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ITS MORNING STAR.

I.

HE homage paid to Christ is a high poetic fact in human history. Even in the Legend of Christ,

with all its fables, there are not wanting indications of the profound faith of man in his own higher nature. The poor victim of his own animalism will fain believe that somewhere his nature rose above all that is low and vile. Standing amid physical laws which are as hard walls, the ignorant love to think that at his highest man has been able to master the laws. These are the ideals of ignorant ages which art, science, and culture can alone fulfil. Until nature is recognised as divine there must be a supernature; and no one will speak lightly of the myths of humanity, even when he may become old enough to regard them as childish things.

Priesthoods have gained power over the people through cunning use of their love for their greatest man. But of course no priesthood can rest upon a man, or on anything within the reach of every mind's comprehension; so they have made Christ into such a god as is adapted to their

purposes. The manhood of Christ, though it is the one thing about him in which all creeds agree, has so far receded before the Shape bearing his name and contrived in the interests of Christianity, that it is called infidelity to speak of Christ as a man. I have no belief that any man can really be interested in the genius or character of Christ so long as he is still under the impression that the Christian scheme embodies him.* That takes him out of the region of human interest, whatever interest of another kind it may enlist. It is one of the greatest privileges of freethinkers that they can study with that calmness which is essential to research, and which is impossible where other aims than to find the fact intervene, the lives of those great men who

As a rule I prefer the title "Christ," to that of "Jesus," for we cannot be certain that the latter, said to have been the name assigned by the angel, was really bestowed by his parents in childhood. The instinct of Catholic and Ritualist recognises "Jesu" as the more superstitious name. Even if "Jesus "were the original name, it seems to me less characteristic than the title which signs the verdict of the people on the man after his work was done. "Christ " is also a Gentile word, and better symbolises the effect of a life and teaching which broke down the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, and advanced so far the religion of humanity. Finally, the oriental custom by which nearly all great religious teachers became known in history by other than their family names, reflects in this instance especial honour on human nature to which it is entitled. Those who most distrust the people have never forgotten that they cried "Give us Barabbas instead of him," and we who think of the masses with hope must not forget that when and where the people could give their suffrage free of priestly demagoguism, they voted the same man their King, above all the Cæsars. For "Christ" represents no priestly but a royal title, which Jew and Gentile united to bestow on a poor man whose only claim to kingship was that he bore witness to the truth.

have been the objects of superstitious veneration. prejudice, no compulsory creed, no fear of the results of inquiry, can prevent our seeking and stating the simple truth.

Jesus, agree all the sects, was a man. They add that he was more-though what they append generally would make him less-than a man. We must pardon the speculation, since so few know what a man is. But it is just that we are all seeking to know, what a man really is; and nothing can better aid us than to learn from the great manifestations of our humanity in such men as Jesus. Let us then inquire what manner of man he really was.

II.

The only materials we have for our inquiry are those supplied by the Four Gospels, with now and then a hint from the Epistles of Paul. From these we must deduct all that can be shown to have been written for a theoretical purpose, or in the interest of any party, school, or sect.

Thus, we can get but little that is descriptive of the real Christ from such a work as that called "The Gospel according to John." In the first place it is a very late work, belonging to the latter part of the second century, if not later. Its scholastic style of Greek, its frequent ignorance of local usages and places, and neglect of notorious Jewish traditions concerning Christ—whose birth, baptism, and temptation are in it utterly ignoredindicate the passage of the legend into a new habitat. In the anxiety to present a superhuman being all earthly

aspects are eliminated. There are also traces in this Gospel of controversies which were unknown within four generations after Christ's death. Thus (John viii., 44) Christ is represented as saying of the Devil," he is a liar and so is his father." Though the English version has tried to cover the meaning by turning the sentence into bad grammar and worse sense (" a liar and the father of it ") the original is plain : ψεύστης ἐστὶ, καὶ ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ. Now this notion that the Devil had a father was one of the later phases of the Gnostic philosophy. The Demiurge, employed to create the world and then setting up a rival kingdom, was for the first time associated with the Devil, and suggested as his creator, by Marcion, who taught in Rome during the middle of the second century. In other sentences ascribed to Christ the Marcionite idea of an "antithesis"-the demiurgic confronting the divine kingdom-is reflected, but here it reaches the later Archonitic development, the Devil being named as the Son of the Evil Creator (as Christ is of the Good God). This conception, which Augustine denounces as Manichan, could only have been stated late in the second century.

But apart from the late date of the fourth gospel, the writer of it is so absorbed in his main theoretical purpose, -that of making Christ the point of union between the Hebrew personification of Wisdom and the Greek conception of the Logos,-that he does not hesitate to sacrifice everything, even the moral character of Christ, to his end. He represents Christ as attitudinising at the grave of Lazarus. "Jesus wept"; but could those have been

genuine tears of sorrow at the death of a man whom he knows he can resuscitate by a word? Then he raises his eyes and says "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me." And he adds, "I said that because of the people, that they may believe thou hast sent me; I know that thou hearest me always"-an "aside," confessing that his thanks were meant for effect. This is only a fair example of how Christ is uniformly adapted to a theory in the fourth gospel.

It is indeed enough that it entirely omits the Sermon on the Mount! The homely every-day virtues of that sermon were too human, too commonplace, to arrest the attention of a speculative enthusiast absorbed in the tremendous work of remodelling the theosophic schools of Egypt and Greece, harmonising their divisions, and solving the problems of ages. Nevertheless, in another direction, this gospel, however untrustworthy for personal portraiture of Christ, is of the highest importance by reason of the spirit of love which it consecrates. It is the very apotheosis of Love. God is Love. Christ is Love. To love is the only test, the only creed, the perfect life. So magnificent is this rapture of love that breathes through the gospel which, no doubt because of it, was inscribed with the name of the disciple called "Beloved," that the warring Jew and Gentile sects seem to have had to touch it here and there in the interest of what they deemed orthodoxy. Thus in the noble utterance ascribed to Christ, speaking to the Samaritan woman, that neither in her sacred mountain nor yet at Jerusalem should the true worshippers gather, but everywhere should they worship

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