Modern Skepticism / A Course of Lectures Delivered at the Request of the Christian Evidence Society

by Unknown

Now it must be admitted that in this alone and by itself, if it was not true, there is nothing that can be discovered which is adequate to the production of results so remarkable. When it is asserted that the death of Jesus Christ is surpassed in excellence and sublimity by any other death, the one question that suggests itself is, If this be so, how is it that the results which followed that death were not more remarkable than or so remarkable as those which followed the death of Jesus? This is a simple fact that no criticism or scepticism can destroy, that the preaching of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in the first thirty years afterwards did produce results, as testified by these Epistles, which are simply unparalleled in the history of the world. If the death was not a real death, or the resurrection not a true resurrection, then the responsibility must rest upon us of discovering some other explanation sufficient to account for effects which are too palpable to be ignored, and can assuredly be accounted for on this supposition, but have not yet been adequately accounted for on any other.

It is no part of my present design, and time would fail me, to enlarge upon all the points in which the history of the Gospels is confirmed by these Epistles. I am not now concerned to establish the credibility of the Gospels, but only the general credibility of the Gospel history; and therefore it may suffice to say that we find St. Paul and the Romans believing that Jesus Christ "was made of the seed of David according to the flesh,"[133] an admission which, coming from the pupil of Gamaliel, who must have had the requisite technical information, is very remarkable; but "separated as the Son of God with power," which is at least consistent with our Gospel narrative, that makes Him the Son of God, but born of a virgin, and especially characterised during His ministry by miraculous powers; that in each of these Epistles the custom of baptism is expressly mentioned or implied;[134] that if the origin of this rite is not directly to be referred to the institution of Christ, as recorded in the Gospels, we are altogether ignorant of its origin; that the practice of it was clearly universal, which is so far consistent with the belief that it was derived from the express command of Christ; that in the first Epistle to the Corinthians[135] the writer speaks of Jesus Christ taking bread the same night that He was betrayed, and blessing it, and speaks of it in terms almost identical with those of the Gospels, thus showing not only that the death of Christ, but that the main circumstances of His death were commonly known, and the record of them so far unvarying, and that consequently the supposition of any great or substantial divergence is precluded; that the portrait of Jesus which all recognised was, in all its principal and important features, identical with that which we recognise now; and that, therefore, as the existence of some Gospels is, under the circumstances, a matter of necessity, the question is not so much whether our Gospels are true, as whether there are any others which can be regarded as truer and more trustworthy.

And when we bear in mind that at this time the interval of thirty years had not yet elapsed since the death of Christ, we can partly estimate the possibility of dim or uncertain recollection in the case of events so clearly defined, and so simple, and so important, by the freshness with which we ourselves remember other events more complicated that have happened within a similar period of time. There is, moreover, clear evidence that at the date of these Epistles two practices were universal in the Church—those, namely, of baptising converts, and of commemorating what was called the Lord's Supper. These practices must have had a commencement, and have had an origin. The period of thirty years, before which there is no trace of the second, even if the first existed in other forms, is too short a time for their origin to have been forgotten, or for the practice of them to have become materially modified. But the commemoration of the Lord's Supper is unmeaning, except in connection with the death of Christ, and St. Paul declared, "As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come;"[136] and whatever relation there may have been between baptism as practised by the Jews or by John the Baptist, and Christian baptism, it is certain that baptism in the name of Jesus is unintelligible, except on the supposition of His having risen from the dead, or having in some way established His claim to be the Son of God, or the founder of a new society. St. Paul, however, distinctly says that Christ sent him "not to baptise, but to preach the Gospel,"[137] as though He had sent others to do both; or at any rate, had sent others to baptise. The prevalence, therefore, of these significant practices, which is clearly traceable less than thirty years after the death of Christ, is well-nigh equivalent to contemporary evidence, both as to their origin and to the reality of the events they signified. If Christ had been a shadow, or a myth, or a mere crystallised idea, it is absolutely impossible that we should have the kind of evidence we have as to the universality of these practices. We can account for them on no theory but the express command of Christ, which must have been substantially identical with that recorded in the Gospels.

It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the known writings of St. Paul contain incontrovertible evidence of the whole framework of the life of Christ, which was the basis of the Christian faith less than thirty years after His death. They show us the existence of a large and organised society, which was held together solely by the attachment of its members to His person; and which, but for faith in Him, would have had no existence at all. This society was notorious for the profession and the practice of a very high morality, such as had never before been seen, and can never be surpassed,—at least, it is such a morality these Epistles inculcate. The occurrence of one or two flagrant breaches of this morality in the Church at Corinth, only serves as a foil to what was, beyond all question, its general standard; but, in addition to this, there were other features in it of a wholly exceptional and unprecedented character. One of these was what we may call, for want of a better name, its unworldliness. Every one must feel that there is that in the writings of St. Paul which is distasteful to the common humanity of the world. It is as if a new sense had been suddenly created, and the writer was bent upon satisfying it. The whole range of sympathies and requirements and tastes is new. It is not a natural thing for men to care about communion with Jesus, or prayer to God, or participation in the Holy Spirit, to have hearts overflowing with gratitude to the Divine Being for having redeemed them, for adopting them into His family, and making them partakers of the holiness of His own nature. However this is to be accounted for—if it can be accounted for—it was not then, and is not now, a condition of mind natural to man. Now, take away the expression of these feelings, and the letters of St. Paul come to an end, and the occasion for writing them comes to an end, and the existence of the society for which they were written comes to an end. But as the letters exist, the occasion for writing them must have existed, and the society for which they were written must have existed; and none of these things can have existed without a sufficient and analogous cause. They are inseparably connected with the preaching of Jesus and the belief in His name. Take away these two things, and they would not have existed at all. But their very existence is a proof at the same time that they can only have made their way in opposition to the prevailing tendencies of human nature, because they cherished and exhibited a condition of mind which is foreign to the natural tastes and inclinations of mankind. There is internal evidence, therefore, in the writings of St. Paul that the faith which he preached had only succeeded, wherever it was successful, by triumphing over much that was naturally and fatally opposed to it; thus showing that we cannot refer to any natural causes the success of a scheme of religious belief which was itself contrary to nature, and is still felt to be contrary to nature.

But there is another feature, wholly exceptional and unprecedented, which characterised the new society; the evidence for which is too distinct to be set aside or explained away—the first Epistle to Corinth affords conclusive proof of the existence of miraculous gifts in the Church there. These gifts were of various kinds; the most mysterious of them being the gift of tongues. Whatever this was, it is sufficiently clear that it was over-estimated, and that it was abused. The possessors of it were puffed up on account of it. They were disposed to prefer it before charity, and the less obtrusive gifts of the Spirit. We can only conclude, therefore, that this gift was a reality which was acknowledged and envied by others, but a reality likewise which was peculiar to the Church, and which was limited to the area of belief in Christ. Now we must not assume that the possession of this gift was miraculous; all we may insist upon is the validity of the evidence that it was real, and of this the fourteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians presents incontestable proof, and consequently the existence of this gift is a distinguishing characteristic of the effects which followed the original profession of the faith of Jesus. Not only was the standard of morality raised by it, not only were new dispositions awakened by it, and new capacities and tastes created, and new desires and hopes implanted, not only were the original propensities, inclinations, and antipathies of nature resisted, thwarted, and overcome; but in addition to this, there is a plain evidence of new powers and endowments being conferred upon the first believers concurrently with their belief in Christ. Now it is obviously impossible that delusion can have operated in all these cases; but unless it did, the multiplicity and combination of them supply no inconsiderable confirmation of the reality of that event, the belief in which was the very basis of their existence. Multitudes believed in the fact that Christ had risen from the dead, and the profession of that belief was followed by one or other of these results. A great change was wrought in numerous instances which was unprecedented in the experience of the individual, and which could find no counterpart in the experience of the heathen world; and if the results which followed the proclamation of a fact were conspicuously so real, is it possible that the fact itself was less so? For there is only one alternative—if the cause producing these results was not a fact—namely, that belief in a particular event which was not a fact, produced them. In other words, not only was the faith of the early Church self-originated, but moreover, all the phenomena of its existence were the product of that which itself had no existence.

We need not fear to admit that a very strong conviction may suffice to produce considerable results, even though the conviction may be based upon a falsehood; but we may well question whether all the results here manifested, combined, could have been produced by mere belief in the resurrection of a man whose resurrection was not a fact. What was there in this belief, supposing it to have been based upon a lie, which could have wrought so powerfully and so generally on the minds of men as it did? Could such a belief have made them morally new, have made them willing to encounter shame and contempt, and endowed them with powers which rendered them the objects of envy to their fellow-believers? If we think it could, we must still confess that a combination of circumstances like these, taken all together, is so exceptional as to be virtually without a parallel in the history of the world.

There is, however, another point in the Epistles of St. Paul which deserves our notice when estimating their value as evidence, and that is the witness they afford us of his own altered feelings with regard to Christ. He speaks, in his letter to the Galatians, of having been formerly a devoted Jew, and having persecuted the Church of God and laid it waste.[138] If we had no other evidence than this, it would be sufficient. There is no reason to doubt what the Apostle says. He had been a bitter enemy of Christ. But there is no evidence whatever that while he was thus hostile to Christ he had ever believed His death and His resurrection to have been an unreality. Had he disbelieved in these events as facts, it is more than probable that some trace of such disbelief would have escaped him in his writings. But it is not so. The death of Christ was manifestly a notorious fact which neither he nor any one cared to deny. The resurrection of Christ, though perhaps received more questioningly, was nevertheless put by or explained away rather than actually denied. The tradition mentioned at the end of St. Matthew's Gospel, as commonly reported among the Jews,[139] is probably a fair sample of the indolent spirit in which the story of Christ's resurrection was met by them, and, perhaps, regarded by Saul of Tarsus. In his own case it was not so much that he disbelieved these things as facts, as that he was ignorant of their power. The death of Christ was no more to him than the death of any one else. The resurrection of Christ was to him nothing more than an idle Christian tale. He disregarded both rather because of the principles associated with them than because of their intrinsic falsehood. But the time came when it was otherwise. "It pleased God, who separated him from his mother's womb, and called him by His grace to reveal His Son in him."[140] He then found that the man whose death he had known as a fact, though not as a power, was intimately connected with himself, that he had a share in His death, and had been crucified with Him, and the resurrection, which had been to him before but as an idle tale, he now found to be the unfailing source of a new spiritual life to him. This was probably more than twenty years before he wrote any one of these Epistles. If we place his escape from Damascus under Aretas in the year of our Lord 39, this will bring his conversion to the year of our Lord 36. Now, I ask you notice this date very carefully. It is as late as we can well fix the conversion of Saul; some have fixed it much earlier. But supposing it to have happened as late as A.D. 36, this was but five or at the most six years after the death of Jesus Christ, which happened in A.D. 30, or, as I believe, in A.D. 31. Now, if the death of Christ was an unreality, He would in all probability at that time have been still alive, as He would not yet have been forty years old, and His death by natural means was not likely to have occurred. But conceive for one moment the impossible absurdity of the conversion of Saul taking place and the active life of the Christian Church going on for many years while Christ, who was supposed to have died upon the cross, was actually living in obscurity in some unknown corner of the world. The idea is simply preposterous. The supposition of Christ not having died as He was believed to have died is too impossible to be maintained.

If we have got Christ's death then as a positive historical fact which is unquestionable, we have a platform of reality on which to rear our superstructure of evidence for the reality of His resurrection. If Christ did not truly rise, there is one very important question to be answered which has not been, and which never will be answered, namely—What became of His dead body? The production of that dead body by the enemies of Christ would have been absolutely fatal to all the preaching and the faith of the Christians; the Christian Church would have been effectually stifled in its very birth. I should not now, after an interval of almost nineteen centuries, be lecturing in St. George's Hall on the evidences of Christianity if the dead body of Christ had been produced, and yet nothing, surely, would have been easier for His enemies to do. If, then, the disciples stole Him away from the sepulchre while the soldiers slept, and so made away with the body, we must admit that these Epistles of St. Paul, which at least are unrivalled in the literature of the world, and which cannot again be produced at will, owe their origin to a deliberate lie; and that after an interval of five-and-twenty years, which might have sufficed for it to have been successfully exposed. And we must confess that one of the most distinguished and highly educated of the Jews of that time, who himself had been a violent persecutor of the Christians, was induced against his will, and apparently not by Christian influence, to connive at this collusion or become the victim of it, and that in such a way as to ruin all his worldly prospects, to entail upon him years of hardship, and to inspire him, or at least to leave him, after almost a quarter of a century, with all the tact, wisdom, and discretion which are so conspicuous in his letters to the Churches at Rome and Corinth. Verily this supposition is absolutely precluded by the very nature of the case.

There remains then but one other to be advanced, and that is this. The primitive Christians and St. Paul himself were alike the victims of delusion. The testimony of the first disciples was based upon an error. The vision which had arrested Saul on his journey to Damascus, and changed the whole current of his life, was nothing more than the hallucination of a sunstroke. The preaching in which he passed so many years of his life, and breasted so much resistance, was only an infatuation; the hope, and peace, and joy of which his letters are so full, and which had taken permanent possession of him upon belief in Christ, were all a lie. He had sacrificed himself for nothing, he had toiled and suffered for nought. He had thrown away his life for a dream. We do not deny that such a position is conceivable; but we do deny that the letters of St. Paul give evidence of it. Had the resurrection of Christ been merely a delusion, the Epistles to Rome, Corinth, and Galatia are not the kind of fruits we should have expected it to produce after so long an interval; nay, there is room for the gravest possible doubt whether, being a delusion, it could have produced them.

This, then, is our standing ground. We do not assume that St. Paul was inspired. We do not say that his writings are authoritative or binding upon our faith. We take up no such position. We take only what we find—the genuine letters of an early convert to Christ, which were certainly written less than thirty years after the death of Christ, which contain internal evidence on the part of their writer to his belief in the central facts they proclaim, at an interval of little more than five years after those facts occurred. We treat these letters as the natural productions of any ordinary man. We deduce from them only such evidence as we should deduce from the letters of Cicero, or anyone else. We do not affirm that they are in any way supernatural, but we say that they supply conclusive evidence to the very wide-spread belief in centres of life so far removed as Rome, Corinth, and Galatia, in a supernatural fact less than thirty years after it occurred. We do not say that this wide-spread belief proves the fact to have occurred; but we do say that if the fact really did occur, it would account for the belief, and we do say that taking all the circumstances into consideration there is at least room for the very gravest possible doubt whether had it not occurred, the phenomena we witness would have been presented. Given the resurrection, and St. Paul's Epistles are explained; deny the resurrection, and you cannot account for them. Given the resurrection, and St. Paul's own character is the natural consequence of it, St. Paul's conversion its natural product; deny the resurrection, and he is the greatest of all inconsistencies, and his conversion, with its effects, the most inexplicable of all enigmas.