Part 5 (1/2)

In near connexion with this followed the discovery, that many other miracles of the Bible are wholly deficient in that moral dignity, which is supposed to place so great a chasm between them and ecclesiastical writings. Why should I look with more respect on the napkins taken from Paul's body (Acts xix. 12), than on pocket-handkerchiefs dipped in the blood of martyrs? How could I believe, on this same writer's hearsay, that ”the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip” (viii. 39), transporting him through the air; as oriental genii are supposed to do? Or what moral dignity was there in the curse on the barren fig-tree,--about which, moreover, we are so perplexingly told, that it was _not_ the time for figs? What was to be said of a cure, wrought by touching the hem of Jesus' garment, which drew physical _virtue_ from him without his will? And how could I distinguish the genius of the miracle of tribute-money in the fish's mouth, from those of the apocryphal gospels? What was I to say of useless miracles, like that of Peter and Jesus walking on the water,--or that of many saints coming out of the graves to show themselves, or of a poetical sympathy of the elements, such as the earthquake and rending of the temple-veil when Jesus died? Altogether, I began to feel that Christian advocates commit the flagrant sophism of treating every objection as an isolated ”cavil,” and overrule each as obviously insufficient, with the same confidence as if it were the only one. Yet, in fact, the objections collectively are very powerful, and cannot be set aside by supercilious airs and by calling unbelievers ”superficial,” any more than by harsh denunciations.

Pursuing the same thought to the Old Testament, I discerned there also no small sprinkling of grotesque or unmoral miracles. A dead man is raised to life, when his body by accident touches the bones of Elisha: as though Elisha had been a Romish saint, and his bones a sacred relic. Uzzah, when the ark is in danger of falling, puts out his hand to save it, and is struck dead for his impiety! Was this the judgment of the Father of mercies and G.o.d of all comfort? What was I to make of G.o.d's anger with Abimelech (Gen. xx.), whose sole offence was, the having believed Abraham's lie? for which a miraculous barrenness was sent on all the females of Abimelech's tribe, and was bought off only by splendid presents to the favoured deceiver.--Or was it at all credible that the lying and fraudulent Jacob should have been so specially loved by G.o.d, more than the rude animal Esau?--Or could I any longer overlook the gross imagination of antiquity, which made Abraham and Jehovah dine on the same carnal food, like Tantalus with the G.o.ds;--which fed Elijah by ravens, and set angels to bake cakes for him? Such is a specimen of the flood of difficulties which poured in, through the great breach which the demoniacs had made in the credit of Biblical marvels.

While I was in this stage of progress, I had a second time the advantage of meeting Dr. Arnold, and had satisfaction in finding that he rested the main strength of Christianity on the gospel of John. The great similarity of the other three seemed to him enough to mark that they flowed from sources very similar, and that the first gospel had no pretensions to be regarded as the actual writing of Matthew. This indeed had been for some time clear to me, though I now cared little about the author's name, when he was proved to be credulous.--Arnold regarded John's gospel as abounding with smaller touches which marked the eye-witness, and, altogether, to be the vivid and simple picture of a divine reality, undeformed by credulous legend. In this view I was gratified to repose, in spite of a few partial misgivings, and returned to investigations concerning the Old Testament.

For some time back I had paid special attention to the book of Genesis; and I had got aid in the a.n.a.lysis of it from a German volume.

That it was based on _at least_ two different doc.u.ments, technically called the Elohistic and Jehovistic, soon became clear to me: and an orthodox friend who acknowledged the fact, regarded it as a high recommendation of the book, that it was conscientiously made out of pre-existing materials, and was not a fancy that came from the brain of Moses. My good friend's argument was not a happy one: no written record could exist of things and times which preceded the invention of writing. After a.n.a.lysing this book with great minuteness, I now proceeded to Exodus and Numbers; and was soon a.s.sured, that these had not, any more than Genesis, come forth from one primitive witness of the facts. In all these books is found the striking phenomenon of _duplicate_ or even _triplicate narratives_. The creation of man is three times told. The account of the Flood is made up out of two discrepant originals, marked by the names Elohim and Jehovah; of which one makes Noah take into the ark _seven_ pairs of clean, and _single_ (or double?) pairs of unclean, beasts; while the other gives him two and two of all kinds, without distinguis.h.i.+ng the clean. The two doc.u.ments may indeed in this narrative be almost re-discovered by mechanical separation. The triple statement of Abraham and Isaac pa.s.sing off a wife for a sister was next in interest; and here also the two which concern Abraham are contrasted as Jehovistic and Elohistic. A similar double account is given of the origin of circ.u.mcision, of the names Isaac, Israel, Bethel, Beersheba. Still more was I struck by the positive declaration in Exodus (vi. 3) that _G.o.d was_ NOT _known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by the name Jehovah_; while the book of Genesis abounds with the contrary fact.

This alone convinced me beyond all dispute, that these books did not come from one and the same hand, but are conglomerates formed out of older materials, unartistically and mechanically joined.

Indeed a fuller examination showed in Exodus and Numbers a twofold miracle of the quails, of which the latter is so told as to indicate entire unacquaintance with the former. There is a double description of the manna, a needless second appointment of Elders of the congregation: water is twice brought out of the rock by the rod of Moses, whose faith is perfect the first time and fails the second time. The name of Meribah is twice bestowed. There is a double promise of a guardian angel, a double consecration of Aaron and his sons: indeed, I seemed to find a double or even threefold[4] copy of the Decalogue. Comprising Deuteronomy within my view, I met two utterly incompatible accounts of Aaron's death; for Deuteronomy makes him die _before_ reaching Meribah Kadesh, where, according to Numbers, he sinned and incurred the penalty of death (Num. xx. 24, Deut x. 6: cf Num. x.x.xiii. 31, 38).

That there was error on a great scale in all this, was undeniable; and I began to see at least one _source_ of the error. The celebrated miracle of ”the sun standing still” has long been felt as too violent a derangement of the whole globe to be used by the most High as a means of discomfiting an army: and I had acquiesced in the idea that the miracle was _ocular_ only. But in reading the pa.s.sage, (Josh. x.

12-14,) I for the first time observed that the narrative rests on the authority of a poetical book which bears the name of Jasher.[5] He who composed--”Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon!”--like other poets, called on the Sun and Moon to stand and look on Joshua's deeds; but he could not antic.i.p.ate that his words would be hardened into fact by a prosaic interpreter, and appealed to in proof of a stupendous miracle. The commentator could not tell what _the Moon_ had to do with it; yet he has quoted honestly.--This presently led me to observe other marks that the narrative has been made up, at least in part, out of old poetry.

Of these the most important are in Exodus xv. and Num. xxi., in the latter of which three different poetical fragments are quoted, and one of them is expressly said to be from ”the book of the wars of Jehovah,” apparently a poem descriptive of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. As for Exodus xv. it appeared to me (in that stage, and after so abundant proof of error,) almost certain that Moses' song is the primitive authority, out of which the prose narrative of the pa.s.sage of the Red Sea has been worked up. Especially since, after the song, the writer adds: v. 19. ”For the horse of Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his hors.e.m.e.n into the sea, and the Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them: but the children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea.” This comment scarcely could have been added, if the detailed account of ch. xiv. had been written previously. The song of Moses _implies no miracle at all_: it is merely high poetry. A later prosaic age took the hyperbolic phrases of v. 8 literally, and so generated the comment of v. 19, and a still later time expanded this into the elaborate 14th chapter.

Other proofs crowded upon me, that cannot here be enlarged upon.

Granting then (for argument) that the four first books of the Pentateuch are a compilation, made long after the event, I tried for a while to support the very arbitrary opinion, that Deuteronomy (all but its last chapter) which seemed to be a more h.o.m.ogeneous composition, was alone and really the production of Moses. This however needed some definite proof: for if tradition was not sufficient to guarantee the whole Pentateuch, it could not guarantee to me Deuteronomy alone. I proceeded to investigate the external history of the Pentateuch, and in so doing, came to the story, how the book of the Law was _found_ in the reign of the young king Josiah, nearly at the end of the Jewish monarchy. As I considered the narrative, my eyes were opened. If the book had previously been the received sacred law, it could not possibly have been so lost, that its contents were unknown, and the fact of its loss forgotten: it was therefore evidently _then first compiled_, or at least then first produced and made authoritative to the nation.[6] And with this the general course of the history best agrees, and all the phenomena of the books themselves.

Many of the Scriptural facts were old to me: to the importance of the history of Josiah I had perhaps even become dim-sighted by familiarity. Why had I not long ago seen that my conclusions ought to have been different from those of prevalent orthodoxy?--I found that I had been cajoled by the primitive a.s.sumptions, which though not clearly _stated_, are unceremoniously _used_. Dean Graves, for instance, always takes for granted, that, _until the contrary shall be demonstrated_, it is to be firmly believed that the Pentateuch is from the pen of Moses. He proceeds to set aside, _one by one_, as not demonstrative, the indications that it is of later origin: and when other means fail, he says that the particular verses remarked on were added by a later hand! I considered that if we were debating the antiquity of an Irish book, and in one page of it were found an allusion to the Parliamentary Union with England, we should at once regard the whole book, _until the contrary should be proved_, as the work of this century; and not endure the reasoner, who, in order to uphold a theory that it is five centuries old, p.r.o.nounced that sentence ”evidently to be from a later hand.” Yet in this arbitrary way Dean Graves and all his coadjutors set aside, one by one, the texts which point at the date of the Pentateuch. I was possessed with indignation. Oh sham science! Oh false-named Theology!

O mihi tam longae maneat pars ultima vitae, Spiritus et, quantum sat erit tua dicere facta!

Yet I waited some eight years longer, lest I should on so grave a subject write anything premature. Especially I felt that it was necessary to learn more of what the erudition of Germany had done on these subjects. Michaelis on the New Testament had fallen into my hands several years before, and I had found the greatest advantage from his learning and candour. About this time I also had begun to get more or less aid from four or five living German divines; but none produced any strong impression on me but De Wette. The two grand lessons which I learned from him, were, the greater recency of Deuteronomy, and the very untrustworthy character of the book of Chronicles; with which discovery, the true origin of the Pentateuch becomes still clearer.[7] After this, I heard of Hengstenberg as the most learned writer on the opposite side, and furnished myself with his work in defence of the antiquity of the Pentateuch: but it only showed me how hopeless a cause he had undertaken.

In this period I came to a totally new view of many parts of the Bible; and not to be tedious, it will suffice here to sum up the results.

The first books which I looked at as doubtful, were the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews. From the Greek style I felt a.s.sured that the former was not by John,[8] nor the latter by Paul. In Michaelis I first learnt the interesting fact of Luther having vehemently repudiated the Apocalypse, so that he not only declared its spuriousness in the Preface of his Bible, but solemnly charged his successors not to print his translation of the Apocalypse without annexing this avowal:--a charge which they presently disobeyed. Such is the habitual unfairness of ecclesiastical corporations. I was afterwards confirmed by Neander in the belief that the Apocalypse is a false prophecy. The only chapter of it which is interpreted,--the 17th,--appears to be a political speculation suggested by the civil war of Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian; and erroneously opines that the eighth emperor of Rome is to be the last, and is to be one of the preceding emperors restored,--probably Nero, who was believed to have escaped to the kings of the East.--As for the Epistle to the Hebrews, (which I was disposed to believe Luther had well guessed to be the production of Apollos,) I now saw quite a different genius in it from that of Paul, as more artificial and savouring of rhetorical culture.

As to this, the learned Germans are probably unanimous.

Next to these, the Song of Solomon fell away. I had been accustomed to receive this as a sacred representation of the loves of Christ and the Church: but after I was experimentally acquainted with the playful and extravagant genius of man's love for woman, I saw the Song of Solomon with new eyes, and became entirely convinced that it consists of fragments of love-songs, some of them rather voluptuous.

After this, it followed that the so-called _Canon_ of the Jews could not guarantee to us the value of the writings. Consequently, such books as Ruth and Esther, (the latter indeed not containing one religious sentiment,) stood forth at once in their natural insignificance. Ecclesiastes also seemed to me a meagre and shallow production. Chronicles I now learned to be not credulous only, but unfair, perhaps so far as to be actually dishonest. Not one of the historical books of the Old Testament could approve itself to me as of any high antiquity or of any spiritual authority; and in the New Testament I found the first three books and the Acts to contain many doubtful and some untrue accounts, and many incredible miracles.

Many persons, after reading thus much concerning me, will be apt to say: ”Of course then you gave up Christianity?”--Far from it. I gave up all that was clearly untenable, and clung the firmer to all that still appeared sound. I had found out that the Bible was not to be my religion, nor its perfection any tenet of mine: but what then! Did Paul go about preaching the Bible? nay, but he preached Christ. The New Testament did not as yet exist: to the Jews he necessarily argued from the Old Testament; but that ”faith in the book” was no part of Paul's gospel, is manifest from his giving no list of sacred books to his Gentile converts. Twice indeed in his epistles to Timothy, he recommends the Scriptures of the Old Testament; but even in the more striking pa.s.sage, (on which such exaggerated stress has been laid,) the spirit of his remark is essentially apologetic. ”Despise not, oh Timothy,” (is virtually his exhortation) ”the Scriptures that you learned as a child. Although now you have the Spirit to teach you, yet that does not make the older writers useless: for ”_every divinely inspired writing is also profitable for instruction &c._” In Paul's religion, respect for the Scriptures was a means, not an end. The Bible was made for man, not man for the Bible.

Thus the question with me was: ”May I still receive Christ as a Saviour from sin, a Teacher and Lord sent from heaven, and can I find an adequate account of what he came to do or teach?” And my reply was, Yes. The gospel of John alone gave an adequate account of him: the other three, though often erroneous, had clear marks of simplicity, and in so far confirmed the general belief in the supernatural character and works of Jesus. Then the conversion of Paul was a powerful argument. I had Peter's testimony to the resurrection, and to the transfiguration. Many of the prophecies were eminently remarkable, and seemed unaccountable except as miraculous. The origin of Judaism and spread of Christianity appeared to be beyond common experience, and were perhaps fairly to be called supernatural. Broad views such as these did not seem to be affected by the special conclusions at which I had arrived concerning the books of the Bible. I conceived myself to be resting under an Indian Figtree, which is supported by certain grand stems, but also lets down to the earth many small branches, which seem to the eye to prop the tree, but in fact are supported by it. If they were cut away, the tree would not be less strong.

So neither was the tree of Christianity weakened by the loss of its apparent props. I might still enjoy its shade, and eat of its fruits, and bless the hand that planted it.

In the course of this period I likewise learnt how inadequate allowance I had once made for the repulsion produced by my own dogmatic tendency on the sympathies of the unevangelical. I now often met persons of Evangelical opinion, but could seldom have any interchange of religious sentiment with them, because every word they uttered warned me that I could escape controversy only while I kept them at a distance: moreover, if any little difference of opinion led us into amicable argument, they uniformly reasoned by quoting texts.

This was now inadmissible with me, but I could only have done mischief by going farther than a dry disclaimer; after which indeed I saw I was generally looked on as ”an infidel.” No doubt the parties who so came into collision with me, approached me often with an earnest desire and hope to find some spiritual good in me, but withdrew disappointed, finding me either cold and defensive, or (perhaps they thought) warm and disputatious. Thus, as long as artificial tests of spirituality are allowed to exist, their erroneousness is not easily exposed by the mere wear and tear of life. When the collision of opinion is very strong, two good men may meet, and only be confirmed in their prejudices against one another: for in order that one may elicit the spiritual sympathies of the other, a certain liberality is prerequisite. Without this, each prepares to s.h.i.+eld himself from attack, or even holds out weapons of offence. Thus ”articles of Communion” are essentially articles of Disunion.--On the other hand, if all tests of opinion in a church were heartily and truly done away, then the principles of spiritual affinity and repulsion would act quite undisturbed. Surely therefore this was the only right method?--Nevertheless, I saw the necessity of _one_ test, ”Jesus is the Son of G.o.d,” and felt unpleasantly that one article tends infallibly to draw another after it. But I had too much, just then to think of in other quarters, to care much about Church Systems.

[Footnote 1: See Gen. x.x.xiii. 19, and xlix. 29-32, xxiii.]

[Footnote 2: Some say, that Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, named in the Chronicles, is meant; that he is _confounded_ with the prophet, the son of Berechiah, and was _supposed_ to be the last of the martyrs, because the Chronicles are placed last in the Hebrew Bible. This is a plausible view; but it saves the Scripture only by imputing error to Jesus.]

[Footnote 3: My Eclectic Reviewer says (p. 276): ”Thus because the evangelists held an erroneous _medical_ theory, Mr. Newman suffered a breach to be made in the credit of the Bible.” No; but as the next sentence states, ”because they are convicted of _misstating facts_,”