Before remarking on the Rev. Mr. Roberts's article called "Jesus
or Christ? it is only fair for me to say that the title affects me
personally as would some such title as "Napoleon or Bonaparte"? I can
comprehend a nuance of difference between the terms; that one would
use the surname in one connection, the imperial name in another.
But I could not comprehend a person trying to prove that Napoleon
was clever while Bonaparte was stupid, or that Bonaparte was
a coward while Napoleon was very brave. If there were no life of
General Bonaparte there would (to my narrow and unphilosophic mind)
be no legend of Napoleon; his public life may have been more
glorious than his private, but it is essential to my sentimental
interest that they should both have happened to the same man.
In the same way the achievements of Christ as the founder of a
Church and the chief deity of a civilisation may be more gigantic
and inspiring than His activities in Galilee or Jerusalem.
But if the two persons are not one person I lose my existing interest
in both of them; one of them is an obscure Rabbi like Hillel,
and the other is a myth like Apollo.
But I must make one preliminary explanation, in case I have not
understood Mr. Roberts's main design. If Mr. Roberts merely means this:
that the Jesus of the Gospels is not enough for all human purposes;
that we need more codification and science in our morals than
so poetic a vision can give to us,---I agree with him at once.
I do not know what deduction he draws; the deduction I draw is that
Jesus left on earth not only four lives of Himself, but also a Church
and a Catholic tradition. If Jesus means the Gospels and Christ
means the Church, and if Mr. Roberts chooses to put it in the form
that we need Christ in addition to Jesus, I have no quarrel with
him there. But if he means (as I think he certainly does mean)
that the Jesus in the Gospel is definitely unreliable and undivine,
that He can be convicted of error, that He has been outgrown,
then I have a very large and hearty quarrel with Mr. Roberts and it
is simply a quarrel about the facts.
-Hibbert Journal (April 1910)
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