Transcriber's notes

Variable spelling has been retained. Minor punctuation inconsistencies have been silently corrected. A list of other [corrections] can be found at the end of the book. Footnotes were sequentially numbered and placed at the end of the text. In the original, the "The Gospel Narratives" are printed side by side across the page spread. The [Index] was copied from Volume II.

THE TRIAL OF JESUS

JESUS BOUND (MUNKACSY)

THE TRIAL OF JESUS

FROM A LAWYER'S STANDPOINT

BY

WALTER M. CHANDLER
OF THE NEW YORK BAR

VOLUME I

THE HEBREW TRIAL

THE EMPIRE PUBLISHING CO.

60 Wall Street, New York City

1908

Copyright, 1908, by
WALTER M. CHANDLER

All rights reserved

TO
MY MOTHER
WITH SENTIMENTS OF LOVE AND VENERATION
WHICH NO WORDS CAN EXPRESS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CONTENTS OF VOLUME ONE

PREFACE TO VOLUME ONE

MANY remarkable trials have characterized the judicial history of mankind.

The trial of Socrates before the dicastery of Athens, charged with corrupting Athenian youth, with blaspheming the Olympic gods, and with seeking to destroy the constitution of the Attic Republic, is still a sublime and thrilling chapter in the history of a wonderful people, among the ruins and wrecks of whose genius the modern world still wanders to contemplate, admire, and study the pride of every master and the perfection of every model.

The trial and execution of Charles the First of England sealed with royal blood a new covenant of British freedom, and erected upon the highway of national progress an enduring landmark to civil liberty. The entire civilized world stood aghast at the solemn and awful spectacle of the deliberate beheading of a king. And yet, to-day, the sober, serious judgment of mankind stamps the act with approval, and deems it a legitimate and righteous step in the heroic march of a brave and splendid people toward a complete realization of the inalienable rights of man. The philosopher of history declares these condemnatory and executory proceedings against a Stuart king worthy of all the epoch making movements that have glorified the centuries of English constitutional growth, and have given to mankind the imperishable parchments of Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, the Petition of Rights, and Habeas Corpus.

The trial of Warren Hastings in the hall of William Rufus has been immortalized by Lord Macaulay. This trial is a virtual reproduction in English history of the ancient Roman trial of Verres. England is substituted for Rome; Sicily becomes India; Hastings takes the place of Verres; and Burke is the orator instead of Cicero. The indictments are identical: Maladministration in the government of a province. In the impeachment of Hastings, England served notice upon her colonial governors and made proclamation to the world that English conquest was not intended to despoil and enslave, but was designed to carry to the inhabitants of distant lands her language, her literature, and her laws. This message to humanity was framed but not inspired by England. It was prompted by the success of the American Revolution, in which Washington and his Continentals had established the immortal principle, that the consent of the governed is the true source of all just powers of government.

The trial of Aaron Burr, omitting Arnold's treason, is the blackest chapter in the annals of our republic. Burr was the most extraordinary man of the first half century of American national history. His powerful and fascinating personality conquered men and enslaved women. He was the finest scholar of the Revolution excepting Thomas Jefferson. He was the greatest orator of the Revolution excepting Patrick Henry. His farewell address to the United States Senate caused his inveterate enemies to weep. His arraignment at the bar of public justice on the charge of high treason—that he had sought to destroy the Country of Washington, the Republic of Jefferson, which is to-day the Union of Lincoln—was the sad and melancholy close of a long and lofty life.

The trial of Alfred Dreyfus is still fresh in the minds and memories of men. Troubled political seas still surge and roll in France because of the hatred, prejudice, and passion that envelope the mysterious bordereau. The French Republic is still rent by two contending factions: Dreyfus and anti-Dreyfus. His friends still say that Dreyfus was a Prometheus who was chained to an ocean-girt rock while the vulture of exile preyed upon his heart. His enemies still assert that he was a Judas who betrayed not God or Christ, but France and the Fatherland. His banishment to the Island of the Devil; his wife's deathless devotion; the implacable hatred of his enemies; the undying loyalty of friends; and his own sufferings and woes are the warp and woof of the most splendid and pathetic epoch of a century.

Other trials—of Mary Stuart, the beautiful and brilliant Scottish queen; of Robert Emmet, the grand and gifted Irish patriot martyr—thrilled the world in their day.

But these trials, one and all, were tame and commonplace, compared with the trial and crucifixion of the Galilean peasant, Jesus of Nazareth. These were earthly trials, on earthly issues, before earthly courts. The trial of the Nazarene was before the high tribunals of both Heaven and earth; before the Great Sanhedrin, whose judges were the master-spirits of a divinely commissioned race; before the court of the Roman Empire that controlled the legal and political rights of men throughout the known world, from Scotland to Judea and from Dacia to Abyssinia.

The trial of Jesus was twofold: Hebrew and Roman; or Ecclesiastical and Civil. The Hebrew trial took place before the Great Sanhedrin, consisting of seventy-one members. The Roman trial was held before Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Judea, and afterwards before Herod, Tetrarch of Galilee. These trials all made one, were links in a chain, and took place within a space of time variously estimated from ten to twenty hours.

The general order of events may be thus briefly described:

(1) About eleven o'clock on the evening of April 6th, A.D. 30, Jesus and eleven of the Apostles left the scene of the Last Supper, which had been celebrated (probably in the home of Mark) on the outskirts of Jerusalem, to go to the Garden of Gethsemane.

(2) Jesus was arrested about midnight in Gethsemane by a band of Temple officers and Roman soldiers guided by Judas.

(3) He was first taken to Annas, and was afterwards sent by Annas to Caiaphas. A private preliminary examination of Jesus was then had before one of these church dignitaries. St. John describes this examination, but does not tell us clearly whether it was Annas or Caiaphas who conducted it.

(4) After His preliminary examination, Jesus was arraigned about two o'clock in the morning before the Sanhedrin, which had convened in the palace of Caiaphas, and was formally tried and condemned to death on the charge of blasphemy against Jehovah.

(5) After a temporary adjournment of the first session, the Sanhedrin reassembled at the break of day to retry Jesus, and to determine how He should be brought before Pilate.

(6) In the early morning of April 7th, Jesus was led before Pontius Pilate, who was then stopping in the palace of Herod on the hill of Zion, his customary residence when he came up from Cæsarea to Jerusalem to attend the Jewish national festivals. A brief trial of Jesus by Pilate, on the charge of high treason against Cæsar, was then had in front of and within the palace of Herod. The result was an acquittal of the prisoner by the Roman procurator, who expressed his verdict in these words: "I find in him no fault at all."

(7) Instead of releasing Jesus after having found Him not guilty, Pilate, being intimidated by the rabble, sent the prisoner away to Herod, Tetrarch of Galilee, who was then in attendance upon the Passover Feast, and was at that moment residing in the ancient palace of the Asmoneans in the immediate neighborhood of the residence of Pilate. A brief, informal hearing was had before Herod, who, having mocked and brutalized the prisoner, sent Him back to the Roman governor.

(8) After the return of Jesus from the Court of Herod, Pilate assembled the priests and elders, announced to them that Herod had found no fault with the prisoner in their midst, reminded them that he himself had acquitted Him, and offered to scourge and then release Him. This compromise and subterfuge were scornfully rejected by the Jews who had demanded the crucifixion of Jesus. Pilate, after much vacillation, finally yielded to the demands of the mob and ordered the prisoner to be crucified.

From this brief outline of the proceedings against Jesus, the reader will readily perceive that there were two distinct trials: a Hebrew and a Roman. He will notice further that each trial was marked by three distinct features or appearances. The Hebrew trial was characterized by:

(1) The appearance before Annas.

(2) The trial at the night session of the Sanhedrin.

(3) The examination at the morning sitting of the same court.

The Roman trial was marked by:

(1) The appearance of Jesus before Pilate.

(2) His arraignment before Herod.

(3) His reappearance before Pilate.

The first volume of this work has been devoted to the Hebrew trial of Jesus, and a distinctively Hebrew impress has been given to all its pages. The second volume has been devoted to the Roman trial, and a distinctively Roman impress has been given it. Each exhibits a distinct view of the subject. Taken together, they comprehend the most important and famous judicial transaction in history.

It is not the purpose of the author of these volumes to usurp the functions or the privileges of the ecclesiastic. To priests and preachers have been left the discussion and solution of theological problems: the divinity of Jesus, the immortality of the soul and kindred religious dogmas. "The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint" is the expanded title of this work. A strict adherence to a secular discussion of the theme proclaimed has been studiously observed in the preparation of these pages. The legal rights of the man Jesus at the bar of human justice under Jewish and Roman laws have marked the limitations of the argument. Any digression from this plan has been temporary and necessary.

A thorough understanding of any case, judicially considered, involves a complete analysis of the cardinal legal elements of the case: the element called Fact and the element called Law. Whether in ancient or modern times, in a Jewish or Gentile court, of civil or criminal jurisdiction, these elements have always entered into the legal conception of a case. Whether the advocate is preparing a pleading at his desk, is summing up before the jury, or addressing himself to the court, these elements are working forever in his brain. He is constantly asking himself these questions: What are the facts of this case? What is the law applicable to the facts? Do the facts and law meet and harmonize judicially? Do they blend in legal unison according to the latest decision of the court of last resort? If so, a case is made; otherwise, not.

Now many sermons might be differently preached; many books might be differently written. But an intelligent discussion of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus from a lawyer's point of view must be had upon the basis of an analytical review of the agreement or nonagreement of law and fact in the case sought to be made against the Christ.

The first question that naturally suggests itself to the inquiring mind, in investigating this theme, is this: Upon what facts was the complaint against Jesus based? A second question then logically follows: What were the rules and regulations of Hebrew and Roman law directly applicable to those facts in the trials of Jesus before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate? It is respectfully submitted that no clear and comprehensive treatment of the subject can be had without proper answers to these questions.

Having learned the facts of any case, and having determined what rules of law are applicable to them in regard to the controversy in hand, a third step in the proceedings, in all matters of review on appeal, is this: To analyze the record from the viewpoint of the juristic agreement or nonagreement of law and fact; and to determine by a process of judicial dissection and reformation the presence or absence of essential legal elements in the proceedings, with a view to affirmance in case of absence, or reversal of the verdict in the event of the discovery of the presence of error.

In obedience to this natural intellectual tendency and to the usual mode of legal procedure in reviewing and revising matters on appeal, the contents of Volume I have been divided into three parts, corresponding, in a general way, to the successive steps heretofore mentioned.

In Part I, the Record of Fact in the trial of Jesus has been authenticated; not, indeed, according to the strict provisions of modern statutes which regulate the authentication of legal documents, but in the popular sense of the word "authentication." Nevertheless, the authenticity of the Gospel narratives, which form the record of fact in the trial of Jesus, and the credibility of the Evangelists who wrote and published these narratives, have been subjected to the rigorous tests of rules of evidence laid down by Greenleaf and by Starkie. Such an authentication has been deemed necessary in a treatise of this kind.

Two main methods may be employed in investigating and proving the alleged occurrences of Sacred History: (1) The method which is based upon the evidence of spiritual consciousness and experience, derived from religious conversion and from communion with God; (2) the method that rests upon the application of historic facts and legal rules to the testimony of those who have asserted the existence of such occurrences.

It has been contended by many that the first of these methods is the supreme test, and the only proper one, in solving religious problems and in reaching full and final assurance of the existence of spiritual truths. It is confidently asserted by such persons that the true Christian who has accepted Jesus as his personal Redeemer and has thereby found peace with God, needs no assurance from Matthew that the Christ was the Heaven-begotten and Virgin-born. Such a Christian, it is said, has positive proof from within that Jesus was divine. It is further contended that all forms of religious truth are susceptible of the same kind of proof. It is argued that from despairing hope, born of the longing and the tears of a mother who, grief-stricken and broken-hearted, kneels in prayer beside the coffin of her firstborn, springs stronger evidence of a future life and of an everlasting reunion with loved ones, than comes from all the assurances of immortality handed down by saints and sages. The advocates of this theory contend that the fact of the Resurrection of Jesus should be proved mainly by the method of spiritual consciousness and experience, and only incidentally by the historical testimony of the sacred writers. They boldly maintain that the Resurrection was a spiritual fact born of a spiritual truth; and that within the soul of each true believer is the image of the risen Jesus, reflected from Heaven in as perfect form as that seen by Paul while journeying to Damascus.

It would be decidedly ungenerous and unjust to deny the force of the contention that spiritual consciousness and religious experience are convincing forms of proof. To do so would be to offer gratuitous insult to the intelligence and sincerity of millions of consecrated men and women who have repeatedly proclaimed and are still proclaiming that the Spirit of God and Christ within them attests the reality of religion.

But on the other hand the doctrine of religions consciousness, as a mode of proof, certainly has its limitations. Spiritual proofs are obviously the very best means of establishing purely spiritual truths. But not many truths of religion are purely spiritual. The most of them are encased within historic facts which may themselves be separately considered as historic truths. In a sense, all spiritual truth is born of historic truth; that is, historic truths, in the order of our acquisition of a knowledge of them, antedate and create spiritual truths. The religious consciousness of the Resurrection of Jesus would never have been born in our hearts if we had never read the historical records of the physical Resurrection. Nor could we have ever had a religious experience of the divinity of Jesus if we had never read the historical accounts of His miracles, of His Virgin birth, His fulfillment of prophecy, and His Resurrection from the dead, unless Jesus had personally communicated to us evidences of His divinity. These separate and historic facts, of which spiritual truths are born, cannot be proved by religious consciousness and experience.

The distinctions herein suggested are very aptly and beautifully expressed by Professor Inge in his Bampton Lectures on Christian Mysticism, in which he says: "The inner light can only testify to spiritual truths. It always speaks in the present tense; it cannot guarantee any historical event, past or future. It cannot guarantee either the Gospel history or a future judgment. It can tell us that Christ is risen, and He is alive for evermore, but not that He rose again the third day."

From the foregoing, then, it is clear that in dealing with the historical facts and circumstances of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, we cannot remotely employ the method of proof which is based upon religious consciousness and experience, since these events are matters of the past and not of the present. We have been compelled, therefore, to resort to the legal and historical method of proof; since we could not assume the correctness of the record, as such an assumption would have been lacking in legal requirement and judicial fitness.

It has also been thought not to be within the scope of this treatise, or consistent with the purpose of the author of these volumes, to enter into a discussion of the question of inspiration in the matter of the origin of the New Testament Gospels, as the record of fact in the trial of Jesus. As secular historians, rather than as inspired writers, must the Evangelists be regarded in this connection; since the title of this work suggests and demands a strictly legal treatment of the theme proclaimed. The author would respectfully suggest, however, that the day is past for complete reliance upon the theory of inspiration and a total rejection of all analysis and investigation. That the Scriptures are sacred and inspired, and neither need nor permit questions involving doubt and speculation as to origin and authenticity will no longer meet the challenge or dissipate the fears of the intellectual leaders of the human race. The Christianity of the future must be a religion of reason as well as of faith, else it cannot and will not endure the shocks of time, or survive the onward march of the soul. If the teachings of the Nazarene are a faithful portrayal and a truthful expression of all the verities of Heaven and earth, then Christianity has nothing to fear from the discoveries of Science, from Roman catacombs, Arabian hieroglyphics, the sands of Egypt, or the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. Science is the High Priestess of Nature and Nature's oracles, and no single revelation of Science can disprove or contradict the simplest truth of Nature's God.

If, on the other hand, Christianity be fundamentally and essentially false, ignorance and bigotry will not preserve and perpetuate it; all the prayers of the faithful, all the martyrdom of the centuries, will not suffice to save it from death and annihilation.

But the Christian need have no fear of the results of scientific investigation or historic revelation. Assyriology, archæology, and paleontology, interpreted and applied by the finest scholarship and the most superb intellects of earth, have spent all their stupendous and concentrated forces in the direction of the discovery of natural and historic facts that would confirm or destroy the Christian theory of things. And yet not one natural or historic fact has been discovered that seriously disturbs the testimony of the Evangelists or impairs the evidence of Christianity. A few unlettered fisherman, casting nets for a livelihood in the waters of Gennesaret, framed a message to humanity based upon the life and martyrdom of a Galilean peasant, their spiritual Lord and Master, and proclaimed it to the world; and all the succeeding centuries of scientific research and skeptical criticism have not shaken mankind's confidence in its truthfulness and its potency. If eighteen hundred years of scientific investigation have resulted only in proof and vindication of the historic asseverations of the Sacred Scriptures, and further investigation gives promise of still further proof and vindication, tending to remove all doubts and destroy all fears, nothing but rank stupidity and crass ignorance will place obstacles in the way of ultimate analysis and complete revelation.

In Part II of this volume, following the plan heretofore suggested, the element of Law has been considered. Hebrew criminal jurisprudence, based upon the Mosaic Code and upon the Talmud, has been outlined and discussed. A more exhaustive treatment has been given than the subject would seem to justify, but the writer is convinced that the Criminal Code of the Jews must be of surpassing interest to the general reader, regardless of whether certain peculiar rules therein contained have reference to the trial of Jesus or not. The bulk of this Code has been inserted in this work because it is felt that a comprehensive view of any system enables the student of a particular trial under that system to grasp more fully and to appreciate more keenly the merits of the proceedings.

In Part III the legal aspects of the trial of Jesus have been reviewed. The elements of Law and Fact have been combined in the form of a "Brief," in which "Points" have been made and errors have been discussed.

During the past decade, the author of this work has delivered occasionally, in the United States and in the Dominion of Canada, a lecture upon the subject, "The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint." Numerous requests have been made, from time to time, for the lecture in printed form. To supply this demand is the purpose of the publication of these volumes. The voluminous treatment given has been in response to the demands of those who have asked for a topical treatment of the subject. Many auditors in his lecture audiences have asked for special treatment, from a lawyer's standpoint, of the New Testament Gospels. Many have requested an exhaustive handling of Hebrew criminal law. Others have asked for the insertion in this work of the Apocryphal Acts of Pilate. And still others have expressed a desire to have Græco-Roman Paganism dealt with in its relationship to the trial of Jesus. In obedience to these various demands, certain chapters have been incorporated in the general work that may not seem to the average reader to have any direct bearing upon the subject treated. It is felt, however, that in every case at least a partial relevancy exists, and that in a large majority of cases the relevancy is perfect.

The writer wishes, at this time and place, to acknowledge his indebtedness and to express his thanks, for valuable assistance rendered, to all those authors mentioned under the title "Bibliography" at the end of Volume II.

Walter M. Chandler.

New York City, July 1, 1908.

THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES

PART I
THE RECORD OF FACT

ST. MATTHEW (REMBRANDT)

CHAPTER I

THE RECORD OF FACT

THE Gospels of the New Testament form the record of fact in the trial of Jesus. There is not a line of authentic history in the literature of the world, sacred or profane, dealing originally and authoritatively with the facts and circumstances of the trial and crucifixion of the Christ, excepting these Gospels. A line from Philo—a dubious passage from Josephus—a mere mention by Tacitus—a few scattering fragments from the Talmud—all else is darkness, save the light that streams down through the centuries from Calvary and the Cross through the books of the Evangelists.

In dealing with the record of fact contained in the Gospels, in the trial of Jesus two questions naturally suggest themselves: (1) Are the Gospel narratives, such as we have them to-day, identical with those that were given to the world by the Evangelists in Apostolic times? That is, have these biographies of the Christ by the Evangelical writers been handed down to us through all the ages substantially uncorrupted and unimpaired?

(2) Are the Gospel writers—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—credible witnesses of the facts and circumstances recorded by them in the Gospel histories? That is, did they tell the truth when they wrote and published these narratives to the world? Satisfactory affirmative answers to these questions will establish and authenticate a perfect record of fact. The pages of Part I of this volume will be devoted to giving affirmative and satisfactory answers to these questions. And, in accomplishing this purpose, academic reasoning and metaphysical speculation will be rejected. Well-established rules of evidence, as employed in modern courts of law, will be rigorously applied. So-called "Higher Criticism" has no place in a treatise of this kind, since the critical niceties and dialectic quibbles of men like Strauss, Renan, and Baur would not be seriously considered in a modern judicial proceeding. Reasonable probability, and not mathematical certainty, is the legal test of adequacy in weighing human testimony with a view to a judicial determination.

The reader may ask: Why should not a Christian writer, in a Christian country, assume, without argument, that the testimony of Christian sacred writers is true? The answer is that such conduct would convert a purely legal treatise into a religious one, and substitute faith for logic. The writer of these volumes, as a Christian, believes that the Gospels relate the truth. As a lawyer, he is compelled to respect the opinions of a large proportion of mankind who differ with him, and to employ judicial methods in treating a legal theme.

The two questions above mentioned involve two distinct principles or features in the Law of Evidence: (1) Admissibility or relevancy of evidence; (2) Credibility of witnesses who have rendered testimony. All the pages of Part I will be devoted to a consideration of these features in their relationship to the testimony of the Evangelists.

The first question that naturally arises is this: Is there a well-established rule of the modern Law of Evidence under which the Gospels could be introduced as evidence in a modern judicial proceeding? Suppose that the question of the Resurrection of Jesus—that is, the fact of the truthfulness or falsity of the Resurrection—should become a material fact in issue in a suit in a modern court of law; could the testimony of the Evangelists relating to the Resurrection be introduced in evidence? It would probably be objected that their testimony was hearsay; that they had not been properly subjected to the cardinal tests of truth: an oath, a cross-examination, and personal demeanor while testifying. These objections might prevail if another rule of law could not be successfully invoked. Such a rule exists, and with it we have now to deal.

The author can conceive of no more satisfactory way of establishing the principle of the admissibility of the Gospels in evidence under modern law than by quoting at length from the celebrated treatise on the "Testimony of the Evangelists," by Mr. Simon Greenleaf, the greatest of all writers on the Law of Evidence. The opinion of Greenleaf on a subject of this kind is somewhat in the nature of a decision of a court of last resort, and his authority in matters of this import is unquestioned in every land where English law is practiced. The London Law Magazine, a few years ago, paid him the following splendid tribute: "It is no mean honor to America that her schools of jurisprudence have produced two of the first writers and best esteemed legal authorities of this century—the great and good man, Judge Story, and his worthy and eminent associate, Professor Greenleaf. Upon the existing Law of Evidence (by Greenleaf) more light has shone from the New World than from all the lawyers who adorn the courts of Europe."

Concerning the authenticity of the Sacred Scriptures and their admissibility in evidence, Greenleaf has thus written:

That the books of the Old Testament, as we now have them, are genuine; that they existed in the time of our Saviour, and were commonly received and referred to among the Jews as the sacred books of their religion; and that the text of the Four Evangelists has been handed down to us in the state in which it was originally written, that is, without having been materially corrupted or falsified, either by heretics or Christians, are facts which we are entitled to assume as true, until the contrary is shown.

The genuineness of these writings really admits of as little doubt, and is susceptible of as ready proof, as that of any ancient writings whatever. The rule of municipal law on this subject is familiar, and applies with equal force to all ancient writings, whether documentary or otherwise; and as it comes first in order, in the prosecution of these inquiries, it may, for the sake of mere convenience, be designated as our first rule.

Every document, apparently ancient, coming from the proper repository or custody, and bearing on its face no evident marks of forgery, the law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the opposing party the burden of proving it to be otherwise.

An ancient document, offered in evidence in our courts, is said to come from the proper repository, when it is found in the place where, and under the care of persons with whom, such writings might naturally and reasonably be expected to be found; for it is this custody which gives authenticity to documents found within it. If they come from such a place, and bear no evident marks of forgery, the law presumes that they are genuine, and they are permitted to be read in evidence, unless the opposing party is able successfully to impeach them. The burden of showing them to be false and unworthy of credit is devolved on the party who makes that objection. The presumption of law is the judgment of charity. It presumes that every man is innocent until he is proved guilty; that everything has been done fairly and legally until it is proved to have been otherwise; and that every document found in its proper repository, and not bearing marks of forgery, is genuine. Now this is precisely the case with the Sacred Writings. They have been used in the church from time immemorial, and are thus found in the place where alone they ought to be looked for. They come to us, and challenge our reception of them as genuine writings, precisely as Domesday Book, the Ancient Statutes of Wales, or any other of the ancient documents which have recently been published under the British Record Commission are received. They are found in familiar use in all the churches of Christendom, as the sacred books to which all denominations of Christians refer, as the standard of their faith. There is no pretense that they were engraven on plates of gold and discovered in a cave, nor that they were brought from heaven by angels; but they are received as the plain narratives and writings of the men whose names they respectively bear, made public at the time they were written; and though there are some slight discrepancies among the copies subsequently made, there is no pretense that the originals were anywhere corrupted. If it be objected that the originals are lost, and that copies alone are now produced, the principles of the municipal law here also afford a satisfactory answer. For the multiplication of copies was a public fact, in the faithfulness of which all the Christian community had an interest; and it is a rule of law that

In matters of public and general interest, all persons must be presumed to be conversant, on the principle that individuals are presumed to be conversant with their own affairs.

Therefore it is that, in such matters, the prevailing current of assertion is resorted to as evidence, for it is to this that every member of the community is supposed to be privy. The persons, moreover, who multiplied these copies may be regarded, in some manner, as the agents of the Christian public, for whose use and benefit the copies were made; and on the ground of the credit due to such agents, and of the public nature of the facts themselves, the copies thus made are entitled to an extraordinary degree of confidence, and, as in the case of official registers and other public books, it is not necessary that they should be confirmed and sanctioned by the ordinary tests of truth. If any ancient document concerning our public rights were lost, copies which had been as universally received and acted upon as the Four Gospels have been, would have been received in evidence in any of our courts of justice, without the slightest hesitation. The entire text of the Corpus Juris Civilis is received as authority in all the courts of continental Europe, upon much weaker evidence of its genuineness; for the integrity of the Sacred Text has been preserved by the jealousy of opposing sects, beyond any moral possibility of corruption; while that of the Roman Civil Law has been preserved by tacit consent, without the interest of any opposing school, to watch over and preserve it from alteration.

These copies of the Holy Scriptures having thus been in familiar use in the churches from the time when the text was committed to writing; having been watched with vigilance by so many sects, opposed to each other in doctrine, yet all appealing to these Scriptures for the correctness of their faith; and having in all ages, down to this day, been respected as the authoritative source of all ecclesiastical power and government, and submitted to, and acted under in regard to so many claims of right, on the one hand, and so many obligations of duty, on the other; it is quite erroneous to suppose that the Christian is bound to offer any further proof of their genuineness or authenticity. It is for the objector to show them spurious; for on him, by the plainest rules of law, lies the burden of proof. If it were the case of a claim to a franchise, and a copy of an ancient deed or charter were produced in support of the title, under parallel circumstances on which to presume its genuineness, no lawyer, it is believed, would venture to deny either its admissibility in evidence or the satisfactory character of the proof. In a recent case in the House of Lords, precisely such a document, being an old manuscript copy, purporting to have been extracted from ancient Journals of the House, which were lost, and to have been made by an officer whose duty it was to prepare lists of the peers, was held admissible in a claim of peerage.[1]

Having secured the Gospel writings to be admitted in evidence under the rule laid down by Mr. Greenleaf, we are now ready to consider more at length the question of the credibility of the witnesses. The reader should bear in mind that there is a very important difference between the admission of testimony in evidence and belief in its truthfulness by the court or jury. Evidence is frequently deemed relevant and admissible, and goes to the jury for what it is worth. They may or may not believe it.

We are now ready to consider the credit that should be accorded the testimony of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John concerning the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. And at the outset it should be borne in mind that there is a legal presumption that they told the truth. This presumption operates in their favor from the very moment that their testimony is admitted in evidence. Here, again, the opinion of Greenleaf—with all the weight and authority that such an opinion carries—is directly in point. In the "Testimony of the Evangelists" he says:

Proceeding further, to inquire whether the facts related by the Four Evangelists are proved by competent and satisfactory evidence, we are led, first, to consider on which side lies the burden of establishing the credibility of the witnesses. On this point the municipal law furnishes a rule which is of constant application in all trials by jury, and is indeed the dictate of that charity which thinketh no evil.

In the absence of circumstances which generate suspicion, every witness is to be presumed credible, until the contrary is shown, the burden of impeaching his credibility lying on the objector.

This rule serves to show the injustice with which the writers of the Gospels have ever been treated by infidels; an injustice silently acquiesced in even by Christians; in requiring the Christian affirmatively, and by positive evidence, aliunde to establish the credibility of his witnesses above all others, before their testimony is entitled to be considered, and in permitting the testimony of a single profane writer, alone and uncorroborated, to outweigh that of any single Christian. This is not the course in courts of chancery, where the testimony of a single witness is never permitted to outweigh the oath even of the defendant himself, interested as he is in the case; but, on the contrary, if the plaintiff, after having required the oath of his adversary, cannot overthrow it by something more than the oath of one witness, however credible, it must stand as evidence against him. But the Christian writer seems, by the usual course of the argument, to have been deprived of the common presumption of charity in his favor; and reversing the ordinary rule of administering justice in human tribunals, his testimony is unjustly presumed to be false, until it is proved to be true. This treatment, moreover, has been applied to them all in a body; and without due regard to the fact, that, being independent historians, writing at different periods, they are entitled to the support of each other; they have been treated, in the argument, almost as if the New Testament were the entire production, at once, of a body of men, conspiring by a joint fabrication, to impose a false religion upon the world. It is time that this injustice should cease; that the testimony of the evangelists should be admitted to be true, until it can be disproved by those who would impugn it; that the silence of one sacred writer on any point should no more detract from his own veracity or that of other historians, that the like circumstance is permitted to do among profane writers; and that the Four Evangelists should be admitted in corroboration of each other, as readily as Josephus and Tacitus, or Polybius and Livy.[2]

The reader will notice from the last extract that the eminent writer quoted has sought to establish the credibility of the Evangelists by a legal presumption in favor of their veracity. But it should be borne in mind that this presumption is a disputable one, and may be overturned by opposing evidence; that objections may be raised which will destroy the force of the presumption and shift the burden again to him who asserts the credibility of the witnesses. Now, let us suppose that such objections have been made, and that sufficient opposing evidence has been offered to accomplish this result; what has the Christian then to say in support of the credibility of the first historians of his faith? What proofs has he to offer, independent of legal presumption, that the first biographers of the Master were truthful men? Can he show that the application of legal tests to their credibility will save them in the eyes of a critical and unbelieving world? The writer believes that the Christian can do it, and will at once assume the task.

In "Starkie on Evidence" we find elaborated a rule of municipal law, at once concise and comprehensive, which furnishes a complete test of the credibility of witnesses. The various elements of this rule are constantly operating in the mind of the successful cross-examiner in the course of any extensive cross-examination.

The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon, firstly, their honesty; secondly, their ability; thirdly, their number and the consistency of their testimony; fourthly, the conformity of their testimony with experience; and fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony with collateral circumstances.[3]

Let us apply these successive tests, in the order above enumerated, to the Evangelists.

(1) In the first place, let us consider the question of their honesty.

The meaning of the word "honesty," used in this connection, is peculiar. It relates rather to personal sincerity than to personal integrity, and suggests the idea of perjury rather than theft in criminal law. Were the witnesses honest? That is, were they sincere? Did they intend to tell the truth? That is, did they themselves believe what they testified? If so, they were honest witnesses, though their testimony was false, as a result of error in judgment or mistake of fact.

In the sense, then, of sincerity is the test of honesty to be applied to the Evangelists as witnesses of the facts which they relate in the New Testament narratives. And in making this test let us bear in mind the nature and scope of this work; that it is not a religious treatise, and that the question of inspiration must not be allowed to confuse a purely legal and historical discussion. As secular historians, and not as inspired writers, must the Evangelists be considered. And in testing their credibility, the customary standards employed in analyzing the motives and conduct of ordinary men in the usual experiences and everyday affairs of life must be applied. To regard them as strange or supernatural beings, subject to some awful influence, and acting under the guidance and protection of some god or hero, is decidedly foreign to the present purpose.

It is felt that only two considerations are needed in applying the test of sincerity to the Evangelists: (1) Character; (2) Motive. And this for the reason that honest character and righteous motive are the legitimate parentage of perfect sincerity. Then, as a primary consideration, in discussing their sincerity, it may be reasonably contended that the Gospel writers were either good men or bad. A middle ground is not possible in their case, since the issues joined and the results attained were too terrible and stupendous to have been produced by negative or indifferent forces. Were they good men, then they believed what they taught and wrote, and were sincere, else they deliberately palmed off an imposture on the world, which is inconsistent with the hypothesis that they were good. Were they bad men, then their lives and teachings furnish a contradiction in principle and an inversion in the nature and order of cause and effect which history has not elsewhere recorded, either before or since; for, in their discourses and their writings, they portrayed the divinest character and proclaimed the sublimest truths known to the children of men. Every serious, thoughtful mind at once inquires: Could bad men, conspirators and hypocrites, have painted such a character—one whose perfect purity and sinless beauty mock and shame the mental and spiritual attributes of every false prophet and of all heathen gods? The Olympian Zeus, the sovereign creation of the superb Greek intellect, was a fierce and vindictive deity—at times a faithless spouse and a drunken debauchee. Mahomet, whom two hundred millions of the human race worship as the Inspired of Allah, was cruel and treacherous in warfare, and base and sensual in private life. The Great Spirit of the Indian granted immortality to dogs, but denied it to women. Other hideous and monstrous attributes deformed the images and blurred the characters of pagan prophets and heathen divinities. But Jesus of Nazareth was a pure and perfect being who claimed to be sinless,[4] and whose claims have been admitted by all the world, believers and unbelievers alike. The great truths taught by the gentle Nazarene and transmitted by the Evangelists have brought balm and healing to the nations, have proclaimed and established universal brotherhood among men. Is it probable that such a character was painted and such truths proclaimed by dishonest and insincere men? Can Vice be the mother of Virtue? "Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?" If Jesus was not really the pure and holy being portrayed by the Gospels, then the Evangelists have created a sublime character in a superb fiction which surpasses anything to be found in profane literature, and that evil-minded men could neither have conceived nor executed. It is impossible to derive from these reflections any other conclusion than the absolute honesty and perfect sincerity of the Evangelists. Besides, the mere perusal of their writings leaves a deep impression that they were pure and pious men.

Again, a second and more serious consideration than that of character, as affecting the sincerity of the Gospel writers, is the question of motive. If the Evangelists were insincere and did not believe their own story, what motive prompted them to tell it, to preach it and to die for it? It is not believed that all men are now or have ever been wholly selfish, but it is contended that desire for compensation is the main inducement to human action, mental and manual. Reward is the great golden key that opens the door of the Temple of Labor, and some form of recompense, here or hereafter, explains all the bustling activity of men. The Apostles themselves acted in obedience to this law, for we find them quarreling among themselves as to place and precedence in the New Kingdom. They even demanded of the Master the exact nature of their reward for labors performed and sacrifices endured. To which reply was made that they should sit on twelve thrones and judge the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Now let us apply this principle of expectation of reward to the conduct of the Evangelists in preaching and publishing the Gospel of the Nazarene, and let us note particularly the result as it affects the question of motive in human conduct. But first let us review, for a moment, the political and religious situation at the beginning of the Apostolic ministry. The Master and Savior of the first Christians had just perished as a malefactor on the cross. The religion which the Apostles began to preach was founded in the doctrine of repentance from sins, faith in the Crucified One, and belief in His resurrection from the dead. Christianity, of which these elements were the essentials, sought to destroy and supplant all other religions. No compromises were proposed, no treaties were concluded. The followers of the Nazarene raised a black flag against paganism and every heathen god. No quarter was asked and none was given. This strange faith not only defied all other religions, but mocked all earthly government not built upon it. The small, but devoted, band, thus arrayed against themselves in the very beginning all the opposing religious and secular forces of the earth. Judaism branded the new creed as a disobedient and rebellious daughter. Paganism denounced it as a sham and a fraud, because its doctrines were unknown to the Portico and the Academy, and because its teachings were ridiculed by both Stoics and Epicureans. The Roman State cast a jealous and watchful eye upon the haughty pretensions of a religious system that taught the impotence of kings and sought to degrade earthly royalty.

In seeking, then, to establish the new faith and to inculcate its doctrines, what could and did the Evangelists expect but the bitter opposition which they met? Did they seriously hope to see the proud and haughty Sadducee, who despised the common people, or the kingly aristocracy of Rome, that vaunted a superhuman excellence, complacently accept a religion that taught the absolute equality and the universal brotherhood of men? Did they not expect what they actually received—bitter persecution, horrible torture, and cruel death? Then we are led to ask: Was this the recompense which they sought? Again, we pose the question: What was the motive of these men in thus acting, if they were dishonest and insincere? If they knew that they were preaching a falsehood, what reward did they expect? Was it of an earthly or a heavenly kind? It is unreasonable to suppose that they looked forward to earthly recompense when their teachings arrayed against them every spiritual and temporal potentate who had honors to grant or favors to confer. Were they looking for heavenly reward? It is ridiculous to imagine that they hoped to gain this by preaching a falsehood in this world. Nothing could be, therefore, more absurd than the proposition that a number of men banded themselves together, repudiated the ancient faith of their fathers, changed completely their mode of life, became austere in professing and practicing principles of virtue, spent their entire lives proclaiming certain truths to mankind, and then suffered the deaths of martyrs—all for the sake of a religion which they knew to be false. If they did not believe it to be false, they were sincere, and one element of their credibility is established. It is not a question at this time as to the absolute correctness of their statements. These statements might have been false, though their authors believed them to be true—it is a question of sincerity at this point; and the test of sincerity, as an element of credibility, rests upon the simple basis that men are more disposed to believe the statement of a witness if it is thought that the witness himself believes it.

(2) In the second place, let us consider the ability of the Evangelists as a test of their credibility as witnesses.

The text writers on the Law of Evidence are generally agreed that the ability of a witness to speak truthfully and accurately depends upon two considerations: (1) His natural powers of observation, which enable him to clearly perceive, and his strength of memory, which enables him to fully retain the matters of fact to which his testimony relates; (2) his opportunities for observing the things about which he testifies.

To what extent the Gospel writers possessed the first of these qualifications—that is, power of observation and strength of memory—we are not informed by either history or tradition. But we are certainly justified in assuming to be true what the law actually presumes: that they were at least men of sound mind and average intelligence. This presumption, it may be remarked, continues to exist in favor of the witness until an objector appears who proves the contrary by competent and satisfactory evidence. It is not believed that this proof has ever been or can ever be successfully established in the case of the Evangelists.

Aside from this legal presumption in their favor, there are certain considerations which lead us to believe that they were well qualified to speak truthfully and authoritatively about the matters relating to Gospel history. In the first place, the writings themselves indicate extraordinary mental vigor, as well as cultivated intelligence. The Gospels of Luke and John, moreover, reveal that the elegance of style and lofty imagery which are the invariable characteristics of intellectual depth and culture. The "ignorant fishermen" idea is certainly not applicable to the Gospel writers. If they were ever very ignorant, at the time of the composition of the Evangelical writings they had outgrown the affliction. The fact that the Gospels were written in Greek by Hebrews indicates that they were not entirely illiterate.

Again, the occupations of two of them are very suggestive. Matthew was a collector at the seat of customs,[5] and Luke was a physician.[6] Both these callings required more than ordinary knowledge of men, as well as accurate powers of observation, discrimination, and analysis.

But it has been frequently urged that, regardless of their natural endowments, the Evangelists were biased in favor of Jesus and His teachings, and bitterly prejudiced against all opposing faiths. In other words, they were at the same moment both enthusiasts and fanatics. For this reason, it is contended, their testimony is unreliable. This is without doubt the weakest assault ever made upon the trustworthiness of the Gospel narratives. That the Gospel writers were neither fanatics nor enthusiasts is evident from the very tone and style of the Sacred Writings themselves. The language of fanaticism and enthusiasm is the language of rant and rage, of vituperation and of censure, on the one hand, and of eulogy and adulation on the other. The enthusiast knows no limit to the praise of those whose cause he advocates. The fanatic places no bounds to his denunciation of those whom he opposes. Now, the most remarkable characteristic of the New Testament histories is the spirit of quiet dignity and simple candor which everywhere pervades them. There is nowhere the slightest trace of bitterness or resentment. There is enthusiasm everywhere in the sense of religious fervor, but nowhere in the sense of unbecoming heat or impatient caviling. The three eventful years of the ministry of Jesus afforded many opportunities for the display of temper and for the use of invective in the Evangelical writings. The murder of the Baptist by Herod; his cunning designs against Jesus; the constant dogging of the footsteps of the Master by the spies of the Sanhedrin; and His crucifixion by the order of Pontius Pilate—what more could be desired to make the heart rage and the blood boil? But nowhere is there the slightest exhibition of violent feeling or extravagant emotion. A gentle forbearance, a mild equanimity, a becoming dignity, mark every thought and utterance. The character of Pilate, as portrayed in the New Testament, is a supreme illustration of the fairness and magnanimity of the Gospel writers. Philo and Josephus describe the Roman procurator as stubborn, cruel, and vindictive. The only kindly suggestion touching the character of Pilate that has come down from the ancient world, is that contained in the writings of men who, above all others, would have been justified in describing him as cowardly and craven. Instead of painting him as a monster, they have linked conscience to his character and stored mercy in his heart, by their accounts of his repeated attempts to release Jesus. Fanatics and enthusiasts would not have done this.

Again, the absence of both bias and prejudice in the minds and hearts of the Evangelists is shown by the fact that they did not hesitate to record their own ludicrous foibles and blunders, and to proclaim them to the world. A disposition to do this is one of the surest indications of a truthful mind. It is in the nature of "a declaration against interest," in the phraseology of the law; and such declarations are believed because it has been universally observed that "men are not likely to invent anecdotes to their own discredit." "When we find them in any author," says Professor Fisher in his "Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief," "a strong presumption is raised in favor of his general truthfulness." Many passages of New Testament Scriptures place Jesus and the Apostles in a most unfavorable light before the world. The denial of the Master by Peter[7] and His betrayal by Judas;[8] the flight of the Eleven from the Garden at the time of the arrest;[9] the ridiculous attempt of Peter to walk upon the sea and his failure because of lack of faith;[10] the frequent childish contentions among the disciples for place and precedence in the affections of Jesus and in the New Kingdom;[11] the embassy from John the Baptist to Jesus asking if He, Jesus, was the Messiah, after the latter had already visited the former, and had been baptized by him;[12] the belief of the family of Jesus that He was mad;[13] and the fact that His neighbors at Nazareth threatened to kill Him by hurling Him from a cliff[14]—these various recitals have furnished a handle to skeptical criticism in every age. They might as well have been omitted from the Gospel histories; and they would have been omitted by designing and untruthful men.

Again, touching the question of bias and prejudice, it is worthy of observation that skeptics fail to apply the same rules of criticism to sacred that they employ in profane literature. It is contended by them that the Evangelists are unworthy of belief because their writings record the words and deeds of their own Lord and Master. It is asserted that this sacred and tender relationship warped and blinded their Judgment, and disqualified them to write truthfully the facts and circumstances connected with the life and ministry of the founder of their faith. But these same critics do not apply the same tests of credibility to secular writers sustaining similar relationships. The Commentaries of Cæsar and the Anabasis of Xenophon record the mighty deeds and brilliant achievements of their authors; but this fact does not destroy their reliability as historical records in the estimation of those who insist that the Gospel writers shall be rejected on grounds of bias and partiality. The Memorabilia of Xenophon, "Recollections of Socrates," is the tribute of an affectionate and admiring disciple; and yet, all the colleges and universities of the world employ this work as a text-book in teaching the life and style of conversation of the great Athenian philosopher. It is never argued that the intimate relationship existing between Xenophon and Socrates should affect the credibility of the author of the Memorabilia. The best biography in the English language is Boswell's "Life of Johnson." Boswell's admiration for Dr. Johnson was idolatrous. At times, his servile flattery of the great Englishman amounted to disgusting sycophancy. In spite of this, his work is a monumental contribution to historical literature. The "Encyclopedia Britannica" says that "Boswell has produced the best biography the world has yet seen"; but why not reject this book because of its author's spaniel-like devotion to the man whose life he has written? If Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are to be repudiated on the ground of bias, why not repudiate Cæsar, Xenophon, and Boswell? It is respectfully submitted that there is no real difference in logic between the tests of credibility applicable to sacred, and those required in the case of profane writers. A just and exact criticism will apply the same rules to both.

As to the second qualification above mentioned, under the second legal test of credibility laid down by Starkie, that is, the opportunity of observing facts and circumstances about which testimony is given, it may safely be said that the majority of the Evangelists possessed it in the highest degree. The most convincing testimony that can possibly be offered in a court of law is that of an eyewitness who has seen or heard what he testifies. Now, it is reasonably certain that all of the Gospel writers were eyewitnesses of most of the events recorded by them in the Gospel histories. Both Matthew and John were numbered among the Twelve who constantly attended the Master in all His wanderings, heard His discourses, witnessed the performance of His miracles, and proclaimed His faith after He was gone. It is very probable that Mark was another eyewitness of the events in the life and ministry of the Savior. It is now very generally agreed that the author of the Second Gospel was the young man who threw away his garment and fled at the time of the arrest in the Garden.[15] If Mark was actually present at midnight in Gethsemane peering through the shadows to see what would be done to the Nazarene by the mob, it is more than probable that he was also a witness of many other events in the life and ministry of the great Teacher. But, whether this be true or not, it is very well settled that the Second Gospel was dictated to Mark by Peter, who was as familiar with all the acts and words of Jesus as was Matthew or John. The Christian writers of antiquity unanimously testify that Mark wrote the Gospel ascribed to him, at the dictation of Peter. If their testimony is true, Peter is the real author of the Second Gospel. That the Gospel of Mark was written by an eyewitness is the opinion of Renan, the skeptic, who says: "In Mark, the facts are related with a clearness for which we seek in vain amongst the other Evangelists. He likes to report certain words of Jesus in Syro-Chaldean. He is full of minute observations, coming doubtless from an eye-witness. There is nothing to prevent our agreeing with Papias in regarding this eye-witness, who evidently had followed Jesus, who had loved Him and observed Him very closely, and who had preserved a lively image of Him, as the Apostle Peter himself."[16] The same writer declares Matthew to have been an eyewitness of the events described by him. He says: "On the whole, I admit as authentic the four canonical Gospels. All, in my opinion, date from the first century, and the authors are, generally speaking, those to whom they are attributed; but their historic value is diverse. Matthew evidently merits an unlimited confidence as to the discourses; they are the Logia, the identical notes taken from a clear and lively remembrance of the teachings of Jesus."[16]

That Luke was an eyewitness of many of the things recorded by him, and that the others were related to him by eyewitnesses, is perfectly clear from the introductory verses of his Gospel. In addressing his royal patron, Theophilus, he assures him that those who communicated the information contained in the Gospel to him were eyewitnesses; and follows by saying that he himself had had "perfect understanding of all things from the very first."[17] The evident meaning of this is that, desiring full information for Theophilus, he had supplemented his own personal knowledge by additional facts secured from eyewitnesses to those things which, not being of the Twelve, he himself had not seen.

St. John was peculiarly well qualified to record the sayings and doings of the Christ. He was called "the disciple whom Jesus loved." He was admitted into the presence of the Savior, at all times, on terms of the utmost intimacy and friendship. At the Last Supper, his head reposed confidingly and lovingly upon the bosom of the Master. Together with Peter and James, he witnessed the resurrection of Jairus' daughter; was present at the Transfiguration on the Mount, and at the agony of the Savior in the Garden. From the cross, Jesus placed upon him the tender and pathetic burden of caring for His mother; and, running ahead of Peter, he was the first among the Twelve to arrive at the open sepulcher. By means of a favorable acquaintanceship with the High Priest, he was enabled to gain access to the palace and to be present at the trial of Jesus, as well as to introduce Peter, his friend.

It is thus clearly evident that the Evangelists were amply able, from any point of view, to truthfully and accurately record the events narrated in the Gospel histories. As eyewitnesses, being on the ground and having the situation well in hand, they were certainly better qualified to write truthful history of the events then occurring than historians and critics who lived centuries afterwards.

But it is frequently contended that, if the Evangelists were eyewitnesses of the leading events which they recorded, they committed them to writing so long afterwards that they had forgotten them, or had confused them with various traditions that had in the meantime grown up. There may be some little truth in this contention, but not enough to destroy the credibility of the witnesses as to events such as the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus. These are not matters to be easily forgotten or confused with other things. The date of the composition and publication of the different Gospels is not known. But Professor Holtzmann, of Heidelberg (a man who cannot be said to be favorable to Christianity, since he was for several years the leader of the freethinkers in the Grand Duchy of Baden), after many years of careful study of the subject, declared that the Synoptic Gospels, the first three, were committed to writing between the years 60 and 80 of our era.[18] This was only from thirty to fifty years after the death of Jesus. Could men of average memory and intelligence who had been almost daily preaching the life and deeds of Jesus during these thirty or fifty years have forgotten them? The testimony of Principal Drummond, of Oxford, is very pertinent at this point. He says: "If we suppose that the Synoptic Gospels were written from forty to sixty years after the time of Christ, still they were based on earlier material, and even after forty years the memory of characteristic sayings may be perfectly clear.... I have not a particularly good memory, but I can recall many sayings that were uttered forty, or even fifty, years ago, and in some cases can vividly recollect the scene."[19]

If the Evangelists were eyewitnesses, which the records seem clearly to indicate, they possessed one of the strongest tests of credibility.

(3) In the third place, as to their number and the consistency of their testimony.

The credibility of a witness is greatly strengthened if his testimony is corroborated by other witnesses who testify to substantially the same thing. The greater the number of supporting witnesses, fraud and collusion being barred, the greater the credibility of the witness corroborated. But corroboration implies the presence in evidence of due and reasonable consistency between the testimony of the witness testifying and that of those corroborating. A radical discrepancy on a material point not only fails to strengthen, but tends to destroy the credibility of one or both the witnesses.

Now, the fierce fire of skeptical criticism during all the ages has been centered upon the so-called discrepancies of the Gospel narratives. It is asserted by many critics that these inconsistencies are so numerous and so palpable, that the Gospel records are worthless, even as secular histories. The authors of these writings, according to the skeptics, mutually destroy each other.

ST. MARK AND ST. PAUL (DÜRER)

In considering this phase of the credibility of the Gospel writers, it must again be remembered that the question of inspiration has no place in this discussion; and that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John must be regarded simply as secular historians. The reader is urged to consider the biographers of the Christ as he would consider ordinary witnesses in a court of law; to apply to them the same tests of credibility; to sift and weigh their testimony in the same manner; and to subject them to the same rules of cross-examination. If this is done, it is felt that the result will be entirely favorable to the veracity and integrity of the sacred writers.

In considering the subject of discrepancies it should be constantly kept in mind that contradictions in testimony do not necessarily mean that there has been falsehood or bad faith on the part of the witnesses. Every lawyer of experience and every adult citizen of average intelligence knows that this is true. Men of unquestioned veracity and incorruptible integrity are frequently arrayed against each other in both civil and criminal trials, and the record reveals irreconcilable contradictions in their testimony. Not only do prosecutions for perjury not follow, but, in many instances, the witnesses are not even suspected of bad faith or an intention to falsify. Defects in sight, hearing, or memory; superior advantage in the matter of observation; or a sudden change in the position of one or both the parties, causing distraction of attention, at the time of the occurrence of the events involved in litigation—all or any of these conditions, as well as many others, may create discrepancies and contradictions where there is a total absence of any intention to misrepresent. A thorough appreciation of this fact will greatly aid in a clear understanding of this phase of the discussion.

Again, an investigation of the charge of discrepancy against the Gospel writers shows that the critics and skeptics have classified mere omissions as contradictions. Nothing could be more absurd than to consider an omission a contradiction, unless the requirements of the case show that the facts and circumstances omitted were essential to be stated, or that the omission was evidently intended to mislead or deceive. Any other contention would turn historical literature topsy-turvy and load it down with contradictions. Dion Cassius, Tacitus, and Suetonius have all written elaborately of the reign of Tiberius. Many things are mentioned by each that are not recorded by the other two. Are we to reject all three as unreliable historians because of this fact? Abbott, Hazlitt, Bourrienne, and Walter Scott have written biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte. No one of them has recited all the facts recorded by the others. Are these omissions to destroy the merits of all these writers and cause them to be suspected and rejected? Grafton's Chronicles rank high in English historical literature. They comprise the reign of King John; and yet make no mention of the granting of Magna Charta. This is as if the life of Jefferson had been written without mention of the Declaration of Independence; or a biography of Lincoln without calling attention to the Emancipation Proclamation. Notwithstanding this strange omission, Englishmen still preserve Grafton's Chronicles as valuable records among their archives. And the same spirit of generous criticism is everywhere displayed in matters of profane literature. The opponents of Christianity are never embarrassed in excusing or explaining away omissions or contradictions, provided the writer is a layman and his subject secular. But let the theme be a sacred one, and the author an ecclesiastic—preacher, priest, or prophet—and immediately incredulity rises to high tide, engulfs the reason, and destroys all dispassionate criticism. Could it be forgotten for a moment that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were biographers of the Christ, a sacred person, no difficulties would arise in the matter of inconsistencies, no objections would be made to their credibility. The slight discrepancies that undoubtedly exist would pass unnoticed, or be forever buried under the weight of an overwhelming conviction that they are, in the main, accurate and truthful.

But the Evangelists were guided by inspiration, the skeptics say; and discrepancies are inconsistent with the theory of inspiration. God would not have inspired them to write contradictory stories. But the assumption is false that they claimed to be guided by inspiration; for, as Marcus Dods truthfully says, "none of our Gospels pretends to be infallible or even inspired. Only one of them tells us how its writer obtained his information, and that was by careful inquiry at the proper sources."[20]

But whether the Gospel writers were inspired or not is immaterial so far as the purpose of this chapter is concerned. The rules of evidence testing their credibility would be the same in either case.

A more pertinent observation upon the Gospel discrepancies has not been made than that by Paley in his "Evidences of Christianity," where he says:

I know not a more rash or more unphilosophical conduct of the understanding than to reject the substance of a story by reason of some diversity in the circumstances with which it is related. The usual character of human testimony is substantial truth under circumstantial variety. This is what the daily experience of courts of justice teaches. When accounts of a transaction come from the mouths of different witnesses it is seldom that it is not possible to pick out apparent or real inconsistencies between them. These inconsistencies are studiously displayed by an adverse pleader, but oftentimes with little impression upon the minds of the judges. On the contrary, a close and minute agreement induces the suspicion of confederacy and fraud. When written histories touch upon the same scenes of action, the comparison almost always affords ground for a like reflection. Numerous, and sometimes important, variations present themselves; not seldom, also, absolute and final contradictions; yet neither one nor the other are deemed sufficient to shake the credibility of the main fact. The embassy of the Jews to deprecate the execution of Claudian's order to place his statue in their temple, Philo places in the harvest, Josephus in seed-time; both contemporary writers. No reader is led by this inconsistency to doubt whether such an embassy was sent, or whether such an order was given. Our own history supplies examples of the same kind. In the account of the Marquis of Argyll's death, in the reign of Charles II, we have very remarkable contradiction. Lord Clarendon relates that he was condemned to be hanged, which was performed the same day; on the contrary, Burnet, Woodrow, Heath, Echard, concur in stating that he was condemned upon the Saturday and executed upon a Monday. Was any reader of English history ever skeptic enough to raise from hence a question, whether the Marquis of Argyll was executed or not? Yet this ought to be left in uncertainty, according to the principles upon which the Christian history has sometimes been attacked.[21]

The reader should most carefully consider the useful as well as the damaging effect of Gospel inconsistencies in the matter of the credibility of the Evangelists. A certain class of persons have imagined the Gospel writers to be common conspirators who met together at the same time and place to devise ways and means of publishing a false report to the world. This is a silly supposition, since it is positively known that the authors of the Evangelical narratives wrote and published them at different times and places. Moreover, the style and contents of the books themselves negative the idea of a concerted purpose to deceive. And, besides, the very inconsistencies themselves show that there was no "confederacy and fraud"; since intelligent conspirators would have fabricated exactly the same story in substantially the same language.

Furthermore, a just and impartial criticism will consider not only the discrepant but also the corroborative elements in the New Testament histories. It should not be forgotten that the authors of the Gospels were independent historians who wrote at different times and places. Then, in all matters of fact in which there is a common agreement, they may be said to fully corroborate each other. And it may be contended without fear of successful contradiction that, when so considered, there will be found numerous cases of corroboration where there is one of discord or inconsistency.

The corroborative elements or features in the Evangelical narratives may be classified under three headings: (1) Instances in which certain historical events related by one of the Gospel writers are also told by one or more of the others. These are cases of ordinary corroboration. (2) Instances in which the recital of a certain fact by one of the Evangelists would be obscure or meaningless unless explained or supplemented by another. These may be regarded as examples of internal confirmation. (3) Instances in which the fact related by one Evangelist must be true from the nature of the case, regardless of what the others have said. This is the simple confirmation of logic or reason.

A few illustrations will serve to make clear this classification.

Under the first heading of "ordinary corroboration" may be mentioned the accounts of the miracle of feeding the five thousand. All the Evangelists tell us of this event, and each records the fact that the fragments taken up were twelve baskets full.[22]

Under the second heading of "internal confirmation" the following instances may be cited:

Matt. xxvi. 67, 68: "And others smote him with the palms of their hands, saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?"

A caviling criticism would demand: Why ask of the Christ to prophesy to those in His presence? And the obscurity would be damaging, were it not for an additional sentence in Luke, who records the same circumstance. "And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, Who is it that smote thee?"[23] The fact that Jesus was blindfolded, which is told by Luke, explains the use of the word "prophesy" by Matthew, which would otherwise be absurd.

Again, Matt. xiii. 2: "And great multitudes were gathered together with him, so that he went into the ship, and sat." Here, the definite article points to a particular ship which Matthew fails to mention. But Mark comes to his aid and clearly explains the statement: "And he spake to his disciples, that a small vessel should wait upon him because of the multitude, lest they should throng him." These two passages taken together identify the ship.

Again, John vi. 5: "When Jesus lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come to him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?" This is one of the only two places in the Gospel where Jesus addressed this Apostle. But why ask Philip instead of one of the others? Two other passages, one from John and one from Luke, furnish an explanation. In John i. 44 we read that "Philip was of Bethsaida." In Luke ix. 10 we learn that the scene of the event, the miracle of feeding the five thousand, was "a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida." The reason, then, for addressing Philip, instead of one of the other Apostles, is clear. Bethsaida was the home of Philip; and he would naturally, therefore, be more familiar with the location of the bread shops than the others. In John vi., where the question is asked, neither the place of the feeding nor the apostle questioned is even remotely connected with the city of Bethsaida; and in Luke the account of the miracle says nothing of Philip or the question put to him. But when the passages are connected the striking coincidence appears, and the explanation is complete.

Again, John xviii. 10: "Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and smote the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus." It has been objected that there is nowhere an account of the arrest or punishment of Peter for this assault and resistance to armed authority; and that, therefore, there was no such occurrence. A passage from Luke explains the failure to arrest. "And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far, and he touched his ear and healed him."[24] The healing of the ear explains why no arrest followed; for, if charges had been made, there would have been no evidence of the gravity of the offense. Indeed, witnesses against Peter would have been completely confounded and humiliated by the result of the miracle; and might have been driven from court as malicious accusers. Then, the failure to arrest is a silent corroboration of the statement that the event occurred and that the miracle was performed.

Under the third heading, of the "confirmation of logic or reason," a single instance will suffice.

John xx. 4: "And the other disciple did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulchre." The "other disciple" was St. John, who is generally conceded to have been the youngest of the Apostles. And St. Peter, we may judge from John xxi. 18, was already past the meridian of life. What could be more natural than that the younger man should outrun the older and arrive first at the sepulcher? What better proof could be expected of the fact of the existence of that sweetness and modesty in youth which respects old age, and that endeared John to Jesus above all others, than we have here, where the younger man awaits the arrival of the older before beginning to explore the deserted tomb?

Examples similar to these might be multiplied at length, since the Gospel histories are filled with them; but those above mentioned are deemed sufficient to illustrate the theory of corroboration. The instances of internal confirmation in the New Testament narratives are especially convincing. They are arguments and proofs in the nature of undesigned coincidences which, from the very nature of the case, shut out all possibility of collusion or fraud. In most cases they are expressed in a single phrase and represent an isolated thought corroborative of some other elsewhere expressed. Though small, detached, and fragmentary, like particles of dynamite, they operate with resistless force when collected and combined.

Once more attention is called to the fact that these discrepancies negative completely the idea that the Gospel writers were conspirators, bent upon the common purpose of deceiving mankind by publishing a false history to the world. Nothing could be more absurd than to suppose that men conspiring to perpetrate a fraud, would neglect a fundamental principle underlying all successful conspiracy; that is, the creation and maintenance of a due and reasonable consistency between the words and deeds of the conspirators in formulating plans for carrying out the common purpose. Then, if there was no previous concert, the fact that four men, writing at different times and places, concurred in framing substantially the same history, is one of the strongest proofs of the credibility of the writers and the truthfulness of their narratives. And on this point the testimony of a very great writer may be quoted: that "in a number of concurrent testimonies, where there has been no previous concert, there is a probability distinct from that which may be termed the sum of the probabilities resulting from the testimonies of the witnesses; a probability which would remain, even though the witnesses were of such a character as to merit no faith at all. This probability arises from the concurrence itself. That such a concurrence should spring from chance is as one to infinite; that is, in other words, morally impossible. If, therefore, concert be excluded, there remains no cause but the reality of the fact."[25]

Apply the theory of probability, arising from concurrent testimonies, where there has been no previous concert, to the case of the Evangelists, and we are at once convinced that they were truthful and that their histories are true.

(4) Let us now consider the conformity of the testimony of the Evangelists with human experience. This is the fourth legal test of the credibility of witnesses prescribed by Starkie.

The conformity of testimony with experience is one of the most potent and universally applied tests of the credibility of witnesses. And it may be remarked that its application is not confined to judicial proceedings or to courts of law. It requires no professional attainments to make it effective. The blacksmith and carpenter, as well as the judge and jury, employ it in every mental operation where the statements of others are submitted to analysis and investigation. A new theory being proposed, the correctness of which is questioned, the test of experience is at once applied. If it is not in harmony with what we have seen and heard and felt, we usually reject it; or, at least, doubt it. If an explorer should return from the Arctic regions and tell us that he had seen oranges, such as we import from Florida, growing on trees near the North Pole, we would not believe him. Neither would we credit the statement of a traveler from South America that he had seen Polar bears browsing on the banks of the Amazon. These representations would be utterly inconsistent with what we know to be the essential conditions of orange culture, and with the well-known habits and climatic nature of the Polar bear. An ancient document, purporting to date from the time of Washington and the Revolution, and containing recitals about railways, telegraphs, telephones, and electric lights, would be recognized at once as spurious, because our own experience as well as facts of history would tell us that there were no such things in the days of Washington and the American Revolution. These are simple illustrations of the application of the test of experience in the mental processes of weighing and sifting the testimony of others.

Now, no serious objection to the credibility of the Gospel writers has been made under the test of the conformity of their statements with experience, except in the matter of miracles. It is generally admitted, even by skeptics, that the facts stated in the New Testament narratives might have happened in the due course of nature and in harmony with human experience, except where miracles are related.

A few skeptics have declared that a miracle is an impossibility and that the Evangelists were either deceivers or deceived when they wrote their accounts of the miraculous performances of the Christ; and that, whether deceivers or deceived, they are unworthy of belief. The great antagonist of the theory of miracles among those who assert their impossibility is Spinoza, who has thus written: "A miracle, whether contrary to or above nature, is a sheer absurdity. Nothing happens in nature which does not follow from its laws; these laws extend to all which enters the Divine mind; and, lastly, nature proceeds in a fixed and changeless course—whence it follows that the word 'miracle' can only be understood in relation to the opinions of mankind, and signifies nothing more than an event, a phenomenon, the cause of which cannot be explained by another familiar instance.... I might say, indeed, that a miracle was that, the cause of which cannot be explained by our natural understanding from the known principles of natural things."

The radical antagonism of Spinoza to the doctrine of miracles, as taught in the New Testament scriptures, was the legitimate offspring of his peculiar philosophy. He was a pantheist and identified God with nature. He did not believe in a personal God, separate from and superior to nature. He repudiated the theory of a spiritual kingdom having a spiritual sovereign to whom earth and nature are subject and obedient. Therefore, every manifestation of power which he could not identify with a natural force he believed was unreal, if not actually deceptive and fraudulent; since he could not imagine anything superior to nature that could have created the phenomenon. His denial of miracles was, then, really nothing less than a denial of the existence of a personal God who spoke the earth into being in the very beginning; and has since, with a watchful paternal eye, followed its movements and controlled its destiny.

The question of miracles is really a matter of faith and not a problem of science. It is impossible to either prove or disprove the nature of a miracle by physical demonstration. In other words, it is impossible to analyze a miracle from the standpoint of chemistry or physics. The performance of a miracle, nevertheless, may be proved by ordinary human testimony, as any other event may be proved. We may testify to the fact without being able to understand or to demonstrate the cause.

Those who believe that there are distinct spiritual as well as physical forces in the universe; that there is somewhere an omniscient and omnipotent Spiritual Being who has but to will the creation of a planet or the destruction of matter in order to accomplish the result desired, can easily believe in the exercise of miraculous power. Those who believe the Bible account of the creation, that God said in the beginning, "Let there be light: and there was light"—such persons find no difficulty in believing that Jesus converted water into wine or caused the lame to walk, if they believe that He was this same God "manifest in the flesh." A divinity who, in the morning of creation, spoke something out of nothing, would certainly not be impotent to restore life to Lazarus or sight to the blind Bartimeus.

The trouble with the philosophy of Spinoza is that his own high priestess—Nature—seems to be constantly working miracles under his own definition; and miracles, too, that very closely resemble the wonders said to have been wrought by the Christ. Milk is taken into the stomach, subjected to various processes of digestion, is then thrown into the blood and finally becomes flesh and bone. The ultimate step in this process of transformation is unknown and, perhaps, unknowable to scientists. No deeper mystery is suggested by the New Testament scriptures. The conversion of water into wine is no stranger, no more incomprehensible than the transformation of milk into flesh and bone. It may be admitted that the chemical elements are the same throughout in one process and different in the other. Nevertheless, the results of both are perfectly described by Spinoza's definition, "that a miracle was that, the cause of which cannot be explained by our natural understanding from the known principles of natural things."

It may be truthfully remarked that nature is everywhere and at all times working wonders in harmony with and parallel to the miracles wrought by the spiritual forces of the universe. God's sovereign miracle may be described as the changing of a man, with all his sins and imperfections, into a winged spirit, thus fitting him to leave the coarse and vulgar earth for life among the stars. Nature, in her feeble way, tries to imitate the wonder by transforming the caterpillar into a butterfly, thus fitting it to leave the dunghill for life among the flowers.

Spinoza insists that miracles are impossible because "nature proceeds in a fixed and changeless course." But is this really true? Are the laws of nature invariably uniform? Does not nature seem at times tired of uniformity and resolved to rise to liberty by the creation of what we call a miracle, or more vulgarly, a "freak"? Moving in what Spinoza is pleased to call a "fixed and changeless course," nature ordinarily provides a chicken with two legs and a snake with one head. But what about chickens with three legs and snakes with two heads, such as are frequently seen? Was nature moving in a fixed and changeless course when these things were created? Could Spinoza have explained such phenomena by his "natural understanding from the known principles of natural things"? Would he have contented himself with calling them natural "accidents" or "freaks"? Nevertheless, they are miracles under his definition; and the entire subject must be discussed and debated with reference to some standard or definition of a miracle. If nature occasionally, in moments of sportiveness or digression, upsets her own laws and creates what we call "freaks," why is it unreasonable to suppose that the great God who created nature should not, at times, temporarily suspend the laws which He has made for the government of the universe, or even devote them to strange and novel purposes in the creation of those noble phenomena which we call miracles?

Other skeptics, like Renan, do not deny the possibility of miracles, but simply content themselves with asserting that there is no sufficient proof that such things ever happened. They thus repudiate the testimony of the Evangelists in this regard. "It is not," says Renan, "then, in the name of this or that philosophy, but in the name of universal experience, that we banish miracle from history. We do not say that miracles are impossible. We do say that up to this time a miracle has never been proved." Then the Breton biographer and philosopher gives us his idea of the tests that should be made in order to furnish adequate proof that a miracle has been performed. "If to-morrow," he says, "a thaumaturgus presents himself with credentials sufficiently important to be discussed and announces himself as able, say, to raise the dead, what would be done? A commission composed of physiologists, physicists, chemists, persons accustomed to historical criticism would be named. This commission would choose a corpse, would assure itself that the death was real, would select a room in which the experiment should be made, would arrange the whole system of precautions, so as to leave no chance of doubt. If, under such conditions, the resurrection were effected, a probability almost equal to certainty would be established. As, however, it ought to be possible always to repeat an experiment—to do over again that which has been done once; and as, in the order of miracle, there can be no question of ease or difficulty, the thaumaturgus would be invited to reproduce his marvelous act under other circumstances, upon other corpses, in another place. If the miracle should succeed each time, two things would be proved: first, that supernatural events happen in the world; second, that the power of producing them belongs or is delegated in certain persons. But who does not see that no miracle ever took place under these conditions? But that always hitherto the thaumaturgus has chosen the subject of the experiment, chosen the spot, chosen the public?"[26]

This is an extract from the celebrated "Life of Jesus" by Renan, and is intended to demolish the Gospel account of the miracles of the Christ. It is not too much to say that the great skeptic has failed to exhibit his usual fairness in argument. He has indirectly compared Jesus to a thaumaturgus, and has inferentially stated that in the performance of His miracles He "chose the subject of his experiment, chose the spot, chose the public." Every student of New Testament history knows that this is not true of the facts and circumstances surrounding the performance of miracles by Christ. It is true that vulgar curiosity and caviling incredulity were not gratified by the presence of specially summoned "physiologists, physicists, and chemists." But it is equally true that such persons were not prevented from being present; that there was no attempt at secrecy or concealment; and that no subject of experiment, particular spot, or special audience was ever chosen. The New Testament miracles were wrought, as a general thing, under the open sky, in the street, by the wayside, on the mountain slope, and in the presence of many people, both friends and enemies of Jesus. There was no searching or advertising for subjects for experiment. Far from choosing the subject, the spot, and the public, Jesus exercised His miraculous powers upon those who came voluntarily to Him suffering with some dreadful malady and asking to be cured. In some instances, the case of affliction was of long standing and well known to the community. The healing was done publicly and witnessed by many people.

Renan suggests that the thaumaturgus mentioned in his illustration would be required to repeat his performance in the matter of raising the dead before he would be fully believed. This reminds us that Jesus wrought many miracles. More than forty are recorded in the Gospel narratives; and in the closing verse of St. John, there is a strong intimation that He performed many that were never recorded. These, it is respectfully submitted, were amply sufficient to demonstrate His miraculous powers.

Whatever form infidelity may assume in its antagonism to the doctrine of miracles, it will be found that the central idea is that such things are not founded in experience; and that this test of credibility fails in the case of the Gospel writers, because they knowingly recorded impossible events. It would be idle to attempt to depreciate the value of this particular test; but it must be observed that nothing is more fallacious, unless properly defined and limited. It must be remembered that the experience of one man, nation, or generation is not necessarily that of another man, nation, or generation. The exact mechanical processes employed by the Egyptians in raising the pyramids are as much a mystery to modern scientists as a Marconigram would be to a savage of New Guinea. The Orient and the Occident present to each other almost miraculous forms of diversity in manners, habits, and customs, in modes of thought and life. "The Frenchman says, 'I am the best dyer in Europe: nobody can equal me, and nobody can surpass Lyons.' Yet in Cashmere, where the girls make shawls worth $30,000, they will show him three hundred distinct colors, which he not only cannot make, but cannot even distinguish." Sir Walter Scott, in his "Tales of the Crusaders," thrillingly describes a meeting between the Turkish Saladin and the English Richard Cœur-de-Lion. Saladin asked Richard to give him an exhibition of his marvelous strength. The Norman monarch picked up an iron bar from the floor of the tent and severed it. The Mahometan crusader was amazed. Richard then asked him what he could do. Saladin replied that he could not pull iron apart like that, but that he could do something equally as wonderful. Thereupon, he took an eider-down pillow from the sofa, and drew his keen, Damascus-tempered blade across it, which caused it to fall into two pieces. Richard cried in astonishment: "This is the black art; it is magic; it is the devil: you cannot cut that which has no resistance!" Here Occidental strength and Oriental magic met and wrought seeming miracles in the presence of each other. In his great lecture on "The Lost Arts," Wendell Phillips says that one George Thompson told him that he saw a man in Calcutta throw a handful of floss silk into the air, and that a Hindoo severed it into pieces with his saber. A Western swordsman could not do this.

Objectors to miracles frequently ask why they are not performed to-day, why we never see them. To which reply may be made that, under Spinoza's definition, miracles are being wrought every day not only by nature, but by man. Why call Edison "the magician" and "the wizard," unless the public believes this? But is it any argument against the miracles of Jesus that similar ones are not seen to-day? Have things not been done in the past that will never be repeated? We have referred to the pyramids of Egypt and to the lost art involved in their construction. A further illustration may be found in the origin of man. One of two theories is undoubtedly true: that the first man and woman came into the world without being born; or that man and woman are the products of evolution from lower orders of animals. No other theories have ever been advanced as to the origin of the human race. Now, it is certain that modern generations have never experienced either of these things, for all the human beings of to-day were undoubtedly born of other human beings, and it is certain that the process of evolution stopped long ago, since men and women were as perfect physically and mentally four thousand years ago as they are to-day. In other words, the processes which originated man are things of the past, since we have no Garden of Eden experiences to-day, nor is there any universal metamorphosis of monkeys going on. Therefore, to argue that the miracles of Jesus did not happen, because we do not see such things to-day, is to deny the undoubted occurrences of history and developments of human life, because such occurrences and developments are no longer familiar to us and our generation.

To denounce everything as false that we have not individually seen, heard, and felt, would be to limit most painfully the range of the mental vision. The intellectual horizon would not be greatly extended should we join with our own the experience of others that we have seen and known. Much information is reported by telegraphic despatch and many things are told us by travelers that we should accept as true; although such matters may have no relation to what we have ever seen or heard. Else, we should be as foolish as the king of Siam who rejected the story of the Dutch ambassador, that in Holland water was frequently frozen into a solid mass. In the warm climate of the East Indian tropics the king had never seen water so congealed and, therefore, he refused to believe that such a thing had ever happened anywhere.

Experience is a most logical and reasonable test if it is sufficiently extended to touch all the material phases of the subject under investigation. It is a most dangerous one if we insist upon judging the material and spiritual universe, with its infinite variety of forms and changes, by the limited experience of a simple and isolated life, or by the particular standards of any one age or race. A progressive civilization, under such an application of the test, would be impossible, since each generation of men would have to begin de novo, and be restricted to the results of its own experience. The enforcement of such a doctrine would prevent, furthermore, the acceptance of the truths of nature discovered by inventive genius or developed by physical or chemical research, until such truths had become matters of universal experience. Every man would then be in the position of the incredulous citizen who, having been told that a message had been sent by wire from Baltimore to Washington announcing the nomination of James K. Polk for the presidency, refused to believe in telegraphic messages until he could be at both ends of the line at once. The art of telegraphy was a reality, nevertheless, in spite of his incredulity and inexperience. The American savages who first beheld the ships of Columbus are said to have regarded them as huge birds from heaven and to have refused to believe that they were boats, because, in their experience, they had never seen such immense canoes with wings. Herodotus tells us of some daring sailors who crept along the coast of Africa beyond the limits usually visited at that time. They came back home with a wonderful account of their trip and told the story that they had actually reached a country where their shadows fell toward the south at midday. They were not believed, and their report was rejected with scorn and incredulity by the inhabitants of the Mediterranean coasts, because their only experience was that a man's shadow always pointed toward the north; and they did not believe it possible that shadows could be cast otherwise. But the report of the sailors was true, nevertheless.[27]

These simple illustrations teach us that beings other than ourselves have had experiences which are not only different from any that we have ever had, but are also either temporarily or permanently beyond our comprehension. And the moral of this truth, when applied to the statements of the Evangelists regarding miracles, is that the fortunate subjects and witnesses of the miraculous powers of Jesus might have had experiences which we have never had and that we cannot now clearly comprehend.

(5) In the fifth and last place, as to the coincidence of their testimony with collateral circumstances.

This is the chief test of credibility in all those cases where the witness, whose testimony has been reduced to writing, is dead, absent, or insane. Under such circumstances it is impossible to apply what may be termed personal tests on cross-examination; that is, to develop the impeaching or corroborating features of bias, prejudice, and personal demeanor to the same extent as when the witness is still living and testifies orally. When a written narrative is all that we have, its reliability can only be ascertained by a close inspection of its parts, comparing them with each other, and then with collateral and contemporaneous facts and circumstances. The value of this test cannot be over-estimated, and Greenleaf has stated very fully and concisely the basis upon which it rests. "Every event," he says, "which actually transpires, has its appropriate relation and place in the vast complication of circumstances of which the affairs of men consist; it owes its origin to the events which have preceded it, is intimately connected with all others which occur at the same time and place, and often with those of remote regions, and in its turn gives birth to numberless others which succeed. In all this almost inconceivable contexture and seeming discord, there is perfect harmony; and while the fact which really happened tallies exactly with every other contemporaneous incident related to it in the remotest degree, it is not possible for the wit of man to invent a story, which, if closely compared with the actual occurrences of the same time and place, may not be shown to be false."[28]

ST. JOHN AND ST. PETER (DÜRER)

This principle offers a wide field to the skill of the cross-examiner, and enables him frequently to elicit truth or establish falsehood when all other tests have failed. It is a principle also perfectly well known to the perjurer and to the suborner of witnesses. Multiplicity of details is studiously avoided by the false witness, who dreads particularity and feels that safety lies in confining his testimony as nearly as possible to a single fact, whose attendant facts and circumstances are few and simple. When the witness is too ignorant to understand the principle and appreciate the danger, his attorney, if he consents to dishonor his profession and pollute the waters of justice with corrupt testimony, may be depended upon to administer proper warning. The witness will be told to know as few things and to remember as little as possible concerning matters about which he has not been previously instructed. The result will be that his testimony, especially in matters in which he is compelled by the court to testify, will be hesitating, restrained, unequal, and unnatural. He will be served at every turn by a most convenient memory which will enable him to forget many important and to remember many unimportant facts and circumstances. He will betray a painful hesitancy in the matter of committing himself upon any particular point upon which he has not been already drilled. The truthful witness, on the other hand, is usually candid, ingenuous, and copious in his statements. He shows a willingness to answer all questions, even those involving the minutest details, and seems totally indifferent to the question of verification or contradiction. The texture of his testimony is, therefore, equal, natural, and unrestrained.

Now these latter characteristics mark every page of the New Testament histories. The Gospel writers wrote with the utmost freedom, and recorded in detail and with the utmost particularity, the manners, customs, habits, and historic facts contemporaneous with their lives. The naturalness and ingenuousness of their writings are simply marvelous. There is nowhere any evidence of an attempt to conceal, patch up, or reconcile. No introductory exclamations or subsequent explanations which usually characterize false testimony appear anywhere in their writings. They were seemingly absolutely indifferent to whether they were believed or not. Their narratives seem to say: These are records of truth; and if the world rejects them it rejects the facts of history. Such candor and assurance are always overwhelmingly impressive; and in every forum of debate are regarded as unmistakable signs of truth.

The Evangelists, it must be assumed, were fully aware of the danger of too great particularity in the matter of false testimony, and would have hesitated to commit themselves on so many points if their statements had been untrue. We have already noted the opinion of Professor Holtzmann, of Heidelberg, that the Synoptic Gospels were committed to writing between the years 60 and 80 of our era. At that time it is certain that there were still living many persons who were familiar with the events in the life and teachings of the Savior, as well as with the numerous other facts and circumstances related by the sacred writers. St. Paul, in I Cor. xv. 6, speaks of five hundred brethren to whom the risen Jesus appeared at one time; and he adds, "of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep." And it must be remembered that this particular group of two hundred and fifty or more were certainly not the only persons then living who had a distinct remembrance of the Master, His teachings, and His miracles. Many who had been healed by Him, children who had sat upon His knee and been blessed by Him, and many members of the Pharisaic party and of the Sadducean aristocracy who had persecuted Him and had then slain Him, were doubtless still living and had a lively recollection of the events of the ministry of the Nazarene. Such persons were in a position to disprove from their personal knowledge false statements made by the Evangelists. A consciousness of this fact would have been, within itself, a strong inducement to tell the truth.

But not only are the Gospels not contradicted by contemporaneous writers; they are also not impeached or disproved by later scientific research and historical investigation. And at this point we come to make a direct application of the test of the coincidence of their testimony with collateral and contemporaneous history. For this purpose, as a matter of illustration, only facts in profane history corroborative of the circumstances attending the trial and crucifixion of the Master will be cited.

In the first place, the Evangelists tell us that Pontius Pilate sat in judgment on the Christ. Both Josephus and Tacitus tell us that Pilate was governor of Judea at that time.[29]

In John xviii. 31 we read: "Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death." From many profane historians, ancient and modern, we learn that the power of life and death had been taken from the Jews and vested in the Roman governor.[30]

In John xix. 16, 17 occurs this passage: "And they took Jesus, and led him away; and he, bearing his cross, went forth." This corroborative sentence is found in Plutarch: "Every kind of wickedness produces its own particular torment; just as every malefactor, when he is brought forth to execution, carries his own cross."[31]

In Matthew xxvii. 26 we read: "When he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified." That scourging was a preliminary to crucifixion among the Romans is attested by many ancient writers, among whom may be mentioned Josephus and Livy. The following passages are taken from Josephus:

Whom, having first scourged with whips, he crucified.[32]

Being beaten, they were crucified opposite to the citadel.[33]

He was burned alive, having been first beaten.[34]

From Livy, a single sentence will suffice:

All were led out, beaten with rods, and beheaded.[35]

In John xix. 19, 20 we read: "And Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross; and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin." That it was a custom among the Romans to affix the accusation against the criminal to the instrument of his punishment appears from several ancient writers, among them Suetonius and Dion Cassius. In Suetonius occurs this sentence: "He exposed the father of the family to the dogs, with this title, 'A gladiator, impious in speech.'"[36] And in Dion Cassius occurs the following: "Having led him through the midst of the court or assembly, with a writing signifying the cause of his death, and afterwards crucifying him."[37]

And finally, we read in John xix. 32: "Then came the soldiers and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him." By an edict of Constantine, the punishment of crucifixion was abolished. Speaking in commendation of this edict, a celebrated heathen writer mentions the circumstances of breaking the legs. "He was pious to such a degree," says this writer, "that he was the first to set aside that very ancient punishment, the cross, with the breaking of legs."[38]

If we leave the narrow circle of facts attendant upon the trial and crucifixion of Jesus with its corroborative features of contemporary history, and consider the Gospel narratives as a whole, we shall find that they are confirmed and corroborated by the facts and teachings of universal history and experience. An examination of these narratives will also reveal a divine element in them which furnishes conclusive proof of their truthfulness and reliability. A discussion of the divine or spiritual element in the Gospel histories would be foreign to the purpose of this treatise. The closing pages of Part I will be devoted to a consideration of the human element in the New Testament narratives. This will be nothing more than an elaboration of the fifth legal test of credibility mentioned by Starkie.

By the human or historical element of credibility in the Gospel histories is meant that likeness or resemblance in matters of representation of fact to other matters of representation of fact which we find recorded in secular histories of standard authority whose statements we are accustomed to accept as true. The relations of historic facts to each other, and the connections and coincidences of things known or believed to be true with still others sought to be proved, form a fundamental ground of belief, and are, therefore, reliable modes of proof. The most casual perusal of the New Testament narratives suggests certain striking resemblances between the events therein narrated and well-known historical occurrences related by secular historians whose statements are implicitly believed. Let us draw a few parallels and call attention to a few of these resemblances.

Describing the anguish of the Savior in the Garden, St. Luke says: "And being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly: And his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground."[39]

This strange phenomenon of the "bloody sweat" has been of such rare occurrence in the history of the world that its happening in Gethsemane has been frequently denied. The account of it has been ascribed to the overwrought imagination of the third Evangelist in recording the errors of tradition. And yet similar cases are well authenticated in the works of secular writers. Tissot reports a case of "a sailor who was so alarmed by a storm, that through fear he fell down, and his face sweated blood which, during the whole continuance of the storm, returned like ordinary sweat, as fast as it was wiped away."[40] Schenck cites the case of "a nun who fell into the hands of soldiers; and, on seeing herself encompassed with swords and daggers threatening instant death, was so terrified and agitated that she discharged blood from every part of her body, and died of hemorrhage in the sight of her assailants."[41] Writing of the death of Charles IX of France, Voltaire says: "The disease which carried him off is very uncommon; his blood flowed from all his pores. This malady, of which there are some examples, is the result either of excessive fear, furious passion, or of a violent and melancholic temperament."[42] The same event is thus graphically described by the old French historian, De Mezeray: "After the vigor of his youth and the energy of his courage had long struggled against his disease, he was at length reduced by it to his bed at the castle of Vincennes, about the 8th of May, 1574. During the last two weeks of his life his constitution made strange efforts. He was affected with spasms and convulsions of extreme violence. He tossed and agitated himself continually and his blood gushed from all the outlets of his body, even from the pores of his skin, so that on one occasion he was found bathed in a bloody sweat."[43]

If the sailor, the nun, and the king of France were afflicted with the "bloody sweat," why should it seem incredible that the man Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth, should have been similarly afflicted? If Tissot, Schenck, and Voltaire are to be believed, why should we refuse to believe St. Luke? If St. Luke told the truth in this regard, why should we doubt his statements concerning other matters relating to the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God? Does not Voltaire, the most brilliant and powerful skeptic that ever lived, corroborate in this particular the biographer of the Christ?

Let us pass to another instance of resemblance and corroboration. While describing the crucifixion, St. John wrote the following: "But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water."[44] Early skeptical criticism denied the account of the flowing of blood and water from the side of the Savior because, in the first place, the other Evangelists did not mention the circumstance; and, in the second place, it was an unscientific fact stated. But modern medical science has very cleverly demonstrated that Jesus, according to the Gospel accounts, died of rupture of the heart. About the middle of the last century, a celebrated English physician and surgeon, Dr. Stroud, wrote a treatise entitled, "Physical Cause of the Death of Christ." In this book, he proved very clearly that cardiac rupture was the immediate cause of the death of Jesus on the cross. Many arguments were adduced to establish this fact. Among others, it was urged that the shortness of time during which the sufferer remained upon the cross and His loud cry just before "He gave up the ghost," tended to prove that a broken heart was the cause of the death of the Man of Sorrows. But the strongest proof, according to the author of this work, was the fact that blood and water flowed from the dead man when a spear was thrust into His side. This, says Dr. Stroud, has happened frequently when the heart was suddenly and violently perforated after death from cardiac rupture. Within a few hours after death from this cause, he says, the blood frequently separates into its constituent parts or essential elements: crassamentum, a soft clotted substance of deep-red color, and serum, a pale, watery liquid—popularly called blood and water, which will flow out separately, if the pericardium and heart be violently torn or punctured. In this treatise numerous medical authorities are cited and the finished work is indorsed by several of the most famous physicians and surgeons of England.

It is very probable that St. John did not know the physical cause of the strange flow of blood and water from the side of Jesus. It seems that he was afraid that he would not be believed; for, in the following verse, he was careful to tell the world that he himself had personally seen it. "And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: And he knoweth that he saith true that ye might believe."[45]

Here again modern medical science has corroborated, in the matter of the flowing of blood and water from the side of Jesus, the simple narrative of the gentle and loving Evangelist.

Still another illustration of resemblance, coincidence, and corroboration is furnished by the incident of the arrest of Jesus in the Garden. St. John says: "As soon, then, as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground."[46]

This is only one of several cases mentioned in history where ordinary men have been dazed and paralyzed in the presence of illustrious men against whom they were designing evil. When a Gallic trooper was sent by Sulla to Minturnæ to put Marius to death, the old Roman lion, his great eyes flashing fire, arose and advanced toward the slave, who fled in utter terror from the place, exclaiming, "I cannot kill Caius Marius!"[47]

Again, we learn from St. Matthew that at the moment of the arrest in the Garden, "all the disciples forsook him and fled."

This is no isolated case of cowardice and desertion. It is merely an illustration of a universal truth: that the multitude will follow blindly and adore insanely the hero or prophet in his hour of triumph and coronation, but will desert and destroy him at the moment of his humiliation and crucifixion.

Note the burning of Savonarola. The patriot-priest of the Florentine Republic believed himself inspired of God; his heroic life and martyr death seemed to justify his claim. From the pulpit of St. Mark's he became the herald and evangel of the Reformation, and his devoted followers hung upon his words as if inspiration clothed them with messages from the skies. And yet when a wicked Inquisition had nailed him to the cross and fagots were flaming about him, this same multitude who adored him, now reviled him and jeered and mocked his martyrdom.

Note the career of Napoleon. When the sun of Austerlitz rose upon the world the whole French nation grew delirious with love and homage for their emperor, who was once a subaltern of Corsica. But when the Allies entered Paris after the battle of Leipsic, this same French nation repudiated their imperial idol, cast down his images, canceled his decrees, and united with all Europe in demanding his eternal banishment from France. The voyage to Elba followed. But the historic melodrama of popular fidelity and fickleness was not yet completely played. When this same Napoleon, a few months later, escaped from his islet prison in the Mediterranean and landed on the shores of France, this same French nation again grew delirious, welcomed the royal exile with open arms, showered him with his eagles, and almost smothered him with kisses. A hundred days passed. On the frightful field of Waterloo, "Chance and Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king." Again the fickle French multitude heaped execrations upon their fallen monarch, declared the Napoleonic dynasty at an end and welcomed with acclamations of joy the return of the exiled Bourbon Louis XVIII.

And when the Evangelist wrote these words: "All the disciples forsook him and fled," he simply gave expression to a form of truth which all history reflects and corroborates.

Again, the parallels and resemblances of sacred and profane history do not seem to stop with mere narratives of facts. Secular history seems to have produced at times characters in the exact likeness of those in sacred history. The resemblance is often so striking as to create astonishment. For instance, who was St. Peter but Marshal Ney by anticipation? Peter was the leader of the Apostolic Twelve; Ney was the chief of the Twelve Marshals of Napoleon. Peter was impulsive and impetuous; so was Ney. Peter was the first to speak and act in all the emergencies of the Apostolic ministry; Ney, so Dumas tells us, was always impatient to open the battle and lead the first charge. Peter was probably the last to leave the garden in which the great tragedy of his Master had begun; Ney was the last to leave the horrors of a Russian winter in which the beginning of the end of the career of his monarch was plainly seen. Peter denied Jesus; Ney repudiated Napoleon, and even offered to bring him, at the time of his escape from Elba, in a cage to Louis XVIII. Peter was afterwards crucified for his devotion to Jesus whom he had denied; Ney was afterwards shot for loyalty to Napoleon whom he had once repudiated.

The examples heretofore given involve the idea of comparison and are based upon resemblance. These illustrations could be greatly extended, but it is believed that enough has been said in this connection. However, in closing this brief discussion of the human element in the sacred writings as evidenced by the coincidences and resemblances of their narratives to those of profane history, slight mention may be made of another test of truth which may be applied to the histories of the Evangelists. This test is not derived from a comparison which is focused upon any particular group of historic facts. It springs from an instantaneously recognized and inseparable connection between the statements made by the Gospel writers and the experience of the human race. A single illustration will suffice to elucidate this point. When Jesus was nailed upon the cross, the sad and pathetic spectacle was presented of the absence of the Apostolic band, with the exception of St. John, who was the only Apostle present at the crucifixion. The male members of the following of the Nazarene did not sustain and soothe their Master in the supreme moment of His anguish. But the women of His company were with Him to the end. Mary, his mother, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, Salome, the mother of St. John the Evangelist, and others, doubtless among "the women that followed him from Galilee," ministered to His sufferings and consoled Him with their presence. They were the last to cling to His cross and the first to greet Him on the morning of the third day; for when the resurrection morn dawned upon the world, these same women were seen hastening toward the sepulcher bearing spices—fragrant offerings of deathless love. What a contrast between the loyalty and devotion of the women and the fickle, faltering adherence of the men who attended the footsteps of the Man of Sorrows in His last days! One of His Apostles denied Him, another betrayed Him, and all, excepting one, deserted Him in His death struggle. His countrymen crucified Him ignominiously. But "not one woman mentioned in the New Testament ever lifted her voice against the Son of God."

This revelation from the sacred pages of the devotion of woman is reflected in universal history and experience. It is needless to give examples. Suffice it to say that when Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell us of this devotion, we simply answer: yes, this has been ever true in all countries and in every age. We have learned it not only from history but from our own experience in all the affairs of life, extending from the cradle to the grave. The night of sorrow never grows so dark that a mother's love will not irradiate the gloom. The criminal guilt of a wayward son can never become so black that her arms will not be found about him. If we pass from loving loyalty to the individual, to patriotic devotion to the causes of the nations, woman's fidelity is still undying. The women of France are said to have paid the German war debt. The message of the Spartan mother to her soldier son is too well known to be repeated. When the legions of Scipio engirdled the walls of Carthage and desperation seized the inhabitants of the Punic city, Carthaginian women cut their long black hair to furnish bowstrings to the Carthaginian archers. Illustrations might be multiplied; but these will suffice to show that Mary and Martha and Salome, the women of the Gospels, are simply types of the consecrated women of the world.

When we come to summarize, we are led to declare that if the Gospel historians be not worthy of belief we are without foundation for rational faith in the secular annals of the human race. No other literature bears historic scrutiny so well as the New Testament biographies. Not by a single chain, but by three great chains can we link our Bible of to-day with the Apostolic Bible. The great manuscripts: the Vatican, the Alexandrian, and the Sinaitic, dating from the middle of the fourth and fifth centuries, must have been copies of originals, or at least of first copies. The Bible is complete in these manuscripts to-day.

The Versions, translations of the original Scriptures from the language in which they were first written into other languages, form a perfect connection between the days of the Apostles and our own. The Vulgate, the celebrated Latin version of St. Jerome, was completed A.D. 385. In making this translation the great scholar has himself said that he used "ancient (Greek) copies." Manuscripts that were ancient, A.D. 385, must have been the original writings, or, at least, first copies. The Vulgate, then, is alone a perfect historic connection between the Bible that we read to-day and that studied by the first Christians.

Again, the Writings of the Church Fathers furnish a chain, without a single missing link, between the Bible of this generation and that of the first generation of the followers of the Christ. It has been truthfully said that if all the Bibles in the world were destroyed an almost perfect Bible could be reconstructed from quotations from these writings, so numerous and so exact are they. Beginning with Barnabas and Clement, companions of St. Paul, and coming down through the ages, there is not a single generation in which some prince or potentate of the Church has not left convincing evidence in writing that the Books of the Old and New Testament which we read to-day are identical with those read by the first propagators of our faith. The chain of proof forged from the Writings of the early Fathers is made up of a hundred links, each perfect within itself and yet relinked and welded with a hundred others that make each and all doubly strong. If these various testimonies, the Manuscripts, the Versions, and the Writings of the Church Fathers, be taken, not singly, but collectively, in support and corroboration of each other, we have, then, not merely a chain but rather a huge spiritual cable of many wires, stretching across the great sea of time and linking our Bible of to-day inseparably with that of the Apostolic Age.

If it be objected that these various writings might have been and probably were corrupted in coming down to us through the centuries, reply may be made that the facts of history repel such suggestions. As Mr. Greenleaf has suggested, the jealousy of opposing sects preserved them from forgery and mutilation. Besides these sects, it may be added, there were, even in the earliest times, open and avowed infidels who assaulted the cardinal tenets of the Christian faith and made the Gospel histories the targets for their attacks. They, too, would have detected and denounced any attempt from any source to corrupt these writings.

Another and final, and probably the most cogent reason for the remarkable preservation of the books of the Bible, is the reverential care bestowed upon them by their custodians in every age. It is difficult for the modern world to fully appreciate the meaning and extent of this reverence and care. Before the age of printing, it must be remembered, the masses of the people could not and did not possess Bibles. In the Middle Ages it required a small fortune to own a single copy. The extreme scarcity enhanced not only the commercial value but added to the awful sanctity that attached to the precious volume; on the principle that the person of a king becomes more sacred and mysterious when least seen in public. Synagogues and monasteries were, for many centuries, the sole repositories of the Holy Books, and the deliberate mutilation of any portion of the Bible would have been regarded like the blaspheming of the Deity or the desecration of a shrine. These considerations alone are sufficient reason why the Holy Scriptures have come down to us uncorrupted and unimpaired.

These various considerations are the logical basis of that rule of law laid down by Mr. Greenleaf, under which the Gospel histories would be admitted into a modern court of law in a modern judicial proceeding.

Under legal tests laid down by Starkie, we have seen that the Evangelists should be believed, because: (1) They were honest and sincere, that is, they believed that they were telling the truth; (2) they were undoubtedly men of good intelligence and were eyewitnesses of the facts narrated by them in the New Testament histories; (3) they were independent historians, who wrote at different times and places and, in all essential details, fully corroborate each other; (4) excepting in the matter of miracles, which skepticism has never been able to fully disprove, their testimony is in full conformity with human experience; (5) their testimony coincides fully and accurately with all the collateral, social, historical, and religious circumstances of their time, as well as with the teachings and experience of universal history in every age.

Having received from antiquity an uncorrupted message, born of truth, we have, it is believed, a perfect record of fact with which to discuss the trial of Jesus.

PART II
HEBREW CRIMINAL LAW

MOSES AND THE LAW (MICHAEL ANGELO)

CHAPTER I

HEBREW CRIMINAL LAW—MOSAIC AND TALMUDIC

THE Pentateuch and the Talmud form the double basis of Hebrew jurisprudence. "The wisdom of the lawgiver," says Bacon, "consists not only in a platform of justice, but in the application thereof." The Mosaic Code, embodied in the Pentateuch, furnished to the children of Israel the necessary platform of justice; ancient tradition and Rabbinic interpretation contained in the Talmud, supplied needed rules of practical application. Employing classic terminology, it may be said that the ordinances of Moses were the substantive and the provisions of the Talmud were the adjective laws of the ancient Hebrews. These terms are not strictly accurate, however, since many absolute rights are declared and defined in the Talmud as well as in the Pentateuch. Another definition, following the classification of Roman legists, describes Mosaic injunction as the lex scripta and Talmudic provision as the lex non scripta of the Commonwealth of Israel. In other words, the Pentateuch was the foundation, the cornerstone; the Talmud was the superstructure, the gilded dome of the great temple of Hebrew justice.

Bible students throughout the world are familiar with the provisions of the Mosaic Code; but the contents of the Talmud are known to few, even among scholars and literary men. The most appalling ignorance has existed in every age among the Gentile uninitiated as to the nature and identity of this gigantic literary compilation. Henricus Segnensis, a pious monk of the Middle Ages, having heard and read many things about the despised heretical Talmud, conceived it to be a person and, in a transport of religious frenzy, declared that he would sooner or later have him, the Talmud, put to death by the hangman![48]

For the benefit of the average reader as well as to illuminate the general subject, a short description of the Talmud will be given.

Definition.—Many attempts have been made to define the Talmud, but all definition of this monumental literary production is necessarily inaccurate and incomplete because of the vastness and peculiarity of the matter treated. To describe it as an encyclopedia of the life and literature, law and religion, art and science of the Hebrew people during a thousand years would convey only an approximately correct idea of its true meaning, for it is even more than the foregoing descriptive terms would indicate. Emanuel Deutsch in his brilliant essay on the Talmud defines it as "a Corpus Juris, an encyclopedia of law, civil and penal, ecclesiastical and international, human and divine. It is a microcosm, embracing, even as does the Bible, heaven and earth. It is as if all the prose and poetry, the science, the faith and speculation of the Old World were, though only in faint reflections, bound up in it in nuce."

Benny describes it as "the Talmud—that much maligned and even more misunderstood compilation of the rabbins; that digest of what Carlyle would term allerlei-wissenschaften; which is at once the compendium of their literature, the storehouse of their tradition, the exponent of their faith, the record of their acquirements, the handbook of their ceremonials and the summary of their legal code, civil and penal."

To speak of the Talmud as a book would be inaccurate. It is a small library, or collection of books. "Modern editions of the Talmud, including the most important commentaries, consist of about 3,000 folio sheets, or 12,000 folio pages of closely printed matter, generally divided into twelve or twenty volumes. One page of Talmudic Hebrew intelligibly translated into English would cover three pages; the translation of the whole Talmud with its commentaries would accordingly make a library of 400 volumes, each numbering 360 octavo pages."[49]

It would be well to bear in mind that the contents of the Talmud were not proclaimed to the world by any executive, legislative, or judicial body; that they were not the result of any resolution or mandate of any congregation, college, or Sanhedrin; that they were not, in any case, formal or statutory. They were simply a great mass of traditionary matter and commentary transmitted orally through many centuries before being finally reduced to writing. Rabbinism claims for these traditions a remote antiquity, declaring them to be coeval with the proclamation of the Decalogue. Many learned doctors among the Jews ascribe this antiquity to the whole mass of traditional laws. Others maintain that only the principles upon which Rabbinic interpretation and discussion are based, can be traced back so far. But it is certain that distinct traditions are to be found at a very early period in the history of the children of Israel, and that on their return from Babylonian captivity these traditions were delivered to them by Ezra and his coadjutors of the Great Assembly.

This development of Hebrew jurisprudence along lines of written and oral law, Pentateuch and Talmud, Mosaic ordinance and time-honored tradition, seems to have followed in obedience to a general principle of juristic growth. Lex scripta and lex non scripta are classical Roman terms of universal application in systems of enlightened jurisprudence. A charter, a parchment, a marble column, a table of stone, a sacred book, containing written maxims defining legal rights and wrongs are the beginnings of all civilized schemes of justice. Around these written, fundamental laws grow and cluster the race traditions of a people which attach themselves to and become inseparable from the prime organic structure. These oral traditions are the natural and necessary products of a nation's growth and progress. The laws of the Medes and Persians, at once unalterable and irrevocable, represent a strange and painful anomaly in the jurisprudence of mankind. No written constitution, incapable of amendment and subject to strict construction, can long survive the growth and expansion of a great and progressive people. The ever-changing, perpetually evolving forms of social, commercial, political, and religious life of a restless, marching, ambitious race, necessitate corresponding changes and evolutions in laws and constitutions. These necessary legal supplements are as varied in origin as are the nations that produce them. Magna Charta, wrung from John at Runnymede, became the written basis of English law and freedom, and around it grew up those customs and traditions that—born on the shores of the German Ocean, transplanted to the Isles of Britain, nurtured and developed through a thousand years of judicial interpretation and application—became the great basic structure of the Common Law of England.

What the Mosaic Code was to the ancient Hebrews, what Magna Charta is to Englishmen, the Koran is to Mahometans: the written charter of their faith and law. Surrounding the Koran are many volumes of tradition, made up of the sayings of Mahomet, which are regarded as equally sacred and authoritative as the Koran itself. These volumes of Mahometan tradition are called the Sonna and correspond to the Talmud of the Hebrews. An analysis of any great system of jurisprudence will reveal the same natural arrangement of written and oral law as that represented by the Pentateuch and the Talmud of the Jews.

The word "Talmud" has various meanings, as it appears in Hebrew traditional literature. It is an old scholastic term, and "is a noun formed from the verb 'limmed'='to teach.' It therefore means, primarily, 'teaching,' although it denotes also 'learning'; it is employed in this latter sense with special reference to the Torah, the terms 'Talmud' and 'Torah' being usually combined to indicate the study of the Law, both in its wider and its more restricted sense."[50] It is thus frequently used in the sense of the word "exegesis," meaning Biblical exposition or interpretation. But with the etymological and restricted, we are not so much interested as with the popular and general signification of the term "Talmud." Popularly used, it means simply a small collection of books represented by two distinct editions handed down to posterity by the Palestinian and Babylonian schools during the early centuries of the Christian era.

Divisions of the Talmud.—The Talmud is divided into two component parts: the Mishna, which may be described as the text; and the Gemara, which may be termed the commentary.[51] The Mishna, meaning tradition, is almost wholly law. It was, indeed, of old, translated as the Second or Oral Law—the δευτέρωσιϛ—to distinguish it from the Written Law delivered by God to Moses. The relationship between the Mishna, meaning oral law, and the Gemara, meaning commentary, may be illustrated by a bill introduced into Congress and the debates which follow. In a general way, the bill corresponds to the Mishna, and the debates to the Gemara. The distinction, however, is that the law resulting from the passage of the bill is the effect and culmination of the debate; while the Mishna was already law when the Gemara or commentary was made.

As we have seen above, Hebrew jurisprudence in its principles and in the manner of their interpretation was chiefly transmitted by the living voice of tradition. These laws were easily and safely handed down from father to son through successive generations as long as Jewish nationality continued and the Temple at Jerusalem still stood. But, with the destruction of the Temple and the banishment of the Jews from Palestine (A.D. 70), the danger became imminent that in the loss of their nationality would also be buried the remembrance of their laws. Moved with pity and compassion for the sad condition of his people, Judah the Holy, called Rabbi for preëminence, resolved to collect and perpetuate for them in writing their time-honored traditions. His work received the name Mishna, the same which we have discussed above. But it must not be imagined that this work was the sudden or exclusive effort of Rabbi Judah. His achievement was merely the sum total and culmination of the labors of a long line of celebrated Hebrew sages. "The Oral Law had been recognized by Ezra; had become important in the days of the Maccabees; had been supported by Pharisaism; narrowed by the school of Shammai, codified by the school of Hillel, systematized by R. Akiba, placed on a logical basis by R. Ishmael, exegetically amplified by R. Eliezer, and constantly enriched by successive rabbis and their schools. Rabbi Judah put the coping-stone to the immense structure."[52]

Emanuel Deutsch gives the following subdivisions of the Mishna:

The Mishna is divided into six sections. These are subdivided again into 11, 12, 7, 9 (or 10), 11, and 12 chapters, respectively, which are further broken up into 524 paragraphs. We shall briefly describe their contents:

Section I. Seeds: of Agrarian Laws, commencing with a chapter on Prayers. In this section, the various tithes and donations due to the Priests, the Levites, and the poor, from the products of the lands, and further the Sabbatical year and the prohibited mixtures in plants, animals, garments, are treated of.

Section II. Feasts: of Sabbaths, Feast, and Fast days, the work prohibited, the ceremonies ordained, the sacrifices to be offered, on them. Special chapters are devoted to the Feast of the Exodus from Egypt, to the New Year's Day, to the Day of Atonement (one of the most impressive portions of the whole book), to the Feast of Tabernacles and to that of Haman.

Section III. Women: of betrothal, marriage, divorce, etc., also of vows.

Section IV. Damages: including a great part of the civil and criminal law. It treats of the law of trover, of buying and selling, and the ordinary monetary transactions. Further, of the greatest crime known to the law, viz., idolatry. Next of witnesses, of oaths, of legal punishments, and of the Sanhedrin itself. This section concludes with the so-called "Sentences of the Fathers," containing some of the sublimest ethical dicta known in the history of religious philosophy.

Section V. Sacred Things: of sacrifices, the first-born, etc.; also of the measurements of the Temple (Middoth).

Section VI. Purifications: of the various levitical and other hygienic laws, of impure things and persons, their purification, etc.[53]

Recensions.—The Talmud exists in two recensions: the Jerusalem and the Babylonian. These two editions represent a double Gemara; the first (Jerusalem) being an expression of the schools in Palestine and redacted at Tiberias about 390 A.D.; the second (Babylonian) being an expression of the schools in Babylonia and redacted about 365-427 A.D.

The Mishna, having been formed into a code, became in its turn what the Pentateuch had been before it, a basis of discussion and development. The Gemara of the Jerusalem Talmud embodies the critical discussions and disquisitions on the Mishna by hundreds of learned doctors who lived in Palestine, chiefly in Galilee, from the end of the second till about the middle of the fifth century of the Christian era. The Gemara of the Babylonian Talmud embodies the criticisms and dissertations on the same Mishna of numerous learned doctors living in various places in Babylonia, but chiefly those of the two great schools of Sura and Pumbaditha.[54] The Babylonian Talmud is written in "West Aramæan," is the product of six or seven generations of constant development, and is about four times as large as that of the Jerusalem Talmud, which is written in "East Aramæan."[55] It should be kept clearly before the mind that the only difference between these two recensions is in the matter of commentary. The two sets of doctors whose different commentaries distinguish the two Talmuds dealt with the same Mishna as a basis of criticism. But decided differences are noticeable in the subject matter and style of the two Gemaras represented by the two recensions of the Talmud. The discussions and commentaries in the Jerusalem Talmud are simple, brief, and pointed; while those of the Babylonian Talmud are generally subtle, abstruse, and prolix. The dissertations in the Jerusalem Talmud are filled to overflowing with archæology, geography, and history, while the Babylonian Talmud is more marked by legal and religious development.

But the reader should not form a wrong impression of the contents of the Talmud. They are a blending of the oral law of the Mishna and the notes and comments of the sages. The characteristics of both the editions are legal and religious, but a multitude of references are made in each to things that have no connection with either religion or law. "The Talmud does, indeed, offer us a perfect picture of the cosmopolitanism and luxury of those final days of Rome, such as but few classical or postclassical writings contain. We find mention made of Spanish fish, of Cretan apples, Bithynian cheese, Egyptian lentils and beans, Greek and Egyptian pumpkins, Italian wine, Median beer, Egyptian Zyphus; garments imported from Pelusium and India, shirts from Cilicia, and veils from Arabia. To the Arabic, Persian, and Indian materials contained, in addition to these, in the Gemara, a bare allusion may suffice. So much we venture to predict, that when once archæological and linguistic science shall turn to this field, they will not leave it again soon."

Relation of Talmud to Mishna.—The relation of the Talmud, used in the popular sense, to the Mishna, raises the question of the relation of the whole to one of its parts. The varying meanings of Mishna, Gemara, and Talmud very easily confuse the ordinary reader. If these terms are considered separately in the order in which they appear in the preceding sentence, simple mathematical addition will greatly aid in elucidating matters. The Mishna is a vast mass of tradition or oral law which was finally reduced to writing about the close of the second century of the Christian era. The Gemara is the Rabbinical exposition of the meaning of the Mishna. The Talmud is the sum of the Mishna plus the Gemara. In other words, the Talmud is the elaboration or amplification of the Mishna by manifold commentaries, designated as the Gemara. It frequently happens that the Talmud and the Mishna appear in the same sentence as terms designating entirely different things. This association in a different sense inevitably breeds confusion, unless we pause to consider that the Mishna has a separate existence from the Talmud and a distinct recension of its own. In this state it is simply a naked code of laws. But when the Gemara has been added to it the Talmud is the result, which, in its turn, becomes a distinct entity and may be referred to as such in the same sentence with the Mishna.

Relation of Talmud to Pentateuch.—As before suggested, the Pentateuch, or Mosaic Code, was the Written Law and the very foundation of ancient Hebrew jurisprudence. The Talmud, composed of the Mishna, i.e., Tradition, and the Gemara, i.e., Commentary, was the Oral Law, connected with, derived from, and built upon the Written Law. It must be remembered that the commonwealth of the Jews was a pure theocracy and that all law as well as all religion emanated directly or indirectly from Jehovah. This was as true of Talmudic tradition as of Mosaic ordinance. Hillel, who interpreted tradition, was as much inspired of God as was Moses when he received the Written Law on Sinai. Emanuel Deutsch is of the opinion that from the very beginning of the Mosaic law there must have existed a number of corollary laws which were used to interpret and explain the written rules; that, besides, there were certain enactments of the primitive Council of the Desert, and certain verdicts issued by the later "judges within the gates"—all of which entered into the general body of the Oral Law and were transmitted side by side with the Written Law through the ages.[56] The fourth book of Ezra, as well as other Apocryphal writings, together with Philo and certain of the Church Fathers, tells us of great numbers of books that were given to Moses at the same time that he received the Pentateuch. These writings are doubtless the source of the popular belief among the Jews that the traditional laws of the Mishna had existed from time immemorial and were of divine origin. "Jewish tradition traces the bulk of the oral injunctions, through a chain of distinctly named authorities, to 'Sinai itself.' It mentions in detail how Moses communicated those minutiæ of his legislation, in which he had been instructed during the mysterious forty days and nights on the Mount, to the chosen guides of the people, in such a manner that they should forever remain engraven on the tablets of their hearts."[57] This direct descent of the Oral Law from the Sacred Mount itself would indicate an independent character and authority. Nevertheless, Talmudic interpretation of tradition professed to remain always subject to the Mosaic Code; to be built upon, and to derive its highest inspiration from it. But, as a matter of fact, while claiming theoretically to be subordinate to it, the Talmud finally superseded and virtually displaced the Pentateuch as a legal and administrative code. This was the inevitable consequence and effect of the laws of growth and progress in national existence. Altered conditions of life, at home and in exile, necessitated new rules of action in the government of the Jewish commonwealth. The Mosaic Code was found inadequate to the ever-changing exigencies of Hebrew life. As a matter of fact, Moses laid down only general principles for the guidance of Hebrew judges. He furnished the body of the law, but a system of legal procedure was wholly wanting. The Talmud supplied the deficiency and completed a perfect whole. While yet in the Wilderness, Moses commanded the Israelites to establish courts and appoint judges for the administration of justice as soon as they were settled in Palestine.[58] This clearly indicates that the great lawgiver did not intend his ordinances and injunctions to be final and exclusive. Having furnished a foundation for the scheme, he anticipated that the piety, judgment, and learning of subsequent ages would do the rest. His expectations were fulfilled in the development of the traditions afterwards embodied in the Mishna, which is the principal component part of the Talmud.

As before suggested, with the growth in population and the ever-increasing complications in social, political, and religious life, and with the general advance in Hebrew civilization, Mosaic injunction began to prove entirely inadequate to the national wants. In the time intervening between the destruction of the first and second Temples, a number of Mosaic laws had become utter anachronisms; others were perfectly impracticable, and several were no longer even understood. The exigencies of an altered mode of life and the changed conditions and circumstances of the people rendered imperative the enactment of new laws unknown to the Pentateuch. But the divine origin of the Hebrew system of law was never for a moment forgotten, whatever the change and wherever made. The Rabbins never formally repealed or abolished any Mosaic enactment. They simply declared that it had fallen into desuetude. And, in devising new laws rendered necessary by changed conditions of life they invariably invoked some principle or interpretation of the Written Law.

In the declining years of Jewish nationality, many characteristic laws of the Pentateuch had become obsolete. The ordinance which determined the punishment of a stubborn and rebellious son; the enactment which commanded the destruction of a city given to idolatry; and, above all, the lex talionis had become purely matters of legend. On the other hand, many new laws appear in the Talmud of which no trace whatever can be discovered in the Pentateuch. "The Pharisees," says Josephus, "have imposed upon the people many laws taken from the tradition of the Fathers, which are not written in the law of Moses."[59] The most significant of these is the one providing for Antecedent Warning in criminal prosecutions, the meaning and purpose of which will be fully discussed in another chapter.

Vicissitudes of the Talmud.—An old Latin adage runs: "Habent sua fata libelli."[60] (Even books are victims of fate). This saying is peculiarly applicable to the Talmud, which has had, in a general way, the same fateful history as the race that created it. Proscription, exile, imprisonment, confiscation, and burning was its lot throughout the Middle Ages. During a thousand years, popes and kings vied with each other in pronouncing edicts and hurling anathemas against it. During the latter half of the sixteenth century it was burned not fewer than six different times by royal or papal decree. Whole wagonloads were consigned to the flames at a single burning. In 1286, in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Honorius IV described the Talmud as a "damnable book" (liber damnabilis), and vehemently urged that nobody in England be permitted to read it, since "all other evils flow out of it."[61] On New Year's day, 1553, numerous copies of the Talmud were burned at Rome in compliance with a decree of the Inquisition. And, as late as 1757, in Poland, Bishop Dembowski, at the instigation of the Frankists, convened a public assembly at Kamenetz-Podolsk, which decreed that all copies of the Talmud found in the bishopric should be confiscated and burned by the hangman.[62]

Of the two recensions, the Babylonian Talmud bore the brunt of persecution during all the ages. This resulted from the fact that the Jerusalem Talmud was little read after the closing of the Jewish academies in Palestine, while the Babylonian Talmud was the popular edition of eminent Jewish scholars throughout the world.

It is needless to say that the treatment accorded the venerable literary compilation was due to bitter prejudice and crass ignorance. This is well illustrated by the circumstance that when, in 1307, Clement V was asked to issue a bull against the Talmud, he declined to do so, until he had learned something about it. To his amazement and chagrin, he could find no one who could throw any light upon the subject. Those who wished it condemned and burned were totally ignorant of its meaning and contents. The surprise and disgust of Clement were so great that he resolved to found three chairs in Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldee, the three tongues nearest the idiom of the Talmud. He designated the Universities of Paris, Salamanca, Bologna, and Oxford as places where these languages should be taught, and expressed the hope that, in time, one of these universities might be able to produce a translation of "this mysterious book."[63] It may be added that these plans of the Pope were never consummated.

The Message and Mission of the Talmud.—To appreciate the message and mission of the Talmud, its contents must be viewed and contemplated in the light of both literature and history. As a literary production it is a masterpiece—strange, weird, and unique—but a masterpiece, nevertheless. It is a sort of spiritual and intellectual cosmos in which the brain growth and soul burst of a great race found expression during a thousand years. As an encyclopedia of faith and scholarship it reveals the noblest thoughts and highest aspirations of a divinely commissioned race. Whatever the master spirits of Judaism in Palestine and Babylon esteemed worthy of thought and devotion was devoted to its pages. It thus became a great twin messenger, with the Bible, of Hebrew civilization to all the races of mankind and to all the centuries yet to come. To Hebrews it is still the great storehouse of information touching the legal, political, and religious traditions of their fathers in many lands and ages. To the Biblical critic of any faith it is an invaluable help to Bible exegesis. And to all the world who care for the sacred and the solemn it is a priceless literary treasure.

As an historical factor the Talmud has only remotely affected the great currents of Gentile history. But to Judaism it has been the cementing bond in every time of persecution and threatened dissolution. It was carried from Babylon to Egypt, northern Africa, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and Poland. And when threatened with national and race destruction, the children of Abraham in every land bowed themselves above its sacred pages and caught therefrom inspiration to renewed life and higher effort. The Hebrews of every age have held the Talmud in extravagant reverence as the greatest sacred heirloom of their race. Their supreme affection for it has placed it above even the Bible. It is an adage with them that, "The Bible is salt, the Mischna pepper, the Gemara balmy spice," and Rabbi Solomon ben Joseph sings:

"The Kabbala and Talmud hoar
Than all the Prophets prize I more;
For water is all Bible lore,
But Mischna is pure wine."

More than any other human agency has the Talmud been instrumental in creating that strangest of all political phenomena—a nation without a country, a race without a fatherland.

CHAPTER II

HEBREW CRIMINAL LAW—CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS

Capital crimes, under Hebrew law, were classified by Maimonides according to their respective penalties. His arrangement will be followed in this chapter.[64]

Hebrew jurisprudence provided four methods of capital punishment: (1) Beheading; (2) Strangling; (3) Burning; (4) Stoning.

Crucifixion was unknown to Hebrew law. This cruel and loathsome form of punishment will be fully discussed in the second volume of this work.

Thirty-six capital crimes are mentioned by the Pentateuch and the Talmud.

Beheading was the punishment for only two crimes:

• (1) Murder.
• (2) Communal apostasy from Judaism to idolatry.

Strangling was prescribed for six offenses:

• (1) Adultery.
• (2) Kidnaping.
• (3) False prophecy.
• (4) Bruising a parent.
• (5) Prophesying in the name of heathen deities.
• (6) Maladministration (the "Rebellious Elder").

Burning was the death penalty for ten forms of incest—criminal commerce:

• (1) With one's own daughter.
• (2) With one's own son's daughter.
• (3) With one's own daughter's daughter.
• (4) With one's own stepdaughter.
• (5) With one's own stepson's daughter.
• (6) With one's own stepdaughter's daughter.
• (7) With one's own mother-in-law.
• (8) With one's own mother-in-law's mother.
• (9) With one's own father-in-law's mother.
• (10) With a priest's daughter.[65]