338 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that, after referring to " the facts of the case as stated by the old- 

 est extant narrative of them " — he means the story in St. Mark, 

 though this is not a part of that common tradition of the three 

 Gospels on which he relies; for, as he observes, the accounts in 

 St. Matthew and St. Luke present marked variations from it — 

 he adds : 



I do not see why any one should have a word to say against the inherent proba- 

 bility of tbat narrative ; and, for my part, I am quite ready to accept it as an 

 bistorical fact, tbat so much and no more is positively known of the end of 

 Jesus of Nazareth. 



We have, then, the important admission that Prof. Huxley has 

 not a word to say against the historic credibility of the narrative 

 in the fifteenth chapter of St. Mark, and accordingly he proceeds 

 to quote its statements for the purpose of his argument. That 

 argument, in brief, is that our Lord might very well have sur- 

 vived his crucifixion, have been removed still living to the tomb, 

 have been taken out of it on the Friday or Saturday night by 

 Joseph of Arimathea, and have recovered and found his way to 

 Galilee. So much Prof. Huxley is prepared to believe, and he 

 asks " on what grounds can a reasonable man be asked to believe 

 any more ? " But a prior question is on what grounds can a rea- 

 sonable man be asked to believe as much as this ? In the first 

 place, if St. Mark's narrative is to be the basis of discussion, why 

 does Prof. Huxley leave out of account the scourging, with the 

 indication of weakness in our Lord's inability to bear his cross, 

 and treat him as exposed to crucifixion in the condition simply of 

 " temperate, strong men, such as the ordinary Galilean peasants 

 were " ? In the next place, I am informed by good medical au- 

 thority that he is quite mistaken in saying that " no serious phys- 

 ical symptoms need at once arise from the wounds made by the 

 nails in the hands and feet," and that, on the contrary, very grave 

 symptoms would ordinarily arise in the course of no long time 

 from such severe wounds, left to fester, with the nails in them, 

 for six hours. In the third place, Prof. Huxley takes no account 

 of the piercing of our Lord's side, and of the appearance of blood 

 and water from the wound, which is solemnly attested by one wit- 

 ness. It is true that incident is not recorded by St. Mark ; but 

 Prof. Huxley must disprove the witness before he can leave it out 

 of account. But, lastly, if Prof. Huxley's account of the matter 

 be true, the first preaching of the church must have been founded 

 on a deliberate fraud, of which some at least of our Lord's most 

 intimate friends were guilty, or to which they were accessory ; and 

 I thought that supposition was practically out of account among 

 reasonable men. Prof. Huxley argues as if he had only to deal 

 with the further evidence of St. Paul. That, indeed, is evidence 



