simple fact of the existence of such a man as Jesus Christ is questioned, it is usual for the modern advocates of Christianity to shelter themselves from all contemplation of the historical difficulties of the case, by assuming his existence to be incontrovertible, and that nothing short of idiotcy of understanding, or an intention to irritate and annoy, rather than either to seek or to communicate information, could prompt any man to moot a doubt on the subject; nor is it in the power of language to exceed the airs of insolence and domination which even our Unitarian theologers assume, to cloak over their inability to give satisfaction on this, the simplest and prime position of the case, by taking it for granted, forsooth, that none but reckless desperates, or downright fools,* could ever have held the human existence of Christ as problematical. We might, say they, as well affect to deny the existence of such an individual as Alexander the Great, or of Napoleon Bonaparte, and so set at defiance the evidence of all facts but such as our senses have attested. It being quite forgotten that the existence of Alexander and Napoleon was not miraculous, and that there never was on earth one other real personage whose existence as a real personage was denied and disclaimed even as soon as ever it was asserted, as was the case with respect to the assumed personality of Christ. But the only common character that runs through the whole body of heretical evidence, is that they one and all, from first to last, deny the existence of Jesus Christ as a man, and professing their faith in him as a God and Saviour, yet uniformly and consistently hold the whole story of his life and actions to be allegorical. "The greatest part of the Gnostics (taking that name as the most general one for all the heretics of the three first centuries) denied that Christ was clothed with a real body, or that he suffered really."+ Tertullian speaks of only two heresies, that existed in the time of the Apostles, i. e. the DOCETE, so called from the Greek Aoknois, opinion, suspicion, appearance merely, as expressive of their opinion that Christ had existed in appearance only, and not in reality; and the EBIONITES, so called from the Hebrew word abionim, in expression of their poverty, ignorance, and vulgarity. Docetism, says * Let any man only read the Preface to the Rev. J. R. Beard's Historical Evidences of Christianity Unassailable, and imagine if he can, how either God or Pope could ever have thundered with more audacious Godhead. + Mosheim, Vol. 1, p. 136. Quoted in Lardner, vol. 4, p. 512. Dr. Lardner, "seems to have derived its origin from the Platonic philosophy. For the followers of this opinion were principally among the higher classes of men, and were chiefly those who had been converted from heathenism to Christianity."* As far then, as such a question admits of proof, this is absolute proof that no such a person as Jesus Christ ever existed,-" Blow winds, and crack your cheeks!" HERETICS WHO DENIED CHRIST'S HUMANITY. Within the immediate year of the alleged crucifixion of Christ, or sooner than any other account of the matter could have been made known, it was publicly taught, that instead of having been miraculously born, and having passed through the impotence of infancy, boyhood, and adolescence, he had descended on the banks of the Jordan in the form of perfect manhood, that he had imposed on the senses of his enemies, and of his disciples, and that the ministers of Pilate had wasted their impotent rage on an airy phantom.+ Cotelerius has a strong passage to this effect, that "it would be as it were to deny that the sun shines at mid-day, to question the fact that this was really the first way in which the gospel story was related:" "While the apostles were yet on earth, nay, while the blood of Christ was still recent on Mount Calvary, the body of Christ was asserted to be a mere phantasm."+ The heretics in regular succession from Simon Magus, so considerable a hero in the Acts of the Apostles, downwards as Menander, Marcion, Valentine, Basilides, Bardesanes, Cerdon, Manes, Leucius, Faustus,-vehemently denied the humanity of Christ. CERDON. Though Dr. Lardner thinks the testimony of Cerdon of sufficient respectability to assist the claims of the New Testament, and concludes that Cerdon was a Christian, and received the books of the New Testament as other Christians did; yet, taking that book as his guide, he established his sect at Rome, where he taught, (the New * Quoted in Lardner, vol. 4, p. 628. Apostolis adhuc in sæculo superstitibus apud Judæam Christi sanguine recente, et PHANTASMA Corpus Domini asserebatur.-Cotel. Patres Apostol. tom. 2, p. 24. + Syntagma, p. 101. Testament in his understanding of it containing nothing to the contrary), that "our Saviour Jesus Christ was not born of a virgin, nor did appear at all in the flesh, nor had he descended from heaven; but that he was seen by men only putatively, that is, they fancied they saw him, but did not see him in reality, for he was only a shadow, and seemed to suffer, but in reality did not suffer at all." MARCION OF PONTUS, A. D. 127. The successor of Cerdon, and himself the son of the orthodox bishop of that city, whose opinions, according to the testimony of his adversary Epiphanias, prevailed, and in his own day still subsisted throughout Italy, Egypt, Palestine, Arabia, and Syria, was so far from believing that our Saviour was born of a virgin, that he did not allow that he had ever been born at all. He maintained that the Son of God took the exterior form of a man, and appeared as a man, but without being born, or gradually growing up to the full stature of a man, he had showed himself at once in Galilee, completely equipped for his divine mission, and that he immediately assumed the character of a Saviour. Dr. Lardner instructs us that the Marcionites (the followers of the opinions of Marcion) believed the miracles of Christ; they moreover allowed the truth of the miraculous earthquake and darkness at the crucifixion; they acknowledged his having had twelve disciples, and that one of them was a traitor. "It is evident that these persons were in general strictly virtuous, that they dreaded sin as the greatest evil, and had such a real regard for Christ as to undergo martyrdom rather than offer incense to idols." (605.) This was at least so much more than Origen, with all his orthodoxy, would do. If we deny these men to have been Christians, to whom shall we confine that designation? It cannot be disputed that the Gospel according to St. Mark does admit of a Marcionite reading; nor did these primitive dissenters entirely reject Luke's Gospel, though in their copy of that Gospel the verse 39 of its 24th chapter* contained the little particle NOT, where our copies have omitted it-an omission *Luke xxiv. 39. "Handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." The Marcionite reading was,-&c. " a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see that I have NoT.”—Ψηλαφήσατε με και ίδετε ότι πνευμα σαρκα, και οστεα ουκ έχει, καθώς εμε θεωρείτε ουκ έχοντα. в в which, at the first blush, seems to make a trifling difference. Tertullian, in his way, is indecently eloquent in describing the tenets which the Marcionites held with respect to the person of Christ.* LEUCIUS, A. D. 143. Or Lucian, for he had many names-Lucanus, Lucius, Leicius, Lentitius, Leontius, Seleucius, Charnius, Leonides, and even Nexocharides, which mean all one and the same person, was a distinguished Christian Docete, and one of the most eminent forgers of sacred legends of the second century. He is charged with being the forger of the Gospel of Nicodemus, and was the author of the forged acts or journeyings of the Apostles. In the commentaries which go under the name of Clement of Alexandria, a passage from this work is quoted, which says that the Apostle John," attempting to touch the body of Christ, perceived no hardness of the flesh, and met with no resistance from it, but thrust his hand into the inner part." A sense which, whatever sense or nonsense there be in it, is at least kept in countenance by St. Luke's Gospel (if this Lucius and our Luke are not one and the same person), where Luke tells us of Christ's vanishing away, which no body could do (Chap. 24, v. 31), and then, without any entrée, standing again (à la vampire) in the midst of them (v. 36.). Say we nothing of the corroboration from St. John's Gospel, where he bids Thomas thrust his hand into his side, which no body could have endured (John xx. 27.), but refused to let the lady Magdalene so much as touch him, which no body could have had any objection to. (v. 17.) We have no reason, however, to think this Leucius any the sorryer a Christian because Pope Gelasius has condemned him and his writings, declaring that all his writings are apochryphal, and he himself a disciple of the devil. APELLES, A.D. 160, That is, about twenty years after the establishment of Marcion, whose disciple he had been, made a schism from * Non novem mensium cruciatu deliberatus, non subita dolorum concussione per corporis cloacam effusus in terram, nec molestus uberibus din infans, vix puer, tarde homo sed de cœlo expositus, semel grandis, semel totus, statim Christus, Spiritus et Virtus et Deus tantum.-Adv. Marcion, 601. + Και αυτός αφαντος εγενετο απ' αυτών. the Marcionite church; and thus we trace by what degrees the Docetian doctrines were brought into a nearer conformity to the present type of Christianity, and what was originally romance began to assume a certain resemblance to history. APELLES renounced the doctrine of Docetism, and maintained that Christ was not an appearance only, but had flesh really, though not derived from the Virgin Mary, for as he descended from the supercelestial places to this earth, he collected to himself a body out of the four elements. Having thus formed to himself a corporeity, he really appeared in this world, and taught men the knowledge of heavenly things. Apelles taught that Jesus was really crucified, and afterwards showed that very flesh in which he suffered, to his disciples; but that afterwards, as he ascended, he returned the body which he had borrowed back again to the elements, and so completed his anabasis, and sat down at the right hand of God, without any body at all. According to this Father, however, Christ was not born, nor was his body like ours; for though it was real and solid, it consisted of aerial and etherial particles, not of such gross matter as our frail bodies are composed of. -It was a sort of amber. FAUSTUS, The most learned and intelligent Manichean, whom we have elsewhere quoted as directly charging the orthodox party with having egregiously falsified the gospels,* (a charge which the orthodox only answer, by retorting it again upon the heretics,) in his interrogative style, thus expresses himself "+Do you receive the gospel? (ask ye) Undoubtedly I do! Why then, you also admit that Christ was born?-Not so; for it by no means follows, that in believing the gospel, I should therefore believe that Christ was born! Do you not then think that he was of the Virgin Mary? Manes hath said, 'Far be it that I should ever own that our Lord Jesus Christ See pp. 65, 66, and 114, in this DIEGESIS. Accipis evangelium? Et maxime. Proinde ergo et natum accipis Christum? Non ita est. Neque enim sequitur ut si evangelium accipio, idcirco et natum accipiam Christum. Ergo non putas eum ex Maria Virgine esse? Manes dixit, Absit ut Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum per naturalia pudenda mulieris descendisse confitear.-Lardner ita, vol. 4, p. 20. в в 2 |