and undetailed hearsay, differing, so far as it can be compared, from the statements in the Gospels, and without other attestation than the bare fact that it is repeated by Paul, who doubtless believed it, although he had not himself been a witness of any of the supposed appearances of the risen Jesus which he so briefly catalogues.  Paul’s own personal testimony to the Resurrection is limited to a vision of Jesus, of which we have no authentic details, seen many years after the alleged miracle.  Considering the peculiar and highly nervous temperament of Paul, of which he himself supplies abundant evidence, there can be no hesitation in deciding that this vision was purely subjective, as were likewise, in all probability, the appearances to the excited disciples of Jesus.  The testimony of Paul himself, before his imagination was stimulated to ecstatic fervour by the beauty of a spiritualised religion, was an earnest denial of the great Christian dogma, emphasised by the active persecution of those who affirmed it; and a vision, especially in the case of one so constituted, supposed to be seen many years after the fact of the Resurrection had ceased to be capable of verification, is not an argument of convincing force.  We were compelled to pronounce the evidence for the Resurrection and Ascension absolutely and hopelessly inadequate to prove the reality of such stupendous miracles, which must consequently be unhesitatingly rejected.  There is no reason given, or even conceivable, why allegations such as these, and dogmas affecting the religion and even the salvation of the human race, should be accepted upon evidence which would be declared totally insufficient in the case of any common question of property or title before a legal tribunal.  On the contrary, the more momentous the point to be established, the more complete must be the proof required.

If we test the results at which we have arrived by general considerations, we find them everywhere confirmed and established.  There is nothing original in the claim of Christianity to be regarded as Divine Revelation, and nothing new either in the doctrines said to have been revealed, or in the miracles by which it is alleged to have been distinguished.  There has not been a single historical religion largely held amongst men which has not pretended to be divinely revealed, and the written books of which have not been represented as directly inspired.  There is not a doctrine, sacrament, or rite of Christianity which has not substantially formed part of earlier religions; and not a single phase of the supernatural history of the Christ, from his miraculous conception, birth and incarnation to his death, resurrection, and ascension, which has not had its counterpart in earlier mythologies.  Heaven and hell, with characteristic variation of details, have held an important place in the eschatology of many creeds and races.  The same may be said even of the moral teaching of Christianity, the elevated precepts of which, although in a less perfect and connected form, had already suggested themselves to many noble minds and been promulgated by ancient sages and philosophers.  That this Enquiry into the reality of Divine Revelation has been limited to the claim of Christianity has arisen solely from a desire to condense it within reasonable bounds, and confine it to the only Religion in connection with which it could practically interest us now.