The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour

by F. Max Müller

The Reasonableness Of Religion

The most difficult and at all events the thorniest problem that was presented to me by the Horseherd still remains unanswered, and I have long doubted whether I should attempt to answer it in so popular a periodical as the Deutsche Rundschau.

There are so many things that have been so long settled among scholars that they are scarcely mentioned, while to a great majority of even well-informed people they are still enveloped in a misty gloom. To this class belong especially the so-called articles of faith. We must not forget that with many, even with most men, faith is not faith, but acquired habit. Why otherwise should the son of a Jew be a Jew, the son of a Parsi a Parsi? Moreover, no one likes to be disturbed in his old habits. There are questions, too, on which mankind as it is now constituted will never reach a common understanding, because they lie outside the realm of science or the knowable. Concerning such questions it is well to waste no more words. But it is on just such a question, namely, the true nature of revelation, that the Horseherd and his companions particularly wish to know my views. The [pg 154] current theory of revelation is their greatest stumbling block, and they continually direct their principal attack against this ancient stronghold. On the other hand there is nothing so convenient as this theory, and many who have no other support cling fast to this anchor. The Bible is divine revelation, say they, therefore it is infallible and unassailable, and that settles everything.

Now we must, above all things, come to an understanding as to what is meant by revelation before we attribute revelation to the Bible. There are not many now who really believe that an angel in bodily form descended from heaven and whispered into the ear of the apostles, in rather bad Greek, every verse, every word, even every letter of our Gospels. When Peter in his second Epistle (i. 18) assures us that he heard a voice from heaven, that is a fact that can only be confirmed, or invalidated, by witnesses. But when he immediately after says (i. 21) that “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit,” he presents to us a view of inspiration that is easily intelligible, the possibility or truth of which must yet be first determined by psychologists. If it be conceded, however, that holy men may partake of such an inspiration, even then it is plain that it requires a much higher inspiration to declare others to be divinely inspired than to make such a claim for oneself alone. This theory, that the Gospels are inspired by God, and therefore are infallible and unassailable, has gained more and more currency since the time [pg 155] of the Reformation. The Bible was to be the only authority in future for the Christian faith. Pope and ecclesiastical tradition were cast aside, and a greater stress was consequently laid on the litera scripta of the New Testament. This naturally led to a very laborious and detailed criticism of these records, which year by year assumed a wider scope, and was finally absorbed in so many special investigations that its original purpose of establishing the authority of the Scriptures of the New Testament seems to have quite passed out of sight. These critical investigations concerning the manuscripts of the New Testament, Codex Sinaiticus, Alexandrimus, and Vaticanus, down to Number 269, Bentley's Q, are probably of less interest to the Horseherd; they are known to those who make a special study of this subject, and are of no interest outside.

If, as might have happened, without any miracle, the original autograph of the Gospels, as they were written by the apostles or some one else with their own hands, had been carefully preserved in the archives of the first popes, our professors would have been spared much labour. But we nowhere read that these successors and heirs of Peter showed any special solicitude for this prime duty of their office, the preservation of this precious jewel of their treasure, the New Testament. What they neglected, had therefore to be recovered by our philologists. Just as those who wished to study the Peloponnesian war resorted to the manuscripts of Thucydides, the [pg 156] Christian scholars, to become acquainted with the origins of Christianity, betook themselves to the manuscripts of the New Testament. And as the manuscripts of Thucydides vary widely from one another and in certain passages leave us quite helpless, so do the manuscripts of the New Testament. Bentley speaks of thirty thousand variæ lectiones in the New Testament; but since his time their number must have increased fourfold. The manuscripts of the New Testament are more numerous than those of any classic. Two thousand are known and have been described, and more yet may lie buried in libraries. Now while this large number of manuscripts and various readings have given the philologists of the New Testament greater difficulties than the classical philologist encounters, still on the other hand the New Testament has the advantage over all classical texts, in that some of its manuscripts are much older than those of the majority of classical writers. We have, for instance, no complete manuscripts of Homer earlier than the thirteenth century, while the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament descend from the fourth and fifth centuries. It is frequently said that all these things are of no importance for the understanding of the New Testament, and that theologians need not trouble themselves about them. But this is saying too much. There are variæ lectiones, which are certainly not without importance for the facts and the doctrines of Christianity, and in which the last word belongs not to [pg 157] the theologian, but to the philologist. No one would say that it makes no difference if Mark xvi. 9-20 is omitted or not; no one would declare that the authenticity or spuriousness of the section on the adulteress (John vii. 53-viii. 11) was entirely indifferent. When we consider what contention there has been over the seventh verse of the fifth chapter of the first Epistle of John, and how the entire doctrine of the Trinity has been based on that (“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one”), it will hardly be maintained that the manuscripts are of no importance for Christian dogma. Whether in the first Epistle to Timothy iii. 16, we read ΟΣ for ΘΣ, that is, θεός, is also not quite immaterial. Still I admit that in comparison to the problems presented to me by the Horseherd and his comrades, these variæ lectiones will not rack our brains nearly so badly. I have been reproached for still owing my friends an answer to the attacks which they directed exclusively against Christian religion. It was, however, impossible to deal thoroughly with these matters, without first taking into consideration their objections against all religion.

I therefore first endeavoured to make clear to my unknown friends two things, which constitute the foundation of all religion: first, that the world is rational, that it is the result of thought, and that in this sense only is it the creation of a being which possesses reason, or is reason itself (the Logos); [pg 158] and secondly, that mind or thought cannot be the outcome of matter, but on the contrary is the prius of all things. To this end a statement of the results of the philosophy of language was absolutely necessary, partly to establish more clearly the relation of thought to speech, partly to comprehend the true meaning of the Logos or the Word in the New Testament, and understand in how easily intelligible and perfectly reasonable a sense the term “Word” (Logos) can be applied to the Son of God.

I am not one of those who pretend to find no difficulties in all these questions. On the contrary, I have wrestled with them for years, and remember well the joy I felt when first the true historical meaning of the opening of the Fourth Gospel, “In the beginning was the word,” became clear to me. It is true that I turned no somersaults like the Horseherd, but I was well satisfied. I do not therefore consider the objections raised by him as unfounded or without justification; on the contrary, it were better if others would speak with the same freedom as he has done, although a calmer tone in such matters would be more effective than the fortissimo of the Horseherd.

What aided me most in the solution of these religious or theological difficulties, was a comparative study of the religions of mankind. In spite of their differences, they are all afflicted with the same ailments, and when we find that we encounter the same difficulties in other religions as those with [pg 159] which we are ourselves contending, it is safe to consider them as deeply rooted in human nature, and in this same nature, be it weak or strong, to seek their solution. As comparative philology has proved that many of the irregular nouns and verbs are really the most regular and ancient, so it is with the irregular, that is, the miraculous occurrences in the history of religion. Indeed, we may now say that it would be a miracle if there were anywhere any religion without miracles, or if the Scriptures on which any religion is based were not presented by the priests and accepted by the believers as of superhuman, even divine origin, and therefore infallible. In all these matters we must seek for the reasons, and in this manner endeavour to understand their truth as well as error.

Whether or not I have succeeded in proving that the world is rational, and that mind is the prius of matter, I must leave to the decision of the Horseherd and his friends. Fortunately these questions are of that nature that we may entertain different opinions upon them without accusing each other of heresy. Many Darwinians, for instance, Romanes, and even Huxley, have always considered themselves good Christians, although they believed the doctrine of Darwin to be the only way of salvation. If, however, we take up such questions as were propounded to me by the Horseherd, and which have more to do with Christian theology than Christian religion, there is an immediate change of tone, and unfortunately the [pg 160] difference of view becomes at once a difference of aim. The moral element enters immediately, and those who believe otherwise are designated unbelievers, though we do not at once stamp those who think otherwise as incapable of thought. Here lies the great difficulty in considering and treating calmly religious, or rather, theological questions. There is little hope of reaching a mutual understanding when the first attack is characterised by such vigour as was shown by the Horseherd and many of his comrades. He speaks at once of tales of fraud and deceit, and of the fantasies of the Christian religion. He says that he is full of bloodthirstiness against the Jewish idea of God, and believes that since the writings of Hume and Schopenhauer, positive Christianity has become a sheer impossibility, and more of the same import. This is certainly “fortissimo,” but not therefore by any means “verissimo.”

Other correspondents, such as Agnosticus, declare all revelation a chimera; in short, there has been no lack of expressions subversive of Christianity, and, in fact, of all revealed religion.