. ,- •Y^LE»¥Mir^i&sirirYo • ILflMKJ&lKy • Gift of the Publishers ««¦«¦ The Evolution of Religions By Everard Bierer ' Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good." G. P. Putnam's Sons New York and London Zbe Iftnfcfcerbocfcei; ptess 1906 Copyright, 1906 By EVERARD BIERER £5 Mpp20 547 Zbc Itnfcfeerbocfctr press, new JBorft PREFACE DURING a long life occupied mostly in the practice of law, I have spent much of my leisure time, and especially since largely quitting practice in the last few years, in the study of the systems of religion of the world and of religious literature, both ancient and modern. The Bible I have studied most thoroughly, and am well versed in the Buddhist Scriptures, the Zend Avesta of Zoroaster, the Analects of Confucius and Mencius, and the Koran, and have read the Book of Mormon, Brahmanic literature, and his tory generally, ancient and modern. In this volume I have frankly embodied my religious convictions, not for the purpose of mak ing converts to my views or to seek notoriety, but simply to teach the truth according to these convictions. I presume I shall offend many who may read it, and be denounced bitterly by all those whose religious opinions differ from mine and are mainly the result of environment and habits rather than convictions, but I have no apologies to make. Truth will win its way sooner or later. If my conclusions are erroneous, they deserve obscurity; if correct, they must be good and will stand the test of fuller and more iv Preface critical investigations. For defects of style and dullness of expression, I ask the charity of those who may peruse this book, and courteously ask their pardon for having unduly indulged, if I have done so, in any harsh or unkind criticism in reference to any denominations, ministers, or religious writers. Hiawatha, Kansas. JJ. £_ September, 1906. CONTENTS CHAPTERI. A General Review of Religions. PAGR I Questions fundamental to Judaism and Christianity — Outlines of ancient religions, Zoroastrianism, Brahmanism, Judaism, Confucianism, Christianity, Mohammedanism, and old mythologies — Refer ences to Herodotus, Zenophon, Manetho, Demos thenes, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Julius Caesar, Seneca — Those great men did not worship idols — Six great religions of the world — Other religions merely abnormal — Melchizedek, priest of the Most High, like unto the Son of God, prophet of the first religion and teacher of Zoroaster and Abraham — Ahura Mazda or Ormuzd, God of the Zoroastrian religion — Angro-Mainyus, evil God of the Persians, and Satan of the Jews and Christians — Theory of evolution of reli gions — Apocryphal Books of Bible. II. Comparisons of Modern Systems of Reli gions 16 ist. Buddhism — ¦ Its devotees in Asia one-third of the human race — 2d. Christianity — Roman Catholic — Protestant and Greek Church divi sions — 3d. Confucianism — 4th. Mohammedan ism — 5th. Judaism — 6th. Zoroastrianism — 7th. Mormonism — Judaism — Christianity — Moham medanism and Mormonism — Cognate or related — The ancient Mythological and Polytheistic sys tems of religion were the evolutions of gross and debasing ideas, fantasies, and superstitions, now extinct — Their Gods and Goddesses were gross, vi Contents CHAPTER sensual, subject to human passions ; all more or less limited in power — Legends of the Garden of Eden, the Fall of Adam and Eve, the Serpent, and similar legends in the religions of Egypt, Persia, and India. III. Ancient Christianity 44 Triumph of Christianity over Roman Idolatry 315 a.d. under Constantine the Great — All churches then independent — No Pope — Arianism or Unitarianism nearly universal — A triune Deity unknown — The doctrines of the early Christians, the same as taught by Arius, Pelagius, Celestius — Trinitarianism established by Council of Nice 325 a.d. and of Carthage 411 a.d. — Admixture of Pagan customs and interpolations and corrup tions in text of Scriptures, dates from those times — Apocryphal Books of Old Testament and Apoc alyptic dreams of St John admitted into Canon — Amazing legends and miracles believed and taught during Dark Ages — A general awakening and restoration of Bible truths in the nineteenth century by teachings of Max Miiller, Dr. Channing, Dr. Priestley, Theodore Parker, Julius Wellhausen, Strauss, Renan, Rev. I. H. Mills, Dr. Savage, Dr. Chas. Briggs and others — Jesus divinely sent, but not God — The nineteenth a grand century. IV. Modern Religions. Population of the world in 1905 and number of be lievers in modern religions tabulated — Short sketches of Brahmanism and Mohammedanism — The Koran is an Arabian poem — Some extracts from it — Mormonism and its founder — Confu cianism — Exposition of the Zend-Avesta, and sketch of Zoroaster — His religion, once the great religion of Asia, now only existing among the Parsees of India — Tom Moore and the "Fire S3 Contents vii CHAPTER PAGE Worshippers," in Lalla Rookh. — The dual deities of the Babylonian Magi — No such being as Satan exists — Zoroaster and Buddha, both princes of royal blood — Zoroaster's creed or seven commandments — The Avesta or " Living Words " — Moses and Zoroaster compared. V. Buddhism — The Trinity, etc 75 Sakya-Manu Gautama or Buddha — Commandments of Buddha — Buddha and Jesus compared — The holy Books — Tri-Pitakas, or "Three Bas kets," of Buddhism — Development of the world in past 200 years, due to the grand Anglo-Saxon and Germanic branch of the Aryan race — European Christianity from 325 A.D. to 1700, com pared to Buddhist and Confucianist countries of Asia — Wars and religious persecutions in Europe during those 1400 years — The quintette of proph ets, Zoroaster, Moses, Confucius, Buddha, and Jesus Christ; each inspired of God — The Trinity not taught in the Bible, and that doctrine has kept Jews and Christians from religious union — Count Tolstoi's creed — Max Miiller and Dr. Briggs teach that inspiration from God was given to the founders of the other monotheistic religions of the world as well as to Jewish prophets and Apostles of Christ — All religions teach some divine truths — Doctrines of future life and resur rection not taught in the Old Testament — Many of the books of the Old Testament written by anonymous or pseudonymous authors — Religions of Old and New Testament not sui Generis — The Hebrew sacrifices Pagan abominations and not types of Jesus — The Trinity derived from Egyp tian and Hindoo mythologies and originated with Athanasius and St. Augustine — The Trinity repudiated by Mohammed — Rawlinson's "His torical Evidences of Christianity," unreliable — viii Contents CHAPTER PAGE The dogma of the Trinity, a paralysis in Christian work — No mediator between God and man and no atonement required. VI. Consideration of Miracles 98 It does not follow that because the history and ethics of the Bible are true, its miraculous narratives are facts and not legends and myths — Miracles of all other religions not believed by Jews and Chris tians — Argument about miracles — Many Bible miracles considered — If miracles occurred in ancient times, why not now ? — If such miracles were performed, God would have surrounded them with such evidences that none could disbe lieve — The crossings of the Red Sea and River Jordan, and miraculous feeding of the Israelites in the Desert of Arabia, considered — In the reign of Josiah, King of Judah, B.C. 634, the Books of the Torah and Prophets had long been lost and for gotten, and but one copy was accidentally found in all Israel — The Mormons believe in all the mira cles related in the Mormon Bible, without any evidence for them — History of the Book of Mor- VII. Internal Biblical Evidence of Miracles. 118 Discussion of the subject — The Hebrew Bible mainly compiled by one person, probably Ezra, after the Restoration — Bible Books written after the Exile — Biblical Canon made by Pope Innocent ist 405 a.d.— Apocryphal Books incorporated in Canon by him — Jewish traditions of the Mishna and Talmud — No inspired selection of Biblical Canonical Books — What Julius Wellhausen says about Biblical Books — Also what Rabbi Berkowitz says — Consideration of the Bible story of Crea tion—Myth of the Garden of Eden, the Serpent and the Fall — No such region of earth ever Contents ix CHAPTER PAGE known to exist — If the story of the Fall is a fact, God permitted Satan to come into the Garden of Eden and knew what he would do — He pre vented Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the Tree of Life — And so the tragedy and its con sequences were God's will, according to Ortho doxy — The atonement of Christ was provided, to save myriads of those doomed in the Fall to eternal death by God's permissive will, if Orthodoxy is true — Consideration of the entire Orthodox scheme — The scheme rejected as mythical and contrary to God's attributes — God pardons sins freely upon repentance — No atonement necessary or taught in the Bible — Without Eden's myth, the whole structure of Orthodoxy falls — Theologi cal works of Athanasius, St. Augustine, John Calvin, and Rev. Jonathan Edwards reviewed. VIII. Internal Evidence of Miracles — con tinued 151 Some biblical miracles are grand and appropriate as works of Deity — Some inappropriate and fabu lous— No outside historical or monumental corrob oration of miracles — The plagues of Egypt, conquest of Canaan, barbarity of the Israelites — Some iniquitous laws in the Mosaic Code — Jesus said the Law of Divorce was Moses' law, not God's — Law as to punishment of seducer of bond- maiden, unjustly favoring seducer — The Hebrew Sacrificial Code and rites could not have been es tablished by God — Some thoughts on the miracles of the sun and moon standing still — Story of Sam son — Samson was Hebrew-Hercules — Story of Jonah and the whale. IX. The Story of Jesus' Temptation, etc 169 The doctrine of the Trinity — God could not be tempted by Satan, and as man such temptation of Contents CHAPTER PAGE Jesus availed nothing — Analysis of the story— There was no power for example to others in Jesus' temptation — The story is derogatory to characters of God and Jesus— Some New Testament miracles analyzed — Melchizedek and Zoroaster the same person — Battle of Jeroboam, King of Israel, in B.C. 957, with army of Judah, in which 500,000 men of Jeroboam's army are said to have been killed, incredible — Battle of Gettysburg, 1863 — De struction of Assyrian army of Sennacherib. X. Orthodoxy : The Trinity, etc 186 Consideration of the doctrines — Jesus' teachings do not inculcate them — Up to Council of Nicea 325 a.d., Arianism was mainly the Christian Doctrine — The Creed of Orthodoxy was finally formulated by Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, England, about 1 100 a.d. — Rev. Jonathan Edwards' teach ings discussed — Our Canonical Gospels written about the close of ist century a.d. — A number of other Apocryphal Gospels then written, and many miraculous stories of Jesus — The Monasti- cism of the second, third, and fourth centuries — Descent of Joseph from David shown by Evange lists Matthew and Luke, but no genealogy of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is given, nor any evidence that she was descended from King David — The story of the taxing by Cyrenius and birth of Jesus at Bethlehem — Jesus was born at Nazareth — The dogmas of the Immaculate Conception of the Vir gin Mary and of the Infallibility of the Pope, pro mulgated at same time by Pope Pius IX, a.d. 1854. XI. Religious Miscellanies 218 Internal evidences of biblical inspirations — Com parisons of some contradictory passages— Some commands ascribed to God contrary to His attri- Contents xi CHAPTER PAGE butes — Some incidents in Evangelists' Life of Jesus and some of His teachings commented upon — First Christians were Communists — The Old Testament taught not of resurrection and immor tality — Jesus Christ first brought life and immor tality to light. XII. Second Adventists and Connection of Secret Orders with the Supernatural in Religions 232 People love mystery and the supernatural — Predic tions of the destruction of the world and final judgment in a.d. 1000 — Predicted Second Advent of 1843 — Millerism — Great consternation in the United States — Swinefurth's Heaven at Rockford, Illinois — During the Middle Ages one- half of property in Europe belonged to Catholic Church — Connection of Secret Societies with Religions in Hindustan, China, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Europe — Eleusinian Mysteries and Delphic Oracles — Jewish orders of Nazarites, Re- chabites, Essenes, Sadducees and Pharisees — Mohammedan Dervishes — Christian orders of Masons, Knights Templars, Knights of Red Cross, Hospitallers, etc. — Jaques De Molay, Grand-Mas ter of Templars, burned alive in France in 1314 a. d. — Present orders of Knighthood —Catholic orders of Monks of St. Augustine, Franciscans, Benedictines, Dominicans, and Jesuits — Scottish Trinitarian and Consistorial Degrees — Sketch of Masonic history — Blue Lodge, Royal Arch Chap ter — Their teachings, mystic rites, etc — Masonry an auxiliary of the Bible — Its organizers knew no more of Jewish history, of Solomon, Hiram, King of Tyre, Hiram Abiff, the Temple building, than the Bible taught — Modern Masonic order of the Mystic Shrine. xii Contents XIII. Satan 247 Ancient names of Satan — Does such a being exist? Legend of Eden and the Serpent — Jewish belief in Satan derived from the Zoroastrian teachings and Babylonia, Magi during the Exile — According to the logic of the Orthodox Creed, God is respon sible for Satan's work — If Orthodox tenets are true, Adam and Eve were not free agents, nor are their posterity — Human beings are now as they ever were — Sin and death inseparable from human nature — Orthodoxy makes Satan omniscient and omnipresent — With Satan and his angels ever tempting them, human beings cannot but sin — Existence of Satan and hell, contrary to God's at tributes — Orthodox ideas of hell — Sermons of Rev. Jonathan Edwards on eternal punishment versus Rev. M. J. Savage's teachings — The hell of Orthodox Christianity no longer believed in, even by the Orthodox — Supposed New Testa ment teachings of election, predestination, fore- ordination, etc., discussed — New Testament teachings have been perverted — Ultimate Uni versal salvation believed to be God's plan and in accordance with His attributes. XIV. Universal Salvation 287 Life but a probation and all will ultimately enjoy God's boundless mercy, after just punishment for sins — The question of the Hebrew sacrifices as types of the Savior's atonement and of Jesus' atonement, considered — Sacrifices were not types of Jesus' death and were not approved of by Him or by God — They were simply the adoption by the Israelites, of the sacrificial customs of surrounding nations — Jesus' death was not an atoning sacri fice devised by God, but a ruthless murder— All Jesus' mission was outlined in His sermon on Mt. Olivet — He never taught the Trinity — Many Contents xiii CHAPTER PAGE changes and interpolations put in the Bible on that subject — The doctrine of the Trinity first formally adopted by Council of Nicea in 325 a. d. — Extract from sermon of Rev. J. E. Roberts on the Trinity. XV. Summary of Biblical Criticism 296 The ethics of the Bible bear the seal of Divine in spiration — The prophets were inspired to teach moral truths, but not history, geology, or astron omy — The ribald Commentaries of Voltaire, Rous seau, Paine, and Ingersoll have not materially weakened its usefulness — Still there are errors in the Bible, historical inaccuracies, interpolations, legendary miracles, poetic fictions — The Jewish Talmudists thought it right to change any text in the Bible, in the interests of Judaism — Igna tius Loyola, founder of the Order of Jesuits, taught that ancient traditions were sometimes superior to Bible text — We do not need to be Non-resistants, Communists, or Adventists to be Christians. XVI. A General Summary of Bible Exegesis. ... 303 The Creation of the world went on for many thou sands of years, through long Archaic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic Ages — Various theories of Creation — Man probably existed on earth thou sands of years before beginning of Bible Chron ology by Archbishop Usher — The six days of Creation were indefinite ages — Authors of many Bible Books unknown — Commentaries on the Bible Deluge — Professor Agassiz' Glacial theory — Convulsions of and changes in earth after Glacial Deluge — Passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, the Arabian Desert, and the River Jordan — Miracle of the sun and moon standing still a poetic embellishment of Joshua — Also the story of the manna and quails and of the river following xiv Contents CHAPTER the Israelite migration around through the desert — Balaam and the Ass, of the style of the " Arabian Nights " — The Drama of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and Nebuchadnezzar's furnace — Com ments on the Book of Esther, Queen of Ahasuerus, King of Persia — A historic fiction — Lineage of Jesus Christ — Espousals or betrothal of Joseph and Mary before Jesus' birth equivalent to Jewish marriage — Some New Testament miracles — Com ments upon, viz. the Angel at the Pool of Bethesda — Legion of devils going into swine — Resurrection of many dead at the Crucifixion of Jesus as narrated by one Evangelist, Matthew — Many gospels of Jesus' life yet extant — The Resurrection of Jesus — He was an embodied spirit — His forty days on earth after Resurrection, and his Ascension dis cussed — His Resurrection was a demonstration of immorta'ity. XVII. The Divine Education of the Human Race 343 All nations are sharing in that education now — All past and present religions a part of that training — All that history records is a part of such train ing — Dr. Riggs' views on that subject. XVIII. Miscellaneous Conclusions 348 This the age of greatest evolution in religious beliefs — Religious unrest among Parsees, Jews, Brahmans, Confucianists, Mohammedans, and Mormons— The Jewish, Christian, Mohammedan, and Mormon are cognate faiths — Congresses of Religions of World's Fair, at Chicago in 1893 and at Paris in 1900, helped to unify religions — Teachers of all religions growing more liberal and charitable — God governs in all things — Consider ation of future life— Human sins are only finite, and finite sins can only merit finite punishments — Ex necessitate rei future punishments must terminate Contents xv CHAPTER PAGE sometime — This life and the future life are one, only under changed environments — Punishments are for reformation, not for vengeance, in God's economy — Doctrines of soul-sleeping and Nir vana, controverted — We shall know in the future life, all we knew here — Know and meet parents, wife, children, relatives, and friends — We shall knowas we are known forever — One single soullost forever would be a failure in God's economy. XIX. Conclusion 365 The Bible is the greatest and best Book of earth ; we shall never have a better ; none will ever super sede the old one — Scanning the achievements of the present and future centuries, the conquests of steam, commerce, ships, railroads, electricity in tele graphs, telephones, etc. — Scientific discoveries, mechanical inventions, etc., uniting all peoples into neighborhoods — -Achievements of the Anglo-Saxon and other European races — The English language becoming cosmopolitan — The acquisition of the Hawaiian Islands by the U. S., the war of 1898 between the U. S. and Spain, and the acquisition of Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands — The English and Transvaal war of 1899-1901 in South Africa, the great war of 1903-5 between Russia and Japan — All great events in the history of the world and its civilization and universal spread of Christianity are hastening the day when all peoples shall worship in Christian temples and all "know God even from the least unto the greatest" — Closing with the great Russian poet Derzhavin's " Ode to Deity." Appendix 385 Evolution of Religions Evolution of Religions CHAPTER I A GENERAL REVIEW OF RELIGIONS THE questions fundamental to Judaism and Christianity which are now engrossing the attention of the Christian world more than ever before, are the following: i. The plenary inspiration of the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. 2. The origin of evil in the story of the fall of Adam and Eve. 3. The doctrine of everlasting future punish ment and, as corollary to that, the existence of an evil deity called Satan. 4. The doctrine of the Trinity of God and, as corollary to that, the tenet of the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the atonement by Him. 5. The question of miracles or supernatural occurrences. The author of this book proposes to consider these questions candidly as a believer in the 2 Evolution of Religions inspiration of the moral teachings of the Bible, and totally unbiased by any sectarian feeling or influences — simply as a seeker after and a lover of truth. He assumes in the outset, without any discussion of them, the great truths of the exist ence and eternity of one God who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, all holy, loving, wise, and good, the creator and governor of the universe. He infers and believes from these attributes of God and the nature, character, and environments of man, the immortality of the soul. Without a belief in God and human immortality, which are assumed as axiomatic truths and have always been held so by the large maj'ority of the human race in some form, those other fundamen tal questions concerning the Bible and its teach ings become of no importance; but to believers in God and immortality they are of importance paramount to all other considerations which affect the relations of men to God and to one another. Intimately connected with those ques tions and their origin, growth, development, and solution, is the evolutionary, intellectual, and spiritual progress of the race. In the natural world, the theory of evolution, or the gradual organization, growth, and development of the whole material universe : of its suns, systems, and worlds, up through and from all gradations and departments of unorganized and organized matter, including all vegetable and animal life, is now the General Review of Religions 3 commonly accepted belief of all scholars and scientists. There was, of course, undoubtedly, a beginning of creation somewhere and at some period in the cycles of eternity, when the Almighty started the protoplasmic forces and germ cells, from the combinations and developments of which all things in the universe have been evolved. The processes of such creation, evolution, and development are, so far, unknown to human ken and may ever be so unknown, but the fact of such creation, in the illimitable beginning, and of the evolution of all things therefrom, has been established, and is now nearly universally believed by scientists. According to this theory, only the original elements, molecules, or germs of matter were created, and infinite wisdom and infinite power brought into action the mysterious forces which combined and organized these atoms ulti mately through millions of centuries and vast geologic ages, evolving therefrom the universe as it is. This process is apparently in every way as grand and stupendous, and certainly more rational than the olden theory that God created all things as they are — simultaneously and prac tically instantaneously — by His mere fiat. Not only has such been the gradual process of creation and development in all the realms of the material universe, but it has doubtless been analogous in the domain of mind, in the intel lectual and spiritual training and progress of the 4 Evolution of Religions human race. The intellectual evolution has been slow and spasmodic; often retarded and almost obscured by periods of reaction and retrogression, as the material progress of the race also has been. In the spiritual world, the vacillations and changes have been greater. If man in the beginning of his earthly career had any religious knowledge specially communicated to him by the Deity, it must have been almost forgotten in the night of intellectual and moral darkness and superstition which we know existed universally in the earliest periods of historic time. If the antediluvian history of Genesis is credible, out of a vast population of the world before the Deluge only one family of eight persons had any knowledge of, or any faith in one God, or perhaps in any gods, but the rest were utterly steeped in ignorance, licentiousness, and crime. And by the same record, outside of the Hebrew Patri archs and their households, we are taught this same condition was true largely of the world for centuries after the Deluge and indeed down to the advent of Christianity. We know, however, from other secular histories that there were exceptions to this condition in Persia, Northern India, and China. Two thousand or two thou sand five hundred years before Christ and six hundred years or more before Moses, the pure monotheistic faith of the great Iranian prophet, Zoroaster, prevailed in Central Asia. Excepting General Review of Religions 5 in the worship of the same God, his religion and the Mosaic were very dissimilar, as hereinafter noted. In Northern India and China, five hun dred years before Christ, the splendid teachings of the great sages Buddha and Confucius were respectively the dominant religions and have been ever since. As we review the entire history of the human race, if we divest ourselves of narrow bigotry, we can easily discover the gradual evo lution of religions and the progress of mankind toward higher religious ideals and grander truths; sometimes, indeed, absorbing and requiring the sweep of centuries and the contest of intellectual and moral forces operating in long abeyance and often under almost total eclipse, to record any substantial progress. The proclamation of divine truth by the great Galilean prophet introduced the most wonderful era in moral and religious progress in the history of the world ; and the evolution from the garnered teachings of Judaism, and all the other old religions then inaugurated, but afterwards greatly retarded and almost extinguished by the superstition and bigotry of the twelve centuries of the Dark Ages, has in the past two centuries gathered such momentum, that most probably during this new century now in its dawn, the banners of the Cross will wave triumphantly ov r all countries of the earth, proclaiming the pure faith of Christianity, divested of all superstitions and absurd dogmas, 6 Evolution of Religions as the final evolution of true religion. Perfection, surely, is to be the ultimate attainment of man in the divine economy. The olden dream of the golden age of earth has never yet been realized. But evolution, development, progress, in the intellectual and moral world as well as in the physical, have always been under the control of infinite wisdom and power, and doubtless ever will be, working towards a wondrous consumma tion of amazing glory and love, in which redeemed men and a celestial earth, rejuvenated from the old one, may in the future of the coming centu ries be the glorified participants and the blissful home. The almost universal, and, therefore, we may assume, natural and intuitive belief in the exist ence of God and the immortality of the soul, which we have adopted as axioms of religious faith, has virtually been the world's faith since the beginning of time. True, the people of most nations have also believed in many additional gods, but the plural deities were generally sup posed manifestations or incarnations in various forms of the supreme God or of His attributes. While the ignorant masses of most ancient peoples undoubtedly believed in and worshiped those plural gods or manifestations of the supreme Deity, yet we know from the records of history that the wise and learned in all nations, even some such in grossly barbarous ones, believed in a General Review of Religions 7 supreme, omnipotent God who was the creator of all things and the ruler of all inferior deities, and that they worshiped the inferior divinities — if at all — in a merely perfunctory way. Perhaps in benighted Africa, Australia, and some islands of the oceans, the aborigines were all so obtuse, ignorant, and degraded that none could grasp the conception of the existence of one supreme, overruling power. But those aborigines were so bestial and imbecile as to be hardly human, and hence could not comprehend objects of wor ship above their miserable fetiches. But to the glory of the Aryan race, especially, it must be said that the greatest of the wise and learned, in all its nations, always believed in and revered one supreme Creator, though perhaps ostensibly participating in the mummeries of idolatries. Even the aboriginal inhabitants of North and South America believed in the existence of one "Great Spirit," although some of them, as, for example, the people of Mexico, Central America, and the ancient kingdom of Peru, were nominally idol worshipers. Hence we assert from the teachings of history that the belief in one supreme being has ever been the normal religion of the human race, notwithstanding the fact that in ancient times the uneducated masses of most nations deified also the sun, moon, and stars and the elements and forces of nature. These, as already said, were usually worshiped only as 8 Evolution of Religions incarnations or manifestations of the supreme Deity in various forms, and not as in themselves possessing divine power independently. We cannot believe that the great philosophers of ancient times, such as Herodotus, Xenophon, Manetho, Berosus, Demosthenes, Socrates, Aris totle, Plato, Cicero, Julius Caesar, Seneca, Virgil, Pliny, Antonius Pius, and thousands of other eminent historic persons, worshiped statues of silver, brass, or marble, as of themselves, gods and goddesses. Such belief shows ignorance of ancient history and literature. We know, on the contrary, from writings of those great men which still remain, that they and their intimate asso ciates did not actually worship such images, but at most only reverenced the deities represented by them. And many ancient peoples, such as the vast following of the teachings of Zoroaster, Buddha, and Confucius, did not worship any idols, nor did the Israelites, excepting only during periods of their apostasy from the Mosaic Torah and the traditions of their fathers. Religion is an innate sense of the human soul and is coeval with man's existence. Man's knowledge of God and his duty to Him and to his fellow-men is derived from the light of nature, from science, from innate consciousness and from such revelations of the Deity as may have been given to man in ages past by mental inspira tions or supernatural phenomena. The methods General Review of Religions 9 of such revelations (if any have ever been made) are known to God alone, and we can only judge of the facts of such revelations by their nature and importance, their agreement with the recognized attributes of God, the character of the men to whom they were given, and the circumstances, supernatural or otherwise, attendant upon such alleged communications from God. We know there have been many such purported revelations which were spurious, even though alleged to have been substantiated by miracles, and hence the miraculous attestations to any religions, to be worthy of belief, must, in the very nature of things, have authentication much greater than would be required to substantiate any merely natural occurrences or ordinary historical facts. The founders, or rather perhaps their early fol lowers, of all the religions which have ever existed, excepting the Confucian of China, claimed that their missions, as prophets of God, were attested by miraculous manifestations. Now of many systems of religions which flourished in ancient times and have passed away, such as the mythol ogies of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia, and the still existing, but effete, Brahmanism of India, we do not propose to more than make mention. They, or their his tories, are not within the scope or purpose of this work. All of those old mythological religions, excepting Brahmanism, which yet has a feeble io Evolution of Religions existence, have become utterly extinct, and only their memories and traditions of wonderful gods, and many of their miraculous stories, are yet preserved in history. They were simply some of the creations of man's craving for knowledge of God and the mysteries of the future life, in the early ages of the world, and have been submerged by grander systems of religion and brighter light, or swept off the theater of time in the cycles of evolutionary progress, and supplanted by the survival of the best and fittest faiths, each of which will in turn doubtless disappear and be merged in the one ultimate and universal religion, better understood as the years roll by, and always expanding in the light and powers of the divine Galilean prophet, the central being of the world's history. Zoroaster, or Zarathustra, of Persia, who lived about 2000 or 2500 B.C., Moses of Egypt, about 1500 b.c, Confucius of China, 600 b.c, Buddha of India, 500 b.c, Jesus Christ, 4 b.c, 33 a.d., and Mohammed, 600 a.d., were each the founders of the religions which bear their names, and which were and are the best which have ever existed, each differing in many respects, but all monothe isms, centering in one and the same God, and all substantially, historically true, and ethically pure and good. They each exist still through all the mutations of time and empires, as great religious systems and mighty moral forces. The General Review of Religions n other religions of the past, in addition to those above named, had also many things in their precepts that were good, but so much in their worships was evil, barbarous, and frivolous, that they merit no commendations. Probably they answered some good purposes in God's great economy. But the six great systems of religion, above named, and which are as well of the present as of the past, all taught great truths of God and His attributes. The ethics inculcated in each are mainly good and true. They are each great factors in the world's life and development now, as in the past. Their histories compose much of ancient and modern history. We believe their respective founders were divinely sent to teach and guide the people in their day and generation, and while some of them had higher measures of inspiration, intellectual gifts, and moral virtues above others, Jesus Christ preeminently so, yet history and their work show that all of them were great and good men, and in their times, and the conditions surrounding and creating them, they were benefactors of the race. Zoroaster, who was probably contemporary with Abraham the "Father of the Faithful," and consequently of the mysterious Melchizedek, "Priest of the Most High and King of Salem *" was the first prophet of God of whom we know anything, and the 1 Genesis xvi, 18; Hebrews vii, 1-3. 12 Evolution of Religions religion which he founded and which still exists, mainly in India, is the oldest of the world's present faiths. It is now generally known as the Parsee or Gueber religion. In the simplicity, purity, and grandeur of his teachings, Zoroaster is superior to Moses, and second only to Jesus Christ. There were in his system of worship no barbaric sacrifices, as fancied atonements for sins, but he required adoration of one God only, and taught immortality, resurrection of the dead, and a future life of rewards and punish ments. Following Zoroaster, after a lapse of five or six hundred years, came Moses, also a monotheist, but his religion was silent, so far as the books of the Pentateuch teach, as to immortality and the future of man. Some nine hundred years after Moses, the advent of Confucius and Buddha occurred. They lived nearly at the same time, were both monotheists, and teachers of the immortality of the soul, though Confucius' lessons were mainly precepts for the present life. After an interval of six hundred years came the Great Founder of Christianity. Lastly, after an inter val of nearly six hundred years more, came the Arabian prophet Mohammed, whose religion was an amalgam of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity, intermingled with the weird supersti tions of the deserts of his native land, and whose heaven, for believers, was largely a voluptuous General Review of Religions 13 paradise. The basis of all these religions is belief in only one supreme being, excepting that Zoroaster, or, if not Zoroaster himself, his priestly successors, incorporated into his religion an evil deity, whom they entitled Ahriman, Angro Mainyus, or Satan, and who was, at least in this world if not throughout the universe, in their system, endowed with nearly equal powers to Ahura Mazda, or Ormuzd, the supremely good deity. As the subject of this volume is, as outlined in the commencement, to be mainly a consideration of prominent doctrines and theories taught, or supposed by many to be taught, in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, we do not propose to go into any lengthy commentary or discussion of those scriptures generally, or of the history or tenets of those other contemporaneous Bibles and religions of the world, further than a general comparison of the merits of the respective systems and of their relative claims to inspiration. So far as they teach the truth of Deity, and their moral codes are in accord with a pure standard of ethics and of each other, they have the same claims to be considered inspired. Whatsoever, if anything, in each of those sacred books is not in harmony with said standard, nor with God's attributes, did not come from God, but is human and, therefore, imperfect. The inspired teach ings of Jesus Christ and His Apostles are the 14 Evolution of Religions grandest and best of all religions. The ethics of Zoroaster, Buddha, and Confucius are very similar to those of Moses and the prophets. There are some things to criticise in all sacred books, even in our own, and probably some changes have been made in the original texts of all, in translations and copyings. Our criticisms will be confined mainly to our Scriptures. In our theory of evolution and the ultimate survival of the fittest and best, those other religions, we believe, will all pass away, and all that in them is good and indestructible will be merged in the broader, more liberal, and ever lasting faith of Christianity, as it will be in time, when expounded and taught as Jesus taught it, and when the superstitions and interpolations which crept into the gospels during the centuries of ignorance and semi-pagan darkness, which succeeded the death of the Apostles, will be revealed merely as the parasitic growth of those credulous and bigoted ages, and from which the apostolic epistles even suffered. But during all the centuries of ignorance, fanaticism, and bigotry, which culminated in the Dark Ages, the golden truth, though much obscured and perverted at times, was preserved, and, we believe, the illumi nation of religious life and light during the coming century will be very great. Many changes in the Bible text were made in the late revised version. Other revisions will doubtless be made General Review of Religions 15 hereafter as greater light is thrown upon its history, not, perhaps, eliminating much from it, but in changing the text and relegating some of the books of the present canon, such as Ecclesi astes, Solomon's Love Song, Esther, Job, Jonah, Daniel, and Revelations of the Apocalypse, to the present Apocryphal collection, and in noting as popular myths and legends, or poetic extrava gances in statements of natural occurrences, many of the miraculous stories in the Scriptures. CHAPTER II COMPARISONS OF RELIGIONS OF the existing systems of religions the followers of Buddha, the prophet of India, are said to be most numerous, comprising nearly one-third of the human race. Eastern and Southern Asia is the home of this religion. Christianity in its various divisions, as Roman Catholic, Greek, and Protestant churches, has the next greatest number of adherents. Confucianism and Mohammed anism each have about equal numbers. Judaism has a few million followers; Zoroastrianism a million or more, and Mormonism a million. Of these 'religions, the Hebrew, Christian, Moham medan, and Mormon are cognate or related.because of having not only many similar points of belief, but because all are more or less founded upon and derived from the Mosaic system. Each of the existing religions had its own founder. But of all the other ancient systems of religion, now all extinct, excepting Brahmanism of Southern Hindustan, history gives us no information of any special promulgators. Probably there were none, and those old systems of worship, all polytheistic, were the growths of time and national environ- 16 Comparisons of Religions 17 ments and conditions, the evolutions of many religious ideas, fantasies, and superstitions. According, merely, to the popular limited knowledge and capacities of the people and priestly classes, their conceptions of the gods and demons they worshiped and feared were formed. And these ancient religions were all based upon fear, and not, as Christianity, on love. Even the Mosaic, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and Mohammedan systems appealed largely to the fears of believers. The gods and goddesses of those ancient, now extinct religions, were mainly, as we know from history and classical literature, gross, sensual, subject to human passions, and not greatly elevated in morals and intelligence above their worshipers. Some were conceived of as about humanly wise and good; some were guilty of atrocious crimes ; and all possessed powers, accord ing to the ideas of their ignorant worshipers, varying from merely superhuman to a limited, not absolute omnipotence. They were not worthy of the highest love and reverence of their wor shipers. A mysterious destiny or fate controlled all. Some were more or less under earthly in fluences and limitations. There appeared also, in all' those old mythologies, a class of lesser and inferior divinities, men and women, who had been greatly distinguished in their lifetimes as founders of empires, as great warriors, sculptors, poets, and painters, great patrons of education, 18 Evolution of Religions agriculture, and commerce, who were translated from life to the realms of the higher deities, or were deified after death. Other religions, as the Hebrew and the Buddh ist, had their mythical counter parts in the trans lation from earth to heaven of great prophets, like Enoch and Elijah, of the Bible. The higher or lower conceptions of the gods, demons, and other supernatural beings of the various ages and countries, and the evolutions of religious senti ment and worship, indicated the moral and intellectual status of the peoples, and their culture and conditions of society accorded with those ideals. Qualities of good and evil were apparent in all human beings, and instead of apprehending that such opposite qualities and corresponding conduct resulted from the proper or improper use of the faculties and desires, mental, moral, and physical, with which men and women were endowed naturally, as evil was universally preva lent, it was taught in nearly all religions, as their basic principle, that the world was under the control of great and antagonistic powers of evil as well as good ; the evil spirits ever actively and powerfully beguiling men into sin and resulting misery, ever doing more active and efficient work than the good spirits who sought to influence men and women to be good. In most ancient religions, it was assumed that the progenitors of the human family were originally Comparisons of Religions 19 created morally perfect and sinless. And it was deemed necessary to account for a beginning or primary origin of evil, disease, and death, supernaturally, as the work of an evil spirit, instead of reasonably assuming the liability to err, as the normal condition of the race; and sin and disease to occur naturally from the abuses and excesses of passions and appetites, in them selves and their proper enjoyment normally good. In accordance with such beliefs and, possibly, largely that they might have greater spiritual influence over the minds of men, myths were fashioned by ancient prophets and priests, such as the Garden of Eden, the Serpent, and the fall of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis, and similar legends in the religions of Egypt, Persia, India, and other nations in which an evil deity was represented to have led the first parents of our race astray into disobedience and rebellion against God, and as a consequence of so doing, through them, brought sin and misery and, ultimately, death into the world. As sin was hateful to God, it was deemed necessary in the early religions of most peoples (not, however, in the Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Confucian, or Moham medan faiths, which ignored such an idea) to frame a system of sacrificial atonement for sin, which atonement was outside of, external to, and disconnected, except figuratively, from the repent ance, reparation, and moral responsibility of the 20 Evolution of Religions sinner himself. This atonement was supposed to be made by the sacrifice of animals, and some times of human beings, other than the sinner himself, offered to deity; as well as by various other offerings, which sacrifices and offerings were believed in some way, never clearly explained by priestcraft, to be highly agreeable and pro pitiatory to the heavenly powers, and that through such offering and propitiation sins would be pardoned. In all religions a priesthood was established and set apart to conduct and regulate worship and instruct the people in its mysteries. The priestly orders were supposed to be of superior sanctity, were of the learned class, and anciently the only learning of a country was in them, and much of it was kept, as secret mysteries, from the laity. The priests claimed to be ministers of the gods ordained by them to expound and proclaim their will, assuming usually to authenti cate their sacred missions by supernatural powers, and authorized to inflict condign punishment upon disbelievers. Of all the ancient religions, those of Zoroaster, Moses, Confucius, Buddha, Jesus Christ, and Mohammed, are, as already said, the only ones which survive the wonderful evolutions and stern scrutinies of time. Brahmanism need not be taken into consideration. It is crumbling into ruins. Its days as a factor in the world's progress Comparisons of Religions 21 are numbered. Mormonism is but a modern parasitic outgrowth of polygamic Judaism and orthodox Christianity. The books of its Bible, crude, dull, fictious, all are in conception, style, and tenets but weak imitations of scriptural history and ethics. Much of good is in it, in its way, — all religions have many good teachings and morals, — but it is merely a clumsy religious romance without beauty and without one particle of historic truth. While it has a million or more of votaries, it can never become a great religion. The day for the wide prevalence of such delusions has gone by. Knowing its utter negation of any evidence upon which to build up such a structure of faith, Mormonism requires, and, amazing as it is, has found incredible super stition, enthusiasm, and belief in the supernatural and credulity to propagate it. Its history illus trates the truth that in some, nay, very many human beings, even in the educated and intelli gent, their religious beliefs or infatuations may under certain circumstances eclipse the wildest vagaries of the imagination. The founders of the great existing religions of the world were doubtless each ordained and qualified by Providence for their respective missions, greatly differing certainly in the measure of light and inspiration, but substantially agreeing in their delineations of the attributes of deity and in the moral precepts they taught. Their 22" Evolution of Religions systems of faith and teachings were all so infinitely superior, notwithstanding many differences among them and naturally some defects, to all the old mythological and idolatrous religions, that these facts constitute the best evidence that the teachers of each were in a greater or less degree inspired and ordained for their missions as co-laborers in God's training and education of the race. However, to Jesus Christ attaches unapproachable superiority. He was justly called the "Son of God." He was the peerless teacher of the truth. Next after Him in order of superiority, though not in time, for he was long before the Savior's time, is Zoroaster, the great Persian prophet ; next Moses, the Egyptian Hebrew; then in order, Buddha, Confucius, and lastly Mohammed. Each should be judged as to comparative greatness by his opportunities, work, and character, by his influence in the world's history and progress, and not merely by the number of his followers, now, after the changes and evolutions of so many centuries. The reli gions of Zoroaster, Buddha, and Confucius are each sui generis, and grew up independently of each other ; but the Hebrew Bible is the fountain- head of Judaism, Christianity, Mohammedanism, and Mormonism. Doubtless the sublime faith of Abraham, who was a native of Chaldea, which bordered on Persia, and certainly a contemporary of Zoroaster, was acquired from the latter's teach- Comparisons of Religions 23 ing, because it was very similar, especially as to the great doctrine of the unity of God and His infinite power and presence. Zoroaster's is cer tainly the oldest surviving religion of the world. And his faith, though by that time much corrupted, learned from the Persian priests and Babylonian Magi, by the exiles of Judah and Benjamin, during their long residence in these countries, was undoubtedly incorporated largely into the post-exilian Jewish religion; especially the belief in Satan, in a resurrection of the dead, immortality, and a future life of rewards and punishments — tenets which Moses and the prophets had not previously known or taught, as can easily be verified by searching the Scriptures.1 Very clearly, then, post-exilic assimilation of the teachings of Moses and the prophets with the doctrines of Zoroastrianism was the religion in which Christ was trained while a youth. He certainly had not all his life up to the age of thirty years, when his ministry commenced actively, been working at the carpenter's bench with his father, Joseph, without becoming ac quainted thoroughly with Hebrew literature, and through the sects of the Nazarenes, the Pharisees, and the ascetic Essenes, most probably with the doctrines of the Persian Zend Avesta. The gospel teachings clearly show that He had, and 1 See " Zoroaster and the Bible " by Rev. I. H. Mills in the Nineteenth Century Magazine of 1894. 24 Evolution of Religions that He was as familiar with the Zoroastnan tenets of resurrection, immortality, and the existence of Satan, as with the Mosaic Torah and the prophets, which had only to do with earth and time. There was a lapse of eighteen years from the occasion when Jesus sat with the priests and rabbins of the Jews in the Temple, asking and answering their profound questions of laws and religion at twelve years of age, until He began His public ministry at the age of thirty, during which time nothing is known of Him excepting His interview with John and His baptism by him in the Jordan. The story of the temp tation, subsequently, is evidently mythical. Dur ing all this interval of time, at least after He attained manhood, Jesus may have traveled into surrounding countries and learned something of the religions of Zoroaster and Buddha. Oriental traditions say that He wandered into Egypt, Persia, and India during those silent years, and studied the religions of those countries. His was not a nature to be idle. Certainly, whether at home or away during those years, He was seeking knowledge and equipping himself for His life's mission. His great store of religious truths, chaste and elegant language, splendid oratory, and wonderful insight into human nature, justify us in believing that He had seen much of the world, had traveled in other countries than Palestine, and was familiar with their religions. Thus He had Comparisons of Religions 25 become splendidly equipped for His great minis try, and for laying the foundations of a religion which, like the stone seen by the prophet Daniel, cut out of the mountains without hands, was to roll on over all the earth, and in the centuries subdue and supersede all other faiths. All this work was not done by Jesus, as popularly sup posed, in three years, for according to the com mon chronology He was baptized when thirty years of age, 26 a.d., and was crucified in 33 a.d., or when about thirty-seven years of age, so His public ministry extended over seven years. Those six great prophets of Asia, Zoroaster, Moses, Confucius, Buddha, Jesus Christ, and Mohammed, were the only really great religious teachers of the world, as original promulgators of faiths. All doubtless in their several theaters of action, were inspired by Deity to teach their fellow-men higher and purer truths than were generally known and prevalent in the countries and days in which they lived and wrought. They taught not for their own times alone, but for all subsequent ages, for much of their teachings, the grand creed of Zoroaster, the Decalogue of Moses, the lessons of charity and brotherhood of Buddha, the charming social culture and filial piety of Confucius, and the incomparable parables and sermons of Jesus Christ, scintillating with love and light, these and many more of their great lessons will survive for all time and lead all 26 Evolution of Religions human progress. All of those prophets taught of and worshiped one and the same God, a fact which most Christians seem to forget. Their ethical teachings are nearly the same, their great tenets are much the same (of course differing in non-essentials and ritual) , and if Christian ortho doxy be true, in the nature of deity, but only differing with orthodoxy. Jesus Christ wrote not a line of His teachings to leave with His followers, nor do we know certainly that Zoroaster and Buddha left any writings. Traditionally, some fragments of beautiful poems are ascribed to Zoroaster. Confucius and Mohammed wrote, or dictated to be written, their own Bibles, the Analects and the Koran. Moses is commonly supposed to have written the Pentateuch. He may have written the groundwork of the five books from compilations of older writings and traditions, but we know that they were revised and many additions and changes made in them by the post-exilian Jewish prophet, Ezra. In fact, Ezra was doubtless the redactor and com piler of all the Old Testament books, existing in his time, into their present forms. The sameness of style and phraseology indicate a compilation of all the books at one time and by the same person, and the evidences of compilations from various documents are unquestionable. The best Bible scholars admit it. The Talmud says all the books of the Old Testament previously exist- Comparisons of Religions 27 ing were lost or destroyed at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, and were repro duced by Ezra through divine inspiration. Changes and perversions have been made in time in most ancient religious writings. Oriental scholars say the modern Zend Avesta does not teach correctly in all things the ancient faith of Zoroaster, for though believing in Angro Mainyus, the evil on, He did not teach of him as a dual deity, but that he was an inferior and subject being to the good God. The belief in Satan as a dual deity probably crept into Zoroaster's religion in after-times, when it became amalgamated and corrupted with the Magiism of Media and Babylon. And to the glory of that most ancient, and probably primeval faith, it must be said that there were no absurd and debasing sacrifices whatever, for atonement, in its rites, of sins or for other purposes.1 But it may be said, Why should certain men in different regions of the world be inspired and commissioned to teach different systems of religion? Why should not one man be commissioned to teach the same faith for all? Whatever the reasons, in the first place, that has not been done. Moses' system was in many respects a very different religion from Jesus Christ's. Many prophets besides 1 Rawlinson's "Ancient Religions," pp. 64, 65. " Zo roaster and the Bible" in the Nineteenth Century Magazine, July, 1894. 28 Evolution of Religions Moses assisted in evolving the Hebrew economy. The Apostles of the Savior, notably Paul, materially contributed to the development of His religion. One teacher for all nations in the past has not been God's way. In the second place, had no mission, excepting to Moses and Jesus Christ, been given to the other great teachers mentioned, the world in all probability, outside of the narrow boundaries of Palestine in which alone the Mosaic religion shed its light for cen turies, and outside of the comparatively limited areas of Christian civilization for other long centuries, would have all else remained in the darkness, sensualism, and degradation of the ancient mythological idolatrous religions which once existed, almost up to the present time. The grand theism and splendid ethics of the other three great religions of Asia, in Persia, India, China, and Japan, would have been unknown and their elevating influences unfelt, as they otherwise were, through the long centuries of their sway. Zoroastrianism, we have reason to believe, supplanted mythology and idolatry in Central Asia, Confucianism the same in China. Buddh ism, in India, engaged in bitter contest with idolatrous Brahmanism, and though it never fully succeeded in supplanting it, yet it caused a wonderful reformation in the lives and customs of many millions of people, and has for centuries Comparisons of Religions 29 been the rehgion of nearly one-third of the human race. Must it not have been sent and blessed of God? And when Mohammed proclaimed the Koran to Arabia, the then mongrel Christianity of that country and of Egypt and the regions in Northern Africa bordering on the Mediterranean, had become so corrupted and intermixed with heathen rites as to be fast relapsing into idolatry, which Mohammedanism utterly stamped out and set up the standard of the only one God. Christianity had made little progress in the Old World since the Roman Empire embraced it as the state rehgion, and with the exception of the countries of the New World, colonized from Europe, until really the beginning of the nine teenth century, had made small advance for fifteen hundred years. So that in the providence of God, those other ancient religions, when they came among men, were absolutely necessary for the welfare of the world. All but Mohammed anism, long antedated Christianity. Very little progress in the means of communi cation among men by travel and commerce had been made for many centuries until the advent of steam and electricity. Since then, and mainly during the past one hundred years, more has been done to spread Christianity over the world and for the general education of the people, than during the nearly seventeen centuries previous, since the days of Jesus Christ and His Apostles. 30 Evolution of Religions Hence, we repeat that in the providence of God and in the wonderful evolutions of His moral government, the religions of Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha, and Mohammed were apparently great essential factors in the progress, the-conservatism, and intellectual and moral development of the human race. They grew up where Christianity and Judaism, excepting in the case of Moham medanism, were unknown. They filled voids of darkness and the degradations of utterly false religions which would otherwise have existed, where they supplanted them, so far as we can see, up to within half a century past. So these religions have really immensely blessed the countries in which they were dominant for thou sands of years. Hence, in view of these facts, why should Christians denounce those other great religions as false systems, each claiming inspira tion from God to their founders, and each pro claiming the same grand fundamental religious truths? Hardly one in a thousand of Christians even at this day knows anything about them Until recent years they filled no place which Christianity would have occupied, and without their various sacred books teaching of one God only, and pure morals, the people of all those countries who worshiped under those religious would otherwise, literally, in the language of the old prophet of Israel, "have sat in darkness and the shadow of death," in utter mental and moral Comparisons of Religions 31 darkness. Yes, we believe their founders were sent of God and gave to their followers the best religions suited to their capacities and the times. And though not gifted with the power and inspi ration of Jesus, the Son of God, they were, we verily believe, co-laborers in the moral vineyard of earth, each teaching of the one God and pure morals, inspired in so far as they revealed God's will, but in their miracles, histories, forms of worship and civil laws, they were only human and wrote as men. There are errors in all those sacred books, and some things perhaps that were best not in them, many things in some of them, men wrote, men compiled, and men translated them into other languages than the originals — erring, fallible men. It is not believed at this day by the best scholars that Moses wrote the Pentateuch as it is, or that Joshua wrote the book which goes by his name, or that the historical and most other books of the Old Testament were written by the persons to whom their authorships have usually been as cribed. And the authorships of the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament are, for the most part, uncertain. Rev. Charles Briggs, probably the ablest Bible scholar and linguist of our day, and many other profound biblical teachers, con clusively prove that the authorship of nearly all the books of the Old Testament, and of several of the Gospels and some of the Epistles of the 32 Evolution of Religions New, are either anonymous or pseudonymous, unknown or fictitious.1 No more do we know at this day who were the authors or compilers of the Zend Avesta, the Tri Pitakas, or "Three Baskets" of the Buddhists, or the Brahman Vedas. Much of these ancient Bibles are resplendent with great truths, and all, excepting the Vedas, teach only of the One Almighty Being; but, nevertheless, all have many things in them that are of the "earth earthy," even if much in them is from God. So that truly, as we believe and as we expect to show clearly in these pages, even of our Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, only their revelations of God and of His laws bear the impress of inspiration. While we shall refer frequently in these pages to the sacred books of the other great religions of the world, and may discuss and compare their ethics and forms of worship with the Jewish and Christian religions, the questions of discussion will be mainly of those latter systems as composing one Bible and of the great doctrinal tenets supposed to be taught therein, as hereinbefore outlined. We may say here, that though based upon the teachings of Moses and the prophets, Jesus' religion was not the same as theirs. The Jews were mainly hostile to it in Christ's time, and have been so ever since. Their rabbinical books, the Talmuds, Mishnas, 1 Note B, Appendix. Comparisons of Religions 35 and others, bitterly denounce it. Many of the laws and institutions of the Mosaic economy, such as the sacrificial customs, polygamy, slavery, divorces at will of husbands, etc., were wrong and barbarous. We cannot believe they were ever ordained of God, although so declared in the Pentateuch, because they were institutions con trary to His attributes, and we know from history and experience, contrary to human welfare.1 They were all contrary to Jesus' life and doctrines. He specially repudiated polygamy and divorces, and never indorsed those other institutions, never observed the sacrificial rites, and frequently denounced the Jewish priesthood of the Mosaic worship in the most bitter terms. No more terrible excoriation of the ecclesi astical hierarchy of any religion can be found than in Jesus' denunciation of the priests, scribes, and Pharisees in the twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew. These denunciations are the more remarkable, for they were of orthodox believers in the Mosaic economy; but of the atheistic and heretical Sadducees he had Uttle to say, and seldom censured them. His portrayals of the character of His Father, God, were absolutely antagonistic to many of the ascriptions to Jehovah, of hatred and revenge, found in the Old Testament. Surely the God of Israel, of whom Moses and Joshua « Briggs, "Bible, Church, and Reason." Appendix, p. *59- 34 Evolution of Religions taught as having ordered the slaughter of all the men, women, and children of the Amalekites and of certain of the cities of the Canaanites, without even the shadow of mercy, was not the God whom Jesus worshiped as His "Father in Heaven." So even Jesus did not recognize the teachings and laws of the Mosaic religion in many essentials as His own belief, but on the contrary taught otherwise. We do not propose writing a commentary upon the Bible or specially upon any of its books, but only an examination of the most salient questions connected with it and outlined in the beginning of this work. In reviewing those questions and connected therewith, discussing on general lines some of its historical narratives, its legends and miracles, its ethical code, ceremonial and sacrifi cial institutions, and the Mosaic polity generally, we believe they should be considered in the light of the great fundamental truths, assumed as axiomatics in the outset of this work as the universal belief of all intelligent and reasonable people of all faiths at this day. That the one and only God, omnipotent, omniscient, and omni present, whose government is universal and whose laws are changeless, is the creator of all things and father of all rational beings, and desires the temporal and eternal welfare of each and all His children, and has endowed them with immor tal spirit life that they may fulfill the purposes Comparisons of Religions 35 of their being, is also universally believed. That such are His purposes, and that they will ulti mately be carried out and accomplished in har mony with His universal plans, in universal salvation, all, we are sorry to say, do not also believe, but I and many others do unques- tioningly believe and trust. And further believ ing and holding that enlightened human reason and conscience are also in harmony with God's laws in reference to all moral obligations, in so far as they are revealed in nature and the Bible, we shall also assume that whatever in our Bible or in the sacred books of any other religion does not square with such standard of ethics or is repugnant thereto, clearly and unquestionably, even to the reason and consciences of honest and ordinarily intelligent persons free from sectarian or other bias, though not specialists in religious literature, is not of or from God, nor in accordance with His will, although it may be said to be so in any books, and may be declared by the writers of such books to have been enunciated by God. In such cases we believe, if there are any such incon gruities in the Bible, either that the original text has been changed or that the good men of old who wrote or compiled the various books thereof, sometimes put therein matters which were merely the products of their own minds, though assumed by them to have come from God. These matters, in our belief, were sometimes fictions and allego- 36 Evolution of Religions ries, usually poetic, and framed to enforce par ticular precepts and theories supposed to have been inspired. In other cases we believe such matters to have been merely legends, which were easily accepted for truths, in ages of ignorance and superstition, even by comparatively wise and learned men. That is, broadly and clearly to state our position more concisely : No matter how venerable with antiquity, no matter with what historical or ecclesiastical authority championed or enforced, whatever is not in accordance with the holy character of God and with the pure ethics and enlightened reason and consciences He has given us, or in the matter of historical or miraculous occurrences whatever has not reasonable evidences of authenticity, we shall reject and discard as not inspired or not literally true, or at least, as verdicts of Scotch juries sometimes say, as "not proven." So by such standards of conscience, evidence, and criticism, we propose to examine and judge histori cal statements, miracles, lawst religious rites, sac rificial institutions, and ordinances of the Bible, in so far as we consider them, and also creeds of faith supposed to be deduced therefrom, especially those taught by orthodox Christian denominations, only asking candid hearing and honest, dispas sionate judgment by those who may read this book. Its general purposes have been already stated. And we also desire thereby, and by a general review of the Bible and special considera- Comparisons of Religions 37 tion of some of its most important historical statements, ordinances, and ethics, that we may contribute something to the advancement of true religion, as we believe and understand it. Ever since the dawn of time, or at least from the period "whereof the memory of man and the records of history run not to the contrary," the annals of the human race have been largely filled up with nanatives of the many religions of the world, and of the wars and devastations resulting from the hatreds and antagonisms of the adherents of the different faiths. Each always claimed a divine origin, and the prophets and priests of each system furnished, as they claimed, ample proofs to the people of its divinity, and whenever their power was sufficiently great, demanded, under dire penalties, absolute sub mission to the decrees of heaven as promulgated by them. Whether there was ever an original primary revelation from God to man in the very beginning of time, we do not know. Even Genesis does not teach any. Some great scholars believe there was such ancient revelation; but if so, it was probably only traditional and soon lost or corrupted. Judging from the changes which scholars of oriental languages say have crept into the religions of Zoroaster and Moses, and even into the teachings of Christ and His Apostles, it seems unavoidable that religions should be corrupted in the evolutions of time, especially in 38 Evolution of Religions ages of great ignorance and superstition, when there were no printed books and few manu scripts, or through incompetency of translations, or work done in order to conform to the varying creeds of enthusiasts and bigots, or partially to amalgamate the power and policy of the period with existing religions. Zoroastrianism, the oldest rehgion of the world, certainly older than the religions of Egypt and India of three thousand years ago, was undoubtedly in its original form superior to the religion of Moses, or any other of the ancient religions, in that it taught of only one God and resurrection, immortality and eternal life, without the barbarism of animal or human sacrifices, or the delusion of an atoning mediator between the Merciful Father and His earthly children. It is really the primary rehgion so far as known. The religion of the Hebrews hardly gave a hint of immortality. Its bloody and impure sacrificial rites had no higher authority than the similar worships of the heathen nations around them. The fact that the one religion was mono theistic and the others polytheistic never sancti fied such degrading worship. Sacrificial offerings to God were simply the product of ignorant, benighted superstitions, and could not have had the sanction of the Almighty. It is doubtful if the Israelites did not believe that other nations had living gods of their own, and only believed Comparisons of Religions 39 that Israel's God was the greatest. It may be somewhat shocking to the religious ideas and sensibilities of most Jews and Christians to associate the Mosaic worship in any sense with that of the ancient surrounding nations, but the sacrificial services were much alike and grew out of similar degrading conceptions of God, namely, that the savor of sacrifices was pleasant to Him, and would induce Him to grant expiation for sins. We know it is said that the sacrifices of the Hebrews were anti-types of Jesus, and were partly so instituted by God, but the Torah or the prophets give no authority for such teaching. Such doctrines were originated long after the crucifixion. They were not taught by Jesus. The sacrificial rites were denounced by nearly all the prophets.1 Such ideas as the Almighty being gratified and appeased by the "sweet savor" arising from the smell of the burning victims on the altars certainly originated in the same igno rant and unhallowed conceptions of God as indeed the sacrificial worship of all other nations. To us it seems sacrilegious to suppose that God ever authorized it. The best proof that such worship was unhallowed and debasing is that the Israelites were much of the time, nay most of the time, even in the land of promise to which God had led them, and notwithstanding their Mosaic Torah and the teachings and warnings of many 1 Isaiah i. and Micah vi. 40 Evolution of Religions prophets, gross idolaters, even frequently sacri ficing human victims to Moloch, Baal, Rimmon, Ashtarte, and other gods. They were in no sense better than, at some periods if as good as, some of the surrounding nations. For their general wickedness, vile sacrifices, and besotted idolatries, ten of the twelve tribes of Israel were finally conquered and exiled en masse from the Promised Land by Assyrian invaders, and became in time so thoroughly amalgamated and incorporated with their conquerors, or scat tered over the world, that they not only lost their old rehgion and became aliens to all the ancient promises and types, but the strains of blood and ties of kindred with their Judean and Benjamitic brethren were also entirely lost and have never been gathered together again. Thus notwith standing the wonderful events of their history, and the amazing miracles which, if true, they and their fathers had witnessed for centuries, and the common laws and rehgion which, it would seem, ought to have bound them together forever as one people, a great majority of the " Holy People " were disrupted from the rest and passed in a few years into oblivion. While about one hundred and thirty-three years afterwards their brethren of Judah and Benjamin, as wicked and almost as idolatrous, having at one time, for a generation or two, entirely lost their old faith,1 were, like the 1 II Chronicles xxxiv. Comparisons of Religions 41 ten tribes, torn from their county and exiled to Babylon, never to be again a sovereign people, excepting for a few years at one time under the government of one of the Maccabees. As we have seen, the best and only rational religions of the world ¦ have been and are the Zoroastrian, Confucian, Buddhist, Christian, Modern Jewish, and Mohammedan religions, purest in their original ideals and ethics, and always free, excepting the ancient Jewish, from the degrading sacrifices and rituals of heathen reli gions. The sanction of heaven seems to have attested to the inspiration in greater or less degree of each of those religions and to the necessity for them, in the divine economy, in the various ages and countries of their origins, in that they each still exist and have stood the tests of many cen turies, and are even yet great evolutionary factors in the world of to-day. Hereafter when the mis sion of each, in the providence of God, is accom plished, they may, and doubtless will, all be merged and absorbed into the faith of the greatest of prophets, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, and all their temples become shrines of His universal worship. Such, we beheve, will be the finale of the great political and religious evolutionary elements of the age in the century before us. "The History of the World," the Rev. Dr. Briggs says, "is God's training and education of the human race, and all the great religions of the 42 Evolution of Religions world were factors in that training." Zoroaster's was a grand religion, and, we think, second only to Christianity, which was ultimately evolved from it and the Mosaic economies. Three thou sand years ago it was the great religion of the Orient. Its eternal fires, its nightly emblems of Deity, substituted for His temporarily obscured but grander emblem, the sun, blazed for many centuries on hill and mountain tops from the Euphrates to the Himalayas, and from the Per sian Sea to the Caspian, and were only extin guished in Persian blood, when the Moslems, under the Caliph Omar, about the year 650 a.d., conquered Persia under the black banner of the Prophet, and gave the followers of Zoroaster the alternative of belief in the Koran, exile from their native land, or the sword. After Zoroaster, Moses, Confucius, and Buddha came in succession as messengers of God to men, and were the expo nents of their own systems of faith, each grand, pure, and beautiful, all monotheists, only differing in some doctrines and forms of worship. The ancient priesthood of Moses ceased to exist with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. Their gorgeous, half-barbaric sacrificial institu tions and ceremonies are only known in Bible story. Jesus came, and His rehgion recognized no sacrificial services. His sermons were expo sitions of the highest and noblest teachings of Moses and the prophets, unfolding their lessons Comparisons of Religions 43 of truth to all the world, Jew and Gentile alike, and combining with them the doctrines of the resurrection and immortaUty of the soul and eternal hfe, tenets not taught, or if so only dimly and indirectly, in the old Scriptures, but long before taught in the Zend Avesta. His religion was based on love; those of Zoroaster and Moses on fear. The truth as it came from the Ups of Jesus and His Apostles (it was not written in books for a long time) spread rapidly over all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, and in less than three centuries overwhelmed the gorgeous but sensual sacrificial worship and magnificent temples of Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman gods and goddesses; their priesthoods vanished, and their memories only survive now in classic lore and history. CHAPTER III ANCIENT CHRISTIANITY UP to the time of the triumph of Christianity over Roman idolatry in the reign of the Em peror Constantine the Great, about the year 315 a.d., the simple doctrines of Jesus had been mainly purely taught. There were no creeds to confuse and fetter men's minds. The various churches were independent of any outside control, and their pastors taught only the plain tenets of Christ and His Apostles, in which love and charity to all men, faith in God, and following in the footsteps of Jesus, were the great themes. A triune Deity was unknown. Edward E. Hale says: "Cardinal Newman put the truth forcibly, but not too forcibly, when he said of the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, ' The creeds of that early day make no mention in their letter of the Catholic doctrine at all. They make mention indeed of a three.1 But that there is any mystery in the doctrine, that the three are one, that they are co-equal, co-eternal, all omnipo tent, all incomprehensible, is not stated and never could be gathered from them.' " He continues 1 North American Review, vol. 148, p. 97. 44 Ancient Christianity 45 later:1 "Here is the absolute religion which Jesus Christ proclaimed to the world, faith, or a steady behef in God and in His absolute presence ; hope, a steady sense of immortaUty working in a Ufe which immortals lead; love, which is now called ' altruism' or a feeling on the part of every man that he does not Uve for himself alone, but that he hves for the whole race. These three constitute the way of life, as Jesus Christ under stood it, and as He tried to make the world under stand it." The doctrines of the early Christians were the same as those preached by Arms, Pelagius, Celes- tius, and the bishops and pastors of the Eastern churches. Unitarianism in those early days was the faith of Christians generaUy. But orthodox interpretations and mysticisms, bigotry and fanat icism, under the influence of monastic and other recluse reUgious orders, had already taken root, and with other heresies and innovations in pure Christianity were rapidly developing in that superstitious age. Finally, at the Councils of Nicea, 325 a.d., and of Carthage, 411 a.d., the adherents of the Athanasian Creed, under the leadership of the Roman pontiff, and many other great Western bishops, triumphed over liberal Christianity. By such incomprehensible and mysterious tenets they vastly increased the power of the Church in that benighted age and 1 North American Review, vol. 148, p. 101. 46 Evolution of Religions riveted their control over the souls and con sciences of men. The orthodox creed was adopted only by a small majority at each council. The followers of Arms and his colleagues were put under the ban of the Roman Empire, which thus in its decadence, after persecuting for centuries the foUowers of Christ, espoused at last a mon grel and semi-pagan religion as the state worship under the primacy of the bishop of Rome. From those councils the dogmas of orthodoxy, the departure of the Christian world from the faith of the apostohc times, and the admixture of pagan ceremonies and festivals in the worship of the Church, date their prevalence, if not their origin. Interpolations and alterations into the text of the Scriptures were made to fit the new creed and the fanaticism and bigotry of the age. Ecclesiasticism was maturing its plans for supreme domination over the minds and con sciences of men, and the Pope, with his consistory of Cardinals, became the absolute arbiter for centuries of future Christianity. The Apoc ryphal Books of the Old Testament universally previously rejected by the early churches as merely human productions without a shade of inspiration, and now rejected as such by all Protestant denominations throughout the world, were during the fifth and sixth centuries a.d. admitted by Rome into the sacred canon, as were also the Apocalyptic dreams of St. John Ancient Christianity 47 in the Book of Revelation, which had also previously been denied admission into the New Testament Canon. The amazing fables collected and pubUshed some years ago by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould in his book of "Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets," and also those pub lished by Rev. Bernard Pick in his "Apocryphal Life of Jesus," were, during all the dark ages of ignorance and superstition, of common belief in the Christian world. They were supplemented by tales of myriads of miracles of subsequent saints and saintesses performed during a thousand years in the ages succeeding the Apostles and fully beheved for fifteen hundred years.1 After the Councils of Nice and Carthage, the true hght of bibhcal inspiration became more and more perverted and obscured by incorrect renderings and interpolations of the original text, and has only been partially restored and corrected since the sixteenth century reformation in Europe. During the century just closed, and especially of late years, the Uberal thought, independent criticism, and widely extended research and investigation of many great minds, notably Max Miiller, Dr. Charming, Dr. Priestley, Theodore Parker, JuUus Wellhausen, Straus, Dr. Ernest Renan, Rev. J. H. Mills, Dr. Savage, Eidersheim, 1 Lecky's "History of Rationalism in Europe." Maury's ,; Legends of the Saints of the Middle Ages." Milman's " History of Latin Christianity." 48 Evolution of Religions Dr. Charles Briggs, McGiffert, Hollis, and others whose names are too numerous to mention here, have brought about a great awakening in and restoration of primitive Bible truth. The literary evolutions of this age in all fields of knowledge, natural sciences, historical research, social and political economies, and general religious inquiry, are culminating in grander conceptions of the Almighty, of the mission and teachings of Jesus, and also of the works of Zoroaster, Confucius, and Buddha, than have ever before been realized. Their religions were for the world. Moses' was only for Palestine — one people. Indeed, the nineteenth century was in many respects the most wonderful in all the annals of time. It was an unparalleled epoch. The far-reaching discoveries in all the domains of science were more varied and of greater benefit to the human race than the mere rudimentary discoveries in all the preceding centuries. The same may be said of mechanical arts and machinery. More too was accomplished during the last century in the extension of civilization and Christianity than in all the previous years since the Savior Uved on earth. PracticaUy, excluding this Western continent, which had already been partially settled by migrations from Christian Europe, at the commencement of the nineteenth century the limits of Christian civihzation were really more circumscribed in Ancient Christianity 49 the rest of the world than they were before the Moslem conquests in Asia and Africa in 630-800 a.d. AU the Isles of the Pacific and Indian Oceans were a hundred years ago in absolute heathen darkness. Now in nearly all those islands, including the continent of Aus tralia and much of "Darkest Africa," the people are civihzed and Christianized, though the work has been accomplished, it should in justice be said, as much, or more, through the commercial intercourse and government and arms of Christian countries, notably of England, as through mission work. The Christianity of this age while not yet, as preached and practiced by many sects, the same broad and beautiful faith as taught by Jesus and His Apostles, yet is essentially different from and better than the ilhberaUsm, intolerance, inhumanity, and bigotry of four hundred or even of one hundred years ago, when the dark theology and predestination of John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards largely voiced and led the rehgious sentiments of the Christian world. Creeds once beheved universally, though still used formally by the orthodox denominations, are generaUy regarded as mere antiquated and hollow services now, and some of their supposed essentials of faith are reaUy beheved by few ministers or lay men in their orthodox terms to-day. LiberaUsm in reUgion, as in poUtics, is the trend of thought; 50 Evolution of Religions and bigotry and superstition, allied with worn- out and absurd confessions of faith, have Uttle influence over ordinarily intelligent men as com pared with a generation ago, and as factors in reUgion are becoming dormant. Christ and His Apostles and the early Christian Fathers for two or three centuries had no rigid creeds. Why should their successors have? The highest intel lects of our day, discarding the mysterious and baseless doctrine of the trinity, as savoring of old Egyptian and Indian mythologies, of the Trinity of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, or of Varuna, Mithra, and Indra, and as unauthorized by the Bible and derogatory to man's highest concep tions of the Almighty, beheve now with Moses and the prophets in their solemn and repeated declaration of the unity of God, that "The Lord our God is one God," and that Jesus Christ spoke Uterally when He said, " My Father is greater than I; I can of mine own self do nothing."1 God is only and absolutely one. To this the one, first, grand, central tenet of his faith, the Jew now, as his fathers did, still clings with deathless tenacity, the same as through all the exiles and persecutions of eighteen centuries of bigoted Christian fanaticism and intolerance. Jesus we love and venerate. We beheve in Him as the Son of God, and the great teacher and guide of men; and whatever terms of glory and 1 John v. 30, xiv. 28. Ancient Christianity 51 honor are given Him, we think He is entitled to them in the highest sense. But whatever the occasional ascriptions of His delegated power and quasi-divinity may mean in bibhcal verse and poetic story, they do not mean that Jesus is God. There is nothing of the trinity in the Bible. Jesus was undoubtedly divinely sent and com missioned to promulgate a new gospel of love and immortaUty to the world, and for all the world, Jew and Gentile, the great and the lowly, grander than Moses and the prophets ever taught. Such was Jesus' mission to the world. So he taught on Mount OUvet in His great sermon, and the only creed He ever enunciated or sanctioned was contained in the peerless prayer which He there formulated for His disciples as embodying everything essential to be beheved and followed. Such a sublime prayer was never before uttered, or, if uttered, never recorded. So simple, grand, and all embracing, — "Love God, trust in Him, love all men, and forgive, as ye shall be forgiven, on sincere repentance." No more, no less. No vicarious sacrifice, no atonement taught or even hinted at. The great Chinese teacher Confucius had laid down the Golden Rule six hundred years before Jesus taught it, but he gave to his followers no form of prayer. The world needs no other creed than the Golden Rule and the Lord's Prayer, and the spirit of that prayer is sufficient for all human prayers. It is the seal of Jesus' 52 Evolution of Religions sonship to God, of His brotherhood to man. How all embracing and universal in application, how humble and confiding in its sense of power and assurance of acceptance, this wonderful petition to the Eternal Father! This biief but matchless creed of divinity in unity, of Uberty, equality, fraternity ! There is in it — and we note it again — no suggestion of the trinity, nor of total depravity, nor of the doctrine of vicarious atone ment for sins as a prerequisite for the salvation of men from eternal punishment. These dogmas are all, as if purposely, ignored. Only the promise of pardon and eternal love remains, " Father, for give our sins as we forgive all who sin against us." This prayer alone and absolutely, negatives the creed of orthodoxy. In the suggestiveness of its all-embracing petitions and significant omissions, it is the creed of creeds and alone has the stamp of divinity. CHAPTER IV MODERN RELIGIONS TT is estimated by statisticians that there are ¦*¦ now about 1,400,000,000 people inhabiting the earth, and they are supposed generally to be beUevers in or adherents of the various systems of reUgion now existing in the following propor tions of populations, viz : Brahmans 90,000,000 Buddhists 450,000,000 Confucianists 150,000,000 Christians 400,000,000 Jews 10,000,000 Mohammedans 200,000,000 Mormons 2,000,000 Pagans 97,000,000 Zoroastrians 1,000,000 Total 1,400,000,000 Not many people in Christian countries, and few indeed of other countries, even of the educated classes, have any more than a general and super ficial acquaintance with any other religions of the world than their own. They may know generally that the believers in those other systems than the S3 54 Evolution of Religions Christian number considerably over two thirds of all the inhabitants of the earth, but of the comparative numbers of the followers of other faiths, and of their doctrines and forms of worship, they know very Uttle, and all, excepting their own, are regarded by the masses in Christian countries as pagan or false religions. It would, indeed, be a revelation to most people if the simple theology and the generally pure and beautiful ethics of the Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and Confucian sacred books, and even of the Al Koran, were made familiar to them, and they could know that many of the grandest precepts of Moses and the prophets and of the gospel of the Christ had been taught in other far distant regions from Palestine centuries before the Savior's time, and in the case of Zoroastrianism even cen turies anterior to Moses and the Ten Command ments. Confucianism and Buddhism were the great religions of China and India five hundred years before the Savior preached in Palestine. We have said considerable already about those three other ancient reUgions, and of course any thing like an exposition of their systems. would be foreign to the scope and purpose of this book, however interesting and instructive it might be. Hence, we only propose to make a brief com parison of some of the tenets of those religions with the Jewish and Christian. Of Brahmanism some exposition of its sacred Modern Religions 55 books, the Rig-Vedas, would, of course, be inter esting to many, but for purposes of illustration and comparison with the other modern religions, their ethics are so mixed up with pagan and polytheistic rites and teachings, and the books so fuU of fabulous history and miracles, that Uttle benefit would result from a general synopsis of them. While it is one of the oldest religions of the world and stiU has many devotees, and its moral teachings are generaUy good, yet it is a system of many gods, some of them wicked and impure, and all its worships so entirely out of harmony with the age that the world were best without it. Its decadence is rapidly progressing. Excepting to the historian and student of San skrit Uterature, its system of worship, its priests, castes, and sacred books do not merit much con sideration or present any great attractions. As to Moslemism, it may be said of the Al Koran that its moral teachings are mainly good; its monotheism and absolute prohibition of all forms and symbols of trinity, or of any manifesta tions or representation of God, or any adoration of the same, are grand and sublime. Morally, however, it is on a lower plane than Christianity. It allows polygamy and slavery, as does the Hebrew Bible, degrades woman by taking scarcely any note of her as a participant in the religion and hope of the faithful followers of the Prophet in this Ufe, and scarcely recognizes her prospects 56 Evolution of Religions of heaven, and then only as menials for the brave warriors who fought under his banners, and for the beautiful houris who are companions of their pleasures there. Its historical sketches and allu sions to the old patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, are merely plagiarisms from our Bible, without its beauty of style. Hence in these, and in many other respects, this reUgion is inferior to our Scriptures. A comparison and parallel with them would be unattractive and useless. It is a great Uterary production, and doubtless if translated so as to bring out all the prophets' ideas in the beauties and natural meter of its Arabic poetry would be a very interesting and attractive book. Islamism is on the wane; its palmiest days are passed. It served the world well in the provi dence of God in rescuing Arabia, Northern Africa, and Western Asia from the semi-idolatrous, half- pagan image worship of the Savior and Mary his mother, a degenerate Christianity into which those countries were lapsing after Rome, the Empire, and the Church had crushed out Unitarianism or Arianism by intolerance and persecution. It has preserved in those lands the worship of Allah, the only one God, and it conserved for centuries, literature and the sciences from the destructive barbarism and godless superstitions of the Dark Ages of Europe. In fact, the Moslem universities in Spain, during the six centuries of its supremacy there, were the only oases in the Modern Religions 57 European literary desert of that period. During the same time Arabia produced many great scholars and scientists. The renowned Sultan Saladin was a hberal patron of learning. In the evolutions of time and the progress of education and civilization, those conditions have changed, and Islamism instead of being, as once, a conserver, has become an obstacle in the paths of progress and civilization, and the diffusion of a purer Christianity than it once supplanted. There are really many beautiful things in the Koran, although Dr. Sale's translation of it is said to give but an indifferent version of it. We append here for comparison hteral poetic translations of half a dozen Suras by a briUiant oriental scholar, Daniel J. Rankin. Sura I. In the name of the merciful God, the pitiful, Praise be to God, to the Lord of the World, The merciful, pitiful one, King of the day on which all men are judged. We worship Thee, asking for aid. Lead us in the path of those guided aright, The path of those pleasing to Thee; Not in the path of those causing Thee wrath, Nor of those wandering astray. Sura CX. In the name of the merciful God, the pitiful, When the help of God shall come 58 Evolution of Religions And the victory be won, And mankind in troops ye see Unto God's religion flee, Then extol thy Lord in praise, His forgiveness ask always. He His pardon never stays. Sura CXI. Shall perish his hands, yea, perish himself, Abu Laheb, called Father of Flames. Nor profit his wealth, nor profit his pelf. He shall be burned in a furnace of flames. His wife shall carry the wood on her arms, Bound round her neck with a rope from the palms. Sura CXII. In the name of the merciful God, the pitiful, Say God, He is one, God is eternal. He neither begets, nor was begotten, Nor is there with Him any to liken. Sura CXIII. In the name of the merciful God, the pitiful, Say to the Lord of Dawning, for refuge do I flee, From evil that hath been created and may follow me, And from the harm of darkening night when I o'er- shadowed be, And from the ill of women, blowing on the magic knot, And from the hand of envier, when envying my lot. Modern Religions 59 Sura CXIV. In the name of the merciful God, the pitiful, Say to the Lord of all mankind, for refuge do I fly, The King of men, the God of men, From the withdrawing whisperer, Who in men's hearts doth lie. From "sin and men, deliver me." Of the Latter Day Saints, or Mormons, little need be said additional. Their Bible, like ours, divided into a number of books of fabled histories and prophecies, is but an insipid imitation of scriptural style. It is needless to say that it is all fiction, without a scintilla of evidence to support any of its stories. It is said to have been originaUy written about 181 5 by Rev. Sol. Spaulding, of Washington, Pennsylvania, as a fiction, printed in Pittsburg by one Sydney Rigdon, and by him put into Joseph Smith's hands. Perhaps together they framed the story of its discovery in Western New York. It speaks of God and Jesus Christ much in the style of our Scriptures, teaches good morals, and is thoroughly orthodox on the doctrines of the trinity, vicarious atonement for sins, eternal punishment, etc. It has its many miracles. The custom of poly gamy is not allowed in the Mormon Bible, and is especially prohibited in the Book of Jacob, chapter u. After the Mormon migration to Utah in 1845-46, subsequent revelations, it is 60 Evolution of Religions claimed, were given to Smith's successor, Brigham Young, authorizing plural marriages for the purpose of more rapidly increasing their numbers and building up Zion (as they caUed their desert home) against their enemies, and we know they were not slow in obeying the divine will in this matter. Singularly enough, and contrary to the general opinion of non-Mormons, so far as the author has learned by contact with the Mormons in Utah and elsewhere years ago, and from personal conversation with many Mormon women, the women were generally more enthusiastic in favor of plural marriages than the men. They were, of course, in favor of building up Zion rapidly, but the principal reason they gave for wishing to have female partners in marital rights and duties was that, as their husbands were mostly agriculturists, gardeners, dairymen, and stock raisers, the labor of opening up homes in the Utah vaUeys and the cares of housekeeping would be divided and made easier and business made more profitable by several wives working together, and their social opportunities would be better. This was doubtless true in their isolated homes. Confucianism, the reUgion of two hundred millions of the Chinese, embracing nearly all the educated people of that ancient empire, taught in the Analects of its great founder, and his co- laborer, Mencius, is a system of rules and ethics Modern Religions 61 for social Ufe and citizenship which has no superior. Confucius taught the existence and almighty power of God, but these being subjects beyond his exact knowledge or comprehension, he devoted his life and great talents mainly to teaching his feUow-men their duties in this world. Says Professor J. Thomas:1 "The Chinese sage has enjoyed a renown more widely extended than that of any other person of the human race, excepting Jesus Christ, and none other than the latter has, perhaps, excelled his teachings in simphcity, practical sincerity, and lofty morality." Their moral plane is always high throughout the Analects, and they are in reference to reUgion, totaUy unmarred by any repulsive laws, barba rous rites, absurd sacrifices, or impure social rules. "What you do not want done unto your self, do not do unto others " is the Golden Rule as given in their Bible with more terseness than in our Scriptures.2 Confucius' precepts of justice, forbearance under injuries, benevolence, politeness, and charity, or love, are complements of the best taught in any reUgion. The virtues of conjugal fidehty, chastity in all, purity of life, devotion to parents, love of children, and kindness and veneration for the aged, indeed all the virtues which men and women should practice are most strongly enjoined. He was a pure, devoted, great 1 Johnson's Encyclopedia, p. iii. 3 The Analects, Book v, ch. 2, and Book xv, ch. 23. 62 Evolution of Religions teacher of men, and who can say not an inspired teacher? And if from God "cometh every good and perfect gift," why not, and worthy to be the associate of Jesus Christ ? Bigots claim that only Bible characters were inspired, but why not great characters of other nations, equally as good, and equally earnest workers for good? We next examine the Zend Avesta of the dis ciples of Zoroaster, and the tri-Pitakas of the Buddhists, as the sacred books of those religions are called, each claimed by believers in them to be revelations from God, and in them we find declarations of the attributes and character of God and of His moral laws as grand, beautiful, and pure as any found in our Bible. Zoroaster was a prophet of the world's youth, according to history about 2000 B.C., or only three hundred and fifty years after the Deluge, according to Bible chronology. Ancient Persian history gives his date, however, as about 2500 b.c. He was probably a contemporary of Abraham, the "Father of the Faithful." Shem, the son of Noah, lived, according to same chronology, until about 1846 B.C., and, therefore, Zoroaster was a contemporary of his also, and, doubtless, as did Abraham, imbibed his religion from Shem. The religion of Zoroaster and Abraham was doubtless the same, and so coming down from Noah, the father of Shem, was the oldest and purest faith of the world, antedating the Mosaic system by Modern Religions 63 six hundred years. Buddha lived about 600 B.C., and was probably a contemporary of the great Chinese sage Confucius. Zoroaster, Buddha, and Confucius were worthy confreres of Moses and the Christ in their divine missions of religion. These ancient rehgions of Zoroaster, Buddha, and Confucius once each influenced mankind as much, and jointly now have and always had far more adherents who believed and died in those faiths than Judaism and Christianity, now or ever, combined. Zoroastrianism, for many centuries when Judaism was hardly known outside of the narrow borders of Canaan, was the universal reUgion of all Central Asia, and although in the evolutions of time its followers now only number a milhon or two, there was a time, says Max Midler,1 "when the worship of Zoroaster's God, Ormuzd or Ahura Mazda, threatened to rise triumphant on the ruins of the temples of all other Gods. If the battles of Marathon and Salamis had been lost and Greece had succumbed to Persia, the state reUgion of the empire of Cyrus the Great, which was the worship of Ormuzd, the only God, might have become the religion of the whole civilized world. Persia, under Cyrus, had absorbed the Assyrian and Babylonian empires; the Jews were either under Persian captivity or under Persian sway in Palestine. The sacred monuments of Egypt had been mutilated by the 1 " A German Workshop," p. 159. 64 Evolution of Religions hands of Persian soldiers who worshiped the only one God and who abhorred the idolatrous emblems on temples, sepulchers, and shrines. The edicts of the great King, "the King of Kings," were sent to India, to Greece, to Scythia, and to Egypt, and if by the grace of Ahura Mazda, Darius, the successor of Cyrus, had crushed the Uberties of Greece at Marathon, the pure faith of Zoroaster might easily have superseded the Olympic fables. This was the Cyrus the Great who ordered the building of the second temple at Jerusalem and whose edict for that purpose, issued in the first year of his reign in Babylon, 536 b.c.,1 proclaimed Zoroaster's God, in whose faith he had been raised and crowned, to be the "Lord God of Heaven," who had given him all the kingdoms of the earth, and He was none other than Ahura Mazda, the same as the God of Israel. The power of Persia was broken by the Mace donian conqueror, Alexander the Great, several centuries afterward, and she never again recovered her pristine grandeur, though long afterwards she was a powerful enemy of Rome. Finally, in 634 a.d., the old empire was overthrown and her people subjugated by the Saracens under the Caliph Omar. In fact, it is due to these ruthless Mohammedan invaders that the religion of ancient Persia, once the glory of the world, is 1 Book of Ezra, ch. i. verses 1, 2, 3, 4. Modern Religions 65 now, and has been for the last thousand years, a mere curiosity to the historian, though stiU beheved in by some two milUons of brave and devoted worshipers in India. The Moslem con querors swept Persia with the besom of destruc tion under the black banners of the Caliph, compelling the people to abandon their grand old faith, and accept the religion of the Koran, or perish by the sword. A few brave and noble men who would not apostatize, escaped into India and were protected by the Buddhist monarchs, and are now generaUy known by out siders as"Parsees, Guebers, or Fire-Worshipers." These names, though not recognized by the Zoroastrians, were given to them by their enemies on account of their being Parsis, Parsees (from Persia) and "Fire-Worshipers," on account of their custom of maintaining in their temples and other places of worship a perpetual fire as an emblem of Deity, and also from their habit of bowing daily in prayer to God at sunrise and sunset before the sun as the great symbol of the Almighty, bestowing, like its Creator, light, heat, and happiness on aU the world. These people have been immortalized by Tom Moore in his beautiful poem of "The Fire-Worshipers," one of the Lalla Rookh romances. Such have been the mutations of this religion, the oldest of time, and from which other rehgions, certainly the Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan, 66 Evolution of Religions in turn, derived much of their traditions and grandest doctrines. Undoubtedly the Bible story of creation, the Garden of Eden, the fall of man, and the belief in Satan, were derived from Zoroas- trian legends, and, through the Persian and Magian priests, communicated to Ezra and other Scripture compilers during the Captivity. Many thousands of Jews settled in Persia, as we learn from the story of Queen Esther, and from Josephus, numerous descendants of whom have ever since remained there. The Zoroastrian was a great religion, sublime in its conceptions of deity, grandest in its early days before the incor poration of Satan as a coordinate god, and other corruptions of Chaldean Magian worship crept into its beautiful theological and moral code. In after-times, after those innovations, the Zoroas trians undoubtedly believed in dual deities, one supremely good, the other supremely evil, both possessing nearly equal powers, at least on earth, if not elsewhere. But such was not the original teaching of Zoroaster, but incorporated into his reUgion by the Magian priests after the union of Persia and Media and the conquest of Babylon. He was a great leader of men, and we believe his mission was from God Undoubtedly during the Jewish exile, as we can gather from the writings of those times, and the Apocryphal Books of the Bible subsequently written, the belief in Satan was then first adopted by the Jews, and with Modern Religions 67 conception of his powers as a subject, if not a servant of God, modified from the Magian belief in Satan as a deity, was incorporated into their post- exilian religion and brought back to Palestine on the return of the exiles. This we think is clearly shown by the Apocryphal Books of the Bible, and aU other subsequent Jewish literature, includ ing books of Daniel, Job, Esther, and Ecclesias tes, and by the entire absence of the name of Satan from the ante-exihan books of the Bible. Kings, Chronicles, Psalms, Proverbs, and Jonah were also, undoubtedly, post-exihan books, com posed or compiled from previous manuscripts by Ezra and Nehemiah. Hence several references in Chronicles and Psalms to Satan. Now, in the later Zoroastrian system the contest between Ormuzd, the infinitely good being, and Ahriman, the infinitely evil one, each equal to and independent of the other, was, granting the premises to be true, philosophically logical. But in the Jewish and Christian economies, our God being an all holy and omnipotent Being, and Satan the creature, and dependent for his existence and power upon God's will, the endless contest for the souls of men and for the supremacy of good over evil, which we are taught in the ortho dox creed is ever going on between God and Satan, must be a chimera, a gross absurdity, according to the premises, and entirely illogical in the forum of reason. Assuming the orthodox 68 Evolution of Religions premises to be correct, there can be no antagonism between God and Satan, no evil done, or power for evil on the part of Satan, excepting such as God permits, and if He permits, He wills. If Satan exists and is subject to God's power and will, his work, evil as it is, must be permissive of God. There needs no argument to prove this proposition; there can be no other conclusion from the premises. No amount of orthodox casuistry or sophistry can evade or overthrow the conclusion. And hence not being able to evade the conclusion, I am necessarily compelled, as a behever in God's infinite goodness, to reject the premises, i.e., the existence and work of Satan as untrue. As supposed facts, they are absolutely contrary to every one of God's univer sally admitted attributes. Hence, it logically follows that no such being as Satan, portrayed as he is in orthodoxy and the Book of Revelation, exists, or can exist, in God's creation. He is solely a myth. The doctrine, if it were true, either dethrones God or makes Him a particeps in evil. Neither proposition is true, both are false. Hereafter this subject wiU be more fully discussed in considering Eden and Jesus' temptation. In Buddha's religion, there was no evil deity possessing quasi almighty powers, but in many other respects, excepting the Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation, or the transmigration of souls, Modern Religions 69 which disfigures that rehgion, it was similar to Zoroaster's. In many respects those teachers Were alike. Both were princes of royal blood. Buddha was heir to a throne. Zoroaster is said to have been a king. Both became prophets of God and apostles of humanity. Both devoted their hves to the service of God and the welfare of their feUow-men as nobly and unselfishly as any of the Hebrew or Christian prophets and apostles, ay, as ever Jesus did, and doubtless all three were inspired by the same God and grandly did the work assigned to them in the divine education of the human race. In partial illustration of the teachings of Zoroaster we will quote here the Zarthosi, or Parsee Creed, which has been transmitted down from Zoroaster's day, as the Parsees claim, and is doubtless the oldest religious creed existing. We quote here from Max Miiller.1 Miiller died in October, 1900. His death was a sad loss to the world. He was a great and good man, broad-minded, liberal, and the grandest philosopher and scholar of the century, universally known, loved, and honored. Here is Zoroaster's creed: First. We believe in only one God, and do not believe in any other God but Him. Second. He is the God who created the heavens and the earth, the stars and the moon, the sun, the 1 "Chips from a German Workshop "by Max Miiller. Edi tion of 1877, pp. 169-174 inclusive. 70 Evolution of Religions angels, the fire, the water, and all things of the two worlds, and all the four elements. That God we believe in. Him we worship. Him we invoke. Him only we adore. Third. Whoever believes in any other God than this is an infidel and shall suffer the punishment of hell. Fourth. Our God has neither face nor form, color nor shape nor fixed abode. There is none other like Him. He is himself singly such a glory that we cannot properly praise or describe Him, nor our minds comprehend Him. Fifth. Our religion is the worship of God. We re ceived it from God's true Prophet. The true Prophet, Zoroaster, brought the religion to us from God. Sixth. God has sent these commands through His Prophet the exalted Zorthorst, viz.: To know God only as one, to know the Prophet, the exalted Zor thorst, as the true Prophet, to believe the religion and the Avesta, i.e., "living words" brought by him, as true beyond all manner of doubt, to believe in the goodness of God, not to disobey any of the commands of the Maz-di-ashma religion, to avoid all evil deeds, to exert ourselves constantly in doing good, to pray five times a day to God, to hope for Heaven, and to fear hell, to consider certain the day of general destruction and resurrection, to believe in the reckonings and judgment on the fourth day after death, to remember always that God has done what He wills, and shall always do what He wills, and to always face the sun or some luminous object while worshiping God as an emblem of His light and wisdom. Modern Religions 71 Seventh. If any one commits sin under the belief that he shall be somebody else, or that somebody else will atone for him, both the deceiver and the deceived shall be damned to the day of Rata Khez. There is no savior. In the other world you shall receive the returji according to your actions. Your savior is your deeds and God himself. He is alone the pardoner and the giver. If you repent of your sins and reform, and if the great Judge considers you worthy of pardon, or would be merciful, He alone can and will save you.1 So teach the Parsees or modern Zoroastrians of India, and they claim that this creed has come down grand and sublime, as most of it is, from their great prophet of forty centuries ago, almost in the world's morning, and which doubtless had the sanction of Noah, Shem, and Abraham. Is it not a beautiful faith, safe to Uve and die by, and a fitting companion to the Decalogue of Moses and the sermons of Jesus, though many centuries older than both? By substituting the name of Jesus for Zoroaster would not his ethics be nearly identical with the Savior's? Wherein do Moses and the prophets and the Nazarene excel Zoroaster, excepting in the Christ's messages, as properly understood, of universal love and universal salvation? Zoroaster's was a pure and simple faith. He worshiped the same God, and for many centuries his reUgion had a wider * Appendix, Note E, pp. 216, 217, 218. 72 Evolution of Religions sway than either of the others. Each was a messenger to men of the same God. There was this difference between the followers of Zoroaster and of Moses, and it was greatly to the glory of the former. The Zoroastrians were, as history and traditions inform us, always faithful to their reUgion and never worshiped any other god, nor any forms of deity or idols, while the Isra elites, notwithstanding their alleged theocratic government and closer and miraculous com munion with God, and the traditions of the wonderful miracles of which, we are told, they and their ancestors were the witnesses and bene ficiaries, relapsed very often through utter for- getfulness of Jehovah and their sacrificial worship, and covenant obligations with Him, into long periods of brutal idolatry and debased paganism. Nor did the Zoroastrians ever observe or perform any degrading sacrificial rites. These be unpala table truths probably to Jews and Christians and such as, we fear, many of them do not often con sider, but nevertheless they are truths, con firmed by history, ancient and modern, and above all, as to the Hebrews, by their own sacred books. For the most part, the books of Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, and of all the prophets, are records of the gross wickedness and idolatries of the "Chosen People," and of their forgetfulness of and rebellion against God. We propose only to deal with and assert truths Modern Religions 73 in these pages, so far as we know them or can gather them up, utterly regardless of stereotyped behefs and dogmas, the cavils of sectarianism and rehgious bigotry or partisan histories. Doubtless the fourth commandment of the Zo- roastrian creed was especially framed to prohibit any visible representations of the Almighty or any form of manifestations or divisions of His quaUties or attributes, even more forcibly than in the Mosaic Decalogue, so that there might not be any idolatrous worship nor any semblance of idolatry of any kind, no divisions of persons, nor other mystical or mythical conceptions of God. Judging from the Parsee creed, as well as from fragments of ancient Persian songs and other fragments of stiU more ancient gathas or hymns supposed to have been composed by Zoroaster himself,1 it is extremely doubtful whether Zoroaster himself ever taught of Satan as a deity, or demi-god, or of his equal control of the physical and moral government of the world with God, as was held in some shape in after-times by the priests and Magii of Media and Babylon. Doubt less his teachings about Augro-Mainyos, the evil one, and his powers were greatly exaggerated in subsequent ages by the Magii, the more strongly to influence and control the people, amidst the wealth, luxury, and extravagances of the Persian and Babylonian empires, in order that they might 1 Rawlinson's "Ancient Religions," pp. 75, 76, 77. 74 Evolution of Religions through the superstition and fears of believers, reap a golden harvest, and secular as well as religious domination. Certainly the same tac tics were used, and with great success, by the ecclesiastics of Christendom during the Dark Ages of Europe, and as really they have always been exerted in greater or less degree by aU religious hierarchies. CHAPTER V BUDDHISM. THE TRINITY, ETC. NEXT we come to supplement the doctrines of Zoroastrianism with a summary of the teach ings of Sakya-Manu — Gaut-ama, — or Buddha the Great Prophet of the Himalayas, six centuries before Christ, and compare them also briefly with Judaism and Christianity. Again we quote from Max Miiller because he was unequaled in knowledge, candor, and fearlessness of expres sion as a historian, Oriental, scholar and Christian. He says: "Besides the five great commandments of Buddha, viz., not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to he, not to get drunk, every shade of vice, hypocrisy, anger, pride, suspicion, greediness, covetousness, gossiping, and cruelty, even to animals, is guarded against by special precept. Among the virtues com manded by Buddha, we find not only reverence of parents, care for children, submission to author ity, gratitude for kindness and favors, moderation in time of prosperity, submission in time of trial, equanimity at all times, but other virtues un known to any heathen system of morality, such as the duty of forgiving insults and injuries, and 75 76 Evolution of Religions not rewarding evil with evil, but with good. All virtues, we are told, spring from Maitri, and this word "Maitri" can only be translated by the words "Charity and Love." 1 What more or better things in morals did Moses and Jesus teach? Did Jesus get any of His incomparable beatitudes and his wonderful lessons of mercy and forgiveness from Buddha's religion? Doubt less, for Buddha's laws and precepts of mercy are superior to many teachings of Moses and the prophets of Israel. And why should we say that Jesus was inspired and sent of God to teach the world, but that Buddha was not, when their lessons and work were the same ? Divest ourselves of the sectarian influences under which we were brought up, and of narrow, intolerant bigotry, and we should feel that both were sent of God. They had the same Heavenly Father, and were animated by the same mission of love to man kind. There is not a grander record in human annals. They may be searched in vain, for such a subhme renunciation of earthly power, wealth, and fame, of pomp and pleasure, of self-sacri ficing devotion and lifelong labor for the amelio ration of human suffering and promotion of happiness on earth and in the hereafter, than is found in the life of Buddha. Such are the leading tenets of his reUgion. Son of the Em peror Suddhodana and heir to his Northern 1 Muller's "Chips from a German Workshop," p. 219. Buddhism. The Trinity, etc. 77 Hindoostanee throne, Buddha in his young man hood, for loVe of God and his fellow-men, re nounced home, power, and fame, and all earthly pleasures through a long life, as did Jesus of Naz areth in a much shorter one, went about in humble garb teaching and doing good, curing diseases and alleviating misery, dependent upon the people, among whom he traveled and labored, for his daily bread. He Uved a life of as utterly unself ish devotion and self-abnegation in his work as Christ did. Verily, he was the Hindoostanee Christ. The narratives by his biographers, of the theophanic conception of his mother, the Empress Mayadeva, and of Buddha's miraculous birth, are very similar to those of Jesus' conception and birth in the Gospels, and doubtless both are myths, as are also the legends of Buddha's many miracles. Really differing only in the fact that Buddha's parents were great, wealthy, and powerful, and Jesus' obscure and poor, there is a wonderful resemblance in their lives and work. And that upon the mission of both the seal of divine approval has been set, is found in the wonderful success of their work of good, and the milhons, yes, hundreds of millions, in many lands who have been devoted followers of each, and humble converts to their teachings in the centuries past. As the Christian faith did, and solely upon its merits, the reUgion of Buddha 78 Evolution of Religions rapidly spread over all India and Eastern Asia, Thibet, China, and Japan, amalgamating in China to a great extent with Confucianism, in which there were no ethical or theological antagonisms or differences, but generaUy an harmonious accord, and with all its vicissitudes nearly supplanting idolatrous Brahmanism in Southern India, and to-day probably numbers more foUow- ers than Judaism and Christianity combined. Under other conditions than those then exist ing, Buddhism would doubtless have spread over Persia and Western Asia also, but meeting on the northern confines of India with the equally pure and grand religion of Zoroaster, though somewhat sterner in its worship and forms, there was no occasion, it would seem, in the providence of God, for its further progress westward, and consequently it did not extend in that direction beyond the boundaries of Media and Persia. Comparatively few Christians know anything about other religions, especially about Buddhism, and consider it merely as one of the pagan systems of old. Its holy books, the "Tri Pitakas," or Three Baskets of Knowledge and of Wisdom, Uke the Zend Avesta of the Zoroastrians and our Bible, have many impossible miracles and extrav agant legends, but in their theology and ethics pale but Uttle in the Ught of Moses and the prophets and are worthy coadjutors of Christian ity. Read the bible of Buddha, fellow-Christians, Buddhism. The Trinity, etc. 79 if you have the opportunity; reject its defects and superstitious legends, but, as St. Paul says, "Examine all things and hold fast to that which is good," and be manly, liberal, and cathohc in your treatment of this reUgion, indeed of all religions. We know that much is said about the superior influences of Christianity, and fre quent comparisons are made of the social and inteUectual conditions of the people of coun tries in which other religions are dominant, and countries under Christian behef . It is, we admit, true now, and has been for two or three centuries the fact, that the Christian nations of Europe and America have been in the van of civilization and inteUectual and social progress, and that the conditions of the masses of the people have been better than the average in Asiatic countries. Of course much of Africa has been in intense pagan darkness, and with that continent and the Mohammedan countries of Western and Central Asia, like Siberian Russia, under abject despotism of government, and the provinces of Hindustan under the curse of blighting and decaying Brah manism, there can be no comparison with Christian countries. I admit the vast superiority of Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Confucianism, as taught by the ancient teachers of those religions, over Mohammedanism, and that broad, liberal, and expansive Christianity is superior to all 80 Evolution of Religions other faiths. But much is owing to racial traits and vigor. We must concede that much of the advanced position in this age of Christian nations and Christian civilization is due to the wonder ful growth and increasing power in the last two centuries of the great germanic and Anglo-Saxon races, developing liberty, culture, refinement, social and moral progress and advanced ideas of Uberal governments beyond anything hereto fore known. Such development is mostly due to learning, science, and the general diffusion of knowledge. The Church has been generally hostile to science and its discoveries, and only doggedly accepted its results when compelled to. Nearly all the wonderful progress and development of the world and amehorations of human conditions during the past two centuries are due to the peoples of those races, vastly superior in natural and inherited abilities to the Semitic and other Asiatic and African races, as well as to other branches of the great Aryan race. But com paring European Christianity of the period of its mastery over the Roman Empire, 315 a.d., and the twelve hundred years of the Dark Age of Europe, until the Germanic Reformation, and indeed until about the year 1700 a.d., with the Buddhist and Confucianist countries of Northern India, China, and Japan, and the ancient Persian Empire under Zoroastrianism, and the balance sheets of superstition, clerical tyranny, and Buddhism. The Trinity, etc. 81 corruption, oppressive governments, terrible wars, religious persecutions, and the general miserable conditions of the people of European countries with those of Asia under Buddhistic, Confucian, and even Moslem rule, would show very little, if any, balance to the credit side of so-called Christian governments for all that long period of time, — fourteen hundred years, — during which Christianity had complete control in all Europe. And we are not considering at all in this estimate the Zoroastrian rehgion, or its influence, for the number of its adherents, since the conquest of Persia in 634 a.d. by the Moslems, has been too inconsiderable to cut any important figure in the destinies of any Asiatic countries. What more terrible wars ravaged Asia during those fourteen hundred years than the European wars, aside from the Mohammedan conquests? Where were the awful persecutions of the Savoy ards, Albigenses, and Waldenses surpassed, the horrors of the Inquisition, the awful massacre by Christians of feUow-Christians on Saint Bar tholomew's eve in 1572, and the atrocities of the Thirty Years' rehgious war in Europe? Even the barbarities of the Christian Crusaders were for gotten in the humanities of the great Saracen soldier, Saladin. With the same races of people and under the same conditions of education and general intelligence, it is at least problemat ical whether the influences of Zoroastrianism, 82 Evolution of Religions Buddhism, and Confucianism would not have been as humanizing and merciful as those of European Christianity during the Dark and Middle Ages, and certainly better than the example of the IsraeUtes as taught in the Mosaic history. Gradually, we beheve, as seems to be the trend of social and rehgious evolutions, and consequently for the general welfare of mankind, with the progress of knowledge and civilization, those old faiths will pass away, and all that is good and ennobling in them be merged in a broader Christianity than known to the past, which will eventually absorb them into the harmony of one world-wide and universal religion. The great quintette of prophets, Zoroaster, Moses, Confucius, Buddha, and Jesus Christ, all, and the last named preeminently so, were each inspired of God, and the Uves and teachings of all had the same ob jects in view, self-renunciation of men, service for God, and the redemption of mankind from sin and folly, to lives of goodness, virtue, and useful ness here, in the assured hope of happiness and immortality hereafter. If from Christianity is eliminated the doctrine of the Trinity, then there could be no reason why Christians and Jews, Zoroastrians, Confucianists, and Buddhists, yea, and Moslems, could not associate as brothers, and all worship in the same temples, notwithstanding minor differences of forms and rites. AU these acknowledge the same fundamental truths, viz., Buddhism. The Trinity, etc. 83 the universal fatherhood and sovereignty of One God, and belief in immortality and eternal Ufe. But for the dogma of the Trinity, Jews and Christians long ago would have fraternized. In the early centuries most of the Christians were of the Jewish race. But after that dogma became the creed of the dominant Catholic Church, and aU unitarians and dissenters were persecuted and martyred, conversions from the Jews ceased. The CathoUc Church tolerated Jews who followed Moses and the prophets and beheved in only one God, but would not tolerate Christian disbelief in the Trinity. Hence the adamantine wall of division existing between the Jews and Christians to this day, but we beheve in time, Uke all error, it wiU tumble down of itself as did the fabled wans of Jericho. The Trinity is not taught in the Bible anywhere. The texts in the New Testament that are tor tured in that direction are mainly perversions or interpolations of the original. Most of the Jews now beheve in the divine mission of Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine of the Trinity eliminated from Christianity there would be no serious differences with modern Judaism, and the teach ings of Moses and the prophets, of Jesus and His Apostles, would compose one sacred book for Jew and Gentile, harmonizing with all other faiths, excepting in non-essentials, which will ultimately, we believe, and in the not very remote future, 84 Evolution of Religions be the divine evolution of all reUgions. Says Count Leo Tolstoi, the great Russian writer: "Yes! it is true, I deny an incomprehensible Trinity, and the fable regarding the faU of man, which is absurd in our day. It is true I deny the sacrilegious story of a God born of a virgin to redeem the human race. But God Spirit, God Love, God the sole principle of all things, in Him I believe, and in eternal life." And believing in one God, the All Holy and Wise Creator and Ruler of the Universe, from whom all things are, and contrary to whose su preme will nothing can be or happen, we must, it follows, believe that all reUgions which ever have existed, fulfilled some purposes in His economy, and were adapted to the moral and intellectual conditions of the people and to the ages in which they flourished. While some were good and grand moraUy, and some very inferior, comparatively, in intellectual and moral standards, as we measure at this day, yet they all must have fulfilled the divine purposes in the education and training of the human race, in the infinite school, the lowest forms of reUgion being better than none at aU, doing some good and teaching the peoples some truths which otherwise they had not learned, and restraining them from many vices. While even the highest and best religions, though very good, and proclaimed by inspired men, had in their systems human imperfections, the Almighty Buddhism. The Trinity, etc. 85 teaching through the ministry of imperfect, fallible, finite men, only what their followers at the time could comprehend and assimilate into their Uves and requiring only such measure of service as they were capable of giving according to the material, social, intellectual, and rehgious environ ments of the times. St. Paul says : "And the times of this ignorance, God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent." J Upon these conditions certainly the character and purposes of the revelation depended, and not upon heavenly partiality and selection of a particular and favored people per se to be the recipients of the divine Ught, as the Hebrew writers taught. God never hated one nation and loved another because of race or ancestry. He is now, and ever was, the universal Father. We are all, says St. Paul, the "offspring of God," and Jew and Gentile arealike to Him, in every land, His children and the common objects of His love and care. Any contrary behef is ilUberal and untrue, and comes simply from race and national prejudices, igno rance, and reUgious bigotry. In accordance with these ideas of God are the opinions of the brightest and broadest thinkers of the age. I cite Max Miiller and Rev. Charles D. Briggs, who both fearlessly assert that inspiration from God was not limited to Hebrew prophets and Christian 1 St. Paul, Acts xvii, 30. 86 Evolution of Religions apostles, but that the founders of the other great and pure monotheistic religions of the world, and even the great sages of Greek and Roman literature, were alike gifted in greater or less degree with inspiration from God.1 No doubt Herodotus, Xenophon, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, and Antoninus Pius wrote much of their grand teachings under divine Ught. No doubt great and good men of every age and all countries have been inspired to teach the truth, as they were able to comprehend it, and not only in religion but in other departments of knowledge. Miiller says, " It shows a want of faith in God and His inscrutable wisdom in the government of the world if we ought to condemn all ancient forms of faith, excepting the reUgion of the Jews." Even St. Augustine, bigoted and narrow-minded as he usually was, says, "There is no religion which among its many errors does not contain some real divine truths." This was written by him about the year 400 a.d. in the memory of the late abominations of Egyptian and Roman idolatries. Much in those ancient bibles of Zoroastrians, Brahmans, Buddhists, Confucianists, and Mohammedans, as weU as of Jews and Christians, is cathoUc and true in history and ethics. In all of them excepting Brahmanism 1 Miiller' s "Chips from a German Workshop," p. 54. Briggs, "The Study of the Bible," pp. 167-537. Briggs, "The Bible, the Church, the Reason," pp, 71, 72, 73. Buddhism. The Trinity, etc. 87 the theology is virtually the same. Some of the teachings and stories in each, excepting the Confucian analects, which are not primarily religious writings, are allegorical or metaphorical, legendary, and mythical. Perfection does not seem to attach to, or can be predicated of, any of the works of men, even though they be, in their elements, inspired from heaven. As to the supernatural stories in the sacred books of any religion, all of them have more or less such, excepting the Confucian, which is purely ethical. We desire only to say that God is the same infinite and all wise being now as ever, and though we cannot fathom all His ways, He enjoins us frequently in the Bible to consider and judge of aU its teachings and precepts. He says to His people, "Come and let us reason together," and " Why judge ye not yourselves what is right ? ' ' There seems no human reason, and we doubt if any can be satisfactorily given, why, if ever God permitted men to perform miracles, He should not give them such power now. Humanly speak ing, there seems to be very many reasons why now, in the present condition of the world, in the present confusion of creeds and dogmas, the conflicts and doubts of reUgious beUef, in which so many of the greatest minds of our day are involved and blundering in darkness and doubt, and yet all the world seeking the ultimate truth perhaps more earnestly than ever before, and 88 Evolution of Religions considering the billion and a half of human beings now inhabiting the earth as compared with the vastly smaUer population of ancient times, the Almighty would in this age be much more Ukely to reveal Himself through miracles and theo- phanies than ever before. Moreover, there seems to be no reason why one age or people should receive almost the entire attention and favor of the Almighty, as claimed for Israel, to the exclu sion of all other ages or peoples. That He should, as claimed by the Hebrew chronicles, in what seems their extreme amor patrice and selfish tribal clannishness, select four thousand years ago one family of semi-barbarians, afterwards divided into petty tribes, to whom through unnatural portents and wonderful miracles to exclusively reveal Himself and leave aU the rest of mankind for many hundreds of years in entire ignorance of Himself, His will, and moral laws and of the truth of a future life, which latter truth is not even taught to His chosen people at that time, is in the form of reason simply preposterous. It is certainly astonishing that while perform ing such prodigies as we are told He did for the exclusive benefit of the children of Israel, and communicating to them a great code of civil, criminal, and moral laws and knowledge of Himself, He should, even to those highly favored people, as above intimated, give no information about a future life, or even an expUcit declaration Buddhism. The Trinity, etc. 89 that there was such a Ufe. This is an inexphcable mystery if all the other facts are hteraUy true. In Zoroaster's reUgion a future Ufe is fully and clearly revealed. Despite allegations of our Bible commentators to the contrary, there is nothing of future Ufe taught in the Torah and other Hebrew historic books, and only vaguely, if at all, in the prophetic books. After contact with the Persian and Babylonian reUgions, which taught it, there are first found in the post-exilian books, such as Daniel, Job, Proverbs, Psalms, part of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and some of the later prophets, some ambiguous references to a future Ufe. It was, however, only when first clearly proclaimed by Jesus Christ to the Jews, that God made such revelations of His will, as taught in the Christian bible. That He communicated such revelations to teachers of other religions we as firmly beUeve. Zoroaster was a more ancient and greater prophet than Moses, and he was greatly in advance of him in teaching the doctrine of immortaUty, if Moses wrote the Pentateuch. These be truths which cannot be gainsaid, though ignorance and bigotry may denounce them. As to supernatural occurrences narrated in any bibles, ancient or modern, we are inclined to disbeUeve them. None are proven according to any legal or recognized rules of evidence. Those who are determined to beUeve them not withstanding, without any evidence, or with such 90 Evolution of Religions evidence only as to satisfy themselves, have the right so to believe, but certainly those who require proof sufficient to convince their reason and judgment have an equal right to disbeUeve. If miracles in our Bible are not facts, but poetic myths, legends, and fables, then we may reasonably assume from what is known of other rehgions that stories of miracles in all sacred books are unreliable. Many of them doubtless, as ex traordinary phenomena, may be explained or accounted for upon psychological, mesmeric, magnetic, philosophical, electric, or other natural principles, with the incidents wonderfully colored and exaggerated by the enchantments of time, human ingenuity, and credulity. The miracles of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Islamism are as firmly believed by the adherents of those religions as Jews and Christians beUeve in theirs, and many of them are as reasonable. But none of their sacred books, nor can ours, maintain and prove the claims for each, asserted by their devout and unquestioning believers, that they are in all things divinely inspired and inerrant. The holy books of all religions, excepting the Confucian, are full of extravagant legends and myths. So in ours there are some contradictory stories, even some ethical propositions differing on the same subjects, some historical statements entirely im probable, some miracles, per se, absurd. Nearly all the books of the Hebrew Bible and Buddhism. The Trinity, etc. 91 some of those of the New Testament are now clearly ascertained to have been written or finally compiled by anonymous or pseudonymous authors. Nor are the religions of the Old and New Testaments exactly sui generis. They do not always teach the same doctrines as claimed by Christians but denied by the Jews. By Christians generally both scriptures are con sidered virtually as one revelation, having the same credentials and teaching the same ideals of God. And reaUy considered as merely a development of His wonderful economy in the education of mankind, Christianity is merely the evolution of Judaism, from a primarily earthly cult into a divine reUgion. The Jew does not beheve in Christ, excepting as many of them now do beUeve in Him as a prophet. And while beUeving the historical and ethical teachings of his Bible, the Jew long ago abandoned the cere monial and sacrificial worship of his fathers, as weU as many of their ancient laws and usages, as obsolete relics of a semi-barbarous age, and even of doubtful divine sanction when originally promulgated. Christians generally, however, of the orthodox sects, believe in all of the Hebrew Scriptures as divinely given, as preparatory to, and reaUy the prologue of, the dispensation ushered in by Christ. They make symbols, types, and prophecies of the future Savior and His mission and sacrifice of atonement, out of aU the 92 Evolution of Religions miracles, songs, poetic ecstasies, and dreams of the prophets and bloody sacrifices of the Hebrew worship, which the Jews do not and never did do, properly deeming such use and investiture as unwarranted. And Jewish and Christian conceptions of God are very dissimilar. If the orthodox theory, that the New Testament teaches the doctrine of the Trinity, is correct, then it differs most radi cally from the Old Testament. The God of the Hebrews is, as the God of the Zoroastrians, Con fucians, Buddhists, and Moslems, absolute unity, one God only, in all His nature, attributes, and powers, and their scriptures cannot be even remotely perverted to teach of a trinity. So, if orthodoxy is corcect, the reUgions of the two dispensations differ vitally. Hence taught and believing so, why should not the Jew cling with undying tenacity to his father's faith and his father's God? It is the only true creed of Deity. When the ecclesiastics of the fourth century a.d., under monastic and semi-pagan influences, adopted the Athanasian Creed, partly conforming in so doing to the ancient Egyptian mysteries of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, and the Hindoo trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shivah, many of the Arabic Christians refused to follow the Western Church into the adoption of such creed. Moham med's teaching — mainly a recasting and ming ling of old Hebraism with Christianity, a sort of Buddhism. The Trinity, etc. 93 amalgam — was really a revolt against the idolatrous and heathenish tendencies of the late alhance of pagan Romanism with a corrupt Christian Church. Mohammed maintained rigidly the monotheis tic worship of Deity, and an abhonence of semi- idolatrous emblems of the Savior, of the Virgin Mary, and of saints, which had been introduced into aU the churches. To Mohammed and his IshmaeUte foUowers, the trinity of God, symbol ized in the reUgion of their neighbors, the ancient Egyptians, by the Osirian legend, and of the Hindoos by the three mystic heads of the God Brahma on one body, was an idolatrous myth, a gross perversion of their early Christianity as weU as a departure from the ancient faith of their great ancestor, Abraham. The jargon of the Christian ecclesiastics of that day as to the relations of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the distinctions and sophistries of Hetero- ousian, Homoi-ousian, and Homo-ousian, the Moslem proselytes disdained to Usten to, and followed the Prophet's banner. The God of the Hebrews as of the Moslems was and is only one. Nowhere in the Old Testament we assert, even under the orthodox bias of the King James and other versions, with the rendering of texts and modern headings of chapters frequently distorted for this purpose, is the doctrine of the trinity of God either expressly 94 Evolution of Religions or impliedly taught. The assertion of George Rawhnson, "that the doctrine of the Trinity, as has been frequently shown, underlies the most ancient portions of the Pentateuch, and is most reasonably regarded as involved in that primitive revelation which God vouchsafed to our first parents in paradise, " J is a baseless assumption and as unreal and fragile as the Edenic fable which he sponsors, but baseless even if that story were a fact, for there is not the remote suggestion of the trinity in it. Indeed, many of the arguments, unfounded assumptions and conclusions of Raw hnson in another work, his "Historical Evidences of Christianity," show him to be an unreliable historian and a thoroughly unsound and sophisti cal reasoner. We will consider the "Primitive Revelation in Paradise" more fully hereafter. The Bible, we repeat, does not teach a trinity. The God of orthodox Christianity is one none can comprehend, a mystic triune Being, a fantasy developed by priestly fanaticism and ingenuity, out of certain obscure translations of some passages, and interpolations of others, in the Gospels and Epistles. The dogma has in the past largely fettered the minds of devotees of the Church and made them easily subject to ecclesiastical control. The dogma literaUy is " three persons in one God, equal in essence and power, the three of the same numerical sub- 1 Rawlinson's "Ancient Egypt," p, 15a. Buddhism. The Trinity, etc. 95 stance, but yet three equal hypostases or persons, distinct but not separate." * Such is the Athana- sian definition. This creed, the deification of Jesus Christ, His atonement for the sins of all men, — though but few are saved according to orthodoxy, — by His death on the cross as a vica rious sacrifice, and the eternal punishment of aU who die unbeheving in such creed, is a mere ecclesiastical dogma, unauthorized by any scrip ture old or new. The Jews do not beheve it, nor, as they translate the Bible, does it give any support to such dogma. If the Christian Scrip tures teach it, then they are totally at variance with the Hebrew Scriptures. But Jesus expli citly teaches the contrary. He said: "I can of mine own self do nothing. I came not to do mine own will, but the will of my Father, who hath sent me into the world." 2 " My Father is greater than I." 3 "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels in heaven, nor the son, but the Father only." 4 "Why callest thou me good? There is none good save one, that is God." 6 These and many other similar sayings of Jesus scattered through the Gospels are so plain and comprehensive and teach so clearly that 1 Archbishop Whately, "The Trinity." * Book of John, v, 30. 9 Book of John, xiv, 28. 4 Book of Mark, xiii, 32. B Book of Matthew, xix, 17, and Book of Luke, xviii, 19. 96 Evolution of Religions whatever the mysterious relation of sonship or His divine mission may have been, Jesus was not in any sense whatever God, the Elohim or Yahveh of the Bible, that it seems, as is said in scripture, "Even the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein." "Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord thy God is one God," J says Moses. Those texts we have cited are such humble, clear, and explicit declarations of Jesus as to His relations to His Father, that they should be understood literally, and no supernatural, mystical, or sublimated interpretation of them is authorized. He never once in His ministry gave any countenance to the orthodox assumption that in those and other similar utterances, He was speaking as a man only and at other times as God. Nor did He ever sup port or countenance in any act or discourse the orthodox delusion that His death was to be a sacrifice through which expiation was to be made to God, or, if He was one of the persons of the trinity, to himself, for the sins of all the world; such atonement only to be apphcable, however, according to the jugglery of the Westminster con fession of faith, to the predestined elect. On the contrary, Jesus absolutely negatived and repudiated such doctrine, if anywhere taught by allegorical or mysterious expressions of the evan gelists, in His peerless prayer to His Father and His subsequent declaration enforcing forgiveness 1 Deuteronomy, vi, 4. Buddhism. The Trinity, etc. 97 of sins, " For if ye forgive not men their sins, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive your sins," thus putting divine pardon on absolutely the same ground as human forgiveness of in juries. Thus effectually does Jesus dispose of the doctrine of the atonement, without any argument, and no amount of creeds or sophistry can vitalize the dogma. Absolutely, "Repent and ye shall be forgiven, as ye forgive others." No mediator or atonement is required, none intimated. CHAPTER VI CONSIDERATION OF MIRACLES "TT is the distinction of the Bible to be the 1 sacred volume of two great religions, the Jewish and the Christian. But while the whole, includ ing the Apocrypha, is sacred to the Romanist, only the Old Testament and New are sacred to the Protestant, only the Old is sacred to the Jew. One could almost say that the Bible is the sacred volume of three great religions, so largely is the Koran based upon the Bible, or rather upon the Talmud in the first remove and on the Bible in the second." "The Bible is a great book, and it has had a famous history. The science of com parative religion teaches nothing more decisively than that the Bible has an immense superiority over aU the other sacred scriptures of the world. These may have isolated sentences of equal of or greater spiritual significance, but they have no such average beauty and significance. Surely such a book, with such a history as it has, and such a fame and such intrinsic value, merits the carefulest consideration." 1 1 Rev. John W. Chadwick, "The Bible of To-day," pp. i and 2. 98 Consideration of Miracles 99 Such consideration should be given to every thing in its pages, history, prophecies, ethics, and miracles. We have considered somewhat its history. Its ethics are true. Its prophetic books are grand. As to its miracles, does it necessarily foUow that because God may have revealed Him self by inspiration to good men at various periods, as taught in this book, that the stories of angelic visions and supernatural manifestations inter spersed through it are literally true and not merely legends? Many of the divine messages to the people of Israel were not accompanied by any such manifestations. The most of them indeed through the prophets were not. Such manifestations could not affect the validity of the revelations or the truth of divine teachings. They could at most only tend to confirm the authority of the promulgators. The ethics prove themselves, and the historical facts must be proven by evidence. The truth of miracles is not a question of power in God. Omnipotence can do anything. It is a question of facts. Have we sufficient evidence of the truth of Jewish or Christian miracles or those of any other religion? For all systems of reUgion excepting the Con fucian, have had their miraculous phenomena and abundance of them, either related in their bibles or external to them. Our Bible, Ton Billion, the book, or rather Ta Biblia, the books, as composed of many writings, is undoubtedly ioo Evolution of Religions the exponent of the best religion of the world. It surely, if any are, is from God, hence if its miracles are true, then those of the other religions, or of some of them, may be true also. But if the miracles of our Bible are not sufficiently attested, then those of the other religions are not Ukely to be true, for they are generally of inferior character, and are also, like ours, devoid of outside or external historical confirmatory evidence. AU the miracles of other reUgions are rejected by Christians and Jews, and only the miracles of the Hebrew Bible are beheved in by Jews. Now, were the miracles of our Bible actual facts, or only allegories, fables, and myths? Mere arguments will not suffice for answer to this question, least of all to prove the affirmative. Inductions from assumed mysterious premises or conclusions from ancient beliefs will not do. We know too much of the ignorance, super stition, and credulity of the ancients to give much weight to their stories of or behef in super natural phenomena, even if the evidence for them relatively to ordinary human affairs, was very strong, which in reality it never is. No argument is needed to sustain the proposition that vastly stronger evidence is required, if indeed any human testimony can be sufficient, to prove the fact of miraculous occurrences, than of ordi nary or even of extraordinary natural incidents. Because miracles are wonders, — unnatural and Consideration of Miracles 101 outside of aU ordinary human experiences, — they do not repeat themselves and are not dupli cated; whilst ordinary or even uncommon human transactions or natural events are in line of the universal experiences of mankind. That is, we know from experience, observation, and contem porary history that such occurrences or similar ones have happened or may happen in line with and through the operation of human events or moral and natural laws. We know, for instance, if three men are put into a furnace of fire and kept there a few moments, they will be cremated, because such has been aU history and experience, and is in accordance with physical laws, and if a con trary result is alleged in any case, it can only be proved by irrefragable and incontestable testi mony and by historical and pubhc monuments of such event preserved through all the ages. The purported testimony of one man or one hundred men could not prove such a fact, even if we knew such testimony was honest, unless safeguarded by the most rigid rules of evidence, by universal acceptance of it in the region where it occuned, and by permanent memorials of the fact. Other wise it might possibly be true, but there would be a much greater probability of its being untrue and unreUable through ignorance, deception, religious fanaticism, or superstition. We remem ber a story of a body of men of some country village in the state of Ohio belonging to a fanatical 102 Evolution of Religions religious sect, testifying that they had driven the devil in bodily shape out of one of their meetings and compelled him to seek refuge in a great caldron of boiling water, and then driven him out of that improvised refuge, and banishing him finally from their neighborhood by smashing the kettle to fragments with stones and other missiles. How do we know that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were cast into the great furnace of Nebuchadnezzar and came out unscathed? Or that the Son of God walked with them in the fire ? How did Nebuchadnezzar or any of those present with him know the Son of God or how He looked? Where is the evidence? Not a word of the wonderful story in the nearly contempo raneous Chaldean history of Berosus, who is re garded as a reliable historian. No monument of the event ever existing. Not a word from any one who saw the miracle excepting an unknown Daniel, and we know not that any such person wrote the book, and the book itself has been proven by the best biblical scholars of this century to be a religious fiction, written under a pseudonym by an unknown Jewish rabbi long after the exile, probably about the year 165 B.C. And the exclamation of King Nebuchadnezzar, " Lo, the form of the fourth man is like the Son of God," is evidently an interpolation put into the ancient version by some enthusiastic Christian; Consideration of Miracles 103 for nothing was known or taught of the Son of God in that age. And similar criticisms as to evi dence wiU apply to most of the biblical miracles. While most of the Jews, but not all, believe those narrated in the Old Testament, they do not, nor ever did, beUeve at aU in any of the miracles of the New Testament, although they must have been performed, if at aU, in the very midst of their ancestors, the learned scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees. They deny that those miracles were ever performed. If, as we are told, we should beUeve the Mosaic miracles, because per formed as alleged before all the people, and transmitted down by traditions to all their descendants, then for the same reason we should disbeUeve the evangelists' miracles, because not beheved in by the Jews then living, excepting possibly a very few of them, nor transmitted in teachings down through their posterity. ReaUy, if miracles can be proven at all, only unassailable facts, sustained by contemporary history and other contemporaneous evidence, without any dissentient testimony, can establish to honest, intelligent, and independent thinkers their truth. The power of the Almighty is not questioned, that is not in issue, though believers in miracles try to make it so. God can do what He wills. Has He exhibited miracles or per mitted men to perform them? is the only question in the issue, and that should be disposed of like 104 Evolution of Religions any other question of fact. And if He did four thousand, three thousand, or two thousand years ago, why not now? It is not presumptuous or irreverent to ask such questions in view of the myriads of Apocryphal miracles claimed in all religions to have been performed, in ancient and some even in modern times, and which all Jews and Christians now repudiate, excepting the Biblical miracles. God everywhere in the Bible appeals to our reason to seek the truth and judge for ourselves. We are never condemned therein otherwise than for not obeying our reasons and consciences. Should mere statements in ancient manu scripts alone, some by pseudonymous and others mostly by anonymous writers, be depended upon as sufficient proofs of unnatural occurrences, miracles, theophanies, or visible manifestations of deity, appearances of angelic visitors, demons, etc., and these performed or exhibited always in ages of ignorance and superstition?1 Why, one- half of the literature of the world up to five hundred years ago are stories in history or poetry, of gods and goddesses, angels, devils, and miracles. The laws of nature, which is only another name for the laws of God, we know, are universal, uniform, permanent, and— the presump tion is almost amounting to an axiomatic truth- are changeless. There may be new discoveries 1 Dr. Briggs, "The Bible, the Church, the Reason." Consideration of Miracles 105 of natural laws, and new applications of those laws to varied purposes, but no changes or rever sals of those laws have ever been known, unless such may have happened in those extraordinary and miraculous cases. Miracles, if human testi mony can suffice to prove the violations, suspen sions, or reversal of those laws as aUeged, then the proofs of them should be absolutely overwhelming and of national notoriety, corroborated by monu ments built at the time and by universal tradition and concurrent history, without any particles of conflicting or dissenting testimony. The miracle so attested, should be in every respect worthy of divine interposition and be of superhuman importance at the time, for its special object in accompUshing some great work which otherwise could not have been done, or in teaching and perpetuating some grand divine truth which otherwise would have been unimparted and unknown. Tested by this last rule, many Bible miracles must be regarded as myths or poetic fictions. No testimony of a generally ignorant, credulous, and superstitious people in regard to supernatural occurences, should have any weight whatever. No mere tradition or old story coming down the years of time in ancient manuscripts can suffice to prove miracles. Omnipotent power and infinite wisdom, we are justified in assuming, would not be exerted to suspend natural laws for any excepting the most momentous purposes, nor 106 Evolution of Religions indeed for any object whatever which the ordinary laws of nature could provide for or accomplish, nor if done, without providing such overwhelming evidence of its truth for all time as could not be doubted. As to stories of angels, demons, and other messengers, good or bad, from the spirit world, mankind anciently were so prone to beUeve in such visitors and in witches and ghosts, that there is absolutely no reliable testimony any where or in any religion concerning the appearance of such beings upon earth, and even more strongly than in the case of miracles, no one good reason can be given why, if seen in ages past, they should not visit the earth at the present day. Some believe that they do, and there are occasional stories of such visitors being seen and conversed with in this age, but none but the intensely ignorant and superstitious now believe such stories. A hundred years ago, aye even two- thirds of a century ago, in my memory, such stories were very generally beheved, and almost every village neighborhood had its haunted houses, its ghosts, witches, and hobgoblins. Education, the general diffusion of knowledge, not religion or its ministers, has swept those chimeras away, as it will in time the belief also in all miraculous stories. Evidence sufficient to authenticate ordinary historical facts cannot, therefore, for the reasons already stated, be Consideration of Miracles 107 sufficient to prove miracles or stories of celestial or infernal visitors. Besides, as Miiller says, "ordinary historical facts are mere questions of time and of this life, and are, therefore, of little relative importance, but supernatural matters concern a future life and eternal issues, and therefore the question of their truth is of the last importance." Hence we repeat that no miracle is reliable as a fact, no matter in what book it is found or by how many people beheved, which does not carry the seal of its truth, according to evidence or similar conditions already indicated. Its truth should be unquestionable to every reasonable mind which cared to examine, and if not absolutely convincing both as to its internal and external fitness and proportions and concurrent testimony, there can be no obhgation whatever on the seeker after truth to believe, much less to endeavor to force himself to beUeve, as some fanatical Christians think the doubter should do, but the very reverse. He should indignantly repel such imputation upon his manhood and intelhgence. We should be false and recreant to our moral natures to beUeve or endeavor to force ourselves to beUeve anything through childish fear or religious or social ostracism, if we are inclined to beUeve otherwise or for other reasons, without mere calm conviction of the truth. We know enough of God's ways to assume 108 Evolution of Religions that He does not go into controversies with men to prove His works, and that if in the accom plishment of His divine purposes, He should cause miracles to be performed, He would accom pany them with such evidence of certainty as to be overwhelming, and exclude any other hypothe sis than their absolute truth. We may assume He would not require belief in them upon the mere naked statement of one or two or three chronicles, and possibly pseudonymous or anony mous ones. He would in His own way demon strate their truth as all the operations of nature are demonstrated. They would be so authenti cated as that none who were willing to believe could disbelieve or doubt. Do any of our Bible miracles come up to such reasonable require ments as to authenticity? By no means. Many of those miracles are doubtless aUegories or poetic fictions designed to teach and illustrate great truths. Such are the beautiful poems of Job and of Jonah, which are as grand as anything in the world. Doubtless many miracles were only natural occurrences, connected with some memo rable events in Jewish history, and which were afterwards transfigured by tradition, legend, popular stories, and priestcraft into the super natural. In reUgion as in natural perspective it is true "that distance lends enchantment to the view." For instance, it has been believed by some bibUcal scholars, — and the text of Exodus Consideration of Miracles 109 justifies that beUef , — that the migration of the shepherds or IsraeUtes from Goshen in Egypt to Canaan passed over the north marshy arm of the Red Sea near Suez, when a sirocco was blowing its shallow waters southward into the deeper gulf, and thus permitted the people, without vehicles of any kind, to cross on comparatively firm ground, by so doing avoiding a long detour to the northward. National vanity, poetic Ucense, and priestly legend, for the wonder and gratifica tion of their descendants in after ages, changed the story into the miracle of marching in column across the bottom of the deep sea, with the waters banked up as waUs on either hand.1 After the IsraeUtes crossed over the marshy ground the Egyptian army may have attempted to follow, and many of them have been ingulfed with their horses and chariots by the returning waters. They would hardly have ventured to go down the precipitous sides into the oozy bottom of the deep sea, incumbered with their armor and weapons, with horses and chariots. "And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind aU that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided." The crossing of the river Jordan was no doubt done when its waters were, as they are often now in dry seasons, very shallow in broad places. 1 Exodus xiv, 31. no Evolution of Religions So doubtless many other natural events in the history of Israel were transfigured by time, tradition, and oriental poetic license into the supernatural, as was the case in the ancient history of all nations. Many miraculous stories in the Bible were simply mythical ideas, transformed and clothed in fiction and poetic imagery. We agree with Rev. Charles A. Briggs where he says : * "There can be no doubt that recent criticisms have considerably weakened the evidence from miracles and predictive prophecy. To many minds it would be easier to believe in the inspira tion of the Scriptures and the divinity of Jesus Christ, if there were no such things as miracles and predictions in the sacred Scriptures. The older apologetics made too much of the external marvels of miracle working, and sought to find in history the minute details of the fulfillment of predictions." Later Briggs continues: "If we insist upon the fulfillment of the details of the predictive prophecies of the Old Testament, we shaU find many of those predictions have been reversed by history." 9 One of the arguments which has always been a strong one and elaborately urged by Paley, Wilson, Locke, Butler, Leander, George Rawlin- son, and many other writers both Jewish and Christian, to maintain the truth of biblical 1 Briggs, "The Bible, the Church, the Reason," p. 279. ' " The Bible, the Church, the Reason," p. 286, Appendix. Consideration of Miracles in miracles, is that many of those miracles, such as the ten plagues of Egypt, the passage of the IsraeUtes through the Red Sea and the river Jordan, the feeding of the people for forty years during their wanderings in the wilderness of Northern Arabia (by the way, an absurdly smaU territory, probably three hundred miles in length at the utmost, by two hundred and fifty in breadth, for a nation of possibly two milhon souls to roam around in for so many years doing nothing, fed by miraculous deposits of manna from the skies and flocks of quails, alternately coming from somewhere unknown each morning and evening), the sun and moon standing still for a whole day at the command of Joshua, the walls of the city of Jericho falling of their own accord before the beleaguering army of Israel; that all these and many other supernatural occurrences were witnessed by all the Hebrew people, and that the stories of them were transmitted as claimed in the Bible down the ages from fathers to children through successive generations, and thus kept in the memories of the people, as well as by their sacrificial worship, annual feasts, etc., and that unless such miracles had actually occuned and such traditional and priestly records in their sacred books been continued and preserved and read from generation to generation, such miracles would not have been believed in future ages, and consequently must be true as so attested. Now, 112 Evolution of Religions be it noted, we have only the statements in books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Judges, that such customs and family and priestly rehearsals of the history and occurrences of the past were observed as stated and so taught and transmitted to posterity without any lapse or hiatus. But we know from the same and other books of the Bible that those injunctions to so perpetuate the historic memories of the people were actually frequently disregarded by the Israelites and that long lapses did actually occur, many times in the traditional worships, and repetitions of historical and miraculous past events, during the many and long backslidings of the people into idolatrous worships of false gods, even down to the Baby lonian exile, during which periods for many years at a time they renounced and forgot the teach ings of Moses and rejected Israel's God. One of the sacred writers in the second book of Chroni cles states that in the reign of Josiah, King of Judah (this was long after the other ten tribes of Israel had been carried into captivity in Assyria), but one manuscript copy of the Torah could be found in all Jerusalem and the kingdom, even its existence having been previously unknown, and that king, priests, and people were aUke ignorant of its existence and astonished at its contents. This shows not only that there had been no read ing of the law in the Temple, nor discussion of its contents in the homes of the people for generations Consideration of Miracles 113 past, but that all the teachings of Moses and the early prophets had been forgotten. The Jewish Talmud states that during the Babylonian exile the law and the prophets were entirely lost and their contents forgotten, and that the prophet Ezra recast and wrote them, de novo, through divine inspiration, so that really the argument for the truth of miracles in continuity of tradition, ancestral instructions, rural home teachings, consecutive worship, etc., historicaUy fails. But be this as it may, in dis proof of arguments of Paley and his confreres, before stated, merely casuaUy caUing attention to the astounding stories of innumerable miracles said to have been witnessed and beheved in by Brahmans, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, and Moham medans, as well as by believers in all other reli gions which have ever existed, as firmly as Jews and Christians beUeve in our Bible stories, we have now in this age a most wonderful object lesson in the Latter Day Saints or Mormon religion in disproof of the old stereotyped arguments referred to. The Mormons, a sect now numbering several milhons of people, mostly Americans and English, and generaUy of average intelligence, yield unques tioning beUef in the inspiration of all the fifteen books which compose the Mormon Bible. Now we know from the testimony of the Mormons themselves, as well as from contemporaneous his tory, that their Bible with its books of histories, 114 Evolution of Religions prophecies, and miracles, all total fictions, had no known existence prior to its being found, as alleged, in a hill called by them Cumorrah, in Western New York, about 1823. It was found, as hereinbefore stated, by one Joseph Smith, afterwards the Mormon prophet and leader (in pursuance of angelic visions), engraved in an unknown language, subsequently by him said to have been Hebrew and Egyptian, on plates of gold. The plates fastened together by a ring had been hidden there for many centuries unknown to any human being. The engravings were translated by Smith into the English language by means of diamond spectacles found with the plates, and with the assistance of an angel, and the translation, as the Book of Mormon, was afterwards published. Smith was an un learned and uncultured man, but familiar with our Bible. Now this Book of Mormon, com posed something after the style of our Scriptures, had never been heard of before. It was com piled by Mormon, but hid away where found by Moroni, the last of its prophets, who is said to have lived in the fourth century a.d., somewhere in this country. There was nothing to give the book the slightest authority or authenticity. It was a new revelation, mainly concerning some Israelites who had wandered away from Palestine and come to America over the ocean, in far distant times, even before the exile to Babylon. The Consideration of Miracles 115 book had simply been brought out of oblivion, even if the story of its finding were true and not a fiction as it was. Where are the golden plates? The Mormons say the angel carried them away. Yet within a few years after the alleged finding of the book and its subsequent publication as a revelation from God, without a scintilla of evidence of the truth of its contents or of the truth of its aUeged finding, this book, a naked fiction, without any special intrinsic beauty of style, or merits, is in this the most enlightened country of the world, and this cultured age, with all its miracles, visions, prophecies, and historical narratives implicitly believed in by many thousands of people, as di vinely inspired. To-day it is believed in by several miUions of fairly inteUigent persons, who regard it as equaUy authoritative as the Holy Bible of Jews and Christians, and' probably venerate it more, believing, however, in both Bibles and, I may say, thoroughly orthodox in Christian tenets, Joseph Smith is venerated by the Mor mons nearly as highly as Jesus Christ. The pages of history are full of the records of many almost forgotten and of a few surviving reUgions, and of incredible beliefs in all sorts of deities and astounding legends, but Mormonism illustrates, as probably no other religion ever did so thoroughly, the absolute and utter credulity and unreliabil ity of ordinarily intelligent human beings under 116 Evolution of Religions the influences of superstition and fanaticism, in be lief in any and all stories of the supernatural. Men and women under certain conditions and environ ments will beUeve anything supernatural, espe cially if it comes down to them from supposed antiquity, and Mormonism absolutely confounds and disproves the old stereotyped and once supposed invincible and overwhelming argument for the genuineness of biblical miracles on account of the supposed belief of the Israelites in them only through or because of ocular evidence and ancestral teachings and rites of worship, even if there had been a perfect continuity among their descendants in such teachings and rites, which the Bible history shows there was not, nor even continuous belief, for they often utterly forgot the God of Israel and worshiped heathen gods. The fact is, as demonstrated by history and universal experiences, that any shrewd, intelhgent, unscrupulous impostor, with thorough knowledge of human nature, devout austerity of manners, and enthusiasm in his work, can gather up foUowers for any creed, attested by any number of miracles, who will stand by him to the last and believe everything he teaches, and the times and his environments will determine whether his faith and the number of his followers shall develop into a great religion or not. Consideration of Miracles 117 "Oh the lover may Distrust the look that steals his soul away. The babe may cease to think that it can play With heaven's rainbow. Alchemists may doubt The shining gold their crucibles give out. But faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast To some dear falsehood hugs it to the last." CHAPTER VII INTERNAL BIBLICAL EVIDENCE OP MIRACLES MANY writers upon the subject of biblical authenticity and plenary inspiration, while admitting that the external testimony to its historical statements and miraculous stories may not in all respects be entirely satisfactory, yet claim that supplemented by all the internal evidences in the Bible itself, the truth of its plenary inspira tion is absolutely impregnable. Now we regret to differ with learned scholars and theologians embracing many distinguished names, but we must on the contrary assert that there are many things in the Scriptures which not only do not per se add conviction to the external evidence whatever that may be, but rather tend to weaken and depreciate it, and are not in themselves in accordance with other teachings in the Holy Word, nor with proper conceptions of God as the omnipo tent, omniscient, and omnipresent Creator of the universe and wise and merciful Father of all mankind. We shall in this section consider briefly some of those matters in the Bible itself which we think disprove the theory of its plenary divine inspiration and of its infalUbility in ail 118 Internal Evidence of Miracles 119 things, and which wiU sustain our contention that while the Bible in its total summary of truth teaches the best reUgion of the world and the purest ethics, and furnishes in the Mosaic code the best civil and criminal laws as a whole of any nation of those ancient times, and that while "holy men of old," as probably some of subse quent ages, were inspired to teach the world about God, and of man's duties to Him and to his fellow- men, yet that some things they taught and recorded were only human and fallible. The higher scholarly criticism of the past one hundred years in biblical and .general religious fields has conclusively shown that the Hexa- teuch, or first six books of the Bible especiaUy, and probably aU the other historical and most of the prophetic and poetic books, including Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon, were compilations from ancient documents, traditions, and various other sources by unknown authors, that the editors, redactors, or com pilers were not the persons whose names are given to the books as their authors, and that the original writers of the manuscripts from which the compilations of the books, as we have them now, were made, wrote from different standpoints accordingly as they belonged to different classes of Hebrew writers, as Jehovists, or Judaic, Elohists, or Ephraimitic, Deuteronomist, and Priestly schools. The idioms, language, thoughts, and 120 Evolution of Religions style of expression of all the sacred books, espe- ciaUy of the Old Testament, are very similar and show that they were aU largely edited and com piled from older writings into their present form by one person or under his dictation. Doubtless the prophet Ezra, as already indicated, and as we gather from the book which bears his name, and from the Apocryphal book of Esdras (really the same name), and as Jewish traditions in the Mishna and Talmud assert, assisted by his col league, Nehemiah, was the compiler of nearly the entire Hebrew Bible in its present form, ex cepting the books of Job, Esther, Daniel, and some of the later prophets, which were undoubtedly written after the exile.1 Kings, Chronicles, Jonah, Isaiah (after fortieth chapter), Ezekiel, and Jeremiah were written during the exile. Which books were inspired and entitled to be put into the "holy list" or canon, and which should be non-canonical books, in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, was an unsettled problem until about four hundred years after Christ, when the present canon was finally agreed upon by Roman ecclesiastics, after having been the subject of intense and even bitter controversies, both Jewish and Christian, for several centuries. As a matter of fact, the final determination and settle ment of the canon embracing also all the books now called Apocryphal by Protestants and rejected 1 See Appendix, Notes B, C, and D, pp. 215-216. Internal Evidence of Miracles 121 by them, was made by Pope Innocent I, in 405 a.d.,1 and so we have the blasphemous absurd ity of one man, only a weak, erring man, deciding for the whole Christian world and for aU time in that ignorant and benighted age, the question of inspiration of bibhcal books, assuming, as it were, to put the Almighty's seal of inspiration on them, the Church meekly obeying the pontifical bull, estabhshing the canon issued by the assumed successor of St. Peter as head of Christendom and vicegerent on earth of Jesus Christ. What mockery of divine things ! Some of the Apocryphal books which the bull of Pope Innocent admitted into the inspired canon, such as the second book of Esther, Tobit, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, are simply puerile fables, and it is astonishing that learned Jewish rabbis and CathoUc scholars would ever admit them into the feUowship and sanctity of the other sacred books, greatly detracting as they do by such association from veneration for them. There is no divine attestation, we assert, to the bibhcal canon, nor is there, we believe, any such attesta tion claimed per se, and consequently the canon entirely depends upon ex cathedra. Any person is entitled to receive and beUeve which books of the Bible are really inspired and canonical, and which, if any, are not according to his convictions. With Rev. Dr. Briggs, profound thinker and 1 Johnson's American Encyclopedia, p. 40. 122 Evolution of Religions biblical scholar, the many controversies about Bible canonicity, as well as discussions of miracu lous stories, seem to have had Uttle influence, for he considers some of the books as legendary and some of the miracles as merely fictions, written to explain and enforce moral truths, and, singularly enough, bases his belief in the inspiration of Scriptures only on such of the books as from the sublimity and beauty of their moral teachings and delineations of divine character, give internal attestation of inspiration. As he broadly sums up his theological theorem, "Upon the witness of the Holy Spirit." Of course the attestation of the Holy Spirit would be conclusive and final if we could only be sure of its decisions. Dr. Briggs does not furnish the test. This same "attesta tion" of the Holy Spirit would, of course a fortiori, apply equally as well to everything beautiful, pure, and true taught in the sacred books of other religions as in ours. But how can we obtain the witness of the Holy Spirit, excepting to each individual's reason, as to miracles, ordi nances, and historic statements? How can we obtain the spirit's proof and judgment otherwise? And how know when we have it? Dr. Briggs does not inform us. Our Bible says, " From God cometh every good and perfect gift," and whatever is holy, perfect, and true, is of God and hath the attestation of His Holy Spirit. Further than this, we see not and know not excepting as our Internal Evidence of Miracles 123 reason convinces us. And this seems ultimately to be Dr. Briggs' "Witness of the Holy Spirit," and in fufl accord with his hberal views of the Bible and of other reUgions. The great German scholar, Dr. Julius WeUhausen, says:1 "Of the Hagiographa, or holy writings, including Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Esther, and Chronicles, by far the larger portion is demonstrably post-exilic, and no part demon strably older than the exile. Daniel comes down as far as the Maccabean wars, and Esther is per haps even later. Of the prophetical literature, a very appreciable fraction is later than the fall of the Hebrew kingdom, and the associated histori cal books, the earlier prophets of the Hebrew canon, date, in the form in which we now possess them, from a period subsequent to the death of King Jeconiah, who must have survived the year 560 b.c, for some time. Making all allowances for the older sources utihzed, and to a larger extent transcribed word for word, in Judges, Samuel, and Kings, we find that apart from the Pentateuch, the pre-exilian portion of the Old Testament amounts in bulk to little more than half of the entire volume. All the rest belongs to the later period, and it includes not merely the feeble aftergrowths of a failing vegetation, but 1 Wellhausen's "History of Israel," Introduction, p. i. 124 Evolution of Religions also productions of the vigor and originality of Isaiah xl to Ixvi and Psalm lxxiii." An able Jewish scholar, Rabbi Berkowitz, in a sermon preached in Kansas City, Missouri, on the Passover Sabbath, April 8, 1892, says, inter alia, "The Jews of to-day are not the Jews of old, nor are they responsible for the long forgotten and obsolete dogmas which create the ire of the foUowers of IngersoU; yet we are held responsible for them by those scoffers. Do they not know our history? Has Judaism, even for a day, in this age, asserted that the Old Testament was aught but the gropings of the human mind in its ardent and zealous efforts to learn and obtain the truth? Has Judaism even for a day asserted that the Old Testament was divinely written, verbally?" We will now take up and review some of the Bible stories which we think militate strongly against the theory of its plenary inspiration from the internal point of view. We commence with Genesis, third chapter. The authorship of that book has generally been ascribed to Moses, but there is no evidence whatever existing that he wrote it. It contains intrinsic evidence that it was originally compiled from many sources. Its historical and traditional revelations doubtless came largely from Assyrian, Chaldean, and Egyp tian fountains, and possibly much from the Zoro- astrian Persian priests, whose religion antedated Internal Evidence of Miracles 125 Moses by one thousand years, and whose grand teachings had spread far and wide over Central and Western Asia by the time of Moses. The latter doubtless was acquainted with that re hgion, and learned his pure monotheism from it. He was also, as Exodus tells us, thoroughly versed in the learning and religion of Egypt, his native country, which we know from history, among its many subordinate deities, recognized and beheved in one "great supreme God of Gods." Moses may have originaUy written the manu scripts of Genesis and Exodus, as well as the other three books of the Pentateuch, although, as already said, there is no evidence but tradition that he did so, and all those books, especiauy Genesis, contain intrinsic evidence that many matters were interpolated into them in years long after his time. He was, no doubt, the leader and lawgiver of the shepherds of Goshen,.or Hebrews, after their migration or expulsion from Egypt, about 1500 b.c, a great and good man, though Egyptian annals have no contemporary history of him. The first chapter of Genesis is a wonderful story of creation and the cosmogony of the earth and its condensation and molding out of primeval chaos. According to modern science it details very nearly correctly the order of the astronomi cal, geological, and paleontological changes and evolutions which occurred through long eons or 126 Evolution of Religions ages, whilst the earth was being fitted by the great Creator, through successive preparatory stages, for vegetable and animal Ufe; not, of course, as seemingly, literaUy stated, in six ordinary days, but actuaUy during a series of ages, periods of very long and indefinite duration, as is generaUy taught by all advanced biblical scholars, as well as by all scientists of this day. In fact, only very ignorant and fanatical Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, and Mormons, cognate religion ists, now believe the story of the creation literally. The second chapter of Genesis is evidently from another and mythical source. The supernatural comes in. It contains intrinsic evidence that it is not of or in line with the original and natural account of creation in the first chapter, but was woven out of other legends. Woman had already been created with man, "male and female." God had created them, she man's predestined and inseparable mate for time and eternity. All of the other progenitors of the tribes of the animal kingdom had been previously created and all God's work in creation had been finished according to the first chapter, and declared good and perfect, and His day of rest, the Sabbath, had come. But the mythical story in the second chapter of Genesis tells us that the creation of woman, man's natural complement, the crown and glory of creative energy, without whom man was nothing Internal Evidence of Miracles 127 but a useless freak, was an afterthought of Deity, because it was found, probably after His enlighten ment by observation and experience, as the story suggests, "that it was not good for man to be alone," and because among all animals brought before Adam to name "there was no helpmate found for him." And surely all the human race must be everlastingly grateful to him, that he rejected for a mate all of the other creatures brought before him, if it were so. Then, accord ing to the legend, the finale to the great work of creation was enacted by the Deity, when or how long after the day of rest we are not told, creating and fashioning Eve out of one of Adam's ribs while he slept. When considered with reference to aU the environments of the narrative of creation, and apart from our deeply instilled and almost hereditary reverence for the Bible, would we not be apt to regard this story of the creation of Eve as a silly oriental myth? Really in its context and surroundings it bears its own refutation. We have in other religions, especially in the Egyptian and Hindoo, fabulous histories of the creation, but we must say in justice to Genesis none equaling it in grandeur and simplicity, nor any so nearly corresponding with the true geo logical story "of the rocks and hills." There are various other legends about the primeval age, in various ancient histories, and they with 128 Evolution of Religions anthropological, paleontological, and geological discoveries of the past century or two, rather tend to prove that there were other progenitors of the various races of men originally created besides Adam and Eve, in the various continents of the earth. But whether created in one pair or many pairs, as the other orders of the animal kingdom probably were, as indicated in the first chapter of Genesis,1 man and woman were undoubtedly brought into existence at the same time in con sonance with nature's general plans and purposes. The creation of either sex without the other at the same time, is an unreasonable theory, and would have been out of harmony with apparent creative designs, and is, besides, contrary to the statement of the creation of man and woman on the sixth day. "Male and female created He them." 2 The method of their creation is of little importance compared to the awful tragedy which soon after befell them,3 the most awful tragedy, if literally true, which ever befell the human race, the most dire in its consequences and the story of which demands the most careful consideration and analysis. Doubtless our first parents were created perfect mentally and physically. God said they were "very good," and we have no reason to suppose 1 Genesis, ch. i, verses 20-25 inclusive. 2 Ibid., ch. i, verses 27, 28. 8 Ibid., ch. iii. Internal Evidence of Miracles 129 that they differed from their posterity in form, mind, powers, passions, or in other respects when first created, excepting in not possessing any hereditary taints of diseases or depravities. They were perfect, sinless, but liable to sin. All their organisms and powers were good, and we believe are naturally good in their posterity when not diseased and corrupted by inherited evil traits, as most are now. God had pronounced all His works, including Adam and Eve, to be "perfect" and "very good." They are placed in the Gar den of Eden. Here we will digress awhile. Where was this garden ? Or is the story of it merely a myth? Its mythical existence is shown by the story of its location. Although spoken of as lo cated where the "river which went out of Eden," and from thence was parted and became the heads of four well-known rivers and the locality as exist ing when Genesis was written, which was certainly long after the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. no such region of the earth where the four great rivers named, or any other four great rivers had their origin or fountain heads from one river, has ever been known in history or geography to exist. The four rivers named could never have had the same territorial origin.1 It is impossible, but 1 Josephus' " Antiquities of the Jews." Book First, ch. i, says: " Now the Garden was watered by one river which ran round about the whole earth, and was parted into four parts." Such was ancient geographical knowledge, 130 Evolution of Religions myths, like the fables of the Arabian Nights, do not regard impossibihties, they are only the more alluring. The heads of the four rivers, Euphrates, Pison, Gihon, and Hiddekel, supposed to be the historic and modern Euphrates, Tigris, Ganges, and Nile, are three thousand miles apart. The story is an ancient legend of the same character as the Elysian Fields and the Gardens of the Hesperides of Greek Uterature, or the fabled Island of Atlantis, in the Atlantic Ocean, of the ancient geographers and poets, and is either the basis of, or evolved from, similar mythical creations in the folklore of ancient Persia, India, and Egypt. Eden has at one period or another been fancifully located by Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan writers, in nearly every region of the globe. Some have located it in the tropics, and some at one or other of the poles, which are supposed once to have had tropical climates. The latest theory of its location we have seen was in an article on the subject by a prominent Christian divine, who claims that Eden was located where the Persian Gulf, or Sea of Oman, now rolls its waves. The reverend dreamer admits, of course, that every trace of the wonderful garden has been obliterated. This last romantic theory is as good, and probably as nearly correct, as any other of the multitudinous disquisitions on the subject, and besides has the merit, if believed, of rendering entirely useless further speculation or Internal Evidence of Miracles 131 research. An Eden submerged ages agone under the coral groves of Oman's Sea is not easily investigated. But the question of Eden's location, like the place where the mythical Noah's Ark finaUy rested after its stormy voyage on the biUows of the universal Deluge, is really not a matter of much consequence, and excepting to illustrate the uncertainty of even what is claimed as inspired nanative, controversy on the subject is reaUy unprofitable, even if interesting. We beUeve it was a fabled garden. All we know of it or can ever know is that Genesis says, " The Lord planted a garden eastward in Eden. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted and became four heads," etc. The fanciful character of the story seems suf ficiently shown by the allegation of one mighty river irrigating the garden, and after leaving its confines, parting there and becoming reservoirs or heads of each of the four great rivers named, the source of one of which, the Gihon, supposed to be the Nile of Egypt, was in a different conti nent, and thousands of miles apart from the others whose sources are each also widely sepa rated. All ancient geographies are more or less fabulous and very obscure, even when partly correct, and the story shows that the geography and topography of Eden were very illy defined in the mind of the author of Genesis. But to return from the digression. 132 Evolution of Religions Adam and Eve came into possession of the garden just from creation at God's hands, per fectly guileless, innocent, and pure as newborn babes. Credulous, without any knowledge or experience, and totally unknowing and unsus pecting of sin or evil, they are permitted to eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden but one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and of this they are enjoined not to eat, for the reason that if they should eat the fruit thereof they should in that day surely die. The death interdicted must have been natural death, but they did eat of the fruit of that tree and did not die. It gave to them a conscience or knowledge of good and evil.1 Was this knowledge designed to have been kept from them? It seems so from the context. But what was the tree growing there for? God in His omniscience knew that the pair would eat the fruit. But would not this interdicted knowledge if communicated to them previously, have prepared them against the ser pent's future wiles, if the tragedy were not pre destined? And what was the tree of life growing there for, if not to counteract the evil done? They had not been forbidden to eat of its immortal fruit. Unfortunately as it seems for the hapless pair and their posterity, that they did not imme diately after partaking of the forbidden fruit eat also of the fruit of the tree of life, for which they 1 Genesis, ch. iii, verse 22. Internal Evidence of Miracles 133 seem to have had sufficient time before they were debarred from the garden. Had they done so it would seem that life and immortality had been, beyond mistake, fate, or peradventure, irrevocably secured to them and all their posterity forever. Why was God so apparently determined that Adam and Eve should not "put forth their hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever," thus revoking the doom incurred by eat ing of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Was the knowledge of good and evil incompatible with immortality? Certainly not, because it is not so now, as we are taught in the Gospels, and was not so then, as Genesis informs us that if our first parents had eaten of the fruit of the tree of Ufe they should live forever not withstanding their sin. Those were most wonder ful trees, the fruit of the one imparting conscience or the knowledge of good and evil and resulting death, and of the other imparting quenchless immortal Ufe, conqueror of death. They were trees of no botanical order or species ever since known on earth, and must have been the one extinguished, after imparting its knowledge so baleful of eternal results, and the other trans planted from the tenestrial to the celestial paradise, for we are told in the Book of Revela tion, of the Tree of Life growing by the side of the Crystal River in the home of God. After being enjoined not to eat of the fruit of 134 Evolution of Religions the tree of knowledge of good and evil, to the astonishment of the new children of God, a great serpent standing erect comes before Eve, and in her speech tells her that if she will eat of the forbidden fruit she shall not die as God had told her and Adam they would, . but on the contrary, should become as Gods, knowing good and evil, which they must naturally have supposed was most desirable knowledge. In this connection it does not perhaps matter, at least not with the orthodox, that the Bible elsewhere says, "Thou canst not see my face, for there shaU no man see my face and live" x ; "No man can see God at any time"2 ; "Whom no man hath seen, nor can see," 3 and yet that Adam and Eve are repre sented as having talked with God face to face. Now who gave the serpent, if only a serpent, cunning and ability to talk, or if it was Satan, the evil one in serpent's guise, who permitted him there? Was it not God, and did not God know of the temptation and certain ruin Satan was planning? Most certainly! If He is omniscient, none can doubt it. Now is it strange that the innocent pair, filled with curiosity and desire, believed this wonderful serpent unlike aU others of his kind they may have seen, standing erect and gifted with their speech? Why should they not believe it too was a God? 1 Exodus, ch. xxxiii, verse 20. 2 John, ch. i, verse 18. 3 Timothy, ch. vi, verse 16. Internal Evidence of Miracles 135 It seems natural that they should have so believed and confided in its words and promises, negativing as it did the other God's declaration that they should die if they ate the fruit and promising them with continued life, also the knowledge of good and evil. They certainly beheved the serpent's words and doubted God's. We must remember — and this should be carefully borne in mind — that they knew not any evil yet, nor any distinction between good and evil, nor was there any apparent reason why they should not beUeve the serpent as weU as God, nor did they know what disobedience, sin, and death were. Having no moral sense or guide, how could they sin or know sin? The temptation was over powering. Seeing that the fruit was pleasant to the eye, and to be desired to make them wise, and apparently good for food, in their childish innocency, curiosity and appetite were beyond control, and they ate the fruit from whose essence was imparted to them their first knowledge of sin. Was not this a most astonishing method of imparting moral knowledge through the palate and stomach? For so eating of that fruit, and lest they should next pluck and eat of the more wondrous fruit of the tree of life, standing hard by the other tree, and so avert the late decree of death, and thus secure and repossess the peerless gift of endless life for themselves and their pos terity, we are told the hapless pair were driven 136 Evolution of Religions out of Paradise, and cherubims armed with a flaming sword which turned every way, were placed at the entrance of the garden to guard the way to the tree of life. The mystic Garden of Eden has never since been seen by human eyes or trodden by human feet. It would hardly seem useful to dwell so long upon this ancient myth, were it not from it, Christian orthodoxy, thousands of years after the supposed occurrences of the tragedy, has evolved the existence and quasi-divinity of Satan, — the omnipresent and omniscient evil being, — the gloomy doctrines of the fall and of original sin, with aU their consequences to the human race, the tri-unity of God, and the vicarious sacrifice and atonement of one of the supposed persons in the Trinity, — metamorphosed Adam and Eve — eo instanti, from happy, sinless im mortals into utterly lost, sinful, dying mortals, and deduced the passing at the same time from God, for their disobedience, of the inconceivably awful sentence of mortal death and eternal punishment on themselves and all their posterity forever. The latter part of the sentence, eternal punishment, only to be avoided for any, as provided in the councils of heaven, then held, by Jesus Christ, one of the persons in the mystic Trinity, Son of God, reaUy God Himself, then engaging to come to earth four thousand years afterwards, and to be conceived and born of a Internal Evidence of Miracles 137 human woman, as an incarnation of God, and then as such to offer Himself as a sacrifice upon a cross, as an atonement, to whom? Verily to Himself as God, and for what? Why, for Adam and Eve's sin of eating the forbidden fruit, and for the inheritance or imputation of the same original or metaphorical sin, as personal guilt to each of their prospective myriads of posterity, as well as for the actual sins of themselves and all such posterity, through aU future ages, in case they should all beUeve in and accept this dogma ! Or as atonement for so many of their posterity only as might actually in all the subsequent years of time so believe and repent of not only their actual sins, but also of the aforesaid original sin, although the most of such posterity might know nothing of and have never heard of such original sin. The efficacy of such to be, future atonement, we are taught, extended in some mysterious way, as well to all the good people, the elect, who lived and died previous to the Savior's crucifixion, as to those who lived after such expiation, although those who Uved and died in Israel, or out of Israel, among the Gentiles, in the long centuries which intervened before the death of Christ, so far as we have any knowledge now, knew nothing of this wonderful scheme of atonement and salvation. No information of such scheme of atonement was ever before the Savior's life on earth, and for that matter not then, nor for 138 Evolution of Religions a generation or more afterwards given in the Scriptures or elsewhere. Certainly not in the old Scriptures then existing. We think this is a truthful presentation of the story of the faU and of the orthodox doctrines evolved by mediaeval Christian ecclesiastics there from, stripped of all the mysticisms and meta physics with which that school of theology has surrounded them to befog the human mind. Of course the "People of the Book," the Israelites, the original authors and custodians of the Bible, never knew or believed such doctrines. We read nothing more of Adam and Eve in the Hebrew Scriptures, excepting their paternity of children, age, and death, after living for centuries. In the New Testament epistles, however, many com ments written, supposedly over four thousand years afterwards, are made upon their disobedi ence and its dire consequences in bringing sin and death into the world. Jesus Himself, in all His grand discourses, had nothing to say about the primeval fall or the wonderful system of atonement then supposed to have been conceived in heaven. Subsequently, beginning several centuries after His death, the present system of orthodox religion was elaborated and formulated in the Dark Ages by monastic mysticism and fanaticism, largely directed by Athanasius and St. Augustine, into the amazing scheme of redemption as aforesaid, Internal Evidence of Miracles 139 claimed to have been devised in heaven at the time of the fall of Adam and Eve, and thence running down through all the ages, as a corollary to the wonderful miracles and sacrificial worship of the Hebrews, which were mainly designed, it is said, as typical of the sacrifice and atonement of Jesus, and finally culminating in His death. Now, verily, is the story of Eden anything but a myth of the ancient Zoroastrian or Chaldean Magu, endeavoring to account for the introduction of sin and evil in the world originaUy, which was a favorite quest of old-time philosophers? Doubt less an ancient Mesopotamian legend of a primi tive paradisaical Garden of Eden and home of our first parents, was recast by an infusion of later Zoroastrian tenets about evil and Satan during the Babylonian exile, into the present Bible version of older Hebrew writings, which, as here tofore stated, was redacted and compiled by the prophets, Nehemiah and Ezra, after the return of the bulk of the Jews to Palestine about 450 b.c. The Hebrews previously, as may be gathered from a study of their few pre-exilian sacred books, evidently had no knowledge of or beUef in Satan until they mingled with the Persian and Baby lonian priests during their long exile. But we will return to the Edenic story. What reason have we to beUeve that our first parents ever passed through a supernatural process of physi cal change of their bodies from immortal and 140 Evolution of Religions changeless, to mortality, to liabiUty to future disease and death? What evidences are there in nature, anthropology, paleontology, or other sciences to prove that they were ever otherwise physically, mentally, and morally than their pos terity? None whatever! Nothing but the naked story of Eden and the faU! Is that sufficient evidence, or is it indeed any evidence at all? It is said that it was revealed to the writer, who soever he was, by Deity, and therefore must be true. But that is a mere assumption, without any testimony whatever, and disproved by the internal testimony. A mere begging of the ques tion, and therefore proving nothing. So incongruous and absurd is the story that if forced to believe it and the awful doctrine of eternal punishment deduced therefrom, or reject the Bible, I should discard the latter, excepting wherein historically sustained. Any religion that teaches literally the dogma of eternal punishment is ipso facto false. The statement that Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden after their dis obedience, lest they should eat of the fruit of the tree of life and thereby live forever, indicates that the fruits of the two trees were antagonistic, and that, whereas the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil resulted in depriving Adam and Eve of bodily immortality, the eating of the fruit of the tree of life would have restored that boon to them, notwithstanding the previous Internal Evidence of Miracles 141 sentence of death. In other words, it was an anti dote to the first fruit, if eaten, and annulled God's decree. Can it be that God would have thus virtually ignored His sovereignty, and left the question of temporal death and eternal misery on the one hand, and of endless life and happiness on the other, to the chances of destiny as to whether one or both fruits were eaten? Certainly such arbitrament does not comport with the char acter of the Almighty. Would their eating of the fruit of the tree of life with the gift of physi cal immortaUty have also restored them to God's favor again, and thus closed forever the yawning abyss of hell? They seem to have had time to eat of the fruit of the tree of life after they real ized their sin and before they were banished from Paradise. If so, if they knew of such tree of Ufe, it seems, humanly speaking, most unfortu nate for them and their luckless posterity, that they did not hasten to eat that immortal fruit, for it seems, had they done so, — for the previous inter diction only apphed to their eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, — then disease, death, and hell would have been forever unknown to mankind. But it was not, it seems, God's will that they should do so and thus escape such dire consequences. Indeed, according to the inevitable logic of the story, the whole tragedy was God's will if the story be true. But it is only a myth. Evidently constituted physicaUy, as 142 Evolution of Religions their descendants are, death from old age and the wearing out of the vital functions of their bodies, if not from disease, was inherent in Adam and Eve's natures as well as in their children's and always was an essential condition of human life. Doubtless our first parents were perfect in every respect as just coming from God's hands, but yet, possessing in perfection all ordinary human .faculties, passions, hopes, and appetites, as their descendants have, liable to degeneracy from vice and evil habits. Neither the Bible, nature, nor human anatomy and physiology indicates that the laws of genera tion and heredity were ever changed. Did our first parents live otherwise and sin otherwise than God knew they would when He gave them being ? Certainly not! To assume otherwise denies His omniscience. God knew they would succumb to the tempter's wiles just as well when He first placed them in the garden as He knew when they ate the forbidden fruit. Innocent and un suspecting, knowing not evil from good, nor any moral distinctions, prohibited from eating certain fruit, by one being whom they must have supposed greater than themselves, and solicited to do so, by another being whom under the circum stances they must have supposed a Deity also equal or nearly equal with the other, I have no conceptions of the Almighty which would permit me to believe that He deliberately allowed such Internal Evidence of Miracles 143 a tragedy to occur. If true, the most momentous that ever occuned on earth, a tragedy vastly greater than the crucifixion of Christ, for that, if orthodoxy be true, simply made it possible for man to escape from some of the resultant honors of the fall, and only from a part of them, the natural death of all human beings who might ever Uve, being one of its inevitable results, the other being the undoing and eternal ruin of the whole race, and to prevent that, making the tragedy of the crucifixion necessary. By the faU, God's perfect sinless and immortal children, destined to be progenitors of myriads of descend ants, who would inherit their natures and des tinies, in a day became utterly changed and depraved, lured by an evil monster in their inno- cency from their Godhke state to utter moral and physical ruin, and doomed in themselves and aU their posterity, who otherwise would have been ever holy and immortal, to earthly death and to eternal misery. The omnipotent God knowing all that was happening, able to prevent, and yet not putting forth His hand of mercy to save, merely His fiat, to save! Away it is a Mephis- tophelian story, an unhallowed dream. But, say the orthodoxists, — for on the story of Eden and the faU, their entire system of doctrine depends, and if Eden is a myth, then the Trinity, atone ment of Jesus Christ, and eternal punishment, aU are myths, — Adam and Eve were free agents, and 144 Evolution of Religions God could not interfere to save them from the wiles of Satan, except by destroying their free agency. Well, let free agency be destroyed, if upon its maintenance as a principle was involved, as known to God, the temporal and eternal ruin of the entire human race. But such free agency as Adam and Eve had, was a delusion. According to the context of the story in Genesis, it was such free agency as exists in an infant five years old against overmastering temptation. It was vir tually guileless infancy in a contest with the embodiment of guile and treachery. The theory and argument of free agency in such cases are delusions. Should not God have advised and warned them against the insidious tempter? Is there any intimation that He did so? Would such warning have destroyed their free agency? Adam and Eve's disobedience was apparently no more heinous than any ordinary violation of God's laws by innocent children. They had, so far as the pages of the Bible inform us, no conception of the awful penalty Uable to be in- cureed, — a penalty which must seem to any reasonable mind, uninfluenced by religious bias, absolutely incommensurate with the offense. What could they know of even temporal death ? They had as yet seen no one die. Why did not Omniscience warn them of the archtempter and his wiles? The story of Eden cannot be one of Internal Evidence of Miracles 145 fact, and as an allegory it is difficult to compre hend its purposes, excepting as designed to ac count for the origin of evil in the world. If a real tragedy, humanly speaking, it would seem it had been better, infinite mercy indeed, if the sin could not have been prevented and the tragedy arrested, that the sentence of death upon the offending pair had at once been carried out, if such awful results must have necessarily fol lowed their disobedience, and new immortals created to beget posterity, and re-people a paradi siacal earth. If the story is not a myth or legend, but a fact, then we can only say that it seems to us, — and we are incapable of understanding how it can seem otherwise to any one who has fair reasoning powers and uses them, and is not a slave to religious bigotry, — that either God knew and wiUed the drama of the fall and its awful results as part of His universal economy for pur poses beyond human ken and foreign to human weal, or else that His original plan in the creation of Adam and Eve was then and there thwarted by man, destiny, or Satan. Neither theory, according to a proper concep tion of God, can be true, and hence we must belive the story of Eden to be entirely mythical. Indeed, it is contrary to every attribute of God and is derogatory to the doctrine of biblical plenary inspiration, or rather of any inspiration at all, instead of furnishing any internal attestation 146 Evolution of Religions to it. Really the story as a hteral fact of a super natural occunence has very few believers at pres ent among Jews or even Protestant Christians. The most earnest and perhaps the only really earnest believers in it in this age are Mohammed ans, Mormons, and Roman CathoUcs. It is aston ishing that while so many Protestant Christians regard the story of Eden as a myth or fable, they should nevertheless absolutely believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, the vicarious atonement of Christ, and eternal punishment, as Eden is the corner stone of the orthodox temple built up on such doctrines, and without Eden the whole structure must fall. While on this subject, and before dismissing it, we desire to say that apart from their many poetic beauties and wonderful portrayals of paradisaical and celestial scenery and inhabitants there does not seem to us to be anything more absurd and honible in the whole realm of literary composition than Dante's "Inferno," Milton's "Paradise Lost," and the portraitures of hell and the judgment day in Pollock's "Course of Time," the latter, by the way, a poem little known now, but very popular in the early part of the last century. Each of those poems is wholly based upon the story of Eden, the Apocalypse of the Book of Revelation, and of the dreadful creed of divine vengeance, which orthodox fanaticism Internal Evidence of Miracles 147 has manufactured out of them. We cannot con ceive how any sane mind and healthy soul en dued with proper conceptions of God and love of fellow-men, can peruse the awful "heUs" of those poems with any feelings but honor and disgust. Yet Dante's "Inferno" and Milton's "Paradise Lost" are popular with many people, and splendid editions of these poems, ornamented generaUy with horrible pictures of hell, Satan, and his devils, and the writhing and burning damned, are produced annually and sold in great numbers as souvenirs for birthday and hohday presents from relatives and friends. We have read those poems several times, only the more sadly to regret each time such splendid talents wasted, in our judgment, in such works and the more utterly to condemn their horrible portrayals of infinite hate, misnamed justice. Much harm and no good are done by these poems. Morbid feelings in religion are engendered and perverted conceptions of law and justice taught. In them mercy and love are utterly ignored, while in "Paradise Regained" mercy is vouchsafed to those only who are saved by the atonement of Christ and their acceptance of the dogmas of orthodoxy. It is true that the horrible fantasies of the world, of the damned in these poems, with the storms of divine ven geance, and the waves of the ocean of eternal flames ever pursuing them, in that world of despair 148 Evolution of Religions once almost universally believed in as real and thundered forth from every pulpit in Christendom, are now only read as weird fictions by most intelligent people. Their dreams of the "hell" of those poems will be mingled in the not distant future only with historic memories of that other old orthodox institution, the Spanish Inquisition, which with its horrible instruments pf torture was used by the Church of Rome for many cen turies to give hundreds of thousands of heretics a foretaste of hell. In not very remote future times, we predict these poems, along with much of the once standard theological works of Athanasius, St. Augustine, John Calvin, Rev. Jonathan Edwards, and many other once famous writers of that class of fanatics on the same subject, will be relegated to anti quarian collections as mementoes of the old dreadful tenets of semi-barbarian orthodoxy. They are a blighting curse upon the human soul and intellect, deadening the finest sympathies and obliterating all rational sense of justice and mercy, when the mind and soul are fully possessed of their morbid sentiments and dwarfed and depraved ideas of Deity. This has been illustrated in the lives of many of the most bigoted advocates and teachers of orthodox Christianity. Their natures were hard and unforgiving. They seemed to have had in them very little of the milk of Internal Evidence of Miracles 149 human kindness. We will not specify individual cases. They were the people who burned poor old women as witches and who piled the fagots around the so-called heretic martyrs of the Dark and Middle Ages, who were really the best people of those days. Their doctrines naturally made them perse cutors of men of science and liberal-minded Christians. Pagan Rome never murdered half as many Christians as the Holy Church of the Dark Ages. Who made the Stygian gulf of hell, with its outer abode of everlasting darkness and in ternal flames, horrible monsters, and awful hor rors a world of woe for lost sinners, compared with which the Hades of the Greek mythology was a paradise? Was it not the Christian's hell, invented by the old Fathers? Dante, Milton, Calvin, and Edwards merely illumined it. What of mercy, what of anything but inexorable hate, is apparent in the conception of the utmost hor rors and agonies made to be the portion of the lost forever? Why was not banishment from paradise forever alone sufficient? No darker honors could possibly be conceived by a human mind and scarcely by a God. The God of those poets and divines does not exist. The God of the Bible truly portrayed and comprehended is all holy and of infinite mercy and love. He pun ished but for the good of His children. 150 Evolution of Religions " The quality of mercy is not strained, It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed. It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest, And earthly power does then show likest God, When mercy seasons justice." — Shakespeare's " Merchant of Venice." CHAPTER VIII INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES, ETC. — con tinued THERE are many other supernatural state ments and some historical nanatives in the Scriptures which do not of themselves carry internal evidences of authenticity, but rather tend to unbelief. Some of the miracles are of a low order of supernaturals, entirely deficient in character and in all qualities and sunoundings which should go towards constituting internal evidence of their genuineness, not to mention the entire absence of any historical or other proper testimony in their favor. The grand ethics of the Bible standing alone would be more convinc ing of their divine inspiration without the mir acles. The power, beauty, and truth of the inspired teachings do not depend at all upon the legendary miracles, and the ethics are not neces sarily connected with them. Nor, on the other hand, should the inspired teachings be impaired in authority by historical inaccuracies or weak and trivial miraculous legends. Some miracles, such as the burning of the un- consumed bush in the desert of Midian, out of IS' 152 Evolution of Religions the midst of which God spoke to Moses, the ten plagues of Egypt, the passages of the Red Sea and of the river Jordan by the IsraeUtes, the cloud behind them in their marches by day and the pillar of fire by night, which are said to have followed them during their forty years' wander ings in the deserts of Arabia, the story of Shad- rach, Meshach, and Abednego walking with the Son of God in Nebuchadnezzar's sevenfold heated furnace; of the mysterious handwriting, his own and his empire's doom on the walls of his banqueting hall during Belshazzar's baccha nalian feast ; of the raising from death of Lazarus and of Jarius' daughter, and the resunection and ascension of Jesus, these and many other occur rences nanated in the Bible are grand and won derful miracles, if not myths and legendary- stories, and we might well suppose appropriate manifestations of omnipotent power, and from their character might furnish internal support to general biblical authenticity and inspiration. The Edenic drama, however, the story of Moses' and the Egyptian magicians' rods turning into serpents when thrown down before King Pharaoh ; and Moses' serpents, then swallowing the others ; the story of Balaam and the ass, of the sun and moon standing still for a whole day at the com mand of Joshua, of Samson and the three hund red foxes, of Saul and the witch of Endor, and other supernaturals which might be refened to, Internal Evidence of Miracles 153 do not from their character add any strength whatever to biblical authenticity, but being pub Ushed and held as equaUy true among beUevers with aU other miraculous nanatives, tend strongly to impair the credibihty of aU. It is idle, as Renan in his "Life of Christ" justly says, "to claim in view of such incredible Bible stories, and of the vast multitude of other legendary and fabulous stories which abound in books of our own and of other reUgions, and which equally with the Hebrew and Christian miracles have been implicitly believed in for ages by myriads of people of all religions, that evi dence sufficient to sustain ordinary historical facts should be considered sufficient to prove miracles." Some ordinary historic statements are believed merely upon the statements of rehable histori ans, ancient and modern, but miracles cannot be proved in such way. We believe in the divine inspiration of aU the messages of holiness, mercy, and humanity, which are found in our Bible, as weU as in the bibles of all religions, and we be Ueve so upon the authority of our Bible, which says that "from God cometh every good and perfect gift." Such teachings, like axioms in geometry, prove themselves to be from deity, but supernatural reversions, changes, suspensions, or abrogations of the divine laws of nature, which constitute miracles, cannot prove themselves. They must 154 Evolution of Religions be proven as all other historical facts. Apart from the stories themselves, as they are found in our Bible and in the sacred books of other re ligions, there is virtually no proof of miracles existing. Bible histories, like other rehable an cient histories, are sufficiently trustworthy to authenticate of themselves many natural histori cal facts, but they cannot alone give credence to supernatural nanatives. Josephus, in his books of Jewish antiquities, merely follows Bible history down to the return of the exiles from Babylon and the rebuilding of the second temple, and his stories of miraculous events are merely copied from the Bible, with some variations from our present versions, prob ably owing to interpolations, differences in translations, etc. So Herodotus, the Greek, Manetho, the Egyptian, Berosus, the Chaldean, and other pagan historians who wrote anything of the Israelites, only repeated what they obtained from traditions or from ancient Hebrew writings. Really there exists no conoboration whatever of any biblical miracles in any histories of Egyp tians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, or any other sunounding nations, and very slight conoborations of even ancient Hebrew secular history. Such as there is, and it is generally un important, has been found in Egyptian pyra mids, temples, and mummy sarcophagi, of kings, and in the deoris of ruins of Nineveh, Asshur, Internal Evidence of Miracles 155 and Babylon. So that, we may say, that of historical or monumental conoborations of bib lical miracles, there are none whatever either Jewish or Gentile. The alleged conoborations, contemporary or otherwise, of any miracles of other religions, and of the innumerable Christian miracles of saints and martyrs of the dark and mediaeval ages, are entirely unreliable and worth less, and so regarded by all good scholars and trustworthy historians, whatever may be their religious beUefs. We shall now, in addition to previous comments herein, refer to some of the Bible miracles which we consider as Apocryphal and mythical or legendary, as also to some mat ters of merely secular Bible history, insufficiently authenticated. Generally Bible history, until it runs back into the very early years of time, is reliable. As this is not in any sense a Bible his tory or commentary, but only a consideration of its most important matters of miracles and doc trines, the things we shall review, instead of being taken up consecutively, are found here and there in the Scriptures, and are used as they seem most appropriate for our purposes. There are inconsistencies in the Bible. Why should God, in whom there is no "inconsistency, variableness, or shadow of turning," harden Pharaoh's heart, as we are told He did against the terrible warnings of the great plagues, and then punish him and his people for not letting 156 Evolution of Religions the Israelites go out of Egypt? According to Exodus, God induced Pharaoh not to let them go. Is not this charging God with duplicity? We know it cannot be. God cannot do so. Nor could He have sent one of His angels to go and put a lying spirit in the mouth of Ahab's prophets,1 so as to entice him to go to battle with the Syrians at Ramoth Gilead, that his army might be defeated and himself killed. Did the Heavenly Father literally order the extermination of the petty tribes of the Canaan ites, men, women, and little children, with the besom of destruction in their ancient homes sunounded with the vines and fig-trees which they had planted, merely that the ruthless in vaders might appropriate them to their own use? So Moses, or whoever wrote the Pentateuch, teaches! And so Joshua teaches! What harm or wrong had they done their despoilers and murderers? None whatever. But it is said they were idolaters and God wanted them destroyed. Perhaps so. But their innocent children might have been saved and brought up differently. And their conquerors were also most of the time idolaters, especiaUy after the conquest of Canaan, notwithstanding the teach ings of Moses and the divine laws. Doubtless, as the history tells, the most of the Canaanites were exterminated, but we opine only under the 1 Second Chronicles, ch. xviii, verse 20. Internal Evidence of Miracles 157 same old wanant of ambition, greed, and lust of conquest, under which Cambyses, Alexander, Cassar, Attila, Genghis Khan, Timour, Cortez, Pizano, Napoleon, and other conquerors deluged the earth in blood. The Mosaic laws, civil and criminal, compose a code of laws, wonderful and advanced in humanity for that early age. It forms the basis of the laws of most civilized nations, and so far as its subject matters extend, was mostly good. Yet, though Moses proclaimed aU those laws, without exception, as coming directly from God, there are in that code, judged by the standard of true morals and the Decalogue, some monstrous wrongs permitted, especially in reference to slavery, polygamy, divorces, and social morals. Slavery was allowed, and slaves were permitted to be captured in war and bought and sold, not only of foreign peoples, but also of their own kinsmen, IsraeUtes. Men were permitted to have plural wives without any Umit as to numbers, and they were also authorized to put away and divorce their wives at pleasure, no matter how many children they may have borne them or how old they were. Did God really authorize such social wrongs? It is hard to believe it. We cannot beUeve it. The Bible in that is untrue when it says He did. Jesus did not beUeve it, for He said that Moses, not God, on account of the hardness of the hearts of the Israelites permitted divorces for any 158 Evolution of Religions cause, but that from the beginning it was not so, tacitly thus declaring that although such was the Mosaic law, it was not the law given by God; thus Himself discrediting Scripture. The Savior made no special condemnation of slavery and polygamy, possibly because those crimes were not brought to His attention. It is foUy to teach that God sanctioned or gave such immoral and unjust laws, and if He did not, then so much of Scriptures is untrue, and plenary inspiration is at once discredited. "The greater part of the legis lation of the Mosaic code was superseded once for all by Jesus ."1 And yet Jesus is reported as saying : "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am come not to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily, I say unto you, tiU heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be fulfilled."2 Evidently Jesus' language was not conectly reported by the evangelists, or else by the "law and the prophets and all things," He merely meant only the moral law. He did not mean the sac rificial and ceremonial laws, for He paid little attention to them, and they passed away forever when the last temple was destroyed, and no descendant of David was then sitting upon 1 Dr. Briggs, "The Bible, the Church, the Reason," p. 289. Appendix. 2 Matthew, ch. v, verses 17-18. Internal Evidence of Miracles 159 Judah's throne. Nor did He mean the predictions of the prophets, for many of them have been unfulfilled. "If we insist upon the fulfillment of the details of the predictive prophecy of the Old Testament, many of those predictions have been reversed by history." x Was it the God whom we worship, or was it only Israel's God, who said "that if a man smite his servant or his serving maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be punished. Not withstanding, if he Uve a day or two, he shall not be punished because the slave was his property" ? 2 Perhaps, moreover, the poor mangled slave may not have been a stranger of other race or color, but a kinsman Hebrew! Did God really, as Moses says He did, command, that if a man seduced a bondmaiden who was betrothed to another man, the maiden should be flogged for her sin, but because she was a slave, the vile seducer could make a petty sacrifice at a trifling cost, and go unpunished? 3 Surely not the God we worship ! We wiU not believe that He gave such a law. No such immoral and barbarous law can be found in the Confucian Analects, the Zend Avesta, the Vedas, the Tri Pitakas, or the Koran. 1 Dr. Briggs, "The Bible, the Church, the Reason," p. 286. Appendix. 2 Exodus, ch. xxi, verse 21. * Leviticus, ch. xix, verses 20, 21, 22. 160 Evolution of Religions The statement in the Bible that such laws were proclaimed by God through Moses, is ipso facto proof that the statement is untrue, and that so much of the text, at least, is anything but inspired. And the immoral inference from such law, publicly announced as it purports to have been, is logically that had not the slave maiden been betrothed, the sexual intercourse with her as a slave would not have been wrong, or at least have merited or received no punishment for either one. Did God order through Moses, as we are told He did, specifically, all the petty details of the minutiae of the Hebrew sacrificial worship, of the garments of the priests, of the ribbons, fringes, and other ornaments of the curtains of the Shekinah, of the rings, bolts, and nails therefor, and of the trifling anangements for slaughter and sacrifices of bulls, heifers, sheep, goats, pigeons, and doves? Truly the Lord was concerning Himself de minimis. Sacrifices to be made, in order, as proclaimed, that through the reeking blood and the hot flames from the burning flesh of the victims on the sacrificial altar, an atonement or expiation for the sins of the people might be made by propitiating God through the "sweet savor," arising from the sacrificial offerings ! What an occupation for the God of the universe to be engaged in ! What be sotted worship ! A worship probably suited to the human conceptions of a deity who would devise it. Internal Evidence of Miracles 161 Does anybody, Jew or Gentile, unless infatuated with the old forms and behefs, and supinely foUowing them, now believe that God ever ordained such sacrifices, or that such sacrifices now or ever could in God's economy, reaUy atone for sins? Or that such bloody, bestial offerings were types of the Savior's future crucifixion, as orthodoxy teaches? Or were indeed types of anything but of the superstition, ignorance, and barbarism of the priests, and the people who performed such rites of worship? The idea of the Almighty who "sitteth upon the circle of the universe and ruleth over all" enjoying, and being appeased, or being influenced in any way by a "sweet savor," arising not from the delicious fragrance of odorous flowers or of burning incense, which supposedly might be agreeable to Him, but from the fumes of reeking blood and burning flesh of the poor animals slaughtered for sacrifices ! The thought is disgusting! All refined and humane minds, one would think, would instinc tively revolt from such an association of repulsive ideas. A great many thousands of beasts and birds were often slaughtered in the grounds of the Temple at Jerusalem in one day, at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, and other great occasions, and the grounds of the Temple were turned into market places for buying and selling the animals, as weU as into shambles for wholesale slaughter. Is it conceivable that God would suspend or 162 Evolution of Religions revoke nature's eternal laws and work miracles, sometimes on very ordinary occasions, as we are taught, for the especial benefit and encourage ment in their foUy, of the ignorant and besotted semi-barbarians who could enjoy such mummeries, and call them worship of God ? Rather, methinks, He might have worked miracles to enlighten their minds and win them from such sacrificial abominations. We are often told by divines who gloss over such things in the Bible, in their sermons and writings, that " a glory gilds all the sacred pages," but such instances as above refened to, of un just laws, stupid miracles, and heathenish wor ship, as well as many other blemishes which might be noted, sadly darken many pages of the Bible. In fact, few of the biblical books except ing the Proverbs, inspired Psalms, the Prophe cies, and some of the Epistles are free from blemishes. Some of the prophetic teachings, it is true, represent God with human infirmities and passions, but that is merely adapting their teach ings to the capacities of their hearers or readers. The vulgar opening of Hosea's book, with his "wife of whoredoms and children of whore doms," is not very attractive. Many Christian ministers and Jewish priests, nay most of them, are not honest with their people, and do not ex pound to them the whole truth, but conceal or gloss over or give some sublimated or mystical Internal Evidence of Miracles 163 exposition to all the dark features of old Bible story. Better the sale for gold, of indulgences and forgiveness and absolution for sins, carried on by the priests of Rome in the Dark Ages, than the debasing Mosaic sacrifices. Were they indeed anything more than the systems of worship of the sunounding pagan nations adopted by the IsraeUtes and ingrafted by them upon the Zo roastrian worship of one God instead of the heathen worship of many gods? And really only as it taught monotheism, and naturally, there fore, leading to higher ideals, running through the whole system, and better laws, civil, criminal, and ecclesiastical", was Mosaic sacrificial worship much superior to the Egyptian, Assyrian, or Gre cian forms of worship, as it was inferior to the Zoroastrian worship of Central Asia, which had no sacrificial mummeries, though that reUgion was perhaps one thousand years older than the Mosaic. It was the oldest and original mono theism of earth, so far as we know. No! Such absurd sacrificial worship never came from God, only as aU things of earth may be parts or seg ments of the circle of His providence and econo mies, of the social and rehgious evolutions which He permits and guides. The statement that the clothes and shoes of the IsraeUtes in their forty years' wanderings in the Arabian deserts never grew old or worn out, 164 Evolution of Religions and the story of Balaam and the ass are only on a par with many of the Oriental fables in the "Arabian Nights." How they ever got into the Pentateuch is a mystery. And how they can now be believed by intelligent Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans is a still greater mystery. Must we believe merely because it is in the pages of Exodus, not only that the sandals and clothes of the grown persons never got frayed or torn during the forty years of their wanderings, but also that new clothes grew or were furnished by angel hands, as children were born, and that their clothes continued growing and expanding on their bodies as they grew up to maturity? A whole generation, we are told, passed away and another grew up in the mountains, vales, and deserts during those forty years. What non sense will not and have not mankind believed under the teachings of priestcraft and the in fluences of religious delusions ! It must require an amazing amount of credulity to beUeve such things without a tittle of evidence, excepting that "it is so written," or to believe as a literal fact the poetic fable or allegory that the "sun stood still upon Gibeon and the moon in the vale of Aijalon and hastened not to go down for a whole day" at the command of Joshua, in order that one petty nation of semibarbarians might have sufficient light to exterminate another. Where is to be found, or can be produced by those who beUeve it Internal Evidence of Miracles 165 as a real fact, any conoborating historical and astronomical testimony of such an amazing event as there needs must have been, at least in astro nomical reckonings, if true? There is not on earth a scintilla of such evidence. Josephus conobo- rated it, but his statement, Uke his conoboration of other Bible miracles, comes from the original story in Joshua, and hence is but a repetition of it. But really the environment and language of the story show it to be merely an extravagant poetic embellishment or legend. How did the Danite Hercules, Samson, manage by himself to collect three hundred foxes and tie together and set fire to the tails of so many, and thus sending them loose, burn up the grain and vineyards of the Philistines ? x Had the writer of the story been reading the exploits of the fabled Grecian Her cules? Must we perforce also believe the story of the fountain of water, to slake his thirst gush ing out of the jaw bone of an ass with which he had slain one thousand Philistines? That jaw bone must have been made of steel, or else in the slaughter of so many armed enemies it would have been early crushed into fragments. And whence came the water supply of the fountain, as it had no connection with the earth? A much prettier finale for the story of the exhausting work of the slaughter of one thousand PhiUstines had been the miraculous gushing of a spring by the 1 Judges, chap, xv, verses 4 and 5. 166 Evolution of Religions wayside to slake the thirst of the tired Danite champion. Samson was the Hebrew Hercules. All ancient peoples had their heroes who performed miracu lous prodigies of bravery, strength, and agihty, and were made demigods. We need but to refer without special comment to the stories of the resunection of the dead man in Second Kings,1 when his corpse was let down into the tomb of the prophet Elisha and came in contact with his bones; of the witch of Endor, and Saul, king of Israel, holding converse with the ghost of the dead prophet, Samuel, whom she had caUed up and away from his distant tomb into that lone forest at the bidding of Saul. Would God so use a proscribed witch, all of which sisterhood He had ordered Saul to destroy for their sorceries? Of the lost ax rising from the bottom of a river and floating on top of the stream at the behest of the prophet Elisha, thus annulling or suspending for a time the universal law of gravitation for so trifling a matter as the recovery of the ax which had sUpped from its helve into the river? As miracles these instances are now "back numbers," if we may so express the changed beliefs of most men. These are one and all, evidently with many other miracles we might refer to, myths, fables, or ex travagant poetic fictions, and originally so written, without a particle of conoborating evidence, as 1 Second Kings, chap, xiii, verse 21. Internal Evidence of Miracles 167 facts, externaUy or internally, from the character of the miracles. The internal attestation from the nature of the miraculous environments is unfavorable to them. Only the very ignorant, very credulous, and bigoted, beUeve such stories any more. Those cited, and many other Bible legends which might be refened to, can add no conviction, inter se, as to the general authenticity of miracles, or even of bibhcal inspiration, but rather tend to impair beUef in both. No Bible miracles have any cor roborating historical support whatever. The story of Jonah and the whale, and of the miracu lous vine which grew up over him in a day to shelter him from the sun, is all certainly an alle gorical fiction and not a story of supernatural facts, written perhaps by some gifted and liberal Jew during the exile, or afterwards, to illustrate the national selfishness, exclusiveness, and ilhber- aUty of his race, and teaching beautifully the doc trine of the universal fatherhood of God, His love for aU men, and merciful readiness to forgive all who genuinely repent of sins. No atonement even intimated. It is to our conception one of the most beautiful of ancient poems, for poem it is, and should be rendered into meter, illustrating in most forcible language the same grand truths as the " Gentle Portia " in the " Merchant of Venice " teaches the cruel, selfish, bigoted, and avaricious Shylock. We think it clearly shows on its face 168 Evolution of Religions that it was written aUegorically to enunciate and impress upon all men, and especially all Jews, those great moral and social truths, and not merely as a literal supernatural story, though for ages the story of Jonah's whale and gourd have been be lieved and defended by Christians, though not very strongly by Jews, as genuinely miraculous. When we come to the consideration of New Testament miracles, we find that none of them, outside of the Gospels and Acts, have any cono borating contemporary evidence or historical sup port. No references are made to them in the various Epistles. The omission is extraordinary and goes to show that the Gospels and Acts, as we now have them, were later productions. Some of them are of such importance and character as, considered with reference only as to character and sunoundings, might give internal support to the theory of inspiration of these teachings. But some of them by their intrinsic character and en vironments, we think, have a contrary influence. Of this latter class of supernatural stories, — and there are many such, — let us consider as first and most important the story of the temptation in Matthew 1 and Luke. It is only found in those two Gospels. 1 Matthew, chap, xvi; Luke, chap. iv. CHAPTER IX THE STORY OF JESUS* TEMPTATION IN order to comprehend the story clearly in all its bearings, one should have a fixed opinion of or beUef in Jesus Christ, as to His nature and individuahty. First. Was He God, the second person of three persons in the Trinity of Godhead, divine, un created, the three persons in one being, distinct but not separate? If so, then, though incompre hensibly and mysteriously conceived by and born of Mary, the Jewess, we affirm He was only the semblance of man and was to all intents and pur poses Almighty God. Second. Was Jesus so born merely an incarna tion or manifestation of God in human form? If so, He was to aU intents and purposes God and not man. His humanity and deity were one and in separable, while such existence and manifestation continued. He was only God and not man in any sense during such incarnation, and the mystic con ception of the Divine Trinity is only a human fantasy. Third. If not God only, in the incomprehen sible Trinity, or God incarnated for a time in hu- 169 170 Evolution of Religions manity, then Jesus, whether born from theo- phanic conception of His mother, or really as the son of Joseph and Mary, was only a human being. In either case, and especially if born of theophanic conception, He was as God willed, His Son, and in the latter case divinely human with God — like faculties and possibihties, but only human still, and never God, but only man. These are the only three conceivable characters Jesus Christ in humanity could bear, or in which rationally we can comprehend Him. Of course we cannot comprehend Him in the Trinity, but we can know, however mysterious the relations, that as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, not as inter changeable characters, for if interchangeable, then there is no Trinity, that He was and must al ways be only God. God cannot cease to exist or divest Himself of deity, and hence if Jesus were God He was inseparably so. If Jesus was God manifested in human form and flesh, He was only God, and there is nor can be no Trinity of persons in such relation. As a human being, however, conceived and born, though possibly en dowed with almost Godhke powers and capacities, Jesus could only be a human being. These three propositions, we think, are inefutable and cannot be controverted successfully. Now if Jesus were God, as Trinitarians claim, He could not at one time be God, and at another time only man, or partly God and partly man. If divinity ceased in The Story of Jesus' Temptation 171 Him, or left Him at any time, He could only be man, though he might be aU His life preeminently the Son of God, and gifted, as I believe He was more than any other mortal, with God's spirit and presence. But we state it as an axiomatic truth that God is and always must be God, whether in a Trinity or alone, or in any incarnation, in any form of being. God could not die on the cross, and when Jesus died there, He died as a man. If God were merely manifested in Jesus as His Son, in any sense, though not incarnated, the Father would be yet absolutely and unchangeably God, and Jesus would not be God. But as God and the logical consequences of the orthodox creed must be ac cepted in all their bearings, Jesus must always have been divine, and could not — it would be in conceivable that He could — divest Himself of any attributes of deity. Hence how could Jesus as God put Himself into Satan's hands, or in his power, to be tempted of him and to be subject to his diablerie for forty days? As God, what could it amount to if He did? What example to man, or what good could be subserved? Why do the evangehsts Mark and John omit to say anything about Jesus' temptation? It was a matter of transcendent importance, if Uterally true, and most of the really important events in Jesus' life were recorded by each evangelist. If Jesus were only human (and there could be no temptation, nor 172 Evolution of Religions could it avail anything if he were not merely hu man), how could Satan take Him up into a high mountain and show Him, excepting in a meta phorical sense, all the kingdoms of the world? There were no mountains in Palestine of sufficient height from which a radius of more than fifty miles of the sunounding country could be seen, and only so much of the then Herodian Kingdom of Judea could Jesus probably see, and He could see but a part of that one of the kingdoms of the earth, and that but a small and obscure kingdom ! As God, Jesus saw and knew all kingdoms and empires, for all were His, and His vision extended not only throughout the earth but throughout aU the universe. No matter what the mysteries of His being, as the one or triune God, Jesus was only God, or else only man. Was the one God, or the triune God in one, or only one man being tempted? What temptation ind ed would it be to offer God, or the divine Son of Him who created and owned the universe, who was King of kings and Lord of lords, the dominions and kingdoms of this world, when Satan who made the offer was merely a sub ject and servant of God and had nothing, except ing what he might hold by sufferance, to give? Furthermore, if not too ludicrous a matter to dis cuss, is it conceivable that Jesus as God, or as the Divine Son of God, permitted the devil, God's arch enemy, to carry Him up to the dizzy pinnacle The Story of Jesus' Temptation 173 of the Temple at Jerusalem, and after placing Him in that ridiculous position, next tempt Him — that is, not merely ask Jesus, but as temptation is defined, "solicit, induce, allure Him, get Him to weigh and consider the inducement, " for a petty display of Jesus' power — to cast Himself headlong down to the marble pavement of the holy court below? What for? Cui bono? Why, to sup posedly gratify Jesus' vanity by such a display of His power, really in his acquiescence, to make Himself a servant of Satan. Was the evil one thus trying to dethrone God ? For such, according to orthodoxy, must have been the result of the success of his temptations. Doubtless, of course, if the temptation was a real incident, Satan sought to baffle God and allure Jesus from His service. This purpose of Satan the story clearly shows. Is it conceivable he could have hoped to do so if Jesus were one of the persons of the Trinity? — and the context clearly shows Satan knew Jesus' character and relation to God, and that that character was son, minister, and messenger of God, as man. We are told else where in the apostolic writings that the object or purpose of Christ's part in submitting to the temp tation was to make it an example to His followers, in that He was tempted in all things like as they would be, and that His example would give them strength to resist temptation as He did. Now as God, or as one of the persons in the Trinity in the 174 Evolution of Religions temptation, there could be no force or merit in the example of Jesus to mortals at all. It would simply be comparing the omnipotence of Deity with the feebleness of human childhood. And if Jesus were human or quasi-human, with divine qualities and gifts, in either case the argument from example would stiU not be apropos, be cause Jesus was, as Christians aU believe, in His native powers and resources, if not reaUy divine, yet undoubtedly the greatest, noblest, and best of mankind, strong and self-possessed, panophed in love and supreme trust in God, and so immensely greater and better than His feUow-men in every respect, that consequently there could be no benefit of example in a tragedy where there was almost infinite goodness and power to resist temp tation in the exemplar, and mere human ability, with good and evil always contending for the mastery, in doubtful struggle in the frail creatures for whom the example was given. And if only as an example, who initiated the temptation, Jesus or Satan? Did Satan initiate it for such ex ample? Then was he indeed seeking to do good? In fact, when the Apostles represent Jesus as merely an exemplar in the satanic temptation, they virtually deny His divinity and the basic principles of orthodoxy. Really, the story of the temptation is not sui generis with all the rest of Jesus' life and teach ings. It is simply a legend of early Christianity ; a The Story of Jesus' Temptation 175 product of the amazing superstition and fanaticism of the times, and so put into the two Synoptic Gospels. It should be ehminated from them even as an allegory, because, according to the tenets of orthodoxy, if Jesus was really God, it borders on the profane and sacrilegious. If He was only a man, it has features in it which are im possible and ridiculous. The story should be rele gated to works like Rev. Bernard Peck's Apocry phal Life of Jesus, before-mentioned, as one of that wonderful compilation of early Christian super stitions and fables beheved in as true by many Christians for centuries during the early and Dark Ages, but now only exciting our wonder and curi osity as mementos of the astonishing and al most inconceivable superstition and creduhty of ancient times. Jesus Himself discredited the story by never once aUuding to the " Great Temp tation" in aU His ministry and discourses. Like the visions in the Book of Revelation attributed to the apostle John, but which were not admitted into the New Testament canon as inspired for several centuries after they were written and in common use, practicaUy the " Great Temptation and Revelations " are now largely regarded as alle gories or reUgious fictions, and are now believed in by few intelligent thinking people as reahties. Mark nor John do not in their Gospels even allude to the story of the temptation. Why their silence in passing unnoted such an important 176 Evolution of Religions event in the life of Jesus, if true? What good ever grew out of the legend ? As a sort of compan ion piece to the story of Eden and the fall, it whetted and gratified the fancy of the Dark Ages for wonderful mysteries and incomprehensible creeds, and furnished the bigots Athanasius and Augustine a basis for their dogmas. But instead of affording any internal attestation, cumulative or isolated, to gospel authenticity or inspiration, when critically examined it is evidently a wholly absurd and irrational myth and tends to discredit all supernatural stories. The late Bible Revision Committee in making up the Revised Version would have been fully jus tified, and performed a great service to hberal Christianity, by expurgating the story of the temp tations from the two Gospels as an interpolation or fanatical legend. Neither internally nor ex ternally is there a scintilla of reason or evidence to support it as a fact. It is derogatory to God and the Savior. On less ground did the Revision Committee expurgate the legend of the Pool of Bethesda and the impotent man,1 wherein it is stated in the King James and other old versions that at certain periods an angel came down from heaven and troubled its waters, and that whoso ever immediately stepped in or was put into the pool was cured of whatever disease he had. And that an impotent man who had long tried to get 1 St. John, chap. v. The Story of Jesus' Temptation 177 into the pool immediately after the water was so troubled, but could not, was there immediately cured by Jesus saying unto him, " Rise, take up thy bed and walk." The revisionists also intimate that the story of the woman taken in adultery and brought before Christ is an interpolation. Another miracle which the revisionists certainly ought to have expur gated even without evidence of interpolation is the story of the devils cast out of the insane man,1 asking and obtaining permission of Jesus to go into a herd of swine feeding nearby, and then after en tering into them, driving all the swine into the Sea of GaUlee. Were the devils drowned as well as the swine ? They certainly ought to have been ! Can any sane person beheve that God would or did inspire the evangehst to write such a story? He could only know it to be a fact through inspiration from God. It might well have been presumed by the revisers that the story was an interpolation and was not in the original Gospel. The story might weU do for a companion piece to the fable in Rev. Pick's book of Apocryphal Miracles, of Jesus, when a child, turning some boys, who offended Him by taunts and nicknames, into goats and then shortly afterwards at the intercession of His mother, transforming the goats into boys again. Jesus we believe in as Son of God, the divine man and prophet, peerless, of woman born, and * Matthew, chap, viii, verse 22. 178 Evolution of Religions though humanly and really the son of Joseph and Mary his wife, divinely created and inspired for His great mission of pardon, humanity, liberty, and truth to all the world; truly, as Renan says, the greatest, best, and noblest being who ever lived on earth, and worthily the Son of God. Such fables as the foregoing legends interwoven into the Gospels only obscure His glory. Only one other created being can we compare Him with, and that was the great and mysterious Melchizedek, King of Salem,1 priest forever and Son of God, like Jesus Christ, "who was without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life." 2 This great and mysterious king who is spoken of a number of times in the Bible without much information being given about him, and who was an associate and contemporary of the patriarch Abraham, was most likely none other than the great prophet Zoroaster, who Uved and taught only of the " most high God " at that time, besides being, according to Persian traditions, a king. The difference of names where the identity of the person seems the same does not amount to much, as Moses and Abraham, as well as Zara- thustra or Zoroaster, have many various names in the histories and traditions of Canaan, Egypt, Arabia, and Persia. But the language, titles, 1 Genesis, chap, xiv, verse 18. 2 Hebrews, chap, v, verse 6, and chap, vii, verses 1-4 in clusive. The Story of Jesus' Temptation 179 styles, and descriptions of the Bible identify Melchizedek with Zoroaster as the divinely sent and great teacher of earth's most ancient religion, and also as king, son, priest, and prophet, as was Jesus two thousand years afterward, of the one most high God. The singular terms in which Melchizedek is spoken of, and the almost impene trable mystery which is left about him in the Bible, seem to closely identify him with the Per sian and Chaldean traditions of the great and good Zoroaster, who was said by ancient Persian legends to have been taken to Heaven and had interviews and instructions from God and His angels before entering upon his ministry. He and Jesus Christ are the two greatest and grandest characters on history's pages, and if Zoroaster and the mysteri ous Melchizedek are one and the same, then he was a grand compeer of the great Nazarene. One of our great secret orders perpetuates the name of Jesus in its rituals, and another the name of Melchizedek in its highest and final password and ritual. " Hail, patriarchs, hail! Behold in me The Centre of your mystic ring, Your password through eternity, Melchizedek, your priest and king." There are other nanatives in the Bible which from want of harmony with just and elevated conception of deity, and on account of their 180 Evolution of Religions character and environments, only serve to illus trate human weakness and creduhty, rather than help sustain biblical authenticity or strengthen the claim for its plenary inspiration. These in stances will readily occur from our point of view to students well posted in the sacred text, and need not be specifically refened to. And there are also many minor differences in various state ments, such as the conduct of the malefactors who were crucified with Jesus,1 and also as to what occurred to St. Paul in the theophany, or divine vision, which was the instrument of his conversion on his journey from Jerusalem to Damascus for the purpose of persecuting the followers of Christ,2 which contradictions, though of course of small importance, squarely conflict with the doctrine of inenancy in all Scriptures, because of enors in the originals or because of enors in translations. But we will pass these instances by merely with this brief reference to them, and will only note, specially, one or two more very prominent historical statements in the Bible as bearing directly on the question of in ternal evidence of authenticity and plenary inspiration. In the Second Book of Chronicles 8 we find an 1 Matthew, chap, xxvii, verse 44, and Luke, chap, xxiii, verse 40. 2 Acts, chap, x, verse 7, and chap, xxii, verse 9. 8 Second Book of Chronicles, chap. xiii. The Story of Jesus' Temptation 181 account of a battle between the armies of the petty kingdoms of Judah and Israel, or the ten tribes, in which it is stated that the army of King Jeroboam of Israel was defeated with a loss of half a milUon of his chosen soldiers slain. This was about 957B.C. Now if the statement were that five hundred thousand of Jeroboam's men had been killed and wounded, it should tax human credulity to the utmost, but the language is "slain," " kiUed," and it is incredible. The nanative does not state how many of the soldiers of Judah and Benjamin were slain. Probably a greater propor tion of kiUedto wounded occuned in the conflicts in ancient times, when such weapons as spears, jave lins, battle axes, and swords were used at close quarters and men fought with more savage fero city than in civilized warfare, but to such a vast number killed there would probably be an equal number wounded. Mind, the text says slain, and if that is inspired, or even truthful if not in spired, it can't be argued that it means killed and wounded both. So that understood as it reads, the loss on the side of Israel alone was probably one million men kiUed and wounded, and the loss on both sides of one million five hundred thousand men killed and wounded. Now the whole terri tory of both kingdoms did not comprise at that period over fifteen thousand square miles, as most of the outside territory of Edom, Moab, and other regions conquered by King David had previously 182 Evolution of Religions revolted and regained their independence. Much of Canaan was mountainous and desert. The population of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin at that time, including the city of Jerusalem, was no doubt equal to the popula tion of the other ten tribes, and the aggregate population of both kingdoms was not probably over two milUon two hundred and twenty-five thousand. Six hundred thousand was doubtless the outside number of available soldiers of both kingdoms. And yet we have in this historical statement in the commonly accepted canonical Book of Chronicles, a half miUion of the one army of Israel slain in one battle, with a probable loss in killed and wounded on both sides, according to ordinary calculations, of one milUon five hun dred thousand men, or more than half the entire population of the two kingdoms, estimating one hundred and fifty people to the square mile, which is a large estimate. The statement of the num ber killed in the battle is absurd. Any argument as to its credibility would be simply a waste of time, as much so indeed as it would have been to discuss with George Rawlinson his beUef that actually the "sun stood still upon Gibeon and the moon in the vale of Aijalon." 1 We may say, en passant, that writers upon the evidences of Christianity and of biblical inspiration gener ally, by affirming the Uteral truths of all super- x Evidences of Christianity, by George Rawlinson, pp. 87, 88. The Story of Jesus' Temptation 183 natural occurrences in the Bible, including such preposterous legends as Balaam and the ass, the sun and moon standing still at Joshua's com mand, the poetic fictions of Jonah and the whale and others of the same character, do much in this age to impair the force of their arguments in favor of the truth of other more reasonable miraculous nanations and of biblical inspira tion of ethics, prophecies, and other divine teachings. In the great battle of Gettysburg, July first, second, and third, 1863, in our Civil War, justly regarded as the Waterloo of the Rebellion, in which about two hundred thousand men fought in desperate and bloody conflict for three days, according to the official accounts, only six thousand three hundred and thirty-four were killed, and twenty-eight thousand one hundred and eight were wounded, a total of only thirty-four thou sand five hundred and forty-three killed and wounded on both sides. With this single com parison, which we think is sufficient, of one great battle with another, and fought under somewhat similar circumstances, taking all the sunoundings into consideration, the grossness of the exaggera tion of the number killed in the army of Jeroboam needs no further illustration to any reasonable and well-informed mind. Of course, as we have intimated, there have been no doubt other battles, especially in ancient times, when the number of 184 Evolution of Religions killed and wounded were comparatively greater than at Gettysburg, but no such slaughter ever occurred in any battle upon earth, of which we have any reliable history, as in the battle nar rated in Chronicles. A knowledge of the small tenitorial area and population of Judah and Israel assists in showing how grossly exaggerated that historic statement must be. The Books of Chron icles were undoubtedly written either during or soon after the Babylonian exile, and the motives for the exaggeration of the loss of the ten tribes in the battle, and their tenible defeat, were prob ably mainly a desire to extol and glorify the Davidic dynasty, and the hatred of the Jews against their sister kingdom for rebellion against that dynasty represented by King Solomon's son Rehoboam, and the dismemberment of his grand father's empire, which hatred existed for centuries, even after the Israelites had been conquered and expatriated in 721 B.C. from their country by the Assyrian monarch Shalmaneser, and so scattered over Central Asia that henceforth their identity not only as tribes, but even as Hebrews, was, and has ever since been, utterly lost. Jewish his torians, poets, and prophets were always addicted to extravagant adulations of David's royal family, their reigns and conquests. The prophets predicted that David's descendants should for ever occupy the throne of Judah, and that there should be no end of his kingdom. But these The Story of Jesus' Temptation 185 predictions of the prophets, along with many others, were reversed by time and history. The total destruction of the Assyrian army of Sennacherib, of one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in one night by an angel of the Lord, has no historical conoboration in ancient annals, sculptures, or otherwise. Dr. Briggs and other scholars say the story is untrue. It may simply have been a transposition of facts. His army, or a part of it, may have possibly been caught in and overwhelmed by a desert simoom in Arabia or elsewhere . History says many thousands of the army of Cambyses, king of Persia and Babylon, were destroyed in a great sandstorm of the African desert of Libya a century afterwards. A similar disaster may have befallen the army of the Assyri ans, and Jewish poets ascribed it to the direct in tervention of the Almighty for vengeance upon their enemies. Or the writer of Chronicles may have confounded the story of Cambyses' disaster with the Assyrian. CHAPTER X THE TRINITY AS already said, the facts of Bible miracles, as well as of the historical nanatives, Uke all other histories, sacred or profane, depend upon evidence internal and external. Men generally admit this proposition to be conect, and yet it is a singular fact, in the discussion of biblical ques tions, that whenever any doubts are expressed con cerning the truth of certain occurences in it, mi raculous or otherwise, or any commonly received doctrines are denied, most Christians become in dignant and repel such doubts by charges of heresy, unbelief, or atheism, and decry all criti cism as if all bibUcal subjects were too sacred for investigation. Yet many of the books of the Bible have come down to us without even the authority of certainly known authorship. Books written by well-known and reputable authors have a prima facie claim to credibility, but without such known authorships they have no such standing per se, and should be judged solely upon their merits. Age alone cannot authenticate books. We know too well that ancient rehgious books as well as ancient histories are full of exaggerations and fabulous stories. 186 The Trinity 187 The authorships imputed to most of our bibUcal books we know have no authority, and as the searching criticism of the present age has discov ered, are generally fictitious. Nearly aU Jewish and early Christian history was originally written from tradition and folklore. Tradition, it is said, "sometimes brings down truth that history has let slip, but is oftener the wild fireside stories of the times. " They had in ancient days no books such as we have now. Manuscripts of vellum, Nile papyrus, thin barks, or lambskin only were used, and they were few and costly, and all written, until a short time before the discovery of the art of printing in 1452, without using chapters, sections, verses, or punctuation, just a continuous mass of letters, usually only consonants without vowels, the connection of which into words, sentences, and sense had to be deciphered by the subsequent reader or translator of the manuscript as best could be done. Hence additions and interpola tions were easily made by those wanting to support their own theories or to establish certain states of facts, and were difficult to detect. Copies were few and costly, and marginal notes of previous copyists and translators were often incorporated into the original text, especiaUy in religious and controversialist writings. Such are known to be facts. We know that the Gospels and Epistles of the apostles, even more so than the books of the Hebrew Bible, have been added to, interpolated, 188 Evolution of Religions and greatly changed in words and expression . We now have no Christian or Jewish writings of the first century a.d., excepting Flavius Josephus' works, and some of Paul's Epistles. None of the Gospels were written until long after the Epistles were written, because the Epistles do not refer to them. Strange and extraordinary events never lose anything, but usually gain much, in exaggeration and embellishments by transmittal in popular traditions, especially when fostered by religious enthusiasm. All of Christ's life and teachings and the apostohc missionary work of the first century were only preserved in memory and tradi tions, at least until about its close. What an opportunity in that superstitious age to build up legends of the miraculous conception and birth of Jesus, the satanic temptation, the miracles nanated of Him and the circumstances connected with His crucifixion and resunection! Jesus, if born according to the common chronology, four years before the beginning of a.d., was thirty- seven years of age when the crucifixion took place, 33 a.d. The Gospels were undoubtedly written after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Ro mans, which took place 69-70 a.d., and prob ably before the close of the century, and solely from memories and traditions. The traditions about Jesus in consequence of the unlimited faith and devotion of His disciples and subsequent The Trinity 189 converts, and the superstition of those times, we can well believe, from some of the Gospel miracu lous stories, as well as the amazing Apocryphal legends which have come down to us through the centuries, were astonishingly embellished and magnified in rehearsals. Natural occunences were transformed into the miraculous. Angels and demons were around Him always. It is only human nature and the experience and history of all time about great founders of religion that it should have been so. All manner of traditions and legends of wonderful miracles were intwined in after-years with the memories of Zoroaster, Abraham, Moses, Confucius, Buddha, and Mohammed, as weU as Jesus Christ. And so the annals of all great men, conquerors, founders of empires, etc., are crowded with stories of uni versally exaggerated deeds. Such is the result of fame and human nature's Worship of greatness alone. Certainly Jesus with His wonderfully magnetic and sympathetic character and His great wisdom and unening knowledge of human nature, even if not accompanied with supernatural powers, was enabled to perform many wonderful works, such as curing the sick, imparting strength to the weak, and restoring the insane to their right minds, which doubtless became the basis of the future traditions of His miracles. He was doubtless really, as He was called, "the great physician" of bodily ailments as well as of souls. 190 Evolution of Religions Curing the insane in those days was popularly be lieved to be "casting but devils." All persons afflicted with lunacy were supposed to be demonia cally possessed. But we should note that even to Jesus' powers, however great and however derived, there were undoubtedly Umitations, depending greatly upon the faith and devotion of His follow ers.1 When in Galilee, His native country, "He could do no mighty works because of their unbe lief." Such little apparently casual statements we note often illustrate biblical nanatives and teachings more clearly sometimes than whole pages do. These few words of the evangelists absolutely nullify the doctrine of the Trinity. If Jesus were divine, as one of the persons or incar nations of the Deity, the belief or unbeUef of peo ple in Him could be of no manner of consequence to His powers. He might, because of their want of faith in Him, refuse to perform miracles or mighty works, but the texts cited emphatically say "He could not." Here en passant we desire to say that it is very much to be regretted that the great French savant, Dr. Ernest Renan, one of the forty "immortals" of the French Academy of Sciences, and a sincerely good man, in his " Life of Christ," a most attractive and doubtless mainly accurate biography, should feel himself called upon to ac count for some of the Savior's wonderful works by suggesting that He sometimes used thaumaturgic 1 Matthew, chap, xiii, verse 5. Mark vi, verse 8. The Trinity 191 arts ! That is the only unpleasant thing, the only faux pas in its pages, to mar the charm of that elegant and sympathetic biography of the great prophet of humanity, who Renan truthfully de clares, from the absolutely reliable testimony we have as to His life and character, was the great est and best man who ever has lived or probably ever wiU Uve on earth. Short as His life was and brief as His bio graphies, enough is known of Jesus, which is true beyond aU question in the Gospels, apostolic Epistles and traditions, to demonstrate that He was more than human and grandly above all other men, the incarnation of truth, purity, and goodness, absolutely incapable of resorting to any device, sham, or deception, and that whatever mysterious works He actually performed, were done through His own power or divine assistance. Some of the stories of His miracles as transmitted down to us may be fables. But that He had al most unbounded influence over His followers, their devotion to Him in life, and their entire self- abnegation in His name and cause after His death, in lives of missionary privations and ultimately martyrdoms, sufficiently attest. When a mere child, a rustic from the obscure village of Naza reth in GaUlee, He almost paralyzed with aston ishment the haughty priests and scribes of the Temple by His perplexing questions and won derful answers. His great knowledge of Jewish 192 Evolution of Religions institutions and history and profound grasp of all theological and moral subjects were astonishing. Whence came all His knowledge and the lucid and beautiful language in which His teachings were expressed? His parents and surroundings could not have imparted such culture to Him. He had brothers and sisters and they were very ordi nary persons. He had unquestionably commun ion with God in some way, such as they wot not of. There is a hiatus of eighteen years in His life, from twelve years of age until He came to John at the river Jordan to be baptized at thirty years of age. What was Jesus doing all these years ? If at home working with His father at the carpenter's bench, He must have been employing all His leisure hours in communion with God and in studying dihgently any manuscripts of Jewish literature He could get. And He may have been away in Persia, among the Jews there, studying the great religion of Zoroaster, or in India studying Buddhism. Many of His teachings are but ampUfications of theirs. The legend of His conception and birth is the same as Buddha's, excepting that the Christ was the son of a Galilean peasant woman, and Buddha was the son of an Indian queen. There is a strange similarity in the stories of the advent of the mysterious Melchizedek, king of Salem, Buddha, and Jesus Christ, excepting that Melchiz edek is said to have been "without father, with out mother, without descent,1 having neither be- 1 Hebrews, chap. vii. verse 3. The Trinity 193 ginning of days nor end of Ufe, but made Uke unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually." Some theologians have supposed Melchizedek and Jesus Christ to be one and the same incarnation of deity. If they were, why not also Buddha? His Ufe and teachings were very similar to the Savior's, and a religion which is twenty-five hun dred years old, and whose followers yet number one-third of the human race, certainly was from God. Jesus may also have known and studied Confucius's works. Confucius gave first the Golden Rule to the world, and of the precepts of men who antedated the Christian era, none are better known and few are cherished as his simple Ana lects. In a rather interesting work, partly true and partly fictitious, entitled "Jesat Nassar, " pub lished in 1890 by a learned Jewish family named Mamroevs, Jesus is represented as having spent most of the years of his youth traveling in the countries sunounding Palestine, seeking and acquiring knowledge. But whether their sugges tions are conect or not, Jesus was evidently an extraordinarily gifted being, and endowed with wisdom and knowledge unaccountable from the usual conceptions of His youth's surroundings. But do the Scriptures teach that He is God? In order to beheve so, we must so arbitrarily con strue sundry mysterious and ambiguous passages, and distort or disbelieve Jesus' own positive and unquaUfied declarations, " I can of mine own self 194 Evolution of Religions do nothing. My Father is greater than I. " * And many similar and equally clear and positive asser tions of His subjection to and dependence upon God, which He made on various occasions, some of which we heretofore quoted.2 In a few of Jesus' sayings there is apparently some mystery as to His sonship and pre&xistence, but in those quoted there is none as to His divinity. They are clear- cut and thoroughly explicit in stating His inferi ority to God and absolute submission to His will. Coming down to us through sixteen centuries of orthodox translations and manipulations of the Gospels, why should they not be understood and believed just as spoken by Jesus ? Why under such circumstances discard His clear and em phatic utterances and build up mystic and incom prehensible creeds based upon some other myste rious expressions and upon supposed conditions of human relations to God that never had any but an imaginary existence? And if Jesus made the distinct disavowals of divinity and declared His dependence upon and filial submission to His Heavenly Father's will as quoted, then the doc trine of the Trinity is not true, nor countenanced by anything He said, but is solely an invention of ecclesiasticism Just as are, and have no more scriptural author ity, the third and fourth sections of the Westmin- 1 John, chap, v, verse 30, and chap, xiv, verse 28. * See page 55. The Trinity 195 ster Confession of Faith, which are as positively enunciated as the doctrine of the Trinity is, viz. Section three : " By the decree of God for the mani festation of His glory some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others fore ordained unto everlasting death." Section four: " These angels and men thus predestined and fore ordained are particularly and unchangeably de signed, and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished." That is absolute election and predestination. These dogmas are mere inventions of fanaticism and bigotry and are wholly unauthorized by the general tone of the Scriptures. They are a mere sectarian patchwork made up from a few isolated expressions of St. Paul's and other apostohc writings, based upon the fable of Eden and the great temptation of Matthew and Luke's Gospels, and the intangible dreams of the Apocalyptic revelations, but only through far-fetched construc tions and distortions of their meanings. There are no reasonable grounds for any such unnatural metaphorical, or mystical construction or inter pretation of Jpsus' teachings either in relation to His sonship to God, or to the awful doctrine of the eternal predestined ruin and misery of nearly all the human race. Those doctrines were grad- uaUy evolved by the Church of the Dark Ages; they were not beliefs of primitive Christianity. When Rome- became the Churcht aU... Christians 196 Evolution of Religions were required to beUeve those and other orthodox dogmas under penalty of anathemas, of temporal and eternal ruin. And when conditions pre vented orthodoxy from enforcing and perpetuat ing them by such means, it has sought to do so by distortions of scriptural teachings, and all mannei of sophistry. Much of the literature of the ages has been perverted to such purposes. In one of the sublimest poems ever written, the Russian poet Derzhavin's "Invocation to God," which has never been surpassed for beauty and grandeur by anything in the Bible, or in any book or language, a forgery has been perpetrated in some of its pub lications years after its first appearance by some trinitarian bigot, by changing the fifth line of the first stanza, which reads as originally written, "Being above all Beings, mighty one," into "Be ing above all Beings, three in one," thus not only spoiling the grandeur of the poem, but making the author do what he never intended to do, teach the doctrine of the Trinity. Derzhavin wrote this peerless song of subhmest adoration to God in 1810. He died July, 1816. The tenets of the first three centuries of the Christian churches — for there was then no para mount church nor any distinctive creed — were mainly the same as those sustained by Arius, Pela- gius, Celestius, and Julian, Bishop of Eclanum, in Italy, during the ecclesiastical conflicts of the fourth century. Those tenets were clearly set The Trinity 197 forth by Celestius when the question of his ordina tion to the ministry came up in the famous Council of Carthage, 411 a.d. Those tenets were: First. That Adam would have died even if he had not sinned. Second. Adam's sin injured him only, not the race. Third. Children are born as pure as Adam was before he feU. Fourth. Men neither die because Adam fell, nor rise again in consequence of Christ's resunection. Fifth. Unbaptized as well as baptized infants are saved. Sixth. The law, i.e., Mosaic, as well as the Gospels, leads to heaven. Seventh. Even before Christ's advent there were sinless men. These grand, true, and beautiful tenets of Celes tius and his colleagues were supported by a great many of the bishops, and particularly most of the Asiatic and African bishops, at this council, but they were all condemned by a majority and his ordination was refused. After that council the doctrines of orthodoxy made rapid progress under the sanction and domi nation of Rome, though in the Eastern churches there were still many Arians, as those holding the above tenets were generally called. The Arians believed in the divine sonship of Jesus, but not in the Trinity. But there were, even among Trinita- 198 Evolution of Religions rians, for centuries afterwards, many conflicting opinions notwithstanding the decision of the Council of Carthage and the teachings of Chrysos tom, Origen, St. Augustine, Athanasius, and others, and orthodoxy was only finally formu lated into its present dogmas by Anselm, Arch bishop of Canterbury, England, about 1100 a.d. He was the leader of medieval scholastic Christi anity. There has always, however, been a con flict between extreme and moderate orthodoxy, the former represented by the school of St. Augus tine, Calvin, and Presbyterianism generally, and the moderates by Semi-Pelagians and Arminians, chief of whom were Arminius, Wesley, and the modern Methodists, differing mainly upon the questions of man's status after the fall and the eternal decrees of God in election, foreordination, and predestination. One of Calvin's theses was that, "Such moreover was the relation subsisting between Adam and his descendants, that God righteously regards and treats each one as he comes into being, as worthy of the punishment of Adam's sin, and consequently withholds His life, giving feUowship from Him." Jonathan Edwards in one of his sermons re presents the Almighty as holding each one of Adam's posterity over the yawning fiery gulf of hell and threatening to drop them therein, and only restrained by unmerited compassion and grace through Christ to save the predestined The Trinity 199 elect. Furthermore, he says that the happiness of the redeemed in heaven would be enhanced, instead of being imbittered, by the knowledge that others of their fellow-creatures (this includes, we suppose, near and dear ones when on earth) were suffering eternal torments, by reflecting upon the infinite love which had without any merits of their own chosen and preserved them to eternal happiness.1 And the man who taught the above, and much more of the same kind of blasphemy was considered in his day a great Christian divine, an exemplar and teacher of his fellow-men, and his works were standard doctrine until fifty years ago. He may have been a good man in his way, but his ideas of divine justice, mercy, and love are in comprehensible and awful. Arminius denied the doctrines of election and predestination, and the personal guilt of Adam's descendants in his fall, but affirmed all the other tenets of orthodoxy. Whatever may be the re lation of Jesus Christ to God, and whether He was of supernatural conception and birth, He is not God, nor does the Bible anywhere teach that He is. Jesus, we affirm and believe, is Son of God, not only in the sense in which Adam is called the "son of God," 2 and as patriarchs and prophets are fre quently styled in the Bible, "sons of God," be cause of their service, obedience, and faithfulness 1 Edwards' Sermons, n and 13. 1 Luke, chap, iii, verse 38. 200 Evolution of Religions to Him, but also as the inspired prophet and Mes siah of the universal religion ushered in by Him. As to His parentage, Jesus was undoubtedly from His birth beheved by His relatives and GaU- lean countrymen to be the son of Joseph and Mary his wife. The story of the espousal only, before Jesus' conception is doubtless a part of the sacred myth, but if true, and the actual maniage or coming together had not already taken place, it made, according to Jewish custom, virtually no difference, and no discredit to parents or child. We know from Jewish Uterature that the be trothal was the higher and more sacred obligation, and the maniage ceremony afterward, if per formed, only confirmatory and not essential. The couple were really after the espousal, husband and wife, and a legal divorce was necessary to release them from betrothal bonds. Doubtless they were manied, and the myth of Jesus' nativity grew up after He became famous, most probably long after His crucifixion. It was part of the myth of His supernatural conception to affirm that Joseph and Mary had not previously hved in maniage relation. After Jesus' wonderful career and His departure from earth, He was virtually deified by His followers, and when the Gospels were written about the close of the century, all sorts of legends were rife concerning Him, multi plied and magnified immensely by the terrible scenes and experiences of the war with the Ro- The Trinity 201 mans, and the utter destruction of Jerusalem and desolation of all Palestine. Many apocryphal gospels and teachings of Jesus were written, some before and some after the four Canonical Gospels. Among these were the Arabic gospel of the childhood of Jesus, the gospel of St. Thomas, the gospel of St. James, the gospel of Joseph the carpenter, the gospel of Pseudo Matthew, or logia of Matthew, the Evan- geUum Nicodemi, and a number of others, all still wholly, or partiaUy extant. All these, concuning in much, and differing in many essentials from each other and from the Canonical Gospels, were in common circulation and largely beheved for cen turies.1 The Canonical Gospels, as said by John,2 did not nearly contain aU the sayings and miracles of Jesus. The spirit of exaggeration and the marvelous, which fiUed the popular legends about Him, is clearly manifested by the same apostle, in saying, that if all the things which He did were written, he, the apostle, "supposed that even the world itself could not contain the books." In reality, the world was full of mythical and legend ary stories about Him, many of which, as col lected by Rev. B. Peck, already mentioned, though amazingly ridiculous, astonishing, and in credible, were for centuries believed in by Chris- 1 St. Luke, chap, i, verse i, indorses them, or similar gos pels or declarations. 2 St. John, chap, xxi, verse 25. 202 Evolution of Religions tians generally. Some of them, including the many marvelous stories of Jesus' supernatural birth, doubtless had much influence in fashioning the nanatives of the two evangelists. In fact, as we know from traditions, the Canonical Gospels were only a choice of material from among many manuscripts. We have no knowledge that any of Christ's works or sayings were kept otherwise than in memory and tradition until a half century or more after His death. None of the evangelists except ing John, profess to have been cognizant of what they wrote. The authorship of all is uncertain. Xhe stories of Jesus' conception and birth as nanated in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were certainly unknown in His lifetime. He never refened even most distantly to them. At any rate, born of honest parents and in wedded love, there can be no sensible reason given why, if so born, Jesus was not as pure and sinless as if born from mere virginal or theophanic conception. God was the Almighty Father in either case, and all rational beings are His children. There is absolutely nothing holier in the universe, we affirm, than honest maternity, nor more sinless, innocent, and pure than a child born of wedded love. It is God's grandest and most beautiful conception and creation of an immortal being, and it is an insult to its parents to say that it " was conceived in sin and born in iniquity," which is The Trinity 203 merely a refrain of the old Mephistophelian story of the fall. We repudiate such doctrine and wonder that every good and virtuous woman in the world does not repudiate and scorn it as un just and false. The dogmas that all are born in sin and fit only and justly doomed to be damned from birth, was a product of superstition, priest craft, and fanaticism, and has done more to degrade woman and keep her in the old-time con dition of semi-slavery than any other tenet of reli gion. No wonder that the Moslem, believing in the innate impurity and sinfulness of woman, and through Eve the cause of sin and death, grudgingly admits her to his celestial paradise at all, and only as the slave of her husband and his immortal houri. The ancient monkish Christian conception of her position in the orthodox scheme of salvation was not much more alluring than the Islamites. Jesus' mother said to Him, when as a youth of twelve He was found by herself and her husband in the Temple at Jerusalem among the rabbis and priests asking and answering great questions, "Son, why hast thou done thus? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sonowing. " Would she have spoken thus of Joseph as His father if the story of His supernatural birth were true? Nor did she ever otherwise intimate that He was any other than her and Joseph's son, the same as His brothers and sisters. We find nu merous records of Jesus having had brothers and 204 Evolution of Religions sisters mentioned in the Bible.1 As one of the sequences of the doctrine of the utter sinfulness and total depravity of man, as a result of the Edenic fall, which was mainly evolved in the fourth and fifth centuries after Christ (we have no evidence that it was ever taught earlier) by Athanasius, Chrysostom, Origen, St. Augustine, and other mystics, the fanatical priests and monks (celibates living secluded from the world to avoid its temptations and contaminations) in the moun tains and deserts of Palestine, Arabia, and Libya, taught and believed (the denial of the dogma was afterwards made mortal heresy by the church, consigning the heretic to eternal damnation) that no one born of woman by natural conception could possibly be from birth sinless or other than an heir of hell, through Adam's fall alone, even if he in Ufe afterward committed no actual sins. Hence the doctrine of the supernatural conception of Jesus was deemed necessary, as one of the per sons of the Trinity, in the scheme of atonement, and was so formulated. This was after the final triumph of Rome in 411 a.d. at the Council of Carthage over the primitive Unitarian faith of Arianism. That Council heralded to the world the tenets of orthodoxy mainly in the form they have since been taught. 1 Matthew, chap, xii, verse 46; chap, xiii, verse 55. Mark, chap, vi, verse 33; chap, xv, verse 40. John, chap, ii, verse 12; chap, vii, verse 5. The Trinity 205 Many Fathers of the early centuries of the Church, as well as ascetics and monks, decried marriage and rapturously extolled ceUbacy and virginity. Women, Chrysostom said, were neces sary, evils and their beauty and winsome ways a curse to men, and that even the natural union and cohabitation in marriage were sinful, though he admitted maniage was originally ordained of God to procreate the human race. St. Augustine, after reformation from his early years of unbridled and reckless vice and libertinism, taught the same morbid asceticism and abstinence from marriage. Thus, doubtless, the legend of the supernatural or theophanic conception of the Virgin Mary was the product of the monastic idea of the impurity of the union of husband and wife, and that a holy child could not be born of such union. It was simply an exemphfication of the theory of original sin, mainly, that since the fall it was the order of nature and consequently the will of God that every descendant of Adam and Eve should be born in sin, hence, according to St. Augustine and Calvin, aU were born inevitably lost sinners. These ideas were the inspiration of the story of the theophanic conception of Mary, evolved in the second century, perhaps later. It did not exist in Jesus' lifetime, and we do not know that it was in the original Gospels. No mention is made of it in the apostoUc Epistles or in any writings of the second century. Paul did not know of it when 206 Evolution pf Religions he wrote Romans.1 When it was evolved to gratify Jewish vanity and the Jewish devotees, who mainly composed the church of the first and second centuries, by claiming the fulfillment of old prophetic mysterious predictions in regard to the perpetuity of King David's throne and the future coming of a prince of that line, which was the dream and hope of the Jews for ages amidst all the disasters which overtook and followed them, the parentage and descent of Jesus as the Messiah were attempted to be traced back to David. But no such lineage is shown through Mary. Only the Uneage of Jesus from David through Joseph is shown.2 Only Matthew and Luke of the evangehsts give genealogies, and they show the descent of Jesus through Joseph from David through dif ferent lines of ancestors, probably paternal and maternal. No descent of Mary from David is shown. If she had such descent, her genealogy would undoubtedly have been given. But the importance of the combination does not seem to have dawned upon the evangehsts, as seen in after- times. The assumption of orthodox writers of past or present ages, that Mary was of David's line, is wholly gratuitous and without any foun dation in the Gospels or elsewhere. She has no other history. Hence, if Joseph was not Jesus' 1 Romans, chap, i, verse 3. :'- .'. ..-3. Matthew^ chap. i. Luke, chap. iii. The Trinity 207 father, there is absolutely nothing in the Gospels or elsewhere to show that Jesus was of the lin eage of King David, and consequently the pro phetic predictions which were supposed to have centered in Him as a Prince of David's blood, and which are so often quoted, were never ful filled and did not apply to Him at all. The story of Jesus having been bom, not at Nazareth (though He is always called the Nazarene and never the Bethlehemite), the home of Joseph and of Mary, but at Bethlehem, the "City of David," and far away from His parents' home, which was invented, probably, to claim the ful fillment of old bibUcal prophecies, would be of no consequence if He were not Joseph's son, even if it were true. But it is probably not true histori cally, for the census of Quirinus 1 did not take place, as has been proved by Roman Imperial records, until 6-7 a.d., when Jesus was, accord ing to chronological data, ten or eleven years old.2 Moreover, it is unreasonable to believe that the Roman pro-consul Quirinus or Cyrenius should have had old Jewish genealogical records hunted and searched, for the purpose of determining where an obscure Galilean and his family should be enrolled in a Roman census, and on account of an obsolete family tradition, that his ances- 1 Luke, chap, ii, verses 1-7 inclusive. 2 Briggs, Study of Holy Scripture, page 530, where the story of the census is shown to be untrue, 208 Evolution of Religions tors once lived at Bethlehem centuries before, should have cited Joseph, a poor man and un known outside of his native village, to go from Nazareth to distant Bethlehem with his young wife to be Usted. The story was evidently framed long after Jesus' crucifixion in order to have His birthplace ac cord with an old prophetic declaration,1 and remodeled to suit the occasion, which predic tion was probably made about the time the ten tribes of Israel were canied into captivity, and refened to the hope of a prince of David's line who should in future time come and rule over the reunited children of Judah and the remnants of Israel. The song of the angels at the birth of Jesus was more likely heard among the roman tic hills and vales of Nazareth and over the blue, starlit Sea of Galilee than over the plain of Bethle hem. The shepherds were more probably watch ing their flocks in the fields in the soft moonht evenings of May than in the wintry nights of Christmas tide. As Jesus was frequently styled in the Gospels and Epistles "the Son of David," He must perforce, therefore, as the writers of them had no evidence of Mary, His mother, being of the lineage of David, have been really regarded by them, notwithstanding the legend of His mi raculous birth, as Joseph's son, and hence a descen dant of David. St. Mark and St. John in their 1 Micah, chap, v, verse 2. The Trinity 209 Gospels do not even allude to the story of His supernatural birth, which is certainly unaccount able, if known to or believed by them. The unadorned facts of the Gospels carefuUy considered and harmonized with all the meager traditional Ught of those days, seem to dissipate the myth, and teach that Jesus was reaUy the son of Joseph and Mary. By His relatives and neighbors Jesus was universally regarded as their son. So Paul teaches.1 The legends of St. Matthew and St. Luke are contrary to their genea logies, and the genealogies are pointless and value less if they do not show His descent from Joseph. If the theory of the theophanic conception of Jesus was, that He was to be born merely as an incarna tion of Deity, He could have no hereditary or other taint from His mother, of original sin, even if His mother were not immaculate or had not been her self conceived without any taint of sin. The Cathohc Church only, of all the churches of Chris tendom, teaches, as we understand, that Mary was herself immaculately conceived and born sinless to become the "Mother of God," as Catholics style her. This dogma was first enunciated at a general council of Catholic clergy in 511 a.d., but never formaUy adopted and proclaimed by the Church un til so proclaimed by Pope Pius IX in his bull styled " Infallibilus Deus, " on December 8, 1854, with the assent of nearly all the cardinals of the church. 1 Romans, chaps, i and iii. 210 Evolution of Religions The bull declared "that the most blessed Vir gin Mary in the first moment of her conception, by a special grace and privilege of Almighty God, in virtue of the merits of Christ, was preserved immaculate from all stain of sin." The dogma has no Scripture authority whatever, and is uni versally rejected by the Greek and all Protestant churches. Moreover, it is unnecessary, for if God could make the Virgin Mary immaculate from the moment of her conception, He could as weU ordain the immaculate conception and birth of Jesus, either as Deity incarnated, or as God's divine Son, or the son of Joseph and Mary. With God nothing is impossible. If Jesus was an apo theosis of Deity, really only God manifested in hu man form, then He was as already said only God, and there could be no duality or trinity of being in Him as a mere manifestation of God. He was in such case really and only God, and it mattered not in that case whether His human mother, merely so for the incarnation, was immaculate or not, for He would be sinless as God. But if only a demi-son of God, if there are hereditary im puted taints of original sin, as orthodoxy teaches, as weU as hereditary tendencies to sin and disease as of other human traits, personally, mentally, and morally, they would be inherited and trans mitted from the mother alone as well as from a parentage of both human father and mother. If a child could through divine power be conceived The Trinity 211 and born free from those hereditary strains from a non-immaculate mother, as Mary's mother is presumed to have been, it could also be preserved from them by the same power through a non-im maculate father. Hence, if such divine interfer ence, according to the CathoUc doctrine, in the case of Mary at her own conception or at the con ception of Jesus, took place and she was made immaculate, so could a human father be made immaculate by the same divine power. So there was apparently, according to the CathoUc dogma, no necessity moraUy for the theophanic concep tion of Mary, even if Jesus was to be a human sinless born son of God, or a preexistent created being going through a reincarnation or new birth, and not absolutely and only God, the Almighty manifested in human body. We desire to be reverent, but think it right to consider these questions in all their bearings, as from the two evangehsts' nanatives of Jesus' nativity in connection with the story of Eden and the faU and the Apocalypse of St. John, the doctrines of the Trinity and the vicarious atone ment of Jesus have been entirely formulated. The story of the virgin's conception of Jesus seems to be merely a mythical legend without any reasons for it or proof of it. According to the doctrine of the immaculate conception, Jesus could have been born as absolutely pure and sinless, as the son of Joseph and Mary, as from 212 Evolution of Religions theophanic agency. The story is certainly an en tirely unnatural one, and so chaUenges the most rigid examination. It depends entirely upon the statements of the two evangehsts, and to them it could only have been communicated nearly a cen tury after its occunence by God alone, through direct communication. Did He do so ? The world wants some conoborative proof. The same applies to the immaculate conception ; all the disquisitions and speculations about it are merely mystical, scholastic, and ecclesiastical theories without any scriptural support whatever. What does it aU amount to? Jesus, if God in carnated through birth from Mary, was only the one God Almighty still. If a Son of God previ ously created and living in Heaven, from the be ginning of the ages and reborn supernaturally through Mary, He was only a fellow-creature and higher Son of God than if of the blood of Joseph and Mary. In either case Jesus had but one Father, God, and doubtless He says to aU His followers as said the glorious angel in Revelation to John, " See thou worship me not, for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets and of them which keep the sayings of this Book, worship only God." Jesus was known all His life by His neighbors of Nazareth as the son of Joseph, nor was there ever during His lifetime any intimation of mystery about His birth or parentage, or that He was other The Trinity 213 than the legitimate son of Joseph and Mary. Who Mary was we are not told. No genealogy of her was ever given by the evangehsts, and she was doubtless a Galilean peasant girl, of good but obscure family. The legends of Matthew and Luke about Jesus' birth savor much of similar fancies in the Egyptian and Hindoo religions about the births of Osiris and Buddha. He was the grandest and best of men, as truly the Son of God by His Ufe of absolute devotion to His service and the welfare of men, as if the story of His supernatural conception was literally true. Evidently if the story were extant in His day Jesus attached no importance to it, for He never once alluded to it. He left of His life work and teachings not a line, not even so much as a " writ ing in the sand." 1 The only memorials He left were in the remembrances of His devoted disciples. Never had any men a grander, nobler leader, nor ever king, conqueror, or prophet, braver or more faithful followers, willing for His memory and the faith he left them to sacrifice everything they had on earth, to meet the bitterest persecution and even cruel martyrdoms, without a fear or murmur. Glorious leader! But whether of theophanic con ception or the son of Joseph and Mary, aside from its bearing on the doctrine of the Trinity, matters really but little. Jesus was in either case among His fellow-men preeminently the Son of God, the 1 John, chap, viii, verses 6-8. 214 Evolution of Religions Prophet of prophets, the divine Teacher, and His peerless hfe and work left a record in the hearts of His disciples and a perennial influence for good, such as no other man, bom of woman, ever did, and which in His reUgion wiU continue, we be lieve, through aU the ages of time, ever expand ing until it covers the earth. Only Zoroaster of Persia, Buddha, and Confucius ever approxi mately wielded the influence on the destinies of the world which Jesus Christ has done. Their spheres of influence never were so broad, and in the centuries past have been diminishing. His has been expanding wider and wider, es peciaUy during the last few centuries, and will apparently soon be universal. His kingdom, power, and glory are the same, whether He was of earthly or heavenly origin. The "open sesame" to a broad and consistent interpretation of the Holy Bible and honest ob servance of its ethics, is to be found in the short but sublime and all comprehensive creed of the Prophet Micah.1 "What is it, 0 man, that thy Lord doth require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Just before2 the prophet said: "WiU the Lord be pleased with ten thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? ShaU I give my first born for my transgression, the fruit of my body 1 Micah, chap, vi, verse 8. 2 Micah, chap, vi, verse 7. The Trinity 215 for the sin of my soul?" This summary of our whole duty to God and men, and condemnation of aU sacrifices, is a negation of aU dogmas, rites, and mysteries which seek to make any other condi tions and requisites for rehgious justification than merely walking humbly with God, as best we know how; a creed vastly grander and more comprehensive than the Athanasian, Nicene, the so-caUed Apostles', or any other sectarian formula limiting God's sovereignty and man's opportunities. It is world-wide and universal, infolding in its divine circle of grace, Jews and Gentiles, aU nations and faiths who will Uye up to those precepts. AU other dogmas of reUgion are unnecessary. , The Ten Commandments of Moses, the Sermon on Mount of OUves, and the Lord's Prayer, the subhmest ever uttered, are only ex- emphfications of Micah's creed. Whatever in the pages of Holy Scripture wiU stand the test of and square with Micah's creed and the Lord's Prayer, and with rational conceptions of infinite power, omniscience, omnipresence, and love, we believe is inspired of God, and whatsoever is not in har mony with such tests is only of man. Such is our creed, so we hold. So we understand the Bible and its every page. The creed of Micah came surely from the Holy Spirit, and to the honest, fearless seeker after truth, the Holy Spirit will surely illuminate everything in the Bible as truth, or enor inspiration, or non-inspiration. 216 Evolution of Religions Holding to such creed as our sure anchor, the Doctrine of the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as enunciated by Dr. Briggs, is conect, but with out such test and anchor of faith, it may, to the sectary and fanatic, be a mere " Ignis Fatuus. " It does not make much difference, so long as a man's faith is anchored upon such a rock, what his mere theoretical religion may be, if he honestly and dihgently seeks the truth, and in all things hves up to the best light he has. A very good creed also is one said to be that of the Rev. John Watson, an able writer whose literary cognomen is "Ian Maclaren, " of Liverpool, England, for merly, if not now, a Presbyterian minister: "I believe in the Fatherhood of God. I believe in the words of Jesus. I believe in the pure heart. I believe in the service of love. I beUeve in the unworldly life. I beUeve in the beatitudes. I promise to trust God and follow Christ, to forgive my enemies, and to seek after the righteousness of God." What more is required? It is the duty of every human being and his privilege, too, to follow his convictions of truth, when his mind is in a sane and normal condition, wherever such convictions may lead him amidst the infinite varieties of Ufe's duties, always following justice and mercy, and doing no wrong to any of his fellow-beings. The best and truest religion, the divine one, is the religion which makes men and women happiest and best, most pure, unselfish, The Trinity 217 and useful in their daily Uves and conduct. Such is the test of true reUgion. Such religion is the safe one for time, safe for eternity, and it needs no creed made out of old dogmas to hedge it around. CHAPTER XI RELIGIOUS MISCELLANIES FURTHER considering the internal evidences of bibUcal plenary inspiration, it should be said that while the Bible is a storehouse of grand and sublime truths, scintillating Uke dia monds, throughout all its pages, yet even in the sphere of ethical teachings there are some defects in it which are not in harmony with the character of God as taught therein, and hence cannot be inspired. For instance, God would hardly have directed the Israelites, as we are told in Exodus,1 to bonow vessels of gold and jewels of silver from their Egyptian neighbors under the specious promise of returning them after they should come back from a three days' journey, for a picnic, into the wilderness of Arabia, when it was well known to the Israelites that this was a false pretense, and that the real purpose was to rob the Egyptians. Moral ideas, the distinction between Meum and Tuum, were not highly developed in those days, and Moses seemed to imagine that God was as ready to plunder the Egyptians as His people were, and, therefore, he said so. They had, it is 1 Exodus, chaps, xi and xii. 218 Religious Miscellanies 219 true, been heavily oppressed and wronged for a few years, but the sons of Ham had given them homes and lands several hundreds of years before, had fed their starving bands of nomads, and been very kind to them. The memory of those bene factions and good treatment, until the one Pharaoh reigned who "knew not" Joseph, ought to have kept the Hebrews from deceitfully robbing them. It is not possible, at any rate, that God directed them to get even with their oppressors through such deception and false pretenses. There are many other inconsistencies and im perfections of character ascribed to God, many expressions of merely human passions, feelings of cruelty, hatred, vengeance. Many contradictory enunciations of moral obligations and purposes, which we instinctively feel could not have been expressed by God, and hence must be either per versions of His commands, or merely interpola tions or expressions of the feelings and passions of the writers. To sustain these statements, we do not need to go to outside reviews or commen taries, but to the "Law and Testimony" itself. God is ever one and the same, always consistent, changeless, and can never under any circumstances be influenced by or give utterance to base and cruel human feehngs and passions, and wherever in the pages of the Bible He is represented as so influenced, it is not inspiration from Him, but 220 Evolution of Religions merely human conceptions of Deity which are so portrayed. We do not here refer to expressions in the Bible of God's hatred of sin, which is fre quently conveyed in very forcible language, in order to emphasize His abhonence of evil, but to commands ascribed directly to Him, which teach cruelty and vengeance, feelings which an infin itely holy and merciful being cannot have; commands which He could not give. We wiU illustrate our views by a few parallel texts out of many which might be selected, involving contra dictory moral commands and purposes to God. Exodus x, 20. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go. Exodus xi, 10. And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land. Deuteronomy ii, 34. And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women and the Uttle ones, of every Exodus v, 1. And afterwards Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel. Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. Exodus xx, 13. Thou shalt not kill. Exodus xxii, 21, 22. Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him : for ye were strangers Religious Miscellanies 221 in the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. Psalm xxxiii, 45. For the word of the Lord is right; and all His works are done in truth. He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. Psalm xxxvi, 7. How excellent is Thy lov ing kindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wing. James v, n. The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. Mat thew v, 44-45. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which de- spitefuUy use you, and city, we left none to re main. Deut. iii, 2. And the Lord said unto me; . . . and thou shall do unto him, as thou didst unto Sihon, King of the Amor- ites. Joshua vi, 21. And they utterly de stroyed all that was in the city: both man and wo man, young and old, with the edge of the sword. Joshua viii, 1-2-24. And the Lord said unto Joshua . . . Thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king. . . . And all the Israelites returned unto Ai and smote it with the edge of the sword. . . . And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a heap forever, even a deso lation unto this day (v. 28). ist Samuel xv, 2, 3. Thus saith the Lord . . . Now go and smite Ama- 222 Evolution of Religions persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and send- eth rain on the just and unjust. ist Corinthians xiii, 13. And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love verse 8. Love never faileth: but whether there be prophe cies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowl edge, it shall be done away. Ecclesiastes iii, 19-20. For that which befall eth the sons of men be falleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other ; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preemi nence above a beast: for lek and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. Psalm cix, 7, 8, 9, 10. When he shall be judged, let him be con demned: and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be father less, and his wife a widow. Let his children be con tinually vagabonds and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. ist Corinthians xv, 22. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Verse 53. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on im mortality. St. John v, 25. Verily, verily, I say Religious Miscellanies 223 all is vanity. All goun- unto you, the hour is to one place ; all are of coming and now is, when the dust, and all turn to the dead shall hear the dust again. voice ofthe Son of God: and they that hear shall live. These, with many other selections which might be noted, prove that though most are,' all the teachings of the Bible are not inspired, because some are contradictory, evil, and inconsistent. with the holy attributes of deity, love, mercy, truth, and infinite compassion for the ening. Other inconsistencies and incongruities may be noted. After the brutal, adulterous crime of David, King of Israel, with Bathsheba, the beau tiful wife of Uriah the Hittite, and the cowardly betrayal to death by the adulterer: of her brave husband while he was in David's army fighting for his king and country, it is hardly conceivable that God through His prophets ever afterwards (though the king may have repented of that and other crimes) should always, without qualification, speak of David as " a man after God's own heart." J Another dark crime of David was the cruel murder, by the Gibeonites, by his participation, of the seven innocent sons of Rizpah, and of Milcah, who was once his wife. A most barbarous deed, and Samuel, or whoever wrote the books, inti- 1 Book of Kings and Chronicles. 224 Evolution of Religions mates that it was by God's orders.1 The world has been full of crime and bloodshed since the be ginning of time, and while God for inscrutable reasons has permitted it, yet I will never beUeve that He ordered evil to be done. Even some of the great Nazarene's teachings seem unreasonable and can hardly have been cor rectly reported or translated, unless intended for conditions of society such as we imagine wiU be in the millennial age. In fact, the universal love, the total unselfishness, manifested in the Sermon on the Mount of Olives, though in entire harmony with Jesus' nature and character, were hardly ex pected by Him to be the practical rules of life in that age, but were intended for man's hfe in the kingdom of heaven on earth, such as He expected it to be in the future when men " shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks ; nation shall not lift up the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more," and "when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and a httle child shaU lead them." Is it possible that for merely saying to his brother, "Thou fool," one would be in danger of hell's fire as the term is ordinarily understood? The time may come when a man could meekly turn his other cheek for another blow when struck by a ruffian on one cheek without inviting plunder, per secution, and even death from all the wicked, as 1 Second Samuel, chap, xxi, verses i-io inclusive. Religious Miscellanies 225 the world has always been, but he could hardly safely to himself and family do so now. Or when despoiled by a robber of his cloak, cheer fully give him his coat also! To so act, meekly and humbly, one would have to love his neighbor, not only as weU, but better than himself, which Jesus did not teach. He died for the salvation of men. Others have given up their Uves for the common welfare of their kindred or countrymen, but we are not taught ordinarily to seek or invite persecution and death. Some of these teachings scarcely emanated from Jesus as broadly and un- quaUfied as the evangehsts wrote them. It is said Christians are not expected to obey those injunctions, and others similar to them, UteraUy, and that they are not to be understood as Uteral requirements of duty in daily life, but merely as strongly teaching and enforcing the great duties of humility, moderation, charity, and pa tience under wrongs. Possibly, and Jesus no doubt wished to enforce as He illustrated, in Him self, ordinarily, those virtues. But even He, though usuaUy meek and gentle, was not always so. Sternly and fiercely He drove with cords the money changers and gamblers out of the Temple, and His tenible denunciation of the scribes, priests, and Pharisees 1 for their corruption, hypo crisy, selfishness, and bigotry, has never been exceUed in bitterness. The early Christians we 1 Matthew, chap, xxiii. 226 Evolution of Religions know in Jesus' time, and long afterwards from the Evangelists, Book of Acts, and traditions, were practically socialists or communists, and had all things in common, and, of course, those who lived in that way could and would be more unselfish, kindly, and tolerant to each other than if living in ordinary conditions of society. They would naturally give to the teachings of the Master upon all social subjects a wide latitude among themselves, an interpretation not intended for the world at large Enthusiastic followers after His death most Ukely exaggerated His teachings on some ques tions beyond their practical lines. He could hardly have said broadly, and with literal exact ness, "that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven," for, if so, no man of wealth could be saved. Its practical applica tion might suit the early Christians who had "all things in common." "Neither was there any among them that lacked, for as many as were possessors of land or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made to every man according as he had need." 1 What would Christ have said to myriads of the Croesuses of the church militant since His day? What would He have said to many of His 1 Acts, chap, iv, verses 32, 34, 35. Religious Miscellanies 227 vicegerents, pontiffs of Rome, who had in the Middle Ages greater incomes than many sovereigns of Europe, and some of whom left immense wealth, mostly wrung from the poor laity, to their rela tives, and in a few instances even to their illegiti mate children ? Or to the archbishops and bishops of the Church of England of to-day, who have sal aries of fifty thousand dollars and twenty-five thou sand dollars annually, who live in Episcopal pal aces, and are waited upon and served by Uveried attendants? Jesus' teachings upon social matters were evidently for a future time, or conditions of the world, when the " knowledge of God should cover the earth as the waters cover the seas ; " when all men should live up to the doctrine of the Golden Rule, when all should be in truth brothers and sisters, and "when none should harm or annoy others in all God's holy mountain." Whenever and wherever the unlimited doctrines of non-resistance and of people enjoying all things in common, excepting upon a small scale, have been even partially put into practice in reUgious, sociahstic, or communistic experiments, the re sults have been unfortunate, resulting neither in pubhc nor private good. Besides, such rules of Ufe literally understood are at variance with other teachings of the Bible. Many of the good men of old, patriarchs and kings, who were high in God's favor were very rich. Some of them are com mended by Jesus. 228 Evolution of Religions In the Book of Proverbs, we are enjoined most forcibly to resist the tyrannical, wicked, and ex tortionate, and taught as among our highest duties to be industrious, frugal, and economical, in order that we may provide for our families in comfort and lay up a competency for old age. St. Paul says that, " He who provides not for his own, and especially for those of his own household, is worse than an infidel." J In the medieval ages the grasping clergy dwelt much in their sermons upon the futility of the rich endeavoring to get to heaven, and thousands of the wealthy kings, princes, barons, and merchants were only absolved upon their dying beds upon making bequests of their lands and moneys to build magnificent cathedrals and churches and endow monastic institutions, or provide rich in comes for lordly ecclesiastics. The Bible contains the grandest rehgion and much of the most important and ancient history of any book in the world. It was compiled from the writings of great prophets, statesmen, waniors, poets, priests, and philosophers, "holy men of old," and yet some of them entertained very singular and diverse opinions on many important subjects.2 Ecclesiastes, chaps, ii and iii, teaches the doc trines of Diogenes and the Stoics, and annihilation after death. This was the tenet of the Sadducees. 1 Timothy, chap, v, verse 8. 8 Ecclesiastes, chaps, ii and iii. Religious Miscellanies 229 A later chapter, v, teaches the Epicurean philo sophy. Jesus taught always free agency. Paul taught fatalism, election, predestination. ' ' Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him who formed it, Why hast thou made me thus ? Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? " 2 The Old Testament nowhere in its pages, ex cepting by remote inference, in about the same terms as the Analects of Confucius, cheers us with the hope of immortality and eternal happiness, while the New Testament on almost every page is full of it. Jesus Christ really was the first prophet who "brought Ufe and immortality to light" in Israel, though the Essenes and Pharisees be lieved in it in a way before His time. The Bible is a many-sided book, and those inconsistent doc trines, though set forth amidst other sublime ethics, cannot all be inspired, whatever creeds and ecclesiastics and councils of the Church may teach. Hence only the absolute truths as to God and His attributes (as assumed in the beginning of this book) of eternal life and eternal ethics are from God. But much of it is of man and from man only, and what is of man is sometimes inconsistent and erring, as all human teachings are liable to be. 1 Ecclesiastes, chap. v. a Romans, chap. ix. verses 20-21. 230 Evolution of Religions The Bible purports to come from God and be a rev elation of His will to mankind, and as such, coming through man only, it naturally challenges the most rigorous criticism and investigation of its claims. Explicitly, often in its pages, it invites all to " search the Scriptures and hold fast to all that is good," and hence by implication to reject any thing in it that may be found inconsistent with its great cardinal truths. Its messages are predi cated for eternity as well as for time, and those really from God, all wise and perfect, must all be consistent with each other, and whatsoever is not so consistent we have a right to pronounce of mortal inspiration only. What Jesus taught of social duties in His ser mon on the mountain was fully as beautifully and more comprehensively expressed by the apostle Paul when he said : " If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not ove, I am become (as) sounding brass (and) a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to be able to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long and is kind; love envieth not ; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked ; taketh not account Religious Miscellanies 231 of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but re- joiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believ eth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth, but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease ; " whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away.1 "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things."2 1 First Corinthians, chap, xiii, verses i to 8 inclusive. 2 Philippians, chap, iv, verse 8. CHAPTER XII SECOND ADVENTISTS AND CONNECTION OF SECRET ORDERS WITH THE SUPER NATURAL IN RELIGIONS NEARLY aU of the human race, and espe cially of the uneducated, love mystery and the marvelous, and more readily beUeve stories tinctured with such fascinations than honest, prosaic, logical truths. Poetic fictions are wel comed when sober history is often discarded. The Book of Daniel and the Book of Revela tion, the first a historical, prophetic fiction, written by an unknown author, after the death of Alexander the Great, when his great empire was partitioned up among his four generals, Antipater, Seleucus, Ptolemy, and Antigonus, and the other merely ecstatic rehgious dreams of the holy enthusiast St. John, during his banish ment to the lone Isle of Patmos in the eastern Meditenanean, have afforded the bases of a thousand predictions by fanatics, generally com bined from both those books, and supported often by weary mazes of learned arithmetical, mathematical, and astronomical calculations, of the near approach of the end of the world and the 232 Second Adventists 233 judgment day in each of the centuries since the cmcifixion of Christ. It was beUeved by His disciples that those events would occur not many years after His ascension.1 Even Grecian sibylline oracles and astrologi cal star combinations and calculations, in the early centuries of Christianity, used to play a part in such predictions. The disciples of Christ, as we know from the Gospels, Revelation, and Epistles, and from traditions and fragments of history, beUeved that day was imminent. Soon after the departure of the Savior from earth, and probably in the lifetime of some of the Apostles, His second advent was expected and frequently afterwards for centuries. In Matthew xxiv, 29- 51, Mark xin, 6-37, Luke xxi, 25-36, the speedy coming of that day was undoubtedly heralded. About the year 1000 a.d., the whole Christian world was convulsed with tenor on account of predictions that the end of all things tenestrial and the second coming of Jesus was at hand, accompanied as those predictions were by irre fragable demonstrations of arithmetical proofs, from prophecies, from the books of Daniel and Revelation, mainly based upon the chaining of Satan, and the casting of the great arch-enemy of man into the bottomless pit.2 In my time, and I remember exceedingly 1 Matthew, ch. xxiv. ' Revelation, ch. xx, vs. 1-3. 234 Evolution of Religions well, the almost universal consternation and alarm which the predictions of Rev. Wm. Miller, an Adventist, formerly a Baptist minister, pro duced aU over the United States. He pro claimed that the end of the world and final judgment would surely come on April 19, 1843. It was wonderful. Thousands of people became insane, brooding over the near coming of the dreadful day. Many committed suicide. Singu lar as it may seem, nearly all those who did so were professed Christians who naturally ought to have rejoiced at the prospect of meeting their Savior. I was young, but was not much perturbed, and wondered why good people should go insane, or what suicides would gain or evade, even if the great judgment and conflagration of the earth, which I doubted much, were near at hand. A wonderful comet appearing in the south western heavens early in March of that spring and swiftly looming up from the horizon and moving rapidly until its nucleus was near the zenith, and its dark, sword-like tail far down in the sky, added greatly to the general alarm; certainly presaging, as many believed, the com ing dread catastrophe, and bringing sure con firmation to the predictions. All the church services for many months previously were crowded, and very numerous conversions occuned. Many thousands of people in various parts of the coun- Second Adventists 235 try, principally in the middle States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, and Tennessee, abandoned farms, shops, and offices and quit business in order to get ready for the coming of the Lord. Many famihes abandoned their homes for weeks before the predicted time, and went into mountain hills and caves. Thousands of people near Cleveland, Ohio, and Buffalo, New York, assembled on the lake shores on the morning of the supposed last day, dressed in ascension garments, ready to meet their Lord in the air. But the day passed and nothing happened. Miller, it was said, found that he had made a mistake in his calcu lations, revised them, and fixed upon another day in the early ensuing summer. But the great day had passed. The prophet had lost his prestige, and but httle attention was paid to his revised calculations or prophecies. It was said that beheving his interpretation of prophecies and calculations therefrom were conect, he lost faith in the Bible and became a skeptic. Oh! the folly and credulity of human beings! What absurdities in the name of reUgion will they not beUeve! In what weird and mystical rites, doctrines, secret orders, monastic legends, super natural delusions, through faith will they not unite and adopt! The world, at least the Chris tian world, is even now full of Second Advent ists' trashy books and wild millennial predictions. 236 Evolution of Religions Many times during the past nineteen hundred years has it been disturbed and frequently almost convulsed by such delusions. After the failure of each successive prediction, the prophets were discarded and discounted only to make room for new ones in each century, to appear with a new installment of "end of the world" prophecies, and those in turn, in a few years, to be again dishonored and forgotten. So in all probability the future will produce more such prophets, to be followed and beheved in by other idiots for a time. The latest collapse of such schemes and schem ers, and perhaps of brazen religious humbuggery, was the "heaven" of a so-called messiah and son of God, whose human name is Swinefurth, lately existing for a dozen or more years (a short time ago disrupted and its inmates scattered) at Rock- ford, Illinois. But enough of Adventists. So, despite them and their prophecies, springtime and summer, autumn and winter, seedtime and harvest, which the good God gives us, will doubt less continue in their regular succession and courses; generation after generation of human beings be born, love, live, and die, and all the turmoils and vanities of men go on, as in the past, through countless ages, until the earth may grow old and worn out, and become a lifeless planet, only filled with sepulchers, with none to weep over departed friends. Whether it will become Second Adventists 237 such a dead world as the moon is now supposed, by scientists, to be, or else, through the ceaseless influences of insufficiently counterbalanced cen tripetal attraction, may in its lessening orbit graduaUy swing too closely to the sun and be absorbed by gravitation in its limitless ocean of electric fires, the great God only knows. History teaches that, when any great rehgious movement has become successfully developed, its priestly hierarchy, influenced partly by reh gious enthusiasm, and largely through love of power, place, and wealth, have used all manner of agencies and influences to dominate the minds of men, and permanently establish their control of the people, ostensibly for religious purposes, but reaUy for the permanence of their power. Of course, many of the clergy of all religions are good, honest men. The more ignorant men are, the greater usuaUy is their veneration for the ministers of reUgion and beUef in their superior sanctity. Hence the power of the priesthood is the more easily retained, and naturally the revenues and donations obtained from the laity for salaries, churches, endowments of bishoprics, parochial homes, and manifold other religious purposes, become larger. For centuries during the Middle Ages, nearly one half of the property in Europe, especiaUy landed estates, had become absorbed by, and was owned or under the con trol of, religious and monastic orders, bishops 238 Evolution of Religions and other clergy of the Catholic Church. And in order, more completely to hold and retain their control over the popular mind, the design ing and artful ecclesiastics of all religions, anciently established secret conclaves or orders, in which the initiates were taught mystic and super natural legends of the faith, and bound by many rites and obligations, sometimes of a fearful character, to believe in and be faithful to the creed and hierarchy. Ostensibly those secret orders may not have been publicly announced as established for such purposes, but usually their organization was so designed by the domi nant hierarchy and under its control. Such orders were always more or less grounded upon superstition and supernaturahsm. Such societies existed throughout India from very ancient times as adjuncts and supporters of Brahmanism, generally composed of the priestly and aristocratic castes exclusively. In China after Confucianism became the dominant religion, such secret orders soon sprung up as its cham pions. Buddhism developed very many of them, especially in the mountains of Thibet, which were full of secret orders of monastics, mostly under the control of the Grand Lama. Egypt under its ancient Osirian priesthood had many fanatical secret orders, especially recruited from their ranks, whose authority was greater even than the Pharaohs, and whose edicts of secret Second Adventists 239 imprisonment or death, fulminated against heretics and enemies of the holy hierarchy, spread tenor everywhere, and were mercilessly enforced. Gre cian, Roman, and Scandinavian mythologies had such secret, oath-bound orders and lodges among men and even women. The Eleusinian and Diony- sian mysteries of Greece and the priests and priest esses of the Delphic oracles of ApoUo, the order of Vestal Virgins of Rome, and the secret con claves of Druid and Scandinavian priests, of Thor and Odin, into whose mysteries only the custo dians of their holy books, incantations, and rites, and their devoted servants, were admitted, had absolute power over the people. Such, too, were the ancient Jewish orders of the Nazirites, Recha- bites, Essenes, and also, most probably, the Phar isees. Mohammedan countries also have their secret orders in the dervishes, who are intensely fanatical recluses. After the adoption and patronage of Christian ity by the Roman emperors, and especiaUy during the Dark and Middle Ages, secret rehgious orders rapidly grew up. Out of them the crusades devel oped, and from the crusaders grew up the relig ious, military, pohtical secret orders of the Knights of the Temple, or Knights Templars, Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, of Malta, of the Red Cross, and Knights HospitaUers. After the rehgious mania, in which the wars of the crusades were bom, had worn itself out, and Europe grew tired of them, 240 Evolution of Religions those orders of knighthood, in the years of peace, grown rich, ambitious, and dangerous, as secret pohtical associations united with their semi-rehg- ious character, under the absolute control of their grand masters, became a menace to the govern ments of Europe. They were finally crushed out by those governments, their franchises and priv ileges revoked, and their property, which had become immense, as corporate bodies, was uni versally confiscated. Even the Roman See, which in the outset encouraged and helped build them up on account of their pride, anogance, and wealth, and occasional dominance over the clergy, finaUy anayed itself with the monarchs of Europe in antagonism to those orders, and they ceased to exist. Jacques de Molay, who was burned aUve in France in 13 14 for rebellion, was the last grand master of the Military Templars. Several centuries ago, when the secret order of Free Masonry, originally organized as guilds or lodges of practical masons and architects, had become prominent and influential, as a factor in society, in some countries of Europe, and particularly in England and her colonies, those old orders of knighthood were theoretically revivified, with nothing, however, similar to the originals, excepting their ancient traditions and forms, and were adopted and incorporated into Masonry, as higher lodges and degrees of that order, as a quasi-military branch of it, to which Second Adventists 241 order, however, the Knights owe aUegiance and must belong as members in full concord and affiUation. The ancient position and prestige of the orders of knighthood, as sons and defenders of the Papacy, has ceased, and the secret orders of monks or brothers of Augustines, Franciscans, Benedictines, Dominicans, and Jesuits, and other affiliated societies organized during the Middle Ages, and mainly after the overthrow and dis persion of the mihtant orders of knighthood, for the promotion, perpetuity, and defense of Cathohcism, by their zealous founders, have taken the place of those ancient orders as sons of the Church. Among the Protestant reformers of Europe, during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, many secret religious and religio-political orders grew up, which in the terrible religious wars and controversies of those times generaUy affiliated with Free Masonry. Scotland, under the bigotry of Calvinism, became in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen turies a very hotbed, so to speak, of religious orders and associations, of which the Covenant ers and aU the Scottish, Masonic Trinitarian Lodges and Consistories were the outgrowth. They had no especial basis, excepting popular legends and intense devotion to orthodox Chris tianity. The Presbyterian Covenanters united for self-defense and religious protection against 242 Evolution of Religions both Catholicism and the Enghsh Episcopacy. Masonry, as a religious and social order, developed graduaUy into present forms and organizations mainly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The religious tenets and traditions of the order in the Blue Lodges and Chapters are Hebraic, but in the Commanderies and Consis tories only Protestant doctrines and traditions are taught and symbolized, and hence Masonry as an order has always been antagonized by the Roman hierarchy. Nominally now, the order is non-sectarian, and merely speculative Masonry, and anyone who professes beUef in the existence of God, Christian, Jew, or Mohammedan, or follower of any other reUgion, can be affiliated. Masonry has always been an auxiliary of the Bible, and especially in maintaining belief in its supernatural legends. In the Blue Lodge Degrees, the ceremonies, obligations, lectures, and legen dary teachings are entirely based upon and connected with the building of the First or Solo mon's Temple, and the Royal Chapter Degrees with the building of the Second, or Zerubbabel's Temple, and those legends, with sundry extraor dinary incidents, are taught as verities in the several degrees, although really they are out side of and additional to Bible nanatives and without any biblical conoboration whatever and really purely fabulous. The most of the religious and historical teachings in the Blue Second Adventists 243 Lodge and Chapter Degrees are virtually the same as taught in the old Scriptures, whilst the Commandery and Consistorial or Scottish Rite Degrees, as they are commonly called, have mainly to do with legends of the crusaders and Christian doctrines, only excepting in the Red Cross Degree, which is based upon the Book of Ezra. Whatever the order may have been two or three centuries ago, when speculative Masonry was substituted for practical and operative Masonry, it has been, since then and is now, mainly a social, fraternal, and benevolent institution. The teachings of secret orders, with their mystic rites and obligations, strongly impressed upon the mind, are generaUy imbibed and believed without questioning, especially by the young and inexperienced, as those first becoming Masons generaUy are. The order has thus unquestion ably exercised a great influence with its member ship in maintaining beUef in Jewish and Christian history and miracles, though it furnishes no evidence whatever of their authenticity. In fact, the legends of Masonry generally are not in the Bible, and are simply the Cabbala of the order, and are usually received and believed by most Masons as supposedly having been trans mitted down from antiquity. However, many intelligent Masons do not believe in those legends. As a matter of fact, none of the legends or rites of 244 Evolution of Religions Masonry have any foundation or authority what ever, outside of bibhcal story, and hence can add no confirmation whatever to its history, miracles, or prophecies. Whatever of actual Hebrew his tory there is in Masonic rituals or lectures, is derived from the Bible. So we affirm that no "Brother of the Mystic Tie," even after he has attained to the thirty-third and highest degree in Masonry, by virtue of his eminence and pro ficiency therein, knows reaUy anything more of the work of building Solomon's or Zerubbabel's Temple, of Hiram, king of Tyre, of Hiram Abiff, of the ineffable name of God, or of the miracles of sacred writ, or of the early days of Christianity, than is found in biblical pages and in Josephus' works and the Jewish Talmud, and consequently no more than may be known by any Bible reader or reader of Jewish history. Similar comments will apply to the simulated Moslem Annex of Masonry, the modern order of the Mystic Shrine, which in recent years has been ingrafted on Masonry by some enterprising inventor of secret novelties. The ritual and work of this order are mainly made up of fictitious Mohammedan legends, aphorisms from the Koran, and fables of the deserts of Arabia and Egypt, set off with pantomimic plays of traveling on camels over their sands and mountains, merely child's play, social and amusing, but unprofit able. Second Adventists 245 We write as a Mason and lover of the order, knowing all about it. It is a great social and benevolent institution, and its members generally are men of honor and integrity. In its social and benevolent features and high standard of moral duties, if Uved up to, Masonry is peerless among the many secret orders ; but practically, the most intelligent members of the fraternity regard the rites and legends of the order, as one of the most prominent and brightest Masons of the United States has weU said, "as but the relics of a past age, and reaUy continued more to preserve the ostensible antiquity of the order rather than to bind our consciences." We desire to empha size, — and that is mainly the object of this short digression about secret societies whose work and rituals are supposed to be based upon, and con firmatory of, biblical history, — that neither does Masonry, nor any other of the secret religious orders or brotherhoods of the past fifteen hundred years in the Christian world, add to or furnish any contemporaneous, cumulative, or conobora tive testimony to Bible inspiration or Bible miracles. The other many secret orders of our day are mainly organized for life insurance, or merely benevolent and social purposes, excepting the Catholic brotherhoods, and it is only because of the supposed conoborative testimony of Masonry to Bible history and miracles, of which it really affords none whatever, that anything 246 Evolution of Religions has been said here of the order. Its legends have been taken from the Bible partly, and are partly fictions. So, whatever of history it teaches, is not original. Of course, the Templar and Con- sistorial Degrees have some modern history. CHAPTER XIII SATAN WE purpose now to consider more fully than the casual references hereinbefore made to the subject, the question of the existence of an evil deity called in the various bibles of the world the Devil, Satan, ApoUyon, Lucifer, BeUal, Ahri- man, Angro-Mainyus, Sheitan, Eblis, Set, Typhon, and many other names; also the questions of original sin and eternal punishment, tenets intimately connected with belief in the existence and power of the evil being. Considerable has already been written in these pages upon these subjects, but we propose more fully to discuss them, and endeavor to ascertain the truth. Does such a being as Satan exist ? If so, does he have the powers usually attributed to him? Are we accountable for Adam and Eve's sin, commonly caUed original sin, somehow imputed to each one of their descendants as personal guilt, by orthodox Christianity? Will there be future eternal punish ment, infinite punishment for finite sins, original, as weU as actual sins, for all who do not come under the benefit of Christ's supposed atone ment? These are momentous questions. As we 247 248 Evolution of Religions are but finite creatures, our acts and thoughts, good or evil, can only be finite. Excepting what is said of the serpent in Eden, commonly assumed by bibhcal commentators to have been Satan in disguise, and in two or three other brief references to him by name only elsewhere, rather inciden tally,1 nothing more is said of Satan in the volumi nous pages of the Old Testament. We have, as has been said already, no reason to suppose that the Hebrews beUeved generaUy in such a being, until after they became acquainted with the religion of Zoroaster during the captivity in Babylon and Persia, nor that they had any idea of a future atonement to be made for sins. As Zoroastrianism, then intermixed with Chal dean Magiism, was at that time the universal religion of those countries, of course the exiled Jews came into contact with it during their long residence there. Moreover, we know they did, from much that is said in the books of Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ezekiel, and in most of the Apocryphal books. During the exile, or subsequently, soon after the restoration, these books, as well as the books of the Old Testa ment in which allusions to Satan, eo-nominee, are found, viz., Chronicles, Psalms, and Job, were written or compiled, and the redaction of the Elohist, Jehovist, Priestley, and Ephraimitic old 1 I Chron. ch. xxi, v. i ; Job ch. iv, v. 2 ; ch. ii, v. 1 ; Psalms, ch. xix, v. 6. Satan 249 Bible versions, or of such fragments as then existed, were then made by Ezra, Nehemiah, and probably other Jewish scholars assisting them. In Persia and Chaldea the exiled Jews learned from the priests and Magi about Angro-Mainyus, the evil one, and through the intermingling of the Magian worship with the Persian imbibed, partly, the cor rupted Zoroastrianism, which had been changed to teach of Satan, from an originally supposed de pendency upon God, to being co-existing and co- eternal with Him, and contesting for supremacy with Him on earth and over the human race. Magusm, or corrupted Zoroastrianism, also taught that the evil one caused noxious plants and weeds to grow, created dangerous beasts, poisonous ser pents and vermin, originated diseases and pes tilence, and was always seducing men into sin and maintaining with Ormuzd a perpetual conflict for sovereignty on earth. These ideas, in perhaps a modified form, were, during the exile, first indoctrinated into the Jewish theology, as weU as the Zoroastrian belief in the resurrection of the dead, the immortality of the soul and the future judgment, which Christianity directly through Jesus, and remotely through the Pharisees and Essenes, Jewish sects of His day, inherits from that more ancient religion. If these doctrines were taught at all by Moses and the prophets, they were very ambiguously, and dimly defined. To the Persian religion, the 250 Evolution of Religions sect of Pharisees (derived from the Persian name, Parsi, or Parsis), as well as the sect of the Essenes, undoubtedly owed their origin. But the power ful sect of the Sadducees, who were really the aristocracy and literati of the Jews, "who say that there is no resunection, neither angel nor spirit," 1 adhered strictly to the ancient Torah. Jesus taught the doctrines of the Pharisees, and yet they were His bitterest enemies, mainly probably on account of His denunciations of their pride, anogance, and veniality. Through the reformed Judaism of the Pharisees, Satan became also a prominent factor in the Christian dispensation, in its evolution from the old dis pensation or out of it. During the tenible perse cution of the Christians for two and a half centuries after Christ by the Roman emperors, and in the centuries afterwards, through all the dark ages of superstition, ignorance, and fanaticism, the whole world was supposed to be literally overrun by the devil and his angels, who were in league with the wicked heathens to crush out Christian ity. Most Christians, in common with the Zoro astrians or Parsees, Hindoos, Mohammedans, and Mormons, yet believe in such a being, and that he is incessantly and everywhere, omniscient and omnipresent, with or without God's permis sion, they do not exactly know, engaged with his angels of darkness in the nefarious work of 1 Acts, ch. xxiii, v. 8. Satan 251 seducing human beings of all faiths and of no faith, from the paths of goodness and virtue, and alluring them into sin and wickedness, — the devil apparently more than holding his own in the great conflict with the Almighty. Now does such a being exist? Did he ever exist ? Are Dante's " Inferno " and Milton's " Para dise Lost" honible realities? Is Satan a creature of God, as Christians and Moslems generally beUeve, or is he self -existent, eternal, and inde pendent of God, as the followers of Zoroaster taught and perhaps teach yet? If the latter theory is conect, then the Zoroastrian doctrine, granting the premises of Satan's independence and self-existence, is at least logical, and the endless conflict between God and Satan, a neces sary, reasonable, and natural sequence. But ortho dox Christians believe, with all other Christians, that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omni present, and infinite in wisdom and goodness, and they further beheve, which Unitarians and UniversaUsts do not, that Satan was in the be ginning created by God and was once one of the powers of Heaven, highest of angels and arch angels, and that afterwards by rebellion against his Creator, long before the creation of man, he fell from his high estate and was, with myriads of his followers, rebel angels, cast out of the celestial paradise into a bottomless abyss called hell, away beyond the boundaries of organized 252 Evolution of Religions creation. And they believe that Satan and his followers have ever since been and ever will be, through all eternity, utterly wicked and rebellious, ever waning against God and hating man, and yet at their will and pleasure, permitted by the Almighty to come to earth out of their infernal home, and to ever work by every phase of temp tation and blandishment, sometimes even in the guise of "servants of God and ministers of light," which He permits them to assume, the more suc cessfully to carry on their work of deception and villainy, to seduce and lead astray the children of men into sin and resulting misery here and eternal ruin and suffering hereafter. If such is Satan and his mission, and the work of his angels by the permission of God, what is the stern, inevitable logic of such a doctrine? Why does God, the Almighty, with infinite know ledge of Satan's work and purposes, and infinite power to prevent, permit him and his fellow- demons to exist, or at least to continue such hellish work year after year, from age to age? He knew from the beginning what Satan would do if permitted, for God is omniscient. He knew what Satan would accomplish when He permitted him to enter Eden and tempt Adam and Eve to sin and death. To deny it is to deny God's omniscience. To doubt God's power to prevent Satan from entering Eden or accom- phshing his devilish purpose there, is to doubt Satan 253 God's omnipotence. Now, according to the ortho dox creed, in the forum of reason, is not the Almighty ultimately responsible for Satan's work? If the premises of the orthodox theory are true, then logically there can be no other sane con clusion, seemingly ineverent as this conclusion may be. The old adage, "Facit per alium, facit per se," is forever true, and must be as applicable to Deity as to man. The stem logic of the con clusion cannot be avoided or evaded by saying that it is ineverent (truth can never be inever ent) or that God is not governed by the same moral laws as men, for in the Bible God appeals to men to judge Him by the same moral code He gave to man. Nor can the conclusion be avoided by the stereotyped argument that Adam and Eve were made free agents to choose between good and evil, for if so they were equally free and good before Satan came into the Garden of Eden and would have continued good, so far as the context of the story shows, indefinitely, had he been kept out. But besides, the story shows they were not free agents, because their moral powers had not been tested, nor did they know how to use them and protect themselves from evil, for they did not know any moral distinctions, or any difference between right and wrong, and hence could not have any discrimination of the two ways, or any power of resistance of evil. Much less have 254 Evolution of Religions their posterity such power with their fallen natures and inherited tendencies and traits of evil. None of us are free agents absolutely, nor were Adam and Eve. They were forbidden to eat of the fruit of the tree which would have given them knowledge of and enabled them to discriminate between good and evil, and it seemed to be the desire of the Almighty to keep from them such knowledge. Even had they known the difference between good and evil, the influences and capaci ties for and against, to make them free agents, or keep them such, should have been entirely under their control, based upon full knowledge of the blessings resulting from good and the curses resulting from evil deeds. With know ledge of inevitable results, the sin resulting in their case from their disobedience, or in case of any of their children, under temptation of pas sion and appetites only, might easily have been avoided and resisted had not in Adam and Eve's case, overmastering Satanic influences, and in the case of their descendants, overmastering hereditary and Satanic influences, also been superadded. Innocent, artless, guileless, ignorant Adam and Eve, in the toils and temptations of Satan, had no free agency whatever. It is simply a mockery to talk of it, according to the environ ments of the legend. The foil of abused free agency, set up by bigoted ecclesiastics and scho- Satan 255 lastics as an apology or excuse or justifica tion of the awful doom, which otherwise would not have occuned, of death and eternal punish ment, incurred by Adam and Eve for themselves and in aU their posterity for eating the forbidden fruit, is the sheerest sophistry and hypocrisy. Satanic influences have confessedly in all the teachings of the behevers in orthodoxy and the evil one, been the source and cause of all sin and evil, and have overwhelmed all the good in man which otherwise free agency, real free agency, under normal good impulses and normal con sciences, might have enabled him successfully to develop. In other words, sunounded with per petual Satanic temptations to sin, with the hereditary propensities of men since the fall, cooperating with Satan into abetting and fan ning into ungovernable flames, the natural fires of appetities and passions, there has been no free agency of man since the fall, and for the reasons already stated, there was certainly none before, if Eden is a fact. Free agency means equally balanced powers, mental and moral, equal oppor tunities and influences for good and evil, ample natural and spiritual powers to choose the good and eschew the evil, with reason, to enable us to control in turning the scale in favor of good. But in the orthodox cult of a world full of hellish influences, ever working with the passions of men assisted by hereditary natural depravity, 256 Evolution of Religions to lead them into evil; free agency is a wholly delusive theory, a promise of hope and freedom to man as illusory and deceptive as fabled " Dead Sea fruits that tempt the eye, But turn to ashes on the lips." Our human theater of mental vision is very limited, it is true. We cannot fathom the plans and purposes of the Infinite. Many argue that the orthodox theory of God's moral government, though apparently illogical and unjust, may in His universal economy be right and best. But we have only our moral perceptions and our intellects, based upon God's moral laws in the Bible and in nature, to guide us in the paths of reason, justice, and truth, and from such Ughts which He has given us, the orthodox ideas of Satan and his mission and work are wrong and derogatory to God. Unless our ideas of His sovereignty, justice, and mercy are wholly wrong, and that He governs upon moral lines of which we have no conception and which are antithetic to the ethics of the Bible, the omnipotent, holy, and all wise Sovereign of the universe could not and would not permit such a fiend as Satan to exist and cany on with impunity his nefarious work. To permit him to do so would be a sur render or abandonment of every one of His holy attributes, and hence, ex vi termini, the Satanic Satan 257 theory of orthodoxy with all its honible sequences of earthly sin and eternal punishment is utterly iUogical and false. " God sitteth on the circle of the universe." He is ever on its throne and holds the helm of its government, and He cannot and does not permit such an evil being, one of His creation, to thwart all His purposes of infinite love. Orthodoxy dethrones God, and Satan's realm in its creed, is an "Imperium in imperio." Incredible ! He is represented in the Apocalypse of Revelation as a roaring Uon, going about in his mission and with his minions of evil, -unchecked everywhere, on earth at aU times, vested with powers of omniscience and omnipresence, every where present at the same time, knowing all the thoughts, passions, and doings of aU men, and continuaUy tempting all to sin and rebelUon against God. Under such overmastering influences, man's boasted free agency seems only freedom to sin. What wonder ancient Zoroastrians, believing Satan possessed such powers, supposed him to be a deity, contesting with God, and really having much the greater influence with men and having most foUowers? We beUeve the Satanic ascrip tions in the New Testament, as well as the few found in the Old, to be mostly allegorical, and, with the descriptions of the dark world of sheol, hades, or hell, to be fanciful colorings of the original text; in many instances perverted to 258 Evolution of Religions change the idea of the Greek world of departed spirits to conespond with the morbid delusions and fanatical creeds of the bigots of the Dark Ages, and all of them, however, inwrought in the Scriptures, to be entirely human ideas and beliefs, not of God, but bom of the superstitions and darkness of those ages and totally unworthy of credence now. Whether allegories, perversions of the original teachings, or merely superstitious fancies, or however they got into the Scrip tures, those teachings impeach God's wisdom, mercy, and justice, and hmit His sovereignty, and are, therefore, untrue. To read the old creeds, the Westminster Con fession of Faith, and the works of Calvinistic theologians, portraying the powers of Satan and the unutterable honors of hell, the impression is conveyed that we must believe in such tenets as essentials to salvation. Must we really beUeve that God is dethroned in His moral government by Satan, and beUeve in the eternal punishment of aU the myriads of men whom God has, accord ing to orthodoxy, permitted Satan to deceive and ruin forever? Only a few of those numbered among the elect, being enabled by special grace to persevere and get to heaven? The teach ings of some of the orthodox theologians of a hundred years ago seem almost incredible. Rev. Edwards in one of his sermons, inter alia, says: Satan 259 " The view of the misery of the damned will double the ardor of the love and gratitude of the saints in heaven." In the thirteenth of his pubUshed sermons he says: "When the redeemed shall see how miserable others of their fellow creatures are; when they shall see the smoke of their torments in hell, and the raging flames of their burnings, and shall hear their cries and shrieks, and shall consider that they, in the meantime, are in the most blissful state, and shaU surely be in it to all eternity, as the lost shall be in hell, how they will rejoice! How joyfully they shall sing to God and to the Lamb when they shall see this!" And if some of their feUow immortals thus suffer ing, are father, mother, son and daughter, brother, sister, and others, once near and dear on earth, the redeemed, according to Dr. Edwards, would rejoice in Paradise, and their happiness be abso lutely enhanced by the knowledge that those most dearly loved on earth and closest in the ties of blood and kindred, were suffering ever lasting torments, and from that knowledge realizing the amazing grace which, all unmerited, had elected the saved to enjoy endless bhss. We doubt if even the devil could be joyous over such ineffable honors! How can anyone have such conception of the inexorable vengeance of a being who says in the Good Book "that He is 260 Evolution of Religions our Father," that all people are His children ; that He is love itself and infinite in mercy ; that as in Adam aU died, so in Christ shall all Uve" ? Thank God the evolutions of religion are bursting the shackles of such teachings and are ushering in the dawn of a brighter day. The world is awaken ing to the light. Few Christians, even of the orthodox, believe in the hell of a century ago. The honible portraitures such as we heard in our youths from the pulpits of the world of the damned and its awful eternal honors, are never preached now and would depopulate the churches if again revived. The hell of the past is in fact absolutely eliminated from polemical essays and sermons nowadays. Its oceans of fire, drink ing of melted lead, and brimstone, myriads of howling, cursing demons, flitting about among the lost souls, and the horrible undying worm in whose folds the wretches were writhing, visions which sometimes yet haunt the dreams of those who in childhood, seventy years ago, heard such things thundered from every pulpit, are now relegated to the domains of fanatic superstitions and fossilized beliefs. Those honors have been transformed by the demands of modern Christian ity into the milder punishment of mental tortures and eternal exclusion from God. The evolutions of religious belief in the near future will certainly eliminate Satan and the ancient hell from the universe. Satan 261 There is and always has been evil in the world. The pages of history sicken us with the records of it; our own observations disgust us. But aU evil comes from the passions and appetites of the children of Adam and Eve, who were created with them, just as their descendants are. In the economy of God's government no devil was created to redouble temptation and fan the flames of passion. Why God created man as he is and always was, we know not, but doubtless in His wise economy it is best. As Adam and Eve were, so we their children are. We inherit aU the nature and tendencies for good and evil that we possess, and we have free agency sufficient to induce us to love and prefer the good, even when overborne by our frailties and canied into evil. None are whoUy good; none are entirely evil. When God created our first parents He knew just what they and their posterity would be and do, and His purposes have not been thwarted. When we do evil it is the inexorable law of our nature that we must suffer, but it will be temporary and finite punishment. When we do weU we are recompensed with good ; and there wiU be equable adjustments of punishments and rewards here and hereafter, and an ultimate restoration to good. We do enough and too much evil, and God did not create a devil to help by overpowering temptation to make us infinitely more wicked than we are liable to be naturaUy. 262 Evolution of Religions Most of human sin grows out of ignorance, pas sion, and heredity, not much from deliberate choice of sin. If our first parents and all their posterity should have been forever sinless with out Satanic temptation, then ex necessitate it was God's will that the primeval state of inno cence should cease, and the world's history of sin, disease, and death should be written as it has been. Such, if true, is the inevitable logic of the story of Eden and the fall. Orthodoxy can take either horn of the dilemma. There are undoubtedly, as many of the most eminent Jewish and Christian scholars of the present day assert, and clearly prove, numerous matters in the Bible that are not inspired nor are they communications from God, as we under stand inspiration to be. Many enors of fact that have got into successive editions and redactions of its various books, many mere legends and traditions derived from folklore originally, and magnified into the miraculous, many allegories, metaphorical and poetic fictions, often grand and beautiful, but outside of the realm of fact, so that it is often difficult to know what is really intended to be taught as veritable truths, or to separate allegories and illustrative fictions from actual facts, or to clearly understand the truths they are intended to convey. Inspiration is only wrought certainly into and can be clearly predicated of its sublime ethics, its revelations of God's attri- Satan 263 butes, and its history of the progressive develop ment of our race, along through the centuries from the beginning of time. It teaches emphati cally that God ever rules in the universe, and that nothing ever happens contrary to His will. There are no accidents in human life, none at least in God's economy. Jesus says that a spanow cannot fall to the ground without His knowledge, and that God numbers every hair of our heads. Yet orthodoxy teaches that God sits on His throne and permits Satan to go on forever with his accursed work of evil, irresist ibly dragging down the vast majority of the human family into endless misery, God only sometimes helping man in the conflict with Satan, who is generally the victor, when He could at once easily compel Satan to cease his work for ever, or else annihilate him. The theory of orthodoxy is utterly absurd and derogatory to God. Its reign is waning. The world, in the not distant future, will have a loving Almighty Father, but no Satanic majesty in its moral government. Good and evil, we repeat, virtue and vice, as the results of natural forces, affections, passions, temperaments, heredity, social influences, and life environments, are interwoven into our Uves and involved absolutely in God's mysterious governmental economy. Says Rev. Minot J. Savage in an article on the subject: "Here let it 264 Evolution of Religions be clearly understood and kept in mind that an infinite being must be held as ultimately and solely responsible for whatever he either ordains or permits. Keep also clearly in mind the dis tinction between an evil that is only temporary, and one that is eternal. Any kind or amount of evil and suffering that are temporary, that are only experiments in the development of a soul, may conceivably be justified by the final outcome. But in the nature of the case, eternal evil and suffering can have no outcome excepting more evil and suffering, and cannot, therefore, in morals be justified."1 This argument is logical, clear as a demon stration in mathematics, and unanswerable excepting by sophistry. We indorse every word of it. Moreover, we add that eternal evil and suffering cannot be justified by any system of morals of earth or heaven that is true, for the code of morals which God has given us in the Bible must be in the answer of our consciences, the code universal and eternal. Therefore by that code, eternal punishment cannot be true. St. Thomas de Aquinas, one of the great CathoUc Fathers of the Middle Ages, says: "God eternally knows all things as present, and through that knowledge those things themselves are caused." To know, with God, is to be. What He knows now, or in the future, is done, and all things are 1 North American Review, vol. 148, p. 921. Satan 265 as He wills. There are no such beings in the universe, or at least on earth, as Satan and his angels, and aU that any reUgions have ever taught of such denizens of hell and of heU itself are delusions born of priestcraft, superstition, igno rance, and fear. Enough, alas! too much, temptation to sin is evolved from human passions, human wants, and sufferings; often absolutely dominated and con- troUed by overmastering heredity, without any need of help from Satanic influences. Indeed, this heredity in our physical and moral natures is reaUy the law of nature in the propagation of all animal Ufe. It is the "visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children of the third and fourth generations of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands " (or really all of them) "that love God and keep His commandments." It was simply the misconception by Moses of a physical law as a moral law. The dreams of St. John in Revelation about Satan and hell, and his infernal powers on earth (if indeed the Revela tion is St. John's and not the product of some visionary mind), have no basis of credence or support elsewhere in the Bible and are utterly unsubstantiated. As has been already said in these pages, for several centuries after their appearance their authorship was doubted, and on account of their extraordinary character, and unsustained by any evidence or reasons whatever 266 Evolution of Religions to substantiate any claims to inspiration, they were refused admission into the New Testament Ust or canon, and were classed as Apocryphal writings. Narratives of casting out devils from persons supposed to be possessed of them, are not found in the Hebrew Scriptures, and those nanated in the New Testament or claimed to have been performed in subsequent times have no con firmatory evidence, as miracles tending to prove there were or are such beings, and the environ ments of such stories, show that the demons, of which those persons were said to have been possessed, were purely imaginary, and that they were only sufferers from insanity. Again, infinite punishment for finite and ephem eral sins is an unjust, impious, and immoral doctrine, untrue by every analysis and test of reason and justice. Our sins are the events of a fleeting day; our Uves are but a shadow of time. The punishment supposed is, for, maybe, millions and billions of years, endless, eternal. Accord ing to orthodoxy, the punishment is virtually the same for aU sins, and for persons of all ages and conditions. Indeed, according to Calvinis tic theology, hell is for all human beings, except ing the eternally elect and predestined to heaven, without, it would seem, much, if any, regard to merits or demerits, because the "elect are so divinely hedged about during earthly Ufe that Satan 267 salvation through final perseverance unto the goal of the heavenly Ufe, was a termination and gift of infinite grace which absolutely must result." 1 Indeed, in St. Paul's Epistle to Romans, if his language originally has not been tampered with by fanatics, that school of theology had broad wanant for such doctrine.1 For he saith to Moses, " I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and wiU have compassion on whom I wiU have compassion." "Therefore hath He mercy on whom He wiU have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth. ShaU the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory?"2 To the same effect in a previous passage we find: "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He caUed, them He also 1 Westminster Confession of Faith. * St. Paul's Epistle to Romans, ch. £x. 268 Evolution of Religions justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified." J Who authorized Paul to teach the doctrines of election, predestination, justification, and, of course, through no matter what intermediate mazes of sin and crime, preceded probably by con version, the final perseverance and salvation of the elect ? Paul was not authorized by the Savior to teach such doctrine. Jesus never taught it. His parables of the great maniage supper and of the owner of the vineyard who paid the eleventh-hour laborers the same wages as those who had borne the heat and the burden of the day, did not teach election and predestination, but only illustrated that of many who were invited to the heavenly feast, only a few got there, and not always those who had first and best opportunities, and that sometimes those who came into God 's moral vine yard late in life were equally rewarded with early converts, probably because they were more zeal ous in God's service and did more acceptable work. As an amehoration of the awful doom of some of the myriads who are condemned to endless pun ishment, we are -told by the beUevers in that doc trine that there are gradations in the sufferings of the damned accordingly as they are young or old, were greater or less sinners, or had greater or less light and opportunities in earthly life. 1 St. Paul's Epistle to Romans, ch. viii, vs. 29-30. Satan .269 Note, this is merely a concession to the liberal ism of the age. The Scriptures, if they really teach the doctrine of eternal punishment, wanant no such distinctions. But even if so, cui bono? Let us iUustrate. The child of a dozen years who has come to the knowledge of good and evil and dies unconverted, must, according to Calvinism, go to eternal punishment. A wicked man who has Uved to old age in sin, dies and goes to heU. Now, it is endless heU, hopeless heU, for both, and little matters it to the poor child that his suffer ings may not be quite so severe as the old sinner's, when they must be, as his, eternal. So with those who go there, who have had less knowledge or op portunities than others, what matters it to them if heU is endless? For by those who beUeve in a spiritual and not a bodily resunection, we are not informed how the fiery billows of perdition can burn and torture the disembodied spirit? For the old-fashioned heU of our ancestors, we suppose, a bodily resunection is essential. Away with such a creed ! It is a horrible delu sion, another MephistopheUan doctrine. But let it remain in the Scriptures, if it reaUy is taught there, as a curiosity, a relic of bigotry, ignorance, and superstition. AU denominations of Christians, excepting Unitarians and UniversaUsts, still teach it in its old-fashioned terms, in cpnfessions of faith and liturgies, but it is seldom or never preached as of yore from pulpits, and few, 270 Evolution of Religions excepting CathoUcs, really beUeve it or are influenced by it in their daily Uves. But in these latter days, in order to temper the dogma of eternal punishment to weak and doubting Christians who would rebel against it in its naked deformity, it is in vogue to repudiate the old-time hell, with its oceans of fire, its infernal tortures of the undying worm, and its drinks of molten lead, with vivid descriptions of which we used to be regaled in sermons in our boyhood days, such sermons as intelUgent, orthodox Christians would not now tolerate, and to teach that heU is a condition or result to which the sins of the wicked and impenitent bring them, and not a world, abyss, or place of Uteral bodily torture prepared for such by the eternal decrees of God. That unconverted of their sins when they die, the wicked could not Uve in heaven with God and the redeemed any more than pure good men and women could live agreeably in close com panionship with the wicked and impure on earth, and hence must necessarily gravitate to hell and the companionship of devils, and must there, as moral qualities either improve or degenerate, ex necessitate, continue growing in wickedness, and that their sufferings result only from remorse and the torments of their con sciences and regrets for loss of heaven. That the ancient traditional fires are fictions, that any change of heart and repentance in that world Satan 271 among the wicked and damned is impossible, or would not be heeded by God, if possible, and hence that the horrible condition of the lost must, from necessity, etemaUy continue. This is, of course, a great modification of the old dogma of hell, and made as a concession to the UberaUsm of the age, though not in accordance with the descriptions in Revelation which were insisted upon literally as infaUible and inspired pictures of heU for eighteen hundred years. But reaUy this latter day, and apparently more Uberal and humane theory of eternal punishment, does not in the least change or modify the relations of Satan to God and man. He and his angels are stiU permitted their work, as of yore, of enticing souls and filling hell in each generation of man kind with most of the human family just the same as ever, and the eternal result is the same, excepting that in the present conceptions of most Christians, mental torments are substituted for the old-time material fires of heU. In fact, the modernized Christian hell is sub- stantiahy the mythological Greek Hades, with the exception that only a. vast majority of souls go to the Christian Hades, and not all, as they did to the dominions of Pluto across the gloomy Styx. And when it is considered that material fires could not probably under any conditions affect disembodied or incorporeal essences, unless after the resunection in some mysterious way, 272 Evolution of Religions material bodies were furnished the lost in heU, the modernized idea of change of punishment in perdition does not seem to amount to much of a gain. The lost are, as in the old idea of heU, lost forever, and forever exiled from mercy and from God. Their punishment and doom are eternal, and the old serpent, the devil, pursues his ancient vocation on earth after more victims, unrestrained, and that vocation wiU continue, so far as we are informed, while the world roUs on its axis. The new theory does not seem to be much of a gain for the lost, excepting as they may blame themselves more and God less, in the con templation that the eternity of their exile from God is a necessary result, according to God's laws, of their impenitence on earth. But the result, the endless doom of the lost under God's decrees, is the same under either theory or con dition of hell, and Satan's work on earth, unre strained of God, continues ever the same. So that practically there is no gain to the lost in the modem theory of hell and its Umitations, excepting in the absence of fiery torments, which they, under the old theory, were forever enabled to sustain, but which as spirits could not hurt them anyhow. But if not doomed by the decrees of the Almighty to eternal punishment and exile, why should there be no end of it ? Why not a world of probation and repentance? Certainly there is Satan 273 no proportion of justice between finite sins and eternal punishment. No sane man wiU argue that there can be. A fanatic is not sane. There may be punishment in a future life; all sins and violations of God's moral and nature's physical laws are punished; but most, we opine, are pun ished on earth. Some offenses and offenders may not have had meted out to them due punish ment on earth. But our memories wiU remain, and we shaU know all in the future we knew here. Surely, if in the future Ufe, the wicked can have the vohtion to continue in sin and unrepent ant, they can also have the vohtion to repent. Feeling remorse for past misdeeds, as admittedly they wiU, loathing the companionship of the wicked and desperate, as weU as naturally longing for the joys of heaven, and association with the good and happy — surely they wiU sooner or later es chew love of sin, and heartily repent of past mis deeds. This must in the immortal nature of man be so. Therefore, according to the new orthodoxy, as only the stubborn persistence in rebeUion of those who have gone to the bad world keeps them there ; therefore, per contra, sincere, humble repentance would at once open their prison doors and admit them to a reconciled God and the heavenly Para dise. This is practically the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, UberaUy and universally appUed. Under the new theory of orthodoxy, no decree of God bars universal repentance, and universal 274 Evolution of Religions restoration of all humanity to heaven. Therefore, under the new theory of future punishment car ried out to legitimate and natural results, the evil world would soon be depopulated, excepting of any inconigibles who might prefer remaining there, "rather ruling in hell than serving in heaven." The result would be the universal salvation and restoration of all the human family to eternal hap piness, a result which only the supposed eternal de crees of God, as interpreted by orthodoxy, or the incorrigible stubbornness of the wicked, could pre vent of fulfillment. If reason, memory, volition, identity of self, remain with us in the future life (and if not, we would be no longer the selves we were on earth), then there is no reason — there can be no reason given — why repentance could not be in that life as well as in this, and no reason why infinite mercy would not be — yes, if infinite, must be — vouchsafed to the wretched and penitent in that world as well as in this. Our modern ideas of hell are merely evolutions of the intelhgence and charity of the age, from the old Zoroastrian, Egyptian, Brahman, Buddhist, Greek, and Christian beliefs of the past, and they are keeping pace with the progress of Uberal reU- gious sentiments. Doubtless in the coming years, those old imaginary realms of darkness and de spair, of those various old reUgions, wiU be forgot ten, or only remembered through antiquarian literature and classed with other bibUcal Apocry- Satan 275 pha. As the Ught of knowledge spreads, true reUgion assumes fairer and happier forms, and the goblins of ignorance, bigotry, and superstition vanish, as the shades of night before the sunrise. It is one of the peculiar phases of religious beUef , and doubtless owing largely to the influences of early training and impressions which are hardly ever entirely shaken off, no matter how enoneous, that Rev. Charles D. Briggs, the accomplished Bible scholar, usually so liberal and advanced in his rehgious views, who seems, from the tone of his writings, to have Uttle faith in miracles generally,1 and who in many instances denies, in toto, and in other instances strongly questions the commonly assumed authorship of biblical books, and who points out so many enors and interpolations in them, facts utterly at variance with the dogma of their infaUibiUty, should apparently believe in the doctrine of eternal punishment, though he says but Uttle on the subject in any of his writings, and indeed seems to evade the discussion of it. Another apparent inconsistency in his teachings is, that while he refers so strongly and depreciat ingly as he does in many places, to the conflicting doctrines of many eminent Jewish and Christian writers of aU ages, in reference to biblical exegesis 1 He says in " The Bible, the Church, the Reason," Appen dix, p. 279, "But it has been found easier to prove the Divinity of Christ without miracles, as if there were no such things as miracles and predictions in the Sacred Scrip tures." 276 Evolution of Religions and beUef , and himself differs so widely from many of them, upon a multitude of matters of bibUcal history, canon, tradition, authority, and doctrine, he should himself persistently urge that the Holy Spirit in the Bible taught so and so, on many ques tions, and that the Holy Spirit's guidance on aU controverted questions should be and was the only sure standard of biblical interpretation. Doubt less, he is theoretically conect. But who is to make the application? The Holy Spirit's only guidance is in the language and text of the Bible, and it has spoken only in the same text through many centuries, and to thousands of priests and scholars in aU their diversified interpretations, the same as it speaks now. Who is authorized apart from the Bible text itself to affirm that the Holy Spirit means or declares so and so upon any ques tion of fact and doctrine? The CathoUc Church assumes that the Pope of Rome, as vicegerent of God, is infallible, and has authority to declare in accordance with the canons of the Church and the decrees of general councils what are the Holy Spirit's teachings as to any and all matters in the Bible. Protestants, however, as well as the Greek Church, and of course Rev. Briggs, deny his authority to do so. As a matter of fact, although surely we must admit that the Holy Spirit's guidance should be the infallible standard of construction and belief, if that guidance and teaching were always surely Satan 277 vouchsafed to ministers of the Gospel or to any special persons, yet the burning question is — How are we to know certainly at any time or place who is under such guidance and what construction of its teachings is infallible ? Who is the inspired prophet or expounder of Scriptures, and when expounders differ, who or which is infallible ? Un derlying these questions is the whole subject of bibUcal authenticity and interpretations, doctrines and miracles. Oh, could we but know surely the Holy Spirit's will and have His guidance in all things, all questions pertaining to the Bible and reUgion would be speedily settled. But the end less and eternal controversy, as Dr. Briggs well knows, between all creeds and sects, bishops, priests, and controversialists, translators and in terpreters, Jews and Christians alike, has been and is: not that the Bible standard is not the infallible one, but as to what the Holy Spirit in that standard does surely teach. God is the Holy Spirit, and He delegates or transmits His wisdom and knowledge only in finite degrees to man. The Bible is God's teaching through men to man. Man's reason is given to interpret and apply it. So Briggs' standard of interpretation is the true one, but only in this, that the Holy Spirit speaks in the Bible to each reader of it according to the light of his own reason and conscience. Absolutely in all things what the Holy Spirit does teach in the Bible is the whole open field of 278 Evolution of Religions Scripture controversy over again, and the truth will never perhaps, in all its essentials, be fully known on this side of eternity. Each individual has in the Bible the Holy Spirit's guidance for himself as he honestly and fearlessly reads and beheves it, and God has vouchsafed to man on earth no other guidance. It may teach me one thing on any given question. It may teach Dr. Briggs otherwise on the same subject. The enor between us, if there be one, is in our dif ferent enlightenment and judgment. Such seems to us to be the whole sum and substance of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit's guidance. God's attribute of infaUibiUty is not given to man. Man is groping his way to Ught, but its effulgence will only fully inadiate the future life where we are promised, " We shall know as we are known." The Holy Spirit's guidance is only vouchsafed in this life through human intellects. And so it is God's will. He alone knows ultimate truth. AU man can do is to seek for that truth as earnestly as he can. Jesus Christ left His teachings only to the memories of his followers. So Dr. Briggs' standard resolves itself only in the Bible as it is and as it is understood by various minds. The Holy See of Rome assumes to be the infal lible expounder of the Bible, but only the mem bership of that church believes in such infallibility. The guidance of the Holy Spirit has been sought in aU ages by the prophets and priests of aU reU- Satan 279 gions, but it has only been obtained to the degree that they have been inspired to teach the truths of reUgion, imperfectly, as we have them in the vari ous Holy Books of earth. But absolute divine guidance, so that the human exponents of God's teachings shall be understood the same by every one in all things, has never been obtained, and most likely never will be this side of eternity. Each and all of the thousands of bibhcal translators, commen tators, and polemical writers, Jewish and Christian, in aU their multiplicity of writings, versions, and interpretations, claimed to have sought and many to have found the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But the world knows the conflicting results. So that such guidance should be clearly known and infaUibly conect, how are the teachers or how are their f oUowers to know, unless all honestly agree ? Why if there is such guidance, independently of the written word, should so many claiming it differ so widely as they do, and always have done ? Is Dr. Briggs an infaUible exponent of the Bible ? From the air of authority with which he speaks, one is apt to imagine that he feels so. Generally we indorse his views upon Bible exegesis. He is brave, hberal, and honest, profoundly learned, of great ability, and possessing the courage of his convic tions. He doubtless seeks the highest light, butman can only partially obtain it through the teachings of the Bible, and in nature's open book, and the light is refracted to each one according to the different 280 Evolution of Religions mediums of intellect, capacities, and environments it filters through. The supreme truth is only in God Himself. We do not think that Dr. Briggs is conect in assuming that Jesus is the Yahveh or Jehovah of the Old Testament, and that aU or any of the Mosaic sacrifices, ceremonies, and services are typical symbols of His future coming to earth, and vicarious sacrifice on the Cross, or that the old prophetic ascriptions to Jehovah, ever refer to Jesus. We have already stated many reasons why we believe such assumption is unauthorized. In addition, we may remark further that if Jehovah exists in the triune personahty of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, He so existed, as well, during the old dispensation as afterwards, and this relation would undoubtedly have been spoken of through inspir ation in the days of the prophets, as well as in the new dispensation, if it were so. But it is not, and God is everywhere spoken of in the old Scriptures as one and only one God, as if to exclude any other idea of Deity, but oneness. Isaiah, the greatest of all the Hebrew prophets, absolutely puts the seal of condemnation, as if by anticipating them, upon such later theories, in many of his prophetic teachings and particularly in the first chapter, wherein he declares emphat ically that all the Hebrew sacrifices and sacrificial rites were not only unauthorized by Jehovah, but were an abomination to Him, and hence they could not be in any way typical or symbolical of His Satan 281 future coming to earth in human form and as a sacrificial vicarious atonement. Others of the prophets, and particularly Micah, affirm the same disapproval by Yahveh, of sacrifices.1 Apart from such prophetic condemnation, we may reasonably ask, why should God manifest or typify Himself as a future Messiah, born of woman, through the debasing symbols of the similar heathen rites of the surrounding idolatrous nations, the bloody sacrifices of beasts and birds? Is it reasonable? Does it comport with Almighty wisdom, power, and glory, that He should do so ? The idea of such sacrifice being acceptable to God, is repulsive, and its frequent denunciation by the prophets must be in accordance with God 's aversion to this unseemly worship. The sacrificial worship of Israel was simply an institution of a semi-barbarous people copied from the customs of the sunounding na tions, and was not from God. It is absurd to beheve otherwise in the hght and civihzation of the present day, and it would not now be believed as ever from, or sanctioned by God were it not so taught in the Pentateuch. It was simply an absurd and barba rous system of worship of a barbarous age, adopted mainly from the Egyptians, to the worship of whose gods the Israelites were always so prone to return for centuries, notwithstanding Moses and the prophets. So besotted were they that they were frequently guilty of human sacrifices, as weU 1 Micah, ch. vi. 282 Evolution of Religions as of beasts; to Baal, Rimmon, Moloch, and other gods.1 The Almighty has revealed Himself to the extent that men were quahfied to comprehend His mes sages in the ages of the world's ignorance through chosen missionaries. Zoroaster, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Plato, Seneca, Cicero, Antoninus Pius, were all, in greater or less degree, inspired teachers of God 's will. Jesus Christ, the greatest of all prophets, was nearest divinity, and His teachings most divine. Doubt less even Mohammed, the Mormon teachers, Swedenborg, and other authors of assumed revela tions, had missions to perform in the divine econ omy of some importance; but there was Uttle of originality in their teachings, or in the historic or miraculous fictions which they promulgated. The knowledge imparted to their foUowers, by those who were given the Holy Spirit's Ught, had natur ally to be communicated in the ideas and language of the teachers and hearers to their fellow-men, and fallibility was inseparable to the communication of the messages. In after-times, translators and expounders of those messages, from the manu scripts in which they were originally written, made changes, additions, or interpolations which they supposed gave greater clearness and emphasis to their teachings. In so doing, they sometimes in jected their own sense of what obscure or doubtful 1 II Kings, ch. xvii, v. 17. Satan 283 readings ought to be when translated into other languages and versions. Such we know has been the case with aU ancient writings, and especially sacred books, aU versions of which greatly differ. Such would naturally be the case, even more so, in controversial matters or renderings into other lan guages of texts which affected different sectarian doctrines and creeds, than in matters of mere morals, law, history, etc. Investigation and com parison of texts and contemporaneous writings have shown this to be the case, as well with our Bible as with the sacred books of other reli gions. Nothing is too sacred for fanaticism and bigotry to pervert and change, to justify their own purposes, or maintain their usually nanow and iUiberal doctrines. The translations of our Bible in the Dark Ages, by incompetent or secta rian translators, suffered from such experiments. Ancient writings of aU kinds, from want of system in composition, no division or separation into chapters, sections, and verses, mingling of subjects, all capital letters, or no capital letters, no system of punctuation at all, and other defects, were very difficult to translate conectly, or to understand. Many ancient languages, as the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, had a rather nanow vocabulary, and hence the same words were so used and might have a dozen different meanings or shades of meaning, according to the subject-matter or context, and hence it was easy and natural, for 284 Evolution of Religions instance, in translators of biblical manuscripts who might be imbued with strong bias or secta rian feelings, to give a bearing to their render ings of the text entirely in harmony with their doctrinal views, but really at variance with, or something else than the original. No manuscripts of Bible books of an earher date than about the year 1000 a.d. are now in exist ence, and that was an age of extreme ignorance, bigotry, and superstition. Indeed, all ancient writings, sacred and profane, are from these and other causes imperfect and more or less unrehable. Ignorance, superstition, creduhty, incorporation of mythical as well as purely legendary matters, are discernible in all ancient writings. As to the Bible, largely from the ambiguities of expression, and the different shades of meaning given by an cient translators and interpreters, notwithstanding the honestly sought for and, doubtless, supposed guidance of the Holy Spirit, have resulted the formation of innumerable sects of Christians, some teaching Trinitarianism, and some Unitarianism; some the doctrine of eternal punishment; others the beUef in universal salvation ; to others creeds diametrically opposite and at variance, not only about such important matters, but contending also, and sometimes bitterly, about such non-essen tials as modes of baptism, and whether infants and adults, or only adults, should be baptized ; adminis tration of the Eucharist or Lord's Supper; ques- Satan 285 tions of election, predestination, foreordination, transubstantiation, and yet other matters more trivial; some sects of Christians even making certain of those comparatively unimportant differ ences, as regarded in the Ught of reason and com mon sense, absolute barriers to common Christian feUowship, or even a passport to heaven, of those good, pure, and worthy who otherwise held con trary behefs. No doubt St. Augustine, Chrysostom, Philo, Origen, Eusebius, Arius, Pelagius, Celestius, St. Thomas de Aquinas, Savonarola, Loyola, Gior dano Bruno, Servetus, Calvin, Luther, Neander, WiUiam Perm, Priestley, Dr. Channing, Sweden borg, Sir Isaac Newton, Wesley, and thousands of other good men and able Christian scholars, were equaUy honest, and each perhaps sought and beUeved themselves to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and yet aU held different rehgious opinions, and arrived, many of them, at widely opposite conclusions, none of them entirely agreeing with the others in their writings and teachings on biblical matters. On the other side, Strauss, Renan, Gratz, Well- hausen, WendeU PhiUips, Emerson, Theodore Parker, and other great scholars and philosophers, who were no doubt equally as learned and well in formed in bibUcal lore, reached entirely different conclusions on almost all scriptural subjects from those other great men. All minds are differently constituted. No two persons on earth are exactly 286 Evolution of Religions ahke physically or can exactly see or think alike ; and in the divine economy, diversity of thought and opinion, in all fields of knowledge among aU men, seems to be the universal law. Hence the guid ance of the Holy Spirit is in each man's con science and judgment. Each one should study the Scriptures for himself and obey the voice of God as it speaks to him in its pages, and that is Uterally f oUowing the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Its guidance of another may not be the "inner voice" for myself. CHAPTER XIV UNIVERSAL SALVATION TO me the whole Bible, as one religion and Ught coming from God, the Universal Father, teaches that hfe is but a probation and that all human beings wiU sooner or later enjoy God's boundless mercy. The scheme of salvation of nanow orthodoxy, including the sacrificial atone ment for and redemption of some, and the eternal punishment of most of the human race, was not evolved in the old dispensation, even remotely, nor taught by Jesus Christ. As has been already said, it was evolved in the Dark Ages of Christen dom by nanow-minded, bigoted ecclesiastics. The Hebrew olden sacrifices were not types of Jesus' death. Half of the time in the history of Israel they were offered to Baal, Moloch, Rimmon, Ashtaroth, and other deities of the sunounding nations, and in the same groves and on the same altars, and by the same priests, as had been used and officiated for the worship and offerings to Elohim or Jehovah. No intimation whatever of the sacrifices being of a symbolic character or as typical of the death or sacrifice of some other being, much less of deity, or of one of the persons 287 288 Evolution of Religions of a triune God, was ever given in the Old Testa ment. Such ideas were evolved first in the apos tolic writings, and only allegorically in them. If the sacrifices, instead of being the adoption of a religious custom of sunounding nations, were reaUy typical of Christ's Crucifixion, why was it thought necessary to slaughter thousands and tens of thousands of victims for centuries annually? And why a variety of animals, bulls, heifers, goats, sheep, and birds? What was symbolized by cut ting the animals to pieces before offering them on the altars? Or by offerings of bread, cakes, wine, etc. ? At some of the great feasts, thousands of animals were slaughtered at one time. Would not a monthly or yearly sacrifice of one animal as a type or symbol have been sufficient and vastly more impressive and refining than the daily sacri fice of hundreds or thousands, and thus avoid turn ing altars, erected to worship of God, into shambles? The priests and Levites, it is true, mostly got their food from the sacrificial animals, but why go through the forms of sacrificing aU of them ? If the sacrifices were designed, as claimed by Trinitarians, to remind the children of Israel of the future coming of a Savior of sinners, who was Himself to become a sacrificial atonement, certainly from any knowledge we now have, they never so spoke of them nor regarded them. No where in the Bible are they mentioned in that light. They were spoken of solely as propitiations Universal Salvation 289 for sins. Frequently God, through the prophets, spoke of His abhonence of such sacrifices.1 Would He have done so if they were really typical symbols of the Crucifixion of His Son ? If in the latter days of Israel's adversities, the prophets spoke of a Messiah to come in the dis tant future, He was heralded as Shiloh, or as a great prince of the House of David who would reign over all Israel in righteousness, and would possibly subdue all the world to His dominion, or at least restore the pristine greatness of the King dom of David and Solomon, the glories of which age, when their empire extended from the Mediter ranean or " Great Sea " to the Euphrates, and from the river of Egypt to Damascus, the Jews never ceased to extol and exaggerate, and for a return of which through a prince of that royal line in future ages, their hopes ever went out, and their last dying prayer to Jehovah was uttered. AU of Israel's impassioned poetic visions when not perverted or added to, as they were frequently by subsequent Christian translators and expound ers, had sole reference to such a prince. All of the prophecies of Isaiah from the fortieth chapter to the sixty-sixth, were additions made during or after the captivity, and the grotesque head ings of chapters, not only in Isaiah, but in all the prophets, were made by Trinitarian scholars after the division of the Bible into chapters and verses, 1 Isaiah i, 11-15. Micah vi, 6-7, 290 Evolution of Religions and prove nothing and are often entirely inappU- cable and inappropriate. Jesus ' death was not an atoning sacrifice, predestined from the day of the Edenic tragedy, but a most wicked and ruth less murder of the great Prophet and Founder of Christianity. All of Jesus' mission on earth was outlined in His great sermon on Mount OUvet, and there is not in it a single intimation of the doctrines of the orthodox creed, and His simple teachings are grander and truer than all the incomprehen sible dogmas ever written. Though some of the expressions in the apostolic letters as we now have them seem to countenance the orthodox scheme of atonement and redemption, there are reasons in the Gospels, and many facts of subse quent history, which prove conclusively that such doctrines were evolved long after Jesus' time and were sustained by the manipulations and perver sions of the sacred writings by bigoted transla tors. One instance in point we will give. In the King James version of the Bible in the First Epistle of John, ch. v, v. 7, the text reads: "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." This, as an entire interpolation, is left out of the revised version of the Bible by the many able scholars who made it. This bold in terpolation shows conclusively what Trinitarian fanaticism in the Dark Ages would do, and leaves us to imagine what renderings it probably gave to Universal Salvation 291 many other texts, and especially somewhat ob scure ones on the same subject. The Trinity was, as aheady stated, first formally adopted and enun ciated as a creed by a bare majority out of some five hundred bishops and suffragans of the Council of Nicea, 325 a.d., and Unitarianism, which had been the faith of the greater part of the Christian world for the first two centuries and a half, and of most of the Eastern or Asiatic churches, and of some of the Western churches, until that time, was su perseded and anathematized by the majority of the Council as aforesaid. But there were, neverthe less, many of the ablest bishops and priests who stiU adhered to the Unitarian or Arian creed, and it was not until the Council of Carthage, 511 a.d., that orthodoxy was finally established by the Romish Church then dominating all Christendom. Many of the greatest scholars and theologians in Christendom have opposed orthodox tenets, and this especiaUy during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The names of Socinus, Milton, Locke, Sir Isaac Newton, William Perm, Dr. Channing, Dr. Priestley, Daniel Webster, Dr. Franklin, Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, are among the brightest of those centuries. The Rev. I. E. Roberts, an eminent scholar and minister of the Unitarian Church, in a sermon deUvered in Kansas City, Missouri, a few years ago, said : 292 Evolution of Religions "In the first one hundred years of Christianity lived and wrought its founders. They were the Judean Prophet and His Apostles, and their imme diate successors. They were prophets in the high est sense of the term, not because they foretold future events, but because they were good men and inspired teachers. They walked with God. Their inspirations were from God. They were men of faith; of such faith in the truth to win its way, that they did not dream of any necessity of aug menting its force with dogmas or dramatizing it with symbols. Of such faith in God's kingdom, that they needed not the poor reenforcement of an autocratic priesthood or a supernatural church. This was the age, brief though it was, from whose sown seed all the generations since have been gather ing the abundant harvests.1 "With the beginning of the second or mechani cal age of the Church, dogmas first took their rise. During the first one hundred years of the ministry of Christ and His Apostles, no writer, Pagan, Jew, or Christian, is known to have set forth the doc trines of the immaculate conception, the material resurrection, or the miracles of Jesus. None of these things were written or taught during the first century. The doctrines of the divinity of Christ and of the trinity were not formulated till the beginning of the fourth century; the doctrine of original sin not until the fifth century, and that of the atonement still later. Of all the doctrines comprising orthodoxy, and which men have for * See p. 26. Universal Salvation 293 centuries been taught they must believe or be for ever lost, not one was ever formulated by Jesus Christ, or by His Apostles, nor by any one, until centuries after their time. But the mechanical age of religion, the age of creeds and dogmas, is passing away. Men are again seeking the spirit of that creative age, in which the immortal found ers of Christianity, without creed or formula, simply confessed, by life and teaching, their love to God and man, and in serving God, served both man and God, and thus fulfilled religion's highest laws." ' ' Before the problems of eternal Ufe ,aU men stand equal. The wise man and the ignorant, the pa triarch and the child, are alike mute and helpless, but aU peoples of aU ages and reUgion have be Ueved in the Ufe beyond. This human instinct, this deathless hope, symbohzed itself in the Christ ian festival of the resunection, which is linked by its name of Easter to the spring celebrations of the Teutonic nations, and by its associations with the Hebrew Passover. This festival points chiefly to the supposed resunection of a great prophet from the tomb, but in its wider meaning it stands for the universal human instinct of the power of Ufe to transcend change and death. This deathless hope was not confened on man by any culture or reU gion. It was before them both. It is an essential and inseparable part of human Ufe. It has with stood doubt and fear, and endures perpetually in spite of man "s inability to demonstrate the fact of 294 Evolution of Religions immortaUty. It is in accordance with what man knows of life's progress from lower to higher forms, and is the one assumption that gives unity and sanity to the universe. It may be best that man does not know more about the Ufe beyond. It must be best, or God would have given us more knowledge of it. Our work for the passing day is here. Death should only be looked upon as the deUverance of Ufe from the bondage of mortahty, a bondage more to be feared because it is a pleas ant one." Verily, as Dr. Roberts says: "ImmortaUty of man is the one assumption that gives unity and sanity to the universe." For man merely to live, work, die, without any hereafter, what for? what good? If such be his end, in what would consist, or where be found, the sanity of his creation, and the adaptation of all this marvelous world to his uses, enjoyments, and means of knowledge and happiness? The world could exist without him, with aU its glories and blessings. Seed time and harvest, winter and summer, could come and go, but what for? Of what avail in the logic of wis dom that man should be created with all his semi- divine powers and intellect merely to live and enjoy those things for a few years and die in annihilation ? Such an end to man would be, it seems to us, an unsurmountable reflection upon the omnipotence, omniscience, wisdom, and supposed infinite love of God. But a still greater reflection upon the Universal Salvation 295 wisdom and power of Deity it would be to admit that in aU this creation of myriads of immortal beings, God's purposes were so fantastic, or so over-ruled, or controUed by Satan, or destiny, that the great majority of the human race are doomed to suffer an eternal death of hopeless misery after this Ufe is over! LiteraUy, if all but an elect few are so doomed, then the creation of man had apparently better never have been. But the decrees of orthodoxy were born of bigotry and insanity. The truths of God's infinite wisdom and love brush them aside as mere cobwebs. CHAPTER XV SUMMARY OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM THE books of the Hebrew and Christian Bible compose a wonderful coUection. As a com pendium of the history, religions, legends, and traditions, of the myths, folk-lore, ethics, and poetry of the ancient Hebrews, and indeed gener ally of the countries bordering on the eastern Meditenanean Sea, it is unique and of inestim able value. There is no other book on earth like it, nor any of such transcendent importance to aU mankind. It is a many-sided book. It contains subUme ethics and revelations of deity, heights of oratory, gems of poetry, and glimpses of a future life, which for grandeur, simpUcity, originality and beauty, the libraries and Uterature of aU nations and aU times may be chaUenged in vain to equal. Its sketches of primitive patriarchal life and cus toms are more fresh and charming, old as they are, than any modem stories of romance. Its ethics are the truest and purest of any of the holy books of other religions, and hence must have been com posed under divine inspiration. They bear, per se, their own credentials and stamps of divinity, even as the God of our Bible has no peer in the 296 Summary of Biblical Criticism 297 delineations of deity in the other bibles of the world, grand as some things in them are. Our Bible contains the earhest and most rehable his tory of man extant, notwithstanding some imper fections. The truth of the ethics of our Bible and their adaptation to human experience and needs is self-evident. They are really, as similar ethics in Zoroaster, Buddha, and Confucius' teachings, axiomatic truths, and their divine origin does not depend upon Bible miracles or history. The prophets who were inspired to teach the moral truths to their feUow-men may have been so much influenced by their environments of su perstition, universal in those ancient times, as to have mterrnixed much of the history they wrote with myths, fables, and unrehable traditions, and in their simpUcity beUeved and penned those leg ends they found in common use, as historical facts. They did so no doubt, and honestly, as all ancient historians have done. But the hght of the moral sun which illuminated their minds was unclouded by passion, ignorance, and superstition. The ethics of our Bible are hence the world's heritage. But the historical and miraculous nanatives in it having to depend upon matters of memory, writ ings of other men, traditions, and time, like all other human affairs, depend for their authenticity upon evidence and proof. And whilst regarding as unauthentic the miraculous stories of the Bible, it is but justice to say that many of them are 298 Evolution of Religions wonderful conceptions of the human mind; the grandest and most poetic, illustrating the higher culture of the age, and those of inferior char acter the lower strata of ignorance and super stition. Our Bible is, we say once for all, preeminently superior, as a whole, to all the other sacred books of the world, and, notwithstanding its many purely human features and defects, it will doubtless ever remain as the supreme inspiration of divine Ught to the world. It invites from everyone the most rigid examination of its claims and the honest ex pression of beUef or disbelief. The unfair and sometimes ribald commentaries of Voltaire, Dide rot, Rousseau, Paine, and IngersoU, have not ma terially diminished the luster of the Bible nor greatly weakened its influence. Doubtless it has lost something in power, truth, and beauty from the original writings, in its compilations from un known authors, and in its many translations dur ing thousands of years into various different languages, from the ancient manuscripts. How fooUsh the claim of the Holy Spirit always direct ing compilers, translators, and copyists in their work and keeping them from committing enors Why did not the Holy Spirit, as means of avoid ing enors, instruct the workers to use originally chapters, verses, punctuation marks, vowels, etc., and indeed teach them, in the beginning of the compilation of the Bible books, the art of Summary of Biblical Criticism 299 printing? Facts are wanted, not conjectures or fictions. God has apparently always worked on earth, through ordinary human agencies, and man has had to use his inteUect to discover those agencies. How much the original sense of the Scriptures has been changed in controversial matters by both Jews and Christians, by inconect renderings, or even interpolations of translators and copyists, who wished to infuse their own ideas into the text as the conect version of what it should be, it is very difficult in many matters of controversy now to determine. We know, however, that many emendations, alterations, and additions have been made, as shown by the late revised version of the Bible and by comparisons of other versions and ancient commentaries. Even the Lord's Prayer, than which there is nothing grander or more beau tiful in Scripture, has been tampered with and an addition made to it. The Jewish rabbins taught in the Talmud that it was right to pervert or change any text of Scripture when deemed by them to be for the interests of Judaism to do so. In view, then, of enors, alterations, interpolations, and even contradictions, in some statements, if for no other reason, the claim of Bible inenancy is idle. Especially as to Scriptural history, bi ography, chronology, prophetic visions of futurity which have been unfulfilled, it is absurd, says Dr. Briggs, "to suppose that the superintendence of 300 Evolution of Religions inspiration extended to such merely human mat ters. Such does not seem to have been the province of the Holy Spirit, nor is the welfare of mortals, here or hereafter, involved in the absolute accuracy of Bible history or of Bible miracles. We know that in many such matters it is not accurate." Even as to biblical doctrines and tenets, there is, as Dr. Briggs further truly says, "a spirit in man which prompts many writers to add to truths, which they have received, the suggestions of their own minds as to the sense of what they think ought to have been stated." This disposition he iUus- trates by the instance of the pious fanatic, Ignatius Loyola, founder of the order of Jesuits, who boldly taught his followers that Jesus after His resurrection first appeared to His mother before appearing to Mary of Magdala, because, he said, it was the proper thing for Jesus to do so, that, as "Mother of God," Jesus must first have been seen by His mother after leaving the tomb. Loyola required the brothers of his order so to believe and teach, although the Gospels say Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene. Loyola, with the concunence of Rome, thus perverted a plain statement of the evangehsts to accord with his fanatical views, thus indorsing also an ancient tradition to the same effect, which held the evangelists' statements to be enoneous. In fact, the Catholic Church held for centuries Summary of Biblical Criticism 301 that the early traditions and oral teachings of the Fathers were paramount in any matters of dif ference to the written word of the Gospels and Epistles, and substitutions were frequently made, thus subordinating the doctrine of plenary inspira tion to mere traditions. Yet, as is the Bible now, with the imperfections of the many centuries of translations out of languages known as "dead," through which it has come down to us, it is, we repeat, the grandest book of earth, and the best, peerless in its ethics and theology, and to the honest and intelligent reader, discarding all bigotry and fossiUzed creeds, and fearlessly seek ing the truth, not alone in one or a few texts, but in the spirit and concord of all its pages, teaching a pure and holy rehgion, comforting in time, and safe for eternity. Its historical nana tives, Jewish and Christian customs, laws, and miracles, we may beheve in or reject as our con victions and consciences guide us. We do not need to believe in mysterious doctrines, unin- telhgible or incomprehensible. There are enough grand, plain, clear-cut truths for our guidance. We do not need to be non-resistants, communists, or Adventists, neither are we required to eschew any of the reasonable and healthful pleasures of Ufe for asceticism, penance for sins, or solitary fastings, nor forbidden the honest accumulation of property by industry and economy. The world is for all to be happy and enjoy Ufe. There 3°2 Evolution of Religions are privileges, pleasures, and duties for all, and a wide latitude for beliefs according to the general tenor and rational interpretations of the Bible. " The Scriptures, ' ' Jesus said, ' ' were made for man, and not man for the Scriptures." CHAPTER XVI A GENERAL SUMMARY OF BIBLE EXEGESIS AS a summary of what historical, ethnological, theological, geological, and general scientific examinations of the Bible by eminent scholars in the past century have accomphshed, as general conclusions in reference to the most important incidents in its history and literature, and without going more fully into details or comments than has already been done in these pages, we affirm the foUowing conclusions concerning some of the most important historical and miraculous nana tives in it which have been indubitably established by such examinations, and wiU doubtless stand the test of future criticism. First. The creation of the world or its evolu tion from primitive chaos into conditions fitting it for the existence of Ufe, vegetable and animal, certainly antedates the account of Genesis, accord ing to Hebrew chronology, by many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of years during the Archaian, or Eozoic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic Ages. The "beginning," when God created the heavens and the earth, goes back into the years of eternity, and only the Creator knows 3°3 304 Evolution of Religions the date. Whether our earth was originaUy an immense body or matter thrown off by the sun in a great explosion of its electrical forces, or formed from an accumulation and aggregation during countless centuries of the meteoric masses whirling through illimitable space, until finaUy consoUdated into spherical form and given its present orbit by Omnipotence, we shall never know unless we learn it in the future Ufe. But science teaches that for many hundreds of thousands of years after such creation or consolidation of its original material, the earth was going through the formative processes which left its mountains, plains, hiUs, valleys, oceans, seas, and rivers as they have been since the advent of man, and filled up its cavities with the vast deposits of coals, oils, gases, and minerals which exist, for the use of man, nearly everywhere. Different thermal conditions than ever known in history must have existed for centuries at some time in order for the propagation and growth of the wonderful vegetation from which all the de posits of coal, petroleum, and gases which now exist were formed and generated. Neither man nor animals, so far as science has discovered, were in existence during those periods, nor was man in existence during the long subsequent period, when the earth and the seas were inhabited by the monstrous forms of ancient extinct fossil animal Ufe, such as the mastodon and the immense am- Summary of Bible Exegesis 305 phibia of the ancient oceans. In the "beginning" the processes of creation, as nanated in Genesis, were in the illimitable past, and even the creation of man was, doubtless, many thousands of years before the Mosaic chronology, as computed by Archbishop Usher, or the authors of the Septu agint version of the Bible. Very few, if any, scientists now place any reli ance on either of these chronologies, or in the fab ulous longevity of the antediluvian patriarchs. The six days of creation, though doubtless used by the writer or compiler of the Genesis records in the ordinary sense of the word "day," are supposed now by most scientists and Bible scholars to mean periods of one thousand years each, or even much longer periods, conesponding to the evolutions and developments of the various processes of creation or formation, in the Cenozoic Age of the world. There is indeed a singular conespondence in the probabihties of primeval chaos when the "earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep," and the recog nized geological order of the creation or evolution of the flora, sea and land, animals, and, lastly, of man, with the nanative in the first chapter of Genesis, affording good reasons for believing that the nanative of the creative evolution was inspired of God. The sages of ancient Egypt, Persia, and Baby lon, from whose writings and traditions Genesis 306 Evolution of Religions was doubtless largely compfled, were not in aU probability thoroughly acquainted with the struc ture of the earth, and the indications of the geo logic ages. Apart from the nanative of creation in the first chapter of Genesis, the Bible antedi luvian history, as well as its chronology, is, evi dently, largely mythical, and the same may be said of its nanatives down to the time of Moses. After his time, they have more coherence and reli ability, though undoubtedly many of its pages, down even to the period of the Davidic dynasty, are mixed with myths, legends, and fables, and yet greatly superior to all sketches and fragments of all other ancient histories of that remote period, which are generally entirely unreUable. The Davidic empire was the golden age of Israel. David and Solomon were undoubtedly great men and great patrons of learning and philosophy, and from that time Hebrew history is generally accu rate, though, like all other ancient histories, fre quently marred by exaggerated and extraordinary legends. Second. It may be regarded as the certain re sult of discoveries, by the investigations and pro cesses of the Higher Criticism, that Moses did not write the Pentateuch in its present form, or Book of Job, usually ascribed to him; that Joshua did not write the book bearing his name ; that David did not write the Psalter, but only, at most, a few of the sacred songs; that Solomon did not write Summary of Bible Exegesis 307 the Song of Songs or Book of Ecclesiastes, and only a smaU portion of the Book of Proverbs; that Isaiah was the author of none of his Book of Prophecies beyond the fortieth chapter, and that most of those, after that chapter, were written in Babylon during or after the exile ; Jeremiah did not write the books of Kings or Lamentations; Ezra did not write the books of Chronicles, Ezra, or Nehemiah. Says Dr. Briggs: "The great mass of the Old Testament was written by authors whose names or connections with those writings are lost in obhvion. If this is destroying the Bible, the Bible is destroyed already. But who tells us those traditional names were the authors of the Bible? The Bible itself? The creeds of the churches? Any rehable historical testimony ? None of these ! Pure conjectural traditions. Nothing more." J The books of Ruth, Jonah, Esther, and Daniel are rehgious historical fictions in prose. The authors of them are unknown. Ruth is a most beautiful idyl of ancient Hebrew domestic life and womanly devotion. Boaz, Ruth, Naomi, are doubtless genuine historical characters. The books of Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs are Hebrew poems, the first a poetic fiction. Psalms is a coUection of Israel's sacred songs, composed by various authors, including Solomon, at various periods, and compiled during or after 1 " Study of Holy Scripture," p. 287. 308 Evolution of Religions the exile with the other books into one Bible. The same may be said of Proverbs, i.e., a book of moral, economic, social, and prudential rules. None of these nine latter books are probably in spired works, excepting only in the sense that les sons of the good, pure, and beautiful in everything and in all books are from God. Third. Judicially, no miracles of either old or new dispensation, nor of any other rehgion, are Uterally true, or at least sufficiently authenticated, or, as Scotch verdicts sometimes are rendered, ' ' not proven. " Some of those miracles may have been natural phenomena, exaggerated. Most of them are undoubtedly mythical or legendary, and were gathered up from popular superstitions and folk lore by the writers of the various bibhcal books. Among the most prominent of the legendary nanatives and mythical miracles are: A. The Noachic Deluge. It is now gener aUy held by Christian scholars that the Deluge, as recorded in the Bible, was local and not universal. Nor does the language of the Bible necessarily imply that it was universal. The traditions of such an event — for undoubtedly such traditions existed, from very ancient times, in the fabulous histories of Babylon, China, Greece, Egypt, and India, as well as in Genesis — may have been based upon the fact of some great seismic convulsions of the regions Summary of Bible Exegesis 309 bordering on the Meditenanean, Persian, Red seas, and the Euphrates River, in very remote antiquity, whereby the waters may have over whelmed the adjacent countries, the seats of the earhest civihzations known on earth. If the stories of the great longevity of the ante diluvian peoples are true, the earth must have had a vast population at the time of the great cataclysm if universal, and the story of only one famfly being preserved with animals, birds, and reptiles, gathered from all quarters of the globe into the ark, is quite unreasonable.1 There are indications on the earth's surface of the erosions of mountains and hills, and the fining up of valleys by some great force which is believed by scientists to have been a glacial deluge of a period previous to the existence of man and animals upon earth, and which prob ably extended all over the earth. According to that theory, in the Mesozoic or beginning of the Cenozoic Age, the whole earth had a tropical climate and was covered with an immense tropical vegetation from pole to pole. Then a period of intense cold followed, in which aU the earth was covered with snows, finally condensing into glaciers of ice many thousands of feet in thickness, especially in the polar regions. Again a change in the temperature of the earth's atmosphere occuned, and the 1 " Narratives of Genesis," by Ryle, p. 112. 310 Evolution of Religions vast masses of snow and ice began to melt, submerging the earth, the vast ocean carrying on its surface, from the polar regions to the equatorial, great masses of Arctic ice and rocks, and crushing through mountains and all ob structions in the rush of its mighty waters towards the equator, uprooting in its course and carrying on its flood, as well the mighty forests which had covered the earth and depositing them in valleys to form the vast beds of coal and the laboratories of oils and gases which are found in such almost inexhaustible quantities in so many countries of the world. I had the great pleasure of hearing the grand naturalist and scientist, Professor Louis Agassiz, lecture on the very interesting subject of the glacial age and theory, in the winter of 1864 at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. When the glacial deluge occuned, if the theory be true, — and it accounts for many re markable changes upon the earth's surface, which a mere temporary submergence of waters could not have occasioned, as well as for the vast formations of coals, which otherwise would be unaccountable, — it must have been in a geologic age before the Mosaic chronology, and the creation of man, for no human being could have been living upon the earth during the glacial period, and no remains of men or animals are found in the great coal formations. Summary of Bible Exegesis 311 So that the glacial deluge could not have had the remotest connection in time or fact with the Noachian Deluge. B. The passage of the Israelites through the waU of waters of the Red Sea and the river Jordan. These events have already been suf ficiently commented on. There is no evidence whatever in Egyptian records or monuments, as there would have been, if true, conoborating the Bible accounts, that they occurred, as stated, in Exodus. Possibly the Israelites may have passed over some marshy grounds bordering the sea on its northern extremity, on their migration from Egypt, and doubtless did at some point ford the river Jordan in their passage into Canaan. No Egyptian annals or records of any kind have ever been found commemorating, or even referring to, the pas sage of the Red Sea, although plenty of annals and monumental inscriptions of that date, and especiaUy of the monarch who then ruled over Egypt, stiU exist. Herodotus, the Greek his torian, who traveled in Egypt about 450 b.c, and who wrote fully of the history, religion, and customs of the people, makes no mention of it. Nor does Manetho, the native Egyptian his torian, who wrote about 275 b.c. The mummy of the Pharaoh, Meneptha, son of the great Rameses II, in whose reign the ten plagues of Egypt are said to have taken place, and who 312 Evolution of Religions was overwhelmed with his army in the Red Sea, according to the song of Miriam,1 is now said to be in the British Museum in London. It was found in the sepulchers of the kings of Egypt in one of the pyramids, and no hiero glyphs or inscriptions of any kind on his sar cophagus, or tomb, have any reference to these wonderful events. Indeed, as most of the older books of the Bible were originally poems, it is a question whether many of the miraculous stories were not merely important events gilded with the extravagance and license of oriental im agery, and not penned as Uteral statements of facts. Few inteUigent persons now, Jews or Christ ians, believe that the story of the sun and moon standing still at the command of Joshua was ever intended as a statement of fact. It is evidently an exaggerated poetic fiction as a finale of a song of triumph for the great victory over Israel's foes. The context of the story of the passage of the Red Sea, the "strong east wind" blowing the shallow waters of the marshy bayou at its northern extremity into the deeper sea and thus making a way for the Hebrew host, shows that the march of the people on foot, without animals or vehicles, divested of any poetic embellishment, was an extraordinary, but not 1 Exodus, ch. xv, v. 19. Summary of Bible Exegesis 313 supernatural occunence. The Egyptians with their horses and chariots following after them over the boggy ground may have been over taken and drowned by the returning tide after the subsidence of the simoom.1 And so divested of the garniture of florid Asiatic poetic imagery and supernatural embelhshments, doubtless most of the miracles of the Scriptures may be simflarly resolved into natural occunences. C. The story of the manna falling every morning, and the flocks of quails coming every evening and alighting by millions around the camps of the IsraeUtes, to be taken for their food, and indeed, with the manna, their only food, during their forty years' wanderings in the desert of northern Arabia. And also of the stream of water gushing from a rock at the command of Moses, following and meandering around with them through the deserts and over the mountains for the same period. One ac count 2 says this stream burst out from the rock in the beginning of their migrations, but another and later account of the same miracle, possibly from a different author,3 says the stream began its flow near the close of their journeyings. Now, did the stream without any channel run up hill and down vaUeys and over mountains and burning sands, or had engineering, cuttings 1 Exodus, ch. xiv, v. 21. * Exodus, ch. xvii. 3 Numbers, ch. xx. 3*4 Evolution of Religions and fillings, or embankings to be done ? It is evidently a fable, as is the story of the manna and the quails, a generic product of that land of wonderful legends. No earthly commemo ration of the poetic fiction is to be found in the topography, geology, or natural scenery of the country, or in any contemporary Baby lonian or Egyptian history. Upon no rules of legal evidence of any his torical events can these nanatives be sustained. To believe them literally is to fling all evidence to the winds, and be ready to believe in every thing supernatural told us, simply because it comes in the guise of religion. D. The story of Balaam and the ass. This is so utterly absurd that one wonders if it was not extracted from " Baron Munchausen," or the "Arabian Nights." It is incomprehensible that millions of sensible human beings have for ages believed the story without a scintilla of proof. In fact it is so utterly unnatural and absurd as to be incapable of proof. The story of the walls of Jericho falling prone of themselves before the en circling Hebrew army, using no arms, or engines of war for their reduction, but simply blowing upon rams' horns, is nearly as silly as the story of Balaam and the ass. Moreover, consider the Almighty Father commanding the Israelite intruders, against whom the people of Jericho had never raised an arm, to slaughter every Summary of Bible Exegesis 31; man, woman, and Uttle child in the doomed city, excepting the harlot Rahab and her relatives. That command alone is sufficient evidence that the legend is not true. No wonder that the thousand and one religions of earth with aU their legions of miracles, saints and angels, devils and fiends, have had countless millions of votaries, when intelligent cultured people even now believe such legends as literal truths, and not fabulous or allegorical. One can only wonder at the supineness of human credulity when reason vacates her throne over the mind at the behests of priestcraft and superstition. E. The phenomena of the sun and moon standing stiU. Really of the earth and moon stopping abruptly for a day in their revolu tions round the sun at the command of Joshua ! Enough, methinks, has been said in these pages on this subject already. But we will hazard a few more considerations on the stupendous story. It was written, most probably, as an exaggerated poetic fancy or exultation over the defeat of the Canaanitish army. Most liberal Christians and advanced Bible scholars believe the story was written by Joshua, or whoever was its author, as a poetic fiction. It certainly was original, and so extravagant that no other poet has ever emulated such a flight of fancy, or is ever likely to do so. It is simply amazing 316 Evolution of Religions that it ever was beUeved, as it has been for so many centuries by Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans, as a hteral fact, and especially since the Copernican system of the revolution of the earth, moon, and planets around the sun has been universaUy recognized as conect. Standing as a supposed fact, this story alone casts discredit upon all Bible miracles. The belief of Christians in it, as well as the belief in such miracles as Balaam and the ass, and of the story of the devils going into the herd of swine, is a stronger, nay, an overwhelming argument against the authenticity of those and aU other miracles, a stronger argument than the mere publication of them, for these may have been merely written as allegories or popular myths, but the belief in them as facts shows that the credulity of human beings in stories of the supernatural is so great as to make ordinary human testimony about such matters utterly worthless. No amount of evidence can prove such absurd stories to be true. Intelli gent reason recoils at them. It is derogatory to the attributes of God to suppose He would lend His power to the performance of such miracles. Any person who can believe such stories as Uteral facts, can easily believe any thing whatever of a miraculous character taught by the books or priests of his religion. Possibly God, in His omnipotence, could so anest the Summary of Bible Exegesis 317 movements of all the bodies of the whole solar system, and perhaps also of aU the suns and their attendant planets of the whole universe, which most likely such a miracle as Joshua's would involve, and might suspend all the laws of momentum, gravitation, and attraction, but there is no evidence whatever that He did so, and the probabflities are countless billions to one that He never did so. And if He did so, in Joshua's case, what for ? Where would be the relation between such a stupendous exhibition of Almighty power and the question of extermi nating a few thousands more or less of God's chfldren, even though they were Israel's ene mies? Such a miracle would, it seems, wreck the universe! Astronomy teaches that God never worked such a miracle in the case of even one of the most insignificant of the heavenly bodies. But as a mere poetic fiction or alle gory, the story is harmless, and such it probably is. F. The slaughter of five hundred thousand soldiers of the army of Israel in one battle by the army of Judah. This has been hereinbefore sufficiently discussed. Also the destruction of one hundred and fifty thousand men, the entire army of Sennacherib, King of Assyria, in one night by an angel of God.1 G. The story of Jonah. Certainly an ex travagant allegory, but under that guise incul- 1 Mitchell's " Isaiah," p. 45. 318 Evolution of Religions eating the grand moral truth that God cares for aU men, a truth much needed by the IsraeUtes. Instead of the poem having been written very anciently, as used to be believed, the best biblical critics now assign to its composition a date during the exile or subsequently. H. The drama of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and of Nebuchadnezzar's seven times heated furnace in the plain of Dura. Very grand, but there is no proof of it histori cally, or otherwise, which there ought to be if true. Berosus, a Chaldean priest of high character, wrote a history of Chaldea about the year 300 b.c, not very long after the alleged miracle. Many fragments of his work exist, but they contain no reference to the wonderful event. No mention is made of Daniel or of the three friends who were cast into the furnace. They, as well as Daniel, were doubtless fictitious personages. The book was evidently written long after Nebuchadnezzar's time, and sub sequently to the death of Alexander the Great, for it contains frequent allusions, veiled under the guise of predictive prophecy, to the great Macedonian conqueror, and the successors to his dismembered empire. It was probably written by a Jewish rabbi, but is full of much later Christian interpolations. It is as great a favorite, almost, of millennial dreamers and Second Adventists, as the Apoc- Summary of Bible Exegesis 319 alypse of Revelation, and equally as unsub stantial. If we must believe everything that comes down to us in so-called sacred books without other evidence than the books themselves, then we might as well believe the absurd fables of the Hindoo Vedas, and the Finland Kalavelas, as well as the ancient legends of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Islamism. Advanced Bible scholars now generaUy regard the Book of Daniel as a religious romance written to en force great moral truths, and especially a belief in the absolute certainty of protection and safety for those who trust in God. There is not a particle of commemorative or corroborative evidence of the furnace story, or of Daniel having been thrown into a den of lions and afterwards coming out unharmed, or of such a person having at any time been made the chief prince or deputy ruler of the kingdom of Persia. /. The Book of Esther, Queen of Ahasuerus, King of Persia, is a romance pure and simple, with little, if any, substratum of facts. It was written probably to enforce the same moral ideas as the Book of Daniel. There are extant contemporary Persian and Babylonian histories of those times, and not one wori of the incidents related in either Daniel or Esther is found in them. No such personage as Esther probably 320 Evolution of Religions lived. Certainly the events mentioned in the book are such as no historian of ancient Persia would fail to notice. Can we believe that first many Jews, and subsequently seventy-five thousand Persians, were murdered, as the out come of the Agagite conspiracy, and that no historian would record the story of Queen Esther, and such turmoils and slaughter ? How came Haman, the Agagite,1 with his family and race to be so numerous and powerful in distant Persia, when, according to the First Book of Samuel, the last of that tribe of people, so hated by Israel, and Israel's God, had, centuries before, been utterly exterminated by Saul, King of Israel, and Samuel the Prophet, as they had once before that time been nearly exterminated by Joshua in the wilderness of Arabia ? 2 The destruction of Haman and the last of the tribe of the Amalekites seems to have been the great sensational feature of the drama which the writer of the book was working up for the delectation of the Jews, the hereditary enemies of the Amalekites, from whom the Agagites sprung. J. Jesus Christ through His mysterious soul, birth, and divine endowments of wisdom and power, was spiritually Son of God, and naturally bom of Joseph and Mary, was also Son of man, and, through Joseph, of the^lineage and blood 1 First Book of Samuel, ch. xv, v. 8. ' Exodus, ch. xvii. Summary of Bible Exegesis 321 of King David, thus uniting in himself all the attributes and characteristics predicted of the ' ' Messiah ' ' by the prophets. He never gave any indorsement to the legend of the theophanic conception, nor was it ever taught until many years after His Crucifixion, and then probably only as it was evolved in the halo with which time and love and veneration had enshrined Him. Neither of the Gospels, in present form, was in existence until some time after his death, probably in the second century. Some of the Apostolic Epistles speak of a "Gospel," or "the Gospel," but none of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, and hence they must have been compiled after all the Epistles were written. The citations of Matthew and Luke, from Old Testament books, are inappli cable, but show the apparent necessity to their minds of sustaining the legend by them, and that, without the support of such references, the story of the virginal conception would hardly have gained credence even in that age of supernatural beliefs. St. John in the first chapter of his Gospel evidently speaks of a soul conception, bom with the body, and it was evidently of this spirit birth in and with his natural body that Jesus made the mysterious declaration of His having come from God and that before "Abra ham was, I am." His mother Mary, wor- 322 Evolution of Religions shiped by the CathoUc Church as the " Mother of God," contrary to the divine teaching of the eternity and self-existence of God, not withstanding the angelic announcement which is said to have been made to her of His birth, never seemed to realize that Jesus was other than her and Joseph's son. In the absence, as hereinbefore stated, of any evidence that Mary was a daughter of King David's line, if Joseph was not Jesus' father, then the citations and references from the prophets as to the birth of a Messiah or Prince of David's blood were inapplicable to Jesus. There are no reasons for supposing that Jesus knew of the story of His miraculous birth. He never, even remotely, alluded to it, but seemed to teach that He had been endowed with a preexistent soul which came from and had been with His Father God. He was aware of the universal recognition given Him by all the people who knew Him from childhood as the son of "Joseph," the carpenter, and no word or intimation did He ever give that such recog nition of Himself, or of His brothers and sisters, was not conect. Romans and Galatians teach distinctly that Jesus was of natural parentage and birth.1 Had it not been thought essential, during the second century, when the Gospels were compiled, in order to sustain the atone- 1 Romans, ch. i, v. 3. Galatians, ch. iv, v. 4. Summary of Bible Exegesis 323 ment theory, that Jesus should have been born immaculate, the idea of His theophanic con ception would never have been originated. With the earhest worshipers of the one true God, the ancient Zoroastrians, disbelieving in the virtue or necessity of any blood atonement, or any other atonement or sacrifice for sins, except ing by the repentance of the sinner himself, and his pardon thereupon by the only infinite re deemer, we must, of necessity, believe the story is mythical. In addition we note here that the two Gospels of Matthew and Luke speak of the "Espousals" of Joseph and Mary before the conception of Jesus, and of no subsequent marriage, so they were really husband and wife at the time, as they were always afterwards recognized. K. The nanative of the temptation of Jesus by Satan has aheady been sufficiently criticised in these pages. There is not, and from the nature of the case, could not possibly have been, any external evidence to support the story, and internally the reasons for discarding it from the Bible as untrue and sacrilegious are, we think, overwhelming. L. The story of the angel descending from heaven at certain times to disturb the waters of the Pool of Bethseda, in St. John's Gospel,1 for the purpose of imparting miraculous proper- » Gospel of St. John, ch. v, vs. 2-9. •-•--¦ 324 Evolution of Religions ties to the waters, has been discarded from the revised version of the New Testament by the able scholars who made the revision as an in terpolation. The story of the woman taken in adultery, and Jesus' conversation with her, was also virtually rejected by the revisionists as an interpolation, but permitted to remain in the Gospel, probably on account of its lesson of mercy and repentance. We merely refer to these two comparatively unimportant incidents to help illustrate to what extent interpolations in the original Gospels and other bibhcal books in the early ages were possible and probable, when the fanaticism, bigotry, or peculiar sectarian views of the translator, redactor, or copyist made it seem to him advisable in the interest or creed of his sect or party. M. The story of the legion of devils being cast out of the insane man by Jesus and receiv ing from Him permission to go into a herd of swine nearby, and actually entering into them and driving them into the sea, is so absurd and out of place in a book of divine ethics, that one can only wonder how it ever got into the evange list's biography. It is undoubtedly from its silly character an interpolation by some copyist who had heard or seen the legend and believed it. It ought to have been discarded by the revisionists and put into Rev. Dr. Pick's col lection of Apocryphal legends of the Savior Summary of Bible Exegesis 325 once believed in, but now universally discarded. Such foolish tales disfigure the Good Book, and tend to impair even the force of its grand moral lessons. This and a few other miracles, besides several others of the same quality herein refened to, should have been expurgated from the Bible by the revision committees as hardly worthy to be retained therein, even as curiosities of ancient literature and beliefs. As old legends they are valueless and unattractive even as supposed allegories or myths, really answering no apparent good purpose what ever. N. No evidence whatever has ever been found conoborating the story of the super natural darkness which is said to have enveloped the world at the time of Jesus' Crucifixion, or in proof of the statement in St. Matthew1 that many of the dead in the sepulchers around Jerusalem arose from their tombs and were seen by their relatives and friends in the city. This was a most astonishing circumstance, if true, and it certainly would have been at once heralded all over Jerusalem and the sunound ing world. Was it so done? We answer no, because it was never heard of, or published elsewhere than in Matthew's Gospel. Why did not the other three evangelists mention the amazing occunence? Why did not the Apos- 1 St. Matthew, ch. xxvii, vs. 32, 53. 326 Evolution of Religions tolic Epistles refer to it as corroborative of mortal resunection? Dr. Briggs' "argumentum ad silentiam" in this case is alone sufficient to refute the story. It is a legend pure and simple. Josephus forty or fifty years afterwards wrote his book of Jewish antiquities and certainly from his silence had never heard the story, nor of the earthquake. He was a behever in miracles, for he indorses all the old Bible miraculous stories, and would have undoubtedly refened to these had they been commonly talked of. He was a boy of eighteen or twenty years of age at the time of the Cruci fixion. If the story of the resunected dead saints are true, whatever became of their bodies again ? After the excitement attending upon the Crucifixion was over, did they visit Jesus to honor Him, and then go back to their lonely tombs to become dust and ashes again ? Or did they remain on earth for days or years and finally die natural deaths a second time, or become "wandering Jews" forever, like the hero of Eugene Sue's celebrated romance of that title? At least, it would naturally be supposed that having thus cast off the garments of death and been resunected to mortal life again they would certainly remain on earth to greet the Savior after His resunection, .or possibly stay and be with Him until His Ascension, and by analogy with what we are told 4498 Summary of Bible Exegesis 327 the holy dead will do after reanimation at the gen eral resunection, ascend with Him from Mount Olivet before the eyes of Jesus' wondering dis ciples. But they are never further heard of or noticed by the evangelist. We are left in mystery and wonder to imagine what became of those resunected saints after they were seen and con versed with by their Uving friends in Jerusalem. Presumably those reanimated saints, from the tenor of the nanative, returned to their graves soon after Jesus' resunection, there again to resume the ashes and habiliments of death. If so, what was the object of their temporary resur rection and resumption of mortal garb, and what good did they accomphsh? Did they appear in Jerusalem in the cerements of the tomb or in the garb of the day, and if so, how were their garments furnished them? They were probably Jewish saints who knew not Jesus. Why were they reanimated and how many were they? Matthew says: "Many bodies arose." 1 And why were the friends and relations who saw and doubtless con versed with those reanimated dead, in the holy city, forever mute and dumb about the inter views? Not one of them ever told the story of the astounding visit of their, maybe, long ago departed friends, and of the secrets of the unseen world, imparted by them, so far as the world has ever been informed. Matthew, alone of the 1 Matthew, ch. xxvii, vs. 52-53. 328 Evolution of Religions evangehsts, tells the story of the resunected dead, and he is silent on all those other questions. From the manner and context of its inter jection into his Gospel, it looks like an interpolated legend, added at some time, in some compilation, by an enthusiast or fanatic. We have read many lives of Christ by orthodox writers, and in not one of them are the questions naturally suggested by the story in Matthew of the resunected dead ever even broached. Methinks, if the story were true, the reanimated saints would have long remained in Jerusalem as an inefutable object lesson in themselves to aU the people of the certainty of resunection of the dead and immortality. In no way otherwise could such a lesson have been given, and it would forever have silenced the disbelieving Sadducees, as it would have abso lutely attested the truth of the Pharisees and Jesus' teaching of the resunection. But the saints come and go for a few hours possibly, in silent procession, and then like Hamlet's ghost "troop back to their tombs," and that is all. Now why are people required by the Christian ministry to believe such unnatural and entirely unauthenticated legends? Is it simply because we find them in our Bible, and because they have been there for centuries (many of them of dense ignorance), originaUy written there we know not certainly when, where, or by whom? Or because, like the silversmiths of Ephesus, they Summary of Bible Exegesis 329 realize that the great orthodox temple would f aU and crumble, and their occupation be gone, if such stories were classed as mere legends ? Where is the evidence, or even the probabilities, of the truth of such stories? The masses of the intelli gent Jews, who then Uved, did not beUeve the supernatural incidents said to have been attendant upon the Crucifixion, even if they then heard of them. We are told those who indited them were inspired and could only write the truth. But who were they, and how do those who tell us they were inspired know any more about the fact of inspira tion than those to whom they tell it? Their Gospels have many differences. Such is the claim which the priesthood of every religion has always urged to support all religions and all miracles. Out of a dozen or more Gospels of Jesus' life by as many various authors, the four of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were only adopted as canonical by a council of bishops in the fourth century a.d. Several of those other Gospels are stiU used in Armenia, Egypt, and Abyssinia. But suppose, as we believe, those who originally penned the books of the Bible, no matter who they were, and whether they were the authors whose names are given to the various books or not, were inspired to teach of God and His attributes and His moral laws, and those lessons only, and incidentally of their own volitions, wrote the biographical and historical records, why necessarily must all they 33° Evolution of Religions wrote about mere human matters be regarded as inspired of God? Certainly if inspiration was given holy men only to teach of God and man's duties to Him and their fellow-men, there was no especial reason why it should be given to them to impart scientific, astronomical, geological, geo graphic, or historic knowledge. In truth, the Bible itself shows it was not given for such pur poses. It was not plenary inspiration for all purposes, but only special inspiration to impart religious truths. This applies as well to other religions and to their histories and miracles as to ours. What good to the world, excepting for merely educational advantages, would divine enlightenment in reference to history, sciences, poetry, traditions, etc., be? Why was it neces sary for the welfare of men that the ancient sages should have such universal inspiration? At any rate the Bible clearly shows they did not have it. The knowledge they could thus have imparted, as inspired, might have made men more intelligent, but not necessarily any better. The Bible nowhere teaches that its kings, lawgivers, prophets, and priests had universal inspiration. Many of the laws and ordinances of Moses prove in themselves that he was not inspired as a lawgiver, or even as the author of ordinances and forms of religious worship. The missions of the prophets and priests were evidently solely to teach moral and religious truths. When they Summary of Bible Exegesis 331 undertook to write history and teach astronomy, geography, etc., the books show they were fre quently in enor. So Jesus taught of Moses. We may say absolutely, upon the wanant of the Bible itseff, that the only test of inspiration is exalted goodness and the divine truths taught of God and the relations of men to Him and to each other, and such inspiration was only given of God for His glory and for human welfare. Hence miracles, if permitted by Deity for attesta tion of inspiration, would be enacted and be visible in aU ages and all countries for such purposes, and their authenticity would be such as none could question or disbelieve. God, we believe, in His all-wise providence, has never permitted any miracles excepting as they are found in His creation and works of nature, which aU can see and explore. The mission of inspira tion is to teach men higher and grander moral truths than they can learn merely from nature. " Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit," so says St. Peter, so the Bible everywhere teaches. But why should the Holy Spirit undertake the mission of inspiring men of the things they could learn as well from their fellows or could teach them as well from their own knowledge? Hence in its historical and bio graphical nanatives, its chronology, astronomy, and geography, many of its civil laws and social and domestic regulations, purporting to have 2,2)2 Evolution of Religions come directly from God, we know there are many errors, and that inspiration cannot be predicated thereof, despite the dogma of orthodox infaUi biUty. We think we have given many good reasons in these pages for this assertion. God knows we only seek the truth, and prayerfuUy we have sought it. We affirm the sufficiency of the Scriptures for moral light, and that any honest intelligent man or woman endowed with ordinary knowledge and common sense has as patent a right to judge of biblical infallibility and the truth of everything in its various books and Epistles, as any other man, be he pope, cardinal, bishop, or priest, and no man or body of men, council, synod, or propaganda, has authority from God to pronounce "Anathema Maranatha" on any human being for anything in reUgion he or she may honestly believe or teach, if no moral laws or social proprieties are infringed. Any declaration to the contrary, by any ecclesiastical authority, is but an anogant assumption by fel low-men and an infringement of religious liberty. God never authorized any mortal to be styled by his fellow-mortals, "Holy Father, His Grace, His Reverence, Lord Cardinal, Archbishop, or Bishop," nor any of such assumed dignitaries to sit in judgment upon anyone's religious belief or mode of worshiping God. Each human being is accountable to Him alone for such matters, and any attempt to influence religious beUef Summary of Bible Exegesis 333 otherwise than by argument and persuasion is persecution. If reverence is ever due to men at aU in a religious sense, it should be accorded only to the pure, good, and unselfish, be they of high or low estate. We do know that many things in the Bible are not of God, that many of its miracles are but legends, and some of its laws are unjust. Their character and environments alone prove them such. Some of the miracles have doubtless a substratum of fact, but it is often difficult to separate the fact from the allegorical or fabulous environment. There are historical statements in it which are untrue or exaggerated; some con tradictory nanatives both of which cannot be conect; some laws, rites, and doctrines contrary to our human sense of truth and justice. Hence we are required by the Bible's grand general pre cepts as weU as by our manhood and moral sense, to examine and sift, as we can, all its evidences for ourselves, "to search the Scriptures" and believe only as our reason and conscience are convinced. There is now abundant evidence external, as weU as in the Bible itself, to support those statements, owing mainly to the labors of many great scholars in the past hundred years, showing conclusively that, however inspired and inenant its ethics may be, its historical, chrono logical, biographical, supernatural, and scien tific teachings were not inspired, but had in them 334 Evolution of Religions many enors. Many of the Mosaic laws and aU his sacrificial rites, if indeed Moses was their author, which is very doubtful, we aver, without hesitation, from their nature only, never came from God.1 Jesus Christ was, we believe, bom of human parentage, with the gift of a nature divine, the greatest, best, and most highly endowed being of whom history has any record. There can be no doubt of His Ufe, character, and teachings ; the evidence is overwhelming. He was truth personi fied, and all He did and aU His life was in accord with His character and mission as the Savior of men, by redeeming them from their sins and folhes. No other being fills the place in history He always had and ever will fill. Yet from His own hand we have not a line. AU His works and sermons are hearsay, traditional, and were trans mitted to the world by His followers. Why it was that His words in His own hand, in their original purity, were not given to the world is a mystery. Much controversy over them would apparently have been avoided, and many inational creeds would never have been formulated. He knew best. But after His departure from the world it soon became filled with wonderful 1 Brown's " Chronicles in Dictionary of the Bible," vol. i.P-397'> Sayce's " Early History of the Hebrews," 1897 edi tion, p. 146; H. E. Ryle, " Narratives of Genesis," 1892 edi tion, p. 87; Julius Wellhausen's " History of Israel." Summary of Bible Exegesis 335 legends of supernatural works performed by Him, and these increased naturaUy in that ignorant and superstitious age in number, variety, and extravagance as the years passed on, and many of them, but only a tithe of those current, were in the generations afterwards interwoven into the Gospels, with some dilutions of His teachings, by the evangehsts, who adopted the cunent beliefs of His supernatural works in their day. Many Gospels were pubUshed, some very extravagant, which still wholly or partly exist. Whether any of the miracles were reahties, we do not know. Some certainly were not. None have been proven by any external testimony, not even the testimony of the Apostolic Epistles. But in subsequent ages they were aU believed, because found in the Gospels, just as the followers of all other reUgions beUeved in their sacred books, with aU their miracles, and just as the Mormons now beUeve in the miracles of the Book of Mormon, which occurred, if at all, thousands of years before that book was ever heard of. No authenticity to miracles can be given them by human belief, founded on merely human story. There is no use to mince words on this subject. Men in all ages have been prone to invent and believe wonderful stories about great warriors, statesmen, poets, and especially founders of new religions, are so now, and were vastly more credulous in ancient times when natural 2,2^ Evolution of Religions sciences and true philosophy were unknown and when behef in the supernatural, and, we may add, the incredibly supernatural, was universal. Angels and archangels, devils, genu, devas, witches, hobgoblins, and ghosts, in the popular belief, used to literally swarm in the world, and many persons had, as was believed, an attendant angel or demon through life. Perhaps the writer of this book may be so normally, or it may be, so abnormally constituted, that he cannot believe in such beings or in their manifestations either in the past or present time, but if so, and his reasoning thereabout is erro neous, it is his misfortune and not his fault, for he has humbly and earnestly sought not only earthly Ught, but also divine guidance all his Ufe. He has carefully read and studied the Bible, every word of it, in all its books a number of times, many parts of it, especially the Gospels, very often, and has- also studied carefully many of the best works on all sides of the great questions considered in these pages. One, and it seems to us the most impor tant of all the Bible stories of the supernatural, may be true literally, and we should like to beUeve it, because of its far-reaching and most important consequences, because it is sunounded by many circumstances indicating its truth, and because we believe absolutely in Jesus Christ and immortal ity. We mean the Resurrection of Jesus, and the story of His life on earth after His Cmcifixion. Summary of Bible Exegesis 337 He may not have been seen in His human body after His death, —that probably remained in the tomb, or was in some way disposed of by friends or enemies, — but He may have been visible in His "alter ego," His immortal self, in His spirit. If so, He was a demonstration of immortality in being permitted to be seen by and converse with His disciples after His death. He lived, of course, after His Crucifixion. So must all believe who beUeve in a future life, and there was no super- naturalism in that fact, but only in the fact that God permitted His disciples to see Him, mortal eyes permitted to see the immortal, mortals permitted to converse with the immortal. We know not where the soul goes after the death of the body. It may go immediately to God, to be with Him in " His Holy of holies," or to some other world of the universe, or remain for a season with relatives and friends about its late earthly home. Jesus we know lived somewhere after His Cruci fixion and natural death, and He may have, and there is really nothing astounding in the fact that He remained, as we are told He did, forty days on earth and was about and with His disciples. Certainly some being or apparition they saw and conversed with, whom they believed to be their late Teacher and Master, and why should it not be He? It was, if so, a supernatural vision, requiring no change of their natural organs of sight, possibly, but only that a divine illumination 338 Evolution of Religions revealed Jesus to them, and naturally they sa-w Him if He was resunected in flesh. All other miraculous stories in the Scriptures are naught in importance and grandeur compared to this one, for if hteraUy true, then by Jesus' Resunec tion and sojourn of forty days on earth thereafter, He absolutely brought "life and immortaUty to Ught." According to the Bible, other dead had been resunected bodily before: Samuel the prophet, by the witch of the wilderness of Endor ; the sons of the widow at Zarephath and the woman of Shunem, by the old prophets Elijah and Elisha ; and even one man was brought to Ufe by mere contact with the dead EUsha's bones.1 Jesus Himself and the Apostles Peter and Paul are said to have brought the dead to life, but these miracles had no conoborating history, and the reanimated subjects like the dead saints of Jerusalem, who are said to have come out of their tombs after Jesus' Resunection and appeared on the streets, had no subsequent confirmative history and were never seen or heard of afterwards, excepting indeed one subsequent incidental mention of Lazarus. St. Paul says that Jesus was the first man raised from the dead,2 and emphasized the same declaration by repeat ing it and adding, "Jesus had preeminence as the beginning, the firstborn from the dead." s 1 II Kings, ch. xiii, v. 2 1 . 'St. Paul's Acts, ch. xxvi, v. 23. 3 Colossians, ch. i, v. 18. Summary of Bible Exegesis 339 If these declarations of the Apostle be true, then aU the other stories in the Bible of resunected dead are fables, excepting the Resunection of Jesus. But Jesus was seen or beheved to have been seen by many of His disciples, some of whom long years afterwards, in the Apostohc writings which are undoubtedly genuine, testify that they saw and conversed with him during forty days after His Resunection, and then saw Him go away into the empyrean above them. Among aU the early Christians, including all those who Uved in and about Jerusalem at the time, there was never expressed a dissent of doubt or un- behef in the story, although other differences early sprang up about His acts and teachings. The context of the Gospel nanatives and St. Paul teach that Jesus' natural body was never seen again by His disciples after His burial,1 and if seen at aU, He was seen as the incorporeal, immortal, disembodied Jesus in human form whom God permitted His devoted followers tc see, associate, and converse with. He was not evidently the same being of flesh and blood after His Resunection as before. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven," and "the first man, Adam, was made a living soul, the last Adam (or Jesus) was made a quicken ing spirit."2 1 I Corinthians, ch. xv. 1 I Corinthians, ch. xv, vs. 45-5°. 34° Evolution of Religions Jesus said to Mary of Magdala on the morning of His Resunection, "Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father and your Father, my God and your God!" What could His future ascension have to do with her touching Him if mortal? He did not want her to be distressed and alarmed by attempting to touch a visible spirit ! On the same day He walked with two of His disciples sixty furlongs or ten miles to Emmaus and they held much converse on the way, but knew Him not until He suddenly vanished as a spirit from their sight.1 A natural body resunected from death would scarcely walk that distance in a few hours after Resurrection. On two subsequent occa sions, Jesus came into rooms where His apostles were holding meetings with closed doors, un announced and unseen, until He spoke to them. Why was this, and why did St. John note His ex traordinary and mysterious appearance,2 if not to indicate that Jesus' coming thus was supernatural? It is true that He is said to have, on two occasions, eaten with His disciples during the forty days He was on earth after His Resunection, and that the Apostle Thomas is said to have touched the scars on His wounded hands and sides. These inci dents seem inconsistent with the mere spiritual theory of His being, subsequent to the Resur rection, but they may, and probably are, merely legendary embelUshments. 1 Luke, ch. xxiv, vs. 13-36. ' St. John, ch. xx, vs. 19-3A Summary of Bible Exegesis 341 Of course, change from incorporeal to bodily presence, as indicated by these latter stories, if real, would be supernatural. We know Jesus existed, lived a God-like life, and died on the cross for man. To believers in immortality, it should seem no wise unnatural for the Son of God as an immortal to live on earth in His spiritual being after mortal death, to be with His disciples for a time, and to be seen by them. God permitted Him thus to demonstrate to them the eternal lessons He had taught them. We shall doubt less aU see in the future life with eyes resembling and counterparts of our mortal eyes. It mattered not that Jesus, whfle in His natural Ufe, fed five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes. It mattered not that He raised the dead and healed the sick. Those miracles proved nothing, excepting that He was gifted of God with super natural powers, as other prophets of Israel before Him had been reputed to be, and in fully as great degree. EUjah and EUsha had centuries before raised the dead and healed the sick as Jesus did. But in aU those miracles, if facts, they simply dealt with the mortal and with time; there was lacking the demonstration of immortaUty and eternity. The appearance of Samuel's ghost to Saul at the bidding of the witch of Endor was a sort of demonstration, but it was inconclusive, and the story had no attestation. But if the Ufe and the ministry of Jesus, as nanated by the 342 Evolution of Religions evangelists, and especially His post-Crucifixion Ufe are true, then Jesus gave that complete and perfect demonstration. He literally "brought hfe and immortality to light. " It is the seal to and the climax of all the Bible teaches. If not true, and especially His Resunection and after-life, then the Bible, our Bible, is no better, nor any more authority, than others of the world's bibles now existing, excepting as its portrayals of God, and its teachings to humanity, may be best and purest. CHAPTER XVII THE DIVINE EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE DR. BRIGGS in his " Study of Holy Scripture " says : x " The history of the world is, as Loes- sing shows, the divine education of our race, and every nation has its share in that instruction and contributes its quota of experience to the suc cessive generations. The nations of the modern world have all come into Une with their inter play of forces, making the problem more complex and wonderful. The old nations of the Orient, China, Japan, and India, with Africa and the islands of the ocean, share in that education and service. The world is one in origin, in training, in destiny. There is force in Renan's remark: ' Jewish history that would have the monopoly of the miracle, is not a bit more extraordinary than Greek history. If the supernatural intervention is necessary to explain the one, then supernatural intervention is also necessary to explain the other.'" And again Dr. Briggs says: "The primitive sources of Bible history are mythologies, poems, laws, whether inscribed, written, or traditional, 1 Dr. Briggs' " Study of Holy Scripture," p. 537. 343 344 Evolution of Religions historical documents, and the use of the historical imagination." . . . "We may say with reference to them all,1 i.e., biblical histories and writers, that they did not and could not distinguish between truth and fiction in any of the older legends and historical documents at their dis posal. They could not separate the fact from its mythological, legendary, and poetical embelUsh- ments. Indeed, they preferred it as thus em bellished, for it was more appropriate in this form for their purposes of instruction. Further more, it is evident that the Bible writers did not hesitate to indulge themselves in historical fiction when they had not sufficient information, and the lessons they wished to teach had yet to be taught."2 Really, this criticism of Dr. Briggs may as well apply to every miraculous nanative in the Old and New Testaments. Certainly so to the miracles herein specially reviewed, and possibly in his mind when he so wrote. Further on Dr. Briggs says:3 "There is no evidence that the Divine Spirit guided those historians of Holy Scriptures in their historic investigations, so as to keep them from historical errors. The Divine Spirit guided them in their religious instructions, in the lessons they taught from history. But there is no evidence of any other guidance. The evidence is 1 Dr. Briggs' " Study of Holy Scripture," p. 555. 2 Ibid. p. 565. 8 Ibid. p. 566. Divine Education of Human Race 345 all against such guidance as prevented them from making historic enors. They certainly did record enors." He enumerates many such. If Dr. Briggs is right, here is the whole question of Bible inspiration in a nutsheU. We beUeve with him that the Holy Spirit guided the writers of the bibUcal books in their rehgious instructions and in the lessons they taught from history. But there is really no evidence of any other guidance. If not, then in all matters of his torical nanatives which include everything belong ing to the province of history, biography, and miracles, as weU as any other alleged facts, there is no presumption or probability of inspired guidance, and the authenticity of all such matters, including the statements of miracles, must depend upon the probabilities and the facts in each case. Upon this theory, we have been guided in the discussion of particular miracles and particular Mosaic customs and ordinances. Some of those customs and ordinances are so contrary to the moral attributes of Deity that they cannot have been sanctioned or enjoined by Him, even accord ing to the ideas of Dr. Briggs that they were gradual developments in God's training of the Israelites. Under such theory he claims that God indorsed the Mosaic laws allowing slavery, polyg amy, and divorces; commends the purpose of Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac; that He 346 Evolution of Religions accepted the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter; that "the offering up of children and of domestic animals and grains (as sacrifices) was aU a pre paratory discipline for the reUgion of Christ," and that the theophanic angel commended the inhospitable Jael for her brutal assassination of Sisera. He excuses such errors in moral precepts because they were, as he says, necessary in order to educate Israel for a nobler time when Israel, as well as the Christian Church, would abhor slavery and polygamy and those other outrages as sins and crimes. According to such argument and by analogy, aU the crimes and wickedness which have occuned in all the nations and ages of the world might be justified as part of God's education of the human race, for the advent of Christianity. Dr. Briggs' ideas in these matters ulustrate what absurd and inconsistent positions he has supposed him self compelled to take in his advocacy of the theophanic control and guidance of Abraham and Moses and other Bible characters, and of the Mosaic institutions, according to the strict letter of the Torah, thus singularly liberal and pro gressive in most of his Scriptural ideas and interpretations, and reactionary and strictly ortho dox in others, which are entirely indefensible, but must be advocated and indorsed to sustain his theophanic and Christophanic theories. Some of the miracles of the Bible are of such Divine Education of Human Race 347 character and so trivial in purpose when con sidered in the light of the divine attributes as to seem clearly unworthy of divine intervention and so merit little discussion as to authenticity. Therefore inspiration cannot be predicated, per se, of miracles as historical incidents. If challenged or doubted, — and any honest man has a right to doubt, —they should be proven, and the claim of biblical inspiration alone cannot be assumed as sufficient proof, for those who require evidence upon which to base their beliefs. Again we repeat if, according to Dr. Briggs, — and we fully indorse his position on this question, — there was no inspiration or guidance of the Holy Spirit to bibUcal writers originally, or, as compilers of more ancient manuscripts into our present bibli cal books, excepting in their religious instructions and moral lessons from history, then their nana tives of supernatural occunences, as historical facts, are of no more force and have no more sanction of the Holy Spirit than their nanatives of other historical events, and are no more obliga tory upon our belief, really much less so, as supernatural occunences naturally require much greater proof than ordinary historic events. CHAPTER XVIII MISCELLANEOUS CONCLUSIONS THIS is the age of great evolutions in rehgious beUef . The idea of sacrificial worship of God by the sacrifice of animals as pleasing or accept able to Him has been utterly discarded from aU the great religions, and the theory of atonement for sins, through such sacrifices, is no longer held by any of them, only orthodox Christianity believing even in the atonement by Jesus Christ. This is a great advance upon the worships of past ages. Men of all religions are earnestly testing aU the foundations of their faith. Many of the theories of a few centuries ago are becoming antiquated; the older Christian catechisms are rejected, and the various sects are contending for new statements of doctrines. This rehgious un rest not only exists in the Christian world, but is permeating other faiths, — Parsees, Jews, Brah- mans, Buddhists, Confucianists, and Mohammed ans. Out of this agitation, doubtless, great good will eventually result. Each of these religionists believes its sacred books alone to be the word of God, excepting the Christians, Moham medans, and Mormons who also believe in the 348 Miscellaneous Conclusions 349 Bible of Jews and Christians as weU as in their own special holy books. But each is becoming better acquainted than ever before with the other faiths, and the elements of a common brotherly regard are being evolved between all. The Mohammedan believes as sincerely in Moses and the prophets and in Jesus Christ, though differing in some immaterial doctrines, as Chris tians do, and the Mormons whilst venerating their own founder and regarding the Book of Mormon as a revelation from God, subsequent to aU others, yet profess, as firmly as Christians, to beheve in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. So there is for Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, and Mormons, common grounds of belief which should bring them nearer together in the essentials of religion, viz., one God, devotion to His service, and a future life of happiness eventually for all, and in Jesus Christ, divinely sent, and inspired as a man only, if not as a manifestation or incarna tion of Deity. The Parsee or Zoroastrian, Buddh ist and Confucianist, though knowing little until recent years, of Moses and the prophets or of Jesus, agree with all the other faiths in supreme belief in God and a future Ufe. These common grounds of belief should be sufficient to unite and harmonize all these religionists, so that, when opportunities occur, they could worship in the same temples, under the benign creed of the old Jewish prophet Micah, "All that is required of thee, oh man, is to 35° Evolution of Religions do justly — to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God." So having in "essentials, unity, in non-essentials, liberty, and in aU things char ity," and so Uve and work together in common brotherhood. The Hindoostanee Parsee, proud of the remote antiquity of his faith, the Buddhist and the Moslem all worshiping the One, Only God, each rejecting all sacrificial services as well as the Trinity and vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ, must have some charity in worshiping with their orthodox Christian brethren, but the great essentials of their creeds are the same, even if mystically diverse. Liberal students of each of the great religions of the world have been for a number of years past, as they had not been before, investigating the other religions and their sacred books, and the result is that they are beginning to see and be lieve that however much they may differ in mat ters of history, miracles, forms, rites of worship; yet all those sacred books form in common the basis of the same moral code of God's revelations to mankind and were undoubtedly given by Him in their various forms, as instructions in the educa tion of the human race and adapted to the differ ent ages, and the intellectual and moral conditions of the people when those books were written. The great Congress of Religions at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, in which all the different re Ugions of the world were represented, and their Miscellaneous Conclusions 351 tenets were presented and discussed by the ablest priests and scholars of each faith, accomplished a great work in the way of obliterating differences and antagonisms, and in unifying and harmonizing the various religious systems. Good work in the same direction was probably done at the great Paris World's Exposition of 1900, although we have not seen any extended report of the same, and therefore cannot speak advisedly about it. Great good will undoubtedly result not only to the cause of universal religion, but also to human progress and national and race amenities generally from such great cosmopolitan reUgious conferences. The old-time belief in favoritism by Deity of the Hebrew or of any other particular race or nation, is rapidly disappearing. Consequently a broader humanitarianism, sym pathy, and catholicity of opinions, than ever be fore manifested, are spreading over the world. The intense selfish exclusiveness and bigotry of the past ages, when "Lands, intersected by a narrow firth, Abhorred each other. Mountains interposed, Made enemies of nations, which had else, Like kindred drops, been mingled into one," are fast disappearing with the now frequent inter mingling of people of all races, religions, and condi tions of life in business, commerce, and travel, and the more general diffusion of knowledge. Men 35 2 Evolution of Religions are everywhere beginning to beUeve in the Heav enly Father as the one God of all, "who is found of aU who love and seek Him." The gen eral dissemination and recognition of this great truth are rapidly advancing the sentiment of uni versal brotherhood among men. This sentiment of fraternity, toleration, and sympathy, is one of the great evolutions of reUgious thought and feeling, developing out of the race feelings, intol erance, and bigotry of the past. There is much purity, beauty, and truth, as we have seen, in all the world's sacred books. The intelligent and Uberal-minded of aU faiths, especially many of our great Christian scholars, and those who have become cosmopolitan by travel in foreign lands, are gradually coming to recognize the truths in all religions as emana tions from the same divine source. Broad-gauged Christians feel that the humble and sincere de votees of all other faiths are brethren with them in the universal fellowship of Jesus Christ and the love of God, and while seeking, as they may have opportunity, to lead them into the higher life of Christianity, yet respect their convictions and affiliate with them. It will bear frequent repetition that " God is everywhere and in everything." He is our com mon Father. In Him, we of all creeds alike, live, move, and have our beings. He loves and cares for all alike. These truths in the evolutions of Miscellaneous Conclusions 353 human progress and development, will, we believe, soon have universal, practical, as well as theo retical recognition. God does not let the universe run itself. His empire is a reign of universal, changeless, eternal, moral, and physical laws. But though govern ing aU things by uniform and unchangeable system, He ever is, ever was, and ever must be at the helm of His empire, and all things are ultimately as He wiljs. How this may be we know not, but in the nature of His attributes and perfections, it must be so. If anything in the entire realms of matter, or of mind, or Ufe, tem poral or eternal, happens contrary to His will, be it the result of destiny, work of evil spirits, or free agency of man, the power that so acts and accomphshes results contrary to God's will, is necessarily greater than God and independent of Him, an imperium in imperio. Were it so the universe would be like a ship at sea without com pass or pilot, and God's children could not safely rest in the consciousness of His infinite wisdom and love, if not accompanied by His absolute control of aU things in His infinite knowledge and power. Here in this hfe we cannot understand many things ; indeed, with all our knowledge we know but little of God's ways. The Bible teaches generaUy the doctrine of man's free agency, but in many pages the contrary, as in some of the Prophets, in Ecclesiastes, and in Romans ix, and 354 Evolution of Religions certainly that it is limited always by training, heredity, and environments. Our passions, appe tites, and desires are given us for beneficent purposes, but are more or less dominated by hereditary influences as well as by sunounding conditions. If all are "conceived in sin and born in iniquity," then none are free agents from birth, but are dominated by overmastering influences for evil. These conditions and influences certainly should be taken into account in the question of man's moral responsibihty, for his actions in connection with influences to the contrary, and the light and knowledge he may possess. Many criminals are doubtless moral degenerates — some from childhood — and are moraUy irre sponsible. For aU violations of merely natural laws, nature provides certain punishment in disease and pain and premature death. For violations of moral laws, man is not competent to be the final judge. Only God who knows aU the intents and purposes of the heart and all matters and questions affecting moral respon sibility can be the exact judge. The punishment may be, and doubtless mostly is, in this life, or it may extend into the future life, but as the moral responsibility can only be that of finite man, for finite acts, so the punishment in equity can only be finite and limited. " Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" Of course nothing in the Miscellaneous Conclusions 355 universe can happen or result contrary to God's will, but ordinarily He, as the Bible teaches, in His wise economy, permits men to act on their own responsibility, overruling, however, and ulti mately controlling all things and all acts of men in His wisdom as He sees best in His infinite plans. If this theory — and it certainly seems to be the Bible theory — be true, then eternal punishment is untrue. Here we Uve largely under limitations, necessities, and environments. What we do, God foreknew, and so it was and is written. The mystery of our acts, good and bad, squared with God's fore-knowledge of aU things and the cer tainty that nothing in the universe can be done or happen contrary to God's will and purposes, is impenetrable, and no human intellect can solve the enigma. St. Paul wrestles with it,1 and as serts the doctrine that aU men are clay in the great Potter's hands, and that our Uves are as He wills. If so, the enigma is solved, but elsewhere in His Epistles, St. Paul seems to teach a different theory. There are, however, mysteries which the Bible does not solve, and which never have been solved, and of which the solution will be made known, if at all, doubtless only in the future Ufe. Why and how God exists; how the universe came into existence from the voiceless void of abysmal night ; from whence or how came the atoms, protoplasmic germs, and evolutions > Romans, ch. ix. 356 Evolution of Religions thereof from which all things are ; why and how the human race exists and is constituted as it is ; why evil and sin abound; why disease and suf fering and death are; what the purpose of this great drama of Ufe is ; how it comports with God's attributes ; — all these things are incomprehensible mysteries, only made more so by the delusions of orthodox tenets. AU human life is a chaos of vanity, as says the Book of Ecclesiastes, unless in all its phases of light and darkness, good and evil, happiness and misery, it is en rapport with God's universal econ omy, and is so that all life's seeming incongruities will be adjusted, equalized, and harmonized in the eternal hereafter by infinite balances and com pensations. So that sin, pain, and evil here wiU ultimately contribute to work out and evolve uni versal good and universal happiness. Such must be, it would seem, the ultimate result, if there be a purpose — and there surely is — in all the great drama of human life. It is apparently the only theory upon which all the mysteries of hfe can be understood, and the existence of sin and evil be harmonized in consistency with the attributes of God. Inspired with such faith and hope, we can bow our heads in lowly reverence and sub mission to His will, and amidst all the changes and vicissitudes, the troubles and sonows of Ufe, as well as in its joys, humbly say, " Thy will be done." No other theory than this, even though Miscellaneous Conclusions 357 it is the antithesis of the horrible tenets of orthodoxy, of eternal happiness for the millions and eternal heU for the bilhons of our race, it seems to us, can harmonize with aU the vary ing conditions of men under God's moral gov ernment and reconcile us to all the vicissitudes of Ufe. When we accept this theory, we should be filled with complete and submissive trust in God and animated to use aU our powers and faculties to make ourselves and our feUow-men happy. We are assured that God is the one Universal Father and cares for aU His chUdren. Hence while sonows and punishments may be meted out to us for sins and for failures to use as best we could our talents and opportunities, yet those penalties wiU be for our reformation, and will result and end in our ultimate and eternal weUare. This Ufe and the future are and can be but one. They are only changes of conditions and environ ments. The demands of infinite justice, which bigotry has for ages dinned into our ears with threats of its awful, merciless, and eternal hell, wfll be met and harmonized in that future life by infinite adjustments, and finally canceled by the omnipotence and fullness of infinite love. Many things which seem sinful here from want of knowledge of the motives and forces which actuate and even compel men to do apparently wrong, wiU be seen in the light of eternity to have 358 Evolution of Religions been right, and actions which perhaps may have been heralded as grand and good, will appear there in their naked deformity of purpose as wicked and desperately evil. But for all the good and evil of our earthly hves we beheve there will be hereafter merciful judgments and infinite com pensations, with such final adjustments and limited finite punishments for our sins, if not fully meted out to us here, as justice and mercy may require. Some teach that beyond the confines of time nearly everything of earth and of our earthly lives are forgotten or banished from our memories in Paradise, and that only the wicked will re member in perdition. That only the singing of hymns and waving of palm branches amid the ecstatic joys of the celestial home will occupy the time and thought of the redeemed. That there will be no identity of self, no knowledge of rela tives and friends on earth, no memories of the past, no continuance and everlasting enjoyment of our earthly treasures of thoughts and know ledge, of affections and hopes. If so, then indeed is future life a delusion, a chimera. If in the future life, even in heaven, we shall all drink of Lethe's cup and remember nothing of life on earth, of parents, wife, and children, of love's young dream and ecstasies, of the old home Elysium, aye, of all earth's good and ills, and only exist in perpetual idleness and sing monotonous Miscellaneous Conclusions 359 songs which inspire no memories and messages of the past, then is death to all intents and purposes anniHlation or obhvion, and there might as weU be a new creation of soul, as a continuance of the earth-bom one, when all of its life, love, and mem ories past, is forgotten. Then immortality, if such immortality can be conceived, would be only a delusion, merely a theosophic metempsychosis, or metamorphosis, worse than Buddha's eternal round of unconscious spiritual existence, in animal or reptilian forms before Nirvana is attained. No! We believe such theories are false! Soul sleeping, in mental paralysis, or oblivion, return ing centuries, or it may be millions of years after death to gather up the atoms of the dust of our decayed bodies, from land and oceans, wherever winds and waves and endless changes have carried them, and thus rehabihtate our old decayed or ganisms, is another ancient delusion born of ig norance and superstition and akin to the beUef of forgetfulness after mortal death, of everything we knew on earth. Blessed be Yahweh of old, the great and good God, in the higher and grander faith which is now beginning to illuminate the world as the mission and teachings of Jesus are better understood; death of the mortal body is merely the resunection of the soul, the "alter ego," the "eternal life," born with us and devel oping in the sunshine of infinite love, in our finite mortality. 360 Evolution of Religions So the lessons of Jesus teach. So the " Great Apostle" St. Paul teaches.1 So aU the analogies of nature teach, and above all our spirits, hopes, and aspirations of immortahty teach. They are hopes and aspirations which God Himself has endowed all human beings with, and which in His truth, He cannot, therefore, — we say it rever ently, — permit to be in vain. God is eternaUy trae. To endow us with such glorious hopes and permit them to end in nothingness, would be a delusion and mockery which God cannot do or permit. Immortality is true as God is true. We are, as Jesus Christ was, all born of God's eternal essence, and as He, the Son of God, Uves, we shaU all live, and sooner or later " all know even as we are known by Him" forever. This, under all the teachings of all religions, of dark ignorance and superstition of the past, as well as of Ught and knowledge of our day, is the universal deathless hope and faith, of all peoples and all religions, God-given- and eternal. It is as old as when the morning stars sang together at creation's dawn for all the children of the Highest, including the new pair in Eden, and it is the deathless hope of all their posterity. Therefore, we believe resunection and the future life will be for each and all of human kind, as Jesus left the tomb and Uved not in flesh, but in the spirit life and image of God. Not in our 1 I Corinthians, ch. xv. Miscellaneous Conclusions 361 worn-out and earthly bodies. " Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." In that rejuvenated and glorious life and new and ever happy home, we shall aU, as His chUdren, see and know God, face to face. There, we believe with out a doubt, all the human family, sooner or later, and not long perhaps after probations, — for some longer or shorter, — as justice in mercy may require, seeking pardon each for all the ignorant erring past, in the clear hght of eternity, and each forever eschewing sins and folhes, may and wiU repent if never before, and wiU be for given there, as aU may be here. There will be no repetition of punishment. Whatever natural, physical, or moral penalties for transgressions of divine laws have been suffered here, — and most we think are punished sufficiently here, — will not be repeated in the future. It would be unjust, adding vindictive and accumulative penalties to expiations already made, and, notwithstand ing the tenets of orthodoxy, contrary to the eternal principles of equity. If we shall live and know and remember there as here, even the " chief of sinners" can repent in the future life as well as in this, and no logical reason can be given by bigotry, why not, and why pardon may not be extended there. God only knows our environments, mental, moral, and physical conditions, infirmities, and temptations. Very much that is deemed sin is not 362 Evolution of Religions sin, but is only the result of destiny, or rather of misfortune, heredity, and overmastering influences which destroy our freedom of will and clearness of judgment and moral perception, and thus render us moral weaklings. Very many criminals are doubtless quasi-insane and unaccountable morally, and should be restrained and not con signed to prisons, or the gallows. Tens of thou sands, yes millions, of the best men and women of earth, have gone to the darkness of dungeons, and perished on the gallows, or in flames, for mere beliefs, for imaginary sins and crimes, for deeds and words for which they ought to have had the approbation of their enemies and persecutors, instead of punishment. There is not, and cannot be, any past or future with God. All is present, eternity, now. Man's work and life here is all a part of his eternity, and in the same continuing plane of education and action. It is a continuous life, and there is no changing or reversing it, no hiatus in God's plans. Our work here is as much for eternity as the work and education of the future life will be. God is always educating and training us. We are aU in His school, and we live here and are trained and governed under the same laws and principles as we shall work and live under forever. This ought to be, and it seems to us must be, the universal religion, and none other or contrary can be true. God has not fixed any arbitrary Miscellaneous Conclusions 363 time for limiting man's eternal weal or woe. Such limitations have been laid down and declared for Him, by puny, presumptuous men, as Moses and others of the prophets did, when they an nounced, under the bold caption of "Thus saith the Lord," sundry laws, ordinances, and religious rites, which He never enjoined or sanctioned. Some of these have been specifically noted and commented upon in these pages, and we stand upon the record made. God evidently created all people for His glory and their good, and for His glory and our good in His infinite plans we shall, and must, eternally live. There are no blanks or failures in God's plans, no misfits. One single soul, eternally lost, ruined, damned, records an infinite failure in God's economy. It cannot be! There can be no such failure, no such record in the eternal years of God. We may go astray. We may for a time violate His laws, permissively, as far as man can, but He wiU evolve good out of the evil. We can never get outside of His care and mercy. He is never hardened against us. Such teachings are false. God does not hate, but only pities us in our folhes and our sins. We can always return from the wilderness of sin and folly to His fold, nay, He will surely finally bring us there. Repentance now and forever, here and in the future life as weU, will always gain His pardon. He loves His children evermore. We beheve all the reUgions 364 Evolution of Religions of to-day, with all that is good and true in their teachings, will ultimately culminate in this com ing universal faith ; in the fruition of infinite, aU- embracing mercy and redemption. Such is to be, we beUeve, the evolution of all religions, the crowning glory of all the divine training and education of mankind, throughout aU the ages. "Glory to God in the highest. Peace on earth and good will to aU men," shaU become a reality. CHAPTER XIX CONCLUSION IN summing up and concluding, it may be asked what of aU these criticisms of the Bible? If these criticisms are sound and just, must there be a new Bible written, from which shall be elimi nated whatever enors, or doubtful legends, or myths, there may be in the present one, and which shall be abreast in aU things with the knowledge of the age, in all the fields of science and literature, in geology, astronomy, chronology, ancient history, civil government, and reUgious thought? Or shaU we, adding in some things, and expurgating in others, remodel our Bible and make a new canon of its books, in order to satisfy modern criticism, by thus emasculating it and removing aU questionable features? By no means! It would not then be the Bible of our fathers, nor of our childhood. Let the Bible remain ever as it is. Even the old King James version is better, with all its petty enors, more impressive, more beautiful and attractive in expression and diction, than the late revised edition. Our old Bible, the great landmark of Jews, Christians, and Moham medans, is the best book on earth. Emphati- 36s 366 Evolution of Religions cally we affirm and believe that no new Bible can ever be written which can compare favorably with, or that will ever supplant or supply the place of, our dear old Bible, even with its many enors. None that will ever supersede the old one. Its place in history and the realm of litera ture is fixed and inimitable. One half of the history and Uterature of the world in the past eighteen hundred years is inseparably bound up in its teachings, or warrings of the nations of Europe over its doctrines, and the missionary work of the past century has made it a house hold book in nearly all the world. It will ever remain the great Sacred Book of earth, immeasurably the greatest, the pillar of light, Uke that which led ancient Israel in the desert nights, for all human beings on their way to eternity. Its errors of history, its legends of miracles, are of little moment, merely wayside notes of the civilizations, reUgious ideals and superstitions of the centuries through which it has come down to us. Its divine moral teachings illuminating all its pages are eternal. We can know no more of God than it tells us, and its ethics are changeless. It must ever remain the supremely Sacred Book of the world. Its the ology and its ethics can never be changed or improved upon. Hence any new purported reve lation from God, if any should ever be written, Would be an imposture. New ethics and a new Conclusion 367 theology would be false. Variations of our Bible teachings, Uke the Koran and Book of Mormon, could only be plagiarisms of its morals and literary beauties, and new miracles could only be false. Our old Bible's teaching of an ever Uving, omnipotent, omniscient, and omni present God, the all wise, infinitely merciful and universal Father of aU human beings, of aU races and creeds, can never be improved upon. No man can ever write any grander, holier book. The histories of the most ancient nations and peoples, the lives and family circles of the old nomadic patriarchs of Arabia and Canaan, the customs and manners of those far remote ages, cannot be again so elegantly and truthfully reproduced. The wonderful legendary miracles and historic poems of the Bible most faithfully portray ancient cunents of thought, ancient beliefs, superstitions, and forms of worship, presenting a minor of those times which the present or future can never reflect and can never be revivified by historian, poet, or novelist. Its pastoral idyls and romances, its poems and sacred songs, are unrivaled and peerless. Its religion, divested of the fables and mysticisms which obscure some of its pages, is divine. Man has evolved from its allegorical sketches and parables many various philosophies, degrading conceptions of human nature, and horrible creeds of infinite hate and eternal torments. These creeds, if any 368 Evolution of Religions sanction at all is given to them in the pages of the Bible, are either based on perversions of alle gorical teachings, or framed from fantasies of the bigots of the Dark Ages, interwoven by them into the original text, — delusions, — in harmony with the superstitions of the age, and are contrary to the higher and nobler revelations of Deity. Some of the teachings of New Testament books seem to sanction such creeds, but if so, they are at variance with their general tenor and grander truths, and with the whole divine economy, clearly revealed in the Bible as a system of truth, and are, there fore, foreign growths. The geology of the Genesis narrative of creation is, so far as it goes and rightly understood, conect, and its general features are indorsed by modern science, whilst the philosophies of Egyptian, Babylonian, Chinese, Greek, and other ancient scholars, are worthless. The astronomy of the Bible is, of course, only what astronomers of olden times were able to learn of the celestial bodies by their unaided visions and crude geometry without assistance of photographic, spectroscopic, or tele scopic instruments. Evidently inspiration did not extend to communicating a knowledge of the sciences to the ancient patriarchs and sages, it only gave them religious light. In the literature of the world, our Bible's place is forever fixed. There is no occasion for a new one. Mohammed, Emanuel Swedenborg, and Conclusion 369 Joseph Smith sought to supplant, or add to, the Bible, by imaginary later revelations, but the Al-Koran, Book of Mormon, and Swedenborg's Apocalypse, are but travesties of the grand old Book. A good Jew or Christian does not want any new Bible or paraphrase of the old. A philosophic Atheist cannot write a new Bible, because he does not beheve in a God or a future Ufe, and he cannot frame any newer or better ethics for the world than is found in the Scriptures. Nor could an Agnostic, who professes to know nothing of God and doubts everything, do any better. Nor could the Deist who believes in a God, but denies or doubts revelations from Him, improve on the character of the God of the Bible, or formulate any better or purer code of morals. Good Christians and profound scholars, hke Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Briggs, Mueller, or Dr. Channing, could not write a Bible which would supplant the old one, because they could neither improve its ethics nor teach anything new of God. They might eliminate some historical enors, some of the legendary miracles, and some of the Mosaic laws and ordinances from the Bible, but its great value as a faithful minor of the ages in which it was written would be thus impaired, and its grandeur destroyed. No ! The records of the Bible and its place in the literature of the world, like the ancient Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit classics, are fixed, sealed, and immutable. 370 Evolution of Religions The world will never have and never need another Bible, unless the Almighty should hereafter reveal the wonderful secrets of His being, — as He never has yet, — and the veiled mysteries of immortality and eternity. The twentieth century of the Christian era is in its dawn. Judging from the great events and won derful progress of the century just closed, and the prospective results of the religious, educational, industrial, political, social and economic forces now in operation all over the world, the new century bids fair to be the grandest era of human progress, and educational, social, and religious development, the world has ever seen since the beginning of historic time. Steam and electricity, operating railways, ships, telegraphs, telephones, and other' mechanical appliances, have already united all countries in what should be peaceful bonds of trade and economic and social inter course, as never before, and as not even dreamed of in the wildest flights of human imagination a century ago. We can converse and do business at our homes in one day in most of the cities and villages of civilized countries with the dwellers of America, Europe, India, China, Japan, Arabia, Egypt, South Africa, Australia, and most of the Islands of the oceans. Time and distance are almost annihilated. Doubtless other scientific and mechanical inventions and improvements in all these and other lines, and indeed in everything Conclusion 371 pertaining to human welfare, in commerce, travel, social and reUgious intercourse, will yet be made. The Anglo-Saxon race with the other affiliated branches of the great Germanic, Teutonic, and Scandinavian family, will, judging from the trend of events in the past two centuries, in the not very distant future, control the world and the EngUsh languages, become, approximately, the universal language. Such seems, manifest des tiny, and no second Tower of Babel will need to be erected to preserve unity of speech. Na tions are coming more and more into fraternal and pohtical harmony. Difficulties will naturally sometimes arise, and wars for a time may yet occur, but peace congresses and national arbi trations of troubles and disagreements, added to the closer assimflation of religious thought and feelings, through the general diffusion of rational Christianity, will surely prevent the past frequency of wars and mitigate the ruin and suffering caused heretofore, when they do occur. The results of the war of 1898, between the United States and Spain, in the acquisition of Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands, with the prestige thereby gained to the United States, and the addition of territory and population, will undoubtedly greatly extend our commerce and intercourse with all nations, and tend to the wider diffusion of the principles of civil and reUgious 372 Evolution of Religions Uberty and the general welfare of mankind. The peaceful annexation of Cuba to the United States, we believe will, in the not very distant future, occur. The successful conclusion of the war in the Phihppines and the pacification of those fertile and beautiful islands under the good government which the United States has given them, is a fait accompli. The acquisition, a few years ago, of the "gems of the Pacific," the lovely and salubrious Hawaiian Islands with their charming climate and great production of sugar, tropical fruits, etc., was a most valuable and important addition to our territorial area. The magnificent possibilities which may result to our country from the acquisition of all those islands are yet in embryo, but undoubtedly will be won derful. In the winter of 1 898-1 899, through the court esy of Hon. John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy, the writer had the great pleasure of making a trip to the Hawaiian Islands in the elegant United States vessel, the yacht "Iroquois," Lieutenant Commander Charles F. Pond, U. S. N., com manding, with the writer's son, Lieutenant B. B. Bierer, and Lieutenant G. L. P. Stone, assistants. He remained there several months enjoying the grand scenery of ocean and of all those islands and peerless climate, the finest and most equable in the world. The acquisition of the Hawaiian and Spanish islands in connection with the war with Conclusion 373 Spain, and the happy settlement of the more recent troubles in China, with his wise domestic poUcy, wiU make ever memorable the administration of our lamented President, William McKinley, and intensify our honor of the cowardly and bmtal assassination of so pure, lovable, and patriotic a man. Indeed, with the exception of Washington and Lincoln's, we think his administration, un timely shortened as it was, the most illustrious and important in our history. The late war in South Africa between Great Britain and her neighbors of the Orange Free States and Transvaal Republic, was most deplor able, but we believe wiU eventually result for the best welfare of the people of those states, in their incorporation and consohdation with the other British domains in that region, and the formation of a great South African State, which will be nominaUy for years a part of the British Empire, but which will doubtless eventually become independent with a president appointed by the crown, but under a repubhcan constitution and form of government, similar to the late federation of all the provinces of Australia. That South African Federation will doubtless continue to ex pand as the United States of America did, taking in additional sunounding territories of the un- civiUzed tribes, becoming in time a great African Empire, Christianizing and educating all the "Dark Continent" and assisting in the develop- 374 Evolution of Religions ment of all the great and varied resources of that wonderful region of the world. The great war between Russia and Japan lately terminated will undoubtedly have a wonderful in fluence upon the future destinies of those empires, politically and otherwise, and its results be of momentous importance to all the world, and espe cially to Russia, Japan, and China, in the develop ment of more liberal institutions in those countries and in aU the Old World and in the broadening of commercial relations between aU nations, and the more rapid diffusion of liberal Christianity. The United States and Great Britain nominally, and really morally, allies; if they continue as now and for many years past, to act in harmony on all foreign questions, as they certainly should; with their great colonial possessions, girdling the earth and dominating the oceans, with institutions .though dissimilar, really both democratic and rest ing on the consent of the governed, will doubt less in the present century virtually rule the world, if both continue to be governed wisely and patrioti cally, largely shaping the world's future progress and history. In the years of this century, we be lieve the Christian religion, under the patronage of the great powers of Europe and America, judging from its rapid extension during the past century, and allowing for the more liberal and attractive teachings of missionaries and interpretations and translations of the Bible text by the best modern Conclusion 375 scholars, as compared with the old dogmatic versions, lessening the points of antagonism be tween it and aU other religions, will spread over aU the earth, and intelligent people in all lands will come to recognize and adopt it as the truest, the best, the ultimate reUgion of the world. Then all men, when that time comes, will hail their fellow-men as brothers, worshiping with them in the same temples, as children of the same Heavenly Father, and inheritors by right of birth of the same eternal destiny. We anticipate no future divine revelation, no new Bible, but so great has been the progress of the race, and so astonishing the wonderful achievements of science in the century just closed, that sometimes we fancy, in the not very remote future, the mystic veil between time and eternity, between life and death, the visible and invisible, may be drawn aside and mortals be permitted to see into the spirit land and hold converse with the immortals. Are these merely visionary dreams? Not if the Bible is inspired, for it says the day is coming, "when the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the seas, when nations shall not Uft up the sword against nations, neither shall they learn war any more, and when all people shall know God, even from the least unto the greatest." We will close with four stanzas from Derz- havin's Ode. 376 Evolution of Religions TO GOD I "Oh Thou Eternal One whose presence bright, All space doth occupy, all motion guide, Unchanged through time's all devastating flight Thou Only God, there is no God beside, Being above all beings, Mighty One, Whom none can comprehend and none explore, Who fill'st existence with Thyself alone, Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er, Being whom we call God, and know no more. II Thou from primeval nothingness didst call, First chaos, then existence. Lord, on Thee, Eternity hath its foundation, all Sprung forth from Thee ; of light, joy, harmony, Sole origin. All life, all beauty Thine : Thy word created all, and doth create. Thy splendor fills all space with rays divine. Thou art and wert and shall be glorious, great, Light-giving, life-sustaining potentate. Ill Thou art, directing, guiding, all, Thou art; Direct my understanding, then, to Thee. Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart. Though but an atom 'midst immensity, Still I am something fashioned by thy hand. I hold a middle rank' twixt heaven and earth, On the last verge of mortal being stand, Close to the realms where Angels have their birth, Just on the boundaries of the spirit land. Conclusion 377 IV Creator, yes; Thy wisdom and Thy word Created me ; Thou source of life and good, Thou spirit of my spirit, and my Lord. Thy light, Thy love in their bright plenitude, Filled me with an immortal soul to spring Over the abyss of death, and bade it wear The garments of eternal day, and wing Its heavenly flight beyond this little sphere, Even to the source, to Thee its Author there." APPENDIX Note A. Briggs' "Study of Holy Scripture," page 287. "It may be regarded as the certain result of the science of the Higher Criticism that Moses did not write the Pentateuch or Job. Ezra did not write the Chronicles, Ezra, or Nehemiah ; Jeremiah did not write the Book of the Kings or Lamentations; David did not write the Psalter, but only a few of the Psalms; Solomon did not write the Song of Songs or Ecclesiastes, and only a portion of the Proverbs ; Isaiah did not write half the book that bears his name. The great mass of the Old Testament was written by authors whose names or connection with their writings are lost in oblivion. If this is destroying the Bible, the Bible is destroyed already. But who tells us that these traditional names were the authors of the Bible? The Bible itself? The creeds of the Church? Any reliable historical testimony? None of these! Pure conjectural tradition. Nothing more." Note B. Many of the ancient Fathers were of this belief; among others, Clement of Alex andria, Tertullian, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Irenseus. The latter wrote in Adv. Horeses in, 378 Appendix 379 21-22: " During the captivity of the people under Nebuchadnezzar, the Scriptures had been cor rupted, and when after seventy years the Jews had returned to .their own lands, then in the time of Artaxerxes, king of the Persians, God in spired Esdras, the priest of the tribe of Levi, to recast aU the words of former prophets and to reestablish with the people the Mosaic legis lation." Note C. " But is there not some testimony as to authorship in the biblical books apart from titles? Yes, a Uttle. In the Hexateuch, Num. xxi, 14 cites a poetic extract from the books of the wars of Jahveh. Jos. x 12, 13, cites a section of an ode of the battle of Beth-horon from the Book of Jasher. The Book of Jasher is also cited in II Sam. i, 18, where a dirge of David is given. It is also cited in LXX version of I Kings, viii, 12, with a poetic extract from Solomon. The Book of Jasher, containing poems from David and Solomon, could not have been written before Solomon. The writing which cites the Book of Jasher must have been written after the Book of Jasher. If now, as modern critics unanimously hold, the Book of Joshua and the Pentateuch belong together as a Hexateuch, then it is the testimony of the Hexateuch itself that it could not have been written in its present form before the time of David or Solomon." — Briggs* "The Bible, the Church, the Reason," page 137. 380 Evolution of Religions Note D. " The primitive sources of biblical his tory are mythologies, legends, poems, laws, whether inscribed, written, or traditional, historical docu ments and the use of the historical imagination. There can be little doubt that there is a strong mythological element at the basis of biblical history as well as of other ancient histories. The myth is indeed the most primitive historic form and mold, in which that which is most ancient is transmitted from primitive peoples. There are such myths in the stories of the Book of Genesis and in the poetry of Job, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and not a few of the Psalms." — Idem. Briggs, page 555. Note E. " The Zend Avesta. Many interested, but necessarily honest readers, of the Zend Avesta overlook the fact that in the ancient documents comprised under that name, we have works of many different ages ; that from leaf to leaf matters come before them made up of pieces nearly or quite dissimilar, and sometimes separated as to the dates of their authorship by many hundreds of years. They are accordingly apt to make them selves merry over absurdities which prevail in the later but still genuine Avesta, as if they were peculiar to the original Zoroastrian writing. It is at present intended to call attention to the now undoubted and long since suspected fact that it pleased the Divine Power to reveal some of the most important articles of our catholic creed, Appendix 381 first to Zoroaster, and through their literature to the Jews and ourselves. Surely the first object of religion, next to the suppression of unlawful violence or appropriation, should be the sup pression of inaccurate statement; and to deny without any effort to become an expert, what every expert knows to be the truth, is, so it seems to me, to commit a crime in the name of Christianity, for which Christianity will one day be called to account. "It is therefore to help the Church against well-furnished gainsayers, and to reestablish her character for conscientious investigation, that some Christian specialists in orientalism have given the best years of their lives to save the endeared religion which once inculcated every honorable sentiment from continuing herself the victim of that most sinister of equivocation known as 'pious frauds.' How, then, should we handle the question of Zoroastrian influence with the Jews ? I would say that any or all of the historical, doctrinal, or hortative statements in the Old or the New Testament might, while fervently believed to be inspired by the Divine Power, be yet freely traced to other reUgious systems for their mental initiative, that the historical origin of particular doctrines or ideas which are expressed in the Old or New Testament does not touch the ques tion of their inspiration, unless we are prepared to accede to a docetic heresy doubting the reality of 382 Evolution of Religions our Savior's human nature. Every sentiment of veneration ought to induce us to trace, if it be possible to trace them, not only the fountain heads of His human convictions, but the supply ing rills of His expressions. If we carefuUy study the genealogy of His body, with how much greater earnestness should we examine those of His mind. For it was His thoughts, humanly speaking, and sometimes His earlier ones, which not only con stituted a part of His momentous history, but of course also actually determined His career. The theologies of Egypt should be also examined, as well as those of Greece and Rome. " From India we have what seems a throng of rich analogies from the Buddhist Scriptures. There remains the ancient Persian theology, and here the historical connection amounts at one stage at least to historical identity, and is as such, I believe, universally recognized. Cyrus, the Persian, brought the Jewish people back when they had become a captive people, and rebmlt Jerusalem when it had become a heap, and book after book of the Bible dates from the reigns of the Persian kings, while Magian priests, who were of the religion of Cyrus, came later to do honor to the Son of Mary, and one of the last words of Jesus upon the cross was from the Persian tongue: 'Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise ' (Luke xxiii, 43)- Cyrus was originally,- or at heart, a Mazda Appendix 383 worshiper. The word 'Mazda' (strictly 'Dah') meaning the 'Great Creator' or the 'Great Wise One,' is an especially well-adapted name for God, much more so than our own name for Him, and this revering title well expresses the enhghtened tone of the book (Zend Avesta). If, then, any ancient volume could claim our attention, it would seem to be the Sacred Scrip tures of that great Mazda worshiper, who under the providence of God determined the later history of the Jewish people. For had Cyrus, the Mazda worshiper, not brought the people back to Jerusalem, the later prophets might not have spoken there, nor might Jesus have been born at Bethlehem, nor taught in that region. Indeed, the influence of the great restorer Cyrus and his successors over the city was so positive that Jerusalem was for a considerable period after the return from Babylon in many respects a Persian city. Some of the most important features of the Pharisaic orthodoxy were, under the providence of God, taught directly, or indirectly, through the Persian influence ; the name ' Pharisee ' itself being the equivalent of 'Farsee,' a later form of 'Parsee.' " Few scientific theologians wiU deny that the doctrine of immortality was scarcely mooted before the captivity, while the Zoroastrian Scrip tures are one mass of spiritualism, referring all results to the heavenly or infernal worlds^ Ame- 384 Evolution of Religions retatat, — immortality, — as one of the six per sonified attributes of the Deity, did not represent long life alone, but never dying life. Resurrec tion seems to be placed after the reception of souls into heaven, as if they returned later to a purified earth. And is this really not the doc trine of St. John's Revelation? In Yasht xix, 83, we have resunection together with millennial perfection. 'We sacrifice unto the kingly glory which shall cleave unto the victorious Savior and His companions, when He shall make the world progress unto perfection, and when it shall be never dying, not decaying, never rotting, ever Uving, ever useful, having power to fulfil aU wishes ; when the dead shall arise and immortal life shall come, when the settlements shaU be all death less.' Compare these then with statements which appear after the return from the captivity, a captivity during which the Jews had come in contact with a great religion, in which the pas sages cited described a predominant tendency. What do we find in them? First, we have the jubilant hope expressed by the later Isaiah, 'Let thy dead Uve, let my body arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust ! For thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the shades.' And then the full statement in Daniel: 'And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to ever lasting life, and some to everlasting shame and Appendix 385 contempt.' And yet, as we have seen above, God's people had not fully accepted the meaning of this language at the time of Christ. We draw this inference, the religion of the Jews was origi nally Saddusaic." — " Zoroaster and the Bible," by Rev. J. H. Mills, in the Nineteenth Century, Janu ary, 1894. 3 9002