A Few Words About the Devil, and Other Biographical Sketches and Essays

The word of the Lord came to Jonah; when or how the word came the text does not record, and to any devout mind it is enough to know that it came. The first time in the world's history that the word of the Lord ever came to anybody, may be taken to be when Adam and Eve "heard the voice of the Lord" "walking in the Garden" of Eden "in the cool of the day." Between the time of Adam and Jonah a long period had elapsed; but human nature, having had many prophets, was very wicked. The Lord wanted Jonah to go with a message to Nineveh. Nineveh was apparently a city of three days' journey in size. Allowing twenty miles for each day, this would make the city about 60 miles across, or about 180 miles in circumference. Some faint idea may be formed of this vast city, by adding together London, Paris, and New York, and then throwing in Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Marseilles, Naples, Spurgeon's Tabernacle. Jonah knowing that the Lord did not always carry out his threats or perform his promises, did not wish to go to Nineveh, and "rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord," The Tarshish for which Jonah intended his flight was either in Spain or India or elsewhere. I am inclined, after deep reflection and examination of the best authorities, to give the preference to the third-named locality. When Cain went "out of the presence of the Lord," he went into the Land of Nod, but whether Tarshish is in that or some other country there is no evidence to determine. To get to Tarshish, Jonah – instead of going to the port of Tyre, which was the nearest to his reputed dwelling, and by far the most commodious – went to the more distant and less convenient port of Joppa, where he found a ship going to Tarshish; "so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them into Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord." Jonah was, however, very short-sighted. Just as in the old Greek mythology, winds and waves are made warriors for the gods, so the God of the Hebrews "sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken." Luckily she was not an old leaky vessel, over-laden and heavily insured; one which the sanctimonious owners desired to see at the bottom, and which the captain did not care to save. Christianity and civilization were yet to bring forth that glorious resultant, a pious English ship-owner, with a newly-painted, but, under the paint, a worn and rusty iron vessel, long abandoned as unfit, but now fresh named, and so insured that Davy Jones' locker becomes the most welcome haven of refuge. "The mariners were afraid… and cast forth the wares" into the sea to lighten the ship. But where was Jonah during this noise? Men trampling on deck, hoarse and harsh words of command, and the fury of the storm troubled not our prophet. Sea-sickness, which spares not the most pious, had no effect upon him. "Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship, and he lay and was fast asleep." The battering of the waves against the sides disturbed not his devout slumbers; the creaking of the vessel's timbers spoiled not his repose. Despite the pitching and rolling of the vessel Jonah "was fast asleep." Had he been in the comfortable berth of a Cunarder, it would not have been easy to sleep through such a storm. Had he been in the hold of a smaller vessel on the Bay of Biscay, finding himself now with his head lower than his heels, and now with his body playing hide and seek among loose articles of cargo, it would have required great absence of mind to prevent waking. Had he only been on an Irish steamer carrying cattle on deck, between Bristol and Cork, with a portion of the bulwarks washed away, and a squad of recruits "who cried every man to his God," he would have found the calmness of undisturbed slumber difficult. But Jonah was on board the Joppa and Tarshish boat, and he "was fast asleep." As the crew understood the theory of storms, they of course knew that when there is a tempest at sea it is sent by God, because he is offended by some one on board the vessel. Modern scientists scout this notion, and pretend to track storm waves across the world, and to affix storm signals in order to warn mariners. They actually profess to predict atmospheric changes, and to explain how such changes take place. Church clergymen know how futile science is, and how potent prayers are, for vessels at sea. The men on the Joppa vessel said, "every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah." It was always a grave question in sacred metaphysics as to whether God directed Jonah's lot, and, if yes, whether the casting of lots is analogous to playing with loaded dice. The Bishop of Lincoln, who understands how far cremation may render resurrection awkward, is the only divine capable of thoroughly resolving this problem. For ordinary Christians it is enough to know that the lot fell upon Jonah.

Before the crew commenced casting lots to find out, they had cast lots of their wares overboard, so that when the lot fell on Jonah it was much lighter than it would have been had the lot fallen upon him during his sleep. Still, if not stunned by the lot which fell upon him, he stood convicted as the cause of the tempest and the crews. "Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; What is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou? And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men-knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you; for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not; for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging." No pen can improve this story; it is so simple, so natural, so child-like. Every one has heard of casting oil on troubled waters. It stands to reason that a fat prophet would produce the same effect. What a striking illustration of the power of faith it will be when bishops leave their own sees in order to be in readiness to calm an ocean storm. Or if not a bishop, at least a curate; and even a lean curate, for with sea air, a ravenous appetite, and a White Star Line cabin bill of fare of breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, and supper, fatness would soon be arrived at. In the interests of science I should like to see an episcopal prophet occasionally thrown overboard during a storm. The experiment must in any case be advantageous to humanity; should the tempest be stilled, then the ocean would be indeed the broad way, not leading to destruction; should the storm not be conquered, there would even then be promotion in the Church, and happiness to many at the mere cost of one bishop. "Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah." Jesus says the fish was a whale. A whale would have needed preparation, and the statement has an air of vraisemblance. The fish did swallow Jonah. "Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." Poor Jonah! and poor fish! Poor Jonah, for it can scarcely be pleasant, even if you escape suffocation, to be in a fish's belly with too much to drink, and no room to swallow, and your solids either raw or too much done. Poor fish! for even after preparation it must be disagreeable to have one's poor stomach turned into a sort of prayer meeting. Jonah was taken in; but the fish found that taking in a parson was a feat neither easy nor healthy. After Jonah had uttered guttural sounds from inside the fish's belly for three days and three nights, the Lord spake unto the fish, and the fish was sick of Jonah, "and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land." Some skeptics urged that a whale could not have swallowed Jonah; but once, at Todmorden, a Church of England clergyman, who had been curate to the Reverend Charles Kingsley, got rid of this as an objection by assuring us that he should have equally believed the story had it stated that Jonah had swallowed the whale. And then the word of the Lord came to Jonah once more, and this time Jonah obeyed. He was to take God's message to the citizens of Nineveh. "And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Should Jonah come to London in the present day with a similar message, he would meet scant courtesy from our clergy. A foreigner and using a strange tongue, he would probably find himself in Colney Hatch or Hanwell. To come to England in the name of Mahomet or Buddha, or Osiris or Jupiter, would have little effect. But the Ninevites do not seem even to have raised the question that the God of the Hebrews was not their God. They listened to Jonah, and "the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water: but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands." The consumption of sackcloth for covering every man and beast must have been rather large, and the Nineveh sackcloth manufacturers must have had enormous stocks on hand to supply the sudden demand. The city article of the Nineveh Times, if such a paper existed, would probably have described "sackcloth firm, with a tendency to rise." Man and beast, all dressed in or covered with sackcloth! It would be sometimes difficult to distinguish a Ninevite man from a Ninevite beast, the dress being similar for all. This is a difficulty, however, other nations have shared with the Ninevites. Men and women may sometimes be seen in London dressed in broadcloth and satins, and, though their clothing is distinguishable enough, their conduct is sometimes so beastly that the naked beasts are the more respectable.

Nineveh was frightened, and Nineveh moaned, and Nineveh determined to do wrong: no more. "And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not." God, the unchangeable, changed his purpose, and spared the city, which in his infinite wisdom he had doomed. "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry." It was enough to vex a saint to be sent to prophesy the destruction of the city in six weeks, and then nothing at all to happen. "And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish." Jonah did not like to be a discredited prophet and cried, "Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?" Jonah, knowing the Lord, was still curious and uncertain as well as angry. He was a prophet and a skeptic. "So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that can not discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" The Lord seems to have overlooked that Jonah had more pity on himself than the gourd, whose only value to him was as a shade from the sun. Jonah, too, might have reminded the Lord that there were more than 120,000 persons similarly situated at the deluge and at the slaughter of the Midianites, and that the "much cattle" had never theretofore been reckoned in the divine decrees of mercy.

Here ends the new life of Jonah. Of the prophet's childhood we know nothing; of his middle age no more than we have here related; of his old age and death we have nothing to say. It is enough for good Christians to know that "Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." According to Jesus the story of Jonah is as true as Gospel.

WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST?

Many persons will consider the question heading this pamphlet as one to which the Gospels have given a sufficient answer, and that no further inquiry is necessary. We, in reply, point out that while the general Christian body affirm that Jesus was God incarnate on earth, the Unitarian Christians, less in numerical strength, but numbering a large proportion of the more intelligent and humane, absolutely deny this divinity; and even in the earliest ages of the Christian Church heretics were found who scrupled not to deny that Jesus had ever existed in the flesh. Under these circumstances, it is well to prosecute the inquiry to the uttermost, that our faith may rest on sure foundations.

The history of Jesus Christ is contained in four books, or gospels. We know not with any degree of certainty, and have now no means of knowing, when these gospels were written, we know not where they were written, and we know not by whom they were written. Until after the year A. D. 200, no author, except Irenæus, professes to mention any gospels by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, and there is no sufficient evidence to identify the gospels we have with the writings to which Irenseus refers. The Church has, however, kindly provided us with an author for each gospel, and the early Fathers have proved there ought to be four gospels, because there are four seasons, four principal points to the compass, etc. Our duty is simply to believe. With regard to the gospel first in order, it is true that divines themselves disagree as to the language in which it was written. Some allege that the original was in Hebrew, others deny that our Greek version has any of the characters of a translation. This increases our difficulty, but if we wish for temporal welfare we must believe with the party which is most fashionable, and if we simply wish for truth, we had better disregard all parties and avoid their creeds. Our authorized English translation of the four gospels is made from the received Greek version; this version was made at Alcala in Spain, and the MSS. from which it was obtained were afterward sold by the pious Christians and manufactured into sky-rockets by one Torjo, a firework maker. So that the same Christians who threaten us with the pains of hell if we reject the gospels, actually condemned their own books to brimstone and fire. The only variation in the mode of burning is this – the holy MSS., when made into sky-rockets, were shot upward and burnt in their ascent to the heavenly regions, and we are to burn in our descent into the lower regions of the bottomless pit.

We do not know the hour, the day, the month, or the year, in which Jesus was born. The only point on which divines generally agree is, that he was not born on Christmas Day. The Oxford chronology places the matter in no clearer light, and more than thirty learned authorities give us a period of over seven years difference in their reckoning. The place of his birth is also uncertain, as may be ascertained by careful reference to the text. For instance, the Jews in the very presence of Jesus reproached him that he ought to have been born at Bethlehem, and he never ventured to say, "I was born there." (John vii, 41, 42, 52.)

Jesus was the son of David the son of Abraham (Matthew i), and his descent from Abraham is traced through Isaac, who was born of Sarai (whom the writer of the Epistle to Galatians, chap, iv, v. 24, says was a covenant and not a woman), and ultimately through Joseph, who was not only not his father, but is not shown to have had any relationship to Jesus at all, and through whom the genealogy should not be traced. There are two genealogies in the four gospels which have the merit of contradicting each other, and these in part may be collated with the Old Testament genealogy, which has the advantage of agreeing with neither. Much prayer and faith will be required in this introduction to the history of Jesus. The genealogy of Matthew possesses peculiar points of interest to a would-be believer. It is self-contradictory, counts thirteen names as fourteen without explanation, and omits the names of three kings without apology. Matthew (i, 13), says Abiud was the son of Zorobabel. Luke says Zorobabel's son was Rhesa. The Old Testament contradicts both, and gives Meshullam and Hananiah and Shelomith, their sister (1 Chron. iii, 19), as the names of Zorobabel's children. Some Greek MSS. insert "Joram" into Luke iii, 33. I do not know whether we shall be damned for omitting or for inserting Joram: those who believe had better look to this. Jesus was born without a father after his mother had been visited by the angel Gabriel, who "came in unto her" with a message from God. His reputed father, Joseph, had two fathers, one named Jacob, the other named Heli. The divines feeling this to be a difficulty, have kindly invented a statement that Heli was the father of Mary. The birth of Jesus was miraculously announced to Mary and to Joseph by visits of an angel, but they so little regarded the miraculous annunciation that they marveled soon after at things spoken by Simeon, which were much less wonderful in character. Jesus was the Son of God, or God manifest in the flesh, and his birth was first discovered by some wise men or astrologers. The God of the bible, who is a spirit, had previously said that these men were an abomination in his sight, and he therefore, doubtless, preferred them to be his first visitors in the flesh to keep up his character for incomprehensibility. These men saw his star in the East, but it did not tell them much, for they were obliged to come and ask information from Herod the king. Herod inquired of the chief priests and scribes; and it is evident Jeremiah was right, if he said, "The prophets prophecy falsely and the priests bear rule by their means," for these chief priests, like the Brewin Grants and the Brindleys of the present day, misquoted to suit their purposes, and invented a false prophecy by omitting a few words from, and adding a few words to, a text until it suited their purpose. The star, after they knew where to go, and no longer required its aid, led the wise men and went before them, until it came and stood over where the young child was. The story will be better understood if the reader will walk out at night and notice some star, and then see how many houses it will be over. The writer of the third gospel does not appear to have been aware of the star story, and he therefore invents an angel who tells some shepherds; but as this last named adventure does not appear to have happened in the reign of Herod at all, perhaps Jesus was born twice. After the wise men had left Jesus, an angel warned Joseph to flee with him and Mary into Egypt, and Joseph did fly and remained there with the young child and his mother until the death of Herod; and this was done to fulfill a prophecy. On referring to Hosea (xi, 1), we find the words have no reference whatever to Jesus, and that, therefore, either the tale of the flight is invented as a fulfillment of the prophecy, or the prophecy manufactured to support the tale of the flight. The Jesus of the third gospel never went into Egypt at all in his childhood; perhaps there were two Jesus Christs?

When Jesus began to be about thirty years of age he was baptized by John in the river Jordan. John, who knew him, according to the writer of the first gospel, forbade him directly he saw him; but, according to the writer of the fourth gospel, he knew him not, and had, therefore, no occasion to forbid him. God is an "invisible" "spirit," whom no man hath seen (John i, 18), or can see. (Exodus xxxiii, 20); but John, who was a man, saw the spirit of God descending like a dove. God is everywhere, but at that time was in heaven, from whence he said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Although John heard this from God's own mouth, he did not always believe it, but sometime after sent two of his disciples to Jesus to inquire if he were really the Christ (Matthew xi, 2, 3).

Immediately after the baptism, Jesus was led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. I do not know anything about either "the spirit" or "the devil" here mentioned, and the writer does not explain anything about them; he speaks of them familiarly, as old acquaintances. Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights, and in those days he did eat nothing. Of course it would be difficult to find a more severe fast – forty days and nights is a long period to abstain from food. Moses fasted twice that period. Such fasts take place in religious books, but they are seldom found in every-day life. Such fasts are nearly miraculous. Miraculous events are events which never happened in the past, do not take place in the present, and never will occur in the future. Jesus was God, and by his power as God fasted. This all must believe. The only difficulty is, to understand on the hypothesis of his divinity, what made him hungry. When Jesus was hungry the devil tempted him by offering him stones, and asking him to make them bread. We have heard of men having hard nuts to crack, but that stones should be offered to a hungry man for extempore bread-making hardly seems a probable temptation. Which temptation came next is a matter of doubt. The Holy Ghost, which the clergy assert inspired Matthew and Luke, does not appear to have inspired them both alike, and they relate the story of the temptation in different order. According to one, the devil next taketh Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and tempts him to throw himself to the bottom, by quoting Scripture that angels should bear him in their arms. Jesus was, however, either a disbeliever in Scripture, or remembered that the devil, like other gentlemen in black, grossly misquoted to suit his purpose, and the temptation failed. The devil then took Jesus to an exceedingly high mountain, from whence he showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory thereof, in a moment of time, which was very quick. It is urged that this did not include a view of the antipodes, but only referred to the kingdoms then known. If this be true, it must have been a long look from Judea to China, which was then a known kingdom. The eye of faith will, however, see things afar off and sometimes will also see things which are not. The mountain must have been very high – much higher than the diameter of the earth; it must have been solid in proportion, therefore would have capsized the earth in its revolutions, if even temporarily placed upon it. The devil then offered Jesus, who was the same as God, and therefore omnipotent, all the kingdoms of the world, if he, Jesus the omnipotent God, would fall down and worship his own creature, the devil. Some object that if God is the creator and omnipotent ruler of the world, then the devil would have no control over the kingdoms of the world, and that the offer could be no temptation as it was made to Jesus, who was both God omnipotent and all-wise, as well as man. These objectors may easily be answered by asserting that it requires a proper submission of the intellect, and an abhorrence of worldly reason, in order properly to understand these books. After this Jesus taught the multitudes. His teachings will form the subject of a separate tract. We are here only endeavoring to answer our preliminary question by a narration of his history.