Phases of Faith; Or, Passages from the History of My Creed

by Francis William Newman

CHAPTER VII.

ON THE MORAL PERFECTION OF JESUS.

Let no reader peruse this chapter, who is not willing to enter into a discussion, as free and unshrinking, concerning the personal excellencies and conduct of Jesus, as that of Mr. Grote concerning Socrates. I have hitherto met with most absurd rebuffs for my scrupulosity. One critic names me as a principal leader in a school which extols and glorifies the character of Jesus; after which he proceeds to reproach me with inconsistency, and to insinuate dishonesty. Another expresses himself as deeply wounded that, in renouncing the belief that Jesus is more than man, I suggest to compare him to a clergyman whom I mentioned as eminently holy and perfect in the picture of a partial biographer; such a comparison is resented with vivid indignation, as a blurting out of something "unspeakably painful." Many have murmured that I do not come forward to extol the excellencies of Jesus, but appear to prefer Paul. More than one taunt me with an inability to justify my insinuations that Jesus, after all, was not really perfect; one is "extremely disappointed" that I have not attacked him; in short, it is manifest that many would much rather have me say out my whole heart, than withhold anything. I therefore give fair warning to all, not to read any farther, or else to blame themselves if I inflict on them "unspeakable pain," by differing from their judgment of a historical or unhistorical character. As for those who confound my tenderness with hypocrisy and conscious weakness, if they trust themselves to read to the end, I think they will abandon that fancy.

But how am I brought into this topic? It is because, after my mind had reached the stage narrated in the last chapter, I fell in with a new doctrine among the Unitarians,—that the evidence of Christianity is essentially popular and spiritual, consisting in the Life of Christ, who is a perfect man and the absolute moral image of God,—therefore fitly called "God manifest in the flesh," and, as such, Moral Head of the human race. Since this view was held in conjunction with those at which I had arrived myself concerning miracles, prophecy, the untrustworthiness of Scripture as to details, and the essential unreasonableness of imposing dogmatic propositions as a creed, I had to consider why I could not adopt such a modification, or (as it appeared to me) reconstruction, of Christianity; and I gave reasons in the first edition of this book, which, avoiding direct treatment of the character of Jesus, seemed to me adequate on the opposite side.

My argument was reviewed by a friend, who presently published the review with his name, replying to my remarks on this scheme. I thus find myself in public and avowed controversy with one who is endowed with talents, accomplishments, and genius, to which I have no pretensions. The challenge has certainly come from myself. Trusting to the goodness of my cause, I have ventured it into an unequal combat; and from a consciousness of my admired friend's high superiority, I do feel a little abashed at being brought face to face against him. But possibly the less said to the public on these personal matters, the better.

I have to give reasons why I cannot adopt that modified scheme of Christianity which is defended and adorned by James Martineau; according to which it is maintained that though the Gospel Narratives are not to be trusted in detail, there can yet be no reasonable doubt what Jesus was; for this is elicited by a "higher moral criticism," which (it is remarked) I neglect. In this theory, Jesus is avowed to be a man born like other men; to be liable to error, and (at least in some important respects) mistaken. Perhaps no general proposition is to be accepted merely on the word of Jesus; in particular, he misinterpreted the Hebrew prophecies. "He was not less than the Hebrew Messiah, but more." No moral charge is established against him, until it is shown, that in applying the old prophecies to himself, he was conscious that they did not fit. His error was one of mere fallibility in matters of intellectual and literary estimate. On the other hand, Jesus had an infallible moral perception, which reveals itself to the true-hearted reader, and is testified by the common consciousness of Christendom. It has pleased the Creator to give us one sun in the heavens, and one Divine soul in history, in order to correct the aberrations of our individuality, and unite all mankind into one family of God. Jesus is to be presumed to be perfect until he is shown to be imperfect. Faith in Jesus, is not reception of propositions, but reverence for a person; yet this is not the condition of salvation or essential to the Divine favour.

Such is the scheme, abridged from the ample discussion of my eloquent friend. In reasoning against it, my arguments will, to a certain extent, be those of an orthodox Trinitarian;[1] since we might both maintain that the belief in the absolute divine morality of Jesus is not tenable, when the belief in every other divine and superhuman quality is denied. Should I have any "orthodox" reader, my arguments may shock his feelings less, if he keeps this in view. In fact, the same action or word in Jesus may be consistent or inconsistent with moral perfection, according to the previous assumptions concerning his person.

I. My friend has attributed to me a "prosaic and embittered view of human nature," apparently because I have a very intense belief of Man's essential imperfection. To me, I confess, it is almost a first principle of thought, that as all sorts of perfection coexist in God, so is no sort of perfection possible to man. I do not know how for a moment to imagine an Omniscient Being who is not Almighty, or an Almighty who is not All-Righteous. So neither do I know how to conceive of Perfect Holiness anywhere but in the Blessed and only Potentate.

Man is finite and crippled on all sides; and frailty in one kind causes frailty in another. Deficient power causes deficient knowledge, deficient knowledge betrays him into false opinion, and entangles him into false positions. It may be a defect of my imagination, but I do not feel that it implies any bitterness, that even in the case of one who abides in primitive lowliness, to attain even negatively an absolutely pure goodness seems to me impossible; and much more, to exhaust all goodness, and become a single Model-Man, unparalleled, incomparable, a standard for all other moral excellence. Especially I cannot conceive of any human person rising out of obscurity, and influencing the history of the world, unless there be in him forces of great intensity, the harmonizing of which is a vast and painful problem. Every man has to subdue himself first, before he preaches to his fellows; and he encounters many a fall and many a wound in winning his own victory. And as talents are various, so do moral natures vary, each having its own weak and strong side; and that one man should grasp into his single self the highest perfection of every moral kind, is to me at least as incredible as that one should preoccupy and exhaust all intellectual greatness. I feel the prodigy to be so peculiar, that I must necessarily wait until it is overwhelmingly proved, before I admit it. No one can without unreason urge me to believe, on any but the most irrefutable arguments, that a man, finite in every other respect, is infinite in moral perfection.

My friend is "at a loss to conceive in what way a superhuman physical nature could tend in the least degree to render moral perfection more credible." But I think he will see, that it would entirely obviate the argument just stated, which, from the known frailty of human nature in general, deduced the indubitable imperfection of an individual. The reply is then obvious and decisive: "This individual is not a mere man; his origin is wholly exceptional; therefore his moral perfection may be exceptional; your experience of man's weakness goes for nothing in his case." If I were already convinced that this person was a great Unique, separated from all other men by an impassable chasm in regard to his physical origin, I (for one) should be much readier to believe that he was Unique and Unapproachable in other respects: for all God's works have an internal harmony. It could not be for nothing that this exceptional personage was sent into the world. That he was intended as head of the human race, in one or more senses, would be a plausible opinion; nor should I feel any incredulous repugnance against believing his morality to be if not divinely perfect, yet separated from that of common men so far, that he might be a God to us, just as every parent is to a young child.

This view seems to my friend a weakness; be it so. I need not press it. What I do press, is,—whatever might or might not be conceded concerning one in human form, but of superhuman origin,—at any rate, one who is conceded to be, out and out, of the same nature as ourselves, is to be judged of by our experience of that nature, and is therefore to be assumed to be variously imperfect, however eminent and admirable in some respects. And no one is to be called an imaginer of deformity, because he takes for granted that one who is Man has imperfections which were not known to those who compiled memorials of him. To impute to a person, without specific evidence, some definite frailty or fault, barely because he is human, would be a want of good sense; but not so, to have a firm belief that every human being is finite in moral as well as in intellectual greatness.

We have a very imperfect history of the apostle James; and I do not know that I could adduce any fact specifically recorded concerning him in disproof of his absolute moral perfection, if any of his Jerusalem disciples had chosen to set up this as a dogma of religion. Yet no one would blame me, as morose, or indisposed to acknowledge genius and greatness, if I insisted on believing James to be frail and imperfect, while admitting that I knew almost nothing about him. And why?—Singly and surely, because we know him to be a man: that suffices. To set up James or John or Daniel as my Model, and my Lord; to be swallowed up in him and press him upon others for a Universal Standard, would be despised as a self-degrading idolatry and resented as an obtrusive favouritism. Now why does not the same equally apply, if the name Jesus is substituted for these? Why, in defect of all other knowledge than the bare fact of his manhood, are we not unhesitatingly to take for granted that he does not exhaust all perfection, and is at best only one among many brethren and equals?

II. My friend, I gather, will reply, "because so many thousands of minds in all Christendom attest the infinite and unapproachable goodness of Jesus." It therefore follows to consider, what is the weight of this attestation. Manifestly it depends, first of all, on the independence of the witnesses: secondly, on the grounds of their belief. If all those, who confess the moral perfection of Jesus, confess it as the result of unbiassed examination of his character; and if of those acquainted with the narrative, none espouse the opposite side; this would be a striking testimony, not to be despised. But in fact, few indeed of the "witnesses" add any weight at all to the argument. No Trinitarian can doubt that Jesus is morally perfect, without doubting fundamentally every part of his religion. He believes it, because the entire system demands it, and because various texts of Scripture avow it: and this very fact makes it morally impossible for him to enter upon an unbiassed inquiry, whether that character which is drawn for Jesus in the four gospels, is, or is not, one of absolute perfection, deserving to be made an exclusive model for all times and countries. My friend never was a Trinitarian, and seems not to know how this operates; but I can testify, that when I believed in the immaculateness of Christ's character, it was not from an unbiassed criticism, but from the pressure of authority, (the authority of texts,) and from the necessity of the doctrine to the scheme of Redemption. Not merely strict Trinitarians, but all who believe in the Atonement, however modified,—all who believe that Jesus will be the future Judge,—must believe in his absolute perfection: hence the fact of their belief is no indication whatever that they believe on the ground which my friend assumes,—viz. an intelligent and unbiassed study of the character itself, as exhibited in the four narratives.

I think we may go farther. We have no reason for thinking that this was the sort of evidence which convinced the apostles themselves, and first teachers of the gospel;—if indeed in the very first years the doctrine was at all conceived of. It cannot be shown that any one believed in the moral perfection of Jesus, who had not already adopted the belief that he was Messiah, and therefore Judge of the human race. My friend makes the pure immaculateness of Jesus (discernible by him in the gospels) his foundation, and deduces from this the quasi-Messiahship: but the opposite order of deduction appears to have been the only one possible in the first age. Take Paul as a specimen. He believed the doctrine in question; but not from reading the four gospels,—for they did not exist. Did he then believe it by hearing Ananias (Acts ix. 17) enter into details concerning the deeds and words of Jesus? I cannot imagine that any wise or thoughtful person would so judge, which after all would be a gratuitous invention. The Acts of the Apostles give us many speeches which set forth the grounds of accepting Jesus as Messiah; but they never press his absolute moral perfection as a fact and a fundamental fact. "He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil," is the utmost that is advanced on this side: prophecy is urged, and his resurrection is asserted, and the inference is drawn that "Jesus is the Christ." Out of this flowed the farther inferences that he was Supreme Judge,—and moreover, was Paschal Lamb, and Sacrifice, and High Priest, and Mediator; and since every one of these characters demanded a belief in his moral perfections, that doctrine also necessarily followed, and was received before our present gospels existed. My friend therefore cannot abash me by the argumentum ad verecundiam; (which to me seems highly out of place in this connexion;) for the opinion, which is, as to this single point, held by him in common with the first Christians, was held by them on transcendental reasons which he totally discards; and all after generations have been confirmed in the doctrine by Authority, i.e. by the weight of texts or church decisions: both of which he also discards. If I could receive the doctrine, merely because I dared not to differ from the whole Christian world, I might aid to swell odium against rejectors, but I should not strengthen the cause at the bar of reason. I feel therefore that my friend must not claim Catholicity as on his side. Trinitarians and Arians are alike useless to his argument: nay, nor can he claim more than a small fraction of Unitarians; for as many of the them believe that Jesus is to be the Judge of living and dead (as the late Dr. Lant Carpenter did) must as necessarily believe his immaculate perfection as if they were Trinitarians.

The New Testament does not distinctly explain on what grounds this doctrine was believed; but we may observe that in 1 Peter i. 19 and 2 Cor. v. 21, it is coupled with the Atonement, and in 1 Peter ii. 21, Romans xv. 3, it seems to be inferred from prophecy. But let us turn to the original Eleven, who were eye and ear witnesses of Jesus, and consider on what grounds they can have believed (if we assume that they did all believe) the absolute moral perfection of Jesus. It is too ridiculous to imagine then studying the writings of Matthew in order to obtain conviction,—if any of that school, whom alone I now address, could admit that written documents were thought of before the Church outstept the limits of Judea. If the Eleven believed the doctrine for some transcendental reason,—as by a Supernatural Revelation, or on account of Prophecy, and to complete the Messiah's character,—then their attestation is useless to my friend's argument: will it then gain anything, if we suppose that they believed Jesus to be perfect, because they saw him to be perfect? To me this would seem no attestation worth having, but rather a piece of impertinent ignorance. If I attest that a person whom I have known was an eminently good man, I command a certain amount of respect to my opinion, and I do him honour. If I celebrate his good deeds and report his wise words, I extend his honour still farther. But if I proceed to assure people, on the evidence of my personal observation of him, that he was immaculate and absolutely perfect, was the pure Moral Image of God, that he deserves to be made the Exclusive Model of imitation, and is the standard by which every other man's morality is to be corrected,—I make myself ridiculous; my panegyrics lose all weight, and I produce far less conviction than when I praised within human limitations. I do not know how my friend will look on this point, (for his judgment on the whole question perplexes me, and the views which I call sober he names prosaic,) but I cannot resist the conviction that universal common-sense would have rejected the teaching of the Eleven with contempt, if they had presented, as the basis of the gospel their personal testimony to the godlike and unapproachable moral absolutism of Jesus. But even if such a basis was possible to the Eleven, it was impossible to Paul and Silvanus and Timothy and Barnabas and Apollos, and the other successful preachers to the Gentiles. High moral goodness, within human limitations, was undoubtedly announced as a fact of the life of Jesus; but upon this followed the supernatural claims, and the argument of prophecy; without which my friend desires to build up his view,—I have thus developed why I think he has no right to claim Catholicity for his judgment. I have risked to be tedious, because I find that when I speak concisely, I am enormously misapprehended. I close this topic by observing, that, the great animosity with which my very mild intimations against the popular view have been met from numerous quarters, show me that Christians do not allow this subject to be calmly debated, end have not come to their own conclusion as the result of a calm debate. And this is amply corroborated by my own consciousness of the past I never dared, nor could have dared, to criticize coolly and simply the pretensions of Jesus to be an absolute model of morality, until I had been delivered from the weight of authority and miracle, oppressing my critical powers.

III. I have been asserting, that he who believes Jesus to be mere man, ought at once to believe his moral excellence finite and comparable to that of other men; and, that our judgment to this effect cannot be reasonably overborne by the "universal consent" of Christendom.—Thus far we are dealing à priori, which here fully satisfies me: in such an argument I need no à posteriori evidence to arrive at my own conclusion. Nevertheless, I am met by taunts and clamour, which are not meant to be indecent, but which to my feeling are such. My critics point triumphantly to the four gospels, and demand that I will make a personal attack on a character which they revere, even when they know that I cannot do so without giving great offence. Now if any one were to call my old schoolmaster, or my old parish priest, a perfect and universal Model, and were to claim that I would entitle him Lord, and think of him as the only true revelation of God; should I not be at liberty to say, without disrespect, that "I most emphatically deprecate such extravagant claims for him"? Would this justify an outcry, that I will publicly avow what I judge to be his defects of character, and will prove to all his admirers that he was a sinner like other men? Such a demand would be thought, I believe, highly unbecoming and extremely unreasonable. May not my modesty, or my regard for his memory, or my unwillingness to pain his family, be accepted as sufficient reasons for silence? or would any one scoffingly attribute my reluctance to attack him, to my conscious inability to make good my case against his being "God manifest in the flesh"? Now what, if one of his admirers had written panegyrical memorials of him; and his character, therein described, was so faultless, that a stranger to him was not able to descry any moral defeat whatever in it? Is such a stranger bound to believe him to be the Divine Standard of morals, unless he can put his finger on certain passages of the book which imply weaknesses and faults? And is it insulting a man, to refuse to worship him? I utterly protest against every such pretence. As I have an infinitely stronger conviction that Shakespeare was not in intellect Divinely and Unapproachably perfect, than that I can certainly point out in him some definite intellectual defect; as, moreover, I am vastly more sure that Socrates was morally imperfect, than that I am able to censure him rightly; so also, a disputant who concedes to me that Jesus is a mere man, has no right to claim that I will point out some moral flaw in him, or else acknowledge him to be a Unique Unparalleled Divine Soul. It is true, I do see defects, and very serious ones, in the character of Jesus, as drawn by his disciples; but I cannot admit that my right to disown the pretensions made for him turns on my ability to define his frailties. As long as (in common with my friend) I regard Jesus as a man, so long I hold with dogmatic and intense conviction the inference that he was morally imperfect, and ought not to be held up as unapproachable in goodness; but I have, in comparison, only a modest belief that I am able to show his points of weakness.

While therefore in obedience to this call, which has risen from many quarters, I think it right not to refuse the odious task pressed upon me,—I yet protest that my conclusion does not depend upon it. I might censure Socrates unjustly, or at least without convincing my readers, if I attempted that task; but my failure would not throw a feather's weight into the argument that Socrates was a Divine Unique and universal Model. If I write note what is painful to readers, I beg them to remember that I write with much reluctance, and that it is their own fault if they read.

In approaching this subject, the first difficulty is, to know how much of the four gospels to accept as fact. If we could believe the whole, it would be easier to argue; but my friend Martineau (with me) rejects belief of many parts: for instance, he has but a very feeble conviction that Jesus ever spoke the discourses attributed to him in John's gospel. If therefore I were to found upon these some imputation of moral weakness, he would reply, that we are agreed in setting these aside, as untrustworthy. Yet he perseveres in asserting that it is beyond all reasonable question what Jesus was; as though proven inaccuracies in all the narratives did not make the results uncertain. He says that even the poor and uneducated are fully impressed with "the majesty and sanctity" of Christ's mind; as if this were what I am fundamentally denying; and not, only so far as would transcend the known limits of human nature: surely "majesty and sanctity" are not inconsistent with many weaknesses. But our judgment concerning a man's motives, his temper, and his full conquest over self, vanity and impulsive passion, depends on the accurate knowledge of a vast variety of minor points; even the curl of the lip, or the discord of eye and mouth, may change our moral judgment of a man; while, alike to my friend and me it is certain that much of what is stated is untrue. Much moreover of what he holds to be untrue does not seem so to any but to the highly educated. In spite therefore of his able reply, I abide in my opinion that he is unreasonably endeavouring to erect what is essentially a piece of doubtful biography and difficult literary criticism into first-rate religious importance.

I shall however try to pick up a few details which seem, as much as any, to deserve credit, concerning the pretensions, doctrine and conduct of Jesus.

First, I believe that he habitually spoke of himself by the title "Son of Man"—a fact which pervades all the accounts, and was likely to rivet itself on his hearers. Nobody but he himself ever calls him Son of Man.

Secondly I believe that in assuming this title he tacitly alluded to the viith chapter of Daniel, and claimed for himself the throne of judgment over all mankind.—I know no reason to doubt that he actually delivered (in substance) the discourse in Matth. xxv. "When the Son of Man shall come in his glory,… before him shall be gathered all nations,… and he shall separate them, &c. &c.": and I believe that by the Son of Man and the King he meant himself. Compare Luke xii. 40, ix. 56.

Thirdly, I believe that he habitually assumed the authoritative dogmatic tone of one who was a universal Teacher in moral and spiritual matters, and enunciated as a primary duty of men to learn submissively of his wisdom and acknowledge his supremacy. This element in his character, the preaching of himself is enormously expanded in the fourth gospel, but it distinctly exists in Matthew. Thus in Matth. xxiii 8: "Be not ye called Rabbi [teacher], for one is your Teacher, even Christ; and all ye are brethren"… Matth. x. 32: "Whosoever shall confess ME before men, him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven… He that loveth father or mother more than ME is not worthy of ME, &c."… Matth. xi. 27: "All things are delivered unto ME of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son; and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Come unto ME, all ye that labour,… and I will give you rest. Take MY yoke upon you, &c."

My friend, I find, rejects Jesus as an authoritative teacher, distinctly denies that the acceptance of Jesus in this character is any condition of salvation and of the divine favour, and treats of my "demand of an oracular Christ," as inconsistent with my own principles. But this is mere misconception of what I have said. I find Jesus himself to set up oracular claims. I find an assumption of pre-eminence and unapproachable moral wisdom to pervade every discourse from end to end of the gospels. If I may not believe that Jesus assumed an oracular manner, I do not know what moral peculiarity in him I am permitted to believe. I do not demand (as my friend seems to think) that he shall be oracular, but in common with all Christendom, I open my eyes and see that he is; and until I had read my friend's review of my book, I never understood (I suppose through my own prepossessions) that he holds Jesus not to have assumed the oracular style.

If I cut out from the four gospels this peculiarity, I must cut out, not only the claim of Messiahship, which my friend admits to have been made, but nearly every moral discourse and every controversy: and why? except in order to make good a predetermined belief that Jesus was morally perfect. What reason can be given me for not believing that Jesus declared: "If any one deny ME before men, him will I deny before my Father and his angels?" or any of the other texts which couple the favour of God with a submission to such pretensions of Jesus? I can find no reason whatever for doubting that he preached HIMSELF to his disciples, though in the three first gospels he is rather timid of doing this to the Pharisees and to the nation at large. I find him uniformly to claim, sometimes in tone, sometimes in distinct words, that we will sit at his feet as little children and learn of him. I find him ready to answer off-hand, all difficult questions, critical and lawyer-like, as well as moral. True, it is no tenet of mine that intellectual and literary attainment is essential in an individual person to high spiritual eminence. True, in another book I have elaborately maintained the contrary. Yet in that book I have described men's spiritual progress as often arrested at a certain stage by a want of intellectual development; which surely would indicate that I believed even intellectual blunders and an infinitely perfect exhaustive morality to be incompatible. But our question here (or at least my question) is not, whether Jesus might misinterpret prophecy, and yet be morally perfect; but whether, after assuming to be an oracular teacher, he can teach some fanatical precepts, and advance dogmatically weak and foolish arguments, without impairing our sense of his absolute moral perfection.

I do not think it useless here to repeat (though not for my friend) concise reasons which I gave in my first edition against admitting dictatorial claims for Jesus. First, it is an unplausible opinion that God would deviate from his ordinary course, in order to give us anything so undesirable as an authoritative Oracle would be;—which would paralyze our moral powers, exactly as an infallible church does, in the very proportion in which we succeeded in eliciting responses from it. It is not needful here to repeat what has been said to that effect in p. 138. Secondly, there is no imaginable criterion, by which we can establish that the wisdom of a teacher is absolute and illimitable. All that we can possibly discover, is the relative fact, that another is wiser than we: and even this is liable to be overturned on special points, as soon as differences of judgment arise. Thirdly, while it is by no means clear what are the new truths, for which we are to lean upon the decisions of Jesus, it is certain that we have no genuine and trustworthy account of his teaching. If God had intended us to receive the authoritative dicta of Jesus, he would have furnished us with an unblemished record of those dicta. To allow that we have not this, and that we must disentangle for ourselves (by a most difficult and uncertain process) the "true" sayings of Jesus, is surely self-refuting. Fourthly, if I must sit in judgment on the claims of Jesus to be the true Messiah and Son of God, how can I concentrate all my free thought into that one act, and thenceforth abandon free thought? This appears a moral suicide, whether Messiah or the Pope is the object whom we first criticize, in order to instal him over us, and then, for ever after, refuse to criticize. In short, we cannot build up a system of Oracles on a basis of Free Criticism. If we are to submit our judgment to the dictation of some other,—whether a church or an individual,—we must be first subjected to that other by some event from without, as by birth; and not by a process of that very judgment which is henceforth to be sacrificed. But from this I proceed to consider more in detail, some points in the teaching and conduct of Jesus, which do not appear to me consistent with absolute perfection.

The argument of Jesus concerning the tribute to Cæsar is so dramatic, as to strike the imagination and rest on the memory; and I know no reason for doubting that it has been correctly reported. The book of Deuteronomy (xvii. 15) distinctly forbids Israel to set over himself as king any who is not a native Israelite; which appeared to be a religious condemnation of submission to Cæsar. Accordingly, since Jesus assumed the tone of unlimited wisdom, some of Herod's party asked him, whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Cæsar. Jesus replied: "Why tempt ye me, hypocrites? Show me the tribute money." When one of the coins was handed to him, he asked: "Whose image and superscription is this?" When they replied: "Cæsar's," he gave his authoritative decision: "Render therefore to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's."

In this reply not only the poor and uneducated, but many likewise of the rich and educated, recognize "majesty and sanctity:" yet I find it hard to think that my strong-minded friend will defend the justness, wisdom and honesty of it. To imagine that because a coin bears Cæsar's head, therefore it is Cæsar's property, and that he may demand to have as many of such coins as he chooses paid over to him, is puerile, and notoriously false. The circulation of foreign coin of every kind was as common in the Mediterranean then as now; and everybody knew that the coin was the property of the holder, not of him whose head it bore. Thus the reply of Jesus, which pretended to be a moral decision, was unsound and absurd: yet it is uttered in a tone of dictatorial wisdom, and ushered in by a grave rebuke, "Why tempt ye me, hypocrites?" He is generally understood to mean, "Why do you try to implicate me in a political charge?" and it is supposed that he prudently evaded the question. I have indeed heard this interpretation from high Trinitarians; which indicates to me how dead is their moral sense in everything which concerns the conduct of Jesus. No reason appears why he should not have replied, that Moses forbade Israel voluntarily to place himself under a foreign king, but did not inculcate fanatical and useless rebellion against overwhelming power. But such a reply, which would have satisfied a more commonplace mind, has in it nothing brilliant and striking. I cannot but think that Jesus shows a vain conceit in the cleverness of his answer: I do not think it so likely to have been a conscious evasion. But neither does his rebuke of the questioners at all commend itself to me. How can any man assume to be an authoritative teacher, and then claim that men shall not put his wisdom to the proof? Was it not their duty to do so? And when, in result, the trial has proved the defect of his wisdom, did they not perform a useful public service? In truth, I cannot see the Model Man in his rebuke.—Let not my friend say that the error was merely intellectual: blundering self-sufficiency is a moral weakness.

I might go into detail concerning other discourses, where error and arrogance appear to me combined. But, not to be tedious,—in general I must complain that Jesus purposely adopted an enigmatical and pretentious style of teaching, unintelligible to his hearers, and needing explanation in private. That this was his systematic procedure, I believe, because, in spite of the great contrast of the fourth gospel to the others, it has this peculiarity in common with them. Christian divines are used to tell us that this mode was peculiarly instructive to the vulgar of Judæa; and they insist on the great wisdom displayed in his choice of the lucid parabolical style. But in Matth. xiii. 10-15, Jesus is made confidentially to avow precisely the opposite reason, viz. that he desires the vulgar not to understand him, but only the select few to whom he gives private explanations. I confess I believe the Evangelist rather than the modern Divine. I cannot conceive how so strange a notion could ever have possessed the companions of Jesus, if it had not been true. If really this parabolical method had been peculiarly intelligible, what could make them imagine the contrary? Unless they found it very obscure themselves, whence came the idea that it was obscure to the multitude? As a fact, it is very obscure, to this day. There is much that I most imperfectly understand, owing to unexplained metaphor: as: "Agree with thine adversary quickly, &c. &c.:" "Whoso calls his brother[2] a fool, is in danger of hell fire:" "Every one must be salted with fire, and every sacrifice salted with salt. Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another." Now every man of original and singular genius has his own forms of thought; in so far as they are natural, we must not complain, if to us they are obscure. But the moment affectation comes in, they no longer are reconcilable with the perfect character: they indicate vanity, and incipient sacerdotalism. The distinct notice that Jesus avoided to expound his parables to the multitude, and made this a boon to the privileged few; and that without a parable he spake not to the multitude; and the pious explanation, that this was a fulfilment of Prophecy, "I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter dark sayings on the harp," persuade me that the impression of the disciples was a deep reality. And it is in entire keeping with the general narrative, which shows in him so much of mystical assumption. Strip the parables of the imagery, and you find that sometimes one thought has been dished up four or five times, and generally, that an idea is dressed into sacred grandeur. This mystical method made a little wisdom go a great way with the multitude; and to such a mode of economizing resources the instinct of the uneducated man betakes itself, when he is claiming to act a part for which he is imperfectly prepared.

It is common with orthodox Christians to take for granted, that unbelief of Jesus was a sin, and belief a merit, at a time when no rational grounds of belief were as yet public. Certainly, whoever asks questions with a view to prove Jesus, is spoken of vituperatingly in the gospels; and it does appear to me that the prevalent Christian belief is a true echo of Jesus's own feeling. He disliked being put to the proof. Instead of rejoicing in it, as a true and upright man ought,—instead of blaming those who accept his pretensions on too slight grounds,—instead of encouraging full inquiry and giving frank explanations, he resents doubt, shuns everything that will test him, is very obscure as to his own pretensions, (so as to need probing and positive questions, whether he does or does not profess to be Messiah,) and yet is delighted at all easy belief. When asked for miracles, he sighs and groans at the unreasonableness of it; yet does not honestly and plainly renounce pretension to miracle, as Mr. Martineau would, but leaves room for credit to himself for as many miracles as the credulous are willing to impute to him. It is possible that here the narrative is unjust to his memory. So far from being the picture of perfection, it sometimes seems to me the picture of a conscious and wilful impostor. His general character is too high for this; and I therefore make deductions from the account. Still, I do not see how the present narrative could have grown up, if he had been really simple and straight-forward, and not perverted by his essentially false position. Enigma and mist seem to be his element; and when I find his high satisfaction at all personal recognition and bowing before his individuality, I almost doubt whether, if one wished to draw the character of a vain and vacillating pretender, it would be possible to draw anything more to the purpose than this. His general rule (before a certain date) is, to be cautious in public, but bold in private to the favoured few. I cannot think that such a character, appearing now, would seem to my friend a perfect model of a man.

No precept bears on its face clearer marks of coming from the genuine Jesus, than that of selling all and following him. This was his original call to his disciples. It was enunciated authoritatively on various occasions. It is incorporated with precepts of perpetual obligation, in such a way, that we cannot without the greatest violence pretend that he did not intend it as a precept[3] to all his disciples. In Luke xii. 22-40, he addresses the disciples collectively against Avarice; and a part of the discourse is: "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell that ye have, and give alms: provide yourselves bags that wax not old; a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, &c…. Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning," &c. To say that he was not intending to teach a universal morality,[4] is to admit that his precepts are a trap; for they then mix up and confound mere contingent duties with universal sacred obligations, enunciating all in the same breath, and with the same solemnity. I cannot think that Jesus intended any separation. In fact, when a rich young man asked of him what he should do, that he might inherit eternal life, and pleaded that he had kept the ten commandments, but felt that to be insufficient, Jesus said unto him: "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven:" so that the duty was not contingent upon the peculiarity of a man possessing apostolic gifts, but was with Jesus the normal path for all who desired perfection. When the young man went away sorrowing, Jesus moralized on it, saying: "How hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven:" which again shows, that an abrupt renunciation of wealth was to be the general and ordinary method of entering the kingdom. Hereupon, when the disciples asked: "Lo! we have forsaken all, and followed thee: what shall we have therefore?" Jesus, instead of rebuking their self-righteousness, promised them as a reward, that they should sit upon twelve[5] thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. A precept thus systematically enforced, is illustrated by the practice, not only of the twelve, but apparently of the seventy, and what is stronger still, by the practice of the five thousand disciples after the celebrated days of the first Pentecost. There was no longer a Jesus on earth to itinerate with, yet the disciples in the fervour of first love obeyed his precept: the rich sold their possessions, and laid the price at the apostles' feet.

The mischiefs inherent in such a precept rapidly showed themselves, and good sense corrected the error. But this very fact proves most emphatically that the precept was pre-apostolic, and came from the genuine Jesus; otherwise it could never have found its way into the gospels. It is undeniable, that the first disciples, by whose tradition alone we have any record of what Jesus taught, understood him to deliver this precept to all who desired to enter into the kingdom of heaven,—all who desired to be perfect: why then are we to refuse belief, and remould the precepts of Jesus till they please our own morality? This is not the way to learn historical fact.

That to inculcate religious beggary as the only form and mode of spiritual perfection, is fanatical and mischievous, even the church of Rome will admit. Protestants universally reject it as a deplorable absurdity;—not merely wealthy bishops, squires and merchants, but the poorest curate also. A man could not preach such doctrine in a Protestant pulpit without incurring deep reprobation and contempt; but when preached by Jesus, it is extolled as divine wisdom,—and disobeyed.

Now I cannot look on this as a pure intellectual error, consistent with moral perfection. A deep mistake as to the nature of such perfection seems to me inherent in the precept itself; a mistake which indicates a moral unsoundness. The conduct of Jesus to the rich young man appears to me a melancholy exhibition of perverse doctrine, under an ostentation of superior wisdom. The young man asked for bread and Jesus gave him a stone. Justly he went away sorrowful, at receiving a reply which his conscience rejected as false and foolish. But this is not all Jesus was necessarily on trial, when any one, however sincere, came to ask questions so deeply probing the quality of his wisdom as this: "How may I be perfect?" and to be on trial was always disagreeable to him. He first gave the reply, "Keep the commandments;" and if the young man had been satisfied, and had gone away, it appears that Jesus would have been glad to be rid of him: for his tone is magisterial, decisive and final. This, I confess, suggests to me, that the aim of Jesus was not so much to enlighten the young man, as to stop his mouth, and keep up his own ostentation of omniscience. Had he desired to enlighten him, surely no mere dry dogmatic command was needed, but an intelligent guidance of a willing and trusting soul. I do not pretend to certain knowledge in these matters. Even when we hear the tones of voice and watch the features, we often mistake. We have no such means here of checking the narrative. But the best general result which I can draw from the imperfect materials, is what I have said.

After the merit of "selling all and following Jesus," a second merit, not small, was, to receive those whom he sent. In Matt. x., we read that he sends out his twelve disciples, (also seventy in Luke,) men at that time in a very low state of religions development,—men who did not themselves know what the Kingdom of Heaven meant,—to deliver in every village and town a mere formula of words: "Repent ye: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." They were ordered to go without money, scrip or cloak, but to live on religious alms; and it is added,—that if any house or city does not receive them, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment than for it. He adds, v. 40: "He that receiveth you, receiveth me, and he that receiveth me, receiveth HIM that sent me."—I quite admit, that in all probability it was (on the whole) the more pious part of Israel which was likely to receive these ignorant missionaries; but inasmuch as they had no claims whatever, intrinsic or extrinsic, to reverence, it appears to me a very extravagant and fanatical sentiment thus emphatically to couple the favour or wrath of God with their reception or rejection.

A third, yet greater merit in the eyes of Jesus, was, to acknowledge him as the Messiah predicted by the prophets, which he was not, according to my friend. According to Matthew (xvi. 13), Jesus put leading questions to the disciples in order to elicit a confession of his Messiahship, and emphatically blessed Simon for making the avowal which he desired; but instantly forbade them to tell the great secret to any one. Unless this is to be discarded as fiction, Jesus, although to his disciples in secret he confidently assumed Messianic pretensions, had a just inward misgiving, which accounts both for his elation at Simon's avowal, and for his prohibition to publish it.

In admitting that Jesus was not the Messiah of the prophets, my friend says, that if Jesus were less than Messiah, we can reverence him no longer; but that he was more than Messiah. This is to me unintelligible. The Messiah whom he claimed to be, was not only the son of David, celebrated in the prophets, but emphatically the Son of Man of Daniel vii., who shall come in the clouds of heaven, to take dominion, glory and kingdom, that all people, nations and languages shall serve him,—an everlasting kingdom which shall not pass away. How Jesus himself interprets his supremacy, as Son of Man, in Matt. x., xi., xxiii., xxv., and elsewhere, I have already observed. To claim such a character, seems to me like plunging from a pinnacle of the temple. If miraculous power holds him up and makes good his daring, he is more than man; but if otherwise, to have failed will break all his bones. I can no longer give the same human reverence as before to one who has been seduced into vanity so egregious; and I feel assured à priori that such presumption must have entangled him into evasions and insincerities, which naturally end in crookedness of conscience and real imposture, however noble a man's commencement, and however unshrinking his sacrifices of goods and ease and life.

The time arrived at last, when Jesus felt that he must publicly assert Messiahship; and this was certain to bring things to an issue. I suppose him to have hoped that he was Messiah, until hope and the encouragement given him by Peter and others grew into a persuasion strong enough to act upon, but not always strong enough to still misgivings. I say, I suppose this; but I build nothing on my supposition. I however see, that when he had resolved to claim Messiahship publicly, one of two results was inevitable, if that claim was ill-founded:—viz., either he must have become an impostor, in order to screen his weakness; or, he must have retracted his pretensions amid much humiliation, and have retired into privacy to learn sober wisdom. From these alternatives there was escape only by death, and upon death Jesus purposely rushed.

All Christendom has always believed that the death of Jesus was voluntarily incurred; and unless no man ever became a wilful martyr, I cannot conceive why we are to doubt the fact concerning Jesus. When he resolved to go up to Jerusalem, he was warned by his disciples of the danger; but so far was he from being blind to it, that he distinctly announced to them that he knew he should suffer in Jerusalem the shameful death of a malefactor. On his arrival in the suburbs, his first act was, ostentatiously to ride into the city on an ass's colt in the midst of the acclamations of the multitude, in order to exhibit himself as having a just right to the throne of David. Thus he gave a handle to imputations of intended treason.—He next entered the temple courts, where doves and lambs were sold for sacrifice, and—(I must say it to my friend's amusement, and in defiance of his kind but keen ridicule,) committed a breach of the peace by flogging with a whip those who trafficked in the area. By such conduct he undoubtedly made himself liable to legal punishment, and probably might have been publicly scourged for it, had the rulers chosen to moderate their vengeance. But he "meant to be prosecuted for treason, not for felony," to use the words of a modern offender. He therefore commenced the most exasperating attacks on all the powerful, calling them hypocrites and whited sepulchres and vipers' brood; and denouncing upon them the "condemnation of hell." He was successful. He had both enraged the rulers up to the point of thirsting for his life, and given colour to the charge of political rebellion. He resolved to die; and he died. Had his enemies contemptuously let him live, he would have been forced to act the part of Jewish Messiah, or renounce Messiahship.

If any one holds Jesus to be not amenable to the laws of human morality, I am not now reasoning with such a one. But if any one claims for him a human perfection, then I say that his conduct on this occasion was neither laudable nor justifiable; far otherwise. There are cases in which life may be thrown away for a great cause; as when a leader in battle rushes upon certain death, in order to animate his own men; but the case before us has no similarity to that. If our accounts are not wholly false, Jesus knowingly and purposely exasperated the rulers into a great crime,—the crime of taking his life from personal resentment. His inflammatory addresses to the multitude have been defended as follows:

"The prophetic Spirit is sometimes oblivious of the rules of the drawing-room; and inspired Conscience, like the inspiring God, seeing a hypocrite, will take the liberty to say so, and act accordingly. Are the superficial amenities, the soothing fictions, the smotherings of the burning heart,… really paramount in this world, and never to give way? and when a soul of power, unable to refrain, rubs off, though it be with rasping words, all the varnish from rottenness and lies, is he to be tried in our courts of compliment for a misdemeanor? Is there never a higher duty than that of either pitying or converting guilty men,—the duty of publicly exposing them? of awakening the popular conscience, and sweeping away the conventional timidities, for a severe return to truth and reality? No rule of morals can be recognized as just, which prohibits conformity of human speech to fact; and insists on terms of civility being kept with all manner of iniquity."

I certainly have not appealed to any conventional morality of drawing-room compliment, but to the highest and purest principles which I know; and I lament to find my judgment so extremely in opposition. To me it seems that inability to refrain shows weakness, not power, of soul, and that nothing is easier than to give vent to violent invective against bad rulers. The last sentence quoted, seems to say, that the speaking of Truth is never to be condemned: but I cannot agree to this. When Truth will only exasperate, and cannot do good, silence is imperative. A man who reproaches an armed tyrant in words too plain, does but excite him to murder; and the shocking thing is, that this seems to have been the express object of Jesus. No good result could be reasonably expected. Publicly to call men in authority by names of intense insult, the writer of the above distinctly sees will never convert them; but he thinks it was adapted to awaken the popular conscience. Alas! it needs no divine prophet to inflame a multitude against the avarice, hypocrisy, and oppression of rulers, nor any deep inspiration of conscience in the multitude to be wide awake on that point themselves A Publius Clodius or a Cleon will do that work as efficiently as a Jesus; nor does it appear that the poor are made better by hearing invectives against the rich and powerful. If Jesus had been aiming, in a good cause, to excite rebellion, the mode of address which he assumed seems highly appropriate; and in such a calamitous necessity, to risk exciting murderous enmity would be the act of a hero: but as the account stands, it seems to me the deed of a fanatic. And it is to me manifest that he overdid his attack, and failed to commend it to the conscience of his hearers. For up to this point the multitude was in his favour. He was notoriously so acceptable to the many, as to alarm the rulers; indeed the belief of his popularity had shielded him from prosecution. But after this fierce address he has no more popular support. At his public trial the vast majority judge him to deserve punishment, and prefer to ask free forgiveness for Barabbas, a bandit who was in prison for murder. We moderns, nursed in an arbitrary belief concerning these events, drink in with our first milk the assumption that Jesus alone was guiltless, and all the other actors in this sad affair inexcusably guilty. Let no one imagine that I defend for a moment the cruel punishment which raw resentment inflicted on him. But though the rulers felt the rage of Vengeance, the people, who had suffered no personal wrong, were moved only by ill-measured Indignation. The multitude love to hear the powerful exposed and reproached up to a certain limit; but if reproach go clearly beyond all that they feel to be deserved, a violent sentiment reacts on the head of the reviler: and though popular indignation (even when free from the element of selfishness) ill fixes the due measure of Punishment, I have a strong belief that it is righteous, when it pronounces the verdict Guilty.

Does my friend deny that the death of Jesus was wilfully incurred? The "orthodox" not merely admit, but maintain it. Their creed justifies it by the doctrine, that his death was a "sacrifice" so pleasing to God, as to expiate the sins of the world. This honestly meets the objections to self-destruction; for how better could life be used, than by laying it down for such a prize? But besides all other difficulties in the very idea of atonement, the orthodox creed startles us by the incredible conception, that a voluntary sacrifice of life should be unacceptable to God, unless offered by ferocious and impious hands. If Jesus had "authority from the Father to lay down his life," was he unable to stab himself in the desert, or on the sacred altar of the Temple, without involving guilt to any human being? Did He, who is at once "High Priest" and Victim, when "offering up himself" and "presenting his own blood unto God," need any justification for using the sacrificial knife? The orthodox view more clearly and unshrinkingly avows, that Jesus deliberately goaded the wicked rulers into the deeper wickedness of murdering him; but on my friend's view, that Jesus was no sacrifice, but only a Model man, his death is an unrelieved calamity. Nothing but a long and complete life could possibly test the fact of his perfection; and the longer he lived, the better for the world.

In entire consistency with his previous determination to die, Jesus, when arraigned, refused to rebut accusation, and behaved as one pleading Guilty. He was accused of saying that if they destroyed the temple, he would rebuild it in three days; but how this was to the purpose, the evangelists who name it do not make clear. The fourth however (without intending so to do) explains it; and I therefore am disposed to believe his statement, though I put no faith in his long discourses. It appears (John ii. 18-20) that Jesus after scourging the people out of the temple-court, was asked for a sign to justify his assuming so very unusual authority: on which he replied: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Such a reply was regarded as a manifest evasion; since he was sure that they would not pull the temple down in order to try whether he could raise it up miraculously. Now if Jesus really meant what the fourth gospel says he meant;—if he "spoke of the temple of his body;"—how was any one to guess that? It cannot be denied, that such a reply, primâ facie, suggested, that he was a wilful impostor: was it not then his obvious duty, when this accusation was brought against him, to explain that his words had been mystical and had been misunderstood? The form of the imputation in Mark xiv. 58, would make it possible to imagine,—if the three days were left out, and if his words were not said in reply to the demand of a sign,—that Jesus had merely avowed that though the outward Jewish temple were to be destroyed, he would erect a church of worshippers as a spiritual temple. If so, "John" has grossly misrepresented him, and then obtruded a very far-fetched explanation. But whatever was the meaning of Jesus, if it was honest, I think he was bound to explain it; and not leave a suspicion of imposture to rankle in men's minds.[6] Finally, if the whole were fiction, and he never uttered such words, then it was his duty to deny them, and not remain dumb like a sheep before its shearers.

After he had confirmed by his silence the belief that he had used a dishonest evasion indicative of consciousness that he was no real Messiah, he suddenly burst out with a full reply to the High Priest's question; and avowed that he was the Messiah, the Son of God; and that they should hereafter see him sitting on the right-hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven,—of course to enter into judgment on them all. I am the less surprized that this precipitated his condemnation, since he himself seems to have designed precisely that result. The exasperation which he had succeeded in kindling led to his cruel death; and when men's minds had cooled, natural horror possessed them for such a retribution on such a man. His words had been met with deeds: the provocation he had given was unfelt to those beyond the limits of Jerusalem; and to the Jews who assembled from distant parts at the feast of Pentecost he was nothing but the image of a sainted martyr.

I have given more than enough indications of points in which the conduct of Jesus does not seem to me to have been that of a perfect man: how any one can think him a Universal Model, is to me still less intelligible. I might say much more on this subject. But I will merely add, that when my friend gives the weight of his noble testimony to the Perfection of Jesus, I think it is due to himself and to us that he should make clear what he means by this word "Jesus." He ought to publish—(I say it in deep seriousness, not sarcastically)—an expurgated gospel; for in truth I do not know how much of what I have now adduced from the gospel as fact, he will admit to be fact. I neglect, he tells me, "a higher moral criticism," which, if I rightly understand, would explode, as evidently unworthy of Jesus, many of the representations pervading the gospels: as, that Jesus claimed to be an oracular teacher, and attached spiritual life or death to belief or disbelief in this claim. My friend says, it is beyond all serious question what Jesus was: but his disbelief of the narrative seems to be so much wider than mine, as to leave me more uncertain than ever about it. If he will strike out of the gospels all that he disbelieves, and so enable me to understand what is the Jesus whom he reveres, I have so deep a sense of his moral and critical powers, that I am fully prepared to expect that he may remove many of my prejudices and relieve my objections: but I cannot honestly say that I see the least probability of his altering my conviction, that in consistency of goodness Jesus fell far below vast numbers of his unhonoured disciples.

[Footnote 1: I have by accident just taken up the "British Quarterly," and alighted upon the following sentence concerning Madame Roland:—"To say that she was without fault, would be to say that she was not human." This so entirely expresses and concludes all that I have to say, that I feel surprise at my needing at all to write such a chapter as the present.]

[Footnote 2: I am acquainted with the interpretation, that the word Môrè is not here Greek, i.e., fool, but is Hebrew, and means rebel, which is stronger than Raca, silly fellow. This gives partial, but only partial relief.]

[Footnote 3: Indeed we have in Luke vi. 20-24, a version of the Beatitudes so much in harmony with this lower doctrine, as to make it an open question, whether the version in Matth. v. is not an improvement upon Jesus, introduced by the purer sense of the collective church. In Luke, he does not bless the poor in spirit, and those who hunger after righteousness, but absolutely the "poor" and the "hungry," and all who honour Him; and in contrast, curses the rich and those who are full.]

[Footnote 4: At the close, is the parable about the absent master of a house; and Peter asks, "Lord? (Sir?) speakest thou this parable unto us, or also unto all?" Who would not have hoped an ingenuous reply, "To you only," or, "To everybody"? Instead of which, so inveterate is his tendency to muffle up the simplest things in mystery, he replies, "Who then is that faithful and wise steward," &c., &c., and entirely evades reply to the very natural question.]

[Footnote 5: This implied that Judas, as one of the twelve, had earned the heavenly throne by the price of earthly goods.]

[Footnote 6: If the account in John is not wholly false, I think the reply in every case discreditable. If literal, it all but indicates wilful imposture. If mystical, it is disingenuously evasive; and it tended, not to instruct, but to irritate, and to move suspicion and contempt. Is this the course for a religious teacher?—to speak darkly, so as to mislead and prejudice; and this, when he represents it as a matter of spiritual life and death to accept his teaching and his supremacy?]