Historic Evidences of Jesus Christ

Historic Evidences of Jesus Christ HISTORIC EVIDENCES OF JESUS CHRIST
By Chas. H. Roberson The proof of the grand proposition, Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, announced by the Father and the Holy Spirit, which is to be believed by men, and upon which the church is founded, is given or men could not be held accountable for their unbelief. This proof consists of the testimony of the apostles, the character of Christ and of his religion, and the evidence from prophecy. In the discussions of men, more and more does the problem turn upon the authority and person of Jesus. Today, the main question is, Who was Jesus? The army of the Lord must rally around the person, Jesus of Nazareth, if it would be united and victorious. The arguments supporting the historicity of Jesus Christ should rest on the bed-rock of admitted facts. Proposition and proof must be homogeneous. As scientific facts must be verified by observation and experiment, so historical conclusions must be supported by adequate testimony. None other than a novice in reasoning would demand other than historical proof for historical propositions.

“Who was Jesus” is the battle ground of the religious world. Upon the question of the historic Christ are concentrated today the hope and fear, the feeling and the thought, of the civilized world. The fact that Jesus of Nazareth is Christ is the grandest truth known to man. It is so far beyond every merely human event that to imagine, even, a comparison would be an insult to cultivated intellect. That Jesus is Christ, is the hope of men in their quest of higher civilization and of light to shine on the eternal mysteries of life and death and of assurance of eternal blessedness.

While Augustus (Octavius) Caesar was peacefully ruling over a hundred million pagans and polytheists, there occurred within the Eastern limits of his Empire an event destined to work a wonderful change in the future condition of the world. This event was the birth of Jesus Christ, the Founder of the Christian religion, the promised Messiah and Saviour of the world, and the head of the church. Jesus Christ was born about B. C. 4 in the little village of Bethlehem, in Judea, during the reign of Herod the Great whom Mark Antony had made tributary king of Judea, under the Romans. The appellation Jesus Christ denotes his twofold mission: (1) "Jesus” is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew “Joshua,” meaning “Jehovah is salvation.” It is the personal name of the Lord m the gospels and Acts of Apostles; (2) “Christ” is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew “Messiah,” meaning “anointed.” It designates Jesus as the fulfiller of the Messianic hope of the Old Covenant and of the Hebrew people. After the resurrection it became the current title for Jesus in the apostolic church. Most frequently in the Epistles he is called “Jesus Christ,” sometimes “Christ Jesus,” often simply “Christ,” and frequently associated with “Lord,” as “the (or our) Lord Jesus Christ.” In presenting the evidence of the historical appearance of Jesus as is the aim of this address, it is necessary to set forth certain things pertaining to the sources of our knowledge of him. The lives of Christ is legion, and each has its own peculiarity. One is written from a positive, another from a negative viewpoint; one is constructive, another destructive; one is popular, another scientific. There are those who find the evangelical history in Buddhistic sources, and those who have treated the life of Jesus for socialistic- atheistic propaganda, but these do not concern this address, for, whatever their standpoint, the canonical gospels were their source.

There is a large mass of material pertaining to the life of Jesus found in works which have never been recognized by the church as her own, and which are called acanonical and apocryphal, and whose authors, in most cases, “meant to weave around the brows of Christ a garland of honor.” This apocryphal material is voluminous and stands in contrast to “canonical.” It appears that while the canonical records were being collected, there was a mass of contemporary evidence by which their statements could have been corroborated. There were many independent sources of the Christian paradosis, for the career of Jesus was not “done in a corner,” but in the face of the whole world, and the witnesses of the facts were accordingly many. The apocryphal gospels are numerous, some known only by name, others in fragments. They are partly heretical—Gnostic and Ebionite—perversions or mutilations of the real history, partly innocent compositions of fancy, or religious novels intended to link together the disconnected periods of Christ’s biography, to satisfy the curiosity concerning his relations, his childhood, and his last days, and to promote the glorification of the virgin Mary. Concerning which, Schaff says, “These apocryphal productions have no historical but considerable apologetic value; for they furnish by their contrast with the genuine gospels a very strong negative testimony to the truthfulness of the evangelists, as a shadow presupposes the light, a counterfeit the real com, and a caricature the original picture.”

Concerning the motives of the various writers, it may be suggested that because of a pious wish of too curious Christians to know more of those events in the life of Christ of which, the New Covenant writings say little or nothing at all, the authors in order to satisfy such curiosity put together what tradition offered and supplemented the gaps by thei** own inventions. Also, the heretical gnostics were especially fruitful, but other heretics contributed their share also. Such motives account easily for the great un-certainty of most apocryphal texts which according to necessity were manifoldly interpreted and mutilated. But, whatever the motive of the author, whatever the value of these quasi-gospels, there may be sidelights, here and there, which furnish evidence of the historical facts of the gospels, as is obtainable in no other way. These writings include narratives referring to the life of Mary, and the birth, childhood, and boyhood of Jesus, of his passion and resurrection, of his sayings, and a variety of miscellaneous records pertaining to him.

Concerning the worth of such uninspired accounts, let it be observed that they stand in marked contrast with the inspired silence of the thirty years that Jesus lived at Nazareth. When uninspired men write biography, they like to dwell upon the incidents of boyhood, the signs and promise of budding genius. The writers of the apocryphal gospels crowd their pages with portents and precocious miracles, meant to honor, but really dishonoring him. The self-restraint of our canonical gospels is proof both of the reality of their story and the inspiration of the writers. The so-called apocryphal gospels are worthless as authority. Of even less importance are. some late fabrications referring to Pilate, such as Pilate’s letter to the emperor Tiberius, Pilate’s official report, the Paradoses of Pilate, and the death of Pilate. In all such writings, each author gave loose rein to his imagination, and a careful study of them justifies the observation of the editors of the Ante-Nicene Library that while they afford us “curious glimpses of the state of the Christian conscience, and modes of thought in the first centuries of our era, the predominant impression which they leave on our minds is a profound sense of the immeasurable, superiority, the unapproachable simplicity and majesty, of the Canonical Writings.” The few additional sayings of Christ found in outside writings are of doubtful genuineness. Concerning the more recently discovered sayings ascribed to Jesus, in view of the resources now available, the most that can be said is that we have a few glimpses of a collection that circulated in Egypt m the third century, of great interest and possibly of considerable value, but of completely unknown origin. Indeed, prac tically the only sources of our knowledge of Jesus Christ are the Canonical records of Matthew, Mark, Luke and Johm There is nothing either in the few notices of Christ in non-Christian authors, or in the references in the other books of the New Covenant, or in later Christian literature which adds to the information which the canonical gospels already supply.

However, the excess to which skepticism has gone in recent years even to' denying the very existence of Jesus Christ, even though the very extravagance of such skepticism is its sufficient refutation, makes it obligatory in the discussion of our theme to place before you that testimony that is available, and those voices out of the past which speak of the historical appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. Candor prompts the controlling aim to present the evidences of Jesus Christ on purely historical grounds. The effort, then, is to fulfill the part of the historian and not that of the controversialist. No one can be more grieved than myself if there is any misrepresentation of any point of real value. Those who know how extensive is the field of research will pardon the less serious errors. It should be recognized that history is not our only guide; for while internal criticism cannot usurp the place of history, it has its proper field; and as feeling cannot decide on facts, so neither can testimony convey that sense of the manifold wisdom of the inspired biographers, which is, I believe, the sure blessing of those who rightly seek to penetrate into the fulness of their records. The historicity of _Jesus is fully sustained by profane history. The Talmuds, body of JewTsTi civil and Canonical law, the compilation of which began as early as the second century, speak of Christ and name several of his disciples. They contain admissions that he performed many and great miracles, but impute his power to his having learned the correct pronunciation of the ineffable name of God, which, they say, he stole out of the temple; or to the magic arts, which they claim, he learned in Egypt.

Josephus was born about four years after the ascension of Jesus. The famous passage in his Antiquities, XVIII, iii, 3, beginning, “Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he performed many wonderful works,” et cetera, if it be genuine affords direct and positive testimony, but, if not genuine, then Josephus is silent concerning Jesus; but this silence is exceedingly significant. He could not have been ignorant of the facts; he does not contradict the statements in the New Covenant ; nor attempt to expose Jesus as an impostor. His silence, if the passage is spurious or interpolated, is a strong corroboration of the existence of Jesus Christ.

Tacitus was a Roman historian, horp about A.D. 59. In a well-known passage relating to the persecution of Nero, and of Nero’s imputing the burning of Rome to Christians (Annals XV. 44), he tells how the Christians, already “a great multitude” (ingcns multitude), derived their name “from one Christus, who was executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate. This testimony is not questioned. It is confirmed by Seutonius, Martial, Seneca and Juvenal.

Pliny was governor of Pontus and Bithynia, and_a contemporary of Tacitus. His celebrated letter to the Emperor Trajan yields important attestation to sustain the position that Christ was a real historic personage and the founder of the Christian religion.

Seutonius was a Roman historian, born about 70 A. D. In his account of Claudius, he speaks of the Jews as expelled from Rome for the raising of tumults at the instigation of one “Chrestus” (impulsore Chresto), plainly a mistake for “Christus.” The fact referred to is the incident in Acts 18:2; “Aquila . . . lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome/’ the emperor not making a clear distinction between Jews and Christians.

Hegesippus, writing of Domitian, who reigned from 81 to 06 A. D., says, “There were at that time yet remaining of the kindred of Christ the grandsons of Jude, who was called his brother according to the flesh. These some accused as being of the race of David, and Evocatus brought them before Domitianus Cassar; for be, too, was afraid of the coming of Christ as well as Herod.” Edward Gibbon in his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” vol. 1, p. 606, records, “Among the Christians wJio were brought before the tribunal of the emperor, or as it seems more probable, before that of the procurator of Judea, two persons are said to have appeared, distinguished by their extraction, which was more truly noble than that of the greatest monarchs. These were the grandsons of St. Jude the apostle, wTho himself was the brother of Jesus Christ.”

Celsus, Lucian, Epictetus, Galen and Porphyry, all bear testimony similar to that cited, and all so far as they go confirm the facts given in the New Covenant. In concluding this part of the testimony, let me remind you that this e\idence has oeen thoroughly sifted by modern nritkism, and that it is in addition to the direct testimony of the New Covenant and all the .Apostolic Fathers. Had the New Covenant never been WTitten, and had the fathers maintained an unbroken silence, we should be able to gather from these outside sources, and be compelled to receive, all the great facts of the life of Jesus. The Age of the Apostolic Fathers is a fruitful period for research concerning the historicity of Jesus Christ. The student is struck by the extent and the variety of the correspondences which they offer with the facts of the canonical history. The writings of the Apostolic Fathers are at once a tradition and a prophecy, for they instruct, rather than argue; and prepare the student for the one sided systems of the following age. Their writings are not essays, or histories, or apologies, but letters. They wrote from no literary motive, nor from a desire to shield their faith from attacks of its enemies, but rather from an intense feeling of a new fellowship in Christ. The Apostolic Fathers occupy an important place, undesignedly it may be, but not therefore the less surely concerning the historical setting of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their evidence is, indeed, stamped with the characteristics of their position and implies more than it expresses, but even directly they say much. Within the compass of a few brief letters they show that the writings of the apostles were regarded as invested with singular authority as the true expression of Christian doctrine and Christian practice. The main testimony of the Apostolic Fathers is to the substance of the Gospels. They witness that the great outlines of the life and teaching of our Lord were familiarly known to all from the first: they prove that Christianity rests truly on an historic basis.

Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp and Barnabas, each bear testimony to the great features of Christ’s life. Christ, we read, our God, the Word, the Lord and Creator of the world, who was with the Father before time began (Ign. ad Rom. inscr. c. iii.; ad Ephes. inscr.; ad Magnes. viii.; Bar. v.: Ign. ad Mag. vi.), humbled himself, and came down from heaven, and was manifested in the flesh, and was born of the Virgin Mary, of the race of David according to the flesh, and a star of exceeding brightness appeared at his birth (Clem, xvi.; Ign. ad Magnes. vii.; Barn. xii.; Ign. ad Smyr. i.; ad Tralles ix.; ad Ephes. xix.; xx.) (The nineteenth division of Ignatius’ epistle to the Ephesians is especially interesting.) Afterward he was baptized by John, to fulfill all righteousness; and then, speaking his Father’s message, he invited not the righteous, but sinners to come to him (Ign. ad Smyr. i.; ad Rom.viii. ; Barn. v.). Perfume was poured over his head, an emblem of the immortality which he breathed on the church (Ign. ad Ephes. xvii.). At length, under Herod and Pontius Pilate, he was crucified, and vinegar and gall were offered him to drink (Ign. ad Magnes. xi.; ad Trail, ix.; ad Smyr. i.; Barn. vii.). But on the first day of the week he rose from the dead, the first-fruits of the grave; and many prophets were raised by him for whom they had waited. After his resurrection he ate with his disciples, and showed them that he was not an incorporated spirit (Barn. xv.; Ign. ad Magnes. ix; Clem. xxiv.; Poly. ii.; Ign. ad Magnes. ix.; ad Smyr. iii.). And he ascended into heaven, and sat down on the right hand of the Father, and thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead (Barn. xv.; Polyc. ii.; Barn, vii.; Polyc. ii.). Each of these fathers make numerous references to the discourses of our Lord which are recorded in the gospels. (See Canon of New Testament, Westcott, p. 53f.) Such, in their own words, is the testimony of the earliest fathers to the life of Jesus Christ (Clement c. 96 A. D.; Ignatius c. 1.10, tried and condemned; Polycarp c. 110; Barnabas 70-100). The great work of the Greek Apologists was to set forth the Christian religion as the divine answer to the questionings of heathendom, as well as the antitype to the law, and the hope of the prophets. To some extent the task was independent of the direct use of the Scripture. Those who discharged it dealt mainly with the thoughts of the apostles and the facts of Christ’s life. The very constitution of the Greek writers gives evidence that their first contribution was to give witness to the genuineness of the teaching of the scripture. The first and last names of these apologists are Papias and Hegesippus. Since Papias stood on the verge of the first age of the church, naturally, his testimony has high value. He tells us that he preserved the traditions with zeal and accuracy, and afterwards embodied them in five books, entitled “An Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord” (Logion kuri- akon eksegesis). In this, Papias claimed for himself the office of expositor and not of historian. “Oracles of the Lord” are presupposed as the basis of his work, and not for the first time set forth in it. The direct testimony that be bears to the gospels confirms their being genuine, and so the historicity of Jesus Christ. The Apology of Quadratus was generally current in the time of Eusebius. The single passage preserved shows that he insisted rightly upon the historic worth of the Christian religion. He argues, “The works of our Savior were ever present; for they were real,” etc. To this may be added the testimony of Aristides who in a striking summary of the historic creed gives prominent place to the virgin birth and the ascension.; But Justin Martyr represents in many respects the best type of the natural character of the Greek apologist. For him philosophy was truth, reason a spiritual power, Christianity the fullness of both. Having accepted Christianity as the true philosophy, he says, “Immediately a fire was kindled in my soul, and I was possessed with a love for the prophets and those men who are Christ’s friends.” In the strength of his new conviction he traveled widely to spread the truth which he had discovered. At Ephesus he held a discussion with the Jew Trypho, proving from the Old Covenant that Jesus is the Christ. At Rome he is said to have established a school where he endeavored to satisfy the doubts of the Greeks.

There is nothing that furnishes wider scope for apocryphal narrative than the history of the infancy of our Lord, yet Justin’s account is as free from legendary admixture as it is full of the incidents recorded by the evangelists. It appears that he knew nothing more than they knew, and he tells without suspicion what they have related. He tells us that Christ was descended through Jacob, Judah, Phares, Jesse and David (Dial. c. 120. See c. 100. Cf. c. 43)—That the angel Gabriel was sent to foretell his birth to the virgin Mary (Dial. c. 100)—that this was a fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah (7:14) (Revelation 1:13)—that Joseph was forbidden in a vision to put away his espoused wife, when he was so minded (Dial. c. 78) — that our Savior’s birth at Bethlehem had been foretold by Micah (Ap. 1:34; Dial. c. 78)—*-that his parents went thither from Nazareth where^they dwelt, in consequence of the enrollment of Cyrenius (Ap. 1:34; Dial. c. 78)—that as they could not find lodging in the village they lodged in a cave close by it, where Christ was born, and laid by Mary in a manger (Dial, c. 78) [this account seems to be supplementary to Luke 2:7. Indeed, Origen speaks of the cave without any misgiving that he is contradicting Luke, and Epiphani- us actually quotes Luke for the fact (Haer. 51:9).] —that while three wise men from Arabia, guided by the star, worshipped him, and offered him gold and frankincense and myrrh, and by revelation were commanded not to return to Herod to whom they had first come (Dial c. 78)—that by the command of God his parents fled with him to Egypt for fear of Herod, and remained there till Archelaus succeeded him (Dial, cc. 78, 103)—that Herod being deceived by the wise rpen commanded the children of Bethlehem to be put to death, so that the prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled who spoke of Rachel weeping for her children (Dial c. 78)—that Jesus grew after the common manner of men, working as a carpenter, arid so waited in obscurity thirty years more or less, till the coming of John the Baptist (Dial. c. 88).

He speaks in general terms of the miracles of Christ, but says little of the details of his life till the last great events. He tells of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem from Bethphage as a fulfillment of prophecy (Ap. 1:35; Dial. c. 53), the cleansing of the temple the second time (Dial c. 17), the conspiracy against him (Dial c. 104), the institution of the Eucharist for the remembrance of him (Ap. 1:66. Cf.; Dial, cc. 41, 70), the singing of the psalm afterwards (Dial, c. 106), the agony at night on the Mount of Olives at which three of his disciples were present (Dial. c. 99), the prayer (Dial. c. 99), the bloody sweat (Dial. c. 103. Cf.; Ap. 1:50; Dial. c. 53), the arrest (Dial. c. 103), the flight of the apostles (Dial. c. 53), the silence before Pilate (Dial. c. 102), the remand to Herod (Dial, c. 103), the Crucifixion, the division of Christ’s raiment by lot (Dial. c. 97. Cf.; Ap. 1:35), the signs and words of mockery of the bystanders (Ap. 1:38; Dial. c. 101), the cry of sorrow (Dial. c. 99), the last words of resignation (Dial. c. 105), the burial on the evening of the day of the passion (Dial. c. 97), the resurrection on Sunday (Ap. 1:67), the appearance to the apostles and disciples, how Christ opened to them the scriptures (Dial. cc. 53, 106; Ap. 1:50), the calumnies of the Jews (Dial. c. 108), the commission to the apostles (Ap. 1:61), the ascension (Dial. 132 ; Ap. 1:46). The greater part of Justin’s references are to the teaching of the Savior. He spoke of Christianity as a power mighty in its enduring and godlike character. He spoke of Christ as him of whom the prophets witnessed. To Justin the words of Christ were as a living voice in the church, and the great events of his life were symbolized in its services. He habitually represents Christ as speaking, but also does he distinctly refer to histories in which he found written “all things concerning Jesus Christ.” Every quotation of our Lord’s words in the Apology is simply introduced by the phrases “thus Christ said” or “taught” or “exhorted.” For the public events of Christ’s life, Justin refers to the Enrollment of Quirinus and the Acts of Pilate (Ap. 1:34). [Whether Justin referred to the apocryphal Acts of Pilate which we now have, or not, is of no importance; it is only necessary to remark the kind of evidence which he thought best suited to his design.]

Every line of research leads to the conclusion that Justin accepted the records of Matthew, Mark and Luke as the authentic memoirs of Christ’s life and work. To him the words of the evangelists were in some sense the words of Christ, and so we are justified in interpreting his language generally, so as to accord with the certain judgment of his age and that immediately following.

Some mention must be made, of the heretical teachers of the apostolic age. The earliest of these exhibit in striking contrast the two antagonist principles of religious error. Mysticism on the one hand and legalism on the other appear in conflict. By each of these the work and person of Christ are disparaged and set aside. In Simon Magus and Menander the anti-Christian element of the Gentile world is definitely embodied; in Cerinthus, the anti-Christian element of Judaism.

Simon Magus is invested by common consent of all early writers with mysterious importance as the open enemy of the apostles, determined to countermine the work of the Savior, and to establish a school of error in opposition to the church of God. The Simonians used the Canonical books, but ascribed the forgeries among them to “Christ and his disciples, in order to deceive those who loved Christ and his servants” (Constit. Apost. VI. 16:1). Menander, disciple of Simon Magus, is said to have repeated and advanced his preceptor’s teaching.

Cerinthus was evidently acquainted with the historic facts of the parentage of our Lord, with the details of his baptism, his preaching, his miracles, his death and his resurrection. The relation of the first heretics to the apostles is of the utmost importance. Like the early fathers, they witness to universal truth; they exhibit the correlative errors as the fathers embodied its constituent parts. The general character of the teaching of these heretics can be determined with certainty. And when we find the marks of activity of speculation, and that their characteristic divergencies are not only stereotyped m universal truth, but also implied in contemporary heresies, we know that these false teachers fall naturally into an historic position, and give per sc urefutable testimony to the historicity of Jesus Christ. The historicity of Jesus Christ, is bound up inseparably with the genuineness and integrity of the Canonical Gospels.

There can be no doubt that by the close of the first century and the early part of the second, opinion was practically unanimous in recognition of the authority of the gospel records of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Irenseus recognized the four gospels as “pillars’’ of the church. Recent attempts to get rid of the important authority of Irenseus will not succeed; it has been shown to be merely assertive where there is no evidence and agnostic where e\idence is apparently demonstrative. Duimg the past century, the gospels, as regards their composition, credibility, and historicity, were subjected to the most searching and unsparing criticism, which may' be said to have begun when Strauss “shocked the conscience of all that was Christian in Europe"’ by the publication of his first Life of Christ. The method he used and the controversy excited by this criticism can hardly yet be said to have subsided. This is not the place to enter into an ac-count of the controversy, and is sufficient here to say that the traditional positions of the church have been ablyT defended, and in particular, that the claims of the canonical gospels have been abundantly maintained. The four gospels, then, with their rich contents, remain as our primary sources for the knowledge of the earthly life of Jesus. The supreme guaranty of their trustworthiness is found In the narratives themselves; for who in any age could imagine a figure so unique and perfect as that of Jesus, or invent the in-comparable sayings and parables that proceeded from his lips?

Finally, may a word be said concerning the relation between the histoncal Christ, the child of Nazareth, the divine presence in the world, the expression of the relationship between man and God, the embodiment of the purpose of God and his unending interest in man? This question embraces all questions regarding Christianity. It is a question that comes to everyone who possesses sufficient intellectual power to think about the nature of the universe of which he forms a part, the question whieii everyone must put to himself and answer for himself. That the Christ must come on earth in manifest foim is a matter of necessity. And the answer to our new question is a matter of historical evidence. The answer of history is clear and decisive. The life of Jesus is the knot in which all the threads of previous history are gathered up, and from whicn the threads of succeeding events again diverge. Men mayr ridicule this or inveigh agamst that, but the main facts are undeniable and are not denied. Jesus remade the ev-olution of history. lie stands forth, even in the estimation of unsympathetic opponents, as the one perfect embodiment of the divine spirit in human nature. The conclusion to which all our lines of thought point is that the belief in a divine will r uling in and directing the course of history logically and inevitably involves the belief that the historical Jesus is the eternal Christ.

We all see the figure of Christ before us, but we see it dimly and inadequately, for it is distorted to our gaze in the midst of our1 own poor individuality. But surely we can all recognize the essential nature of that figure and the truth for which it stands to. us. That truth is the gospel of growth. Freedom of will, truth, knowledge, goodness, beauty, we cannot attain absolutely unto; they are above us and outside us; but we may make all things ours by believing into them and striving to grow up in them. The good man is he who has tried hard to achieve even a little progress on the way to goodness; he is made good, because he believed and tried. And the guarantee that all good things are ours lies in that one supreme truth of all the records of history, Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ. To him there is only life and truth. And the personality that has emerged from behind the veil is the one truth, the one reality in the world, CHRIST;

“That one face, far from vanish, rather grows,
“Or decomposes but to recompose,
“Becomes my universe that feels and knows.”