The Christians themselves seemed to attach so much importance to “Christ in the flesh” that I began to attach importance too. The evangelists appeared to say, in effect, “If we cannot prove that Christ in the flesh arose from the dead, then we admit that He has not arisen.” So they—or rather my impression about them—led me away to say the same thing. A few days ago, I had neither desired nor expected that Christ should be demonstrated to have risen in the flesh. Now I said, “I fear it cannot be proved that Christ in the flesh, that Christ’s tangible body, rose from the dead. Nay, more, I feel that the belief in what might be called a tangible resurrection arose from some such causes as Scaurus has specified. So I must give up all belief.”
I ought to have waited. I ought to have asked, “All belief in what?” “Belief in what kind of resurrection?” Scaurus himself had casually admitted that visions, though not presenting things tangible, might present things real. If so, then the visions of Israel might be real, the visions to Abraham and the patriarchs, to Moses, to the prophets. These might be a series of lessons given to the teachers in the east to be passed on to the learners in the west. Among the latest of these was a vision of “one like unto a Son of man.” He was represented as “coming” with the clouds of heaven. That was a noble vision. Yet how much better and nobler would be a vision of the Son of man “coming” into the hearts of men, taking possession of them, reigning in them, establishing a kingdom of God in them! Such a Son of man had been revealed to Paul, “defined” as “the Son of God” “from the resurrection of the dead.” Being both God and man He brought (so Paul said) God and man into one, imparting to all men the sense of divine sonship, the light of righteousness and spiritual life, triumphant over spiritual darkness and death. This is what I ought to have thought of, but did not.
Such an all-present power of divine sonship Paul seemed also to have in view when he likened belief in the risen Saviour to the faith described by Moses in Deuteronomy. The true believer, said Paul, is not the slave of place, saying, “Who shall go up to heaven?” that is, to bring Christ down to us from the right hand of God. Nor does he say, “Who shall go down to the abyss?” that is, to bring Christ up to us from the dead. The word of faith is “very near.” It is “in the heart.” It says, “Believe with the heart that God raised Christ from the dead.” Such belief is not from the “eyes” nor from the “understanding”—as if one saw with one’s own eyes the door of the grave burst open by an angel, or heard the facts attested in a lawcourt by a number of honest and competent eyewitnesses incapable of being deceived and of deceiving. To say, “I believe it because Marcus or Gaius believed it,” is to avow a belief in Marcus or Gaius, not in Christ, unless the avower can go on to say “and because I have felt the risen Saviour within me.”
He alone really and truly believes in the resurrection of Christ whose belief is based on personal experience. If he has that, he can contemplate without alarm the divergences of the gospels in their narratives of this spiritual reality. He will understand the meaning of Paul’s words, “It pleased God to reveal His Son in me”—not “to me,” but “in me.” For indeed it is a revelation—not a demonstration from the intellect and senses alone—derived from all our faculties when enlightened by God. God draws back the veil from our fearful and faithless hearts and gives us a convincing sense of Christ at His right hand and in ourselves. This “conviction” is derived from no source but the convincing Spirit of the Saviour, coming to us in various ways, and through many instruments, but mostly through disciples whom the Saviour loves, and who have received not only His Spirit but also the power of imparting it to others.
All these things I knew afterwards, but not at the time I am now describing. I had indeed already some faint conjecture of the truth, but not such as I could put into definite words. I was defeated. In the bitterness of defeat I exclaimed, “There is more beyond, but I cannot reach it. I cannot even suggest it. These evangelists give me no help. They take part with Scaurus against me. I am beaten and must surrender.” Yet I felt vaguely that I was not fairly beaten. I was like a baffled suitor retiring from a court of justice, crushed by a hostile verdict, victorious in truth and equity, but beaten and mulcted of all his estate on some point of technical law.
In this mood, sullen and sick at heart, weary of evidence and evidential “proofs” that were no proofs, and irritated rather with the evangelists than with Scaurus—who, after all, was doing no more than his duty in pointing out what appeared to him historical errors—I was greatly moved by an appeal to my love of truth with which my old friend concluded his letter. It was to this effect.
“Well, Silanus, now I have really done. I cannot quite understand what induced me to take up so much of my time, paper, and ink—and your time, too, which is worse—and all to kill a dead illusion. Why do I say ‘dead’ if it was never alive? Perhaps it was once nearly alive even in my sceptical soul. I think I have mentioned before that I, even I, have had moments when the dream of that phantom City of Truth and Justice had attractions for me. Perhaps I fancied it might be possible to receive this Jewish prophet as a great teacher and philosopher—helpful for the morals of private life at all events, even though useless for politics and imperial affairs—apart from the extravagant claims now raised for him by his disciples. But it is gone—this illusion—if it ever existed. The East and the West cannot mix. If they did, their offspring would be a portent. This Christian superstition is a mere creature of feeling, not of reason. I do not say it has done me harm to study it. Else I would not have sent you this letter. It is perhaps a bracing and healthful exercise to remind ourselves now and then that things are not as we could wish them to be, and that we must not ‘feign things like unto our prayers.’ A truthful man must see things as they are in truth. The City of Dreams has closed its gates against me, and I am shut out. It is warm in there. I am occasionally cold. So be it! Theirs is the fervour of the fancy, the comfortable warmth of the not-true. I must wrap myself in the cloak of truth—a poor uncomfortable thing, perhaps, but (as Epictetus would say) ‘my own.’ Truth, my dear Silanus, is your own, too—that is to say, truth to your own reason, truth to your own conscience. Never let wishes or aspirations wrest that from you. ‘Keep what is your own!’”
For the time, this appeal was too strong for me. I wrote to Scaurus briefly confessing that the City of Dreams had had attractions for me, as well as for him, but that I had resolved to put the thought away, though I might, perhaps, continue a little longer the study of the Christian books, which I, too, had found very interesting. When I grew calmer, I added a postscript, asking whether it was not possible that “feeling,” as well as “reason,” might play a certain lawful part in the search after truths about God. My last words were an assurance that, whereas I had been somewhat irregular of late in my attendance at Epictetus’s lectures, I should be quite regular in future. This indeed was my intention. As things turned out, however, the next lecture was my last.