And the more the miraculousness of the story deepens, as after
     the death of Jesus, the more does the texture of the incidents
     become loose and floating, the more does the very air and aspect
     of things seem to tell us we are in wonderland.  Jesus after his
     resurrection not known by Mary Magdalene, taken by her for the
     gardener; appearing in another form, and not known by the
     two disciples going with him to Emmaus and at supper with him
     there; not known by His most intimate apostles on the borders
     of the Sea of Galilee; and presently, out of these vague
     beginnings, the recognitions getting asserted, then the ocular
     demonstrations, the final commissions, the ascension; one
     hardly knows which of the two to call the most evident here,
     the perfect simplicity and good faith of the narrators, or
     the plainness with which they themselves really say to us
     Behold a legend growing under your eyes!

Behold a legend growing under your eyes! Now, when we have to consider a miracle-story or a legend, it behoves us to look, if that be possible, into the times in which that legend is placed. What was the "time spirit" in the day when this legend arose? What was the attitude of the general mind towards the miraculous? To what stage of knowledge and science had those who created or accepted the myth attained? These are points that will help us signally in any attempt to understand such a story as the Gospel story of the Resurrection.





THE TIME SPIRIT IN THE FIRST CENTURY

A story emanating from a superstitious and unscientific people would be received with more doubt than a story emanating from people possessing a knowledge of science, and not prone to accept stories of the marvellous without strict and full investigation.

A miracle story from an Arab of the Soudan would be received with a smile; a statement of some occult mystery made by a Huxley or a Darwin would be accorded a respectful hearing and a serious criticism.

Now, the accounts of the Resurrection in the Gospels belong to the less credible form of statement. They emanated from a credulous and superstitious people in an unscientific age and country.

The Jews in the days of which the Gospels are supposed to tell, and the Jews of Old Testament times, were unscientific and superstitious people, who believed in sorcery, in witches, in demons and angels, and in all manner of miracles and supernatural agents. We have only to read the Scriptures to see that it was so. But I shall quote here, in support of my assertion, the opinions taken by the author of Supernatural Religion from the works of Dean Milman and Dr. Lightfoot. In his History of Christianity Dean Milman speaks of the Jews as follows:

     The Jews of that period not only believed that the Supreme
     Being had the power of controlling the course of Nature, but
     that the same influence was possessed by multitudes of subordinate
     spirits, both good and evil.  Where the pious Christian of the
     present day would behold the direct Agency of the Almighty, the
     Jews would invariably have interposed an angel as the author
     or ministerial agent in the wonderful transaction.  Where the
     Christian moralist would condemn the fierce passion, the
     ungovernable lust, or the inhuman temper, the Jew discerned
     the workings of diabolical possession.  Scarcely a malady was
     endured, or crime committed, which was not traced to the
     operation of one of these myriad demons, who watched every
     opportunity of exercising their malice in the sufferings and
     the sins of men.

Read next the opinion of John Lightfoot, D.D., Master of Catherine Hall, Cambridge:

  ... Let two things only be observed: (1) That the nation under
     the Second Temple was given to magical arts beyond measure;
     and (2) that it was given to an easiness of believing all
     manner of delusions beyond measure... It is a disputable
     case whether the Jewish nation were more mad with superstition
     in matters of religion, or with superstition in curious arts:
     (1) There was not a people upon earth that studied or attributed
     more to dreams than they; (2) there was hardly any people in
     the whole world that more used, or were more fond of amulets,
     charms, mutterings, exorcisms, and all kinds of enchantments.

It is from this people, "mad with superstition" in religion and in sorcery, the most credulous people in the whole world, a people destitute of the very rudiments of science, as science is understood to-day—it is from this people that the unreasonable and impossible stories of the Resurrection, coloured and distorted on every page with miracles, come down to us.

We do not believe that miracles happen now. Are we, on the evidence of such a people, to believe that miracles happened two thousand years ago?

We in England to-day do not believe that miracles happen now. Some of us believe, or persuade ourselves that we believe, that miracles did happen a few thousand years ago.

But amongst some peoples the belief in miracles still persists, and wherever the belief in miracles is strongest we shall find that the people who believe are ignorant of physical science, are steeped in superstition, or are abjectly subservient to the authority of priests or fakirs. Scientific knowledge and freedom of thought and speech are fatal to superstition. It is only in those times, or amongst those people, where ignorance is rampant, or the priest is dominant, or both, that miracles are believed.

It will be urged that many educated Englishmen still believe the Gospel miracles. That is true; but it will be found in nearly all such cases that the believers have been mentally marred by the baneful authority of the Church. Let a person once admit into his system the poisonous principle of "faith," and his judgment in religious matters will be injured for years, and probably for life.

But let me here make clear what I mean by the poisonous principle of "faith." I mean, then, the deadly principle that we are to believe any statement, historical or doctrinal, without evidence.

Thus we are to believe that Christ rose from the dead because the Gospels say so. When we ask why we are to accept the Gospels as true, we are told because they are inspired by God. When we ask who says that the Gospels are inspired by God, we are told that the Church says so. When we ask how the Church knows, we are told that we must have faith. That is what I call a poisonous principle. That is the poison which saps the judgment and perverts the human kindness of men.

The late Dr. Carpenter wrote as follows:

     It has been my business lately to inquire into the mental
     condition of some of the individuals who have reported the
     most remarkable occurrences.  I cannot—it would not be fair—
     say all I could with regard to that mental condition; but I can
     only say this, that it all fits in perfectly well with the
     result of my previous studies upon the subject, namely, that
     there is nothing too strange to be believed by those who have
     once surrendered their judgment to the extent of accepting as
     credible things which common sense tells us are entirely incredible.

It is unwise and immoral to accept any important statement without proof. HAVE THE DOCUMENTS BEEN TAMPERED WITH?

I come now to a phase of this question which I touch with regret. It always pains me to acknowledge that any man, even an adversary, has acted dishonourably. In this discussion I would, if I could, avoid the imputation of dishonesty to any person concerned in the foundation or adaptation of the Christian religion. But I am bound to point out the probability that the Gospels have been tampered with by unscrupulous or over-zealous men. That probability is very strong, and very important.

In the first place, it is too well known to make denial possible that many Gospels have been rejected by the Church as doubtful or as spurious. In the second place, some of the books in the accepted canon are regarded as of doubtful origin. In the third place, certain passages of the Gospels have been relegated to the margin by the translators of the Revised Version of the New Testament. In the fourth place, certain historic Christian evidence—as the famous interpolation in Josephus, for instance—has been branded as forgeries by eminent Christian scholars.

Many of the Christian fathers were holy men; many priests have been, and are, honourable and sincere; but it is notorious that in every Church the world has ever known there has been a great deal of fraud and forgery and deceit. I do not say this with any bitterness, I do not wish to emphasise it; but I must go so far as to show that the conduct of some of the early Christians was of a character to justify us in believing that the Scriptures have been seriously tampered with.

Mosheim, writing on this subject, says:

     A pernicious maxim which was current in the schools, not only
     of the Egyptians, the Platonists, and the Pythagoreans, but
     also of the Jews, was very early recognised by the Christians,
     and soon found among them numerous patrons—namely, that those
     who made it their business to deceive, with a view of promoting
     the cause of truth, were deserving rather of commendation than
     of censure.

And if we seek internal evidence in support of this charge we need go no further than St. Paul, who is reported (Rom. iii. 7) as saying: "For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto His Glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?" I do not for a moment suppose that Paul ever wrote those words. But they are given as his in the Epistle bearing his name. I daresay they may be interpreted in more than one way: my point is that they were interpreted in an evil way by many primitive Christians, who took them as a warranty that it was right to lie for the glory of God.

Mosheim, writing of the Church of the fifth century, alludes to the

     Base audacity of those who did not blush to palm their own
     spurious productions on the great men of former times, and,
     even on Christ Himself and His Apostles, so that they might
     be able, in the councils and in their books, to oppose names
     against names and authorities against authorities.  The whole
     Christian Church was, in this century, overwhelmed with these
     disgraceful fictions.

Dr. Giles speaks still more strongly. He says:

     But a graver accusation than that of inaccuracy or deficient
     authority lies against the writings which have come down to us
     from the second century.  There can be no doubt that great numbers
     of books were then written with no other view than to deceive
     the simple-minded multitude who at that time formed the great
     bulk of the Christian community.

Dean Milman says:

     It was admitted and avowed that to deceive into Christianity
     was so valuable a service as to hallow deceit itself.

Bishop Fell says:

     In the first ages of the Church, so extensive was the licence
     of forging, so credulous were the people in believing, that
     the evidence of transactions was grievously obscured.

John E. Remsburg, author of the newly-published American book, The Bible, says:

     That these admissions are true, that primitive Christianity
     was propagated chiefly by falsehood, is tacitly admitted by
     all Christians.  They characterise as forgeries, or unworthy
     of credit, three-fourths of the early Christian writings.

Mr. Lecky, the historian, in his European Morals, writes in the following uncompromising style:

     The very large part that must be assigned to deliberate
     forgeries in the early apologetic literature of the Church
     we have already seen; and no impartial reader can, I think,
     investigate the innumerable grotesque and lying legends that,
     during the whole course of the Middle Ages, were deliberately
     palmed upon mankind as undoubted facts, can follow the history
     of the false decretals, and the discussions that were connected
     with them, or can observe the complete and absolute incapacity
     most Catholic historians have displayed of conceiving any good
     thing in the ranks of their opponents, or of stating with common
     fairness any consideration that can tell against their cause,
     without acknowledging how serious and how inveterate has been
     the evil.  It is this which makes it so unspeakably repulsive
     to all independent and impartial thinkers, and has led a great
     German historian (Herder) to declare, with much bitterness,
     that the phrase "Christian veracity" deserves to rank with the
     phrase "Punic faith."

I could go on quoting such passages. I could give specific instances of forgery by the dozen, but I do not think it necessary. It is sufficient to show that forgery was common, and has been always common, amongst all kinds of priests, and that therefore we cannot accept the Gospels as genuine and unaltered documents.

Yet upon these documents rests the whole fabric of Christianity.

Professor Huxley says:

     There is no proof, nothing more than a fair presumption, that
     any one of the Gospels existed, in the state in which we find
     it in the authorised version of the Bible, before the second
     century, or, in other words, sixty or seventy years after the
     events recorded.  And between that time and the date of the
     oldest extant manuscripts of the Gospel there is no telling
     what additions and alterations and interpolations may have
     been made.  It may be said that this is all mere speculation,
     but it is a good deal more.  As competent scholars and honest
     men, our revisers have felt compelled to point out that such
     things have happened even since the date of the oldest known
     manuscripts.  The oldest two copies of the second Gospel end
     with the eighth verse of the sixteenth chapter; the remaining
     twelve verses are spurious, and it is noteworthy that the maker
     of the addition has not hesitated to introduce a speech in
     which Jesus promises His disciples that "in My name shall
     they cast out devils."

     The other passage "rejected to the margin" is still more
     instructive.  It is that touching apologue, with its profound
     ethical sense, of the woman taken in adultery—which, if
     internal evidence were an infallible guide, might well be
     affirmed to be a typical example of the teaching of Jesus.
     Yet, say the revisers, pitilessly, "Most of the ancient
     authorities omit John vii. 53—viii. 11."  Now, let any
     reasonable man ask himself this question: if after an
     approximate settlement of the canon of the New Testament,
     and even later than the fourth or fifth centuries, literary
     fabricators had the skill and the audacity to make such
     additions and interpolations as these, what may they have
     done when no one had thought of a canon; when oral tradition
     still unfixed, was regarded as more valuable than such
     written records as may have existed in the latter portion
     of the first century?  Or, to take the other alternative,
     if those who gradually settled the canon did not know of
     the oldest codices which have come down to us; or, if knowing
     them, they rejected their authority, what is to be thought
     of their competency as critics of the text?

Since alterations have been made in the text of Scripture we can never be certain that any particular text is genuine, and this circumstance militates seriously against the value of the evidence for the Resurrection.





CHRISTIANITY BEFORE CHRIST

If the story of Christ's life were true, we should not expect to find that nearly all the principal events of that life had previously happened in the lives of some earlier god or gods, long since acknowledged to be mythical.

If the Gospel record were the only record of a god coming upon earth, of a god born of a virgin, of a god slain by men, that record would seem to us more plausible than it will seem if we discover proof that other and earlier gods have been fabled to have come on earth, to have been born of virgins, to have lived and taught on earth, and to have been slain by men.

Because, if the events related in the life of Christ have been previously related as parts of the lives of earlier mythical gods, we find ourselves confronted by the possibilities that what is mythical in one narrative may be mythical in another; that if one god is a myth another god may be a myth; that if 400,000,000 of Buddhists have been deluded, 200,000,000 of Christians may be deluded; that if the events of Christ's life were alleged to have happened before to another person, they may have been adopted from the older story, and made features of the new.

If Christ was God—the omnipotent, eternal, and only God—come on earth, He would not be likely to repeat acts, to re-act the adventures of earlier and spurious gods; nor would His divine teachings be mere shreds and patches made up of quotations, paraphrases, and repetitions of earlier teachings, uttered by mere mortals, or mere myths.

What are we to think, then when we find that there are hardly any events in the life of Christ which were not, before His birth, attributed to mythical gods; that there are hardly any acts of Christ's which may not be paralleled by acts attributed to mythical gods before His advent; that there are hardly any important thoughts attributed to Christ which had not been uttered by other men, or by mythical gods, in earlier times? What are we to think if the facts be thus?

Mr. Parsons, in Our Sun God, quotes the following passage from a Latin work by St. Augustine:

     Again, in that I said, "This is in our time the Christian
     religion, which to know and also follow is most sure and
     certain salvation," it is affirmed in regard to this name,
     not in regard to the sacred thing itself to which the name
     belongs.  For the sacred thing which is now called the
     Christian religion existed in ancient times, nor, indeed,
     was it absent from the beginning of the human race until
     the Christ Himself came in the flesh, whence the true religion
     which already existed came to be called "the Christian."  So
     when, after His resurrection and ascension to heaven, the
     Apostles began to preach and many believed, it is thus written,
     "The followers were first called Christians at Antioch."
     Therefore I said, "This is in our time the Christian religion,"
     not because it did not exist in earlier times, but as having
     in later times received this particular name.

From Eusebius, the great Christian historian, Mr. Parsons, quotes as follows:

     What is called the Christian religion is neither new nor
     strange, but—if it be lawful to testify as to the truth—
     was known to the ancients.

Mr. Arthur Lillie, in Buddha and Buddhism, quotes M. Burnouf as saying:

     History and comparative mythology are teaching every day
     more plainly that creeds grow slowly up.  None came into the
     world ready-made, and as if by magic.  The origin of events
     is lost in the infinite.  A great Indian poet has said: "The
     beginning of things evades us; their end evades us also; we
     see only the middle."

Before Darwin's day it was considered absurd and impious to talk of "pre-Adamite man," and it will still, by many, be held absurd and impious to talk of "Christianity before Christ."

And yet the incidents of the life and death of Christ, the teachings of Christ and His Apostles, and the rites and mysteries of the Christian Church can all be paralleled by similar incidents, ethics, and ceremonies embodied in religions long anterior to the birth of Jesus.

Christ is said to have been God come down upon the earth. The idea of a god coming down upon the earth was quite an old and popular idea at the time when the Gospels were written. In the Old Testament God makes many visits to the earth; and the instances in the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythologies of gods coming amongst men and taking part in human affairs are well known.

Christ is said to have been the Son of God. But the idea of a son-god is very much older than the Christian religion.

Christ is said to have been a redeemer, and to have descended from a line of kings. But the idea of a king's son as a redeemer is very much older than the Christian religion.

Christ is said to have been born of a virgin. But many heroes before Him were declared to have been born of virgins.

Christ is said to have been born in a cave or stable while His parents were on a journey. But this also was an old legend long before the Christian religion.

Christ is said to have been crucified. But very many kings, kings' sons, son-gods, and heroes had been crucified ages before Him.

Christ is said to have been a sacrifice offered up for the salvation of man. But thousands and thousands of men before Him had been slain as sacrifices for the general good, or as atonements for general or particular sins.

Christ is said to have risen from the dead. But that had been said of other gods before Him.

Christ is said to have ascended into Heaven. But this also was a very old idea.

Christ is said to have worked miracles. But all the gods and saints of all the older religions were said to have worked miracles.

Christ is said to have brought to men, direct from Heaven, a new message of salvation. But the message He brought was in nowise new.

Christ is said to have preached a new ethic of mercy and peace and good-will to all men. But this ethic had been preached centuries before His supposed advent.

The Christians changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. Sun-day is the day of the Sun God.

Christ's birthday was fixed on the 25th of December. But the 25th of December is the day of the Winter solstice—the birthday, of Apollo, the Sun God—and had been from time immemorial the birthday of the sun gods in all religions. The Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Phoenicians, and Teutonic races all kept the 25th of December as the birthday of the Sun God.

The Christians departed from the monotheism of the Jews, and made their God a Trinity. The Buddhists and the Egyptians had Holy Trinities long before. But whereas the Christian Trinity is unreasonable, the older idea of the Trinity was based upon a perfectly lucid and natural conception.

Christ is supposed by many to have first laid down the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you." But the Golden Rule was laid down centuries before the Christian era.

Two of the most important of the utterances attributed to Christ are the Lord's Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount. But there is very strong evidence that the Lord's Prayer was used before Christ's time, and still stronger evidence that the Sermon on the Mount was a compilation, and was never uttered by Christ or any other preacher in the form in which it is given by St. Matthew.

Christ is said to have been tempted of the Devil. But apart from the utter absurdity of the Devil's tempting God by offering Him the sovereignty of the earth—when God had already the sovereignty of twenty millions of suns—it is related of Buddha that he also was tempted of the Devil centuries before Christ was born.

The idea that one man should die as a sacrifice to the gods on behalf of many, the idea that the god should be slain for the good of men, the idea that the blood of the human or animal "scapegoat" had power to purify or to save, the idea that a king or a king's son should expiate the sins of a tribe by his death, and the idea that a god should offer himself as a sacrifice to himself in atonement for the sins of his people—all these were old ideas, and ideas well known to the founders of Christianity.

The resemblances of the legendary lives of Christ and Buddha are surprising: so also are the resemblances of forms and ethics of the ancient Buddhists and the early Christians.

Mr. Arthur Lillie, in Buddha and Buddhism, makes the following quotation from M. Leon de Rosny:

     The astonishing points of contact between the popular legend
     of Buddha and that of Christ, the almost absolute similarity
     of the moral lessons given to the world between these two
     peerless teachers of the human race, the striking affinities
     between the customs of the Buddhists and the Essenes, of whom
     Christ must have been a disciple, suggest at once an Indian
     origin to Primitive Christianity.

Mr. Lillie goes on to say that there was a sect of Essenes in Palestine fifty years B.C., and that fifty years after the death of Christ there existed in Palestine a similar sect, from whom Christianity was derived. Mr. Lillie says of these sects:

     Each had two prominent rites: baptism, and what Tertullian
     calls the "oblation of bread."  Each had for officers, deacons,
     presbyters, ephemerents.  Each sect had monks, nuns, celibacy,
     community of goods.  Each interpreted the Old Testament in a
     mystical way—so mystical, in fact, that it enabled each to
     discover that the bloody sacrifice of Mosaism was forbidden,
     not enjoined.  The most minute likenesses have been pointed
     out between these two sects by all Catholic writers from
     Eusebius to the poet Racine... Was there any connection
     between these two sects?  It is difficult to conceive that
     there can be two answers to such a question.

The resemblances between Buddhism and Christianity were accounted for by the Christian Fathers very simply. The Buddhists had been instructed by the Devil, and there was no more to be said. Later Christian scholars face the difficulty by declaring that the Buddhists copied from the Christians.

Reminded that Buddha lived five hundred years before Christ, and that the Buddhist religion was in its prime two hundred years before Christ, the Christian apologist replies that, for all that, the Buddhist Scriptures are of comparatively late date. Let us see how the matter stands.

The resemblances of the two religions are of two kinds. There is, first, the resemblance between the Christian life of Christ and the Indian life of Buddha; and there is, secondly, the resemblance between the moral teachings of Christ and Buddha.

Now, if the Indian Scriptures are of later date than the Gospels, it is just possible that the Buddhists may have copied incidents from the life of Christ.

But it is perfectly certain that the change of borrowing cannot be brought against Augustus Caesar, Plato, and the compilers of the mythologies of Egypt and Greece and Rome. And it is as certain that the Christians did borrow from the Jews as that the Jews borrowed from Babylon. But a little while ago all Christendom would have denied the indebtedness of Moses to King Sargon.

Now, since the Christian ideas were anticipated by the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Romans, and the Greeks, why should we suppose that they were copied by the Buddhists, whose religion was triumphant some centuries before Christ?

And, again, while there is no reason to suppose that Christian missionaries in the early centuries of the era made any appreciable impression on India or China, there is good reason to suppose that the Buddhists, who were the first and most successful of all missionaries, reached Egypt and Persia and Palestine, and made their influence felt.

I now turn to the statement of M. Burnouf, quoted by Mr. Lillie. M. Burnouf asserts that the Indian origin of Christianity is no longer contested:

     It has been placed in full light by the researches of scholars,
     and notably English scholars, and by the publication of the
     original texts... In point of fact, for a long time folks had
     been struck with the resemblances—or, rather, the identical
     elements—contained in Christianity and Buddhism.  Writers
     of the firmest faith and most sincere piety have admitted them.
     In the last century these analogies were set down to the
     Nestorians; but since then the science of Oriental chronology
     has come into being, and proved that Buddha is many years
     anterior to Nestorius and Jesus.  Thus the Nestorian theory
     had to be given up.  But a thing may be posterior to another
     without proving derivation.  So the problem remained unsolved
     until recently, when the pathway that Buddhism followed was
     traced step by step from India to Jerusalem.

There was baptism before Christ, and before John the Baptist. There were gods, man-gods, son-gods, and saviours before Christ. There were Bibles, hymns, temples, monasteries, priests, monks, missionaries, crosses, sacraments, and mysteries before Christ.

Perhaps the most important sacrament of the Christian religion to-day is the Eucharist, or Lord's Supper. But this idea of the Eucharist, or the ceremonial eating of the god, has its roots far back in the prehistoric days of religious cannibalism. Prehistoric man believed that if he ate anything its virtue passed into his physical system. Therefore he began by devouring his gods, body and bones. Later, man mended his manners so far as to substitute animal for human sacrifice; still later he employed bread and wine as symbolical substitutes for flesh and blood. This is the origin and evolution of the strange and, to many of us, repulsive idea of eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ.

Now, supposing these facts to be as I have stated them above, to what conclusion do they point?

Bear in mind the statement of M. Burnouf, that religions are built up slowly by a process of adaptation; add that to the statements of Eusebius, the great Christian historian, and of St. Augustine, the great Christian Father, that the Christian religion is no new thing, but was known to the ancients, and does it not seem most reasonable to suppose that Christianity is a religion founded on ancient myths and legends, on ancient ethics, and on ancient allegorical mysteries and metaphysical errors?

To support those statements with adequate evidence I should have to compile a book four times as large as the present volume. As I have not room to state the case properly, I shall content myself with the recommendation of some books in which the reader may study the subject for himself.

A list of these books I now subjoin:

     The Golden Bough.  Frazer.  Macmillan & Co.
     A Short History of Christianity.  Robertson.  Watts & Co.
     The Evolution of the Idea of God.  Grant Allen.  Rationalist
Press Association.     Buddha and Buddhism.  Lillie.  Clark.
     Our Sun God.  Parsons.  Parsons.
     Christianity and Mythology.  Robertson.  Watts & Co.
     Pagan Christs.  Robertson.  Watts & Co.
     The Legend of Perseus.  Hartland.  Nutt.
     The Birth of Jesus.  Soltau.  Black.

The above are all scholarly and important books, and should be generally known.

For reasons given above I claim, with regard to the divinity and Resurrection of Jesus Christ:

     That outside the New Testament there is no evidence of any
     value to show that Christ ever lived, that He ever taught,
     that He ever rose from the dead.

     That the evidence of the New Testament is anonymous, is
     contradictory, is loaded with myths and miracles.

     That the Gospels do not contain a word of proof by any
     eye-witness as to the fact that Christ was really dead;
     nor the statement of any eye-witness that He was seen to
     return to life and quit His tomb.

     That Paul, who preached the Resurrection of Christ, did not
     see Christ dead, did not see Him arise from the dead, did
     not see Him ascend into Heaven.

     That Paul nowhere supports the Gospel accounts of Christ's
     life and teaching.

     That the Gospels are of mixed and doubtful origin, that they
     show signs of interpolation and tampering, and that they have
     been selected from a number of other Gospels, all of which
     were once accepted as genuine.

     And that, while there is no real evidence of the life or the
     teachings, or the Resurrection of Christ, there is a great
     deal of evidence to show that the Gospels were founded upon
     anterior legends and older ethics.

But Christian apologists offer other reasons why we should accept the stories of the miraculous birth and Resurrection of Christ as true. Let us examine these reasons, and see what they amount to.





OTHER EVIDENCES OF CHRIST'S DIVINITY

Archdeacon Wilson gives two reasons for accepting the doctrines of Christ's divinity and Resurrection as true. The first of these reasons is, the success of the Christian religion; the second is, the evolution of the Christlike type of character.

If the success of the Christian religion proves that Christ was God, what does the success of the Buddhist religion prove? What does the success of the Mohammedan religion prove?

Was Buddha God? Was Mahomet God?

The archdeacon does not believe in any miracles but those of his own religion. But if the spread of a faith proves its miracles to be true, what can be said about the spread of the Buddhist and Mohammedan religions?

Islam spread faster and farther than Christianity. So did Buddhism. To-day the numbers of these religions are somewhat as follows:

Buddhist: 450 millions.

Christians: 375 millions, of which only 180 millions are Protestants.

Hindus: 200 millions.

Mohammedans: 160 millions.

It will be seen that the Buddhist religion is older than Christianity, and has more followers. What does that prove?

But as to the reasons for the great growth of these two religions I will say more by and by. At present I merely repeat that the Buddhist faith owed a great deal to the fact that King Asoka made it the State religion of a great kingdom, and that Christianity owes a great deal to the fact that Constantine adopted it as the State religion of the Roman Empire.

We come now to the archdeacon's second argument: that the divinity of Christ is proved by the evolution of the Christlike type of character.

And here the archdeacon makes a most surprising statement, for he says that type of character was unknown on this globe until Christ came.

Then how are we to account for King Asoka?

The King Asoka of the Rock Edicts was as spiritual, as gentle, as pure, and as loving as the Christ of the Gospels.

The King Asoka of the Rock Edicts was wiser, more tolerant, more humane than the Christ of the Gospels.

Nowhere did Christ or the Fathers of His Church forbid slavery; nowhere did they forbid religious intolerance; nowhere did they forbid cruelty to animals.

The type of character displayed by the rock inscriptions of King Asoka was a higher and sweeter type than the type of character displayed by the Jesus of the Gospels.

Does this prove that King Asoka or his teacher, Buddha, was divine? Does it prove that the Buddhist faith is the only true faith? I shall treat this question more fully in another chapter.

Another Christian argument is the claim that the faithfulness of the Christian martyrs proves Christianity to be true. A most amazing argument. The fact that a man dies for a faith does not prove the faith to be true; it proves that he believes it to be true—a very different thing.

The Jews denied the Christian faith, and died for their own. Does that prove that Christianity was not true? Did the Protestant martyrs prove Protestantism true? Then the Catholic martyrs proved the reverse.

The Christians martyred or murdered millions, many millions, of innocent men and women. Does that prove that Christ was divine? No: it only proves that Christians could be fanatical, intolerant, bloody, and cruel.

And now, will you ponder these words of Arthur Lillie, M.A., the author of Buddha and Buddhism? Speaking of the astonishing success of the Buddhist missionaries, Mr. Lillie says:

     This success was effected by moral means alone, for Buddhism
     is the one religion guiltless of coercion.

Christians are always boasting of the wonderful good works wrought by their religion. They are silent about the horrors, infamies, and shames of which it has been guilty.

Buddhism is the only religion with no blood upon its hands. I submit another very significant quotation from Mr. Lillie:

I will write down a few of the achievements of this inactive Buddha and
the army of Bhikshus that he directed:

   1. The most formidable priestly tyranny that the world had ever seen
      crumbled away before his attack, and the followers of Buddha were
      paramount in India for a thousand years.

   2. The institution of caste was assailed and overthrown.

   3. Polygamy was for the first time assailed and overturned.

   4. Woman, from being considered a chattel and a beast of burden, was
      for the first time considered man's equal, and allowed to develop
      her spiritual life.

   5. All bloodshed, whether with the knife of the priest or the sword
      of the conqueror, was rigidly forbidden.

   6. Also, for the first time in the religious history of mankind, the
      awakening of the spiritual life of the individual was substituted
      for religion by body corporate.

   7. The principle of religious propagandism was for the first time
      introduced with its two great instruments, the missionary and
      the preacher.

To that list we may add that Buddhism abolished slavery and religious persecution; taught temperance, chastity, and humanity; and invented the higher morality and the idea of the brotherhood of the entire human race.

What does that prove? It seems to me to prove that Archdeacon Wilson is mistaken.





THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY?

What is Christianity? When I began to discuss religion in the Clarion I thought I knew what Christianity was. I thought it was the religion I had been taught as a boy in Church of England and Congregationalist Sunday schools. But since then I have read many books, and pamphlets, and sermons, and articles intended to explain what Christianity is, and I begin to think there are as many kinds of Christianity as there are Christians. The differences are numerous and profound: they are astonishing. That must be a strange revelation of God which can be so differently interpreted.

Well, I cannot describe all these variants, nor can I reduce them to a
common denominator. The most I can pretend to offer is a selection of
some few doctrines to which all or many Christians would subscribe.

   1. All Christians believe in a Supreme Being, called God, who
      created all beings.  They all believe that He is a good and
      loving God, and our Heavenly Father.

   2. Most Christians believe in Free Will.

   3. All Christians believe that Man has sinned and does sin against God.

   4. All Christians believe that Jesus Christ is in some way necessary
      to Man's "salvation," and that without Christ Man will be "lost."

      But when we ask for the meaning of the terms "salvation" and "lost"
      the Christians give conflicting or divergent answers.

   5. All Christians believe in the immortality of the soul. And I
      think they all, or nearly all, believe in some kind of future
      punishment or reward.

   6. Most Christians believe that Christ was God.

   7. Most Christians believe that after crucifixion Christ rose from
      the dead and ascended into Heaven.

   8. Most Christians believe, or think they believe, in the efficacy
      of prayer.

   9. Most Christians believe in a Devil; but he is a great many different
      kinds of a Devil.

Of these beliefs I should say:

1. As to God. If there is no God, or if God is not a loving Heavenly Father, who answers prayer, Christianity as a religion cannot stand.

I do not pretend to say whether there is or is not a God, but I deny that there is a loving Heavenly Father who answers prayer.

2 and 3. If there is no such thing as Free Will Man could not sin against God, and Christianity as a religion will not stand.

I deny the existence of Free Will, and possibility of Man's sinning against God.

4. If Jesus Christ is not necessary to Man's "salvation," Christianity as a religion will not stand.

I deny that Christ is necessary to Man's salvation from Hell or from Sin.

5. I do not assert or deny the immortality of the soul. I know nothing about the soul, and no man is or ever was able to tell me more than I know.

Of the remaining four doctrines I will speak in due course.

I spoke just now of the religion I was taught in my boyhood, some forty years ago. As that religion seems to be still very popular I will try to express it as briefly as I can.

Adam was the first man, and the father of the human race. He was created by God, in the likeness of God: that is to say, he was made "perfect."

But, being tempted of the Devil, Adam sinned: he fell. God was so angry with Adam for his sin that He condemned him and all his descendants for five thousand years to a Hell of everlasting fire.

After consigning all the generations of men for five thousand years to horrible torment in Hell, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, down on earth to die, and to go Hell for three days, as an atonement for the sin of Adam.

After Christ rose from the dead all who believed on Him and were baptised would go to Heaven. All who did not believe on Him, or were not baptised, would go to Hell, and burn for ever in a lake of fire.

That is what we were taught in our youth; and that is what millions of Christians believe to-day. That is the old religion of the Fall, of "Inherited Sin," of "Universal Damnation," and of atonement by the blood of Christ.

There is a new religion now, which shuts out Adam and Eve, and the serpent, and the hell of fire, but retains the "Fall," the "Sin against God," and the "Atonement by Christ."

But in the new Atonement, as I understand, or try to understand it, Christ is said to be God Himself, come down to win back to Himself Man, who had estranged himself from God, or else God (as Christ) died to save Man, not from Hell, but from Sin.

All these theories, old and new, seem to me impossible.

I will deal first, in a short way, with the new theories of the Atonement.

If Christ died to save Man from sin, how is it that nineteen centuries after His death the world is full of sin?

If God (the All-powerful God, who loves us better than an earthly father loves his children) wished to forgive us the sin Adam committed ages before we were born, why did He not forgive us without dying, or causing His Son to die, on a cross?

If Christ is essential to a good life on earth, how is it that many who believe in Him lead bad lives, while many of the best men and women of this and former ages either never heard of Christ or did not follow Him?

As to the theory that Christ (or God) died to win back Man to Himself, it does not harmonise with the facts.

Man never did estrange himself from God. All history shows that Man has persistently and anxiously sought for God, and has served Him, according to his light, with a blind devotion even to death and crime.

Finally, Man never did, and never could, sin against God. For Man is what God made him; could only act as God enabled him, or constructed him to act, and therefore was not responsible for his act, and could not sin against God.

If God is responsible for Man's existence, God is responsible for Man's act. Therefore Man cannot sin against God.

But I shall deal more fully with the subject of Free Will, and of the need for Christ as our Saviour, in another part of this book.

Let us now turn to the old idea of the Fall and the Atonement.

First, as to Adam and the Fall and inherited sin. Evolution, historical research, and scientific criticism have disposed of Adam. Adam was a myth. Hardly any educated Christians now regard him as an historic person.

But—no Adam, no Fall; no Fall, no Atonement; no Atonement, no Saviour. Accepting Evolution, how can we believe in a Fall? When did Man fall? Was it before he ceased to be a monkey, or after? Was it when he was a tree man, or later? Was it in the Stone Age, or the Bronze Age, or in the Age of Iron?

There never was any "Fall." Evolution proves a long slow rise.

And if there never was a Fall, why should there be any Atonement?

Christians accepting the theory of evolution have to believe that God allowed the sun to form out of the nebula, and the earth to form from the sun, that He allowed Man to develop slowly from the speck of protoplasm in the sea. That at some period of Man's gradual evolution from the brute, God found Man guilty of some sin, and cursed him. That some thousands of years later God sent His only Son down upon the earth to save Man from Hell.

But evolution shows Man to be, even now, an imperfect creature, an unfinished work, a building still undergoing alterations, an animal still evolving.

Whereas the doctrines of "the Fall" and the Atonement assume that he was from the first a finished creature, and responsible to God for his actions.

This old doctrine of the Fall, and the Curse, and the Atonement is against reason as well as against science.

The universe is boundless. We know it to contain millions of suns, and suppose it to contain millions of millions of suns. Our sun is but a speck in the universe. Our earth is but a speck in the solar system.

Are we to believe that the God who created all this boundless universe got so angry with the children of the apes that He condemned them all to Hell for two score centuries, and then could only appease His rage by sending His own Son to be nailed upon a cross? Do you believe that? Can you believe it?

No. As I said before, if the theory of evolution be true, there was nothing to atone for, and nobody to atone. Man has never sinned against God. In fact, the whole of this old Christian doctrine is a mass of error. There was no creation. There was no Fall. There was no Atonement. There was no Adam, and no Eve, and no Eden, and no Devil, and no Hell.

If God is all-powerful, He had power to make Man by nature incapable of sin. But if, having the power to make Man incapable of sin, God made Man so weak as to "fall," then it was God who sinned against Man, and not Man against God.

For if I had power to train a son of mine to righteousness, and I trained him to wickedness, should I not sin against my son?

Or if a man had power to create a child of virtue and intellect, but chose rather to create a child who was by nature a criminal or an idiot, would not that man sin against his child?

And do you believe that "our Father in Heaven, our All-powerful God, who is Love," would first create man fallible, and then punish him for falling?

And if He did so create and so punish man, could you call that just or merciful?

And if God is our "maker," who but He is responsible for our make-up?

And if He alone is responsible, how can Man have sinned against God?

I maintain that besides being unhistorical and unreasonable, the old doctrine of the Atonement is unjust and immoral.

The doctrine of the Atonement is not just nor moral, because it implies that man should not be punished or rewarded according to his own merit or demerit, but according to the merit of another.

Is it just, or is it moral, to make the good suffer for the bad?

Is it just or moral to forgive one man his sin because another is sinless? Such a doctrine—the doctrine of Salvation for Christ's sake, and after a life of crime—holds out inducements to sin.

Repentance is only good because it is the precursor of reform. But no repentance can merit pardon, nor atone for wrong. If, having done wrong, I repent, and afterwards do right, that is good. But to be sorry and not to reform is not good.

If I do wrong, my repentance will not cancel that wrong. An act performed is performed for ever.

If I cut a man's hand off, I may repent, and he may pardon me. But neither my remorse nor his forgiveness will make the hand grow again. And if the hand could grow again, the wrong I did would still have been done.

That is a stern morality, but it is moral. Your doctrine of pardon "for Christ's sake" is not moral. God acts unjustly when He pardons for Christ's sake. Christ acts unjustly when He asks that pardon be granted for his sake. If one man injures another, the prerogative of pardon should belong to the injured man. It is for him who suffers to forgive.

If your son injure your daughter, the pardon must come from her. It would not be just for you to say: "He has wronged you, and has made no atonement, but I forgive him." Nor would it be just for you to forgive him because another son of yours was willing to be punished in his stead. Nor would it be just for that other son to come forward, and say to you, and not to his injured sister, "Father, forgive him for my sake."

He who wrongs a fellow-creature wrongs himself as well, and wrongs both for all eternity. Let this awful thought keep us just. It is more moral and more corrective than any trust in the vicarious atonement of a Saviour.

Christ's Atonement, or any other person's atonement, cannot justly be accepted. For the fact that Christ is willing to suffer for another man's sin only counts to the merit of Christ, and does not in any way diminish the offence of the sinner. If I am bad, does it make my offence the less that another man is so much better?

If a just man had two servants, and one of them did wrong, and if the other offered to endure a flogging in expiation of his fault, what would the just man do?

To flog John for the fault of James would be to punish John for being better than James. To forgive James because John had been unjustly flogged would be to assert that because John was good, and because the master had acted unjustly, James the guilty deserved to be forgiven.

This is not only contrary to reason and to justice: it is also a very false sentiment.