Evidences of Christianity by William Paley

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When, therefore, we consider Christ as a moral teacher (remembering that
this was only a secondary part of his office; and that morality, by the
nature of the subject, does not admit of discovery, properly so
called)--when we consider either what he taught, or what he did not
teach, either the substance or the manner of his instruction; his
preference of solid to popular virtues, of a character which is commonly
despised to a character which is universally extolled; his placing, in
our licentious vices, the check in the right place, viz. upon the
thoughts; his collecting of human duty into two well-devised rules, his
repetition of these rules, the stress he laid upon them, especially in
comparison with positive duties, and his fixing thereby the sentiments
of his followers; his exclusion of all regard to reputation in our
devotion and alms, and by parity of reason in our other virtues;--when
we consider that his instructions were delivered in a form calculated
for impression, the precise purpose in his situation to be consulted;
and that they were illustrated by parables, the choice and structure of
which would have been admired in any composition whatever;--when we
observe him free from the usual symptoms of enthusiasm, heat and
vehemence in devotion, austerity in institutions, and a wild
particularity in the description of a future state; free also from the
depravities of his age and country; without superstition amongst the
most superstitious of men, yet not decrying positive distinctions or
external observances, but soberly calling them to the principle of their
establishment, and to their place in the scale of human duties; without
sophistry or trifling, amidst teachers remarkable for nothing so much as
frivolous subtleties and quibbling expositions; candid and liberal in
his judgment of the rest of mankind, although belonging to a people who
affected a separate claim to Divine favour, and in consequence of that
opinion prone to uncharitableness, partiality, and restriction;--when
we find in his religion no scheme of building up a hierarchy, or of
ministering to the views of human governments;--in a word, when we
compare Christianity, as it came from its Author, either with other
religions, or with itself in other hands, the most reluctant
understanding will be induced to acknowledge the probity, I think also
the good sense, of those to whom it owes its origin; and that some
regard is due to the testimony of such men, when they declare their
knowledge that the religion proceeded from God; and when they appeal for
the truth of their assertion, to miracles which they wrought, or which
they saw.

Perhaps the qualities which we observe in the religion may be thought to
prove something more. They would have been extraordinary had the
religion come from any person; from the person from whom it did come,
they are exceedingly so. What was Jesus in external appearance? A Jewish
peasant, the son of a carpenter, living with his father and mother in a
remote province of Palestine, until the time that he produced himself in
his public character. He had no master to instruct or prompt him; he had
read no books but the works of Moses and the prophets; he had visited no
polished cities; he had received no lessons from Socrates or
Plato,--nothing to form in him a taste or judgment different from that
of the rest of his countrymen, and of persons of the same rank of life
with himself. Supposing it to be true, which it is not, that all his
points of morality might be picked out of Greek and Roman writings, they
were writings which he had never seen. Supposing them to be no more than
what some or other had taught in various times and places, he could not
collect them together.

Who were his coadjutors in the undertaking,--the persons into whose
hands the religion came after his death? A few fishermen upon the lake
of Tiberias, persons just as uneducated, and, for the purpose of framing
rules of morality, as unpromising as himself. Suppose the mission to be
real, all this is accounted for; the unsuitableness of the authors to
the production, of the characters to the undertaking, no longer
surprises us: but without reality, it is very difficult to explain how
such a system should proceed from such persons. Christ was not like any
other carpenter; the apostles were not like any other fishermen.

But the subject is not exhausted by these observations. That portion of
it which is most reducible to points of argument has been stated, and, I
trust, truly. There are, however, some topics of a more diffuse nature,
which yet deserve to be proposed to the reader's attention.

The character of Christ is a part of the morality of the Gospel: one
strong observation upon which is, that, neither as represented by his
followers, nor as attacked by his enemies, is he charged with any
personal vice. This remark is as old as Origen: "Though innumerable lies
and calumnies had been forged against the venerable Jesus, none had
dared to charge him with an intemperance." (Or. Ep. Cels. 1. 3, num. 36,
ed. Bened.) Not a reflection upon his moral character, not an imputation
or suspicion of any offence against purity and chastity, appears for
five hundred years after his birth. This faultlessness is more peculiar
than we are apt to imagine. Some stain pollutes the morals or the
morality of almost every other teacher, and of every other lawgiver.*
Zeno the stoic, and Diogenes the cynic, fell into the foulest
impurities; of which also Socrates himself was more than suspected.
Solon forbade unnatural crimes to slaves. Lycurgus tolerated theft as a
part of education. Plato recommended a community of women. Aristotle
maintained the general right of making war upon barbarians. The elder
Cato was remarkable for the ill usage of his slaves; the younger gave up
the person of his wife. One loose principle is found in almost all the
Pagan moralists; is distinctly, however, perceived in the writings of
Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus; and that is, the allowing,
and even the recommending to their disciples, a compliance with the
religion, and with the religious rites, of every country into which they
came. In speaking of the founders of new institutions we cannot forget
Mahomet. His licentious transgressions of his own licentious rules; his
abuse of the character which he assumed, and of the power which he had
acquired, for the purposes of personal and privileged indulgence; his
avowed claim of a special permission from heaven of unlimited
sensuality, is known to every reader, as it is confessed by every writer
of the Moslem story.

_________

* See many instances collected by Grotius, de Veritate Christianae
Religionis, in the notes to his second book, p. 116. Pocock's edition.
_________

Secondly, in the histories which are left us of Jesus Christ, although
very short, and although dealing in narrative, and not in observation or
panegyric, we perceive, beside the absence of every appearance of vice,
traces of devotion, humility, benignity, mildness, patience, prudence. I
speak of traces of these qualities, because the qualities themselves are
to be collected from incidents; inasmuch as the terms are never used of
Christ in the Gospels, nor is any formal character of him drawn in any
part of the New Testament.

Thus we see the devoutness of his mind in his frequent retirement to
solitary prayer; (Matt. xiv. 23. Luke ix. 28. Matt. xxvi. 36.) in his
habitual giving of thanks; (Matt. xi. 25. Mark viii. 6. John vi. 23. Luke
xxii. 17.) in his reference of the beauties and operations of nature to
the bounty of Providence; (Matt. vi, 26--28.) in his earnest addresses to
his Father, more particularly that short but solemn one before the
raising of Lazarus from the dead; (John xi. 41.) and in the deep piety of
his behaviour in the garden on the last evening of his life:(Matt. xxvi.
86--47.) his humility in his constant reproof of contentions for
superiority:(Mark ix. 33.) the benignity and affectionateness of his
temper in his kindness to children; (Mark x. 16.) in the tears which he
shed over his falling country, (Luke xix. 41.) and upon the death of his
friend; (John xi. 35.) in his noticing of the widow's mite; (Mark xii.
42.) in his parables of the good Samaritan, of the ungrateful servant,
and of the Pharisee and publican, of which parables no one but a man of
humanity could have been the author: the mildness and lenity of his
character is discovered in his rebuke of the forward zeal of his
disciples at the Samaritan village; (Luke ix. 55.) in his expostulation
with Pilate; (John xix. 11.) in his prayer for his enemies at the moment
of his suffering, (Luke xxiii. 34.) which, though it has been since very
properly and frequently imitated, was then, I apprehend, new. His
prudence is discerned, where prudence is most wanted, in his conduct on
trying occasions, and in answers to artful questions. Of these the
following are examples:--His withdrawing in various instances from the
first symptoms of tumult, (Matt. xiv. 22. Luke v. 15, 16. John v. 13; vi.
15.) and with the express care, as appears from Saint Matthew, (Chap.
xii. 19.) of carrying on his ministry in quietness; his declining of
every species of interference with the civil affairs of the country,
which disposition is manifested by his behaviour in the case of the
woman caught in adultery, (John viii. 1.) and in his repulse of the
application which was made to him to interpose his decision about a
disputed inheritance:(Luke xii. 14.) his judicious, yet, as it should
seem, unprepared answers, will be confessed in the case of the Roman
tribute (Matt. xxii. 19.) in the difficulty concerning the interfering
relations of a future state, as proposed to him in the instance of a
woman who had married seven brethren; (Matt. xxii. 28.) and more
especially in his reply to those who demanded from him an explanation of
the authority by which he acted, which reply consisted in propounding a
question to them, situated between the very difficulties into which they
were insidiously endeavouring to draw him. (Matt. xxi. 23, et seq.)

Our Saviour's lessons, beside what has already been remarked in them,
touch, and that oftentimes by very affecting representations, upon some
of the most interesting topics of human duty, and of human meditation;
upon the principles by which the decisions of the last day will be
regulated; (Matt. xxv. 31, et seq.) upon the superior, or rather the
supreme importance of religion; ( Mark viii. 35. Matt. vi. 31--33. Luke
xii. 4, 5, 16--21.) upon penitence, by the most pressing calls, and the
most encouraging invitations; (Luke xv.) upon self-denial, (Matt. v. 29.)
watchfulhess, (Mark xiii. 37. Matt. xxiv. 42; xxv. 13.) placability, (Luke
xvii. 4. Matt. xviii. 33, et seq.) confidence in God, (Matt. vi. 25--30.)
the value of spiritual, that is, of mental worship, (John iv. 23, 24.)
the necessity of moral obedience, and the directing of that obedience to
the spirit and principle of the law, instead of seeking for evasions in
a technical construction of its terms. (Matt. v. 21.)

If we extend our argument to other parts of the New Testament, we may
offer, as amongst the best and shortest rules of life, or, which is the
same thing, descriptions of virtue, that have ever been delivered, the
following passages:--

"Pure religion, and undefiled, before God and the Father, is this; to
visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself
unspotted from the world." (James i. 27.)

"Now the end of the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart and a
good conscience, and faith unfeigned." (I Tim. i. 5.)

"For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live
soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world." (Tit. ii. 11,
12.)

Enumerations of virtues and vices, and those sufficiently accurate and
unquestionably just, are given by St. Paul to his converts in three
several epistles. (Gal. v. 19. Col. iii. 12. 1 Cor. xiii.)

The relative duties of husbands and wives, of parents and children, of
masters and servants, of Christian teachers and their flocks, of
governors and their subjects, are set forth by the same writer, (Eph. v.
33; vi. 1--5. 2 Cor. vi. 6, 7. Rom. xiii.) not indeed with the
copiousness, the detail, or the distinctness of a moralist who should in
these days sit down to write chapters upon the subject, but with the
leading rules and principles in each; and, above all, with truth and
with authority.

Lastly, the whole volume of the New Testament is replete with piety;
with what were almost unknown to heathen moralists, devotional virtues,
the most profound veneration of the Deity, an habitual sense of his
bounty and protection, a firm confidence in the final result of his
counsels and dispensations, a disposition to resort upon all occasions
to his mercy for the supply of human wants, for assistance in danger,
for relief from pain, for the pardon of sin.

CHAPTER III.

THE CANDOUR OF THE WRITERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

I make this candour to consist in their putting down many passages, and
noticing many circumstances, which no writer whatever was likely to have
forged; and which no writer would have chosen to appear in his book who
had been careful to present the story in the most unexceptionable form,
or who had thought himself at liberty to carve and mould the particulars
of that story according to his choice, or according to his judgment of
the effect.

A strong and well-known example of the fairness of the evangelists
offers itself in their account of Christ's resurrection, namely, in
their unanimously stating that after he was risen he appeared to his
disciples alone. I do not mean that they have used the exclusive word
alone; but that all the instances which they have recorded of his
appearance are instances of appearance to his disciples; that their
reasonings upon it, and allusions to it, are confined to this
supposition; and that by one of them Peter is made to say, "Him God
raised up the third day, and showed him openly, not to all the people,
but to witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink
with him after he rose from the dead." (Acts x. 40, 41.) The most common
understanding must have perceived that the history of the resurrection
would have come with more advantage if they had related that Jesus
appeared, after he was risen, to his foes as well as his friends, to the
scribes and Pharisees, the Jewish council, and the Roman governor: or
even if they had asserted the public appearance of Christ in general
unqualified terms, without noticing, as they have done, the presence of
his disciples on each occasion, and noticing it in such a manner as to
lead their readers to suppose that none but disciples were present. They
could have represented in one way as well as the other. And if their
point had been to have their religion believed, whether true or false;
if they had fabricated the story ab initio; or if they had been disposed
either to have delivered their testimony as witnesses, or to have worked
up their materials and information as historians, in such a manner as to
render their narrative as specious and unobjectionable as they could; in
a word, if they had thought of anything but of the truth of the case, as
they understood and believed it; they would in their account of Christ's
several appearances after his resurrection, at least have omitted this
restriction. At this distance of time, the account as we have it is
perhaps more credible than it would have been the other way; because
this manifestation of the historians' candour is of more advantage to
their testimony than the difference in the circumstances of the account
would have been to the nature of the evidence. But this is an effect
which the evangelists would not foresee: and I think that it was by no
means the case at the time when the books were composed.

Mr. Gibbon has argued for the genuineness of the Koran, from the
confessions which it contains, to the apparent disadvantage of the
Mahometan cause. (Vol. ix. c. 50, note 96.) The same defence vindicates
the genuineness of our Gospels, and without prejudice to the cause at
all.

There are some other instances in which the evangelists honestly relate
what they must have perceived would make against them.

Of this kind is John the Baptist's message preserved by Saint Matthew
(xi. 2) and Saint Luke (vii. 18): "Now when John had heard in the prison
the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said unto him,
Art thou he that should come, or look we for another?" To confess, still
more to state, that John the Baptist had his doubts concerning the
character of Jesus, could not but afford a handle to cavil and
objection. But truth, like honesty, neglects appearances. The same
observation, perhaps, holds concerning the apostacy of Judas.*

_________

* I had once placed amongst these examples of fair concession the
remarkable words of Saint Matthew in his account of Christ's appearance
upon the Galilean mountain: "And when they saw him they worshipped him;
but some doubted." (Chap. xxviii. 17.) I have since, however, been
convinced, by what is observed concerning this passage in Dr.
Townshend's Discourse (Page 177.) upon the Resurrection, that the
transaction, as related by Saint Matthew, was really this: "Christ
appeared first at a distance; the greater part of the company, the
moment they saw him, worshipped, but some as yet, i.e. upon this first
distant view of his person, doubted; whereupon Christ came up to them,
and spake to them,"+ &c.: that the doubt, therefore, was a doubt only at
first for a moment, and upon his being seen at a distance, and was
afterwards dispelled by his nearer approach, and by his entering into
conversation with them.

+ Saint Matthew's words are: kai proselthon o Iesous elalesen autois
[and having come toward them, Jesus spoke]. This intimates that when he
first appeared it was at a distance, at least from many of the
spectators. Ib. p. 197.
_________

John vi. 66. "From that time, many of his disciples went back, and
walked no more with him." Was it the part of a writer who dealt in
suppression and disguise to put down this anecdote? Or this, which
Matthew has preserved (xii. 58)? "He did not many mighty works there,
because of their unbelief."

Again, in the same evangelist (v. 17, 18): "Think not that I am come to
destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to
fulfil; for, verily, I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one
jot, or one tittle, shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
fulfilled." At the time the Gospels were written, the apparent tendency
of Christ's mission was to diminish the authority of the Mosaic code,
and it was so considered by the Jews themselves. It is very improbable,
therefore, that, without the constraint of truth, Matthew should have
ascribed a saying to Christ, which, primo intuitu, militated with the
judgment of the age in which his Gospel was written. Marcion thought
this text so objectionable, that he altered the words, so as to invert
the sense. (Lardner, Cred., vol. xv. p. 422.)

Once more (Acts xxv. 18): "They brought none accusation against him of
such things as I supposed; but had certain questions against him of
their own superstition, and of one Jesus which was dead, whom Paul
affirmed to be alive." Nothing could be more in the character of a Roman
governor than these words. But that is not precisely the point I am
concerned with. A mere panegyrist, or a dishonest narrator, would not
have represented his cause, or have made a great magistrate represent
it, in this manner, i.e. in terms not a little disparaging, and
bespeaking, on his part, much unconcern and indifference about the
matter. The same observation may be repeated of the speech which is
ascribed to Gallio (Acts xviii. 15): "If it be a question of words and
names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such
matters."

Lastly, where do we discern a stronger mark of candour, or less
disposition to extol and magnify, than in the conclusion of the same
history? in which the evangelist, after relating that Paul, on his first
arrival at Rome, preached to the Jews from morning until evening, adds,
"And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not."

The following, I think, are passages which were very unlikely to have
presented themselves to the mind of a forger or a fabulist.

Matt. xxi. 21. "Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto
you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is
done unto the fig-tree, but also, if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be
thou removed, and be thou east into the sea, it shall be done; all
things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, it shall be done."
(See also chap. xvii. 20. Luke xvii. 6.) It appears to me very
improbable that these words should have been put into Christ's mouth, if
he had not actually spoken them. The term "faith," as here used, is
perhaps rightly interpreted of confidence in that internal notice by
which the apostles were admonished of their power to perform any
particular miracle. And this exposition renders the sense of the text
more easy. But the words undoubtedly, in their obvious construction,
carry with them a difficulty which no writer would have brought upon
himself officiously.

Luke ix. 59. "And he said unto another, Follow me: but he said, Lord,
suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the
dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God." (See
also Matt. viii. 21.) This answer, though very expressive of the
transcendent importance of religious concerns, was apparently harsh and
repulsive; and such as would not have been made for Christ if he had not
really used it. At least some other instance would bare been chosen.

The following passage, I, for the same reason, think impossible to have
been the production of artifice, or of a cold forgery:--"But I say unto
you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be
in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca,
shall be in danger of the council; but whosoever shall say, Thou fool,
shall be in danger of hell-fire (Gehennae)." Matt. v. 22. It is
emphatic, cogent, and well calculated for the purpose of impression; but
is inconsistent with the supposition of art or wariness on the part of
the relator.

The short reply of our Lord to Mary Magdalen, after his resurrection
(John xx. 16, 17), "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended unto my
Father," in my opinion must have been founded in a reference or allusion
to some prior conversation, for the want of knowing which his meaning is
hidden from us. This very obscurity, however, is a proof of genuineness.
No one would have forged such an answer.

John vi. The whole of the conversation recorded in this chapter is in
the highest degree unlikely to be fabricated, especially the part of our
Saviour's reply between the fiftieth and the fifty-eighth verse. I need
only put down the first sentence: "I am the living bread which came down
from heaven: if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever: and
the bread that I will give him is my flesh, which I will give for the
life of the world." Without calling in question the expositions that
have been given of this passage, we may be permitted to say, that it
labours under an obscurity, in which it is impossible to believe that
any one, who made speeches for the persons of his narrative, would have
voluntarily involved them. That this discourse was obscure, even at the
time, is confessed by the writer who had preserved it, when he tells us,
at the conclusion, that many of our Lord's disciples, when they had
heard this, said, "This is a hard saying; who can hear it?"

Christ's taking of a young child, and placing it in the midst of his
contentious disciples (Matt. xviii. 2), though as decisive a proof as
any could be of the benignity of his temper, and very expressive of the
character of the religion which he wished to inculcate, was not by any
means an obvious thought. Nor am I acquainted with anything in any
ancient writing which resembles it.

The account of the institution of the eucharist bears strong internal
marks of genuineness. If it had been feigned, it would have been more
full; it would have come nearer to the actual mode of celebrating the
rite as that mode obtained very early in the Christian churches; and it
would have been more formal than it is. In the forged piece called the
Apostolic Constitutions, the apostles are made to enjoin many parts of
the ritual which was in use in the second and third centuries, with as
much particularity as a modern rubric could have done. Whereas, in the
history of the Lord's Supper, as we read it in Saint Matthew's Gospel,
there is not so much as the command to repeat it. This, surely, looks
like undesignedness. I think also that the difficulty arising from the
conciseness of Christ's expression, "This is my body," would have been
avoided in a made-up story. I allow that the explication of these words
given by Protestants is satisfactory; but it is deduced from a diligent
comparison of the words in question with forms of expression used in
Scripture, and especially by Christ upon other occasions. No writer
would arbitrarily and unnecessarily have thus cast in his reader's way a
difficulty which, to say the least, it required research and erudition
to clear up.

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