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THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF JESUS CHRIST A Continuous Narrative Collated from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with Intro. by Frederick W. Farrar
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Hardcover
First published August 1, 2009
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About the author
Frederic W. Farrar
686 books9 followersFrederic William Farrar (Bombay, 7 August 1831 – Canterbury, 22 March 1903) was a cleric of the Church of England (Anglican), schoolteacher and author. He was a pallbearer at the funeral of Charles Darwin in 1882. He was a member of the Cambridge Apostles secret society. He was the Archdeacon of Westminster from 1883 to 1894, and Dean of Canterbury Cathedral from 1895 until his death in 1903.
Source: Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia
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May 29, 2024
A WELL-KNOWN TREATMENT BY A 19TH CENTURY ANGLICAN CHURCHMAN
Frederic William Farrar (1831-1903) was a Church of England cleric and author; he was the Archdeacon of Westminster, and then Dean of Canterbury Cathedral until his death. When Charles Darwin died in 1882, Farrar helped get the church's permission for him to be buried in Westminster Abbey; Farrar was a pallbearer, and preached the sermon at his funeral.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1874 book, “this Life of Christ is avowedly and unconditionally the work of a believer. Those who expect to find in it new theories about the divine personality of Jesus, or brilliant combinations of mythic cloud tinged by the sunset imagination of some decadent belief, will look in vain. It has not been written with any DIRECT and SPECIAL reference to the attacks of skeptical criticism. It is not even intended to deal otherwise than indirectly with the serious doubts of those who, almost against their will, think themselves forced to lapse into a state of honest disbelief.” (Pg. 3) Later, he explains, “It is needless to add that this book is almost wholly founded on an independent study of the four Gospels side by side.” (Pg. 10)
Of the Census of Quirinius in Luke 2, he observes, “Great as are the historic difficulties in which this census is involved, there seem to be good independent grounds for believing that it may have been originally ordered by Sentius Saturninus, that it was BEGUN by Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, when he was for the first time legate of Syria, and that it was completed during his second term of office.” (Pg. 35-36)
Of the Star of Bethlehem, he observes, “On Dec. 17, 1603, there occurred a conjunction of the two largest superior planets, Saturn and Jupiter… By calculating backwards, Kepler discovered that the same conjunction … had happened no less than three times in the year A.U.C. 747, and that the planet Mars had joined them in the spring of 748… such a conjunction would at once have been interpreted by the Chaldean observers as indicating the approach of some memorable event… We are, in fact, driven to the conclusion that the astronomical researches which have proved the reality of this remarkable planetary conjunction are only valuable as showing the POSSIBILITY that it may have prepared the Magi for the early occurrence of some great event. And this confident expectation may have led to their journey to Palestine, on the subsequent appearance of an evanescent star… which in this instance seems to rest on the authority of the Evangelist, alone.” (Pg. 55)
Of Matthew 2:23, he comments, “It is well known that no such passage occurs in any extant prophecy. If the name implied a contemptuous dislike … then St. Matthew may be summing up in that expression the various prophecies so little understood by his nation, which pointed to the Messiah as a man of sorrows. And certainly to this day ‘Nazarene’ has continued to be a term of contempt.” (Pg. 75)
He points out, “this testimony of His enemies furnishes us with a convincing and fortunate proof that His teaching was not, as some would insinuate, a mere eclectic system borrowed from the various sects and teachers of His times… The schools in which Jesus learnt were not the schools of the Scribes, but the school of holy obedience, of sweet contentment, of unalloyed simplicity, of stainless purity, of cheerful toil. The lore in which He studies was not the lore of Rabbinism… but the … Book of God within Him, written on the fleshly tables of the heart.” (Pg. 92)
He suggests, “A miracle is a miracle, and we see no possible advantage in trying to understand the MEANS by which it was wrought. In accepting the evidence for it… we are avowedly accepting the evidence for something which transcends, though it by no means necessarily supersedes, the ordinary laws by which Nature works… We as little claim a right to scathe the rejector of miracles by abuse and anathema, as we admit HIS right to sneer at us for imbecility or hypocrisy. Jesus has taught all men… and what the believer and unbeliever alike can do, is… to state the reason for the belief that is in him.” (Pg. 147-148)
Later, he adds, “if we believe that God rules; if we believe that Christ rose; if we have reason to hold… the certainty that God has not delegated His sovereignty … to the final, unintelligent, pitiless, inevitable working of material forces… then we shall neither clutch at rationalistic interpretations, nor be much troubled if others adopt them.” (Pg. 259-260) But he also acknowledges, “The literal reality of demonic possession is a belief for which more may perhaps be said than is admitted by the purely physical science of the present day, but it is not a necessary article of the Christian creed; and if any reader imagines that … there are certain NUANCES … in which subjective inferences are confused with exact realities, he… has a right to do so without the slightest imputation on the orthodoxy of his belief.” (Pg. 264-265)
He argues, “His birth had been first revealed by night to a few unknown and ignorant shepherds; the first full, clear announcement by Himself of His own Messiahship was made by a well-side in the weary noon to a single obscure Samaritan woman… Who would have INVENTED, who would have merely IMAGINED, things to unlike the thoughts of man as these?” (Pg. 178)
Of the Sermon on the Mount, he says, “it dealt, not with scrupulous tithes and ceremonial cleansings, but with the human soul, and human destiny, and human life---with Hope and Charity, and Faith. There were no definitions in it… or philosophic theorizing… but a sweet intuitive insight into the very depths of the human heart… it was a Voice of God, speaking in the utterance of man.” (Pg. 215) Later, he adds about the Prodigal Son, “Where, in the entire range of human literature… can anything be found so terse, so luminous, so full of infinite tenderness… yet so merciful in the hope which it affords to amendment and penitence---as this little story?” (Pg. 325-326)
Of the raising of Lazarus, he comments, “Let us pause here to answer the not unnatural question as to the silence of the Synoptists respecting this great miracle… The Gospels are… confessedly and designedly fragmentary…The Synoptists almost confine themselves to the Galilean, and St. John to the Judean ministry… Not one of the four Evangelists proposes for a moment to give an exhaustive account… of the parables, discourses, and miracles of Jesus… since the raising of Lazarus would not seem to them a greater exercise of miraculous power than others which they had recorded… it does not seem at all MORE inexplicable that they should have omitted this…” (Pg. 481-482)
He points out, “For indeed a death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and death CAN have of horrible and ghastly… stopping just short of the point which would give to the sufferer the relief of unconsciousness… and all these physical complications caused an internal excitement and anxiety, which made the prospect of death itself… bear the aspect of a delicious and exquisite release.” (Pg. 641)
Farrrar’s book is, of course, completely “out of style” from our contemporary forms of biography; but for those interested in a nondogmatic, quite “literary,” and ultimately very reverent treatment of the life of Jesus, this book will be of keen interest.
Frederic William Farrar (1831-1903) was a Church of England cleric and author; he was the Archdeacon of Westminster, and then Dean of Canterbury Cathedral until his death. When Charles Darwin died in 1882, Farrar helped get the church's permission for him to be buried in Westminster Abbey; Farrar was a pallbearer, and preached the sermon at his funeral.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1874 book, “this Life of Christ is avowedly and unconditionally the work of a believer. Those who expect to find in it new theories about the divine personality of Jesus, or brilliant combinations of mythic cloud tinged by the sunset imagination of some decadent belief, will look in vain. It has not been written with any DIRECT and SPECIAL reference to the attacks of skeptical criticism. It is not even intended to deal otherwise than indirectly with the serious doubts of those who, almost against their will, think themselves forced to lapse into a state of honest disbelief.” (Pg. 3) Later, he explains, “It is needless to add that this book is almost wholly founded on an independent study of the four Gospels side by side.” (Pg. 10)
Of the Census of Quirinius in Luke 2, he observes, “Great as are the historic difficulties in which this census is involved, there seem to be good independent grounds for believing that it may have been originally ordered by Sentius Saturninus, that it was BEGUN by Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, when he was for the first time legate of Syria, and that it was completed during his second term of office.” (Pg. 35-36)
Of the Star of Bethlehem, he observes, “On Dec. 17, 1603, there occurred a conjunction of the two largest superior planets, Saturn and Jupiter… By calculating backwards, Kepler discovered that the same conjunction … had happened no less than three times in the year A.U.C. 747, and that the planet Mars had joined them in the spring of 748… such a conjunction would at once have been interpreted by the Chaldean observers as indicating the approach of some memorable event… We are, in fact, driven to the conclusion that the astronomical researches which have proved the reality of this remarkable planetary conjunction are only valuable as showing the POSSIBILITY that it may have prepared the Magi for the early occurrence of some great event. And this confident expectation may have led to their journey to Palestine, on the subsequent appearance of an evanescent star… which in this instance seems to rest on the authority of the Evangelist, alone.” (Pg. 55)
Of Matthew 2:23, he comments, “It is well known that no such passage occurs in any extant prophecy. If the name implied a contemptuous dislike … then St. Matthew may be summing up in that expression the various prophecies so little understood by his nation, which pointed to the Messiah as a man of sorrows. And certainly to this day ‘Nazarene’ has continued to be a term of contempt.” (Pg. 75)
He points out, “this testimony of His enemies furnishes us with a convincing and fortunate proof that His teaching was not, as some would insinuate, a mere eclectic system borrowed from the various sects and teachers of His times… The schools in which Jesus learnt were not the schools of the Scribes, but the school of holy obedience, of sweet contentment, of unalloyed simplicity, of stainless purity, of cheerful toil. The lore in which He studies was not the lore of Rabbinism… but the … Book of God within Him, written on the fleshly tables of the heart.” (Pg. 92)
He suggests, “A miracle is a miracle, and we see no possible advantage in trying to understand the MEANS by which it was wrought. In accepting the evidence for it… we are avowedly accepting the evidence for something which transcends, though it by no means necessarily supersedes, the ordinary laws by which Nature works… We as little claim a right to scathe the rejector of miracles by abuse and anathema, as we admit HIS right to sneer at us for imbecility or hypocrisy. Jesus has taught all men… and what the believer and unbeliever alike can do, is… to state the reason for the belief that is in him.” (Pg. 147-148)
Later, he adds, “if we believe that God rules; if we believe that Christ rose; if we have reason to hold… the certainty that God has not delegated His sovereignty … to the final, unintelligent, pitiless, inevitable working of material forces… then we shall neither clutch at rationalistic interpretations, nor be much troubled if others adopt them.” (Pg. 259-260) But he also acknowledges, “The literal reality of demonic possession is a belief for which more may perhaps be said than is admitted by the purely physical science of the present day, but it is not a necessary article of the Christian creed; and if any reader imagines that … there are certain NUANCES … in which subjective inferences are confused with exact realities, he… has a right to do so without the slightest imputation on the orthodoxy of his belief.” (Pg. 264-265)
He argues, “His birth had been first revealed by night to a few unknown and ignorant shepherds; the first full, clear announcement by Himself of His own Messiahship was made by a well-side in the weary noon to a single obscure Samaritan woman… Who would have INVENTED, who would have merely IMAGINED, things to unlike the thoughts of man as these?” (Pg. 178)
Of the Sermon on the Mount, he says, “it dealt, not with scrupulous tithes and ceremonial cleansings, but with the human soul, and human destiny, and human life---with Hope and Charity, and Faith. There were no definitions in it… or philosophic theorizing… but a sweet intuitive insight into the very depths of the human heart… it was a Voice of God, speaking in the utterance of man.” (Pg. 215) Later, he adds about the Prodigal Son, “Where, in the entire range of human literature… can anything be found so terse, so luminous, so full of infinite tenderness… yet so merciful in the hope which it affords to amendment and penitence---as this little story?” (Pg. 325-326)
Of the raising of Lazarus, he comments, “Let us pause here to answer the not unnatural question as to the silence of the Synoptists respecting this great miracle… The Gospels are… confessedly and designedly fragmentary…The Synoptists almost confine themselves to the Galilean, and St. John to the Judean ministry… Not one of the four Evangelists proposes for a moment to give an exhaustive account… of the parables, discourses, and miracles of Jesus… since the raising of Lazarus would not seem to them a greater exercise of miraculous power than others which they had recorded… it does not seem at all MORE inexplicable that they should have omitted this…” (Pg. 481-482)
He points out, “For indeed a death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and death CAN have of horrible and ghastly… stopping just short of the point which would give to the sufferer the relief of unconsciousness… and all these physical complications caused an internal excitement and anxiety, which made the prospect of death itself… bear the aspect of a delicious and exquisite release.” (Pg. 641)
Farrrar’s book is, of course, completely “out of style” from our contemporary forms of biography; but for those interested in a nondogmatic, quite “literary,” and ultimately very reverent treatment of the life of Jesus, this book will be of keen interest.
September 30, 2017
Read this a few years ago and enjoyed it a lot!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews