The Religious Situation | Page 3

of the marvels attending his birth; in that of his Last Supper; in that of the resurrection, which again baffles the skill of the harmonists. Here, surely, is proof that the pens of the narrators were not guided by Omniscience.
Concerning the miracles of the casting out of devils generally, and in particular of the casting out of a legion of devils into a herd of two thousand swine at Gadara, what is to be said? Are these not clearly cases of human imagination set at work by a Jewish superstition? Is it possible that they should have had a place in a divine narrative of the life of the Saviour of the world? The Fourth Gospel omits them. Orthodoxy would fain persuade itself that this was to avoid unnecessary repetition.
Satan from the top of a mountain shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth. This seems to imply belief that the earth is a plane. The movement of the star of the Nativity seems to imply belief in the rotation of the heavens.
About the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, and, consequently, about its title to belief, there has been endless controversy among the learned. But there are pretty plain indications, in the shape of the omission of demoniac miracles and some lack of local knowledge, that it is not the work of a Palestinian Jew. Opening with a reference to the Logos, it strikes the key of Alexandrian philosophy. It is, indeed, rather theological than historical, so that it has been not inaptly compared to the Platonic, in contrast to the Xenophontic, account of Socrates, the theology seems like that of a post-evangelical era. Martineau's conclusion is that "the only Gospel which is composed and not merely compiled and edited, and for which, therefore, a single writer is responsible, has its birthday in the middle of the second century, and is not the work of a witness at all." Historically, this Gospel is at variance with the others in its narrative of the Last Supper. "The incidents," says the highly orthodox Speaker's Commentary, "are parallel with sections of the Synoptic Gospels; but there are very few points of actual correspondence in detail between the narratives of the Synoptists and of St. John." There appears to have been much disputation among critics and commentators, but no room for disputation surely would have been left concerning narratives, equally authentic and inspired, of a momentous crisis in the life of the Saviour.
"At this point, that is to say the beginning of the Galilean ministry, we are again met by difficulties in the chronology, which are not only various, but to the certain solution of which there appears to be no clue. If we follow exclusively the order given by one Evangelist we appear to run counter to the scattered indications which may be found in another. That it should be so will cause no difficulty to the candid mind. The Evangelists do not profess to be guided by chronological sequences." So writes Dean Farrar in despair. Is it likely that such confusion would be found in a Divine revelation? Would not the narratives have been as well arranged and clear as, by the admission of orthodoxy, they are the reverse? Would the names of the authors of the Gospels, their warrants and the sources of their information, have been withheld? Providence surely was not there.
If there was a miraculous revelation on which salvation depended, why was it not universal? Why has it all this time been withheld from nations even more in need of it than those to whom it was given? Are we to suppose that the salvation of these myriads was a matter of indifference to their Creator, or that Heaven preferred the slow and precarious working of the missionary to the instantaneous action of its own fiat? This is the question which scepticism asks, and which the great author of the "Analogy of Religion" fails to answer.
What did Jesus think of himself and his mission, and of his relation to Deity? This it seems impossible without more authentic records clearly to decide. The Gospel of St. John, which is the most theological, would appear to be the least trustworthy of the four. Its author, apparently, sees its subject through a theosophic medium of his own. The idea of the teacher in the mind of the disciples would naturally rise with his ascendancy; so, perhaps, would his own idea. If Jesus is rightly reported he believed himself to be the Son of God, exalted to union and participation in spiritual dominion with the Father, and destined together with the Father to judge the world. But, in his mortal hour of anguish in Gethsemane, he prays to the Father to let the cup pass from him; an act hardly consistent with the