The generally acknowledged author of Christian morals offers no salient points for criticism, as he can not be regarded as a historical person whose career has been carefully followed and marked by the biographer. He is a mythological man, with a little less of the fabulous and a little more of the real than attaches to the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome.
The name of Jesus adorns an anatomy of words. It pictures a person, not of flesh and blood, but of faith and fancy. Jesus is a man of the imagination; but mythical as he is, certain men and women believe in him in their own way, and are not over-tolerant of those who are disposed to ask for the proofs of his life and works.
This person has left no more marks of his living upon the earth than have the birds the marks of their flight through the air. The New Testament is no more history than is Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. We can not make any positive assertions in regard to the life and character of a man when we do not know who was his father, where or when he was born, with whom he lived, nor when he died. The only historical fact connected with Jesus which is not disputed is that Mary was his mother. This is a very important point in his history, but it is not sufficient to constitute a biography.
Notwithstanding the fact that the entire narrative of Jesus is without a single chronological date, and the vastly more significant fact that not a single incident connected with the career of Jesus is mentioned in contemporaneous history, we must perforce speak of him as a person whose life was watched and noted from his miraculous advent to his miraculous ascension, and look upon his disciples as so many Boswells ready to mirror to the world his every speech and act.
We must do this—Why? Because the world will not candidly and critically study the gospel-story.
For the present, then, we will speak of Jesus as a man, and accept him as the author of the moral code in the New Testament. But a word or two about the man. The Christian world sets him apart as the model of the race, as the masterpiece of Nature, as the utmost which earth can produce. Every man must here fetch his word of praise, and every word be a mountain to meet the demand of the Christian Church for reverence of Jesus.
I do not believe in the infallibility of any man, but I believe in the improvability of all men. Is man no longer heir to the virtues of life, that he must erect monuments of praise forever over the name of Jesus? I shall take the liberty to express my dissent from the common expressions of admiration for this man. I can not praise everything which he did, nor can I think that every word he uttered is a star of wisdom. He said some good things,but much of what he said is good for nothing. His theology will do for Sunday Schools, but it will not stand half a dozen questions by commonsense. His Hell is barbarous, his Heaven childish, and his ideas of humanity show but a superficial knowledge of human nature. His life can not be imitated with advantage to the race, and his notions of human existence are wholly inadequate to the complex, varied civilization of this age.
Let us see what he did. He paid no filial respect to his parents; he refused to acknowledge his mother and his brothers; he lived a roving, wandering life; he paid no heed to the laws of his country; he placed no value upon industry, and even went so far as to tell men and women that God would feed and clothe them; he helped himself to the property and possessions of other people without paying for them, and destroyed what belonged to others without offering an equivalent; he had no property, no home, not a place to lay his head; he hated the rulers, yet sought to establish a kingdom for himself; he failed to reach the throne he sought, and died upon the malefactor's cross.
Is this the man for the Twentieth Century to honor? Is this the man for men to follow in this age? Is this the man whose life all should strive to imitate?