Collected Essays, Volume V / Science and Christian Tradition: Essays

ubt that such are heretics. Ever since the thirteenth century, the Inquisition would have cheerfully burned, and in Spain did abundantly burn, all persons who came under

ccount of his doctrine of the inferior godship of the Logos; while I am very much afraid that, in strict logic, Dr.

twenty, or five-and-twenty years after the crucifixion. If this is so, the Epistle to the Galatians is one of the oldest, if not the very oldest, of extant documentary evidences of the state of the primitive Church. And, be it observed, if it is Paul's writing, it unques

efiant sarcasms against those who were "reputed to be pillars": James "the brother of the Lord," Peter, the rock on whom Jesus is said to have built

nts," and anathematises every one who preaches to the Galatians any other gospel than his own. That is to say, by direct consequence, he anathematises the Nazarenes of Jerusalem, whose zeal for the Law is testified by James in a passage of the Acts cited further on. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians, dealing with the question of eating meat offered to idols, it is clear that Paul himself thinks it a matter of indifference; but he advises that it should not he done, for the sake of the weaker brethren. On the other hand, the Nazarenes of Jerusalem most strenuously opposed Paul's "gospel," insisting on every convert becoming a regular Jewish proselyte, and consequently on his observance of the whole Law; and this party was led by James and Peter and John

and John, were strict Jews, who had objected to admit any converts into their body, unless these, either by birth, or by becoming proselytes, were also strict Jews. In fact, the sole difference between James and Peter and John, with the body of the disciples whom they l

none the less instructive on this account. The judgment of the "council" delivered by James is that the Gentile converts shall merely "abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood and from things strangled, and from fornication." But notwithstanding the accommodation in which the writer of the Acts would have us believe, the Jerusalem Church held

and they are all zealous for the law; and they have been informed concerning thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among

ld perform a certain public religio

of they have been informed concerning thee; but that thou

the Galatians and Corinthians, I may leave any candid reader of these epistles to decide. The point to which I wish to direct attention is the declaration that the

hear the latter called a "ringleader of the sect of Anglicans." In fact, "Nazarene" was, as is well known, the distinctive appellation applied to Jesus; his immediate followers were known as Nazarenes; while the congregation of the disciples, and, later, of converts at Jerusalem-the Jerusalem Church-was em

observe the Law, believe Jesus to be the Christ, but who insist on the observance of the Law by Gentile converts," up till the time at which the controversy reported by Paul arose. They then, according to Paul, simply allowed him to form his congregations of non-legal Gentile converts at Antioch and elsewhere; and i

h is at the extreme right of the series in the nineteenth century, was at the extreme left just before the middle of the first century, when the "sect of the Nazarenes" constituted the whole church founded by Jesus and the apostles; while, in the time of Justin, it lay mid-way between the two. It is therefore a profound mistake to imagine that the Jud?o-Christians (Nazarenes and Ebionites) of la

e last commands of Jesus, issued at the moment of his parting with the eleven. If so, Peter and John must have heard these words; they are too plain to be misunderstood; and the occasion is too solemn for them ever to be forgotten. Yet the "Acts" tells us that Peter needed a vision to enable him so much as to baptize Cornelius; and Paul, in the Galatians, knows nothing of words which would have completely borne

most assuredly, Matthew was no dullard; and as for the fourth gospel-a theosophic romance of the first order-it could have been written by none but a man of remarkable literary capacity, who had drunk deep of Alexandrian philosophy. Moreover, the doctrine of the writer of the fourth gospel is more remote from that of the "sect of the Nazarenes" than is that of Paul himself. I am quite aware that orthodox critics have been capable of maintaining that John, the Nazarene, who was probably well past fifty years of age, when

is offensive to fervid religionists of all creeds. To the Sadducees, no doubt, the political danger of any Messianic movement was serious; and they would have been glad to put down Nazarenism, lest it should end in useless rebellion against their Roman masters, like that other Galilean movement headed by Judas, a generation earlier. Galilee was always a hotbed of seditious enthusiasm against the rule of Rome; and high priest and procurator alike had need to keep a sharp eye upon natives of that district. On the whole, however, the Nazarenes were but little troubled for the first twenty years of their existence; and the undying hatred of the Jews against those later converts, whom they regarded as apostates and fautors of a sha

d the advocate of equity, of love, and of humility; that he may have disregarded the subtleties of the bigots for legal observance, and appealed rather to those noble conceptions of religion which constituted the pith and kernel of the teaching of the great prophets of his nation seven hundred years earlier; and that, in the last scenes of his career, he may have embodied the ideal sufferer of Isaiah,

which Jesus is made to prophesy, over and over again, in the Synoptic gospels; and which dominated the life of Christians during the first century after the crucifixion;-if h

ion to lose will say that he believes the Gadarene story," it appears that I

but I repeat that I believe it, and that he has re

by Dr. Wace when he solemnly affirms that he believes the Gadarene story on the evidence offered. I feel less complimented perhaps than I ought to do, when I am told that I have been an accomplice in extinguishing in Dr. Wace's mind the last glimmer of doubt which common sense may have suggested. In fact, I must disclaim all responsibility for the use to which the inform

the latter there are two. The story is told fully, with the vigorous homely diction and the picturesque details of a piece of folklore, in the second gospel. The immediately antecedent event is the storm on the Lake of Gennesaret. The immediately consequent events are the message from the ruler of the synagogue and the healing of

from it by the accounts of the healing of a paralytic, of the calling of Matthew, and of a discussion with some Pharisees. Again, while the second gospel speaks of the countr

the corresponding passages in the other two gospels. The most unabashed of reconcilers cannot well say that one man is the same as two, or two as one; and, though the suggestion really has been made, that two different miracles, agreeing in all essential

of his school protest so warmly; not only is all question of inspiration at an end, but the further inquiry arises, After all, is it the testimony of two against one? Are the authors of the versions in the second and third gospels really independent witnesses? In order to answer this question, it is only needful to place the English versions of the two side by side, and compare them carefully. It will then be seen that the coincidences between them, not merely in substance, but in arran

adition, what is the value of their agreement, even that something more or less like this particular miracle occurred, since it is demonstrab

e, by whomsoever made. So that, if Dr. Wace is right in his belief, he is also quite right in classing me among the people he calls "infidels"; and although I cannot fulfil the eccentric expectation that I shall glory in a title which, from my point of view, it would be simply silly to adopt, I certainly shall rejoice not to be reckoned among "Christians" so long as the profession of belief in such stories as the Gadarene pig affair, on the st

TNO

must content myself with warning my readers against any reliance upon Dr. Wace's statements as

ought, perhaps, to be a

stronomy. Zeller's Vortr?ge und Abhandlungen were published and came into my hands a quarter of a century ago. The writer's rank, as a theologian to begin with, and subsequently as a historian of Greek philosophy, is of the highest. Among these essays are two-Das Urchirstenthum and Die Tübinger historische Schule-whic

he supposition of an Ur-Marcus (p. 367). That a "theologian of repute" should confound an indisputable fact with one of th

passed through such painful experiences I may recommend the brief discussion of the genuineness of the "Casket Letters" in my friend Mr. Skelton's interesting book, Maitland of Lethington. The second edition of Holtzmann's Lehrbuch, published in 1886, gives a remarkably fair and full account of the present r

to the "Sermon on the Plain" immediately after the words of our present Mark, "And he cometh into a house" (iii. 19). But what conceivable motive could "Mark" have for omitting

chte des jüdischen Volke

sit in it "on the right side" (xv. 5), an

supposing the resurrection of John the Baptist-"

it makes whether one "believes Jesus" or "believes in Jesus" much thought has not enabled me to discover. If you "believe him" you mu

ritics, who more or less question the historical reality of

is to be understood that Justin does not arra

at even the four cardinal epistles of Paul may not have

m, an act of the same character as that which he bran

Ritschl nearly forty years ago. See Die Entstch

be the Messiah, the first Christians can have been aware of no other

brought forward no new doctrine;" and again (p. 65), "It is not difficult to set against every portion of th