him say, I will destroy this temple, made with hands, and, within three days, I will build another made without hands;" but they neither of them inform us, upon what circumstance this calumny was founded. St. John, in the early part of the history, supplies us with this information; for he relates, that, upon our Lord's first journey to Jerusalem, when the Jews asked him, 'What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thon doest these things? he answered, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' This agreement could hardly arise from any thing but the truth of the case. From any care or design in St. John, to make his narrative tally with the narratives of the other evangelists, it certainly did not arise, for no such design appears, but the absence of it.

A strong and more general instance of agreement, is the following: The three first evangelists have related the appointment of the twelve apostles;' and have given a catalogue of their names in form. John, without ever mentioning the appointment, or giving the catalogue, supposes, throughout his whole narrative, Christ to be accompanied by a select party of disciples; the number of these to be twelve; and whenever he happens to notice any one as of that number, it is one included in the catalogue of the other evangelists; and the names principally occurring in the course of his history of Christ, are the names extant in their list. This last agreement, which is of considerable moment, runs through every gospel, and through every chapter of each.

All this bespeaks reality.

THE

CHAPTER V.

Originality of our Saviour's Character.

HE Jews, whether right or wrong, had understood their prophecies to foretell the advent of a person, who by some supernatural assistance should advance their nation to independence, and to a supreme degree of splendor and pros

1 Mark xiv. 5.

'Matt. x. 1; Mark iii. 14; Luke vi. 12.
4 Ch. vi. 7.

2 Ch. ii. 19.

Ch. xx. 24; vi. 71.

perity. This was the reigning opinion and expectation of the times.

Now, had Jesus been an enthusiast, it is probable that his enthusiasm would have fallen in with the popular delusion, and that, whilst he gave himself out to be the person intended by these predictions, he would have assumed the character to which they were universally supposed to relate.

Had he been an impostor, it was his business to have flattered the prevailing hopes, because these hopes were to be the instruments of his attraction and success.

But, what is better than conjectures, is the fact, that all the pretended Messiahs actually did so. We learn from Josephus that there were many of these. Some of them, it is probable, might be impostors, who thought that an advantage was to be taken of the state of public opinion. Others, perhaps, were enthusiasts, whose imagination had been drawn to this particular object, by the language and sentiments which prevailed around them. But, whether impostors or enthusiasts, they concurred in producing themselves in the character which their countrymen looked for, that is to say, as the restorers and deliverers of the nation, in that sense in which restoration and deliverance were expected by the Jews.

Why therefore Jesus, if he was, like them, either an enthusiast or impostor, did not pursue the same conduct as they did, in framing his character and pretensions, it will be found difficult to explain. A mission, the operation and benefit of which was to take place in another life, was a thing unthought of as the subject of these prophecies. That Jesus, coming to them as their Messiah, should come under a character totally different from that in which they expected him; should deviate from the general persuasion, and deviate into pretensions absolutely singular and original; appears to be inconsistent with the imputation of enthusiasm or imposture, both which, by their nature, I should expect, would, and both which, throughout the experience which this very subject furnishes, in fact have, followed the opinions that obtained at the time.

If it be said, that Jesus, having tried the other plan, turned at length to this; I answer, that the thing is said without evidence; against evidence; that it was competent to the rest to have done the same, yet that nothing of this sort was thought of by any.

ANNOTATION.

'That Jesus coming to them as their Messiah, should come in a character totally different from that in which they expected him.'

The Jews, it is said,' had certain expectations of what their Messiah was to be; and the character of Jesus strongly impressed many of them to the belief that He was the Messiah; and hence they were led afterwards to fancy that He must have done what the Messiah ought to have done.

Indeed! we answer. But then, unfortunately for this Theory, it is notorious that the Jews expected a very different kind of Messiah from what Jesus is described to have been. They expected a conquering Prince, not a Crucified Teacher.

'No matter for that,' it is rejoined: for this only shows that the disciples of Jesus modified their previous notions of the Messiah so as to suit such facts of his history as could not be denied.' But when the Theory takes this shape, it plainly leaves itself without a foundation. If Jesus neither wrought miracles to prove his divine mission, nor in any way fulfilled the expectations of the Messiah, what was there to impress men's minds so strongly with the conviction that He was the Messiah? Take away his miracles, and you leave Him nothing but the character of an humble Teacher, followed by a few poor peasants, addressing calm lessons of morality to a people swallowed up in factious strife and ceremonial superstition-a people divided between the hot bigotry of the Pharisees, and the cold incredulity of the Sadducees-but selfish and worldly to the heart's core, in both extremes, and agitated by that most absorbing of all excitements-a fierce political agitation. Read Josephus's account of that age and generation, and then say whether such a cause was likely to produce such an effect.

But again, when Jesus was first believed to be the Messiah, it must have been upon the persuasion that He would fulfil the popular expectations of the Messiah. How then came the belief in his Messiahship to remain after He had failed to fulfil them; and to remain so strongly imprinted, as to change the

1 Strauss, Leben Jesu.

very foundation on which it was built? The necessity of the case,' it is replied, 'required that his Disciples should accommodate their views to known facts. When it was certain that He was put to death, they could only mend the matter by fancying that He had risen again.'

Now the necessity of all this for Dr. Strauss's Theory is plain enough: but it is not easy to see its necessity for anything else. For the Apostles were not modern philosophers, prepared to sacrifice everything to a theory, but plain unsophisticated men. Their hopes had been confessedly disappointed, and their faith had failed. Hope, Faith, and Courage, had been buried in their Master's tomb. These might rise again with Him, but they could not raise Him, when they were not themselves revived. And the question is, What revived them? It is idle to say, 'an altered view of the prophecies,' because that is only suggesting again the same question in another form- What altered their view of the prophecies? These prophecies, according to the Infidels, can only be made to speak of the Messiah's sufferings by one who already believes in a suffering Messiah. If they really do predict 'Christ's sufferings, and the Glory that should follow,' let this be distinctly allowed, and we shall know how to use the admission. But if they do not, the question still recurs, What produced the strong persuasion, which made the Disciples fancy a meaning so remote from the notions of that age, so different, as we are told,—from the natural meaning of those prophecies ?

ON

CHAPTER VI.

NE argument, which has been much relied upon (but not more than its just weight deserves), is the conformity of the facts occasionally mentioned or referred to in scripture, with the state of things in those times, as represented by foreign and independent accounts. Which conformity proves, that the writers of the New Testament possessed a species of local knowledge, which could only belong to an inhabitant of that country, and to one living in that age. This argument, if well made out by examples, is very little short of proving the abso

lute genuineness of the writings. It carries them up to the age of the reputed authors, to an age, in which it must have been difficult to impose upon the christian public, forgeries in the names of those authors, and in which there is no evidence that any forgeries were attempted. It proves at least, that the books, whoever were the authors of them, were composed by persons living in the time and country in which these things were transacted; and consequently capable, by their situation, of being well informed of the facts which they relate. And the argument is stronger, when applied to the New Testament, than it is in the case of almost any other writings, by reason of the mixed nature of the allusions which this book contains. The scene of action is not confined to a single country, but displayed in the greatest cities of the Roman empire. Allusions are made to the manners and principles of the Greeks, the Romans, and the Jews. This variety renders a forgery proportionably more difficult, especially to writers of a posterior age. A Greek or Roman Christian, who lived in the second or third century, would have been wanting in Jewish literature; a Jewish convert in those ages would have been equally deficient in the knowledge of Greece and Rome.'

This, however, is an argument which depends entirely upon an induction of particulars; and as, consequently, it carries with it little force, without a view of the instances upon which it is built, I have to request the reader's attention to a detail of examples, distinctly and articulately proposed. In collecting these examples, I have done no more than epitomize the first volume of the first part of Dr. Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History. And I have brought the argument within its present compass, first, by passing over some of his sections in which the accordancy appeared to me less certain, or upon subjects not sufficiently appropriate or circumstantial; secondly, by contracting every section into the fewest words possible, contenting myself for the most part with a mere apposition of passages; and, thirdly, by omitting many disquisitions, which, though learned and accurate, are not absolutely necessary to the understanding or verification of the argument.

1 Michaeli's Introduction to the New Testament (Marsh's translation), c. ii. sec. xi.