If these principles are correct, a considerable number of recently published lives of Jesus, and other similar compositions, have no claim to the designation of historical writings. They are mere novels evolved out of the self-consciousness of their authors. They are nothing but simple imaginations of what, under certain conjectural circumstances, might have happened, but are destitute of all evidence that they actually occurred. If history is thus degraded, it must become devoid of all scientific value. I have pressed this point because nowhere is this license of conjectural guessing at events more largely indulged in, than in questions connected with the Bible and its criticism.
Chapter XVIII. The Testimony Of The Church, And Of St. Paul's Epistles, To The Facts Of Primitive Christianity. Their Historical Value Considered.
I have in the preceding chapter drawn attention to the chief principles of historical evidence, and to the importance of certain classes of historical documents; also to the important bearing which the continued existence of a great institution like the Christian Church has on this subject, especially as its origin can be traced up to a definite period of history. I have further shown that as the Church gives a definite account of its origin, which, if true, is an adequate one; it is incumbent on those who reject this account to propound another which shall be able to stand the application of the principles of a sound philosophy of human nature. I must now consider the evidence which the existence of the Church as a visible institution, and the Epistles of St. Paul, afford to the great facts on which Christianity is based.
If it can be proved beyond question that the Church immediately after it assumed a distinctive form not only believed in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, as one among many miraculous facts, but affirmed that the belief in its truth was the one sole ground of its corporate existence, within a very short interval after the date of His crucifixion, it must be admitted, even by [pg 394] unbelievers, to involve a question of the most serious importance. It proves for certain that the belief in one miracle, and that the greatest of all recorded in the Gospels, was neither a mythic nor a legendary creation. It further follows that if the original followers of Jesus thought that He had risen from the dead, it may be taken as a moral certainty that they must have believed that other supernatural actions were performed by Him during His life. The solution which unbelievers propound as the account of the origin of the miraculous narratives in the Gospels is that they are a gradual creation of a mythic and legendary spirit. Hence their efforts to assign them to the latest possible date. If their publication can be deferred to the early years of the second century, they consider that this would afford the requisite time for surrounding the history of Jesus with a halo of mythic and legendary environment. But if it can be shown that the new-born Christian Church, within a short interval after the Crucifixion, affirmed that the sole ground of its renewed life was the belief in the Resurrection of its founder, the possibility that such belief could have been either mythic or legendary is taken away. Whatever may be urged about the other parts of the story, there remains one miracle (and that the greatest of all), which it is impossible to affirm to have been either a mythical or a legendary creation. If the Church accepted it as the sole ground of its existence, and if that belief can be traced to the hour of its birth, it must have been due either to some species of delusion, or to a fact. If Jesus was thus believed to have risen from the dead, it is useless to assign the belief in His other miracles to a later legendary spirit.
But further: The Church, within a short number of years from the date of its birth, must have had all the [pg 395] consciousness that it was a young society. It was engaged in a constant struggle for existence, and had before it the alternative of enlarging its numbers, or perishing. A new society constantly struggling for existence could not fail within this interval of time to have the most lively consciousness of what it was to which it owed its origin, and which formed the bond of union among its members. It must have been to them a constantly recurring thought. Every one must have known that it was an alleged miraculous fact, a supposed Resurrection of one who had been crucified. Was it possible for the members of such a society to avoid looking back with anxiety on the alleged ground of its existence? It was no dogma capable of endless discussion, but a fact. The bond of union was allegiance to a living person. Is it conceivable that this person was not the object of daily interest to its members, or that they did not make His history the subject of earnest inquiry? Can we suppose for one moment that any of them were ignorant of or had forgotten the grounds on which they had joined the new community, or which formed the basis of its life? The recollections of the members of a society which is only between twenty and thirty years old must be fresh.
But it may be said, these people were very credulous. Be it so. Credulous people placed in the circumstances of the Christian Church are never deficient in curiosity. Even if the belief in the Resurrection of Jesus had originated in credulity, the first principles of human nature would have urged them to get all the information which they could respecting it. They were in the exact position to enable them to do this. Within ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years, there must have been plenty of information at hand to enable them to ascertain [pg 396] whether the society to which they belonged did or did not owe its existence to this belief, and to get full information as to the general outline of the story on which it was founded. It is impossible for members of a society whose origin was so recent to have remained ignorant of the circumstances which gave it birth. They must have been handed down by a lively tradition. I conclude therefore, that it would have been simply impossible for the members of the Church, within this short time, to be mistaken as to whether its existence and continued life was due to the belief that its founder had risen from the dead, or whether He was supposed to have worked miracles during His life; and that its belief could not have been due to mythic or legendary causes.
The question before us then, becomes clear and definite, freed from the vagueness with which it has been endeavoured to obscure it. If it can be proved that the Christian Church owed its origin to its belief in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that its renewed life began within the briefest interval after His crucifixion, the whole discussion becomes narrowed into the following issue: Is it possible that such a belief, within so short a time after His death, could have originated in a fiction? Three alternatives are open for our acceptance, and three only; either:
Jesus did not really die, while his followers supposed that He had, and they mistook some appearance of Him after His crucifixion for a resurrection: