The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 01/Book 3/Chapter 2

by Theodore Parker

CHAPTER II.

REMOVAL OF SOME DIFFICULTIES. CHARACTER OF THE CHRISTIAN RECORDS.

The method of acquiring a knowledge of Absolute Religion is plain and easy, but to get a knowledge of the doctrine taught by any teacher of ancient times is more difficult. This, however, may be said in general, that there are three sources of knowledge accessible to Men, two of these are direct, and one indirect. First, Perception through the senses; by this we only get an acquaintance with material things and their properties. Second, Intuition through Intellect, Conscience, the Religious Faculty, by which we get an acquaintance with spiritual things, which are not objects of sense. Third, Reflection, a mental process, by which we unfold what is contained or implied or suggested in perceptions or intuitions. Then as a secondary, but not ultimate source, there is Testimony, by which we learn what others have found out through perception, intuition, or reflection. Now thoughts or objects of thought may be classified in reference to their sources. The truths of Absolute Religion are not matters of Sense, it is plain. If objects of Reflection or Intuition, they must be obvious to all who have the intuitive or reflective faculty, and will use it. They therefore are matters of direct personal experience; not so a knowledge of any given historical form of Religion. As it has been before said, the great truths of Religion are matters of spontaneous Intuition, and then of voluntary Reflection, God helping the faithful, who use their faculties justly. Therefore, theoretically, each may depend on his own intuitions and reflections. The aid, the counsel, the example of good men help us to the truth. The wise and the pious are the educators whom God appoints for the race. By their superior gift, they help feebler men to understand, what else the latter might never have reached. The same rule holds good in both Philosophy and Religion; the weak need the help of the strong; youth of experience; the faithless of the faithful. Even the experience of wicked men is an element of human progression, a warning light. The works and words of the saint help the sinner to the source of truth. This is the office of prophets and apostles.

In historical questions, respecting events that took place out of the sphere of our observation, we must depend on the testimony of others who report what they have seen and heard, felt or thought. To determine what Jesus taught, we must depend on the testimony of the Evangelists, who profess to relate his works and words, and the Apostles, who reduced his thought to organization and applied it to life. To speak of the four Evangelists—admitting, for the sake of the argument, we have their evidence, and the books in our hands come really from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and that they bore the relation to Jesus which they claim; the question comes:—Are they competent to testify in the case? Can we trust them to give us the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Admitting they were honest, yet if they were but men, there must be limitations to the accuracy of their testimony. They must omit many things that Jesus said and did, perhaps both actions and words important in estimating his doctrines. They can express only so much of their teacher's opinions as they know; to do this they might perhaps modify, at least colour, the doctrine in their own mind. They might sometimes misunderstand what they heard; mistake a general for a particular statement, and the reverse; a new doctrine of the teacher might accidentally coincide in part with an old doctrine, and he be supposed to teach what he did not teach; a parable or an action might be misunderstood; a quotation misapplied or forgotten, and another put in its place; a general prediction, wish, or hope referred to a specific time, or event, when it had no such reference. He may have merely allowed things which he was afterwards supposed to have commanded. The writers might unconsciously exaggerate or diminish the fact; they might get intelligence at second-hand, from hearsay, and popular rumour. Their national, sectarian, personal prejudices must colour their narrative. They might confound their own notions with his, and represent them as teaching what he did not teach. They might not separate fact from fancy. Their love of the marvellous might lead them astray. If they believed in miracles they would easily incline to ascribe prodigious things to their teacher. Had they a faith in ghosts and devils, they would naturally interpret his words in favour of their own notions, rather than in opposition thereto. If the writers were ignorant men; if they wrote in one language and he spoke in another; yet more, if they wrote at some distance of time from the events, and were not skilled in sifting rumours and separating fact from fiction, the difficulty becomes still greater.

These defects are common, more or less, to all historical testimony. In the case of the Evangelists, they constitute a very serious difficulty. We know the character of the writers only from themselves; they relate much from hearsay; they continually mingle their own personal prejudices in their work; their testimony was not reduced to writing, so far as we know, till long after the event; we see that they were often mistaken, and did not always understand the words or actions of their teacher; that they contradict one another, and even themselves; that they mingle with their story puerile notions and tales which it is charitable to call absurd; that they do not write for a purely historical purpose, relating facts as they were, but with a doctrinal or controversial aim. Such testimony could not be received if found in Valerius Maximus and Livy, or offered in a court of justice when only a few dollars were at stake, without great caution.

Now the difficulty in this case is enormous. It has been felt from an early age. To get rid of the evil, it has been taught, and even believed, that the Evangelists and Apostles were miraculously inspired to such a degree that they could commit no mistake of any kind in this matter, and had none of the defects above hinted at. The assumption is purely gratuitous: there is not a fact on which to base it. The writers themselves never claim it. From the doctrine of inspiration as before laid down, it appears such infallibility is not possible; and from an examination of the facts of the case, it appears it was not actual: the Evangelists differ widely from the Apostles; the Synoptics^[1] give us in Jesus a very different being from the Christ whom John describes, and all four make such contradictory statements on some points, as to show they were by no means infallibly inspired, for in that case not only the smallest contradiction would have been impossible, but, without concert, they must all have written exactly the same thing, yet John omits the most surprising facts, the Synoptics the most surprising doctrines.

What has been said is sufficient to show that we must proceed with great caution in accepting the statements of the Gospels. The most careless observer discovers inconsistencies, absurd narrations; finds actions attributed to Jesus, and words put in his mouth, which are directly at variance with his great principles, and the general tone of his character. Still there must have been a foundation of fact for such a superstructure; a great spirit to have commenced such a movement as the Christian; a great doctrine to have accomplished this, the most profound and wondrous revolution in human affairs. We must conclude that these writers would describe the main features of his life, and set down the great principles of his doctrine, its most salient points, and his most memorable sayings, such as were poured out in the highest moments of inspiration. If the teacher were true, these sayings would involve all the rest of his doctrine, which any man of simple character, religious heart, and mind free from prejudice, could unfold and develope still further. The condition and nature of the Christian records will not allow us to go farther than this, and be curious in particulars. Their legendary and mythical character does not warrant full confidence in their narrative. There are certain main features of doctrine in which the Evangelists and the Apostles all agree, though they differ in most other points.^[2]

1. Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
2. The character of the record is such that I see not how any stress can be laid on each particular action attributed to Jesus. That he lived a divine life, suffered a violent death, taught and lived a most true and beautiful religion, this seems the great fact about which a mass of truth and error has been collected. That he should gather disciples, be opposed by the Priests and Pharisees, have controversies with them—this lay in the nature of things. His loftiest sayings seem to me the most likely to be genuine. The great stress laid on the Person of Jesus by his followers, shows what the person must have been. They put the Person before the thing, the fact above the Idea. But it is not about vulgar men that such mythical stories are told. See Paulus, Leben Jesu, 1828; Furness, Jesus and his Biographers; Strauss, Leben Jesu, 4th, ed. 1840; English Tr. of Strauss, 1846; Hase, Leben Jesu, 3d ed. 1840; Theile, Zur Biographie Jesu, 1837; Weisse, Evangelische Geschichte, 1838; Gfrörer, Urchristenthum, &c., 1836; Hennel, Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity, Lond. 1838; Harwood, German Anti-supematuralism, Lond. 1840. See the voluminous replies to Strauss by Tholuck, Neander, Ebrard, Lange, Harless, &c. &c. See the valuable paper of Dr. Kling on recent Apologetic literature of the N. T. in Stud. und Krit. for Oct. 1846, p. 953, et seq. Norton, ubi sup. Vol. II. p. cliv., considers it an “unquestionable fact, that the words of our Saviour are not always reported with perfect correctness.” See too p. clxii. cxciii., and Vol. I. p. lix. lxi. et seq.

   See the recent works of Ewald, F. C. Baur, Köstlin, Schwegler, Zeller, Hilgenfeld, Anger, Lekebusch, Luthardt, Meyer, Lechler, Hase, Ritschl, Volckmar, and Norton, on matters pertaining to this subject. Zeller's Theologische Jahrbücher (Tüb. 1842, et seq.), and Ewald's Jabrbücher der Biblischen Wissenschaft (Gött. 1849, et seq,), abound in valuable materials. The new edition of the Clementine Homilies, (Dressell, Gött. 1863), containing matter not published before, and the various books of Bunsen, Baur, Petermann, Cureton, and others, relating to the Ignatian writings, and the work ascribed to Hippolytus, with the controversial writings thereon, all throw light on the subjects of this chapter.