the most trustworthy of the Gospels, he was profoundly in error on these important points, whereon absurd doctrines have still a most pernicious influence in Christendom. But it would be too much to expect a man “about thirty years of age” in Palestine, in the first century, to have outgrown what is still the doctrine of learned ministers all over the Christian world.
He was mistaken in his interpretation of the Old Testament, if we may take the word of the Gospels. But if he supposed that the writers of the Pentateuch, the Psalms, and the Prophecies, spoke of him, if he applied their poetic figures to himself, it is yet but a trifling mistake, affecting a man's head, not his heart. It is no more necessary for Jesus than for Luther to understand all ancient literature, and be familiar with criticism and antiquities; though with men who think Religion rests on his infallibility, it must be indeed a very hard case for their belief in Christianity.
Sometimes he is said to be an enthusiast,[1] who hoped to found a visible kingdom in Judea, by miraculous aid—as the prophets had distinctly foretold their “Messiah” should do, that he should be a King on earth, and his disciples also, not forgetting Judas, should sit on twelve thrones and judge the restored tribes; that he should return in the clouds. Certainly a strong case, very strong, may be made out from the Synoptics to favour this charge. But what then? Even if the fact be admitted, as I think it must be, it does not militate with his morality and religion. How many a saint has been mistaken in such matters! His honesty, zeal, self-sacrifice, heavenly purity still shine out in the whole course of his life.[2]
Another charge, sometimes brought against him, and the only one at all affecting his moral and religious character, is this; that he denounces his opponents in no measured terms; calls the Pharisees “hypocrites” and “children of the devil.” We cannot tell how far the his-
- ↑ See in Eusebius, Dem. Ev. Lib. III. C. 3, the noble passage defending him from the charge, often brought of old time—of seducing the people.
- ↑ On this point see, who will, the charges against Jesus in the Wolfenbüttel, Fragmente; in the Writings of Wünsch, Bahrdt, Paalzow, and Salvador. See also Hennel, ubi sup. Ch. XVI.; and, on the other hand, Reinhard's Plan of the Founder of Christianity, Andover, 1831, and Furness, ubi sup. passim, and Ullmann, Sündlosigkeit Jesu.
