so monstrous a delusion. We have only to imagine that a young man who has always lived in some obscure country town presents himself in one of our large cities, and announces himself there, and to his fellow-townsmen, and wherever else he can gain a hearing, as the Son of God, or Messiah; summons all, the high and low, the educated and ignorant, to accept him as a special messenger from Heaven, to obey him implicitly, to break every tie which interferes with absolute obedience to him, to hate, as it were, father and mother, wife and children, for his cause. He proceeds, we will suppose, in the name of God, to issue injunctions for the regula tion of the thoughts even, as well as of external conduct, to forgive the sins of one and another evil-doer, and to warn all who disbelieve in him, and disregard his commandments, that retribution awaits them in the future life. It being made clear that he is not an impostor, the inference would be drawn at once that his reason is unsettled. This, in fact, is the common judgment in such cases. To entertain the belief that one is the Messiah is a recognized species of insanity. It is taken as proof positive of mental aberration. This is the verdict of the courts. Erskine, in one of his celebrated speeches,1 adverts to an instance of this kind of lunacy. A man who had been confined in a mad-house prosecuted the keeper, Dr. Sims, and his own brother, for unlawful detention. Erskine, before he had been informed of the precise nature of his delusion, examined the prosecutor without eliciting any signs of mental unsoundness. At length, learning what the particular character of the mental disorder was, the great lawyer, with affected reverence, apologized for his unbecoming treatment of the witness in presuming thus to examine

1 In behalf of Hadfield, indicted for firing a pistol at the king.

him. The man expressed his forgiveness, and then, with the utmost gravity, in the face of the whole court, said, "I am the Christ." He deemed himself "the Lord and Saviour of mankind." Nothing further, of course, was required for the acquittal of the persons charged with unjustly confining him.

When it is said that claims like those of Jesus, unless they can be sustained, are indicative of mental derange ment, we may be pointed, by way of objection, to founders of other systems of religion. But among these no parallel instance can be adduced to disprove the posi tion here taken. Confucius can hardly be styled a religious teacher; he avoided, as far as he could, all reference to the supernatural. His wisdom was of man, and professed no higher origin. A sage, a sagacious moralist, he is not to be classified with pretenders to divine illumination. Of Zoroaster we know so little, that it is utterly impossible to tell what he affirmed respecting his relation to God. The very date of his birth is now set back by scholars to a point at least five hundred years earlier than the time previously assigned for it. Of him, one of the recent authorities remarks, "The events of his life are almost all enshrouded in darkness, to dispel which will be forever impossible, should no authentic historical records be discovered in Bactria, his home."1 A still later writer goes farther: "When he lived, no one knows; and every one agrees that all that the Parsis and the Greeks tell of him is mere legend, through which no solid historical facts can be arrived at."2 Thus the history of the principal teacher of one of the purest and most ancient

1 Haug, Essays on the Laws, Writings, and Religion of the Parsis (2d ed., Boston, 1868), p. 295.

2 The Zend-Avesta, translated by J. Darmestetter (Oxford, 1880), Intr., p. lxxvi.

of the ethnic religions is veiled in hopeless obscurity. With respect to Buddha, or Çâkyamuni, it is not impossible to separate main facts in his career from the mass of legendary matter which has accumulated about them. But the office which he took on himself was not even that of a prophet. He was a philanthropist, a reformer. The supernatural features of his history have been grafted upon it by later generations. An able scholar has lately described Buddhism as "a religion which ignores the existence of God, and denies the existence of the soul."1 "Buddhism is no religion at all, and certainly no theology, but rather a system of duty, morality, and benevolence, without real deity, prayer, or priest."2 Mohammed unquestionably believed himself inspired, and clothed with a divine commission. Beyond the ferment excited in his mind by the vivid perception of a single great, half-forgotten truth, we are aided in explaining his self-delusion, as far as it was a delusion, by due attention to the morbid constitutional tendencies which led to epileptic fits, as well as to reveries and trances. Moreover, there were vices of character which played an important part in nourishing his fanatical convictions; and these must be taken into the account. It is not maintained here that religious enthusiasm which passes the limits of truth should always raise a suspicion of insanity. We are not called upon by the necessities of the argument to point out the boundary-line where reason is unhinged. Socrates was persuaded that a demon or spirit within kept him back from unwise actions. Whether right or wrong in this belief, he was no doubt a man of sound mind. One may erroneously conceive himself to be under

1 See Encycl. Britannica, art. "Buddhism," by J. W. Rhys Davis. 2 Monier Williams, Hinduism (London, 1877), p. 74.

supernatural guidance without being literally irrational. But if Socrates, a mortal like the men about him, had solemnly and persistently declared himself to be the vicegerent of the Almighty, and to have the authority and the prerogatives which Jesus claimed for himself; had he declared, just before drinking the hemlock, that his death was the means or the guaranty of the forg.ve ness of sins, the sanity of his mind would not have been so clear.

Nor is there validity in the objection that times have changed, so that an inference which would justly follow upon the assertion of so exalted claims by a person living now would not be warranted in the case of one living in that remote age, and in the community to which Jesus belonged. The differences between that day and this, and between Palestine, and America or England, are not of a quality to lessen materially the difficulty of supposing that a man in his right mind could falsely believe himself to be the King and Redeemer of mankind. The conclusive answer to the objection is, that the claims of Jesus were actually treated as in the highest degree presumptuous. They were scoffed at as monstrous by his contemporaries. He was put to death for bringing them forward. Shocking blasphemy was thought to be involved in such pretensions. It is true that individuals in that era set up to be the Messiah, especially in the tremendous contest that ensued with the Romans. But these false Messiahs were impostors, or men in whom imposture and wild fanaticism were equally mingled.

Mental disorder has actually been imputed to Jesus. At the beginning of his public labors at Capernaum, his relatives, hearing what excitement he was causing, and how the people thronged upon him, so that he and

his disciples could not snatch a few minutes in which to take refreshment, for the moment feared that he was "beside himself."1 No doubt will be raised about the truth of this incident: it is not a circumstance which any disciple, earlier or later, would have been disposed to invent. The Pharisees and scribes charged that he was possessed of a demon. According to the fourth. Gospel, they said, "He hath a demon, and is mad."2 The credibility of the fourth evangelist here is assumed by Renan. In Mark, the charge that he is possessed by the prince of evil spirits immediately follows the record of the attempt of his relatives "to lay hold on him."4 Not improbably, the evangelist means to imply

that mental aberration was involved in the accusation of the scribes, as it is expressly said to have been imputed to him by his family. This idea of mental alienation has not come alone from the Galilean family in their first amazement at the commotion excited by Jesus, and in their solicitude on account of his unremitting devotion to his work. Nor has it been confined to the adversaries who were stung by his rebukes, and dreaded the loss of their hold on the people. A recent writer, after speaking of Jesus as swept onward, in the latter part of his career, by a tide of enthusiasm, says, "Sometimes one would have said that his reason was disturbed." "The grand vision of the kingdom of God made him dizzy." 5 "His temperament, inordinately impassioned, carried him every moment beyond the

oi

1 Mark iii. 21, cf. ver. 32. In ver. 21 ëλeyov may have an indefi、 nite subject, and refer to a spreading report which the relativesαὐτοῦ παρ - had heard: so Ewald, Weiss, Marcusevangelium, ad loc. Or it may denote what was said by the relatives themselves: so Meyer.

2 μαίνεται, John x. 20.

Mark iii. 21

8 Vie de Jésus, 13me ed. p. 331.

"Lui donnait le vertige."