ART. VII.-Mr Gladstone's Ecce Homo.' Ecce Homo. By the Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE, 1868. Strahan & Co., THAT can be no ordinary book which, after having been long before the public, and reviewed in almost every periodical of any consequence, should yet seem to retain such interest and influence as to make it appear worthy of a lengthened discussion from the pen of so distinguished a man as Mr Gladstone. Such a notice must doubtless have the effect of lending to it increased importance; and, as Mr Gladstone's papers (which appeared at first in "Good Words," and are now published by Mr Strahan in a collected form) are written in the spirit of panegyric and warm defence, with a very small intermixture of sparing criticism, they may not improbably tend to weaken the force of what may have been said in condemnation of the book, and add to its supporters and admirers. It is of importance, therefore, that the real weight of the defence should be inquired into, and that its readers, biassed by the position and reputation of the author, should not thoughtlessly adopt views which may be erroneous, in however plausible a light they may be put. We respect Mr Gladstone's character, and we appreciate his talents, but is the history of his opinions such as to justify any great confidence in, or deference to, his judgment in such matters? He is ever the ardent and enthusiastic advocate of whatever opinions he may embrace; and it has been his lot to have maintained, with equal earnestness, at different periods, views in literal opposition to one another. An honest change of conviction is not indeed to be deprecated, and should not be made the subject of reproach; but we cannot estimate very highly the deliberative faculty of the man with whom change is all-pervading. The revolution which has taken place in his political creed is well known, and it has been remarked that at one time he probably would have been amongst the last to have come forward as the apologist of such a book as "Ecce Homo." We trust this may not point to a revolution in his religious. impressions, yet to be carried further, and that he, who can now write so favourably of a work, of an undoubtedly rationalistic character, may not make progress in the same direction. Be it not so; but in such a mind, could any be surprised at such a result? This, however, by no means appears to be the character of Mr Gladstone's present opinions, and his defence of "Ecce Homo" rests upon the assumption, that it may be calculated, as it appears to him, ultimately to subserve the cause of sound religious belief. This view is enforced and set forth with every advantage, as might be expected when in such hands. But, although what emanates from a gifted mind will generally be masterly and interesting, it is not always in an equal degree accurate. The qualifications which enable a man successfully to support and illustrate a thesis, are very different from those which fit him for the calm perception of truth; and we may sometimes be astonished and diverted at discovering some assumption, obviously fallacious in itself, maintained and embellished with ability. We remember reading an eloquent speech, in which it was gravely contended, that the idea of the oar was originally caught by observing the motion of the wing of a bird in the sky. Had it been necessary to have ascribed so simple an appliance to anything beyond the mechanical instinct possessed by most men, might not a thousand things on earth have supplied the suggestion? The speaker referred to, if we mistake not, was Mr Gladstone. It was remarked of him long ago, by Lord Macaulay, that his lively imagination, and his copious vocabulary, were detrimental to him as a speculator; and the same characteristics, though in a somewhat mitigated form, yet distinguish what proceeds from him. He appears, in some instances at least, too readily to adopt some view of a subject, and at once to apply the resources of his powerful and accomplished mind to establish it; and his language sometimes, while it becomes stately and high sounding, fails easily to convey a clearly defined sense. But in what light, let us inquire, does Mr Gladstone regard"Ecce Homo," and what does he allege in vindication of it? He infers, from the statement of its author in the preface, that he wrote it for the satisfaction of his own mind; that his own views were unformed on the subject of it; and that " he felt his way and made his road as he went along." He admits that it is but a partial exhibition of that on which it professes to treat, and that it "approaches the character of our Saviour on the human side exclusively." (P. 21). But he contends that "such a mode of treatment, while open to no insurmountable preliminary objection, is one eminently suited to the religious exigencies of the present times" (p. 22); and that it is simply in accordance with that gradual development of divine truth which has been observed in its communication to man. The main portion of the first and second parts of the book are occupied in the opening out of the last point, and the third part is no more General View of Subjects. 565 than a collection of extracts from "Ecce Homo," accompanied with a few very brief observations upon them. Thus what we have to consider may be presented under three heads-First, The mode in which the truth of the Gospel, according to Mr Gladstone's view, was gradually imparted to the world; secondly, The appropriateness of reverting to such a method of communicating it now, in consideration of the peculiar disposition of men's minds with respect to religious belief; and, thirdly, How far "Ecce Homo" fulfils this condition, and on this ground is defensible. In approaching the discussion of the first question, which fills about half the volume, Mr Gladstone points out difficulties and dangers which would exist, both as respects the Jew and the Gentile, and which had to be carefully guarded against. He assumes that "the central idea of the Christian system," which, as he conceives, was to be delicately and progressively unfolded, was "the mixed conception of the character and person of our Lord as divine and human" (p. 14). Is this assumption perfectly correct? or would it not be more proper to say, that the central idea of Christianity is our Lord, in his twofold nature, viewed as discharging the office of mediator ?-To our view, this addition is requisite to complete the idea. Mr Gladstone, however, limiting himself to this personal view of Christ, observes that the conception of God tabernacling amongst men in a human form would not be new, either to the Jew or the Gentile, and that in consequence of this, considered in relation to the particular condition of each at the time of the advent of Christ, serious mischief might have arisen, had not his real character been imparted with great reserve and caution. The Jew, being under the power of Rome, would naturally expect his Messiah to appear as a great deliverer from such subjection; and had they been led as a nation to embrace Christ in this character, obviously in so doing they might have been brought into collision with the Roman power. This is but a familiar thought. We proceed to what will appear less so. As the Jew mainly by prophecy had been led to look for a divine deliverer in human shape, so the Gentile, by a process peculiar to himself, had been habituated to a similar idea. There was "a form ready made in the mind of each,' to use Mr Gladstone's words, "into which such an idea might drop" (p. 31). Mr Gladstone regards this idea in two lights, as "affording a facility on the one hand for the reception of the infant religion," and on the other, as "constituting a danger " to it. As Mr Gladstone has pre viously, rather more than two years since, expounded more fully the theory, which is here but slightly mentioned, in an address delivered before the University of Edinburgh, on "The Place of Ancient Greece in the Providential Order of the World," we are enabled to obtain a more correct conception of it than the present brief notice conveys. We may have a confidence that Christ would be revealed to the world in the fulness of time, and that the condition of the world would be such as the divine wisdom saw to be most adapted for such a manifestation. Yet, as it is a question respecting which we have only our own inference and conjecture to guide us, it is one on which it becomes us to speculate with caution. Various writers have more or less in this spirit, endeavoured to point out in what the fitness of the period consisted, and how the events of history had tended to it. Mr Gladstone is somewhat bolder, and advances the theory, which, so far as we are aware, is his own, that the anthropomorphic element in heathen mythology, in other words, that species of idolatry in which the god worshipped was represented under the human form,was providentially designed to discipline and train the minds of men for the reception of the idea of a divine deliverer in the form of man. This may appear somewhat startling, but, we imagine, it will be fully borne out by reference to the address named. "I submit to you," says Mr Gladstone (Address, pp. 19-22)," "that the true Preparatio Evangelica, or the rearing and training of mankind for the Gospel, was not confined to that eminent and conspicuous part of it which is represented by the dispensations given to the patriarchs and the Jews, but extends likewise to other fields of human history and experience; among which, in modes, and in degrees, varyingly perceptible to us, the Almighty distributed the operations, preliminary and introductory, to his one great, surpassing, and central design for the recovery and happiness of mankind. So that, in their several spheres, some positive, some negative, some spiritual, some secular, with a partial consciousness, or with an absolute unconsciousness, all were co-operators in working out his will; under a guidance strong and subtle, and the more sublime, perhaps, in proportion as it was the less sensible. "In the body of those traditions of primitive religion which are handed down to us in the Book of Genesis, and which I shall make no further apology for treating as records of great historic weight, there was manifestly included what I may term an humanistic element. It was embodied in the few but pregnant words which declared that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. The principle of evil was to receive a deadly shock in its vital part, and this at the hands of One who should be born into the very race that he would come to deliver. Address at Edinburgh. 567 "The next observation I would submit is this: that there was no provision made, so far as we are aware, at any rate in the Mosaic system, for keeping alive this particular element of the original traditions, otherwise than as an anticipation reaching into the far distant future. . . . . . Let us now turn to the religion of the Hellenic race, and we shall find that, as a matter of fact, it appropriated to itself, and was intensely permeated by, that very anthropomorphic element which the Mosaic system was so especially framed to exclude, and to which the other religions of antiquity gave, in comparison, but a doubtful and secondary place." These extracts, we conceive, will make it clear what Mr Gladstone means when he speaks of the Greek anthropomorphism "supplying the Gentile with a form into which the idea of a divine deliverer, clad in the flesh, might drop.' As this view is put forward by one so eminent, and has at least the fascination of novelty, it may perhaps be worth while briefly to consider it. Now, in the first place, it does not seem that the human mind requires any such education to accustom it to regard deity in association with the human form, but that in its untaught and unenlightened state, it is only too prone thus to view God, and that it rather needs to be educated to conceive of him as divested of any such form. We know that a child's first conception of a Supreme Being is generally of this character. But a tendency thus to regard a higher power is not limited to children. A respectable writer on mythology, unbiassed by the thought of any position which he had to support or overthrow, speaks thus: "Man is incapable of conceiving pure spirit, and he knows no form so beautiful or so perfect as his own, and none so well adapted to be the vehicle of mind. He naturally, therefore, fell into the habit of assigning a human form to his gods" (Keightley's Mythology, p. 4). To this disposition in men, doubtless, in addition to the influence of their actual contact with idolatry, is to be ascribed the reiterated prohibition to the Jews, of all idolatry, and the repeated admonition in Exodus, "Ye saw no similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you." More than this. Even as respects those who have been taught to view God, as he is revealed, as a pure spiritual existence, so great is their aptness in thought to see everything under a shape, so unable are they to rise, at least with any continuity of grasp, to the idea of pure spirit, that they can only contemplate it by aid of the ideas derived from form. 'Though we must not conceive of God," to quote the words of Charnock, "as of a human or corporeal shape, yet we cannot think of God without some reflection |