"And they kept it close," we are assured, "and told no man in those days any of those things which they had seen" (Luke ix. 36). The pseudo-Peter professes to have been an eye-witness of this "majestic" display, and yet warns us that the light of prophecy, that mysterious and uncertain glimmer presented as a vehicle of information, is a "more sure" testimony than what had passed before his own eyes. No actual witness

would thus invalidate his own evidence, and the conclusion must be that the whole tale is one of those "cunningly devised fables" from the imputation of circulating which the writer found it necessary to defend himself.

Jesus had to support his pretensions as a divine emissary with superhuman works. These are given in abundance, but in a manner to defeat their purpose. If Jesus might be viewed as one specially empowered from above, to take the lowest estimate of him, it is natural that Jews, with all the wonderments before them wrought by Moses, Elijah, and others, should have accepted these wonders from him as things of course. If he were of divine origin, or, as the scheme finally requires, on an equality with the Deity himself, these works fell within the compass of his habitual exercises of power, according to the apprehension of the day. But as each act is performed, pursuant to the manner of the narrative, the spectators are always filled with the utmost surprise. The testimony never advances; one miracle never leads to the expectation of the accomplishment of another miracle; the value of the worker never rises, in the estimation of those who behold him, beyond that of a mere man. When Jesus quells a storm, "What manner of man," they say, "is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?" (Matt. viii. 27). On his curing the palsied man, the multitude "marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men” (Matt. ix. 8). When the dumb spake, "the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel" (Matt. ix. 33). Even at the close of his career, when he blighted a fig-tree, his disciples "marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig-tree withered away," on which he had still to give them a lesson on the exercise of faith (Matt. xxi. 20, 21). "And they were all amazed," we hear, "insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, what thing is this? what new doctrine is

this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him" (Mark i. 27), On his restoring the maniac, and ejecting the devils that possessed him into the swine, "all men did marvel" (Mark v. 20). On his raising the ruler's daughter to life, "they were astonished with a great astonishment" (Mark v. 42). When he walked upon the waters of the sea, "they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered" (Mark vi. 5). When he cured a deaf man, they were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well" (Mark vii. 37). At the miraculous draught of fishes Simon Peter "was astonished, and all that were with him," fearing, as a sinful man, to remain in his presence (Luke v. 8, 9). When he cast an unclean spirit out of a child "they were all amazed at the mighty power of God," and "wondered every one at all things which Jesus did" (Luke ix. 43).

It is easy to discern the object with which all this sense of amazement is introduced. The writers have thought to magnify the works, and therewith the workman, not seeing that the continual manifestation of the amazement in all its freshness leaves us with a man always on the threshold of advancing pretensions, and ever failing to establish them. Then we come to just such rebutting evidence as we have had respecting the pretensions themselves, serving to show that these things were never done. Jesus has constantly to enjoin it on the spectators to say nothing about what they had seen. They were to "tell no man; to "see that no man know it;" he asked "that they should not make him known;" that they should "say nothing to any man" (Matt. viii. 4; ix. 30; xii. 16; Mark i. 44; v. 43; vii. 36; viii. 26). So far from offering such signs as warrants for accepting him, he declared that it was the stamp of "an evil and adulterous generation to look for them. "Verily," he stoutly said, "there shall no sign be given unto this generation" (Matt. xii. 38, 39; xvi. 4; Mark viii. 11). We are bound to conclude that no such signs were given. The writers, conscious that the enactment of such marvels would have spread far and wide, and filled the world with the renown of their hero, and that there really was no such renown to be appealed to, thus smother themselves with a fatal excuse. "A prophet," they tell us, "is not with

out honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house." That is, where he is intimately known, he is seen through and not believed in. He flourishes best when he is simply reported of in distant lands and remote times. And "there," it is added, in the heart of his own home, "he could do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them." He did, in fact, what he could, and that was but little. And "he marvelled," it is added with simplicity, "because of their unbelief” (Mark vi. 4-6). The naked truth at length comes out. did nothing worthy of notice, and was not believed in.

He

I have still to deal with another source of demonstration presented to sustain the idea that Jesus was something more than mere man. He is invested with the power of prophecy. At the date when these narratives were written it was easy to put into his mouth a prediction of the fall of Jerusalem, for the event had taken place; but the catastrophe is coupled with the day of judgment, and that has not even yet arrived. He could say there was such a day, but could not venture to declare when precisely it was to be. "Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father" (Mark xiii. 32). (Mark xiii. 32). There is an end of the essential divinity here, and even the divine sonship must be questioned. The writers, scheming the narrative, shrink from the test of dates, and thus escape the difficulty, but always at the expense of their hero. They, however, in the height of their enthusiasm, hazard the assertion from his lips that the awful day was near at hand. "Verily I say unto you," he is made to declare, "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away' (Matt. xxiv. 34, 35). In truth, the words have passed away, and heaven and earth happily remain.

Jesus is said to have been in the habit of prophetically announcing to his disciples that he was to be betrayed, killed, and on the third day rise again. He could even say

that his death was to be by crucifixion (Matt. xvi. 21; xvii. 22-23; xxvi. 2, 32). These predictions are avowedly reported after the events pointed to had come to pass. They have never therefore had currency as actually prophetically announced.

The disciples are said to have questioned among themselves “what the rising from the dead should mean” (Mark ix. 10). The resurrection was a doctrine accepted at this time among the Jews, and the disciples, as it is said, had seen Jesus restore the ruler's daughter to life (Mark v. 41, 42). Whence then this difficulty of apprehension, unless thrown in for effect? But we are able to judge there had been no such predictions. Joseph of Arimathea “rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed" (Matt. xxvii. 60), thinking, evidently, that it was all over with the prophet of Nazareth. The female followers brought spices to embalm him (Mark vi. 1), not looking upon the death as other than an ordinary one. When the disciples at Emmaus were met with, their hopes had sunk, the occurrence of the death having utterly overcome them. "And beside all this," they observe with simplicity, "to-day is the third day since these things were done" (Luke xxiv. 21). The very time of the alleged prognosticated deliverance had come, but they were not looking for it. And when the actuality was declared that Jesus was alive again, the disciples one and all absolutely refused to believe the fact. The reports "seemed to them as idle tales (Mark xvi. 11, 13; Luke xxiv. 11). The disciples never can have overlooked warnings of such stupendous consequence and interest, if really made; and when the events predicted each in succession came to pass, to the completion of the very time laid down for the resurrection, they must necessarily have readily accepted them.

Failing the thaumaturgical displays, we may consider how Jesus, as represented, may have acquitted himself within the legitimate sphere of human knowledge. He may not satisfy us of his capability of predicting the future, but surely he should have been competent to form a right judgment of what had already passed. We find him, however, accepting the legend of Noah and the flood, and the fables of Lot and Sodom, and Jonah and the whale. He has no qualms as to the identity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of Moses as the author of the Levitical legislation. When he uses the inspired writings of his people, he has recourse to the uninspired, untrustworthy, version of the septuagint. He venerates the temple as the "house of God," not discerning that

the existing building was without the title to be thus estimated, even according to what should have been true Jewish sentiment. It was not the divinely ordained building by Solomon; nor yet that resuscitated by Zorobabel. It owed all its propor

tions and sumptuous appointments to the iniquitous semipagan Herod, who could equally reconstruct the shrine of Apollo. He had crowned the great gate of the Jewish temple with a golden eagle (Josephus, Ant. xviii. 1, 2), under which the infant Jesus must have been borne when there presented. The Roman effigy, however, sustained his presence undisturbed, although Dagon was unable to maintain himself in that of the sacred ark. Jesus furthermore is found, in many respects, on the low level of the ignorant population around him. He believes in a personal devil, and had conflict with him. No human witness was present on the occasion, so that we must take the account as traceable to his own lips. He tells us exactly what was said on either side by the devil and himself, and how the devil poised him on a pinnacle of the temple, and removed him to the top of a mountain so "exceeding high" as to exhibit to him "all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them." The earth to him evidently was a mere disc, and of very circumscribed dimensions. The temptations offered him do not appear to us very serious in their character, but he was so shaken constitutionally after the encounter as to require special support. He thought, therefore, that angels had visited him to build him up. The devil with him is a great potentate, having a "kingdom" of his own, peopled with unclean spirits or subordinate devils, with whom he was constantly coming into contact. Ignorant of the true nature of physical disturbances of health, he attributed all maladies to these beings possessing and tormenting mankind, and conceived himself capable of casting them out. The narrators report to us the very words used by the devils on these occasions. The moon has an independent light of her own; the stars are diminutive objects capable of "falling" to earth; and the earth being a disc, he could "ascend" from a particular place upon it, and promise that he should come again, in like fashion, to descend upon it "in a cloud." It is an admissible excuse for the writers of these narratives to say that they depicted things according to the apprehension of