In order to attack his own evidence, it must be supposed that, by a lack of sagacity, he in good faith formed a wrong judgment about his own origin, or perhaps better, by a deceitful intention, he knowingly attributed to himself a false character. This being, whose incomparable intelligence forces you to place him above humanity, this is he who is not capable of discerning his father. And on the other side, this inimitable moralist, this chaste and beautiful model of all virtues, this is he whom you suspect of a disgraceful artifice. There is no middle course: either this mortal must be the Son of God, as he has declared, or you must put him in the last rank of humanity, among the innocent dupes or the cunning charlatans.
Or, on the contrary, do you wish to attack the gospels? Nothing is less difficult, if you remain at the surface. Arm yourself with irony, provoke the smile, treat everything in a superficial manner, and you will certainly gain the sympathy of the scoffers. But if you wish to investigate the things, and to take, in the name of science, an impartial view, you will be compelled to acknowledge that most of the facts in the gospels are historically established; that they are neither myths nor legends; that the place, the time, and the persons are absolutely put beyond all doubt. What right, then, has any one to refuse credence to this series of facts, where another series, which is admitted, is sustained by no better witnesses, nor more direct proofs, nor any other superiority, except a pretended probability which is determined by each for himself? Nothing can be more arbitrary and less scientific than this way of making a choice, deciding that this evangelist should be implicitly believed when he is mentioning such a speech, but that, when he tells us what he saw himself, he is no longer trustworthy; and that this one, on the contrary, falsifies the discourses that he reports, but that he announces certain facts with the certitude of an ocular witness. All this is only pure caprice. But it is certain that the gospels, however closely they may be examined, bear the criticism successfully, and ever remain imperishable. What book of Herodotus or of Titus Livius carries such an intrinsic evidence of good faith and veracity as the recitals of St. Matthew or of St. John? Are you not charmed with these two apostles, who frankly tell us what they have seen with their eyes and heard with their ears? If you, who were not there and who saw nothing of these things, believe that you can give them a lesson, and tell them, in virtue of your scientific laws, how all these things happened without their understanding them, and by what subterfuges their adorable Master deceived them, it will not be only the orthodox and faithful who will resent and controvert your boldness—voices that you dread more, from the midst of your own ranks, will openly proclaim your falsehoods. [Footnote 101]
[Footnote 101: "The human soul, as some one has said, is great enough to enclose every contrast. There is room in it for a Mohammed or a Cromwell, for fanaticism together with duplicity, for sincerity and hypocrisy. It remains for us to ascertain if this analogy should be extended to the Founder of Christianity. I do not hesitate to deny it. His character, when impartially considered, opposes every supposition of this kind. There is in the simplicity of Jesus, in his artlessness, in his candor, in the religious feeling which possessed him so completely, in the absence of all mere personal designs, of every egotistic end, and of all cunning; in a word, there is in all that we know concerning him something which entirely repels the historical comparisons by which M. Rénan has allowed himself to be governed."—M. Edmond Scherer, Mélanges d'Histoire Réligieuse, pp. 93, 94.]
After all, suppose they were deceived, that the hero of this great drama was only a skilful impostor, what do you really gain by it? The miracles cannot be thrown aside. On the contrary, you have one miracle more, and one which is more difficult than all the others to explain. It is necessary to account for this most wonderful fact, that cannot be suppressed by any critic, the establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Take every sentence of the gospels, accept these supernatural facts without reservation, the cures, the exorcisms, the elements stilled, the laws of nature violated or suspended: all these things are not too much, rather they had hardly enough to make us understand the triumphant progress of such a doctrine, in such a time, and among such a people. Nothing less than miracles could transform the world in this manner, changing all the opinions commonly received, completely altering the moral and social state of the people, and not only giving them purer and more enlightened views, but truths which were entirely unknown to them. If, then, you tell the truth, if this stupendous revolution rests upon a comedy, if we must consider the partial miracles false which surround and explain the principal miracle, which precede and seem to prepare and open the way for the great miracle, what will be the result? You have not destroyed, and cannot destroy, the principal miracle: it has become still more miraculous.
IV.
Let us not lose sight of our argument. We were seeking a practical and popular way to solve the great problems of our destiny, and we have proven that human science alone is unequal to this task. We have seen that there is only one way for man to attain this end, that satisfactory solutions can only be derived from faith, that wonderful gift which under the authority of a superhuman witness makes us believe with certitude things which neither the eyes of the body nor the eyes of the mind could immediately comprehend. Has the witness which lies at the foundation of Christian convictions the wished-for authority? In other words, is it truly divine? We believe that we have established it, and the most hasty reading of a single page of the Bible will demonstrate it far more clearly than we have done. See also the admirable harmony of the Christian system, and the responses, as clear as they are sublime, it gives to questions so long unanswerable. It is by its capacity to penetrate mysteries to read the invisible, to explain the obscure, not less than by its miraculous victory, that Christianity demonstrates both the true character of its origin and the sincerity of its divine Founder.
We remember on this subject some moving sentences that we will be permitted to quote. They are from an author who recently received an eloquent tribute of regrets and praises, and who, for the past twenty years, has been remembered with grief by all the friends of sound philosophy. In a well-known lecture, when considering these same problems of human destiny, M. Jouffroy spoke thus:
"There is a little book that is taught to children, and upon which they are questioned in the church. Read this little book, which is the catechism. You will find in it a solution of all the questions I have asked—of all, without an exception. Ask a Christian the origin of the human race, what is its destiny, and how it can attain it, and he can answer you. Ask that poor child, who has scarcely thought of life and its duties, why he is here below, what will become of him after death, and he will make a sublime answer which he may not fully comprehend, but which is not the less admirable. Ask him how the world was created and for what end; why God has put animals and plants upon it; how the world was peopled, if by one family or by several; why men speak different languages, why they suffer, why they combat, and how all these things will end; and he knows it all. Origin of the world, origin of man, questions about the different races, destiny of man in this life and in the other, relation of man to God, duties of man toward his fellow-men, rights of man over creation, he is ignorant of none of these things; and as he becomes matured, he will not hesitate to take advantage of his natural and political rights, for he knows the rights of the people, for these come, or, as it were, flow of themselves, from Christianity. This is what I call a great religion. I recognize by this sign that it leaves none of the questions which interest humanity without an answer." [Footnote 102]
[Footnote 102: Mélanges Philosophiques, par M. Th. Jouffroy. Vol. i. 1833, p. 470.]
We love to read again these words of a master and a friend, who in his youth was nourished with Christian truths, and who, perhaps, would have tasted them again if the trials of life had been prolonged for him. Without doubt, it is necessary to avoid indorsing opinions which are no longer our own sentiments; but certainly it can be permitted to preserve a faithful and complete remembrance of their spirit. Even at the time when M. Jouffroy doubted, when he left his pen and told us with assurance how Christian dogmas would die, there would have been but very little necessary to teach him to his cost how they perpetuate themselves! Faith has its evil days; its ranks seem decimated and its army dissolved, but it can never perish. In order to replace deserters, to recruit its strength unceasingly, has it not the sorrows and miseries of this world, the need of prayer, and the thirst of hope?