The man Jesus: a course of lectures

Front matter

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Preface

Eeligious opinion is the resultant of many infinitesimal shocks, and I shall not be suspected by any generous person of imagining that I have written any final word about a theme which has inspired hundreds and thousands of volumes and will doubtless inspire as many more. I have but endeavored, with the help of many eminent scholars, of whom I would name Theodor Keim with special admiration, to write a book which shall contribute something to a rational understanding of the human greatness of Jesus in the minds of those who have not the time or opportunity to read those voluminous writings in which the modern study of the life of Jesus has embodied its conjectures and results.

Brooklyn, May 5, 1881.

Contents

PAGE

I. Sources of Information 11

II. The Place and Time 45

I. Sources Of Information

IN" studying the life of any person the first question that presents itself, or ought to present itself, is one of biographical material. Neglecting this, the best intentions frequently come to little or to naught. It often happens that the material is not homogeneous, that the sources of information differ among themselves, and it becomes necessary that we should make, if not an absolute, at least a relative choice. Otherwise an element of confusion is introduced into every subsequent stage of our procedure. In the -case of Jesus of Nazareth we are bound by these conditions as unreservedly as in any other, if the historical importance attaching to his name does not put us under heavier bonds to proceed from first to last with the utmost caution. Whatever the importance of this study, its interest cannot, I think, be overrated. It would argue either exceeding coarseness or dulness not to be profoundly interested in the actual career and character of one whom the most civilized portion of the world for sixteen hundred years has worshipped as a god, and who, whatever his original force, has been the most engrossing figure that has ever trod the stage of human history.

Voltaire is reported as saying of Jesus, "Let me never hear that man's name again ; " and I am not unaware that there are those in this community who have something of the feeling which that petulant remark expressed. They are tired of hearing Aristides called the just. Their sense of disproportion between the person and the myth goads them to this extreme. But what may be natural to an unguarded moment ought not to be allowed to become a habit of the mind. Jesus is not responsible for the extravagance and absurdity of his mythologists. Because they have enveloped him in legend and fable there is all the more reason why we should seek to penetrate to his actual character. We afe none of us, I hope, indifferent to real greatness, nor feel so rich in what we have already gathered of its fame, that we are not always more than glad to add a little to our store. The presumption is, that behind a myth like that of Jesus there is a man, and it is only honorable and decent for us to see whether it is so or not. Behind the myth of Buddha we are glad to find a man. It

SOUKCES OF INFORMATION. 15

speaks ill for both our science and morality if we are not equally glad to find one behind the myth of Jesus. Both science and morality demand that we shall approach Jesus with as little hostile bias as characterizes our approach to Buddha or Zoroaster or Mohammed.

An inquiry into the sources of our information concerning Jesus was of comparatively small importance so long as the New Testament was regarded as a miraculously inspired volume, and as such was considered free from any error or exaggeration. There was still room for study of the way in which the miraculous history of the New Testament joined on to the secular history of the times, and of the impression it made upon these times ; and within the limits of the New Testament there were elements apparently conflicting which had to be compelled into some show of agreement. The world has hardly anything to show more ingenious than some of the devices which were resorted to under the inspiration of this method. The Fourth Gospel, it was suggested, was supplementary to the other three, and all divergent accounts of an apparently single event were explained as so many different accounts of so many different events. Thus, the critics, if they could not wholly satisfy themselves, satisfied the uncritical, and do unto this day.

But the doctrine of the New Testament's miraculous inspiration is no longer a doctrine that can be entertained by any person who is at the same time honest, thoughtful, and intelligent. This is a frank expression ; but I am confident it is a saying that will stand. Omit the honesty, the intelligence, or the thoughtfulness, and the saying thus mutilated would not hold good. Taken in its entirety, its force cannot be broken. Show me an intelligent man who entertains this doctrine, and the chances are ten to one that he lacks either thoughtfulness or honesty. Show me a thoughtful man who entertains it, and he must be lacking either in honesty or intelligence- Show me an honest man who entertains it, and either intelligence or thoughtfulness is a missing link in the chain of his individual completeness. For every man of honesty, intelligence, and thoughtfulness knows that the result of criticism is, that of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament the authorship of only four l is absolutely certain. But to elevate into the position of a supernatural revelation a book the authorship of six-sevenths of which is extremely doubtful, is manifestly an unwarrantable procedure. We may be tolerably sure of the authorship of another seventh. This is the extremity of critical concession. But, in order to maintain the supernatural inspiration of the New Testament, we should be certain not only of the

1 Romans, First and Second Corinthians, and Galatians. The Pauline authorship of these even is denied by Bruno Bauer, a critic of no mean abilities.

authorship of each separate book, but of the supernatural inspiration of each individual author. In fact, our certainty on the head of authorship is confined to four books out of twenty-seven; and of the supernatural inspiration of St. Paul, the author of these four, there is not a particle of proof, while there is abundant proof at every turn of human limitation.

But books which may not wear the honors of a supernatural revelation may, used with sufficient caution, furnish us with biographical material tolerably satisfactory, even where they must be regarded as anonymous. Whether the New Testament books do furnish us with such material it is the principal object of this morning's lecture to discover.

But before addressing ourselves to this, let us inquire what intimation, if any, we have of Jesus, his life and teachings, beyond the confines of the New Testament. Let us begin upon the outmost verge and work our way in towards the centre. That is, let us first consider the heathen testimony, then the Jewish, then the incidental, finally the direct testimony of the New Testament.

Of contemporary reference to Jesus in pagan writers there is none whatever. The earliest is that of Tacitus, after Thucydides the greatest historian of the ancient world. But this reference is confined to a statement of the bare fact that Jesus was " executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator, Pontius Pilate." This was written about seventy years after the death of Jesus, at which time Tacitus, the wisest of his generation, regarded the Jews as a people " without religion/' as " haters of the human race," and Christianity as the meanest of the offshoots of Judaism, exitiabilis superstitio, — " a miserable superstition." Suetonius, writing of the Emperor Claudius near the beginning of the second century, has a single reference to Jesus, — " one Chrestos," — whom he imagines to have been a seditious Roman Jew, living in Eome, midway of the first century. And these scanty references to Jesus, the one so bare, the other so absurd, are all l that we have in pagan literature to enlighten us concerning the founder of a religion which in a little more than two centuries after the time of Tacitus and Suetonius became the State religion of the Eoman Empire. Need I remark on the inconsequence of those who from this paucity of pagan mention infer the non-existence of Jesus ? There were no railroads and telegraphs in the time of Jesus to bind the civilized world together in a network of mutual appreciation. Tacitus's general ignorance of the Jewish people would be unpardonable in any modern person, but the wonder is that he set down correctly the circumstances of the death of Jesus.

1 The letter of the Younger Pliny from Bithynia, 104 A. D., is vaguely instructive about the Christian community of that time, but contains nothing about Jesus.

But that the writings of the Jews themselves, outside of the New Testament, should be as little fruitful of information concerning Jesus as the writings of Suetonius and Tacitus is more remarkable. The first Christian century covered the literary activity of two Jewish writers of remarkable ability, Philo and Josephus. Philo died in 60, Josephus in 95 A. D. But Philo mentions neither Jesus nor the Christians, and of Josephus we are obliged to make substantially the same confession. There are two passages in popular editions of Josephus which refer to Jesus. The less celebrated may possibly contain these authentic words, "James the brother of Jesus, called the Christ ; " although the fact that the passage containing these words was outrageously tampered "with by Christian hands throws doubt on even so much as I have quoted. The more celebrated passage reads : " At that time appeared a certain Jesus, a wise man, if indeed he may be called a man ; for he was a worker of miracles, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with joy, and he drew to himself many Jews and many also of the Greeks. This was the Christ. And when, at the instigation of our chief men, Pilate condemned him to the cross, those who had first loved him did not fall away. For he appeared to them alive again on the third day, according as the holy prophets had declared this and a thousand other wonderful things of him. To this day the sect of Christians called after him exists." This beautiful passage has been quoted thousands of times, and is still quoted as the testimony of a cultured Jew to the substantial truth of the New Testament. But, alas, the early Christian fathers, who knew the writings of Josephus well enough, knew nothing of this passage. When at length it appears in the " Antiquities," it is now in one place and now in another. Efforts the most heroic to save a part of it have proved as futile as the attempt to save the whole. But the significance of the passage cannot be overrated. It is a capital example of the literary ethics of the early Christians. The original interpolator of this passage thought he " verily did God service " when he inserted it in the " Antiquities " of the Jewish historian. He did nothing that was not done a thousand times from Ezra to Augustine. Pseudonymous writing and interpolation were favorite methods of religious propagandism.

What are we to infer from the entire silence o: Josephus (or almost entire, allowing the words " James the brother of Jesus, called the Christ/' to be authentic) ? Many have been the conjectures. But the most plausible is, that in the world- view of Josephus, writing fifty years after the time of Jesus, the Christian community was too small a dot to merit his consideration.

The literature of Judaism outside of Philo and s

Josephus is equally barren of any real information. The Talnmdic writings do little more than repeat in various forms the slander of his illegitimate birth, — a retort so natural to the assertion of his miraculous birth that we encounter it in the earliest writings hostile to Christianity that have come down to us. Shall we be more successful if we seek for information concerning Jesus in Christian writings of the second century outside of those contained in the New Testament ? This literature, as preserved to us, is neither inconsiderable in bulk nor unimportant, especially as admitting us to the inner life of the Christian community in the second century ; but it adds very little to our New Testament sources, — hardly more than a few sentences of apparent genuineness, having on themrthe stamp of Jesus' individuality. If there is any exception to be taken to this statement, it must be in favor of the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Time was when our New Testament Matthew was thought to be a translation of this, but one of the fixed facts of modern criticism is that our Matthew is not a translation. And still its relation to the Gospel according to the Hebrews is one of the most interesting questions of New Testament criticism. The agreements of the two are many, and where they disagree the uncanonical work sometimes preserves the more reliable tradition. The Gospel of the Hebrews seems to have existed in various forms, in this respect being in no wise different perhaps from the New Testament gospels. Whether its earliest form was the germ of our own Matthew, or the two branched from a common stock, is a dilemma which impales on either horn an equal number of New Testament scholars. This much, however, is tolerably certain : that throughout the second century the Gospel according to the Hebrews enjoyed a reputation not inferior to that of our New Testament gospels. The decline of its reputation synchronized with the decay of Jewish Christianity.

The upshot of these considerations is, that we are thrust back on the New Testament as our only valid source of information concerning the life and character of Jesus. Josephus and other writers are of inestimable value as giving us the political an social and religious setting of his life. But fo: knowledge of the man Jesus, of his idea and his aims, and of the outward form of his career, the New Testament is our only hope. If this hope fails, the pillared firmament of his starry fame is rottenness ; the base of Christianity, so far as it was personal and individual, is built on stubble.

Within the confines of the New Testament we have a great variety of literature. We have an extensive epistolary portion ; a book of history, the Acts of the Apostles ; a prophetic allegory, the Eevelation of S,t. John ; and four biographies of Jesus.

I had written to this point when my attention d was called to the following statement of a writer in the New York " Tribune," the vagary of no simpleminded correspondent, but a statement to which this distinguished journal gave the weight of its authority : —

" The compilation of the New Testament was the " work of six of the Apostles, and two of the dis- "ciples who attended them in their journey ings. " The Four Gospels were the work of men who were " contemporary with Christ : the first of them was " published a few years after his ascension, and circulated among the very people in whose midst " his life was passed. The Epistles were written " separately by five of the Apostles, from fifteen to " thirty-five years after the Saviour left this earth. " The history known as the Acts of the Apostles " was published about the year 65 A. D. The book " of Eevelation was written and made known by " John, one of the five above referred to, about the " year 96 A. D. ; and though Martin Luther, among * others equally eminent, doubted that John really " wrote it, the weight of modern critical opinion is " certainly in favor of his authorship."

Were this a correct statement of the facts in the case, our search for valid information concerning the life and death of Jesus would be a nominal affair. But there is hardly a single sentence in this statement which is not outrageously and ridiculously false. It is an admirable summary of the popular traditional belief concerning the books of the New Testament. It is a monstrous, if not wicked, perversion of the results of modern scientific criticism, even where this is most conservative. It is safe to say that there is not a person living, and having any right to express an opinion on these subjects, who could subscribe to this statement, who would not, in fact, reject it altogether.

To proceed for a moment to details : The book of Eevelation, says this statement, was written about 96 A. D. But if there is a single fixed point in the New Testament chronology, it is the date of Eevelation, and this date is 69 A. D. Acts, says this statement, was published about the year 65 A. D. About the year 125 a. d., says the intelligent critic. " The Epistles," says this statement, " were written separately by five of the Apostles, from fifteen to thirty-five years after the Saviour left this earth." From twenty to one hundred and forty years after the death of Jesus, says the intelligent critic, who at the same time reduces the number of Apostles who had a hand in them from five to one ; namely, St. Paul, to whom at the utmost eight Epistles are conceded of the thirteen which bear his superscription in the New Testaments of to-day. "The Eour Gospels were the work of men who were contemporary with Christ : the first of them was published a few years after his ascension, and circulated among the very people in whose midst his life was passed." So says the journalist. The intelligent critic says : Of the existence of the Four Gospels we learn with certainty only in the fourth quarter of the second century, one hundred and fifty years after the death of Jesus. Of their authorship we are entirely ignorant. The earliest, Matthew, cannot have received its present form much before the end of the first century. The latest, John, dates from about the year 135. Possibly from a few years earlier than this, possibly from a few years later.

Such being the actual critical result as regards the contents of the New Testament, it is evident that much greater caution must be observed in the use of them than would be necessary if the popular conception corresponded at any single point with the reality. Certain, or tolerably so, that in the genuine Epistles of St. Paul we have a set of writings belonging to a period ranging from twenty to thirty years after the death of Jesus, we turn to these with generous expectations. Surely, here if anywhere, we say, we shall learn something about Jesus that will be interesting and satisfactory. But we are doomed to disappointment t>nce again. Paul is almost absolutely silent concerning the actual life of Jesus. Once, and once only, does he quote his words. He does not make a single reference to any event in his whole life, save as the last supper is implied in his solitary quotation of his words.

The Christ of Paul was not a person, but an idea. He took no pains to learn the facts about the individual Jesus. He actually boasted that the Apostles had taught him nothing. His Christ was an ideal conception, evolved from his own feeling and imagination, and taking on new powers and attributes from year to year to suit each new emergency. Not the life but the death and resurrection of Jesus are his constant theme. Nevertheless, in a general way, the witness of Paul to Jesus is of inestimable value. It is an overwhelming refutation of the hypothesis that the actual Jesus was next to nobody. Only a tremendous personal force could have laid hold on the imagination and the conscience of Paul with overmastering power. The sympathies and admirations of gigantic men do not attach themselves to men of lower stature than their own.

The writings nearest the time of Jesus after thi Epistles of Paul are the Epistle to the Hebrews (certainly not Paul's) and the book of Eevelation. These were both written from 65 to 70 A. D. But they have for us no illumination. The Epistle to the Hebrews attenuates the personality of Jesus into a dogmatic cloud, less palpable, if possible, than the Christ of Paul. The Eevelationist is too intent upon the Jesus who is coming in the clouds of heaven to have a thought of the Jesus whom he had personally known. He dares not look back-

I ward for a moment lest he should miss the first premonitory gleam of the approaching day of the Lord. The Epistles other than Paul's and the book of Acts are characterized by a similar paucity of definite information. To the Four Gospels, then, we are driven as our last resort.

But here again there is an inner and an outer court. The inner court is that of the first three Gospels, called the Synoptics, because a synopsis can be made of their contents taken together ; the j outer court is that of the Fourth Gospel. Were . this written by John, we should be brought by it very near to the person of Jesus. But that it was not written by John may be considered as well- | nigh an established point in modern criticism, I where this is not hopelessly apologetic. It is the policy of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" to put itself on the safe side of every doubtful question. Its articles are generally coextensive with the coni quered ground of modern science. Now, in the : tenth volume of this Encyclopaedia, recently published, there is an article on the Four Gospels, writ- I ten by Dr. E. A. Abbott, an English churchman of i high standing and great erudition. The article is : eminently conservative, and assigns to the Synoptics an earlier date than common, but of the claims of the Fourth Gospel to be the work of the Apostle John or a first-century work of anybody it effectually disposes. Of this Gospel, as John's, we have no mention till the second century is drawing to its close. Of its existence we have little if any notice earlier than this. But we have ample evidence that if it was in existence midway of the second century, 1 and back of this for five and twenty years, it was little known and less esteemed, and certainly was not regarded as the work of an Apostle. That it was meant to pass for John's there cannot be a doubt ; but so was the book of Daniel meant to pass for Daniel's, who had been dead three hundred years when it was written. To seek prestige for one's own thought under the cover of some mighty name was for hundreds of years before and after the time of Jesus the commonest proceeding. It was a species of self-abnegation. The writer sacrificed his personal renown to some high cause that had enlisted his enthusiasm and demanded his service.

That one biography of a person is written subsequently to another is not necessarily a circumstance that is prejudicial to the later work. The latest is frequently the best. But if it is so, it must be in virtue of a closer adherence to, or a more vital appreciation of, the fundamental biographical material. The trouble with John's Gospel is not so much that

1 Dr. Ezra Abbot has argued laboriously that it was in existence at this time, and used by Justin Martyr. But granting so much, the Johannine authorship is still almost as far removed as it was written after the others, as that in its entire tone and structure it is different from the others, and different from them in such a way that we are compelled to feel that we are reading no biography, but a magnificent theological romance, an epic poem of which the hero is the Logos, the incarnate Word. This Gospel was not written as a biography, but to set forth Jesus as the Logos. Everything is made subservient to this end. It is quite possible that it embodies^ sayings and events that have a traditional value over and above those which are freely borrowed from the Synoptists. But they are few and far between. The discourses of the Fourth Gospel are its deepest condemnation, for all the noble passages which they contain. The speech of Dr. Johnson is not so different from that of Robert Burns as the speech of the Fourth Gospel Jesus from that of the Jesus of the Synoptists. " Brief and concise were the sentences uttered by him," says Justin Martyr, — proof positive that he knew nothing of the Fourth Gospel, or gave it no heed. His words are true of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They mock the endless disquisitions of John. In the Synoptics nothing is so characteristic of Jesus as the parables. In the Fourth Gospel there is not a single parable. James Freeman Clarke has recently suggested that Jesus spoke in parables to the simple Galileans, in disquisitions to the temple doctors of Jerusalem. But the longest

THE MAN JESUS.

disquisitions of the Fourth Gospel are addressed, not to the temple doctors, but to his disciples on the last day of his life. Again, the framework of the Fourth Gospel is so different from the framework of the others, making his ministry three years long instead of one, and mainly Juclean instead of mainly Galilean, that we are compelled to make a choice. The time is short for a detailed account of this matter; but were it not I could, I think, convince you, as I am myself convinced, that in attempting to construct a consistent idea of the life and character of Jesus the Fourth Gospel must be counted out. Ingenuity has exhausted itself in the endeavor to obtain a different result, and all in vain. The Fourth Gospel is not less valuable on this account. Only its value henceforth is that of a contribution to our knowledge of second-century ideas. Every true word that it contains is just as true as ever. Every beautiful thought is just as beautiful now as before. But the character of Jesus gains immensely by this transferrence. He is no longer the scorner and hater of his own people. He is no longer the esoteric theosophist of an inner circle of disciples, praying, if not for these alone, for those only beyond them who shall believe on him through their word, and never rising into the invigorating atmosphere of self-forgetfulness and universal love. Since the sponge dipped in vinegar moistened the dying lips of Jesus, no such service has been rendered him as that of the critics who have transferred the Fourth Gospel from the province of biography to that of theological controversy and imaginative dogma.

Of the three Gospels that still remain to us the relative values are still in some dispute. That we are certain of the authorship of any one of them only a very ignorant or exceedingly dogmatic person would be likely to declare. Nor of the time when they assumed their present shapes can we be more than proximately sure. "We are for the first time definitely aware of their existence as Matthew's, Mark's, and Luke's, from 170 to 180 A. D. Nor are we aware of their existence in any shape or under any name at a much earlier period. Writing in the middle of the second century, Justin Martyr quotes from certain "Memoirs of the Apostles," as he calls them, so freely that a consistent biography of Jesus might be collected from his quotations. But he never names the authors of these memoirs. His quotations from them often disagree with our Gospels, and seldom agree with them ; and if our Gospels (the Synoptics) were used by him, they were used in conjunction with others which were apparently as highly, if not more highly, esteemed. If we had only external evidence to rely upon, it would be quite impossible to predicate the existence of our Synoptic Gospels earlier than the middle of the second century. Later than this we cannot put them, because at least a quarter of a century is necessary to establish the reputation they enjoyed in 175-180 a. d. From various evidence we may however infer with tolerable safety that Matthew reached its present form near the beginning of the second century, Luke about 115 A.

D., and Mark about 120. This statement differs widely from the journalist's which I have quoted : " The Four Gospels were the work of men who were contemporary with Christ : the first of them was published a few years after his ascension, and circulated among the very people in whose midst his life was passed." And some of you may think my statement is -;so different from this that we might as well abandon all attempt to draw out the life and character of Jesus from writings so far removed in time from his own day, — from seventy to ninety years. But Eome was not built in a day, nor were the Synoptic Gospels any more. They were not made ; they grew. And they were long in growing. It would almost appear as if the titles of these Gospels, " according to Matthew," and so on, — according to, not by, — implied a consciousness that these writings were impersonal, that to no one man could be assigned their authorship. This is the truth concerning them. Luke, you will remember, begins his Gospel, " Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us ; " and the evidences are plentiful that the author uses these "many" freely, our own Matthew being among them. Everywhere in the Synoptics there is an effect of fragments joined together, not too carefully ; of different traditions ; of different documents freely used with little discrimination. Hence in the same Gospel different accounts of one and the same thing, different and sometimes contradictory renderings of one and the same saying, as where Jesus is reported to have said that " a prophet is" and again that " a prophet is not, without honor save in his own country." In Matthew the final editor is evidently less Jewish than his material, and in Luke there is a similar inconsistency.