Dr. Farrar, as we have seen, holds that the Bible is not a revelation in science. The inspired writers were, in such matters, left to their natural knowledge. The Holy Spirit taught them that God made the world and all which it inhabits; but how it was made they only conjectured. The truth, in this respect, was left to the discovery of later ages. This is a pretty and convenient theory, but it does not provide for every difficulty in the relationship between science and the Bible. There still remain the questions of miracles and witchcraft.
Dr. Farrar does not discuss these questions thoroughly. He only ventures a few observations. In his opinion, the two miracles of the Creation and the Incarnation "include the credibility of all other miracles." We agree with him. Admit creation out of nothing, and you need not be astonished at the transformation of water into wine. Admit the birth of a boy from a virgin mother, and you need not raise physiological objections to the story of a man being safely entertained for three days in a whale's intestines. It is absurd to strain at gnats after swallowing camels. For this reason we are unable to understand Dr. Farrar's fastidiousness. He is ready to believe that some miracles are mistaken metaphors, that some were due to the action of unnoticed or ill-understood natural causes, and that others were providential occurrences instead of supernatural events. All this, however, is but a concession to the sceptical spirit. It is throwing out the children to the wolves. It may stop their pursuit for a little while, but they will come on again, and flesh their jaws upon the parents.
A mixed criterion of true miracles is laid down by Dr. Farrar. They must be (1) adequately attested, and (2) wrought for adequate ends, and (3) in accordance with the revealed laws of God's immediate dealings with man. The second and third conditions are too fanciful for discussion. They are, in fact, entirely subjective. The first condition is the only one which can be applied with decisive accuracy. The miracles must be adequately attested. But was it not David Hume who declared that "in all history" there is not a single miracle attested in this manner? And did not Professor Huxley say that Hume's assertion was "least likely" to be challenged by those who are used to weighing evidence and giving their decision with a due sense of moral responsibility?
It is easy enough to sneer at Hume. It is just as easy to answer what he never said. What the apologists of Christianity have to do is to take a single miracle of their faith and show that it rests upon adequate evidence. Anything short of this is intellectual thimble-rigging.
Dr. Farrar does not face this dreadful task. He treats us, instead, to some personal observations on the Fall, the Tower of Babel, Balaam's ass, Joshua's arrest of the sun and moon, and Jonah's submarine excursion. Let us examine these observations.
No Christian, says Dr. Farrar, is called upon to believe in an actual Garden of Eden and an actual talking serpent. Christians have believed in these things by the million. But that was before the clergy invented "the Higher Criticism" to disarm "infidelity." They know better now. The story of the Fall is false as a narrative. It is true as a "vivid pictorial representation of the origin and growth of sin in the human heart." All the literature of the world has failed to set forth anything "comparable to it in insight." Therefore it is "inspired."
How hollow this sounds when we recollect that the Hebrew story of the Fall was borrowed from the Persian mythology! How much hollower when we consider it as it stands, stripped of the veil of fancy and divested of the glamor of association! The "insight" of the inspired writer could only represent God as the landlord of an orchard, and man as a being with a taste for forbidden apples. The "philosopheme," as Dr. Farrar grandiosely styles it, is so absurd in its native nakedness that Rabbis and other divines have suspected a carnal mystery behind the apples, in order to give the "sin" of Adam and Eve a darker vein of sensuality.*
     * We cannot elaborate this point in a publication which is
     intended for general reading. Suffice it to say that one
     famous commentator suggests that Eve was seduced by an ape.
Nor is this all. The very idea of a Fall is inconsistent with Evolution. The true Garden of Eden lies not behind us, but before us. The true Paradise is not the earth as God made it for man, but the earth as man is making it for himself. The Bible teaches the descent of man. Science teaches the ascent of man. And the two theories are the antipodes of each other, not only in physical history, but in every moral and spiritual implication.
With regard to the story of the tower of Babel, we must not regard it as an inspired account of the origin of the diversity of human language. That is what it appears to be upon the face of it. But philology has exploded this childish legend, and a new meaning must be read into it. According to Dr. Farrar, it is a "symbolic way of expressing the truth that God breaks up into separate nationalities the tyrannous organisation of cruel despotisms." Now we venture to say that there is not a suggestion of this in the text. And the "truth" which Dr. Farrar reads into it so arbitrarily is a phenomenon of modern times. Nationality is a great force at present, but in ancient days the only power that could bind tribes together in one polity was a military despotism. From the point of view of evolution, both conquest and slavery were inevitable steps in the progress of civilisation. It is really nothing against the ancient Jews, for instance, that they fought like devils and made slaves of their enemies. It was the fashion of the time. The mischief comes in when we are told that their proceedings were under the sanction and control of God.
Dr. Farrar next tackles the story of Balaam, which is "another theme for ignorant ridicule." It is astonishing how sublime these Bible wonders become in the light of the Higher Criticism. A talking ass sounds like an echo of the Arabian Nights. But the author himself never intended you to believe it. Dr. Farrar is quite sure of that. You must forget the ass, and fix your attention on Balaam. Then you perceive that the story is "rich in almost unrivalled elements of moral edification." That is to say, you perceive it if you borrow Dr. Farrar's spectacles. But if you look with your own naked eyes you see that ass in the foreground of the picture, with outstretched neck and open jaws, holding forth to an astonished universe.
With regard to Joshua's supreme miracle, Dr. Farrar avows his unbelief. A battle ode got mistaken for actual history. "He who chooses," says Dr. Farrar, "may believe that the most fundamental laws of the universe were arrested to enable Joshua to slaughter a few more hundred fugitives; and he who chooses may believe that nothing of the kind ever entered into the mind of the narrator." You pay your money and take your choice. Shape the old wax nose as you please. Believe what you like, and disbelieve what you like—and swear the author disbelieved it too.
Nor must the story of Jonah be taken literally. Regard the moral, and forget its fishy setting. Jesus Christ, indeed, referred to Jonah's sojourn in the "whale's belly" as typical of his own sojourn in the heart of the earth. But referring to a story is no proof of any belief in its truth. Not in the Bible. Jesus Christ also said, "Remember Lot's wife." But of course he did not believe the story literally. He used it for his own purpose. For the rest, he did not wish to unsettle men's minds by throwing doubt on such a time-honored narrative; besides, the time had not arrived to explain the chemical composition of rock-salt.
Witchcraft is a more serious matter. The Bible plainly says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." This text sealed the doom of millions of old women. It is the bloodiest text in all literature. The Jews believed in witchcraft, and the law against witches found its way into their sacred Scriptures. Sir Matthew Hale, a great English judge and a good man, sentenced witches to be burnt in 1665, and said that he made no doubt at all that there were witches, for "the Scriptures had affirmed so much." Wesley, a century later, said that to give up witchcraft was to give up the Bible. Dr. Farrar sets down these facts honestly. He is also eloquent in reprobation of the cruelty inflicted on millions of "witches" in the Middle Ages. But he denies that the Bible is responsible for those infamies. "Witches" in the Bible may not mean witches, but "nefarious impostors." Good old wax nose again! Moreover, that ancient Jewish law was not binding upon Christians, and to make it so was "a gross misuse of the Bible." But how on earth could the Christians use it in any other way? The time came when men outgrew the superstition of witchcraft. Before that time they killed witches on Bible authority. Dr. Farrar himself, had he lived then, would have done the same. Living in a more enlightened age, he says that former Christians acted wrongly, and in fact diabolically. But what of the book which misled them? What of the book which, if it did not mislead them by design, harmonised so completely with their ignorant prejudices, and gave such a pious color to their unspeakable brutalities? Nor is this by any means the last word upon the subject. The witchcraft of the Old Testament has its counterpart in the demoniacal possession of the New Testament. Both are aspects of one and the same superstition.
The Bible is responsible for the cruel slaughter of millions of alleged witches. It is also responsible for the prolonged treatment of lunatics as possessed. The methods of science are now adopted in civilised countries. Hysterical women are no longer tortured as witches. Lunatics are no longer chained and beaten as persons inhabited by devils. Kindness and common sense have taken the place of cruelty and superstition. This change was brought about, not through the Bible, but in spite of it.
Sir Matthew Hale and John Wesley were at least honest. They were too sincere to deny the plain teaching of the Bible. Dr. Farrar represents a more enlightened, but a more hypocritical, form of Christianity. He sneers at "reconcilers" like Mr. Gladstone, who try to bolster up the Creation story as a scientific revelation. But is he not a "reconciler" himself in regard to miracles? And does he not play fast and loose with truth and honesty in his attempt to clear the Bible of its guilty responsibility in connection with that witch mania which is one of the darkest episodes in Christian history?