Excerpt from What Is Christianity Without Christ?
Further, it is claimed that our morality is pervaded by a spiritual element not often discoverable in the Socratic schools, and by a severer purity than any to which they aspired; also, that none of the Greeks - few indeed of the Romans - regarded all nations of men as brethren before God; but their patriotism unduly interfered with humanity. In short, these esteemed Christian advocates teach, as cumulative honour to the religion, that the disciples of the great Master breathe the spirit of the Master. Thus they permit us to infer, that the goodness of the Christian, as of the Christ - consisting (as it does and must) in something else than an orthodox creed - is felt without any talk about theology; inasmuch as it is a substantive moral essence, transcending the morality of antique philosophers.
If this be so, then to speak of "Christianity without Christ" is no paradox, no contradiction in terms, nothing that can deserve scoffs from the religious press of England. It may be true, that no man can attain Christian virtue without first believing the miraculous and unique supremacy of Jesus of Nazareth; but it is not an axiomatic truth. It needs proof to establish it. No one imagines that it is impossible to imbibe the moral virtues eminent in this or that school of philosophy without special beliefs concerning the person of the Founder. If such qualities commend themselves as virtues to the heart of Mankind, Man is naturally susceptible of them, and the paradox lies with those who deny that such virtues are attainable apart from the apparatus of miracle, and belief of things alien to common experience.
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