Part 56

I find, moreover, that I specially warned my readers against hasty judgment. After stating the facts of observation, I add, "I have, hitherto, said nothing about their meaning, as, in an inquiry so difficult and fraught with interest as this, it seems to me to be in the highest degree important to keep the questions of fact and the questions of interpretation well apart" (p. 210).

See the Official Report of the Church Congress held at Manchester, October 1888, pp. 253, 254.

Dr. Wace tells us, "It may be asked how far we can rely on the accounts we possess of our Lord's teaching on these subjects." And he seems to think the question appropriately answered by the assertion that it "ought to be regarded as settled by M. Renan's practical surrender of the adverse case." I thought I knew M. Renan's works pretty well, but I have contrived to miss this "practical" (I wish Dr. Wace had defined the scope of that useful adjective) surrender. However, as Dr. Wace can find no difficulty in pointing out the passage of M. Renan's writings, by which he feels justified in making his statement, I shall wait for further enlightenment, contenting myself, for the present, with remarking that if M. Renan were to retract and do penance in Notre-Dame to-morrow for any contributions to Biblical criticism that may be specially his property, the main results of that criticism, as they are set forth in the works of Strauss, Baur, Reuss, and Volkmar, for example, would not be sensibly affected.

Here, as always, the revised version is cited.

Does any one really mean to say that there is any internal or external criterion by which the reader of a biblical statement, in which scientific matter is contained, is enabled to judge whether it is to be taken au sérieux or not? Is the account of the Deluge, accepted as true in the New Testament, less precise and specific than that of the call of Abraham, also accepted as true therein? By what mark does the story of the feeding with manna in the wilderness, which involves some very curious scientific problems, show that it is meant merely for edification, while the story of the inscription of the Law on stone by the hand of Jahveh is literally true? If the story of the Fall is not the true record of an historical occurrence, what becomes of Pauline theology? Yet the story of the Fall as directly conflicts with probability, and is as devoid of trustworthy evidence, as that of the Creation or that of the Deluge, with which it forms an harmoniously legendary series.

See, for an admirable discussion of the whole subject, Dr. Abbott's article on the Gospels in the Encyclopædia Britannica; and the remarkable monograph by Professor Volkmar, Jesus Nazarenus und die erste christliche Zeit (1882). Whether we agree with the conclusions of these writers or not, the method of critical investigation which they adopt is unimpeachable.

Notwithstanding the hard words shot at me from behind the hedge of anonymity by a writer in a recent number of the Quarterly Review, I repeat, without the slightest fear of refutation, that the four Gospels, as they have come to us, are the work of unknown writers.

Their arguments, in the long run, are always reducible to one form. Otherwise trustworthy witnesses affirm that such and such events took place. These events are inexplicable, except the agency of "spirits" is admitted. Therefore "spirits" were the cause of the phenomena.

And the heads of the reply are always the same. Remember Goethe's aphorism: "Alles factische ist schon Theorie." Trustworthy witnesses are constantly deceived, or deceive themselves, in their interpretation of sensible phenomena. No one can prove that the sensible phenomena, in these cases, could be caused only by the agency of spirits: and there is abundant ground for believing that they may be produced in other ways. Therefore, the utmost that can be reasonably asked for, on the evidence as it stands, is suspension of judgment. And, on the necessity for even that suspension, reasonable men may differ, according to their views of probability.

Yet I must somehow have laid hold of the pith of the matter, for, many years afterwards, when Dean Mansell's Bampton lectures were published, it seemed to me I already knew all that this eminently agnostic thinker had to tell me.

Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Edit. Hartenstein, p. 256.

Report of the Church Congress, Manchester, 1888, p. 252.

Fortnightly Review, Jan. 1889.

My citations are made from Teulet's Einhardi omnia quæ extant opera, Paris, 1840-1843, which contains a biography of the author, a history of the text, with translations into French, and many valuable annotations.

At present included in the Duchies of Hesse-Darmstadt and Baden.

This took place in the year 826 A.D. The relics were brought from Rome and deposited in the Church of St. Medardus at Soissons.

Now included in Western Switzerland.

Probably, according to Teulet, the present Sandhofer-fahrt, a little below the embouchure of the Neckar.

The present Michilstadt, thirty miles N.E. of Heidelberg.

In the Middle Ages one of the most favourite accusations against witches was that they committed just these enormities.

It is pretty clear that Eginhard had his doubts about the deacon, whose pledges he qualifies as sponsiones incertæ. But, to be sure, he wrote after events which fully justified scepticism.

The words are scrinia sine clave, which seems to mean "having no key." But the circumstances forbid the idea of breaking open.

Eginhard speaks with lofty contempt of the "vana ac superstitiosa præsumptio" of the poor woman's companions in trying to alleviate her sufferings with "herbs and frivolous incantations." Vain enough, no doubt, but the "mulierculæ" might have returned the epithet "superstitious" with interest.

Of course there is nothing new in this argument; but it does not grow weaker by age. And the case of Eginhard is far more instructive than that of Augustine, because the former has so very frankly, though incidentally, revealed to us not only his own mental and moral habits, but those of the people about him.

See 1 Cor. xii. 10-28; 2 Cor. vi. 12; Rom. xv. 19.

A Journal or Historical Account of the Life, Travels, Sufferings, and Christian Experiences, &c., of George Fox. Ed. 1694, pp. 27, 28.

I may perhaps return to the question of the authorship of the Gospels. For the present I must content myself with warning my readers against any reliance upon Dr. Wace's statements as to the results arrived at by modern criticism. They are as gravely as surprisingly erroneous.

The United States ought, perhaps, to be added, but I am not sure.