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my difference from you on this historical question. I think it very mischievous that we, who stand outside of Christianity and seem to be impartial judges of Christian sects, should give moral aid to the most pernicious by far of them all, by avowing that its system is a legitimate development and the perfect form of Christianity. Perhaps you esteem Jesus more than I do. I could not use the language of your paragraph 18. Yet I writhe with a sort of indignation at the assertion that the Church of Rome logically carries out his doctrines. I judge much of his moral teaching to be exceedingly mean, and much of it fanatical and mischievous; all of which Rome has greedily appropriated. His claim to be Messiah has drawn after it results which he did not foresee, and cannot have wished. I do not palliate the gravity of his error. But to regard a hierarchy, a corporate religion, an outward ceremonial, an earthly kingdom and enslavement of the mind to a code, to be the legitimate development of the religion of him who said, "Be not any of you called Rabbi [Teacher], for all ye are brethren; and call no man your Father upon Earth, for One is your Father who is in Heaven;"-does seem to me a great perversion of the narrative, and in the present state of the Christian mind a hurtful error.

THE TRUE TEMPTATION OF JESUS.

[1872.]

E VERY one who has opened the New Testament is aware that in the first and third Gospel a remarkable story is found (alluded to also in the second Gospel) in which the devil is represented to have assailed Jesus with three special temptations, and to have been repelled by quotation of Old Testament texts. That it is impossible to maintain the literal truth of this account has been reluctantly conceded by writers, who, like the author of "Ecce Homo," are wholly unconcerned to ascertain when, where, by whom, and with what means of knowledge, these narratives were penned. Those who desire to save their credit, try to rid them of a damaging burden by declaring this scene to be allegorical. No spectator is pretended. The idea that Jesus communicated such inward trials to his disciples is contrary to everything which is reported concerning his character: for he is everywhere represented as wholly uncommunicative, self-contained, more or less mysterious, and moving in a separate region of thought and feeling from the disciples. Evidently this story does but express the opinion of the first Christians, while Jesus was as yet believed to be only human, that he, as others, must have had a struggle against temptations, and therefore, against the devil. It is not here intended to point out what is plain of itself, that none of the temptations are worthy of the acumen attributed to the experienced and wily Satan; and are merely puerile in fiction, whether Jesus be imagined as the Second Person of the Divine Trinity or merely as a great and holy, but human prophet. Here I intend to give prominence to that which I believe to be the fundamental trial of a religious reformer, especially when he attains great ascendancy and commands high veneration. But first I must say, I shall be truly sorry, if any Trinitarian read these pages, and find himself wounded. I do not address him. I argue on the assumption that Jesus was subject to human limitations like all the rest of us, and that it is our duty to criticize him and the story of him, if it be of sufficient importance.

What are the temptations of the prophet, can be no secret in the present day: we see them in the ordinary life of the admired preacher. To be run after by a multitude, to be ministered to by fascinated ladies, to see grey-haired men submissively listening and treasuring up words,-easily puffs a young preacher into self-conceit. In one who has too much strong sense to be drawn into light vanity, fresh and fresh success inspires, first, the not unreasonable hope or belief that he is fulfilling a great work, and is chosen for it by God, (not for his own merit, but because if a work is to be done, some one must be chosen for it); next, an undue confidence in the truth and weight of his own utterances, an extravagant conviction that whoever resists his word, impugns God's truth, and makes himself the enemy of God. In the denunciations of Luther against Zuingle, his own wiser and more temperate coadjutor, in the vehemences of John Knox, in the cruelty of Calvin to Servetus, we see variously developed the same dangerous tendency. If we cast the eye eastward, to more illiterate nations, to those accustomed to revere the hermit and the semi-savage as akin to the prophet, to peoples whose homage expresses itself by prostration, we see the tendency of the prophet to assume a regal and dictatorial mien even in the garb of a half naked Bedouin. Many an eastern monk or prophet, Syrian, Persian, or Indian, has been obeyed as a prince; some have been attended on by large armies: to some the native king has paid solemn obeisance. In ancient Greece, where philosophy overtopped religion, ascetic philosophers have been accepted as plenipotentiary legislators; in which, no doubt, we see portrayed, on a small scale, the legislative influence of a Buddha, a Confucius, or a Zoroaster. When an Indian prophet found it natural for multitudes to kneel to him or to prostrate themselves, how hard it must have been to accept such homage and retain a sense of human equality! how hard not to think it reasonable that others bow down, and unreasonable that any stand up and argue with the prophet as his equal!

In the Gospels and Acts the habit of prostration among these nations is sufficiently indicated; and we see how it is resented (according to the narrative) by Peter. When Cornelius falls at Peter's feet and does homage (certainly intending respect only, not divine worship), Peter regards it as quite unbecoming from a man to a man. But Jesus is represented as accepting such homage without the least hesitation, and apparently with approval. The cases are not few, nor confined to any one

narrative. Matt. viii. 2, "There came a leper and worshipped him." Matt. ix. 18, "There came a certain ruler and worshipped him." Matt. xiv. 33, "They worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the [or a] Son of God." Matt. xv. 25, "Then came the woman and worshipped him, saying, Lord! help me." Jesus comments approvingly, "O woman, great is thy faith.” Matt. xvii. 14, "There came a certain man, kneeling down to him and saying, Lord! have mercy on my son!" Matt. xx. 20, "There came the mother of Zebedee's children, worshipping him." Matt. xxviii. 9, "They held him by the feet and worshipped him," -this is after the resurrection, thereby differing in kind from the rest. The same remark applies to verse 17. We have substantially the same fact in Mark i. 40; v. 6, 22, 23; vii. 25; x. 17. In the last passage the rich young man kneels to Jesus: he was not so represented in Matt. xix. 6. Luke v. 8, "Simon Peter fell down at Jesus' knees." Luke v. 12, "A man full of leprosy fell on his face, and besought Jesus." In Luke vii. an account is given, perhaps not at all authentic. A woman is represented to bathe the feet of Jesus with her tears, and wipe them dry with her long hair, and after that, anoint them with ointment and kiss his feet incessantly. Jesus, according to the narrative, highly applauds her conduct, and avows that "therefore, her sins, which are many, are forgiven." Such conduct on his part is far above criticism, if he was either a person of the Divine Trinity, or a superhuman being, who existed before all worlds and all angels, being himself the beginning of the creation of God. I cannot doubt that the writer, called Luke, believed Jesus to be superhuman, and therefore found no impropriety in the conduct here imputed to him; but I do not understand how any one who regards him as a human being, can fail to censure him in the strongest terms, if he believe this account. As I see special grounds for doubting it, (inasmuch as it looks like a re-making of the story reported in Matt. xxvi. 6-13, which it exaggerates), I lay no stress upon it: but even in that other account there is a self-complacency hardly commendable in a mere man. Again, in Luke viii. 47, we read, "the woman fell down before him." She does not fall down in Matt. ix. 22; therefore, here also the story may have been "improved" by credulity. But it is needless to follow this topic further. Suffice it to say, that though we do not know exactly how much to believe, though we have frequent reason to suspect exaggeration, yet the narratives all consistently represent Jesus to have received complacently an unmanly and

degrading submission from his followers, such as no apostle would have endured for a moment; and it is hard to believe that such reports could have gained currency, with no foundation at all. If, therefore, we are to criticize Jesus on the belief that he was man, and not God, nor a superhuman spirit, we must admit, I think, that a real and dangerous temptation beset him in this matter. He was prone to take pleasure in seeing men and women profound in their obeisance, prostrate in mind and soul before his superior greatness;-for prostration of the body brings satisfaction to pride, only as it denotes prostration of soul. It is difficult, with these narratives before us, to think that Jesus took to himself that precept which Peter gives to the elders, that they be not lords over God's heritage, but be subject one to another, and clothed with humility, that they may be ensamples to the flock. Indeed, unless we utterly throw away all the narratives, it is hardly too much to say, that this is the very opposite to the portrait of Jesus. If we will accept the theory that he was superhuman, we can justify his immeasurable assumption of superiority; but the fact remains, that in places, too many to reject, he puts himself forward as "lord over God's heritage."

Two classes of facts, presented in the narratives, must be carefully separated. The former is the general superiority asserted by Jesus for himself; the latter, is the special assumption of Messianic dignity. On the latter, there is notoriously an irreconcilable diversity of the fourth gospel from the rest. The writer of the fourth, unquestionably ascribing to Jesus preexistence with God in some mysterious way, and sonship in a sense perfectly unique, represents his Messiahship as notorious to John the Baptist, to Andrew and Philip, from the very beginning, says it was avowed by Nathanael (whoever this was), and preached by Jesus to Nicodemus and to the woman of Samaria. All this is in so flat contradiction to the three first gospels, that nothing historical can be made out of the account; and in trying to attain a true picture of Jesus, I necessarily set aside the fourth gospel as a mischievous romance.-Nevertheless, the element which I call an assumption of general superiority, is as complete and persistent in the three first gospels as in the fourth.

Keshub Chunder Sen entitles it "a sublime egotism" in Jesus, to say, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest: take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in spirit." Yet if Luther, or John Knox, or Wesley had said it, we should adduce it in proof that he was eminently lacking in that very

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