Footnotes
[1]. Renan, The Apostles, p. 67 and note 46.
[2]. Renan, Life of Jesus, introduction, p. 14; also New Witnesses, vol. I, chapter 1.
[3]. Renan, The Apostles, p. 37.
[4]. The Nineteenth Century, March, 1889.
[5]. The Nineteenth Century, June, 1889. Professor Huxley's papers quoted here will also be found in Agnosticism and Christianity, pp. 84, et seq. and 96 et seq.
[6]. Renan closes his treatise upon this subject as follows: "The glory of the resurrection, then, belongs to Mary of Magdala. After Jesus it is Mary who had done most of the foundation of Christianity. The shadow created by the delicate sensibility of Magdalene wanders still on the earth. Queen and patroness of idealists, Magdalene knew better than any one how to assert her dream, and impose on every one the vision of her passionate soul. Her great womanly vision: 'He has risen,' has been the basis of the faith of humanity. Away, impotent reason! Apply no cold analysis to this chef d'oeuvre of idealism and of love. If wisdom refuses to console this poor human race, betrayed by fate, let folly attempt the enterprise. Where is the sage who has given to the world as much joy as the possessed Mary of Magdala?"—The Apostles, p. 61.
[7]. Renan. He thus tells the story of the appearing of Jesus to the five hundred brethren at once: "More than five hundred persons were already devoted to the memory of Jesus. In the absence of the lost Master, they obeyed the chief of the disciples, and above all, Peter. One day when following their spiritual chiefs, the Galileans had climbed one of the mountains to which Jesus had often led them, they fancied they saw him again. The air on these mountain tops is full of strange mirages. The same illusion which had previously taken place in behalf of the more intimate of the apostles [he refers to the transfiguration, Matt. 17] was produced again. The whole assembly imagined that they saw the divine spectre displayed in the clouds; they fell upon their faces and worshiped." The Apostles, p. 76.
[8]. Renan. This is his "rational" (!) conception of the event: "One day when they were assembled together a thunder storm arose. A violent wind burst the windows open—the sky seemed on fire. Thunder storms in those countries are accompanied by wonderful illuminations; the atmosphere is furrowed, as it were, on every side with garbs of flame. Whether the electric fluid had penetrated into the very chamber itself or whether a dazzling flash of lightning had suddenly illuminated all their faces, they were convinced that the spirit had entered, and that he was poured out upon the head of each one of them under the form of tongues of fire." The Apostles, p. 95.
[9]. Renan, The Apostles, p. 98 et seq.
[10]. Thus Alexander Campbell in Millennial Harbinger, vol. II, (1831) pp. 86-96. Also Howe's Mormonism (1834). He thinks the Witnesses incompetent, "Nor will any one disagree with us, when we shall have proven that the Book of Mormon was a joint speculation between the 'Author and Proprietor.' [Joseph Smith is alluded to] and the Witnesses," ch. 7.
[11]. Mormonism and the Mormons, by Daniel P. Kidder, pp. 54, 55.
[12]. Prophet of the Nineteenth Century, p. 46.
[13]. Doc. and Cov. sec. 17.
[14]. Doc. and Cov. 5:24-26.
[15]. Hist. Illinois, (Ford) pp. 257-8.
[16]. The Mormon Prophet, by Lily Dougall, preface, p. 7.
[17]. History of the Church, vol. I, pp. 54, 55.
[18]. "The Founder of Mormonism. A Psychological Study of Joseph Smith, Jr., by I. Woodbridge Riley, one time instructor in English, New York University," (Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1902). It cannot be denied that Mr. Riley's book is an ingenious work, and bears evidence of wide erudition, and an intimate knowledge of the subject. Mr. Riley's treatise, a book of 426 pages, was offered to the Philosophical Faculty of Yale University as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. His materials were also used in 1898 for a "Master of Art" thesis on the "Metaphysics of Mormonism." The book has an introductory, preface, by Professor George Trumbull Ladd, of Yale University, commending the work by laudatory praise of it. The author himself explains that his aim is "to examine Joseph Smith's character and achievements from the standpoint of recent psychology." He makes a careful pathological study of the ancestors of the Prophet, and reaches the conclusion that Joseph Smith's "abnormal experiences" (meaning his visions, revelations and visitations of angels) are the result of epilepsy. This is his working hypothesis in accounting for Joseph Smith, supplemented by what he considers is the Prophet's unconscious liability to self-hypnosis, and his hypnotic power over others sufficient to make them partakers in his own vivid hallucinations. The hypothesis is an adroitly conceived one, and worked out on lines of sophistry that by many will be mistaken for sound reasoning. The whole theory is overthrown, however, by the work the Prophet achieved, the institution he founded, the Church, the religion he established, the philosophy he planted; all of which to madness would be impossible; besides, as remarked by M. Renan, "Hitherto it has never been given to aberration of mind to produce a serious effect upon the progress of humanity." Life of Jesus, p. 105.
An extended review of Mr. Riley's book will be found in the author's work, Defense of the Faith and the Saints, pp. 39-61.
[19]. The Founder of Mormonism, by I. Woodbridge Riley, pp. 226, 227, 228.
[20]. Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism, by Pomeroy Tucker, p. 75.
[21]. Mormonism Portrayed, by Rev. William Harris, pp. 410.
[22]. Mormonism, Kidder, pp. 52, 53.
[23]. Mormonism in all Ages, Turner, p. 178.
[24]. Mormonism, Its Leaders and Designs, by John Hyde, Jr., pp. 269, 270.
[25]. Mormonism, Its Leaders and Designs, by John Hyde, Jr., pp. 269, 270.
[26]. The Founder of Mormonism, pp. 228-231.