Chapter 8
His Character and Teachings
470
"Who was Jesus Christ?
Mark: He was the son of man.
Matthew and Luke: He was the Son of God.
John: He was God himself.
In the Four Gospels are presented three entirely different conceptions of the Christ. In Mark he is represented as the son of human parents -- the Messiah -- but simply a man. In Matthew and Luke we have the story of the miraculous conception -- he is represented as the Son of God. In John he is declared to be God himself. "In the beginning was the Word [Christ], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (i, 1).
According to Mark Christ is a man; according to Matthew and Luke, a demi-god; according to John, a God.
Voltaire thus harmonizes these discordant conceptions: "The son of God is the same as the son of man; the son of man is the same as the son of God. God, the father, is the same as Christ, the son; Christ, the son, is the same as God, the father. This language may appear confused to unbelievers, but Christians will readily understand it."
This is quite as intelligible as the Christian Confession of Faith, Article II of which reads as follows: "The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance: so that two whole and perfect Natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one Person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man."
"The theological Christ is the impossible union of the human and divine -- man with the attributes of God, and God with the limitations and weaknesses of man." -- Ingersoll.
471
Is God a visible Being?
Jacob: "I have seen God face to face" (Genesis xxxii, 30).
John: "No man hath seen God at any time" (i, 18).
472
How many Gods are there?
Mark: One.
John: Three.
Mark teaches the doctrine of Unitarianism (Monotheism), or one God. John teaches, not the doctrine of Unitarianism or one God, nor yet the doctrine of Trinitarianism or three Gods in one, but the doctrine of Tritheism or three distinct Gods, separate and independent of each other.
473
Is the doctrine of the Trinity taught in the New Testament?
"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one" (I John v, 7).
This is the only passage in the New Testament which clearly teaches the doctrine of the Trinity, and this passage is admitted by all Christian scholars to be an interpolation.
When the modern version of the New Testament was first published by Erasmus it was criticized because it contained no text teaching the doctrine of the Trinity. Erasmus promised his critics that if a manuscript could be found containing such a text he would insert it. The manuscript was "found," and the text quoted appeared in a later edition. Concerning this interpolation Sir Isaac Newton, in a letter to a friend, which was afterward published by Bishop Horsley, says: "When the adversaries of Erasmus had got the Trinity into his edition, they threw by their manuscript as an old almanac out of date."
Alluding to the doctrine of the Trinity, Thomas Jefferson says: "It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticism that three are one and one is three, and yet, that the one is not three, and the three not one.... But this constitutes the craft, the power, and profits of the priests. Sweep away their gossamer fabrics of fictitious religion, and they would catch no more flies" (Jefferson s Works, Vol. IV, p. 205, Randolph's ed.).
Again Jefferson says: "The hocus-pocus phantasy of a God, like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs" (ibid., p. 360).
474
Was Christ the only begotten Son of God?
John: He was "the only begotten Son of God" (iii, 18).
"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children unto them" (Genesis vi, 4).
475
By what agency and when was the Christ begotten?
Matthew and Luke: By the Holy Ghost at the time of his conception by the Virgin Mary.
According to Justin the Holy Ghost begat the Christ, not at the conception of Jesus, as claimed by these Evangelists, but at his baptism. At his baptism the voice from heaven said. "Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee" (Dialogues, 88).
The correctness of Justin's statement is corroborated by Hebrews: "Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, today have I begotten thee" (v, 5). Christ's priesthood began at his baptism.
476
Of what gender is the Holy Ghost?
Matthew (Greek Ver.): Masculine gender.
Matthew (Hebrew Ver.): Feminine gender.
The Holy Ghost (Spirit), as was noted in a previous chapter, was with the Greeks of masculine gender, with the Jews of feminine gender. The Gospel According to the Hebrews, which, it is claimed, was the original Gospel of Matthew, represented Jesus as saying, "Just now my mother, the Holy Ghost, laid hold on me."
If the Holy Ghost was the mother of Jesus did he have two mothers? According to our Greek version of Matthew, as well as that of Luke, he had one mother and three reputed fathers -- God, the Holy Ghost, and Joseph.
477
Christ, it is affirmed, was born of Mary. If so, what relation did she bear to him?
1. If he was born of Mary, she was his mother.
2. She "being with child by the Holy Ghost," and Father, Son and Holy Ghost being one, she bore to him the relation of wife.
3. God being the Father of all mankind, and God and Christ being one, she was his daughter.
4. She being the daughter of God, and Christ being the Son of God, she was therefore his sister.
Consequently Mary bore to him the relation of mother, wife, daughter and sister.
478
The greater portion of the Christian church affirms the perpetual virginity of Mary. It is claimed that Jesus was her only child and that the conception and birth of him did not destroy her virginity. Is this confirmed by the Evangelists?
It is not. Matthew and Mark say: "Is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? and his sisters, are they not all with us?" (Matt. xiii, 55, 56; Mark vi, 3). Luke (viii, 19) and John (vii, 3) both declare that he had brothers.
To maintain this dogma it is affirmed that by "brethren and sisters" is meant cousins. Dr. Farrar, who in regard to this as in regard to most disputed points, assumes a non-committal or conciliatory attitude, concedes that "the natural supposition that, after the miraculous conception of our Lord, Joseph and Mary lived together in the married state, and that James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon, with daughters, whose names are not recorded, were subsequently born to them," is "in accordance certainly with the prima facie evidence of the Gospels" (Life of Christ, p. 51).
479
Who did Mary say was the father of Jesus?
Luke: When he remained behind in Jerusalem, and they found him in the temple, "his mother said unto him, son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold thy father [Joseph] and I have sought thee sorrowing" (ii, 48).
To believe that a Jewish virgin was overshadowed by a spirit, and miraculously conceived and bore a child, requires more convincing proof than the dream of a credulous lover. We ought at least to have the testimony of the mother. But we have it not. She testifies that Joseph is his father.
480
What did Jesus's neighbors say regarding his paternity?
Matthew: They said, "Is not this the carpenter's [Joseph's] son?" (xiii, 55.)
Luke: "They said, Is not this Joseph's son?" (iv, 22.)
John: "They said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph?" (vi, 42.)
The Rev. Dr. Crapsey, of the Episcopal church, in his work on Religion and Politics (p. 289), makes this significant admission regarding the divine origin of Jesus: "The fact of his miraculous birth was unknown to himself, unknown to his mother, and unknown to the whole Christian community of the first generations."
Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams, wrote: "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" (Jefferson's Works, Vol. IV, p. 365, Randolph's ed.).
481
Who did Peter declare him to be?
"Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God" (Acts ii, 22).
Who did Paul declare him to be?
"There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy ii, 5).
The Christ of Peter and Paul was not a God, but a man -- a man upon whom had been bestowed divine gifts -- but yet a man.
482
What testimony is ascribed to Paul?
"Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh" (I Timothy iii, 6).
This is a gross perversion of Scripture for the purpose of making Paul a witness to Christ's divinity. Regarding this text and the Trinitarian text inserted in 1 John, Sir Isaac Newton, in his letter previously quoted from, says:
"What the Latins have done in this text (1 John v, 7) the Greeks have done to Paul (1 Tim. iii, 16). They now read, 'Great is the mystery of godliness; God manifest in the flesh'; whereas all the churches for the first four or five hundred years, and the authors of all the ancient versions, Jerome as well as the rest, read, 'Great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifest in the flesh.' Our English version makes it yet a little stronger. It reads, 'Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh.'"
In conclusion Newton says: "If the ancient churches, in debating and deciding the greatest mysteries of religion, knew nothing of these two texts, I understand not why we should be so fond of them now the debate is over."
483
Christ is declared by the Christian creed to be "the very and eternal God." God, it is claimed, is omnipotent. Was Christ omnipotent?
"The Son can do nothing of himself" (John v, 9).
"I can of mine own self do nothing" (30).
484
God is omniscient. Was Christ omniscient?
Referring to his second advent he says: "Of that day and hour knoweth no man,...neither the Son" (Mark xiii, 32)
485
God is omnipresent. Was Christ omnipresent?
"I am glad for your sakes that I was not there" (John xi, 15).
"Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come" (vii, 36).
"And now I am no more in the world" (xvii, 11).
486
God is self-existent. Was Christ self-existent?
"I live by the Father" (John vi, 57)
"He liveth by the power of God" (2 Corinthians xiii, 4).
487
Did Christ have a preexistence?
"Before Abraham was, I am" (John viii, 52).
According to the Synoptics his existence began with his life on earth.
488
Was he infinite in wisdom?
Luke: He "increased in wisdom" (ii, 52).
If he increased in wisdom his knowledge was limited, and limitation of knowledge is not an attribute of an infinite God.
489
Was he infinite in goodness?
"Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God" (Mark x, 18).
490
Was he infinite in mercy?
"He that believeth not shall be damned" (Mark xvi, 16).
"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire" (Matthew xxv, 41).
"Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida!...It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell" (Matthew xi, 20 23).
491
His resurrection is adduced as the chief argument in proof of his divinity.
Did he raise himself from the dead?
Peter: He did not. God raised him. "Jesus Christ of Nazareth,...whom God raised from the dead" (Acts iv, 10).
If Christ, then, did not rise from the dead by his own volition, was his resurrection any proof of his divinity? No more than the resurrection of Lazarus was proof of Lazarus's divinity.
492
His miraculous conception is adduced as another proof of his divinity. Is this the only miraculous conception claimed in the Bible?
It is not. Isaac, Samson, Samuel and John the Baptist are all claimed to have been miraculously conceived (Genesis xviii, 10, 11; xxi, 1-3; Judges xiii, 2, 3, 24; 1 Samuel i, 9-11, 20; Luke i, 7-13).
493
His miracles, it is claimed, attest his divinity. Were he and his disciples the only ones who performed miracles?
These alleged miracles were performed before his time -- the Old Testament abounds with them -- and they have been performed since his time. They were performed by others in his own time -- were performed by those who ignored and rejected him -- were performed by the disciples of Satan himself (Matthew vii, 22; xii, 27; Mark ix, 38; xiii, 22; Luke ix, 49).
Supernatural Religion says: "The supposed miraculous evidence for the divine revelation, moreover, is without any special divine character, being avowedly common also to Satanic agency, but it is not original either in conception or details. Similar miracles to those which are supposed to attest it are reported long antecedent to the promulgation of Christianity, and continued to be performed for centuries after it. A stream of miraculous pretension, in fact, has flowed through all human history, deep and broad as it has passed through the darker ages, but dwindling down to a thread as it has entered days of enlightenment. The evidence was too hackneyed and commonplace to place any impression upon those before whom the Christian miracles are said to have been performed, and it altogether failed to convince the people to whom the revelation was primarily addressed. The selection of such evidence, for such a purpose, is much more characteristic of human weakness than of divine power" (p. 699).
Archbishop Trench says: "Side by side with the miracles which serve for the furthering of the kingdom of God runs another line of wonders, the counter-workings of him who is ever the ape of the Most High.... This fact that the kingdom of lies has its wonders no less than the kingdom of truth, is itself sufficient evidence that miracles cannot be appealed to absolutely and finally, in proof of the doctrine which the worker of them proclaims" (Miracles of Our Lord, p. 22).
The miracles of Christ, like the miracles of Satan, existed only in the minds of his credulous and deluded followers.
Ye shall have miracles, aye, sound ones too,
Seen, heard, attested, everything but true.
-- Thomas Moore.
494
Prophecy is appealed to in support of his divinity. It is claimed that the writers of the Old Testament predicted his coming. Do such predictions exist?
In his work on The Bible, as well as in a previous chapter of this work, the writer has shown that there is not a single passage in the Old Testament that, in the original text, refers in the remotest degree to Jesus Christ.
Greg shows that much of Old Testament history, like Deuteronomy, is presented in the form of anticipatory narrative. To the Christian argument that the Messianic predictions, at least, were written long anterior to the time of Christ, he replies: "This is true, and the argument would have all the force which is attributed to it, were the objectors able to lay their fingers on a single Old Testament prediction clearly referring to Jesus Christ, intended by the utterers of it to relate to him, prefiguring his character and career, and manifestly fulfilled in his appearance on earth. This they cannot do. Most of the passages usually adduced as complying with these conditions, referred, and were clearly intended to refer, to eminent individuals in Israelitish history; many are not prophecies at all; the Messiah, the anointed deliverer expected by the Jews, hoped for and called for by their poets and prophets, was of a character so different, and a career so opposite, to those of the meek, lowly, long-suffering Jesus, that the passages describing the one never could have been applied to the other, without a perversion of ingenuity, and a disloyal treatment of their obvious signification, which, if employed in any other field than that of theology, would have met with the prompt discredit and derision they deserve" (Creed of Christendom, pp. 135, 136).
495
His own prescience is cited in proof of his divinity. The destruction of the temple by the Romans, it is claimed, was a wonderful instance of the fulfillment of prophecy. But did his so-called prophecy have reference to this event?
No one can read this prophecy (Matthew xxiv, 1-3) and then honestly contend that it did. He clearly refers to his second coming and the end of the world when the temple, in common with all sublunary things, shall be destroyed. In the verse immediately following this prediction, his disciples say: 'Yell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?"
But even if this so called prophecy had referred to this event it is rendered nugatory by the fact that the book containing it was not composed until a hundred years after the destruction of the temple.
496
When was Christ's second coming and the end of terrestrial things to take place?
"There be some standing here that shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom" (Matthew xvi, 28).
"This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled" (Luke xxi, 32).
Seventy-five generations have passed, and still the world rolls on, unmoved by Christ's and Mother Shipton's prophecies.
497
Did the Apostles believe that the second coming of Christ and the end of the world were at hand?
Peter: "The end of all things is at hand" (I Peter iv, 7).
James: "The coming of the Lord draweth nigh" (James v, 8).
John: "Ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists: whereby we know that it is the last time" (I John ii, 18).
Paul: "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air" (I Thessalonians iv, 16, 17).
Renan, ever ready to palliate or overlook the errors of his hero, frankly admits that the predictions concerning his second advent and the end of the world were a dismal failure. "It is evident, indeed," he says, "that such a doctrine, taken by itself in a literal manner, had no future. The world, in continuing to exist, caused it to crumble. One generation of man at the most was the limit of its endurance. The faith of the first Christian generation is intelligible, but the faith of the second generation is no longer so. After the death of John, or of the last survivor, whoever he might be, of the group which had seen the master, the word of Jesus was convicted of falsehood" (Life of Jesus, pp. 203, 204).
498
To what extent was the gospel to be preached before his second coming?
"Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come" (Matthew x, 23).
"The gospel must first be published among all nations" (Mark xiii, 10).
499
Did Jesus claim to be the Christ or Messiah from the first?
John: He did. Early in his ministry "The woman [of Samaria] saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he" (iv, 25, 26).
Synoptics: He did not announce his Messiahship until late in his ministry." |
