But, while sympathy is the basis of society and enthusiasm the greatest motive power of humanity, there remains something more to be considered. The man who could appreciate the value of the personal consolations brought by the Bible-woman to the poor and down-trodden, and the infinitely comfortable assurance of the mystic, firm as hypnotic conviction, that he is the direct associate and instrument of the Almighty, whether submissive or arrogant, from Stephen to the Bâb, from Cromwell and Gordon to Bismarck and his Imperial associates, such a man might well say: "I wish I could be so magnificently self-confident, so untroubled by doubt. But I can't, for I have to ask: Is it true?; and I find that these persons base themselves upon very questionable grounds."
True, that in regard to the place of good and evil in this world the best theological teachers—
substantially recognize these realities of things, however strange the forms in which they clothe their conceptions. The doctrines of predestination, of original sin, of the innate depravity of man and the evil fate of the greater part of the race, of the primacy of Satan in this world, of the essential vileness of matter, of a malevolent Demiurgus subordinate to a benevolent Almighty, who has only lately revealed himself, faulty as they are, appear to me to be vastly nearer the truth than the "liberal" popular illusions that babies are all born good, and that the example of a corrupt society is responsible for their failure to remain so; that it is given to everybody to reach the ethical ideal if he will only try; that all partial evil is universal good, and other optimistic figments, such as that which represents "Providence" under the guise of a paternal philanthropist, and bids us believe that everything will come right (according to our notions) at last.
…I am a very strong believer in the punishment of certain kinds of actions, not only in the present, but in all the future a man can have, be it long or short. Therefore in hell, for I suppose that all men with a clear sense of right and wrong (and I am not sure that any others deserve such punishment) have now and then "descended into hell" and stopped there quite long enough to know what infinite punishment means. And if a genuine, not merely subjective, immortality awaits us, I conceive that, without some such change as that depicted in the fifteenth chapter of Corinthians, immortality must be eternal misery. The fate of Swift's Struldbrugs seems to me not more horrible than that of a mind imprisoned for ever within the flammantia moenia of inextinguishable memories.
Such were the shapes into which the Christian theologians had fashioned a number of moral truths when they annexed the house of human morality. But what is the basis of certitude on which these interpretations rest? If Adam was not an historical character, if the story of the Fall be whittled down into a "type" which is typical of no underlying reality, the basis of Pauline theology is shaken, and practical deductions drawn from it are shaken also. In fact, "the Demonology of Christianity shows that its founders knew no more about the spiritual world than anybody else, and Newman's doctrine of 'Development' is true to an extent of which the Cardinal did not dream." And as to the argument that the successful spread of Christianity attests the truth of the New Testament story, he replied to his questioner with the general propositions:—
1. The Church founded by Jesus has not made its way; has not permeated the world; but did become extinct in the country of its birth—as Nazarenism and Ebionism.
2. The Church that did make its way and coalesced with the State in the fourth century had no more to do with the Church founded by Jesus than Ultramontanism has with Quakerism. It is Alexandrian Judaism and Neoplatonistic mystagogy, and as much of the old idolatry and demonology as could be got in under new or old names.
3. Paul has said that the Law was schoolmaster to Christ with more truth than he knew. Throughout the Empire the synagogues had their cloud of Gentile hangers-on—those who "feared God" and who were fully prepared to accept a Christianity which was merely an expurgated Judaism and the belief in Jesus as the Messiah.
4. The Christian "Sodalitia" were not merely religious bodies, but friendly societies, burial societies, and guilds. They hung together for all purposes; the mob hated them as it now hates the Jews in Eastern Europe, because they were more frugal, more industrious, and led better lives than their neighbours, while they stuck together like Scotchmen.
If these things are true—and I appeal to your knowledge of history that they are so—what has the success of Christianity to do with the truth or falsehood of the story of Jesus?