6 From The Quarterly Review. Ecce Homo: a Survey of the life and Work of Jesus Christ. 8vo. London and Cambridge, 1866. materials when he adopts it, or with mutilated materials when he rejects it. He preserves the same silence on his reasons for setting aside the declarations of Apostles, though he cannot pretend that it makes no difference in the interpretation of the Gospel narrative whether we accept their aid or renounce their authority. Conclusions' based upon an arbitrary selection of documents can afford no satisfaction to reflecting minds, and this mode of procedure by an author who professes to supply the solid and unambiguous views he has been unable to discover elsewhere betrays at the outset a total absence of the critical faculty to which he lays claim. The want is not less apparent in the conclusion of the Preface, where he gives a second account of the scope of his work:— THE author of this treatise explains his object in writing it by the statement that 'after reading a good many books on Christ he still felt constrained to confess that there was no historical character whose motives, objects, and feelings remained so incomprehensible to him. As far as he is aware, the comments of learning, genius, and piety for upwards of eighteen hundred years have left the character of our Blessed Lord an enigma, and it has been reserved for the author of Ecce Homo' to solve the mystery. The pretension involved in the assumption is maintained throughout the work. Views which have been set forth a thousand times with far more completeness, discussed. Christ, as the creator of modern 'No theological questions whatever are here beauty and power, are propounded with an theology and religion, will make the subject of elaboration of method and an air of pro-another volume. In the meanwhile the author fundity as though they were important discoveries. The verbose and ostentatious form under. which hacknied truths are displayed appears to have imposed upon many, and, to quote the language of Dr. Johnson, they no longer know in its new array the talk of mothers and nurses.' Apart from the affectation of originality, the only novelties we have been able to detect are has endeavoured to furnish an answer to the : 'Let us ask ourselves,' he says, 'what was the ultimate object of Christ's scheme? When the divine society was established and organized, what did he expect it to accomplish? To this swered, The object of the divine society is that question we may suppose he would have anGod's will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. In the language of our own day, its ob What the present writer undertook to do,' says the author in his Preface, was to trace the biography of Christ from point to point, and accept those conclusions about him, not which Church doctors or even Apostles' have ject was the improvement of morality.' sealed with their authority, but which the facts themselves, critically weighed, appear to war-'The ultimate object of Christ's scheme' is rant.' not a matter of conjecture. The means and end are both unfolded with the utmost The facts must be ascertained before they distinctness in the Bible, and there we can be critically weighed,' and yet the learn that our duty towards our neighbour author of 'Ecce Homo,' without bestowing is inseparably interwoven with our duty a single argument on the subject, sometimes towards God. A church of which the ultiquotes the Gospel of St. John alone in sup-mate object was the improvement of moraliport of his notions, and sometimes treats it ty' would not be Christian but infidel. as if it was of dubious authenticity. He is With these glaring defects both in concepthus either working with untrustworthy tion and execution, we should still expect that the author would be extremely exact in such facts as he uses, and have a sure foundation for such conclusions as he draws, when he announces that these are his particular characteristics. Strange to say, it would be difficult to name a writer upon biblical subjects who more completely sets facts at defiance. He freely supplies them from his imagination, he remodels them at his will, and he misrepresents them without scruple. Of this habit we shall proceed to adduce a few examples, which will equally answer the purpose of testing the soundness of his theories. His method will be found to be the very reverse of what he professes; and instead of deriving his conclusions from the facts, he has adapted the facts to his conclusions. The Baptist,' he says, was a wrestler with life, one to whom peace of mind does not come easily, but only after a long struggle. His restlessness had driven him into the desert, where he had contended for years with thoughts he could not master.' Where did the author find these facts, or from what facts are they the plain and legitimate deduction? The portrait, at best, is purely fanciful, and to us the assertion that the Baptist had a difficulty in attaining to 'peace of mind,' and contended for years with thoughts he could not master,' appears directly at variance with the announcement of the angel to Zacharias, He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb,' and with the declaration of St. Luke that the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit.'* When the same Evangelist adds that this child who' waxed strong in spirit,' was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel,' the idea conveyed is not that of restlessness,' but of a calm and steady piety which could be richly satisfied in solitary communion with God. The perturbed and uneasy nature of John is contrasted by the author of Ecce Homo,' with the placid self-possessed character of Christ; and the greeting of the restless forerunner of our Lord, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,' is explained to be a homage to his untroubled disposition: 'The Baptist recognised the superiority of Him whose confidence had never been disturbed, whose steadfast peace no agitations of life had ever ruffled. He did obeisance to the royalty of inward happiness.' The forerunner who proclaimed that Jesus * Luke i. 15, 80. was the 'Lamb of God,' proclaimed also that he was 'the Son of God,' and John must have paid obeisance to a far more stupendous royalty than that of 'inward happiness.' The painful license which the author of Ecce Homo' allows his imagination is conspicious in his paraphrase of the incident of the woman taken in adultery: creature 'Christ,' says the writer, 'was standing, it would seem, in the centre of a circle, when the crime was narrated, how the adultery had been The shame of the deed detected in the very act. itself, and the brazen hardness of the prosecutors, the legality that had no justice, and did malice that could make its advantage out of the not even pretend to have mercy, the religious fall and ruin and ignominious death of a fellow - all this was eagerly and rudely thrust before his mind at once. The effect upon him was such as might have been produced upon many since, but perhaps upon scarcely any man that ever lived before. He was seized with an intolerable sense of shame. He could not meet the eye of the crowd, or of the accusers, and perhaps at that moment least of all of the woman. Standing as he did in the midst of an eager multitude that did not in the least appreciate his feelings he could not escape. In his burning embarrassment and confusion he stooped down so as to hide his face, and began writing with his finger on the ground. His raised his head for a moment and said, "He tormentors continued their clamour, until he that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her," and then instantly returned to his former attitude. They had a glimpse perhaps of the glowing blush upon his face, and awoke suddenly with astonishment to a new sense of their condition and their conduct.' The coarseness and latitude of the interpretation was never, we believe, exceeded by any comment which was not designed to be profane. The inability of the Saviour to meet the eye of the crowd' from 'an intolerable sense of shame,' his stooping down to write out of burning embarrassment and confusion,' the 'glimpse' which the Pharisees 'perhaps' caught of the 'glowing blush upon his face,' have not only no warrant from the words of the Evangelist, but his narrative bespeaks an entire composure on the part of our Lord. For 'facts critically weighed' the author of Ecce Homo gives us a debased romance which must shock the instincts of religious men. The author changes the facts with the same facility with which he invents them : 'Signs miraculous, or considered miraculous,' he writes, are said to have attested the great ness of Christ's mission at the moment of his 437 that our Lord was tempted from without by the devil, and that the instant the temptations were offered they were spurned. The author of Ecce Homo' maintains that the temptations were generated in the mind The Evangelists do not state that a sound of our Lord himself, and that he passed was heard which was interpreted as the through a stage of mental hesitation' bevoice of God,' but that'a voice came from fore he subdued them. This violence done heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son.' to the Gospel history will yet not suffice to The critic who repudiates the text of a resolve the whole series of temptations into narrative, and substitutes for it a version the conflict caused by the nascent conof his own, is bound to show that the histo-sciousness of supernatural power,' for there rians are wrong and that he is right. There is no question of working miracles by our is not a syllable of the kind. This advo- Lord when the devil shows him the kingcate for facts assumes the prerogative to doms of the world, and says, All these reconstruct the Gospel story without one things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down word of justification, and expects that we and worship me.' But nothing baffles this are to receive a modern fable in place of critical weigher of facts. He boldly rethe testimony of the disciples of our Lord. writes the version of the Evangelists, and There is a still more signal instance of accounts for their inferior knowledge of the his system in his account of the temptation. circumstances by the supposition that when He starts with the assertion that our Lord our Lord narrated the event to them he mirawas not aware that he could perform may probably have accompanied it with cles till he withdrew into the wilderness. comments which they confounded with the The notion that Christ was hitherto igno- incidents. In what way comments, intendrant of his own nature and endowments ed to elucidate, were likely to have prowill be startling to those who believe the duced, in complete misapprehension, one of proclamation of his forerunner at the period the most simple and circumstantial descripof his baptism: No man hath seen God tions ever penned, we are no further inat any time; the only begotten Son, which is formed than that we are perhaps to underin the bosom of the Father, he hath declared stand that Christ was tempted to do somehim.'* The argument which the author thing which on reflection appeared to him employs to establish his peculiar view of equivalent to an act of homage to the evil the facts is the weakest imaginable:spirit.' A vision of universal monarchy rose before him,' and the 'something' to From the time of the temptation Christ ap- which he was tempted was to employ superpeared as a worker of miracles. We are ex-natural force in the establishment of his pressly told by St. John that he had wrought none before, and all our authorities concur in representing him as possessing and using the gift after this time. We are to conceive him therefore as becoming now for the first time conscious of miraculous powers.' Our Lord, he in effect reasons, wrought no miracles till he commenced his active ministry, and the proper occasion arose for working them. Therefore he could not have known previously that he was possessed of the gift. What is called Christ's temptation,' continues the author, is the excitement of his mind which was caused by the nascent consciousness of supernatural power.' He is represented as perplexed to determine how he should employ the new faculty, and this, says the writer, is visibly the key to the whole narration.' He has no sooner advanced this statement than he proceeds to alter the narration in order to make it fit his visible key. The Evangelists relate * John i. 18. Messianic kingdom,' a temptation which was not renounced without a 'struggle.' Such, we are to believe, is the correct substitute for the representation of the Evangelists that our Lord was solicited by the devil to worship him, and rejected the proposal with scorn. Conjecture is piled upon conjecture, and the sure foundation of Scripture is converted into a shifting sand, unsafe to stand upon. The process is employed in behalf of a lamentable theory. The doctrine that He who was perfect God and perfect man could admit the idea of taking wrongful courses, that he could entertain the temptation for a moment if it arose, that he could hesitate over a suggestion to adopt a method which was equivalent to an act of homage to the evil spirit,' is only consistent with some of the lower grades of Socinianism; and without pretending to guess at the creed of the writer of the treatise, we must be permitthe inevitable consequences of ted to expose his teaching. 6 The instances we have adduced are mainly cases in which the author has interpolated facts from his imagination, or avowedly modified them to suit his purpose. His habit of misrepresenting them is quite as remarkable. He has some speculations, which contain the usual admixture of familiar truths with transparent errors, upon the conceptions the Jews entertained of the kingdom of their expected Messiah :— not. 'Pilate,' says the writer in the course of his exposition, executed Christ on the ground that his kingdom was of this world; the Jews procured his execution precisely because it was An eloquent teacher, gathering disciples around him in Jerusalem, and offering a new and devout interpretation of the Mosaic law, might have aroused a little spite, but not the cry of "Crucify him!" They did not object to the king, they did not object to the philosopher; but they objected to the king in the garb of the philosopher.' at issue is whether he has given an honest description of the Gospel narrative when he affirms that they only desired to kill the prophet, or, as he calls him, the philosopher,' because Christ assumed to be both philosopher and king. Now, before any question respecting his royalty had arisen among the rulers, the Pharisees held a council against him how they might destroy him.'* And for what? They sought to slay him' because he had healed a man 'on the sabbath day,' and taught that it was no breach of the day to do well,' or, in other words, because he had offered that 'new and devout interpretation of the Mosaic law,' which the writer says might have aroused a little spite, but not the cry of Crucify him!' The crowning charge which our Lord brought against the Jews was that they were the children of them which killed the prophets,' and would fill up the measure of their fathers' in 'killing, scourging, and persecuting prophets, wise men, and scribes.'t In conformity with their usual spirit the true ground of their hatred to the Saviour, as we learn from himself, was that he testified that their works were evil. So absolutely unfounded is the notion that the Jews had no disposition to put to death religious teachers as long as they presented themselves in that capacity alone. This is a sample of the common practice of the author of Ecce Homo.' In his ambition to be original he frames fallacious theories, and suppresses the facts which contradict them. In support of his position the author refers Matt. xvi. 14. + Luke ix. 7-9. John vi. 15. The larger part of the work is devoted to Christ's Legislation,' and the author commences with a grave misrepresentation of facts. A couple of chapters are occupied with the attempt to demonstrate that mankind are forbidden by our Lord to allow the prospect of future happiness, or, as the writer sometimes terms it, 'pleasure,' to be any motive to good conduct: 'Pleasure shall assuredly be ours, but in no extremity are we to make it our object.' — Though self-surrender lead in general, though not its object.'it lead infallibly to happiness, yet happiness is bour and our enemy we shall win heaven, we -Though by loving our neighare not to think of the heaven we shall win, we are to think of our neighbour and our enemy.' That pleasure is necessary for us, and yet that it is not to be sought,' is, he admits, a paradoxical position, and might, if it had been taken up by a philosopher, have been regarded as a subtlety which it would be impossible to * Matt. xii. 14; Mark iii. 6; Luke vi. 11; John v. † Matt. xxiii: 81-34. + John viii. 16. affairs.' There is the difficulty that our King and verse: act upon. But as a law laid down by a King | dren of the Highest.' The motive is and Master of mankind, every word of whom enjoined by our Lord in the precise inwas treasured up and acted out with devotion, stance which the writer selects for an exit has had a surprising influence upon human treme case to prove its impotence, and the simplicity of the Gospel knows nothing of the 'paradoxical position, which, taken up by a philosopher, might have been regarded as a subtlety impossible to act upon. There is an intrinsic beauty in holiness, and men obey its dictates times out of number, without any thought of the promises; but there are times, again, when those promises restrain rebellious desires, stimulate failing resolves, and animate the heart with glorious hopes. Humanity cannot dispense with a motive deemed essential by our Lord; and the writer who denounces it strikes a blow at piety and virtue. Happiness is inherent in the nature of God, and it is no taint whatever to the purity of his servants, that they should labour for the purpose of participating in his happiness as well as in his holiness. Scarcely once in the Sermon on the Mount,' says the author, 'does he inculcate self-sacrifice without a reference to the other side of the account, to the treasures God has in store for those who despise the gold and silver of the earth.' This is resolved by the writer into a promise that those exceptional cases, in which virtue appears to loose its reward, shall prove in the end not to be exceptions.' The exceptional cases' would vitiate the principle maintained by the author of 'Ecce Homo,' but what we mainly wish to remark is, that his theory of exceptional cases' is in open contradiction to the language of our Lord, who held up future punishment as a motive to deter men from every species of sin, and future happiness as a motive to every species of goodness. The doctrine is found in its utmost generality in the Sermon on the Mount, to which the writer appeals: 'Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.'* The Gospels and Epistles are too full of passages which reiterate the inducement, to render it necessary to quote them. The author of Ecce Homo' backs up his assertion on the nature of our Lord's teaching with the further assertion that, if we are actuated by the desire to secure our happiness, the self-surrender which Christ enjoins is simply impossible': 'A man,' he says, ' can no doubt do any specific acts, however painful, with a view to his ultimate interest, With a view to his ultimate interest, a man may fast, may impose painful penances on himself. But can a man, with a view to his ultimate interest, in order that he may go to heaven, love his enemies?' Our Lord will supply the answer: 'Love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the chil * Matt. v. 19. The author defines the difference between the moral code of Christianity and the moral code of the Jews. The former he maintains was positive, and consisted in a constant endeavour to serve mankind; the latter was negative, and consisted in the endeavour to avoid injuring them: This is perhaps the most singular specimen of misrepresentation in the volume. Honour thy father and thy mother, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,'† were two of the Commandments which the young man professed to have observed from his youth, and the assertion that he had kept the whole law by merely 'refraining from a number of actions' is a gross perversion of the facts. The four Commandments he had obeyed which commenced with 'thou shalt not,' were just as much binding under the Gospel as under the Law, and the author's distinction entirely fails. He has no better success when he would have us imagine that the injunction to feed the poor was a peculiarity of the Gospel, for the duty had been enforced in the broadest language * Luke vi. 35. |