The belief is commonly supposed to be rendered impossible by the disbelief. This book is written to shew that there is no such impossibility.
The vast majority of the worshippers of Christ base their worship to a very large extent—as the author did in his early youth under the cloud of Paley’s Evidences—on their acceptance of His miracles as historical facts. In the author’s opinion this basis is already demonstrably unsafe, and may be at any moment, by some new demonstration4, absolutely destroyed.
Nevertheless such worshippers, if their worship is really genuine—that is to say, if it includes love, trust, and awe5, carried to their highest limits, and not merely that kind of awe which is inspired by “mighty works”—will do well to avoid this book. If doubt has not attacked them, why should they go to meet it? In pulling up falsehood by the roots there[8] is always a danger of uprooting6 or loosening a truth that grows beside it. Historical error, if honest, is better (and less misleading) than spiritual darkness. For example, it is much better (and less misleading) to remain in the old-fashioned belief that a good and wise God created the world in six days than to adopt a new belief that a bad or unwise or careless God—or a chance, or a force, or a power—evolved it in sixty times six sextillions of centuries.
To such genuine worshippers of Christ, then, as long as they feel safe and sincere in their convictions, this book is not addressed. They are (in the author’s view) substantially right, and had better remain as they are.
But there may be some, calling themselves worshippers of Christ, who cannot honestly say that they love Him. They trust His power, they bow before Him as divine; but they have no affection at all for Him, as man, or as God. What St Paul described as the “constraining” love of Christ has never touched them. And yet they fancy they worship! To them this book may be of use in suggesting the divinity and loveableness of Christ’s human nature; and any harm the book might do them can hardly be conceived as equal to the harm of remaining in their present position. One may learn Christ by rote7, as one may learn Euclid by rote, so as to be almost ruined for really knowing either. For such learners the best course may be to go back and begin again.
It is, however, to a third class of readers that the author mainly addresses himself. Having in view the experiences of his own early manhood, he regards with a strong fellow feeling those who desire to worship Christ and to be loyal and faithful to Him, if only they can at the same time be loyal and faithful to truth, and who doubt the compatibility of the double allegiance.
These, many of them, cannot even conceive how they can worship Christ at the right hand of God, or the Son in the bosom8 of the Father in heaven, unless they first believe in[9] Him as miraculously9 manifested on earth. Not being able to accept Him as miraculous, they reject Him as a Saviour10. To them this book specially11 appeals, endeavouring to shew, in a general and popular way—on psychological, historical, and critical grounds—how the rejection12 of the claim made by most Christians14 that their Lord is miraculous, may be compatible with a frank and full acceptance of the conclusion that He is, in the highest sense, divine.
Detailed15 proofs this volume does not offer. These will be given in a separate volume of “Notes,” shortly to be published. This will be of a technical nature, forming Part VII of the series called Diatessarica. The present work merely aims at suggesting such conceptions of history, literature, worship, human nature, and divine Being, as point to a foreordained conformation of man to God, to be fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, of which the fulfilment may be traced in the Christian13 writings and the Christian churches of the first and second centuries.
It also attempts, in a manner not perhaps very usual, to meet many objections brought against Christianity by those who assert that its records are inadequate16, inaccurate17, and contradictory18. Instead of denying these defects, the author admits and emphasizes them as being inseparable from earthen vessels19 containing a spiritual treasure, and as (in some cases) indirectly20 testifying to the divinity of the Person whom the best efforts of the best and most inspired of the evangelists inadequately21, though honestly, portray22. Specimens23 of these defects are freely given, shewing the modifications24, amplifications, and (in some case) misinterpretations or corruptions25, to which Christian tradition was inevitably26 exposed in passing from the east to the west during a period of about one hundred and thirty years, dating from the Crucifixion.
These objects the author has endeavoured to attain27 by sketching28 an autobiography29 of an imaginary character, by name Quintus Junius Silanus, who in the second year of Hadrian[10] (A.D. 118) becomes a hearer of Epictetus and a Christian convert, and commits his experiences to paper forty-five years afterwards in the second year of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Lucius Verus (A.D. 163).
EDWIN A. ABBOTT.
Wellside, Well Walk,
Hampstead.
28 Aug. 1906.
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1 constrained | |
adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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2 miraculous | |
adj.像奇迹一样的,不可思议的 | |
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3 unity | |
n.团结,联合,统一;和睦,协调 | |
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4 demonstration | |
n.表明,示范,论证,示威 | |
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5 awe | |
n.敬畏,惊惧;vt.使敬畏,使惊惧 | |
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6 uprooting | |
n.倒根,挖除伐根v.把(某物)连根拔起( uproot的现在分词 );根除;赶走;把…赶出家园 | |
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7 rote | |
n.死记硬背,生搬硬套 | |
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8 bosom | |
n.胸,胸部;胸怀;内心;adj.亲密的 | |
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9 miraculously | |
ad.奇迹般地 | |
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10 saviour | |
n.拯救者,救星 | |
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11 specially | |
adv.特定地;特殊地;明确地 | |
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12 rejection | |
n.拒绝,被拒,抛弃,被弃 | |
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13 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
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14 Christians | |
n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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15 detailed | |
adj.详细的,详尽的,极注意细节的,完全的 | |
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16 inadequate | |
adj.(for,to)不充足的,不适当的 | |
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17 inaccurate | |
adj.错误的,不正确的,不准确的 | |
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18 contradictory | |
adj.反驳的,反对的,抗辩的;n.正反对,矛盾对立 | |
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19 vessels | |
n.血管( vessel的名词复数 );船;容器;(具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的)人 | |
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20 indirectly | |
adv.间接地,不直接了当地 | |
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21 inadequately | |
ad.不够地;不够好地 | |
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22 portray | |
v.描写,描述;画(人物、景象等) | |
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23 specimens | |
n.样品( specimen的名词复数 );范例;(化验的)抽样;某种类型的人 | |
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24 modifications | |
n.缓和( modification的名词复数 );限制;更改;改变 | |
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25 corruptions | |
n.堕落( corruption的名词复数 );腐化;腐败;贿赂 | |
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26 inevitably | |
adv.不可避免地;必然发生地 | |
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27 attain | |
vt.达到,获得,完成 | |
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28 sketching | |
n.草图 | |
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29 autobiography | |
n.自传 | |
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