Essays Upon Some Controverted QuestionsHuxley, Thomas Henry
Religion
Essays Upon Some Controverted Questions
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Science
If any one will answer these questions for me with something more to the
point than feeble talk about the "cowardice of agnosticism," I shall be
deeply his debtor. Unless and until they are satisfactorily answered, I say
of agnosticism in this matter, "_J'y suis, et j'y reste_."
But, as we have seen, it is asserted that I have no business to call myself
an agnostic; that if I am {348} not a Christian I am an infidel; and that I
ought to call myself by that name of "unpleasant significance." Well, I do
not care much what I am called by other people, and if I had at my side all
those who, since the Christian era, have been called infidels by other
folks, I could not desire better company. If these are my ancestors, I
prefer, with the old Frank, to be with them wherever they are. But there
are several points in Dr. Wace's contention which must be elucidated before
I can even think of undertaking to carry out his wishes. I must, for
instance, know what a Christian is. Now what is a Christian? By whose
authority is the signification of that term defined? Is there any doubt
that the immediate followers of Jesus, the "sect of the Nazarenes," were
strictly orthodox Jews, differing from other Jews not more than the
Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes differed from one another; in
fact, only in the belief that the Messiah, for whom the rest of their
nation waited, had come? Was not their chief, "James, the brother of the
Lord," reverenced alike by Sadducee, Pharisee, and Nazarene? At the famous
conference which, according to the Acts, took place at Jerusalem, does not
James declare that "myriads" of Jews, who by that time had become
Nazarenes, were "all zealous for the Law"? Was not the name of "Christian"
first used to denote the converts to the doctrine promulgated by Paul and
Barnabas at Antioch? Does the subsequent history of Christianity leave any
doubt that, from this time forth, the "little rift within {349} the lute"
caused by the new teaching, developed, if not inaugurated, at Antioch, grew
wider and wider, until the two types of doctrine irreconcilably diverged?
Did not the primitive Nazarenism, or Ebionism, develop into the Nazarenism,
and Ebionism, and Elkasaitism of later ages, and finally die out in
obscurity and condemnation as damnable heresy; while the younger doctrine
throve and pushed out its shoots into that endless variety of sects, of
which the three strongest survivors are the Roman and Greek Churches and
modern Protestantism?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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