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(Concluded from p. 29.)
Paley, throughout his work, seems intent on proving
that the Christianity taught at the beginning was
the same as now professed as to its principal
dogmas, leaving untouched the question of its truth.
All those who professed Christianity, or wrote in
support of it, must naturally and necessarily have
maintained its principal dogmas; even those books
which are accounted spurious, that is, not having
been composed by the persons to whom they are
ascribed, must agree in the main with the genuine
works, and express the same belief which the persons
in whose names they were written would be supposed
to entertain; therefore their transmitting the
account of the resurrection is not to be wondered
at. But the mere transmission of the tale, whether
in genuine or spurious writings, does not add to the
proof of the facts being true. Any of the apostles
who wrote on the history of Jesus, or discoursed on
it with his disciples, if he did not conclude with
asserting the resurrection, what other proof could
he give of his divinity?
Paley says he does not mean that nothing can be more
certain than that Christ rose from the dead, but
that nothing can be more certain than that his
apostles and the first teachers of Christianity gave
out that he did. Surely it was a waste of time to
argue that the apostles and the first teachers
taught Christianity, and if they did not assert the
resurrection, what proof could they give of the
divinity of Jesus, or the truth of Christianity?
They did not hold him up as the Mussulmans do
Mahomet, merely as a prophet and lawgiver, whose
death occurred in the common course of nature, and
would not weaken his claim to those characters; but
they represented him as a divinity whose death was
only temporary, and who revived or was resuscitated
after a short time. To support the tale of the
resurrection was of vital importance, and of an
immediate necessity; and unless that first step were
laid, there would not have been such Christianity as
now exists.
There might have been a schismatic sect among the
Jews, who threw off all the restraints of the law,
and perhaps have made proselytes among the heathen;
but there would not have been a nation who adored
Jesus as the Son and equal of God. Had the first
promulgators of this dogma not asserted it at once,
it would not have been possible for any of their
successors to have done <<87>>it. Jesus might have
been revered by his followers as a prophet and
legislator, but nothing more.
Paley again reverts to the question, whether the
things related of Jesus in the Gospel are the same
as the apostles and first teachers delivered? This,
he says, depends on the degree of credit which is
accorded to those books; but he says, on the subject
of the resurrection, no such discussion is
necessary, because no such doubt can be entertained.
This is a bold assertion, since there is no stronger
evidence of the truth of the resurrection than there
is of any other miracle ascribed to Jesus in the
Gospels.
But it is a matter of little importance in the
discussion, and I am ready to concede that the story
as now received was then delivered, and will proceed
to the only two points that can enter into
consideration, “Whether the apostles knowingly
published a falsehood, or whether they were
themselves deceived? Whether either of these
suppositions be possible?”
“The first,” he says, “I believe is pretty generally
given up;” but he does not say by whom. He points
out what should exempt their memory from the
suspicion of imposture; first, the nature of the
undertaking, and the men. Now, what was the nature
of the undertaking? To assert a falsity, that they
had seen Jesus after his death, “not only at a
distance, but near, conversed with him, touched him,
ate with him, examined his person to satisfy their
doubts, not separately but together, not once, but
many times.”
This long array of particulars makes a great
display, but does not strengthen the evidence. One
single instance of his having been seen by one
disinterested person would have been sufficient, if
it could be established that there could not have
been any illusion. This single instance he could not
give. As to the men, we may admit that they were
ignorant, and of narrow mind; but such characters
often possess a large share of low cunning. We must
take into consideration the vital importance it was
to them to report that he had risen from the dead,
and to support their assertion by all the
circumstances they could invent; but they could not
give the only test by proving that he had appeared
publicly to both friends and foes.
Paley allows that he appeared to the Eleven,
and to them only; and argues from that the truth of
the resurrection, and the candour and truth of the
Evangelists in leaving the narrative open to such a
grave suspicion. He insists on the veracity of the
apostles from their “personal toils, and dangers,
and sufferings in the cause; their appropriation of
their whole time to the object; the warm and
seemingly unaffected zeal and <<88>>earnestness with
which they profess their sincerity.”
That they did not believe in the resurrection
promised by Jesus is plain from the surprise they
evinced when it was announced to them that the body
was gone from the sepulchre; their relating this,
perhaps, will be represented as a proof of their
candour; but their scepticism does them little
honour,—this is supposing the truth of the
circumstance which I deny.
As
to the personal toil, danger, and suffering which
are brought into the account, we must remember that
the report of the resurrection must have been spread
soon after the event, at which time the apostles had
not experienced any toil, danger, or suffering; they
travelled about with Jesus, living at free quarters
on the believers; even after his death they do not
appear to have been molested for some time, as it
appears from Acts ii. 26, that the resurrection was
preached by Peter publicly.
After the ascension, it seems that the Eleven abode
together “with the women and Mary, the mother of
Jesus, and with his brethren.” I do not see anything
in the arguments of Paley to show any improbability
that the Eleven should have invented the tale of the
resurrection, but there is every reason to suppose
this to have been the case; for, unless they did so,
their “occupation” was gone,—the whole scheme would
have fallen to the ground.
Jesus had, in a manner, staked his claim to divinity
on the fact of his resurrection; the apostles had,
accordingly, no alternative but to raise the report,
and that would not have been effectual, if the body
had been found. It remains to be shown, from the
account given in the Gospels, that there was ample
time and opportunity to remove the body. Matthew
says, that after Jesus had expired, when “even was
come,” Joseph of Arimathea (a disciple) begged of
Pilate the body, which he wrapped in a clean cloth,
and laid in his own new tomb, and rolled a great
stone to the door. The women who followed Jesus
from Galilee, ministering unto him, witnessed the
execution from afar. “Mary Magdalene and the other
Mary were sitting over against the sepulchre.” At
that time it was most probably nearly dark.
Next day the chief priests and Pharisees went to
Pilate and requested that the sepulchre should be
made sure, lest the disciples should steal away the
body, and say he had risen. Pilate told them to
place a watch, which was done, and the stone sealed.
The sepulchre was found open and empty on the
following morning. Now, in the first place, there is
no evidence that Joseph of Arimathea did actually
bury the body; he was one of Jesus’ disciples, and
as much interested as the others that the body
should not be found. But supposing he did really
bury the body, there was an interval of twelve or
fourteen hours at least <<89>>from the time when the
interment is said to have taken place, to the time
when the priests set the watch; of these several
were between the two daylights, and afforded a good
opportunity for the removal. Paley, quoting an
observation of Priestley, says that it was
moonlight, full moon,—that the city was full of
people, many probably passing the whole night, as
Jesus and his disciples had done, in the open
air,—and the sepulchre was so near the city as to be
now enclosed within the walls.
I
do not consider these remarks of any weight.
Although it was moonlight, we may reasonably suppose
there were not, on the first night of the Passover,
many persons who passed the whole night in the open
air; and as to the supposed vicinity of the
sepulchre, from the fact of the spot so named being
now inclosed within the wall I believe there is no
evidence of the spot now identified with it being
really the sepulchre, as it is described as a new
tomb which Joseph of Arimathea had hewn out of the
rock.
Matthew certainly says that the priests placed a
guard and sealed the stone the morning after the
interment; but there is no evidence that the body
was then within the tomb; the possibility or
probability of the disciples stealing away the body
does not appear to have occurred to the priests till
the next morning.
I
have thus shown that there was time and opportunity
for the Eleven, in combination with Joseph, who had
the custody of the body, to have removed it, and
also how essential it was to them that it should not
be found, and farther it appears that nobody but
they saw the body after the reported resurrection.
There are many minor circumstances in the account
which militate against its veracity, besides the
discrepancies in the several statements of the four
Evangelists, on which I shall not make any remarks;
but it is a very suspicious circumstance, that Paley
should only have devoted a short chapter of six
pages to the momentous subject of the resurrection,
which must be a test of the truth of the Christian
theology.
The resurrection is the primary point,—the ascension
is the completion of the proof of Jesus’ divinity,
and yet it is still more devoid of evidence; the
former has the evidence, true or false, of the
Eleven, who affirm being witnesses of its truth; but
the ascension has not a single witness. In the
account given by the four Evangelists, Mark and Luke
do not pretend to have seen it, saying it was only
witnessed by the Eleven. The only two of them who
have written the biography of Jesus, do not assert
the ascension. They who record it were not
eye-witnesses, and they who are said to have
witnessed it, do not record it. This is conclusive
on the subject.
On
the whole, I have been much disappointed in the work
of Paley which he <<90>>calls the Evidences of
Christianity. I expected he meant an exposition of
the doctrine and proof of the veracity of its
dogmas,—instead of which he confines himself to the
proof that Christianity, at and from its first
propagation, was pretty nearly as it has descended
down to the present time, as to its fundamental
principles; that the four canonical Gospels were
received from an early age as containing those
principles, and quoted as authentic by a succession
of ecclesiastical writers from that, time to the
fifth century. But all that is scarcely worth the
trouble of contesting. He has not shown the truth of
Christianity, but merely that it has existed down to
the present time. A work written that Buddhism and Brahminism has existed for a certain number of
centuries unchanged, would not give any support to
the alleged veracity of the religion of Buddha or
Bramah.
I
must, in conclusion, apologize for an incorrectness
in this examination, in which I have treated the
reverend author as being still in existence, which
was to avoid a more circuitous mode of expression.
I
remain with esteem,
Reverend Sir,
Yours, truly,
J.
R. P. |
