one writer makes Jesus the teacher par excellence of peace. He counsels forgiveness of injuries not seven times, but seventy times that number—meaning unlimited love and charity. "Love your enemies," "Bless them that curse you," is his unusual advice. But another hand retouches this picture, and we have a Jesus who breaks his own golden rule. This other Jesus heaps abuse upon the people who displease him; calls his enemies "vipers," "serpents," "devils," and predicts for them eternal burnings in sulphur and brimstone. How could he who said, "Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden," say also, "Depart from me ye cursed?" Who curses them? How can there be an everlasting hell in a universe whose author advises us to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, and to forgive seventy times seven? How could the same Jesus who said, "Blessed are the peacemakers," say also, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword?" Is it possible that the same Jesus who commands us to love our enemies, commands us also to "hate" father, mother, wife and child, for "his name's sake?" Yes! the same Jesus who said, "Put up thy sword in its sheath," also commands us to sell our effects and "buy a sword."
Once more: A believer in the divinity of Jesus—I am going to say—invents the following text: "The Father and I are one." An opponent to this Trinitarian dogma introduces a correction which robs the above text of its authority: "The Father is greater than I," and makes Jesus admit openly that there are some things known to the father only. It is difficult not to see in these passages the beginnings of the terrible controversies which, starting with Peter and Paul, have come down to our day, and which will not end until Jesus shall take his place among the mythical saviors of the world.
To harmonize these many and different Jesuses into something like unity or consistency a thousand books have been written by the clergy. They have not succeeded. How can a Jesus represented at one time as the image of divine perfection, and at another as protesting against being called "good," for "none is good, save one, God,"—how can these two conceptions be reconciled except by a resort to artificial and arbitrary interpretations? If such insurmountable contradictions in the teachings and character of another would weaken our faith in his historicity, then we are justified in inferring that in all probability Jesus was only a name—the name of an imaginary stage hero, uttering the conflicting thoughts of his prompters.
Again, such phrases as, "and he was caught up in a cloud,"—describing the ascension and consequent disappearance of Jesus, betray the anxiety of the authors of the Gospels to bring their marvelous story to a close. Not knowing how to terminate the career of an imaginary Messiah, his creators invented the above method of dispatching him. "He was caught up in a cloud,"—but for that, the narrators would have been obliged to continue their story indefinitely.
In tragedy the play ends with the death of the hero, but if the biographers of Jesus had given a similar excuse for bringing their narrative to a finale, there would have been the danger of their being asked to point out his grave. "He was caught up in a cloud," relieved them of all responsibility to produce his remains if called upon to do so, and, at the same time, furnished them with an excuse to bring their story to a close.
It would hardly be necessary, were we all unbiased, to look for any further proofs of the mythical and fanciful nature of the Gospel narratives than this expedient to which the writers resorted. To questions, "Where is Jesus?"
"What became of his body?" etc., they could answer, "He was caught up in a cloud." But a career that ends in the clouds was never begun on the earth.
Let us imagine ourselves in Jerusalem in the year One, of the Christian era, when the apostles, as it is claimed, were proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah, crucified and risen. Desiring to be convinced before believing in the strange story, let us suppose the following conversation between the apostles and ourselves. We ask:
How long have you known Jesus?
I have known him for one year.
And I for two.
And I for three.
Has any of you known him for more than three years?
No.
Was he with his apostles for one year or for three?
For one.
No, for three.
You are not certain, then, how long Jesus was with his apostles.
No.
How old was Jesus when crucified?
About thirty-one.
No, about thirty-three.
No, he was much older, about fifty.
You cannot tell with any certainty, then, his age at the time of his death.
No.
You say he was tried and crucified in Jerusalem before your own eyes, can you remember the date of this great event?
We cannot.
Were you present when Jesus was taken down from the cross?
We were not.
You cannot tell, then, whether he was dead when taken down.
We have no personal knowledge.
Were you present when he was buried?
We were not, because we were in hiding for our lives.
You do not know, therefore, whether he was actually buried, or where he was buried.
We do not.
Were any of you present when Jesus came forth from the grave?
Not one of us was present,
Then, you were not with him when he was taken down from the cross; you were not with him when he was interred, and you were not present when he rose from the grave.
We were not.
When, therefore, you say, he was dead, buried and rose again, you are relying upon the testimony of others?
We are.
Will you mention the names of some of the witnesses who saw Jesus come forth from the tomb?
Mary Magdalene, and she is here and may be questioned.
Were you present, Mary, when the angels rolled away the stone, and when Jesus came forth from the dead?
No, when I reached the burying place early in the morning, the grave had already been vacated, and there was no one sleeping in it.
You saw him, then, as the apostles did, after he had risen?
Yes.
But you did not see anybody rise out of the grave.
I did not.
Are there any witnesses who saw the resurrection?
There are many who saw him after the resurrection.
But
