Shortly after this Jesus went to the temple, and in a meek and quiet manner, with a scourge of small curds drove thereout the cattle dealers and money changers who had assembled there in the ordinary course of their business. It is hardly probable that the Jews would have permitted this without violent resistance to so rough a course of procedure. The writer of the fourth gospel placed this event very early in the public life of Jesus. The writer of the third gospel fixes the occurrence much later. Perhaps it happened twice, or perhaps they have both made a mistake in the time.
The Jesus of the four gospels is alleged to have been God all-wise; being hungry, he went to a fig-tree, when the season of figs was not yet come. Of course there were no figs upon the tree, and Jesus then caused the tree to wither away. This is an interesting account to a true orthodox trinitarian. Such a one will believe: first, that Jesus was God, who made the tree, and prevented it from bearing figs; second, that God the all-wise, who is not subject to human passions, being hungry, went to the fig-tree, on which he knew there would be no figs, expecting to find some there; third, that God the all-just then punished the tree because it did not bear figs in opposition to God's eternal ordination. This account is a profound mystery to a truly religious man. He bow's his head, flings his carnal reason away, and looks at the matter in a prayerful spirit, with an eye of faith. Faith as a grain of mustard seed will remove a mountain. The only difficulty is to get the grain of faith; all is easy when that is done. The "eye of faith" is a great help, it sometimes enables men to see that which does not exist. Jesus had a disciple named Peter, who, having much faith, was a great rascal and denied his leader in his hour of need. Jesus was previously aware that Peter would be a rascal, and he gave him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and told him that whatsoever be bound on earth should be bound in heaven. Many an honest man has been immured in a dungeon, and has had the key turned on him by a rascally jailor. It is to be regretted that the like should be promised for all eternity. Peter was to have denied Jesus three times before the cock should crow (Matt. 26, 34). The cock was doubtless an infidel cock, and would not wait. He crowed before Peter's second denial (Mark xiv, 68).
Commentators urge that the words used do not refer to the crowing of any particular cock, but to a special hour of the morning called "cockcrow." The commentators have but one difficulty to get over, and that is, that if the gospel be true, their explanation is false.
Peter's denial becomes the more extraordinary when we remember that he had seen Moses, Jesus, and Elias talking together, and had heard a voice from a cloud say, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." If Peter could thus deny Jesus after having heard God vouch his divinity, and if Peter not only escapes punishment but gets the office of gatekeeper to heaven, how much should we escape punishment and obtain reward, who only deny because we can not help it, and who have no corroborative evidence of sight or hearing to compel our faith?
The Jesus of the first gospel promised that, as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so he (Jesus) would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Yet he was buried on Friday evening, and was out of the grave before Saturday was over. Of course this is susceptible of explanation; you must have faith and believe that in some other language something else was said which ought to be translated differently. Or, if you can not believe thus, then you must have faith until you stretch the one day and part of another day, and one night and part of another night, into three days and three nights.
Our orthodox translators have made Jesus perform a curious equestrian feat on his entry into Jerusalem. The text says, they "brought the ass and the colt and put on them their clothes and set him thereon." Perhaps this does not mean that he rode on both at one time.
On the cross, the Jesus of the four gospels, who was God, cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" God can not forsake himself. Jesus was God himself. Yet God forsook Jesus, and the latter cried out to know why he was forsaken. This is one of the mysteries of the holy Christian religion which, "unless a man rightly believe without doubt he shall perish everlastingly."
At the crucifixion of Jesus wonderful miracles took place. "The graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the grave after his resurrection and appeared unto many." We do not know which saints these were. Whether they numbered among them St. Abraham, who permitted his wife to incur the risk of dishonor, and who accepted riches to gild his shame; who turned his wife into the desert with one bottle of water and some bread. Saint Lot, of whom the less said the purer our pages; Saint Judah, who wanted to burn alive a woman he had gotten with child; Saint Jacob, the liar and cheat; Saint Joseph, the model prime minister, who bought the people's rights with their own corn; Saint Moses, the conjuror, who killed 3,000 Jews because his own brother Aaron had persuaded them to make a golden calf; Saint Jael, the blessed above all women, because she drove most treacherously a nail into the skull of a sleeping guest; Saint Samson, who slew one thousand men with the jawbone of an ass; Saint Gideon, who frightened a large body of Midianites, with trumpets, pitchers, and lanterns. Poor Midianites, they had all been exterminated long before Gideon's time; it must have been an extraordinary providence to bring them into life in order to frighten them; but God's ways are not as our ways. This is a digression—in plain language, we do not know who "the saints" were. They "appeared unto many," but there is not the slightest evidence that any one ever saw them. Their "bodies" came out of the graves, so we suppose that the bodies of the saints do not decompose like those of ordinary human beings. As the saints rose, so did Jesus. As they had their bodies, so had he. He must have much changed in the grave, for his disciples did not know him when he stood on the shore (John xxi, 4).
According to the first gospel Jesus appeared to two women after his resurrection, and afterward met eleven of his disciples by appointment on a mountain in Galilee. We do not know when the appointment was made; the only verse on which divines rely as being capable of bearing this construction is Matt, xxxi, 32, and that voice is silent both as to place and time—in fact, gives no promise of any meeting whatever. According to the second gospel, he appeared first to one women, and when she told the disciples they did not believe it. Yet we are bound to unhesitatingly accept that which the disciples of Jesus rejected. We have an advantage which perhaps the disciples lacked. We have several different stories of the same event, and we can select that which appears to us the most probable. The disciples might have been so unfortunate as to have only one account. By the second gospel we learn that instead of the eleven going to Galilee after Jesus, he came to them as they sat at meat. In the third gospel, wo are told that he first appeared to two of his disciples at Emmaus, and they did not know him until they had been a long time in his company—in fact, according to the text, it was evening before they recognized him, so we suppose the light of faith supplied the want of the light of day. Unfortunately directly they saw him they did not see him, for as soon as they knew him he vanished out of their sight. He immediately afterward appeared to the eleven at Jerusalem, and not at Galilee, as stated in the first Gospel. Jesus asked for some meat, and the disciples gave him a portion of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb, and he did eat. In these degenerate days it is hard to believe in a ghost eating fried fish, yet we must try to do it for our soul's sake, which otherwise may be burned for ever in the fire that is never quenched. There is certainly nothing more improbable in God the Son eating broiled fish after he was dead, than there is in believing God the Father ate dressed calf, tender and good, prepared for him by Abraham (vide Genesis xviii). A truly pious and devout mind will not look at the letter which killeth, but for the spirit which maketh alive. Jesus was afterward taken up into heaven, a cloud received him, and he was missed. God of course is everywhere, and heaven is not more above than below, but it is necessary we should believe that Jesus has ascended into heaven to sit on the right hand of God, who is infinite and has no right hand. Our question at the commencement was, "Who was Jesus Christ?" Was he a man?—surely not. Born without a father, in the lifetime of Herod, according to Luke. Residing in Egypt, according to Matthew, at a period in which, if Luke be true, he never could have visited Egypt at all. His whole career is, not simply a series of improbabilities, not simply a series of absurdities, but, in truth, a series of fables destitute of foundation in fact.
Who was Christ? born of a virgin. So was Chrishna, the Hindoo god incarnate. The story of Chrishna is identical in many respects with that of Jesus. The story of Chrishna was current long prior to the birth of Jesus. The story of Chrishna is believed by the inhabitants of Hindostan and disbelieved by the English, who say it is a myth, a fable. We add that both are equally true, and that both are equally false.