To the modern student of man and his history the old easy way of excluding religion as an absurdity6, the light prediction of its speedy, or at least its eventual7, disappearance8 from the field of human life, and other dogmatisms of the like kind, are almost unintelligible9. We realize that religion in some form is a natural working of the human spirit, and, whatever place we give to religion in the conduct of our own lives, as students of history we reckon with the religious instinct as a factor of the highest import, and we give to religious systems and organizations—above all, to religious teachers and leaders—a more sympathetic and a profounder study. Carlyle's lecture on Muhammad, in his course on "Heroes and Hero Worship," may be taken as a landmark10 for English people in this new treatment history.
The Christian11 Church, whether we like it or not, has been a force of unparalleled power in human affairs; and prophecies that it will no longer be so, and allegations that by now it has ceased to be so, are not much made by cautious thinkers. There is evidence that the influence of the Christian Church, so far from ebbing12, is rising—evidence more obvious when we reflect that the influence of such a movement is not to be quickly guessed from the number of its actual adherents13. A century and a quarter of Christian missions in India have resulted in so many converts—a million and a quarter is no slight outcome; but that is a small part of the story. All over India the old religious systems are being subjected to a new study by their own adherents; their weak points are being felt; there are reform movements, new apologetics, compromises, defences—all sorts of indications of ferment14 and transition. There can be little question that while many things go to the making of an age, the prime impulse to all this intellectual, religious, and moral upheaval15 was the faith of Christian missionaries16 that Jesus Christ would bring about what we actually see. They believed—and they were laughed at for their belief—that Jesus Christ was still a real power, permanent and destined17 to hold a larger place in the affairs of men; and we see that they were right. Jesus remains18 the very heart and soul of the Christian movement, still controlling men, still capturing men—against their wills very often—changing men's lives and using them for ends they never dreamed of. So much is plain to the candid19 observer, whatever the explanation.
We find further, another fact of even more significance to the historian who will treat human experience with seriousness and sympathy. The cynical20 view that delusion21 and error in a real world have peculiar22 power in human affairs, may be dismissed; no serious student of history could hold it.
For those who believe, as we all do at heart, that the world is rational, that real effects follow real causes, and conversely that behind great movements lie great forces, the fact must weigh enormously that wherever the Christian Church, or a section of it, or a single Christian, has put upon Jesus Christ a higher emphasis—above all where everything has been centred in Jesus Christ—there has been an increase of power for Church, or community, or man. Where new value has been found in Jesus Christ, the Church has risen in power, in energy, in appeal, in victory.
Paul of Tarsus progressively found more in Christ, expected more of him, trusted him more; and his faith was justified24. If Paul was wrong, how did he capture the Christian Church for his ideas? If he was wrong, how is it that when Luther caught his meaning, re-interpreted him and laid the same emphasis on Jesus Christ with his "Nos nihil sumus, Christus solus est omnia"[2], once more the hearts of men were won by the higher doctrine25 of Christ's person and power, and a new era followed the new emphasis? How is it that, when John Wesley made the same discovery, and once more staked all on faith in Christ, again the Church felt the pulse of new life?
On the other hand, where through a nebulous philosophy men have minimized Jesus, or where, through some weakness of the human mind, they have sought the aid of others and relegated26 Jesus Christ to a more distant, even if a higher, sphere—where, in short, Christ is not the living centre of everything, the value of the Church has declined, its life has waned27. That, to my own mind, is the most striking and outstanding fact in history. There must be a real explanation of a thing so signal in a rational universe.
The explanation in most human affairs comes after the recognition of the fact. There our great fact stands of the significance of Jesus Christ—a more wonderful thing as we study it more. We may fail to explain it, but we must recognize it. One of the weaknesses of the Church to-day is—put bluntly—that Christians28 are not making enough of Jesus Christ.
We find again that, where Jesus Christ is most real, and means most, there we are apt to see the human mind reach a fuller freedom and achieve more. There is a higher civilization, a greater emphasis on the value of human life and character, and a stronger endeavour for the utmost development of all human material, if we may so call the souls and faculties29 of men. Why should there be this correspondence between Jesus of Nazareth and human life? It is best brought out, when we realize what he has made of Christian society, and contrast it with what the various religions have left or produced in other regions—the atrophy30 of human nature.
In fine, there is no figure in human history that signifies more. Men may love him or hate him, but they do it intensely. If he was only what some say, he ought to be a mere31 figure of antiquity32 by now. But he is more than that; Jesus is not a dead issue; he has to be reckoned with still; and men who are to treat mankind seriously, must make the intellectual effort to understand the man on whom has been centred more of the interest and the passion of the most serious and the best of mankind than on any other. The real secret is that human nature is deeply and intensely spiritual, and that Jesus satisfies it at its most spiritual point.
The object before us in these pages is the attempt to know Jesus, if we can, in a more intimate and intelligent way than we have done—at least, to put before our minds the great problem, Who is this Jesus Christ? and to try to answer it.
One answer to this question is that Jesus was nothing, never was anything, but a myth developed for religious purposes; that he never lived at all. This view reappears from time to time, but so far it has not appealed to any who take a serious interest in history. No historian of the least repute has committed himself to the theory. Desperate attempts have been made to discredit33 the Christian writers of the first two centuries; it has been emphasized that Jesus is not mentioned in secular34 writers of the period, and the passage in Tacitus ("Annals", XV:44) has been explained away as a Christian interpolation, or, more gaily35, by reviving the wild notion that Poggio Bracciolini forged the whole of the "Annals". But such trifling36 with history and literature does not serve. No scholar accepts the theory about Poggio—and yet if the passage about Christ is to be got rid of, this is the better way of the two; for there is nothing to countenance37 the view that the chapter is interpolated, or to explain when or by whom it was done—the wish is father to the thought. Christians are twice mentioned by Suetonius in dealing38 with Emperors of the first century, though in one passage the reading "Chrestus" for "Christus" has suggested to some scholars that another man is meant; the confusion was a natural one and is instanced elsewhere, but we need not press the matter. The argument from silence is generally recognized as an uncertain one. Sir James Melville, living at the Court of Mary, Queen of Scots, does not, I learn, mention John Knox—"whom he could not have failed to mention if Knox had really existed and played the part assigned to him by his partisans," and so forth39. It might be as possible and as reasonable to prove that the Brahmo Samaj never existed, by demonstrating four hundred years hence—or two thousand—that it is not mentioned in In Memoriam, nor in The Ring and the Book, nor in George Meredith's, novels, nor (more strangely) in any of Mr. Kipling's surviving works, which definitely deal with India. None of these writers, it may be replied, had any concern to mention the Brahmo Samaj. And when one surveys the Greek and Roman writers of the first century A.D. which of them had any concern to refer to Jesus and his disciples40, beyond the historians who do? Indeed, the difficulty is to understand why some of these men should have written at all; harder still, why others should have wanted to read their poems and orations41 and commonplace books. One argument, advanced in India a few years ago, against the historical value of the Gospels may be revived by way of illustration. Would not Virgil and Horace, it was asked, have taken notice of the massacre42 at Bethlehem, if it was historical? Would they not? it was replied, when they both had died years before its traditional date.
But the distinction between Christian and secular writers is not one that will weigh much with a serious historian. Until we have reason to distinguish between book and book, the evidence must be treated on exactly the same principles. To say abruptly43 that, because Luke was a Christian and Suetonius a pagan, Luke is not worthy44 of the credence45 given to Suetonius, is a line of approach that will most commend itself to those who have read neither author. To gain a real knowledge of historical truth, the historian's methods must be slower and more cautious, he must know his author intimately—his habits of mind, his turns of style, his preferences, his gifts for seeing the real issue—and always the background, and the ways of thinking that prevail in the background. An ancient writer is not necessarily negligible because he records, and perhaps believes, miracles or marvels46 or omens47 which a modern would never notice. It is bad criticism that has made a popular legend of the unreliable character of Herodotus. As our knowledge of antiquity grows, and we become able to correct our early impressions, the credit of Herodotus rises steadily48, and to-day those who study him most closely have the highest opinion of him.
We may, then, without prejudice, take the evidence of Paul of Tarsus on the historicity of Jesus, and examine it. If we are challenged as to the genuineness of Paul's epistles, let us tell our questioner to read them. Novels have been written in the form of correspondence; but Paul's letters do not tell us all that a novelist or a forger49 would—there are endless gaps, needless references to unknown persons (needless to us, or to anybody apart from the people themselves), constant occupation with questions which we can only dimly discover from Paul's answers. The letters are genuine letters—written for the occasion to particular people, and not meant for us. The stamp of genuineness is on them—of life, real life. The German scholar, Norden, in his Kunstprosa, says there is much in Paul that he does not understand, but he catches in him again after three hundred years that note of life that marks the great literature of Greece. That is not easily forged. Luther and Erasmus were right when they said—each of them has said it, however it happened—that Paul "spoke50 pure flame." The letters, and the theology and its influence, establish at once Paul's claim to be a historical character. We may then ask, how a man of his ability failed to observe that a non-historical Jesus, a pure figment, was being palmed off on him—on a contemporary, it should be marked—and by a combination of Jesus' own disciples with earlier friends of Paul, who were trying to exterminate51 them. Paul knew priests and Pharisees; he knew James and John and Peter; and he never detected that they were in collusion, yes, and to the point of martyring Stephen—to impose on him and on the world a non-historical Jesus. To such straits are we brought, if Jesus never existed. History becomes pure nonsense, and knowledge of historical fact impossible; and, it may be noted52, all knowledge is abolished if history is beyond reach.
But we are not dependent on books for our evidence of the historicity of Jesus. The whole story of the Church implies him. He is inwrought in every feature of its being. Every great religious movement, of which we know, has depended on a personal impulse, and has behind it some real, living and inspiring personality. It is true that at a comparatively late stage of Hinduism a personal devotion to Shri Krishna grew up, just as in the hour of decline of the old Mediterranean53 paganism we find Julian the Apostate54 using a devotional language to Athena at Athens that would have astonished the contemporaries of Pericles. But Jesus, Buddha55, and Muhammad stand on a very different footing from Krishna and Athena, even if we concede the view of some scholars that Krishna was once a man, and the contention56 of Euhemerus, a pre-Christian Greek, that all the gods had once been human. If we posit57 that Jesus did not exist, we shall be involved other difficulties as to the story of the Church. Mr. F. C. Conybeare, an Oxford58 scholar avowedly59 not in allegiance to the Christian Church, has characterized some of the reconstructions60 made by contemporary anti-Christian writers as more miraculous61 than the history they are trying to correct.
We come now to the Gospels; and in what follows, and throughout the book, we shall confine ourselves the first three Gospels. Great as has been, and must be, the influence of the Fourth Gospel, in the present stage of historical criticism it will serve our purpose best to postpone62 the use of a source which we do not fully63 understand. The exact relations of history and interpretation64 in the Fourth Gospel—the methods and historical outlook of the writer—cannot yet be said to be determined65. "Only those who have merely trifled with the problems it suggests are likely to speak dogmatically upon the subject."[3] This is not to abandon the Fourth Gospel; for it is a document which we could not do without in early Church History, and which has vindicated66 its place in the devotional life in every Christian generation. But, for the present, the first Three Gospels will be our chief sources.
The Gospels have, of course, been attacked again and again. Sober criticism has raised the question as to whether here and there traces may be found of the touch of a later hand—for example, were there two asses67 or one, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem? has the baptismal formula at the end of Matthew been adjusted to the creed68 of Nicaea? In the following pages the attempt will be made to base what is said not on isolated69 texts, which may—and of course may not—have been touched, but on the general tenor70 of the books. A single episode or phrase may suffer change from a copyist's hand, from inadvertence or from theological predilection71. The character of the Personality set forth in the Gospels is less susceptible72 of alteration73.
This point is at once of importance, for the suggestion has been made that we cannot be sure of any particular statement, episode, incident or saying in the Gospels—taken by itself. Let us for the moment imagine a more sweeping74 theory still—that no single episode incident or saying of Jesus in the Gospels is authentic75 at all. What follows? The great historian, E. A. Freeman of Oxford, once said that a false anecdote76 may be good history; it may be sound evidence for character, for, to obtain currency, a false anecdote has also to true; it must be, in our proverbial phrase, "if not true, well invented." Even if exaggeration and humour contribute to give it a twist, the essence of parody77 is that it parodies—it must conform to the original even where it leaves it. A good story-teller will hardly tell the same story of Mr. Roosevelt and the Archbishop of Canterbury—unless it happens to be true, and then he will be cautious. "Truth," to quote another proverb, "is stranger than fiction"; because fiction has to go warily78 to be probable, and must be, more or less, conventional. The story a man invents about another has to be true in some recognizable way to character—as a little experiment in this direction will show. The inventor of a story must have the gift of the caricaturist and of the bestower of nicknames; he must have a shrewd eye for the real features of his victim. Jesus, then, was a historical person; and about him we have a mass of stories in the Gospels, which our theory for the moment asks us to say are all false; but they have a certain unity23 of tone, and they agree in pointing to a character of a certain type, and the general aspects and broad outlines of that character they make abundantly clear. Even on such a hypothesis we can know something of the character of Jesus. But the hypothesis is gratuitous79, and absurd, as the paragraphs that follow may help to show. The Gospels are essentially80 true and reliable records of a historical person.
A survey of some of the outstanding features of the Gospels should do something to assure their reader of their historical value. But there is a necessary caution to be given at this moment. When Aristotle discusses happiness, he adds a curious limitation—"as the man of sense would define." He postulates81 a certain intelligence of the matter in hand. Similarly Longinus, the greatest of ancient critics, says that in literature sure judgement is the outcome of long experience. In matters of historical and literary criticism, a certain instinct is needed, conscious or unconscious, perhaps more often the latter, which without a serious interest and a long experience no man is likely to have.
The Gospels are not properly biographies; they consist of collections of reminiscences—memories and fragments that have survived for years, and sometimes the fragment is little more than a phrase. Such and such were the circumstances, and Jesus spoke—a story that may occupy four or five verses, or less. Something happened, Jesus said or did something that impressed his friends, and they could never forget it. The story, as such impressions do, keeps its sharp edges. Date and perhaps even place may be forgotten, but the look and the tone of the speaker are indelible memories. In the experience of every man there are such moments, and the reminiscences can be trusted. The Gospels are almost avowedly not first-hand. Peter is said to be behind Mark; Mark and at least one other are behind Matthew and Luke. Luke in his preface explains his methods. They are collectors and transmitters; and the indications—are that they did their work very faithfully. There is a simplicity82 and a plainness about the stories in the Gospels, which further guarantees them. It is remarkable83 how little of the adjective there is—no compliment, no eulogy84, no heroic touches, no sympathetic turn of phrase, no great passages of encomium85 or commendation. It is often said about the Greek historian, Thucydides, that, among his many intellectual judgements, he never offers a criticism of any act that implies moral approbation86 or disapprobation; that he says nothing to show that he had feelings or that he cared about questions of right and wrong. Page after page of Thucydides will make the reader tingle87 with pity or indignation; there is hardly in literature so tragic88 a story as the Syracusan expedition—and the writer did not feel! Is it not the sternest and deepest feeling, after all, when a man will not "unpack89 his heart with words"? Something of this kind we find in the Gospels. There is not a word of condemnation90 for Herod or Pilate, for priest or Pharisee; not a touch of sympathy as the nails are driven through those hands; a blunt phrase about the soldiers, "And sitting down they watched him there" (Matt. 26:36)—that is all. (From a literary point of view, what a triumph of awful, quiet objectivity! and they had no such aim.) Luke indeed has one slight touch that might be called irony91[4]—"And he released unto them him that for sedition92 and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired; but he delivered Jesus to their will" (Luke 23:25)—and yet the irony is in the story itself. "Why callest thou me good?" So it is recorded that Jesus once answered a compliment (Matt. 19:17); and it looks as if the mood had passed over to his intimates, and from them to their friends who wrote the Gospels. He meant too much for them to seek the facile relief of praise. The words of praise die away, yes, and the words of affection too; and their silence and self-restraint are in themselves evidence of their truth; and more winning than words could have been.
Here and there the Gospels keep a phrase actually used by Jesus, and in his native Aramaic speech. The Greek was not apt to use or quote foreign phrases—unlike the Englishman who "has been at a great feast of languages and stolen the scraps93." Why, then, do the Evangelists, writing for Greek readers, keep the Aramaic sentences? It looks like a human instinct that made Peter—if, as we are told, he had some part in the origination of Mark's Gospel—and the rest wish to keep the very words and tones of their Master, as most of us would wish to keep the accents and phrases of those we love. Was there no satisfaction to the people who had lived with Jesus, when they read in Mark the very syllables94 they had heard him use, and caught his great accents again? Is there not for Christians in every age a joy and an inspiration in knowing the very sounds his lips framed? The first word that his mother taught him survives in Abba (Father)—something of his own speech to let us begin at the beginning; something, again, that takes us to the very heart of him at the end, in his cry: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani (Mark 15:34). Is it not true that we come nearer to him in that cry in the language strange to us, but his own? Would not the story, again, be poorer without the little tender phrase that he used to the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:41).
From time to time we find in the Gospels matters for which the writers and those behind them have felt that some apology or at least some explanation was needed. His friendship for sinners was a taunt95 against him in his lifetime; so was his inattention to the Sabbath (Mark 2:24, 3:2), and the details of ceremonial washing (Mark 7:1-5). The faithful record of these is a sound indication both of the date[5] and of the truth of the Gospels. But these were not all. Celsus, in 178 A.D., in his True Word, mocked at Jesus because of the cry upon the cross; he reminded Christians that many and many a worthless knave96 had endured in brave silence, and their Great Man cried out. It was from the Gospels that his knowledge came (Mark 15:37). Even during his lifetime the Gospels reveal much about Jesus that in contemporary opinion would degrade him—sighs and tears and fatigue97, liability to emotion and to pain, friendship with women.
With these revelations of character we may group passages where the Gospels tell of Jesus surprising or shocking his disciples—startling them by some act or some opinion, for which they were not prepared, or which was contrary to common belief or practice—passages, too, where he blames or criticizes them for conventionality or unintelligence.
It has been remarked that the frequency and fidelity98 of Jesus' own allusions99 to country life, his illustrations from bird and beast and flower, and the work of the farm, are evidence for the genuineness of the tradition. Early Christianity, as we see already in the Acts of the Apostles, was prevailingly urban. Paul aimed at the great centres of population, where men gathered and from which ideas spread. The language of Paul in his epistles, the sermons inserted by Luke in the Acts, writings that survive of early Christians, are all in marked contrast to the speech of Jesus in this matter of country life. When we recall the practice of ancient historians of composing speeches for insertion in their narratives100, and weigh the suggestion that the sermons in the Acts may conceivably owe much to the free rehandling of Luke or may even be his own compositions, there is a fresh significance in his marked abstention from any such treatment of the words of Jesus. It means that we may be secure in using them as genuine and untouched reproductions of what he said and thought.
This leads us to another point. The central figure of the Gospels must impress every attentive101 reader as at least a man of marked personality. He has his own attitude to life, his own views of God and man and all else, and his own language, as we shall see in the pages that follow. So much his own are all these things that it is hard to imagine the possibility of his being a mere literary creation, even if we could concede a joint102 literary creation by several authors writing independent works. Indeed, when we reflect on the character of the Gospels, their origin and composition, and then consider the sharp, strong outlines of the personality depicted103, we shall be apt to feel his claim to historicity to be stronger than we supposed.
Finally, two points may be mentioned. The Church from the very start accepted the Gospels. Two of them were written by men in Paul's own personal circle (Philemon 24; Col. 4:10, 14). All found early acceptance and wide use,[6] and after a century we find Irenaeus maintaining that four Gospels are necessary, and are necessarily all—there are four points of the compass, seasons and so forth; therefore it is appropriate that there are four Gospels. The argument is not very convincing; but that such an argument was possible is evidence to the position of the Gospels as we have them. We must remember the solidarity104 of that early Church. The constituency, for which the Gospels were written, was steeped in the tradition of Jesus' life, and the Christians accepted the Gospels, as embodying105 what they knew; and there were still survivors106 from the first days of the Gospel. When Boswell's Life of Johnson was published, the great painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, a lifelong friend of Johnson, said it might be depended upon as if delivered upon oath; Burke too had a high opinion of the book. In the same way the Gospels come recommended to us by those who knew Jesus, though, it is true, we do not know their names.
The Gospels do not tell us all that Christians thought of Jesus, but they imply more than they say. The writers limited themselves. That Luke, for years a friend of Paul's, so generally kept his great friend's theology, above all his Christology, out of his Gospel, is significant. It does not mean divergence107 of view. More reasonably we may conclude something else: he held to his literary and other authorities, and he was content; for he knew to what the historical Jesus brings men—to new life and larger views, to a series of new estimates of Jesus himself. He left it there. In what follows, we must not forget in our study that behind the Gospels, simple and objective as they are, is the larger experience of the ever-working Christ.
There are three canons which may be laid down for the study of any human character, whether of the past or of to-day. They are so simple that it may hardly seem worth while to have stated them; yet they are not always very easy to apply. Without them the acutest critic will fail to give any sound account of a human character.
First of all, give the man's words his own meaning. Make sure that every term he uses has the full value he intends it to carry, connotes all he wishes it to cover, and has the full emotional power and suggestion that it has for himself. Two quite simple illustrations may serve. The English-born clergyman in Canada who spoke of a meeting of his congregation as a "homely108 gathering109" did not produce quite the effect he intended; "home-like" is one thing in Canada, "homely" quite another, and the people laughed at the slip—they knew, what he did not, that "homely" meant hard-featured and ugly. My other illustration will take us towards the second canon. I remember, years ago, a working-man of my own city talking a swift, impulsive110 Socialism to me. He was young and something of a poet. He got in return the obvious common sense that would be expected of a mid-Victorian, middle-aged111 and middle-class. And then he began to talk of hunger—the hunger that haunted whole streets in our city, where they had indeed something to eat every day, but never quite enough, and the children grew up so—the hunger that he had experienced himself, for I knew his story. With his eyes fixed112 on me, he brought home to me by the quiet intensity113 of his speech—whether he knew what he effected or not—that he and I gave hunger different senses. He gave the word for me a new meaning, with the glimpse he gave me of his experience. Since then I have always felt, when men fling theories out like his—schemes, too, like his—wild and impracticable: "Ah, yes! what is at the heart of it all? What but this awful experience which they have known and you have not—the sight of your own folk hungering, life and faculty114 wasted for want of mere food, and children growing up atrophied115 from the cradle"? It is not easy to dissociate the language and the terms of others from the meaning one gives to them oneself; it means intellectual effort and intellectual discipline, a training of a strenuous116 kind in sympathy and tenderness; but if we are to be fair, it must be done. And the rule applies to Jesus also. Have we given his meaning to his term—force, value, emotion, and suggestion? In a later chapter we shall have to concentrate on one term of his—God—and try to discover what he intends that term to convey.
The second canon is: Make sure of the experience behind the thought. How does a man come to think and feel as he does? That is the question antecedent to any real criticism. What is it that has led him to such a view? It is more important for us to determine that, than to decide at once whether we think him right or wrong. Again and again the quiet and sympathetic study of what a man has been through will modify our judgement upon his conclusions; it will often change our own conclusions, or even our way of thinking. We have, then, to ask ourselves, What is the experience that leads Jesus to speak as he does, to think as he does? In his case, as in every other, the central and crucial question is, What is his experience of God? In other words, What has he found in God? what relations has he with God? What does he expect of God? What is God to him? Such questions, if we are candid and not too quick in answering, will take us a long way. It was once said of a man, busy with some labour problem, that he was "working it out in theory, unclouded by a single fact." Is it not fair to say that many of our current judgements upon Jesus Christ are no better founded? Can we say that we have any real, sure, and intimate knowledge of his experience of God? The old commentator117, Bengel, wrote at the beginning of his book that a man, who is setting out to interpret Scripture118, has to ask "by what right" he does it. What is our right to an opinion on Jesus Christ?
The third canon will be: Ask of what type and of what dimensions the nature must be, that is capable of that experience and of that language. One of the commonest sources of bad criticism is the emphasis on weak points. The really important thing in criticism is to understand the triumphs of the poet or painter, let us say, whom we are studying. How came he to achieve poem or picture, so profound and so true? In what does he differ from other men, that he should do work so fundamental and so eternal? Lamb's punning jest at Wordsworth—that Wordsworth was saying he could have written Hamlet, if he had had the mind—puts the matter directly. What is the mind that can do such things? The historian will have to ask himself a similar question about Jesus.
Here we reach a point where caution is necessary. Will the Jesus we draw be an antiquary's Jesus—an archaic119 figure, simple and lovable perhaps, but quaint120 and old-world—in blunt language, outgrown121? A Galilean peasant, dressed in the garb122 of his day and place, his mind fitted out with the current ideas of his contemporaries, elevated, it may be, but not essentially changed? A dreamer, with the clouds of the visionaries and apocalyptists ever in his head? When we look at the ancient world, the great men are not archaic figures. Matthew Arnold found in Homer something of the clearness and shrewdness of Voltaire. There is thing archaic about Plato or Virgil or Paul—to keep abreast123 of their thinking is no easy task for the strongest of our brains, so modern, eternal, and original they are. They have shaped the thinking of the world and are still shaping it. How much more Jesus of Nazareth! When we make our picture of him, does it suggest the man who has stirred mankind to its depths, set the world on fire (Luke 12:49), and played an infinitely124 larger part in all the affairs of men than any man we know of in history? Is it a great figure? Does our emphasis fall on the great features of that nature—are they within our vision, and in our drawing? Does our explanation of him really explain him, or leave him more a riddle125? What do we make of his originality126? Is it in our picture? What was it in him that changed Peter and James and John and the rest from companions into worshippers, that in every age has captured and controlled the best, the deepest, and tenderest of men? Are we afraid that our picture will be too modern, too little Jewish? These are not the real dangers. Again, and again our danger is that we under-estimate the great men of our race, and we always lose by so doing. That we should over-estimate Jesus is not a real risk; the story of the Church shows that the danger has always been the other way. But not to under-estimate such a figure is hard. To see him as he is, calls for all we have of intellect, of tenderness, of love, and of greatness. It is worth while to try to understand him even if we fail. God, said St. Bernard, is never sought in vain, even when we do not find Him. Jesus Christ transcends127 our categories and classification; we never exhaust him; and one element of Christian happiness is that there is always more in him than we supposed.
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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insufficiently
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| adv.不够地，不能胜任地 | |
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psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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eventual
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| adj.最后的，结局的，最终的 | |
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8
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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10
landmark
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| n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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12
ebbing
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的现在分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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adherents
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| n.支持者，拥护者( adherent的名词复数 )；党羽；徒子徒孙 | |
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ferment
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| vt.使发酵；n./vt.（使）激动，（使）动乱 | |
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upheaval
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| n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱 | |
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missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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17
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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18
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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19
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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20
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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21
delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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22
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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23
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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24
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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25
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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26
relegated
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| v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 )；使降职；转移；把…归类 | |
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27
waned
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| v.衰落( wane的过去式和过去分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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29
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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30
atrophy
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| n./v.萎缩，虚脱，衰退 | |
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31
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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32
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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33
discredit
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| vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑 | |
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secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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35
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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36
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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37
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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38
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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39
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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40
disciples
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| n.信徒( disciple的名词复数 )；门徒；耶稣的信徒；（尤指）耶稣十二门徒之一 | |
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41
orations
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| n.（正式仪式中的）演说，演讲( oration的名词复数 ) | |
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42
massacre
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| n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀 | |
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43
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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44
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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45
credence
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| n.信用，祭器台，供桌，凭证 | |
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46
marvels
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| n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 )；令人惊奇的事物（或事例）；不平凡的成果；成就v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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47
omens
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| n.前兆，预兆( omen的名词复数 ) | |
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48
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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49
forger
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| v.伪造；n.（钱、文件等的）伪造者 | |
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50
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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51
exterminate
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| v.扑灭，消灭，根绝 | |
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52
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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53
Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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54
apostate
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| n.背叛者，变节者 | |
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55
Buddha
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| n.佛；佛像；佛陀 | |
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56
contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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57
posit
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| v.假定，认为 | |
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58
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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59
avowedly
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| adv.公然地 | |
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60
reconstructions
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| 重建( reconstruction的名词复数 )； 再现； 重建物； 复原物 | |
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61
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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62
postpone
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| v.延期，推迟 | |
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63
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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64
interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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65
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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66
vindicated
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| v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的过去式和过去分词 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护 | |
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67
asses
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| n. 驴，愚蠢的人，臀部 adv. (常用作后置)用于贬损或骂人 | |
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68
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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69
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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70
tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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71
predilection
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| n.偏好 | |
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72
susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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73
alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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74
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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75
authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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76
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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77
parody
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| n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文 | |
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78
warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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79
gratuitous
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| adj.无偿的，免费的；无缘无故的，不必要的 | |
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80
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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81
postulates
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| v.假定，假设( postulate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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82
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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83
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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84
eulogy
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| n.颂词；颂扬 | |
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85
encomium
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| n.赞颂；颂词 | |
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86
approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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87
tingle
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| vi.感到刺痛，感到激动；n.刺痛，激动 | |
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88
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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89
unpack
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| vt.打开包裹（或行李），卸货 | |
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90
condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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91
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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92
sedition
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| n.煽动叛乱 | |
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93
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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94
syllables
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| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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95
taunt
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| n.辱骂，嘲弄；v.嘲弄 | |
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96
knave
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| n.流氓；（纸牌中的）杰克 | |
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97
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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98
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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99
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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100
narratives
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| 记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分 | |
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101
attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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102
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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103
depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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104
solidarity
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| n.团结；休戚相关 | |
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105
embodying
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| v.表现( embody的现在分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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106
survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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107
divergence
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| n.分歧，岔开 | |
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108
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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109
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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110
impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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111
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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112
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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113
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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114
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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115
atrophied
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| adj.萎缩的，衰退的v.（使）萎缩，（使）虚脱，（使）衰退( atrophy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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116
strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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117
commentator
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| n.注释者，解说者；实况广播评论员 | |
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118
scripture
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| n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段 | |
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119
archaic
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| adj.(语言、词汇等)古代的，已不通用的 | |
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120
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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121
outgrown
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| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
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122
garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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123
abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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124
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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125
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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126
originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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127
transcends
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| 超出或超越（经验、信念、描写能力等）的范围( transcend的第三人称单数 )； 优于或胜过… | |
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