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"Of the Fourth Gospel we find no mention till the second century is drawing to its close. Of its existence we have little if any notice earlier than this. But we have ample evidence that if it was in existence midway of the second century, and back of this for five and twenty years, it was little known and less esteemed, and certainly was not regarded as the work of an Apostle. That it was meant to pass for John's there cannot be a doubt; but so was the book of Daniel meant to pass for Daniel's, who had been dead three hundred years when it was written. To seek prestige for one's own thought under the cover of some mighty name was for hundreds of years before and after the time of Jesus the commonest proceeding. It was a species of selfabnegation. The writer sacrificed his personal renown to some high cause that had enlisted his enthusiasm and demanded his service.

"That one biography of a person is written subsequently to another is not necessarily a circumstance that is prejudicial to the later work. The latest is frequently the best. But if it is so, it must be in virtue of a closer adherence to, or a more vital appreciation of, the fundamental biographical material.”

"Since the sponge dipped in vinegar moistened the dying lips of Jesus, no such service has been rendered him as that of the critics who have transferred the Fourth Gospel from the province of biography to that of theological controversy and imaginative dogma."

23.-St. Paul's Conception of Jesus.

"If with Ferdinand Christian Baur we accept as authentic only four of Paul's Epistles out of the fourteen ascribed to him in the New Testament, namely, Romans, the two Corinthians, and Galatians, Paul's theory of Christ's nature is quite homogeneous. If we also accept, as I am inclined to do, with the support of many able critics, First Thessalonians, Colossians, and Philippians, then we have in Paul also a development of which the starting point is found in First Thessalonians, his earliest epistle, the middle point in Romans, Galatians, and Corinthians, and the culmination in Colossians and Philippians. In Thessalonians the conception is hardly different from that of the Synoptic Gospels. In Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians it has already made a great advance. To the actual historical Jesus,

Paul was quite indifferent. He does not quote his words. He does not recount his deeds. He does not dwell on his example. His self-denial is not that of a man among men. It is the laying aside of heavenly glory, and the assumption of a human form. Paul's thought centred not in the historic Jesus but in an ideal Christ of his own conception."

"This was his first thought, that Jesus was glorified by his death and resurrection; but this could not satisfy his speculative genius. A glory with which Christ was invested did not satisfy him. He wanted a glory for him that was essential to his personality; and so his death and resurrection became only the means of his resuming a glory which he had ages before his earthly manifestation-the glory of a heavenly, archetypal man. Henceforth to Paul the human life of Jesus was the merest episode in the career of the heavenly man, the ideal Christ of his speculative imagination; and yet lofty as was Paul's conception of the Christ, he cherished the idea that all men who would might be even such as he. Although an image of the divine glory, he was not less an image of the possible glory of the saints. It was not the character of the historical Jesus that marked Paul's limit of possible human attainment. It was the nature of the heavenly pre-existent Christ."

24. The Corporeal Resurrection and Ascension.

"Article IV., of the established Church of England, reads: 'Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again his body with flesh, bones and all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven and there sitteth, until he return to judge all men at the last day.'"

"With his corporeal substance,-in the language of the Article, ''with his flesh and bones and all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature -he ascended into heaven. Assuming all this, where is the argument for our personal immortality? The resurrection of Jesus is a resurrection of the body; his ascension is an ascension of the body; his immortality is an immortality of the body. Now it is quite impossible for us to have any such resurrection, any such ascension, any such corporeal immortality. Our bodies moulder away. They mingle with the elements. They are taken up into vegetable and animal structures. What analogy can there be between our resurrection at some

infinitely distant day and that of Jesus from twenty-four to thirty-six hours after his death? There can be no analogy whatever, and therefore there can be no argument from the one thing to the other."

"Having reviewed the testimony of the Gospels to the corporeal resurrection and ascension in almost every particular, what is the net result? No single account is self-consistent or agrees with any other. The different accounts are self-destructive and mutually destructive all. They agree in hardly a single particular. They differ in particulars of the first importance. Here the appearance of the risen Jesus is placed in Galilee, there, in direct contravention of his own assertions, in Jerusalem. Here his ascension is definitely placed on the first day; elsewhere, by different writers, later, but without general agreement. Here the risen Jesus is a man of flesh and blood; elsewhere a bodiless ghost; and so on through all the catalogue of difference and contradiction."

"The two from Emmaus are still talking with the eleven when Jesus stands in their midst. They are affrighted and think they see a spirit. While eating with them, he takes bread, breaks it, and gives thanks. Then they recognize Jesus and he vanishes from their sight. A body with flesh and bones capable of 'appearing' in a room whose doors are fastened, and in the same way disappearing, and vanishing like a shadow!"

"What is the amount and nature of Paul's evidence to the corporeal resurrection and ascension of Jesus? In First Corinthians, xv. 3, we read, 'For I delivered unto you that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was raised again on the third day; and that he was seen by Peter, then by the twelve. After that he was seen by above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present day, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen by James, then by all the apostles; and last of all he was seen by me also as by one born out of due time. .

"But this concluding clause is exceedingly significant : 'and last of all he was seen of me also.' Paul makes no distinction between his sight of the risen Jesus and that of the others. That Paul had seen the risen Jesus, and that he considered his sight of him as good as any other, so much is certain.

"Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Master?'-This sight of Jesus must have been years after his death. That it was a sight of the body of Jesus which hung upon the cross there is not an intimation. Whatever it was, it was something which occurred years after the death of Jesus, and it must have been something entirely different from the appearance of Jesus in the same body with which he died, the resurrection of which is represented with much inconsistency in the four Gospels. "So much for the testimony of Paul.

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And now a word in regard to the ascension. Matthew does not mention it. Mark is equally silent; but in the appendix-the Spurious Verses 9-20-to this Gospel it is said that he was taken up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.' John also is silent. So, then, we have three Gospels, out of four, making no final disposition of the risen Jesus. In the original tradition, there was no ascension. The resurrection and ascension were one and the same thing. This is Paul's thought as well. Though he has so much to say about the resurrection, he has not a word concerning any ascension. Such is the most reasonable account that can be given of the causes that were operative in producing the New Testament tradition."

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Ascension into heaven 'with his flesh and bones'! That men could believe this centuries ago, when the learning of the few was as superstitious as the ignorance of the many, I can easily understand. That the ignorant and superstitious of the present time, who know nothing of the laws of evidence, who have no appreciation of the inviolable sanctity of the natural order of the world, and no perception that it is men's growing faith in this which marks the hours of progress on the great dial of history,that such can still, in this last quarter of the nineteenth century, believe the same is also not hard to understand. But how any thoughfully intelligent person, in these days, can believe it passes the bounds of credibility."

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25.-A Parable of the Life of Jesus.

I have read or heard somewhere of a remarkable Indian plant or tree which grows, isolated from others, to a great height, throwing out few, if any, lateral branches, but suddenly, at the very top, bursting into a single flower of marvellous brilliancy and

beauty, and with a fragrance that enchants the sense with an unspeakable delight. And then-it dies! It is a parable of the life of Jesus. Year after year it grew in silence and obscurity, sending no lateral branches, that we know of, out into the sunny Galilean air; but suddenly its top, as if drew-sprinkled with the baptism of John, as if expanded by the fierce heats of a nation's patriotic and religious zeal, burst into a flower whose beauty and whose fragrance have enriched whole centuries of time. But as we may be sure that all that patient waiting, silent growing, of the Indian tree were necessary to its one consummate flower, we may be equally sure that all the patient waiting, silent growth, of Jesus were but the needful preparation for his brief years of active service among men, a flower whose fragrance, even to this day, enriches every wind that blows."

LX.-MISCELLANEOUS CONFIRMATIONS-EXTRACTS FROM

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RECENT BOOKS.

'During the life of Buddha no record of events, no sacred code containing the sayings of the master was wanted. His presence was enough, and thoughts of the future seldom entered the minds of those who followed him. It was only after Buddha had left the world to enter into Nirvana, that his disciples attempted to recall the sayings and doings of their departed friend and master. Then everything that seemed to redound to the glory of Buddha, however extraordinary and incredible, was eagerly welcomed, while witnesses who would have ventured to criticise or reject unsupported statements, or detract in any way from the holy character of Buddha, had no chance of being listened to. And when, in spite of all this, differences of opinion arose, they were not brought to the test of a careful weighing of evidence, but the names of 'unbeliever' and 'heretic were quickly invented in India as elsewhere, and bandied backwards and forwards between contending parties, till at last, when the doctors disagreed, the help of the secular power had to be invoked, and kings and emperors convoked councils for the suppression of schism, for the settlement of an orthodox creed, and for the completion of the Sacred Canon. We know of King Asoka, the contemporary of Seleucus, sending his royal missive to the assembled elders, and telling them what to do and

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