A Few Words About the Devil, and Other Biographical Sketches and Essays

THE TWELVE APOSTLES

All, good Christians, indeed all Christians – for are there any who are not models of goodness? – will desire that their fellow-creatures who are unbelievers should have the fullest possible information, biographical or otherwise, as to the twelve persons specially chosen by Jesus to be his immediate followers. It is not for the instruction of the believer that I pen this brief essay; he would be equally content with his faith in the absence of all historic vouchers. Indeed a pious worshiper would cling to his creed not only without testimony in its favor, but despite direct testimony against it. It is to those not within the pale of the church that I shall seek to demonstrate the credibility of the history of the twelve apostles. The short biographical sketch here presented is extracted from the first five books of the New Testament, two of which at least are attributed to two of the twelve. It is objected by heretical men who go as far in their criticisms on the Gospels as Colenso does with the Pentateuch, that not one of the gospels is original or written by any of the apostles; that, on the contrary, they were preceded by numerous writings, since lost or rejected, these in their turn having for their basis the oral tradition which preceded them. It is alleged that the four gospels are utterly anonymous, and that the fourth gospel is subject to strong suspicions of spuriousness. It would be useless to combat, and I therefore boldly ignore these attacks on the authenticity of the text, and proceed with my history. The names of the twelve are as follows: Simon, surnamed Peter; Andrew, his brother; James and John, the sons of Zebedee; Andrew; Philip; Bartholomew; Matthew; James, the son of Alphaeus; Simon, the Canaanite; Judas Iscariot; and a twelfth, as to whose name there is some uncertainty; it was either Lebbaeus, Thaddaeus, or Judas. It is in Matthew alone (x, 3) that the name of Lebbaeus is mentioned thus: "Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus." We are told, on this point, by able biblicists, that the early MSS. have not the words "whose surname was Thaddaeus," and that these words have probably been inserted to reconcile the gospel according to Matthew with that attributed to Mark. How good must have been the old fathers who sought to improve upon the Holy Ghost by making clear that which inspiration had left doubtful! In the English version of the Rheims Testament used in this country by our Roman Catholic brethren, the reconciliation between Matthew and Mark is completed by omitting the words "Lebbaeus whose surname was," leaving only the name "Thaddaeus" in Matthew's text. This omission must be correct, being by the authority of an infallible church. If Matthew x, 3, and Mark iii, 18, be passed as reconciled, although the first calls the twelfth disciple Lebbaeus, and the second gives him the name Thaddaeus, there is yet the difficulty that in Luke vi, 16, corroborated by John xiv, 22, there is a disciple spoken of as "Judas, not Iscariot." "Judas, the brother of James." Commentators have endeavored to clear away this last difficulty by declaring that Thaddaeus is a Syriac word, having much the same meaning as Judas. This has been answered by the objection that if Matthew's Gospel uses Thaddæus in lieu of Judas, then he ought to speak of Thaddaeus Iscariot, which he does not; and it is further objected also that while there are some grounds for suggesting a Hebrew original for the gospel attributed to Matthew, there is not the slightest pretense for alleging that Matthew wrote in Syriac. It is to be hoped that the unbelieving reader will not stumble on the threshold of his study because of a little uncertainty as to a name. What is in a name? The Jewish name which we read as Jesus is really Joshua, but the name to which we are most accustomed seems the one we should adhere to.

Simon Peter being the first named among the disciples of Jesus, deserves the first place in this notice. The word "Simon" may be rendered, if taken as a Greek name, flatnose or ugly. Some of the ancient Greek and Hebrew names are characteristic of peculiarities in the individual, but no one knows whether Peter's nose had anything to do with his name. Simon is rather a Hebrew name, but Peter is Greek, signifying a rock or stone. Peter is supposed to have the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and his second name may express his stony insensibility to all appeals by infidels for admittance to the celestial regions. Lord Byron's "Vision of Judgment" is the highest known authority as to Saint Peter's celestial duties, but this nobleman's poems are only fit for very pious readers. Peter, ere he became a parson, was by trade a fisher, and when Jesus first saw Peter, the latter was in a vessel fishing with his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea of Galilee, Jesus walking by the sea said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."⁶⁹ The two brothers did so, and they became Christ's disciples. The successors of Peter have since reversed the apostles' early practice: instead of now casting their nets into the sea, the modern representatives of the disciples of Jesus draw the sees into their nets, and, it is believed, find the result much more profitable. When Jesus called Peter no one was with him but his brother Andrew; a little further on, the two sons of Zebedee were in a ship with their father mending nets. This is the account of Peter's call given in the gospel according to Matthew, and as Matthew was inspired by the Holy Ghost, who is identical with God the Father, who is one with God the Son, who is Jesus, the account is doubtless free from error. In the Gospel according to John, which is likewise inspired in the same manner, from the same source, and with similar infallibility, we learn that Andrew was originally a disciple of John the Baptist, and that when Andrew first saw Jesus, Peter was not present, but Andrew went and found Peter who, if fishing, must have been angling on land, telling him "we have found the Messiah," and that Andrew then brought Peter to Jesus, who said, "Thou art Simon, the son of Jonas; thou shalt be called Cephas." There is no mention in this gospel narrative of the sons of Zebedee being a little further on, or of any fishing in the sea of Galilee. This call is clearly on land, whether or not near the sea of Galilee does not appear. In the Gospel according to Luke, which is as much inspired as either of the two before-mentioned gospels, and, therefore equally authentic with each of them, we are told⁷⁰ that when the call took place, Jesus and Peter were both at sea. Jesus had been preaching to the people, who, pressing upon him, he got into Simon's ship, from which he preached.

After this he directed Simon to put out into the deep and let down the nets. Simon answered, "Master, we have toiled all night and taken nothing; nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net." No sooner was this done than the net was filled to breaking, and Simon's partners, the two sons of Zebedee, came to help, when, at the call of Jesus, they brought their ships to land, and followed him. From these accounts the unbeliever may learn that when Jesus called Peter, either both Jesus and Peter were on the land, or one was on land and the other on sea, or both of them were at sea. He may also learn that the sons of Zebedee were present at the time, having come to help to get in the great catch, and were called with Peter; or that they were further on, sitting mending nets with their father, and were called afterward; or that they were neither present nor near at hand. He may also be assured that Simon was in his ship when Jesus came to call him, and that Jesus was on land when Andrew, Simon's brother, found Simon and brought him to Jesus to be called. The unbeliever must not hesitate because of any apparent incoherence or contradiction in the narrative. With faith it is easy to harmonize the three narratives above quoted, especially when you know that Jesus had visited Simon's house before the call of Simon,⁷¹ but did not go to Simon's house until after Simon had been called.⁷² Jesus went to Simon's house and cured his wife's mother of a fever. Robert Taylor,⁷³ commenting on the fever-curing miracle, says: "St. Luke tells us that this fever had taken the woman, not that the woman had taken the fever, and not that the fever was a very bad fever, or a yellow fever, or a scarlet fever, but that it was a great fever – that is, I suppose, a fever six feet high at least; a personal fever, a rational and intelligent fever, that would yield to the power of Jesus' argument, but would never have given way to James' powder. So we are expressly told that Jesus rebuked the fever – that is, he gave it a good scolding; asked it, I dare say, how it could be so unreasonable as to plague the poor old woman so cruelly, and whether it wasn't ashamed of itself; and said, perhaps, Get out you naughty, wicked fever, you; and such like objurgatory language, which the fever, not used to being rebuked in such a manner, and being a very sensible sort of fever, would not stand, but immediately left the old woman in high dudgeon." This Robert Taylor, although a clergyman of the Church of England, has been convicted of blasphemy and imprisoned for writing in such wicked language about the bible. Simon Peter, as a disciple, performed many miracles, some when in company with Jesus, and more when separately by himself. These miracles, though themselves un-vouched by any reliable testimony, and disbelieved by the people among whom they worked, are strong evidence in favor of the apostolic character claimed for Peter.

On one occasion the whole of the disciples were sent away by Jesus in a ship, the Savior remaining behind to pray. About the fourth watch of the night, when the ship was in the midst of the sea, Jesus went unto his disciples, walking on the sea. Though Jesus went unto his disciples, and as an expeditious way, I suppose, of arriving with them, he would have passed by them, but they saw him, and supposing him to be a spirit, cried out. Jesus bid them be of good cheer, to which Peter answered, "Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee."⁷⁴ Jesus said, "Come," and Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus. But the sea being wet and the wind boisterous, Peter became afraid, and instead of walking on the water began to sink into it, and cried out "Lord save me," and immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter.

Some object that the two gospels according to John and Mark, which both record the feat of water-walking by Jesus, omit all mention of Peter's attempt. Probably the Holy Ghost had good reasons for omitting it. A profane mind might make a jest of an Apostle "half seas over," and ridicule an apostolic gatekeeper who could not keep his head above water.

Peter's partial failure in this instance should drive away all unbelief, as the text will show that it was only for lack of faith that Peter lost his buoyancy. Simon is called Bar-Jonah, that is, son of Jonah; but I am not aware if he is any relation to the Jonah who lived under water in the belly of a fish three days and three nights.

It was Simon Peter who, having told Jesus he was the Son of God, was answered, "Blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jonah, flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee."⁷⁵ We find a number of disciples shortly before this, and in Peter's presence, telling Jesus that he was the Son of God,⁷⁶ but there is no real contradiction between the two texts. It was on this occasion that Jesus said to Simon, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven."

Under these extraordinary declarations from the mouth of God the Son, the Bishops of Rome have claimed, as successors of Peter, the same privileges, and their pretensions have been, acceded to by some of the most powerful monarchs of Europe.

Under this claim the Bishops, or Popes of Rome, have at various times issued Papal Bulls, by which they have sought to bind the entire world. Many of these have been very successful, but in 1302, Philip the Fair, of France, publicly burned the Pope Boniface's Bull after an address in which the States-General had denounced, in words more expressive than polite, the right of the Popes of Rome to Saint Peter's keys on earth. Some deny that the occupiers of the episcopal seat in the seven-hilled city are really of the Church of Christ, and they point to the bloody quarrels which have raged between men contending for the Papal dignity. They declare that those Vicars of Christ have more than once resorted to fraud, treachery, and murder, to secure the Papal dignity. They point to Stephen VII, the son of an unmarried priest, who cut off the head of his predecessor's corpse; to Sergius III, convicted of assassination; to John X, who was strangled in the bed of his paramour Theodora; to John XI, son of Pope Sergius III, famous only for his drunken debauchery; to John XII, found assassinated in the apartments of his mistress; to Benedict IX, who both purchased and sold the Pontificate; to Gregory VII, pseudo lover of the Countess Matilda, and the author of centuries of war carried on by his successors. And if these suffice not, they point to Alexander Borgia, whose name is but the echo of crime, and whose infamy will be as lasting as history.

It is answered, "by the fruit ye shall judge of the tree." It is useless to deny the vine's existence because the grapes are sour. Peter, the favored disciple, it is declared was a rascal, and why not his successors? They have only to repent, and there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine righteous men. Such language is very terrible, and arises from allowing the carnal reason too much freedom.

All true believers will be familiar with the story of Peter's sudden readiness to deny his Lord and teacher in the hour of danger, and will easily draw the right moral from the mysterious lesson here taught, but unbelievers may be a little puzzled by the common infidel objections on this point. These objections, therefore, shall be first stated, and then refuted in the most orthodox fashion. It is objected that all the denials were to take place before the cock should crow,⁷⁷ but that only one denial actually took place before the cock crew.⁷⁸ That the first denial by Peter that he knew Jesus, or was one of his disciples, was at the door to the damsel,⁷⁹ but was inside while sitting by the fire,⁸⁰ that the second denial was to a man, and apparently still sitting by the fire,⁸¹ but was to a maid when he was gone out into the porch. That these denials, or, at any rate, the last denial, were all in the presence of Jesus,⁸² who turned and looked at Peter, but that the first denial was at the door, Jesus being inside the palace, the second denial out in the porch, Jesus being still inside,******* and the third denial also outside.

The refutation of these paltry objections is simple, but as none but an infidel would need to hear it, we refrain from penning it. None but a disciple of Paine, or follower of Voltaire, would permit himself to be drawn to the risk of damnation on the mere question of when some cock happened to crow, or the particular spot on which a recreant apostle denied his master.

Two of the twelve apostles, whose names are not, given, saw Jesus after he was dead, on the road to Emmaus, but they did not know him; toward evening they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight. In broad daylight they did not know him; at evening time they knew him. While they did not know him they could see him; when they did know him they could not see him. Well may true believers declare that the ways of the Lord are wonderful. One of the apostles, Thomas called Didymus, set the world an example of unbelief. He disbelieved the other disciples when they said to him "we have seen the Lord," and required to see Jesus, though dead, alive in the flesh, and touch the body of his crucified master. Thomas the apostle had his requirements complied with – he saw, he touched, and he believed. The great merit is to believe without any evidence – "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned." How it was that Thomas the Apostle did not know Jesus when he saw him shortly after near the sea of Tiberias, is another of the mysteries of the Holy Christian religion. The acts of the apostles after the death of Jesus deserve treatment in a separate paper; the present essay is issued in the meantime to aid the Bishop of London in his labors to stem the rising tide of infidelity.

THE ATONEMENT

"Quel est donc ce Dieu qui fait mourir Dieu pour apaiser Dieu?"

Adam's sin is the corner-stone of Christianity; the keystone of the arch. Without the fall there is no redeemer, for there is no fallen one to be redeemed. It is, then, to the history of Adam that the examinant of the atonement theory should first direct his attention. To try the doctrine of the atonement by the aid of science would be fatal to Christianity. As for the man, Adam, 6,000 years ago the first of the human race, his existence is not only unvouched for by science, but is actually questioned by the timid, and challenged by the bolder exponents of modern ethnology. The human race is traced back far beyond the period fixed for Adam's sin. Egypt and India speak for humanity busy with wars, cities and monuments, prior to the date given for the garden scene in Eden. The fall of Adam could not have brought sin upon mankind, and death by sin, if hosts of men and women had lived and died ages before the words "thou shalt surely die" were spoken by God to man. Nor could all men inherit Adam's misfortune, if it be true that it is not to one center, but to many centers of origin that we ought to trace back the various races of mankind. The theologian who finds no evidence of death prior to the offense shared by Adam and Eve is laughed to scorn by the geologist who point to the innumerable petrifactions on the earth's bosom, which with a million tongues declare more potently than loudest speech thai organic life in myriads of myriads was destroyed incalculable ages before man's era on our world.

Science, however, has so little to offer in support of any religious doctrine, and so much to advance against all purely theologic tenets, that we turn to a point giving the Christian greater vantage ground; and, accepting for the moment his premises, we deny that he can maintain the possibility of Adam's sin, and yet consistently affirm the existence of an All-wise, All-powerful, and All-good God. Did Adam sin? We will take the Christian's bible in our hands to answer the question, first defining the word sin. What is sin? Samuel Taylor Coleridge says, "A sin is an evil which has its ground or origin in the agent, and not in the compulsion of circumstances…" An act to be sin must be original, and a state or act that has not its origin in the will may be calamity, deformity, or disease, but sin it can not be. It is not enough that the act appears voluntary, or that it has the most hateful passions or debasing appetite for its proximate cause and accompaniment. All these may be found in a madhouse, where neither law nor humanity permit us to condemn the actor of sin. The reason of law declared the maniac not a free agent, and the verdict follows, of course Not guilty? Did Adam sin?

The bible story is that a Deity created one man and one woman; that he placed them in a garden wherein he had also placed a tree which was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. That although he had expressly given the fruit of every tree bearing seed for food, he, nevertheless, commanded them not to eat of the fruit of this attractive tree, under penalty of death. Supposing Adam to have at once disobeyed this injunction, would it have been sin? The fact that God had made the tree good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, would have surely been sufficient circumstance of justification on the God-created inducement to partake of its fruit. The inhibition lost its value as against the enticement. If the All-wise had intended the tree to be avoided, would he have made its allurements so overpowering to the senses? But the case does not rest here. In addition to all the attractions of the tree, and as though there were not enough, there is a subtle serpent, gifted with suasive speech, who, either wiser or more truthful than the All-perfect Deity, says that although God has threatened immediate death as the consequence of disobedience to his command, yet they "shall not die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." The tempter is stronger than the tempted, the witchery of the serpent is too great for the spellbound woman, the decoy tree is too potent in its temptations; overpersuaded herself by the honey-tongued voice of the seducer, she plucks the fruit and gives to her husband also. And for this their offspring are to suffer! The yet unborn children are to be the victims of God's vengeance on their parents' weakness – though he had made them weak; though, indeed, he had created the tempter sufficiently strong to practice upon this weakness, and had arranged the causes predisposing man and woman to commit the offense – if, indeed, it be an offense to pluck the fruit of a tree which gives knowledge to the eater. It is for this fall that Jesus is to atone. He is sacrificed to redeem the world's inhabitants from the penalties for a weakness (for sin it was not) they had no share in. It was not sin, for the man was influenced by circumstances pre-arranged by Deity, and which man was powerless to resist or control. But if man was so influenced by such circumstances, then it was God who influenced man – God who punished the human race for an action to the commission of which he impelled their progenitor.

Adam did not sin. He ate of the fruit of a tree which God had made good to be eaten. He was induced to this through the indirect persuasion of a serpent God had made purposely to persuade him. But even if Adam did sin, and even he and Eve, his wife, were the first parents of the whole human family, what have we to do with their sin? We, unborn when the act was committed and without choice as to coming into the world. Does Jesus atone for Adam's sin? Adam suffered for his own offense; he, according to the curse, was to eat in sorrow of the fruit of the earth all his life as punishment for his offense. Atonement, after punishment, is surely a superfluity. Did the sacrifice of Jesus serve as atonement for the whole world, and, if yes, for all sin, or for Adam's sin only? If the atonement is for the whole world, does it extend to unbelievers as well as to believers in the efficacy? If it only includes believers, then what has become of those generations who, according to the bible, for 4,000 years succeeded each other in the world without faith in Christ because without knowledge of his mission? Should not Jesus have come 4,000 years earlier, or, at least, should he not have come when the ark on Ararat served as monument of God's merciless vengeance, which had made the whole earth a battle-field, whereon the omnipotent had crushed the feeble, and had marked his prowess by the innumerable myriads of decayed dead? If it be declared that, though the atonement by Jesus only applies to believers in his mission so far as regards human beings born since his coming, yet that it is wider in its retrospective effect, then the answer is that it is unfair to those born after Jesus to make faith the condition precedent to the saving efficacy of atonement, especially if belief be required from all mankind posterior to the Christian era, whether they have heard of Jesus or not. Japanese, Chinese, savage Indians, Kaffirs, and others, have surely a right to complain of this atonement scheme, which insures them eternal damnation by making it requisite to believe in a Gospel of which they have no knowledge. If it be contended that belief shall only be required from those to whom the gospel of Jesus has been preached, and who have had afforded to them the opportunity of its acceptance, then how great a cause of complaint against Christian missionaries have those peoples who, without such missions, might have escaped damnation for unbelief. The gates of hell are opened to them by the earnest propagandist, who professes to show the road to heaven.

But does this atonement serve only to redeem the human family from the curse inflicted by Deity in Eden's garden for Adam's sin, or does it operate as satisfaction for all sin? If the salvation is from the punishment for Adam's sin alone, and if belief and baptism are, as Jesus himself affirms, to be the sole conditions precedent to any saving efficacy in the much-lauded atonement by the Son of God, then what becomes of a child that only lives a few hours, is never baptized, and, never having any mind, consequently never has any belief? Or what becomes of one idiot born who, throughout his dreary life, never has mental capacity for the acceptance, or examination of, or credence in, any religious dogmas whatever? Is the idiot saved who can not believe? Is the infant saved that can not believe? I, with some mental faculties tolerably developed, can not believe. Must I be damned? If so, fortunate short-lived babe! lucky idiot! That the atonement should not be effective until the person to be saved has been baptized is at least worthy of comment; that the sprinkling a few drops of water should quench the flames of hell is a remarkable feature in the Christian's creed.

 
"One can't but think it somewhat droll
Pump-water thus should cleanse a soul."
 

How many fierce quarrels have raged on the formula of baptism among those loving brothers in Christ who believe he died for them! How strange an idea that, though God has been crucified to redeem mankind, it yet needs the font of water to wash away the lingering stain of Adam's crime.

One minister of the Church of England, occupying the presidential chair of a well-known training college for church clergymen in the north of England, seriously declared, in the presence of a large auditory and of several church dignitaries, that the sin of Adam was so potent in its effect that if a man had never been born, he would yet have been damned for sin! That is, he declared that man existed before birth, and that he committed sin before he was born; and if never born, would, notwithstanding, deserve to suffer eternal torment for that sin!

It is almost impossible to discuss seriously a doctrine so monstrously absurd, and yet it is not one whit more ridiculous than the ordinary orthodox and terrible doctrine that God, the undying, in his infinite love, killed himself under the form of his son to appease the cruel vengeance of God, the just and merciful, who, without this, would have been ever vengeful, unjust and merciless. The atonement theory, as presented to us by the bible, is in effect as follows: God creates man, surrounded by such circumstances as the divine mind chose, in the selection of which man had no voice, and the effects of which on man were all foreknown and predestined by Deity. The result is man's fall on the very first temptation, so frail the nature with which he was endowed, or so powerful the temptation to which he was subjected. For this fall not only does the All-merciful punish Adam, but also his posterity; and this punishment went on for many centuries, until God, the immutable, changed his purpose of continual condemnation of men for sins they had no share in, and was wearied with his long series of unjust judgments on those whom he created in order that he might judge them. That, then, God sent his son, who was himself and was also his own father, and who was immortal, to die upon the cross, and, by this sacrifice, to atone for the sin which God himself had caused Adam to commit, and thus to appease the merciless vengeance of the All-merciful, which would otherwise have been continued against men yet unborn for an offense they could not have been concerned in or accessory to. Whether those who had died before Christ's coming are redeemed the bible does not clearly tell us. Those born after are redeemed only on condition of their faith in the efficacy of the sacrifice offered, and in the truth of the history of Jesus's life. The doctrine of salvation by sacrifice of human life is the doctrine of a barbarous and superstitous age; the outgrowth of a brutal and depraved era. The God who accepts the bloody offering of an innocent victim in lieu of punishing the guilty culprit shows no mercy in sparing the offender: he has already satiated his lust for vengeance on the first object presented to him.

Yet sacrifice is an early and prominent, and, with slight exception, an abiding feature in the Hebrew record – sacrifice of life finds appreciative acceptance from the Jewish Deity. Cain's offering of fruits is ineffective but Abel's altar, bearing the firstlings of his flock, and the fat thereof, finds respect in the sight of the Lord. While the face of the earth was disfigured by the rotting dead, after God in his infinite mercy had deluged the world, then it was that the ascending smoke from Noah's burnt sacrifice of bird and beast produced pleasure in heaven, and God himself smelled a sweet savor from the roasted meats. To reach atonement for the past by sacrifice is worse than folly – it is crime. The past can never be recalled, and the only reference to it should be that, by marking its events, we may avoid its evil deeds and improve upon its good ones. For Jesus himself – can man believe in him? – in his history contained in anonymous pamphlets uncorroborated by contemporary testimony? – this history, in which, in order to fulfill a prophecy which does not relate to him, his descent from David is demonstrated by tracing through two self-contradictory genealogies the descent of Joseph who was not his father – this history, in which the infinite God grows, from babyhood and hus cradle through childhood to manhood, as though he were not God at all – this history, full of absurd wonders, devils, magicians, and evil spirits, rather fit for an Arabian Night's legend than the word of God to his people – this history, with its miraculous raisings of the dead to life, disbelieved and contradicted by the people among whom they are alleged to have been performed; but, nevertheless, to be accepted by us to-day with all humility – this history, with the Man-God subject to human passions and infirmities, who comes to die, and who prays to his heavenly father (that is, to himself) that he will spare him the bitter cup of death – who is betrayed, having himself, ere he laid the foundations of the world, predestined Judas to betray him, and who dies, being God immortal crying with his almost dying breath, "My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?"