In my "Buddhism in Christendom" I give reasons for supposing that the "multitudes" whose sudden appearance in stony wastes have bewildered critics, were in reality the gatherings for the Therapeut festivals described by Philo.
Bishop Lightfoot makes much of the fact that John's gospel makes Christ go up once for the feast of tabernacles. But did he go as an orthodox worshipper, to present his offerings for the bloody sacrifice? On the contrary, on this very occasion he was accused of Sabbath-breaking and demoniac possession; and the rulers of the people sent officers to arrest him.
Leaving Mr. Gladstone and Professor Huxley to discuss whether Christ's acts in the temple among the money changers were illegal, I must point out that His dispersing the sellers of doves goes quite against the theory that He desired to perpetuate Mosaic institutions, for the sale of these doves was a necessity for the temple sacrifices.
Much has been made in modern pulpits of a vague word, "fulfilling." Christ, it is said, did not overthrow the old law, he "fulfilled" it. This is nonsense.
Mosaism was an "eternal covenant." It was a "perpetual statute," offerings of the "food of the Deity" on the altar of burnt sacrifice. It was concubinage, slavery, polygamy, the _lex talionis_ made eternal institutions. To say that a teacher who preaches forgiveness in place of revenge, continence for concubinage, slaving for, instead of slaving others, immortality of the soul for the religion of to-day, is "fulfilling" merely an abuse of words.
I have said that in the New Testament there is an Essene and an anti-Essene Christ. Both are most conspicuous in the Gospel of St. Luke. Catholic and Protestant disputants are aware of this.
Until the days of Ferdinand Christian Baur, St. Luke had an immaculate reputation. He was believed to be the companion of St. Paul on his voyages. He was believed to have written the third gospel almost as early as the date of Paul's imprisonment. He was the reputed author of the Acts of the Apostles.
"Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you." (Col. iv. 14.)
In the Second Epistle to Timothy, and in the Epistle to Philemon, he is also mentioned.
In the first place, two out of the three epistles that name him are pronounced to be forgeries by all competent critics; and very few hold even the Epistle to the Colossians to be by the pen of St. Paul. Then it is pointed out that there is no mention of St. Luke's gospel or of the Acts of the Apostles until the date of Irenæus (A.D. 180.)