When we were younger, this sort of talk seemed to our simplicity to be exceedingly imposing. We actually believed that there were a set of people, in Germany, at least, who could look at a Hebrew chapter and tell you who wrote it, when he wrote it, how he wrote it, and why; and the who, when, how, and why, should be each different from those mentioned by the author of the book himself. As years removed the credulous simplicity of childhood, we found out that this was only a trick of the trade. We discovered that no two of these doctors agreed among themselves, that the line of argument they followed would disprove the authorship of any page ever written, that decisions from difference of style, wise as they might be, philologically, were, rationally and logically, nonsensical; for Burns, no doubt, wrote his letters as well as his poems, and Shakspeare's 'Sonnets' were written by the hand that wrote 'King Lear,' although, according to these wise doctors, it is assumed to be utterly impossible that the same man can use two styles, or that a man at seventy will write otherwise than he did at thirty. In short, we discovered that there is nothing more arbitrary, more opinionated, and more unphilosophical than this 'philological criticism.' Applied, as these wonderful German doctors apply it, to any book ever penned, and it can be shown, 'as the result of high critical ability,' that no author ever wrote his own book. It is the easiest thing in the world to prove that Shakspeare never wrote 'Shakspeare,' that Milton never wrote 'Paradise Lost,' that 'Johnson's Dictionary' just 'growed' like Topsey, and was never made at all, and, to name small things with great, that M. Renan never wrote the 'Life of Jesus.'
When we read, then, that 'it is certain that Isaiah never wrote this chapter,' that 'St. John could not possibly have written the fourth Gospel,' that 'this book is composed, undoubtedly, of fragments of earlier writings,' or that 'this' other 'is the growth of a certain school,' we advise simple Christians to take it easy. They are to understand that the world goes on much as usual, and that their family Bibles still contain the old Table of Contents. There has been no wonderful discovery made, no ancient book catalogues have come to light, no files of ancient documents have been dug up. There are still just the old facts and the old evidence on which Christians made up their minds sixteen or seventeen hundred years ago. The amount of all this talk is only that 'the great Doctor Teufelsdroeck' or 'the learned Professor Von Baum' has hazarded a guess, and made an assertion, which every other 'great doctor' and 'learned professor' will contradict, and displace with another guess just as probable, in three months' time. There are men just as learned and just as honest who have examined their guesses, and find them poor inventions indeed. And we have a right to deny point blank the assertions so flippantly made by men like M. Renan. 'It is universally acknowledged that this book was never written by Daniel or Isaiah or Jeremiah,' 'It is certain this chapter is an addition of such and such a date,' etc. It is not universally acknowledged. It is not certain. The whole thing is pure guesswork. There is only one way to prove the authorship of a book, and that is by testimony. There is nothing under the sun more absurd, philologically, than that a common and very poor stock-actor should have written 'Hamlet.' We know he did write it, however, not by 'internal evidence,' or from 'philological criticism,' but by plain human testimony to the fact. We cite that, and leave the 'internal' critics to their profound babble on vowels and consonants, on long and short syllables, and let them do with the fact the best they can.
In other words, there is no way by which I can determine whether St. John wrote his Gospel except by testimony. I do not know beforehand how St. John would write. I can therefore judge nothing by 'style.' All I can do is to ask of competent witnesses. I do ask. I am told by such witnesses, straight up to his own day, that he did write this Gospel, that this is the very one which we now have, for they cite it and mention its peculiarities. I accept the fact, as I do in the case of Shakspeare, and let the wise 'critics' settle it among them.
The attempt, therefore, on the part of M. Renan, to get rid of those large portions of the Gospels which embarrass him in his theory, by attempting to discredit their authorship, while, at the same time, he accepts other parts, that stand on the same authority, and the supercilious way in which he ignores that large part which the miracles fill, turning them off with a small witticism, or a smaller bit of sentiment, suggest, at the start, decided suspicions of the honesty of his intentions and the sufficiency of his theory.
We only hint at these things here. They occur all through his book. They are not evidence of learning or critical skill. There are no secrets for deciding such matters. The whole data have been public for ages. All the 'members of the Institute' together do not possess one grain of evidence that any ordinary scholar in America does not possess as well. M. Renan rejects, or discredits, or garbles, or slips over silently, because he finds it necessary for his theory. That is all. He pettifogs with his witnesses to establish his theory.
That theory is, that He, whom all Christians have called Our Lord, was a mere man, of what race is uncertain, born in Galilee of a man named Joseph and of a woman named Mary; who taught in Galilee and a little in Judea, and who was at last killed and buried, and so an end of Him. This theory M. Renan has to find in the Gospels, and there is, as we have hinted, very little of the Gospels left when he gets through. It is so palpably against them that he has to get rid of the most of them to make it stand.
Now this theory, like all others, must be put to the test. Will it explain the facts? We have seen how it is compelled to get rid of the Gospels. But we put that aside. Will it explain the history of Christianity? Will it explain its place to-day? Will it account for its effects?
The Jesus of M. Renan is a strange character. He is more difficult of comprehension than any mystery of orthodoxy. We ask where He gets His wondrous wisdom, this young carpenter, how He learned to speak 'as man never spoke?' and M. Renan sentimentalizes. We ask how He got this wondrous power over men, to lead them and control them, so that they followed Him and 'heard Him gladly,' and M. Renan goes off into ecstasies over the 'delicious climate' and 'the lovely villages,' and the Arcadian simplicity of Galilee, as he fancies they once were, and expects us to be answered. His influence over women is accounted for more readily. M. Renan tells us, in his peculiar way, that 'this beautiful young man' had great power over the 'nervous' susceptibilities of Mary Magdalene; and Pilate's wife, having once seen him, 'dreamed about him' the next night, and sent to her husband to save him in consequence!
However, He begins His teaching. Where He learned it, how He learned it, why it took the form it did, how He came to give moral law to the world, where He found the words of wisdom and consolationthe divine words of powerfor all generations, there is positively not one sentence of explanation. Of all the young Jews of His day, how came He by these powers and this omnipotent wisdom? Now the Christian theory does attempt an explanation. It gives an ample answer to the question. M. Renan gives no answer whatever. He flies to sentiment. We have all sorts of adjectives'delicious,' 'enchanting, 'beautiful,' 'sweet,' 'charming'he beats a whole female seminary at the business, in attempting to describe how, like full-grown babes, everybody in Galilee lived, so innocent, so simple, so Arcadian were they alland that is all! What shall a man do, whom this fine style of novel writing doesn't answerto whom, in fact, it seems just a bit of disgusting nonsense? Is this wonderful power, this omnipotent wisdom, a production of the 'delicious' climate? Is this all 'philosophical criticism' has to offer, and is he to accept that as more reasonable than the Gospel theory that they were supernatural and divine?