Jesus: His opinions and character

Chapter I

Brief risumioi what is known of the life of Jesus, 11, 12. He did not write, nor authorize the writing of his life, or of his doctrine, 12. Few traces of the human career or character of Jesus in the Pauline and other canonical Epistles, 13, 14; in the "Acts of the Apostles," 15, 16. Distinct and irreconcilable traditions of Jesus in the first three and in the fourth Gospels, 16. Story of Jesus as told in the latter, 17-22. Story of Jesus as told by Matthew, 23-28. These narratives but questionable data of history ; intrinsic improbability of the events told in them, and their inconsistency with other events in the same narratives, 29. Hence an unreasonable srepticsm as to the existence of Jesus, 29. Influence of Christianity upon civilization a personal influence, and implies a Christ, 30. Slight impression of deeds and sayings of Jesus on the mind of Paul, 30. Slight mention of him by Josephus, 30. What the historic Gospels, the apostles, and primitive disciples concur in imputing to Jesus probably formed a part of his faith and philosophy, 31. Reasons why the Fourth Gospel cannot be considered historical, 32. Question of miracles an embarrassment, rather than an assistance to modern faith, 33. Substantial variances between the First and the Fourth Gospels, 34.. "Jesus gained more influence by intellectual than by magical powers, 35. Matthew Arnold's adhesion to the Fourth Gospel considered, 36-38. Few points of agreement, many points of disagreement, between Fourth and Synoptic Gospels, 38. Arrest and condemnation of Jesus as told in Fourth Gospel incredible, 3S-40. Mainly concurrent statements of Synoptic Gospels concerning the same natural and probable, 41, 42. The general historic credibility of the Synoptic Gospels assumed, 43.

Chapter II. Dominant Idea Of Jesus, 44-69

Ideas and character of Jesus must be considered in their relation to his dominant idea, 44. His dominant idea, the kingdom of heaven, 45. Prominence of this idea in his preaching, 45. His ethical precepts relate to it, 45. The kingdom of heaven at hand the sole message of his sent-out disciples, 47. Significance of his title of Son of Man, 47, 48. Kingdom of heaven the chief theme of the parables, 50. Disclosures in the conversation at Cassarea- Philippi, 51. Symbolic character of the procession of palms, 52, 53. Literal exposition of the doctrine of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew xxiv., ii CONTENTS

xxv., 54-56. Kingdom of heaven most prominent in the discourse of Jesus, 56, 57. The idea not wholly original with him, 57. The expectation of the people of his time with reference to it, 57, 58. Derived from the national prophecies, 58. Passages in the law and in the temple songs considered Messianic, 5S, 59. Restored kingdom and power of Israel mentioned by Isaiah, 59. By Jeremiah, 59. By Ezekiel and other prophets, 60. The promised era of peace was the peace of conquest — of the subjection and punishment of enemies, 61-63. Real nature of the prophetic writings political and didactic, and relating to the exigencies of the times, 63-65. Not predictions of future events, 66. The prophetic king to come not immortal, 67. The Jews of the time of Jesus believed the prophecies to be predictions of a restored monarchy, and of a domination by their nation of other people, 67, 6S. How far Jesus shared the belief, 6S, 69.

Chapter III. Dominant Idea Of Jesus, Continued, 7i-96

Didactic method of Jesus, 71. His Messianic character gradually and diffidently assumed, 71. The conquering and the suffering Messiah of the prophets, 72. Jesus considered th it there were not two Messiahs, but two comings of one Messiah, 72. Popular idea an empire of Israel ; Jesus' idea an empire of the elect, 73-75. The popular expectation was of material prosperity, that of Jesus of spiritual, 76. The retribution in the dispensation of Jesus was more complete than in the prophetic. The former had no mercy for enemies who submitted, 76, 77. The prophetic kingdom a kingdom of the priesthood and of the permanence of the Mosaic laws, that of Jesus ignored the priesthood and the ecclesiastical laws, 77. Why Jesus believed the kingdom of heaven at hand, 78. Are the prophecies of Jesus capable of a purely spiritual interpretation ? 79-81. The sense in which his first followers believed those prophecies, 82. The kingdom of heaven in the writings of Paul, 82-86. Paul's peculiar theory of the resurrection, 86. The kingdom of heaven in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 88. In the Epistle of James, 88, 89. Of Peter, 89, 90. Of John, 90, 91. Fuller details of the kingdom of heaven in the Apocalypse, 91-93. Wherein it differed from the original tradition, 93, 94. Disappointment of the Christian expectation, 95. Recapitulation of the argument that the kingdom of heaven was the dominant idea of Jesus, 95, 96.

Chapter IV

Indicated generally in his dominant idea, 97. He repressed the struggle for life, 98. Radical character of his reforms, 99. His hostility to existing governments, 100. His national prejudices not strong, 100, 101. Did not sympathize with popular aspirations for independence, 102. His ideas of poverty and wealth, 103; as disclosed in his precepts and parables, 104- 106. Not mere sentiments, 106. He practised his own principles, 107. He required their practice from his followers, 10S. The wealthy young man, 109. His antipathy to the rich reappears in the Epistle of James, 109. Sentiment of justice not strong in Jesus, no. Real import of parable of Dives and Lazarus, 112, 113. Worldly occupations of men seemed impious to Jesus, 114. His ideas of property quite consistent with and explicable by

CONTENTS 111

his dominant idea, 115-118. Necessity of returning to secular pursuits and cares after defeat of expectation of the end of the world, 117. Paul the first to abate the rigor of the political ideas of Jesus, 118. Communistic character of the first Christian society, 120. The Church at Jerusalem maintained by subsidies from heathen converts, 121. Traces of the early communism surviving in monastic establishments and the minor sects, 122. Reversed attitude of the modern Church, 123. Effect of poverty and wealth upon personal character considered, 123-125. Antagonism betwixt ideas of Jesus and those of his own race, 126.

Chapter V. Ethical Ideas Of Jesus, I27-160

Absence of a systematized statement of his ethical ideas, 127. His generalizations sometimes inconsequential and contradictory, 128. Instances given, 128-130. Two aspects of divine beneficence, 131, 132. Difficulty of reconciling the two characters, 132. Blessedness of sorrow, 133. Salutary influence of this lesson, 134. Blessedness of forgiveness, 135. Strict ideas of sexual purity, 136. Counter influence of Mohammedanism, 137. Jesus no ascetic, 138. Influence respectively of the temperance of Islam and the chastity of Christianity, 139. Murder and all personal injuries condemned in the malice that incites them, 140. Difficulty of controlling anger, 140. Not always himself true to his lesson, 141. Effect on character of indiscriminate almsgiving, 142. Provisional application of this lesson, 143. Jesus ignored the rights of property, which were the basis of the older cultus, 145. Major and minor morals distinguished, 146. The proscription of all oaths considered, 146, 147. Uncertain attitude toward the Mosaic ritual, 14S. Omissions in the ethical code of Jesus, 148. Patriotism, 149. The marital, parental, and filial duties, 149. Defect supplied in ethics of Paul, 150. The Teutonic influence on manners, 150. Pity and tenderness toward animals not characteristic of the ethical system of Jesus, 151. Rule of conduct toward brethren different from the rule toward other men, 152. Rise thence of ecclesiastical government, 153. How far the ethical ideas of Jesus were original, 153. The sect of the Essenes and their origin, 154. Respects in which their ideas differed from those of Jesus. Their regard of the old scriptures and the Sabbath, 154; of labor, 155. Their strong sentiment of justice, 155. Their separation from the wicked, their prayers, 156. Their washings and baptisms, 156, 157. Their hostility to war and slavery, 157. Their veneration of age, 158. Respects in which their principles agreed with the doctrines of Jesus, 158. Their requirement of virginity, 158. They forbade oaths, 159. They inculcated love of God; they confined their most esoteric doctrines to the brotherhood; they required the extirpation of anger; they forbade scientific studies; they expected the Messiah, and the kingdom of heaven, 160. Jesus accepted, modified, and gave currency to the ideas of the Essenes, 160.

CHAPTER VI. PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS OF JESUS, l6l-l86

Difficulty of generalizing them, 161. The poetic and philosophic temperament incompatible, 162. Jesus taught that God was beneficent according to the human standard, 162. The fatherhood of God a psychological fact, 163. Difference between his and the Jewish idea of a divine paternity, 164. Courses of nature the appointment of God, 164. Opposite

IV CONTENTS

view of nature in Johannic Gospel, 165, 166. Doctrine of Holy Ghost suggested, not developed, by Jesus, 167. Exigencies developing the doctrine, 167, 168. How the word "spirit" is used by Paul, also by John, 169. New occasions required new revelations, 170. Christian ideas not derived from Jesus, 171. Words, which denote the intrinsic character of men, 172. The aversion of Jesus for bad men; his tolerance of publicans and sinners, 173. He believed in devilish possession, 174. Illustrations of his belief from the Gospels, 175. His scheme of nature, 176. The evil in the world due in part to devilish possession, 177. Wicked men children of the devil, 177, 178. The fatherhood of God as held by Jesus and by the Israelites, 179. His feeling toward men not disciples, 1S0. His opposition to the distinctions of rank, 181. No service of duty entitled to reward, 183. Self-depreciation and self-consciousness how regarded by him, 184. The import of all serious speech, and the indications of the moral sympathies, 185.

Chapter VII

Whether there be gods a question of philosophy, — how to placate them a question of religion, 187. Worship corresponds to the conception of God, 187. With the beginning of the moral sense, righteousness became a service of worship, 18S. Pagan idea of God human and cheerful; Hebrew idea, pure and stern, 188, 189. Scepticism as to Israel being the chosen people in certain of the old scriptures, 190. Jesus thought the relation of Israel to God was a conditional and temporary one, 191, 192. His assumption of authority over the Mosaic law, 192.' His neglect of Sabbath observance, 193. His position as to the Mosaic code uncertain, 194. Prayer not a service of worship, 195, 196; but a familiar intercourse, 197. His aversion to fasting, 198. His slight regard of baptism, 199. His memorial service called the Last Supper, 200. His form of prayer considered, 202. The thoroughness of his precepts, 203. The forgiving and vindictive aspects of the divine character, 205. He placed no obstacles in the way of passing from the evil to the good character and state, 206. How the apprehension of the end of the world modified his religious ideas, 207, 208. Sudden conversions come to impetuous natures; growth the general law of righteousness, 208.

Chapter VIII. His Ideas Of A Future Life, 209-236

The question of a future life a question of philosophy, 209. The final destiny of men not beyond ultimate discovery, 210. Why religion has asserted exclusive jurisdiction over this subject, 21 r. The jews had originally no ideas of immortality, 212. The Jews acquired belief in immortality during their captivity, 215. An established belief before the time of Jesus, 216. Popular opinions concerning immortality among the Jews and among the Greeks and Romans contrasted, 216, 217. Traces of the beliefs of the time of Jesus among his own people, outside of his own teaching, 217-220. Idea "of day of judgment and its origin, 220, 221. Ideas of Jesus as to the future life traced in his literal and allegoric teachings, 221, 222. The resurrection a terror to all but the righteous, 223. Deplorable condi

CONTENTS V

tion of the non-elect dead, 224-226. Imagination and tradition the source of all our knowledge of a future life, 227-229. Jesus' method of investigating the question philosophical and human, 229. In the Fourth Gospel, his teachings are from intuition and direct knowledge, 230, 231. In the Synoptic Gospels, quite otherwise, 232. Paul's revelations much more detailed and particular, 233. The colloquy with the Sadducees concerning the resurrection, 234, 235. The scheme of a future life in the mind of Jesus modified and supplanted by his dominant idea of a kingdom of heaven, 236.

Chapter IX

Considerable part of events related in Synoptic Gospels improbable, 237. The miracles, if performed, must be proved by testimony of the highest validity, 238. Paul's character as a witness, 239. Did he witness the crucifixion ? 240. Controversy in the early Church as to his apostleship, 241. His silence upon the miracles, 242. Did the divine power attributed by Paul to Jesus imply a power to work miracles ? 243, 244. Silence of Paul concerning miracles irreconcilable with the Johannic miracles of Jesus in Jerusalem, where Paul lived, 244, 245. No mention of Jesus' miracles in the canonical Epistles, 246. Testimony of the Synoptic Gospels. Matthew and Mark evidently copy each other, 247. None of the Gospels extant while Paul lived and wrote, 24S. At best, the evidence of the Gospels is of a low grade, 249. Detail of miracle-working as given by Matthew and Mark, 250-252. Difficulties encountered in giving it credence, 253-255. Detail of miracle-working as given by Luke, 255-257. Discrepancies in the testimony, — how far they are explicable, how far irreconcilable, 25S-260. Paley's principle of weighing testimony applied to the testimony of the evangelists, 261. The miracles of the Fourth Gospel explained, 262-264. How the evangelical narratives were created, 264. Multiplicity of Gospels, and rule of selection among them, 265, 266. Such miracles as the evangelists record would, if performed, have obtained some mention in secular history, 267. They would have produced greater effects upon the communities where performed than the evangelists describe, 268-270. Jesus probably ^had a certain magnetic power of allaying nervous disorders, out of which the story of the miracles grew, 270-272. What the exorcization of devils actually was, 273. The raising of the ruler's daughter — the foundation of all the stories of raising the dead — not miraculous, 275. The inconsistent reasons given for the cessation of the miraculous powers of Jesus, 276. The real reason surmised, 276.

Chapter X. Arrest, Trial, And Death Of Jesus, 277-33i

Whatever may have been the providential plan, causes of his death to be sought in the order of known events, 277, 278. How came he to be obnoxious to his nation, 278; not as a healer of the sick, 279; not as a teacher of a sublime system of ethics, 279, 280; not by his claim to be the Messiah, 281-2S3. Tolerant attitude of scribes and Pharisees toward Jesus, 284. His intolerant attitude toward them, 284-286. His first contact with them in Galilee, 286. Jesus in no peril while he stayed in Galilee, 287. He went to Jerusalem, in fulfilment of prophecy, to be put to death, 287-290. Offen-

VI CONTENTS

siveness to the priests and rulers of the procession of palms, and the driving out of the sellers of victims from the temple, 290, 291. The spirit in which Jesus prosecuted his controversy with the rulers and elders, 292, 293. Mode of life of Jesus and his company in Jerusalem, 294. Strange confusion of identities in the story of the woman with her offering to Jesus, 295. The chief priests and elders, ignorant of the person of Jesus, are compelled to hire a disciple to point him out among the strangers, 295, 296. Uncertainty as to the feeling toward him of the Jewish populace — consequent caution of his enemies, 296. The populace take sides against him; subsequent boldness of his enemies, 297. The narrative of the crucifixion most probable part of the synoptic narratives, 297. How the facts were probably learned by the writers, 298. Had the council of the Sanhedrim power to try and punish Jesus ? Political condition of Jerusalem and Palestine considered, 299, 300. The Sanhedrim had power to try and punish at least all ecclesiastical offences, 300. The trials of Peter and John and Stephen, 301. Two essays in the Contemporary Review, on "Trial of Jesus," briefly reviewed, 302, 303. Only one trial, and that before the Sanhedrim, 303. The matter only came to Pilate to get his warrant for the execution, 304. Two reasons given why the Sanhedrim wished to involve Pilate in the responsibility of putting Jesus to death, 304, 305. Proceedings against Jesus violent and illegal, 306, 307. The adjuration by the High Priest, and how Jesus made it the occasion of insuring his own condemnation, 308. The probable course of the proceedings, 309, 310. Was the judgment against Jesus one which a just Jew might approve? 310, 311. Jesus had in fact claimed divine powers and authority, 311. Strictness of the Hebrew law of blasphemy, 312. His claim, however, would not have subjected him to prosecution, if he had refrained from provoking the priests and elders, 313. Laws against blasphemy ought to be executed with discrimination, 313. If Jesus had divine attributes, he studiously concealed them from his judges, 314, 315. His bravery and reticence at his trial and under his torture, 316. Totally different account of the arrest and trial in the Fourth Gospel, 317. They took place according to it before the Passover, 318, 319. The trial not before the Sanhedrim, but before Pilate, 319. Undignified bearing of Jesus before the latter, contradictory of his noble silence, as told by the Synoptics, 319-324. Slight variance in Luke from the story of Matthew and Mark not to be followed, 325. Complete isolation of Jesus in Jerusalem, 326. Indignities heaped on him during his trial and execution, 326-329. Matthew and Mark's picture of his last hours compared with Luke's, 330, 331.

Chapter XI. His Personal Pretensions And Character, 332-381

To be considered in answering these questions : What he thought of himself? What his age thought of him ? What was he ? 332. Implication of name Son of Man, 333. Jesus claimed divine inspiration and authority from the first, 334. Impression that he was the Christ not original with him, and not at first accepted by him, 334. Crisis of self-consciousness at Caesarea-Phil- >PP'» 335- Recapitulation of the conversation there, 335, 336. Obscure origin of all such self-consciousness, 337. Prevalent sadness of his temper, 338. Opinion concerning Jesus among his fellow countrymen, 339. Indifference of the people of Nazareth and Capernaum, 339. Probable alienation of his own family, 340. Paucity of his followers, and slight allegiance of the twelve, 341. Number of adherents at his death, 341. Number in Jerusalem and Judea, 342. Effect of excessive eulogies of Jesus to obscure his personal traits, 342. General accuracy of the synoptical descriptions of

CONTENTS Vll

his mental peculiarities, 343. The parables and apothegms of Jesus easy to retain long in the memory, 343. Not easy to remember his longer metaphysical discourses, 344. Wit, wisdom, and moral emphasis of many sayings of Jesus, 345. He appreciated wit in others, 346. His fondness for intellectual puzzles, 347. Figurative character of his common speech, 348. How far he shared the false beliefs of his age, 349. His belief in angels, 349. In devils and a prince of devils, 350. Blending of truth and poetry in his mind and teaching, 350. The Hebrew scriptures to him a divine revelation, 352. The divine oversight of the world to him arbitrary and moral, 353. His courage more conspicuous than his meekness, 354. Thoroughness of his ethical methods, 355. Purity of his character, 356. His chaste ideas of marriage, 356. The highest modern conceptions of love not wholly the fruit of Christianity, 359. His rigorous rule of repression of anger, 360. Not himself true to it in his treatment of the Pharisees, 360. General upright character and salutary influence of the Pharisees, 362. Testimony of Paul, 363; of Josephus, 363. Early prejudice of Jesus against the Pharisees, 364. How it increased and expressed itself before his arrest, 366. Justice of his invectives, 367. Stress laid by him, in his later teaching, on faith and discipleship, rather than on righteousness, 369. His early and his later delineation of the day of judgment and the grounds of its sentences, 369. His indifference to common men, his antipathy to the heathen, 371. Character of Jesus to be studied, not in its typical and prophetic ideal, but in its historic significance, 373. His benevolence, 374. Capricious and propagandist exercise of the miraculous power attributed to him, 376. His reproach of Peter, and imprecation against the fig-tree, 377. His expectation of a kingdom of heaven not realized, 378. He inspired a new religion, 379. His religion and himself compared with the other great religions, and the men who revealed them, 380.

Chapter XII

Best supported by evidence of all the miracles, 382. Two distinct explanations of the resurrection in the New Testament, 384. Great stress laid by the Galilean tradition on disappearance of the body, 385. Grave differences in the attending circumstances as told by the evangelists, 385. They all insist that the appearances of Jesus were material, 386. The more spiritual conception of Paul, 387. The Pauline idea of the resurrection explained, 389. Its inconsistencies, 390. Events following the death of Jesus ; his burial, and the visits to the tomb, 393. Who visited it, at what time, what did they see and hear? substantial discrepancies in the report,

394. The communication by angels, as told by Matthew, by Mark, by Luke,

395. The Galilean and the Judaic tradition, origin of each, 396. Did Jesus after his death show himself alive to any man at Jerusalem ? 399. Did he show himself to Mary Magdalene or to any woman ? 399. The showing of Jesus to the two travellers to Emmaus, 401. The showing of Jesus to his disciples in Galilee, 403. Fatal differences in the accounts of it, 404. Immense consequence of Jesus' last words, and improbability of their being forgotten, 404. Entire disagreement in form and substance in the three evangelical narrations, 405. Legal effect of such difference in the probative character of the testimony illustrated by a verbal will devising property, 405. The message, as told by each evangelist, recapitulated and considered, 407. How local prejudices among the disciples affected the report, 408. How the story of the resurrection gathered details in the

Vlll CONTEXTS

telling by the evangelists, 408. Further details given in Acts, 409. Paul's account, 410. Singular failure of the early Christians to agree about the manner of the resurrection or the communications of Jesus, 410. Summing up of the five different accounts, 411. Cross-examination distasteful to uncritical minds, 412. A resurrection not in the apparent plan of Jesus, 412. Did he foretell it? 413. Explanation of the sign of Jonas, 414. If he had foretold his resurrection, it would have been expected by his disciples, as it evidently was not, 415. Vapidity of ghostly messages, 416. Those ascribed to Jesus not an exception, 418. The substance of the message was that the gospel was to be preached to all nations, 420. The early Christians disclosed that they knew nothing about any such message, 420. In the case of the centurion Cornelius, 420. In the controversy about admitting the heathen to the promises of the gospel, 421. Singularity of the opinions attributed to Jesus after his death, 423. His doctrine of baptism, 423. Of the Trinity, 423. Different schools of believers have injected their favorite dogmas into communications ascribed to Jesus after his death, 424. What was real in the resurrection of Jesus, 425.

Chapter XIII. Influence On Historic Christianity Of Paul And John, 427-471

Much of what is called Christianity the accretion of thought of the Christian ages, 427. Primitive Christianity to be studied in its scriptures,

428. The Synoptic Gospels unauthorized reports of unlearned men, 429. Primitive Christianity found, after Jesus, two men of marked ability to construct and propagate it, — Paul and the author of the Fourth Gospel,

429. In the expected crisis, no adequate provision made to record the life or sayings of Jesus, 430. Paul, — his ability, training, and mental and moral traits, 431. His genius, as disclosed in his speeches and letters, 431. Epistle to Romans his body of theology, 432. His speculations upon the resurrection, 432. His homily upon charity, 433. Two fragments of his speeches preserved in Acts, 434. His defects, 435. His false philosophy and bad logic, 435. His Jewish narrowness, 436. How he fitted the personality of Jesus to his scheme of the divine providence, 437. Paul the author of the Christian theology, 437. His scheme essentially Jewish, 438. Exalting Jesus to Heaven, he takes his place on earth as teacher of the Church, 438. His courage and love of leadership illustrated by his shipwreck, 439. Summary of the Pauline theologv, 441. Paul did not learn it of Jesus, 441. How he varied the ethical teachings of Jesus, 442. His attitude toward the State, 442 ; toward the rich, 442. He supplemented the teachings of Jesus, 442. Jesus a recluse and iconoclast, Paul a man of the world and compromiser, 443. Paul's ideas of woman and of marriage, 445. Advantage he gained over Jesus by getting into literature, 445. His influence, thwarted bv the pillar apostles, revives after his death, 446. Greatly dominant in Protestantism and since its rise, 446. With Paul's interpretation alone, Christianity a barren dogmatism, 446. A man of mystic insight and cipable of poetic emotion required to give it impulse, an 1 found in so-called John, 447. Purpose of Fourth Gospel didactic and not historic, 44S. A development of Pauline ideas 44S. Not written by John the apostle, 449. Its eschatologv unlike that of the Synoptics, 451. It composed controversies among the Christians, 452. More than Paul, the writer idealized Jesus, 453, 454. Like Paul, he apologizes for the Pharisees,

454. Vividness of its descriptions, 455. Deficiency of its dramatic power,

455. Defects of its style. Superfluous statement's; instances given, 456^

CONTENTS IX

Vulgar expletives,— instances given, 457. Quite foreign to the manner of Jesus, 457. Irrelevant and inconsequential reasons given for statements; instances, 458. Mixed metaphors; instances, 459. The writer incapable of true allegory, 459. Rudeness of language; instances, 459. Paucity of ideas and wealth of sentiment, 460. The writer quite capable of the best thoughts he imputes to Jesus; instances, 461. If Jesus said what the Fourth Gospel reports, he could not have uttered the Sermon on the Mount and the parables, 461. Theologic and philosophic ideas of Fourth Gospel, 462. Circumstances that enhanced its reputation, 463. A parallel in Shakspeare's dramatic "Henry VIII.," 465. It presents the heart of Jesus, 466. It was in the New Scriptures what the Psalms were in the Old. The author the forerunner of the mystics, 467. His work a free-handling of the annals of the Synoptics, — the beginning of all the rehabilitations of Christ, 468. Jesus the fountain-head of Christianity, Paul and John its two great rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, 468. Their methods to be adopted rather than their conclusions, 469. The form of Christian doctrine must not cramp the Christian spirit, 469. Christianity interrogated on the side of intelligence and of morality. It must answer wisely on both sides, or give place to a gospel that can answer, 470, 471,

Preface

It had been for many years a cherished purpose of the writer of the following chapters to examine, without prejudice or prepossession, the authentic documents in which are found the traditions of the origin of Christianity, and to ascertain what they indicate in reference to the character, opinions, and controlling purposes of Jesus. Engrossing occupation in professional employments, while requiring the postponement of the undertaking, better qualified for its successful performance, by knowledge acquired of the most approved methods of analyzing and formulating evidence, and of determining its probability and strength and the conclusions of fact which it compelled. The leisure of the last few years brought to the writer the opportunity to attempt the realization of a task which may perhaps be deemed beyond the scope of his scholarship and critical powers.

The many books upon the same subject that have appeared within the last few years in this country and in other countries, where thought is active and free, indicate that, so far from being exhausted, the life of Jesus has only begun to be studied. Most of these books have been written with the purpose, more or less confessed, of strengthening and confirming the devout prepossessions by which they were inspired. Of the fewer of them written in a historic spirit, and regarding Jesus,' his character, teachings, and influence as normal developments of a civilization that has advanced, not only by steady growth, but by strong impulses given to it by the incursion of great men and the spring-tide of great epochs, some have been m.irrc 1 by lack of method in their study and of consistency and probability in the character they have delineated; some by arbitrary marshalling of the traditions to support a fanciful mythical theory; and still others by the confession, everywhere virtually expressed in them, that the barren compliment of sentimental adulation was to be offered to a dethroned Deity in compensation for degrading him from the height of worship where reason had ceased to recognize him.

What seemed to be called for was a judicial and critical study of the traditions of Jesus, which should find, in the nobleness of his character and in the peculiar national sentiments of the race t> which he belonged, a reason for the daring ambition that drove him to the accomplishment of his destiny ; which should explain how a new religion, the element of excellence and permanence in which was its system of esoteric ethics, should have subjected its author, through the general disaffection of his countrymen, to a premature and cruel death, and what peculiar conditions of the world and what co-operating agency of kindred minds contributed to give new vitality to that religion, after it had been, apparently, overthrown by his murder and the scattering of his disciples. If the present attempt has to any extent outlined a chief person of human history, the incidents and issue of whose life flowed naturally, as other men's do, from the force of his character and the direction of his activity, whose dominant idea once understood gives a general consistency and symmetry to all his ideas and to all his conduct, some approach has been made to the naked veracity of history, even if men like Matthew Arnold, to whom what is rational and intelligible seems to be suspicious, should satirize the method as " rigorous and vigorous."