CHAPTER VII.

  IN studying the story of the evangelists let us try to come nearer to Jesus. We need not fear; he would have us find out all about him that we can; he would have us know what manner of man he is. If we love beauty, goodness, and truth, we will approach him with reverence¹. No good man, no man you can respect or trust, will speak of Jesus with flippant words. But we may go to him without hesitation²; he who took little children in his arms and blessed and kissed them will not receive the humblest student with coldness. Indeed, the more one needs him the more welcome he is. It was he who said to the “weary and heavy laden,” “Come unto me.”

 

Let us consider now, as best we may, what we must call his method of thought. It differences him utterly³ from all mere⁴ human teachers. We can find many illustrations.

 

In the first place, Jesus does not seek the same end that the great thinkers, who have given the world its philosophy and its science, always seek—the creation of an intellectual system of and for the universe. Humboldt, who was a very learned and gifted man, gives us a great work he calls Cosmos⁵. It tells all he knew, or thought he knew, of the universe, and explains it all as best he could. He is one among many; all the philosophers try to account for things, and the greater they are the more they try.

 

In the human mind there is a resistless tendency to search into secret things, and to construct a philosophy of them. Aristotle gave us his Categories; the moderns try their hand in the same line of things. It means only this: men who are philosophers and thinkers seek to classify all facts and to find out and express—“formulate” is the word—a complete, all-embracing, all-explaining law of them.

 

Witty⁶ Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his Poet at the Breakfast-Table, gives us a pretty satire⁷ on this invincible⁸ disposition⁹ and always disappointed and disappointing effort of thinkers. His “Philosopher” was ever just about to find expression for his great discovery—just about to state the all-comprehensive law, the perfect formula, that left out nothing and explained all.

 

It is essentially¹⁰ a man’s way; in all departments we see the tendency and effort of men to explain the universe.

 

The chemist talks of “atoms” because he wishes to get down to the basis of things—to know the ultimate fact, beyond which analysis cannot go. The ontologist talks of “germs” for a like reason; he is ever striving to find a something—a substance or a force—that will explain to him not one but every life process. And the greater ones are seeking always to explain the origin of all things—to show how the universe was started or got itself going.

 

The philosopher who studies mind seeks the same sort of end—the construction of a mental science that embraces every fact and explains every mystery of mental action. The theologian is in the same drift; he wants a philosophy of religion. He seeks to explain God, and, in not a few instances, seems to labor¹¹ more earnestly to show how God can save a sinner consistently with his own nature and government than to show the sinner how to be saved. The theologian labors¹² to show what the origin of evil is, and to make his view a philosophy that will harmonize all differences and explain all mysteries.

 

The strength of this tendency in mere men—and it is strongest in the greatest—to find a statement that may account for all things is shown in the absurd conclusions that some of them, entirely¹³ sane¹⁴ on other subjects, accept for themselves and urge upon other minds. A great chemist concludes that the universe was “once latent in a fiery¹⁵ cloud,” and seems content with a form of pretty words. Another expounder¹⁶ of mysteries accounts for life in our world by telling us that “germs” were first brought from somewhere in space by “falling meteorites,” pays his worship to what he dreams is science, and is content to push his problem further from him. The notion that the word “protoplasm” is supposed to stand for represents another effort to explain all things, albeit¹⁸ by a theory harder to understand than the universe it would embrace and expound¹⁷. These are only specimens¹⁹; both ancient and modern times abound²⁰ in them. Wiser, perhaps, and quite as scientific was the desperation of that student of the mysteries of life and man who concluded that the “missing link” must be in the bottom of the Indian Ocean; for no diver can prove what is not in water so deep as this fathomless²¹ sea.

 

What we are now considering is a resistless tendency in thinking minds. It is not peculiar²² to one class of men; it does not characterize one age. It is simply human nature to ask questions and seek explanations. Consider a few names now mentioned and see for yourself that the greater the mere man the more he tries to explain the universe—to find a formula large enough to contain it, to classify its facts and correlate its forces. Think of these men and the few whose names should go with them—Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Origen, Augustine, Pelagius, Athanasius, Calvin, Edwards, Leibnitz, Bacon, Humboldt, Kant, Cuvier, and, perhaps, some new men. Philosophers, scientists, theologians, they are all alike in this—they are building a system, a philosophy of the universe.

 

Do not mistake my purpose in these illustrations; the disposition which we have been considering is a pure human instinct; it is resistless, and it is the condition of mental activity. The mind that does not ask questions, that does not knock at the closed doors of knowledge, is stagnant²³ and will perish. Progress and growth depend upon inquiry²⁴. Wise men will cheer every earnest student, whether he is trying to find what an atom is or what the stars contain. It is a man’s way to seek to explain all things; the effort affords the drill and discipline that make growth and progress possible to the race.

 

But in these respects, as in so many others, Jesus is utterly unlike the philosophers and scientists and theologians. He does not in the least seek the end that mere men seek. He makes us understand the universe—matter and mind, man and God—better than all of them put together. But he nowhere accounts for things. He has not a word about the “cosmos.” He makes no inquiry, raises no question, offers no explanation concerning the origin of things. In him there seems to be no consciousness of the mysteries of the universe, either as to its origin or nature.

 

But it may be said Jesus taught morals, religion, not science or philosophy, and he had no occasion to construct a system of the universe. In morals and religion, more than anywhere else, do mere men build systems when they think, explain things when they teach. But Jesus, teaching morals and religion, was unlike all others, mere men, teaching morals and religion. He said not one word—he, the only teacher who seemed to understand it—about the “origin of evil,” the subject that has vexed²⁵ not a little theology into lunacy; he, the only one who has seemed capable of doing it, has given us no “theodicy,” nor so much as seemed to think of it at all.

 

He did not, he who made claim to perfect knowledge of God, explain God or philosophize about God; Jesus did not so much as give us a philosophy of himself, his life, or his mission. It was John, the disciple²⁶, not Jesus, the Master, who wrote of the Logos. Jesus offers no philosophy of the plan of salvation²⁷; he does not philosophize concerning faith, or prayer, or immortality²⁸.

 

As to evil, Jesus tells men what evil is, shows the ruin it brings upon them, and points out to them the way of deliverance. He talks to men of their evil and the way to make an end of it.

 

Jesus never investigates. He never doubts his knowledge or questions for one instant the grounds of it. We have no fit word for his method; intuition is perhaps as good as any. His thinking is not a process; it is like seeing, not learning, the truth; seeing not the outside of things as men see them, but the inside of them as God sees them.

 

Jesus never uses those forms of logic²⁹ that are absolutely necessary to all others. We are speaking of his “method of thought;” perhaps such words do not apply to him at all. How did he find out what was true? He did not seem to find it out at all; it seemed to be in him. He never seems to discover a truth. He does not, by reasoning from what is to what must be, find out what he did not know before.

 

In geometry we begin with what we call “axioms,” a few simple principles that need no proof. We call them “self-evident,” because we see that they are true, that they must be true, the instant we know what the words mean that state them to us. Upon these we build our geometry and all the science and art that rest upon it or grow out of it. When we prove one thing we did not know by something that, being self-evident, needs no proof, we put the two together and prove a third, and so on as far as we can go. Jesus would have known the third, and the hundredth, and the last, as he knew the first—without this building-up process. He would know all that the axioms contain as we know the axioms.

 

For want of fitter words we have been speaking of his “method of thought.” As these words have significance to mere men, Jesus, it seems, had no method of thought; he did not, as men must do, think to know; he knew things. Perhaps this is in part what he meant when he said to Pilate, “I am the Truth.”

1 reverence   

n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬

参考例句：

• He was a bishop who was held in reverence by all.他是一位被大家都尊敬的主教。
• We reverence tradition but will not be fettered by it.我们尊重传统，但不被传统所束缚。

2 hesitation   

n.犹豫，踌躇

参考例句：

• After a long hesitation, he told the truth at last.踌躇了半天，他终于直说了。
• There was a certain hesitation in her manner.她的态度有些犹豫不决。

3 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。

4 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。

5 cosmos   

n.宇宙；秩序，和谐

参考例句：

• Our world is but a small part of the cosmos.我们的世界仅仅是宇宙的一小部分而已。
• Is there any other intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos?在宇宙的其他星球上还存在别的有智慧的生物吗？

6 witty   

adj.机智的，风趣的

参考例句：

• Her witty remarks added a little salt to the conversation.她的妙语使谈话增添了一些风趣。
• He scored a bull's-eye in their argument with that witty retort.在他们的辩论中他那一句机智的反驳击中了要害。

7 satire   

n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品

参考例句：

• The movie is a clever satire on the advertising industry.那部影片是关于广告业的一部巧妙的讽刺作品。
• Satire is often a form of protest against injustice.讽刺往往是一种对不公正的抗议形式。

8 invincible   

adj.不可征服的，难以制服的

参考例句：

• This football team was once reputed to be invincible.这支足球队曾被誉为无敌的劲旅。
• The workers are invincible as long as they hold together.只要工人团结一致，他们就是不可战胜的。

9 disposition   

n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署

参考例句：

• He has made a good disposition of his property.他已对财产作了妥善处理。
• He has a cheerful disposition.他性情开朗。

10 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

11 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

12 labors   

v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转

参考例句：

• He was tiresome in contending for the value of his own labors. 他老为他自己劳动的价值而争强斗胜，令人生厌。 来自辞典例句
• Farm labors used to hire themselves out for the summer. 农业劳动者夏季常去当雇工。 来自辞典例句

13 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

14 sane   

adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的

参考例句：

• He was sane at the time of the murder.在凶杀案发生时他的神志是清醒的。
• He is a very sane person.他是一个很有头脑的人。

15 fiery   

adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的

参考例句：

• She has fiery red hair.她有一头火红的头发。
• His fiery speech agitated the crowd.他热情洋溢的讲话激动了群众。

16 expounder   

陈述者，说明者

参考例句：

17 expound   

v.详述；解释；阐述

参考例句：

• Why not get a diviner to expound my dream?为什么不去叫一个占卜者来解释我的梦呢？
• The speaker has an hour to expound his views to the public.讲演者有1小时时间向公众阐明他的观点。

18 albeit   

conj.即使；纵使；虽然

参考例句：

• Albeit fictional,she seemed to have resolved the problem.虽然是虚构的，但是在她看来好象是解决了问题。
• Albeit he has failed twice,he is not discouraged.虽然失败了两次，但他并没有气馁。

19 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》

20 abound   

vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于

参考例句：

• Oranges abound here all the year round.这里一年到头都有很多橙子。
• But problems abound in the management of State-owned companies.但是在国有企业的管理中仍然存在不少问题。

21 fathomless   

a.深不可测的

参考例句：

• "The sand-sea deepens with fathomless ice, And darkness masses its endless clouds;" 瀚海阑干百丈冰，愁云黪淡万里凝。 来自英汉 - 翻译样例 - 文学
• Day are coloured bubbles that float upon the surface of fathomless night. 日是五彩缤纷的气泡，漂浮在无尽的夜的表面。

22 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

23 stagnant   

adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的

参考例句：

• Due to low investment,industrial output has remained stagnant.由于投资少，工业生产一直停滞不前。
• Their national economy is stagnant.他们的国家经济停滞不前。

24 inquiry   

n.打听，询问，调查，查问

参考例句：

• Many parents have been pressing for an inquiry into the problem.许多家长迫切要求调查这个问题。
• The field of inquiry has narrowed down to five persons.调查的范围已经缩小到只剩5个人了。

25 vexed   

adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论

参考例句：

• The conference spent days discussing the vexed question of border controls. 会议花了几天的时间讨论边境关卡这个难题。
• He was vexed at his failure. 他因失败而懊恼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

26 disciple   

n.信徒，门徒，追随者

参考例句：

• Your disciple failed to welcome you.你的徒弟没能迎接你。
• He was an ardent disciple of Gandhi.他是甘地的忠实信徒。

27 salvation   

n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困

参考例句：

• Salvation lay in political reform.解救办法在于政治改革。
• Christians hope and pray for salvation.基督教徒希望并祈祷灵魂得救。

28 immortality   

n.不死，不朽

参考例句：

• belief in the immortality of the soul 灵魂不灭的信念
• It was like having immortality while you were still alive. 仿佛是当你仍然活着的时候就得到了永生。

29 logic   

n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性

参考例句：

• What sort of logic is that?这是什么逻辑？
• I don't follow the logic of your argument.我不明白你的论点逻辑性何在。