But if I had been in Strauss’s place, and had wished to make out a case against Christianity without much heed of facts, I should not have done it by a theory of hallucinations. A much prettier, more novel and more sensational opening for such an attempt is afforded by an attack upon the Crucifixion itself. A very neat theory might be made, that there may have been some disturbance at one of the Jewish passovers, during which some persons were crucified as an example by the Romans: that during this time Christ happened to be missing; that he reappeared, and finally departed, whither, no man can say: that the Apostles, after his last disappearance, remembering that he had been absent during the tumult, little by little worked themselves up into the belief that on his reappearance they had seen wounds upon him, and that the details of the Crucifixion were afterwards revealed in a vision to some favoured believer, until in the course of a few years the narrative assumed its present shape: that then the reappearance of Christ was denied among the Jews, while the Crucifixion as attaching disgrace to him was not disputed, and that it thus became so generally accepted as to find its way into Pliny and Josephus. This tissue of absurdity may serve as an example of what the unlicensed indulgence of theory might lead to; but truly it would be found quite as easy of belief as that the early Christian faith in the Resurrection was due to hallucination only.
Considering, then, that Christianity was not crushed but overran the most civilised portions of the world; that St. Paul was undoubtedly early told, in such a manner as for him to be thoroughly convinced of the fact, that on some few but sufficient occasions Christ was seen alive after he had been crucified; that the general belief in the reappearance of our Lord was so strong that those who had the best means of judging gave up all else to preach it, with a unanimity and singleness of purpose which is irreconcilable with hallucination; that all our records most definitely insist upon this belief and that there is no trace of its ever having been disputed among the Jewish Christians, it seems hard to see how we can escape from admitting that Jesus Christ was crucified, dead, and buried, and yet that he was verily and indeed seen alive again by those who expected nothing less, but who, being once convinced, turned the whole world after them.
It is now incumbent upon us to examine the testimony of St. Paul, to which I would propose to devote a separate chapter.
Chapter III
The Character and Conversion of St. Paul
Setting aside for the present the story of St. Paul’s conversion as given in the Acts of the Apostles—for I am bound to admit that there are circumstances in connection with that account which throw doubt upon its historical accuracy—and looking at the broad facts only, we are struck at once with the following obvious reflection, namely, that Paul was an able man, a cultivated man, and a bitter opponent of Christianity; but that in spite of the strength of his original prejudices, he came to see what he thought convincing reasons for going over to the camp of his enemies. He went over, and with the result we are all familiar.
Now even supposing that the miraculous account of Paul’s conversion is entirely devoid of foundation, or again, as I believe myself, that the story given in the Acts is not correctly placed, but refers to the vision alluded to by Paul himself (I. Cor. xv.), and to events which happened, not coincidently with his conversion, but some years after it—does not the importance of the conversion itself rather gain than lose in consequence? A charge of unimportant inaccuracy may be thus sustained against one who wrote in a most inaccurate age; but what is this in comparison with the testimony borne to the strength of the Christian evidences by the supposition that of their own weight alone, and without miraculous assistance, they succeeded in convincing the most bitter, and at the same time the ablest, of their opponents? This is very pregnant. No man likes to abandon the side which he has once taken. The spectacle of a man committing himself deeply to his original party, changing without rhyme or reason, and then remaining for the rest of his life the most devoted and courageous adherent of all that he had opposed, without a single human inducement to make him do so, is one which has never been witnessed since man was man. When men who have been committed deeply and spontaneously to one cause, leave it for another, they do so either because facts have come to their knowledge which are new to them and which they cannot resist, or because their temporal interests urge them, or from caprice: but if they change from caprice in important matters and after many pledges given, they will change from caprice again: they will not remain for twenty-five or thirty years without changing a jot of their capriciously formed opinions. We are therefore warranted in assuming that St. Paul’s conversion to Christianity was not dictated by caprice: it was not dictated by self-interest: it must therefore have sprung from the weight of certain new facts which overbore all the resistance which he could make to them.
What then could these facts have been?
Paul’s conduct as a Jew was logical and consistent: he did what any seriously-minded man who had been strictly brought up would have done in his situation. Instead of half believing what he had been taught, he believed it wholly. Christianity was cutting at the root of what was in his day accepted as fundamental: it was therefore perfectly natural that he should set himself to attack it. There is nothing against him in this beyond the fact of his having done it, as far as we can see, with much cruelty. Yet though cruel, he was cruel from the best of motives—the stamping out of an error which was harmful to the service of God; and cruelty was not then what it is now: the age was not sensitive and the lot of all was harder. From the first he proved himself to be a man of great strength of character, and like many such, deeply convinced of the soundness of his opinions, and deeply impressed with the belief that nothing could be good which did not also commend itself as good to him. He tested the truth of his earlier convictions not by external standards, but by the internal standard of their own strength and purity—a fearful error which but for God’s mercy towards him would have made him no less wicked than well-intentioned.
Even after having been convinced by a weight of evidence which no prejudice could resist, and after thus attaining to a higher conception of right and truth and goodness than was possible to him as a Jew, there remained not a few traces of the old character. Opposition beyond certain limits was a thing which to the end of his life he could not brook. It is not too much to say that he regarded the other Apostles—and was regarded by them—with suspicion and dislike; even if an angel from Heaven had preached any other doctrine than what Paul preached, the angel was to be accursed (Gal. i., 8), and it is not probable that he regarded his fellow Apostles as teaching the same doctrine as himself, or that he would have allowed them greater licence than an angel. It is plain from his undoubted Epistles to the Corinthians and Galatians that the other Apostles, no less than his converts, exceedingly well knew that he was not a man to be trifled with. If the arm of the law had been as much on his side after his conversion as before it, it would have gone hardly with dissenters; they would have been treated with politic tenderness the moment that they yielded, but woe betide them if they presumed on having any very decided opinions of their own.
On the other hand, his sagacity is beyond dispute; it is certain that his perception of what the Gentile converts could and could not bear was the main proximate cause of the spread of Christianity. He prevented it from becoming a mere Jewish sect, and it has been well said that but for him the Jews would now be Christians, and the Gentiles unbelievers. Who can doubt his tact and forbearance, where matters not essential were concerned? His strength in not yielding a fraction upon vital points was matched only by his suppleness and conciliatory bearing upon all others. To use his own words, he did indeed become “all things to all men” if by any means he could gain some, and the probability is that he pushed this principle to its extreme (see Acts xxi., 20–26).