CHAPTER XVI.
EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE, EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL, IN FAVOR OF THE CREDIBILITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY.
In the preceding chapters, I have taken the New Testament as I found it, and have argued upon the supposition that Jesus and the apostles really said, and reasoned, as has been stated. I will now endeavour to show, by an examination of the authenticity of the four gospels, that it is not certain that they were really guilty of such mistakes as are related of them in those books.
*The life and doctrines of Jesus, and his followers, are contained in the pieces composing the volume called the New Testament. The genuineness of the books, i. e., whether they were written by those to whom they are ascribed, must be judged of, from the external testimony concerning them, and from internal marks in the books themselves; for the miraculous acts therein, and therein only, contained and related, cannot prove the truth and authenticity of the books, because the authority and credibility of the books themselves must be firmly established, before the miracles related in them can reasonably be admitted as real facts.
Now, the external evidence in favour of these books, is the testimony of those men called the fathers; and as the value of testimony depends upon the character of the witnesses, it would be proper, first, to state as much as, can be learned of these men. As time will not permit me to adduce all that might be said upon this subject, I shall here only take upon me to assert, that they were most credulous, superstitious, and weak men, and, what is worse, made no scruple of falsifying, to support and favour what they called the cause of truth; for they were writers of apocryphal books, attributing them to the apostles, and, moreover, great miracle-mongers, who vamped up stories of prodigies to delude their followers, and which they themselves knew to be false. I say, I take upon me to assert this; and to confirm and establish this accusation, I refer the reader to Dr. Middletons Free Enquiry, a learned Christian, who, therefore, had no interest to misrepresent this matter; and he will there find these accusations amply verified, and traits of character proved upon them. By no means favourable to the credibility of their testimony.
The first of these Fathers whose testimony is usually adduced to prove the authenticity of the Gospels, is Papias, a Disciple of John. The character given of him by Eusebius is, that he was a superstitious, and credulous man. And this is easily proved by recording some of the stories, concerning Jesus, and his followers, written by this Papias in a book extant in the time of Eusebius. One of these stories is mentioned by Irenoeus, who says, that Papias had it from John; who, according to Papias, said, that Jesus said, that— The days shall come, in which there shall be vines, which shall severally have ten thousand branches; and every one of these branches shall have ten thousand lesser branches; and every one of these branches shall have ten thousand twigs; and every one of these twigs shall have ten thousand clusters of grapes; and every one of these grapes being pressed shall yield two hundred and seventy-five gallons of wine. And when a man shall take hold of any of these sacred bunches, another bunch shall cry out I am a better bunch, take me, and bless the Lord by me! Theres a Munchausen for you, reader! Well! this Papias is the first witness who lived after Matthew, who has spoken of his Gospel. He lived about the year 116 after Jesus. And what does he say of it? Why this. Matthew composed a writing of the Oracles (meaning without doubt the Doctrines of the Gospel,) in the Hebrew Language, and every one interpreted them as he was able. So far as this Testimony goes it is positive evidence, that the only Gospel of Matthew extant in 116, was extant in Hebrew; and there was then no translation, of it, for every one interpreted as he was able. The present gospel called of Matthew was then not written by him, for it is in Greek. And that it has not at all the air of being a translation is asserted by most of the learned. As it stands then, it was not written by Matthew: and that it cannot be a translation of Matthews Hebrew, is not only plain from the circumstance of its style, and other marks understood by Biblical Critics, but can also be proved by another story related by this same Papias concerning the manner of the death of Judas. His body, and head (says Papias) became so swollen, that at length he could not get through a street in Jerusalem, where two chariots might pass abreast, and having fallen to the ground, he—burst asunder.
Now though this ridiculous story is undoubtedly false, yet it is not credible that Papias, who had so great a reverence for the Apostles as to collect and gather all their sayings, would so flatly by his story of the death of Judas contradict the story of Matthew, if the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew contained that part of the Greek Gospel of Matthew which relates the manner of Judas Death.
Justin Martyr lived after Papias, in the middle of the second century; and though he relates many circumstances agreeing in the main with those recorded in the Gospels, and appears to quote sayings of Jesus from some book or books; yet it is substantially acknowledged by Dr. Marsh, the learned annotator on Michaeliss Introduction, that these quotations are so unlike the words, and circumstances in the received Evangelists to which they appear to correspond, that one of two things must be true; either, that Justin, who lived 140 years after Jesus, had never seen any of the present Gospels; or else, that they were in his time in a very different state from what they now are.
The next Christian father who mentions the Gospel of Matthew is Irenoeus, who says also that Matthew wrote his gospel in the Hebrew Language. The character of Irenoeus is discoverable from his work against the Heresies of his time, to that I refer the Reader, who will find him to have been a zealous, though a very credulous, and ignorant man; for he believed the story of Papias just quoted, and many others equally absurd. He however furnishes this important intelligence, that in the second century, the Christian world was overrun with heresy, and a swarm of apocryphal, and spurious Books were received by many as genuine.
The next witness in favour of the Gospel is Tertullian, who lived in the latter end of the second century. And the soundness of his Judgment, and his capability to distinguish the genuine Gospels from among a hundred apocryphal ones, and above all his regard for truth, may be judged of from these proofs given by himself. He asserts upon his own knowledge, I know it, says he—that the corpse of a dead Christian, at the first breath of the prayer made by the priest, on occasion of its own funeral, removed its hands from its sides, into the usual posture of a supplicant; and when the service was ended, restored them again to their former situation. (Tertul. de anima c. 51.) And he relates as a fact, which he, and all the orthodox of his time credited, that—the body of another Christian already interred moved itself to one side of the grave to make room for another corpse which was going to be laid by it. And it is on the testimony of such men as these, that the authenticity of the gospels entirely depends as to external evidence; for these are all the witnesses that can be produced as speaking of them, who lived within two hundred years after Jesus: Three men, (for Justin cannot be reckoned as a witness in favour of the gospels.) Three men, who are all of them evidently credulous, and two of whom are certainly *****.
To convince a thinking man that histories recording such very extraordinary, ill supported, improbable facts as are contained in the gospels are divine, or even really written by the men to whom they are ascribed, and are not either some of the many spurious productions with which (as we learn from Irenoeus) that early age abounded, calculated to astonish the credulous, and superstitious, or else writings of authors who were themselves infected with the grossest superstitious credulity; of what use can it be to adduce the testimony of the very few writers, of the same, or next succeeding age, when the very reading of their works shews him that they themselves were tainted with that same superstitious credulity, of which are accused the real authors of the New Testament?
It is an obvious rule in the admission of evidence in any cause whatsoever, that the more important the matter to be determined by it is, the more unsullied and unexceptionable ought the characters of the witnesses to be. And when no court of Justice, in determining a question of fraud to the amount of six pence, will admit the testimony of witnesses who are themselves notoriously convicted of the same offence of which the defendant is accused; how can it be expected, that any reasonable, unprejudiced person, should admit similar evidence to be of weight, in a case of the greatest importance possible, not to himself only; but to the whole human race?
But there is still a greater defect in the testimony of those early writers, than their superstitious credulity, I mean their disregard of honour, and veracity, in whatever concerned the cause of their particular system.
Though Luke asserts, that many (even before he wrote his histories for the use of Theophilus,) had written upon the same subject: (who of course must have been of the Jewish nation,) and many more must have been written afterwards, whose writings must have been particularly valuable yet so singularly industrious have the fathers, and succeeding sons of the orthodox church been, in destroying every writing upon the subject of Christianity, which they could not by some means, or other, apply to the support of their own unholy superstition, that no work of importance of any Christian writer, within the three first centuries, hath been permitted to come down to us, except those books which they have thought fit to adopt, and transmit to us as the canon of apostolic scripture; and the works of a few other writers, who were all of them, not only converts from Paganism, but men who had been educated and well instructed in the Philosophic Schools of the latter Platonists, and Pythagoreans.
The established maxim of these schools was, that it was not lawful only, but commendable to deceive, and assert falsehoods for the sake of promoting what they considered as the cause of truth and piety, and the effects of this maxim, which was fully acted upon by both orthodox Christians, and heretics, produced a multiplicity of false, and spurious writings wherewith the second century abounded.
Nay, they did not spare from the operation of this maxim, the scriptures themselves. For they stuffed their copies of the Septuagint with a number of interpolated pretended prophecies concerning Jesus, and his death upon the cross; forgeries as weak, and contemptible, and clumsy in themselves, as they were impious and wicked. Whoever desires to see a number of them; may find them in the dispute, or dialogue of Justin with Trypho the Jew; where he will see the simple Justin bringing them out passage after passage against the stubborn Israelite, who contents himself with coolly answering, that these marvellous prophecies were not to be found in his Hebrew bible!
There is also another well known, incontrovertible proof of the deceit and falsehood of the leading Christians of early times, of which every person in the least conversant with the ecclesiastical history of those times must be convinced—their pretended power of working miracles! On this subject I shall say nothing, but refer the reader to the work of Dr. Middleton already mentioned, for an ample account of their lying wonders, which they imposed as miraculous upon the simple people.
With regard to the internal evidence for the authenticity of the writings; composing the New Testament, it is still less satisfactory than the external evidence. And this may be well believed, when the reader is informed that the great Semler, after spending his life in the study of ecclesiastical history; and antiquities, which he is allowed to have understood better than any before him, affirmed to his astonished coreligionists, that, except the Gospel of John, and the Apocalypse, the whole New Testament was a collection of forgeries written by the partizans of the Jewish and Gentile parties in the Christian church, and entitled apostolic, in order the better to answer their purpose. This opinion has been in part adopted in England, by a learned and shrewd clergyman named Evanson, who has almost demonstrated, that the Greek Gospel of Matthew was written in the second century after the birth of Jesus by a Gentile. For he proves that it could not be written by a Jew, on account of geographical mistakes, and manifest ignorance of Jewish customs. He also gives good reasons for rejecting the authenticity of some of the epistles. In short, he has poured such a flood of light upon the eyes of his terrified brethren, as will, ere long, no doubt enable them to see a little clearer than heretofore.
He gives several instances of geographical blunders in Matthew. I shall mention only one. Matthew says, in the 2nd chapter, that when Joseph, the husband of Mary, returned from Egypt, hearing that Archelaus reigned in Judea, he was afraid to go thither, and therefore turned aside, into the parts of Galilee. Now this, as will appear from a map of Palestine, is just like saying, a man at Philadelphia, intending to go to the State of New York, on his route heard something which made him afraid to go thither, and therefore he turned aside—into Boston!
That the author of that Gospel was ignorant of Jewish customs will be evident from the following circumstances. He says Jesus told Peter, that before the cock crew he would deny him thrice; and that afterwards, when Peter was cursing and swearing, saying I know not the man! immediately the cock crew. Now it is unfortunate for the credit of this story, that it is well known, that in conformity with Jewish customs, at that time subsisting, no cocks were allowed to be in Jerusalem, where Jesus was apprehended. This is known, and acknowledged by learned Christians, who have extricated themselves from this difficulty, by proving that the crowing of the cock, here mentioned, does not mean, as it appears to mean, absolutely the crowing of a cock, but that it means—what dost thou think reader? why it means—-the sound of a trumpet!!*
According to Luke, as soon as Jesus was dead, Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate, and begged his body, and hasted to bury it, because the Sabbath (which began at sunset,) drew on; that his female disciples attended the burial; observed how the body was placed in the sepulchre, and returned and prepared spices and ointments to embalm it with, before the Sabbath commenced; and then rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment.
The pretended Matthew, however, tells us, that when the even was come (i. e., when the Sabbath day was actually begun,) Joseph went to beg the body—took it down, wrapped it in linen, and buried it; and that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, were sitting over against the sepulchre. From the time that this writer has thought fit to allot for the burial of Jesus, it is evident, that he was not only no Jew, but so ignorant of the customs of the Jews, that he did not know that their day always began with the evening, or he would never have employed, Joseph in doing what no Jew would, nor dared to have done, after the commencement of the Sabbath. He takes no notice at all of the preparation made by the women, mentioned by Luke; for that would not have agreed with the sequel of his story. But to make up for that omission, he informs us of a circumstance not mentioned at all by the other Evangelists. For he tells us that on the next day which followeth the day of preparation, the Chief Priests, and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, &c. The next day which followeth the day of preparation!!—such is the periphrasis that he uses for the Sabbath day! It is well known that among the Jews it was, and is, customary to prepare, and set out, in the afternoon of the Friday, all the food and necessaries for every family during the Sabbath day. Because they were forbidden to light a fire, or do any servile work, on that day; and therefore Friday was very properly called the day of preparation. But it appears to me next to impossible, that any Jew would call the sabbath the day that followeth the day of the preparation. Yet this singular historian so denominates it, and moreover, goes on to inform us, that the chief priests, and Pharisees went to Pilate to ask for a guard to place round the sepulchre, till the third day, to prevent his disciples from stealing away his body, and then saying, that he was risen from the dead; and that after obtaining the governors permission, they, went, and secured the sepulchre by sealing the stone that was rolled against it; and setting a watch. Though there appears nothing very strange in this account to a Christian, yet, I assure my reader, that to the Jews, it ever did, and must appear utterly incredible. For it is wonderful! that the Jewish rulers, and the rigorous Pharisees should in so public a manner thus violate the precept for observing the Sabbath day; for the penalty of this action of theirs was no less than death! More wonderful still is it that they should have so much better attended to, and comprehended the meaning of the prediction of Jesus to his disciples, than his own disciples did; and most wonderful of all, that a Roman Proconsul should consent to let his troops keep watch round a tomb, for fear it should be thought that a dead man was come to life again.
But though our authors history of these extraordinary facts is neither consistent with reason, and probability, nor with the other histories of the same event; it proceeds in pretty strict conformity to the manner in which it sets out. For to convince us still more fully that the author was totally ignorant of the mode of computing time in use among the Jews, and habituated to that in use among the Greeks and Romans? He reckons the Sabbath to last till day light on Sunday morn, and says, (chapter xxviii.), that in the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn, towards the first day of the week, the two Marys before mentioned, came, (not as in Luke, to embalm the body, for, with a guard round the sepulchre, that would have been impracticable, but) to see the sepulchre. Whilst they were there, the author tells us, there was another great earthquake, and an angel descended, rolled away the stone, and sat upon it, at whose sight, the soldiers trembled, and were frighted to death. But to prevent the like effect of his appearance upon the women, he said unto them, fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus who was crucified. That the women as well as the soldiers were present at the descent of this angel, appears not only from there being nobody else, by whom these uncommon circumstances could have been related, but also by the pronoun personal ye, inserted in the original Greek, which in that language is never done, unless it be emphatically to mark such a distinction, or antithesis, as there was on this occasion, between them and the Roman guard. Here, however, the author is inadvertently inconsistent with himself, as well as with the other evangelists; and forgetting that the sole intent of rolling away the stone, was to open a passage, absolutely necessary to the body of Jesus to come forth out of the sepulchre; and that if he had risen and come forth after the angel had rolled it away, both the women and the soldiers must have seen him rise, he makes the angel bid them look into the sepulchre, to see—that he was not there! and tell them that he was already risen; and that he was gone before them into Galilee, where they should see him! In their way, the author adds, Jesus himself met the women, and said, be not afraid, go tell my brethren to go into Galilee, and there shall they see me. He says that the eleven apostles went into Galilee, to an appointed mountain, and saw him there; notwithstanding that some of them were so incredulous, as not to believe even the testimony of their own senses.
In the interim, whilst the women were going to the apostles, the author tells us, some of the watch; some strictly disciplined Roman soldiers left their station to bring an account of what had passed, not to the Governor their General, nor to any of their own officers—but to the chief priests of the Jews! that they assembled a council of the elders upon the occasion, and after deliberating what was to be done, induced the soldiers, by large bribes, to run the risk of being put to death themselves, upon the highly improbable chance of the Jewish rulers having influence sufficient with the Roman Proconsul to prevail on him to submit to the indelible infamy of neglecting the discipline of the army under his command, to such a degree, as to suffer an entire guard of soldiers avowedly to sleep upon their station, without any notice being taken of it! and to say his disciples came and stole him away whilst we slept. This incredible story is another instance how necessary it is, that those who do not adhere closely to the truth, should have extraordinary good memories to enable them to keep clear of absurdities, or palpable contradictions in their narrations. For, consider the circumstances. How were the tongues of these soldiers to be restrained among the inquisitive inhabitants of a large city, (at that time too, greatly crowded on account of the paschal feast,) not only in their way to the chief priests; but also during the whole time while the priests assembled the Sanhedrim, and were deliberating what was to be done? And if that part of the watch, who, the author says, came to inform the chief priests, were poltroons enough for the sake of a bribe to undergo so shameful a disgrace to themselves, as well as to hazard the resentment of their General, how could they undertake that all their comrades who remained at the sepulchre would do the same? and to what purpose could the Jewish council bribe some, without a possibility of some one knowing how the rest of the corps would act? And even supposing all these difficulties surmounted, and that the whole guard had agreed, and persisted in saying, his disciples stole him away while we slept, of what service could that be to the Jewish rulers? For if the guards were asleep, they could be no evidence to prove that the body was taken away; and it might be just as probable that he might rise to life again while the watch was asleep, as it was if no watch had been set.
In a word, it appears from the numbers of Latin words in Greek characters, which this book contains; from the numerous geographical blunders; and the authors evident ignorance of the customs of the Jews: from the form of Baptism enjoined at the conclusion, which was not in use in the first century, as appears from the form mentioned as then used in the Acts; from the Roman Centurions being made to call Jesus a Son of a God, which words in the mouth of a Pagan could only mean that he must be a Demigod, like Bacchus, Hercules, or Esculapius: it is clear that this Gospel is the patched work composition of some convert from the Pagan schools. At any rate, his gospel flatly contradicts the others in several important particulars in the history of the Resurrection. For he represents the apostles as being commanded by the Angel and by Jesus, to go to Galilee, in order to see him; and that they went there, and saw him on a mountain. Yet it is said by the other Evangelists, see Luke, ch. 24, and Acts 1, that he appeared on the saw day of the resurrection to Peter at Jerusalem; to two other disciples as they went to Emmaus; and on the succeeding night to this whole congregation of the Disciples, not in Galilee, but in Jerusalem, and that by his express command the apostles did not go into Galilee, but remained at Jerusalem till the feast of Pentecost.
But as this author differs from the other Evangelists, so they also differ among themselves. And the latter part of the last chapter of Mark is so irreconcilable to the other historians of the resurrection, that in many Manuscripts it is found omitted. And that gospel ends in them, at the eighth Terse of the last chapter. And Mr. West, in his attempted reconciliation of their accounts of the resurrection, is obliged to make a number of postulates, to take a number of things for granted, which might be denied: and after elaborately arranging the stage for the performance, he sets the women, and the disciples a driving backwards, and forwards, from the city to the sepulchre, and from the sepulchre to the city, and so agitated that they forgot to know each other when they cross in their journeys. Notwithstanding his great ingenuity in reconciling contradictions, in which he beats Surenhusius himself, he makes but a sorry piece of work of it after all. He had much letter have let it alone; for his work upon the resurrection which he calls the main fact of Christianity, displays these contradictions in so glaring a light, that the very laboured ingenuity of his methods of reconciliation, inevitably, suggests confirmation strong to the keen-eyed reader, of that irreconcilability which the author endeavors to refute. What rational man therefore can reasonably be required to believe the story of a resurrection pretended to have been seen and known, only by the party interested in making it believed! when in their testimony even, they do not agree but contradict each other?
There is really an immense number of discrepancies and contradiction in the New Testament which the acumen of learned Christians has of late discovered, and pointed out to the world. And Mr. Evanson, in his work on the Dissonance of the four Evangelists, has collected a mass enough, I should think, to terrify the most determined Reconciliator that ever lived. It is a little remarkable, that Mr. Evanson has asserted, and has proved, the spuriosness of the Gospel ascribed to John, which Semler spared, in the general wreck which he made of the authenticity of the other books of the New Testament. Mr. Evanson says, in his examination of it, what has been said before, that the speeches ascribed to Jesus in it, are most incoherent, contradictory, and falsified by well known facts. And indeed the author of the book itself, sterns to be sensible of this; for he very naturally represents the Jews repeatedly accusing Jesus of being mad. He hath a devil, and is mad, (say they to the multitude) why hear ye him? and so in other places. Mr. Evanson considers this work as the composition of a converted Platonist or of a Platonizing Jew; the latter we think to be the most correct opinion; since it is evident that the author of that gospel had the works of Philo at his fingers ends, which is more than can be supposed of John. As Semler excepted the Gospel of John only, so Mr. Evanson excepts the Gospel of Luke only from the charge of spuriousness: though he says that it is grossly corrupted, and interpolated. From these corruptions and interpolations, he endeavours to purify it; in which attempt wo think he has had very indifferent success. In short, his work has proved, (what he did not himself contemplate) that the providence of the God of truth has taken care, that so many absurdities and contradictions, should be contained in these books of the New Testament which were written to establish a mistake, as must I conceive, satisfy any man, who has them once pointed out to him, that the doctrine of those books is not, and cannot be from God.
But it may be still asked, how did this notion of the resurrection of Jesus become current? How can you account for the apostles believing such a thing? We answer sincerely—we cannot absolutely ascertain. The Jews of that age have left no documents upon this business. The origin of the Christian religion is so extremely obscure, that Josephus takes no notice of it at all, (for the passage relating to Christian affairs now found in Josephus are notorious interpolations.) And it is evident from the Chronological, and other mistakes about Jesus, in the Talmud, that the curiosity of the learned Jews had never been interested by Christianity, till so long after Jesus, that the memory of him, and his, was almost entirely lost among that nation. And it appears from the last chapter of the Acts, that when Paul was received by the Jews at Rome, he had not been considered by the Jews of Jerusalem as of sufficient importance, as to cause them to warn their brethren of the Dispersion concerning him; for these Jews tell Paul, on his enquiring, that they had not received any letters concerning him from Jerusalem. So that we can offer nothing but conjecture, to solve the difficulty.
It has been said by some, (and it is by no means an hypothesis destitute of plausibility) that Jesus was indeed crucified, but did not actually die on the cross. It is evident that Pilate was extremely desirous to save his life; and is it impossible that the Roman soldiers, who crucified him, had secret orders? Consider the ciscumstances. He was crucified at our nine in the morning, and was taken from the cross at about three in the afternoon. Now, crucifixion is not a death which kills men in six hours, and men have been known to have lived fastened to the cross for more than two days. Consider, besides, that when the soldiers gave the coup de grace to the two robbers, that they did not break the legs of Jews. This, the author of the Gospel according to John says, they did, in order to fulfill a prophecy; but I leave it to my reader, whether it is not more likely that they did so in order to fulfill secret orders? But to make up for that omission, the author adds, that they pierced Jesus with a spear. Now, besides that this is not mentioned by the other Evangelists, the very manner in which this circumstance is mentioned, and eagerly affirmed by him, looks as if the author was aware of the likelihood of a suspicion of the fact we are trying to prove probable, and that he wrote this in order to obviate it. And after all, the gospel according to John was certainly not written by him, and, therefore, what the author of it observes, may be true, or not. You will observe also, reader, that the body of Jesus was given by Pilate to his friends immediately; a favour never vouchsafed by the Romans in such a case, except speciali gratia. You will observe also, that the body was taken down by his friends, no doubt with great care; probably was washed from the blood, and rubbed perfectly dry; and was deposited in the cave or sepulchre, with a large quantity of spices, and aromatics. Now suppose that Jesus only swooned on the cross, and that his naked body, after being cleansed as aforesaid, was laid in the new sepulchre where the air was cool and fresh, wrapped in a considerable quantity of dry linen, together with many spices, and aromatics, what could be more opportune, or proper, to stimulate his drowsed senses, and recall the unfortunate sufferer to life? Suppose then, that on awaking from his trance, he disengaged himself, and took himself away as secretly as possible, might not all this have happened? Is it impossible? And does it not look plausible? It is not improbable that he might after this have shewed himself privately to his particular disciples; for you will recollect, reader, that the appearances of Jesus to his disciples after his crucifixion were to them, only, and for the most part in the night. And it is by no means impossible, that the twelve apostles, who were, I doubt not, well meaning men, though extremely simple and credulous; I say it is thus by no means impossible, that they might have believed sincerely, that their master had risen from the dead. This hypothesis must not be considered only as the brain work of an unbelieving sceptic; for it has been (in its main principle) advanced, and elaborately defended by Dr. Paulus the professor of divinity in the principal University in Bavaria.
It is true, that it may be said, that this is all hypothesis, and mere conjecture. We allow it; it is true; and we assert that the account given by the Evangelists is no better, nay, worse than conjecture, as it is a mere forgery of the second century! For no man, we think, who knows all that has been made known by biblical critics, in later years, will now seriously contend for the literal truth of that account. [See Appendix A.]
If all this will not satisfy the man that believeth all things, our last resource is to demy the act of this resurrection. And this we can do with perfect sang froid, as we know very well that it cannot be proved; for the only testimony in favour of it, are the four evangelists; four witnesses, the like of whose written testimony, with reference thereto, (being as contradic-tory as that is,) to say no more, certainly would not, we believe, be received in a modern court of justice, to settle the fact about a debt of five dollars. And if it be still urged, that such a story is unparalleled, and therefore respectable; we say that it is not unparalleled; as we have an account of a false Messiah, who applied the prophecies to himself, had a forerunner, and more than two hundred thousand followers, who publicly acknowledged him for the Messiah, raised contributions, and supported him magnificently. He too, quoted the prophets as speaking concerning him, and was said to have worked divers miracles, and was ultimately put to death by the order of the Grand Seignor at Constantinople; yet nevertheless was said to have been, seen again by certain of his followers, who wrote books in favour of that fact, and of his Messiahship. Many learned Rabbins enrolled themselves as his disciples, and wrote controversial works in his cause, as Paul did. And to conclude, his party was not entirely extinct within a very few years. Yet, notwithstanding all this, he was an impostor; and no man now believes the stories of his miracles, or his resurrection; notwithstanding that both are affirmed by more recent, more learned, and more respectable testimony than is, or can be, offered, in favour of the Messiahship of Jesus. The name of this famous impostor was Shabathai Tzevi, and his history is given by Basnage, in his history of the Jews, [and by other writers of Jewish history. See on this subject the Sepher Torath Hakenaoth, page 2. The learned Mr. Zedner has extracted the life of Shabetai Tsebi from tins book, and published it, with a German translation, in his Auswahl historischer Stucke aus Hebraischen Schriftstellern, Berlin, 1840.—D.]
I wish the Christian reader to peruse carefully, and cooly, that account; and if he then persists in believing the history given by the evangelists; with such faith as his, he certainly ought to be able to move mountains; and I have no doubt at all, that with such a good natured understanding as his, if he had found in his New Testament the story of Jonah misquoted, and and by a small transposition a la mode de Surenhusius, representing that Jonah swallowed the whale! this sturdy confidence in things not seen, would, I doubt not have enabled him without difficulty to swallow the prophet with the whale in his belly.