The Faith as Unfolded by Many Prophets/Of the Scriptures
OF THE SCRIPTURES.
In the household of Havilah was an old man who was looked upon with reverence by all who dwelt under the same roof. In his youth he had been rich, and in his manhood powerful. His home had been peaceful, and the children who grew up around him were his pride. But the troubles which are the lot of all men were appointed to him in greater number and with a deeper bitterness than his friends supposed that he could have borne. His fields had been spoiled by blight and by drought; his flocks had been carried away by enemies from afar; his sons were slain in war; and his wife died in sorrow, and left him alone. His friends had compassion on him, and strove to help and comfort him;—but how could such grief as his be consoled? He withdrew himself from them, lest his mournful countenance should sadden their hearts; and, save that which was needful to preserve his life, he would receive nothing from them. After a while, however, when his friend Havilah's wife was carried to the grave, Aza, the mourner (as men called him), entered the dwelling of Havilah to weep with him, and he left that dwelling no more. Havilah would have made him as his father, while Aza himself desired to serve with those who tended the flocks or tilled the gardens. Their friendly strife was soon ended, and Aza was permitted to spend his days as it pleased him. He went to and fro in the fields and gardens as he would; and no one spoke to him, unless he desired it, save only the child of Havilah. Aza loved this child. He taught him to know the plants of the field: he sat by to smile upon his sports. He took the boy also between his knees, and told him of the children he had lost, and of the wonders which he had beheld, and of the wisdom which he had gathered. To few besides the child did he speak; though he loved Havilah, and bent his head before Eber as soon as he appeared. He carried the Book ever in his bosom or in his hand, and he read in it perpetually, as he sat in the porch or under the palms. One day, when Eber passed out of the dwelling, he saw Aza thus occupied; and when he returned, the old man was still reading, as if the hours had been moments.
Thou art among those, said Eber, who find in the Book the words of peace.
Here, and here only, said the old man.
Yet, replied Eber, there are other books in which the servants and prophets of God have written concerning him. Where is thy faith in Moses, and in Jonas, and in Barnabas,[1] that the study of their writings is not also precious to thee? And the Psalms of David too, do not they warm the heart and cheer the spirit?
Aza replied, David was the beloved of God, and the prophets have also written of him: but all Scripture has been corrupted, except the Book which was given by Gabriel, and shall be preserved pure for ever: — and while I hold that which is perfect, shall I turn to that which is corrupt? — while the Book which was written in heaven is in my hands, shall I prefer those which came through the hands of men?
Havilah drew near, and overheard what was said. He added,
Our friend Eber believes, not only that the writings of Barnabas came through the hands of men, but that they were invented by man. I fear also that he regards not the Book as wholly sacred.
It is true, said Eber. — That there is much in the Book that is faithful, I know. That there is much that is beautiful, I perceive: but its truth is the same which other Scriptures had revealed before, and its beauty is that which a man's imagination can create. It cannot offend you to hear of other Scriptures, since you believe that God has made many revelations.
So many, replied Havilah, that if they all remained, the wisdom of angels would scarcely be greater than that of men. But that which was known to Adam, was lost to Abraham; and that which Abraham received, was not given to Moses. What God doeth is right; — but would we had these many Scriptures!
At least, said Eber, we have many left. The Law given by Moses remains, and the Books of the Prophets, and the Psalms of David; and, blessed be God! the Gospel of Christ. And the Book of Mohammed, said Aza, bending his head over the volume as he spoke. This is the seal of the Prophets; this shall not be changed or lost, as the others have been; and therefore this is the last of the revelations of God. He will speak no more to men till the judgment.
Do the followers of the Prophet suppose that all the sacred books are changed? asked Eber.
All but the Book of Mohammed, replied Havilah. The Jews have altered the Law, and the Christians the Gospel, as the Prophet said; and none remains entire except the writing which Gabriel gave, and which no man has power to change.
How then has it been changed? asked Eber. There are some among the Faithful who read differently from others, as I have heard from thyself: — though these differences be small, I see not how they can exist at all, if God really promised that no such change should be.
Surely there are more and greater differences in the Scriptures which the Christians hold sacred? replied Havilah.
There are, answered his friend: but to us God has not promised that no word of the sacred writings should be altered. The truth which they contain shall never be changed, because it is truth; but it is given to us in a more lasting form than can be found in the number and order of words. It is the custom of the Jews, and also of those who call themselves the Faithful, to number the sentences, and the words, and even the very letters of their Scriptures, lest any should be lost or changed. We use other methods of preserving the truth.
The Jews, said Havilah, have corrupted the Law, even more than they who worship Mary have spoiled the Gospel.
Not so, said Eber: but it is certain that unless the spirit of the Law is preserved in the heart, any care to guard the letter is of little avail. Both should be guarded; but the spirit may remain entire, even though the letter should be somewhat changed.
But, said Havilah, if a revelation be given by God, will it not be preserved by him?
Yes: — but what makes the revelation? Not the words, but the meaning which is in the words. Else no revelation could be of use to any but those whose language is the same as that of the book given. There are many nations and many languages on the earth; and some of the revelations of God are intended for all these people: but the words of the revelations must be changed, before they can be understood by many. The Law of the Hebrews was a law for the Hebrews alone; yet I and many millions of Christians besides, though we adopt not the Law, find it necessary to learn what the law is, in order that we may fully understand the Gospel; and not being Hebrews, who read the law in our own tongue, and find that though the words are changed, the spirit of them may be perfectly understood. In the Gospel of Christ this is yet more clearly seen. This gospel is not for one nation or one country. It is spreading, and shall spread, where the language of Hebrews and Greeks has never been heard of. On the coasts of distant oceans in the midst of lands on the other side of the world, even in far islands of the sea shall the wisdom of Jesus be spoken, in tongues which are yet unknown. Even now, the same faith which was held by Paul, and John, and Peter, is cherished by those who never felt the heat of a southern sun, and preached in the churches of European kingdoms, and blessed amidst the wilds of newly discovered lands.
It is God who has multiplied the tongues of the earth, and left one mind among them all, exclaimed Havilah.
It is, replied his friend. And to Him be the praise that he has given his revelations unto this one mind, so that varieties of speech cannot injure it.
But, said Havilah, if some of the words of the sacred Books should be lost! — since it hath been so, it may be so again.
God will preserve whatever it is needful for his children to know, replied Eber; and how the Gospel has been preserved we know, and how it shall henceforth be guarded, we may perceive. If among all the errors of those who understood the Gospel wrongly, its records have been preserved to this day; if, while the believers were few among a multitude who despised or were ignorant of the Christian faith, the Books were guarded from destruction, and even injury, we may well hope that they are now safe for ever. Now, there are multitudes of Christians who keep this Gospel in their hearts, and write its words upon their memories. While many preach it in new lands, their brethren at home examine into it, that they may perfectly understand. The copies of the Books are so many that they can never be lost, and kept so pure that they cannot be corrupted. This Gospel is safe for ever.
It may not be further changed, said Havilah: — but if some say that it hath been grievously changed already, how can the Christians reply, if they have not counted the words from generation to generation, and if it hath not been promised from Heaven that no letter should be lost?
Because, replied Eber, we discern by the mind whether the spirit of the Books be true and entire: and the spirit alone is from God; the words are those of the men who wrote. This we know by the difference of the language in which the same thoughts are told. I have related to thee how Jesus and his followers ate together on the night when he was betrayed. Peter was heard by them to declare that he would never leave Jesus; and Jesus was heard to reply, that Peter would deny, before the morning came, that he knew him. The four men who wrote the history of Jesus heard and related this thing; but, though the story is the same in the four Books, the words in which it is told are unlike in all. Those also who heard and saw how Peter denied Christ, have told the same truth, but again in different words; and one adds what the others omitted, — that when the time arrived, 'the Lord turned and looked upon Peter.' Now I fully believe that no word of this tale has been lost since it was first written down; but if I were told that some few words had been changed, I should know that the truth remained, because the same story is told by four persons.
But, replied Havilah, there are some things in your Scriptures which are told by only one writer: how are they known to be faithful?
Because the truth of some parts is confirmed by that which is known to be truth in other parts. That Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, and that Jesus talked with him of his Gospel; also that he told the woman of Samaria who he was, and wherefore he came, are related by John alone: but no one has ever doubted the truth of these things, both because the Book of John as a whole has been carefully preserved, and because the truth of these portions agrees with the truth of other portions; so that the change or loss of a few words would not prevent our understanding or believing the stories themselves. This is yet more true of parts of the Gospel which are more important than any of which I have spoken.
Can one part be more important than another, if all is the Word of God?
Yes; the smallest parts of the Gospel are more precious than any other thoughts that were ever written or spoken; but some are more precious than others, since some are written to explain others. The things which were done were of God through Christ, while the words which explained them were of men. — Jesus came forth alive from the sepulchre on the third day after he had been known to die. This miracle was done by God alone. The Apostle Paul wrote to show that as Christ rose, other men would rise from the dead. God knew what he wrote; God gave him to understand the thing of which he wrote; and God permitted what he wrote to be spread abroad in the world, and to be believed in by all who believed the Gospel. Therefore I receive what Paul wrote, and am thankful that his wisdom has thus come to me; but I think it less important than the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. If the epistles which Paul wrote had been lost, I might still have understood or believed that men would rise from the dead as Jesus rose: but if I had not known that Jesus rose, I could not have understood the reasonings of Paul.
It is indeed a better thing to know what the prophets did, than what their followers said, observed Havilah.
Blessed be God that we know both! replied Eber: but I surely believe that the revelation from God is rather in the things done by his hand, than in the account of those things written by his servants. That God appointed Jesus to teach men that they shall live hereafter; that by Jesus men were taught a higher love and a better obedience; that miracles were done; and that Jesus himself was raised from the dead, — these are the glad tidings from Heaven; this is the revelation which God made to men. The sacred Books contain the history of these things; they relate much that Jesus taught, and yet more that his followers believed, and preached, and wrote. All this is told even as the men themselves spoke; Matthew wrote differently from John, and John from Luke, and Luke from Paul. What they related was from God; but the words were from their own minds, and therefore can the Gospel be preached unchanged in many tongues; but the children of my own land, and those men of other countries who cannot understand all that Paul and Peter have written, can yet believe in the revelation sent by God through Christ.
My child, said Havilah, loves to hear how Jesus gave sight to the man who was born blind.
Rather, I doubt not, than to listen while Aza reads to him from the Book. — And Eber looked for the old man, but he had withdrawn to another place where he might read in peace.
Havilah replied, The Book is full of wisdom, for which the minds of children are not ripe, and therefore I would that Aza had imparted less of it to my child. I have told him that I fear lest the boy should become weary, and should turn away when the time should come for him to read: — but the old man declares there is a music in the pages, which delights every ear, and a beauty which wakens smiles even in one so young as this child. These are among the signs that it was written on high.
Nay, said Eber, but where is this music when the words are those of another tongue? The Book of the Prophet is read in my language; and if my countrymen were to believe in it, they must examine its sense, as they do the sense of the Hebrew Law, and the beauty of its language would be lost to them. It is not thus with the beauty of the Gospel, which speaks to the heart and not to the ear.
And does not the Book of Mohammed speak to the heart?
To thine, I perceive, it does; but there are many who, living in other countries and in other times, cannot understand it, except in those parts which are already found in the Law and in the Gospel. Thou canst speak my language as well as lean speak thine. Come with me to my own land, and I will take thee wherever thou shalt desire to teach thy" faith. Speak of it in the churches, and men will hear but not understand. Open the Book in the dwellings of friends and read of it: they will listen, but shall not be wiser. Gather the children unto thee beneath the shade; tell them of what thy Prophet did and saw, and they will wonder; tell them what he said, and they will be weary; they will neither love him, nor inquire of his doctrine again. But suffer me to go thus abroad in thy country, and mark how the people will listen. To the children I would tell how Jesus, the wise and the holy, loved the infants who were brought to him: I would repeat to them his parables, and declare how benignantly he lived, and how mournfully he died; and they would come continually to me, saying, 'Tell us again of Jesus.' — To the laborers in your fields I would speak of the day when he fed the thousands who had followed him into the wilderness; of his choosing some who were fishermen to be his witnesses; some who were poor to be his friends; and some who were despised in this world to teach men the way to a better: and your servants would cry with one voice, 'If he were here, we also would follow!' — Where I see families rejoicing or mourning together, I would tell how he compassionated the woman of Nain, and restored her son to her: how he also raised the young daughter of Jairus, and how he smiled on human love, and wept for human grief, and remembered his mother and his friend in his last hour: and such families would agree to love him as one of themselves. — I would seek out the wisest and holiest of your sages as he gazed upon the heavens, or watched the stirrings of his own soul: I would pour into his ear the truth which Christ drew forth from the clouds and the winds, from the flowers of the fields and the birds of the air, from the words of men, and even from the vanity of their thoughts. Then would this wisest of your sages cry, 'All the wisdom that I have gained is as nothing: henceforth I will learn at the feet of your Prophet!' — And not in your country alone should it be thus. There are lands where the sea is ever stormy, and where the sun at noonday is scarcely brighter than yonder moon at midnight here: — there are lands where no fields are tilled, and all men are hunters of the forest: — there are also lands where all the wisdom of many nations is gathered together, and where men believe not till they have searched and convinced themselves of the truth. In all these lands, among all these people, there is not one where the Gospel may not be understood; there is not one where, being understood, it will not be loved.
Yet, replied Havilah, Christ chose twelve men to be instructed in his Gospel, lest the people should not understand what he himself taught. How was this, if all may understand?
These men were chosen, replied Eber, not to receive any secret wisdom, or to learn more from Christ than the humblest who listened to him; but to behold the deeds of his life, the manner of his death, and the certainty of his resurrection. To these things they bore witness so long as they lived: but further than this they pretended not to be wiser than other men; and when they died, their office died with them. All men might, from that time, teach in perfect equality; and all that has since been needful to prepare a man to preach the Gospel, is that he should have truly received the Gospel.
My friend forgets, said Havilah, that the Apostles assisted to make the Gospel, which no man is now permitted to do; their Books are used by the Christians, and no writings of a living Christian would be so esteemed.
Eber replied, These Books contain the record of the glad tidings; but the writers did not make or assist in making the glad tidings, which were sent by God and spoken by Christ, and only written down by the Apostles and some of the Disciples. In the same manner, the Books of Moses are called the Law, though they only contain the record of the Law, which was made by God and offered through Moses. Such records could only be written by those who witnessed the revelation; and therefore no writings but those of witnesses are sacred.
Therefore it is, said Havilah, that the Christians reject the gospel of Barnabas; — but if they receive the writings of Paul, why refuse those of Barnabas?
Even if they believed this scripture to be the work of Barnabas, replied Eber, they would remember that he was not called and sanctified by miracle, by Jesus himself, as was Paul. But they also declare that it could not have been written by the companion of Paul, because he was originally a Jew, while the writer of this work calls himself a Gentile. He also speaks of Jerusalem as being destroyed when he wrote, while Barnabas the friend of Paul could scarcely have been alive so long. Other reasons there are which it will not please my friend to hear, further than that the Christians of the early times numbered not this writing among their sacred Books.
Give me, said Havilah, the volume which is in thy bosom: I will sit down here and study it, if thou wilt go to Aza and listen to what he shall read. But remember, it was with Mohammed as with the Apostles, — that he made not the revelation, but only received it. He did not even write it down according to the thoughts of his own mind and the words of his own lips, but as Gabriel spoke: some parts also the Angel himself wrote. Let this, and the portion of truth which my friend knows to be in the Book, dispose him to receive the whole, or at least to learn why others receive it.
And let my friend, on his part, remember, replied Eber, that no eye beheld Gabriel descend to Mohammed; while a crowd was present when the spirit sanctified the baptism of Jesus. No ear was awake when, as Mohammed declared, the name of God was named to him; while a multitude heard when Jesus prayed 'Father, glorify thy name!' and a voice from heaven answered, 'I have both glorified it, and I will glorify it again.' Let my friend remember, that by the hands of Mohammed alone were wonders pretended to be wrought, and by him alone were they recorded: while the gifts of healing, of preaching in many tongues, and even of raising from the dead, were given to all the Apostles, and to many followers besides; and that the Scriptures which testify of these things were written by eight different persons, whose testimony was sanctioned by many more.
Havilah replied, These things I will remember willingly; for I disbelieve not the Christian Scriptures, as the Christians refuse the Book of Mohammed. If I find that these two bear testimony to one another, I will believe in both.
Search and see, replied Eber. Only study with all thy heart, and then believe according as the truth shall appear unto thee.
While Havilah sat down to read and meditate, his friend drew near to the place where Aza still bent over the volume which lay on his knees. He made room for Eber to sit beside him, and and pointed to the page where he read.
The Book was well known to Eber, who disbelieved not any religion without declaring the reasons of his disbelief. But he read yet again, because Havilah had desired that he should; and he withdrew not his eyes or his thoughts till Aza put up the volume and withdrew as the darkness came on.
- ↑ Books in use among the Mohammedans.