The Fair Haven

by Samuel Butler

“Can we wonder then, if we ourselves feel so strongly concerning events which are hull down upon the horizon of time, that those who lived in the very thick of them should have been possessed with an all absorbing ecstasy or even frenzy of excitement? Assuredly there is no blame on the score of credulity to be attached to those who propagated the Christian religion, but the beliefs which were natural and lawful to them, are, if natural, yet not lawful to ourselves: they should be resisted: they are neither right nor wise, and do not form any legitimate ground for faith: if faith means only the believing facts of history upon insufficient evidence, we deny the merit of faith; on the contrary, we regard it as one of the most deplorable of all errors—as sapping the foundations of all the moral and intellectual faculties. It is grossly immoral to violate one’s inner sense of truth by assenting to things which, though they may appear to be supported by much, are still not supported by enough. The man who can knowingly submit to such a derogation from the rights of his self-respect, deserves the injury to his mental eye-sight which such a course will surely bring with it. But the mischief will unfortunately not be confined to himself; it will devolve upon all who are ill-fated enough to be in his power; he will be reckless of the harm he works them, provided he can keep its consequences from being immediately offensive to himself. No: if a good thing can be believed legitimately, let us believe it and be thankful, otherwise the goodness will have departed out of it; it is no longer ours; we have no right to it, and shall suffer for it, we and our children, if we try to keep it. It has been said that the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge, but, more truly, it is the eating of sweet and stolen fruit by the fathers that sets the teeth of the children jarring. Let those who love their children look to this, for on their own account they may be mainly trusted to avoid the sour. Hitherto the intensity of the belief of the Apostles has been the mainstay of our own belief. But that mainstay is now no longer strong enough. A rehearing of the evidence is imperatively demanded, that it may either be confirmed or overthrown.”

It cannot be denied that there is much in the above with which all true Christians will agree, and little to find fault with except the self-complacency which would seem to imply that common sense and plain dealing belong exclusively to the unbelieving side. It is time that this spirit should be protested against not in word only but in deed. The fact is, that both we and our opponents are agreed that nothing should be believed unless it can be proved to be true. We repudiate the idea that faith means the accepting historical facts upon evidence which is insufficient to establish them. We do not call this faith; we call it credulity, and oppose it to the utmost of our power.

Our opponents imply that we regard as a virtue well-pleasing in the sight of God, and dignify with the name of faith, a state of mind which turns out to be nothing but a willingness to stand by all sorts of wildly improbable stories which have reached us from a remote age and country, and which, if true, must lead us to think otherwise of the whole course of nature than we should think if we were left to ourselves. This accusation is utterly false and groundless. Faith is the “evidence of things not seen,” but it is not “insufficient evidence for things alleged to have been seen.” It is “the substance of things hoped for,” but “reasonably hoped for” was unquestionably intended by the Apostle. We base our faith in the deeper mysteries of our religion, as in the nature of the Trinity and the sacramental graces, upon the certainty that other things which are within the grasp of our reason can be shewn to be beyond dispute. We know that Christ died and rose again; therefore we believe whatever He sees fit to tell us, and follow Him, or endeavour to follow Him, whereinsoever He commands us, but we are not required to take both the commands of the Mediator and His credentials upon faith. It is because certain things within our comprehension are capable of the most irrefragable proof, that certain others out of it may justly be required to be believed, and indeed cannot be disbelieved without contumacy and presumption. And this applies to a certain extent to the credentials also: for although no man should be captious, nor ask for more evidence than would satisfy a well-disciplined mind concerning the truth of any ordinary fact (as one who not contented with the evidence of a seal, a handwriting and a matter not at variance with probability, would nevertheless refuse to act upon instructions because he had not with his own eyes actually seen the sender write and sign and seal), yet it is both reasonable and indeed necessary that a certain amount of care should be taken before the credentials are accepted. If our opponents mean no more than this we are at one with them, and may allow them to proceed.

“Turn then,” they say, “to the account of the events which are alleged to have happened upon the morning of the Resurrection, as given in the fourth Gospel: and assume for the sake of the argument that that account, if not from John’s own hand, is nevertheless from a Johannean source, and virtually the work of the Apostle. The account runs as follows:

“‘The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene while it was yet dark unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth and cometh to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, ‘They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid Him.’ Peter therefore went forth and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they both ran together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooping down and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying, yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him and went into the sepulchre and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin that was about His head not lying with the linen clothes but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw and believed. For as yet they knew not the Scripture that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went away again to their own home. But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping; and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, and seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain, and they say unto her, ‘Woman, why weepest thou?’ She saith unto them, ‘Because they have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him.’”

“Then Mary sees Jesus himself, but does not at first recognise him.

“Now, let us see what the above amounts to, and, dividing it into two parts, let us examine first what we are told as having come actually under John’s own observation, and, secondly, what happened afterwards.

I. “It is clear that Mary had seen nothing miraculous before she came running to the two Apostles, Peter and John. She had found the tomb empty when she reached it. She did not know where the body of her Lord then was, nor was there anything to shew how long it had been removed: all she knew was that within thirty-six hours from the time of its having been laid in the tomb it had disappeared, but how much earlier it had been gone neither did she know, nor shall we. Peter and John went into the sepulchre and thoroughly examined it: they saw no angel, nor anything approaching to the miraculous, simply the grave clothes (which were probably of white linen), lying in two separate places. Then, and not till then, do they appear to have entertained their first belief or hope that Christ might have risen from the dead.

“This is plain and credible; but it amounts to an empty tomb, and to an empty tomb only.

“Here, for a moment, we must pause. Had these men but a few weeks previously seen Lazarus raised from the corruption of the grave—to say nothing of other resurrections from the dead? Had they seen their master override every known natural law, and prove that, as far as he was concerned, all human experience was worthless, by walking upon rough water, by actually talking to a storm of wind and making it listen to him, by feeding thousands with a few loaves, and causing the fragments that remained after all had eaten, to be more than the food originally provided? Had they seen events of this kind continually happening for a space of some two years, and finally had they seen their master transfigured, conversing with the greatest of their prophets (men who had been dead for ages), and recognised by a voice from heaven as the Son of the Almighty, and had they also heard anything approaching to an announcement that he should himself rise from the dead—or had they not? They might have seen the raising of Lazarus and the rest of the miracles, but might not have anticipated that Christ himself would rise, for want of any announcement that this should be so; or, again, they might have heard a prophecy of his Resurrection from the lips of Christ, but disbelieved it for the want of any previous miracles which should convince them that the prophecy came from no ordinary person; so that their not having expected the Resurrection is explicable by giving up either the prophecies, or the miracles, but it is impossible to believe that in spite both of the miracles and the prophecies, the Apostles should have been still without any expectation of the Resurrection. If they had both seen the miracles and heard the prophecies, they must have been in a state of inconceivably agitated excitement in anticipation of their master’s reappearance. And this they were not; on the contrary, they were expecting nothing of the kind. The condition of mind ascribed to them considering their supposed surroundings, is one which belongs to the drama only; it is not of nature: it is so utterly at variance with all human experience that it should be dismissed at once as incredible.