AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER. 175 



very low estimate of the value of the evidence of people who are 

 to be satisfied in this fashion, when questions of objective fact, in 

 which their faith is interested, are concerned. So that, when I am 

 called upon to believe a great deal more than the oldest Gospel 

 tells me about the final events of the history of Jesus on the 

 authority of Paul (1 Corinthians xv, 5-8), I must pause. Did he 

 think it, at any subsequent time, worth while " to confer with 

 flesh and blood," or, in modern phrase, to re-examine the facts for 

 himself ? or was he ready to accept anything that fitted in with 

 his preconceived ideas ? Does he mean, when he speaks of all the 

 appearances of Jesus after the crucifixion as if they were of the 

 same kind, that they were all visions, like the manifestation to 

 himself ? And, finally, how is this account to be reconciled with 

 those in the first and the third Gospels — which, as we have seen, 

 disagree with one another ? 



Until these questions are satisfactorily answered, I am afraid 

 that, so far as I am concerned, Paul's testimony can not be seri- 

 ously regarded, except as it may afford evidence of the state of 

 traditional opinion at the time at which he wrote, say between 55 

 and 60 a. d. ; that is, more than twenty years after the event ; a pe- 

 riod much more than sufficient for the development of any amount 

 of mythology about matters of which nothing was really known. 

 A few years later, among the contemporaries and neighbors of the 

 Jews, and, if the most probable interpretation of the' Apocalypse 

 can be trusted, among the followers of Jesus also, it was fully 

 believed, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that the Emperor 

 Nero was not really dead, but that he was hidden away somewhere 

 in the East, and would speedily come again at the head of a great 

 army, to be revenged upon his enemies. 



Thus, I conceive that I have shown cause for the opinion that 

 Dr. Wace's challenge touching the Sermon on the Mount, the 

 Lord's Prayer, and the Passion, was more valorous than discreet. 

 After all this discussion, I am still at the agnostic point. Tell me, 

 first, what Jesus can be proved to have been, said, and done, and I 

 will tell you whether I believe him, or in him,* or not ! As Dr. 

 "Wace admits that I have dissipated his lingering shade of unbelief 

 about the bedevilment of the Gadarene pigs, he might have done 

 something to help mine. Instead of that, he manifests a total 

 want of conception of the nature of the obstacles which impede 

 the conversion of his " infidels." 



The truth I believe to be, that the difficulties in the way of 



* I am very sorry for the interpolated " in," because citation ought to be accurate in 

 small things as in great. But what difference it makes whether one " believes Jesus " or 

 " believes in Jesus " much thought has not enabled me to discover. If you " believe him " 

 you must believe him to be what he professed to be — that is, " believe in him " ; and if you 

 " bolieve in him " you must necessarily " believe him." 



