Part 11 (2/2)

1. We are restricted to four, if not three, short biographies, accredited to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, only two of whom, Matthew and John, were mentioned among the disciples of Jesus.

2. That these sketches were written by those whose names they bear is not supported by a particle of proof, but, on the other hand, there is strong evidence that they were not written by the persons to whom they are credited; and this is especially true in regard to Matthew and John. Strictly speaking, our Gospels are anonymous.

3. These doc.u.ments are without date, both as to the time in which they are written and the place of writing, and there is no proof of their existence until more than one hundred and fifty years after the alleged occurrence of the things recorded.

4. That these four Gospels were selected from many other writings most of which have been lost or destroyed.

5. That the men who made our four Gospels canonical, and rejected all the rest, were for the most part narrow, bigoted partisans, and had good reasons of a selfish nature to reject whatever did not favor their ambitious designs.

6. We have no proof that the four Gospels made canonical by the early ecclesiastical councils were the original writings of the evangelists, even if we were sure that they wrote anything, nor have we any proof that the copies adopted were genuine and authentic and the best then extant.

7. We have no proof that the copies we have are accurate copies of the ones adopted by the councils, but we have proof positive, admitted by the New Version-ists of 1881, that they contain many interpolations and additions and many evidences of forgeries and alterations by the ignorant, designing, and selfish ecclesiastics of the mediaeval centuries known as the Dark Ages.

8. That the Authorized Version read in the churches and in our families is based upon MSS. dating from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, and that only fragmentary MSS. and unauthenticated copies are now in existence, dating from the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries.

9. That the copies we have bound up in our New Testament contradict themselves and one another in a great many particulars, and contain many statements which are geographically, historically, and philosophically absurd and incredible.

10. That, therefore, our Gospels are of uncertain authority and of undoubted human origin, and are to be so regarded without a doubt.

Now, it will be said that this is an infidel attack upon the New Testament, and that it tends to the overthrow of the only religion that can do the world any good. And yet, strange as it may appear, these facts are presented in the best interests of true religion-presented because they are true, and therefore best adapted, nay absolutely essential, to the successful defense and propagation of virtue and morality.

The real infidels of the day are the theological liars and pretenders who are wilfully ignorant, or too dishonest and cowardly to publish what they know. Infidelity is breach of trust, disloyalty to truth. He who would do the most good must tell the whole truth. If we regard the Gospels as simple compilations from earlier doc.u.ments and traditions, with occasional additions and alterations to meet occasions and times, we shall find in them very many things to admire and to adopt into our problems of life and systems of morals, many things worthy of imitation, many things to give courage and comfort in the struggle for existence, many things which would be just as true and just as useful if they had only been written yesterday by some one whom we have known from our childhood.

Regarding the Gospels as human, we can excuse their absurdities and errors, and while we cast these errors aside we joyfully accept what is true and good and beautiful; but by claiming for them what they are not we bring even what is true into disrepute.

It was a master-stroke of worldly wisdom and policy when Irenaeus in the second century (who first mentioned our four Gospels) sanctioned the monstrous a.s.sumption of all ecclesiastical authority by divine right by the bishops and priests, which power soon became centralized at Rome; but it was the greatest misfortune of the ages for the cause of true religion and sound morality. It not only made the Church of Rome with its immense machinery a necessary result, but it made the not less false systems of Protestant dogmatic theology possible. There is no use in attempting to disguise the fact that the so-called scheme of redemption is in principle and substance the same in the Catholic and orthodox Protestant Churches. Many intelligent persons feel that they would as soon belong to one as the other, while they secretly regard the Romanists as logically the more consistent.

The Romanists are strong in that they place the Church _first (jure divino)_ and make the scriptures the product of the Church, and of course subject to its interpretation. Protestants are weak in that they make the Church subject to written scriptures, which were selected by the founders of _Catholicism_, and then for centuries altered, forged, interpolated, and manipulated by popes and priests to strengthen their authority and secure the absolute submission of the people.

The one fatal blunder of the Protestant Reformers was to found their system of theology upon a written book of the origin of which so little is known, and yet regarding which so much is known that it is impossible for persons of a rational, judicial mind to accept it as an infallible supernatural revelation.

The conclusion is inevitable that in the absence of everything that, by even a strain of language, can be called _evidence_ as to the genuineness and authenticity, of our Gospels we cannot safely accept them as an infallible authority in religious matters. We have a right to examine them critically, just as we would read and study any other ancient writings of uncertain authors.h.i.+p and date.

The Reformation was in part the subst.i.tution of a _book_ which was p.r.o.nounced _infallible_, but which has proved to be very _fallible_, for a Church which claimed infallibility, but which had shown itself not only very fallible, but exceedingly corrupt and dangerous. Infallibility belongs to neither men nor books. Infallibility in books is an absurdity. A religion founded upon a printed book must submit to examination of both the origin and character of that book, and must shoulder the imperfections and errors which the discoveries of modern research have fully exposed. The principles of true religion inherent in human nature, an ineradicable const.i.tuent of the const.i.tution of man, as has been shown, are to-day obscured and shackled by the false position in which its professed friends have placed it. It will be shown before these papers are concluded that a religion manacled by a printed book claiming infallibility, and made to depend solely upon an _historical character_ who, if admitted to be historical, wrote nothing himself and commissioned no one to write anything for him, and of whose verbal teachings and actual mode of life we can never be sure,-a religion thus enc.u.mbered must suffer great loss, if not total failure, as men shall progress in knowledge and science shall uncover the past and demonstrate the absurdities of the superst.i.tious dogmas of the ancient faiths. It is impossible to compress the largest brains of the nineteenth century into the smallest skulls of the twelfth century. The true friend of religion is the fearless man who dares attempt to rescue it from the accretions and perversions of the Dark Ages, and to establish its eternal principles of truth and righteousness in the very nature of man, in the elevation of moral character, in strict agreement with the demonstrated facts of the present, as opposed to the bigoted and degrading fancies of the past. To defend religion from the follies of its mistaken champions, and show that its foundations are secure and its ultimate triumph certain, may now be denounced as treason to the Church, but in coming years it will be seen to have been the work of men of whom the Church of to-day is not worthy.

The fact is, very little is known of the New Testament, but too much is well known to receive it in _evidence_ in a matter of so much importance. The narratives it contains would be _ruled out of court_ in any civilized country on the globe. It is evidently a huge _compilation_ of what was at best only _traditions_ among the nations of the earth, and even these traditions, mixed and mangled as they are, must have another and a more rational explanation than an historical or a literal one. This book _cannot be an infallible divine revelation_. Let us see whether we cannot find out what was really intended to be taught by the different writers.

CHAPTER X. THE DRAMA OF THE GOSPELS

_”Great is the mystery of G.o.dliness.”-1 Tim. 3:16._

_”We speak the wisdom of G.o.d in a mystery.”-1 Cor. 2:7._

_”I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.”-1 Cor. 10:15._

IN early times every prominent religious teacher had his own gospel, as Paul a.s.serts that he had his. The books that were canonized did not by any means shape the belief of the early Christians, but, on the contrary, their beliefs shaped the character of the books. ”The question of a 'Catholic canon,'” says Professor Davidson, ”was realized about the same time as the idea of a Catholic Church.” The partisans.h.i.+p, low trickery, and mob violence by which votes of councils were obtained to establish ecclesiastical dogmas, the canonicity of Scriptures, etc., were such as now-a-days characterize a political meeting in the slums of an American city.

While, therefore, we quote the statements of the Gospels to prepare the way for the presentation of our points of argument, we do so only for convenience. They cannot, by any rule of sound criticism, testimony of contemporary writers, or even of spiritual discernment, be accepted as historical.

The composition of the four Gospels indicates in many ways that they were originally collections of _religious stories_, each of which has a moral of its own, like the fables of aesop, or, more properly, the narratives concerning Buddha given in the _Dhammapada_. This was a common mode of writing in early times. History and biography were hardly considered. Hence contradictions of verbal statement were not counted as of any importance. This is probably the reason why the transcribers neglected to remove the conflicts of statement and other inaccuracies that abound in the Gospels.

It is also more than probable that many parts of these works which have a narrative form were later interpolations. The first two chapters of Matthew and the first two in the Gospel according to Luke are unequivocally of this character. The style and diction are conspicuously unlike the language of the other parts of those works, as will appear on the slightest notice.

The oldest parts of the New Testament are the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, and Thessalonians. We will do well, therefore, to study them a little while by themselves, without reference to the Gospels and other doc.u.ments, which were of later date. Paul a.s.serts that he possessed and promulgated a gospel distinct and different from others, and he p.r.o.nounced an anathema on the man or angel that should teach any different one. The way that he became possessed of it he sets forth as follows: He had no conference with any human being whatsoever about the matter, nor had he anything to do with those who were apostles before him, but he went into Arabia and afterward to Damascus. A hint is furnished by Josephus in his history of his own life which throws some light upon the purpose of this sojourn in Arabia.

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