Thomas Henry Huxley / by Edward Clodd.

  • Clodd, Edward, 1840-1930.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Thomas Henry Huxley / by Edward Clodd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ments are to be found in them,” and from the entire body of the reported sayings of Jesus he chooses five passages which, it is suggested, may form “ foundation- pillars for a truly scientific life of Jesus,” in whom, Professor Schmiedel adds, “we have to do with a com- pletely human being. The divine is to be sought in him only in the form in which it is capable of being found in a man.” Of the Fourth Gospel, which he places towards the latter half of the second century, this esti- mate is given— A book which begins by declaring Jesus to be the logos of God, and ends by representing a cohort of Roman soldiers as falling to the ground at the majesty of his appearance, and by representing one hundred pounds of ointment as having been used at his embalming, ought by these facts alone to be spared such a misunderstanding of its true char- acter as would be implied in supposing that it meant to be a historical work. After such strong meat it would seem but the offering of milk to babes for the writers to suggest that the narrative of the blasting of the fig-tree by Jesus has - “ improbabilities which are obvious and cannot be ex- plained away,” or that in the Zaccheus incident “ there are difficulties in the way of conceding more than an ideal truth to this delightful story.” From these concessions there is but a short step to the larger concessions of the school of Schleiermacher, revived by Sabatier, Gardner, and others, who base Christianity on the facts of religious experience, trans-