CHAPTER I.

WHO and what was Jesus of Nazareth? In this question and its answer is involved the whole of what we mean by Christianity.If it could be demonstrably proved that there never existed such a person as Jesus, Christianity, as a living force, would cease from the earth. There would indeed be a history, a literature that would interest people according to their tastes; but there would be no heart-changing, world-up-lifting system of vital and vitalizing truths and corresponding duties, binding² upon the conscience of every human being and inspiring hope in every breast.

 

In the discussions we are about to enter nothing will be assumed except what is too obvious to question. It will not be assumed that the little books called “gospels” were inspired at all. You will not be asked to consider any miracle, said to have been performed by Jesus, as making proof of his divinity. Nor will I quote proof-texts to show that he is divine.

 

The first question to ask is this: Did such a person as Jesus is described to have been ever really exist? Did Jesus really live in Nazareth and work in Joseph’s shop? Did he, for some three years and six months, go to and fro among men teaching them? Was there, in the days of Herod and Pilate, a Jesus as surely as there was a Cæsar?

 

This much is certain: we have in these four little books—compared with what is every day written about common men how small they are!—attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, a most distinct character, known to us and known to history as Jesus. Whether the men whose names the little books bear, or some other men whose names are lost to us wrote them, matters not in the least. What books contain is more important than the question of authorship. No matter who wrote them, the character we know as Jesus is in the books; there can be no dispute about this; here it is, before our eyes. And this character is as surely in history, in literature, in men’s thoughts, in all that we mean by Christian¹ civilization, as it is in the writings of the four men we call evangelists.

 

Not only do we have the character, but we see clearly that it is a character absolutely unique. It is unique in many respects, but pre-eminently in this—it is the one perfect character that has appeared in the world that ever had a place in the history or the thought of men. It is said that the volatile³ Voltaire once compared Jesus to Fletcher of Madeley, thinking him as good a man as the Nazarene. But the light Frenchman understood neither the one nor the other. As one said of an unfit biographer of Fletcher’s great friend, John Wesley: “He had nothing to draw with, and the well was deep.”

 

Is there one solitary⁴ defect, the very least, in this character that we find in the evangelists? Is there one weak spot, or suggestion of fault, or intimation of infirmity, or suspicion of failure, the slightest, to do and to be what was right for him to do and to be?

 

Look at him as he is set before us in these brief writings; look, reverently⁵ if you will, but with open and fearless eyes, to see all that may be seen of him. What least flaw can be found in him? Is there the least possible shadow of reason for reversing, or so much as questioning, Pilate’s verdict, “I find no fault in him?” Is there in all history one other character of which you can say or believe as much? Is there any other you are willing to name second to him?

 

If you are making an estimate of any other character—whether of a real person, as a sage⁶, a statesman, or a philanthropist, or of some imaginary person, as the hero of a story—how would you judge him most severely⁷? You would compare him with Jesus. We must remember that it is to Jesus we owe those higher standards by which we judge men in our times. Christ-likeness expresses the highest ideal of character we are capable of conceiving.

 

Some writers, as you know, have denied that Jesus, the Jesus of the four gospels, did at any time really live, a man among men. Of far more importance than any mere⁸ denials in books is the failure of many thousands to realize in their inmost consciousness that the story of the evangelists is the record of a life actually lived.

 

We will demand of those who deny or doubt that Jesus really lived to account to us for the existence of the character. This they must do, for the existence of the character they cannot deny; it is here before men’s eyes, as it is in men’s thoughts and lives. This character is not in these little books only; it is in a hundred thousand books. It was not only in the minds of four writers long ago; it is in the minds of millions of men, women, and children to-day. If any deny or doubt the historic Jesus, let them explain to us how this character, flawless and perfect, ever got itself into the thoughts of men and is now in history, literature, art, law, custom, in human life itself.

 

Some have tried to explain the existence of the character, while denying that Jesus really lived among men, by telling us the evangelists invented the Jesus of these stories. They tell us Jesus is the product of the dramatic genius of the four men whose names go with the brief account we have of him, his words, and his deeds. It would not alter the case to deny that these four wrote the books, and to say some other writers whose names we do not know invented the character.

 

Let us look carefully and fairly at this view of the subject. If it be reasonable it may be true; if it be true we need not fear to accept it. Nothing in Jesus calls on men to profess⁹ to believe what to them is not the truth; nothing can be more unlike him than to use words without convictions. We cannot do otherwise than “hold fast that which is true” to us; indeed we cannot hold fast to any thing else, though it be called truth by never so many voices of men.

 

The theory that Jesus is an invention is another way of saying that he is the hero of a romance, a creation of constructive¹⁰ imagination. It involves this: four Jews at about the same time, among a people not given to making books of any kind—least of all books of the imagination—were seized with desire to write books, and thus it came about that they have given to the world, as the product of dramatic genius, this character of Jesus. As, for illustration, it may be said, in a sense, that Bulwer invented the “Margrave” of A Strange Story.

 

Let us inquire into the antecedent probabilities that these men would naturally attempt to construct and put into form such a work of the imagination; nay¹¹, more: whether they were likely to attempt any dramatic work at all.

 

We are not left to guesses in considering such questions. It is historically certain that the Hebrew mind in ancient days was not given to this sort of literary work. The Greek mind gave dramas to the world, matchless of their kind; the Hebrew mind gave none. There is nothing in Hebrew literature of the period assigned to Jesus, of the period succeeding him, or from the time of Moses, to indicate so much as a tendency to such creations of the imagination.

 

We have much to judge by, and there can be no mistake. We have the Old Testament¹² Scriptures¹³, the apocryphal¹⁴ books, the comments of the scribes—called Targums—upon their sacred writing, the little book called “Acts of the Apostles,” the other New Testament writings, and the works of Josephus as specimens¹⁵, showing the trend and method of Hebrew literature.

 

The Hebrew mind in ancient days was not given to art, but to morals. The Jew did not develop art impulses till he had become cosmopolitan¹⁶ and Christianity had changed the world. In ancient Hebrew literature, whether in plain prose—in history, statute¹⁷ laws, or proverbs; whether in psalms¹⁸ or other poetry; whether in the magnificent imagery of the prophets, we find that morals, not art, inspire the thought and form the expression. There are neither paintings, nor statues, nor dramas. Their architecture was borrowed from the Phenicians; they were original in their ideas of morals and in their laws and customs relating to rights and wrongs. Their literature is dominated by religion, and not by art, in any of its manifold developments.

 

Read it all—all ancient Hebrew literature; we have history, laws, proverbs, poetry, prophecies, but we have no dramas.

 

You may cite me to the book of Job. This is more like a drama than any other. If this be allowed, it is the one exception. But it belongs to a period very remote from that of the evangelists, and if it be a drama it is, as may be shown, such a work as a Hebrew might have written. But the story of Jesus is not such a drama as a Hebrew of his period might have written, allowing, what is not true, that at some other period it might have been imagined by a Hebrew, or any other writer of books. As to the book of Job, it is in harmony with Hebrew characteristics and with the time and country in which its scenes are laid. The books of the evangelists are not in harmony with them; they contradict them all and utterly¹⁹.

 

Consider well the four little books of the evangelists that we call gospels; study them just as you would any other ancient writings. See what is in them, that you may know what manner of men they were who wrote them. Reject them all, if there be reason, but look carefully to this one thing—whether these writers were given to dramatic creations, or, indeed, had faculty²⁰ for such work. There is evidence enough in their writings that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not of the literary and book-making classes. They were of the common people; unlearned and unskilled in literature, laboring²¹ and business men, trained as laymen²². Their lives were very far removed from the occupations and influences that dominated the very feeble literary instinct that belonged to that period of Hebrew literature.

 

I conclude that it was antecedently as improbable that the evangelists would have attempted the production of any drama whatever, as I will show that it was impossible, had they made the attempt, for them to have invented such a story as they tell us of “The Man of Galilee.”

 

1 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

2 binding   

有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的

参考例句：

• The contract was not signed and has no binding force. 合同没有签署因而没有约束力。
• Both sides have agreed that the arbitration will be binding. 双方都赞同仲裁具有约束力。

3 volatile   

adj.反复无常的，挥发性的，稍纵即逝的，脾气火爆的；n.挥发性物质

参考例句：

• With the markets being so volatile,investments are at great risk.由于市场那么变化不定，投资冒着很大的风险。
• His character was weak and volatile.他这个人意志薄弱，喜怒无常。

4 solitary   

adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士

参考例句：

• I am rather fond of a solitary stroll in the country.我颇喜欢在乡间独自徜徉。
• The castle rises in solitary splendour on the fringe of the desert.这座城堡巍然耸立在沙漠的边际，显得十分壮美。

5 reverently   

adv.虔诚地

参考例句：

• He gazed reverently at the handiwork. 他满怀敬意地凝视着这件手工艺品。
• Pork gazed at it reverently and slowly delight spread over his face. 波克怀着愉快的心情看着这只表，脸上慢慢显出十分崇敬的神色。

6 sage   

n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的

参考例句：

• I was grateful for the old man's sage advice.我很感激那位老人贤明的忠告。
• The sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.这位哲人是百代之师。

7 severely   

adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地

参考例句：

• He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
• He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。

8 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

9 profess   

v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰

参考例句：

• I profess that I was surprised at the news.我承认这消息使我惊讶。
• What religion does he profess?他信仰哪种宗教？

10 constructive   

adj.建设的，建设性的

参考例句：

• We welcome constructive criticism.我们乐意接受有建设性的批评。
• He is beginning to deal with his anger in a constructive way.他开始用建设性的方法处理自己的怒气。

11 nay   

adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者

参考例句：

• He was grateful for and proud of his son's remarkable,nay,unique performance.他为儿子出色的，不，应该是独一无二的表演心怀感激和骄傲。
• Long essays,nay,whole books have been written on this.许多长篇大论的文章，不，应该说是整部整部的书都是关于这件事的。

12 testament   

n.遗嘱；证明

参考例句：

• This is his last will and testament.这是他的遗愿和遗嘱。
• It is a testament to the power of political mythology.这说明，编造政治神话可以产生多大的威力。

13 scriptures   

经文，圣典( scripture的名词复数 )； 经典

参考例句：

• Here the apostle Peter affirms his belief that the Scriptures are 'inspired'. 使徒彼得在此表达了他相信《圣经》是通过默感写成的。
• You won't find this moral precept in the scriptures. 你在《圣经》中找不到这种道德规范。

14 apocryphal   

adj.假冒的，虚假的

参考例句：

• Most of the story about his private life was probably apocryphal.有关他私生活的事可能大部分都是虚构的。
• This may well be an apocryphal story.这很可能是个杜撰的故事。

15 specimens   

n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人

参考例句：

• Astronauts have brought back specimens of rock from the moon. 宇航员从月球带回了岩石标本。
• The traveler brought back some specimens of the rocks from the mountains. 那位旅行者从山上带回了一些岩石标本。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 cosmopolitan   

adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的

参考例句：

• New York is a highly cosmopolitan city.纽约是一个高度世界性的城市。
• She has a very cosmopolitan outlook on life.她有四海一家的人生观。

17 statute   

n.成文法，法令，法规；章程，规则，条例

参考例句：

• Protection for the consumer is laid down by statute.保障消费者利益已在法令里作了规定。
• The next section will consider this environmental statute in detail.下一部分将详细论述环境法令的问题。

18 psalms   

n.赞美诗( psalm的名词复数 )；圣诗；圣歌；(中的)

参考例句：

• the Book of Psalms 《〈圣经〉诗篇》
• A verse from Psalms knifed into Pug's mind: "put not your trust in princes." 《诗篇》里有一句话闪过帕格的脑海：“不要相信王侯。” 来自辞典例句

19 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

20 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

21 laboring   

n.劳动，操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转

参考例句：

• The young man who said laboring was beneath his dignity finally put his pride in his pocket and got a job as a kitchen porter. 那个说过干活儿有失其身份的年轻人最终只能忍辱，做了厨房搬运工的工作。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• But this knowledge did not keep them from laboring to save him. 然而，这并不妨碍她们尽力挽救他。 来自飘（部分）

22 laymen   

门外汉，外行人( layman的名词复数 )； 普通教徒（有别于神职人员）

参考例句：

• a book written for professionals and laymen alike 一本内行外行都可以读的书
• Avoid computer jargon when you write for laymen. 写东西给一般人看时，应避免使用电脑术语。