תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

the myth includes simple and unquestioning credence in both narrator and hearer. Again, it is contended that myths are "heathenish ;" but the Bible is Christian, and therefore contains no myths. This simply begs the question, the very point being whether the Bible is or is not to be classed in this respect with all other primitive religious records. Precisely what is meant by the term heathenish in this connection we are at a loss to understand; but whatever may be meant by it, it may be sufficient to say that a myth is allowed to be the evolution of an idea or mental experience into a narrative form; and if this is "heathenish" in itself, Bunyan's Allegory is a heathen production. Again, it is objected that the miracles of the Gospel are of a high and worthy moral character, whereas the myths of pagan religions are of a low, trivial or degraded tone. Undoubtedly, this, in the main,* is to be granted. But however much this difference may be enlarged or exaggerated, it can only prove that the Gospel miracles might be true more easily than pagan fables, but not at all that they are true. They are made less improbable by so much as they are less grotesque; i. e., we may be so much the less exacting in the scrutiny of evidence. But that the consideration in question removes all improbability is plainly a mistake, since the stories are still left affected with the improbability arising from being contrary to the observed order (miraculous); still less can it make them positively probable, as many have asserted; and, in general, the argument can have little application to our reasoning, because we have grounded the improbability of the Gospel stories and of all similar stories. equally upon their marvellous or miraculous character, with no reference at all to their dignity or lack of dignity, or to any moral trait. In their miraculous or supernatural character, pagan and Christian fables agree: it is that which is essential to them as fables or myths; that they should differ in unessentials, according to differences in national character and geographical situation, is to be expected and it is especially to be expected that the myths of a monotheistic people should excel in dignity and moral elevation.† Again, it has been urged that the miracles were never doubted or denied at the time : that, on the contrary, it is implied that they were admitted as facts on all hands, by foes as well as friends. But as is stated by those who make the above argument when they wish to account for the very small effect of the miraculous works of Jesus,- the Jews believed that such works could be done through the agency of evil spirits (Mt. xii., 24), and it is well known that a

* We confess we never could see especial dignity in the transmutation of water into wine, in the finding the money in the mouth of the fish, or in the cursing of the fig tree.

A French writer, M. Amèpre, criticises some of the miracles of St. Columban,-on which Grote makes the following just remark : — "In the eyes of M. Ampère, the recital of the biographer of St. Columban appears puerile in the eyes of that biographer, the criticisms of M. Ampère would have appeared impious, when it is once conceded that phenomena are disreputable under two denominations, the natural and the miraculous, it must be left to the feelings of each individual to determine what, and what is not, a suitable occasion for a miracle. No common standard of judgment can be imposed: for no reasonings derived from science or philosophy are available, inasmuch as in this case the very point in dispute is, whether the scientific point of view be admissable." (Hist. Vol. I, p. 473, Amer. Ed.)

*

*

*

similar credulity pervaded the populace in the Roman empire. Even Tacitus was not proof against it. It descended undiminished to the Christian Fathers, who freely admitted in general the wonders of the pagan religion, but ascribed them to the agency of demons, and charged the heathen with worshipping satanic powers. The belief finally reached its culmination in the horrors of witchcraft, which have ceased only in our present century. people in the time of Jesus, the professed supernatural passed almost unquestioned. Passing over these, and other equally futile objections, let us take up

Among the

(b.) A point deserving of serious attention and extended answer, so far as this can be given in our present brief treatment. It has been much insisted upon, that in the days of Jesus, the mythopoeic time had passed among the Jews that they were a decaying people whose mental productiveness had long ago vanished or declined to a low and feeble state; that their myths, then believed, were already the legacies of a hoary antiquity; that, moreover, they were possessed of the art of writing, and that myths may indeed grow, but do not germinate and begin in an age of writing and written records. This, we repeat, is a respectable objection, deserving of consideration. It has been replied that mythical narratives might exist in a writing age, provided only that they were some time entrusted to oral transmission, and that the existence of written documents on other subjects proves nothing, if only the Gospels were orally diffused to a sufficient extent and for a sufficient time. It seems clear that the art of writing and a cultivated historical sense are not necessarily simultaneous. Even in Greece and Rome the historic idea was understood very imperfectly. The Hebrews never attained it: "their latest historical works, such as the books of the Maccabees, and even the writings of Josephus, are not free from marvellous and extravagant tales." But it may be objected that this is to assume that which is the very question at issue, viz. : whether the marvellous or miraculous is the unhistorical; that it is not contended that a writing age will necessarily have such a historical sense as will prevent the belief in myths, but that it will have passed beyond the time for the formation of myths; and that as has been actually argued the existence of the miraculous in the later and undeniably historical records, and in a writing age, is just that which proves it to be not mythical but historical, since, under such conditions, the mythical might be believed but not formed. Now, to the argument, in whatever form stated, that the Gospels can contain no myths because the mythopoeic time among the Hebrews had passed, this is our answer: It is admitted that myths may be tenaciously held and fervently believed, in an age of writing, and were so held among the Greeks and Romans, and-if, as we believe, the Old Testament must be allowed to contain untrue miraculous stories-among the Jews also; now, we do not hesitate to declare that where the ability to believe in myths still exists, there the ability to make them also exists; it may not be active; in a late period, and when science is taking its place by the side of art, it will not be active; but it will and must exist,

latent and slumbering, and cannot be wholly destroyed by the invention of writing or by an imperfect historical sense, as long as these leave the belief still vital and warm. It is the growth of the scientific idea striking at belief in these stories, that destroys the power to make them: the first effect is to destroy all expectation of, and belief in, the supernatural in the present: but history is full of examples showing that until scientific development roots out also all belief in these wonders in the past, the ability to evolve them will still continue and will break forth and form new legends upon any adequate excitement or agitation, especially of a religious or spiritual nature. That this must be so, is evident from the inner connection of belief and production : vivid and fertile imagination is as necessary to credulity as to invention. Credulity is the negative or passive form of imagination, its receptive state, when it will realize intensely whatever extravagance may be presented to it, but will have no creative energy. Mythical credulity is the passive form in which mythical imagination still lingers after reason and observation have laid at rest its productive activity and where it lingers in any shape or form, there its activity. will always be possible, and liable to be called forth proportionately to the vitality and fervor of that credence which is its passive form, if the needed excitement, and especially religious excitement, shall occur. Men produce myths for the pleasure they find in believing them: the capacity to believe is the fundamental capacity, and invention, or more properly evolution, arises unconsciously to satisfy it in proportion as credence is implicit and exacting, in proportion as present life is the stage for the play of rampant imagination, when reason sleeps and fancy alone rends the veil of sense, when men see but do not observe, and riot in the constant presence of the supernatural. For the very reason that credulity is the fundamental and dominating fact in mythical fertility, it is the fact or capacity which remains long after the other elements of mythical production have disappeared, and with them the production ceased. The ability to evolve myths may, and always does, run out long be fore the myths already circulating are given up by the popular heart. Exciting circumstances may cease, the moderation of middle life comes on, and a people in such a condition, and gradually absolved more and more in practical affairs, as well as attaining some proficiency in scientific pursuits, may, and will, be content for a season to rest upon the glory of their old legends and add no new ones. They may look upon their venerable myths as a sacred store which it would be equally sacrilege to lessen or increase. when mythical credulity invests the past with wonders, it may upon occasion transfer its exercise to the present, because the scientific idea has not taken full possession of the mind. Our point is, that a tenacious and vital belief in an old body of myths is proof of the mythopoeic ability. It is inactive, and tending to disappear altogether; but it can never be quite destroyed as long as the belief continues. When the old myths are still clung to fondly and proudly, there they make a part of the people's life, there the feelings are not dead which find expression in them, there is still the mythic element,

But

But more of these causes

there still mythical excitability, and there, by consequence, the latent power and tendency to express themselves in the same way and evolve a new body of myths upon the first adequate occasion of stirring popular excitement, religious or patriotic. Now, this was exactly the condition of the Hebrew people. They were, it is true, no longer a "progressive " or " productive people; "they were verging toward decay:" but they cherished, with extreme fondness and pride, and unshaken faith, their old national myths,* and they were therefore capable, under sufficient stimulus, of producing more. Grote enumerates among the causes of the decline of the mythopoeic spirit in Greece, "increased attention to present facts," "the formation of a historical sense," "the commencement of physical science," "the study of impersonal nature," "the rise of philosophy." were operative among the Jews. They made no philosophy; they studied no science; they attained no historical sense; and they dwelt evermore in the past, mournfully reading of a glory departed, or exulting in the ancient promise of the Messiah, now near at hand. Not so vitally as the Jews, but still quite strongly and generally, the whole historic world believed yet in the old myths; and this protected the spirit among the Jews by keeping them more nearly in harmony with the general condition. We are persuaded that if some great chieftain had risen up among the Jews at that period of excited expectation, led them to signal victory and triumph, and established them in a measure of their ancient glory, we should have had, in the lapse of time, not merely some fragmentary legends, but a connected mythical history, resembling their old books, and recounting the wonders and signs attending the advent and triumph of the new dispensation.

In the next article we shall conclude this point by adducing some historical illustrations of the law above stated, viz., that mythical credulity and mythical productiveness cannot be separated, but will survive and disappear together.

*Concerning the miraculous stories of the Old Testament, it is to be noticed that it cannot be contended that the time of mythical productiveness must have passed when they were evolved. There seems to be no reason why these stories, since they bear the mythical stamp (miracle), and belong to a mythical age, should not be classed with all other narratives of a

like stamp and age. Furthermore, the Jews cherished their oral law as having been imparted, in germ, orally to the predecessors of the scribes by Moses himself as a kind of supplementary law to be handed down and preserved among the elders of the people. But there is no historical proof of such a fact, and it is no doubt of a mythical character. Just at this time, too, the whole Jewish people was filled with an intense excitement, essentially mythical in nature, concerning the coming of their Deliverer, the Messiah, and were living in a state of suppressed agitation and feverish expectation.

W

ROBERT COLLYER'S OLD HOME.

HEN I left home for a few months' travel in Europe, I received from my friend Robert Collyer the charge not to come home without visiting Bolton Priory. So one morning last summer, with a party of American excursionists, I took at Leeds a very early morning train for Ilkley, intending to get, besides our breakfast there, an hour or two for exploring the town itself, Mr. Collyer's old home, while the day was reserved for Bolton Priory, which I must agree with Mr. Collyer in considering unsurpassed in natural and ruinous beauty by any place I have seen in England. Besides, Bolton Priory has great interest in being the scene of Wordsworth" White Doe of Rylston," which, it is said, he regarded as the best of all his poems. Indeed, the whole vale of the Wharfe has been rendered classic by tales, ballads and poems. The history of Bolton Priory, too, is the theme of one of Rogers's poems, and the "Strid," the place where his "Boy Egremond" met the death which drew from the bereaved mother the vow that " poor man's son should be her heir," and hence arose Bolton Abbey or Priory.

many a

Ilkley, sixteen miles from Leeds, is a very old town, and charmingly situated on the right bank of the Wharfe. Tradition and exhumed inscriptions tell us that the present Ilkley was the Olicana of the Romans, a town old enough to need to be rebuilt when, in the second century, the Emperor Severus, who, it will be recollected, died at York, stationed here his Roman Legions. At present it is a town of quite modern appearance, as well as considerable note, on account of its two splendid hydropathic establishments, the "Ilkley Wells House" and "Ben Rhydding." But neither its old Roman camp nor

its modern water-cure interested me so much as the fact that it had been for more than a quarter of a century the home of Mr. Collyer. These scenes had been his educators into that healthful, manly strength of character that so impresses all who know him, and into that tender love of nature one feels in all his writing and preaching. Here he had learned those lessons of life that he so finely translates from Sunday to Sunday to delighted audiences, that never tire of his sermons, nor wish them shorter. This made Ilkley particularly interesting. I have seen it and other similar Yorkshire villages before, in dream-pictures that I had sketched from Mr. Collyer's and Charlotte Bronte's descriptions, aided by a few of Turner's Yorkshire views. This morning of my visit, the hills surrounding the town lay in the hazy light of an early July morning. They were shrouded in a soft, blue mist that clung close to their surface, and translated the sun's rays, as they passed through it into a shiver of broken rainbows, filling the air, faintly wreathing old All Saints Church tower, and quite glorifying the little commonplace village that lay there in the valley of the Wharfe. But though the village was commonplace, it was singularly clean. Hydropathic principles are

« הקודםהמשך »