Not Paul, But Jesus

SECTION 1.

RESURRECTION-WITNESSES MULTIPLIED

After what has been seen of the seven days' course of perjury, proofs of simple falsehood will be apt to appear superfluous. To make certainty more sure, two preeminent ones shall, however, be brought to view. They may have their use, were it only as examples of the palpableness, of those falsehoods, which, for so many hundreds of years, and through so many generations of commentators, are, under favourable circumstances, capable of remaining undetected. The extravagance of the addition, made by the audacious stranger, to the number of the Resurrection-witnesses, as given by themselves: – the predicted end of the world in the prophet's own lifetime, – and the creation of Antichrist for the purpose of putting off that catastrophe, – may even be not altogether unamusing, by the picture they will give, of that mixture of rashness and craftiness, which constitutes not the least remarkable, of the ingredients in the composition of this extraordinary character. Moreover, Antichrist being in the number of the bug-bears, by the images of which many an enfeebled mind has not yet ceased to be tormented; – putting an extinguisher upon this hobgoblin may have the serious good effect, of calming a mass of disquietude, which how completely soever groundless, is not the less afflicting, to the minds into which it has found entrance.

First, as to the resurrection-witnesses. In relation to a fact of such cardinal importance, the accounts which have reached us from the four biographers of Jesus are not, it must be confessed, altogether so clear as could have been wished. But, on so ample a subject, howsoever tempting the occasion, anything that could here be offered, with any promise of usefulness, would occupy far too much space, and be by much too wide a digression from the design of the present work.65

Sufficient to the present purpose will be the observation, that nothing can be more palpably or irreconcileably inconsistent with every one of them, than the amply and round number, thus added by the effrontery of this uninformed stranger, to the most ample that can be deduced from any of the accounts, thus stated as given by the only description of persons, whose situation would give to their testimony the character of the best evidence.

Behold now the account of the number and of the persons in Paul's own words. It is in the fifteenth chapter of the first of his two letters to his Corinthians. "Moreover, brethren," ver. 1, "I declare unto you the Gospel, the good news, which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand. – By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you unless ye have believed in vain. – For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures: – And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures: – And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: – After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. – After that he was seen of James, then of all the Apostles. – And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. – For I am the least of the Apostles, which am not meet to be called as Apostle, because I persecuted the church of God."66

As to the five hundred brethren at once, with the additions in petto, the more closely the Gospel accounts are looked into, the more entire will be a Man's conviction of the extravagance of this account. In addition to the eleven Apostles that remained after the death of the traitor Judas, it may be matter of question, whether so much as a single individual can be found, who, in any one of the Gospels, is stated as having, after the death of Jesus, received from the testimony of sense, the demonstration of his presence. Of the percipient witnesses in question, not to waste space and time in needless discussions, taking a round number, and including both sexes taken together, no number approaching to twenty can be made out from any one of the four Gospel accounts, nor from all of them taken together. To what end then substitute, to less than twenty, more than five hundred? To what, but to supply by falsehood the deficiency left by truth. The thing to be done was the coming up to the expectations, whatever they might be, of his Corinthians. Number twenty, – said he to himself, – may perhaps fall short: well then, strike out the twenty, and set down five hundred. Thus did the self-constituted Apostle take a leaf out of the book of the unjust steward. Luke 16:1-20.

Now then as to mutually contradictory numbers – that given by the four Evangelists, and that given by this one stranger, – to which shall we give credence? As to the Evangelists, – whether, in the situation in which they were, and writing for the purposes for which they wrote, – these most intimate of the associates of the departed Jesus, and percipient witnesses of the several facts in question, – all of them spoken of in the same narration, all of them so fully apprised of the whole real number – could have been disposed, any one of them, to get down a number short of the truth, – may be left to anyone to imagine.

But, according to Paul's calculation, the truth would not come up to his purpose: – to his particular purpose: a number, such as could not fail of doing so, was therefore to be substituted.

Five hundred was as easily written as twenty. Had Jerusalem, or any place in its neighbourhood, been the place, to which this letter of his was to be addressed, some caution might have been necessary. But Corinth – a place so remote from the scene of action – being the abode of the disciples, to whom this letter of his was addressed, – and the letters themselves, not destined to be seen by any other than devoted eyes, – Invention found herself at ease.

Meantime, while Jesus was thus magnified, Paul was not to be forgotten. Insufficient still would be the cloud of witnesses, unless himself were added to it. "Last of all," says he, 1 Cor. 15:8, "he," Jesus, "was seen of me also." Seen by him Paul? at what place? at what time? At the time of his conversion, when hearing a voice and seeing light, but nothing else? But the whole constellation of his visions will here be crowding to the reader's view, and any more particular reference to them would be useless: suffice it to observe, that on no other occasion, either does Paul himself, or his historiographer for him, take upon himself to say, that he had ever seen Jesus any otherwise than in a vision, whatsoever may have been meant by this so convenient term. On no occasion is it so much as pretended, either by him or for him, that in the flesh Jesus was ever seen by him. By no fingers of his murder-abetting hand, had ever been so much as pretended to have been probed, the wounds of Jesus. Yet, what are the terms employed, by him, in speaking of the sight, he pretended to have had of Jesus? exactly the same, as those employed by him, when speaking of the evidence, vouchsafed to the Apostles.

SECTION 2.

FALSE PROPHECY, – THAT THE WORLD WOULD END IN THE LIFETIME OF PERSONS THEN LIVING

The unsatiableness of Paul's ambition meets the eye at every page: the fertility of his invention is no less conspicuous. So long as, between this and the other world, the grave stood interposed, – the strongest impression capable of being made by pictures of futurity, even when drawn by so bold a hand, was not yet sufficient for stocking it with the power it grasped at. This barrier, at whatever hazard, he accordingly determined to remove. The future world being thus brought at both ends into immediate contact with the present, – the obedient, for whom the joys of heaven were provided, would behold the troubles of the middle passage saved to them, while the disobedient would see the jaws of hell opened for their reception, without any such halting-place, as might otherwise seem to be offered by the grave. In particular, by a nearer as well as smoother road than that rugged one, he would make his way to heaven: nor would they, whose obedience gave them a just claim to so high a favour, be left behind.

His Thessalonians were the disciples, chosen by him for the trial of this experiment. Addressed to them we have two of his Epistles. In these curious and instructive documents, the general purport – not only of what had been said to the persons in question on a former occasion, but likewise of the observation of which on their part it had been productive, – is rendered sufficiently manifest, by what we shall find him saying in the first of them. "Good," said they, "as to some of us, whoever they may be: but, how is it to be with the rest? in particular, with those who have actually died already: not to speak of those others who will have been dying off in the meantime: for you do not go so far as to promise, that we shall, all of us, be so sure of escaping death as you yourself are." "Make yourselves easy," we shall find him saying to them: "sooner or later, take my word for it, we shall, all of us, mount up together in a body: those who are dead, those who are to die, and those who are not to die – all of us at once, and by the same conveyance: up, in the air, and through the clouds, we shall go. The Lord will come down and meet us, and show us the way: – music, vocal and instrumental, will come with him, and a rare noise altogether there will be! Those who died first will have risen first; what little differences there may be are not worth thinking about. Comfort yourselves," concludes he, "with these words." Assuredly not easily could more comfortable ones have been found: – always supposing them followed by belief, as it appears they were. But it is time we should see more particularly what they were.

1 Thess. 4:10 to 18. – "And indeed ye do it," viz. love one another, ver. 9, "toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more; – And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; – That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing. – But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. – For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. – For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. – For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. – Then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. – Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Hereupon, without any intervening matter, follows that of the next chapter. The division into chapters, – though, for the purpose of reference, not merely a useful, but an altogether necessary one, – is universally acknowledged to have been a comparatively modern one.

1 Thess. 5:1-11. "But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. – For yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. – For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. —But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. – Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. – Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. – For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken, are drunken in the night. – But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. – For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. – Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. – Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do."

An ingenious game was the one thus played by Paul, if ever there was one. Of this prophecy,67 what when once mentioned, is plainly enough visible, is – this is of the number of those predictions, by which profit is put in for, and no loss risked: for such is the shape given to it. So long as the predictor lived, it would remain good and undisfulfilled: at the end of a certain time – namely, at the end of the life of the longest liver of the aggregate number of individuals in existence at that time, – the disfulfillment would indeed take place. But if, by that time, the predictor had made his exit, – as, in this case, being already of a certain age, it is tolerably certain he would, – the reproach of false prophecy would not have reached him: and, even, supposing it to have reached him, as it would do if he survived the last of them, still the speculation would not be a very bad one. His prophecy, his purposes would have been fulfilled.

Not altogether without claim to observation, is the manner, in which, by the adroitness of the soothsayer, the anxiety of questioners is evaded. That he himself does not know, nor ever expects to know, – that is what his prudence forbids his telling them. "The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night: " this is what, in answer to former importunities, he had at that time told them. "For you yourselves," says he, "know this perfectly;" that is, in so far as they could know from his telling: this being, in this instance, the only source, – of that delusion, to which he gave the name of knowledge. This he had told them then: and more, he takes care not to tell them now. "Of the times and seasons, brethren," says he, "ye have no need that I write unto you." Meantime, their hopes and fears, and therewith their dependence upon his good pleasure, are kept still alive: in the first place, the hope – that, knowing already more than he as yet desires to disclose, he may by ulterior obsequiousness be prevailed upon to disclose it: in the next place, the hope – that, though not as yet possessed of the information, he may at some future period be able to obtain it, and in that case give them the benefit of it.

To a speculation of this sort, – in how particular a degree favourable the mode of communication by letter was, is sufficiently visible. Writing, was an operation not quite so prompt, in those days as in these. Between Thessalonica and Athens, – from whence, as they tell us, these Epistles were written, – there was not, it may be affirmed without much danger of error, any established letter-post: and, even if there was, – to this or that question, which a man sees in a letter, he makes or does not make answer, as he finds convenient. Not exactly so, when the questioner is at his elbow.

SECTION 3.

DISORDER AND MISCHIEF PRODUCED BY THIS PREDICTION

We have seen the prophecy: let us now see the effects of it. They were such as might have been expected. They were such as had been expected: expected, as may have been observed, at a very early period. But there was rather more in them than had been expected.

Of the confusion, which, by an expectation of this sort, in a state of society, so much inferior, in the scale of moral conduct, to any, of which in this our age and country we have experience, was capable of being produced, – it can scarcely, at this time of day, be in any man's power, to frame to himself anything approaching to an adequate conception. So far as regards peaceable idleness, of the general nature of it, some faint conception may under modern manners be formed, from the accounts of the effects produced by a similar prediction, delivered first in France, then in England, about the time of Queen Anne: – so far as regards a mixture of idleness and positive mischief in a time of terror, under ancient manners, – from the accounts, given by Thucydides, of the effects produced at Athens, by the near approach of death, on the occasion of the plague; – and, from that given by Josephus, of the effects produced by the like cause, on the occasion of the siege, which, under his eye, terminated in the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.

According to each man's cast of mind, and the colour of the expectations that had been imbibed by it, – terror and self-mortification, or confidence and mischievous self-indulgence, would be the natural result: terror and self-mortification, if apprehensions grounded on the retrospect of past misconduct predominated – mischievous indulgence, if, by the alleged or supposed all-sufficiency of faith, – of faith, of which the preacher was the object – the importance of morality had, even in the imagination of the disciple, been thrown into the back-ground: confabulation without end, in the case of terror; cessation from work, in both cases.

Had he been somewhat less positive on the head of time, – the purposes of those announcements of his might have been completely, and without any deduction, fulfilled. The terror he infused could not be unfavourable to those purposes, so long as it made no deduction, from the value of the produce of their industry! It was his interest, that they should "walk honestly," lest they should be punished for walking otherwise: – punished, capitally or not capitally – and, in either case, bring his teaching into disgrace. It was his interest, that they should work, in such sort, as to earn each of them the expense of his maintenance; lest, by abstaining from work, they should, any one of them, impose a burthen upon the charity of the others, or be seen to walk dishonestly, to the prejudice of the common cause, as above. It was his interest, that they should, each of them, gain as much as could be gained without reproach or danger; because, the greater the surplus produced by each disciple, the greater the tribute, that could be paid to the spiritual master, under whose command they had put themselves. Thus far his interest and theirs were in agreement. But, it was his interest, that, while working to these ends, their minds, at the expense of whatever torment to themselves, should be kept in a state of constant ferment, between the passions of hope and fear; because, the stronger the influence of the two allied passions in their breasts, the more abundant would be the contributions, of which, to the extent of each man's ability, they might reasonably be expected to be productive. Here it was, that his interest acted in a direction opposite to theirs: and it was by too ardent a pursuit of this his separate interest, that so much injury, as we shall see, was done to all those other interests.

Of the disease which we shall see described, the description, such as it is, is presented, by the matter furnished by the practitioner himself, by whose prescription the disease was produced. This matter we must be content to take, in that state of disorder, which constitutes one of the most striking features of the issue of his brain. In speaking of the symptoms, – addressed as his discourse is to nobody but the patients themselves by whom these symptoms had been experienced, – only in the way of allusion, and thence in very general terms, could they naturally have been, as they will actually be seen to be, presented to view. As to details, – from them to him, not from him to them, was, it will readily be acknowledged, the only natural course.