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AuthorTopic: A question of miracles : parallels in the lives of Buddha and Jesus 1910  (Read 10636 times)

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Offline PrometheusTopic starter

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a stone which had been placed upon it, to be removed.
Then Jesus prayed, and immediately thereafter he cried
with a loud voice: “Lazarus, come forth!” and Laza-
rus, it is said, walked out of that grave, bound hand
and foot, with his grave clothes on and his face bound
with a napkin.

Here, now, is a world-famous transaction, and
neither Matthew, nor Mark, nor Luke, all of whom
are supposed by some to have been inspired, make any
mention whatever of it. How is this? Is this true?
or is it a bit of romance? If the raising of Lazarus
ever happened, how is it that Matthew and those oth-
ers knew nothing about it ? It is more wonderful than
anything which they tell.

Is not this whole story about Lazarus on a par with
that told in the Protevangelium, or book of James
(ch. 24), wherein it is said that when the young chil-
dren were to be slaughtered by order of Herod, Eliza-
beth took her son John and fled to the mountains, and
that a friendly mountain opened and received them:
that Zacharias, because he would not disclose the hid-
ing place of his son, was murdered on the footsteps of
the temple, and that the roofs of the temple at the
moment of his death howled and were rent from top to
bottom.

The writer of this improbable incident, that a moun-
tain opened and gave shelter to Elizabeth and her
child, probably borrowed it from an old Persian myth,
where, in a “war of religions,” a friendly mountain
broke loose and slid down into the plain, thereby shel-
 3a6 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

tering the Iranians from their victorious enemies, (io)
The Persians call their mountain Mount Madofryad,
which means “came to help.”

Section 2. John as a novelist or writer of fiction
would have been a great success, but as a writer of
gospel truth he is a miserable failure. Listen to his
extravagance: The disciples, we are told, were assem-
bled in a room, the doors being shut, for fear of the
Jews; Jesus came and stood in their midst and spoke
to them. (11)

And, lest he will not be believed, John tells us that
eight days later the disciples were again assembled
and the doors were again shut, and Jesus came and
stood in their midst and said: “Peace be unto you.”
(12)

How could Jesus’ body pass through those closed
doors? How can one solid body pass through another
solid body? And it was a solid body, for Thomas
thrust his hand into Jesus’ side. (13) The only way
that I can account for this is that John had probably
read the fable, or falsehood, that Buddha could pass
through a stone wall, and could walk on water as if on
solid ground. (14)

(10)   See Whitney’s Zoroaster, the great Persian; Mis life and
teachings, etc., page 133. ch. 14.

(11)   John 20, v. 19.

(12)   John 20, v. 26.

(13)   John 20, v. 27.

(14)   Vol. II, Sacred Books of the East, p. 214 and 215, may
have misled John, for there we are told that if one should desire
to exercise the different Iddhis, he must fulfill all righteousness.
He must not drive back ecstacy of contemplation, etc. He then
could become visible or invisible; he could go without stopping at
the further side of a wall, or fence, or mountain. Not only that,
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 327

It is possible that John did not believe that Jesus’
mortal body could arise in the air and go up into
heaven. On that point Luke is emphatic—he says
Jesus was carried up there, but fails to tell who or
what carried him up. (15) Such a story told today
would not be believed. John’s last words in his gospel
tell us that he was at the sea of Tiberias, and one morn-
ing after the crucifixion he saw Jesus standing on the
shore.

John had gone back to his old business, that of a
fisherman, and Jesus told him to cast his net on the
right side of the ship and there was a great catch of
fish, and Jesus then dined with John and others. (16)

A few words from Jesus about feeding his lambs
and his sheep, and John closes his gospel. He has
not a word to say as to what became of Jesus after
that dinner, something that everyone would like to
know.

But it is improbable that John, the fisherman, wrote
that curious fourth gospel. It may have been John
the Presbyter. For about the year 180 A. D., Theophi-
lus, Bishop of Antioch, speaks of a gospel of John,
but he does not say that the author of that gospel
was an apostle. Moreover, John, the son of Zebedee,
as heretofore stated, was a Jew; and John of the
fourth gospel denounced the Jews as the children of

tut he could travel erote-Ugged through the tkg, or walk on
water, as if on solid ground, etc.

(15)   Lnke 24, v. 51.

(16)   John, ch. 20.
 338 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

the devil. (17) He mentions the Jews as unbelieving.
(18), and there was a division among the Jews (19) ;
and when Jesus walked in the temple the Jews came
round about him. (20) The law of Moses is spoken
of as “your” law. And when Jesus talked to the peo-
ple, the Jews took up the stones to stone him. (21)

Jesus walked no more openly when he learned that
the Jews had taken counsel to put him to death. (22)
The Jews took Jesus and bound him. (23) Pilate told
the Jews that he found no fault in Jesus. (24) And
Pilate hated the Jews, and wrote, in contempt of them,
that world-famous, immortal superscription, and
nailed it on the cross, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of
the Jews.” (25)

Now if it was John the fisherman who wrote the
fourth gospel, it is remarkable, at least, that he makes
no mention whatever of Jesus’ ascension. (26)

If John was a disciple, he seems to have known
nothing about the ascension. (27) It is possible John

(17)   John, eh. 8, v. 44.

(18)   John 9, t. 18.

(19)   John, ch. 10, v. 19.

(20)   John 10, v. 23 and 24.

(21)   John 10, v. 31 to 33.

(22)   John 11, y. 53 and 54.

(23)   John 18, v. 12.

(24)   John 18, y. 38.

(25)   Basilides, agnostic of Alexandria, wrote a gospel in which
he set forth that Jesus was not crucified—that it was Simon of
Cyrene (Luke 23, y. 26) who bore the cross and suffered on it.

(26)   Ireneus, Bishop of Lyons, born 130 to 140 A. D. in
Smyrna, Asia Minor, says John’s gospel was written to confute
the errors and blunders of Cerinthus. But Gerinthus was not born
until 70 A. D. and he did not write until about 115 A. D. John
was not alive then.

(27)   Matt. 28, y. 16 and 17.
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 339

may have been one of the doubters, for some doubted.

Section 3. It must be noticed before we proceed
further, that the first Jewish converts to the new faith
did not cast aside the Old Testament. They had been
taught that it was of divine origin. It was the holy
book of their fathers and their grandfathers, and had
been such for many generations. And to persuade
the Jews to change their faith was as difficult as it
would be now to offer a new and different gospel to
the followers of the man of Galilee. Faiths are not
easily changed, and there was no New Testament, as
we have it at present, until about the last half of the
second century. And, strange as it may now seem,
Buddhist monks, or Essenes, for generations had been
living on the western shores of the Dead Sea (near
where John the Baptist appeared), and those Essenes
became at once friendly to the new religion. In fact,
centuries before Jesus came, Buddha had proclaimed
the higher life (28), and had likewise preached the
doctrine of punishment for the wicked. (28)

But Buddha had probably learned of this doctrine
of heaven and hell from Zoroaster, for his pupils
taught it to the Persians centuries before Buddha was
born. (29)

But in one matter, at least, John did not follow the
teachings of Buddha; for while the great Hindu

(28)   Vol. 17, Sacred Books of the East, p. 125.

(28)   Vol. 17, above, p. 100. See Ante., ch. 13, where this mat-
ter is treated at greater length.

(29)   See chapter 10, Life and Teachings of Zoroaster, the Great
Persian, by Loren Harper Whitney, of the Chicago bar.
 330 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

speaks of ten thousand world systems, John in his gos-
pel knows nothing of any other world than this one.

The transfiguration story which Matthew, and
Mark, and Luke mention with much particularity, and
which is very strikingly similar to the transfiguration
of Buddha five hundred years before, is not even men-
tioned by John, although the three other gospel writ-
ers are careful to state that John was present on that
mountain when Jesus talked to Moses and Elias. (30)

Without extending this chapter further, I will only
add that the collection of writings now called the New
Testament were not held to be holy or inspired until
about the year 170 A. D.

Then commenced the formation of the church of
Rome: and from that date to the present, the old and
new testaments have been called, by some people, holy
and inspired. (31)

(30)   Matt. 17, v. 1; Mark 9, v. 28. Buddha’s transfiguration,
Vol. 11, Sacred Books of the East, p. 81 and 82 and p. 214.

(31)   Rev. Dr. Davidson’s article, “Canon,” vol. 5, Br. Ency.,
 CHAPTER XXIX

Examination of Luke Resumed.

Question. In the last chapter of your gospel, Luke,
you say that Jesus, after leaving the tomb, had flesh
and bones, and did eat, as other men do; and that he
preached to his disciples; and then near the close of
chapter 24, in verses 50 and 51, you say he led them
out as far as Bethany, a village about two miles from
Jerusalem, and lifted up his hands and blessed them;
and it came to pass while he blessed them, he was
parted from them and carried up into heaven.

Answer. Yes, I wrote that.

Question. Now, Luke, please tell us who it was or
what it was, that carried Jesus up into heaven?

Answer. I do not know.

Question. Was it a chariot of fire, and horses of
fire, such as Elijah had when he went up? (1)

Answer. I never heard that Jesus had any chariot,
or horses of fire, to take him up.

Question. Do you know what the “Acts of the
Apostles” say about the ascension? (2)

Answer. Yes, it says that when he had spoken to

(1)   2 Kings, eh. 2.

(2)   Acts 1, v. 1 to 10.

331
 33a A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

his disciples “he was taken up and a cloud received
him out of their sight.”

Question. As Jesus went up two men in white gar-
ments stood by, did they?

Answer. I so understood it.

Question. Were they the same two men in shining
garments that were at the sepulcher?

Answer. Possibly, but I do not know.

Question. It was Jesus’ mortal body that went up,
was it?

Answer. Certainly, it was his crucified body.

Question. Luke, did you know when you wrote that
gospel, anything about the law of gravitation, whereby
all bodies or particles of matter, everywhere in the
universe, were and are attracted toward each other?

Answer. I never heard of such a thing; there was
no such law in Palestine.

Question. Luke, you are mistaken. That law was
in full force in Palestine, and Jesus’ body was com-
posed of particles of matter; and his body, like any
other body of matter, was held down to the earth by
that universal law of attraction of gravitation. How
then do you say “he was carried up into heaven, and
a cloud received him out of sight?” (3)

Answer. It was a tradition among the people of
Palestine that “his body went up.” I did not witness
it, and in the very first verse of my gospel I say, “I
write of the things which are most surely believed
among us.”

(3)   Acts 1, v. 9.
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 333

Question. Then, Luke, all you really knew about
Jesus’ ascension, when you wrote, was from a tradi-
tion floating about among the people there in Pales-
tine, was it?

Answer. Yes, it was a local tradition, believed
mostly in Galilee.

Question. At the period of your gospel, you be-
lieved the earth to be flat, and that heaven was just
a bit above it, in the sky, did you not?

Answer. Of course, everybody knew that the earth
was flat and that heaven was just above it.

Question. You did not know, did you, that the
earth was traveling through space at an enormous
velocity?

Answer. Certainly not; the earth, when I wrote,
was stationary and quiet.

Question. You mean to say that it had that appear-
ance.

Answer. What else could I say?

Question. Well, suppose I should assert that at the
time you say Jesus made his ascension, this earth was
flying through space, and that, too, without wings, at
a velocity of about sixty or seventy thousand miles
an hour, or eleven hundred and thirty or forty miles
a minute; what would you say to that ?

Answer. I would dispute it. I would say that it
was impossible. I am sure it did not move then. (4)

(4)   The reader should notice that as the earth travels 68,000
miles per hour, it flies through space about eleven hundred and
thirty-three miles per minute, that being a little more than twen-
ty-two miles per second, or twenty-five tunes swifter than a bullet.
 334

A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

Question. Now, if heaven is just above the earth,
and the earth is flying through space, as I have said,
heaven must necessarily speed along with the same
velocity, must it not, in order that good people may
safely reach it?

Answer. In the first place, I do not admit that the
earth moves, but if it does move, as you say, then
heaven must move also, and must keep pace with it.

Question. Luke, did you know when you wrote
your gospel that the sun was moving northward to-
ward Lyra, and carrying the earth along with it, about
three hundred millions of miles each year?

Answer. I never heard of such a thing.

Question. But suppose, Luke, that this earth does
revolve on its axis every day, completely—does heaven
revolve around it also, keeping pace with it so that any
good people who may happen to die can reach it
easily ?

Answer. This earth does not revolve on its axis,
for if so, all the waters in the rivers, lakes and oceans
would spill out and fly off and become lost in space.
(5)

Question. But assume that the earth does revolve
on its axis, and that it is rushing rapidly through
space, is heaven also rushing along by the side of it
for the benefit of the saints?

Add to this the movement of the sun and the turning of the earth
on its axis, and we are traveling through space more than forty
times swifter than the fastest bullet.

(5)   That was the old argument centuries ago, and held mankind
in its remorseless grip for many generations.
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 335

Answer. Well, if the earth moves, as you say it
does, then heaven must surely follow close by.

Question. Luke, you say that Jesus was carried up
into heaven; please tell us who or what carried him
up? (6)

Answer. I cannot tell how he was carried up, but
that was the belief of the early Christians. (7)

Question. Do you not know that the atmosphere
eight or ten miles above the earth is so excessively
cold that if a man could be lifted that high, his breath
would become labored and heavy, and the intense cold
would freeze him stiff directly? How, then, could
Jesus live up there in that worse than arctic region?

Answer. If it is, in fact, so bitterly cold up there,
I do not see how he could live, or how they can keep
warm in heaven.

Offline PrometheusTopic starter

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Question. Luke, do you know that you (of all the
millions of people who have ever lived) are the only
one who says that “Jesus was carried up into heaven?”

Answer. That may be so, but the Jewish Christians
in my day believed it.

Question. Suppose, Luke, that this earth, as here-

(6)   Luke 24, v. 51.

(7)   Mark, eh. 16, v. 19, makes only this brief statement:
1 * After the Lord had spoken unto them (his disciples) he was re-
ceived np into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.”
Matthew makes no mention of the ascension whatever. The faith
of the world in this matter, therefore, is pinned to the belief of a
few ignorant Jews. It must be remembered that careful crit-
icism of Mark closes his gospel at the eighth verse of his last
chapter, and if that be true then the ascension is mentioned by
Luke only.
 336 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

tofore stated, turns on its axis, and that it travels
around the sun once every year, and that its orbit or
path is about five hundred and eighty or ninety mil-
lions of miles? There are two brothers, James and
John, both good men: James dies in the month of May;
you believe, do you, that he goes up at once to heaven?

Answer. Yes, I believe that.

Question. His brother John, also a good man, dies
in the month of November; when the earth has trav-
eled about two hundred and ninety millions of miles
from where James “went up,” how are those two
brothers ever to be united? (8)

Answer. Well, I don’t see, unless heaven travels
around with the earth.

Question. Now, Luke, as neither Matthew nor
John makes any mention about Jesus’ ascension, it
turns out, therefore, that although your words contra-
dict and set at defiance the law of gravitation in this
ascension matter, yet notwithstanding all this the faith
' of the world hangs suspended on your and Mark’s un-
supported words; is not that so?

Answer. I reply again that I simply wrote down

(8)   A friend of mine, and a good man, too, when I pat this
question to him, had an easy way of its solution. “If it was I,”
he said, “I would just jump right back onto the earth and cling
there until she swung around to May, and then I would hop off
right where Jim went up.” I told him he would have to be very
quick hopping off, for he would be going forty times faster than
a bullet. But even then he would be more than a hundred mil-
lion miles from his brother. To be more nearly exact, he would
be one hundred and fifty millions of miles from his brother Jim.
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 337

the belief of the Jewish Christians. I am answerable
for no more than that. (9)

Question. Suppose, Luke, that the stars, or at least
some of them, which we see in the sky, are worlds like
ours, with oceans and continents, and rivers and cli-
mates and peoples: now, if Jesus is the only begotten
son of the Most High, who is there to die for the sins
of all those people; or are we of this earth the only
wicked ones in all the universe? How is this?

Answer. Your question amazes me; how could or
can anyone live up there on those little bright things in
the air? Of course the stars are not worlds; they are
only beautiful bright specks in the sky. (10)

Question. But, Luke, truly the stars are worlds;
and some of them are larger than a thousand such
globes as ours; and those worlds have mountains and
rivers and lakes and oceans and continents and forests,
and plains and atmospheres, and there is no doubt
whatever but that they are inhabited the same as our
globe. The moral law pervades the universe; sin is
sin in those worlds, as well as here. To murder a man
on Venus, or Mars, or Mercury is a crime as well as
here. (11) Now, again I ask, if Jesus is the only son of

(9)   Mark says: "Jesus was received up into heaven and eat
on the right hand of God.” (Mark 16, v. 19.) Bnt the reader
should be cautioned that the last eight verses of Mark are said to
be spurious: Vol. 10, Br. Ency., title “Gospels,” p. 801, 9th edition.

(10)   The true and proper ending of Matthew is eh. 28, v. 8, and
of Luke, ch. 24, v. 9; of Mark, ch. 16, v. 11. That waa the belief
of the early Christians.

(11)   I believe the time is coming when we will telegraph to
Mars and Venus. Sixty years ago who would have said that wo
eould telegraph across the Atlantic f
 338 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

God, is there imposed on him the sorrowful task of
making atonement for all the peoples of all the mil-
lions of worlds about us? What think you? (12)

Answer. Your question reaches deep down. Of
course, if there are such a vast number of worlds, it
would seem as if Jesus could hardly follow the busi-
ness of dying for each and all of them. It would wear
him out.

Question. But philosophers and astronomers, after
long and patient research, tell us that there are more
than three hundred and fifty millions of stars or worlds
(down to the twelfth magnitude), many of them
vastly greater than this earth. Is it believable that
this vast host are put there just for us to look at,
when, as I have said, they have mountains and rivers
and scenery and atmospheres similar to ours; what
were they made for if not to be inhabited?

Answer. Perhaps their people did not sin.

Question. What is that? All that vast host of
habitable worlds and not a sinner among them? Is
this world of ours the only degenerate? What do you
say, Mr. Luke?

Answer. I know nothing of any other world than
this one. If the stars are worlds, it is wonderful, won-
derful.

That is all, Luke.

(12)   The number of stars visible to the naked eye exceeds fifty-
five hundred. But with telescopes, more than three hundred and
fifty millions can be seen! Our earth is only a very small star
and like every human life; philosophers tell us that the stars are
as much alive as trees or plants, and that they, too, will die in the
long hereafter.
 CHAPTER XXX

Apocryphal Miracles as Recounted in the
Apocryphal Gospels.

Section i. No statement of religious teachings in
the first and second centuries A. D., is complete with-
out some mention of what are called apocryphal gos-
pels and apocryphal miracles. Those books which
have been branded for centuries as apocryphal, I pro-
pose here and now to give a brief hearing, not only
because it is just, but moreover they throw, as it were,
- side lights on many things stated in the preceding
chapters.

At the close of the first century A. D. and well on
into the second, many persons were busily engaged in
writing of the things which were believed by the new
converts of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth.
In his very first line Luke tells us that “many” before
his day had undertaken to set forth the things most
surely believed (i) by the followers of the new-born
faith.

The following named books are branded “apocry-
phal” in the Protestant Bible, viz.:

First Esdras, written probably about one hundred
and fifty years B. C.

(1)   Notice that he only writes of tfap things “most surely be-
lieved” (Lake 1, v. 1). It is very doubtful whether Luke used
the words “most surely” in the above sentence.
 340

A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

Second Esdras, written about eighty to one hun-
dred years B, C. There is much fine writing in this
last book, and Matthew and Luke must have been dili-
gent students thereof. Jesus was likewise familiar
with Esdras. (2)

Tobit, written long after the exile, has numerous
angels (3), but only one devil, who has withal a sharp
sense of smell. (4)

Judith is the story of a beautiful Hebrew widow,
who deceived Holofemes, the Assyrian General, and
finally murdered him in his tent. Thus was Judea,
through the wiles and wickedness of a woman, re-
lieved from an invasion of the Assyrians.

The chapters of Esther, in the apocryphal, are
mostly made up of efforts of a Jewish queen to bene-
fit her people. But The Wisdom of Solomon, writ-
ten in the second century B. C., in Egypt, is a work
of a far different character. Serious speculation makes
its appearance; there is doubt and questioning. We
are born, it tells us, at venture, and we shall be here-
after as though we had never been. “Our life,” it
says, “is short and tedious, and in the death of man
there is no remedy, neither was there any man known
to have returned from the grave.”

Section 2. There is a dolorous train in The Wisdom
of Solomon. “Our time,” it says, “is a very shadow

(2)   Ch. 7 and 8, 2nd Esdras; Matt 7, v. 13 and 14; Luke 13,
v. 24.

(3)   Ch. 12.

(4)   Ch. 6, y. 17.
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 341

that passeth away, and our end is fast sealed; there
is no returning.” (5)

There is a touch of modem thought, however, in
Solomon, for we are told that “no torment shall reach
the souls of the righteous,” and their hope is full of
immortality.

Here creeps in this abominable doctrine: “The
Lord hath the care of His elect” (6). The devil also
appears. Man, it is said, was created to be immortal,
but through envy of the devil, death came into the
world. (7) In truth whoever wrote The Wisdom of
Solomon sounded the key-note of the New Testament.
The righteous are said to be full of the hope of immor-
tality, and shall judge the nations; but the ungodly
shall be punished. (8) The book closes with a threat
of wrath without mercy, to the ungodly.

Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus, the son of
Sirach, written 140 to 200 years B. C., contains many
beautiful sentences, with much sage advice. To il-
lustrate : “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
Wisdom.” “The Lord is full of Compassion and
Mercy; He forgiveth sins.” (9)

And we are commanded to “be a father unto the
fatherless.” (10) If we strive for the truth unto
death, the Lord, we are told, will fight for us. We
are admonished to be sincere and not cultivate a

(5)   Ch. 2, v. 1 and 5.

(6)   Ch. 3, y. 9.

(7)   Ch. 2, v. 24.

(8)   Ch. 3, y. 1 to 10.

(9)   Ch. 1 and 2.

(10)   Ch. 4, y. 10.
 342 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

double tongue. Shakespeare, in his play of Hamlet,
catches his inspiration from chapter 6 when he says,
“The friends thou hast and their adoption tried, grap-
ple them to thy soul with hooks of steel.” (11)

Chapter 12, v. 7, hardly comes up to the high stand-
ard of the Sermon on the Mount; for it tells us to
“give to the good man, but help not the sinner.”

Ecclesiasticus is filled with much sage advice, and
many beautiful mottoes. One of the best is:   “He

that can rule his tongue shall live without strife.”
(12) “A thief,” he says, “is better than a liar.” (13)

The Book of Baruch is held to be apocryphal by
Protestants, and deutero-canonical by Roman Catho-
lics. In the very first verse, Baruch says he wrote
the book in Babylon. “We are in our captivity,” he
says, “in a strange country; Israel is waxen old; had
she walked with God, she would have dwelt in peace
forever.” (14)

But like many other old Jewish writers, Baruch has
not even a hope in the long hereafter. He says the
dead that are in the graves, whose souls are taken from
their bodies, will give unto the Lord neither praise nor
righteousness. (15)

Baruch held its place in the Hebrew canon for two
hundred and eighty years after Jesus came, and was 11

(11)   Ch. 6, v. 7.

(12)   Ch. 19, v. 6.

(13)   Ch. 20, v. 25.

(14)   Ch. 3, v. 8 to 13.

(15)   Ch. 2, v. 17.
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 343

read in public on the Day of Atonement, as a sacred,
or inspired book. (16)

The Song of the Three Holy Children startles us
at once with a statement so brazen that we turn it
down as absolutely false. For how could Azarias
and those other Hebrews, survive unsinged in an oven
so hot with pitch and rosin and wood that the flames
streamed up forty-nine cubits, burning the Chaldeans
who fed the furnace, and yet not a hair of Azarias’
head be singed.

But an explanation is attempted when we are told
that an angel came down into that oven and smote
the flames, and made it moist and comfortable. This
whole story is simply a supplement to the book of
Daniel (17) and both are truly apocryphal. (18)

Section 3. The History of Susanna stands On a dif-
ferent footing. It is the story of a faithful wife,
whom two villains sought to beguile; and because she
was true, they determined on her destruction. And
she was only saved from death by putting the two
witnesses apart and questioning them closely. At
once their perjury was laid bare, the woman was
saved and the villains were put to death in her stead.

In the history of Bel and the Dragon, Bel was a
Babylonian idol, very costly, for each day he devoured
forty sheep and great quantities of flour and wine.
The king told Daniel that Bel devoured all that sub-

(16)   Vol. 5, Br. Encv., p. 3.

(17)   Ch. 3.

(18)   Ch. 1, v. 23 to 27.
 344

A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

stance every day. At this, Daniel smiled and told
the king that Bel was only clay and brass, and could
not eat or drink anything. Wroth at this, the king
called his three score and ten priests and said unto
them: “If ye tell me not who this is that devoureth
these things, ye shall surely die. But if ye can certify
me that Bel devoureth them, then Daniel shall die.”
The king and Daniel then went into the temple, and
the food and wine were brought, and the door made
fast with the king’s signet. “Tomorrow when thou
comest,” said the priests, “if Bel has not eaten all, we
suffer death, or else Daniel has spoken falsely.” The
priests felt secure, for under the table they had a
secret door, whereby they had entered and consumed
the food and drink given to Bel. Now when Daniel
had scattered ashes on the floor, the king and he de-
parted.

During the night, the priests and their families en-
tered by the secret door and ate and drank everything.
In the morning the king and Daniel, finding the seal
unbroken and the table empty, the king cried out:
“Great art thou, O Bel; there is no deceit in thee.”

Then Daniel laughed and pointed the king to the
footprints in the ashes on the floor and showed him
the secret entrance, where the priests and their fami-
lies came in. The king at this grew wroth, and slew
the priests, but delivered Bel and his temple to Daniel,
who destroyed both.

The First Book of Maccabees is a book of wars, in
which Judas (called Maccabees) was for a time the
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

345

general of the Hebrews. He fought valiantly, but
was finally slain. Maccabees is a book of deception
and treachery. (19) In this same Ch. 12, v. 9, which
was written 114 to 150 years B. C., we find the first
certain mention that the Old Testament is thought to
be an inspired book. (20)

Section 4. Maccabees Second commences with
thanks to God for the death of their great enemy, An-
tiochus. The new king, on learning of the great
riches stored in the temple of Jerusalem, sends Heli-
odorus, his treasurer, to seize them. The Lord of
spirits, to save the treasures, caused a great apparition
of a horse with a terrible rider to appear;
and the horse smote Heliodorus with his feet. More-
over, two young men of great strength and beauty
scourged Heliodorus so violently that he fell to the
earth and was borne away in a litter. (22)

If the reader is of a military cast of mind, chapter
five, second Maccabees, will be a royal feast unto him.
He will there learn of apparitions, the clashing of
swords, the shaking of shields, the thrust of lances,
and the charge of battalions in the air. This, it is
said, was seen “for almost forty days.” (23)

Chapter seven is a story of the heroic death of a
mother and her seven sons, by infamous torture, be-

(19)   Ch. 12, ?. 48.

(20)   Vol. 13, page 154, Br. Ency.

(21)   Ch. 3.

(22)   The Jews said it was the Almighty Lord that appeared and
saved their treasure, ch. 3, v. 30. I think they were mistaken.
It was a shrewd trick of an ancient Shylock more likely.

(23)   Ch. 5, v. 2 and 3.
 346

A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

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cause they would not eat swine flesh. The whole
chapter may be simply the imagination of the writer,
but it is noteworthy that it appears about the same
date as the book of Daniel, where we get the first full
mention of the new gospel of the resurrection. The
Jews imported that doctrine from Persia or India.
(24) Zoroaster had preached it centuries and cen-
turies before either Daniel or Maccabees were
dreamed of. The last two chapters of the work wd
are considering, fumkh evidence of the Jewish faith,
one hundred and seventy years B. C. They show us
that the Persian belief, or Hindu belief, of the life
beyond the grave, was slowly filtering into the de-
praved Jewish mind. But it was to be a bodily resur-
rection. (25) We are told that Razis, one of the eld-
ers of Jerusalem, in a fierce conflict with Nicanor’s
men, being wounded unto death, seized his own bow-
els and hurled them at his enemies, calling upon the
Lord to restore his bowels again, then immediately he
expired. (26)

The Prayer of Manasses, King of Judah. He was
a captive in Babylon, and his prayer ought to have a
place in every Bible. Manasses was suffering great
tribulation as a helpless prisoner in a strange land.

(24)   The legend of Daniel is nearly 700 years B. C. Ezekiel
14, v. 14, and Ezekiel 28, v. 3. The book of Daniel was written
about 165 to 175 years 6. G. But whence came this great consol-
ing thought that mankind will escape the darkness and the eternal
silence of the grave! It came from Persia. See Whitney’s
Zoroaster, p. 94 and 95.

(25)   Ch. 12, v. 43 to 45.

(26)   Ch. 14, y. 37 to 46, Second Maccabees.
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 347

He was loaded with chains, so that he could not
lift his head. He confessed his multiplied transgres-
sions, and humbly asked forgiveness for all his of-
fenses.

I will simply add on this point that had I been pres-
ent when the Canon was settled, I should most heart-
ily have voted in Manasses’ favor.
 CHAPTER XXXI

The Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus Compared
With the Canonicals.

Section i. We turn now to some ancient writings,
very similar to those of Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John; and because they are extravagant about miracles,
etc., they are ingloriously turned down. But nothing
is more certain than that for the first one hundred
and fifty years after Jesus’ death, a great number of
persons were engaged in writing histories of His time
which they called “Gospels,” and in those gospels they
tell most marvelous things.

Some of those alleg/ed gospels were written before,
and some after the canonicals; but no absolute and un-
impeachable date can be fixed for either class.

The Acts of Pilate or Gospels of Nicodemus are
either copied from Matthew and Luke and others, or
Matthew and Luke copy from Nicodemus. To illus-
trate : In chapter two, Jesus is brought before Pilate,
and Pilate’s wife sent to him saying: “Have nothing
to do with that just man, for I have suffered much
concerning him in a vision this night.” Matthew,
chapter 27, verse 19, quotes this word for word, ex-
cept that he says Pilate’s wife had a dream that day of
him. Chapter 2, Acts of Pilate, tells us that Pilate

348
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

349

called Jesus to him and said, “Hast thou heard what
they testify against thee?” Matthew (i) copies this:
Pilate says, “Hearest thou how many things they wit-
ness against thee?” (2) When the Jews were clamor-
ing for Jesus’ crucifixion, Pilate said unto them: “It is
Hot proper to crucify him; let him be whipped and sent
away.” Luke, chapter 23, verse 22, makes Pilate say
of Jesus: “I have found no cause of death in him; I
will therefore chastise him and let him go.” In the Acts
of Pilate, ch. 4, Nicodemus appears and entreats Pilate
to be merciful, for he says: “Jesus is o man who has
done many useful and glorious things, such as no man
on earth has done, or can do,” and he begs Pilate
to dismiss him, and do him no harm. And Nicode-
mus adds, “If he is from God, his wonderful works
will stand; but if from men, they will come to
naught.”

Section 2. In Acts 5, v. 38 and 39, Luke copies
Nicodemus exactly; or Nicodemus copies Luke. Which
one is the copyist? In chapter 6, Acts of Pilate, another
Jew asked to.be heard in Jesus’ behalf. Pilate permitted
him. “I lay for thirty-eight years by the sheep pool,
at Jerusalem,” said the man, “suffering a great in-
firmity. I was expecting a cure from the coming of
an angel, who disturbed the water at a certain time.
Whoever thereafter first descended into it was made
whole of every infirmity.” John, chapter 5, verses
2 to 10, says there were five porches af this “sheep 1

(1)   Ch. 27, v. 13.

(2)   Ch. 4, Acts of Pilate.
 350

A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

pool,” and that the halt, the blind, and the withered,
lay there waiting for the angel to come and move the
waters; that whoever first, after the troubling of the
waters, stepped in, was made whole. And John men-
tions this man who had lain there thirty-eight years.
Nicodemus now tells the rest of this story in one
quarter of the space of John. “Jesus finding a man
languishing there, said, “Wilt thou be made whole?”
The man answered, “Sir, I have no man, when the
water is troubled, to put me into the pool.” Jesus
said unto him, “Rise, take up thy bed and walk,” and
immediately the man was made whole and took up his
bed and walked.

Some other Jews, besides Nicodemus, interceded
for Jesus. “I was blind,” said one, “and he restored
me to sight.” "I was a leper,” said another, “and he
cured me by his word only,saying, ‘Be thou dean,’ and
immediately I was cleansed from leprosy.” Luke, in
chapter 5, verses 12 and 13, tdls this same story, but
he uses sixty words as against thirty in Nicodemus.
The story of the paralytic is told in Acts of Pilate in
ninety-three words. Luke tells the same with no im-
provements, in two hundred and thirty-two words.
The law of accretion in John and Luke, is here plain-
ly evident. (3)

In mock trial before Pilate, Nicodemus tells us

(3)   A story always gains on its travels. It took John exactly
one hundred and sixty words to tell of this man waiting at the
sheep pool. Nicodemus pictures the same story as well or better
than John in fifty words less. Tertulian, the African, says: “ John
survived the ordeal of being boiled in oil. ’ ’ If that be so, it may
have unbalanced John’s mind somewhat.
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

35i

(4) that a Pharisee stood forth and declared that a
great company of infirm persons came from Galilee
and the coast countries, and that Jesus healed them
all. Then others of the Jews cried out, “Even de-
mons are subject to him.” Nicodemus (5) and Mat-
thew (6) say that “Jesus healed one possessed with a
devil.” The Acts of Pilate (7) tells the story of Jesus
“casting out a devil,” just after he himself had been
driven from Nazareth; and Luke (8) later on, copies
Nicodemus almost word for word. (9)

After the crucifixion, the Jews, on learning that
Joseph of Arimathea had begged and buried the body
of Jesus, sought to arrest him and his accomplices;
but they all fled except Nicodemus. Joseph soon after
returned; whereupon the Jews seized and confined
him in a chamber, where there were no windows, and
they fastened the door and put a seal upon the lode
and placed a guard there. (10)

Although he came to Jesus by night (11), Nicode-
mus must have been a man of courage and firmness,
for we are told that in this exigency he faced the Jews
boldly and expostulated with them.

(4)   Ch. 7.

(5)   Ch. 8.

(6)   Ch. 12.

(7)   Ch. 7.

(8)   Ch. 4, v. 31 to 36.

(9)   “Many” had written before Luke, and he ought to have
given Nicodemus credit for this incident.

(10)   Ch. 12, Acts of Pilate; Matt. 27, v. 57 to 59; Luke 23, v.
50 to 53. On the question of priority between Luke and the gospel
of Nicodemus, there are many disputants on each side; and the
absolute truth will probably never be known.

(11)   John 3, v. 2.
 352

A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

Here now appears a miracle something like that
in Acts 12, when Peter was released from prison by
an angel. When the Jews ordered Joseph to be
brought forth (12) from that dark sealed chamber,
he could not be found. Yet we are told that the same
seal, unbroken, was on the lock. The Jews did not be-
lieve the soldiers, and in the altercation which followed,
the soldiers said: “You produce Joseph, whom ye put
under guard in your own chamber, and we will produce
Jesus, whom we guarded in the sepulcher.”

Nicodemus all this time (13) believed Jesus to be
alive, and he sent men into the mountains to search for
him. They did not find Jesus, but found Joseph, who
returned and related his extraordinary escape. He said
Jesus entered that room and set him free. John (14)
tells the same kind of .a story. Jesus had then gone into
Galilee.

(12)   Acts of Pilate, ch. 13.

(13)   Ch. 15, Acts of Pilate.

(14)   Ch. 20, y. 20.

l
 CHAPTER XXXII

More Apocryphal Miracles.

Section i. The second century A. D. was re-
plete with writers of Gospels of every grade, and
each gospel, canonical and apocryphal, was filled
with alleged miracles of the most extraordinary char-
acter.

An early gospel, written probably about the time
of Luke, was the Protevangelium, or book of James.
Now, while it is true that the Protevangelium has been
branded as apocryphal, it is also true that it has a
certificate of genuineness; for at the conclusion its
colophon says: “I, James, wrote this history in Je-
rusalem, and when the disturbance was, I retired
into a desert place, until the death of Herod, and the
disturbance ceased.” (i) Moreover, no one of the
four canonicals has any colophon, nor can anyone tell
when or where they were written.

One of the improbable things which James men-
tions is that Elizabeth, hearing that her son John was
being searched for, took him and fled to the moun- 1

(1)   He must mean Herod Antipas; for Herod the Great died
the year before or the same year Jesus was born. James mentions
the peculiar betrothal of Joseph and Mary. See ch. 5, ante.

363
 354 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

tains; and that a friendly mountain opened wide and
safely received them. Another is that when Zacha-
rias was killed, his blood hardened into stone; and
the roofs of the temples howled and were rent from
top to bottom.

The gospel of Luke, which seems truly to have been
made up from “many” older manuscripts, quotes lib-
erally from the Protevangelium (2), but James men-
tions one thing which Luke utterly ignores; for James
says that Mary, at the time of her conception, was
only fourteen years old. (3)

Luke tells us (4) that Joseph and Mary reached
Bethlehem; but James says when within three miles
of that place her time drew near, and they were
obliged to stop; and she was taken into a cave, a place
used for the herding of sheep, and Jesus was bom
there. The gospel of the Infancy, written in the sec-
ond century, and ascribed to Thomas, the doubter (5),
mentions the taxing, and the journey, and the stopping
at that cave. The Protevangelium (6) says they
stopped three miles from Bethlehem.

Luke and the gospel of the Infancy here now con-
tradict Matthew in the most explicit terms, for they
assert that Jesus was taken to the temple in Jerusalem

(2)   Luke himself mentions that 11 many*1 have written of these
things before him. (Luke 1, v. 1.)

(3)   Gh. 12, James.

(4)   Ch. 2, v. 4.

(5)   John 20, v. 24 to 28.

(6)   Ch. 18.
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

355

and was there circumcised on the eighth day after his
birth. (7) And after the circumcision in the temple,
Luke says, “Joseph and Mary returned into Galilee, to
their own city of Nazareth.” (8)

Now, if Jesus was taken to Jerusalem, as Luke de-
scribes, he was not rushed off to Egypt, as Matthew
tells us. One or the other of these stories is surely
false. Which one is true? We have been taught (at
least I was) that “all scripture is given by inspira-
tion.” (9) Which one of these men was inspired
in this matter? Two witnesses in court swearing to
absolute opposites may both be false, but they cannot
both be true.

Section 2. Neither John nor Mark nor Luke
makes any mention whatever of the star which came
and stood over the young child.

But Matthew tells us that the wise men from the
East saw it and followed it. (10) And the book of
James (11) mentions it as a very large star, outshin-
ing all the other stars in the heavens. Moreover,
James divulges a secret of which neither of the ca-
nonicals makes explicit mention, though Matthew hints
at it broadly. (12) But James (13) says Joseph be-
lieved Mary was to be with child by an angel, and that

(7)   Infancy, ch. 5 and 0; Luke, ch. 2.

(8)   Luke 2, v. 39.

(9)   Holy men of God spoke, it is said, as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost. (Second epistle of Peter, ch. 1, v. 21.)

(10)   Matt. 2.

(11)   Ch. 21.

(12)   Matt. 1, ?. 18 to 20.

(13)   Ch. 14.
 35$

A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

if he concealed her crime, he would be found guilty by
the law of the Lord.

Is it not a curious circumstance that Matthew
makes the birth of Jesus so great and important that
a star moves through the heavens “till it comes and
stands over this child?” (14) Then he sends the par-
ents and child in hot haste off to Egypt, where they
remain until the death of Herod. (15) Yet neither
Mark, Luke nor John mentions a word about either
the journey or the residence in Egypt. And Matthew
gives as his sole reason for that journey that Hosea

(16)   , a Jewish writer seven hundred years before, bad
said: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him,
and called my son out of Egypt.”

. Leaving out the star story, and Hosea, Matthew’s
first chapter is mostly made up of Joseph’s five
dreams. First, he is in trouble about his wife, and
an angel appears to him in a dream, and soothes him.

(17)   Then he is “warned of God in a dream, that
they should not return to Herod.”

Then after starting for Galilee, the angel of the
Lord appears to Joseph in another dream (18) and
bids him go to Egypt. Again after the death Of Herod,

(14)   Matt. 2, v. 9 and 10.

(15)   Herod the Great died the year Jesus was born, that is, 4
B. C., and he is the one charged with the slaughter of the infants.
But history makes no mention of the murder of the children, and
while it is true that Herod murdered his sons and his wife, and
was vile enough to kill the babes, yet it is not certain that Mat-
thew is right in charging him with that awful crime.

(16)   Ch. 11, v. 1.   -
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 357

an angel of the Lord appears in still another dream
(19) and tells him to take the child and his mother
and go into the land of Israel. On reaching Israel,
Joseph learns that Archelaus is king, and he is warned
of God in yet another dream, and he goes and dwells
in Nazareth. (20)

The thoughful reader will just here inquire who
told Matthew about those five dreams? Joseph could
not tell him, for Joseph had been in his grave a cen-
tury when Matthew was written. Does it require in-
spiration to state a sober fact? Surely we can affirm
that dreams are gossamer things upon which to build
a great historical faith.

The gospel of the Infancy, written before or about
the time of Matthew, may have somewhat misled him,
for it says, “Joseph, being warned of an angel, fled
into Egypt.” (21)

No one of the canonicals mentions a word about
the miracles which Jesus is said to have performed in
Egypt; and I can only account for this on the theory
that the alleged miracles are so astounding as to sur-
pass belief.

On being carried in his mother’s arms into a temple
in Egypt, while he was a baby, it is said all the idols,
big and little, fell down at his approach. A girl, white

(19)   Matt. 2, v. 19.

(20)   Matt. 2, v. 22.

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(21)   Infancy, ch. 9, says the wise men came from the EaBt;
according to the prophecy of Zoroaster. That star story, it seems,
is an importation from Persia. Chapter 29, Gospel of the Infancy,
says Joseph and Mary resided in Memphis three years.
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

35»

with leprosy, on taking Jesus in her arms, was instant-
ly cured. A young man, for some offense, had been
changed into a mule; Jesus was placed on that mule’s
back, and at once the mule was transformed into the
young man. (22)

Traveling in a desert place, Jesus caused a cooling
fountain, it is said, to gush forth, to the great relief
of the parched sufferers.

The Jewish instinct of trade seems to have been
strong in Mary, for she cured Caleb, a sick boy,
by giving his mother some of Jesus’ swaddling clothes,
in exchange for a beautiful carpet. The touch of the
swaddling clothes, it is said, healed Caleb (23) in-
stantly. But another woman, an enemy of Caleb,
seized him and threw him into a well. Instead of
drowning, Caleb sat calmly upon the surface of the
waters, uninjured. His persecutor, the woman, by ac-
cident fell into the well, and instantly perished.

A young woman who had been long afflicted by
Satan sucking her blood, was cured by wrapping some
of Jesus’ swaddling clothes about her head. Flames
at once burst forth from these clothes, and so badly
scorched the dragon that he cried out: “What have
I to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of Mary? Whither
shall I go?” Luke, in chapter 8, v. 28, quotes this
dragon story, with this difference; that the devil, in
Luke, begs to enter into some swine, and the swine
perish by drowning in the sea.

(22)   Ch. 10 to 20, Gospel of the Infancy.

(23)   Ch. 27 to 34, Gospel of the Infancy.
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 359

Chapter 40 of the Infancy tells us that Jesus turned
some boys into kids, and he said to the kids, “Come
hither, O ye kids”; and they came. Then at a word
he changed them back into boys. Later on, he could
change water into wine, at least John so tells us.

(24)   One story is perhaps just as true as the other.

While Jesus was still a boy in Egypt, we are told

that he raised a dead boy to life. Later he met a
funeral procession bearing a young man to his grave.
He came and touched the bier, and said to the corpse,
“Arise,” and the dead sat up and began to speak.

(25)   Why condemn the Infancy story and not also
that of Luke?

Matthew makes no mention whatever of the length
of time Jesus remained in Egypt; but the Infancy
here comes to our assistance, and tells us that his resi-
dence there lasted three years. But Joseph, when he
came near Judea, on his return, hearing that Archelaus
was king, was afraid, and an angel appeared to him,
and said, “O Joseph, go into the city of Nazareth, aqd
there abide.” (26)

Section 4. Nothing is mentioned of Jesus’ boy-
hood in any of the four approved gospels, from his
birth until he is twelve years of age. Then we catch
one solitary glimpse of him (27), and he again dis-
appears utterly, until his baptism, when he is about

(24)   John 2, v. 3 to 10.

(25)   Luke 7, v. 11 to 15.

(26)   Ch. 26, Infancy.

(27)   Luke 2, v. 40 to 54.
 3&>

A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

twenty-nine or thirty years old. (26) The gospel of
the Infancy fills in this hiatus somewhat, and con-
firms Luke in his mention of the discussion with the
doctors in the temple. But the Infancy goes beyond
Luke, and tells us that Jesus went to school to Zac-
cheus, and from him to a more learned teacher. This
last teacher, for some reason untold, raised his hand
to strike Jesus, and it is said his hand instantly with-
ered, and the master presently died. Moreover, it is
said in the Infancy (29) that Jesus explained to an
astronomer the number of spheres, and heavenly bod-
ies, their triangular, square and sextile aspect; their
progressive and retrograde motions, their size, etc.
He explained to a philosopher, physics and natural
philosophy, the powers of the body, its bones and ar-
teries, and how the soul operates on the body.

The Infancy says that after the return to Nazareth,
Jesus worked with Joseph, his father (30), as a car-
penter ; and when Joseph wanted anything longer or
shorter, Jesus would stretch his hand toward it, and
it instantly became the length desired; that Joseph hav-
ing spent a long time in building a throne for the king
of Jerusalem, made it short two spans, and he was
greatly worried; so troubled in fact, that he went to
bed without his supper. In the morning Jesus took
hold of one side, and Joseph the other, and pulled, and
the throne straightway came to the right dimensions.

(28)   Mark 1, v. 9; Matt. 3, v. 13; Luke 3, v. 23.

(29)   Infancy, ch. 48 to 53.

(30)   Ch. 37 and 39.
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 361

(31) Jesus, it is said, concealed his miracles and de-
voted himself to the study of the law till thirty years
old. The Infancy concludes in these words: “The end
of the whole gospd of the Infancy, by the assistance
of the Supreme God, according to what we found in
the original.”

(31)   Li not this too much for sober belief! But did Jordan
roll back its waters for the Israelites to cross! (Joshua, ch. 3,
?.16.) Bid the winds and wares calm down at Jesus’ rebuke!
Did Buddha, when a great inundation surrounded the place where
he lived, cause the water to recede at his words! (V. 13, Sacred
Books of the Bast, p. 131.) Did Buddha walk on water! (Fo
Sho Hing, p. 222, sec. 1551.) Did Jeetts walk on water! (Mark
6, ?. 48.)
 CHAPTER XXXIII.

The Apocryphal Gospel of Marcion Compared
With Luke's Canonical.

(

Section i. Concerning the gospel of Marcion, a
ceaseless warfare has been waged for and against it,
for nearly 1,600 years, and the end is not yet. Truly,
who can look into the seeds of time and say which
grain will grow and which will wither?

When Marcion and Luke were both alive, who
could have told which gospel would become canoni-
cal? Our first inquiry, therefore, is, who was this
Marcion, and what was his gospel that has been sound-
ing down all these centuries?

As near as his period can be fixed, he was bom
at Sinope, in Pontius, on the southern shore of the
Black Sea, about the year no A. D. Tertulian, his
great enemy and detractor, said of him that “all
things in Sinope are cold and torpid; yet nothing
there is so sad as that Marcion was bom there.”

In early life Marcion was a prosperous shipowner
in Sinope. His vessels gathered wealth for him all
along the coasts of Pontius. When, between the age
of twenty-five and thirty, he became a convert from
paganism to Christianity, at once the whole tenor of
his life was changed. He became not only religious,

362
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

3^3

but intensely religious. The God of the Old Testa-
ment seemed to him to be stern and wrathful in vis-
iting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children,
even to the fourth generation. (1)

Marcion turned from this vengeful God to the new
dispensation of the Man of Galilee. The new wine
was to burst the old bottles. (2) In short, the old Jew-
ish law of vengeance was to be suspended by this new
message of love and peace.

Marcion soon became so filled with enthusiasm for
the new religion that he wrote a gospel, and hoped
to win the whole world to his standard; and had he
gained Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna (3), Marcion pos-
sibly might have taken the place of Luke in the ca-
nonicals. Moreover, the Roman Catholic church
might have waned, instead of waxing so strong and
great. Such strange destinies, from little happen-
ings, often await all human plans.

If Marcion had abstained from speculation about
the cosmogony of the universe, he might not have
been led to believe in the Demiurge—or two Gods
(4): the God who created man out of matter, and

(1)   Exodus 20, v. 5.

(2)   Luke 5, v. 7.

(3)   Polycarp was born in Asia Minor about the year 69 A. D.,
and lived to the ripe age of 90. He was arrested by the Jews and
burned at the stake, as an enemy of their religion. Even the
heathens piled fagots around him, and the Jews refused to give
up even his bones for burial.

(4)   Is it not true that the Bible mentions two Godsf What
is the devil but a great powerful wicked creature, that can only
be bound for a thousand years (Rev. 22 v. 2). In Jesus’ day,
there were many devils; He talked to them, and they answered
back. (Luke 4, v. 33 to 35).
 jf* A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

on him a bw hard to live up to, and that
other God, more merciful, who would save him.

Sectiow 2. In writing of men, doctrines and be-
liefs, in the first and second centuries, one most ex-
ercise much patience and not draw the line too closely;
for the first followers of Jesus are Jews, born and
reared under a code that was unjust, and filed with
improbable miracles. To Matthew, Luke and John, a
religion without miracles was, as they believed, no
religion at alL

Hence no writer or preacher of religions could ob-
tain a bearing at that period or later on, unless he
made frequent and repeated mention of miracles.
Marrion was no exception to the rule. He wrote a
gospel, and established churches, and between the
years 175 and 250 A. D. his followers came near
pushing the Roman church to the wall.

He preached powerfully against the Demiurge—the
bad God—and insisted that man must put bis trust in
the good God and his Son; that faith, charity, love and
good works would save the soul. The body, he said,
perishes. It will never be resurrected. The soul or
spirit alone survives. The Demiurge, he said, would
punish the wicked in Hell.

Marcion’s gospel for more than two hundred years
exerted a wide influence in the world. Then its power
began slowly to decline, and when the sixth century
arrived there were only a few scattered Marcionites
here and there, and another century saw diem in a
total eclipse.
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES jfc

But this much may be safely said of him; that
he strove to improve the old Jewish religion, and
he made the first collection of New Testament gospels
that was ever made. He wrote a gospel of his own,
which some scholars think Luke had before him when
he composed his gospel. Having said this much of
Marcion and his religion, I shall now quote numerous
passages from his gospel, and give the corresponding
verses and chapters from Luke, that thus the reader
may judge whether he borrowed from Luke, or Luke
borrowed from Marcion. Mardon, chapter i, verse
2: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius
Caesar (Luke 3, v. 1) Jesus came down to Capernaum,
a dty of Galilee, and taught diem on the Sabbath
days. (Luke 4, v. 31.) And they were exceedingly
astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with
power.” (Luke 4, v. 32, is the same as verse 3 Mar-
cion.) “And in the synagogue, there was a man who
had a spirit of an unclean devil, and he cried out with
a loud voice: (Luke 4, v. 33 is word for word the
same as Marcion in chapter 1, v. 4) ‘Let us alone;
what have we to do with Jesus? Art thou come to
destroy us? I know thee, who thou art, the holy one
of God.’ ” Luke 4, v. 34, repeats this exactly. In
verses 35 and 36, ch. 4, Lflke has the same words as
ch. 1, v. s and 6, Marcion. Chapter 4, Luke, v. 38
and 39 are identical with ch. 1, Marcion, v. 8 and 9.
Chapter 1, v. 17, Marcion: “Now when the sun was
setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases
brought diem unto him, and he laid his hands on
 366 A QUESTION OP MIRACLES

every one of them and healed them.” Luke, ch. 4, v.
40, is here identical with Mardon. Chapter 3, Mar-
cion, v. 17, is identical with Luke, ch. 6, v. 17. One
is certainly copied from the other. Chapter 4, Mar-
don, 4:30: “A sinful woman standing near, before
his feet, washed his feet with her tears, and anointed
them and kissed them.” Read Luke, ch. 7, v. 37 and
38. The only difference is that Luke says the woman
had “an alabaster box of ointment.”

Marcion, ch. 4, v. 36: “And he turned to the wo-
man, and said unto Simon, ‘See’st thou this woman?
I entered into thy house, thou gavest me no water for
my feet; she has washed my feet with her tears, and
has anointed them, and kissed them.’ ” Luke, ch. 7,
v. 44 and 45, is the same as Marcion, except that
Luke says, “she wiped the feet with the hair of her
head.” (5)

Chapter 5 of Marcion, v. 1 to 18, is identical with
ch. 8, Luke, v. 1 to 18. Marcion, ch. 5, v. 22, and
Luke, ch. 8, v. 23 and 24, both mention the incident
of Jesus rebuking the wind and the raging waters.
Chapter 6, Marcion, v. 30: “And behold two men
talked with* him, Elias and Moses in glory.” The
same words are in Luke, ch. 9, v. 30 and 31.

Chapter 7, Marcion, v. 1 to 19, wherein Jesus ap-
pointed seventy and sent them “two and two, into
every city,” are found in Luke, ch. 10, v. 1 to 20.

(5)   Mark 14, v. 3, says:   “The woman poured the ointment

on Je8us9 headLuke 7, v. 38, says she 44anointed his feet,”
and Marcion and Luke here agree. Mark seems to have been in-
spired differently.
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES   367

Section 3. The incident of a certain lawyer stand-
ing up and tempting Jesus, is told by Luke in ch. 10,
v. 5, and Marcion in ch. 7, v. 25.

Chapter 8, v. 2, Marcion: “And he said unto them,
When ye pray, say ‘Father, may thy holy spirit come
to us, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in
heaven, so on earth.’ ” This same prayer, a little im-
proved in phraseology, is found in Luke, ch. n, v.
2, 3 and 4.

“Who of you, being a father, if a son ask a fish,”
etc., is identical in Marcion, ch. 8, with Luke, ch. 11,
v. 11 and 12. In ch. 9 of Marcion are many verses
identical with ch. 12 of Luke. Chapter 10, Marcion,
v. 1 to 6: “Behold there was a woman which had
a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bound
together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And
when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said
unto her, ‘Woman, thou art loosed from thy infirm-
ity’; and he laid his hand on her, and immediately
she was made straight and glorified God.” Luke
has these identical words in ch. 13, v. 11 to 14.

Marcion, ch. 10, v. 18, says: “There shall be weep-
ing and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see all the
righteous in the Kingdom of God, and yourselves,
cast out and held back.” Luke, ch. 13, v. 28,
changes this somewhat, and says:   “There shall be

weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see
Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets
in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust
out.”
 368 A QUESTION OP MIRACLES

If the reader will turn to chapter 16 of Luke and
read the first ten verses thereof, he will have read
the first ten verses of chapter 13 of Mardon. In
short, these two men seem to have been inspired to
utter, all along, the same identical thoughts.

Sometimes, it is true, the inspiration seems to wab-
ble a little, as witness chapter 13, Mardon, verse 17,
when he says: “Heaven and earth may pass, but
not one tittle of my words shall fail.” Luke, chapter
16, verse 17: “It is easier for heaven and earth to
pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.”

Again, Luke is inspired in the first seventeen verses
of his chapter 18 exactly word for word as Mardon
is inspired in his first eighteen verses of chapter 15.
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But Mardon in chapter 19, and Luke in chapter
22, utterly disagree on a very important matter. Luke
v. 28 to 31, says: “Jesus appoints kingdoms unto
his disciples, and that they shall sit on thrones and
judge the twelve tribes of Israel.” Moreover, they
can eat and drink in the kingdom at Jesus’ table.

Mardon thought that the body at death goes back
to dust and utterly perishes; that therefore it would
need “no food and drink,” that the soul only sur-
vives (7); that there would be no violations of law;

(6)   The reader should remember that instead of flnding only
a few lines in each chapter of Luke and Marcion which are ex-
actly alike, word for word, there is not a single chapter of Mar-
cion from which Luke did not draw his inspiration—or Marcion
drew his inspiration from Luke. Bemarkable, is it notf

(7)   Luke, it would seem, is a materialist (oh. 22, v. 25 to 31.)
Marcion believed that the spirit only survives at death. Matthew
also was a materialist (Matt. 8, v. 11, and Matt 24, v. 47.)
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

369

consequently neither the twelve tribes, nor any of their
members, would require judges sitting on thrones to
judge them as Luke tells us.

This open clash between these two gospel writers
led probably to Marcion’s condemnation as a heretic.
For in nearly everything else their gospels, as we
have seen, are almost exactly alike.

The incidents of the journey of the two men to
Emmaus, and Jesus joining them on the way; how
he sat at meat with them, and his vanishing out of
sight; their return to Jerusalem, and meeting the
eleven; and Jesus’ sudden appearance to the eleven,
and his telling them he is not a spirit, but has flesh
and bones, are all set forth by Mardon in his chapter
21, verses 1 to 40, and Luke has the same in chapter
24, verses 13 to 39.

In fact the last chapter of Marcion and the last
chapter of Luke are the same, except that verses 45,
52 and 53 of Luke are not found in Marcion. •

We have seen who Marcion was, we know where
and when he was born, and much of his life work,
but of Luke we know nothing to a certainty. His
name would indicate that he was an Italian. (Luca-
nus.) It is not certain that Colossians, ch. 4, v. 14,
has reference to him; yet, if so, then Luke was a phy-
sician. But it is even questioned whether Colossians
was written by Paul. Philemon 24, may and may not
have reference to Luke, the gospel writer. Second
 370 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

Timothy (8) mentions a “Luke” who was with Paul,
but did that man write Luke’s gospel?

Here now is one of the revenges of time. Mar-
cion’s bitter, implacable foes, their pens dipped in gall,
give him a certain unquestioned place in history. He
is known because he established churches, and under-
took to rescue Christendom from its old false Jewish
superstitions.

Luke’s name is attached to the third gospel, and
so it will go down, no doubt, to the last day.

The question whether Marcion wrote before Luke,
or Luke before Marcion, has been disputed back and
forth, for now nearly seventeen hundred years, and,
like Banquo’s ghost, “it will not down.” I will only
add that Luke’s gospel is much longer than Marcion’s;
in fact, not a verse in the first three chapters of Luke
is found in Marcion. Otherwise they are as we have
seen, almost identical in doctrines, in historical state-
ment, in phraseology, and verse for verse.

Which one of these men is the plagiarist, Marcion
or Luke? An easy solution is that they both copied
from the same old manuscripts. They state so many
things probable and improbable, so exactly alike, that
one must have copied from the other, or both from
some older writer. Yet Marcion’s story is said to
be apocryphal — that is, uninspired — even when he
agrees with Luke, word for word and verse for verse.

(8)   Ch. 4, v. 11.
 CHAPTER XXXIV

In Conclusion.

Section i. As to creation, I hold that there was
a time, millions and millions of years ago, when this
earth, as we know it now, did not exist. But I cannot
conceive of a time when the elements which compose
it were not in existence. Nor can I imagine how
something can, or ever could be, created out of
nothing. In short, matter was here when God was
here.

This earth, and all the stars in our system (not to
mention millions of other worlds about us), perform
their revolutions in obedience to a law; and law al-
ways presupposes a law maker. I call that law maker
the “Eternal One,” “The Creator,” “God.” And I
cannot conceive of a time beyond which he did not
exist. Nor could He create himself. Nor could
matter create Him.

Some believe that if such a Being exists, there
must have been a time when nothing else existed.
The argument to my mind is fallacious. Matter is
eternal. You may change its form, but you cannot
annihilate it. To illustrate; you may take a stone
and crush it to an impalpable powder; divide these
atoms again and again, until the strongest micro-

871
 372 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

scope fails to distinguish the infinitesimal particles;
still you have not annihilated them. You have only
destroyed the stone, but every one of its particles is
still here, and cannot get away from the earth.

On the other hand, suppose God concludes that He
will create or make a new star or planet to revolve
around our sun. In the vast space between Uranus
and Neptune there is plenty of room—millions and
millions of miles intervene between them. Now, can
God create or make a world out of nothing? Cer-
tainly not; nothing added to nothing, nothing is.

Matter can be changed and is all the while chang-
ing, but it cannot be annihilated.

Our earth is an illustration. It obeys a law with
such precision and exactness that in one thousand
years it has not varied five seconds of time in its
rapid flight around the sun.

Insensible matter did not and could not make the
law of attraction or gravitation. But just why God
created this world, and created man, and put him
here, I am at a loss to know. For man, as we see
him today, is a selfish, quarrelsome animal; and his
antecedent history is blood stained, all along his path-
way. Nevertheless, he possesses infinite possibilities.

Section 2. I have purposely used the word cre-
ated, repeatedly, just above here, because, to my view,
it makes no difference if we came by evolution. For
that great intelligence which I call God must have
made the law of evolution, which finally produced
man. God is therefore responsible for man’s being
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

373

here. The insensible clod is not responsible, for it
could not make the law of evolution, and bring man
forth. A mind somewhere in the universe made that
law that produced man upon this earth.

But I laugh at the belief that God created the world
only six thousand years ago, and finished the job com-
pletely in six of our days. (i)

The man who wrote Genesis evidently had never
studied the testimony of the rocks. And he was ab-
solutely ignorant of the evolutionary process.

Think of the builder of millions of worlds creating
Adam, and standing him up by Eden’s fence to dry;
having forgotten to make Adam a wife, he causes
a deep sleep to fall upon him; and while Adam is in
that “deep sleep,” the Lord cuts him open and takes
out one of his ribs and closes up the flesh thereof,
(2), and from that rib he constructs Eve.

This Adam story is a beautiful little nursery tale,
yet it seems to satisfy some minds, so let it stand.
Nevertheless, the evidence is convincing that man did
not come by way of Eden’s gates. But on the other
hand, the evidence is strong that life originates or
springs from a minute germ or cell with scarcely any
apparent structure, which in time absorbs other germs
or cells. The first or stronger germ, not only absorbs

(1)   Herodotus, who wrote about 2,360 years ago, tells us that
the Egyptians in his day claimed a long line of Kings, reaching
back eleven thousand three hundred and forty years. Add the
twenty-three hundred and sixty years since he wrote and we have
thirteen thousand seven hundred years, and that is more than eight
thousand years beyond Jesus. Herodotus 2, Sec. 142.

(2)   Gen. 2, v. 21.
 374

A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

the weaker germ, but it assimilates it, so that it be-
comes a part of itself. Yet no nucleated cell has yet
been found that did not contain oxygen, hydrogen,
carbon, nitrogen and water. The five elements
mixed together in a stagnant pool, where there is
plenty of warm sunshine, is the place to look for em-
bryonic life. Now who, or what, made the carbon,
and oxygen, and hydrogen, and nitrogen, and the
water, and the sunshine to warm that water?

Here now are six things that must accidentally
come together, or be brought together, somehow; else
no germ or cell can, or ever could be, formed. Omit
the oxygen, and the other five things will not pro-
duce the cell; omit the carbon—no cell.

Go back a little further, and tell me who made the
sunshine and the oxygen? For you must always
reckon with the sun, the oxygen, etc., or you will
have no cell, and no life, such as we have on this
earth.

Now I cannot bring my mind to believe that we
live in a world of chance. Nor do I believe every-
thing is a careless accident. The minutest life is here
under a law, and it dies by reason of a law; and there
was never yet a law without a law maker.

The minutest insect, the great elephant, and the
monsters of the deep, are all here in obedience to a
law. Even the learned Cuvier, in his anatomical re-
searches, was forced to admit that there are distinct
plans of organization—even among animalcules.

But how can there be a plan without a planner?
Fpr a plan means a contrivance, and that means
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 375

thought; and there is no thought without a thinker.
The nucleated cell or germ was not the thinker that
finally brought forth man. The cell or germ could
not evolve itself in and of its own unaided inherent
powers. A power was given to it, and it started upon
its mission, and that mission was a vast one; to fill
the land and the seas with various and multitudinous
forms of life.

Section 3. Man finds himself here on earth; he
came without his asking; and in a short time he will go
hence against his wish and will. He is told that there
is a place beyond this life, called Heaven—a place of re-
joicing and happiness, which we can reach by prayer
and diligence. That there is another place called
Hell, where there is an everlasting fire prepared for
the devil and his angels (3), and that in Hell there is
weeping and gnashing of teeth. (4) Both soul and
body, it is said, may be destroyed in Hell. (5)

Buddha also preached that the wicked Hindus
would suffer in terrible hells; that sinners would be
boiled for a Kalpa, in iron pots. (6) The supposed
punishment in both cases, if true, is fiendishly cruel
and excessive. To a reasonable mind it is absolutely
unbelievable. Consider this a moment; man is bom
into the world without his knowledge or consent;
furthermore, he is bom subject to that awful law of

(3)   Matt. 25, v. 41.

(4)   Luke 13, v. 23.

(5)   Matt. 10, ?. 23.

(6)   A Kalpa is a vast period of time, millions and millions of
years.
 376 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

heredity (7); and it seems to be true that the iniqui-
ties of the fathers are in fact visited upon the children,
even to the third and fourth generation. Is that a just
law ? Must you suffer for the misdeeds of a wicked an-
cestor? If God, in fact, made that law, then he ought
to repeal it, for it is terribly unjust. With that law in
force, the child of the drunkard or thief is punished
for a crime of his progenitors, back perhaps an hun-
dred years. Why weigh him down with crimes he
never committed? Would it not be more just to re-
verse Exodus, and make the ancestor suffer for the
sins of his children, than to make the children suffer
for the sins of their parents ?

The progenitor has some control over his posterity;
but the children absolutely none over the ancestral
tree. Every man placed here ought to have an equal
chance in life’s struggle. But what opportunity is
there for the child of the gutter and the curbstone?
His home is a hovel, and he is taught to pilfer and lie
even in childhood, and ere long he develops into a
highwayman, and his soul becomes stained with mur-
der. Matthew’s law (just quoted) would bum that
unfortunate child of sin in an “everlasting fire.” So
also would Luke. (8) And Mark is just as severe. (9)

Another boy, bom perhaps the same day, is raised
in an atmosphere of love, with all the advantages of
ease and plenty. As he passes along through boyhood

(7)   Exodus 20, v. 5.

(8)   Ch. 16, v. 22 to 28.

(9)   Mark 9, v. 43. Matthew and Mark may have learned
this from Buddha, (vol. 20, Sacred Books of the East, p. 254
and p. 268.)
 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 377

he is carefully taught those beautiful precepts in the
Sermon on the Mount (and every child ought to be
taught them) and he follows them through life.

Now, according to the New Testament, the unfortu-
nate child of the gutter must suffer eternally in the
flames, and all that time his more fortunate brother
will be enjoying the sweets of Paradise, whatever they
may be.

Is such the best justice that Heaven can administer?
Or is there some mistake somewhere in the record?
To us of short vision it looks as if the chancery courts
of Heaven will have to modify many a decree. To
sum this matter up, will Heaven, as the final assize,
fix an unadjustable high mark of morality and com-
pel the child of the gutter to measure up to it, or roast
eternally in the furnace? Or will Heaven in pity send
the sinning soul back to the earth for a new trial? If
not this, or some other merciful plan, then the justice
of the skies sinks to a lower level than that of the
earth!

Eternal sleep would seem to be more fitting than
eternal burning. The truth about that unknown coun-
try beyond the grave (if there is such a place) no
human being can truly tell. The most eloquent di-
vines may thunder in their pulpits and pound their
desks, but they know absolutely nothing about it. They
imagine, they dream, they hope. They picture the
joys of Heaven and the miseries of Hell; and when we
question them, they quote us Matthew and Luke; but
Matthew and Luke and Mark knew no more about
the eternal shores than you or I. Nevertheless, ideas
 378 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES

of Heaven and Hell have been in this world for thou-
sands of years. So long, indeed, that they seem to
have become an inherited belief. If the churches would
devote their energies to teaching mercy and justice,
they would no doubt reap greater harvests. After all,
was not this whole matter summed up and epitomized
by old Micah (io), who lived about two hundred
and fifty years before Buddha was bom, when he
asked: “What doth the Lord require of thee, but to
do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
thy God?”

(10) Ch. 6, v. 8.
 
 
 
 
 
 I