and conscience of his own generation, why should we identify his birth with the fables of Olympian mythology, on the unattested statements of the anonymous compilers of Matthew and Luke, controlled by a credulity so extreme as to be incapable of detecting the mutually destructive relationship of a human pedigree and a supernatural birth, both overthrown by the evidence of the man in whose name they published their evangelical compilation? In the absence, therefore, of one confirmatory word from Joseph, Mary, or Jesus, let us reject the mythical legend which has robbed Humanity, for centuries, of one of her noblest sons, and degraded divine wisdom by the imputation of tampering with the laws of social propriety through supernatural phenomena, admitting of no rational explanation but the dishonour of the mother of Jesus.

The legend of a supernatural birth necessarily involved the subsequent evolution of Mariolatry. The human mind could not long accept an ordinary mortal, submissive to the vulgar embraces of Joseph the carpenter, in the woman glorified by divine maternity. This homely mother of a numerous family has been, therefore, transformed into an immaculate virgin predestined to the rank of Queen of heaven, where she now enjoys a growing power and influence obviously tending towards her eventual introduction into the Trinity. This marvellous career is the logical sequence of the supernatural birth of Jesus; and it remains for all reasonable men and women to reject the legend, or accept the Goddess, and hasten to adore the majestic Queen of heaven.

The theory of prophetic fatality receives further

development in the efforts of evangelical compilers to show that Messianic prophecy was fulfilled by the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, although the home of His parents was at Nazareth. Luke attempts a solution of the difficulty by representing that, although Nazareth was the residence of Joseph and Mary, Jesus was born during a visit to Bethlehem. But the compilers of Matthew change all this by representing Bethlehem as the original residence of Joseph and Mary, where the Messiah was born before their departure for Nazareth.

We read of anonymous sages conducted by an erratic star from the east to Jerusalem, in search of the newly born king of the Jews. The distinguished travellers paid a most inopportune visit of inquiry to Herod, against which they might have been judiciously warned by the angel Gabriel, but that the inexorable prophets demanded the slaughter of the Innocents.

The guiding star moved onwards-happily without introducing chaos into the solar system-until it rested ' over where the young child was.' The magi entered, presented gifts, worshipped, and departed like mysterious Melchisedeks for their own country, whence no further news of them has ever reached us, although their testimony would have proved a valuable addition to the evidences of Christianity.

Fortunately for these illustrious sages, no inspired prophet had ever predicted their destruction; the Deity could therefore provide for their safety by an opportune dream warning them not to return to Herod. But He could do nothing for the poor little babes of Bethlehem, because the unconscious Jeremiah, in depicting Rachel weeping for her children, had uttered the inexorable

decree which doomed them to a cruel death at the hands of Herodian assassins. Joseph was, accordingly, warned by an angel in a dream to carry Jesus and his mother into Egypt, the infant Messiah escaped the threatened danger, and prophecy was vindicated through the blood of the Innocents. How marvellous a consideration for believers in an infallible Bible, that during the occurrence of these providential events the divine babe-as touching his godhead-was an important member of the Trinity, participating in the providential fulfilment of prophecy, and therefore a consenting party to the murder of his innocent compatriots, who, with timely warning, might also have been removed to Egypt, or to some other safe asylum.

In order to reconcile the residence of Jesus and his parents at Nazareth with the alleged birth at Bethlehem, the compilers of Matthew inform us that, on the death of Herod, an angel instructed Joseph in a drean. to return to the land of Israel—that is, to Bethlehem. 'But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither, and, being warned in a dream (xpnμurioleis dè κaт' ovaр), he turned aside into the parts of Galilee, and came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, that he should be called a Nazarene.' The angel of the Lord was therefore ignorant or careless of the decree of the Hebrew bards, when he merely instructed Joseph to return to the land of Israel; but fear of Herod's successor evoked a second dream, which vindicated the prophets by securing for Jesus a residential claim to the title of Nazarene. No such prediction can, how

ever, be found in Hebrew Scripture, unless by ignorantly confounding the Nazarite vow of Samson with the citizenship of Nazareth.'1

Such are the miserable expedients by which the pious but credulous compilers of Matthew seek to establish the Messiahship on a prophetic basis; but if Jesus had ever heard of these predictive trivialities as artificial props for the kingdom of heaven, He would have cast them aside with a withering scorn finally destructive of their fictitious pretensions.

The third chapter of Matthew contains the interpolated legend of the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the utterance of a heavenly voice. But, if the Deity may be evangelically depicted as a dove, Mosaic condemnation of graven images is annulled, and Egyptian portraiture of divinity, in animal form, condoned. And if a voice from heaven could do nothing more original than quote the Psalmist and Isaiah, we may well accept its utterance as the dramatic fiction of a later generation.

2

The fourth chapter corrupts the Gospel with the grotesque legend of Satanic temptation. Was the fast of forty days accomplished through divine or human endurance? If divine, what is its application to frail mortals dependent for daily life on daily bread? If human, did Jesus go forth to preach the Sermon on the Mount as the famine-stricken apostle of fanatical asceticism? Eminent commentators still automatically reproduce the pious illusion that the effect of such a fast on any human organism is to quicken all perception of the spiritual world into a new intensity.' No doubt 1 1 Judges xiii. 5. 2 Ps. ii. 7; Isa. xlii. 1.

the cerebral exhaustion of famine is prolific in spiritual hallucinations; but as modern psychologists identify moral and intellectual excellence with a well-nurtured brain, is it not full time for all who appreciate the true character of Jesus of Nazareth to strike out of his story this interpolated precedent for Lenten asceticism, obviously introduced into the text when Christianity had exchanged the practical wisdom of Galilean apostles for the visionary fancies of fanatical anchorites ?

We need not dwell upon the fabulous details of Satanic temptation, but, turning towards Jesus as he utters the first words of the Sermon on the Mount, ask ourselves, as rational beings, do we believe that this calm and practical moralist was quite recently flying through the air in the grasp of Satan, to obtain a panoramic view of the Roman empire, as if human eyes could reach so far, or superhuman vision need an Alpine peak, to extend the horizon of miraculous perception?

In the mythical chapters of Matthew we necessarily detect the credulous superstition of primitive compilers, honestly mingling attested facts with legendary traditions; but their work was also supplemented by the more pernicious practice of tampering with the integrity of MSS. to sustain disputed dogmas, or to establish usurped authority. Thus, in the famous passages to which Rome appeals in attestation of a spiritual despotism claimed as an inheritance from Peter, Jesus, is depicted speaking of a church (ekkλŋoía) which had no existence during his lifetime, and entrusting Peter with the keys of a kingdom of heaven whose gates had been already thrown wide open for the welcome reception of all willing to enter as the disciples of Jesus.

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