by Joseph Parker (1867)
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Chapter XX: Controversial Notes on “Ecce Homo”
The most cursory observation cannot fail to notice the innumerable beauties of this publication. The writer has rendered inexpressible service to the cause of free religious inquiry by his discussions of ethical truth, and gives views of Jesus Christ’s Life and Work which must be most useful in many ways. The present writer cannot but thank the author of “Ecce Homo” for the intellectual stimulus and moral inspiration which he has derived from a repeated perusal of its instructive and stimulating pages. It is in no captious (fault-finding) spirit, therefore, that the following notes are submitted to the respectful consideration of the author and readers of “Ecce Homo.” The writer is most anxious that the truth should be vindicated, at what risk soever to all minor considerations. The term “notes” is employed because of what follows is little more than an arrangement of mere marginalia; the subjects themselves have been discussed, more or less, in preceding chapters; what remains is a series of running criticisms or suggestive inquiries.
1. “The conception of a kingdom of God was no new one, but was familiar to every Jew.”
True, but Christ came to give that conception a profounder interpretation, and a more intensely spiritual bearing. The Jew had a carnal idea of a spiritual fact.
2. John and Christ “revived the obsolete function of the prophet, and did for their generation what a Samuel and an Elijah had done for theirs.”
This is too narrow an interpretation of the term “prophet,” and too limited as applied to Christ. A prophet may teach as well as merely predict. Samuel and Elijah spoke of another; Christ spoke of himself. Christ did not “revive an obsolete function,” he consummated the purpose of a pre-figurative office.
3. “Now under which form did Christ propose to revive it? (the ancient theocracy). The vision of universal monarchy which he saw in the desert suggests the answer. He conceived the theocracy restored as it had been in the time of David, with a visible monarch at its head, and that monarch himself.”
Was it merely a conception, or was it the carrying out of an eternal purpose. Did Christ come with a plan or without a plan? If with a plan, when was that plan formed? This brings up the mystery of the incarnation, the non-recognition of which is the cardinal error of the book. Is there not some confusion of terms in the latter part of the sentence just cited? How can a man be the head of a God-cracy? The word “representatively” may be suggested, but in so far as there is any distinctive value in a theocracy, that value is diminished by any qualifying term whatsoever. The Jewish word had already passed through what may be designated a representative theocracy, and if Christ came merely to reproduce this idea (which the perversity of the Jews caused to be a failure), replacing David’s name with his own, wherein was the value of his service? When the author of “Ecce Homo” speaks of Christ’s being the visible head of the theocracy, has he sufficiently considered the meaning of Jesus Christ’s declaration to Phillip, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father”?
4. “He saw that he must lead a life altogether different of that of David; that the pictures drawn by the prophets of an ideal Jewish king were colored by the manners of the times in which they had lived; that those pictures bore indeed a certain resemblance to the truth, but that the work before him was far more complicated and more delicate than the wisest prophet had suspected.”
From this representation it might be inferred that Christ began his work in a kind of mental vacancy, and waited to observe the current of thoughts and events around him before committing himself to any publicly avowed policy. He came, it would appear, to this conclusion while “meditating upon his mission in the desert.” This view of the cause is irreconcilably inconsistent with the mystery of the incarnation. It would suit very well the case of a fanatic who had suddenly conceived the insane idea of embodying the features of the predicted “ideal Jewish king,” and who was watching an opportunity for self-disclosure in this novel and critical character; but it notably fails to meet the necessary idea of the incarnation—namely, the idea of anterior purpose and arrangement. Could a man begotten of the Holy Ghost find himself in the dubiety (uncertainty) necessitated by the above suggestion? Again, it may be asked, did Jesus Christ come with a plan or without a plan?
5. “It is said that when Jesus Christ called himself a King, he was speaking figuratively, and that by ‘King’ he meant, as some say, God; as others, a wise man and teacher of morality; but that the Jews persisted in understanding the expression literally.”
Christ employed the term “King” in its right sense. If the Jews by virtually deposing God had come to have low and vicious, or carnal and groveling notions of royalty, that was no reason why Christ should not restore an abused term to its right application; on the other hand, it was in perfect harmony with the genius of his mission that he should recover perverted terms to right uses, as well as restore fallen men. He came to seek and to save all that was lost. King is a divine designation, and can be employed among men only as a convenient accommodation of what does not belong to them.
6. “Christ announced the restoration of the Davidic monarchy, and presented himself to the nation as their King, yet, when we compare the position he assumed with that of an ancient Jewish king, we fail to find any point of resemblance.”
Did Jesus Christ announce the restoration of the Davidic monarchy? Was not the Davidic monarchy, so far as it was untainted by human guilt, or unenfeebled by human infirmity, the prefiguration—very shadowy and incomplete, indeed—of one aspect of his own? The author seems to have inverted the relation between David and Christ, and to have overlooked the typical aspect of pre-Christian history. The fact that “we fail to find any point of resemblance” between Christ and an ancient Jewish king, throws us back for our analogies beyond the older royalty, and compels us to find them in traits of government and purpose which lie beyond the merely political horizon. Christ took the appellation “King,” not from the man, but from the function. If facts contradict the theory, what confidence can be placed in the theorist?
7. Christ “did not work his way to royalty, but simply said to all men, ‘I am your King.’ He did not struggle forward to a position in which he could found a new state, but simply founded it.”
This ignores the doctrine of Jesus Christ’s pre-existence. He had been working his way by all preliminary dispensations. Any aspect of suddenness or unpreparedness which appears in the life of Christ must be accounted for on the people’s side, and not by immaturity of plan or vacillation of purpose on the part of Christ. “Simply founded it,” quite so, but why do not other men “simply found” a monarchy with the same ease? God “simply” made the heavens and the earth; “simply” said, “Let there be light;” in the same way, did not Jesus Christ “simply found” his monarchy?
8. “Men could approach near to him, could eat and drink with him, could listen to his talk, and ask him questions, and they found him not accessible only, but warm-hearted and not occupied so much with his own plans that he could not attend to a case of distress or mental perplexity.”
To “attend to a case of distress or mental perplexity” was an essential part of “his own plans.” He came for the very purpose. He had no “plans” inconsistent with such attention. Attending to a case of distress or mental perplexity is not a circumstance to be separated from his plans, or to be regarded as merely collateral, but as being the great object of his incarnation. It is to be particularly noted that while every man’s “distress or mental perplexity” came within the range of his power, his own “distress and perplexity” were beyond the reach of all human sympathy and aid. He suffered alone, trod the winepress alone.
9. “This temperance in the use of supernatural power is the masterpiece of Christ.”
The Jews had long and justly suffered from supernatural power. Not to speak of anything further, their political position in the days of Jesus Christ was one of deep dishonor and shame. They required, had they but known the day of their visitation, the very aspect of divine power which Christ distinctively revealed, as has been shown in the preceding pages; power not destructive, but constructive. “To save,” was Christ’s object.
10. “As the new theocracy was to be the counterpart of the old,” etc.
Another inversion of relations. The old theocratic form was a prefiguration of the new, not the new a mere counterpart of the old. There had been a prophetic element in all history, a typical element in all teaching, and an acknowledged incompleteness in all legislation; what was the meaning of symbol and fragment? The law came by the servant, but grace and truth could come only by the Son.
11. “We arrive, therefore, at the first distinguishing characteristic of the society into which Christ called men. It was a society whose rules were enforced by no punishments. The ancient Israelite who practiced idolatry was stoned to death, but the Christian who sacrificed to the genius of Caesar could suffer nothing but exclusion from the society, and this in times of persecution was in its immediate effects of the nature rather of a reward than of a punishment.”
Punishment is to be estimated by the nature of the society from which the offender has been excluded. Exclusion from a mere political union may be a very trivial affair. But as, according to the author’s own showing, Christ’s society was a theocracy, how could any punishment be greater than the very punishment which he describes as being, under certain circumstances, somewhat of the nature of a reward? To be excluded from the God-cracy, how tremendous a punishment! A punishment, too, singularly in harmony with the spiritual character of the society. What is a storm of mere thunder and lightning, compared with the faintest frown that darkens the brow of troubled love? We find precisely the same principle in the Judgment. There are no such external forms of punishment as we associate with the infliction of penalty—simply a “going away,” a turning of the back on the light, an exclusion from the theocracy! The author’s argument, moreover, is limited to “the immediate effects” of this exclusion, a most unsatisfactory method of stating the case; for in all moral transactions the consequences are co-ordinate with the duration of the actor. We are not sure, either, that the word “immediate” is well chosen; if it is intended to mean external, it may be appropriate; but surely the heart of the excluded man would feel an “immediate” vacancy, an indescribable poverty, and a terrible sense of loneliness.
12. “Christ himself never ceased to feel keenly as a patriot.”
Where is the proof that he ever felt “keenly as a patriot”? Whatever may have been his personal patriotism, he obliterated, in view of the highest purposes, all ethnic distinctions. Without destroying the special characteristics of patriotism, he carried patriotic heroism up to philanthropy. Jesus Christ aimed at the enlargement, as well as the purification, of human ideas, so that the man who began with a city ended with the world. Apart from the Cross, old nationalities remain; but when men are crucified with Christ, they are denizens of all nations. When they are “lifted up” with him, “all men come” unto them. “Strangers and foreigners” are absorbed in “the whole family” named in and centralized by “the Son in the Father’s house.”
13. “To obey John’s call was easy, it involved nothing beyond submission to a ceremony; and when the prophet had acquired a certain amount of credit, no doubt it became the fashion to receive baptism from him.”
To “obey” any call requires faith; and to submit to any ceremony implies want. This, notwithstanding hypocrites who make an investment of their so-called obedience and submissions.
14. “We ought to be just as tolerant of an imperfect creed as we are of an imperfect practice.”
The author, as we have read him, here does himself an injustice. The term “imperfect” seems to be used in this sentence and in the context in two senses: imperfection of creed may mean simply incompleteness, but an “imperfect practice” may mean viciousness. This latter seems to be the author’s meaning; for he has just been writing of “some very unchristian vices.” Now we may be tolerant of an incompleteness and weakness (seeing we are all incomplete and weak), yet we are not called upon to be tolerant to vice—a fact we need not have pointed out but for the ambiguity of the term “imperfect.”
15. “Now of these prophets Christ was distinctly one and the greatest of all.”
Say rather that as they all prophesied of him they are not to be mentioned comparatively with him. “Greatest” indicates degree, but of what the nature? Christ was not a prophet in the same sense that Elijah and Ezekiel and Daniel were prophets. As the author himself has well said, “How the truth came to the prophet he himself knew not; but Jesus Christ was the inspirer and the inspiration of the prophets:” “they wrote of me;” he was himself the message, not merely a messenger. The monarch is never one of the heralds.
16. “We conclude that though it is always easy for thoughtless men to be orthodox, yet to grasp with any strong practical apprehension the theology of Christ is a thing as hard to practice as his moral law.”
We cannot see the particular pertinence of the opinion that “it is always easy for thoughtless men to be orthodox;” all things are equally easy to “thoughtless men;” still it ought to be known that though some “thoughtless men” may be orthodox, yet all who are orthodox are not necessarily thoughtless men. It is not unworthy of the subject to throw out insinuations as to the capacity or morality of opponents? Then as to the doctrine: Why is the moral law of Jesus Christ hard to practice? Is it not because the heart is out of sympathy with his purposes? The light is not distressing to the healthy eye. Why should it be harder to do right than to do wrong? Jesus Christ says that his “yoke is easy and his burden is light.” We cannot admit the difference which the author assumes between Christ’s theology and Christ’s moral law. Christ’s moral law has no existence apart from his theology. The theology of Jesus Christ was the Fatherhood of God, and out of that great doctrine came all the practical life which Christ preached and exemplified.
17. “It may seem to us that Socrates and Christ were in fact occupied in the same way; certainly both lived in the midst of admiring disciples, whose minds and characters were formed by their words; both discussed moral questions, the one with methodical reasoning as a Greek addressing Greeks, the other with the authoritative tone and earnestness of a Jew.”
In the twelfth chapter we have already adverted to the value of “the authoritative tone and earnestness of a Jew.” If the author’s judgment be correct, then we may well prefer “methodical reasoning” to an “authoritative tone.” To put Socrates and Christ together in this manner is simply to ignore Christ’s own declaration of divine origin and power. The words of Jesus Christ, as reported by those who heard them, are before us, and they profess to be marked, not by the authoritative tone and earnestness of a Jew, but by the authoritative tone and earnestness of the Son of Man and Son of God. This is their own distinct profession—not matter of inference, but of positive and literal claim. The author either believes Christ’s words, or he does not believe them; if he believes them, then he ought not to put Socrates and Christ together as he has done; if he does not believe them, then Christ is not the good man whom he has endeavored to make him out to be. From our point of view, it is a poor and dishonoring thing to say of the Son of God, that he spoke with the “authoritative tone and earnestness of a Jew.” His enemies, who had daily opportunity of listening to the most authoritative and dogmatic teachers in the world, confessed, that “never man spoke like this man,” a circumstance which alone would warrant the inference that there was a life and a power in his communications which could not be accounted for by “the authoritative tone and earnestness of a Jew.”
18. “Socrates holds his place in history by his thoughts, and not by his life; Christ by his life; and not by his thoughts.”
In reply we venture to say—incorrect. The vital difference between Christ and all other teachers is this—the perfect identity of his life and thoughts. This consistency alone puts him beyond the range of comparison with any other man. We often find noble thoughts associated with imperfect morality, and spotless morality may be found detached from any marked power of thought; but in Christ the consistency was perfect—a consistency which is itself one of the clearest arguments in favor of his Godhead. All men are self-discrepant (inconsistent, lacking objectivity in self-assessment); Jesus Christ was self-consistent.
19. “This monarchy was essentially despotic, and might, in spite of the goodness of the sovereign, have had some mischievous consequences, if he had remained too long among his subjects, and if his dictation had descended too much into particulars.”
A theocracy must be despotic. The sovereign and the monarchy in such a case are inseparable. The sovereign of a theocracy must be the good, (in spite of the goodness of the sovereign) but how he can “remain too long among his subjects” does not appear. The author’s view represents Christ rather as a shrewd propagandist, than as the Son of God. In all these remarks the author appears to have overlooked the fact that Christ came not for a plan, but with a plan. If he came without a plan, his “authoritative tone” would hardly stand him in good stead; and if he came with a plan, he must have had something more than “the earnestness of a Jew.” With respect to the possibility of his “remaining too long,” it is forgotten, apparently that from the beginning he spoke of his “hour.” The time was fixed.
20. “This third feeling is the love not of the race nor of the individual; it is the love not of all men, nor yet of every man, but of the man in every man.”
Say rather of the God in every man. The author has well pointed out that the normal condition of society in the earliest ages was that of mutual enmity. We honor man most when we see most of God in him. The author has forcibly shown that the idea of immorality gave a new view of injustice and suffering by opening up possibilities of retribution which could not have existed in the limited term of human life on the earth; so, on the same principle, it may be pointed out that in proportion as man recognizes the divine image in man, will he take an enlightened interest in himself and in the destinies of the race. Man has everything to fear from an atheistic view of his own personality and destiny. It is the divine element that gives man his right position.
21. “We save a man from drowning, whether he is amiable or the contrary, and we should consider it right to do so, even though we knew him to be a great criminal, simply because he is a man.”
True, but is not this a commonplace? And in so far as it is valuable, is it not valuable by reason of something deeper than is expressed? We save a horse from drowning, whether he is vicious or the contrary, and we should consider it right to do so, even though we knew him to have thrown his last rider (and even though that rider be our best friend) simply because he is a horse. What then? Evidently there is a law of salvation among men. Anything is saved, in proportion to its real or supposed value to man. Who would care to save a straw in comparison to saving a letter? Who would risk his life for a floating chip? Yet who would not make strenuous endeavors to recover a notebook which had dropped into the river? If we had to make our choice between saving a man or a horse from drowning, we should of course elect to save the man, because of his rank in creation. But take the question upon practical grounds. It is observed, for example, that two human beings were drowning; the observer instantly desires their salvation on the simple ground of common humanity; but tell the observer that one of the human beings is his own brother, and instantly we shall have a modification of the principle laid down in quotation 21st. But tell the observer that it is not his brother, but his own child, and then say for whom he will make the most perilous and costly attempts at restoration. The observer would have done much to rescue another man’s child, but what effort would he spare when his own son was in question? This may be called selfishness, yet there may not be a particle of selfishness in it. Men would miss the deepest and grandest views of human nature if it were not for the love they bear to their own offspring. When the parent sees his own child drowning, he comes to know something of God’s feeling in respect to the salvation of men. Man is God’s child, and “like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities” his suffering child. While, therefore, the above quotation is literally correct in principle, it gives a very inadequate view of the doctrine of human salvation.
22. The author represents “the intellectual man” as asking, “What has Christianity added to our theoretic knowledge of morality? It may have made men practically more moral, but has it added anything to Aristotle’s ethics?
Yes; it may be replied in addition to the answer which the author himself has given, It has added God to them. Morality is no longer philosophical, it is theological. Aristotle regarded ethics as a subdivision of political science; but in the very midst of his great Ethical Discourse, Jesus Christ said, “Be ye therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Aristotle conducted his ethical student from time to time; Christ leads his disciples from calculations of chances to fellowship with the very nature of God. In his ethical discussions, Aristotle ignores any connection between his subject and an ideal or absolute Good; he rather seems to proceed upon the principle laid down by Meno, “that a man’s virtue consists in his being competent to manage the affairs of the state, and, managing them, to do good to its friends, evil to its enemies, and to take care that he suffers himself nothing of that kind.” On the other hand, as we have pointed out before, Christ makes morality the practice side of theology: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God . . . and thou shalt love thy neighbor.” Aristotle’s master discussed the question of virtue on a much higher basis. Plato lays it down that virtue cannot be taught, and argues that it is not hereditary, else Themistocles, Thucydides, and other virtuous men, would have had sons worthy of themselves; and adopts the conclusion, that, as virtue can neither come by nature nor be taught, it is bestowed upon certain men by “divine fate.” This is good so far, at least, as it recognizes a divine element in virtue; for atheism is corrupt throughout—a fool’s theology—a madman’s morality! We cannot see the appropriateness of the author’s remark, that “Christianity has no ambition to invade provinces of the moralist or the casuist (one who makes a case using questionable logic)” Christianity not only invades them, but revolutionizes them, breaks up their very foundations, and consumes their sophistical quibbling and refinements. Bad morality or casuistry cannot be tolerated by Jesus Christ; how, then, can Christianity be said not to invade the province of either? If it gives no systematic form, it gives the inspiring life.
23. “It was the inspiration, the law-making power, that gave Christ and his disciples courage to shake themselves free from the fetters even of a divine law.”
This “law-making power” is to be guarded very watchfully. Though every man may be a law unto himself, yet there must be a common law to which individual legislators should appeal. Euthyphron defined holiness to be “that which is pleasing to the gods,” but Socrates soon brought him to confess that the gods themselves were divided about “things pleasing” and “things not pleasing;” that what was pleasing to Jupiter might be odious to Saturn, what was pleasing to Vulcan might be odious to Juno. We should find much of the same difficulty among the law-makers that Plato thus found among the gods, in the absence of common law. We understand that law to be given in the Christian writings. On all questions in casuistry the utmost freedom of personal legislation is allowed; but on all questions of principle the words of the Son of God are final. This is the generally accepted creed of the orthodox: are they “thoughtless men”? With regard to “shaking themselves free from the fetters even of divine law,” it may be well to note that even in matters of temporary regulation men no more “shake themselves free from the fetters of divine law” than a man shakes himself free from the fetters of his first garments. The man grows out of them; but because he has become too large for a particular set of garments, it does not follow that therefore he must remain naked ever after. It should be noted, too, that he who gave the law gave also the capacity of growth; and as men grow by the favor of the legislator, it may be possible to find some more grateful, not to say more accurate, expression than “shaking themselves free from the fetters even of a divine law.” The expression gives the idea of bondage, not of adaptation; of despotism on the part of God, not of temporary incapacity on the part of man.
24. “It may sometimes strike us that the time which he devoted to acts of beneficence and the relief of ordinary physical evils might have been given to works more permanently beneficial to the race. . . . He might have left to all subsequent ages more instruction if he had bestowed less time upon diminishing slightly the mass of evil around him, and lengthening by a span the short lives of the generation in the midst of which he lived.”
There is more in this, we imagine, than, as the author suggests, “that Christ merely reduced to practice his own principle of a positive rather than a negative service of man.” Jesus Christ never relieved physical diseases without pointing out, by the very condition required, that they were the result of moral causes. He saw more than the leprosy on the body; he saw the deadly ulcer on the soul. Not only so, he had readier access to the body than to the spirit; and so, as we have had repeated occasions to say, he began at the most accessible point, and worked into the deeper nature. We conceive, therefore, that the author’s argument is untenable. As to the value of affirmative service is not confined to the body: an idea is certainly of greater value than a restored hand; but if the sufferer refused permission to his soul, and could barely exercise faith enough to bring his body into a right relation to Jesus Christ, the Healer could begin only on the offered terms, yet with the hope that the healed hand might prepare the way for the healing of the moral nature. We do not consider the author as suggesting to Jesus Christ that he did not make the best use of his time; the author would undoubtedly shrink from so immodest (not to say profane) a protrusion of his own wisdom; he is, as we take it, simply expressing the feeling of a reader who looks at Christ’s life from a purely human standpoint.
25. “The enthusiasm of humanity in Christians is not only their supreme, but their only law.”
This is bold, certainly; on what proof does it rest? Allowing this to be precisely as the author puts it, why should the effect be dissociated from the cause? Love of man is put by Jesus Christ as the consequent of love of God—the enthusiasm of God first, then the enthusiasm of humanity. Who ever knew anything of the enthusiasm of humanity, in its true sense, until Christ revealed the Father? “The age of humanity did not begin till after Christianity” (Luthardt.) Throughout the teaching of Jesus Christ, the parallel idea runs as a stream of life; it is because men are the children of one Father that they are related to one another. The Christian writings on this subject seem to reveal two things: (1) That there is a spurious (false) enthusiasm of humanity, and (2) that the true enthusiasm of humanity is inseparable from a filial love of God. There is not only an enthusiasm of humanity, but there is a fanaticism of humanity. Sympathy with God is the life of the former. Jesus Christ never could have been Son of man, if he had not first been Son of God—why should we not follow his law and development on enthusiasm? He proceeded from the divine to the human; can we proceed by a better way? It is affecting, and not a little instructive, to watch how he retires again and again from the multitude, that he may renew his enthusiasm of humanity by secret communion with God. It will be admitted that the enthusiasm of humanity never reached such perfectness and intensity as in Jesus Christ; but how did he repair the daily exhaustion which it involved? Do not his nights of prayer best explain his days of toil? Does not his constant reference to his Father’s will show that the law-making power in man is truthful and safe only so long as it renews itself at the divine source?
26. “Prevention is better than cure, and it is now clear to all that a large part of human suffering is preventable by improved social arrangements.”
True; but this is in perfect harmony with the morality of Christ. Is there not, however, a good deal of confusion in the use of the terms “prevention” and “preventable”? We cannot “prevent” the great fundamental fact in human history, viz. the Fall. We have to work upon a “lost” humanity; therefore, “prevention” has no part whatever in the business of salvation. Prevention can be applied only to details, and so far its application is undoubtedly useful. Had we to map out a course for pristine man, we should probably be no wiser than God himself, but begin precisely where he began—that is to say at prevention. It is a fact not sufficiently considered that prevention was actually tried in Eden, and failed; yet moralists and economists bring up the idea of prevention as if it had not dawned on mortal genius until these latter days!
27. “And if the progress of science and civilization has put into our hands the means of benefiting our kind more and more comprehensively than the first Christians could hope to do—if, instead of undoing a little harm, and comforting a few unfortunate, we have the means of averting countless misfortunes, and raising, by the right employment of our knowledge and power of contrivance, the general standard of happiness—we are not to inquire whether the New Testament commands us to use these means, but whether the spirit of humanity commands it.”
The great, the inexcusable error in this statement is the implication, that possibly the New Testament may be less philanthropic than “the spirit of humanity,” and this we take to be an insult to the Son of man. The author apparently ignores the fact that Christianity proposes to deal with a sick man, not with a healthy man; “they that be whole need not a physician;” Jesus Christ repeatedly said that he came to call sinners, and not the righteous, to repentance—that he came to seek and to save that which was lost. He did not come with a theory of prevention, but with a scheme of salvation; he did not propose to “comfort a few unfortunates,” but to save the world. What is the use of a theory of prevention in a churchyard, so far as the dead are concerned? Weeds may be prevented growing on the graves, but of what advantage is this to those who are in the graves? Resurrection, not prevention, alone can benefit the dead. The author appears to ignore, not only the statement of revelation, but the testimony of consciousness as to the moral condition of human nature, and to be more concerned for a law of philanthropy which will “avert countless misfortunes,” than for a salvation which encompasses the whole case. The physician is not a called upon to decide between prevention and cure; the patient is sick, and must be cured if possible. Jesus Christ had not to consider the case of unfilled beings, but of men who had lost their moral status. “Science and civilization” have enabled us to decorate the sick man’s room, and to make all outward circumstances more pleasant to him, but not to touch his disease. If the New Testament, recognizing the urgency of the case, does not dwell upon mere preventatives, but points at once to the seat of the malady, and indicates the only possible restoratives, who shall say that it is deficient in “the spirit of humanity”?
It would be a great mistake to imagine that the pre-Christian philosophies troubled themselves even to “undo a little harm and comfort a few unfortunates,” much less to “avert countless misfortunes.” On this point the words of Baron Macaulay are well worth repeated perusal. “The ancient philosophy disdained to be useful, and was content to be stationary. It dealt largely in theories of moral perfection, which were so sublime that they never could be more than theories; in attempts to solve insoluble enigmas; in exhortations to the attainment of unattainable frames of mind. It could not condescend to the humble office of ministering to the comfort of human beings. All the schools contemned that office as degrading, some censured it as immoral. Once, indeed, Posidonius, a distinguished writer of the age of Cicero and Caesar, so far forgot himself as to enumerate, among the humble blessings which mankind owed to philosophy, the discovery of the principle of the arch, and the introduction of the use of metals. This eulogy was considered as an affront, and was taken up with proper spirit. Seneca vehemently disclaims these insulting compliments. Philosophy, according to him, has nothing to do with teaching men the uses of metals. She teaches us to be independent of all materials substances, of all mechanical contrivances. The wise man lives according to nature. Instead of attempting to add to the physical comforts of his species, he regrets that his lot was not cast in that golden age when the human race had no protector against the cold but the skins of wild beasts, no screen from the sun but a cavern. To impute to such a man any share in the invention or improvement of a plough, a ship, or a mill, is an insult. ‘In my own time,’ says Seneca, ‘there have been inventions of this sort, transparent windows, tubes for diffusing warmth equally through all parts of a building, shorthand which has been carried to such perfection that a writer can keep pace with the most rapid speaker. But the invention of such things is drudgery for the lowest slaves; philosophy lies deeper. It is not her office to teach men how to use their hands; the object of her lessons is to form the soul. Non est iquam, instrumentorum ad uses necessarios opifex.’ ”* (*“Essay on Lord Bacon.”) So much for the ancient philosophy, and we very much doubt whether what the author of “Ecce Homo” calls “the blessed light of science” is not likely, if left to itself, to do as much to favor a gross and atheistic materialism as the philosophy of Seneca favored the cant (hypocritical talk) of a useless and selfish sentimentality. Christianity occupies an independent position. Its watchwords are Glory to God and Goodwill towards men—the devotion and the useful—the highest love of the soul turned to the most practical service of man.
In reading “Ecce Homo” our chief dissatisfaction arose from the fact that the author did not recognize the mystery of the Incarnation (NOT SURE WHY THIS IS UPPERCASED HERE BUT NOT ON PREVIOUS REFERENCES). Although he speaks on the second page of “the predestined Founder,” yet the whole argument of the book is constructed without any reference to the pre-incarnate life of Christ, a life to which Christ himself makes repeated allusion, in his prayers especially. the first sentence in “Ecce Homo” illustrates this: “The Christian church sprang from a movement which was not begun by Christ.” In the very lowest and weakest possible sense, if in any sense at all, can this be true; but according to a complete collation of the facts it is false. The Christian writings give us to understand that before the world began God had a great purpose in relation to the history of man, and that the outworking of that purpose underlay and interpenetrated all human history. There may be influence without manifestation. Christ was as able to conduct the movement anterior to his incarnation, as he is now able (in the author’s own words) to “visit his people for the future only in refreshing inspirations and great acts of providential justice.” If he can return, could he not precede? By regarding the Incarnation as part of a continuous development of a divine purpose we are saved from the unprofitable task of studying an unconnected page or a detached limb, and are also saved from the perils of detail by having to work on a vast body of evidence which is homogeneous, cumulative, and self-explanatory. From this point of view we escape the pain of regarding Christ as being hesitant or uncertain in his movements; and the words and actions which transcend our plane of criticism or comprehension are referable to the mysteriousness of his descent or the vastness of a design which can be only fractionally disclosed. It may be answered that the author did not intend to traverse so wide a ground as that which is opened by the question of Jesus Christ’s pre-existence: this plea, however, is futile; for though he might not be prepared to traverse the ground, he was not at liberty to ignore the fact. He was not called upon to write a theological treatise, but he was called upon to recognize the clear and repeated declaration of Jesus Christ as to his procession from the Father. Given a Jew who unexpectedly took upon himself to do what Christ did, and we shall have one line of interpretation and judgment; but given the Son of God who from un-beginning time determined to do a certain work upon the earth, and we shall have a line of interpretation and judgement peculiar to itself. Is there no difference between the start-points? No author is at liberty to join Christ as “simply a young man of promise, popular with those who knew him, and appearing to enjoy the Divine favor.” If he does so “place himself in imagination,” he will be in danger of bending the facts to the theory, instead of taking the mold of the theory from the facts. We submit with all due deference that while the author of “Ecce Homo” was at liberty to determine the point from which his “survey” should be taken, hew as bound to remember that there were circumstances narrated in the very documents out of which he gets his facts, which give significance to every phase of Christ’s life, and without which that life is incongruous as a narrative, and powerless as a redemption. The gardener is at liberty to view the earth in patches and neatly enclosed fractions, but the astronomer must view it as part of a system; and the danger to which some inquires are exposed, and into which we believe the author of “Ecce Homo” has fallen, is that of mistaking gardening for astronomy. Look at Christ as “simply a young man of promise,” and then regard him as begotten of the Holy Ghost, and the most contrary conclusions will be reached. In the one case, he will come up out of the earth with all its ignorance and imperfection; in the other, he will descend upon it from heaven with a divine purpose to reveal and establish. Now what is Christ’s own testimony? “I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.” We are therefore not at liberty to examine the life of such a speaker, as though he had appeared under the usual conditions of human existence. Accepting this account as correct, the mission of such a man must be fundamental; his most emphatic words will be unequal to the expression of all his thought, and his morality will be marked by characteristics of its own. Critics who have been able to hold equal fellowship with Plato and Aristotle, Socrates and Cicero, will realize the impassable distance which separates the earthly from the heavenly; they will feel the “astonishment” which filled the doctors in the Temple, and even when unwilling to submit they will feel unable to reply.
It may be suggested that the author does not accept the Christian writings in their entirety. Then he was bound, we submit, to indicate his principle of eclecticism. He quotes largely from the first three Gospels and makes one or two reserved references to the fourth. Now by what law does he make choice? If the writings are authoritative on points of fact, wherein are they defective on points of doctrine? Without pressuring him to an answer, we do protest against being invited to conduct an inquiry upon unequal terms. Before we start we must know each other’s canons of criticism, and be agreed on common principles of interpretation; at all events we must know the precise sphere of inquiry—how much is included, how much is rejected. We cannot, if the investigation is to be mutual, allow the author to endorse or invalidate documents without distinctly telling us on what principle he is proceeding.
The author’s proposal to discuss the morality in contradiction to the theology of Jesus Christ, we cannot but regard as unsatisfactory. Are the morality and the theology separable? If for the sake of convenience a division be made, we submit that the theology should stand first, for the sufficient reason that it lies at the basis of the morality. By theology, as used in this connection, cannot of course be meant the formal science which now passes under that name (a science which has probably originated three-fourths of the speculative skepticism of the age) but the idea of the Father which was ever present to the mind of Jesus Christ, and which regulated the whole course and tone of his teaching. Morality was not discussed by Jesus Christ as it was discussed by Aristotle, and we still maintain, as was stated in the thirteenth chapter, that the difference between Aristotle’s teaching and Christ’s teaching is the difference between an Investigation and a Revelation. By regarding Jesus Christ’s morality as the practical side of his theology, we escape the errors into which, as it appears to us, the author has fallen respecting the incompleteness of Christ’s moral teaching. When man’s ideas of God are rectified and enlarged, his ideas of practical life will become correspondingly pure and noble. In other words, when a man loves God, he will love his brother also, but not until then: as Christ puts it, the question is one of cause and effect, and though he might have made a more imposing exhibition of ethical speculation and instruction, so far as mere words are concerned; yet, according to his idea of the Father, he would have been working at the wrong end, coloring the fruit from the outside instead of renewing and strengthening the root, merely removing withered leaves instead of vitalizing the juices. According to the nature of the fall must be the nature of the restoration: the fall was between man and God, not between man and man; so the restoration must be towards God, and the best proof of its reality will be found in constant exhibitions of goodwill towards men. It may be true, as the author of “Ecce Homo” forcibly says, that “the most lost cynic will get a new heart by learning thoroughly to believe in the virtue of one man,” but, if comparisons in truth be allowed, it is more deeply and sublimely true that man can never become a cynic until he has lost the right idea of God. The Fatherhood of God is the strongest defense against cynicism. Reverting to the Fall, as the true start-point from which to view all proposed remedial systems, it is to be noted as a singular fact that the Fall did not take place in an advanced condition of society, when civilization had effeminated manhood, or when bad management had disorganized social relations: it took place before a single city was built, before human society, as it is now understood, was founded; it was not a failure in speculative ethics, it was simply a misunderstanding of God—a lowering of his authority—a misconception of his nature—and thus a terrible immorality. It is important to remember this, because from the prevention theory it might be inferred that human depravity was simply a question of adulterated food, bad drainage, overcrowded dwellings and impure air. It is forgotten than not one of these unfavorable conditions existed in the days of Adam and Eve. Nature was in its purest state, and yet, unless we throw the sacred writings out of court, the Fall took place amid the very brightness and beauty of the garden of Eden. So that, if the prevention theorists were so far to succeed in their work as actually to get back to the pure food, the pure air, and the pure light of Paradise, they would still have to grapple with a deeper problem than can be solved by negative philosophy. That problem is the moral nature of man. How can he retain his power to commit sin, but lose the disposition? Does he need restraint or regeneration? We are aware that these inquiries open upon a sphere of impenetrable mystery; but we are also aware that to shirk them is not to escape difficulty. The choice is between the mystery of light and the mystery of darkness. Immediately before us is the fact that man is not at rest; how can he recover his balance? By pure air, by good food, by ample dwelling room? Where is the congruity been the question and the answer?
It has been urged that “Ecce Homo” is a fragment. A fragment of what? It may be a fragment of a larger work, but is not therefore of necessity a fragment of the life of Jesus Christ. If it has ignored, for all practical purposes, the interpretative value of the Incarnation, it is not a fragment; it may be an unfinished theory, but not being of the nature of the integer it is not, it cannot be, in the proper sense of the term, a fragment of the life of Christ. A man might write a treatise on astronomy, but if he began by declaring that the earth was the center of the universe, or that it described no orbit round the sun, he would not be allowed to shelter himself under the plea that his work was a fragment; it might be a fragment of a manuscript, but viewed in the light of facts, it would not be, nor could it ever be made, a fragment of the geometry of creation. “Ecce Homo” treats Christ as if he had no ancestry; fails to take any account of Christ’s own claim to pre-incarnate life, and ignores those peculiar conditions which are themselves the best explanation of the mysteries of his doctrine, and which, we venture to think, cannot be ignored without moving the whole life out of its place, and so mistaking its fundamental and sovereign purpose.
Not until the present writer had written thus far had he an opportunity of reading the Preface to the fifth edition of “Ecce Homo.” It is to be regretted, he ventures to think that a portion of it was not given in the original Preface, particularly the following paragraph: “He was concerned with four writers who, in nearness to the events they record, and probably means of acquiring information, belong to the better class of historical witnesses, but whose veracity has been strongly impeached by critics, both on the ground of internal discrepancies, and of the intrinsic improbability of their story. Out of these four writers he desired, not to extract a life of Christ, not to find out all that can be known about him, but to form such a rudimentary conception of his general character and objects as it may be possible to form while the vexed critical questions remain in abeyance. The detection of discrepancies in the documents establishes a certain degree of independence in them, and thus gives weight to their agreements; in particular, the wide divergence in tone and subject-matter of the fourth Gospel from the other three, affords a strong presumption in favor of all statements in which it coincides with them. The rudiment of certainty which the writer sought, he accordingly expected to find in the consent of all the witnesses. If the statements unanimously attested should prove numerous enough to afford any outline of Christ’s life, however meager, he proposed to rest content with this.” It is due to the author of “Ecce Homo” that he should thus be allowed, on the pages of his critic, to put his own case in his own way. No doubt a literary man may be at liberty to select a criterion by which to guide his iniquities, but how far he is at liberty to describe a book written on the above principle as “a Survey of the Life and Work of Jesus Christ,” may be a question on which the author and the reader might differ. It would appear, too, that the author must have exceeded his own design; for certainly the twenty propositions which he deduces from Mark’s Gospel include many of the “vexed critical questions” and “intrinsic improbabilities” which he wished to remain in abeyance, such as the power of forgiving sins, the working of miracles, the claim to be the Messiah, and the promise of the Holy Ghost. The author conceives himself to have found “the rudiment of certainty” when all the four evangelists agree in the same statement; that is to say, if any incident or doctrine be found in all the four Gospels, it may be accepted as a basis of argument. This is an extraordinary canon in scriptural criticism; it at once throws a degree of discredit upon each of the witnesses; his testimony is not accepted until it is confirmed; if one evangelist confirms it, it is not enough; if two confirm the statement, the evidence is still incomplete; all the four must agree, without “discrepancy” or “improbability,” otherwise “the rudiment of certainty” is not found. But this rule of criticism is either too great or too small. Why should four be the number of witnesses selected? What answer could be returned to the objector who carried the author’s rule a little further by rejecting the testimony of four writers, on the ground that all the eleven disciples should have written independent histories? If the question turn upon the number of witnesses, it is clear that after all we must get “the rudiment of certainty” out of the testimony of the minority; and if out of the minority at all, why not out of the minority of those who have written, allowing for such differences as must attach to individuality of mind and habits of observation? And if the four witnesses agree in the twenty comprehensive propositions which have been deducted from Mark’s Gospel, so comprehensive as to include almost the whole of Christianity, why may they not have arranged to palm of the story upon the world? But if it was impossible for them to have so agreed, why should their points of difference be points of doubt? On the author’s principle, any four men may combine in the production of a book, if they only take care to agree in their statements they may rely upon a general acceptance of their testimony. Is “the rudiment of certainty” not to be found by a higher method? Is the higher appeal not to what is know of God, to human consciousness, and to the “fruits” of that which is spoken? And when these methods of judgment are exhausted, what if the supernatural should transcend reason, and appeal to faith? What if the universe be larger than we had conceived? Four men undertake to write a life; we are not aware who appointed them, or to what secret resource, if any, they had access; we have the results of their labor before us; shall we reject one because he is a little more or less meticulous than the others? The author himself, under the influence of some such consideration as this inquiry suggests, seems to have modified the plan which he laid down with such precision; for he allows that “evidence inferior to the best may have very great probability, and there are certain obvious criteria by which this probability may be estimated.” Certainly; but if we accept a man’s testimony when it agrees with the testimony of another man, is that not a reason for accepting it when he speaks upon subjects to which the other man does not refer? But we need not all this pleading on behalf of the Gospels: their spirit is one; the whole tone is self-consistent; and the moral energy of the doctrine renders it an easy responsibility to accept all the statements which relate to matters of fact.
All that the author has said does not touch the starting point, viz. the Incarnation. Even on his own principle of accrediting evidence it is not easy to see how he has overlooked this fact, for three out of four of the evangelists distinctly point out the supernatural descent of Jesus Christ, and Mark himself introduces him at once as “the Son of God.” The “rudiment of certainty” is surely here, even upon the author’s own showing; so that, without imputing any intentions to the author, we cannot but feel surprised that he has not found in Christ’s incarnation (PERHAPS THIS IS LOWERCASED AS MORE A LITERAL EXPRESSION, NOT THE ACTUAL EVENT IN ITS FULL SPIRITUAL IMPLICATION . . . ) some explanation of Christ’s life and work. We feel this the more because the writer has not been faithful to his own principle of interpretation. On the twelfth page of his preface he speaks of himself as “resting upon a basis of absolutely uniform testimony,” yet in the course of his work he reverts again and again, either by elaborate statement or distance allusion, to cases which are not supported by any such testimony. He lays down a principle, and immediately departs from it. For example, he refers to the Sermon on the Mount; but where is the “basis of absolutely uniform testimony” in this case? The Sermon is reported by two only of the four evangelists. The author draws a beautiful picture of the circumstances connected with the woman taken in adultery: but where is the “basis of absolutely uniform testimony” in her case? The instance is related by one only of the four evangelists. So also in the case of Zacchaeus, which the author brings into special prominence, we have the testimony of one evangelist only. The same mark applies to Nicodemus, on whose case the author remarks. What we have to complain of is that the writer of “Ecce Homo” has laid down a principle, and then practically abandoned it. He has, indeed, referred to what he terms “inferior evidence,” but this does not touch the ground of complaint. For example, he says that “the account of the woman taken in adultery has scarcely any external authority, but it seems to derive great probability from the fact that the conduct attributed to Christ in it is left half explained, so that, as it stands, it does not satisfy the impulses which lead to the invention and reception of fictitious stories.” It would seem, then, that a case needs only to be “half explained” in order to get credit for “great probability,” and if the inventor be unable to finish his fiction, so much more likely is he to be accepted as an honest man. If the author’s principle of eclecticism was sound, he ought not to have departed from it; if he departed from it at all, he should have given preference to the greater, and not to the minuter incidents—to such an event as the Incarnation in preference to the invitation which the guests refused; but his principle failed in its practical application, so that “absolutely uniform testimony” has been supplemented by cases which rest upon individual authority.
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No formal epilogue is attempted. We thought that the dual element that was in Jesus Christ was of great significance, so great, indeed, that apart from it his life could not be interpreted. Throughout the whole inquiry this has been kept steadily in view; with what advantage it is for others to determine. We have endeavored to find out God, through a study of his Son. We understand what this means in human life; if we would know any man of deep character, who is not immediately self-revealing, we shall make the surest progress by carefully studying the disposition and habits of the child who most resembles him. To study the father through the child is like studying a foreign language alphabetically, grammatically, and analytically—not catching it in common conversation so as to be merely able to express an opinion or want, but penetrating it philosophically, and so becoming master of it. To get through the wrinkles and folds of the father’s mature character may be impossible, but the child is open, simple, legible in every letter—from him we get the father’s own start-point, and from the father we get the other extreme point. With the extremes before us, we may proceed to analysis and interpretation. Is it not much the same with Jesus Christ? Emphatically, he was the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of his person; he was the Son only-begotten and well-beloved. To study him is to study God in his most legible aspect; so to speak, the letters are large, and so formed as to arrest untrained eyes; mighty deeds, mightier words, and still mightier prayers. We see there how far God can come down on the human side—how far he can be man without ceasing to be God: and it was so far, that he who had seen the Son had actually seen the Father!
Today the great question that is stirring men’s hearts to their very depths is, Who was this Jesus Christ? His life is becoming to us a new life, as if we had never seen a word of it. There is round about us an influence so strange, so penetrating, so subtle, yet so mighty, that we are obliged to ask the great heaving world of time to be silent for awhile, that we may see just what we are and where we are. That influence is the life of Jesus Christ. We cannot get clear of it; we hear it in the tones of joy, we feel it stealing across the darkness of sorrow—we see it where we least expect it—even men who have traveled farthest from it seem only to have come around to it again; and while they have been undervaluing the inner worth of Jesus Christ, they have actually been living on the virtue which came out of the hem of his garment. Yes; it seems we must touch him either at the heart or at the hem—if we will not have him for the soul, we must have him for the body. What if men reject him altogether? Then, as of old, there is no choice for them but Barabbas—and Barabbas is still a robber. We see alternative. Pilate still puts the question—“Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas or Jesus which is called Christ?” The voice of the people was once for the robber; it will yet be lifted up, never more to change, for the Son of God.
The End.
