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THE 
 
 CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 A STUDY IN 
 
 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 BY 
 
 OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 182 FIFTH AVKNUE. 
 1877. 
 
^(M/^i 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 
 1877. 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 The literary intention of this volume is sufficiently 
 declared in the opening paragraph, and need not be 
 foreshadowed in a preface ; but as the author's deeper 
 motive may be called in question, he takes the liberty 
 to say a word or two in more particular explanation. 
 The thought has occurred to him on reading over 
 what he has written, as a casual reader might, that, 
 in his solicitude to make his positions perfectly clear, 
 and to state his points concisely, he may have laid 
 himself open to the charge of carrying on a contro- 
 versy under the pretence of explaining a literature. 
 Such a reproach, his heart tells him, would be unde- 
 served. He disclaims" all purpose and desire to 
 weaken the moral supports of any form of religion ; 
 as little purpose or desire to undermine Christianity, 
 as to revive Judaism. It is his honest belief that no 
 genuine interests of religion are compromised by 
 scientific or literary studies ; that religion is inde- 
 pendent of history, that Christianity is indepen- 
 dent of the New Testament. He is cordially per- 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 suaded that the admission of every one of his con- 
 clusions would leave the institutions of the church 
 precisely, in every spiritual respect, as they are ; and 
 in thus declaring he has no mental reserve, no misty 
 philosophical meaning that preserves expressions 
 while destroying ideas ; he uses candid, intelligible 
 speech. The lily's perfect charm suffers no abatement 
 from the chemist's analysis of the slime into which it 
 strikes its slender root ; the grape of the Johannisberg 
 vineyards is no less luscious from the fact that the 
 soil has been subjected to the microscope ; the fine 
 qualities of the human being, man or woman, are the 
 same on any theory, the bible theory of the perfect 
 Adam, or Darwin's of the anthropoid ape. The hero 
 is hero still, and the saint saint, whatever his ancestry. 
 We reject the inference of writers like Godfrey 
 Higgins, Thomas Inman, and Jules Soury, who 
 would persuade us that Christianity must be a form of 
 nature-worship, because nature-worship was a large 
 constituent element in the faiths from which it 
 sprung ; why should we not reject the inference of 
 those who would peirsuade us that Christianity is 
 doomed because the four gospels are pronounced 
 ungenuine .' Christianity is a historical fact ; an in- 
 stitution ; it stands upon its merits, and must justify 
 its merits by its. performances; first demonstrating 
 its power, afterward pressing its claim ; vindicating 
 its title to exist by its capacity to meet the actual 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 conditions of existence, arid then asking respect on 
 the ground of good service. The church that arro- 
 gates for itself the right to control the spiritual con- 
 cerns of the modern world must not plead in justifica- 
 tion of its pretension that it satisfied the requirements 
 of devout people of another hemisphere, two thousand 
 years ago. The religion that fails to represent the 
 religious sentiments of living men will not support 
 itself by demonstrating the genuineness of the New 
 Testament, the supernatural birth of Jesus, or the in- 
 spiration of Paul. Other questions than these are 
 asked now. When a serious man wishes to know 
 what Christianity has to say in regard to the position 
 of woman in modern society, a quotation from a letter 
 to the christians in the Greek city of Corinth, is not 
 a satisfactory reply. Christianity must prove its 
 adaptation to the hour that now is ; its adaptation to 
 days gone by, is not to the purpose. 
 
 The church of Rome had a glimpse of this, and 
 revealed it when it took the ground that the New 
 Testament did not contain the whole revelation ; that 
 the source of inspiration lay behind that, used that as 
 one of its manifestations, and constantly supplied new 
 suggestions as they were needed. Cardinal Wiseman 
 did not hesitate to admit that the doctrine of trinity 
 was not stated in the New Testament, though un- 
 doubtedly a belief of the church. It would have been 
 but a step further in the same direction, if Dr. 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 Newman should declare that the critics might have 
 their way with the early records of the religion, 
 which, however curious as literary remains, were not 
 essential to the constitution or the work of the 
 church. Strauss and Renan may speculate and 
 welcome ; the mission of the church being to bless 
 mankind, their labors are innocent. A church that 
 does not bless mankind cannot be saved by Auguste 
 Nicolas ; a church that does bless mankind cannot 
 be injured by Ernest Renan. 
 
 Leading protestant minds, without making so 
 much concession as the church of Rome, have practi- 
 cally accepted the position here maintained. It is 
 becoming less common, every day, to base the claims 
 of Christianity on the New Testament. The most 
 learned, earnest, and intelligent commend their faith 
 on its reasonableness, confronting modern problems 
 in a modern way. St. George Mivart quotes no 
 scripture against the doctrine of evolution. No one 
 reading Dr. McCosh on the development hypothesis, 
 would suppose him to be a believer in the inspiration 
 of the bible. He reasons like a reasonable man, 
 meeting argument with argument, feeling disposed 
 ■to confront facts with something harder than texts. 
 'The well instructed christian, if he enters the arena 
 of scientific discussion at all, uses scientific weapons, 
 and follows the rules of scientific warfare. The prob- 
 lems laid before the modern world are new ; scarcely 
 
PREFACE. VII 
 
 one of them was propounded during the first two 
 centuries of our era; not one was propounded in 
 modern terms. The most universal of them, like 
 poverty, vice, the relations of the strorig and the 
 weak, present an aspect which neither church, 
 Father, nor Apostle would recognize. Whatever 
 bearing Christianity has on these questions must be 
 timely if it is to be efficacious. 
 
 The doctrine of christian development, as it is 
 held now by distinguished teachers of the christian 
 church, implying as it does incompleteness and there- 
 fore defect in the antecedent stages of progress 
 points clearly to the apostolic and post apostolic times 
 as ages of rudimental experience, tentative and crude. 
 Why should not the entertainers of this doctrine 
 calmly surrender the records and remains of the pre- 
 paratory generations to antiquarian scholars who are 
 willing to investigate their character .' No discovery 
 they can make will alter the results which the centu- 
 ries have matured. They will simply more clearly ex- 
 hibit the process whereby the results have been 
 reached. ' 
 
 We may go further than this, and maintain that 
 the unreserved abandonment to criticism of the liter- 
 ature and men of the early epochs would be a positive 
 advantage to Christianity, for thereby the religion 
 would be relieved from a serious, embarrassment. 
 The duty, assumed by christians, of vindicating the 
 
VIII PREFACE. 
 
 truth of whatever is found in the New Testament im- 
 poses grave difficulties. It is safe to say that a very 
 large part of the disbelief in Christianity proceeds from 
 doubts raised by Strauss, Renan, and others who have 
 cast discredit on some portions of this literature. 
 Christians have their faith shaken by those authors ; 
 and doubtless some who are not christians are preju- 
 diced against the religion by books of rational criti- 
 cism. The romanist, failing to establish by the New 
 Testament, or by the history of the first two centuries, 
 the primacy of Peter, the supremacy of Rome, the 
 validity of the sacraments, the divine sanction of the 
 episcopacy, loses the convert whom the majestic order 
 of the papacy might attract. The protestant, failing 
 to prove by apostolic texts his cardinal dogmas, pre- 
 destination, atonement, election, must see depart un- 
 satisfied, the inquirer whom a philosophical expositiori 
 might have won. The necessity of justifying the 
 account of the miraculous birth of Jesus repels the 
 doubter whom a purely intellectual conception of in- 
 carnation might have fascinated; and the obligation 
 to believe the story of a physical resurrection is an 
 added obstacle to the reception of a spiritual faith in 
 immortality. Scholarship has so effectually shown 
 the impossibility of bringing apostolical guarantee for 
 the creed of Christendom, that the creed cannot get 
 even common justice done it while it compromises 
 itself with the beliefs of the primitive church. The 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 inspiration of the New Testament is an article that 
 unsettles. Naturally it is the first point of attack, and 
 its extreme vulnerability raises a suspicion of weak- 
 ness in the whole system. The protestant theology, 
 as held by the more enlightened minds, is capable of 
 philosophical statement and defence ; but it cannot 
 be stated in New Testament language, or defended on 
 apostolical authority. The creed really has not a fair 
 chance to be appreciated. Its power to uphold spirit- 
 ual ideas, and develop spfritual truths ; its specula- 
 tive resources as an antagonist of scientific material- 
 ism, animal fatalism, and sensualism, are rendered all 
 but useless. Powerful minds are fettered, and good 
 scholarship is wasted in the attempt to identify be- 
 ginnings with results, roots with fruits. 
 
 This is a consideration of much weight. When 
 we remember how much time and concern are given 
 to the study of the New Testament for controversial 
 or apologetic purposes, to establish its genuineness, 
 maintain its authority, justify its miracles, explain 
 away its difficulties, reconcile its contradictions, har- 
 monize its differences, read into its texts the thoughts 
 of later generations, and then reflect on the lack of 
 mind bestowed on the important task of recommend- 
 ing religious ideas to a world that is spending enor- 
 mous sums of intellectual force on the problems of 
 physical science and the arts of material civilization, 
 the close association of the latest with the earliest 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 faith seems a deplorable misfortune. If there ever 
 was a time when the purely spiritual elements in the 
 religion of the foremost races of mankind should be 
 developed and pressed, the time is now ; and to miss 
 the opportunity by misplacing the energy that would 
 redeem it is anything but consoling to earnest 
 minds. 
 
 Thus might reason a full believer in the creed of 
 Christendom, a devoted member of the church ; 
 Greek, Roman, German, English. The man of let- 
 ters viewing the situation from his own point, will, 
 of course, feel less intensely the mischiefs entailed by 
 the error ; but the error will be to him no less evi- 
 dent. It is sometimes, in war, an advantage to lose 
 outworks that cannot be defended without fatally 
 weakening the line, drawing the strength of the gar- 
 rison away from vulnerable points, and exposing the 
 centre to formidable assault. The present writer, 
 though no friend to the christian system, believes him- 
 self to be a friend of spiritual beliefs, and would gladly 
 feel that he is, by his essay, rather strengthening 
 than weakening the cause of faith, by whatever class 
 of men maintained. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Pages. 
 
 I. False Position of the New Testament. i 
 
 II. The Messiah 14 
 
 III. The Sects. 40 
 
 IV. The Messiah in the New Testament. 51 
 V. The First Christians 70 
 
 VI. Paul's New Departure 83 
 
 VII. The Last Gospel 106 
 
 VIII. The Western Church 140 
 
 IX. Jesus 184 
 
 Authorities. 228 
 
FALSE POSITION OF THE NEW 
 TESTAMENT. 
 
 The original purpose of this little volume was to in- 
 dicate the place of the New Testament in the literature 
 of the Hebrew people, to show in fact how it is compre- 
 hended in the scope of that literature. The plan has 
 been widened to satisfy the demands of a larger class of 
 readers, and to record more fully the work of its lead- 
 ing idea. Still the consideration of the New Testa- 
 ment literature is of primary importance. The writer 
 submits that the New Testament is to be received 
 as a natural product of the Hebrew genius, its con- 
 tents attesting the creative power of the Jewish mind. 
 He hopes to make it seem probable to unprejudiced 
 people, that its different books merely carry to the last 
 point of attenuation, and finally exhaust the capacity 
 of ideas that exerted a controlling influence on the de- 
 velopment of that branch of the human family. To pro- 
 fundity of research, or originality of conclusion, he 
 makes no claim. He simply records in compact and 
 
2 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 summary form, the results of reading and reflection, 
 gathered in the course of many years, kept in note 
 boolis, revised year by year, tested by use in oral instruc- 
 tion, and reduced to system by often repeated manipula- 
 tion. The resemblance of his views, in certain particu- 
 lars, to those set forth by German critics of the school 
 of Strauss or of Baur, he is at no pains to conceal. His 
 deep indebtedness to them, he delights to confess. At 
 the same time he can honestly say that he is a disciple 
 of no special school, writes in the interest of no theory 
 or group of theories, but simply desires to establish 
 a point of literary consequence. All polemic or dog- 
 matical intention he disavows, all disposition to lower 
 the dignity, impair the validity, or weaken the spiritual 
 supports of Christianity. His aim, truly and soberly 
 speaking, is to set certain literary facts in their j ust 
 relation to one another. 
 
 It has not been customary, nor is it now custom- 
 ary to assign to the New Testament a place among the 
 literary productions of the human mind. The collec- 
 tion of books bearing that name has been, and still is 
 regarded by advotates of one or another theory of in- 
 spiration, as of exceptional origin, in that they express 
 the divine, not the human mind ; being writings super- 
 human in substance if not in form, containing thoughts 
 that could not have occurred to the unaided intelligence 
 of man, neither are amenable to the judgment of un- 
 inspired reason. To read this volume as other volumes 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 3 
 
 are read is forbidden ; to apply to it ordinary critical 
 methods is held to be an impertinence ; to detect er- 
 rors or flaws in it, as in Homer, Plato, Thucydides, is 
 pronounced an unpardonable arrogance. A book that 
 contains revelations of the supreme wisdom and will 
 must be accepted and revered, must not be arraigned. 
 
 Criticism has therefore, among believers chiefly 
 we may almost say solely, been occupied with the 
 task of establishing the genuineness and authenticity 
 of the writings, harmonizing their teachings, arranging 
 their contents, explaining texts in accordance with the 
 preconceived theory of a divine origin, vindicating 
 doubtful passages against the objections of skeptics, 
 and extracting from chapter and verse the sense re- 
 quired by the creed. Literature has been permitted to 
 illustrate or confirm points, but has not been called in 
 to correct, for that would be to judge the infinite by 
 the finite mind. 
 
 In accordance with this accepted view of the New 
 Testament as a miraculous book, students of it have 
 fallen into the way of surveying it as a detached field, 
 unconnected by organic elements with the surrounding 
 territory of mind ; have examined it as if it made no 
 part of an extensive geological formation, as men for- 
 merly took up an aerolite or measured a boulder. The 
 materials of knowledge respecting the book have been 
 sought within the volume itself, neither Greek, 
 Roman, German nor Englishman presuming to think 
 
4 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 that a beam from the outside world could illumine a 
 book 
 
 Which gives a light to every age, 
 
 Which gives, but borrows none. 
 
 The rationalists it is needness to say, avoided this 
 error, but they betrayed a sense of the peril arising 
 from it, in the polemical spirit that characterized much 
 of their writing. In Germany, the tone of rationalism 
 was more sober and scientific than elsewhere, because 
 biblical questions were there discussed in the scho- 
 lastic seclusion of the University, in lectures delivered 
 by learned professors to students engaged in pursuits 
 purely intellectual. The lectures were not addressed 
 to an excitable multitude, as such discourses are, to a 
 certain extent, in France or England, and particularly 
 in America, and consequently stirred no religious pas- 
 sions. The books published were read by a small 
 class of specialists who studied them as they would 
 treatises in any other department of ancient literature. 
 Nearly half a century ago the disbelief in miracles, 
 portents, and supernatural interventions, was enter- 
 tained and published by German university profes- 
 sors ; stories of prodigies were discredited on the gen- 
 eral ground of their incredibility, and the books that 
 reported them were set down as untrustworthy, what- 
 ever might be the evidence of their genuineness. A 
 miraculous narrative was on the face of it unauthentic. 
 Efforts were accordingly made to bring the New Tes- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 5 
 
 tament writings within the categories of literature. 
 Criticism began the task by applying rules of " natu- 
 ral" interpretation to the legendary portions, thus 
 abolishing the supernatural peculiarity and leaving 
 the merely human parts to justify themselves. The 
 method was the best that offered, but it was unscien- 
 tific ; " unnaturally natural ; " confused from the ne- 
 cessity of supplementing knowledge by conjecture, 
 and faulty through the amount of arbitrary supposi- 
 tion that had to be introduced. Attention was di- 
 rected to the historical or- biographical aspect of the 
 books, and only incidentally to their literary charac- 
 ter, as productions of their age. 
 
 The method pursued by Strauss was strictly sci- 
 entific and literary, though on the surface it seemed 
 to be concerned with biographical details. By treat- 
 ing the narratives of miracles as mythical rather than 
 as legendary, as intellectual and dogmatic rather than 
 as fanciful or imaginary creations, and by tracing 
 their origin to the traditionary beliefs of the Old Tes- 
 tament, he ran both literatures together as one, show- 
 ing the new to be a continuation or reproduction of 
 the old. The construction, otherwise, of the New 
 Testament literature concerned him but incidentally. 
 The first " Life of Jesus," published in part in 1835, 
 was devoted to the discussion of the gospels as books 
 of history. The second — a revision — was published in 
 1864, contained a much larger proportion- of literary 
 
6 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 matter in the form of documentary discussion, made 
 frequent references to Baur, and other writers of the 
 Tubingen School, and attached great weight to their 
 conclusions. In the " Old and the New Faith," pub- 
 lished nearly ten years later, the main conclusions of 
 Baur are adopted as the legitimate issue of literary 
 criticism, though without attempt at formal reconcili- 
 ation with his own original view. 
 
 Baur's method was original with himself. He 
 finds the key to the secret of the composition of 
 the first three Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles 
 and portions of other books, in the quarrel between 
 Paul and Peter feelingly described in the second 
 chapter of the letter to the Galatians. The "synop- 
 tical" Gospels, he contends, and with singular in- 
 genuity argues, are the .results of that controversy 
 between the broad and the narrow churches; are 
 not, therefore, writings of historical value or bio- 
 graphical moment, but books of a doctrinal character, 
 not controversial or polemical, — mediatorial and con- 
 ciliatory rather than aggressive, — but written in a 
 controversial interest, and intelligible only when read 
 by a controversial light. Baur called his the " histor- 
 ical" method, as distinguished from the dogmatical, 
 the textual, the negative; because his starting, point 
 was a historical fact, namely, the actual dispute re- 
 corded, in language of passionate earnestness, by one 
 of the parties to it, and distinctly confessed in the 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 7 
 
 attitude of the other. But Baur's method has a still 
 better title to be called literary, for it is concerned 
 with the literary composition of the New Testament 
 writings, and with the dispute as accounting for their 
 existence and form. His studies on the fourth Gos- 
 pel, and on the life and writings of the Apostle Paul, 
 are admirable examples of the unprejudiced literary 
 method ; by far the most intelligent, comprehensive 
 and consistent ever made ; simply invaluable in their 
 kind. They contain all that is necessary for a com- 
 plete rationale of the New Testament literature. 
 These, taken in connection with his " History of the 
 First Three Centuries," his " Origin of the Episco- 
 pate," his " Dogmengeschichte," put the patient and 
 attentive student in possession of the full case. But 
 Baur lacked constructive talent of a high order, and 
 has been less successful than inferior men in em- 
 bracing details in a wide generalization. 
 
 Renan adopts the method of the early rationalists, 
 but applies it with a freedom and facility of which 
 they were incapable. He takes up the Gospels as 
 history, and sifts the literature in order to get at the 
 history. He claims to possess the historical sense, 
 by virtue of which he is able to separate the genuine 
 from the ungenuine portions of the Gospels. It is a 
 point with him to shov/ how the character of Jesus 
 was moulded by the spirit of his age, and by the liter- 
 ature on which he was nurtured ; but his treatment 
 
8 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 of the evangelical narratives as a mass of biographical 
 notes reflecting, with more or less correctness, the 
 personality of Jesus, is not quite compatible with a 
 rational or even a literary treatment of them as a 
 continuation of the traditions of the Hebrew people. 
 The constructive force being centred in Jesus him- 
 self, the full recognition of the creative genius of the 
 Hebrew mind, which was illustrated in Jesus and his 
 age, was precluded. Renan is in a measure com- 
 pelled to make Jesus a prodigy — an exceptional per- 
 son, who baffles ordinary standards of judgment ; and 
 in so doing distorts the connection between him, the 
 generations that went before, and the generations that 
 came after. Strauss does more justice to the New 
 Testament literature, in attempting only its partial 
 explanation. Baur does more justice to it in seeking 
 a literary explanation of the writings as they are. 
 Renan picks and chooses according to our arbitrary 
 criterion, which , capriciously disports itself over a 
 field covered with promiscuous treasures. 
 
 Lord Amberley's more recent attempt reveals the 
 weakness of the common procedure. Without the 
 learning of Strauss, the perspicacity of Baur, or the 
 brilliant audacity of Renan, he strays over the field, 
 making suggestions neither profound nor original, and 
 rather obliterating the distinct impressions his prede- 
 cessors have made than making new ones of his own. 
 His chapter on Jesus will illustrate the confusion that 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 9 
 
 must issue from a false method, which does not deserve 
 to be called a method at all. 
 
 Books have been written about the New Testa- 
 ment by the thousand — libraries of books ; but they 
 merely supplant and refute one another. Each is en- 
 titled to as much consideration as the rest, and to no 
 more. The old materials are turned over and over ; 
 the texts are subjected to new cross-examinatiohs ; 
 the chapters and incidents are shuffled about with 
 fresh ingenuity; new suppositions are started ; new 
 combinations are made ; but all with no satisfactory 
 result. Whether it be Auguste Nicolas, who recon- 
 structs the Gospels to justify the predispositions of 
 Romanism ; or Edmond de Pressens^ who does the 
 same service for liberal Protestantism ; or Henry Ward 
 Beecher, who constructs a Christ out of the elements 
 of an exuberant fancy ; or William Henry Furness, 
 who is certain that " naturalness " furnishes the touch- 
 stone of historical truth ; the conclusion is about 
 equally inconclusive. 
 
 The literary -method avoids the dogmatical embar- 
 rassments incident to the supernatural theory ; offers 
 easy solutions of difficult problems ; connects inci- 
 dents with their antecedents ; interprets dark sayings 
 by the light of association ; and places fragments in 
 the places where they belong. An exhaustive appli- 
 cation of this treatment would probably explain every 
 passage in the New Testament writings. A partial 
 
lO THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 application of it like the present will indicate at least 
 some of the capacities of the method. 
 
 The literary treatment differs from the dogmatical 
 represented by the older theologians Vho used the 
 New Testament as a text book of doctrine ; from the 
 purely exegetical or critical, which consisted in the 
 impartial examination of its separate parts ; from 
 the destructive or decomposing treatment pursued by 
 the so-called " rationalism ; " and from the " histor- 
 ical," as employed by Baur and the "Tiibingen school." 
 It is in some respects more comprehensive and posi- 
 tive than either of these, while in special points it 
 adopts all but the first. Every other method presents 
 a controversial face, and is something less than scien- 
 tific, by being to a certain degree inhospitable. This 
 consults only the laws which preside over the literary 
 expression given to human thoughts. 
 
 It has been customary with christians to widen as 
 much as possible the gulf between the Old and the 
 New Testaments, in order that Christianity might ap- 
 pear in the light of a fresh and transcendent revela- 
 tion, supplementing the ancient, but supplanting it. 
 The most favorable view of the Old Testament re- 
 gards it as a porch to the new edifice, a collection of 
 types and foregleams of a grandeur about to follow. 
 The Old Testament has been and still is held to be 
 preparatory to the New ; Moses is the schoolmaster 
 to bring men to Christ. The contrast of Law with 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. II 
 
 Gospel, Commandment with Beatitude, Justice with 
 Love, has been presented in every form. Christian 
 teachers have deUghted to exhibit the essential supe- 
 riority of Christianity to Judaism, have quoted with 
 triumph the maxims that; fell from the lips of Jesus, 
 and which, they surmised, could not be paralleled in the 
 elder Scriptures, and have put the least favorable con- 
 struction on such passages in the ancient books as 
 seemed to contain the thoughts of evangelists and 
 apostles. A more ingenuous study of the Hebrew 
 Law, according to the oldest traditions, as well as its 
 later interpretations by the prophets, reduces these 
 differences materially by bringing into relief senti- 
 ments and precepts whereof the New Testament mo- 
 rality is but an echo. There are passages in Exodus, 
 Leviticus, Deuteronomy, even tenderer in their human- 
 ity than anything in the gospels. The preacher from 
 the Mount, the prophet of the Beatitudes, does but 
 repeat with persuasive lips what the law-givers of his 
 race proclaimed in mighty tones of command. Such 
 an acquaintance with the later literature of the Jews 
 as is readily obtained now from popular sources, will 
 convince the ordinarily fair mind that the originality of 
 the New Testament has been greatly over-estimated. 
 Even a hasty reading of easily accessible books, 
 makes it clear that Jesus and his disciples were Jews 
 in mind and character as well as by country and race ; 
 and will render it at least doubtful whether they ever 
 
12 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 outgrew the traditions of their birth. Paul's claim to 
 be a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee of the Phar- 
 isees, "circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of 
 Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin," is found to be more 
 than justified by his writings ; and even John's exalted 
 spirituality proves to be an aroma from a literature 
 which Christianity disavows. The phrases " Redemp- 
 tion," "Grace," "Faith," "Baptism," "Salvation," 
 "Regeneration," "Son of Man," "Son of God," 
 " Kingdom of Heaveii," are native to this literature, 
 and as familiar there as in gospel or epistle. The 
 symbolism of the Apocalypse, Jewish throughout, 
 with its New Jerusalem, its consecration of the num- 
 ber twelve, — twelve foundations, twelve gates, twelve 
 stars, twelve angels, — points to deeper correspon- 
 dences that do not meet the eye, but occur to re- 
 flection. We remember that the New Testament 
 constantly refers to the Old ; that great stress is laid 
 on the fulfilment of ancient prophecies ; that Jesus 
 explicitly declares, at the opening of his ministry, that 
 he came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but 
 to reaflJirm and complete them, saying with earnest 
 force " till heaven and earth pass, not one jot or tittle 
 shall in any wise pass from the law until all be ful- 
 filled." We discover that his criticisms bore hard on 
 the casuists who corrupted the law by their glosses, 
 but were made in the interest of the original com- 
 mandment, which had been caricatured. In a word, 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 3 
 
 SO completely is the space between the old dispensa- 
 tion and the new bridged over, that the most delicate 
 and fragile fancies, the lightest imagery, the daintiest 
 fabrics of the intellectual world are transported with- 
 out rent or fracture, across the gulf opened by the 
 captivity, and the deserts caused by the desolating 
 quarrels that attended the new attempts at reconstruc- 
 tion, while the massive ideas that lie at the founda- 
 tion of Hebraic thought, wherever found, are landed 
 without risk or confusion in the new territory. Be- 
 tween the Jewish and the Christian scriptures there 
 is not so much as a blank leaf. 
 
 If this can be made apparent without over-stating 
 the facts, everything in the New Testament, from the 
 character of Jesus, and the constitution of the primi- 
 tive church, to the later development by Paul, and the 
 latest by John, must be subjected to a revision, which 
 though fatal to Christianity's claim to be a special 
 revelation, will restore" dignity to the Semitic charac- 
 ter, and consistency to the development of historic 
 truth. Better still, it will heal the breach between 
 two great religions, and will contribute to that dis- 
 armament of faiths from which good hearts anticipate 
 most important results. Of all this hints only can 
 be given in a short essay like this ; but if the hints 
 are suggestive in themselves or from their arrange- 
 ment, a service will be rendered to the cause of truth 
 that may deserve recognition. 
 
II. 
 
 THE MESSIAH. 
 
 The period of the captivity in Babylon, which is 
 commonly regarded as a period of sadness and desola- 
 tion, a blank space of interruption in the nation's life, 
 was, in reality, a period of intense mental activity ; 
 probably the highest spiritual moment in the history 
 of the people. Dispossessed of their own territory, 
 relieved of the burden and freed from the distraction 
 of politics, their disintegrating tribal feuds terminated 
 by foreign conquest, living, as unoppressed exiles, in 
 one of the world's greatest cities, with opportunities 
 for observation and reflection never enjoyed before, 
 having unbroken leisure in the midst of material and 
 intellectual opulence, the true children of Israel de- 
 voted themselves to the task of rebuilding spiritually 
 the state that had been politically overthrown. The 
 writings that reflect this period, particularly the later 
 portions of Isaiah, exhibit the soul of the nation in 
 proud resistance against the unbelief, the disloyalty, 
 the worldliness, that were demoralizing the less noble 
 part of their countrymen. The duty was laid on them 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 5 
 
 to support the national character, revive the national 
 faith, restore the national courage, and rebuild the na- 
 tional purpose. To this end they collected the tradi- 
 tions of past glory, gathered up the fragments of 
 legend and song, reanimated the souls of their heroes 
 and saints, developed ideas that existed only in germ, 
 arranged narratives and legislation, and constructed 
 an ideal state. There is reason to believe that the 
 real genius of the people was first called into full ex- 
 ercise, and put on its career of development at this 
 time; that Babylon was a forcing nursery, not a 
 prison cell ; creating instead of stifling a nation. The 
 astonishing outburst of intellectual and moral energy 
 that accompanied the return from the Babylonish cap- 
 tivity attests the spiritual activity of that " mysterious 
 and momentous " time. When the hour of deliverance 
 struck, the company of defeated, disheartened, crush- 
 ed, to all seeming, " reckless, lawless, godless " exiles 
 came forth "transformed into a band of puritans." 
 The books that remain from those generations, Daniel, 
 the Maccabees, Esdras, are charged with an impetu- 
 ous eloquence and a frenzied zeal. 
 
 The Talmud, that vast treasury of speculation on 
 divine things, had its origin about this period. Re- 
 cent researches into that wilderness of thought reveal 
 wonders and beauties that were never till recently 
 divulged. The deepest insights, the most bewildering 
 fancies, exist there side by side. The intellectual 
 
l6 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 powers of a race exhausted themselves in efforts to 
 penetrate the mysteries of faith. The fragments of 
 national literature that had been rescued from obli- 
 vion, were pondered over, scrutinized, arranged, classi- 
 fied, with a superstitious veneration that would not be 
 satisfied till all the possibilities of interpretation had 
 been tried. The command to " search the scriptures " 
 for in them were the words of eternal life, was ac- 
 cepted and faithfully obeyed. " The Talmud " says 
 Emanuel Deutsch, " is more than a book of laws, it is 
 a microcosm, embracing, even as does the Bible, 
 heaven and earth. It is as if all the prose and poetry, 
 the science, the faith and speculation of the old world 
 were, though only in faint reflections, bound up in it 
 in nuce." The theme of discussion, conjecture, spec- 
 ulation, allegory was, from first to last, the same, — 
 the relation between Jehovah and his people, the na- 
 ture and conditions of salvation, the purport of the 
 law, the bearing of the promises. The entire field of 
 investigation was open, reaching all the way from the 
 number of words in the Bible to the secret of infinite 
 being. No passage was left unexposed with all the 
 keenness that faith aided by culture could supply ; 
 and when reason reached the end of its tether, fancy 
 took up the work and threaded with unwearied indus- 
 try the mazes of allegory. 
 
 Among the problems that challenged solution was 
 the one touching the Messiah, his attributes and 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1/ 
 
 offices, his nature and his kingdom. This theme had 
 inexhaustible capacities and infinite attraction, for it 
 was but another form of the theme of national deliv- 
 erance which was uppermost in the Hebrew mind. 
 
 The history of the Messianic idea is involved, in 
 the- obscurity that clouds the early history of IsraeL; 
 and this again is embarrassed with the extreme diffi- 
 culty of deciding tlie antiquity of ,the Hebrew scrip- 
 •tures. At what moment was Israel fully persuaded' 
 of its prpvidential destiny .' That is the question. For 
 the germs of the Messianic idea were contained in 
 the bosom of that persuasion. That the idea was 
 slow in forming, must be conceded under any estimate 
 of its antiquity ; for its development depended on the 
 experiences, of the .nation, and' these experiences un- 
 derwent in history numerous and violent fluctu- 
 ations. .The hope of a deliverer came with the felt 
 need of deliverance, and the consciousness of this need 
 grew with the soreness of the calamity under which 
 the nation groaned, as the character of it was deter- 
 mined, by the character of the calamity. The national 
 expectation was necessarily vague at first. It rested 
 origi,nally on the tradition of a general promise given 
 to Abraham that his -descendants should be a great 
 and happy nation, blessing and redeeming the nations 
 of the earth ; that their power should be world-wide, 
 their wealth inexhaustible, their peace undisturbed, 
 their moral supremacy gladly acknowledged. " The 
 
1 8 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against 
 thee to be smitten before thy face ; they shall come 
 out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven 
 ways. The Lord shall command the blessing upon 
 thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest 
 thy hand unto ; and he shall bless thee in the land 
 which the Lord thy God giveth thee. The Lord shall 
 establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath 
 sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the command- 
 ments of the Lord, and walk in his ways ; and all 
 people of the earth shall see that thou art called by 
 the name of the Lord.". 
 
 As a promise made by Jehovah must be kept, the 
 anticipation of its fulfilment became strong as the 
 prospect of it grew dim. The days of disaster were the 
 days of expectation. The prophets laid stress on the con- 
 dition, charged'the delay upon lukewarmness, and urged 
 the necessity of stricter conformity with the divine 
 will ; but the people, oblivious of duty, held to the pledge 
 and cherished the anticipation. When the national 
 hope assumed the concrete form of faith in the advent 
 of an individual, when the conception of the individ- 
 ual became clothed in supernatural attributes, is un- 
 certain. Probably the looked-for deliverer was from 
 the first regarded as more than human. It could 
 hardly be otherwise, as he was to be the representa- 
 tive and agent of Jehovah, an incarnation of his truth 
 and righteousness. The Hebrews easily confounding 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I9 
 
 the human with the superhuman, were always tempted 
 to ascribe supernatural qualities to their political and 
 spiritual leaders, believing that they were divinely 
 commissioned, attested and furthered ; and the 
 person who was to accomplish what none of them had 
 so much as hopefully undertaken, would naturally be 
 clothed by an enthusiastic imagination, with attributes 
 more than mortal. The poets depicted the stories of 
 the future restoration in language of extraordinary 
 splendor. Joel, some say eight hundred years before 
 Jesus, two hundred years before the first captivity, 
 foreshadows the restoration, but without any portrait- 
 ure of the victorious Prince. A century and a half 
 later we will suppose, the first Isaiah speaks of the 
 providential child of the nation, on whose shoulder 
 the government shall rest, whose name shall be called 
 Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty Potentate, Everlasting 
 Father, Prince of Peace ; whose dominion shall be 
 great, who shall fix and establish the throrie and king- 
 dom of David, through justice and equity for ever, 
 and in peace without end ; a lineal descendant from 
 David, a sprout from his root. 
 
 " The spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him, 
 " The spirit of wisdom and understanding, 
 " The spirit of counsel and might, 
 " The spirit of knowledge and fear of Jehovah. 
 " Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, 
 " And faithfulness the girdle of his reins ; 
 
20 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 " To him shall the nation repair, 
 " And his dwelling place shall be glorious." 
 The second Isaiah, supposed to have written dur- 
 ing the exile and not long before its termination, as- 
 sociates the hope of restoration and return with king 
 Cyrus, on whose clemency the Jews built great ex- 
 pectations, intimating even that he might be the 
 promised deliverer. " He saith of Cyrus : ' He is my 
 shepherd ; he shall perform all my pleasure.' He 
 saith of Jerusalem : ' She shall be built ; ' and of the 
 temple : ' Her foundation shall be laid.' " 
 
 In the book of Daniel, by some supposed to have 
 been written during the captivity, by others as late as 
 Antiochus Epiphanes (B. C, 175), the restoration is 
 described in tremendous language, and the Messiah 
 is portrayed as a supernatural personage, in close 
 relation with Jehovah himself. He is spoken of as a 
 man, yet with such epithets as only ajewish imagina- 
 tion could use in describing a human being. Heinrich 
 Ewald, in the fifth volum^e of his history of the people 
 of Israel, devotes twenty-three pages to an account of 
 the development of the natipnal expectation of a 
 Messiah, which he calls " the second, preparatory con- 
 dition of the consummation in Jesus." After alluding 
 to Joel's fervent anticipation, and Isaiah's description of 
 the glory that was to come through the King, in whom 
 the spirit of pure divinity penetrated, animated and 
 glorified everything, so that his human . nature was 
 
■ ■ THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 2 1 
 
 exalted to the God-like power, whose actions, speech, 
 breath even attested deity, he says : " It is not to 
 be questioned that this most exalted form of the con- 
 ception of the anticipated Messiah appeared in the 
 midst of the latter period of this history, when before 
 the great victory of the Maccabees, the eternal hopes 
 of Israel were 'disturbed tn their foundations along 
 with its political prospects, and the advent of a King 
 of David's line seemed wholly impossible. At this 
 time the deathless hope became more interior and 
 imperishable in this new, glorious, celestial idea, and 
 the Messiah presented himself before prophetic vision 
 "as existing from all eternity, along with the inde- 
 structible prerogatives of Israel, which were thought 
 of as existing in an ideal realm, ready to manifest 
 themselves visibly when the hour of destiny should 
 come. And we are able, on historical grounds, to 
 assume that the deep-souled author of the book of 
 Daniel, was the man who first sketched the splendid 
 shape of the Messiah, and the superb outline of his 
 kingdom, in his far-reaching, keen, suggestive, lumin- 
 ous phrases ; while immediately after him the first com- 
 poser of our book of Enoch developed the traits 
 furnished him, with an equal warmth of language and 
 a spiritual insight, not deeper perhaps, but quieter 
 and more comprehensive." Ewald supposes the book 
 of Enoch to have been written at various intervals 
 between 144 and 120 (B. C.) and to have been com- 
 
22 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 pleted in its present form in the first half of the 
 century that preceeded the coming of Christ. The 
 book was regarded as of authority by TertuUian, 
 though Origen and Augustine classed it with apocry- 
 phal writings: In it the figure of the Messiah is in- 
 vested with super-human attributes. He is called 
 " The Son of God," " whose name was spoken before 
 the sun was made ; " " who existed from the beginning 
 in the presence of God," that is, was pre-existent. At 
 the same time his human characteristics are insisted 
 on. He is called " Son of Man," even " Son of 
 Woman," "The Anointed," "The Elect," "The 
 Righteous One," after the style of earlier Hebrew 
 anticipation. The doctrines of angelic orders and 
 administrations, of Satan and his legions, pf resurrec- 
 tion and the final judgment, though definitely shaped, 
 perhaps by association with Persian mythologies, lay 
 concealed in possibility within the original thought of 
 ultimate supremacy which worked so long and so 
 actively, though so obscurely, in the mind of the 
 Jewish race. 
 
 The books of Maccabees, belonging, according to 
 Ewald, to the last half century before Christ, contain 
 significant hints of the future beliefs of Israel. In 
 the second chapter of II. Maccabees, verses 4-9, we 
 read : " It is also found in the records that Jeremy 
 the prophet, being warned of God, commanded the 
 tabernacle and the ark to go with him, as he went 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 23 
 
 forth into the mountain where Moses climbed up and 
 saw the heritage of God. And when Jeremy came 
 thither he found a hollow cave wherein he laid the 
 tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense, and 
 then stopped the door. And some of those that fol- 
 lowed him came to mark the way, but they could not 
 find it ; which, when Jeremy perceived, he blamed 
 them, saying : As for that place it shall be unknown 
 until the time that God gather his people again to- 
 gether, and receive them unto mercy. Then shall the 
 Lord show them these things, and the glory of the 
 Lord shall appear, and the cloud also, as it was showed 
 unto Moses." Is it a stretch of conjecture on the 
 tenuous thread of fancy to find this reappearance 
 described in Revelations XL, 19, in these words : "And 
 the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there 
 was seen in the temple the ark of his covenant ; and 
 there were lightnings, and voices, and thunder- 
 ings, and an earthquake, and great hail .■' " In the 
 twenty-first chapter the seer describes himself as 
 " carried away in the spirit to a great and high moun- 
 tain " and shown "that great city the Holy Jerusalem, 
 descending out of heaven, from-, God." And he heard 
 a great voice out of heaven, saying : " Behold, the 
 tabernacle of God is with men ; He will dwell with 
 them, and they shall be His people, and God himself 
 shall be with them, their God." The heavenly Jeru- 
 salem that came from the clouds is the heavenly city, 
 
24 ■■ THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 the germ whereof was carried up and hidden in the 
 cloud by Jeremy, the prophet. The apocryphal books 
 of the Old Testament lodge the aricient H.ebraic .idea 
 in the very heart of tlie New. 
 
 The earliest phases of the Messianic hope were 
 the most exalted in spirituality. As the fortunes of 
 the people became entangled with those of other 
 
 , v. ' 
 
 states, and the' heavy hand of foreign oppression was 
 laid upon them, the ahticipation lost its religious and 
 assumed a political character. The Messiah assumed 
 the aspect of a temporal prince, no other conception 
 of him meeting the requirements of the time. The 
 dark, days had come again, and were more threatening 
 than ever. Sixty-three years before the birth of 
 Jesus, Pompey the Great, returning, from the East, 
 flushed with victory, approached Jerusalem. , The 
 city shut its gates against him, but the .resistance, 
 though stubborn, was overcome at last, and Judaea 
 was, with the rest of the world, swept into, the mass 
 of the Roman empire. The conqueror, proud but 
 magnanimous, spared the people the last humiliation. 
 He respected no national scruples, perhaps made a 
 point of disregarding Jhem ; he even penetrated into 
 the Holy of Holies, a piece of sacrilegious audacity 
 that no Gentile had ventured on before him ; but he 
 was -considerate of the national spirit in other respects', 
 and left the State, in semblance at least, existing. 
 He quelled the factions that distracted the country, 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 2$ 
 
 repaired the ruin caused in the city by the siege, 
 restored the injured temple, and departed leaving the 
 country in the hands of native rulers, the Empire 
 being thrown into the background. In the back- 
 ground, however, it lurked, a vast power, holding 
 Judaea dependent and tributary. The Jewish state 
 was closely bounded and sharply defined ; a portion 
 of its wealth was absorbed in taxes. An iron arm 
 repressed the insurgent fanaticism that ever and anon 
 broke out in zeal for Jehovah. The loyalty that was 
 kept alive by religious traditions and was only another 
 name for religious enthusiasm, was not allowed ex- 
 pression. Still the even pressure of imperial power 
 was not cruelly felt, and by the better portion of the 
 people was preferred to ceaseless discord and anarchy. 
 The lower orders, easily roused to fanaticism, pro- 
 voked the Roman rule to more evident and stringent 
 dominion. Julius Caesar, passing by on his way to 
 Egypt, paused, saw the situation, and increased the 
 authority of Antipater, his representatiyp, whom he 
 raised to the dignity of Procurator of Judaea. The 
 rule of Antipater was, in the main, just, and com- 
 mended itself to the rational friends of the Jewish 
 State. He rebuilt the wall which the assaults of war 
 had thrown down, pacified the country, and earned by 
 his general moderation 'the prais?, of the patriotic. 
 But Antipater, besides being the representative of a 
 Gentile despotism, was of foreign race, an Idumasan, 
 
26 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 of the abhorred stock of Edom. Spiritual acquies- 
 cence in the rule of such a prince was not to be ex- 
 pected. 
 
 Antipater was the founder of the Herodian dy- 
 nasty. Whatever may have been the ulterior designs 
 which the princes of this dynasty had at heart, whether 
 they meditated an Eastern Empire centering in Pales- 
 tine, Jerusalem being the great metropolis, a purpose 
 kept secret in their breasts till such time as events 
 might justify them in throwing off the dominion of 
 Rome which they had used as an assistance in their 
 period of weakness ; or whether they hoped to com- 
 bine Church and State in Judaea in such a way that 
 each might support the other ; or whether, in their 
 passion for splendor, they plotted the subversion of 
 religion by the pomp of pagan civilization ; the 
 practical result of their dominion was the exasperation 
 of the Hebrew spirit. 
 
 Herod, the son of Antipater, deserved, on several 
 accounts, the title of Great that history has bestowed 
 on him. He was great as a soldier, great as a diplo- 
 matist, great as an administrator. Made king in his 
 youth ; established in his power by the Roman senate ; 
 confirmed in his state by Augustus ; entrusted with 
 all but unlimited powers ; absolved from the duty to 
 pay tribute to the empire ; his long reign of more 
 than forty years was of great moment to the Jewish 
 state. Internally he corrupted it, but 'externally he 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 27 
 
 beautified it. The superb temple, one of the wonders 
 and ornaments of the Eastern world, was of his build- 
 ing, and so delicately as well as munificently was it 
 done, that the shock of removing the old edifice to 
 make room for the new was quite avoided. He 
 adorned the city besides, with sumptuous monuments 
 and structures. His palaces, theatres, tombs were of 
 unexampled magnificence. Nor was his attention 
 confined to the city of Jerusalem ; Cgesarea was en- 
 riched with marble docks and palaces ; Joppa was 
 made handsome ; Antonia was fortified. Games and 
 feasts relieved the monotony of Eastern life, and 
 gratified the Greek taste for splendid gaiety. But 
 this was all in the interest of paganism. If he rebuilt 
 the temple at Jerusalem, he rebuilt also the temple at 
 Samaria. If he made superb the worship of Jehovah 
 in the holy city, he encouraged heathen worship in 
 the new city of Caesarea. This introduction of Rolnan 
 customs deeply offended the religious sense of the 
 nation. Outside the city walls he had an amphi- 
 theatre for barbarous games. Inside, he had a 
 theatre for Greek plays and dances. The castle, An- 
 tonia, well garrisoned, a castle and a palace com- 
 bined, commanded the temple square. The Roman 
 eagle, fixed upon the front of the temple^ was an 
 affront that no magnificence or munificence could 
 atone for. His private life was not calculated to 
 win the favor of a severely puritanical people, or 
 
28 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 persuade them of the advantage of being under im- 
 perial dominion. The Greek legends on his coins, 
 his ostentatious encouragement of foreign usages and 
 people, his rude treatment of Hebrew prejudices, and 
 his haughty bearing towards the " first families " added 
 bitterness to the misery of foreign sway. 
 
 Yet the situation became worse at his death. For 
 his successors had his audacity without his prudence, 
 and were disposed, as he was, to be oppressive, without 
 being, as he was, magnificent. He did keep the 
 nation at peace by his tyranny, if by his cruelty he 
 undermined security and provoked the disaffection 
 that made peace impossible after him. The last acts 
 ascribed to him, the order that the most eminent men 
 of the nation should be put to death at his decease, 
 and that the infants of Bethlehem, the city of David, 
 should be massacred, attest more than the vulgar 
 belief in his cruelty; they bear witness to a convic- 
 tion that the spirit of the people was not dead, that the 
 despotism of Rome had failed to crush the hope of 
 Israel. The death of Herod, which occurred when 
 Jesus was a little child, was followed by frightful social 
 and political convulsions. For two or three years all 
 the elements of disorder were afoot. Between pre- 
 tenders to the vacant throne of Herod, and aspirants 
 to the Messianic throne of David, Judaera was torn and 
 devastated. Revolt assumed the wildest form, the 
 higher enthusiasm of faith yielded to the lower fury 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 29 
 
 of fanaticism ; the celestial visions of a kingdom of 
 heaven were completely banished by the smoke and 
 flame of political hate. Claimant after claimant of 
 the dangerous supremacy of the Messiah appeared, 
 pitched a camp in the wilderness, raised the banner, 
 gathered a force, was attacked, defeated, banished or 
 crucified; but the frenzy did not abate. Conservative 
 Jews, in their despair, sent an embassy to Rome, 
 praying for tranquility under the equitable reign of 
 law. They wanted no king like Herod, or of Herod's 
 line ; they prayed to be delivered from all kings who 
 were not themselves subject to imperial responsibility. 
 The governor of Syria they would acknowledge. The 
 petition was not granted. Herod's three sons, Arche- 
 laus, Antipas and Philip divided- their father's domi- 
 nion between them ; Judaea was made a Roman 
 province, subject to taxation like any other. 
 
 The best of the three kings was Philip, who received 
 as his portion the North Eastern division, the most 
 remote from the centre of disturbance. 'He was a 
 quiet, well-disposed man, who staid at home, attended 
 to his own business, develcfped the resources of his 
 dominion, and showed himself a father to his p'eople. 
 Csesarea Philippi was built by him ; Bethsaida was 
 rebtiilt." Antipas, called- also Herod, was appointed 
 ruler over Galilee and Peraea ; a cunning, unprincipled 
 man, nicknamed " the fox ; " despotic and wilful, like 
 his father, and like his father, fond of display. He 
 
30 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 built Dio Csesarea, as it was afterwards called, and 
 Tiberias, on the sea of Galilee. He too was a good 
 deal of a pagan, and deeply outraged the Hebrew con- 
 science by repudiating his wife, the daughter of 
 Aretas, an Arabian king, and marrying the wife of 
 his half-brother, Philip. He was an oriental despot, 
 superstitious, luxurious, sensual, wilful and weak ; quite 
 destitute of the statesmanship required in the ruler 
 of a turbulent province, where special care and skill 
 were necessary to reconcile the order of civil govern- 
 ment with the aspiration after theocratic supremacy. 
 The spiritual fear, which^ compelled him to stand in 
 awe of religious enthusiasm, put him on more than half 
 earnest quest of prophetic messengers, made him curi- 
 ous about miracles and signs, and anxious not to offend 
 needlessly the higher powers, was incessantly at ivar 
 with the self-regarding policy which resented the 
 smallest encroachment on^ his own authority. To 
 maintain his ducal state, and meet the cost of his pub- 
 lic and private extravagance, he imposed heavy taxes, 
 and collected them in an unscrupulous fashion, which 
 made him and the empire he represented extremely 
 unpopular. Jealous of his prerogative, and ambitious 
 of regal rank, he brought himself into disagreeable 
 collision with the aspirations of the people he gov- 
 erned. His immediate neighborhood to the centres 
 of Jewish enthusiasm, — he lived in the very heart of 
 it, for Galilee was the seat and headquarters of Hebrew 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 3 1 
 
 radicalism — made his every movement felt. In him 
 the spirit of the Roman empire was, in the belief of 
 the people, incarnate. 
 
 The oldest brother, Archelaus, held the chief 
 position, bore the highest title, received the 
 largest tribute, more than a million of dollars, 
 and resided in Judasa, nearer the political cen- 
 tre of the. country. His reign was short. His 
 cruelty and lawlessness, his disregard of private and 
 public decencies raised his subjects against him. 
 Augustus, on an appeal to Rome for redress, sum- 
 moned him to his presence, listened to the charges 
 and the defence, and banished him to Gaul. This 
 was in the year 6 of our era, only three years after the 
 death of Herod. The reign of his brothers, Philip 
 and Antipas, covered the period of the life of Jesus. 
 
 The "taxing" which excited the wildest uproar 
 against the Roman power, took place at this period, 
 — A. D. 7, — under Cyrenius or Quirinusi governor 
 of Syria ; it*was the first general tax laid directly by 
 the imperial government, and it raised a furious storm 
 of opposition. The Hebrew spirit was stung into 
 exasperation ; the puritans of the nation, the enthu- 
 siasts, fanatics, the zealots of the law, the literal 
 constructionists of prophecy, appealed to the national 
 temper, revived the national faith, and fanned into 
 flame the combustible elements that smouldered in 
 the bosom of the race. A native Hebrew party was 
 
32 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 formed, on the idea that Judea was for the Jews ; 
 that the rule of the Gentile was ungodly ; that all 
 support given to it was disloyalty to Jehovah. The 
 popular feeling broke out in open rebellion ; the fana- 
 ticism of the "zealots" affected the whole nation. Who- 
 ever had the courage to draw the sword in the name 
 of the Messiah was sure of a following, though there 
 was no chance that the uprising would end in any- 
 thing but blood and worse oppression. The most 
 extravagant expectations were, cherished of miraculous 
 furtherance and superhuman aid. The popular ima- 
 giriation, inflamed by rhetoric taken from Daniel, 
 Enoch, and other apocryphal books, went beyond all 
 sober limits. The primary conditions of divine assis- 
 tance, sanctity, fidelity, patience, meekness of trust, 
 reverence for the Lord's will, were neglected and for- 
 gotten ; the promise alone was kept in view ; the 
 word of Jehovah was alone remembered; his com- 
 mand was disregarded. But the Lord's promise was 
 Hot kept. Every new uprising was followed by fresh 
 impositions ; the detestable dominion was fastened 
 upon the people more hopelessly than ever. The 
 temper of the domination became bitter and con- 
 temptuous, as it had not been before. The name 
 of Jew was synonymous to Roman ears with vulgar 
 fanaticism. 
 
 In place of Archelaus, Augustus sent procurators, 
 as they were called, Coponius, Marcus Ambivius, 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 33 
 
 Annius Rufus. The country was generally tranquil 
 under their short administrations ; but the internal 
 feuds were not pacified. The enthusiasm of the Jews 
 provoked the malignity of the Samaritans, who, having 
 been longer wonted to foreign rule, less resented it, 
 and were not unwilling to put themselves in league 
 with the despot to crush an ancient foe. It is related 
 that during the administration of Coponius, some evil- 
 minded Samaritans, stole into the open temple of 
 Jerusalem, on the passover night, and threw human 
 bones into the holy place. The building was dese- 
 crated for the season and must be purified by special 
 sacrifices before it could be used again. The das- 
 tardly act was associated, in the minds of the people, 
 with the insulting degradations of the Gentile power, 
 and the spirit of rebellion was exasperated. 
 
 Augustus died A. D. 14, and was succeeded by 
 Tiberius, whose policy towards Judsea, was not op- 
 pressive so much as contemptuous. He was too 
 merciful to the " sick man " to drive away the carrion 
 flies that were already surfeited, and let in a fresh 
 swarm of blood-suckers. His viceroys enjoyed a long 
 term of office and plundered at leisure. Pontius 
 Pilate was appointed to this position in the year 
 26, about four years before the public appearance 
 -of Jesus, and was kept there till the year 37. 
 He was, in many respects, a good administrator: 
 overbearing, of course, for he was a Roman ; his sub- 
 
 3 
 
34 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 jects were by nature, irritating, and by reputation, 
 factious. He was greedy of gain, though not rapa- 
 cious or extortionate ; not a man of high principle ; 
 not a sympathetic or sentimental man, cold, indiffer- 
 ent, apathetic rather ; still, moderate, and, on the 
 whole, just ; liable to mistakes through stubbornness 
 and imprudence, but neither cruel, jealous, nor vindic- 
 tive. The reputation of being all these was easily 
 earned by a man in his position ; for the Jews were 
 sensitive, not easily satisfied, and disposed, to con- 
 strue unfavorably any acts of a foreign ruler. As 
 viceroys went, Pilate was not a bad man, nor was he 
 a bad specimen of his class. The smallest impru- 
 dence might precipitate riot in Jerusalem. On one 
 occasion, the troops from Samaria, coming to winter 
 at Jerusalem, were allowed to carry, emblazoned on 
 their banner, the image of the emperor, to which the 
 Roman soldiers attached a sacred character. The 
 sight of the idolatrous standard on the morning of 
 its first exhibition created great excitement. A riot 
 broke forth at once ; a deputation waited on the gov- 
 ernor at Csesarea, to protest against the outrage and 
 demand the removal of the sacrilege. Pilate firmly 
 withstood the supplicants, thinking the honor of the 
 emperor at stake. Five days and five nights the pe- 
 titioners stayed, pressing their demand. On the sixth 
 day, the governor, wearied by their importunity and 
 resolved to put an end to the annoyance, had his 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 35 
 
 judgment-seat placed on the race-course, ordered 
 troops to lie concealed in the near neighborhood, and 
 awaited the visit of the Jews. The deputation came 
 as usual with their complaint ; at a signal, the soldiers 
 appeared and surrounded the suppliants, while the 
 procurator threatened them with instant death, if 
 they did not at once retire to their homes. The stern 
 puritans, nothing daunted, threw themselves at his 
 feet, stretched out their necks, and cried : ' It were 
 better to die than to submit to insult to our holy 
 laws.' The astonished governor yielded, and the in- 
 signia were removed. 
 
 On another occasion Pilate was made sensible of 
 the inflammable character of the people with whom he 
 had to deal. He had allowed the construction, per- 
 haps only the restoration, of a costly aqueduct to sup- 
 ply the city, but more especially the temple buildings, 
 with pure water. It was built at the instance of 
 the Sanhedrim and the priests, to whom an abundance 
 of water was a prime necessity. In consideration of 
 this fact, as well as of the circumstance that the benefit 
 of the improvement accrued wholly to the Jewish peo- 
 ple, it seemed to Pilate no more than just that' the ex- 
 pense should be defrayed from moneys in the temple 
 treasury that were set apart for such purposes. There 
 is no evidence that his action was unreasonable or his 
 method of pursuing it offensive ; but clamors at once 
 arose against his project, and on occasion of his com- 
 
36 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 ing to Jerusalem a tumultuous crowd pressed on him, 
 and insulting epithets were flung at him from the 
 rabble. To still and scatter them soldiers were sent, 
 in ordinary dress, with clubs in their hands, their 
 weapons being concealed, to overawe the malcontents. 
 This failing, and the tumult increasing, the signal of 
 attack was given ; the soldiers fell to with a will ; 
 blood was shed ; innocent and guilty suffered alike. 
 As this occurred on a feast day, near the Pra;torium, 
 and not far from the temple itself, it is quite possible 
 that the sacred precincts were disturbed by the uproar, 
 and that the stain of blood touched consecrated 
 pavement. The popular mind, excited and maddened, 
 seized on the occurrence, represented it as a deliberate 
 affront on the part of the governor, and charged him 
 with mingling the blood of innocent people with the 
 sacrifices they were offering to Jehovah. It is not 
 unlikely that the " tower of Siloam " which fell, 
 crushing eighteen citizens, was a part of this very 
 aqueduct wall, and its fall may have been and probably 
 was, regarded as a judgment on the woik and on all 
 who countenanced it. That it made a profound im- 
 pression on the popular imagination appears in the 
 gospel narratives written many years afterwards. 
 Ewald supposes that this accident happened at an 
 early stage of the work, and was a leading cause of the 
 fanatical outbreak that expressed the popular dis- 
 content. 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 37 
 
 Philo tells a story of Pilate's administration, so 
 characteristic that it deserves repeating, although, as 
 Ewald remarks, it may be another version of the inci- 
 dent of the standards. Ewald, however, is inclined to 
 think it a distinct occurrence. According to this 
 narrative, Pilate, in honor of the emperor, and in ac- 
 cordance with a custom prevalent throughout the 
 empire, especially in the East, caused to be set up in 
 a conspicuous place in Jerusalem, two votive shields 
 of gold, one bearing the name of Tiberius, the other 
 his own. The shields had nothing on them but the 
 names ; no image, no inscription, no idolatrous em- 
 blem, simply the two names. But even this was 
 resented by the fiery populace who could not endure 
 the lightest intimation of their subjection to a Gentile 
 power. The indignation reached the aristocracy ; at 
 least, the force of the movement did ; and the sons of 
 Herod, all four of them, accompanied by members of 
 the first families and city officials, formally waited on 
 Pilate to demand the removal of the tablets, and on 
 his refusal went to Rome to lay the matter before 
 Tiberius, who granted, on his part, the request. Be 
 the incident as recorded true or not, the record of it 
 by so near a contemporary , and so clear a judge as 
 Philo, throws a strong light on the situation, brings 
 the two parties into bold relief, as they confront one 
 another, and affords a glimpse into the secret workings 
 of Hebrew political motives. 
 
38 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 The pressure of the Roman authority was inces- 
 sant and severe, though the apparatus of it was kept 
 in the background. The governor held his court and 
 head-quarters at Csesarea, a seaport town on the Med- 
 iterranean, about mid-way between Joppa on the 
 south, and the promontory of Carmel on the north, 
 admirably situated with regard to Rome, on the one 
 side, and Palestine on the other. For strategic pur- 
 poses the place was well chosen. The military force 
 in the country was not large — about a thousand men 
 — ^but it was effectively disposed. The castle of Anto- 
 nia, in the city of Jerusalem, contained a garrison judi- 
 ciously small, but sufficient for an exigency. The vice- 
 roy was present in the Holy City on public days when 
 great assemblages of people, gathered together under 
 circumstances provocative of insurrection, required 
 closer watch than usual. He had a residence there, 
 and a judgment-seat on a marble balcony in front of 
 the palace ; he exercised regal powers, held the issues 
 of life and death, could depose priests of any order ; 
 in short, ruled the subject people with as much con- 
 sideration as the peculiar circumstances of the case 
 demanded, but no more. The people were never per- 
 mitted to forget their subject condition. The hated 
 tax-gatherer went his rounds, exacting tribute to the 
 empire. The evolutions of soldiers gave an aspect of 
 omnipresence to the foreign dominion. The hope of 
 deliverance lost its spiritual character, and took on 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 39 
 
 decidedly a political shape. The anticipation of the 
 Messiah became less ideal, but more intense. The 
 armed figure of king David haunted the dreams of 
 fanatics ; even the angels that hovered before the im- 
 agination of gentler enthusiasts wore breast-plates 
 and had swords in their hands. The kingdom looked 
 for was no reign of truth, mercy, and kindness, but a 
 reign of force, for force alone could meet force. 
 
III. 
 
 THE SECTS. 
 
 The popular aspect of the Messianic hope was polit- 
 ical, not religious or moral. The name " Messiah," was 
 synonymous with " King of the Jews ; "' it suggested 
 political designs and aspirations. Th, assumption 
 of that character by any individual, drew on him the 
 vigilance of the police. In this condition of affairs 
 the public sentiment was divided between the Con- 
 servatives and the Radicals. The first party com- 
 prised the wealthy, settled, permanent, cautious people 
 whose patriotism was tinged with prudent reflection. 
 They saw the hopelessness of revolt, its inevitable 
 failure, and the worse tyranny that would follow its 
 bloody suppression ; they put generous interpretations 
 on the acts and intentions of the imperial power, did 
 justice and a little more than literal justice to acts 
 of clemency or forbearance, appreciated the value of 
 the Roman supremacy in preserving internal quiet 
 and keeping other plunderers at a distance ; and had 
 confidence that patience and diplomacy would accom- 
 plish what force could not undertake. They were 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 4 1 
 
 careful, therefore, to maintain a good understanding 
 with the powers that were, and frowned on all at- 
 tempts to revive the national spirit. 
 
 The conservatives were of all shades of opinion, 
 and of all parties ; the radicals were, as is usually the 
 case, confined mostly to those who had little tD lose, 
 either of wealth, reputation, or social position. The 
 supremacy of Israel, the restoration of the Jewish 
 Commonwealth, the overthrow of the wealthy and 
 powerful, the reinstatement of the poor, the unlet- 
 tered, the weak, the suffering, the downtrodden " chil- 
 dren of Abraham," composed the group of ideas which 
 made up the sum of their intellectual life. The Ro- 
 man dominion was abhorred not because it was cruel, 
 but because it was sacrilegious. Diplomacy, with 
 these, was another word for time-serving ; policy an- 
 other phrase for cowardice ; they detested prudence 
 as ignoble ; they distrusted conciliation as apostacy ; 
 they put the worst construction on the fairest seem- 
 ing deeds, dreading nothing so much as agreement 
 between the chief men of Israel and the minions of 
 the empire. 
 
 The educated and responsible classes were chiefly 
 conservative. No sect was so entirely, for no sect 
 comprised all of these classes ; but some sects were 
 naturally more conservative than others. The Sad- 
 ducees were, on the whole, the most so ; not by reason 
 of their creed particularly, but through the influence 
 
42 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 of their historical antecedents. After the capture of 
 Jerusalem by Ptolemy, 320 B. C, some hundred 
 thousand Jews went to Egypt and attained conse- 
 quence there ; had their own religious rites and tem- 
 ple. Contact with Greek thought and life there en- 
 larged their minds. Their old-fashioned Hebraism 
 seemed strait and prim by the side of the splendid 
 exuberance of Gentile life in Alexandria. Jerusalem 
 looked, in the distance, like a provincial town ; the 
 wealth of pagan literature dwarfed their Scriptures to 
 the dimensions of a single deep but narrow tradition. 
 They were Jews still, but bigoted Jews no longer. 
 How unreasonable seemed now the prejudices of ex- 
 clusive race! how unwise the attempts to maintain 
 peculiarities of custom ! how fanatical the efforts to 
 impose them upon others ! The world was large and 
 various : the order of the world followed the track of 
 no one lawgiver, prophet or saint. 
 
 The sect of Sadducees is supposed to have risen 
 from this pagan soil. It was a sect of rationalists, 
 free-thinkers, skeptics, eclectics ; Jews, but not dog- 
 matists of any school. They believed in culture and 
 general progress, and had the characteristic traits of 
 men so believing. They were cool, unimpassioned, 
 scientific ; sentimentalism they abjured ; enthusiasm 
 to them was folly. They were glad to graft Greek 
 culture on Hebrew thought, and would not have 
 been sorry to see the small Hebrew state absorbed 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 43 
 
 by some world-wide civilization. Moses they revered, 
 and his law; but the aftergrowth, priestly and pro- 
 phetic, they discarded. No doubt they thought the 
 priests superstitious, the prophets mad, the restora- 
 tionists a set of fools, the vision of Israel's future 
 supremacy the mischievous nightmare of distempered 
 miiids. As a literary class the Sadducees were few 
 and select ; aristocratic in taste, supercilious in man- 
 ners. They were in favor with the governors placed 
 over the people by Roman authority, on account of 
 their cultured moderation ; and in return for social 
 and political support, received offices in the State, 
 and even in the Church. Caiaphas, the high priest 
 in the time of Jesus, was a Sadducee, and was raised 
 to that dignity by Valerius Gratus, Pilate's predeces- 
 sor in office. 
 
 The Sadducee was a man of the world ; not in the 
 bad sense, but in the strict sense of the term. Dis- 
 believing in immortality, he confined his view to the 
 possibilities of the time ; disbelieving in angels and 
 special providences, he put confidence in temporal 
 powers ; disbelieving the doctrine of divine decrees 
 and manifest destiny, he pursued the calculations of 
 policy and held himself within the reasonable compass 
 of human motives. Compromisers on principle, the 
 Sadducees were unpopular in a community of earnest 
 Jews. They bore bad names, were called epicureans, 
 sensualists, materialists, cold-blooded aristocrats, allies 
 
44 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 of despotism ; but they deserved these abusive appel- 
 lations no more than men of the same description in 
 modern states deserve them. The abusive epithet was 
 one of the penalties they had to pay for the intel- 
 lectual and social consequence they enjoyed. 
 
 The Pharisees were more numerous, more com- 
 monplace and more popular. They were, in fact, the 
 great popular sect. They were of more recent origin 
 than the Sadducees, their history going back only ^ 
 about a century and a half before the time of Jesus. 
 Their name, which means " exclusive " or " elect," 
 "set apart," sufficiently indicates their character. 
 They were the "strait" sect; Hebrews of the He- 
 brews ; Puritans of the Puritans ; the quintessence of 
 theocratic fervor and patriotic faith ; the true Israel. 
 Strict constructionists they were ; friends to the law 
 and the testimony ; worshippers of the letter and the 
 form ; painstaking preservers of every iota of the writ- 
 ten word ; firm believers in the destiny of Israel, in 
 the special providence that could accomplish it, in the 
 angelic powers whose agency might be needed to ful- 
 fil it, in the future life when it was to be fulfilled. 
 They held to the law, and they held to the prophets, 
 major and minor ; they could divide the word of the 
 Lord to a hair. 
 
 The Pharisees have usually been called a sect ; 
 they were not so much a sect as a party. Church 
 and State being one in the conception of a the- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 45 
 
 ocracy, or government of God, the devotee and the 
 politician were the same person ; the dogmatist was 
 the democrat; the man of narrowest creed was the 
 man of widest sympathies ; the most exclusive theo- 
 logian was the most popular partisan. To keep Israel 
 true to the faith, and, in consequence of that to save 
 it from political decline, was, from the first, the Pha- 
 risee's mission. He never lost it from his view. His 
 eye was steadily fixed on the issues of the day, as 
 they involved the destinies of the future. In order 
 that he might be a patriot, he was anxious to preserve 
 unimpaired his puritanism ; and in order that he 
 might preserve his puritanism unimpaired, he attended 
 diligently to the duties of patriotism. 
 
 The Pharisee cherished the Messianic hope. It 
 was part of his faith in the destiny of Israel, and the 
 great practical justification of his belief in the resur- 
 rection of the dead ; he believed in personal immor- 
 tality, because he believed in the Christ who would 
 come to bestow it. It was an article of the patriot's 
 creed ; the joy of the Messianic felicity being the 
 reward for fidelity to Israel. The hope presented to 
 him its political aspect, that being the aspect really 
 fascinating to patriotic contemplation. The moral 
 and spiritual aspects were incidental to this. In fact 
 the moral and spiritual aspects were scarcely thought 
 of. It was reserved for Christianity to develop these 
 when the literal doctrine had lost its interest, and the 
 
46 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 heavenly kingdom had been transported from the 
 earth to the skies. A thousand and a half of years 
 have not spiritualized the belief with the multitude. 
 Still the Pharisaic doctrine is the accepted faith ; a 
 purely rational human faith in immortality is enter- 
 tained by the philosophical fe*v. The Pharisees con- 
 stituted a sort of Young Men's Hebrew Association, 
 loosely organized for the maintenance of the faith 
 and the fulfilment of the destiny of Israel. 
 
 But while all Pharisees shared the same general 
 beliefs, all were not of the same mind on questions of 
 immediate policy. They were divided into conserva- 
 tive and radical wings. The conservatives, whether 
 from temperament, position, conviction, or selfish 
 interest, deprecated sudden or violent measures which 
 would defeat their own ends and make a bad state of 
 things worse. They counselled moderation, patience, 
 acquiescence in the actual and inevitable. They dis- 
 countenanced the open expressions of discontent, ad- 
 vised submission to law, and preached the duty of 
 strict religious observance as the proper preparation, 
 on their part, for the providential advent of the Son 
 of Man. No doubt this policy was prompted in many 
 cases by timidity, and in many cases by time-serving 
 craft ; but no doubt it was in many cases suggested 
 by sober statesmanship. The conservative Pharisee 
 was even less popular than the Sadducee ; for the 
 Sadducee pretended to no belief in Israel's providen- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 4/ 
 
 tial destiny, and to no sympathy with Israel's Mes- 
 sianic hope ; while the Pharisee made conspicuous 
 protestation of orthodox zeal. Evidence of the popu- 
 lar dislike of the conservative Pharisee abounds. He 
 was looked upon as a renegade. He was called pre- 
 tender and hypocrite, wolf in sheep's clothing, a 
 whited sepulchre. He was ridiculed and lampooned. 
 All manner of heartlessness was charged against him, 
 as being a monster of inhumanity. " The Talmud," 
 - says Deutsch, " inveighs even more bitterly and caus- 
 tically than the New Testament, against what it calls 
 'the plague of Pharisaism ;' 'the dyed ones,' 'who do 
 evil deeds, like Zimri, and require a goodly reward, 
 like Phinehas ; ' ' who preach beautifully, but behave 
 unbeautifuUy.' " Their artificial interpretations, their 
 divisions and sub-divisions, their attitudes and pos- 
 turings were parodied and caricatured. The conven- 
 tional Pharisee was classed under one of six cate- 
 gories : he did the will of God, but from interested 
 motives ; he was forever doing the will of God, but 
 never accomplishing it ; he performed absurd pen- 
 naces to avoid imaginary sins ; he accepted office in 
 the character of saint ; he sanctimoniously begged his 
 neighbor to mention some duty he had inadvertently 
 omitted, his design being to seem faithful in all things 
 when he was faithful in nothing ; or, if sincerely de- 
 vout, he was devout from fear. He had no credit 
 given him for his virtues, and more than due discredit 
 
48 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 for his vices. In time of peril the conservatives out- 
 numbered the radicals, for radicalism was dangerous ; 
 and the feeling between the two classes was the 
 bitterer on this account; the conservatives hating 
 the radicals whom they could not disown, the radicals 
 despising the conservatives who were their brothers 
 in faith. Each party compromised the other pre- 
 cisely where misapprehension was most exasperating. 
 
 For the radicalism of the time was exclusively, we 
 may say, pharisaic. There was no other of any con- 
 siderable account. None but believers in the restora- 
 tion of Israel, in the triumphant vindication of her 
 faith in a new and complete social order and in abso- 
 lute political independence ; none but believers in 
 divine interposition, and a personal resurrection of 
 the faithful for the enjoyment of felicity in the Mes- 
 sianic kingdom ; none but devout students of the 
 scripture, recipients of the whole tradition, visionaries 
 of the literal or spiritual order, could entertain so 
 audacious a hope ; and all these were Pharisees. 
 
 The Essenes, a mystical and secluded sect, dwelt 
 apart, took no interest in public affairs, and exerted 
 no influence on public opinion. Peculiar in their 
 usages, secret in their proceedings, contemplative in 
 their habits, quietists and dreamers, they so trans- 
 figured and sulilimated the views which they shared 
 with their compatriots, that no point of practical con- 
 tact was visible. From them no prophet or reformer 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 49 
 
 came. The soul of the Hebrew faith was all they 
 recognized ; the body of it they were indifferent to. 
 That in many respects their doctrines, precepts, 
 social usages and religious practices corresponded with 
 those held by conscientious Jews, need not be ques- 
 tioned. It does not follow that they originated or 
 communicated them. Such opinions were simply 
 adopted as a common inheritance. The Essenes 
 rather withdrew than imparted their belief. All the 
 ingenuity of DeQuincey is unavailing to establish a 
 practical relation between the Essenes and any popu- 
 lar movement in Judaea. These movements were led 
 by the more enthusiastic of the Pharisees, and. fol- 
 lowed by the multitude that shared their ideas. 
 
 The " lawyers " and " scribes," Pharisees for the 
 most part by profession, were in consequence of their 
 profession, conservative. Men of learning, well 
 balanced in mind, carefully educated, good linguists, 
 masters often in theology, philosophy, moral science, 
 familiar as any were with natural history, the mathe- 
 matics, botany, engaged in the study and exposition 
 of the sacred books, they were from the scholastic 
 nature of their pursuits, disinclined to take part in 
 popular reforms. There were no zealots among them ; 
 they were men of moderate opinions and calm tem- 
 pers, capable of stubborn resistance to the elements 
 of agitation, but incapable of vehement sympathies 
 with enthusiasm. 
 
so THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 The " Herodians," were a limited and never a 
 popular party, who hoped that, in some way, the de- 
 liverance of Israel might come through the family of 
 Herod, as being Jews but not bigots, of foreign 
 extraction but of oriental genius, whose dynasty had 
 been, and might again be, independent of Rome. 
 These men were interested in public affairs, watched 
 narrowly the signs of the times in politics, but 
 were as jealous on the one side, of popular outbreaks, 
 as they were on the other, of imperial domination. 
 Deliverance, in their judgment, was to come by diplo- 
 macy, not by enthusiasm. They had no religious 
 creed that distinguished them as a party. Some may 
 have been Sadducees ; more, probably were Pharisees ; 
 but whether Pharisees or Sadducees, they were in no 
 danger of being demagogues or the dupes of dema- 
 gogues. The party was in existence at the period of 
 Jesus ; but it could not have been strong. Its influ- 
 ence, if it ever had any, was declining with the 
 decreasing significance of the Herodian line. We hear 
 little of them in the literature of the time ; with the 
 final and absolute supremacy of Rome, they disap- 
 peared. The casual mention^ of them, once in Mat- 
 thew and once in Mark, on the same occasion, and 
 in connection with the Pharisees, is evidence that they 
 were still in existence late in the first century. That 
 is their last appearance. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE MESSIAH IN THE NEW TESTA- 
 MENT. 
 
 The earliest writings of the New Testament, the 
 genuine letters of Paul, written not far from the year 
 60, thirty years more or less after the received date of 
 the crucifixion of Jesus, take up and continue the line 
 of Jewish tradition. No traces exist of literature pro- 
 duced between the opening of the century and the 
 epistolary activity of tlie apostle of the Gentiles. The 
 times were unfavorable to the production and the 
 preservation of literary work. The earliest gospels, 
 even granting their genuineness and authenticity, can- 
 not be assigned to so early a period, cannot be crowd- 
 ed back beyond the year 70, and must probably be 
 placed later by ten, fifteen, twenty years. They bear 
 evidently on their pages the impress of ideas which 
 Paul made current. Their authors, when not disci- 
 ples of his school, respected it and had regard to its 
 claim. The gospel of Luke betrays, in its whole 
 structure the shaping hand of a Pauline adherent. Its 
 catholicity, its anti-Judaic spirit, its frequent and ap- 
 
52 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 proving mention of Samaritans, its doctrine of demons 
 and powers of the infernal world, its constant recogni- 
 tion in precept and parable of the claims of the heathen 
 on the salvation of the Christ, are a few of the plain 
 marks of a genius foreign to that of Palestine. The 
 gospel of Mark is similarly though not so eminently 
 or so minutely characterized. Even the gospel of 
 Matthew contains deposits from this formation. The 
 language of one verse in the eleventh chapter, — " All 
 things are delivered unto me of My Father ; and no 
 man knoweth the Son, but the Father, neither know- 
 eth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to 
 whom the Son will reveal him," confesses in every 
 word, its Pauline origin. The passage lies like a 
 boulder on a common. 
 
 Though concerned with a period anterior to the 
 apostle's conversion, with events whereof he had no 
 knowledge, arid with a life from which he professed to 
 derive only his impulse, the gospels are written, not in 
 the style of chronicles or memoirs, but in the style of 
 disquisitions rather. Far from being the artless, guile- 
 less, unstudied compositions they have passed for, 
 they are imbued with an atmosphere of reflection, are 
 ingeniously elaborate and, in parts painfully studied. 
 They are meditated biographies, in which the bio- 
 graphical material is selected and qualified by specula- 
 tive motives. Nevertheless, these are the only 
 fragments presumably of historical character that we 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. S3 
 
 possess. The period that Paul's ministry supposes 
 must be searched for in these after-minded books. 
 Hence arise grave literary difficulties. Several points 
 must be borne in mind ; the absence of any contem- 
 poraneous account of the ministry of Jesus ; the utter 
 dearth of early memoranda ; the advanced age of the 
 evangelists at the time they wrote, even on the com- 
 mon reckoning, and the effect of age in weakening 
 recollection, suggesting fancies, raising queries, inflam- 
 ing imaginations, making the mind receptive of 
 theories and marvels ; the influence on the disciples 
 and on the intellectual world of a man so powerful as 
 Paul, and the altered speculative climate of the later 
 apostolic age. The literary laws forbid under these 
 circumstances our reading the gospel narratives as 
 authentic histories — constrain us in fact to read them, 
 in some sort, as disquisitions, making allowance as we 
 go along, for the infusion of doctrinal elements. 
 
 The actual Jesus is, thus understood, inaccessible 
 to scientific research. His image cannot be recovered. 
 He left no memorial in writing of himself ; his fol- 
 lowers were illiterate ; the mind of his age was con- 
 fused. . Paul received only traditions of him, how 
 definite we have no means of knowing, apparently not 
 significant enough to be treasured, nor consistent 
 enough to oppose a barrier to his own speculations- 
 The character of Jesus is a fair subject for discussion 
 and conjecture ; but at this stage in a literary study such 
 
54 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 discussion and conjecture would be out of place. We 
 have at present simply to inquire into the character of 
 the Messianic hope as it was illustrated in the ante- 
 Pauline period. This task is less difficult, and may be 
 accomplished without detriment to moral or spiritual 
 qualities which Jesus may have possessed. 
 
 The earliest phase of the Messianic hope in the 
 New Testament must have corresponded with prev- 
 alent expectations of Israel in the early period of our 
 first century. What that was has been described. The 
 " Son of Man " of Matthew, Mark and Luke, their 
 Pauline elements being eliminated, meets the require- 
 ments in every respect, and in no particular tran- 
 scends them. He is a radical Pharisee who has at 
 heart the enfranchisement of his people. Pie is re- 
 presented as being a native of Galilee, the insurgent 
 district of the country ; nurtured, if not born in 
 Nazareth, one of its chief cities ; reared as a youth 
 amid traditions of patriotic devotion, and amid scenes 
 associated with heroic dreams and endeavors. The 
 Galileans were restless, excitable people, beyond the 
 reach of conventionalities, remote from the centre of 
 power ecclesiastical and secular, simple in their lives, 
 bold of speech, independent in thought, thorough- 
 going in thci sort of radicalism that is common among 
 people who live " out of the world," who have leisure 
 to discuss the exciting topics of the day, but too little 
 knowledge, culture, or sense of social responsibility to 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 55 
 
 discuss them soundly. Their mental discontent and 
 moral intractability were proverbial. They were 
 belligerents. The Romans had more trouble with 
 them than with the natives of any other province. 
 The Messiahs all started out from Galilee, and never 
 failed to collect followers round their standard. The 
 Galileans more than others, lived in the anticipation 
 of the Deliverer. The reference of the Messiah to 
 Galilee is therefore already an indication of the char- 
 acter he is to assume. 
 
 Another indication, equally pointed, is the brief 
 association with Bethlehem, the city of David, and 
 the pains taken to connect the Messiah with the royal 
 line. The early traditions go out of their way to 
 prove this. A labored genealogy is invented to show 
 the path of his descent. Prophecy and song are 
 called in to ratify his lineage. Inspired lips repeat 
 ancient psalms announcing the glory that is to come 
 to the House of David. An angel promises Mary 
 that her son shall have given unto him " the throne 
 of his father, David, and shall reign over the house of 
 Jacob for ever." The Messiah is called the " Son of 
 David ; " an appellation that carried the idea of tem- 
 poral dominion and no other. The legends respect- 
 ing the massacre of the children in Bethlehem and 
 the flight into Egypt, belong to the same circle of 
 prediction. 
 
 Another indication to the same purpose is the 
 
$6 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 patient effort to represent the Messiah as fulfilling Old 
 Testament anticipations. "That the scripture might 
 be fulfilled" is the reiterated explanation of his ordi- 
 nary actions. The earliest records miss no occasion 
 for declaring the Messiah's fidelity to the law of Moses. 
 Among the first words put into his mouth is the earn- 
 est protestation : " Think not that I am come to 
 destroy the law and the prophets ; I am not come to 
 destroy but to establish ; " and this statement is fol- 
 lowed by a detailed contrast between the literal and 
 the spiritual interpretation of the law, precisely in the 
 vein of the prophets who held themselves to be the 
 true friends of the code which the priests and formal- 
 ists perverted. There is nothing in this criticism dis- 
 respectful to the commandments, or beyond the mark 
 of orthodox scripture. ' 
 
 The visit to the Baptist, who, entertaining the 
 popular notion of the Messiah, and believing in his 
 speedy advent, welcomed Jesus to the vacant posi- 
 tion ; Jesus' response to the call, and acceptance of 
 the role, are in the same vein. Let it not be forgot- 
 ten that the later misgivings of the Baptist were 
 raised by the apparent failure of the Messiah to justify 
 expectation ; that John, from his prison, sends a sharp 
 message, and that the Messiah, instead of correcting 
 the precursor's crude idea, simply bids him be patient 
 and construe the signs in faith. 
 
 The story of the Temptation in the Wilderness, 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 57 
 
 closely patterned after incidents in the career of 
 Moses, is calculated to join the two closely by simi- 
 larity of experience. That the Messiah should be 
 tempted is quite within the circle of later Jewish con- 
 ceptions, as the literature of the Talmud proves. 
 
 The story of the Transfiguration derives its 
 point from the circumstance that the spirits with 
 whom the chosen one held communion were Moses 
 and Elias, the law-giver and the prophet of the old 
 dispensation. 
 
 The phrase " Kingdom of Heaven," so frequent 
 on the Messiah's lips, had but one meaning, which 
 was universally understood. It described a- temporal 
 rule, the reign of a prince of David's line. No class 
 of people accepted the phrase in any different sense. 
 The Christ nowhere corrects the vulgar opinion, or 
 places his own in opposition to it. The evangelist 
 intends to convey the idea that he is in full accord 
 with the general feeling. 
 
 The questions put to the Messiah and the answers 
 given to them are additional evidence of this assent ; 
 the question, for example, concerning the obligation to 
 pay tribute to the Roman government, a test question 
 touching the very heart of Jewish patriotism, and the 
 cautious reply, calculated to evade the peril of a cate- 
 gorical declaration which was felt to be called for, and 
 to be due. The rejoinder of the Christ is designed 
 to satisfy the popular expectation without raising 
 
58 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 popular uproar. It is the answer of a patriot, but not 
 of a zealot. Had the Messiah not corresponded to 
 the image in the Jewish imagination, the inquiry 
 might have been summarily dismissed. Its evasion 
 proves not that the Christ transcended the average 
 expectation, but that he shared it. The version of 
 the incident given in Matthew XVII, confirms this 
 judgment ; for according to that account the Messiah 
 privately admits the exemption from tribute, and then 
 provides miraculously for its payment, " lest we 
 should give offence." 
 
 The nature of the excitement caused by the 
 Messiah is another evidence of the spirit in which he 
 wrought. Everywhere he is greeted as the Messiah, 
 the son of David ; everywhere the multitudes flock to 
 him, as to the expected king. His intimate friends 
 are never disabused of the notion that they, if they 
 continue firm in their allegiance, will hold places of 
 honor at his right hand. He reminds them of the 
 stringency of the conditions, but does not condemn 
 the idea. An ambitious mother presents her two sons 
 as candidates for preferment, asking for them seats 
 at his right and left hand, on his coming to glory. 
 He rebukes the selfishness of the ambition, says that 
 seats of honor are for those that earn them, not for 
 those that desire them, adding that he has no au- 
 thority to assign places even to the worthiest ; but he 
 does not discountenance the notion that he shall sit 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. S9 
 
 in glory, that there will be places of honor on either 
 side of him, or that the faithful servants will occupy 
 them. Indeed, his reply confirms that anticipation. 
 
 The multitude, impressed by his claim, desire to 
 make him a king. He removes himself ; not because 
 he repudiates all right to the office, he nowhere hints 
 that, and in places he more than hints the contrary, 
 — but because he is not prepared to avow his pre- 
 tension. The lime is not ripe for a manifesto. 
 
 The writers about this period take especial pains 
 to limit the conception of the Messiah within the 
 boundaries of the average patriotic ideal. They make 
 him declare to the twelve disciples, as he sends them 
 forth, that before they shall have carried their mes- 
 sage to the cities of Israel the Son of Man would 
 announce himself. On a later occasion he is made 
 to say : " There are some here who will not taste of 
 death till they see the Son of Man coming in his 
 glory." Declarations like these are pointedly incon- 
 sistent with an intellectual or moral idea of the 
 kingdom. The notion of progress, instruction, regen- 
 erating influence, gradual elevation through the power 
 of character, is precluded. The kingdom is to come 
 in time, suddenly, unexpectedly, by a shock of super- 
 natural agency, at the instant the Lord wills ; the 
 Son of Man himself knows not when, for it is not 
 dependent on his activity as a reformer, his success 
 as a teacher, or his influence as a person, but on the 
 decree of Jehovah. 
 
6o THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 The attempt on the popular feeling in Jerasaleni, 
 strangely called the triumphal entrance of the Messiah 
 into the holy city, is unintelligible except as a polit- 
 ical demonstration ; whether projected by the Christ 
 or by his followers, or by the Christ urged by the 
 importunate expectations of his followers, whether 
 undertaken hopefully or in desperation, it nowhere 
 appears that it was made in any moral or spiritual 
 interest. All the incidents of the narrative point to 
 a political end, the public assertion of the Christ's 
 Messianic claim. The ass, used instead of the chariot 
 or the horse by royalty on state occasions, and 
 especially alluded to by the prophet Zechariah in con- 
 nexion with the coming of Zion's King ; the palm 
 branches and hosannahs, emblems of sacred majesty; 
 the cries of the attendant throng loudly proclaiming 
 the Messiah ; the Galilaean composition of the crowd, 
 marking the revolutionary temper of it ; the blank 
 reception of the pageant by the citizens who were too 
 wary to commit themselves to the chances of collision 
 with the Roman authorities ; the complete failure of 
 the demonstration in the heart of conservative Judaea; 
 the bearing of the Christ himself as of one conscious 
 of a sublime but perilous mission ; all these things 
 find ready explanation by the popular conception of 
 the Messiah, as a national deliverer, but are unintelli- 
 gible on any other theory. 
 
 The unspiritual character of the Messiah's attitude 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 6l 
 
 is made yet more apparent as the history draws to a 
 close. The violent purging of the temple can only 
 by great vigor of interpretation be made to bear any 
 save a national complexion. It was the assertion of 
 Jehovah's right to his own domain ; an indignant, 
 passionate assertion ; the declaration of a zealot whose 
 zeal overrode considerations of wisdom. 
 
 The Christ's bearing before his Roman judge is 
 of the same strain ; the proud silence of the arraigned 
 prince ; the bold assertion of kingliness, when chal- 
 lenged ; the stately defiance of the pagan's wrath ; 
 the appeal to supernatural support ; the prediction of 
 angelic succor in the hour of need, in strict accord- 
 ance with the apocalyptic expressions thrown out at 
 the last supper, and reverberated in tremendous rhe- 
 toric on the Mount of Olives and in the palace of the 
 high priest, expressions in full and literal harmony 
 with the Jewish conceptions of the Christ's relations 
 with the angelic world, wholly in the spirit of Daniel, 
 Enoch, and other apocryphal writings, leave no doubt 
 on the mind that this personage moved within the 
 limits of the common Messianic conception. Pilate 
 condemns him reluctantly, feeling that he is a harm- 
 less visionary, but is obliged to condemn him as one 
 who persistently claimed to be the " King of the 
 Jews," an enemy of Caesar, an insurgent against the 
 empire, a pretender to the throne, a bold inciter to 
 rebellion. The death he undergoes is the death of 
 
62 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 the traitor and mutineer, the death that would have 
 been decreed to Judas the Gaulonite, had he been 
 captured instead of slain in battle, and that was 
 inflicted on thousands of his deluded followers. The 
 bitter cry of the crucified as he hung on the cross, 
 "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me.'" 
 disclosed the hope of deliverance that till the last 
 moment sustained his heart, and betrayed the anguish 
 felt when the hope was blighted ; the sneers and 
 hootings of the rabble expressed their conviction that 
 he had pretended to be what he was not. 
 
 The miracles ascribed to the Christ, so far from 
 being inconsistent with the ordinary conception of the 
 Messianic office, were necessary to complete that con- 
 ception. It was expected that the Messiah would 
 work miracles. This was one of his prerogatives ; a 
 certificate of his commission from Jehovah, and an 
 instrument of great service in carrying out his designs. 
 To the Jew of that, as of preceding periods, to the 
 crude theist of all periods, the belief in miracles was 
 and is easy. In such judgment, the will of God is 
 absolute, and when should that will be exerted if not 
 at providential crises of need, or in furtherance of his 
 servants' work .' The special miracles attributed to 
 the Christ of the earliest New Testament literature 
 are, as Strauss conclusively shows, patterned after 
 performances which met satisfactorily the demands of 
 the Jewish imagination ; being either repetitions of 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 63 
 
 ancient marvels, or concrete expressions of ideal faith. 
 The miracles of this Christ are precisely adjusted to 
 the exigencies of his calling, in no respect trans- 
 cending or falling short of that standard. 
 
 The moral precepts put into the Messiah's mouth 
 are also what he might be expected to utter. The 
 teachings of the sermon on the Mount are echoes, 
 and not altogether awakening or inspiring echoes, of 
 ancient ethical law. The beatitudes do not exceed in 
 beauty of sentiment or felicity of phrase, lovely 
 passages that gem the pages of prophet, psalmist and 
 sage. Portions of the morality are harsh, ungracious, 
 intemperate, almost inhuman as compared with the 
 mellow grandeur of the older law. Several of the 
 parables, if taken in an ethical sense, contain moral 
 injunctions or insinuations that are quite unjustifiable; 
 the parable, for example, of the laborers in the vine- 
 yard, the last of whom, though they have worked but 
 one hour, receive the same compensation as the early 
 comers, who had borne the burden and heat of the 
 day ; — the parable of the steward, which, literally con- 
 strued, palliates abuse of trusts ; — the parable of Dives 
 and Lazarus, which teaches the evil lesson that felicity 
 or infelicity hereafter is consequent on fortune or mis- 
 fortune here. These and other parables are deprived 
 of their dangerous moral tendency by being removed 
 from the ethical category, and made to convey lessons 
 of a different kind. Read the story of the laborers 
 
G4 TH2 CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 in the vineyard as intended to justify Jehovah in grant- 
 ing the same spiritual favors to the newly called Gen- 
 tiles as to the descendants of Abraham who, from the 
 first, answered to the call addressed 'to them : — read 
 the story of the steward as conveying an explanation 
 of the Pauline policy in making capital with the Gen- 
 tiles by offering to them on easy terms the promises 
 that the Jews showed themselves unworthy of, and 
 rejected : — read the story of Dives and Lazarus as 
 containing the idea that the "poor in spirit," the out- 
 cast, to whom the mansions of the Lord's house, the 
 patrimony of Abraham had never been opened, the 
 people who had nothing but faith, — whom even pagan 
 dogs commiserated, — should enjoy the blessedness of 
 the Messiah's kingdom rather than those who claimed 
 a prescriptive right to it on the ground of descent or 
 privilege, — and the difficulty of reconciling them with 
 moral principle is avoided. These parables and others 
 of like tenor, do not belong to the first layer of Mes- 
 sianic tradition, but to the second deposit made by 
 the Apostle Paul. 
 
 To the same period belong other parables that 
 contain larger ideas than the Jewish Messiah of the 
 first generation could entertain. Such are the story 
 of the net cast into the sea and gathering in of every 
 kind, that is, " Greeks and Romr.ns, barbarians, Scy- 
 thians, bond and free," not Hebrews only, — the 
 miscellaneous haul being impartially examined — 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 65 
 
 sweetness of quality, not forms of scale being made the 
 condition of acceptance ; — the story of the good 
 Samaritan, designed to place people reckoned idola- 
 tors and miscreants on a higher spiritual level than 
 anointed priests of whatever order, who postponed 
 mercy to sacrifice. Could the Jewish Messiah attri- 
 bute to Samaritans a grace that was the highest ad- 
 ornment of faithful Jews .'' The story of the prodigal 
 son belongs to the same category. The elder brother, 
 who has always been at home, dutiful but ungracious 
 niggardly and covetous, is the Jew who has never left 
 the homestead of faith, but has stayed there, confi- 
 dently expecting the Messianic inheritance as the re- 
 ward of his conventional orthodoxy. The younger 
 brother is the Gentile, the infidel, the pagan apostate, 
 who throws off the parental authority and reduces 
 himself to spiritual beggary. He spends all ; he con- 
 tents himself with refuse ; is more heathenish than 
 the heathen themselves ; swinish in his habits. Yet 
 this spiritual reprobate, by his unseemly behavior, for- 
 feits no privilege. The "mansion" of the Father's 
 house is still open to him when he shall choose to re- 
 turn. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob waits 
 and watches for the penitent ; sees him a great way 
 off ; runs to meet him ; throws his arms about his 
 neck ; reinstates him in his place ; celebrates his 
 arrival by feasting, and puts him above the elder 
 b'rother who had been working in the field while the 
 
 5 
 
66 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 prodigal had been rioting in the city. Such a lesson 
 from the lips of the Jewish Messiah would have been 
 astonishing indeed. It would have gone far towards 
 overturning his claim. We know that some years 
 later the lessbn was inculcated as a cardinal doctrine 
 by Paul and regarded as a heresy by the Christ's per- 
 sonal disciples, and it is in accordance with literary 
 laws to refer to this later period the ideas that were 
 native to it. 
 
 The religious beliefs imputed to the Messiah we 
 are sketching, are the ordinary beliefs of his age and 
 people. His faith is the faith of the Pharisees. His 
 idea of God is the national idea softened, as it always 
 had been, by a gentle mind. It thinks as his country- 
 men thought about Providence, fate and freedom, good 
 and evil, destiny, the past and the future of his race. 
 He believes in the resurrection and the judgment, the 
 blessedness that is in store for the faithful Israelite, 
 the misery that awaits the unworthy children of 
 Abraham. His moral classifications are the technical 
 classifications of the enthusiastic patriot, who con- 
 founded national with rational principles of judgment. 
 He believes in good and bad angels, in guardian 
 spirits and demoniacal possession. A Pharisee of the 
 narrow literal school he is not. His allegiance to the 
 Mosaic law is spiritual, not slavish ; his faith in the 
 perpetuity of the temple worship is unencumbered 
 with formalism ; he discriminates between the priestly 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 6/ 
 
 office and the priestly character, between the form 
 and the essence of sacrifice ; yet is he capable of 
 lurid feelings and bitter thoughts towards the Phari- 
 sees of another school; he cannot enter into the 
 mind of the Sadducee ; and the scribe is a person he 
 cannot respect. On this side his intolerance occasion- 
 ally breaks forth with inconsiderate heat. He calls 
 his opponents " blind guides," " hypocrites," " whited 
 sepulchres," and threatens them with the wrath of the 
 Eternal. ' ' 
 
 The Messiah's essential conception of his office 
 does not differ materially from that of his country- 
 men. He is no military leader ; he puts no confidence 
 in the sword; he incites to no revolt. But he does 
 not trust to intellectual methods for his success ; 
 the success that he anticipates is not such as fol- 
 lows the promulgation of ideas, or the establish- 
 ment of moral convictions. He looks for demon- 
 strations of power, not human but superhuman. The 
 hosts that surround him, and are reckoned on 
 to sustain him, are the hosts of heaven, mar- 
 shalled under the Lord and prepared to sweep down 
 upon the Lord's foes when the hour of conflict shall 
 strike. He will not draw the sword himself, or allow 
 his followers to gird on weapons of war ; but he is 
 more than willing to avail himself of legions irresist- 
 ible in might. James Martineau has touched this 
 point with a master hand : " The non-resistant prin- 
 
68 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 ciple meant no more in the early church than that 
 the disciples were not to anticipate the hour fast ap- 
 proaching of the Messiah's descent to claim his throne- 
 But when that hour struck there was to be no want of 
 • physical force ' no shrinking from retribution as either 
 unjust or midivine. The 'flaming fire,' the 'sudden 
 destruction,' the ' mighty angels,' the ' tribulation 
 and anguish,' were to form the retinue of Christ, and 
 the pioneers of the kingdom of God. The new reign 
 was to come with force, and on nothing else in the last 
 resort was there any reliance ; only the army was to 
 arrive from heaven before the earthly recruits were 
 taken up. ' My kingdom,' said Jesus, ' is not of this 
 world, else would my servants fight ; * an expression 
 which implies that no kingdom of this world can dis- 
 pense with arms, and that he himself, were he the head 
 of a human polity, would not forbid the sword : but 
 while " legions of angels " stood ready for his word, 
 and only waited till the Scripture was fulfilled, and 
 the hour of darkness was passed, to obey the signal 
 of heavenly invasion, the weapon of earthly temper 
 might remain in its sheath." 
 
 It is not affirmed here that the actual Jesus corres- 
 ponded to this Messianic representation ; that he 
 filled it and no more ; that it correctly and adequately 
 reported him. It may possibly present only so much 
 of him as the average of his contemporaries could 
 appreciate. They may be right who are of opinion 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 69 
 
 that the fourth evangelist comes nearer to the histor- 
 ical truth than the first. That the earliest New Testa- 
 ment conception of the Messiah has been correctly 
 portrayed in the preceding sketch may be granted 
 without prejudice to the historical Jesus. They 
 only who assume the identity of this Hebrew Messiah 
 with the man of Nazareth, need place him in the niche 
 that is here made for the Messiah. There are others 
 more noble. Let each decide for himself, on the evi- 
 dence, to which he belongs. Some will decide that 
 the first account of a wonderful person must, from the 
 nature of the case, be the falsest ; others will decide 
 that in the nature of things it must be the truest. 
 Whichever be the decision the literary image remains 
 unimpaired. Whether time should be judged requi- 
 site to emancipate the living character from the 
 associations of its environment, and bring it into full 
 view; or whether on the other hand time should be 
 regarded as darkening and confusing the image, for 
 the reason that it allows the growth of legends and 
 distorting theory, is a question that will be touched 
 by-and-by. For the present it suffices to show what 
 the earliest representation was, and to trace its descent 
 from the traditions of the race. The materials are 
 adequate for this, whether for more or not. The form 
 of Jesus may be lost, but the form of the Messiah is 
 distinct. 
 
THE FIRST CHRISTIANS. 
 
 The death of the Messiah did not discourage his 
 followers, as it might have done had he presented 
 the coarser type of the anticipation illustrated by 
 Judas of Galilee whose insurrection had been extin- 
 guished in blood some years before, yet the movement 
 of Judas did not cease at his death, but troubled the 
 state for sixty years. His two sons, James and John, 
 raised the Messianic standard fifteen years or there- 
 abouts after the crucifixion of Jesus, and were them- 
 selves crucified. Their younger brother, Menahem, 
 renewed the attempt twenty years later, and so far 
 succeeded that he cut his way to the throne, assumed 
 the part of a king, went in royal state to the temple, 
 and but for the fury of his fanaticism might have re- 
 erected temporarily the throne of David. But this 
 kind of Messiah, besides being savage, was monot- 
 onous. His appeal was to the lower passions ; the 
 thoughtful, imaginative, contemplative, poetic, were 
 not drawn to him. His followers, adherents not dis- 
 ciples, — might, at the best, have founded a dynasty, 
 they could not have planted a church? The pure en- 
 thusiasm of the Christ, his entire singleness of heart, 
 70 
 
THE CRADLE OF THK CHRIST. 7I 
 
 the absence in him of private ambition or self-seeking, 
 his confidence in the heavenly character of his mis- 
 sion, his reliance on superhuman aid, his sincere per- 
 suasion that the purpose of his calling would not be 
 thwarted by death, insured his hold on those who had 
 trusted him. They did not lose their conviction that 
 he was the Messiah ; they anticipated his return, in 
 glory, to complete his work ; in that anticipation they 
 waited, ^yatched and prayed. The name " Christians" 
 was, we are told, given, in derision, to the believers 
 in Antioch. But if they had chosen a name for them- 
 selves, they could not have hit on a more precisely 
 descriptive one. " Christians " they were ; believers 
 that the Christ had come, that the crucified was the 
 Christ, that he would re-appear and vindicate his 
 claim. This was their single controlling thought, 
 the only thought that distinguished them from their 
 countrymen who rejected the Messiahship of their 
 friend. They were Jews, in every respect ; Jews of 
 Jews, enthusiastic, devout, pharisaic Jews, the firmest 
 of adherents to the Law of Moses, unqualified receiv- 
 ers of tradition, diligent students of the scriptures, 
 constant attendants at the temple worship, urgent in 
 supplication, literal in creed, and punctual in obser- 
 vance ; acquiescent in the claims of the priesthood, 
 scrupulous in all Hebrew etiquette. They were de- 
 termined that the Master, at his coming, should find 
 them ready. 
 
72 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 James, " the Lord's brother," set an example of 
 sanctity worthy of a high-priest. In fact, he assumed 
 the position of a priest, and filled it with such auster- 
 ity that he was called " the righteous." He tasted, 
 says Hegesippus, neither wine nor strong drink ; he 
 ate nothing that had life ; his hair was never shorn ; 
 his body was never anointed with oil, or bathed in 
 water ; his garments were of linen, never of wool ; 
 so perfect was he in all righteousness that, though no 
 consecrated priest, he was permitted to enter the holy 
 place behind the veil of the temple, and there he spent 
 hours in intercession for the people, his knees becom- 
 ing as hard as a camel's from contact with the stone 
 pavement. To those who asked him the way to life, 
 he replied : " Believe that Jesus is the Christ." When 
 some dissenters protested against this declaration and 
 asked him to retract it, he repeated it with stronger 
 emphasis ; when the malcontents who revered him, 
 but would have none of his Messiah, raised a tumult 
 and tried to intimidate him, he reiterated the state- 
 ment, adding : " He sits in heaven, at the right hand 
 of the Supreme power, and will come in clouds." For 
 this testimony, says tradition, he laid down his life. 
 
 The fellow-believers of James imitated him as 
 closely as they could. They were proud of their de- 
 scent from Abraham ; they were tenacious of the 
 privileges granted to the twelve tribes ; they kept up 
 their relation with the synagogue ; they had faith in 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 73 
 
 forms of observance ; they revered the Sabbath ; their 
 trust in the literal efficacy of prayer was implicit ; 
 they were excessively jealous of intellectual activity 
 outside of their narrow communion ; their anticipa- 
 tions were confined to the restoration of Israel, and 
 never wandered into the region of social improvement 
 or moral progress ; in general ethical and social cul- 
 ture they were not interested. 
 
 They had no ecclesiastical establishment apart 
 from the Jewish Church ; no separate priesthood, no 
 sacraments, no cultus, no rubric, no calendar, no lit- 
 urgy. The validity of sacrifice they maintained, the 
 doctrine of sacrifice possessing a deeper significance 
 for them from the growing faith that their Lord was 
 himself the paschal lamb, the shedding of whose 
 blood purchased the remission of sins. Hence a special 
 encouragement of the sacerdotal spirit, an exaggerated 
 sense of the efficacy of blood, a theory of atonement 
 more searching and absolute than had prevailed in the 
 ancient church. The later doctrine of atonement in 
 the christian church may have grown from this small 
 but vital germ. 
 
 They had no dogma peculiar to themselves, the 
 doctrines of the old Church being all they needed ; 
 they had no trinity or beginning of trinity ; no 
 christology ; no doctrine of Fall ; no theory of first 
 and second Adam ; no metaphysic ; no philosophy 
 of sin and salvation ; no interior mystery of expe- 
 
74 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 rience. Whatever newness of creed they avowed, 
 was owing to their acknowledgment of the Christ, and 
 consisted in a few very simple inferences from this 
 tenet. Of course even slow-minded, literal, external 
 men could not entertain a belief like that, and not be 
 pushed by it to certain practical conclusions. The 
 expectation of the Christ's coming would necessarily 
 raise questions respecting the conditions of acceptance 
 with him, the character of his dominion, the duration 
 of it, the social changes incidental to it ; but it does 
 not appear that speculation on these subjects was car- 
 ried far. A crude millenarianism developed itself 
 early ; a cloudy theory of atonement found favor ; 
 for the rest, conjecture, it was little more, dwelt con- 
 tentedly within the confines of rabbinical lore. 
 
 There was nothing peculiar in their moral precepts 
 or usages, nothing that should effect a change in the 
 received ethics of the nation. Their essential creed 
 involved no practical innovation on private or social 
 moralities. The mosaic code was familiar to them 
 from childhood. The popular commentaries on it 
 were promulgated from week to week in the syna- 
 gogues, and their validity was no more questioned by 
 the Christians than by the most orthodox of Jews. 
 
 The daily existence of these people was retired 
 and simple. They had frequent meetings for talk, 
 song, mutual cheer and confirmation ; full of expecta- 
 tion and excitement they must have been ; wild with 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 75 
 
 memories and hopes. For the believers lived out of 
 themselves, in an ideal, a supernatural sphere ; their 
 hearts were in heaven with their Master, whose form 
 filled their vision, whose voice they seemed to hear, 
 from whom came, as they fancied, impressions, intima- 
 tions, influences, unspoken but breathed messages 
 interpreted by the soul. They were visionaries* 
 Their life was illusion. They were transported beyond 
 themselves at times, by the prospect of the Lord's 
 nearness. Their minds were dazed ; their feelings 
 raised to ecstasy ; in vision they saw the heavens open 
 and fiery tongues descend. Their small upper chamber 
 seemed to tremble and dilate in sympathy with their 
 feelings ; the ceiling appeared to lift ; they were 
 moved by an impulse which they could not account 
 for, and regarded themselves as inspired. 
 
 In these circumstances, it is not to be wondered 
 at that they lived in communities by themselves, pre- 
 ferring the society of their fellows ; that they had a 
 common purse, a common table ; that they were 
 ascetic and celibate ; that they withdrew from public 
 affairs and from private business, and approached 
 nearly to the Essenes, with whom they had much in 
 common, perpetuating the habit of monasticism, which 
 became afterwards so prominent a feature in the 
 Eastern church. 
 
 Nor is it surprising that they regarded the intimate 
 friends of their Christ with a peculiar veneration, and 
 
•j6 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 ascribed to them extraordinary gifts. The basis of 
 the future hierarchy was laid in the honor paid to these 
 few men. They were credited with supernatural 
 insight, and with the possession of miraculous power. 
 Their touch was healing ; their mere shadow com- 
 forted ; their approval was blessing ; their displeasure 
 cursed. What they ratified was fixed ; what they 
 permitted was decreed. Their word was law ; it was 
 for them to admit and to exclude. The penalty of 
 excommunication was in their hands, to be inflicted at 
 their discretion. Superstition went so far as to con- 
 cede to them the alternatives of life and death. The 
 legend of Ananias and Sapphira is evidence of a 
 credulity that set not reason only, but conscience at 
 defiance. In their infatuation they believed that the 
 Christ above communicated a saving spiritual grace 
 to such as the apostles touched with their fingers. 
 
 Very singular, but very consistent and logical 
 were the views of death entertained by the brother- 
 hood in Christ. As their Lord delayed his coming, 
 the elders grew old and fell asleep. There was a 
 brotherhood of the dead as well as of the living ; the 
 living became few ; the dead many. Questions arose 
 respecting the destination of those departed. That 
 they had perished was not to be thought of ; as little to 
 be thought of was the possibility of their forfeiting their 
 privilege of sharing the believers' triumpl^. The resur- 
 rection the disciples had always believed in. That, at 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. ' "JJ 
 
 the coming of the Messiah there would be a general res- 
 urrection of the faithful Israelites from their graves, in 
 field or rock, was part of their ancestral faith. But now, 
 the matter was brought home to them with painful re- 
 ality. The Christ might come at any moment ; the 
 dead were their own immediate kindred, their parents 
 and brethren. The problem presented no difficulties to 
 their minds however agitating it might be to their 
 hearts. The Lord would come ; of that there could 
 be no doubt ; the dead would rise, that was certain ; 
 but in what form.-" In what order.' Would the 
 living have precedence of them .' Where would the 
 meeting take place .-' How would the dead know that 
 the time of resurrection had arrived .' The answer 
 came promptly as the question. The trumpet of the 
 angels would proclaim the event to all creatures, 
 visible and invisible. The elect would respond to the 
 summons ; the gates of Hades would burst asunder. 
 In etherial forms, lighter than air, more radiant than 
 the morning, the faithful who had died " in the Lord," 
 would ascend ; the living would exchange their ter- 
 restial bodies for bodies celestial, and thus " changed," 
 "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye," would 
 mount upward to join them, and all together would 
 " meet the Lord in the air." For the believers the 
 grave had no victory and death no sting. 
 
 In all this the Christians were strictly within the 
 circle of Jewish thought. The belief in the resurrec- 
 
78 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 tion wore different aspects in different minds ; the 
 vision of the hereafter floated many-hued before the 
 imaginations of men. The fiery zealots who " took 
 the kingdom of lieaven by violence," dreamed of the 
 resurrection of the body, and of tangible privileges of 
 dominion in the terrestrial millennium. The milder 
 enthusiasts, who could not believe that flesh and blood 
 could inherit the kingdom of God, were constrained to 
 invent a " spiritual world " for the accommodation of 
 spiritual bodies. Some conjectured that the etherial 
 forms would mount to their native seat, only at the 
 termination of the thousand years reign ; the spiritual 
 world being brought in at the end, as a device of 
 eschatology to dispose finally of the saints who could 
 neither die nor remain longer on earth. Others 
 surmised that the spiritual world would claim its own at 
 once, there being no place on earth where the risen 
 could live and no occupations in which they could 
 engage. The cruder faith was the earlier. 
 
 The fanatics, as described in the second Book of 
 Maccabees, an apocryphal writing of the second cen- 
 tury before Christ, hoped for a corporeal resurrection 
 and a visible supremacy. Of seven sons, who, with 
 their mother, were barbarously executed because they 
 refused to deny their religion by eating swines' flesh, 
 one declares : " The King of the world shall raise us 
 up who have died for his laws, into everlasting life ; " 
 another, holding forth his hands (to be cut off), said 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 79 
 
 courageously, " These I had from heaven, and for his 
 laws I despise them, and from him I hope to receive 
 them again." The next shouts : " It is good being 
 put to death by men, to look for hope from God, to 
 be raised up again by him ; as for thee, thou shalt 
 have no resurrection to life." Finally, when all the 
 seven have died heroically, with words of similar 
 import on their lips, the mother is put to death, hav- 
 ing exhorted her youngest born to faithfulness with 
 the exhortation : " Doubtless the Creator of the world 
 who formed the generation of man, and found out the 
 beginning of all things, will also, of his own mercy, 
 give you breath and life again, as ye now regard not 
 your own selves for his laws' sake." The same book 
 records the suicide of Razis : " One of the elders of 
 Jerusalem, a lover of his countrymen, and a man of 
 very good report, who for his kindness was called a 
 Father of the Jews, for in former times he had been 
 accused of Judaism, and did boldly jeopard his body 
 and life with all vehemency for the religion of the 
 Jews ;" " choosing rather to die manfully than to come 
 into the hands of the wicked, to be abused otherwise 
 than beseemed his noble birth, he fell on his sword. 
 Nevertheless, while there was yet breath within him, 
 being inflamed with anger, he rose up, and though 
 his blood gushed out like spouts of water, and his 
 wounds were grievous, yet he ran through the midst 
 of the throng, and, standing upon a steep rock, when 
 
80 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 as his blood was now quite gone, he plucked out his 
 bowels, and taking them in both his hands, he cast them 
 upon the throng, and calling upon the Lord of life and 
 spirit to restore him those again, he thus died." 
 
 The angel of the book of Daniel calls up a fairer 
 vision : " Many of them that sleep in the dust of the 
 earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some 
 to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that 
 be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firma- 
 ment ; and they that turn many to righteousness, 
 as the stars for ever and ever." 
 
 Something like this, perhaps, was the anticipation 
 of the Christ sketched in the last chapter. The 
 personal conception is shadowy. There is nothing 
 to indicate positively that he departed from the usual 
 opinion of a physical resurrection and a kingdom of 
 heaven on earth, a period of terrestrial happiness 
 under the rule of Jehovah. The declaration to 
 the thief on the cross : " This day thou shalt be with 
 me in Para"dise," belongs to a later tradition, cor- 
 responding to the ideas of Paul. The parable of 
 Dives and Lazarus must be assigned to the same 
 circle of doctrine. The saying respecting children, 
 " Their angels always behold the face of my father 
 in heaven," conveys no more than the belief in 
 guardian spirits. The " angels " are not departed 
 children, but the watchers over the lives of living 
 ones. The reply given to the Sadducees, in Matt. 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 8 1 
 
 XXII., " In the resurrection they neither marry, nor 
 are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in 
 heaven," implies that the temporal condition of the 
 Messiah's subjects will differ in important respects 
 from their present social estate, but does not suggest 
 a celestial locality for its organization ; and the 
 declaration that follows : " God is not the God of 
 the dead, but of the living," affirms merely that 
 Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not annihilated, that 
 they are, or will be, alive ; but how, where, or when, 
 is left undecided. The expression, " Thy kingdom 
 come," in the paternoster, so different from the latter 
 petition : " May we come into thy kingdom," looks 
 towards an earthly paradise. The succeeding phrase, 
 " Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," 
 points in the same direction. It is probable that the 
 Christ, living and expecting to live, contemplated the 
 establishment of his Messianic dominion in Palestine. 
 After his death and disappearance, the thoughts of 
 his friends turned elsewhither, and with an increas- 
 ing steadiness, as his return was delayed, and the 
 probabilities of their going to him outweighed the 
 probabilities of his coming to them. The change 
 of expectation was, it is likely, a gradual, silent, and 
 unperceived one, effected slowly, and not completed 
 till a new conception of the Christ supplanted the old 
 one, and transformed every feature of the Messianic 
 belief. In less than twenty-five years after the death 
 
 6 
 
82 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 of Jesus, this change was so far effected that it was 
 capable of full literary expression. The writings that 
 publish it, are the genuine letters of Paul, and other 
 scriptures produced under the inspiration of his idea. 
 
VI. 
 
 PAUL'S NEW DEPARTURE. 
 
 There is reason to think, as we have said, that the 
 first Messianic impulse would have spent itself inef- 
 fectually in a few years, had not a fresh impulse been 
 given by a new conception of the Messiah. The 
 Christ outlined in the earliest literature of the New 
 Testament would hardly have founded a permanent 
 church, or given his name to a distinct religion. A 
 new conception came, in due time, from an unexpected 
 quarter, through a man who was both Jew and Greek ; 
 Jew by parentage, nurture, training and genius ; 
 Greek by birth-place, residence and association ; a 
 man well versed in scripture, a pupil of approved 
 rabbis, familiar with the talmud, and deeply interested 
 in talmudical speculation ; a Pharisee of the straitest 
 sect ; an enthusiast — ^yes, a fanatic by temperament ; 
 on the other hand, a mind somewhat expanded by in- 
 tercourse with the people and the literature of other 
 nations. Paul's . feeling on the " Christ question " 
 
 was always intense. He made it a personal matter, 
 
 83 
 
84 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 even in his comparative youth ; distinguishing himself 
 by his zeal in behalf of correct opinion on the subject. 
 He appears, first, a young man, as a persecutor of the 
 Jews who believed that the Christ had actually come, 
 and who were waiting for his return in clouds. That 
 idea seemed to him visionary and dangerous ; he made 
 it his business to exterminate it by violence, if neces- 
 sary. But the fury of his demonstration proved his 
 interest in the general idea. He was at heart a Mes- 
 sianic believer, though not in that style. A Messianic 
 believer he continued to be, but to the end as little as 
 at first, in that style. To the ordinary belief he never 
 was " converted ; " his repudiation of it was perhaps at 
 no time less vehement than it was at the beginning ; 
 as his own thought matured, his rejection of the faith 
 he persecuted in his youth, became it seems more 
 deliberate, if less violent. 
 
 As he pursued one phase of the Messianic expec- 
 tation, another aspect of it burst upon him with the 
 splendor of a revelation, and determined his career. 
 The man who had breathed fury against one type, be- 
 came the apostle of another. The same fiery zeal that 
 blasted the one, warmed the other into life. In the 
 book of the " Acts of the Apostles," the first martyr 
 at whose stoning Paul assisted, bore the Greek 
 name " Stephen," whence, as well as from other in- 
 dications, it has been surmised by Baur and others 
 that he was a precursor of the future " Gentile party," 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 85 
 
 pursued and slain by the "orthodox" on account of his 
 infidelity to the cause of Hebrew national exclusive- 
 ness. If this conjecture be admitted, the deed Paul 
 had abetted, may have been the immediate cause of 
 his own moral revulsion of feeling. The slain over- 
 came the slayer. The dying hand committed to the 
 fierce bystander the torch it could carry no further. 
 The murdered Greek raised up the apostle to the 
 Greeks, thus avenging himself by sending his adver- 
 sary to martyrdom in the same cause for which he 
 himself bled. In religious fervors such reactions have 
 been frequent. 
 
 For Paul was, from first to last, the same person, in 
 no natural feature of mind or character changed. His 
 religious belief remained essentially, even incidentally 
 unaltered. A Pharisee he was born, and a Pharisee 
 he continued. The pharisaic doctrine of the resurrec- 
 tion was the corner stone of his system, the beginning, 
 middle and end of his faith, the starting point of his 
 creed. His conception of God was the ordinary con- 
 ception, unqualified, unmitigated, uncompromised. 
 The divine sovereignty never suffered weakening at 
 his hands. One can hardly open the epistle to the 
 Jewish Christians in Rome, without coming across 
 some tremendous assertion of the absolute supremacy 
 of God. Read the passage in the first chapter, 
 20-26 verses; in the second chapter, 6-12 verses; 
 in the ninth chapter, 14-23 verses ; in the eleventh 
 
86 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 chapter, first verse and onward. Read i Corin., 
 fifteenth chapter, 24-29 verses. The old fash- 
 ioned Jewish conception is expressed in language 
 simply revolting in its bald inhumanity. The views 
 of Divine Providence set forth in some of these sen- 
 tences are anthropomorphitic to a degree that is 
 amazing in an intellectual man of his age and race. 
 His discussions of fate and free-will betoken the 
 sternness of a dogmatic, rather than the discernment 
 of a philosophic, mind. His notion of history has 
 the narrowness of the national character. His ethics 
 are taken from the law of Moses, and not from the 
 more benignant versions of it. The grandest ethical 
 chapter he ever wrote, the twelfth chapter of Romans, 
 contains no less than three instances of grave infidel 
 ity to the highest standard of morality in his own 
 scriptures. Rabbi Hillel said : " Love peace, and 
 pursue peace ; love mankind, and bring them near 
 the law. The moral condition of the world depends 
 on three things, — Truth, Justice, and Peace." Paul 
 says : " If it be possible, so much as lyeth in you, live 
 peaceably with all men," implying clearly that it might 
 not always be possible, and in such cases was not to 
 be expected. The tacit proviso in the phrase " so 
 much as lyeth in you," discharges the obligation of 
 its imperative character ; as if conscious that the duty 
 might prove too much for the moral power, he 
 will not impose it. It is written in the Talmud : 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 07 
 
 " Thou shalt love thy neighbor ; even if he be a crim- 
 inal, and has forfeited his life, practise charity towards 
 him in the last moments." Paul drops far below this 
 when he bids his disciples, "Avenge not yourselves, but 
 rather give place unto wrath " (make room for wrath 
 that is wrath indeed.) " For it is written, ' vengeance 
 is mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord.' " Therefore 
 (because the Lord's vengeance will be more terrible 
 than yours), " if thine enemy hunger, feed him : if he 
 thirst, give him drink ; for in so doing, thou shalt heap 
 coals of fire on his head." That is, by showing kind- 
 ness you will inflict on him tenfold agony ! 
 
 Such a disciple would not adorn the membership 
 of a modern Peace Society. The language ascribed 
 to him in Ephesians bristles with military metaphor ; 
 " Fight the good fight of faith," " The helmet of sal- 
 vation," " The sword of the Spirit," " Armor of 
 light." 
 
 In the days of our own anti-slavery conflict, his 
 dictum, " Slaves obey your masters, in fear and trem- 
 bling, in singleness of heart," was a tower of strength 
 and a fountain of refreshment to many an upholder of 
 the patriarchal system. The later Christians in the 
 West could safely justify their quiet toleration of 
 the system of .slavery in the Roman Empire by the 
 precepts of the foremost apostle. If the genuineness 
 of the epistle to Philemon could be maintained, the 
 case would wear a different look. But it is much 
 
88 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 more than doubtful whether even that qualified hu- 
 manity proceeded from his pen. 
 
 In our own generation the apostle is a serious 
 stumbling block in the way of " evangelical " women 
 who are friendly to the aspirations of their sex. He 
 showed the most stubborn Hebrew principles on this 
 subject. "Wives, submit yourselves to your hus- 
 bands " ; " Let your women keep silence in the 
 churches ; if they wish to learn anything, let them 
 ask their husbands at home ; for it is a shame for 
 women to speak in the church." ' " It is permitted 
 them to be under obedience." The Hindoo scripture 
 spoke better : " Where women are honored, there the 
 deities are pleased. Where they are dishonored there 
 all religious acts become fruitless." 
 
 How can the most conservative Republicans ac- 
 cept as teacher a man who counsels religious men, in 
 proportion as they are religious, to surrender their full, 
 unqualified, sincere allegiance to established author- 
 ities because they are established, however despotic, 
 ferocious nay vile they may be ; even to such despot- 
 isms as that of Nero ; — maintaining that resistance to 
 such is equivalent to resisting the ordinance of God i" — ■ 
 giving this not as the counsel of prudence, but as the 
 dictate of conscience, thus proclaiming exemption from 
 criticism or assault, for inhuman tyrannies ? Nothing 
 short of this is inculcated by the sweeping declara- 
 tion : " Let every soul be subject to the higher powers : 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 89 
 
 for there is no power but of God ; the established 
 powers are ordained of God," No doubt the bidding 
 was given in view of a turbulent or insurrectionary spirit 
 among the Israelites in Rome, but it is given without 
 explanation or limit. It ratiiies the divine right of 
 kings : sanctions the principle that might makes 
 right. Paul was an enthusiast for ideas ; not a 
 theologian, not a social reformer, but one whose zeal 
 was spent on doctrines. Prevailingly intellectual, his 
 whole nature was fused by the electric touch of a new 
 thought. 
 
 Paul's acquaintance with the Talmud is evidenced 
 by his writings. His use of allegory, his fanciful an- 
 alogies, his mystical interpretations, his play on words, 
 his passion for types and symbols, his ingenious spec- 
 ulations on history and eschatology, betray his famili- 
 arity with that curious literature. He found a mine 
 of precious material in the mythical Adam Caedmon, 
 the progenitor, the prototype, the "federal head" of 
 the race, the man who was not a man but a microcosm, 
 created by special act from sifted clay ; a creature 
 whose erected head touched the firmament, whose ex- 
 tended body reached across the earth ; a being to 
 whom all save Satan did obeisance ; who, but for his 
 transgression, would have enjoyed an immortality on 
 earth ; whose sin entailed on the human race all the 
 evils, material and moral, that have cursed the world ; 
 the primordial man, who contained in himself the 
 
go THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 germs of all mankind ; whose corruption tainted the 
 nature of generations of descendants. The Talmud 
 exhausts speculation on this prodigious personality. 
 The doctrine of the christian church for fifteen hundred 
 years was not so much colored as shaped by the rabbis 
 who exercised their subtlety on this tempting theme. 
 Philo, a contemporary of Paul, is in no respect behind 
 the most imaginative in his conjectures on this sub- 
 lime legend. That Paul, a student of the Talmud, fell 
 in with them, should excite no surprise. That he 
 added nothing is due probably to the fact that there 
 was nothing to add. 
 
 From the Talmud, also, and from other rabbinical 
 writings, Paul derived a complete angelology, a de- 
 partment of speculation in which the Jewish literature 
 after the captivity was exceedingly prolific — Meta- 
 thron, Sandalphon, Akathriel, Suriel, were familiar 
 to his mind. It is a bold suggestion made by Dr. 
 Isaac M. Wise, the Hebrew rabbi fresh from the Tal- 
 mud,* that Metathron, — iJ-tra Opirju-j, near the throne, 
 called by eminent titles, " king of the angels," "prince 
 of the countenance," impressed Paul's imagination and 
 was the original of his Christ. Between this supreme 
 angel, co-ordinate with deity and spiritually akin to 
 him, and the Christ of Paul's conception, the corres- 
 pondence seems to be too close to be accidental; so 
 
 * Origin of Ctiristianity, p. 335-341 • 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 9 1 
 
 close, indeed, that some, unable to deny or to confute 
 it, are driven to surmise that the first conception or- 
 iginated with the apostle. It is more probable how- 
 ever, though not provable, that the rabbinical idea 
 was the earlier, and that the apostle took that as well 
 as the Adam Csedmon from the rabbis. The " prince 
 of angels " precisely met his requirement as a counter- 
 vailing power to Adam, and supplied a ground for his 
 theory of the second Adam, the " living spirit," the 
 " Lord from Heayen," the primal man of a new crea- 
 tion, the first born of a new progeny, the originator of 
 a " law of life " which should f heck and counteract 
 the " law of sin and death." The second Man was 
 the counterpart of the first. 
 
 He is a man, yet is he no man ; his flesh is only 
 " the likeness of sinful flesh," liable to death, but not 
 implicating the personality in dying. He is the 
 spiritual, heavenly, ideal man ; celestial, glorious, image 
 of God, translucent, sinless, impeccable ; pre-existent, 
 of course ; without father or mother ; an expression of 
 divinity ; a creator of new worlds for the habitation 
 of the " Sons of God." His birth is an entrance into 
 humanity from an abode of light. The mission of this 
 transcendent being is, in a word, to break the force of 
 transmitted sin, and reverse the destiny of the race. 
 He imparts the principle of life, which is to restore all 
 things. A multitude of incidental points are involved 
 in this fundamental one, points of theology, anthro- 
 
92 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 pology, history, ethics, metaphysics, that present no 
 difficulty to one who has this key. The long disquisi- 
 tions on the Mosaic law, the discussions on the privi- 
 leges of the Hebrew race and the rights of other races 
 were necessary. The familiar doctrine of the resur- 
 rection derived fresh interest from association with 
 the general theory, inasmuch as it supplied a ground- 
 work for the expectation that the glorified One would 
 re-appear ; and the hypothesis of a " spiritual " body, 
 ventured and fully developed by the rabbis, even illus- 
 trated by analogies of the " corn of wheat " which the 
 apostle makes so much of in the fifteenth chapter of I. 
 Corinthians, supplied all else that was wanting to com- 
 plete the scheme. The Christ, being sinless, was 
 held to be incorruptible ; death had no dominion over 
 him, was in fact in his case, an " excarnation," the 
 preparation for an ascent to the realm of light he came 
 from, and to his seat at the right hand of his Father, 
 instead of being a descent into the region of darkness 
 to which mortals are doomed. The doctrine of last 
 things follows from the doctrine of first things. They 
 who are one with Christ through faith share his death- 
 lessness. If they die, it is merely a temporary retire- 
 ment, in which they await the coming of their Lord, 
 who will in his own time call them out of their prison 
 house. The larger number, however, were not, in the 
 apostle's belief, destined to die at all ; but might look 
 as he did, to be transfigured, by the putting off of 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 93 
 
 their vile bodies, and the putting on of glorious bodies 
 like that of the great forerunner. In his amplifica- 
 tions on this theme, Paul shows little originality, and 
 adds nothing important to the material lying ready to 
 his hand. 
 
 The advantage his scheme gave him as a preacher 
 to the Gentiles is too obvious to be dwelt on. As a 
 Greek by birth and culture, he was interested in the 
 fate of other nations besides the Jews. A system of 
 religion adapted to the traditions and satisfactory to 
 the hopes of a peculiar people, — a national, exclusive 
 religion in the benefits whereof none but Jews might 
 share, and from whose grace no lineal descendant of 
 Abraham could be excluded, did not commend itself 
 to this man, half Jew, half Greek. The faith that ob- 
 tained his allegiance, and awoke his zeal must possess 
 a human character by virtue of which its message 
 could be carried to all mankind. Such a faith his 
 new theory of the Christ gave him. He could say to 
 his Greek friends : " This religion that I bring you is 
 no Hebrew peculiarity. Its Christ is no son of 
 David, but a son of God ; its heaven is no Messianic 
 kingdom in Judea, but a region of light above the 
 skies ; its principle is faith, not obedience to a cere- 
 monial or legal code ; it dispenses entirely with the 
 requirements of the law of Moses ; makes no account 
 of sacrifices or priests ; presumes on no acquaintance 
 virith Hebrew scriptures, or reverence for Hebrew 
 
94 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 men ; questions of circumcision and uncircumcision 
 are trivial and impertinent. Tlie religion of Christ 
 addresses you as men, not as Jewish men ; it appeals 
 to the universal sense of moral and spiritual infirmity, 
 and offers a moral and spiritual, not a technical deliv- 
 erance ; instead of limiting, it will enlarge you ; in- 
 stead of binding, it will emancipate you ; its genius is 
 liberty, through which you are set free from ceremo- 
 nialism, ritualism, dogmatism, moralism, and are made 
 partakers of a new intellectual life." 
 
 Not all at once did this scheme unfold itself be- 
 fore the apostle's vision. Gradually it came to him 
 as he meditated alone, or experimented with it on 
 listeners in remote places. Naturally, he avoided the 
 associations of the people he had persecuted, and the 
 teachers they looked up to. He had nothing to learn 
 from them ; he understood their system and was dis- 
 satisfied with it, in short, rejected it. Their Jewish 
 Messiah, literal, national, hebraic, was not an attrac- 
 tive personage to his mind. The promise of felicity 
 in a Jewish kingdom. of heaven was not enchanting. 
 The daily life of the believers in Jerusalem was for- 
 mal, unnatural, repulsive to one who had " walked 
 large" in foreign cities and realms of thought. The 
 apostles, Peter, James, John, had nothing important to 
 tell him that he did not know already. The earthly de- 
 tails of the life of Jesus might have interested him, but 
 the interior character and the human significance of 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 95 
 
 the Christ were the main thing, and these he may have 
 thought himself more in the way of appreciating by a 
 temporary retirement to the depths of his own con- 
 sciousness. Having matured his thoughts, he did 
 put himself in communication with the original dis- 
 ciples, with what result is frankly stated in his letter 
 to the Galatians : " To those who seemed to be some- 
 what (what they were is no concern of mine, God 
 accepteth no man's person), but who in conference 
 added nothing to me, I did not give way, in subjec- 
 tion, no, not for an hour." So heated he becomes, as 
 he remembers this interview, that he can scarcely 
 write coherently about it. The two conceptions of 
 the Christ and his office were so far apart, that he did 
 not, to his dying day, form intimate relations with 
 the teachers of the primitive gospel. They taught 
 an uncongenial scheme. 
 
 From the first, Paul's sphere of action was the 
 Gentile world to which his message was adapted. If 
 his first appeal was addressed to Jews, it was simply 
 because Christianity, as he understood it, being an 
 outgrowth from Jewish thought, a development of 
 Jewish tradition, should naturally be more intelligible 
 and more welcome to them than to people who had 
 no historical or literary preparation for it. But he 
 took the broad ground with them, and addressed 
 his word to outsiders the moment stubbornly dogmati- 
 cal Jews declined to receive it on his terms. The at- 
 
9^ THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 tempt made by the author of the " Acts of the Apos- 
 tles," to show that Paul modified or qualified his scheme 
 to bring it into harmony with the older scheme that he 
 supplanted, fails from the circumstance that the 
 writer discerns no peculiarity in his theory of the 
 Christ, and consequently misses completely the 
 ground of any antagonism. 
 
 This is written in the persuasion that the " Acts 
 of the Apostles " is not trustworthy as history ; has 
 in fact no historical intent, but belongs to the class 
 of writings that may be called conciliatory, or media- 
 torial, designed to bring opposing views together, to 
 heal divisions, and smooth over rough places. By 
 pulling hard at both ends of the string, dragging Peter 
 towards Paul, and Paul towards Peter, ascribing to 
 both the same opinions, imputing to both the same 
 designs, and passing both through the same experi- 
 ences, the author would make his readers believe that 
 they stood on the same foundation. The grounds of 
 the opinion above stated cannot be given here ; but 
 there are grounds for it,_ and solid ones, as anyone 
 may discover who will take the pains to look at Ed- 
 ward Zeller's essay on the " Acts," or any other argu- 
 ment from an unprejudiced point of view. The con- 
 clusion may be arrived at, however, by a shorter p/o- 
 cess, namely, by taking Paul's Christology as given by 
 himself in his own letters, and then considering how 
 completely it is excluded from the book. It seems to 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. '9/ 
 
 the present writer nothing less than certain, as plain as 
 any point of literary criticism can be, that the " Acts 
 of the Apostles " is not to be relied on for informa- 
 tion respecting the life and opinions of the apostle 
 Paul. In this opinion writers belonging to very dif- 
 ferent schools of religious philosophy, Mackay, for ex- 
 ample, and Martineau, are cordially agreed. This 
 must henceforth be regarded as one of the points es- 
 tablished. The firmer the apprehension of Paul's 
 peculiarity, the stronger is the conviction that the 
 description of his conduct in the book of "Acts " must 
 be fanciful. If he tells the truth, as there is no rea- 
 son to doubt, the unknown author of the "Acts" ro- 
 mances. 
 
 The necessity that Paul was under of commend- 
 ing his christology to the Jews, a self-imposed neces- 
 sity in part, inasmuch as his own genius being Jew- 
 ish, imposed it on him, embarrassed the movement of 
 his mind to such a degree that he was never able to do 
 perfect justice to his own theory. Much time was spent 
 in explaining his conduct to orthodox Jews, or in 
 answering questions raised by hebrew casuistry. The 
 epistle to the Romans, the most labored of his compo- 
 sitions, is a long argument addressed to his country- 
 men in Rome, with the design of persuading them 
 that Jehovah was quite justified in accepting Gentiles 
 who conformed to his requirements, and in rejecting 
 
 children of Abraham who did not. This is the burden 
 
 7 
 
gS THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 of the letter. The argument is lighted up by splendid 
 bursts of eloquence, and diversified by keen remarks on 
 points of psychology. But, omitting two or three of the 
 chapters and scattered passages in others, the remainder 
 is intellectually arid and devoid of human interest. The 
 same may be said of the letter to the Galatians. The 
 epistles to the Thessalonians, and those to the Corin- 
 thians, are occupied chiefly with matters of local and 
 incidental concern. It is probable that Paul's genius 
 was disastrously circumscribed within hebrew limits 
 after all ; that he never completely emancipated him- 
 self even from the old time traditions of his people ; 
 that the Jewish half of the man was not the weaker half. 
 A philosopher he was not ; a theologian, in the great 
 sense, he was not ; a metaphysician he was not ; 
 a psychologist he was not. He was an apostle, a 
 preacher. The problems he discussed were formal 
 rather than vital, and the spirit in which he discussed 
 them was the temper of the dogmatist rather than 
 that of the seer. However this may be, it may be 
 affirmed that his system contained no strictly original 
 
 * 
 
 ideas ; that his leading thoughts, and even the phases 
 of his thought, were borrowed from the literature of 
 his nation, or, at least, may be found there. 
 
 It is a frequent remark that, but for St. Paul, 
 Christianity might have had no life out of Judea ; 
 which is tantamount to saying that it might have had 
 no prolonged or extended life at all, but would have 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 99 
 
 perished as an incidental phase of Judaism. The 
 remark is essentially just ; at the same time it must 
 be remembered that the Christianity which Paul 
 devised and planted was a system quite unlike that 
 of his predecessors, though still another phase of 
 Judaism, a divergent and cosmopolitan phase. 
 
 Other pieces of literature, Ephesians, Colossians, 
 Philippians, Hebrews, which, whether the compositions 
 of Paul or not, contain developments of his thought, 
 and may be called " Pauline," carry further his 
 central speculation and apply his principle to the new 
 problems that presented themselves in the social life 
 of the religion ; yet these do not go beyond the lines 
 of Jewish thought. The significant passage in Phil- 
 ippians, "Who, although he was in the form of God, 
 thought not that an equality with God, was a thing he 
 ought greedily to grasp at," suggests the Greek 
 mythus of Lucifer, who fell because, being already the 
 brightest of beings, he was discontented with a formal 
 inferiority of rank. His crime consisted in rapaciously 
 grasping at a power which was, in all but the name, his, 
 own. The Christ, in contrast, was satisfied with the _ 
 substance ; he willingly resigned pretension to the 
 position. But the Greek mythus was the reflection 
 of a legend from the farther East, and came to this 
 author more naturally through Judaism than through 
 Paganism. According to Neander's classification the 
 Gnostics, from whom this theosophic conception came, 
 
lOO THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 were Judaistic. Gieseler's classification leads to the 
 same inference, for the Alexandrian Gnosis was the 
 product of Greek thought, blended with Jewish. The 
 classification of Gieseler has regard to the source 
 whence the speculation came ; that of Neander to the 
 tendency of the speculation. In whichever aspect we 
 view the myth, its Jewish character is apparent. 
 The writer has pushed his speculations into new fields 
 that yet lay within the ancestral domain. He de- 
 scribes the Christ as being but the semblance of a man, 
 in "fashion " a man, not in substance. The thought 
 is a further development, yet a strictly logical one, of 
 Paul's idea that the Christ was made " in the likeness 
 of sinful flesh." The two expressions are parallel, in 
 fact identical ; " body," in Pauline phrase being, from 
 the nature of the case, >^nful body." The writer 
 speaks of the dominiog/^^^^C^mst as extended over 
 the three spheres, heaven,*^^^^ajid the under-world ; 
 scarcely thereby enlarging tte^cope of a previous 
 thought, for as much as these spheres were compre- 
 hended in the dominion of the Christ who " created 
 the worlds," the new worlds that constituted the new 
 creation, whereof he was Lord. 
 
 The letter to the Hebrews, an exceedingly elaborate 
 exposition of the close relation between the new faith 
 and the old, an argument and a plea for the new faith 
 as containing in substance all that the old contained 
 in form, is Jewish in coloring throughout, an exaggera- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. lOI 
 
 tion of Jewish ideas. The argument is that Chris- 
 tianity excels Judaism in its own excellencies. The 
 Christ is called " high priest," " perpetual priest," 
 possessing the power to confer endless life. By the 
 sacrifice of himself he has entered at once into the 
 holy of holies. He has tasted death for every man — 
 another way of saying that he has deprived death for 
 every man of its bitterness. He has destroyed the 
 devil who held the kingdom of death. He has recon- 
 ciled man with God by abolishing death, and with 
 death sin, which is the strength of death. The Christ 
 is represented as the author of salvation to all that 
 obey him ; he lives forever to make intercession ; 
 his blood purges men's consciences from reliance on 
 dead works ; he, once for all, has devoted himself to 
 bear the sins of many ; he will come again, and bring 
 salvation to such as wait for him ; all these are merely 
 completed expressions- of the idea enunciated by Paul. 
 The Christ himself is described in this epistle as 
 " the appointed heir of all things ; " " the brightness of 
 God's glory and the express image of His person ; " 
 " upholding all things by the word of His power ; " 
 "the First Begotten;" "the object of adoration by 
 the angels." To support this view, the Old Testa- 
 ment is ingeniously quoted and misapplied. The in- 
 fluence of Jewish thought appears also in the pas- 
 sages that describe the Christ as an agent, appointed 
 to his office ; an official, " sitting at the right hand of 
 
102 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 the Majesty on High ; " as fulfilling His mission and 
 obtaining His glory through suffering ; as subjected 
 to human experiences of temptation ; as strictly sub- 
 ordinate to God. 
 
 The scriptures entitled " Colossians " and " Ephe- 
 sians " betray still greater familiarity with Alexandro- 
 Jewish conceptions, and a yet deeper sympathy with 
 them. The Christ is here " the image of God, the 
 first-born of every creature." It is declared that " by 
 Him were all things created that are in heaven and 
 on earth ; things visible and invisible ; thrones, do- 
 minions, principalities, powers ; by Him and for Him 
 they were created." " He is far above all principality, 
 and power, and might, and dominion, and every name 
 that is named, whether in this world or the world to 
 come." He is " all in all." He is the pleroma, the 
 fulness, the abyss of possibility. " The fulness of 
 the Godhead dwells in Him visibly." He exhausts 
 the divine capacity of expression. He is the reality 
 of God. Towards mankind he is the reconciler. In 
 him " all things are gathered together in one." By 
 the blood of his cross he has made peace and recon- 
 ciled all things to himself ; things on earth and 
 things in heaven. In a striking passage, the writer 
 of "Ephesians" describes the Christ as first descend- 
 ing into the under world to release the captives bound 
 in the chains of Satan, and thence ascending up on 
 high and sending down gifts to men. 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. IO3 
 
 Both of these compositions abound in Gnostic 
 phraesology. The abstruse terms " Mystery," " Wis- 
 dom," " ^on," " Prince of the Powers " recur again 
 and again, and always with the cabalistic meaning. 
 The writers are caught in the meshes of Oriental 
 speculation, and apparently make no effort to extri- 
 cate themselves. On the contrary, they welcome 
 their euthralment, taking the binding cords to be 
 guiding strings towards the truth. So far, again, 
 instead of escaping from the Jewish tradition we are 
 tethered to it more securely than before. The litera- 
 ture of the New Testament is seen to be still a con- 
 tinuation and completion of the literature of the Old. 
 The earliest form of the Messianic doctrine is com- 
 pletely distanced. Scarcely a trace of it remains. Of 
 the throne of David not a word. Not a word of 
 Moses and the Prophets, of the historical fulfilment 
 of ancient prediction, of the temple worship, of the 
 chosen people. Pharisees and Sadducees are alike 
 omitted. The very word " kingdom," as denoting a 
 visible Messianic reign, is dropped. But the territory 
 of Judaism has not been abandoned. Galilee is de- 
 serted ; Jerusalem is overthrown ; but the schools of 
 the rabbins are open. 
 
 It will be remarked that the moral teaching is 
 more vague and mystical than it was in the early 
 time. The theological spirit prevails over the human ; 
 the ecclesiastical supersedes the ethical. Practical 
 
IC4 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 principle is postponed to theoretical doctrine. The 
 virtues prescribed are ghostly, technical; the -graces 
 of a church, not the qualities of a brotherhood. The 
 intellectual air is thinner and more difficult to inhale. 
 The spiritual atmosphere is not inspiring. Intelli- 
 gence can make nothing of writing like this : " The 
 husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the 
 head of the Church ; and He is the Saviour of the 
 body. Therefore, as the Church is subject to Christ, 
 so let wives be subject in all things to their husbands. 
 Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved 
 the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might 
 sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by 
 the Word ; that He might present it to Himself a 
 glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any 
 such thing ; but that it should be holy and without 
 blemish." The absence of rational ground for duty 
 in the most familiar relations of life could not be 
 more explicitly declared than in a passage like this. 
 That such an age should have had a scientific system 
 of morality cannot be expected ; but that the tra- 
 ditional system should have been lost, and a fantas- 
 tical one set up in its place, is a testimony to the 
 influence of the mystical spirit. The fanciful morality 
 of a small and enthusiastic body may be interesting 
 to the members of the body and influential on their 
 conduct ; but it is no evidence of health in the moral 
 constitution of the generation. The representation 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. IO5 
 
 of the Christian warfare as a conflict " not against 
 flesh and blood," — that is, against organized evil in 
 society and the State, — " but against principalities, 
 against powers, against the princes of darkness, 
 against wicked spirits that dwell in the air," is 
 another evidence that conscience had become vision- 
 ary. Such reasoning is of a piece with the argument 
 for there being four gospels and no more, namely, that 
 there were four quarters of the heaven, and four 
 winds ; or with the argument for perpetual virginity, 
 that it supplied the Church with vestals. Such theol- 
 ogising shows how far speculation may be separated 
 from reality and yet be entertained by human minds. 
 
VII. 
 
 THE LAST GOSPEL. 
 
 The author of the fourth Gospel is unknown, but 
 it is incredible that this wonderful book, wonderful 
 for finish of literary execution as well as for vigor of 
 intellectual conception, was written by a Galilean 
 fisherman ; a man of brooding and morbid disposition, 
 whose intemperate zeal earned for him the title " son 
 of thunder ; " who, according to Luke, proposed to 
 call down fire from heaven to consume certain 
 Samaritans that declined to receive the master; who, 
 according to the same authority, rebuked certain 
 others that conjured by the Christ's name, but did not 
 join his company; who, through his mother, asked 
 for one of the best seats in the " kingdom ; " a man 
 who was most intimately associated with the James 
 described in a former chapter ; a man who late in life, 
 had a reputation for intolerance which started a 
 tradition of him to the effect that being in the public 
 bath,i and seeing enter the heretic Cerinthus, he 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 10/ 
 
 rushed out, calling on all others to follow, if they 
 would not be overwhelmed by the ruin such a blas- 
 phemer would pull down on their heads. All the 
 traditions respecting John are to the same purport; 
 his constant association with James and Peter, both 
 disciples of the narrowest creed ; his advocacy of 
 chiliasm, the doctrine of the millennial reign of a 
 thousand years, as testified to by Ephesian presby- 
 ters on the authority of Irenaeus ; the description 
 of him, reported by Eusebius, as a " high priest wear- 
 ing the mitre," standing in the order of succession 
 therefore as a hierarch of the ancient dispensation, a 
 churchman maintaining the ancient symbolical rites. 
 
 That such a composition as the fourth Gospel 
 was written by such a man, in his old age too, the 
 laws of literary criticism cannot admit. To the pres- 
 ent writer the ungenuineness of the fourth Gospel has 
 for several years seemed as distinctly proved as any 
 point in literary criticism can be. To maintain the 
 Johannean origin of the book, it must be assumed that 
 the apostle lived to an extreme old age, nearly double 
 the full three score years and ten allotted to man- 
 kind ; that his entire nature changed in the interval 
 between his youth and his senility ; that, without 
 studying in the schools, he became a profound 
 adept in speculative philosophy ; and that by the 
 same miraculous bestowment, he acquired a skill in 
 letters surpassing that of any in his generation, far 
 
I08 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 surpassing that of Paul, who was an educated man, 
 and completely casting into the shade Philo, the best 
 scholar of a former era. All this, too, must be as- 
 sumed, for there is not a fragment of the evidence to 
 support the bold presumption of authorship. 
 
 The book belongs nearer to the middle than the 
 beginning of the second century, and is the result of 
 an attempt to present the Christ as the incarnate 
 Word of God. The author is not obliged to go far to 
 find his materials ; they lie ready shaped to his hand 
 in the writings of Philo and the Gnostics of his cen- 
 tury. The thread of Hebrew tradition, has, by this 
 time, become exceedingly thin ; vestiges of the pop- 
 ular Jewish conception appear, but faintly, here and 
 there. Nicodemus recognizes the divine character of 
 the Christ by his power to work miracles. The 
 Christ respects the tradition which accorded special 
 privileges to the genuine " children of Abraham ; " he 
 declares to the woman of Samaria that " salvation is of 
 the Jews ; " he announces that eternal life consists in 
 the knowledge of God, and the acceptance of his Son. 
 Moses is said to have written of the Christ. Father 
 Abraham rejoiced to see his day. Isaiah sang his 
 glory, and spake of him. The brazen serpent is a 
 type of his mission to deliver. 
 
 For the rest, the conceptions of deity, of provi- 
 dence, of salvation, of the eternal world, are quite 
 different from the recognized Hebrew conceptions — 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. IO9 
 
 the title given to God sixty times in the gospel, 
 while the word " God," occurs less than twenty, is 
 " Father," and this term is used, not in the sense of 
 Matthew's " Our Father in Heaven," which describes 
 the Old Testament Jehovah under his more amiable 
 aspect, but rather as designating the abyss of potential 
 being, as the term is employed in the trinitarian 
 formula, in which the Godhead is broken up into 
 three distinctions ; the declaration " God is Spirit," 
 or, as the language equally well permits, " Spirit is 
 God," intimates that the individuality of God has 
 disappeared, that the idea of deity has become intel- 
 lectual. The one hundred and thirty-ninth psalm 
 expresses perhaps as mystical an apprehension of 
 God as the old Hebrew thought admits of, but that 
 psalm retains the divine individuality ; the limits are 
 nowhere transgressed ; it is a sympathetic, regardful 
 eye that searches the secret place, and an attentive 
 mind that notes the unarticulated thought. The 
 intelligence loses no point of clearness in becoming 
 penetrative. But in the fourth Gospel, the individ- 
 uality is gone altogether. The Father " loveth," but 
 with an abstract, impersonal sympathy ; the Father 
 " draweth," but with an organic, elemental attraction ; 
 the Father " hath life in himself," and hath given the 
 Son to '' have life in himself ; " but neither the pos- 
 session nor the communication of this power implies 
 the bestowal of a concrete gift. The Father "judg- 
 
I lO THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 eth no man, but hath given all judgment to the Son " 
 — a phrase intimating that he had gone into retire- 
 ment, had withdrawn from active interest in human 
 concerns, had sunk into the depths of the Absolute. 
 The expression " God is Spirit," taken alone, 'conveys 
 no idea that is not contained in the Hebrew concep- 
 tion of the formless Jehovah j but when taken in con- 
 nection with other expressions, it is seen to convey 
 something more, and something different. The 
 formless God may be strictly local ; the "Spirit " is 
 diffused. 
 
 In this book, the Christ takes the place of God, 
 as the revealed or manifest God ; he is the Logos, 
 the incarnate word. He was with God in the begin- 
 ning." " All things were made by him," "In him 
 was life, and the life was the light of men." " He 
 hath life in himself," He is the only begotten son, 
 who came down from heaven; he is in heaven. All 
 judgment is committed to him ; in him the divine 
 glory is manifest ; apart from him is no spiritual life ; 
 he is the vine, the door ; he is the intercessor through 
 whom prayer must be transmitted in order to be 
 made availing. 
 
 The divine presence is taken out of nature, and 
 transferred to the spiritual world ; God is made 
 ecclesiastical and dogmatic. Men are saved, not 
 by natural piety and excellence, but by faith in the 
 Christ as the Logos. The whole sum of Christianity 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. Ill 
 
 is conveyed in this one position : the manifestation 
 of the Divine Glory in the Only Begotten Son. This 
 manifestation is of itself, the coming of salvation, the 
 gift of God's life to mankind. By this, the Christ 
 overcomes the powers of darkness and evil. He has 
 come a light into the world ; by him come grace and 
 truth ; to believe in him is a sign of God's working. 
 He that cometh to him shall never hunger ; he that 
 believeth on him shall never thirst. It is enough 
 that blind men believe ; to die, believing in him, is to 
 live ; to live, believing in him, is to be saved from 
 the power of death, and made immortal. To believe 
 in him is the same thing as to believe in the Father. 
 Not to believe in him, is to be consigned to spiritual 
 death with sinners ; to believe on the Son is to have 
 everlasting life. This idea recurs with monotonous 
 perseverance, some sixty times. 
 
 That this conception of the Christ is not original 
 with our author has already been said many times. 
 It had been in the world two hundred years before 
 his day, and had worked its way into the substance of 
 the later Jewish thought. The personification of the 
 divine reason early occurred to the Jews who had 
 been touched with the passion for speculation in the 
 city of Alexandria. Long ago attention was called by 
 Andrews Norton, among ourselves, to bold personifica- 
 tions of wisdom and the divine reason, in the Apocry- 
 pha of the Old Testament. " She is the breath of 
 
112 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 the power of God, a pure influence proceeding from 
 the glory of the Almighty. She is the brightness of 
 the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the 
 power of God, and the image of his goodness." Chap- 
 ters seven and eight of the Book of Wisdom contain 
 an apotheosis of wisdom as the creative power. In 
 the eighteenth chapter the imagery grows much 
 stronger. " Thine almighty word leaped down from 
 heaven out of thy royal throne, as a fierce man-of- 
 war into the midst of a land of destruction." The 
 twenty-fourth chapter of Ecclesiasticus is devoted to 
 the same theme. The Word is described as a being : 
 the first born of God ; the active agent in creation ; 
 having its dwelling-place in Israel, its seat in the Law 
 of Moses. 
 
 Philo pushes the speculation much further. The 
 Logos is with him a most interesting subject of dis- 
 course, tempting him to wonderful feats of imagina- 
 tion. There is scarcely a personifying or exalting 
 epithet that he does not bestow on the divine Reason. 
 He describes it as a distinct being ; calls it " A 
 Rock," " The Summit of the Universe," " Before All 
 Things," " First-begotten Son of God," " Eternal 
 Bread from Heaven," " Fountain of Wisdom," "Guide 
 to God," " Substitute for God," " Image of God," 
 " Priest," " Creator of the Worlds," " Second God," 
 " Interpreter of God," " Ambassador of God," " Power 
 of God," "King," "Angel," "Man," "Mediator." 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. II3 
 
 " Light," "The Beginning," "The East," "The Name 
 of God," " Intercessor." The curious on this subject 
 may consult Liicke's Introduction to the Fourth Gos- 
 pel, or Gfrorer's Philo, and he will be more than satis- 
 fied that the Logos of the fourth Gospel is the same 
 as Philo's, and has the same origin. 
 
 Christian scholars who admit this have been 
 anxious to break the force of the inference, by allow- 
 ing the similarity of the conception and then suppos- 
 ing the evangelist to have stated the doctrine that he 
 might stamp it as heresy. But he nowhere does 
 stamp it as heresy. He puts it boldly on the front of 
 his exposition and constructs his whole work in con- 
 formity with it. Instead of refuting it or denouncing 
 it, he carries the idea out in all its applications, sup- 
 plementing it with a completeness that Philo never 
 thought of. 
 
 The Logos becomes a man ; " is made flesh ; " 
 appears as an incarnation ; in order that the God 
 whom " no man has seen at any time," may be mani- 
 fested. He has no parentage ; is not born, even 
 supernaturally ; he passes through no childish pas- 
 sages ; receives no nurture in a home ; has no ex- 
 perience of growth or development. The incident of 
 his baptism by John in the sacred river is carefully 
 excluded, that whole episode, so important in the 
 earliest narratives, being dismissed in the phrase, 
 
 " Upon whom thou shalt see the spirit descending, 
 
 8 
 
114 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 and remaining on him, the same is he that baptizeth 
 with the Holy Ghost." John says of him : " This is 
 he that, coming after me, is preferred before me, for 
 he existed before me." " I saw the spirit descending 
 from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him." " I 
 knew him not, but came, baptizing with water, that he 
 might be made manifest to Israel." "I am a voice 
 crying in the desert." Every word negatives the 
 notion that the Logos received consecration at the 
 hands of a prophet of the old dispensation. He is 
 pre-existent ; he comes from heaven ; he is full of 
 grace and truth; of his fulness all have received, 
 grace upon grace. 
 
 The temptation is omitted for the same reason. 
 The divine word cannot, even in form, undergo the 
 experience of moral discipline. The bare suggestion 
 of evil taint is foreign to him. He must not come 
 near enough to evil to repel it. A dramatic scene in 
 Matthew represents the conflict between the Messiah 
 and the Prince of the World ; a conflict inconceivable 
 in the case of a divine being who is, by nature. Lord 
 of the entire spiritual universe, — whose mere appear- 
 ance dispels the night. 
 
 Even the story of the transfiguration, which in 
 some respects would seem admirably illustrative of 
 the logos theory, is omitted, probably for the reason 
 that Moses and Elias are the prominent personages 
 in it. 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. II5 
 
 As a thing of course, the agony in the garden of 
 Gethsemane is unmentioned. A suggestion of it 
 occurs in a previous chapter, (XII. 27), but in another 
 connection, and for an opposite purpose, namely, to 
 extort a tribute to the glory of the Logos. 
 
 The cross on which the Word is suspended, is 
 transfigured into an elevation of honor. On it the 
 Son of God endures no mortal agony; by it he is 
 " lifted up " that he may " draw all men " unto him. 
 His crucifixion is a consummation, a triumph. He 
 mounts, shows himself, and vanishes away. The 
 suffering is an appearance of suffering. The shame 
 is turned to glory. The tormentors are agents in ac- 
 complishing a transformation. The god passes, with- 
 out a groan or an expression of weakness ; clear as ever 
 in his perceptions, seeing his mother and the beloved 
 disciple standing together, he says : " woman, behold 
 thy son ; son, behold thy mother." Knowing that all 
 things were now accomplished, that the scripture 
 might be fulfilled, he said " I thirst ; " having received 
 the vinegar, he remarked " it is finished," bowed his 
 head, and gave up the ghost. From his dead form 
 issue streams of water and blood, a last sign, as the 
 conversion of water into wine was the first, that the 
 dispensation of Law, symbolized by John's water 
 baptism, and the dispensation of the spirit symbolized 
 by wine and by blood, were both completed in him. 
 
 The resurrection of the Christ is not described as 
 
Il6 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 the resurrection of a body, but as the apparition of a 
 spiritual form. It is not recognized by Mary through 
 any external resemblance to a former self, but through 
 a spiritual impression ; it stands suddenly before her, 
 forbids her touch, is not palpable, and as suddenly dis- 
 appears ; the Logos ascends " to the Father ; " returns, 
 bringing the spirit that he had promised ; enters the 
 chamber where the disciples are gathered, the door 
 being carefully closed from fear of the Jews, enters 
 without opening the door, is visible for an instant, 
 and is no more seen ; re-enters for the purpose of 
 giving palpable demonstration of his reality to the 
 doubting Thomas, who, however does not accept it, 
 receives the skeptic's homage and again disappears. 
 
 These apparitions and occultations are frequent in 
 the gospel, the Christ's outward form being only a 
 fagade, removable at pleasure. The numerous comings 
 and goings, hidings, disclosures, presences, absences, 
 are accounted for on this supposition, better than 
 on any other. He goes up to the feast at Jerusalem, 
 not openly, but "as it were in secret," veiled, disguis- 
 ed. He comes before the crowd many of whom must 
 have been familiar with his person, but is unrecog- 
 nized ; he discloses himself for a moment, speaks 
 exciting words that raise a tumult, and then, at the 
 height of the turmoil, becomes invisible. " They 
 sought to take him ; but no man laid hands on him, 
 for his hour was not yet come'' On a subsequent oc- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. Il/ 
 
 casion his hearers, intensely aroused by his language, 
 took up stones to cast at him ; but he " hid himself, 
 and went out of the temple, going through the midst 
 ^ i'^^;;»2, and so passed by." His enemies sought to 
 take him, but "he escaped out of their hands." Hav- 
 ing spoken, he departs, and hides himself ; but again, 
 without apparently changing his locality or absenting 
 himself for any period, he is again heard proclaiming 
 his mission. 
 
 There is no history in this book. The incarnate 
 Word can have no history. His career being theologi- 
 cal, the events in it cannot be other than spectral. 
 He is not in the world of cause and effect. His ac- 
 tions are phenomenal ; the passages of his life do not 
 open into one another, do not lead anywhere ; nothing 
 follows anything else, nothing moves ; there is no 
 progress towards development. The biography is a 
 succession of scenes, a diorama. There are no se- 
 quences or consequences. Stones are taken up, but 
 never thrown ; hands are uplifted to strike, but no 
 blow is delivered. The movement to arrest is never 
 carried out. The miracles are not deeds of power or 
 mercy, they are signs, thrown out to attract popular 
 attention, demonstrations of the divine presence ; some- 
 times merely symbolical foreshadowings or interpreta- 
 tions of speculative ideas, as in the case of the turning 
 of water into wine at the " marriage feast ; " the open- 
 ing of the blind man's eyes, signifying that he was 
 
Il8 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 come a light into the world ; the resurrection of Laza- 
 rus, a scenic commentary on the text, " I am the 
 resurrection and the life." These are pictures not per- 
 formances. None of them are mentioned in the earlier 
 traditions, for the probable reason that they never oc- 
 curred, never were rumored to have occurred. They 
 were designed by the artist of the fourth Gospel, for 
 his private gallery of illustrations. The artist was a 
 Greek Jew who took Hebrew ideals for his models, 
 but he was sometimes obliged to go far to find them. 
 The hint for the conversion of the water into wine, 
 may have come from the legends of Israelite sojourn 
 in Egypt, where Moses, the first deliverer, turned 
 water into blood, the mystical synonym of wine ; 
 Elisha may have furnished a study for the elaborate 
 picture of the blind man's cure, and Isaiah may have 
 supplied the motive for it, in his famous prophecy that 
 the eyes of the blind shall be opened. The studies 
 for the grand cartoon of Lazarus were made possibly 
 while the artist mused over the stories of Elijah rais- 
 ing the son of the widow, or of Elisha reviving one 
 already dead by mere contact with his bones. 
 
 In the veins of the Logos flows no passionate blood. 
 His language is vehement, but suggests no corres- 
 ponding emotion ; the words are not vascular. Cer- 
 tain superficial peculiarities of these discourses are 
 noticeable at once, their length, their stateliness, their 
 absoluteness, their loud-voiced, declamatory character, 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. II9 
 
 their oracular tone. But little scrutiny is required to 
 discover that they are monotones ; that their theme 
 is always the same, namely, the claims of the Christ ; 
 that they unfold no system of moral or spiritual teach- 
 ing, proceed in no rational order, arrive at no conclu- 
 sions ; that they contain no arguments, answer no 
 questions, meet no inquiring states of mind ; that they 
 resemble orations more than discourses of any other 
 kind, but are unlike orations, in having neither begin- 
 ning middle nor end, in quite lacking point and ap- 
 plication, in proceeding no whither, in simply stand- 
 ing- still and reiterating the same sublime abstractions, 
 without regard to logical or rhetorical proprieties. 
 
 This being discovered, the conclusion follows 
 swiftly, that the divine Logos could not discourse 
 otherwise. His addresses, like his deeds, are designed 
 to be revelations of himself ; expressions, not of his 
 thoughts, but of his being, not of his character, but of 
 his nature. They are the Word made articulate, as 
 his wonders are the Word made mighty, as his form is 
 the Word made visible. A human being, seeking to 
 convince, persuade, instruct mankind, will from neces- 
 sity pursue a different course from the divine Reason 
 presenting itself to " the world." Its very audiences 
 are impersonal, consisting not of individuals or of 
 parties, but of abstractions labelled " Jews," who come 
 like shadows, so depart. 
 
 So unhuman is the Christ, so entirely without 
 
I20 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 near relations with mankind, that when he has left 
 the world, a substitute may be provided for him, in 
 the shape of the Holy Spirit, another personality pro- 
 ceeding from him and his Father, and appointed to 
 complete his work ; to reprove the world of sin, of 
 righteousness, and of judgment ; to guide the disci- 
 ples into all truth ; to bring to their remembrance all 
 that had been said to them ; to comfort them, and 
 abide with them for ever. The idea loses itself in 
 vagueness at times, now being identified with the 
 Christ, now appearing as a Spirit of Truth, now being 
 an indwelling presence, now an effluence from the 
 Logos. But all the while something like an individ- 
 ual consciousness is preserved ; the spirit is as pal- 
 pable as the Logos himself was. Here is already the 
 germ of a trinity maturing within the bosom of the 
 Hebrew monotheism. The process has been simple ; 
 the consecutive steps have been inevitable. But in 
 the process the solid ground of Judaism has been 
 left ; the massive substance of the ancient faith has 
 been melted into cloud. 
 
 How entirely nebulous it has become under the 
 action of speculative mind is strikingly apparent on 
 examination of the ethical characteristics of the 
 fourth gospel. The concrete virtues of the ancient 
 race, the honest human righteousness and charity 
 have disappeared, and in their place are certain spect- 
 ral "graces" which have quality of a technical, but 
 
THE CRA.DLE OF THE CHRIST. 121 
 
 little of a human sort. That, according to the Logos 
 doctrine men are saved, not by natural goodness or 
 piety but by faith in the Christ, is written all over the 
 book. But this is not the point. It is not enough 
 that character has no saving power, it is dispensed 
 with ; and instead of it, something is set up which 
 possesses none of the elements of character. The 
 compact principles of human duty which hold so large 
 a place in the old Testament scriptures, and are so 
 essential in the earliest Messianic conception, are not 
 found here, at all. The sermon on the mount is 
 omitted. The beatitudes are unmentioned. The 
 parables are not remembered. There 'is no chapter in 
 the book that bears comparison in point of moral vigor 
 or nobleness with the twelfth chapter of Romans, or 
 the thirteenth chapter of Corinthian^. Humanity has 
 shrunk to the dimensions of an incipient Christen- 
 dom. The men and women whom the Jesus of Mat- 
 thew addresses, to whom Paul makes appeal, are men 
 and women no more ; not even Jews by race, not 
 even a knot of radical Jews ; they are " disciples," 
 " believers," " brethren." Christians, not fellow men, 
 are to love one another. " So shall ye be my disci- 
 ples, if ye have love one for another." " By this shall 
 all men know that ye are my disciples." Of the broad 
 human love, the recognition of brotherhood on the 
 human ground, duty to love those who are not disci- 
 ples, there is not a word. The common /azV^, not the 
 
122 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 common nature, is the bond. The promises in the 
 fourteenth chapter, the warnings in the fifteenth, the 
 counsel in the sixteenth, the consecration in the 
 seventeenth are all for the believers, not for the doers ; 
 for the doers only so far as they are believers, and 
 within the limits of the believing community. The 
 tender word " love " shrinks to ecclesiastical propor- 
 tions. " If a man love me he will keep my words ; 
 and my Father will love him, and we will come to 
 him, and make our abode with him ; " but the words 
 are not words of exhortation to practical righteous- 
 ness, they are words of admonition against unbelief. 
 " If ye love me, keep my commandments ; " but the 
 commandments are not the wholesome enactments of 
 the Hebrew decalogue, but a bidding to " walk by the 
 light while ye have the light," " to do the will of Him 
 that sent me," which is " to believe on him whom He 
 hath sent." " He that believeth not is condemned 
 already in his not believing in the only begotten Son 
 of God." There is no sweeter word than "love ; " 
 there is no more comprehensive law than the law of 
 love ; but when love is changed from a virtue to a 
 sentiment, and when the duty of practising it is lim- 
 ited to members of a doctrinal communion, the prac- 
 tical issue is more likely to be sectarian narrowness 
 than human fellowship. 
 
 As the speculation rises the spectral character of 
 the morality becomes more st.irtling. The so-called 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 123 
 
 epistles of John carry the Logos idea considerably 
 further than the gospel does. The mission of the 
 Logos is more sharply discriminated. He is described 
 as a sin offering. " He is the propitiation for our 
 sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of 
 the whole world." " The blood of Jesus Christ 
 cleanses us from all sin." " He was manifested to take 
 away our sins, and in Him is no sin." The word 
 " manifested " is the key to the doctrine. " The Son 
 of God was manifested that He might destroy the 
 works of the devil." It is the same conception as in 
 the gospel ; the Prince of Light confronting the trince 
 of Darkness, shaming him and attracting ■2:^3.-^ his sub- 
 jects. The anti-Christ now comes into view ; the sin 
 unto death is named ; the second advent is announced, 
 though not according to the millennial anticipations of 
 a former day. " He that denieth that Jesus is the 
 Christ is a liar." " Every spirit that confesses that 
 Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God." " Every 
 spirit which confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come 
 in the flesh is not of God." Belief or unbelief in the 
 incarnation of the Logos is made the test of one's 
 spiritual relationship, marking him as a candidate for' 
 eternal felicity in the realm of the blessed, or as a 
 victim of endless misery in the realm of Satan. Thus 
 the very heart of natural goodness is eaten out. Of 
 virtue there remains small trace. A great deal of very 
 strong language is used about sin, but sins are not 
 
124 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 particularized. Sin, as an abstraction, a principle, a 
 power, a force, a deep seated taint in the nature, 
 ineradicable except by the infusion of a new spirit of 
 life, is represented as the dreadful thing; and Love, 
 another abstraction, is raised to honor as a spiritual 
 grace, equally unconnected with the human will. 
 " Beloved, let us love one another ; for love is of God, 
 and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth 
 God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God 
 is Love." The words have a deep and tender sound. 
 But the consideration that " the beloved " are those 
 only who confess that Jesus Christ is come in the 
 flesh, that all others are the reverse of " beloved," 
 causes that neither the depth nor the sweetness re- 
 mains. The love does not mean compassion, or pity, 
 or good-will, or helpfulness ; it has no reference to 
 the poor, the needy, the sick, sorrowful, wicked ; it 
 has no downward look, is destitute of humility, is as 
 far as can well be from the love described by Paul in 
 his perfect lyric. It is, we may say, the opposite of 
 that, being a quality that distinguishes the elect from 
 the non-elect, and makes their special election the 
 more sure. 
 
 The literary character of the fourth gospel must 
 be remarked on as a peculiar indication of the mental 
 exhaustion that accompanies the last stages of an 
 intellectual movement. The literature of the century 
 preceding Jesus fairly throbs with personal vitality. 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 125 
 
 It is scarcely more than an expression of individual 
 energies. The earliest writings of the New Testa- 
 ment, the genuine letters of Paul, are animated in 
 every line by his own vehement personality ; the 
 speculative portions of them stir the blood, so real 
 are the issues presented, so vital are the interests at 
 stake. Shapeless, and sometimes incoherent, the 
 thoughts tumble out of the writer's overcharged heart. 
 The Christ is an ideal personage, but his mission is 
 tremendously real ; we are moved by a battle cry as 
 the apostle's ideas burst upon us. 
 
 The literature of the succeeding period, though 
 more elaborate and self-conscious, bearing traces of 
 reflection, and even artifice in composition, is yet 
 warm with the presence of a real purpose. But the 
 fourth gospel is a purely literary work ; a composition, 
 the production of an artist in language. Its author, 
 perhaps because he was simply an artist in language, 
 is unknown. Trace of an historical Jesus in it there 
 is none. No breath from the world of living men 
 blows through it ; no stir of social existence, no move- 
 ment of human affairs ruffles its calm surface. The 
 people are not real people, the issues are not real 
 issues, the conflict is not a real conflict. We have a 
 book, not a gospel. 
 
 The writer formally announces the subject of his 
 spiritual drama, and then proceeds to develop it, 
 according to approved rules of literary art. First 
 
126 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 comes the prologue, setting forth in a few sententious 
 passages the cardinal idea of the piece. This occu- 
 pies eighteen verses of the first chapter, and is followed 
 by the introduction of John the Baptist and his testi- 
 mony. This occupies eighteen verses more. The 
 manifestation of the Logos to the first company of 
 disciples is described with due circumstance in the 
 remainder of the chapter. The symbolical opening 
 of the public ministry, at Cana, the first open " mani- 
 festation of the glory " in the miracle of turning water 
 into wine, by which is signified the calling to substi- 
 tute a spiritual for a natural order, occupies the first 
 ten verses of the second chapter. Then the ministry 
 of revelation begins, with signs and demonstrations. 
 The city of Jerusalem is chosen as the scene of it ; 
 and the scene never changes for longer than a mo- 
 ment, and then it changes without historical, or bio- 
 graphical motive. The cleansing of the temple is 
 placed at the beginning, with undisguised purpose to 
 announce his claim, and the dialectical contest is 
 opened. Nicodemus, "a. ruler of the Jews," seeks a 
 nocturnal interview, betrays the ignorance of the king- 
 dom which characterizes all save the regenerate, even 
 the wisest, and gives occasion to the Christ to declare 
 the intrinsic superiority of the Son of God, and the 
 conditions of salvation through him ; Nicodemus fur- 
 nishing the starting point for a lofty declamation 
 which soars beyond him into the region of trans- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 12/ 
 
 cendental ideas. The Baptist, instead of doubting, 
 as in Matthew, and. sending an embassy to the Christ to 
 ascertain the reasons of his not disclosing himself, is 
 himself questioned by skeptical disciples, and re- 
 assures them by words that are an echo of the Christ's 
 own. 
 
 The interview with the woman of Samaria is 
 introduced for the purpose of extracting another con- 
 fession of the Christ's supremacy from a different 
 order of mind. Nicodemus represented Judaism in 
 its pride of authority and learning. The woman of 
 Samaria represents the ignorant, superstitious, yet 
 stubborn idolatry reckoned by the Jews as no better 
 than heathenism ; her " five husbands " are the five 
 sects into which Judaism was divided. She too is 
 pictured to us as sitting by a well and drawing water. 
 The conversation begins with the Christ's declaration 
 of his power to create perennial springs of water in 
 the heart, and leads immediately up to the great dis- 
 closure of himself. Superstition, like superciliousness, 
 listens and is persuaded. The mention of Galilee is 
 necessary to account for the episode in Samaria, but 
 nothing occurs there. The next scene is laid again 
 in Jerusalem. The water oi Bethesda is brought into 
 competition with the quickening spirit of the Christ ; 
 the cure of the sick man introduces a mystical dis- 
 course on the spiritual sufficiency of the Son of God 
 
 Another scene is presented, and once more in 
 
128 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 Jerusalem. Another series of tableaux is arranged. 
 This time the Christ is pictured as breaking bread 
 and walking on water, whence occasion is taken to 
 descant on the bread of life. For the purpose of mak- 
 ing a fresh appearance in Jerusalem, and presenting 
 his claim under a new aspect, Galilee is called into 
 requisition again, but as usual, the drama is enacted 
 in Jerusalem, which is the centre of the opposition. 
 This time, the Christ, having declined to go up in his 
 own character to meet his critics, goes up in disguise, 
 incognito, and amazes the congregated multitude by 
 his superb assumptions of authority, and his over- 
 whelming denunciations of all who do not receive 
 him ; denunciations so uncompromising, that dissen- 
 sions are created. " Some would have taken him, but 
 none laid hands on him." As always, the demon- 
 stration results in bringing out his friends and ene- 
 mies, in showing who were and who were not his 
 own, which is the aim and end of every manifestation. 
 The Logos presents himself, makes his statement, 
 asserts his prerogative, offers the alternative of spirit- 
 ual life or death, and retires, leaving the result to the 
 spiritual laws. 
 
 The story of the woman taken in adultery which 
 immediately follows this passage, probably made no 
 part of the original gospel, as it appears out of all 
 connection. It is pronounced by some of the best 
 critics to be ungenuine. The obvious improbability 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 29 
 
 of its incidents, the locality of it, — the Mount of Olives, 
 — the Christ's mysterious proceeding of writing on the 
 ground, and his unaccountable verdict, deprive the 
 tale of all but literary interest. It is interesting in a 
 literary point of view, or would be if it were set in 
 literary relations ; for it illustrates the Christ's suprem- 
 acy, his supernatural power of rebuke and insight, 
 his authority to grant absolution on purely theological 
 grounds. The doctrine that none but the guiltless 
 are entitled to pronounce sentence on guilt would put 
 an end to censorship of every kind, but is quite in 
 accordance with the ethical tone of the book. The 
 author however, turns the incident to no account, but 
 proceeds with new scenes in his speculative drama. 
 " I am the light of the world ; he that followeth me 
 shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of 
 life ; " the Christ enters once more into the old debate, 
 once more the claim is challenged, once more the 
 angry discussion flows on, becoming, at this juncture 
 more violent than ever ; terrible denunciations leap 
 from the divine lips'; the adversaries are called a 
 devil's brood, liars, murderers at heart. At the close 
 of the final outburst, the unseen hands raise the 
 visionary stones, but "Jesus hid himself, went out of 
 the temple, going through the midst of them, and so 
 passed by." 
 
 The speech however is continued ; the main doc- 
 trine of it, namely that the Christ is the Light of the 
 
130 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 World, being illustrated by the miracle of giving 
 sight to a man "blind from his birth," — the story- 
 being told at great length and with exceedingly 
 minute detail, so as to cover every point of circum- 
 stance. This seems to be a critical moment in the 
 development of the idea. The vehemence subsides 
 for a time, and the light of the world shines gently as 
 a shepherd's lantern showing wandering sheep the 
 way to the true fold. But the softest word stirs up 
 anger ; the " Jews" take up stones, not to throw them, 
 but to exhibit temper, and the act closes tranquilly 
 like those that preceded it. 
 
 The resurrection of Lazarus prepares the way for 
 the closing scenes. That such a stovy, so artificially 
 constructed, so evidently introduced for effect, told 
 by one writer and not as much as alluded to by the 
 others, told with so much circumstance and with so 
 little regard for biographical probability, told for a 
 dogmatical purpose, and fitted into the narrative at 
 the precise juncture where a turning point was 
 wanted, should be accepted as history by any unfet- 
 tered mind ; that a critic like Renan, professing a 
 profound reverence for the character of Jesus, should 
 have admitted it as in some sense true, and should 
 have been driven in explanation of it to a theory utterly 
 fatal to the moral character of the "colossal" man he 
 celebrates, thus sacrificing the moral greatness of Jesus 
 to a perverse sense of historical truth, proves the 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 13! 
 
 obstinacy of traditional prejudice. The narrative is 
 too evidently a literary device, one would think, to 
 deceive anybody of awakened discernment. Its mani- 
 fest artifice is such that it alone would be enough to 
 cast suspicion on all the miraculous narrations of the 
 book. 
 
 " From that day forth the Jews took counsel to- 
 gether to put him to death." The crisis has come, 
 and events hasten on towards the catastrophe, which, 
 as has been said, was no catastrophe, but a consum- 
 mation. Mary, instead of sitting at his feet as a dis- 
 ciple, anoints them with spikenard and wipes them 
 with the hair of her head ; the holy woman perform- 
 ing the act elsewhere ascribed to a sinner, the act 
 itself being a ceremony of consecration, instead of a 
 mark of penitence. The triumphal entry into Jeru- 
 salem, elsewhere described as the Messiah's own 
 project, is converted into a spontaneous demonstra- 
 tion in his honor, rendered by " much people," who 
 had heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. " Cer- 
 tain Greeks" present themselves and ask an intro- 
 duction, as to a royal personage. They are the first 
 fruits of the Gentile world ; their coming is welcomed 
 as a sign of final victory. " The hour is come," says 
 Jesus, on receiving them, " that the Son of Man should 
 be glorified. The heavens echo his exclamation ; an 
 audible voice, interpreted as the voice of an angel, 
 pronouncing the glorification certain and eternal. The 
 
132 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 Son of God adds his own interpretation, confirming 
 that of his friends ; prophesies the speedy judgment 
 of the world and his own elevation to glory by means 
 of the cross, makes his last statement, and the dia- 
 lectical war is at an end. 
 
 The rest of the life is given to the disciples. The 
 last supper, its agony and distress of mind omitted, is 
 an occasion for impressing on "his own" the lesson 
 of mutual love. The departure of Judas on his errand 
 is the signal for a burst of rapture. Words of con- 
 solation, mingled with promises of the " Spirit of 
 Truth," " The Comforter," words of blessing too fol- 
 low, intended to beget in his friends the feeling that, 
 though absent, he will still be present with them. 
 They are bidden to remember him as the source of 
 their life ; are admonished to keep unbroken the spir- 
 itual bond that unites them to him in vital sympathy ; 
 are assured that the mission he came to earth to dis- 
 charge will be fulfilled by the Holy Ghost ; and finally 
 are solemnly consecrated by priestly supplication as 
 the rescued children of God. 
 
 The story of the arrest is told in a strain equally 
 suited to the idea on which the book is constructed. In 
 full consciousness of his position, Jesus steps forth out 
 of the shadow of mystery to meet Judas and his troop, 
 who have come, expecting to find him in his garden 
 retreat. The soldiers, over-awed by the apparition, 
 start backward and fall to the ground, prostrate before 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 33 
 
 the Son of God. The trial goes on before Annas and 
 Caiaphas, priests, and Pilate, Roman viceroy. The 
 powers of Church and State pronounce on him ; be- 
 fore the powers of Church and State he announces 
 himself and makes his royal claim. In the presence 
 of the High Priest, who is scarcely more than a name 
 in this proceeding, introduced in order that Judaism 
 might have one more opportunity of rejecting the 
 majesty of heaven, Jesus suffers an indignity at the 
 hands of one of the prelate's officers ; but Pilate, the 
 pagan, shudders before the awful personage who tells 
 him that he could have no power at all except it were 
 given him from above ; that he was but a tool of provi- 
 dence. The guilt of the execution is thus transferred 
 from his shoulders to destiny; for the Jews, no less 
 than the governor, are fated. The hour of glorifica- 
 tion has come, and the Son of Man moves with stately 
 step towards his ascension. 
 
 The process of withdrawal from the visible sphere 
 has already been described. It is not effected at 
 once. As a lantern in the hand of one walking in 
 a wood flashes out and again hides itself, becom- 
 ing dimmer and dimmer until finally it quite dis 
 appears, so the Son of God is many times visible 
 and invisible before he vanishes altogether from sight. 
 No bodily ascension is necessary to bear away one 
 whose coming and going are not conditioned by 
 space or time. His form has always been a trans- 
 
134 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 lucent veil, which could at pleasure be removed. His 
 mission ended, there is no more occasion for his self- 
 revelation, and he is unseen. The unreality of a 
 representation like this must be too apparent to be 
 argued. 
 
 From this exposition it appears that the New Testa- 
 ment literature is, in some sort, to the end, a continua- 
 tion of the literature of the Old Testament. As the 
 earliest phase of Christianity was Judaism, with a belief 
 in the Messiah's advent superadded, so the first litera- 
 ture of Christianity is the literature of Judaism, written 
 on the supposition that the Christ has come. Judaism 
 is Christianity still expectant of a Christ to come, or, as 
 with the radical Jews,un expectan t of a personal Messiah; 
 Christianity is Judaism with the expectation fulfilled. 
 The Judaic element was not limited to the little knot of 
 Jerusalemites who hung about the holy city and waited 
 there for the Christ's coming; it was conspicuous in 
 the system of Paul, and so far from being absent from 
 the later form, known by the name of John, deter- 
 mines the cardinal idea of that, and shapes its bent. 
 Whatever additions are made, grow out of this car- 
 dinal idea, as branches from its stem. The strict 
 monotheism of the Hebrew faith is sacrificed to the 
 Messianic conception. The Christ in time becomes a 
 twin Deity, a Holy Ghost being required to fill up the 
 gulf between godhead and humanity. 
 
 But for the fury of the discord that arose and 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 35 
 
 deepened between the Jews who accepted the Christ 
 and the Jews who preferred still to wait for him, the 
 later, as well as the earlier form of Christianity, might 
 possibly have been merged in Judaism. The believers 
 in the Messianic advent were radical to the point of 
 fanaticism. They were the restless advocates of 
 change, agitators, revolutionists. Their passionate 
 zeal could not brook indifference or coolness. Nothing 
 short of a fervid allegiance satisfied them. The re- 
 cusants had to bear hard names, as the gospels at- 
 test. The ill-fortune of the Messiah, the bitter 
 opposition he encountered, his untimely death, were 
 charged upon the faithlessness of the nation who 
 would not confess him. These, and not the Roman 
 Government that actually put him to death, were held 
 answerable for his crucifixion ; thus a discord was 
 planted, which all the generations of Christendom 
 have failed to eradicate. There has, from that time 
 to this, been implacable hatred between Christian 
 and Jew. 
 
 The separation, which might have been healed or 
 obliterated, had this been the sole cause of it, was 
 widened by the subsequent breach between the chris- 
 tians themselves, which drew attention off from the 
 previous issue. The position taken by Paul, that 
 the mission of the Christ was extended to the Gentiles 
 and comprehended them on precisely the same con- 
 ditions with the Jews, was exceedingly disagreeable 
 
136 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 and even shocking to the conservatives, who held that 
 the Christ was sent to Israel only, and especially to 
 that portion of Israel that clung tenaciously to the 
 traditions of the law. The necessary criticism of the 
 Law which Paul's position required, the apparent 
 disrespect shown to Moses and the prophets, the 
 disregard of the ancestral claim set up by the " chil- 
 dren of Abraham," the substitution of an interior 
 principle — faith — which any heathen might adopt, for 
 the old fashioned legal requirements to which none 
 but orthodox Jews could conform, was hardly less than 
 blasphemous in their regard ; and a feud was begun, 
 which in violence and rancor, excelled the quarrel 
 between the orthodox christians and the Jews. The 
 traces of this controversy, plainly marked in the writ- 
 ings of Paul, are visible on the literature of his own 
 and of the succeeding period, and disappear only in 
 the events of greater significance incident to the fall 
 of Jerusalem, the complete dispersion of the Jews, and 
 the blending of parties in the Western Empire. 
 Ferdinand Christian Baur may have pushed too far 
 in some directions, his theory that the entire gospel 
 literature of the New Testament was determined as to 
 its form by the exigencies of this controversy, the can- 
 onical books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the " Acts 
 of the Apostles" all being written in the interest 
 of reconciliation ; but his fundamental position, as in 
 the case of Strauss, has never been carried, or even 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 13/ 
 
 shaken, by assault. The extreme points in contro- 
 versy are fixed with a good deal of certainty. Paul's 
 own statement in the second chapter of Galatians is 
 fairly explicable only on the supposition of a violent 
 collision, the nature of which is there defined, the 
 bearings of which are indicated in that and in other 
 undoubted writings of the apostle. Many passages 
 therein are unintelligible on any other hypothesis. 
 The Apocalypse and the Epistle of James, as clearly 
 set forth the opposite view, in language and implication 
 of the strongest kind, and in a spirit of decided an- 
 tagonism. The " Acts of the Apostles " is, as else- 
 where hinted, prepared with a view of making it 
 appear that no controversy existed ; that Peter carried 
 the gospel to the Gentiles, and that Paul insisted on 
 the validity of circumcision, the mark of initiation into 
 the Jewish church. The narrative is so forced, the 
 incidehts so artificial, the aim so evident, the limitation 
 of view so marked, that the book betrays its own 
 character. To admit the genuineness of the " Acts " 
 is to throw into confusion the little history that we 
 certainly know, and to unfix the continuity of events. 
 How far the three first gospels correspond in purpose 
 with the " Acts," is a nice question, which need not 
 be answered here, which may be left unanswered 
 without detriment to the soundness of the general 
 theory. Whether or no the controversy was of such ab- 
 sorbing moment, whether or no it lasted as long as Baur 
 
138 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 believes, or exerted as wide an influence on literature, 
 its effect in drawing the thoughts away from the 
 earlier dispute between the Messianic and the anti- 
 Messianic Jews, and in detaching the christians from 
 their original associations is unimpaired. From the 
 breaking out of that dispute, which occurred within 
 fifteen or twenty years of the crucifixion, at the latest, 
 Christianity followed its own law of development. 
 
 But, though thus discarded, disowned, finally 
 detested, the very name of Jew, as early as the fourth 
 gospel, being associated with a , stiff-necked bigotry 
 impenetrable to conviction, the old religion main- 
 tained its sway over the child that had taken its portion 
 of goods and gone away to make a home of its own. 
 The Palestinian and Asiatic literature of the young 
 faith bears the stamp of its Hebrew lineage, as has 
 been shown. The Christ sprung from its bosom, was 
 instructed in its schools, was glorified through its 
 imagination. The resurrection was its prophecy; 
 the heaven to which he ascended was of its building 
 and coloring ; the throne whereon he seated himself 
 was of its construction; the Father at whose right 
 hand he reigned was its own ancient deity. His 
 very name, the name he continues to bear to this day, 
 — Messiah — is the name whereby she loved to de- 
 scribe her own ideal man. In the depth of his degra- 
 dation, in the heat of his persecution, in the agony of 
 his despair, the Jew could reflect that his relentless 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 39 
 
 oppressor owed to him the very faith he was com- 
 pelled to curse. The victim was the conqueror. The 
 reflection may still have been bitter ; whatever sweet- 
 ness it brought was flavored with vengeance, except in 
 the greatest souls who loved their religion better than 
 their fame. 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE WESTERN CHURCH. 
 
 Our story is not yet told. As regards the New- 
 Testament books, though the genius that produced 
 them was Eastern, the judgment that brought them 
 together in a single collection was Western. No list 
 of the New Testament books pretending to carry 
 weight was made until the year 360. For two cen- 
 turies and a half there was no Christian bible. The 
 canon, as it now stands, was iixed by Pope Innocent 
 I., A. D. 405, by a special decree. Why precisely 
 these books were selected from the mass of literature 
 then in existence and use, is — except in two or three 
 cases where the prevailing sentiment of the actual 
 Church threw out a book like Enoch or kept in a 
 book like the Apocalypse — still open to conjecture. 
 In such a dilemma Schwegler's conjecture, that the 
 irenical or reconciling books were retained, and the 
 partisan writings dropped, is as plausible as any, 
 perhaps more so. The Church of Rome had two 
 patron saints — Peter and Paul ; it claimed to be 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I4I 
 
 founded by both Apostles, and, on this principle, 
 adopted its canon of scripture. The New Testa- 
 ment, by its arrangement, was, it is claimed, an ex- 
 pression in literature of the Catholic claim. 
 
 As regards the Christ idea, though formed in the 
 East, the West gave it currency, made it the central 
 feature of a vast religious system, crowned it and 
 placed it on a throne. Had the creative thought of 
 Judaism been confined to the East, our concern with 
 it need have gone no further. But the thought was 
 not confined to the East, even in the widest compre- 
 hension of that term. The Jews were everywhere. 
 The repeated disasters which befel their country gave 
 fresh impulse to their creed. Their ideas spread as 
 their state diminished ; and their ideas were so vital 
 that they captured and engaged the floating specula- 
 tions of the Gentile world whenever they were en- 
 countered. In Alexandria, where Jews had been for 
 two hundred and fifty or three hundred years, and 
 whither they flocked by thousands after each fresh 
 national disaster, the faith, instead of being extin- 
 guished by the flood of speculation in that busy 
 centre of the world's thought, revived, drew in co- 
 pious supplies of blood from the Greek spirit, and 
 entered on a new career. If it be true, as is declared 
 in Smith's Dictionary of Geography, that when the 
 city of Alexandria was founded (B. C. 332) it was laid 
 out in three sections, one of which was assigned to 
 
142 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 the Jews, their political and social influence must 
 have corresponded to their numbers. Prof. Huide- 
 koper revives and reargues the belief, that travelled 
 men of letters from Greece, preeminent among them, 
 Plato, v^rho visited Egypt, borrowed from the Jews 
 the ideas which ennobled and beautified the Greek 
 philosophy. The doctrines of the Stoics, Greek and 
 Roman, bear, in Mr. Huidekoper's opinion, evident 
 marks of Jewish origin. This is going, we think, 
 beyond warrant of the facts. We may claim much 
 less and still place very high the intellectual sway of 
 this remarkable people. It may be confidently as- 
 serted, that in portions of Asia Minor, Syria, and 
 Northern Egypt, their faith had largely displaced the 
 ancient superstitions. 
 
 The splendid literature of the Apocrypha, Eccles- 
 iasticus and Wisdom, the rich fund of speculation in 
 the Talmud, the intellectual wealth of Philo, the 
 Pauline and Johannean Gnosis, brilliantly attest their 
 intellectual vigor. The Rev. Brooke Foss Walcott, 
 in Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible," declares, that 
 from the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, in the 
 year 70, the power of Judaism " as a present living 
 force, was stayed." But such a statement can be 
 accepted only in a much qualified sense. The de- 
 struction of Jerusalem put an end to the State more 
 completely than the overthrow of any modern city 
 could do; for the holy city was the home of the 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I43 
 
 national life in a peculiar sense ; it was the seat of 
 the national worship in which the national life cen- 
 tred. With the temple fell the institutions that 
 rested on the temple. When the walls were thrown 
 down and the grand buildings levelled, it was like 
 erasing the marks of history, tearing up the roots of 
 tradition and setting the seal of destiny on the 
 nation's future. The territory was small ; the power 
 of the great city was felt in every part of it, and the 
 quenching of its light left the land in darkness. But 
 the catastrophe which terminated the existence of 
 the State, gave a new life to the religious idea and 
 opened a new arena for its conquests. It greatly 
 increased the number of Jews in the city of Rome, 
 the imperial city of the West, the conquering metrop- 
 olis ; raised the congregations already existing there 
 to a position of considerable importance ; served to 
 unite, by the sympathy of a common sorrow, parties 
 that had been divided ; had the effect in some meas- 
 ure to weaken antipathies, harmonize opinions and 
 inflame zeal ; in a word, transferred to Italy the 
 faith that, in outward form, had been crushed in 
 Palestine. Thenceforth Judaism, which had been a 
 blended worship and polity, ceased to be a polity, 
 and became more intensely than ever, because more 
 exclusively, a worship. 
 
 The history of the settlement of Jews in Rome, 
 is naturally obscure. Being mainly of the mercantile 
 
144 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 and trading class their presence there might have 
 been expected early. They were restless, enterpris- 
 ing, industrious, eager and skilful in barter ; and Rome 
 attracted all such, being the business centre of the 
 western world. Political affairs at home were never 
 long favorable to peaceful pursuits, and were frequent- 
 ly in such confusion that the transactions of ordinary 
 existence were precarious. The numbers that were 
 carried away to Babylon comprised it is probable the 
 more eminent class. As many, if not- more, found 
 their way to other cities, and of these Rome received 
 its share. The earliest mention brings them before 
 us as already of consequence from their wealth and 
 intelligence. Sixty years before the christian era, 
 Cicero commended Lucius Valeiuus Flaccus, praetor 
 of the district of Asia Minor, because he did not en- 
 courage an exorbitant expenditure of money on the 
 construction of the temple, by Jews, the exportation 
 of whose wealth from Rome was felt as an evil. He 
 states that under the directions of Flaccus, one hundred 
 pounds weight of gold (^25,000) had been seized at 
 Apamea, in Asia Minor ; twenty pounds at Laodicea. 
 The Jews were rich. Their demonstrations of grief 
 at the death of Julius Csesar, the conqueror of their 
 conqueror, Pompey, and the enlightened friend of the 
 people, argued by the number and loudness of the 
 voices, the presence of a multitude. One may read 
 in any book of Jewish history that Josephus reck- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 45 
 
 oned at eight thousand the Jews who were present, 
 when at the death of king Herod, his son Archelaus 
 appeared before Augustus ; that the poor among 
 them were numerous enough to procure from Augus- 
 tus a decree authorizing them to receive their share 
 of the bounty of corn on another day, when the 
 day of genera] distribution fell on their Sabbath ; that 
 one emperor expelled them as a dangerous element in 
 the city ; that another for the same reason laid spe- 
 cial penalties and burdens on them ; that the aristo- 
 cratic party was steadily hostile to them. Tacitus, 
 their enemy, speaks of the deportation of four thou- 
 sand young Israelites to Sardinia. Josephus makes 
 the astounding, the fabulous statement that in the year 
 66, the Jews in Rome required two hundred and fifty- 
 six thousand lambs for their paschal commemoration.* 
 Such a provision would imply a population of two 
 million and a half at least. That the Jews were of 
 some importance is attested by the comments made 
 on them by Roman writers ; by Martial, who alludes 
 to their customs in his epigrams ; by Ovid, who crit- 
 icises their observance of the Sabbath as having the 
 character of a debasing superstition and introduces a 
 shirk who, having exhausted all pretexts, makes a 
 pretext of respecting the Sabbath in order not to in- 
 cur the ill will of the Jews ; by Persius, who remarks 
 
 * Bellum Judaicum, VII. 17. 
 10 
 
146 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 satirically on the Sabbath observances and the 
 rite of circumcision ; by Plutarch, who minutely 
 describes the Mosaic system of laws. Satire be- 
 trays fear as well as dislike. The great writer dis- 
 dains to caricature people who are inconspicuous. 
 Juvenal was a great writer, and his envenomed raillery 
 against the Jews has become familiar by quotation, 
 it would seem, from his invectives, that Jewish ideas 
 and practices had crept into public approval, and 
 were exerting an influence on the education of Roman 
 youth. He complains bitterly of parents who bring 
 up their children to think more of the laws of Moses 
 than of the laws of their country. — " Some there are, 
 assigned by fortune to Sabbath fearing fathers, who 
 adore nothing but the clouds and the genius of the 
 sky ; who see no distinction between the swine's flesh 
 as food and the flesh of man. Habitually despising 
 the laws of Rome, they study, keep and revere the 
 code of Judaea, a tradition given by Moses in a dark 
 volume. The blame is with the father, with whom 
 every seventh day is devoted to idleness, and with- 
 drawn from the uses of life." Juvenal lived in the 
 latter part of the first and the early part of the second 
 century, about a generation after the destruction of 
 Jerusalem. Admitting the genuineness of the pas- 
 sage, and the ground of the criticism, neither of which 
 is disputed, the influence of the Jews was by no 
 means contemptible. 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I47 
 
 Milman conjectures that while the number of 
 Jews in Rome was much increased, their respectabil- 
 ity as well as their popularity were much diminished 
 by the immense influx of the most destitute as well as 
 of the most unruly of the race, who were swept into 
 captivity by thousands after the fall of Jerusalem. 
 This may be true. There is reason to believe that 
 the importation of so great a number of strangers 
 was attended by poverty, distress, and squalor, hor- 
 rible to think of. It could not have been otherwise. 
 That they should infest and infect whole districts of 
 the city ; that they should pitch their vagabond tents 
 on vacant plots of ground, and should change fair dis- 
 tricts, gardens and groves into disreputable and foul 
 precincts ; that they should resort to mean trades for 
 support, peddling, trafficking in old clothes, rags, 
 matches, broken glass, or should sink into mendi- 
 cancy, is simply in the nature of things. But it is fair 
 to suppose that the exiles from Jerusalem would bring 
 with them the memory of their sufferings during the 
 unexampled horrors of that tremendous war ; would 
 bring with them also a fiercer sense of loyalty to the 
 faith for which such agonies had been borne, such 
 sacrifices had been made. That they held their 
 religion dear, is certain. Their Sabbaths were ob- 
 served, their laws revered, their synagogues fre- 
 quented, their peculiarities of race c' erished and 
 perpetuated by tradition from father to son. There is 
 
148 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 reason to think that they anticipated the Christians 
 in their practice of burying their dead in the cata- 
 combs, which bore a strong resemblance to the rocky 
 caverns where in the fatherland, their ancestors were 
 laid. The catacombs in the neighborhood of the 
 Transtevere, the district where the Jews mostly lived, 
 are plainly associated with them. The seven- 
 branched candlestick appears on the wall, and the in- 
 scriptions bear witness to the pious constancy of the 
 race.* They made proselytes among the pagans 
 weary of their decrepit and moribund faiths, and thus 
 extended the religious ideas which they so tenaciously 
 held. Among'themselves there was close association, 
 partly from tradition and partly from race. Some 
 semblance of their ancient institutions was kept up ; 
 their general council ; their tribunal of laws. Cir- 
 cumstances alone prevented them from maintaining 
 their ancestral religion in its grandeur. Seneca, 
 about the middle of the first century, represents Jew- 
 ish usages as having pervaded all nations ; he is 
 speaking of the Sabbath. Paul found thriving syna- 
 gogues, wherever he went, and wrote to some that he 
 could not visit, before the destruction of Jerusalem 
 made the final dispersion. 
 
 The Messianic hope was strong in these people ; 
 all the stronger on account of their political degrada- 
 tion. Born in sorrow, the anticipation grew keen in 
 * See Milman's Jews, II. p. 461. 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I49 
 
 bitter hours. That Jehovah would abandon them, 
 could not be believed. The thought would be atheism. 
 The hope kept the eastern Jews in a perpetual state 
 of insurrection. The cry, " lo here, lo there ! " was 
 incessant. The last great insurrection, that of Bar- 
 Cochab, revealed an astonishing frenzy of zeal. It 
 was purely a Messianic uprising. Judaism had excited 
 the fears of the Emperor Hadrian,* and induced him 
 to inflict unusual severities on the people. He had 
 forbidden circumcision, the rite of initiation into their 
 church ; he had prohibited the observance of the 
 Sabbath and the public reading of the law, thus dry- 
 ing up the sources of the national faith. He had even 
 threatened to abolish the historical rallying point of 
 the religion by planting a Roman colony on the site 
 of Jerusalem and building a shrine to Jupiter on the 
 place where the temple had stood. Measures so 
 violent and radical could hardly have been prompted 
 b}' anything less alarming than the upspringing of 
 that indomitable conviction which worked at' the 
 heart of the people. The effect of the violence was 
 to stimulate that conviction to fury. The night of 
 their despair was once more illumined by the star of 
 the east. The banner of the Messiah was raised. 
 Portents as of old were seen in the sky ; the clouds 
 were watched for the glory that should appear. Bar- 
 Cochab, the " son of the star," seemed to fill out the 
 * See Huidekoper's "Judaism in Rome," p. 325-329. 
 
ISO THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 popular idea of the deliverer. Miracles were ascribed 
 to him ; flames issued from his mouth. The vulgar 
 imagination made haste to transform the audacious 
 fanatic into a child of David. Multitudes flocked to 
 his standard. "The whole Jewish race throughout 
 the world," says Milman, " was in commotion ; those 
 who dared not betray their interest in the common 
 cause openly, did so in secret, and perhaps some of 
 the^ wealthy Jews in the remote provinces privately 
 contributed from their resources." " Native Jews 
 and strangers swelled his ranks. It is probable that 
 many of the fugitives from the insurgents in Egypt 
 and Cyrene had found their way to Palestine and lay 
 hid in caves and fastnesses. No doubt some from the 
 Mesopotamian provinces came to the aid of their 
 brethren." " Those who had denied or disguised their 
 circumcision, hastened to renew that distinguishing 
 mark of their Israelitish descent, to entitle themselves 
 to a share in the great redemption." The insurrec- 
 tion gained head. The heights about Jerusalem were 
 seized and occupied ; fortifications were erected ; 
 caves were dug, and subterranean passages cut be- 
 tween the garrisoned positions ; arms were collected ; 
 nothing but the " host of angels " was needed to in- 
 sure victory. The angels did not appear ; the Roman 
 legions did. The carnage, during the three or four 
 years of the war — for so long and possibly longer, the 
 war lasted — was frightful. The Messiah, not proving 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I5I 
 
 himself a conqueror, was held to have proved himself 
 an impostor, the " son of a lie." The holy city was 
 once more destroyed, this time completely. A new 
 city, peopled by foreigners, arose on its site. The 
 effect of the outbreak, which was felt far and wide, in 
 time and space, was disastrous to Jewish influence in 
 the empire. From this time Judaism lost its good 
 name, and at the same time its hold on the cultivated 
 mind of Europe. Fanaticism so wild and destructive 
 was entitled to no respect. 
 
 The Christians, of course, took no part in the great 
 rising, and had no interest in' it. It was their faith 
 that the Messiah had already come ; and however con- 
 fident their expectation of his reappearance to judge 
 the nations and redeem his elect, time had so far 
 sobered the hopes of even the rudest among them, that 
 they no longer looked for a man of war, no longer 
 -were attracted by banners in the hands of ruffians or 
 trumpet blasts blown by human lips. The feeling was 
 gaining ground, if it was not quite confirmed, that in- 
 stead of waiting for the Christ to come to them, they 
 were to go to him in his heaven. Hence, Jews, 
 though they might be in the essentials of their reli- 
 gious faith, they were wholly alienated from those of 
 their race who looked for a cosmical or political de- 
 monstration. That this want of sympathy and failure 
 to participate, widened the breach between them and 
 
1 52 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 the Jews who still expected a temporal deliverer, there 
 can be little question ; that in times of great excite- 
 ment, the Christian Jews were exposed to scoffing 
 and persecution is equally undeniable. Bar-Cochab 
 treated them with extreme cruelty. It is even prob- 
 able that in Rome and the provinces of the empire a 
 settled hatred of the Christians animated Jews of the 
 average stamp, and found expression in the usual 
 forms of popular malignity. It is easy to believe that 
 Jews in Rome, possessing influence in high quarters, 
 thrust Christians between themselves and persecution. 
 This, indeed, is extremely probable.* But that, in or- 
 dinary times, an active animosity prevailed on the 
 part of the Jews of the old school against Jews of the 
 new school, is not clearly proved. The latter were 
 orthodox, conservative Jews, loyal to the national faith 
 in every respect save one, namely, their persuasion 
 that the Christ was no longer to be looked for, having 
 already appeared. To those Jews, who had abandon- 
 ed the belief that he would appear, or who had allowed 
 that belief to sink into the background of their minds, 
 the belief of the Christians would occasion no bitter- 
 ness. It is still a common impression that the 
 persecution recorded in the book of "The Acts of 
 the Apostles," to which Stephanos, the Greek convert, 
 fell a victim, was directed by Jews against Christians. 
 
 * See "Judaism in Rome," p. 245. 
 
THE CEADLE OF THE CHRIST. 153 
 
 But it has been made to appear more than probable, 
 — admitting the historical truth of the narrative — 
 that the assault was made by the Judaizing upon the 
 anti-Judaizing Christians ; the Jews who were not 
 Christians at all, taking no part in it. The reasoning 
 upon which this conclusion is based, will be found in 
 Zeller's book on the " Acts," an exhaustive treatise 
 which must be studied by anybody who would under- 
 stand that curious composition. The main positions 
 may be apprehended by the intelligent reader on 
 carefully perusing the story as written, and noting the 
 conspicuous fact, that the quarrel is between radicals 
 and conservatives ; between the advocates of a broad 
 policy, comprehending Greeks and Romans on the 
 same terms with Jews, and the champions of a re- 
 stricted policy, confining the benefits of the Messiah's 
 advent to the true Israelites. 
 
 The destruction of Jerusalem was one of the 
 causes that may have operated to close this gulf. By 
 breaking up the head-quarters of the Christian con- 
 servatism, and dispersing the lingerers there among 
 the inhabitants of Gentile cities, it weakened their 
 ties, widened their experience, softened their prejudi- 
 ces, and prepared them to accept the larger interpre- 
 tation of their faith. The writings of the New Tes- 
 tament, all of them produced after the destruction of 
 Jerusalem, some of them fifty or sixty years after, 
 none of them less than ten or fifteen years, bear 
 
1 54 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 traces of this enlargement. The Jewish christians 
 hving in Greek and Roman Cities could hardly avoid 
 the temptations to adopt that view of their faith 
 which commended it to the communities whereof they 
 were a part, and this was the view presented by Paul 
 and his school, the intellectual, or, as some prefer to 
 call it, the " spiritual " view. According to this view, 
 also, the new religion was grafted on the old, Judaism 
 was the foundation ; the root from which sprung the 
 branches, however widely spreading. Paul, as has 
 been remarked, addressed himself invariably to Jews, 
 in the first instance, and turned to the Gentiles only 
 when the Jews rejected him. The essential beliefs 
 of the religious Jew he retained, never exchanging 
 them for the beliefs of Paganism, or qualifying them 
 with the speculations of heathen philosophy. He 
 labored in the interest of the faith of Israel, broadly 
 interpreted, nor, in respect of his fundamental con- 
 ceptions, did he ever wander far from the religion of 
 his fathers. The spiritual distance between the 
 school he founded, and the school that in his life 
 time he opposed, was not so wide that it might not 
 in course of time, be diminished, until at length it 
 disappeared entirely. Parties holding the same car- 
 dinal belief, will not forever be separated by inciden- 
 tal barriers, especially when, as was the case with the 
 destruction of Jerusalem, providence moves the chief 
 barriers away. 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. IS5 
 
 Other inducements to a good understanding 
 between the two parties of Christian Jews were at 
 work. Heresies of all sorts were springing up with- 
 in the churches, which could be suppressed only by 
 the moral power of a common persuasion in the 
 minds of the chief bodies. Questions were raised 
 which neither branch of the christian community 
 could satisfactorily answer ; controversies arose, 
 demanding something like an ecclesiastical authority 
 to adjust. Unless the new religion was to split into 
 petty sections and be pulverized to nothingness, the 
 restoration of old breaches was an absolute neces- 
 sity. The danger was of too sudden and artifi- 
 cial a compromise between the main divisions, re- 
 sulting in a compact organization that might arrest 
 the movements of the spirit of liberty. The 
 church did eventually obtain supremacy in dogma 
 and rite, through the imperative demand for 
 unity that was urgently pressed early in the second 
 century. 
 
 Judaism contained in its bosom two elements, one 
 stationary, the other progressive ; one close, the 
 other expansive ; one centralizing in Judaea and 
 waiting till it should attract the outer world to it, 
 the other forth reaching beyond Palestine, and seek- 
 ing to commend the faith of Israel to those who 
 knew it not. These two elements coexisted from 
 early times, and caused perpetual ferment by their 
 
156 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 struggles to overmaster each other. The priest 
 stood for the one principle, the narrower, the fixed, 
 the instituted ; the prophet stood ior the other, the 
 intellectual, the expansive, the progressive. The 
 priest stayed at home to administer the ordinances ; 
 the prophet journeyed about, to spread the salva- 
 tion. The priest was a fixture, the prophet was a 
 missionary. 
 
 The two divisions of the earliest Christian com- 
 munity represented these counter tendencies. The 
 school of Peter, James, and John, the hierarchial, 
 conservative school, maintained the attitude of ex- 
 pectation. They waited and prayed, exacted rigid 
 compliance with ordinances ; clung to their associa- 
 tions with places and seasons ; were tenacious of 
 holy usages ; required punctuality and accuracy of 
 posturing, were strict in conformity with legal pres- 
 criptions, made a point of circumcision, or other rites 
 of initiation into the true church. The school of Paul 
 and ApoUos took up the principle of universality, 
 dispensed with whatever hampered their movements 
 and impeded their action, and, taking essential ideas 
 only, making themselves "all things to all men, if 
 peradventure, they might win some," preached the 
 message freely, to as many as would hear. The two 
 principles, however discordant in operation, demand- 
 ed each other. They could not long exist apart ; the 
 unity and the universality were mutually complement- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 5/ 
 
 ary. Unity alone, would bring isolation, solitariness, 
 and ultimate death from diminution. Universality 
 alone would lead to dissipation, attenuation, and dis- 
 appearance. It was therefore not long before the 
 extremes drew together and met. 
 
 Lecky, the historian of European morals, assigns 
 as a reason why the Jews in Rome were less vehe- 
 mently persecuted than the Christians, that " the 
 Jewish religion was essentially conservative and 
 unexpansive. The Christians, on the other hand, 
 were ardent missionaries." Would it not be more 
 exact to say that the Jews of one school were essen- 
 tially conservative and unexpansive ; that the Jews of 
 another school were ardent missionaries ? That the 
 one school should be persecuted, while the other was 
 left in peace, was perfectly natural, especially in com- 
 munities where their essential identity was not 
 understood. There is no necessity for supposing 
 that the two faiths were actually distinguished 
 because one attracted attention and provoked attack, 
 while the other did nothing of the kind. Not history 
 only, but common observation furnishes abundant 
 examples of faiths fundamentally the same, meeting 
 very different fortunes, according to the attitude 
 which circumstances compelled them to assume. 
 The Christians might have presented the aggressive 
 front of Judaism, as Paul did, and still not have 
 forfeited their claim to be true children of Israel. 
 
IS8 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 There is, in fact, no doubt that discerning persons 
 perceived the substantial identity of the two religions. 
 It is conceded on all sides, 'by Jewish and by Chris- 
 tian writers, — Milman and Salvador, Jost and Meri- 
 vale, corroborating one another, — that Jews were 
 taken for Christians and Christians for Jews. They 
 were subjected to the same criticism ; they were ex- 
 posed to the same contumely. Indeed it may be 
 questioned whether the early persecutions that were 
 inflicted on the Christians were not really directed 
 against the Jews, whose reputation for restlessness 
 and fanaticism, for stiffness and intolerance, was 
 established in the minds of all classes of society. The 
 Jews were a mark for persecution before there was a 
 Christian in Rome, before the Christian era began. 
 They were persecuted on precisely the same pretexts 
 that were used in the case of the Christians. They 
 had a recognized locality, standing and character. 
 They were many in number and considerable in in- 
 fluence. The lower orders disliked their austerity ; 
 the higher orders dreaded their organization ; philoso- 
 phers despised them as superstitious ; politicians 
 hated them as intractable ; emperors used them when 
 they wished to divert angry comment from their own 
 acts. They were " fair game " for imperial pursuit. 
 A raid on the Jews was popular. It is possible, to 
 say the least, that the Christians would have passed 
 unmolested but for their association with the Israel- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 159 
 
 ites. This is no novel insinuation ; Milman hinted at 
 it more than a quarter of a century ago, in his " His- 
 tory of Christianity." " When the public peace was 
 disturbed by the dissensions among the Jewish popu- 
 lation of Rome, the summary sentence of Claudius 
 visited both Jews and Christians with the same in- 
 different severity. So the Neronian persecution was 
 an accident arising out of the fire at Rome ; no part 
 of a systematic plan for the suppression of foreign 
 religions. It might have fallen on any other sect or 
 body of men who might have been designated as vic- 
 tims to appease the popular resentment. Accus- 
 tomed to the separate worship of the Jews, to the 
 many, Christianity appeared at first only as a modifica- 
 tion of that belief."* The same conjecture is more 
 boldly ventured in the History of Latin Christianity. 
 "What caprice of cruelty directed the attention of 
 Nero to the Christians, and made him suppose them 
 victims important enough to glut the popular indigna- 
 tion at the burning of Rome, it is impossible to deter- 
 mine. The cause and extent of the Doraitian perse- 
 cution is equally obscure. The son of Vespasian was 
 not likely to be merciful to any connected with the 
 fanatic Jews." " At the commencement of the second 
 century, under Trajan, persecution against the Chris- 
 tians is raging in the East. That, however, (I feel 
 
 * History of Christianity, 11; p. 8. 
 
l60 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 increased confidence in the opinion), was a local, or 
 rather Asiatic persecution, arising out of the vigilant 
 and not groundless apprehension of the sullen and 
 brooding preparation for insurrection among the 
 whole Jewish race (with whom Roman terror and 
 hatred still confounded the Christians), which broke 
 out in the bloody massacres of Cyrene and Cyprus, 
 and in the final rebellion, during the reign of Hadrian, 
 under Bar-Cochab." * If the Christians made them- 
 selves particularly obnoxious, they did so by their 
 zeal for beliefs which they shared with the Jews and 
 derived from them ; beliefs in the personality of God, 
 the immediateness of Providence, the law of moral 
 retribution, and the immortal destinies of the human 
 soul. Their belief in the ascended and reigning 
 Christ gave point to their zeal; but the Jews, too, 
 clung to their hope of the Christ, and through the 
 vitality of their hope were known. 
 
 The importance ascribed to Christianity as a 
 special moral force working in the constitution of the 
 heathen world, is, by recent admission, acknowledged 
 to have been much exaggerated. The chapter on 
 " The state of the world toward the middle of the first 
 century" in Renan's "Apostles," sums up with singu- 
 lar calmness, clearness and easy strength, the in- 
 fluences that were slowly transforming the social con- 
 
 * Vol. I. ; p. 528. 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. l6l 
 
 dition of the empire ; the nobler ideas, the purer 
 morals, the amenities and humanities that were steal- 
 ing in to temper the violence, mitigate the ferocity, 
 soften the hardness and uplift the grossness of the 
 western world. Samuel Johnson's little essay on 
 "The Worship of Jesus" is a subtle glance into the 
 same facts, tracing the efficacy of powers that co- 
 operated in producing the atmospheric change which 
 was as summer succeeding winter over the civilized 
 earth. Mr. Lecky, with broader touch, but accurately 
 and conscientiously, paints a noble picture on the 
 same subject. But other artists, of a different school, 
 make the same representation. Merivale, lecturing 
 in 1864, on the Boyle foundation, in the Chapel 
 Royal, at Whitehall, on the " Conversion of the 
 Roman Empire," in the interest of the christian 
 Church, says, " the influence of Grecian conquest 
 was eminently soothing and civilizing ; it diffused ideas 
 of humanity and moral culture, while the conquerors 
 themselves imbibed on their side the highest of moral 
 lessons, lessons of liberality, of toleration, of sympathy 
 with all God's human creation." " Plutarch, in a few 
 rapid touches, enforced by a vivid illustration which 
 we may pass over, gives the picture of the new hu- 
 mane polity, the new idea of human society flashed 
 upon the imagination of mankind by the establish- 
 ment of the Macedonian Empire. Such, at least, it 
 appeared to the mind of a writer five centuries later ; 
 
1 62 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 but there are traces preser'C'ed, even in the wrecks of 
 ancient civilization, of the moral effect which it 
 actually produced on the feelings of society, much 
 more nearly contemporaneous. The conqueror, in- 
 deed, perished early, but not prematurely. The great 
 empire was split into fragments, but each long pre- 
 served a sense of the unity from which it was broken 
 off. All were leavened more or less with a common 
 idea of civilization, and recognized man as one being 
 in various stages of development, to be trained under 
 one guidance and elevated to one spiritual level. In 
 the two great kingdoms of Egypt and Syria, which 
 sprang out of the Macedonian, — in the two great 
 cities of Alexandria and Antioch, to which the true 
 religion owes so deep a debt, — the unity of the human 
 race was practically asserted and maintained." " After 
 three centuries of national amalgamation, the result 
 of a widespread political revolution, after the diffusion 
 of Grecian ideas among every people, from the Ionian 
 to the Caspian or the Red Sea, and the reception in 
 return, of manifold ideas, and in religious matters of 
 much higher ideas, from the Persian, the Indian, the 
 Egyptian and the Jew, the people even of Athens, 
 the very centre and eye of Greece, were prepared to 
 admit the cardinal doctrine of Paul's preaching." 
 
 The same writer cordially admits the moral grand- 
 eur and the moral power of the philosophers whose 
 teaching had, for several generations, been leavening 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 163 
 
 the thought and ennobling the humanity of the 
 Roman world. " The philosophy of the Stoics, the 
 highest and holiest moral theory at the time of our 
 Lord's coming, — the theory which most worthily con- 
 tended against the merely political religion of the day, 
 the theory which opposed the purest ideas and the 
 loftiest aims to the grovelling principles of a narrow 
 and selfish expediency on which the frame of the 
 heathen ritual rested — was the direct creation of the 
 sense of unity and equality disseminated among the 
 choicer spirits of heathen society by the results of 
 the Macedonian conquest. But for that conquest it 
 could hardly have existed at all. It was the phi- 
 losophy of Plato, sublimed and harmonized by the 
 political circumstances of the times. It was what 
 Plato would have imagined, had he been a subject of 
 Alexander." 
 
 " It taught, nominally at least, the equality of all 
 God's children — of Greek and barbarian, of bond and 
 free. It renounced the exclusive ideas of the com- 
 monwealth on which Plato had made shipwreck of his 
 consistency. It declared that to the wise man all the 
 world is his country. It was thoroughly comprehen- 
 sive and cosmopolitan. Instead of a political union 
 it preached the moral union of all good men, — a city 
 of true philosophers, a community of religious senti- 
 ment, a communion of saints, to be developed partly 
 here below, but more consummately in the future 
 
164 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 State of a glorified hereafter. It aspired, at least, to 
 the doctrine of an immortal city of the soul, a provi- 
 dence under which that immortality.was to be gained, 
 a reward for the good, possibly, but even more 
 dubiously, a punishment of the wicked." 
 
 Merivale, it will be understood, writing in the in- 
 terest of Christianity, makes note of the limitations of 
 the Stoic Philosophy, calls it vague, unsatisfactory and 
 aristocratic, the "peculiarity of a select class of 
 minds ; " and so it was, to a degree ; but that it had a 
 mighty influence throughout the intellectual world, as 
 much as any system of belief could have, must be 
 confessed. So far as ideas went, it comprehended 
 the wisest and best there were. As respected the 
 authority by which the ideas were recommended and 
 guaranteed, it was the authority of the intellectual 
 lights of the world. To say that the truths were lim- 
 ited, is to say what may be said of every intellectual 
 system under the sun, including the beliefs of chris- 
 tian apostles which the christian Church has out- 
 grown. To say that they were not final, is to say 
 what will be affirmed of every intellectual system till 
 the end of time. There the beliefs were, stated, 
 urged, preached with earnestness by men of live 
 minds, fully awake to the needs of the society they 
 adorned, thinking and writing, not for their own en- 
 tertainment, but for the improvement of mankind. 
 Their books were not read by the multitude, the 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 16$ 
 
 multitude could not read : scarcely can they read now. 
 But the men influenced the directors of opinion, the 
 makers of laws, the builders of institutions, the 
 wealthy, the instructed, the high in place. 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten that these ideas of phi- 
 losophy did not remain cold speculations. They bore 
 characteristic fruits in humanity of every kind. The 
 brotherhood was not a sentiment, it was a principle of 
 wide beneficence. The charities of this gospel at- 
 tested the presence of a warm heart in the metropolis 
 of the heathen world. Of this there can no longer 
 be any doubt. Works like that of Denis' " Histoire 
 des Theories et des Id6es Morales dans I'Antiquite," 
 reveal a condition of becoming in the Roman Empire 
 that might dispel the fears of the most skeptical in 
 regard to the continuous moral progress of the race. 
 The immense popular distributions of corn which 
 from being occasional had become habitual in Rome, 
 were as a rule prompted by no humane feeling, were 
 not designed to mitigate suffering or express compas- 
 sion. They were in the main, devices for gaining 
 popularity. Caius Gracchus, who, more than a cen- 
 tury before Christ, carried a law making compulsory 
 the sale of corn to the poor at a nominal price, was 
 perhaps actuated by a worthier motive ; but it is 
 doubtful whether his successors were. Cato of Utica 
 was not. Clodius Pulcher was not. The emperors 
 were obliged to purchase popularity by these enor- 
 
l66 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 mous bribes. It is said that Augustus caused the 
 monthly distribution to be made to two .hundred 
 thousand people. Half a million claimed the bounty 
 under the Antonines. The addition of a ration of 
 oil to the corn ; the substitution of bread for the corn ; 
 the supplementing of this by an allowance of pork ; a 
 subsequent supply of the article of salt to the poor on 
 similarly easy terms ; the distribution of portions of 
 land ; the imperial legacies, donations, gratuities, 
 mentioned as bestowed on occasion ; the public baths 
 provided and thrown open to all at a trifling expense, 
 were also means of winning or retaining the good will 
 of a fickle and turbulent populace. They neither 
 expressed a humane sentiment nor produced a humane 
 result. They were suggested by ambition, no 
 better sometimes than that of the demagogue, and 
 they begot idleness, and demoralization. But some 
 part of the beneficence must have sprung from a more 
 generous motive. The interest manifested by several 
 emperors in public education, and the appropriation 
 made for the maintenance of the children of the poor, 
 five thousand of whom are said, by Pliny, to have been 
 supported by the government, under Trajan, who 
 presume never heard of Christianity, — cannot fairly 
 be ascribed to political motives. The private 
 charities of the younger PHny, who devoted a small 
 patrimony to the maintenance of poor children in 
 Como, his native place ; of Coelia Macrina, who founded 
 
THE CRADLE OF TH^ CHRIST. 167 
 
 a charity for one hundred at Terracina ; Hadrian's, 
 bounties to poor women ; Antonine's loans of money 
 to the poor at reduced rates of interest ; the institu- 
 tions dedicated to the support of girls by Antoninus 
 and Marcus Aurelius ; the private infirmaries for 
 slaves ; the military hospitals, certainly owed their 
 existence to a humane feeling. Pliny is responsible 
 for the statement that both in Greece and Rome the 
 poor had mutual insurance societies which provided 
 for their sick and infirm members. Tacitus expa- 
 tiates on the generosity of the rich, who, on occa- 
 sion of a catastrophe near Rome, threw open their 
 houses and taxed their resources to relieve the suf- 
 fering.* 
 
 Such acts attest a genuine kindness. The pro- 
 tests of the best citizens against the bloody gladiatorial 
 shows, — a protest so eager and persistent that the 
 trade of the gladiator was seriously injured — must 
 have been in the highest degree unpopular, for the 
 populace found in these shows their favorite amuse- 
 ment. The remonstrances of philanthropic men 
 against the barbarities of the penal code ; the call for 
 the abolishment of the death penalty ; the pity for the 
 woes of neglected children ; the indignation at the 
 crime of infanticide ; the earnest interest taken in the 
 
 * For references, see Lecky's "European Morals," II., p. 
 79-81. 
 
1 68 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 problems of prostitution and the most revolting 
 aspects of pauperism were such as might have pro- 
 ceeded from nineteenth century people.* Stronger 
 words were never spoken by American abolitionists 
 than were uttered by pagan lips against the slavery 
 that was pulling down the Roman State. 
 
 That beneficence in the Roman Empire during 
 the latter half of the first century and the first half of 
 the second was fitful, formal, limited, and unim- 
 passioned, as compared with the charities of Chris- 
 tians in their communities, need not be said ; of course 
 it was. The Christians succeeded to the legacies 
 of kindness left by the pagans ; they were compar- 
 atively few in number, and were bound to one another 
 by peculiar ties ; they were themselves of the great 
 family of the poor ; they were obliged to help one 
 another in the only way they could, by personal effort 
 and sacrifice. Their traditions, too, of beneficence 
 were oriental. The difference in spirit between 
 Roman and Christian charity cannot be fairly des- 
 cribed as a difference between heathen charity and 
 christian; it is more just to call it a difference 
 between Eastern charity and Western. The Orient- 
 als, including the Jews, made beneficence in its 
 various forms, an individual duty. Kindness to the 
 sick, the unfortunate, the poor, compassion with the 
 sorrowful, almsgiving to the destitute, hospitality to 
 *See Denis, II., p. 55-218. 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 169 
 
 the stranger, are virtues characteristic of all eastern 
 people. The New Testament chiefly echoes the 
 sentiment of the Old on this matter, and the Old 
 Testament chimes in with the voices of eastern 
 teachers. In the West, government undertook 
 responsibilities which in oriental lands, were assumed 
 by individuals ; people were to a much greater degree 
 massed in orders and classes ; the distance was wider 
 between the governors and the governed, and con- 
 siderations of state more gravely affected the actions 
 which elsewhere seemed to concern only the private 
 conscience and heart. The question of advantage 
 between these two systems is still an open one. In 
 every generation there have been some, christians too, 
 who preferred the western method to the eastern, 
 as being less costly, and more methodical ; the debate 
 on the relative advantages and disadvantages of the 
 personal and the impersonal methods still goes on in 
 modern communities ; neither system prevails ex- 
 clusively in any christian land ; the Latin races still, 
 as a rule, prefer the Roman way, France for example, 
 where charity is a matter of public rather than of 
 private concern. 
 
 The mischiefs of the oriental method were appar- 
 ent before Christianity appeared, and its zealous 
 adoption of them early awakened misgivings. The 
 indiscriminate almsgiving, the elevation of poverty to 
 the rank of a privilege, the glorification of self- 
 
I/O THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 impoverishment, the acceptance of feeling as a divine 
 monitor, and of emotion as a heavenly instinct, the 
 substitution of the worship of the heart for defer- 
 ence to reason, the loose compassion, the practical 
 and professed communism — for some of the fathers 
 maintained that all property was based on usurpation, 
 that all men had a common right in the earth, and 
 that none was entitled to hold wealth except as a 
 trust for others — soon disclosed disastrous results. 
 Against the evils that are fairly chargeable upon 
 the wholesale measures of the imperial bounty, must 
 be offset the equally grave, and in some respects, not 
 dissimilar evils incident to the unprincipled practice 
 of loving kindness on the part of the bishops and 
 their flocks, the increase of the dependent, the en- 
 couragement of pauperism, the waste of wealth, the 
 worse waste of humanity. National philanthrophy in 
 London and New York finds ho more serious obstacle 
 to its advance than the benevolence that is incul- 
 cated in the name of Christ, and by authority of the 
 New Testament. It is the battle of science against 
 sentiment. 
 
 The increased devoutness that showed itself in the 
 empire, about the beginning of the second century, 
 the pious passion that broke out, is attributable to 
 natural causes, that have been mentioned by every 
 author who has written on the subject. It is familiar 
 knowledge that the decay of institutions, the disintegra- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I7I 
 
 tion of social bonds, the general decline of positive 
 religious faith, a decline partly due, possibly, to the 
 tolerance which placed all faiths side by side, was 
 followed, or we might say accompanied by a longing 
 after divine things that was wild in the fervor of its 
 impulse. The complacent reign of skepticism was 
 succeeded by a volcanic outbreak of superstition. 
 What has been called " a storm of supernaturalism " 
 burst forth, with the usual accompaniments of frenzy, 
 and took possession of all classes. Only general 
 causes of this can be assigned. That it was due to 
 any special influence cannot be alleged. That it was 
 due to any " supernatural " interposition of heaven, is 
 an unnecessary supposition. The cursory reader of 
 the history of the empire, as written by intelligent 
 modern scholars, of whatever school, sees plainly 
 enough the pass that things had come to and how 
 they came to it. Christianity came in on the wave of 
 this movement, felt its force, struck into- its channel, 
 was borne aloft on its bosom. It is customary to 
 speak of all this spiritual ferment as a preparation for 
 Christianity ; it was such a preparation as left Chris- 
 tianity little of a peculiar kind to do. What new 
 element it introduced, it would be hard to say now, 
 however easy it seemed half a century ago. The 
 desert land of heathenism has been explored, and the 
 result is a discovery of fertile plains instead of barren- 
 ness. The distinction between the ante-Christian and 
 
172 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 the post-christian eras is, if not obliterated, yet so far 
 effaced, that the transition from one to the other is 
 natural and facile. 
 
 The longing for spiritual satisfaction that stirred 
 in the heart of the empire, found neither its source 
 nor its gratification exclusively in the religion that 
 afterwards became the professed faith of Rome. It 
 slaked its thirst at older fountains, Such longings 
 will, at need, open fountains of living water for their 
 own supply. Passing through the valley of Baca 
 they create a well, the streams whereof fill the pools. 
 The smitten rock pours out its torrents. The hungry 
 soul creates its harvest as it goes along, feeding itself 
 by the way with food that seems to fall miraculously 
 from the sky. It makes a religion if there be none at 
 hand. A new heaven peopled with angels ; a new 
 earth full of providences come into being at its call. 
 But in this emergency the religion was extant in the 
 world, already venerable, already proved. It was the 
 religion of Israel, with all that was necessary to 
 attract attention and command reverence ; a holy 
 God, an immediate providence, a solemn history, a 
 glorious prophecy, an inspiring hope, traditions, in- 
 stitutions, a temple, a priesthood, sacrifices, a code of 
 laws, ceremonial and moral, poetry, learning, music, 
 mystery, stately forms of men and women, judges, 
 kings, heroes, martyrs, saints, a superb literature, 
 legends of virtue, festivals of joy, visions of resurrec- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 73 
 
 tion and judgment, precepts of righteousness, promises 
 of peace, songs of victory and of sorrow, dreams of a 
 heavenly kingdom to be won by obedience to divine 
 law, tender lessons of charity, stern lessons of denial, 
 fascinating attractions and yet more fascinating fears, 
 gentle persuasions and awful menaces, calculated to 
 lay hold on every mood, to thrill and to satisfy every 
 human emotion. The religion of Israel lacked little 
 but outward prestige of power and wealth to make 
 it precisely what the time required ; and in times of 
 real earnestness the prestige of power and wealth is 
 readily dispensed with. The unfashionable faith is 
 the very one to attract worldly people on their first 
 awakening to spiritual sensibility. The show of world- 
 liness is then, to the worldly, particularly offensive. 
 "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride 
 of life," delight in abasing themselves before rags and 
 filth, wishing to reach the opposite extreme. The 
 graces of the religious character, humility, meekness, 
 self-accusation, contrition, find in associations with 
 the coarse, the hard, the repulsive, their fittest ex- 
 pression. Hence it was that Judaism, heretofore the 
 faith of the despised, became the faith of the despisers. 
 Its very dogmatism, its proud exclusiveness and 
 intolerance, were in its favor. Its haughty reserve 
 assisted it ; its superb disdain of other faiths, its 
 boast of antiquity, its claim to a monopoly of the 
 future of the race, exerted a weird spell over the dazed 
 
174 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 and decrepit minds of the superstitious, high and low. 
 Its lofty belief in miracle and sign, fairly constrained 
 the skeptical to bow the head. 
 
 The interest felt in Judaism, and its influence on 
 society in its high places, have already been alluded 
 to, and need not be further insisted on. The testi- 
 mony of Juvenal — the testimony of sarcasm and com- 
 plaint — is enough to establish the fact that a curi 
 osity amounting to infatuation had taken possession 
 especially of the women of Rome. 
 
 If it be asked why Judaism, then, was not made 
 the religion of the empire, instead of Christianity, 
 which it hated with all the fervor of close relation- 
 ship, the answer is at hand : Judaism laid no em- 
 phasis on its cosmopolitan features, and discouraged 
 belief in the historical fulfilment of its own prophecy. 
 The charge that it was a national religion, the religion 
 of a race, it was at no pains to repel ; on the con- 
 trary, it seems to have exaggerated this claim to dis- 
 tinction, standing on its dignity, despising the arts of 
 propagandism and demanding the submission of other 
 creeds. This attitude alone might have recommended 
 the religion in some quarters, and would not have se- 
 riously embarrassed it in any, supposing it to have been 
 loftily and worthily sustained. A graver cause of its 
 unpopularity was its failure to lay stress on its Mes- 
 sianic idea. It would abate nothing of its mono- 
 theistic grandeur. Its God was the everlasting, the 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 75 
 
 infinite, the formless, the invisible. The command 
 to make of Him no image whatever, either animal or 
 human, to associate Him with neither place nor time, 
 was obeyed to the letter. Among a people extremely 
 sensitive to grace of form and beauty of color, the 
 Jews had no art ; they set up no statue ; they painted 
 no picture ; they allowed no emblem that could be 
 worshipped. Their Holy Spirit was an influence ; their 
 Messiah was a distant hope ; their kingdom of heaven 
 was a dream. The Christians of both schools — the 
 conservative and the liberal — thrust into the fore- 
 ground the conceptions which their co-religionists 
 kept in the shadow of anticipation. In their belief, 
 prophecy was fulfilled. The Messiah had come ; he 
 had taken on human shape ; he had passed through 
 an earthly career; he had ascended in visible form 
 to the skies ; he sat there at the right hand of the 
 Majesty on high ; he was active in his care for his 
 own, suffering and sorrowing on earth ; he sent the 
 Holy Spirit, the comforter and guide to his friends 
 in their affliction ; he was the immediate God ; he 
 heard and answered prayer ; he pardoned sin ; he 
 opened the gates of heaven to believers. They did 
 not scruple to make images of him ; to represent 
 him in emblems ; to eke out their own rude art by 
 adopting the art which the heathen had ceased to 
 venerate, and, where they could, re-dedicating statues 
 of Apollo and Jupiter to their Christ. They were 
 
176 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 eager to have legendary portraits accepted as faithful 
 likenesses of their Lord. Fables were invented, like 
 that of Veronica's napkin, to give currency to certain 
 heads as the Christ's own image of himself miracu- 
 lously imprinted on a cloth. They claimed to have 
 seen him, in moments of ecstasy; they ascribed to his 
 prompting, states of feeling, purposes and courses of 
 action. By every means they created and deepened 
 the impression that the Divinity they worshipped was 
 a real God, and no intellectual abstraction. 
 
 This was the very thing the pagan world wanted — 
 z. personal Deity, Providence, Saviour. Through their 
 acquiescence in this demand, other oriental faiths, 
 without a tithe of Israel's grandeur — mythological, 
 superstitious, sensual even — gained a popularity that 
 Judaism could not attain. The strange Egyptian 
 divinities drew many to their shrines. Three em- 
 perors — Commodus, Caracalla and Heliogabalus — 
 are said to have been devoted to the mysteries of 
 Isis and Serapis. Juvenal describes Roman women as 
 breaking the ice on the frozen Tiber, at the dawn of 
 day, and plunging thrice into the stream of purification ; 
 as painfully dragging themselves on bleeding knees 
 around the field of Tarquin ; as projecting pilgrimages 
 to Egypt, expeditions in search of the holy water re- 
 quired at the shrine of the goddess. The Persian 
 Mithras had his throngs of adoring devotees. The 
 prominence given at this period to the statues of 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1/7 
 
 ^Mithras, the existence of temples to Isis and Serapis, 
 attest the power that these divinities exerted over the 
 imagination of the Italian people. These people de- 
 manded deities human in shape and attributes. So 
 clamorous were they for images, that they would con- 
 secrate them at any cost of decency. The emperor 
 Augustus was deified. His statue on the public 
 square, his insignia on a banner, his name on a 
 shield excited veneration. The noblest religion with- 
 out a human centre was less prized than the ignoblest 
 with one, and the faith of Israel was compelled to 
 yield to the degrading fascinations of the Bona Dea. 
 
 The Christian Jews, with their Messiah, took the 
 popular desire at its best, and satisfied it. The image 
 they presented, though to the mind's eye only, was 
 so much more gracious than the loveliest that eastern 
 or western art furnished that its acceptance was 
 assured. Early in the fourth century the impression 
 made was too deep to be overlooked by the controllers 
 of public opinion. The politic Constantine, seeking 
 a spiritual ally, and finding none among the faiths 
 of his own land, called in the Nazarene to aid him in 
 establishing an empire over the souls of his subjects. 
 Christ was king in fact before he was formally crowned. 
 
 But the true history of his reign began with the 
 ceremony of his coronation ; the history of Chris- 
 tianity as a distinct religion commences with the 
 so-called " conversion " of Constantine. Latin Chris- 
 
1/8 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 tianity was the first, some think the consummate, in 
 fact the only, Christianity. The adoption of the re- 
 hgion as the State Church, was for it a new creation. 
 From that moment, began the efforts to complete its 
 dogmatical system by a succession of councils, the 
 first one, that of Nicasa, being held A. D. 325, 
 about twelve years after the imperial " conversion ;" 
 that of Sardica — ecclesiastically of great importance 
 — in 347, and the councils of Aries and of Milan in 
 
 352. 
 
 Once seated on a throne of power, a crown on his 
 head, a sceptre in his hand, clothed with authority, 
 protected by armies, girded with law, instigator of 
 policies, chief of ceremonies, the Christ in heaven 
 rapidly completed the structure whereof Constantine 
 had placed the corner-stone. The materials he gath- 
 ered right and left, wherever they were to be found. 
 Right of supremacy made them his. Judaism gave 
 temple, and synagogue, the organization of its priest- 
 hood, the distinction between priest and layman, its 
 worship, music, scripture, litany, sentiment and usage 
 of prayer, its ascetic spirit, its doctrines of resurrec- 
 tion and judgment, its code of righteousness, its altar 
 forms, its history, and its prophecy. Paganism was laid 
 under contribution for its military spirit. The " sta- 
 tions " of the Passion, were copied from army usage, 
 so were its practical temper, its regard for precedent 
 law and policy, its rules of obedience, its distrust of 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I/Q 
 
 speculation, its horror of schism, its passion for unity, 
 its skill in diplomacy, its solid respect for authority. 
 Quietly, without leave asked, or apology offered, the 
 insignia of the old faiths were transferred to the new. 
 The title of Sovereign Pontifex, or bridgemaker— given 
 originally to the chief of the guild of mechanics, pass- 
 ed along from the period of the earliest kings through 
 persons of consular dignity, and finally bestowed on 
 the Roman emperors ; a title given at first, in com- 
 memoration of th.e pons yanicularis, which joined the 
 city to the highest of the surrounding hills — was con- 
 ferred on the bishops or popes whose office it was to 
 bridge over the gulf between the earth and the celes- 
 tial mountains. The statues of Jupiter, Apollo, Mer- 
 cury, Orpheus, did duty for the Christ. The Thames 
 river god officiates at the baptism of Jesus in the 
 Jordan. Peter holds the keys of Janus. Moses wears 
 the horns of Jove. Ceres, Cybele, Demeter, assume 
 new names as " Queen of Heaven," " Star of the Sea," 
 " Maria Illuminatrix ;" Dionysius is St. Denis ; Cosmos 
 is St. Cosmo ; Pluto and Proserpine resign their seats 
 in the hall of final judgment, to the Christ and his 
 mother. The Parcae depute one of their number, 
 Lachesis, the disposer of lots, to set the stamp of 
 destiny upon the deaths of Christian believers. The 
 aura placida of the poets, the gentle breeze, is person- 
 ified as Aura and Placida. 'Y)\^perpctnafelicitas of the 
 devotee becomes a lovely presence in the forms of St. 
 
l80 THE CRADLE OF, THE CHRIST. 
 
 Perpetua and St. Felicitas, guardian angels of the pious 
 soul. No relic of Paganism was permitted to remain 
 in its casket. The depositories were all ransacked. 
 The shadowy hands of Egyptian priests placed the 
 urn of holy water at the porch of the basilica, which 
 stood ready to be converted into a temple. Priests of 
 the most ancient faiths of Palestine, Assyria, Babylon, 
 Thebes, Persia, were permitted to erect the altar at 
 the point where the transverse beam of the cross 
 meets the main stem. The hands that constructed 
 the temple in cruciform shape had long become too 
 attenuated to cast the faintest shadow. There Devaki 
 with the infant Crishna, Maya with the babe Boodha, 
 Juno with the child Mars, represent Mary with Jesus 
 in her arms. Coarse emblems are not rejected ; the 
 Assyrian dove is a tender symbol of the Holy Ghost. 
 The rag bags and toy boxes were explored. A bauble 
 which the Roman school-boy had thrown away was 
 picked up and called an "agnus dei." The musty 
 wardrobes of forgotten hierarchies furnished costumes 
 for the officers of the new prince. Alb and chasuble 
 recalled the fashions of Numa's day. The cast off 
 purple habits and shoes of pagan emperors beautified 
 the august persons of christian Popes. The cardinal 
 must be contented with the robes once worn by 
 senators. Zoroaster bound about the monks the 
 girdle he invented as a protection against evil spirits, 
 and clothed them in the frocks he had found conveni- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. l8l 
 
 ent for his ritual. The Pope thrust out his foot to be 
 kissed, as Caligula, Heliogabalus, and Julius Caesar 
 had thrust out theirs. Nothing came amiss to the 
 the faith that was to discharge henceforth the offices 
 of spiritual impression. Stoles, veils, croziers, were 
 all in requisition without too close scrutiny of their 
 antecedents. A complete investigation of this sub- 
 ject will probably reveal the fact that Christianity 
 owes its entire wardrobe, ecclesiastical, symbolical, 
 dogmatical, to the religions that preceded it. The 
 point of difficulty to decide is in what respect Chris- 
 tianity differs from the elder faiths. This is the next 
 task its apologists have to perform. 
 
 But this question does not concern us here. Hav- 
 ing indicated the source whence the religion proceed- 
 ed, and the process by which the successive stages in 
 its development were reached, we have done all that 
 was purposed. We have tried to make it clear that 
 the Messianic conception from which it started, and 
 from which its life was derived at each period of its 
 growth, presided over its destiny in the western 
 world, and introduced it to the place of honor it was 
 afterwards called to fill. 
 
 What that place was and how the Church filled 
 it has been told in a multitude of historical books. 
 The history of Christianity is not the story of a 
 developing idea, but a record of the achievements of 
 an idea developed, organized, instituted. From the 
 
1 82 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 date of the established religion, the writings of the 
 New Testament became the literature of the earliest 
 period. In the western world the mind of Chris- 
 tendom expanded to deeper and wider thoughts, a new 
 literature was originated of great richness, affluence 
 and beauty, and gave expression to ideas which, in 
 the primitive period could not have been formed. 
 The Greek and Latin Fathers, the schoolmen, the 
 caLholic theologians, Italian, Spanish, French, the 
 German mystical writers, the Protestant divines 
 and preachers, have produced writings unsurpassed in 
 intellectual strength and spiritual discernment. The 
 possibilities of speculation have been exhausted ; the 
 abysses of reflection have been sounded ; the heights 
 of meditation have been scaled. The christian idea 
 of salvation has been applied to every phase of hu- 
 man experience, and to every problem of social life. 
 The rudimental conceptions have been distanced ; 
 the original limitaticJns have been overpassed. Rites 
 have been charged with new significance, sym- 
 bols loaded with new meanings, doctrines interpreted 
 in new senses. Christianity as the modern world 
 knows it, is a new creation. The name of Messiah 
 is spoken, but with feelings unknown to the Jews of 
 the first and second century. The New Testament 
 is regarded as a store house of germs, a magazine of 
 texts to be interpreted by the light of the full orbed 
 spirit, and unfolded to meet the needs of an older 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 83 
 
 world. The cord which connected the religion with 
 the mother faith of Israel was broken and the faith 
 entered on an independent existence. To the cradle 
 succeeds the cathedral. 
 
IX. 
 
 JESUS. 
 
 It will be remarked that in the foregoing chapters 
 no account is given of Jesus, and no account made of 
 him. His name has not been written except where 
 the common usage of speech made it necessary. The 
 writer has carefully avoided occasion for expressing 
 an opinion in regard to his character, his performance, 
 or his claim ; has carefully avoided so doing ; the 
 omission has been intentional. The purpose of his 
 essay is to give the history of an idea, not the history 
 of a person, to trace the development of a thought, 
 not the influence of a life, letting it be inferred 
 whether the life were necessary, and if necessary, 
 wherein and how far necessary to the shaping of the 
 thought. But this task will not be judged to have 
 been fairly discharged unless he declares the nature 
 of the inference he himself draws. The question 
 "What think ye of the Christ?" meaning "What 
 think ye of Jesus .' " may be fairly put to him, and 
 
 should be frankly answered. That there are two dis- 
 
 184 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 85 
 
 tinct questions here proposed, need not at the close 
 of this essay be said. Jesus is the nanae of a man ; 
 Christ, or rather The Christ, is the name of an idea. 
 The history of Jesus is the history of an individual ; the 
 history of the Christ is the history of a doctrine. An 
 essay on the Christ-idea touches the person of Jesus, 
 only as he is associated with the Christ-idea or is made 
 a representative of it. Had he not been associated 
 vsrith that idea, either through his own design or in 
 the belief of his countrymen, the omission of all men- 
 tion of his name would provoke no criticism. The 
 common opinion that he was in some sense the 
 Christ ; that but for him the Christ-idea would not 
 have been made conspicuous in the way and at the 
 time it was ; that the ej^istence of the Christian 
 Church, the conversion of Paul, the composition of 
 the New Testament, the course of religious thought 
 in the eastern and western world was directed by his 
 mind ; that the social life, — the morals and manners, 
 the heart, conscience, feeling, soul — of mankind, in 
 the earlier and later centuries of his era was deter- 
 mined by his character, renders necessary a word of 
 comment on the validity of his individual claim. 
 
 If either of the four gospels is to be accepted as 
 biography it must be the first, as being the earliest in 
 date, and as containing le,ss than either of the others 
 of speculative admixture. The first gospel rests, ac- 
 cording to an ancient tradition, on memoranda or 
 
1 86 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 notes taken by a companion of Jesus and afterwards 
 written out, in the popular language of the country, 
 for the use of the disciples and others in Judea and 
 Galilee. The disappearance of all save a few frag- 
 ments of this book, and of any writing answering in 
 description to it, the impossibility of identifying it 
 with the present Gospel of Matthew, or of proving 
 that the existing Gospel of Matthew rests upon it ;* 
 the comparatively late date to which our Greek 
 Matthew must be assigned — thirty years at least, prob- 
 ably fifty or sixty after Jesus' death, and the absolute 
 failure of all attempts to trace its records to an eye 
 witness of any sort, (say nothing of a competent eye 
 
 * The character and influence of the " Gospel of the He- 
 brews " and of other books of the same kind is considered in 
 full by Mr. S. Baring-Gould in " The Lost and Hostile Gospels." 
 Mr. Baring-Gould argues that while neither of our present Gos- 
 pels is entitled to be called genuine in the ordinary sense, they 
 contain authentic biographical materials. It is his opinion that 
 "at the close of the first century almost every Church had its 
 own Gospel, with which alone it was acquainted. But it does 
 not follow that these Gospels were not as trustworthy as 
 the four which we now alone recognize." p. 23. Mr. Baring- 
 Gould's argument is not strong. The first mention of the 
 " Gospel of the Hebrews " is no earlier than the middle of the 
 second century; the remaining fragments of it are too few and 
 too undecisive to be of weight ; and it was, by all confession, 
 written in the interest of the Nazarene or Judaizing Christians. 
 Mr. Baring-Gould himself classes it with the Clementine writ- 
 ings and calls them " The Lost Petrine Gospels." 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 87 
 
 witness, clear of head, tenacious of memory, veracious 
 in speech,) all conspire to stamp with imprudence the 
 conjecture that the Christ of Matthew and the Jesus 
 of history were one and the same. This would be 
 the case were the picture harmoniously proportioned, 
 as it is not. 
 
 The fourth Gospel is usually accepted as the 
 work of a disciple, the "loved disciple," the bosom 
 friend, whose apprehension of the spiritual character 
 of Jesus was much keener and truer than that of 
 any business man, any mere follower, any common- 
 place, inconspicuous person like Matthew. But the 
 fourth Gospel, allowing that it was written by John 
 the disciple, must, to insist on a former remark, have 
 been written in his extreme old age, and after a men- 
 tal and spiritual transformation so complete as to 
 leave no trace of the Galilean youth whom Jesus took 
 to his heart. The zealot has become a mystic ; the 
 Palestinian Jew has become an Asiatic Greek: the 
 "son of thunder" is a philosopher; the fisherman 
 is a cultivated writer, acquainted with the subtlest 
 forms of speculation. Is it conceivable that such 
 a man should have retained his impressions of bio- 
 graphical incidents and personal traits, or that retain- 
 ing them he should have allowed them their due 
 prominence in his record ? can his picture be ac- 
 cepted as a portrait .'' 
 
 Certainly, some are impatient to say, and for this 
 
loo THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 very reason ; as the perfect, the only portrait ; the 
 picture of the very man, the biography of his soul ; we 
 accept it as we accept Plato's portrait of Socrates. 
 But do we accept Plato's protrait of Socrates, as a 
 piece done to the life ? Plato was a great artist, as 
 all the world knows from his authentic works. But 
 even in his case, we do not know whether he, in 
 depicting Socrates, meant to paint the man as he 
 really was, or an ideal head, conceived according to 
 the Socratic type. To compare John's portrait of 
 Jesus with Plato's portrait of Socrates, is besides, a 
 proceeding quite illogical; for we must assume, in 
 the first place, that John painted this portrait of 
 Jesus, and in the next place that the portrait must 
 be a good one because he painted it, — this being the 
 only piece of his ever on exhibition. 
 
 To say with Renan and others that the idealized 
 likeness must from the nature of the case be the 
 correct one, because such a person as Jesus was, is 
 best seen at a distance and by poetic gaze, is again 
 to beg the question. How do we know that Jesus 
 was such a person .'' How do we know that the most 
 spiritual apprehension of him, was the truest ; that 
 they judged him most justly, who judged him from 
 the highest point ; that the glorifying imaginations 
 alone presented his full stature and proportions, that 
 the ordinary minds immediately about him necessarily- 
 misconstrued and misrepresented him ? In the order 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 89 
 
 of experience, historical and biographical truth is dis- 
 covered by stripping off layer after layer of exaggera- 
 tion and going back to the statements of contempora- 
 ries. As a rule, figures are reduced, not enlarged, 
 by criticism. The influence of admiration is recog- 
 nized as distorting and falsifying, while exalting. The 
 process of legend-making begins immediately, goes on 
 rapidly and with accelerating speed, and must be 
 liberally allowed for by the seeker after truth. In 
 scores of instances the historical individual turns out 
 to be very much smaller than he was painted by his 
 terrified or loving worshippers. In no single case 
 has it been established that he was greater, or as 
 great. It is no doubt, conceivable that such a case 
 should occur, but it never has occurred, in known 
 instances, and cannot be presumed to have occurred 
 in any particular instance. The presumptions are 
 against the correctness of the glorified image. The 
 disposition to exaggerate is so much stronger than 
 the disposition to underrate, that even really great 
 men are placed higher than they belong oftener than 
 lower. The historical method works backwards. 
 Knowledge shrinks the man. Eminent examples that 
 jump to recollection instantly confirm this view. 
 
 The case of Mahomet is in point. Here, the crit- 
 ical procedure was twofold ; first to rescue a figure 
 from the depths of infamy and then to recover the 
 same figure from the cloudland of fancy. Under 
 
I go THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 the pressure of christian hate the fame of Mahomet 
 sank to the lowest point. He was impostor, liar, 
 cheat, name for all shamefulness. From this muck 
 heap he has been plucked by valiant hands, and 
 placed on the list of heroes. Now another process 
 is beginning, to find precisely what kind of hero he 
 was ; and it is safe to say that under this process the 
 dimensions of the hero shrink. The arabian estimate 
 of the prophet will not bear close examination. The 
 glamor of pious enthusiasm being dispelled, the 
 traits of nationality show themselves ; the ecstasy is 
 seen to be complicated with, epilepsy ; the revelations 
 partake of the general oriental character ; the truths 
 are the cardinal truths of the Semitic religions ; the 
 personal qualities are of the same cast that dis- 
 tinguishes the arabian mind. The detestation and 
 the homage are both unjustifiable. 
 
 Another example in point is Buddha ; a name 
 covered by ages of fable, and so thickly that his 
 historical existence was long doubted. It was 
 questioned whether he was anything more substantial 
 than a vision. The mist of legend has already been 
 so far dispersed that a grand form is discerned moving 
 up and down in India. Presently it will be measured 
 and outlined. It is safe to predict intellectual and 
 moral shrinkage of the person under the operation of 
 this scrutiny. Just now the impression of his great- 
 ness is somewhat overpowering. He looks morally 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. IQI 
 
 gigantic as compared with teachers who are better 
 known. We quote his sayings with unbounded admi- 
 ration ; we commend his Hfe as an illustration of what- 
 ever most exalts humanity. But if the time ever 
 comes when his lineaments are fully revealed to sight, 
 he will be found neither much greater nor much better 
 than his generation justified. 
 
 The critics of Strauss' " Life of Jesus " insisted on 
 the necessity of a historical foundation for his 
 character. Such a person they declared must l.\ave 
 lived ; he could not have been invented. Strange 
 position to take, in view of the fact that idealization is 
 one of the commonest feats of mankind; that the 
 human imagination is continually constructing 
 heroes out of poltroons, and transmuting lead into 
 gold ! Some idealization there is, by the general con- 
 fession of unprejudiced men. The whole cannot be 
 received as literal fact. There is here and there a 
 bit of color put on to heighten the effect. Who shall 
 decide how much .' If the figure is glorified a little, 
 why not a great deal ? If a great deal, why not 
 altogether.' The materials for constructing the per- 
 son being given, as they are, in the hebrew genius, 
 ,and the plastic power being provided as it is, by the 
 hebrew enthusiasm, the result might have been pre- 
 dicted, a good way in advance of history. The 
 argument against Strauss' method proves too much. 
 
 The critics of Baur urged with ceaseless iteration 
 
192 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 the absurdity of accounting for the New Testament, 
 and explaining the developments of the first century, 
 by means of bodiless ideas, substituting phantoms of 
 thought for persons, intellectual issues for the inter- 
 actions of living men. Life, it was said, presupposes 
 life ; life alone generates life. To create a New 
 Testament out of rabbinical fancies is preposterous. 
 True enough. History is not spectral ; but neither 
 are ideas spectral. Ideas imply living minds, and 
 living minds are persons. But the persons are not 
 of necessity single individuals. They may be multi- 
 tudes ; they may be generations ; they probably are a 
 nation. The individuals that loom up conspicuously 
 represent multitudes, an epoch, of which they are 
 mouth pieces and agents. Do no individuals whatever 
 loom up ? None the less creative is the epoch ; none 
 the less vital are the ideas. The great events of the 
 world depend not on individuals, but on the cumula- 
 tive force and providential meeting of wide social 
 tendencies that have been gathering head for ages 
 and pointing in certain directions. Mahomet, a sensi- 
 tive, receptive, responsive spirit, gave a name to the 
 arabian movement ; he neither originated it, nor 
 finally shaped it. Luther, brave, self-poised, inde- 
 pendent soul, was not the author of the Reformation, 
 though he gave character to it. Others had gone be- 
 fore him, and broken a way. The time for reforma- 
 tion had come, thousands were watching for the hght 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I93 
 
 which Luther descried, and eagerly aided in its diffu- 
 sion. Innumerable sparks burst into flame. He 
 was child, not father of the movement ; so it may have 
 been with Jesus, with Peter, with Paul. They pre- 
 supposed the ideas of their age, and the agency of 
 living men. The literature of the New Testament, 
 which is all that Baur concerned himself with, stands 
 for what it is, a literature ; a product of intellectual 
 activity in the age that created it. The popular 
 notion that Scripture was penned by men whose 
 minds were full of thoughts not their own, but God's, 
 contains a rational truth. All great literature, all 
 literature that is not occasional, incidental, ephemeral, 
 is inspired in this sense. The writers held the pen 
 while the spirit of their age, of many ages, of all ages 
 at length, rolled through them. It is true of all repre- 
 sentative, of all national books. It is true of the 
 "Iliad " of Homer, of Dante's Divina Commedia, of the 
 Book of Job, the Koran, the "Three Kings," the 
 Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Dhammapada, the 
 elder Edda. Such books as express the mind of an 
 epoch are productions of an era, not of a man. The 
 productive force is in the time. The man is of 
 moment but incidentally. In discussing such works, 
 all consideration of the man may be dispensed with. 
 Strauss and Baur were Hegelians, who regarded the 
 world-movements described in literatures and events, 
 as moments in the experience of God. Nothing to 
 
194 THE CRADLE OF TJIE CHRIST. 
 
 them, therefore, was spectral. In tracing the pedigree 
 of ideas, they felt themselves to be tracing the foot- 
 prints of Deity. 
 
 The difficulty of constructing one harmonious 
 character from the four gospels of the New Testa- 
 ment need not be expatiated on here. It is a difficulty 
 that never has been overcome, and that increases in 
 dimensions with our knowledge of the book. It is, of 
 course possible, not 6asy, but possible, for one stand- 
 ing at either extreme to drag the opposite extreme 
 into apparent accord. The believer in the divinity of 
 the Christ planting himself on the doctrine of the 
 Logos, reads his theory into the earlier gospels, loads 
 the language with meaning it was never meant to bear, 
 stretches the homely incidents on the rack of his hy- 
 pothesis, and painfully excavates the figure he has 
 already laid there. The believer in the humanity of 
 the Christ, pursuing the opposite method, belittles the 
 Johannean conception till it comes within the compass 
 of his argument, dilutes the statements, expurgates 
 and attenuates the thought, till nothing remains but 
 sentimentalism. Each vindicates one view by sacri- 
 ficing the other. To one who would preserve both 
 representations, the task of combination is desperate. 
 They are the centres of two opposite systems. One 
 is a human being, a man ; the other is a demi-god. 
 One is a teacher of moral and rehgious truth; the 
 other is an incarnation of the truth. One indicates the 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 95 
 
 way ; the other is the way. One invites to life ; the 
 other is the life. One talks about God and immortali- 
 ty ; the other manifests God, and is immortality. One 
 points to heaven ; the other " is in heaven." One is 
 a helpful human friend ; the other is a divine Saviour. 
 One claims allegiance on the ground of his providen- 
 tial calling ; the other demands spiritual surrender on 
 the ground of his transcendent nature. One collects 
 a body of disciples ; the other forms and consecrates 
 a church, and puts it in charge of a Holy Spirit, that 
 shall save it from error and evil. After what has been 
 said in previous chapters it is unnecessary to enlarge. 
 Let whoever will take Furness' portrait of Jesus on 
 one hand, and Pressensd's on the other ; let him place 
 them side by side ; let him subject them to close 
 scrutiny, comparing each with the original sketches ; 
 and he will rise from the contemplation satisfied that 
 the two pictures cannot represent the same person. 
 
 Scarcely less is the difficulty of constructing a 
 harmonious character from the first gospel alone. 
 Renan brought to this experiment rare powers of 
 mind, and a singular skill in letters. An orientalist, 
 well versed in the productions of eastern genius ; an 
 accomplished literary investigator, practised in dis- 
 cerning between the genuine and the spurious ; with- 
 out dogmatic prejudice or predilection, neither 
 christian nor anti-christian ; enthusiastic, yet criti- 
 cal ; approaching the subject from the historical 
 
1 95 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 direction ; preparing himself laboriously for his task, 
 and devoting to it all the capacity there was in him, 
 Renan yet signally failed to construct a morally har- 
 monious figure. Though conceiving Jesus as simply 
 a man, he was obliged to resort to most obnoxious 
 extravagances to make the narratives cohere. The 
 " Vie de Jesus " is a standing refutation of the theory 
 that the elements of a harmonious biography are to 
 be found in the first gospel. It is the Christ of the 
 first gospel who curses unbelieving and inhospitable 
 cities ; who threatens to deny in heaven those that 
 deny him on earth ; who speaks of the unpardonable 
 sin, that " shall not be forgiven, either in this 
 world, or in the world to come ; " who will have none 
 called " Master " but himself ; who condemns to 
 " everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his an- 
 gels " those who have not assisted " these my breth- 
 ren ; " who bids his friends regard as no better than 
 " a heathen man and a publican," the offender who 
 will not listen to the Chijrch ; who launches indis- 
 criminate invective against scribes and pharisees ; 
 who anticipates sitting on a throne, a judge of all 
 nations, with his chosen followers sitting on twelve 
 thrones of authority in the same kingdom. These 
 statements must be qualified, allegorized, "spiritu- 
 alized " a good deal, before they can be made congenial 
 with the attributes of meekness, humility, gentleness, 
 patience, loving-kindness, human sympathy, benevo- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. I97 
 
 lence, justice, that adorn the image of a human 
 Jesus. One set of qualities or the other, must be dis- 
 avowed, unless we would incur the reproach that has 
 fallen on Renan, of transforming Jesus into a terri- 
 bly magnificent, and superbly unlovely person. Of 
 this there is no necessity, for there is no necessity 
 for constructing a harmonious character, on any hypo- 
 thesis. We are not called on to construct a char- 
 acter at all. We may frankly own that the materials 
 for constructing a character are not furnished. The 
 first gospels exhibit stages in the development of the 
 Christ idea ; they do not give a portraiture of the 
 man Jesus. 
 
 The hypothesis of mental and sentimental devel- 
 opment in the experience of Jesus comes to the aid of 
 the believers. Signs of such an interior progress do 
 certainly appear, or can be made to appear by force of 
 enthusiastic exegesis. The teacher who admonishes 
 his disciples not to cast their pearls before swine, re- 
 lates, with approval, the parable of the sower who flung 
 his seed right and left, heedless that some fell on thorns 
 that grew np and choked them, and some on stony 
 ground, where having no root, they withered away. 
 The man who twice frigidly repulsed the Canaanite 
 woman who begged on her knees the boon of his com- 
 passion, telling her that he was not sent, save to the lost 
 sheep of the house of Israel, adding, " it is not meet 
 to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs," not 
 
198 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 only extends his effectual sympathy to her in her imme- 
 diate need, but is found afterward, seeking and saving 
 these very lost, going into the wilderness to find them 
 that had gone astray, visiting the country of the 
 pagan Gergesenes, and opening the blind eyes of Sa- 
 maritans. The twelve disciples called and sent to the 
 twelve tribes of Israel, one to each tribe, none to spare 
 for the people beyond the borders of Palestine, be- 
 came later seventy apostles commissioned to carry 
 the message of the kingdom to all the tribes of the 
 earth. The exerciser of evil spirits begins by casting 
 devils into the herd of swine, thus " spoiling the pig- 
 market '' of a village, herein showing himself a true 
 Jew, and ends by sitting at meat with publicans and 
 sinners. By ingenious piecing, light skipping over 
 dates and discrepancies careless of sequence and con- 
 sequence, with resolute purpose to extract from the 
 documents, by all or any means, a consistent human 
 character, the development theory may be pushed 
 a little way. But it soon comes against an insur- 
 mountable difficulty ; the stream narrows just where 
 it ought to widen, namely, as it approaches the 
 ocean. It is towards the end of his career that the 
 fanaticism discloses itself. The terrible outbreaks of 
 anger, the invectives, the diatribe^ the superb claims 
 of authority, the horrid descriptions of the day of 
 judgment, the discouragement and despair, come at the 
 last. The serenity disappears ; the sunlight pales ; 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 1 99 
 
 the day closes in mist. The man shrinks, instead of 
 expanding, as he grows. 
 
 This is Renan's account of it ; an account more 
 deeply colored with gloom than need be ; for that the 
 baffled, tortured" Jesus, lost his moral poise, and be- 
 came a deliberate impostor, is not fairly deducible 
 from any text ; but the account is still essentially close 
 and natural. Starting, as Renan does, from the po- 
 sition that the four gospels contain materials for an 
 intelligible portraiture of Jesus ; that those materials 
 may be discovered, sifted, and arranged so as to pro- 
 duce a well proportioned figure ; and that the principle 
 of this human construction, must, on the supposition, 
 be the principle according to which the characters of 
 men are and must be constructed, namely, by tracing 
 the actions and reactions between them and the cir- 
 cumstances of their time and place ; starting, we say, 
 from this position, it is difficulj: to avoid the inferences 
 that he draws in regard to the disastrous effect that 
 skepticism and opposition had on the mental and 
 moral character of the hero. That " he made no conces- 
 sion to necessity ; " that " he boldly declared war 
 against nature, a complete rupture with kindred ; " 
 that " he exacted fom his associates an utter aban- 
 donment of terrestrial satisfactions, an absolute conse- 
 cration to his work," is no more than the plain texts 
 imply. Renan does not strain language when he 
 says : " In his excess of rigor, he went so far as to 
 
200 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 suppress natural desire. His requirements knew no 
 bounds. Scorning the wholesome limitations of hu- 
 man nature, he would have people live for him only, 
 love him alonp.'' " Something preternatural and 
 strange mingled with his discourse ; as if a fire was 
 consuming the roots of his life, and reducing the 
 whole to a frightful desert. The sentiment of disgust 
 towards the world, gloomy and bitter, of excessive ab- 
 negation which characterizes christian perfection, had 
 for its author, not the sensitive joyous moralist of the 
 earlier time, but the sombre titan, whom a vast and 
 appalling presentiment carried further and further 
 away from humanity. It looks as though, in these 
 moments of conflict with the most legitimate desires 
 of the heart, he forgot the pleasure of living and lov- 
 ing, of seeing and feeling." " It is easy to believe 
 that from the view of Jesus, at this epoch of his life, 
 every thought save for the kingdom of God, had 
 wholly disappeared. He was, so to speak, entirely out 
 of nature ; family, friends, country had no meaning to 
 him." " A strange passion for suffering and persecu- 
 tion possessed him. His blood seemed the water of a 
 second baptism he must be bathed in, and he had the 
 air of one driven by a singular impulse to anticipate 
 this baptism which alone could quench his thirst." 
 "At times his reason seemed disturbed. He expe- 
 rienced inward agitations and agonies. The tremen- 
 dous vision of the kingdom of God, ceaselessly flaming 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 201 
 
 before his eyes, made him giddy. His friends thought 
 him, at moments, beside himself. His enemies de- 
 clared him possessed by a devil. His passionate tem- 
 perament, carried him, in an instant, over the borders 
 of human nature. * * * Urgent, imperious, he 
 brooked no opposition. His native gentleness left 
 him ; he was at times rude and fantastical. * * * 
 At times his ill humor against all opposition pushed 
 him to actions unaccountable and preposterous. It 
 was not that his virtue sank ; his struggle against re- 
 ality in the name of the ideal became insupportable. 
 He hurled himself in angry revolt against the world. 
 * * * The tone he had assumed could not be sus- 
 tained more than a few months. It was time for 
 death to put an end to a situation strained to excess, 
 to snatch him from the embarrassments of a path that 
 had no issue, and, delivered from a trial too protracted, 
 to introduce him, stainless, into the serenity of his 
 heaven." 
 
 This is strong language, even shocking to minds 
 accustomed to worship a character of ideal perfection. 
 But it is scarcely bolder than the case warrants. The 
 privilege to pick and choose material has its limits. We 
 have no right to take what pleases us and leave the 
 rest. Statements that rest on equal evidence deserve 
 equal acceptance. If the result be not agreeable, the 
 responsibility is not with the critic. 
 
 The only wonder is that such a person as the Hteral 
 
202 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 record justifies, should be accepted as the founder of a 
 religion. How can Renan stand before his portrait 
 of Jesus, and say, "the man here delineated merits a 
 place at the summit of human grandeur ; " "this is the 
 supreme man; a sublime personage;" "every day 
 he presides over the destiny of the world ; to call him 
 divine is no exaggeration ; amid the columns that, in 
 vulgar uniformity crowd the plain, there are some 
 that point to the skies and attest a nobler destiny for 
 man ; Jesus is the loftiest of these ; in him is concen- 
 tred all that is highest and best in human nature." 
 Such a conclusion is not justified by the premises. 
 The homage is not warranted by the facts. It will 
 not do to make out a catalogue of human weaknesses, 
 and then urge those very weaknesses as a chief title 
 to glory. 
 
 In the opinion of some it is wiser and kinder to 
 confess at once that the image of Jesus has been irre- 
 coverably lost. In the judgment of these, it is unphil- 
 osophical to set up an ideal where none is required. 
 No doubt every effect must have a cause, but to as- 
 sume the cause, or to insist on the validity of any 
 single or special cause, is unscientific. Each event has 
 many causes, a complexity of causes. Renan him- 
 self says : " It is undeniable that circumstances told 
 for much, in the success of this wonderful revolution. 
 Each stage in the development of humanity has its 
 privileged epoch, in which it reaches perfection with- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 20$ 
 
 out effort, by a sort of spontaneous instinct. The 
 Jewish state offered the most remarkable intellectual 
 and moral conditions that the human race ever pre- 
 sented. It was one of those divine moments when a 
 thousand hidden forces conspire to produce grand re- 
 sults, when fine spirits are supported by floods of 
 admiration and sympathy." 
 
 In truth, was such a person as Jesus is presumed 
 to have been, necessary to account for the existence 
 of the religion afterwards called Christian .' As an 
 impelling force he was not required, for his age was 
 throbbing and bursting with suppressed energy. 
 The pressure of the Roman empire was required to 
 keep it down. The Messianic hope had such vitality 
 that it condensed into moments the moral results of 
 ages. The common people were watching to see the 
 heavens open, interpreted peals of thunder as angel 
 voices, and saw divine portents in the flight of birds. 
 Mothers dreamed that their boys would be Messiah. 
 The wildest preacher drew a crowd. The heart of 
 the nation swelled big with the conviction that the 
 hour of destiny was about to strike, that the kingdom 
 of heaven was at hand. The crown was ready for 
 any kingly head that might dare to assume it. That 
 in such a state of things anticipation should fulfil 
 itself, the dream become real, the vision become solid, 
 is not surprising. It was not the first time faith has 
 become fact. The first generation of our era exhib- 
 
204 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 ited no phenomena that preceding generations had 
 not prepared for and could not produce. No surprising 
 original force need have been manifested. The spirit 
 was the native spirit of the old vine growing in the old 
 vineyard. 
 
 Jesus is not necessary to account for the ethics of 
 the New Testament. They were as has been said, 
 the native ethics of Judaism, unqualified. The breadth 
 and the limitation, the ideal beauty and the practical 
 point were alike Jewish. The gorgeous abstractions, 
 gathered up in one discourse, look like fresh revela- 
 tions of God ; as autumn leaves plucked and set in a 
 vase seem more luminous than do myriads of the 
 same leaves covering the mountains and the meadows, 
 their crimson and gold blending with the brown of 
 the soil and the infinite blue of the sky. The ethics 
 of the New Testament, like the ethics of the Old, 
 have their root in the faith that Israel was a chosen 
 people ; in the expectation of a king in whom the 
 faith should be crowned ; in the anticipation of a 
 judgment day, a national restoration, a celestial sun- 
 burst, a final felicity for the faithful of Israel. The en- 
 thusiasm, the extravagance, the fanaticism, the passive 
 trust, the active intolerance, the asceticism, the arbitra- 
 riness, bespeak in the one case as in the other, the pres- 
 ence of an intense but narrow spirit. They are not the 
 ethics of this world. They are not temporal. The 
 power of an original, creative soul should be attested 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 205 
 
 by some modification of the popular code, rather 
 than by an exaggeration of it. We should look for 
 something new, not for a more emphatic repetition of 
 the old. But nothing new appears. The exaggera- 
 tions are exaggerated ; the precepts suggested by the 
 distant prospect of the kingdom are simply reiterated 
 in view of its speedy establishment. Trust in Provi- 
 dence and faith in the Messiah are all in all ; the 
 virtues of common existence are less and less. The 
 inhumanities that Renan ascribes to an access of fan- 
 aticism in Jesus are the humanities of an unreal 
 Utopia. 
 
 The prodigious manifestation of mental and 
 spiritual force that broke out in Paul requires no ex- 
 planation apart from his own genius. He never saw 
 Jesus and apparently was incurious about him. His 
 originality was intellectual, and his system bears no 
 trace of a foreign personality. As Renan says: "The 
 Christ who communicates private revelations to him is 
 a phantom of his own making ;" "It is himself he list- 
 ens to, while fancying that he hears Jesus." If ever man 
 was self-motived, self-impelled, self-actuated, it was he. 
 He needed no prompter. Hot of brain and heart, he 
 was only too swift to move. Whether, as some think, 
 driven by over-mastering ambition to lead a new 
 movement, or, as others contend, constrained by in- 
 ward urgency to attempt a moral reform on a specula- 
 tive basis, or, according to yet a third supposition, 
 
206 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 eager to bear the glad tidings of the gospel to the 
 gentile world, his own genius was from first to last, 
 his guide and inspiration. There is no evidence to 
 prove that his " conversion " added anything new to 
 the mass of his moral nature, or changed the quality 
 of ruling attributes, or determined the bent of his will 
 to unpremeditated issues. He was converted to the 
 Christ, not to Jesus ; and his conversion to the Christ, 
 was nothing absolutely unprepared for. His zeal for 
 Israel blazed furiously against the disciples who 
 claimed that the Christ had come, and to the end of 
 his stormy days it still continued to burn against dis- 
 ciples of the narrow school who would not believe he 
 had come to any but Jews. His zeal for Israel, sent 
 him away by himself to meditate a grander Christ. 
 The Christ, not Jesus, was his watch-cry. A man of 
 ideas, intensely interested in speculative questions, 
 keenly alive to the joy of controversy and the ecstasy 
 of propagandism, he filled his boiler with water as he 
 rushed along, leaving Peter and the rest to fill theirs at 
 the nazarene spring. So little is Jesus to be credited 
 with Paul's achievement, that it is the fashion to call 
 his a distinct movement. Enthusiastic admirers of 
 his genius, call him the real founder of Christianity. 
 Severe critics of his claim accuse him of corrupting 
 the religion of Jesus in its spirit, and diverting it 
 from its purpose. On either supposition, he was not 
 a disciple. 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 20/ 
 
 The worship of Jesus, it has been said, is the 
 redeeming feature of Christianity. This evidently is 
 the opinion of John Stuart Mill, who writes, confound- 
 ing, as is usual, Jesus with the Christ : " The most 
 valuable part of the effect on the character which 
 Christianity has produced by holding up in a divine 
 person a standard of excellence and a model for imita- 
 tion, is available even to the absolute unbeliever, and 
 can nevermore be lost to humanity. For it is Christ 
 rather, than God whom Christianity has held up to 
 believers as the pattern of perfection for humanity. 
 It is the God incarnate, more than the God of the 
 Jews or of nature, who being idealized has taken so 
 great and salutary a hold on the modern mind; " and 
 more to the same effect, in the essay on Theism = 
 Before Mr. Mill's intellectual eccentricities were as 
 well understood as they are now, this testimony to the 
 humanizing influence of christian, as distinct from 
 philosophical theism, would have possessed great 
 weight. As it is, it only excites our wonder that 
 so keen and inexorable a thinker should so completely 
 lose sight of facts. That Christendom has wor- 
 shipped the Christ is true. Is it true that it has 
 worshipped Jesus ? Again we might say : Yes ; — the 
 Jesus who demanded faith in himself as the condition 
 of salvation ; the Jesus who depicted the Son of Man, 
 sitting on a throne of judgment, summoning before 
 him all nations, and placing the sheep on his right 
 
208 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 hand, the goats on his left ; the Jesus who threatened 
 everlasting fire, and spoke of the devil and his angels ; 
 the Jesus who made the church umpire in matters of 
 faith and works ; the Jesus who bade his friends for- 
 sake father and mother, brother and sister for his 
 sake. But did Christendom ever deify the man of the 
 Beatitudes, the relator of the parables of the Good 
 Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, the friend of public- 
 ans and sinners ? Is Jesus the central figure in the 
 Nicene, or the Athanasian creed ? Is he the God of 
 Calvin, or of Luther, of Augustine, even of Borromeo, 
 or Fenfelon .' Long before the dogmatical or ecclesias- 
 tical system of Christendom was formed, the image of 
 Jesus had faded away from the minds of christians, if 
 it ever was stamped there. That it was ever stamped 
 there is not quite apparent. In the east there exists 
 no trace of it after the apostolic age, or beyond the 
 circle of his personal friends. In the west the per- 
 sonal influence is not distinctly visible at any dis- 
 tance. From the reported heroism of the early 
 christian centuries no solid conclusion can be drawn, 
 for the reason that the reports come from panegyrists 
 like Tertullian, and from a period when the apostolic 
 age had become a tradition. Writers like Neander 
 make the most of a few recorded instances of devotion 
 which distinguished the christians from the pagans 
 about them ; and James Martineau uses them as evi- 
 dence of an original spiritual genius in the young 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 2O9 
 
 religion. They are indeed beautiful, but they do not 
 refer back so far as the historical Jesus for their source 
 of inspiration. That in a community composed, with 
 scarcely an exception, of poor people, the ordinary 
 social distinctions should be unobserved ; that slaves, 
 among whom in early times many converts, were 
 made, should have been acknowledged as brethren in 
 Christ ; should have appeared in public religious 
 meetings as equal with the rest before the Lord; 
 should have partaken of the communion on the same 
 terms, taking their place among the believers, and 
 receiving the passionless kiss of brotherhood and 
 of sisterhood, is not surprising, especially when it is 
 considered that these slaves belonged to hardy, white 
 races, that they discharged, some of them at least, the 
 most honorable offices of labor, and were, except for the 
 mere accident of their condition, physically as well as 
 morally, peers of the best. 
 
 It is simply in the course of nature that poor peo- 
 ple, grouped in communities, sharing a common and 
 a painful lot, should help each other in times of trou- 
 ble. The christians did so. At every weekly or 
 monthly service collections were made for the relief of 
 the poor, the sick, the infirm, the aged, widows, pris- 
 oners, and toilers in the mines. These contributions 
 were sent to the points of greatest need, converging on 
 occasion from many directions at centres of extreme 
 
 necessity. It is recorded that about tb© middte of 
 
 14 
 
I 
 
 2IO THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 the third century several members of the church jn 
 Numidia, men and women, were carried off captive 
 by barbarians. The Numidian churches being poor 
 applied to the Metropolitan church at Carthage. 
 Cyprian, the bishop there, collected more than four 
 thousand dollars in his diocese and sent the money as 
 ransom, with a letter full of sentiments of kindness. 
 On another occasion a portion of the sacred vessels of 
 the sanctuary were sold to raise funds for a similar pur- 
 pose. In this there was nothing strange. The acts 
 were done in strict conformity with a long established 
 usage. 
 
 A more remarkable example often cited in evi- 
 dence that the spirit of Jesus was alive still in the 
 societies that worshipped him as Lord, occurred in 
 the year 254, shortly after the Decian persecution, 
 the most general and the most hideous to which the 
 church had been exposed. In consequence of this 
 persecution, which was attended with such slaughter 
 that the unburied bodies poisoned the air, a fearful 
 pestilence broke out in the city of Alexandria. Un- 
 happily for the literalness of the truth, it is Lactantius 
 who tells the story. " The plague," he says, " made 
 its appearance with tremendous violence and desola- 
 ted the city, so that, as Dionysius, . the Christian 
 •bishop writes, there were not so many inhabitants 
 left, of all ages, as heretofore could be numbered be- 
 tween forty and seventy. In this emergency the per- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 211 
 
 secuted christians forgot all but their Lord's precept, 
 and were unwearied in their attendance on the sick, 
 many perishing in the performance of this duty by 
 taking the infection. ' In this way ' says the bishop 
 with touching simplicity, ' the best of the brethren de- 
 parted this life, some ministers, and some deacons,' 
 the heathen having abandoned their friends and re- 
 lations to the care of the very persons whom they had 
 been accustomed to call men-haters. A like noble 
 self-devotion was shown at Carthage, when the 
 pestilence which had desolated Alexandria made its 
 appearance in that city, and, I quote the words of a 
 contemporary, ' all fled in horror from the contagion, 
 abandoning their relations and friends, as if they 
 thought that by avoiding the plague, any one might 
 also exclude death altogether. Meanwhile the city 
 was strewed with the bodies or rather carcasses of 
 the dead, which seemed to call for pity from the 
 passers by, who might themselves so soon share the 
 same fate ; but no one cared for anything but miser- 
 able pelf; no one trembled at the consideration of 
 what might so soon befall him in his turn ; no one 
 did for another what he would have wished others to 
 do for him. The bishop hereupon called together his 
 flock, and, setting before them the example and teach- 
 ing of their Lord, called on them to act up to it. He 
 said that if they took care only of their own people, 
 they did but what the commonest feeling would 
 
212 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 dictate ; the servant of Christ must do more, he must 
 love his enemies, and pray for his persecutors ; for 
 God made his sun to rise and his rain to fall on all 
 alike, and he who would be the child of God must 
 imitate his Father.' The people responded to his 
 appeal ; they formed themselves into classes, and 
 they whose poverty prevented them from doing mo re 
 gave their personal attendance while those who had 
 property aided yet further. No one quitted his post 
 but with his life." The example shows the more 
 gloriously against the dark background of horror that 
 stood so near. Yet, to the misery of the persecution 
 by which the people were educated in sympathy, 
 patience, fortitude, and willingness to resign life, the 
 benignant heroism must, in part, have been due. Pre- 
 vious to the persecution the spirit of consecration had 
 departed from the church. Christianity had become 
 a social and class affair. Luxury had crept in, and eaten 
 up the heart of conviction. The alliance of church 
 and state had been especially disastrous to the church, 
 the mingling of secular ambition with spiritual aspi- 
 ration operating fatally on the finer qualities of faith. 
 Few could have suspected then that the spirit of 
 Jesus had ever been with the church. The persecu- 
 tion purged the christian communities with fire. The 
 surface was burned over, and only the roots and 
 seeds were left in the ground. The persecution 
 ended, tranquillitybeing restored, the roots burgeoned. 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 213 
 
 the seeds sprung up, all the heroism of the two dread- 
 ful years, all the patience and fortitude turned to 
 gentleness; and a copious rain of mercy, blessing every 
 body, even the persecutors, was the result of the 
 battle's thunder and flame. The suffering that had 
 been endured softened the heart towards all suffering. 
 The persecutors no longer active or hateful, their 
 passive forbearance seemed, in contrast with their 
 recent fury, a species of mercy calling for positive 
 gratitude. Not to be hated was felt to be identical 
 with being loved ; not to kill was by sudden revulsion 
 of emotion, accepted as a kindly saving of life. To be 
 kind to those who had desisted from hurting was 
 natural. Besides, the persecution was incited and 
 pressed by the government in Rome. The populace 
 even there were not responsible for it, and in the dis- 
 tant provinces simply followed the rtietropolitan pre- 
 cedent. Their infatuation had therefore its pitiable 
 as well as its outrageous aspect. They too were 
 victims of the imperial policy, were perishing of the 
 contagion which that policy caused^ and thus were 
 paying a terrible penalty for their own unwitting 
 crime. It is unnecessary to suppose that any per- 
 sonal contagion from the character of Jesus, stealing 
 through the murky ages of eastern and western life, 
 communicated its saving grace to the Carthaginian 
 brotherhood. Uninspired human nature is sufficient 
 to explain the beneficent display. 
 
214 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 The conclusion is that no clearly defined traces of 
 the personal Jesus remain on the surface or beneath 
 the surface of Christendom. The silence of Josephus 
 and other secular historians- may be accounted for 
 without falling back on a theory of hostility or con- 
 tempt. The Christ-idea cannot be spared from Chris- 
 tian development, but the personal Jesus, in some 
 measure, can be. 
 
 In some measure, not wholly ; the earliest period 
 of the church does require his presence; the first, 
 the original, the only disciples lived under the in- 
 fluence of a great personalty, and were moulded by it. 
 Their attachment to a commanding friend is avowed 
 in the apparently authentic parts of the New Testa- 
 ment. If we know anything about those men, it is 
 that they lived, moved and had their being in the 
 memory of a great friend. Their attachment to 
 him took hold of their heart-strings. They were 
 haunted by him. This appears in their frequent 
 meetings for the expression and confirmation of their 
 feelings, in their communion suppers, memorial occa- 
 sions purely and always, without a trace of mysticism 
 or a shade of awe ; in their attachment to the places 
 he had consecrated by his presence ; in their affection 
 for each other. Ignorant they were, unintellectual, 
 unspiritual in the moral sense of the word, rather im- 
 pervious to ideas, dull, common place, simple-hearted. 
 They were not soaring spirits, audacious, independent 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 215 
 
 like Paul, but exactly the reverse, timid, self-dis- 
 trustful, pusillanimous by constitution. Their ambi- 
 tion flew low, fluttering round sparkling jewels on 
 the Messianic crown. Their master was not such 
 an one as ,they would have chosen, had they been 
 allowed to select. He met none of their expectations, 
 he fulfilled none of their hopes. His rebuke was 
 more frequent and more cordial than his praise. 
 Their stupidity annoyed him, their selfishness grieved 
 his heart. Instead of justifying their confidence in 
 him as the Christ, he utterly overthrew one form of 
 it by allowing himself to be captured, convicted and 
 put to death. Still they clung to his memory. True, 
 they clung to him in the conviction that he was the 
 Christ and would have confessed themselves dupes 
 had that conviction been dispelled. But why was it 
 not dispelled .■" Why did they believe, in the face of 
 the crushing demonstration of. the cross .'' They 
 anticipated his return, because he had told them he 
 should reappear in clouds. But why did they believe 
 him } Why did they believe, when month after month, 
 year after year, went by and still he did not return ? 
 It was because they loved him, and trusted him in 
 spite of evidence. When he did not return, they 
 thought he meant to try their faith ; still they met 
 together; still they prayed and waited, imagining 
 themselves to be in intimate communion with him in 
 his skies. 
 
2l6 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 That these men, with their unworthy conceptions 
 of the kingdom, accepted him as their Christ, proves 
 not only that his power over them was very great, but 
 that he himself lived on the highest level of hebrew 
 thought, and illustrated the highest type of hebrew 
 character ; that he was a genuine prophet and saint ; 
 all the more so, perhaps, for the completeness of his 
 self-abnegation. Had he raised the standard of re- 
 volt, and appealed to arms, his name might have been 
 more conspicuous in secular history. He sacrificed 
 himself wholly ; kept no shred of preeminence for his 
 own behoof. 
 
 Hence, the person of Jesus, though it may have 
 been immense, is indistinct. That a great character 
 was there may be conceded ; but precisely wherein 
 the character was great, is left to our conjecture. Of 
 the eminent persons who have swayed the spiritual 
 destinies of mankind, none has more completely disap- 
 peared from the critical view. The ideal image which 
 christians have, for nearly two thousand years wor- 
 shipped under the name of Jesus, has no authentic, 
 distinctly visible counterpart in history. 
 
 This conclusion will be distressing to those who 
 have accorded to Jesus, by virtue of a perfect human- 
 ity a certain primacy over the human race, and even 
 to those who, regarding him as the complete fulfil- 
 ment and perfect type of human character have looked 
 to him as the beacon star " guiding the nations, grop- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 21/ 
 
 ing on their way." It will be welcome only to the few 
 calm minds who feel the force of ideas, the regen- 
 erating power of principles. These will rejoice to be 
 relieved of the last thin shadow of a supernatural au- 
 thority in the past, and committed without reserve to 
 the support and solace of simple humanity trained in 
 the humble observance of uninterrupted law. Their 
 gratitude for the human influence of the person is un- 
 qualified by distrust of the claims of the individual. 
 
 The Christ of the fourth Gospel — the incarnate 
 Word — who has been asserting absolute spiritual cre- 
 atorship over his disciples, calling himself the vine 
 whereof they were branches, the door by which they 
 must enter, the light by which they must walk, the 
 way their steps must tread, — says to them at the criti- 
 cal hour : " It is expedient for you that I go away ; 
 if I go not away the Comforter cannot come to you." 
 There was danger in his personal continuance. They 
 were to live not in dependence on him, but in com- 
 munion with the " Spirit of Truth," which, as pro- 
 ceeding from him and from the Father also, was to 
 bring freshly home to them what he had said, and to 
 guide them further on to all truth. How many times 
 must those words be repeated, with new applications 
 in the new exigencies of faith ! How little disposi- 
 tion do we find in his followers to heed them ! They 
 have gone on with the process of idealization, placing 
 him higher and higher ; making his personal existence 
 
2l8 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 more and more essential ; insisting more and more 
 urgently on the necessity of private intercourse with 
 him ; letting the Father subside into the background 
 as an " effluence," and the Holy Ghost lapse from in- 
 dividual identity into impersonal influence, in order 
 that he might be all in all as regenerator and saviour. 
 From age to age the personal Jesus has been made 
 the object of an extreme adoration, till now, faith in 
 the living Christ is the heart of the gospel ; philoso- 
 phy, science, culture, humanity are thrust resolutely 
 aside, and the great teachers of the race are extin- 
 guished in order that his light may shine. 
 
 Yet from age to age the warning has been given 
 again, the vain farewell has been spoken, " it is expe- 
 dient for you that I go away." Perhaps he went, in 
 one form ; but he quickly re-appeared in another ; 
 and each new presentation had its own special kind 
 of evil effect. The Christ of Peter, James and John 
 retired to make room for Paul's " Lord from heaven." 
 He withdrew in favor of the incarnate Word. The 
 incarnate Word loses itself in the Second Person of 
 the Trinity. The imagination of man, unable to in- 
 vent further transformations rested here : Christendom 
 for fifteen hundred years has knelt in awe before the 
 divine image it projected on the clouds of heaven. 
 But the work of disenchantment began early. The 
 sublimated ideal slowly came down from the skies. 
 The glorified Christ assumed the lineaments of a 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 219 
 
 human being, from Deity became archangel, chief of 
 all the celestial hierarchy; from archangel slipped 
 down through the ranks of spirits, till he occupied the 
 place of Son of God, preexistent, and in attributes, 
 super-human ; thence he declined a step to the posi- 
 tion of premiership over the human family, the in- 
 augurator of a new type of man, virgin-born as indi- 
 cating that he was not the natural product of the 
 generations but was introduced into nature by an 
 original law ; a further lapse from the supreme dignity 
 brought him to the plane of humanity, but reported 
 him as miraculously endowed with gifts from the Holy 
 Spirit, supernaturally graced with attributes of power 
 and wisdom, sent on a special mission to found a 
 church and declare a law, raised from the dead to 
 demonstrate immortality, and lifted to the skies to 
 establish the presence of a living Deity. To this emi 
 nent station he bids farewell to stand as the perfect 
 man, teacher, reformer, saint, before the enthusiastic 
 gaze of humanitarians, v/ho made amends for .the spoli- 
 ation of his celestial wardrobe by the splendor with 
 which they endowed his human soul. Here the idealists 
 place him, still claiming for him no exceptional birth, 
 no super-human origin, no preexistence, no miraculous 
 powers over nature, no superiority of wit or wisdom, 
 no immunity from errors of opinion or mistakes of 
 judgment, no fated sanctity of will, no moral impecca- 
 bility, but ascribing to him an unerringness of spiritual 
 
220 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 insight, an even loftiness of soul, an incorruptibility 
 of conscience, a depth and comprehensiveness of hu- 
 manity which raise him far above the plane of history, 
 and tempt them to look longingly backward, instead of 
 directing a steady gaze forward. But this figure is 
 now seen to be an ideal, like the rest unjustified by 
 chronicle or by fact. The comforter, which is the 
 spirit of truth, requires that he should go away, follow- 
 ing his predecessors into the realm of majestic and 
 beneficent illusion. The Christ in every guise dis- 
 appears and ther^ remain only the uneven and in- 
 complete footprints of a son of man from which we 
 can conclude only that a regal person at one time 
 passed that way. 
 
 All these transformations, it will be observed, came 
 in the oi^der of mental development, each timely and 
 beneficent in its place. The crowning and the dis- 
 crowning were alike inevitable and good. The glori- 
 fication and the disappearance were both justified. 
 The final change comes neither too late nor too soon ; 
 not too late, for still the immense majority of mankind 
 live in sentiment and imagination, worship ideal 
 shapes, being quite incapable of appreciating knowl- 
 edge, loving truth, or obeying principles. It will be 
 generations yet, before any save the comparatively 
 few think they can live without this great friend at 
 their side. Sentiment is conservative. The poetic 
 feeling detains in picturesque form the ideas which if 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 221 
 
 exposed to the action of clear intelligence would be 
 rejected as unsubstantial. The imagination like the 
 ivy loves to beautify ruins, making even robber castles 
 and deserted palaces . attractive to tourists. Words- 
 worth, the poet of Nature expresses the feeling that 
 will at times come over powerful and cultivated 
 minds, in moods of sentiment — 
 
 The world is too much with us ; late and soon, 
 Getting and spending we lay waste our powers. 
 Little we see in Nature that is ours ; 
 We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! 
 This Sea that bares her bosom to the Moon, 
 The winds that will be howling at all hours, 
 And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, 
 For this, for everything, we are out of tune. 
 It moves us not ; — Great God ! I'd rather be 
 A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn : 
 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
 Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn, 
 Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea. 
 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 
 
 This is pure sentiment. The sea was as lovely to 
 Wordsworth, is as lovely to Tyndall, as it was to the 
 superstitious Greeks. The winds awaken similar 
 emotions in the sensitive being. Why then, should 
 ■ Wordsworth, having all that is or ever was to be had, 
 beauty of form, movement, color, regret the super- 
 stition that peopled the sea with fanciful beings and ani- 
 mated the winds with supernatural spirits ? Why not 
 
222 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 be content with the facts, and the more content, be- 
 because the fancies are gone that disguised them ? Is 
 it not a weakness to love dreams better than realities ? 
 Mr. Leslie Stephen, in his admirable "History of 
 English Thought in the XVIII century" explains this 
 mood of mind by saying that for the expression of feel- 
 ing symbols are necessary, and superstition supplies 
 all the symbols there are. The bare truth may awaken 
 emotions, but it gives them no voice, and emotion un- 
 uttered, becomes feeble ; in all but sensitive natures 
 it dies." "In time," says Mr. Stephen, " the loss may 
 be replaced, the new language may be learnt ; we may 
 be content with direct vision, instead of mixing facts 
 with dreams ; but the process is slow ; and till it is 
 completed,- the new belief will not have the old power 
 over the mind. The symbols which have been asso- 
 ciated with the hopes and fears, with the loftiest aspi- 
 rations and warmest affections of so many generations 
 may be proved to be only symbols ; but they long 
 retain their power over the imagination." It is not 
 wise, therefore, to be impatient with sentiment that 
 has so valid an excuse ; nor is it magnanimous to stig- 
 matize as weak and childish the romantic attachment 
 to the symbol which is all that remains, which, with 
 the unthinking, unadventurous multitude is so large a 
 part of what abides of the mind's spiritual endowment. 
 We must be patient with the conservatism that is born, 
 not of fear, but of feeling, sympathizing when we can, 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 223 
 
 with those that grieve when the idols lose their sancti- 
 ty, and rejoicing that sentiment has the power to break 
 the shoclc caused by the sudden dispelling of illusions. 
 At the same time, it must be remembered that intel- 
 lect is the propelhng force in the intellectual world ; 
 that the acute, unimaginative, determined minds, impa- 
 tient of the mists, however beautiful, that conceal 
 knowledge, clear a way for the homes and gardens 
 of the new generations ; that the love of truth, simple 
 and unadorned, is the mother at last of real beauty. 
 The disappearance of the resplendent figure of the 
 Christ from the heaven of our philosophy has not, 
 therefore, come too soon ; for thinking, clear-sighted, 
 brave and resolute minds there are. Discerning eyes, 
 bright and gentle, look out and see the fields, sown 
 with new seed, whitening for a new harvest. To such 
 as these Jesus is no longer necessary for faith in hu- 
 manity, for enthusiasm and constancy in humanity's 
 service. Heroic men and saintly women exist in such 
 numbers and in such variety that they sit in judg- 
 ment on the judges, and call the censors to account. 
 The education of mankind in the qualities that knit 
 and adorn society has gone so far that these virtues 
 require no longer a superhuman representative to give 
 them honor. Knowledge of every kind has so abun- 
 dantly increas:d that the aid of revelation to throw 
 light on important subjects is not demanded. Philoso- 
 phy, literature, science have taken possession of the 
 
224 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 fields once occupied by the surmise of faith, and are 
 carefully mapping out the departments of speculation. 
 The problems that remain dark, — and they are the 
 many, — we are content should remain so till light 
 comes from the proper sources. The darkest of them, 
 no darker than they have always been, are no longer 
 complicated by the difficulties of revelation which 
 added enigmas where there were enough before, but 
 lie open to all the light that can be thrown upon them. 
 The confusion introduced into the orderly sequence 
 of the world's development by the exceptionally provi- 
 dential man subsides, and the cumulative power of 
 history is brought to bear on the necessities of the 
 hour. Relieved from the sacred duty of turning back- 
 ward for the form of the perfect man, thereby over- 
 looking the present and suspecting the future, we are 
 permitted to estimate fairly the conditions of the 
 present existence, and to prepare for the future with 
 unprejudiced, rational minds. The standard of moral 
 attainment and the quality of moral character set up 
 as authoritative by any single race, however distin- 
 guished, by any one era, however brilliant, abuses and 
 injures the standards of other races, and casts suspicion 
 on the attributes of other generations. The belief that at 
 some time humanity has already come to full flower, dis- 
 courages the laborers in the human garden. Humanity 
 is still a-making; its perfection is prophecy not history. 
 The lesson of the hour is self-dependence, or 
 
THE CRAULE OF THE CHRIST. 225 
 
 rather, if we prefer, dependence on the laws of reason. 
 It will be a gain for truth when true thoughts shall 
 be welcomed because they are true, not because they 
 are spoken by a particular sage ; when erroneous 
 thoughts shall be judged by their demerits, without 
 fear of casting affront on the character of a saint. 
 James Martineau's tender wisdom gains nothing in 
 charm by being attributed to his beautiful fiction of a 
 Christ, and Mr. Moody's painful caricatures of Provi- 
 dence have an unfair advantage in being sheltered 
 behind the authority of the Hebrew Messiah. The 
 holy beauty of Mr. Martineau's ideal person is more 
 than offset by the awful grandeur of the " evangeli- 
 cal " Avenger, equally a creature of imagination. In 
 the realm of fancy the lurid conception outlasts 
 and overwhelms the radiant one. Safety lies in 
 withdrawal from the realm of fancy, and domes- 
 tication in the humbler realm of fact. The lesson 
 can be now safely taught. Let men learn it as 
 soon as they will. Dependence on individual person- 
 alities has been the rule hitherto ; dependence on 
 general ideas and organic laws, dependence on discov- 
 ered fact and intelligent conclusion, will be the re- 
 liance hereafter. As for the demands of the heart, 
 which must have persons to cling to, they will adjust 
 themselves to the new science and will satisfy them- 
 selves in the future as they have done in the past. Are 
 all the fine personalities dead .' Then the sooner we 
 
226 THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 give them a chance to revive by removing the pro- 
 digious personality whose shadow has blighted them, 
 the better for us. Are there none to love with en- 
 thusiastic ardor ? Who have made us think so, if not 
 they by whom all amiable and adorable attributes have 
 been claimed before .-' Are there no feet it is an honor 
 to sit at, no heads it is a privilege to anoint, no hands it 
 is a dignity to kiss .-" Whose fault can this be, if not theirs 
 who challenged the adoration of men and women and 
 pronounced it consecrated because rendered to him for 
 one .'' Are there no leaders worth following, no causes 
 worth espousing ? They that think so must be lis- 
 tening to the voice that bade men follow in Galilee, 
 and sighing because they cannot take up the cross 
 that was imposed on the faithful in the cities of Judea. 
 The imagination of man has not lost its power or 
 forgotten its function since it performed the prodig- 
 ious task of enthroning its hope by the side of the 
 godhead. It is adequate to new and healthier per- 
 formance. A world of fresh materials lies before it ; 
 ,new heavens display their glories ; a new earth offers 
 opportunity and prospect ; a new humanity presents 
 its varieties of good and evil. New beauties gladden 
 the open vision ; new glories fascinate the kindling 
 hope. The regions of possibility, so far from being 
 exhausted, have but begun to disclose their treasures. 
 The realities of to-day surpass the ideals of yesterday. 
 Art has a new birth. Poetry has a new birth. Phil- 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 227 
 
 osophy teems with new births. These all look for- 
 ward with confident expectation. Why should relig- 
 ion, which has built up more grandeurs than any of 
 them, turn her back to the new day, confess her 
 creative power exhausted, and creep back to the im- 
 ages of her own idolatry ? The Christ-idea, become 
 human, will surpass its old triumphs. 
 
AUTHORITIES. 
 
 To meet the wishes of such as may desire to 
 know on what grounds his opinions are founded, or 
 to pursue them further, the author gives the titles of 
 a few books that may be profitably consulted. It 
 were easy to make a long list of erudite works ; much 
 easier than to make a short list of accessible and sug- 
 gestive volumes. In an essay prepared for the intel- 
 ligent and thoughtful, not for the learned or schol- 
 arly class, reference to stores of erudition would be 
 out of place. For this reason, the pages are left 
 unencumbered with notes, and the books cited are 
 purposely such as come within easy reach of general 
 readers. The better known book is preferred before 
 the less known, the conservative when it will answer 
 the purpose, before the destructive. If the whole 
 case were presentable in English, none but English 
 authorities would be mentioned. Unfortunately'for 
 the general reader, the best literature is in German 
 or French, much of which is still untranslated. To 
 
THE CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 229 
 
 indicate these is a necessity for those who are ac- 
 quainted with those languages, while those who are 
 not, will, it is believed, find enough in English writings 
 reasonably to satisfy their need. 
 
 The titles of the books indicate sufficiently the 
 points on which they throw light. The classical ref- 
 erences, which are' numerous, are most copious in 
 Denis and Huidekoper, though Lecky, Renan, John- 
 son and others cite all the most important. 
 
 Allen, J. H. 
 Baur, F. C. 
 
 Baring-Gould, S. 
 Buddha. 
 
 Cohen. 
 Coquerel, A. 
 
 Cowper,B. Harris. 
 
 Hebrew Men and Times. 
 
 Kanonische Evangelien. 
 Paulus, — (Translated.) 
 Drei Ersten Jahrhunderte. 
 Socrates und Christus. 
 Die Tiibinger Schule. 
 Ursprung des Episcopats. 
 Lost and Hostile Gospels. 
 Romantic History of. 
 
 Les Deicides, (Translated.) 
 Histoire du Credo. 
 Les premieres Transformations 
 Historiques du Christianisme. 
 Des Beaux Arts en Italic. 
 The Apocryphal Gospels. 
 
 Deutsch, E. The Talmud. 
 
 Didron. Iconographie Chretienne, (Translated.) 
 
230 THE 
 
 CRADLE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 Ewald, Heinrich. 
 
 History of the People Israel. 
 
 
 Prophets of the Old Testament. 
 
 
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232 
 
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 Christliche Glaubenslehre. 
 
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 Salvador. J^sus Christ et sa Doctrine. 
 
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