Title | Why I left the church |
Series Title | Pamphlets for the million; no. 1 |
Creator (LCNAF) |
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Contributor (LCNAF) |
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Publisher | Watts & Company |
Place of Creation (TGN) |
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Date | 1912 |
Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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Subject.Name (LCNAF) |
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Genre (AAT) |
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Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
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Original Item Extent | 46 pages; 19 cm. |
Original Item Location | BX4668.3.M33A3 1912 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304505~S11 |
Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
Use and Reproduction | This item is in the public domain and may be used freely. |
File Name | index.cpd |
Title | Image 38 |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | uhlib_5792348_037.jpg |
Transcript | 38 WHY I LEFT THE CHURCH could be farther from the actual case. It is not until the middle of the second century that we have any testimony in favour of the authenticity of the Gospels worth considering. To quote Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp as witnesses to the authenticity of the Gospels is absurd; at the most, their words only show that certain documents existed which subsequently appear in the text, of'the Gospels. Justin is the earliest writer from whom we can gather anything about the Gospels a really useful character. He lived more than a century after the death of Christ. This, therefore, is the true position of the question. Towards the middle of the second century a.d. certain documents are found to be in circulation professing to describe the life of a religious teacher who had lived in a remote part of the Empire more than ioo years before. These documents, or gospels, are many in number, and all of unknown authorship; they are in the possession of an obscure and fanatical sect, and many of them contain obvious absurdities. Gradually the more absurd are denounced as apocryphal, and four are retained, which, together with some letters of one of the early Christians, form the "New Testament" of future ages. Could anything be more credulous than to put faith in such a biography, especially when we see how every great religious teacher has been credited with supernatural powers by his followers in the course of a century or two after his death ? The utmost we are justified in thinking of Christ is that he was a man of noble and generous life, with a singular influence oyer his fellow-men, which |