thy birthright." The famished man vainly expostulated, and the birthright was sold for a mess of pottage. If to-day one man should so meanly and cruelly take advantage of his brother's necessities to rob him of his birthright, all good and honest men would shun him as an un-brotherly scoundrel, and most contemptible knave; yet, less than

4,000 years ago, a very different standard of morality must have prevailed. Indeed, if God is unchangeable, divine notions of honor and honesty must to-day be widely different from those of our highest men. God approved and endorsed Jacob's conduct. His approval is shown by his love, afterwards expressed for Jacob; his endorsement by his subsequent attention to Jacob's welfare. We may learn from this tale, so pregnant with instruction, that any deed which to the worldly and sensible man appears like knavery while understood literally becomes to the devout and prayerful man an act of piety when understood spiritually. Pious preachers and clever commentators declare that Esau despised his birthright. I do not deny that they might back their declaration by scripture quotations, but I do deny that the narrative ought to convey any such impression. Esau's words were, "Behold I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright be to me?"

Bereshith Rabba, cap. 95, says that "wherever Jacob resided, he studied the law as his fathers did," and it adds, "How is this, seeing that the law had not yet been given?" There is no record that Esau also studied the law, and there is no mention of any legal proceedings to set aside this very questionable birthright transfer.

Isaac growing old, and fearing from his physical infirmities the near approach of death, was anxious to bless Esau before he died, and directed him to take quiver and bow and go out in the field to hunt some venison for a savory meat, such as old Isaac loved. Esau departed, but when he had left his father's presence in order to fulfil his request, Jacob appeared on the scene. Instigated by his mother, he, by an abject stratagem, passed himself off as Esau. With a savory meat prepared by Rebekah, he came into his father's presence, and Isaac said, "Who art thou, my son?" Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. The Lord loved Jacob, yet Jacob lied to his old blind father, saying, "I am Esau thy firstborn." Isaac had some doubts: these are manifested by his inquiring how it was that the game was killed so quickly. Jacob, whom God loved, in a spirit of shameless blasphemy replied, "Because the Lord thy God brought it to me." Isaac still hesitated, fancying that he recognised the voice to be the voice of Jacob, and again questioned him, saying, "Art thou my very son Esau?" God is the God of truth and loved Jacob, yet Jacob said, "I am." Then Isaac blessed Jacob, believing that he was blessing Esau and God permitted the fraud to be successful, and himself also blessed Jacob. In that extraordinary composition known as the Epistle to the Hebrews, we are told that by faith Isaac blessed Jacob. But what faith had Isaac? Faith that Jacob was Esau? His belief was produced by deceptive appearances. His faith resulted from false representations. And there are very many men in the world who have no better foundation for their religious faith than had Isaac when he blessed Jacob, believing him to be Esau. In the Douay Bible I find the following note on this remarkable narrative: "St. Augustine (_L. contra mendacium_, c. 10), treating at large upon this place, excuseth Jacob from a lie, because this whole passage was mysterious, as relating to the preference which was afterwards to be given to the Gentiles before the carnal Jews, which Jacob, by prophetic light, might understand. So far it is certain that the first birthright, both by divine election and by Esau's free cession, belonged to Jacob; so that if there were any lie in the case, it would be no more than an officious and venial one." How glorious to be a patriarch, and to have a real saint laboring years after your death to twist your lies into truth by aid of prophetic light! Lying is at all times most disreputable, but at the deathbed the crime is rendered more heinous. The death hour would have awed many men into speaking the truth, but it had little effect on Jacob. Although Isaac was about to die, this greedy knave cared not, so that he got from the dying man the sought-for prize. God is said to love righteousness and hate iniquity, yet he loved the iniquitous Jacob, and hated the honest Esau. All knaves are tinged more or less with cowardice. Jacob was no exception to the rule. His brother, enraged at the deception practised upon Isaac, threatened to kill Jacob. Jacob was warned by his mother and fled. Induced by Rebekah, Isaac charged Jacob to marry one of Laban's daughters. On the way to Haran, where Laban dwelt, Jacob rested and slept. While sleeping he dreamed; ordinarily, dreams have little significance, but in the Bible they are more important. Some of the most weighty and vital facts of the Bible are communicated in dreams; and rightly so; if the men had been wideawake they would have probably rejected the revelation as absurd. So much does that prince of darkness, the devil, influence mankind against the Bible in the day time, that it is when all is dark, and our eyes are closed, and the senses dormant, that God's mysteries are most clearly seen and understood. Jacob "saw in his sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top thereof touching heaven; the angels also, of God ascending and descending by it, and the Lord leaning upon the ladder (Gen. xxviii, 12 and 13, Douay Version). In the ancient temples of India, and in the mysteries of Mithra, the seven-stepped ladder by which the spirits ascended to heaven is a prominent feature, and one of probably far higher antiquity than the age of Jacob. Did paganism furnish the groundwork for the patriarch's dream? "No man hath seen God at anytime." God is "invisible." Yet Jacob saw the invisible God, whom no man hath seen or can see, either standing above a ladder or leaning upon it. True, it was all a dream. Yet God spoke to Jacob, but perhaps that was a delusion too. We find by scripture that God threatens to send to some "strong delusions that they might believe a lie and be damned." Poor Jacob was much frightened; as any one might be, to dream of God leaning on so long a ladder. What if it had broken, and the dreamer underneath it? Jacob's fears were not so powerful but that his shrewdness and avarice had full scope in a sort of half-vow, halfcontract, made in the morning. Jacob said, "If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I shall come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God." The inference deducible from this conditional statement is, that if God failed to complete the items enumerated by Jacob, then the latter would have nothing to do with him. Jacob was a shrewd Jew, who would have laughed to scorn the preaching "Take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? or, what shall we drink? or, wherewithal shall we be clothed?"

After this contract Jacob went on his journey, and reached the house of his mother's brother, Laban, into whose service he entered. "Diamond cut diamond" would be an appropriate heading to the tale which gives the transactions between Jacob the Jew and Laban the son of Nahor. Laban had two daughters. Rachel, the youngest, was "beautiful and well-favored;" Leah, the elder, was "blear-eyed." Jacob served for the pretty one; but on the wedding day Laban made a feast, and when evening came gave Jacob the ugly Leah instead of the pretty Rachel. Jacob being (according to Josephus) both in drink and in the dark, it was morning ere he discovered his error. After this Jacob served for Rachel also, and then the remainder of the chapter of Jacob's servitude to Laban is but the recital of a series of frauds and trickeries. Jacob embezzled Laban's property, and Laban misappropriated and changed Jacob's wages. In fact, if Jacob had not possessed the advantage of divine aid, he would probably have failed in the endeavor to cheat his master, but God, who says "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor anything that is thy neighbor's," encouraged Jacob in his career of covetous criminalty. At last Jacob, having amassed a large quantity of property, determined to abscond from his employment, and taking advantage of his uncle's absence at sheepshearing "he stole away unawares," taking with him his wives, his children, flocks, herds, and goods. To crown the whole, Rachel, worthy wife of a husband so fraudulent, stole her father's gods.

But in those days God's ways were not as our ways. God came to Laban in a dream and compounded the felony, saying, "Take heed thou speak not anything harshly against Jacob."[30] This would probably prevent Laban giving evidence in a police court against Jacob, and thus save him from transportation or penal servitude. After a reconciliation and treaty had been effected between Jacob and Laban, the former went on his way "and the angels of God met him." Balaam's ass, at a later period, shared the good fortune which was the lot of Jacob, for that animal also had a meeting with an angel. Jacob was the grandson of the faithful Abraham to whom angels also appeared. It is somewhat extraordinary that Jacob should have manifested no surprise at meeting a host of angels. Still more worthy of note is it that our good translators elevate the same words into "angels" in verse 1, which they degrade into "messengers" in verse 3. John Bellamy, in his translation, says the "angels" were not immortal angels, and it is very probable John Bellamy was right. Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau, and heard that the latter was coming to meet him followed by 400 men. Jacob, a timorous knave at best, became terribly afraid. He, doubtless, remembered the wrongs inflicted upon Esau, the cruel extortion of the birthright, and the fraudulent obtainment of the dying Isaac's blessing. He, therefore, sent forward to his brother Esau a large present as a peace offering. He also divided the remainder of his flocks, herds, and goods, into two divisions, that if one were smitten, the other might escape; sending these on, he was left alone. While alone he wrestled with either a man, or an angel, or God. The text says "a man," the heading to the chapter says "an angel" and Jacob himself says that he has "seen God face to face." Whether God, angel, or man, it was not a fair wrestle, and were the present editor of Bell's Life referee, he would, unquestionably, declare it to be most unfair to touch "the hollow of Jacob's thigh" so as to put it "out of joint," and consequently, award the result of the match to Jacob. Jacob, notwithstanding the injury, still kept his grip, and the apocryphal wrestler, finding himself no match at fair struggling, and that foul play was unavailing, now tried entreaty, and said, "Let me go, for the day breaketh." Spirits never appear in the day time, when if they did appear, they could be seen and examined; they are often more visible in the twilight, in the darkness, and in dreams. Jacob would not let go: his life's instinct for bargaining prevailed, and probably, because he could get nothing else, he insisted on his opponent's blessing, before he let him go. In the Roman Catholic version of the Bible there is the following note:--"Chap. xxxii, v. 24. _A man, etc_.This was an angel in human shape, as we learn from _Osee_ (c. xii, v. 4). He is called God (xv, 28 and 30), because he represented the son of God. This wrestling, in which Jacob, assisted by God, was a match for an angel, was so ordered (v. 28) that he might learn by this experiment of the divine assistance, that neither Esau, nor any other man, should have power to hurt him." How elevating it must be to the true believer to conceive God helping Jacob to wrestle with his own representative. On the morrow Jacob met Esau.

[30] Genesis, xxxi, v. 24, Douay version.

"And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed[31] him; and they wept."

[31] The Talmud says: "Read not 'and he kissed him,' but read 'and he bit him'" (Pirke d'Rab Eliezer, chap. 36); and Rabbi Yanai says: "Esau did not come to kiss him, but to bite him; only the neck of Jacob our father became as hard as marble, and this blunted the teeth of the wicked one. And what is taught by the expression 'And they wept?' 'The one wept for his neck, and the other for his teeth" ("Midrash Rabbah," c. 68). Aben Ezra says that this exposition is only fit for children.

"And he said, What meanest thou by all this drove which I met? And he said, These are to find grace in the sight of my lord." "And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself."

"The last portion of the history of Jacob and Esau", writes G. J. Holyoake, "is very instructive. The coward fear of Jacob to meet his brother is well delineated. He is subdued by a sense of his treacherous guilt. The noble forgiveness of Esau invests his memory with more respect than all the wealth Jacob won, and all the blessings of the Lord he received. Could I change my name from Jacob to Esau, I would do it in honor of him. The whole incident has a dramatic interest. There is nothing in the Old or New Testament equal to it. The simple magnanimity of Esau is scarcely surpassed by anything in Plutarch. In the conduct of Esau, we see the triumph of time, of filial affection, and generosity over a deep sense of execrable treachery, unprovoked and irrevocable injury." Was not Esau a merciful, noble, generous man? Yet God hated him, and shut him out of all share in the promised land. Was not Jacob a mean, prevaricating knave: a crafty, abject cheat? Yet God loved and rewarded him. How great are the mysteries in this Bible representation of an all-good and all-loving God, thus hating good, and loving evil! At the time of the wrestling a promise was made, which is afterwards repeated by God to Jacob, that the latter should not be any more called Jacob, but Israel. This promise was not strictly kept; the name "Jacob" being used repeatedly, mingled with that of Israel in the after part of Jacob's history. Jacob had a large family; his sons are reputedly the heads of the twelve Jewish tribes. Joseph, who was much loved by his father, was sold by his brethren into slavery. This transaction does not seem to have called for any special reproval from God. Joseph, who from early life was skilled in dreams, succeeded by interpreting the visions of Pharaoh in obtaining a sort of premiership in Egypt; while filling which office he, like more modern Prime Ministers, "placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land." Joseph not only gave his own family the best place in the land, but he also, by a trick of statecraft, obtained the land for the king, made slaves of the people, and made it a law over the land of Egypt that the king should be entitled to one-fifth of the produce, always, of course, excepting and saving the rights of the priest. Judah, another brother, sought to have burned a woman by whom he had a child. A third, named Reuben, was guilty of the grossest vice, equalled only by that of Absalom the son of David; of Simeon and Levi, two more of Jacob's sons, it is said that "instruments of cruelty were in their habitations;" their conduct, as detailed in the 34th chapter of Genesis, alike shocks by its treachery and its mercilessness. After Jacob had heard that his son Joseph was governor in Egypt, but before he had journeyed farther than Beersheba, God spake unto him in the visions of the night, and probably forgetting that he had given him a new name, or being more accustomed to the old one, said, "Jacob, Jacob," and then told him to go down into Egypt; where Jacob died after a residence of about seventeen years, when 147 years of age.[32] Before Jacob died he blessed first the sons of Joseph, and then his own children, and at the termination of his blessing to Ephraim and Manasseh, we find the following speech addressed to Joseph, "Moreover I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow." This speech implies warlike pursuits on the part of Jacob, of which the Bible gives no record, and which seem incompatible with his recorded life. The sword of craft and the bow of cunning are the only weapons in the use of which he was skilled. When his sons murdered and robbed the Hivites, fear seems to have been Jacob's most prominent characteristic.

[32] Bava Bathra, fol. 17, col. 1, says: "Over six the angel of death had no dominion and these were: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam," and it also says that these and Benjamin, the son of Jacob, "are seven who are not consumed by the worm in the grave."

The Talmud says: "The sons of Esau, of Ishmael, and of Keturah, went on purpose to dispute the burial (of Jacob); but when they saw that Joseph had placed his crown upon the coffin, they did the same with theirs." There were _thirty-six_ crowns in all, tradition says. "And they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation." Even the very horses and asses joined in it, we are told. On arriving at the cave of Machpelah, Esau once more protested, and said, "Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, are all buried here. Jacob disposed of his share when he buried Leah in it, and the remaining one belongs to me." "But thou didst sell thy share with thy birthright," remonstrated the sons of Jacob. "Nay," rejoined Esau, "that did not include my share in the burial place." "Indeed it did," they argued, "for our father, just before he died, said (Gen. i, 5), 'In my grave which I have bought for myself.'" "Where are the title-deeds?" demanded Esau. "In Egypt," was the answer. And immediately the swiftfooted Naphthali started for the records ("So light of foot was he," says the Book of Jasher, "that he could go upon the ears of corn without crushing them"). Hushim, the son of Dan, being deaf, asked what was the cause of the commotion. On being told what it was, he snatched up a club and smote Esau so hard that his eyes dropped out and fell upon the feet of Jacob, at which Jacob opened his eyes and grimly smiled (Soteh, fol. 13, col. 1).

NEW LIFE OF MOSES

THE "Life of Abraham" was presented to our readers, because, as the nominal founder of the Jewish race, his position entitled him to that honour. The "Life of David," because, as one of the worst men and worst kings ever known, his history might afford matter for reflection to admirers of monarchical institutions and matter for comment to the advocates of a republican form of government. The "Life of Jacob" served to show how basely mean and contemptibly deceitful a man might become, and yet enjoy God's love. Having given thus a brief outline of the career of the patriarch, the king, and the knave, the life of a priest naturally presents itself as the most fitting to complement the present quadrifid series.

Moses, the great grandson of Levi, was born in Egypt, not far distant from the banks of the Nile, a river world-famous for its inundations, made familiar to ordinary readers by the travellers who have journeyed to discover its source, and held in bad repute by strangers, especially on account of the carnivorous Saurians who infest its waters. The mother and father of our hero were both of the tribe of Levi, and were named Jochebed and Amram. The infant Moses was, at the age of three months, placed in an ark of bulrushes by the river's brink. This was done in order to avoid the decree of extermination propounded by the reigning Pharaoh against the male Jewish children. The daughter of Pharaoh, coming down to the river to bathe, found the child and took compassion upon him, adopting him as her son. Of the early life of Moses we have but scanty record. We are told in the New Testament that he was learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts vii, 21), and that "when he was come to years he refused" by faith (Hebrews, xi, 24) "to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter." Perhaps the record from which the New Testament writers quoted has been lost; it is certain that the present version of the Old Testament does not contain those statements. The record which is lost may have been God's original revelation to man, and of which our Bible may be an incomplete version. I am little grieved by the supposition that a revelation may have been lost, being, for my own part, more inclined to think that no revelation has ever been made. Josephus says that, when quite a baby, Moses trod contemptuously on the crown of Egypt. The Egyptian monuments and Exodus are both silent on this point. Josephus also tells us that Moses led the Egyptians in war against the Ethiopians, and married Tharbis, the daughter of the Ethiopian monarch. This also is omitted both in Egyptian history and in the sacred record. When Moses was grown, according to the Old Testament, or when he was 40 years of age according to the New, "it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel," "And he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew;" "And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand." The New Testament says that he did it, "for he supposed that his brethren would understand how that God, by his hand, would deliver them." (Acts vii, 25) But this is open to the following objections:--The Old Testament says nothing of the kind;--there was no man to see the homicide, and as Moses hid the body, it is hard to conceive how he could expect the Israelites to understand a matter of which they not only had no knowledge whatever, but which he himself did not think was known to them;--if there were really no man present, the story of the after accusation against Moses needs explanation;--it might be further objected that it does not appear that Moses at that time did even himself conceive that he had any mission from God to deliver his people. Moses fled from the wrath of Pharaoh, and dwelt in Midian, where he married the daughter of one Reuel or Raguel, or Jethro. This name is not of much importance, but it is strange that if Moses wrote the books of the Pentateuch he was not more exact in designating so near a relation. While acting as shepherd to his father-in-law, "he led the flock to the back side of the desert," and "the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire:" that is, the angel was either a flame, or was the object which was burning, for this angel appeared in the midst of a bush which burned with fire, but was not consumed. This flame appears to have been a luminous one, for it was a "great sight," and attracted Moses, who turned aside to see it. But the luminosity would depend on substance ignited and rendered incandescent. Is the angel of the Lord a substance susceptible of ignition and incandesence? Who knoweth? If so, will the fallen angels ignite and burn in hell? God called unto Moses out of the midst of the bush. It is hard to conceive an infinite God in the middle of a bush, yet as the law of England says that we must not "deny the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be of divine authority," in order not to break the law, I advise all to believe that, in addition to being in the middle of a bush, the infinite and all-powerful God also sat on the top of a box, dwelt sometimes in a tent, afterwards in a temple; although invisible, appeared occasionally; and, being a spirit without body or parts, was hypostatically incarnate as a man. Moses, when spoken to by God, "hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God." If Moses had known that God was _invisible_, he would have escaped this fear. God told Moses that the cry of the children of Israel had reached him, and that he had _come down_ to deliver them, and that Moses was to lead them out of Egypt. Moses does not seem to have placed entire confidence in the phlegomic divine communication, and asked, when the Jews should question him on the name of the Deity, what answer should he make? It does not appear from this that the Jews, if they had so completely forgotten God's name, had much preserved the recollection of the promise comparatively so recently made to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. The answer given according to our version is, "I am that I am;" according to the Douay, "I am who am." God, in addition, told Moses that the Jews should spoil the Egyptians of their wealth; but even this promise of plunder, so congenial to the nature of a bill-discounting Jew of the Bible type, did not avail to overcome the scruples of Moses. God therefore taught him to throw his rod on the ground, and thus transform it into a serpent, from which pseudo-serpent Moses at first fled in fear, but on his taking it by the tail it resumed its original shape. Moses, with even other wonders at command, still hesitated; he had an impediment in his speech. God cured this by the appointment of Aaron, who was eloquent, to aid his brother. God directed Moses to return to Egypt, but his parting words must somewhat have damped the future legislator's hope of any speedy or successful ending to his mission. God said, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart that he shall not let the people go." On the journey back to Egypt God met Moses "by the way in the inn, and sought to kill him." I am ignorant as to the causes which prevented the omnipotent Deity from carrying out his intention; the text does not explain the matter, and I am not a bishop or a D.D., and I do not therefore feel justified in putting my assumptions in place of God's revelation. Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, and asked that the Jews might be permitted to go three days' journey in the wilderness; but the King of Egypt not only refused their request, but gave them additional tasks, and in consequence Moses and Aaron went again to the Lord, who told them, "I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them." Whether God had forgotten that the name Jehovah was known to Abraham, or whether he was here deceiving Moses and Aaron, are points the solution of which I leave to the faithful referring them to the fact that Abraham called a place (Genesis xxii, 14) Jehovah-Jireh. After this Moses and Aaron again went to Pharaoh and worked wonderfully in his presence. Thaumaturgy is coming into fashion again, but the exploits of Moses far exceeded any of those performed by Mr. Home or the Davenport Brothers. Aaron flung down his rod, and it became a serpent; the Egyptian magicians flung down their rods, which became serpents also; but the rod of Aaron, as though it had been a Jew money-lender or a tithe collecting parson, swallowed up these miraculous competitors, and the Jewish leaders could afford to laugh at their defeated rival conjurors. Moses and Aaron carried on the miracle-working for some time. All the water of the land of Egypt was turned by them into blood, but the magicians did so with their enchantments, and it had no effect on Pharaoh. Then showers of frogs, at the instance of Aaron, covered the land of Egypt; but the Egyptians did so with their enchantments, and frogs abounded still more plentifully. The Jews next tried their hands at the production of lice, and here--to the glory of God be it said--the infidel Egyptians failed to imitate them. It is written that "cleanliness is next to godliness," but we cannot help thinking that godliness must have been far from cleanliness when the former so soon resulted in lice. The magicians were now entirely discomfited. The preceding wonders seem to have affected all the land of Egypt; but in the next miracle the swarms of flies sent were confined to Egyptians only, and were not extended to Goshen, in which the Israelites dwelt.

The next plague in connection with the ministration of Moses and Aaron was that "all the cattle of Egypt died." After "all the cattle" were dead, a boil was sent, breaking forth with blains upon man and beast. This failing in effect, Moses afterwards stretched forth his hand and smote "both man and beast" with hail, then covered the land with locusts, and followed this with a thick darkness throughout the land--a darkness which _might_ have been felt. Whether it was felt is a matter on which I am unable to pass an opinion. After this, the Egyptians being terrified by the destruction of their first-born children, the Jews, at the instance of Moses, borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and raiment; and they spoiled the Egyptians. The fact is, that the Egyptians were in the same position as the payers of church rates, tithes, vicars' rates, and Easter dues: they lent to the Lord's people, who are good borrowers, but slow when repayment is required. They prefer promising you a crown of glory to paying you at once five shillings in silver. Moses led the Jews through the Red Sea, which proved a ready means of escape, as may be easily read in Exodus, which says that the Lord "made the sea dry land" for the Israelites, and afterwards not only overwhelmed in it the Egyptians who sought to follow them, but, as Josephus tells us, the current of the sea actually carried to the camp of the Hebrews the arms of the Egyptians, so that the wandering Jews might not be destitute of weapons. After this the Israelites were led by Moses into Shur, where they were without water for three days, and the water they afterwards found was too bitter to drink until a tree had been cast into the well. The Israelites were then fed with manna, which, when gathered on Friday, kept for the Sabbath, but rotted if kept from one week day to another. The people grew tired of eating manna, and complained, and God sent fire amongst them and burned them up in the uttermost parts of the camp; and after this the people wept and said, "Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic; but now there is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes." This angered the Lord, and he gave them a feast of quails, and while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the anger of the Lord was kindled, and he smote the Jewish people with a very great plague (Numbers, ix). The people again in Rephidim were without water, and Moses therefore smote the Rock of Horeb with his rod, and water came out of the rock. At Rephidim the Amalekites and the Jews fought together, and while they fought Moses, like a prudent general, went to the top of a hill, accompanied by Aaron and Hur, and it came to pass that when Moses held up his hands Israel prevailed, and when he let down his hands Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands were heavy, and they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat thereon, and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side and the other on the other side, and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun, and Joshua discomfited Amalek, and his people with the edge of the sword. How the true believer ought to rejoice that the stone was so convenient, as otherwise the Jews might have been slaughtered, and there might have been no royal line of David, no Jesus, no Christianity. That stone should be more valued than the precious black stone of the Moslem; it is the corner-stone of the system, the stone which supported the Mosaic rule. God is everywhere, but Moses went up unto him, and the Lord called to him out of a mountain and came to him in a thick cloud, and descended on Mount Sinai in a fire, in consequence of which the mountain smoked, and the Lord came down upon the top of the mountain and called Moses up to him; and then the Lord gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and also those precepts which follow, in which Jews are permitted to buy their fellow-countrymen for six years, and in which it is provided that, if the slave-master shall give his six-year slave a wife, and she bear him sons or daughters, that the wife and the children shall be the property of her master. In these precepts it is also permitted that a man may sell his own daughter for the most base purposes. Also that a master may beat his slave, so that if he do not die until a few days after the ill-treatment, the master shall escape justice because the slave is his money. Also that Jews may buy strangers and keep them as slaves for ever. While Moses was up in the mount the people clamoured for Aaron to make them gods. Moses had stopped away so long that the people gave him up for lost. Aaron, whose duty it was to have pacified and restrained them, and to have kept them in the right faith, did nothing of the kind. He induced them to bring all their gold, and then made it into a calf, before which he built an altar, and then proclaimed a feast. Manners and customs change. In those days the Jews did see the God that Aaron took their gold for, but now the priests take the people's gold, and the poor contributors do not even see a calf for their pains, unless indeed they are near a mirror at the time when they are making their voluntary contributions. And the Lord told Moses what happened, and said, "I have seen this people, and behold it is a stiffnecked people. Now, therefore, let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them." Moses would not comply with God's request, but remonstrated, and expostulated, and begged him not to afford the Egyptians an opportunity of speaking against him. Moses succeeded in changing the unchangeable, and the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.

Although Moses would not let God's "wrath wax hot" his own "anger waxed hot," and he broke, in his rage, the two tables of stone which God had given him, and on which the Lord had graven and written with his own finger. We have now no means of knowing in what language God wrote, or whether Moses afterwards took any pains to rivet together the broken pieces. It is almost to be wondered at that the Christian Evidence Societies have not sent missionaries to search for these pieces of the tables, which may even yet remain beneath the mount. Moses took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon water and made the children of Israel drink of it. After this Moses armed the priests and killed 3,000 Jews, "and the Lord plagued the people because they had made the calf which Aaron had made." (Exodus xxxii, 35) Moses afterwards pitched the tabernacle without the camp; and the cloudy pillar in which the Lord went, descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle; and the Lord talked to Moses "face to face, as a man would to his friend." (Exodus xxxiii, 11) And the Lord then told Moses, "Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live." (Exodus xxxiii, 20) Before this Moses and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, "saw the God of Israel, and there was under his feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone,.. and upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand; also they saw God, and did eat and drink." (Exodus xxix, 9)

Aaron, the brother of Moses, died under very strange circumstances. The Lord said unto Moses, "Strip Aaron of his garments and put them upon Eleazar, his son, and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people and shall die there." And Moses did as the Lord commanded, and Aaron died there on the top of the mount, where Moses had taken him. There does not appear to have been any coroner's inquest in the time of Aaron, and the suspicious circumstances of the death of the brother of Moses have been passed over by the faithful.

When Moses was leading the Israelites near Moab, Balak the King of the Moabites sent to Balaam in order to get Balaam to curse the Jews. When Balak's messengers were with Balaam, God came to Balaam also, and asked what men they were. Of course God knew, but he inquired for his own wise purposes, and Balaam told him truthfully. God ordered Balaam not to curse the Jews, and therefore the latter refused, and sent the Moabitish messengers away. Then Balak sent again high and mighty princes under whose influence Balaam went mounted on an ass, and God's anger was kindled against Balaam, and he sent an angel to stop him by the way; but the angel did not understand his business well, and the ass first ran into a field, and then close against the wall, and it was not until the angel removed to a narrower place that he succeeded in stopping the donkey; and when the ass saw the angel she fell down. Balaam did not see the angel at first; and, indeed, we may take it as a fact of history that asses have always been the most ready to perceive angels.

Moses may have been a great author, but we have little means of ascertaining what he wrote in the present day. Divines talk of Genesis to Deuteronomy as the five books of Moses, but Eusebius, in the fourth century, attributed them to Ezra, and Saint Chrysostom says that the name of Moses has been affixed to the books without authority, by persons living long after him. It is quite certain that if Moses lived 3,300 years ago, he did not write in square letter Hebrew, and this because the character has not existed so long. It is indeed doubtful if it can be carried back 2,000 years. The ancient Hebrew character, though probably older than this, yet is comparatively modern amongst the ancient languages of the earth.

It is urged by orthodox chronologists that Moses was born about 1450 B.C., and that the Exodus took place about 1491 B.C. Unfortunately "there are no recorded dates in the Jewish Scriptures that are trustworthy." Moses, or the Hebrews, not being mentioned upon Egyptian monuments from the twelfth to the seventeenth century B.C. inclusive, and never being alluded to by any extant writer who lived prior to the Septuagint translation at Alexandria (commencing in the third century B.C.), there are no extraneous aids, from sources alien to the Jewish Books, through which any information, worthy of historical acceptance, can be gathered elsewhere about him or them.[33]

[33] G.R. Gliddon's Types of Mankind: Mankind's Chronology, p 711

Moses died in the land of Moab when he was 120 years of age. The Lord buried Moses in a valley of Moab, over against Bethpeor, but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. Josephus says that "a cloud came over him on the sudden and he disappeared in a certain valley." The devil disputed about the body of Moses, contending with the Archangel Michael (Jude, 9); but whether the devil or the angel had the best of the discussion, the Bible does not tell us.

De Beauvoir Priaulx,[34] looking at Moses as a counsellor, leader, and legislator, says:--"Invested with this high authority, he announced to the Jews their future religion, and announced it to them as a state religion, and as framed for a particular state, and that state only. He gave this religion, moreover, a creed so narrow and negative--he limited it to objects so purely temporal, he crowded it with observances so entirely ceremonial or national--that we find it difficult to determine whether Moses merely established this religion in order that by a community of worship he might induce in the tribe-divided Israelites that community of sentiment which would constitute them a nation; or, whether he only roused them to a sense of their national dignity, in the hope that they might then more faithfully perform the duties of priests and servants of Jehovah. In other words, we hesitate to decide whether in the mind of Moses the state was subservient to the purposes of religion, or religion to the purposes of state."

[34] Questiones Mosaicae, p. 438.

The same writer observes[35] that, according to the Jewish writings, Moses "is the friend and favourite of the Deity. He is one whose prayers and wishes, the Deity hastens to fulfil, one to whom the Deity makes known his designs. The relations between God and the prophet are most intimate. God does not disdain to answer the questions of Moses, to remove his doubts, and even occasionally to receive his suggestions, and to act upon them even in opposition to his own pre-determined decrees."

[35] p. 418.

NEW LIFE OF DAVID

IN compiling a biographical account of any ancient personage, impediments often arise from the uncertainty, party bias, and prejudiced coloring of the various traditions out of which, the biography is collected. Here no such obstacle is met with, no such bias can be imagined, for, in giving the life of David, we extract it from an all-wise God's perfect and infallible revelation to man, and thus are enabled to present it to our readers free from any doubt, uncertainty, or difficulty. There is perhaps the fear that the manner of this brief sketch may be adjudged to be within the operation of such common law as wisely protects the career of the saints from mere sinful common-sense criticism; but as the matter is derived from the authorised version for which England is indebted to James, of royal and pious memory, this new life of David may be safely left to the impartial judgment of Mr. Justice North, aided by the charitable and pious counsel of Sir Hardinge Giffard. The latter, who has had more than one criminal client for whom he has most ably pleaded, might be relied on to make out a strong, if not a good, case for punishing any one who is unfair to the man after God's own heart. Mr. Justice Stephen has furnished me with some slight guide in his notice of Voltaire's play called "David:"--

"It constitutes, perhaps, the bitterest attack on David's character ever devised by the wit of man, but the effect is produced almost exclusively by the juxtaposition, with hardly any alteration, of a number of texts from different parts of David's history. It would be a practical impossibility to charge a jury in such a case, so as to embody Lord Coleridge's view of the law. The judge would have to say: 'It is lawful to say that David was a murderer, an adulterer, a treacherous tyrant who passed his last moments in giving directions for assassinations; but you must observe the decencies of controversy. You must not arrange your facts in such a way as to mix ridicule with indignation, or to convey too striking a contrast between the solemn character of the documents from which the extracts are made, and the nature of the extracts themselves, and of the facts to which they relate.'"

It is in the spirit of this paragraph that I have penned the present life.

The father of David was Jesse, an Ephrathite of Bethlehem Judah, who had either eight sons, (1 Samuel xvi, 10-11, and xvii, 12), or only seven (1 Chronicles, ii, 13-15), and David was either the eighth son or the seventh. Some may think this a difficulty, but such persons will only be those who rely on their own intellectual faculties, or who have been misled by arithmetic. If you are in any doubt, consult some qualified divine, and he will explain to you that there is really no difference between eight and seven when rightly understood with prayer and faith, by the help of the spirit. Arithmetic is an utterly infidel acquirement, and one which all true believers should eschew. The proposition that three times one are one is a fundamental article of the Christian faith. When young, David tended his father's sheep, and apparently while so doing he gained a character for being cunning in playing a mighty valiant man, a man of war and prudent in matters. He obtained his reputation as a soldier early and wonderfully, for he was "but a youth;" and God's most holy word asserts that when going to fight with Goliath, he tried to walk in armor and could not, because he was not accustomed to it (1 Samuel xvii, 39 _c.f._ Douay version). Samuel shortly prior to this anointed David, who, while yet a lad, had been selected by the Lord to be King of the Jews in place and stead of Saul, who had wickedly disobeyed the commands of the Lord, who in his infinite love and mercy had said (1 Sam. xv, 3): "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." Saul, however, behaved unrighteously, for he "spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them." This not unnaturally irritated and annoyed the Lord. "Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be King: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments," and the Lord bid Samuel fill a "horn with oil," and sent Samuel, who anointed David the son of Jesse in the midst of his brethren, and the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. If a man takes to spirits his life will probably be one of vice, misery, and misfortune; and if spirits take to him, the result in the end is nearly the same. Every evil deed which the Bible records as having been done by David was after the spirit of the Lord had so come upon him. Saul being King of Israel, an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. The devil has, it is said, no love for music, and Saul was recommended to have David to play on a harp, in order that harmony might drive this evil spirit back to the Lord who sent it. The Jew's harp was played successfully, and Saul was often relieved from the evil spirit by David's ministrations. There is nothing miraculous in this; at the People's Concerts many a working man has been relieved from the "blue devils" by a stirring chorus, a merry song, or patriotic anthem; and on the contrary many evil spirits have been aroused by the most unmusical performances of the followers of General Booth. David was appointed armor-bearer to the King; but curiously enough, this office does not appear to have interfered with his duties as a shepherd; indeed, the care of his father's sheep took precedence over the care of the king's armor, and in the time of war he "went and returned to feed his father's sheep." Perhaps his "prudence in matters" induced him thus to take care of himself.

A Philistine, one Goliath of Gath (whose height was six cubits and a span, or about nine feet six inches, at a low computation) had defied the armies of Israel. This Goliath was (to use the vocabulary of a reverend sporting correspondent to a certain religious newspaper) a veritable champion of the heavy weights. He carried in all about two cwt. of offensive and defensive armor upon his person, and his challenge had great weight. None dared accept it amongst the soldiers of Saul until the arrival of David, who brought some food for his brethren. David volunteered to fight the giant, but Elias, David's brother, having mocked the presumption of the offer, and Saul objecting that the venturesome lad was not competent to take part in a conflict so dangerous, David related how he pursued a lion and a bear, how he caught him by his beard and slew him. Which animal it was that David thus bearded the text does not say. The Douay says it was "a lion or a bear." To those who have chased the king of the forests or studied the habits of bears, the whole story looks, on an attentive reading, "very like a whale." David was permitted to fight the giant; his equipment was simple, a sling and stones, and with these, from a distance, he slew the giant. Some suggest that the weapon Goliath fell under was the long bow. This suggestion is rendered probable by the book itself. One verse says that David slew the Philistine with a stone, another verse says that he slew him with the giant's own sword, while in 2 Samuel xxi, 19, we are told that Goliath the Gittite was slain by Elhanan. Our translators, who have great regard for our faith and more for their pulpits, have kindly inserted the words "the brother of" before Goliath. This emendation saves the true believer from the difficulty of understanding how Goliath of Gath could have been killed by different men at different times. David was previously well known to Saul, and was much loved and favored by that monarch. He was also seen by the king before he went forth to do battle with the gigantic Philistine. Yet (as if to verify the proverb that kings have short memories for their friends) Saul had forgotten his own armor-bearer and muchloved harpist, and was obliged to ask Abner who David was. Abner, captain of the king's host, familiar with the person of the armor-bearer to the king, of course knew David well; he therefore answered: "As thy soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell." David, having made known his parentage, was appointed to high command by Saul; but the Jewish women over-praised David, and thus displeased the king. One day the evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul and he prophesied. Men often talk great nonsense under the influence of spirits, which they sometimes regret when sober. It is, however, an interesting fact in ancient spiritualism to know that Saul prophesied with a devil in him. Under the joint influence of the devil and prophecy, Saul tried to kill David with a javelin, and this was repeated, even after David had married the king's daughter (whose wedding he had secured by the slaughter of two hundred men). Saul then asked his son and servants to kill David; but Jonathan, Saul's son, loved David, "And Saul hearkened unto the voice of Jonathan: and Saul sware, As the Lord liveth, he shall not be slain." It is interesting as showing the utility of oaths that after having thus sworn Saul was more determined than ever to kill David. To save his own life David fled to Naioth, and Saul sent there messengers to arrest David; but three sets of the king's messengers having in turn all become prophets, Saul went himself, and the spirit of the Lord came upon him also, and he stripped off his clothes and prophesied as hard as the rest, "laying down naked all that day and all that night."

David lived in exile for some time in godly company, having collected round him every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented. Saul made several fruitless attempts to effect his capture, with no better result than that he twice placed himself in the power of David, who twice showed the mercy to a cruel king which he never conceded to an unoffending people. David having obtruded himself upon Achish, King of Gath, doubtful of his safety, feigned madness to cover his retreat. He then lived a precarious life, sometimes levying a species of black mail upon defenceless farmers. Having applied to one farmer to make him some compensation for permitting the farm to go unrobbed, and his demand not having been complied with, David, who is a man after the heart of God of mercy, immediately determined to murder the farmer and all his household for their wicked reluctance in submitting to his extortions. The wife of farmer Nabal compromised the matter. David "_accepted her person_" and ten days after Nabal was found dead in his bed. David afterwards went with 600 men and lived under the protection of Achish, King of Gath, and while thus residing (being the anointed one of God who says, "Thou shalt not steal") he robbed the inhabitants of the surrounding places. Being also obedient to the statute, "Thou shalt do no murder," he slaughtered, and left neither man nor woman alive to report his robberies to King Achish; and as he "always walked in the ways" of a God to whom "lying lips are an abomination," he made false reports to Achish in relation to his actions. Of course this was all for the glory of God, whose ways are not as our ways. Soon the Philistines were engaged in another of the constantly recurring conflicts with the Israelites. Who offered them the help of himself and hand? Who offered to make war on his own countrymen? David, the man after God's own heart, who obeyed God's statutes and who walked in his ways, to do only that which was right in the sight of God. The Philistines rejected the traitor's aid, and prevented the consummation of this baseness. While David was making this unpatriotic proffer of his services to the Philistines, his own city of Ziglag was captured by the Amalekites, who were doubtless endeavoring to avenge some of the most unjustifiable robberies and murders perpetrated by David and his followers in their country. David's own friends evidently thought that this misfortune was a retribution for David's crimes, for they spoke of stoning him. The Amalekites had captured and carried off everything, but they do not seem to have maltreated or killed any of their enemies. David was less merciful. He pursued them, recaptured the spoil, and spared not a man of them, save 400 who escaped on camels. In consequence of the death of Saul, David was elevated to the throne of Judah, while Ishbosheth, a son of Saul, was made king of Israel. But Ishbosheth having been assassinated, David slew the assassins, when they, hoping for reward, brought him the news, and he reigned ultimately over Israel also.

As religious readers are doubtless aware, the Lord God of Israel, after the time of Moses, usually dwelt on the top of an ark or box, between two figures of gold; and on one occasion David made a journey with his followers to Baal, to bring thence the ark of God. They placed it on a new cart drawn by oxen. On the journey the oxen stumbled, and consequently shook the cart. One of the drivers, whose name was Uzzah, possibly fearing that God might be tumbled to the ground, took hold of the ark, apparently in order to steady it, and prevent it from overturning. God, who is a God of love, was much displeased that any one should presume to do any such act of kindness, and killed Uzzah on the spot as a punishment for his sin. This shows that if a man sees the Church of God tumbling down, he should never try to prop it up; if it be not strong enough to save itself, the sooner it falls the better for humankind--that is, if they keep away from it while it is falling. David was much displeased that the Lord had killed Uzzah; in fact, David seems to have wished for a monopoly of slaughter, and always manifested displeasure when any killing was done unauthorised by himself. Being displeased, David would not take the ark to Jerusalem, but left it in the house of Obed Edom; then, as the Lord proved more kind to Obed Edom than he had done to Uzzah, David determined to bring the ark away, and did so, dancing before the ark in a state of semi-nudity, for which he was reproached by Michal. Lord Campbell's Act is intended to hinder the publication of indecencies, but the pages of the Book which the law affirms to be God's most holy word do not come within the scope of the Act, and lovers of obscene language may therefore have legal gratification so long as the Bible shall exist. The God of Israel, who had been leading a wandering life for many years, and who had "walked in a tent and in a tabernacle," and "from tent to tent," and "from one tabernacle to another," and "who had not dwelt in any house" since the time that he brought the Israelites out of Egypt, was offered "an house for him to dwell in," but he declined to accept it during the lifetime of David, although he promised to permit the son of David to erect him such an abode. David being now a powerful monarch, and having many wives and concubines, saw one day the beautiful wife of one of his soldiers. To see with this licentious monarch was to crave for the gratification of his lust. The husband Uriah was fighting for the king, yet David was base enough to steal his wife's virtue during Uriah's absence in the field of battle. "Thou shalt not commit adultery" was one of the commandments, yet we are told by God of this David, that he was one "who kept my commandments, and who followed me with all his heart to do only that which was right in mine eyes" (1 Kings, xiv, 8). David having seduced the wife, sent for her husband, wishing to make him condone his wife's dishonor. In modern England under a Stuart or a Brunswick, Uriah might have become a Marquis or a Baron. Some hold that virtue in rags is less worth than vice when coro-neted. Uriah would not be thus tricked, and David, the pious David, coolly planned, and without mercy caused to be executed, the treacherous murder of Uriah. God is all-just; and David having committed adultery and murder, God punished and killed an innocent child, which had no part or share in David's crime, and never chose that it should be born from the womb of Bathsheba. After this king David was even more cruel and merciless than before. Previously he had systematically slaughtered the inhabitants of Moab, now he sawed people with saws, cut them with harrows and axes, and made them pass through brick-kilns. Yet of this man, God said he "did that which was right in mine eyes." So bad a king, so treacherous a man, a lover so inconstant, a husband so adulterous, was of course a bad father, having bad children. We are little surprised, therefore, to read that his son Amnon robbed of her virtue his own sister, David's daughter Tamar, and that Am-non was afterwards slain by his own brother, David's son Absalom, and we are scarcely astonished that Absalom himself, on the house-top, in the sight of all Israel, should complete his father's shame by an act worthy a child of God's select people. Yet these are God's chosen race, and this is the family of the man "who walked in God's ways all the days of his life."

God, who is all-wise and all-just, and who is not a man that he should repent, repented that he had made Saul king because Saul spared one man. In the reign of David the same good God sent a famine for three years on the descendants of Abraham, and upon being asked his reason for thus starving his chosen ones, the reply of the Deity was that he sent the famine on the subjects of David because Saul slew the Gibeonites. Satisfactory reason!--because Oliver Cromwell slew the Royalists, God will punish the subjects of Charles the Second. One reason is, to profane eyes, equivalent to the other, but a bishop or even a rural dean would soon show how remarkably God's justice was manifested. David was not behindhand in justice. He had sworn to Saul that he would not cut off his seed--i.e., that he would not destroy Saul's family. He therefore took two of Saul's sons, and five of Saul's grandsons, and gave them up to the Gibeonites, who hung them. Strangely wonderful are the ways of the Lord! Saul slew the Gibeonites, therefore years afterwards God starves Judah. The Gibeonites hang men who have nothing to do with the crime of Saul, except that they are his descendants, and then we are told "the Lord was intreated for the land." The anger of the Lord being kindled against Israel, he, wanting some excuse for punishing the descendants of Jacob, moved David to number his people. The Chronicles say that the tempter was Satan, and pious people may thus learn what there is of distinction between God and Devil. Philosophers would urge that both personifications are founded in the ignorance of the masses, and the continuance of the myth will cease with the credulousness of the people. David caused a census to be taken of the tribes of Israel and Judah. There is a trival disagreement of about 270,000 soldiers between Samuel and Chronicles, but readers must not allow so slight an inaccuracy as this to stand between them and heaven. What are 270,000 men when looked at prayerfully? That any doubt should arise is to a devout mind at the same time profane and preposterous. Statisticians suggest that 1,570,000 soldiers form a larger army than the Jews are likely to have possessed; but if God is omnipotent, there is no reason to limit his power of miraculously increasing or decreasing the armament of the Jewish nation. David, it seems, did wrong in numbering his people, but we are never told that he did wrong in robbing or murdering their neighbors, or in pillaging peaceful agriculturists. David said: "I have sinned," and for this an all-merciful God brought a pestilence on the people, and murdered 70,000 Israelites, for an offence which their ruler had committed. The angel who was engaged in this terrible slaughter stood somewhere between heaven and earth, and stretched forth his hand with a drawn sword to destroy Jerusalem itself; but even the bloodthirsty Deity of the Bible "repented him of the evil," and said to the angel: "It is enough." Many volumes might be written to answer the enquiries--where did the angel stand, and on what? Of what metal was the sword, and where was it made? As it was a drawn one, where was the scabbard? and did the angel wear a sword-belt? Examined in a pious frame of mind, much holy instruction may be derived from the attempt to solve these solemn problems.

David now grows old and weak, and at last his death-hour comes. Oh! for the dying words of the Psalmist! What pious instruction shall we derive from the death-bed scene of the man after God's own heart! Listen to the last words of Judah's expiring monarch. You who have been content with the pious frauds and forgeries perpetrated with reference to the death-beds and dying words of the great, the generous, the witty Voltaire; the manly, the self-denying, the incorruptible Thomas Paine; the humane, simple, child-like man, yet mighty poet, Shelley--you who have turned away from these with unwarranted horror--come with me to the death-couch of the special favorite of God. Bathsheba's child stands by his side. Does any thought of the murdered Uriah rack old David's brain, or has a tardy repentance effaced the bloody stain from the pages of his memory? What does the dying David say? Does he talk of cherubs, angels and heavenly choirs? Nay, none of these things passes his lips. Does he make a confession of his crime-stained life, and beg his son to be a better king, a truer man, a more honest citizen, a wiser father? Nay, not so--no word of sorrow, no sign of regret, no expression of remorse or repentance escapes his lips. What does the dying David say? This foul monster whom God has made king; this redhanded robber, whose life has been guarded by "our Father which art in Heaven;" this perjured king, whose lying lips have found favor in the sight of God, and who, when he dies, is safe for Heaven. It is written: "There shall be more joy in heaven before God over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine righteous men." Does David repent? Nay, like the ravenous wolf, which, tasting blood, is made more eager for the prey, he too yearns for blood; and with his dying breath begs his son to bring the grey hairs of two old men down to the grave with blood. And this is God's anointed king, the chief one of God's chosen people.

The learned and pious Puffendorf explains that David having only sworn not himself to kill Shimei (1 Kings, ii, 8) there was no perjury on the part of David in persuading Solomon to contrive the killing from which David had sworn to personally abstain.

David is alleged to have written several Psalms, but of this there is little evidence beyond pious assertion. In one of these the psalmist addresses God in pugilistic phraseology, praising Deity that he had smitten all his enemies on the cheek-bone, and broken the teeth of the ungodly. In these days when "muscular Christianity" is not without advocates, the metaphor which presents God as a sort of magnificent Benicia Boy may find many admirers. In the eighteenth Psalm, David describes God as with "smoke coming out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth," by which "coals were kindled." He represents God as coming down from heaven, and says: "he rode upon a cherub." The learned Parkhurst gives a likeness of a one-legged, four-winged, four-faced animal, part lion, part bull, part eagle, part man, and if a cloven foot be any criterion, part devil also. This description, if correct, will give some idea to the faithful of the wonderful character of the equestrian feats of Deity. In addition to a cherub, God has other means of conveyance at his disposal, if David be not in error when he says that the chariots of the Lord are 20,000.

In Psalm xxvi the writer adds hypocrisy in addition to his other vices. He has the impudence to tell God that he has been a man of integrity and truth, and that he has avoided evil-doers, although, if we are to believe Psalm xxxviii, the hypocrite must have already been subject to a loathsome disease--a penalty consequent on his licentiousness and criminality. In another Psalm, David the liar tells God that "he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight." To understand David's pious nature we must study his prayer to God against an enemy (Psalm cix, 6-14): "Set thou a wicked man over him; and let Satan stand at his right hand. When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few: and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out."

A full consideration of the life of David must give great help to the orthodox in promoting and sustaining faith. While spoken of by Deity as obeying all the statutes and keeping all the commandments, we are astonished to find that murder, theft, lying, adultery, licentiousness, and treachery are amongst the crimes which may be laid to his charge. David was a liar, God is a God of truth; David was merciless, God is merciful, and of long suffering; David was a thief, God says: "Thou shalt not steal;" David was a murderer, God says: "Thou shalt do no murder; "David took the wife of Uriah, and "accepted" the wife of Nabal, God says: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife." Yet, notwithstanding all these things, David was the man after God's own heart!

Had this Jewish monarch any redeeming traits in his character? Was he a good citizen? If so, the Bible has carefully concealed every action which would entitle him to such an appellation. Was he a kind and constant husband? To whom? To which of his many wives and mistresses? Was he grateful to those who aided him in his hour of need? Rather, like the serpent which, half-frozen by the wayside, is warmed into new life in the traveller's breast, and then treacherously stings his succorer with his poisoned fangs, so David robbed and murdered the friends and allies of the King of Gath, who afforded him protection against the pursuit of Saul. Does his patriotism outshine his many vices? Does his love of country efface his many misdoings? Not even this. David was a heartless traitor who volunteered to serve against his own countrymen, and would have done so had not the Philistines rejected his treacherous help. Was he a good king? So say the priesthood now; but where is the evidence of his virtue? His crimes brought plague and pestilence on his subjects, and his reign is a continued succession of wars, revolts, and assassinations, plottings and counterplots.

The life of David is a dark blot on the page of human history, fit in companionship for the biographies of Constantine the Great and Henry VIII; but it is through David that the genealogies of Jesus are traced, and without David there would be no Christian faith.

A NEW LIFE OF JONAH

JONAH was the son of Amittai of Gath-hepher, which place divines identify with Gittah-hepher of the Children of Zebulun. Dr. Inman says that Gath-hepher means "the village of the Cow's tail," but he also says it means "the Heifer's trough." Gesenius translates it "the wine-press of the well." Bible Dictionaries say that Gath-hepher is the same as el-Meshhad, and affirm that the tomb of Jonah was "long shown on a rocky hill near the town." The blood of Saint Januarius is shown in Naples to this day. Nothing is known of the sex or life of Amittai, except that Jonah was his or her son, and that Gath-hepher was her or his place of residence; but to a true believer these two facts, even though standing utterly alone, will be pregnant with instruction. To the sceptic and railer, Amittai is as an unknown quantity in an algebraic problem. Jonah was not a very common proper name, [--Hebrew--] means a dove, and some derive it from the Arabic root--to be weak, gentle:--so that one meaning of Jonah, according to Gesenius, would be feeble, gentle bird. The Prophet Jonah was by no means a feeble, gentle bird; he was rather a bird of pray. Certainly it was his intention to become a bird of passage. The date of the birth of Jonah is not given; the margin of my Bible dates the book of Jonah B.C. cir. 862, and my Bible Dictionary fixes the date of the matter to which the book relates at "about B.C. 830." If from any reason either of these dates should be disagreeable to the reader, he can choose any other date without fear of anachronism. Jonah was a prophet; so is Dr. Cumming, so is Brigham Young; there is no evidence that Jonah followed any other profession. Jonah's profit probably hardly equalled that realised by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but he had money enough to pay his fare "from the presence of the Lord" to Tarshish. The exact distance of this voyage may be easily calculated by remembering that the Lord is omnipresent, and then measuring from his boundary to Tarshish. The fare may be worked out by the differential calculus after evening prayer.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah; when or how the word came the text does not record, and to any devout mind it is enough to know that it came. The first time in the world's history that the word of the Lord ever came to anybody, may be taken to be when Adam and Eve "heard the voice of the Lord" "walking in the Garden" of Eden "in the cool of the day." Between the time of Adam and Jonah a long period had elapsed; but human nature, having had many prophets, was very wicked. The Lord wanted Jonah to go with a message to Nineveh. Nineveh was apparently a city of three days' journey in size. Allowing twenty miles for each day, this would make the city about 60 miles across, or about 180 miles in circumference. Some faint idea may be formed of this vast city, by adding together London, Paris, and New York, and then throwing in Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Marseilles, Naples, and Spurgeon's Tabernacle. Jonah knowing that the Lord did not always carry out his threats or perform his promises, did not wish to go to Nineveh, and "rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." The Tarshish for which Jonah intended his flight was either in Spain or India or elsewhere. I am inclined, after deep reflection and examination of the best authorities, to give the preference to the third-named locality. When Cain went "out of the presence of the Lord," he went into the Land of Nod, but whether Tarshish is in that or some other country there is no evidence to determine. To get to Tarshish, Jonah--instead of going to the port of Tyre, which was the nearest to his reputed dwelling, and by far the most commodious--went to the more distant and less convenient port of Joppa, where he found a ship going to Tarshish; "so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them into Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord." Jonah was, however, very shortsighted. Just as in the old Greek mythology, winds and waves are made warriors for the gods, so the God of the Hebrews "sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken." Luckily she was not an old leaky vessel, overladen and heavily insured; one which the sanctimonious owners desired to see at the bottom, and which the captain did not care to save. Christianity and civilisation were yet to bring forth that glorious resultant, a pious English shipowner, with a newly-painted, but, under the paint, a worn and rusty iron vessel, long abandoned as unfit, but now fresh-named, and so insured that Davy Jones's locker becomes the most welcome haven of refuge. "The mariners were afraid... and cast forth the wares" into the sea to lighten the ship. But where was Jonah during this noise? Men trampling on deck, hoarse and harsh words of command, and the fury of the storm troubled not our prophet. Sea-sickness, which spares not the most pious, had no effect upon him. "Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship, and he lay and was fast asleep." The battering of the waves against the sides disturbed not his devout slumbers; the creaking of the vessel's timbers spoiled not his repose. Despite the pitching and rolling of the vessel Jonah "was fast asleep." Had he been in the comfortable berth of a Cunarder, it would not have been easy to sleep through such a storm. Had he been in the hold of a smaller vessel on the Bay of Biscay, finding himself now with his head lower than his heels, and now with his body playing hide and seek amongst loose articles of cargo, it would have required great absence of mind to prevent waking. Had he only been on an Irish steamer carrying cattle on deck, between Bristol and Cork, with a portion of the bulwarks washed away, and a squad of recruits "who cried every man to his God," he would have found the calmness of undisturbed slumber difficult. But Jonah was on board the Joppa and Tarshish boat, and he "was fast asleep." As the crew understood the theory of storms, they of course knew that when there is a tempest at sea it is sent by God, because he is offended by some one on board the vessel. Modern scientists scout this notion, and pretend to track storm waves across the world, and to affix storm signals in order to warn mariners. They actually profess to predict atmospheric changes, and to explain how such changes take place. Church clergymen know how futile science is, and how potent prayers are, for vessels at sea. The men on the Joppa vessel said, "every one to his fellow, Come, and lets us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah." It is always a grave question in sacred metaphysics as to whether God directed Jonah's lot, and, if yes, whether the casting of lots is analogous to playing with loaded dice. The Bishop of Lincoln, who understands how far cremation may render resurrection awkward, is the only divine capable of thoroughly resolving this problem. For ordinary Christians it is enough to know that the lot fell upon Jonah.

Before the crew commenced casting lots to find out Jonah, they had cast lots of their wares overboard, so that when the lot fell on Jonah it was much lighter than it would have been had the lot fallen upon him during his sleep. Still, if not stunned by the lot which fell upon him, he stood convicted as the cause of the tempest:--and the crew "Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; What is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou? And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you; for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not; for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging." No pen can improve this story; it is so simple, so natural, so child-like. Every one has heard of casting oil on troubled waters. It stands to reason that a fat prophet would produce the same effect. What a striking illustration of the power of faith it will be when bishops leave their own sees in order to be in readiness to calm an ocean storm. Or if not a bishop, at least a curate; and even a lean curate; for with sea air, a ravenous appetite, and a White Star Line cabin bill of fare of breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, and supper, fatness would soon be arrived at. In the interests of science I should like to see an episcopal prophet occasionally thrown overboard during a storm. The experiment must in any case be advantageous to humanity; should the tempest be stilled, then the ocean would be indeed the broad way, not leading to destruction; should the storm not be conquered, there would even then be promotion in the Church, and happiness to many at the mere cost of one bishop. "Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah." Jesus says the fish was a whale. A whale would have needed preparation, and the statement has an air of vraisemblance. The fish did swallow Jonah. "Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." Poor Jonah! and poor fish! Poor Jonah, for it can scarcely be pleasant, even if you escape suffocation, to be in a fish's belly with too much to drink, and no room to swallow, and your solids either raw or too much done. Poor fish! for even after preparation it must be disagreeable to have one's poor stomach turned into a sort of prayer meeting. Jonah was taken in; but the fish found that taking in a parson was a feat neither easy nor healthy. After Jonah had uttered guttural sounds from inside the fish's belly for three days and three nights, the Lord spake unto the fish, and the fish was sick of Jonah, "and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land." Some sceptics urged that a whale could not have swallowed Jonah; but once, at Tod-morden, a Church of England clergyman, who had been curate to the Reverend Charles Kingsley, got rid of this as an objection by assuring us that he should have equally believed the story had it stated that Jonah had swallowed the whale. And then the word of the Lord came to Jonah once more, and this time Jonah obeyed. He was to take God's message to the citizens of Nineveh. "And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Should Jonah come to London in the present day with a similar message, he would meet scant courtesy from our clergy. A foreigner, and using a strange tongue, he would probably find himself in Colney Hatch or Hanwell. To come to England in the name of Mahomet or Buddha, or Osiris or Jupiter, would have little effect. But the Ninevites do not seem even to have raised the question that the God of the Hebrews was not their God. They listened to Jonah, and "the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands." The consumption of sackcloth for covering every man and beast must have been rather large, and the Nineveh sackcloth manufacturers must have had enormous stocks on hand to supply the sudden demand. The city article of the _Nineveh Times_, if such a paper existed, would probably have described "sackcloth firm, with a tendency to rise." Man and beast, all dressed in or covered with sackcloth! It would be sometimes difficult to distinguish a Ninevite man from a Ninevite beast, the dress being similar for all. This is a difficulty, however, other nations have shared with the Ninevites. Men and women may sometimes be seen in London dressed in broadcloth and satins, and, though their clothing is distinguishable enough, their conduct is sometimes so beastly that the naked beasts are the more respectable.

Nineveh was frightened, and Nineveh moaned, and Nineveh determined to do wrong no more. "And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not." God, the unchangeable, changed his purpose, and spared the city, which in his infinite wisdom he had doomed. "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry." It was enough to [vex] a saint to be sent to prophesy the destruction of the city in six weeks, and then nothing at all to happen. "And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish." Jonah did not like to be a discredited prophet, and cried, "Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?" Jonah, knowing the Lord, was still curious and uncertain as well as angry. He was a prophet and a sceptic. "So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a boot[h], and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" The Lord seems to have overlooked that Jonah had more pity on himself than the gourd, whose only value to him was as a shade from the sun. Jonah, too, might have reminded the Lord that there were more than 120,000 persons similarly situated at the deluge and at the slaughter of the Midianites, and that the "much cattle" had never theretofore been reckoned in the divine decrees of mercy.

Here ends the new life of Jonah. Of the prophet's childhood we know nothing; of his middle age no more than we have here related; of his old age and death we have nothing to say. It is enough for good Christians to know that "Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." According to Jesus the story of Jonah is as true as Gospel.

WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST?

MANY persons will consider the question one to which the Gospels give a sufficient answer, and that no further inquiry is necessary. But while the general Christian body affirm that Jesus was God incarnate on earth, the Unitarian Christians, less in numerical strength, but numbering a large proportion of the more intelligent and humane, absolutely deny his divinity; the Jews, of whom he is alleged to have been one, do not believe in him at all; and the enormous majority of the inhabitants of the earth have never accepted the Gospels. Even in the earliest ages of the Christian Church heretics were found, amongst Christians themselves, who denied that Jesus had ever existed in the flesh. Under these circumstances the most pious should concede that it is well to prosecute the inquiry to the uttermost, that their faith may rest on sure foundations. The history of Jesus Christ is contained in four books or gospels; outside these it cannot be pretended that there is any reliable narrative of his life. We know not with any certainty, and have now no means of knowing, when, where, or by whom these gospels were written. The name at the head of each gospel affords no clue to the real writer. Before A.D. 160, no author mentions any Gospels by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, and there is no sufficient evidence to identify the Gospels we have with even the writings to which Irenaeus refers towards the close of the second century. The Church has provided us with an author for each Gospel, and some early Fathers have argued that there ought to be four Gospels, because there are four seasons, four principal points to the compass, and four corners to the earth. Bolder speculators affirm twelve apostles because there are twelve signs of the Zodiac. With regard to the Gospel first in order, divines disagree as to the language in which it was written. Some allege that the original was in Hebrew, others deny that our Greek version has any of the characters of a translation.

We neither know the hour, nor day, nor month, nor year, of Jesus's birth; divines generally agree that he was not born on Christmas Day, and yet on that day the anniversary of his birth is observed. The Oxford Chronology places the matter in no clearer light, and more than thirty learned authorities give a period of over seven years' difference in their reckoning. The place of his birth is also uncertain. The Jews, in the presence of Jesus, reproached him that he ought to have been born at Bethlehem, and he never replied, "I was born there." (John vii, 41, 42, 52.)

Jesus was the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matthew i), from whom his descent is traced through Isaac--born of Sarai (whom the writer of the epistle to Galatians [iv, 24], says was a covenant and not a woman)--and ultimately through Joseph, who was not only not his father, but is not shown to have had any kind of relationship to him, and through whom therefore the genealogy should not be traced. There are two genealogies in the Gospels which contradict each other, and these in part may be collated with the Old Testament genealogy, which differs from both. The genealogy of Matthew is self-contradictory, counts thirteen names as fourteen, and omits the names of three kings. Matthew says Abiud was the son of Zorobabel (i, 13). Luke says Zorobabel's son Was Rhesa (iii, 27). The Old Testament contradicts both, and gives Meshullam and Hananiah and Shelomith, their sister (1 Chron. iii, 19), as the names of Zorobabel's children. The reputed father of Jesus, Joseph, had two fathers, one named Jacob, the other Heli. The divines suggest that Heli was the father of Mary, by reading the word "Mary" in Luke iii, 23, in lieu of "Joseph," and the word "daughter" in lieu of "son," thus correcting the evident blunder made by inspiration. The birth of Jesus was miraculously announced to Mary and to Joseph by visits of an angel, but they so little regarded the miraculous annunciation that they marvelled soon after at much less wonderful things spoken by Simeon. Jesus was the son of God, or God manifest in the flesh, and his birth was first discovered by some wise men or astrologers, a class described in the Bible as an abomination in God's sight. These men saw his star in the East, but it did not tell them much, for they were apparently obliged to ask information from Herod the King. Herod in turn inquired of the chief priests and scribes; and it is evident Jeremiah was right if he said, "The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means," for these chief priests either misread the prophets, or misquoted the scripture which is claimed to be a revelation from God, and invented a false prophecy (Matthew ii, 5, 6, c.f. (Micah v, 2), by omitting a few words from, and adding a few words to, a text until it suited their purpose. The star--after the wise men knew where to go, and no longer required its aid--led and went before them, until it came and stood over where the young child was. This story will be better understood if the reader will walk out some clear night, notice a star, and then try to fix the one house it will be exactly over. The writer of the Third Gospel, silent on the star story, speaks of an angel who tells some shepherds of the miraculous; but this does not appear to have happened in the reign of Herod. After the wise men had left Jesus, an angel warned Joseph to flee with Jesus and Mary into Egypt; and Joseph did fly, and remained there with the young child and his mother until the death of Herod; and this it is alleged was done to fulfil a prophecy. The words (Hosea xi, 1) are not prophetic and have no reference whatever to Jesus. The Jesus of the Third Gospel never went into Egypt at all in his childhood. When Jesus began to be about thirty years of age, he was baptised by John in the River Jordan. John, who knew him, according to the First Gospel, forbade him directly he saw him; but, according to the Fourth Gospel, he knew him not, and had, therefore, no occasion to forbid him. God is an "invisible spirit," whom no man hath seen (John i, 18), or can see (Exodus xxxiii, 20); but the man John saw the spirit of God descending like a dove. God is everywhere, but at that time was in heaven, from whence he said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Although John heard this from God's own mouth, he did not always act as if he believed it, but some time after sent two of his disciples to Jesus to inquire if he were really the Christ (Matthew xi, 2, 3). Immediately after the baptism, Jesus was led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights, and in those days he did eat nothing. Moses twice fasted that period. Such fasts are nearly miraculous. The modern fasting men, and the Hindoo fasters, only show that under very abnormal conditions, long abstinence from food is possible. Absolutely miraculous events are events which never happened in the past, do not take place in the present, and never will occur in the future. Jesus, it is said, was God, and by his power as God fasted. On the hypothesis of his divinity, it is difficult to understand how he became hungry. When hungry the Devil tempted Jesus by offering him stones, and asking him to make them bread. Stones offered to a hungry man for bread-making hardly afford a probable temptation. Which temptation came next is a matter of doubt. Matthew and Luke relate the story in different order. According to one, the Devil next taketh Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and tempts him to throw himself to the bottom, by quoting Scripture that angels should bear him in their arms. Jesus either disbelieved this Scripture, or remembered that the Devil, like other pillars of the Church, grossly misquoted to suit his purpose, and the temptation failed. The Devil then took Jesus to an exceeding high mountain, from whence he showeth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof, in a moment of time. It is urged that this did not include a view of the antipodes, but only referred to the kingdoms then known; even then it must have been a long look from Judea to China. The mountain must have been very high--much higher than the diameter of the earth. Origen, a learned and pious holy father, suggests that no man in his senses will believe this to have really happened. If Origen had to defend his language before a modern judge of the type of Mr. Justice North, the Christian father would have sore risk of Holloway Gaol. The Devil offered Jesus--who it is declared was one with God, and therefore omnipotent--all the kingdoms of the world, if he, Jesus the omnipotent God, would fall down and worship his own creature the Devil. Some object that if God is the creator and omnipotent ruler of the world, then the Devil would have no control over the kingdoms of the world, and that the offer could be no temptation, as it was made to Jesus, who was God omnipotent and all-wise. Such objectors rely on natural reason.

After the temptation Jesus worked many miracles, casting out devils and otherwise doing marvels amongst the inhabitants of Judea, who seem as a body to have been very unbelieving. If a second Jesus of Nazareth were in this heretical age to boast that he possessed the power of casting out devils, he would stand a fair chance of expiating his offence by a three months' imprisonment with hard labor. It is true that the 72nd Canon of the Church of England recognises that ministers can cast out devils, but forbids them to do this unless licensed by the Bishop "under pain of the imputation of imposture or cozenage." Now, if sick men have a little wisdom, the physician is resorted to that he may cure the disease. If men have much wisdom, they study physiology while they have health, in order to prevent sickness. In the time of the early Christians prayer and faith (James v, 14, 15) occupied the position since usurped by medicine and experience. Men who had lost their senses in the time of Christ were regarded as attacked not by disease but by the Devil. In the days of Jesus one spirit would make a man blind, or deaf, or dumb: occasionally a number of devils would get into a man and drive him mad. On one occasion Jesus met either one man (Mark v, 2) or two men (Matt. viii, 28), possessed with devils. The devils knew Jesus, and addressed him by name. Jesus, not so familiar with the imp or imps, inquired the name of the particular devil he was addressing. The answer, given in Latin, would induce a belief, possibly corroborated by the writings of the monks, that devils communicated in that tongue. Jesus wanted to cast out the devils from the man; this they did not contest, but they expressed a decided objection to being cast out of the country. A compromise was agreed to, and at their own request the devils were transferred to a herd of swine. The swine ran into the sea and were drowned. There is no record of any compensation to the owner.

Jesus fed large multitudes of people under circumstances of a most ultra-thaumaturgic character. To the first book of Euclid is prefixed an axiom "that the whole is greater than its part." John Wesley was wise if it be true that he eschewed mathematics lest it should lead him to infidelity. If any man be irreligious enough to accept Euclid's axiom, he will be compelled to reject the miraculous feeding of 5,000 people with five loaves and two small fishes. The original difficulty of the miracle, though not increased, is made hard to the common mind by the assertion that after the multitude had been fed, twelve basketsfull of fragments remained.

Jesus is related to have walked on the sea when it was very stormy, and when "the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew." Walking on the water is a great feat even if the sea be calm, but when the waves run high it is still more wonderful.

The miracle of turning water into wine at Cana, in Galilee, is worthy attention, when considering the question, Who was Jesus Christ? Jesus and his disciples had been called to a marriage feast, and when there the company fell short of wine. The mother of Jesus, to whom the Catholics offer worship, and to whom they pay great adoration, informed Jesus of the deficiency, and was answered, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come." His mother seemed to have expected a miracle, yet in the Fourth Gospel the Cana wonder was the beginning of miracle working by Jesus; the apocryphal gospels assert that Jesus practised miracle working as a child. Jesus having obtained six waterpots full of water, turned them into wine. Teetotallers who cannot believe God would specially provide means of drunkenness, urge that this wine was not of intoxicating quality, though there is nothing in the text to justify their hypothesis. The curious connexion between the phrase "well drunk," and the time at which the miracle was performed, would rather warrant the supposition that the guests were already in such a state as to render it difficult for them to critically appreciate the new vintage. The moral effects of this miracle are not easily appreciable.

Shortly after this Jesus went to the temple with a scourge of small cords, and drove thereout the cattle dealers and money changers who had assembled there in the ordinary course of their business. The writer of the Fourth Gospel places this event very early in the public life of Jesus. The writer of the Third Gospel fixes the occurrence much later.

Jesus being hungry went to a fig-tree, to gather figs, though the season of figs was not yet come. Of course there were no figs upon the tree, and Jesus then caused the tree to wither away. This is specially interesting as a problem for a true orthodox trinitarian who will believe--first, that Jesus was God, who made the tree, and prevented it from bearing figs; second, that God the all-wise, who is not subject to human passions, being hungry, went to the fig-tree, on which he knew there could be no figs, expecting to find some there; third, that God the all-just then punished the tree, because it did not bear figs in opposition to God's eternal ordination.

Jesus had a disciple named Peter, who, having much Christian faith, was a great coward and denied his leader in his hour of need. Jesus though previously aware that Peter would be a traitor, yet gave him the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and told him that whatsoever he bound on earth should be bound in Heaven. Peter was to have denied Jests three times before the cock should crow (Matt. xxvi, 34). The cock crowed before Peter's second denial (Mark xiv, 68). Commentators urge that the words used do not refer to the crowing of any particular cock, but to a special hour of the morning called "cock-crow." But if the Gospel be true, the explanation is false. Peter's denial becomes the more extraordinary when we remember that he had seen Moses, Jesus, and Elias talking together, and had heard a voice from a cloud say, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." As Peter could thus deny Jesus after having heard God vouch his divinity, and Peter not only escapes punishment, but gets the office of gatekeeper to Heaven, how much more should those escape punishment and obtain reward, who only deny because they cannot help it, and who have been left without any corroborative evidence of sight or hearing?

The Jesus of the First Gospel promised that, as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so he (Jesus) would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Yet he was buried on Friday evening, and was out of the grave before Saturday night was over. Some say that the Jews reckoned part of a day as a whole one.

The translators have made Jesus perform a curious equestrian feat on his entry into Jerusalem. The text (Matt. xxi, 7) says they "brought the ass and the colt and put on them their clothes and set him thereon." This does not mean that he rode on both at one time; it only says so. On the cross the Jesus of the Four Gospels, who was God, cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" God cannot forsake himself. Jesus was God himself. Yet God forsook Jesus, and the latter cried out to know why he was forsaken. Any able divine will explain that of course he knew, and that he was not forsaken. The explanation renders it difficult to believe the dying cry, and the passage becomes one of the mysteries of the holy Christian religion, which, unless a man rightly believe, "without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." At the crucifixion of Jesus wonderful miracles took place "The graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the grave after his resurrection and appeared unto many." Which saints were these? They "appeared unto many," but there is not the slightest evidence outside the Bible that anyone ever saw them. Their "bodies" came out of the graves. Do not the bodies of the saints decompose like those of ordinary human beings?

Jesus must have much changed in the grave, for his disciples did not know him when he stood on the shore (John xxi, 4), and Mary, most attached to him, knew him not, but supposed that he was the gardener. According to the First Gospel, Jesus appeared to two women after his resurrection, and afterwards met eleven of his disciples by appointment on a mountain in Galilee. When was this appointment made? The text on which divines rely is Matt. xxvi, 32; this makes no such appointment. According to the Second Gospel, he appeared first to one woman, and when she told the disciples they did not believe it. Yet, on pain of indictment now and damnation hereafter, we are bound to unhesitatingly accept that which the disciples of Jesus rejected. By the Second Gospel we learn that instead of the eleven going to Galilee after Jesus, he came to them as they sat at meat. In the Third Gospel he first appeared to two of his disciples at Emmaus, and they did not know him until they had been a long time in his company--it was evening before they recognised him. Unfortunately, directly they knew him they did not see him, for as soon as they knew him he vanished out of their sight. He immediately afterwards appeared to the eleven at Jerusalem, and not at Galilee, as stated in the First Gospel. Jesus asked for some meat, and the disciples gave him a portion of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb, and he did eat. Jesus was afterwards taken up into Heaven, a cloud received him, and he was missed. God is everywhere, and Heaven no more above than below, but it is necessary we should believe that Jesus has ascended into Heaven to sit on the right hand of God, who is infinite and has no right hand. Was Jesus Christ a man? If limited for our answer to the mere Gospel Jesus--surely not. His whole career is, on any literal reading, simply a series of improbabilities or contradictions. Who was Christ? born of a virgin, and of divine parentage? So too were many of the mythic Sungods and so was Krishna, whose story, similar in many respects with that of Jesus, was current long prior to the Christian era.

Was Jesus Christ man or myth? His story being fable, is the hero a reality? That a man named Jesus really lived and performed some special actions attracting popular attention, and thus became the centre for a hundred myths may well be true, but beyond this what is there of solid fact?

WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?

THE language in which Jesus taught, has not been preserved to us. Who recorded his actual words, or if any real record ever existed, is all matter of guess. Who translated the words of Jesus into the Greek no one knows. In the compass of four pamphlets, attributed to four persons, of whose connexion with the Gospels, as we have them, little or nothing whatever can be ascertained, we have what are, by the orthodox, supposed to be the words in which Jesus actually taught. What did he teach? Manly, self-reliant resistance of wrong, and practice of right? No; the key-stone of his whole teaching may be found in the text: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew v, 3) Is poverty of spirit the chief amongst virtues, that Jesus gives it prime place in his teachings? Is it even a virtue at all? Surely not. Manliness of spirit, honesty of spirit, fulness of rightful purpose, these are virtues; poverty of spirit is a crime. When men are poor in spirit, then the proud and haughty in spirit oppress them. When men are true in spirit and determined (as true men should be) to resist, and as far as possible, prevent wrong, then is there greater opportunity for present happiness, and, as even Christians ought to admit, no lesser fitness for the enjoyment of further happiness, in some may-be heaven. Are you poor in spirit, and are you smitten; in such case what did Jesus teach?--"Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other." (Luke, vi, 29) Surely better to teach that "he who courts oppression shares the crime;" and, if smitten once to take careful measure to prevent a future smiting. Jesus teaches actual invitation of injury. Shelley breathed higher humanity:

"Stand ye calm and resolute, Like a forest close and mute, With folded arms and looks, which are Weapons of an unvanquished war."

There is a wide distinction between passive resistance to wrong, and courting further injury at the hands of the wrongdoer.

In the teaching of Jesus, poverty of spirit is enforced to the fullest conceivable extent: "Him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee, and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again." (Luke vi, 29, 30) Poverty of person, is the only possible sequence to this extraordinary manifestation of poverty of spirit. Poverty of person is attended with many unpleasantnesses; and Jesus, who knew that poverty would result from his teaching, says, as if he wished to keep the poor content through their lives with poverty, "Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." (Luke vi, 20) "But woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation." (Luke vi, 24) He pictures one in hell, whose only related vice is that in life he was rich; and another in heaven, whose only related virtue is that in life he was poor (Luke xvi, 19-31). He affirms it is more difficult for a rich man to get into heaven, than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle (Luke xvii, 25). The only intent of such teaching could be to induce the poor to remain content in this life, with the want and misery of their wretched state in the hope of higher recompense in some future life. Is it good to be content with poverty? Is it not far better to investigate the causes of poverty, with a view to its cure and prevention? The doctrine is most horrid which declares that the poor shall not cease from the face of the earth. Poor in spirit and poor in pocket, with no courage to work for food, or money to purchase it, we might well expect to find the man with empty stomach also who held these doctrines; and what does Jesus teach? "Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled." (Luke vi, 21) He does not say when the filling shall take place. The date is evidently postponed until men will have no stomachs to replenish? It is not in this life that the hunger is to be sated. "Woe unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger." (Luke vi, 25) It would but little advantage the hungry man to bless him by filling him, if a curse awaited the completion of his repast. Craven in spirit, with an empty purse and hungry mouth--what next? The man who has not manliness enough to prevent wrong, will probably bemoan his hard fate, and cry bitterly that sore are the misfortunes he endures. And what does Jesus teach? "Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh." (Luke vi, 21) Is this true, and, if true, when shall the laughter come? "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." (Matthew v, 4) Aye, but when? Not while they mourn and weep. Weeping for the past is vain: a deluge of tears will not wash away its history. Weeping for the present is worse than vain--it obstructs your sight. In each minute of your life the aforetime future is present born, and you need dry and keen eyes to give it and yourself a safe and happy deliverance. When shall they that mourn be comforted? Are slaves that weep salt tear-drops on their chains comforted in their weeping. Each pearly overflowing as it falls rusts mind, as well as fetter. Ye who are slaves and weep, will never be comforted until you dry your eyes, and nerve your arms, and, in the plenitude of manliness:

"Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep hath fallen on you."

Jesus teaches that the poor, the hungry, and the wretched shall be blessed? But blessing only comes when they cease to be poor, hungry, and wretched. Contentment under poverty, hunger, and misery is high treason, not to yourself alone, but to your fellows. Slavery spreads quickly wherever humanity is stagnant and content with wrong.

What did Jesus teach? "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." (Matthew xix, 19) But how if thy neighbor will not hear thy doctrine when thou preachest the "glad tidings of great joy" to him? Then forgetting all your love, and with the bitter hatred that a theological disputant alone can manifest, you "shall shake off the dust from your feet," and by so doing make it more tolerable in the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, than for your unfortunate neighbor who has ventured to reject your teaching (Matthew x, 14, 15). It is mockery to speak as if love could really result from the dehumanising and isolating faith required from the disciple of Jesus. Ignatius Loyola in this, at least, was more consistent than his Protestant brethren. "If any man come unto me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke xiv, 26) "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes they shall be of his own household." (Matthew x, 34-36) "Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life." (Matthew xix, 29) The teaching of Jesus is, in fact, save yourself by yourself. The teaching of humanity should be, to save yourself save your fellow. The human family is a vast chain, each man and woman a link. There is no snapping off one link and preserving for it, isolated from the rest, an entirety of happiness; our joy depends on our brother's also. Jesus teaches that "many are called, but few are chosen;" that the majority will inherit an eternity of misery, while but the minority obtain eternal happiness. And on what is the eternity of bliss to depend? On a truthful course of life? Not so. Jesus puts Father Abraham in Heaven, whose reputation for faith outstrips his character for veracity. The passport through Heaven's portals is faith. "He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved, but he that believeth not, shall be damned." (Mark xvi, 16) Are you married? You love your wife? Both die. You from first to last had said, "I believe," much as a well-trained parrot might say it. You had never examined your reasons for your faith; as a true believer should, you distrusted the efficacy of your carnal reason. You said, "I believe in God and Jesus Christ," because you had been taught to say it, and you would have as glibly said, "I believe in Allah, and in Mahomet his prophet," had your birth-place been a few degrees eastward, and your parents and instructors Turks. You believed in this life, and after death awake in Heaven. Your much-loved wife did not think as you did--she could not. Her organisation, education, and temperament were all different from your own. She disbelieved because she could not believe. She was a good wife, but she disbelieved. A good and affectionate mother, but she disbelieved. A virtuous and kindly woman, but she disbelieved. And you are to be happy for an eternity in Heaven, with the knowledge that she is writhing in agony in Hell. If this be true, Shelley was right in declaring that your Christianity:

"Peoples earth with demons, hell with men, And heaven with slaves."

It is urged that Jesus is the savior of the world, who brought redemption without let or stint to the whole human race. But what did Jesus teach? "Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritan enter ye not," (Matthew x, 6) were his injunctions to those whom he first sent out to preach. "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel," is his hard answer to the poor Syrophenician woman who entreated succor for her child. Christianity, as first taught by Jesus, was for the Jews alone, it was only when rejected by them, that the world at large had the opportunity of salvation afforded it. "He came unto his own and his own received him not." (John i, 11) Why should the Jews be more God's own than the Gentiles? Is God the creator of all? did he create the descendant of Abraham with greater right and privilege than all other men? Then, indeed, is grievous injustice. You had no choice whether to be born Jew or Gentile; yet to the accident of such a birth is attached the first offer of a salvation which, if accepted, shuts out all beside.

The Kingdom of Heaven is a prominent feature in the teachings of Jesus. Examine the picture drawn by God incarnate of his own special domain. 'Tis likened to a wedding feast, (Matthew xxii, 2) to which the invited guests coming not, servants were sent out into the highways to gather all they can find--both good and bad. The King, examining his motley array of guests, and finding one without a wedding garment inquired why he came in to the feast without one. The man, whose attendance had been compulsorily enforced, was speechless. And who can wonder? he was a guest from necessity, not choice, he neither chose the fashion of his coming, or that of his attiring. Then comes the King's decree, the command of the all-merciful and loving King of Heaven. "Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Commentators urge that it was the custom to provide wedding garments for all guests, and that this man was punished for his non-acceptance of the customary and ready robe. The text does not warrant this explanation, but gives as moral of the parable, that an invitation to the heavenly feast will not ensure partakal of it, for that "many are called, but few are chosen." What more of the Kingdom of Heaven? "Joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance." (Luke xv, 7) The greater sinner one has been, the better saint he makes, and the more he has sinned, so much the more he loves God. "To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." (Luke vii, 47) Thus asserting that a life of vice, with its stains washed away by a death-bed repentance, is better than a life of consistent and virtuous conduct? Why should the fatted calf be killed for the prodigal son? (Luke xv, 27) Why should men be taught to make to themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness? (Luke xvi, 9) These ambiguities, these assertions of punishment and forgiveness of crime, instead of directions for its prevention and cure, are serious blots on a system alleged to have been inculcated by one for whom his followers claim divinity.

Will you urge the love of Jesus as the redeeming feature of the teaching? Then read the story of the fig tree (Matthew xxi, 18-22; Mark xi, 12-24) withered by the hungry Jesus. The fig tree was, if he were all-powerful God, made by him; he limited its growth and regulated its development; he prevented it from bearing figs, expected fruit where he had rendered fruit impossible, and in his _infinite love_ was angry that the tree had not upon it that it could not have. What love is expressed in that remarkable speech which follows one of his parables:--"For, I say unto you, that unto every one which hath shall be given, and from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away from him. _But those, mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither, and slay them before me_." (Luke xix, 26, 27) What love is expressed by that Jesus who, if he were God, represents himself as saying to the majority of his unfortunate creatures (for it is the few that are chosen):--"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matthew xxv, 41) There is no love in this horrid doctrine of eternal torment. And yet the popular preachers of to-day talk first of the love of God and then of:

"Hell, a red gulf of everlasting fire, Where poisons and undying worms prolong Eternal misery to those hapless slaves, Whose life has been a penance for its crimes."

In the sayings attributed to Jesus there is the passage which influenced so extraordinarily the famous Origen (Matthew xix, 12). If he understood it aright, its teachings are most terrible. If he understood it wrongly, what of the wisdom of teaching which expresses itself so vaguely? The general intent of Christ's teaching seems to be an inculcation of neglect of this life, in the search for another. "Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life." (John vi, 27) "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on... take no thought saying, what shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or wherewithal shall we be clothed?.... But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." (Matthew vi, 25-33) These texts, if fully observed, would be most disastrous; they would stay all scientific discoveries, prevent all development of man's energies. In the struggle for existence, men are compelled to become acquainted with the conditions which compel happiness or misery. It is only in the practical application of that knowledge, that the wants of society are ascertained, and disease, poverty, hunger, and wretchedness prevented, or at any rate lessened. Jesus substitutes "I believe," for "I think," and puts "watch and pray" instead of "think, then act." Belief is the prominent doctrine which pervades, and governs all Christianity. It is represented that, at the judgment, the world will be reproved "Of sin, because they believe not." This teaching is most disastrous; man should be incited to active thought: Christian belief would bind him to the teachings of a stagnant past. Fit companion to blind belief is slave-like prayer. Men pray as though God needed most abject entreaty ere he would grant justice. What does Jesus teach on prayer? "After this manner pray ye--Our Father, which art in heaven." Do you think that God is the Father of all, when you pray that he will enable you to defeat some others of his children, with whom your nation is at war? And why "which art in Heaven?" Where is your Heaven? You look upward, and if you were at the Antipodes, would look upward still. But that upward would be downward to us. Do you localize Heaven? Why say "which art in Heaven?" Is God infinite, then he is also in earth. "Hallowed be thy name." "What is God's name? if you know it not how can you hallow it? how can God's name be hallowed even if you know it?" "Thy kingdom come." What is God's kingdom, and will your praying bring it quicker? Is it the Judgment day, and do you who say "Love one another," pray for the more speedy arrival of that day, on which God may say to your fellow "depart ye cursed into everlasting fire?" "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." How is God's will done in heaven? If the Devil be a fallen angel, there must have been rebellion even there. "Give us this day our daily bread." Will the prayer get it without work? No. Will work get it without prayer? Yes. Why pray, then, for bread to God, who says, "Blessed be ye that hunger... woe unto you that are full?" "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." (Matthew vi, 12) What debts have you to God? Sins? Coleridge writes, "A sin is an evil which has its ground or origin in the agent, and not in the compulsion of circumstances. Circumstances are compulsory, from the absence of a power to resist or control them: and if the absence likewise be the effect of circumstances... the evil derives from the circumstances... and such evil is not sin."[36] Do you say that you are independent of all circumstances, that you can control them, that you have a free will? Buckle replies that the assertion of a free will "involves two assumptions, of which the first, though possibly true, has never been proved, and the second is unquestionably false. These assumptions are that there is an independent faculty, called consciousness, and that the dictates of that faculty are infallible."[37] "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." (Matthew vi, 13) Do you think God may lead you into temptation? if so, you cannot think him all good; if not all-good he is not God. If God, the prayer is blasphemy.

[36] "Aids to Reflection," 1843, p. 200.

[37] "History of Civilisation," Vol. I, p. 14.

Jesus, according to the general declaration of Christian divines, came to die, and what does he teach by his death? The Rev. F.D. Maurice well said, "That he who kills for a faith must be weak, that he who dies for a faith must be strong." How did Jesus die? Giordano Bruno and Julius Caesar Vanini were burned, charged with heresy. They died calm, heroic, defiant of wrong. Jesus, who could not die courted death, that he, as God, might accept his own atonement, and might pardon man for a sin which the pardoned man had not committed, and in which he had no share. The death Jesus courted came, and when it came he could not face it, but prayed to himself that he might not die. And at last, when on the cross, if two gospels do him no injustice his last words were a bitter cry of deep despair. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The Rev. Enoch Mellor writing on the Atonement, says, "I seek not to fathom the profound mystery of these words. To understand their full import would require one to experience the agony of desertion they express." Do the words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" express an "agony" caused by a consciousness of "desertion?" if this be not the meaning conveyed by the despairing death-cry then there is in it no meaning whatever. And if those words do express a "bitter agony of desertion" then they emphatically contradict the teachings of Jesus. "Before Abraham was, I am." "I and my father are one." "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." These were the words of Jesus--words conveying an impression that divinity was claimed by the one who uttered them. If Jesus had indeed been God, the words "My God, my God," would have been a mockery most extreme. God could not have deemed himself forsaken by himself. The dying Jesus, in that despair, confessed himself either the dupe of some other teaching, a self-deluded enthusiast, or an arch-impostor, who in that bitter cry, with the wide-opening of the flood-gates through which life's stream ran out, confessed aloud that he, at least, was no deity, and deemed himself a God-forsaken man. The garden scene of agony is fitting prelude to this most terrible act. Jesus, who is God, prays to himself: in "agony he prayed most earnestly" (Luke xxii, 44) He refuses to hear his own prayers, and he, the omnipotent, is forearmed against his coming trial by an angel from heaven, who "strengthened" the great Creator. Was Jesus the Son of God? Praying, he said "Father the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee." (John xvii, 2) And was he glorified? His death and resurrection most strongly disbelieved in the very city where they are alleged to have happened. His doctrines rejected by the only people to whom he preached them. His miracles denied by the only nation amongst whom they are alleged to have been performed; and he himself thus on the cross crying out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Nor is it true that the teachings of Jesus are generally received. Jesus taught: "And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." (Mark xvi, 17, 18) How many of those who profess to believe in Jesus would be content to be tested by these signs? Any person claiming that each sign was to be found manifested in her or his case would be regarded as mad. Illustrations of faith-healing occasionally arise, but are not always reliable, nor are such cures limited to those who profess faith in Jesus. The gift of speaking with new tongues has been the claim of a very small sect. Serpent charming is more practised amongst Hindus than amongst Christians.

Peace and love are alleged to be the special characteristics of Christianity. Yet the whole history of Christian nations has been blurred by war and hate. Now and for the past thirty years the most civilized amongst Christian nations have been devoting enormous sums and huge masses of men to the preparation for war. Torpedoes and explosive shells, one hundred ton guns and mele-nite, are by Christian rulers accounted better aids than faith in Jesus.

THE TWELVE APOSTLES

ALL good Christians, indeed all Christians--for are there any who are not models of goodness?--will desire that their fellow-creatures who are unbelievers should have the fullest possible information, biographical or otherwise, as as to the twelve persons specially chosen by Jesus to be his immediate followers. The believer, of course, would be equally content with his faith in the absence of all historic vouchers. Indeed a pious worshipper would cling to his creed not only without testimony in its favor, but despite direct testimony against it. It is to those not within the pale of the church that I shall seek to demonstrate the credibility of the history of the twelve apostles. The short biographical sketch here presented is extracted from the first five books of the New Testament, two of which at least are attributed to two of the twelve. It is objected, by heretical men who go as far in their criticisms on the Gospels as Colenso does with the Pentateuch, that not one of the gospels is original or written by any of the apostles; that, on the contrary, they were preceded by numerous writings, since lost or rejected, these in their turn having for their basis the oral tradition which preceded them. It is alleged that the four gospels are utterly anonymous, and that the fourth gospel is subject to strong suspicions of spuriousness. To use on this part of the words of the author of "Supernatural Religion," applied by him to the Acts of the Apostles: "As a general rule, any documents so full of miraculous episodes and supernatural occurrences would, without hesitation, be characterized as fabulous and incredible, and would not, by any sober-minded reader, be for a moment accepted as historical. There is no other testimony." It would be useless to combat, and I therefore boldly ignore these attacks on the authenticity of the text, and proceed with my history. The names of the twelve are as follows--Simon, surnamed Peter; Andrew, his brother; James and John, the sons of Zebedee; Andrew, Philip; Bartholomew; Matthew; James, the son of Alphteus; Simon, the Canaanite; Judas Iscariot; and a twelfth, as to whose name there is some uncertainty; it was either Lebbaeus, Thaddaeus, or Judas. It is in Matthew alone (x, 3) that the name of Lebbaeus is mentioned thus--"Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus." We are told, on this point, by able Biblicists, that the early MSS have not the words "whose surname was Thaddaeus," and that these words have probably been inserted to reconcile the gospel according to Matthew with that attributed to Mark. How good must have been the old fathers who sought to improve upon the Holy Ghost by making clear that which inspiration had left doubtful! In the English version of the Rheims Testament used in this country by our Roman Catholic brethren, the reconciliation between Matthew and Mark is completed by omitting the words "Lebbaeus whose surname was," leaving only the name "Thad-daeus" in Matthew's text. This omission must be correct, being by the authority of an infallible church, and Dr. Newman shows us that when the church pronounces all doubt is damnable. If Matthew x, 3, and Mark iii, 18, be passed as reconciled, although the first calls the twelfth disciple Lebbaeus, and the second gives him the name Thaddaeus, there is yet the difficulty that in Luke vi, 16, corroborated by John xiv, 22, there is a disciple spoken of as "Judas, not Iscariot." "Judas, _the brother_ of James." Commentators have endeavored to clear away this last difficulty by declaring that Thaddaeus is a Syriac word, having much the same meaning as Judas. This has been answered by the objection that if Matthew's Gospel uses Thaddaeus in lieu of Judas, then he ought to speak of Thaddaeus Iscariot, which he does not; and it is further objected also that while there are some grounds for suggesting a Hebrew original for the gospel attributed to Matthew, there is not the slightest pretence for alleging that Matthew wrote in Syriac. It is to be hoped that the unbelieving reader will not stumble on the threshold of his study because of a little uncertainty as to a name. What is in a name? The Jewish name which we read as Jesus is really Joshua, but the name to which we are most accustomed seems the one we should adhere to.

Simon Peter being the first named amongst the disciples of Jesus, deserves the first place in this notice. The word "Simon" may be rendered, if taken as a Greek name, _flat-nose_ or _ugly_. Some of the ancient Greek and Hebrew names are characteristic of peculiarities in the individual, but no one now knows whether Peter's nose had anything to do with his name. Simon is rather a Hebrew name, but Peter is Greek, signifying a rock or stone. Peter is supposed to have the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and his second name may express his stony insensibility to all appeals by infidels for admittance to the celestial regions. Lord Byron's "Vision of Judgment" is the highest known authority as to Saint Peter's celestial duties, but this nobleman's poems are only fit for very pious readers. Peter, ere he became a parson, was by trade a fisher, and when Jesus first saw Peter, the latter was in a vessel fishing with his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea of Galilee. The calling of Peter and Andrew to the apostleship was sudden, and apparently unexpected. Jesus walking by the sea said to them--"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." (Matthew iv, 18-22) The two brothers did so, and they became Christ's disciples. The successors of Peter have since reversed the apostle's early practice: instead of now casting their nets into the sea, the modern representatives of the disciples of Jesus draw the sees into their nets, and, it is believed, find the result much more profitable. When Jesus called Peter no one was with him but his brother Andrew; a little further on the two sons of Zebedee were in a ship with their father mending nets. This is the account of Peter's call given in the gospel according to Matthew, and as according to the Church Matthew was inspired by the Holy Ghost, who is identical with God the Father, who is one with God the Son, who is Jesus, the account must be free from error. In the Gospel according to John, which is likewise inspired in the same manner, from the same source, and with similar infallibility, we learn that Andrew was originally a disciple of John the Baptist, and that when Andrew first saw Jesus Peter was not present, but Andrew went and found Peter who, if fishing, must have been angling on land, telling him "we have found the Messiah," and that Andrew then brought Peter to Jesus, who said: "Thou art Simon, the son of Jonas; thou shalt be called Cephas." There is no mention in this gospel narrative of the sons of Zebedee being a little further on, or of any fishing in the sea of Galilee. This call is clearly on land, whether or not near the sea of Galilee does not appear. In the Gospel according to Luke, which is as much inspired as either of the two before-mentioned gospels, and, therefore, equally authentic with each of them, we are told (Luke v, 1-11) that when the call took place Jesus and Peter were both at sea. Jesus had been preaching to the people, who, pressing upon him, he got into Simon's ship, from which he preached. After this he directed Simon to put out into the deep and let down the nets. Simon answered: "Master, we have toiled all night, and taken nothing; nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net." No sooner was this done than the net was filled to breaking, and Simon's partners, the two sons of Zebedee, came to help, when, at the call of Jesus, they brought their ships to land, and followed him. From these accounts the unbeliever may learn that when Jesus called Peter either both Jesus and Peter were on the land, or one was on land and the other on the sea, or both of them were at sea. He may also learn that the sons of Zebedee were present at the time, having come to help to get in the great catch, and were called with Peter; or that they were further on, sitting mending nets with their father, and were called afterwards; or that they were neither present nor near at hand. He may also be assured that Simon was in his ship when Jesus came to call him, and that Jesus was on land when Andrew, Simon's brother, found Simon and brought him to Jesus to be called. The unbeliever must not hesitate because of any apparent incoherence or contradiction in the narrative. The greater the difficulty in believing, the more deserved the reward which only comes to belief. With faith it is easy to harmonise the three narratives above quoted, especially when you know that Jesus had visited Simon's house before the call of Simon, (Luke iv, 38) but did not go to Simon's house until after Simon had been called (Matthew viii, 14). Jesus went to Simon's house and cured his wife's mother of a fever. Robert Taylor,[38] commenting on the fever-curing miracle, says--"St. Luke tells us that this fever had taken the woman, not that the woman had taken the fever, and not that the fever was a very bad fever, or a yellow fever, or a scarlet fever, but that it was a great fever--that is, I suppose, a fever six feet high at least; a personal fever, a rational and intelligent fever, that would yield to the power of Jesus's argument, but would never have given way to James's powder. So we are expressly told that Jesus rebuked the fever--that is, he gave it a good scolding; asked it, I dare say, how it could be so unreasonable as to plague the poor old woman so cruelly, and whether it wasn't ashamed of itself; and said, perhaps, _Get out, you naughty wicked fever, you_; and such like objurgatory language, which the fever, not being used to be rebuked in such a manner, and being a very sensible sort of fever, would not stand, but immediately left the old woman in high dudgeon." This Robert Taylor, although a clergyman of the Church of England, has been convicted of blasphemy and imprisoned for writing in such wicked language about the Bible. Simon Peter, as a disciple, performed many miracles, some when in company with Jesus, and more when separately by himself. These miracles, though themselves unvouched by any reliable testimony, and disbelieved by the people amongst whom they were worked, are strong evidence in favor of the apostolic character claimed for Peter.

[38] "Devil's Pulpit," vol. i, p. 148.

On one occasion the whole of the disciples were sent away by Jesus in a ship, the Savior remaining behind to pray. About the fourth watch of the night, when the ship was in the midst of the sea, Jesus went unto his disciples, walking on the sea. Though Jesus went unto his disciples, and, as an expeditious way, I suppose, of arriving with them, he would have passed by them, but they saw him, and supposing him to be a spirit, cried out. Jesus bid them be of good cheer, to which Peter answered, (Matthew xiv, 23) "Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee." Jesus said, "Come," and Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus. But the sea being wet and the wind boisterous, Peter became afraid, and instead of walking on the water began to sink into it, and cried out "Lord save me," and immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter.

Some object that the two gospels according to John and Mark, which both record the feat of water-walking by Jesus, omit all mention of Peter's attempt. Probably the Holy Ghost had good reasons for omitting it. A profane mind might make a jest of an Apostle "half seas over," and ridicule an apostolic gatekeeper who could not keep his head above water.

Peter's partial failure in this instance should drive away all unbelief, as the text will show that it was only for lack of faith that

Peter lost his buoyancy. Simon is called Bar-Jonah, that is, son of Jonah, but I am not aware that he is any relation to the Jonah who lived under water in the belly of a fish three days and three nights.

It was Simon Peter who, having told Jesus he was the Son of God, was answered "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee." (Matthew xvi, 17) We find a number of disciples shortly before this, and in Peter's presence, telling Jesus that he was the Son of God, (Matthew xiv, 33) but there is, of course, no real contradiction between the two texts. It was on this occasion that Jesus said to Simon, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven." Under these extraordinary declarations from the mouth of God the Son, the Bishops of Rome have claimed, as successors of Peter, the same privileges, and their pretensions have been acceded to by some of the most powerful monarchs of Europe.

Under this claim the Bishops, or Popes of Rome, have at various times issued Papal Bulls, by which they have sought to bind the entire world. Many of these have been very successful; but in 1302, Philip the Fair, of France, publicly burned the Pope Boniface's Bull after an address in which the States-General had denounced, in words more expressive than polite, the right of the Popes of Rome to Saint Peter's keys on earth. Some deny that the occupiers of the episcopal seat in the seven-hilled city are really of the Church of Christ, and they point to the bloody quarrels which have raged between men, contending for the Papal dignity. They declare that those Vicars of Christ have more than once resorted to fraud, treachery, and murder, to secure the Papal dignity. They point to Stephen VII, the son of an unmarried priest, who cut off the head of his predecessor's corpse; to Sergius III, convicted of assassination; to John X, who was strangled in the bed of his paramor Theodora; to John XI, son of Pope Sergius III, famous only for his drunken debauchery; to John XII, found assassinated in the apartments of his mistress; to Benedict IX, who both purchased and sold the Pontificate; to Gregory VII, the pseudo lover of the Countess Matilda, and the author of centuries of war carried on by his successors. And if these suffice not, they point to Alexander Borgia, whose name is but the echo of crime, and whose infamy will be as lasting as history. It is answered: "By the fruit ye shall judge of the tree." It is useless to deny the vine's existence because the grapes are sour. Peter, the favored disciple, it is declared was a rascal, and why not his successors? They have only to repent, and there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that re-penteth than over ninety and nine righteous men. Such language is very terrible, and arises from allowing the carnal reason too much freedom.

All true believers will be familiar with the story of Peter's sudden readiness to deny his Lord and teacher in the hour of danger, and will easily draw the right moral from the mysterious lesson here taught; but unbelievers may be a little inclined to agree with the common infidel objections on this point. These objections, therefore, shall be first stated, and then refuted in the most orthodox fashion. It is objected that all the denials were to take place before the cock should crow, (Matthew xxvi, 34; Luke xxii, 34; John xiii, 38) but that only one denial actually took place before the cock crew (Mark xiv, 68). That the first denial by Peter that he knew Jesus, or was one of his disciples, was at the door to the damsel, (John xviii, 17) but was inside while sitting by the fire, (Luke xxii, 57) that the second denial was to a man, and apparently still sitting by the fire (Luke xvii, 58), but was to a maid when he was gone out into the porch. That these denials, or at any rate, the last denial, were all in the presence of Jesus (Luke xvii, 61), who turned and looked at Peter, but that the first denial was at the door, Jesus being inside the palace, the second denial out in the porch, Jesus being still inside (Mark xiv, 69), and the third denial also outside. The refutation of these paltry objections is so simple, that any little child could give it, and none but an infidel would need to hear it, we therefore refrain from penning it. None but a disciple of Paine, or follower of Voltaire, would permit himself to be drawn to the risk of damnation on the mere question as to when some cock happened to crow, or as to the particular spot on which a recreant apostle denied his master. It is the merest justice to Peter to add that his disloyalty to Jesus was shared by his co-apostles. When Jesus was arrested "all the disciples forsook him and fled" (Matthew xxvi, 56). The true believer may sometimes be puzzled that Peter should so deny Jesus after he, Peter, had seen (Matthew xvii, 3-5) Moses and Elias, who had been dead many centuries, talking with Jesus, and had heard "a voice out of the cloud which said, this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." The unbeliever must not allow himself to be puzzled by this. Two of the twelve apostles, whose names are not given, saw Jesus after he was dead, on the road to Emmaus, but they did not know him; towards evening they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight. In broad daylight they did not know him, at evening time they knew him. While they did not know him they could see him, when they did know him they could not see him. Well may true believers declare that the ways of the Lord are wonderful. One of the apostles, Thomas, called Didymus, set the world an example of unbelief. He disbelieved the other disciples when they said to him, "we have seen the Lord," and required to see Jesus, though dead, alive in the flesh, and touch the body of his crucified master. Thomas the apostle had his requirements complied with --he saw, he touched, and he believed. The great merit is to believe without any evidence--"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned." How it was that Thomas the apostle did not know Jesus when he saw him shortly after near the sea of Tiberias, is another of the mysteries of the Holy Christian religion. The acts of the apostles after the death of Jesus deserve treatment in a separate paper; the present essay is issued to aid the members of the Church Congress in their endeavors to stem the rising tide of infidelity.

THE ATONEMENT

"_Quel est donc ce Dieu qui fait mourir Dieu pour apaiser Dieu?_"

THE chief feature of the Christian religion is that Jesus, the Son of God, "very God of very God," sacrificed himself, or was sacrificed by God the Father, to atone for Adam's transgression, some 4,000 years before, against a divine command. It is declared in the New Testament, in clear and emphatic language, that in consequence of the one man Adam's sin, death entered into the world, and judgment and condemnation came upon all men. It is also declared that "Christ died for the ungodly;" "that he died for our sins," and "was delivered for our offences." On the one hand it is urged that Adam, the sole source of the human family, offended deity, and that the consequence of this offence was the condemnation to death, after a life of sorrow, of the entire race. On the other side of the picture is portrayed the love of God, who sent his only beloved son to die--and by his death procuring for all eternal life--to save the remnant of humanity from the further vengeance of their all-merciful heavenly father. The religion of Christ finds its source in the forbidden fruit of the yet undiscovered Garden of Eden.

Adam's sin is the corner-stone of Christianity, the keystone of the arch. Without the fall there is no redeemer, for there is no fallen one to be redeemed. It is, then, to the history of Adam that the critical examinant of the Atonement theory should first direct his attention. But to try the doctrine of the Atonement by the aid of science would be fatal to religion. As for the one man Adam,

6,000 years ago the first of the human race, his existence is not only unvouched for by science, but is actually questioned by the timid, and repudiated by the bolder, exponents of modern ethnology. The human race is traced back far beyond the period fixed for Adam's sin. Egypt and India speak for humanity busy with wars, rival dynasties, and religions, long prior to the date given for the garden scene in Eden.

The fall of Adam could not have brought sin upon mankind, and death by sin, if hosts of men and women so lived and died ages before the words "thou shalt surely die" were spoken by God to man.

Nor could all men inherit Adam's misfortune if it be true that it is not to one but to many centres of origin that we ought to trace back the various races of mankind.

The theologian who finds no evidence of death prior to the offence shared by Adam and Eve is laughed to scorn by the geologist, who points to the innumerable petrifactions in the earth's strata, which with a million tongues declare, more potently than loudest speech, that myriads of myriads of living things ceased their life-struggle incalculable ages before man's era on our world.

Science has so little to offer in support of any religious doctrine, and so much to advance against all purely theologic tenets, that we turn to a point giving the Christian greater vantage ground, and accepting for the moment his scriptures as our guide, we deny that he can maintain the possibility of Adam's sin, and yet consistently affirm the existence of an all-wise, all-powerful, and all-good God. Did Adam sin? We take the Christian's Bible in our hands to answer the question, first defining the word sin. What is sin? Samuel Taylor Coleridge says: "A sin is an evil which has its ground or origin in the agent, and not in the compulsion of circumstances. Circumstances are compulsory from the absence of a power to resist or control them, and if this absence be likewise the effect of circumstances (that is, if it have been neither directly nor indirectly caused by the agent himself) the evil derived from the circumstance, and therefore such evil is not sin, and the person who suffers it, or is the compelled actor or instrument of its infliction on others, may feel regret, but not remorse. Let us generalise the word circumstance so as to understand by it all and everything not connected with the will.... Even though it were the warm blood circulating in the chambers of the heart or man's most inmost sensations, we regard them as circumstantial, extrinsic, or from without.... An act to be sin must be original, and a state or act that has not its origin in the will may be calamity, deformity, or disease, but sin it cannot be. It is not enough that the act appears so voluntary, or that it has the most hateful passions or debasing appetite for its proximate cause and accompaniment. All these may be found in a madhouse, where neither law nor humanity permit us to condemn the actor of sin. The reason of law declared the maniac not a free agent, and the verdict followed of course, _not guilty_." Did Adam sin?

The Bible story is that a Deity created one man and one woman; that he placed them in a garden wherein he had also placed a tree, which was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. That although he had expressly given the fruit of every tree bearing seed for food, he, nevertheless, commanded them not to eat of the fruit of this specially attractive tree under penalty of death. Supposing Adam to have at once disobeyed this injunction, would it have been sin? The fact that God had made the tree good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, should have surely been sufficient justification. The God-created inducement to partake of its fruit was strong and ever operative. The inhibition lost its value as against the enticement. If the All-wise had intended the tree to be avoided, would he have made its allurements so overpowering to the senses? But the case does not rest here. In addition to all the attractions of the tree, and as though there were not enough, there is a subtle serpent gifted with suasive speech, who, either wiser or more truthful than the All-perfect Deity, says that although God has threatened immediate death as the consequence of disobedience to his command, yet they "shall not die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." The tempter is stronger than the tempted, the witchery of the serpent is too great for the spell-bound woman, the decoy tree is too potent in its temptations; overpersuaded herself by the honey-tongued voice of the seducer, she plucks the fruit and gives to her husband also. And for this giving way to a God-designed temptation their offspring are to suffer God's eternal, unforgiving wrath! The yet unborn children are to be the victims of God's vengeance on their parents' weakness--though he had made them weak; had created the tempter sufficiently strong to practise upon this weakness; and had arranged the causes, predisposing man and woman to commit the offence--if indeed it be an offence to pluck the fruit of a tree which gives knowledge to the eater. It is for this fall that Jesus is to atone. He is sacrificed to redeem the world's inhabitants from the penalties for a weakness (for sin it was not) they had no share in. It was not sin; for the man was influenced by circumstances prearranged by Deity, and which man was powerless to resist or control. But if the man was so influenced by such circumstances, it was God who influenced the man--the God who punished the human race for an action to the commission of which he impelled their progenitor.

Adam did not sin. He ate of the fruit of a tree which God had made good to be eaten. He was induced to this through the indirect persuasion of a serpent God had made for the very purpose of persuading him. But even if Adam did sin, and even if he and Eve, his wife, were the first parents of the whole human family, what have we to do with their sin? We, unborn when the act was committed, and without choice as to coming into this world amongst the myriad worlds which roll in the vast expanse of solar and astral systems. Why should Jesus atone for Adam's sin? Adam suffered for his own offence; he, according to the curse, was to eat in sorrow of the fruit of the earth all his life as punishment for his offence. Atonement, after punishment, is surely a superfluity. Or was the atonement only for those who needed no atonement, having no part in the offence? Did the sacrifice of Jesus serve as atonement for the whole world, and, if yes, for all sin, or for Adam's sin only? If the atonement is for the whole world, does it extend to unbelievers as well as to believers in the efficacy? if it only includes believers, then what has become of those generations who, according to the Bible, for 4,000 years succeeded each other in the world without faith in Christ because without knowledge of his mission? Should not Jesus have come 4,000 years earlier, or, at least, should he not have come when the Ark grounded on Ararat served as monument of God's merciless vengeance, which had made the whole earth like to a battle field, whereon the omnipotent had crushed the feeble, and had marked his prowess by the innumerable myriads of decaying dead? If it be declared that though the atonement by Jesus only applies to believers in his mission so far as regards human beings born since his coming, yet that it is wider in its retrospective redeeming effect; then the answer is that it is unfair to those born after Jesus to make faith the condition precedent to the saving efficacy of atonement, especially if belief be required from all mankind posterior to the Christian era, whether they have heard of Jesus or not. Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Kaffirs, and others have surely a right to complain of this atonement scheme, which ensures them eternal damnation by making it requisite to believe in a Gospel of which they have no knowledge. If it be contended that belief will only be required from those to whom the Gospel of Jesus has been preached, and who have had afforded to them the opportunity of its acceptance, then how great a cause of complaint against Christian Missionaries have those peoples who, without such missions, might have escaped damnation for unbelief. The gates of hell are opened to them by the earnest propagandist, who professes to show the road to heaven.

But does this atonement serve only to redeem the human family from the curse inflicted by Deity in Eden's garden for Adam's sin, or does it operate as satisfaction for all sin? If the salvation is from the punishment for Adam's sin alone, and if belief and baptism are, as Jesus himself affirms, to be the conditions precedent to any saving efficacy in the much-lauded atonement by the son of God, then what becomes of a child that only lives a few hours, is never baptised, and never having any mind, consequently never has any belief? Or what becomes of one idiot-born who, throughout his dreary life, never has mental capacity for the acceptance or examination of, or credence in any religious dogmas whatever? Is the idiot saved who cannot believe? Is the infant saved who cannot believe? I, with some mental faculties tolerably developed, cannot believe. Must I be damned? If so, fortunate short-lived babe! lucky idiot! That the atonement should not be effective until the person to be saved has been baptised, that the sprinkling of a few drops of water should quench the flames of hell, is a remarkable feature in the Christian's creed:

"One can't but think it somewhat droll, Pump-water thus should cleanse a soul."

How many fierce quarrels have raged on the formula of baptism amongst those loving brothers in Christ who believe he died for them! How strange an idea that, though God has been crucified to redeem mankind, it yet needs the font of water to wash away the lingering stain of Adam's crime.

One minister of the Church of England, occupying the presidential chair of a well-known training college for Church clergymen in the North of England, seriously declared, in the presence of a large auditory and of several church dignitaries, that the sin of Adam was so potent in its effect, that if a man _had never been born, he would yet have been damned for sin_. That is, he declared that man existed before birth, and that he committed sin before he was born; and if never born, would notwithstanding deserve to suffer eternal torment for that sin.

It is almost impossible to discuss seriously a doctrine so monstrously absurd, and yet it is not one whit more ridiculous than the ordinary orthodox and terrible doctrine, that God the undying, in his infinite love, killed himself under the form of his son to appease the cruel vengeance of God, the just and merciful, who, without this, would have been ever vengeful, unjust, and merciless.

The atonement theory, as presented to us by the Bible, is in effect as follows:--God created man surrounded by such conditions as the divine mind chose, in the selection of which man had no voice, and the effects of which on man were all foreknown and predestined by Deity. The result was man's fall on the very first temptation, so frail the nature with which he was endowed, or so powerful the temptation to which he was subjected. For this fall not only did the all-merciful punish Adam, but also his posterity; and this punishing went on for many centuries, until God, the immutable, changed his purpose of continual condemnation of men for sins they had no share in, and was wearied with his long series of unjust judgments on those whom he created in order that he might judge them. That, then, God sent his son, who was himself and was also his own father, and who was immortal, to die upon the cross, and, by this sacrifice, to atone for the sin which God himself had caused Adam to commit, and thus to appease the merciless vengeance of the All-merciful, which would otherwise have been continued against men yet unborn for an offence they could not have been concerned in or accessory to. Whether those who had died before Christ's coming are redeemed, the Bible does not clearly tell us. Those born after are redeemed only on condition of their faith in the efficacy of the sacrifice offered, and in the truth of the history of Jesus's life. The doctrine of salvation by sacrifice of human life is the doctrine of a barbarous and superstitious age: the outgrowth of a brutal and depraved era. The God who accepts the bloody offering of an innocent victim in lieu of punishing the guilty culprit shows no mercy in sparing the offender: he has already satiated his lust for vengeance on the first object presented to him.

Sacrifice is an early, prominent, and with slight exception an abiding feature in the Hebrew record--sacrifice of life finds appreciative acceptance from the Jewish Deity. Cain's offering of fruits is ineffective, but Abel's altar, bearing the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof, finds respect in the sight of the Lord. While the face of the earth was disfigured by the rotting dead after God in his infinite mercy had deluged the world, then it was that the ascending smoke from Noah's burnt sacrifice of bird and beast produced pleasure in heaven, and God himself smelled a sweet savor from the roasted meats. To preach atonement for the past by sacrifice is worse than folly--it is crime. The past can never be recalled, and the only reference to it should be that, by marking its events, we may avoid its evil deeds and improve upon its good ones. The Levitical doctrine of the atonement, with its sin laden scapegoat sent into the wilderness to the evil demon Azazel, though placed in the Pentateuch, is of much later date, being one of the myths acquired by the Jews during their captivity. The general notion of atonement by sacrifice is that of an averting of the just judgment by an offering which may induce the judge, who in this case is also the executioner, to delay or remit the punishment he has awarded. In the gospel atonement story the weird folly of the scapegoat mystery and the barbarous waste of doves, pigeons, rams, and bulls as burnt offerings are all outdone. We have in lieu of these the history of the Man-God subject to human passions and infirmities, who comes to die, and who prays to his heavenly father--that is, to himself--that he will spare him the bitter cup of death; who is betrayed, having himself, ere he laid the foundations of the world, predestined Judas to betray him; and who dies, being God immortal, crying with his almost dying breath--"My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?"

WHEN WERE OUR GOSPELS WRITTEN?

AN ANSWER TO THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY

PREFATORY NOTE TO FOURTH EDITION

SINCE this pamphlet was originally penned in 1867, the author of "Supernatural Religion" has in his three volumes placed a very storehouse of information within the easy reach of every student, and many of Dr. Tischendorf's reckless statements have been effectively dealt with in that masterly work. In the present brief pamphlet there is only the very merest index to matters which in "Supernatural Religion" are exhaustively treated. Part II of "The Freethinkers' Text-Book," by Mrs Besant, has travelled over the same ground with much care, and has given exact reference to authorities on each point.

THE Religious Tract Society, some time since, issued, prefaced with their high commendation, a translation of a pamphlet by Dr. Constantine Tischendorf, entitled "When were our Gospels Written?" In the introductory preface we are not unfairly told that "on the credibility of the four Gospels the whole of Christianity rests, as a building on its foundations." It is proposed in this brief essay to deal with the character of Dr. Tischendorf's advocacy, then to examine the genuineness of the four Gospels, as affirmed by the Religious Tract Society's pamphlet, and at the same time to ascertain, so far as is possible in the space, how far the Gospel narrative is credible.

The Religious Tract Society state that Dr. Teschendorf's _brochure_ is a repetition of "arguments for the genuineness and authenticity of the four Gospels," which the erudite Doctor had previously published for the learned classes, "with explanations" now given in addition, to render the arguments "intelligible" to meaner capacities; and as the "Infidel" and "Deist" are especially referred to as likely to be overthrown by this pamphlet, we may presume that the society considers that in the 119 pages--which the translated essay occupies--they have presented the best paper that can be issued on their behalf for popular reading on this question. The praise accorded by the society, and sundry laudations appropriated with much modesty in his own preface by Dr. Constantine Tischendorf to himself, compel one at the outset to regard the Christian manifesto as a most formidable production. The Society's translator impressively tells us that the pamphlet has been three times printed in Germany and twice in France; that it has been issued in Dutch and Russian, and is done into Italian by an Archbishop with the actual approbation of the Pope. The author's preface adds an account of his great journeyings and heavy travelling expenses incurred out of an original capital of a "few unpaid bills," ending in the discovery of a basketful of old parchments destined for the flames by the Christian monks in charge, but which from the hands of Dr. Tischendorf are used by the Religious Tract Society to neutralise all doubts, and to "blow to pieces" the Rationalistic criticism of Germany and the coarser Infidelity of England. Doubtless Dr. Tischendorf and the Society consider it some evidence in favor of the genuineness and authenticity of the four Gospels that the learned Doctor was enabled to spend 5,000 dollars out of less than nothing, and that the Pope regards his pamphlet with favor, or they would not trouble to print such statements. We frankly accord them the full advantage of any argument which may fairly be based on such facts. An autograph letter of endorsement by the Pope is certainly a matter which a Protestant Tract Society--who regard "the scarlet whore at Babylon" with horror--may well be proud of.

Dr. Tischendorf states that he has since 1839 devoted himself to the textual study of the New Testament, and it ought to be interesting to the orthodox to know that, as a result of twenty-seven years' labor, he now declares that "it has been placed beyond doubt that the original text... had in many places undergone such serious modifications of meaning as to leave us in painful uncertainty as to what the apostles had actually written," and that "the right course to take" "is to set aside the received text altogether and to construct a fresh text."

This is pleasant news for the true believer, promulgated by authority of the managers of the great Christian depot in Paternoster Row, from whence many scores of thousands of copies of this incorrect received text have nevertheless been issued without comment to the public, even since the society have published in English Dr. Tischendorf s declaration of its unreliable character.

With the modesty and honorable reticence peculiar to great men, Dr. Tischendorf records his successes in reading hitherto unreadable parchments, and we learn that he has received approval from "several learned bodies, and even from crowned heads," for his wonderful performances. As a consistent Christian, who knows that the "powers that be are ordained of God," our "critic without rival," for so he prints himself, regards the praise of crowned heads as higher in degree than that of learned bodies.

The Doctor discovered in 1844 the MS on which he now relies to confute audacious Infidelity, in the Convent of St. Catherine at Sinai; he brought away a portion, and handed that portion, on his return, to the Saxon Government--they paying all expenses. The Doctor, however, did not then divulge where he had found the MS. It was for the advantage of humankind that the place should be known at once, for, at least, two reasons. First, because by aid of the remainder of this MS--"the most precious Bible treasure in existence"--the faulty text of the New Testament was to be reconstructed; and the sooner the work was done the better for believers in Christianity. And, secondly, the whole story of the discovery might then have been more easily confirmed in every particular.

For fifteen years, at least, Dr. Tischendorf hid from the world the precise locality in which his treasure had been discovered. Nay, he was even fearful when he knew that other Christians were trying to find the true text, and he experienced "peculiar satisfaction" when he ascertained that his silence had misled some pious searchers after reliable copies of God's message to all humankind; although all this time he was well aware that our received copies of God's revelation had undergone "serious modifications" since the message had been delivered from the Holy Ghost by means of the Evangelists.

In 1853, "nine years after the original discovery," Dr. Tisch-endorf again visited the Sinai convent, but although he had "enjoined on the monks to take religious care" of the remains of which they, on the former occasion, would not yield up possession, he, on this second occasion, and apparently after careful search, discovered "eleven short lines," which convinced him that the greater part of the MS had been destroyed. He still, however, kept the place secret, although he had no longer any known reason for so doing; and, having obtained an advance of funds from the Russian Government, he, in 1859, tried a third time for his "pearl of St. Catherine," which, in 1853, he felt convinced had been destroyed, and as to which he had nevertheless, in the meantime, been troubled by fears that the good cause might be aided by some other than Dr. Tischendorf discovering and publishing the "priceless treasure," which, according to his previous statements, he must have felt convinced did not longer exist. On this third journey the Doctor discovered "the very fragments which, fifteen years before, he had taken out of the basket," "and also other parts of the Old Testament, the New Testament complete, and, in addition, Barnabas and part of Hermas."

With wonderful preciseness, and with great audacity, Dr. Tischendorf _refers_ the transcription of the discovered Bible to the first half of the fourth century. Have Dr. Tischendorf's patrons here ever read of MSS discovered in the same Convent of St. Catherine, at Sinai, of which an account was published by Dr. Constantine Simonides, and concerning which the _Westminster Review_ said, "We share the suspicions, to use the gentlest word which occurs to us, entertained, we believe, by all competent critics and antiquarians."

In 1863 Dr. Tischendorf published, at the cost of the Russian Emperor, a splendid but very costly edition of his Sinaitic MS in columns, with a Latin introduction. The book is an expensive one, and copies of it are not very plentiful in England. Perhaps the Religious Tract Society have not contributed to its circulation so liberally as did the pious Emperor of all the Russias. Surely a text on which our own is to be re-constructed ought to be in the hands at least of every English clergyman and Young Men's Christian Association.

"Christianity," writes Dr. Tischendorf, "does not, strictly speaking, rest on the moral teaching of Jesus;" "it rests on his person only." "If we are in error in believing in the person of Christ as taught in the Gospels, then the Church herself is in error, and must be given up as a deception." "All the world knows that our Gospels are nothing else than biographies of Christ." "We have no other source of information with respect to the life of Jesus."

So that, according to the Religious Tract Society and its advocate, if the credibility of the Gospel biography be successfully impugned, then the foundations of Christianity are destroyed. It becomes, therefore, of the highest importance to show that the biography of Jesus, as given in the four Gospels, is absolutely incredible and self-contradictory.

It is alleged in the Society's preface that all the objections of infidelity have been hitherto unavailing. This is, however, not true. It is rather the fact that the advocates of Christianity when defeated on one point have shuffled to another, either quietly passing the topic without further debate, or loudly declaring that the point abandoned was really so utterly unimportant that it was extremely foolish in the assailant to regard it as worthy attack, and that, in any case, all the arguments had been repeatedly refuted by previous writers.

To the following objections to the Gospel narrative the writer refuses to accept as answer, that they have been previously discussed and disposed of.

The Gospels which are yet mentioned by the names popularly associated with each do not tell us the hour, or the day, or the month, or--save Luke--the year, in which Jesus was born. The only point on which the critical divines, who have preceded Dr. Tischendorf, generally agree is, that Jesus was not born on Christmas day. The Oxford Chronology, collated with a full score of recognised authorities, gives us a period of more than seven years within which to place the date. So confused is the story as to the time of the birth, that while Matthew would make Jesus born in the lifetime of Herod, Luke would fix the period of Jesus's birth as after Herod's death.

Christmas itself is a day surrounded with curious ceremonies of pagan origin, and in no way serving to fix the 25th December as the natal day. Yet the exact period at which Almighty God, as a baby boy, entered the world to redeem long-suffering humanity from the consequences of Adam's ancient sin, should be of some importance.

Nor is there any great certainty as to the place of birth of Christ. The Jews, apparently in the very presence of Jesus, reproached him that he ought to have been born at Bethlehem. Nathaniel regarded him as of Nazareth. Jesus never appears to have said to either, "I was born at Bethlehem." In Matthew ii, 6, we find a quotation from the prophet: "And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least amongst the princes of Juda, for out of thee shall come a Governor that shall rule my people-Israel." Matthew lays the scene of the birth in Bethlehem, and Luke adopts the same place, especially bringing the child to Bethlehem for that purpose, and Matthew tells us it is done to fulfil a prophecy. Micah v, 2, the only place in which similar words occur, is not a prophecy referring to Jesus at all. The words are: "But thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." This is not quoted correctly in Matthew, and can hardly be said by any straining of language to apply to Jesus. The credibility of a story on which Christianity rests is bolstered up by prophecy in default of contemporary corroboration. The difficulties are not lessened in tracing the parentage. In Matthew i,

17, it is stated that "the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations." Why has Matthew made such a mistake in his computation of the genealogies--in the last division we have only thirteen names instead of fourteen, even including the name of Jesus? Is this one of the cases of "painful uncertainty" which has induced the Religious Tract Society and Dr. Tischendorf to wish to set aside the _textus receptus_ altogether?

From David to Zorobabel there are in the Old Testament twenty generations; in Matthew, seventeen generations; and in Luke, twenty-three generations. In Matthew from David to Christ there are twenty-eight generations, and in Luke from David to Christ forty-three generations. Yet, according to the Religious Tract Society, it is on the credibility of these genealogies as part of the Gospel history that the foundation of Christianity rests. The genealogy in the first Gospel arriving at David traces to Jesus through Solomon; the third Gospel from David traces through Nathan. In Matthew the names from David are Solomon, Roboam, Abia, Asa, Josaphat, Joram, Ozias; and in the Old Testament we trace the same names from David to Ahaziah, whom I presume to be the same as Ozias. But in 2nd Chronicles xxii, 11, we find one Joash, who is not mentioned in Matthew at all. If the genealogy in Matthew is correct, why is the name not mentioned? Amaziah is mentioned in chap. xxiv, v. 27, and in chap. xxvi, v. 1, Uzziah, neither of whom [is] mentioned in Matthew, where Ozias is named as begetting Jotham, when in fact three generations of men have come in between. In Matthew and Luke, Zorobabel is represented as the son of Salathiel, while in 1 Chronicles iii, 17-19, Zerubbabel is stated to be the son of Pedaiah, the brother of Salathiel. Matthew says Abiud was the son of Zorobabel (chap. i, v. 13). Luke iii, 27, says Zorobabel's son was Rhesa. The Old Testament contradicts both, and gives Meshullam, and Hananiah, and Shelomith, their sister (1 Chronicles iii, 19), as the names of Zorobabel's children. Is this another piece of evidence in favor of Dr. Tischendorfs admirable doctrine, that it is necessary to reconstruct the text?

In the genealogies of Matthew and Luke there are only three names agreeing after that of David, viz., Salathiel, Zorobabel, and Joseph--all the rest are utterly different. The attempts at explanation which have been hitherto offered, in order to reconcile these genealogies, are scarcely creditable to the intellects of the Christian apologists. They allege that "Joseph, who by nature was the son of Jacob, in the account of the law was the son of Heli. For Heli and Jacob were brothers by the same mother, and Heli, who was the elder, dying without issue, Jacob, as the law directed, married his widow; in consequence of such marriage, his son Joseph was reputed in the law the son of Heli." This is pure invention to get over a difficulty--an invention not making the matter one whit more clear. For if you suppose that these two persons were brothers, then unless you invent a death of the mother's last husband and the widow's remarriage Jacob and Heli would be the sons of the same father, and the list of the ancestors should be identical in each genealogy. But to get over the difficulty the pious do this. They say, although brothers, they were only half-brothers; although sons of the same mother, they were not sons of the same father, but had different fathers. If so, how is it that Salathiel and Zorobabel occur as father and son in both genealogies? Another fashion of accounting for the contradiction is to give one as the genealogy of Joseph and the other as the genealogy of Mary. "Which?" "Luke," it is said. Why Luke? what are Luke's words? Luke speaks of Jesus being, "as was supposed, the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli." When Luke says Joseph, the son of Heli, [does] he mean Mary, the daughter of Heli? Does the Gospel say one thing and mean another? because if that argument is worth anything, then in every case where a man has a theory which disagrees with the text, he may say the text means something else. If this argument be permitted we must abandon in Scriptural criticism the meaning which we should ordinarily intend to convey by any given word. If you believe Luke meant daughter, why does the same word mean son in every other case all through the remainder of the genealogy? And if the genealogy of Matthew be that of Joseph, and the genealogy of Luke be that of Mary, they ought not to have any point of agreement at all until brought to David. They, nevertheless, do agree and contradict each other in several places, destroying the probability of their being intended as distinct genealogies. There is some evidence that Luke does not give the genealogy of Mary in the Gospel itself. We are told that Joseph went to Bethlehem to be numbered because he was of the house of David: if it had been Mary it would have surely said so. As according to the Christian theory, Joseph was not the father of Jesus, it is not unfair to ask how it can be credible that Jesus's genealogy could be traced to David in any fashion through Joseph?

So far from Mary being clearly of the tribe of Judah (to which the genealogy relates) her cousinship to Elizabeth would make her rather appear to belong to the tribe of Levi.

To discuss the credibility of the miraculous conception and birth would be to insult the human understanding. The mythologies of Greece, Italy, and India, give many precedents of sons of Gods miraculously born. Italy, Greece, and India, must, however, yield the palm to Judea. The incarnate Chrishna must give way to the incarnate Christ. A miraculous birth would be scouted today as monstrous; antedate it 2,000 years and we worship it as miracle.

Matt. i, 22, 23, says: "Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." This is supposed to be a quotation from Isaiah vii, 14-16: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings."

But in this, as indeed in most other cases of inaccurate quotation, the very words are omitted which would show its utter inapplicability to Jesus. Even in those which are given, the agreement is not complete. Jesus was not called Emmanuel. And even if his mother Mary were a virgin, this does not help the identity, as the word OLME in Isaiah, rendered "virgin" in our version, does not convey the notion of virginity, for which the proper word is BeThULE; OLME is used of a youthful spouse recently married. The allusion to the land being forsaken of both her kings, omitted in Matthew, shows how little the passage is prophetic of Jesus.

The story of the annunciation made to Joseph in one Gospel, to Mary in the other, is hardly credible on any explanation. If you assume the annunciations as made by a God of all-wise purpose, the purpose should, at least, have been to prevent doubt of Mary's chastity; but the annunciation is made to Joseph only after Mary is suspected by Joseph. Two annunciations are made, one of them in a dream to Joseph, when he is suspicious as to the state of his betrothed wife; the other made by the angel Gabriel (whoever that angel may be) to Mary herself, who apparently conceals the fact, and is content to be married, although with child not by her intended husband. The statement--that Mary being found with child by the Holy Ghost, her husband, not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily--is quite incredible. If Joseph found her with child _by the Holy Ghost_, how could he even think of making a public example of her shame when there was nothing of which she could be ashamed--nothing, if he believed in the Holy Ghost, of which he need have been ashamed himself, nothing which need have induced him to wish to put her away privily. It is clear--according to Matthew--that Mary was found with child, and that the Holy Ghost parentage was not even imagined by Joseph until after he had dreamed about the matter.

Although the birth of Jesus was specially announced by an angel, and although Mary sang a joyful song consequent on the annunciation, corroborated by her cousin's greeting, yet when Simeon speaks of the child, in terms less extraordinary, Joseph and Mary are surprised at it and do not understand it. Why were they surprised? Is it credible that so little regard was paid to the miraculous annunciation? Or is this another case of the "painful uncertainty" alluded to by Dr. Teschendorf?

Again, when Joseph and Mary found the child Jesus in the temple, and he says, "Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business?" they do not know what he means, so that either what the angel had said had been of little effect, or the annunciations did not occur at all. Can any reliance be placed on a narrative so contradictory? An angel was specially sent to acquaint a mother that her son about to be born is the Son of God, and yet that mother is astonished when her son says, "Wist ye not I must be about my father's business?"

The birth of Jesus was, according to Matthew, made publicly known by means of certain wise men. These men saw his star in the East, but it did not tell them much, for they were obliged to come and ask information from Herod the King. Is astrology credible? Herod inquired of the chief priests and scribes; and it is evident Jeremiah was right, if he said, "The prophets prophesy falsely and the priests bear rule by their means," for these chief priests misquoted to suit their purposes, and invented a false prophecy by omitting a few words from, and adding a few words to, a text until it suited their purpose. The star, after they knew where to go, and no longer required its aid, went before them, until it came and stood over where the young child was. The credibility of this will be better understood if the reader notice some star, and then see how many houses it will be over. Luke does not seem to have been aware of the star story, and he relates about an angel who tells some shepherds the good tidings, but this last-named adventure does not appear to have happened in the reign of Herod at all. Is it credible that Jesus was born twice? After the wise men had left Jesus, an angel warned Joseph to flee with him and Mary into Egypt, and Joseph did fly, and remained there with the young child and his mother until the death of Herod; and this, it is alleged, was done to fulfil a prophecy. On referring to Hosea xi, 1,

we find the words have no reference whatever to Jesus, and that, therefore, either the tale of the flight is invented as a fulfilment of the prophecy, or the prophecy manufactured to support the tale of the flight. The Jesus of Luke never went into Egypt at all in his childhood. Directly after the birth of the child his parents instead of flying away because of persecution into Egypt, went peacefully up to Jerusalem to fulfil all things according to the law, returned thence to Nazareth, and apparently dwelt there, going up to Jerusalem every year until Jesus was twelve years of age.

In Matthew ii, 15, we are told that Jesus remained in Egypt, "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son." In Hosea ii, 1, we read, "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." In no other prophet is there any similar text. This not only is not a prophecy of Jesus, but is, on the contrary, a reference to the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. Is the prophecy manufactured to give an air of credibility to the Gospel history, or how will the Religious Tract Society explain it? The Gospel writings betray either a want of good faith, or great incapacity on the part of their authors in the mode adopted of distorting quotations from the Old Testament?

When Jesus began to be about thirty years of age he was baptised by John in the river Jordan. John, who, according to Matthew, knew him, forbade him directly he saw him; but, according to the writer of the fourth Gospel, he knew him not, and had, therefore, no occasion to forbid him. God is an "invisible" "spirit," whom no man hath seen (John i, 18), or can see (Exodus xxxiii, 20); but the man John saw the spirit of God descending like a dove. God is everywhere, but at that time was in heaven, from whence he said, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." Although John heard this from God's own mouth, he some time after sent two of his disciples to Jesus to inquire if he were really the Christ (Matthew xi, 2, 3). Yet it is upon the credibility of this story, says Dr. Teschendorf, that Christianity rests like a building on its foundations.

It is utterly impossible John could have known and not have known Jesus at the same time. And if, as the New Testament states, God is infinite and invisible, it is incredible that as Jesus stood in the river to be baptised, the Holy Ghost was seen as it descended on his head as a dove, and that God from heaven said, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." Was the indivisible and invisible spirit of God separated in three distinct and two separately visible persons? How do the Religious Tract Society reconcile this with the Athanasian Creed?

The baptism narrative is rendered doubtful by the language used as to John, who baptised Jesus. It is said, "This is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." Isaiah xl, 1-5, is, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed." These verses have not the most remote relation to John? And this manufacture of prophecies for the purpose of bolstering up a tale, serves to prove that the writer of the Gospel tries by these to impart an air of credibility to an otherwise incredible story.

Immediately after the baptism, Jesus is led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. There he fasts forty days and forty nights.

John says, in chapter i, 35, "Again, the next day after, John stood and two of his disciples; and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he said, behold the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus." Then, at the 43rd verse, he says, "The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, follow me." And in chapter ii, 1, he says, "And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; and both Jesus was called and his disciples unto the marriage." According to Matthew, there can be no doubt that immediately after the baptism Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. And we are to believe that Jesus was tempted of the Devil and fasting in the wilderness, and at the same time feasting at a marriage in Cana of Galilee? Is it possible to believe that Jesus actually did fast forty days and forty nights? If Jesus did not fast in his capacity as man, in what capacity did he fast? And if Jesus fasted, being God, the fast would be a mockery; and the account that he became a hungered must be wrong. It is barely possible that in some very abnormal condition or cataleptic state, or state of trance, a man might exist, with very slight nourishment or without food, but that a man could walk about, speak, and act, and, doing this, live forty days and nights without food is simply an impossibility.

Is the story that the Devil tempted Jesus credible? If Jesus be God, can the Devil tempt God? A clergyman of the Church of England writing on this says: "That the Devil should appear personally to the Son of God is certainly not more wonderful than that he should, in a more remote age, have appeared among the sons of God, in the presence of God himself, to torment the righteous Job. But that Satan should carry Jesus bodily and literally through the air, first to the top of a high mountain, and then to the topmost pinnacle of the temple, is wholly inadmissable, it is an insult to our understanding, and an affront to our great creator and redeemer." Supposing, despite the monstrosity of such a supposition, an actual Devil--and this involves the dilemma that the Devil must either be God-created, or God's co-eternal rival; the first supposition being inconsistent with God's goodness, and the second being inconsistent with his power; but supposing such a Devil, is it credible that the Devil should tempt the Almighty maker of the universe with "all these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me?"

In the very names of the twelve Apostles there is an uncertainty as to one, whose name was either Lebbaeus, Thaddaeus, or Judas. It is in Matthew x, 3, alone that the name of Lebbaeus is mentioned, thus--"Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus." We are told, on this point, by certain Biblicists, that some early MSS have not the words "whose surname was Thaddaeus," and that these words have probably been inserted to reconcile the Gospel according to Matthew with that attributed to Mark. In the English version of the Rheims Testament used in this country by our Roman Catholic brethren, the reconciliation between Matthew and Mark is completed by omitting the words "Lebbaeus whose surname was," leaving only the name "Thaddaeus" in Matthew's text. The revised version of the New Testament now agrees with the Rheims version, and the omission will probably meet with the entire concurrence of Dr. Tischendorf and the Religious Tract Society, now they boast autograph letters of approval from the infallible head of the Catholic Church. If Matthew x, 3, and Mark iii,

18, be passed as reconciled, although the first calls the twelfth disciple Lebbaeus, and the second gives him the name Thaddaeus; there is yet the difficulty that in Luke vi, 16, corroborated by John xiv, 22, there is a disciple spoken of as "Judas, not Iscariot," "Judas, the brother of James." Commentators have endeavored to clear away this last difficulty by declaring that Thaddaeus is a Syriac word, having much the same meaning as Judas. This has been answered by the objection that if Matthew's Gospel uses Thad-daeus in lieu of Judas, then he ought to speak of Thaddaeus Iscariot, which he does not; and it is further objected also that while there are some grounds for suggesting a Hebrew original for the Gospel attributed to Matthew, there is not the slightest pretence for alleging that Matthew wrote in Syriac. The Gospels also leave us in some doubt as to whether Matthew is Levi, or whether Matthew and Levi are two different persons.

The account of the calling of Peter is replete with contradictions. According to Matthew, when Jesus first saw Peter, the latter was in a vessel fishing with his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea of Galilee. Jesus walking by the sea said to them--

"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." The two brothers did so, and they became Christ's disciples. When Jesus called Peter no one was with him but his brother Andrew. A little further on, the two sons of Zebedee were in a ship with their father mending nets, and these latter were separately called. From John, we learn that Andrew was originally a disciple of John the Baptist, and that when Andrew first saw Jesus, Peter was not present, but Andrew went and found Peter who, if fishing, must have been angling on land, telling him "we have found the Messiah," and that Andrew then brought Peter to Jesus, who said, "Thou art Simon, the son of Jonas; thou shalt be called Cephas." There is no mention in John of the sons of Zebedee being a little further on, or of any fishing in the sea of Galilee. This call is clearly on land. Luke's Gospel states that when the call took place, Jesus and Peter were both at sea. Jesus had been preaching to the people, who pressing upon him, he got into Simon's ship, from which he preached. After this he directed Simon to put out into the deep and let down the nets. Simon answered, "Master, we have toiled all night and taken nothing; nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net." No sooner was this done, than the net was filled to breaking, and Simon's partners, the two sons of Zebedee, came to help, when at the call of Jesus, they brought their ships to land, and followed him.

Is it credible that there were three several calls, or that the Gospels being inspired, you could have three contradictory versions of the same event? Has the story been here "painfully modified," or how do Dr. Tischendorf and the Religious Tract Society clear up the matter? Is it credible that, as stated in Luke, Jesus had visited Simon's house, and cured Simon's wife's mother, before the call of Simon, but did not go to Simon's house for that purpose, until after the call of Simon, as related in Matthew? It is useless to reply that the date of Jesus's visit is utterly unimportant, when we are told that it is upon the credibility of the complete narrative that Christianity must rest. Each stone is important to the building, and it is not competent for the Christian advocate to regard as useless any word which the Holy Ghost has considered important enough to reveal.

Are the miracle stories credible? Every ancient nation has had its miracle workers, but modern science has relegated all miracle history to realms of fable, myth, illusion, delusion, or fraud. Can Christian miracles be made, the exceptions? Is it likely that the nations amongst whom the dead were restored to life would have persistently ignored the author of such miracles? Were the miracles purposeless, or if intended to convince the Jews, was God unable to render his intentions effective? That five thousand persons should be fed with five loaves and two fishes, and that an apparent excess should remain beyond the original stock, is difficult to believe; but that shortly after this--Jesus having to again perform a similar miracle for four thousand persons--his own disciples should ignore his recent feat, and wonder from whence the food was to be derived, is certainly startlingly incredible. If this exhibition of incredulity were pardonable on the part of the twelve apostles, living witnesses of greater wonders, how much more pardonable the unbelief of the sceptic of to-day, which the Religious Tract Society seek to overcome by a faint echo of asserted events all contrary to probability, and with nineteen centuries intervening.

The casting out the devils presents phaenomena requiring considerable credulity, especially the story of the devils and the swine. To-day insanity is never referable to demoniacal possession, but eighteen hundred years ago the subject of lunacy had not been so patiently investigated as it has been since. That one man could now be tenanted by several devils is a proposition for which the maintainer would in the present generation incur almost universal contempt; yet the repudiation of its present possibility can hardly be consistent with implicit credence in its ancient history. That the devils and God should hold converse together, although not without parallel in the book of Job, is inconsistent with the theory of an infinitely good Deity; that the devils should address Jesus as son of the most high God, and beg to be allowed to enter a herd of swine, is at least ludicrous; yet all this helps to make up the narrative on which Dr. Tischendorf relies. That Jesus being God should pray to his Father that "the cup might pass from" him is so incredible that even the faithful ask us to regard it as mystery. That an angel from heaven could strengthen Jesus, the almighty God, is equally mysterious. That where Jesus had so prominently preached to thousands, the priests should need any one like Judas to betray the founder of Christianity with a kiss, is absurd; his escapade in flogging the dealers, his wonderful cures, and his raising Lazarus and Jairus's daughter should have secured him, if not the nation's love, faith, and admiration, at least a national reputation and notoriety. It is not credible if Judas betrayed Jesus by a kiss that the latter should have been arrested upon his own statement that he was Jesus. That Peter should have had so little faith as to deny his divine leader three times in a few hours is only reconcilable with the notion that he had remained unconvinced by his personal intercourse with the incarnate Deity. The mere blunders in the story of the denial sink into insignificance in face of this major difficulty. Whether the cock did or did not crow before the third denial, whether Peter was or was not in the same apartment with Jesus at the time of the last denial, are comparatively trifling questions, and the contradictions on which they are based may be the consequence of the errors which Dr. Tischendorf says have crept into the sacred writings.

Jesus said, "as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Jesus was crucified on Friday, was buried on Friday evening, and yet the first who went to the grave on the night of Saturday as it began to dawn towards Sunday, found the body of Jesus already gone. Did Jesus mean he should be three days and three nights in the grave? Is there any proof that his body remained in the grave for three hours? Who went first to the grave? was it Mary Magdalene alone, as in John, or two Marys as in Matthew, or the two Marys and Salome as in Mark, or the two Marys, Joanna, and several unnamed women as in Luke? To whom did did Jesus first appear? Was it, as in Mark, to Mary Magdalene, or to two disciples going to Emmaus, as in Luke, or to the two Marys near the sepulchre, as in Matthew? Is the eating boiled fish and honeycomb by a dead God credible? Did Jesus ascend to heaven the very day of his resurrection, or did an interval of nearly six weeks intervene?

Is this history credible, contained as it is in four contradictory biographies, outside which biographies we have, as Dr. Tisch-endorf admits, "no other source of information with respect to the life of Jesus?" This history of an earth-born Deity, descended through a crime-tainted ancestry, and whose genealogical tree is traced through one who was not his father; this history of an infinite God nursed as a baby, growing through childhood to manhood like any frail specimen of humanity; this history, garnished with bedevilled men, enchanted fig tree, myriads of ghosts, and scores of miracles, and by such garnishment made more akin to an oriental romance than to a sober history; this picture of the infinite invisible spirit incarnate visible as man; immutability subject to human passions and infirmities; the creator come to die, yet wishing to escape the death which shall bring peace to his God-tormented creatures; God praying to himself and rejecting his own prayer; God betrayed by a divinely-appointed traitor; God the immortal dying, and in the agony of the death-throes--stronger than the strong man's will--crying with almost the last effort of his dying breath, that he being God, is God forsaken!

If all this be credible, what story is there any man need hesitate to believe?

Dr. Tischendorf asks how it has been possible to impugn the credibility of the four Gospels, and replies that this has been done by denying that the Gospels were written by the men whose names they bear. In the preceding pages it has been shown that the credibility of the Gospel narrative is impugned because it is uncorroborated by contemporary history, because it is self-contradictory, and because many of its incidents are _prima facie_ most improbable, and some of them utterly impossible. Even English Infidels are quite prepared to admit that the four Gospels may be quite anonymous; and yet, that their anonymous character need be of no weight as an argument against their truth. All that is urged on this head is that the advocates of the Gospel history have sought to endorse and give value to the otherwise unreliable narratives by a pretence that some of the Evangelists, at least, were eyewitnesses of the events they refer to. Dr. Teschendorf says: "The credibility of a writer clearly depends on the interval of time which lies between him and the events which he describes. The farther the narrator is removed from the facts which he lays before us the more his claims to credibility are reduced in value." Presuming truthfulness in intention for any writer, and his ability to comprehend the facts he is narrating, and his freedom from a prejudice which may distort the picture he intends to paint correctly with his pen: we might admit the correctness of the passage we have quoted; but can these always be presumed in the case of the authors of the Gospels? On the contrary, a presumption in an exactly opposite direction may be fairly raised from the fact that immediately after the Apostolic age the Christian world was flooded with forged testimonies in favor of the biography of Jesus, or in favor of his disciples.

A writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ observes: "To say nothing of such acknowledged forgeries as the Apostolic constitutions and liturgies, and the several spurious Gospels, the question of the genuineness of the alleged remains of the Apostolic fathers, though often overlooked, is very material. Any genuine remains of the 'Apostle' Barnabas, of Hermas, the contemporary (Romans xvi, 14), and Clement, the highly commended and gifted fellow laborer of St. Paul (Phil, iv, 3), could scarcely be regarded as less sacred than those of Mark and Luke, of whom personally we know less. It is purely a question of criticism. At the present day, the critics best competent to determine it, have agreed in opinion, that the extant writings ascribed to Barnabas and Hermas are wholly spurious--the frauds of a later age. How much suspicion attaches to the 1st Epistle of Clement (for the fragment of the second is also generally rejected) is manifest from the fact, that in modern times it has never been allowed the place expressly assigned to it among the canonical books prefixed to the celebrated Alexandrian MS, in which the only known copy of it is included. It must not be forgotten that Ignatius expressly lays claim to inspiration, that Irenaeus quotes Hermas as Scripture, and Origen speaks of him as inspired, while Polycarp, in modestly disclaiming to be put on a level with the Apostles, clearly implies there would have been no essential distinction in the way of his being ranked in the same order. But the question is, how are these pretensions substantiated?" So far the _Edinburgh Review_, certainly not an Infidel publication.

Eusebius, in his "Ecclesiastical History," admits the existence of many spurious gospels and epistles, and some writings put forward by him as genuine, such as the correspondence between Jesus and Agbaras, have since been rejected as fictitious. It is not an unfair presumption from this that many of the most early Christians considered the then existing testimonies insufficient to prove the history of Jesus, and good reason is certainly afforded for carefully examining the whole of the evidences they have bequeathed us.

On p. 48, Dr. Tischendorf quotes Irenaeus, whose writings belong to the extreme end of the second century, as though that Bishop must be taken as vouching the four Gospels as we now have them. Yet, if the testimony of Irenaeus be reliable ("Against Heresies," Book III, cap. i.) the Gospel attributed to Matthew was believed to have been composed in Hebrew, and Irenaeus says that as the Jews desired a Messiah of the royal line of David, Matthew having the same desire to a yet greater degree, strove to give them full satisfaction. This may account for some of the genealogical curiosities to which we have drawn attention, but hardly renders Matthew's Gospel more reliable; and how can the suggestion that Matthew wrote in Hebrew prove that Matthew penned the first Gospel, which has only existed in Greek? Irenaeus, too, flatly contradicts the Gospels by declaring that the ministry of Jesus extended over ten years and that Jesus lived to be fifty years of age ("Against Heresies," Book II, cap. 22).

If the statement of Irenaeus ("Against Heresies," Book III, cap. xi) that the fourth Gospel was written to refute the errors of Cerinthus and Nicolaus, have any value, then the actual date of issue of the fourth Gospel will be considerably after the others. Dr. Tischendorf's statement that Polycarp has borne testimony to the Gospel of John is not even supported by the quotation on which he relies. All that is said in the passage quoted (Eusebius, "Ecc. Hist," Book V, cap. 20) is that Irenaeus when he was a child heard Polycarp repeat from memory the discourses of John and others concerning Jesus. If the Gospels had existed in the time of Polycarp it would have been at least as easy to have read them from the MS as to repeat them from memory. Dr. Tischendorf might also have added that the letter to Florinus, whence he takes the passage on which he relies, exists only in the writings of Eusebius, to whom we are indebted for many pieces of Christian evidence since abandoned as forgeries. Dr. Tischendorf says: "Any testimony of Polycarp in favor of the Gospel refers us back to the Evangelist himself, for Polycarp, in speaking to Irenaeus of this Gospel as the work of his master, St. John, must have learned from the lips of the apostle himself, whether he was its author or not." Now, what evidence is there that Polycarp ever said a single word as to the authorship of the fourth Gospel, or of any Gospel, or that he even said that John had penned a single word? In the Epistle to the Philippians (the only writing attributed to Polycarp for which any genuine character is even pretended), the Gospel of John is never mentioned, nor is there even a single passage in the Epistle which can be identified with any passage in the Gospel of John.

Surely Dr. Tischendorf forgot, in the eager desire to make his witnesses bear good testimony, that the highest duty of an advocate is to make the truth clear, not to put forward a pleasantly colored falsehood to deceive the ignorant. It is not even true that Irenaeus ever pretends that Polycarp in any way vouched our fourth Gospel as having been written by John, and yet Dr. Tischendorf had the cool audacity to say "there is nothing more damaging to the doubters of the authenticity of St. John's Gospel than this testimony of St. Polycarp." Do the Religious Tract Society regard English Infidels as so utterly ignorant that they thus intentionally seek to suggest a falsehood, or are the Council of the Religious Tract Society themselves unable to test the accuracy of the statements put forward on their behalf by the able decipherer of illegible parchments? It is too much to suspect the renowned Dr. Constantine Tischendorf of ignorance, yet even the coarse English sceptic regrets that the only other alternative will be to denounce him as a theological charlatan.

Dr. Mosheim, writing on behalf of Christianity, says that the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians is by some treated as genuine and by others as spurious, and that it is no easy matter to decide. Many critics, of no mean order, class it amongst the apostolic Christian forgeries, but whether the Epistle be genuine or spurious, it contains no quotation from, it makes no reference to, the Gospel of John.

To what is said of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria, it is enough to note that all these are after A.D. 150. Irenaeus may be put 177 to 200, Tertullian about 193, and Clement of Alexandria as commencing the third century.

One of Dr. Tischendorf s most audacious flourishes is that (p. 49) with reference to the Canon of Muratori, which we are told "enumerates the books of the New Testament which, from the first, were considered canonical and sacred," and which "was written a little after the age of Pius I, about A.D. 170."

First the anonymous fragment contains books which were never accepted as canonical; next, it is quite impossible to say when or by whom it was written or what was its original language. Mura-tori, who discovered the fragment in 1740, conjectured that it was written about the end of the second or beginning of the third century, but it is noteworthy that neither Eusebius nor any other of the ecclesiastical advocates of the third, fourth, or fifth centuries, ever refers to it. It may be the compilation of any monk at any date prior to 1740, and is utterly valueless as evidence.

Dr. Tischendorfs style is well exemplified by the positive manner in which he fixes the date A.D. 139 to the first apology of Justin, although a critic so "learned" as the unrivalled Dr. Tischendorf could not fail to be aware that more than one writer has supported the view that the date of the first apology was not earlier than A.D. 145, and others have contended for A.D. 150. The Benedictine editors of Justin's works support the latter date. Dr. Kenn argues for A.D. 155-160. On page 63, the Religious Tract Society's champion appeals to the testimony of Justin Martyr, but in order not to shock the devout while convincing the profane, he omits to mention that more than half the writings once attributed to Justin Martyr are now abandoned, as either of doubtful character or actual forgeries, and that Justin's value as a witness is considerably weakened by the fact that he quotes the acts of Pilate and the Sybilline Oracles as though they were reliable evidence, when in fact they are both admitted specimens of "a Christian forgery." But what does Justin testify as to the Gospels? Does he say that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were their writers? On the contrary, not only do the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John never occur as Evangelists in the writings of Justin, but he actually mentions facts and sayings as to Jesus, which are not found in either of the four Gospels. The very words rendered Gospels only occur where they are strongly suspected to be interpolated, Justin usually speaking of some writings which he calls "memorials" or "memoirs of the Apostles."

Dr. Tischendorf urges that in the writings of Justin the Gospels are placed side by side with the prophets, and that "this undoubtedly places the Gospels in the list of canonical books." If this means that there is any statement in Justin capable of being so construed, then Dr. Tischendorf was untruthful. Justin does quote specifically the Sybilline oracles, but never Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. He quotes statements as to Jesus, which may be found in the apocryphal Gospels, and which are not found in ours, so that if the evidence of Justin Martyr be taken, it certainly does not tend to prove, even in the smallest degree, that four Gospels were specially regarded with reverence in his day. The Rev. W. Sanday thinks that Justin did not assign an exclusive authority to our Gospels, and that he made use also of other documents no longer extant ("Gospels in 2nd Century," p. 117).

On p. 94 it is stated that "as early as the time of Justin the expression 'the Evangel' was applied to the four Gospels." This statement by Dr. Tischendorf and its publication by the Religious Tract Society call for the strongest condemnation. Nowhere in the writings of Justin are the words "the Evangel" applied to the four Gospels.

Lardner only professes to discover two instances in which the word anglicised by Tischendorf as "Evangel," occurs; [--Greek--] and [--Greek--] the second being expressly pointed out by Schleiermacher as an interpolation, and as an instance in which a marginal note has been incorporated with the text; nor would one occurrence of such a word prove that any book or books were so known by Justin, as the word is merely a compound of good and [--Greek--] message; nor is there the slightest foundation for the statement that in the time of Justin the word Evangel was ever applied to designate the four Gospels now attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Dr. Tischendorf (p. 46) admits that the "faith of the Church... would be seriously compromised" if we do not find references to the Gospels in writings between A.D. 100 and A.D. 150; and--while he does not directly assert--he insinuates that in such writings the Gospels were "treated with the greatest respect," or "even already treated as canonical and sacred writings;" and he distinctly affirms that the Gospels "did see the light" during the "Apostolic age," "and before the middle of the second" century "our Gospels were held in the highest respect by the Church," although for the affirmation, he neither has nor advances the shadow of evidence.

The phrases, "Apostolic age" and "Apostolic fathers" denote the first century of the Christian era, and those fathers who are supposed to have flourished during that period, and who are supposed to have seen or heard, or had the opportunity of seeing or hearing, either Jesus or some one or more of the twelve Apostles. Barnabas, Clement, Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, are those whose names figure most familiarly in Christian evidences as Apostolic fathers. But the evidence from these Apostolic fathers is of a most unreliable character. Mosheim ("Ecclesiastical History," cent. 1, cap. 2, sec. 3, 17) says that "the Apostolic history is loaded with doubts, fables, and difficulties," and that not long after Christ's ascension several histories were current of his life and doctrines, full of "pious frauds and fabulous wonders." Amongst these were "The Acts of Paul," "The Revelation of Peter," "The Gospel of Peter," "The Gospel of Andrew," "The Gospel of John," "The Gospel of James," "The Gospel of the Egyptians," etc. The attempts often made to prove from the writings of Barnabas, Ignatius, etc., the prior existence of the four Gospels, though specifically unnamed, by similarity of phraseology in quotations, is a failure, even admitting for the moment the genuineness of the Apostolic Scriptures, if the proof is intended to carry the matter higher than that such and such statements were current in some form or other, at the date the fathers wrote. As good an argument might be made that some of the Gospel passages were adopted from the fathers. The fathers occasionally quote, as from the mouth of Jesus, words which are not found in any of our four Gospels, and make reference to events not included in the Gospel narratives, clearly evidencing that even if the four documents ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were in existence, they were not the only sources of information from which some of the Apostolic fathers derived their knowledge of Christianity, and evidencing also that the four Gospels had attained no such specific superiority as to entitle them to special mention by name.

Of the epistle attributed to Barnabas, which is supposed by its supporters to have been written in the latter part of the first century, which, Paley says, is probably genuine, which is classed by Eusebius as spurious ("Ecclesiastical History," book iii, cap. 25), and which Dr. Donaldson does not hesitate for one moment in refusing to ascribe to Barnabas the Apostle ("Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. i, p. 100), it is only necessary to say that so far from speaking of the Gospels with the greatest respect, it does not mention by name any one of the four Gospels. There are some passages in Barnabas which are nearly identical in phraseology with some Gospel passages, and which it has been argued are quotations from one or other of the four Gospels, but which may equally be quotations from other Gospels, or from writings not in the character of Gospels. There are also passages which are nearly identical with several of the New Testament epistles, but even the great framer of Christian evidences, Lardner, declares his conviction that none of these last-mentioned passages are quotations, or even allusions, to the Pauline or other epistolary writings. Barnabas makes many quotations which clearly demonstrate that the four Gospels, if then in existence and if he had access to them, could not have been his only source of information as to the teachings of Jesus (e.g, cap. 7). "The Lord enjoined that whosoever did not keep the fast should be put to death." "He required the goats to be of goodly aspect and similar, that when they see him coming they may be amazed by the likeness to the goat." Says he, "those who wish to behold me and lay hold of my kingdom, must through tribulation and suffering obtain me" (cap. 12). And the Lord saith, "When a tree shall be bent down and again rise, and when blood shall flow out of the wound." Will the Religious Tract Society point out from which of the Gospels these are quoted?

Barnabas (cap. 10) says that Moses forbade the Jews to eat weasel flesh, "because that animal conceives with the mouth," and forbad them to eat the hyena because that animal annually changes its sex. This father seems to have made a sort of _melange_ of some of the Pentateuchal ordinances. He says (cap. 8) that the Heifer (mentioned in Numbers) was a type of Jesus, that the _three_ (?) young men appointed to sprinkle, denote Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that _wool was put upon a stick_ because the kingdom of Jesus was founded upon the cross, and (cap. 9) that the 318 men _circumcised_ by Abraham stood for Jesus crucified. Barnabas also declared that the world was to come to an end in 6,000 years ("Freethinker's Text-Book," part ii, p. 268). In the Sinaitic Bible, the Epistle of St. Barnabas has now, happily for misguided Christians, been discovered in the original Greek. To quote the inimitable style of Dr. Tischendorf, "while so much has been lost in the course of centuries by the tooth of time and the carelessness of ignorant monks, an invisible eye had watched over this treasure, and when it was on the point of perishing in the fire, the Lord had decreed its deliverance;" "while critics have generally been divided between assigning it to the first or second decade of the second century, the Sinaitic Bible, which has for the first time cleared up this question, has led us to throw its composition as far back as the last decade of the first century." A fine specimen of Christian evidence writing, cool assertion without a particle of proof and without the slightest reason given. How does the Siniatic MS, even if it be genuine, clear up the question of the date of St. Barnabas's Epistle? Dr. Tischendorf does not condescend to tell us what has led the Christian advocate to throw back the date of its composition? We are left entirely in the dark: in fact, what Dr. Tischendorf calls a "throw back," is if you look at Lardner just the reverse. What does the epistle of Barnabas prove, even if it be genuine? Barnabas quotes, by name, Moses and Daniel, but never Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Barnabas specifically refers to Deuteronomy and the prophets, but never to either of the four Gospels.

There is an epistle attributed to Clement of Rome, which has been preserved in a single MS only where it is coupled with another epistle rejected as spurious. Dr. Donaldson ("Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. i, p. 3) declares that who the Clement was to whom these writings are ascribed cannot with absolute certainty be determined. Both epistles stand on equal authority; one is rejected by Christians, the other is received. In this epistle while there is a distinct reference to an Epistle by Paul to the Corinthians, there is no mention by name of the four Gospels, nor do any of the words attributed by Clement to Jesus agree for any complete quotation with anyone of the Gospels as we have them. The Rev. W. Sanday is frank enough to concede "that Clement is not quoting directly from our Gospels."

Is it probable that Clement would have mentioned a writing by Paul, and yet have entirely ignored the four Gospels, if he had known that they had then existed? And could they have easily existed in the Christian world in his day without his knowledge? If anyone takes cap. xxv of this epistle and sees the phoenix given as a historic fact, and as evidence for the reality of the resurrection, he will be better able to appreciate the value of this so-called epistle of Clement.

The letters of Ignatius referred to by Dr. Tischendorf are regarded by Mosheim as laboring under many difficulties, and embarrassed with much obscurity. Even Lardner, doing his best for such evidences, says, that if we find matters in the Epistles inconsistent with the notion that Ignatius was the writer, it is better to regard such passages as interpolations, than to reject the Epistles entirely, especially in the "scarcity" of such testimonies.

There are fifteen epistles of which eight are undisputedly forgeries. Of the remaining seven there are two versions, a long and a short version, one of which must be corrupt, both of which may be. These seven epistles, however, are in no case to be accepted with certainty as those of Ignatius. Dr. Cureton contends that only three still shorter epistles are genuine ("Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. i, pp. 137 to 143). The Rev. W. Sanday treats the three short ones as probably genuine, waiving the question as to the others ("Gospels in Second Century," p. 77, and see preface to sixth edition "Supernatural Religion"). Ignatius, however, even if he be the writer of the epistles attributed to him, never mentions either of the four Gospels. In the nineteenth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, there is a statement made as to the birth and death of Jesus, not to be found in either Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.

If the testimony of the Ignatian Epistles is reliable, then it vouches that in that early age there were actually Christians who denied the death of Jesus. A statement as to Mary in cap. nineteen of the Epistle to the Ephesians is not to be found in any portion of the Gospels. In his Epistle to the Trallians, Ignatius, attacking those who denied the real existence of Jesus, would have surely been glad to quote the evidence of eye witnesses like Matthew and John, if such evidence had existed in his day. In cap. eight of the Epistles to the Philadelphians, Ignatius says, "I have heard of some who say: Unless I find it in the archives I will not believe the Gospel. And when I said it is written, they answered that remains to be proved." This is the most distinct reference to any Christian writings, and how little does this support Dr. Tischendorf's position. From which of our four Gospels could Ignatius have taken the words, "I am not an incorporeal demon," which he puts into the mouth of Jesus in cap. iii, the epistle to the Smyrnaeans? Dr. Tischendorf does admit that the evidence of the Ignatian Epistles is not of decisive value; might he not go farther and say, that as proof of the four Gospels it is of no value at all?

On page 70, Dr. Tischendorf quotes Hippolytus without any qualification. Surely the English Religious Tract Society might have remembered that Dodwell says, that the name of Hippolytus had been so abused by impostors, that it was not easy to distinguish any of his writings. That Mill declares that, with one exception, the pieces extant under his name are all spurious. That, except fragments in the writings of opponents, the works of Hip-polytus are entirely lost. Yet the Religious Tract Society permit testimony so tainted to be put forward under their authority, to prove the truth of Christian history. The very work which Dr. Tischendorf pretends to quote is not even mentioned by Eusebius, in the list he gives of the writings of Hippolytus.

On page 94, Dr. Tischendorf states that Basilides, before A.D. 138, and Valentinus, about A.D. 140, make use of three out of four Gospels, the first using John and Luke, the second, Matthew, Luke, and John. What words of either Basilides or Valentinus exist anywhere to justify this reckless assertion? Was Dr. Tisch-endorf again presuming on the utter ignorance of those who are likely to read his pamphlet? The Religious Tract Society are responsible for Dr. Tischendorf s allegations, which it is impossible to support with evidence.

The issue raised is not whether the followers of Basilides or the followers of Valentinus may have used these gospels, but whether there is a particle of evidence to justify Dr. Tischendorf s declaration, that Basilides and Valentinus themselves used the above-named gospels. That the four Gospels were well known during the second half of the first century is what Dr. Tischendorf undertook to prove, and statements attributed to Basilides and Valentinus, but which ought to be attributed to their followers, will go but little way as such proof (see "Supernatural Religion," vol. ii, pp. 41 to 63).

It is pleasant to find a grain of wheat in the bushel of Tischendorf chaff. On page 98, and following pages, the erudite author applies himself to get rid of the testimony of Papias, which was falsified and put forward by Paley as of great importance. Paley says the authority of Papias is complete; Tischendorf declares that Papias is in error. Paley says Papias was a hearer of John, Tischendorf says he was not. We leave the champions of the two great Christian evidence-mongers to settle the matter as best they can. If, however, we are to accept Dr. Tischendorfs declaration that the testimony of Papias is worthless, we get rid of the chief link between Justin Martyr and the apostolic age. It pleases Dr. Tischendorf to damage Papias, because that father is silent as to the gospel of John; but the Religious Tract Society must not forget that in thus clearing away the second-hand evidence of Papias, they have cut away their only pretence for saying that any of the Gospels are mentioned by name within 150 years of the date claimed for the birth of Jesus. In referring to the lost work of Theophilus of Antioch, which Dr. Tischendorf tells us was a kind of harmony of the Gospels, in which the four narratives are moulded and fused into one, the learned Doctor forgets to tell us that Jerome, whom he quotes as giving some account of

Theophilus, actually doubted whether the so-called commentary was really from the pen of that writer. Lardner says: "Whether those commentaries which St. Jerome quotes were really composed by Theophilus may be doubted, since they were unknown to Eusebius, and were observed by Jerome to differ in style and expression from his other works. However, if they were not his, they were the work of some anonymous ancient." But if they were the work of an anonymous ancient after Eusebius, what becomes of Dr. Tischendorf s "as early as A.D. 170?"

Eusebius, who refers to Theophilus, and who speaks of his using the Apocalypse, would have certainly gladly quoted the Bishop of Antioch's "Commentary on the Four Gospels," if it had existed in his day. Nor is it true that the references we have in Jerome to the work attributed to Theophilus, justify the description given by Dr. Tischendorf, or even the phrase of Jerome, "_qui quatuor Evangelistarum in unum opus dicta compingens._" Theophilus seems, so far as it is possible to judge, to have occupied himself not with a connected history of Jesus, or a continuous discourse as to his doctrines, but rather with mystical and allegorical elucidations of occasional passages, which ended, like many pious commentaries on the Old or New Testament, in leaving the point dealt with a little less clear with the Theophillian commentary than without it. Dr. Tischendorf says that Theo-doret and Eusebius speak of Tatian in the same way--that is, as though he had, like his Syrian contemporary, composed a harmony of the four Gospels. This is also inaccurate. Eusebius talks of Tatianus "having found a certain body and collection of Gospels, I know not how," which collection Eusebius does not appear even to have ever seen; and so far from the phrase in Theodoret justifying Dr. Tischendorfs explanation, it would appear from Theodoret that Tatian's Diatessaron was, in fact, a sort of spurious gospel, "The Gospel of the Four" differing materially from our four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Neither Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, or Jerome, who refer to other works of Tatian, make any mention of this. Dr. Tischendorf might have added that Diapente, or "the Gospel of the Five," has also been a title applied to this work of Tatian.

In the third chapter of his essay, Dr. Tischendorf refers to apocryphal writings "which bear on their front the names of Apostles" "used by obscure writers to palm off" their forgeries. Dr. Tischendorf says that these spurious books were composed "partly to embellish" scripture narratives, and "partly to support false doctrine;" and he states that in early times, the Church was not so well able to distinguish true gospels from false ones, and that consequently some of the apocryphal writings "were given a place they did not deserve." This statement of the inability of the Church to judge correctly, tells as much against the whole, as against any one or more of the early Christian writings, and as it may be as fatal to the now received gospels as to those now rejected, it deserves the most careful consideration. According to Dr. Tischendorf, Justin Martyr falls into the category of those of the Church who were "not so critical in distinguishing the true from the false;" for Justin, says Tischendorf, treats the Gospel of St. James and the Acts of Pilate, each as a fit source whence to derive materials for the life of Jesus, and therefore must have regarded the Gospel of St. James and the Acts of Pilate, as genuine and authentic writings; while Dr. Tischendorf, wiser, and a greater critic than Justin, condemns the Gospel of St. James as spurious, and calls the Acts of Pilate "a pious fraud;" but if Dr. Tischendorf be correct in his statement that "Justin made use of this Gospel" and quotes the "Acts of Pontius Pilate," then, according to his own words, Justin did not know how to distinguish the true from the false, and the whole force of his evidence previously used by Dr. Tischendorf in aid of the four Gospels would have been seriously diminished, even if it had been true, which it is not, that Justin Martyr had borne any testimony on the subject.

Such, then, are the weapons, say the Religious Tract Society, by their champion, "which we employ against unbelieving criticism." And what are these weapons? We have shown in the preceding pages, the _suppressio veri_ and the _suggestio falsi_ are amongst the weapons used. The Religious Tract Society directors are parties to fabrication of evidence, and they permit a learned charlatan to forward the cause of Christ with craft and chicane. But even this is not enough; they need, according to their pamphlet, "a new weapon;" they want "to find out the very words the Apostles used." True believers have been in a state of delusion; they were credulous enough to fancy that the authorised version of the Scriptures tolerably faithfully represented God's revelation to humankind. But no, says Dr. Tischendorf, it has been so seriously modified in the copying and re-copying that it ought to be set aside altogether, and a fresh text constructed. Glorious news this for the Bible Society. Listen to it, Exeter Hall! Glad tidings to be issued by the Paternoster Row saints! After spending hundreds of thousands of pounds in giving away Bibles to soldiers, in placing them in hotels and lodging-houses, and shipping them off to negroes and savages, it appears that the wrong text has been sent through the world, the true version being all the time in a waste-paper heap at Mount Sinai, watched over by an "invisible eye." But, adds Dr. Tischendorf, "if you ask me whether any popular version contains the original text, my answer is Yes and No. I say Yes as far as concerns your soul's salvation." If these are enough for the soul's salvation, why try to improve the matter? If we really need the "full and clear light" of the Sinaitic Bible to show us "what is the Word written by God," then most certainly our present Bible is not believed by the Religious Tract Society to be the Word written by God. The Christian advocates are in this dilemma: either the received text is insufficient, or the proposed improvement is unnecessary. Dr. Tischendorf says that "The Gospels, like the only begotten of the Father, will endure as long as human nature itself," yet he says "there is a great diversity among the texts," and that the Gospel in use amongst the Ebionites and that used amongst the Nazarenes have been "disfigured here and there with certain arbitrary changes." He admits, moreover, that "in early times, when the Church was not so critical in distinguishing the true from the false," spurious Gospels obtained a credit which they did not deserve. And while arguing for the enduring character of the Gospel, he requests you to set aside the received text altogether, and to try to construct a new revelation by the aid of Dr. Tischendorf s patent Sinaitic invention.

We congratulate the Religious Tract Society upon their manifesto, and on the victory it secures them over German Rationalism and English Infidelity. The Society's translator, in his introductory remarks, declares that "circumstantial evidence when complete, and when every link in the chain has been thoroughly tested, is as strong as direct testimony;" and, adds the Society's penman, "This is the kind of evidence which Dr. Tischendorf brings for the genuineness of our Gospels." It would be difficult to imagine a more inaccurate description of Dr. Tischendorf s work. Do we find the circumstantial evidence carefully tested in the Doctor's boasting and curious narrative of his journeys commenced on a pecuniary deficiency and culminating in much cash? Do we find it in Dr. Tischendorf s concealment for fifteen years of the place, watched over by an invisible eye, in which was hidden the greatest biblical treasure in the world? Is the circumstantial evidence shown in the sneers at Renan? or is each link in the chain tested by the strange jumbling together of names and conjectures in the first chapter? What tests are used in the cases of Valentinus and Basilides in the second chapter? How is the circumstantial testimony aided by the references in the third chapter to the Apocryphal Gospels? Is there a pretence even of critical testing in the chapter devoted to the apostolic fathers? All that Dr. Tisch-endorf has done is in effect to declare that our authorised version of the New Testament is so unreliable, that it ought to be got rid of altogether, and a new text constructed. And this declaration is circulated by the Religious Tract Society, which sends the sixpenny edition of the Gospel with one hand, and in the other the shilling Tischendorf pamphlet, declaring that many passages of the Religious Tract Society's New Testament have undergone such serious modifications of meaning as to leave us in painful uncertainty as to what was originally written.

The very latest contribution from orthodox sources to the study of the Gospels, as contained in the authorised version, is to be found in the very candid preface to the recently-issued revised version of the New Testament, where the ordinary Bible receives a condemnation of the most sweeping description. Here, on the high authority of the revisers, we are told that, with regard to the Greek text, the translators of the authorised version had for their guides "manuscripts of late date, few in number and used with little critical skill." The revisers add what Freethinkers have long maintained, and have been denounced from pulpits for maintaining, viz., "that the commonly received text needed thorough revision," and, what is even more important, they candidly avow that "it is but recently that materials have been acquired for executing such a work with even approximate completeness." So that not only "God's Word" has admittedly for generations not been "God's Word" at all, but even now, and with materials not formerly known, it has only been revised with "approximate completeness," whatever those two words may mean. If they have any significance at all, they must convey the belief of the new and at present final revisers of the Gospel, that, even after all their toil, they are not quite sure that god's revelation is quite exactly rendered into English. So far as the ordinary authorised version of the New Testament goes--and it is this, the law-recognised version which is still used in administering oaths--we are told that the old translators "used considerable freedom," and "studiously adopted a variety of expressions which would now be deemed hardly consistent with the requirements of faithful translation." This is a pleasant euphemism, but a real and direct charge of dishonest translation by the authorised translators. The new revisers add, with sadness, that "it cannot be doubted that they (the translators of the authorised version) carried this liberty too far, and that the studied avoidance of uniformity in the rendering of the same words, even when occurring in the same context, is one of the blemishes of their work." These blemishes the new revisers think were increased by the fact that the translation of the authorised version of the New Testament was assigned to two separate companies, who never sat together, which "was beyond doubt the cause of many inconsistencies," and, although there was a final supervision, the new revisers add, most mournfully: "When it is remembered that the supervision was completed in nine months, we may wonder that the incongruities which remain are not more numerous."

Nor are the revisers by any means free from doubt and misgiving on their own work. They had the "laborious task" of "deciding between the rival claims of various readings which might properly affect the translation," and, as they tell us, "Textual criticism, as applied to the Greek New Testament, forms a special study of much intricacy and difficulty, and even now leaves room for considerable variety of opinion among competent critics." Next they say: "the frequent inconsistencies in the authorised version have caused us much embarrassment," and that there are "numerous passages in the authorised version in which... the studied variety adopted by the Translators of 1611 has produced a degree of inconsistency that cannot be reconciled with the principle of faithfulness." So little are the new revisers always certain as to what god means that they provide "alternative readings in difficult or debateable passages," and say "the notes of this last group are numerous and largely in excess of those which were admitted by our predecessors." And with reference to the pronouns and other words in italics we are told that "some of these cases... are of singular intricacy, and make it impossible to maintain rigid uniformity." The new revisers conclude by declaring that "through our manifold experience of its abounding difficulties we have felt more and more as we went onward that such a work can never be accomplished by organised efforts of scholarship and criticism unless assisted by divine help." Apparently the new revisers are conscious that they did not receive this divine help in their attempt at revision, for they go on: "We know full well that defects must have their place in a work so long and so arduous as this which has now come to an end. Blemishes and imperfections there are in the noble translation which we have been called upon to revise; blemishes and imperfections will assuredly be found in our own revision... we cannot forget how often we have failed in expressing some finer shade of meaning which we recognised in the original, how often idiom has stood in the way of a perfect rendering, and how often the attempt to preserve a familiar form of words, or even a familiar cadence, has only added another perplexity to those which have already beset us."

MR. GLADSTONE IN REPLY TO COLONEL INGERSOLL ON CHRISTIANITY

IN the early days of the _National Reformer_ there was some reason to believe that, despite his enormous work and his utterly differing views, Mr. Gladstone was not unfrequently a reader of some of the papers appearing in its columns. Later there was on one occasion a very remarkable piece of evidence that, whilst considering as "questionable" the literature issued from the publishing office of the late Mr. Austin Holyoake, the veteran statesman did not pass it without notice. I do not know if Mr. Gladstone has, during the last dozen years or so, had time or inclination for similar acquaintance with the utterances of advanced Freethought in this country--though his critique on a recent novel gives affirmative probability--but it is clear that he watches heretical utterances across the Atlantic; for in the _North American Review_ for May, Mr. Gladstone--intervening in a correspondence going on between the Rev. Dr. Field and Colonel R.G. Ingersoll--takes up his pen against the eloquent American. I have hesitated very much as to publicly noticing the North American Review article, for my personal reverence for Mr. Gladstone is very great. I know how very far from one another we are on questions of religion, and believing that the religious side or bent of Mr. Gladstone's mind is stronger than any other feeling influencing him, I can conceive that I may offend much in any criticism, however respectfully worded. Yet I am sure that Mr. Gladstone's high position entitles all he says to most attentive audience, and my duty to those in the Freethought ranks who trust me compels me that I should tender some words of comment. I venture to hope that the view of duty Mr Gladstone has felt incumbent on him may prevail on my side to prevent any appearance of impertinent interference.

It is not proposed to deal here with the points in controversy between Dr. Field and Colonel Ingersoll, or with the ease as between Mr. Gladstone and the Colonel. All that will be ventured on is a brief comment, from my own standpoint, on some of the positions adopted by Mr. Gladstone, writing as a Christian believer.

Early in the article, stating his own position, Mr. Gladstone says: "Belief in divine guidance is not of necessity belief that such guidance can never be frustrated by the laxity, the infirmity, the perversity of man alike in the domain of action and the domain of thought." The whole effect of this sentence is governed by the meaning attached by the writer to the words "divine guidance." If the meaning intended to be conveyed by the word "divine" includes the assumption of omnipotent omniscience for the person or influence described as divine, and if "guidance" means the intentional direction of the human by the divine to a given end, then it is not easy to understand how this can be intelligently believed, and yet that the same believer shall at the same time believe that laxity or infirmity on the part of the individual guided may "frustrate" the guidance, that is, may counteract it, nullify it, or overcome it. That mental infirmity in the individual may be irremediable by Deity is a proposition which challenges the assumed omniscient omnipotence. That fallible human perversity may be more powerful than omnipotent intent is a contradiction in terms. If the affirmer of divine influence regarded the "divine" person as creator, and the individuals guided as created results, then the infirmity, i.e., insufficient capacity of the created, must have been intentional on the part of an omniscient, and the "guidance" would be illusory, in that the "divine" must, even prior to creation, have planned and predesigned the frustration of his own guiding effort by means of this infirmity. Perversity on the part of the created individual, whether originated purposely by the creator or developed in spite of the omnipotent guider, such perversity, sufficient in activity to frustrate the active intent of omnipotence, involves wholesale contradiction on the part of, or utter confusion in the mind of, the believer. According to Mr. Gladstone, the "divine" may guide the individual to think x, intending the individual to think x, but knowing that the individual cannot (from infirmity) think x, or will not (from perversity) think x, and therefore the divine purpose is frustrated: the "divine," i.e., the omnipotent being, is not only unable or unwilling to cure the infirmity, or to overcome the perversity, but is actually the cause of the fatal infirmity or perversity. That Mr. Gladstone honestly believes this is manifest, but I venture to deny that such honest belief can be accepted as the equivalent for accurate thought. It may be the equivalent for a state of mind, which, existing amongst millions of human beings in diverse races, is yet consistent with the wide prevalence of ir-reconcileable faiths, and with faiths irreconcileable with fact. Alike in thought and action, Mr. Gladstone believes the divine guidance may be frustrated by human perversity, and thus possibly explains to himself why it is that the Christian Governments of Europe have, in this close of the nineteenth century, literally millions of men constantly ready for the work of killing those who belong to the common family of "Our Father which art in heaven."

Taking up the words of the questioning challenge by Colonel Ingersoll to Dr. Field "What think you of Jephthah?" Mr. Gladstone writes: "I am aware of no reason why any believer in Christianity should not be free to canvass, regret, or condemn the act of Jephthah. So far as the narration which details it is concerned, there is not a word of sanction given to it more than to the falsehood of Abraham in Egypt, or of Jacob and Rebecca in the matter of the hunting (Gen. xx, 1-8, and Gen. xxiii [this is a misprint for xxvii]); or to the dissembling of St. Peter in the case of the Judaising converts (Gal. ii, 11); I am aware of no color of approval given to it elsewhere. But possibly the author of the reply may have thought that he found such an approval in the famous eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the apostle, handling his subject with a discernment and care very different to those of the reply, writes thus (Heb. xi, 32): 'And what shall I say more? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah: of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets.' Jephthah, then, is distinctly held up to us by a canonical writer as an object of praise. But of praise on what account? Why should the reply assume that it is on account of the sacrifice of his child?"

I submit that to condemn the voluntary human sacrifice by Jephthah to Jehovah, it is necessary to condemn the Bible presentment. A believer in Christianity who condemned the act of Jephthah would in this necessarily condemn also the devotion to the Lord of a human being and the carrying out the vow by actual human sacrifice. But Leviticus xxvii, 28 and 29, authorises such a vow, and enacts the result in precise language. Kalisch, writing on this ("Leviticus," Part I, p. 385), says: "The fact stands indisputable that human sacrifices offered to Jehovah were possible among the Hebrews long after the time of Moses, without meeting check or censure from the teachers or leaders of the nation."

Mr. Gladstone correctly enough maintains that the Bible gives no more sanction to the conduct of Jephthah "than to the falsehood of Abraham in Egypt." I quite admit that this is accurately stated, but God frequently described himself as the "God of Abraham;" Abraham is pictured as being in heaven; special promises were made to Abraham; and if these were not as sanctioning his conduct, they nevertheless were marks of approbation without blame of that conduct. In ordinary cases where reward is given it is not unnaturally associated with the narrated conduct of the person rewarded. Abraham and Jephthah stand on much the same footing on the question of readiness to offer human sacrifice, except that in Jephthah's case the initiative is with him. In the case of Abraham, the initiative is from the Lord.

Mr. Gladstone, again, accurately says that there is no more sanction given to the act of Jephthah than is given to the trick and deliberate falsehood by which Jacob cheated blind Isaac out of the blessing intended for Esau. That is so; but, according to the Genesis narrative, God practically endorsed the fraud when he not only declared himself the God of Jacob, but by his prophet declared that he loved Jacob and hated Esau (Romans ix, 13). When the cheater is loved and the cheated hated, it is scarcely straining the text to associate sanction of the act with the love expressed for the the conduct of the person rewarded.

The narration as to Jephthah is of a distinct bargain between Jephthah and the Lord, and a bargain made under spiritual influence, or, to use Mr. Gladstone's words, under divine guidance. The text is explicit (Judges xi, 29, 30, 31):

"Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the chil-dren of Ammon. And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering."

After this vow the Lord does deliver the children of Ammon into Jephthah's hands, and Jephthah--who says: "I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back"--in return keeps his part of the agreement, "and did with her according to his vow." And yet Mr. Gladstone writes that there is no reason so far as he is aware, to prevent a Christian from condemning this act of Jephthah. No reason, except that the condemnation must include the condemning of the practice of such vows generally, though specially enacted (Leviticus xxvii, 28, 29):

"Notwithstanding no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord. None devoted which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed but shall surely be put to death"--

and must also involve the express condemnation of the particular bargain assented to and completed alike by Jephthah and by "the Lord."

With the challenge as to Jephthah, Col. Ingersoll asked Dr. Field "What of Abraham?" and this, too, is taken up by Mr. Gladstone who says of Abraham: "He is not commended because, being a father, he made all the preparations antecedent to plunging the knife into his son. He is commended (as I read the text) because, having received a glorious promise, a promise that his wife should be the mother of nations, and that kings should be born of her (Genesis xvii, 6), and that by his seed the blessings of redemption should be conveyed to man, and the fulfilment of the promise being dependent solely upon the life of Isaac, he was nevertheless willing that the chain of these promises should be broken by the extinction of that life, because his faith assured him that the Almighty would find the way to give effect to his own designs" (Heb. xi, 16-19). But the text is surely clear on this. Abraham is praised because he offered up Isaac, that is, that he was ready and willing to offer a human sacrifice to "the Lord" similar to that which was actually offered by Jephthah. Jephthah's sacrifice was voluntary; Abraham's uncompleted sacrifice was undertaken in obedience to the pressure of temptation by God.

Mr. Gladstone observes that "the facts... are grave and startling," and he might well write thus if he had before him any record of the case of a man tried in the United States for the murder of his son. The man imagined and believed, as Abraham is stated to have imagined and believed, that he heard God command him to kill his son as a sacrifice; the man obeyed what he believed to be the divine command. While Abraham only "took the knife to slay his son," the American actually killed his child. On the trial the jury found that the man was insane; that the imagined divine command was delusion; that what the man claimed to be an act of faith in God was an act of human insanity. Mr. Gladstone says that Abraham's faith "may have been qualified by a reserve of hope that God would interpose before the final act," that is, that the interposition would come before he, like Jephthah, actually killed his child as a human sacrifice to the Deity who tempted him. The Bible text gives no support to Mr. Gladstone's qualifying theory. Genesis xxii, 1, 2, says:

"God did tempt Abraham.... And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of."

Without hesitation, Abraham, according to the narrative, takes his son to the place, binds him to the wood, and deliberately prepares to carry out the sacrifice. Abraham either deceives the men (verse 5) and misleads his son (verses 7 and 8), or Abraham did not believe in the consummation of the sacrifice, and in the latter case the faith for which he is praised would be no more than hypocritic pretence. Nay, the text expressly represents God as affirming that Abraham was ready to carry out the sacrifice of his son (verse 16):

"By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son."

If Abraham only offered to kill his son as a sacrifice with the mental qualification that the offer would not be accepted, and that the sacrifice would not be exacted, then the Lord must have been misled into the swearing recited in the text.

Evidently Mr. Gladstone, himself a humane man and loving father, is not quite at ease in dealing with this part of Abraham's history. He says (1) "that the narrative does not supply us with a complete statement of particulars;" (2) that "the command was addressed to Abraham under conditions essentially different from those which now determine for us the limits of moral obligations;" (3) "that the estimate of human life at the time was different;" (4)

that "the position of the father in the family was different: its members were regarded as in some sense his property." I rejoin (1) that to read into the text vital words of explanation which are not specifically expressed in the "divine revelation"--and to so read because without these words the text is incredible--is perilously near downright infidelity. And that, given the incompleteness of Genesis, the added explanation must vary with the intellect, training, and temper of the expositor, e.g. Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Spurgeon, or the man who killed his child in America, would fill up each imagined hiatus in very diverse fashions. (2) Mr. Gladstone's argument can only be maintainable on the assumption that the limits of moral obligation were in the time of Abraham differently determined--for or by, "the Lord"--from such limits today, that is, that the "divine guide" is not immutable. (3) That to render this argument permissible on the part of a believer in Christianity it must be assumed that "the Lord" then estimated the value of human life differently from the manner in which he now would estimate it, because--unless "the Lord" was simply deceiving Abraham in the original direction and the subsequent swearing--"the Lord" concurred in and approved the proposed sacrifice by Abraham; as he also afterwards concurred in and approved the actual sacrifice by Jephthah. (4) [nvolves the assumption that the morality of family relation is now admittedly higher under modern civilisation than when specially regulated by "divine guidance."

3 "Capital and Wages," p. 19.

4 "Perversion of Scotland," p. 197.

Mr. Gladstone grants that "there is every reason to suppose that around Abraham in 'the land Moriah,' the practice of human sacrifice as an act of religion was in full vigor," and he does not fall into the error of ordinary Biblical apologists in pretending that the practice of human sacrifice was confined to "false "religions.

Mr. Gladstone fairly states that the command received by Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a human sacrifice was not only "obviously inconsistent with the promises which had preceded," but "was also inconsistent with the morality acknowledged in later times." I submit that this statement is really a condemnation by Mr. Gladstone of the divine command, in that it is a declaration that such a command would--in times later than Abraham, in fact, in our own times--be an immoral command. Here there ought not to be any question raised of changed conditions, for the command is from "the Lord," that is, from the assumed immutable, omniscient Omnipotent. Mr. Gladstone, it is true, contends that "though the law of moral action is the same everywhere and always, it is variously applicable to the human being, as we know from experience; and its first form is that of simple obedience to a superior whom there is every ground to trust." As in the article Mr. Gladstone has given no definition of what he means by morality, I have no right to go beyond his statement. Following Bentham and Mill, I should personally maintain the utilitarian definition of morality, i.e., "that that action is moral which is for the greatest good of the greatest number with the least injury to any." But this would not in any fashion fit in with Mr. Gladstone's contention, which in the case of a Russian, would make the act moral which is of simple obedience to the Czar, even though that act happened to be the knouting of a delicate woman; or in the case of a Roman Catholic would declare the act to be moral which was performed in simple obedience to the Pope, even though it were the applying the fire to the faggots piled round Giordano Bruno; or in the case of an English sailor would make the act moral done in obedience to the commander of his ship, even though it should be the placing a destructive torpedo in contact with a crowded vessel of an enemy; or in the case of an Irish constable, though the act should be the shooting, on the command of his superior, from the window of a Mitchelstown barrack, even though the result was the murder of an unoffending old man.

A FEW WORDS ON THE CHRISTIANS' CREED

TO THE REV. J.G. PACKER, A.M, INCUMBERER OF ST. PETER'S, HACKNEY ROAD

SIR,--Had the misfortunes which I owe to your officious interference been less than they are, and personal feeling left any place in my mind for deliberation or for inquiry in selecting a proper person to whom to dedicate these few remarks, I should have found myself directed, by many considerations, to the person of the Incumberer of St. Peter's, Hackney Road. A life spent in division from part of your flock, and in crushing those whom you could not answer, may well entitle you to the respect of all true bigots. Hoping that you will be honoured as you deserve,

I am, Reverend Sir,

Yours truly,

C. BRADLAUGH

THE Creed of the Christian is what I proceed to consider, and I shall take for consideration the one which we have given us in the Communion Service of the Church of England. It begins thus: "I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty." Here is a declaration of belief in the unity of God. How far this declaration is carried out in the latter parts of the creed, is a matter for further investigation; but we will now take the next sentence: "Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible." Here, in the two sentences, we have the declaration of belief in a power that has created the universe. Now, the very term "belief" implies that the thing is not known; for when we have attained knowledge, we are beyond mere belief. As the believers are in doubt about the existence of a creator, I will endeavor to investigate the probability of there being such an existence. If you put any inquiries to a Christian as to the creation, he will tell you that God made matter out of nothing. If you ask him who or what God is, he will tell you that God is quite incomprehensible. Failing to get any other information on this point, you ask him, but how could something be produced from nothing? to which, if he is a pious man, he will reply, that, too, is incomprehensible; and also add, that it is one of those mysteries of religion that we must not attempt to reason upon. Having satisfied ourselves that the Christian can give us no information, beyond that which is contained in a book which he calls a revelation from God, we look to this book to ascertain, if we can, something further relating to this incomprehensibility. We, however, now find ourselves in a worse position than we were before, for we are told in one text that God is all-powerful; in another text (Judges i, 19) we are told that he is not. In one text we are told that God is unchangeable; and in another we are told that God grieves and repeats (Gen. vi, 6). In another that he gets in a passion, and marches through the land in indignation, and thrashes the heathen in his anger (Habakkuk iii, 12). I might fill a volume with these beautiful specimens of the character of the God of the Christian. However, as the Bible quite supports God's character for incomprehensibility, I think we need not doubt that thus far the Christian is right. But, as this is not the sort of evidence that a reasonable man will be satisfied with, and as the burden of proof lies upon the man who declares or makes the assertion, I think all must come to the conclusion that the assertion, not being supported by evidence, must, as a matter of necessity, fall to the ground.

The next passage runs thus: "And in our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God: begotten of his Father before all the worlds." Here is the declaration of a belief (which, however little it will bear examination, we will take for the present) in a being whom we should take from the word Son to be a personage inferior to God the Father, especially as in John (xiv, 28), Jesus is represented saying "the Father is greater than I;" but such is not the case, for the next words, "God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God," show that the Christian makes Jesus not only to be equal, but to be superior to God the Father, for he tells us that Jesus is God of Gods, and very God of very God. Now if God the Father is incomprehensible, I can assure you that the God and very God of God the Father appears to me to be doubly so. The belief then proceeds, "begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made." This is a most important declaration, for it clearly proves that the Christian believes in a material and substantial God, or rather material and substantial Gods, for he tells us that God the Father and God the Son are both of the same substance. This belief in a material deity upsets the prior declaration of the creation or production of matter from nothing, for if the Gods or God of the Christians are or is eternal, and as they, or he, are or is clearly material, so matter must be eternal, and could never have been created. The belief next proceeds, "Who for us men and for our salvation came own from heaven." This coming down and ascending up to heaven clearly proves that the Christian considers that the earth is a kind of flat surface with heaven above, and that God lives up in heaven, and that he sometimes has come down to see us and gone up again after the visit. But we are told that he came for our salvation. Now to be a salvation there must be a fall. Of course there must, cries the exulting Christian; look to Genesis and see the account of the fall of Adam. We do look to Genesis, and we find that somebody called Yeue Alehim (whom our translators make Lord God, but for what reason I am at a loss), has placed Adam and Eve in a garden with a command not to eat certain fruit, and that this Lord God, to make his command stronger, backs it with a lie, for he tells Adam and Eve that in the day that they eat of it they shall surely die, which the sequel proves not to be true, as they did not die, but one of them lived 930 years after he had broken the command. While Adam and Eve are in this garden a cunning serpent, whom the Lord God also has made, tempts Eve, and they eat of the fruit of the tree, and their eyes are opened, and they gain a knowledge of good and evil. Now the Lord God seems to be very much like the bigoted parsons of the present day, for when he finds out what Adam and Eve have done he gets in a passion and swears at them, and curses Adam and his wife and the serpent; and not satisfied with this, he curses the land too, just as if the land had had some share in the crime.

This is a summary of the account of the Fall contained in the Bible. Because Adam and Eve had been guilty of the horrible crime of eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that is they learnt to think and reason for themselves, God Almighty found it necessary to damn them; and depend upon it, reader, whoever you may be, that when you are guilty of the crime of thinking, speaking, and acting for yourself in religious matters, God's vicegerents on earth, the black-coated, white-neckerchiefed, strait-haired, pious psalm-singing gentry, will do their best to crush you and damn you by every means in their power. They will calumniate you as they have done Thomas Paine and the rest of those brave men who have been courageous enough to strive for civil and religious liberty.

But I fear I am guilty of digression, and therefore I will take you back to the account of the Fall. Adam having been cursed, our pastors pretend that it was necessary that there should be a redemption--for they have such a good opinion of their God, that although they tell us that without God's help we could not live and move, they think God would damn the whole earth because one man [ate] an apple which, according to their own account, he could not have done if God had not permitted him; therefore, to use the words of Richard Carlile, they give us the horrible picture of "a merciful God sacrificing a good and pure God to appease the vengeance of a jealous and revengeful God."

I will now leave this to the consideration of the reader, and take the next passage, which runs thus: "And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man." I can scarcely imagine that any of the Christians ever give this belief a thought, as, parrot-like, they repeat it after their leader in the pulpit, for if they did think they must be aware that they are uttering the most ridiculous and absurd statements respecting their deity. The doctrine of the incarnation, however, is common to the Hindoos; and as their religion is much older than Christianity, I suppose they will admit that the Hindoos did not derive their doctrine from the Christian, and also that it seems extremely probable that the Christians derived their doctrine of the incarnation from the Hindoos. This would go very far towards identifying Christianity with Paganism; and therefore the devout Christian will shudder at the thought, and again tell you that is a mystery that must not be inquired into. But the absurdities contained in the idea of an omnipotent and infinite God becoming a weak and finite man, must, I think, be apparent to all.

The creed then reads: "And was crucified, also, for us, under Pontius Pilate. He suffered, and was buried." The idea of a Very God of Very God _suffering_ and being buried! "And the third day he rose again according to the scriptures." Now, unless there were other scriptures besides those which we possess, Jesus did not rise according to the scriptures; for the scriptures say, that as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. But Jesus was not three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, for he was crucified in the course of Friday, and was out of the grave before dawn on Sunday--being only one clear day and two nights. So much for being according to the scriptures.

It then proceeds: "And ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father." We have been told that there is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and I think that this fully proves the truth of the observation, for one moment we are told of an infinite God, and the next of two infinite Gods, sitting beside each other in a finite place called heaven. But this is not the whole of the absurdity; for the idea of ascension into heaven proves what I have before noticed with regard to the absurd ideas of heaven and earth contained in this creed.

The creed proceeds: "And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead: whose kingdom shall have no end." This involves the belief of the existence in a future state, and, as it is impossible to prove a negative to the question, I shall put the following interrogatories for the believer's consideration. In what state do you expect man to exist with a knowledge of his identity after death? He cannot exist in a material state, for the matter of which he was composed has been dispersed, and now forms other bodies, and thus the organisation is totally destroyed. You cannot tell me that the atoms of which that man was composed will reunite, because that would presuppose the existence of a power possessing the capability of the creation of matter in the same state with the same knowledge of personal identity; besides which, the matter of which Alexander the Great was composed may now be in your body, and thus either you or poor Alexander would have to go on short commons at the day of judgment. And with regard to anything that may be said as to our existence in an immaterial state, I only ask the believer to produce some proof of it, for as yet we have no proof, and therefore have nothing to answer.

The creed proceeds: "And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life: who proceedeth from the Father and Son." On this declaration I have not much to say, except to point out the absurdity of it; for a dissertation on the term Holy Ghost would be too long for my pages. If God the Father and God the Son are living beings, then God the Holy Ghost is not the Lord and Giver of Life; for he proceeds from them, and they were before him. But if God the Holy Ghost is the Lord and Giver of Life, then, till he came into existence, God Almighty and his Son must have been without life. More than this, Jesus is said to be the son of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Ghost; now, if the Holy Ghost proceeds from Jesus first, it seems rather strange that Jesus should have proceeded from the Holy Ghost afterwards. The "Ecce Homo" suggests that the _aggelos_, or messenger who represented the Holy Ghost, might have been a _young man_.

But to return to our subject. It then proceeds: "Who, with the Father and the Son together, is worshipped and glorified: who spake by the prophets." Now it happens that there are a number of Lords who spake by the prophets--such as _Yeue or Yehovah, Alehim, El Sheddi_, and others--but not one Holy Ghost: so that the Bible gives the lie to the belief, unless the Holy Ghost was the lying spirit in the case of Ahab, and I am afraid that that would not tell much to the credit of the Holy (or unholy) Ghost.

"And I believe in one catholic and apostolic church." Setting aside the word apostolic, this is the only good part in the belief; for depend upon it readers, that till there is an universality of mind and action throughout the world in one direction, we never shall have true happiness. Therefore I praise the belief in a catholic or universal church or community; but the objectionable word apostolic pulls me down from the Utopia to which I had begun to soar, for that word spoils all. With the word apostle are strangely mingled together some ideas of Peter, the Pope, the Inquisition, thumbscrews, racks, stakes, and other adjuncts to an apostolic church.

"I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins." Only think, readers, the church set at loggerheads, and nearly L100,000 spent on the last nine words. A bishop, with all the courage imaginable, speaking what the _Times_ tells him may cost him his mitre, and then excommunicating the whole who disagree with him, the _Times_ of course included, on account of these words! I think after this we had better read the passage again. What is baptism? Answer: Saying long prayers over a baby in long clothes, till you wake it, and then sprinkling water on it till you make it cry! What is remission of sins? Answer: Don't know. Now I believe the grand question in dispute is whether the grace comes before the baptism or at it, or after it, or whether it comes at all; and to settle this question they have employed themselves in worrying one another with threats, protests, and prohibitions, to the benefit of the lawyers and us poor inquirers. I say our benefit, too, for we are told that when rogues fall out honest men get their own. What absurdity is contained in the idea that the baptising of a child with water saved it from being damned for sins that it never committed! or, how still more absurd is the idea that the child would be damned if it were not baptised at all; yet this doctrine is taught and inculcated by the Creed of the Church of England. The creed proceeds: "I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come." Together with this resurrection are associated the ideas that we shall be brought before the bar of God and give an account of our deeds, and that the bad shall be sent to hell and the good to heaven. Now we are told that hell is a lake of brimstone and fire; if that is the case, I deny that there can be eternal punishment, for science proves that there is not enough brimstone in any finite space to burn one man for ever, let alone several millions: and with regard to heaven, if I am to go there I hope it will not be near the planet Uranus, for I should feel too cold; or near the sun, for then I should feel too hot, and should not be very happy. However, take it at the worst, we freethinkers should be better off than the believer, for bad as the believer makes his God, he surely could never be unjust enough to send me to hell for speaking what I believed to be the truth.

Taking the Creed as a whole, it is one of the most ridiculous declarations of faith imaginable, for the believer declares a belief in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And how are these pictured in Scripture? "The Father is somewhere in heaven, the Son sits at his right hand, and the Holy Ghost flies about in a bodily shape like a dove." What a curious picture to present to any reasonable man--a Father begets a Son from nothing, and a dove proceeds from the two of them. I shall say no more on this disgusting part of Christianity--disgusting because so many believe all that is told them by a man who possesses the same powers of comprehension as themselves, and who has a position to maintain in the world--I mean the priest. My blood runs cold to think of the mischief that has been done by those men called priests; they are the bane of society, for they rule the mass of society _vi et armis_ and they rule it wrongfully; they do not give it a chance of obtaining a mouthful of intellectual food without steeping it in the poison of their superstitious dogmas, and till we take the antidote of free discussion we shall never be free. But alas for reform! there are strong bulwarks of faith and prejudice to be attacked and pulled down before that antidote can fully counteract the debasing effects of superstition on the mind and action of man.

However, Christian, before concluding, I will give you a summary of your most absurd Creed. You believe in God the Father who is eternal, and in God the Son who is eternal too. You believe that the Holy Ghost is the father of Jesus, and that Jesus is the son of God the Father. You believe that the Holy Ghost is a _material spirit_, and that he has made himself manifest in two forms, namely, a dove or pigeon, and a cloven tongue of fire (the latter would be no bad emblem, were he the identical lying spirit). You believe that a finite woman, who was a virgin, gave birth to an infinite God, and yet that that God was a man. You believe that Jesus went down into hell and stopped on his visit three days; but, Christian, if it were true, do you think that the devil would have been unwise enough to let his bitterest enemy out after he had got him so nicely in his power? You believe that the Holy Ghost spoke by the prophets. To do that he must have had foreknowledge, and we must have been predestined to do certain acts; and yet you believe that we are free, and shall be punished or rewarded according to our actions and faith. You believe that God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost, are three separate persons, and yet that they are one.

You who are Papists believe that there are three Gods in one and one in three, and that yours is the true Church, and that the Pope is the head of the church, and the representative of God on earth. You who are Churchmen hold the same trinity, but make Victoria, by the grace of God, queen defender of the faith, nominal Pope of your church, and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York the actual popes. You who are Wesleyan elect John Wesley to the papal dignity, and so on with the rest.

I hope that all who profess the creed will look around and see the present theological panic. The Wesleyans are divided by the "Fly Sheets" into two parties, and are attacking one another most vigorously. The Church of England is divided by Goreham, and the bishops are excommunicating one another. And lastly, the Pope is at a discount in the very seat of his empire, and Free-thought is slowly but steadily increasing.

To those readers who approve of this, I beg leave to ask their assistance in the work of progress by their acting as well as talking among their fellow-men. To those who disapprove, I say, "Answer it."

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