Introductory Essay on the Life of Jesus Christ Considered as an Appeal to the Imagination

The fact that Christian doctrines have on the one hand been considered too sacred for purely intellectual analysis, and on the other have been confined to the excited sphere of polemical divinity, has almost entirely concealed the argument which is involved in the ideal completeness of Christianity when strictly regarded as an appeal to the imagination. If in this attempt partially to develop that argument, the foregone conclusions of the dogmatic theologian are overlooked, it is through no defect of reverence for settled Christian conviction; and if we assume the attitude of students of what (for want of a better term) may be described as the artistic side of Christianity, it is through no desire to determine the scope of Divine inspiration by the uncertain and debateable canons of human criticism. To dismiss from recollection every remembrance of theological doctrine and every trace of theological bias is almost essential to a just appreciation of the artistic argument. We put no inquiry as to the historic credibility of the New Testament writers; we do not discuss any questions in grammar or exegesis; we know nothing of commentators or schools of interpretation; we hardly care,

IB in fact, in the first instance, to make any inquiry into the moral import of New Testament teaching: our business is simply to ascertain how far the reported life of Jesus Christ is consistent with itself; is there any law of harmony between the parts; is the progress of the narrative merely a high monotony, or is there in it an ascending motion carrying each point to higher significance, and covering the whole with accumulating glory? As a work of fiction, is the written life of Jesus Christ ideally complete? Is there anything so peculiar in its ideal completeness as to destroy the theory that it is a work of fiction? This is the one line along which it is proposed to carry an inquiry, and if again and again the reader be reminded of this fact it will be to save him from wandering into collateral questions which would distract attention from the main issue.

The miraculous conception of Jesus Christ at once addresses the boldest challenge to the imagination, and determines the unique and perilous line of artistic judgment. How can such a beginning have a corresponding progress and an appropriate culmination? Under the ancient economy God had elected his ministers in a manner which was directly inverted in the birth of Jesus Christ; in the ministers of the Old Testament God had sought to call up the human to the Divine, but in the Minister of the New Testament God brought down the Divine to the human. Viewing the Old Testament dispensation as an elaborate attempt to train a Man who should so far overcome all natural and incidental difficulties as to exert upon society the influence of a life absolutely perfect in its purity and aspirations, we are driven to the conclusion that the attempt, though conducted by the mysterious power of the Holy Ghost, was partially unsuccessful; in Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and David, it is not difficult to find the blemish which proves this, and in proving it suggests the impossibility of training an ideally perfect ministry. In reading the Old Testament we cannot escape a sense of gloomy and humiliating disappointment with the defective quality of its foremost men. They have great excellencies, and they have also great blemishes; they have excellencies, and yet are not excellent; their character can be spoken of in sides and aspects, not in its unity and indivisible massiveness; only momentarily do they get away from the common herd of men, and afterwards they are the weaker for their transient elevation. The prophet and the minstrel often descend from their ecstacy, and resume the ordinary associations of life; the warrior never quite advances to victory; and the sufferer always falls a little short of the perfection of patience. Under these circumstances the promise of a New Testament jdoes not altogether allay the anxiety of hope so long deferred, and so vexed and mortified. Through forty centuries God has failed to train “a man;” He “looked and there was no man;” He bade His messengers run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem and seek in the broad places thereof if they could find “a man;” He sought for a man that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before Him, but He found none; He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; how, then, will He proceed? Let imagination pause awhile at the last of the prophets, and attempt the task of outlining a Testament that shall be New; New and yet related to the Old; that shall be faithful to the great purpose of the former dispensation, yet bring to bear upon it an order of instrumentality that shall neither make a machine of man, nor convict God of capricious changeableness in His methods of working. A great task will thus fall to the lot of imagination; let us see what it is: imagination has

b 2 before it, in the Old Testament, a written account of the creation of man, the giving of law, the establishment of family life, the appointment of ritual, worship, and service, and the history of mankind for thousands of years; on the other hand, the world is disquieted and tormented exceedingly, every method of alleviation seems to have been exhausted, and every new proposition is treated with angry or sorrowful distrust. It is now required of Imagination to propose a Testament that shall be New. Abandoning the task as intellectually hopeless, Imagination may justly be allowed to encounter with the severest criticism any suggestion that may be offered as a solution of the difficulty. Now, it must be admitted that the writers of the New Testament do instantly address themselves to the one point which the Old Testament failed to reach; with most startling abruptness they invert the ancient method, so that instead of man being made by God, God Himself becomes man — a virgin is found with child of the Holy Ghost, and for “thus saith the Lord” we have thus is the Lord! True or not true, is not the immediate question; here is progress; the first page of the New Testament presents a more wonderful revelation than all the pages of the Old, and that is at least an encouragement to inquire whether God has not thus answered the inarticulate, yet not the less urgent and painful, desire of the world. The whole Christian argument must stand or fall with the Incarnation, and so must the collateral argument which is now being attempted. If the account of Jesus Christ’s birth is fabulous, Jesus Christ’s life must, in all its higher bearings, be fabulous too; if Jesus Christ could have been what He was without miraculous conception, then the Old Testament method of training men was an elaborate mockery, because their life might have been made as pure as His: if, on the other hand, the account of Jesus Christ’s birth is true, there can be no lack of illustrative and confirmatory evidence in the life and doctrine detailed in the New Testament. A miraculous birth cannot be followed by a common-place life, yet there must be in that life, if its mission be to recover and sanctify the world, such simplicity and approachableness as shall secure for it a position in ordinary society; it must proceed to its loftiest acts with the stoop of condescension, and do its lowliest work with original and inimitable dignity. With a test so unique the least flaw in homogeneousness must be instantly detected.

Beginning with Jesus Christ’s outward course, the artistic student will press the inquiry: does the manner of life correspond in tone and quality with the assumed Fatherhood of the agent? There is sufficient material in the Gospels to justify the formation of an opinion; reports of wonderful works, methods of meeting difficulties ordinary and extraordinary; intercourse with most different classes of persons; how, then, did One professedly of Divine generation conduct Himself in the discharge of duty? Starting upon the basis of the Incarnation, the artistic student will put in two conditions, the fulfilment of which he must regard as essential to the ideal completeness of Jesus Christ’s claim. In the first place, he will demand in an agent of professedly Divine descent, such redundance of power as shall carry him through all his engagements with the most perfect ease, he must never go up to his work as if it lay above him, but continually descend upon it as if his most marvellous achievement were rather a relaxation than an effort of his strength. If in any case there be a strain upon the power, the laboriousness of the attempt must tell against his claim; if in any case there be the slightest possible failure of power, the aspirant must be convicted of the most shameful wickedness. We must never meet with almost a miracle; we must not be satisfied with comparative superiority of power; we must have omnipotence, anything short of the Almightiness of God will be unpardonable sin. In what direction, then, does the evidence point? There are four witnesses, in what proportion do they approach unanimity? There are blind, deaf, lame, leprous and lunatic sufferers claiming Jesus Christ’s attention; He is brought to the sick, the dying, and the dead; He is asked to appease hunger, to expel devils, to silence storms; and the artistic critic demands that He do all these things with infinite ease, with inexhaustible wealth and exuberance of power. The New Testament says that Jesus Christ did so. Can a single instance be pointed out in which Jesus Christ’s power to work miracles ever showed the faintest sign of exhaustion? The disciples failed, and they confessed the failure; when did the Master fail? The artistic student must insist that the ease which marks the first chapter of Genesis mark also the whole course of Jesus Christ; there must be creativeness in His fiat if He be Emmanuel, — God with us. The attribute of power must be swallowed up in His essential Almightiness; He must be more than powerful, He must be power. The universe in all its compass and wonderfulness must lie in the hollow of His hand, and be as perfectly under His control as it is dependent on His sufficiency; He must not avail Himself of any calculus of probability; the law of distance, weight, force, adaption, must be in Him as an element of His sovereignty; His word must carry with it creation and destruction; He must Jill all things. An occasional exercise of power, however startling and however beneficent, would rather excite suspicion than work conviction; great efforts are often unintended signs of weakness, securing momentary applause for the discipline which they imply, but also eliciting pity for the exhaustion which they leave behind; a life of great efforts is a life of great failures.

The difficulty of the most honest and patient discipline is to keep a steady hold of its highest points, and so to become permanently equal to its tasks and aspirations. The most resolute disciplinarian can instantly point out the line of his ability; within that line he is mighty, beyond it he is powerless. In Jesus Christ, the artistic student must insist on finding something higher than discipline; there must not, in fact, be any sign of training or preparation in His work; His power must be native, instant, immeasurable. He must, too, stand clearly out, having, so to speak, nothing with Him but His life, and with that He must rule the universe as with the Almightiness of God. The source of His power must not only be secret, it must necessarily confound every attempt to discover it, and its effects must be so thorough and so numerous as to force astonishment to the point of distraction, and to drive men to intellectual despair where they are not won to spiritual homage. Clearly so, because where the intelligence of the observer is equal to the execution of the worker, the disparity may be accounted for on those natural principles which are everywhere illustrated in the distribution of human gifts. In the case of Jesus Christ there must not be any measurable relation between the intelligence of His critics and the capacity of His own power; His critics must confess their inability to discover the secret of His might; and His power must come before them so often and so gloriously as to extort from them either exclamations of bewilderment or expressions of reverent and thankful joy. What of the life of Jesus Christ, in the light of these principles? The people “were astonished and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom and these mighty works?” “Whence then hath this man all these things?” “No man can do those miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.” “They were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.” “They were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered.” “The multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel.” Now, the artistic student has nothing to do with the theologic import of these passages; his one business is to determine how far they are such expressions as harmonise with the supposed descent of the worker who elicited them: are they the common expressions of vulgar amazement, or do they carry with them the wonder and pathos of the heart? From the public opinion which was formed upon Jesus Christ’s work, as well as from his own estimate of it, we may infer whether it was worked by the opulence and quietness of power which may be supposed to distinguish the processes of omnipotence. What can have been the richness of the power, which led one poor suffering woman to utter the greatest saying about it that probably was ever uttered: If I may but touch the hem of his garment I should be made whole! The artistic student will put peculiar value upon this testimony, because it condenses into one pathetic sentence a great body of public opinion; if it be merely a stroke of inventive genius, it is a stroke of consummate power; if it be historically true it is conclusive evidence that Jesus Christ had produced in the public mind of His day an impression that His power was at once beneficent and boundless. There is, too, in connection with this incident a feature which the artist will appreciate as showing that the power was not lawlessly expended; instantly that the woman was healed Jesus Christ exclaimed that virtue had gone out of Him, and demanded to know who had touched Him, — though thronged by the press, one hand had touched the fountain of His life, and His communication of power gave Him the

right of inquiry and judgment. There is nothing, then, in the written life of Jesus Christ to shew that in any instance His power was unequal to the occasion; on the contrary, the whole evidence maintains, alike by direct statement and incidental illustration, perfect consistency between the supposed birth of the agent and the Divine ease with which He met every claim upon His power.

In the second place, the artistic student will demand that in no case shall the exercise of Jesus Christ’s ability, how useful or splendid soever the result, be accompanied with any sign of astonishment on the part of the worker. Whilst astonishing the world, He alone must be free from astonishment. All unexpected successes, like all great efforts, betray the weakness of the workers as well as show their strength, and on this account every discovery in civilisation is quite as certainly a lamp hung over human ignorance as it is a contribution to the brilliance of human wisdom. The artistic student will proceed upon the principle that as omnipotence can never put itself into doubtful competition with a difficulty, so God can never be surprised at the results of His own work. Surprise comes of ignorance, and elation of weakness. Yet, looking at the written life of Jesus Christ, the absence of astonishment is most marked, and not a trace of vain self-satisfaction has been left on the whole of the narrative. Amazement is not forbidden to common workers; it may, indeed, be advantageous to them, as well as to those in whose interest they work, for wonder should stimulate to progress, and every opening door be regarded as an invitation to profounder study. There is no monotony in the highest intellectual life, for even where youthful passion subsides it is only to be succeeded if by a more placid yet by a more exquisite enjoyment; the young worker may be unable to suppress his Eureka, but the silence of the maturer thinker is not to be mistaken for insensibility. Can men receive Divine revelations of the depth and beauty of truth without emotion? Or can they put into common words the Divine addresses which they have received, in the secrecy of their own souls, without being startled by every tone that successfully reproduces the mystic music which divides the realm of speech from the realm of silence? Articulation is the difficulty of the highest thought. What, if successful articulation should occasionally betray surprise and joy on the part of the speaker? Nothing will be more natural or more rationally explicable. We account him the strong man who can suppress his emotions while prosecuting his work, and so highly is this suppression valued, that not seldom is the dignity of noble self-control counterfeited by the unhealthy and demoralising conceit of indifference in the presence of the most exciting events. Let it be assumed, however, that strength brings quietness, and that conscious power holds surprise in check, we have to account for the fact that an unlettered man healed the lame, the blind, the deaf, the leprous, and all manner of diseased people, that He quelled the tempests, expelled devils, and raised the dead, and never discovered any symptoms of surprise, was never startled by unexpected results, or by successes which filled society with the most bewildering amazement. This self-control is not found along one special line of discipline, but is common to the whole course of Jesus Christ’s ministry; the worker is never excited; the worker is always greater than His work; He works as though power were the least of His characteristics, and were only put forward as an introduction to a higher blessing. The artistic student will find that his demand for the entire absence of surprise is thoroughly satisfied by the written life of Jesus Christ, and in noting the completeness of the evidence he will not overlook an incidental but most vivid illustration of Christ’s estimate of surprise in others; on one occasion the disciples told Him with wondering joy that even the devils were subject to them through His name, and He answered that they were not to rejoice in such events, but rather to rejoice because their names were

written in heaven, — personal Tightness being better than functional success. Another aspect of the same teaching is shown in an instance of surprise at their failure: they had tried to expel a devil, and their word was powerless; Jesus Christ expelled the tormentor, and told the disciples privately the spiritual conditions by which alone success was possible in such cases. So that he had to deal with the operation of surprise, and to save His disciples from the effects of elation and disappointment by drawing them into deeper appreciation of purely spiritual privilege and discipline.

But how to humanise such a life, how to make it approachable, how to adapt it to ordinary society? Up to this point, the artistic student has been working on the supposed Divine side of Jesus Christ’s life; but Jesus Christ was the Son of Mary as well as the Son of God, and therefore, for His course to be artistically complete, He must supply conditions in many respects almost irreconcileable with the claim of divinity. If He has entered into the flesh that He may be visibly nearer men, and more sensibly accessible to them, he must so conceal His divinity as not to alarm them by unearthliness, and so display it as to secure their confidence and homage, He must answer the question, can God in very deed dwell with men upon the earth? To be God and man, so distinctly that each can be felt, so unitedly that no division line can be seen, is the intricate part which He has to play. This is surely a great problem in art, and there is scope enough for failure; one slip will dispossess Him of His crown, one false accent will prove Him the most daring of empirics. He must be with and yet not of them; on the earth and yet in heaven; familiar with men, yet separate from sinners; He must enlighten the world, and yet be as a sun that is far off: how to simplify the infinite — how to stoop from heaven!

The artistic student will notice that Jesus Christ lived much in public, and so gave opportunity enough for general criticism. There is no evidence in the narrative that He was ever indisposed on the ground of fear to meet any section of society; He conversed with equal freedom with the well-taught and the ignorant, and His social life was even too liberal for the narrow notions of conventional purists. His was not a monastic life; He went to be guest with men that were sinners; He sat at the tables of men whose hospitality was intended as a temptation; He went to the marriage-feast, and to the house of mourning; He loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus; He took little children in His arms and blessed them; and spoke hopefully to women who had lost the standing of sisterhood. And in what manner did He do all this? Was there in his manner any originality of movement, any savour of heavenliness, any omnipotence of simplicity? The artistic student will look everywhere for the Divine signature; the minutest things must bear the Divine initials, and the greatest the incommunicable name. When God descended into the bush, He filled it with undestroying fire, — when He walks along the common highways of life will it be with insufferable brightness? In ordinary life there is seldom any difficulty in distinguishing the quality of the actor, even in the simplest actions; a tone will tell the education of the speaker, a courtesy will discover his status. Are there not two ways of accosting a poor man? There is a way which tells him he is a man, there is also a way which only tells him that he is poor. Are there not two ways of giving an alms? There is a way that doubles the gift, there is also a way that makes it a burden. Nor can the quality of the actor be altogether concealed by external accidents; under the richest surface it is not difficult to see the native meanness of some souls, whilst through the poorest raiments there may shine transfiguring light. Little natures reserve themselves for great occasions, majestic natures make all occasions great. There are codified lives that can move only as the book permits, there are controlling lives that hold prescription in contempt. The artistic student will carry the remembrance of this fact into his examination of Jesus Christ’s life, and give to Jesus Christ the advantage which would be justly conceded even to an unknown name. When Jesus Christ sat down to meat with the leading men of the times, did He ever fail to turn the conversation towards heaven? When an ardent admirer exclaimed, “Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked,” did He not instantly answer, “Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it “? When called upon to define neighbourliness, did He fear to exalt the despised Samaritan above the priest and the Levite? When the disciples would have turned away the aspiring mothers who brought their children to be blessed, did He not receive the little ones with condescending grace, and say, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven “? Did He fear to put a higher value on the mites of the widow than on the gold of the rich? The artistic student will carefully weigh the answers which may be given to these questions, and will be as critical as to the method in which the work of Jesus Christ was done, as to the quality of the work itself. And this, too, he must not fail to notice, viz., that whilst Jesus Christ was much in public, He was also much in secret, He withdrew to solitary places, and was accustomed to be alone in prayer. These withdrawments must have some meaning, they throw an air of solemnity over the narrative, and almost constrain criticism into worship. What if in some instances they imply weakness, and even exhaustion, on the part of the worker? This is precisely what the artistic student wanted to complete the argument upon the all-sufficiency and redundance of Jesus

Christ’s power, for nowhere along the line of that power did he come to any assurance of Jesus Christ’s manhood, it steadily ascended, rather, towards the terribleness of omnipotence! What was wanted was a pause, a break of weakness, perhaps a cry of exhaustion. An unwearying flesh could hardly have prepared us for a compassionate divinity; it required the imperfection of infirmity to complete the perfection of strength: — “Great is the mystery of godliness.” Yet the artistic inquirer will watch tremblingly lest there be any decay of power on the supposed Divine side: he will read that Jesus was weary with His journey, and yet at the same time that Jesus offered to give the water which springeth up into everlasting life; he will find that Jesus felt the desire of hunger, and yet that His word withered the fruitless fig-tree; he will see Jesus Christ asleep in the ship, tired with long service, and quickly hear Him silencing the winds and the waves; he will find that Jesus wept, and while the tears were yet in His eyes, He commanded Lazarus to come forth. The artist must say whether in this dual manifestation, there is any such consistency as is required to support the theory that Jesus Christ was begotten of the Holy Ghost, and he must assign some value to the fact that in no instance did Jesus Christ employ what may be termed the purely Divine side of His power to save Himself from the infirmities incident to ordinary human life; He wrought no private miracle for merely selfish protection, but was in all points tempted as other men; in short, He never made any deceptive use of His omnipotence, He was not a man by mere pretence, professedly weak and suffering, yet secretly availing Himself of sources inaccessible to His deluded disciples. And the consideration of this circumstance is the more important because all the signs of destitution which marked the life of Jesus Christ were precisely such as common reason would pronounce incompatible with the claim of a Divine ministry; they provoked contempt, they enfeebled and actually contradicted the very aims which Jesus Christ was so desirous to subserve. Then, how to find consistency in such manifest inconsistency? The artistic student will pause to ask whether it is not through apparent contradictions that the verity of truth is most strongly established? Falsehood descends from verity to contradiction; truth ascends from contradiction to verity: the child smiles at the idea, that motion that can be so rapid as to become rest, — the man knows that but for this fact the universe would stagger and perish. What if Jesus Christ has shown that to be most a man it was necessary to be hardly a man at all, — that is, to go down to the lowest possible point and to be without form or comeliness or reputation?

Passing from the works of Jesus Christ, the artist has next to consider whether the scope and tone of His teaching (regarded as a spiritual revelation and an ethical testimony) are in keeping with the theory of His miraculous conception. The student must insist that Jesus Christ’s teaching has properties which contradistinguish it even from the inspired teaching of Moses, the psalmists, and the prophets; and here arises the exciting question: How can inspiration exceed itself? This inquiry is met by the bold answer that in the development of Divine truth, we have been conducted from inspiration to the Inspirer, a teacher whose words are rather a living Presence than a written testimony. The artistic student must bear in mind that this supposed Son of God cannot be allowed to contradict Moses, the psalmists, and the prophets; he must work strictly in their line, and undertake to carry their work forward to the point of culmination; he cannot be permitted to begin by ignoring the moral history of the world; he must accept it, and prove his authority not by disputation but by fulfilment. To deny, or under-rate, the claim of Moses and the prophets, would be to bring Divine inspiration into discredit; on the other hand, to give them a higher signification, and actually to displace them as the fruit displaces the blossom, is the most difficult, as it is the most ambitious, work which any man can propose to accomplish. Now, candour requires instant recognition of the fact, that in the narrative Jesus Christ addresses Himself to this apparently impossible task, and this dauntless courage must not be overlooked in considering the validity of His title to the Messiahship. In the meantime it is not necessary to do more than to bear it in mind, because mere intrepidity, considered strictly in se, may amount to nothing, — yet the absence of intrepidity would properly destroy any claim to divinity: necessarily so, for God cannot hesitate, omnipotence cannot falter. That Jesus Christ accepts the history of the Divine government of men, as expounded or administered by inspired agents, is clear from His own words: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets, I am not come to destroy but to fulfil.” At this point, the intrepidity of Jesus Christ assumes peculiar value because He defines its function, and that function is sublime alike in its difficulty and purpose. He admits nothing of failure in preceding dispensations; He does not depreciate the work of others that He may magnify His own; He undertakes to deal with the necessary incompleteness of introductory economies, and to complete the circumference of Divine revelation to men. The artistic student cannot fail to observe that Jesus Christ proceeds on the theory that God’s government is one, always consistent with itself, constantly evolving homogeneous and progressive truths. If it be held that teachers are reliable in proportion to the compass and grasp of their minds, it cannot be denied that Jesus Christ is represented in the narrative of His ministry as dealing with doctrines which relate with equal boldness and precision to the growth and destiny of human nature. Instead of denying the beginning He founded a distinct claim upon it, — “Had ye believed Moses ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me; but if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” A great plea for the oneness and simplicity of God’s government.

As in the case of the works, so in the case of the words; there are two conditions which the artistic student must require to be fulfilled: (i.) An unequivocal claim on the part of Jesus Christ to be the Inspirer, and (2.) A corresponding excitement on the part of those to whom the claim was addressed. Let us attend to each of these conditions. With regard to the first, we cannot but be struck with the persistent identification of His own personality with the doctrine which He taught: He said not I teach the truth, but I am the truth; not I show the life, but I am the life — I am not inspired, I am the Inspirer Himself! The inspired man is the exceptional man; of the inspired man it may be said not so much he knows as he is, for inspiration increases and sanctifies the volume of being. Most men stop at education, they cannot attain the higher point; they have property, but not life; they are an accumulation of details; they know much, but are nothing. In the case of Jesus Christ we find Him constantly working from His personality, thus: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life; I am the bread of life, he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst; he that believeth on me hath everlasting life; I am the bread of life; I am the living bread which came down from heaven; I am the vine, ye are the branches; without me ye can do nothing; I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me; I am the good shepherd; I am the door; I give unto my sheep eternal life; he that seeth me, seeth him that sent me; he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; I and my Father are one.” Here is distinctively a new type of man; to have conceived the notion that truth was capable of embodiment, and that life was the consummation of law, was a great advance upon all former thinking, while to set Himself forth as that embodiment and that law was an assumption not to be justified but by the highest evidence. Yet the accord between such an assumption and such a birth is at once appreciable; if never man spake like this man, it was because never man was born like this man. The deliberate exposition of His personality was sustained in the completest manner by His instantaneous answers to all kinds of questions suddenly and carefully put; attempts were made to take Him unawares, to entangle Him in His speech, and to draw Him on to dangerous ground, yet He confounded the wise and took the crafty in their own craftiness; He never asked for time; He never complained of inequality; He was never betrayed into unguarded expressions — all this is on the record, and with that fact our immediate business begins and ends. And is not this instantaneousness what might have been expected from one who professed that in Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily? Is there not a complementary accord between the statement that there was virtue even in the hem of His garment, and the fact that His most unpremeditated speech put to silence the most astute cavillers? Unquestionably we are met, in the terms of the first proposed condition, with the most unequivocal demand on the part of Jesus Christ to be considered the Inspirer; what, then, of the second condition, viz., a corresponding excitement on the part of those to whom the demand was addressed? In answering this question, it should be borne in mind, that the people who heard Jesus Christ had enjoyed the advantage of long training, ancestral and personal, in

Divine things, and were by so much qualified to form an opinion upon ordinary religious teaching: “Unto them were committed the oracles of God ... to them pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;” to them had been addressed the question: “What nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments, so righteous as all this law?”. Upon such a people it will be difficult, with commonplace sentiment and utterance, to make a deep impression; yet, according to the narrative, Jesus Christ roused their deepest emotions: “The people were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority, and they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, what thing is this? what new doctrine is this? — and all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; they were astonished, and said, whence hath this man this wisdom and these mighty works? — they were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with power.” On the other hand, He provoked contemptuous criticism; He came from a proscribed place; He adopted the most lowly surroundings; He drew upon Himself the murderous hatred of so-called righteous men; in His case the law of analogy and sequence was upset; the ascertainable elements of His personality did not account for the sum total of His being; so there He stood, at once a plague and a blessing, — a stranger, a friend, a mystery, — a monster or a God! The artistic student has to consider whether such results are ideally complete; whether the Inspirer could have hesitated to make a positive standing ground for Himself; whether the Inspirer could have taken any but the foremost position; and whether the rejection of the Inspirer does not bring to a crisis the sin and madness of the world.

A difficulty may present itself to the artistic mind at this point. A man who claims to have been begotten by the Holy Ghost may be expected to be so transcendental in his teaching as to disqualify himself for being a factor in practical morals; his stand-point will be so distant and so unappreciable that even the strongest reasoners will be unable to follow him; his teaching will be so apocalyptic and celestial as quite to miss the earthward and disciplinary side of human life. In reference to this difficulty the student may probably remember how nearly impossible it has been for some of the highest mortal minds to simplify themselves so as to be understood even by average thinkers; those minds have almost originated planes of their own, and the universal language has been minted into new values by the unique uses to which it has been turned. This, however, will but remotely touch the difficulty in hand, because Jesus Christ’s pretensions exclude Him from the class of so-called original thinkers; such is the professedly benevolent purpose of His mission that we must insist that out of the heavens of divinity must be shed the light which may keep men from stumbling. In a word, there must be the approachableness on the side of His wisdom which was happily discovered on the side of His power. Of the existence of such approachableness there are two sources of proof; there is, first of all, the direct ethical teaching of Jesus Christ, — notably the sermon on the mount, abounding in laws and maxims which the most ordinary perception can comprehend; and secondly, there is a most considerate reticence on the part of Jesus Christ, shown in such passages as: “He spake the word unto them as they were able to hear it, — I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Was it the least of His mercies that He carried the burden of truth for His Church? His followers were eventually to bear it for themselves, yet it was to be so gradually and effectually wrought into their very being by the Holy Ghost that instead of being a burden it was to be their peace and joy. So we come upon a power, boundless and terrible, yet controlled and repressed; a power, in fact, that becomes the very perfection of gentleness; and we come upon a doctrine that reaches beyond the ken of all human sagacity and genius, and yet descends into common daily life, calling all men to a morality lustrous as the purity of God. In doing and teaching all this, there is on the part of Jesus Christ a most sweet harmony of power and wisdom and love: what He could have done, what He could have said, and yet as God, Almighty and All-good, so adapted the light to the eye and the eye to the light as to bless men with the golden gifts of day and summer, so this worker of miracles and setter forth of strange doctrines tempered His majesty by an unspeakable condescension.

As the narrative of Jesus Christ’s life moves towards its more tragic scenes, the artistic student feels at a loss to anticipate an exit which will be in keeping with the advent. For a time the line of consistency, if not broken, is most darkly obscured. The mighty man is bound as a prisoner; the Inspirer is dumb; He who saved others does not save Himself; He who never paused for an answer allows His life to be sworn away by false witnesses. Here (unless there be a purpose to serve which men never conceived) the line of consistency is at an end, and Christianity perishes in an ignominious anti-climax. To the artistic student who has taken a deep interest in his work, this is a moment of almost intolerable excitement. In his distress he may forget the saying, “Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die,” — a law which should give all men the true view of life and all its labour. With a most courageous determination the Christian narrative proceeds to illustrate this law, by carrying forward the story to the highest point of triumph — bringing back Jesus Christ from the dead, holding “all power in heaven and on earth.” Still there remains the question, how is He to leave the world into which he came so mysteriously? And to this question there is returned the quiet but most exciting answer, He ascended! Not in a chariot of fire as if He had been sent for, He went of His own will and by His own power, and the consenting heavens received Him out of sight. This, then, concludes the appeal which is made to the imagination, and the artistic student has to pronounce upon its consistency and completeness: — Has the high tone of the beginning been sustained? Is the Ascension worthy of the Conception? Are the works and words of the same quality as the extreme points of the history? Are the small particles of the story gold or dross? These are questions which the artist will have no wish to escape.

To all this there is, of course, an obvious objection; it may be contended that as all writers of fiction endeavour to secure artistic unity, so the writers of the Gospels may have succeeded in inventing a coherent romance. The objection is quite as pointless as it is obvious.

First: No dramatist, in fact no mythologist, ever attempted to work with such extraordinary conditions as are found in the life of Jesus Christ.

Second: The Christian narrative is singularly defective in the very kind of unity which mere artists regard as essential to completeness — so defective that many critics have not hesitated to say that they have discovered in it several discrepancies. In the construction of the Gospels there is no sign of artistic effort, the unity is spiritual and latent, not literal and demonstrative.

Third: The most conclusive answer is, that the moral purpose proposed to be accomplished by the Gospels makes it impossible that they can be mere inventions of dramatic genius. That moral purpose is to save men, to bring them to God, and to give them peace; the inconsistency of such a purpose with the representation of a dramatic personage as a living Saviour is so gross as to be not only an offence in letters but a crime in morality.

A HOMILETIC ANALYSIS

OF