The Fair Haven

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[In an appendix at the end of the book I have given the extracts from
the Gospels which are necessary for a full comprehension of the
preceding chapters.--W. B. O.]

CHAPTER IX--THE CHRIST-IDEAL

I have completed a task painful to myself and the reader. Painful to
myself inasmuch as I am humiliated upon remembering the power which
arguments, so shallow and so easily to be refuted, once had upon me;
painful to the reader, as everything must be painful which even
appears to throw doubt upon the most sublime event that has happened
in human history. How little does all that has been written above
touch the real question at issue, yet, what self-discipline and
mental training is required before we learn to distinguish the
essential from the unessential.

Before, however, we come to close quarters with our opponents
concerning the views put forward in the preceding chapters, it will
be well to consider two questions of the gravest and most interesting
character, questions which will probably have already occurred to the
reader with such force as to demand immediate answer. They are
these.

Firstly, what will be the consequences of admitting any considerable
deviation from historical accuracy on the part of the sacred writers?

Secondly, how can it be conceivable that God should have permitted
inaccuracy or obscurity in the evidence concerning the Divine
commission of His Son?

If God so loved the World that He sent His only begotten Son into it
to rescue those who believed in Him from destruction, how is it
credible that He should not have so arranged matters as that all
should find it easy to believe? If He wanted to save mankind and
knew that the only way in which mankind could be saved was by
believing certain facts, how can it be that the records of the facts
should have been allowed to fall into confusion?

To both these questions I trust that the following answers may appear
conclusive.

I. As regards the consequences which may be supposed to follow upon
giving up any part of the sacred writings, no matter how seemingly
unimportant, it is undoubtedly true that to many minds they have
appeared too dangerous to be even contemplated. Thus through fear of
some supposed unutterable consequences which would happen to the
cause of truth if truth were spoken, people profess to believe in the
genuineness of many passages in the Bible which are universally
acknowledged by competent judges of every shade of theological
opinion to be interpolations into the original text. To say nothing
of the Old Testament, where many whole books are of disputed
genuineness or authenticity, there are portions of the New which none
will seriously defend;--for example, the last verses of St. Mark's
Gospel,--containing, as they do, the sentence of damnation against
all who do not believe--the second half of the third, and the whole
of the fourth verse of the fifth chapter of St. John's Gospel, the
story of the woman taken in adultery, and probably the whole of the
last chapter of St. John's Gospel, not to mention the Epistle to the
Hebrews, the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and to the Ephesians, the
Epistles of Peter and James, the famous verses as to the three
witnesses in the First Epistle of St. John, and perhaps also the book
of Revelation. These are passages and works about which there is
either no doubt at all as to their not being genuine, or over which
there hangs so much uncertainty that no dependence can be placed upon
them.

But over and above these, there are not a few parts of each of the
Gospels which, though of undisputed genuineness, cannot be accepted
as historical; thus the account of the Resurrection given by St.
Matthew, and parts of those by Luke and Mark, the cursing of the
barren fig-tree, and the prophecies of His Resurrection ascribed to
our Lord Himself, will not stand the tests of criticism which we are
bound to apply to them if we are to exercise the right of private
judgement; instead of handing ourselves over to a priesthood as the
sole custodians and interpreters of the Bible. It has been said by
some that the miracle of the penny found in the fish's mouth should
be included in the above category, but it should be remembered that
we have only the injunction of our Lord to St. Peter that he should
catch the fish and the promise that he should find the penny in its
mouth, but that we have no account of the sequel, it is therefore
possible that in the event of St. Peter's faith having failed him he
may have procured the money from some other source, and that thus the
miracle, though undoubtedly intended, was never actually performed.
How unnecessary therefore as well as presumptuous are the
Rationalistic interpretations which have been put upon the event by
certain German writers!

Now there are few, if any, who would be so illiberal as to wish for
the exclusion from the sacred volume of all those books or passages
which, though neither genuine nor perhaps edifying, have remained in
the Canon of Scripture for many centuries. Any serious attempt to
reconstruct the Canon would raise a theological storm which would not
subside in this century. The work could never be done perfectly, and
even if it could, it would have to be done at the expense of tearing
all Christendom in pieces. The passages do little or no harm where
they are, and have received the sanction of time; let them therefore
by all means remain in their present position. But the question is
still forced upon us whether the consequences of openly admitting the
certain spuriousness of many passages, and the questionable nature of
others as regards morality, genuineness and authenticity, should be
feared as being likely to prejudice the main doctrines of
Christianity.

The answer is very plain. He who has vouchsafed to us the Christian
dispensation may be safely trusted to provide that no harm shall
happen, either to it or to us, from an honest endeavour to attain the
truth concerning it. What have we to do with consequences? These
are in the hands of God. Our duty is to seek out the truth in prayer
and humility, and when we believe that we have found it, to cleave to
it through evil and good report; TO FAIL IN THIS IS TO FAIL IN FAITH;
to fail in faith is to be an infidel. Those who suppose that it is
wiser to gloss over this or that, and who consider it "injudicious"
to announce the whole truth in connection with Christianity, should
have learnt by this time that no admission which can by any
possibility be required of them can be so perilous to the cause of
Christ as the appearance of shirking investigation. It has already
been insisted upon that cowardice is at the root of the infidelity
which we see around us; the want of faith in the power of truth which
exists in certain pious but timid hearts has begotten utter unbelief
in the minds of all superficial investigators into Christian
evidences. Such persons see that the defenders have something in the
background, something which they would cling to although they are
secretly aware that they cannot justly claim it. This is enough for
many, and hence more harm is done by fear than could ever have been
done by boldness. Boldness goes out into the fight, and if in the
wrong gets slain, childless. Fear stays at home and is prolific of a
brood of falsehoods.

It is immoral to regard consequences at all, where truth and justice
are concerned; the being impregnated with this conviction to the
inmost core of one's heart is an axiom of common honesty--one of the
essential features which distinguish a good man from a bad one.
Nevertheless, to make it plain that the consequences of outspoken
truthfulness in connection with the scriptural writings would have no
harmful effect whatever, but would, on the contrary, be of the utmost
service as removing a stumbling-block from the way of many--let us
for the moment suppose that very much more would have to be given up
than can ever be demanded.

Suppose we were driven to admit that nothing in the life of our Lord
can be certainly depended upon beyond the facts that He was begotten
by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary; that He worked many miracles
upon earth, and delivered St. Matthew's version of the sermon on the
mount and most of the parables as we now have them; finally, that He
was crucified, dead, and buried, that He rose again from the dead
upon the third day, and ascended unto Heaven. Granting for the sake
of argument that we could rely on no other facts, what would follow?
Nothing which could in any way impair the living power of
Christianity.

The essentials of Christianity, i.e., a belief in the Divinity of the
Saviour and in His Resurrection and Ascension, have stood, and will
stand, for ever against any attacks that can be made upon them, and
these are probably the only facts in which belief has ever been
absolutely necessary for salvation; the answer, therefore, to the
question what ill consequences would arise from the open avowal of
things which every student must know to be the fact concerning the
biblical writings is that there would be none at all. The Christ-
ideal which, after all, is the soul and spirit of Christianity would
remain precisely where it was, while its recognition would be far
more general, owing to the departure on the part of its apologists
from certain lines of defence which are irreconcilable with the ideal
itself.

II. Returning to the objection how it could be possible that God
should have left the records of our Lord's history in such a vague
and fragmentary condition, if it were really of such intense
importance for the world to understand it and believe in it, we find
ourselves face to face with a question of far greater importance and
difficulty.

The old theory that God desired to test our faith, and that there
would be no merit in believing if the evidence were such as to
commend itself at once to our understanding, is one which need only
be stated to be set aside. It is blasphemy against the goodness of
God to suppose that He has thus laid as it were an ambuscade for man,
and will only let him escape on condition of his consenting to
violate one of the very most precious of God's own gifts. There is
an ingenious cruelty about such conduct which it is revolting even to
imagine. Indeed, the whole theory reduces our Heavenly Father to a
level of wisdom and goodness far below our own; and this is
sufficient answer to it.

But when, turning aside from the above, we try to adopt some other
and more reasonable view, we naturally set ourselves to consider why
the Almighty should have required belief in the Divinity of His Son
from man. What is there in this belief on man's part which can be so
grateful to God that He should make it a sine qua non for man's
salvation? As regards Himself, how can it matter to Him what man
should think of Him? Nay, it must be for man's own good that the
belief is demanded.

And why? Surely we can see plainly that it is the beauty of the
Christ-ideal which constitutes the working power of Christianity over
the hearts and lives of men, leading them to that highest of all
worships which consists in imitation. Now the sanction which is
given to this ideal by belief in the Divinity of our Lord, raises it
at once above all possibility of criticism. If it had not been so
sanctioned it might have been considered open to improvement; one
critic would have had this, and another that; comparison would have
been made with ideals of purely human origin such as the Greek ideal,
exemplified in the work of Phidias, and in later times with the
mediaeval Italian ideal, as deducible from the best fifteenth and
early sixteenth Italian painting and sculpture, the Madonnas of
Bellini and Raphael, or the St. George of Donatello; or again with
the ideal derivable from the works of our own Shakespeare, and there
are some even now among those who deny the Divinity of Christ who
will profess that each one of these ideals is more universal, more
fitted for the spiritual food of a man, and indeed actually higher,
than that presented by the life and death of our Saviour. But once
let the Divine origin of this last ideal be admitted, and there can
be no further uncertainty; hence the absolute necessity for belief in
Christ's Divinity as closing the most important of all questions,
Whereunto should a man endeavour to liken both himself and his
children?

Seeing then that we have reasonable ground for thinking that belief
in the Divinity of our Lord is mainly required of us in order to
exalt our sense of the paramount importance of following and obeying
the life and commands of Christ, it is natural also to suppose THAT
WHATEVER MAY HAVE HAPPENED TO THE RECORDS OF THAT LIFE should have
been ordained with a view to the enhancing of the preciousness of the
ideal.

Now, the fragmentary character, and the partial obscurity--I might
have almost written, the incomparable chiaroscuro--of the
Evangelistic writings have added to the value of our Lord's character
as an ideal, not only in the case of Christians, but as bringing the
Christ-ideal within the reach and comprehension of an infinitely
greater number of minds than it could ever otherwise have appealed
to. It is true that those who are insensible to spiritual
influences, and whose materialistic instinct leads them to deny
everything which is not as clearly demonstrable by external evidence
as a fact in chemistry, geography, or mathematics, will fail to find
the hardness, definition, tightness, and, let me add, littleness of
outline, in which their souls delight; they will find rather the
gloom and gleam of Rembrandt, or the golden twilight of the
Venetians, the losing and the finding, and the infinite liberty of
shadow; and this they hate, inasmuch as it taxes their imagination,
which is no less deficient than their power of sympathy; they would
have all found, as in one of those laboured pictures wherein each
form is as an inflated bladder and, has its own uncompromising
outline remorselessly insisted upon.

Looking to the ideals of purely human creation which have come down
to us from old times, do we find that the Theseus suffers because we
are unable to realise to ourselves the precise features of the
original? Or again do the works of John Bellini suffer because the
hand of the painter was less dexterous than his intention pure? It
is not what a man has actually put upon his canvas, but what he makes
us feel that he felt, which makes the difference between good and bad
in painting. Bellini's hand was cunning enough to make us feel what
he intended, and did his utmost to realise; but he has not realised
it, and the same hallowing effect which has been wrought upon the
Theseus by decay (to the enlarging of its spiritual influence), has
been wrought upon the work of Bellini by incapacity--the incapacity
of the painter to utter perfectly the perfect thought which was
within. The early Italian paintings have that stamp of individuality
upon them which assures us that they are not only portraits, but as
faithful portraits as the painter could make them, more than this we
know not, but more is unnecessary.

Do we not detect an analogy to this in the records of the
Evangelists? Do we not see the child-like unself-seeking work of
earnest and loving hearts, whose innocence and simplicity more than
atone for their many shortcomings, their distorted renderings, and
their omissions? We can see THROUGH these things as through a glass
darkly, or as one looking upon some ineffable masterpiece of Venetian
portraiture by the fading light of an autumnal evening, when the
beauty of the picture is enhanced a hundredfold by the gloom and
mystery of dusk. We may indeed see less of the actual lineaments
themselves, but the echo is ever more spiritually tuneful than the
sound, and the echo we find within us. Our imagination is in closer
communion with our longings than the hand of any painter.

Those who relish definition, and definition only, are indeed kept
away from Christianity by the present condition of the records, but
even if the life of our Lord had been so definitely rendered as to
find a place in their system, would it have greatly served their
souls? And would it not repel hundreds and thousands of others, who
find in the suggestiveness of the sketch a completeness of
satisfaction, which no photographic reproduction could have given?
The above may be difficult to understand, but let me earnestly
implore the reader to endeavour to master its import.

People misunderstand the aim and scope of religion. Religion is only
intended to guide men in those matters upon which science is silent.
God illumines us by science as with a mechanical draughtsman's plan;
He illumines us in the Gospels as by the drawing of a great artist.
We cannot build a "Great Eastern" from the drawings of the artist,
but what poetical feeling, what true spiritual emotion was ever
kindled by a mechanical drawing? How cold and dead were science
unless supplemented by art and by religion! Not joined with them,
for the merest touch of these things impairs scientific value--which
depends essentially upon accuracy, and not upon any feeling for the
beautiful and lovable. In like manner the merest touch of science
chills the warmth of sentiment--the spiritual life. The mechanical
drawing is spoiled by being made artistic, and the work of the artist
by becoming mechanical. The aim of the one is to teach men how to
construct, of the other how to feel.

For the due conservation therefore of both the essential requisites
of human well-being--science, and religion--it is requisite that they
be kept asunder and reserved for separate use at different times.
Religion is the mistress of the arts, and every art which does not
serve religion truly is doomed to perish as a lying and unprofitable
servant. Science is external to religion, being a separate
dispensation, a distinct revelation to mankind, whereby we are put
into full present possession of more and more of God's modes of
dealing with material things, according as we become more fitted to
receive them through the apprehension of those modes which have been
already laid open to us.

We ought not therefore to have expected scientific accuracy from the
Gospel records--much less should we be required to believe that such
accuracy exists. Does any great artist ever dream of aiming directly
at imitation? He aims at representation--not at imitation. In order
to attain true mastery here, he must spend years in learning how to
see; and then no less time in learning how NOT to see. Finally, he
learns how to translate. Take Turner for example. Who conveys so
living an impression of the face of nature? Yet go up to his canvas
and what does one find thereon? Imitation? Nay--blotches and daubs
of paint; the combination of these daubs, each one in itself when
taken alone absolutely untrue, forms an impression which is quite
truthful. No combination of minute truths in a picture will give so
faithful a representation of nature as a wisely arranged tissue of
untruths.

Absolute reproduction is impossible even to the photograph. The work
of a great artist is far more truthful than any photograph; but not
even the greatest artist can convey to our minds the whole truth of
nature; no human hand nor pigments can expound all that lies hidden
in "Nature's infinite book of secrecy"; the utmost that can be done
is to convey an impression, and if the impression is to be conveyed
truthfully, the means must often be of the most unforeseen character.
The old Pre-Raphaelites aimed at absolute reproduction. They were
succeeded by a race of men who saw all that their predecessors had
seen, but also something higher. The Van Eycks and Memling paved the
way for painters who found their highest representatives in Rubens,
Vandyke, and Rembrandt--the mightiest of them all. Giovanni Bellini,
Carpaccio and Mantegna were succeeded by Titian, Giorgione, and
Tintoretto; Perugino was succeeded by Raphael. It is everywhere the
same story; a reverend but child-like worship of the letter, followed
by a manful apprehension of the spirit, and, alas! in due time by an
almost total disregard of the letter; then rant and cant and bombast,
till the value of the letter is reasserted. In theology the early
men are represented by the Evangelicals, the times of utter decadence
by infidelity--the middle race of giants is yet to come, and will be
found in those who, while seeing something far beyond either minute
accuracy or minute inaccuracy, are yet fully alive both to the letter
and to the spirit of the Gospels.

Again, do not the seeming wrongs which the greatest ideals of purely
human origin have suffered at the hands of time, add to their value
instead of detracting from it? Is it not probable that if we were to
see the glorious fragments from the Parthenon, the Theseus and the
Ilyssus, or even the Venus of Milo, in their original and unmutilated
condition, we should find that they appealed to us much less forcibly
than they do at present? All ideals gain by vagueness and lose by
definition, inasmuch as more scope is left for the imagination of the
beholder, who can thus fill in the missing detail according to his
own spiritual needs. This is how it comes that nothing which is
recent, whether animate or inanimate, can serve as an ideal unless it
is adorned by more than common mystery and uncertainty. A new
Cathedral is necessarily very ugly. There is too much found and too
little lost. Much less could an absolutely perfect Being be of the
highest value as an ideal, as long as He could be clearly seen, for
it is impossible that He could be known as perfect by imperfect men,
and His very perfections must perforce appear as blemishes to any but
perfect critics. To give therefore an impression of perfection, to
create an absolutely unsurpassable ideal, it became essential that
the actual image of the original should become blurred and lost,
whereon the beholder now supplies from his own imagination that which
is TO HIM more perfect than the original, though objectively it must
be infinitely less so.

It is probably to this cause that the incredulity of the Apostles
during our Lord's life-time must be assigned. The ideal was too near
them, and too far above their comprehension; for it must be always
remembered that the convincing power of miracles in the days of the
Apostles must have been greatly weakened by the current belief in
their being events of no very unusual occurrence, and in the
existence both of good and evil spirits who could take possession of
men and compel them to do their bidding. A resurrection from the
dead or a restoration of sight to the blind, must have seemed even
less portentous to them, than an unusually skilful treatment of
disease by a physician is to us. We can therefore understand how it
happened that the faith of the Apostles was so little to be depended
upon even up to the Crucifixion, inasmuch as the convincing power of
miracles had been already, so to speak, exhausted, a fact which may
perhaps explain the early withdrawal of the power to work them; we
cannot indeed believe that it could have been so far weakened as to
make the Apostles disregard the prophecies of their Master that He
should rise from the dead, if He had ever uttered them, and we have
already seen reason to think that these prophecies are the ex post
facto handiwork of time; but the incredulity of the disciples, when
seen through the light now thrown upon it, loses that wholly
inexplicable character which it would otherwise bear.

But to return to the subject of the ideal presented by the life and
death of our Lord. In the earliest days of the Church there can have
been no want of the most complete and irrefragable evidence for the
objective reality of the miracles, and especially of the Resurrection
and Ascension. The character of Christ would also stand out revealed
to all, with the most copious fulness of detail. The limits within
which so sharply defined an ideal could be acceptable were narrow,
but as the radius of Christian influence increased, so also would the
vagueness and elasticity of the ideal; and as the elasticity of the
ideal, so also the range of its influence.

A beneficent and truly marvellous provision for the greater
complexity of man's spiritual needs was thus provided by a gradual
loss of detail and gain of breadth. Enough evidence was given in the
first instance to secure authoritative sanction for the ideal.
During the first thirty or forty years after the death of our Lord no
one could be in want of evidence, and the guilt of unbelief is
therefore brought prominently forward. Then came the loss of detail
which was necessary in order to secure the universal acceptability of
the ideal; but the same causes which blurred the distinctness of the
features, involved the inevitable blurring of no small portions of
the external evidences whereby the Divine origin of the ideal was
established. The primary external evidence became less and less
capable of compelling instantaneous assent, according as it was less
wanted, owing to the greater mass of secondary evidence, and to the
growth of appreciation of the internal evidences, a growth which
would be fostered by the growing adaptability of the ideal.

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