In reviewing Mr. R. H. Hutton’s Essay on “Christian1 Evidences, Popular and Critical,” I was obliged to follow his lead, joining issue on such pleas as he put forward. Thus with regard to the resurrection of Jesus, as Mr. Hutton adduced what he thought confirmatory evidence only from the New Testament2 itself, I confined myself to showing or attempting to show that such evidence is unsubstantial. But I could not consider this argument adequate or conclusive3, for there are large general considerations of incomparably greater importance which it leaves out altogether. It is as if a case ruled by broad principles of equity4 were to be decided5 on the narrowest technical grounds. Therefore, while confident that even on these grounds the case must go against the Christian believer, I wish to add a few words on its wider relations, in order that the decision may be established, not merely by the letter of the law, but also by the spirit of justice.
We leave thus the torturing of texts in the dim cells of the theological Inquisition, a process by which almost any confession7 required can be and has been wrung8 from the unfortunate victims, and emerge into the open daylight of common-sense and reason. And here I venture to assert that if the story of the resurrection and ascension were recorded of any other than Jesus in any other sacred book than the Bible, Mr. Hutton and all other intelligent Christians9 would not only disbelieve it, but would not even condescend10 to investigate it, condemning11 it offhand12 as too preposterous13 to be worthy14 of serious attention. Thus, what Christian has ever deigned15 to examine critically the marvels16 affirmed in the Koran, such as Mohammed’s visit to heaven; although the Koran can be traced far more surely to the Prophet of Islam than can the Gospels to their reputed authors, and this Prophet bears a far higher character for truthfulness17 than do the early Christians? Nay18, what Bibliolater has ever seriously weighed the evidence for the miracles of his fellow Christian the great St. Bernard; such as those which are minutely related and solemnly attested19 by ten eye-witnesses, men well known and of unimpeached veracity20, and which are thus infinitely21 better attested than any miracle in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation?
Your enlightened Protestant simply shrugs22 his shoulders at all such stories, and says with a superior smile: “Of course, mere6 imposture23 and collusion, or superstition24 and delusion25; no sensible man can afford to waste his time in weighing that sort of stuff; we don’t think twice before determining whether the impossible ever really occurred.” How, then, can this enlightened Protestant receive without question the miracles of the Jewish books while rejecting without question all others? We have seen that it cannot be because of any superiority of evidence for the former, since the evidence for the latter is in many cases infinitely greater and better authenticated26, and since he does not attempt to weigh evidence before either accepting or rejecting, though he may seek evidence and argument to confirm what he has already given himself to believe. He accepts the Jewish miracles simply because they have come down to him, through many generations of his forefathers27, invested with a glamor28 of sanctity, and he regards them with the eye of faith which sees, and sees not, just what it wishes; he rejects miracles not in the Bible because they come to him without any hallowed associations, and he regards them with the eye of reason which beholds29 the plain facts before it, and neither wishes nor is able to avoid beholding30 them.
It is worth noting that while our Christian advocates insist with all their might, such as it is, upon the resurrection of Jesus, they willingly pass over as lightly as possible, if they do not altogether ignore, a similar miracle guaranteed by the very same authority. In Matt, xxvii., 52, 53, it stands recorded among the marvels following the death of Jesus: “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of their graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” The reader of Shakespeare will remember the prodigies31 anterior32 to the death of Julius C?sar when—
“The sheeted dead
This prodigal34 multiplicity and superfluity of resurrections seems to have been not a little embarrassing to modern Christian champions, though doubtless it did not in the least trouble the primitive35 non-scientific believers, to whom nothing was more natural than the unnatural36, including the supernatural and the infranatural. An apologist of our days who must affirm the one resurrection, seeing that his whole religion is based upon it, and who, though valiantly37 defying science, seeks to conciliate historical possibility, finds his task quite heavy enough in accounting38 for the facts that the risen Jesus “was seen of above five hundred brethren at once,” and yet that no record of his rising can be found beyond the limits of the New Testament. But the difficulties of the poor apologist are enormously increased if he must further contend that many bodies of the saints came out of their graves, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many, and still there is no external evidence. We are surely at the utmost limits of the possible in conceiving that Jesus could appear unto five hundred of the brethren at once (there is no hint elsewhere that he had so many permanent followers39 in his lifetime; in Acts i., 15, we find that there were about one hundred and twenty gathered after the ascension), without the priests and the Roman officials hearing of the apparition40 and investigating it. But if many others rose from their graves and appeared to many, it is absolutely impossible that anyone in Jerusalem could be ignorant of the miracle; equally impossible that Pilate and his officers did not investigate it, and equally impossible that finding it real he did not report it with the evidence to Rome, for the Empire was a thoroughly41 organised State, and the Romans were a thoroughly practical and business-like people. Once in the imperial archives, the record of the miracle would have spread everywhere; all subsequent historians would have related it, all subsequent writers referred to it. So it is no wonder that, recoiling42 from these manifold impossibilities, the Christian advocates prefer to dwell on the one resurrection as if it were unique, and avoid dwelling43 on the others that by the very same testimony44 immediately followed it. It is very significant that neither in the Acts nor in the Epistles is there any allusion45 to these resurrections. When Peter and the others were preaching the resurrection of Christ, why did they not adduce and produce some of these many, risen saints, whose visible, tangible46, living and speaking evidence would have been irresistible47?
Just as the resurrection of Jesus could be accepted without misgiving48 by the non-scientific early Christians, to whom miracles appeared among the most frequent occurrences of life, so could the ascension. Their earth was a plane, vaulted49 by the sky, lamped by the little sun and moon and stars; above this vault50 was Heaven, where their God dwelt enthroned; they knew nothing of the law of gravitation; their Christ, standing51 in the flesh on the Mount of Olives, floated up through this vault to sit enthroned beside his Father in the most natural supernatural manner. We can conceive and sympathise with this simple faith; but it is hard to conceive and sympathise with the blind faith, which seems wilfully52 blind, of the modem53 educated Christians. It has been often remarked that Copernicus and Kepler and Newton have destroyed all the old mythologies54, including of course the mythology55 of both the Old and New Testaments56. With the earth no longer the universe of mortal life, between a Heaven above its domed57 firmament58 and a Hades like a vast dungeon59 beneath, but a quite infinitesimal grain of sand involved by an infinitesimal drop of dew, floating and revolving60 in an ocean of space boundless61 in heighth and depth and breadth, amidst innumerable other spherules, most of which visible are very much greater than itself, and at inconceivable distances from it; with man no longer the lord of the creation, for whose service all things were made, but an animalcule inexpressibly small, living for a moment inexpressibly brief, with limitless time before his beginning and limitless time beyond his end; the Christian mythology and system, among others, because ineffably62 absurd. Where is the Heaven for its God? where the Hell for its Devil? Where is above? Where beneath? Whence came the winged angels, with their wrings63 which would not enable them to fly?
If Jesus had ascended65 and continued to ascend64 with the speed of light, he might be ascending66 now and go 011 ascending for millions and millions of years, and still not reach a heavenly region beyond the range of our telescopes I And think of the scheme of the Atonement in the system of the universe, as we are learning to know it now—try to conceive an infinite and eternal God of this infinite and eternal Whole sacrificing his only son for the salvation67 of us most insignificant68 insects on our most insignificant earth! The immense conceptions of science dwarf69 these petty conceptions of mythology to a littleness which reduces them beneath consideration, which in our days reduces them even beneath contempt.
Naturally the churches have always hated and resisted science, and the theologians have seldom dared to face its conclusions. They ignore the immensities, and confine their vision to the pages of a single book, to a history whose chronology counts not six thousand years. But, as I have remarked, even this minute field they cannot hold against the sceptic, who has made them abandon all the rest of the universe. Why did their risen Lord only slink about among his own disciples70, appearing to these but at flying instants: why did he not, with his well-known features and with the wounds of the nails and the spear in his body, confront the chief priests and Pilate and the whole of Jerusalem, and compel them to acknowledge and bear enduring witness to his resurrection? Why did he not summon all the people from the highest to the lowest to the solemn spectacle of his ascension, securing multitudinous and permanently71 recorded evidence such as none of us could doubt? We might go on asking Why? and Why? and Why? in this fashion on a hundred points, confident that to not one of our questions could the Christian apologist give a straightforward72 and satisfactory answer. As the scheme of the Atonement is presented to us, God sacrificed his only son that all mankind might be saved through belief in him; yet not merely neglected to secure trustworthy evidence and certain record of this supreme73 fact and the miracles attesting74 it, but adopted every means possible to make the evidence untrustworthy, the record uncertain, the miracles and the sacrifice incredible.
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1
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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equity
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| n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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condescend
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| v.俯就，屈尊；堕落，丢丑 | |
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condemning
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| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的现在分词 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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offhand
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| adj.临时，无准备的；随便，马虎的 | |
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preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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deigned
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| v.屈尊，俯就( deign的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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truthfulness
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| n. 符合实际 | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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attested
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| adj.经检验证明无病的，经检验证明无菌的v.证明( attest的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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shrugs
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| n.耸肩（以表示冷淡，怀疑等）( shrug的名词复数 ) | |
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imposture
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| n.冒名顶替，欺骗 | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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authenticated
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| v.证明是真实的、可靠的或有效的( authenticate的过去式和过去分词 )；鉴定，使生效 | |
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forefathers
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| n.祖先，先人；祖先，祖宗( forefather的名词复数 )；列祖列宗；前人 | |
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glamor
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| n.魅力，吸引力 | |
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beholds
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| v.看，注视( behold的第三人称单数 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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beholding
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| v.看，注视( behold的现在分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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prodigies
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| n.奇才，天才（尤指神童）( prodigy的名词复数 ) | |
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anterior
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| adj.较早的；在前的 | |
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squeak
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| n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密 | |
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prodigal
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| adj.浪费的，挥霍的，放荡的 | |
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35
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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valiantly
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| adv.勇敢地，英勇地；雄赳赳 | |
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accounting
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| n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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42
recoiling
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| v.畏缩( recoil的现在分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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43
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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46
tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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misgiving
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕 | |
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vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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51
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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wilfully
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| adv.任性固执地；蓄意地 | |
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modem
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| n.调制解调器 | |
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mythologies
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| 神话学( mythology的名词复数 )； 神话（总称）； 虚构的事实； 错误的观点 | |
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mythology
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| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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testaments
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| n.遗嘱( testament的名词复数 )；实际的证明 | |
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domed
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| adj. 圆屋顶的, 半球形的, 拱曲的 动词dome的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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firmament
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| n.苍穹；最高层 | |
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dungeon
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| n.地牢，土牢 | |
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revolving
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| adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想 | |
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boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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ineffably
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| adv.难以言喻地，因神圣而不容称呼地 | |
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wrings
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| 绞( wring的第三人称单数 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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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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permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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attesting
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| v.证明( attest的现在分词 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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