[934] They vary in merit considerably; see some reproductions of the better ones in Bayet, L’art byz., Paris, 1892, ii, 3, and other similar works, especially Gori, op. cit. Specimens at South Kensington.
[935] Choricius of Gaza (c. 520) has left us an elaborate description of such a church interior and also of the frescoes in a palace. The whole has been republished by Bertrand in his work, Un art crit. dans l’antiq., Paris, 1882. Modern Greek churches are precisely similar, and those belonging to the monasteries of Mt. Athos are especially noteworthy; see Bayet, op. cit., iv, 2. Two can be inspected in London. That in Bayswater is a “Kutchuk Aya Sofia.” Walsh’s CP., Lond., 1838, has a good engraving; ii, p. 31. See also the striking mosaics of St. George’s, Salonica (Texier and P., op. cit.), the Pompeiesque style of which suggest an early date in church building—vistas of superimposed arcades raised on a forest of fantastically graceful, but impossible columns, architecture run wild in fact.
[936] “Du moment qu’il avait exécuté une composition dans la manière antique et qu’il y avait mis toute la splendeur de sa palette, il ne se demandait pas si le dessin de ses personnages était correct ou non, s’ils se trainaient bien sur leur jambes, s’ils étaient réellement assis sur une chaise ou un fauteuil, ou simplement appuyés contre ces meubles”; Kondakoff, op. cit., i, 108. Of existing MSS. with coloured miniatures, only some six or eight date back to these early centuries. Labarte’s Hist. des arts indust., Paris, 1892, with coloured facsimiles is the most satisfying work in which to study mediaeval art objectively. At South Kensington a variety of specimens are to be found, including ivories, enamels, paper casts of mosaics, reproductions of frescoes, etc., many of which go as far back as the sixth century.
[937] Oribasius, physician to Julian, seems to be the genuine father of bookmaking, the real prototype of the “scissors and paste” author, but he foreran the swarming of the brood by a couple of centuries.
[938] Gregory Nys., De Vit. S. Macrinae (in Migne, iii, 960). Whence it appears that it was unusual for them to be taught to apply themselves to the distaff or the needle. Maidenhood was mostly passed in luxury and adornment; Chrysostom, Qual. Duc. Sint Uxores, 9 (in Migne, iii, 239); in Epist. ad Ephes., iv, Hom. xiii, 3 (in Migne, xi, 97); cf. Jerome, Epist., 128, 130. The latter sets forth his ideas as to the training of a girl at some length. As soon as she has imbibed the first rudiments she is to begin psalm-singing and reading of prophets, apostles, etc. Later she should proceed to the study of the fathers, especially Cyprian, Athanasius, and Hilarius. She should spend much time in church with her parents, and must be guarded circumspectly from the attentions of the curled youth (cincinatti, calamistrati). She rises betimes to sing hymns, and employs herself generally in weaving plain textures. Silks and jewellery are to be rigorously eschewed; and the saint cannot reconcile himself to the idea of an adult virgin making use of the bath, as she should blush to see herself naked; Epist., 107. His remarks, of course, apply directly to life at Rome.
[939] From Jerome’s letter just quoted it appears that it was usual for girls to play on the lyre, pipe, and organ.
[940] See her life by Gregorovius, 1892. Her cento of Homeric verses applied to Christ is extant. To her inspiration most probably is due the foundation of the Auditorium at CP., and the prominence given to philosophy. Pulcheria was occupied in building churches and in disinterring the relics of martyrs.
[941] She is best known from the epistles of Synesius. Nothing of hers is extant. Murdered 415, wife or maid uncertain; see Suidas, sb. nom. She was scraped to pieces with shells, a mode of official torture peculiar to the Thebais, which may have been inflicted often on Christian ladies during Pagan persecutions. In other districts an iron scraper was used; Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., viii, 9; 3, etc.
[942] I need not refer more particularly to the phenomena of radio-activity and cathode rays, information concerning which has been exploited by every popular periodical. The atoms (electrons) which become visible in the low-pressure tube have been calculated to be of but 1∕800 the magnitude of the hydrogen atom, and many physicists are inclined to regard them as the first state of matter on its way to resolution into the formless protyle or ether.
[943] A great part of modern books on chemistry is now devoted to synthesis. Not only have such well-known organic substances as indigo, vanilla, citric acid, etc., been prepared artificially, but also those new articles of commerce, the aniline dyes, saccharine, etc. Numbers of new drugs for therapeutic experiment are synthetized annually in the great German laboratories of Bayer, Merck, etc.
[944] Especially suggestive are the ingenious experiments with ferments, which tend to show that the anabolic and katabolic activities of living matter may soon be imitated in the laboratory; see Buchner, Bericht d. deutsch. chem. Gesel., xxx, xxxi, xxxii; also recent physiological treatises in which are contained the speculations of Pflüger and others as to the “biogens” of protoplasm, etc. Most important of all is Loeb’s discovery of the possibility of chemical fertilization; see Boveri, Das Problem der Befruchtung, Jena, 1902.
[945] Archytas, with his flying wooden dove, was the most noted mechanician in this line; A. Gellius, x, 12, etc.
[946] Even windmills were unknown until they were introduced into Europe by the Saracens in the twelfth century.
[947] It appears that of late years a dearth of candidates for orders in every religious denomination of Christendom has been experienced, but this may be due merely to the usual poverty of the career. The Church should fall to principle not to poverty. And here we may catch a glimpse of the process by which the various Protestant sects may ultimately die out naturally: that young men of high character, ambitious of honourable distinction, will avoid a profession which entails an attitude of disingenuous reserve towards those whom they are deputed to instruct. On the other hand it may be foreseen that the Romish and Orthodox churches, upholding as they do a gross superstition and instituting the members of their priesthood almost from childhood, will retain their power over the masses for a much longer period, until at last they have to face suppression by force. Those who at the present time are engaged in impressing a belief in obsolete mythologies on the community should realize that they are doing an evil service to their generation instead of exerting themselves for the liberation and elevation of thought. However brilliant their temporary position, they deserve, much more than the oblivious patriot, to go down
[948] Grotius has made a large collection of those passages in classical and other ancient writers, which seem to support the creation-myth of Genesis; De Veritate Relig. Christ., i, 16. For the Chaldaean or Babylonian variations, and some earlier associations of Adam, see King’s Seven Tablets of Creation, Lond., 1903. It appears that the protoplast in the original account was created by Marduk, the tutelary deity of Babylonia, out of his own blood, a circumstance which the “priestly” redactor of Genesis has suppressed, together with many other interesting details; cf. Radau, Creation Story of Genesis i, Chicago, 1903. Margoliouth’s attempt to show that Abraham’s Jehovah was the male moon-god of Ur is interesting; Contemporary Review, 1896.
[949] In this country the subject of comparative mythology and the origin of theistic notions has been exhaustively treated by Herbert Spencer, Andrew Lang, J. G. Frazer, and others. Nevertheless, it cannot be determined whether the fear of ghosts or the innate bent of the human mind to speculate as to casuality is the germ of religious systems. Their development has, no doubt, always been much indebted to the ascendancy to be gained as the reward of successful imposture in such matters.
[950] Avowed atheists were rare among the Greeks, as there was always some personal risk in ventilating opinions which clashed with the popular superstitions. Some, however, incurred the odium of holding such views. Of these the most noteworthy was Diagoras, who is said to have impiously chopped up his image of Hercules to boil his turnips; Athenagoras, Apol., 4. The jaunty impiety of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse (c. 400 B.C.), was celebrated in antiquity. After pillaging the temple of the Locrian Proserpine, he sailed back home and, finding the wind favourable, remarked to his companions, “See what a fine passage the gods are granting to us sacrilegious reprobates.” He seized the golden cloak from the shoulders of Jupiter Olympus, observing that it was “too heavy for summer and too cold for winter, whereas a woollen one would suit him well for all seasons.” Noticing a gold beard on Æsculapius at Epidaurus, he removed it, saying, that it was “improper for him to wear it, since his father, Apollo, was always represented beardless.” Whenever in the temples he met with statues proffering, as it were, jewels and plate with their projecting hands, he took possession of the valuables, asserting that it “would be folly not to accept the good things offered by the gods.” The pious were aghast at the example of such a man enjoying a long and prosperous reign and transmitting the throne to his son; Cicero, De Nat. Deor., iii, 34; Lactantius, Div. Instit., ii, 4, etc. With a view to such instances, Plutarch wrote a treatise to prove that “the mills of God grind slow, but very sure.” Euhemerus and Palaephatus transformed mythology into history by a rationalizing process, assigning the origin to popular exaggeration of common occurrences.
[951] A system of verbal trickery originated with the Eleatics, of which Zeno (c. 400 B.C.) was the chief exponent. Their catches were generally ingenious; that disproving the reality of motion is best known—“If a thing moves, it must do so in the place in which it is, or in a place in which it is not; but it cannot move in the place in which it is, and it certainly does not move in a place in which it is not; therefore there is no motion at all;” Diogenes Laert., Pyrrho, 99, etc. See Plato’s Euthydemus for a sample of ridiculous word-chopping.
[952] There were six principal sects which achieved a sort of permanency and retained their vitality for several centuries. They may be characterized briefly: Academics (Plato), sceptical and respectable; Peripathetics (Aristotle), inquisitive and progressive; Stoics (Zeno of Citium, Chrysippus), ethical and intense; Cynics (Antisthenes, Diogenes), squalid, morose, and sententious; Epicureans, tranquil enjoyment and indifference; Cyreneans (Aristippus), pure hedonism with discretion. In general the Epicureans are wrongly associated with the last conception.
[953] Aristotle (c. 350 B.C.) was the first to perceive the importance of collecting facts and disposing them into their proper groups. Thus zoology, botany, anatomy, physiology, mineralogy, astronomy, meteorology, etc., began to take form in his hands, each being relegated to a separate compartment for consideration as a concordant whole and to receive future additions.
[954] Even with his limited outlook Aristotle had sufficient astuteness to divine that nature might become the “slave of man,” and expresses himself clearly to that effect; Metaphysics, i, 2. Such a claim may provoke a smile from the modern who reviews the mild conquests of the embryo science of his day.
[955] A few of their utterances may be quoted:
[956] From the Golden Verses of Pythagoras; Epictetus, iii, 10.
[957] Hence Socrates would not save his life by flight from Athens after his condemnation, although his friends had made everything secure for his escape; see the Crito.
[958] Plato, Gorgias, 55, etc.; Protagoras, 101, etc.
[959] Isocrates, Ad Nicoclem, 61. This maxim, in slightly differing forms, has been attributed to Confucius and many others. Pythagoras enjoined his disciples to love a friend as oneself; see Bigg, Christian Platonists, London, 1886, p. 242. “Love your fellow men from your heart,” says Marcus Aurelius, viii, 34.
[960] Cicero, De Officiis, iii, 8. In this treatise the author is for the most part merely voicing the sentiments of the Stoic Panaetius.
[961] Epictetus, ii, 2.
[962] Ibid., i, 18.
[963] Marcus Aurelius, xii, 12.
[964] Seneca, Epist., 47; De Beneficiis, 18, etc. To a master who ill-treats his servants Epictetus addresses himself: “Slave! can you not be patient with your brother, the offspring of God and a son of heaven as much as you are”; i, 13.
[965] Tuscul. Disp., ii, 17.
[966] Epist. 7.
[967] Lucian, Demonax.
[968] It was, however, prohibited early at Thebes; Aelian, Var. Hist., ii, 7.
[969] Pand., XXV, iii, 4; see Noodt’s Julius Paulus, etc., 1710. Aristotle upheld the custom without scruple; Politics, viii, 16.
[970] Then Valentinian proscribed it with a penalty, but the legislation was tentative, and the practice was scarcely suppressed until modern times; Cod. Theod., V, vii; Cod., VIII, lii, 2; cf. Lactantius, Div. Inst., vi, 20. It was palliated by the institution of the brephotrophia; see p. 82.
[971] Odyssey, xx, 55.
[972] See Lysias, Orat., Ὑπερ τοῦ ἀδυνάτου, etc., Plutarch, Aristides ad fin.
[974] Trajan appears to have established orphanages and homes for the children of needy parents; see Pliny, Panegyric., 27, etc. The fact is also indicated by coins (ALIMENTA ITALIAE), and a sculptured slab found in the Roman forum; Cohen, ii, p. 18; Middleton, Rome, etc., Lond., 1892, p. 346. Faustina, wife of Antoninus Pius, also busied herself in a similar way, as is evidenced by well-known coins (PUELLULAE FAUSTINIANAE); Cohen, ii, p. 433.
[975] Isis and Serapis, after a stormy career which lasted more than a century, became finally seated in the city under Vespasian; see “Isis” in Smith’s Classical Dictionary and similar works. But the greatest run was on Mithras, a sun-god extracted from the Persian mythology, who grew in favour from the time of Pompey until his worship reached even to the north of Britain. Quite a literature exists under his name at present; see Cumont, Mysteries of Mithras, Lond., 1903. For the account of a regular invasion of Syrian deities see Hist. August., Heliogabalus.
[976] Polybius complains of the rising scepticism at Rome in his time; vi, 56. I need not reproduce the oft-quoted lines of Juvenal (ii, 149), but the following are not generally brought forward:
Such unbelief, however, did not penetrate beyond the upper social stratum; and even at Athens in the second century those who scouted the ancient myths were considered to be impious and senseless by the multitude; see Lucian, Philopseudes, 2, etc. The voluminous dialogues of Cicero are sufficient to prove how practised the Romans had become in tearing the old mythology to pieces. But the pretence of piety was kept up in the highest places. “The soul of Augustus is not in those stones,” exclaimed Agrippina in a moment of vexation when she found Tiberius sacrificing to the statues of his predecessor; Tacitus, Ann., iv, 52.
[977] There were many grades of charlatans from Apollonius of Tyana, who seems to have been a genuine illusionist or mystic, to Alexander Abonoteichos, an impudent impostor, and Marcus, an infamous rascal; Philostratus, Vit. Apol.; Lucian, Pseudomantis; Irenaeus, i, 13.
[978] But he never left Rome and the duties were performed by Pomponius Flaccus; Tacitus, Ann., ii, 32; vi, 27, etc. Jn. Malala mentions one Cassius, p. 241.
[979] That is, sufferers from epilepsy, St. Vitus’s dance, mania, etc., diseases which might be cured by hypnotic suggestion, neuroses of various kinds. This popular fallacy was not held universally, but was derided by the more educated, including the medical faculty; see Philostorgius, viii, 10.
[980] Thus a century later, when a true messianic note was struck, half a million of Jews rushed frantically to destruction in the wake of Barcochebas, the leader of their revolt under Hadrian, though not without the satisfaction of dragging 100,000 Gentiles to their doom at the same time. Some exegetes are tempted to see in John, v, 4, an allusion to this war, and hence to find a date for that gospel (the bridge, via Philo Judaeus, between Judaeism and Hellenism), c. 140.
[981] Rufus (or Fufius) and Rubellius are probably meant; Lactantius, De Morte Persec., 2. See the differing statements in the Chronicles from Jn. Malala onwards; also articles on biblical chronology in recent encyclopaedias, Chron. of Eusebius, Consular Fasti appended to Chron. Paschal., etc. By the synoptical gospels the ministry of Jesus seems to have lasted one year only, but two, three, and even four years have been assumed from the later composition of John, e.g., in Jerome’s chronicle, sb. A.D. 33.
[982] It is, however, improbable that any Christian could have given a consecutive account of the life of Jesus prior to 120 or thereabouts. The newly-discovered Apology of Aristides seems to be the earliest evidence for the existence of gospels. It was presented to Hadrian, perhaps, c. 125. On the other hand First Clement, moored at 95, but with an incorrigible tendency to rise to 140, is clearly by a writer who possessed no biography, but merely Logia of Jesus.
[983] They were coated with inflammable matter, pitch, etc., and used for torches to illuminate the public gardens at night (Nov., 64); Tacitus, Ann., xv, 44; Suetonius, Nero, 16, etc.
[984] Dion Cass., lxvii, 14; Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., iii, 18, et seq.; cf. Lactantius, De Morte Persec., 3; Suetonius, Domitian. Clement, a cousin of this emperor, appears to have been put to death for being a Christian, and has been claimed by some as one of the first popes.
[985] Pliny, Epist., x, 97, 98. This correspondence and, indeed, the whole book which contains it has been stigmatized as a forgery by some investigators; see Gieseler, Eccles. Hist., i, 33, for refs. The same suspicion rests, in fact, on every early allusion to the Christians. It certainly seems strange that they should be such unfamiliar sectaries to Trajan and Pliny if they were well known at Rome under Nero and Domitian. Much less can we believe that in the destruction of Jerusalem Titus was actuated chiefly by a desire to extinguish Christianity, or that he had weighed the differences in theological standpoint between Jews and Christians; Sulp. Severus, Hist. Sacr., ii, 30. Such is history “as she was wrote” at that epoch. The whole evidence that Christians were popularly known and recognized politically during the first century is scanty and unsatisfactory. Trajan achieved a great reputation, which never died out even among the Christians, perhaps on account of the tolerant attitude attributed to him on this occasion. He was prayed out of hell by one of the popes along with one or two other noted pagans whom the Church was anxious to take under its wing.
[986] Hence the anti-Christian philosopher Celsus (c. 160) exclaims: “You say that no educated, wise or intellectual person need approach you, but only those that are ignorant, silly, and childish. In fact you are able to persuade the vulgar only, slaves, women, and children”; Origen c. Celsum, iii, 44.
[987] Minucius Felix, Octavius, 12, etc. Their gloomy austerity is strongly brought out by Tertullian in his tract De Spectaculis.
[988] Tertullian, De Idololatria, 17, et seq.; De Corona Militis, 11; Origen c. Celsum, viii, 55, 60, et seq. Not only did they refuse the quasi-divine honours to the Emperor, but they would not even join in the illumination and floral decoration of their houses required of all loyal citizens during imperial festivals; Tertullian, De Idololatria, 13, et seq.; Ad Nationes, i, 17; Theophilus, Autolycus, i, 11, etc. The causes of the unpopularity of the Christians can be studied very completely with the aid of Gieseler (Eccles. Hist., i, 41), who has brought together numerous extracts and references bearing on the subject. As was natural under the circumstances, atrocious libels began to be spread abroad against them, such as that they worshipped an ass’s head, that the sacrifice of new-born infants was a part of their ritual, etc.; Tertullian, Apology, 16; Minucius Felix, 9, etc.
[989] Origen c. Celsum, viii, the latter half especially. As early as 500 B.C. Xenophanes had said “God is the One,” but this was recondite philosophy which could not penetrate to the masses, and, if preached openly, would have aroused popular fanaticism; Aristotle, Metaphysics, i, 5.
[990] The prohibitive campaign was almost confined to Lyons and Vienne in Gaul; Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., v, 1, et seq. The animus against the Christians was so intense that slaves were even allowed to inform on their owners, ordinarily a criminal act; Pand., XLVIII, xviii, 1, 18, etc. The Acts of the Martyrdom of Polycarp (c. 155-161), after holding their ground so long, are now at last beginning to be classed as spurious; see Van Manen in Encyclop. Biblica, sb. Old Christ. Literat.
[991] See Tertullian’s Address to the Martyrs; also Cyprian’s restrained efforts to modify the reverence paid to them; Epist., 22, 83, etc.; cf. Eusebius, Martyrs of Palestine; Lactantius, De Morte Persec.; Neander, Church Hist., ii.
[992] Ten persecutions were reckoned by those who wished to make up a mystic number to accord with the ten plagues of Egypt, Revelat., xvii, etc., but the specification of them does not correspond in different writers. After a certain date, which cannot be accurately fixed, there was always local animosity against the sect, the practical issue of which varied relatively to the temper of the populace and the provincial governor; see Gieseler, i, 56.
[993] Lactantius, De Morte Persec., 48; Eusebius, Eccles. Hist., x, 5. Advanced critics, however, are now beginning to doubt the authenticity of this decree as presented by the Fathers of the Church; see Seeck, Gesch. d. Untergangs d. antiken Welt, 1895, ii, pp. 457, 460.
[994] At present it appears that some nourish a hope of the reality of miracles being still believed in by supposing them to have occurred as an “extension of the natural.” In this way it may become credible that cartloads of baked bread and cooked fish—vertebrate animals with all their physiological parts—suddenly sprang into existence out of the air. A travesty of the ridiculous, not an extension of the natural, is the more proper description of such assumptions. Natural phenomena, observed, but so far ill understood, lie in quite a different plane from contradictions of natural law in which consists the essence of legendary miracles.
[995] The more timorous critics still cling to one or two of the Epistles grouped together under the name of St. Paul, but the advanced school has decided to reject them in their entirety; see Van Manen, Encycl. Biblica, sb. “Paul.” I may exemplify the general discrepancy of views still prevailing in this field of research by a single illustration: “It has now been established that the latter (Epistles of Ignatius) are genuine”; Encycl. Britan., sb. “Gospels” and “Ignatius”: “certainly not by Ignatius”; Encycl. Biblica, sb. “Old Christ. Lit.” Such opposing statements will continue to be put forward as long as we have Faculties of Divinity at Universities filled by scholars who are constrained to treat historical questions in conformity with the requirements of an established ministry; and so long shall we be edified by the spectacle of men engaged in balancing truth and error in such a manner as to pretend not to be refuting the latter, so that in perusing their treatises we must either suspect their candour or distrust their judgement. Yet in not a few instances the men may be observed exulting amid the ruins of the fortress which they had entered to hold as an invincible garrison.
[996] A. D. Loman decided in 1881 that Jesus had not been a real personage, but he now thinks he went too far; Encycl. Biblica, sb. “Resurrection.” Edwin Johnson, author of Antiqua Mater, 1887, has marshalled the evidence against his existence very fully and fairly, but in some of his later work he has gone too far, and such exaggerated scepticism, while it may often amuse, can scarcely succeed in convincing. Jn. M. Robertson, author of A Short History of Christianity, 1902, and previous works of some magnitude from similar studies, argues on the same side. Havet says, “Sa trace dans l’histoire est pour ainsi dire imperceptible”; Le Christianisme, iii, 1878, p. 493. Bruno Brauer concludes that “the historic Jesus becomes a phantom which mocks all the laws of history”; Kritik d. evang. Geschichte, 1842, iii, p. 308; see also Frazer’s Golden Bough, 1900, iii, p. 186, et seq. Disregarding the Gospels, a form of narrative which could not be accepted by us as historical in connection with any other religion, the slight allusions to Jesus in known writers (Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius), are evidently mere hearsay derived from the Christians themselves. Hegesippus, a lost church historian (c. 170), gives some details as to the death of “James, the brother of the Lord,” and also states that some poor labourers of Judaea, for whom a descent from the Holy Family was claimed, were brought before Domitian and dismissed as of no account; fragments in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., iii, 20. Remarkable is the silence, in his voluminous writings, of Philo Judaeus, a philosophico-theological Jew of Alexandria, a prominent citizen, and a man of middle age at the time of the Crucifixion. So close to the scene itself he could scarcely have failed to have heard of any popular agitation centring round a Messiah at Jerusalem. When Augustus was told that Herod had executed two of his sons he observed that “it was better to be Herod’s pig than his son.” In ignorant repetition at a later date this remark was construed into an allusion to the slaughter of the innocents; Macrobius, ii, 4. Several (non-extant) Jewish historians, Justus Tiberiensis for example, made no mention of Jesus. Still worse is the case for the Apostles; they are not noticed outside the N. T. unless in Acts conceded on all hands to be apocryphal. Most singular is it that no descendants of theirs were ever known. Towards the middle of the second century when the Christians loom into view as a compact body of co-religionists we should assuredly expect to find relations of the Apostles, direct or collateral, moving with extraordinary prestige among the Saints on earth. But, beyond a vague allusion to two daughters of Philip (Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., iii, 39), there is no trace of any such individuals. The descendants of Mahomet alone were numerous a century after his death, but the Twelve proved as barren of progeny as if they had never existed. With respect to the canon of the N. T. it is known that it was formed almost as at present before the third century, a great many similar works being put aside as apocryphal or unsuitable. Those selected were altered to some extent to meet the requirements of doctrine; Origen c. Celsum, ii, 27; Dionysius of Corinth in Eusebius, op. cit., iv, 23, etc. They were, in fact, edited from time to time in the interests of orthodoxy or heresy, interchangeable terms, as is shown by Origen, Epiphanius, and Jerome; see Nestle’s Textual Criticism, Lond., 1899. Much of the Apocrypha remains to this day, including circumstantial accounts of the childhood of Jesus; see Clark’s Ante-Nicene Library, in which Tatian’s Diatessaron (c. 170, an Arabic version only remains), shows the absence of texts now found in the Gospels, especially that relating to the Church being founded on a rock (Peter). The striking likeness between the legend of Buddha (c. 500 B.C.), and the life of Jesus has been set forth by several Orientalists; see Seydel, Die Buddha-Legende und das Leben Jesu, 1884. The resemblance to early Egyptian folklore may be seen in Griffith’s High Priests of Memphis (story of Khammuas), 1900 (from recent demotic papyri). Some interesting questions are raised in Mead’s Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? (on Talmudic legends or libels). It must be borne in mind that scarcely a MS. of a classical author (excepting some scraps recently recovered in Egypt) exists, which has not passed the pen of monkish copyists. Hardouin taxes them with having forged nearly all patristic literature, both Greek and Latin. They had, he says, suitable materials for various ages, parchments, inks, etc., and executants who practised various styles of writing. In recording his conclusions he deprecates the accusation of insanity. Such is the deliberate verdict of a Roman Cardinal whose learning is indisputable, and whose discrimination in other matters has not been impugned; Ad Censur. Vet. Script. Prolegomena, Lond., 1766. At any rate the acknowledged forgeries make up an enormous bulk, Gospels, Acts, Epistles, laws, decretals, etc. It seems scarcely possible that the question as to the existence of Jesus and the Twelve can ever be definitely disposed of; and it must take its place beside such problems as to whether there was ever a Siege of Troy, a King Arthur, etc. In the cases of Pope Joan and William Tell, local and contemporary records were obtainable sufficiently comprehensive to prove a negative; but no evidence is likely to come to hand close enough to exclude the credible details of the Gospel narrative from the possible occurrences at Jerusalem during the period. The English reader now possesses in the Encyclopaedia Biblica, a repertory in which Biblical investigations are treated in a manner as free from bias and obscurantism as is attainable at the present time. Such a work has long been needed in English literature, and marks a national advance. But much more remains to be done, and within a score or two of years we may see such discussions take up a stable position between the advanced critics who still feel obliged to entertain some illogical propositions, and the rather wild free-lances who would dissipate all marvel-tainted evidence by their uncompromising scepticism, in which they sometimes do more harm than good by their disregard of critical sanity. By that time a liberal application of the critic’s broom will have swept many documents now held up to public respect into the limbo to which they properly belong.
[997] Previous to the overthrow of Biblical and other ancient cosmogonies by the extension of natural knowledge the historic inquiry as to the truth of supernatural religion was paramount. As recently as the fifties of the last century a sceptic, if asked to give reasons for his disbelief, might have answered that it was due to the absence of witnesses of known position and integrity to attest the occurrences; and that if such evidence were forthcoming he should certainly consider that Christianity rested on foundations which could never be shaken. Let us see whether it is in our power to prove that if a religion based on miracles could pass such an ordeal it would not necessarily even then hold an impregnable position. In 1848 certain phenomena, termed the “Rochester knockings,” occurring at a place in New England, impelled a wave of credulity as to spiritual manifestations throughout Christendom, which has not wholly subsided up to the present date. Prof. Robt. Hare, an eminent chemist and electrician, was attracted to investigate the matter with the firm intention of exposing the folly. But he became convinced instead, and by the aid of a lady who could produce “raps,” apparently unconnected with her person, he devised a code of signals from which resulted a couple of bulky volumes devoted by the professor to explicit details of the doings in, and the beauties of, the spirit-land, the whole recounted by deceased relations of his own; Spiritualism Scientifically Demonstrated, New York, 1855. But the spirits did not for long restrict themselves to merely audible signs; they responded generously to the attention paid to them and soon began to reveal their hands, faces, and even their whole persons for physical observation, often pelting the audience with flowers, presenting them with bouquets, and showing themselves to be accomplished musicians in the negro mode by performances on unseen instruments. Although their deeds were never dark, yet they always insisted on darkness as indispensable for the perpetration of them. In 1852, after the craze reached England, many men of academical and scientific repute observed and attested incredible phenomena, of which Prof. Challis of Cambridge said that, if the statements had to be rejected, “the possibility of ascertaining facts by human testimony must be given up.” Mr. A. R. Wallace, the congener of Darwin, became a convert, and bore witness to the miracles of Mrs. Guppy, her floral materializations, etc.; Modern Miracles and Spiritualism, 1874, etc. (I cannot omit to mention that this author, at one time at least, was an anti-vaccinationist). Sir W. Crookes, the celebrated scientist, had séances in his own house, where he walked and talked with a young lady from the Orient, dead a century before, subjected her to a quasi-medical examination, and possessed himself of a lock of her hair; Researches on the Phenomena of Spiritualism, 1870. The professors of Leipzig University received the celebrated medium, Dr. Slade, in their private study on several occasions, when he satisfied them of his ability to perform the impossible by producing untieable knots, passing matter through matter, and causing writing to appear on slates from invisible correspondents; Transcendental Physics, by Prof. Zöllner, Lond., 1883. Other observers who upheld the reality of spiritual achievements are Sir R. Burton, Mr. Cromwell Varley, F.R.S., Dr. Lockhart Robinson, Lord Lindsay, etc. The list of veracious witnesses is, in fact, a long one and a weighty. Yet all these eminent men have been deceived by cunning impostors. See the Reports of the Societies for Psychical Research, English and American, which have been issued regularly for nearly twenty years. Hallucinations, ghost-stories, and hypnosis have been exhaustively investigated, but no spirits have ventured to materialize themselves whenever conclusive tests were insisted on. At the most it has been demonstrated that telepathy, a kind of wireless telegraphy between brain and brain, may occur under favourable but rare conditions. Whenever trickery was excluded the pretended mediums were invariably unsuccessful. The redoubtable Dr. Slade, when he found that dupes failed him, retired from the profession, and shortly after, on meeting a friend who challenged him, replied, “you never believed in the old spirits, did you?” The absurdities which were effective among the credulous when their superstitions were appealed to were often a ludicrous feature. A stone picked up by the wayside and ejected adroitly from the medium’s pocket during a dance is looked upon as a supernatural occurrence. See Truesdell’s ridiculous exposure of Slade and other charlatans of that class; Bottom Facts of Spiritualism, N.Y., 1883. The career of an English impostor has been unveiled throughout by a confederate in Confessions of a Medium, Lond., 1882. The literature on both sides is very large and is still accumulating. Several spiritual journals are published with the support of thousands of believers in Europe and America, etc. This modern illustration teaches us very conclusively: (1) That had the Gospels come down to us as the acknowledged writings of some of the best known and trustworthy men of antiquity, their contents would still have to be discredited as originating in fraud or illusion: (2) That devotion to a branch of science, or even to science generally, is not essentially productive of any critical insight into matters theological or professedly supernatural: (3) That phenomena of cerebration, normal, aberrant, and perhaps supranormal (exalted sensitiveness), may easily be utilized for purposes of imposture; and are a proper subject for methodized psychical study. Since a contemporary religion, supported by a mass of direct and definite evidence thus collapses before a strict scrutiny, we must ask what truth could reside in those generated in the womb of Oriental mysticism, for which no solid foundations can be perceived? When we see that even scientists do not always succeed in persuading themselves that nothing is credible but fact, quod semper, quod ubique, quod omnibus demonstrabile sit, how little reliance can be placed on popular reports and unauthentic tracts. Even if we had not spiritualism to hand, a practically similar lesson might be taught from a consideration of Shakerism, Mormonism, Harris’s Brotherhood of the New Life, the Zion Restoration Host, with its reincarnated Elijah, etc. See Oxley’s Modern Messiahs, 1889, for many interesting details as to popular illusionists who have assumed the prophet’s mantle.